Insight/Incite

Hawaii Zoning Stops Barn Dances, Gathering and Voting

2009-08-27T18:33:00.000-07:00

Dear Hawai’i,
So there is context to this piece please read the very first amendment in our Constitution of the United States.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights that expressly prohibits the Congress from making laws "respecting an establishment of religion", prohibiting the free exercise of religion, infringing the freedom of speech, infringing the freedom of the press, limiting the right to peaceably assemble, or limiting the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Over six years ago a small group of people got together to dance in an environment of no alcohol, drugs or talking. It was popular enough that what began as six people eventually grew into a community of over three hundred strong with ties to the mainland. I gathered with them every Sunday morning to dance under a green house roof on a 90ft floor, and it was so much fun that visitors who came, went back to their own communities and started their own version of it. The dance attracted people from all over the island, it was that special. But this isn’t about the dance but the place that allowed it to occur. There were art shows, performances, movies, people socialized and voted there. I am referring to the, The Emax Pavilion at Kalani Honua. Not long ago a county official said, “No more, this space only for greenhouse purposes.” Here is bureaucracy of this county strangling the efforts of a community to peaceably assemble. On the mainland they are called ‘Barn Dances’ and do you think their officials are combing the countryside so they can tell people they can’t dance in their barns? A greenhouse is the “Hawaiian Barn” and restricting people from gathering there is not only impacting the quality of life in our neighborhood but seems to be unconstitutional as well. Any lawyers out there who can weigh in on this? I wrote a piece about the need to return to Villages so people can live rich and rewarding lives without the necessity of owning an automobile. Concentrate people in smaller areas and provide smaller scaled services in those areas that are accessible by bicycle or foot. The parking lots take up a lot of space. Look around Hilo and how much land is needed to drive/parks your car? Get it? Town villages use a square or plaza that is ringed with side walk cafes, galleries, etc. Reinstating the Emax Pavilion at Kalani Honua for dances, art shows, and community gathering enforces the village concept that is in a fledgling state for the LoPu (lower Puna) and Kehena Bay area. Neighborhoods and villages need gathering places. Like a town square, or a big greenhouse, or a Barn. It is time to change the zoning to create alternatives to our auto-centric existence. Build Villages!
Marlin
Pahoa, Hawaii

KEEP IT TO YOURSELF

2009-08-18T01:45:00.000-07:00

American’s have a love/hate affair with their garbage. Clearly they hate it because they don’t want it around and can’t wait to get rid of it. However they clearly they love it because they keep making more of it. Garbage, trash, refuse, disposables, rubbish, junk, waste, debris; crap by any other name would still smell as sour. There is so much garbage created that the Fishkill Landfill, outside NYC is the only other manmade object visible from space after the Great Wall of China. Except the Great Wall was built about 1000 years ago from stone blocks not Diet Coke bottles and Pampers.
In Europe recycling is free however they charge you by the pound (kilo) when your trash is hauled away. But that is silly European garbage and doesn’t contain American culture. Yes, our culture is one of consumption and with everything consumed (unless it is a buffalo and you are an Native American Indian) there is garbage left over. That’s our culture; Earn, Buy, Consume, Dispose, Repeat.

According to the Clean Air Council:

Ø American’s in 2005 generated approx 4.5 lbs of waste per day. That is 1642 lbs per year or another way to look at it: 16, 420lbs per decades. That is more than 8 tons of garbage per person per ten years.

Ø Each year, Americans trash enough office paper to build a 12-foot wall from Los Angeles to New York City.

Ø Americans toss out enough paper & plastic cups, forks and spoons every year to circle the equator 300 times. (most of those countries than lie along the equator will have no use for those items, because they are starving to death)

Ø Almost 1/3 of the waste generated the U.S. is packaging.

Ø Every year, Americans make enough plastic film to shrink-wrap the state of Texas.
(This last statistic shows some promise of being useful because had this been done prior to 2000, there would have been a greater likelihood “W” would have stayed in Crawford, TX)

Ø The amount of glass bottles Americans throw away every two weeks would have filled both World Trade Center towers.
(All of those bottles may have stopped them from collapsing)

Ø Forty-three thousand tons of food is thrown out in the United States each day. In one year that amounts to 15, 695,000 (Fifteen Billion, six hundred ninety five million) of wasted food. (How long has it been since you heard the line, “Finish you dinner there are starving children in Africa!” It use to be china but not anymore)

Ø America is home to 5% of the world's population, yet it consumes 1/3 of the Earth's timber and paper; making paper the largest part of the waste stream at 37.5% of the total waste stream.

And America is only 300 million people.
If China's per capita resource consumption were the same as in the United States today, then its projected 1.45 billion people would consume the equivalent of two-thirds of the current world grain harvest. China's paper consumption would be double the world's current production. There go the world's forests. If China one day has three cars for every four people, U.S.-style, it will have 1.1 billion cars. The whole world today has 800 million cars. It would need 99 million barrels of oil a day. Yet the world currently produces 84 million barrels per day and may never produce much more.
Source: Lester Brown, American Scientist Online

Well it’s a good thing that America, which represents about 5% of the world’s population has been able to consume about 25% of the world resources otherwise that huge military build up would have been a waste of our money. As it is, we are ready to fight to the death, (or at least send our young people to fight to the death for us) to protect our right to consume as much as we want, as quickly as we can. We are discouraged to think. We are encouraged to consume. If the opposite was true we would see more educational programming than commercials, right?

There needs to be a new plan put into place as we are ‘greening’ the planet which involves people no longer being able to ‘send out’ their trash but will have to live with it as long as it remains solid waste, once it has dissolved you can simply flush it down your toilet, nobody will know. But as long as it is solid it needs to stay with you, at home, in the car, at the office, on vacation….the trash stays with you! Soon people will be looking for ways to compost those old items that you can’t give away.

Since you have already got that burial plot picked out, why not do the planet a favor and bury your garbage in the hole, while you get cremated and fed to the gold fish. That second home may soon be the primary dump as people will be looking for creative ways to do something with their trash. Storage units are a big business these days as people have more stuff than will fit in their homes, but trash units will need to be ten times the size of the current lockers because we throw away more than we keep. But since we will no longer be able to throw anything away, ever again it will change the way we live. It will be consider a gracious and loving act to steal from people and they will thank you for making their loads lighter and their apartments roomier.
The rich will be able to hire the poor to keep their trash for them thereby increasing gainful employment for those who have lived without but are now not going to be given the choice. Since there are more poor than rich, the poor will be competing with each to get the business of keeping the trash of the rich. They will impress upon their prospective clients that they are poorer and therefore will have fewer things to buy and less trash of their own. These people will have lots of empty space that can be filled with the garbage of the wealthy which will in turn give the rich more space of their own, that allows them to consume more things. Since the poor are most likely the ones making the stuff the rich are buying doesn’t it makes sense that it goes back to them in the end? Now that is what I call recycling.
© Michael Marlin 2007

