why

integrity of mind. there was indeed a very brief period. aaron enjoyed doing the robot, i enjoyed doing the grasshopper. innocence. we were poor and unruly students. we performed the robot and the grasshopper at inappropriate times.  such as when class was in session. we had no sense of propriety. none. the substitute teacher became very exasperated with us and told us that we had no integrity of mind. we were sent to the principal's office and she asked us in a very stern tone of voice: what's this i hear about you boys not having any integrity of mind? there were no answers forthcoming. aaron and i observed basic silence. until we couldn't hold back the chuckling. she said we were all just going to sit there until we each offered our own explanation, not for the robot and grasshopper shenanigans but for our minds' complete lack of integrity, and a solid step-by-step plan for ameliorating this lack. she said we could consult the dictionary if necessary. we did, but there was nothing in there about the subject in question. we were told to leave the school and not come back, no, not for an instant, until we had explanations and plans for amelioration. there was a very brief period, followed by a standard length period. innocence.

gonzo

Unlike most of the central Muppets characters, Gonzo is not a puppet version of a human or a recognizable animal. He sports a bizarre, non animal-like appearance, which includes purple-blue fur, purple feathers on his head, bug-eyes, and a long, hooked nose. In The Muppet Show he performed as a performance artist, stunt double and daredevil under the name "The Great Gonzo."

In the first season of The Muppet Show, the character had sad and immobile eyes. The producers noticed that he worked better in a more energetic form and modified the eyes to have movable eyelids which helped make him a more active character. As such, he became one of the principal characters in the series. Gonzo is known for his wild-eyed, optimistic attitude, yet he is also something of an intellectual. In his revised incarnation, Gonzo, rather than feeling misunderstood by the audience, was dedicated to performing for its own sake, regardless of audience reaction. In one episode, after Kermit decides to cancel a jousting sketch, Gonzo, in armor for the sketch, forces Kermit, at lance-point, to reverse the decision. Floyd Pepper, also in armor for the sketch, observes the exchange with amusement, then asks Gonzo, regarding the sketch, "Do you really think this will work?" Gonzo replies "No! Isn't it terrific?!" Several of Gonzo's stunts have often gone wrong or do actually work in wrong ways. One notable stunt involves him catapulting himself into the balcony box of Statler & Waldorf, but the catapult broke down and in his attempt to fix it, Kermit and Miss Piggy are sent flying instead, Gonzo claiming that they stole his act. Statler and Waldorf have actually been victim to several of Gonzo's stunts including a motorcycle stunt in which Gonzo intends to drive a motorcycle off a ramp into the box of the hecklers (who are chained to their seats by Gonzo). Although the stunt works, Gonzo loses control of his bike and crashes it into the box, knocking the men unconscious. It is plausibly arguable that Gonzo's penchant for death-defying acts came from a Muppet Character Shop idea for a spoof (essentially a Muppet version) of Evel Knievel.

A running gag related to Gonzo is that it is not clear what species he is supposed to be. John Cleese, in his appearance on the show, referred to him as "the ugly, disgusting little one who catches cannonballs". In The Muppet Movie, Kermit, while having his inner conversation, says "And a thing, whatever Gonzo is. He's a little like a turkey," to which his inner self replied "Yeah, a little like a turkey, but not much."

In the film The Great Muppet Caper, he is shipped to England in a crate labeled "Whatever" (while Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear are respectively labeled "Frog" and "Bear"). In the Muppet Treasure Island CD-ROM Game, Gonzo and Rizzo the Rat land in a bucket of molasses, following the dialogue of a carriage driver saying "It's raining rats and... whatevers".

