Min Tull. Monday. September 24. 2018

I told a friend in Thailand about the requests I get from reporters at the New York Times for poems to give to their friends for consolation during illness and to celebrate weddings. This is his email response:

This is great Tim!

I'm sorry for the slow reply. I try to read every email you send and often wait until I have an uninterrupted space of time to read them, which is why this response is coming 10 days later.

If this kind of thing makes you feel good, that's all that matters. No baggage attached. There's no need to feel you're a fraud. If doing what you do gives you pleasure and fulfillment, what other purpose is there in doing it?

I've heard about the fires. We are enjoying the wet wet weather here. Rain almost every day... I love the nighttime sound of the rain.

I responded to him thus:

I'm just glad you read my stuff at all. Sometimes I think my writing is tedious beyond words. Right now I have embarked on an ambitious and foolhardy new literary project, called Min Tull. A monumental waste of time that will make my name synonymous with vapidity. 

Am I fishing for further compliments? A bit. But I really do struggle with deep feelings of inferiority, incompetence, and a foreboding that I will be found out as nothing but a hollow hoax. Perhaps if I persevere with this obsessive writing long enough those feelings will dissolve. That's one of the themes I'll play with. So I guess I am both the protagonist and antagonist of My Nonsense.

The night sound of rain

metallic on the gutters --

the old Fall quibble

I just got an email reminder from Amazon about an item I thought to order:

Hello Tim Torkildson, 
Thank you for visiting Amazon.com. You recently added items to your Shopping Cart. If you haven't already purchased or removed them, simply visit your Shopping Cart to complete your order.

Limburger Cheese - Creamy, 8 oz.

by For The Gourmet I'm still tempted to get it -- just for the shock value when I serve it to my next dinner guests. Limburger cheese is a slapstick food item, like Tabasco Sauce -- these items feature in many an old silent two-reeler, where their use elicits fearsome double-takes and ribbons of steam unfurling from comedian's ears. I could have severely injured my baby sister Linda in her playpen years ago when a Three Stooges film on TV gave me the idea to blow a heavy pile of black pepper from the palm of my hand into her wide-eyed innocent face. Luckily my aim was off and most of the pepper blew past her. But enough got in her eyes to set her squalling -- and my mother's gilt hairbrush soon made definite and vigorous contact with my rear end.

8:48 a.m.

I made rice for breakfast, adding turmeric, butter, and dehydrated onion for a flavor boost. It sat steaming in a porcelain Ikea bowl on the counter top, with a tablespoon stuck in it -- doused with fish sauce and red pepper flakes, ready to eat. Then I grabbed a towel to wipe up some stray drops of fish sauce. The towel caught the tip of the tablespoon in the bowl of rice and sent the yellow buttery rice catapulting all over my kitchen walls. With the kitchen speckled in risotto, I cried out in vexation: "Oh, sugar buns!" That was my mother's favorite oath. When we kids were around. When she thought we were out of earshot she reverted to her French Canadian heritage by muttering "la pisse du diable!" 

I intend to buy a gecko at the pet store on Center Street to eat all that dratted yellow rice as it climbs up the walls in search of bugs. The geckos in Thailand keep the indoor walls spotless. 

(McAfee just threw up a cookie telling me my pc is safe. Safe from everything, I guess, except McAfee cookies.)

I ended my first installment of this rigmarole with the promise, or threat, of revealing the time table of my bowel movements. That was a facetious jest, of course, and in poor taste. But it elicited very strong reactions from several people -- along the lines of 'please don't!' Wondering if there are any books wholly devoted to dung, I googled 'List of books about defecation' and this is what I got:

• Clearing the Air: Art of the Bowel Movement
• What's Your Poo Telling You?
• The Origin of Feces
• What Shat That? A Guide to Poop Identity
• Poop: A Natural History
• How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art
• Poop Culture
• Bodily Functions
• History of Shit
• Everybody Poops 410 Pounds a Year
• Kama Pootra
• The Scoop on Poop: Lifting the Lid on the Science of Poo and Pee

And there are more. I think there is a Stephen King story about a carnivorous outhouse, and I've always wondered if Jeeves ever helped Bertie Wooster out with a spot of constipation, dontcha know?

(9:30 a.m. First robocall of the day on my Tracfone. An automated voice telling me that the factory warranty on my vehicle may have expired. I don't own a car or truck or Sherman tank. I believe I'll power down my little black phone until I want to place a call myself.)

