9:17, 9:18, BIG, LIG

A colleague of mine put a burden on my shoulders, telling me what a positive influence I have on other people.

I don't know what he's talking about.  I really don't.

I see the world through Groucho Marx, funhouse glasses.

I envy the sarcasm of Mark Twain.

I support artists but I don't support the arts.

I think the future belongs to our youth and then I remember what a juvenile delinquent I was at times, hiding behind the mask of my Eagle Scout goodness.

I am screwed-up, complicated and borderline insane and yet one of the most normal people, too.

I like friends who introduce me to Christopher Titus and Titus Andronicus.  I like friends who find both offensive.

Some days, I wish I was dead and some days, I wish I lived forever.

I walk through the forest, being careful not to step on spiders, snails, leaflets (tiny plants) or lichen/moss but kill thousands of insects on my drive to/from the forest carpark.

In one moment, I love every one of the seven billion members of my species and the next moment, I tell them to kiss my ass.

I know I'll quickly be forgotten when I die but want to be remembered long after I'm gone.

The Committee wants me to admit I'm in charge of the world but the world doesn't know I'm in charge of paying off my charge cards, let alone the silent switchboard operator making invisible connections to keep us happily diverted from reality.

Couched in humour, propped up with slapstick and napping in broad daylight.

How can an old fart like me have any influence, positive or otherwise, when I intentionally hide the future from you for my entertainment, revealing bits and pieces by toying with the marionettes and voodoo dolls in these words?

I'm no Andy Griffith but I enjoy his humour every now and then.  I'm no Andrew Dice Clay, either, but I can tell a good bad joke when I want to, using profanity as a rare spice, not as a blunt force dose of salt to hide the weak, poor-tasting punchline.

Opportunity knocks all the time and I just turn up the volume on my ear-deafening headset, wanting to be left alone analysing my overwhelming accurate plots of what's going to happen next, hoping something will numb the numbing numbness.

I didn't ask for this life but it's not like anything else has come along that I can switch into.  Not yet.

I love all of you but don't ask me to be a positive influence.  Just let me be my happily-flawed self, making my way through this world like everyone else, pretending to be unaware of what's in the middle of our states of energy that tells it like it is.

And yes, my associates, I got the clear message about Assange - I'll do what I can to slow and tone things down but some things still have to be said.  I'm sorry for the rush and the aftereffects on some of you, but the future requires one or two more rearrangements of the past.  It's for the general good, you know.