The Lottery - A Gamble?

Apparently, I was not the only person who did not win last night's six hundred and some odd million dollar Mega-Millions lottery drawing. Who knew? When I plunked down my five dollars (which is five dollars more than I usually plunk down on lottery tickets), I thought this thing was in the bag. The rest of the hassle was simply figuring out how I was going to spend my half a billion dollars. Quickly, before it killed me.

When I woke up this morning and found out I hadn't won the big prize, nor any of the smaller consolation prizes, I must admit I was a bit flummoxed. Especially since I had already lined up millions of dollars for immediate expenditure upon receipt of the big, oversized check for which I had made room in the back of my car to haul to the bank.

In the midst of preparing for a move, I had gone online and made reservations for a group of colorfully dressed New-Zealanders to come to my home and help me pack my stuff, most of which I was going to haul to the desert and set on fire in a celebratory bonfire. The New Zealanders were going to treat all in attendance at the celebratory bonfire to a series of Maori tribal dances depicting fertility, the cycle of the harvest and, inexplicably, bulimia amongst fashion models. Sure, it was going to be pricey, but I thought it would be well worth the money spent - the Maori are fine dancers and can pack with the best.

I also planned on buying the house that I see on the hilltop above my apartment - the one whose lights shine into my bedroom window at night to remind me that there are those who get to live on hilltops - and I was going to mount the civil war-era cannon I found on e-bay on its back patio so I could fire recklessly upon the folks still unfortunate enough to live in the apartments into whose bedrooms my newly-acquired lights would shine. This includes my current neighbor and his little under-the-stairway cannon. I was going to show them all a thing or two about cannon-fire.

My Civil War-Era Cannon

I had planned to buy a jet pack and an aircraft carrier as well, for the establishment of Jerry World - this will have to be put on hold for now, while I sort out the impending lawsuits over unpaid deposits and promises of cash-filled treasure chests to be delivered to the warship-mongers.

After spending three and a half hours on the phone with a keen buzz last evening, I have had to turn away from my door today the following:

- Three angry strippers, equipped with a half-dozen changes of role-play costumes, and their pet rhesus monkey.

The strippers' rhesus monkey (photo of strippers not available)

- A set of legitimate conjoined-twin hookers and their sundry lotions, cute little conjoined-twin paddle-car and legal waiver. (photo of conjoined-twin hookers not available - apparently, they are sensitive to light and worried about arrest)


- The lucky Maserati salesman delivering my Granturismo.

My Granturisimo

- The lucky Bentley salesman delivering my vintage 1936 MY.

My damned Bentley

- The lucky salesman from Recordingstudiodesign, who apparently flew all the way from London.

My damned recording studio (stripper pole not pictured)

- The jet pack guy - though I merely had to tell him I would sic my rhesus monkey on him to send him packing.

My damned jet pack

- Raquel Welch. I must admit, she didn't look that disappointed. That breaks my heart. However, I did get an autographed set of fuzzy britches and copped a quick, accurate, precisely-timed feel when she gave me a hug goodbye and that eases the heartbreak a tad.

All I'm saying is that I think I was doing a fantastic job of financial planning with the winnings in mind. I believe I would be very good at being wealthy - like Arthur. It's simply a shame that it didn't fall into my lap this time around.

What does being King pay?



Daylight Saving Time - Really?

I had a discussion today with a colleague regarding Daylight Saving Time, otherwise known as "Daylight Shifting Time" - a phrase which leaves me more than just a tad at unease. I feel that time is one of the few constants of our universe and should not be tampered with. Farmers, railroads and Benjamin Franklin apparently felt different and now I am forced to feel unease every time people start in with all the hocus-pocus of moving their clocks around to suit some mystical need to take advantage of the sun.

This is not the first time I have had this conversation and I am nearly certain it will not be the last, as it tends to come to mind at least twice a year as I scratch my head in bewilderment.

In the old days, time was even less constant than it is now, which I kind of get, because the world has not always been connected by satellite and Internet and Greenwich, London. Folks used to set their clocks by the sun and of course, this time differed as the sun did not move across the sky uniformly for all folks in all locations. This apparently drove the railroads crazy, since every town they arrived at was on a different time-set, which made keeping a consistent travel schedule nearly impossible. Of course, I imagine that there could have been some work done with a slide-rule and compass and some other mathematical doo-dads that might have made a schedule manageable - they should have let the Chinese handle that part of it with their colorful abaci instead of just using them as slave labor in the building of their empires, but as always, hindsight is twenty-twenty and I digress.

