All posts by Jayhawkdano@comcast.net

Moving from Chicago to Kansas at the age of ten is bound to have some affect on a kid. I was a Polish/Irish boy in the land of Smith/Jones(s) . Humor became my go to coping mechanism and reading/science became my refuge. That is the recipe that created the person that I am today, an engineer who, um, shall we say “sees the world differently”. I am no longer in Kansas. They were done with me quite a while ago. I am currently roaming the wilds of Colorado but where ever I go people always tell me I’m “unique”. I am sure they mean it as a compliment.
Humor, Political

Old Guy Ranting about Old Guys Ranting :Anti-woke Evangelism.

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It’s time for another edition of Old Guy Ranting about Old Guys Ranting.

As you may have surmised from some of my previous posts, the anti-woke evangelists have really stuck in my craw. I figure if I am calling this series “Old Guy Ranting” I need to use old guy terms. I am proud to say that I had to look up “craw” in the New Oxford American Dictionary. Ok it’s an app but I do have a dictionary in my home library (read “pile of books I reference when writing at home.”) It means stomach rather than the gums or jaws that I thought it referenced. Yes, you can teach an old guy old guy tricks or words in this instance. But I digress….

You may recall from my previous ranting posts (the old guy ones) the definition of woke is basically realizing you haven’t been following the golden rule in some aspect of your life.1. You have become “woke” to that fact of your behavior and you resolve to change your ways and quite acting like an asshat in some cases and a criminal in other cases. The real awaking was when we realized that by not saying “No, you can’t do that” we were just as guilty as those participating in said behavior.

When the awakening played out on a national level the blanket term woke was applied to those who recognized the behavior and called attention to it’s moral decrepitude and in many cases it’s illegality. Illegal in that it violated the rights of others. Most would argue that being woke is a good thing but there are some out there who have railed against the idea of being woke. I guess they are proud of being asleep or in many cases unconscious.

Why would prominent people, in many cases politicians and/or TV commentators, take such a public stance. Simple. They want to further divide the country. Divide and conquer don’t you know. It doesn’t matter what side you fall on, most of us fall for it hook line and sinker.

My suggestion is that when the woke word is used we take a deep breath and think back to our upbringing and what our parents , grandparents or non incarcerated elders taught us about how to treat others. In some cases think of the scholars who taught us what our civil rights are.

For those sociopaths out there, don’t worry yourself, the entire concept of the golden rule is foreign to you. In fact I’m not sure worry is a familiar emotion to you.

You may be saying “gee the idea of woke no longer seems part of the nations zeitgeist.” It’s true that at any one moment it may not be on most peoples minds or lips but it’s a short moment until an anti-woke evangelist steps up to the pulpit once again. One of the evangelists has even written a book on how to fight the “woke”. The title of the book refers to being woke as Marxism. No doubt to trigger the “oh god no” response.

I am hoping the only people buying the book are too far gone , a sympathetic relative of the author and/or just a crime away from prosecution. Its really hard for me to believe that any of his relatives are sympathetic. Its also really hard for me to imagine it could be a book more than one page. The one page would look like this. “Only worry about yourself and you will never be accused of being woke.” Done, fini.2 I’ll step down from my soap box… for now.


Humor

The Team From Nowhere: Beyond The Galaxy

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Coach Stotlmeyer was sitting on the home team bench staring out into forever. The wind flowed with leaves and the onset of fall signaling the end of baseball season. Baseball was not exactly on Coach Stotlmeyer’s mind. What was on his mind were galaxies outside of the Milky Way and which one was home to his team and now Coach Brown. Coach had left a note, surprisingly legible to most humans, explaining that he’d pretty much done all that he wanted to on this planet. Since his wife’s passing a few years back he felt empty and thought this could be what fills him up. Frankly it would probably fill most people up if they had the chance and the courage to take the leap. Most people wouldn’t but Coach Brown was not most people. He hoped Coach found what he was looking for.

He on the other hand was like most people and there was no way he’d move his entire family to a different planet let alone a different galaxy in the middle of a school year. He would miss the team but he wouldn’t have to sacrifice his health to communicate with them.

Did you miss the beginning?

Start here.

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Humor, Baseball

Officially Still Here

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The team was still on earth when the next game rolled around.

Coach Stotlmeyer had convinced the team that their previous coaching

session should be forgotten as those new rules were not official “yet”.

The magic word with these guys was “official”. Something was either

official or it was not official. Fortunately the dance pose that

represented official was an easy hands on the hips with a sullen face.

Not official was the same but with a shake of the head. Since coach

Stotlmeyer used the terms often when discussing the rules it was nice

that he didn’t have to turn his body into a pretzel.


The team went back to winning in perfect fashion and the coaches went

back he to worrying about their secret being revealed. The fans had

seen them at their worst,or so they thought, and they were quite happy

not to see it again.

