Best Experienced With: Alanis Morissette; You Oughta Know
(Please right click the link below to open the suggested background music to this evening’s gathering in a new browser window. You really should open the song if you normally just read here because the Godzilla slippers move to the music and the sing along aspect of this evening’s get together is pointless without the music. Unless you sing really, really well a cappella. Not just in your car, because everyone sings well in their car…I mean that you truly sing well a cappella. Few can.)
Was driving around Oregon this morning listening to Alanis Morissette and, for obvious reasons, thought of three things. First, a new goal for the next twelve months is to sing You Oughta Know at a karaoke bar. A punk version of You Oughta Know, channeling Sid Vicious. Second thought while listening to Alanis whine about her break up was that before the week is up the Mind of Mully needs a get together on Nashian economic models and traditional gaming theory’s role in bargaining and negotiating. Come back Thursday or Friday if you’re interested in gaming theory and fractals.
Third, and most important, we have not had a sing a long up here in months. Please get in a big circle and let’s have an Alanis sing along. Those of you without rhythm, please follow the Godzilla slippers. Thanks, Ty! Animation by Ty…….slippers by an underwater nuclear disaster + a lizard……..music by Alanis relationship angst…….inspiration Route 205 boredom. Go.
I want you to know I’m happy for you
I wish nothing but the best for you both
Blah, blah, blah, blah
Is she perverted like me
Would she yadda yadda yadda yadda, yadda?
Does she speak eloquently
And would she blah blah blah
I’m sure she’d make a really excellent mother
‘Cause the love that you gave that we made
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah
And every time you speak her name
Does she know how you told me you’d hold me
Until you died, ’til you died
But you’re still alive
And I’m here to yadda yadda yadda
Of the mess you left when you went away
It’s not fair to blah, blah, blah
Of the cross I bear that you gave to me
You, you, you oughta know
You seem very well, things look peaceful
I’m not quite as well, I thought you should know
Did you forget about me Mr. Duplicity?
Yadda, yadda, yaddda, yadda, yadda, yadda
It was a slap in the face how quickly I was replaced
And are you blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?
‘Cause the love that you gave that we made
Yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda
And every time you speak her name
Does she know how you told me you’d hold me
Until you died, ’til you died
But you’re still alive
And I’m here to yadda yadda yadda
Of the mess you left when you went away
It’s not fair to blah, blah, blah
Of the cross I bear that you gave to me
You, you, you oughta know
‘Cause the joke that you laid in the bed that was me
And I’m not gonna fade as soon as you close your eyes
Blah, blah, blah
And every time I scratch my nails down someone else’s back
I hope you feel it…yadda, yadda, yadda
And I’m here to blah, blah, blah, blah
Of the mess you left when you went away
It’s not fair to yadda yadda yadda
Of the cross I bear that you gave to me
You, you, you oughta know
And I’m here to yadda yadda yadda
Of the mess you left when you went away
It’s not fair to blah, blah, blah
Of the cross I bear that you gave to me
You, you, you oughta know
Best Experienced With: Delta Spirit; Bushwick Blues
(Please right click on the link below to open the suggested background song in a new browser window. That’s a heck of a song. I think my cousin Bo Koster helped Delta Sprit out on this tune. My cousin Bo is an immensely talented musician. Was blessed with one heck of a family and one heck of an appetite for malt beverages)
The Bonnie & Clyde litter: June 24 to August 28, 2010. Started with quite a few, some got adopted by God very early on….ended up with a great pair. They are available for adoption as of 4:40 p.m. today at the PetSmart in Point Loma, California. Take them as a pair and they’ll make you laugh like a hyena all day long. Scout’s honor.
(adopted by God early on…and playing with catnip mice in heaven)
somewhere i have never travelled
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
e. e. cummings (1894-1962)
love is more thicker than forget
love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail
it is more mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea
love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive
it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky
e. e. cummings (1894-1962)
may my heart always be open to little
may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old
may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it’s sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young
and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there’s never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile
e. e. cummings (1894-1962)
Bonus Sales & Marketing Negotiating Lesson: Was going to carry this to the grave, yet am feeling magnanimous this evening. Going to share this tonight and not take it to the grave. You are welcome. There is a well known and much written about concept in negotiating strategy called “walk away power”. If you are in sales or marketing, you have the full accountability and responsibility for negotiating for your company.
