The Saga of the Homeless Oak Ridge Boy (Part II)

This morning, I walked to my car with a newspaper under my arm and my lidded cup of coffee in hand, and the homeless guy who always throws trash at me hurled an empty Hormel Chili can in my direction.

Now this is not an unusual occurrence. It happens nearly every morning when I leave for work. It seems my departure time coincides exactly with the homeless guy's . . . I don't know . . . pitching workout or something.

I've never seen him take batting practice, or anything like that, but he keeps his arm in great shape. I estimate he gets about 20 or 30 throws a day -- maybe more in the off-season just to stay sharp -- and a good 5 or 6 of those are aimed at me.

And since I'm a moving target, I believe my continued participation is meant solely to improve his accuracy.

At any rate, he and I go through pretty much the same routine every morning -- he dispatches a rancid item in my direction, and I do a cool slow-motion Matrix lean-back move to avoid being hit. It really doesn't bother me all that much anymore. In fact, I've become quite accustom to it, and might I say, I'm now pretty damn good at dodging various items of refuse.

Well today, I broke routine and approached my homeless neighbor to ask him a serious question unrelated to trash throwing and trash dodging. I wanted to know if he had once been a member of The Oak Ridge Boys singing group.

I've mentioned in this blog before the striking resemblance this man has to the Oak Ridge Boy with the long beard, and my curiosity has been niggling at me for days about it, so today I thought I'd just come out and ask.

"Excuse me," I said as the chili can clanked at my feet. "Were you ever in a country singing group called The Oak Ridge Boys?"

I spoke the words with what I felt was the perfect cordial tone. I was smiling, non-confrontational, and very polite. But he didn't answer me.

At least not with words.

Instead, he did the most amazing thing.

He set his big bag of . . . stuff . . . aside, dropped to one knee, and raised his hands toward the heavens, as though a fiery chariot or an angel or something else biblical was about to descend. He then lowered his hands, did a half somersault, grabbed his big bag of stuff and went and hid behind a parked car.

The whole production was really kind of cool, and in fact, I found it very humorous. My initial impulse was to just laugh and then get in my car, thankful I hadn't sustained a hit in today's crossfire by something that could leave a stain.

But then I started to think maybe he saw me as a threat, and that fear was the reason for the unusual maneuvers.

Now, I certainly did not mean to convey a negative image to my new friend. The thought had never crossed my mind. I simply wanted to know if he had a history in the country music industry.

"Perhaps I should do something to show him that I am harmless," I thought.

The only problem was I didn't know what to do. I mean, he didn't answer me when I spoke, and each time I made any movement toward him, he shrunk further down behind the parked car.

It then occurred to me that perhaps I could convey my good nature to him in the same manner he had conveyed his fright and/or suspicion of me.

But I had to be careful, because I had no idea of the homeless code steps, the interpretive dance moves, that would suggest friendliness. So I just imagined the most non-threatening gesture I could think of, and decided to go with that.

I set my coffee down, balanced the newspaper on my head and performed "The Hand Jive". I then turned a complete circle, grabbed my coffee, hopped in my car and drove off.

On my way to work, I chuckled over how much fun the exchange had been, and just how silly and foolish I can be at 8 o'clock in the morning. If you've never done something like that, try it. It's a great way to start the day.

My revelry was short-lived, however, because I quickly realized that I still didn't know if he was the lost Oak Ridge Boy.

Mysteries of Frog Sex

No, this post is not about French people making love. Hopefully it is way more interesting (and less odorous) than that. We'll see.

Recently I had a conversation with one of my favorite people on Earth. (ok, so all the people I know are on Earth. I admit I don't have any favorites that aren't on Earth. My therapist has convinced me that those people are not real and that I shouldn't talk about them, so forget I said anything.)

Anyway, this person and I usually talk about many subjects, and I'm always fascinated with the course of the conversation. And this particular conversation was no exception, as we touched on everything from music to literature to dimply ass cheeks.

At one point, however, the topic of discussion somehow turned to frog sex, and where I feel one can never examine too closely the steamy intricacies of sex between two frogs (or more than two, if that's their particular kink), it occurred to me that there was something about amphibians that I didn't know. Indeed there was something about our watertight friends that I had never even considered.

Now you all no doubt know me as a man of the world by now. After all, I've posted all of 3 entries on this blog; a number I deem sufficient for anyone to grasp the true nature of my character. If you can't tell by now that I'm always out there on the scene, you're just not paying attention. Plus, as a kid, I would ride my bike through the woods all day, play in the bayous for hours, terrorize insects and small animals, and pretend I was a ballerina named Sasha (another gem my therapist and I are working on), so I was surprised that this particular aspect of sweet froggy love had never crossed my mind.

