“PJ, pick up your court card!,” boomed Phil’s rasp over those chattering after the meeting.
“I’m PJ.“
“You got a ‘nudge from the judge’ for A.A.,“ Phil chuckled, his eyes sparkling, riveted on PJ.
“Just ten meetings.“
PJ took the card Phil had initialled.
“But you don’t have an alcohol ‘problem,’” Phil declared.
“Everybody gets DWIs.”
“What did you blow?” the tanned, construction superintendent asked.
“Two-point-one.”
Phil grinned, “That’s how I got here!”
PJ was silent.
“I notice you walked–didn’t arrive in a car. Wanna ride?”
“I’m good.”
“Judge yanked my license, too,” Phil offered.
“Which judge?”
“He’s dead!! It was 19 years ago,” laughed Phil, “Been sober ever since!”
PJ muttered, shrugged and shuffled away.
“PJ!!,” Phil hollered.
The disheveled man looked back.
“My hands shook, too! Meetings made ‘em stop.” and Phil winked.
PJ hit the alley and bee-lined to a nearby beer dive. He proffered a five and quickly downed a $4.50 small pitcher of draft. He stepped out into the night and froze.
Phil leaned against his truck’s chromed grille.
“I watched you take the money when we passed the meeting’s basket,” Phil said, quietly, “and I repaid it. Alkies steal for a drink but you don’t have a problem,” grinned Phil as he got in the truck.
“Here’s my number. Keep comin’ back…just for the shaky hands, o‘ course,“ and Phil roared off.
PJ wiped away a frustration tear, his fingers trembling. He’d see that laughing bastard tomorrow night. He hated…but wanted to like Phil.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
The Master of Rolling Eyes
Bernard Gensle's bespectacled eyes were like brown M&Ms set into a large head with a big face with big features: half-cookie ears, curved knob of a nose, broad mouth and engorged lips.
His double portioned features softened with his smile or the way his eyes danced when he sailed groan-inducing puns that would have you laughing if only at his animated expressions, and no one but no one could roll his eyes as could Bernie when he'd deliver a zinger and his brown orbs would arc to the 11 o'clock position with the grace and beauty of a slow motion golf swing.
He was as much character as caricature, in a Hamburg-sometimes-pork-pied hat over dark hair, dressy suspenders over a starched shirt, cuffed dress slacks and buffed shoes, and hand-tied bow around his neck, ever projecting the professional who arrived at work as a "Public Accountant" every day in the days when "Certified" was a high-brow rarity.
You'd often see a Phillies "Cheroot" cigar perpendicular to his over-upholstered fingers, fingers on hands that could have been mini-catchers' mitts, but always extended for a all-enveloping shake or pat on the head.
His massive 1940s typewriter took decades of pounding in his basement writer's nook, ate miles of ribbons as Bernie wrote stories devouring reams on reams of cheap stock, many tales chronicling his experiences as a soldier in Africa, chasing and fighting Rommel's 'Afrika Corps.'
As I leftmy Godfather's house that late August day, we exchanged smiles--his punctuated by a Bernie signature wink--each of us knowing it would be the last time our eyes would lock and, two days after my birthday, he died, the silenced punch-line now just a punch delivered to my gut with force enough to exhaust my emotional wind and double me over with grief for a man who walked his Catholic faith as humbly as a bare footed tap dance.
His double portioned features softened with his smile or the way his eyes danced when he sailed groan-inducing puns that would have you laughing if only at his animated expressions, and no one but no one could roll his eyes as could Bernie when he'd deliver a zinger and his brown orbs would arc to the 11 o'clock position with the grace and beauty of a slow motion golf swing.
He was as much character as caricature, in a Hamburg-sometimes-pork-pied hat over dark hair, dressy suspenders over a starched shirt, cuffed dress slacks and buffed shoes, and hand-tied bow around his neck, ever projecting the professional who arrived at work as a "Public Accountant" every day in the days when "Certified" was a high-brow rarity.
You'd often see a Phillies "Cheroot" cigar perpendicular to his over-upholstered fingers, fingers on hands that could have been mini-catchers' mitts, but always extended for a all-enveloping shake or pat on the head.
His massive 1940s typewriter took decades of pounding in his basement writer's nook, ate miles of ribbons as Bernie wrote stories devouring reams on reams of cheap stock, many tales chronicling his experiences as a soldier in Africa, chasing and fighting Rommel's 'Afrika Corps.'
As I leftmy Godfather's house that late August day, we exchanged smiles--his punctuated by a Bernie signature wink--each of us knowing it would be the last time our eyes would lock and, two days after my birthday, he died, the silenced punch-line now just a punch delivered to my gut with force enough to exhaust my emotional wind and double me over with grief for a man who walked his Catholic faith as humbly as a bare footed tap dance.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Aunt Ann's Pit
The back yard of the 1910 Victorian home consisted of a treacherously cracked composite stone and concrete walkway dividing two 12x25 rectangles. One side was grass and the other was a garden in the center of which was a 5x10 pit nearly two feet deep.
Surrounding the pit were neat rows of flowers, fruit and vegetables, with small plasic labels sunk into the soil on miniature plastic pickets. Anything organic that came out the back door of that home was in a big pail, travelling down the sunken porch's steps and back up, over the uneven walk, and across to the pit where the pail's contents were distributed, "For the birds!" Aunt Ann said.
On hands and knees, gardening in her mu'u-mu'u and glittery, elastic-topped floral slippers, a Bel-Air menthol cigarette clenched with rolled red lips coiling smoke around her head, she'd toil away caring for melons and beets and squash, carrots and peas and beans and tomatoes and rhubarb and flowers, producing a garden that seemed to beam the liveliest greens of leaf and stalk up through dappled daylight's cover of hardwood trees; the broadest selection of green hues in all of plantdom, I decided, as a pre-schooler at her side.
Kentucky's soil may have grown the best corn to ever birth bourbon, certainly conducive to Kentucky Burley tobacco growing, but I doubt it rivalled the richness of my Aunt Ann's pit, a woman whom the Commonwealth should have recognized as the Mother of All Compost, whose heart was as giant and gentle and generous as her sunflowers.
Surrounding the pit were neat rows of flowers, fruit and vegetables, with small plasic labels sunk into the soil on miniature plastic pickets. Anything organic that came out the back door of that home was in a big pail, travelling down the sunken porch's steps and back up, over the uneven walk, and across to the pit where the pail's contents were distributed, "For the birds!" Aunt Ann said.
On hands and knees, gardening in her mu'u-mu'u and glittery, elastic-topped floral slippers, a Bel-Air menthol cigarette clenched with rolled red lips coiling smoke around her head, she'd toil away caring for melons and beets and squash, carrots and peas and beans and tomatoes and rhubarb and flowers, producing a garden that seemed to beam the liveliest greens of leaf and stalk up through dappled daylight's cover of hardwood trees; the broadest selection of green hues in all of plantdom, I decided, as a pre-schooler at her side.
Kentucky's soil may have grown the best corn to ever birth bourbon, certainly conducive to Kentucky Burley tobacco growing, but I doubt it rivalled the richness of my Aunt Ann's pit, a woman whom the Commonwealth should have recognized as the Mother of All Compost, whose heart was as giant and gentle and generous as her sunflowers.
