hotwire reality

el adios

2009-05-02T06:50:00.003-04:00

why is it that we are drawn to that place like some mid-atlantic secondary education version of mecca with flights from new england and drives from the gulf coast all seeming perfectly normal and why should they not?

somewhere among the sounds of the bawlmer o, chuck thompson’s voice, the lyrics of maryland my maryland, and 98 rock circa 1980 we fell in love. with a building.

the red brick and pea green trim look tired and the rust on the window frames is visible from any distance and this is amplified by the beautiful sepia brick replacement being built to its right. as much as you want (need) the building to be there forever and wonder from your home three hundred miles away why the wrecking ball is necessary but as you actually approach it you see the pain and as you leave you hear a faint voice saying that it’s time. please I can’t do this anymore.

the cafeteria looks smaller and our bodies look larger and I suppose that both are the result of a long thirty years that disappear when you see classmates and teammates that commonality and life experience have turned into brothers and sisters with kids of their own. a band plays 80s songs in the gym and we don’t dance now like we did then but rather struggle to connect today’s faces and golf shirts to yesterday’s yearbook photos and velvet bow ties.

behind the school the football field has turned into a parking lot for construction vehicles with a chain link halo that shares what’s left of the turf with the ghosts of blue jerseyed boys in front of six thousand fans under the proverbial friday night lights with horns and flutes and refrains of hooray for bobcats and we only remember the wins and with memories like that aren’t they all wins?

and so you the next day you return alone and sit on the remaining set of bleachers under the perfect blue sunday morning sky and the breeze pushes the ninety degree heat and you realize that as much as you need to go home that something is keeping you there and not letting you leave and an hour goes by. and then two.

we do love the building and that’s why we came over a thousand strong to say goodbye but that thing that keeps you there with the high school before you and bel air in the distance is not just the building itself and you realize that your love is not just for the structure but what you learned there. about yourself.

when you finally drive away and the tears subside and the school gets smaller behind you your phone rings as if on cue and your nine year old son who knows of your love and that you may be struggling says dad are you ok?

bryant park 4/10/09

2009-04-17T14:44:00.000-04:00

that was a bad tuesday and this is good friday the one similarity being that on both days the sky ripped in two. you did not exist then not to me anyway but our day today in bryant park is much like that morning when I sat here reading the times among old monuments and upcoming fear.

blue stretches above from the bryant park hotel to grace – the building not the state – in concordance with the green carpet at the bottom of this glass and concrete canyon. the park’s signature green chairs are as silent now as the grey pigeons were then just prior to the larger silver bird crossing the canyon - from grace to the north to the hotel to the south – causing the beating of wings and the breaking of glass and the wave of what we did not yet know.

officers with rifles circle the park now as a reminder of then and as a siren goes the opposite way up 6th and I see you crossing 42nd and our eye contact is crucial because it’s lifting me above the a seven year malaise that started on the eleventh and ended today.

above the park and it’s carousel and ring of trees and well above grace I see the apollo to the north and queens to the east and a thousand feet above the hole to the south is a the fading shadow of a little girl on her mother’s lap looking out the window of an airplane heading in the direction of disneyworld.

the smile

2009-03-30T15:57:00.001-04:00

a happy baby turned into a giddy toddler then into a sullen adolescent and among his two parents and one therapist the reason for this change was zero. the look in his eyes was otherworldly and there were times during the outbursts and implosions when he looked more sinister and less sweet and it scared his father unlike anything he’d ever seen.

the smile formerly everpresent had all but disappeared and was replaced with the look of sorrow and despair. It occasionally arrived unannounced at a carnival here and a party there and only fleetingly and if you sneezed or blinked or winced you missed it.

although small enough to be in diapers he had been larger than life and always drew a crowd to his eyelashes and fat cheeked smile and his parents could not get through the supermarket or a church service or disneyworld without him being spoken to or commented on or pinched. while mom and dad felt proud as the years moved on he felt more and more perturbed.

it was hard for his light to shine from under the shadow of his all-star pitcher and starting quarterback little brother and in many ways his birthright had been usurped. he’d tried many activities from art to archery but in his 12 years had not found his place in the world as his brother had in his 9 but he kept trying and perhaps now he’d found his spot.

his painful introversion in juxtaposition to his brother’s effortless extroversion made reaching out implausible and almost impossible. his daddy understood since their paths were somewhat similar and he did not want his son to approach the same serotonin free wall that he’d abruptly hit in his thirties because he’d ignored what his brain was telling him when he himself was 12.

last night his brother sat between mom and dad with cleats on his feet and number 7 on his back having just walked off the mound and into the middle school auditorium. the same unabashed joy he’d experienced in striking out the side and doubling off the wall was now being witnessed in dance steps and rehearsed lines and when the musical was over and the performers took their bows a blonde brother on a big stage beamed so incredibly brightly that his dad sobbed like he hadn’t in a very long time.

the obit

2009-02-04T14:46:00.000-05:00

since he is now in his late forties and has come to grips with his own mortality - not really but he thinks he’s closer than he was yesterday - he was reading the obituaries in the evening paper and learned that someone’s teenage son was found dead in his home monday morning.

the office of the chief medical examiner ruled the death of the sixteen year old a suicide however by hanging was not mentioned even though that’s what it was. our thoughts and prayers are with the family as they cope with this tragedy they said. he was unsure of the kind of thoughts do you offer to the thirteen year old sister who found him and what prayers you send up to comfort the mother who ran in the room after hearing the shriek.

our hearts go out to the family it’s a tremendous loss everyone said and if there is anything we can do we will. what the hell are they actually going to do he thought to himself because he did not believe that lazarus part two was going to occur in this situation.the paper reported that for ten years they boy had participated in a local theater troupe according to the program’s director who described him as a very bright boy who started out as a performer but spent the past few years working behind the scenes and didn’t any of these people see any warning signs?additionally the boy was a junior enrolled in the culinary arts program at the high school and had been looking into applying to culinary schools to further his education. he really had the art for it a friend said remembering the black forest cake the boy had made for the theater troupe’s christmas party in december and how many tears may have fallen into the batter?

a story like this would normally have not hit him so hard except for the fact that he spent the prior evening helping his own son rehearse his lines and bake some brownies before giving him his meds and tucking him in.

last thursday's nightmare. seriously.

2008-12-18T20:40:00.001-05:00

i’m not doing this
we have to it has the state seal stamped at the bottom

he was blindsided by the certified envelope that he’d received as he can’t recall ever having to sign for a letter before. the address was that of the state capitol but the department of origin was unusual and unfamiliar.

the department of forced tranquility

the initial meeting as told in the sterile letter was not taking place at under the gold dome in hartford but rather in an obscure location. a vacant business – looking like a long out of business barber shop – in a strip mall in new england suburbia.

at midnight on a wednesday a group began to assemble on folding chairs each person looking more bewildered than the last. there were twenty one people seated drinking lousy coffee from dixie cups and each seemed to connect with and sit next to another person in the room. and then she walked in. he hadn’t told her about the horrifying letter and apparently she’d hid hers from him as well.

to decline is punishable by imprisonment
at least I won’t be dead

as was explained to them this was not a guyana grape kool-aid situation nor were they all going to end up on a comet in an effort to evacuate a soon-to-be cleansed planet wearing sweat pants and nikes. this was simply the first round of a governmental mandate to ‘free good people from the shackles of life’. participants were selected in pairs – father son mother daughter sister brother husband wife lover – so that none of them would feel alone in the journey.

they can’t do this and to be asked is inconceivable
yes but maybe they’re right we’ll be free.

the plan was that this group this team this chosen few would begin to spend time together in communal meals and nondenominational church services in an governmental sponsored team building program that seemed to him to be more of a three month pied piper related forced march into the side of a mountain never to be seen again.

this is nuts i’m not doing it
you have to we have to

they were instructed rather threatened not to tell other family members colleagues neighbors or friends what was to happen as this was to be as hush hush as whatever happened many years ago in the skies above the new mexico desert. if no one knew of the program the handlers would be able to complete a reconnaissance of the success or failure of the mission.

over the next ninety days the group as planned became unified and discussed the benefits of no longer having to worry about depleted savings family quarrels aging parents heating costs kids’ addictions and the like. discussion of walking toward the light possibly hand in hand seemed genuine at times and unnerving at others because who the hell really knows for sure.

you people are fucking nuts he thought but did not say
better to go along willingly and avoid a scene

the finality was to take place after one of the increasingly cult like church services on a sunday in april and the means was to be injection as this was decidedly the most peaceful route to quote freedom unquote.

are you ready
yes very much so are you
not in the least
oh

so after the final rally-slash-service and among the lilies and pastel eggs and baskets a cloud of uncertainly hovered and a stainless steel cart was wheeled in. the participants laid tentatively on their assigned army cots and the handlers double-checked the hypodermic array and the so-called ceremony was about to begin.

he counted and they were to be numbers fifteen and sixteen and as some squirmed and some were still he could not help but wonder what led him here and why she was so willing to go gentle into that good night.

are you ready
i think so
are you sure
yes I’ll see you when we get there
I can’t go he said to himself…

with heart in throat and taught arms and clenched fist his focus was supreme. as he finalized his plan he wondered why they bothered swabbing her arm because an infection would not be an issue in a matter of moments. he did not want to leave her and was unsure that he could go on without her but he did not need the peace that was offered as a half dozen years in fog had taught him. the pain was already an accepted part of him.

one handler joined the participants’ journey and one never walked again and he as thomas said raged against the dying of the light. there was no joy in the resurrection because there was too much work to do.

… i’m needed here

an open letter to rich, dan, and randy

2008-11-09T08:49:00.001-05:00

Having been emotionally destroyed by 9/11 I am a one issue voter and that issue is national security. I did not feel that Obama was the strongest candidate for this item so he did not get my vote. That’s not to say that I did not strongly consider him as our next president. However, now that I’ve had a few days to reflect what occurred on Tuesday I would like to forward a few thoughts and comments.

As a small boy in New Jersey I remember Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists on the medal platform at the 1968 Olympics. This gesture, for the most part, ruined their quality of life for years to come, but I’m sure to this day they would not change what they did.

When I first started watching baseball, and Reggie Jackson was my guy as you know, I recall reading about his struggles as a young black man from Philadelphia playing minor league ball in the Deep South. He was not allowed to eat or sleep in the same establishments as his white teammates, a la Jackie Robinson, and this was upsetting for me to hear.

Not long after that I recall two elementary school classmates at William Strong School in Southington, Mark and Paula, who as the only black kids in school were often ostracized. Not overtly, but covertly, which at times is more hurtful. When kids would not play with them or eat lunch with them or volunteer to be their partner for projects I would.

As a middle school student in Maryland I, along with seemingly the rest of the nation, was glued to my television for one week. The event was the ‘Roots’ miniseries. I have not been the same since I watched that program.

I do not allow my kids to describe people by the color of their skin. To me this is cheap and lazy and demeans the person you are describing because their qualities as a human do not begin and end with skin color. My first job out of college was at a residential treatment facility for emotionally disturbed and learning disabled children. The racial makeup of the staff and kids was such that I was a minority and was often referred to as ‘the white guy’.

As an adult I, on a few occasions, walked out of family events when my former father-in-law spouted his racist views, tossing the car keys to Karen and then walking the few miles home. (I am happy to say that I have been able, in a small way, to change his way of thinking)

All of this being said, I have watched all of this from the outside and although I have attempted to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem I have no idea how this type of discrimination must feel.

In our election I am certain that a number of people voted for Obama for the simple reason that he is black, just as I am certain that a number of people voted for McCain simply because he’s white. Both decisions, to me, are wrong. I can, however, based on our country’s history, understand the former.

To see the faces of the people (specifically those of color) who gathered in Grant Park – their jubilation and their tears – was truly astounding and something that I will keep with me for quite some time. But, like I said above, I am watching from the outside so I cannot completely imagine what these formerly (and presently) marginalized Americans must be feeling, but I will continue to try. The proverbial icing on the cake was Rich’s text discussing how energized his students were over Obama’s election. These kids live in a different world than we do. To them, Red Sox championships and black presidents are part of your youth, not something to wait for.

It is my hope now that he does a great job – for all of us. Not just because we need him to, but because if he fails miserably we may not see a minority even considered for this role for the remainder of our lives and that would be devastating.

rooted far from home

2008-10-21T05:55:00.001-04:00

although he was a tattooed member of red sox nation and his team was currently down three to one in the playoffs he took some pleasure in the fact that the team from his former hometown and the city of his father’s and his son’s birth were heading to the world series for the first time in fifteen years.

he pulled off the connecticut highway and as he made his way down the exit ramp looked in his rear view mirror and saw a young girl probably a uconn student in a hoodie and philadelphia phillies cap in the old suv behind him. she was pumping her fist and smiling the biggest smile that he thinks he’s ever seen and he then realized that she had seen his philadelphia eagles license plate frame and when he made the right at the light that led him toward his office he noticed that she had a license plate from the keystone state and figured that she thinks that if he likes philadelphia football that he also likes philadelphia baseball. as he pulled into the place where he gets his morning coffee and she whirled past he gave her a thumbs-up and she yells wooo! and raises the roof out of the car window.

the excitement on her face from being able to connect with a seeming kindred spirit so far from home was beautiful and he thinks no he knows that he will live off of that smile and her joy for the rest of the day.

gold

2008-10-15T15:36:00.000-04:00

he drove along listening to james taylor sing his new version of an old glen campbell song and watched october in connecticut fly by the route 2 skyline in a blur of golden leaves and crisp blue skies. with the window down and the breeze hitting his exposed arm he lowered his sunglasses in order to take in the purity of the colors that surrounded him even though the horizontal rays of the sun forced him to look sideways at the view.

one of the concurrently lovely and devastating side effects of his emotional condition was that the happiness and melancholy of nostalgia often hit him simultaneously between the eyes and the in the heart and the lyric of an obscure song could send him headlong into 1975 or 81 or the day before yesterday. even though his memories inhabit all four seasons of his past it is as though they seem to congregate in the fall making orange his favorite color.

with the leaves of the seventies crunching under the boots of today he wandered though his mind considering the blessing of kids family friends and of course her. yesterday’s rake joined forces with today’s blower and earbuds replaced singing to himself and the song that bridged then to now and despair to hope rose up as the leaves fell down and he could not shake the thought of what her gold hair and blue eyes must have looked like thirty years ago.

I hear you singing in the wire.
I can hear you thru the whine.
And the Wichita Lineman, is still on the line.

And I need you more than want you.
And I want you for all time.

b is for browne

2008-09-17T16:52:00.000-04:00

how will i know if we’re through she asked half kidding even though they’d only been together since the hot summer and now it was the crisp fall.

he explained that being a fan of what he calls suicide music that any dark period in his life and that includes breakups would involve jackson browne’s late for the sky album and this seed was forgotten as quickly as it was planted and they went about the business of falling in love.

a vibrant autumn filled with farm fairs and hayrides and intimate dinners and intimacy in general fused into a bleak winter filled with detachment and avoidance as their first christmas eve led to their last valentine’s day and consecutive nights together gave way to multiple days apart. the more she asked the less he responded and the one sided rift grew as she clung onto everything and he evaporated into nothing.

although she like everyone else had been through all of this before – both on the giving and receiving ends – this one was harder because it was now and it was him. she knew that all that they had intertwined was now unraveling and there was nothing to do but get caught up in the funnel cloud.

the smell of pumpkins and burning leaves were replaced by the frost in the air and the chill of the mood and one day when he was out somewhere other than where he said he’d be she went to his alphabetically aligned by artist’s last name album collection and saw the gap in the b’s.

afterward i sat paralyzed

2008-09-12T16:22:00.001-04:00

yesterday
while writing out a check
for what
doesn’t really matter
nor does the amount
however what does matter
to me is that
i dated the check
9-11-01
inadvertently

connection

2008-08-25T21:59:00.000-04:00

the chat in the car on the way to her field hockey practice contained the most words that she’d ever said to him at one time and it was easy because two nights prior their worlds were bridged by two singers and one song.

she’s a good girl, loves her mama
loves Jesus and america too

the relationship had been challenged (for lack of a better word) because she’d been burned by mom’s last boyfriend and now he was the target of her animosity but he didn’t mind it because he knew his good could outlast the past bad.

she’s a good girl, crazy ’bout elvis
loves horses and her boyfriend too

in the past the ills of men took a toll on her mom and she and her sisters suffered collateral damage and although he’d told her mother (but had not told her) he would rather back out of the relationship than be the bad guy who breaks everyone’s heart especially three young girls.

and i’m a bad boy ’cause i don’t even miss her
i’m a bad boy for breakin her heart

her sophomore year begins tomorrow and today’s ten minute car ride to practice contained talk of her loving the social aspect of high school but not the academics even though she landed on the honor roll and him relaying that twentysomething years ago he felt the same and the hint of a smile on her profile (as green but soon to be orange suburban connecticut flew by a few feet away) was something he’d been waiting for a long time.

it’s a long day living in reseda
there’s a freeway runnin’ through the yard

for him each successful year is another victory over sorrow and despair but for her each year is as they say a clean slate (her’s was ready to be filled by boys and sports and friends and music) and it is his hope that when the inevitable heartbreak arrives that he is one of the circle to whom she will turn for comfort and guidance even though he knows she won’t.

and all the bad boys are standing in the shadows
all the good girls are home with broken hearts

so on a chilly august evening on the side of a hill they swayed in unison on a plaid blanket (as her mom winked behind her and at him) and listened to john mayer sing a tom petty song and for the first time the connection was real and felt and wonderful.

gonna free fall out into nothin’
gonna leave this world for a while
and i’m free, free fallin’

chad

2008-08-12T16:59:00.001-04:00

if your dad up and leaves you with no explanation when you are 26 months old and your sister is 6 months old and your mom is 300 months old then you are probably up against it from the outset even if you’re better off without him.

if your mom spends the last 8 years working two jobs and shuttling you and your sister to day care and karate and baseball and soccer you may not see the sacrifice that she has and will make but i’m pretty sure that in some small way you do for you are smart for an almost third grader.

if your baseball coach asks you if you’d also like to play football it’s not because he needs you and your size but rather because you need him and his example because he sees the exemplary job that your mom is doing and knows that he can assist. mom and grandma (and even little sister) love you so much and are the best role models that you could ever ask for but mom knows that you are missing something and agreed to let you put on the helmet and pads.

we started hitting on saturday and you didn’t like at all it but mom (and for whatever it’s worth your coach) knows that you need to stay and that the talk of quitting needs to stop and that coach won’t let you get hurt and that you will be an even stronger kid at the end of the season that you were coming in and strength comes from the head and the heart and not from the biceps and triceps and we are not here to win we are here to lead.

that said i know that as i walk on the turf in two hours it will be the most important time that i’ve spent on a field in the last 15 years because although it’s not fair that a little boy has to be the man of the house in this case it’s reality.

a note to Rich re: Sugarland, Matt Nathanson, and "Come on Get Higher"

2008-08-05T06:32:00.000-04:00

Again, thanks for the Sugarland CD – I appreciate you sharing this with me! Now, at the risk of being a pain in the neck I would like to put on my ‘music critic’ hat.

I know that you are a huge Sugarland fan, and I like them quite a bit as well. And as you are also aware, in my opinion (as it remains the only opinion that I now or ever will have) Matt Nathanson is one of the best singer/songwriters in America today. I rarely hear people with the passion with which he performs. His lyrics are his own and he owns the pain that he projects to the listener.

That said, I think that it is particularly difficult for performers to cover songs by artists such as Nathanson, as they cannot always connect with words and emotions that were not born within. Sugarland’s version of “Come on Get Higher” is no exception. It’s no one’s fault, it’s just that the expanse between the Matt Nathanson’s inspiration and Jennifer Nettles’ vocals is too great. Had she used the emotion similar to that of her performance of “Stay”, which is frankly what I was hoping for, I would have been ready to give her 4 out of 4 stars – instead it was a nice rendition but nothing more. 2.5 stars. (and conversely, I doubt anyone – other than your wife and a wine bottle – could successfully cover that song)

Faith and desire and the swing of your hips is nothing to take lightly. The image that lyric provokes (at least in me) is central to the universe. The pain of the past and the joy of the present and the hope of the future all rolled up into half a sentence.

To continue the discussion, as you know I am a big Tom Petty fan (but not necessarily a fan of the song “Free Fallin’” – a good song, but not a great one). And like Nathanson, I think that John Mayer is talented and wise beyond his years – the ideas he conveyed in his early twenties were images and feelings that someone twice his age could not have put into words. On Mayer’s latest CD, “Where the Light Is”, he does an amazing acoustic cover of “Free Fallin’”. The first listen brought tears and has on a few occasions since. He ‘got’ the lyrics in a way that even Petty did not, and the performance is the proof.

Anyway, to recap, I did like the CD and did enjoy the Nettlesization of “Come on Get Higher” but was hoping for tears that I was missing, not the smile that I got.

