2010's Personal Best & Worst

Best Party: Without a doubt, this was my Sixties Theme birthday party last September.
Worst Party: Probably tonight's. We'll see.

Best Casual Get-Together: Lauren and Dr. Kielbasa's going away party. He went to live in Poland for a year and she went to Bordeaux, France for a year. We had a Mexican potluck buffet and it was awesome.
Worst Casual Get-Together: No get-together is bad!...

You Are the Music

JP Deni has been diagnosed with 4th stage liver cancer.

We've been friends since we were 16 (that's 43 years ago, folks), and while I believe we've shared many other lifetimes and will remain friends through many more, that doesn't make it any easier. Not really. This news is what has made it so difficult for me to blog this week; I only reveal it now because she has done so, publicly. Deni is the kind of person who cannot hurt anyone or anything; it must have been terribly hard for her to lay this on her family and friends. I can't even imagine what she's going through right now.

I've said to Deni that 40-plus years of constant, interactive, hands-on friendship must certainly be a marriage of some kind (neither of us have ever been married that long). I'm pissed as hell and, for the first time in my pacifist existence, I want (as Arlo Guthrie said in his song, Alice's Restaurant) "to kee-ill". I want to kill cancer. I want to kill the fucker until it's the metastasized, cowardly, stress-feeding piece of fuck that it is. I could go on indefinitely, but words mean nothing at a time like this and stupid fucking blog entries mean even fucking less.

So here's some music, the thing that has been the magnificent connection between Deni and me all these years. This clip takes me back to when we were 17 year-olds and we glued ourselves to The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour every week because, a) we both loved and played folk music and, b) we both possessed social conscience. It was folk music that brought us together, in fact. What's cool about this particular clip is that it so perfectly depicts our musical tastes. She loved Peter, Paul & Mary, I loved Donovan, and we met right in the middle with our love for Tom and Dick Smothers.

I hope this makes you smile, Deni. It's been umpteen years since I've seen this, and yet, it's so fresh in my memory!

Grinning the Grin of an Idiot Road to Nowhere

Man, I gotta tell you, this holiday season was hairy! You've heard enough from me on that already, though.

For New Year's Eve we're not doing what we usually do. We're famous in our circle of friends as the New Year's Eve party hosts; every year we hold a schnozzwangler that somehow tops the year before it. There's always a theme, too: The Rat Pack, Tiki-Bar, Las Vegas, Hollywood... something. But this year we're just having a casual open house. If people want to pop by on their way to or from a party, or if they want to come hang out with us, it's cool. We'll be here with the usual food and drink, music and laughs. If no one comes by, that's okay too. Whatever...

Somebody Get Me a Slapstick, I Feel Like Buster Keaton

Sometimes you just have to ask, WTF? I'm literally reeling from the holiday and the schitzo personality it took on. The highest of highs, the lowest of lows, and nothing in between. I'll say one thing for it: it wasn't boring. Next year I want some boring. I hope all this is the winding down of 2010 and not an indication of what lies ahead in 2011. Jesus H.

Christmas Eve

What's Another Pound or Two?

You really should make these. They're super easy and take very little time. And they're wicked good besides...

Where's My Christmas Spirit? Warning: Whinefest ahead

Christmas is always hard anymore, it seems, but this year I really cannot work up any Christmas Spirit at all. I haven't made anything, bought anything, done anything. Well, we put up the tree over the weekend, but that required a crock pot of mulled wine and a magnum of cheap champagne.

Health is an issue, as well as depression and not having any money. Hard to do any of the things the season demands when you're bone dry of the green stuff. I'm expecting a check from a client, but it hasn't arrived yet and here we are four days away from Christmas Eve...

Ride, Captain, Ride

Don Van Vliet, who became a rock legend as Captain Beefheart, died today from complications from multiple sclerosis in California.

It's really sobering when your generation starts dying, and it's not from drugs or misadventure.

Source

My Year in Statuses

This seems to be the thing that's going around Crackbook Facebook as 2010 draws to a close. I'm not too disappointed with what mine shows; I was afraid it was all going to be farts and drinking.

