The Case Of The Familiar Fatality

He knew more ways to finagle money out of a person than the slickest politician. His repertoire included everything from just a few bucks until Friday to a fiver for a hot tip on a horse in the sixth race. 

One sunny afternoon his body was found floating in the south bay, the only item of interest in his wallet being a water-logged, unreadable drivers license and a small metal tag stamped with the number twenty-seven. He was placed on a slab in the morgue with a tag tied to his toe upon which the name "John Doe" was scribbled.

The man was of interest to one Detective however, a thin, lanky former Army Ranger who looked at the photos taken by the Coroner for the case file and fought back a tear. Though the salt water had done quite a job of distorting the man's features and it had been nearly fifteen years since he had last seen the man, the Detective knew who the John Doe was. 

No man ever forgets the face of his father, no matter how long it's been since he last saw him. For the Detective it was like looking in a mirror...and it felt like being hit with a wrecking ball.

And She Would Dance To Any And Every Song On The Radio

She had an energetic walk

With a quick little bounce in every step

The mature curves of her body perfectly balanced

On a stout frame that evidenced an easy confidence

In who and what she was

No apologies for lapses in femininity

She was as much at home in a church 

As she was in a den of iniquity

Her face boasted a wide mouth with full but delicate lips

That could make even an ascetic shake

Needless to say that also applied to her hips

Her hands and feet were large

Though with slender tapering fingers and toes

Her voice was at times thin and high

And at times husky and low

Oftentimes every word she spoke

Was well thought out, rational

Though she was also known to occasionally let loose

With a waxing explosion of poetic tragical

Above all, however, was her intellectual curiosity

That lead her down paths both dark and bright

And sparked creative fires that made her eyes shine 

As if with a deep internal light

Seven Miles East Of Bezdonys

A slight, older Belarusian man sat hunched over a game of chess. His brow furrowed as he analyzed the consequences of the various moves available to him. 

His attention however, was suddenly diverted from the chessboard by a loud clamor that came from directly outside the small cafe he and his opponent and the game they had been playing for nearly two hours was located in.

Looking over his spectacles he saw the figures of five young men through the dirty glass of the windows. The men all seemed to be waving flags or banners of some sort that had been attached to tall poles. 

"Hmmm..." he mused to himself. "More earnest young men caught up in the rapture of what is no doubt a great cause..." He returned his attention to the board and castled queenside, thinking to himself, "Poor fools, cursed by the courage of immature convictions."

In The Glorious Days Of Our Well-Spent Youth

Going Out For A Ride

Some guys, they climb to the top of a water tower
To spraypaint the name of their crush
Other guys, they write lovey-dovey poems
Full of melodramatic romantic mush

Enjoying Breakfast At The Smallest Cafe In The World

Seamus and Jane were lost in their individual thoughts while the cook prepared their breakfast. The cook, who was also the host, waiter, server, busboy, dishwasher, and of course sole proprietor of the establishment, carefully seasoned the omelet Jane had ordered with just the slightest hint of oregano.  

The cook, now in the guise of server, bought Seamus and Jane their order, smiling with the satisfaction of an accomplished professional who knew he had done a job well.

Jane took a bite of her omelet, and for possibly the thousandth time she thought to herself, "Damn, this is good, but I sure wish I had told him garlic instead of oregano."

Sketching From Old Pics On A Wednesday Afternoon

You Have To Celebrate Every Moment You Can

Throughout the course of our lives we will have opportunities to celebrate various milestones. It is my opinion that too many people ignore these opportunities, writing them off as events that "happen every day."

To those people I say you do not have any guarantee to "another day," not for yourself, not for anyone you may know.

Life is a crap shoot, and while circumstances or good fortune may allow you to hedge your bets, nothing is certain.

The end could come at any moment. You have an obligation to yourself to enjoy, to celebrate, every moment you can.

While it is pragmatically impossible to enjoy every moment of every day, it is quite possible to enjoy the vast majority of them. Life at times can be difficult, life at times can be a challenge, life at times can even seem to be too horrible, too untenable, too unbearable, to be worth continuing...but that is only you lying to yourself.