Rootless
You'd could say he's my 'dad' but I have trouble with that word, and "Daddy," and...well...even calling her "Mom," feels like a cramp.
He's a merchant marine, out there, somewhere, who seldom called or came home but who sent the occasional post card or gift and always to me, not my mother. For him, she and I were just ports in the storm although his ship seldom seemed to find the harbor of our house when I lived there.
For her, a lime-green plastic tumbler was...is the constant port in my mother's storm or fair weather, with 20 ounces of wine, 2 hands-full of ice and 4 ounces of 7-Up, brimming the giant cup so she has to lean down to sip before she can pick it up without a spill.
I kept to myself, pretty much, piano lessons, playing the flute he sent me in third grade, doing gymnastics, and losing myself in my homework which has now been replaced by a well-paying job I can't stand.
I got my name from his favorite redneck band's "Sweet Melissa," which I hate because he only ever called me "Cookie," making me wish all the more I had someone I could have had...could have to call 'Daddy' or 'Mom' with some meaning.
It's late, my flight was late into LAX and customs was slow, and a lady cop pulled me over just now, a few blocks from the house: "Ma'am, the only reason I'm stopping you is because this isn't the best area for a woman to be driving around, alone, at this time of night," and I tell her my mother's place is in San Pedro, and feel silly for the small wave she returns as I pull away.
The light fog casts an eerie feel to the quiet streets, yellowish glow coming from the light poles like auras of angels as I wind through the slumbered neighborhoods.
My parents' is a small, meticulous 1940s house near the Navy Fuel Depot. Its iron bars over the windows may have been called decorative when they were installed, but the message of their purpose is doubtless.
It's as doubtless as my purpose in coming.
The light is on over the kitchen sink, but who knows what time she passed out and, sitting here in the misty darkness, you'd think emotions or memories would surface but it seems I'm just suspended here like the fog on the night. Morning will be better for both of us, she out of her fog and me well rested, and I let the car creep away with some self-praise for pre-programming the rental car's GPS for my hotel.
[Published on 6S, 8/21/11 at 7AM as "Rootless (in two half-dozend)"]
Sunday, August 21, 2011
An Old Snapshot: More than a One-Shot Deal
8:25AM I was right behind him when he put two items on the the cashier's counter. A pint of Smirnoff and a 20-oz Mountain Dew.
Over the back of his shoulder, I made eye contact with the cashier who's on first name basis with me, and rolled my eyes about the man in front of me making the purchase.
He left with his brown bag of deliverance, and I said, "Wow, that's sad. Wonder if where he works is hiring. You know, drinkin' on the job?" Amber shook her head and woefully said, "Same thing every morning. He works construction."
Booze has kicked my ass. More times than I'll admit. Times I didn't remember at the time, nor do I decades later. I've embarassed myself with booze; lost way too much money gambling under the influence; spent a Labor Day birthday weekend behind bars; another occasion I wrecked a car to the tune of $17,000 damage, miraculously stopping at the edge of a cliff in that episode.
In the early '90s, I'd had enough. And snuck into a men's 'open meeting.' All of a sudden, I was surrounded by handshakes that became friends. Tony and Phil, guys like Bruce 'n 'Hwy-118 Mike,' 'Hell-spoused Steve' teamed-up to walk and talk some sense into how much self-destruction was occuring from the bottoms of shot- and old fashioned glasses. They're friends, today, still 'friends of Bill' although I'm only a passing acquaintance.
It worked. I'm scared shitless of frequent + voluminuous use of what to my system is a poison. I'm not what meeting-goers call sober or a tee-totaller, but you sure don't find me wacked outta my mind, thanks to God's grace, and the guys that grabbed onto my arms, ass and attention to keep me from drowning a hundred-proof death. I had bottled-up a deal with the devil, and they offered the means to shatter it.
I hope the guy in Walgreens gets out of it more unscathed than I did, and without killin' himself or anybody else. God help his wretched soul, because I'm convinced only he 'n God can bring him out of it.
I coulda...shoulda said something to him, but couldn't find the practiced voice of sobriety and decades-long voices of reason earned by my pals in California. God (still) help me. And him.
[A man whom I know only through his writing inspired this. You know who you are, Cob, but you don't know how grateful I am for the way you (always) lay iton in the lines.]
Over the back of his shoulder, I made eye contact with the cashier who's on first name basis with me, and rolled my eyes about the man in front of me making the purchase.
He left with his brown bag of deliverance, and I said, "Wow, that's sad. Wonder if where he works is hiring. You know, drinkin' on the job?" Amber shook her head and woefully said, "Same thing every morning. He works construction."
Booze has kicked my ass. More times than I'll admit. Times I didn't remember at the time, nor do I decades later. I've embarassed myself with booze; lost way too much money gambling under the influence; spent a Labor Day birthday weekend behind bars; another occasion I wrecked a car to the tune of $17,000 damage, miraculously stopping at the edge of a cliff in that episode.
In the early '90s, I'd had enough. And snuck into a men's 'open meeting.' All of a sudden, I was surrounded by handshakes that became friends. Tony and Phil, guys like Bruce 'n 'Hwy-118 Mike,' 'Hell-spoused Steve' teamed-up to walk and talk some sense into how much self-destruction was occuring from the bottoms of shot- and old fashioned glasses. They're friends, today, still 'friends of Bill' although I'm only a passing acquaintance.
It worked. I'm scared shitless of frequent + voluminuous use of what to my system is a poison. I'm not what meeting-goers call sober or a tee-totaller, but you sure don't find me wacked outta my mind, thanks to God's grace, and the guys that grabbed onto my arms, ass and attention to keep me from drowning a hundred-proof death. I had bottled-up a deal with the devil, and they offered the means to shatter it.
I hope the guy in Walgreens gets out of it more unscathed than I did, and without killin' himself or anybody else. God help his wretched soul, because I'm convinced only he 'n God can bring him out of it.
I coulda...shoulda said something to him, but couldn't find the practiced voice of sobriety and decades-long voices of reason earned by my pals in California. God (still) help me. And him.
[A man whom I know only through his writing inspired this. You know who you are, Cob, but you don't know how grateful I am for the way you (always) lay it
Saturday, August 20, 2011
"brain-dead"
The phrase hit me a couple of times, lately.
Last night, thinking about nothing in particular, the phrase came to me and I laughed about it. Abject fatigue was probably the reason it hit me, verbalized by the thought that I was 'dead tired' and "brain-dead" just attached itself onto the end of that like an automated caboose to a rail car.
Molding language into story form as a pasttime...using complicated software to compose a fugue, ballad or overture. Not exactly leisure-time pursuits of the hopelessly brain-dead, methinks.
If "brain-dead" is two too many drops of isolated invention splashed into the intellectual chemistry, I'll testify it's one hell of a productive and pleasurable demise.
Last night, thinking about nothing in particular, the phrase came to me and I laughed about it. Abject fatigue was probably the reason it hit me, verbalized by the thought that I was 'dead tired' and "brain-dead" just attached itself onto the end of that like an automated caboose to a rail car.
