(last edited on April 7, 2006)
Dear A____,
Hi! Here I am. Writing a letter. This form of communication lacks the instant gratification of Instant Messenger. However, it also lacks the little annoying audible noise that chimes whenever I hit the “enter” key. Of course, that’s unfairly discriminatory of the “return” key; the chime sounds if I hit that key, too. Except, it doesn’t matter which key I hit when writing this letter, because there’s no chime anyway. I find it interesting that the “enter” and “return” keys are generally interchangeable, even though at one time they were really for two different functions. I imagine, if it wasn’t for the ACLU, one of the keys would have been retired a long time ago. However, as this practice would necessarily discriminate against one key or the other, it’s clear why in the P.C. (no pun, really) 21st century both keys mysteriously remain. They compliment each other, almost dancing together like Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul almost danced together (before Maul impaled Jinn). Impaling isn’t a very nice thing to do. It can ruin someone’s day. Jinn getting impaled ruined Obi-Wan’s day, so Obi-Wan cut Maul down like a tree. It’s a good thing this story took place a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, and not in the P.C. 21st century, or else the save-the-trees lobby might have objected to Obi-Wan chopping anything—including an evil Dark Lord of the Sith—down. You have to wonder about the methods employed by the save-the-tree lobbies—yes, we must save the trees, and yes, most of Earth is very short-sighted about the abuse of the planet and the wanton use of irreplaceable natural resources. However, if I were them, I would try a different approach. I would actually help to cut all the trees down, so all of my political opponents would suffocate and die. Then there would be no opposition to the save-the-trees lobby! It’s a very simple problem that would also get rid of a lot of bugs. Bugs are creepy and they suck, except for when they do helpful things (like eat creepier bugs). Then they are ok. Ladybugs are ok, too, as long as they don’t swarm. Anything in a swarm—chickens, ladybugs, beanie babies—can be frightening and even life-threatening, kind of like in “The Mummy,” when the brain-eating bugs swarmed. Those bugs were doubly bad, because they didn’t just swarm on you—they also ate your brain. I wonder if you’d feel a splitting headache if bugs swarmed you and ate your brain? But I don’t want to think about that, because I have a splitting headache. One kind of splitting headache is called a migraine. At least, that’s what people who don’t get migraines call them. People who do get them call them by different names, such as the name of a God or some expletive. I think it’s funny to refer to things with expletives. For instance, the word [CENSORED] can be used in almost any sentence. This is because “[CENSORED]” is the most versatile word in the English language. For real! It can be used as a noun, adjective, adverb, exclamation, etc. Often times in the same sentence, and often used with the same reference to the same thing that was going on. I’m not a [CENSORED]ing moron, I know what the [CENSORED] I’m talking about—so [CENSORED] you! See, that was an example. Examples are good things. They help to elucidate, or make clear, a point—kind of like how lotion makes your skin clear, or Windex makes a window clear. I have windows in my office, which allow the sunlight to get in. They also allow the light inside the office to get out. I’m glad it’s a reciprocal relationship, because I have to pay for the lights inside the office, and if I was just losing light without getting any back, I’d be pretty pissed off at the windows. Windows are hideous bitch-goddesses in this way—because the only thing you can do to them when you are angry is break them. And guess what that does? It lets more light out. There’s just no way to win with a [CENSORED]ing window. However, if it ever comes to that point, the important thing to remember is to enjoy breaking the window. This is a very Zen sort of thing. You must not see the window as your opponent, as something separate from you. Rather, you must see it as part of you—as an extension of your own body in the act of smashing it. If you do this, then the window will be listening to your calm Zen-like words, and will be surprised as hell when you smash it into tiny little pieces. That way, you can laugh at it afterwards. Bet you didn’t see that coming, you stupid window. When you’re done breaking the window, you should pick up the pieces and plant them or something. This is called Karma, and it’s good to have good Karma by doing stuff like planting glass after you break a window. This doesn’t make any sense, but we’re supposed to do it anyway. It’s a mystery. A lot of things in life are mysterious, which causes us all to wonder about them. That’s why they call it a mystery. If we didn’t wonder about them, they wouldn’t be mysteries. That’s why we call things we don’t wonder about, “not mysteries.” That says a lot right there. That brings to mind “Unsolved Mysteries.” They used to start off every show by saying, “This is not a news broadcast…” This, I think, was so people didn’t watch all the way through waiting for the weather. However, by that time they were doing the weather-on-the-hour commercial thingies, so I guess it really didn’t