50 Years of Angst

Cynical blogging about life and existence at 50.

[angst50]

Rip Tides and Undies

The way to financial success today is to not create anything at all.

Or that seems to be the way, anyway.

Someone has to plant the potatoes...

So I'm playing the stock market, and my daughter's planning her AI fitness/yoga model.

[truly-tacenda]

[mewsique]

what do you wish for?

[angst50]

'Infinity constructs your own life' 

http://www.wisdomofchopra.com via @WisdomOfChopra

[angst50]

Lights From A Camera

I wanted to post my favorite personal photo of all time on Facebook for my daughter, with a "Merry Christmas!" caption. I only have an old print, so I took photos of it with my smartphone. To my dismay, the camera flash 'ruined' all the photos. I took a closer look before binning them, though, and decided I liked these better.

[angst50]

The Hand of Fate

©Chazspain 

Logo from a screenplay I wrote a million years ago...

[chaosophia218]

Plato’s Theory of Forms. Plato’s Theory of Forms or Theory of Ideas, holds that forms (the abstract quality or property of something) exist independent of Space and Time. It asserts that non-material abstract (but substantial) forms (or ideas), and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of Reality.

Forms are:

Transcendent - the forms are not located in Space and Time. For example, there is no particular place or time at which redness exists. Pure – the forms only exemplify one property. Material objects are impure; they combine a number of properties such as blackness, circularity, and hardness into one object. A form, such as circularity, only exemplifies one property. Archetypes - the forms are archetypes; that is, they are perfect examples of the property that they exemplify. The forms are the perfect models upon which all material objects are based. The form of redness, for example, is red, and all red objects are simply imperfect, impure copies of this perfect form of redness. Ultimately Real - the forms are the ultimately real entities, not material objects. All material objects are copies or images of some collection of forms; their Reality comes only from the forms. Causes - the forms are the causes of all things. They provide the explanation of why any thing is the way it is, and they are the source or origin of the being of all things. Systematically Interconnected - the forms comprise a system leading down from the form of the good moving from more general to more particular, from more objective to more subjective. This systematic structure is reflected in the structure of the dialectic process by which we come to knowledge of the forms.

[angst50]

The Choice to be Grateful

Reading the NY Times on a Sunday morning, I came across a sort of  Thanksgiving screed..., written by one Arthur C. Brooks. I submitted the following to the comments section. I have changed/added some of the phrasing since then, but the essence is unchanged: I've found gratitude to be a product of age...I'm 53 years old.  A few examples... --I'm still alive, watching the sun rise and set each day. A number of my friends, family and acquaintances have died from drugs and alcohol, accidental death and disease. --My innumerous blunders and failures have made me grateful for the lessons they have taught me; my successes have been gifts to be savored. --Kindness shown to me and offered to others have become self-evident in the joy and richness they reward me with. --Loving deeply, employing quiet meditation, and living in peace with others has allowed joy to naturally seep into my life --As the superficial pleasures of shiny objects fell away, I could not fail to see and appreciate the intense, awe-inspiring beauty of plants, animals, mountains, sea and sky. Simply gazing at the beauty and absorbing the bounteous energy of a nearby tree has turned around many a day in my life. Gratitude, which also includes preservation--of the gifts of nature that literally nurture us--clean air, water and earth--are not only keys to enriching our life, but also giving forward to those that come after us, creating an unseen harmony with all that exists, both inside and outside us.

[angst50]

Nature's Flashlight

Oh, mystical, magical moonlight Nature's Flashlight What size batteries do you take? Bathed in your celestial light No instruction manual In different languages With lots of typos Tides recede before you Who holds your receipt? Where is your remote? Is there a limited warranty? Ineffable, untouchable Rarified and untariffied No coupons No markdowns Unreturnable Crappy space junk!

[angst50]

Mallorca, August 2015

[angst50]

Top 10 Infinite Items For Teens

1. Household items like paper towels, toilet paper, shaving cream, shampoo and conditioner... 2. $20 bills in dad's wallet 3. Gatorades in fridge 4. Gasoline in car 5. Mysterious kitchen-cleaning elves

6. Pairs of sneakers needed

7. Fertility (for additional baby brothers/sisters) 8. 24/7 parental car service 9. Clean, folded towels within reach of shower 10. Weird people staring at them at any given time

[angst50]

The 50 Years of Angst Theme Song

[angst50]

Little. Tiny. Moths.

No use dallying, equivocating, soft-shoeing, or hiding the truth with high-falutin' phrases...just gonna spill it.

Indefatigable: 

Plodia interpunctella.

