JamesSlusher.com

In movies like Dances With Wolves you see the nobility of the Sioux Indian tribes and their communion with nature. It is contrasted with the nasty wastefulness of the Eurotrash-descendant invaders (how’s that for rewriting the whole “settler” and “Manifest Destiny” ideas?).

Well I’m doing my part to become more like the Earth-harmonious peoples of yore. One always hears of the Native Americans’ use of every bit of the buffalo and how noble that was. So I’ve taken to helping consume every bit of the cattle, poultry and swine that we kill. While most people are feasting off the thickest juicy cuts of these meat providers, I’m nibbling away at the less desirable portions, the underbellys, the necks, the sinews and the skull matter. And I’m doing this through the consumption of as much Vienna sausage as possible. That and Slim-Jims.

I feel mighty proud of myself and will strut around as a happy consumer who is environmentally conscious as soon as I get off the potty.

Invariably when I’m working nights the phone rings 3 or 4 times in the afternoon. Usually it is between noon and 3 p.m. that I will get all these calls. This is basically the no-win zone for me as I haven’t slept enough at that point and if I don’t go back to sleep immediately, can’t get a big enough block of sleep to really feel rested. I’ve just been off for a week and not got a single call during these times (that wasn’t from my wife) all week long. How do they know? I’m starting to believe there is some giant conspiracy to torture me whilst I work nights.It’s vicious and depraved.

If I leave the ringer off, invariably a call comes in that I would want to be woken up for. It really is a no win situation and I can’t wait until the day I no longer work a rotating shift schedule.

The single biggest waste of my time has to be computer games. It’s unreal how much time and energy I actually put into screwing around on solitaire, freecell, diamond mine (gem drop to some), Counter-Strike, Text Twist, and assorted others.

I don’t watch much TV, so I try to rationalize it by saying that I do this instead of sitting in front of the TV, but really, wasting time is wasting time. If I spent half the time that I play these games working on my website, I would be close to being self-employed at this point. Instead, I am ranked in the top 15 of several different Counter-Strike servers. Which, of course, don’t mean a thing.

Having said in my last post that Dad never strived enough for his dreams, I have to search for a way to get The Automan Empire going. I am going to change my focus on this to something that does not include the actual physical restoration of vehicles. I am going to focus on supplying the parts for restoration to do-it-yourselfers and perhaps get a few professional restorers as people whom I can refer others to. I must admit that I’m not sure exactly how I want to get this going or what parts lines I want to start with first (I’m leaning towards rims). I think staying focused and perhaps starting extremely small might just be the way to go. I’m currently reading a few books on starting an e-business and website development. Maybe I can get up off my butt and do something with myself.

I had always been critical of my father’s lack of drive. Dad was a dreamer and a romantic and yet he never really pursued any of his myriad talents. In fact, as far as employment goes, he played it so safe that he never really put himself in a position to achieve much of anything. He dreamed of owning his own store (like his father did). And he dreamed of many other things, too.

He had a great many talents to draw from, he was smart, good-looking, charming, had a wonderful singing voice, and could bowl with the best of them (I once watched him throw seventeen strikes in a row, spread over 2 games).

So for years, I would think to myself, why doesn’t he get up off his behind and capitalize on these traits and talents? It wasn’t until recently, as a thirtysomething husband and father, that I began to understand why Dad didn’t strive for more. In retrospect, I now believe he was following lesson number 1. He thought that he would be gambling with his family. I think that he thought of us as so precious, he couldn’t afford to gamble anything that might affect our lives. Granted, that is a noble thing. But he was wrong. We would have gladly gambled with him, just to give him the opportunity to reach for something more. He never bothered to ask.

My brother once rightly stated that Dad believed we could do anything in the world we set our minds to. And he was right. It saddens me that he didn’t give himself that sort of credit.

I’m in kind of a quandary as far as posting anymore reminiscences about Dad. I don’t want to keep putting up all the sugary sweet “I love my dear departed Father” weepfests. He was a cool guy, but he had his issues, too. I mean, obviously he had his problems, he shot himself. If that is not the epitome of “having a problem”, I don’t know what is.

At the same time, I don’t know if I have the stomach to vilify him at this point, either. And treading the line between those two places might be a bit too delicate for clumsy old me.

I will, however, give you an example of how he could be hard to figure. A friend of his once asked him if he was proud of his job raising David and I. He replied, “They are both straight and employed, what more can I do?” To this day I can’t really figure that out. I’m not sure if that simply means yes, or yes, but qualified in some way.