Taken as a given, you should always negotiate from a position of strength. If you are not negotiating from a position of strength you will most certainly make a bad deal for your company and will not enhance shareholder value. As a sales and marketing professional, your job is not to get orders. A monkey can get orders and a monkey is far less expensive than you. Your job as a sales and marketing professional is to get the right orders: the orders that enhance shareholder value. Anyone can say “yes” to everything, it takes a business professional to use the power of a positive “no” to make the right deals and increase company value for your shareholders.
Walk away power is the ability to stand up during any negotiation, politely thank the other party and confidently say “I am sorry that we cannot agree on __________ and I am choosing to end this discussion. Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you and I wish you the best of luck in everything you do.” Then, just shut up and leave. When you lose your walk away power, you have effectively lost objectivity and your ability to balance the needs of your company. Furthermore, whatever negotiation choices you make will be bad ones. Your choices and your concessions will not enhance shareholder value. Best choice is to leave.
Here’s what I was going to take to the grave. I have never lost my walk away power in any negotiation and have left the room many times over the years. 90% of the time, have been called back to the table the next day because the other party will respect you far more if you make good business decisions during the the course of the negotiations. Standing up and politely leaving will get you far more respect than stammering “but, but, but, but” and then dropping your price for the thirteenth time. I can hire a slew of trained monkeys to make price concessions each time a purchasing person states “that’s too expensive” and, as mentioned earlier, monkeys are low cost alternatives to a professional sales team.
I have not fostered litters of kitten for fourteen years because I am an animalitarian. I have fostered litters of kittens for fourteen years because they make me laugh like a hyena and dropping them off at the adoption center on the last day makes me the strongest negotiator you will ever meet. If you bottle feed one week old kittens through to twelve weeks and are able to turn your back on the picture directly below this and walk out without looking back, you will never have trouble standing up in a negotiation and saying: “I am sorry that we cannot agree on __________ and I am choosing to end this discussion. Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you and I wish you the best of luck in everything you do.” Have never had trouble walking away from a deal and have negotiated very few poor deals from a position of non-strength.
That’s the offense, sales and marketing professionals. Go get yourself hooked up with a local rescue group Monday morning and find yourself some puppies or kittens to foster for ten to twelve weeks. Start honing your negotiating skills and building up your walk away power. You have my word that each time you drop off a litter your walk away power skills will grow exponentially. Thanks for visiting tonight and enjoy your animal rescue adventures and negotiating adventures in the future.
(Friends of County Animal Shelters (FOCAS) adoption center…August 28, 2010. Bonnie & Clyde moving on up..)
Best Experienced With: Saul Williams; List of Demands
(Please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music to this evening’s gathering. A banging little song by Saul Williams. Very tasty tune.)
The midterm elections are upon us and shaping up to be the most amusing and least substantive elections in the history of mankind, dogkind, or sheepkind. Moreover, the blood bath is shaping up to be the best the world has seen since the 1520 Stockholm Bloodbath. Clearly defined expectations from minute one tends to alleviate conflict down the road. Off with her head. Please pass the popcorn. Thank you.
List of Demands: Career Adventure Partners
Work hard
Work smart
Learn something new each day
Say what you mean and mean what you say
Put your family before your career
Increase shareholder value
List of Demands: Significant Others
Make me laugh
Challenge me
Teach me things
Say what you mean and mean what you say
Tell me who you are
Enjoy the rye toast and popcorn I cook for you
List of Demands: 2010 Political Office Candidates
Educate the children
Increase available jobs
Say what you mean and mean what you say
Take care of the disenfranchised and dispossessed
Tell us what you believe
Tell us what you are going to do
List of Demands: Saul Williams
He wants his money back
He’s down here drowning in your fat
He’s not afraid of you
He’s just a victim of your fear
If you ain’t dead, just sing along
Bang and strum this here drum
Ecstasy suffering
Echinacea buffering
We aim to remember
What we choose to forget
God’s just a baby and Her diaper is wet…………..
Rick Scott…put on your helmet, you evil bastard. I’m moving to Florida next week and am the write in candidate who is going to take you down in the gubernatorial race. See you soon. Bring your “A” game and some Nu-Skin.