On Prisons, Artists and Putting Things in their Place

2009-08-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

America is dealing with both a financials and social crisis that has reached a point of boiling over into the very streets of our country. Due to funding shortages communities have to close prisons and either release the inmates onto the streets or ship them elsewhere. The criminals and prisons are no longer going to get the funding they need because the America people can’t get the funding they need. It cost about $45,000 every single year to house one criminal. Turn that into a ten year mortgage and you have a house worth half a million bucks. It is an indignity that all of the money went to rent when it could have gone into equity or better yet never left the pocket of the tax payer where it belongs in the first place.
Take all the hardened criminals, the ones who are violent repeat offenders, and offer them a choice, “Life behind bars or the Prisoners in Pacific Paradise Program.” Easy to see which they would choose. They will live able to watch the sun rise and set into the ocean. Swim at the beach, fish, and sit under the shade of a palm tree. Sounds idyllic right? And perhaps the reader is outraged that they aren’t suffering for their crimes. Thing is, this island is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and the only people on it are the criminals. There are no stores to rob, no innocent bystanders to gun down, no children to influence or harm. The places they live have no locks because there is nothing to steal except your neighbors fishing pole or cooking pot. The inhabitants are taught to forage, fish and farm for their food and they will be so occupied by that, just like our ancestors were that there will be little time to get into trouble.
It could descend into a “Lord of the Flies”, and become tribal, clannish and there would be turf wars and killings. But how is that different than what goes on now? One costs over hundreds of billions of dollars and creates environments which could hardly be called humane. Perhaps it is time to try something other than suppression and containment as a business plan. Sending criminals to far flung regions to fend for themselves is nothing new and is how Australia started with their first guests arriving in 1788 at Botany Bay. (Star Trek Episode #22, 2.16.1967 “Space Seed” & 1982 “Wrath of Kahn”, SS Botany Bay) But in real life here on earth the first free settlers came to Australia to join the convicts within five years and they turned out to be right nice mates.
Now there are empty prisons that are something skanky and awful. The remedy is to give them over to artists who are poor and will live any place they can so long as they can make their art. Artists have such a passion for making things beautiful that they have the capacity to change entire districts in cities. Soho is an example of how artists in community can change the value of real estate in a place like NYC. Let a few hundred artists move into the prison and do their thing. Murals, sculptures, performance art and all manner of expression will spill forth and attract people to this new live/work/entertain domain.
Before long it will attract people with money like the doctors and lawyers. They will see how trendy and cool it is to live there with all the bars and will slowly but surely force out all of the artists who worked so hard to create a desirable living space. The rents will start to creep up and overnight it will no longer be affordable for artists. Just like Soho in NYC. Before long it will be only the doctors and lawyers who can pay the price and there will be outrage and cries of foul by community activists. But this time it won’t matter because now we have them where we can keep an eye on them. "Who had the key last?"

How Your Tax Dollars are Spent

2009-03-09T13:38:00.000-07:00

MY HOW WE SPEND IT, EVEN WHEN WE DON'T HAVE IT!
A little leg work on the internet reveals that some forty two million dollars was set aside to build new bachelor quarters on the Marine Corp base on Oahu. Source: www.reedconstructiondata.com (the company that is doing the job and that information was last updated 12-11-08) For that amount of money you get 78 units making each ‘unit’ worth about 544,000 dollars each. Okay there are laundry and recreation room and vending areas, etc. along with landscaping and other amenities but let’s face it, at half a million dollars you can buy and entire single family home along with the land it sits on. (Median price for a single family home was $550,000 as of 3/3/09, (source Honolulu advertiser)
The new bachelor pad will have A Telecommunications Infrastructure Room, On Each Floor To House Communications & Security System Infrastructure, This Area Is In Addition To The Functional Areas Allowed For The Facility, Information Systems Include Telephone, Data, & Cable Television (CATV). Don’t you love the wording “Information Systems” which go on to describe itself as telephone, data, (probably internet access) and cable television. The expression making a pig’s ear look like a silk purse seems apt because they have to find some way to justify housing each soldier in a half million dollar crib. Telecommunications Infrastructure Room Will Be Provided On Each Floor To House Communications & Security System Infrastructure. I don’t want to sound cynical but do Marines on a base really need a security system? I thought they were the security system. Do they need to pay an outside contractor to put in a system that makes them feel safe? What is all that training for anyway if they don’t feel secure on a heavily armed Marine Base? But here is the punch line, in May of 2008 it was stated by the House of Representatives that a Marine Corps Base Hawaii Bachelor Enlisted Quarters (part of ongoing improvements to bachelor enlisted quarters) was to be $28.2 million. I guess that extra 14 million dollars that got worked in is going to make the recreation room and vending area larger, much larger. Read what Rep. Abercrombie had to say at: http://www.house.gov/list/press/hi01_abercrombie/pr08defense_auth_passes_house.shtml
But how many of you think how the money is being spent, or in the case of the newly passed stimulus package, not being spent.
A lot of stuff got cut from the stimulus but what we got instead was more military equipment. For instance according the GAO the government spent $361 million per F22 Raptor Fighter Jet. The Pentagon got plenty of money up front as they have all those guns and such it is easy to intimidate anybody, including Congress. Now $361 million dollars, per plane, represents the cost of developing the plane as well and by the time all 183 planes have been built, $34 billion will have been spent on procurement while $62 billion on the total program costs. Do we really need 183? Let’s for the sake of a one sided diatribe assume the military could make it work with 150 of these new fangled grim reaper soul harvesting machines. That is a savings of close to 12 billion dollars….for 33 planes!
Instead of thirty three F22 Raptor Jets these items below could have been left in the stimulus package:
65 million for watershed rehabilitation, 98 million for school nutrition, 50 million for aquaculture, 1 billion for Energy Loan Guarantees, 25 million for Fish and Wildlife, 55 million for historic preservation, 20 million for working capital fund, 90 million for State and Private Wildlife Fire Management, 1 billion for Head Start/Start Early, 3.5 billion for higher education construction, 100 million for Science, 200 million of the National Science Foundation, 10 million for state and law enforcement, 100 million for distance learning, 50 million for Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension, 2 billion for Health Information Technology Grants, 600 million for Title 1 (no Child Left Behind), 2.5 billion for Neighborhood Stabilization and other programs that got diminished could be brought to full funding as in, the other 300 million for the federal fleet of hybrids, the other 100 million for Law Enforcement wireless, the other 75 million for the Smithsonian, the other 600 million for the Superfund Cleanup. We would have to cut half a billion from the Neighborhood program to come in on budget but if they are asking us to cut, do we have the nerve to ask the Pentagon to do the same?
For the cost of 33 killing machines we could have gotten a whole mess of programs that not only create jobs but create something that improves the quality of life. But wait, there’s more! What about the missiles the plane is going to carry, we haven’t even got into the cost of upgrades. Each jet carries six AIM 120 C missiles with a cost of $386,000.00 (www.af.mil/factsheets) which now makes another 2 billion 316 million for the ‘perishables’. (i.e. one time use and aptly named) Multiple that by our reduced force of 150 planes and now the fee for those high altitude fly by shootings is 347 billion dollars.
And that is only the missile named, “AIM 120 C”. On the same website you can learn about all the missiles and what they cost.
For instance:
$450,000 per AIM 130……….. up to $110,000 for on AGM 65……… one AGM 86B goes for one million dollars apiece and there are 1142 of those available in the inventory…………… one AGM 88 is $200,000………. one AIM 7 is $125,000…………. one AIM 9’s is $84,000…………, one GBU-15 is $242,500, and I am only scratching the surface and to get to deep truth you will need a bunker busting bomb from Raytheon Missile Systems. That company was awarded, on February 10, 2005, a $10,490,029 firm fixed price contract to provide Guided Bomb Unit-28C/B (BLU-122) guidance control units and tail kits, quantity of 71. Ten billion dollars for 71 bombs! Is it worth it? Do you feel safer knowing this or more afraid that our priorities are so skewed.
When the Marines were founded in 1775 they wore their hair tied back in a knot but today they cut their hair ‘high and tight.’ To maintain the look a haircut is required every week. At seven dollars a haircut done 52 times a year comes to $365 dollars per Marine. Multiply that by 199,000 active duty Marines and you the tax payer, are paying about $72,436,000.00 every year for their fashion statement. Too bad they are so covered up with body armor and helmets because nobody can tell how good they look.
If we, the people, don’t look at how our money is being spent then we deserve everything the government doesn’t give us. If on the other hand this article has ‘incited’ you, then pick up your pen, (it is mightier than the sword, remember?) and let you congressman and senator how you want your tax dollars spent.
M. Marlin©3/7/2009

