Hard copy - grim determination

As we approach the time when the first hard copy of our online magazine becomes available (more on this soon!) I realised I still like having something paper in my hands - well, I work in a library! And although I recommend online research to lots of people, I certainly don't read fiction on a computer much.

I have decided to investigate Lulu Publishing. Not exactly vanity publishing (you are not paying someone else to produce a huge run) - just Print On Demand. They also offer the option to allow people to buy (or get for free) your book as a downloadable PDF.

Although I hope to complete the book I talk about so much, I did actually write 50,000 words last November (as part of a challenge-to-self writing marathon hosted at NaNoWriMo).

Motivated by our 'manifesting' of a previously ephemeral online magazine I have decided to use this 'hastily written piece' as a sampler to learn how Lulu works.

I have commissioned a cover from Bobby (an artist I have a collaborative working relationship with) and although I intended to publish the piece 'warts and all' I have inevitably started tweaking it. I still don't want to rewrite the whole damned thing, though (even though when I write articles I obsessively rewrite).

It's a test. And it's a record of what comes out of me if I write 1667 words every day for a month! Of course it seems seriously flawed. The tenses keep changing, it has a shortage of vivid description, I spotted repetitions, etc. I don't care.

I want to put more energy into the other book, which has lingered around for so long. Well, since I reached 18 and 'wanted to write'. I realised then that no-one much cared what someone of that age thought, and I had little experience of the world. I looked at dust-covers of books, and read about the colourful lives of the authors. So I decided I'd have to go out and have a colourful life. I abandoned any attempt to go to university, or get a job - just dropped out and ran!

Well, I found my colourful life, and now I would like to capture some of it.

Almost Foolproof

Actually, the 'novel' that I'll Lulu has a certain amount of 'real life' in it, too - almost inevitably when you have to write every day. It became a semi-fictionalised roman- a-clef about a period of my life in the 80s. Still I attributed some events in my own experience to other characters, and made some stuff up, etc. Desperation makes you do these things. I also included, as a character, a late friend of mine, Mick, whose papers I attempted to edit, but I never really finalized the book he had been working on when he died. So I put him in here and wrote him the happy ending he always wished himself.

If this all works out perhaps I will have one more try at completing his book, too, and 'putting it up on Lulu'!

Meanwhile - I have to take seriously my own plan to complete my unorthodox autobiography - for which I do have a working (secret) title - just like James Joyce with his Work-In-Progress that turned out as Finnegans Wake. I wonder if LucasFilms will let me put Jabba on the cover? Hmmm. Things to research!

Virtually foolproof

On the old website I compiled the scattered bits of erratic writing I have done over the years (a meagre haul!) - but recently I have been migrating all that stuff from that rather dated-looking Front Page template to a new set of Writing pages hosted by Google. That also means I can move house when necessary, and not feel tied to those original hosts (although I might lose my Google 1st place ranking for a while - probably a relief to the other Toby Philpott!)

100% foolproof

To document this adventure, I will start by offering you a few links (and storing themself up for myself, too, of course.

Guardian article on Print-On-Demand, from 2006

Lulu Publishing (UK)

Lightning Source (POD publishing)

Writers Services

Society of Authors

Unbelievable in many ways

Before anyone asks, no they don't fly me in to judge the Slave Leia Metal Bikini Awards - and bless all the women who want to be slaves (Ho Ho Ho Ha Ha Ha) but I am afraid that my hand is on the button to the Rancor Pit. You could ask nicely.

Jabba has had all the semi-belly dancers he can handle - he had Oola who didn't age a bit - but still didn't feel satisfied. He even had Leia in his grasp, an intelligent author of something like his own generation, intelligence and all (Doh!)

Pass the hookah - no I said 'hookah'!

And no, I don't find these things out by searching for 'Leia Metal Bikini' - I just have a Google Search set to Jabba, but I mostly find Office jokes about the guy who can eat the most junk food in five minutes. etc.

