Humor?

  • What's My Line?

    What's My Line?

    They don't give you much to work with here at the new, not so improved Xanga 2.0 do they? Oh well, such is life. I'm not here enough to complain much and I'm not likely to be here even if they did offer anything close to an alternative in the world of blogging.

    Why am I here at all? Good question. The other day someone messaged me and told me I looked hilarious (or something like that) in the profile picture. I'm here to explain it. It may take a while so get comfortable if you're interested. If you're not, what are you doing here? I had asked some friends to tell their favorite joke while I shot video of them. They did and then I edited the raw video, added music, various sound effects, titles and pictures to add some punch to the final production. When I had all of them finished I invited everyone over again and showed them the videos. They were really funny and we all had a great time.

    Because I never could leave well enough alone I asked them to redo the jokes, in light of what they had seen, to see if they could improve on them. Okay, so that probably was pushing a little too much. Fast forward to about a month or so later. We were set up in my living room with a green screen in the background so I could later add some effects to the video. Bad idea. The original jokes were simple and straightforward. The new jokes turned out to be a production to match The Ten Commandments in complexity.

    One of the girls brought props and several costume changes. It was so complex she couldn't remember her lines in what used to be a joke, but had turned into a major production. She was playing a Veterinarian so she had a stethoscope, those strange glasses with the fake nose and mustache, and a cigar. As she was going through her bit it was so stilted that I put all the stuff on and tried to show her some different ways to loosen up in the delivery of the lines. While I was doing that someone in the room took the picture that I've used as a profile picture. They thought that was pretty funny. That's the story of the profile picture. Now I'm going away again.

  • Travel

    Travel

     

    People hear I'm going on yet another trip and they get all,

    ooouu, aaahhhhh, it must really be great to travel all over the world the way you do.

    Just for the record, for the umpteenth time, No! It's not! Not for me anyway. I keep wanting to say,

    If you like to travel so much why don't you go?

    That wouldn't be any use because fantasy doesn't have any bad travel stuff in it. There are no TSA officers who've had way too many bad days in a row. There are no delayed or canceled flights, no twelve hour layovers in the lovely Dusseldorf airport in the middle of the night when everything is closed but it doesn't matter because you only have two Euros and no place to exchange your nearly worthless Yankee dollars for some gone-too-soon-is-that-all-I-get Euros. Oh, did I fail to mention there was a guy with a jack hammer tearing up the floor all night while I tried to sleep on a line of six chairs with my arms entangled in my luggage so it would still be there when I awakened from my sorely needed beauty rest? Yeah, travel, by all means. See the world. I live in a very beautiful part of Southern California. I've been to a lot of places and trust me when I say with Dorothy, There's no place like home. There's no place like home.

    So, where is it this time? Seoul, South Korea. I kid you not, I got a phone call the other day from a guy, and when he heard where I was going this time he said,

    Wow! That's really great. I've always wanted to go to Seoul. It's one of my top ten gotta go to destinations.

    What's wrong with me? I've never had even the slightest desire to travel to Seoul. Is that because of watching M.A.S.H. all those years? Is it because when I was a child the Korean War was raging? Is it because I don't want to eat kimchi, that three thousand year old traditional Korean fermented taste sensation? No, it hasn't been lying around for three thousand years. People have been eating it that long. In a perfect fantasy I'd be like this James Bond character traveling around, staying in the finest luxury hotels, winning millions in fancy casinos, driving really expensive sports cars with world class beauties vying for my attention and eating in the most upscale restaurants that would make your average person blush to see the prices they charge for two shrimp, three carrots, a sprig of parsley and some colored sauce they squirt artistically on the plate. The only part of the James Bond fantasy I get is the bit where people want to kill me. Oh! you say, how exciting. Again, fantasy is great because there's nothing to oppose you in a fantasy, and even if there is, it's there because you can overcome it and come out all the more fantastic. Nothing at all like real life. Is it any wonder we spend so much time in fantasy and day dreams?

