All those cogs and wheels and secret arrangements of stars...

I was standing at the check out counter in the grocery store buying a mess of turnip greens and I had one of those visions where just for an instant you glimpse the interworking of the universe. All those cogs and wheels and secret arrangements of stars in unknown constellations spin right there in plain view and then they are gone again, at least till the next time. 

Once someone told me that if they were going somewhere they often wore a catchy slogan on a t-shirt as an ice breaker or conversation starter. As a Christmas present I got a t-shirt, actually a tank top that says, I like her butt. It will probably work well in situations where I need a conversation starter or ice breaker. 

Once a guy, a little older than me came to the physical therapy clinic where I was working and had on a Rolling Stones Tour 78 t- shirt, big old lips and everything. I've never seen that band but at a Ray Wylie Hubbard show I stood by Ian McLagan who was in the English rock band the Faces with Stone Ron Wood so theoretically I could have asked him to say hi for me. 

I asked my patient if he had seen the Stones and he said yes and a friend had recently asked him to go see them again. He said, "I told him, too rough for me, I'm too old for all that fighting and stuff." The friend replied, "Oh it's not like it was. Tickets are so expensive it's all people in suits and stuff."

  I'm pretty sure that these days you can get a Rolling Stones, Bob Marley or Pink Floyd T-shirt at any big box retailer. If I see you wearing one of these as a conversation starter I guess since the history of these bands include chapters on slightly more than recreational drug use we can talk about why there is mass availability of these garments to the public and the merits of how the the 1st world distribution system is about the same for shirts and recreational drugs. 

I'm 67 years old and I'm still wearing band t-shirts but I usually buy them from a guy in the band. I guess I could have bought one of McLagan's. I bought this New Orleans Flat Earth Friendship Society shirt from a guy calls himself drdaddyzwhodat.              

When I was checking out my turnip greens at the grocery store this shirt was a conversation starter. The sack boy at the grocery store noticed it but without the backing of a 1st world distribution system the conversation went no where. After all drdaddyzwhodat had made it in his garage, stuffed it in a bubble wrap packing envelope and mailed it to me. 

The young man instead turned to the turnip greens, something in his sphere of experience. He said, "I don't like them. I got a zero in school for not eating my greens." I asked where he went to school. He told me and I told him when I went to school during the last century eating turnip greens had not been on the curriculum but I still enjoyed them.  

It's certainly not like it was but if you like those glimpses cogs and wheels and secret arrangements of stars in unknown constellations hit the venmo below for a conversation starter.