Tomatoes and Flamethrowers

Dear Hank
Re: Tomatoes and Flame Throwers
June 30, 2006

I hate to start drinking this early in the morning but I just might have to.
My neighbor might drive me to it.
I was out on a walk yesterday and there was his freshly planted garden with pretty little marigolds along the edge and big fat stemmed tomato plants along the back edge. Those tomato plants were held in place with 1x2” stakes six or eight feet high.
Now that’s really unnecessary.
I mean come on. They may get that tall but do you think it’s appropriate to flaunt it in your front yard like that?
I might just have to get out the old flame thrower and pump it up. Might just take a stroll. I wonder what my neighbor will think when he see those burned chards of tomatoes and marigolds blown back into the bushes with a few of those big fat stems clinging perilously to their twist ties? I bet that will make him think twice about flaunting his garden in the front yard.

I gotta go.
Later,

Titanic, I’m sorry, connections, pieces, artistic vs technical, fear of tech, mind dump

Dear Hank
June 13, 2006
Re: Titanic, I’m sorry, connections, pieces, artistic vs technical, fear of tech, mind dump

I have a projector that plugs into a computer. It’s left over from my days as an instructor. Twice in the last month I have responded to requests on our community listserv asking for the use of a projector. Both times I have received responses which I would categorize as “I don’t know anything about all this technology.” In one case the person concluded with “When I get closer to needing it can I call on you?” (in this case to project a movie) and in the other case the response was “I’m too busy to learn any new technology and it seems Rick won’t be around to do it so we better keep looking.” This was a request to video for several hours peoples’ memories and to show a one and a half minute DVD; I offered my projector for their use in showing the DVD. In both cases I tried to explain that the projector plugs into the monitor port in one’s computer and the other end has three RCA plugs color coded red, yellow, white that are just like the plugs on any standard electronic game that kids play off the TV screen. This was too much technology.
I have just finished rereading Robert Pirsig’s Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; a book I claim to be modeling my own work after. In it he spends a great deal of time talking about his friends, John and Sylvia Sutherland, a couple that have their own motorcycle who accompany him and his son part way on Pirsig’s journey across the west. Pirsig discusses people’s fear of technology and uses as an example John’s and Sylvia’s complete ignorance of how the cycle works and their unwillingness to learn or even want to learn. He finally realizes that it’s not that they can’t learn but they don’t want to learn. The reason he concludes is that for them the motorcycle represents an escape from all those annoying details of their everyday life and they want to be free of them when they are on the cycle, learning about the cycle would open the door to all those worries. This leads Pirsig to conclude that there are two ways of looking at something, two realities, and that Western thought is divided into these two camps: one is artistic and one is scientific. One looks at the world the way it is in the here and now, the other looks for underlying explanation. One “grooves” on what is, the other explains what is as underlying form and function. Neither is an incorrect way of viewing the world, just different, - rarely do the two met; for someone entrenched in one of the worlds, it’s hard to see the other reality.
I have also read recently a good explanation of what technology is and its effect on society. Technology is something new enough that all the kinks and bugs haven’t been worked out yet, the standards aren’t set. The example this author used was cars and then computers. Cars were the new technology in the first half of the twentieth century. By the mid 1960’s all the bugs had been worked out, one car was as good as another, once that happened cars ceased to be technology and became a commodity. Computers are going along a similar path; all the bugs aren’t worked out, therefore one could argue they are still in the technology phase.
Another point here is about Edison, he invented the movie camera. He had the first movie studio where he produced cinema movies no longer than a minute and a half because he said no one would sit still longer than that. It wasn’t until the movie camera was ripped from his fingers and given to the artists that the movie industry was born. This is an example of something moving from the scientific world to the artistic.
There’s more but I gotta go.
Maybe tomorrow.

Garbage Disposal Reality TV

Dear Hank:
June 4, 2006
Sorry I haven’t written in a while but, as you know, I’ve been busy. There is a lot to talk about and I have to get to it or my head is going to explode, which makes me think of Raoul Duke and Doonesbury and the fact that I had a little more wine than I should have last night. I have once again come to the stunning conclusion that if I drink less I’d feel better and when I do indulge too much drinking water before going to bed is a very good thing. Of course one of the problems is that when I was younger I could drink more and it didn’t seem to affect me as much. Now, while I think that is true it might also be the case that my memory is faulty and I just think it didn’t affect me as much. (Or is it that I wasn’t bright enough to know that it affected me that much?) In any case the thought that I can unconsciously drink as much alcohol as I want is just not the case and this means that I must exercise conscious restraint and that is a concept that to most boy/men is not one – well, foremost in their minds, especially when they drink. Ah me adult life…

