Recent Comments Issues

Just a heads up for other Blogger (Blogspot) users. If you have a recent comments widget in your sidebar, chances are it isn't working. It shows comments, but only very old ones. Other people are reporting the problem, so I'll take my usual course of action and simply wait.

UPDATE 7/29/10:
If you're having the same issue, there is a temporary hack. Just click here for the code and instructions.

Rare Linkage

I have to confess that I'm out of blogging ideas for the next day or two, probably because I've posted some pretty meaty entries over the past few days and I've been working a lot on my book. I'm going to let other people pick up my slack until I get my blogging mojo back.

Here are some excerpt from entries you really should read:




What is the thing you ate that you were utterly convinced you would detest to the point that you were prepared to spit it out as you lifted the fork or spoon to your mouth, only to discover that you actually didn't dislike it at all and maybe loved it?  More...


And his hot, fetid breath on my neck was just killing me. I felt the nausea washing over me, and I knew it wouldn't be long before I had to excuse myself.  More...


"We're gonna take our country back!!!" From who? The last time I checked it was MY country too and I didn't tap out and give it to anybody.  More...


Some Christians say gayness can be cured with prayer. If only it were the same for stupidity.  More...


As vinegar dripped from my hair, over my glasses, and down my neck, I reflected on the harsh mistress that is science. All I had wanted was a refreshing beverage. Instead I had just douched my face.  More...


Want some good writing advice: Quit worrying if it's good enough until you finish the darn thing first.  More...

Life is Sweet

When I was a child, my family meant everything to me. From the moment I was brought home from the hospital I was surrounded by my parents, my grandparents, and my aunts and uncles. My older brother and I were at that time the only kids, but cousins began to appear a short four years later.

When our family moved en masse to California from Kansas in 1948, they bought a large piece of land in a tiny area near Ventura that was called Nyeland Acres. I think the neighborhood was only about five square blocks in those days, and it contained a collection of quaint houses that had been built by young families after the men started coming home after World War II.

One-by-one the men in our family built houses on this land--kind of a family compound--beginning with my grandparents' house. In the meantime, everyone rented little places in the neighborhood. By the time I came along, they were building our house, which we moved into when I was two.

We were a close, happy family with strong traditions that stemmed from our Austrian ancestry. My grandfather was basically a Hobbit; his only job was to putter around his garden, work on the cars with my dad, and keep the house clean while my grandmother worked as City Clerk at Oxnard City Hall. In those days no one had even considered that men could be house husbands while their wives worked, but that's the arrangement my grandparents preferred.

Weekends were always spent outside. In those days southern California really was a paradise most of the time. My grandfather had planted a willow tree in his front yard, training the limbs with Y-posts to serve as a covered area with arches that he cut into the thick fronds as doorways. It was like a room under there, dark, cool, and private. Inside sat a picnic table, a card table, and homemade Adirondack chairs. The adults played games of penny-a-point Hearts, Spades, and 5-Card Stud, swatted at flies, drank beer, and told jokes while we kids nibbled at the picnic spread, ate watermelon slices, and played in the grass. Sometimes we all went through the gate between their yard and ours, and the grownups played badminton or horseshoes. Often at night we had bonfires around which we sang songs like Mr. Sandman and My Blue Heaven, my talented family's voices joining together in harmonies while my grandmother's coloratura soprano voice rose above and floated upon the smoke into the night sky. These are some of my fondest memories.

Our family would have been pretty progressive if it were around today, but considering it was the Fifties, the diversity I grew up with is mind boggling. Besides my grandfather being a house husband, there were other elements. There was my "Uncle" Wes, who moved from Kansas with the family. He wasn't a blood relative, but he might as well have been. He was a gorgeous dancer in Hollywood, with black curly hair and cornflower blue eyes. He was gay, and he and his gay and lesbian friends and, later, his partner, were always at our family get-togethers. When my mom took a part-time job to help my dad make ends meet it was my Uncle Wes who babysat me. It was also he who nursed me through my bout of rubella when I was five (he had been trained as a Navy nurse during the war). I had relatives from a couple of different races and some from other countries. My aunt had even been divorced, so we also had a blended family in that aspect. And because we were a show business family, there were musical parties at which everyone danced and laughed together regardless of skin color or anything else that the world outside would have found objectionable. Extremely liberal for the times. But my family had a code: Are you a good person? Honest? Friendly? That's all that matters. The point of all this personal background is to tell you that all I've ever really wanted was to recreate my early family life for my own kids, and later, for Nettl's and my blended family, which includes five kids between us.