21

2008-07-09T13:15:00.002-04:00

although claimed by cancer two decades ago he remembers that his pap was a big baseball fan and at sixteen had been signed by the dodgers due to the fact that he threw hard enough to break a batter’s arm on more than one occasion at least according to his grammy and that he even had the laces of the ball calloused into his fingers 40 years after he gave up the sunlight of baseball for the darkness of coal mines.

he recalls that his pap once told him that he had driven from wheeling wv to forbes field in pittsburgh and that prior to the game the great clemente took a bag of balls and threw strike after strike after strike to the catcher at home plate for he was blessed with the greatest arm in the history of the game.

he remembers that at the end of the 1971 season that the great clemente told his teammates that if they got to the world series he would make sure they win it and then went out and produced base hits in all seven games of the series 12 in all on the way to becoming the first latin player to ever with the series mvp award (fuck all of you who jeered him for his ethnicity).

he recalls new year’s day 1973 when he woke up after a night of dick clark and niehgbors and noisemakers and his dad had to take him into the green tweed and oak of the rarely used living room and explain to him that the great clemente had died in a plane crash delivering relief aid to earthquake survivors in nicaragua.

he did not cry then as that is not how shock greets a nine-year-old although he has many times since.

today the number 21 is scrawled inside every baseball hat that he owns so he can remember and the spot where the picture of the great clemente used to hang in his office is now bare as the photo of clemente - taking the field for the final time after his 3000th and last hit with back to the camera and cap to the crowd - has been stolen and now resides above the bed of an eight-year-old baseball player who loves the game and often cries over a man who he never saw play.

russ

2008-06-24T13:33:00.000-04:00

what’s up jack? was usually the greeting when we entered the house even though none of us were named jack. nothing much russ just getting ready to head out was usually the response. his son was part of our crew and his house was centrally located and therefore was usually the launching pad for our nights on the town.

having lived many states away for eighteen years and only seeing him a handful of times during that period does not diminish the day in and day out of the eighties and the good times in his pool and the hangovers slept off on his couch as he was as important as a supporting character could be.

he was unlike the other dads because not many of them were the mayor or hosted kickass crab feasts or crashed the july fourth parade by driving a go cart down main street. russ was the freewheeling dad in my father’s buttoned-down world.

and now we receive an email that russ is hospitalized with tumors in his back and then the follow up conversation with his son confirms that the mass is cancerous and this has hit me like other cancers have not. in a world where every day we are hit with the news that this uncle or that grandmother have been shot at by this bullet and either dodge it or not i cannot shake this one.

so while we all continue to pray i take the liberty of side trips to the bel air maryland of a quarter century ago and along with the thoughts of schoolbooks and ponytails and the orioles and colts are a tough little shit who drank natty boh and had a huge smile and loved us like his own.

best of luck jack.

pop

2008-06-10T17:15:00.001-04:00

his age when he died was immaterial, which is good because i don’t know what it was. all i remember is that he was one of the funniest people that i knew during the first half of my life.

i don’t remember too much of the alzheimer’s that stole his mind when i was in college as all i got from then was stories of him being evil and cranky and pulling a gun on the living room mirror because he thought his image was an intruder which led to my grandmother’s need to cover the mirror with a sheet. That too was immaterial because that wasn’t him.

to my mom he was nothing special, to my dad he was the guy married to his mother, and me he represented a lot. he was philadelphia and dutch masters cigars and lawrence welk and jokes and winks and smiles and pearline dish of butterscotch candies on the dining room sideboard. he had a yellow lab a long time ago so i never saw it and don’t remember it’s name but i loved looking at the picture on the sidetable of his easy chair which sat across the archway from my nana’s easy chair.

i remember the view out of the front bay window across henry avenue over to the golf course and the par three thirteenth that between foursomes served as a football field in the fall and a ski slope in the winter and an infield in the summer. i remember his old sky blue impala and his pajamas and skinny ties and the best mustache I’d ever seen. i remember that he was the guy who greeted us at the door as we returned from phillies games at veteran’s stadium, trips to the boardwalk in ocean city, and the mummer’s parade on broad street.

i also remember that he was like me - a replacement. he married dad’s mom after dad married my mom - a replacement for the husband who died of cancer on the day my father graduated high school. i was adopted so I was a replacement as well – a replacement for three dead babies.

so we would sit in that house among the others and laugh and listen to ballgames on the radio and eat tremendous holiday dinners and although not connected by dna to the rest we were connected to each other by the bond of mutual outsiders.

back to the future

2008-06-01T08:31:00.001-04:00

when i look at the two of you it is apparent
(at least to me)
that one of you is looking forward and
one is looking back.

as is true
(i suppose)
it is the one that is outgoing and gregarious
that looks hopefully to the uncertainty of the future and
it is the one that is introverted and retrospective
that looks longingly for the comfort of the past.

at eight i look forward to seeing the
type of adult you will turn into
(twenty years from now)
at eleven i often wonder what
type of adult you would have been
(twenty years ago).

the lead-by-example stargazer and
the take-it-all-in old soul
and what is funny is that although you seem to have
a grasp on these eras
neither of you has been there
(yet).

disease

2008-05-21T19:53:00.001-04:00

anything that i’ve done
in the past six months
has been done
perfunctorily
for i am never free
of the thought of
the phone call or
the conversation that
informs me that
‘you’ will not be continuing
your role in ‘us’

we are both in demand and
where i ignore my inbox and
select not to make you aware
as not to upset you
(ever cognizant that you
in all of your outward confidence
are actually quite jealous)
you choose to tell me
of your paramours
making me think that whether it’s
tomorrow or beyond
that perhaps my days as they say are numbered

i do not know if this type of thinking
is healthy
(i suppose not)
but it does make me work harder
and be better
(while in the back of my head are
the voices from the past
telling me that
i am of no worth or value and
what the hell happened to you)
so thinking that
despising me is a pandemic
or at least an epidemic
i continue to wait for you to be
infected with this disease

may 8, 2008

2008-05-13T08:53:00.000-04:00

growing up in 1970s baltimore during what he felt was the golden age of american popular culture he spent a fair amount of time in front of a black and white tv with no remote other than his younger brother who was often told to get up and change the channel from 2 to 11 to 13 to 45 because those were all the channels in the pre-cable days unless it was cloudy and he could get stooges reruns on 5 out of washington dc.

movies then were great too since the boundaries of morality and something known as good taste challenged parents and clergy and caused the rise of a group known as the moral majority and allowed kids titillation and belly laughs and an overall awakening.

other time was spent tethered to the wall by an eight foot coil known as a phone cord while talking to his buddies or later his girlfriends while listening to the captain and tennille and later to van halen while stretching the cord into the dining room from the kitchen or their bedroom from the hallway or from his parents and into adolescence.

but today he looks in the newspaper as he is one of the dying breed that gets his info in tactile black and white and not through a wifi connection and sees that don rickles that hockey puck is 82 and toni tennille is 68 and earth wind and fire philip bailey is 57 and alex van halen is 55 and stephen flounder furst is 54 and half-pint melissa gilbert is 44 - and his own little brother and former channel changer is 43 - and as he looks up to ponder how all of this happened his son glances away from hannah montana and points the remote his way and says dad are you crying?

sunset

2008-04-24T13:13:00.001-04:00

This week's entry for One Single Impression prompt: color

when he was younger he
would have focused
on the beers
(pbr then but stella now)
and the cleavage
(mom that bikini top is too small)
but now
as they sat on the cool april pool deck
(overlooking the narragansett bay)
and took in the
pink and yellow and orange
haze of the sun vanishing
behind masts and sails and wisps
he focused
(instead)
on the woman
and the bond
(and the blessing)

glory

2008-04-14T20:39:00.002-04:00

this week's writing prompt from One Single Impression is 'glory':

the football season was wonderful and he will really miss the boys. at the end of the final game he was told that next season he will be the head coach which is an honor (as much as being ultimately in charge of three dozen 7 and 8 year olds in full pads can be – but to him it is) that he does not know that he deserves.

the kids and their families gradually dispersed after the game ended and after a lot of handshakes and hugs and appreciations the coaches were left with an empty field and a setting sun and nothing to do on monday night for the first time in 3 months and the 200 foot walk to the parking lot seemed like 10 miles.

laughter

2008-04-02T15:21:00.001-04:00

This was witten as part of a writing prompt for On Single Impression

as a young man i laughed
too often perhaps
(for everything could be made into a joke)
but apparently the joke was on me
as i was using humor to cover the pain
of abandonment
(because how can a mother give up her baby)
and when humor failed
chemicals succeeded
(as it were)
and then planes went up and buildings came down
and I could offer nothing
but anger
for a little girl on the way to disneyworld
(did she have a window seat view of manhattan)
and would mickey have made her
laugh

red

2008-03-25T15:46:00.001-04:00

the stop signs
(two)
and traffic lights
(too may to count)
between his house and hers
were (considered by him) to be
impediments to the
far too few minutes and hours
that they got to spend together
each day (or week or month)
but the same red
lights and signs
on his way home were like
magnets that could not keep him
from having to leave
but kept him closer to her for
brief but wonderful
pauses in time

tangent

2008-03-19T19:32:00.001-04:00

mall security came and like all they wondered why a fortysomething man had a kid barely old enough to drive jacked up against the front window of victoria’s secret.

but there under the watchful eyes of a lace-thonged mannequin and three store employees on that side of the glass and a gang of teens on this side – he had the kid’s face to the pane his arm bent backward and a knee in his back and whispered something in his ear that only the two of them could hear.

although they usually talk a big game the boy’s gang or crew or posse of whatever the term du jour is for a half dozen asses with nothing better to do are called watched but did not act. the four girls two in tears huddled by the railing above the food court below.

he hated the mall but was there on a mission – her birthday was coming up and gifts needed to be bought. He was an in-and-out shopper as most guys his age are or so he supposed. he knew what he wanted and where to get it and his plan was to spend no more than thirty of his friday night minutes in the retail hell that he was convinced was one of dante’s rings.

as it turned out maybe he was sent.

the twins were not his by birth but tangentially his nonetheless – a fabulous by-product of dating their mother. he had boys and she had girls and despite being one boy short of the brady bunch they heard the jokes nonetheless.

perhaps an overreaction but in the words of willy loman attention must be paid. it is one thing to attempt a conversation with a beautiful young girl but entirely another to turn flirting into harassment and the frightening of a high school freshman by pinning her between the fence surrounding the easter bunny and your puffed boxers and sideways yankees cap.

after security diffused the situation and the kid and his buddies walked off with heads low and motherfucker on their lips he dialed the phone and let her know that he was bringing the twins home. As he spoke the girls stood silently and watched a face print slowly fade from the glass.

aurora

2008-03-11T20:14:00.001-04:00

the monochromatic grey
of sky, water, and rocky landscape
lays before us in
strict opposition to
the aurora that surrounds
you
and us hand in hand
as we walk north (and away from home)
between worn stones and broken shells
on the beaches of coastal maine
before spring and after
i love you
too.

unsettling

2008-02-29T08:42:00.001-05:00

i have to admit that all of this is making me unsettled she said and could immediately sense his upset. did i say something wrong she asked and he turned away and pretended to look at the lights of the italian neighborhood in hartford’s south end because things had been going so well and perhaps the glint of a tear might be too much for a sixth date just because he felt that unsettling had a negative connotation.

he had enjoyed talking to her like no other woman he had met in a long time and probably never. usually he couldn’t give two shits about how someone’s day had gone but he found that he not only asked her this but actually looked forward to the answer.

in one of their conversations over coffee or at a bar or in the car late at night with the radio on just before making out like kids 25 years younger she asked why he was so deliberate in his speech and he said it was because he was a careful selector of words.

he was beginning to love many things about her. he loved that she would come up with ways to extend their time together. the plans were for dinner but afterwards she suggested going to see a great band. the date was for a walk around the reservoir and afterwards she suggested a movie. one night it was driving through the christmas light display at the golf course and then she suggested a trip to the mall. he loved that she made no attempt to make these extensions of their time together seem spontaneous because they were in fact fat with calculation

he loved that although it had only been two weeks that she would refer to things they could do in the coming months and he loved that they did in fact make out in the car and he loved that when she laughed she recently started holding his arm and he loved when the phone rang while he was in bed and it was her calling to say goodnight and when she did she was usually in the tub.

no you said nothing wrong he lied a lie that was not really a lie because maybe the comment just needed clarification. i just found you he said don’t be getting rid of me already he also said through a poor version of a smile. getting rid of you what do you mean?

unsettling.

oh no you have it wrong i mean that this is great and i love our time together and i wish it could be more but between your boys and my girls how could it and i can wait to get you out of a car and into a house and all i meant was that i have not been very lucky and now i am so the fact that this is going so well is unsettling because i suppose i’m waiting for the other shoe to drop because i’m afraid. I so want to let my guard down because I want to let you in like I’ve not wanted someone in for a long time but i’m afraid that being that wide open will only lead to pain and I can’t take any more pain. he could do nothing but agree in his head. they were so similar in so many ways.

so when he got home he sent her a text because that’s how people in their forties communicate isn’t’ it! and it said if you let your guard down a little i’ll let mine down a little too and i promise that i will work very hard to make sure that you don’t regret it.

then he got in bed and prayed hard to God that he would have the strength to make good on the promise.

forever

2008-02-20T07:53:00.000-05:00

you realize what’s going to happen don’t you? she asked.

she was happy no overjoyed that her brother and the one person in the world who she loved more than anything other than her own kids had found love after a bad marriage and many years of emotional turmoil for which no dosage of pharmaceuticals could fix. spousal infidelity and three year olds in airplanes that hit skyscrapers and a firm understanding on the fifth anniversary that forever would not occur at least not for them put him through a zoloft-laced decade that only his faith and something called a shred of hope could pull him through.

he emerged at the other end of the tunnel at peace but without any expectations of love because getting from 6 am to 11 pm each day was gift enough. so it struck him dumb when she walked in and they began learning each others minds by day and bodies by night and each others’ children every other weekend.

so because she didn’t want her brother to be hit hard when it happened - even though it wouldn’t happen for many years to come or at least let’s hope – and therefore forcing him back into the same tomb from which he’d been resurrected years before she asked the question again: you know what’ going to happen don’t you? most people hell no one would ask the question but in her odd way she was really trying to help.

no what is going to happen? he asked finally and exasperatingly giving in.

if you stay together and i really hope you do because you look and seem so happy well if you stay together forever then one of you is going to have to watch the other one die.

light

2008-02-13T12:04:00.000-05:00

he was often hell always overshadowed by his younger brother which is what happens when you are quiet and he is loud and no one can help noticing him on the field or the court because he’s that good even though he’s only seven while you are quiet in the corner singing beautiful impromptu lyrics that are only known to you and daddy when he’s within earshot.

you are more beautiful than brother because even though he is handsome most of his allure is in the personality while yours is in fair skin and eyes that are blue or green depending on your outfit and long eyelashes that you wanted to cut off when you were five but grandma stopped you in time. when people can forget his volume and concentrate on your reserve they are drawn to your quiet and tactile charm.

being drowned out by one is ok since often times you are happy that brother takes the pressure off of you but being overwhelmed by six more is an entirely different matter. the other issue is moving from the oldest of two to the sixth of eight and as we all know birth order is enormous when it comes to the shaping of personality and what in the world are you supposed to do now.

mom and dad’s divorce preceded their new loves each with three kids and gave him the excitement of five sisters or something like it and this was wonderful since he preferred girls to sports although three of them played hoop and now this was like the bradys on acid or at least a version for the new millennium except where the hell was alice?

he loved the parties when everyone was together and there was pizza or burgers and cakes or melon and everyone stayed up late and he went to bed glistening with sweat accumulated by chasing fireflies around the summer yard with the boys or hammering through a winter session of guitar hero with the girls.

for almost eleven years the only people to tuck him in were mom and dad and the occasional grandmother and to this he’d grown accustomed but he has since discovered that there is nothing like the faint clamor of adults and wine and laughter one floor below and the hall light through the crack of the door silhouetting twin freshmen with braced smiles and matching ponytails pulling the blanket to your chin and stroking the hair from you eyes and saying good night and who cares if they are not yours by birth because you love them nonetheless.

order

2008-02-05T19:03:00.000-05:00

this morning we were
warm and close
(in bed)
and when we had to get
up i dreaded leaving

this afternoon when i
read your note
(in my lunch)
i smiled so big that
it gave me a headache

this evening after you
called to say goodnight
(in my hotel room)
my eyes rolled upward toward God
and the pillow dried my tears

tomorrow when i wake up
alone in a bed
(far from home and you)
i will immediately revert to
dread a smile and tears

but not in that order

working on mysteries without any clues

2008-01-31T08:49:00.000-05:00

it was music that had first attracted them to each other.

when with his friends the barrage of back in black and running with the devil and flirtin’ with disaster and more than a feeling was non-stop. in the quieter moments alone in his room with the headset tethering him to the avocado green stereo by a twisted twelve foot cord or cruising in the duster with its soon-to-be antiquated 8-track system it was more along the lines of shower the people and so into you and minute by minute. it was this side of him that she liked.

they’d been at the same party. he was deep into the debate – he probably started it - and she was orbiting the cluster of the half dozen people involved in the post-adolescent national bohemian six pack greased discussion centered on all things musical: best vocalist lead guitarist drummer bassist studio album live album album cover rock song concert and radio station.

he spoke with his hands with pull-tabs from his empties slid onto the little finger of his drinking hand and waving the black and orange can to emphasize the fact that they would never hear anything better than stairway to heaven and twenty years later he’d continue to make the same case.

the kid piloting the turntable switched gears and the mood of the fluorescent lit wood paneled basement room moved from way up there to way down here. it was time to migrate from van halen to boz scaggs.

the conversation moved to best slow songs and mellow was the word they used. perched on the arm of a tweed-covered easy chair he extolled the virtues of james taylor’s voice and jackson browne’s lyrics and it was from that point she was hooked.

the lights were dimmed and candles lit to match the mood of the tunes and changing the color of the paneling from chocolate to honey. amidst the flickering light the pairing off began and the party became the beginning of a slow dance marathon. his friends were swaying with their dates or with girls they’d been silently stalking since the school year began last month but he had neither. alone with his beer and trying to find another solo act on which to latch she came from behind him slid his hand from his back pocket and led him to the makeshift dance floor which was actually the shag carpeted space between the sectional couch and the combination console television set and hi-fi system.

his heart rate increased and the sweat of his palms mixed with the condensation of the beer can that he gently placed on a macramé coaster. when he stood and turned she was directly in front of him and when they inched toward each other first their thighs met and then just above – causing her to smile or something like it - and finally as she put her arms around his neck and pulled him in she softly rubbed her breasts against him. their noses and then foreheads were last to meet just as their eyes closed and his thumbs hooked into her back belt loops.

he’d like to remember the song that was playing or whether it was a friday or a saturday night but he can’t. she could and would often help him with his memory. the memory of that first physical contact had pushed the rest of it out of his head not that there wasn’t room but because he knew that he had to keep it in and he couldn’t face losing it:

the motion of the thighs (the metronome of one rubbing up while the other down) and the hips (and the pressure against the inside of the levi’s) and the breasts (her gentle swirling motion pressed her sweater along his and surprising him that they felt bigger than they looked) and finally the lips and tongue (soft and smooth and tasting of a cross between crest and strawberry lip gloss).

she could have the day of the week and the title of the song for those memories were not essential; he needed the others for they are the ones he still searches for when he closes his eyes.

Martin and Bob

2008-01-21T20:02:00.000-05:00

This Friday eight of us are gong to see a Bob Marley tribute band, as a) I am a HUGE Marley fan (not simply of his music, but more so of the man himself) and b) it’s my birthday. My friends have requested that for the two weeks leading up to the show I send them a daily Bob Marley factoid/tidbit via email in order to enhance their experience. The following is an exchange between my friends RM (a high school teacher) and RZ (owner of three dry cleaning stores), and me. Sorry in advance for the length...

ME:

In light of today’s holiday rather than providing the typical Daily Marley tidbit I thought that I would put together a few thoughts, for whatever they're worth...

While Bob and Martin where very different people – Martin was a black man from the Deep South and Bob was a mixed-race man from an impoverished Caribbean island, Martin confronted American injustice head on while Bob confronted global injustice in a more roundabout way, Martin preached with word and Bob preached with music – they were also very similar.

Each, in their life of principled struggle, had much in common. They detested physical violence, they wanted peaceful integration and equality not institutional segregation of America’s old ‘separate but equal’ stance as outlined by Plessy v. Ferguson, and they both loved the ladies. Martin had his “I Have A Dream” speech and Bob had “Redemption Song” (and each will evoke tears). Both men, to borrow Martin’s words, wanted to ‘hew out of the mountain of desperation a stone of hope” and I think each was successful.

Finally, the thing that I can never escape contemplating when thinking about these men is that they were each the target of assassination attempts (for it seems that the peaceful always are), one successful (as it were) and one not, and the complete cowardice that it took to plan and carry out these acts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk&feature=related

RM:
My good friends,

This is by far my favorite Marley tidbit due to the fact that it includes one of my top 5 heroes in American history - Dr. King.

I would echo some of Hotwire's words by saying "WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDEO - IT IS 17 MINUTES LONG AND 17 MINUTES TO GATHER THE KIDS AROUND THE SCREEN AND WATCH ONE OF THE GREATEST SPEECHES IN OUR HISTORY" - it is an annual tradition in the our household and my classroom.

The catch phrases "I have a dream" and "Let freedom ring" are all some Americans really know about the speech - and even that is OK but the delivery of this speech - the setting (in front of another top 5 for me - Lincoln Memorial) and the moment in time - also look at the crowd - black, white, hispanic, male, female, young, old - transcending everything - he was a master of the spoken word and could move a crowd for sure.

I would also recommend to all of you to read the entire text of "A Letter From A Birmingham Jail" (http://www.bu.edu/irsd/Ec326_2004/material_2004/Letter%20from%20Birmingham%20Jail.htm) - it is simply incredible and written with raw passion, anger - yet an unbelievable grace that is hard to fathom when also reading the letter that the clergymen had sent King that appeared in the local Birmingham papers that he was responding to - written in the column of a newspaper and on scraps of paper provided to King by fellow inmates - it clearly reminds me of Lincoln's efforts to write the Gettysburg Address and it is not lost on me - King's reference to Lincoln in his "I Have A Dream" speech when he states that "5 score years ago.....Emancipation Proclamtion......". I have also included my favorite paragraph from King's letter below - it is difficult to choose a favorite because the entire letter is a masterpiece - I have my students read this letter after they have read the Gettysburg Address and they have to write a letter back to Dr. King or his children. Here you are:

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you no forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

Hotwire has really got me going here - which is of course why we get along so well.

I was also thinking when I read Hotwire's email of a couple of other things relevant to this great day (Actually King's birthday is really the 15th - last Tuesday - but we always celebrate it on the Monday - if the 15th or the following Monday). King's message of nonviolence was obviously more than a message and his followers were labeled as "agitators" and they were in a brilliant way. King spoke of nonviolence an the effectiveness of hose ways BUT you had to be willing to face the consequences of those actions - beaten by clubs, fire hoses spraying upon you, food dumped on your head at a lunch counter, sucker punched for no reason while standing in the streets and all the while YOU CANNOT REACT WITH ANY FORCE - this inaction will lead to action or change - good people of the world will not stand back and watch this on their televisions, see photos in the newspaper and come to the conclusion that this was OK. King - to make a long and great story straight knew this but more importantly convinced millions to believe it - although his cause was far greater than this one - I often think of what an incredible coach he would have been and how I would have run through a wall, jumped through fire and swam through sharks for this man - that is the kind of impact he had on people. Nonviolence was most courageous - most effective and most humane. King, like Marley knew they were the targets of hate and still preached/sang on because they realized their message was so much larger than themselves - a concept that is not very common today - to do things greater than ourselves because what will I get out of it?? King certainly knew that his efforts would benefit future generations - not his own - that is something we can all learn from.

How long shall they kill our prophets, While we stand aside and look?
- Marley ("Redemption Song")

I write this extended email on this great day listening to "Legend" - taking a break from correcting my students US History essays on the efforts of our doughboys in the trenches of WWI and how their letters home kept them going day to day - further understanding the importance of words, ideas and feelings at moments in history where the words often seem so insignificant with what is happening - we realize that these words and ideas kept people alive and believing in something - again bigger than themselves - love, justice, companionship, freedom - that is what makes music so incredible and what makes our spokespeople throughout our history so beloved.

I have carried on far too long and may have lost some of you many words ago - but I have a couple of other individuals for you to think about on this great day - people that made a difference even if it meant risking their lives - the great Ida Wells who wrote of the horrors of lynching throughout the South risking her life and he lives of her family members because as she said it, "some things must be said" - simple for sure but not really. How about Rosa Parks - yeah the bus lady - as I describe her to my students - she wasn't trying to be first to stand up to this wicked policy of desegregation and by many accounts wasn't the first to do so - but she woke up that one morning with one intention - go to work - make an honest living as a little, old seamstress in the South - she went to bed that night in a jail cell - the beginning stages of becoming a national/world hero - why? Because it wasn't right to treat people that way - and especially after the day I have had! I love Rosa Parks - because she was like any other hard working person in our country - and most of us never dream of changing the world - nor did she - but she did. How about Colonel Halvorsen - "The Candy Bomber" or "Uncle Wiggly Wings" who risked his status in the military and his life by taking the time to drop candy in mini parachutes to the needy children of East Berlin who were trapped behind the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union during the Berlin Blockade and he thought, "I bet these kids would love some candy - just candy - I bet they would like that". One of my favorite people in history - top 5 - maybe?? I could go on .....

Hotwire - thanks for inspiring me today to remember these people and celebrating Dr. King - also Bob Marley is someone I need to get to know a bit better.

Complete cowardice.....Lincoln, Kennedy, Kennedy, King, Marley..........complete cowardice I agree Hotwire.

Looking forward to a great night on Friday!

RZ:
The words that these men used were and are soo inspiring. At certain times Dr. King’s speech makes me cry and at certain times he just makes me very proud for being the person that he was. Being able to stand up the way both these men did is extremely inspiring.

5-7 years ago our stores had decided to do a little interior re-decorating. Our 3 Laundromats and call areas had become stale. New counters and wall paper were the immediate fix. At the time we also decided some framed art work/pictures would also warm the environment. For those of you that have been into our location here in town the call area has some very tasteful framed pictures from my fathers town in Abruzzo. Town of Popoli. Very European looking pics. We had also purchased some pics for the other stores. When we had finished buying and framing all the prints we had some minor decisions to make. Location of this pic and that one. We had one 12x16 black and white pic that we were torn about. We had initially bought this pic for one of the other stores. Being that most of the foot traffic in these stores is African -American we had thought that our pic. frame of Dr. King belonged in one of those locations. We decided on neither location. I am very proud that we agreed this pic to hang in our own office in South Windsor. The walls and desks in our office are littered with family pictures. Fish pictures of me and my dad. Grandchildren pics that mean so much to my dad. Early pics of our franchise. Pics of my dad in Vietnam. My dad still references the Martin Luther King speech as one of the most influential things he witnessed in his initial years in the United States. Appropriately, here also is the pic of Dr. King.

These are great men that will never be forgotten!

ME:
RZ,
This is fantastic. In my estimation the location here in town makes the best spot for the photo of Martin. I'm sure the good folks of the other communities do not need the lesson for I'm certain that it is forever etched into their psyche, whereas any predominately majority community is the one who may be in need of a subtle reminder such as this.

Kudos to your dad and kudos to you as well.

ME:
RM,

As often occurs, your words both humble me, bring me to tears, and lift me up. I've told you before that I don't know what moves me more, the topic of your messages or your ability to convey your thoughts. Perhaps both, or perhaps just the latter.