Going back to my quest for personal revelation, I'm reviewing some of the replies I got from the 'timericks' I wrote last week, as I was praying for inspiration on what stories to rhyme about:

Kelly Crow, from Dow Jones; I wrote about her article on Nigerian artist Nijideka Akunyili Crosby.

Thanks so much for reading my story and sending this awesome note!

Sounds like an automated note to me. Phooey. 

Vidhi Doshi, of the Washington Post, replied to my poem about his story on the Dow Jones going through the roof with his own set of verses:

has everyone forgotten the crash?

of '08 when we all lost our cash

maybe im grim

keepin it trim

maybe its time for a big splash

I like inspiring bad verse in other writers. I have a taste for literary maliciousness that does me no credit.

When I did a verse on the aging Japanese military, from a story by WSJ reporter Alastair Gale, he emailed back:

That was quick! And funny!

So apparently speed of composition is just as impressive to a reporter as the content itself. Quick Draw Tork; that's me.

I got an odd and puzzling response from Jon Talton, the Economics columnist for the Seattle Times, when I sent him some verses on a tweet from Donald Trump about John Kerry being a traitor:

Bone spurs

My stubborn pride keeps me from emailing him back "Huh?" 

But just a minute ago Talton responded to my Lectric Shave poem with this:

Good one. Hadn't thought of LectricShave in decades.

So now I'm becoming the poet of the retro? Uff-da. 

After a swim and a soak in the hot tub at the Provo Recreation Center this afternoon I am now ready to peruse the online news. Bob Davis, a reporter with the Wall Street Journal, has given me a lifetime online subscription to the paper. He's a fan of my doggerel. (Well, how many people do you know who get lifetime subscriptions from reporters? They don't hand 'em out like Pulitzers, ya know. I hinted at a free online subscription for the NYT with some of their reporters, but they didn't pick up on it. So I canceled my online subscription in a pique of fit -- or is it a pit of fique?)

This story immediately grabs my attention:

AIRLINES TRY TO WHIP UP BETTER MEALS FOR COACH FLIERS.   by Alison Sider & Patrick McGroarty. 

Airlines are trying to persuade economy-class passengers that they can buy meals on the plane as good as they would find in a restaurant.  WSJ

A passenger meal on a plane

is usually something profane.

It's mush or cement;

a food nonevent.

Gourmets ought to get on a train. 

I'll send the above to both Sider and McGroarty, to see if they respond, but I'm not holding my breath. Experience has shown me that when a story is by two or more reporters none of them ever respond to my poems. (Well, I'll have to eat my words; Sider just emailed me back:  "Good one!" I wonder if I should ask her to buy my poetry book, A Clump of Trump? Nah, that's too commercial for an artsy-fartsy guy like me. Besides, I think her reply was just a Google Response.)

The last flight I took was from Washington DC to Salt Lake City back in 2014. Gove Allen, an old friend from Minneapolis who is a professor at BYU, had heard I was homeless and ill -- so he offered to fly me out to live with him until I recuperated and could find work again. God bless him for that. The stewardess served me something called a 'dinner salad' that consisted of flagging lettuce, rubbery radishes, a pale yellow lump that might have been a piece of cheese or a superannuated egg yolk, shredded carrots turning bronze, and several strips of something that tasted like wall paper. I never got the dressing onto this concoction -- the packet was so hard to open that when I finally managed to rip it apart it sprayed all over the in-flight magazine.

I was talking to Margaret Young today at the pool, telling her all about Min Tull cuz she taught creative writing at BYU for 30 years. She kept calling it a memoir but I kept insisting it's an autobiographical novel like Knaugard's stuff. To me a novel is classier than a memoir. Any apple knocker can write a memoir, but it takes a bona fide artiste, a nascent genius, to write a novel. But she got me thinking -- how can this be a novel if there's no story line or anticipation of any action, good or bad, happening to or with the protagonist? 

