Examination, Diagnosis, Treatment...Surgery.

A friend of mine is due to go under the knife next week. The term used to describe the operation he will have to endure is "Semi-elective", which means it's being performed to prevent either disability or death.

Scary stuff, right there. No one wants to be told by their doctor that they have to have an operation...or else.

I talked to him briefly this afternoon, he seemed to be in good spirits and optimistic about the projected outcome. Which is good, of course.

Thing is, he will be out of commission for almost a month after the procedure, and that is a best case scenario.

Man, on days like today when I have conversations like that, I literally feel like counting my lucky stars.

All 23,678 of 'em.

The Magic Of Writing

Sometimes when I write it's like I'm taking dictation. The words flow effortlessly. Sometimes when I write it's as if I'm trying to wrestle the last cookie on the plate from the hands of a fat kid.

There is no magic.

There is only work, and perseverance.

Everything Gradually Fades Away

Hap-Hap-Happiest Holiday Wishes To Everyone!

A Few Houses In The Neighborhood Getting Into The Spirit

Lasagna For Breakfast

Let's say you're a bachelor. Let's also say you're lazy.

Just for kicks we'll also say you're running late for work.

However, you're also on a new diet regime that dictates that breakfast is absolutely the single most important meal of the day and skipping breakfast is tantamount to hanging oneself.

So you open the fridge to see what's in there that can be zapped in the microwave and consumed quickly.

Waddaya know, leftover lasagna. Two minutes later you're in the car on the way to work.

This ends the use of "you're" for the day.

Because I Only Exist In A Combination

This is going to read like a snippet from some tripped out hippies stream-of-consciousnesses poetry, but I have recently realized that there is a specific color that defines me.

And it's a color I just do not find appealing.

I am purple. 

That's right, a secondary color created when equal amounts of blue & red collide.

It's more the Euro purple, with much less blue and far more red
than the American purple.

But it is purple, nonetheless.

I am not too happy with this realization. I was hoping to be a bolder color, like Navy blue or Crimson.

Alas, that is not to be. I am purple. 

When In Wherever...

It is always polite when traveling abroad to be respectful of the local customs and culture. 

However, what does one do when travel plans call for a visit to an area of the world that has become a tourist mecca, and as a result of that transformation, the only local customs and culture evident are exactly what you left behind?

That was the very conundrum I faced the first time I paid a visit to the beautiful Costa del Sol. The visit was just a two-day affair, but it was to afford me the hoped for opportunity of frolicking in the Mediterranean, laying out on a pristine expanse of white sand beach, and enjoying similar-to-California sunshine and scenery, but without all the plasticity of say, Los Angeles.

I was wrong. No, it was worse than me being wrong. I had deluded myself.

The name of the community I visited will not be mentioned, but I will state my reason for choosing to travel to this particular town was due to James Michener using it as a locale in one of his novels. 

Hey, I was young and impressionable, Mea culpa.

Anywhatzit, the depiction of the town in the novel was not anywhere close to the reality of the place.

The depiction of the place in the novel was lazy-fishing-village inhabited by heart-of-gold people of the land and sea.

The reality was...well, Los Angeles. Well, one of the smaller beach cities actually, such as Long Beach. Yeah, Long Beach, but with much older beach front hotels.

Just about everyone I encountered was from Great Britain or the Netherlands, and everyone of them seemed to be on a mission to get some. 

Some of what? The same something that every tourist always seems to be after.

So much for local culture and customs.

Which brings us right to the point of this little diatribe. I've once again made travel plans to visit an area of the world that is renown for it's local culture and customs, and once again that area of the world has also become known as a tourist mecca.

Which means I'm either going to be writing about how that particular area of the world is now a pit of despair, or I'll be writing something a bit more laudatory.

Bookmark this page and come back in the second week of January to find out which it'll be.

Find Yourself Some Good People To Hang Out With

The company you keep.

That right there is a statement that used to baffle me when I was younger because the first time I heard it I thought it was an implication that I was choosing to hang around bad people.

In my childhood I did not choose to hang around specific people. I made no choosing at all. I just hung around with the other kids in the neighborhood, or kids that I met at school.

It wasn't until I was well into my twenties that the reality of choosing with whom you spent your time began to dawn on me.

Over the past few decades it's become glaringly apparent that one of two things has happened as I've aged.

I've either become very good at weeding out unsavory (or a least not-so-savory) characters and developing strong relationships with some wonderful people, or I've gotten extremely lucky.

It's most likely the luck thing.

I can live with that.

