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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gauguin who wrote (42221)	11/19/1999 3:09:00 PM
From: Kid Rock	Respond to of 71178

:) A few lyrics from Kid Rock to keep this grub on topic!! And this is for the questions that don't have any answers The midnight glancers and the topless dancers The gang of freaks, cars packed with speakers The G's with the forties and the chicks with beepers The Northern Lights and the Southern Comfort And it don't even matter if the veins are punctured All the crackheads, the critics, the cynics And my heros in the Methadone Clinic All you bastards at the IRS For the crooked cops and the cluttered desks For the shots of jack and the caps of meth Half pints of love and the fifths of stress For the hookers all tricking out in Hollywood And for my hoods of the world misunderstood I said it?s all good and it's all in fun Now get in the pit and try to love someone

To: Gauguin who wrote (42221)	11/19/1999 5:18:00 PM
From: Crocodile	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 71178

Hmmm...........there is a story brewing in my head this afternoon... thinking about... ...cancer vs. radiation... ...pain vs. mega-painkillers... ...note the theme of dualism.... dualism a twofold division: a system founded on a double basis or based in belief in two fundamental existences; the belief in two antagonistic supernatural beings, the one good, the other evil.... not really much unlike "duel-ism" -- a premeditated combat between two persons with deadly weapons for the purpose of deciding some private difference or quarrel.... hmmmm... Odd how one thought leads to another...associations... like the sweet potato and your father... The discussion about cancer and pain brought an odd association to mind this afternoon... a peculiar childhood memory... One of my younger brothers, who would have been about 3 at the time, used to try to go down the basement stairs... something he wasn't supposed to do... I don't really know why, but he seemed to be fascinated by the stairs which had a landing about half-way down... there was a door on the landing that led out into the backyard.. . If the upstairs door wasn't kept locked, my brother would attempt to get down the stairs to the basement... My dad found a way to keep him from even trying... He had one of those old latex rubber masks that you could pull over most of your head... it was red rubber and had an absolutely hideous "Devil" face on it. If my dad left the Devil mask hanging on the doorknob of the door down on the landing, my brother wouldn't so much as go near the staircase... He would go to the top of the stairs, open the door just a crack, see the Devil down on the doorknob, and slam the door shut and run away... It worked well... But the Devil in the basement made me kind of... uhm...angry... I was about 6 and was allowed to go down the basement, but once the Devil was on the doorknob, I didn't really want to go down there anymore. Without revealing my intentions, I asked my grandmother about the Devil...not that specific Devil, but all devils in general... She, being somewhat religious, told me about how God and the Devil were enemies and that he kept the Devil away...how he had cast the Devil down into Hell. Obviously this made some kind of impression on me because I decided to make use of the information and take matters into my own hands concerning the Devil that was hanging out on our basement stairs... On the chosen day, there were no adults about... my mom was in her bedroom with my youngest brother who had just arrived home from the hospital with her the day before... and my dad was at work. Taking a piece of chalk from my blackboard kit, I went into the dining room... near the top of the stairs where the dreaded Devil resided. Then, I drew a very large picture of God on the hardwood floor... God had to be big...and he was... He filled the room right to the edges... and had big wings that were the entire length of the room. He had long white hair and a white beard... I kind of think I got that part from a painting of Moses in some illustrated bible... But the best part..the part that I remember the most...were the eyes... They were like spiraling mandalas... really scary eyes... because this God had to be really mean so that he could stare down the Devil...keep him "at bay" so to speak... After God was all finished... my brother and I took the dustmop...the kind that used to have a V-shaped metal "frame" that slid inside of the mop head... Anyhow,.. we took the mophead off...and armed with our weapon, we descended the stairs together and captured the Devil on the metal frame end of the mop... and then we cast that Devil down... cast him right to the bottom of the stairs... mop handle and all... Such a feeling of empowerment... Hallelujah!! The Devil had been driven out of our stairway and cast down into the bowels of our rec room!!!... Well... I know... it's not really much of a story... but it's just the one that came to mind on this dull autumn evening... I'm not much for Gods or Devils these days...... but I do sometimes think of how odd things are... how dualism seems to exist... and the antagonistic manifestations of it... and how in the midst of this, we often have to create a place of safety between the halves... sort of like a Navajo medicine man creating a sandpainting to bridge two realities while attempting to restore balance...