So I'll start chasing my dream of companionship again. And detailing the results, if any, here. That'll keep readers on the edge of their Kindles. When Amy left me over 20 years ago it was such a terrible blow that I nearly died from self abuse and several suicide attempts. Then when I moved to Thailand as a TEFL teacher I hooked up with Joom, a Thai woman my age. I asked her to marry me, but she insisted I'd have to build her mother a house first. Since I didn't have that kind of money we fell into a common-law marriage that was not recognized by my Church but had some legal status in Thailand (and nowhere else.) When I had to leave Thailand suddenly, due to my passport being revoked for back child support, Joom shed abundant crocodile tears over our tragic lover's fate while she quickly looked up an old Chinese lover in Chiang Rai to go live with. After several years back here in the good ol' USA I decided to ask Amy if she would be interested in getting married again. She initially balked, then agreed, and then scared the pants off me by insisting I invest my entire Social Security pension ($789 a month) in a doTerra Essential Oils dealership. I broke things off with her, and have remained footloose and fancy free ever since. But sometimes my bachelor's paradise palls on me. 

I believe in the efficacy of sincere prayer to our loving Heavenly Father, and so I will be making this a matter of honest faithful prayer. I will certainly need to, since I am fat, homely, short-tempered, broke, and exceedingly lazy. Plus, I am really only interested in an Oriental woman about 20 years younger than me (but past childbearing.) I refuse to use an online dating service. Period. Instead I will rely on my own native wit and the goodwill and guidance of my friends and family. And whatever inspiration the Lord may grant me.

I realize that I'm going to have to work on my faults -- lose some weight; curb my sharp tongue; find a way to make money and discipline myself to work at things harder. The homeliness I can't do anything about, except maybe with a face lift. 

Does my plan, my goal, go against the grain of the #MeToo movement? I suspect it does, and I suspect that if these installments that I'm posting on my blog site ever go viral I will become a hiss and a byword amongst women everywhere. But why should a lonely old man who daydreams of a loving loyal companion be a villain to anyone? Pah! The die is cast. I hereby resolve to be in a loving and fulfilling relationship with an Oriental woman about 20 years younger than me by the time my next birthday rolls around on September 11th, 2019. I swear it on a stack of pancakes. 

I wonder if I should try to get Joom back? We had some good times together. But no . . . she would be a Jezebel to me. Her highest ambition in life, she often told me, was to become a 'Mama-san' -- a procuress. That's almost as bad as being constantly chivvied about doTerra Essential Oils. 

Well, now that that's settled I'm going to go back to my online perusing . . . 

4:14 p.m. Here's another story that tickles my fancy, from the WSJ. By Nour Malas:

Labor unions representing Disneyland employees are campaigning in favor of a ballot measure facing voters that would require large hospitality businesses receiving tax rebates to raise their hourly minimum wage to $15 next year, with annual increases reaching $18 in 2022.

Old Walt wouldn't take it too kind

that Mickey is gouging him blind.

The Kingdom of Magic

is growing quite tragic

with axes that need a quick grind.

Not very good, is it? My lyric voice is growing hoarse as the afternoon shadows lengthen. What I need is wine, women, and song. But what I'll settle for is Alka Seltzer, Netflix, and flossing my teeth. 

There's chicken thighs in the slow cooker and a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese on the stove. Ohen, Lance, and Brooke are coming for dinner with their dad Jonny, while daughter Sarah works at her new massage job. She makes about 200 dollars a day at it. She's saving the money for a Disney family cruise this winter. I feel like writing a biting comment on the fact that they never invite me along on those types of things, but since I'm working on sweetening my disposition so I can find my new helpmeet I'll forbear. See what a peacemaker I am, gals?  

**********************************************************************************************************************

An email response from an English professor:

Honestly, I quite enjoy your writing. I like the fascinating quirky details, the distinctive voice, the zingers (such as about McAfee), the best of which get their zing from joining a burst of illumination with paradox or irony.

I don’t care for the bathroom material—and you can classify that as a matter of personal preference on my part. But the presence of that material will have an effect (mostly limiting or off-putting) on your potential audience.

Your desire for companionship does add an extra bit of interest—and suspense—to your narrative.

One interesting pattern: You tend to second-guess the meaning of the responses you get to your poetry and other contributions, questioning the motives of the responders and sometimes engaging in self-doubt. In observing that pattern, I’m not suggesting you change anything—this second-guessing is part of the personality that comes through. And in novels, we are told, characters need to be consistent or at least need to surprise convincingly. But in reality, personalities are a fluid thing, and it wouldn’t hurt if you learned to accept responses to your work with a bit more child-like delight.

Note the irony—and the potential danger—in my responding to your writing by critiquing how you respond to people responding to your writing.

