Reflections on friendship
A week ago it was another beautiful Monday in Chicago. My next-door neighbor text me at 3:30 to ask if I would like to go golfing as close to the 5 p.m. work whistle as possible. “YES!” I replied.
My friend, we’ll call him John, is newer to the game. He bought a bag of clubs last year. He asked if I wanted to go to the driving range one time after. I went, had a blast, and the bug bit me. I soon after bought a cheap bag of clubs on Amazon.
John has a real full-time job. And I am a freelancer. I could break away much more often to golf during a work day. And toward the end of last year, I was golfing 2 to 3 times a week, usually grouped in with strangers at Tee-time.
Continue reading “Reflections on friendship”Would ya look at that! Opossum tutorial you didn’t know you needed
Stay on the fucking bus
Over at Kottke, I read this astoundingly simple and amazing take on creative expression. I am forced to share it with you, dear reader. Yes you. The only one who ever reads here any more. Wink wink. Honk honk.
Jason wrote: “Several years ago in the Guardian, Oliver Burkeman wrote a piece called This column will change your life: Helsinki Bus Station Theory. It’s about how difficult it can be as a creative person to find your way to making work that feels like it’s uniquely yours.”
Here’s the quote:
There are two dozen platforms, Minkkinen explains, from each of which several different bus lines depart. Thereafter, for a kilometre or more, all the lines leaving from any one platform take the same route out of the city, making identical stops. “Each bus stop represents one year in the life of a photographer,” Minkkinen says. You pick a career direction — maybe you focus on making platinum prints of nudes — and set off. Three stops later, you’ve got a nascent body of work. “You take those three years of work on the nude to [a gallery], and the curator asks if you are familiar with the nudes of Irving Penn.” Penn’s bus, it turns out, was on the same route. Annoyed to have been following someone else’s path, “you hop off the bus, grab a cab… and head straight back to the bus station, looking for another platform”. Three years later, something similar happens. “This goes on all your creative life: always showing new work, always being compared to others.” What’s the answer? “It’s simple. Stay on the bus. Stay on the fucking bus.”
The guy wears adult undergarments around his little mushroom garden
In last night’s Jimmy Kimmel show, Kimmel responded to a TRUTH post directed at how awful Kimmel was at the Oscars (5 weeks ago). Not only is it hilariously riddled with lies (there are receipts), Trump accuses the host of horribly botching the announcement for best picture, something the host of the show does NOT do.
The viewership numbers for this year’s awards were a million more than last year. In the TRUTH post, Trump is so deranged that he pins the wrong accusations on the wrong guy. Kimmel was nice enough to replay the part that pissed Trump off so much that he’s still reeling from it five weeks later.
The take down is perfectly delivered. If anyone still likes that loony toon, I can’t help but feel sorry for them. Wow. Trump is a douche noggle.
Watch it!
Deadline Hollywood reports:
Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t planning to host the Oscars next year. But now he might. The ABC late-night host was responding to comments from former President Donald Trump on Truth Social.
Trump said that Kimmel was “made to look like a FOOL, which he is, and at the same time go down in Television History as the WORST HOST EVER OF THE ONCE VAUNTED ACADEMY AWARDS!”
Kimmel got a laugh out of this. “I don’t know. That must be why they asked me to host the show again next year. Which I wasn’t planning to do but now I might,” he added. “Maybe – you know what – maybe you can watch on the TV in the rec room at Riker’s with all the guys.”
The blips of passersby
Yesterday in Chicago, I washed our car in the driveway. The drive is gated. Passersby cross not more than 20 feet from the car.
We get walkers, runners, dog walkers, dog runners, groups, skateboarders, one-wheelers, two-wheelers, all kinds of different people of all ages, ethnicities, skin colors, et al. It’s a cornucopia of people watching.
When you’re a professional people watcher (like moi), it’s even more fun.
Continue reading “The blips of passersby”No country for middle-aged men
I read this morning of a doomsday Idaho man who killed his wife and two of his girlfriend’s kids in a bout of religiously-compelled murder, deception and insurance fraud.
CNN reports:
Chad Daybell also is charged with the murder of his first wife, Tammy Daybell, who was initially believed to have died in her sleep. He remarried less than three weeks after her death in 2019. Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell called themselves “James and Elaina” and believed they were religious figures and had a system of rating people as “light” or “dark,” a prosecutor told jurors at her trial.
Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell exchanged texts about Tammy Daybell “being in limbo” and “being possessed by a spirit named Viola.” In addition, Daybell was connected to a religious doomsday prepper website. When Vallow Daybell was sentenced last year, she denied having killed her children. She said she had spoken to Jesus, her children and her husband’s wife after their deaths and said they were “happy and extremely busy” in heaven.
The thing about this is, even religious folks will write this off as insanity. I would argue, at least for a few minutes, that behavior like this is the logical conclusion of using only biblical texts and biblical teachings from certain sects to approach life. It digs deep into the psyche and alters sanity in ways that a balanced, well-educated life does not.
Like Tommy Lee Jone’s character said in No Country for Old Men after reading an article of a heinous set of crimes by an old couple catching, torturing and murdering people in their basement, “Can’t make up a thing like that. You can’t even try.” Watch the clip to see just how great this line is delivered.
Eat what a salmon eats
In a study, scientists have found that eating what a salmon eats may be much better for you than eating salmon alone.
From this article: “The study, titled “Wild Fish Consumption Can Balance Nutrient Retention in Farmed Fish,” used data collected in Norway’s fish farms and examined why farmed salmon fillets lacked the same quantity of nutrients that wild salmon generally contain — averaging a loss in six out of nine nutrients, including calcium, iodine, iron, omega-3, vitamin B12, and vitamin A. Amounts of calcium, in particular, were found to be five times more plentiful in wild-feed fish fillets. Eating lower on the food chain, that is, consuming what salmon feast on, can help humans get these critical vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids directly from the source.”
Read the whole thing and check its sources.
The evolution of Mozart’s music (from 5 to 35 years old)
This is devastatingly beautiful comparison to enjoy. Devastating, because when you see what “genius” is in creativity and then compare it to your own achievements, it makes me nuts to compare my ability with that of someone at this level.
Seen at Kottke, who wrote, “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s first surviving musical composition was created at age five and in this video visualization, you can hear and see how his music evolved from that early piece to those created in his 20s and 30s. Not knowing a whole lot about music or of Mozart in particular, I was shocked at how incredible his compositions were at ages five, six, and seven.”
A basketful of rubes supports the orange goon
Mr. Kimmel continues his roast of TFG.
“The Great White Supremacist has until Monday to come up with a $464 million bond, or the state may seize and sell his property. Trump said nobody has ever heard of anything like this before. Trump needs cash and– we never heard of most of the crazy stuff he did before – I mean, nobody ever heard of the president changing the weather with a Sharpie before either.
“Something tells me over the weekend, Trump’s going to start talking about how strong Vladimir Putin is, and suddenly a dump truck full of rubles will pull up and cover this for him. But of course the real loser here is Melania. She may end up with half of the nothing he owns now. I hope she got an advance on that prenup, because if you think she hates him now, wait until he’s poor.
“Trump yesterday asked the Supreme Court to grant him absolute immunity in the case related to the events of January 6th, and he also wants immunity from chlamydia, just in case, you know. But his argument is that the threat of future imprisonment, not for him, it would prevent the president from doing potentially illegal things, which I think is the point of prison in the first place.
“But if Donald Trump wants immunity, he should drink bleach like he told us to do when we wanted immunity.” – Jimmy Kimmel, in last night’s opening monologue, all of which is worth your time.
Le Café Wittypoots 