Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

Since this blog is about sports tonight, let me first say congratulations to the Chicago Cubs. You finally did it. Now, it would be great if you could win the series I saw somebody write that the World Series will eclipse the election news, seeing as how the Cubs are in it. Well, why the hell not?

Anyway, the reason tonight’s blog is about sports is because we went up to see our niece, Natalie (7, I think. Maybe 8.) play floorball in a town a bit north of Prague. Floorball is like indoor field hockey, I think. Anyway, a bunch of kids running around the gymnasium with plastic hockey sticks and a hard plastic ball (but TINK hard, not THUD hard).
Her team lost,7-6, against a team of boys. Not too many more years that dynamic will work, but I think it’s great. Now that they’re about the same level, let ’em play.
I actually thught the loss was much worse, because we arrived late and saw the boys score 3 quick goals in a row, but before we got there, the girls had had a big lead.
It was a bit awkward leaving, because the only way out of the building was through the changing room, and after their game we couldn’t go there for a few minutes, obvs.
That’s floorball for ya.

My Mother-in-law is down for the weekend, as is my wife’s cousin, so I had to go outside to smoke a joint this morning, because my wife doesn’t want them to know. Of course, what’s said on the internet lasts forever, but if they’d ever read my blog they would know that already, and there’s little chance they will ever read it in future since neither one speaks a word of English or has any interest in learning.
So, I was thinking I’d go sit in the park, and it was appropriately unpopulated on this damp and overcast morning, but my feet and the force of habit propelled me through the park, across Sokolovska and the derelict green and across the street beyond, which thinks its a freeway, into the indeterminate land next to the river.
Well, I was walking real slow, and smoking as I walked, and I’d just finished the joint when I looked up and it was perfect. I was looking between two trees, mostly brilliant yellow leaves with just a slight tinge of green left here and there, and their upper branches were intertwined, so it was like looking at a picture in a frame, or through a window of invisible glass, and there was a building there,directly across the river. I couldn’t see the river, but I knew that it was there. The building was a light orange or dark pink, I guess you could say peach, and it was a vertical rectangle on top of a square, all edges, there was something Dutch about it, and in the upper section was a cross, but not a cross cross, it was the pattern of the windows but, still, probably deliberate even if it was not a church, that’s just what people did in the 19th century, or it might have been older than that.
I walked on a bit and the view changed and I was looking at a steel and glass thing which was undoubtedly less than 30 years old and had not an ounce of history or mystery about it.
Not trying to read two much symbolism into it, it was just sort of a snapshot moment.

This is a make up blog because last night I fell asleep. Which, of course, is a very normal thing to do at night, but I fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV with my blog unwritten. Helena had gone to bed, and called to me several times. Every time, I said “I still have to write my blog” and while I lay there thinking about what to write about I fell asleep again, so eventually I gave up and the deal I made with myself was that I would write it first thing in the morning, which I am doing now.
And all that after just one joint.
When I went to bed, I said to my wife ‘I should write the blogs in the morning anyway because then if I’m stuck for a topic, I can always write about my dreams’ and she said ‘Yes, you should.’ I’m not making that my plan from now on or anything, because half the time I don’t remember my dreams, and just as often they are not something I would put down in print on the grounds of I don’t want to incriminate myself in the court of public opinion, sort of a personal 5th amendment.
Last night my dream was set in a little village, which looked a lot like a picnic area along the Vltava through which I often walk and I believe I’ve mentioned it in blog posts before, like the time a Doberman of undetermined ownership decided I was worth following around. An itinerant priest came through, who bore a certain resemblance to a teacher I once had, and I decided to show him the book I was writing (which I am not writing in real life, but sort of have the idea, it’s a utopian manifesto kind of thing)and I showed him an outline. He ignored it, so the next day I went to the colonel (the dream now seemed to be set in South America), and persuaded him to take over the village.
Which we did, charging up the embankment like the Sioux at Little Big Horn, and bursting into the village, where people were walking around, holding hands, and totally not panicking, and not being angry, either, just sort of laughing at us.
That was my dream, and this is my blog for yesterday, and I may consider switching to morning writing, but not yet.

My wife, as she sometimes does, has suggested a career change. My poetry books never sell any copies, so she frequently says things like “You should write a children’s book,” (I’ve tried. It’s harder than it sounds.) or “You should write a love story like Nicholas Sparks.” Nicholas Sparks is her favorite writer. I fucking hate Nicholas Sparks.
And teaching English, of course,does not classify as a real job at all.
So, I was watching a documentary on space travel, which I frequently do, and she said “You should become an alien expert.”
I said “I am an alien expert,” joking. The more I think about it, though, I kind of am. I mean, as much as anybody else. I’ve watched all the documentaries about famous UFO sightings, formed my own opinions on which ones are fake and which ones might be real (multiple witnesses count for a lot with me, and I’ve seen plenty of movies and TV shows and read lots and lots of books with aliens in them.
I don’t actually know if aliens have visited the Earth or not, which puts me on exactly the same level as Seth Shostak or Michio Kaku, because they don’t know, either.
Here’s what I think: Of course there are aliens, even technologically advanced aliens. The sheer number of stars pretty much guarantees that, especially now that we know how common it is for suns to have planets, and how common water is throughout the universe. Whether or not they’ve visited us is another question entirely. Even if there are aliens galore and a space faring federation of intelligent species going on out there, like Star Trek but without the humans, discovering us here on Earth would be, for them, a needle in a haystack.
So, I’m not expecting first contact to happen tomorrow. But I would think it seriously cool.

Ecuador has become the Bernie Sanders of nations. After having hosted Julian Assange at their embassy in London for the past 4 years and a bit, they have cut off his internet access.
Since they have supported Assange for the last 4 years, it’s clear they approve of him and his mission. So, why start harassing him now? It seems pretty clear to me that there has been some coercion, and it has come from the U.S., even though the Ecuadorian embassy issued a statement saying (perhaps not exact words) ‘We were not coerced.’
Their stated reason is that so many of the recent Wikileaks releases have shown so much on Hillary Clinton, that there is a risk they will influence the election, and they want to remain neutral. Sounds reasonable, but think about it. Assange has information that might be damaging to Hillary Clinton (Probably won’t. Most people are so freaked out at the thought of a Trump presidency that they have absolutely blinded themselves to anything negative about Hillary Clinton. Rigged an election? So what.) So, the Ecuadorians are trying to keep him from releasing any more. Too late, of course, locking the barn door after the horse has gone, so to speak. But, they’ll make the gesture and keep the Americans mollified, much like Bernie going out on the campaign trail for Hillary.
The main issue, to me, is that Hillary is complaining (and the Ecuadorian embassy definitely APPEARS to be acquiescing to her complaints)that information will ‘negatively’ impact the election, in other words, damage her chances to win it.
Information SHOULD impact elections. The more information the voters have,the better informed their decision will be, and that is the goal of democracy, is it not?