Hey ho, and back to writing the book. These research trawls lead to many strange places...

Sunshine and showers

The hill outside the window keeps appearing and disappearing, with the low cloud flowing over it. The rain hasn’t stopped today.

I checked out Paris for next week and it sounds sunny and hot. Extreme contrast to end the holiday. Ten days in the remoteness and timelessness of the Welsh mountains in mist and rain – then a couple of days in a heat wave at one of the centres of civilization – with at least two of the others who have worked on producing a print copy of the Maybe Quarterly.

I got a little ray of sunshine (dodgy Segue warning) to hear that Sunshine Gray had begun work on her website. You can see and hear some of her work on MySpace. You can also hear her on Siren Radio next week – 9pm BST on the 23rd July. I missed this when in Cardiff, couldn’t get a connection here, and will find myself in Paris next Wednesday (sigh) but I reckon it’s worth tuning in, turning off the lights, and enjoying an hour of sounds. According to her blog, the radio site had some problems on the first transmission (server change) which is sad (but re-assuring when the Circus Arts Forum has had problems which I have had to apologize for, since a server change - at least I'm not alone!)

Sunshine and I have known each other (in a fairly distant sort of way - working in different creative fields) for many years…and she turned up again through the wonders of Internet, about three years ago.

I feel very proud of all and any of my creative friends. In a relatively barbaric country like the UK (in terms of showing respect for the arts) to choose an ‘artistic’ life seems like folly, but some of us can’t help it. And we tend to cheer each other on.

Hooray for our side!

Still raining after all these days

The sky so grey today that I didn't even know it was morning.

I walked a couple of hours yesterday, when it never quite rained, and me and Dandy went through the forest to find a waterfall and grotto that were not a disappointment.  On the way back we saw a heron, but didn't get close.

Overhead, I can tell buzzards (fan tail) from red kites (forked tail), and around the house we have all sorts of chaffinchs, bramblings, great tits, coal tits, sparrows, siskins, greenfinches, etc.

I am not really a bird watcher, but this is the place to come if you like that kind of thing.

I have a dog sighing on the sofa. He doesn't understand why I 'd prefer to read a book, or even watch the golf, of a cold grey wet July day.   So I guess we'll go trudge around in the rain again. I can't think of somewhere new to go (I spent a little time looking at the map).

New Sightings

I glimpsed the red head of a woodpecker (I guess a Green Woodpecker) the other day, when we had a bit of sunshine, and Dandy and I went for a long walk (2h 20m) across country, past the Highland Cattle, through the Forestry Commission land, into the Hafod Estate, and up and around and back through the village.

From the garden I have seen a Jay in the distance. And there are several around.

Yesterday evening I came across a slow worm in the back garden - another thing I haven't seen before.

And still it's grey and wet - and I have a rack full of smelly wet clothes from these walks in the rain (a couple each day). I guess I am walking 6-8 miles (up hill and down dale - there's no flat walking around here). It hurts a bit...getting quite sore around the shins, from all the walking on slopes...

Here comes that rain again...

Diary wise - I have retreated to the country with Julie and Dandy for about ten days. After that I zip over to Paris to meet up with the Maybe crew for the annual get-together...where we can discuss the hard copy of the online magazine we have produced for three years...and how best to distribute it around the planet.

I doubt we will have a copy in our hands by then, but it's just possible, I suppose.

And then, having used most of my leave up for the year already, it will be the long slog through the winter. I will 

• continue with my studies (to become an e-trainer, or possibly to get into devising online courses), 
• begin to prepare to move the whole Central Library to its new premises
• maybe write another book in November (NaNoWriMo) because I enjoyed it last year, however hard it is to produce 1500 words per day (well 1667 actually)
  
• carry on maintaining the Circus Arts Forum, in spite of my reduced connection with performing (or even getting to see) new circus
• follow (as a member of the Board of Trustees) the development of a building for NoFit State Circus to use as a base - see the Four Elms blog, here

and so on, and etc.

