Enigmatic Days Shorten til Equinox

Sorry about this title, but it's the Proper Signal . . .

But what this is really about is me. I've been getting a boatload of email -- love-mail & hate-mail -- as sharply divided as love & hate are divided, like when a fat person eats a banana-split. That's a very love - hate equation.

Half the boatload (port side) wants me to stop being so seriously sarcastic while the other side (starboard, they be) says my silly sarcasm pleases them to orgasm, whatever that means.

So I thought I'd tell a story, to see if that distracts the haters enough to take their pointin' fingers off'n they triggers. (That's quasi-Black talk. Which I am currently favoring because I just finished L.A. Rex, which besides being an interesting read is apparently going to be a movie, which frankly scares me. It reads like a primer for OTW Criminal Activity. OTW is Other Than White.)

Back to my story. It's about what I do for a living. It's been my "career" since 1981, when I got my first business license. I started of as a solo operation, doing it all myself. I was management and labor, all wrapped up in a cute little fur ball of industrial activism. I was a West Coast Horatio Alger. (a joke: Horatio Alger Hiss ... [that was the whole joke...]) I was making decent money, wasn't answering to anyone but representatives of various taxation organizations, and just generally living the American Dream. Plus I was getting laid a lot. Oh, wait, that's redundant.

And so it's all continued and I'm in my 25th year of operation. I'm paying more taxes, but on the upside, the "getting laid" is the best it's ever been.

What I do for a living has been part and parcel of my developing sarcasm. I know humans for what they really are: Human. If more people understood this concept, that we're just human, the world would be exactly the way it is now. (You didn't see that one coming, did you?) It won't ever change because part of being human is to try to be special. (What else explains tattoos & piercings?) No matter how well you understand that we are all mere humans, you can't stop yourself from thinking yourself better than a significant segment of the population. And it's always easy to find someone who validates your view, because you ARE better than that person.

So those of you who find me tiresome, at least I make you feel better about yourself. And for those of you who "admire" me, I like to think it means you're open to liking people, even when they can't do anything for you. If there is any hope for Humanity, it's that the latter group, my group, will one day beat our plows into swords and kill all the M-F'ers who can't or won't get along. Yeah, yeah, I know, then we'll be 'them,' because there will be a small, but active segment who won't beat the swords back into plows... Happens every time.

Oh, yeah, what I do for a living. I paint addresses on sidewalk curbs. I still go out and do some of the work myself, but I have an office, three office workers and crews out all over SoCal doing this work. And with the recent building boom, we can't keep up with the demand. And because we're in people's neighborhoods, we see them acting they way they do when they're not 'on stage.' It's very informative work. If'n you be in SoCal, an' you need yo address painted on yo curb, jingle me a holler an' I be by. I be in da Yellow Paginas.