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Ye Olde Dixie Sloppe Blogge - 4/27/2006 2:25:54 PM
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JoToP
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At last! My own room. I've never had my own room before. I've always had to share a room with someone throughout my life. Not that I'm currently complaining. I currently share a room with Mrs. JoToP, but that's different and we're not going to get into that here.
Since this is probably going to be a New York Times Best Seller (which is important because there are a lot of people in New York and some of them can read) maybe I should say a word or two about myself. "Guy" (that's one word, and for those of you who are aching for two) "vanilla-bean-icecream-smothering-Pecan-Sandies" (don't you love hyphens?)... and that about sums up the hypostasis of JoToP in a nutshell. I am also known (in literary circles) as the Parenthetical Man (I have no clue why).
Writing is relatively new to me. For the first 16 years of my life, I was what might be called preferentially illiterate. I had an intellectual awakening brought about be Henric Ibsen at the age of 17. Actually, Ibsen had nothing to do with my awakening beyond the fact that when I was reading Enemy of the People, I suddenly saw meaning in the play and realized that I was capable of understanding philosophical stuff. When I explained my discovery to my Lit. teacher, she said that's not what Ibsen meant, that he was saying truth is relative or something. But I didn't give up. At least I got a meaning out of Ibsen, even if it was wrong... and imagine what it would be like if I actually got a real meaning out of somebody, anybody, and it was actually right. So, I gave myself over to reading and studying poetry. I figured it should be twice as easy as studying philosophy because the words only went about halfway across the page, sometimes not that far. I've been reading ever since and the rest is history.
I wrote a book when I was 23, a novel about the end times. Then I didn't write much for years, just notes on scraps of paper that I thought I'd gather together into one major Work someday. I'm still going to do it, even though, perusing through the shoe box the scraps are in, I have no clue what I was thinking when I wrote those notes. Still, it might be interesting and useful. I'll probably call it Federal: Intrinsic? or Corporeal? which is the first three scraps I just pulled out of the box. I'll give a page of it a shot in this Blogge, if I have time and a virus.
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RE: Ye Olde Dixie Sloppe Blogge - 4/27/2006 2:49:31 PM
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JoToP
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Thought I'd take a moment and write up a Bio in case anyone is interested.
I've been with crosswalk for about three years. I live in Georgia and am a member of Covenant Presbyterian Church (RPCUS). We have a little school attached to the church named Geneva Christian Academy (after Calvin's school which was in Geneva, Switzerland, hence the name) and I teach there--- history, Bible, science, geography, government, economics, philosophy... basically anything but math, which doesn’t make a great deal of sense to me. I believe letters and numbers should be eternally segregated and that anything less than 0 doesn’t exist and is therefore irrelevant.
It doesn’t pay much, but it is very rewarding to grow crops of children into adult servants of Christ. On the side, I teach guitar. I’ve been playing for about 30 years (at least I’ve been saying that for several years now). I’ve been teaching for 10 or so and have worked out a teaching method that allows almost all new students to be able to play Paganini’s La Campanella in three months flat (they usually do play it a bit flat, but I’m learning patience). People want results nowadays so marketing gradual products and services is tricky.
I was raised Southern Baptist. My father was a died in the wool dispensationalist and taught us to be as well, but he gave me a bit of counsel that led me away from that view, “The Bible is God’s Word. Believe every word of it and don’t doubt it ever.”
We came up impoverished in Mississippi when the rest of the country was enjoying the watershed wealth of the post-war era. I’ve always believed that at any moment Mississippi will come roaring into the Twentieth Century. I believe it is the only Third World state in the union. Looking back, I should be illiterate, ignorant, and toothless, but something happened to make me love reading and knowledge, though I’m not sure what effect it had on my teeth (I have them all, including four wisdom teeth... which makes, uh, 32? Enough to supply the entire cheerleader squad at U of Ala. We Mississippians give the Alabamans a hard time... ever since they bought those Cheerio from us we were passing off as doughnut seeds.)
What happened was that, at the age of twelve I decided I cussed too much because nobody wanted to engage me in conversation. I also had a bad case of sticky fingers... an endemic problem among the poor. The Holy Spirit laid it upon my heart that I needed Christ, so I did the only thing I knew might help, I started reading the Bible. It wasn’t easy at first because nothing I read had meaning attached to the words (King James didn’t come natural either). Still, I noticed that it effected me, made me want to fight against sin and be “good”. I also started seeing God in the Scriptures. All the presuppositions about what God was like, pictures of the Old Man above and the effeminate Christ faded away and a picture less image of God began to form in my mind that came entirely from the reading of the Word. Years later, when I decided to do a comparative religion objectively to ascertain who had the right thing to say about God, I quickly abandoned the project because I found myself totally unable to be objective... I kept comparing the views of gods and philosophers to this biblical image that the Holy Spirit had taught me and Thor, Buddha, Allah, and Voltaire looked pretty wimpish in comparison.
