Life Has Its Natural Rewards

The photograph I've used today is of Washington state resident Marian Hauge accepting an award pin (that's her in the purple cloth) for having given $5,000 of her own money to a Pacific Northwest Jewish National Fund for one of their pet projects. I have to ask myself, why in the world is she being rewarded for donating money?

Public television & radio offer similar deals when an individual donates money or becomes a “subscriber” to the broadcast facility. They rely heavily on that practice and the rewards for donations or premiums as the industry calls it are plentiful and consist of DVDs, CDs, autographed books, posters, tickets and other fancy trinkets.

Car companies, banks, credit card corporations, gymnasiums and department stores all offer incentives to individuals who use that particular company’s charge card or membership or buying their products and offer freebees such as ball caps, jackets, plastic mugs, pens, pencils, key chains and tee shirts with their logos emblazoned on it as they sign on the dotted line.

Individuals and organizations donate to social causes all of the time, including for profit, not-for-profit and political campaigns.

For these folks, their rewards are having a dinner thrown in honor of their donations, meeting a candidate or elected official at a cocktail party, reception or a high society affair and having their smiling mugs photographed with the high and mighty and getting it published in either an artsy-fartsy magazine or newspaper.

It’s a confusing message to send to our children.

13 years ago when I was a cub reporter for The Des Plaines Journal, I helped the city of Des Plaines’ consumer affairs division, break-up a fly-by-night boiler room operation for a phony charity based in Lincoln, Nebraska that preyed on senior citizens by offering them a prize if they donated a certain amount of money to their charity, which I believe was called “Save Our Children,” as opposed to the legal and above-board charity “Save The Children.”

An individual man who I spoke with at the time had already donated $3,000, yet had not received a “prize.” That’s when I intervened and helped the city department, along with the help of the local FBI office in Lincoln, Nebraska crack the case.

In turn, the City of Des Plaines Department of Consumer Affairs’ spokesman Robert Hinde cited me for my ability to crack a case that no one else had been able to do previously and thankfully brought this problem to a close.

But you know what? I didn’t expect anything because I was just doing my job. And that’s how I’ve always felt about awards and rewards. When I do something that is heartfelt, I don’t expect anything in return.

We as individuals have become accustomed to receiving trinkets and accolades for doing what we’re supposed to be doing, whether it’s keeping people entertained, safe on city streets or the Internet, giving us a warm, happy and healthy glow.

Be it as it may or whatever we do as humans, we make impact and impressions upon others and we shouldn’t have the need to receive or expect awards or little tokenism trinkets, for isn’t giving something away on your own set of values, reward enough?

I believe in a simple philosophy; expect the unexpected; the rewards will be reaped plentiful and tenfold when you follow this simple approach and apply it to your life.

Just ask The Arizona Babe, Blog-19 or any number of individuals that I know of, including yours truly, The MishegasMaster, who know that when the rewards come, they are both mighty and satisfying.

Smiles, hugs and handshakes are all we really need.

Don’t you believe more of us humans should go for the old (old-fashioned values) as opposed to the gold (trinkets)?

Yes! It’s about time we should!

The Botox Frankenstein Poetry Series>She's Moody

Good cool evening to you one and all, my friends! A quick tip of the kippah and hip-hip hooray! It's Friday! It is here finally and let me tell you how happy I am! It's the second week of August and it feels good and feeling good reminds me that our good friend, our sweet capper is waiting for us once again to take us into a lovely weekend. Please continue to keep Israel in your thoughts. And now, yes you guessed it! It's poem-time! Remember dear readers, please tell someone you love them, be sure to check on them if you live in a region of the world that is soaked in blazing, roaring heat and always-always-always enjoy!


She’s Moody

Elevation odometer
Measures
The space of determination
She’s
Unable
To breathe

Terrorism Is A Panic Sale Unveiled Before Our Very Eyes

The terrorists are winning. But not just any old terrorists and I certainly don’t mean the real ones with the ample supply of guns, explosives and other weapons that are meant to maim, hurt, kill and otherwise destroy human life as we know it now or in the future.

No my friends, I’m talking about those in authority position; those that rule you and I in one way or another…I’m talking about The Big Business Monkey.

They have us right where they want us and behaving exactly the way they want us to. Scared. Panicked. Paranoid. Afraid to boycott or promote any anti-business climate, for fear of repercussions in the form of business terrorism.

The United States as I see it has become a business dictatorship; a ruined democracy puppeteered, bought, signed, sold, sealed and delivered to greater powers beyond our own doing. It at last has come to everything I used to say when I was a teenager; a business within a business, within a business, within a business.