The need to standardize time became a priority and after decades of stubborn resistance on the part of locals, eventually everyone came around and time was calibrated for one and all and time zones were created to allow for the sun's lazy roll across the sky and everyone was happy. Well, everyone that is, but those who felt that keeping time standardized through the summer robbed them of precious daylight and that clocks should be moved to accommodate later hours in the summer, then moved back again as the days grew shorter.

What the hell? Somehow, it made more sense to change time than to come to an agreement with those around us that perhaps we can simply start our day a little earlier at certain times of the year than others and set our alarm clocks accordingly. Certainly it would make more sense for folks to make a deal with a handshake, a solid game plan and a couple of dates circled in red on the calendar than to make everyone in the world change time... Right???

If I had come up with the idea to come in an hour earlier in the summer so that I might enjoy an extra hour's sleep in the winter when the sun is slower to rise, I most certainly could go to any boss or patron with good sense and suggest that we accommodate such a need. Then I would set my clock accordingly and consider myself a lucky man to have the privilege of working for such a forward-thinking individual. Would this affect someone who might live elsewhere? Not likely. Just a deal made between a couple of like-minded simple folk to make life a little easier.

No, no - let's try this! Let's move time around. Everywhere! Twice a year, we will force-feed the manipulation of time itself upon all in the land - then, just when we think we have gained an hour on the grim reaper, or Mr. Sandman, or the lazy sun, we will give it back again, just in time to take advantage of the winter thaw. Perfect.

I don't mean to complain here - after all, I live in Arizona and we don't change time. That's not how we roll - time is time and it shouldn't be fiddled with. I think we learned this from the bloodthirsty Apache, who wouldn't have dreamed of changing time. If they needed to get up a little earlier to go massacre some ginger-haired sod-busters, then they got up a little earlier. If the sod-busters decided to change time, then they could die in their bed instead of while scraping at the earth with their plows and mules.

So, I suppose my long winded point is that Ben Franklin, for all his value as a statesman, inventor, musician, author, father of our nation and diplomat, was a lazy bastard who wanted to move time around so he could sleep a little later while nursing his daily hangover in France. Look it up - Franklin = lazy bastard.

Ben Franklin - Lazy Bastard

Just leave time alone, please. When I am King, time will be constant and unmoving. The hell with the leap-year, too - that has scarred too many a leap-year dipshit who insist that they are 8 years old and not 32. Then they act childish and invariably have their ass beaten at some bar where leap year is not the be all and end all that the leap-year babies think it might be. If our calendar comes a little bit uncalibrated when I get rid of leap year, is anyone really going to notice? Maybe Ferdinand and his nuclear spectroscopic telescope or some imbecile that insists that he has an extreme sensitivity to time and lunar activity and tides. As King, I will declare all such activity as tantamount to witchcraft and it will be dealt with appropriately.

Remember to vote Jerry Ford for King in the upcoming elections. It will be a write-in vote - but it will save us all some time. In the meantime, let's simply do the logical thing and get up when it makes sense...

Welcome Back - An Excerpt from "The Inevitable Downhill Slope"

Passersby wouldn’t have even recognized John Sebastian as the thin, bespectacled lead singer of the Lovin’ Spoonful. The bloated, filthy character slumped in the cold corner between the wall and the dumpster, with a crusted, colorful trail of dried vomit adorning his tattered shirtfront could have hardly been mistaken for the zitherplaying songwriter from the 60’s.

He began to stir and squinted at the sunlight streaming into the alleyway where he had passed out. He had long ago broken the last pair of glasses he had—around the time he had sold his last zither, and now saw most of the world in kind of a beautiful haze. Sebastian stumbled to his feet and brushed absently at the crusted puke on his chest. It flaked off and dissolved in a puddle of urine at his feet. “Good Lord,” he moaned, suddenly dizzy and nauseous. The last thing he remembered was partying with Evel Kneivel at a seedy dive, where Kneivel let him squeeze his colostomy bag and guess what he had eaten for lunch. The thought made Sebastian spew a little more vomit down his shirt. Kneivel had made an early exit after attempting to jump the pool table in the motorized cart that took him from place to place. He had bellowed something about George Hamilton being a talentless hack as the ambulance driver loaded the gurney and the bartender pushed Kneivel’s damaged cart into the alley.

Evel and his legendary scooter

A different alley, Sebastian thought, putting his legs into drive and beginning the short walk to the street. Sebastian suddenly thought of his friend Rick Danko, and the time the two of them had crashed at Ringo’s pad during a weeklong cocaine/methanphetamine binge that had left Danko with a permanent stammer. Danko had implored Ringo to lend them ten thousand dollars, claiming “Robbie’s good for it.” Ringo, drunk and stoned out of his mind wrote a check with knuckles bloodied from beating his wife, Barbara Bach to an unconscious lump.