(Click to embiggify)

Review: Walking Through Illusion by Betsy Otter Thompson

Because I’m a musician, I relate to things in musical terms and draw musical analogies from things around me. I couldn’t help but maintain this while reading Walking Through Illusion by Betsy Otter Thompson.

I can’t remember his name, but I once read a quote by one of Mozart’s contemporaries who said something to the effect that the composer’s music had so many beautiful ideas, he could scarcely digest one "delicious morsel" before having another set before him. This long-forgotten statement came to my mind time and again while reading Ms. Thompson’s book...

Dear Household Gods, What Did I Do to Piss You Off?

Many years ago a friend told me that I was like an egg: fragile, but able to withstand tremendous pressure. Well, this weekend I cracked. If I ever possessed an ounce of grace it eluded me entirely. I tried, but I just couldn't hold up; the older I get the harder it is.

On Friday evening I'd noticed that the kitchen sink had backed up a little when I ran the dishwasher. It drained, albeit slowly.

Temporary glitch, thought I...

Hooray For...

I have a huge confession to make. It's something that I've tried to hide, but I can no longer keep silent. I'm sure that when you read it you'll all leave me en masse and never come back here again. I will have crossed that line with you at last.

Here goes.

I love Bollywood.

I remember when this unnatural love began. It was back in the 90s. I watched a film called Fire, and I was immediately hooked. I saw a couple more after that, but the final nail wasn't hammered in until our friends George and Noelle (collectively known as Norge) brought over Monsoon Wedding one evening, a truly good movie. I was a goner.

I've watched many Bollywood and Indian films since then, including the epic Jodhaa Akbar, a sumptuous three and-a-half reading workout (all subtitles) and test of your ability to get over your western rush-to-the-bedroom-scene sensibilities. Hell, I've watched Johdaa Akbar twice in the past two weeks. That's seven hours of Hindi and Arabic. Why did I do it?

Indian films are interesting to me because they have a different timing, a different focus, a different humor. Most are pretty light fare, but there are those really good ones (like the above mentioned Fire and Monsoon Wedding) that let us in on a culture that most of us have never encountered, and that's fun for me. I love the clothing, the beautiful women and princely men...and the music! The song and dance numbers are lavish, very much in the style of the golden years of the Hollywood musicals, only, well, Indian. Exotic. Too, there's something sweetly old-fashioned and naive about Bollywood films, even when they try to be hip and equal to our films.

Personally, I hope they never get there.

I Wonder If I'd Feel More Like Writing

I wonder if I'd feel more like writing if I got myself a vintage typewriter.

Actually, I have been writing, it's just blogging that I haven't been into lately. The final rewrite is taking all the steam from my bellows where blogging and journaling are concerned, and rightly so...

This Year, for Julian

Every year on this day I post something about what John Lennon meant and continues to mean to me. This year will be different. I'm one of Julian Lennon's "friends" on Facebook, where he made the following request...

End of a Nightmare

I haven't wanted to say anything because I was afraid it was a fluke, or that I might jinx myself, but it's been two full weeks and I think it's safe.

I've been going to bed at what is a reasonable hour (for me). It isn't taking me an hour to fall asleep and once I'm out, I don't wake up fifteen minutes later and have to wait another hour before falling asleep again. I sleep through the night, I hear nothing, and I stay asleep. And when I wake up, I'm refreshed and rested, and I have a full day ahead of me instead of waking up at noon, fatigued and listless, with just a few hours before Lynette comes home from work. It's been two weeks.

Transition and Rebirth

Being by nature a dreamer, it's sad that I felt I had to suppress that part of me over recent years. I always had lofty dreams; they're what kept me going when I was younger as I struggled to keep body and mind together through a lifelong onslaught of domino-like traumas.

If my dreams didn't suffer being strangled at birth and were actually able to keep their footing, they were cruelly run over by hit-and-run circumstances and people. Eventually, it was just easier on my delicate nervous system to let them be stillborn, or to abort them altogether...