In Muppets from Space, it is revealed that Gonzo is an alien and his alien family comes to Earth with a big party for him and before their departure they ask him to return to space with them. Gonzo sadly says farewell to The Muppets but he soon realizes that he would be abandoning his longtime friends who have been like his family all along and declines the Aliens' offer.

stats

according to officials at the jonathan swift institute of public policy, some people enjoyed participating in the telephone interview, some did so halfheartedly, some refused altogether, and some unleashed very foul language directly at the interviewers themselves, bypassing the institution's shadow agenda completely, impure and terrible language, intending to tear down the interviewer's sense of dignity and inherent self-worth, language that was not aligned with a human being's ostensibly spiritual nature, or something, language that caused everyone within earshot to visibly cringe and lower their heads, either in prayer or  wishing themselves gone from the scene or even the planet, however futile, outlandish, or cowardly those secret wishes might be, all related to the sickness characterized by such  colorful language, nasty, perverse, yucky language that needs to go away, far away, or at least needs to go and get re-educated somewhere, learning to talk nicely and focus on positive or interesting subjects, at least when it comes to anonymous telephone interviews.

according to officials, the interviewers had been trained to expect this, and only a very few loose cannons among them returned the harsh and/or colorful language directly back at the interviewee. in some cases this turned into a sparring match or contest of wits, which on a few occasions went on for well over an hour, the two parties trading increasingly venomous barbs, until one or the other had to move onto some other important scheduled activity.

this creates an image problem, warned the officials. it is admittedly a very sensitive issue. it's ok if individuals don't want to open up about that kind of stuff. we're just trying to take the pulse of average, everyday sort of people, and if they find that too intrusive, hey, no problem, just back down and bid them good day.

even so, 40% of adults admitted to eating their own or another's you-know-what as children, 25% of that number admitted to continuing the practice well into adulthood, 20% of that number said it would most likely continue indefinitely, and 7% reported that they had eaten this item in the last 24 hours.

there is no judgement here, officials told the interviewers during the 3 hours of paid training. the relationship human beings have with their own or another's waste is a delicate matter. some people's taste buds are quite a bit sharper than others. some people are risk-takers. some people will try anything once.

retreat

(overheard at a teen-oriented sesshin)

"Ringing the meditation bell is not the same as giving the go-ahead to desolation. Ok? Not the same thing at all. Children of the corn, children of heaven, children of Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google, MySpace, Ello, Ask Jeeves,  Raw, makes no difference. The green light is available. The red light is serpentine. The yellow light remains a question, one that you are welcome to wrestle with, fruitlessly. Frito Lay and Hostess snack items are available on a first come, first served basis. Body is a temple, keep it simple, all of that. The cleanest, nicest, fittest, smartest, hardest-working and most socially conscious gods and goddesses will become your lifelong allies for a nominal fee. The blue light is a joke that the older instructors will probably play on you. Welcome to meditation camp! Hooray! Ringing the bell is not nonsensical. It produces a clean and even tone that resonates through the minds of true and untrue practitioners alike. Give a hoot, don't pollute, help take a bite out of crime, all of that. The dirtiest, meanest, sickest, dumbest, laziest, and most apathetic gods and goddesses will gather around 'your ideas', and instead of taunting 'your ideas' like the media moguls and tech gurus in your part of the world, they will incorporate 'your ideas' into an unsuccessful new sitcom that slowly revolves around your warped conception of the dharma, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, for no reason, and with nobody watching, it splinters and vanishes back into the great sea of primordial errors. Yay! Or imagine a sink or bathtub draining. It is akin to your spiritual journey. In fact, it's identical! The pink light means that your dry goods have safely arrived. Moisten them at your own peril. The black light is only used when the sangha decides to play psychedelica. This camp is meant to be fun! Don't forget that! Jay's, Jay's, just can't stop eating 'em, Jay's, all of that. We want you to learn new sanity techniques and languages. Remember, the green light is always available. You probably don't quite understand what I mean by that yet, but hang in there. The blinking light differentiates the various phases of pure, unadulterated excitement that we call 'day' and 'night' around here. We'll observe a timeshare arrangement when it comes to general oblivion, until you can get up on your own two feet and wander off into the wilderness. The keeper of the pass will clean your clock for a nominal fee."