Slowly, year after year and after scores of readings one thing after another started being mysteriously put together in my head and sense and continuity began to form. I know now that this is the work of the Holy Spirit, exposing us to God and building our faith in him first through his acts and then through his ways. I decided I wanted to be a preacher at age 15 and when I graduated high school (by the skin of my teeth) I went to a Baptist college to study for the ministry. After two years I had more question than I’d gotten answers, so the Lord drove me back into Scripture again. The next few years are the desert, so to speak, I sequestered in a basement level apartment in Smyrna, GA and studied the Bible (worked as a security guard at night). When I emerged (it was because of a girl... we’re married now) I had some funny ideas about God being in control of everything and that God brought out the knowledge of himself from seed through stages of growth in history and that God secured his people to himself with stipulation in the form of covenant and that Christ ruled presently and has already overcome Satan and so on and so on. I called up an old buddy of mine from college and told him about my new ideas and how we could go forth and bring revival to the Baptist church armed with this stuff. He said the Baptists already knew about it, had rejected most of it and that I should read Calvin’s Institutes. I didn’t. I’d heard Calvin burned people at the stake and couldn’t be my kind of people. I got married and left the Baptist Church for a PCA Presbyterian church in Smyrna. From there we have progressed from New School to Old School, I’ve read Calvin since and Servetus got what was coming to him (going to Geneva was a pretty stupid move on his part), PCA, OPC, and now RPCUS. God has been with me all the way.
I should not be here. My highest ambition was to be a forest ranger, dumb like the animals I loved. My ambition to be a preacher was only slightly higher than that. I’ve never liked complexity and ignorance is bliss, but alas God would not have me ignorant and so he has been my teacher these 40 years or so. I have tugged against the yoke madly ( I was not fully civilized until... well... about three years ago maybe— it was coming on, but it hadn’t got there yet. My wife has done a brilliant job with me and I clean up pretty nicely. I think she didn’t marry me for who I was, but she sorta saw promising raw material that she could work with...), but the Lord has pulled the choker on me all along and kept me on that path, Thank You, Lord!! No telling where I’d be now.
When I die, I want it on my epitaph: “He loved the Word.”
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O Rare '74 - 4/27/2006 3:03:20 PM
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JoToP
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I registered in my high school (Joseph Wheeler High School) website as an alumnus a few years ago and haven’t been back since. A few days ago I decided to take a look (had to get my password and ID sent to me). I’m looking around and I’m not seeing anyone from the class of ‘74 (my Grad Year) posting in there, so I’m speculating as to why that is.
I think its because we had such a memorable graduation. It was held out on the football field because Wheeler was pregnant with Walton at the time or something like that. As we sat listening to somebody give a speech (I see his face, but can’t remember his name), it started raining. Remember how many of the women used to do their hair up in what looked like a hornet’s nest? The hair started to fall and spill down over their faces like octopises. It was quite cool. Then we all trudged into the cafeteria and they handed out our diplomas and we went home. My old bud, Sammy said, “Well they said we didn’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain, but we showed them.”
I personally saw it as the perfect graduation ceremony, though many of the girls cried. I think they would have cried if everything had gone off without a hitch, so I didn’t pay much attention. I always hated school anyway... really. When I entered the First Grade, I distinctly remember thinking, “Bummer! I’ve got 12 more years of this to go.” Well, maybe I didn’t think “bummer” because the drug culture hadn’t gotten started full swing in 1961. I might’ve thought, “Clunky!” or “Goofy!” I’ll have to check Manchester on that. I hated school though. Now, I’m a school teacher. Go figure.
Another reason why ‘74 posters are so rare in that website is that we were on split session that year. This set-up was most triumphant! We got out at noon and had the whole day to mess around AWAY FROM SCHOOL. The down side for some people is that we didn’t have that senior bonding time where you do even worse at your grades because you have Senior Privileges, switch girl/boyfriends a half dozen times, go to Panama City together, and perform reverse phrenology on the Freshmen’s heads with your class ring. I’ve often wondered if Wheeler became a quieter, gentler place because we did NOT do reverse phrenology on the Freshmen’s heads. At any rate, we didn’t bond, but drifted apart until our graduation baptism ceremony released us into the world like so many barks on a perfumed sea. That was pretty poetical if I do say so myself. “Barks” are ships, in case you didn’t know, which means that the phrase “Bark up the wrong tree” makes no sense whatsoever. But I digress.
