Eat, Sleep, Occupy
Who will go to jail? The war criminals or the protesters?
Summer Nats will be held next week in Canberra
Disciples of Existentialism are eagerly anticipating the New Year convinced that 2012 will be a remarkable year to be savored like a fine wine regardless of what happens in the Straits of Hormuz. Others of a more cynical nature might see next year as a binary choice: People can let the Republican Party plunge them into the “Kidnapped” plot or they can adopt the bootstrap philosophy and go searching for “Treasure Island.” Fans of Robert Louis Stevenson (AKA RLS) conveniently forget about one of his more obscure works titled “The Dynamiter,” which promulgated the concept that people should accept without hesitation the next invitation to adventure that is offered to them. If 2012 isn’t an invitation to adventure, then what is?
It’s hard to deal with pirates and mutiny if a person is being driven mad by hunger. In the book “Hunger” (by Knute Hansen) the writer notes that his pencils are organic and wonders if he should eat his pencils now and thereby destroy the potential of earning some future funds with his trade, or if he should persevere and continue to offer the world his take on things.
For readers on the brink of desperation, the World’s Laziest Journalist will offer a few disparate (not desperate) items of pragmatic information for those who due to dire circumstances can not fully appreciate our usual smorgasbord of arcane and esoteric facts and obscure cultural references.
The Awesome Foundation offers money for cash strapped entrepreneurs who feel that with a few dollars more, they could achieve greatness during hard times.
http://awesomefoundation.org/
The man who wrote the Samuel Addams beer “start from scratch” story is developing a program to help other would-be self made business success stories happen.
You can start by logging in to their home page.
http://www.samueladams.com/age-gate.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fbtad%2fhow-it-works.aspx
Maybe you could get a government grant? Start looking by clicking this link
http://www.gofreegovernmentmoney.com/
For those who lament that the Sixties are over and they don’t have the option of running away to join a hippie commune, we suggest that they click these links:
http://directory.ic.org/records/communes.php
or
http://wwoof.org/
If the prospect of writing the great American novel, if only the artist can find a remote and inaccessible work area, appeals to this column’s readers, then perhaps they might want more information about becoming a volunteer lighthouse keeper.
http://www.uslhs.org/resources_be_a_keeper.php
In the materialistic realm of a country that is the world capital for capitalism, the constant addiction to getting more money may seem vital to happiness. If money does buy happiness, then greed seems reasonable and logical, but if it does not . . . .
Once upon a time, there was a young boy who wanted to travel to distant lands, meet fascinating people, and see the marvelous splendors that the world beyond what the Dunder Mifflin hometown’s borders offered.
He had been told that all things are possible through prayer, so when he informed an Auntie Mame type figure that he would pray to win a large sum of money (to subsidize his dream quest), it was pointed out to him that many others would also be praying to the lotto god for a winning ticket in the Irish Sweepstakes (lotteries inside the USA lay in the future at that point in history) and since there might be more people praying than there would be winning tickets, the boy might have to wait a long, long time for his prayers to be answered.
In Hollywood parlance, he cut to the chase and said prayers asking for a swashbuckling life that would make Earl Flynn jealous.
It’s been more than thirty years since we have seen Francis Ford Copula collect his Oscar™ and so the World’s Laziest Journalist is thinking maybe it’s time to apply for a press pass to see if the annual ceremony has changed noticeably in the intervening years.
If we are going to self-subsidize a fact finding trip to Hemingway Days in Key West, perhaps we should go all out and apply for a journalist’s visa from the State Department for permission to travel to Cuba and see Finca Vega and the Floridadita bar?
Has anyone ever written a “Guidebook to the World’s Best Dive Bars”? The Banana bar in Amsterdam reminds us of a line from a song sung by Jim Morrison: “I wonder what goes on in there.”
In “Back to the Future” did the clock on the tower always say 12:30? Where was that tower? Did someone write a song about that long before the movie was made?
Maybe we should budget some time next week to stand by because the Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory is operating on Condition Red. The counting of the Iowa caucuses will be done at a remote, secure, secret location (Dick Cheney’s home?). If the results of the Republican Caucuses in Iowa don’t reflect the pre elections polls then they will release a new theory the very next day.
That, in turn, will immediately be denounced and discredited by the Corporate owned media with the usual “round up the usual clichés about crazies shooting off their mouths prematurely” explanations. Ironically the conservative propagandists will be on the air as the results are announced making convoluted explanations of what Americans were thinking when folks in Iowa cast their votes.