Medical Model Blues

2009-03-06T19:19:00.000-08:00

Rat Lung and the Medical Model Blues
A woman from our neighborhood is in a coma in the Hilo hospital from the ‘rat lung’ disease that has now made the front page in the papers over in Oahu. Short of going out into the field and removing every pair of lungs from every rat we are going to be living with this for a long time. In a nutshell this woman is in a hospital that will not admit her physician in to treat her. I have spoken with both Jackie Hahn N.D. and also to Alan Thal M.D. and both wanted to treat the patient with a starter dose of 50 grams of vitamin C. As this is outside conventional practice the door was shut and the ‘Go Away’ sign was put up. The Hilo hospital’s turf is closely guarded because otherwise somebody may come along with a better idea and that may put some people out of work. They are doing what they can to secure their jobs by not allowing anybody else’s medical model to infiltrate it. To be fair it isn’t the hospitals fault but the insurance companies. But who is making their medical policy; insurance salesmen?
According to several research studies in the last decade, a total of 225,000 Americans per year have died as a result of their medical treatment making the medical treatment themselves the third largest cause of death after heart disease and cancer! Okay you can stop laughing because it’s true. Now you can start crying because it’s true. At 225,000 per year the doctors and medical errors alone could wipe out the Big Island’s population. That would be about all of the 200,000 locals, tourists, haole’s, with another 25,000 to take care of the feral pig population. So help save the environment, “Bring a pig to you’re the hospital!” and savor these statistics with your barbeque sauce.
1) 12,000 deaths per year due to unnecessary surgeries
2) 7000 deaths due to medication errors in hospitals
3) 20,000 deaths per year due to other errors in hospitals
4) 80,000 deaths per year due to infections in hospitals
5) 106,000 death per year due to negative effects of drugs
Source: Starfield, B. (2000, July 26). Is US health really the best in the world? Journal of the American Medical Association, 284(4), 483-485
The politicians talk about how 40 million Americans don’t have access to health care. Just a cursory look at what is going on and you will consider them the fortunate forty million. I would rather cut open a chicken and reads its entrails that to get a medical diagnosis from the Hilo hospital. At least with the chicken I can make soup which will be good for me. The tragedy here is there are other ways to treat people but those in power will do everything they can to keep it, including letting a lot of innocent people die. Our friend who is a coma will more than likely die even though her primary physician, a naturopath, may have saved her life. Though nobody has died from acupuncture, ozone therapy, naturopathic medicine, homeopathic remedies or Vitamin C therapy, the pharmaceutical companies and the American Medical Association deem these treatments as being dangerous. That is like the stick of dynamite telling the balloon how dangerous it would be if it popped.
Let us put things into perspective because nobody can get anything in focus while looking down their nose at it. Since the war began in 3/19/03 the enemy has killed 3423 American soldiers in combat. (www.defenselink.mil) In that amount of time our own doctors, pharmaceutical companies and medical institutions have killed that many American civilians 330 times over, and we are paying them to do it! We rant and rave about how those insurgents and terrorists are killing Americans, but they haven’t even put a dent in how many people have died from our own medical workers. One million, one hundred and twenty five thousand (1,125,000) innocent American’s have died since 2003 at the hands the very people who they trusted to heal them. Soldiers don’t put their trust into insurgents so their guard is up and have body armor and maybe that is why the death toll is so much lower. So the next time you get sick enlist in the armed services and do a tour of duty in Iraq, your chances of survival will be greater than a stay in the hospital. (Unless you are wearing body armor and carry an assault rifle with you when you get admitted)
Michael Marlin©3/6/2009

Over Your Dead Body

2009-02-20T12:28:00.000-08:00

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY
Death is a drag, for the living. We lament and remorse. We grieve and shout. We cry and quake. It is time we began producing people’s funerals and making them a little less on the macabre side. We speak in whispers like the that dead were in a library, reading. We speak in terms to make sure the dead are respected. They don’t need it and can’t appreciate it. It is not an enlivening thought that the only respect I will get in life is when I am dead. There are other ways to approach funerals than dressing in black and listening to piped in music from pipe organ. Let’s dress up the dearly departed and put the fling back in funeral.
The curtain goes up and on plaster column is a television, which is turned on and a pre recorded monologue begins. As the dearly departed they are now able to share all those things that would never be said in their life time. Copernicus had to do something like this, publishing his papers on Earth’s orbit after he was safely underground knowing full well the church would burn him at the stake if given the chance for his blasphemy.
Nowadays we want to be so politically correct that correctness has become political. In other words, we are correct only when it becomes a means of getting something we want. That is also political sincerity in action. But since you are dead, all convention goes out the window like dust, as it were, in the wind. Do we really have to wait until we have left this world, to truly speak our minds? Who hasn’t heard, “I would rather die than tell him what I really think.” We are too afraid of the consequences and repercussions to be honest with one another. With a pre recorded message you needn’t worry about being interrupted, because nobody would have the gall to ‘butt in’ on the dead.

You will be given a highly polished monologue, just like the kind you see on David Letterman and you can know that in your final resting place, “you killed em’.”
Top Ten Reason’s Why it is Better to Be Dead
1 At last some peace
2 The view is here is better than my apartment in Queens
3 Save a lot of money on clothes
4 Develop Intimate relations with earth worms
5 Get to look forward to “Turning Over in Your Grave”
6 Don’t have to listen to Fox News anymore
7 Finally understand the lyrics to all those Grateful Dead songs
8 Plenty of time to practice actually pushing up daisies
9 Don’t have to diet anymore, because you died.
10 Downsizing doesn’t scare you like it use to.

A production team will script your funeral proceedings and songs like Amazing Grace will be replaced with “Sympathy for the Devil”. Additional music from Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain, would lend a touching tribute to your once, state of mind.
As none of us can know what God really wants from us so we will make sure all your bases are covered. The presiding priest will wear a rubber mask of Lord Ganish and the Rabbi will be speaking in tongue and brisket.
Funerals and wakes need not be mournful affairs, not if you give your guests the opportunity to party like there is no tomorrow because for you there is no today.
Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die…drives the message home, but to make sure that the message gets home, assign a designated driver first.
We have no myths about death in American culture which is a fundamental lacking and perhaps the reason we fear it so much. It is said that 95% of all our medical bills are spent on the last year of our lives. With Eskimos, when you no longer have enough teeth to chew, they put you out on the ice as an offering for a polar bear. The legend goes that your children’s children will one day kill a polar bear and when they cut into the belly, you will come out reborn.
In our consumer culture when you no longer have enough credit to buy food, you will be put out on the curb as an offering for the landfill. Your children’s children, who won’t have enough money to go to college because you tapped all the credit, will be garbage men. They will find you on the curb and toss you into the back of the truck where you will go to your final resting place along with all of the other garbage that you threw away over a lifetime. You may not be able to take it with you, but ‘it’ will be taking you with it.
But back to our mortuary make over. Once your pre recorded message has been played the attendees at the wake will be so incensed they will want to bring you back to life just to kick your butt. So a life size replica will be available for them to punch, kick, insult, stab, burn, and assail with any number of assaults both verbal and physical. Some people feel better after battering. The guests can get it off their chests and go home feeling so much more at peace because in the end they will appreciate that they are living and can still take the time to stop and smell the crematorium.
M. Marlin ©February 2009

