Death?

D E A T H ' S     L A S T     B R E A T H

In the end each is alone.

Another one? Another lachrymose article? When is he going to pullout of it? It really is getting repetitive. It moves from death to dying, to the end of life with nothing in-between. I'll bet that ...

Okay. Okay, I'm sorry. I admit it again, I have been writing downer article after downer article. But don't worry, I'll pullout of it, someday …

The end is a funny thought. What does "The End" mean? Are there different types of ends? Can there be a new beginning after… All right. All right. That's it! I'm going to pullout of it now! I'm done (for a while anyways) contemplating things such as "To be or not to be, that is the question…"

Speaking of that famous line written by Shakespeare, did you know that William R. Bent, Jr., a Yale Professor, once used a computer to show that a trillion imaginary monkeys, all typing rapidly, would take more than a trillion times the age of the Universe to come up with that line from hamlet,

"To be or not to be, that is the question."

It seems to be that Mr. Bent might have put the computer to better use, even if it was to play video games… But then as Mack McGinnis hit the nail on the monkey’s head when he said,

"Progress isn't always for the best. Smoke signals never got an Indian out of bed at 3 a.m. to answer a wrong number."

Speaking of computers, we all think of storing bits of information when we think of computers. But then brain isn't too bad at computer-like tasks. Human memory is roughly estimated to be capable of retaining 100 billion bits of information, which means that a typical adult brain holds 500 times the information in a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

That's some computer! It would seem that we don't need computers if we just used the natural tools we have. But we do need science and progress because like Bill Vaugham said,

 "Thanks to science you can fly almost anywhere in half the time it will take for you to wait for your luggage after you get there."

How about contributions from people like Californian William McLellen who built the world's smallest motor? It weighs one half-millionth of a pound and is smaller than the head of a pin, measuring a sixty-fourth of an inch on all sides. It has 13 parts and generates one-millionth of a horsepower. It can be seen in operation only through a microscope. It was built using a toothpick, a microscope, and a watchmaker’s lathe.

What can this motor be used for? What would one-millionth of a horsepower drive? It could probably move a nose hair. It could probably drive a turntable made for fleas. It could possibly pass undetected through an airport metal detector, that way, in case the plane has engine failure in mid-flight you could replace it with Mr. McLellan's motor.

The only drawback to this wondrous device is that it probably takes 500 volts to power it. What type of power cord would it have? How many quarts of oil would it need? Would it take only lightweight oil?

What is the source of the most power available to man in the known Universe? It is static electricity from rubbing your shoe across a rug and touching someone's neck. A close second is a transistor battery when touched to the tip of your tongue. How about the jolt of a first kiss? All these rate high above a wall socket for delivered volts. Did you ever go swimming? Hopefully, not during an electrical storm. Nor near an electric eel, as they can deliver a shock with more than four times the voltage of a wall socket. That's a hot fish!

Did you know that the temperature at the center of the earth is nearly as hot as the sun (5,000 - 6,000 degrees Celsius)? Sunshine bears down upon the daylight side of the earth with a pressure of two pounds for every square mile, but the earth only receives 1/2 of one-billionth of the run's radiant energy. In a few days that's the heat and light equivalent to burning all the oil, coal, and wood on the planet. But we can get much hotter than then sun and the center of the earth. A lightning bolt generates temperatures five times hotter than the surface of the sun. If we could only use the power around us in nature there would never be an energy shortage, for the energy equivalent of just one ounce of anything is enough to keep a 100-watt light bulb burning for almost one million years.

I think I'm personally going through an energy shortage. It's a real possibility that I'm getting senile. Symptoms of aging can appear early. By the time we're twenty we may already display an age related drop in intellectual ability. The brain of an eight-month-old human fetus is actually estimated to have two to three times more nerve cells than an adult brain does. Just before birth, there is a massive death of unnecessary brain cells, a process that continues through early childhood and then levels off. So no wonder I've been complaining of headaches the last few years.