Yesterday was Heather's twentieth birthday, so we decided to have a simple cookout, grilling burgers and brats and serving them with all the trimmings. Lauren came up for the weekend and Heather and Brian (her boyfriend and, we believe, our eventual son-in-law) brought his brother Dominick. Joel was here (unfortunately Micah wasn't, he's in England until tomorrow), and we invited Allen over, as usual. Like my Uncle Wes when I was a child, Allen has been adopted into our family; the kids just think of him as their funny, rather flamboyant uncle who does a great Carol Channing impersonation.

There was food, music, jokes and laughter, dancing, and a whole lot of fun--it was exactly what I remember from my childhood, only now Nettl and I are the "grandparents" (we have no grandkids yet, but I'm sure that's coming soon enough). It was the best time I've ever spent with my family and it reminded me of how grateful I am for them.

You know, the Buddha was right. Every happiness I seek is already inside of me; all I have to do is go in and find it, recognize it and own it. Over time, as I've mourned the dissolution of my childhood family, I've slowly awakened to the new one that has been given to me, and I'm so grateful. I'm now looking forward to grandchildren, not so that I carry pictures around in my wallet, but so that I can give them the best things I remember from my own childhood. They will come to their grandparents' house, where there will be music and dancing, picnics, laughter, and where they'll grow up with a diversity that will serve as a microcosm of the larger Family of Humankind.

Life is sweet indeed.

Entitlement or Gratitude?

Does art owe anything to the artist? This is a question that has plagued humanity for eons and one that has been on my mind a great deal lately.

It seems to me that people have been so thoroughly indoctrinated to accept talent as a marketable commodity that we’ve forgotten its basic purpose: to be expressed.

Can I sing? I’ll make a gold record (and get rich). Can I dance? I’ll be a big star on Broadway (and get rich). Can I write? I’ll write a best-seller (and get rich). Can I act? I’ll go to Hollywood (and get rich). Can I paint? And so on…

I’m not saying that wanting to make a living from our talents is a bad thing. We as a society need people who introduce us to new ideas through their talent, but I don’t think that every.single.person who has talent is meant to be “rich and famous”. Actually, that’s so obvious, it’s asinine. And I certainly don’t think that every person who has talent has the right to expect fame and fortune, as if it is a reward for simply having talent. That’s a narcissistic sense of entitlement that perverts the purpose of art.

Personally, I’m loathe to talk about what art’s true purpose is because, really, I don’t know. The Great Minds throughout history have tossed that one around, and I don’t presume to know what they never really figured out either. I do have my ideas about talent though. Having talent is like being given a big birthday cake that’s meant to be shared at our own party. Too many people, instead of sharing their cake, sell it to their guests slice-by-slice for monetary gain as well as for praise for having been given the cake in the first place. They didn't bake it or decorate it, or even bring it. It was a gift, and they want to sell it rather than share it.

A few years ago I was a moderator on a certain forum and I was astounded by how many people (mostly young people) believe that those who get famous are innately superior. They seemed to think that fame is a reward for being a better person than anyone else, more evolved or morally superior. Well, having met a great many famous people, I can tell you that just isn’t so, but I'm not naming names.

In ancient Rome everyone wanted to eventually end up being a god (the Catholic Church took their process of creating saints from that which the Romans used to create gods). Some attained godhood during their lifetime, some posthumously, and some never did. Some did so due to good works, helping the poor, and by being loved and respected by the people. Others, no matter how many bribes they offered or who they slept with or murdered, never did. Some received godhood during their lifetime and some not until after their death. Because I see the United States as a modern Rome, I believe that our celebrities are our modern gods. Some people make it and some don’t. Some make it during their lifetime, and some not until after they are dead. The one thing all these people have in common, from ancient Rome to the modern world, is a craving for immortality, of not being forgotten, and people will use whatever talent they have to attaint it: strategy, eloquence, deceit, sex, art, you name it.

