From outside the box

I love food, in fact, it's my favorite thing to eat! Like most Americans, I try to eat light and to eat for nutrition. And like most Americans, I don't try hard enough. This whole weight thing is a battle I have slowly been loosing for the last thirty years. I exercise, I don't eat meat, and I rarely eat junk food, but my weight keeps increasing by about three pounds a year. That may not sound like much but when you consider it's been going on for over thirty years now, that puts me about 100 pounds heavier than I was when I was in my late twenty's.

I have become very familiar with the cycle of accommodating the expanding waist line. One day you realize that all of your pants are getting too tight, so you decide to buy just one pair of the next size up. You don't want to buy too many of the larger size because you know that soon you are going to loose ten pounds and the new pants will be too big as you once again feel comfortable in your old clothing. At first you need a belt to hold up that next larger size and you like that, because after all, this isn't really your size. Next you realize that these are the only pants you seem to be wearing because they are so much more comfortable than all the older smaller size pants you have, so you go out and buy a couple more pair. Pretty soon your closet is full of new and larger size pants, and to make more room on your shelves, you take all the older pants that are too tight and put them up on a higher shelf, the one you use for storage. The last part of the cycle is when you realize you no longer need a belt to hold up the bigger size pants you have been buying for the last three years. Then the cycle starts all over....you go out and buy just one pair of the next larger size pants.

The storage shelves in my closet has piles and piles of pants and shorts from years gone by. Although I have long ago gotten rid of my 32, then 34, then 36 inch waist pants, I still hold onto my 38's sincerely thinking I will need them again someday. Every time I look at the piles on my upper closet shelves, I say to them, "Soon my friends, soon", but that day never seems to come. My fear is that if I get rid of them it will be the same as admitting defeat.

I know what the next step is in this nasty cycle. It's when you keep gaining weight but no longer require larger size pants. Why? Because our asses and hips quit growing. At least that's how it is for men. The problem is, our bellies never quit growing, we just wear our pants under our bellies as they begin spilling out over the waist band.

And to add insult to injury, we have to put up with skinny 30 year old "experts" on weight control tell us that we just need to eat less and exercise more. Never mind that I have been doing stomach crunches and exercising everyday since high school, that I only eat candy at the movies, that I have salad coming out my ears, and my feet are flat from thirty years of running on hard pavement. I just need to exercise more and eat less. I have just one thing to say to those 30 year old "experts"....talk to me in thirty years. Lets see what you look like once your body has the metabolism of a rock.

But here's the thing....Although we may be loosing the battle, we can't ever give up. I know that once I give up, three pounds a year will turn into 15 pounds a year. Besides, the exercise and good diet keeps me healthy and limber. Actually, I know what I have to do to loose weight because I've done it in the past. The idea of it is frightening. It means 45 minutes on the treadmill instead of twenty. It means riding my clunker bike up Old Humboldt Road three times a week. It means no candy or snacks at the movies, in fact, not anywhere, anytime, ever! It means no eating after dinner or between meals. It's pure hell, but it works. Problem is, once you loose the twenty pounds and your stomach is flat, after three months of hard work and sacrifice, you decide to have just one pastry at Star Bucks and bingo....you gain all the weight back in like 10 minutes!

But you know what I like better than losing weight?....getting off that treadmill after twenty minutes, a great big Kit Kat bar and large Pepsi at the movie theatre, and a glass of chocolate soy milk at bedtime. I mean, I must because I seem to choose those things over having a flat stomach. Sure, I like being thin and I honestly believe I will do it again....soon....any day now....In the meantime, anybody know where you go to buy moth balls?

Have you noticed how many celebrities are dying these days? In the last week I think I've counted two major ones (Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson), one 'has been' (Gale Storm), a side kick (Ed McMahon), one or two television commercial personalities, a few spouses of almost famous people, and one television interviewer (Larry king). I know, most people don't realize that Larry King actually died back in 1996, but he did. He was stuffed and has been doing his show for the last 13 years with the help of puppeteers. It's even fooled a few of his guests.