I take 200 vitamin pills a day, and people wonder why I look so unhealthy. But after my stomach is filled with these vitamins there is no more room for food. So unwillingly I am on a diet of 50 calories a day.

Truth is the bitterest of pills to swallow, and now that I have rambled on, from one subject to another I have lost all the readers before the finish once again.

In the end each one of us is alone.

'nother one,

èim  Uhr

P.S. Progress is relative. When a person becomes a millionaire he moves from his modern downtown apartment with all the latest contraptions to a nice older home in the country for a bit of the simple living, and calls it progress. Progress is what brought television to even the lowest income families. Research has shown that watching T.V. causes rats to become listless and apathetic. Thus they are less prone to biting the children.

Sometimes it just feels like death...

Have you ever had a near death experience?

Let me know.

Do You Care?

DO YOU CARE?

I was driving down the highway just when afternoon rush hour was letting up a bit. My exit was coming up and I maneuvered over to the right lane. I thought about putting on my headlights, but I also think about taking piano lessons, and numerous other things that I should do, all the time. Having my headlights on wouldn't have helped me see but it was that twilight time of day when oncoming and passing traffic is much more easily seen when they have their headlights on. But since I don't take piano lessons, I didn't have my headlights on. Anyway, as I was exiting off the ramp, I noticed that the guy in front of me was acting as if he were looking for a parking spot in the middle of the exit ramp. It really wasn't that astute of an observation seeing as if I didn't have a windshield I could have reached out and stolen his rear license plate, or if I would have turned on my windshield washer I would have sprayed his trunk, and I'm sure that I'm exaggerating to say that my wiper blade would have combed his hair (because he was wearing a hat). So I hope the picture of him going too slow is clear, and if it isn't let me just clarify it by saying that he was motoring at a insignificant fraction of the 45 M.P.H. speed limit posted. Though the ramp was wide enough for two cars it wasn't meant to be a two-lane ramp, just an extra wide one-lane ramp.

I decided to be a good citizen and not jam up traffic as this car was going to do if he kept at this pace. Did I mention that it was a blue Chevy? I'm not sure what year, because that is not one of my talents, and honestly the only way I even knew that it was a Chevy is because it have small, steel lettering above the keyhole to the trunk. I don't know why I mention the fact that the car ahead of me was a blue Chevy seeing as it has nothing to do with the story, and the outcome of the story would not be changed even if it had been a Ford. I think the only one who it would have mattered at all to was the owner. And since who the owner of that car, that could have just as well been a ford, but, in fact, was a Chevy, is doesn't matter I think I'll just forget about it. So, seeing as I am such a good citizen, I decided to pass this blue Chevy, whose owner isn't significant to the storyline, on the exit ramp that was wide enough for two cars, but probably made for one.

To make a long story short ... I hit a Beaver as I was passing another car. I saw its eyes look up at me seconds before I felt its furry body under my wheels. I'm sure that if you would consider one of those Bearskin rugs to be dead then you would second my opinion that this Beaver was dead. I knew it as soon as I looked in my rear view mirror.

After I felt my tires pass over him I slowed down a little but when traffic started catching up to me I put my foot to the gas and drove home. No, I didn't stop. I already own a bearskin rug…

I forgot about the incident at the next traffic light. The only reason I remember it now is because I needed something to write about. When my conscience asks me if I feel bad for killing a Beaver I shrug and say, "I don't care." Actually I don't say it aloud, I just think it so that no one thinks I'm weird for talking to myself. People might think me weird for shrugging for no reason, but not for talking to myself.

Now I admitted a situation I was involved in where I really didn't care about the outcome, where someone else might have. What I would like to know from you is if you care about things such as whether your next-door neighbor has a job or not?

Do you really care about the starving children of Hollywood or where ever? Don’t you leave food on your plate in a restaurant sometimes, and then afterward find that you're still hungry and pick up a snack somewhere else?

Do you give to charities? What a noble and forthright human being you are! I bet you also like the tax deductions. Would you still give the same amount to charities if it wasn't tax deductable?