Best Experienced With: Lyle Lovett; Private Conversation
(Please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music to this evening’s celebration on my father’s seventy-third birthday in a new browser window. Thanks for joining. Yes, there will be cake later on. Yes, it is red velvet cake and yes, there is a tub of extra frosting….like there should always be at any birthday celebration)
My father turned seventy-three last week. In the 1950’s, his doctors told him he would be lucky to see forty. This is my father’s belated birthday card. I love you and, perhaps more important, I love who you led me to be as a man.
Right out of college you get the worst interview questions from the worst new managers. Mostly because you are right out of college and that’s all you really deserve. My interview questions these days are far more advanced than they were twenty years ago. These days, I lead with “Steven William Hawking states ‘my goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.’”. “Please analyse Mr. Hawking’s statement in relation to what you know about quantum physics, quarks, and Hostess snack cakes.” Then I generally just sit there, gnawing a pen for fifteen minutes repressing a smile.
This, in comparison to the first interview question I asked a surgical sales candidate years ago. I asked: “it says here you live in Indianapolis….do you like it there?” That was the strongest interview question in the tool kit back then. May have even followed it up with something like“I hear it’s pretty flat there around Indianapolis.” I was a brilliant and talented interviewer in those first few years and it is a wonder anyone chose to come work on my teams. Further proof that God takes care of fools and The Irish.
99.6% of the managers with whom I interviewed right out of college asked “Who are your heroes and why?” Because most of these new mangers seemed dim and unsure of themselves, was often tempted to answer; “Felix the Cat, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and Idi Amin”; however I was desperate to actually land a career and amass the vast amount of wealth needed to buy Ireland back from those English bastards by 2043.
My real answer was always; “My father, because he is the strongest, smartest, and most determined man in the universe.” Am certain that others may have answered the same, but mine was the only correct answer because I am an only son and my three sisters have never interviewed for the same jobs as me.
At one end of the freedom and discipline spectrum are the black hooded, trust fund funded, cowardly anarchists. At the other end of the spectrum is my father. His powers of perception are remarkable, his heart would dwarf Jupiter (even at close range), and his withering “angry stare” would make Genghis Khan quake and timidly look down at his shoes. Kicking the dirt and nervously whistling.
Interviewing, especially the first round of interviews when you are under a time crunch, is like a Dante version of speed dating. Sometimes I will see eight or nine candidates in one day, three days in a row, to find three candidates to bring to round two. This is exactly like dating proportions, especially if your fickleness level is off the chart. Since we all make our decisions in the first three minutes of meeting anyone, often the last fifty-seven minutes are not going to change the interview outcome. When this happens, in dating and interviewing, I will often ask the following four questions because they are remarkably entertaining and massively time consuming.
Please tell me everything that has happened in your life from second grade through this afternoon. Do not leave out any details. You have fifty-seven minutes. Please begin.
Using this blank piece of paper and this purple crayon, please square Pi and show all your work. Please begin.
Please explain the Marshall Plan in detail, including the goals, the execution of said goals, and the long term effect the Marshall Plan has had on the post war, civilized world. Please begin.
Same as number three, but please say it and write it in Mandarin and Cantonese because we all need to know Chinese these days. Rotten, commie bastards. Please begin.
Last weekend, after I extolled the many virtues of choosing to not have a girlfriend for the last two years during a phone conversation, my father said the following without missing a beat. “I’ve been dating the same girl for forty-six years and I love it.” When my father and I speak, it is on speaker phone because he can no longer hold the phone. Mom was in the room. Mom giggled.
My father walked my older sister down the aisle at her wedding and he danced with my mother at the reception, standing on his own. 99% of the population can say the same thing and, normally, this not unique. Fifty-one years ago today, on summer break from Michigan State in 1959, my father was working at a meat packing plant in Muncie, Indiana. Towards the end of the day, he got his neck stuck in a freight elevator. As it closed. The elevator gates crushed his C3 and C4 vertebrae and severely bruised his spinal cord. Dad was paralyzed from the neck down for four full months.
His physicians in Indianapolis, Indiana told him he would never regain use of his arms and legs while he was on one of the first Stryker turning frames. Most of my business life has been spent tethered to Stryker Corporation. God is a funny entity. Stryker Corporation saved my father’s life four years before he met my mother, introduced me to many of my closest friends, and bought my house. God is a funny entity.
My father learned to walk again after seven months and spent the lion’s share of his adult life standing upright. My father is a big man: 6’4” and 280. The best descriptor of his gait from a disinterested third party would be “he shuffled” and that description would be spot on accurate. And, most important, my father never appeared self conscious about his walking ability. How can you be self conscious when a bunch of jackasses told you that you would never walk again, meet a wife, and have four children through Immaculate Conception? Because my mother and father never did that dirty sex stuff that your mother and father did.
