Saturday Night Soup (37)

This week’s soup carries a sub-title of “To whom it may concern”. This past week I received a nice email from an apparent "Wunderkind" who is a university mathematics major. He is working on a paper whose subject ( I would roughly call it "Chaos Theory meets the I Ch’ing") is only tangentially related to what I am about to divulge . He told me that he enjoyed this blog, especially the signature “Saturday Night Soup” entries. He then asked me a question that I had not anticipated receiving (perhaps I believe myself to be too clever by half?) . He cut to the chase, wanting to know if I had encoded “secret messages” in the posts of that series. I know what those of you reading are likely thinking. I had the same two thoughts, either “oh oh – this person does what the voices in his head tell him to do” or "Uh, this person may have watched a few too many episodes of Blue's Clues" So I asked him to “Please explain how you found my encoded secret messages”. He laid out his cryptographically derived evidence for one of the posts in the series - Saturday Night Soup for the Soul (8). The methodology he has employed to “crack the code” was complex, based both upon the text where font size and colour sets it off for emphasis, and upon the music selections. As with the text where selected musical fragments are mixed together (as is prevalent in this particular Soup he chose as his example), he applied the same exact algorithm to the bits of lyrics and titles related to the fragments. The resulting message: uncannily accurate to the moment in time related to the post. So, returning back to his original question: “Have you encoded secret messages into the Saturday Night Soup blog entries?”. That is an EXCELLENT question. He goes to the head of the class. 1./2. John, I'm Only Dancing - David Bowie’s 1972 single is his homo-epic sung to his insecure and apparently jealous fictionalized boyfriend “John”, telling him to not worry about a girl he is hanging out with because they are “only dancing”. It was not released by the idiots running RCA because they felt it was a tad too something (could it be… homoerotic?). I have long fancied this song. Despite being 38 years old, it stands the test of time well. That, to me, is what great art is. Art that represents the best of its genre and time/place. Very little of popular culture stands that test of time. David recut the song in 1973 for the "Aladdin Sane" (a lad insane) LP. This version has more punch and drive than the original Joey comes on strong, Bet your life he's putting us on Oh lordy, oh lordy, you know I need some loving Oh move me, touch me.JOHN, I'M ONLY DANCING 3. John, Im Only Dancing (Again) - to be continued 4. Facination - to be continued 5. Hot Soup Jamming Fools - to be continued You can get your bowl of Saturday Night Soup for the Soul by clicking the jukebox. You asked what I am planning for my birthday om March 1st: Well - besides singing in the nude (do that all the time) I will probably walk across the street to Ricky’s and Andrew’s house. Andrew is his little boy whose b-day is the same day as mine. I will let myself have a 1.5 x 2 inch square piece of cake. No ice cream (may buy some Greek yogurt – or Geek yogurt - and call it ice cream). I will have a Dr. Appt on March 8th and do not want to eat a bunch of food and gain weight. Funniest damn thing – in December I gave away a TON of clothes - some with the tags still attached – that I thought I would never be able to wear again = to St. Vincent de Paul: Some truly beautiful stuff. And now, a month later, suddenly here I am. Somewhere in that action (giving away to the poor) and the reaction (something that seemed hopelessly impossible becomes easy) there is some cosmic or karmic hand at work. And I am just going with the flow while the river is full. Someday I am going to burn you a set of all the soup POD casts. You may find a piece of music hidden here at that that captures your heart and soul. I was wearing fricking 48's. Now they hang on me though still wearing 2 pairs that were cut smaller. But they are getting much too large. T'wuz 264 today at the dr.s office. I had him switch prescriptions from what he gave me last Thursday - these little round hard shell things I was supposed to cut in half. At one point one popped away as I tried to cut it with a knife on the bread board. I made a lunging grab for it and the entire open pill container went flying sending them all over the kitchen. That was Friday morning and I was not a happy camper for the rest of the day (frustrated). So I am now back to caps that are scored in the middle so they snap cleanly in half when you apply pressure. I think he is being investigated as being a pill pusher with vicodin (what he gave to me) so he is suddenly very reluctant to write a prescription which also horrified me as I am finally on the road and events appeared to want ot derail me (it’s a communist plot). About four years ago something terrible happened to a leg nerve during or after exercizing at the gym one night that was EXTREMELY painful when the nerve would suddenly sharply throb. I would almost fall over in pain (I fell into a desk credenza at work and nearly tipped the entire thing over). That was while my mom or sister was dying. Mourning their deaths, I did not exercise for a year, and then sat for two more years working 24/7 overtime on a major enterprise-wide software implementation. So now my leg and knee are really eff'ed up. It is probably the fifth lumbar of my spine. That is one of the MAJOR reason for doing this. Greatly reduce the amount of weight I carry. I will be disappointed in myself if I do not drop 80 pounds. That would put me at 200. I fricking look and feel great at 200. But I have it in my head to hit 179 which I LAST weighed in Junior High. Rick has four years of hideous pictures of me - all that I hate. These can be my "phatt and miserable" before set. I have not kept one of them. I hate them (but he has them all). I will take some intermediate ones when I lose about 20 more lbs (all my business suits will fit again). Luckily I have very good facial skin. Very smooth and clear. I drink a lot of H2O and use sun screen w/ hats as well. Sun ages one tremendously, as do bad foods, drugs, smoking, alcoholism, those insane and criminal tanning booths, excessive sexual indulgence, and having a generally bad and hateful soul. They always say that one ends up with the face one deserves - i.e. earned - meaning ugly souls end up ugly and beautiful and kind souls look wonderful even at 100. I truly have seen that in action. My mother looked so good up until the last 6 months. She had a golden soul. You would have loved her, had you visited. She would have been interested in you, your family, etc etc etc. She loved to laugh and loved people and just glowed. I hope I have inherited some of that from her, as it was a most attractive trait to my tastes in humanity. Thanks for dancing with me the past several weeks. Call on me any time you feel the urge. xoxx wr