Same Time Last Year

I'm hoping against hope that we'll get a white Christmas again this year. Last year we got a blizzard on Christmas Eve and it was wonderful! It just seems to me that all this cold, ugly, leafless, brown landscape is pointless without snow.

See that bay window on the left of the porch? That's where I am whenever I'm on the web, or am writing.

November 29, 2001

It just doesn't seem possible that 9 years have passed since George Harrison slipped away so quietly and gracefully. I miss him, but because we share similar spiritual beliefs, I have confidence that he is not all that far away.

Pants!

Sometimes, things strike me as very odd. Sometimes, I just stop and think about things that the rest of the world (or most of it anyway) seems to take for granted. Like laughing. Sometimes, I'll be sitting in a room with my friends and we'll all be laughing and having a good time, and it suddenly occurs to me how weird laughing is. Or the fact that every single person in the world goes to the toilet and has to use TP. I think of this especially when someone thinks they're really something special and other people worship them. Like celebrities and politicians. Yeah, they all have to use that roll of paper. But everyone thinks about that stuff anyway, don't they? And this entry is supposed to be about pants...

When the Women's Holiday Begins

Traditionally, it has been the women who work their asses off on Thanksgiving. It's a little better these days as men who enjoy cooking, or men who have wives who don't cook, have tied on the apron of honor and plunged themselves into the maelstrom of preparing a feast for the family. But generally, it's women who don't really get a holiday...

Lowrider's Keep

Our cat, whom I like to call "Lowrider" because I can't bring myself to call any animal "Sweetie" (and she has that belly flab that hangs nearly to the ground), has a clear case of OCD. Yeah, I know. All cats have it, but I've known a lot of cats in my lifetime and this one is seriously more cat than all of those cats put together.

One of Lowrider's quirks is that every Monday she starts a new routine, which includes when she goes in and out of the house, what times she eats, and where she sleeps. A few weeks ago she found a spot near the pedals on the piano. The next week it was in front of one of the stereo speakers. Last week she chose to sleep behind Nettl's knees (damned uncomfortable, I know, because she claimed that spot on me a few months ago). Other places have included the chair in the kitchen, on top of the porch light column, under the table, on Joel's bed, and behind the Morning Glories in the front flower bed. Today she claimed the bird bath in the front yard. When I opened the blinds I saw that the top had been knocked off and was lying upside-down on the grass. Crafty cat. I went out and put it back, but I didn't fill it. Later, I looked outside again and saw the her.

When you think of it, this isn't such a crazy idea. Talk about cat bliss. Up off the ground where she can keep an eye on her domain, and lying in a terra cotta bowl. Natural solar heat. I can guarantee you that's where she'll be until next Monday when she'll find another place.

Balancing Act

"Tight rope walkers live by a few rules. Never look down. Hold your arms out for balance. Do not wait for the rope to stop wobbling before you take another step. And then there is this one; Practice standing at first. When you are able to do so without wobbling too much, take a step, stand again, take a step, stand again, until you reach the end of the rope." (Found on The Red Bench)...

Stoned Again

Do you remember last July when I posted some pictures of the Rolling Stones? In that post I told you about a band I posed with, but I couldn't remember their name. Well, I found it, as well as some pictures of them and a video of them performing back in 1965.

Click here to read more (scroll down to the bottom of the entry).

My Kind of Film: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

"Maestro Terry Gilliam has made a sublime film. Wonderfully enchanting and beautiful, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a uniquely ingenious, captivating creation; by turns wild, thrilling and hilarious in all its crazed, dilapidated majesty. Pure Gilliam magic!

"It was an honor to represent Heath. He was the only player out there breathing heavy down the back of every established actor's neck with a thundering and ungovernable talent that came up on you quick, hissing rather mischievously with that cheeky grin, "hey... get on out of my way, boys, I'm coming through..." and does he ever!!!

