Soft Dream

 All I've ever really wanted is to be drinkin' that free Bubble Up and eatin' that rainbow stew.

Compared to Taylor Swift............................

I'm not doing so good.

Her net worth is estimated to be $1.1 billion. Mine is significantly less than that.

When she puts an album out, the buzz surrounding it dwarfs the reaction to any other world event, including William Shatner's 91st birthday.

When I sing, people spit at me.

Taylor Swift owns a Mercedes Maybach, an Audi R8, a Porsche 911 Turbo, a Ferrari 458 Italia, and about seven other cars.

I drive a 2020 Hyundai Elantra. Silver. It has 40,000 miles on it, and I have two or three more years of payments to go. A tree fell on it a couple of winters ago and it has been sad ever since.

Taylor Swift owns eight multimillion dollar homes in four states. I own one home in one state. I paid $165,000 for it. It's probably worth $140,000. But I do own it. No mortgage. So there's that. No fucking bank threatening me with execution if the mortgage falls behind.

Taylor Swift is 34 years old. I am 70. I'll be dead long before she is, and I will have tasted a lot less of life.

So I'm not doing so good compared to her.

BUT

I am doing measurably better compared to Previous Me.

Prevous Me was one sad dude. Unfulfilled, and unable to hide it (except in public, at work, with the family, with friends, with strangers, in restaurants, in bars - come to think of it, in every fucking situation except for being alone). I get props for being a world-class actor, but no $ to go along with that talent.

Lately I am buoyant. Got some pep in my step. And why not?

The universe has bestowed me with extraordinary gifts and my load has been lightened. I smile a lot, I laugh freely (instead of laughing the guilty laugh of the pretender).

One last frontier to cross.

Freedom. Still not retired. Still can't retire.

I have never committed myself to anything, so I became a red rubber ball bouncing from one thing to another, no rhyme, no reason. Because I think life as it is typically lived is a joke. Still do.

However the joke's on me. Life bites you if you don't bite it. Whaddya gonna do?

I start yet another menial job this weekend. Not because I have to, but because I am a lost soul, and because I feel I need to pad our bank account to protect us from the Evil Fuck who owns the property our house sits on. A Scumbag who raises HOA fees whenever the hell he feels like it, according to long term residents here.

I need peace of mind. I need to feel safe and secure. I am 70 fucking years old, for Christ sake.

So I'll do my part. Stay ahead of the greedy, heartless motherfucker financially, until a disgruntled renter chops his head off with a machete and displays it on a spike.

I know I am on the right track, though. I know I am, because I am making better decisions. I have Kit Kat mini frozen dairy dessert bars in the freezer, and Hostess Cupcakes in the cupboard. Do you really need more evidence than that?

It's a beautiful day. I don't have to work.

Think I'll enjoy myself.

Sunday

When I was a kid Sunday was a real thing.

Sunday had legs, it was its own day, it looked, felt, and sounded different than its six brothers. Many businesses were closed, banks were closed, there was no internet, no cell phones. Many people actually had weekends off.

On Saturday you would run around and take care of errands, all the annoying little things you needed to get done, to have, so you can live your life. Maybe go out on Friday night, Saturday night, lay your burdens down and pick your whiskey up. Get a little crazy.

On Sunday people chilled. You could really unplug from life because life was shut down to an appreciable extent.

You could feel it. It was a tangible exhalation of breath. Privacy. Peace. Rest. Quiet

Sunday dinner was a thing. Sunday dinner was a must in my house, quite ritualistic and I miss it, although I did not appreciate it at the time.  People visited, or they stayed home and read the paper with their feet up.

Then the world went 24/7 - everything, always, all the time. A lot less people have weekends off now, and it kind of doesn't really matter because the concept of a "weekend off" no longer exists. You gotta be on all the time.

There is no escape from life. People do not think of Sundays in the same way at all.

But I do. I still get a sense of peace on Sundays. It's in my head, but I still enjoy it. I feel like nothing can touch me on Sunday, I feel safe. I feel authorized to goof off. I love long, lazy Sundays.

I feel good today.

Dickey Betts

From your perspective, I'm sure my reaction will be way over the top.

If that is true, it tells me you have never had a band that played music that fed your soul, healed your broken heart, and made you forget about that fucking job you hate so much. A band that you could not live without. COULD NOT.

Dickey Betts died yesterday. He was 80 years old. He was one of six founding fathers of The Allman Brothers Band. Duane Allman, Gregg Allman, Butch Trucks, Jaimoe (aka Jai Johanny Johanson, aka John Lee Johnson), Berry Oakley, and Dickey Betts.

