Who Let the Dogs Out!?

Happy Halloween Everyone!

California Dreamin'

Nettl and I were talking tonight (last night for those of you who actually sleep) about the pros and cons of living in California. I told her that because I'm a native Californian, I won't be going there with rose colored glasses on.

She asked me what some of the cons were, and I could only come up with a few things that she (who has never lived there and has only visited briefly) might find difficult to adjust to. That made me think that I should ask you. It doesn't matter if you've never even been there --tell me what your beliefs are about the California lifestyle, the people, and the culture. I think this will be fun, stereotypes and all.

I'm a Not-So-Effective Hybrid

25 miles per gallon

Source: The Car Connection

A Change of Plans

Nettl and I have pretty much decided that if the Mozartiana sells for as much --or even half as much-- as we anticipate, we're going to move back to Ventura, California. It's where I was born, and where I've spent most of my life. As much as we love Vienna, moving there at our ages and with our health issues is just too much falderall and stress. We'd rather just spend a season there from time-to-time and enjoy it without all the fuss.

Other factors leading to this decision include:

• Lauren is considering going to school in Monterey
• Heather is considering San Francisco
• Nathan is a surfer, but just doesn't know it yet
• Joel loves California, period

I don't know what Micah thinks yet. I've always loved Ventura. It's funky, artsy, individualistic, and quaint. There are street fairs, art parades, live music of all styles and genres, playhouses and theaters, sidewalk cafes, street performers, and boutiques. I've lived downtown and I wish that I'd never left. Here are some pictures of some of my favorite places:

El Jardin Paseo, a hidden alley off of Main Street.

The view from City Hall to the Beach

Two Trees with the Topa Topas in the background, in winter.

Zoey's Cafe in El Jardin Paseo.

Mission San Buenaventura, founded by Fr. Junipero Serra in 1782.

City Hall with a statue of Fr. Serra.

Cemetery Park, where dogs are free to run.
(It's no longer a cemetery)

Ventura & the Pacific Ocean by night.

The Missing Chord

Here's another impression by my new fav, Stevie Riks:

The Pot Roast Review

All I can say about Willow's World Famous Pot Roast is this:

I regret that I have but one stomach to give.

Make it.

I Want a Merry Maid (& other stuff)

I really love waking up with the cat pretzeled around me for warmth. I used to have a Yorkshire Terrier and two tuxedo cats who pretty much made sleeping a constant maneuvering and shifting in order not to disturb them while ensuring my own comfort. I've always liked sharing my bed with my four-legged friends. Our cat rarely sleeps with us, so when I wake up with her warm little body curled up next to me, I really like it. And for some reason, when I wake up with that coziness, I'm spared my daily upon-waking panic attack.

For the past 24 hours I've been trying to get myself motivated to do a thorough cleaning on this house, including the self-cleaning oven. That may sound like a simple thing: turn on, shut door, wait, then sweep out the charred debris. No, not so easy. The cleaning cycle is so high that it makes the downstairs really, really hot, and it stinks besides. Last time I did it, Nettl and Heather actually got sick from the fumes. I think I'll have to do it early in the morning after they leave for the day. The guys and I can take it.

I was checking out the cost of having the carpets cleaned and it's not as bad as I'd thought. Our entire house would cost beween two and three-hundred dollars. We'll probably have to do it ourselves though, which means that I'll be down in the back all through the month of December. But it has to get done somehow. I hate carpet for the most part, and this is cream-colored. Or, it was cream-colored five years ago. We've cleaned it ourselves a couple of times, but it's overdue.

Keeping windows clean and sparkling is impossible in Oklahoma. In the summer, the winds cover the panes with red sand, in the winter there's snow and sleet, and spring and autumn bring the glorious thunder and rain storms. We've been lucky though, we haven't had the windows blown out altogether by a tornado. The bathrooms are always a challenge: it's a dusty state and no room, however tucked away, can escape it. And everyone seems to think the kitchen cleans itself.

I installed a door sweep thingy on the front door last night, which cut out nearly all of the cold draft that's plagued the entry in the past. That was a cheap fix: $7.50. I still have to get some weather stripping for the door and window jambs; I'm tired of putting rolled-up towels and ugly strips of duct tape everywhere every winter. With fuel costs what they are, the leaks and drafts are no longer just a comfort issue. Two weeks ago I got new bulbs for the downlights that go all around the house's exterior, but they're still sitting on the kitchen counter waiting for me to drag the ladder out of the garage. I think I'll do that today.

At the party the other night, Jaeson gave me a sweatshirt upon the front of which is: Careful, or you'll end up in my novel. Truth be told, everyone's already in there to some degree or another, usually in dibs and dabs, and in composite characters. I know that's completely off topic. Just wanted to share.

Tonight, I'm making Willow's World Famous Pot Roast. I've craved it since she posted the recipe on her blog nearly three weeks ago.

Guess I'll go now and start getting some of this stuff done.
__________
UPDATE - 5:49 pm:
Dinner's in the oven and it smells dee-vooooon! Willow, this is going to be awesome!

Out Of The Blue

I don't know why I thought of this -- I'd forgotten all about it until just a moment ago. When I was a child, and my mother would take me shopping with her to the old Sears department store in Ventura, we'd always stop by the candy and nut counter to get some roasted cashews. They were put into a pink and white striped paper bag with a silver scoop. The bag always felt good in the hands because it was warm, and the aroma of the cashews was heavenly.

