Category Archives: B words

Bail

Bail: (n) the temporary release of an accused person awaiting trial, guaranteed by a sum of moneyDictionary B

Once upon a time in a delirium far away, I considered myself to be a crusader for good. Matter of fact, I made it known to those around me that I was out to make my community a better place, one human soul at a time.

God, I felt noble. I actually sensed I was infused with supernatural energy and purpose.

In the process of walking through this cloudy-mindedness, I became known in my community as someonoe who would assist those who found themselves in trouble with the law, or even temporarily jammed into a jail cell.

So when Carrie called me at two o’clock in the morning, explaining that she had been falsely arrested for shoplifting and she needed help, I arose from my bed, put on my pants, grabbed my car keys and drove down to the city jail.

They allowed me to talk to her and I discovered that she had been shopping. apparently forgot that she had tried on some garment and was headed out of the store and was detained by security and placed under arrest for stealing.

It’s not so much that I believed her story as the fact that being under the influence of this false bravado of mission, I felt it was wrong of me to be cynical.

Her bail was $75, so I decided to pay it and let her come back to our house, where I intended to help her rehabilitate herself and become a fine citizen of the country that Washington and Lincoln built.

I noticed on the drive back to my house that Carrie had transformed from a repentant, teary-eyed lass of misfortune into a rather mouthy, self-centered and cautious individual, who wasn’t so sure she wanted to stay in our home. Matter of fact, by the next morning, she got itchy after breakfast, went out the door and I didn’t see her again until two weeks later, when I showed up for her court date.

She once again had donned her damsel-in-distress profile and succeeded in getting off with only community service for pinching the garments. Shortly after that, she disappeared.

I learned something through the process: nothing has value to any of us if we don’t have memory of possessing it and losing it.

$75 didn’t mean anything to Carrie, and the fact that I paid her bail was irrelevant. It had been some time since she had seen $75 and she certainly had never paid the bail for someone else.

It’s not that poor people are pernicious assholes–it’s just that they have no point of reference of what you’re giving up to help them, so it’s easy for them to walk away…without a thank-you.

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Bagpipes

Bagpipes: (n) a musical instrument with reed pipes, esp. associated with ScotlandDictionary B

I have yet to figure out how to be nice and honest at the same time.

  • The pursuit of nice is essential to the human race–otherwise we will constantly be on the verge of grumpy, lending itself to war.
  • The quest for honesty is equally as important, or we will be labeled as deceptive or openly proclaimed a liar.
  • The trick is in blending the two.

Case in point: traveling on the road, playing an instrument and performing always, after the show, tends to draw individuals to me who are also aspiring artisans.

On one such occasion, a gentleman walked up and said that he had played his instrument for twenty-five years. I admired him for longevity of his craft.

He said to me, “Would you like to hear my instrument? It’s just out in the trunk.”

I should have come up with a quick excuse to escape the moment by pleading some form of busy activity. but I got cornered by my own lack of response and replied, “Well, I’ve got a few minutes…”

He disappeared and shortly came back in–carrying bagpipes.

My skin actually crawled. (I realized that this is not just a saying but an actual physical condition.)

For the next twenty minutes I received not only a concert, but instruction on correct ways to breathe and squeeze, in order to become an accomplished bagpipesman.

I did not have the heart to tell this man that bagpipes give me the creeps. Even during the traditional use of them, playing Amazing Grace at a funeral, I often find myself thinking, “Was there no flute available?”

But in my desire to be nice, I ended up being dishonest, which placed upon me the burden of appearing interested.

Fortunately, he finally disengaged himself because he was too busy to continue the lesson. He apologized for his necessary departure.

I do not know if I will ever be able to balance the quality of cordiality with the action of truthfulness, but I can guarantee you that I will never allow myself to be trapped in a room again…with a set of bagpipes.Donate Button

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Bag Lady

Bag lady: (n) a homeless woman who carries her possessions in shopping bags.Dictionary B

Our society has become obsessed with converse thinking.

In other words, if you have the boldness to make a statement or take a stand on an issue which you feel is particularly important, there is always some cynical, perhaps even jaded, passerby, who will pull an obscure point of reference to disprove your contention and try to show it to be ridiculous or foolish idealism.

I mean, you can walk in a room and say to the gathered that we all should learn to love one another, and at the end of half an hour, the denouncing voices will explain that this kind of general affection among humans is impossible because of the dangers of crime and even terrorism.

Never is this more true than on the subject of the homeless.

I have often presented the theory to those around me that it doesn’t hurt one little bit to pull a dollar out to help folks on the street, without feeling the need to inquire of their intentions or plans on using your 100 pennies.

I am frequently argued to the mat by those who present a contrary view, insisting that I am emboldening these individuals to remain without solvency.

Sometimes I am informed how crazy they are.

A certain handful of detractors cite statistics concerning the criminal records of those without a place to sleep.

They will also point out that the homeless and the bag ladies are a blight on the community and needn’t be so because there are agencies to assist them in finding their place in society.

Yes, I will tell you, we live in a converse world.

Those who have decided to become our leaders feel it is essential to present the darker side of every issue as a precautionary tale, lest we become too open to one another and end up with messy conflicts through our generosity.

