Pizzazz, and how to get some.

   Pizzazz is alot like Art or Spirituality. Hard to define, but you know it when you see it. The Dalai Lama is a Spiritual kinda cat. Gwenyth has Pizzazz. Carravagio whipped up the Art in his day. Pizaazz is always with a Capital P.
    I have a young friend from Finland. Just the way he sez Pizzazz, you know he's got some, with that cute Finnish accent. The dude can walk on his hands for extended periods of time. Can you beat that! We have another friend we call the dog butler who can juggle a half a dozen balls while riding a unicyle up a flight of stairs. He's got some. But Pizzazz is more than just some circus skills.  The way Gwenyth rocks the striped shirt and the beret is enough for me. Some people are hat people. Some people are sideburn people. Some people are ukelele people.  Be just like youself, but more so.
   The french call it  "je ne sais quois", literally , "I don't know what".

Let's Start a Band.

  Do you own a musical instrument? A recorder,  a clarinet, your uncle's dusty old trombone, a bugle, a harmonica , a pennywhistle? Yardsale keyboards, ukes, basses, something for everyone.  The kazoo is not an instument, nor is the slide whistle, but either will do in a pinch. A pair of maraccas or some cheap bongos and we're ready to go. Call up a bunch of your friends. If you drink alcohol or use recreational drugs , do so now.  Count, one ,two, three , four, go! The sound that you hear is the best your band will ever sound. That first howling din, combined with singing or hollerin' by everyone not blowing into something, is the sound of joy. If you want to play a standard , just say Bill Baily or Stardust really loud, and start tooting as you may recall the song going. It will take care of itself.
   Next time you get together, everyone will have ideas about how it should sound and you'll all start swearing alot.

Your Retirement Plan

    By the time you are set to retire, luckily, science will have perfected time travel. I was reading about quantum physics the other day. It seems that there are loads of different universes in existence, where all things are sorta all happening, at all times. That is good news. So right at this moment, I'm not actually wasting my precious youth, smokin' weed  and listening to Herb Alpert records. I am preparing for the dog eat dog future, so I won't be too decrepit to avoid being dog food. Nope, at this moment I am living in Beverly Hills and I am a twenty year old mogul of some sort.  Whew, thank God. I  had this nightmareish moment when I thought I might be a aging hippie carpenter on his last legs.
   Take heart folks. The world of Maya, I believe the Buddhists call it, is all illusion. In many different universes, we are all just getting started, and well too. 

Chain Saw Safety. Not Just for Men.

    Of all the awesome tools of the world, the chainsaw is one of the awesomest. The One Hundred Ton Crane may be bigger, The Ninety Pound Jack Hammer may be more painful, but the chain saw, just in terms of risk of personal injury alone, is in a class by itself.
    I was watching my neighbors take down a small tree. The dad was on a step ladder with the saw held horizontally at neck height. The mom was working the rope,  pulling the soon to fall tree directly towards herself. He was yelling something and she was yelling something. They live, or used to live, a few blocks away. I haven't seen them since , but their dog is still in the yard so I assume they survived.
    I just got a yard sale saw. A whopper.44cc. with a thirty inch bar. Honey, get the rope.
 

Barbie Dolls. Good or Bad?

     The jury is still out amoungst the parenting experts.  Many say Barbie fosters bad body consciousness and whatnot. I fancy myself as a parenting expert and my methods are well known. (see  smoothstar 2/14/11)
    Here's my experience with Barbie Dolls. They allow children and parents alike to play gods. They are not baby or child dolls but, full grown adults that will do our bidding. See the appeal? With my latest batch of children we would play a game we called "Court Date Barbie". Our attorney was a perfectly turned out African -American woman with a serious looking brief case. She never lost a case. We'd sometimes have a court room set-up where Godzilla would be accused of vandalism. He'd demolish whole lego cities; our lawyer would get him off.
    I went in the playroom and saw a Ken Doll being crucified upside down like Saint Peter. The girls said ,
"He didn't have a good lawyer."

Do You Have A Boat?

   A friend mentioned the other day that his dental bills were astronomical. He had negelected his teeth for so many years. He  refered to his hillbilly teeth, which admitedly didn't look good, but followed it by saying he'd just bought a new boat. I quote."My teeth are rotted out of my head but damn, I got a nice boat. I'm like some sorta hillbilly."
    Don't despair if you have neglected all sorts of financial, familial, and other pressing personal responsibilities, to lavish time and money on your boat. Since biblical times and before, it has been so. It's not your fault. I have seen both men and women sitting in their boats, parked in windswept, frozen parking lots, and gazing into the middle distance, drinking beers. They are,what we call, bench sailing. It's normal.
   Boat quote. " My kid's going to Marist, the tuition will ruin us both. I'm picking up my new boat tomorrow. Let's blow the day off and fish."

Your Lawn is a Living Thing.

   Most of you city folks and you country folks can ignore today's post but, you may someday end up in the suburbs, so you might stick with me. The lawn care is a hidden feature of suburban life I had forgotten about when I returned to my childhood home a few years back to reclaim my spot in suburbia.
   My first mistake. My front lawn is more than than a place to park my cars. It must be a source of pride, not a tire rutted mudhole. My second mistake. Backyard bonfires. When day breaks and there is large scorched circle in your backyard, as there is this morning ; I should have taken all that stuff to the dump instead of burning it.
   I won't go on and on. Don't beat yourself up. A lawn is like a bad haircut. It will grow back. You must learn to care about your lawn. Good lawn habits aren't a genetic thing. When we were nomadic hunters, we didn't give a hoot about how the tundra looked.