Tuesday, October 28, 2008

IT DON'T MATTTER NO HOW

Blog number doesn't matter 28 October 2008

My Blog entries were messed up a bit, and the long and the short of it is that no more entries should be coming in here.If you are addicted to my Blog entries, the proper link is,

Click here: Bodhi's Harangeout

If that doesn't work, the proper address is:

http://bodhimaliks.blogspot.com/

Saturday, October 25, 2008

LESS ARTISTS, MORE CRAFTSMEN

Blog number 235 25 October 2008

Today is Sunday. Tonight I get to watch "Dexter," "Mad Men," and "Entourage." Goody.

These programs are produced, written, directed and acted by craftsmen.

On the other hand we have "Crash," a new series with nice camera shots, nice opening credits, lots of money invested. And then it all goes to crap. I knew from the first scene that there were going to be problems with this turkey. It opens with a long sex scene. Obviously a precursor to what is coming.

So humans have sex. Amazing!

The problem with this series is that nobody cares. A cop with no stripes on his sleeves starts ordering other cops around like a top sergeant, and then when he is out on patrol, he wears sergeant stripes.

This same cop hassles a sexy Latina after accidentally ramming into her car, feeling her up, going to her house and kissing her while her husband is out of sight, but in the same room, and then has sex with her on the side of his car while stopped at a stop sign. And she obviously hates him. Guess you have to really insult a woman if you wanna have quick sex with her.

Then we have a Black architect trying to get a job designing some alterations a white woman wants on her house that her husband is very much against. You just KNOW the Black man and the white woman is going to have sex. Because it's cutting edge, you see. And sure enough, they do.

Then a Black poet is talked into doing rap for a powerful music mogul even though he insists he is NOT a rapper, that he writes poetry, period. So after no rehearsal, he proceeds to wow the crowd and is promised that he is going to be "the next big thing."

Crash could have been up there with Dexter, Mad Men, et all. You can see it has the potential, but the insistence on sex, juvenile nonsense and carelessness makes it into nothing more than a teenage sex thriller.

Obligatory sex scenes are like car chases, hand to hand combat and gunfire. They eat up the time while adding nothing to the story. You can almost hear the director saying, "I need something here. I know! I'll put in a sex scene (chase scene, fight scene, gun battle scene)."

I don't really like being a critic, but if not me, who? Somebody's got to say these things. Otherwise trash will tend to propagate its self.

Friday, October 24, 2008

AND A GOOD DAY TO YOU TOO, SIR!

Blog number 234 24 October 2008

Today I had one of those experiences that comes to one every once in a while. You know - the kind that warms the heart, the kind that is in a way, a "secret" because there is no way to transmit it to another human so that they will understand - the kind that belongs just to you and to no one else.

The lovely Teresa took me to the new Fry's Grocery and Vacuum Cleaners and Radios and DVDs and Tool Bins and Starbucks on Pinal Avenue. While Teresa shopped, I sat and drank a cup of four-shot espresso and read the most delicious novel translated from Japanese. At one point I raised my head and stared off into space, thinking about what I was reading.

A mother walked by, trailed by her slight four-or-five year old boy. It seemed the boy was looking at me, but I wasn't sure - my eyes aren't all that good, and the boy had pale eyes. I waved at him to check it out. He quickly turned his head away from me and caught up closer to his mother. So he WAS looking at me.

I followed him with my eyes and just before he went behind a display, he looked back at me and gave a big shy smile.

We connected and nobody else in the whole wide world, including his mother, was aware of this.

I don't think he would ever tell anyone about this, because to a little boy, it was nothing. So up until I started writing this entry to my Blog, only two people knew of this event and only one (me) thought anything about it.

That event is mine and nobody else can have it.

No use begging, either.

Nope.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

SAME TO YOU!

Blog number 233 22 October 2008

A week or so ago I read a book called, "Waiter's Rant" about a waiters experience waiting on tables. The author mentioned reading a book called, "Waiting," by waitress Debra Ginsberg.

So I started reading that.

Debra mentions being told an anecdote concerning a group of patrons sitting at the same table where one of them kept cursing at the waitress for twenty minutes before one of the group told the waitress that the cursing patron had Tourette's Syndrome.

In case you don't know what Tourette's is, it's a syndrome whereby the sufferer of it uses offensive and dirty words shouted out in a loud voice.

I once saw a documentary about a Tourette's sufferer and he kept cursing, saying dirty words, and throwing haymakers that came awfully close to the documentarian's nose. At one point the documentarian nervously said, "You're not going to hit me, are you?"

Watching this documentary, I was struck by both the cursing and the haymakers. I wondered why, if the behavior was entirely involuntary, did the sufferer pick only obscene words? And why were the haymakers ALWAYS thrown toward the man making the documentary?

I'm not suggesting that those with Tourette's are consciously perpetuating this stereotype. What I am suggesting is that there might be an unconscious "bent," an unconscious passive aggressive drive causing the symptoms to be what they are. After all, it is difficult to conceive that the sufferer would think, "let's see now. I could say, "rabbit," or "look out," but I think I'll say, "shit"

"Yeah, that's what I'll do!"