Since I had not read this letter for about a year - and how thankful I am that this holiday is on our calendar so that it forces me to reflect - I read it during lunch and am drawn to lines like 'injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere' and 'freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed'.

I remain jealous of your ability to reach out and educate and influence multiple young lives each day as I know for a fact that many of these young people would run through walls or jump through fire for you - I've seen it on their faces and in their eyes. If I had just one day to do what you do 180 days each year I think I'd be eternally content.

Thanks for this tremendous follow up. If for nothing else, I am glad that my measly Bob/Martin synopsis inspired something that I will relish for the rest of the day.

RM:
You do what I do much more than one day a year. When you work with the kids in town on our athletic fields - teaching them how to play and love the games that we have all found so much value in over the years - they are lucky to have you. I always think about your messages to the kids after games and practices, "Ok boys now go find your mom or dad and give them a big hug" - I would have to say there is some serious importance in that message. I am also not giving up hope that you will see the inside walls of a classroom before you retire - which by the way - you are getting seriously closer to - 45 this Friday! I also - would really like to have you in my class when we study the Westward Movement and the conflicts on the Plains - your knowledge of Native Americans far exceeds mine and this would give the kids an awesome experience - and get you addicted to teaching because you would flourish in there. One last thing - there are 7 adults (8 including you) that will have an awesome time Friday night that have had a wealth of knowledge added to their brains regarding an individual who also stood up for those that could not - and made some pretty good music on top of it -the daily tidbits will enhance the experience Friday - you are always educating - even if it is not in a classroom - teaching is a mindset - you have it.

By the way - thanks for the kind words - I will remind you - they were inspired by your timely message today, Professor.

RM

she's as sweet as

2008-01-14T19:22:00.000-05:00

she walked toward him and as she did all sound dissipated. first the traffic along the pike in the distance and then the marching band on the field and finally the crowd in the bleachers above. silence.

in last year’s program he’d been listed as five foot nine and one hundred fifty five pounds but the program like a camera seems to add 10 pounds. she was as tall as him – maybe even a tick taller but when she finally reached him she had to look up slightly in order for their eyes to meet directly courtesy of the slope of the grassy hill that separated the football field from the social studies wing. her eyes hazel with tiny flecks of gold and his blue but a much lighter shade than that of her cheerleading sweater.

he stretched out his hands to take hers but she ignored this and reached hers around his neck and pulled him in. she hadn’t seen him for over a month since he left for college and left her behind to her six classes a day and bag lunches and pep rallies and friday night football - her junior year in all of its glory. thank God for homecoming he was back for the circumstance of bobcat football tonight the pomp of the semi-formal tomorrow. his lavender tie would match her dress and she’d abandon heels for ballet slippers as to not tower over him during the slow dances. duplicate nights of her head on his shoulder and his on hers with eyes closed to the world and focusing on the quiet that only they could hear.

startled at first he reached his arms around her back and slowly gathered her in. the weight of her sweater layered over the requisite white turtleneck is something he can remember today if he closes his eyes and lets himself drift. palm against the small of her back his fingers were outstretched and his left hand moved upward to the back of her neck and right hand slid down and moved from the soft knit of the sweater to the coarse wool of her skirt. when he did this she gently yet purposefully moved herself against him – a punishable offense for a cheerleader in uniform but six weeks is a long time. once the contact was made and her torso recognized his her eyebrows raised and she smiled as if to say not now later. the arcs and triangles of the full body embrace made him momentarily think of the geometry class he took two years and 200 feet from that very spot.

two quarters worth of cheers and pom-poms and pyramids left her with a trace of perspiration and he breathed it in deeply. he has since lost this scent mixed with the anais anais that she dotted on her neck after putting on her uniform and before driving to the game and this is one of his many regrets. he’d thought this scent would be his forever – that was the plan. if he could only get this back he could maybe 20 years later be complete.

the teams were tramping down the hill and back to the field. bobcat blue and ram red. game faces and grunting as he had done during the prior few seasons. her friends were calling for her but she didn’t hear it. silence still. they didn’t want her to get in trouble – it was time to go and get back to the megaphones and leg kicks and yes yes yes we do we have spirit how about you.

as if the hug was not enough she slid her hands beyond his shoulders and slowly around his neck and finally resting under his ears. he felt her guide his head toward hers and in magical synchronization heads tilted eyes closed and mouths met. tender at first followed by his lips being parted by her tongue and he followed her lead and for a few fleeting moments her smell changed into her taste and this too is something else that he has lost to time.

gradually the sounds came back - referee whistles and air horns and the marching band making an awkward segue from old van morrison to new queen - and in full opposition to the moment she abruptly moved away startling him back to reality. the squad’s captain had tugged her from behind and he caught the hint of a tear as she spun around skirt twirling at mid-thigh with the white of the pleats illuminated by the field’s lights. he remembers her getting warmed up once she got back to her position on the track and looking up at him while touching her toes. long perfect legs and saddle shoes and an upside down smile.

context

2008-01-08T06:52:00.000-05:00

i might tell you how much I enjoy being
with you as if you couldn’t tell
(i am that transparent)
but it would be without true meaning

i should let you know how each of your kisses
paralyze me for a beautiful brief instant
(which is why I have to pull away and reset)
but it would not really matter

i could describe the pain in my chest
when we are apart
(that is sometimes accompanied by tears)
but what would be the point

i ought to share the calm that I feel
when we are together
(in church they say ‘peace that surpasses all understanding’)
but the words would be hollow

i could say all of these words
to you either out loud or in a whisper
(which would you prefer)
but they can not land successfully
without first framing them with
i love you

i can never

2008-01-02T20:54:00.000-05:00

i can never
seem to get close enough
to you.

whether me inside of
you or you
surrounding me
the pull is too great and
i cannot seem to
be fulfilled
even though there is
nothing between us
but time.

there is far too much
of you for me to
discover in the short span
of a night
or a life.

advent on a one year delay

2007-12-28T06:43:00.000-05:00

as wonderful as the art museum the restaurant were on saturday it was the hike and the movie on sunday that were the best parts of the weekend and it was wonderful and surprising to get your text as I was readying myself for church and the first day of advent.

my response of course was yes i’d love to get together because being with you for only ten hours the day before was simply not enough and apparently you felt the same and i’ll meet you at the audubon trails at noon. although the grey day was not the prettiest for a walk in the woods and along the connecticut river it was made up for when the snow started to fall and I looked up and the bare trees looked like big crooked hands holding our bodies to the earth.

since coffee the week prior was just a warm up I suppose that saturday was our first date and sunday was our second and what a lovely contrast they were.

You looked beautiful in black and boots and smelled of anias anais and I hadn’t really smelled it since my high school sweetheart so what a treat it was to smell it on you in a senior prom flashback as we huddled against the brutal wind in downtown hartford as we moved from the van goghs to the brew pub and wouldn’t vincent have loved to paint this starry night but he would have liked it to be more blue and less black and i’d like him not to have eventually had that pistol.

sunday was jeans and sneakers and gloves and parkas which not only came in handy on the trails but also later in the theater because can you believe how cold it was in there? i didn’t care though because it gave me a reason to sit closer to you and feel your head against my arm and your breath against my ear and gradually as the story unfolded on the screen before us move my hand into yours and the squeeze that you gave it when it finally arrived is something I can still feel twelve moths later.

yes, virginia

2007-12-24T07:02:00.000-05:00

Dear Editor,I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say that there is no Santa Claus. Papa says "If you see it in the Sun, it is so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia,Your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to our life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished. Not believe in Santa Claus? You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your Papa to hire men to watch all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders that are unseen and unseeable in the world. You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, or even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernatural beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else as real and abiding. No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, maybe 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the hearts of children.

Written by Francis P. Church in 1897

slow dancing, swaying to the music

2007-12-19T06:45:00.000-05:00

many of the stories of our lives come with a soundtrack and we don’t recall the words that were spoken – if there were any - but we do remember the music and lyrics that surrounded the event and this story is no different.

the plymouth duster bounced along the back road with his window rolled down and blond curls drying in the late september breeze. hers stayed up since she had overestimated the warmth that her pink windbreaker would provide against the early autumn air. she had spent the past few hours huddled with her friends against the cool night watching the bobcats play against one of their county foes perhaps the rams or eagles and the years that have passed have stolen that detail from memory. he spent the same number of hours in helmet and pads with his midnight blue jersey and its white block letter 12 covering his 140-pound frame.

an underclassman dating a senior was apparently a minor scandal among the girls in school and he’d heard the whispers but was too much of a boy to realize they were directed at him. why would he do that and what’s wrong with the senior class girls or juniors even? he didn’t see a problem because after all had they seen her? if he wanted to he could explain it to them by pointing out the sparkle in her eyes or the beautiful soft skin or even her perfectly formed fingers. certainly there were girls in the upper classes that were prettier they would say and to that he’d certainly agree but they didn’t ‘fit’ - at least not him – not at that place and time.

with the radio tuned to a top 40 station being broadcast from nearby baltimore they heard pat benatar as they passed a new housing development and john cougar as they passed the old farm and as they cruised up the long and winding hill that made its way past the fairways and greens of the country club and eventually to her home the song changed and he had an idea or an impulse actually.

since there was no shoulder he pulled into a spot where a cart path crossed the road and she looked at him quizzically and was about to speak but without a word he put his index finger to her lips and smiled and winked. after turning off the headlights and twisting the radio’s volume knob a quarter turn to the right he pulled the lever that opened his door swung his legs to the left and eased gingerly out of the car. he was still a bit sore due to being blindsided on a second half punt return courtesy of a teammate’s missed block and he was already aware that coach would play the hit over and over forward and backward during monday’s game film session and his buddies would oohh and ahh and laugh at his expense. he’d remind them that at least he didn’t fumble and that it was that particular scoring drive that led them to ultimate victory.

he ran his hands along the side of the car - its tan color and brown striping virtually indistinguishable in the dark - around the back and opened her door. in true chivalrous fashion he reached for her hand and guided her out of the passenger seat with his class ring clinking against her small band that held a single pearl. she looked a bit panicked since she was to be home momentarily and her parents weren’t much for breaking curfew even by a matter of minutes because after all who knows what type of teen-aged debauchery could take place between 10:00 and 10:05 pm. once she was standing and in a successful effort to calm her he ran the back of his fingers against her cheek and he remembers to this day how that felt. this seemed to put her at ease and he led her a bit closer to the small stone wall that protected the 15th green from the road.

to the south there was only a very faint light from town that shown over the treetops as the area was not then the mecca of retail commercialization it is now. to the north the only light was from the windows of the clubhouse - that and a few late season fireflies battling against the coming frost.

in their spot a few feet from the car and seemingly miles from anywhere he moved both hands around her waist and hooked his thumbs into the thin belt that circled her levi cords. she came to just below his chin where she nestled her head right cheek against the thick wool ‘B’ on his letterman jacket and began to sway.

smells came at them from all directions - the fresh cut grass and the leather of his sleeves and the warmth of her hair and the johnson’s baby shampoo from his post-game shower and the faint and lingering scent of perfume applied many hours before.

her arms curled around his shoulders and her fingers combed through the back of his still damp hair and when she cupped the back of his head in her tiny palm he felt protected from anything and everything. as the song played they began to move inside its rhythm and its essence poured over them and they were lost to the world.

this was one of them - one of his first and hers too. in every life there are a handful of quintessential moments and this was one for sure. regardless of where things went from here - and as is true with most high school loves this would last for only a brief time and then things would change - for this moment under a perfect star filled maryland night things were as they were intended. like a gift from God showing them how things could be.

hearts full and on the verge of tears they listened as the song came to its close. this was all very new and very good and like nothing he had known before and has experienced rarely since. this night no longer seems like yesterday - too much time has passed and the years have faded the colors and blurred the edges but he still fights to keep it alive in his memory.

Nothing was said the entire time because nothing needed to be. once back in the car he turned off the radio since silence was the only appropriate sound and he pulled the car back onto the road and in the direction of her home although his home seemed to be right there. no words were spoken because none were needed. two hands on the wheel one on his knee the other in her pocket with fingers crossed and hoping to God.

(this is another reworked retread from 2006)

a dent and the other half of a smile

2007-12-12T18:14:00.000-05:00

he doesn’t recall how they’d actually met sunday school or second grade or summers at the swim club – all he remembered was that she had always been there. from play dates to puppy love it seemed as if she was always as close as an arm’s length or a phone call.

plaid pleated jumpers with knee socks and toughskins and flannel shirts they would accompany each other to the roller rink and junior high dances. his mom would drop them off and hers would collect them after the last dance or the final skate. in the backseat of the fairlane skates lashed together and strewn on the floor of the car he’d slide his leg across the vinyl seat to make contact with her bare knee and he wouldn’t look at her but he knew she was looking at him bringing a small smile to the side of his face that was facing away from her and towards the window and the lights of the town just outside the glass.

eventually he pulled away. no one thought it would last yet no one ever considered it would go away it was just kind of assumed. but in a world where he blossomed and she stayed the same it was inevitable. her plaids and knee socks and mary janes lingered while he graduated to levi’s and puma and izod. it wasn’t ugly and he wasn’t mean he just moved toward the spotlight while she remained in the background where the two of them had been comfortable for so long. he didn’t take her with him.

it was the type of hollow recognition that most kids crave. not the type that comes from academic scholarships and perfect SATs but the type that comes from blue eyes and deep dimples and the ability to catch a football while avoiding a tackle. when he left her for the lunch table in the middle of the cafeteria it damaged her and the dent is still there.

by the time they showed up – the caravan of he and his girlfriend and the rest of the offensive backfield - the party was already in full swing. the post game meeting and shower gave the rest of the student body a head start to his buddy kevin’s house. with parents in bermuda and a keg in the bathtub it would be a long night. with bobby as the bathroom bartender and kevin manning the turntable they enjoyed a plastic cup of beer and side one of styx’s ‘grand illusion’ and another cupful to side two of the doobies’ ‘minute by minute’. the tunes bounced off the walls and what seemed like the entire senior class was bouncing elbow-to-elbow in ranch-style house while the blessed mother vibrated in her frame over the fireplace. with the rim of his beer cup between his teeth and using his quarterback’s shoulder for leverage and his girlfriend’s hand for balance he stood on a dining room chair in order to get a bird’s eye view of the chaos.

she was across the room between the picture window and front door and under the rosary. he hadn’t noticed that the music had stopped because it hadn’t for everyone only for him as he gazed at her and saw beyond the braces and glasses and noticed what he’d seen in that car ten years before. he waited for a minute that seemed like longer and she finally looked up from her conversation with a boy he didn’t know. just as quickly as she looked up with half a smile she looked back away. a nice moment but only a moment and he supposed he deserved its brevity.

he went back to beers and music and bullshit stories about that night’s game and as the music moved from foghat to jackson browne the crowd began to thin. the caravan was ready to roll since they had to work the chains at the JV game in the morning so they began to make their way to the kitchen door when he heard the shriek and then the smack.

she had already begun to cry and with one hand the asshole held the cheek that she had slapped and with the other he still held her breast. Seeing this he dropped his cup and was off and she began to cower in anticipation of the oncoming blow but before the dick could backhand her full contact was made on him. if it were a game he’d be flagged for a clip but this wasn’t a game and he drove the boy’s head into the plaster of the wall and then caught him before he fell. with both hands grasping the front of the boy’s shirt he slammed his head against the wall. again. again. again.

after his team mates pulled him away someone got a dishtowel to soak the blood up from the back of the asshole’s head. he doesn’t remember exactly what he yelled just that it was a threat that he’d kill him if he fucked with her again. trust me.

and through her tears he saw it - the other half of the earlier smile.

and whenever he’s back in town and visits kevin’s parents he always looks for it inconspicuously. across the room between the picture window and front door and under the rosary the dent is still there.

(this is a rebroadcast of a reworked piece from 2006)

i've been tagged...!

2007-12-10T17:13:00.000-05:00

trish over at the coffee shop has tagged me for information regarding my blog name and how it came to be.

it's not altogether complicated. i am a HUGE music fan and one of my favorite artists is jackson browne because his lyrics are usually heartbreakingly beautiful - at least they are to me. my buddy mike calls browne's music 'suicide music'... anyway, his 'late for the sky' album is the first thing that i listen to each january 1 and on that album is a song called 'the road and the sky' (which is actually about the only upbeat - somewhat - song on the album) and contained in that song is a lyric that says:

I'm just rolling away from yesterday
Behind a wheel of a stolen Chevrolet
Gonna get a little higher
And see if I can hotwire reality

(part of this is in the title bar of this blog)

i have always loved that lyric and often wonder what it would be like, or what i would do if i did, in fact, have the power to manipulate - or hotwire - reality...

the entire song is here:

THE ROAD AND THE SKY

When we come to place where the road and the sky collide
Throw me over the edge and let my spirit glide
They told me I was gonna have to work for a living
But all I want to do is ride
I don't care where we're going from here
Honey, you decide

Well I spend my time at the bottom of a wishing well
And I can hear my dreams ringing clear as a bell
I used to know where they ended and the world began
But now it's getting hard to tell
I could be just around the corner from Heaven or a mile from Hell

I'm just rolling away from yesterday
Behind a wheel of a stolen Chevrolet
Gonna get a little higher
And see if I can hotwire reality

Can you see those dark cloud gathering up ahead
They're gonna wash this planet clean like the bible said
Now you can hold on steady, try to be ready
But everybody's gonna get wet
Don't think it won't happen just because it hasn't happened yet

I'm just rolling away from yesterday
Behind the wheel of a stolen Chevrolet
Gonna get a little higher
And see if I can hotwire reality

thanks to trish for including me!!

Shameless Lions Writing Circle Award

2007-12-09T07:34:00.000-05:00

One of my new friends, and tremendously gifted writer, Sarah Hina was kind enough to bestow this award on me and for this I am both touched and flattered:

Sarah Hina's Murmurs

breathing in

2007-12-05T20:22:00.000-05:00

the last time i raked i split my time between looking up at the blue sky and down at the brown leaves but today it was all white. the commonality between the two events is the thought of you and that apparently i do my best thinking while i’m raking.

as the snow fell and mixed with the leaves it made each pull of the rake more difficult with the weight of the flakes but not a difficult as the weight of missing you. my shoulders burned and my heart ached because when you get back i don’t know where we will stand and i’m both excited and scared to find out.

although a bachelor that for the most part lives alone except for the nights that the kids are over i try to keep a clean and neat house unlike some of my friends who married or not apparently think that they are still in a dorm room. that being said i will not always make my bed on days that are dominated by laziness or lateness and although that’s not often it now happens never.

often i wonder what you must be thinking because as verbal as i am in my continual effort to call it out you are equally reserved. i am happy however that when you do speak it is from the heart and of substance and that during our email and text exchanges you are more open and give me a glimpse of what is inside and that there may be hope yet and that’s fine because if electricity is the vehicle that you need to call it out on your own terms then ok.

last week after i dropped you off and i drove to new jersey and you drove to north carolina you later texted me that when you stopped for lunch and put on your jacket it smelled like me and then you typed ‘mmmmmmm!’ and I thought that was the greatest note ever.

while you have a jacket that smells like me i have a sheets that smell like you and the beauty of it is that nothing happened as they say except for a warmth and a connection that was beyond anything that i’ve felt in a long time and if investing the time needed to properly make the bed can trap in that smell i will make my bed every day for the rest of my life so that at night i can breathe you in while i fall asleep.

blessed

2007-11-25T17:18:00.000-05:00

i’d really like to start going to church she said out of nowhere as he merged the rental monte carlo onto the merritt parkway on a gray day that was too fucking cold for march because it’s supposed to be the third day of spring after all and in protest he didn’t bring a coat.

what makes you say that he said because he knew that she had a problem with people who hid behind jesus but he knew her well enough and was pretty sure that she didn’t want to hide but rather wanted to use the messiah as a shield. because the world is a shitty place and most people are evil and i don’t want to get caught up in all of it. he agreed with her except he said that he would have to eliminate the word most although ten years ago he would have underlined and italicized it and he was on a personal mission to help her not go down the same path he took because it was for shit to say the least and no one should have to go through that and if he could take that bullet for her the way that christ took the nails for humanity then he was willing to make that deal.

he knew of the beating and the infidelity and it made him angry because who could hurt such a sweet soul even if she does say fuck you too much and it looked funny coming out of such a cute little person. in the office he would turn his head so that she couldn’t see him well up when she would tell the stories of her past but she knew what was going on and one time called him a pussy but when he turned back around he could see that her eyes were glassy too and it was nice to share a moment like that even if it was despair that drove them there but he didn’t know if the tears were in remembrance or because of his.

guard rails and yellow signs with deer silhouettes with graffiti penises flew past and she said that when she is in the church listening to the priest she is more at peace than at any other time and then he says that peace is not a place with no chaos but rather a place where you can be surrounded by chaos and still be calm in your heart and she said fuck you – see what i mean - and your lame quotes but he couldn’t help it he got the habit from his dead grandfather and then he hit her with the kingdom of heaven is not a place but a state of mind so she smacked him on the leg and he pretended to veer off the road.

they had to be quiet for a while and let it all soak in as they say and silence is golden as they also say and if he drove really fast and used the tappan zee bridge as a ramp they would be in orbit in no time and wouldn't that be better than here and even though for a moment he thought it really might happen it didn’t and they were passed by a minivan with a mom and some kids and a license place that said ‘im-blesd’.

joy, or something like it

2007-11-19T20:03:00.000-05:00

what does that tattoo mean you asked and after giving you shit about not knowing your bible verses and then covering by implicating myself for perhaps being odd for knowing many verses i let you know what it meant but the larger question was why it was there.

being new to me and not realizing that although i play the cool geek card quite well thank you very much that under the clothes is an array of ink and meaning and i always say that i wear my heart on my sleeve but in actuality i wear it on my skin and had you met me during the summer you’d have known this already.

as you now know the ink is not of the skulls and dragons and biker variety but rather is comprised of the things that i need to see when i look in the mirror in order to get me though the day in a clinical depression version of a twelve step program. i need to see ‘may your light so shine before others that they may see your good works’ or ‘blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy’ backwards in the mirror as i brush my teeth so when the shit piles on during the day i can recall that the purpose for sending myself into the world each day is to serve others and i don’t mean my boss.

you’ve been surprised by my ability and desire to in your words call it out every chance i get and since my kids hear 'be a fountain not a drain' a dozen times each week i’d be a hypocrite if i failed to tell you each day how beautiful you are and i’m not talking about your hair or skin or how your eyes crinkle up when you smile and melt my heart.

if this stuff had not been dug into my skin where i could see it each day i would not have the guts or the glory to minister to people in this way and i have to because after a dozen years in a chemically imbalanced - and isn’t that a dumb term because sadness is not a chemical or at least it’s not on the periodic table - haze and tired of what the pharmaceutical industry provided as a solution that was actually worse than the disease i had to dig out myself and ink and flesh was the beginning.

so that leaves me with the one that you asked about because rather than being spelled out like the others or easy to figure out like a love/pain ambigram it simply says psalm 30:5. since i do not hide the fact that my affliction has had a tremendous negative impact on my life career family and mind i also have to be thankful that the same affliction has made me a better and more caring and more feeling and more loving person able to find the good in others regardless of how long it takes them to show it and then hug them once they are strong enough to put it on display.

so while i sit here alone and my kids live a mile away all i have to get me through is ‘weeping may endure the night but joy comes in the morning’.

for a girl

2007-11-15T21:04:00.000-05:00

my leaf raking got stopped by the rain on saturday, which was ok since as you know i got to bed pretty late and was dumb enough to then wake up at 7:15 but at least you were the last person I spoke to before bed thanks for your call because i will live off of that for a few days and the first person i thought of when i woke up. anyway i got up on sunday and was about to go work out but thought it’s a beautiful morning sunny and crisp so why not put on the ipod and rake and it was wonderful. i spent as much time looking up at the blue sky than I did down at the brown leaves and spent a lot of time inside my own head which is not always a good thing but this time it was and this is what came out:

what an angel you have turned out to be. that you would reference me being ‘sent’ to you was among the biggest compliments i’ve ever received. i talk all of the time about the concept of being sent into the world rather than just existing with no purpose because ‘sent’ is valuable while ‘existing’ is a waste. sent is of god.