But on to more important business, The Washington Folk Festival. The Washington Folk Festival is at Glen Echo Park this weekend. As we live just up the hill from the park that means that our street will be filled with foreign cars, people who have the inside skinny on where to park close by without getting in the clogged full lot and not willing to park miles away and depend on the lame-o shuttle bus to get them to the event. It will start again this morning at about 9:30 with the arrival of the oddly dressed people. I wonder where these people are the rest of the year? Probably at Civil War re-enactments or Renaissance Festivals. The typical case is the woman in the dress that hangs from two straps at the shoulders. The dress has two large buttons on the front and no styling whatsoever. It goes down at a slight angle to just above the ankles where one can see the white socks and sneakers. Said person is usually holding a plastic bag or two with fruit in it. and typically, she’s got curly kinky hair pulled back into some sort of pony tail or French Twist, glasses – often times with a bejeweled neck cord. The other case is the guy, often accompanying said two button dress lady, with the pair of shorts that are way too short and the legs have creased gaps at the bottom. You just hope he stays standing up so you don’t see anything drop out and look at you. He frequently has disheveled hair, wire rim glasses and like the lady seems not totally there in the moment but is looking for reality a few inches in front of his nose.
Later on come the Oh, kids, this will be fun Mom or the Come on Honey Daddy only gets to see you every other weekend father and daughter team. By mid afternoon you get the never stops talking woman with the hands in the pocket Uh-huh guy who looks like he’d rather have a root canal than walk another step down the hill toward this event. (Maybe he just wants to ditch the broad and hit on some babes and knows he can’t and he wouldn’t succeed anyway so he might as well stay where he is?)
These kinds of situations bring out the “badness” in me. I’ve toyed with asking these folks embarrassing questions or handing out things that look like tickets, putting them on windshields (Maybe even tell them to pay $25 to someone – like me – but I think there is a law against that kind of behavior.)
On to more things to speculate about. Here’s a new one. What’s that lump in the garbage disposal? I know you’ve probably never faced this problem as you either have never had a garbage disposal, or if you did it never worked or you never had indoor plumbing or some such thing. But there are two problems that one can typically run into with garbage disposals: one) they can jam, two) something just bounces around and won’t get chewed up – like a rock or one of your mother’s good silver spoons (the edges get chewed and the handle gets bent but that’s about the time you realize that thing whirling around and sticking out of the disposal’s throat isn’t something you want to try and grind up.)
Well, this morning I got the old something is bouncing around in the disposal noise and I investigated. This means I turned off the disposal and stuck my hand in the rubber throat and felt around. I found what appeared to be a ball of twine. Now that’s odd to have such a thing in the disposal; sometimes the little plastic pot scrubby thing gets caught in the disposal and gets partially chewed up but this was different. It made me realize that usually one knows what the thing is that got caught in the whirling disposal, but not this time. This was cause for concern and rampant speculation. What was it? Did someone sneak into the house and put it in the disposal? Was it a pit that got shredded partially? Do we even own a ball of that old brown hemp twine that this looks to be a part of?
I finally gave up and sat it in the sink for Shelby to look at. I wasn’t going to throw it away until I knew what it was; I mean, it could come back again couldn’t it? This kind of paranoia is what has made this country great and I wanted to contribute my psychic share. Maybe, I could start a whole series on one of those high numbered cable channels that no one watches. All you need is a video camera that can record in that off green low light condition – a la Blair Witch Project – and you need someone who stands too close to the camera lens and talks to the camera. Typically, this position is filled by a young woman with a plain oval face and long black hair or an earnest guy with wire rim glasses. They stare into the camera as you can see two or three people hunched over a kitchen sink.
EARNEST GUY: Hello and welcome to another episode of Sink Trap. Today we are in the home of Thomas Becker. He called us to report an odd thumping noise in his disposal and we’ve sent in our team of Garbage Disposal Extraction Experts to investigate. While they get ready to “Go Deep” let’s talk with Thomas. Thomas?
THOMAS BECKER: (a mousey guy with glasses much like Earnest Guy) Yes?
EG: When did you first notice this phenomena?
TB: When I turned on the disposal.
EG: What did you do next?
TB: Turned it off.
EG: Why?
TB: It was making this weird thumping noise.
EG: Really? (As this interview has been going on there is a lot of activity and techno speak going on in the back ground as the GDE Experts are readying themselves for the extraction.)
EG: (to the people around the sink) Hey fellows, and you too Missy (Note: You need to have a woman screamer around and that’s Missy’s job.), Can we get a listen to that sound?
Expert 3: Yeah (flips a wall switch, and you hear the disposal start up with a banging sound. Flips switch off.)
EG: (to TB) Is that it? Is that the sound you heard?
TB: Yeah
EG: What do you think it is?
TB: I don’t know that’s why I called you folks.
EG: (to the team of experts) What do you think it is?
E1: Well, were not sure, could be lots of things. Could be a scrubby or a bat or a ball of string. It’s hard to say.
EG:  a bat? It could be a bat? A vampire bat?
E1: Oh yeah and with those teeth and their poison you could scrape your hand the venom could seep in and you could be dead before you could remove your hand.
EG: My God! This is serious.
E1: You’re darn tootin’.
EG: Yeah, I’ll say. Good thing you called us Tom.
TB: (nods head)
EG: Well it looks like our team is ready to make the plunge.
(Camera zooms in on sink where Expert #2 has just snapped the edge of a thick rubber glove and is about to put his hand in the disposal.)
EG: Mike, what’s going on?
E2: We’ve done everything we can to prepare I’m going in (Sticks hand in disposal)
EG: What’s going on?
E2: My God.
EG: What is it?
E2: Huhhh, oh my God.
EG: Mike! Mike! What is it?
E2: I don’t know but it’s nasty.
EG: Can you get it out? What is it?
E2: I don’t know but it’s real nasty.
(E2, Mike, pulls hand out of disposal and up in the air. Something fuzzy is in his hand. The arm goes above the camera frame. Then back down into the camera’s range. There’s something fuzzy in Mike’s hand. He yells. Missy screams. He throws the thing against the far wall whereupon someone starts squirting it with a fire extinguisher and two people beat the area with brooms amid much screaming. Now, white foam is flying around and our Earnest Guy is still yelling “What is it?” Missy is screaming and there is much flailing of brooms, fire extinguishers and foam.
Finally, someone reaches into the foam and finds a gnarl of kinked plastic threads. Lifting it up the camera zooms in as it is turned from side to side.
EG: My God, what is it?
E1: Looks like it is, or was, a plastic pot scrubber.
EG: Oh, but it could have been a vampire bat?
E1: Absolutely.

I finally looked at the ball in my sink and figure out it was the flayed leaf or two of a corn husk from the night before.

Life goes on.

Later, I gotta go.