Molding language into story form as a pasttime...using complicated software to compose a fugue, ballad or overture. Not exactly leisure-time pursuits of the hopelessly brain-dead, methinks.
If "brain-dead" is two too many drops of isolated invention splashed into the intellectual chemistry, I'll testify it's one hell of a productive and pleasurable demise.
tick. tick. click.
No, not a dog bath, ya doink. No, not the clock like intense times when all you hear is the ticking echo inside, and you gotta throw it across the room an' maybe buy a new one.
Can't you see this lady's across from me in the waiting room and every couple seconds or so, her chin just kinda jerks her head, and jerks again, and then CLICK. It jerks twice, her dentures go like "CLICK," and this TICK TICK CLICK...TICK...TICK...CLICK goes on and on, yeah like some...like some performance artist doing "Annoyance."
I can't concentrate on my "Travel & Leisure"--who da fuck cut out the mailing label, like I'm gonna visit-- with that nonsense goin' on 10 feet away and I really feel like fuckin' throwin' it at her or rollin' it up and shoving those teeth down her throat with it.
Her shrink's--poor bastard--quit interrupting--got his hands full.
Can't you see this lady's across from me in the waiting room and every couple seconds or so, her chin just kinda jerks her head, and jerks again, and then CLICK. It jerks twice, her dentures go like "CLICK," and this TICK TICK CLICK...TICK...TICK...CLICK goes on and on, yeah like some...like some performance artist doing "Annoyance."
I can't concentrate on my "Travel & Leisure"--who da fuck cut out the mailing label, like I'm gonna visit-- with that nonsense goin' on 10 feet away and I really feel like fuckin' throwin' it at her or rollin' it up and shoving those teeth down her throat with it.
Her shrink's--poor bastard--quit interrupting--got his hands full.
"brain-dead"
The phrase hit me a couple of times, lately.
Last night, thinking about nothing in particular, the phrase came to me and I laughed about it. Abject fatigue was probably the reason it hit me, verbalized by the thought that I was 'dead tired' and "brain-dead" just attached itself onto the end of that like an automated caboose to a rail car.
Molding language into story form as a pasttime...using complicated software to compose a fugue, ballad or overture. Not exactly leisure-time pursuits of the hopelessly brain-dead.
If "brain-dead" is two too many drops of invention splashed into the intellectual chemistry, I'll testify it's one hell of a productive and pleasurable demise.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Phoenixes of Sport
Published on Mudspots, 8/18/11
You are in prime physical condition at the tops of your respective games, too-young multi-millionaires with sports acumen born from magical mixes of natural ability, rigorous training, coaching, practice, assuming the risks and suffering the consequences of occupational injuries.
Your work is seasonal, requires separation from stability’s anchors of home and family.
You are one of a team, and you are a team of one.
You’re trapped in the eyes and voices of scrutiny, before millions, with your triumphs analyzed and replayed over and over on cable and the airwaves. Images and descriptors of your failures splash through every hue in the spectrum of public media and social networking ten-fold more times than your triumphs.
Exposure of your bad choices and secreted actions force hasty retreats, elicit false denials, propel you into freefall, crashing you into realities that eviscerate more than fortunes few can ever know.
Your personal wreckage is licked and consumed by hungered flames hard-blown by bellows of ridicule, incinerating you on the pyre of public disdain.
Tiger Woods. Golf legend. Infidel. Liar.
Michael Vick. Football quarterback. Phenom. Animal torturer. Liar. Convict.
You emerge, your receipts stamped “Paid in Full,” but by separate and oppositional currencies.
From ashes, two Phoenixes are embodied. Each rises if unsteadily at first.
One wings away.
In plain view, the other contrives an aura of normalcy but flops and flails, grounded by wings shorn and weighted by demons that neither show or have yet to be exorcised. Ever the good sport.
You are in prime physical condition at the tops of your respective games, too-young multi-millionaires with sports acumen born from magical mixes of natural ability, rigorous training, coaching, practice, assuming the risks and suffering the consequences of occupational injuries.
Your work is seasonal, requires separation from stability’s anchors of home and family.
You are one of a team, and you are a team of one.
You’re trapped in the eyes and voices of scrutiny, before millions, with your triumphs analyzed and replayed over and over on cable and the airwaves. Images and descriptors of your failures splash through every hue in the spectrum of public media and social networking ten-fold more times than your triumphs.
Exposure of your bad choices and secreted actions force hasty retreats, elicit false denials, propel you into freefall, crashing you into realities that eviscerate more than fortunes few can ever know.
Your personal wreckage is licked and consumed by hungered flames hard-blown by bellows of ridicule, incinerating you on the pyre of public disdain.
Tiger Woods. Golf legend. Infidel. Liar.
Michael Vick. Football quarterback. Phenom. Animal torturer. Liar. Convict.
You emerge, your receipts stamped “Paid in Full,” but by separate and oppositional currencies.
From ashes, two Phoenixes are embodied. Each rises if unsteadily at first.
One wings away.
In plain view, the other contrives an aura of normalcy but flops and flails, grounded by wings shorn and weighted by demons that neither show or have yet to be exorcised. Ever the good sport.
New Orleans, Me and Gay Mardi Gras
After we had committed to our hotels and dates for last year’s writers’ get-together, I kept researching and discovered what else was going on in New Orleans within our time frame.
It was “Southern Decadence,” referred to as “Gay Mardi Gra,” injecting 100,000-150,000 people into the French Quarter (and city) for a week of festivities. After more research this year, in direct relevance to look up the “hurry-up” reason(s) to book ourselves for last year, I discovered in my emails and messages to the writers that our $59 room rate offer would probably be limited to only so many rooms at the Doubletree and Hilton Riverside hotels. That proved to be true. One of my 6S critics of two days ago and more, would have had everyone staying at a hotel costing 30 more dollars per night. So we booked, and I didn’t and don’t regret it. (And I''m also grateful I'm an archivist so I can set peoples' revisionist histories straight.)
I’m going, again. I’m going to New Orleans smack-dab in the time frame of Southern Decadence.
I’ve got a *better* hotel rate than $59, and am going to see some of the sights I missed, and using my 58th birthday as an excuse to travel, as if I ever needed an excuse to go somewhere I love to be.
Wanna know how much time I spend in the Vieux Carre (old name for French Quarter, pronounced locally as ‘VOO-kah-RAY) when in town? I go to the French Quarter to dine, the whole of my time commuting into and out of that sector of the city, to enjoy specific dishes at specific restaurants.
The Quarter is the city’s biggest tourist magnet, a free-for-all of boozing, bars, noise, crowds, lewd behavior and and all the trappings that keep me out of similar areas in any city.
There are terrific jazz venues outside the Vieux Carre. They’re on my must-see list for this trip (I happened onto them by coincidence last year) but I didn’t make it there last year. The Confederate museum was closed for heavy construction, remodeling. I’m all over the WWII museum and 4-D theater built by Tom Hanks this trip. I’m in a half-day cooking school twice during this stay. Two restaurants I targeted to hit are closed for summer vacation, but the dining-out list-- in New Orleans, as in San Francisco--always contains more opportunities than the aggregate of 3 daily meals. Breakfast, after all, is again included in my hotel rate.