"Heath Ledger is a marvel, Christopher Plummer beyond anything he's ever done, Tom Waits as the Devil is a God, Lily Cole and Andrew Garfield, the very foundation, are spectacular, Verne Troyer simply kicks ass and as for my other cohorts, Colin Farrell and Jude Law, they most certainly did Master Ledger very proud, I salute them. Though the circumstances of my involvement are extremely heart-rending and unbelievably sad, I feel privileged to have been asked aboard to stand in on behalf of dear Heath." - Johnny Depp

No one could have said it any better. I just watched this film on Netflix InstantPlay and I loved it. Because we don't have cable and don't watch telly I hadn't heard of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. If you haven't seen it, do.

Knee Deep in Beautiful Dudu

I don’t usually make blog entries like this one, but through the research I continue to perform for my Sixties trilogy, I sometimes come across things that I either forgot about or never had a name for, and I want to share it. Photos enlarge when clicked.

In the late Sixties, while we in America wore flowers in our hair and frayed and bleached our Levis to look like gypsy glad rags, our counterparts in England had headed in an entirely opposite direction. While we went back to the earth in our natural fibers and our unkempt countrified look, they flashed back on the opulence and extravagance of better times...

Break Glass in Case of Emergency

That's the way it seems sometimes. Like I sweep up more glass on this blog than I actually write. Especially lately. Where once I posted once and sometimes twice a day, I now post only about three or four times a week.

Are we winding down? I mean those of us who've been at this for years now?...

Why Writers Should Be Avoided At All Costs

Sometimes when I'm up late, not feeling creative enough to write and I want to knock myself out so that I can sleep, I go to StumbleUpon and site hop. I always find something worth saving; last night I came across the following. It started out as a little meme about why you might want to hang out with or date a writer. Then someone else posted it, adding their own two cents why you would not want to do such a thing. I thought it was funny so here it is for you...

WTF Am I Doing?

This evening Nettl and I are driving down to Shawnee (only about an hour away) to spend the night. It's her alma mater's centennial reunion this weekend. That's Oklahoma Baptist University. Yes, I said Oklahoma. Baptist. University. Oklahoma... Baptist...

Yikes.

It's not as bad as it sounds though, because all the cool kids she hung out with and partied with back then are still cool, partying, drama and music major types. We got a block of rooms together at a hotel, where we'll be tippling a bit while the Tea Baggers other students are mentally dissing each other and bragging about their missionary kids. And when the cool kids go to events they understandably don't want to miss, I'll hide in our room.

There are some people I'm really looking forward to meeting. We've become friends in Facebook and they're my kind of people. These are the kids who were into Led Zeppelin and Blondie back then. I think we're going to have a great time! Think I'll bring a copy of Anne Frank to read.

My Brain Hurts!

Well, not really, but these questions, which RW posted to his blog yesterday, made me think a little left-of-center. I assume I can tell you to answer them as well,if you feel so inclined. He's called it, "What Would You Do?"

1. The couple right upstairs was always very loud and unrestrained in their frequent lovemaking sessions.
I lived next door to them once. Fortunately, they were very young and the noisiest part only lasted about a minute.

2. You've got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection. Plus the killing jar.
I'd wonder why I didn't know of it before, especially since I'm the one who cleans his room. I'd then explain why living butterflies are much better, and take him somewhere to see some.

3. You were the only one on your block who never had a fingerbox.
I don't even know what a fingerbox is, so I guess I never had one. I survived. I seldom got the cool stuff the other kids got anyway, so it's no big deal.

4. You got a windfall of $100,000.
I'd bank it, pay off some debts, then stock the fridge and pantry, get the car running again, and buy a 12-string, as well as a new sofa. The rest would sit in the bank to be used very frugally.

5. The police had a warrant and confiscated your computer.
No big deal, although I'd contact my lawyer to find out why. I save everything externally on a regular basis so I wouldn't really lose anything. I don't have anything on it that's comporomising anyway. And we have another laptop and desktop that I could use.