When Joel was very little and I was expecting Micah, we lived in a duplex not far from the Sears, and we'd walk there to window shop. When I could afford to do so, I'd stop at the same counter and get a bag of the cashews to share with Joel, just as my mother had with me. Not long after that, Sears vacated the building to move into a mall, where they had another candy and nut counter. I think the tradition of selling nuts and candy to eat while shopping ended in the 80s.

Like I said, I don't know why I remembered this, but I'm glad that I did!

Into The Fluff

I finally realized tonight why I like watching Lifetime movies: they're sterling examples of really bad screenwriting. Sure, every now and then a good one will sneak in there, like See You in My Dreams, starring Marcia Gay Hardin and Aiden Quinn, but mostly, they're pieces o' crap with predictable plots and endings (see this entry). The worst part is, they're not even bad enough to become cult films. They're banal, and that's unforgivable.

This weekend, LMN (Lifetime Movie Network) broadcast something they called, "Into The Light", meaning the movies would be of a paranormal nature in honor of Halloween. Instead, they were the same old hack films that show women and children as victims. They call it "television for women", but the screenplays are really written for men, I suspect. I can deal with soft-slasher "porn", but seriously bad writing, plot points that lead nowhere, and subplots that are never resolved are another matter. I think watching these things should become part of every writing course offered to would-be authors, playwrights and screenwriters. They're really just dime store bodice-ripper paperbacks on film.

Watching these has become one of our favorite things to do on Sunday afternoons. Especially after a Saturday night party. They require zero concentration and cogitation, and one can nap through the first half and still pick up on the story in the last 30 minutes. Sometimes I'm tempted to write one, and then I realize that life's too short to write that kind of stuff, and too long to watch it.

Still, I do.

Oh Yeah, Ville Threw a Party

Click to enlarge, but please do so quietly...

This One's Fun

I just found this meme at Mary's Meme Blog. Pick up on it if you feel so inclined.

~ My uncle once: told me that he'd met my aunt at the circus. He said he was the Indian Rubber Man and she was the Fat Lady (in truth, they were both reed thin). Because I was only 3 or 4, I believed him.

~ Never in my life: have I set out to hurt someone, including someone who's hurt me.

~ When I was five: I wanted to be Peter Pan.

~ High school was: better than I thought it was at the time.

~ I will never forget: that day in the late 70s when I was mistaken for Laraine Newman and was given the bridal dressing room at J. Magnin. No matter how much I insisted I wasn't her, the salesgirl wouldn't believe me.

~ Once I met: Paul McCartney. Twice, actually.

~ There’s this girl I know: who has convinced me that fans can be very dangerous.

~ Once at a bar: I found a $20 bill on the floor under my table. I kept it, of course. Whoever had dropped it was long gone.

~ By noon, I’m usually: writing, or working for a client.

~ Last night: I couldn't go to sleep because that stupid "Irish Drinking Songs" theme from Who's Line Is It Anyway? was stuck in my head. ("Dy-di dy-di dy-di dy-di, Dy-di dy-di dy!")

~ If I only had: the energy I had 20 years ago, there'd be no stopping me.

~ Next time I go to church: it'll probably be to hear the Stillwater Chamber Singers' Christmas concert.

~ What worries me most: is what will happen to my kids when I'm gone.

~ What I miss most about the 1980s is: nearly every facet of my life then.

~ If I were a character in Shakespeare, I’d be: Puck, from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

~ A better name for me would be: Nettl's nickname for me, "Goof".

~ I have a hard time understanding: String Theory, for one.

~ If I ever go back to school: it won't be for grades, but simply to learn things like architecture, philosophy and astronomy.

~ You know I like you if: I hug first.

~ Take my advice, never: eat Flaming Hot Cheetos while drinking box wine.

~ My ideal breakfast is: coffee, kitchen sink eggs and lots of bacon.

~ If you visit my hometown, I suggest you: visit the wineries.

~ Why won’t people: just pipe down, have a beer, and relax?

~ The world could do without: isms.

~ My favorite blonds are: Nettl, Marilyn Monroe and Barbara Eden.

~ If I do anything well, it’s: letting people be who they are.

~ And by the way: I like memes like this one.

A Room of One's Own

As I've learned to take my writing more seriously, and not as either a hobby or a waste of time (i.e. daydreaming on paper), I've tried to define what my ideal writing environment would be.

I've never been able to afford a stint at a writers colony or retreat, although I've often played with the idea. Being in a country setting with no phones, no internet, no wine, and adhering to a sleep cycle that rivals that of a monk may be good for creating a sense of discipline, but the idea of putting a cast iron girdle on my muse seems counter-productive. I get my ideas from conversations, reading blogs, television, household noise--in short, life.

I've even toyed with the idea of making Nathan's now vacant room (a space that's only about 10x10 feet, has no windows, and is attractively den like) my writing space. That would work well during the day, but to tell the truth, I work better late at night when Nettl is asleep a few feet away. If I started working in a separate space, I'd have to take time away from her to write. Frankly, I work best when "the spirit moves me", not on a pre-determined schedule. Some of my best ideas hit while she's at the computer 12 feet away and I'm blogsurfing in my chair.

I've often wished I could spend a week alone in a cabin in the mountains, or by a lake or river. There, I could follow my own schedule, go for walks, and write at my own pace. The problem is, I know that I'd fall into a routine of sleep late, drink coffee while blogging, write, make some dinner, watch Olbermann and Maddow, pour some wine, write until dawn and then go to bed. Hell, that's my daily routine anyway, so why spend money just to miss my family, imagining some Lifetime movie psychopath outside every time a raccoon lifts the lid of the trash barrel? Which makes me wonder, do you think all of these Lifetime movies are written by people who rent a cabin in the woods?

