The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for April 2009

Thunder & Lightning

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Ride the Lightning

The distant boom of thunder and a flash of lightning made it clear that Springtime had arrived. Her desk was on the 22nd floor providing her with a clear view of the cloud filled sky. Though it was only midmorning the black clouds and falling rain made it appear to be far later than it was.

For a moment she stared out the window and lost herself in thought. Later that day she’d join a thousand other commuters on the road and engage in the joy of rush hour. She was hopeful that it would be an uneventful drive, but this time of year you never did know when a hailstorm might start.

A good hailstorm could wreak havoc upon your car. Out here the hail had a proclivity for being larger, golf ball and even softball size hail were not uncommon. It was fun to watch from within the comfort of your home, provided it wasn’t wrecking your car or battering a hole in your roof.

Two more blasts of thunder made her windows shake. That didn’t bode well for bedtime. The kids hated the noise and would seek comfort sleeping with mom. That was good for them, they’d get a full nights rest, but not so good for her. They had a tendency to roll around and kick their legs. More than likely she’d wake up bruised and exhausted.

As she sat there lost in thought she wondered if he ever thought about her or whether he had just moved on. She didn’t really think that he had, but they had never gone this long without speaking. She wasn’t used to the silence and hadn’t really believed that he would maintain it for as long as he had.

It was confusing. The silence made her feel unimportant and irrelevant. She would have been thrilled to have received a call or an email, some sort of sign that he missed her. The door to her office suddenly burst open and she lost her train of thought.

There was only one person who did that, her boss. Apparently she thought that common courtesy applied to everyone but her. She was short and chunky with a hairstyle that forever looked like she had just woken up. Not only did she lack courtesy she also lacked fashion sense or maybe she just had bad eyes. It was hard to say.

Regardless of the reason she had a bad habit of wearing jeans that were three sizes too small and a tight top. It was a good look for a stuffed sausage, but not so good for her. In addition to her lack of fashion sense and courtesy she suffered from a lack of boundaries.

About once a week she’d waddle in the office and start telling stories about miserable she was and how many drugs she took to ease her mind and help her sleep. And of course these bonding moments only took place after the work day had ended.

Inevitably she’d find herself having to stay late so that she could pretend to be interested in listening to her tales of woe. It was beginning to wear upon her and she was afraid that sooner or later she’d get caught rolling her eyes or give some other sign that made it clear she thought that the boss was an idiot.

Still, she was thankful to have a job so she did her best to put up with it. Looking up from her computer she offered a big smile and waited for her instructions. Still she couldn’t help but wonder if somewhere out there that boy she wasn’t supposed to be thinking about was thinking about her too.

Sarkozy Calls Obama Weak

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This isn’t really the sort of response we want Obama to receive from other world leaders. OTOH, France hasn’t really been a significant world power for far longer than they care to admit. Take the criticism for what it is worth.

The US President is weak, the Spanish leader is dim, the German Chancellor is clinging on to France’s coat-tails and the head of the European Commission is irrelevant.

That, at any rate, is the world according to President Sarkozy, who has spent the week airing his unvarnished opinions of Barack Obama and an array of international politicians — abruptly ending France’s honeymoon with the US and needling Washington on several strategic issues.

In the latest in a stream of accounts from the Élysée Palace, Mr Sarkozy was quoted yesterday as telling an all-party group of MPs that Mr Obama was inexperienced and indecisive. “Obama has a subtle mind, very clever and very charismatic,” the French President said. “But he was elected two months ago and had never run a ministry. There are a certain number of things on which he has no position. And he is not always up to standard on decision-making and efficiency.”

The US President had underperformed on climate change when they met, Mr Sarkozy said, according to an account of the MP’s session in the newspaper Libération. “I told him, ‘I don’t think that you have quite understood what we are doing on carbon dioxide’.”Mr Sarkozy was apparently irked by media reports that Mr Obama had saved the day in London by persuading President Hu of China to reach a compromise with France over tax havens. Mr Sarkozy’s version is that he shamed Mr Obama into action, telling him: “You were elected to build a new world. Tax havens are the embodiment of the old world.”

Snake Tries to Eat Man, Man Bites Back

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Want to know what snake tastes like? Ask this fellow. Better yet ask the keystone cops how they let the snake escape.

A Kenyan man bit a python which wrapped him in its coils and dragged him up a tree during a fierce three-hour struggle, police have told the BBC.

The serpent seized farm worker Ben Nyaumbe in the Malindi area of Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast at the weekend.

Mr Nyaumbe bit the snake on the tip of the tail during the exhausting battle in the village of Sabaki.
Police rescued Mr Nyaumbe and captured the 13ft (4m) reptile, before taking it to a sanctuary, but it later escaped.

The victim told police he managed to reach his mobile phone from his pocket to raise the alarm when the python momentarily eased its grip after hauling him up a tree on Saturday evening. Mr Nyaumbe used his shirt to smother the snake’s head and prevent it from swallowing him.

His employer arrived with police and villagers, who tied the python with a rope and pulled them both down from the tree with a thud.