6. At a bar, a person of the same sex you swear you never met before knows everything about you.
The chances that anyone knows everything about me are really small since I hold a certain amount of myself in reserve. Besides, what does it matter what gender the person is? It would weird, regardless.

7. On your way to the art gallery you see yourself walking the other way with a wrapped painting under your arm.
I'd wonder where THAT bank account is hidden.

8. You had it wrong all along.
I'd educate myself, just like I did when I was wrong a hundred times before. I'm used to having it all wrong. If marriage teaches you anything, it's that you're wrong. Always.

9. The search engine tells you exactly the best brand name product to use for that problem but when you search for the brand name product no search engine you use can find it.
I'd ask a friend for the name of their favorite brand. I don't trust the opinions of a product's manufacturer.

10. Kenneth actually told you the frequency.
Who's Kenneth? Is he the guy who didn't give me a fingerbox when I was a kid?

A Little Perspective

Here's an interesting and eye-opening piece about food consumption around the world.

Have a great Thursday!

Time Flies When You're Living

Sometimes I'm temped to believe some of those New Agers who say that the superior intellects they think run our universe like to muck about with time as we know it, speeding it up to help us evolve faster and slowing it down to allow us time to grown and learn. Now, I'm not going to get into all that Star Seed stuff, or even what the hell time is to begin with. I'll leave that to the visionaries and quantum physicists. My point is much simpler: Time is passing much too quickly for my liking.

When I was a kid time dragged. A term of school and waiting for Christmas each year took forever. In my twenties and early thirties, the passage of time seemed about right. I had enough of it ahead of me that I could party and still have enough of it left over to hold down a job and provide for my family. Then something happened. How quickly I got from 33 to 59 makes no sense at all, and how my body continues to age while the person inside--I--can remain at about 33 baffles me.

Something in my head keeps thinking that this is all just a really weird acid trip and that eventually I'll come down and I'll be 33 again. I'll be the wiser for the experience and I'll go on to make better choices. Then I have my first coffee of the day and I remember that this is just life.

I can't help it. In some ways I feel like life is starting to wind down for me now and that's why I've gone back to meditating. We of western civilization tend to think of time as a commodity that we must spend, rather than allow to pass. The former is the sign of a productive, contributing citizen after all, and the later is the sign of a slacker. But looking down the gun barrel of life, I reflect on what I've done with my brief run on this planet. I've raised children, I've worked, I've been a good parent and friend, I've put out a huge body of creative work, and I've probed the mysteries of life and am all the more spiritual for it. These aren't bragging points, they're reasons why I feel a little down time is due me.

So how the heck did I get to this age without recognizing what was looking back at me in the mirror? I'm fortunate that wrinkles don't run in our family. True, I have the Wolcotts' excess eyelid skin and the Wallers' ever-growing, already too-prominent proboscis, but other than those things, I really don't look any the worse for wear despite my fragile health. But finding myself at 60 (why bother with 59, which is just a semi-colon in the life sentence?) has taken me completely by surprise.

The good thing is that I'm finally learning how to live in the present. This doesn't mean that I don't still dream or set goals for myself, and it certainly doesn't mean that I've attained some level of enlightenment. It simply means that I'm too tired of chasing down goals to want to bother. To use an analogy. My life is like a park: I spent my youth running through it, my young adulthood jogging through it, and my mature adulthood walking through it. Now I'm sitting on a bench feeding the squirrels and enjoying the view. I watch the children in the playground and I watch, amused, at everyone else rushing by, too busy to notice what's going on around them.

It's a nice place to be. I just wish our stay here was longer or that the sensation of time didn't speed up the older we get. But maybe it will slow down for me now. Maybe living in the present is the key. Maybe we come full-circle and our so-called second childhood really is that: an opportunity to slow the clock down and live for each day again.

I'll let you know in about twenty years.

Ooh, Baby!

Alright... I can't keep still on this crap anymore.

Why, in the name of all that's somewhat sane, do people feel the need to make baby dolls out of grown men of power or talent, and why do grown women feel the desire to buy them? Several years ago I was introduced to Cabbage Patch Mozart. Now we have Baby Doll Obama...