I went to a reunion of the class of ‘74 a few (well...several) years ago, but there was nobody I knew there. A bunch of old geezers crashed the party though, I don’t know how they got in. I guess we ‘74 Classers just never got too close to one another. But we’re out here and alive and well. At least we’re alive. At least most of us are. If you click on my name in the website you’ll see my photo from the yearbook. I look exactly the same as that today, except with less hair... a lot less hair. And I’m a bit heavier though I can handle the weight at my height. Also I have one of those light, oriental attempts at a beard of sorts, which is greying. And my eyebrows are not as clearly defined. Besides that I look just like the picture. I also feel very young... between 2:12 and 3:04 P.M.
...on most Tuesdays.
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RE: O Rare '74 - 4/28/2006 12:35:17 PM
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JoToP
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Our little school is currently carrying on an ancient ritual without which the child is not allowed to pass into the adult world... Worm Dissection. Every year millions of earthworms voluntarily give up their lives in the interest of making school children lose their lunches. :-X As with all bloody rituals, the question is probably screaming in your minds at this very moment, "Why do they call what you park your car on a 'driveway'?" The jury is still out on that one, but I will tell you the origin of Worm Dissection.
It started toward the close of the Middle Ages (which come between the Earlier Ages and the Later Ages [of which we have only had One Age, so far]). It was a mark of True Scholarship at this time to explore the inside of dead bodies, either that or it was the professors of that day's excuse for not getting out much and doing real Exploration to places like the North Pole, the New World, The Northwest Passage, the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau or Our Wild America. Slightly-Post Mediaeval Man was searching for the bone in the heart, which they never found and here's why. As all School Student's learn quickly, there is nothing in dead organisms, but fat. When I went through my personal initiation of dissecting a dead cat at Joseph Wheeler High School in 1972 (often referred to by my more alert students as The Dark Ages), I went to the trouble of identifying and labeling the "organs" in accordance with the neat diagrams provided in my nifty biology textbook. The teacher forthwith informed me that every "organ” I had identified was really just fat.
Now my complaint is that if cats would spend more time doing what they are equipped for, which is stalking and skulking and hunting and pursuing, and less time doing what they really do, which is lying around the house all day only to get up to eat and make wailing sounds in the middle of the night, School Students might not have as much trouble identifying their internal parts after it has been discovered that the cat is actually dead instead of sleeping and it, consequently, has been generously donated to science.
The problem is in the general "scientific" belief that dead organisms have internal parts at all. Why do we make this assumption? Dead organisms don't need organs, so why assume that they have them. The only thing I have personally ever seen in a dead animal was glop. Teachers state authoritatively that a certain particle of glop is a stomach, but I think they are lying just to try and preserve some sense of dignity. They labeled fat when they were in High school, too, they just won't admit it.
Its like Social security and inflation... once they get started its almost impossible to stop them. No full-grown adult is ever going to stand up and say, “I’m mad as heck and I’m not going to take it anymore” with regard to dissections. It has become too deeply ingrained in our collective psyche that dissecting an organism is an absolute prerequisite to normal and healthy maturation. It also serves as a link to our past heritage and pedigree. The Student is asked by his/her sage grandfather “Well, what are you learning in school these days”. “We’re dissecting a rabbit,” is the dutiful reply. “In my days we had to go out and shoot a dog and bring it into class for dissection. Your great grandfather, my father, dissected bison when he was in school. Said he failed the course because of all the fat inside.”
The upshot of all this is that were it not for our dissecting traditions (and I think we know this subconsciously) the earth would soon be overpopulated with nightcrawlers, cats, rabbits, dogs, leopard frogs and bison. The planet would begin to wobble erratically on its axis, the ice caps would melt throwing planetary climates into a greenhouse effect which would result in the end of all life as we know it. So, my counsel to all Students for all time is that they learn to appreciate the little contribution all of us in the past have made to global security and that they joyfully do their part as well so that we may all live in peace and security.
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RE: O Rare '74 - 5/1/2006 1:11:08 PM
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JoToP
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I'm getting some PMs from people who don't seem to be taking me seriously, so I thought I'd share the Poetic Side of myself.
I was inspired to write this when the Georgia Poet Laureate recited a bit of his own free verse. I thought, even an idiot could write poetry like that, so I did.
I’m sure this is over some of your heads, so I have added explanatory notes which you will find at the end. They do that in high school anthologies, so its most academic.