A slightly more attractive setting would be a room at either Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, or the Chelsea Hotel in New York City, both famous for their bohemian, literary clientele through the years. I'm afraid, however, that the history would be distracting and that I'd probably spend far too much time in the bar trying to capture some of whatever it was that inspired all of the great writers who've stayed there.

So it seems that for me, my own home--with the busy-ness that comes built into a family of five, six and sometimes seven--is the best place for me to write. I really think that the only writing a colony, cabin, hotel room, or even home office would produce would be some interesting blog entries.

You Know You're Getting Old When...

I was just taking a break from writing by checking the friend requests on MySpace. As I clicked off of a page, my eyes caught an ad on which the question was asked, "Are you hot?" My automatic mental response was, "No, I'm actually pretty comfortable," and then I realized it was a singles ad.

Yep, that's getting old!

From Me To You

"Well, If That Don't Beat All..."

First of all, I don't believe in coincidence. Instead, I tend to go along with the idea that life is full of synergies or synchronicities. Whatever you believe, you'll find these jaw-dropping. (Hat-tip to Look At This.)

A computer error gave two women in America named Patricia the same social security number. When the two women were brought together in an office to rectify the blunder they discovered that...

-- both been born with the names Patricia Ann Campbell
-- both of their fathers were named Robert Campbell
-- both birthdays were on 13th March 1941
-- both married military men in the year 1959 (within 11 days of each other)
-- both had two children aged 19 and 21
-- both had an interest in oil painting
-- both had studied cosmetics
-- both worked as bookkeepers

***

In 1893, Henry Ziegland ended a relationship with his girlfriend. Tragically, his girlfriend took the news very badly, became distraught and took her own life. Her distressed brother blamed her death on Henry and went to Henry's house, saw him out in the garden and tried to shoot him. Luckily, the bullet only grazed Henry's face and embedded itself in a nearby tree. In 1913, 20 years later, Henry decided to use dynamite to uproot a tree in his garden. The explosion propelled the embedded bullet from the tree straight into Henry Ziegland's head, killing him immediately.

***

In 1996, Paris police went out to investigate a late night, high speed car crash in which both drivers had been killed instantly. Investigations revealed that the deceased were in fact husband and wife. Police initially suspected some kind of murder, or suicide pact, but it became apparent that the pair had been separated for several months -- neither could have known that the other would have been out driving that night.

W. is for W.

Am I the only person who wasn't riveted by Oliver Stone's movie, "W."? Am I the only one who didn't find it "fascinating" or "thought-provoking"? It didn't tell me anything I didn't already know and it is, after all, about someone that I detest and really don't care to get to know better. Not after the last eight years. At this point, I just want Dubya to go the hell away. Like to the distant reaches of the Outer Darkness.

What I did like was the symbolism as seen through certain camera shots: the gold cross on the Texas belt buckle and poor Spot finally just saying through her body language, "I'm not chasing your f***ing ball anymore, @sshole!" Best though, was the depiction of Bush's (or any would-be King of the World's) gaping, voracious appetite, not just for food and drink (both alcoholic and soft drinks), but also power, paternal approval and social acceptance. And like any would-be Napoleon, Alexander, or Hitler, when the addictive megalomaniac finally chokes on his insatiable greed, only he can save himself, there's no one there to help him. History has shown that this kind of man always goes down the hard way, and never to a happy ending.

Most of the roles, in my opinion, remain hollow impressions rather than real portrayals, except for Dubya, George and Barbara Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. Yeah, the Condoleezza Rice was spot on, but hell, Frank Caliendo could have done as well and kept me more interested.

Maybe it was just the benedryl I took before we left the house, but I had a hard time keeping my eyes open during the last 45 minutes of the film. The last time I felt like that at a movie was back in the late 70s when I took my kids to see the re-release of Disney's "Pinnochio". Hm. The best touch, however, was the choice of Dylan singing, "With God on Our Side" during the end credits. Tasty!

The film that looks great is the new Ron Howard release, Frost/Nixon. I loved David Frost, and the trailer seriously "riveted" me.

For a better, and possibly less biased take, read my spouse's review on W. here.

For You, JP Deni

See more great Rock impressions by Stevie Riks here.

Saturday Story Time: "Suzanne"

One of the most beautiful songs to come out of the Sixties was "Suzanne", by the great Leonard Cohen. It has softened many a warm night among my friends as we sat cross-legged and enshrouded in billows of sandalwood, mellow guitars, grass, and jugs of red wine. In our circle, it was Dee's song: she always performed it and I added the harmony on the chorus. I don't know why, but I never thought to find out who this Suzanne was, so yesterday I started digging around. She wasn't hard to find, and her story is as fascinating as the song.

 Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river

You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body with his mind.

Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she's touched your perfect body with her mind.

Suzanne Verdal, a young and beautiful, bohemian dancer who had just graduated from high school, moved in the Beat world of Montreal in the early Sixties, where she met and married sculptor Armand Vaillancourt. As the decade progressed, they became part of the Montreal arts scene of which the still unknown Cohen also was a part. The two met at Le Bistro, a coffee house on rue de la Montagne. Actually, Suzanne remembers that their first meeting was at Le Vieux Moulin four years earlier, but no connection was made between them. She was, after all, the wife of one of his friends.

"There was a woman named Suzanne," Cohen remembers, "who was the wife of a friend of mine, Armand Vaillancourt, who is a great Montreal sculptor, still a friend of mine, and his wife was Suzanne Vaillancourt. She invited me down to her place near the river, and she did serve me constant tea filled with little pieces of orange."

