Morning Breaks Electra

She savored the last drops of the second and final shot                                    

                                                     Like it was the finest wine                                        Because, contrary to popular belief                                                     

                         She never had more than two before breakfast                              Then she carefully, patiently, washed her hands                                                

                                                     In mineral spirits                                                          No good would come from getting any of those chemicals                        

                                                     In cracks and crevices they didn't belong                  It still being early though she didn't get fully dressed                                

                                                     Just the torn terry robe                                                Draped over her slouching shoulders                                                                     

                         Hell, that fine delivery boy might be stopping by                                 Or maybe Quarter-Ounce Hank                                                   

                                                     No use getting dressed if you're going                      To be undressed 56 minutes later                                                           

                                                     She sat down on the beat up old sofa                    That friends said she was beginning to resemble                                     

                                                     Lit up half a cigarette                                                She found on a dirty plate                                                                

                                                    Sucked in a long drag                                                As she stared out the window                                                           

                        Hoping that both of them don't show up at once                                 She ain't got time for that

Nothing That Can't Be Repaired With A Little Duct Tape, A Couple Tarps, & A Roll Of Visqueen

 

Better Than The Edge Of A Coffee Table To The Shin...

It feels as if the sun ain't shining right                                                     Nothing is coming up but down                                                     People walking 'round no one smiling                                                  Everybody wearing a big fat frown

Cats be listening to death metal blues                                                  Dogs be gnawing on your favorite shoes                                      Hamster keeled over like hamsters do                                                  Goldfish got the spark of a blown fuse                        

But none of that can bother me today                                                    My spirits are riding high                                                                         And I'm whistling like a happy blue jay                                                        Road is open there are no cars in my way 

Because there's half a burrito in the fridge

Yeah, I know everything is going to be alright                                                      'cuz there's half a burrito in the fridge

Half a burrito in the fridge, half a burrito in the fridge                                          And everything is going to be just alright.

Be That Guy

 Cameron Hughes has got it made

His occupation, the job for which he is hired to do, the job from which his withholding his drawn...is sports entertainer.

Check it out - https://www.cameronhughes.tv/

Now that man is living, and working, the dream.

The Next Gear

 The return of professional American Gridiron Football means the return of professional American Gridiron Football announcers and their extensive library of clichés.

If you've ever watched an American Gridiron Football game, or just listened to one being broadcast over the radio, you've most likely heard a number of those clichés.

Maybe one of the all-time classics, such as "He left it all on the field" or "110 percent effort", or maybe one of the lesser-known gems such as "That hit had him staggering like a tipsy barfly looking for the bathroom".  

And maybe, just maybe, you heard what I consider the one cliché that I personally believe is not only an understatement, but so much so that it belongs in some sort of obvious observation hall of fame.

I am speaking of the old nugget, "he has another gear the rest of us don't" and the myriad variations of that statement (kicked it into another gear, etc.)

To each and every NFL announcer I would like to point out the fact that simply making the roster of an NFL team, even just to sit the bench, or heck, fill a spot on the practice squad, means that person has an extra gear the vast majority of us do not have.

In fact, just to crack the roster of a college football squad means a player has an extra gear. Hell, just to be a starter on a football team at a large high school requires an extra gear.

That extra gear is usually a combination of extra gears actually - strength, speed, toughness (physical, mental, emotional), acumen, situational awareness, perfect eyesight (peripheral vision being a huge plus), great hands, great feet (not in the sense of having nice healthy feet, but in the sense that a player can move on his feet nimbly, with purpose, no matter if the player weighs 150 lbs or 350 lbs - well, especially if the player weighs 350 lbs). 

And the extra gear has to continually develop, continually improve. You can't expect to have the extra gear and just be able to step on a field and excel - initially, sure, maybe up through high school ball, simply because not everyone playing the high school game has all the extra gears that the more elite players have - but the majority of the college players do, and each and everyone of the players who make it to the NFL certainly do.

So yeah, time to retire the "extra gear" cliché...we all understand that, it doesn't have to be rubbed in pointed out.

Me Too Buddy, Me Too

 

Never To Early To Get Those Skeletons Out Of The Closet

Paenitemus Non Satis

   I apologize my friend for not finding the time to meet up for lunch, or dinner, or maybe a movie.

   It had been awhile since we had actually spoken to one another - 5 years? Maybe 7 or 8?

