Mr. T

Dear Mr. T

I’m having a difficult time getting girls. What can I do?

Your biggest fan,
Tommy

Dear Tommy

In 1972 my crack commando unit was sent to prison for a crime we didn’t commit. We escaped and then had to survive by becoming underground soldiers of fortune on the streets of LA. Try living out of a van with four sweaty guys getting shot at. Then you can complain. But no, you be wanting help gettin a girl. You got to be pulling my 24 carat gold chains. Hey, don’t even think bout doin that. Just get off your butt and go talk to some ladies. They’re all over.

Sincerely
T

Dear Mr. T

Thank you for answering my letter. I appreciate your candor. I have tried to talk to women but they seem to always just want to be friends. What can I do?

Your biggest fan,
Tommy

Dear Tommy

You be a stupid foo. Don’t be givn them ladies the chance to be your friend. You need to set your ground up front. When T and Face show up for a little adventure you bet we come out shootin. I pity the foo who don’t SOI. You make me angry. You don’t want to see me angry. Oh sorry, that’s another 80’s TV cultural icon. Anyway, you got to be direct and not be such a woman. I don’t have time for you.

Sincerely
T

Dear Mr. T

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. My question is if I show women that I’m interested in them in that way won’t they lose interest because they will have already won my attraction?

Your biggest fan,
Tommy

Dear Tommy,

Oh, hi there. I’m Dr. T. What you want with me man? T got more important business to tend to then helping you foo out. Murdock workin at Starbucks and Face thinking he’s a transvestite. Don’t know why T bother with you. The ladies only lose interest when you forget to give them a believable reason you like them. You got to justify your interest. You got that? Not why she IS attractive but why she’s attractive to YOU. Notice the difference? It’s bout you. Not bout her. Express yourself. She likes feelin she worked for your affections. Can’t believe you don’t know that.

Sincerely
T

Dear Mr. T

Thank you so much for your advice. Okay, I tried that last night and this girl looked at me blankly. I decided that would be a good time to leave. Did I do the SOI wrong? I told her she had a great fashion sense.

Your biggest fan,
Tommy

Dear Tommy,

You probably the biggest foo T ever know. You can’t see it but T scowling in your direction. What was that? You really into fashion? She probably thought you gay foo. The SOI not bout her it’s bout you. T would say, “Hey honey baby, T like you cause you good at distracting guards and not gettin shot. T finds long legged, distracting-girls sexy. But don’t get a big head foo.” Then she would be thinking bout enjoying T’s mohawk in certain places. She not be thinking T a chump. She know she won some T affection. Got that foo. Now go back in there and tell that girl why you find her sexy. You better write back and tell T what happened so T can have a big laugh at you.

Sincerely
T

Dear Mr. T

Thank you so much for your encouragement. I went back and told her that she was sexy to me because I like women who stay fit. She said she runs. But then she didn’t say anything so I asked her what she thought about that. She said she didn’t know. It felt kinda weird then so I walked away.

Your biggest fan,
Tommy

Dear Tommy,

Let’s run that again. You asked her if that was okay? The SOI is not a question foo. It’s a statement. Don’t pause to hear what she says. Just keep moving your lips. That’s your mission. You goin to surprise her with the SOI. Got to let it simmer up there. That takes time and she might give you some gruff like Hanibal without his coffee. ‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’ That’s some Shakespere foo. Bet you didn’t think T read Shakespere. There’s a lot you don’t know bout T.

Sincerely
T

Dear Mr. T

Good morning. You have changed my life… I did it! I went to the club and found her. She said, “Not you again, get lost.” So I found another woman who told me she paints murals of the people she has met as fish. I told her she was sexy to me because I find women who are creative sexy. I have always wanted to be more creative and I hope some of her creativity wears off on me. Then I went on like it was no big deal, just expressing myself. Well Mr. T, I now have a hot girl waking up in my bed. Thanks for that. So now I have another question. How do I cook a good omelet?

Your biggest fan,
Tommy

Dear Tommy,

Great, now you might go out and make a bunch o little foos. I don’t know why I help you. Now you want T give you cooking lessons? You a bigger foo than T thought. T’s a hardened soldier of fortune. T like concrete with bling. T thinks you a bigger foo than T thought since you don’t know you got get your pan heated very hot. Are you pulling back the edges? You better get a good omelet fork. T likes the line by Martha Stewart foo. Now, get out of here.