But this latest terrorist plot foiled in London, England today, has nothing to do with terrorists, oh no. This has to do with world manipulation and controlled atmospheric conditions by The Big Business Monkey.

It's no big secret that both the United States & England’s economies are suffering greatly due to the great terrorist war-scare and the siphoning of jobs to cheap labor countries such as India, Mexico, China & Malaysia.

So, The Big Business Monkey steps in and invents a prefabricated terrorist plot designed to spike the economy and put impulse buying residuals straight into their pockets, just like snake-oilmen.

Shopping is patriotic. So why not celebrate patriotism by buying more liquids? Sure you can hide or pack your shampoo, hand creams, perfumes, colognes and liquor into your checked baggage at the airport, but today’s little terrorism exercise handed The Big Business Monkey a total net profit in the tens of millions of dollars easily.

Today’s supposed foiled terrorism plot was truly manipulated by mass media; government & The Big Business Monkey all working together for a change. It all comes down to two main factors; your money and mind control.

Don’t think for a minute that The Big Business Monkey doesn’t smell or see a good opportunity like this! P.T. Barnum of Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus knew a good panic ploy sales pitch when he saw it and seized the moment to his advantage.

Terrorism is a panic sale; we already see such sales occur on a regular basis, like half-off sales, liquidation sales and lost-our-lease/closing the door forever sales.

The panic reoccurs again and again when the same like-minded businesses open up new stores under creative names and use the same panic factors to entice you and manipulate your pocketbook all over again.

The Big Business Monkey has created far too many gazelles and if you don’t believe me, look all around you; from the office water cooler, to the barroom to the coffeehouses to virtual Internet chat-rooms; they hang in packs, all agreeing and too afraid to stick their toe into the water for fear it’s just too darned cold.

If they do stick their necks out or let their voices be heard, they are likely to be called names or threatened idly with violence and are targeted as loners or totally nuts. They are immediately pointed out by the scared gazelles and everyone attacks them.

The Big Business Monkey knows exactly what it is doing and frankly, it’s frightening, as it swings from mood to mood, all in the frantic pursuit of your personal well-being and your pocketbook.

But gazelles are gazelles are gazelles.

And they don’t really care. It just makes The Big Business Monkey very, very, very rich and prosperous.

And that’s sad.

Truly sad.

Angels & Devils On A Moonlit Night

Everything that happens to me happens for a reason and each time something strange happens, the law of unusual averages comes rearing its ugly head every single time. This is a true story about angels and devils and how angels and devils work together despite their agendas and beliefs.The story takes place one evening ago...

I get an offer for a futon & frame, plus a few pillows and a bed cover from a friend’s friend at work. “She’ll call you,” says my friend Tina.

Sure enough, Tina’s friend calls me and offers me a futon with a frame and asks me if I want it? I often wonder where the word idiot comes from and well, now I know.

She tells me she can transport it to my place when she calls, but as it stood right then and there I was apartment hunting and I wouldn’t be home all that often, but I would make some time for her. But of course, that time frame never materializes, plus when I do reach her, the crew and truck that she had mysteriously disappeared; it was all borrowed, she says.

Another week passes by and I call her up, telling her I still want the bed and though she says she’ll get back to me, she doesn’t and tells me the following Monday that she was too busy on the weekend to give me a call back.

She tells me she’s storing the futon & frame in the garage of her building and her landlord doesn’t want it there much longer. Why it’s in her garage to begin with I don’t know, since she previously told me she had a storage space.

I tell her I can get a van and get it out of there by Thursday, but she stiffly and flat out rejects that notion by saying “No.”

“It needs to be out by Tuesday night or it gets wheeled over to The Salvation Army,” she says firmly.

I hate being threatened by someone I don’t know and it almost feels like a surreal virtual situation inside an Internet chat-room. Tuesday night rolls around and I’ve asked my good pal The Baseball Kid to come and help me out with moving the futon frame.

I meet him at his work place, he punches out and he follows me back in his car to the place where we need to pick it up. The Baseball Kid and I finally arrive to this woman’s place. I call her up and tell her I’ve arrived and she says she’ll be right over. We meet her for a few brief moments and she explains to us that futon is blocking parking spaces in the garage, but as we all see, it’s tucked off into a corner, so I don’t know why she's fibbing.

She's flippant in her remarks as she says goodbye to us in an odd way, leaving myself and The Baseball Kid to figure out things for ourselves.

As we are in the garage trying to get the frame and futon in our respective cars, we are honked at by other residents, who tell us that we are blocking their parking spaces.