Oh, I know you. You work for one of those Endangered Animal organizations, don't you? Do you really care when a species becomes extinct? Why does it seem you only crusading for the cute ones?

Are you one who fights to get the violence taken off T.V.? I bet you're also one of those gawkers who slow traffic to look at accidents to see if there is any blood. The violence in real life promotes the violence on the tube. When there is a bad accident I like to watch the passers by, safe in their cars. More people turn toward the accident, counting off bodies on their fingers, than people who turn away searching through their glove compartments for an old Burger King bag to show their inner feelings. And the networks know this! Violence sells -- it's clear and simple. The viewing public wants to see blood and gore, both in real life and on the screen. If enough people were turned off by it they would turn off their sets and the networks would get the message a lot faster than from the few hundred letters from the "weird" portion of the population. The rumor that T.V. sets explode if off for more than fifteen hours a day is not true! You can turn it off. T.V. withdrawal is not fatal, nor are the symptoms permanent.

Maybe T.V. is the best thing that has happened to the modern world. Maybe it keeps all the gooks minds blank so their warped minds can't function and find destructive things to do with their idle time. Maybe T.V. is beneficial. I hate to think of what the "Dukes of Hazards" fans might do if they had the extra time on their hands. We should be thankful that there is enough worthless broadcasting to keep these type of people busy sitting in front of their boxes day and night.

So do you really care about starving children, endangered animals, charities, auto accidents, and T.V. programming? Be honest now…

Honestly Yours,

èim  Uhr

P.S.   I care about all those things…

Oh yea, about the Beaver story,

I just made it up. I knew it would

be easier for me to get you to admit

 to all your faults if I pretended that

 I had one of my own.

This ALMOST looks like a setup

Another DO YOU CARE

A Day in The Life

A DAY I N THE L I F E

I am listening to the radio, trying to write. I remember how unsuccessful that has been for me in the past, so I turn it off…

God, the silence is killing me…

I lean back on my chair, carefully so as to prevent the tablet from falling off my knee. The distant sound of a barking dog and the infrequent passing of cars, echoes in my head. I can hear an indistinct ringing. Not sure if it's church bells or in my head, I block the sound out. The dog continues to bark…

The smell of oil penetrates my nostrils from the oil heater at my feet. Thank god it also penetrates my bones and gives me momentary warmth and protection from the cold.

If there is such great warmth in Hell, then is heaven frigid?

There are two table lamps in the room I occupy, for in this room no overhead light exists. I write in shadows, as the light from these lamps barely succeed in chasing away the darkness.

I like the light…

I thought I could hear the wind rustling through the rafters, but it's just another passing car. I wonder what it would be like to be in that car. Though I cannot see the street below me, I wish I was a passenger in that car I hear moving by, living in his or her world – a world that I will never know or have a chance to understand.

Would that dog please shut-up!

I look at the typewriter on my desk in front of me, smiling at its presence. I think of all the work involved in first writing everything in longhand, half printing and half writing, only to later two finger type it all over on a fresh piece of paper. What a waste! I don't mind the time involved, I just hate to see another fresh, clean piece of paper dirtied… What a waste. Maybe I should start using my computer. But the dust has settled nicely on it and I hate to disturb it.

The blackness that engulfs my soul comes out by way of words and spreads out to cover and taint a nice white piece of paper in the form of black. From white to a slowly growing blackness filling the page. Words defecating on the pristine white of the page, changing it forever

Maybe I should change my font color to red, or something more happy…

It's a shame that there aren't more outlets in this room so I could plug in all my lamps. It's a shame there aren't more outlets in my life so I could put to use a head-full of ideas. I can barely afford to allow two of the plugs for lamps, I need my typewriter and radio, for I am running out of sockets. My radio is off and I'm not using the typewriter, but to exchange plugs on a temporary basis, just for another couple of lights, would only be extra work.

I get tired even thinking about it.

I am glad that dog has stopped barking.