so you presented me with a couple of scenarios. perhaps we were sent to each other in order to serve as a bridge from a bad time to better days sort of as each other’s own personal light at the end of the tunnel and i don’t know what has happened to you but i do know you’ve been hurt and i do know that i’ve been wounded so if that is the reason for finding each other than what a wonderful thing that is. The other scenario is something much larger and more intense and in a lot of ways more scary.

you said that you don’t know how all of this happened, and neither do i but what i do know is that it has. i am not a believer in coincidence so how do we explain how two people who are very similar in almost every way or at least what you can see in such a short time and are searching for comfort and peace end up working together doing something that was not really what they wanted to do when they grew up and go from emails about the red sox and matt nanthanson to one of the best evenings that at least one of them has had in a very long time.

i don’t know what you are looking for but i’m going to be bold and say that i suspect that it might be a lot like me. with me you get a guy who is fairly flawed and slightly grey is more comfortable in hiking boots and a hoodie that in a suit and tie who may occasionally wipe up a coffee drip with the sleeve of his shirt and who would like both share the world with you as well as protect you from it and who has a very big heart that he’d like to wrap you in. what i am looking for is very much the same, but i am scared of being hurt who isn’t? and therefore am extremely thankful for you voicing your concerns now rather than later.

so again, if my purpose in your life is to get you over the bridge then i’m honored to do as chris rice sings and don a cape and fly to your rescue. if you feel that the purpose is greater but your situation is too much for you to bear, then i can make peace with that. all i ask is that you let me know one way or the other and at this point i am left with a big smile and a full heart, ‘bulletproof weeks’ on replay and a fleece vest that is gradually losing its scent of you.

you asked me if i’d be willing to fight and being a ‘rocky’ fan i love a fight analogy and although i am done fighting with the world because the world has won i feel that you are something worth getting off the mat and fighting for let’s consider this note round 1.

fear

2007-11-09T21:17:00.001-05:00

what are you afraid of he asked or yelled and she said i’m not afraid of anything. bullshit. it’s true. you’re hiding and you know it. fuck you you know what i’m hiding from.and she was right. next to her husband and his kids they spend more time with each other than anyone else courtesy of sharing an eight by fifteen office enterprise rental cars honey chicken at p.f. changs in princeton new jersey or the rotating restaurant on top of the loews in quebec city in a blizzard.when they were new conversations had to do with inconsequential shit like favorite tv shows and he did get her hooked on family guy so they could laugh on monday morning between conference calls but he couldn’t get her to watch gray’s anatomy which is funny because it’s a chick show.by the time they crossed the canadian border two days before the snow she was comfortable enough with him to sleep in the passenger seat and burp when necessary and tell him about having her nose broken by the fucker she dated when she was younger and that she married her husband because he didn’t hit her but maybe that shouldn’t have been the only criteria to look for in a spouse but it is what it is.she didn’t like being away from home for a week but there were customers to visit and he was happy to get the chance to watch over someone for a few days since it had been a long time since he’d had that type of responsibility with anyone other than his little boys and that’s different anyway. he held her door and carried her luggage let her take his arm so she wouldn’t slip on the icy sidewalk and she teased him and called him her bitch and he reminded her that he could just let her fall but they both knew that wouldn’t happen ever.his ipod was her biggest enemy since there are not many 28 year old girls her included who like the same music as 44 year old men. journey prince and michael jackson were the extent of the overlap even though they did not really talk about mike’s pedophilia since her favorite show is to catch a predator and he can’t watch a whole episode because he gets too pissed off and would not think twice about taking the law into his own hands if the opportunity presented itself and how can that guy from nbc not just beat the shit out of those assholes anyway.during the sappy - her word not his - song of the day selection he would play she told him that john mayer’s comfortable was shit and he said fuck off in fun becasue it reminded him of elizabeth and then he asked her what she was afraid of. her choice is to hide from the pain of the past in a sure to fail – his words not hers – attempt to avoid pain in the future and he said you can not play out of sight out of mind with sorrow and deadbeat dads and beatings by someone who alleges to love you when he’s not off fucking someone else. his choice is to meet pain head on whether it is delivered by a heartbreaking movie or a poignant – not sappy – song because after learning what the cocktail of clinical depression emotional abandonment and a three year old girl whose initials he wears on a bracelet slamming into the north tower on her way to disneyland can do he needs to know that he can expose himself to despair and make it through to the other side without falling apart again in a what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger type of arrangement. superman exposing his chest to the bullet with a fairly good feeling that he will withstand the blow just like he has to watch the news every morning to make sure that nothing blew up overnight and that the empire state building is still standing even though he watches only out of one eye as if to brace for the impact he hopes doesn't come but suspects will and then maybe he'll have to hide from the thoughts of harming himself again. he’s not sure that any of this means anything other than avoidance and acceptance are two sides of the same coin and jackson browne and justin timberlake can coexist in the same eight by fifteen room and there is not much difference between not wanting your face or your country to get hit again while life is giving it to you up the ass because that could end you as a person and that everything can be made better by a business inappropriate kiss on the cheek as a girl gets off of an elevator on the eleventh floor high above the streets of eastern canada on valentine's day.

To be hit in the gut by a movie

2006-12-18T06:31:00.000-05:00

“In Huntington, West Virginia there is a river, and next to the river is a steel mill, and next to the steel mill is a school, and at the school there is a fountain…” And so it begins.

Saturday night the boys and I attended a sneak preview (national release is December 22) of the new movie, “We Are…. Marshall” and it was all that we expected and more.

Bedecked in our “We Are…. Marshall” gear – they in the t-shirts that I got for them at the Marshall bookstore during my recent trip to Huntington for my grandfather’s funeral and I in an early-Christmas-gift windshirt (“Steven, if your package gets to you before you see the movie, open it up…”) – we watched the story unfold.

Matthew McConaughey was brilliant and Matthew Fox was heartbreaking. The entire movie was acted with the reverence that the story deserved (my one issue was that no one spoke with an accent!). It is safe to say that McConaughey has earned his way into the hearts of the city, for apparently during filming he was a gracious and non-Hollywoood-esque guest.

Upon leaving the theater I thought that a few people were going to have breakdowns, for they were blindsided by the story. I knew it so I was prepared, but where it gets me is that my uncle played for the Thundering Herd just prior to the crash. My sisters attended Marshall (one was a cheerleader for the football team), as did aunts uncles, cousins, and currently one of my nephews is an education major at the school. Although I don’t live there now, it is the city where I began. I was seven years old when this happened.

Like most sports movies based on true stories, we knew how it ended. Unlike most sports stories, this was not a story of perseverance, although there was a lot of that. Rather, it is a story of resurrection – because it is not truly a sports movie, it is a story about losing sons, fathers, mothers, brothers, teammates, coaches – 75 in all, all in one painful moment. It is about a coach who had no ties to the school and had never been to Huntington prior to taking the job, he simply thought he could help, and he did. He taught a team - and a town - to “play until the whistle blows” and fortunately the community did not let the whistle blow on itself and the football team bought them the time they needed to heal.

At the end of the movie a janitor comes into the locker room and offers coach Red Dawson (Matthew Fox’s character) congratulations, and his response is “Thanks, congratulations to you, too.” Why offer congratulations to a janitor? Because in the phrase “We are…. Marshall” it is not just the team who is the ‘we’ and that is the reason that the first three entities mentioned in the film are the city, the mill, and the school. They all are the ‘we’.

Enough, enough, enough.

2006-12-14T06:28:00.000-05:00

Note: In honor of the season, all expletives have been edited from the following rant.

Nowhere in the Book of Matthew does it say that the Magi came bearing gifts that they placed under a Scotch Pine festooned with strings of colored lights and nowhere in the Book of Luke do the shepherds hang ornaments and strings of popcorn on a Douglas Fir and the Book of John does not say “The Word became flesh and then He flung tinsel onto the boughs of a tree that is found in another part of the world.”

Once again I am forced to deal with the annual assault on the Christmas Tree. For those not paying attention, this is a cultural and traditional symbol, not a religious one – it has no Biblical basis. Therefore, when an airport or a mall – or town hall for that matter – puts up a tree, deal with it. It is not an assault on your religion, because it is not a religious symbol. Even if it were a religious symbol it would not be an assault on your belief, and to think so makes you look very, very small.

If you have the free time to worry about the decorations at Sea-Tac Airport then I’ll make you a deal, you watch my kids for a while and I’ll take the free time and do something constructive with it – like building people up rather than tearing them down.

Furthermore, if the airport wants to put up a giant menorah, God bless them, I take no offense. And I’ll guarantee you I will not take the opportunity to bitch and moan and threaten a lawsuit. What I will do, however, is take the opportunity to reflect on its beauty and I might even ask you some questions about it and its meaning (as I did at a recent Bat Mitzvah), because, you see, I am all about edification and not degradation.

So please, cease with your holiday season penis envy – it is beyond tedious.

Thanks!!

2006-12-12T06:18:00.000-05:00

Thanks for all of the nice emails concerning my whereabouts. After my grandfather's passing, and a few other incidents, I've been very blah. I'll get back into the blog thang shortly.

You guys rock.

Many thanks!

2006-11-28T07:06:00.000-05:00

I wanted to thank everyone for their kind words about my grandfather. He was truly a phenomenal person and I am honored when people say that I look like him (apparently I am his clone, although I'm the only one who doesn't see this...) but I am more honored when people say that I think like him.

The book he wrote, "How to Program Yourself For Success", should be required reading for every high school kid in America (and it cracks me up that my gradfather has a book on Amazon!!).

My sister, Jan, said it best at the funeral: "We will never be more special again in our lives."

Obituary

2006-11-27T08:05:00.000-05:00

Sorry to have been away for so long, but my grandfather passed away and I travelled to his funeral.

He was a great guy and I'd like to share his obituary:

Benjamin Wilkes Hale, 1910 - 2006
Benjamin Wilkes Hale, 96, died Sunday, November 19, 2006 in St. Mary’s Medical Center, surrounded by his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. He was much loved. As Ben would tell it, he “discovered America on March 11, 1910,” and during his lifetime he would profoundly change this world for the better. He was born in Kenova, but grew up in Logan, WV, the son of William Richard and Ostella Butcher Hale. He lived his life by the “Golden Rule.” When he was just 11 years old, his beloved father drowned. So armed with a 6th grade education, Ben started his working career sweeping the one room schoolhouse with his brother to help support the mother he dearly loved and his family of nine siblings. Even though Ben left formal education so early, he continued to educate himself throughout his life. His son Ben Hale Jr., an attorney from Columbus, said, “ He was the best educated man I know.” Ben married the love of his life, Bessie Hale, on September 1, 1935. He was often heard saying that he didn’t know how on earth he was lucky enough to have married her. They raised 6 children together; Norma Hale Robinette of Huntington (and husband R.L. “Bo”), William Richard Hale of Moneta, VA. (and wife Kyong H. Hale), Louetta Hale Jimison of Huntington (and husband Richard), Wilsie Hale of Huntington, Benjamin Wilkes Hale, Jr. of Columbus (and wife Jan Jenkins Hale), and Cynda Hibner of Huntington (and husband Ron). Ben’s life was colored by the many careers he loved, including (but not limited to) section hand on the railroad, coal miner, delivered ice with a horse and wagon, drove a bread truck, sold Chevrolets, barber, butcher, cook in the U.S. Army, real estate broker, developer and builder in both Logan and Huntington, attended the Chesapeake Methodist Church, was a member of the Chesapeake Lions Club, Kentucky Colonel, President of the Southern Ohio Chamber of Commerce, President of the Huntington Board of Realtors for 10 years, and earned a degree from the University of Hard Knocks. Then he retired. During his first retirement, he worked as a motivational speaker, an instructor at Shawnee State University, and had his own radio show “The Old Philosopher.” Then he retired again. In his second retirement, he became an author. He wrote “Treasury of Wisdom” and “How to Program Yourself for Success.” He completed an autobiography and was currently working on a book about selling real estate, both of which are not yet published. Ben is survived by his six children, 18 grandchildren, 31 great grandchildren, 7 great great grandchildren, and many loving nieces, nephews, and cousins. All of them believe they are his favorite. He is also survived by his sister, Willa Rae Hale Cook. He was preceded in death by his wife, his parents, and seven of his siblings: Guthrie Hale, Herndon Hale, Fred Hale, Wadena Hale Peck, Stella Hale Collins, Jack Hale, and Mary Pete Hale. He was also preceded in death by his uncle Mart Butcher, who was like a father to him and whose children Ben loved like they were his own brothers and sisters; grandson, Patrick McCormack, and many dear friends. Perhaps the most endearing thing that most people will remember about Ben is that he began passing out invitations to his 100th birthday party when he was in his mid-50’s. He passed out over 15,000 of these invitations over the years. He was just sure he would make it. If you were one of the 15,000 invited, don’t worry! Ben’s children plan to celebrate his 100th birthday in 4 years, anyway.

Hotwire 101: 66 thru 70

2006-11-15T06:30:00.000-05:00

A boring group today, as I am running out of stuff...

66. When I was younger the beer of choice was Old Milwaukee. It’s now Yuengling Lager, although I can’t get it where I live. Why, oh why, did we have to move?!?!
67. I had my own seat in the Vice Principal’s office during my senior year of high school. Partly because I was a bit mischievous and partly because he wanted me to be his informant. Too bad for him.
68. My favorite teams in the four major sports are the Philadelphia Eagles, Philadelphia 76ers, Philadelphia Flyers, and the Boston Red Sox.
69. My favorite all time athletes in those sports are Walter Payton, Julius Erving, Rick McLeish, and Reggie Jackson and Roberto Clemente (with honorable mentions going to Cal Ripken, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Bobby Clarke, and Bill Bergey).
70. I can not become a member of Netflix because how am I supposed to know on Wednesday what movie I will be in the mood for on Saturday?!

And the winner is...

2006-11-11T07:10:00.000-05:00

Noah's Dove, micron and colored pencil on paper, 16x20

Last weekend, at an art show hosted by a local art association, my piece won first prize. I had entered the same show with two other smaller works last year and didn't win anything, and because I'm very competitive and because I don't consider paintings of bowls of fruit or vases of flowers 'art' and that's all that was in this show, I created this for the specific reason of winning this show this year. The judge commented on the mastery of technique and the provacative use of religious symbolism, which I thought was nice.

Funny. Mean, but funny.

2006-11-09T08:13:00.000-05:00

The other day my buddy and I were leaving the UConn football game and saw a bumper sticker in the car in front of us - I laughed harder than I had in a while. And ladies, in the interest of equality, I'm certain the gender of the statment could be changed to the masculine and still achieve the same effect:

No matter how good she looks,
someone, somewhere, is tired of her shit.

Team Jamaica - the season concludes

2006-11-07T05:51:00.000-05:00

I posted a few weeks ago about my love of coaching youth sports and my current involvement with The Bear's (5 and 6 year olds) soccer team - Team Jamaica.

The season ended last Saturday and the kids, as always, did a great job and as I told the kids in out post-game huddle that they were awesome and that I would miss them (although I see most of them all of the time anyway!) and the team there were a few tears, which is why they were so good - they care and are passionate.

Usually at the end of the season the kids (and their folks) will give the coaches a little gift - this year we were given Dunkin Donuts gift cards (they know me too well) and baseball caps with the Jamaican flag! It's always nice to know that you are appreciated, and as nice as those momentos are, this email from one of the Dads was the best:

I have been involved in sports from one level or another. I've been coached by many different types of personalities and I have had the pleasure of coaching at the Varsity level as well.

When I was in school playing sports, some of the motivating factors to keep me on the team had to be artificially generated on my own. The main reason was that some of the coaches didn't have the right methods for success. I measure success as the development of each player...not the team’s record.

At the K-12 arenas of coaching, the objective should be to develop the skills needed for the next level. Skills not only on the physical side, but on the mental and emotional side. This is apparently difficult for some adults...Not you! I see Carter as one of those kids that has "it". He may not be the best, the fastest or strongest...but he has the passion. The same passion that I had for sports. I had the potential to take my skills in sports to the next level, but due to the approach of my coaches, I chose a different future...and I have regretted it ever since.

In watching the growth of my son as well as his teammates in just a short soccer season, I noticed right off that you have that special something that can bring more out of every kid than they could imagine or even know. I saw Brian today playing like HE thought he belonged. I told his father that I thought he did a fantastic job and that even being the smallest, that he has the desire to be in the thick of it...he just knows he's smaller than the rest.

I am VERY proud of how Carter went from an emotional question mark, to being aggressive, capable and learning at every avenue. I credit YOU with a great deal of that. Like I said before, I was a coach and I KNOW how important each coach plays in the growth of those kids. Every great athlete has had a track record of exceptional coaches. I see you taking Jamaica to a great season as a team in sort of the same way the Patriots are coached by a motivator. Don't get me wrong...I'm not comparing you with Bill Bellicheck, but the way he makes his players want to play with a higher passion and heightened sense of confidence and accomplishment...THAT is something special.

Once again ....Thank you SO much for your valuable time and your methods of motivating the kids. It would be a fitting thing to see you elevate to higher levels as well. Enjoy your winter and I truly hope our paths cross in other sports as we both enjoy the growth of our own boys.

Thank you!

Michael J. Fox, stem cell research, and me: your input needed!

2006-11-04T06:33:00.000-05:00

This one is going to ramble, but please bear with me because I need your input.

A long time ago a mother called her son - a wise-ass kid with a love of Ronald Reagan and who wore a necktie far more often than the occasion called for - in his college dorm room and a conversation, probably not to dissimilar to this, took place:

Mom: Do you watch any television shows on Thursday night?
Me: Um, no. We have other ‘activities’ that we’re involved in on Thursday nights.
Mom: Well, yes, I thought you might. (she is not a stupid woman…)
Me: Why do you ask?
Mom: Well, there’s this show with this wise-ass kid with a love of Ronald Reagan and who wears a necktie far more often than the occasion calls and he reminds me of you.

There are a few television personalities whom I hold near and dear: John Ritter, Henry Winkler (I’ll list them together since they were best friends in real life), Lawrence Welk, Marlon Perkins, Alan Alda, and of course, Michael J. Fox.

Although Alex P. Keaton and I shared a love of Ronnie, Michael J. Fox and I vote across party lines depending on the candidate who shares our opinions regarding the issues with which we are concerned. I used to vote for the good of the whole, or at least as I perceived it. I figured that I was just one lucky guy who had it going pretty well and that my vote was better served in an effort to assist those in greater need. Now I have a few issues that get my vote and they have to do with not voting for people who make abortion the key plank in their platform, but who do want true civil rights for all, the protection of children at all costs, and keeping airliners with three year old girls from hitting skyscrapers and thus unleashing years-long dormant mood issues that put you in a state that is not too unlike a cross between Michael Douglas in "Falling Down" and Bruce Willis in “Unbreakable”.

All of this leads me to the issue of stem cell research and your assistance. Admittedly, I have a limited understanding of the issue beyond what I’ve heard Mr. Fox say during some recent interviews with Donnie Deutsch and Anderson Cooper. This issue looks like all upside and limited downside – the only possible dark spot is if a mad scientist decided he wants to pull a Mefisto and clone a master race of humans (but if he’s going to do that inside the law he’ll do it outside just as easily).

Could you please educate me as to why the legalization of embryonic stem cell research might not be a good idea? Also, please no commentary on the current administration and their veto of this item, that’s not what I’m looking for – remember, be a fountain, not a drain...

Hotwire 101: 61 thru 65

2006-11-01T07:25:00.000-05:00

Now that the Reunion Trilogy is complete, back to our program already in progress...

I have been tagged by Drew for five things that are interesting about me. So far I'm up to 60 in number but not sure that all of them are that interesting. Here are the next five:

61. Like many people, I am writing a novel. It should be done by the time my kids graduate college…
62. My favorite novel is “A Prayer for Owen Meany” by John Irving. That is followed by “A Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger, “Other Voices Other Rooms” by Truman Capote, “Green Grass Grace” by Shawn McBride, and the book mentioned in #25.
63. I would like to wear shorts all year round, which makes living in New England a pain in the ass.
64. My favorite month is October, which makes living in New England great.
65. Back during the days that I had house parties, the song “Katmandu” by Bob Seger was played every hour on the hour.

In which the author, in the all-too-familiar third person, reflects on his 25th reunion, The Conclusion

2006-10-30T07:51:00.000-05:00

They weren’t in the door more than 15 seconds when his buddy Ron said, “I don’t remember graduating high school with Jesus,” referring to a classmate who’d grown his hair and beard to look, actually, more like Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top than the Son of Man.

As he glanced through the room in those first few moments he was able to see the girl who politely refused his offer to accompany him to the Homecoming dance standing within an arm’s length of the girl who eventually said yes. The boy he fought in 10th grade chatting with the girl he sat behind in 11th. His former art teacher and current good friend talking to a boy who’d sat at the adjacent art table many years ago. A few former teammates with whom pounds were plentiful while hair was not.

His gang found a table at the end of the room where they set up camp, yet none of them ever took a seat – so many people so little time, as they say. They’d done all their catching up and bullshtting over the past day and a half so most of the time was spent talking to the other members of their class but always returning to each other for ballast. One after another people made it to their encampment with new hugs and old stories of minor gridiron glory, major assembly disruptions, proms and parties.

While many classmates had held up well under the weight of 25 years, many did not, and while we was told he fell into the former group he supposed he fit somewhere in the middle - like the guy with one foot firmly on the dock and the other precariously in the rowboat. There were boys who were in the process of growing old gracefully and there were men who’d simply grown old. There were girls, beautiful in high school but that you assumed could fall apart at any minute, who had. There were also the girls who were cute back then whose outer beauty had caught up with what we’d seen seeping out from the inside when we were young.

There was the Prettiest Girl He’s Ever Seen – who in college was always nice enough to drive him to his apartment in her sky blue Beetle after Freshman Composition class - still holding that title after raising two full-grown children. And there was also the adorable little girl with long blonde hair who lived around the corner for most of his life who still had long blonde hair and was more adorable now than she’d been when he first saw her in 1975.

Conversations were quick and light and he tried to avoid the “what’s been up since I saw you at the last reunion” question, as breakdowns and mood disorders, failed relationships and careers don’t seem to make for polite conversation. Since he’s now back on track he’ll be happy to field that question when they all reconvene in five more years, since the question then will most certainly have a better answer than it does now.

For the handful of people who really know him – his gang and their wives - the answer is easy to tell, because the trust is there. Their history allows him to speak: that his career is once again flourishing and he hopes he can keep it together and that he doesn’t need to find someone right now and that when he does they don’t have to have the biggest heart in the world just one that’s the same size as his.

The event is over and after goodbyes are said and tears are shed the large group at the reunion morphs into a smaller version at a bar down the street in order to prolong the evening and give it time to burn into their collective memory. Every year they all lose chunks of memories of the time they spent together in the big brick building. Their stories refill each other’s minds in an effort to keep the dam full although there is an irreparable slow leak that they all fear will grow larger unless they can be each other’s finger in the hole.

Later on, back at the house, they fight sleep but it eventually wins and in the early morning they linger in the kitchen before they all have to disperse like they’ve been doing on and off all of their adult lives.

In the car he makes one last loop past the old house, past the farms, and onto the highway. And on a gorgeous and cloudless Maryland Sunday morning he drove off into the sunrise.

Know it sounds funny
But I just can't stand the pain
Girl I'm leaving you tomorrow
Seems to me girlYou know I've done all I can
You see I begged, stole
And I borrowed

Ooh, that's why
I'm easyI'm easy like Sunday morning
That's why I'm easy
I'm easy like Sunday morning

Why in the world
Would anybody put chains on me?
I've paid my dues to make it
Everybody wants me to be
What they want me to be
I'm not happy when I try to fake it!
No!

Ooh,that's why I'm easy
I'm easy like Sunday morning
That's why I'm easy
I'm easy like Sunday morning
-The Commodores

In which the author, in the all-too-familiar third person, reflects on his 25th reunion, the conclusion

2006-10-30T07:47:00.000-05:00

They weren’t in the door more than 15 seconds when his buddy Ron said, “I don’t remember graduating high school with Jesus,” referring to a classmate who’d grown his hair and beard to look, actually, more like Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top than the Son of Man.