How will I spend most of my leisure hours there? Well, as a birthday consideration, the innkeeper has promised me one of the property's few balcony rooms in a hotel nicer than last year's, and I’m gonna set up the laptop looking out those French doors while I sip espresso and work on my novel.
Hackety-clackety-rough-puff-poof! "Roll on, Mississippi," and roll out, black letters onto a white computer screen's background. Hello, again, "Cookie" ole friend.
Remind me not to call it a book, please. My goal is to write a novel. Not to publish a book. Will I try to get it published? Maybe. Maybe not. My goal is a terrific story, terrifically told. The AlphaGraphics store may be the only one who transforms it into what looks like a book, at great expense for the few copies I’d run only as gifts for my relatives’ enjoyment.
They’ve been satisfied with music I’ve composed and performed for them, music that’s never been published. It’s about finishing. It's about sharing something I've created to share with people about whom I care.
My trip’s about relaxation and enjoyment. Not the Quarter/Vieux Carre. Not the streets swollen with Southern Decadence revellers. My trip's about the charms of the city, herself. The Big Easy. The Big Sleazy. The Crescent City. Despite her many monikers, she has many more stately, Southern splendors yearning to impress all five of one's senses.
Oh, and if you're interested? This year's SoDec colors are "Fuchsia Pink, Black and Silver," which, to me, sounds like an Oakland Raiders' scrimmage with their wives. Bleeccch. Aesthetics, not gay-bashing, and it's juvenile to have to explain, but comforting that the explanation is warranted for only for a select few.
Let the good times roll.
It was “Southern Decadence,” referred to as “Gay Mardi Gra,” injecting 100,000-150,000 people into the French Quarter (and city) for a week of festivities. After more research this year, in direct relevance to look up the “hurry-up” reason(s) to book ourselves for last year, I discovered in my emails and messages to the writers that our $59 room rate offer would probably be limited to only so many rooms at the Doubletree and Hilton Riverside hotels. That proved to be true. One of my 6S critics of two days ago and more, would have had everyone staying at a hotel costing 30 more dollars per night. So we booked, and I didn’t and don’t regret it. (And I''m also grateful I'm an archivist so I can set peoples' revisionist histories straight.)
I’m going, again. I’m going to New Orleans smack-dab in the time frame of Southern Decadence.
I’ve got a *better* hotel rate than $59, and am going to see some of the sights I missed, and using my 58th birthday as an excuse to travel, as if I ever needed an excuse to go somewhere I love to be.
Wanna know how much time I spend in the Vieux Carre (old name for French Quarter, pronounced locally as ‘VOO-kah-RAY) when in town? I go to the French Quarter to dine, the whole of my time commuting into and out of that sector of the city, to enjoy specific dishes at specific restaurants.
The Quarter is the city’s biggest tourist magnet, a free-for-all of boozing, bars, noise, crowds, lewd behavior and and all the trappings that keep me out of similar areas in any city.
There are terrific jazz venues outside the Vieux Carre. They’re on my must-see list for this trip (I happened onto them by coincidence last year) but I didn’t make it there last year. The Confederate museum was closed for heavy construction, remodeling. I’m all over the WWII museum and 4-D theater built by Tom Hanks this trip. I’m in a half-day cooking school twice during this stay. Two restaurants I targeted to hit are closed for summer vacation, but the dining-out list-- in New Orleans, as in San Francisco--always contains more opportunities than the aggregate of 3 daily meals. Breakfast, after all, is again included in my hotel rate.
How will I spend most of my leisure hours there? Well, as a birthday consideration, the innkeeper has promised me one of the property's few balcony rooms in a hotel nicer than last year's, and I’m gonna set up the laptop looking out those French doors while I sip espresso and work on my novel.
Hackety-clackety-rough-puff-poof! "Roll on, Mississippi," and roll out, black letters onto a white computer screen's background. Hello, again, "Cookie" ole friend.
Remind me not to call it a book, please. My goal is to write a novel. Not to publish a book. Will I try to get it published? Maybe. Maybe not. My goal is a terrific story, terrifically told. The AlphaGraphics store may be the only one who transforms it into what looks like a book, at great expense for the few copies I’d run only as gifts for my relatives’ enjoyment.
They’ve been satisfied with music I’ve composed and performed for them, music that’s never been published. It’s about finishing. It's about sharing something I've created to share with people about whom I care.
My trip’s about relaxation and enjoyment. Not the Quarter/Vieux Carre. Not the streets swollen with Southern Decadence revellers. My trip's about the charms of the city, herself. The Big Easy. The Big Sleazy. The Crescent City. Despite her many monikers, she has many more stately, Southern splendors yearning to impress all five of one's senses.
Oh, and if you're interested? This year's SoDec colors are "Fuchsia Pink, Black and Silver," which, to me, sounds like an Oakland Raiders' scrimmage with their wives. Bleeccch. Aesthetics, not gay-bashing, and it's juvenile to have to explain, but comforting that the explanation is warranted for only for a select few.
Let the good times roll.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Righteous Indignation(?) Debuts Here, Tomorrow
I participated in the verbal vortex of a 'shitstorm' with three members of the 6S writing community, yesterday, two of whom I've met and with whom I've broken bread. In Kentucky speak, "It wuddn't pretty."
This morning, I took responsibility for my participation in that melee, and apologized to the 6S community. Instead of subjecting that 6S community to my response, it'll be parked here tomorrow because I have failed to draft what I want to communicate with the limiter of six sentences.
For years, I've quipped that "I don't apologize for being left-handed, Republican, Roman Catholic."
NNNE: Not now, not ever. (pronounced, 'enn-enn-NENN-eee').
Tomorrow is for the record, and I'll be serving-up events in my personal history unknown to my family and friends simply to drive-home the point that a gross mischaracterization occurred, to both me and my writing.
Truth is, I don't think the folks for whom its intended will even access this blog to read it. That ilk of folk don't want truths to spoil their uninformed assessments of anything.
You regular readers may want to skip tomorrow's blog because it may not seem like the 'regular Joe' you're accustomed to reading.
This morning, I took responsibility for my participation in that melee, and apologized to the 6S community. Instead of subjecting that 6S community to my response, it'll be parked here tomorrow because I have failed to draft what I want to communicate with the limiter of six sentences.
For years, I've quipped that "I don't apologize for being left-handed, Republican, Roman Catholic."
NNNE: Not now, not ever. (pronounced, 'enn-enn-NENN-eee').
Tomorrow is for the record, and I'll be serving-up events in my personal history unknown to my family and friends simply to drive-home the point that a gross mischaracterization occurred, to both me and my writing.
Truth is, I don't think the folks for whom its intended will even access this blog to read it. That ilk of folk don't want truths to spoil their uninformed assessments of anything.
You regular readers may want to skip tomorrow's blog because it may not seem like the 'regular Joe' you're accustomed to reading.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Loving Places
I wrote of New Orleans prior to, during, and after last year's visit. I'm an outsider, an observer, just as I was when held captive by live coverage of Hurricane Katrina on television. Nothing I or any outsider can say, as compassionately as we may try, may express what comes from the heart of a native, one rendered homeless by that thief and killer.
