Cruller

Cruller: (n) a rich, light cake cut from a rolled dough and deep-fried

Now I understand.

It’s taken me a while.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been in fits of denial, or even rebellion.

Perhaps I was temporarily stuck in the foolishness of, “It’s not fair.”

But I’ve been worn down. I have survived frazzled and become limp in my comprehension.

To live long, you must hate things.

It’s true. Don’t try to disagree with me.

I remember the first time I put a piece of fried bologna in my mouth.

I thought to myself:

“Yes. This is what God is like.”

But before I could even get it down my throat to land in my gullet, somebody nearby asked the two deadly questions:

“Do you know how many calories are in that?”

“Did you know they make it out of pig snouts?”

Either though neither question would truly deter me from eating fried bologna again, I realized that if I wanted to live on Planet Sensitive, Earth Mother Eat Your Vegetables, or the Third Planet from the Fun, I would have to learn to hate things that were certainly did not deserve my disdain.

Unfortunately the list just keeps growing.

Today, when the word “cruller” came up, I realized it has been many years since I’ve had one.

And they have them just down the street. But I have succeeded in avoiding them—believing them to be tasty, quick death.

But just hearing the word tore down all my defenses, shattered my prejudice and made me want to get in my car and go buy one.

What harm could one do?

Well, one atomic bomb can kill a hundred thousand people.

One bullet in your brain will leave you thoughtless.

And I’m told that one cruller can rob days, maybe weeks, from my journey.

Are we really lengthening our lives for a joyful purpose–or just adding days, focusing our souls to hate things that really, really deserve our love?

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Cruise

Cruise: (v) to sail about on a pleasure trip.

I stumbled upon a little piece of personal revelation, which after much thought, might just end up being worthy of universal application.

(Not everything I think falls into this category. Many things that I pursue pertain mostly to me, and would not be helpful or even interesting, to an outsider.)

For instance, my daily regimen in approaching healthy eating would certainly bore the most prideful listener.

But what I’ve discovered is that nothing in life has immediate appeal—nor is it dead-on-arrival.

Each one of us ends up talking ourselves into everything.

So it only stands to reason that we talk ourselves out of other things.

For me, one of those things is a cruise on a ship.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with such an adventure. There have even been television shows produced extolling the pleasures of food, fun and romance—even promising that the boat itself might just be “love.”

But somehow or another I have talked myself out of this.

I talked myself into being a musician. Honestly, there’s little that’s more tedious.

I convinced myself of the glories of fatherhood. Yet this did not happen until children were afoot.

But I’ve also talked myself out of… Let me see:

How about a daily run? I think a daily run would be possible for me if there were someone trailing me slowly in a jeep, firing a machine gun at my heels. Yes, I would need adequate motivation.

So as I think about a cruise, the following four things immediately annoy me:

  1. Walking up the plank to get on.

I don’t know why. It just seems like I’m lining up in a prison yard for daily gruel.

  1. Cramped quarters.

To make money, a cruise ship must have little cabins, and of course, the smaller they make them the more people they can put onto the ship, and therefore, the more profit.

I am a big man, constantly perturbed by living in a medium world.

  1. A constant barrage of food.

Perhaps I’m odd, but after I eat, the last thing I want to do is go dancing in the Mambo Room.

Doesn’t that sound horrible? Where is the time for digestion?

  1. And finally, the pool.

If the boat is for love, then people are peering extra carefully at one another for the potential of unexplainable romantic entanglements.

When I go swimming, I’m thinking more about cannonballs and floating. Probably not the mindset of Carnivale.

So you see, I have not given a cruise a chance—because I have convinced myself that it is not worthy of my consideration.

I probably should have done that with bologna and sausage years ago.

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Cruel

Cruel: (adj) willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to others.

You do know that your clock doesn’t say, right?

I’m talking about when we casually cite, “The clock says…” and we note the time.

Since clocks can’t speak, they can’t say.

Some folks would say that’s being picky. (Actually, it’s a little trick you learn in writing to make sure you don’t have grumblers and complainers instantly mocking you because you claim to have a talking clock.)

But two nights ago, I caught my clock reading, “2:53 A.M.”

Suddenly I was wide awake.

It’s amazing that during some of these midnight stirrings, it feels like you could get up and build a bridge. And then, five hours later when you’re supposed to get up and bridge something, you can barely move.

We are strangely constructed, curiously functioning and unfathomable in our conclusion.