Jaimoe is the only surviving member of the Original Six.

Dickey Betts and Duane Allman "pioneered a melodic twin guitar harmony and counterpoint which rewrote the rules for how two rock guitarists can work together, completely scrapping the traditional rhythm/lead roles to stand toe to toe."

Their playing was so unique and so exquisite it blew your mind.

Dickey was the personification of rock 'n roll. Even though he was a founding father, he was kicked out of the band in 2000 over a conflict regarding his continued alcohol and drug abuse. How fucking bad do you have to be for The Allman Brothers to kick you out of the band? Trust me, this was not a group of altar boys.

After 2000 Dickey never played with them again, nor did he appear with other former band members for reunions or side projects. What a fucking shame. What a loss for the music world.

Dickey wrote "Jessica", "Blue Sky", and "Rambling Man" among many other songs. Listen to those three songs. They alone will justify you laying flowers on his grave. They are beautiful.

I loved the way he played. Smooth. And I always said he danced when he played. Check out some videos. The way he moved when he was soloing it was like he was dancing with his guitar.

Dickey had a lot of rough edges. Getting himself kicked out of the band was a crime, although I'm not sure the judge and jury were exactly clear-eyed. But we all fuck up.

Ever the rebel, I saw him play solo in what was essentially a supper club many years ago. The kind of place where smoking was not allowed and rowdiness was frowned upon. At a time when musicans would take the stage with bottles of water.

His band took the stage, then Dickey walked out - with a cigarette between his lips, he sat a Budweiser on his amp, and went to town.     I          loved              it.

I don't like where I am in life.

On one hand, I do. I am 70, I am healthy, I got a new life, a grandson, my sons are healthy and happy and so are their women.

On the other hand, the people who inspired me when I was young are all dying. It breaks my heart. It forces me to face reality when I would much rather be dreaming.

Requiescat in pace, Dickey Betts.

You made my life so much better, so much more enjoyable, so much more bearable.

Thank you for that.

Love you, man.

I Am Older Now.....................

 "I am older now, I have more than what I wanted, but I wish that I had started long before I did.

And there's so much time to make up everywhere you turn, time we have wasted on the way, so much water moving underneath the bridge, let the water come and carry us away.

Look round you now, you must go for what you wanted, look at all my friends who did and got what they deserved.

So much love to make up everywhere you turn, love we have wasted on the way, so much water moving underneath the bridge, let the water come and carry us away."

From Wasted on the Way, by Graham Nash

Electric jolts of life, of change - have been rocking me for 6 and 1/2 months now. This is good. I could not avoid change if I wanted to. It's been like trying to take a nap in the back yard on a hot August day, while the neighbor intermittingly plays Black Sabbath, breaks for lunch, then Metallica, runs to the store, then Foo Fighters, studies the bible, then Led Zeppelin.

For Christ sake, my complacency has been shattered......................and circumstance is resurrecting my soul.

It has been relentless and consistent. Including cycle of life stuff - the birth of my grandson, the death of my cousin. It doesn't get any more real than that.

Prodding and pushing me while I try to make up for this and to atone for that. Redirecting me from the senseless road I have been on for decades, onto the road, my road, a road to deliver my soul to a peaceful place. The road that was laid out for me at birth, which I quickly veered off of like a drunk driver asleep at the wheel.

I feel very good. I embrace change enthusiastically because I have hungered for it over a lifetime. 

All I need now is enough time to make up for wasted time.

What Are Their Names

Monday night, late, I was watching and listening to a David Crosby and Graham Nash concert from 2011 recorded in Connecticut. Had a glass of whiskey by my hand, it was after midnight, I was sitting in the dark. That's how you do it right.

When I listen to Crosby and Nash I am tapped into a direct pipeline to God. They harmonize exquisitely, and the lyrics slap you in the face. You could call them throwbacks to hippy times but they are not throwbacks - the lyrics are even more meaningful today in this fucked up, cold-hearted, backwards, hate-filled world.

David Crosby died on January 18, 2023 and I cried.

Dig the lyrics to the song What Are Their Names:

"I wonder who they are, the men who really run this land, and I wonder why they run it with such a thoughtless hand, what are their names and on what streets do they live? I'd like to ride right over this afternoon and give them a piece of my mind about peace for mankind, peace is not an awful lot to ask."