"SHIT."

The laws of probability prevent the symptoms from being randomly produced, they are too orderly.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

AN EXPERIMENT IN HUMBLENESS

Blog number 232 21 October 2008

A couple of days ago I used the AOL search engine searching , "Bodhimalik" and one of the things that turned up was a Blog about Booth Tarkington, written by one Greg Wright. One of Mr. Wright's many essays concerning Booth Tarkington begins, "Blogger Bodhimalik describes his own experience with Tarkington..."

This raised a question in my mind that coincided with a comment by another reader who said that she was turned on to my Blog by a friend. The question raised is, "How do these people I don't know come to be reading my Blog, and as a corollary, how many people are reading it?" Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands?

"Now, Don, you're getting a little carried away there, don't you think?"

"Yes, I think so. Thank you."

"Glad to be of service."

I always assumed that the only people reading my Blog were friends and family to whom I had sent a link, and to people who THEY notified of its existence. When I was using message boards I sometimes came across somebody who said something that made me think they had read my Blog, but I never really invesigated it. In fact, I never asked any of them if they read it.

One of the reasons I am writing this particular entry is due to my puzzlement over finding out that strangers are reading it. I never expected that. Of course it still could be that these so-called strangers are acquaintances of my friends and/or family. Or ex-message board people.

The other reason I am writing this particular entry is that I have not made an entry in some time and I needed something to write about. It was either this or a treatise on the sex life of the Vietnamese tsetse fly, and I know you don't want that.

I originally wrote this entry under a misconception, so I have changed some of the writing to make more sense with my new understanding. I thought I had Googled, "Bodhimalik," but I hadn't.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

PEG O MY HEART

Blog number 231 16 October 2008

I had my "heart conference" today. No operations of any kind to do. That's a GOOD to-do list. Soooo, not much to write about, but I promised. Kinda.

Th-th-that that's all, folks!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

RETREAT HELL, WE JUST GOT HERE

Blog number 230 15 October 2008

I'm now reading a book about General Rommel and General Patton of WW TWO fame. Although it is a serious book - no mucking about, it has twice made digs at the Italians. One dig concerned both sides trying to get Italy on their side and the author makes a comment about knowing what Italy was, all that had to be determined was its price.

The other dig concerned Italy's ready acceptance of the fascist salute because "Its easier to raise one hand than both of them."

After recounting the brilliant strategy and opportunistic methodology employed by Rommel in an attack upon the Italians during WW ONE, the summing up reveals that Rommel attained his successes with never much more than five hundred men, and accounted for "nine thousand prisoners, eighty guns, and more horses, mules, and assorted supplies than anyone could count." The cost to his force was six dead and twenty wounded.

He was once ordered to stop an attack because his superiors were cautious about attacking with so few men, but instead he sent most of his detachment back to hill 1096 as instructed, including all his officers, keeping a hundred enlisted personnel and six heavy machine gun crews "because they could not be court-martialed for obeying orders from a direct superior," and proceeded to successfully complete another campaign. The guy just wouldn't stop!

I haven't read anything about Patton yet, but when I do, I will report his exploits too.

Unless they don't amount to much, of course.

Or I just don't feel like it.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS

Blog number 229 14 October 2008

When I was getting checked for my chest pains and was about to lie on a table and have photographs taken of my beating heart, the man-in-charge asked me if I wanted to listen to some music. "Sure," I said.

"Sinatra?" he asked.

"No," I replied.

At the time, I thought he might be a one of those strange Sinatra fans and wanted to listen to him, but as I got to thinking of it, I think he thought that, since I was an old man, I probably liked old time singers like Sinatra, Tony Bennett, et al. all of whom I hate with a passion.

We settled on Iron Butterfly.

This thought reminded me of when that fifteen year old girl asked my wife and me if we knew who the Beatles were. I think that to youngsters, they see themselves as living in the world and old people are "off there" somewhere, not attuned to what is really going on.

They are SO cute!

Monday, October 13, 2008

THE ECLECTIC HORSEMAN

Blog number 228 13 October 2008

Ever since I was able to obnserve the magic machinations of mine own mind during psychoanalysis, I have been fascinated with minds. Both mine and others. Memories especially intrigue me.

A few years back, while visiting my youngest son Derek, he arranged for me to copy a bunch of his music from his computer to mine. I told him I liked R. E. M., and he volunteered the information that I would probably like "Orange Crush" by R. E. M. He said it was his favorite R. E. M. song. I told him I had never heard of it, but to transfer it. When I got home, I listened to it, and he was right. It's a good song.

That's act one.

A few years pass and there comes a time when I mention him liking "Orange Crush." He said he never heard of it. I dragged it up on my computer and had him listen to it in order to refresh his memory. He said it was the first time he had ever heard it, and not only that - he didn't like it!

That's act two.

There is no act three.

Now to me, the most interesting point of these "false memories" - either his or mine, is that when I think of the time he wanted to download it for me, it is like a video in my mind. I can see the whole event playing out once again, just like it did back then.

Of course, his video of this event is missing from his mental store of DVDs.