More upset than I can say

I hate to lose George Carlin before I got to see a live set.

I'll put more up on Only Maybe, but for those who don't understand the power of words over your sensibilities - don't even go there. Or his website...

I really thought Lenny Bruce had worked a lot harder than D.H. Lawrence to show people that words can never hurt them. Henry Miller did a lot - but once the hardline, radical feminists trashed his reputation (not seeming to see how he and Anais had worked to liberate the world from prudery) all his good work, all his wonderfully humorous, humane and liberating work has faded away. Shame. After all, Erica Jong seemed to think he had something to contribute (Henry, I mean).

And now the puritans and prudes will only remember George for his Seven Words you can't say on television (as they snigger and gasp away).

People come and people go, and most people still let Words upset them, even if their childhood rang to

Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me...

Bye, George! Rock on! (What a shame the UK never heard of you, and I never got to a live gig). I hope you and Bill Hicks and Lenny Bruce and Robert Anton Wilson, and Timothy Leary have a great time mind-melding in the bardos...

And forget the rude words (OK, OK, a couple of 'shits') - in this greedy Western world of object-fetishism, try five minutes of the comedy genius on:

A Place For My Stuff

Summer Solstice News

I hope you all enjoyed yourselves for the Solstice. Julie and I celebrated knowing each other for ten years. Dandy came, too! We simply had a meal (no dressing up) down on Penarth sea front.

The main NoFit State circus crew (currently in Montpelier in the south of France, with the UFO tent, performing Tabú) should have Gaz and Andy along for the ride.








The British crew (community arts group, and lots of other folks, very far from a B-Team, did a huge spectacular event down in Swindon recently).

You can see all sorts of pix on Facebook, under NoFit State Family and Friends.




At the Maybe Logic Academy we didn't put Maybe Quarterly edition #15 online for the Solstice, but rather spent the same energy moving the Only Maybe blog, and Maybe Quarterly into the campus (it'll take a little tweaking) and working on producing a print copy of Maybe Quarterly - just for the hell of it! (It will feature pieces from the previous 14 editions, so you can go see what we intend to work with here.

Meanwhile, Julie has put the first of her photos online, Yo seems to have plans to put up a website, and run some sort of self-employed business, Keili must now be approaching the end of his study period, so will explode back into the world, and everything seems pretty good to me.

I wouldn't mind a little quiet time, however!

Perhaps at the cottage Julie has conjured up (with a lot of hard work!) in July, before joining another mad MLA get-together in Paris. Last year we met in Belgium and A'dam and had a great time, and this year we expect more people.

Oh yes, and my online study group continues to excite, stimulate and interest me, whether or not I ever turn it into a paying job as an online worker. You never know where you may end up, when training. I did a mime course, and ended up as a film puppeteer! Surprise!

keep on keeping on

For those rare souls who read this on anything like a regular basis, I regret my lapse of urgency and updating. Too many projects on the go means that various aspects of my online world get neglected.

Julie and Dandy are back at the cottage right now, for a week, but I don't get more rest. What I save in not going walking an hour or two per day I lose in late nights and lack of sleep.

Current projects include

• conspiring with a few scattered folks to produce a hard copy edition of the Maybe Quarterly (perhaps including a CD)
• continuing my online study (devising a remote learning project - focused on both staff and public use of computers)
• writing something for the online edition of the Solstice edition (MQ)
• dreaming of living in the country and working online, semi-retired (still having trouble getting that sharply into focus)
• running the Circus Arts Forum
• refreshing my French for a flying visit to Paris for an MLA meet-up on 23rd July
• digging out some pix to go to Wrexham for a Sci-Fi and Comics fair (I pretty well stopped doing Star Wars conventions now, but agreed to this one because of moving north in Wales - just a superstitious 'yes')

Nash Point Beach

Nash Point Beach, originally uploaded by Community Care.

Julie has started to present her photos online, and amazing they are too (to a mere snapshotter like me).