It used to be that famous people always died in two's, but now I think they are dying in twelve's. It feels like God is doing some kind of house cleaning. It makes me wonder who is going to die today. I also wonder if God would be open to some suggestions as to who He might take this week to finish off his even dozen, because I have a few ideas that would not only enhance the integrity of the entertainment industry, but would also strengthen the gene pool of humanity.

My first request would be that he takes Larry the cable guy. If I hear "get er done" one more time, I'm going to cancel my cable TV. And while your at it God, would it be too much trouble to take those other three red necks who do stand up with him? They really are annoying.

Next, I wouldn't mind if you took a few singers. You might start with Mariah Carey. I mean her voice is OK and all, but she keeps dressing like a high school cheer leader and I'm just not buying it any longer. It was cute for a few years, but she's like fifty years old now and she won't stop! Normally I would ask you to take Cher too, for obvious reasons of course, but since she quit making records I can live with her staying in the world. Besides, I'm afraid if she died they might start playing her more on the radio and that would be unacceptable. I also respect the fact that she serves as inspiration for gay crossdressers.

There are a couple of Las Vegas singers who I wish you would consider taking this week Almighty Father. Although like Cher, they no longer make records, they are still out there in the public eye bothering people. Of course I'm talking about Wayne Newton and David Cassidy. Although they do serve as a good reminder as to why nobody should ever get plastic surgery, they still make cameo appearances in movies and television shows from time to time, therefore, they got to go....if you please.

There is just one more famous person dear Lord who I would ask you to take and then we can be finished until your next round of twelve. The man I am talking about is obnoxious, egotistical, and an insult to everybody's intelligence, not to mention that thing he does with his hair. Of course I'm talking about Donald Trump. I get that you probably don't want him either, but we've been putting up with this guy plastering his name and his face on everything in sight for over twenty years now and enough is enough! There must be something you can do with him, somewhere he can go where people won't have to look at him do that thing he does with his mouth when he talks.

You started out OK with Ed McMahon, and I know you had good intentions taking Michael Jackson, although I think he was a wash. I mean I loved his dancing, but between those guttural screams and his appetite for young boys, I understand that he had to go. But I do take issue with you on taking Farrah from us. I have too many fond memories of that poster of her back in the seventies as well as how easily it got ruined from being in the shower. She will be missed.

All in all, you've been on a pretty good roll. I really do respect what your trying to do. Maybe think about taking less beauty queens and more sham wow guys. You might also take a good look at Branson Missouri while your at it. Lots of good pickings over there.

Kids are goofy little creatures. They remind me of dogs....or dogs remind me of kids, something like that. I have four grand kids, all between the ages of 20 months and six years old. One loves me, one likes me, one is indifferent to me, and one won't have anything to do with me....kind of like the last four women in my life.

For me, the fun part about kids is watching them have new experiences, like their first spanking....just kidding. I am a pacifist when it comes to kids. There are many reasons you should never spank a child. For one thing, you can do much more damage by shaming them and it takes less energy than hitting. My parents were great at both. First the screaming, then the belt, then the "'who do you think you are?" lecture. It was like they were in competition with them selves to see if they could do more damage to my self esteem or my ass. In a way, it was nice to see them get old and weak. My mother however, even well into her eighties, still had her ways of punishing those closest to her. She did it by leaving walnut shells in her chocolate chip/walnut cookies. Everybody suffered.

Actually, I love being a grand dad, except for one part....the cartoons. Why is it that when children are in the house, they automatically own the TV? I've never heard of a child making one payment on a television set or paying one cable bill, but just try and watch CNN when a kid is in the room. You might get two minutes of Anderson Cooper, if your lucky, but soon your watching Kenny the Shark, ICarly, or Little Bear. It's not fair. I sat through hundreds of hours Looney Tunes and Flintstone's with my first two kids back in the seventies, then hundreds of more hours of Sponge Bob and Hey Arnold with my last kid back in the nineties. And now, at 60 years old when I should be able to be grumpy and get my own way, I'm sitting here watching Sesame Street! Why do we do it? Any parent or grandparent knows the answer to that one....you do whatever it takes to keep them quiet. Kids own you that way and they figure that out early in life, usually during the first week.