But since the clock read “2:53,” I decided to ask what the plot was. Yes—my brain always has some sort of idea it’s brewing, contrary to what I might think about during the day, and also frequently critical of my self-assured attitude.

The question on this particular awakening was, “How have I been cruel?”

When I’m better prepared—after the selection of my favorite shirt and a good breakfast—I would probably insist that I’m not cruel. But my brain was reading something else at 2:54 in the morning. So I stayed quiet and listened.

This is the lecture I received:

You are cruel when you withhold appreciation simply because you believe you’ve already expressed your favor.

You are cruel when you know someone requires a hug and you supply a handshake instead.

You are cruel when your friend has contacted you by text or email, and you arbitrarily decide to return it—the next day.

You are cruel when you hear an ignorant statement made in your presence and you let it go without comment, thinking it’s none of your damn business.

You are cruel when you turn into cement over an issue of spirituality, politics or morality because you think it makes you appear more righteous.

You are cruel when you comply to the mediocrity of a situation or the indifference of a room because there’s no need to be a boat-rocker.

You are cruel when you no longer believe you’re capable of being cruel.

I don’t like it when my clock reads.

I guess I’m just like everyone else:

I would be completely satisfied with an ignorant time piece.

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Crude

Crude: (adj) lacking culture, refinement, tact

The reason the Golden Rule is so glimmering is that it involves us in each situation by requesting that we consider how we would feel if we were placed in the dilemma. Of course, you don’t have to do that.

No one is being executed for breaking the Golden Rule.

(Dare I say, there are some folks who would applaud you for ignoring it.)

But it reminds me of when I was a teenager in search of adventure in a community that may once have been a one-horse town but ended up selling the nag.

I usually got the car on Saturday nights.

Gasoline was cheap. So I drove around for a long time until I picked up a friend or two. Then we went out and tried to get in just enough trouble that we could escape at the last moment, giving us the exhilaration of danger without the repercussions.

There was a lake right outside the town. I discovered a small, unpaved road that went right alongside the bank of this body of water for about a mile—with bumps, foliage and a sense of “what’s going to happen next?” in every direction.

The road was precarious and scary

After a mile it opened up to gravel, climbing an embankment and placed me onto a well-traveled highway.

We were so thrilled with our adventure that night, we decided to bring along a couple of girls the next Saturday night and do it again. Being adolescents and not having well-formed brains, we failed to recognize the ramifications of the huge rainstorm that occurred in the middle of the week.

So on Saturday night, all four of us, in my Impala, headed down toward this deserted path, only to discover that once we were about a quarter of a mile into the excursion, the region that had once been bumpy, with holes, was now flooded.

There was no way to back up, so stupidly, I decided to go forward into the watery muck.

And, you guessed it—got stuck.

This incident happened long before Triple A and cell phones existed. We realized that unless somebody was going to walk back to civilization, which was about five miles, we were going to have to get out of this predicament on our own. (This included the young ladies who had come along for a lark, and now were on the deck of the Titanic.)

It took an hour of pushing, rocking, splashing, our clothes completely mud-splattered, to get free, but finally we escaped and were safely on the highway again.

It was crude.

For you see, crude is often that pursuit of adventure or comedy that soon must go too far to provide entertainment.

Crude is failing to use your sensibility and sensitivity to provide a safe haven for your friends to come and enjoy your fellowship.

Crude is forgetting the better parts of being a human and settling for jungle fever.

Crude is when, for some reason or another, we just decide to be a rude dude.

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Crucify

Crucify: (v) to nail the hands and feet to a cross

Origins.

The Greeks created gods.

They were empowered with practicality—for war, romance, wine and domination. Gods of convenience.

Buddhism has no god.

Instead, Buddha insisted that our weakness as humans is how human we are through flaunting our emotions.

Judaism is really a journey through a family of Bedouins led by a man named Abraham, who established their uniqueness by cutting off the tip of the foreskin of the penis.

The Muslim religion was formed to counteract the domination of the Jews and establish a people of purity, who spread their message throughout the world, using violence if necessary.

Christianity worships a man who was nailed at the hands and feet as a criminal who allegedly committed sedition against the Roman Empire.

The symbols are not terribly inspiring, are they?

The origins of faith don’t seem to be grounded in inspiration, brotherhood and equality.