RECYCLE TATTOOS

2008-01-12T11:27:00.001-08:00

In today’s world nobody wants to be average yet they fear the consequences of stepping off the curb of the mainstream and into the lurking realm of the strange. Could this be changing so that the strange becomes passé and only stranger will satisfy our craving? We want to set ourselves apart from the swarm of humans, each of us wanting to be recognized for how we stand out, but will rarely stand up when the roll call for social deviants is taken.
Tattoos have become a way to blend in and stand out all at once. Once they were solely sported by the habitants of the South Pacific and the sailors who visited there, both whom fell into the category of the far flung and never seen at the tables of people considered decent. Somewhere along the line they came to adorn the bodies of bikers who realized they would never be invited to those people’s houses either. Today the tattoo has invaded Middle America and can be seen on the calves, arms, necks, backs, chests and butts of the very folks who you would like to date or have for dinner.
Tattoos have lost their edge, its radical nature has become yet another fixation of those who wish to be cool and fit in but retain their differences at the same time. No longer daring, it has become drab. “Oh, nice tat” is the response these days whereas in the past it was, “My God, what have you done to your body?” Putting it on your back is handy because you just don’t have to look at it day after day whereas many people put them in a place that is reserved for lovers and voyeurs. I think it is time to up the stakes again and bring the horror and glee back to what can be accomplished with human skin being the canvas.
Consider some of the art work that has been done and how it has evolved over the years. Mom, Anchors and Hearts have transformed into veritable pieces of work that cost thousands of dollars to buy and take hundred of hours to execute. Twisted dragons consuming damsels, exotic wave motifs, devils with erupting horns, angels with aerodynamic wings, zodiac carnivals and cryptic Chinese symbols are all part of the body palette. It would be a waste of money and the talents of the artist to see them be cremated or buried six feet under once the owner finally has no more use for them.
Let’s begin a movement where these works of art are recycled and enjoyed long after the original owner drop the body bag for that eternal departure. Go not to grave oh colored of body and inked of flesh. Skin you we will and adore a lampshade lightly with the art that you have worn and worn out.
Gruesome; You bet. And that is why people will flock to it. We are nation that puts people eating bugs on TV and considers it entertainment. This will at least carry some intrinsic beauty with it. I know what some of you are thinking who are old enough to remember or well read enough to know. The Germans did this kind of thing and what horrible swineherds they were. But they always knew how make a great car too. So imagine using grandma’s ass as seat cover for your minivan. Sure it says “HarleyHead” but just think of the fun the grandkids will have. They will still be able to sit on Grandma’s lap even after she is in the grave. No sense in her taking it with her when it can serve a purpose here.
How about that attractive floral tattoo which use to ring your best friends ankle? Properly cured it would make a lovely bracelet that would be the center of any conversation and induce curiosity and hurling all at the same time. Think of the laughter that your departed friend will still provoke.
Those angel wings that are now being sported by your departed loved one but use to be sported while they were still in a human chassis will make a wonderful adornment for the front of your cowboy hat. We have been skinning snakes and wearing those as hatbands for years and it’s a snake we never knew. This is an opportunity to remember the snake in your life by stripping them of what they no longer need and using it to decorate that Stetson. Adding some teeth, frozen in the snarl that you remember them for, just brings it all the more to life.
Bury Grandpa but save those legs as they will make terrific ski pole luggage or a nifty umbrella cases. You can wear a smug look on your face when you pick up your ski equipment at Vail or Aspen resorts because your luggage isn’t plastered with Gucci, Versace or Armani logos but your ol’ Pappy’s credo, “Fuck ‘em when they can’t take a joke”.
You can pull the wallet out of your back pocket that is made from your father’s foreskin and when you rub it, it will turn into that overnight case. Yes, it is an old joke but doesn’t it work well in this context?
Those cool designs that don’t mean anything that used to adorn the chest of your “Ex” will now make terrific coasters to put that cool one down on. What better way to remember the beer swilling man he was than by placing a Pabst on his Pecs.
Environmentalists will cheer you when you walk down the street and aren’t wearing the hide of some poor animal but wearing the hide made from the animal that was your wife beating husband. They’ll say, “He got what he deserved and don’t you look good in something other than black and blue!”
Endangered species the human race is not and there will be plenty for everybody. Your wardrobe can be outfitted with matching ethnicities a “Black” pair of lo-riding pants, with the name on the Butt will take on a whole new meaning. The obligatory “White” blouse, monogrammed of course, with a ‘Redman’ vest will look ever so sharp and will come with that pierced ‘forked tongue’ accessory. Fall colors will come out with the new Asian look and for those special formal occasions, Albino. Even more to consider is that your clothes, accessories and umbrella can be taken to the beach and tanned without the fear of skin cancer.
Some folks who do not have fond memories of their dearly departed can go to extremes and take those parts that aren’t considered art work and have them cured to be chew toys for the family pet. Watch the glee the children who will be watching ‘Fluffy’ shred what’s left of daddy into little pieces. They will be so happy knowing they have done their part to save the skin of a cow that is still free to be worshipped while singing, “We know it hurting you, more than it hurts us.”
Remember how your spouse walked all over you for all those years? Now you can literally walk all over them by turning them into a pair of Reebok Retreads. It will be closest thing to having a sole (sic) that they ever got.
If it is true that beauty is only skin deep but that ugly goes to the bone it would explain why in a culture like ours it is better to be beautiful and insincere that ugly and honest. So here is to wearing his heart on your sleeve and hanging her ass out to dry.
©Michael Marlin 2008

