A new VA hospital...

This new hospital is starting to creep me out. It has something to do with the muzak that's piped in all over the building. It's not really muzak, it's just instrumental versions of songs that Bobby Darin and Petulla Clark would sing.

Something about waking up at 7:00 am in a Veteran's facility and hearing 'The Girl from Ipanema' just strikes me as odd. The people are as nice as they were in the crazy house, and just as helpful, but the music is still kind of off-putting.

By the way, my mom hates it when I talk about having been in the 'crazy house'. So, please, if any of you talk to her, use that expression, or some other nickname for a psych ward, as often as possible. I love my mom a lot, but she is very funny when she's angry.

No time...

I was gonna post something new today, but I was looking at video's of guys hurting themselves on YouTube, and my favorite show, Hiroki Fleishmann, Ninja Accountant, is starting in a minute...

Sorry...

Raising your own Pizza Box Tree

The Pizza Box Tree is for people who don't want to be tied down to the responsibility involved in keeping a plant alive. It's non-organic, and quite easy to make, relying as it does on a person's natural laziness, and actually does grow.

What you do is, you get an apartment near a pizza place, near enough so that you can pick up a couple of slices in a box every couple of days. You stack the empty boxes in a corner, until they are too high to add another box without standing on something.

Then you need to spend the next couple of months using the stack of boxes as a kind of open air filing cabinet. You stick notes, important paperwork, and correspondence into the gaps between the boxes, far enough so they will be held firmly but still able to stick out a bit. Eventually, you will end up with a thick bodied tree in that corner, with foliage, or actually 'foliage', of various colors brightening the room.

If you're into the bonsai thing, you can make sure that larger paper is near the top, and smaller paper near the bottom, for a more naturalistic and harmonious canopy effect. One tall friend of mine had his Pizza Box Tree set up near his desk and phone, and would always add 'foliage' while sitting down. This gave him a tree that had it's 'foliage' all at about stomach height, with the 'trunk' rising bare above it. He ended up with an interesting effect we dubbed 'Martian Penis'.

Remember, your Pizza Box Tree should reflect you. Don't let anyone else tell you what your Tree needs, or that it's unsanitary. The bugs are all part of the great Circle of Life, after all.

Enjoy!

In Fond Memory

Marcel Marceau died recently.

And on that day, the world was just a little louder.

Robert Goulet has also passed.

Will Ferrell was reportedly inconsolable.

A man of rare quality, indeed

At the peremptory request of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I, Joshua Norton, formerly of Algoa Bay, Cape of Good Hope, and now for the past nine years and ten months of San Francisco, California, declare and proclaim myself Emperor of these U.S., and in virtue of the authority thereby in me vested, do hereby order and direct the representatives of the different States of the Union to assemble in the Musical Hall of this city on the 1st day of February next, then and there to make such alterations in the existing laws of the Union as may ameliorate the evils under which the country is laboring, and thereby cause confidence to exist, both at home and abroad, in our stability and integrity.

It was with this proclamation that Joshua Norton became Emperor Norton I, Dei Gratia monarch of our fine nation, and protector of Mexico, in 1859.

You say you didn't know we had an Emperor. Well, now you know. I first ran across mention of him in Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shaw's Illuminatus Trilogy back in high school, but the book was crammed with so much weirdness I don't believe good Joshua captured my attention. Later, while reading Neil Gaiman's superlative comic work, The Sandman, I came across a story called 'Three Septembers and a January', which had the Emperor as it's focus.

You can learn about him on Wikipedia, which has a link to a fine site that collects his proclamations, even the forged ones, from the years of his odd reign. The introduction is especially worth reading, and makes the cogent point that the Emperor Norton could only have existed in an egalitarian state such as ours. Here, in the land of the free, a man is truly able to be Emperor, if he wants to be. When the Emperor was arrested by a young policeman of San Francisco, to be incarcerated for psychological treatment, the people of the city expressed outrage, and Police Chief Patrick Crowley released him quickly and gave a formal apology. Chief Crowley observed of the self-styled monarch "that he had shed no blood; robbed no one; and despoiled no country; which is more than can be said of his fellows in that line."

That is where my personal affection for the Emperor comes from. Joshua Norton apparently developed delusions of grandeur after losing his fortune speculating in rice, but far from attempting to live out the life of the average monarch, this gentle man spent his days walking the streets of his adopted city, inspecting the cleanliness of the streets, the repair of public buildings, and the uniforms of the constabulary, who, following his arrest and release, would salute him as he passed. He was a beloved figure, known for being accompanied by his two dogs, Lazarus and Bummer. He would also give out Imperial currency and bonds to pay debts, which are now collector's items, and the fine restaurants he ate at would place plaques at their entrances, reading, 'by Appointment to his Imperial Majesty, Emperor Norton I of the United States'. They say he once stopped an anti-Chinese mob from committing harm upon their targets by standing in the street between them and reciting the Lord's Prayer, head bowed.

You'll never find a better emperor anywhere in the history of the world.

Here's to you, my emperor, Joshua Norton, Norton I.