Thurgood Marshall

Purported photo of Thurgood Marshall's dog

Thurgood Marshal did something somewhere sometime. He knew stuff and he lived in a town or a city and had neighbors. If he had a dog it probably lived in the backyard and slept most of the time. People like Thurgood Marshal are famous for a reason. Whatever they did, people wrote about it.

There are a number of things I take from this. Number one, of course, is that I have a terrible memory. Number two is that almost all of us will be forgotten eventually.

Is that a bummer?

We are a world replete with dying men and women grasping for immortality. Everybody wants to be remembered. Not sure what your religious leanings are, but what if we don't have an end?

Not having an end would certainly ease my mind about forgetting who Thurgood Marshall was . . . I mean . . . is. If Thurgood has no end, it doesn't matter that I forgot what he did. Seems to me, if Thurgood has no end, the important thing is who he was when he died.

Who will you be when you die? Obituaries argue accolades are what matters, but if you have no end, just continue on in another sphere, what you did is nice but the end product is what matters.

I would certainly be sad if I died tomorrow without ever gracing a bestseller list, but I am caught in the pull of gravity just like you. This weight we inhabit, the press of pounds, I yearn for things I cannot command. Notice me. Honor me. Celebrate me. Remember me.

We are all too unaware.

The world inside is what counts and we are the builders. Your world and my world with outside lines blurred by incursions, or the lines distinct for those who see.

What we do in this life will crumble. Who we are will remain.

Who are you?

Beware any effort

Here is a random child, possibly mine, who will serve as today's object lesson. Note the scrapes and scratches.

Look close. See beyond the subject's obviously forced, cheery nature. Pain must throb and wholly own the conscious center some might call his sense of self or current awareness. The poor waif has no ability to reason or remember, only to feel. He is consumed by the horrific injuries you see in the image I have so indelicately uploaded. And how has the boy come to this sad state of writhing agony?

In the picture he sits at his favorite spot, a location in space and time so replete with his presence that when he intermittently leaves, ghostly images of himself flicker in and out if you care to look. Should his family leave on an errand, or even go on a trip in which they forget him and leave him home, upon return they find him there invariably.

Back to the injury. Do you suppose the boy sustained these great gashes as he sat at his desk and clicked?

Nay. This post-pubescent teenager strayed from his comfortable surroundings and entered what some call the outside world. And why would he do this? Let us suppose his stated reason went something like, "I'm going to hang out with or chill with . . ." fill in the blank.As is obvious in the photograph, all who enter the outside world live (if they are lucky) to rue the day.

I am pondering this line of reasoning as I sit on my couch and watch a television program broadcast from Rio de Janeiro.

Oh, the unholy light stream inflicted upon my eyes via diodes!

What lies! Arrayed before me, legions on parade who seem to have lived fully in the outside world, eschewing comfortable chairs and computer screens for exertion, effort, injury. For what?

Behold the true sirens of myth!

Better to view and click, my brothers. Find your happy place. Inhabit your happy place. Never leave your happy place.

Better to view and click.

Worlds do end

Google Calendar can create a reminder for important dates like birthdays. The pop up for the reminder will only change as Google sends updates that alter color and format. The message stays the same.

Not so for the people on which a birthday falls.

Youth tends to love a birthday. A present, hidden in a box and further secured by wrapping paper, is a magical thing for the young. For others, the expectation of friends tendering words of appreciation is the pull. Many who are not so young, but perhaps young at heart, like a birthday for the same reasons.

On our birthday, all the world (when world is defined as that portion that affects us) reaches out and acknowledges our contribution to other worlds. We are all world builders, each of us the center, but depending on the introvert/extrovert combination within us, we encroach to various degrees on others.

Birthdays have a beginning but no end. My birthday will be the same in a thousand years. The world I am building commenced and is commemorated by that day.

Funny that unlike birthdays, worlds do end.

What continues is the encroachments we made while building. For some, the birthday not only continues. It is remembered.

Bestselling book cover

I was doing a little reading on the Internet a few days ago and came across an interesting blog post or magazine article. Can't remember which.

