In the center of the oval rug is a creaking wood chair. The back is a slender carved curve, embracing him; it ends in small cat's paws. Arm rests. One of the old spindles rising from the worn seat is broken. The spindles are just for effect; a pair of thin,… Read full post »

I'm just an old guy.

My move is over, just now, and I want to say the truth. Seven days and more of daily lifting and pickup trucks, Deborah and I, and our two girls, both in high school. This meant help from their exalted, standup boy friends, looming and pumping boxes… Read full post »

I once had an unfortunate

brush with Dippity Do.

I mistook initial greasy sensation

for long-term lubricative value.


I discovered: Dippity Doesn't.

That's what I get for stealing dollops

of helpers for hair, apparently.

A skewed comeuppance for me. Not!


I wanted a roller.

Instead got a "hey!"

Instead I go… Read full post »

My hands grip rocks.

My feet slip. I stand, straighten and slip again. Damn. Not half-way up this goddamn conveyor of crushed rock. Not pea gravel but real rocks: golf sized, cornered with perfect points, dusty. Bits that sticks to your hand.

I crouch. Any small movement and I… Read full post »

I thought maybe I could do this. But I failed.*

I tried  doing a chart. Ridiculous. Did I really think I could write a how-to for moderacy and get us all/… Read full post »

Here we all are now, stuck in the rocks, on opposite sides of the ravine, frozen expressions of righteous correctitude, weathering away. 

No, I  say. This is a murmur to/… Read full post »

Trim tab, people.

Large tankers and cruise ships would snap their rudders in minutes if they tried to steer with rudders alone. They shift the trim tab first, get a new tendency/… Read full post »

I sing the body of electronic OS! the corpus delectable, the blurs of pain and sweet joy on the activated phosphor on the scratch-resistant glass; the orderly diodes, emitting light and heat and mess, the human mismatch and hurly-burly and kiss-kiss and disaffection and Original Glamour and peerless… Read full post »

I have found the answer.

(because everything of value requires work, you must enlarge your browser's text to read it. Or copy and paste it somewhere. Or just click on it. Wait, read my post first at least!)

Read full post »

I told my girls I was once in jail.

It just came out. They were home from high school -- one is a senior, the other a sophomore -- and it was just  this and that, and then the topic was being hungry and cold, and so I told them about… Read full post »

They aren't reparations. They are a secret slush fund for the ressurection of the CSA!

1. Red states receive a disproportionate amount of state and federal welfare/workfare/social subsidies,

and since

2. Overall most of these people are rural white (50-year-old myths about black welfare queens notwi… Read full post »

So after I fled the airport, which was after the family of psychos in the woods, but before jail; I mean, in between the psycho family, and then finding junkies to live with and then jail, comes sleeping with the bicycles at Washington University. And the dream of the lavender hill.

--

It… Read full post »

 The Red, Green and Blue.

What? We are still red-blooded. We are still true-blue. Yes?

I know: Uh-oh,
White is gone.

The worst fears realized. The loss of El Dorado, the falling of the citadel, the dipping of the flag itself, into stank and filth and corruption. Manhood gone.… Read full post »

this was first a comment, inspired by David Sirota's heartfelt post: "On Being Hated In a Nation of Assholes";
please: go and encourage him as well?

Eisenhower said: "Anger cannot win, it cannot even think clearly". Proof that at least one Republican had his head on straight. (Plus his comment about… Read full post »

It is a homely error, Certainty.

I abase myself every time
I assert with Venom,
however dilute.

How can something so simple
-- lovingkindness --
be so hard to do?

We must saturate with
and surrender to lovingkindness
or else

continue to
embarrass ourselves
and piss people off.

How do I show
strong thought and… Read full post »

1. The Tall Book of Make-Believe / Werner & Williams

We had this when I was a kid. I tracked down a copy and love it dearly. When life gets to be too much I cling to this book. Garth Wiilliams is the best children's book illustrator ever.

2. The Odyssey  / … Read full post »

All religious belief is a subset of human thinking. Including all morality that originates in religious beliefs. It's a funny thing.

Even the Essential Commandmant? Yep.

In Christianity it goes like this: "Love thy neighbor as thyself".

Believers assign this to a Voice of Authority (THE Authority, they… Read full post »

Once I saw the air spin and I thought it was proof of God. I felt God Himself.

We lived, my family, on an 80-acre farm south of Saugerties, in a 200-year-old stone farmhouse. We often lazed and talked and ate outside, between the twin maples, titans with four foot diameter trunks,… Read full post »

For event this Year:

The date: October 4th, Sunday, assuming we get at least 5 of you to confirm. And of course if you plan to stay over you can come early or stay late, Fri or Sat or Mon.

… Read full post »

1. Who was your FIRST prom date?

Julie Parmenter. Both of us uber-hippies, 1971, I was already a HS dropout so it was her Prom at Shawnee Mission East HS. I wore a comical Keystone Kops tuxedo w/ highwater pants, hair down to my waistline; her in Renaissance earth mother hippie… Read full post »

Below it is red-hot, criss-crossed flame, where his belt whistled in to cut my behind, the backs of my legs. It has eased  enough for me to pull out my lower lip from between my teeth, and pant. My eyes burn.

If I hiccup again Chris will throw his long… Read full post »