The heat from the burner feels good on my body, just as the light feels good to my eyes. I gaze upon the masses of books about, most of which are scattered allover the floor. The biggest and heaviest of the hardbacks are presently being used to straighten out a crinkled poster in the middle of the floor. I think it's a picture of mass nudes on a beach, but I'm not sure, seeing as it has been a long time since I had last seen it. It takes a long time to straighten out wrinkles in a poster unless you could bend them in the opposite direction for a period of time. But I am in no hurry and I don't mind things a bit wrinkled, a little bent out of shape.

I wonder if there is snow outside. These past days have been so cold. Running the heater continuously is a temptation, but then I would need a steady flow of oil…

Then there is the matter of the smell…

Even after getting up to look out the window, I still cannot tell if there is snow. Even the small amount of light the two lamps shed make the windows look like mirrors, so the wall behind me is all I see when I look out. I notice that the dog has not barked for quite some time as I listen to another car whizzing past. I imagine the zagged tire marks he leaves in the imaginary snow. I'm sure the snow covers those tracks before he can see them in his rear-view mirror. No one will ever know he has been down this street.

Possibly the dog has stopped his incessant barking because he has escaped and found his way to the street… the car… in such a hurry…

I have a globe in this room. The Earth. Smooth. Mostly blue. I look at it and wonder at all the water. So much water, and I – never to have seen an ocean. The land has freckles, spotted with names and bumps, but the water is smooth and a consistent blue, with fewer words written on it. The words and the land dirtying the perfection of the blue. It's a nice globe, except for the land and the writing…

I wish I would turn back on my radio, but I know I really don't want to. It's funny how my radio just sits there next to my filing cabinet, in which this article will also sit upon completion. God knows when that will be! I know that if I were to open that top drawer of my filing cabinet all the way it would topple over, probably on my radio, which really wouldn't matter because I bet if that cabinet fell it would crash right through the floor, taking me and everything else in the room with it. My own private sink hole. The top drawer is the heaviest, mostly filled with supplies. If only I would keep the heavier things in the bottom drawer there would not be the fear of it falling over. I wish it could be better arranged but that's the way things go. Some day I will learn. I hear floors are expensive.

The football pennants and the posters in this room give it a sort of presence. The various posters have a pretty wide range of topics and scenes. From spaceships to oceans and other worlds, from kittens to feathered friends, and robots and lasers to baseball players and fields. Life to death.

I would like to see if there is snow outside, but I dare not turn out the lights so I can see out. I notice a slight headache as I look to the time on my watch. I can almost hear it ticking, but I can't hear that dog that's always barking. Time doesn’t really tick, it ebbs.

I close my eyes, feeling a bit funny, but not abnormal.

If I felt fine – I wouldn’t pay it. If I felt more funny – I wouldn’t laugh. If I felt… If only… I… felt.

My stomach is about ready for a beer or two as it's about time for me to get ready to go out for the night.

I wonder what I'll do tonight?

                                                                                 ‘Til Later,

       èim  Uhr

                                    P.S: Maybe I'll see you tonight…

                                           Bet you won't recognize me.

Silence and I                        Should I let it show?

               Secrets

Once

O n c e

A breath of passion

an out dated fashion

dress on the floor

my hand on the door

as I turn back to look

I see but do not know

all the things I know but do not see

hidden secretes

secretes revealed

revealing posture

posing sleep

cute as a button

buttons relented

crumpled covers

uncovered portrait

one eye open

at least I know

she watches me go

                            êim Uhr

Invisible?

Bean There

A blast from the past...

A FRIENDLY DRIVE

I was driving down the road the other day, when I flipped out. It wasn't a new song on the radio. It was the curb that caused it. Before I knew it I was doing summersaults.

My car landed right side up and I staggered out. I, literally, spit glass out of my mouth as I gazed disbelievingly at my car. People stopped and were asking me questions, but I just alternated nodding and shaking my head without listening to them.

My car ... me?

Not a bruise. Not a cut. The glass didn't even cut the inside of my mouth. Not one thing was wrong with me… No, I wasn't wearing my seat belt.

