Category: dangerous cliches

Balm

“Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has not the health of the daughter of my people been restored?”

Hello friends- there is an old story once told me by a mushroom forager from the Purple Forests of Estonia. He had owned a dog names Procrus, a faithful mutt who  accompanied him on his fungus hunts for almost 20 years..One day, accidentally, the mutt ate just a crumb of a very potent poisonous cap of Fungicidus Orientalis Cryptus- a mushroom so powerfully virile and petulant that Hannibal used one of them to slay an army. The dog became very ill, while having strange hallucinations, speaking in fluent Latin, and spinning its head in circles while the paws tapped out in Morse code, “holy sheepshit” over and over again… Then, my forager friend -who became misty eyed at the telling of this- let his dog go free in the forest, and that was the last he saw of him.

“How could you do that? ” I, Zamboni asked of this wandering micologist.. His answer was cryptic.

“Sometimes the best way to cure someone is to let them go.”

Now the moral of the story is this my friends. Zamboni is no old mushroom hunter, but I am wise enough to tell shit from Shitake. This old idiot let his dog get torn up by wild boar in the middle of a very bad trip. And karma is a bitch because a week later, the man himself mistook a shroom and became stiff dead.

He did the wrong thing. Don’t give up, never give up.

Z

** If we do not know our history, are we doomed to repeat it?

No, but if we are careful enough to forget it, when it does happen we will feel like it is the first time, and not so bad!  This is the truth with stupid things in general, just try and forget the worst things you’ve done so you can have the fun of doing them again.

Like the saying goes is lower Slobotnik, “once again, for the very first time.”

Besides, we make the children learn history every day and stupidity is continuing like with full force!

And how!

Thank you Jannush Warrenski for the question.

Dangerous Cliches, #2 “Less is More”

Try telling this untruth to my poor uncle, Pecunious Shwartz. He has lost most of his hair and so must do humiliating comb-over trying to hide baldness.

Or, you go to one of these new fangling boutique restaurants even propping up in Estonia now where on your plate you have tiny little piece of meat floating on shrimpy foam and one leaf of mint. You say “is OK, less is more“, but you will still be feeling hungry.

Less is not more people! The Devil likes to be saying this to discourage you, make you weak. Is there such thing as too much peace of mind? Too much sexy time with your wife? Too much fried Twinkies?

Okay so maybe not all good examples, but even when you overdo it, you learn. Did not William Blake write, “the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom“? Yes he did, I know because I was there when he wrote it! In  fact it was my answer to his question, “hey Zamboni, is it ever too much?”

So remember, it is usually someone saying this when what they really want to say is,”this needs more!” The emperor has no clothes, he is naked. It is not just “less is more” or he is underdressed;  his hazelnuts are swinging in the breeze and that’s not good.

How is this more?

So friends, know here that more is more and less is less.

Bon appetite!

Zamboni Reflects on Juneteenth

Today I Zamboni,  worked my miracles of question answering at the Berkeley Juneteenth festival and I have to say that even Zamboni did not know what Juneteenth was till he look it up on my  ancient apple that look like Wall-E. This from the Berkeley Juneteenth site:

The Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863, freed slaves from southern states in rebellion against the United States during the Civil War. News of the signing did not reach Galveston, Texas until June 19, 1865.

So when these people hear the news they party and dance in the streets, thus the yearly celebration of freedom. Can you believe? Of course it wasn’t so simple- news had traveled to many places but things just simply didn’t change until armies came and forcefully enforced these proclamations in the very most backward pockets.

Zamboni thinks that perhaps change only comes when we are forced to it? What if your freedom depended on someone’s decision, signing a paper, and if you happened to miss the memo, you never would be free at all?

Freedom is a word we hear all the time- but what does this mean? Can someone grant it? Have you ever felt it?

See the old man in the rock? I spoke to him

When do you feel most free?

Lindsay Lohan, Identity, Paulo and How to become Art

“What do you do when you change into your new identity?” This quixotic question comes from, “Paulo”.