I am weary of it.

I don’t want to know what the bag lady is going to do with my dollar. If she needs a cheap bottle of wine to get her through the day, then God bless her.

And God damn me if I forbid it out of my self-righteous, superior attitude.

If we don’t get out of our converse thinking, we’re going to begin to believe that there are no absolutes which lead us to goodness.

Instead, in trying to find the potholes… we will cease to build roads. 

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Baggage

Baggage: (n) personal belongings packed in suitcases for traveling; luggage.Dictionary B

For about two years, I did a lot of flying.

Since my personal wings never came in to my satisfaction, I used the airlines. This was prior to the attacks on 9/11. Things were looser then.

Since I was a musical act, I decided to travel with all my instruments and sound equipment. This created a lot of baggage. And honestly, some of it was beyond the 70-pound limit that Southwest Airlines said they would tolerate.

There were two of us traveling, and at that time we were allowed six units. So it became obvious that we were going to have a problem each and every week on our journey if we didn’t find some way to get around the weight limit and the obvious accumulation of baggage that was necessary to take our show on the road.

So I did what I considered to be an intelligent action–I became friends with the skycaps. And the best way to become friends with skycaps is to tip very well, and be nice. (But mostly tip very well.)

I overdid it. But in the process of being excessive, when the skycaps saw me arrive at the airport, they practically wrestled one another to get the privilege of serving me and putting through my numerous bags, which were obviously beyond the realms of airline acceptability.

It worked beautifully.

And I remember on one particular flight, I was thinking about the success of this system–and how it might be applicable to my everyday life.

Since I know I have a lot of baggage and some of it is over the limit, it is a good idea to make sure that I’m always nice, and I leave behind enough blessing and remuneration… to make people glad to see me when I arrive.

 

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Bagel

Bagel: (n) a dense bread roll in the shape of a ring, made by boiling dough and then baking it.Dictionary B

I like bagels.

Of course, considering the fact that I am a food addict, there’s nothing unique about that statement–I rarely run across any particular food that is distasteful to me, unless someone has over-explained where it came from.

One of my favorite stories about bagels revolves around my first journey to New York City. I was a little intimidated to be driving my vehicle in the huge metroplex, especially when I arrived at the George Washington Bridge and saw the back-up of traffic.

Historically, I have made great efforts to stay away from gridlock, because I have no desire to try my patience behind the wheel.

But since I was trapped on the bridge, I decided to make the best of it by looking around at other cars. As I inched my way up the ramp to the bridge itself, I looked to my right and left, and scattered all over the terrain, adjacent to the road, were little, tiny bits and pieces of discarded bagels.

I do not know why this specific location became a dumping ground for the remnants of the breakfast of hundreds of motorists, but there were so many pieces of these bagels lying around that you nearly could not see the ground.

So I put my mind to it.

Obviously, somewhere along the line, this area was bagel-free. God did not create the Heavens and Bagel Earth. In other words, the original earth was free of bagels.

So ONE PERSON decided, looking ahead at oncoming traffic: “Hey! I’d better stop eating this bagel and focus on this driving. What should I do with it?? Look! There’s a completely open field, where I can cast it aside and no one will be the wiser.”

Then the guy behind this pioneer noticed that his fellow-traveler was casting a bagel onto the turf and thought, “What a damn good idea!”

Perhaps thinking there was even some sort of roadblock ahead, to trap a bagel thief, he likewise tossed his.

This certainly created intimidation in Cars 3, 4, 5 and 6, as each one noticed what had to be presumed to be the official “Releasing of the Bagels.”

Of course, by the time eight or nine bagel pieces were thrown aside, it began to appear to the rest of the travelers that this was an official New York Bagel Dumping Ground.

So it certainly did not take too long for this region to become a bagel cemetery.

It gives you pause, doesn’t it?

Sometimes we think our individual actions are so insignificant, unnoticed and lacking in meaning, when actually, the first person who does something can often prompt a mob to join in.

 

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Baffle

Baffle: (v) to totally bewilder or perplex.Dictionary B

I like to pretend that certain things baffle me because I believe it grants me permission to avoid learning something–but actually, I am baffled by very little if I am willing to sit down, listen and comprehend.

This leaves only one true situation which baffles me: lying.

I understand that people do it. I have even found myself climbing into the slimy pit of its confines. But upon deeper consideration, I realize that it never works.

Whether you’re caught now, later or never caught in that particular lie, but because you got by with it, you pursue a second or third adventure in which you are caught, it is a pursuit that always ends in failure.

Every day of my life, I remind myself that avoiding the truth is not eliminating it. It merely postpones the revelation, the admission or the punishment of the deed until a later time when the intensity will be greater because I put off the original sentencing.

Because above all else, primary in every human beings thoughts is, “I don’t want you in my business.”

So we foolishly choose lying, thinking it will prevent people from probing our stuff, when actually, it grants them a license later–a search warrant to go through everything.

Because once we are recognized as being a liar, it is assumed that we will never tell the truth again. Even if we repent and take on the purity of the flower, we will always stink like the weed.

