Posts

Posted on

THE PARROT NEXT DOOR


image

Inside the shadows of the lanai next door lurks a loquacious parrot. Bevy Mae and me can’t see him, but we know he’s in there, because he talks — a lot.

We want to meet him. But we are visitors on vacation, and it doesn’t seem quite right to walk up to the neighbor’s front door and announce, “Hi, we’re the neighbors from up north. Can we see your talking parrot?”

It seems a little forward, like something kids might do, right?

Every morning the parrot wakes us up with cries of “Lisa!” and “Chuck, Chuck!” When Chuck and Lisa don’t come running (and so far they haven’t) he can throw a bit of a hissy-fit and bang his cage like a tin can. Sometimes he hurls what sounds like obscenities.

I don’t want our neighbors — who I’ve met by the way; sweet folks from South America — to imagine that my wife and I don’t anything but adore their bird. We really do.

The parrot has an astounding repertoire of words and phrases that are nothing short of amazing. His Burt Lancaster accents and phraseology make me believe he may have been in the movies.

We will keep you posted on all the cute things he says and does.

image

4:30PM   The talking parrot was well behaved this afternoon. He said the following:

Charlie! Ow! Come ‘ere!
Hush up!
Hey Dad!
Charlie! Wee ooh!
Charlie! Wee ooh!
Chuck! Chuck!
Tweet! Wee ooh!
(etc. etc.)

10:00PM Friday  We didn’t hear the parrot today. Really miss him.

6:30 PM Sunday  The Parrot is back! Here is a transcript:

Wee ooh! Wee ooh! Hello.
Ee yooh. Tweet. Woo. Charlie!
What!? Joe?
Hey. Hey. Get out here!  [obscenity]
Hey! Hey girl. Hey. Hey.  [obscenity]
Charlie?  [farting sounds]
Hey girl  [whistles]
Hey John!
Tweet. Tweet. Tweet.
Doll?
Hey dad!  Hey dad!  [squeak]
Whoo! Whoo! Chirp. [bangs cage]
Charlie. Charlie. Wee ooh.
Chirp. Chirp.
Hey!  Help!
Whew!
(etc. etc.)

Billy Lee

Random Reads:

JESUS, THE CHRIST

They all conspire together. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright worse than a thorn hedge. The day God visits you has come. ...>>

MERRY CHRISTMAS

The man who saved the world from sin started life as a helpless baby. He slipped into history unnoticed but his anonymity didn't last. ...

WHY SOMETHING, NOT NOTHING?

People assume they see nothing, but in every case when they look closely they find something... air, quantum fluctuations, vacuum energy. ...>>

ILLUSIONS

ISIS was formed by Saddam's family and loyal remnants of his army who are trying to take back what they lost during the Bush presidency. ...>>

LAST GASPS

Some conjecture that universes are nothing more than black holes, which form an infinite foam that flows perhaps to infinity. ...>>

CULTS

Ayn Rand was not able to see into the dystopian future her utopian vision would unleash on the world. Rand was blind to resource depletion, the fate of places like Easter Island, emergence of artificial intelligence, lab leaks of superbugs, or a roiling atmosphere clogged with particulate poisons from forest fires and nuclear power, its accidents and potential for war. ...>>

RELATED READS

Posted on

SHOULD THIS BOOK BE FINISHED?

My book is called “Journal.”

Sanitorium, USSR
Sanatorium. Name and location unknown.

Writing Journal has inflicted upon me a certain pain and anguish of mind and soul. Yes, I wrote it — secretly, furtively — in the sanatorium pictured above. But I forewarn you. Journal is a work of fiction. It is not real. Why don’t you believe me?

Nothing happened except between the twisted wires of my tortured mind. I swear it.

Journal is unfinished. Indeed, it cannot be finished — not without your consent; not without your cooperation. Will you cooperate? Will you allow this book to bubble forth from the sewer of my polluted soul?

May I interview you in the privacy of my basement?

Be advised. I’m not normal. I endured twelve years in the psychiatric hospital pictured above. They used me like a lab rat then released me after the Soviet Union collapsed.

Any reminders of that fiendish hell — even those hiding inside the ephemeral anamnesis of a forgotten oil painting — inject fibrillations of fear into my drug-damaged heart.