As my brain finally started excepting messages my eyes were sending it, I noticed my windshield lying a few feet from the car, shattered, but nearly whole. My newly bought side mirrors were, naturally, broken off. There was mud allover my car as luckily I had rolled on grass instead of pavement. The passenger side of the roof was smashed in a bit, my door was bent in, and the right rear fender was smashed.

Someone said I must have been listening to the radio to hit a rock and roll.

Somehow I got the idea of trying to start my car. Since no damage was done to the hood or anything under it, I got the car started without any trouble.

I ended up driving the car home, with no windshield in below freezing temperatures. I shook all the way home, partially from the cold and partially from shock.

One the way home I thought of something that Winston Churchill once said, one of my favorite quotes—

 "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."

I made it home without getting pulled over, even though it's illegal to drive without a windshield.

I can still remember (in flashes) that sensation of turning upside down and rolling. Things flashed by so fast. I saw parts of my life in quick, unrelated glimpses. Then, in mid roll, I thought to myself, "This is a dream."

Microseconds later I realized it wasn't a dream, that my car was rolling over and I was in it, and that I would be late for work. I wondered why it rolled. Was I rolling up a hill? Through lanes of traffic? Was I dying? Had I ever lived? Was my car paid off? Did I have clean underwear?

A feeling soon to be forgot, but a time long remembered. If the feelings that one has during an uncontrollable moment in one's life could be totally recalled, I doubt if many mistakes would be repeated. But the only thing that is truly remembered are the after affects, and they never seem to be quite as bad.

Yes, how easily feelings are forgot.

Trying times can test us and show what we're made of. I'm not sure what I'm made of, but I know that I don't like tests.

It sounds unusual, but I think Cicero made a lot of sense when he said,

 "There is something pleasurable in calm remembrance of a past sorrow."

Maybe it's just the fact that the adversity has been survived, and it makes present adversities seem conquerable. Something Friedrich Nietzsche said helps shed light into Cicero's statement:

       "What does not destroy me makes me strong."

You are stronger from living through past sorrows. Also past troubles seen through memory's eye always are less sharp and out of focus then is the pain of present problems.

Remember the lesson of the day — Brakes, steering and even good friends can fail. To remain strong without becoming bitter is the trick. Friends don't care about your failures, and they care only to beat your successes. The best one can ask of a friend is to tell the truth when you need it, also to lie when you need it, and to listen nearly as often as they talk. Many times I find myself praying like Marshall de Villars.         — "God save me from my friends

                  I can protect myself from my enemies."

I expect distress from my enemies but when it comes by way of friends it is unbearable. I guess I just have to learn something that Agnes Macphail put well by saying,

“Do not rely completely on any other human being, however dear. We meet all life's greatest tests alone."

I guess when you have news that makes your life miserable the best thing a friend can do, from his point of view, is to exclude you from his life so you don't make him share in your misery.

"Heaven for climate, hell for company." — James M. Barrie.

Half my friends are in heaven, and the rest just have their heads in the clouds.

Dearly befriended,

èim  Uhr

P.S. It's funny the way

       one thinks of friends

                          in times of sorrow. I

                          can usually think of

                          them, but I can't talk

                          to them. 

Drive me away                                       RIP or RID(rest in drive)

                            We all crash alone

Windows to the Soul

Windows of the Soul

Windows of the Soul

Windows. I have always loved windows. Standing in one atmosphere, gazing out at another environment that may be totally different. Removed, unconnected. Like looking out at a blizzard from a cozy warm home, the totally white frozen obliteration contrasting to the warmth and varied colors within. A thin, clear membrane separating you from frostbite. A thin clear line between Nevada and Alaska. It’s like looking at an historic painting that you feel so distant from – like instead of gazing at another time, you are looking into another dimension.

Sometimes when I’m depressed I can gaze out a window and imagine another life. It’s always nice to put glass between your pane [sic].