Peter Katam, superintendent of police in Malindi district, told the BBC News website: “Two officers on patrol were called and they found this man was struggling with a snake on a tree.

“The snake had coiled his hands and was trying to swallow him but he struggled very hard. The officers and villagers managed to rescue him and he was freed.

“He himself was injured on the lower lip of the mouth – it was bleeding a little bit – as the tip of the snake’s tail was sharp when he said he bit it.” Mr Nyaumbe told the Daily Nation newspaper how he resorted to desperate measures after the python, which had apparently been hunting livestock, encircled his upper body in its coils.

“I stepped on a spongy thing on the ground and suddenly my leg was entangled with the body of a huge python,” he said.

“I had to bite it.”

Probably Not a Smart Thing to Say

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Hulk Hogan, what the hell were you thinking when you said all this crap.

(CNN) — Pro wrestling legend Hulk Hogan, embroiled in a bitter divorce with his wife, Linda, told Rolling Stone magazine he can “totally understand” O.J. Simpson, the former football great found liable for the deaths of his wife and another man.

“I could have turned everything into a crime scene like O.J., cutting everybody’s throat,” Hogan said in the interview for a feature that will run in Friday’s edition of the magazine.

“You live half a mile from the 20,000-square-foot home you can’t go to anymore, you’re driving through downtown Clearwater [Florida] and see a 19-year-old boy driving your Escalade, and you know that a 19-year-old boy is sleeping in your bed, with your wife… .

“I totally understand O.J. I get it,” Hogan said

A spokeswoman for Rolling Stone magazine confirmed the quote to CNN.

It has been widely reported that Linda Hogan, 49, is dating a younger man. She filed for divorce in 2007 after nearly 25 years of marriage.

Rules For Life

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Looking north up Broadway from 43d Street with...
Looking north up Broadway from 43d Street with people using the green beach chairs distributed by the local BID. Replaced, in the Times Square article, File:TSq Bwy pedestrianized jeh.jpg. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I remember a day from a time not so far past. I was walking down 42nd Street towards Times Square. It was the middle of July and the day was relatively warm. For a kid from L.A. the heat wouldn’t have been noticeable but I was dressed in a suit and carrying a laptop. There was business to conduct.

The sky was blue and relatively free of clouds. The usual noises of the city surrounded me. Cars, taxis, buses and people all moving in every direction, semi organized chaos. I was lost in thought about someone who had offered to pepper my pike. I’ll let you wonder what that means, it doesn’t really matter.

As I walked someone stopped me on the street to ask directions. I laughed and told them that I was just another tourist wandering the streets. She looked at me and said that I looked so intent she assumed that I knew exactly where I was going and that I had to be a native. I smiled and told her that home was across the country and that I could answer any questions she might have about L.A.

Can’t tell you what happened after that, I just don’t remember. What I do remember was feeling like life was about to change, and I was right because my life did change.

Six years later I am standing outside of my house. Beneath blue skies peppered with clouds a boy with my hands is attempting to push me. For almost ten minutes he has tried every trick he can think of to cause me to give ground. I haven’t told him, but these moments are getting harder for me.

He has grown bigger and stronger. More importantly he has grown more confident in himself and he knows that if he keeps trying he will eventually succeed. He knows this because I have drilled it into his head. Persevere, persist, keep trying, keep searching for the thing that works and you’ll find a way. Practice, practice, practice and it gets easier.

I want him to win. I want him to beat me at this game and I hate the idea that one day he might. I don’t let him beat me at everything. I don’t let him win all the time. I want him to lose so that he learns how to deal with it. I want to force him to think about different ways of approaching the situation so that he might come up with a solution.

My feet are burning. The driveway is hot and I am beginning to notice the flames dancing from between my toes. Another moment and I am going to have to decide whether to let him win or if I should scoop him up like a sack of potatoes and go running.

Ego wins and he ends up thrown over my shoulder, but it takes a moment to get him up there. He has anticipated this move and attempted to counter it. For the moment size and strength are things that he can’t compensate for and I win.

Laughing I launch us up the road at a sprint. A short time later I am hunched over, his old man is huffing and puffing a bit. Sprawled on the lawn we share a cold drink and talk. He wants to know what sort of rules for life there are. That is not exactly the question he asks, but it is close enough.

I tell him that the rules are simple. Try to be a good person and do what you can to be happy. He tells me that he wants more details and I smile and say that the rest is commentary. He doesn’t catch the reference but he understands the part about happiness.

We talk more and share a few secrets. A moment later we are lying on our back staring at the sky and my mind wanders off. Within the last ten years or so I have stared at that same blue sky in Jerusalem, Toronto, London, New York, Chicago, Dallas and LA. And in each of those cities I have made a point of looking up at the night filled sky too.

Changes are coming. I feel it. Those moonlit nights and clear blue skies spoke to me. I think that I have known about these changes for a long time. Can’t say exactly what is going to happen or how, I just know that change is coming and this time I think that I just might be ready for it.

Those rules for life I gave work when you let them, so that is what I am trying to do. Don’t know if that makes much sense to anyone, but that’s ok with me.

Time to try and get some shut eye, an old man like me needs more than three hours. See you in the AM. 😉