The title said something like "How to Create a bestselling book cover."

I have to be honest, this threw me into a murderous rage. I even lost track of time for a while. Just came to myself an hour ago. Have no idea what I've been doing. Painting seems to have been part of it. Which is weird. I hate painting. And red is my least favorite color. Maybe I was helping a farmer winterize his barn. I don't know. I hope all that crimson comes out of my Pokemon Go t-shirt. Also weird, where did this vat of sodium hydroxide come from?

I've had a rant simmering in the back of my mind for a while, and here it goes: I don't think book covers serve a purpose so much as hack a weakness.

Something that "serves a purpose" in my mind is something that fills a need. Humans need good stories. Books can fill that need.

A book cover doesn't fill any need known to mankind. All a book cover does is entice people to spend. Good book, bad book, doesn't matter. A book cover has no say over the excellence or excrement it covers.

I'm as guilty as anyone else. When I was young I would buy pretty much anything with Frank Frazetta art on the front. I know what you 're thinking and no, my appreciation for Frank's take on sword and sorcery had nothing to do with skin and cleavage. Truth is, when I think back on those reads, a ton of those books sucked. But they had cool covers.

One thing I did right was identify a few authors that I loved and basically read everything attached to their pen. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Louis L'Amour, Phillip K. Dick, Orson Scott Card. Shakespeare. (okay, that one's B.S.) If they wrote it, I read it. Covers didn't matter for those authors.

We are all too enamored with the sell. All that glitters. All that gleams.

Not that this matters. Alien spaceships landed in a field behind me a few days ago. That pretty much signals the end of the world anyway. Can't believe I was smiling in the picture.

BvS opened yesterday

Went and saw Batman beat up Superman last night. Have to admit, the family was split, with me coming down on the plus side.

Coming down on the plus side really isn't hard for me these days. I've gained about 10 pounds since December. That coincides with me giving up desserts, candy, and sugar. Go figure.

I really don't understand the vehement critic hate spilling off Rotten Tomatoes. As I write this, Spoiled Fruit (or vegetable, depending on your view) has BvS at 29%. Now, I didn't think the movie was perfect, but 29% is south of turkey territory. 29% means - this movie sucks like Teen Witch only without good rap.

Can we kind of say that BvS is basically DC's second movie, with Man of Steel being the first? At least in the sense of this new age of movies that Marvel has created, starting with Iron Man. Follow that logic and Marvel's second movie was The Incredible Hulk, with Edward Norton. No home run there.

Or, you could say that DC's first entry into this arena was the amazing suckfest that was Green Lantern, which would then make BvS movie number three, and then you're comparing it to Marvel's Punisher: Ware Zone. Whoa, DC doesn't look so bad now, does it?

I think everybody is forgetting that Marvel has a big lead on DC, with almost 10 years firmly establishing their let's print money template. Iron man was great, but then we got the above-mentioned titles, then Iron Man 2, Thor, the first Captain America, and let's not forget  - Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. None of those were great. For me, BvS is better than any of them. Back in 2012 right before Avengers came out, I remember thinking that I would give Marvel a couple more tries, but they were wearing out their welcome.

I think I'm going to be a critic and say that critics suck. Sometimes, at least. This week, the nation's  critics, like a horde of shuffling zombies, jumped on a band wagon and got it wrong (yeah, I mixed the crap out of that metaphor). I hope people don't avoid the movie theaters as a result. They will miss:

• Amy Adams in a bathtub where you as a viewer think, wait, can I see . . . no, hold it, is that her . . . no, I guess not.
• Ben Affleck also throws his hat into the ring of who is the best Batman, and the answer, when all is said and done, might be him.
• Gal Gadot, for all the pretentious alliteration in her name, has a stunning pair of . . . well, bracelets. You know, to deflect bullets and laser beams.

To be serious for a moment, this movie has made me think about it. And I'm not saying that is all positive. I've thought of plot holes I missed while in the theater, strange missteps that I still can't figure, but I am also liking it more right now than I did last night.

Critics. For shame! A pox on you! Not, you know, a pox that will kill you or anything. Just, maybe, something that will make it socially awkward to be in public this weekend. Yeah, that kind of pox.

