How To Lose Weight and Friends at the Same Time

I've lost 50 pounds using my secret Diet Plan, which I call "The Loner's Diet"...it's a 'secret' because almost no one wants to know about it...and it's a "Loner's Diet" because divulging the secret is a resentment-building conversation killer.

The secret is to eat less and to walk more. Simply eliminating snacks and sodas and seriously reducing meat and fried food consumption will work wonders in most people- in my case, I eliminated beer from my diet, started cooking at home and lost weight without even trying...but not many people want to hear that- they would rather hear about a non-existent  'miracle method'.

"PDTFP" (Put Down The Fucking Pringles)is the best advice I know, but dispensing it will not win you many friends in today's  high-fat workplace. It is easier  to trick people into doing what is good for them:

Reality- There are 1200 calories in that bag of Cheez Goobers you are nibbling in your work-cube and another 600 in the giant-ass soda that you are washing them down with. In other words, it ain't your thyroid, it's Frito-Lay, Pepsi and laziness that are making you fat. But who wants to hear that?

When I was in IT, I used to be able to make surprisingly accurate guesses about an individual's physique just by inspecting their computer keyboard and mouse. I would up-end the keyboard over a sheet of white paper, shake it vigorously and examine the particles that fell out.  If I saw orange Cheeto-esque crumbs fall out of the keypad, it was a sure bet that the user was overweight to some extent- the degree of obesity could be roughly estimated by the type and quantity of food particles that are found in the keyboard...it is worth noting that the people who didn't eat at their computers tended to be signifcantly thinner than those who did. Just sayin'.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to point this out without sounding like an asshole- luckily, I have found that people respond better to chicanery, flammery and Gypsy spell-casting than they do to simple truth; in order to seem nicer than I really am, I used the following "diet secret" on a co-worker at a recent job...I'll call him 'G' (for gullible).

G wasn't exactly fat,  but he was getting there and he wanted to lose weight... I knew from experience that some people find the truth to be somewhat offensive, so I was reluctant to tell him that if he PDTFP, he'd lose weight. Instead, I told G a highly-unscientific and preposterous lie:

"G", I explained, "the secret to losing weight is to keep your keyboard clean."

"Huh? My keyboard?"

"Yep. Disconnect it and your mouse and clean them thoroughly. If there is food on your keys, the Law of Attraction will attract Fat Thoughts to you unconsciously...your sub-conscious will cause your body to react as if it were over-eating and you will gain weight. It is the same mechanism that causes you to gain weight just by dreaming of fattening food- or by looking at pictures of desserts."

"Oh, right...that makes sense", G replied to my utterly nonsensical fabrication, "I read about that thing with the fattening dreams. That's pretty scary- if I go to bed hungry, I always dream of food, so I try to have a snack at night so I don't get fat in my sleep." 

" Exactly", I agreed, ignoring G's stunningly clueless state,
" keep your keyboard sparkling clean for six weeks and I guarantee that you will lose at least six pounds."

It would have been much easier (but less entertaining) to just say : "stop eating junk food at your desk", but that sort of direct approach  can be seen as insensitive...luckily, it is socially acceptable to hide the truth inside  fanciful, semi-mystic gibberish-in other words,  it is easier to get people to believe in 'The Law of Attraction' than it is to get them to walk two blocks to the store or to take the stairs instead of the elevator.

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Here's simple recipe that is healthy , tasty and cheap:

-Boil water
-Chop carrots
-Chop garlic
-Add carrots and garlic to boiling water
-Boil for slightly longer than the LP version of 'In-Gadda-da-Vida'
-Add slightly less than half as much brown rice as there is water, listen to side one of Neil Young's 'After the Gold Rush' LP
-Reduce heat, add curry paste, cayenne pepper, sea salt and a couple globs of non-hydrogenated peanut butter (seriously)
-Stir, simmer on low heat, listen to side two of '...Gold Rush'.

Serve with water, juice or coffee. Eat where the computer isn't.

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If you really must eat at the computer, please wear dark clothing in solid colors- those bright yellow floral  sweatpants are attracting some seriously Fat Thoughts and it's putting me off my beans.

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Note: I recently got an email from G. He's lost 18 pounds!

Snow Me Down

It snowed in Fallentown yesterday, one of the largest accumulations in recent memory. It used to snow like this fairly often when I was a child, but in the last 20 years or so, snow has become increasingly uncommon.

