Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] My favorite book of all time is the one I've been reading for more than 50 years and have no prayer of ever finishing. It has no plot, no cliffhangers. Tom Cruise has not had a chance of ever getting cast in the lead role in any big screen adaptation. It would be a short flop.
[00:00:21] I can go weeks without even picking one up. I own four nearly identical copies of this book, but when I need it, I am riveted to what is on its pages. Like, I'm a rabbinical scholar and it is the Talmud for like, oh, maybe 40 seconds. The seemingly innocuous book contains the substance that helps inspirational leaders mobilize the populace to win the world wars that while we are seem to be helping diplomats avoid them, in the very end, it is no mystery. Spoiler alert. The butler didn't do it.
[00:00:53] Ziz Zva did.
[00:00:56] Let me say that again. Zizva did. I could say it four times and never come out the same. Z Y, Z, Z Y, V A.
[00:01:05] That's the last word in the dictionary.
[00:01:07] Or some dictionary. It might be the not in others.
[00:01:11] But it's an interesting word. It reminds me of Theodore Zizaak. Whenever we get the phone book back when we did prank calls, the last name in the book is the first one we'd always call and ask what it would be like to be last. All the time we call Theodore Zizaak. His might have been the last name in the whole America.
[00:01:33] I was invited to be part of a panel discussion about Mr. Rogers on what would have been the man's 98th birthday.
[00:01:40] What I think, what I hope will stay with me the longest, is what the author of the most thorough bio of Fred is. His foreword answer to how he would sum up Fred's mission from so much wisdom to just don't want one.
[00:01:53] He said, slow down, be kind.
[00:01:58] On the way home, I tried to think of the four words that would best describe my entire existence.
[00:02:04] And I thought of them. They are work less, get paid more.
[00:02:08] Yes, I know. The entire answer is nonsensical, and I'm living proof of that.
[00:02:13] I keep working less and I keep getting paid less.
[00:02:15] There's no deviancy in the equation. It is time tested. Work less, get paid less.
[00:02:22] And the darn thing isn't even four words long. I couldn't even follow my own directions.
[00:02:27] But I appreciate the Fred message and I cling to the hope that as long as I'll make it one day, I'll make it work as long as I don't.
[00:02:37] I continue to get strong reaction from the 62nd I've been thinking.
[00:02:43] So instead of digging around for new ones, I'm just going to plug and play with the ones I already have.
[00:02:48] Plug and play like this.
[00:02:54] Try and do at least one thing a week that'll blow back your hair and let you scream. Weeee.
[00:03:00] When enduring tough times, try and remember Winston Churchill who said when going through hell, keep going.
[00:03:07] I changed it. I think it's a little better if you say it my way. When going through hell, go faster.
[00:03:13] Sorry Winston.
[00:03:15] I miss watching the Olympics when the kids were young and foolishly believed Daddy would never lie to them. I remember telling them that I studied national anthems from around the world. So when some country like Sweden would win a gold medal and get the national anthem played, I'd sing along. O sweet land of snow and ice, we thank you for for your cocoa. Thank you for the textile mills that stabilize the economy when the ox is sick. I'm not saying we're disrespected throughout the universe. I'm just saying anywhere that has intelligent life is going to have some form of the joke that starts off with Two earthlings walk into a bar.
[00:03:58] This is from a blog I wrote back in 2013.
[00:04:01] It was about a trip to the south shores of the Gulf shores of Mississippi. Great time.
[00:04:08] And I didn't blog for a while and I wanted to explain why.
[00:04:13] I know some readers worry when my blog frequency decreases. They wonder if I'm too hungover to type, have lost interest, or gadzooks, found a job.
[00:04:21] My voice has been absent from many topical issues this week because it's been occupied saying things like please bring me another Wild Turkey.
[00:04:29] But I owe you an explanation as to why I've been tardy in addressing so many of these important issues.
[00:04:36] I don't care. That's the explanation. I just don't care.
[00:04:40] I accepted an invitation to travel to the lovely Gulf coast region of Biloxi, Mississippi and Gulf Shores, Alabama. I'm with about 10 other friendly golf riders on a lavish five day ramble upon the golf courses, through the casinos and in some of the finest restaurants in the Old South.
[00:04:57] I'm having a ball. I really enjoy mingling with the other writers, especially sports writers. These guys are so professional and accomplished, and by that I mean they have actual jobs.
[00:05:08] They're here to learn about how the Gulf Shores are coming back. Yes, still from the 2005 devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The BP recovery, by comparison, was a blip and BP's getting high marks for their efforts.
[00:05:21] These journalists will return and write stories informing their readers about the opportunities of hospitality and why it's a great time to visit me. I'm eager to share for share what for me is the most memorable revelation of the entire trip.