When Suzanne and her husband separated, she and their young daughter Julie moved into a place with crooked floors, on Rue de la Commune on the waterfront in Old Montreal. (It's now a boutique hotel, Auberge de la Place Royale.) Cohen heard about it and began visiting her and they sat up late into night talking in candlelight about poetry, religion, and life.

"It was a very private thing that I felt like I had with Leonard," Suzanne recalls. "It was kind of like a very 'sympathical' wavelength thing - that we would read each other's minds. We were very in tune with each other."

One of the questions that always arises around this song is, were they lovers? Both maintain that they were not, that they didn't want to compromise the intellectual and spiritual purity of their friendship with sex. As someone who has known a friendship or two like that, I believe them.

"It's not just the copulation," Cohen said. "It is the whole understanding that we are irresistibly attracted to one another, and we have to deal with this. We are irresistibly lonely for each other, and we have to deal with this, and we have to deal with our bodies and with our hearts and souls and minds, and it's an urgent appetite."

"I was the one that put the boundaries on that," Suzanne said, "because Leonard is actually a very sexual man and very attractive and very charismatic. And I was very attracted to him, but somehow I didn't want to spoil that preciousness, that infinite respect that I had for him, for our relationship, and I felt that a sexual encounter might demean it somehow."

"Suzanne" was initially a poem, but people kept telling Cohen to make a song of it. Who knew that song would become his signature piece, and a monumental work of art? Soon after, everyone, it seems, began covering the song and Suzanne, the person, took on the mythology of The Muse whether she wanted to or not. By the time the song became a hit under the cover by Judy Collins the muse and the poet were no longer in contact with each other. Fame took Cohen from Montreal and Suzanne worked at building her career as a respected dancer and choreographer. Eventually, she went to San Francisco and Los Angeles, where she worked to become a choreographer for music videos.

Tragedy struck when Suzanne suffered a catastrophic injury (some reports say it was a fall from a ladder onto concrete and some say it was an auto accident) that broke her back and both wrists. Her dancing career over, she was homeless for a number of years during the 90s in Venice Beach, California, living in a wood-shingled pickup camper with four homeless cats and dancing with a drum circle on the beach on Sundays.

Suzanne, now in her late 50s, was last reported to be making a new life in Santa Cruz as a massage therapist. She is no longer homeless, and has plenty of Bohemian friends who love her.

"Suzanne is one of these rare souls who is actually sincere and cares about life and people and sees the world in terms of beauty," says her friend Raj. "A lot of people say that, but she's one of these people who actually lives it."

Dance on, Suzanne!

Humankind's Greatest Unsung Inventions

I think a lot of time is wasted in praising ourselves for coming up with inventions like the wheel. Sure, it's important and it certainly makes life easier, but there are many inventions that we take for granted although they're used every day all over the world.

I don't know what made me think of this, really. I was going to post an entry about yawning and why it's contagious. I found that subject boring, however, and I couldn't stop yawning while looking at this.

I also considered writing about how self-serving TV chefs come off looking. I mean, they'd like us to believe that all those people around their table are dear friends who have been invited over for an intimate dinner party, but the entire time they're sitting there, the chef is talking about how he or she made each dish and how little money he or she spent; the dinner conversation is dominated by the chef and the "guests" are the unwitting prisoners of his or her pontificating. Well, I'm not going to blog about that. Instead, here is my list of humankind's greatest unsung inventions (in no particular order). Feel free to add your own.

1. Stairs: As much as I gripe about them, they're certainly better than climbing a slope every morning when I'm bringing my first cup of coffee up from the kitchen.
   
   
2. The handle on the coffee cup: I like the French coffee bowl, but I'd rather have a handle to latch onto first thing in the morning.
   
   
3. Pockets: We humans have a need to accumulate stuff and pockets help us take our stuff with us. Where would we put our stuff if we didn't have pockets?
   
   
4. Toilet paper: (goes without saying why).
   
   
5. Paper clips: What did people do before?
   
   
6. Disposable lighters: No more buying flints and fuel like my dad had to for his Zippo.
   
   
7. Push buttons: How many do you press in the course of a day and never give them a thought? And how upset do you get when one doesn't work?
   
   
8. Pillows: I've often wondered how people in Japan deal with those uncomfortable-looking wooden "head benches". How do they get their small children to use them and never turn over at night? Is everyone forced to sleep on their backs?
   
   
9. Pants: Life was a lot breezier before pants were invented.
   
   
10. Spectacles: Without them, life would be considerably less pleasant and productive for many of us.
    

Sex Role Test

Androgynous

You scored high on both masculinity and femininity.
You have a strong personality exhibiting
characteristics of both traditional sex roles.

Take The Bem Sex Role Inventory Test
at
HelloQuizzy

Hat-tip to Bob at Neither Clever Nor Witty.

Baroque & the Art of Zen

It's been a good day.

Just a little after one o'clock I was hit with the urge to say, "Screw it all!" and turn my screenplay into a novel. I know how to write a novel and I can write the pants off of my screenplay.

Writing in the screenplay format these past months has taught me how to say what I want to say with an economy of words. If I can compare it to anything musical it would be this: Are you familiar with the overture to Mozart's Die Zauberflöte? If not, go here and listen to about 15 seconds of the music. Go on, I'll wait.