The asylum is located somewhere inside the old Soviet Republic. I can’t say exactly where, because they never told me.

But they did do things to me. Unusual things.

starship troopers operation scene
Inside Russian Sanatorium. UPD unclassified photo.

Today I am free and live inside the United States under an identity created for me by the NSA’s Unusual Persons Division. I am grateful of course to the UPD for my new life. In fact, I couldn’t be happier.

HA!

You see, I am a survivor.

I’m alive!

Sigh… Burp…  Oh yes. I’m real.

Free.

Authentic.

Journal is fiction.

Yes, the events I suffered to describe never happened. 

You seem to be a trusting sort; young; innocent. May I confess? May I share a secret? Will you keep it and never tell? It means so much.

You can be the very first one to help me.  I need your love so bad. Surely, someone understands. 

Twelve years in the funny farm… 

Guess what?

I’m still insane!

Billy Lee

Random Reads:

YOU'RE FIRED!

Companies closed their doors to millions of young Americans whose crime was protesting an undeclared, genocidal war at the end of the world. ... >>

UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA

Folks want to get to the bottom of this mystery. For them it’s not lunacy; it’s not a joke; there is nothing funny about films of objects that behave outside of the limits of the physics familiar to humanity... >>

BEGGING FOR IT

The North Koreans and Chinese were the first to challenge America after WWII. Our arsenal of atomic weapons didn't intimidate them. .... >>

OBAMACARE AND THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Opposition to Barack Obama's health care plan began six years ago, before he was elected President. Opposition has continued unabated. ...>>

END OF SPACE

It is impossible for any living thing to secure a vantage point in space from which it might observe the entire universe....>>

BAD THINGS

Dad was fearless to the end of his 91 years. He once ate a half pound of spoiled cheese, because it was a gift. .... >>

RELATED READS

Posted on

WHAT IS LIFE?

This February marks the 71st anniversary of the lecture series What is Life? presented at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland by quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger — best known today for his Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment.

baby in bubble

In these lectures Schrödinger correctly described — ten years before James Watson and Francis Crick published their work on the structure of DNA (for which they won the Nobel prize in 1962) — many of the important and essential markers of the yet undescribed and undiscovered molecule that we now know determines everything about us and all other living things.

The lectures are remarkable for their prescience and clarity — they have an almost prophetic quality about them — but what I found most interesting (and it’s all interesting to me) are Schrödinger’s observations in the Epilogue, which he labeled On Determinism and Free Will.

fish escapes fish bowl

After some warm-up remarks he says:

But immediate experiences in themselves, however various and disparate they be, are logically incapable of contradicting each other.

So let us see whether we cannot draw the correct, non-contradictory conclusion from the following two premises: (i) My body functions as a pure mechanism according to the Laws of Nature. (ii) Yet I know, by incontrovertible direct experience, that I am directing its motions, of which I foresee the effects that may be fateful and all-important, in which case I feel and take full responsibility for them.

What follows might blow your mind.  

What is Life?

Billy Lee

Random Reads:

BILLY LEE TWITTER LISTS (X)

NOTE FROM EDITORS: BILLY LEE'S "X" ACCOUNT DEACTIVATED 11-24-2024. COLLABORATION WITH BILLIONAIRE "LEON" NOT A TBLP CORE VALUE. [Updates to Twitter lists and contributors occur frequently. Anyone who wants to add celebrities, experts, or subjects please ask in comments. ...]

ALIENS

The problem for the aliens is they didn’t bring weapons. Many hundreds of the captured are kept in cages at Area 51. Surely, someone “out there” knows...>>

CONTRADICTIONS

When Jesus says the Bible harbors contradictions, that kind of settles the matter, does it not? It seems that for some, it doesn't. ...>>

SCREWED

Artificial Intelligence is going to get upper hand on humanity, one way or other. People with common sense fear it's true. They could be right...>>

MAKE AMERICA BREAK AGAIN

The time has arrived when everyone must let go of fear and act like the heroes we must become to protect everything and everyone we care about. ...>>

ARMAGEDDON

''Minty" Ross Harriet Tubman will not appear on the $20 bill until 2026. Some say it could be later. The cynical say it will never happen. ... >>

RELATED READS