Salty Tears

So, here I am, searching for a patent attorney for my new idea. I'm proposing a replacement of all our elected officials in all three branches of government with programmable robots. You know, like those cute little "dogs" that the Japanese have taken to so strongly. No gyms, barber shops, health plans, franking, travel, payoffs to mistresses, ad nauseam.

If one goes out of warranty, replace it.

One of my problems is that all of my attorney friends know what I have in mind for them.

To quote our current leader, "What have you got to lose?"

Splat!

Well, sir, if this hasn't been the longest day in history, it ranks right up there. My faith in my fellow man has eroded to a nub. 

I'm ready for Mad magazine, Beatles records, banana pudding, Goofy cartoons.

Who's in charge here? Really. Who's in charge?

All The Rest

Honestly, I don't believe that anyone could have ever straightened me up. I'm not complaining. I haven't even told you the good stories. My mom thought of me as a success and that's  good enough for me. 

Could I have written what they wanted? Sung on-key? Learned scales on the fretboard? Looks like we'll never know for sure.

Love? I seem to be really good at it as long as I don't drag anyone else into it.

Liars and Their Buddies

Maybe it will all be okay. In fact, it will be okay. If it's all random, then what will be will be. On the other hand, if there's some grand design, some power has got the whole thing under control.

Either way, it's outta' my hands.

All my life I've gotten everything that I've wanted. Looks like I might have run out of things to want.

Bip Bam

My favorite books, movies and songs always merge reality and fantasy. Usually there is a good versus evil theme running through the plot. Now I find myself living it. Moriarty has been right in front of me for years. Decades!

If love won't conquer it, go around it.

Measure success in love.

                                   

Afraid Of The Daylight

Ghosts and angels. Can you believe in one and not the other? Personally, I'm running out of stuff to believe in. Sometimes I worry about where that road might lead. I suppose at a certain point you should worry about where they all lead.

Is it ever too late to become a good listener?

Here's to the ones who have questioned my ambition. I understand. It's just that my goals have never been clear.

                                      

Changing Plugs

In the middle '70's, GM put big V-8 engines in a number of their smaller cars, It took several months for the auto magazines to reveal that the motors had to be lifted for the front spark plugs to be changed. During this same period I walked through the storage yards at the port where new GM vehicles were stored before delivery to the dealers. I saw new Chevrolets rusting before getting to the showrooms.

For the first time in our history we worried about the end of oil. Air pollution became a topic for the national news. In some cases, local news, too. Nixon's new EPA called on auto makers to improve mileage. Detroit screamed that it couldn't be done. 

Japanese car guys said, "Watch this."

For a generation of men who grew up with their personal identities tied up with Ford, Chrysler and General Motors, the world changed. Not for the better. Our team sucked.

Over the decades, the American automobile industry has struggled to catch up. Things have improved. They have not improved to the point where anyone claims that the best cars are made here.

I'm not a car guy any longer.

Now I see Wilbur Fucking Ross give what is supposed to pass as a speech on television and I remember when we once thought that the United States had the best government.

                                        

Don't get me started about Pat Robertson sermons on television!

Where Loss Begins

Four? Five? I'm pretty sure I had't started school yet. Bubba, from down the street, was a year or two younger. His funeral changed everything. Mortality reared its head and loss became the source of my sorrow. One of his parents, I don't remember which, backed over Bubba in the driveway.

Until that event I had no concept of death. I had never even lost a pet. Oh, when the cowboys shot the Indians and they fell off their horses, I knew they were "dead." There was nothing sad about it. Good guys won. Villains died.

I coasted for years after that. My pal, Ed Brown, always claimed that youth had no concept of mortality. Well sir, Ed Brown said plenty and now Ed Brown is dead as a doornail. 

Viet Nam brought the idea of finality of death home. I didn't lose many friends, personally. I came up mostly with white kids of privilege. Every name in the newspaper broke my heart every day, though.

Beloved aunts and uncles died. Friends committed suicide. Berry died on his motorcycle. Cancer became a frequent topic of conversation.

Pets who loved their way into my heart came and went and I never got over a single one.

Lottie almost made one hundred. The doctor said she held on for so long because she was afraid to go. 

When my mom went, I was numb.

Jamaica and Angel were everything I had left. All of my love for everyone in my life lived in them. Now I live with a heart full of love and a heart full of memories.

                                     

Last Bus

It has been quite the season for villains, hasn't it? Could the WWE have ever come up with anti-heroes more despicable than the swamp creatures from D.C.? I don't think so.

By the time that I was twelve years old I realized that the bad guys that I loved to hate were based on the evil stars from previous days. Villains came decked out as japs, nazis, commies and worse. All of America was unified in bigotry! Make America great again, indeed.

Except for grandmothers in the South and the slower adolescent boys, we all knew that it was for show. Rasslin' was fake and we didn't really care. We were all pretty sure that Kurt Von Brauner went home and cried his eyes out when Jerry Lewis did the marathon. 

Things change. Ted Cruz took the Joe McCarthy model and made it more icky by adding just a splash of Mr. Haney in the mix. Orrin Hatch is rolling out his old Orrin Hatch act and Lindsey Graham is trying to keep homophobia alive in the USA.

Problem is rasslin' was fake. This ain't. These folks go home and put kittens in microwaves.