Sincerely
T

Warning - Requires Math

A long time ago…

In a coffee shop far away…

I met a girl.

“What celebrity do people say you look like?” I asked.

She looked surprised. “Ummm, I don’t know.”

“Yeah, I don’t know who you look like either.”

For the record she looked like Uma Thurman, if Uma was Latino.

I slipped into my jacket and tried to find my hat. “Everyone says I look like a famous musician.”

“Oh, which one is that?” she asked.

“K.D. Lang.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

Ackk! “Never mind. You make me feel old.”

She set her book down. “How old are you?”

“Take your age, double it, divide by four and add your phone number.

She thought about that. “Four million, three hundred and seventy eight thousand, four hundred and forty four?”

“But I like younger women.”

“That’s original.”

I stood up. “Especially the sassy ones. I’ll call you at 8 on Sunday. I’m thinking the Guggenheim followed by a dry white wine at the Rink. Where’s your boyfriend this weekend?”

“Out of town. He won’t be coming back.”

I didn’t know if she meant that weekend or ever.

If you’re wondering, it took me eight tries. She was 23. Her boyfriend had turned gay and ran away with a trapeze artist.

THE END

Keeping a Journal of Secrets

I believe writing in such a beautiful journal will encourage me to write beautiful words.

Though I think I'll save these words for myself. It's so easy with technology like Facebook to not have any secrets. We have the ability to broadcast all of our thoughts and activities. But I'm getting off the subject.

I want to talk about words, and thoughts and your public/private life.

What is a secret ? A secret is something that you share with no one. So many of us have no secrets left. Keeping information from one person but sharing it with others is not a secret.

Secrets can feel almost magical. Well, at least the good secrets. And those are the kind I'm talking about.

People will wonder what's inside. But they will never know, no way. Even if they ply me with drinks and sex lol.

Don't get me wrong, FB/email is a wonderful way of being able to share with so many of friends in far away places. It keeps me sane when I'm on the road.

But I think we ought to hold some things back just for ourselves. Have some thoughts you tell no one. Go on an adventure and don't tell anyone.

Having secrets adds depth to your character, depth that you won't appreciate until you've kept some secrets to yourself for awhile. I love the idea of having a beautiful journal. But this journal will be just for secrets.

Sharing a secret is magical too. But after then, the magic is gone. This may be a controversial topic for some of y'all.

I know all of you have had a magical experience. Maybe it was while exercising or exploring or maybe just sitting still and thinking. Whatever your magical experience was, you cannot adequately share it through such crude mediums as speach or writing. To attempt to tell someone what it was like can only damage your memory of the experience. But to keep the experience to yourself is to keep the magic alive.
Also, if we are all connected, as some people believe, there's no point in telling everyone about your experiences.

Other people would understand without trying to inform them with something so crude as language. Somethings simply must be experienced to be appreciated. Perhaps much of the problem with our world is people thinking they can understand without experiencing first hand.Maybe the answer must be some secrets we give away and some we keep for ourselves. In any case we must have them to begin with.

Here's to getting out into the world and living first hand and creating more secrets for yourself!

Sometimes I stumble upon a word that I just have to use in conversation. Does that happen to you?

Yes, I like out of fashion and antiquated words. Right now, for me, that word is 'dope'. As in my friend just bought a new 'dope' bed for his new place. If I ever visit China I am gonna teach the people 'talk to the hand' and 'big dog' as if these were contemporary terms. Hehe, I made the painfully un-hip Chinese more un-hip. Its ok, it will be my practical joke to the world.

Colombia

So...

I went to Colombia in South America to celebrate my 30th.

I was depressed and cried like a little bitch, but thats not what this blog is about.

Lets begin with why I have been travelling outside the U.S?

I'm interested in experiencing different cultures, and I'm also interested to learn more about how the world works outside the glorious golden bubble of Chicago.

Why Colombia ?

More than anything I've become increasingly curious about what's happening to the world and to find out if the perceptions created in the media are true.