The point is to express ourselves through our talents. Why? To express ourselves. That’s not as circular as it sounds. When I was studying with Maestro Salazar—a seasoned professional and a renowned musical force in southern California and points around the globe—he once told me that he admired amateurs more than he did professionals. He then explained to me the true definition of the word amateur (I remember that he pronounced it correctly: ahm-ah-toor, not am-uh-choor): one who does for the love of the doing.

“In other words, an artist,” he said. “Not one who does it to make money, regardless of how much they love the doing. Being ‘amateur’ has somehow picked up the connotation of being second-rate, but that’s just not what it means in Latin. Being an amateur means the artist does what he does simply for the love of it. Ama: love. Teur: of.”

This has always stuck with me and has soaked into my very being as an artist. It has taken years to finally permeate my consciousness. But then, maybe it’s still doing its work and I haven’t truly grasped it yet.

As much as I’d like to have my books published, that isn’t why I write. I write because I enjoy writing. Usually. The past few months have been kind of a drudgery, but in the end, even that’s enjoyable in its own way. And as much as I’d like to make my living by writing, if someone from the future appeared and told me it was never going to happen, I’d still write.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that art owes me nothing. I had nothing to do with it coming to me, so how can it? It runs in my gene pool, that’s all. To expect laurels to be thrown at my head for that is ridiculous, and to demand fame and fortune for it is ungrateful. And gratitude seems to be the lesson of the moment at this point in my life.

My Dinner With Jimi

No, this isn't another of my stories about meeting someone famous. Sorry. And it's not really a film review either. It's about something that happened to me last night while I watched My Dinner With Jimi, a film that was written by Howard Kaylan, who was the lead singer with the Turtles and went on to join Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.

Maybe this film means so much to me because I too had a chance encounter with Jimi Hendrix. Maybe it's because I too was a performing musician in the L.A. area and grew up in southern California. Maybe it's because, although I never met Kaylan, I skirted around the same circle of people in Laurel Canyon. Maybe it's because I too felt just on the outside of things while meeting all the people who would later become part of the future Rock pantheon. Maybe it's because I'm currently spending all of my time in London of the late Sixties while writing my Rock trilogy. Maybe it's because this is one damned good movie.

My Dinner With Jimi chronicles the Turtles' rise to stardom, but focuses largely on their first trip to London. It started out as a 15-minute film intended only for independent film festivals, but producer Harold Bronson liked it so much, he convinced Kaylan to expand it to 90 minutes. Although it was made in 2003 it has only this summer been released on DVD. I got it from Netflix and I'm not returning it until I watch it a couple more times.

Although it was made on a tiny budget of only $250K, it looks great because they used the kind of film that is used in Rock documentaries, and if you can get over the bad wigs and false facial hair (amazingly, the actors had only a week to prepare for their roles), you'll really enjoy it. The portrayals of certain Rock icons are particularly good, especially Royale Watkins, who plays the part of Hendrix. I can tell you for a fact that he has Jimi down, so much so that while watching him, I forgot it wasn't Jimi Hendrix. This is the kind of film that you watch in the same sort of attitude that you watch Office Space. It's funny, a bit spoofy, and eccentric. And it's all true. My kind of movie.

But what happened to me last night was something else. Looking back to the Sixties in my own life is impossible without struggling to make out vague images of fun and happiness through the clouds of retrospection. It's like looking through a kaleidoscope. I turn the lens to see more clearly and I end up looking through the broken fragments of abuse, grief, disillusionment and regret. In 1967 I didn't know that in three short years I'd be a widow with a two week-old baby. I didn't know that many close friends would die or that my musical dream would never come true. All I knew was that I was young and at the precipice of life, and that anything could happen! This film somehow created a wormhole for me through which I traveled back, completely bypassing all the crap. The Sixties were fun again--bad trips, hangovers, and all. And that was exactly the boost I needed to inject the true spirit of the Sixties into my current writing project. So thank you, Howard Kaylan. As I said in my email, I can't imagine my teens without your music. And thank you for this film. It has dissolved the block I've been struggling with for months!

I can't find a YouTube trailer for My Dinner With Jimi, but you can watch it by clicking HERE.