So, don’t you dare, now, analyze anything I said. I’m pretty thin-skinned about . . . just about everything. But seriously, I’ll gird up my loins and prepare to hear whatever you have to say.

Oh . . . and about your looks: I love your face mainly because it’s the only one I know that belongs to you. And I really, truly like you.

And my response to him (or her):

You are absolutely right in bringing up my response to praise (and criticism, when it comes -- and it will) as a point to examine more closely and work on improving. This hasn't appeared in Min Tull yet, but both my parents were very judgmental and critical of just about every aspect of my life from joining the circus to joining the Church to marrying Amy and having so many kids, etc. It's hard to escape their shadow, even after I've made my peace with their attitude towards me. And that will need to appear as a motif in my work, sooner rather than later.  tt

Here is what a retired editor from the Saint Paul Pioneer Press thinks of my story so far: 

WTH is this? Are you playing Boswell to your own Dr Johnson?

A friend in the Pacific reacted to the above installment like this:

My wife's Communist/Marxist neice (Oh, I'm not supposed to talk about her that way, I forgot) will probably be joining us in November for a year or so.  She'll be doing some traveling during the year.  Most of the time she'll be doing "research", because her university requires it.  She's a PhD in modern Chinese history or something.  If you were here for part of that time you could practice up on being nice to a woman (more than) 20 years your junior, and you could teach her to speak better English (for a fee, probably), and help her with her writing (for a fee, probably).  I think she might have money from her university for stuff like that, though I'm not sure.  There's one problem: she's a nudist I'm told.  She'd be downstairs and so we'd have a protocol to ring a bell if she wanted to come up, or we'd go down.  You'd be downstairs too.  She's married, by the way.  

She could really learn a lot from you in several areas, but I don't think it's worth your effort and your expense.

My deal with you is that if you promise to open your your mouth and speak out loud every time in church you feel like you've got something to say, I'll consider paying your way over and back.

Her English is pretty good for someone who lives in China.  About the same as Liping's when I first met her, and Liping was an English major in college.

After letting this one sink in a while, while I grind through updating boring lists of patient information for my computer program here at work, I realize I like it more.  I quite like stream of consciousness, especially when it reminds me of Calvin (of Hobbes), or when it's very sincere and humble and real.  I will say that upon first glance I didn't have time to read it all, but I went back and did, just to check that my name wasn't used in your piece.  In other words, I don't have the luxury of long pieces when I'm such a slow reader, here at work.

You're gunna let your friends and "fate" find you a woman?  I always thought that was so lame when people said they were going to let fate take care of their future love.  But maybe that's more of an Asian thing.  Liping yesterday said that it's against her culture to make any kind of advances toward a man.  If she did, then she'd be considered a low status woman.  (I think she said "bitch" -- a word that our Chinese friend uses a lot when she talks of any other women who her boyfriend might be attracted to.)

You know the conflicts better than anyone with regard to your swearing to find a -20 year old woman in the next 350 days (and counting -- just ask Google.  You can say "Hey Google how many days old am I?"  It knows.  You can say "Hey Google remind me in 350 days at 8am that I'm supposed to have a woman in my life by now."  It will.)  But the obvious is you might be away from your kids and grandkids, and that would be a very big sacrifice, I think.  

I forgot how much Ron had to pay to get his expedited retirement visa in Thailand.  And by "expedited", I mean no health checks, no financial checks, no background checks, no nothin'.  You do have to open a bank account, but you don't have to keep much money in it, contrary to what some people think.  My brother is a happy camper with two women -- one a lover and massage person, and the other is a driver.  He can walk to the beach in 10 minutes.

Min Tull. Sunday. September 23. 2018

There's this guy, see, named Karl Ove  Knausgard, who's a long-winded Norwegian author. He just finished part six of his super boring novel cycle Min Kamp (My Struggle -- yeah, yeah, like Hitler's Mine Kampf.) The books are all about the 'banalities and humiliations' of his life. Which makes it a best seller in Norway. Norwegians are a clannish, nosy, bunch -- who would rather go through their neighbor's trash than travel to see the Pyramids in Egypt.

The above paragraph, I hope, will disabuse you of the notion that I have gone completely off the rails (again) because I, too, want to detail the daily, even hourly, minutiae of my current existence here in Provo, Utah. In the Valley Villas Senior Housing Complex, run by the Provo City Housing Authority. Where my rent is $250.00 per month, and my utilities are free. (Can't beat THAT with a stick.)