So why do we continue to lie? Because we arrogantly have decided that we’re smarter than those around us.

But every smart aleck is eventually revealed to actually be a dumb-ass.

 

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Bad-tempered

Bad-tempered: (adj) easily annoyed or made angry.Dictionary B

During a teeny, tiny length of time in my journey, I presumptuously decided that I was somewhat qualified to offer counsel to other people.

Yes, I understand how foolish that truly is, but at the time, I found it to be magnanimous and perhaps even beneficial.

One day a gentleman came into my office. (Well, it wasn’t exactly my office. It was a back room where I had placed a desk, barely qualifying it.)

He sat down and told me that his wife and friends demanded that he come to counseling because they claimed he was “bad-tempered.” He looked at me, wide-eyed, with some crimson in his cheeks, and said, “I don’t know where they get the idea that I’m bad-tempered. I just won’t put up with any shit.”

There you go. There is the definition of bad-tempered.

This is why we live in a society which is always on the verge of a snit. It has become the common belief that we are not supposed to “put up with shit.” Even among those who are so prim and proper that they would not use the word shit–they will not tolerate doo-doo.

I would call it the first rule of being a human being: I will certainly need to put up with some shit. It’s what happens next that makes the difference,

  • Do I fight back?
  • Do I object?
  • Do I ignore?
  • Do I side-step the interference and proceed?
  • Do I listen long enough to find out if there’s some constructive criticism?

Yes, the definition of bad-tempered is the notion that we are born to fight back and not put up with shit.

Even our birth should have clued us in on how ridiculous this is: squeezing out of a tiny opening with no air in our lungs, covered in blood and slapped to get us going–that should have told us that this earthly experience will be peppered with some difficulty.

 

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Bad-mouth

Bad-mouth: (v) to criticize (someone or something); speak disloyally of.Dictionary B

  • Tongue-in-cheek
  • Satire
  • Sarcasm
  • Cynical
  • Jaded

Now, each one of these words is probably considered to be its own entity, but I would contend that what we have here is a descending process toward losing one’s faith.

Because somewhere along the line, joking about the need for change and beginning to just bad-mouth humanity because you’ve abandoned all passion for the race are two quite different things.

Maybe in my own simple way, I could clarify my meaning by giving you definitions for each of these steps in this decline:

  1. Tongue-in-cheek: humorously pointing out a contradiction in our philosophy which shows a need for change.
  2. Satire: comparing that little piece of hypocrisy to previous hypocrisies in a jocular way.
  3. Sarcasm: similar to satire, except accompanied by more of a sneer, a jeer or even a leer.
  4. Cynical: sharing an angry humor over the futility of human effort to achieve anything of quality, while portraying a nasty edge
  5. Jaded: a loss of love for fellow-humans, which also causes one to feel unloved.

When you live in the monkey cage, it is alright to joke about the odor or maybe even the over-dependence on bananas–as long as you freely admit that you are contributing to the stink, and certainly possess the same addiction to the fruit.

 

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Badminton

Badminton: (n) a game with rackets in which a shuttlecock is played back and forth across a net.Dictionary B

My parents were so conservative that they didn’t allow us to refer to it as a “shuttlecock.”

They felt that was inappropriate.

Although they certainly wanted me to play badminton (which I found out later was due to the fact that it was so cheap to buy and maintain, and that no net was really necessary–you could just hit it over a clothes line) they were not pleased with the name given to the..well, what they called the “birdie.”

Of course by the time I got into high school, the word birdie made us giggle.

Without reservation, I will tell you that I basically hated the game. There was no skill involved in it unless you weighed about thirty pounds and were willing to run great distances brought about by the erratic flying of the shuttlecock. (Now I’m just saying it to rebel against my training.)

And it was very difficult to hit the thing right on its little nose, where it would fly straight. And then, upon striking it with all your might it would barely ascend five feet into the air before crashing onto the ground to avoid further abuse.

I was a big boy, so I normally found myself taking the tiny racquet and flailing in the air, and then making contact with the birdie sideways, on its wings, therefore having it fall. useless and dead.

I once saw a badminton tournament, and people seemed to know how to hit the thing and make it soar a great distance. But I must be honest–I had no curiosity whatsoever to ask them how they achieved this feat.

Badminton, like so many other things from my youth, was soon abandoned … and even more quickly forgotten.

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Badly

Badly: (adv) in an unsatisfactory, inadequate or unsuccessful wayDictionary B

As a young man, I recall walking off a football field, having just been trounced by our opponent, 64-nothing. Even though I was fully aware that the idea was totally mythical, I still yearned for the earth to open up and swallow me.

The following Monday at football practice, the coach came in with a smile and said, “I’ve been thinking about Saturday’s game, and truthfully, boys, you didn’t do that badly.”

He then began to recite four or five general areas wherein we had stumbled along, culminating with the idea, “Well, at least no one got hurt.”

I know he meant well, but it was the worst thing he could have done. Because the word “badly” is good if it’s used by itself to connote that we’re fully aware that what just transpired should be taken out behind the barn and shot.

When you add onto it “not too…” it transforms it into a horrible excuse for an excuse.

Which, by the way, is inexcusable.

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