Lunch In A Time Of Decay

The Jewish impresario and the Catholic industrialist 
Were enjoying lunch at the Four Seasons
Hashing out the details of the financing required
For a Broadway show they were producing
It was to going to be the show everyone would want to see

They chose that particular restaurant
As it was shunned by most of the theater people
Who they both knew and loathed
And admired by the business magnates
Who they both knew and loved

Meanwhile, Philip Johnson was seated at his usual table 
In the room he designed with Mies
Quietly scribbling out an idea for a Synagogue
Still processing the guilt that haunted him
For his adoration of Hitler in the years prior to the war 

The menu had been recently updated
For Summer
The Crabmeat Cakes were highly recommended
As was the filet of Bison
But not the charred Squid

It was 1964 and the Beatles had invaded
Ed Sullivan had introduced them on live television
73 million people watched the Fab Four
In a country that boasted almost 52 million TV sets
Each averaging a solid square foot of black & white magic

A Humble Little Town Named Pie

Might Need To Cut Back On The Late Night Snacks

It might just be the oddest dream I've ever had.

The notes I made when I woke from it in the middle of the night read like so:

Well dressed young man at the entrance to a building, surrounded by a security force keeping what looked like a lynch mob at bay.

Well dressed young man asks me to accompany him into the building.

We are walking down a long hallway in a cavernous building, like an aircraft hanger for B-52s.

The young man stops about halfway down the hallway, lifts his right hand up and with his left hand points to the middle finger on his right hand.

He asks me to pull that finger off his hand. I hesitate for a second, then I grab his middle finger and rip it off his hand.

He then produces a key ring in his left hand that has 25 keys on it and asks me to take two keys, marked Key 1 and Key 2, off the key ring and then walk down the hall and give them to the man in the last room on the left.

As he turns and walks away, blood drips from the stump that is all that remains of his middle finger on his right hand.

I walk down the hall with keys 1 & 2 in my left hand, and his middle finger clutched in my right hand.

Bizarre, I know.

Going To Get Delirious Like We Used To

Hey woman, let's get together for a rave-up
Let's get a little whiskey in that coffee cup
It's been too long since we danced and I want you to know
You're still the one I want to be with when I'm raring to go

We're going to dress to lay 'em dead in the streets 
We'll turn the heads of the beggars and the elites 
Let's get started early, no need to be fashionably late
The huddled masses are waiting on us to show
We're the fuel for the fire, we're what makes good great
Those people are in for it and they don't even know
We got 'em in our sights, they're in for a freaky night
We'll keep them groovin' movin' doin' 
Until the early morning light
Going to put it all out there, going to let loose, going to get wild
Going to leave the masses exhausted, transfixed and beguiled

Hey woman, let's get together for a rave-up
Let's pour a little whiskey in that coffee cup
It's been so long since we danced and you gotta know
You're still the one I want to be with when I'm ready to go

This isn't going to be one of our quiet nights in
We're going out to get loud, maybe drink some rotgut gin 
Straight outta the suburbs to clubland 
Where the happy people go
When it's time to go crazy like Prince in 1984 
Yeah, this thing called life is what we're here for
So dust off those dancing shoes, get your hair set just right
We've got a date in Paradise tonight, Babe
Going to take our place under the spotlight

So, hey woman, we've got to get together for a rave-up
Going to put a bit of whiskey in that coffee cup
It seems like forever since we danced and you know I know
You're the only one I want when I'm ready to go 

The Socorro Wheel

Stuff Rolling Around In The Old Cranium

The toughest part about creating any form of art is a two-pronged pitchfork, or maybe a two headed demon-dog. It is learning how to calmly accept criticism and how to calmly accept a compliment.

This is it, the season of dread for guys like me. I'm a fairly successful guy, at least by the standards set in the neighborhood I came from, and my job consumes a lot of my time. 

   This time of year guys like me are at risk of losing their wives or girlfriends to some long-gone high school crush who suddenly shows up as a single dad (usually due to losing the wife or girlfriend to cancer) doing his best to teach the true meaning of Christmas to his motherless children, probably by volunteering at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter on Christmas eve (if you're a dude in a same-sex relationship, the same risk might apply to you - I'm not sure, but still, heads up).

Fortunately for me, I don't have a wife or a girlfriend (that I'm aware of). 

Why doesn't getting fat require a strict regimen and incredible willpower? Why can't being healthy and thin come about due to lack of dedication to a high-carb diet and laziness?

What does my physical condition say about me? Obviously I get to the gym. Obviously I also get to Old Chicago.

In my ideal world everyone, especially myself, is always calm, rational, and happy.

If you are seeing a Therapist my advice to you is to be as honest as you can possibly be without risking legal repercussions.

On that note, please try not to do anything that ever puts you at risk of being arrested.

Thirty years ago fewer than a million people owned a cell phone. This past Cyber Monday over three billion dollars was spent buying cellphones.

All I Want For Christmas...

When I was a kid I dreaded getting socks & underwear & crap I actually needed for Christmas.

Nowadays, that's all I want.

Particularly sheets. King size, 680 knot count or better.