As he glanced through the room in those first few moments he was able to see the girl who politely refused his offer to accompany him to the Homecoming dance standing within an arm’s length of the girl who eventually said yes. The boy he fought in 10th grade chatting with the girl he sat behind in 11th. His former art teacher and current good friend talking to a boy who’d sat at the adjacent art table many years ago. A few former teammates with whom pounds were plentiful while hair was not.

His gang found a table at the end of the room where they set up camp, yet none of them ever took a seat – so many people so little time, as they say. They’d done all their catching up and bullshtting over the past day and a half so most of the time was spent talking to the other members of their class but always returning to each other for ballast. One after another people made it to their encampment with new hugs and old stories of minor gridiron glory, major assembly disruptions, proms and parties.

While many classmates had held up well under the weight of 25 years, many did not, and while we was told he fell into the former group he supposed he fit somewhere in the middle - like the guy with one foot firmly on the dock and the other precariously in the rowboat. There were boys who were in the process of growing old gracefully and there were men who’d simply grown old. There were girls, beautiful in high school but that you assumed could fall apart at any minute, who had. There were also the girls who were cute back then whose outer beauty had caught up with what we’d seen seeping out from the inside when we were young.

There was the Prettiest Girl He’s Ever Seen – who in college was always nice enough to drive him to his apartment in her sky blue Beetle after Freshman Composition class - still holding that title after raising two full-grown children. And there was also the adorable little girl with long blonde hair who lived around the corner for most of his life who still had long blonde hair and was more adorable now than she’d been when he first saw her in 1975.

Conversations were quick and light and he tried to avoid the “what’s been up since I saw you at the last reunion” question, as breakdowns and mood disorders, failed relationships and careers don’t seem to make for polite conversation. Since he’s now back on track he’ll be happy to field that question when they all reconvene in five more years, since the question then will most certainly have a better answer than it does now.

For the handful of people who really know him – his gang and their wives - the answer is easy to tell, because the trust is there. Their history allows him to speak: that his career is once again flourishing and he hopes he can keep it together and that he doesn’t need to find someone right now and that when he does they don’t have to have the biggest heart in the world just one that’s the same size as his.

The event is over and after goodbyes are said and tears are shed the large group at the reunion morphs into a smaller version at a bar down the street in order to prolong the evening and give it time to burn into their collective memory. Every year they all lose chunks of memories of the time they spent together in the big brick building. Their stories refill each other’s minds in an effort to keep the dam full although there is an irreparable slow leak that they all fear will grow larger unless they can be each other’s finger in the hole.

Later on, back at the house, they fight sleep but it eventually wins and in the early morning they linger in the kitchen before they all have to disperse like they’ve been doing on and off all of their adult lives.

In the car he makes one last loop past the old house, past the farms, and onto the highway. And on a gorgeous and cloudless Maryland Sunday morning he drove off into the sunrise.

Know it sounds funny
But I just can't stand the pain
Girl I'm leaving you tomorrow
Seems to me girl
You know I've done all I can
You see I begged, stole
And I borrowed
Ooh, that's why I'm easy

I'm easy like Sunday morning
That's why I'm easy
I'm easy like Sunday morning

Why in the world
Would anyboddy put chains on me?
I've paid my dues to make it
Everbody wants me to be
What they want me to be
I'm not happy when I try to fake it!
No!

Ooh,that's why I'm easy
I'm easy like Sunday morning
That's why I'm easy
I'm easy like Sunday morning
-The Commodores

In which the author, in the all-too-familiar third person, reflects on his 25th reunion, Part 2

2006-10-23T06:29:00.000-04:00

Class of 1981
25-Year Reunion Weekend Kick-Off
HOMECOMING FOOTBALL GAME
October 13, 2006 7 p.m.
Within the next couple years, our HS as we know it will
be no more. The building will be renovated and rebuilt
in the name of progress. Let’s come together to root on the Bobcats
and take a last look at our old red brick friend.

Twenty five years ago the caravan to the game would have consisted of a brown Duster, a red pick-up, and a wood paneled Vista Cruiser. This night the caravan to the game consisted of SUVs, minivans, and rental cars. Although the route was the same, the scenery had changed and now the road leading into town included less farmland and more chain restaurants.

Once at the high school everything looked the same. They could make out the shape of the two-story structure as it was silhouetted against the lights of the football field beyond. Walking from the cars, bundled against the cool evening air, the horns and drums of the band were audible in the distance. Once inside the gates the field lights illuminated the large crowd, about three thousand strong, and they made their way to the section of bleachers under the “Class of 1981” banner.

Between the hand shaking and hugs and kisses he caught glimpses of the action on the field. He chatted with his former teammates while the new Bobcats, wearing their old numbers, were blocking and tackling the Rams in the distance. This was a new vantage point for them, as way back then they were ones seeking glory between the white lines. In the end, the team lost a well fought game, and the caravan moved a few blocks down for beers and more catching up.

Despite the 2 a.m. bedtime, he rose early and hit the road. The building would be gone by the next time he made it back home, and he had to see it in the daylight one final time. He drove slowly, not so much to put off the pain, but rather to provide the time needed to anticipate the flood of emotion that was due to arrive. It was a cool and perfect morning. No clouds and wonderful sunshine. The driver’s side window rolled down, he wanted to feel the morning on his skin.

He took the long way, making the library and the views along Main Street the opening act to the main attraction that was the High School. As the car pulled near he had to wince against the low-in-the-sky sun and it was not until he flipped down the visor that he could see the building clearly. Circling the front rotary twice he then pulled behind the school and took a look at the old practice field. Much of he and his friends were left on that field during ten hour, ninety-eight degree, Mid-Atlantic humid, August double sessions in a successful effort to teach them who they really were.

As he was driving off - there were the soccer games of his friend’s boys to get to - he had a feeling. He had to turn around. And there, with the window down and a breeze blowing in, with his music playing softly, and the school beyond the windshield, he stopped. Right in the middle of the intersection of Highe and Kenmore he put it in park and everything froze.

He wasn’t dying, not yet at least, but those four years flew before his eyes. Classes and detentions, first loves and failed attempts, high fives and holding hands. The smells of chalk dust and pencil shavings, Friday pizza, a hint of smoke in the second floor lavatory, and Love’s Baby Soft. Friends who are many years gone.

No cars came to the intersection, which was good because he wouldn’t have moved if they had. He sat, and smiled, then broke down. Hard. Heaving until it hurt, and then as fast as it came it left, as if the building was saying it was all right to let go. But he couldn’t – he can’t.

It was far too important.

And the caravan has all my friends
It will stay with me until the end
Gypsy Robin, Sweet Emma Rose
Tell me everything I need to know
La, la, la...

Turn up your radio and let me hear the song
Switch on your electric light
Then we can get down to what is really wrong
I long to hold you tight so I can feel you
Sweet lady of the night I shall reveal you
Turn it up, turn it up, little bit higher radio
Turn it up, turn it up, so you know, radio
La, la, la, la...

And the caravan is painted red and white
That means ev'rybody's staying overnight
Barefoot gypsy player round the campfire sing and play
And a woman tells us of her ways
La, la, la, la...

-Van Morrison

In which the author, in the all-too-familiar third person, reflects on his 25th reunion, Part 1

2006-10-19T06:21:00.000-04:00

Each time that he crosses the line from Delaware into Maryland, and sees that wonderful “Welcome to Maryland” sign there is a bit of a rebirth. Although not born there, a lot of growing up was done there – from middle school through college. The good years.

Just beyond the Susquehanna River he took the new exit that would lead to the old neighborhood. For as much as the town he grew up in had changed and been tremendously built up, the outlying areas still remained pure.

Driving down route 155 from Havre de Grace to Churchville the houses looked the same as they had thirty years prior. The farms still remained and as of yet had not succumbed to developers with large wads of cash. The barns were still red and the silos still silver, although they were struggling not to show their age. Out in the cornfields there were a few pieces of farming equipment that were strewn about like the kings and queens of a chess game that ended a long time ago.

Soon the group would be together again, and although they don’t see each other often enough, when they do it is as if time has not passed, regardless of the statements that the gray, the weight, and the hint of wrinkles were attempting to make. The math problem that consisted of old yearbooks plus photo albums multiplied by beer equaled a lot of laughs and perhaps the hint of a tear. The photographs, whether or not they faded over time, provoked vivid memories. Boys with mustaches and tuxedos (with feathered-haired girls holding flowers), or shirtless at the beach, or sweaty and victorious after the football game against the cross-town rival.

Hotwire 101: 56 thru 60

2006-10-16T06:32:00.000-04:00

While I collect my thoughts regarding my reunion, the next five will have to suffice:

56. In my opinion the saddest word in the English language is sorrow. Hearing it gets me bummed out every time.
57. I am very funny, however I don’t have many people to act as my straight man anymore.
58. I have a tattoo on my right calf. It is of the Cherokee word for ‘peace’ and the number seven, which represents the Cherokee’s sacred seven directions.
59. My favorite Bible verse is Ephesians 4:29. Another is Matthew 5:16
60. I am a graduate of Towson State University.

The Television Conundrum

2006-10-12T07:34:00.000-04:00

Each year I vow, or at least try to, not to watch as much TV. Usually I have my old mainstays, and then I find a few new shows, and then a few of the shows don’t make it, and my vow is successful.

This year we may have a problem.

The aforementioned mainstays are as follows:

Sports: You name it and I’ll watch it, but my favorites are NFL, Red Sox, Bruins, UConn basketball, and college football, so pretty much everything.

Sunday
Extreme Makeover, Home Edition – This is one the kids like, but I’ll watch it with them. Wonderful concept and will often induce tears from The Bear.

Family Guy - Two words: Stewie Griffin. Enough said.

Tuesday
House, M.D. - Greg House is man (Sage recently did a post with some great dialogue giving an example of the wonder that is House). The fact that my mother has told me I have House-ian qualities might be a negative to some, but to me is the highest of praise.

Miami Ink – I’d love to be a tattoo artist, and Kat von D might be the hottest woman on television.

Wednesday
Lost – One the most fascinating shows ever. I’d love to sit in on a writers meeting because those folks a brilliant.

South Park - nowhere near as good as it once was, but I will try to catch an episode here and there.

Thursday
The Office – One of the few shows that has ever made me actually laugh out loud.

Gray’s Anatomy - Now that this is not opposite Sunday Night Football I can watch it more regularly. Although I aspire to be House, I have never connected with a character like I have with Izzy this season.

Now the problem that I alluded to earlier lies with some of the new programs. Too many that are too good and probably won’t get cancelled.

Monday
Heroes – I’ve said before that all boys want to be superheroes, and that I love the movie ‘Unbreakable’, so this is right up my alley. The character of Hiro is the best, followed by the cheerleader, and I can’t wait to see what the hell is up with that stripper chick in Vegas…

Tuesday
Friday Night Lights – In that I played and coached football, go to high school games with my kids every week, it’s not unusual (hey, that’s a nice Tom Jones and Carlton from ‘Fresh Prince’ reference...) that I would like this show. However, the way that it’s filmed and the brilliance of the writing was more than I expected.

Wednesday
The Nine – I was going to go to bed after Lost but I was so jacked up at how good it was I wasn’t tired and decided to watch this show. All I can say is holy crap. This is going to be a good one to see unfold.

So there you have it. My TV watching dilemma. All I can say is thank goodness I don’t have expanded cable and don’t get HBO and Showtime.

I leave you with the closing monologue from the first episode of Friday Night Lights:

Give us all gathered her tonight the strength to remember that life is so very fragile. We are vulnerable and we will all, at some point in our lives, fall. We will all fall. We must carry this in our hearts: that what we have is special, that it can be taken from us, and that when it is taken from us we will be tested. We will be tested to our very souls. We will now all be tested. It is these times; it is this pain, that allows us to look inside ourselves.

Straight on through to Baltimore, feets don't fail me now

2006-10-10T06:04:00.000-04:00

When going on a road trip I am very particular about the musical accompaniment (hell, when I'm driving the 15 minutes to work I'm particular about the musical accompaniment). To my way of thinking, the selection of the proper road trip music is based on four factors:
-Who you’re with
-Your mood
-Length of the drive
-Reason for the trip

This weekend I will be embarking on a drive to Baltimore (and on the way, genuflecting in the direction of Philadelphia, my other former home). The details on the four factors that I mentioned above are:
-Myself
-Excited/upbeat/nostalgic
-About 6 hours each way
-My 25th high school reunion

In that I’ll be traveling solo I will be making picks that will only have to suit me. When traveling with another person it’s nice to select music with which you and your partner have a bond, but not necessary this time.

My mood will be a mixture of excitement and nostalgia-laced melancholy. I will have to plan properly for both he highs and the lows, although the highs will be more dominant for certain.

A total of 12 hours of windshield time means that I have to bring a few dozen CDs. For road trips I usually like a few greatest hits, live albums, or box sets in order to maximize the good tunes and minimize the number of CDs I have to bring.

Since this will be a celebration of the Class of 1981, I will have to bring a lot of music from the mid- to late-70s and the early eighties (ie: prior to when popular music went to techno bullshit hell for about 10 years). Additionally, I will be bringing some out-of-period music, simply because it’s great road music.

All of that being said, here is the potential list, which is subject to change:

Fleetwood Mac – Rumours. This is the quintessential 1970s pop/rock album, making it a no-brainer. Will probably also bring the CD from their comeback tour a few years ago.

Journey – Infinity, Evolution. The heyday of my favorite lineup of the group, including the introduction of Steve Perry on vocals.

Doobie Brothers – Minute by Minute, Greatest Hits 2. Minute by Minute is one of my favorite albums of all time, and I need GH2 for 'Real Love'. The funky backbeat rhythm and McDonald’s smooth voice can easily take my mind off of the Tappan Zee Bridge, but then again, you’ve been subjected my Michael McDonald man-crush enough in the past.

Steely Dan – Aja, Goucho, and Decade. Decade would be enough, except for two key missing tunes: Black Cow and Time out of Mind (I’m pretty sure that I could put this song on repeat and make it the entire way down the Jersey Turnpike free of the pain and anguish this road usually brings).

Van Morrison – Tupelo Honey, Moondance. If you are new to Hotwire Reality, there is no surprise here. If you’ve been around for a while, and this is a surprise, you’ve either not been paying attention or have a huge reading comprehension issue.

Little Feat – Waiting for Columbus. See above. Also, see the title of this post.

Bob Seger – Another big favorite. I will be bringing a mix that I burned that contains all the kick ass songs, highlighted by the ultimate party song, 'Katmandu', as well as 'Beautiful Loser' and the wonderful 'Against the Wind'.

Supertramp – Breakfast in America. Like Rumours, this is an album that I consider one of the best pop records of its time. Every song is so good it could be a greatest hits album all by itself.

Eagles – Hotel California, The Long Run. Hotel is one of the best albums of the 1970s and Long Run, although a bit overproduced, is a personal favorite (and once I sang ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’ in a talent show and created my own personal Girls Gone Wild situation, making me understand why singers like Billy Joel – a guy who I’ve been told about a million times that I resemble although I don’t really get it – get girls like Christie Brinkley).

The Boss – The River, Born to Run. No explanation necessary, I would hope. I will also be bringing The Rising, because I always have it with me, like a musical ‘in case of emergency, break glass’ kind of thing.

Rolling Stones – Tattoo You, Forty Licks. Tattoo was a huge hit when I was in my late teens, and Licks is a nice compilation. I’m pretty sure that ‘Beast of Burden’ is the coolest – in the true sense of the word - song ever.

Grateful Dead – Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty. It always seems to me that these albums are the opposite sides of the same coin, and are great to sing along to. I’ll also probably bring the Jerry Garcia Band live CD’s from the early 90’s just to hear Jerry’s guitar work at its finest.

Patty Griffin – Living With Ghosts, The Impossible Dream. I don’t know what to say about her that I’ve not said before. Great driving music with great lyrics and more heart than any other living human. I’d marry this woman if I had the chance.

I have another CD that I burned with some great 70s songs by Pablo Cruise, Gerry Rafferty, Firefall, etc.

James Taylor – Greatest Hits. I love to sing along to JT, and on a road trip I can pass the time for hours singing his stuff (say nice things about me, ‘cause I’m gone south y’all, go on and carry on without me).

Jackson Browne – Running on Empty, Late for the Sky. The former for the drive there and the latter for the trip home (see above: melancholy). Like the aforementioned Minute by Minute, Late for the Sky is one of my all time favorite albums, and the lyrics to the song 'The Road and the Sky' is from where this blog gets its title.

And finally, I’m pretty sure that by the time it’s all said and done Tom Petty, John Cougar (for that is what he was called in 1981), ELO, Boston, Little River Band, and The Cars may find their way into the mix.

And there you have it. I’m sure I’ve forgotten something – any suggestions??

THE ROAD AND THE SKY
When we come to place where the road and the sky collide
Throw me over the edge and let my spirit glide
They told me I was going to have to work for a living
But all I want to do is ride
I don't care where we're going from here
Honey, you decide

Well I spend my time at the bottom of a wishing well
And I can hear my dreams singing clear as a bell
I used to know where they ended and the world began
But now it's getting hard to tell
I could be just around the corner from Heaven or a mile from Hell

I'm just rolling away from yesterday
Behind a wheel of a stolen Chevrolet
I'm going to get a little higher
And see if I can hotwire reality

Now can you see those dark clouds gathering up ahead?
They're going to wash this planet clean like the Bible said
Now you can hold on steady and try to be ready
But everybody's gonna get wet
Don't think it won't happen just because it hasn't happened yet

I'm just rolling away from yesterday
Behind the wheel of a stolen Chevrolet
I'm going to get a little higher
And see if I can hotwire reality

Why is hell is today a holiday?

2006-10-09T09:33:00.000-04:00

If the richest guy in the country, in our case Bill Gates, bought me a few ships so that I could discover a new land, let’s say Norway (which by the way isn’t ‘new’, has been inhabited forever, and ‘discovered’ many times over), and my buddies and I sailed across the Atlantic and actually landed in Portugal (thinking it was Norway) and began calling the Portuguese people Norwegians, and then raped, robbed, and slaughtered just about everyone we saw, four hundred years from now the Portuguese, via parades and no postal service, would be celebrating Hotwire Day.

Coach a kid, you'll be glad you did

2006-10-05T06:34:00.000-04:00

I believe that in the past I’ve mentioned that I coach my kids’ sports teams. Actually, I began my coaching ‘career’ with my younger brother’s baseball team when I was in college, and coached baseball at the high school and middle school level before I had my own kids. Now that my guys play (well, Boona has retired and is now involved in art and music so I get to work with him on those endeavors) I have been coaching youth t-ball and baseball, basketball, and soccer for about six years.

Now, I have to say that my two favorite times of the week are The Bear’s soccer practice and soccer game – so much so that I have a bit of an emotional letdown when it’s over for the week.

The other day my buddy, Rich (the guy I coach baseball and soccer with, as our son’s are classmates and best friends), and I received a great compliment from a parent: “You guys know, don’t you, that everyone wants to be on your team? Everyone thinks you are the best coaches in the league.” At the risk of sounding conceited, this was not new information – but wonderful to hear nonetheless.

In that we work hard to make sure soccer (and in their seasons, baseball and basketball) is a lot of fun and that they learn the game, this comment made our day. From what I can see some coaches do the former, and some do the latter, but not many can get a good combination of the two.

Rule #1 is to make it fun.

In our town our soccer league has adopted a World Cup theme, and we are Jamaica. This means that practices and pre-game warm-ups are done to the accompaniment of Bob Marley and the Wailers (and the boys now know all the lyrics to ‘Jammin”). Huddles are broken by saying “1-2-3-Jamaica, mon!!” We make the parents stay for practices and encourage them to bring grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, to the games so we have a huge cheering section. We laugh the whole time.

Rule #2 is to teach them the game.

I’m not certain what the other teams do during practice, but it doesn’t appear that they are doing much teaching. Our practices have no down time and are a combination of little games ‘like red light green light’ and ‘snakes in the river’ and relay races that teach proper soccer skills, as well as scrimmages that put the new-found skills into practical use.

If you’ve ever seen a U7 soccer game it is what many people call ‘bunch ball’ since it’s usually 8 kids following a ball around in a big mass of kindergarten and first grade flesh. Not on Team Jamaica – we coach them to stay in their passing lanes so that there is always someone to pass to. We teach them plays to run off of corner kicks and throw-ins. We teach them to play aggressive defense and to go after the ball and not to wait until the opposing player to come to them.

Rule #3 is to work with them as if they were 2 years older than they are.

I adhere to this regardless of the age group I’m coaching. You really need to give kids more credit than you think they might deserve. At the beginning of this season we let the parents know that the kids will be taken to another level and will learn things that are usually saved until they get to the U9 leagues.

Rule #4 is to keep the league needs to keep score.

Like most youth leagues, we don’t keep score. This is stupid since the kids (and the parents) know exactly what it is at all times. Although I am adamant about Rule #1, I think that if the score were kept it would force the other coaches to actually teach the game. Plus, I think it turns kids in to wussies.

Where does this get us? It gets us to a point where midway through the season the kids are playing great, the parents are happy (and usually laugh throughout the entire game or practice, a lot of it due to my ongoing banter which is said to the boys but meant for the parents), we score goals off of pre-designed plays, and have Dominated (yes, with a capital D) ever game.

Is there a downside? Yes, I often feel bad for the kids on the other teams. Prior to the first game the other team’s coach came up and introduced himself.

Me: So, how does your team look?
Him: I don’t know.
Me: Huh?
Him: We’ve only had one practice.
Me: What?
Him: Why, how many have you had?
Me: Six.
Him: Six? How’d you do that?
Me: Well, I got my roster three weeks ago and have practiced twice a week since then.
Him: Oh.
(I was furious at this point – he is doing his kids a grave disservice)

At halftime, with Jamaica kicking their butts, the following conversation ensued:

Him: Your guys are pretty good.
Me: Yes, they work very hard.
Him: Do you think that you can call them off a bit in the second half?
Me: ‘Call them off’?
Him: Yeah. My kids are kind of discouraged.
Me: So you want me to take what I taught them during our practices and now tell them not to do it?
Him: Yes.
Me: No.

We did, however, have our kids begin each possession all the way at the end of the field and not at midfield. Didn’t matter, though. It just meant that they had to run an extra 20 yards before scoring. We also offered to have some combined practices, an offer that was declined. Oh well, we’ll see how much his team has improved when we face them again on the last day of the season.

I hope, for the kids’ sake, they’ve had a few practices. Until then:

“Don’t worry, ‘bout a thing, ‘cuz every little thing, gonna be alright”

Hotwire 101: 51 thru 55 (plus a recap)

2006-10-02T06:37:00.000-04:00

51. Every night before I go to bed I sneak in my boys’ bedrooms and kiss them. I will do this for as long as they are under my roof - or as long as they go to bed before me.
52. If I had it to do all over again I would be an artist or a teacher (see #33).
53. When people are expecting a baby and I ask your preference as to what gender you’d like it to be don’t tell me you’d just like a healthy baby – I could have figured that one out myself. I asked for gender preference. An yes, you do have one.
54. I have won a prize in 25% of the art shows I’ve entered (and I hope this doesn’t jinx me).
55. One of my favorite quotes is, “Don’t make your problem my problem.” Another is, “Be a fountain, not a drain.” (my kids hear that one a lot…) And another is, “Art is made by the alone for the alone.”