Speaking of counting votes, next year maybe we will squeeze in a political punditry column that asks the question, can Republicans use the ranked voting process to cast three votes for their candidate? For example, if a stubborn, obstinate Republican (is there any other kind?) thinks there is no other choice could he list his guy as the first, second, and third choice for the office? Wouldn’t that mean casting three votes for the candidate he thinks is the only viable choice?
Does the New Hampshire primary really count? Didn’t President Obama loose in New Hampshire? Didn’t George W. Bush loose there in 2000? Didn’t Ronald Reagan loose there in his 1980 Presidential campaign? Isn’t trying to remember who won there a lot like trying to name the US’s first ten VP’s?
In one of Waylon Jennings’ songs he offered an optimistic take on failure: “at least you got the makings of a song.” If life hands you lemons, then write a Country and Western song about the experience. Do you wanna hear a song about a despondent cowboy who goes to Paris to get a job because he thought a photo of the Eiffel Tower depicted an European style oil rig?
In preparing to write about the question “What ever happened to the TV series ‘Long John Silver’?” we learned that Robert Newton also made a film titled “Long John Silver.” Got a new addition to the “Bucket List” over here boss! Are those two items available on tape or DVD?
Wherever the World’s Laziest Journalist goes, he will try to have his trusty Coolpix camera at the ready because it’s easier to take and post “photographer errant” images to go along with the columns than to do all the clerk work necessary to get permission to use someone else’s photos.
Nikos Kazantzakis wrote (in “Zorba the Greek”): “All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.”
Auntie Mame said: “Live! Life’s a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!”
RLS wrote:
“Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heaven above
And the road below me.”
However, as far as an insurance prayer to the lotto god is concerned; Robert Louis Stevenson (in “The Merry Men”) also wrote: “ . . . generous prayer is never presented n vain; the petition may be refused, but the petitioner is always, I believe, rewarded by some gracious visitation.”
We say: Bring on the New Year! We intend on having a wild and bawdy year on a very limited budget and we will try our best to scratch a few more items off our Bucket List in the process. Which isn’t to say that we won’t buy a few lotto tickets and say some appropriate prayers to the lotto god.
Now the disk jockey will play both versions of the only song recorded by both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones: “Money (that’s what I want).” He will also play Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again,” and the Eagles’ song with the line about living your life locked up in chains only to find in your last moments, that the key was always right there in your hand. We have to go say a prayer to the lotto god. Have a “Eureka!” type Happy New Year.
“Live! Life’s a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!”
Eat, Sleep, Occupy
Who will go to jail? The war criminals or the protesters?
Summer Nats will be held next week in Canberra
Disciples of Existentialism are eagerly anticipating the New Year convinced that 2012 will be a remarkable year to be savored like a fine wine regardless of what happens in the Straits of Hormuz. Others of a more cynical nature might see next year as a binary choice: People can let the Republican Party plunge them into the “Kidnapped” plot or they can adopt the bootstrap philosophy and go searching for “Treasure Island.” Fans of Robert Louis Stevenson (AKA RLS) conveniently forget about one of his more obscure works titled “The Dynamiter,” which promulgated the concept that people should accept without hesitation the next invitation to adventure that is offered to them. If 2012 isn’t an invitation to adventure, then what is?
It’s hard to deal with pirates and mutiny if a person is being driven mad by hunger. In the book “Hunger” (by Knute Hansen) the writer notes that his pencils are organic and wonders if he should eat his pencils now and thereby destroy the potential of earning some future funds with his trade, or if he should persevere and continue to offer the world his take on things.
For readers on the brink of desperation, the World’s Laziest Journalist will offer a few disparate (not desperate) items of pragmatic information for those who due to dire circumstances can not fully appreciate our usual smorgasbord of arcane and esoteric facts and obscure cultural references.
The Awesome Foundation offers money for cash strapped entrepreneurs who feel that with a few dollars more, they could achieve greatness during hard times.
http://awesomefoundation.org/
The man who wrote the Samuel Addams beer “start from scratch” story is developing a program to help other would-be self made business success stories happen.
You can start by logging in to their home page.
http://www.samueladams.com/age-gate.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fbtad%2fhow-it-works.aspx
Maybe you could get a government grant? Start looking by clicking this link
http://www.gofreegovernmentmoney.com/
For those who lament that the Sixties are over and they don’t have the option of running away to join a hippie commune, we suggest that they click these links:
http://directory.ic.org/records/communes.php
or
http://wwoof.org/
If the prospect of writing the great American novel, if only the artist can find a remote and inaccessible work area, appeals to this column’s readers, then perhaps they might want more information about becoming a volunteer lighthouse keeper.
http://www.uslhs.org/resources_be_a_keeper.php
In the materialistic realm of a country that is the world capital for capitalism, the constant addiction to getting more money may seem vital to happiness. If money does buy happiness, then greed seems reasonable and logical, but if it does not . . . .
