Good Bye New World

Years ago, I think it was in Mad Magazine, every suicide attempt character would always say, Good Bye Cruel World. Well on Friday I said good bye new world.

30 Rock satires it as U face. I hate it. I will call it out. Facebook sucks. Big time. I don’t get it. It reminds me of a John Prine song…”Quit Hollering at Me”. I came to the conclusion that Facebook equaled people advertising themselves. And I ain’t buying it.

I don’t want to know what traffic was like for you today. I don’t want to know that your life is great. I don’t want to know that you are at the Olympic village. I am not taking that quiz, don’t want to know who you look like and could give not a shit about your imaginary farm.

Feel free to call me, come see me or send me a letter. Drop by. See me. Tommy was right and he was a dear dumb blind pinball player. See me, Feel me …touch me.

On Friday I deleted all my pictures and posted the following:

“I am taking the Red Pill. See you in reality.”

It seems no one got it.

I was hoping to start a chain reaction. I visualized it as me poking out my window and shouting “ I am mad as hell…and I am not going to take it anymore".

Years ago, at a Mariner game I passed a fake ice cream stand called “Dippin Dots”. It billed itself as the ice cream of the future. I tried it and concluded that was not the future I wanted to live in.

I have tried Facebook. It is not the future I want to live in.

Lyrics to Quit Hollering at me:

I don't want your big French Fry

I don't want your car

I don't want to buy no soap

From no washed-up movie star

You are so much louder

Than the show I wanna hear

With your sugarless gum

Gee, but I'm dumb

Non-alcoholic beer

It's enough to make a grown man

Blow up his own TV

Quit hollerin' at me

Quit hollerin' at me

I heard you the first time

I heard myself say

Seems like the little woman

Is getting bigger every day

You don't have to tell the neighbors

A little silence ain't no sin

They already think my name is

Where in the hell you been?

Louder, louder, louder, louder, louder

Constantly

Quit hollerin' at me

Quit hollerin' at me

Whoa oh whoa oh

Sweet Serenity

Whoa oh whoa oh

Quit hollerin' at me

Quit hollerin' at me

Ain't it great at the end of the day

When there ain't no sound around

Just me and the fence post

Staring each other down

Nothing but a big bunch of nothing

Driving me insane

Cause there ain't no voice that's louder

Than the one inside my brain

Hey you go on

Go on and let me be

Quit hollerin' at me

Quit hollerin' at me

Whoa oh whoa oh

Sweet Serenity

Whoa oh whoa oh

Quit hollerin' at me

Quit hollerin' at me

Quit hollerin' at me

Quit hollerin' at me

Quit hollerin' at me

"IF", by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run

- Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!


My late Father read this poem to me. I liked it then as I like it now. And I read it every now and then. Funny, more things mentioned in this poem have happened than the young Walter who first heard or read the poem would have suspected. And while my effort remains I cannot say I have lived up to the words to the extent my pride would urge.

All that can be done is to continue to read the poem again and again and do the best I can to live up to the challenge and hope that the Earth and all that is in it can someday be mine.

Cycle of Life

This morning on NPR; I am not sure what the story was about...I wasn't really paying attention, they were talking about some very small town and the need for a new road. The quote that struck me was some hayseed guy saying (in a hayseed accent) " A nice new road means more people using it, more people means more business......."

And then it struck me. The cycle of politics, the cycle of life. And if I was to complete this hayseed's thoughts and comment's to full circle he would have gone on to say

"... more business means more income, more income means more wealth, more wealth means more taxes, more taxes means more Republicans, more Republicans mean less taxes, less taxes means the road turns to shit and we go back to our miserable lives like we find ourselves now"