Close Call

What a crock of shit this whole End Of The World thing was.  I know I’ll never believe anything a Mayan priest tells me again.  Kinda reminds me of that 60’s song Eve of Destruction.  That was a crock of shit too.  We survived the 60’s; wonder if we’ll survive the Fiscal cliff.  That also appears to be a crock.

Well, on the Eve of all this Destruction, I spent the night of the 21st mindlessly drawing what was on my mind, and maybe doing a little introspection at the same time.   I gave up believing in the “End Times” long ago, because every single end-time prophecy (to date) has been wrong.  One of these days however, one of em is gonna be right, so ya always gotta hedge your bets and play both sides of the equation

Anyway, hope everybody has a happy new year, and spends some time (but not to much) reflecting on how the last year was.

12-7-12

Well obviously this is somewhat dated material.  Here it’s December 28th and the world didn’t end.  Didn’t get much better either…Doesn’t mean we’re still not doomed.  Hope everyone had a nice Christmas, impending doom notwithstanding.

12-6-12

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Merry Christmas

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Putting the X back into Xmas

The Christmas spirit has bitten me in the ass.  Visions of Sugar Plums are dancin’ in my head.  Tis the season to be jolly and deck my halls with bowels  of holly.  I feel like dashing through the snow naked in a one-horse open sleigh, but in Southern California, it’s windy, and the hot Santa Ana winds are staring to kick up.  May have to cut it down from Twelve days to just One day of Christmas Xmas the way things are goin’.

Naughty or nice notwithstanding, I’ve made my own hallucinogenic gifts for my two adult children.  They love getting that “special gift” from dear ol Mom and Dad.  Just think of it, a hand-drawn picture by Daddy, that was previewed worldwide on his own blog.  I sure hope they’ll like em?

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I’d Be Lyin’…

I’d be lyin’ my ass off, and my nose would start to grow like Pinnochio (cleaver way of incorporating an unrelated drawing into this post) if I told ya that my Hansi blog hasn’t taken on a new look lately: no type written words, printed only, with a journal-type feel to it.  Pretty trippy, and thanks to blogger Alli Farkas, for pointing me in that direction.  It was a much needed change in my blogging style.   Kinda like making an illuminated manuscript in medieval times, except mine is irreverent and not particularly illuminating.

Sometimes ya need a little change of pace to keep thinks fresh and creative.  This blog is the main source of creative expression for myself.  Allowing me a vehicle with which to share both my art, and my thoughts at the same time.  Doing the journal thing was fun.  Weather it made any sense to anyone else or not could cloud one’s mind.  Thing is, I miss typing words sometimes; drawing (also known as printing) them is becoming tedious and a good indication of just how shitty my grammar is.

So, I took this time to take a BIG chance, and reverted back to an old style.  Pretty risky.  Folks may have grown enchanted with my series of self absorbed ramblings and scribbles (yeah…right), but now, I think it’s time to put them down in print, hoping they will make an imprint on your mind.

Actually, I’d be really lyin’ if I told ya the journal thing is a brand new creation.   Before I started blogging, I kept a ‘psychedelic journal’ wherein I’d do what I’ve been doing lately.  You can see some of it on my Blithering Idiot blog in the July & August 2011 archives.  It seems like the cool thing about getting old and forgetting stuff is ya just don’t remember it, so it all seems new.  Maybe it’s like “forgiveness”, but without the ever-present guilt trip which comes attached.

12-4-12

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12-3-12

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12-2-12

12-14-12

Okay…I know this one is out of sequence.  So you are not in a space/time warp, but maybe I am.  December 14th was not a very good day for folks in Newtown Connecticut.  Once again some suicidal maniac has decided to go out in a blaze of glory and take twenty elementary school children and six adults with him ( Oops…don’t wanna forget dear old Mom who was his first victim). This mass shooting thing is getting out of control.  High Schools, Malls, Movie Theaters and now an Elementary School are becoming sites for gun violence.  What the hell is going on?

Gun control is a sticky issue here in the good ol, armed to the teeth, US of A.  We are after all THE Super Power.  And have the weaponry to keep us that way.  And our wonderful constitution seemingly allows for all it’s citizens to be mini super powers too.  [Don’t know when ya might need to overthrow the government.]

Thing is, it’s becoming more and more dangerous to go out on the streets anymore.  I’m even afraid to go to a mid-week matinee at the $3.00 Movies.  Probably nothing would happen; who wants to take out a bunch of cheap geezers seeing a flick?  No glory in that!  But still, I’m wanting to stay at home more and more and not deal with it.

I wonder if this recent tragedy will prompt some serious discussion (and even laws) restricting our internal arms race.  Doubt it.  Maybe if everybody was packin’ a gun, this latest shooter would have been taken out before he could do any damage.  But if every one was “carrying” then it would be mayhem.  If I see someone with a pistol holstered, I wanna see a badge right next to it.

Oh well.   In only wish this Newtown Connecticut tragedy had one of my hallucinations, but sadly it was not.

11-30–12

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Red Ink and Thinking Outside The Box

11-27-12

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I’m Going Back To Work Tommorrow

I thought I’d do something new.  Write a spontaneous somewhat introspective post about things I’m dealing with right now.  See, and here’s a little secret, I usually draw my stuff in a series, and save them as Drafts that I can post at my leisure, or whim.  But after drawing the above, I thought damn, I got a head-trip goin’ on, and what better, more cathartic way to flush it from my mind that blogging about it.

I work part-time for my former employer: a local California Probation Department where I was a probation officer once upon a time for thirty years.  I retired from all that crime-fighting fun eight years ago, but after nine months in retirement, returned to work ‘extra-help’ at our local juvenile facility (jail for kids) and at my same rate of pay.  Cool.  Helped finance a lot of world trips to Machu Picchu, New Zealand, the Yucatan and Europe.  I got layed-off in ’09 due to the financial crisis, but in 20011, money magically showed up and they needed help on the ‘bank’ case-loads (drunk drivers).  So, it was off to the races again.

Working part-time sure helped with the kitchen re-model.  Ended up paying for almost half, reducing the hit to ours savings by a considerable amount.  A month ago, I stopped working for a while (til 2013) because I was maxing out on allowable earnings for Social Security, which I thought was $14,160.  Well sure as shit, I screwed up, and didn’t check what’s allowable for 2012, just assumed it was the same as 2011.  Nope, it’s $500 more.  I could  back and make more money!!!

More money?  Did someone say “MORE MONEY?”  Maybe you can see it coming, the dilemma I’m dealing with:  I’m really done being a probation officer, but I’m not done enjoying making money…cause you can buy stuff with money.  Maybe some would like to be in my shoes: have a well paying part-time job where you can choose your own hours and schedule, and make some serious ‘chump change’ doing something that isn’t exactly rocket science, while working in one of the higher realms of Hell.

Why am I doing this?  We don’t really need the money.  But in this day of rampant consumerism, more is always good.  Plus, there’s some real dogmatic idiots in Washington, that wanna undo all the meager progress we’ve made in this country, and return us to the 19th century.  But I really can’t stand it!  Being ‘fully retired’ is nice, hard to give up…unless of course for the right price.

Oh well.  Anybody out there dealing with similar, or even dis-similar retirement issues?  Maybe I’m goin’ back to work, cause I like it.  Now that’s really sick.

11-25-12

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