bob seger is my boy…

bob seger

Bob Seger never really gets the credit he deserves.  A hard working dude who plays hard working music that takes you back to places in your life every single play.  If that wasn’t enough for me, he’s got a great name.

Game, set and match.

Even if you don’t think you know Bob Seger, his music and stories have this knack of knowing you… from the upper of the upper class right down to the working stiff.  It’s dudes like him and Springsteen that make me really want to get this squirrelosophy thing out to the masses… a blue collar philosophy. In my case it’d be a furry tail type of philosophy.

the logic of complaining…

logic of complaining

I love to complain.  Logic tells me that I shouldn’t either complain or like to complain, but you all know what my deal is with logic.

Even if I know how to do something, I like to complain…mostly because I think if I know how to do it, then everyone should know.  That being said, if everyone knows how to do it, then why should I even bother learning?  I was not given the gift (or curse) of infinite brain storage capacity… the real estate in there is pretty precious and way too pricy for any run of the mill, mundane data.

If I learn something new, that means that something has to be purged.  I don’t like that.  Just the other day Frank taught me how to empty the shavings out of his electric pencil sharpener… not that it was a complicated procedure or anything.  Still don’t know why he can’t do it…

Anyway… I got the steps down, with minimal shavings spillage (say that three times fast with a marshmallow in your mouth).  In doing so, my brain had to purge something.

I have forgotten all of the lyrics to the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song… thanks to logic, Frank and my limited storage.

 

the dip…

if i were next to a bag of chips right now, i’d be the dip.  i didn’t have frank do any kind of picture for this…because your wonderfully salty imagination can go wild with this…

i’m giving you a gift here, don’t forget your boy bob…

 

being correct with all the bells and whistles…

being right

Have you ever just known something was going to turn out the way you thought it would?  That, despite all other talk, your prediction was correct…you felt it was going to be right, you knew it was going to be right and you’d stake almost anything on being correct?

Then it all came true…

and you felt like the yucky, slimy stuff that forms under a pile of raked leaves after a long rain?

Being correct about something has a whole list of side effects that may cause more discomfort than being wrong.

Don’t tell me you haven’t ever been there.  That place where you wished you weren’t right because the reality of the outcome is just bad… just bad.  Being right hasn’t benefited you in any way other than you can say you were right.

Might be easier to not say anything and be surprised like everyone else.

laughing and pain, sunshine and rain and rob base…

laughing through pain

I’m not entirely sure that I can agree with Chaplin on pain…although I do agree on the principle.  I think it depends on what kind of pain you’re talking about.  Sometimes I think I can and should laugh at everything, otherwise the sting of reality will eat me alive.  I won’t laugh at someone else’s pain, even if I think it’s a self-serving, their fault type of thing.  No one should laugh at the pain of another.  I suppose it’s okay if the pain holder is laughing… but that’s not a concrete rule.

Chaplin was able to take the poverty of his youth and spin it into cinematic gold…contrary to what some believe, he never forgot where he came from…if he had forgotten, he never would have gone where he did.  I’m by no means a Chaplin scholar… I’m a squirrel.  What I have seen, being mildly forced to watch Chaplin’s flickering little masterpieces with Frank, is that Chaplin never depicted the poor as pure clowns.  Whatever the premise was, no matter how far fetched, there was always an air of dignity to having nothing… but knowing that their situation could change….even though it seemed like it wasn’t, the present was just temporary.

Give yourself a break.

I don’t know what this has to do with Rob Base.  Forgive a squirrel…

waterproof squirrel…

waterproof squirrel

I suppose that everything can be considered waterproof until acted upon by water.  I thought the special shampoo I used protected me.  I soon realized that in order for the shampoo to work, I had to apply water…defeating the purpose that wasn’t really a purpose in the first place.

You see what I go through?

imagination without motivation…

imagination motivation

An idea with imagination but no motivation is a ghost.  If you believe it, you can see it… but if you don’t believe then you just have to watch the next episode of Scooby Doo.  I watch Frank write over and over in his little black notebooks ideas that come from out of nowhere.  98% of those ideas are horrible.  (his words, not mine) He has to keep writing to set a standard…to know what is good and workable… and what will need to be forgotten once its documented.  You need to know where not to go so you don’t end up going there again.

That’s imagination.  The ability to see it all, but only use a tiny bit.  If he wasn’t motivated to bring those notebook scribbles out, why bother scribbling in the first place?  Save the trees and the ink.  Thinking you can do more with what’s there also plays a big part.  Starting something and realizing that it may not look like you thought, keeping an open mind along the way to augment your vision if it needs it is important too.

This isn’t rocket science y’all… it’s art.

spring cleaning in november…

cleaning

Today was an unusually warm day for November.  The outside cleaning that Frank hoped would not have to happen until the spring was fully doable today.  He resisted but the relented.  It was beautiful in a sad sort of way.  It wasn’t supposed to be this warm today.  He wasn’t supposed to break boxes down and fill garbage bags up with stuff cleaned out of the shed three months ago… his timeline was potentially skewed by the jet stream.

Space time and meteorological continuum theories aside, the backyard looks nice.  Well, better than it did.

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