Immaculate Conception all the way.
My father was unable to walk all three of my sisters down the aisle and today, much like Charlie in Flowers for Algernon, he has reverted back to his physical condition from fall of 1959. Unlike Charlie in Flowers for Algernon, my father gets wiser and stronger each day. Physically, he is unable to lift ether arms past his shoulder and his hands quake when he eats. Mentally, he has never been sharper and he loves being alive to see his children and grandchildren each day. Although he hurts 24/7 and has lost most of the physical capabilities he fought so hard to regain decades ago, none of us close to him have ever heard a complaint.
Why? Because my father is as strong as a thousand armies and as soft as the petal on a long stem rose. You’d be hard pressed to meet another man like my father in this universe or any other universe.
My father taught me to maintain a laser focus on the critical things you want in this world. While interviewing to get into surgical sales, I worked at Bennigan’s restaurant and went 0 for 53 in my first 53 interviews for a surgical sales position back in “the day” Cannot pinpoint whether it was the “I work as a waiter at Bennigan’s” answer, the “yes, I am a twenty-five year old with less than thirteen minutes of surgical sales experience” answer or the “yes, I was terminated from Pfizer for calling Vietnamese hookers to the room next door to mine at the Pfizer corporate condos on night 28 of a 30 day Pfizer training program because God wanted me to drink beer and laugh like a hyena” answer. Any three of those on their own are solid enough to not get you a job; their combined answer power is enough to get you tossed out of an interview. Those were fun interviews.
My father hates liars, cheats and thieves. Therefore, I answered the three questions above truthfully 53 times and had a poor batting average until interview number 54. Which I nailed. Because Berchtold Corporation was roughly as choosey as Paris Hilton with Greek tycoon heirs or the Cleveland Browns with first round draft choices.
One of the magnificent things both my parents did for the four of us as we grew into taller versions of ourselves was to allow us to be exactly whom we chose to be. The best Kurt Vonnegut quote ever is; “I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edges you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” My father, with certain stoicism, allowed me to make each poor choice I have made thus far, although it’s clear he saw the train wrecks coming. He understood my love of that Vonnegut quote and has always allowed me to live that quote, with minimum judgment. That behavior takes a great deal of courage and loving restraint.
I love my father for allowing me to bloody my knees, seemingly each week for the past three thousand weeks and for not judging too harshly while the scabs were healing. We learn best through pain and ought to hold mistakes as closely to our chests as we did mangled, old teddy bears when we were four years old.
Had I chosen to procreate, would have most likely bundled my children in three of four layers of bubble wrap and duct tape each time they left the house to play football or ride bikes. Soccer would not have been an option for my mythical children. They would have played football because you get to hit people. Soccer is more like a four hour game of tag with a net at each end in the odd event someone actually kicks the ball into it accidentally.
Have never had that sweaty palm, unsure feeling before any interview and very seldom am I nervous before important meetings. This is attributable to the evening I fell asleep at the wheel on the I-480, I 71 interchange driving home from a Michael Stanley Band concert in high school. Woke up lying down across the front seat when the rear window of dad’s station wagon imploded from the seventy mile per hour collision with the guard rail. Sat up while the car was about to drive off the cloverleaf and launch itself onto I-71 fifty feet below. Pulled the station wagon back onto the road, avoiding the gas tank explosion fireworks show and certain ruination of my pretty, baby blues.
Fortunately, my sister Melinda was leaving for her freshman year at Bowling Green four hours later and the station wagon was in the on deck circle for the trip. Me totaling the car on the way home from the Michael Stanley Band concert threw a bit of a wrench in Mel’s trip to Bowling Green. Sorry, Mel. I never, ever, ever took acid again. Pinky swear. And I still love me some Midwest Midnight. Because Midwest Midnight is the finestsong in the Michael Stanley Band catalogue.
