THE MORE THINGS CHANGE

Sometimes it's the music, sometimes it's a shadow in the corner of your eye. And then you wonder, 'was it really that long ago?' To be quite honest, I do not miss the seventies and the eighties. In retrospect those were fairly unpleasant. Much like one or two decades hence we will think of this era. The best of times, the worst of times, and the time we finally gave up on Chef Boyardee and Rice A Roni.

As a side note, not really relevant, someone asked me about double claro (candela) cigars the other day. Those were popular in the sixties, when grumpy old men with tuna sandwich breath cruised down the highways in the fast lane at fifty miles an hour. They were barely over five feet tall, their pants were cinched up to their sternums, and they vociferously hated the modern era, sonny, back in my day gerdammit! You knew not to ask them anything.

Their grandchildren use personal mobility scooters and now block the aisles at suburban discount emporiums. And smell vaguely of stale crispi-snax.
Kinda fried and rancid.


On the whole I do not miss the past. Some facets were good, but largely it stank.
Modern medicine was in its infancy, and there were no computers.
Personal entertainment was large and cumbersome.
Not conveniently palm-sized.

The old days.

One thing I do rather miss is the excitement of finding sources of hot chili paste and excellent coffee. The sheer satisfaction of defeating the drang nach mediokrität that marked American tastes back then, when the coffee was usually long cooked yet weak lunch counter sludge, the only spice was a dust covered bottle of Tabasco which had been on the shelves in the back next to the canned whole chicken for ten years, and if you put anything other than ketchup on your fries you were considered a heretic, possibly communist.


"Well hot shit, Gomer, will ya lookit that! He's using red stuff that ain't Heinz! I don't know how he does it! Cain't be healthy!"


Today I'll be putting oodles of Sriracha on my lunch, and the other patrons will not think me a right freak for doing so. Life is considerable better than it was.


There may be other reasons to think me a freak and a heretic, but my food and caffeine preferences are not among them.


Greatest line on the internet today: "when snow daleks melt, they upset the neighbors".


Good times.



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