Every parent has their favorite kid age, that era where they had the most fun with their kids. After going through the whole age spectrum I can tell you that my favorite kid age is thirty five. At thirty five, they're not quite ready to make it on their own, but they no longer require cartoons, unless they've been smoking pot. At least their cartoon watching has evolved to Family Guy and South Park. Ok, lets be honest here....I'm the one who got them into Family Guy and South Park. Cartoons are just more interesting when somebody's getting their eye poked out with a fork than watching a cute little bear playing with his mother in the forest.

Like I was saying, 35 is a great age for kids. You no longer have to buy them toys, instead, you just make their car payments. Sure, you still have to clean up their messes, but at least it's not peanut butter and jelly any more, just easy messes like divorces, unwanted pregnancies, and posting bail. It's great when they grow up.

So yes, I am a kid person. I guess it's because I'm still a kid at heart....or just an immature adult. Whatever. As long as I have children in my life, I will always be happy and fulfilled....and completely out of touch with what's happening in the news.

We all do stupid things in life. This was one of my many stupid adventures....

About a year ago I wrote a blog that I called "Banging on the dashboard of the 55 Pontiac", or something like that. The blog was about how when I was 14 years old, I took a hammer and screwdriver to the dashboard of my moms 1955 Pontiac thinking I could "customize" it to look like the cool dashboards I saw in the custom hot road magazines I loved to read at the time. All I accomplished was a banged up dashboard. There was a good lesson in this for me, that I should do my homework before I start a project, especially when I am attempting to do something I know nothing about. I have spent my whole life re-learning that lesson. I still don't have it down.

In 1994 I was into taking the supplement "blue green algae", the one they processed out of Klamath Lake in Southern Oregon. Being the entrepreneur that I was, I got the bright idea that I could make a similar supplement and get rich while making the world healthier. Since I used to make a living growing and selling alfalfa sprouts back in the seventies, and since I honestly believed that sprouts were one of the healthiest foods you could eat, I decided that I would research the possibility of turning sprouts into a pill.

My first step was to figure out the best way to turn a living sprout into a pill. After several weeks of experimenting, I came up with an efficient way to turn the sprouts into dried powder. Now mind you that 1994 was just before the Internet existed as we know it today so all of my research had to be by telephone and the Chico State library. I had to find a lab to test the powder, find a place to make my labels, get all the laws on what had to be on my labels, find out how to get a bar code, figure out which bottles to use and where to get them, find a place to encapsulate the powder and bottle it, and do all that without a computer. On top of that I had to find a shop to grow the sprouts at, figure out the best way to mass produce the sprouts, set up a dehydration room, find high powered blenders that would not heat the powder up as to kill the nutrients, and get an 800 phone number to take orders.

One year later and over $14,000 deeper in debt I found myself sitting at a desk in my air conditioned shop with boxes of "Sprout Complex" piled all around the room. "Now the easy part" I thought to myself as I began making phone calls to supplement distributors and health food chain stores. It took about two hours of phone calls to find out that I had screwed up big time. Every distributor told me that they were not interested in carrying a product that had not already proven itself in the stores. They were not in the business of promoting products. Every store I called told me that they were not interested in buying direct from a grower or manufacturer, that they only dealt with distributors. Talk about a catch 22!

I soon realized that I had put the cart before the horse. I should have researched sales, marketing, and distribution before I spent thousands on developing the product. What I needed to do now, if this business was to ever go anywhere, was to start the long drawn out process of promoting an unknown product. By now I was broke and in debt, not just any debt but credit card debt! On top of all that I had just moved out on my own with half time custody of my son who was about three years old at the time. I couldn't go any further with my sprout project. It was finished.

I remember thinking at the time...."This whole damn project was just me pounding on the dashboard of the 55 Pontiac!" But here's the damndest part of the story....I've done it since and I'll do it again. I am however a little more cautious these days when I try out a new idea. I have to be because I don't have any money to waste. I know that many success stories are about tenacious individuals who failed time and again but never gave up, and then eventually, they struck it big. But what does that say about us tenacious individuals who never give up, but never get anywhere either? Maybe it says were just stupid. I don't know. I do believe there is merit in trying and failing, that there are valuable lessons to be learned from every mistake, and that the journey is often more important than the destination. That being said, there is a point in life when you grow a little weary of the journeys that are rich in experience and want to reach a destination that leaves you ....well....rich!

