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thinly-concealed veins of riches
Saturday, October 14 2000
It must say something about how much I enjoy oral sex that I'm not in the least bit upset that I'm too inflexible to suck my own dick.
It was another one of those hard-to-find-initiative hangover days. I took a bath, I took two different shits, the second hotter and more horrendously odious than the first.
"Like she'd just eaten a shit sandwich" is a phrase my housemate John used the other day to describe the Vice Principal's breath at the Beverly Hills school where he teaches. I couldn't get that image out of my head as I sat out on the porch this afternoon eating a sandwich. Overhead in a Bottlebrush Tree was a Mourning Dove looking very cozy and intelligent as it preened its feathers.
My head has been full of very disorganized quasi-intellectual thoughts, some regarding Selfish Gene Theory and some regarding methods of building and educating a program capable of passing a Turing Test. I've decided that if I ever actually build a program to simulate the language ability of a human, the place I will develop and educate it will be in the unforgiving meatgrinder of my Vodkatea forum, where it will appear as a completely automated user and learn to interact based on the reactions users have to it. Meanwhile I'm running database models through my mind, trying to figure out how best to store example-based rules for English.
As I was cruising the alleys of Brentwood today, I found myself thinking about the wealth that lies just beneath the surface, circulating through it all like blood in an enormous circulatory system. In a place like Brentwood, the cash flow is obviously very good and not far from the street. If I were to add up all the hundred dollar bills I passed within 40 feet of, the sum would come to millions just from this one excursion. It's a high pressure system and the walls of the arteries and veins are strong, but it's still possible to tap into it. Or, alternatively, you can look around for the many leaks and harvest the wealth there. That's pretty much what I've been doing with my alley trash picking. But there are many other ways to get to the wealth flowing from those well-guarded but thinly-concealed veins. You have to be observant and opportunistic and perseverant. You don't even have to be all that lucky; after a few tries you'll get it right. Or maybe not. It's a struggle of competing intelligences out there, and most of them are not as sharp, observant and perseverant as you. As I ride around, I look at the pigeons, doves, and most obvious of all, the crows, and see that they've got this place figured out. They walk around lazily and contentedly and step aside to let me pass. They are much better adapted to survival in Brentwood than, say, OJ Simpson.
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