Above is the view from my apartment as seen when I woke up Saturday morning.

Below is the view at noon, just before I set out on my cross-country trudge to the radio station. Note that the concrete fencing across the street has vanished into the snow by this time and that it has become much darker. The wind was howling, blowing gritty, abrasive snow pellets in a horizontal blast that seemed to find every loose stitch in my cobbled-together layers of clothes.

Getting closer to the station:

Visibility was extremely limited- the camera  sees much better than I could, the snow was  blinding me, the wind was blowing the freezing mix directly into my watery eyes, making snapshots difficult.

Finally, I arrive at the studio!

This is where I would put the playlist, but our website kept crashing during my show and I wasn't able to finish posting it. I was happy to see that I maxed out our webstream a few times though, that means we had the maximum possible number of listeners on-line...it feels good knowing that there is an audience out there. I doubt that many people will like every  song that I play on the air, but it seems like there are those who will sit through one song in order to see what the next one brings...I like that idea, anyway. I don't know if it's true, but I like it.

This is what I see today:

I need coffee:

After achieving a state of highly-caffeinated Nirvana, I am ready to rock! My  ever-evolving recording technique combines high-technology with brute force in  ways that were impossible years ago and it's quite an interesting challenge; while most of the heavy lifting (including the mug design) is being done in England by Cary Grace, some of the more egregious guitar abuses and ear-shattering industrial sounds were generated and/or recorded here in Amuurica by yours truly.

This is what a guitar solo looks like at my house. There are three of me on this take:

Well, I'd better get to work. Various snow-related situations have set me back a bit but the show goes on, rain, wind or snow...actually , I wish it were raining-I  like recording during rainstorms, it helps me focus, electrical storms are even better...but I digress.
Ow.

Back And There Again

This is me (circa 1988) playing with one of my old bands. Note the beer on top of the amplifier...that was called "pay". It also helps explain why I thought it was OK to perform in public while wearing a filthy Burger King T-shirtand cut-off jeans...unwashed clothes and free beer were all I could afford back then.  I spent all my money on important stuff like guitar pedals and dope.

If you are in a band, it is hard to do anything but lose money; when you add in equipment costs, promotions expenses, rehearsal space and pharmaceutical needs, it quickly becomes a money pit...but it is very, very easy to get drunk for free.


I played in various unsuccesful bands on and off until the year 2001, when the ulnar nerve in my left arm gave way and required two surgeries to repair. By the time I had the final surgery, my fingers had become swollen and purple, my fingers were  numb and my elbow was in constant agony. I was on prescription painkillers for months...a habit I exacerbated with non-stop binge drinking.

My arm was repaired and I wound up beating the odds and regaining nearly full use of my arm and hand but the pills and drinking continued for years afterward; there are posts in this blog from that period where I am gleefully boasting about mixing liqour and pills, taalking as if it were fun. It's not. I had become fat, isolated and depressed and was too drunk to notice or  to care.

In 2005, all the fun I wasn't having finally caught up to me. One fall night, I started vomiting blood and -after several hours of sheer agony- I knew it wasn't going to stop on its own. I was dying and I knew it.

I made it to the hospital, where I had a stomach pump, a couple of grande mal seizures, a few surgeries,  a number of transfusions and underwent subsequent daily psychiatric and medical evalutions. After nearly a week, I was deemed sane and healthy enough to be released to my own care. I haven't had a drink since then.

I don't wish to extensively re-visit that week, but in hindsight I am struck by two things:

1) I had to debate with myself whether or not I went to the hospital. I wasn't sure if I wanted to live or not- I actually had to think about it. I never want to have that internal debate again.

2) I never beseeched God or tried to make my piece with Him.  I was dying and I never once implored  any celestial beings for help, but I didn't think about it at the time; it was a few years later when a lover asked me about my faith...my first answer leaned toward agnosticism, but I recalled that horrible night of near-dying and changed my answer to a "no". There are some of us in foxholes  after all.

Anway,I dropped the booze, shaved my head, lost sixty pounds and started living the more-or-less straight life- even serving as a bona fide Federal agent, sans any real authority.  The Federal job started off wonderfully but soon became a non-stop series of nightmares, I was laid off and rehired a half-dozen times, often with no warning at all...I  sure am glad I escaped before the proposed Federal budget freeze goes into effect.
(I must have been asleep when John McCain won the election)

But music has never left me. I've been a radio DJ for three years, I still have the guitar and the amp and, after a hiatus that lasted years, I'm playing again.