And since this has been dragging a while, so I thought I'd recap the first 50:

1. I would like to meet Jesus. The real guy, not the myth that has been forced upon us our entire lives.
2. I despise small talk. Please don’t come up to me and open with, “I hear that we’re supposed to get a lot of rain/sunshine/snow/hail/sleet/frogs this weekend.” There are far too many things of substance that we can discuss, so if you aren’t up to the challenge, keep it zipped.
3. If you don’t really want my opinion on a topic, don’t ask. If you do, be prepared, as it often comes with both barrels.
4. I have two boys. One looks like me and one looks like his mother.
5. I can not understand why the leader of the free world is elected almost solely on their stance on abortion. I can think of about 100 things that are more important for the president to worry about. This is not a federal issue; it is a moral and social one.
6. Too many people have too short a memory, therefore the footage from September 11, 2001 should be shown on TV every morning (like what used to happen with playing the National Anthem at the end of the broadcast day).
7. I am an awesome speller.
8. When I attend a sporting event I rarely make noise, yet when I’m watching it in my living room I yell at the TV.
9. I am annoyed by ‘corporate speak’. You know, asinine sayings like: “at the end of the day”, “oh, by the way”, “circle back”, “why don’t you go ahead and…” etc.
10. I prefer to go to the movies alone. It’s not a social event, there is no fellowship involved, so why do you need to go with another person?
11. I don’t know how to teach someone to blow their nose.
12. This is one of my favorite numbers and was my football and baseball number.
13. I don’t care what you say, if you’re a guy, farting is funny. Period.
14. I was the MVP of the Southington (CT) Southern Little League in 1975. It was all downhill from there…
15. If you can buy it over the weekend in the Marriott ballroom for $19.95 you may be able to refer to it as a painting, but you cannot refer to it as art.
16. I feel bad for people who take themselves, or their jobs, too seriously.
17. There is rarely a day that goes by where I don’t miss opening the newspaper to read “Calvin & Hobbes”.
18. Although not their target audience, I think that Eminem and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” are pure genius.
19. I only dream after I’ve taken Nyquil (and then they are acid flashback-like dreams).
20. In the past I’ve seen Jimmy Buffett 56 times in eight different states, but wouldn’t go now even if you gave me a free ticket.
21. This is my other favorite number, because of the great Roberto Clemente. If you never saw him play, and you're a baseball fan, you truly missed out. No one has ever played the game with his grace. You can actually place thoughts of his death into #25 on this list, and I still remember my dad sitting me down on New Year's Day 1973 to tell me the news.
22. The best teacher I ever had was Kurt Bittle, art teacher at Bel Air (MD) High School. I have a link to his work in my ‘Great Art Stuff’ area.
23. I won’t lie to kids about the world; however I will try to soften the blow.
24. I’m jealous of people with daughters because I’ve never lived in a house with a little girl. I have three sisters but did not live with them growing up.
25. I have been known to tear up over the following things: our church’s annual Nativity pageant, MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech and Jim Valvano’s ESPY speech, the songs “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin (‘to be a rock and not to roll’) and “Kite Song” by Patty Griffin, the movie “Rudy” (which my 6 year old watches multiple times per week) and the book “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer.
26. I am a good Karaoke singer and have won a few contests. Three words: Mack.The.Knife. I am anxiously awaiting American Idol for people beyond their 20’s (or 30’s for that matter…).
27. The friends I made in high school are still the best (with the addition of B.B. from college!). Although I speak to them infrequently, and see them even less, they are with me daily.
28. I have been to every one of my high school reunions (4 if you’re counting, and number 5 is in October ’06).
29. I have lived in six states. I miss Maryland every day of my life and am also drawn to Plantsville, CT like it’s Mecca.
30. I begin every New Year by listening to Jackson Browne’s “Late for the Sky” album.
31. I love coaching kids’ sports – especially kids who are really into it because they hang on your every word and do things exactly like to teach them.
32. I am tough on my kids. Not because I expect perfection but because I detest apathy and mediocrity. Although they fight me on it, I can tell by their follow-up comments that they appreciate it.
33. I will not tell my kids what they can or can not be when they grow up.
34. I have no use for racism, homophobia, etc. Put on your white hood and talk to someone else and stop wasting my f*cking time.
35. I love getting my hair cut.
36. I detest poor management and/or leadership. I suck at a lot of things but am a great leader and have had people follow me from company to company to work for me.
37. Although I enjoy the company of others, I am, for the most part, a loner.
38. I can not write in cursive anymore. However, my printing often gets compliments.
39. I would make a kick-ass President of the United States. Best of the Right and Left all rolled into one (and I can form a complete and coherent sentence...)
40. I will tell you what I think of your opinion. Politely if I agree and condescendingly if I think you are an idiot.
41. I would rather encourage you to do better in the future than to congratulate you on what you’ve done in the past.
42. During a locust storm I once ate one of the little buggers at a Baltimore Orioles baseball game. I made $14 for doing so. Beer was involved.
43. I love to debate religion and politics. I suppose this makes me a bad dinner guest by most but a good one for people like me.
44. Don’t debate a topic unless you are fluent on both sides of the issue. I can’t waste my time on your narrow world view. Do some homework first.
45. In 1982 I heard Little Feat’s “Waiting for Columbus” album (not CD – album) and the world has not been the same since.
46. Like many people who used to be little boys, I wish I were a superhero, and therefore I love the movie “Unbreakable”.
47. If I could be anywhere else right now it would be Walt Disney World. Second would be Fenway Park or a Little Feat concert.
48. I am mostly Cherokee and part Irish. The other parts I don’t know about, but I suspect German.
49. I was adopted, and for the first few months of my life I lived in a home (aka: orphanage) and was drugged to get me to shut up, as were the other babies).
50. When I was born I had a different name than I do now: William Page Proffitt.

Working on mysteries without any clues

2006-09-26T07:40:00.000-04:00

It was music that had first attracted them to each other.

With his friends, the barrage of back in black and running with the devil and flirtin’ with disaster and more than a feeling was non-stop. In the quieter moments, alone in his room with the headset tethering him to the avocado green stereo by a twisted twelve foot cord or cruising in the Duster with its soon-to-be antiquated 8-track system, it was more along the lines of shower the people and so into you and minute by minute. It was this side of him that she liked.

They’d been at the same party. He was deep into the debate – he probably started it - and she was orbiting the cluster of the half dozen people involved in the post-adolescent, National Bohemian six pack greased discussion centered on all things musical. Best vocalist: Perry, Roth, Daltry. Best lead guitarist: Van Halen, Hendrix, Gilmour. Best drummer: Moon, Peart, Watts. Best bassist: Entwistle (uncontested). Best studio album, live album, album cover, rock song, concert, and radio station.

He spoke with his hands, with pull-tabs from his empties slid onto the little finger of his drinking hand and waving the black and orange can to emphasize the fact that they would never hear anything better than “Stairway to Heaven”. Twenty years later he’d continue to make the same case.

The person piloting the turntable switched gears and the mood of the fluorescent lit, wood paneled basement room moved from way up there to way down here. I was time to migrate from Van Halen to Boz Scaggs.

The conversation moved to best slow songs. ‘Mellow’ was the word they used. Perched on the arm of a tweed-covered easy chair he extolled the virtues of James Taylor’s voice and Jackson Browne’s lyrics. It was from that point she was hooked.

The lights were dimmed and candles lit to match the mood of the tunes, changing the color of the paneling from chocolate to honey. Amidst the flickering light the pairing off began and the party became the beginning of a slow dance marathon. His friends were swaying with their dates or with girls they’d been silently stalking since the school year began last month - he had neither. Alone with his beer and trying to find another solo act on which to latch, she came from behind him, slid his hand from his back pocket, and led him to the makeshift dance floor which was actually the shag carpeted space between the sectional couch and the combination console television set and hi-fi system.

His heart rate increased and the sweat of his palms mixed with the condensation of the beer can that he gently placed on a macramé coaster. When he stood and turned she was directly in front of him. They inched toward each other, first their thighs met, and then just above – causing her to smile, or something like it - and finally as she put her arms around his neck and pulled him in she softly rubbed her breasts against him. Their noses, then foreheads, were last to meet, just as their eyes closed and his thumbs hooked into her back belt loops.

He’d like to remember the song that was playing, or whether it was a Friday or a Saturday night, but he can’t. She could, and would often help him with his memory. The memory of that first physical contact had pushed the rest of it out of his head, not that there wasn’t room, but because he knew that he had to keep that in and he couldn’t face losing it:

The motion of the thighs (the metronome of one rubbing up while the other down) and the hips (and the pressure against the inside of the Levi’s) and the breasts (her gentle swirling motion pressed her sweater along his and surprising him that they felt bigger than they looked) and finally the lips and tongue (soft and smooth, and tasting of a cross between Crest and strawberry lip gloss).

She could have the day of the week and the title of the song, for those were not essential; he needed the others, for they are the ones he still searches for when he closes his eyes.

I was a little too tall
Could've used a few pounds
Tight pants points hardly reknown
She was a black haired beauty with big dark eyes
And points all her own sitting way up high
Way up firm and high

Out past the cornfields where the woods got heavy
Out in the back seat of my '60 Chevy
Workin' on mysteries without any clues
Workin' on our night moves
Trying' to make some front page drive-in news
Workin' on our night moves in the summertime
In the sweet summertime

Workin' on our night moves
Trying to lose the awkward teenage blues
Workin' on our night moves
In the summertime (Sweet summertime, summertime)
And oh the wonder
Felt the lightning
And we waited on the thunder
Waited on the thunder

I woke last night to the sound of thunder
How far off I sat and wondered
Started humming a song from 1962
Ain't it funny how the night moves
When you just don't seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves
With autumn closing in

In which Hotwire feels sorry for himself

2006-09-23T06:52:00.000-04:00

Hartford, Connecticut is a little tiny city (so small that I’m confident Newark, Delaware could kick its ass in a war) that has no soul. There are no major sports here – unless you consider UConn hoops, Hartford is not known for any type of food – like Philadelphia has its cheesesteak, it is not known for a particular type of music - like New Orleans and its jazz (which has survived despite the best attempt of Ray Nagin to eliminate the city of its inhabitants). When your only claim to fame is that you are the ‘insurance capital of the world’ you can all but hear the big collective yawn.

It’s not that Hartford doesn’t try, however. Since I love art and drawing is one of my hobbies, I like to attend a monthly gathering known as the “Creative Cocktail Hour” at a local art gallery/indie movie theater. Among the pink hair and dreadlocks, the multiple piercings and body art, the cross dressers and those with other alternative lifestyles, I often think that I stand out since I dress like what would occur if Ralph Lauren f*cked both Abercrombie and Fitch. In other words, I look like I’d have fit in nicely with the preppy clique on ‘Square Pegs’. Outside of this happy hour they stand out, but inside I am the oddball. Anyway I enjoy the vibe of the evening and there is usually some good music and on occasion, good art. And if it’s not to my liking, it is at least thought provoking, which is what art should be (technique + the ability to bend your mind = art).

This time, no such luck.

This image (I’m not sure that outside of The Bear’s first grade class I can call this a drawing) is an example of what we were subjected to this month. About 100 of them. And the artist, some dude named Ken Morgan, apparently thinks their worth is $450 a pop. Now, regardless of technique or content of the piece, there are usually people in any art crowd who will enjoy the work, sometimes it’s most of the crowd and sometimes it’s a few people, but there is always someone who ‘gets it’. And in the odd case that very few, if any, enjoy the exhibit, the art community is usually pretty good at faking it. Not with this display – there was a sea of people smirking and laughing and saying out loud what I was saying in my head:

This hack gets a show at a very prestigious gallery (albeit in a small and virtually lifeless city, but prestigious for us) while we are resigned to exhibiting at places like this and this where our stuff hangs along side of your grandmother’s vase of flowers or your uncle Earl’s bowl of fruit. He gets federal grants to fund his work and purchase his supplies, which from what we can see are bought at Office Max, while we have to shell out our own hard-earned non-taxpayer dough for our trips to Dick Blick to buy our paints and pens and paper and canvas.

Sorry, no point to this other than me being jealous.

Hotwire 101: 46 thru 50

2006-09-20T06:23:00.000-04:00

...and on, and on, and on...

46. Like many people who used to be little boys, I wish I were a superhero, and therefore I love the movie “Unbreakable”.
47. If I could be anywhere else right now it would be Walt Disney World. Second would be Fenway Park or a Little Feat concert.
48. I am mostly Cherokee and part Irish. The other parts I don’t know about, but I suspect German.
49. I was adopted, and for the first few months of my life I lived in a home (aka: orphanage) and was drugged to get me to shut up, as were the other babies).
50. When I was born I had a different name than I do now: William Page Proffitt.

Here come those tears again

2006-09-18T06:27:00.000-04:00

He doesn’t recall how they’d actually met, Sunday school or second grade or summers at the swim club – all he remembered was that she had always been there. From play dates to puppy love it seemed as if she was always as close as an arm’s length or a phone call.

Plaid pleated jumpers with knee socks and Toughskins and flannel shirts they would accompany each other to the roller rink and junior high dances. His mom would drop them off and hers would collect them after the last dance or the final skate. In the backseat of the Fairlane, skates lashed together and strewn on the floor of the car, he’d slide his leg across the vinyl seat to make contact with her bare knee. He wouldn’t look at her but he knew she was looking at him, bringing a small smile to the side of his face that was facing away from her and towards the window and the lights of the town just outside the glass.

Eventually he pulled away. No one thought it would last, yet no one ever considered it would go away - it was just kind of assumed. But in a world where he blossomed and she stayed the same it was inevitable. Her plaids, knee socks, and mary janes lingered while he graduated to Levi’s and Puma and Izod. It wasn’t ugly, he wasn’t mean, he just moved toward the spotlight while she remained in the background where the two of them had been comfortable for so long. He didn’t take her with him.

It was the type of hollow recognition that most kids crave. Not the type that comes from academic scholarships and perfect SATs, but the type that comes from blue eyes, deep dimples, and the ability to catch a football while avoiding a tackle. When he left her for the lunch table in the middle of the cafeteria it damaged her.

The dent is still there.

By the time they showed up – the caravan of he and his girlfriend and the rest of the offensive backfield - the party was already in full swing. The post game meeting and shower gave the rest of the student body a head start to his buddy Kevin’s house. With parents in Bermuda and a keg in the bathtub it would be a long night. With Bobby as the bathroom bartender and Kevin manning the turntable they enjoyed a plastic cup of beer to side one of Styx’s ‘Grand Illusion’ and another to side two of the Doobies’ ‘Minute by Minute’. The tunes bounced off the walls and what seemed like the entire senior class was bouncing elbow-to-elbow in ranch-style house, the blessed mother vibrating in her frame over the fireplace. With the rim of his beer cup between his teeth and using his quarterback’s shoulder for leverage and his girlfriend’s hand for balance, he stood on a dining room chair in order to get a bird’s eye view of the chaos.

She was across the room, between the picture window and front door, and under the rosary. He hadn’t noticed that the music had stopped, because it hadn’t for everyone, only for him. He gazed at her and saw beyond the braces and glasses and noticed what he’d seen in that car ten years before. He waited for a minute that seemed like longer and she finally looked up from her conversation with a boy he didn’t know. Just as quickly as she looked up with half a smile, she looked back away. A nice moment, but only a moment, and he supposed he deserved its brevity.

He went back to beers and music and bullshit stories about that night’s game - inflated estimates of rushing yards and solo tackles - and as the music moved from Foghat to Jackson Browne the crowd began to thin. His caravan was ready to roll; they had to work the chains at the JV game in the morning. They began to make their way to the kitchen door, which was the acceptable means of entry and exit for Kevin’s close friends (in a dozen years, other than at parties he’d never actually seen the front door used), when he heard the shriek and then the smack.

She had already begin to cry, with one of the asshole’s hands holding the cheek that she had slapped and the other still holding her breast, he dropped his cup and was off. She began to cower in anticipation of the oncoming return blow, but before the dick could backhand her full contact was made. If it were a game he’d be flagged for a clip, but this wasn’t a game. He drove the boy’s head into the plaster of the wall and he caught him before he fell. With both hands grasping the front of the boy’s shirt he slammed his head against the wall. Again. Again. Again.

After his buddies pulled him away, someone got a dishtowel to soak the blood up from the back of the asshole’s head. He doesn’t remember exactly what he yelled, just that it was a threat. He’d kill him if he fucked with her again. Trust me.

Through her tears he saw it, the other half of the earlier smile.

And whenever he’s back in town and visits Kevin’s parents he always looks for it, inconspicuously. Across the room, between the picture window and front door, and under the rosary.

The dent is still there.

Here come those tears again
Just when I was getting over you
Just when I was going to make it through
Another night without missing you
Thinking I might just be strong enough after all
When I hear your footsteps echoing in the hall
Baby here we stand again
Like we've been so many times before
Even though you looked so sure
As I was watching you walking out my door
But you always walk back in like you did today
Acting like you never even went away
Well I don't know if I can
Open up and let you in baby
Here come those tears
Here come those tears again
--Jackson Browne

The Portman Situation

2006-09-16T06:11:00.000-04:00

The Jocular Schlemiel over at 'Eat Like a Mensch' has decided to bring our fight over Natalie Portman to a boil. In the past there have been little digs here and little barbs there, but now he has, perfectly, scored the outcome.

In my defense I have to say that if his scoring system was weighted, the fact that he lives at home would give me the decided advantage (that, and my overall charm and good looks...):

Jocular: Mom, we're home
Jocular's Mom: Oh, hi honey, you two are just in time - dinner is almost ready
Natalie Portman: Hello Mrs. Schlemiel, you have a lovely home
Jocular's Mom: Oh, thank you Natalie
Natalie Portman: I especially like your plastic slipcovers
Jocular's Mom: Oh, you are too sweet. Natalie, what do you do for a living?
Jocular: Mom!!
Jocular's Mom: What, I can't ask what she does for work
Jocular: Mom, she's a huge movie star!!
Jocular's Mom: Natalie, have you been in any famous movies? And Jocular, can you set the table for me, and then after we eat you and Natalie can go and play with your Star Wars dolls

Career limiting move

2006-09-14T06:16:00.000-04:00

At work, during our weekly sales meetings, we discuss the various customer meetings that we’ve had during the week. Last week one of my co-workers (note: in this spot most people would have used the work ‘colleague’, however to me, unless you are discussing the people that assist you in curing cancer or are aiding you in bringing and end to world hunger, the use of this word might make you sound a bit too self important – just another inane pet peeve brought to you courtesy of Hotwire Reality) anyway, as I was saying, one of my co-workers was discussing a meeting that he had at Sun Microsystems.

As the meeting was coming to a close, this was a conversation that was had by a few people:

Co-worker 1: So, the meeting at Sun went well?
Co-worker 2: Yeah, money will be an issue but overall it went OK.
Co-worker 1: Did you ever here the story about their CEO?
Co-worker 3: No, what’s the story?
Co-worker 1: Well, he didn’t like how his life was going so he made a list of the 100 things that he’d like to do before he died.
Co-worker 2: What kinds of things were on the list?
Co-worker 1: He wanted to travel, spend more time with his kids, he wanted to lose a bunch of weight, he wanted to run a marathon, and he did all of them in a really quick period of time.
Co-worker 3: What was number one on the list?
Co-worker 1: He wanted to become a millionaire.
Hotwire: Crap.
Co-worker 2: Dude, what’s wrong?
Hotwire: Apparently I’m going about things all wrong.
Co-worker 3: Why do you say that?
Hotwire: Because that guy has a better list than me.
Co-worker 1: Do you want to be a millionaire? What are the things that are on your list?
Hotwire: Well, the number one thing on my list has something to do with Natalie Portman…

For Christine Lee Hanson

2006-09-11T06:31:00.000-04:00

While on a conference call his cell phone rings. He sees on the display that it’s his friend, and the best sales rep in his region, Bryan. Since it was a little before 9:00 AM and the conference call would be wrapping up at the top of the hour, he let the call go to voice mail and would call Bryan back after he took a leak and refilled his coffee mug.

The conference call, the necessary evil of a home-based regional manager, wrapped up and two at a time he took the steps that led from his basement office to the first floor kitchen. As he ripped open the blue sweetener packet and poured it into his coffee he looked out at the view of the Indian Valley – miles of Pennsylvania woods and Mennonite farmland - that had, in recent years, begun to be developed. The leaves giving only a slight hint of the color that would soon adorn the valley and the only thing even resembling a cloud in the sky was the vapor trail of a jet heading west.

“I saw you called, what’s up?”
“Are you watching TV?” Bryan’s voice sounded strained.
“No, I was on a call. What the hell are you doing watching TV. Don’t you have any customers to bother?”
“Seriously, dude. Turn on the TV.”
“Why?”
“A plane just hit one of the World Trade towers”
“Holy shit. That’s some crappy driving. It’s not like they’re not big enough to see.” He recalled the sales meetings that he had attended in the south tower the week before.
“They think it wasn’t an accident.”
He paused to think for a moment.
“I’ll put on the TV and call you back in a bit.”

And there it was. By this time both building were in flames. He flipped from one news channel to the next, trying to triangulate the stories and get to the truth as quickly as possible. People running. Covered in soot. Sirens and flashing lights. Footage of the direct hits. Over and over and over. A jetliner into one side of the building and fire and debris out the other.

“Bryan, it’s me.”
“Did you see it? It’s pretty fucked up.”
“Amen to that, brother.” He was pacing from one end of the den to the other, but never losing eye contact with the TV screen. No way could he sit still.
“Did you hear who did it? They said that it was terrorists from the Middle East.”
“No fucking surprise. I was just thinking something.”
“What?”
“They’re going to have to take the towers down.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they can’t leave them like this.” And as the words were floating out of his mouth and swirling around his head, the first tower fell. “Hey Bryan, forget what I just said. It’s already taken care of.”

More footage, interviews of people speculating – no real facts yet. Footage of Middle Easterners cheering and burning the American flags. Fuck them. Fuck them all. He’d like to take that burning flag and shove it us their collective ass.

He got his American flag from the garage and put it where the decorative flag of Pooh and Piglet jumping in Fall leaves had been. Come burn this, motherfuckers.

Glued to the TV he called to make sure his Manhattan based sales reps were OK. Everyone accounted for. The one who lived in The Village would leave that day and never return – he never heard from him again.

Later he had to pick up the kids from day care. He asked the teachers – the wonderful young ladies who cared for his boys (the oldest was 4 and the baby was 18 months) during the day - if the kids were told what had happened. No, they weren’t. He passed the other parents in the parking lot. No words, but none really needed to be said – the bowed head looks were enough. Daddy, what’s wrong. Nothing buddy, let’s go home and I’ll make dinner.

Kitchen TV on, sound low, kids in the family room helping Blue find some clues. Baths and to bed early. He had to get back to the news, the 55-inch screen so big that he could make out the figures jumping from the buildings. Fuck.

Reports that the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building were next. Please God, no. Not them. The Towers were bad enough, but these were older and even more iconic than they.

“Mom, I need you to come watch the kids.”
“Why, is everything OK?”
“No, everything is obviously not OK!” Fuck, doesn’t she have a TV? “Mom, I have to go.”
“Go where, honey?”
“To the city.”
“Philadelphia?”
“No, Manhattan. I have to go help.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Mom, I can’t stay here! I have to do something! I have to help them dig!”
“Honey, they won’t let you in. The police are stopping everyone.”
At this point the anger was so intense that he had trouble breathing.
“Do you want us to come anyway? To keep you company?”
If they came he could sneak out when everyone was asleep. He could be to Hoboken in 90 minutes. Shit, he could swim over if he had to.
“Daddy, why are you yelling?” Stuffed dog in one hand and blanket in the other. Teletubby pajamas (Fuck Jerry Falwell, too).
“Mom, I gotta go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

In the same clothes he been in all day, khaki shorts and a Philadelphia Eagles golf shirt, he sat on the couch and covered himself with a blanket. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, turn off the TV. He was unable to determine where the line separating hallucination from sleep was. Scary shit running through his head: Invasions of southeastern Pennsylvania: by terrorists and Nazis and UFOs. These dreams – or were they – would continue for quite some time.

In the morning the news scrolled the names - and ages - of the victims, or as many as they new. Since he knew people, customers, in the buildings he got right in front of the screen and read name by name by name, but recognized none of them. Then they listed the airline passengers. He had flown through Logan Airport only a few days before. No names caught his eye, but one age did: 2.

Was this her first flight? A lot of kids like the window seat – did her parents, also on the flight, oblige? If so, what did she see out the window, other than the crystalline blue sky with the Atlantic glimmering in the distance to the east? Did she see the Towers coming at her? Was she confused? Scared? Was she crying? Did she feel the impact?

And this is what he thinks of every day: a little girl hitting a building at over 500 miles per hour. Five years later it won’t go away. In the car, in the shower, before he falls asleep. Medication wouldn’t take it away – actually made it worse - so he gave up the meds. A little girl, on a plane and smiling, one minute and gone the next.

That day took part of his mind, and with it went his career, his relationships, and his outgoing personality. Maybe one day he’ll get them back – he has the chance. She, however, does not.

Fuck them. Fuck them all.

Hotwire 101: 41 thru 45

2006-09-07T07:23:00.000-04:00

This might be getting a wee bit tedious, but here we go...

