EVEREST

You havent climbed Everest until you get back down.

THE MORAL DECAY

I applied for this apartment 6 years ago. I wondered if that THING that happened in 2008, that wasn’t supposed to be on my record because I did the court program 100%, would be on my record.

So when the lady said there was a problem, I thought “Oh No!”

Then she said “Did you have a marijuana charge from 1974? Because we cant tell if it’s a felony charge or a misdemeanor.”

Boy was I relieved!

“It was a misdemeanor” I said.

She said I would have to go downtown and get a copy of the charges before she could rent me an apartment.

I laughed. “Do you mean to tell me after the trail of destruction I’ve left for the last 30 years, this is all y’all can come up with? After everything I’ve been through, the unmanageability, the addiction, the moral decay, the cheatin’, theivin’, connivin’, stealin’ when I shoulda been buyin’, vagrancy, bankruptcy, divorce, no credit, bad credit, homeless joblessness, foreclosure, and not putting the toilet seat down, and this bubble-gum pot charge is the best you can do?”

We do recover.

WHY WE BUILD THE WALL

Somebody is trying to sell me a wall. The same way they sold my father and my brother a Vietnam. 
We need a wall like we needed Vietnam. I ain’t buyin’ it.

Interesting song I heard last year on the Old Prairie Home Companion show.
Anais Mitchel, from her 2010 opera, "Hadestown". There is a minute of chatter before the song.

RASPBERRIES

I remember falling in love with Carol Channing when I was 10 years old. 
I could not resist the way she hollered “Raspberries!” in Thoroughly Modern Millie.
Carol, gone to the big glass of champagne in the sky.

BIG SURPRISE

AT&T is reportedly planning a significant round of layoffs (7,000), despite receiving a large tax break and various regulatory favors such as the repeal of net neutrality rules.

UPON OUR HEARTS

"Here was a Jewish rebbe, and the pupil asks the rebbe about a passage in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 6, I believe, where it says…“Lay these words upon your heart.” The pupil asks the rebbe, who is more of a Hasidic master than a “clergyman,” why does it say “Lay these words upon your heart? Why doesn’t it tell us to put them in our hearts?”

The rebbe answers in a way that I think you may find very beautiful: “It says ‘upon our hearts,’ not ‘in our hearts,’ because as we are, our hearts are closed and the words cannot enter in. And there they stay upon our hearts-- until one day the heart breaks. And the words fall in.”

Interview with Jacob Needleman by Kristina Turner April 2012 - Needleman, Jacob
Articles on Gurdjieff and his System
GURDJIEFF-INTERNET.COM

HELLO 2019

The first hour at work of the year.

“Boss, David is on line one. Would you like to take the call?”

“Hang up on him.”
Now that’s the kind of answer I used to get from techs that didn’t want to talk to customers. It was their way of using the “No “ word. The power word. They would eventually pick up, but I had to talk them into it. I hated that. I’m glad those guy are gone.
But now I’m dealing with a boss that is doing the same thing.
‘Hang up on him” he said.
I thought a moment. “Sir, I don’t hang up on people.”
I could see him bite his lip. He took the call. But he came back a little later.
“You better lose that attitude” he said.
“Hey, I’m not the one telling people to hang up on people”
Against the current, we beat on.