| Zarathustra was walking and felt something warm and living. |
| Something warm and
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| living nearby that refreshed, and stumbled upon the hill like full of cows.
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| And in Nirvana, there was order and warmness that touched his heart.
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| And there among them was the mountain sermonizer
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| «What do you see, kid?», I asked Zarathustra
|
| «Same things as you see», the mountain man said. |
| «Happiness on Earth,
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| you peace-breaker.»
|
| «Why have you come here? |
| Why have you disturbed them? |
| Do you not know that if
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| we not become as cows, we shall not enter into the gates of Heaven?
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| For there is one thing we should learn from them. |
| And that is rumination.»
|
| In the end, Zarathustra talked him back to his cave of haunting.
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| Zarathustra gave the mountain man shit for loving cows more than money.
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| The mountain sermonizer said «Well, guess what? |
| I have news for you,
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| Zarathustra, I have decided that, more than cows, I love you»
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| Zarathustra said «Enough of your flattery» and poked the with a stick and he
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| ran off nimbly
|
| See, I grew up in Ohio in a rust belt town. |
| And growing up, I gazed off at
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| thousands of cows in my prepubescent years, throughout my teens.
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| I saw lots of dairy cows, Guernseys, and Holsteens. |
| From my perspective,
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| the space between their ears was hollow. |
| They did not know yesterday from two
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| seconds ago from tomorrow. |
| From my perspective, they did not feel happiness,
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| they did not feel sorrow
|
| Cows are harmless creatures, they are innocent. |
| Every small thing they do is
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| tender and sweet and benevolent. |
| I looked back at those drives past with sweet
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| sentiment. |
| It was good to get away from the downtown mass in Ohio cement.
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| Though those drives are sometimes boring and seem very far, I have fond
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| memories of my mom dropping us off at a relative’s in Navarre
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| Cow, Cow, Cow, Cow, Cow, Cow, Cow, Cow
|
| Nietzsche’s passage got me thinking about cows and this kick drum going «Pow.
|
| Pow. |
| Pow. |
| Pow. |
| Pow. |
| Pow.»
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| Trigger the word «cow» and everything is unraveled from the word «cow»
|
| And this kick drum sound «Pow. |
| Pow. |
| Pow. |
| Pow. |
| Pow.»
|
| From this day forward, I solemnly vow to only once a month sink my teeth into
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| the flesh of a cow
|
| From this day forward, I solemnly vow to only once a month sink my teeth into
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| the flesh of a cow
|
| From this day forward, I solemnly vow to only once a month sink my teeth into
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| the flesh of a cow
|
| From this day forward, I solemnly vow to only once a month sink my teeth into
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| the flesh of a cow
|
| For I love steaks at Harris' restaurant on Havana Street, and bulgogi in Seoul,
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| Korea or in New York on 32nd Street, and brisket at Jack’s barbeque on
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| Broadway in Nashville, Tennessee, and beef jerky at 7/11 when I’m on the road
|
| and I’m low on protein. |
| To give up cow flesh entirely and completely at this
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| stage of my life I’m afraid would be very hard for me. |
| For half a century,
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| I have enjoyed the tasty flavor of cow meat. |
| Aw, it tastes so good,
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| my mind’s Chop Suey
|
| See, as a kid in Ohio, driving out of town, they’d comfort me, gazing off at
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| the cows. |
| Then later I moved out to California and the most beautiful animals I
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| still see are cows. |
| Driving through Petaluma over to Bolinas Point,
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| there are many cows grazing. |
| On the way to the beach, when I see them,
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| my body gets lazy, my mind gets all buzzy and hazy
|
| Not far from my home is, in New Orleans now, is a closed down dirty plant where
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| they used to be a statue of a cow. |
| Why did I pick a home to a place so close to
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| where they process the milk of cows? |
| Every night I went to sleep and woke up to
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| the milk truck sounds
|
| And when I could barely walk, my dad worked at Overland Dairy, seven days a
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| week, I asked him just today how much they paid him weekly. |
| He said «I don’t remember, Mark, that was so long ago. |
| But they gave me two free gallons
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| of milk daily.»
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| I said, «But I remember mom pulling milk bottles out of a silver box a couple
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| times a week.»
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| He said, «Well, Mark, that’s after I quit my job as a milkman.»
|
| I said «Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense why it was mom who picked those
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| heavy milk bottles up from the doorstep. |
| Cause you had a new job and you were |
| traveling around.»
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| He said «Yeah, I was traveling regionally and was selling cold medicine from
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| town to town.»
|
| I don’t eat much chicken. |
| Better find a better finger licking, but I do love
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| fish and I love Creole dishes. |
| Gulf coast stores, just-fried gator and crawfish.
|
| I wouldn’t be surprised if I died of a heart attack in Felix’s in New Orleans.
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| In fact if I fall over there and died, do not get all sappy. |
| If I died in
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| Felix’s eating oysters and crawfish, know that I died happy
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| «God is dead». |
| With Nietzsche, on that, I agree. |
| But where he stands on cows,
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| I can not totally proceed. |
| When I look out at the animals, they radiate
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| serenity. |
| Cows are as close to perfect beings as it gets to me
|
| I look out into the bay and see the prow of an incoming scow. |
| The picture calms
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| my nerves when I stare out the window. |
| Like a cow, my brain goes blank and I
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| find peace in the here and now. |
| I’m as calm as a pasture-grazing cow.
|
| Their moos, to my ears, are sweeter than a cat’s meow. |
| Flash Elorde fought
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| many times at San Francisco’s Cow Palace. |
| And in the Garden, he fought Frankie
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| Narvaez. |
| My favorite part of the movie *Borat* is the part where he tries to
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| kidnap Pamela Anderson, she runs away from the crowd and she’s running through
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| the parking lot screaming, he yells «I will give you your own plow.
|
| «OK, that’s all I’ve got, I’ve run out of thoughts about cows, at least for
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| now |