With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going past them into the impossible.
August 25, 2009 - 11:58 a.m.
It's 10:40. I meeting someone for lunch nearby at 1:00 so I should have plenty of time. Let's see if it works out that way.
Yesterday afternoon I decided to my back to school shopping. I need pants and shirts. I went to my usual store, Marshall's. There were no carts when I got there so I started by picking up some small things, socks, a belt, and a tie. When I started on the pants I needed to have hands free so I waited till a cart became available. The store doesn't have nearly enough of them. I put what I picked out already in the cart along with my WFUV eco bag. I brought that because I wanted to buy some groceries on the way home. I also had a used ink cartridge in it to recycle at Staples.
The aisles in the Men's section are too narrow to bring the cart with me when I looked at the pants so I left it at the end cap. I found four pairs of pants that interested me but when I got back to the end of the aisle the cart was gone. I told someone who worked there and she checked if it was turned in. I figured it was someone from the store that took it while clearing the aisles. It wasn't there. I looked around at people's carts and couldn’t find it. I went to the customer service counter and told them what happened. They said they couldn't do anything. I asked if they could make an announcement on the PA. I figured someone took the cart and if they realized someone's personal possessions were in it they'd return it. The manager said that he couldn't. That's when I got upset.
What do you mean you can't? You're voice is incapable of making the sounds?Don't treat me like I'm stupid.
You're treating me like I'm stupid. Of course you can make the announcement, you choose not to.
It went on for a bit but the upshot was they wouldn't lift a finger to help me.
I left the pants I had picked out in a cart and went in search of my original cart with my things in it.
I walked up an down the store looking in everyone's cart then I found it. A woman had it. It still had the clothes I had in it and my bag. I asked her what she thought when she took it. She said she thought it was just the store's. When I said what about my bag that says WFUV on it she just shrugged. I'm sure what happened was that she didn't think at all. She wanted a cart and thinking about it would lead to her realizing that someone was using that cart so she didn't think.
Now there was nothing valuable of mine in the cart. WFUV would send me another bag if I asked and the environment would survive one ink cartridge not being recycled but I just found the whole thing so annoying. The store didn't know there was nothing of value in the bag. I just told them that the cart had my bag in it but they wouldn't help when it would have been so easy to make an announcement. I wasted all that time. I ended up not buying anything because I didn't want them getting my business. Now back to the story of my day. It gets better.
I walked back a few subway stops to Forest Hills where the Staples was and returned the ink cartridge and bought a new one. I haven't been walking recently so I needed the exercise. I also bought my groceries there. Then I went home to make dinner and head out for my evening's fun.
Loudon Wainwright did a WFUV Marquee Member show at City Winery. I am not a Marquee Member but I had not one but two invitations to the show. Jim is a Marquee member and his wife Alice didn't want to go and Nora won a pair of tickets to it and her husband didn't want to go. I used Nora's. When asked why I said, "Because Jim expects me to put out when I'm his date."
This was my first time at the Winery. It seems to want to be the Bottom Line. That's a good thing. Here's what the space looks like.
Loudon is one of the people that I've been following the longest. I can't remember the first time I saw him. It was back in the 80s at the Bottom Line. I've enjoyed every show I've seen. He is known best for his clever songwriting but he's more than that. This show was largely covers, his latest album, High Wide and Handsome, The Charlie Poole Project is a tribute to the guess who, Charlie Poole. Don't feel bad I never heard of him either. He was a performer, not a songwriter, from the 20s and 30s. The songs are either ones that Charlie made famous or originals that Loudon wrote about him. They highlight Loudon as a performer. He is as funny as all hell but he's also a great musician. He was backed by a banjo player and someone that played fiddle, mandolin, and whatever else was needed.
The comedic highlight wasn't by Loudon but the banjo player. All night long Loudon was making jokes about how Canada has free medical care. The banjo player is from Montreal and has an obviously Jewish name. Loudon introduced one song with "The next song is a gospel so we'll make the Jew sing it." Before he started singing "the Jew" said, " In Canada they make the Jew sing gospel music to get free medical care."
I brought my camera. Loudon is a challenge to photograph because you want to catch all of his mannerisms and he has millions of them. I was able to catch his signature tongue sticking out once and it's hard to see. It looks like he has a big lip.
That's a small sample.
Loudon was joined by his almost ex-sister-in-law Maggie Roche.
I didn't get as many photos as I wanted but here are some of my friends there. The most obvious person missing is Nora.
John and Sheila on the left
Ralph and Paula
Rita Houston
Rita told me to not post that photo as the man was married and his wife was jealous. I responded with, "What time slot does my show have?" I'm not on the air now so the photo goes public!
Jim
Cara
My mind was racing on the way home. I was filled with material to write here. The problem is that I've run out of time. Maybe I'll write another entry when I get back from lunch.
Class Dismissed - August 30, 2009
I Can't Not Be On A Boat - August 29, 2009
Lockout! - August 28, 2009
Playing God (How about James Earl Jones in the role?) - August 27, 2009
Pensees - August 26, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile August 25, 2009