Shocking Talk: Don Imus

2007-11-24T23:12:00.000-08:00

Remember the ‘shock jock’ they fired, and now rehired? Don Imus who has a reputation for being controversial (he wears a cowboy hat and lives in Manhattan for crying out loud) finally stepped over a line that he has danced on for a long time. Shock jocks are not scary linemen for the Pittsburgh Steelers, though some of them act as though they have been hit too hard too many times. These formidable mouths stir the s---t and do it in a way that boosts ratings instead of getting a knuckle sandwich when they are seen in public, which isn’t to say that some of them haven’t feasted on that five fingered delicacy. What really gets me is this guy, who I have never listened to, used the phrase, “nappy headed ho’s” to describe a winning, mostly black, women’s basketball team. He said it once, but within days I have read it and heard it at least a dozen times over. The word ‘nappy’ supposedly describes the kind of hair blacks have and the only time I have heard the word ‘nap’ was talking about the rug or what the baby was doing. Since when did ‘nappy’ become a word that was associated with black hairdo’s? If Imus had said, “afro headed ho’s” it may not have come across as badly. Then again there is the word ‘ho’ and that can’t mean what John Wayne meant when he said, “Westward Ho!”. Cleary the long road to ‘ho’ (sic) is now what Imus is faced with having been canned for doing what he does best, insult and infuriate people who are too high on their pedestals. Let’s face it, there isn’t a person alive who hasn’t been insulted for their looks, race, sex, financial standing, what they eat, where they live, what they drive, what they wear, and who they are dating. It is pathetic that this has turned into a national debate when we are faced with the biggest financial meltdown due to sub-prime lending practices that will be making ‘ho’s’ out of suburbanites who can’t meet their mortgages all too soon.
The media, the black leaders, the outraged are acting like they are on a playground at recess and wagging their fingers at the maverick among them who has the audacity to call a ‘spade’ ….well, you know. Those young women who won their title have so much to celebrate that in their state of mind and euphoria could just roll over Imus like so much paste under the wheels of the Hummer he probably drives. “That’s right Don, we are number one, and the nappiest, headiest, ho, ho, ho ‘ing’ bunch of basketball players in the country. And by the way, you look pretty lame wearing that hat when you ain’t no cowboy.”
It use to be that people matched wits, but we have become literally ‘wit’ less and rely on others to make our case. Nobody has called Al Sharpton anything he hasn’t heard, nor for that matter Jesse Jackson. Mind you those young women probably haven’t heard themselves called, ‘nappy headed ho’s” before but would they have gotten upset or the attention if somebody hadn’t picked up the story? Words only have the power we give them. The word ‘denial’ has no meaning to George Bush so it doesn’t exist for him. The world could be going to Hell in a Samsonite and George would be saying, “How lovely they re-paved this route with good intentions.” We decide what the word means to us. Call a woman who only speaks Croatian a ‘slut’ and she is oblivious to your slur. Ignorance is bliss. Call a white man ‘niggardly’ and he will be confused because even though he knows he isn’t black, he will take it as an insult, but only if he knows what the word means. By the way it is the dictionary, “niggardly” which means “ungenerous”, “stingy” and “miserly.” So what are we saying? Slang has hijacked the meaning of words so one man’s compliment is another’s insult. Nowadays if a person under 30 says something is ‘sick’ they are saying this is very, very cool. If they say it is ‘dope’ they are not referring to weed or idiots but to something slick and desirable. So in a particular case being called a ‘sick dope’ could be the best compliment you get all day!
At some point somebody turned a word into a weapon and the rest of us bought into it. When the floor product came onto the market ‘Spic & Span’ did the people in the Hispanic community take offense when clearly they had every right to say, “Just because we clean your floors doesn’t mean you can name the product we use after us.”
A NYC cabdriver was going on a rant one day about something and he used the word ‘Eggplant’ do describe a group of people. My mind went to Italian’s because they make eggplant parmigan but the cabbie was taking about blacks. How did it come to calling Negros a purple vegetable? Who thought of this and said, “Great idea” and while we are at it lets call the Asian’s “Pears”, Irish “Potatoes” and the English, “Muffins” and the French ‘Dressing’.
Name calling has all the destructive power of a warm breeze. However we as a country have become a nation of cowards living in fear. Why do I think that? Only a people living in fear could confiscate my corkscrew before I get on a plane because of the remote possibility that I have the capacity to overpower the rest of the passengers and hijack a plane with it. It is fear that makes us do foolish things, like buy guns to protect ourselves against others who also have them. (By the way their guns are bigger than yours and holds more bullets) Fear makes us view other races and nationalities as a threat, instead of with curiosity. A child has no fear, (ever watch them on a skateboard?) but is soon taught to be suspicious of others by their role models, which unfortunately isn’t Spiderman or Wolverine. Fear now dictates our actions and re-actions.
The girls on that winning basketball team were so ‘high’ from their win that when somebody said, “Imus called you all a bunch of ‘nappy headed ho’s” they either said, “Whatever” or “You mean he mentioned us?!!!” When you are at the top (literally) of your game, name calling is the last thing that is going to bring you down because if it wasn’t, the loosing team could really ruin it for the victors by insulting them, Have you ever heard of that working? When you are on the top, even “Sticks and Stones” won’t break your bones because you will have an entourage of followers who will gladly ‘take the hit’ for you. These girls are winners and you can say whatever you want about a winner, it doesn’t change that fact. But if you are a looser, it is a completely different story. You have the right to collect sympathy which people will willingly give you. A person who is down is not to be kicked…. hard anyway. Shock Jocks don’t kick people who are down. There is no fun in that, it’s too easy and it is ‘bad form’ even for them. They want to taint, trouble, tarnish, hassle, and harass those people who are riding high on their hogs or resting on their laurels. Don Imus brought them up to talk about (insult really) because they are winners and as such can take some ‘Roasting.’
In his own ‘red-neck’ way Imus was saying, “Look at those girls go, they are stomping on some poor white trash ass now.” That would not have gotten the same response because the ‘poor white trash’ lobby isn’t that strong up on capital hill but if it was, Rush Limbaugh would be their spokesperson.

Copyright 2007 Michael Marlin

FIND GRIEF WHERE YOU ARE STANDING

2007-10-14T07:16:00.000-07:00

My title today is taken from the Buddhist expression, "If you can't find peace where you are standing where do you need to go to find it?" We have learned to gripe about anything so if you can't find something to complain about in this moment, what makes you think that something lousier is going to come along? When people say to me, "I can't complain," I respond, "I guess you aren't trying hard enough." Learning to bitch convincingly is a not a task to be taken lightly. Get completely committed if you are going to persuade another person that your complaint is worthy of sympathy. Don't just whine but take the time to ratchet yourself up as tight as the waistband on the pants of a champion pie eater, and then cut it loose like a wild bull out of the chute and sweep everybody else into it. Isn't that we all want? When we tell our story that we want somebody, anybody to say, "You poor thing", which for some strange reason makes us feel better. Getting someone else to feel miserable with us is a time tested tradition that was made famous in the "Show me State". That's why we all know the expression, "Missouri Loves Company". Since they spend so much time doing it Jews created a special word, 'Kvetch' which some say is the origin of the word, 'Bitch'

To find grief where you are standing is easier than finding happiness and that is nothing to complain about. Look around you and notice everything that could use improvement. Are you getting the idea? You car sucks, unless it is a hybrid. And your wardrobe? I know, "You use to complain that you had no clothes, until you met a man who had no body". Then there is your hair, face, eyes, ears, teeth, lips, waist line, hairline, which is enough to have you watching commercials in earnest looking for the solution that will work in 3 to 6 weeks or your money back. You have lots of reasons to be discontent (and I haven't even mentioned the government's war on anything/everything) so, "If you are going to complain, be grateful".
8 Michael Marlin 2007

