Lar and Len

BUY IT NOW! LAR & LEN... A LONG STRANGE TRIP!

2005-12-05T09:24:00.000-08:00

NOW AVAILABLE AT www.lulu.com/larrywiden
Applecore Publishing
LAR AND LEN: Are they iconoclastic remnants from the 70's, enchanting millionaire philosophers, or just battle-hardened cybernauts? You make the call. Lar and Len stomped on the terra once... some say they still do.

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2005-09-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

What would the world be like if Castro had signed with the Yankees back in '52? Rum punches at El Club Nacional would still be cheap. Havana would still be the Mafia run sink-hole of the Caribbean. More little boys in Miami would be named Fidel. The Castro brothers would have a Chevy dealership or own a couple of saloons in the Keys. Maybe Fidel would be Commissioner of Baseball for life, though it ought to be Henry Aaron. I wonder what a Castro rookie card would go for?

Where do we get this stuff? This is but a tip o' the iceberg. Funny sunglasses. Eating. Drinking. You name it, we got it. Fifteen minutes of fame? We got enough crap to supply a couple of lifetimes. We'd be on Letterman tomorrow, if the poor guy had a better ticker.

To the casual observer, many things in life seem inconsequential. Often they are. Then, on the rare occasion, comes meaning and life pays out. It's up to you to figure it out. I've already decided. It was Miles Davis who once said, "Let's play it first and talk about it later."

2005-08-20T16:12:00.000-07:00

As the years progress, I get the feeling I've become some sort of hybrid. A combination of Dorian Gray and Zelig. I can't turn around without seeing myself and I never seem to get any older. Is this what I have to look forward to? It all seems so clear. Like Bill Murray, in "Groundhog Day", history has become a rerun. Why is it that I can suddenly recollect the future?

Didja know the pool where JFK cavorted with MM was filled in by Nixon? Now it's the room where the Prez does press conferences. Somehow very fitting. We're lucky we never made it in Hollywood. Sure, we might have been famous, but at what cost? We'd have met more girls than Sinatra, but you and I both know what kinda trouble that would have led to.

We're fairly literate, relatively witty and obnoxious to boot. Our website gets about 125 hits a week. Maybe not huge numbers, but folks keep coming back. Posting pictures and making inane commentary may be fun to look at, but it gets old when you are the creator. We need to try something new.

The trick is, you see, either don't do subversive stuff or else do it all out in the open. That way there's no surprises.

Maybe what I need to do is start writing some free verse. You know, a stream-of-consciousness thing that speaks of epiphanies yet to be seen. You wail and wait, hoping the whole glorious mess will come SCREEEEEEAMING to a halt with nothing in tow but the bleary memory of something that makes no sense: "Lock him up and don't tell him where he is because if he knew, if he only knew... Yet there is no tomb big enough to contain him."

2005-08-19T07:48:00.000-07:00

I love where I live. If I didn't, I woulda moved during Nixon or Reagan's administrations, years that have proven far more delirious and detrimental to our democracy than the last eight have been. Clinton was obvious; we knew what we were getting into. With Nixon, democracy was regularly raped and left in the cold. Under Reagan, we got kicked when we bent over. If I took this any farther, I'd have to cry over it. I briefly entertained the idea of living in Russia, but it's mighty cold and I hear the cable is lousy. Besides, they speak a different language.

There's a lot of fools trying to make this election thing into some kinda holy war. I have lost interest in the political process; it shows itself to be an ugly waste of time and resources. Yet, every four years, the beast gets a rise out of me, like my enthusiasm for football right before the Super Bowl. Short-lived, intense and gone, unlike Hunter S. Thompson, who finds being a political junkie "better than sex".

The recent "election crisis" is a neat piece of mythology. Did it serve a purpose? You betcha. It got people really interested in the political process. Now they feel either cheated or vindicated, depending on which side they favored. As for the electoral system, read the Federalist Papers, especially #10. Madison and his buddies were smart guys. Their system has always worked too, except for that unconstitutional blip called the Civil War. I don't hear anyone lamenting the fact that Lincoln stifled the rights of the Confederacy. Do you?