Baby frogs are tadpoles, but are baby toads tadpoles?

Incredibly, I wasn't sure. So I thought I would do some research on the Internet. And the information I found was absolutely remarkable.

The answer is No. At least according to the mind-bogglingly brilliant sources I found among the throng of forums and websites dedicated to the science of amphibious creatures.

Apparently, toads arise spontaneously from certain fungi. Yes, toadstools. So named because early researchers erroneously thought they were the product of the toads' stools, whereas the "stools" were not so much bowel movements as a release of spores.

Of couse it turns out to be the other way around. The fungi actually release the spores, and we can say conclusively which came first in this arena (the stool or the toad), where the chicken and egg debate unfortunately rages on to this day.

And, toads are not technically amphibians at all, but due to the specifics of their abiogenesis, they are mushrooms. When you pick them up, they "urinate" a form of sap (ok, not sap technically, because they are not plants, but more of a slimy mold) all over your hand.

The amazing thing is this slimy mold is perfectly edible, and tastes like ripe strawberries.

Trust me. You should try it sometime.

In fact, it is the traditional French basis for hollandaise sauce, although in the US, misguided animal rights advocates have forced a recipe change.

And here's yet another interesting bit of froggy trivia: Toad DNA does not replicate, but is passed psychokinetically from organism to organism, through the use of zero-point energy technology.

It is reliably claimed that we will all be powering our automobiles by toad-DNA technology within our lifetime, assuming we live that long.



Fascinating, amazing stuff, isn't it?

What? . . . What are my sources? you ask.

Umm . . . I'll have to get back to you on that, as I'm currently too busy researching Geckos.

March Madness and Other Rambling Nonsense

We're nearing the end of March and like many of you, I've been hyper-exposed to college basketball.

Now, this is not unusual for me, as I become swept up in the excitement of the competition every year around NCAA Tournament time. In my book, the tournament is the greatest event in all of sportsdom, and once you've seen it, it's difficult to ignore and impossible to overlook.

But I don't know if I can watch anymore college basketball.

Actually, I'm certainly capable of watching more games, but I don't know how much of what I will view in the next couple of weeks will even register.

In fact, lately I've come to suspect that very little of the spectacle infiltrates my conscious mind at all. I'm beginning to think that my conscious mind, my upper mind - the one that likes beer and melted cheese, not to mention long legs and nicely rounded backsides - is completely missing out.

And that's not a good thing, because I really like that part of my mind, and that part of my mind really likes basketball.

It seems a different part of me is getting the most out of the tournament. A different part of my mind is on the receiving end of all the things it has to offer.

Unfortunately, I don't like the way that part of my mind is running the store.

Yesterday, I had an in-depth conversation, with a guy I don't know, about George Mason University. Apparently, George Mason's basketball team is a tournament underdog, and is still managing to win against tougher opponents.

And apparently, I know this.

Now, this little tidbit of knowledge seems innocuous, right? Seems par for the course, doesn't it? It's something even the casual viewer would know, right?

Well, not only do I know that, but I also know where George Mason University is located. I know the type of school it is, its student population, at least three distinguished alums, and most embarrassing of all, the class and major of the person who plays its mascot.

Two weeks ago I didn't know this stuff. Two weeks ago, I didn't even know there was a George Mason University. I would have bet there was a Jackie Mason University before I would have guessed at George Mason. Yet, not only has that other part of my mind absorbed all this junk information, it has foregone beer, melted cheese, and long legs in favor of using it in social settings.

It actually talks about these things!!

And the really bizarre thing is, while I'm immersed in a conversation like the one about George Mason University with the guy I didn't know, my brain sort of splits in two. I can continue the conversation without interruption, but the good part of me, the part of my mind I really like, flies above it all, and wonders who the hell is controlling the half still in the conversation.

It's as if the real me is looking at this automaton me, this basketball robot me, and to be quite honest, is a little bit afraid of him.

Not only that, but the good part of my mind, while hovering above the "inane conversation" part of my mind, wonders if the other guy has a good part of his mind, too. It wonders if his good mind is also hovering above the trivial conversation, wondering who's controlling his other half.

The two good parts of our minds no doubt say things like, "To hell with these two fools. Let's go get a beer and talk to those girls in short skirts over there."

Still I doubt I can turn away from the tournament now. As I mentioned it is an impossible event to ignore.

So where I will go through the motions of sitting in front of a bank of TVs at the local sports bar with my other hoops junky friends for the remainder of the tournament, I have a feeling the images flashing before me will be nothing but a collage of Orwellian "assimilation" videos that once complete, will have me spouting final scores, stats, and mascot trivia without a bit of thought or understanding to what I'm saying.

In short, I will have achieved a different sort of March madness.