I want to drive to D.C. and punch every politician I run into in the face. republicans AND democrats. These fucking corrupt, brainless, cold-hearted money puppets who care more about their wallets and power than they do about the lives of the people they supposedly "represent."

They are supposed to protect us and improve the quality of our lives. Instead they steal from us and destroy the quality of our lives.

Thank god we have music like that of David Crosby and Graham Nash to soothe our souls, even temporarily, from the evils of those we ironically call "leaders."

Between Heaven and Hell

 "Somewhere between Heaven and Hell a soul knows where it's been, I want to feel my spirit lifted up and catch my breath again."

From Lay Me Down, by James Raymond.

James Raymond is David Crosby's son. Crosby gave him up for adoption in 1962 - Crosby was 21 at the time. Raymond was adopted by the Raymond family as a newborn and had a happy childhood. He had no idea who his birth father was. Interestingly enough, Raymond ended up pursuing a career in music. 

He started looking for his birth father when he was in his late 20's, saw the name David Crosby on his birth certificate but did not think it was the David Crosby.

They finally met in 1994 and ultimately ended up playing, writing, and recording music together. They even started a band with Jeff Pevar called Crosby, Pevar, and Raymond - CPR.

Is that not an amazing story?

Anyway, I love the lyric because to me it implies hope - if you are between Heaven and Hell it means you have not reached the destination yet. Your soul knows where it's been. The good and the bad. There is still time to change your ultimate fate.

March 22, 2024

A spectacular day. My grandson was born.

Jackson Joseph Testa.

Why have I waited so long to talk about it? Because of how fucked up the world is today. As if going public with this magic was the wrong thing to do.

I can no longer keep this love and pride to myself.

He is a miracle. He is beautiful, precious, a unique and brand new human being who is relying on his parents to protect and inspire and teach him until he is capable of living his own life.

He's got the right parents. My son Craig, my daughter-in-law Amanda. Two loving and sensitive people. Two intelligent human beings with fine-tuned senses of humor. Two people who are tough enough to handle the world and tough enough to handle taking care of a precious new life.

He is 4 and 1/2 weeks old. I am 70 years old. This gives me a new and unexpected perspective.

Life is very different now. My life has been rocked and rejuvenated by Jackson's life.

When I hold him in my arms my heart overflows with the purest of love and my soul soars. I feel so alive.

I reflect on what I have done with my life and wonder what Jackson will do with his. What will his personality be like, what will he be into, will he be an athlete or a musician or both? Will he be an academic or a race car driver? What will his sense of humor be like? Will he regard me with respect and appreciation? Will he have the guts to be honest with me about who I am, what I say, what I do? Call me out on my bullshit? I believe we will have an honest and open and natural relationship.

Here is what I think. First of all I think he will have a great sense of humor, because Craig and Amanda are naturally funny - it's in his DNA. I think he will be smart. I think he will be his own man. I think he will be interesting, never, ever boring. I think he will take charge of his life and do what he wants with it. He doesn't have to be a famous athlete or a successful musician or any other fantasy you can name - but he will live his own life, and that is the ultimate success for any human.

I think he will make people around him happy. I think people will want to be around him.

I think he will love me, but not as much as I love him. That's the way it works. He needs 70 years under his belt to feel love for me the way I feel it for him. That's ok. That's natural. His love will continue to make my soul soar forever.

Welcome to the world, Jackson. Welcome to your parents, you are lucky to have them.

I love you with all the love I have in me. A love that is ferocious and real and honest and intense, amplified through 70 years of life.

I love you Jackson.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

May you never doubt that.

Being 70

 "I didn't want to leave. I wanted to be decades younger. I wanted to be everything except what I was. Unfortunately, at a certain age, wanting something you can't be or wanting what you can't have can become a way of life."

From The New Iberia Blues, by James Lee Burke

No Way To Think

My cousin Mary Ann died over the weekend.

I believe she was 81. Carol and I hadn't seen her in decades, but we reconnected a few years ago and it was so nice. We enjoyed dinner at her condo a few times, had great conversations. We emailed each other, shared phone calls. Carol had a great and extended conversation with her just last week.

Her death was unexpected.

Since we moved to the new house I was not in as regular contact with her as I had been previously. I was distracted. Kept telling myself "I should email Mary Ann." I didn't. Then she died.

I feel deep regret.

My friend Nelson died last year. Very unexpectedly. I went to high school with him. Over the years I only saw him sporadically. Always through my brother Ed, who had a closer relationship with Nelson. But when I was with Nelson.............I laughed. I was never bored. When he died I deeply regretted not actively pursuing our friendship.