I once watched a man burn to death from twenty feet away after a car wreck on Interstate 75 in Ohio because I could not get to him as the gas tank exploded. Had nightmares about that for three years. I stood in my kitchen on Easter Sunday in 2006 and told my wife, quite truthfully, that while I loved her like I would never love anyone else; she had to be gone by the time I returned from a business trip to Zurich in fourteen days. Easter will never be the same because of that fourteen minute conversation. Both of these experiences paled in comparison to how it felt when my father looked up at me from the kitchen table at 4:30 a.m. that morning, after he looked out the window at the totaled station wagon
That 4:30 a.m. image is the one I have conjured up prior to interviews for the last few decades: it is a look not easily forgotten. Nothing in the business world or my personal life will ever be that challenging. My only regret in not procreating is that I was never able to replicate that evening with my son or daughter or show that much love and understanding. That is what you taught us, dad. Thank you.
Happy seventy-third birthday, Glove Man.
You are one in three billion.
From this day forward, I am the only one permitted to reply “My father, because he is the strongest, smartest, and most determined man in the universe.”. Qoud erat demonstrandum.
(Please right click the link below to open the suggested background music for this evening’s treatise in a new browser window. A celebration of the magic that is Hostess snack cakes, a juxtaposition of Donald Draper & Kurt Vonnegut’s Billy Pilgrim and, for the adventurous…..marmoset juggling.)
“On Tralfamadore you learn that the world is just a collection of moments all strung together in beautiful random order. And if we’re going to survive it’s up to us to concentrate on the good moments and ignore the bad.”
“This is the greatest advertising opportunity since the invention of cereal. We have six identical companies making six identical products. We can say anything we want. How do you make your cigarettes?”
“Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does.”
“Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing is OK. You are OK.”
“You see it’s time for you to go home – to your lives and your children. It’s time for me to be dead for a little while. And then live again. I give you the Tralfamadorian greeting: Hello. Farewell. Hello. Farewell. Eternally connected, eternally embracing. Hello. Farewell.”
“Nostalgia – it’s delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, “nostalgia” literally means “the pain from an old wound.” It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels – around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved.”
“On Tralfamadore, says Billy Pilgrim, there isn’t much interest in Jesus Christ. The Earthling figure who is most engaging to the Tralfamadorian mind, he says, is Charles Darwin – who taught that those who die are meant to die, that corpses are improvements. So it goes.”
“It’s your life. You don’t know how long it’s gonna last, but you know it doesn’t end well. You’ve gotta move forward… as soon as you can figure out what that means.”
“If what Billy Pilgrim learned from the Tralfamadorians is true, that we will all live forever, no matter how dead we may sometimes seem to be, I am not overjoyed. Still–if I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I’m grateful that so many of those moments are nice.”
“The reason you haven’t felt it is because it doesn’t exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons. You’re born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts. But I never forget. I’m living like there’s no tomorrow, because there isn’t one.”
And the world is drawn into your hands. And the world is etched upon your heart.
Some of you joined for the marmoset juggling. Here you go. Please take three and keep in mind that it is a single elimination competition. On your mark, get set…..
In his brilliant new book, Eating the Dinosaur, Chuck Klosterman postulates the following about Britney Spears and her ilk: “Every day, random people use Britney’s existence as currency; they talk about her failures and lack of talent as a way to fill the emptiness of their own normalcy.” Further, Mr. Klosterman states that Ms. Spears, Ms. Lohan, etc; “in a splintered society, they are the means through which people devoid of creativity communicate with each other.” Bravo, Chuck Klosterman!
Bravo, indeed.
Going to add a corollary to Mr. Klosterman’s postulate. In the absence of any Britney, Lindsey, etc news, the new water cooler/Facebook/talk radio means by which the uncreative and under-read communicate is………. hate. Right wing or left wing, it makes no difference in this election season. These days it is far too easy to run around like Chicken Little, pointing a finger at someone else while building a constituency with no clear answer as to what you are doing to hold up that sky.
It’s easy to play lemming or myna bird at the water cooler or at the election speech podium. It is far more challenging to outline an executable plan for change with both pointer fingers firmly in your trouser pockets. The latter requires exceptional mental capacity, originality, and courage. The latter is my candidate and it is challenging to find that candidate on either side these days. My odds on winning the Irish Lottery without purchasing a ticket are better than finding my candidate in any election in any state.
Being a true leader in any capacity requires the courage to be a change agent. Leaders must have the courage, vision, and wisdom to change people, processes, and/or culture. This weekend’s news was ripe with change agents. For example, Marek Bozek of the St. Stanislaus Kostka church in Saint Louis. Unwilling to put up his church’s money to pay for, protect, or hide Catholic pedophile priests and not terribly impressed by the Roman Catholic Church’s progress since 1538, Father Bozek said “no mas” and broke with the kids in Rome. This, of course, got him excommunicated and damned to an eternity with me in hell, torturing Michael Jackson, Art Modell, and Mikey Vick.