To be honest, Coach Brown worried more about the future, specifically

the day the team decided to head home. Even though he could barely

pull off any interpretive dance moves without hurting himself, he’d

gotten to like them.

Did you miss previous installments?

First Installment.

Installment 2

Installment 3

Installment 4

Installment 5

Humor, Baseball

“If you find yourself surrounded by beings of intelligence it means the aliens are already here.”

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Coach Brown was in his office going over the roster for the next game when Coach Stottlemeyer limped in.

“I see that your ankle is better,” stated Coach Brown.

“Yes but I injured the other one during last weeks team meeting. This is the one I injured yesterday when the team popped into my place for a sit down.”

“A sit down?”

“Well not so much a sit down but an informal dance recital.”

“A recital? Who performed?”

“We all did actually.”

“What did they want to um, talk to you about?”

“They are finding the concept of errors in baseball hard to understand. Apparently their intelligence doesn’t allow them to make mistakes.”

“Now that’s a concept that I can’t understand. Didn’t they make errors all last game?”

“No, what they did last week is what I instructed them to do. Exactly what I instructed them to do. They thought I was introducing additional rules.. They really can’t understand anything in between. There are no gray areas in life for these guys. They have no concept of wrong, philosophical or otherwise. “

“Interesting I guess that’s what comes with superior intelligence.”

“That was only the first half of the meeting.”

“Oh, there’s more?”

“They feel that they have learned enough about baseball to return home and “spread the gospel” shall we say about the game. “

“What does “spread the gospel” entail?

“Well they would like to start a league of their own on their planet and then perhaps take it to other galaxies.”

“Other galaxies? You know I was happy, really happy when I knew that we were the only intelligent life form in the universe. Knowing what I know now, I just lay in bed at night staring up at the ceiling while my mind ponders other life forms hoping that we are not intelligent enough for them to be interested in.”

“Yea, I get that.”

“What are the odds that they will go home soon.”

“Well it depends on what soon is. They are definitely not here for the long haul.”

“That’s good I guess. That means they are probably not interested enough to spend the effort to conquer us. Do you think we should all try harder to be more stupid?”

“I’m not sure that’s possible.”

Humor, Baseball

The Team From Nowhere : Chapter 5 Interpretive Dance Can Be Painful

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The following day Coach Mickey Brown was in his office and waiting for the arrival of Coach Stottlemeyer and news as to how the interpretive dance performance was received by the team. Ten minutes later coach Stottlemeyer hobbled in on crutches.

“Are those crutches related to your interpretive dance meeting?
“Yes there ended up being three acts, a soliloquy and 4 water breaks. It was brutal.”
“So you got through to them?”
“As near as I can tell. We’ll certainly find out during tomorrows game

After each game the coaches texted their game notes to each other.

Coach Brown’s Notes On The Game:
Note to the pitcher “Its really suspicious, not to mention bad for morale when you have three wild pitches during one at bat. You might want to think about spacing them across several innings. “

Note to the Catcher. You should only lose track of the ball during wild pitches or pop ups. It becomes really suspicious when you can’t find the ball that’s in your glove. You are almost begging for a drug test.

Coach Brown to Coach Stottlemeyer for the outfielders, all of them.
When intending to commit an error during a throw to the cutoff man it is less suspicious if the ball doesn’t sail over the cut-off man on its way to the stands, the upper deck or a rooftop bar.

Note to Coach Stottlemeyer from
Coach Stottlemeyer.
“ I need to come up with better signals during the game.
Interpretive dance moves look really weird not to mention potentially painful.”

Note to Coach Stottlemeyer from Coach Brown “What was the pitcher trying to do when he stopped mid pitch and jumped up and down before falling over in agony?”

Notes from Coach Stottlemeyer to Coach Brown
“I believe he was trying to commit a balk I think it was at that point of my meeting where I hurt my ankle. My interpretive dance skills need polishing.

Note to Coach Brown from Coach Stottlemeyer.
I am looking at the notes and wondering how to translate them into interpretive dance moves and have come to the conclusion that I will need supplemental health insurance before giving the notes to the team.

Humor, Baseball

The Team from Nowhere: Chapter 4 No One is Interested in Average

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Monday night had drawn to a close with both coaches in the exact pose they had taken up hours ago. Neither had any spark of an idea on how to handle their nosy reporter. “Well, back at it tomorrow?” asked Coach Stottlemeyer.

“Yes back at it tomorrow,” replied Coach Brown.

The next evening found Coaches Brown and Stottlemeyer once again drinking and thinking. Coach Stottlemeyer had his usual look of concentration. To be fair Coach Brown’s look never seemed to change much. 3.