Carol has a cool aunt named Paula. The love of Paula's life was Bill. Bill was peculiar in a good way. He took conversations down twisted paths. He was fun and unique and never boring. He was sick a few years back. He called us, had a conversation with Carol, but I never picked up the phone. He died shortly thereafter. I deeply regret not talking to him one last time.

That is just three people. I am sad to say that many more of my family members have died, and some friends. I can feel sadly regretful about each one of those deaths. It's not hard to do.

That's no way to think.

The last few years with Mary Ann were magnificent. Great, peaceful gatherings. Honest, emotional, meaningful. Nelson and Bill were gifts - two men who were powerfully unique, who kept me off balance and made me smile as they did it.

There is no room in life for regret.

There is a great deal of room for gratitude.

Buddy Guy - Aura

Saw Buddy Guy Friday night.

Buddy Guy is God. King of Wild & Crazy Blues. Buddy Guy is 87 years old.

His opener was Bobby Rush. Bobby is 90 years old. He's lost a step or two, but he still brings it. A little more energy than Buddy. But seeing them together on the same stage was mind-blowing. You wanna talk about history? Blues history? It was all right there, baby.

Towards the end of the concert Buddy brought his son on stage - Greg Guy - also an accomplished blues guitar player (surprisingly enough). It was fitting to see father and son on stage together doing what they do; it was emotional considering the fact that Buddy is giving up touring after this tour.

I have seen Buddy a few times over the years and he was always larger than life. Whipping his guitar into a frenzy that broke strings and showed up other guitar players. Wailing and flying, playing the blues like rock 'n roll. Loud and fast.

Of course he played slow blues beautifully too - rip your heart out.

Powerful voice, powerful presence.

Last night he walked around the stage like Joe Biden. Buddy was sick last year - this concert was scheduled for 2023 but was re-scheduled because he was sick. He's lost a lot of weight. Lost some energy. He handed off most of the guitar solos to his guitar player. He talked a lot. But he still brought it in his own unique way.

Hard to watch from a health or aging perspective but......................he is still Buddy fucking Guy.

Because he has an aura. 

When you age you gotta have an aura or you will just disappear. Your body is gonna break down, your mind is gonna slow down, you will project a sense of frailty - there will be a sign around your neck that says "I am vulnerable." It fucking sucks but it's inevitable.

Aura is your weapon and your shield.

Your personality, your achievements, the way you lived your life - whatever it is about you that makes you you - that's got to be front and center as your body betrays you.

Or you will be overlooked, as if you are already dead.

It broke my heart to see Buddy looking vulnerable. But do you think, if I got a chance to talk to him that night, I would have said "Buddy I'm so sorry to see you this way, to see you handing off guitar solos to someone else, shuffling around the stage uncertainly?"

Fuck no.

I would have said "Buddy, I love you man. Thanks for a great show and a great career."

Because he has an aura.

He is Buddy fucking Guy.

Words Most Cannot Speak

 Dialogue from the movie Blackthorn:

Eduardo: "You'd be rich now, instead of being here with me."

Butch Cassidy: "Rich? I've been my own man. There's nothing richer than that."

If.............

 If the intricate neural pathways of your brain were interwoven with delicate, pure gold strands of insanity, would you even know it?

Or would you assume that everyone you meet thinks like you?

John Cazale

Played Fredo Corleone in The Godfather and The Godfather Part Two.

He also acted in Dog Day Afternoon, The Conversation, and The Deerhunter.

Five blockbuster films in seven years. All five were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture - Godfather, Godfather Two, and The Deerhunter won the award.

That impressive run began for Cazale in 1972 with The Godfather and ended in 1978 with The Deerhunter.

That is amazing stuff. The sad part comes in a diagnosis of lung cancer in 1977 while Cazale was working on The Deer Hunter. The diagnosis was terminal - Cazale chose to keep working on the film. He died on March 13, 1978 at the age of 42. The Deer Hunter was released on February 23, 1979.

I am not 100% sure what fascinates me about John Cazale's life but it blows me away on an emotional level. He was revered in the acting community - close friend to Al Pacino, romantic partner of Meryl Streep, lauded on Broadway where he got his start.

I could go where I always go - "Look at this man's extraordinary life; amazingly successful and tragically short. Compare it to mine and yours - tragically long, marginally successful, as long as you consider survival a success."

