Legends

In my neighborhood there was a legend of an 8 year old boy who defeated the original Legend of Zelda in less than 2 hours, all on his first try. He did so without the aid of walkthroughs or older brothers. Many believed the boy to be the real life incarnation of the hero Link. I never met the child prodigy and could never authenticate this story, but I gained a great deal from his legend. His example gave me the strength to push myself to grater heights. At age 12 I was the first in my town to successfully gathered all 120 stars of Mario 64.

I don't write this to boast of myself, I know it comes of as vain, I only mention this feat in hopes of giving others courage to rise to grater heights. Many tasks in life, at first, may seem insurmountable, and sadly often when we hear tales of heroic feats, we write them off as Legends, because that is a lot easier than raising our own bar. I guarantee you, that with a little ambition, a lot of patience, and a modicum of resolve, you too can gather every last star in your own copy of Mario 64 and meet in victory with Yoshi on the rooftop of the princesses castle!

One odd thing about legends like Bigfoot is that early photographic images of them always come up blurry.  I did some research and it turns out that even early images of the hero link from the Legend of Zelda were surprisingly blurry. Does this mean as technology evolves Legends evolve along with it?... if you are epileptic scroll down quickly.

I took a college class on legends and fairy tales a few years back, and the one story that stood out the most was the Arabian Nights. Basically this girl was supposed to be executed for something but got out of it by telling the Sultan stories with cliff hangers every night. The cool thing is how the Arabian Nights was not written down for years. There were hundreds of these subplots that grew out of this one main story, and finally someone decided to write a bunch of em down. Each story seemed to have a moral or manipulative message embedded in them, like don't hit goats. I forget exactly, but the important thing is the way legends evolve almost in a Darwinian manner. If one generation didn't like a story they wouldn't pass it down to the next, or if they did they would at least change things here and there.

Some have defined legends as being unauthenticated. I can not tell you the origin of this definition because the definition itself is in fact legendary. I think it is human nature to leave some things uncharted and mysterious. If I were to ever meet the Zelda boy I would most certainly be disappointed at the details of his life. I think even if Bigfoot was authentic most would want to hold on to him, or her as a legend because Bigfoot is way more entertaining as a mystery than just another zoo attraction. To illustrate this a little, here is a clip I found about a human chimp named Oliver aka little big foot. He walks upright has a bald head, and looves beef jerky.

Maybe all Bigfoot is is just a bigger version of Oliver. Which opens the door to a future movie mashup, Teenage Mutant Ninja Bigfoot. And maybe we can just change his origin story completely and say he is just an alien.

Reconciliation

If reconciliation means to coexist in harmony, it seems to be a tall order. If someone has deeply wounded you, how do you coexist with them in harmony? Well we all coexist with everyone on the opposite side of the planet technically. It seems to me that forgiveness doesn't automatically include regaining trust or credibility. I once stole $5 from my sister's sock drawer and spent it all on ice cream, she of course stole that ice cream from me and even after all my trouble I didn't even get one bite of it. That was 25 years ago, and I'm still a little bitter about the whole thing. Sure I've sense forgiven her for it, but can I trust her around ice cream again? Sometimes at birthday parties I will let my guard down a little, but not if it's ice cream cake, so we are working on rebuilding that trust, but it takes time.

Some fractured relationships can be repaired with a little bit of communication, like with Tig and Taylor Dayne. Sometimes though, communication can lead to insults or insinuations, which can even lead to punching and or wrestling, this can be fun if done with over sized boxing gloves in a bouncy castle. This is how me and my wife decide who gets to choose what's for dinner on date nights. The first time I let her win she chose vegan food, I never let her win again.

Actually this isn't us, this is just some idiot on a prom date. Good luck explaining this one to her dad. 

