News You Probably Can't Use #1

The surest way to corrupt a young man is to teach him to esteem more highly those who think alike than those who think differently.
Nietzsche

...was just reading about a kid marrying a dog in India...apparently to prevent him from being eaten by wild animals...and, not long ago, read about an Indian woman being married to a snake, which was apparently seen as a god (google it yerself, dammit)...don’t worry, I’m not bringing this stuff up to make fun of a foreign culture I don’t understand...nor am I gonna bend over backwards to defend it, as yoga types are wont to do with anything involving the oh-so spiritual nation of Indyaaaah...

...I do find it a bit ironic, though...as oh-so spiritual American politicians argue that, if gays and lesbians are allowed to marry, next thing you know people will be tying the knot with their pets...that it is, in fact, in a country where homosexuality is illegal that people are marrying dogs and snakes...

Cocaine is God's way of telling you you are making too much money.
Robin Williams

...the world’s most expensive coffee is called Kopi Luwak...it’s made of beans eaten by a creature known as the palm civet and then excreted by it...the stuff sells for up to $600 lb....

...another sign you’ve got too much money: you pay high prices to drink coffee made from beans that have passed through a jungle rodent's asshole....

All generalisations are false, including this one.
Mark Twain

Things To Do While Drinking Coffee #3

*kudos again to the High Point Cafe, West Mt. Airy, State of Mildly Befuddled Sarcasm, USA*
If I told you what it takes to reach the highest high,
you’d laugh and say nothing’s that simple.
But you’ve been told many times before, messiahs pointed to the door, no one had the guts to leave the temple.
Pete Townshend
During the summer between 9th and 10th grade, I listened to Tommy by the Who almost constantly...but I don’t think I really understood why....never mind that I was listening to the story of a kid who went deaf dumb and blind to block out the world following a traumatic experience...written by the dorkiest looking guitar player to ever lead a rock band...and sure, the music rocked... and Roger Daltry looked so fucking cool in the Woodstock movie waving the long fringe of his hippie jacket like wings singing see me feel me touch me heal me listening to you I hear the music gazing at you I get the heat...and I myself an painfully lonely alienated kid locked in my room blasting music loud enough I hoped it might block out the rest of the world...possibly even make it disappear...of course Pete Townshend...even as his own left-over-from-mortally-wounded-adolescence pent up frustration and rage windmilled and destroyed an endless series of guitars...had something loftier in mind...like any ‘60’s rock star whose acid experiences led him to India, he created Tommy as a metaphor...deaf, dumb, and blind but staring at the mirror...unable to perceive anything but his own ego...so smash the mirror and he’s free to become...another rock star.....I, alas, never got to be a rock star...and, at 42, with guitars I rarely play and never played well, am thinking it may be time to throw in the towel on that particular dream...don't cry, don't raise your eye, it's only teenage wasteland...