I will pause here because I want to splash my face with William's Lectric Shave and then run my Norelco over the stubble on my flabby cheeks and throat. A daily man ritual I used to abhor but now love like the slow movement of a Beethoven symphony. (By golly, this is going to be a much more classier piece of dreck than I originally thought!)

Splashing William's Lectric Shave upon my flabby cheeks
has become a ritual that with bravura reeks.
Because so many people now in offices and rooms
claim they cannot stand the scent of shampoo and perfumes.
Be damned to them, I do assert; their noses are awry.
Those hypochondriacs, like hares, just seem to multiply.
And if this seems a heartless rant, a thing of Trumpish mein, 
I will admit that I enjoy the venting of my spleen.
But truth be told if all the world were drowned some in Old Spice,
I think Afghanis would behave and Russians would make nice. 

(Joseph Palazollo, a reporter with the Wall Street Journal, replied to the above verses thus:  This is wonderful. I agree: Old Spice could solve a lot of seemingly intractable global issues. 

I always hate it when Amy is right about me. Once on the eve of our divorce she quoted Phillipians 3:19 at me during an unnerving confrontation in our bishop's office -- the part that says " . . .Whose god is their belly . . . "  And she's perfectly right. I have much to say at this moment, but will chance forgetting each brilliant observation that might fall from my pen so I can go boil ramen noodles for 3 minutes, with an egg, and have some prunes and a V-8 with it at my desk while I read the new Church history book "The Standard of Truth." Who knows? I may never come back to this particular piece of drivel again, and leave it in limbo as a blog draft.

10:12 a.m.
Heard an American Robin's querulous cry just now while I was watering and feeding my goldfish (I keep them in a round plastic sled out on my patio -- there's five right now; I started with ten but half have died off or been carried away by the darn neighborhood cats.)

the robin chanting
a vexed lone trill to itself,
not for my big ears

I'm writing against the clock right now. Every morning around ten my spirit and my senses collapse into a sort of rubble, and I have to lie down on my bed to recuperate. Usually for about an hour. It's due to my alleged hyperparathyroidism, which has not been diagnosed but only guessed at by my GP. He wants to send me to a glandular specialist, and now that I finally have Medicare I guess I can afford to go. If I can stop writing about myself long enough to make an appointment and call RideShare to take me to him (or her) and back. My writing is becoming more and more compulsive. But that's a sidebar at the moment. RideShare is another senior perk; they take me anywhere I want to go for $2.50 one way. I just have to call one day ahead to schedule a ride. And, in fact, they just mailed me a Free Ride letter for my birthday this month. Mmmmmm . . . how sweet it is! 

Before I melt into a puddle of bile and creative inanity I have to explain that last Sunday in Church Bishop Pack talked about everyone getting their own inspiration for their own lives. It struck me that lately I have not been asking for specific inspiration or revelation, only chanting a sort of rote of thanksgiving and praise, like giving a speech. So this past week I have been praying very specifically for revelations on what news stories to write verses about -- because it's been very hard for the past few months to find anything I want to write about. Even Trump has lost his shine. And, lo and behold, each day I found 3 news stories that tickled my fancy and gave me great pleasure in writing. So, if you're not a complete atheist or Democrat, you could say my prayers were answered. But then this morning as I was revolving in my mind where I might find some Sabbath stories to write about while stretching and scratching myself in bed it struck me forcefully that I don't need revelation to find news stories anymore. The Lord has granted unto me the ability to extract all the inspiration and irritation I need from my very own existence as lived 24 hours a day. Supremely egotistical, I know -- but there you are; most every revelation that I have ever laid claim to has been about something I already want to do and/or enjoy doing. I never get heavenly messages to do things that are boring or dangerous. If an angel came down right now and thundered at me: "Timothy, thou must do more Family History indexing, lest I smite thee!" I would calmly ask "Just what are my options here, exactly?"

And so, I was led to look up that Knausgard character on Wikipedia just to get my facts straight. He's now written over four thousand pages all about himself, his eczema, his cigarette habit, and a little teeny weeny bit about his family and about living in Norway. Narcissistic to the max, nu? ('Nu' is a Yiddishism that I am fond of using, like 'momser' and 'kvetch.') And that exact same self-involved obsession may just be my new writing motivation for the next several years -- until my reason, my fingers, and my internet connection gives out. 