kuboa

The old man next to me at the bus stop fell asleep with the hint of a smile on his face. There had been reports that morning of yet another Barbelith sighting. I was waiting for the #12 because I had an appointment at the local community mental health clinic. Not for myself, mind you. It was simply to serve as a character witness for an old friend who had been acting a little bit strange as of late. His formal education had been suspended for a couple of years while he tried his luck as a voice actor in commercials and video games. Captain Crunch, Captain Energy, Toucan Sam, Chuck E. Cheese, Spacedog, etc. Our little berths at the rooming house were supposed to be temporary. Now, 15 years on, we were revising certain key parts of the game plan. The old man sleeping next to me appeared to know something we didn't. I gently shook him awake and asked him if he would be willing to mentor me. He said he'd need some time to think it over. I didn't exactly look like the most promising fellow on Earth, he explained. I agreed, saying that was precisely why I needed some mentoring. Barbelith's role is like that of a placenta in that it connects the hologram of our subjective reality to the realm beyond space-time, the domain of the Magic Mirror & Disco, and helps confused folks like myself and this actor friend I was going to testify for to realize our true natures beyond the highly conditioned concept of "self", he continued, before muttering something about tuition hikes at the Invisible College and drifting off back to sleep, chuckling now and then in the midst of his dream.

I then also leaned back and tried to doze for awhile. The #12 was obviously taking its sweet little time. Before I closed my eyes I saw Barbelith hovering momentarily over some trees. It had rings now, like Saturn. Not surprising. The next atomic swerve in effect. I remembered reading somewhere that data from the Cassini space probe indicated that the rings of Saturn possess their own unique atmosphere, independent of the home planet itself. The atmosphere is composed of molecular oxygen gas produced when ultraviolet light from the Sun interacts with ice and dust in the rings. The resultant O2 and H2  are so sparse and spread out that even if the entire multiverse was somehow condensed onto its surface, the resulting net mass would only be about 25 micrograms!!! Magic Mirror & Disco, indeed. Suddenly I snapped my fingers several times and burst out laughing. I was not asleep or dreaming! I was awake and alert! And didn't the old man indicate he might mentor me? And then, to top it all off, for reasons well beyond my meager powers to grasp, I had just invented a word! A brand new word, never before conceived of in any known human language! Sitting there, at the bus stop, with all of this time on my hands, it's no wonder that I wouldn't finally accomplish something of unquestionable cultural value. The word was 'kuboa.' It was of my own coinage entirely! Kuboa... yes... kuboa... destined to become one of the truly great and indispensable words... a grammatical heavyweight... of this much at least I was certain! I sat with wide open eyes, amazed at my discovery and almost weeping for joy. Barbelith, baby, this is all because of you, I quietly whispered up to the sky.

With the wildest leaps in my thinking, I tried to ascertain the meaning of my new word. Kuboa. Kuboa. This was by far the biggest responsibility of my life heretofore. I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. Spirit of Language, Archangels of Meaning, Holy Possessors of Semantic and Mystic Conjunctions, do not forsake me in my hour of need, I beseech thee. Kuboa. Kuboa. It didn't have to mean 'lattice' or 'carnival'. No, that was the wrong track entirely. Furthermore, it didn't have to mean 'antiseptic mouthwash'. Not a chance! I clenched my fists angrily and shouted "It shall not mean antiseptic mouthwash or anything remotely related to oral hygiene in general!" All things considered, it was not even necessary that it should mean 'padlock', 'marsh', 'comfort', 'gutter', or 'factory.' Only a total lunatic would proceed down that road! For a second I thought about linking it to the good ol' #12 in some way, but then I remembered my upcoming appointment and decided against it. Best to keep certain things close to the vest. I kept sitting there, chuckling. I'm surprised I didn't wake up my mentor. This was turning out to be one of the most important days of my life. Finally I rose to my feet, clasped my head with both hands, and bellowed "ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! NO!!!  That is simply IMPOSSIBLE, letting it mean 'pier' or 'credit' or 'frying pan'. If it could mean something like that I would have made up my mind long ago, and just rode the #12 out to the very end of the line, and then back again, over and over, allowing the Evolution of Language to stagnate at the very moment when a quantum leap such as 'kuboa' was necessary!"