matter. Maybe they should have said, “This is not a news broadcast, but you can still get the weather anyway…” But maybe that would have taken up too much time at the beginning, or maybe they paid their writers by the word and were trying to skimp. In the paradoxical manner of the Human Condition, it seems this is a mystery that is itself part of the show, “Unsolved Mysteries.” There’s irony. Once a mystery is solved, it ceases to be a mystery. Then it just becomes boring, unless you’re the one who solved the mystery. Then you just keep going on and on, like William Shatner goes on and on about how they should bring Kirk back in the next Star Trek movie. Surprisingly, William Shatner himself actually played Kirk. Did you know that, in the whole run of the Star Trek franchise, no one ever said, “Beam me up, Scotty!” You would think that, if you put enough people into a room and had them make enough television shows and movies, eventually one of them (by the laws of probability) would have to say, “Beam me up, Scotty!” But it never happened. Perhaps the laws of probability need revised, or perhaps they just need more people in that room. I would be willing to venture a guess—dare I say speculate?—that the room is filled to capacity, and that’s why they can’t get enough people into it. This is entirely understandable and our anger should not be directed at the people in that room, per se, but rather at the fire marshal, for setting the room’s capacity in the first place. How do they figure out how many people it is safe to have in a room when it’s on fire? I would figure that the number would be irrespective of the size of the room—zero is the answer that comes to mind. However, conceivably, you could have a large enough room that one end could be on fire, while you yourself are enjoying cocktails and pleasant conversation on the other. However, one must realize the obvious in this situation—if you have a room that big, you probably have sprinklers or some kind of fire suppression system. That pretty much wraps it up for the usefulness of the fire marshal’s job, then. Of course, the unions won’t let that happen, so we’ll continue to have such absurd notions as “maximum safe capacities” and the like. And how can you legislate something like fire? That’s like legislating rain, only different. Just remember—if fires in rooms are outlawed, only outlaws will have fires in their rooms. This, however, could be considered progress, except in the case of arson criminals. There always seems to be a hitch somewhere. There’s usually a hitch on the back of a truck. This lets you pull innumerable things—boats, horse carriers, teeth—which can make life much better, unless you don’t have a truck, and the only reason you are thinking of one is because you really need a hitch. Then hitches cease to be your friend, but instead become banshees that taunt you and laugh at you in your dreams. Welcome to hell, kid. It’s like the first day of the rest of your hitch-less life. However, living life without a hitch can also be a good thing. It means everything in your life will go by without a hitch. However, if they are referring to your new horse carrier running down the street without a hitch, it probably means something really bad is happening, and you will probably have to get a new horse (and horse carrier). However, if you don’t have a hitch, what are you doing with a horse carrier in the first place? But this begins to imply that you must have a hitch to have a horse, which means that no stewardship of a horse comes without a hitch. When you realize the complex tapestry of relationships such as this in life, the true complexity of things like horses and trucks is revealed. However, revealing the true complexity of a horse, while unmasked, is not something that I would recommend. You can consider that a disclaimer. Disclaimers can often be fun. Essentially they are a way of saying, “Please do not be fooled by our glitzy marketing campaign. We really don’t want you to buy the product that we are making so enticing and easily accessible to you—because if you buy it and use it, you might die or catch some horrible disease. So please, ignore the contest you could win if you buy our product. We’d just die knowing that you bought it.” This is kinda funny, because if you think about it—really think hard, for a very long time—suddenly, you realize there’s just a hint of hypocrisy in there. And hopefully, if I think a bit harder and longer, I will be able to figure it out. I will keep you appraised of the situation, much the same way an appraiser figures out the price of stuff. The only difference is that the appraiser is figuring out the price of something. A lot of philosophy has been answered in the past century by the appraisal profession. There has long been a standing debate over what constitutes “value” and how you can determine it. Appraisers have turned this into a science, by simply converting everything into money-units. Appraisers, much like accountants and prostitutes, have found that everything can ultimately be broken down into a matter of “cost.” The quantity “cost” is measured in “money-units,” which have a proportional relationship to “time.” The relationship is this: the more money you make, the less time you have to spend it. This is like a lot of human relationships, wherein the more of something you have that you seek, the less of it you can enjoy. That’s