"I'd Rather Have A Bottle In Front Of Me Than A Frontal Lobotomy."

The Grasshopper and the Ant. "Come winter, they both froze to death."

China.

"Ignorance is bliss." Somebody said that a long time ago. I don't know if it's 'bliss' or not, but it can sure help.

I always thought a great bumper-sticker would be: "I'd Rather Be Driving".

Today as I type is 40 years since Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. (Notice? They always seem to shoot the friendly ones.) I remember that year well, 1968. (I was 22.) Back then global warming was at least a hundred years away. (Imagine.) Cigarettes were cool, war was patriotic, and bikers, surfers, and hippies were bad news. Ask anybody.

There's a plan here in L.A. to go 40 hours this weekend without a murder in honor of the late MLK. 40 years--40 hours. I get that part of it, but I don't know if it'll be anybody's top thought when one of those "I'm gonna plug his ass" moments strike. Maybe 40 minutes. It's us and them out there. Us and them. Grrrrr . . .

I'm sixty-two years old right now. I have never in my life felt better than standing alongside a road hitchhiking, carrying everything I needed, nobody to answer to, no schedule, just open for whatever might present itself. For over twenty years. You shoulda been there. I always figured that it would take a lifetime to create and develop most all of the situations I got to check out for a while. And not knowing the who or when of your next ride, there's not a lot of time wasted planning ahead, it's all 'right now', just like a dog. Sometimes I'd have a house to paint somewhere next week, or a house-sitting gig, or helping somebody move. But it was always jobs I could see the end of.

I wish women wouldn't wear T-shirts that say anything on the front of them. It's so awkward if you try to read what it says.

" . . . and he was the richest man in our village and therefore the stingiest, for God punishes the stingy by exposing them to the temptations of wealth, just as He protects the generous by keeping them in the safe haven of poverty." Trevanian, 5/2000.

Talking about God, is there any record of Him talking to two people at once? I didn't think so.

Us and them. And they're not like us! LookOut!