A Quality Of Agony

Watched the drink slip out his hand 
                                    As if it were in slow motion 
Cigarette smoke curled out of her mouth 
                And wrapped itself around her neck
Like the hands of a depraved psychopath 
                                               Itching to take a life
Fought his way out of the room 
                         And across the promenade deck
The stuffiness of the air making it hard 
                                      For him to catch his breath
Couldn't quite get a handle on things
                                                         Felt like a total wreck
Maybe if everybody would have just shut the hell up
                                          For one damn moment
He would've given anything for silence 
                                       Would've handed over a blank check
Couldn't hear himself think
              Couldn't hear his own heart beating
She stood in the corner bleary eyed and out of date
                         Drowning in her sorrows mixed with triple sec
                                       

Everything Is Something Of That Sort

Things Not Understood, Part 25,874

Why do some people feel the need to impose?

Why does running away feel so much easier than working through the problem, when it never actually turns out to be any easier at all?

Tension for the sake of tension

Why do some people feel compelled to go too far?

Why don't I?

Is it the people or the events we share that matter?

Charisma

Smash Those Rose-Colored Glasses With A Sledge Hammer

Some decisions have to weighed carefully. Lists need to be created. On one sheet of paper all the repercussions of the decision have to be written down, the positives and the negatives...whether real or imagine, expected or projected.

No one wants to make decisions that will lead to regret. That's a no-brainer.

However, there are those who say the only decisions you end up regretting are those you don't make, which is, well, BS.

Because it's easy to say you regret not making a specific decision when you do not have any negative results of that decision to rue. 

That person you should have asked out on a date but didn't and now you kick yourself because you think they might have been the one? Yeah, that person could also have been the worst thing that ever happened to you.

No, the decisions you don't make do not get a seat at the table when it comes to pondering actually making a decision. Only the choices and chances that were actually taken get to partake in this debate.

Which doesn't make the process any easier, but it keeps it real.

Have to keep it real, have to ensure the evidence is not imaginary.

Wishful thinking only clouds the process.

So, when it comes to decisions with weight - and by weight I mean the weight of Aircraft Carrier anchor chains, it is wise to view the positives and negatives as objectively as possible.

If being objective is possible, that is.

Damn, I'm going to need more paper.

Gabba Gabba Hey...What The Heck...

My next door neighbor's 6 (soon to be 7, just ask him, he'll tell you) year old son was wearing a Ramones shirt this morning. His Mom bought it for him at H&M.

Which is not a bad thing, not at all. Lord knows the world needs more Ramones fans.

However, the thought struck me that the equivalent shirt that my Mom would have had to have bought for me when I was 6 would have had to have featured the Rudy Valle Orchestra, or maybe Lloyd Huntley and his Isle o' Blues Orchestra.

Yeah, mucho thanks to my Mom for not doing that.

Not Such A Unique & Beautiful Snowflake

Quite the snowfall over the last 24 hours. A foot and a half, at least by the measure of how much snow is on the picnic table in the backyard.

Days like these all you can do is sit around a warm cozy non-intrusive television broadcast and reflect on your past and contemplate the future.

Yep. And that's sure to lead to the ol' "Am I an idiot to tread water or am I an idiot to take action" self-dialogue.

Arizona Mountain Morning

The Very Big Search Going In The Middle Of The Very Big Desert

A Brief Summary Of The Situation

By the short hairs, by the nose,
Leading you on, leading you on
A morsel here, a morsel there
Leading you on
Make you feel like you're valued one day
Make you feel like garbage the next
Leading you on, leading you on
Promise you a street paved with gold bricks
Then have you nailed to a crucifix
Leading you on, leading you on

Your self-esteem, where did it go?
Your self-worth, where did it go?
People are lining up along the street
To watch as they parade you about
By the short hairs, by the nose
Leading you on, leading you on
A morsel here, a morsel there
Leading you on

Forty Years Ago In Music Advertising

As I am currently pre-occupied with avoiding a looming decision that may have repercussions on not only my work life but on personal relationships I hold near and dear, here are a few magazine ads for musical acts from the late 1970's

Things Created By People Who Live In The Heat

Purple Plywood Cacti

Welcome To The Center Of The World

It's not often one is driving along an interstate freeway and sees a sign off to the side of the road that declares a particular spot as being the center of the world.

But that exact scenario played out for me just a few weeks ago when I was driving along I-8 in the south central corner of the Imperial Valley in California.

That's A Wrap

A Prickly Situation

The Toughest Town In The Wild, Wild West

If you ever find yourself on I-10 as it meanders through Arizona towards Tucson (from the east or west) you will soon find yourself presented with the opportunity to visit one of the more iconic relics of wild, wild west of the United States.

Only an hour south of Tucson, the small town has been turned into a living monument dedicated to the days of Cowboys, Outlaws, Dance Hall Girls, and of course, Gunfights.

  

Jump From The Frying Pan...Into The Deep Freezer

It was less than two weeks ago I was walking along a beach in 90+ Fahrenheit sunshine...and I come back to this.

Beautiful though, eh?