You can find her professional images at Total Image Nation, but in the process of searching for her name online [Julie Shackson] she came across a set of photos that she had submitted to a competition last year (all entries stored on Flickr) and found she had won a 'highly commended' with the above beauty.

Preswylfa

And so a month flew by without any new postings. Two weeks of that were spent up in Mid-Wales in mostly greyish weather, in the cottage. You can see a glimpse of it here


and then directly outside the gate is a big rock, which shelters the house
but I decided to climb to the top of it (the easy way, around the back!)
to get this view of the house.











Dandy loves it, and all the surrounding area of woods and streams

Update 19 May 09: Preswylfa has had a total makeover, and changed its name to Ty Cariad.

It has now become available as a holiday cottage to rent, and here's the Ty Cariad website, and a blog for less formal updates.

Clowns and Jugglers and fairgrounds

For various reasons, I stumbled over this video of Syd Barrett and Soft Machine - a quirky piece I had never heard before.

My first surprise was seeing a NoFit State poster in the mix - from 1m 23s to 1m 38s.

Then I kept listening, and he was singing about the Octopus ride (2m) - which counts as a double hit for me, as I worked on an Octopus ride (not as fancy as the one in the video) when I first dropped out of school and went to work on the fairground. Just a year or two before standing in the front row at UFO in 1967, watching early Pink Floyd from just a few feet away - with light shows! (I'd never seen anything like it, even if it seems like a cliche today).

Punch Drunk in the Spring

I haven't dealt with this stupid clock change very well.

In fact I have spent the whole week with jet-lag, and my body refusing to get up 'an hour earlier' every day.

You can't fool my body by just changing the clocks. My body (like all the wild and farm animals) is following the sun. Why the few people who want to save daylight can't just get up earlier by the clock I have no idea.

All the cities of the country disrupted because some farm workers need to use the available daylight? Which seems even weirder, because the very animals that these folks are working with still come for milking at the same time by the sun, surely?

I don't get it. I think it's some old patronising thing about not trusting people who need to make seasonal adjustments to make their own arrangements - so we'll change 'reality' and that'll fool the plebs. Well, it fools everything else except the bodymind bit of me, which sticks doggedly to its own habits...(yawn).

And with Julie and doggie away I also drink red wine and lounge around into the small hours, which probably doesn't help...

Teenage Dog

Our delightful little puppy (and then big puppy) who charmed almost everyone he met (human and dog) has changed dramatically in the last two weeks.

He has been told off by grumpy old dogs a few times in the last year (for being bouncy), and he has been bullied and intimidated by a couple of fairly macho alpha male dogs (which is horrible to see) but he enjoyed play fighting (all styles) with most dogs who wanted to play at all.

I have now seen him snarl (not in play) four times.

Suddenly, out of the blue. Wrestling with a boxer, in amongst a gang of unknown dogs, with unknown owners saying how cute he was - and suddenly teeth, curled lip, and savagery. Then when he found a husky playing with his 'girl friend' (but I had him on a lead, so only the aggression). Since then, within groups of dogs mostly, he has twice tried to show how tough he is by picking on someone smaller or more timid, which distressed the owners.

A really unpleasant sight, to see him pick on a bouncy six month old black labrador.

And there I was, worrying that he would front up to one of the bullies, instead of backing down, and get injured, but now I have the other fear of becoming the irresponsible owner who lets his dog run free, and out of control (his recall is still pretty bad if he's 'busy') which takes most of the fun out of going to the park. Especially as I can't yet see the behaviour coming.

He's potentially one of the bullies now.

He has testosterone coursing through his body, and is probably as surprised as me...

Going back the to 8-Circuit Model - he has passed beyond the horizontal Circuit One (Approach - Avoidance) and entered Circuit Two (up/down) territory of Dominance/Submission. (sigh)

Sadly, dogs probably don't really go much further than that...

Toad in the hole

I spoke far too soon, in thinking the horrors has passed.