10:46 a.m.  Headache. Backache. My eyes won't focus. I'm sick of writing this schlock. Time to rub some lavender oil on my wrists and recline on my Swedish memory foam mattress . . . 

11:21 a.m. Woke up with the hiccups. Must have used too much lavender oil.

A thought I had earlier today in Sacrament Meeting:
The best way to kill a joke is to wait 2 beats after it's been told and people are beginning to laugh and then ask "Whadjasay? I didn't hear it." It also makes the joke teller feel insignificant and superfluous. It happens to me all the time, since I am overmuch in the company of old deafies. I never bother to tell it again. And if someone presses me to repeat it I am much more likely to tell them to go to hell than anything else. I think if bile had any commercial value I could be the next Bill Gates. 

Time to get the brunswick stew, the cheese & crackers, and the fruit salad jello ready for the lobby, where I will serve it up to one and all. Drat these hiccups!

All the brunswick stew got eaten -- and I had to endure a half dozen jokes about 'did you put some squirrel in it?" I forced myself to chuckle indulgently the first time I heard that remark; after that I just grunted. I reckon about seven people had a bowl of it; the conversation in the lobby while everyone was eating was about K-rations, biltong, and how dangerous bats are because they have rabies. Many pointless stories were told about bats in garages, in apartments, and bats lurking outside in trees just waiting to swoop down and infect the innocent night stroller. All of the stories have been told before by the same people. Is it a good deed to encourage someone to repeat a rambling tale they've already told me, or should I tell them to shut up and get their dentures shellacked? Maybe Don Rickles had the right idea after all.

It's now 1:40 in the afternoon, and I have nothing to do for the rest of the day. No Church callings; no place to go; no hobby to fritter away my time. As I write this I know I want to start a pathetic lament over my Sabbath loneliness and feelings of uselessness. But somehow I just can't bring myself to get mushy. I feel feisty and combative, not abandoned and ignored. Must be that lavender oil.

I just got a Facebook friend request from some bozo named Paul Edelstein. Lemme go see who he is . . . 

He's single. He lives in Memphis. And he calls himself an artist at Shady Grove Presbyterian Church. He sounds like either a bot or a boob. I'll pass.

An old friend sent me a long email this afternoon. Among other things he wrote:

I suspect you lean more Republican than Democrat, but I think you think all politicians are bad and don't take sides  And you are a religious person and don't fit the xxxxxxx description.  So I respect your thoughts . . .

As far as I'm concerned, the only good Democrat is a Republican. I'm having some font trouble after copying that bit of email. I think I was in Arial and now I'm in Georgia.  I can't seem to get the font to default back to Arial. As Stymie said in an old Our Gang comedy: "This is getting monopolous!" 

I just recalled that when I was at the U of M back in 2002 I took a novel writing class that was taught by a TA, not a regular professor. He just had us start a novel of our own, and spent most of our two hour class time reading his own novel-in-progress; a dreary narrative set in Ohio about teenagers playing with their angst like monkeys playing with a bagpipe. I wrote a complete 300 page stream of consciousness novel for him, which he read chapter by chapter and praised to the skies. I turned the completed manuscript into him for my final grade, and the momser never returned it to me -- in fact, he took off without leaving a forwarding address. I never made a copy of the novel. So I guess that is my Lost Novel. It was about me as a clown falling in love with a showgirl on Ringling. What else? A year ago I found a manuscript tucked away in a Kinko's box -- a novel I wrote back in 1981 called "The Further Adventures of Elder West." A sequel to my very first novel, "The Vita-Goodie Lady," which my former brother-in-law Ben Anderson bought from me for $17 thousand. He never published it. I wonder if he still has it? Anyway, what washes all this gravel up right now is the question: Will this never-ending piece of bosh I am writing at the moment have any kind of narrative arc or closing? Who is the protagonist? Who is the antagonist? Where's all the sex? Why should anyone read this tripe if it holds no suspense or entertainment value? I guess readership will build simply to find out if I ever run out of steam while gassing about the minuscule thoughts and events of my dull as ditch water life.  

I'm gonna go look for something to snack on. 

