By now I'm sure that there are no people left who haven't heard that Whitney Huston, age 48, was found unresponsive in her Beverly Hills Hotel suite yesterday afternoon.  She was long a user of drugs and while I do not know if drugs were the direct cause of her much… Read full post »

Some may have noticed, been concerned, ovejoyed that my presence is diminished.  The reason is a bout of rheumatoid arthritis, newly diagnosed that has left me feeling as though my joints are full of cayenne pepper and ground glass.  There are many topics that I wanted to weigh in on  … Read full post »

When we were kids we often went for Sunday drives.  They weren't trips with destinations, sometimes we just kept driving on back roads as long as we could.  We saw rivers and creeks and woods and lakes with fish jumping.  We saw the abandoned farm houses and barns left over from… Read full post »

Don Cornelius was discovered dead in his California apartment of an apparently self inflicted gunshot wound.  I should go on to say that he was the creator and host of America's first nationally syndicated first run television program that brought style and soul music to the nation for the first… Read full post »

 When I was growing up in the late sixties, there was an almost national obsession with a pass time known as "cruising" or "riding around".  Sounds pretty simple doesn't it?  Well, it was a very complicated and ritualistic way to spend a Friday and/or Saturday night if yo… Read full post »

I've been at this writing thing much longer than my arrival to Open Salon might lead you to believe.  Even though I have poor spelling and atrocious grammer and punctuation skills I've been doing this since the 1960's.  Okay , granted that in the aforementioned 60's I was a child and… Read full post »

I just saw that one of the all time legends of the blues, Etta James ( born Jamesetta Hawkins) has died in California from complications of leukemia.  The perfect cap to an absolutely shitty week.  I've been a blues fan all my life and one of the first blues singers to… Read full post »

Well, this is good and bad I guess.  I have a car that isn't hot yet, a new identity, and another body to dispose of.  I think I'll wait a while and then just burn it all.  If there was only a way to keep my old car I could just… Read full post »

maybe later

 Well, I'll tell you since you asked so nicely. Maybe it is a bad day, maybe I just don't have something in me that makes me able to make that leap from scribbler to writer. That's the reason I started here, to learn to be a… Read full post »

Sometimes, when I find the world closing in to tightly I revisit the only religion that has made any sense to me, Bokononism.  For the details read "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut JR. they are all there.

It gets hard sometimes to keep up the cheerful attitude about things when I… Read full post »

I think I have worn out my welcome

fewer take the time each day

have all of my stories faded

back from the light of day

I may have worn out my welcome

by repeating my personal thoughts

or maybe I'm just to damn boring

for others to give me… Read full post »

bitter bile slithers

across my dripping chin

anger seethes and rages

as my life slowly bends

Foul despair goads

a violent response

clattering blades sound as all hope is lost

Frigid rain chills

the spiderweb within

steaming hate and horror

once again begins

burn it all down

Smoki… Read full post »

Sometimes something in a post I read here on O/S will set my mind off on a tangent that leads to a post of my own.  Todays post is thanks to The Chicken man.

In the late sixties rock began to change a bit.  Less of the psychedelic and more of… Read full post »

News from the Persian Gulf grows more threatening everyday.  I know that this blog gets hits from many parts of the world(thanks Google Ads) so I want to speak to that global audience.  I also aim this at my own countrymen as well.

How many children are enough to sacrifice for… Read full post »

Winds are howling in the mid West this morning, bringing cold and Winter in full force to the places that have been so far a good bit warmer than normal.  It hails the furious malestrom that the world will face this year.

We miss the important news for the foolish and… Read full post »

I just read an A.P. report that Cheetah the chimpanzee that co starred with Johnny Weismuller in several "Tarzan" movies died on Chritmas Eve at the ripe old age of eighty.

Hard to believe that the last survivor of all of those movies was the chimp.  I only have anecdotal things… Read full post »

The holidays can find us in a struggle, a struggle to meet the expectations of other, a struggle to find the perfect gift.  Gifts are tokens of our love to those we give them to.  We look for those gifts that we know will warm the heart of that person we… Read full post »

Holidays on an aircraft carrier are some lonely holidays and for a chronic holiday depressive they can be the worst of all.  We had went on a short deployment to the North Atlantic in November, which meant in this case we would spend Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve. at sea… Read full post »

There are many things in my life that I wish I had done.  I wish that I was magic, able to go back now and right some of them, being only human I can't.  I don't know if this feeling is common or if it is just me being the… Read full post »

After over a year of uncertainty my life was about to reboot.  I gathered my things from the barracks and told the few who were interected what was going on.  Some were angry that I'd been given a slap on the wrist for my offenses, others were ready to try it… Read full post »