[squeamish warning]

I noticed the pond looked a bit ‘frothy’ and that the waterfall had slowed to a trickle, so I decided the pump must have a problem. As I pulled it out of the water it became obvious that the filter had somehow become detached, so I guessed the pump had got blocked by pond weed or something. When I grabbed the clump of ‘roots’ however I realised it was a dead toad, sucked into the pump, and when I pulled it clear it was obviously TWO toads, slightly decomposing. I dropped one back in the pond in my squeamish reaction. After all, I only recently cleaned the pump, so it must be my incompetence/negligence which did not rejoin the filter correctly, and created this ‘horrible way to die’. Particularly sad, as I saw a toad when I semi-drained the pond as part of the cleaning process, and apologised for the disturbance.

As an ‘animistic Buddhist’ (or something) I identify quite strongly with other sentient beings (life forms) and I only hope ‘the gods or powers that be’ prove a little more careful when they clean the pond that I’m in.

To add insult to injury, the cats had left a dead rat near the top end of the garden, so I had three bodies to dispose of.

Then I took the dog for a walk, to calm down, but forgot my keys, so got locked out with dog after walk, with Julie’s phone not working (on charge), our lodger elsewhere, and Rhiannon in Africa (sigh). Still, Ali rescued me, and sheltered us until it all sorted itself out again. Nice to live in a village neighbourhood, and not a faceless city.

And then I get up this morning, still unable to entirely get rid of the images of yesterday, which I have now passed to you (though not too vividly, I hope) - only to find that Google have put a damned frog reminder in their logo for 29th February (Leap Year). Thanks fellas... [mumbles: "just a coincidence, just a coincidence..."]

The worst of my bad two weeks seems to have passed, which started with poking myself in the eye with a sharp stick (literally), having a tooth pulled for the first time in 30 years, and getting an unpleasant attack of Moctezuma's Revenge...

Today the sun came out, Julie and doggie came home last night, so I have taken him to meet his friends in a couple of parks and now intend to have a serious tidy up of the den (partly looking for something, partly cleaning). I always find stuff I wasn't looking for, too, because most things in my den arrived there for a reason, even if (over the years) the original impulse to keep/own them may have faded.

You live somewhere for ten years, and quite a lot of stuff accumulates! I feel like a very mossy non-rolling stone.

Great to hear the family tradition continues, however, with Keili planning a bit of wandering minstrel....

Ouroboros

Ain't that creature/entity beautiful?

The 8 Circuit model
(check out my images from Jan 26th)

I try not to let my sub-personalities leak too much, but it doesn't take a lot of clicks to track them down.

In my Bogus Magus incarnation (intelligence increase, etc) I work on RAW/Leary/Antero Alli material - and found the lizard image while discussing the 8-Circuit Model with Dedroidify - I went to his blog...

In case you haven’t come across this mental model (!) I still recommend it (in my quiet way) as one of the best I have come across for not only understanding myself and others, but for plugging in further insights.

Dedroidify has launched one video, and has plans for another and fuller one, but he also linked to the vids that came from Bob’s meme-orial – with both Bob speaking his own words, and some great images. I’ll share them here, to save you one click, but I recommend exploring Dedroidify’s site for more info on the whole realm we have discussed…or search YouTube for RAW, or just come on over to visit Only Maybe, and use the Label '8 Circuits', to filter the posts.

Circuits 1-4 (terrestrial or 'normal' circuits - heh heh - 9 minutes or so)



Circuits 5-8 (7 minutes or so) the post-terrestrial or 'high' circuits



And then what?

SMI²LE (Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, Life Extension - 4 minutes or so)

More Flashbacks

Geoff Felix just sent me a picture of the two us hilariously soaked after hours under a toilet while filming Roger Rabbit!

Our tracksuits got soaked, and all they could come up with was paper suits (which got soaked - and anyway the water was running right up my sleeve!) OK, OK, it wasn't a real toilet, but the cold water that splashed every time 'Roger fell through the window' hit me every time!

