Neanderpundit

Okay, you fuckweasels, I’ve had ENOUGH!!! I PUT UP WITH THIS BULLSHIT ALL WEEKEND, and I’m DONE!

You- with the Camry- WHEN you backed your car out of the driveway YOU KNEW there was over a foot of snow on the ground. You drove as if the tires caused you actual pain when they slipped, you NEVER GOT THE VEHICLE OVER 8 MILES AN HOUR FOR SIX MILES. Do the math on that one, fuckhead. I HAD TO FOLLOW YOU for FORTY FIVE MINUTES. You STAYED in the MIDDLE OF TWO LANES so NOBODY COULD PULL AROUND YOU.

Here’s a little clue for you, OK? when there is a CLEAR ROAD ahead of you, DEVOID OF CARS, and there is a SIX MILE LINE OF CARS BEHIND YOU, you are a FUCKHEAD. You CANNOT DRIVE. you should SLIT YOUR FUCKING THROAT and SAVE US THE TROUBLE.

Oh, and Mister Geo Metro? YOU CHOSE TO DRIVE ON A DAY WHEN THE AVERAGE SNOW DRIFT IS TALLER THAN YOUR CAR. Your pathetic three cylinder MoonbatMobile is NOT GONNA MAKE IT to the HEALTH FOOD STORE! Pull off the SIDE of the ROAD and SMOKE THAT HEMP JACKET you’re wearing, and GET OUT OF EVERYONE”S WAY. Yes, you ARE going to get stuck JUST LIKE THAT every five minutes. You are NOT going to be able to negotiate the 12″ tall drifts because your TIRES arent that tall. Yes, you’ve had to be PUSHED OUT OF EVERY SNOWFLAKE you have encountered, and THAT’S NOT GOING TO CHANGE TILL SPRING. Stay HOME!!! You can PROBABLY survive intil spring on the “”KERRY EDWARDS” stickers if you peel them off every surface to which they are applied. FOAD!

Now, the amateurs: Yes, you know who the fuck you are. You have LIVED IN THIS CLIMATE FOR FIFTY FUCKING YEARS, YOU ASSHELMETS! You FORGET HOW TO DRIVE IN SNOW EVERY FUCKING WINTER. Take some Gingko Biloba and MOVE AWAY FROM ME, preferably at LEAST 900 miles.

Oh, and you. Mrs Lexus SUV. Let me clue you into something, OK? A Lexus is NOT an SUV. It’s a large chrome and plastic ego. You didn’t buy it because you needed an SUV, you bought it because you could. Bully for you! Before you take to the streets with that LeBehemoth, Learn to drive it. Four wheel drive does not mean immunity to the laws of physics. The REASON YOU ARE ON YOUR SIDE IN A DITCH is your OWN STUPIDITY. Pound sand. Next time put it over an embankment so you don’t survive to fuckup anyone else’s day.

All in all, it makes me wonder: WHY CAN’T I MOUNT AUTOMATIC WEAPONS ON MY TRUCK?

I have been under a lot of stress for a loooong time.

In the last three days things have happened that have removed a great deal of the stress from my life. Well, at least made the stress many orders of magnitude easier to deal with.

Tonight I have a splitting headache and my legs feel like shit from the knees down, from all the snowblowing I have done (five times in two days) and the cabinetry I helped my friend hang on saturday. I put it all down to the bends, the concept of coming up oput of pressure so quickly that the rapture of the deep has taken hold. I need a few days in a decompression chamber to get back right again, or at least a decent night’s sleep. I hope to get that tonight.

The soreness and pain is aggrivating, but as Dad always said, it reminds you you’re alive and above ground. A very good friend of mine just said to me “A more gentle reminder would be nice”

True.

Mr Porretto has an excellent post about the role of poetry in music. He mentions one of my all time favorites, Al Stewart. Al had the ability to write lyric poetry and put it to music that few have today.

Francis also speaks of his personal love for Glass Hammer and many of the other Progrock bands, and while I understand the complexity, I appreciate the work involved, it might as well be bagpipe music. It physically hurts me to listen
to it.

No, I’m not a fan of bubblegum music or heavy metal hairbands, I appreciate the labor involved when someone creates a lyric masterpiece but my tastes run in different directions.

I LOVE Shakespeare, for instance. Though I have an excellent collection, I cannot open them, it KILLS me to read them.
They bore me senseless on the paper because that’s not how they were meant to be experienced. On the stage, well done, Shakespeare may be the most wonderful experience in my life, outside of sex and peanut-butter and honey sandwiches on whole grain bread. To hear it done, especially by someone with some real talent, is an incredible treasure. I have recently been reading THe Odyssey of Homer again, which I haven’t done in nearly ten years. It’s slow going, reading it in greek, because my greek is horrid- I have to keep turning back to my reference books and dictionaries and I manage about ten pages a week, which takes me around four hours. it gets better as it goes, and by the time I get to the end (in about eight more months!!!) I will have refreshed my poor greek skills somewhat.

Yes, there are a lot of wonderful translations, the best of which do an OK job of capturing the lyric spirit of the original, but the original itself, especially if you take the trouble to read it out loud IN greek, is a lyric masterpiece. Here’s a sample:(from the Iliad, I couldn’t find one from the odyssey)

ΜΗΝΙΝ ΑΕΙΔΕ ΘΕΑ ΠΗΛΙΑΔΕΩ ΑΧΙΛΛΗΟΣ,
ΟΥΛΟΜΕΝΗΝ Ή ΜΥΡΙΑ ΑΧΑΙΟΙΣ ΑΛΓΕ’ ΕΘΗΚΕ,

Sorry if the greek characters don’t come across well, or if you don’t have the font it will look odd. The link, which is a small MP3 sample, is the way you might have experienced it as it was intended to be experienced. Here’s the english translation, somewhat less lyrical and flowing:

Sing, O goddess,
the perilous wrath of Peleus’ son Achilles,
that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans
and many brave souls sent to Hades,

Mr Porretto’s tastes overlap mine in some areas, in other areas not so much. My tastes overlap the wife’s pretty well, in that we can drive the 680 miles to her hometown in Canada and never run out of music we both like.

You’re not a philistine if you don’t like The Odyssey of Homer. You’re not a philistine if you don’t like Glass Hammer. You’re not a philistine if you don’t like Al Stewart or Shakespeare.

You’re a philistine if you don’t TRY.