Life can be, or will be, or is, good. 

You may think that you are suffering through the worst circumstances that anyone could imagine, but chances are, if you are reading this you are not living life in a concentration camp, you are not living life in a gulag, you are not living life in a refugee camp, you are certainly not being restricted in your access to the internet...

...in all probability, you are free, you are able, and you are capable, of living your life as you see fit.

So do it.

You Play The Odds, You Take Your Chances

Upon reflection, working up the nerve to undertake some of what I thought would be the grandest of adventures may have been a tad reckless....said the man who has rarely played the lottery.

One Sunny Day On Mt Olympus...

He raised his fist to the sky and yelled at the top of his lungs, "I want answers! I demand answers! I don't give a damn about the meaning of life, but I do want answers!"

Amused, one of the old gods looked down from his lofty perch and then turned to his wife, who just happened to be the Goddess of Wisdom, and asked, "Well, what do you think, should we give the mortal a few answers?'

The Goddess of Wisdom chuckled under her breath. "Dear," she said with a smile, "You know full well how that always turns out. We give him the exact same answers we gave the last few hundred mortals and he'll do the exact same thing the last few hundred mortals did - twist the answers until they fit his preconceived notions of what the answers should be, then run around proclaiming himself to be a god-appointed messiah and demanding that everyone should follow and abide by his teachings. Do you really think that planet needs another one of those?"

"Hmmm,,," her husband mused. "No, I would say not. You're right as usual Pumpkin."

Unintentionally Beautiful

You Could Call Them Whimsical, I Suppose

                                            A few odd things made of metal

Something Yolanda Mentioned Reminded Doug Of The Generation of '27

At first he was certain she had let slip a reference to Alberti, but then, after a few minutes of listening to more of her conversation, he realized she had been talking about an argument between two fascists who both wore the clothing of enlightened liberals that she had met at an after-party following an off, off Broadway show.

Snowiest December 15th In 118 Years

    The plows moving north and south pushed the snow from the streets into the center, creating               almost impassable berms in the turn lanes

     All it took was one driver in a vehicle incapable of handling the conditions to muck up the onramp

              Once on I-25 though, it was an easy drive, a million tons of snow not-withstanding

                          The plows were out in force...at least for the main roads

                    Parking lot didn't get a lot of attention until much later in the afternoon

The Bold And The Trivial

This planet may not be all that it's cracked up to be, but it has possibilities.

Miss American Rye

Why Don't I Have Children?

Today I was asked why I was afraid of children. I looked at the questioner, a person I have known for quite some time, and asked them why they thought I was a afraid of children.

The questioner replied, "Because you are one of the only men I know over forty who does not have at least one kid, and I've noticed you never want to hold or play with any of the number of young children that our mutual friends have."

I mulled that statement over for awhile before retorting, "You are both right and wrong in your observations. First off, I won't hold babies because I simply don't know how. I always feel awkward when someone hands a baby off to me, and I can't help but think I'm likely to drop them or somehow cause them to cry."

"Second, being a big guy, playing with little kids is a bit tricky for me. Just bending down to get to their level is a pain, and being careful not to accidentally knock one of the tykes over takes a lot of energy and luck - they always seem to be running around like little Tasmanian Devils."

I left it at that, and the questioner wandered off without pursuing the issue any further. However, I continued to mull it over, and thought about a few more things I could have mentioned.

Such as, I do not have children because I was not raised by parents, plural - I was raised by a parent, singular, as in single mother. Even though she did the best she could with what meager resources she had, and the help of my three older sisters - she was still over-matched, as there was a total of six of us kids and only one of her.

She did an incredible job as a single mom but when it comes right down to it, not having a male presence around in my childhood was a bit crippling (My older brother had left for the Army before I was 8).


Because of that particular circumstance of my upbringing, I did not learn what it is that a father is expected to be. I also did not learn what it means to be a responsible man.