I was watching the new movie "Year One" yesterday and there was this scene where a large crowd was cheering the execution of two men. Then the two men distracted the crowd by changing their attention to something else and soon the crowd was cheering on that other thing. To me, it was a humorous connotation about how easy it is to manipulate a group consciousness, or how easy an individual will give up his/her individuality to be part of a "crowd mentality".

I see this group consciousness thing playing out all of the time in every aspect of society. It's in friendship circles, political parties, sports, religions, everything from small groups to whole countries. Sometimes it's obvious to see, like at a sporting event, and sometimes it's very subtle, like when you find yourself agreeing with somebody about something, that if you thought about it, you really don't agree with them at all.

Whenever I read or listen to a right wing dissertation about something else that Obama is doing wrong, and it's by a commentator or a writer who has never agreed with one thing Obama has done yet, I have to believe that person is just caught up in a group consciousness. Most group consciousness dynamics seem to be centered around a "we're right and your wrong" or "we're better than you" mentality. I guess we all get caught up in these things now and then, some certainly more than others, but I have to wonder....what kind of personality is more prone to become a part of a group consciousness and what types are not?

My brother made a great point when we were talking about this today. He said it was a "lazy mind" that is more susceptible to these things. It's so much easier to be told what to believe, be told who's side your on, or to just go along with the majority, than it is to try to figure it out for yourself. Freud believed that a group consciousness was always centered around a leader. I think that may be true but sometimes the "leader" can just be an "idea". People have died for an "idea".

I suppose the "group consciousness", like every other dynamic of society, goes back to ancient times when such a thing was necessary for group survival. From there it somehow evolved to "Go Dodgers!" The worst example I've seen in my life was when we invaded Iraq and the brain dead from the right were calling anybody who disagreed with the war "unpatriotic". Talk about getting caught up in your own self righteous group hysteria!

So what type of person gets caught up in a group consciousness the easiest? To me it's simple, and I mean that literally....a simple mind. A simple mind is easily led. But here's the tricky part about all this....a simple mind can also be a very intelligent mind. We tend to confuse intelligence with awareness and they are not the same thing. That's because awareness is not a function of the mind, at least not the same part of the mind where intelligence comes from. My Dad used to say that the world was full of intellectual giants who were spiritual dwarfs. How right he was.

Through self awareness (awakened consciousness) we know when we are acting or reacting. Acting is a creative expression done consciously. Reacting is always unconscious and therefore more prone to following the path of least resistance. The path of least resistance will always lead you away from individual creativity and right into the heart of the "group". We are always drawn to the group because there is safety in numbers. Sometimes the safety we seek out is to be safe from ourselves, from our own personal feelings and ideas because to stand alone with your own feelings and ideas is to often challenge the crowd or the group. The easy way, the path of least resistance is to join the group. History often shows that new ideas, ideas that change and uplift humanity usually come from an individual who stands alone and challenges the status quo of the group.

As parents, we try to make our teenagers aware of the dangers of "following the crowd". We encourage critical thinking and creative expression, we want them to become "their own person". But do we lead by example? Not really, not most of us. We demonstrate our own willingness to "follow the crowd" by allowing ourselves to become absorbed into the group consciousness of our political party, our religion, our unions, our favorite sport teams, and every group that we feel we have an allegiance with. It's one thing to align yourself with a particular group because you believe in their cause or because they represent you in some way, but it's another to follow that group blindly and to leave all the decisions up to others who are willing to lead, and to unconsciously echo whatever the dogma is of that group because you have been told that "this is how it is."

Just as Jesus tried to teach us how to "be in this world but not part of it", I think we can belong to groups and still maintain our individualism within that group. It's easy, just be yourself.

God is serious stuff. He must be because we approach the subject with such a grim attitude. At least that was my experience growing up catholic. I remember people in church praying with the same fervor as if they were testifying at a murder trial. If the priest or nuns saw you act in some way that was not in alignment with how they interpreted that you were supposed to love God, they were ready to beat that love into you, literally. But that is not too surprising when you look at the churches earlier history of burning heretics and the masochistic behavior of punishing yourself to gain favor with God.