There is one such a New Orleans person whose writing I admire, rendered homeless, who is demonstrably a gifted writer in the 6S community. She posted a work worthy of your time to read, Little Hurricanes .
My travels have taken me to places in which I feel like I'm in an ill-fitting suit, the only clothed person in a nudist colony, the bowl of rice in the land of potatoes. They're not places where I feel threatened but merely places I don't feel I am in touch with the pulse, the vibe of the people interacting with that place. Sure, there are pleasing aesthetics and interesting histories in those places, but I sense I'm the plug on the floor below the electrical outlet, somehow disconnected.
Then, there are other places.
I love San Francisco. I love Puerto Escondido, Huatulco, Mexico. I love Lisbon, Portugal. I love Seattle, Washington. And Louisville, Kentucky. And there are others where my heart makes merry, places where I feel my spirit can sing, my being can thrive, my black soul can be bleached.
That's probably why I'll never understand how people can spend whole lives in places, never venture from those places that would put my soul behind the driver's seat of a car with no engine and four flat tires.
'Bloom where you're planted,' goes the adage. "Bullshit!," I say.
One of the greatest lies of humankind is that "Time marches on," stands still for no one. Bullshit, again.
Time is only relative to your cognizant existence. So, my best advice is to watch where, and how, you spend it. My advice is to seek those loving places that your heart, your soul and spirit will recognize if you're willing to explore.
There is one such a New Orleans person whose writing I admire, rendered homeless, who is demonstrably a gifted writer in the 6S community. She posted a work worthy of your time to read, Little Hurricanes .
My travels have taken me to places in which I feel like I'm in an ill-fitting suit, the only clothed person in a nudist colony, the bowl of rice in the land of potatoes. They're not places where I feel threatened but merely places I don't feel I am in touch with the pulse, the vibe of the people interacting with that place. Sure, there are pleasing aesthetics and interesting histories in those places, but I sense I'm the plug on the floor below the electrical outlet, somehow disconnected.
Then, there are other places.
I love San Francisco. I love Puerto Escondido, Huatulco, Mexico. I love Lisbon, Portugal. I love Seattle, Washington. And Louisville, Kentucky. And there are others where my heart makes merry, places where I feel my spirit can sing, my being can thrive, my black soul can be bleached.
That's probably why I'll never understand how people can spend whole lives in places, never venture from those places that would put my soul behind the driver's seat of a car with no engine and four flat tires.
'Bloom where you're planted,' goes the adage. "Bullshit!," I say.
One of the greatest lies of humankind is that "Time marches on," stands still for no one. Bullshit, again.
Time is only relative to your cognizant existence. So, my best advice is to watch where, and how, you spend it. My advice is to seek those loving places that your heart, your soul and spirit will recognize if you're willing to explore.
Monday, August 15, 2011
August 29th Marks Katrina's Anniversary
Media are already massaging treatments of 9-eleven's 10th anniversary, an event that indelibly marked where you were and what you were doing when deadly evil was intentionally unleashed against an unsuspecting people.
Terrorists who launched the 9-eleven attacks were murderers. The continuous barrage of one-two punches of water and wind were delivered by Mother Nature, square on the chin of the Gulf Coast. The storm, the evil named Katrina, was a murderer and thief.
Today, Louisianans and other Gulf Coast residents are exactly two weeks from the anniversary of deadly evil in the form of natural disaster being unleashed upon them.
Unlike 9-eleven, Katrina's coming elicited warnings, and for those who had the means and desire to leave, time. Others prayed, hoped, bet or entrenched themselves in denial that 'The Storm' would miss the overlays of bullseyes on the Crescent City, drawn onto weather maps wherever one looked.
The breadth of the storm strong-armed 7 states in the Gulf region, so powerful that even Kentucky and Ohio flooded from 'The Big Muddy'--the Mississippi River--unable to contain rains whose totals were measured at 15 inches inside of a week. Ironically, some rain-measuring stations didn't survive the pummeling.
Water and winds laid waste to more than 275,000 homes in the Gulf Coast area. Katrina's storm surge measured 27 feet in Mississippi and 22 feet in Louisiana. Winds of 175 miles per hour added to the water's killing force, the other voice in devastation's duet.
Katrina killed 1,836. Another 705 souls are still listed as missing.
The human toll. The property toll. Where 600,000 pets were killed or left homeless, why 1/3 of New Orleans residents are not there, today. A third. One in 3.
With the storm claiming more than 400,000 jobs, all those homes, all those people, all the terror a natural disaster can deliver to the materiel and to the psyche, to what could one cling?
Hope. Will. Effort.
In New Orleans, she didn't mess much with Bourbon Street. She didn't kill the music. She didn't steal the resolve of those who stayed and survived or those who returned. She couldn't take human spirit, the will to endure and trudge toward recovery.
She couldn't because it's the South and it has risen. It has risen to the task of going on, taking steps to recover with rolled-up sleeves, a collective eye on the future, and the other collective eye on the upcoming hurricane season with the possibility that one of Katrina's wayward relatives may make an uninvited, unavoidable visit.
Terrorists who launched the 9-eleven attacks were murderers. The continuous barrage of one-two punches of water and wind were delivered by Mother Nature, square on the chin of the Gulf Coast. The storm, the evil named Katrina, was a murderer and thief.
Today, Louisianans and other Gulf Coast residents are exactly two weeks from the anniversary of deadly evil in the form of natural disaster being unleashed upon them.
Unlike 9-eleven, Katrina's coming elicited warnings, and for those who had the means and desire to leave, time. Others prayed, hoped, bet or entrenched themselves in denial that 'The Storm' would miss the overlays of bullseyes on the Crescent City, drawn onto weather maps wherever one looked.
The breadth of the storm strong-armed 7 states in the Gulf region, so powerful that even Kentucky and Ohio flooded from 'The Big Muddy'--the Mississippi River--unable to contain rains whose totals were measured at 15 inches inside of a week. Ironically, some rain-measuring stations didn't survive the pummeling.
Water and winds laid waste to more than 275,000 homes in the Gulf Coast area. Katrina's storm surge measured 27 feet in Mississippi and 22 feet in Louisiana. Winds of 175 miles per hour added to the water's killing force, the other voice in devastation's duet.
Katrina killed 1,836. Another 705 souls are still listed as missing.
The human toll. The property toll. Where 600,000 pets were killed or left homeless, why 1/3 of New Orleans residents are not there, today. A third. One in 3.
With the storm claiming more than 400,000 jobs, all those homes, all those people, all the terror a natural disaster can deliver to the materiel and to the psyche, to what could one cling?
Hope. Will. Effort.
In New Orleans, she didn't mess much with Bourbon Street. She didn't kill the music. She didn't steal the resolve of those who stayed and survived or those who returned. She couldn't take human spirit, the will to endure and trudge toward recovery.