Porcine Meditations
his back to the ground
feet high and waving (1)
toward the ancient relentless sphere
of radiation (2)
he is encased in the primeval soil
which, itself, is co-mingled
with the indissoluble
which, itself, is the universal solvent. (3)
he reflects upon the age
the age of youth
of youth with its bare cutaneous coat (4)
an inextricable shade of red and white. (5)
but, now, it is a steady career
with head down and olfactory
to the warm, moist earth (6)
inhaling, with rough sound (7)
for the refuse
of mankind’s consumption (8)
or taking the liquor
of carefully prepared, culinary processes
from those things
which are not expedient
to the human palate (9)
unto the elements of water and oil
the elements of vegetation
and agents of purification (10)
to the end of which is to grow
to expand
TO INCREASE
AND INCREASE
to increase beyond measure (11)
in order that the Powers
on High (12)
may bring him
to the annual place (13)
the place of judgment (14)
there is in this the hope
the expectation of return
of return to the place
from which they all came (15)
bearing the thin strip
of gilded cloth
itself the hue of the twilight sky. (16)
his Destiny
it is set before him.
He is led away
to be upturned in the shackles
the shackles of the Great Tree (17)
never to know
(for the swiftness of it)
the sudden invasion
of his cranium
of that dull, heavy element (18)
Most oblivious is he, now,
to the workings of the keen edge
the bright instrument of separation (19)
now, separating him into predestined parts. (20)
although he has been sent
to the four-corners
of the land (21)
to places of concourse
places of supply and demand
of merchants
in goods and consumption (22)
his head will soon rest
rest upon the porcelain (23)
amidst a variety of garlands (24)
He will taste the fruit (25)
of which, in life,
he could only taste
not it’s circumference (26)
but it’s center (27)
(1)wallowing,(2)belly up,(3)mud,(4)birthday suit,(5)pink skin,(6)rooting,(7)snorting,(8)table scraps, (9)slop,(10)made of a combination of grease, plate scrapings and left-over dishwater, (11)fatten up,(12)Farmer Bob, (13)county fair, (14)hog contest, (15)go home, (16)blue ribbon prize, (17)the chain hanging from the oak tree limb, (18)twelve gauge slug, (19)stainless steel meat cleaver, (20)bacon, ham and pork chops, (21)trucked out, (22)supermarkets, (23)platter, (24)celery, parsley, chives, etc., (25)apple in mouth, (26)never got a whole apple, (27)only got to eat the cores
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RE: O Rare '74 - 5/2/2006 10:10:07 AM
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JoToP
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(Have Perry Como’s voice in your head as you sing the next line...)
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year (jiggidy, jig, jiggidy, no-dignity, hot-diggity)...”
Yes, me lads and lasses. Its Spring. And here at my residence there is a blossom blooming that is not blooming in any other place on this planet called, Jotopia Sinusia, otherwise known as My Nose. That’s right. I have allergies. The pollen is playin’ waily in my nasal cavity. The sensation is so acute I can map out every fractal of my sinuses on paper and my head feels large enough that a Yankee Clipper could navigate from one nostril to the other with the aid of my coastal charts.
This is indeed the time of that greatest affliction and grossest of irritations, namely Suggested Homeopathic Remedies. Sympathetic people everywhere take one look at my bloodshot eyes and blotchy face and begin the conversation with the words, “Have you tried (fill in the blank with something that sounds like a disease or a belch)__________?” This is invariably followed by second-hand testimonials of some relative, friend, or other victim who has “exactly” what I’ve got, how they took the concoction, and have had no problem with the affliction since (but most likely have gas more than usual). I appreciate these people. They love me and want to help me, but I come from a tradition of people who go off in the woods in the twilight of life, raise their hands to the sky and shout, “Man above. I have done all that I can do.” Then they lie under a tree and die. They just want to be left alone. But I am not a pagan anymore, I am a Christian and a part of the Body, which sometimes means you don’t get to suffer alone like you want to. Getting back to the word “sympathetic” before I go on (which is the first word of the second sentence in this very paragraph); notice that the word “patheo” is the root, which is a mental disorder, then go on to the next paragraph.
There are two definitions for homeopathic (once again, note the root “patheo” shows up again in this word) according to how it is used and to what extent, i.e. “snake oil” and “any medication or medical technique that is not approved by the government, pharmaceutical lobbies, and HMO listed general practitioners”. The latter definition is the most important one because there are many valid reasons to get out of the mainline healthcare system, not the least of which is threat of poverty. The former definition is what I call “filler”, but I must explain the whole system before all this comes together into a meaningful whole.
The truth is that God hid all kinds of herbs all around the world to aid us in maintaining our health, giving us energy, and healing our sicknesses. Occasionally, someone will actually find one of these treasures and mankind is benefitted. But sprinkled in among those few really good herbs there are what I call Specifically Oriented Herbs. I can call it that because its my idea. (That’s the nice thing about being medical outside of the official medical field that is recognized by the Government, you can attach names to all kinds of things that have little or nothing to do with their properties. Snake Oil Businessmen have been doing it for centuries.) Specifically Oriented Herbs (SOH, not to be confused with SOB, which stands for Snake Oil Businessmen) only work for certain people and no one else. It is totally unknown at this time how they are oriented to certain people and not others (mainly because I just proposed the theory and it has not been tested and falsified yet). But the sad truth is that there are probably only about three herbs that actually work for everybody. Homeopathic doctors may know this, so they fill in the blank spaces in their understanding with “snake oil”.