Welcome back. Did you notice the rests? The spaces where no music was being played? The secret to the effect that piece of music has on the listener is that Mozart intended the orchestra to play the rests -- those silences -- as powerfully and with as much meaning as they play the notes. Writing a screenplay is exactly the same. With no opportunity to describe the situation, the motives of the actors and the dynamics between them, you're left to convey all those things more subtly. It's damned hard, and I think I'm a better writer for having done it. But writing a novel in which I can describe the feel of the night air, the glisten in a woman's eyes, and the music resounding within a musician's brain, comes more naturally to me. Anyone who knows me knows that the Zen thing is as about foreign to my Baroque nature as a Japanese tea ceremony is to a Viennese tavern. I'm a hedonist. I'm expansive. And I have no self-discipline when it comes to reining in my creative urges. Still, my sojourn into the world of screenwriting showed me that I can do it if I so choose. I just don't particularly enjoy it.

When I'm working on a large project I don't adhere to the old standards of a chapter a day, 10 pages a day, or even 1,000 words a day. That makes it a chore and I hate chores. I simply write until I have nothing else to say in that particular session. Sometimes I'll get three chapters and sometimes I'll get three sentences. What do I have to prove?

It's because of this, I think, that I've never experienced the dreaded Writers Block. In fact, I don't even believe in Writers Block. You can't push the river, as the saying goes; if you don't have it that day, it'll be there another day. Writers Block, in my opinion, is just forcing yourself to write when you would probably be happier doing something else. Creativity has a rhythm after all, and you have to go with it, otherwise you create a dissonance between you and your naturally creative Self.

And now, back to my manuscript. I'm sure I'll be up all night with it.

Glory in the Rain

Here are a couple of pictures I just took of the Morning Glories I mentioned in my last post. They're just past their prime, but they brighten the cold, gray, rainy day. Click to embigify.

Faded glory.

Spreading glory.

I didn't even plant these; the wind must have blown seed to the corner of the yard. I love it! Next year (if we're still in this house) I'll train them to climb the fence.

Sweet Potato Mish-Mash

Well, you get another one. A bullet list.

• Lauren came home last weekend. For those who don't know, she's attending OU about 65 miles south of here. Because Lauren didn't have a car until right before school started, Lynette was still playing taxi cab to both girls. On Saturday evening Lauren went to pick Heather up from work and when they came in, they were carrying ice cream sundaes from Shakes. Well, they were actually frozen custard sundaes, but why quibble? Tastes like ice cream to me. How great is that? How many kids would think to buy sundaes for the old farts at home?
  
• The foam is all worn off of my earbuds, which makes me wonder, where did all that black stuff disintegrate too? It's not in my ears; I hope it didn't get sucked into my brain.
  
• It's downright cold today, but not cold enough to switch on the heat. Instead, I have warm socks on and a cozy sweater. I love autumn. And it's raining. Could old Libra me be any happier?
  
• Speaking of autumn, the back fence and a corner of the back yard is a riot of color with the Morning Glories I planted last year. The neighbor across the street even commented on them to Heather. I've never known them to last this long—the Morning Glories, not the neighbors.
  
• I'm waiting on a phone call from a client; he has three new sites for me, steady work that will easily take me into the new year. My life...
  
• I'm going to be making a sweet potato mash this week. I've never had it, but we all like yams, so I'm hoping they'll be good. Have you ever had them?

What We Need is a Good Old-Fashioned Christmas

I remember when my dad told his stories of how his family and friends pulled together during the Great Depression. I remember how his eyes softened and glistened with happy Christmas memories of modest, homemade gifts, games, and family togetherness. Without an excess of money, his family focused on what they did have to give: themselves. Well, I've decided that this Christmas will be an old-fashioned one that will focus on what really matters: family and friends.

My proposal to my family and friends is this: no gift will cost more than $5. In fact, I want it to be a theme Christmas: A Dollar-General Christmas. Gifts are not to be the kind that pretend to be more expensive or from more expensive stores. Let's pick out gifts that are highly personalized (I'm thinking right now about gifts like the "Dad shirt" beer cozy that Ville gave me last summer). Let's spend time together in the livingroom, playing music at the piano and on our guitars, working jigsaw puzzles and playing board games on the kitchen table, and enjoying a nice but affordable Christmas dinner (right now, Willow's post roast sounds really good!).

Maybe this financial crisis is just what our country needs to get back to the real meaning of Christmas: family, friends, love and laughter. Why should gifts each year compete with those we gave last year as better, bigger, flashier, more expensive? They shouldn't.

To Clarify

The one thing I've always been dedicated to on this blog is candor. Because I consider my blog to be an extension of the 50 or so volumes of my earlier handwritten journals (kept from 1977 to 2002), I keep very little in reserve where my thoughts and emotions are concerned. Sure, some things never get written about, but I don't think that's a particularly bad thing; I have entries in my journals, rash ejaculations written in the heat of the moment, that make me cringe. My blog holds in the reins, so to speak, on my impulsiveness.

The past month has been especially hard around here, and while I hesitate to write about everything for fear of appearing the whiner, I can only take so much before the need to pitch a fit takes hold. Most of my readers understand this. They also understand that even in the depths of disappointment and depression I possess a kind of "gallows humor" (hat tip to Kay for re-introducing me to this phrase) that eventually outs itself. As she says, "A gallows humor is better than no humor at all".

While I will not apologize for yesterday's entry, I did delete it, for no other reason than to put what inspired it out of sight and, hopefully, out of mind. So far, it's working pretty well. I read last night that the director/screenwriter I named yesterday is not in fact the one working on the new screenplay. It is someone I've never heard of, a 21 year-old woman whose name I cannot mention here due to the prying eyes of those who feel it necessary to keep an eye on me and report my every move back to their members-only clique. Whatever. I'm also giving the author another shot; I've begun re-reading her book with as uncritical an eye as I can muster.