Of course not everybody or every religion takes their relationship to God with such foreboding gloom as the catholic's. Some like to sing and dance, some like to play with rattlesnakes, some like to speak in tongues (babble), and some like to fall down and wither around on the ground, kind of like what I do whenever a Cher song comes on the radio.

I'm not trying to make fun of religions, I'm just trying to make a point. And the point I want to make is that I think God is a joke. And I mean that literally! To me, we are closer to the Almighty when we are laughing than we are when we are doing something serious. If religions truly believe that God is light and Satan is dark, then why do many of them gravitate to such dark areas when it comes to God? Doesn't it make sense that we are closer to God when we are doing something light, like laughing or singing and dancing?

It's just around the corner, my least favorite season of the year. Summer wouldn't be so bad if wasn't hot. I really don't get the "heat" thing. To me it's one of those things in life that everybody seems to like, but it doesn't make any sense! But then again, there are a lot of things that people like that I just don't get. Eating liver, swimming in a lake, Diana Ross, polyester cloths, artificial sweetener, sitting in the front row in a movie theatre, European cars, hard mattresses, bow ties, bicycles with low handle bars, peanut brittle, opera's, parades, country music, okra, Cher, camping, casino's, accordions, line dancing, car races (I mean really! watching cars drive real fast in a circle?), eggs, any movie made in the sixties, watching a 30 minute infomercial from beginning to end, Bakersfield, body piercing's, wool blankets....are just a few of the things in life I try to avoid because, well, like hot summer days, I just don't like these things.

Now don't get me wrong, I do appreciate summer. I appreciate how it makes me appreciate winter. I am in my element when the air is chilly, the rains falling down, and everything seems to be moving, to be doing something, unlike the stale dead days of summer. That's why I like rivers more then lakes, waves rushing to shore, the wind blowing things around, a good moving bass line in a song, watching kittens or puppies playing, I like action and movement. Summer just seems to stop. You spend all of your time trying to stay cool, and it can be hard trying to keep cool. I mean when your cold you can keep putting things on until you get warm. But when your hot, you can only take so many things off, right?

Like it or not though, summers here and it's going to get real hot and stay that way for a long time. It's ok, I have my ways of dealing with it. You won't find me laying around by a swimming pool but you might find me in the pool. You won't see me doing any major yard projects but you might find me cleaning away in my air conditioned house. And you sure won't see me line dancing outside in the middle of the day to country music while eating a liver and okra omelette wearing a bow tie with a polyester white shirt with a Cher cd in my pocket which I plan on listening to with head phones while I'm at the races that night where I will be talking about how much money I lost in a slot machine the other day at the casino after which I drive home in my BMW to my hard mattress which will feel so good after camping out the night before in Bakersfield which I did because I was inspired by a movie from 1964 I had been watching the other day while eating peanut brittle and playing my accordion as I sat wrapped in a wool blanket. You just won't.

When I hit the road in March of 1972, heading up north on highway 99 from Southern California, I was looking for a Mayberry in the west. Chico was Mayberry. I still feel like Chico is a large version of Mayberry, but maybe I'm looking at it through rose colored glasses, maybe I'm in denial.

As Chico changes and adapts to an ever growing population it struggles to hold onto it's small town charm and character. But I have to wonder, has any town, once it swells into a six figure population, been able to keep it's small town charm? When I moved here in 1972, people used to brag that Chico averaged only about one murder a year. Now there seems to be about two a week. And if you count the shootings where there are no fatalities, they seem to be in the paper everyday. Can a city be charming on the outside with so much violence happening on the inside? You can dress a pig up in a cheerleaders uniform, but you don't have a pretty cheerleader, you have a pig.

My daughter and her boyfriend were woken to gun shots a couple of weeks ago at 3:30 in the morning. After hearing cars screeching off and police cars arrive, they went outside to find a young man lying dead on the front yard next door. It sounds like a typical seen from East Los Angeles, not Chico/Mayberry. Between shootings, people getting hit by trains, and automobile accidents, it seems like somebody is getting killed just about everyday here.

So I guess the question is, are we a large version of Mayberry or a small version of Los Angeles?

"Life can either be accepted or changed. If it is not accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, then it must be accepted."

Thank you Becky

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