Sausage and the Law.

"Those who love sausage and the law should watch neither being made."

Amongst cyber geeks there is some debate as to who coined this.  Twain?  Von Bismarck?  

It doesn't matter.  The nerds have united and are clogging the interweb with info-tedium, foolish discussion about virtually every useless subject that would get you slapped in public.  Undoubtedly, they intersperse their time between blog entries with an unhealthy amount of pornography.

I'm wading through it.  Their discussion about Twain, that is.

I'd like it to be him.  It's an uneducated guess.  His moustachioed, smart-arsery has always appealed to me.   I don't have a memory for jokes or anything past a one-liner, so he's easy to quote.  Perhaps it's because I don't really know much about Otto Von Bismarck.  He's got a moustache too. Will check what the nerds have to say about him later today.

Mark Twain befriended the Serb-American scientist and father of alternating current (AC), Nikola Tesla. The two men spent much time in his lab together.  One could speculate that watching any scientist work, no matter the results would be dreary.  Side note:  The nerds tell me that Tesla had toyed with the idea of a death-ray for military usage.   Surely sausage (or its contents) would be the result of such experimentation, no?  

But I digress.   Back to my ennui.

Often on evening flights home, when wrapped in a cozy blanket of cocktail-confidence, a Suit in the middle-seat will strike up a conversation with me.  Idle chitchat leads to what-do-you-do banter. When I tell him I'm a musician he will invariably say: "Wow, that must be an interesting life..."

"It's not that exciting." I robotically reply.    "Let me quote Twain.", and lifting a finger with a smug grin, I deliver his line, usually without the desired effect on my hapless public-servant.

Sausage and the law reminds me that pretty much everything, whether it be a packet of airplane pretzels, a swimming pool, or a music career, the process by which anything is made is incredibly boring.

I will only think of a swimming pool if I'm floating in it, the august heat, chlorinated red-eyes and all.   No thought given to the dirt, the backhoe, the pouring of concrete or filtration system and its installation.  Even writing that just now feels like a waste of time.

So, while my hooch/soda/ice ratio might be terrible, I'm happy to have it in my hand.  I'll be damned if I care how the plastic cup was made, how the vodka was distilled, "how DO they make ice on the plane?", or where it all goes when I visit the claustrophobic water-closet at thirty-thousand feet.

The television show, "How It's Made" may be the one exception to my argument.  Fast-paced editing, cheesy keyboard music, and narration by a trustworthy, middle-aged woman with perfect diction, somehow makes the process of watching everyday items being assembled seem mildly interesting.

I'm sure she drinks heavily after each taping.  Of course, if you're watching this program it's probably  three in the afternoon on a Tuesday and you're in a hotel in Connecticut. You are in your underwear, slowly becoming unhinged from boredom and an unending diet of chicken wraps and diet coke (because full sugar would be SO irresponsible but bloody satisfying). By the end of each episode I'm thankful that I'm not on a factory line somewhere making this stuff, watching the clock and grinding my teeth just gently enough that a low-grade headache won't push me over the edge to use my Tesla death ray.

I'm reminded that most stuff in my immediate reach will end up as landfill.

I'm reminded that everyone I know will unlikely be around in sixty years.

Bleak?   Maybe.

The fact that things just are, is plenty.

Stop thinking.

Enjoy.