She couldn't because it's the South and it has risen. It has risen to the task of going on, taking steps to recover with rolled-up sleeves, a collective eye on the future, and the other collective eye on the upcoming hurricane season with the possibility that one of Katrina's wayward relatives may make an uninvited, unavoidable visit.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
IIXL in New Orleans
My ΓΌberheightened trip-planning, research and internet skills have been working full-tilt as if they've been munching mental steroids. To claim it I'll name it, 'Traveller's Pre-Trip Adrenaline." Every to-pack item. Sightseeing. Meals. Free time. Commemorating a birthday. I love every second spent delving into these considerations, convinced my trip experiences will be better for them.
AAA had a sale and I declared a 32" Samsonite Roller Duffel to be a birthday present (60% off!), and under the same banner, purchased two T-shirts (NFL New Orleans Saints; LiquidBlue's 'Clowns').
The shoes I can't find anywhere in town have shipped from an Amazon.com merchant, an expense rationalized by serving double duty in the workplace as well as supporting my cane-assisted gait through 'The Crescent City.'
The list-builder who dwells within me has produced three: restaurants by budget and day-part; tourist attractions missed or unavailable (closed) during my 2010 visit; and notions of how I'll spend time not budgeted in the foregoing two lists. While that last list may seem vague, it contains some of the following:
Stay employed.
Ahhhh, the thoughts of returning....
AAA had a sale and I declared a 32" Samsonite Roller Duffel to be a birthday present (60% off!), and under the same banner, purchased two T-shirts (NFL New Orleans Saints; LiquidBlue's 'Clowns').
The shoes I can't find anywhere in town have shipped from an Amazon.com merchant, an expense rationalized by serving double duty in the workplace as well as supporting my cane-assisted gait through 'The Crescent City.'
The list-builder who dwells within me has produced three: restaurants by budget and day-part; tourist attractions missed or unavailable (closed) during my 2010 visit; and notions of how I'll spend time not budgeted in the foregoing two lists. While that last list may seem vague, it contains some of the following:
- Arrival Day: get to the corner of Canal St. and South St. Peters to purchase two 3-Day 'Jazzy Passes' from the vending machine, 'neutral ground' [local for 'median'] for unlimited buses and streetcars' use;
- design a memorable "IIXL" birthday-for-1;
- Pray away flooding and hurricanes;
- Do I take my own apron for my 4-hour stint in cooking school?
Stay employed.
Ahhhh, the thoughts of returning....
Friday, August 12, 2011
Heart Beyond the Purple and Red
Published at MudSpots.wordpress.com - Thursday, 8/11/11
MudSpots Topic Challenge: "From Order Comes Freedom"
Shower. Carbs. Bus to the gym. Seven days a week. I lift every day and do a mile on the treadmill. I been doin’ it just over two years, leading up to this first race.
I’m in the ‘Hell Hounds‘–an infantry platoon, 3rd Marines, near Kabul. We start a sweep on a compound with suspected Taliban. We train and train to clear hidey-holes like these, and excel at it.
Race day. I’m in the 100-yard dash, a guy clips me. I go down… and can you believe this shit? I fracture my shin bone twenty feet from winning. Ignoring pain, I got that down! I low-crawl across the line, roll onto my back and laugh, “Dead last, without a leg to stand on!”
You prepare to train and train to be prepared. You give 101% and God picks the results.
You live to finish. You just gotta….
Know what I mean?
MudSpots Topic Challenge: "From Order Comes Freedom"
Shower. Carbs. Bus to the gym. Seven days a week. I lift every day and do a mile on the treadmill. I been doin’ it just over two years, leading up to this first race.
I’m only 5’8”, but agile and quick. Gunny calls me ‘Pinball.’ His favorite expression is, “Pinball, on the point!” I’m hardcore Corps. Love the shit.
I’m in the ‘Hell Hounds‘–an infantry platoon, 3rd Marines, near Kabul. We start a sweep on a compound with suspected Taliban. We train and train to clear hidey-holes like these, and excel at it.Word’s out: You want it done? Send the ‘Hell Hounds’ and it’s mission accomplished. We earned the rep, take pride.
But guys get it. I did. Boom! Lights out. It must have been a grenade or booby trap that found me waking up in the U.S. without a right leg.
Twenty-six months of therapy and workouts with a prosthesis, then a metal, spring-looking thing that replaces it so guys like me can actually run.
Race day. I’m in the 100-yard dash, a guy clips me. I go down… and can you believe this shit? I fracture my shin bone twenty feet from winning. Ignoring pain, I got that down! I low-crawl across the line, roll onto my back and laugh, “Dead last, without a leg to stand on!”
You live to finish. You just gotta….
Know what I mean?
I Heard from Svetlana Jennell Today
Yep.
I logged into my eldest e-mail account and saw her name in the "From" column.
It wasn't traumatic and my heart didn't sink or race.
But, the subject line hits me with such force that I can't bring myself to mouse-click the link to open it, nor can I bear to delet it at the moment. The subject line reads: "Penis Enlargement Pills. Gain up to 4 inches," and why the unsolicited advice unless she's begging for another round?
How dare she, because, that heartless bitch has to know that I'm a caucasian, pushing 60, long-gone from my last physically intimate relationship (does "Pay 'n Play" count?) and I'd truly like to scream, "You were one skanky, lousy lay!," yet, if I did ever have a romp with her, it must have been in a tequila-induced blackout, for, wouldn't you remember adminstering a 6-hour Vitamin P treatment to a woman named "Svetty," because I sure don't recall that name from anywhere, anytime.
I logged into my eldest e-mail account and saw her name in the "From" column.
It wasn't traumatic and my heart didn't sink or race.
But, the subject line hits me with such force that I can't bring myself to mouse-click the link to open it, nor can I bear to delet it at the moment. The subject line reads: "Penis Enlargement Pills. Gain up to 4 inches," and why the unsolicited advice unless she's begging for another round?
How dare she, because, that heartless bitch has to know that I'm a caucasian, pushing 60, long-gone from my last physically intimate relationship (does "Pay 'n Play" count?) and I'd truly like to scream, "You were one skanky, lousy lay!," yet, if I did ever have a romp with her, it must have been in a tequila-induced blackout, for, wouldn't you remember adminstering a 6-hour Vitamin P treatment to a woman named "Svetty," because I sure don't recall that name from anywhere, anytime.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Heart Beyond the Purple and Red
Shower. Carbs. Bus to the gym. Seven days a week. I lift every day and do a mile on the treadmill. I been doin’ it just over two years, leading up to this first race.
I’m only 5’8”, but agile and quick. Gunny calls me ‘Pinball.’ His favorite expression is, “Pinball, on the point!” I’m hardcore Corps. Love the shit.
I’m in the ‘Hell Hounds‘–an infantry platoon, 3rd Marines, near Kabul. We start a sweep on a compound with suspected Taliban. We train and train to clear hidey-holes like these, and excel at it.
Word’s out: You want it done? Send the ‘Hell Hounds’ and it’s mission accomplished. We earned the rep, take pride.
But guys get it. I did. Boom! Lights out. It must have been a grenade or booby trap that found me waking up in the U.S. without a right leg.
Twenty-six months of therapy and workouts with a prosthesis, then a metal, spring-looking thing that replaces it so guys like me can actually run.
