My Favourite Planet

As I watch the news from across an ocean, I struggle to keep even a flaccid upper lip. The struggle for attention and power and revenge dominates most all of any media coverage. Folks who wanted to be famous but had no talent and men who craved wealth but weren't born to it battle cruel people with no empathy and bad guys who were bullied or abused, by parents or schoolmates, for attention and revenge.

Here I sit in a little corner of paradise, cut off from the everyday kerfuffle, and try to make sense of it. Of course there is no sense to be made of it. 

If one of the madmen drops the big one, then I disappear like everyone and everything else. Short of that, I have to file the sad state of human affairs along with the other sad factors of life. 

Love is the only alternative. It's easy. Its value is incalculable and its cost is free. 

The deck is stacked, dear friends. It's their dice. I salute the brave combatants who keep the struggle alive and I would love, more than anything, to be proven wrong. Looks to me like cheaters win.

Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.

 

What A View

On a day like this I feel like the oldest dog in the pound who just got taken home to live like a king for his remaining days. As Kurt would say, "If this isn't nice, what is?"

I am finally learning to tune out the static from the news. Oh, I'm still outraged and my heart is broken on a regular basis. I care as much as ever. Anguish that I'm unable to convert to action, however, won't change the world.

Did I come along at the right time- you know, Elvis, hot rods, peace & love- or do I just romanticise the life I've lived?

Who cares? I've sung my songs to the sweetest folks in the world.

 

The Last of Jazz

The last things in the world that I want to fight about are religion and politics. Really, I would rather not fight at all, with anyone, about anything. I'm probably a little better at avoiding conflict than I was as a young man. Not much.

There are patterns that became obvious to me that endure as I watch the world spin. First and foremost, there are good guys and bad guys.

Don't tell me if your candidate is a Republican or a Democrat; is he a good guy or a bad guy?

I'm less interested in the color of your immigrant than I am in his plans for the future. I'm not that interested in the deity that he prays to unless he is looking to blow up some of the others because of a message from that god.

Yep, good guys and bad guys. Wrestlers, cowboys, politicians, bankers, soldiers, preachers and whatever else you've got.

History is written by the victors. This new batch, if there are books in our future, should be fascinating. If I'm around, I'll rush to look up slavery, fascism, living wage, climate change...

Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.

 

Too Tight To Fight

Don't run out of dreams before you run out of steam. Life, for me, has gotten better in fits and starts since I was a kid. There are days when I think maybe I had better use up some of this love and luck, just to keep from having it go to waste at the end. 

My will is pure poetry, boys.

Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.

 

What You Want

Your reality is what you figure out. Mine is something entirely different. I hope tolerance plays a big role in yours.

If this world doesn't break your heart on some kind of regular basis, you're not paying attention. That or you're a psychopath by definition.

Love whenever and wherever you can. That's my only advice.

Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTsUBXQ8PXg&list=RDOTsUBXQ8PXg&start_radio=1

 

Prove It

Does anybody else out there feel like a fraud? I suppose I was okay up until the second grade or thereabouts. They taught me to read and I read. Miss Gamon thought that maybe I should be double promoted from the first grade.

These days I don't do much of anything and I'm pretty good at it.

In between I've been asked over and over, "What do you do?"

I've passed myself off as a writer, a musician, an adult, a realtor, a hippie, a geographer, a promoter. I always look down and my palms start to sweat no matter my answer.

All I can tell you is that if I were a dog, I would be a mutt. My only aspiration would be to be called a good boy.

Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KECToh58X4o

 

Mister E

Maybe it's survivor's guilt. As I watch, along with you, the world unravelling, led sensationally by the USA, on the internet, I worry about the victims. The poor. The sick and the uninsured. The immigrants and the unemployed. The under-employed. I feel like I left just as the bottom of decency and compassion was dropping out.

For a man who was born in Alabama during the Segregation Forever era and came of age during the Viet Nam war times, nothing about this heartache is new. Of course more of the bullies have nuclear weapons now and we laugh at the quaint memories of "duck and cover."

We had rock'n'roll then. 

What's gonna get us through these times?  We could use some heroes.

Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js2BJTJWaD8&list=RDJs2BJTJWaD8&start_radio=1