What had changed beside the day was the location of their meeting. The coaches were on the opposite sides of a bar that Coach Stottlemeyer was tending. Maybe it was the better quality of beer or the change in venue but both men had come up with what each believed to be a good idea when it came to handling the nosy reporter.

“Esperanduh?”

“No, Esperanto with a “to” no “duh,”” replied Coach Brown.

“Well now that I know the pronunciation what is it.”

“It is a language created in the late 19th century for the purpose of becoming a secondary language to be used all over the world”.

“Why”

“The thinking was that if the world could speak the same language, a language that did not originate in any one country, it would bring the world together and they would be able to avoid war.“
The League of Nations actually thought about adopting it as it’s official language.”

“So what happened to it?”

“World War 1 happened and that idea was put on the back burner. Then World War II happened and it became obvious that a march to a common secondary language was never going to end in a world kumbaya moment. Since then, English has become the defacto secondary language and the world is still a dumpster fire.”

“Ok so how does that help us”

“I figure that we could teach the team a few standard sports cliches in Esperanto and a few baseball related conversational phrases. If overheard by a reporter(s) at the game the only idea they could get was the players are not from here and many of them are from the same place. Since no one really speaks it no one will be able to determine the nationalities of any of the players. “

“Won’t that generate more questions we can’t answer,” asked Coach Stottlemeyer.

“Hmm…The look on Coach Brown’s face was probably the same pained look he had when constipation settled in, probably. Ok what’s your idea Einstein?”

“We get them to make mistakes every once in a while. In other words, play badly occasionally. The idea of infallibility will go away and people will start seeing them as average. People aren’t curious about average.”

“That is a good idea,” admitted coach.

“I’m average and nobody is curious about me,” added Coach Stottlemeyer.

“What about your wife and kids?”

“Those are the people I’m talking about”

“So what’s next,” asked Coach Brown.

” I talk to the guys and get them to play less than perfect. To become average.”

“Can I be there when you talk to them?”

“I’d rather you not. I kind of stumbled my way into communicating with them. It wasn’t until I learned some interpretive dance that I really got through to them. I’d rather you not see that.”

“Thanks for the warning. No one should see that.”

Humor

The Team from Nowhere: Chapter 3 Point of Origin.

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Coach Mickey Brown’s demeanor took a severe hit from knowing that reporters, no correct that, a reporter from the small local paper was starting to ask questions as to the origins of his players. ALL of his players. Normally the question popped up from time to time and was to be expected about a single player every once in a while but never the entire team. Of course it’s not every day an entire team suddenly materializes out of thin air. Not only that but their level of play is so perfect it leads one to think, as stupid as it sounds, that these guys were created just to play baseball.

Mickey knew he should have expected this moment and now that it had arrived it was going to take some creativity to make sure the moment didn’t settle down and develop roots.

Towards that effort he was in his office with a full cooler of ice waiting for Trent to show up and add the beer. His imagination needed fuel.

As if Trent was taking direction from or paying attention to the narrator of this story, he walked in bearing beer.

Mickey could see their problems melting away already. Anyone else would be pulling out a thesaurus and searching for the many forms of the word “denial”.

After the beer was laying snug under a few inches of ice and the promise of a couple frosty ones lay in the not so distant future both men took on the pose of men doing serious thinking. Anyone else would have seen two men staring out into space with a look on their faces that said.
“The last time I saw my car keys they were….”

“What were the exact words the reporter used,” asked Coach Brown.
“He wanted to know the teams point of origin.”
He said the words “point of origin?”
Yes he said “point of origin.”
“Who says things like that?”

“Reporters for small town newspapers apparently,” replied Coach Stotlmeyer. At that moment in time both men crossed their arms in a gesture that said “This could take awhile…”.

To Be Continued…


Humor, satire

The Team from Nowhere: Chapter 2 The Nobodies.

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Trent Stotlmeyer, volunteer firefighter, life insurance salesman, part time bartender and part time assistant coach for the Nobodies knocked on Coach Mickey Brown’s office door.

He could barely hear the go-ahead from coach Brown but he was used to the low volume. The coach was always saving his voice for arguing with umpires. Trent has never witnessed the afore mentioned arguments. No one has. The coach never argued. He didn’t have to. He had perfected the “If you go down this road you will never come back” look to the point that it could be considered assault in a court of law. It’s just as well that the same look kept him out of court.

“What brings you here? No fires or cocktails to sling?” asked Mickey. “Wait one more question. Are we ok with the “No Bodies?”.
“Well I am ,“ replied Trent.
“The Outsiders” generates more questions than it answers and “The Nobodies”, notice it’s all one word, really begs no questions. In fact I believe it discourages people from going down that road. Kinda like that one look you have. Yeah, that one.”

“To answer your first question. The bar is closed on Mondays and by a strange coincidence the town has never had a fire on Monday. I am beginning to suspect sobriety may be a factor.”