The message of Christianity remains disheartening—the Prince of Peace visited the Earth, sharing a message of global unity. Our response was, “Fuck you—take some nails as you leave.”

I’m told that Jesus allowed himself to be crucified.

I’m not very fond of martyrs.

Is it possible that he was killed by the ignorance of all the other religions coming together to protect their financial security, and that God, in His infinite grace and mercy, decided to use the violent act as an opportunity to offer salvation to “whosoever will may come?”

Now, there’s a story I can walk with.

No, there’s a story that makes me run toward hope.

 

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Crucial

Crucial: (adj) extremely important

I’m not sure I am qualified to determine what is crucial in my life.

I know each one of us relishes our independence and being free of interference from others.

But there are times when I live too close to my own skin to be objective about my person.

Why? Because sometimes I want to be comfortable instead of motivated. Other times I want to be busy instead of resting—because I fear that my brain will talk to me too much if I’m sitting still.

And there’s a constant seepage of my childhood training dribbling into my contemporary brain, often creating conflict—because after all, my parents, who taught me that childhood curriculum, did not have all the information we have today.

Am I prepared to make a crucial decision about my own life?

I certainly don’t want to turn it over to chance.

I am fed up with those who suggest that prayer is when we release our burdens to the Almighty. Every time I give something over to God, it comes back, “Return to Sender.”

I know I’m supposed to be responsible for my own life.

But can I really be responsible for the truth that would make my life more valuable?

I wish I had a little warning tag attached to my wrist, reading: “If you find this human being and he seems a bit baffled, take him to a safe place and talk nice to him until he regains his senses.”

Yeah, that’s a pretty good idea.

What is crucial?

What is extremely important?

I guess what’s extremely important is realizing that I am not often qualified to actually know what is extremely important.

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Crown

Crown: (n) headgear worn by a monarch

Waking up feeling refreshed.

Biting into a shrimp and getting that immediate aftertaste which lets you know it’s a shrimp instead of some sort of fish.

A chocolate milkshake after you haven’t had one for a decade.

Buying a candy bar at the grocery store and realizing it’s fresh, so your teeth won’t have to break through a crust that’s like the surface of the moon.

The two, sometimes five, seconds that occur, transforming your body into a tingling mass of jiggling gelatin right at the point of orgasm.

Praying and knowing that even if the heavens didn’t hear, you heard, and feel enriched.

Seeing a mile marker on a long trip, delighted to discover you’re closer to home than you thought.

When the scrambled eggs come out just right.

Those occasions when a conversation could have been a fight but instead became an open door to deeper feelings.

Being loved.  Loving.

Catching yourself being unloving just in time.

Letting someone in front of you in traffic and getting honked at by the guy behind you.

Sometimes I just think about all the good things that happen in life.

To do this adequately, I must first sit down, turn off the television and close out my surroundings, and tune out the “fret mode” of my brain.

When I do this, I am filled with some sort of spirit, be it Holy or other.

It is the best feeling in the world. It makes me wonder why those who wrote the Bible thought it was necessary to promise heaven as a place where we will receive our crown and reward.

I don’t need a crown.

I’m not a king. And even if I were a king, I would pass on the crown.

There are just too many crowning events in life to ever require additional honor.

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Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding: (v) the activity or process of raising money from a large number of people, typically through a website

Let us assume it started with a guy named Jim.

Jim was a happy teenager, but his family was very poor. He had two pairs of jeans.

Both of them were old, both showing wear and even some tear.

Jim sat in his room, quietly trying to figure out how he could go to school without looking like he was poverty stricken.

Suddenly he had an idea. Rather than going to school with a pair of jeans that had one little tear in them, he would go ahead and tear them in several different places—and when others in his class laughed at him, he would explain that this was the rage from the West Coast.

Wearing tattered jeans.

At first his friends mocked him—and then one, maybe two—could it have been five? They stepped out from the taunting crowd and asked Jim where he got his jeans because they wanted a pair.

Jim made up some company, and since the teenagers were unable to find it, they went home and cut up their own jeans, which eventually became a fad. And then, all at once, the jeans that didn’t have wear and tear—didn’t have holes—were the cheap ones.

And the ripped ones were expensive.

Likewise, somewhere along the line, someone (maybe his name was Jim, too) anyway, he got tired of begging his family for money for lamebrain projects and having them turn him down because they weren’t gonna put another dime into what he did “until he went out and got a goddamn job.”

