Sunday, July 20, 2003 - A few years ago, Arizona
decided that Highway 666 was too controversial
and changed the designation to 191. New
Mexico still proudly displays the 666
badge though. Segue. Great bar bet. Supply
the missing lyrics. “Flintstones,
meet the Flintstones. They’re a
modern stone age family. From the town
of Bedrock, they’re a page right
out of history. Let’s ride with
the family down the street ___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___ ___.” Or, a more daring
bar bet. Slap down a twenty and bet someone
you can say all fifty states in 60 seconds.
Once they slap down their twenty, you
smile and say “all fifty states,”
grab the money and run like hell “through
the courtesy of Fred’s two feet.”
Monday, July 21, 2003 - The curious images materializing
behind me these days are from the book Lost
America by Troy Paiva who feels “There’s
nothing more American than an abandoned
car, whether its an atomic age finned ‘space
craft’ rusting peacefully in a field
25 miles from the nearest town, or a bulbous
postwar hulk sitting up to its door handles
in weeds behind an abandoned gas station,
or an unidentifiable wreck laying on its
roof in a culvert, peppered with buckshot.
These relics from a bygone era are possibly
the most obvious examples of our disposable
culture. Rotting wherever they died, these
dinosaurs are now only pathetic ghosts of
the gleaming pride and joy that they represented
to their owners.”
Tuesday, July 22, 2003 - The feature presentation begins
and the film is out of focus. The mob shouts
“Focus!” to the projectionist
in the soundproof room. Anthony J.
D’Angelo screams “Focus 90%
of your time on solutions and 10% of your
time on problems.” Mark Twain hollers
“You can’t depend on your eyes
when your imagination is out of focus.”
Edward de Bono yells “Cleverness is
like a lens with a very sharp focus. Wisdom
is more like a wide-angle lens.” George
Steiner shrieks “A chess genius is
a human being who focuses vast, little-understood
mental gifts on an ultimately trivial human
enterprise.” Ralph Charell yelps “Avoid
the crowd. Do your own thinking independently.
Be the chess player, not the chess piece.”
Wednesday, July
23, 2003 - Some guy solving Blaine’s
$100,000 Challenge wrote “Throw
me a bone, here!” I replied “The
femur.” He wrote “How about
putting some meat on it?” I replied
“KFC drumstick, original recipe.”
That ended that. William Congreve teaches
us “He that is first to cry out
‘stop thief’ is often the
same one who has stolen the treasure.”
Miguel De Cervantes, by way of Don Quixote
de la Mancha, poses “When life itself
seems lunatic, who knows where madness
lies? Perhaps to be too practical may
be madness. To surrender dreams, this
may be madness. To seek treasures where
there are only tricks! Too much sanity
may be madness, and maddest of all is
to see life as it is and not as it should
be.”
Thursday, July 24, 2003 - The Stonehenge Gazette asks
“What’s the shortest book in the world?”
and answers “The Book of Teutonic Table
Manners.” H. Jackson Browne explains
“Good manners sometimes means simply
putting up with other people’s bad manners.”
Clarence Thomas clarifies “Good manners
will open doors that the best education
cannot.” Edmund Burke observes “Children
are natural mimics; they act like their
parents in spite of every effort to teach
them good manners.” Rita Mae Brown
realizes “You can’t be truly rude until
you understand good manners.” And Lin
Yutang summarizes “If you can spend
a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly
useless manner, then you have learned how
to live.”
Friday, July 25, 2003 - Paul Gauguin orates “The
history of modern art is also the history
of the progressive loss of art’s audience.
Art has increasingly become the concern
of the artist and the bafflement of the
public.” Steven Wright interrupts
with “The early bird gets the worm,
but the second mouse gets the cheese.”
Further, “Depression is merely anger
without enthusiasm.” Not to mention,
“Ambition is a poor excuse for not
having enough sense to be lazy.” Add
to that, “I intend to live forever
- so far, so good.” Moreover, “If
at first you don’t succeed, destroy all
evidence that you tried.” Also, “The
hardness of the butter is proportional to
the softness of the bread.” And, “Two
wrongs are only the beginning.”
Saturday, July 26, 2003 - Bill Vaughan sniffs “A
citizen of America will cross the ocean
to fight for democracy, but won’t
cross the street to vote in a national election.”
Ross MacDonald sneers “Nothing is
wrong with California that a rise in the
ocean level wouldn’t cure.”
Sebastian sings “Under the sea! Under
the sea! Nobody beat us, fry us, and eat
us in fricassee. We what the land folks
loves to cook. Under the sea, we off the
hook. We got no troubles, life is de bubbles
under the sea!” And Ogden Nash ponders
“I think that I shall never see a
billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps, unless
the billboards fall, I’ll never see
a tree at all.”
