Brighter Days

Although there really is very little rhyme or reason (~certainly not “ Reasoning” ) involved in these essays that I post from time to time, I suppose that even where fiction is concerned there is always some element, or aspect, that comes from within the author himself however ridiculous,   inane,   horrible or even comically intended that piece may be. I write because I feel moved to do so, whether it’s because I feel compelled to describe some truly weird event happening in my terribly uninteresting life, or because I’m bored of my so-called existence here and would rather choose to express something more compelling (-to me mind you ) than to contemplate another useless day of my own as it would normally unravel before me. Some of the folks who read the things that I write are friends and family members and I am honored that they take the time occasionally to glance here and to look at what I have to say every so often. Apparently some of the individuals reading my ...

Well here it is another Thanksgiving come and gone with Christmas hurrying around the corner like Lance Armstrong on an anabolic high and New Years’ soon to be just another memory before we even have time to put away the funny looking pointy party hats. The Holiday season often seems to drag out getting here but once Turkey day arrives it’s an all out sprint to January One and if you get too caught up in the whirlwind rush of festivity preparation it becomes all too easy to miss out on the importance of these get-togethers to begin with. Now I don’t mean to get off on a rant here and I certainly know better than to weigh in on any of the religious overtones that tend to be so closely associated with this Holiday time of year. I’m a bit older now which goes without saying, we all are. Unfortunately older doesn’t mean wiser –at least not in my case apparently (-or at any rate that’s what younger folks seem to want to point out, but hey they’re “younger” so what the hell do they...

October 2012   ~HAPPY BIRTHDAY…HAPPY BIRTHDAY…HAPPY BIRTHDAY…HAPPY BIRTHDAY…!!!   Dear Sarah: Well hopefully this should reach your humble little doorstep on the appropriate day this coming Saturday, and, well if by chance NOT, I plan to blame it on the U.S. Postal service, the weather, gas prices, Plague-n-Famine, and a whole host of other potential possibilities other than myself and singularly Poor Planning on my part! You have been on my mind much lately and not just because of the forthcoming National Celebration of your much adored birth (~as if that wasn’t enough you may add) –will there be parades this year or is that planned for 2013?   No I actually do tend to think about my sister and her little brood of Boys-to-Men down South in “F-da” (-just made that up right there on the spot for you –“F-duh”, I kinda like it although perhaps it does gravitate a little towards the PG-13 in a Freudian-slip kinda unintentional way). I thought that per...

~An Update of sorts to “…And Laugh” dated September 18 th ….. I suggest skipping to the next post before returning here to glimpse these most recent macabre developments… So anyhow it has become increasingly apparent that inanimate objects (-in particular Automobiles) and me have some innate problem in the development of “healthy” long lasting and fruitful relationships. Actually in retrospect my ability to maintain any realistic normalcy in basic fundamentally social interactions is likely questionable too –but for now let’s just stick to cars in order to retain some focus, some succinctness…. In case you choose to first read this instead of taking my advice and skipping below for some relatively important background information regarding these most recent developments of the last 48 hours, I’ll try and relate a quick (-impossible for me) synopsis to get us up to speed-: My Honda has had some fairly unacceptable misfortunes over the last several weeks and my ability to...

These last few months or so I’ve been responsible for taking care of a young man who happens to have some substantial challenges in his life. Terrific guy and who among us can truly say that we are without the need for help in some form or another from the others in our daily migrations within our often, at times, chaotic existences…. At any rate, several weeks ago my friend and I were travelling in my car on a Saturday towards one of the movie theatres here in the western “hills” of North Carolina where we now both live. As we approached our destination that afternoon my cellphone rang w/a caller ID which indicated that it was a friend calling not for me but for my current travelling companion, who, at the time, was napping. As I swung into the theatre parking lot I nudged this sleeping person awake and handed him the phone w/his buddy holding on the other line. ~Now I probably should mention that at times I can be cheap and that my cellphone and network carrier reflect this...

~The path hemmed and hawed its way through tree lined latticework, mountain laurels and magnolias, bloodroot and bluet crowding for space in the meandering dirt and stone strewn expanse. Larger rocks and stray boulders some cleaved in two stricken perhaps by lightening or from earths great hellish heaving’s during some long ago terrestrial cataclysm and then pitched down the hillsides hither and yon to stand randomly like sentries from another world. Marauding old and twisted knees and elbows of larger trees broke up and through the surface of the lane as if requesting help, pleading their case. An occasional glimpse through wrecked and fallen timbers displaced a thick and gauzy haze exploding heavenward from out of the earth itself, silent, erect and vertically swirling, smoke-like apparitions, the ghosts of morning dew, damp fire pouring forth from the dawn of the newly baptized day, as if the mountains themselves were aflame and retching out some demented and forsaken anguish....

~The Old man snatched up his cards and ferried them broadways across the table to the dealer. He’d stayed long into the night and the time to leave this place had long since passed. He scooped up the tokens that were his and counted them out stacking them orderly by color and pushing them forward towards the man whose shack he and the rest had been sharing the evening with. The host recounted the stacks setting them back neatly into the stained   and leathered box that housed the chips and cards along with an old worn Texas Instruments calculator he’d used to total up the dividends of many an evening past spent. The host tallied up the count and uncoupled the hasp of the old cigar box that he’d used to ferret away the notes and coins which the players had traded for earlier in the evening and as necessary throughout the game. He pulled out a small sheaf of bills and a handful of assorted pocket change and handed the folded notes and coins to the old man. The old man crumpled ...