If you do not believe that is a big deal, you need to take a closer look at the children of single parents, especially the children of single parents that had multiple siblings.

Being raised by a single mom did not make me afraid of children. Rather, it made me afraid of being a father. 

Something More Than Just A Jason Isbell Concert

Best Neighborhood Christmas Light Display Entrant #1

A Couple Of Wontons & A Bowl Of Chili

Somehow she had gotten the idea
That I was building the house just so
She could burn it down

A Fine Day On The Pacific Coast

Bears Of A Feather

Have you ever acted so out of character that for a brief moment you felt like a completely different person than you know yourself to be? I don't mean in a Sybil-like multiple personality type (aka dissociated Identity disorder) fashion, where there are allegedly a whole group of different people somehow inhabiting a single body, and I don't mean in a sudden mood-swing or distortion of manner caused by the consumption of intoxicants fashion either. What I mean is, for a minute or two, or maybe even a bit longer, you just behaved in a way that was far out of the ordinary for you?

For instance, maybe you are out with some friends and you are introduced to a new person, and in the first few minutes of the meeting you say or do something so extraordinarily different than what you would normally do your friends all stop what they are doing and look at you as if you were growing a flower out of the top of your head.

And when you regain your senses, get back on your usual tack, you even question yourself; "What the hell? Why did I say that to that person? Have I gone completely off my nut?"

Well, if you haven't, it's a weird feeling, let me tell you. If you have, well then, I need say no more.

Simple Irony For Complicated Philosophers

Nothing in this world 

Could make him laugh. No humor

Dry or wry, slapstick or farce

Self-effacing or observational

Ever tickled his funny bone

Oh, he had tried to find the humor

In the pratfalls of practiced clowns

And the sarcastic retorts of angry wits

But not one single chuckle

He read books that boasted of laughs on every page

And watched films that advertised

To make you laugh until you cried

Once, he listened to 8 hours of live comedy

Which failed to elicit even the smallest of smiles

The world was too black, he lamented

To anyone who would lend an ear

The world was soulless, he persisted

Full of nothing but dread and fear

Eventually, his dreary demeanor

Drove away each and everyone he knew

And when he realized he was all alone

In a world he saw as hostile, cold and dark

The world finally made him laugh

Automata In Art

Infatuation, a decidedly interesting metal sculpture by artist Rod Ford

I'm No Legal Beagle, But...

Okay, it's not like I'm an attorney (though I have played one in a few courtrooms), but I'm willing to bet good money that driving around on a public highway with your vehicle literally falling apart is not quite legal.

Seriously, gotta be just a tad dangerous - but hey, at least the taillights work.

Rethink The Puzzle

Okay, so you've got this thing about alligators. You hate them, you fear them, you think each and every alligator on the planet should be eliminated.

And yet you keep going out to where all the alligators gather, where all the alligators congregate.

It may take a little while but eventually it will dawn on you...it's not the alligators that are the problem...it's you.

Something Ugly, Something Dreadful

He found himself standing alone on a railroad platform in Auckland New Zealand, holding a note from his ex-wife in one hand and a red soft-sided briefcase in the other. 

From his vantage point he could see the pedestrian footbridge that he had crossed over to get to the platform from the shopping center. He glanced once more at the note in his hand, and then up at the train schedule posted above the metal bench where he had set his luggage. If this train was anything like all the other trains he had waited on, it would be at least five minutes late.

With that potential delay in mind he reached into the right side pocket of his jacket and pulled out the pack of cigarettes he had bought at the convenience shop near the car park by the shopping center. It had been decades since he had last had a cigarette, but considering his circumstances, worrying about the long-term effects cigarettes might have on his health was an extremely low priority.

His death sentence had already been handed down, and with the ease of mind that those who already consider themselves dead know, he placed the cancer stick to his lips and lit it with a cheap disposable lighter.The first drag instantly took him back to the halcyon days of his youth, when the thought of living forever was real, tangible. He laughed inwardly as he recalled those thoughts...inwardly and ruefully.