Even as a zero generation immigrant, it's continually pounded into your head "Yeah Chicago is a snowy windy city... But you live in the country with the strongest social safety net in the world... You'd better be happy you don't live in the rest of the world because it's a shithole where people constantly starve to death and spontaneously explode from random super viruses."

I calculate about seven hours of sleep in our three day stay there. I attribute this to the high altitude we were at. I was walking around like a zombie most of the time. The temparatures through out the day were all over the board and in the mornings I couldn't feel my face.

When we arrived in Colombia, I was definitely tripping out. The idea is a total mindscrew -- my references being like Chuck Norris type movies with guerrilla soldiers jumping out of trees with machine guns and blasting the place up...

The biggest thing was that I just couldn't PICTURE it. Everything I've ever done in my life I could visualize beforehand. I just couldn't figure how what I'd read about it could be real. I couldn't imagine myself there -- it wasn't piecing into my reality.

Bear in mind I work very, very hard. Most days from morning until night. But that's what made this trip in alignment with my 30th birthday I had so sweet. Unlike most people who take it for granted, I appreciated it so much because I EARNED it.

The people reminded me a lot of how cats look, in the sense that they sort of lounge around with nothing to do. They seem in some ways happier and more relaxed than North Americans do, but I'm sure that's also a peace that comes with having very little hope and nothing to lose.

Ninja Girl

She was garbed head to toe in black. Her pony tail hung to her waist. Her mask revealed only almond eyes and red lips. The four young men agreed she was the sexiest thing they had seen all night.

The first walked over to where she sat on a stool. “Hi there baby,” he said. “I like girls who wear black.”

“Wonderful,” she said. “And I like being called baby. Here’s my room key. Meet me later.”

He took the key, danced a jig and headed out the door.

“Well, that certainly looks easy,” said the second. He hurried over to the girl.

“Hi there baby,” he said. “I like girls who wear black.”

She flicked her sword in and out of it’s scabbard in one fluid, blinding motion. Cleanly sliced in half, the top and bottom pieces of him fell to the floor. His guts oozed out over the tile.

“Mother of nature!” cried the third.

“Yuck,” said the fourth.

“These things happen,” said an old monk nearby.

“But why?” asked the third.

The old monk stroked his beard. “The first young man took the risk of saying what was on his mind. But the second took the easy path of saying what he thought was guaranteed to succeed. He was afraid to risk. Ninja girls only mate with the most courageous of men. They eliminate the rest from the gene pool.”

“I get it,” said the third. “But how do I demonstrate courage?”

“You must find your unique voice and express it with conviction. Do that and you will be the most courageous man in the world.”

“Okay then,” the third said. “I can do that.” He meditated a moment and then walked over to the girl.

“Hi there,” he said to her. “I have to be honest, you scare me but I’m intrigued by your ninja ways. I would like to get to know you better.” He said this with an easy, steady voice that comes from speaking a simple truth.

Quicker than the human eye could follow, she threw three pointy, black stars into his chest. With a wet scream he fell backwards, vaulted over a railing and plummeted to the street several stories below.

“Hey old monk!” demanded the fourth, “I thought you said he should express his unique voice with conviction.”

The old monk shrugged his shoulders. “Women,” was all he said.

Adventures vs Provincials

From my vantage point of traveling and meeting people around the globe mostly South America I've noticed a schism in the culture of Western Civilization.

There are two types of people, two types of destinations, opposite philosophies competing against each other.

You can call it many things but I will call this competition: Adventurers Vs. Provincials.

An adventure is drawn to freedom. A provincial looks for security.
An adventure wants to see the world. A provincial wants to build a nest.
An adventurer is open to new ideas. A provincial takes comfort in reinforcing the views of themselves and their friends.
An adventurer wants their significant other to grow on an individual basis. A provincial wants to see growth in the relationship.
An adventurer sees a cubical as prison. A provincial takes comfort in walls.
An adventurer has a diverse group of friends. A provincial still hangs with their highschool buddies.
An adventurer wants to get out and change the world. A provincial wants to stay home and watch tv.
An adventurer likes to trust people. A provincial wants to seize control.(I am biased of course for the adventure lifestyle if you haven't noticed)
An adventure can't settle down to become a provincial. You can't change your stripes.