BROADWAY SHOWS: RECYCLE

2007-09-27T11:01:00.000-07:00

On Broadway, at last count there were four major shows that are based on movies. I saw two in one day. Broadway has caught the “green trend” and has gotten into the recycle game. The big difference however, is that when you recycle a can or a plastic bottle, the next item made from that material does not resemble the original product. Plastic bottles become paint brushes or door handles or any myriad of things. True, aluminum can be crushed, even without the help of critics, and turned into another can but this time instead of it being filled with soda it is now grown up and contains a beer.
Seeing Spamalot was disappointing as all of the good jokes from the movie were just being retold live. I have already heard, “I blow my nose in your general direction” from any number of friends. And yet the audience was laughing so hard you would think they never saw the original. It used to be after seeing a movie it would prompt you to read the book but here after seeing the play, I wanted to see the movie.
But now the creative minds have been side stepped because the big money learned long ago that once people spend a certain amount on their ticket, they will feel obligated to enjoy the show. I chose to stand for Spamalot and the ticket cost me 21 bucks. There was a seat available for 300 dollars and had I spent that I would have been royally pissed off. After all there was a King on stage.
There is more money in the world than talent and nowhere does it seem more prevalent than Broadway. Spamalot won a Tony for Best Musical and I don’t know what the competition was but giving an award for a show that is making fun of itself and other musicals can’t be ‘seriously’ funny. I got to see gags which made references to Fiddler, Phantom, Wicked, and Game shows. So instead of creating something anew, let’s make fun of stuff we have already seen. It will only appear funny if you were a savvy theater buff and had already seen and remembered the other shows or just dropped 200 dollars on tickets.
The Industry, which is what this business that is filled with artists has become, is taking old TV shows that people remember and remaking them as movies while movies are being made into musicals. The fact that people remember them, no matter how bad they were, is worth more and a safer bet than doing something new. Take the Brady Bunch Musical, please.
If the industry is going to go to the extreme of dumbing the content down, because then neither they, or you will to have think about it, why not go all the way. Why doesn’t somebody try to do what Max Bialostok did, and con the NY public in coming to see something that is so bad, so inane but so incredibly marketed that the producers can giggle like teen age girls about how the pulled and “Enron’ on the public. Bad taste has never gotten anybody thrown in jail. Bad taste simply gets you great press, as is evident with the Paris Hilton phenomenon.
Let’s see “Reality Broadway Musicals” because it is such after all it is already such a great success on TV. Why wait for the TV show to go to film before bringing it to Broadway? Go straight to stage with it.
For starters people would be lining up around two blocks and small commerce would spring up along that linear grouping of people. There won’t be just hotdog, pretzels, cold drinks and ice cream. There will be rolling carts being manned by photographers to take your picture which you will need to get cast. There will be publicist to write your resume, there will be make up artists and acting coaches. Working with you all the way to the front of the line and then cutting you loose once you walk through the front door, thus delivering enduring proof that P.T. Barnum was not only a great showman but a prophetic seer as well.
Once in the theater reality Broadway will cast all the parts for people coming in off the street. First, make one person the producer who will soon be wetting his pants with glee when he learns he will not have to pay for union labor. He will then choose somebody else to direct who will in turn select a casting director. That person will hand out the parts to would be ushers, ticket takers, bartenders, custodians and other front of house personnel. If you know somebody, or have a great body that the casting director, director or producer wants, you can get a part as a choreographer, stage hand, light board operator or sound man. To actually get a part on stage will remain, as it has always been done in show business, a random process. After turning in your 8x10 and resume, you will become a carefully screened individual who will be told to compete against the others who are also going for the same part. Even without a script they will have no difficulty finding plenty to say about why the other person isn’t qualified without ever speaking about their own talents, which will also be non existent.
Call it Jerry Springer meets American Idol. People will do anything for fame. People will not do anything for money, unless you have a lot of it. But in reality TV there isn’t any money for talent or the writers so why should it be different on Broadway?
It doesn’t matter if someone on stage can’t sing because the audience will entertain themselves by talking about how bad they were and enjoy that experience. It won’t matter if you can’t act because nobody in the audience would be able recognize your ability, even if you could.
Reality Broadway will run longer than anything out there because as long as there are people who want to be in the limelight, they will line up outside the theatre to be a part of the show. But the real genius behind all this is people will pay for the privilege to be taken advantage of, so long as you spell their name right.
© Michael Marlin 2007

TAKE IT WITH YOU, PLEASE

2007-08-25T12:32:00.001-07:00

American’s have a love/hate affair with their garbage. Clearly they hate it because they don’t want it around and can’t wait to get rid of it. However they clearly they love it because they keep making more of it. Garbage, trash, refuse, disposables, rubbish, junk, waste, debris; crap by any other name would still smell as sour. There is so much garbage created that the Fishkill Landfill, outside NYC is the only other manmade object visible from space after the Great Wall of China. Except the Great Wall was built about 1000 years ago from stone blocks not Diet Coke bottles and Pampers.
In Europe recycling is free however they charge you by the pound (kilo) when your trash is hauled away. But that is silly European garbage and doesn’t contain American culture. Yes, our culture is one of consumption and with everything consumed (unless it is a buffalo and you are an Native American Indian) there is garbage left over. That’s our culture; Earn, Buy, Consume, Dispose, Repeat.

According to the Clean Air Council:

 American’s in 2005 generated approx 4.5 lbs of waste per day. That is 1642 lbs per year or another way to look at it: 16, 420lbs per decades. That is more than 8 tons of garbage per person per ten years.

 Each year, Americans trash enough office paper to build a 12-foot wall from Los Angeles to New York City.

 Americans toss out enough paper & plastic cups, forks and spoons every year to circle the equator 300 times. (most of those countries than lie along the equator will have no use for those items, because they are starving to death)

 Almost 1/3 of the waste generated the U.S. is packaging.

 Every year, Americans make enough plastic film to shrink-wrap the state of Texas.
(This last statistic shows some promise of being useful because had this been done prior to 2000, there would have been a greater likelihood “W” would have stayed in Crawford, TX)

 The amount of glass bottles Americans throw away every two weeks would have filled both World Trade Center towers.
(All of those bottles may have stopped them from collapsing)

 Forty-three thousand tons of food is thrown out in the United States each day. In one year that amounts to 15, 695,000 (Fifteen Billion, six hundred ninety five million) of wasted food. (How long has it been since you heard the line, “Finish you dinner there are starving children in Africa!” It use to be china but not anymore)

 America is home to 5% of the world's population, yet it consumes 1/3 of the Earth's timber and paper; making paper the largest part of the waste stream at 37.5% of the total waste stream.

And America is only 300 million people.
If China's per capita resource consumption were the same as in the United States today, then its projected 1.45 billion people would consume the equivalent of two-thirds of the current world grain harvest. China's paper consumption would be double the world's current production. There go the world's forests. If China one day has three cars for every four people, U.S.-style, it will have 1.1 billion cars. The whole world today has 800 million cars. It would need 99 million barrels of oil a day. Yet the world currently produces 84 million barrels per day and may never produce much more.
Source: Lester Brown, American Scientist Online

Well it’s a good thing that America, which represents about 5% of the world’s population has been able to consume about 25% of the world resources otherwise that huge military build up would have been a waste of our money. As it is, we are ready to fight to the death, (or at least send our young people to fight to the death for us) to protect our right to consume as much as we want, as quickly as we can. We are discouraged to think. We are encouraged to consume. If the opposite was true we would see more educational programming than commercials, right?

There needs to be a new plan put into place as we are ‘greening’ the planet which involves people no longer being able to ‘send out’ their trash but will have to live with it as long as it remains solid waste, once it has dissolved you can simply flush it down your toilet, nobody will know. But as long as it is solid it needs to stay with you, at home, in the car, at the office, on vacation….the trash stays with you! Soon people will be looking for ways to compost those old items that you can’t give away.

Since you have already got that burial plot picked out, why not do the planet a favor and bury your garbage in the hole, while you get cremated and fed to the gold fish. That second home may soon be the primary dump as people will be looking for creative ways to do something with their trash. Storage units are a big business these days as people have more stuff than will fit in their homes, but trash units will need to be ten times the size of the current lockers because we throw away more than we keep. But since we will no longer be able to throw anything away, ever again it will change the way we live. It will be consider a gracious and loving act to steal from people and they will thank you for making their loads lighter and their apartments roomier.
The rich will be able to hire the poor to keep their trash for them thereby increasing gainful employment for those who have lived without but are now not going to be given the choice. Since there are more poor than rich, the poor will be competing with each to get the business of keeping the trash of the rich. They will impress upon their prospective clients that they are poorer and therefore will have fewer things to buy and less trash of their own. These people will have lots of empty space that can be filled with the garbage of the wealthy which will in turn give the rich more space of their own, that allows them to consume more things. Since the poor are most likely the ones making the stuff the rich are buying doesn’t it makes sense that it goes back to them in the end? Now that is what I call recycling.
© Michael Marlin 2007

AN IDOL IS BORN

2007-08-09T12:44:00.000-07:00

Recently an idol was born although manufactured would be a better adjective and I might say it is nice to see something manufactured in America these days. It won’t be long before China starts importing their own idols for us to worship since we have been consuming pretty much everything else they send to our shores. But American Idol has just selected a fresh 17 year girl who is now our very own “diety.” I heard it said by one of the judges that this was a singing contest, not a popularity contest so why don’t they call it American Singer? Because we won’t worship at the feet of a singer, we need idols since long ago our spiritual connection to the real thing got supplanted by our cell phone connection. And you know what happened to the last batch of us who choose idol worship over “you know who.” It doesn’t matter because in less time than it take for a fish to mature, we will have forgotten this idol and our attention will be turned to the newer, shinier idol, who is even now, at this writing waiting in the wings.