Picasso's Last Words

The last time I had a glass of wine was on my birthday last month. I haven't missed it at all and when the Halloween weekend came along, I had no inclination to imbibe. Not in the least. At my age, you start to weight the pleasant high against the three days of bleagh you feel afterward, and for me, being in such crappy health anyway and coping with chronic pain with nothing stronger than Excedrin, the choice has been easy.

This just happened to be the first Halloween in 25 years that I was invited to two parties. Friday night I made an appearance at Jacey and Kyle's party. Wow, am I old. All of their guests were university students. Do the words, Animal House ring a bell?...

Legends in Coats

This seems to be the year of the Legend walking away from the camera while wearing a long, swingy coat. Judging by these two CDs from Leonard Cohen and Keith Richards, that is...

Rules and Regs

Today, I expose myself to you. No, not that way! I've decided to expose my shortcomings as a writer in hope that someone can clear up some of the things that have plagued me for freakin' years...

Stephen Fry: What I Wish I'd Known When I Was 18

This is long, but whether you watch for a minute or all the way through to the end, it's good. Fry addresses so many points, but he comes back around to his initial thought just beautifully.

Wiggle Room for the Soul

I'm certain that one of the major lessons I'm supposed to learn in this lifetime is how not to worry over things I cannot control, or shouldn't even try to control. We all face this to some extent in different ways; we all have different lessons. Mine has to do with food. Or, not having food, as the case may be.

The past few weeks have been really hard... no, let me put it this way: the past few weeks have given me a lot of opportunity to work on this lesson. We don't have credit cards, a savings account, or, really, enough income to meet our few needs (shelter, warmth, food). Added to this, we get paid only once a month, and everything has to go out all at once; there's no "wiggle" room, no way to juggle bills until the next payday.

The thing is, all of the meditating I've been doing is really beginning to help me put things into perspective. Last night, when I went out to the kitchen to see what there was to eat (I wait until everyone else has eaten—don't ask me why. Perhaps it's my maternal instincts or something), I suddenly allowed my fear and frustration to surface. Immediately, however, the picture came into my mind of the Dalai Lama standing there. He looked at the canisters, inside the fridge and pantry, then turning to me with that smile of his, he said,

"You have lentils, rice, and oatmeal. You have eggs, cheese, ramen soup, milk, and tea. You're rich! A family in Tibet could live on this for two weeks!"

Needless to say, I felt checked, and I stood there, thankful for what we had.

Today, with $45 in my company checking account, $30 in our personal account, and $8 in quarters, nickels and dimes, we went out and got some groceries. We got what we absolutely needed to get us through to Friday when Nettl gets paid, and we spent only $30! There are three meals to make, some "adlib" stuff, and even a couple of snacks. Amazing!

I'm not writing this to call attention to myself, or to tell anyone how to think. I just wanted to share it because it meant so much to me. I'm really coming to believe that worry and fear are the products of ingratitude and that ingratitude is what keeps us unhappy.

No, our fridge isn't bulging and our pantry isn't stocked, but I'm feeling so happy right now that I don't care. I've gained something much more important.

Take the #%*ing Paper!

I have to post this because, thanks to Badger, I've been playing it and laughing at it all #%*ing day! Bloody 'ell... But I have to be honest. One of the reasons I love it is because the voice sounds exactly like the voice I've always imagined my character, Willy Keane (Tuppence drummer) sounds like.

Spirit Day - October 20, 2010

Spirit Day honors all of the young people who have taken their own lives after enduring bullying and abuse at school, online, and in their own homes and neighborhoods. Just as importantly, it's also a way to show the hundreds of thousands of LGBT youth who suffer the same demonstrations of hate and homophobia that there is a vast community of people who support them. Many people are wearing purple today to express their conviction that WE MUST STOP THE HATE, NOW.

As someone who grew up under the shame and fear of bullying and abuse, I'm showing my support with this image, which I made. Please feel free to use it if you like it.