So we back out and as I back out, I cannot see in the back as I have the futon in the back seat, thereby blocking my view and I hit a fence. We are still blocking an SUV’s driveway as a big large man tells us and so we move further down the alleyway.

After some more finagling with the futon frame, The Baseball Kid decides it will just not fit in his trunk, due to length and instead takes the futon into his car from my car and follows me to my new studio, where I park my car and drop the futon off. He then drops me back at the woman’s building, the garage still open and leaves me to my only other alternative, which is to push the futon frame 10 blocks.

I have no choice, so I decide to do it. Luckily, I tell myself, the frame has wheels, so it should be fairly easy to push it. What an understatement!

It’s 9:30 in the evening as I begin pushing the futon frame forward through the first alleyway. I fly through a second alleyway with ease, then turn left and wait for traffic to pass before crossing the main thoroughfare and head north until I make a left and begin heading west with the futon frame.

As I am pushing the futon frame through evening negroesque streets, drivers of cars, SUVs, taxis and vans all slow down to take a long and hard look at me, yet none offer to help me. They only stare.

As I cross the sixth block in my 10-block sojourn, the left front wheel falls off! Shit, I think, now what am I going to do?

I pick up the connecting piece and the wheel and move forward. My back and feet are starting to hurt. As I enter the seventh block, to my right I see a young-blond haired woman on a bicycle with two blond-haired young men.

“Excuse me,” I say to them, “Could one of you help me push this frame? I don’t have too far to go and I don’t bite.” All three of them laugh and one of the men initially offers his help.

Eventually the other man offers to push, while their friend follows us on her bicycle. We turn the corner at the 10th block, going slightly north and pop the frame up the curb and into the front doorway.

After 10 minutes of struggling and moving the futon frame around, we realize it won’t fit in the front door, so we move it around to the back and finally like a key into the door lock it fits and we move it straight in.

I thank the two gentlemen with gratitude and they say no problem and disappear into the moonlit night with the woman on the bicycle. It’s now 10:30.

Fast forward to an afterthought this night; angels are every where you go. Just ask for them and they will appear in your most needed hour. Devils some say are angels in disguise, but that’s an outright lie as angels are beautiful and honest.

Devils are deviant and ugly. In the last month, I’ve encountered more devils than normal. Devils are low-down bastards who can be bitter and full of hate, though they may not realize what they are doing or saying at the time.

Angels don’t assume. They just grant your wishes if you wish hard enough.

Devils belong in the dust bin and should be kicked to the curb, the moment you encounter one.

Devil spelled backward is lived. Bitterness and anger tell a lot about a soul that has formerly lived and therefore transformed into a devil.

And I pity them.

Sometimes.

The Botox Frankenstein Poetry Series>C-h-em---isss---tree (Chemistry)

Good summer evening to you one and all, my friends! A quick tip of the sweaty kippah and although it's warm today, it's not as bad as it was earlier in the week! But, Friday! Big yahoos for Friday! It is at last here and let me tell you how happy I am to see it! It's a brand new month already! Time flies when you live, doesn't it? And as we live, here he is our living, breathing pal, our sweet capper is here to greet us once again to bring us into a peaceful weekend. Please continue to keep Israel in your thoughts. And now, yes you guessed it! It's absolutely brand-spanking new poem-time! Remember dear readers, please tell someone you love them, be sure to check on them if you live in a region of the world that is soaked in blazing, roaring heat and always-always-always enjoy!

C-h-em---isss---tree (Chemistry)


C-h-em---isss---tree


The boy looks into the mirror, repeating the phrase fine-tuning, working it like a good sales pitch down to the bone

C-h-em---isss---tree


It’s like rehearsal for death
He mumbles to himself
Do you love me?
He asks aloud


C-h-em---isss---tree


The email is returned
A lesson goes unheard
He doesn’t care


C-h-em---isss---tree


Just isn’t fair

When Friendship Gets Ugly

It’s terribly bad to say this, despite what this particular cliché offers, yet sometimes you just don’t know who your friends are until the crucial moment arrives and the actions are laid bare for the entire world to see.

It’s no secret that for the last several weeks I’ve been fighting on and off with Catfish Jeff, over mostly frivolous and often stupid reasons.

I always thought friends were friends and stayed tactful, even in the most crucial times of disagreement, but no! Catfish Jeff openly criticized me about everything, when it came to becoming his potential roommate.