Race day. I’m in the 100-yard dash, a guy clips me. I go down… and can you believe this shit? I fracture my shin bone twenty feet from winning.
Ignoring pain, I got that down! I low-crawl across the line, roll onto my back and laugh, “Dead last, without a leg to stand on!”
You prepare to train and train to be prepared. You give 101% and God picks the results.
You live to finish. You just gotta….
Know what I mean?
[MudSpots Theme: From Order Comes Renewal: Freedom]
I’m only 5’8”, but agile and quick. Gunny calls me ‘Pinball.’ His favorite expression is, “Pinball, on the point!” I’m hardcore Corps. Love the shit.
I’m in the ‘Hell Hounds‘–an infantry platoon, 3rd Marines, near Kabul. We start a sweep on a compound with suspected Taliban. We train and train to clear hidey-holes like these, and excel at it.
Word’s out: You want it done? Send the ‘Hell Hounds’ and it’s mission accomplished. We earned the rep, take pride.
But guys get it. I did. Boom! Lights out. It must have been a grenade or booby trap that found me waking up in the U.S. without a right leg.
Twenty-six months of therapy and workouts with a prosthesis, then a metal, spring-looking thing that replaces it so guys like me can actually run.
Race day. I’m in the 100-yard dash, a guy clips me. I go down… and can you believe this shit? I fracture my shin bone twenty feet from winning.
Ignoring pain, I got that down! I low-crawl across the line, roll onto my back and laugh, “Dead last, without a leg to stand on!”
You prepare to train and train to be prepared. You give 101% and God picks the results.
You live to finish. You just gotta….
Know what I mean?
[MudSpots Theme: From Order Comes Renewal: Freedom]
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Teenhood in High Definition
Earning a varsity letter was a big deal in high school although the Future Farmers of America (4H on steroids) [Sorry, Bolton Carley] thought their blue corduroy jackets were 'the shit,' and the jocks were harbingers of apathy while nerds made their ways to the Science and Chess Clubs, and the marching band...well, you know...all the while, the hip and chronically cool 'heads' sported flip flops to complement faded bib coveralls with flowers embroideed on the bib replete with a peace sign or patch centered on the stitched diamond on the back.
The hippies' "Free Love" Haight-Ashbury "Make Love Not War" thing seemed to transform melancholy into 'mellow-choly', behind the most omnipotent of shibboleths--the peace sign--ranging in form and size adorning pendants, necklaces, rings, lighters, earrings, billboards, VW vans and brick walls; one always seemed to be in glance range.
Viet Nam was the nightly news' war, dishing-up battlefield smoke of canisters and cannon and small arms from distant jungles served to our dinner tables, countered by coverage of domestic demonstrations documenting protesters against that youth-erasing military action, while clouds above the U.S. were largely those of incense or carrying the prolific pungence of 'pot' incinerated behind the bong-bubbled mantra of "Wow" taking on several syllables.
Saturday Night Live was funny and avant garde, then, when going steady meant an angora-wound class ring visually dominating hands of the cute girls while the zitted and heftier girls caught dates with the out-of-sorts guys or became devotees of she-sports, chorus, or became garage band groupies sitting on the floor of the dances way to close to us and our amplifiers, and our after-gig snacks consisted of Cheetos, LSD, mescaline, and peyote buttons.
A raised middle finger usually enjoyed the company of the index digit, flashed in passing with "Peace, man!" and one's head nodding just so, as The Beatles celebrated their 8-handed extinction of the surf music movement kicking the door open to 'The British Invasion' of bands such as The Rolling Stones and countless others, answered under the red, white and blue banner by the home-growns: Jefferson Airplane, The Doors and Jimi Hendrix unleashing our anthems of post-adolescence.
I can't imagine how teens will feel defined by this, their era, unless it's simply by thumbs-driven interaction with miniature keypads Tweeting and Facebooking and texting and experiencing formation of world views and news from a 3-inch screen, ever keenly aware of battery meters, the closest recharger's location, which YouTube videos have gone 'viral' and, of course, tattoos.
The hippies' "Free Love" Haight-Ashbury "Make Love Not War" thing seemed to transform melancholy into 'mellow-choly', behind the most omnipotent of shibboleths--the peace sign--ranging in form and size adorning pendants, necklaces, rings, lighters, earrings, billboards, VW vans and brick walls; one always seemed to be in glance range.
Viet Nam was the nightly news' war, dishing-up battlefield smoke of canisters and cannon and small arms from distant jungles served to our dinner tables, countered by coverage of domestic demonstrations documenting protesters against that youth-erasing military action, while clouds above the U.S. were largely those of incense or carrying the prolific pungence of 'pot' incinerated behind the bong-bubbled mantra of "Wow" taking on several syllables.
Saturday Night Live was funny and avant garde, then, when going steady meant an angora-wound class ring visually dominating hands of the cute girls while the zitted and heftier girls caught dates with the out-of-sorts guys or became devotees of she-sports, chorus, or became garage band groupies sitting on the floor of the dances way to close to us and our amplifiers, and our after-gig snacks consisted of Cheetos, LSD, mescaline, and peyote buttons.
A raised middle finger usually enjoyed the company of the index digit, flashed in passing with "Peace, man!" and one's head nodding just so, as The Beatles celebrated their 8-handed extinction of the surf music movement kicking the door open to 'The British Invasion' of bands such as The Rolling Stones and countless others, answered under the red, white and blue banner by the home-growns: Jefferson Airplane, The Doors and Jimi Hendrix unleashing our anthems of post-adolescence.
I can't imagine how teens will feel defined by this, their era, unless it's simply by thumbs-driven interaction with miniature keypads Tweeting and Facebooking and texting and experiencing formation of world views and news from a 3-inch screen, ever keenly aware of battery meters, the closest recharger's location, which YouTube videos have gone 'viral' and, of course, tattoos.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Chant the New "N-Word" with Me? Pretty please?
There’s a dirty bag full of racial invectives that white folks have historically flung to denigrate black people in America, fighting words intended to hurt, words that ignite emotions and reactions, words from which nothing good ever comes, words which should cause one to cover his children’s ears.
But where is that unifying and stirring African-American voice in all of this, willing to scream “No’Bama,” “Hell, No‘Bama!,“ to keeping a narcissistic egoist from ruining any future chance of a black American attaining the highest office in the land?
How can we get thousands of people, of all races, to surround the White House, skooshing our faces through the fence openings, chanting “NoBAMA!!” until the cherry blossoms return to enchant the Washington landscape?
Were I to take a civil disobedience rap, it would probably be a Federal citation for littering, for sailing paper airplanes onto the White Lawn bearing my suggestions to heal the country and economy, cognizant that our FCO (Federal Community Organizer) can read (especially teleprompters) but who has no demonstrable experience or capacity for action while it is Mr. Holder busying himself with my prosecution for “Airborne Assault with Intent to Commit Common Sense.”
The ship of State isn’t listing, but rolled over and headed for Davy Jones’ Locker with its captain lashed to the wheelhouse, getting a facial makeover for television, making sure the megaphone is functional to deliver the message: “The shuffleboard tournament will resume in fifteen minutes once the wind rights the ship, and I intend to speak convincingly enough to create that very salvific breeze.”