really kind of deep. It sorta makes my head hurt just thinking about it. You know what else makes my head hurt? Eating cold things really fast. That produces the phenomenon known as “brain freeze” whereby, you guessed it, your brain freezes. Secretly, I suspect your brain does not actually freeze, but that rather your sinuses just get really cold. However, I have no way of proving this, as I’m not about to inspect my own sinuses, and nobody will eat cold things around me if I insist on inspecting their sinuses. I guess I will just have to do with my speculation. I’ve found that there are many things I can do with my speculation—and, in fact, many things that people tell me to go and do with my speculations. Not all of them are pleasant suggestions, however. Some of them are downright crass (not to be confused with “grass,” which is phonetically similar). One way that I can keep “crass” and “grass” separate, in my mind, is to remember that grass is green. However, I have yet to figure out a way to keep it straight which one of them is green, so my little pneumonic memory device fails. I wonder how I can have a hard time keeping those two words straight, while remembering a phrase like pneumonic memory device. It must have something to do with the film “Johnny Pneumonic,” which I never saw, but that’s ok because I heard it sucked anyway. I wonder where the word pneumonic came from. Wouldn’t it be humorously ironic if no one could remember where the word came from? Or even how it is spelled? NOTE: This is funny because I have been using the wrong spelling of “mnemonic” in the context of remembering stuff properly. Perhaps we would have to revisit it’s meaning. Perhaps a pneumonic memory device (picture a big pump on your head) would then become a memory device that failed, deserving the scorn of scholars and the derision of small children. That would be cool. Anything that brings scholars and children together like that is cool, in my book. It helps make the world a smaller place, which is good for creating a utopian global village, but really bad for things like overcrowding, overpopulation, and dwindling supplies of natural resources. I guess we have the scholars and children to thank for that, too. Thanks, scholars and children. I hope it was worth it. That dashes the notion that either schools or children are the future. If that’s our future, then I’m glad I was never a child, and that I never went to school. Actually, that’s not true. Almost everyone (including me) has been to school, and almost everyone has been a child, the only exceptions (on one or both counts) being Republican party seat-warmers. In that case I was referring to actual people, but wouldn’t it be funny if political parties raised funds by selling seat-warmers? Then people would have something to sit on when they listened to the real-life seat warmers. There’d be some symbolic irony in that—the Scottish tradition of “putting your ass” on something that you have contempt for. There’s another level of irony there, as the politicians are profiting off of the people’s contempt for them. Interestingly enough, this is what “taxes” are for in the United States. That is an almost-funny concept that almost makes me glad I didn’t file my taxes yet. I wonder if you can file for an extension after you’re already late? Isn’t that kinda like trying to renew a library book after it’s late, and you don’t have the book with you anyway? Maybe a tactic like that would work for me to rent movies, considering I have late fees at every movie rental place in the city. It’s to the point where they want two forms of ID just to accept cash from me. That’s fine, as I always carry two forms of ID on me, just in case something were to happen to me and they couldn’t identify me from the one. That’s kind of a macabre thought, but someone eventually had to say it. Think about it—if nobody ever said it, and humanity was wiped out tomorrow, do you think posterity would remember all that was said? No! That’d be too much to remember. They’d remember what wasn’t said—and do you want anything I just said to be the way humanity is remembered? I didn’t think so. Wow—I just asked a question and answered it myself. I guess that sorta means I’m having a conversation with myself. If “god” truly is in all of us, then I guess that means I could have written a book called “Conversations with God,” if Neil Donald Walsh hadn’t beaten me to it. Just my luck. You’d figure that, if “god” spoke to me, somebody else would have already stolen the title for the book I was gonna write about it. That just pisses me off. If “god” ever speaks to me, she better damn well be sure she clears the way for me to get a best seller out of it. Otherwise, I’ll just become ascetic. That’s the way these things go. You might object, but those of us who are more enlightened understand the ways of these things. “That’s life,” we say. And we’re right—because, even if we’re wrong, we won’t let you know. That’s the secret to being a philosopher. It’s kinda like prophecy, except you take what already happened and then predict it afterwards. This has the effect of leading to a lot of confirmed predictions, making you feel very good about yourself. And that’s what it is all about.
Love & Bubbles,
David Hennessy
King and Tyrant
P.S. Thank you for indulging. Enclosed is a complimentary page full of T’s.
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