My friend Lindsay Lohan, went so far as to attempt to be transformed in a short movie about her face

Since the days of forever a long time ago, (and Zambones knows this because I have traveled through all eras) we humans have worn masks, acted as others and taken on identities. Now you might perhaps think that we have done this because we dream of being someone else- but the opposite is true. It is the mask that teaches us who we are. What do we do when we change into our new identity- this is a tough question, but remember that I am Zamboni, so here is the truth.

There is no change. If there were change, why would we have a new book every ten minutes about how to change face/diet/nose/co-dependence/attitude, i.q./ etc: because the last one didn’t work. There is no change, only developing.

You are in the dark room, you expose light onto white paper. The paper is still white, on the surface there is no change. You put into first solution, there is a start, some lines. You put into second solution. You start to see some spots spread across page, some grey, some shades. Finally, after chemical third solution you start to see the photograph, the details, the poetry, finally: the art.

Each of us is waiting to become a work of art. This is why we seek, read, dress. But we must be careful- most careful, about how we develop.

I use Lindsay Lohan as example. She recently was used to make perhpas the worst short film ever made, probably in hopes it would “ressurect” her image. No. What she needs is to be in John Waters or Quentin Tarantino movie- then we see her freckles, her lines on face, her imperfections, her awkwardness. John Travolta only became John Travolta because of Pulp Fiction. A wise man once said, “your imperfections are your perfections”. Actually was me Zamboni who says this.

So Paulo, when you “change into your new” identity, you come closer to who you are. Like the Stoics said, “be what you wish to seem.”

Notice what people are for Holloween- this tells you more about their dreams then one hundred journal entries. When you plunge into right chemical developers, so to speak, and wait, is when you become genuine you.

Fribble me this!

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/short-film-starring-lindsay-lohan-debuts-in-venice-20110606-1fo5y.html

Lindsay, you were/are perfect! Restore!

How does a travel agent help us reach a place that is not on any list of destinations?

The above quixotic question comes from SK Dance, living in the swamplands of Louisiana.

What is an “agent” of change? Who is the “travel agent” of our life? What did we do before google maps?

SK, you also ask, “is it permissable, however mildly, and with whatever ambivalence, to rage at the miles and years it takes to reach a destination?” This tells me that much later in your life than you wished, you finally find what you were looking for. Yes, it is always permissable to rage. It is complaining and whining which annoys Zamboni. Rage is good. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light and so forth.

Zamboni understand, I do. Being an ageless timeless spirit, but more accurately speaking 124 and a half  years old, I know something about endurance. Zambones still not find soul mate  despite very pricey services of one-eyed Estonian witch/matchmaker who promise results over fourteen years ago. I am feared to curtail her services because her one eye can be evil, but I am hopeful.

alice olive sees the stairs, routes and shadows of all the ways- but is nice no?

Look at it this way; the longer your search, the more stairs you climb up and down, the sweeter it is when you find it. You may rage against my use of cliche, but is true. It’s not Zamboni’s fault that sometimes it takes 1000 miles to find your shadow  or  your soul mate- god makes many sick jokes like this. Think of the platypus and the fart. Also, pity the poor people who even after 1000 miles don’t see the sign that says, “Welcome- You Are Here”.

Dangerous Cliches, #1

Many of you know the axiom  that goes something like this, “a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

This is about as true as , “if you have one crumb of cheese, then you have the start of some nachos.”

It is a dangerous cliche. Yes, it is “true” but first ask yourself before you step one thousand miles: Do you really need to go that far? How about The Grand Canyon? You haven’t been there yet and it’s only an hour away. Take a bus across town- there’s that Ukranian restaurant that you’ve heard about. After all, as the Yugoslavian mail carriers say, “one thousand miles away, people still cough.”

1000 miles is a long haul. I once trudged through 1,238 miles of tundra because my brother Tenzin married the daughter of an Inuit Chief, and in those poor college days, I had not money for sled dogs. It resulted in frostbite and hypothermic madness but the taste of wood roasted seal fat makes me soon forget this. To this day, I vomit when I see snow.

So go on your great journey if you like, but think first of this. The spot where you stand on is itself the very end of a 1000 mile journey.

Try the Perogi and leave lots of time to park

Alert!