   Ah, good memories from back then, we shared some good times - remember those hikes we used to go on? The days we would loop twenty-five miles or more between dawn and sunset - damn, my knees ache just recalling that time we climbed Castle Peak, the one near Crested Butte - we should have taken the northwest route. 

   I remember we even talked about going on a road trip to Yosemite to check out the giant Sequoias and then maybe Big Sur - in the off-season of course.

   But hell, hectic schedules, nether of us ever seeming to be able to get time off from work at the same time, and then both of us being in and out of relationships that complicated matters even more (remember Melina, the woman from San Antonio I met at the Amoeba Lounge? Man, I apologize double for the way I let her keep me away from you - if it's any consolation she left me for some guy named Elliot who knocked her around, gave her herpes, got her fired from that job at the center, then dumped her for some 19-year old stripper - not that anyone deserves to be treated that harshly, but, yeah, you know).

   It was a surprise to learn that you and Holly Thomas had moved in with each other. Hell, I didn't know you two were even dating. Did she ever mention that she and I were in the same Social Studies class in 8th grade?

   Geez, the chill of Autumn is creeping in and I must get going - have to be at Jimmy's in an hour, don't want to arrive late and have everyone stare at me like a freak sideshow attraction.

   You don't have ears for apologies, I know...man, I know.

   But I cannot apologize enough. Over the past few months I probably thought about getting ahold of you at least two or three times a week. So many times I got the idea I should just drop by your place, just drop by and hang out like we used to.

   Cannot apologize enough to you, or myself.

   I had no idea the next time I'd see you would be in the obituaries.

Must have A Cast Iron Heart

   Flashing that giddy smile again like the brightest warning signal in the whole wide world alerting his friends to the fact he's stupid with amore once again another woman has caught his eye another woman has her hands on his crotch he will be insufferable for days maybe weeks to come better start devising strategies to avoid the happy couple...and for the eventual moment when the happy couple skids out of control and goes off the cliff because the only thing more unbearable than morons in love are morons with broken hearts.

The Indecision Waltz

 He was pushing his luck                                                                                                        Just for the exercise                                                                                                               Swimming in a swamp, drowning in muck                                                                                Not much left to do otherwise                                                                                                 Caught in the undertow of inertia 

There's Definitely Something In The Air Today

 

The Odds Are Not Exactly Favorable...

   The bad news is, statistically speaking, the average man has a far, far better chance of writing a New York Times bestseller than he does of ever dating a supermodel.

   Even if it's just for like a light lunch or some something.

   The even worse news is I can barely type.

The Bar Gets Lower & Lower...

                                 The sunflowers have gone dormant

 There was a time when the bar was set high - exceptionally high, at least for a man from my circumstances.

Things have change - time has worn down abilities, capabilities, desires.

Nowadays, if the scale reads plus or minus a pound from one Sunday to the next, that is counted as a major victory - one worth celebrating.

But not too much, as too much celebration has a tendency to effect the bar setting...

Learning To Live With The Approximate

 Some people call it compromising, some people call it settling. Whatever your choice of terms, it all comes down to finding a way to justify choices made.

On The Trail Of Musical Taste

   Fairly certain it was the British twist on American Rock & Roll that first grabbed my ears. Merseybeat was what the scribes labeled it, music created by English kids who lived in and around the river Mersey on which banks the city of Liverpool was built. 

   That was mostly due to those bands being favorites of my older brother and sisters, so I heard them a lot.

   My ears were drenched in the music my siblings listened to - Motown (Supremes, Temptations, Four Tops), Surf music (Beach Boys harmonies and Dick Dale's surf guitar are still favs), a little Folk (Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Peter, Paul & Mary, Donovan, the Byrds - the 60's Folk revivalists), Psychedelic Rock (Vanilla Fudge, Blues Magoos, Iron Butterfly, Jefferson Airplane), Swamp Rock (Creedence, The Band) - even experimental stuff like Frank Zappa (my older brother loved Frank) and pretty much anything else that was part of the musical landscape particular to Southern California back then.

   Older brother MJL also had an affection for Garage Rock that he passed on to me, for which I am eternally grateful.

   My Mom's musical taste had a lingering influence that I can't deny - she sang religious hymns in the kitchen after we were all in bed, and loved old Appalachian Hillbilly music & what I learned later is known as Coal Miner's music (my Mom was a coal miner's daughter, raised in the highest town in the Appalachian mountains). She listened to and sang along with recordings by the Carter family, Clarence Ashley, Al Hopkins, Tex Ritter, Hank Snow & of course Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. 