~The sleepy child ambled up clumsily to a kneeling position in order to better survey his surroundings. The room where he awoke was semi-dark and the midafternoon light played across the white bed linens laddering them as it exited through the venetians on the eastern windowed wall. Small motes of dust and other particulate matter floated eerily and caught in the sun’s rays forming disorganized patterns and glowing dramatically in the vertical eddies created by the heat in the stillness of the room. The queen sized bed from where he drew his bearings rose scarcely three feet as it surfaced from the floor but could just as well have been The Eiger or perhaps even the southwestern face of El Capitan such were his juvenile negotiating skills.   The room itself was small by adult standards but, for the toddlers’ perspective, loomed large and profound with shapes contemplative and angular, and silence everywhere both distracting and oddly frightful.   Translucent and bon...

Well it’s been close to 30 days since I last decided to weigh in on anything ~ New ~ and I suppose that it’s about that time again , so here goes… Maybe it’s best to begin by saying that I’m a fairly progressive thinking kind of guy. I try to remain moderately open to new things and ideas and I‘ve been known to be persuaded by logical and impassioned rhetoric even when I’ve previously held some sort of stubborn position on a particular topic. I believe in diversity and am intrigued, to a degree, by the way in which it can inject sometimes dramatic affect and change in socially stoic ideations regarding all manner of “ things ” different. God only knows - I take some getting used too, not necessarily for the way that I look or dress but most certainly for my odd way of looking at and describing the things that cross my gaze from time to time. I too can only assume that I require some degree of patience and understanding when it comes to listening to the driveling prattle that es...

It’s been a little while since I’ve had anything new to add here to this semi-autobiographical forum of mine and I suppose that it’s due at least in part to some degree of laziness from my end. The potential for commentary happens daily and frequently is filtered and modified by the confluence of events and conversations that I have with others as well as those that take place within the narrow boundaries of my own soul. Let’s get started shall we…… It’s not always what you may think “it” is . There’s a certain distinction to be noted, one that periodically gets redrawn, depending upon one’s point of view, one’s own unique point of reference. Lines of thought, beliefs, goals, the daily maps that we attempt to adhere to as we make our way into the fray of our heavily populated lives…..the plans that we formulate in an attempt to influence the events that swirl discordantly about us. There seems to be by necessity the need to build in layer upon layer of contingency……escape hatches...

…..I mentioned in an earlier post that I’ve somehow made it, (miraculously), to the “5 score +” point in the years category of marking time ( Well past my “half life” as one of my bouncers in a former life of mine once described my relative age!). In my working experience along this seemingly uncharted course, I’ve held quite a few very different unrelated positions in which I was able to put together “some coin” and manage to eek out some sort of sustainable existence (some better than others). No complaints here in this department, I’ve Made some Money…I’ve Spent some Money. Now if the Truth be Told, I’ve Spent more money than I’ve ever actually Made which can present some fairly serious financial hiccups from Time to Time, that can, (and Do), produce some relatively uncomfortable Stresses “a veces”, but, really on the whole I’ve developed some fairly good memories (-and Stories) which I’ve “banked” from these spending episodes so I can’t really complain too loudly or too frequent...

I found myself riding home from work this evening with a friend of mine, I should say an old friend of mine probably. My car had decided that yesterday was as good a time as any to deliver its latest round of negative karma to me in the form of total engine failure on a busy highway in Asheville (another story altogether), and at any rate that’s why my buddy and I were sharing a ride. It’s funny to me the broad range of purely ridiculous topics that Jeff and I so often find ourselves discussing, also particularly disturbing, in retrospect mind you, is the passionate quality of the debate on said discussed topics….. .For instance, somehow, don’t ask, the “discussion” began with the topic of people talking on their cellphones while driving and thereby recklessly endangering the lives of others with their irresponsible behavior. Reasonable discussion, responsible subject matter, adult oriented cautious-minded discourse……in a span of 4 or 5 minutes of highway driving, at an alarming rat...

…I recently ran across something that struck a chord with me, essentially it was a post that made the claim that there is nothing that can be said that hasn’t already been said in some form or another before. It went on to speculate that we are all, each of us today here in this World, equally guilty of some form of plagiarism or another as we communicate our thoughts and ideas. Apparently, through the books that we have read,   the broad array of varied and assundry media that we share, and our wide berth of collective history…we’ve kind of already said it all and are basically “re-hashing” the same ‘ol, same ‘ol again and again , just simply inserting different adjectives and adverbs in the dim hope that we can retain some sense of   “uniqueness” within our shared discourse …How Depressing is that !!! You know I’ve gotta tell ya I’ve been involved in more ridiculously imaginative verbal intercourse than I have the “noun-based” kind (-Oh well, right!) and in retrospe...

...Warning, potentially useless and unneccessarily wordy drivel piece . I don't suggest that you read any further than this, unless of course you happen to be a glutton for ridiculous prattle, and, you are too bored to bother with any other form of Real Adult Interaction, which, by the way, is my reason for posting this essay in the 1st place!...If, by the way, this warning describes you, please read on and feel free to comment, if, unlike me, you can figure out how to do so within this comepletely un-navigatible site! Just lately it's become more and more apparent to me that I find myself living in a world that chooses "back-door" communication styles rather than the more "Intimate" "Face-to-face", or even "Mouth-to-ear" variety of human interaction. Would somebody please explain to me why it has become so terribly much more important to hammer out a text or a facebook "splash" rather than to pick up a telephone and utter t...