Unfortunately many people use getting married and having kids as a way of trying to control an adventurer. I have seen other ways like getting trapped in loans. This only can work short term.

Sometimes I can see getting married young to be an adventure. It's all the reasons why we do the things we do that count.

An adventurer welcomes the unpredictable and the challenge of meeting it. A provincial wants to squeeze luck and chance out of existence. They want to turn an adventure into something ordinary and predictable.

So which one are you Adventurer or Provincial?
I do think that everyone has both traits. There are traits of both but in the end one or the other wins out and dominates a persons decisions.
My problem is when an adventure acts 'temporarily' like a provincial (usually under pressure from a provincial) and vice versa.

In marketing there is a principle which states that...

"Most people, by the time they become adults, will lose their capacity for youthful abandonment. They will never lose the CRAVING for it but they become psychologically starved because they no longer have the ability."

This is pretty fascinating when you consider all the advertising with images of adults with big beaming smiles on their faces while using the product – but when you think about it, how many adults do YOU know who have the ability to have that much fun??

By my own personal estimation, fun is probably one of the least commonly experienced emotions among adults.

When an adult says “I’m having fun” it’s more often a vacuous jargon that means “I’m interested in what I’m doing” as opposed to the ecstatic abandonment they enjoyed when they were kids.

Of course, most folks would never admit it to themselves because fun is thought of as being the “light at the end” of the tunnel for achieving success.

You get to have fun during your leisure time, so if you want to have more fun, simply become successful so you can take time off. Right??

This is basically thought of as being a truism.

Probably because it WAS true at one point, but as you get older you don’t realize your neurology has changed.

The way it works is basically like this.

Your neurology adapts to whatever circumstances you’re most accustomed to.

So if you’re a little kid who’s used to playing around all day, you’re probably going to feel antsy and restless when you’re asked to focus on school.

And if you’re an adult who slaves furiously to meet deadlines for years on end, you’re probably going to feel trapped in your head when you’re out trying to have fun.

This has been a hot topic on my mind for the past several years.

I have a met a ton of people in my social dealings and ironically it’s often the people who live very unsuccessful lives, and don’t respect themselves enough to care, who come across as being the most happy (the lack of personal standards allows them to be naturally “care free”). But regardless of how they achieve it, their attitude still gives the initial perspective to an outsider that “life is good with this guy”. So they wind up with lots of girls in their lives and the girls never find themselves happy in the long run because they don't realize.

As I hit 30, I noticed my personality had changed from my mid 20s, both for the better and the worse.

On the positive side I found I could hold multiple concepts in my head at the same time and see how they came together without losing my train of thought. My attention span seemed to increase noticeably while my fluid problem solving skills and creativity became lightening fast relative to where they’d been before.

But simple socializing like small talk and joking around became awkward. If it wasn’t about work I felt anxious like something bad was about to happen. As if I lost my momentum for even five minutes I’d go back to slacking off and spend another year struggling to get back on track.

Even though I go on these fun trips, I feel exhausted because my neurology gets burnt out from several hours of fun in a row and I need to re-connect with my introverted comfort zones.

Now you might think to yourself “Having fun?? Uhhh, that’s easy!!”

The difference is that when you’ve got a team(I am an integral part in a start up company) who rely on you to produce results at work, or else they don’t eat and there’s no roof over their heads or families, having fun suddenly becomes a source of stress because it feels like a massive waste of time.

On top of that, as I mentioned before, and this is obviously a generalization, I’d noticed over the years that most of the folks who had a talent for being relaxed and having fun also tended to be flunkies and underachievers in their professional lives.

This was an interesting dilemma because on a certain level these were the guys who I modelled and admired.

Usually they’d spend a lot of time laughing and hanging out with friends and taking life easy, which gave them a sort of care-free vibe that was attractive and contagious.

But later as I’d get to know them, I realized they were projecting an illusion of coolness, because their lives were mediocre at best (and a total train wreck at worst).

I’ve often suspected many of these guys were burdened by a delusion that someday they’d get paid just for being cool. Like a male version of Paris Hilton or Tila Tequila, I’m not sure.

The problem was that a part of their “cool factor” was they lacked an inviolable personal standard for the quality of their own lives.

