WRESTLING ELEPHANTS

http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/the-surf-skate-connection-chapter-one_56105/

    “Plastic wrap,” said Dr. Finkel, a bearded man in his early forties. “I’d suggest using it for not only cunnilingus, but even just your standard tongue kiss.”
    Josh bit down on the tiny canker sore on the tip of his tongue. He felt a tangy pain from the one on his lower gum. He’d suffered cruel outbreaks since as long as he could remember. Chocolate, salsa, lack of sleep, too many cigarettes, and stress were major culprits, as was new love, which generally included all the above.
    “What am I supposed to, like, carry a box of Saran Wrap in my pocket? ‘Hang on baby, let me just rip off a piece…’”
    “That or you tear it off beforehand, and keep it in your wallet, or next to your bed.”
    “Sounds like a real libido killer.”
    “No, the libido killer would be to not use anything and transmit aphthous stomatitis to your partner, which, trust me, gets a hell of a lot more messy.”

Keeping things simple.

I work at home, and if I wanted to, I could have a computer right by my bed, and I’d never have to leave it. But I use a typewriter, and afterwards I mark up the pages with a pencil. Then I call up this woman named Carol out in Woodstock and say, “Are you still doing typing?” Sure she is, and her husband is trying to track bluebirds out there and not having much luck, and so we chitchat back and forth, and I say, “OK, I’ll send you the pages.” Then I’m going down the steps, and my wife calls up, “Where are you going?” I say, “Well, I’m going to go buy an envelope.” And she says, “You’re not a poor man. Why don’t you buy a thousand envelopes? They’ll deliver them, and you can put them in a closet.” And I say, “Hush.” So I go down the steps here, and I go out to this newsstand across the street where they sell magazines and lottery tickets and stationery. I have to get in line because there are people buying candy and all that sort of thing, and I talk to them. The woman behind the counter has a jewel between her eyes, and when it’s my turn, I ask her if there have been any big winners lately. I get my envelope and seal it up and go to the postal convenience center down the block at the corner of 47th Street and 2nd Avenue, where I’m secretly in love with the woman behind the counter. I keep absolutely pokerfaced; I never let her know how I feel about her. One time I had my pocket picked in there and got to meet a cop and tell him about it. Anyway, I address the envelope to Carol in Woodstock. I stamp the envelope and mail it in a mailbox in front of the post office, and I go home. And I’ve had a hell of a good time. And I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.

Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We’re dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go do something.

My Fijian pal…

 

"Art is a world of opposites in dynamic relationships, like an atom. I think of electrons and protons going around the nucleus. You have to, as (Francis) Bacon would say, trigger the valves of sensation. You have to learn how to play your nervous system so you get results that you didn't count on. It's a huge gamble, it's an unknown thing. It's not what any of us have ever thought. Life isn't."

—Peter Beard

“When you’re in love with a married man you shouldn’t wear mascara.”

—Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stone-cutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it would split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before together.”

-Jacob A. Riis, journalist and social reformer (1849-1914)