Contrary to the tone of my previous remarks, I am not all that fond of Democrats. I see a lot of trash blowing in the breeze and the Supreme Court deciding the electoral college is just one more scrap. I never figgered them to hear the case, though their ruling was a good way to avoid making a direct decision. Nader was right to call this a corporate election, sorta like Budweiser sponsoring rock and roll or Winston sponsoring NASCAR. This will be a year written about for the rest of the century.

How about that election? I'm in the process of translating the whole vicious mess into language CNN would use if this happened to some third world settlement. I'm thinking headlines like "New leader usurps will of majority aided by strong-arm brother who governs an outlying province. Father's cronies from ousted regime plot coup." Or, how about, " Leader of rural hill folk fails in attempt to maintain power base. Government left in hands of oil cartel oligarchs."

Times being what they are, you're better off staying home and surfing the web. It's a wild and dangerous world out there and unless you have cojones of brass, it's best to stay inside. Life is no longer a participatory thing. It's more of a spectator sport.

Aside

2005-08-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

Just a short aside as I try to prepare more images for upload.

2005-08-17T07:15:00.000-07:00

Being a key player in the legend has certain responsibilities, and being in photos with cigars and funny shades is one of them. Pictures of us drinking likker or schmoozing with scantily clad tarts? That kinda stuff would get the counter up to 200-300 hits a day.

I don't know that we have ever been categorized as wacky. Irreverent, maybe. Iconoclastic or erudite, probably. Bipolar, possibly. But never wacky. That smacks of Soupy Sales or Milton Berle. How about calling us 'biting comedic sages from a world gone wrong?'

I'm watching highlights of the winter Olympiad recently and all I can think of is being a kid and sliding down the hills on a piece of refrigerator box cardboard. Now that should be an Olympic sport. None of this luge nonsense.

2005-08-16T00:26:00.000-07:00

Fixing up old houses sounds like fun, but so does finding one you like and staying for a spell. I guess the idea of roots is old stuff, especially in a culture so devoid of them. Americans are like succulents. Shallow roots, living on the surface...

I'm not from St. Louis, though I was stranded there once. I'm originally from Europe, by way of my great-grandparents who migrated here more than 100 years ago. I grew up at the Comstock a generation ago when life was simple and people still believed what you said to them. Keep the faith.
We get about 130 hits in a week. That's good numbers. I attribute this to the fact that we're now on Yahoo, Bigfoot, Hot Bot and Alta Vista. We're also on a couple of Euro searches under Lar-Len, USA, cowboys, Americana, legends... all the stuff them European types really go for. I guess they're just too reserved to write us.

2005-08-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

When you've outlived your usefulness and retirement is out of the question, the answer is a change in careers. I'm tired of nostalgia. The past can be an enthralling place, but it's also the baggage claim gate of the universe. Peace of mind in middle age is payment enough for all the fun we've had. That and being alive are the big ones.
Aside from that, a little profit would be nice.

The myth that maturity brings wisdom is pretty much false. While it might be true that everyone age 45 has been 20 but no one age 20 has ever been 45, the extra 25 years doesn't necessarily give added discernment. There's a good probability that it only means 25 more years of wrong-headed thinking. Mae West, when in her 80's, quipped that she'd just as soon be married to a 20 year old man over an 80 year old. After all, 20 goes into 80 a lot more than 80 into 80. Simple math is always easiest to understand.
Contrary to my web persona, I am not overly concerned with making a profit. If I was, I wouldn't have 6 kids. My major impetus is to break even and be a competent individual. The rest, as they say, is rock and roll.
Over the years, I've thought a lot about what should have been or what could have been. I've come to one consistent conclusion. All that stuff is/are non existent facts. Pinin' for what never was is a lot of wasted time. Not that where you're at is necessarily any better, but at least it's for real. Of course, it's never nostalgia if you never stopped, is it?
We promise nothing, yet produce prolific results. Of course, people have to be ready for what they get or it means nothing. Some folks have compared our work to Rimbaud and Appollonaire. Personally, I see us more like The Bowery Boys meeting The Merry Pranksters.