Their “neurologies” were never burdened down with stress or compulsive analysis because if things weren’t going well they’d just laugh it off and rationalize. But years of living in this zone also left them with no ability to deal with friction, setbacks, or adversity because their higher priority was maintaining the flow and their happy vibe.

In my experience this was a form of weakness because their external circumstances often weren’t in alignment with the happiness of their internal world, which forced them deeper into personal denial.

Put them into a situation where avoidance and rationalization could no longer deal with their problems, and suddenly they’d be whining like young children with no ability to cope.

Again, this is a generalization of many people who I met over the course of my life. But I also feel it’s fairly on point in terms of the commonalities I saw in many people who on the surface seemed socially super successful.

In my early twenties I remember feeling somewhat nervous and approval-seeking around these types because they had something I wished that I had myself. But as I hit my late twenties I became more indifferent, if not sympathetic, because I realized they’d taken a route that would cause problems for them down the line.

I guess that’s what you’d call “coming into your own” – which really just means you don’t buy into other people’s values above your own. Funny enough it often makes people question themselves because you seem so confident in your own way of doing things.

Anyway over the years I discovered that there’s actually TWO ways of getting that carefree vibe...

The first is just to ignore reality and make having fun the higher priority.

But the second, which in my view is the more powerful way of doing it, is to continually challenge yourself in your professional life while learning the art of separating work from pleasure.

What they don’t teach you in school is that your neurology becomes ADDICTED to whatever emotional state you’re accessing most of the time.

So when you notice that most guys who party all the time seem mentally retarded in their professional lives, it might seem so sad and pathetic that it turns you off of letting loose.

But at the same time, you have to also realize if you sacrifice fun for the purpose of professional success for too long you are essentially FRYING your ability to enjoy life – which is equally short-sighted.

Doing this will lead you to a place where having fun becomes “going through the motions”.

You become so analytical and disconnected from the REAL EXPERIENCE of true enjoyment that you don’t even know what it is anymore.

As absurd as it sounds, you wind up analyzing it the same way you would a business proposal, with an objective criteria of what fun “should be” instead the emotions you’re actually experiencing.

"I’m doing something interesting (or that costs a lot of money). Therefore the conditions for having fun are now met, which means I must be having fun."

There’s no ACTUAL lighting up of the “happy centres” in your neurology. That part of your neurology has withered away.

It’s like if you lie in bed for a year and now all the muscles in your legs have atrophied and withered away. How much of a “work out” can you really do??

Maybe you can exercise lightly for a few minutes, but then after that the tissue has been worked and you’re forced to take a break.

Only after a few months of repetition have you gradually built back enough muscle tissue to work it without burning it in more than a few minutes.

This is the vicious cycle which so many adults wind up trapped in without their conscious knowledge.

You’re having “fun” but you’re not REALLY having fun.

You’re not detoxifying yourself from all the cortisone that builds up in your system at work, so there’s no renewal taking place.

You show up for a fun activity because you think you’re “supposed to” but the truth is you’d rather be back in your work-addicted comfort zone.

It’s just that if you stopped going out altogether then you’d have to admit to yourself that the way you’ve been living is wrong.

And that’s almost impossible because you have so much invested in it personally, let alone with your family and staff who depend on you to pay the bills.

So what do most adults do??

They use ALCOHOL as a crutch because it stimulates those emotional pleasure centres for them.

(At least for an hour or two before they become belligerant and a pain in the ass).

To get past this you have to make a very deliberate effort to pump up your “happy” neurology on a regular basis, so it doesn’t lose its capacity to process those types of emotions.

That means continuing to dominate in the professional arena and producing the results that people expect from you, but at the same time, making a clear separation between work and play.

As a peak performer the temptation is to make work your entire life.

You’ll make vacuous statements like “You have to be well rounded” because you THINK you’re supposed to say things like this (or maybe that balance might make you a better performer).

But it’s as much of a rationalization as the flunky who talks about how he’s rejected the professional world because he’s above the fray of capitalist society, when in reality he couldn’t secure a decent job to save his life.

The key is to treat both fun and focus as different muscles that need to be worked and trained independently (even if you’re training them at the same time).

It’s cool to build your neurology to cut through ungodly loads of work like the mental equivalent of Jay Cutler.

