On (or close to) Schedule

Me: Jaymay's playing downtown 8PM. You in?

Me: You're single. Never turn down an invitation.

Him: I'll meet you there.

Me: So, I'm gonna do the stupid tourist thing and ask for your autograph.

Her: Do you have something to write on? (takes paper and writes)

Me: Are you writing something mean? (turning to girl next to her) Is she writing something mean, like in high school?

Her: (laughing and shaking my hand) Thanks for coming, Logan.

Her: Y'know, you gave me advice about things that I tell people to this day.

Her: (thinking) Well, a long time ago, I used to have to walk through this sketch alley to get home so I carried a knife with me. You told me to carry a small metal pen instead and showed me how to use it. I've been telling people that for years.

Me: (laughing) No kidding!

Her: (laughing) Yep. Plus I tell all my girlfriends so there's a group of women here in San Fran that carry metal pens, all because of you.

Him: So why is oriental offensive to people?

Me: (shrugging) Three reasons, I suppose:

1. It means east, which implies easta someth'n, and if we're east, then easta who?
2. It picks up connotations just like any word does. Like there's nuthin wrong with the word piss, it's just the monosyllabic Anglo-Saxon waya saying the polysyllabic Latin urination. But connotations, y'know? (pause) And
3. it's a rug dude, something you walk on. Would you wanna be called something that people wipe their feet on?

Him: (laughing) No, I suppose not.

Her: Would you live there?

Me: (shrugging) Honestly, I be happy where ever you were. Well, you and the rum. (pause) Mostly you though.

YASYCTAI: Avoid shaking hands with anyone today. See how long y'can last. (24 hours/1 pt)

Y'know alla these annoying hyperlinks in alla my posts? It's to keep myself honest.

Won't tell y'that the smartest man in the US's was a Long Island bouncer or that what you think of as cinnamon is probably something called cassia unless I can prove it to you.

Recently told a young guy that the Republican Party was founded for the main purpose of stopping slavery and that Abe Lincoln the first Republican. He didn't believe me.

Grew up in quiet appreciation of Reagan saving the world and Giuliani saving my hide.

But George W. Bush's speechwriter David Frum noted that the Republican party went horribly wrong when they took the track of convincing people that the Democratic Party was looking to kill babies and grandmothers. They got the very dregs of the party.

Y'know why people become a genre of a person? The liberal flower power girl, the bow-tie wearing conservative? Cause it makes hard decisions easy. Simply parrot what the person to the right (or left) of you is saying and say it with enough umbrage that no one will question you.

Answering with reasoned thought seems to not be in vogue any more. Politics has chosen to let people who respond as children - with anger, hatred, and ranting - set the scene for discourse. And if I say anything, I'm not a true Republican.

It appears Nixon wasn't a true Republican either, as it was his plan Obama passed. Nor is Yale educated Frum. Nor is conservative Harvard educated speechwriter, Ben Stein.

If Sarah Palin represents the best of what we can offer, take my business elsewhere, thank you.

One more stupid fact: what we call cream cheese is actually the screw up of an old French cheese called Neufchâtel. But what we call light cream cheese is actually Neufchâtel.

My point's essentially the same point as the last entry: that I don't care what you call it. Things are what they are.

YASYCTAI: Try to make your next argument as dispassionate as possible. (60 mins/2 pts)

The unlucky are nothing more than a frame of reference for the lucky, Mr. Fisher. You are unlucky so I may know that I am not. Unfortunately, the lucky never realize they are lucky until it's too late. Take yourself for instance. Yesterday you were better off than you are today, but it took today for you to realize it. But... today has arrived, and it's too late, you see?

Me: Can't speak for you but I spend 80-90% of my waking hours in fronta something that glows.

Me: The times I'm not in fronta something that glows - a phone, ipod, television, computer screen, camera screen - is vastly outnumbered by the times that I am.

Him: Can I tell y'something?

Me: Y'know me, I'm a vault. Nuthin you've ever told me in a decade's ever come out.

Him: (sarcastically) Yeah right, what about that time you got hammered on Scotch and you told everyone about...wait a sec, that was me.

Old NYC graffti subway car by bernard chatreau

Me: That's not how it looks.

Her: How does it look?

Me: At dusk, the 7 train would be packed with Asian teenagers. That's totally fake.

Me: Got a small abscess in my leg like last time and just spent the last 20 minutes digging it out with a knife and toothpicks. Question, do I have to keep hacking at my leg until I see blood?

Him: You may be the dumbest smart person I know.

Her: You getting closer to normal.

Me: You mean, "normalcy."

Her: (shaking head) Well, you just took a step back.

Kreese: Sweep the leg. (pause) Do you have a problem with that?

See, he said, they always teach language the wrong way in school. Every language's got the same things, the same patterns. Once you learn alla the patterns, y'just need the words to go into that pattern.

English: "(noun) is better than (noun)."
German: "(noun) ist besser als (noun)."
Mandarin: "(noun) bi (noun) hao."

English: "Rum is better than beer."
German: "Rum ist besser als Bier."
Mandarin: "Rum bi beer hao."

Once y'have the patterns down, you need only learn the vocabulary that goes into the patterns.

Believe, truly believe, that language isn't the words you read/write. It's the words you hear/say.

Take the word Knife.

We say, nigh-feh but it's supposed to sound like, ka-ni-fee - cause that's how it's spelled. Put it another way, the letters k-n-i-f-e just makes a picture that prompts us to say nigh-feh.

More eloquently, the written word is merely the symbolic representation of the language - it is not the language itself.

So stop learning how to read/write and concentrate on learning how to communicate.

I'm illiterate in Chinese, German, and, if y'read this blog, English. Doesn't matter. Y'understand what I'm trying to say. Which brings me to...

Part Three - From me/NLP

Language isn't what y'say. It's what the listener hears.

If y'wanna learn a language, pick up the Pimsleur series and supplement it with the Living Language series six months after you've started the Pimsleur series.

Her: Cruise's a good actor. I mean, when he plays a character, he's that character. Not like...like Claire Danes or Matthew Perry, who just play themselves every time.