Here's the story as I told it to T-Bone, a Star Wars fan:

T: What exactly did you do on Roger Rabbit? Tell me about that experience as a whole. It must have been quite exciting.

TP: Dave Barclay called me back from the top of a mountain in Spain, with yet another "state-of-the-art" job. He was the chief puppeteer, and put together a great puppet team of six versatile people whose job was to improvise solutions on the set. The SFX department had time and budget to work on effects. What we did was to dive in and find simple but effective methods of getting the shot. This is not the same as making a consistent method for live shows: get it in the can, and move on. Sometimes I would be above the set, manipulating live objects on "invisible" strings; sometimes hidden under a box, wobbling it when Roger jumped on; or in the ceiling (revolving a fan) when Roger was playing on it.


At one point Geoff Felix and I spent an afternoon with the second unit under a toilet! Roger came through the window, fell in, came up with a gun, then grabbed the toilet chain to pull himself up, and flushed himself away! Geoff had the gun on a wire, I had to spin and pull the chain with an invisible string. It’s been cut very short in the movie, but we spent hours down there, getting soaked. The crew gave us a round of applause at the end of that day!

Other days the puppeteers would be all together. The octopus barman is on screen for a split second, but all his props are real, and operated by marionette strings. Not having a reputation to lose (with string puppets) I was the first to try pouring real liquid from a bottle to a glass, but once I proved it could be done, that job went to the real marionette people. I lit the actress’s cigarette with a lighter (the supporting wires ran up to a battery, so I could both manipulate it AND light it!) My mixed background as puppeteer, juggler, acrobat and magician made me the go-for-it member of the team. The others were serious puppeteers – with specialized skills.

interviews

If interviews and such amuse you, you can find a compilation here, which is simply a tidied up version of the old interview page on the website.

To brighter things

I still don't feel terrific, (see previous post) and now Julie seems to have acquired the same bug - but I have to say I still delight in some of the possibilities of the Internet.

I just received an 'email out of the blue' from Kate Partridge, who I knew back in the 60s/70s. In spite of all the ups and downs, comings and goings and strangeness of the time (my own personal stuff, which I won't expand on right now) we must have met around the Soho music scene (as she worked at Ronnie Scott's and I worked at Les Cousins). She has just found a photo of me which had my complete name, Googled me, et voilà!

Like magic.

I can't say I vividly remember the specific event in detail (although I do remember going to meet her parents, as her father made these wonderful 'nailie' sculptures).

I may have felt a bit over-awed (my self-esteem wavers at times) but I do remember loving the sculptures, and feeling welcomed and comfortable with the family.

My own father's love of crafts and arts meant I often felt more at home around studios than ordinary houses...

I was sad to hear that David Partridge died a couple of years ago. My father died in 1978, so any scars have healed as well as they ever may...

Isn't life strange?

I don't cultivate these events, as so many people seem to do with social networking sites, etc. I have known such a wide range of people that (for someone quite private) I would feel overwhelmed by constant 'catch-up'. My various sub-personalities have different circles of friends, different types of interests, and having found myself on the move a lot of the time, I have never had a really big party to throw them all together and see if they like each other. Everyone seems too scattered.

So I kinda like the randomness factor, and haphazard connections.

A birthday greeting from friends from the juggling days (Hi Anne and Roland!), a recent halloo from Bob Le Chevalier, a guy I hung out with in San Francisco back in 1971, chatting to Sunshine Gray about web design, and now a hello from the old days in London. Such fun!

Hi Kate!

As good a day as any

What a week! Thanks to anyone who wished me a Happy Birthday, but I failed at that I am afraid – and not just from being a curmudgeon about St Valentine’s Day, either.

I had a tooth out (first time in 30 years or so) on Tuesday, so was on mushy food and no alcohol, and feeling sorry for myself anyway. Then I made the fatal mistake of reading the dentist’s handout, which said if I felt any discomfort I should take some Nurofen.