    Twenty days may not seem like a long time to be away from home, but when you're my age you don't know how many twenty days you may have left. The truth is, at any age, you don't know how many twenty minutes you may have left. The fantasy is that you can pretend you're going to live forever. Death is something that happens to other people. No, I'm not afraid of dying in a plane crash or any other way for that matter. Life is a lot more unpredictable than death and a whole lot less certain. When four a.m. rolls around Tuesday morning and you're snuggled in your warm bed, dream about how wonderful it is to drag your bags to the airport, go through the always long and tedious security check because you have an artificial leg that always sets off all the alarms and brings a rush of TSA officers to have you assume the position while they wand you, pat you, question you, swipe your clothes and bags with little white patches they then stick in a special machine that tells them if you've got anything on you or your bags that could be found in b*mb fixings. Right. I can't even type the word let alone say it. Travel. I'm not even going to tell you what happens when I get there. Why? I don't even know until it happens

  • Whoa

    Whoa

    Is it me or has it really been nine years today that I signed up on Xanga? Who remains from those early years who still talks to me? I can't think of one. There are those who didn't talk to me then who do talk to me now after having a change of heart. Yay! Changes of heart are good. Having been dumped for many different reasons can leave one feeling like Humpty Dumpty. Well, except for the fact that I've learned to bounce rather than shatter. It would be difficult to make some of the dumpers understand how grateful I am to them for the numerous opportunities they provided my delicate ego. Opportunites that I may not have embraced the first or second time around but opportunities that eventually were taken and applied. Thank you one and all! Yes, I know you couldn't have done anything other than what you did but if that applies to you it must also apply to me. I can't do anything other than be grateful and thank you, even if you're not here to read it. That's not what it's about anyway. It's not for you it's for me.One of the wonderful things about being the center of the universe is that everything gets to be about us. *swoon* What could be better than that? Well, to be fair and honest, depending on how we take that can be the difference between bliss or hell. Having had just about enough hell for one go round I'm learning the bliss method. Amazingly a little bliss goes a lot further than a lot of hell. It seems we can't get our fill of hell while bliss is something like stevia. A little bit goes a long way. We don't have to invent a blissometer to measure our resistance to bliss anymore than we'd have to invent an infernometer to measure our ability to pass through the eight million four hundred thousands levels of hell. No, I didn't make that number up exactly. The number existed before me. It's application in this way is new to me today.

    As Bob Hope once said, Thanks for the mammeries.

     

  • Jetsam

    Jetsam

    Yes, this is the same jetsam of jetsam and flotsam. Jetsam is the cargo or equipment thrown overboard to lighten a ship in distress. It sinks to the bottom. Flotsam is what floats. It is my intention to leave the jetsam at the bottom of the sea. I'm an educator and I believe what Mark Twain had to say, Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig. Jesus said, Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. Having been an educator a number of years I've verified the veracity of the above sentiments on numerous occasions. I've learned. It is senseless to keep pouring when you encounter a full vessel. My style of educating has changed a good bit over the years. I used to believe you could educate a person. Now I don't have much time for beliefs. What we get we get through struggle or it means nothing to us and we soon lose it. It was never really ours. There is a distinction between knowledge and understanding in my alternate universe. The need to explain, convince, debate, argue or get agreement has become less and less of an urge.

    A number of people suggested I prosecute the person who vandalized the site. There was a time I would have suggested the same thing and done it. That time for me has passed and I don't look back at it longingly. A couple of people asked if they could get tickets to my alternate universe. Of course you can. If you can pay the price of the ticket. My experience has proved to me there are few willing to cough up the ticket price. This tells me they don't really want to go on the ride. Oh, they want to go on the ride if it's free or cheap, but not if it's an expensive ride. Since this ride costs everything you have it is the most expensive ride in the park. There are no lines but lots of waiting. It can be fun but the ride isn't really about fun. It's about something more. It's not for everyone. In fact it's for a select few. Who selects those few? Well, they do, of course.

    On to what I'd like to happen. There are a number of you who are quite good at web design. There are fewer who are good at web design and also read here regularly. There are even fewer who may have a unique idea for James' World. I'd be interested in your ideas, thoughts, images. What I'm looking for is a new look that represents my alternate universe. Of course it looks different from one person to the next. My view will be completely different from someone else's view. If you'd be interested in taking a shot at it let me know. I tend to go for a minimalist look, I think. On the other hand I may be whacked out and only think I do. I've got so many ideas floating around in my head I don't quite know where to start. Contrary to popular belief I'm not really into Zen. I've practiced Zazen and read volumes on Zen, Buddhism and various philosophies of the same nature. The system I practice is not so popular. To say it is obscure and esoteric would be an understatement. I take no offense at being labeled as zen-ish. I accept it as the compliment it is meant to be. Thank you. So, please let me know if you have some ideas and if you're willing to put legs under them or not. Also let me know your terms. E-mail me if you'd like. You can also find me on AIM.

James

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