41. I would rather encourage you to do better in the future than to congratulate you on what you've done in the past.
42. During a locust storm I once ate one of the little buggers at a Baltimore Orioles baseball game. I made $14 for doing so. Beer was involved.
43. I love to debate religion and politics. I suppose this makes me a bad dinner guest by most but a good one for people like me.
44. Don’t debate a topic unless you are fluent on both sides of the issue. I can’t waste my time on your narrow world view. Do some homework first.
45. In 1982 I heard Little Feat’s “Waiting for Columbus” album (not CD – album) and, musically, the world has not been the same since.

Movie Review: "Invincible" - another great Philadelphia movie

2006-09-04T14:27:00.000-04:00

I’ve often said that if you took me from my home blindfolded, didn’t tell me where we were going, and drove – unbeknownst to me - to Philadelphia, and dropped me off anywhere in that city, once I took off the blindfold I would immediately know where I was. The city of Philadelphia has such a strong personality and such a unique look and feel, that it lives and breathes on its own. Some days I miss my former home so much that it hurts – this is one of those days.

If you blindfolded me, took me to a movie theater, and showed me the opening montage of “Invincible” I could tell you that the movie took place in the City of Brotherly Love. That’s how right the director got it.

This movie, about a South Philly bartender named Vince Papale who, via an open tryout by newly named head coach Dick Vermiel, made the 1976 Philadelphia Eagles football team, is truly wonderful. Papale’s struggle and subsequent rise is mirrored on a larger scale by that of his (and my!) beloved ‘Iggles’, and on an even larger scale by the then-downtrodden city itself.

The film has a few central characters: Papale (played by Marky Mark Wahlberg) and Vermiel (Greg Kinnear), as well as the decade of the 1970s, the soundtrack, and the city itself.

Much like Stallone did with “Rocky”, in this movie South Philly (by the way, the only time I will use the term ‘Philly’ is when referring to cheese steaks, cream cheese, and the area south of Market Street) is a character unto itself: at times rough and raw, but always with more real heart and soul than almost anywhere else in the country. This personality is amplified by the ability to capture the mood of the city, and the country, in the seventies, and this mood was punctuated by one of the best soundtracks that I’ve heard since that of “Garden State” a couple of years ago.

With tracks by such bands as Firefall with “Just Remember I Love You”, Elvin Bishop with “Fooled Around and Fell in Love”, and Ace with “How Long”, the tone and mood is wonderfully set. And let me say this, there are not just a few song here and there; they are constant and continual throughout the movie (Steely Dan, BTO, Jim Croce, etc.) – memorable hit after memorable hit and a joy for someone who remembers when the songs were new. There was a kick-ass football montage backed by Ted Nugent’s “Stanglehold”. One of the most poignant moments in the movie showed an almost defeated Papale in a moment of reflection, haunted by Jackson Browne’s “These Days”.

For anyone who liked Disney’s recent sports and underdog themed films (“Remember the Titans”, “Miracle” and “Glory Road”) or is a fan of “Rudy” (like my son, Bear, who has to watch it at least three times each week…) this film will be enjoyed. At times you will laugh, cry, and find yourself wanting to leap out of your seat.

For a guy who loves the Eagles, loves the city, loves the decade and music of the 1970s, and remembers Papale’s three-year stint in the NFL, this movie was a joy to watch. And my boys were with me, which made all the difference.

Well I've been out walking
I don't do that much talking these days
These days
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
For you
And all the times I had the chance to

And I had a lover
It's so hard to risk another these days
These days
Now if I seem to be afraid
To live the life I have made in song
Well it's just that I've been losing so long
I'll keep on moving
Things are bound to be improving these days
These days

These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend
Don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them

The Golden Age of Entertainment, the TV show: disclaimer

2006-09-03T07:28:00.000-04:00

I know that a few of you commented on "Taxi" not making my list of important sitcoms in the 1970s. I'd like to explain why.

First of all, I was a GIANT fan of "Taxi" (and Andy K.) and felt that behind "M*A*S*H" was the best written show of the time.

My rationale, and perhaps in hindsight it was erroneous, was that since it only ran for 18 months during the seventies, and the lion's share was in the eighties (ie: "The Brady Bunch" a decade earlier), I consider it a show of the 1980s.

The Golden Age of Entertainment, the TV show

2006-08-31T07:26:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I discussed my opinion that the 1970s was the Golden Age of Entertainment, and gave my thoughts on the music of that decade. This time we’ll look at the television shows of the seventies.

Now, I have to start by saying that, at least to me, ‘Gold Age’ does not necessarily mean ‘best’, especially when you think of some of the shows that have come around in the past 10 years (‘Homicide: Life on the Streets’, ‘Seinfeld’, ‘Lost’, etc.). What I’m getting at is that the TV that we saw in the seventies was unlike anything we’d seen before, and got the ball rolling for what we see now. Some examples: could we have had ‘Will & Grace’ without first having Jack Tripper and “Three’s Company’ or would anyone have thought to make ‘That 70s Show’ if “Happy Days’ had not been so popular? Also, let’s not forget to throw nostalgia into the picture, as I’m often wont to do.

I’d like to break this down into a few different genres, and here we go.

KIDS
We have a lot of great and well thought out children’s programming, but I don’t think that anyone would argue the importance and quality of ‘Sesame Street’ and ‘Electric Company’ (of which I recall watching the first ever episodes). Mornings started with ‘Captain Kangaroo’ and his buddies Mr. Green Jeans, Bunny Rabbit and Mr. Moose – and all of those ping-pong balls! We continued through the day with “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and ‘Zoom’.

VARIETY
I’m not sure why we can’t resurrect the variety show, especially to replace crap like ‘Survivor’ and ‘The Real World’ and ‘Big Brother’. These shows were wonderful and were a showcase of all types of talent. First of all, the hosts were great entertainers and you probably remember them all: Sonny and Cher, Donny and Marie, Flip Wilson, Mac Davis, etc. These shows had lavish (or by today’s standards, garish) sets, the hosts were beautifully dressed in anything from velour suits to ruffled shirted tuxedos and long flowing gowns (as if being on TV was an honor, unlike the dress of many of today’s so-called stars who feel that being on TV is something you do in whatever you slept in the night before), and they sang into stylish white microphones where playing with the cord was made an art form by Cher. The musical numbers were larger than life and the skits were funny in an innocent and corny kind of way. Guests were able to showcase their talent and seemed to make the rounds from show to show to show (otherwise, how would we get our fill of Rich Little?). Some of the characters that these folks did were unforgettable, and my favorite was Flip Wilson’s Geraldine. Continuing with the comedy theme, SNL got its start and has been going (some years better than others) and gave us far too much talent, spin off movies (and unfortunately, death) to mention here. One final mention to a show that did not get its start in the seventies, but seemed to be a big part of the decade: ‘The Lawrence Welk Show’. Again, phenomenal talent and wonderful costumes that played to the innocence of an earlier age. When these shows are replayed on PBS my kids are enthralled.

SPECIALS
The ‘special’ was a big part of 1970s TV. So big that some networks ran a little clip before the she began telling us that the following shoe would be a special. These shows were, for lack of a better word, and event, and actually earned the name ‘special’. Many times these were the variety-type shows mentioned above and were hosted by folks like John Denver, The Captain and Tenille, and who could forget the king of the special, Bob Hope. The other specials that I remember are the ones that came on around Christmas – I would be excited all day long for Frosty or Heat Miser or others to his the airwaves (after my bath and in my pajamas). Has a good Christmas special been made on the past 20 years?

SITCOM
The sitcom didn’t begin in the 1970s and certainly owes a lot to Lucy and Jackie Gleason, but they really seemed to hit their stride during this period. I’ve already mentioned ‘Happy Days’ which begat ‘Laverne & Shirley’ (and Lenny and Squiggy!) and ‘Mork & Mindy’. The last time I checked, this show was so important that the Fonz’s jacket is in the Smithsonian. As is ‘The Swamp’ from ‘M*A*S*H’, which may be the best written comedy show in history. ‘The Brady Bunch’ has been elevated to cult-like status and was as much a fabric of the decade (and beyond) of any other show and could actually be the topic of a post of its own. Other classics include ‘The Partridge Family’ and ‘Sanford and Son’ (I’m comin’ to join you, Elizabeth!) and “Welcome Back Kotter’ (“Up your nose with a rubber hose” and Horshak was a piss riot). Finally, the most important and groundbreaking sitcom of all time was “All in the Family” and it really set the country on its ear and took major strides in bringing race relations into the forefront (and begat ‘The Jeffersons’). Archie and Edith’s chairs are also housed in the Smithsonian.

Up next time: drama, talk shows, game shows, and Saturday morning cartoons.

Play that funky music, white boys

2006-08-25T17:47:00.000-04:00

What is being billed as the "Sugartooth" McDan tour stopped in Hartford last night, and in that I am a huge fan of both acts that make up the tour I was there (by myself – see Pog, it’s the loner thing again – I don’t need any non-believers stepping on my groove…)

First of all, it was a fantastic evening. Sunny and a bit cool it was a great night to sit on the lawn of the Meadows Music Theater – by the way, where are Al Gore and his global warming gestapo when it’s in the seventies, in August, for about 15 days in a row…? Just wondering, but I digress.
In a pre-concert phone call from my 6 year old son, I was asked, “Dad, is it sold out?” to which I replied, “No, Bear, there are some empty seats and spots on the lawn.” “WHAT!!! But Michael McDonald is AWESOME!!” Now that’s a great kid.

Michael McDonald - now with pure white hair replacing the dark mane he had in the heyday of the Doobie Brothers, and the full beard now shaved into a white goatee – opened his 70 minute set with a reworked funky-ass version of “It Keeps You Running” (originally on the 1976 album “Takin' It To The Streets”) as if it could get any funkier than the original. His keyboard work is among the most soulful in American pop music, and the growl-like timbre of his voice (oh, that voice!) is a perfect compliment to his compositions.

While he did a great job with the songs from his Motown albums (I doubt any other white man could do justice to a Holland-Dozier-Holland tune like he does) for me, he was at his best with the old Doobies numbers. Many people think he ruined the Doobies, but I am not part of that camp. His albums and songs with the group were, in my opinion the best, and that showed through when he performed tunes like Minute by Minute (Call my name and I'll be gone, You'll reach out and I won't be there, Just my luck you'll realize, You should spend your life with someone) and one of my all-time favorite songs, “Takin’ it to the Streets (which was inspired by a school paper written by his sister dealing with inner city blight) which he ripped through masterfully. I wish that today’s artists had half of his talent.

Song I’d have liked to hear: “Real Love”

Darlin', I know, I'm just another head on your pillow.
If only just tonight, girl, let me hear you lie just a little.
Tell me I'm the only man, that you ever really loved.
Honey take me back, deep in my memory, a time when it was all very right, so very nice.
So very nice, so very nice.

After a brief intermission, Steely Dan took the stage. I’ve always compared them to church – many attend but few understand. And not many people seem to ‘get’ them – maybe due to the confluence of pop, jazz, rock, and very esoteric lyrics.

First of all, Donald Fagen’s voice, as with McDonald, has not aged at all and still sounds as it did in the “Aja” days. The crowd was really into them from the moment they took the stage. There was a young lady – maybe early twenties – who decided to stand right in front of me. No problem, if anyone who was born after the band had already broken up comes to see the Dan, more power to them. She was grooving and dancing like so many Deadheads I’d witnessed in the days of Garcia, which was nice to see (for a few reasons) but she kind of lost me when she did a ‘jazz hands’ move during the jam in the middle of “Bodhisattva”…

Anyway, the guys looked pretty good, considering AARP has been hounding them, I’m sure. Becker looked like the guy who comes to fix my PC when I call tech support at work, and Fagen still has his wacky mannerisms (like a pale version of Ray Charles) and still looks like the business end of an Amber Alert. Very well dressed, though.

The dude that they had playing the Hammond B3 was like nothing I’ve heard since Greg Rollie’s Santana/Journey days. Completely amazing. One of the highlights of the set was the two backup singers, Victoria Cave (hot!) and Cindy Mizelle, took over the lead vocals on “Dirty Work”. I suppose that this was appropriate, since Fagen didn’t do the vocals on the studio version from 1072’s “Can’t Buy a Thrill” (David Palmer did) and they were fantastic as they traded lyrics back-and-forth.

The other highlight was “Hey 19”, as this is a fave from my high school days. Pure funk that let the sharp band show their chops, and Becker’s back-beat guitar work was great, and Fagen’s vocals, inflection, and mannerisms made the song complete. Also, the way Fagen vocally and physically acted out “Aja” was classic.

After the Dan’s set of just over an hour, McDonald joined them for a few more tunes, including singing background on “Peg” and the lead, as he had done live so many years ago, on “Do it Again” when he was a collaborator on the early Dan albums (after being introduced to Becker and Fagen by Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro).

Song I’d have liked to hear: “Bad Sneakers”

Bad sneakers and a Piña Colada
My friend
Stompin' on the avenue
By Radio City with a
Transistor and a large
Sum of money to spend

All in all, a great night, a great show.

Hotwire 101: 36 thru 40

2006-08-23T06:11:00.000-04:00

Since it seems I no longer have any original thoughts - or am too busy to let my mind wander - I will fall back on the list...

36. I detest poor management and/or leadership. I suck at a lot of things but am a great leader and have had people follow me from company to company to work for me.
37. Although I enjoy the company of others, I am, for the most part, a loner.
38. I can not write in cursive anymore. However, my printing often gets compliments.
39. I would make a kick-ass President of the United States. Best of the Right and Left all rolled into one (and I can form a complete and coherent sentence...)
40. I will tell you what I think of your opinion. Politely if I agree and condescendingly if I think you are an idiot.

Hey Manic Mom, don't challenge me

2006-08-17T06:18:00.000-04:00

Today's blog is courtesy of Manic Mom who got it from Ramblin' Rose. Manic decided that I wouldn't do this, so of course I had tp prove her wrong... Copy this and post it on your own blog if you want, inviting readers to participate as well...
1. WHAT TIME IS IT: 5:50 AM
2. NAME: Steve
3. PIERCINGS: Left ear, but it closed up long ago.
4. MOST RECENT MOVIE YOU HAVE SEEN AT THE CINEMA: World Trade Center
5. WHO DO YOU MISS: Friends from high school.
6. PLACE OF BIRTH: Wheeling, WV.
7. FAVORITE FOOD: calamari fra diavolo
8. BEEN TO AFRICA: No, but I’m sure it would be cool. But I have been to Animal Kingdom at Disney World.
9. EVER BEEN TOILET PAPERING: of course.
10. EVER LOVE SOMEONE SO MUCH IT MADE YOU CRY: Yes, my kids.
11. EVER BEEN IN A CAR ACCIDENT: Yes. I was in a fight (defending the honot of a fair maiden, I might add) and got a concussion and blacked out on my drive home and hit a parked car. Also, once when I was teaching a Sudanese man to drive and he hit a truck at an intersection.
12. CROUTONS OR BACON BITS: don’t really care, but I suppose I’d take the croutons.
13. FAVORITE DAY OF THE WEEK: Saturday.
14. FAVORITE RESTAURANT: Striped Bass in Philadelphia. With the kids it's Red Robin or Moe's .
15. FAVORITE FLOWER: I grew up in Maryland so I have to go with the Black-eyed Susan.
16. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH: Baseball.
17. FAVORITE DRINK: Yeungling Lager.
18. FAVORITE ICE CREAM: anything with vanilla and peanut butter.
19. DISNEY OR WARNER BROTHERS: Disney, as I am the world’s biggest Disney freak. (My kids have been to Orlando a bunch of times but have never set foot inside Universal Studios – that would be blasphemy)
20. FAVORITE FAST FOOD RESTAURANT: Wendy’s.
21. WHAT COLOR IS YOUR BEDROOM CARPET: Off white.
22. HOW MANY TIMES DID YOU FAIL YOUR DRIVERS TEST: I passed it the first time, suckah!
23. BEFORE THIS ONE, FROM WHOM DID YOU GET YOUR LAST EMAIL: My mom.
24. WHAT DO YOU DO MOST OFTEN WHEN YOU ARE BORED? Read or draw.
25. USUAL BEDTIME: Anywhere from 10 to 11.
26. WHO WILL RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL THE QUICKEST: who knows?
27. WHO IS THE MOST LIKELY NOT TO RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL? Manic Mom said it wouldn’t be me not responing to hers, but she was incorrect.
28. FAVORITE TV SHOWS: Lost, The Office, House, Miami Ink, sports
29. LAST PERSON YOU WENT TO DINNER WITH: My kids.
30. FORD OR HOLDEN: Here is Manic Mom’s response:
“What is a Holden? Seriously, I do not know. If it's a Ford or a Holden Caulfield, I choose a Ford, because I have a Windstar and because I could not understand the hype over The Catcher in the Rye. Sorry.”
Based on her answer I have to go with Holden Caulfield because The Catcher in the Rye is pure genius.
31. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW: Van Morrison
32. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR: Orange.
33. HOW MANY TATTOOS DO YOU HAVE: One (lower right leg) of the Cherokee word for ‘peace’ and the number 7 relating to the 7 sacred directions (4 are directional-north, east, west, south; two are pagan-Mother Earth and Father Sky; and the last is spiritual-where you are)
34. HOW MANY PETS DO YOU HAVE: None, although the kids are applying the pressure…
35. WHICH CAME FIRST THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG: I will echo Manic Mom’s sentiments: “Who gives a shit.”

Hotwire 101: 31 thru 35

2006-08-16T07:17:00.000-04:00

and the beat goes on...

31. I love coaching kids’ sports – especially kids who are really into it because they hang on your every word and do things exactly like to teach them.
32. I am tough on my kids. Not because I expect perfection but because I detest apathy and mediocrity. Although they fight me on it, I can tell by their follow-up comments that they appreciate it.
33. I will not tell my kids what they can or can not be when they grow up.
34. I have no use for racism, homophobia, etc. Put on your white hood and talk to someone else and stop wasting my f*cking time.
35. I love getting my hair cut.

She's as sweet as

2006-08-10T06:57:00.000-04:00

She walked toward him. As she did all sound dissipated. First the traffic along the pike in the distance. Then the marching band on the field. And finally the crowd in the bleachers above. Silence.

In last year’s program he’d been listed as five foot nine and one hundred fifty five pounds, but the program, like a camera, seems to add 10 pounds. She was as tall as him – maybe even a tick taller, but when she finally reached him she had to look up slightly in order for their eyes to meet directly, courtesy of the slope of the grassy hill that separated the football field from the social studies wing. Her eyes hazel with tiny flecks of gold. His blue, a much lighter shade than that of her cheerleading sweater.

He stretched out his hands to take hers, but she ignored this, reached hers around his neck, and pulled him in. She hadn’t seen him for a month, since he left for college. Left her behind to her six classes a day, bag lunches, pep rallies and Friday night football. Her junior year in all of its glory. Thank God for Homecoming. He was back. The circumstance of Bobcat football tonight then the pomp of the semi-formal tomorrow. His lavender tie would match her dress and she’d abandon heels for ballet slippers as to not tower over him during the slow dances. Duplicate nights of her head on his shoulder and his on hers. Eyes closed to the world and focusing on the quiet that only they could hear.

Startled at first, he reached his arms around her back and slowly gathered her in. The weight of her sweater, layered over the requisite white turtleneck, is something he can remember today if he closes his eyes and lets himself drift. Palm against the small of her back, his fingers were outstretched. Left hand moved upward to the back of her neck and right hand slid down and moved from the soft knit of the sweater to the coarse wool of her skirt. When he did this she gently yet purposefully moved herself against him – a punishable offense for a cheerleader in uniform, but six weeks is a long time. Once the contact was made, and her torso recognized his, her eyebrows raised and she smiled as if to say, not now, later. The arcs and triangles of the full body embrace made him, momentarily, think of the geometry class he took two years and 200 feet from that very spot.

Two quarters worth of cheers and pom-poms and pyramids left her with a trace of perspiration and he breathed it in deeply. He has since lost this scent, mixed with the Anais Anais that she dotted on her neck after putting on her uniform and before driving to the game, and this is one of his many regrets. He’d thought this scent would be his forever – that was the plan. If he could only get this back he could maybe, 20 years later, be complete.

The teams were tramping down the hill and back to the field. Bobcat blue and Ram red. Game faces and grunting as he had done during the prior few seasons. Her friends were calling for her, but she didn’t hear it. Silence still. They didn’t want her to get in trouble – it was time to go, time to get back to the megaphones and leg kicks and yes yes yes we do we have spirit how about you.

As if the hug was not enough, she slid her hands from his shoulders and slowly around his neck and finally resting under his ears. He felt her guide his head toward hers and in magical synchronization heads tilted, eyes closed, and mouths met. Tender at first followed by his lips being parted by her tongue. He followed her lead and for a few fleeting moments her smell changed into her taste and this is something else that he has lost to time.

Gradually the sounds came back - referee whistles, air horns, the marching band making an awkward segue from old Van Morrison to new Queen - and in full opposition to the moment she abruptly moved away, startling him back to reality. The squad’s captain had tugged her from behind and he caught the hint of a tear as she spun around, skirt twirling at mid-thigh with the white of the pleats illuminated by the field’s lights. He remembers her getting warmed up once she got back to her position on the track and looking up at him while touching her toes. Long perfect legs and saddle shoes and an upside down smile.

You can take all the tea in China
Put it in a big brown bag for me
Sail it right around the seven oceans
Drop it smack dab in the middle of the deep blue sea
Because she's as sweet as tupelo honey
She's an angel of the first degree
She's as sweet as tupelo honey
Just like honey from the bee

She's as sweet as tupelo honey
She's an angel of the first degree
She's as sweet as tupelo honey
Just like the honey, baby, from the bee
She's my baby, you know she's alright.....

A book question, and is Boona channeling Sage?

2006-08-06T06:10:00.000-04:00

Here's one of my (vast) wierd qualities. I like it when I hold a book and the weight of the book seems to match the book's content. Do any of you do this, or is it just me?

Here's the story. Last night I had some free time, which I don't usually get. When I have free time I will usually go to the movies (which I did - 'Clerks II' - which in places was the dumbest thing I've ever seen - a bit too gratuitous - but in others I laughed my ass off) or I go to the bookstore. Prior to seeing Kevin Smith's latest masterpiece I went to Borders (which is odd since I prefer B&N. But hey, it was closer to the theater). In the new non-fiction area was a book about The Great Roberto Clemente. If you recall from a previous post this man was a childhood hero of mine, and was absolutely someone worthy of that title. When I pick up a book, I almost expect it to be flimsy and light, to match the ususal lighweight writing or subject matter inside (kind of like when Truman Capote commented on one of Gore Vidal's books by saying, "This isn't writing, it's typing"). But this was heavy. And dense. It seemed that the feel of the book matched the importance of the topic. It was a great feeling. Then I thumbed through the book and came to the middle where the photos are and I had to look away becasue my eyes began to well up, which for me is a normal result of seeing photos or footage of Clemente, making this, I suppose, yet another of my (vast) weird qualities.

On a lighter note, yesterday I took the kids to the pool, like I'm known to do on a 100 degree day in Connecticut (which, it seems, are all days in the Nutmeg State lately, but that's fine with me).

We're swimming and hanging out with the neighbors and drinking a few beers (me, not the kids - no need to call child protective services, although The Bear did order a Sam's at Pizzaria Uno once when he was three...) and having a great time. Then the following conversation took place:

Boona - Dad, did we bring anything to eat?
Me - Yes, there are pretzels in my backpack and popsicles and watermelon in the fridge.
Boona - Oooh, can I have some watermelon?
Me - Sure, it's in a Tuperware on the bottom shelf.

Boona goes to get the watermelon and comes back and proceeds to eat about 5 or 6 pieces in about 3 minutes.

Me - Dude, save some for me and The Bear.
Boona - Why?
Me - Cuz' maybe we'd like some, too, OK?
Boona - But Dad, I worship watermelon.

My question is, has he found my link to Sage's blog?

Hotwire 101: 26 thru 30

2006-08-03T06:24:00.000-04:00

And the beat goes on...

26. I am a good Karaoke singer and have won a few contests. Three words: Mack.The.Knife. I am anxiously awaiting American Idol for people beyond their 20’s (or 30’s for that matter…).
27. The friends I made in high school are still the best (with the addition of B.B. from college!). Although I speak to them infrequently, and see them even less, they are with me daily.
28. I have been to every one of my high school reunions (4 if you’re counting, and number 5 is in October ’06).
29. I have lived in six states. I miss Maryland every day of my life and am also drawn to Plantsville, CT like it’s Mecca.
30. I begin every New Year by listening to Jackson Browne’s “Late for the Sky” album.