“Fair enough. Why No Bodies with just one word?”

“I choose to use the one word form because while you and I don’t really have physiques to brag about, the players don’t have that issue. They are also not a gang of killers with a talent of getting rid of the evidence. Before we go off into the weeds, I came here with a new problem.”

“What’s wrong with the old problems”, asked Mickey
“Because we have procrastinated long enough that those problems have been overcome by events and are no longer problems.”

“Thats the subtle genius of procrastination”

“If you say so.”

“What is the new problem?”
“A reporter from The World Is starting to ask questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“The kind having to do with the origins of this team and the “a” word was mentioned.”
“You mean?”
“Yes , aliens.”


Humor, Baseball

The Team from Nowhere

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They literally came out of nowhere.
Yes, the entire minor league baseball team seemed to have just popped up in a field in the middle of nowhere. At the risk of alienating anyone living anywhere lets just keep the location as the middle of nowhere.

During the preseason, questions without answers hovered over the team like carrion. Once the season started no one seemed to care. These guys were good.

Even to the novice fan these guys seemed special, almost magical. Every steal that was attempted always ended with the perpetrator popping up in his slide firmly planted on the bag. Every bat swung either connected for a hit or a foul. No one seemed to strike out. Well no team is that perfect. They struck out every once in a while but those were lost among the hits and a few walks. But they didn’t strike out enough for anyone to really remember them.

Fans are like that when their team is winning. Winning was not an accurate term to describe what these guys were doing. They were killing it. They were on an unbeaten streak since well, since the start of the season. No fan could think of any losses in the preseason either but then again the fans were just caught up in the novelty of the new team. Nobody could recall their win-loss record in the preseason. The only question was how long could they keep this up? They were bound to have a losing streak.

Coach Mickey Brown wasn’t worried about that. Those worries were small potatoes. He was worried that someone was going to start asking tougher questions. Questions about where exactly did they come from….

Humor

More Quotes From Writers and My Response.

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You know the drill. I call out a quote by a famous or not so famous writer (there are more not so famous writers than stars under heaven) and then my version or response to it.

“In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.”
― Junot Diaz

My Response: “WTF, To write a book you must become a writer?”
Thank you captain obvious.

“Just me, my music, and the voices in my head.”― Christie Silvers

My Version: “Just me and the voices in my head who are demanding music.”

“I prefer to be on the side of losers, the misunderstood or lonely people rather than writing about the strong and powerful.”
― Núria Añó

My Response: “The strong and powerful will always get their story told, whether it’s fact or fiction is another story.”

“I write to believe in goodness.”
― Red Haircrow

My Response: “Goodness can write itself it’s evil that is much more interesting.”

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

My Version: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, unless it’s extremely stupid,
People will forget what you did, unless insurance and/or the police are involved,
but people will never forget how you made them feel. Especially if that feeling is feeling superior to you.”

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
― Elbert Hubbard

My Version: “A friend is someone who knows all about you and yet never brings up the topic of blackmail.”

“Plot is people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life, working at cross purposes, getting hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other until finally there’s an explosion—that’s Plot.”
—Leigh Brackett, WD

My Response : “Anyone else need a cold shower?”

or “Hard to believe it was Science Fiction that she wrote.”

“Don’t expect the puppets of your mind to become the people of your story. If they are not realities in your own mind, there is no mysterious alchemy in ink and paper that will turn wooden figures into flesh and blood.”
—Leslie Gordon Barnard, WD

My Response: “There is a fine line between creative writing and being mentally disturbed and quite often that line is not solid” -Dan

“I don’t need an alarm clock. My ideas wake me.”
—Ray Bradbury (WD)

My Response: “My ideas wake me but it’s tough to write while curled up in the fetal position.”


“Ink, a Drug.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Bend Sinister
My Response: “Those crazy Russians will smoke/drink anything and then start chasing after age inappropriate females.”

“A writer’s life is never boring when you have imaginary friends to play with!”
― Christie Silvers
My Response: “My other personalities say that quite often”

“A writer’s brain is like a magician’s hat. If you’re going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in it first”
― Louis L’Amour
My Response: “Put something in it? Aha that’s my problem”

“Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead
Walk beside me… just be my friend”
― Albert Camus (French Philosopher)

My Version: “Don’t walk in front of me… It makes it harder to share a flask.
Don’t walk behind me… I have no clue as to where I’m going(Did I mention the flask?).
Walk beside me… I’ve had to much to drink and I may need to lean on you.”

“For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen
My Version: “All Hail the Thesaurus!” -Dan

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
― Oscar Wilde
My Version: “Never forgive your enemies. A good grudge is a sad thing to waste.”

“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

My Response: “For gods sake if you’re going to dance put your clothes on. Someone could be watching.”