Category: Hope

Zamboni Speaks due to Riots!

There’s an old saying my Finnish nanny used to say as I hid in fear of her under my bed: “you can run, and you can hide, but I’ll still find you and smack you with my fist”

It’s sort of like life, people. You can run from things, or hide your head like a turtle, but when you pop out, that imposing Finnish nanny is staring you square in the face.  The Nanny could be any number things, illness, worry, stress, and they don’t go away just by ignoring them. Nanny is life.

I realize my talk of retirement caused riots in Botswana, a dip in facebook stock price,  and egg shortages in Michigan. For this I am truly sorry. It was rash of me to think I could simply disappear from your life. Like Michael Corleone said, “Just when I got out,  they pull me back in.” And frankly, it is also Zamboni that misses you all, my idolators and electrolytes.

So though I am taking somewhat of a break, the nanny never takes a break, and so I am still with you.

Speaking of this nanny, whose name was Trinka- Though she was hard on me, she always dressed my wounds and sang  me to sleep. Finnish songs of ice and sea captains lost at sea. I remember one going like so:

sing cold wind, over the roiling sea

sing cold wind, over you and over me

Life will bruise you up a bit, but is always there to ice your concussions.

Be happy! -Zamboni

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

“What can one do to be happier in this world?”

This question slip of paper accidentally fell onto the floor during my show now I get to answer it three weeks later.

Try these in combination or isolation, repeat as needed but use moderation in most: Cocaine, having children, riding a bicycle down the street and looking up as the trees go by (caution!), traveling, staying at home with a book or better yet several football games on TV or long romantic Bollywood movies like HumTum, cheeseburgers, -forget the Cocaine, that was bad idea, back to the good ideas- meditate, be quiet, take off your seatbelt and stick your head out the window, visit Estonia in July, take a first sip of beer on a hot day after long work, make love, make art, make sexy times, read Sunday New York Times, eat a shrimp tail, tell a tall tale, tell a lie just for the thrill, and smile when you are happy but try smiling even if you are not happy because it might just make you happy, writie a poem, write a letter, find a giant sculpture and hang off it, pretend you are a model and have someone take pictures of you, listen to music, listen to nothing, listen like Orpheus, and if all else fails, just hug it out- its impossible not to be happy while you hug (and even sometimes it lead to sexy times!)

Word of Zamboni correctly has been spake!

Thomas Sterling, New Orleans

“Would you believe I’ve been up since 5 this morning paddling this boat?” Sterling asked.

Shirtless and tattooed, with one cigarette in his mouth and a spare on his ear, Sterling said he has been running a freelance maritime rescue operation since Hurricane Katrina sent water crashing through doors and windows.

“I ain’t never seen so many dead people, and I ain’t never saved so many people,” Sterling said. “I must have rescued over 200 people.”

As with much storytelling in New Orleans, it’s hard to know where truth tires out and imagination takes up the slack. But as we floated slowly through the ruined neighborhood, there was no denying the floating corpse that bobbed against the front of a faded blue duplex at 1728 Desire St.

It looked like a man. He was face-down, wearing a blue shirt, black pants and rubber boots. Sterling suspected he’d know him if he could see his face.

The former dockworker, 53, on disability with a nerve condition, had never given a thought to evacuating.

“I knew I would survive, so I wanted to stay here and help other people who wouldn’t leave or couldn’t get out,” said Sterling, whose chest tattoo says, “All Eyes on Me, Me Against the World.”

-LA Times, 9/6/05

i met the subject of that article. he was sitting, falling asleep, chin resting on his cane, in a little homemade park at the corner of mystery and esplanade, in new orleans three days ago. i’m jetlagged and falling asleep at this keyboard now, can’t be bothered to capitalize- but i want to tell you, if you ever lose hope for the human spirit or think we’ve lost our soul in 2012, you aint been to new orleans.

he said “how you doing sir, could i talk to you fo a second.. this here article is about me from the l.a.times” and to verify he showed me is photo i.d..

“and i’m trying to collect 90 dollars so i can pay my electric bill..” ever weary of a scam, but i stopped anyway, i read the article, and because he seemed soul-weary not drunk or desperate I believed him. I sat down with him. he told me about the floating bodies.. he told me how it came to be that he stayed-

“that morning i was shaving , and after I shaved I rubbed my eyes  and face with a towel, you know, like you do,  and as I did that” he told me slowly,”i had a vision from god and he said that if I stayed behind he would not let anything happen to me, and so i stayed, my momma said ‘boy you better get ready, we leaving’ but I stayed behind”

we sat in silence for as while as i did some reading, he dozed and continued to ask passerby for help. he never complained once, never said the city or anyone else owed him anything, didn’t guilt anyone and was very p0lite. I noticed sores of circular scars covered both arms, “what happened there?”I asked.  he said he had chicken pox as a kid.