That doesn’t get the Real Doctors out of hot water, though. Regular MDs have a way around saying “I don’t know” too. They just pronounce, “It’s a virus” (having leaked out the urban legend to everyone that viruses are incurable.) The MD just prescribes ibuprofen and sends you packing, while crossing his fingers and hoping you’ll heal on your own, that is, homeopathically or holistically, I never know which word your supposed to use. And I’m not totally convinced that there are any such things as viruses. Its dubious, at best, something that is labeled NOT ALIVE is supposed to cause the most violent pandemics of history, not to mention that they are alleged to be our ancestors... how does that work?
I once went to a Regular MD after having been bitten by a Brown Recluse. I’m quite proud of having been bitten by this treacherous spider of renown. My Uncle was bitten by a copperhead. That is a point of unusual pride, to have been bitten by a copperhead. Not that your supposed to let one bite you, mind. If you see one nearby, you’re supposed to deftly swing your double-barrel 12 gauge to bear upon the serpent and open both barrels at point blank range, leaving nothing but a close-spread birdshot hole in the ground with a reddish-brown tale sticking out and twitching back and forth like a flag of truce. But if you do get bitten, its something to talk about. “I got bit by a copperhead. Nearly died.” That really impresses people, and well it should.
Well, I went to the MD and showed him my spider-bite and he recoiled in unfeigned horror. That’s not a good sign and sets you ill at ease. Its like the time I went on a tour of Ruby Falls which is a hundred feet or so underground, and on our way there, the tour-guide, who was new at the job, had a tremor in her voice as we proceeded. The ground shook at one point and everybody looked at her. She was petrified, pale, shaking, and a tear escaped her eye and ran down her cheek. That’s a bad sign. Luckily, somebody was in the crowd who was experienced and said, “Its just a train” and everybody sighed with relief.
So I’ll stick with my own remedy for allergies, which is a grackle feather. Its totally logical. The grackle being solid black absorbs enormous amounts of solar energy and if you keep the feather in contact with your body the energy leaks into you and brings about healing qualities. It works best with Claritin and helps if you stay in a sealed room with an air purifier. I sell the feathers for a paltry $19.95 apiece.
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Selah - 5/3/2006 7:50:26 AM
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JoToP
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I always start the day reading the Bible and so should you. You never know what jewels you will find or how applicable they may be to your daily existence. Why, just recently I've been deeply involved in a study on the poetical and lyric mechanics of the Psalms and I thought I’d share with you all the fruits of my labors by clearing up an age-old mystery, i.e. the meaning of the word “selah”. Here are a few strong possibilities from various scholarly sources:
The Meaning of the Word “Selah” in Psalms
1. It means “if you don’t know the tune to his Psalm, see L. A. H. (Libby Anne Haskell) the Temple Keeper of the Sheet Music.”
2. It means “second verse, same as the first”.
3. It means “at this point, grab the skin on your throat and pull it rapidly in and out to make a warbling noise as you let the note die down slowly.”
4. It was used as a means for keeping Ephraimites out of the choir, who were notorious lispers. (Judges 12:6 proves this beyond refutation.)
5. If sung with five marbles in the mouth, the word sounds like any Aramaean word and can be used by singers who have forgotten the words to the song.
6. It comes from the an obscure Scythian word which, when broken down, translates “Tseh or þ” meaning “suppress” and “lua-ch or Œ” meaning “the trumpet” and was a signal for the experienced players in the brass section to stuff a towel in the horns of the teenage member who tended to blat out sour notes in fanfares. Then again, the Scythians couldn’t write, so this is somewhat speculative. In fact, it isn’t the case at all.
7. Related to #5, it actually means “watermelon.”
8. It was a signal to fire off the Temple bottle rockets. (Selah backwards is Hales, Hale being the A.D. Eighteenth Century inventor of rocket fins). Then again this is an anachronism, but should be looked at as prophetic in nature... particularly since there were no rockets in Israel at this time so that the singers made an anticipatory guttural sound in imitation of a rocket. This was usually done by the Boy’s Choir.
9. It actually has no meaning and it is silly to look for one. Does “la, la, la” have a meaning? And “la, la, la” is even a direct cognate of “selah”. (This interpretation, in my opinion, is driven by the rationalistic school of psalmody and betrays a decidedly avant gard attitude. I do not personally subscribe to this view.)