I have been in show business, since 1975 where my first stint was with the circus as an elephant groom so I can dish some dirt on the industry with more credibility than most. One of the most poignant things I have ever heard was from a well known British Singer/Composer Anthony Newley who said, “Performing artists and entertainers in America are like Kleenex, you use them once and throw them away.” This I heard in 1985! Of course by that time I had been retired from my shovel for some ten years but I should have kept it as it would be useful even today. It takes a shovel and the willingness to resist the gag reflex when watching the industry fabrication phenomenon.

The definition of a fad is something that is created from the top and moves down. A trend on the other hand starts at the bottom and moves up. Fads are created by the industry executives with the hope that it moves far enough down the food chain that us single celled thinkers can consume it. Trends are created by the rest of us, the people who are referred to as ‘grassroots’ and when they take hold the top of this chain responds and gives us what we have already been giving ourselves. The Grateful Dead, Phish, organic food, recycling, Fair Trade were not created for us, but created by us and that is why they lasted. Okay, Jerry died but everybody does, his music however lives on.

The Dead were America’s longest running band with some 25 years of playing and touring…..what is the likely hood of our new Idol making it to one tenth of that with a prominence and fan base that will last longer that 2.5 years? By that time she will be leaving the gleam of teen hood and becoming an adult woman and we all have seen what happens to immature singing stars once they hit twenty. They are doing everything they can to stay in the public’s eye which inevitably means humiliating themselves for all of us to see, because the only thing that holds American’s attention more than watching a star rising is watching it crash and burn.

So to our new winner, “Save your money like they won’t buy your records tomorrow, don’t believe what the press writes about you, make and keep your friends on the way up because if you are nice to them today, they will be there for you tomorrow when all the ticket buyers have long gone home and forgotten who you are.”

© Michael Marlin 2007

Paris Hilton & Why We Don't Have Royals

2007-08-01T01:15:00.000-07:00

ON PARIS

It use to be when you would invoke the name of Paris what came to mind was the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Bistro’s, or rude Frenchmen. Nowadays Paris is always followed with, “Oh her” referring to the heiress to the Hilton Fortune who has just landed a stay at the “Big House” where room service is bread and water. Given her flagging ratings in the daily media this is just the thing she needs to bounce back. It didn’t put a dent in Martha Stewart image though she does seem to be decorating more with stripes these days. Jail is now becoming something of a default detox center but in this case it is American’s who will have a break from the Paris Habit.
What made America different than the Old Country is that there was to be no royalty in the New World. Though we said goodbye to Dukes, Earls, Viceroys, Counts, Kings, Queens and Jacks we didn’t rid ourselves of the need of someone more powerful than us who would offer their protection and do our thinking for us. In the old country the royals were groomed, schooled, mentored, tutored to take on the roll of ruling the masses. Sure there was always the odd ball who insisted that the moat be filled with cream cheese but they were the exception to the rule. You don’t need a lineage or breeding to be in front of the adoring masses today, you just need money. Paris may have the lineage of Conrad Hilton but her breeding has only been demonstrated on the internet. American’s have been duped into accepting celebrities as a poor substitute for royalty. Royalty takes years to develop as it requires doing deeds of great merit, casting off barbarians, forging alliances, acquiring lands and grinding the serfs underfoot. Today all it takes is a couple hundred million dollars and it doesn’t matter if you inherited it or made it all selling porn on the internet, American’s will flock to your image and lay tributes at your alligator skin clad feet. What you say or do isn’t nearly as important as how much money you have because with the latter you can buy people’s opinion about what you say and do. In the end you won’t care because even though people may loose interest, your money will continue to make it.
© Michael Marlin 2007

RAINING MANGOS

2007-07-30T00:05:00.000-07:00

Raining Mango

Mango is one of those fruits that just saying the word starts the salivary glands drooling which is foreshadowing to the actual eating of the fruit. A deliciously messy affair that some people only eat them in the bathtub. Tasty though it may be, the flavor last longer than most fruits due to the fact that you will not get it all out your mouth until your next flossing rolls around. I have spent good money on mango and have enjoyed every mouthful until I moved to Hawaii.
My humble little cottage sits underneath three mango trees which are currently in season and the entire place smells like an over ripe smoothie. At night, when walking outside, it is never clear if that lump under my slipper sandal is a toad or a mango, neither making much of a sound when stepped on but there is a tendency to slide a little bit more on the mango. The toad, on the other hand, dries flatter.
The trees are as high as 50 to 60 feet tall and a mango falling from that height has the potential of causing serious injury or death. Killed by a mango?! What could be closer to the absurd than that? But to clarify, it isn’t always the mango landing on your head that kills you, but the fall that subsequently occurs once knock unconscious by this favorite fruit. The dangers are very real as not more than a day ago, I was picking some up when a fruit bomb landed on the ground right in front of me with a hard thud. Had that thud been made from the mango hitting the back of my head, I would have been seeing stars and little birdies.
It was necessary to rig a tarp over my cottage to eliminate the sound of them hitting the roof which had the ring of a front end loading musket packed with squirrels being shot off. In the middle of the night the loud, “BANG!!” would jolt me out of a deep slumber thinking I was in the middle of a drive by dream.
There is a lot of mango falling and at last count an estimated 60 to 80 mangos fall each and every day. And for every mango that falls and is not picked up, 300 fruit flies take up residence to propagate their kind. It doesn’t matter that fruit flies don’t bite, as their danger comes from inhaling them and choking to death. Though there are no recorded incidents of this happening, I have found myself gagging and coughing as the little buggers were going after the mango that was stuck between my teeth.
Unable to process them all, many of these tasty treats end up turning into a brown sloppy mush which I load into a wheel barrow and dump on my banana patch. The ones that are fit for human consumption are collected with a large tarp that is suspended which catches the ones plummeting to the ground in mid-plummet. The entire thing is rigged in such a way that they roll down the tarp and into a waiting trash can lid which would have made
Rube Goldberg proud.
Each morning I gather those precious darlings, place them into a cooler and look around to find buyers or barterers. Though I have been in show business all my life, I can tell you from my own experience that selling my first harvested batch of mangos was every bit as satisfying as standing on stage receiving the applause from an audience. We as a culture are so far removed from where our food comes from that kids think chicken comes from plastic packages and cereal is grown in boxes. But I know that mangos really do fall from the sky.

MORE MONEY IN THE WORLD THAN TALENT

2007-07-28T11:29:00.000-07:00

MORE MONEY THAN TALENT
Take a look around you and you can easily add up the value of thing on your calculator, since you long ago lost the talent for doing figuring in your head. There is my first example. It takes talent to do multiplication and division in your head, it costs a few bucks to buy a cheap calculator. Calculators have become so cheap that they include them on your phone and you can even get them on your watch. Though I haven’t had a reason yet to figure the square root of 4:20 pm or how many minutes I would wind up with if I divided 9:37am by 11:11pm the time may come that I can do that calculation on my watch, but time myself while doing it. I don’t have the talent to do the task but I have the money to pay for something that will do it for me.

There is a talent to cooking, but most of us would rather eat out and spend the money than learn how to make that deconstructed corn chowder that you see on the Food Network or make the Triple Layered Chocolate Flat Line Cake that they whip up in 30 minutes on “I’m Baked!”
Money makes us lazy, but we will work our butts off and our fingers to the bone to get it. Once made, we go out and get the reconstructed surgery for our ass and our fingers and though
funny it is closer to the truth than we care to admit.

American’s work harder and longer than any other western country and Stone Age man had more leisure time than modern man. Then again Stone Age man did not have a closet full of clothing, matching shoes, HDTV, microwave popcorn or lint traps, so who cares that they had more time on their hands, they were bored.