Once upon a time, there was a young boy who wanted to travel to distant lands, meet fascinating people, and see the marvelous splendors that the world beyond what the Dunder Mifflin hometown’s borders offered.
He had been told that all things are possible through prayer, so when he informed an Auntie Mame type figure that he would pray to win a large sum of money (to subsidize his dream quest), it was pointed out to him that many others would also be praying to the lotto god for a winning ticket in the Irish Sweepstakes (lotteries inside the USA lay in the future at that point in history) and since there might be more people praying than there would be winning tickets, the boy might have to wait a long, long time for his prayers to be answered.
In Hollywood parlance, he cut to the chase and said prayers asking for a swashbuckling life that would make Earl Flynn jealous.
It’s been more than thirty years since we have seen Francis Ford Copula collect his Oscar™ and so the World’s Laziest Journalist is thinking maybe it’s time to apply for a press pass to see if the annual ceremony has changed noticeably in the intervening years.
If we are going to self-subsidize a fact finding trip to Hemingway Days in Key West, perhaps we should go all out and apply for a journalist’s visa from the State Department for permission to travel to Cuba and see Finca Vega and the Floridadita bar?
Has anyone ever written a “Guidebook to the World’s Best Dive Bars”? The Banana bar in Amsterdam reminds us of a line from a song sung by Jim Morrison: “I wonder what goes on in there.”
In “Back to the Future” did the clock on the tower always say 12:30? Where was that tower? Did someone write a song about that long before the movie was made?
Maybe we should budget some time next week to stand by because the Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory is operating on Condition Red. The counting of the Iowa caucuses will be done at a remote, secure, secret location (Dick Cheney’s home?). If the results of the Republican Caucuses in Iowa don’t reflect the pre elections polls then they will release a new theory the very next day.
That, in turn, will immediately be denounced and discredited by the Corporate owned media with the usual “round up the usual clichés about crazies shooting off their mouths prematurely” explanations. Ironically the conservative propagandists will be on the air as the results are announced making convoluted explanations of what Americans were thinking when folks in Iowa cast their votes.
Speaking of counting votes, next year maybe we will squeeze in a political punditry column that asks the question, can Republicans use the ranked voting process to cast three votes for their candidate? For example, if a stubborn, obstinate Republican (is there any other kind?) thinks there is no other choice could he list his guy as the first, second, and third choice for the office? Wouldn’t that mean casting three votes for the candidate he thinks is the only viable choice?
Does the New Hampshire primary really count? Didn’t President Obama loose in New Hampshire? Didn’t George W. Bush loose there in 2000? Didn’t Ronald Reagan loose there in his 1980 Presidential campaign? Isn’t trying to remember who won there a lot like trying to name the US’s first ten VP’s?
In one of Waylon Jennings’ songs he offered an optimistic take on failure: “at least you got the makings of a song.” If life hands you lemons, then write a Country and Western song about the experience. Do you wanna hear a song about a despondent cowboy who goes to Paris to get a job because he thought a photo of the Eiffel Tower depicted an European style oil rig?
In preparing to write about the question “What ever happened to the TV series ‘Long John Silver’?” we learned that Robert Newton also made a film titled “Long John Silver.” Got a new addition to the “Bucket List” over here boss! Are those two items available on tape or DVD?
Wherever the World’s Laziest Journalist goes, he will try to have his trusty Coolpix camera at the ready because it’s easier to take and post “photographer errant” images to go along with the columns than to do all the clerk work necessary to get permission to use someone else’s photos.
Nikos Kazantzakis wrote (in “Zorba the Greek”): “All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.”
Auntie Mame said: “Live! Life’s a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!”
RLS wrote:
“Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heaven above
And the road below me.”
However, as far as an insurance prayer to the lotto god is concerned; Robert Louis Stevenson (in “The Merry Men”) also wrote: “ . . . generous prayer is never presented n vain; the petition may be refused, but the petitioner is always, I believe, rewarded by some gracious visitation.”
We say: Bring on the New Year! We intend on having a wild and bawdy year on a very limited budget and we will try our best to scratch a few more items off our Bucket List in the process. Which isn’t to say that we won’t buy a few lotto tickets and say some appropriate prayers to the lotto god.
Now the disk jockey will play both versions of the only song recorded by both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones: “Money (that’s what I want).” He will also play Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again,” and the Eagles’ song with the line about living your life locked up in chains only to find in your last moments, that the key was always right there in your hand. We have to go say a prayer to the lotto god. Have a “Eureka!” type Happy New Year.