We spoke more, then he said he was going elsewhere “i’ll see you mr. jordan, i’ll see you later”

I said my goodbye but wished we’d spoken more. and this morning at 6am we said our goodbye to N.O. and it broke my heart, for so many reasons. yes we had beignets and po boys and saw the Mississippi, and canoed right past some gators and all- but a city’s worth  is its people, and the kind of person it makes you when you’re there- and New Orleans is what an american city is supposed to be-

old, weathered, building, soulful, and above all about the future…

thanks to ed and susan for showing it to me-

(Zamboni I lost at the Voodoo museum but i expect he’ll turn up soon)

Love

Dear Zamboni-

I think I met the love of my life- the problem is she’s half my age. Plus she lives three thousand miles away. It’s electric when we are together, it’s like I think I’m over it but then it’s this crazy gravitational pull when I see her again and I feel like i’m falling, and I want both to let myself fall but also to stop myself. The sound of her voice, everything- Zamboni, oy- Am I crazy- What should I do?

-Harry Fonda

Dear Harry – did I miss something- you have no problem! You met a girl that makes you crazy- think you’re the first? So she’s half your age- you think the gods do things for no reason?

Here’s my advice: don’t give her up. I don’t mean you two have to nuptualize things- just don’t give her up. Once Zamboni fell in love with my office intern -she was 22 I was 42- did it work out? No, of course not, she Twittered and I still write with a quill and milk my goat every morning- but I tell you one thing- not a week goes by I don’t see her face in my dreams, and that my friend is everything.

Like Boogy said, “you don’t have good dreams Bagel, you got nightmares.”

Kiss her face when you can, and when you can’t…well, read a good book.

Trust in Zamboni!

Stay hungry, stay foolish, i think

Zamboni has never been too big on technologicalness. I still do not have cell phone and up until starting this blog a year ago in the past I sent messages to friends via two small but reliable hermit crabs named Sonny and Crockett.

When Steve Jobs died I did not pay much particular mind to it. A friend of mine, however, from Croatia, told to me that Steve Jobs was this great man and visionary. To me he was just another business guy acquiring millions of clams by making gadgets in China to sell to people. And this he did, but I do some research and I like very much this speech I see him give.

And just like Zamboni, he is college dropout! (Actually Zamboni was asked to leave Franconia College due to jumping onto football field to tackle rival team’s running back before he make touchdown, the olde “12th man” play.)

But this advice even great zamboni can use.

RIP

Naked Crayon Speaks

From the beginning, I, GreatZamboni have said that my real magic is not just to shower brilliance on the earth like rain in Portland. Zamboni is at his best when YOU bring forth the genius in you.

Zamboni may not be like Houdini with chains and boxes and great escapes, but he does have ability to bring good wisdom from his flock. The following is answer to Jordan’s “thorny question” from reader on East Coast whose handle is “naked crayon”. I hope you are enjoying….

Ok, so while I am not an all knowing sage, I do have some experience with this topic. I am afterall the queen of reinvention. In my short 43 years, I have studied and or worked at being: a dancer, an actress/waitress, singer, travel agent, advertising , marine biology, psychology, reiki, nursing, law , paralegal, public relations and artist. people think I’m crazy or a “lost soul” I say they are wrong.My entire philosophy is based on the theory of reinvention. Said very simply- as far as we know this life may be it for us. Why would we NOT experience as much of it as we can? I’ll tell you why. Becuase Man has created a ton of crazy ass rules. For example: cars should be one color, people should be married before having children, only men and women can be married, we should work for five days and take two off and yes, we should decide what we want to be when we grow up and then BE IT until death do you part. Nonsense!

But please know this young paduan. Choosing the road less traveled is not without sacrafice. My resume will always be scattered, I do not have a two car garage, or a fat 401k and I have not taken my children on the 5k plus trek to Disneyland that is a status mandate for East Coast families. We all make choices and much like High School most people follow the status quo and when they do, they are rewarded with things and feeling like they belong. I never belong but I am rewarded by knowing that I follow my heart and my life map is much richer than my neighbors. (Even though she never has to trudge her groceries through the snow, like I do, because she pullls into her fancy garage)

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I believe that one day because I have experieced so much my life will all make sense to the outside world and my light will shine brighter than most. So yes, follow your passion, and your heart and lead an authentic life. Just have a really good plan, so that your kids don’t starve in the mean time.

To this I add only  Dicky Fox:

 

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”.

Zamboni may be wrong about Hope

Jordan sneaks this in while the Zambonesman sleeps off last night- too much Fernet Branca and too many flaming cheese shots with the visiting Estonian Weightlifting team:

So you know how some days google does a little custom job on it’s logo that greets you. On Holloween the “oo” become a couple of pumpkins, etc.  So this morning she’s lurking behind me as I crank this thing up, my daughter, Bird, age 12, and I notice today, on Dr.MLK Jr.s day, there are four kids playing hopscotch through the google, two black, two white, just like in the speech, the Dream.

“I don’t get that” she says, “why do they just have some kids playing, it’s so random.”

First I think she’s being a bit dense. “Don’t you get it?”I say, “It’s for MLK day.”

But it was me missing the point, as usual.

“You just see some kids playing, huh?”

“Yea.”

“That’s what it is, I guess that’s all it is.”

It’s a small thing. But it’s a pretty nice small thing.

It's sad i'll never see this through my daughters eyes, really.