It takes more time to cultivate talent than it does to make money. If I sat down to learn piano it would take so much time to learn it to a level that somebody would want to pay me to listen, say 3000 hours, that in the same amount of time I could have made, (one moment while I use my calculator) close to $20,000 working at a minimum wage job. The likelihood of finding a job as a piano player is very small, so I would probably have to supplement my pay working at that minimum wage job anyway. This is why you can pull into numerous fast food restaurants but really have to look to find a live piano player. We have distanced ourselves from talent and think that it is only others who have it by luck or inherited it. It takes talent to recognize talent and if we don’t have it, we can’t acknowledge it. The sad truth is, we will work harder for money, than we will to cultivate our talents because in the end, few will be able to appreciate our talents as much as our money.

© Michael Marlin 2007

Home of the Brave? Not.

2007-07-21T12:57:00.000-07:00

A Nation of Cowards
My bone to pick today is how the ‘Greatest Nation on Earth’ has become a bunch of gutless cowards. This image doesn’t sit well with the beer swinging, truck driving, macho man view that we have of the American Tough Guy. We fancy ourselves as a Rambo, Dirty Harry, ultimate fighting champions that can take on the entire world yet inside we have been taught to fear our own shadows.
The odds of being a victim of a terrorist attack is less likely than being eaten by a shark, yet we act out our days as if it is an imminent possibility. When our security at airports is frisking shriveled and barely able to walk senior citizens, it is hard to say that we are being brave. Perhaps the security people are thinking that these people have less to live for and a shorter life expectancy so they are more likely to blow themselves up than a young person who has their whole life ahead of them.
But there hasn’t been one case of a little ol’ lady busting down a cockpit door and hijacking an airplane, so what are the odds that it is going to happen? We have been led to believe that our tweezers, corkscrews and nail clippers are capable of being dangerous weapons. We all have learned to ‘toe the line’ and that is not an act of bravery. A brave person challenges the ‘status woe’ and doesn’t act like a sheep.
We fear our food, we fear bacteria, we fear getting laid off, we fear growing old, we fear nudity, we fear the authorities, we fear death, we fear hell, we fear criminals, we fear the strange. We fear for our lives on the highway and thusly justify driving enormous vehicles ‘just in case’ we get into an accident. We are so hooked on fear that we can’t get enough of it for ourselves so we will fear for our children’s safety and our parent’s health too. Fear has us act in two ways. We either cower, thus the word coward, or we act with bravado. To be brave is to be daring, fearless and bold. Bravado is a false bravery rooted in bluster and boasting. We as a nation have cowered to our governments demands on us and acted with bravado towards the rest of the world. When we went to invade Iraq there were a lot of people pounding their chests and acting with ‘bravado’ yet now, several years later, we have no more stomach for an endless war half a world away.
According to our national anthem we are ‘the home of the brave’ but when was the last time you did something that was courageous? Soldiers put themselves into harms way by dodging bullets and roadside bombs but when was the last time you put yourself in harms way besides dodging your boss or a stranded roadside motorist? Soldiers do without comfortable bedding. Can you do without a disposable cup and bring your own? Soldiers bunk with each other. Can you carpool so we can reduce our need on foreign oil that those soldiers are fighting for? Soldiers carry 50 to 60 pounds on their backs. Can you carry the responsibility of a citizen and write to your congressman? Soldiers are sweltering in 110 degree heat while wearing full body armor. Can you sweat a little by turning up your thermostat in the summer and reduce your demand for energy. Soldiers have a tour of duty that is a year or more in a country that is not their own. Can you turn off the television for an hour a week and donate your time the community you live in. Apathy is a good excuse for cowardice. Don’t shrug it off, take it on. Take on the challenges that face all of us by doing your part. A thousand tiny actions by a million people will have a far greater effect that the heroic efforts of a few.
Do you have the courage to ask the person who just threw their cigarette butt on the ground to pick it up? Do you have the courage to face off with another adult when you see they are mistreating their child? Do you have the fortitude and bravery to enroll others once you have been enrolled to save what is left of our planet? It takes no courage to remain in the stands and cheer those who are on the playing court. It takes real guts to get off your ass, to move out of your comfort zone and do something that will make a difference. Just as one person will not solve the problem of litter, neither will one person win the day. Start by asking yourself the hard questions like, “Can I do with a little less while doing a little more?”
What moves a populace to take action is self preservation but what American’s are mostly interested in doing is preserving their life style. Want to show the rest of the world what we are really made of? We can start with a rationing our precious resources instead of gobbling them up like pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving dinner. If American’s cut down on their driving, eating, and spending we will send the message that we are still a determined, motivated, energized people and will once again demonstrate that, “the land of free is really the home of the brave.”
©Michael Marlin 2007

IRONY CHEF

2007-07-06T08:32:00.000-07:00

IRONY CHEF

I love the Food Network, watching somebody else work has become my idea of entertainment. The alternative is watching me work. There are all kinds of cooking shows on TV now from how to’s to don’t do’s. There are offerings for every taste from the backyard griller to the gourmet thriller. The only one that is missing is Irony Chef. This will be my offering to a nation that is already overweight. .
There are 129 million overweight or obese people in this country, 60 million of those that are considered obese and 9 million consider severely obese (American Obesity Association)
Using my own Body Mass Index it would look like this. I divide my weight by my heights and multiply 704.5.
I am 5’ 8” and weigh 150lbs. I would have carry 30 extra pounds to be considered overweight, 50 extra pounds to be obese and 110 pounds overweight to be severely obese. There are 60 million people who are overweight, 60 million obese people, 9 million severely obese. Now this is just based on my body size and weight. By extrapolating my generalizations you will get a whole mess of zero’s behind some numbers, which will look like these people standing in a buffet line. The 9 million people who are in the severe category of 110 lbs over weight there is 990,000,000 pounds of fat. From the merely obese or 50lbs overweight there is 3,000,000,000 pounds of fat on the hoof. From the other 60 million who are just 30 lbs overweight, there is 1,800,000,000 pounds of fat to be harvested. Total this up and you get. 5,790,000,000lbs. Let me spell it out; Five Billion, seven hundred ninety million pounds of F.A.T walking around among us.
The average female Humpback whale weighs 25 tons or 50,000 lbs. It would take115, 800 whales to equal the amount of excess body fat that exists in America, (By the way that is ten times the number of the world’s population of Humpback whales which is around 12,000 to 15,000)

Is it only obvious to me what the Irony Chef should be cooking up? Liposuction is a huge industry. There should be more recipes put in front of the millions of viewers watching how to take a pound of flesh, or in some cases, 110 pounds of flesh and feed a family of five with a variety of tasty meals, but unfortunately not lo-fat ones, through the winter months. We hunted whales to the brink of extinction as the number of Humpbacks once totaled about 150,000 but there are 69 million people who are carrying around between 50 and 110 pounds of fat. Let’s consider this a new energy resource for America and look into ways to harvest all those excess calories and use it to heat our homes, power our cars, light our lamps, and cook our food. Unless these walking energy mines are family or someone we truly love, will we have a problem with asking them to do their patriotic duty and giving the nation what they clearly can do without?
So step up, if you can and do the right thing for your country and your fellow American’s.
There are radical Muslim fundamentalist who have been convinced and now believe that if they blow themselves up they will go to heaven. What do American’s get from blowing themselves up these remarkable proportions? You don’t need to stretch (mark) your imagination to consider a program where people be patriotic and donate their fat to help us reduce our dependency on foreign oil. There are about 270lbs of oil per barrel. We have the equivalent of 21,444,444 barrels of fat that can help American reduce its foreign oil habit for one day. We use about 20 million barrels of oil each and every day. So America Bon Apetit!