Robbie and Rick - "Robbie's good for it..."

“Here you go,” Ringo had said, handing over the draft. He held up a bloody, swollen fist. “If Robbie doesn’t make this good, he’s in for some of this…”

Sebastian laughed and made his way up the boulevard. Pedestrians gave him wide berth, as much due to the ugly squinting as to the smell that emanated from his clothing. “Fucking Ringo,” he said, his voice soft and remindful of the golden pipes that had sold millions of records. Suddenly, Sebastian remembered: He was trying to find Gabe Kaplan, the star of “Welcome Back, Kotter,” the 70’s TV show for which he had penned the theme song. He figured Kaplan would be a soft touch for a couple thousand dollars. Enough to keep him in crack and malt liquor for a couple of weeks anyhow. And Kneivel had told him that Kaplan lived in Vegas now, made his living as a professional gambler.

“Try partying with Micky Dolenz,” Sebastian had slurred. “That’s a professional gamble…” Kneivel had laughed heartily, shortly thereafter hurtling the motorized cart toward its bleak and painful demise. Las Vegas, Sebastian lamented. It might as well be fucking Australia… Just then, a speeding Bonneville hurtled around the corner, its top half up, like a sail in the wind, reminding Sebastian of the song “Sloop John B” by the Beach Boys. The driver was wrestling with the top, cursing at the top of his lungs, his hands nowhere near the steering wheel when the car careened into the curb and smashed into Sebastian, who even with his poor vision, had realized that this was going to be big fucking trouble.

Charles Martin Smith, unaware that he had just pulverized John Sebastian like a Salisbury Steak, heard the unmistakable voice of the Lovin’ Spoonful as it lingered in the air. “And he ate up all o’ my corn…”

“What the heck,” Charles Martin Smith said, briefly pausing in his struggle with the convertible top. “That was the Beach Boys, wasn’t it?”

And the car continued to rocket toward Topanga canyon.

Exploring the Mariana Trench - Really, James Cameron?

I read in the news today that James Cameron, the bazillionaire movie director had taken a submarine to the deepest part of the earth, The Mariana Trench. Get this - The Mariana Trench is "120 times larger than the Grand Canyon and more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is tall", according to the news article.

It is also dark, populated with deep-sea monsters and under approximately 35,756 feet of water. The article goes on to say "...one of the risks of a dive so deep is extreme water pressure. At 6.8 miles below the surface, the pressure is the equivalent of three SUVs sitting on your toe." I would have probably used the head as my example, rather than the toe, but that is nitpicking. You get the picture - if the sub had sprung a leak, the entire shebang would have imploded and crushed itself like an empty soda can with three SUVs sitting on its head.

I suppose if people want to run off to the deepest part of the ocean on their own time, it's none of my business. That said - what's the point? I know that the stock answer for endeavors like this is "because it's there". I've never understood that one. There's lots of stuff that's there, but I don't need to see ninety nine percent of it, because it is either not important to me, not in the least interesting, or it is dark, scary, populated with sea-monsters, underwater and dangerous.

Fish won't even go there - the only creatures that live in water that deep are eyeless, freakish sea-monsters built to withstand the pressure of having three SUVs sitting on their heads. I saw these creatures on a documentary once and even then thought who in the hell wants to go down there - with those? Of course, these deep-sea fish are probably the only living things on earth that will survive once the shit really hits the fan, but at that point they can have it, I say. By that time, my reign as King will have long-since been categorized as an outright failure despite my overwhelming popularity and groundbreaking ban on cell-phones in the car, movie theaters and grocery stores. I am still on the fence regarding restaurants, but leaning toward banning them there as well.

But I digress.

I think James Cameron would be better served to stick with making entertaining films. I have yet to see Avatar - I have an aversion to blue creatures. Those blue hillbillies in Kentucky scare me and I have never trusted Smurfs. But I liked Titanic. I also think Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the finest young actors of this generation - he was phenomenal in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", alongside Johnny Depp, another huge talent. I like John Cusack, too - he's fine and proven to have good chops even as an adult, although "Say Anything" might have been his benchmark performance. Although I do like "Grosse Pointe Blank" and "High Fidelity" - tough call.

Anyhow, I guess my point is that maybe we should stay out of the Mariana Trench - nothing good can come from this, even if your submarine is equipped with rockets and torpedoes, like the one in my photo. Some deep-sea parasite built to withstand all that SUV pressure will inevitably latch onto the side of the vessel and be dragged to the surface, where it will most likely grow to enormous size, breath fire and eventually destroy most of Japan. Just sayin'. Leave the deep sea to the eyeless, freakish sea-critters and get back to important stuff - like taking Ashton Kutcher to outer space.