   My Mom also loved listening to Lou Rawls, Bobby Goldsboro, and Frank Sinatra. Dean Martin as well. 

   She never liked Elvis though.

   There was also the influence of the musical taste of friends and neighbors, which I used to discount as being uninteresting but which I have grown to realize is spectacular. That music ran the gamut from Blues (old Blues such as the songs of Big Bill Broonzy & Bessie Smith up to more contemporary Blues from performers like Jimmy Reed, B.B. King & Taj Mahal) to the Soul of Ray Charles & James Brown, along with Country & Western sounds created by everyone from Gene Autry & Patsy Kline to Del Reeves & Roy Clark).

   As I got older my musical horizons continued to expand, thanks to becoming old enough to leave the neighborhood on my own and gaining a broader circle of friends. Jack Dickens (he was the second owner of the Comic Kingdom in North Park) introduced me to Prog & Art rock bands such as King Crimson, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and Jethro Tull, and photographer Ralph Hulett jr added to that with his eclectic tastes (don't know if I would have ever heard anything by John Fahey or Klaatu if it wasn't for Ralph). Various fellow Comic-Con attendees and committee members introduced me to glam rock acts such as The Sweet, David Bowie, and T Rex - and, if memory serves correctly, my first exposure to Punk Rock was at the 1976 con, where I heard the Dead Boys and the Ramones.

   The various schools I attended (Boone Elementary, Bell Jr High, and Morse High) exposed me to more popular contemporary sounds - everything from the Average White Band to Parliament/Funkadelic to KC & the Sunshine Band. Not music I was ever much into then, but which I wax nostalgic for nowadays.

   Which brings me to a sidebar. There were a number of bands that were extremely popular in my youth that I absolutely could not get into - acts such as the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, The Jackson 5, KISS, Aerosmith, Earth, Wind & Fire, Led Zeppelin, Donna Summer, Van Halen, and too many more to list - that I can now appreciate. 

   Weird that, especially how much I really love early Van Halen and KISS now.

   Still don't care for the Eagles much though.

   Enough with the sidebar. 

   From the end of my teens until my early thirties my musical tastes continued to evolve. Power pop, New Wave, Ska, Cowpunk, Two-Tone, Paisley Underground, the Minneapolis sound, Rap, Sunshine Pop, Hip Hop, College Rock, Grunge, Hard Rock & Metal, Alternative, Rave, Indie, Americana, EDM - heck, even Classical can now be found in my musical library.

   I would like to think my musical tastes will continue to expand/evolve, but lately I have found myself not hearing anything on the radio or other sources of music exposure that really sparks my interest. 

   Everything I've been listening to lately now falls under the heading Oldies, or worse yet is labeled "Neo" or "Nu" or something revivalist. 

   I don't know if it's because there is nothing new on the musical front that is actually any good, or if I've just succumbed to curmudgeonly thinking.

   It's probably the curmudgeonly thinking, which kinda bums me out. 

Those Weren't The Days, My Friends...

 There was a time when friends and relatives would gather 'round and share stories, recounting exciting adventures or risky escapades with one another, sometimes in a show of one-upmanship and other times as a means of embracing a commonality (or camaraderie?). 

Lately though all the faulty recollections of misspent youth have fallen to the wayside, replaced by shared memories of favorite episodes of television shows that were projected by cathode ray tubes onto small phosphorescent screens boasting 480 lines of dodgy resolution.

Nothing sparks the good ol' warmth of nostaglia like a shared memory of a favorite episode of the original Hawaii 5-0, especially when the memory of the episode is augmented by a sidebar expounding on the adjustment of either a set of rabbit ears that sat atop the television set or a huge, roof-mounted antenna to improve the signal reception.   

Fish Was The Classy One

 

Negotiating Backward

 A long time ago he used to say that all he every really wanted

 Was just a few consecutive drama-free days    

Now he's changed his tune, lowered his demands  

Willing to settle for spending maybe one day not feeling

                     Disappointed

That can't be too much to ask he says   

To himself of course as he wrings his heavy hands

                Just a brief respite to allow him to gather his bearing 

                   Shake off the sense of being completely disjointed 

                     Castrated