That dream about pecs

There was that dream where for the first time in my life I looked down and I had defined pectorals, and usually you have to work out to get those but I had gotten surgery and it's not that there is anything wrong with that but instead of filling the bags with silicone the pec bags were filed with Kentucky Fried chicken and in the dream I was really hungry and the nearest fast food restaurant was more than a block away but there right in front of me were two bags of the Colonel's finest and don't hate me, though in the end I was kind of disappointed because the doctors had filled both bags with extra crispy instead of original and there wasn't a single wing.

Murderous rage

I saw a flyer just a few minutes ago that said "Drive Your Engagement."

I, um . . . what?

I guess the intended meaning of that statement was "Take Charge of Your Life," or something like that, but it didn't say "Take Charge of Your Life." It said "Drive Your Engagement."

The flyer nearly sent me into a murderous rage.

"Drive" and "Engage" are probably power words that you can learn about in college. The goal is to find some way of combining power words on a flyer that make the flyer become a "Power Flyer."

I suspect there is some organization out there that hands out awards for the creative use of power word combinations. There's a dinner in a major city once a year or once a quarter and marketing types flock from all corners of the world to see who the hot new word shitters are. Pardon my French.

Well, writing these few words has helped. I'm calm. I've done my serenity now until the next time.

I wonder what empty feels like

Does it feel like this? Inside your mind. More. Inside some cavity you feel but can't see, a mystic nothing, unsearchble, a fountain of story you took from without thought, but now you cast your net and it isn't that the net comes back empty, the net doesn't come back at all.

That's probably hubris.

Whining like that presupposes exchange, that a pen can bleed infinity dry, that my mind can see an end to circles. My melancholy is less than a nothing, a petty criminal, a repeat offender come to steal hope at the end of one miracle as another miracle gets set to unfold. I've met this melancholy before. I saw him last time and the time before, but hope stolen is hope gone. It returns when it returns.

Ran out of milk

I woke up this morning and there was no milk in the fridge.

I'm not sure how that happened but the ramifications of no milk in the fridge are horrific.

I took the train to the station and then ran the rest of the way to work. Then I did a little weight lifting. In today's society what do you cap that off with? A protein drink, of course. And if you don't have milk for your protein drink, what do you use?

Water.

I'm drinking it as I type this and it tastes like death.

That dream about the motivational speaker

There was that dream about the motivational speaker and he kept telling everyone to smile until it hurts and there was a guy next to me that was doing such a good job that he was bawling like a baby and I told the guy that smiling until it hurts was just a figure of speech but he didn't believe me and after a while I noticed that everyone was crying except me and I didn't want to smile that hard but peer pressure can eat away at you and I was glad I had my portable paper mache kit with me so I made a smile that was bigger than my face but everybody started freaking out because they said that was cheating and by then the paper mache smile had hardened so I knocked everybody unconscious with my smile and as I stood over their still forms I proudly proclaimed "Now that's smiling until it . . ."

Yeah, I'm not going to finish that one.

That dream about my neighbor's sauna

There was that dream where my neighbor Wes Craven built the sauna in his backyard but he used balsa wood instead of cedar because it was on sale at Lowe's and I still didn't think it was weird that Wes Craven was my neighbor and I can't really think of a movie where teenagers got stabbed by meat thermometers while they basted in a sauna but that could just be a shortcoming in my horror library or this post could be the germ of an idea for some up-and-coming horror director and if that is the case my one suggestion would be that a cop at the crime scene make some kind of quip like "this kid was well done."

That dream about waiting in line

There was that dream where I was waiting in line but I had no idea what I was waiting for and I didn't want to ask the guy in front of me because it was Abraham Lincoln and who wants to look stupid in front of Abraham Lincoln so I turned around to ask the guy behind me but it was kind of a similar problem because Genghis Khan probably only spoke Mongolian but I found out that he was a Star Trek fan because anytime you find yourself in front of Genghis Khan it is mandatory to do the Captain Kirk "Kahn!" thing with your hands in the air and Genghis smiled and gave me the live long and prosper sign but immediately contradicted his wish by chopping my head off and that's when I woke up, so I never did find out what the line was for.