3:42 p.m.  Had some Genoa salami, crackers, and a hunk of cheddar cheese while I stared at the goldfish out on my cement patio and drank a can of Mountain Dew. It's getting overcast and cool outside. Great weather for a stroll and taking pictures of the barely turning leaves, but the SIM card in my cheap digital camera is full and I'm still not done using the photos for haiku. So instead I'm gonna change the water in the plastic sled -- those goldfish are disgusting dung engines.

Then I'm watching a 1933 movie, Dancing Lady, with Joan Crawford and Clark Gable (and an early appearance by the Three Stooges.) It's available on YouTube for $2.99. After that I may come back to this troubling manuscript to add more insignificant details -- such as what YouTube movies I watched yesterday or who called me yesterday or maybe even statistics about my bowel movements. 

**********************************

First email response to Min Tull 1:

Google has absolutely no response I can select from.  So let me respond with a picture of my wife taking a picture of the sunrise this morning:

Another email response to this first chapter:

This is really quite engaging writing, especially considering the lack of anything like a plot (or narrative arc, as they say these days). The ending left me hanging--by which I mean, "hoping that your next installment is not about the last topic you mention." Apart from a bit of excess of bile and some strange comments about Democrats, I quite enjoyed this, especially the way you convey a vivid sense of the flow of life, along with some keen observations.

Actually, the comments about Democrats were just fine. They add some flavor and a bit of mystery (that is, mystery as to what your politics really are, if anything). 

China Kills Trade Talks With U.S. Amid Escalation in Tariff Threats

China scotched trade talks with the U.S. that were planned for the coming days, according to people briefed on the matter, further dimming prospects for resolving a trade battle between the world’s two largest economies.    WSJ 

In conf'rence rooms the talk has stopped,

as delegates all pretense dropped.

America and China sigh,

and despair of one more try;

the tariff talks have just plain flopped.

They are the dead, and so are we

if we don't change the history

of doltish leaders who contend

from their high horses to defend

outmoded economic scree.

Take up our cause with rectitude,

and do not sit around and brood.

Swallow pride (and Diazepam)

and find a way out of this sham.

If you break faith with common folk,

we'll take you down as we go broke!

where the creepers go

where the creepers go

I would like to go as well

to wave some green leaves

Njideka Akunyili Crosby -- James Bond -- Rude Politicians Gaining Acceptance from Men

Njideka Akunyili Crosby was painting in her high-raftered studio in Los Angeles in early 2017, when she got the text from a friend. Just a few years earlier, she had been selling works for $3,000 apiece. Now, one of her paintings had just sold at Christie’s in London for $3 million, more than six times its estimate.  WSJ

The price of art has me dismayed;

how can such giant sums be paid

for art still wet behind the ears

from painters in their early years?

Methinks the middlemen concerned

are looking for a gain unearned;

collectors, too, jack up the price

with bids as airy as puffed rice.

And I suspect the artist's cut

buys but one meal at Pizza Hut.

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Now audiences watch — and often weigh in on — the entire filmmaking process as it plays out through news reports and social media postings. And that’s exactly what’s happening with the 25th installation in the James Bond franchise. Few movies demonstrate the sheer public nature of today’s blockbuster-making process better than the unreleased movie.  WaPo

Movies become such big news,

with so many long interviews,

that you just might think

we've come to the brink

of battle again on the Meuse.

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But while three-quarters of women (75%) say it’s essential that political leaders maintain a tone of civility and respect in politics, men are 14 percentage points less likely to say this (61%).  PEW Research Center

Civility isn't essential

for those who would be presidential.

The polls are quite clear

that persons who sneer

find Capitol Hill residential.

Repartee

Come mourn with me the awful way

The world has lost its repartee.

A bright remark or rude contempt

Brings forth comments from wit exempt.

Banalities and cliches stale

Fall from dull lips like tepid hail.

And internet responses show

an intellect as thick as dough.

A vow of silence I shall take

While this world stays so damn opaque

the late summer fruit

the late summer fruit

is stubbornly hanging on

for a riper death

The Warehousing of America -- Michelle Obama's Million Dollar Book Tour -- Deepfakes Don't Blink

Amazon and its competitors are often blamed for the death of bricks-and-mortar retail, but the irony is that these online retailers generally achieve fast shipping by investing in real estate—in the form of warehouses rather than stores.   WSJ

Instead of malls and boutique store

a warehouse sprouts up right next door;

These depots of consumer lust

deliver fast (for more gold dust.)