Just as children growing up strive to separate themselves from grownups, so we in general as humans are prone to feel the need to separate ourselves from history. Denying past errors. Maybe that’s why windows dominate today’s society, since we like separation, with windows we can at least be conscious of the division and pretend to care. (Kind of like seeing starving third world children on television and feeling compelled to send off a dollar or two to alleviate our guilt, pretending that we're not separated from their blight.) We air condition against the warmth outside, just as we heat when it is cold outside. Man – always trying to be separate from, trying to change reality. Never satisfied with the way things are.

For it is the change that always stands out. The difference is what’s important. If almost all birds were either blue or red, I’m sure that it would be the brown one’s that we considered beautiful.

We climb mountains with great delight in being able to look down into valleys. We live in the valley in order to have a view of the majestic mountains.

And it is with the help of windows that make all this so obvious. Windows let us see our separation, make us aware of the modifications we have made. Windows are constant reminders of man’s attempt to turn reality up-side-down.

Windows are barriers that at least let light get through so that we can fool ourselves into thinking there is no separation. Thus we can say, “I live in Moscow” or “I live in Cleveland” or “I live in Chambly,” instead of “I live in a 70 degree heated/air-conditioned bubble – just like you and most everybody else.”

We play with reality until reality loses it’s meaning. Is reality the inside of the cage or the world outside? It depends on which side one has his perspective from. Whether they are bars of steel or piled up bars of gold, poor are affected as well as the wealthy - as your personal prison can be from theft as well as riches. Money can separate us as it stacks up around us forming an inpenitratible barrier that no one can reach through. Seclusion can be our own private jail. The rich as well as the poor can experience alienation from society. Lock me away, or shun me. Observe me only through windows. Keep your distance! Not like a lion in a cage, but more that of a fish in an aquarium. You could never truly know my world. My glass separates universes, dimensions. My glass is a bubble that surrounds me as I float in and out of your reality.

It is sometimes said that separation is an illusion – but in reality anything and everything but separation is the illusion. Each object, each person, is made up of individual cells. Each cell in your body has as much connection to each other as do the planets in a solar system.

Space. Space is the truth. There is space between everything. The only connection between us is space. The Universe is essentionally empty. It is a vacuum by any standard. Even a pane of glass is not really solid. A neutrino passing through a window has a very small chance of colliding with any molecule in the glass – most assuredly it will pass right through without any effect. It would be almost impossible for it to strike anything.

Although you can see a completely different world outside your window, you have little chance of having any effect on it. Of all the animals on Earth it’s the human beings who are known as the creators on the planet, always building things, but in actuality our creations are small and usually temporary – just waiting for entropy to overtake them. As the debate rages on whether we are destroying the planet I think that we are locked in a perspective that is far from reality. I’m not sure we are as of yet able to destroy the Earth, we are only able to change it – possibly destroying the atmosphere and any possible living conditions. But the Earth, in one form or another, will survive. So the only thing we would probably be destroying is ourselves, along with a few billion animals. I think that long after we’re gone the Earth will repair itself. Maybe then the next incarnation of life will get it right.

Maybe we’re just like microbes in a Petri dish. The experiment of life on this planet may have passed its half-life. Maybe the scientist running this experiment has as much feelings for us as we do for mold spores. Possibly we are just a little experiment in filling up some space. We take up about as much space in the Universe as we do time in it’s history. We would not even register as a blip on the radar screen. We are dandruff on the head of the Universe, exaggerating our self worth. Is it man’s deterrent or his blessing to be so self-centered? Man’s ego is what has caused him to expand beyond any reasonable measure. In this microcosm, man is king. Man’s inflated self-importance is what makes him rise above the other microbes in the Petri dish.

The ultimate question is whether he can rise up enough through his own compost to really communicate with the scientist running this experiment and possible save himself with something more than complaints or simple pleas of help.

                                                                                    éim Uhr

P.S.   It is said that a millennium is just a moment to the Universe. Do you want to give me a moment to see if I can unstick this widow?

The eyes have it. [sic]

which window video is the best??? - let me know!

Window1                                   Window2

Window3

W I N D O W S