Mr. Obama, please quit preening and 3-putting and burning av-gas to fuel your Air Force 1 vacations and simply run an ad for a contractor [Isn’t Donald Trump a licensed contractor?] with leadership and vision to run things for awhile, so the country can heal (while you scrawl meaningless rhetoric on ream after ream of White House stationery) because, after all, what's another $10 Million in your disaster authoring?
But where is that unifying and stirring African-American voice in all of this, willing to scream “No’Bama,” “Hell, No‘Bama!,“ to keeping a narcissistic egoist from ruining any future chance of a black American attaining the highest office in the land?
How can we get thousands of people, of all races, to surround the White House, skooshing our faces through the fence openings, chanting “NoBAMA!!” until the cherry blossoms return to enchant the Washington landscape?
Were I to take a civil disobedience rap, it would probably be a Federal citation for littering, for sailing paper airplanes onto the White Lawn bearing my suggestions to heal the country and economy, cognizant that our FCO (Federal Community Organizer) can read (especially teleprompters) but who has no demonstrable experience or capacity for action while it is Mr. Holder busying himself with my prosecution for “Airborne Assault with Intent to Commit Common Sense.”
The ship of State isn’t listing, but rolled over and headed for Davy Jones’ Locker with its captain lashed to the wheelhouse, getting a facial makeover for television, making sure the megaphone is functional to deliver the message: “The shuffleboard tournament will resume in fifteen minutes once the wind rights the ship, and I intend to speak convincingly enough to create that very salvific breeze.”
Mr. Obama, please quit preening and 3-putting and burning av-gas to fuel your Air Force 1 vacations and simply run an ad for a contractor [Isn’t Donald Trump a licensed contractor?] with leadership and vision to run things for awhile, so the country can heal (while you scrawl meaningless rhetoric on ream after ream of White House stationery) because, after all, what's another $10 Million in your disaster authoring?
Friday, August 5, 2011
The Gilding
Published at MudSpots.wordpress.com - Thursday, 8/04/11
MudSpots Topic Challenge: "Golden Rule"
Spectral-colored refractions highlighted chardonnay in the goblet as he swirled it in a shard of natural light. It captivated his gaze and drifting thoughts.
If Jack Kennedy had the job, we’d all be better off. Joey was in ‘Nam but had managed to get a telegram–his last words–to them that long-ago day, yellowed paper now pressed into their family Bible. His other brother, Jake, looked like a scarecrow in a tux.
Next to him at the linen-clothed table, she was afar in her mind. He could return, at-will. She was anchored there, untouchable, unreachable.
His life was her present, the reason they wed on her 21st birthday. She swore to drink him in, that day and henceforth. Their lives were as brimmed as her untouched water glass, never empty as her stare.
Rome deemed “L” its numeral for 50,” he thought, for love spanning decades, for her loss, first to Alzheimer’s and a subsequent stroke. It was for lucky, for there was no day, no moment or instance when he couldn’t feel lucky to hold the vision of her in their youth.
He moved the spoon to brush her lower lip with a small piece of anniversary-birthday cake, putting it into her mouth, wiping a crumb away at its corner. Tears in the corners of his eyes were emotional tattletales. He smiled at his lifelong love and whispered, “Thank you.”
The anniversary was golden by tradition, his life, gilded by her permeating presence within it.
MudSpots Topic Challenge: "Golden Rule"
Spectral-colored refractions highlighted chardonnay in the goblet as he swirled it in a shard of natural light. It captivated his gaze and drifting thoughts.
If Jack Kennedy had the job, we’d all be better off. Joey was in ‘Nam but had managed to get a telegram–his last words–to them that long-ago day, yellowed paper now pressed into their family Bible. His other brother, Jake, looked like a scarecrow in a tux.
Next to him at the linen-clothed table, she was afar in her mind. He could return, at-will. She was anchored there, untouchable, unreachable.
His life was her present, the reason they wed on her 21st birthday. She swore to drink him in, that day and henceforth. Their lives were as brimmed as her untouched water glass, never empty as her stare.
Rome deemed “L” its numeral for 50,” he thought, for love spanning decades, for her loss, first to Alzheimer’s and a subsequent stroke. It was for lucky, for there was no day, no moment or instance when he couldn’t feel lucky to hold the vision of her in their youth.
He moved the spoon to brush her lower lip with a small piece of anniversary-birthday cake, putting it into her mouth, wiping a crumb away at its corner. Tears in the corners of his eyes were emotional tattletales. He smiled at his lifelong love and whispered, “Thank you.”
The anniversary was golden by tradition, his life, gilded by her permeating presence within it.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
The Gilding
Spectral-colored refractions highlighted chardonnay in the goblet as he swirled it in a shard of natural light. It captivated his gaze and drifting thoughts.
If Jack Kennedy had the job, we’d all be better off. Joey was in ‘Nam but had managed to get a telegram–his last words–to them that long-ago day, yellowed paper now pressed into their family Bible. His other brother, Jake, looked like a scarecrow in a tux.
Next to him at the linen-clothed table, she was afar in her mind. He could return, at-will. She was anchored there, untouchable, unreachable.
His life was her present, the reason they wed on her 21st birthday. She swore to drink him in, that day and henceforth. Their lives were as brimmed as her untouched water glass, never empty as her stare.
Rome wisely deemed “L” as their numeral for fifty,” he thought, for love spanning decades, for her loss, first to Alzheimer’s and a subsequent stroke. It was for lucky, for there was no day, no moment or instance when he couldn’t feel lucky to hold the vision of her in their youth.
He moved the spoon to brush her lower lip with a small piece of anniversary-birthday cake, putting it into her mouth, wiping a crumb away at its corner. Tears in the corners of his eyes were emotional tattletales. He smiled at his lifelong love and whispered, “Thank you.”
The anniversary was golden by tradition, his life, gilded by her permeating presence within it.
[MudSpots Theme: The 'Golden Rule' ]
If Jack Kennedy had the job, we’d all be better off. Joey was in ‘Nam but had managed to get a telegram–his last words–to them that long-ago day, yellowed paper now pressed into their family Bible. His other brother, Jake, looked like a scarecrow in a tux.
Next to him at the linen-clothed table, she was afar in her mind. He could return, at-will. She was anchored there, untouchable, unreachable.
His life was her present, the reason they wed on her 21st birthday. She swore to drink him in, that day and henceforth. Their lives were as brimmed as her untouched water glass, never empty as her stare.
Rome wisely deemed “L” as their numeral for fifty,” he thought, for love spanning decades, for her loss, first to Alzheimer’s and a subsequent stroke. It was for lucky, for there was no day, no moment or instance when he couldn’t feel lucky to hold the vision of her in their youth.
He moved the spoon to brush her lower lip with a small piece of anniversary-birthday cake, putting it into her mouth, wiping a crumb away at its corner. Tears in the corners of his eyes were emotional tattletales. He smiled at his lifelong love and whispered, “Thank you.”
The anniversary was golden by tradition, his life, gilded by her permeating presence within it.
[MudSpots Theme: The 'Golden Rule' ]
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