If it was just the issue with the screenplay, life would be pretty easy, actually, but we're facing a really difficult time financially around here that has turned downright scary. Putting food on the table and keeping the roof are very real challenges right now. With the financial crisis at play, fewer people find having a website to be all that important, and if they really need one they're building their own using one of the many DIY web-builders that are out there. I mean, why not put the money one would spend on a designer into some software they can use over and over again? That's how I got into this after all. Too, Nettl's voice students are dropping; the arts are always the first to go in times of financial crisis.

I'm trying to be positive, but I wake up every morning wondering where tonight's meal will come from. I admit I have a real issue with an empty pantry because I've gone hungry several times before, living on oatmeal or ramen for weeks on end so that my kids could eat. Opening up the fridge to see it full is like dropping a hit of Ecstasy. And now there's the rent issue on top of that. Lynette and I are working as hard as we can to get through this hard time, but let's face it, we're not young and neither of us is in the best of health. Sure, we have the "treasure" that will more than likely fetch a neat price, but that will probably take months to see fruition, so in the meantime we're hanging onto an eroding cliff by our fingernails. We know help is coming, we just don't know when. Besides the drop in clients and voice students, the summer also marked the end of child support checks as well as my Morgan Stanley anuities; our monthly income has dropped by nearly $1000.

I'll try to keep things light here -- as light as possible -- but I can't promise that my fear and despair won't emmerge once in a while. Just wanted to clarify. Thanks for listening. No need to comment.

Saturday Story Time: In Their Off Hours

(Note: all links except the first go to pictures)

Growing up in Solvang, as I've said before, was a unique, if not downright weird, experience. One of the fun things, however -- and there were many -- was seeing film stars in their every day lives.

The Valley was home to a number of famous people, not the least of which was Ronald Reagan. But I never saw him at the feed store. Who I did see was Jimmy Stewart. Always dressed in denim bib overalls and a western-style shirt, Stewart looked every bit the rancher as he walked down the cobbled sidewalks. No one bothered him. The tourists didn't even recognize him, but we knew who he was and we just said hi. Another was comedian Louis Nye, who you might remember from the old Steve Allen Show. "Steverino" being one of my all-time favorite people, I knew who Nye was, but I was too shy even to say hi to him. I made eye contact once though. My mom's personal favorite "famous neighbor" was Irish tenor Kenny Baker. Most people today don't know who he was, but my mom, being Irish, absolutely loved him.

Dad had a special tie with these people because he was the only TV tech in a town with only one appliance store, where my dad worked. Every time someone's signal went out, or a TV tube blew, it was my dad who made the service call. Remember, this was in a time when people didn't just go out and buy a new appliance when one broke down. There was no Wal*mart, no Circuit City, no Lowe's. If an expensive appliance broke down your only alternatives were to either "take it to the shop", or, if you had a bit more money, "call the repairman". My dad met a lot of people due to his job and he saw them from the unique perspective of being in their own surroundings. And who really pays attention to the TV repairman? He heard a lot of private conversations.

Dad said that Stewart (who lived on Little Wine Cup Ranch) wasn't the "regular guy" he appeared to be. He was driven and opinionated, but pretty nice and always friendly. I don't remember him saying anything about Nye, except that he smiled a lot. And the only thing I remember hearing in connection with Baker was my mom joking with dad that he could leave her at his house if he wanted to.

One of the other noted valley denizens was a man my dad referred to only as "Sedgwick". More than two decades later I learned that man was Francis Sedgwick, the father of Edie, of Andy Warhol fame. My dad hated going to Rancho La Laguna, because Sedgwick was, he said, "a blowhard" who followed him around telling how to fix whatever he was called up to fix and that he ran around naked, except for too-tight swimming trunks. Speedos? Um, yeah. Edie is buried in the little cemetery in Ballard, a town that was, back then, about the size of an interstate truck stop, although much prettier.

Ballard is also noted for its quaint chapel, where Mickey Rooney and Ava Gardner were married in 1942. One of my best friends was married there as well. Also, this very school yard is where this picture of JP Deni and me was taken back in 1969. It was no big deal, just a nice place to hang out.

I almost forgot to mention Gordon MacRae! My dad was pretty good friends with him and frequently went fishing with him on his ranch. Hm, maybe MacRae's ranch was in Ventura County, where I was born. I can't remember. Either way, Dad really liked him and counted him among his friends.

Today the valley is more famous for Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch, but back when I was a kid, the celebrities who lived there kept a lower profile.

There is Nothing Like a Dream to Create the Future

Really? Is it getting harder to make our dreams come true, or has it always been this way? I'm not talking about the financial crisis, I'm talking about the loss of hope, the death of dreaming due to the corporate feudal system in which we are merely the field workers who make the suits' dreams come true. Or maybe I'm talking about something less tangible, a closing down of the parts of both the brain and the spirit that dare to dream.

When I was younger I believed that whatever I could dream of I could create, so I dreamed, backing that up with bull-headed belief in myself, damned hard work, and a single-mindedness that was unwavering. How many times have we heard someone who's "made it" say, "If you believe, it'll come true!" I beg to differ. Take my field for instance. How many frustrated musicians are out there who dreamed and worked, and are living ordinary lives now, wondering what the hell went wrong? Is it fate? Karma? Luck? Because if it's merely daring to dream, and then working toward it, then what about the lazy SOBs who "make it" simply because they know someone and have never spent one night aching for the realization of their heart's desire, or worse, never even had a heart's desire except to buy a big house and bank more money than they need?