This crazy, moron priest not only does not want to use his parish’s money to pay for the pedophiles many on up to the Pope hid: that’s just the tip of his heretic iceburg. This crazy, moron priest believes that women should be allowed to be priests and that priests should be allowed to have wives. It is a wonder that Father Bozek has not been drawn and quartered (a la crazy, moron Mel Gibson in Braveheart) in the streets every single weekend. Women? Come on…what right do women have to be in communion with God and sharing the scripture with the world. That would be as silly as allowing women to have jobs or vote or run around without their womanly head attired with sack- like burqas. Crazy talk!
I’ll see you in hell, Father Bozek, you crazy renegade priest.
Speaking of crazy talk, Burma (the country some refer to as Myanmar, but I still refer to as Burma….because Prince stole the symbol I would use for Burma for his name) announced over the weekend that they will have “free” elections again for the first time in twenty years. My favorite woman presidential candidate of all time, Aung San Suu Kyi, will run again…..if General Than Shwe doesn‘t turn into a sissy again.
Since she won the election in Burma twenty years ago, Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest while General Than Shwe has changed the name of the country, as well as the wall paper, the drapes, and all of the furniture in the country. While I admire General Than Shwe’s outward appearance of being a change agent, I find it a bit hard to believe because he is the gentleman who chose to put Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest when she beat him in the general elections twenty years ago. Sort of feels like you’re sitting outside of Major Major’s office waiting for him to leave so you can see him, doesn’t it?
What are these people thinking about in their crazy, moronic attempts at being change agents? These are women! They cannot run countries or preach from the Bible. There’s no laundry folding or brownie baking involved in running a country or ministering to those that have accepted Jesus as their Lord and savior. That’s just stupid. I cannot wait to get around the water cooler or on a talk radio show in the morning to scream at the top of my lungs about how stupid it is.
Not only will that make me feel better about myself as a person, it will make others like me more. Lord knows I crave that acceptance in the hate clique more than life itself and it’s far easier to jump on the caterwauling hate bandwagon than it is to roll up your sleeves, keep the vitriol firmly behind clenched teeth and actually be the change you want to see in the world. (stole the last ten words there from Gandhi…..shhhhhhhhh)
And while we I am standing around the water cooler hating women, I may as well get some more folks to like me by hating children born to illegal immigrants and hate illegal immigrants in general. None of my Irish ancestors were not actually born in the United States and we did not get full use of the Fourteenth Amendment. Nope. My Irish ancestors bore us on the Emerald Isle and used the transporter beam they bought with their winnings from the Irish Lottery to beam themselves here in the late 1800’s.
Once transported here, my Irish ancestors built the railroads that the OWG’s (Original White Guys) did not want to build and worked mining the coal that fueled the factories during the Industrial Revolution. They rolled up their sleeves and helped change the United States from an agrarian to an industrial society. God, of course, helped by endowing my Irish ancestors with superhuman strength and immeasurable wisdom. God loves The Irish.
My ancestors did not need that silly Fourteenth Amendment. They had a transporter beam! And in my opinion, we have all the OWG’s we need for now and we ought to shut down those borders. The coal is all mined and, outside of that bullet train we have been waiting on for years in Cali, the railroads are all built. We have all the white people we need for the next twenty years. Man, I hate that Fourteenth Amendment now that we have reached our OWG quota.
As we wend ourselves through all the hate and intolerance on both sides of the fence during this midterm election season, I find myself screaming the same thing at the television after each political advertisement. The same thing I have said to hundreds of direct and indirect reports throughout the past twenty-four years.
“I know what you hate”
“What are you doing to change it?”
A very simple question very few in the work world or the political arena can answer.
The Mind of Mully
I got a brand new house on the road side
Made from rattlesnake hide
Got a brand new chimney put on top
Made out of human skulls
Take little walk with me through these elections and tell me……who do you love?
The excerpt below is from the Biography Channel’s series “The Irish in America”.