Dad and I had a good relationship, but he always pretended to be a simple man when he was, in fact, very complicated. He had a somewhat quick temper and knee-jerk reactions to things, though that was mellowing as he got older. Maybe the years of smoking Camel cigarettes made it too difficult to bellow about things that weren’t really important.

The reason he and I had a good relationship was due in part to my not challenging his somewhat twisted belief system. He believed that cigarettes weren’t bad for you and if they were, oh well, everybody dies someday. He believed there was no such thing as global warming and pollution was just a problem made up by men for the hell of it because everything turns back to dirt eventually anyways. He believed that one so much that he once challenged my brother’s education and beliefs on the subject by saying, “I know you think you are some kind of scientist, but…”. When, in fact, my brother is some kind of scientist, and much better educated on the subject than he was.

I’m not sure what my point in this post is turning out to be, other than there was more than one side to my Dad. He did a good job of teaching me how to be a man, but some of the lessons were by bad example.

I went to see Return of the King yesterday at the Regal Augusta Exchange 20, and I must say it was pretty good. It hurried through some things I wanted it to delve into, and vice versa, but overall I enjoyed the movie.

Having said that I, the movie was temporarily interrupted by a power outage, which was a bummer. What was more of a bummer was the geeky, oily theater manager. I use the term manager loosely as he wasn’t really managing anything other than managing to be irritating. I find myself more and more annoyed by people in retail establishments who won’t lift a finger to make the shopping experience more pleasurable and briefer. Case in point, while I was standing in line to get concessions, they only had one of the 10 registers open. While the line got longer and longer, this lard-bellied “manager” just stood there and watched this teenager work his narrow behind off trying to get everyone’s orders. People ended up leaving line because it was too long and they didn’t feel like waiting. This man essentially gave up on concession sales (which is where they make their money to hear them tell it) in order to stand there and look greasy without actually working at all.

If you don’t like your job, fine. I’m not a huge fan of mine, either. But at least maintain a reasonable level of professionalism and productivity, just so you can keep a little self-respect.

The recent ice storms here have knocked out the power to my house intermittently for the last 2 days. This last outage has lasted for more than 18 hours so we decided to cut and run. I’m posting this from my in-laws where we will be spending the night. It’s nice to have heat.

I believe I will go see this movie today. I’m figuring a noon showing of a 3 hour movie on a Monday can’t have many people in it. At least I’m hoping so. Some of the best times I’ve had watching movies was in nearly empty theaters. It’s just more fun and relaxed that way. Sitting elbow to elbow with some 95 year old woman who can’t hear and asks “what did he say?” to her 65 year old kids (who didn’t hear it either) throughout the movie, is not my idea of fun.

Watching Kill Bill vol 1 was like that. My wife and I went to see it at the late showing, too. So we didn’t get out until 1 or 2 in the morning. But there were only 5 or 6 other people in there and no one close to us, so if we wanted to whisper we weren’t bothering anybody. That and since it was such an excellent movie, it made the experience very enjoyable.

And theater popcorn, dripping in some sort of yellowish lard designed to mimic butter and salted to within a hair’s breadth of a coronary, is the best stuff ever made.

The subject of race has been on my mind more lately than it has in some time. I generally don’t think about it much, because I don’t waste time on chasing my tail. What I mean by that is that you can’t garner any usable information about someone from knowing their race, so why even bother. Race is a worthless metric. We use it to determine so much in America, yet it provides no real information about someone.

Telling you that Alan Keyes, Calvin Broadus, Louis Eugene Walcott and Al Sharpton are all black does nothing to inform you what these people are like. It gives you not a hint into their politics, their manner of dress, their lifestyle, their education, their manner of speaking, marital status, wealth, place of birth, favorite color, or hairstyle. The reason being is that one would be hard pressed to find many substantial similarities at all among these men, except for their race. So knowing that about them ahead of time, does nothing for you.

The same example can be done for a group of white men. Let’s take Michael Moore, George W. Bush, Charles Manson, and H. Ross Perot. Wait, that’s not a good example because all four are bats ass crazy and highly delusional. But that and white are the only two commonalities that those four men share. So how does knowing someone’s race inform us even vaguely? It doesn’t. Why waste the time?

Someone, I’m sure will want to give me a “statistically speaking” answer on this, but statistically speaking, most serial killers are white men. Should I therefore be wary of myself? Or should I shun white guys on the street for fear that they may be “the one”? I think not.

So I try to do something that may seem a little outlandish, but it works for me. I treat everyone with respect when I first meet them. The people that don’t want it or deserve it show me soon enough. That way I never treat anyone badly that hasn’t earned it. I may have done alot of things in my life that have made me feel guilty, but treating an innocent with disrespect is not one of them.