 Craig Johnson is best known as the 'GM Miracle Baby" since he was discovered in the flatbed of a '74 Chevy Truck as it rolled off the assembly line in Janesville, WI. He went through his early years as a beacon of hope to a nation torn apart by Watergate, but faded into obscurity after an unsuccessful run for the Vice Presidency under John Anderson in 1980. Disheartened by the popularity of of sequins and Nagel Paintings in the Reagan years, he went into a self-imposed exile in the western foothills of the Andes where he wrote his first novel "The Bonfire of the Vanities". He had to leave his beloved Peru at the tender age of 18 when his experimental attempts to cure malaria with a combination of Raisin Bran and Pop Rocks led to predictably disastrous results. Craig went on to found the city of Tukwilla, WA, with the help of former Brewer center fielder Gormon Thomas before retiring to Madison to devote his life to community theater and creative archery.
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Musings from the Improvisors -
Craig Johnson
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I work in a huge building. It’s a quarter mile around and sometimes during my breaks, if the weather is nice I’ll get some exercise by circumambulating it. One day last spring, I was taking my daily jaunt, when I noticed something odd about the dumpsters. There was one for cardboard, one for garbage, and one for tires (there is a garage where I work). What is strange is that there was none for normal recycling. I am happy to say I live and work in one of the greenest cities in America, a city that makes recycling as easy as humanly possible (we don’t need to separate cans from bottles from paper, it’s all just one holistic triangle.). I work in a purportedly “green building” that sells Priuses. All this makes the lack of a recycling dumpster strange. But, the thing that makes our missing recycling dumpster almost creepy is that inside the building, recycling bins are everywhere here. Every major trash can is paired with recycling. |
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 22 April 2009 19:59 |
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Musings from the Improvisors -
Craig Johnson
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I’ve noticed lately that as I’ve grown older I’ve replaced the word “Lately” with “As I’ve grown older.” Here are some examples. Try both choices with each phrase, and see how they affect the sentence. Lately…/As I’ve grown older… … some of my hair has been turning gray. … I’ve noticed my skin is more sensitive, and takes longer to heal. … I’ve found I get impatient faster. … it seems I pay less attention while driving. … jazz bores the hell out of me. I don’t like this. This “as I’ve grown older” thing. It makes changes sound permanent. “Lately” sounds like a phase. It is a season, while “as I’ve grown older” is a lifetime. You’re stuck with it, unless something changes again, probably for the worser (gray to bald, impatient to homicidal, etc.). That hair will never be brown again, unless I cheat. But, I can do things to speed up healing times, and I really hope that I reclaim my patience and my automotive focus. As for jazz, I can take it or leave it. |
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Last Updated on Monday, 20 April 2009 08:08 |
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Musings from the Improvisors -
Craig Johnson
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People often stop me on the street, always with the same question. “Craig,” they’ll ask, careful to keep a respectful distance, “You are a man of intelligence and taste, with striking cheekbones and firm thighs, an experienced juggler, and acceptable actor. You make slightly over the average yearly income of an Alabaman. You know enough Spanish to make a Mexican respectfully embarrassed to talk with you. You have a basically clean driving and arrest record, at least for the last few years, and own many different t-shirts displaying the names of semi-obscure rock bands. You are everything that a rational woman would desire. How can it be you’ve never taken a bride?”
After I silently stare into the middle-distance of my soul for a few minutes, my interrogators will usually get uncomfortable enough to wander off. It’s painful for me to talk about, but I feel it is time I must explain thereasoning behind my singularity.
Five years ago, I was engaged to be married. She was all I ever wanted. Intelligent, poised, hot as Arizona asphalt. She was briefly considered to be the bass player for Sleater-Kinney, but opted out to continue modeling so she could pay off her Ivy League loans. And she proposed to me. How could I not accept? As we were debating whether it should be a beach or mountain wedding, the news arrived: Massachusetts had legalized gay marriage.
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 22 April 2009 16:06 |
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