10. Another view of the rationalists is that it means “a grain of salt”. They spuriously use the passage 2 Kings 14:7 to back up this ridiculous imposition. I suggest you take #10 to a ... selah.
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RE: Selah - 5/4/2006 1:50:04 PM
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JoToP
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Poetry is a craft. It isn’t always easy to find the right words that convey the meaning intended by the artist. Here’s an example I found in Edgar’s wastebasket. The first is the finished product. The second part reflects the struggles Poe had in actually crafting this excellent work of verse.
To Helen
By Edgar Allen Poe
Helen, thy beauty is to me
As those Nicean barks of yore
That gently o’er a perfumed sea
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas, long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.
To Marcy Jo Nancy Gertrude Helen
By Edgar Alan Allen Poe
Marcy Jo Nancy Gertrude Helen, thy pretty face good -lookingness voluptuousness beauty is to myself I Edgar me
As those Cretan Mediterranean triremes Nicean rowboats ironclads steam... na-a-ah barks of a long time ago back then in the old days yore
That in dead calm lightly at a snails pace gently o’er a smelly odoriferous aromatrocious perfumed sea
The dog-tired pooped weary, high-mileage wayworn traveling man hobo vagabond vagrant wanderer rode on got in heaved over the rail of bore
To his own hometown native beach sandy place in front of the ocean shore.
On choking stressed-out wavy desperate big watery place seas, long want won’t wannabe wont to get outta Dodge walk-about make tracks roam,
Thy reedy yellow flower-looking haystackish hyacinth hair, thy looks like an old, cracked vase painted antique classic face
Thy wood-nymphy Naiad attitude ‘tude airs have brought me to the house where the heart is home
To the shinyness bright-like-the-sun-ness glory that was grease lard tallow Greece
And the hugeness lotta marble columns around... yech grandeur that was place ruled by Italians I am so-o-o tired I could use a Caesar Salad right about now A-a-a-ah ferget about it. I'll finish it tomorrow.
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Instrumental Composition - 5/4/2006 2:45:34 PM
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JoToP
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I was browsing through the teen section recently and there was a thread inviting teens to share their poetry and songs. Seein’ as how I’m not a teen by a long shot, I kind of felt left out because I have just recently written a song. I’d like to share that song with you all. Here goes:
Oh! It doesn’t have words. Its an instrumental I wrote for guitar. Its quite cool! It goes like this...
Title: New Song I Wrote in E minor and Haven’t Thought Up a Name For Yet
(Pause and set fingers on the strings)
Em: doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay,
C: doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay,
D: doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay,
Am: doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay,
Repeat above with different thumb positions played hard in a sort of Bomming sound
Em: bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay,
C: bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay,
D: bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay,
Am: bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay, (kind of slows down here)
Run up to the 1st string (E) and play rapid triplets:
deedl-ee, deedl-ee, deedl-ee, deedl-ee, deedl-ee, deedl-ee, deedl-ee, deedl-ee,
Its kind of Spanish.
Various chords: iddle-ee, oddle-oo, iddle-ee, oddle-oo, iddle-ee, oddle-oo, iddle-ee, oddle-oo,
Some other chord with the thumb wrapped around grabbing the 2nd fret and the pinky hanging way out on the b string: weedle-DEE, weedle-DEE, weedle-DEE, weedle-DEE, weedle-DEE, weedle-DEE, weedle-DEE, weedle-DEE, (its kind of syncopated)
Mute all strings and run the pick raw over the strings: chakutta, CHAKutta, chakutta, CHAKutta, chakutta, CHAKutta, chakutta, CHAKutta,
Drum the edge of the guitar with the thumb and middle finger: bokkatta, bokkatta, bokkatta, bokkatta, bokkatta, bokkatta, bokkatta, bokkatta, tokatta, pogatta, SLAK!!
Silence and count to 15.
The End, What do you think?
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T.H.E.Y. and the Titanic - 5/5/2006 2:25:08 PM
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JoToP
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About every third day of the week, JoToP, jr. comes swinging in from college with a new jewel of information from Higher Education that begins with the authoritative phrase, “They just discovered....” The cycle begins on Wednesday, then Friday and since I forbid him to impart such secular knowledge on Sunday the next installment should fall on the next Tuesday with the next tid-bit following on the Thursday after that with the next cycle of knowledge beginning on the following Monday, then Wednesday and so on it goes as long as there is no break in school to throw off the pattern, which there almost always is. In this academic era when Summer Holiday has been reduced to July 17th between 2:00 and 5:34 p.m. barring Snow Days, the holidays are spread out through the school year throwing off JoToP, jr.s information cycle so that it appears to be totally random, although it would otherwise, in fact, move in a logical and unerring pattern which it doesn’t, but it would if all things were equal, which they aren’t.