“Life in America proved difficult for the Irish immigrants, the vast majority of whom lived in desperate poverty near the ports where they had disembarked. Unwanted and unwelcome, the Irish clung to their Catholic faith and often resorted to physical violence in the face of severe discrimination. Desperation forced them to take the country’s most dangerous jobs, including building bridges, canals and railroads. The Irish also met deplorable conditions while working in coal mines, eventually organizing a secret society called the Molly Maguires to intimidate mine owners.”
Interesting, yes? Thanks for visiting this evening. Please come back tommorrow……there will be Hostess snack cakes and a marmoset juggling competition. Single elimination.
Best Experienced With: Against Me; I Was a Teenage Anarchist
(Please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music for this evening’s pictorial gathering. The best part about Lollapalooza is not the mosh pits. The best part about Lollapalooza is how Perry Farrell makes the entire festival friendly for children. There is no rock like punk rock)
The mosh pit plays a critical role in my patented “Holden Caulfield/Puff the Magic Dragon/Peter Pan Stay Young and Live Forever” offense. There is no rock like punk rock and there is no better energy than the energy in the mosh pit. The mosh pit has curative properties and has been proven to eliminate cancer in certain unpublished 1927 Norwegian clinical studies. Holden should have stood in the mosh pit………not at the edge of the field.
Best Experienced With: Maylene and The Sons of Disaster: Step Up, I’m on It
(Please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music to this morning’s examination of derivatives and the slightly veiled announcement of MullyOpes Aid (Joeapalooza) 2010….all proceeds to benefit Street of Dreams in San Diego. That is some bad ass banjo playing. If this song does not give you goose bumps, you are a zombie. No, you may not have a bite of my brains.)
Something possessing, or marked by a character not present in the ancestral form.
Math:
The derivative of a function represents an infinitesimal change in the function with respect to one of its variables.
Finance:
An asset that derives its value from another asset. Call options, put options, convertible bonds, futures contracts, and convertible preferred stock are examples of derivatives.
Derivatives
Spike Milligan
Monty Python
Second City
Saturday Night Live
Fridays
Strangers With Candy
The Kids in the Hall
The Whitest Kids You Know
Traffic
Blind Faith
Steve Winwood (solo)
Dave Mason
Joe Cocker (Feeling Alright)
Three Dog Night (Feeling Alright)
Socrates
Plato
Aristotle
Augustine of Hippo
Patti LaBelle
Christina
Pink
Lil’ Kim (“why spend mine when I can spend yours?”)
Maya………………………..Rottweiler, baby
Moulin Rouge
SE Hinton
Brett Easton Ellis
Robert Cormier
2009/2010 Vampire and Werewolf “novelists”
Zoroastrianism*
Judaism
Catholicism
Islam
Latter Day Saintism
Protestantism
Lutheranism
Druidism
Seventh Day Adventism
Not Pastafarianism
George Clinton and Parliament
Run DMC
Beastie Boys
3rd Bass
Phish
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Idi Amin
Winnie Mandela (South Africa)
Every Single War Lord (Somalia)
Felix Doh (Ivory Coast)
Jean Kambanda (Rwanda)
Charles Taylor (Liberia)
Platypus
Duck
Tasmanian Devil
Beaver
MullyOpes Aid
MullyOpes Aid (Joeapalooza) 2009 (April 4, 2009)
MullyOpes Aid (Joeapalooza) 2009.75 (December 11, 2009)
MullyOpes Aid (Joeapalooza) 2010 (October 23, 2010)
The Mind of Mully
It’s here and I can hear it
I can see it like a setting sun
This feeling I can take it
I take it in and then I move along
Zoroastrianism*
The precept of Zoroastrianism is to develop a good mind and back it up with solid, ethical choices minute by minute. The bedrock of Zoroastrianism is good thought, good word, and good deed. Michael Vick, Michael Jackson, anyone in a VP or C-level position at Enron, and Art Modell are/were not practitioners of Zoroastrianism.
“Listen to the best things with your ears
Reflect upon them with clear thought.
And choose between the two ways of thinking.
At the world’s end
He, of holier spirit, that chooses the Right . . .
And shall inherit the Best existence.
He that follows the Lie and chooses the worst
Shall inherit the worst existence . . .
If you choose wrongly and rush to violence
You enfeeble the world of men.
If the right choice is made
Then, in the hereafter, all shall be well.”
(Songs of Zarathustra, section 3:2)
Derivatives
Saturday, October 23, 2010
San Diego, California
All proceeds to Street of Dreams….musicians for eduction
Mind of Mully Biz Haus Shoppe 