[00:05:35] In fact, it's too momentous to wait for my return, so I'm interrupting my frolic to issue a breaking news bulletin.
[00:05:43] I have beautiful hands.
[00:05:47] They're strong, supple, and when Southern women gaze upon them, they think romantic thoughts. I learned this last night when the whole gang, including three of our female hosts, went out for nightcaps following our evening feast.
[00:06:00] One of the ladies, an auburn haired young beauty, said, I wanted to tell you we noticed something about you. You have the nicest hands we've ever seen on a man. They're just beautiful.
[00:06:10] I set down my drink and peeked at the paws proportion, taut, muscular veins pulsing beneath the manly tan canvas. She was right. They're gorgeous.
[00:06:20] In fact, at that moment the only flaw I could detect was on my damn wedding ring was on Lefty.
[00:06:27] I'm not saying that by complimenting my beautiful hands in a crowded tavern, she was hinting she was eager for me to take them and start rubbing them up and down on her.
[00:06:36] But it's difficult for any man, especially those of us with juvenile dispositions, to hear a fine looking young woman compliment us and not think, hey, she's really digging me. I still got it. I'm the man.
[00:06:50] In fact, I'm old enough to be her father. In fact, the night before I almost pretended to be her father.
[00:06:55] A security guard carded her as we walked into the casino. She was outraged, which was just silly. Of course, she's just he's just doing his job. The inconvenience was minimal, and one day she'll be flattered when asked by the request.
[00:07:09] Yet she scolded him. I told her I had half a mind to go back to the old gentleman, tell him I was her father, and I wanted to apologize for her poor manners. I'd blame it all on her lousy mother.
[00:07:20] I enjoy role playing and thought if I could get security on my side, maybe he'd look the other way if I tried to steal a few chips from the blackjack table.
[00:07:28] By now everyone at the table was looking at my hands, staring.
[00:07:32] One guy asked if I use my hands for purposes alluded to in the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza became a hand model.
[00:07:40] I'm not going to say here what I said there, but I will say what I said there was a total lie.
[00:07:46] I tried to deflect some of the attention by asking her if there was a part of her body with which she was particularly proud.
[00:07:53] There is. She's proud of her shapely legs.
[00:07:56] She should be. They're ravishing. Almost as nice as my hands.
[00:08:00] I asked if she preferred one leg over the other. She doesn't, and I complimented her for being even handed regarding her legs.
[00:08:08] So now I have this unexpected new life complicating vanity to lug around. For instance, this story took me nearly three times as long to write because I'm trying not to type so hard as I did before I learned my hands belong on the COVID of romance novels.
[00:08:22] I'll try not to let my hands go to my head unless I feel something itchy.
[00:08:27] I'm bringing my hands home to Pennsylvania on Sunday and will be happy to share with them anyone who appreciates true beauty.
[00:08:33] I'll even let you take your picture next to them if you can use it. If you want to use it for your Facebook profile.
[00:08:40] One thing I won't do is tolerate any teasing. I don't want people to make fun of them for being so beautiful. Tease me with about my beauty, about their beauty, and I won't show you the hands. You'll just get the finger.
[00:09:02] Hi, I'm chris, and I've been thinking.
[00:09:09] Colorful people wonder if ever, in the annals of Mob history, one man named Stone was asked to kill two men named Burke, it was on this day in rock history. In 1969, the band Creedence Clearwater Revival released the song Proud Mary. She's been rolling on the river ever since, which means not only was she proud, she was also quite buoyant.
[00:09:32] If Satan is seen giving someone real hell, is it a torment of the soul or is it just considered a standard real estate deal?
[00:09:39] I remember the time I told Mr. Palmer I'd be pulling playing Oakmont the next day and asked if he had any suggestions on how I could get a good score. He said, I suggest you play someplace else.
[00:09:49] There's a vast difference between being buried and being grounded.
[00:09:53] You could say it's grave. I'm Chris and I've been thinking.
[00:09:59] And no, I didn't have to pass a drug test.
[00:10:06] I don't know why it didn't occur to me earlier, but the writer with whom I have most in common is none other than Henry David Thoreau.
[00:10:13] He began writing Walden while spending two years living in the woods on Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. I wrote Use all the Crayons while spending eight years drinking at the pond near Latrobe Pennsylvania.
[00:10:26] He was a Harvard divinity student who wrote, the unconsciousness of man is the consciousness of God. I was an Ohio University C student who wrote I wonder if the temperature in heaven is individualized or if some of the old ladies complain it's always too cold and bundle up in sweaters.
[00:10:44] He believed in the abolition of racial injustice and once wrote, the only house and a slave state in which a free man can abide with honor is a government prison.