The authority, I think I mentioned (but I’m not wading through all that to find out) is “They”. In case you don’t know yet, “They” is actually an acronym for They’re Here to Entertain You and is closely tied to T. H. E. M., The Hair-brained Egg-headed Men. It is a government bureau of specialists called Theyologists who have little better to do with their time than to spend precious tax dollars trying to figure out what would have happened if things in the past had not happened the way they did, but would most certainly have happened in another way until Themologists figure out how it would actually have happened and in doing so both justify their existence in this world while going over budget and thereby ensuring that their slot in the Federal Budget for the next fiscal year will be raised.
Today, J.j. burst into the house and announced, “They just discovered that if the Titanic had not broken in half it wouldn’t have sunk”. Now, my first mental picture was of Disney World trying to secure all rights to running cruises into the North Atlantic so that tourists can take pictures of a colossal ocean liner bobbing up and down like a wine bottle with a silhouette of Mickey Mouse painted on the side. Then, I remembered a documentary in which a whole nuther set of T. H. E. M. sent expensive robots three miles down to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and found the Titanic resting peacefully on the bottom next to a toilet while a new species of deep-sea shark glided by with a nose shaped like Oklahoma. After painstakingingly photographing the Titanic over an imaginary grid provided by yet another T. H. E. Y., the National Geographic Society, which specializes in finding imaginary lines all over the earth which ordinary people walk right past without ever seeing, the guys with the robots were able to conclude with absolute certainty that the Titanic first capsized nose down, broke in half, then sank to the bottom of the sea. They even had Proof in the form of computer animated cross-sections of the ship filling up with water in the front part of the ship that sailors call the bow which explains why it went nose down. “Bow down” is not a snooty, arrogant way of describing the way the ship went down like “nose-down”, which sounds somewhat like “nose-gay” which is a flower often worn by snooty, arrogant people. And since the Titanic couldn’t have even been sunk by God, it is understandable why no one would want it “bowing down” to him as it sank. The logic is as straight and true as a boomerang, but has little if any bearing on this article or the purposes for which it is being written, as far as I know.
What this new set of Theyologists have determined beyond all doubt is that there is no reason beyond the fact that the ship broke in half why it is not still floating vertically to this day. This proves that I have not got the slightest knowledge of hydrodynamics whatsoever, because I am under the obviously deluded impression that when you fill up the inside of a ship with water it will sink whether it breaks in half or not. Its clear that I have still much to learn in this life and I for one am glad to live in this age and in this land where They are around to keep me educated and to break me free of all my silly presuppositions— the ones They put in my head in the first place, if I rightly recall.
As for the ship sinking, it has been my impression, ever since I saw the documentary by the robot guys, that when the back-side of the ship known as the stern to sailors came up out of the water, the weight of the ship was more than the structure of the ship could handle and that is why it broke. That made perfect sense to me. There was a heavy thing in that section of the ship called the engine that probably helped to contribute to the break, but I suppose, according to the new research, that the ship would not have broken had the engine not been there. That would have solved quite a number of problems, if you think about it, because if the engine had not been there, the ship would have been nearly in England at the time when it would have been sunk. The reason is that it is pretty slow-going rowing a ship that big, but then oars are pretty light weight and probably will not contribute to excessive stress on a ship that is nose-down due to having its entire bow flooded with water.
Looking back and armed with these new insights we can see clearly that the Titanic shipbuilders should have been more careful how they built the ship. They should have constructed a humongous crane that could pick up the ship and tilt it at various angles to see that its structure could support its weight however it might be tilted. If OSHA had been around, they never would have gotten the ship out of dry-dock until they had done just such tests. In fact, I expect any day to hear that OSHA has gotten the latest report on the Titanic and is drafting regulations that require that newly constructed ocean liners should not have engines at all. While they’re at it, they’d better see to it that warships never carry explosives, since so many sinking warships during World War II were reported as having blown up before they sank. In the meantime, I can hardly wait until Tuesday week to find out what They’ve come up with next. JoToP, jr. is on Summer Vacation, so the cycle is broken all to pieces, probably due to excessive stress in the back-side.
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RE: T.H.E.Y. and the Titanic - 5/15/2006 12:02:43 PM
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JoToP
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I’m teaching Shop to the Co-op.
Hey! That rhymes, but since I’m thankfully NOT teaching them literature I’ll pass on by.