I do get in fights with my wife, but only when I'm driving. I have a problem with road rage, and she argues that the other drivers can't hear me yelling at them, that only she can, and it's "incredibly annoying". So one day I decided to use sign language to communicate with my fellow drivers, and she still got mad and said "you really need to expand your vocabulary", and I had to eat vegan food again. That's how we harmonize, I guess it works for now but eventually I'm going to need to learn how to coexist in harmony with other driver's as well, that or get a helicopter.

Lastly, I wanted to share this animated version of the prodigal son story. By now we all know that the moral of the story is to have a cool dad.

I don't necessarily believe this is how the real story went down. What I think really happened was, the family's cable went out and the son got bored, one thing lead to another and he ended up eating pig slop out of a trough, and the real moral of the story is, don't let your son eat pig slop out of a trough, get rid of cable and upgrade to Direct TV. And as an added bonus with satellite TV, you'll never have to spend another awkward dinner talking about your day again, thus avoiding any miss communications and de-harmonization.

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Twins

I've always wanted my own twin, but I guess I wasn't that good at multitasking in the womb to make that happen. Also I called shotgun. Every time I see a set of twins I can't help think to about how much sleep deprivation their parents must have had. Which explains why you would you force your kids to wear matching cowboy outfits, not even on an non Halloween night? That's a double negative, and I don't mean grammatically.


Here is a clip we didn't have time to share. It deals with nature vs nurture. It's about twins Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein, who were deliberately separated at birth as part of a psychiatric study. Later in life they found each other on their own. And one of them immediately died her hair.


Luckily the mad scientists that separated them got some fascinating results! They both went to film school, were editors of their high school papers, dealt with depression, and share similar mannerisms. I'd call that experiment a smashing success! You may have to throw out the shared depression part though, I have a feeling that was maybe due to a mysterious case of separation anxiety? I must admit, it would have been much classier if the scientists would have asked them as babies first if they even wanted to be separated. They might have even agreed to it after their first Halloween together.


Now I'd like to turn my attention to the whims of knitting. Despite the comical nature in which knitting was discussed on the podcast this week, there has been an emerging problem of knitted graffiti, aka yarn bombing aka yarn storms. Look at this once beautiful tree, now destroyed by some needling freak! 

Who would do this, and why? Think of the cats! What feline could possibly resist clawing up such a tree? How many cats must we rescue before we stand up and fight this madness?! If you have any decency please stop. I don't care if you're grandma's a huge Dr. Seuss fan and you forgot her birthday, don't do this. If you have any information leading to the capture and successful intervention of the leader of this revolution, known by Wikipedia as Deadly Knitshade, please come forward. I think this is a photograph of her resting on a stool...

Thank you.

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Music Vol. 1

In high school, my choir director would always say, "Music begins and ends in SILENCE!" Apparently, the applause at the end of each song was just an extension of the music. When I shared that thought with her, she told me to shut up, and I said, "Why, is there a song about to start somewhere?", and she would murder me with her eyeball laser stare of death.

Despite my onset anxiety triggered by traveling high school choirs, I must admit, when used correctly, music can be very therapeutic. But when music falls into the wrong hands, in malls during the holidays, no one is safe. School choirs are the sirens of the mall, distracting you from your odyssey of holiday shopping. Clearly I need to get over my traumatic past. I need musical therapy!

I have done a little research on musical therapy, they say that some studies date back to as early as the 1950's which means people have know about music for a long time! Research has evolved though, now we have technology to look at the brain and see how neurons are affected while people are listening to music. Here is a video that talks about some of the studies being done.

So music can bring back bad or good memories, just like smells. Just imagine mixing the two, smooth jazz playing in the background of a french pastry shop? If that doesn't jump start your positive memory synapses, you need a new childhood!

I get a lot of therapy from playing the piano, even though piano lessons always stressed me out. Playing the piano got me through some depressing times, now that I'm happily married and I love wife, I don't feel like I need to tickle the ivory as much. How many great musical careers have been nipped in the bud because of happy, healthy relationships? And one more thing, are they doing musical therapy research on lab rats as well? The answer is yes, and here comes the flute part...of that research.

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