This haste will be the major cause

of the death of Santa Claus;

for Amazon goes in high gear

while Santa comes but once a year.

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Tickets to hear Michelle Obama and as-yet-unnamed moderators discuss her upcoming memoir “Becoming” ranged from $29.50 for perches in the nosebleeds to $3,000 for front-row seats and a package that includes a “pre-show photo opportunity,” meet-and-greet reception with Obama, a signed book and other perks, including an “exclusive VIP gift item.”   WaPo

A book tour with prices like these

is really employing the squeeze.

Michelle won't go broke

if she can so soak

such lettered diehards with her fees.

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SALT LAKE CITY — After weeks of studying “deepfakes” — computer-generated videos that depict real people saying and doing things they never did — computer science professor Siwei Lyu noticed something eerie. Finally, he figured it out: while the characters looked and sounded like real people, they didn’t blink.  Deseret News

Trusting your own eyes no more,

finding the truth is a chore.

Ubiquitous fakes

are internet snakes

that slither right in the front door.

Remembering the Clinkers of my Youth

Until the early Sixties, parts of Minneapolis had alleys paved with clinkers.

The fused waste residue from industrial coal furnaces, clinkers are black vitreous pebbles pocked with iridescent blue holes. The city dumped fresh clinkers into our alleyway every other year then had a heavy roller crush them down and even them out.

I initially thought clinkers were tiny meteorites that a merry crew of astronauts dug up from some star-swept gravel pit to lay at my feet as a reminder of the strange grandeur of outer space. My mother was only too happy to set me straight about such an innocent fantasy:

"They're nasty leftover trash from the NSP plant" she told me kindly.

 Clinkers were hell on your pants when playing kickball, or with any other activity that required you to slide or get on your knees. With sharp obsidian-like edges, clinkers could rip open a pair of jeans at the knees in an instant -- and also leave a livid line of scrapped skin oozing blood.

My mother kept the iodine bottle handy all summer, as well as an assortment of knee patches, for when I would come keening into the house with a bloody knee.

The clinkered allway an important social haunt for boys during my young summers.

We not only played games in them, but hunkered down amidst the clinkers to speculate in privacy on the theory that all sisters were aliens in disguise getting ready to take over the world, al a The Twilight Zone. Or what the best bait was for catching carp down on the Mississippi. The consensus ran heavily in favor of a gob of Velveeta cheese mixed with canned corn.


We also went treasure hunting through the neighbor's galvanized trash cans in search of dull kitchen knives with broken handles, unstrung tennis rackets, racy paperbacks, and, best of all, empty whipped cream cans.

A discarded whipped cream can placed in a burning trash can is a pyrotechnic marvel to rival the Fourth of July. Back in those dirty unenlightened days each household burned its own trash in a metal barrel. The fires were lit by a responsible adult, who rarely stayed around until the flames went out. So when I and my cronies would latch onto a whipped cream can we quickly found an untended trash fire. We then hurled in the whipped cream can and sat back to await the fun. First a geyser of parboiled cream would come squirting out of the can. A few minutes later the can itself would explode with enough volume to rattle window panes while ashes and burning bits of trash rocketed up and then spread out over the landscape in a pyroclastic flow.

Needless to say, I and my pals would take to our heels as soon as the explosion occurred. Safely away from the mayhem, we'd stop to giggle hysterically and think of ourselves as invulnerable ruffians. Maybe that same puerile rush is part of the appeal to modern terrorists . . .

In the winter the clinkered alleyway was a dismal and forlorn place. The clinkers mixed in with the slush gave the appearance of a long ribbon of filthy gray slurry. It provided good traction for cars; much better than the cement pavement that replaced it. But that was of no concern to me as a boy. The trash fires smoldered so much during snowfalls that we couldn't enjoy tossing in our whipped cream hand grenades without the discomfort of asphyxiation.

Besides, in the winter we had the ice rink warming shed at Van Cleve Park. Redolent of damp wool socks and a kerosene heater, it was a place where boys could tie granny knots in their broken laces and talk shop about how many sticks of Bonomo Turkish Taffy a guy could actually stuff in his mouth before choking. At five cents a bar, it was a feasible experiment.
My own record was six sticks -- but I made the mistake of using banana. I think with chocolate I could have gotten up to ten, easy peasy.