What follows is a transcribed conversation I had with Catfish Jeff on the subject. This is sadly real. What will follow after his initial comments & my reactions will be my after-thoughts, if any are appropriate. I have changed the names to avoid scandal...kind of. But as openly harsh as Catfish Jeff is toward my blog and what I choose to post, secretly he does read it and thinks about it. Perhaps he'll write a rebuttal. He has already sent me spewing hateful email. Ah, stichomythia...

Sid Yiddish: Ummm, did your landlord ask you about me when I left?

Catfish Jeff: No I left when you were there why? You did tell him about all your stuff?

Sid Yiddish: Yep, I told him.

Catfish Jeff: And what did he say?

Sid Yiddish: He said the boxes below could be rearranged.

Catfish Jeff: But does he know just how much you have? And don’t say it’s as much as mine Cause it’s a lot more.

Sid Yiddish: LOL (laughing out loud) no, I told him I have a lot.

Catfish Jeff: I mean a lot more up to the ceiling more.

(That's a slight exaggeration)

Sid Yiddish: I mentioned all the furniture pieces and have you looked at your boxes lately? A lot of them are empty so? I don’t follow.

Catfish Jeff: At some point you probably need to let go of some stuff I know that’s hard for you, but you cant hold on to everything, unless you want to drag it all around till you die , I mean do you even know the sum total of all your stuff?

(Funny, that's what my second-to-last crazy landlady told me right before she forgot to take her medication and left for vacation in Brazil)

Sid Yiddish: I’m not going to get into a point-counterpoint with you

Catfish Jeff: and I put stuff in them when I move.

(Okay, I see. You carry emtpy boxes around with you and you react like a child when someone else actually needs the space)

Sid Yiddish: But they're empty.

Catfish Jeff: I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to move here I don’t want to hurt your feelings but the energies can clash at times I may be a slob, but you...

Sid Yiddish: Well, that's what I asked you before. And if you're planning on insulting me, save it.

Catfish Jeff: I don’t leave food around all over the place.

(What does that have to do with anything?)

Sid Yiddish: you know, when I lived with roommates I was pretty clean, my own room was my room if you're going to insult me, don't and you believe I’m terrible, there are far worse people than me.

Catfish Jeff: I’m not I’m just saying it might not be a good idea for you to move here it's just an observation I’m trying not to make it a personal thing, I’m just saying you have your way of doing things and I have my way and they clash and you don’t have to get so defensive, that’s what I’m talking about.

(Okay, I've asked him over and over not to insult me, but he just doesn't bother to listen and does whatever he chooses to do and wonders why I get so defensive? Sheesh!)

Sid Yiddish: Hey, you get defensive on certain issues when I try to drive the point home, what's the difference? I know what space means.

Catfish Jeff: I’m just saying you have your ways of doing things and I have my ways and I don’t think they mix and I don’t think you want to listen to anything I'd have to say about it you think you know what’s best, but the best way friends can start to hate each other is if they move in together.

(Is this a domination factor? Are you telling me that you have to have a need to control me and the situation because I might be stronger than you, so in order for you to win, you have to tear me down?)

Sid Yiddish: Well, you're my friend not my parents. When I ask for an opinion, I’ll let you give it. I lived with friends for four and half years we made it thru and strangely enough...I hear otherwise.

Catfish Jeff: but you have to consider other peoples feelings you cant just do what you want you lived with others that were like you and they probably didn’t mind it , but I don't know. Like did you ever consider why you have mice? And they didn’t just "come" with the building.”

(Oh! The mice issue! Everyone loves to pick on me with that! I wonder if he forgot that when he helped me move boxes down to the storage space, those gigantic holes that were in a closet, making it easier for mice to get into? It's not me who is leading the mice here; it's my neighbors across the way, they love feeding stray animals and despite calling the city of Skokie on them several times, they still do it. So go on, blame me. It makes you feel good, doesn't it!)

Sid Yiddish: Wrong! They came to this building before I was here.

Catfish Jeff: My ex-girlfriend had roaches wherever she went, she blamed it on the buildings, but she left food and garbage all over the apartment it was disgusting.

(I bet you'll tell that story to your grandkids someday...)

Sid Yiddish: If your idea is to insult me, I suggest you quit while you're ahead, I know you're trying to tear me down and you enjoy doing that to me...I know my faults and I own up to them. What’s your excuse...and you've told me that story over and over and over and over again...I hear you, I hear you.

Catfish Jeff: Again you live the way you do and I live the way I do and I don’t think they work well together. I’m just saying it as I see it if you want to get all defensive that’s how it is I’m just saying it would be better for both of us if you didn’t do this.

(I see, so in order to get your point across, you have to insult me...)

