Timid Reporter

If you like to read, this is what your bathtub might look like. I always like to see inventiveness and this photo is inventive - a bathtub made of books. One could say this woman is immersed in her reading obsession. She is not reading one of the Timid Reporter's books - he hasn't written any. She is probably reading some crime novel which she cannot put down. There are hundreds of them.

First of 2011

Correspondents around the globe? We don't have any. We leave that to the big boys - The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The New Yorker, The Economist, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Miami Herald. We're here to make fun of them - the posturing, the pretense, the commercialism. PLEASE. The only correspondent we use is the Timid Reporter. That's enough for us and (besides) he's the only one we can afford - really. Even when he's not entirely sober, the man is as honest as the day is long. He may be timid, but he's not naive and he's not afraid. On top of that, he is so old (he'll be 234 in July - DOB=7/7/1777) he's the only correspondent in the world who can claim to have lived history, not just read about it in a book. Openly timid?  Yes.

The Last One

I'm just posting this because I can - it will be the last post of 2010. I can remember far better years than 2010. We are at this point about one hour away from 2011. I wonder if things will ever get better. I think they will get a lot worse before they get better. Men have a knack for making a mess of even the best things. Too much violence - too much greed - too much ego - too much sickness. Ok. I guess that's enough.

Nobody came

I attended an art show opening recently - very recently. The artist was well-known and experienced. The show was scheduled for a good, convenient hour - 7:30pm. The room could accomodate about 120 people but only 8 showed up, including myself. I would like to know why. Poor promotion? Low appreciation? The holiday hours? Bad location? No free wine? Not enough friends? Not avant garde enough? I think low appreciation and poor promotion are to blame - in that order. I figure that if someone cares about something they will make every effort to support it. I bet that if the artist had been giving hundred dollar bills away, the place would have been jammed with wall-to-wall self-serving art lovers. The art itself was not at all bad by the way.

33 Miners

I knew it would come to this. The 33 rescued miners who made a deal to keep quiet so they could share equally in any profits to be derived from selling their story are now finding their deal is unraveling. When there are so many people involved and the people are in need of financial assistance, well, this sort of unraveling just happens. Sorry. They should have hired an agent or a lawyer to coordinate all this.

God knew

Have you ever wondered.... I read in the paper that a man driving on the freeway on his way home from a basketball game never made it home because a tire hit his windshield and killed him almost instantly. The tire came off a big truck driving in the opposite direction on the other side of the freeway. It was considered a freak accident. The man, of course, had no idea what was about to happen to him two minutes before the tire came crashing through his windshield. As far as he was concerned, he was just driving home normally. He had no idea even ten seconds before the ocurrence. But God knew. A girl driving home from somewhere had a blowout and burned to death when her van overturned and pinned her so that she could not get out. Five seconds before the blowout she was driving happily home, completely oblivious to what was about to happen. But God was not oblivious. He knew. People who went to work at the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001 had no idea what would happen to them that morning, but God did. He knew. God knows about every accident that's about to happen and every crime and atrocity about to be committed. He knows about every child who is beat up and every injustice that takes place. Every greedy act. Every dishonest act. Every perverse act. Yet, He does not intervene. Why not? Anyone know?

The trouble with LEAF

Nissan has a new car out - the LEAF. If I could find a photo of it I would post it but I think I'll post a picture of something else instead. Not that it would make a difference to anyone. The LEAF can take you a distance of one hundred miles before it runs out of steam - so to speak. I play in an orchestra that requires me to travel 114 miles round trip for each rehearsal or performance. I would be stranded before I could make it home. The electric technology is just too immature for it to do me any good. Would cab drivers be able to use this car? Hmmm....