My dreams are simpler these days. An apartment in Vienna, a cottage on Cape Cod--hell, a car would be nice! Gone are the dreams of getting a Grammy award, working in the studio with someone I admire, or playing the Hollywood Bowl. Security in my old age, the ability to feed my family. These things are more important. Or are they? Aren't those the things that kill our ability to dream? Kahlil Gibran said, "The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold." Perhaps this is the secret, that the ability to dream is what it's about: an end unto itself. Perhaps the real reward of dreaming is the ability to dream at all.

So what do you think? Is it dreams, luck, fate, hard work, karmic destiny, believing? What makes dreams come true for some people and not for others?

P.S. Despite the way this sounds I'm not depressed or down; this is a subject that has puzzled me for a long time.

"Castle in the Air" by Jet Amago
Title quote by Victor Hugo

Mish-Mash of This-That

"And she said, 'Your debutant knows what you need, but I know what you want.'" - Bob Dylan (Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again)

Okay, so maybe my doctor knows something. Well, of course she does and I love her so much that I sometimes think I'll never leave this one-cow town just because I don't want to lose her. My new dosage of Levoxyl was hell for two days, semi-hell for one day, bearable for about two hours, and completely unnoticable yesterday. And now I feel better than I have in months. Hell, I feel downright normal. The depression, fatigue and crankiness are gone and I no longer feel like I did when I wrote this. Hormones are mean little bastards, aren't they? So thank you all for bearing with me; we will now return to my usual banter and all that crap.

• I have a great link for you. I found it via Look At This, which is where I get a lot of ideas for posts that I usually never make. All the same, check out Porn For Women. It's safe to open at work. I promise.
  
  
• I'm about three-quarters through a glass of merlot and I'm sneezing like all gee-dunk (damned tanins), but I'm not about to give up red wine; I can take Benadryl.
  
  
• I just want to say that the smartest thing I ever did in this life was hitch my club car to Nettl's Peace Train. I literally don't know what I'd be without her.

• I realized today that I regard my cell phone minutes exactly the same way I do my bank balance. I use Net-10, a pay-as-you-go plan, and today, after spending 45 minutes on the phone with a client, I noticed that I have only 71 minutes left. They have to last until the 14th. God, I'd hate to bounce a rubber text...
  
  
• Have you ever thought that someone is angry with you and you don't know why? They don't comment, or respond to your comments, and then you feel all stupid because you know that their life is really complicated and that it might not be about you at all, and then you feel all stupid because you think it is about you? Did I do something? I'd rather you just punch me in the nose than freeze me out. But as I said, it might not be about me, but I'm a stu and can't help wondering.
  
  
• I think I'm entering my senior years. I have all the signs: body functions are growing increasingly interesting, the skin on my arms is turning "crepey" (although I don't have that loose stuff that flaps around), every now and then my skin grows something undefinable, and I get pissed off at the 15 year-old boy down the lane who drives around our cul-de-sac in the new red Jeep his cop dad bought him (but for which he has no license) with the hardtop off and the BOOM-BA-BOOM-BOOM playing. Yeah, old hippie me is getting old. I'm trying to do it gracefully, but let's face it: when you're a 33 year-old spirit trapped inside an old fart body, you just gotta get pissed off sometimes. Especially when I've wanted a new Jeep for nearly 20 years.
  

And that's the end of tonight's spiel.

No Reason to Smile?

It's a fact that truth is stranger than fiction. Take this guy. We all know him. That's Smilin' Bob, the guy in the Enzyte commercials. As much as I hate the way Madison Avenue preys on men's insecurities about size the same way it preys on women's insecurities about weight, I like these commercials. I liked the first one best though, the one with the conga line. Not long after though, someone removed a shot of a woman holding a tiny, limp cocktail weenie. The ads were really popular, then they suddenly disappeared. I found out why: a year or so ago the founder of Enyztye, Steve Warshak, was convicted of money laundering, false advertising and fraud. He was sued for $450 mil and sentenced to 25 years.

“This wasn’t a series of little frauds here and there,” Mark Josephs, a U.S. Department of Justice lawyer, told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “This was a big scheme.”

But here's where it gets weird. Immediately after the judgment, the Enzyte people started making plans to change the product's name and to replace John Larson, the actor who played Smilin' Bob. Then, low-and-behold, Larson turned up missing and presumed dead after a boating accident near the Caribbean island of Martinique last June. Now the commercials are back on the air, which makes me wonder what's going on. If he's alive, then great, but why is the product back on the air? If he's dead, then that's kind of creepy and in really bad taste, and again, why is the product being marketed?

Smilin' Bob, indeed.

The Perfect Rx

As a friend of mine in the Sixties used to say, "Ho Chi Minh!"

I didn't wake up until a quarter to noon, and even then it was the monthly tornado siren test that woke me up. I never sleep this late during the week, but I feel much better for having done so. Two things are the best prescriptions: sleep and laughter.

Nettl and I let go of the NAR and just laughed all evening. No news, no fires to put out, no doom and gloom. We had a nice dinner, MSTed a bad movie and watched a good one, then we went to bed and I fell asleep so fast and easy that it surprises me.

We've always laughed a lot; our humor has always gotten us through tough times, so last night was just the prescription I needed. Sometimes it's too easy to forget that it's the seemingly small things that make life easier to bear. I've never needed to be distracted with the things many people use to dull life's pain: shopping, dinners out, trips, expensive toys. I have simple needs: peace and contentment being chief among them. And laughter figures right up there.