Sid Yiddish: This is all about space. you think I’m encroaching on your territory. I didn't have this problem in the previous space. I live as I live: and you knock me every which way you can because you believe you have a point to make...Mona, a roommate of long ago did the same fucking thing to me and I lived with her, because we all have our quirks.

Catfish Jeff: No, actually I don’t want a bunch of smelly mouse encrusted furniture in the house and I don’t want to be around your weird energy. Frankly, I've told you this before, but you don’t want to hear me, you smell like mouse poop from living around it all this time , now I’m sorry to have to say that to you, but it's true.

(Funny, no one else ever tells me I smell like mouse poop. What have you been smoking?)

Sid Yiddish: My weird energy? Well, you don't have to smell me.

Catfish Jeff: I think you have a lot of great qualities, but, frankly, you have a lot of anger and energy that goes all over the place. Sometimes it's just exhausting to be with you. I don't know if I could live with that and again I don’t want some mouse funk in this house it's a lot easier to have a roommate that you don’t have to invest so much energy in it’s a hygiene issue; you wanna talk about it or you just want to be hurt?

(Okay, just going for the kill, aren't you? Well, whatever floats your boat. Weird energy? Perhaps you're mistaking intense personality for anger and agression. It wouldn't be the first time and it certainly won't be the last time either.)

Sid Yiddish: What the heck do you want from me?

Catfish Jeff: I just want you to reconsider moving here. Again you don’t have to get all defensive. You just want it, cause it’s cool.

(No, I wanted to move in because it's cheaper and we're friends and some friends can live together. Funny; you can be with me for several hours and you don't complain and you don't mind the rides in my car, so what's the problem? You never tell me what my weird energy is unless you're summing up situations that have nothing to do with anything. Afraid of closeness?)

Sid Yiddish: I think you should reconsider everything you just said.

Catfish Jeff: Why? Cause you'll get mad and walk away? Okay, if that's where you are.

Sid Yiddish: You have far more problems than me

Catfish Jeff: Always blaming others. Hey let your stuff go! I don’t live in a rummage sale and perhaps I do have problems and I d like to work on them, but I don’t think you being here will help. Frankly, a lot of times I want to leave here, but I don’t know where to go and the only reason I'm staying here is for the air conditioning right now.

(What a shallow soul you are! Did you ever stop and wonder that it's you who blames others for your own wicked mistakes? I didn't ask for all the troubles you have. Do you enjoy twisting the knife harder and deeper every chance you get? That remark about living in a rummage sale cracks me up! Yes, I have accumulated items over the years; that's what happens when you move from place to place to place and your parents move out-of-state. And that remark about me being here, is truly funny! You had your basket of problems long before you met me and you'll have them long after my demise. So, having said that, what the fuck are you talking about?)

Sid Yiddish: Frankly, you enjoy being bitter and twisted and painting other lives but you cant focus on anything else...you're a cruel man and I want you to apologize.

Catfish Jeff: Could be that’s why you don’t want to move here. I probably am but I don’t want to be really and enjoying misery is not something I do. I just don’t know how else to be really anything else? Cause I’m going to go what? What else do you wanna say? For what I told you how is I feel and if it hurts your feelings, I’m sorry, but that’s how I feel I didn’t hold back I’m not going to pretend that everything is ok why should I? I don’t want to lie in your filth...

Sid Yiddish: You're cruel and a true asshole...but that's okay, karma has a way of swinging itself back around when the one swinging the bat forgets to duck...you'll get yours...

What I find interesting in all of this is the criticism Catfish Jeff dishes out, but cannot swallow despite his own words. People with control issues and agendas are often frightening because they don’t have a grip of what reality is, so they have to create their own worlds, their own environments and when push comes to shove and they feel like shit, they will do their best to make everyone else in their party feel the same and then the next day, pretend like nothing ever happened, standing next to you all happy, shiny and smiling.

I call that Jekyll-Hyde persona. Folks like Catfish Jeff don’t know much about reality and act out a personality so severe, so destructive, it’s a wonder they can function properly and hold down real responsibilities, which include household chores and a full-time job.

They often criticize others & their lifestyle choices and will place their own fears upon them and twist it in their backs with a knife. They will take advantage of the weak and punish the strong and call them names, for it makes them feel secure and powerful, while personally attacking those they don’t agree with and outright deny any previous action they might have taken because they always have to be right and have to be in control 365 days of the year.

Medication, hospitalization and institutionalization is useless, for they all go back to their previous behavior patterns once they are released into society when pronounced “cured.”

For all the good they possess, the Jekyll-Hyde persona is anything but safe and with folks like Catfish Jeff, who needs enemas?