Gorgeous George was a genius with a splendid act, inspiring Bob Dylan, Eddie Graham, Muhammad Ali. Me!

Donald Trump is in a class by himself. There is no act. He doesn't like dogs.

Mister E, I Presume

One wife always referred to me as Mr. E. Affectionately, I believe. Of the adjectives that folks in my life tend to use in my presence, I suppose that mysterioso is among the more positive.

My good fortune seems to be that I use all of the knowledge that I have in my work. We all have acquaintances who struggle to sit at a desk for most of most days, waiting for the big hand to reach twelve, once the little hand approaches five. Then these folks struggle with rush hour traffic in some fashion and hope to stay awake long enough to "live" for awhile. Often the day ends with the TV fading. Real life begins with dreams.

Me? I dream all day and dream some more at night.

Am I lazy? Depends on whom you ask, I suppose. I prefer "shiftless," to tell you the truth.

In my mind I struggle to save the world. Seems ambitious. I often encounter a world that doesn't feel that it needs saving. I persevere. I dream.

Show People

Do you suppose that the mean folks return as mean ghosts? I suppose that ghosts are in the dreams and the memories of the living, so maybe it all depends on our ability to love and to forgive.

All of my dreams have come true and I wish the same for everyone.

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

Roll Down The Window

About once a month I decide to pack this thing in. Blogs were already unfashionable by the time that I decided to dive in. Seems about right, doesn't it? I'm always behind fashion or ahead of my time, depending on whom you ask. 

If you're never fashionable, you'll never go out of fashion.

When it seems like maybe I've disclosed every deep, dark secret, I look around and wonder what I would do if I weren't entertaining myself putting my head on other people's pictures.

A good friend recently asked, "You mean to tell me that you write about yourself seven days a week?"

Well, if you insist on putting it that way...

Synthetic Synthetics

Not everything needs a purpose, of course. It occurs to me that if memories have a purpose, however, maybe it is to remind us of what we have today. Love, the only commodity that matters, is fleeting. Fragile. 

Dealing almost exclusively in that currency these days, I find myself a wealthy man. My tears are sweet. Grief is about love lost, a reminder of the love, itself.

Make new memories. Love.

                                     

Bum's Rush

How many monkeys do stop the show? Asking for a friend.

I've been up since dawn, waiting for the end of the day so that I could go to bed. Kinda' the ultimate rut, I suppose. 

If you never tell anyone your secrets, you'll forget them. What good are they? You can tell me your secrets but don't forget to let me know that they are secrets.

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

A History Of A Broken Heart

Everybody remembers the first time. Your first broken heart. Nearly as I can tell, it stays broken. Oh, lust and the thrill of romance put a spring back in your step if you're lucky. That old, fractured ticker, though, is already out of kilter; just waiting for that anvil to fall. Again.

With enough mileage you can do it on your own. I don't involve myself with the routine at this point. No corsage. No "pick you up at eight." No hurtful breakup. I just fall hopelessly in love and go straight to agony. 

I recommend it.

Check The Rigging

No one has any power over you that you don't give them. Resist, indeed. I went to school to learn how to learn. I've put together what little knowledge and wisdom that I possess from books and babies, dreams, dogs, teachers, love and the stars above. I should probably include experience on my petite list but, honestly, it doesn't belong. My life runs, more or less, like a ribbon on an old typewriter. It goes for awhile, gets to the end, reverses itself and goes in the opposite direction.

If you'll sit still, if you'll pay attention, truth will reveal itself. Be careful with it. After love, it is probably our most valuable commodity. It's rare and it's fine but, if you're not careful, it will get you in trouble.

                                     

Scissors Cut Paper

This is not my century, boys. Neither was the last. Never mind a blue wave, I'm waiting for a pink one. I'm convinced that Hillary Clinton's biggest stumbling block in the likability polls all center on the pressure to "act like a man." She's not shrill. She's gotten used to responding to condescending, ignorant, mean-spirited remarks from misogynist jackasses. She wears pantsuits because the press will comment ad nauseam on her attire and her "figure" if she wears dresses. Look at the attention any change in her hairstyle brought about while she was first lady.

This rant is not meant to be pro-Hillary. Oh, I like her just fine and, of course, I voted for her. She's a little off to the right for me. Then again, everybody's off to the right for me.

Look at where "old white men" have gotten us.

Let me just mention Kamala Harris. Tammy Duckworth. Elizabeth Warren. Kirstin Gillibrand. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

I long for the day when men have to act a little more like women to be seriously considered for office.

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

        

Older Still

Well, sir, I spent last night in Jemison. Jemison, Alabama. It was all one long, rambling dream. Before I finally quit and got up around 4:30, I was confronted with good and evil and every conflict that faces us all over a lifetime.

Let me say that I learned more about me than years of therapy ever turned up and more about the world than I got from four years of geography. I saw more behind the curtain than I ever saw with the aid of psychedelics. 

To say that I'm worn out won't do.

Well Enough

Everybody changes the world with every little move. Be aware. Remember when music mattered? How long has it been since we last knew "peace"? What have they done to cause us to accept perpetual war as the norm?

Now that the unions are essentially gone, just what is it that we're celebrating in the U.S.A. on Labor Day? Mattress sales?

Does any of it matter? Has quality of life improved?

Asking for a friend.