 I love that.

Eating Gibberish

 Armed with a fresh cup of coffee, I swipe my ID card over the doorknob  and listen with satisfaction as it *clicks* open, granting me access to the file room where I'm being trained by a soon-to -be retired employee.

I work for an outsourcing company that has moved in and taken over all of Company X's office services, forcing hundreds of people out of jobs nationwide...some are taking early retirement and severance, some have stayed on with the new company, but most of them are just plain laid-off.  I am part of the 'cost-cutting'...I have been on both ends of this merry go-round more than once, I'm afraid. It's terrible karma and I know it's only a matter of time before my company loses the contract to a lower bidder and I'm unemployed again.

If I don't get fired first. The transition isn't going very smoothly. I'm being trained by a tiny old lady who reminds me of my own grandmother in some ways...she's a pack-rat with an alternative non-alphanumeric filing system that only she understands, for starters.

Unlike my late grandmother, my co-worker is deaf as a post. She nods, grins and gives a 'thumbs-up'  to almost any statement, comment or question.

ME: "These yellow files...where do they go?"

HER: (nodding) "Yes."

ME: "No...where do these  with these labels go? Are they filed by name? Or account #? Or date? I can see clumps of  ABC here...but these are arranged by sticker number...these are by date and these are...I dunno? They all look the same, but they are filed in different order."

HER: Picks teeth with finger, stares at ceiling sprinkler.


ME: "Wow. You can't hear anything can you? I'm thinking that this filing system would work better in three dimensions-  that what we really need is a time/space wormhole here- where the letter A is- that reaches across the quantum wotsit over to this shelf two rows away where the letter B is. I'll need overtime approval. And that teeth-picking is gross."

HER: "That's the light switch."

ME: "The light switch?"

HER: Grins, gives thumbs-up.

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At least music still makes sense. To me, anyway.

THE NEW BREAKFAST SNOB, JAN 16TH 1PM-3PM

The Clash- Koka Kola- London Calling-(Epic)
Talking Heads- Don't Worry About The Government- '77-(Sire)
ShawnFarley- Help is on The Way- 5240- (SF)
The Stranglers- Under The Name Of Spain- Aural Sculpture- (Epic)

Vanilla Fudge- Season of The Witch- 45- (Atco)

Cary Grace- Vanishing- Single- (Door 13)

I interrupt this playlist to announce that I'm really happy with what Cary Grace is doing with the first Monday Machines CD. She is producing, engineering, playing a great  many instruments, singing, writing...more...she's also done the website and all of the Monday Machines designs.

Me, I should be playing guitar instead of typing this...I'm  in Monday  Machines too, although I've never actually met Cary or Andy B. and Dave P., the superb bass and drums combo featured on the first MM CD. (And here.) I record my guitars, tractors and vocals here in the USA and use the Intertube to send them to Cary's lab in the UK, where she decodes my musical hieroglyphics using her Rosetta Stone pedal and blends them with  music and sounds  recorded there...it's the best band I've ever been in.

Cursive- Art Is Hard- The Ugly Organ- (SaddleCreek)
Clara Bellino- Swordfish Trombones- Embarcadero Love- (CB)

Astronauts of Antiquity- Breakthrough - Rocket Science For Dummies-(RevCon)
Diana Krall- Temptation- The Girl In The Other Room-(Verve)
T and T- Trippo Nova- (If I Knew I would Tell You)
Led Zeppelin- The Rain Song- Houses of the Holy-(SwanSong)
Dare Dukes- Kick and Holler- Prettiest Transmitter of All- (Starland)

Pretty Things- Scene One/Good Mister Square/She Was Tall, She Was High- Parachute- (Edsel)
Faust- Untitled- The Faust Tapes
Golden Palominos- No Skin- Pure- (Restless)
Firewater- Borneo- The Golden Hour- (Bloodshot)
Peter Bayreuther- Kinder Von Universe- 1997- (PB)
Nina Hagen- African Reggae- NHB-(Columbia)
Stephen Luke- Long Way From Home- No Man's Land- (Sweet Lucy)
801 - Baby's On Fire- 801 Live- (Expression)
Tom Verlaine- Always- Dreamtime- (Warner)

Leonard Cohen- Hallelujah- Various Positions- (Passport)
XTC- Dear God- Skylarking- (Geffen)
Neil Young- Sun Green- Greendale- (Reprise)

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