Well, I wasn’t really in any pain, but certainly discomfort, and being fairly naïve about pharmaceutical drugs (never took any much) I thought they would just soothe the discomfort. I didn’t realize that they would trash my digestive system!

Now, when I tell people, they say “oh, yes, they can do that!” so I should have asked around for the folklore of “doctors’ drugs” before taking them. My dad distrusted doctors and their wares (I didn’t have shots for measles, and whooping cough and polio, etc as a kid) and I continued the tradition, until a few years back when someone told me to try Solpadeine, and I found them excellent for headaches, or tooth stuff, etc. So good, in fact, that they could become addictive (and I met at least one person for whom that was true).

Anyway, I wish he’d said “take a pain killer of your own choice”.

Y'all like doctors 'cause they don't cure shit. They don't cure nothing. Same diseases been hanging out since l was a kid, man. What's the last shit a doctor cured? Polio.You know how long ago polio was? That's like the first season of Lucy. Shit, Fred had an Afro with finger waves! Have you ever met anybody with polio? Anybody feel a little 'poly around you? No. That's right, they don't cure shit.The same diseases been hanging out since I was a kid:AlDS, sickle cell, tuberculosis, cancer, Jerry's kids still limping around. l've been watching the Jerry Lewis Telethon...for probably about years now. Not one stitch of progress whatsoever. That's right, man. That's right, we got AlDS out there. You think they're gonna cure AlDS? No, they can't even cure athlete's foot.They ain't curing AlDS. Shit, they ain't never curing AlDS. Don't even think about that shit. They ain't curing it,'cause there ain't no money in the cure.The money's in the medicine. That's how you get paid, on the comeback. That's how a drug dealer makes his money,on the comeback. That's all the government is:a bunch of motherfucking drug dealers,on the comeback. They ain't curing no AlDS. That's all it is. You think they're gonna cure AlDS? They're still mad at all the money they lost on polio! Curing AlDS? Shit, that's like Cadillac making a car that lasts for years. And you know they can do it...but they ain't gonna do nothing that fucking dumb. Shit, they got metal on the space shuttle that can go around the moon...and withstand temperatures of up to degrees.You mean to tell me you don't think they can make an Eldorado...where the fucking bumper don't fall off? They can, but they won't. So what they will do with AlDS is the same thing they do with everything else.They will figure out a way for you to live with it.They don't cure shit, they just patch it up. Get you to the next stop, so they can get more of your money. They ain't gonna cure it. Hopefully, in our lifetime, you're gonna see somebody go: ''Yo, man, you weren't at work yesterday. What's up?'''' My AlDS is acting up.' 'You know, when the weather get like this, my AlDS just pop up".

You have to laugh...it's good for you...apparently...

All this means that I couldn’t sleep Wednesday, stumbled through my birthday at work in a delirium of nausea and fatigue, went to bed at 6 in the evening and slept right through. Now I just have the runs (something I didn’t really experience since Mexico in 1972), can’t digest anything, and feel exhausted and miserable.

It certainly feels like a glimpse of old age! Losing teeth, mushy food, no alcohol or tobacco, exhausted, achy, and probably needing an adult diaper – oh yes, this seems like a future flash!

Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam!

I called to my men: “This is a good day to die: follow me.”...As we rushed upon them the [soldiers] dismounted to fire, but they did very poor shooting. They held their horse's reins on one arm while they were shooting, but their horses were so frightened that they pulled the men all around and a great many of their shots went up into the air and did us no harm.
Low Dog

We all get to live longer 'on average', but unfortunately no-one can truly claim to be average.
I don't make national average earnings, I don't consider myself averagely intelligent, or healthy or anything like that. People can step under a bus, win the lottery, or unexpectedly live to the age of 100. Even so, that old 'three score and ten' works out about right for most of us. Yeah, I still feel pretty rotten... Oops, gotta run!