The old man next to me at the bus stop woke up suddenly and coughed violently into his sleeve. He then removed a flask from his coat pocket and looked over at me for several minutes in silence, before murmuring "You want a drink of this, son? I think you're ready for a drink of this. No? Are you sure? Suit yourself. Ok, then, today, lesson one: you become, for better or worse, Jim, a kind of living vocabulary. A word in commerce with other words. Yes. A network. A waterway. A creative helmsperson at your own vessel's tiller. A machine in the ghost, to quote a phrase. Ah. Have just a little taste, Jim. This flask is silver, you realize. Treat it with the care it deserves. Feel its shape. Go on, Jim. You were the one who asked me to mentor you. It's an object. A vessel. Like you, a living, breathing vocabulary. It's a two-pint flask full of amber liquid. Actually more like half full, it seems. So it goes. You wanted to learn about quinoa as well? I can help you. No problem. I may not be like your old rooming-house friend Captain Energy, but don't you worry, Jimbo- I still know a thing or two about cereals. So- quinoa is a species of the goosefoot genus, chenopodium, a grain crop grown primarily for its edible seeds. It is a pseudocereal rather than a true cereal, as it is not a member of the full-on grass family. As a chenopod, quinoa is closely related to species such as beetroots, spinach and tumbleweeds. Get out of here with your kuboa, Jim. Bring it all back home with the quinoa. In their natural state, the seeds have a bitter-tasting coat, but most of the grain sold commercially has been processed to remove this coat. Ok? Are you listening? I am. Good. You know anything about snowshoes? Not really. Well then listen up, Jim, because this is the crux of the matter: You wear snowshoes for a reason. Correct? Sure. Tell me. Uh... ok... you wear snowshoes because... uh... when the snow is really deep, the webbing within the snowshoe's... uh... circumference... distributes the wearer's weight over a wider geographical area? That's correct, Jim. And a bus’s circular steering wheel is not only much larger but is set at an angle of incidence more horizontal than any taxi, private car or police cruiser’s wheel I have seen heretofore and the driver turns the wheel with a broad all-body motion which is resemblant of someone’s arm sweeping all the material off a table or surface in a sudden fit of emotion. Uh, ok. And if the appointment is AM then the driver sometimes keeps a newspaper folded in a hutch by the automatic coin or token box which he tries to peruse while idling at stoplights although it is not as if he will get much of his daily reading done in this way. Do you follow me? Yes. I have evolved the theory that the driver peruses his newspaper and reluctantly refolds it and replaces it in the hutch on green to signal the dislike he feels about his job and a court-appointed psychologist might diagnose the newspaper as a 'cry for help', as it were. Kuboa? Yes. Kuboa. Maybe the connection with the #12 was not so far-off after all, Jimmers!"