Sorry if I'm not terribly eloquent. My brain is still glazed over with sleep. Thanks for all your great comments yesterday. I took each and every one to heart and I've come to the conclusion that I have some really wise and caring blog friends!

Half-Full View

"Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power."

Shirley MacLaine

I don't know about you, but in my life I've noticed that things have to reach a fevered pitch--or perhaps a nadir--before I finally see what's going on. Perhaps it was the doubling of my meds over the weekend that brought me to that place where negativity is concerned. In the vortex of chaos and illness with which the drug hammers my brain, I'm unable to cope with negative input of any kind. I feel like a panicked cat in a rainstorm, hanging upside-down by its claws from a weak and cracking tree branch that's giving way from the tension. Yep, that pretty much sums it up.

The Recession, our own financial crisis, the presidential campaign and its imagined outcome, the kids' dad, conspiracy theories, lack of clients, the news, worrying about the ability too buy groceries, even the cat bringing dead things into the house all contribute to the negative energy that has pervaded my daily life. I have to say no to all of it. Negativity cripples the human spirit and never creates anything positive.

"(In 1978) There wasn't an internet to tell you how screwed up everything
was every ten minutes and there was no such thing as 24-hour news."
RW

I never experienced this kind of negativity in myself until I got involved with my last relationship. I met a wounded young woman who'd had a terrible upbringing and I mistakenly thought that love was enough to heal that. Look what I've come through, I told myself. Unfortunately, her negativity crept into my own heart and I've not been able to completely excise it, no matter what I do. I find myself wordlessly criticizing others, picking things and people apart in my mind. I never did that before. Every day of my life is filled with me telling myself to stop; I'm constantly checking myself, which is exhausting. But maybe that's a kind of negativity as well. Maybe what I need to do is simply love, replace each negative thought with a positive one. Maybe scolding myself is taking the wrong tack.

“Stop judging and you will not be judged.
Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
Give and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,
will be poured into your lap.
For the measure with which you measure
will in return be measured out to you.”
Luke 6:37

Negativity sucks energy, plain and simple. I've decided that I'm going to commit myself at the beginning of each day to finding something positive in myself and in others throughout the day. I'm going to have to steer clear of the news. I'm a Libra--a September Libra at that--and watching the news has always depressed me. Even in the Sixties I was more the Flower Child than the Hippie. While everyone else was out marching with their fist in the air, I was inside wrapped in an incense cloud writing songs about love and sunny days. Nettl enjoys keeping up with current events and isn't dragged down into depression from it, so when she watches the news in the evening, I'm going to read, or write, or pop in a PC game. If I feel the need to know what's going on, I'll watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Those are more my speed because they present the news with a sense of humor that softens the blow for me.

"Sensitive souls draw in the negativity of others because they are so open."
John Gray

So beginning today I'm saying NO to negativity. I'm picking up again the "No NAR" philosophy that I had before 1996 when I allowed negativity to take root in me. This is not to say that I'll be bottling things up and stuffing them down, I'm simply not going to dwell on negativity. It's all about balance.

"The best way of removing negativity is to laugh and be joyous."
David Icke

How do you combat negativity? Do you have any tips or advice?

The Thyroid is Like a Butterfly...

Yeah, if the butterfly is a predatory, soul-sucking vampire.

Over the past three years or so, I've been all over the web seeking info and help about the gland also-known-as my thyroid, and I keep finding these pink and lavender, feel-good, fluffy-teddy-bears pages that compare it to a frickin' butterfly, with the accompanying tripe about metamorphosis and personal growth. It's even innocuously called, "The Butterfly Effect".

Yeah, it's kind of shaped like a butterfly, but let's cut the crap, okay? It's a gland that has been eating itself inside my neck, destroying my hormone levels and making hell of my life for about fifteen years. Do we say cancer is like a velvet night that takes over the sky, revealing a billion glimmering stars? Funk dat!

Here's what's going on: I have an auto-immune disease. My immune system is fookered up. It's attacking my body, which is otherwise healthy, and it makes me sick. It's called Hashimoto's Thyroiditis and it's incurable. It raises my blood pressure, gives me migraines, makes my hair fall out, ages me, gives me fibromyalgia, and makes me chronically fatigued. If the TSH levels get too high I could have a stroke. If they get too low I could go comatose and die. And my doctor says that I'm hyper-sensitive to this and will probably never find the right dosage because my levels fluctuate abnormally. Other, more fortunate people take the little pill every morning and live completely normal lives. Not me. Not old "Lucky Pierre" (as mom used to call me, because nothing has ever come easy for me).

Butterfly, my ass.

I got the results back from Thursday's blood test and my TSH levels were so high that my doctor doubled my dosage. Doubled. But the worst of it isn't my TSH levels, although I've felt like hell for about three months now. The worst is that every time she changes my dosage, I'm sent into a nightmare for at least two months. So there's nearly half of the year during which I feel like hell. The other half is spent feeling like hell due to the disease. Then it starts all over again. I think, honestly, that since January 1st, I've felt really good during two spells of about three days each. It's crippling. I can't allow myself to get excited about good things, I can't get worked up about bad things. I have to stay calm. It makes a mockery of the libido and has all but annihilated my creativity. What kind of crap is that?

I know that a lot of people have this. It's actually pretty common since it's caused (they think) by undue, long-term, trauma-induced stress, as well as genetics. I try not to focus on it, and I don't like talking about it because I'm terrified of coming off like I'm full of self-pity, but even that creates stress that affects me adversely. Sometimes, however, I get so tired of this roller coaster that I just have to vent.

The painting, "Thyroid: Butterfly of Life & Death" is by John Faherty.