This summer I had dozens--if not hundreds--of moths living in a camouflaged sleeper-cell in my house. Daily they alit without fanfare on a low ceiling, patiently waiting for me to grab the nearest fly swatter and smash the living bejesus out of them. Didn't just buzz in from outside...there was obviously an exogenic source, from somewhere in that dark, dank, Hobbit-like lair. Yes, the food pantry: that self-same breeding portal where unloved soup cans and jars of weird pickled stuff go to expire and die. I suspected trouble in the grains. Perhaps the randy procreators were fornicating in one of the expensive, gorpy cereals my children tentatively tasted and passed on (Lucky Charms and cereals with similar hauteur were always consumed in less than a day). Maybe they birthed in our luxurious assortment of exotic nuts, expiration dates spanning geologic eons. Or from the tumultuous assortment of Far East pablum, milled exclusively for people with no teeth—exorbitantly priced pouches of organic couscous, bulgar, quinoa, fair trade lentils, millet and ho-hum sorghum.

The crackers could be guilty…my son's tried-and-true method was to knock off nine-tenths of a sleeve, bequeathing the remaining also-rans to posterity. Quite the selection: multigrains in reassuringly simple, geometric shapes; flavorless standards like Melba toast and water crackers; gluten-less flatbreads, some really old matzohs, carbon dated back to the Dead Sea scrolls. And of course, all the alternative snacks that were a healthy decision to buy, but entirely too boring to eat: rice cakes, veggie/banana chips, dried mango slices…

Perhaps the moths were sugar junkies, sired and bred in the innercity, ghetto section of our cupboard: adolescent bughood in the tawdry glare of powdered Nesquik, oil barrel-sized iced tea mix, talcy brownie mixes, caustic cupcake powders and chemical-laden cake compounds.

Refreshing, economical and packed with nutritional larvae.

Let's not forget the poorly clasped, colicky bags of seeds and supplements...failed and forgotten saw palmetto, pumpkin and flax to supposedly aid my 50-year-old prostate; scary sesame seeds, stored in plastic bottles that could double as swimming pools for toddlers if sawed in half; suspicious looking black, beedy-eyed celery grit. So many possibilities...our pantry was a virtual Sodom and Gomorrah for licentious, horny anthropods. Not only moths thrived in this utopian ecosystem. On the pantry floor sat open bins, where aggressively sprouting potatoes busily rooted themselves into the fiber of worn linoleum. White, yellow and red onions merrily formented, with orbiting TTBs (Teeny Tiny Bugs) hovering overhead in fetid clouds. Killing field cloves of garlic tragically imploded in on themselves, recoiling into their own hoary skin, living proof of the horrors of fision--well, maybe not, but still--totally gross. All of these aforementioned alien tuberisms sported an added grace: brownish ooze--a viscous goo possessing the most noxious smelling odor in the known universe.

Leaving the scene of pantry waste disposal.

Whatever object that ooze touched was cast out immediately, far from home and hearth. I dumped tasteful, fake-antique crates from Williams-Sonoma; revered nesting bins from Bed, Bath and Beyond; pretty clay bowls snuck past customs agents years ago... So why not don a fashionable Hazmat suit, employ a mean-ass, contractor-grade garbage bag and throw away absolutely everything? What do you think I am? Some kind of wasteful, ugly consumer/ part of the problem/children are starving somewhere/landfill-loving maniac? Maybe one of those sundry items wasn't infested. Throwing away perfectly good food is a sin. Just ask my mom...

[angst50]

The Problem Solver

Everything was gone from my house--all our crap from the first two floors, overflow items from the vacant basement apartment, plus ancient stuff from a 70-year-old attic...even detritus from the backyard shed. But there was one implacable object that wouldn't budge. The piano....an upright motherfucker that a pro piano tuner had years ago declared untunable and unworthy of further investment. It was my mom's favorite inanimate object of all time, but really--unsentimentally--it was literally the 400-pound beast in the room.  I needed some added muscle to get this sucker out of the house.

" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-56a2wLfODyM/VDVSxtQcljI/AAAAAAAAEFE/tcVLlDBbMxU/s1600/Double%2Bsmall.png" height="246" title="upright piano" width="640" />That yellow harp inside can break a man.

When I moved out of the house a month earlier, I hired immigrants standing outside Home Depot; they walked out on me. Two Ecuadorians: one tall, around 30; the other perhaps a little older, short and chubby. They wanted $130 each, but I wouldn't budge...$100 for five hours of labor--two of those hours being travel time. After 10 minutes of haggling, they agreed to take the hundred bucks. They hopped in the 16-foot rental truck, and we were off. I was relieved; I could only afford the truck for one day, had taken a risk on unknown labor and besides, the forecast was for heavy thunderstorms. It looked like it was going to start pouring any second. I speak pretty decent Spanish, and tried to make conversation on the way to my house, asking where they were from, how long they'd been in America and how they liked the Bronx. They merely looked down, muttering curt responses. Finally, I gave up. After all, I didn't have to be buddies with these guys. That's when they started complaining... "I don't know, Señor Charlie...not a lot of money...." Their attitude and overall shitty vibe was starting to irk me. "We haven't even started yet! Stop complaining, we made a deal." I showed them the work to be done. After making two trips down the steps with bureaus, the tall one said, "We can't continue for less than $130." I looked him unflinchingly in the eye; I didn't like these guys at all. "I'll go right back to Home Depot and get two other men. I'm not paying you any more money." The chubby one handed back the gloves I had lent him. The tall one said, "We want to work tranquilo." They walked off without another word, leaving my daughter's chests of drawers in the middle of the sidewalk, the heavens about to open. I stood there in absolute shock, watching them disappear down the street. On the drive over, they had been discussing how far we were from the subway...I figured that's where they were heading. There was no easy way to get back to Home Depot...they were going home, probably to watch soccer on satellite tv. They never had any intention of doing real labor on a Sunday. How I made out the rest of my moving day is an inspiring testament to perseverance, strength and sheer will--in other words, it's boring--so let's revisit the friggin' piano...

" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bKuEI58Vf9Q/VDQOzf78mhI/AAAAAAAAEEs/sIgtWKajctk/s1600/sawed.jpg" height="237" title="Chainsaw piano" width="320" />Awaiting the grim reaper/NYC sanitation dept...

I wasn't thrilled about another go with immigrants, so I tried the opposite route--hiring not only legal workers, but specialists. I called a piano company in the South Bronx that had a moving department and warehouse for storage and disposal. They wanted $500 to take it away, even though I told them they didn't have to be polite with the instrument, could throw it down the stairs for all I cared. Didn't matter to them. $500, dead or alive... The next day I was back at Home Depot, but with a different purpose... I explained to the guy in the rental department about the monster in the living room. "Know what you need?" I shook my head. "A guy with muscles bigger than my head?" "A problem solver. Know what that is?" "A guy with both brains and muscles bigger than my head?" "Sledge hammer. No messing around with one of those." I pictured myself clumsily swinging the  crude tool, launching splintered shards of wood into my calf muscle. However, the chain saws on display were sleek and powerful... A half-hour later I had the chain saw at the ready, waiting to tear into the tender flesh of polished mahogany. Once I touched saw teeth to piano there was no going back. The instrument would never play Chopin or Chopsticks again. I pushed the thought out of my mind and squeezed the trigger. The deed was simultaneously effortless and brutal--in less than a minute the piano was cleaved in two.

I examined the remains. The upright part of the piano contained a cast iron harp, which held the strings taut. It was machined into the backing with about 30 screws, most of which refused to budge. The sucker was still too awkward and heavy for me, even with the hand truck I had rented. The beast had gotten the best of me.

I was standing outside beside the keyboard half, a defeated look on my face. My neighbor pulled up in his van, asking what was up. He took pity on me, calling his 22-year-old son and bringing over a furniture dolly from his garage. Together the three of us grunted, groaned and coaxed the upright spine down to the street, step by step. When we dropped it on the pavement, it emitted one last, cacophonic crescendo...

The long arm of the memory.

I cried a little on the way home, thinking about how much my mom loved that piano. But I did keep a memento...

[angst50]

The Earth Orbits Around The Sun Every 365 Days Hoax

I 'officially' turn 52 in two weeks, and have decided this has gotta stop, here and now. Whatever idiot designed this whole 'add one more, every twelve months' system is really pissing me off. I have a feeling one of those credit score agencies dreamt the whole thing up to make money, so I've been following up. I've scoured conspiracy forums on the internet for leads, but haven't found the correct thread, which proves beyond any doubt that a conspiracy exists to hide the conspiracy. Can't fool me...

When I was 29 and 11 months, I tried putting my arm out several times a day--like a crossing guard signalling STOP--yet I turned 30 anyway. Because I was a mealy-mouthed wimp, I put up with the charade. But no longer. Figure if I can't debunk what I call, "The Earth Orbits Around The Sun Every 365 Days Hoax,"  then there must be a product I can purchase on the internet that will prevent this from happening. Some kind of Scotchguard that I can spray myself with, or maybe the furniture or the dog. Something to stop this infernal, annoying and utterly unnecessary 'year older' nonsense. Sorry for the rant, but someone had to say it...

[angst50]

Name Your Band Day...

[angst50]

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.   His house is in the village though;   He will not see me stopping here   To watch his woods fill up with snow.   My little horse must think it queer   To stop without a farmhouse near   Between the woods and frozen lake   The darkest evening of the year.   He gives his harness bells a shake   To ask if there is some mistake.   The only other sound’s the sweep   Of easy wind and downy flake.   The woods are lovely, dark and deep.   But I have promises to keep,   And miles to go before I sleep,   And miles to go before I sleep. ______________________ My mind lives in those woods....

[angst50]

Other Things To Sleep With.

The scenario: Right side of queen-size bed, now vacated by spouse.

Recently discovered storage space.

Replacements for breathing human being:

All blankets/sheets not currently employed

900 page hardcover book I've lost interest in

Empty ice cream bowl

Laundry, not yet sorted/put away

Hammer, still unhung wall picture/clothes peg

DVD too lazy to put in player

Unread mail/flyers/brochures

Glasses, keys, cellphone, wallet, loose change, gum wrappers, other contents of pants pockets

Unrealistic To Do list for tomorrow (excerpt: Find new career)

Dog...forget it, pal. GET DOWN! Down! Down!

Pillows in various shapes and sizes

TV remote control to knock off bed while asleep, sending batteries flying