[00:10:54] I believe in the abolition of radical racial injustice and once wrote, As a believer in American equality, I don't miss Jim Crow. As a believer in American folk music, I do miss Jim Crow. Chee Reading Walden in college was a foundational experience for me back when I was seeking a life guiding ethos.
[00:11:12] He talked about shedding our petty contrivances in favor of spiritual elevation.
[00:11:16] A thorough, guided life once promised transcendence, simplicity, and a soulful peace untainted by crass materialism.
[00:11:24] It promised all those things an idealistic young man craved, save two. All but two babes and margaritas.
[00:11:32] Happily, I had a friend who turned me on to young Jimmy Buffett and cheers. My formative years segued into what seems like one long tequila commercial.
[00:11:41] Now, more than halfway through with my mortal portion, I'm wondering what happened to those Thoreau Part of me it still informs so much a part of my philosophizing. Heck, both my book and blog titles hint at the benefits of a simple life, an existence devoted to companionship, reading, and embracing the vivacious joys each day offers.
[00:12:01] Yet I spend about nearly every waking moment fretting about money and persistent fears of failure.
[00:12:07] What gives? How did Thoreau maintain his entire life maintain this aesthetic core?
[00:12:14] I decided to investigate. The answer was as plain as the nose on his face.
[00:12:19] Thoreau never got laid.
[00:12:21] A man known for earthiness never got down and dirty. That has to be it. Living in the woods, for most any guy with drinking buddies, would be a cinch. You'd never get lonely because your married friends would come and visit. They'd bring beer, chips, and maybe some woodsy wieners.
[00:12:37] It'd be like an endless tailgate party, one where you don't have to worry about the daintiness of urinating in some stuffy Porta John.
[00:12:45] Was his apparent celibacy self imposed as perhaps a way to achieve higher understanding?
[00:12:50] Maybe not. This is from Thoreau. Wikipedia Personal Appearance Chapter Thoreau was a homely man with a nose. That was called the most prominent feature.
[00:13:00] He called that himself dissed by Wikipedia, one of the most bland websites in all creation. I can only guess Wikipedia is never gained in a Wikimerer.
[00:13:11] So don't feel too bad I haven't lived up to Thoreau's standard set in the revered Walden.
[00:13:16] I'm blessed to have a darling wife and daughters that I lay awake at night trying to conjure ways up to be a better provider for them is a small price to pay, even for all they give me. Even when prices for pay for things like college, car insurance and new iPhones.
[00:13:32] Then there's this. I read it took Thoreau five years to sell 2,000 copies. That may be difficult for you precious millennials to comprehend, but the only Amazon in 1854 was a piranha infested river in South America.
[00:13:49] I wonder if the old technophobe would appreciate the irony that a Facebook page dedicated to him has 293,404 likes.
[00:13:59] Me, I've sold more than twice that many crayons books in just four years.
[00:14:04] And the poor guy died at just 44 while contracting bronchiitis. Bronchitis while walking in the woods during a thunderstorm.
[00:14:11] What, you thought this apostle of the pastoral fell into a primitive combine?
[00:14:16] On his deathbed, he said what to me is the most blessedly elegant observation anyone's ever made about the relationship between mankind and our Creator. Had he, it was asked, made his peace with God?
[00:14:28] I did not know we'd ever quarreled.
[00:14:31] How profound. I've never written anything so sublime.
[00:14:35] But the day is young and the Pond is open for business again. And I can't think of a better place to make a real splash than a place called the Pond.
[00:14:51] I'm Chris, and I've been thinking. So let me see if I got this straight. The last election, many people voted for Donald Trump because they said Joe Biden took too many naps?
[00:15:00] The next election, many of those same people are going to vote for whoever's running against Trump because he's so goddamn wide awake none of us can get any sleep.
[00:15:08] I get it. I haven't slept since Inauguration Day. Does America have a snooze alarm?
[00:15:14] People who want to appear more interesting get tattoos. People who want to become more interesting get library cards.
[00:15:22] Remember, proper minds can be safe, but never sound.
[00:15:26] And while we're at it, how come we're Earthlings? I don't mean why do we live here? I mean why aren't we Earthians like Martians?
[00:15:34] There's no Pittsburghlings. There's no Frenchlings I know of no equivalent. Calling us Earthlings is like referring to some breed of captivity raised panda. Anybody know if the Doomsday Clock has a snooze alarm?
[00:15:51] That's all for today. I appreciate you taking the time to check it out.
[00:15:56] I wish I could be more coherent and less given to pauses and hums and uhs, but that's the best we got for right now.
[00:16:05] I've been thinking that I gotta improve somewhere.