I think Robert M. Pirsig hit the nail on the head when he said:

"Now the stream of our common consciousness seems to be obliterating its own banks, losing its central direction and purpose, flooding the lowlands, disconnecting and isolating the highlands and to no particular purpose other than the wasteful fulfillment of its own internal momentum."

And you know, once you’ve stepped into the mindsets and behaviours of a corporate “suit” it’s not going to go away over night.

You have to gradually nurse yourself back to a state of semi-normalcy. That means putting in the identical effort that you put into developing your professional skill-sets to discovering how to have fun again.

In the meantime, you don’t want to lose that ability to put in a week of 16 hour work days in the urgent situations when it’s called for. So you’ve got to maintain a balance where you don’t revert back to your old teenage-self who struggled to produce results.

Peak performance is the art of being fully engaged with “focused present energy” and then renewing your mind and spirit with total relaxation and being fully unplugged.

From my perspective I feel like I’m coming into a really good zone, because I’ve been cultivating that “carefree” side of my personality while I’m still enjoying the benefits that come from working hard.

And the cool thing is that by combining hard work and having fun synergistically I finally HAVE been able to have the most fun year of my life.

The trips to South America this year never could have happened if I haven’t taken it to the next level in terms of my work ethic, but at the same time, I was actually able to enjoy them because I’d also taken the effort to make having fun a personal priority.

So in my opinion you CAN have your cake and eat it too.

You do NOT have to become another victim of the professional world any more than you have to become a victim of being a burnt out party-boy.

Moderation.

The Greeks have been talking about it for thousands of years and deep down you probably knew it was true.

My hope for my own career is that as I evolve and progress people can look at me and say “That guy is a really hard worker, but he also seems like a balanced, cool guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously.”

The whole cartoon character thing is OK in your twenties because you’re LEARNING and it’s about trial-and-error.

Now that I am in my thirties it’s about as uncool as holding onto existential angst... Uhh, NO.

There’s a time and a place for everything, and I think that as you get older you really need to work all this stuff out.

Anyway that’s my goal, and hopefully this article has offered you insight if you’re in a similar position.

I’ll be back later with the details from my recent experience in Colombia.

Thanks for reading!!

Listening

This shit has been annoying me as of late. I would like to address this grievance.

Most of us listen so poorly to others because we don’t want to hear what they have to say. We want them to be different from who they truly are. We push them to be pawns of our desire so frantically we put words in their mouths:

“How you doing, alright?”

“Did you have a good time at the circus?”

“Oh, you work as a nurse. That’s a noble profession. You’re a good person.”

Those lines are bad. They are representative of our biases and our nervous need to push the conversation. We want a conversational partner so badly we can’t relax and wait for the truth. That’s not sexy. It also causes a disconnect from the other person. When we try to move the relationship forward he or she freaks out. “You don’t really know me. Why do you want to spend time with me alone? You are thinking I’m different than what I am. You are trying to force me to be other than what I am. You are intimating that I have led you on – that I am that person. Apparently I have deceived you or you have deceived yourself. I feel trapped but I guess a little more deception can’t hurt. I’ll just make up a lie to get out of this. I will flake on you. Tell you at the last minute that my cousin is in town and I have to show her around, yeah, that’s a good one. Goodbye.”

Sexy people are never bothered by hearing another person’s truth, good, bad or otherwise.

“How was your night?”

“Are you wanting to go right now? I don’t want to keep you.”

“I want to see you but you can say no.”

“Does that make sense or am I crazy? I might be crazy. There’s no shame in being crazy.”

Subtly, these example questions and statements leave more options for response. With more options, more freedom, the other person can express themselves more fully and accurately. That means we will know them better and when it comes time for the relationship to move forward they will feel more comfortable knowing we wish to move forward with the real person which is them.

All the best

A parable about Humility

Looking for gold, an elf walked into a cave.

“Who are you?” asked a voice from the dark.

The elf stretched up to his full two feet, three inches of height. “I am Gristlenose Faisalbaker,” he said. “I am an elf of the highest order. Who dares address me from the shadows? Come out and reveal yourself.”

Into the light padded a lion. “I am King of the Beasts,” the lion said. “Welcome to my lair.”