That dream about a short sleeve

There was that dream where one of my sleeves was longer than the other one and there could have been numerous logical reasons for this like manufacturer's error or a growth spurt on one one side of my body, but I had a strong suspicion it had something to do with the city's water supply and how some people believe that adding fluoride is a communist plot but no one can ever explain what the end goal of the plot is because if fluoride makes it so that all Americans have one arm shorter than the other then the athletes who push the four-man bobsled would seem to have an advantage and why would the Russians want to do that?

That dream about chocolate chip cookies

There was that dream about my chocolate chip cookie recipe and the whole cover up at Sesame Street where it was actually Elmo who always needs a cookie fix and Cookie Monster was just trying to help his friend but then the whole thing spun out of control and Cookie Monster was stuck in his role and his real name isn't actually Cookie Monster but Roderick Alphonse and if you watch closely Roderick never actually eats the cookies on screen because he has a problem with gluten.

That dream about an epic fantasy quest

There was that dream where I was trying to complete an epic fantasy quest, and so there I was walking on that dusty road with my trusty friends who like me were also once farmers before we found out it was our destiny to save the world, only I was a little depressed because somehow I knew this was only book two in a seven book series and that was a long time and I was already sick of mutton and cheese and nobody seemed to cook with curry around here, so I wondered what the Dark Lord was having for dinner right then and if he would just invite me over tonight for a taste of real food maybe I'd end this whole thing right now and go back to farming.

That dream about the construction worker's toolbelt

There was that dream where a construction worker was bragging about his tool belt but the only people who would listen to him were some Japanese tourists who had just gotten off a bus and my first thought was that I hope this post doesn't sink into some Japanese cliche, but then there he was, Godzilla jumping up and down on buildings and I remember the first Godzilla movie I saw as a kid when Godzilla fought King Kong and Godzilla was kind of a jerk back then, but this time I didn't mind him so much because the only buildings he jumped on were chick restaurants like Zuppas and Kneaders.

That dream about rock and roll

There was that dream where I was driving to class and I was pretty excited because it was a course on my favorite band, Self, but I couldn't find a place in the hallway to park where I wouldn't also get a ticket, and who needs a class about your favorite band anyway because rock and roll is all about freedom, only Self is more like synth pop so I parked in front of English 110 and when I got my ticket later that day it wasn't a monetary fine but an assignment to diagram ten sentences and write an essay on Edmund Spenser's contribution to free verse poetry.

That Olympic dream

There was that dream where the Olympics was coming to town, though the Olympics turned out to be more like a traveling circus and the competitors were farm animals and my bookie called me about a sure thing and I have a terrible gambling habit so I bet my life savings on France to win but the animal from France turned out to be a lamprey eel, which isn't even a farm animal, but that didn't seem to disqualify it, and I know the Olympics is about more than just winning gold medals but where am I suppose to live now?

There was that dream about hiking in the mountains east of Milford, Utah

There was that dream where I was hiking in the mountains east of Milford, Utah and there were lots of lizards but I couldn't catch any of them because their tails would come off and that seems like a poor defense mechanism, especially if it's a teenage lizard and prom is the following weekend and the little guy has already asked a girl lizard and he picked out the boutonniere just that day so he can't back out, but now he doesn't have a tail and I don't know much about lizard society but I suspect being tailless is embarrassing, but what do I care about a lizard and whether or not he get his first kiss, only I'm a hopeless romantic and I do care about the upcoming lizard prom and if that tailless lizard asked to borrow my car for the dance I would say yes but he probably won't because he ran under that rock over there.

There was that dream about Cousin Eddie

There was that dream where I was wearing Cousin Eddie's dickie at a Christmas party and the two skinny children from the Christmas Carol were hiding underneath the buffet table and I knew I was supposed to be afraid of Want and that I should fear Ignorance even more but I just caught each of them by the ear and made them eat a whole plate of mac 'n cheese  and a few other things and those kids turned out to be kind of nice.

Ignorance went nuts over the creamed corn.