Tag Archives: crowd

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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Chant

Chant: (n) a repeated rhythmic phrase, typically one shouted or sung in unison by a crowd.

“If a powerful thought is repeated intensely by many people over and over again with greater volume, it has even more impact.”

Lots of people believe that.

It’s like being at a rally and hearing the crowd chant, “Give peace a chance,” or at church, with the congregation repeating with vigor, “God is so good.”

The truth is, we will continue to breed dictators, evil forces, charlatans and murderers as long as we insist that strength lies in the number of chanters.

After all, it was a raucous mob chanting, “Crucify him!” that instigated the assassination of the Light of the World.

Enough said.

 

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Bomb

Bomb: (n) a container designed to explode on impact

A red woodpecker.Dictionary B

I can close my eyes and envision such a creature. Maybe it’s because as a kid I watched “Woody the Woodpecker.”

A sirloin steak covered with mushroom gravy with a side order of garlic shrimp.

That’s easy for me to imagine. I have experience. I have eaten all of these foods.

A moist kiss on the lips with a mixture of musky breath and a hint of mint.

Once again, all in the annals of my personal history and awareness.

A bomb.

I have no experience.

I have seen more bombings on television than I have red woodpeckers, but because I have no real sense of the horror, the heat, the explosive range and the demolition, I am dealing with an idea rather than a reality.

It is why, when considering our enemies, I choose not to scream with the careless crowd, “Bomb the shit out of them.”

 

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Adieux

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Adieux: (n.) from Old French, another term for “goodbye.”

I think it’s the whole “another term” thing that bothers me.

We all know people who think they’re extraordinarily clever by coming up with a new word, new phrase or new angle on saying or doing something that is common to the crowd. They insist on spelling it “ketchup” instead of “catsup.” They will argue with you that the pronunciation is unique and obvious.

I don’t like it when people go into foreign languages to express a word–greeting or departure–that is not their own tongue–and is one of seven words they know in that other language.

Thus, “adieux.”

When you look at it in the context of the dictionary, it seems fascinating. When you speak it aloud it is pretentious.

“I bid you a fond adieux.”

Such a person is a prime target for de-panting, mocking, gossip or alienation from the Bingo tournament based upon the various ages in his or her life.

I think we have to be careful not to be TOO common, so as to make ourselves invisible, yet not choose to become so bizarre that people avoid us for fear that we’ll have a psychotic break at any moment.

I think that’s why the word “common” and “sense” go SO well together. It is a decision to join the human race while being willing to learn how to run better.

That would not be “adieux.”

I must warn you–if you ever use it around me, I will smile, connoting to you that I found it intriguing, only to laugh at you … when you sashay from the room.