If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please visit Suicide.org or American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to get resources, perspective and help.

Gorillas, Fake Books, and the Big Mac

Since your response to last week's post about the time I spent in London was so positive, and you asked to hear more, here I am with another installment.

In the spring of 1981, my manager got me into the studio to record a four-song demo that she'd planned to shop around to various recording and production companies, not the least of which was MPL, Paul McCartney's company in London. I'm not sure why she contacted them. Maybe she had an inside track or something and had heard that he was looking into producing an unknown. I don't know. She received a phone call one afternoon though, telling us to come to London and then call them for an appointment. I left all that to her; I was busy writing and recording, and it was her job to sort out all of that stuff...

Thursdays

I used to live like this. Before 1995 I used to have my morning coffee in the living room, not in bed until noon. Sometimes I'd take my coffee out into the garden where I was forced to confront the day: weather, birds, flowers, the garden spider. I felt connected to life although I wasn't aware of what someone was doing and thinking halfway around the world.

The internet connects us to each other and often ourselves, but there's also a disconnect that takes place. We forget how to hold a pen and our penmanship suffers. We don't write newsy, entertaining letters and we don't feel the excitement that comes when a letter arrives, addressed to us from a friend we haven't heard from in a while. We don't sit and just think. Is this technical evolution entirely good for us, I wonder. Is it important for me to know, for example, that one of Ville's cats threw up a hairball on her pillow, that Mary cut her finger cleaning up a broken glass, or that someone else is having a bad hair day?

Incommunicado Mañana

I'm not the kind of person who goes poking around things unless I'm invited or other people tell me it's okay to do so. For example, since 2002 I've seen that little wheelchair icon beside the word verification field. Have I ever clicked it? No. Did I know what it was for? Yes, but the thing is, I never clicked it until just a moment ago when I was commenting on Earl's latest blog entry.

WTF is that all about? It sounds like what SETI has been waiting to hear for years now, or the kind of shit I used to hear on LSD. Yes, I know what it is, but it freaked me out because I'd never bothered to check it out before...

They Used to Tell Me I Was Building a Dream

You know how sometimes when times are hard you get a break and you can breathe for a while, but you really can't breathe too deeply because you know the break is only temporary?

So you tell yourself to enjoy the bounty while you have it, to live in the present, but be frugal. And you do a great job making that eagle bleed, stretching every dollar as far as you can by buying things at the dollar store that you'd spend three dollars on anywhere else...

This is Why I'm an Independent Author

Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, a TV personality, has been approached by Simon & Schuster to write A Shore Thing!, a novel about a girl finding love on the Jersey shore. It seems all that Snooki has found at the beach so far is the two cops who arrested her for disturbing the peace. She has also been charged with selling liquor to a minor who, after leaving her house drunk, was killed in a car accident. She's also the girl who got slugged in that video that Slyde was so crazy about. Or was is Earl? I can't remember...

Dirty River

In all the years I've been blogging, I don't think I've ever shared with you one of the most important eras of my life. It was a time when some dreams came true and others fell apart at the seams, so that may be the reason why I've never discussed it with you. It was a time when I was taken from the edge of hell to the very gates of heaven, only to be dropped again, left to find a new way back, a new destination, and new dreams. For years, even thinking about it created so much pain, there was no way I was going to talk, or even write about it.

Haddy Bootdate Johnny, Ole Pal Buddy

I have mixed emotions about posting a Happy Birthday entry every year for John Lennon. This year is a little harder because I'm having some mixed emotions about John himself. Don't get me wrong. I've always admired the man, his strengths and weaknesses alike, but as I get older (and 19 years older than he was when he was assassinated), I'm able to see into him a bit more clearly. I have no allusions...

Shanti-Mantra by Ravi Shankar

This song has gotten me through a very difficult week, so I made this video in thanks.

The Cigar Guy on Abbey Road

Here's my contribution to the Cigar Guy meme. If you have a beef with this you can take it up with RW Spryszak.

Click picture to embiggify. To see other pictures click here.