Gristlenose marveled at the animal. The lion’s muscles played under a flawless coat. His teeth were ivory daggers and his tongue a velvet red blanket. His golden mane had none of the burrs or tangles like the fur of other animals but rather was clean and groomed. His eyes were large and carnivorous.

Gristlenose considered this development. “Greetings good king,” he said. “It seems as if I have made a wrong turn so I’ll just be going back the way I came now.” He turned to leave.

“Hold up there friend,” said the lion. “It seems as now that you are here, I will need to eat you.”

The elf stopped in his tracks, “Is that absolutely necessary? Can’t I just walk away and we forget I was ever here?”

“I’m afraid not. It comes with the title you see. If word got out that the King of the Beasts let an elf of the highest order leave his den without so much as removing a leg or devouring a rack of ribs I would lose the respect of my subjects. The kingdom would be thrown into chaos.”

“I see,” said Gristlenose. “I wouldn’t want that to happen.” At that moment he gave serious thought to darting back towards the entrance but recalled cats possessed a strong chase instinct. That would surely result in his being pounced on by those huge paws. “Isn’t there something we can do?”

“Well,” said the lion. “If you were not the highest order sort of elf I could make a case for not eating you. Kings must have the best after all. Perhaps you made a mistake and meant to say you are a common elf.”

“Never,” said Gristlenose. “My grandfather was the slayer of Black Wolf. My father served in the court of Whistlewood the Smart. My mother’s skin was pure, white snow. I am top pedigree and lineage. I am capable and admired by my peers and others, including pixies and starburst creatures of the meadow.”

“Oh my,” said the Lion. “You ARE important. I suppose I must eat you and right away.” He stepped closer so as to be looking down upon the elf. “Would you like me to gobble you down quickly or would you like to run around and struggle a bit first?” He swiveled his jaws wide, ready to bite down on Gristlenose’s head.

“Wait.” cried Gristlenose, in as controlled a tone as possible, which was not very, given the circumstance. “I have something important you should know first.”

“And what is that?” said the lion.

The elf pulled his hand out from where it had been hidden behind his back. “I have this magic stick.”

The stick was a twig. A leaf poked out one end.

The lion dropped his head to examine the twig. It looked and smelled like an ordinary twig that might have fallen off the birchwood tree that stood just outside his cave. He stepped back and began to chuckle.

“Hah,” said Gristlenose. “This stick is a weapon of unimaginable power.”

The lion’s chuckle slid down and became a lion belly laugh.

Gristlenose pointed the twig at the Lion. “I may transform you into a squirrel or a rabbit or any manner of stupid creature.”

The Lion collapsed in a fit of laughter. “Oh my, oh my, the little man with his big stick, hahahaha.”

“Then your Kingdom would surely be thrown into chaos,” cried Gristlenose.

The lion rolled onto his back and pounded his paws on the ground. “You might poke me with your stick, bahahahahaha.”

“No one will be ruled by a rabbit,” called Gristlenose, “or a badger, or a fox, or a slimy, little gardener snake.”

Lion tears of laughter poured out and collected in puddles.

“I’m warning you,” said Gristlenose.

Finally, the lion regained his composure. Mopping up his eyes with a paw, he stood once again over Gristlenose. “All this comedy has given me an appetite.” He slid his claws out of their sheaths and bared his teeth.

Gristlenose backed into the wall.

“I’ll make it quick,” the lion said as he gathered himself to pounce.

Gristlenose stuck the twig out at the lion’s chest. “Reithrodontomys Megalotis,” he cried.

The lion leaped… and landed at Gristlenose feet. But the lion was lion no more. He had been transformed into a golden haired mouse.

The mouse, who used to be a lion, examined his mouse paws and mouse tail. He looked up to where Gristlenose towered over him. “I have decided,” he squeaked, “that you can just walk away and we can forget you were here.”

“No,” said the elf. “I insist upon staying for dinner. I might like to sit down to pan fried mouse leg or maybe braised rack of mouse!” He raised his boot to stomp but the mouse darted through his legs and out the cave.

Gristlenose chased after him. “Wait up great king,” he called. “Your subjects need your courage.”

