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| Carl Sagan Finally Admitting It. |
Prairie Fire: any shot that includes
the addition of hot sauce.
I watched a younger woman order a
tequila with hot sauce shot last night. She downed it w/o any
reaction on her face. That's a feat. My eyes would be tearing had I
drank that in combination. I guess that's what practice can do for
you. The bartender, after a moment, then dares the girl to do a full
shot of pure hot sauce. Without hesitation, she accepts the
challenge.
She lifts the glass brimming with the
sauce and throws it back. Down it went, and no tears, coughing or
vomiting. Jesus!
Now I like Tabasco. There is a flavor
in it once you get past the screeching pepper burn. It's great on
eggs, chicken wings and I kid you not, popcorn. But to drink it?
Better men (or women) have gone there and I am far too much a pussy
to try!
*****
One of the people I enjoy talking to
there is this guy S. Let me describe him. Picture Jesus Christ and
Geddy Lee of Rush combined into one person. I don't mean Geddy Lee
having the moral strength of Christ, just the looks. Got that? OK.
That's S.
What will happen, is that we will
engage in conversations about science that most times, annoys the
crap out of others at the bar. But we can't help it. We start
speaking of this subject and others sort of float away. The two of
us have major GEEK streaks in our personalities and regard science as
something fairly stunning. Of course you have to talk about it.
There's nothing more bizarre than the discoveries and inventions that
come from science. The Father of Planetary Exploration, Carl Sagan,
was an avid pot head. Try that on for surprises. Imagine that the
entire Viking and Voyager missions (to Mars and Jupiter) had their
creation as Carl was musing, stoned to his gills, while lying on the
grass in his backyard in Utica, NY. He admitted it.
So, S and I will go off on these
tangents that only we two are interested in.
Last night, he brought up something I
thought was long forgotten, Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art
of Motorcycle Maintenance. For some reason, we were
discussing how to solve the ever occurring problems that life trips
you up with. I had told him when I reach an impasse, when direct
focus, struggle and grappling doesn't seem to work, I'll shift my
focus and let my mind drift on it's own. I'll “feel” my way
around, near the problem, but not in direct contact with it. I'll
know the answer when I see it. Many times, this will work for me.
S says: “That's just using
intuition.”
I say: “Gee...thanks for reminding me
that I describe the hell out of things when one word would suffice.”
Then out of the blue, he brings up
“gumption” that Pirsig talked about. He paraphrased Pirsig and I
thought he was winging it too. That was till this morning when I
Googled Pirsig and found out S wasn't pulling this stuff out of his
ass. Here's Pirsig's actual paragraph on it all is this:
“I
like the word "gumption" because it's so homely and so
forlorn and so out of style it looks as if it needs a friend and
isn't likely to reject anyone who comes along. I like it also because
it describes exactly what happens to someone who connects with
Quality. He gets filled with gumption.
A person filled with
gumption doesn't sit around dissipating and stewing about things.
He's at the front of the train of his own awareness, watching to see
what's up the track and meeting it when it comes. That's gumption.
If you're going to repair a
motorcycle, an adequate supply of gumption is the first and most
important tool. If you haven't got that you might as well gather up
all the other tools and put them away, because they won't do you any
good.”
The long and short of it?
At first, dive into your problem and start,
you'll hone your skill as you learn.
S had nailed this the night
before. Smart guy. I ought to give him more credit. Leave it to me
to overuse my cynicism.
*****
Irish pubs are not just full
of potato eating, bomb making, Prot-hating, Irish Republican Army
veteran drunks. Though you can find that. We're so close to Boston
and there's plenty of illegal Irish that find their way down here.
Some of them have regaled me with stories about Bernadette Devlin. Not just expat Irish from the 70's either but you will find a great swath of different types of people, from all walks of life, in these pubs.
Italians have their food and
the whole culture that has sprung up from that. We Irish have our
pubs, which can mimic Greek symposiums filled with Irish Plato's and
Socrates...and a host of other disciplines, like how to properly use
apple wood in a BBQ. I'm not kidding, the depths some of us go to in
there over whatever subject can be astounding. Italians do this
around a kitchen table, we do it over a pint glass.
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| Nice Irish Catholic Girls Accosting Someone with an AR-180 |
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