When two people remember a single event in different ways, each is seeing a replay of what they saw the first time. Tell me that ain't weird.

Tell me God isn't sometimes jerking us around for no apparent reason except to amuse Himself at our expense.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

BE A WINNER, NOT A WHINER.

Blog number 227 12 October 2008

A couple of years ago I got an epiphany while listening to two radio talk show hosts. These two had a program that was pretty funny, so I thought of them as humorous people. That is until they got to talking about the 100 funniest movies.

One of them declared that he thought "Singing In the Rain" was not only one of the top hundred funniest movies, but the top number one funniest movie of all time! His CO-host agreed with him.

It was then that I realized that not everyone looked at the universe in the same way. I thought if something was funny, it was funny. If someone didn't think it was funny, then that person had no sense of humor. That's what I thought.

Apropos to this, I heard a funny joke on a television program called, "The History of Jokes." I'll tell the joke later.

I first told it to my youngest son, Derek, and I laughed before he did, but he laughed. Then I next told it to my second oldest son, Kavi, and he said, "That's not funny." Then I told it to Maryanne and she looked at me like I was nuts. Yesterday I told it to my granddaughter, Tara, and she burst out laughing right away.

I realize now that I can use that joke to kind of scientifically investigate the "joke focus" of different people. Since people are patterns of patterns, I can then use this information to predict the future behavior of individuals and then I can offer this information to Homeland Security and make a lot of money. Then I can use that money to buy an airplane and flying instructions, hire a cook, a butler and a cleaning woman, build a new house with a huge kitchen with lots of copper pans hanging from the ceiling, a workout room with a live-in personal trainer, and a gardener to care for my extensive flower and vegetable garden.

I'll move to New York across from Central Park. My garden will be on the roof of my condo.

Ah, life is good when you make good plans.

This is the joke I will use to make my fortune:

A priest, a rabbi and a whale went into a bar.

The priest said, "I believe Jesus is the messiah, so I'll have sacramental wine."

The rabbi said, "I believe the messiah hasn't come yet, so I'll have Manischewitz wine."

The whale said, (and here you make a "eeeeeee" sound like a whale singing.)

It's funny. Trust me.

Friday, October 10, 2008

DARNIT, DARNIT, DARNIT!

Blog number 226 10 October 2008

I thought I had that comment reply thing whipped, but I just found out that I don't.

I went through the hoops and got to reply to Paul, but when I tried the same damn thing with Maryanne's, it wouldn't work. It kept saying the password was wrong. I only have two passwords. Geeze, whadda they want?!

BUTTON BUTTON, WHO'S GOT THE BUTTON

Blog number 225 10 October 2008

As a normal neurotic human being, I am host to what is commonly called, "buttons." You know - somebody pushes them and you go crazy.

I have two outstandng buttons. One of them is when someone insinuates that I am stupid. I don't mind being thought stupid or called stupid, but I go off when someone tries to trick me as if I were an idiot.

The other button, and the raison d'etre for this entry, is that I don't want anyone to think I don't like them. Unless I get pissed at them for their behavior. Then I don't care a whit. This button goes off when someone leaves a comment to one of my Blog entries and I can't respond. I don't want them to think I am ignoring them because they are not worth my attention.

I can't at the moment respond to these comments because I haven't figured out how to do it. When I do, then I will.

I like that last sentence a lot. Succinct, yes?

HIT AND RUN

Blog number 224 09 October 2008


I went to the library yesterday with a twelve year old friend. I was carrying two books to the checkout when my friend asked me what books I had. I told him they were novels about hit men. He asked me what a hit man was. I told him if you wanted someone killed, you would give someone else a thousand dollars and they would kill him for you.

He said, "Isn't that illegal?"

Thursday, October 9, 2008

DARNIT!

Blog number 223 08 October 2008

Sorry, Paul - and anyone else. Can't figure out how to respond to comments on this URL yet.

Actually, I'm having a little trouble with posting new Blogs. And editing them? Forget about that!

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

ONCE MORE, WITH FEELING

Blog number 222 08 October 2008

Last week I had slight chest pains whenever I did some walking or moving. Not bad enough to take nitroglycerin, and they disappeared whenever I rested, so I went with that. The day before, however, and yesterday morning, they didn't go away with resting, so I took the nitro and it worked. I decided to get in touch with a heart doctor, 'cause it sure seems like I'm gonna be visiting a hospital bed some time in the future.

I was given a stress test and a sonogram yesterday, and it looks like I might get by with a stent. I sure hope so. I'll know for sure Tuesday when I go in for my appointment.I watched my heart beat in the sonogram picture and I was struck with the image of the valve opening and closing with such precision and regularity without anybody doing anything. It looked like two drumsticks alternating hitting a drum. Seemed exactly like a magic miracle to me. I was fascinated.

I didn't like the stress test at all. Yukkers! Nausea. I hate being nauseous. Fortunately I had three people talking me through it, which helped. When one of them said, "Twenty seconds more," I knew I could make it. The first time I had one of these, two people were standing there, saying naught. I kept saying I was sick in a strange way. They didn't care. It felt like my head was nauseous, not my stomach. Can one's head vomit?