Well, this fellow—let’s just call him Jim—was too proud to go out on the street and hold a cardboard sign requesting aid. So Jim wrote a blurb describing what he would do with seed money, put together a website and started something called “crowdfunding,” which is nothing more than a way to beg for money while looking like you might be in the pursuit of a great endeavor.

It is the torn-up jeans of fundraising.

Most of the people who raise their money by crowdfunding don’t necessarily finish what they claimed they were going to do, but for a brief moment, we think the twenty dollars we donated might become the next Star Wars film, or fund a plunger that needs no human effort, but tackles the toilet by itself.

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Crowd

Crowd: (n) a large number of people

Buying a pair of shoes.

What is necessary for this task? Me, shoes and a good fit.

Like every human child born on the Earth, I have bought shoes because they looked good, hoping that I would be able to tolerate how they felt on my feet. It was always a huge mistake. No—shoes are about the fit.

Food.

It needs to taste good—and it needs to taste good to me. I always take into consideration whether it’s healthy or not—but only in determining how much of it to eat.

Car.

I want every car I own to do three things for me:

  1. Drive
  2. Be able to be maintained without developing terminal problems in its crankcase or transmission
  3. And finally, it should look decent enough that it’s at least ignored.

What do I look for in a friend?

Someone I can trust. Because I don’t know about you—I use my friends to help me learn how to become friendlier. So they’re going to find all my dumb spots, and I would rather they wouldn’t post these flaws on social media.

My passion? Maybe it’s my mission?

That thing that rings my bell.

I want to be able to do my thing without having people wonder why I’m not getting rich from it or haven’t received an award.

When I used to travel on the road, performing, the first question people asked after the show was how many people attended.

“How big was the crowd?”

When I told the truth, they would quietly back off—thinking it must not be that good, or more people would have been there.

We can’t judge our efforts by the crowd we draw.

If you think about the most important things you do in your life—parenting, being generous, lovemaking, praying, education, exercising—do any of those draw crowds? I don’t think so.

There will always be crowds.

There were crowds in the Coliseum to watch the animals rip apart the flesh of the early Christians.

There were huge crowds in Germany in 1935 to cheer for Chancellor Hitler.

Massive crowds of soldiers gathered on the battlefields in the Civil War, fighting to keep black people in slavery.

There have been crowds associated with every disaster.

Crowds for every tyrant.

Crowds for every fad that came along, and within a short period of time, found themselves embarrassed because they got so worked up over such a stupid idea.

Don’t look for the crowd. Look for the good cheer in your heart.

Don’t look for the crowd. Look for the benefit to humanity.

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Crow

Crow: (n) a large black bird

There are two ways to get old:

  1. You can get old gracefully, trying to stay current with as much of life that is worth your attention
  2. Or you can get old being exasperated with all changes—minor or major—and end up looking like a crank.

There is one thing for sure:

No one talks about crows anymore.

Not since the movie, “The Crow,” which came out so long ago that a quizzical look from anyone under the age of thirty-five would be expected.

They don’t use scarecrows anymore to literally scare away crows from eating the corn seed.

You certainly know you’re over the hill if you’re referring to “crow’s feet” at the corners of your eyes. Wrinkles that rankle.

I guess they still call it a crowbar, though nowadays people expect their vehicles to be self-healing (and that includes their tires).

And they certainly aren’t pulling many nails out of boards with the old crowbar.

There is one phrase in reference to the crow that I always found endearing, and if it’s part of a bygone era, I might want to pause for a moment to drop a single tear, and that is:

As the crow flies.

Long before America was urban, people judged the miles between one place and another in two ways. One was if you were going by the roads, and the other was if you happened to be a bird and could fly from “this spot here” to “that spot over there.”

It was the way the old timers exporessed their complaints about modern roads, and wished they were birds, taking a more direct path, taking less time and mileage.

“As the crow flies, it’s five miles, but if you go on Route 73 it’ll be twelve.”

This was usually followed by some sort of farmer’s giggle.

But what makes it unfortunate that this phrase has disappeared, or at least lost some of its charm, is that we as people were meant to approach our doings—our problems, situations and activities— “as the crow flies.”

Rather than building difficult paths toward solutions or arguing for hours over the most righteous system, we should gain the eye of the crow, who looks straight to where it’s going and flies above the interference.

I would love to live life as the crow flies.

To do so, I need to ask my attitude to grant me some altitude.

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