My boys are 10 years old, so they are reasonably manageable. They’re good boys, but even good boys are tricky around tools. Especially this particular breed of boys most of who’s (should that be whom’s or who’s? Glad I’m not teaching Lit.) dads are things like Salesmen, Actuaries (whatever that is), Accountants, and various professional monikers using the word “Software”. They’re the dads who dress in Handyman Garb from Armani’s to go to Home Depot in order to buy a Makita cordless drill and three auxiliary battery packs with a nuclear charger module for the purpose of tightening a screw on a cabinet hinge. The tool is kept in an environmentally controlled case on a shelf next to the peg-board in the spotless garage out of sight to the sons, who are completely unaware that their father is what Society calls “handy”. {I personally think Society needs to subdivide men into three categories: Handy, or Manual, meaning one who works with his hands and is familiar with all types of tools and their usage and is possibly Hispanic; Fingery, meaning one who is adept at using the tips of all fingers for keyboards, mice, and Makita triggers; and Thumby, meaning one who is able to navigate a remote with one hand.} But the truth is that a man chooses against being “handy” when he forsakes the world of hardware for that of software, thereby transferring from “handy” to “heady” or “fingery” or “eye-y” or anything other than making use of hands. Not that there’s anything wrong with this arrangement, but I do notice that it raises certain unusual concerns in the Moms.
Every week the Homeschool Moms are waiting outside my classroom door with First Aid kits. I try to assure them with such sensitive comments like, “Don’t worry! God gave your son more fingers than he really actually needs.” but that doesn’t seem to help because they realize that, behind the closed door of the Shop Class (which they keep calling Home Maintenance to try to soften the blow) is the guy from Mississippi with their sons and various instruments that have Blades. It may be because I had to address one Mom in particular who does not allow her boys to play with toy guns and will not allow them to own a pocket knife for fear that they will get a cut. I wisely pass by the toy gun issue and get to the pocket knife issue which is, in my opinion, really serious. Boys and pocket knives is an absolute necessity for keeping balance in the Force. What I have to get past is this idea that getting cut is a bad thing. Getting cut on a pocket knife is not a bad thing, it is a ceremony and a learning experience. I have never heard of a boy dying of pocket knife cut. But it doesn’t matter how many times you tell a boy to cut away from himself, he will become wiser than you and decide for himself that he must cut toward himself in order to get past the Notch. The Notch is a test of boyhood, to see if he was listening. It is difficult to glide the knife past the Notch in the “away” direction and yet it increases the force on the knife in the boy-preferred “toward” direction. Once the Notch has been overcome the built-up force propels the knife into the divinely constructed meaty flesh at the tip of the thumb. Ceremonially, the afflicted boy will drop the knife, turn white as a sheet, scream or shout, cry and run to his Mom. Most boys have cut their thumb. All of them are alive today (except those who have passed on due to other issues such as old age or what-have-you). Most of them have been cutting “away” from themselves ever since the Thumb Ceremony of Blood. Those who are not Actuaries are actually passing this lesson on to their sons. Those who are Actuaries are teaching their sons how to cook pasta.
The problem with Genteel Boys is that tools are a total novelty to them. Once they know they are going to wrap their fingers around a motorized drill that is actually plugged into the wall, they nearly wet themselves in heart-racing, trembling anticipation. This is a very dangerous condition and the most tricky part of the teaching procedure is trying to get some sort of control over the boy, who is more charged than a whole six-pack of Makita batteries. I’ve considered Riddlin, but since I can’t spell it, it probably would not be wise for me to administer it. So I only install no bigger than 1/16th inch drill bits in the drill. You see, while a particular boy is drilling, his friends are sword fighting, one with a square and another with a Phillip’s screwdriver. The boy drilling cannot stand the fact that youthful male jubilee is going on while he is laboring over his boring lessons and is forevermore swinging around with a spinning drill bit; he has not learned to relax his finger while checking out the fun. This has the potential of resulting in a second navel to one of his mates, so I have taken the precaution to see that the threatened mate walks away with a harmless 1/16th inch neo-navel. This is better than what he’d get with a 1 ½ inch Forstner bit in the drill.
So far, no blood has actually touched the floor, so I consider that this class has been, overall, a complete success. Next week, we’re going on to the radial arm saw. I haven’t decided whether I’m actually going to turn it on or not, it depends on how intense the Moms are in the crocheting class for girls. Which, by the way, is a very dangerous occupation. I keep telling the Moms that if they keep it up somebody’s going to get ****ed by a needle.
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Alternate Energy Source - 5/16/2006 8:47:21 AM
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JoToP
Posts: 761
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I have an idea for an incredible invention which promises to shake the very foundations of Modern Industrialism as we know it, but I can’t even find a hammer. (In case you all didn’t know it, a ball-peen hammer is Tool # 1345B in Chilton’s General Auto Repair manual under the section Tie Rod Removal and Replacement.)
I have an idea for an Alternate Energy Source vehicle. People are talking about alternate energy all over the world which goes to show how narrow-minded people can be. Its time to break out of the box and start thinking about Borrowed Energy Sources. | | |
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