The mouse ran away from the cave, over a bridge and through a thornberry patch. The thorns cut Gristlenose and the vines wrenched the magic stick from his grasp but did not slow the elf.

At last, at the entrance of a cave much like the one where they had began, the mouse’s legs could take no more. He collapsed in exhaution.

Gristlenose stepped forward and picked up the mouse. Glaring victoriously, he held him overhead. “I am Gristlenose,” he announced. “Eater of Kings!” And with that he dropped the mouse down his throat.

Just then a furry head of a grizzly bear poked out of the cave. “Elf,” said the bear, “with a title like that you must be important.”

People are People When They Are ...

People. They’re a lot of work. Even if you are a social, kung fu master, people are a pain. Most people these days have an unrealistic feeling of entitlement. I blame TV for that and shows like Sex in The City. Thats a main reason I like travelling to places where people don't act so entitled. One day when robots rule the world everyone will be sorry. Until then we’re going to have to deal with them. The people that is. Most robots I know are still quite friendly.

I met a girl once on a transatlantic flight. From the way she was leaning over and touching my leg I got the impression she was hot for my peanuts. But I decided it was too much work. You got to get the blankets over you, get your pants down, watch out for the flight attendant. Hassle = much. Pleasure = zero. You do that sort of thing for the story. For the fame among your buddies. But it seemed like too much work to me. I’m too lazy for that sort of skulldudgery. I’d rather have my sex in a bed with room service and puffy pillows made from the feathers of endangered birds.

So, back to this girl for a sec. I got an email from her out of the blue after I had been blabbering about this in a comment she happened to read. She wrote to tell me I was an idiot, “I enjoyed meeting you but wasn’t trying to have sex with you on a plane. I’m not that easy.”My bad. I wrote back a lengthy apology. She then sent me some naked pictures of herself. Honest to god, that’s how it rolled.

Now let’s get back to people. So you want to be a people person, huh? That’s cool. Just so you know, no matter how good your kung fu, it will always be a hassle dealing with upset airplane girls.First rule: Don’t try to be a dictator. Ever watch the movie Star Wars? Darth Vadar is a dictator. He wants to control the galaxy. But the tighter he squeezes star systems in his grasp the faster they slip through his fingers. You can’t guarantee that people will act a certain way and you certainly can’t push them to give you the response you want. That’s why almost every book that’s been written about being good with people is, in my opinion, stupid. These books are marketed at teaching you how to get the response that you want from people. In other words, they are encouraging you to be a dictator. This is in spite of the fact that totalarism has been proven to be a failed system of government. Geez, it’s like these people got an A in marketing but skipped out on 20th Century History.

No, I like the BraveHeart model. FREEDOM! Any method for being good with people should encourage the people you interact with to feel a high degree of personal freedom. FREEDOM! That is known as being cool. And also, in the end it IS like Star Wars. You control the Force but the Force controls you. You have to believe in the end that it will turn out alright if you trust other people to be themselves.One reason that freedom is so important is that people are more committed to that which they give freely than that which is taken from them. Sounds like a famous quote huh? Well it is. I wrote it one morning here at my kitchen table, in my underwear, while trying to pick cereal residue out from between my teeth with my tongue. Just thought I’d give you the complete picture.

Anyhow…picture this example

Tommy: “Hi there.”
Miss, January 2009: “Hi. What’s up?”
Tommy: “Nothing. Are you having fun?”
MJ09: “Sure.”Tommy: “Yeah. It’s a nice day isn’t?”

Ack! What’s up with all the leading questions? I may as well just walk up to her and say, “Who’s your dictator baby? That’s right. I am. Me. I’m the boss of you. You love me long time honey. Now go make me some pancakes.” This is a strategy that often does not appeal to strangers you just met.How am trying to be the dictator here? Wait, don’t answer that question. A better question is, why am I being the dictator here? Think about that a sec. Okay, times up. I’m being a dictator because I want a specific outcome for the conversation. I want a specific response in each moment. I’m in a hurry to get something ‘positive’ and I end up being a total insecure person in order to try to get it. This looks and feels bad to people. They do feel it. It’s a disturbance in the force.Instead you should trust in the other person. Trust that if you can create a fun interaction, your conversational partner will chose to commit.

Preesh!