The New Google Image Search Sucks

The new Google Image Search format is crap. It looks disorganized, the searches aren't as fine tuned, I can't see the resolution, file type or size of an image, and I've always hated those hover panes that some people have enabled on their sites, which is how the new GIS works. The infinite scrolling is an equally bad idea, just for orientation's sake.

From what I can tell, they're just competing with Bing, which I've never liked. Guess I'll be heading back to Alta Vista, or see if there's something else. Time for me to start doing some surfing.

If you haven't been given it yet, here's a page that tells you about it.

This is a poor excuse for a blog entry, I know, but I haven't been to bed yet and I'm falling over. Good night.
____________________
UPDATE 7/23/10: My friend Siren has informed me that after you type in a search request and you access the page with all of the thumbnails on it, scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Switch to basic version". Voila!

Thanks Siren!

Shufflin' Across the States

Damn, I'm a rotten person! I forgot to tell you about an awesome blog I came across a couple of months ago. It's called, I'm Just Walkin', and is hosted by Matt, a guy who's walking across the United States.

He started in Rockaway Beach, NY and is headed for Rockaway Beach, OR. He began his journey on March 27th and he's about to hit Great Falls, MT. When I found him, he'd just entered Minnesota, so he's really booking.

Why is he doing it? Here's what he has to say:

"Many people ask me the following questions when they hear about my walk: Am I raising money for a cause? Am I trying to set a record? Am I running from the law? My answer: I’m just doing it for the hell of it. Or, more precisely, I’m doing it for its own sake, for the value inherent in the act itself. Hence the name of this website: I’m just walkin’."

He then goes on to quote Steinbeck. My kind of fellow. He's blogging the entire way, posting only photos, along with catchy titles and witty captions. He has an emergency GPS beacon that tracks his progress, and he somehow attaches push pin markers that point out exactly where each photo is taken. This is used as the header of his blog.

Check him out, and if he comes your way, offer him a bed for the night. If you do, your picture will end up on his blog and you'll meet a truly nice guy.

I'm Just Walkin'

The Stolen 9

Yes, I stole this quiz thingy. I stole it from Jacquandor at Byzantium's Shores because he steals good quiz thingies. So sue me. Then go read his answers.

1. Tell us about the last time that you got hurt in the arena of love.
I fell down and broke my elbow one  night after Nettl and I had an argument a few years ago. Oh. You mean "hurt"... Hell, love always hurts me. I'm an artist; what do you expect?

2. Have you ever been part of the wedding party, other than your own?
I was a Maid-of-Honor once. I've also officiated a pagan handfasting, and I was Beau's Best Weird in his and Ville's wedding.

3. Let's say you find yourself in Hell after you die. Think about everyone you've known in your life. Who would be the one person that would least likely to surprise you by being in Hell with you?
There are just so many... You know who you are.













4. What brings you good luck?
I don't believe in luck, but I do believe in the Law of Attraction.

5. Do you have a photo blog? If so, feel free to share the link with us!
Sorry, don't have one.

6. What is your biggest source of news? (Internet? Newspaper? Television? Radio? The Daily Show? Other?)
I quit following the news a year ago and I find I'm less anxious and angry. If there's something I really need to know, Nettl tells me about it.

7. What's the hottest you've ever been in your life?
I was pretty hot when I was in my 30s. If you mean as in temperature, that was probably when I got peritonitis and had a fever that sent me into a coma for a few hours. I had an out-of-body experience and everything! If you mean, like, weather, then it was in the Antelope Valley in California. I'd gone up to a guy's bee farm. I was living in that Hollywood commune in Peter Tork's (the Monkees) house, and the guy who supplied us with free honey took me up there. I'm allergic to bee sting, so I sat in the cab of his pickup in 100-degree heat, with the windows barely cracked. Had to be 120 in there! I ended up taking off my top, and by the time we left, I was soaking wet and sicker than I would have been than if I'd actually been stung. That was hell! Why do people think being hot is so effin' cool? Each of these had their own share of hell!

8. If you had to choose a theme song for your blog, what would you choose and why?
George Harrison's cover of Between The Devil & the Deep Blue Sea because, well, the words and the music just fit my ambiguity about keeping a blog.

9. Who was the last person you had an online conversation with that you've never met or talked to on your phone?
That's nearly impossible to say since I spend way too much time in Facebook. I think the last person I bantered with was a born-again who pissed me off.