something to look forward to

A weird duo, man and woman, came to the front door where I was house-sitting a few hours ago. I only tell this story to the most trusted people in my life, the man murmured. The Glass Bead Game, Steppenwolf, Beneath the Wheel- all true. The woman said that they had been sent here by certain local reporters. I asked which ones. My question was met with a total and baffling silence. We seem to be hitting it off, all things considered, the woman eventually said. They had faraway looks in their eyes and spoke slowly, calmly, keenly,deliberately. The man was sipping something from a flask that he kept in his blazer's inside pocket. He offered to share but the whole thing seemed a little bit off. Both were wearing poorly kept and outdated business attire. They claimed to be doctors, pharmacists, land surveyors, actors, park rangers, occupational therapists, fans of romantic comedies, real estate developers, money managers, information architects, alcoholics, renewable energy experts, nature writers, gamblers, sailors, chefs, violinists, bowlers, bungee jumpers, canoeists, creators of the new Green Lantern comic strip, farmers, woodcarvers, shoplifters, math whizzes, counterfeiters, tile setters, snake breeders, and interior decorators, speaking of which, might they step inside for a moment and have a quick look around? Against my better judgement I agreed. I am not the most talented house-sitter, probably. While they looked around I was expecting that they might want to engage in conversation, but no. They looked around in uninterrupted and unexplained silence. I returned to my Reader's Digest condensed version of Tristram Shandy, calling out that if they had any questions to just let me know. This offer was also met with what could only be called deafening silence. These are my kind of people, I thought. Well rounded, friendly, not afraid of what people might think, community oriented, funny, and willing to open up about both their successes and failures right off of the bat. After 25 minutes they returned to the living room and asked if I would be so good as to allow them to give me their honest opinions. By all means, I said. They started out by saying that I seemed like a fairly commonplace fellow, given to saying, doing, and thinking any number of commonplace things, and then finished off by saying that I was clearly not an asset to the neighborhood. No argument here, I replied. Even so, they were organizing a rummage sale in the area and wanted me to assume an active part. Nine-tenths of the stuff in this house is pure junk, they assured me. Your thoughts on the matter are probably junk as well, but we don't need to get into all of that yet. There will be plenty of time while we're sitting around in lawn chairs supervising the rummage sale. Again he offered me a swig and again I declined. They confided that in the way, way back of their minds they were thinking about splintering off and starting a whole new society in a sparsely populated area that one of their kid's friend's soccer coach's dad's former student's landlord's lawn guy's therapist knew about. If the rummage sale brought in sufficient funds, they would be able to buy a used RV and from that point it would most likely be all systems go. Had I ever piloted an RV before, they inquired? I lied and said yes. Tonya, the man said, I think this unexceptional fellow will suffice. Gregor, I agree with you wholeheartedly, the woman responded. These weirdos continued standing there, staring at me, in utter silence, for what seemed like a highly unnecessary length of time. I was about to ask what gives or something to that effect but they quickly left without another word. Stunned and inspired, I immediately began doing research on how to safely pilot a RV. I had a feeling that I would be seeing this duo again very soon, and I wanted to be ready. I wanted to be a legitimate asset.

note to self

if you think our little gang gets together merely for the purpose of engaging in casual or friendly conversation you are obviously not aware of all the underlying social dynamics at play and even if by some sort of miracle you are in fact privy to such classified info you are willfully ignoring it for some devious purpose of your own which we will eventually discover by the various investigative means at our disposal, not the least of which is the aforementioned casual or friendly conversation. And if you think our little gang was happy to be pressured into learning how to play Home On The Range on guitar by the planning committee of the neighborhood block party you have clearly not read our mission statement or read the newsletter archives in which it is stated over and over that we enjoy civilization VERY MUCH and all of the modern conveniences that come along with a networked urban existence, not the least of which is having the luxury to head out to protected wilderness areas on weekends via public transportation to carve totem animals and people in wood who guide us on shamanic journeys back into the primordial matrix where after consulting the oracles there is not much else to do but sit down on the riverbank and engage in more mind-blowing conversation. And if you think that one of the topics we regularly explore in those talks is related to how we would get back to civilization if we lost ourselves so deeply in the aforementioned vision questing that we missed the last bus back into town and had to spend the night out there under the stars, in the elements, singing Home On The Range ironically and drinking water directly from the river you are confused and unsuccessfully trying to disguise that confusion by saying or writing whatever random words first happen to pop into your head. And if you think that we survived this ordeal and eventually wandered back to civilization and immediately contacted the editor of the neighborhood newsletter and told her about our adventure in the hopes of getting a write-up and thus impressing all the rest of the overly domesticated urban sophisticates you are clearly under the influence of heavy mind-altering chemicals and thus have even less ability than usual to accurately read other people's minds. Accept it.