Swaying to the music

2006-07-31T06:19:00.000-04:00

Many of the little stories of our lives come with a soundtrack, we don’t recall the words that were spoken – if there were any - but we do remember the music and lyrics that surrounded the event. This story is no different.

The Duster bounced along the back road. His window rolled down, blond curls drying in the late September breeze. Hers stayed up, since she had overestimated the warmth that her pink windbreaker would provide against the early autumn air. She had spent the past few hours huddled with her friends against the cool night, watching the Bobcats play against one of their county foes, perhaps the Rams or Eagles. The years that have passed have stolen that detail from memory. He spent the same number of hours in helmet and pads, with his midnight blue jersey and its white block letter 12 covering his 140-pound frame.

An underclassman dating a senior. Apparently a minor scandal among the girls in school. He’d heard the whispers but was too much of a boy to realize they were directed at him. Why would he do that? What’s wrong with the senior class girls? Or juniors, even? He didn’t see a problem. After all, had they seen her? If he wanted to he could explain it to them by pointing out the sparkle in her eyes or the beautiful soft skin or even her perfectly formed fingers. Certainly there were girls in the upper classes that were prettier, with that he’d agree. But they didn’t ‘fit’. At least not him – not at that place and time.

With the radio tuned to a Top 40 station being broadcast from nearby Baltimore, they heard Pat Benatar as they passed a new housing development and John Cougar as they passed the old farm. As they cruised up the long and winding hill that made its way past the fairways and greens of the country club, and eventually to her home, the song changed and he had an idea. An impulse, actually.

Since there was no shoulder he pulled into a spot where a cart path crossed the road. She looked at him quizzically and was about to speak, but without a word he put his index finger to her lips, smiled, and winked. After turning off the headlights and turning the radio’s volume knob a quarter turn to the right, he pulled the lever that opened his door, swung his legs to the left, and eased gingerly out of the car. He was still a bit sore due to being blindsided on a second half punt return courtesy of a teammate’s missed block. He was already aware the Coach would play the hit over and over, forward and backward, during Monday’s game film session, and his buddies would oohh and ahh and laugh at his expense. He’d remind them that at least he didn’t fumble and that it was that scoring drive that led them to ultimate victory.

He ran his hands along the side of the car - its tan color and brown striping virtually indistinguishable in the dark - around the back, and opened her door. In true chivalrous fashion he reached for her hand and guided her out of the passenger seat, his class ring clinking against her small band that held a single pearl. She looked a bit panicked since she was to be home momentarily and her parents weren’t much for breaking curfew, even by a matter of minutes - after all, who knows what type of teen-aged debauchery could take place between 10:00 and 10:05 PM! Once she was standing, and in a successful effort to calm her, he ran the back of his fingers against her cheek. He remembers to this day how that felt. This seemed to put her at ease, and he led her a bit closer to the small stone wall that guarded the 15th green from the road.

To the south there was only a faint light from town that shown over the treetops, as the area was not then the Mecca of retail commercialization it is now. To the north the only light was from the windows of the clubhouse, that, and a few late season fireflies battling against the coming frost.

In their spot, a few feet from the car and seemingly miles from anywhere, he moved both hands around her waist and hooked his thumbs into the belt loops on the back of her Levi cords. She came to just below his chin, where she nestled her head, right cheek against the thick wool ‘B’ on his letterman jacket.

Smells came at them from all directions. The fresh cut grass, the leather of his sleeves, the warmth of her hair, Johnson’s baby shampoo from a post-game shower, and the faint and lingering scent of perfume applied many hours before.

Her arms curled around his shoulders and her fingers combed through the back of his still damp hair. When she cupped the back of his head in her tiny palm he felt protected from anything, everything. As the song played they began to move inside its rhythm and its essence poured over them and they were lost to the world.

This was one of them, one of his first. Hers, too. In every life there are a handful of quintessential moments and this was one for sure. Regardless of where things went from here - and as is true with most high school loves this would last for a brief time and then things would change - for this moment, a perfect star filled Maryland night, things were as they were intended. Like a gift from God showing them how things could be.

Hearts full and on the verge of tears they listened as the song came to its close. This was all very new. And good. Like nothing he had known before and has experienced rarely since. This night no longer seems like yesterday - too much time has passed. The years have faded the colors and blurred the edges, but I still fight to keep it alive in my memory.

Nothing was said the entire time because nothing needed to be. Once back in the car he turned off the radio since silence was the only appropriate sound. He pulled the car back onto the road and in the direction of her home, although his home seemed to be right there. No words were spoken because none were needed. Two hands on the wheel, one on his knee, the other with fingers crossed and hoping to God.

It's late at night and we're all alone
With just the music on the radio
No one's coming, no one's gonna telephone
Just me and you and the lights down low
And we're

Slow dancing, swaying to the music
Slow dancing, just me and my girl
Slow dancing, swaying to the music
No one else in the whole wide world
Just you, girl

As we dance together in the dark
There's so much love in this heart of mine
You whisper to me "Hold me tight"
You're the one I thought I'd never find
And now we're

Slow dancing, swaying to the music
Slow dancing, just me and my girl
Slow dancing, swaying to the music
No one else in the whole wide world

Hotwire 101: 21 thru 25

2006-07-28T05:58:00.000-04:00

We now rejoin our program already in progress:

21. This is my other favorite number, because of the great Roberto Clemente. If you never saw him play, and you're a baseball fan, you truly missed out. No one has ever played the game with his grace. You can actually place thoughts of his death into #25 on this list, and I still remember my dad sitting me down on New Year's Day 1973 to tell me the news.
22. The best teacher I ever had was Kurt Bittle, art teacher at Bel Air (MD) High School. I have a link to his work in my ‘Great Art Stuff’ area.
23. I won’t lie to kids about the world; however I will try to soften the blow.
24. I’m jealous of people with daughters because I’ve never lived in a house with a little girl. I have three sisters but did not live with them growing up.
25. I have been known to tear up over the following things: our church’s annual Nativity pageant, MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech and Jim Valvano’s ESPY speech, the songs “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin (‘to be a rock and not to roll’) and “Kite Song” by Patty Griffin, the movie “Rudy” (which my 6 year old watches multiple times per week) and the book “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer.

The Golden Age of Entertainment, the musical

2006-07-25T22:02:00.000-04:00

It is my strong belief that the 1970s was the Golden Age of Entertainment.

The seventies had it all over any other decade in the areas of music, television, and movies. If we want to include sports as entertainment, then the seventies rocked that area as well.

For today, let’s focus on the music. I’d like to begin with Pop, since this was when this genre really got its roots.

The 1970s gave us classics like Ambrosia’s “How Much I Feel” and The Hughes Corporation’s “Rock the Boat”. We also got “Brother Louie” by the Stories and Boogie Oogie Oogie” by A Taste of Honey. Andy Gibb had “I Just Want To Be Your Everything” before he died and Rod Stewart had “Maggie May” before he sold out. Ace Frehley was “Back in the New York Groove” and the Average White Band showed us how to “Pick Up the Pieces” (editorial note - this song is absolutely phenomenal). Gerry Rafferty left Steeler’s Wheel and drove down Baker Street. McFadden & Whitehead hit the airways with “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” and a great lyric like ‘we’re gonna put our stuff together, we’re polishing up our act’. Prior to the invention of ‘Jesus Juice’ Mike and the Jackson Five were, hands down, the balls (sorry, shouldn’t use Mike, hands, and balls in the same sentence…) Finally, two of the of the all-time best Pop albums were born in this decade, “Breakfast in America” by Supertramp and “Rumors” by Fleetwood Mac. It is stuff like this that draws me to the 70s station on satellite radio.

These days I am more apt to listen to what is now called ‘Classic Rock’ – but back then we just called it ‘Rock’, like the old joke how in China they call Chinese food just ‘food’. Although the list could go on for a mile, we can focus on Dylan putting out some of his best work with “Blood on the Tracks” and “Live at Budokan”. KISS rocked and rolled all night and no one ever saw anything like them before, and probably won’t again. Along those lines, the world is still trying to catch up with the Cars’ first two albums. AC/DC lost Bon Scott but still rocked on. Steely Dan reeled in the years and Stevie Wonder showed us the higher ground. Elton John and Billy Joel had not yet played dueling pianos and spent time giving us classics like “Levon” and “The Ballad of Billy the Kid” - Elton with the big shoes and glasses, Billy with jeans and a tweed blazer. James Taylor and Jackson Browne came to the forefront as two of our greatest singer-songwriters. The Dead and Pink Floyd took us to another plane altogether. “Some Girls” and “Sticky Fingers” elevated the Stones to the lofty “World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band” status. Also, Frampton came alive, Seger showed us his night moves, the Doobies took it to the streets, and Van Halen ran with the devil. Little Feat put out the greatest live recording ever with “Waiting for Columbus” and soon thereafter lost their genius Lowell George. Elvis left us and we had a couple more years before cancer took Bob Marley.

We have had some pretty good music since then, I have to admit, but nothing like what is listed above.

So many were so good.

I don’t think we will ever see such a concentration of talent and truly classic music again. There is little originality and too many bands sound like too many other bands. The closest we’ve come to in the twentysomething years since is Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” but that’s about it. Good stuff is out there, but not that much of it.

In my estimation we will have no more pillars. No more classics in the true sense of the world. Christianity has the Holy Trinity. Baseball has Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, and Yankee Stadium. The seventies had “Thunder Road”, “Freebird”, and “Stairway to Heaven”.

Illustration Friday: opposites

2006-07-24T06:00:00.000-04:00

"Aloft" micron and colored pencil on paper, 16x20

Since this week's Illustration Friday theme is 'opposites' I thought it would be a good chance to show this finished work. A few aspects of it have been used in past IF challenges, and 'opposites' is a good theme for the completed piece.

Coco Crisp, I'm not...

2006-07-20T06:13:00.000-04:00

I think I've let everyone know that I coach both of my boy's Little League teams and I love (almost) every minute of it. This year the league set up and exhibition softball game between our coaches and the world famous Eddie Feigner's King and His Court .

Although Eddie is retired and in a wheelchair, when he pitched he was able to throw the ball over 100 miles per hour - behind his back between his legs, etc (these guys are the Harlem Globetrotters of softball). In the 1970's he was the highest paid athlete in the world, all from barnstorming around the worl playing exhibition games.

The guy they have pitching now, Rich Hoppe, can bring it over 85 miles per hour and I got to hit against him. Fun. If you don't know what 85 miles per hour from a guy who is only standing 45 feet away from you seems like? You don't really see the ball, you just hear it wizz past you and hear it hit the catcher's mitt.

Although, I did OK! After the initial swing and a miss for strike one I was able to hit a scorching line drive down the right field line - foul. I ended up striking out but was one of the few guys to get the bat on the ball...

Hotwire 101: 16 thru 20

2006-07-18T17:39:00.000-04:00

I'm glad that I started this list thing, since I just started a new job and haven't had the chance to think about anything unique. Nothing too provocative this week, but have at it if you'd like!

16. I feel bad for people who take themselves, or their jobs, too seriously.
17. There is rarely a day that goes by where I don’t miss opening the newspaper to read “Calvin & Hobbes”.
18. Although not their target audience, I think that Eminem and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” are pure genius.
19. I only dream after I’ve taken Nyquil (and then they are acid flashback-like dreams).
20. In the past I’ve seen Jimmy Buffett 56 times in eight different states, but wouldn’t go now even if you gave me a free ticket.

Illustration Friday: sacrifice

2006-07-15T07:08:00.000-04:00

This week's Illustration Friday challenge is 'sacrifice' so i thought that including Dr. King would be appropriate.

For more information on Illustration Friday (Sage...?) please click the link to the right.

Hotwire 101: 11 thru 15

2006-07-12T05:57:00.000-04:00

I have really enjoyed the comments these have brought over the past few weeks. So here are the next five:

11. I don’t know how to teach someone to blow their nose.
12. This is one of my favorite numbers and was my football and baseball number.
13. I don’t care what you say, if you’re a guy, farting is funny. Period.
14. I was the MVP of the Southington (CT) Southern Little League in 1975. It was all downhill from there…
15. If you can buy it over the weekend in the Marriott ballroom for $19.95 you may be able to refer to it as a painting, but you cannot refer to it as art.

Illustration Friday: skyline

2006-07-09T06:32:00.000-04:00

I haven't participated in IF a lot lately because I've been busy completing the piece of which this illo is a portion. This chunk of the piece fits nicely into this week's 'skyline' theme (some other parts have shown up in other IF entries).

For more information on Illustration Friday, please click on the link to the right.

#6 Revisited (and my thanks to Annoyed)

2006-07-06T11:06:00.000-04:00

After the latest installment of “Hotwire 101” I got a great response from Annoyed. Well, I actually got a lot of great comments but Annoyed’s was the most provocative, because it dealt with the ‘biggest’ topic on the list.

I had posted this:
6. Too many people have too short a memory, therefore the footage from September 11, 2001 should be shown on TV every morning (like what used to happen with playing the National Anthem at the end of the broadcast day).

Annoyed responded with this:
As far as the 9/11 footage goes - I personally would like to never see it again. I live on the border of NYC and have seen it about one million times. Also, whenever it is shown it's usually in support of this bullshit war and to stir fear up in voters. Both, very wrong reasons in my opinion. If people want to have an honest discussion about that event and remember the victims that's fine. However, when they show it and then moments later I hear a song clip of Emperor Bush say "They hate us for our freedom" I want to throw the TV out the window.
Which means now I’d like to expand on the meaning of my statement. First of all, I appreciate every comment I get. Secondly, as I always tell my boys, players on the teams that I coach, kids in my Sunday school class: you never learn anything by talking, you can only learn by listening. This is why I enjoy hearty conversation and not the “hot enough for you?” crap that 99% of folks will feed you.

The reason for my post was purely selfish. It was on September 11, 2001 that my life was changed forever. It was after this event that my brain went haywire and the medication had to be started. It was on this day that I had to be physically restrained from driving from Philadelphia to NYC to either assist or kick some ass. Being suicidal and homicidal is not fun, trust me. There is also another piece to this, but I’ll save that for a later date.

Annoyed and I probably differ on the topic of war. I was/am all in favor of what we did in Afghanistan – I just needed to see something explode and see some bad guys get a daisy cutter up the ass. Currently, although I support ‘a war’ on terror I would go about it vastly differently, therefore it makes if difficult to get 100% behind ‘this war’ on terror. What would I have done? I would have acted more covertly and have been less intrusive to the people of Iraq. If they don’t want democracy, f*ck ‘em. Don’t force it on them. Just get the terrorists and leave the people alone. If somewhere down the road the people of Iraq want help with the whole democracy thing, they know where to find us.

Where I agree with Annoyed is with his statements talking about remembering the victims. And about people needing to have an honest discussion about the event, and in my mind that’s with people who’s names ARE NOT Coulter, Kerry, Hannity, Kennedy, Bush, Sheehan, Malkin or Clooney. But people like us all over the world, who have to do the working and sleeping and living and dying in the beds that these ‘experts’ have made. Again, Annoyed is right with his distaste for the phrase, "they hate our freedom" - it's something else, and we need to talk about it and do something about it.

Going back to #6 on my 101 list, and with all due respect to Annoyed, I still think we need to see that footage more. We need it for many reasons. We need to remember why this country is great, but also to figure out where we have gone astray. We have to remember that we are the biggest aid giver to the world, but also are among the most detested countries. We need the footage to force us to talk and think and act. Us, the little guys.

Hotwire 101: 6 thru 10

2006-07-05T07:33:00.000-04:00

Here is the next installment of "who the hell is Hotwire?" Hope everyone had a nice 4th!!

6. Too many people have too short a memory, therefore the footage from September 11, 2001 should be shown on TV every morning (like what used to happen with playing the National Anthem at the end of the broadcast day).
7. I am an awesome speller.
8. When I attend a sporting event I rarely make noise, yet when I’m watching it in my living room I yell at the TV.
9. I am annoyed by ‘corporate speak’. You know, asinine sayings like: “at the end of the day”, “oh, by the way”, “circle back”, “why don’t you go ahead and…” etc.
10. I prefer to go to the movies alone. It’s not a social event, there is no fellowship involved, so why do you need to go with another person?

So, do you come here often?

2006-07-03T08:03:00.000-04:00

Although over the past few years my handicap has risen like Ron Jeremy on a Cialis binge, I still enjoy playing and watching golf. Over the weekend the PGA tour came to Connecticut and I attended the Buick Championship.

It turned out to be a beautiful day - sunny with a breeze. Before I left the house I looked at the pairings and tee times and planned my day. It would work out perfectly - I’d follow Brad Faxon in the morning and Corey Pavin in the afternoon. Why these guys? A few reasons: John Daly and Tiger Woods weren’t there / Pavin is a player that I’ve enjoyed for quite a few years / Faxon is a local guy (well, Rhode Island. Close enough) and the tournament’s defending champion.

If you haven’t had the chance to go to a PGA tournament, they are one of the few sporting events where you can actually get close to the action, so close that you are within a few feet of a player as they tee off, and are able to hear the conversations they are having with their caddies and with the other players.

Another group of people that you get close to are women. Lots of them. Some of them very pretty. A few weeks ago I posted that women with nice calves and wearing board shorts could become an obsession. Well, in the morning at the Buick Championship there was a woman with the requisite beautiful legs and long shorts who was following the same threesome as I.

Caution: if you approach a pretty woman at a golf tournament who happens to be following the same group of golfers as you, and you are intent on laying down a few suave lines, you may want to make sure that the woman in your sights is not the wife of one of the players.

That being said, my apologies to Mrs. Faxon…

Oops.

Word to your mother

2006-06-30T07:14:00.000-04:00

So, I’m flipping the channels the other night just to make sure that there is other summer television programming beyond the Boston Red Sox broadcasts, and found out that sure enough there is. I found the BET Awards.

If you look at my photo to the right you will see that I am not necessarily the target audience for this type of programming, but I thought what the hell, I like Denzell and Spike and The Commodores and Earth Wind and Fire, so I watched for a while. This is what I learned.

-There are a lot of rappers that I’ve never heard of.
-No rappers go by their real names.
-Every rapper has a CD coming out every 15 days.
-Rappers must have a corporate marketing tie-in deal with Sunglass Hut or a lot of them have light sensitivity issues (Everyone there was wearing their Foster-Grants. Indoors.)
-Rappers must also have a marketing arrangement with Foot Locker. The Boston Celtics’ basketball shoes are nothing compared to the kicks worn by the rapping community.
-Another tie-in must be with Lidz. If you rap you have to wear a cap. Now, I have a lot of baseball-style hats (about 100) and wear them a lot, but when I get one I meticulously wet and bend the brim, then put the rolled brim into my Superman coffee mug to dry overnight to achieve the prefect look. These gentlemen have gone the complete other direction. If I set my iron at its highest level, and then had the defensive line of my beloved Philadelphia Eagles push the iron on the bill of one of my baseball hats for a complete 24 hours, it would still not be a straight as the brim of Doug E. Fresh’s (or whoever’s) retro Denver Nuggets hat.
-When rappers wear their caps, the brim can not face forward – like it’s supposed to. The bill of the cap must be worn as if the sun is constantly to your left.
-These folks like to ‘represent’.
-I’m not certain just what they are representing. Like I said, I thought they were representing Sunglass Hut, Foot Locker and Lidz.
-Rappers want you to know if they are from the east coast or the west coast. This seems to be a pretty big deal. Apparently, no rappers are ‘representing’ Kansas.
-Rappers also like you to know in what zip code or area code they reside. They like to give shout outs to the brothers in the 90210 (well, maybe not 90210, that one’s been taken…) or in the 405.
-These people seem to dwell on the ‘assassinations’ of Tupac and Biggie. As Chris Rock once said, Martin was assassinated, Malcom was assassinated, and Kennedy was assassinated. These two, er.., gentlemen, were SHOT. Hey rapper guys, Jerry Garcia died not too long ago, but I got over it!

I suppose that’s enough of my recap of the BET Awards. I’ve got to go get some stuff at Target, then get my morning coffee, and then I’m off to the Buick Championship golf tournament. Maybe this evening I’ll take the kids for ice cream.

Cause that’s how we roll in the 860, motherf*cker! PEACE!!

Hotwire 101: 1 thru 5

2006-06-28T08:09:00.000-04:00

In the past I have been asked to compose a '101 Things About Me' list like a lot of bloggers do. Up until now I have ignored the suggestion. Since one person in particular keeps bugging me to do this, and now being inspired by the lists presented by the fine people at Manic Mom and Stopping Traffic, I have succumbed. Since it will take a while to put such a list together, I will do these 5 at a time, and will try to get them out every Wednesday.

For all who actually give a crap, here are 1 through 5, and feel free to agree or disagree or just be plain apathetic.

1. I would like to meet Jesus. The real guy, not the myth that has been forced upon us our entire lives.
2. I despise small talk. Please don’t come up to me and open with, “I hear that we’re supposed to get a lot of rain/sunshine/snow/hail/sleet/frogs this weekend.” There are far too many things of substance that we can discuss, so if you aren’t up to the challenge, keep it zipped. Please.
3. If you don’t really want my opinion on a topic, don’t ask. If you do, be prepared, as it often comes with both barrels.
4. I have two boys. One looks like me and one looks like his mother. They rock!
5. I can not understand why the leader of the free world is elected almost solely on their stance on abortion. I can think of about 100 things that are more important for the president to worry about. This is not a federal issue; it is a moral and social one.

I blog therefore I am, well, maybe

2006-06-26T14:17:00.000-04:00

A few of the blogs I enjoy (Fresh Air Lover and The World According to the Emetic Sage – click on their links to the right, you’ll be glad you did) have posted today about what we do and why we do it, so I thought I’d weigh in on the topic from my own frame of reference.

I suppose that my reason for blogging was that I have a lot to say and not a lot of people to say it to. I don’t have a sibling or childhood friend within 250 miles of me, and although I have a couple of close friends in the area, I don’t get to see them often enough to blow off any type of steam – but when I do see them it’s great! I love my neighbors, and because I do I tend not to put upon them by ranting at the weekend barbecue.

I tend to be passionately opinionated and don’t mind taking down people who haven’t done their homework before discussing hot-button topics. I’m also very picky about books, music, movies, and art. I like what I like and it’s probably not what the mainstream (aka: most people) likes. If you tell me that your favorite performer is, let’s say, Madonna, or you enjoy reading books by Danielle Steele I’m probably going to provide some type of counter attack. Trust me, it’s for you own good...

That being said, I don’t really show that side of me on these pages. I tend to play it closer to the vest and write more about my kids, or crap that I find funny or annoying or both. I’ve taken the opportunity to rant about adoption or mental health, but for the most part I remain pretty tame.

I don’t know why I do this, because there are plenty of people and groups who piss me off (the religious right, the far left and the far right, the ACLU, homophobes, racists, child abusers, home schoolers, people who take themselves and their jobs a bit too seriously, people who are so stupid that I can’t figure out how they get bay day-to-day). Also, no one who reads this is family, so I would think that I would let it fly a little more.

Maybe it’s out of respect for those of you who do read this stuff!!

Illustration Friday: rain (Patty Griffin homage)

2006-06-26T07:24:00.000-04:00

As I’d mentioned in a post not too long ago, I am a big fan of Patty Griffin. When I saw that this week’s IF theme was ‘rain’ the first thing that I thought of was Patty’s song by the same title – so my illo is of her. Here are the lyrics to “Rain”:

It’s hard to listen to a hard hard heart
Beating close to mine
Pounding up against the stone and steel
Walls that I won’t climb
Sometimes a hurt is so deep deep deep
You think that you’re gonna drown
Sometimes all I can do is weep weep weep
With all this rain falling down

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
When I’m holding on underneath this shroud
Rain

Its hard to know when to give up the fight
Two things you want will just never be right
Its never rained like it has to night before
Now I don’t wanna beg you baby
For something maybe you could never give
I’m not looking for the rest of your life
I just want another chance to live

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
When I’m holding on underneath this shroud
Rain

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
When I’m holding on underneath this shroud
Rain

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
When I’m still alive underneath this shroud
Rain Rain Rain