Can't do that though. John Cazale's life was extraordinary. One in a million. He was talented and loved. And his life was disappointingly short, which puts an exclamation point on "you never know."

Comparison's are disingenuous.

The rest of us should get comfortable with Jim Valvano's guidelines for a good life:

 "To me, there are three things we all should do every day.......................Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think, you should spend some time in thought. And number three is you should have your emotions moved to tears. Could be happiness or joy, but think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special."

When you're young, shoot for the moon.

If the moon proves to be beyond your reach, and, especially as you get older, you are wise to take comfort in laughing, thinking, and crying.

Choices

 "Morality is doing what's right regardless of what you're told. Obedience is doing what your told regardless of what's right."

H. L. Mencken

200 Years After

Doing a little light reading this morning.

A sentence read: "We are still talking about him 200 years after he died."

That hit me strangely for some reason.

When I die I will be in the memories of lots of people. For a while.

Some will think "I loved Joe. My heart is broken."

Some will think: "Joe was a good friend. We had some laughs. I miss him already."

Some will think: "I am so glad that son of a bitch is dead. It's about time. He contributed nothing to this world, and was a complete waste of space and any time I was forced to spend with him."

But in 200 years? There will be absolutely no footprint. It will be as if I never existed. How strange is that? No one will know anything about me, no one will be looking me up, I will not be in anyone's thoughts or memories.

Unless Jackson comes through. I'm giving him a minimum of 100 years. So theoretically I could exist until 2124. Probably longer. In Jackson's world he will probably live for 150 years. So maybe I make it to 2174. And if he has kids............................, but I'm not sure about the impact of that. I would be their great-grandfather. I have no clue who my great-grandfather was.

I hope Jackson keeps things rolling for 500 years. But even if he does, at some point I will disappear. I will just fucking disappear like a puff of smoke.

When you die you are gone. That in itself is so strange. We have all lost loved ones. One day they are here, the next day they are gone and you will never see them again. Just like that.

Memories persist. For a while. But they become smoky, then a footnote, and ultimately not even that.

It's tough enough to think about me being dead. But recognizing that all traces of my life will eventually disappear, leaving absolutely nothing where I once was, kind of bothers me.

Maybe that's why serial killers do their thing.

Marc Maron - Quotable Quotes

"No matter how open my mind is, or what I let into it, I still land in a familiar place..................I mean, I can learn new things and integrate new ideas and enjoy new things but that doesn't mean I return to them. They have some effect, they inform my ongoing intellectual narrative, but it's sort of amazing what's dug in, wired.........................I know there's a whole world out there and I do take it in. Despite that I somehow land back in myself."

Marc Maron is my twin.

"I've always been aware of most of the similarities but there's poetry to the expressions of a senile mind. It's concise and to the point." 

That is a beautiful and heart-aching sentence. That's Marc talking about his Dad, who is dealing with dementia. The similarities he's talking about are the traits he and his Dad share.

"I also talked to an old friend who I grew up with. We are around the same age and both hyper-aware of where we are in our lives. We were able to reflect on it a bit but also express the surprise of it in a way. We both knew it was coming but now it's here and who are we now. It's kind of mind-blowing. It didn't happen all of a sudden but somehow it feels like it snuck up on us slowly and pounced."

I feel the same way. Strangely, I am not afraid of being 70. Leading up to it, I was in a bit of a panic, but now that it's here there is a strange calm about me. But it definitely pounced. I cannot believe I am 70.

"Time is racing by. It seems to go faster when you get older. I'm not complaining. I'm just trying to get a sense of what's real, what's fantasy and what's delusion in relation to who I think I am. Getting right-sized is what they call it in the recovery racket."

Getting right-sized. I like the sound of that. Negotiating the confusion between real, fantasy, and delusion takes up a lot of my time. I often experience the wrong perspective at the wrong time.

"I'm trying to make decisons about what I want to do and who I want to be as an old man. Definitive choices. What do I want as a life and an environment? What do I even really like to do? It's strange how the brain, at least my brain, doesn't know the difference between practicality and desire and ridiculous fantasy..................................I don't have time for fantasies that ruin my brain into believing they are possibilities. I need a self-induced ego contraction. The humbling is coming for all of us. I should get a jump on it."

I am already 70. Who will I be at 80? I suspect I will be only a shadow of my former self. If I am even alive. The humbling hits me on two levels. On one level I interpret it as the falling away of self-delusion into the humble truth of who I really am. Could be comforting. Could be horrifying. On another level I interpret it as death.

Here's hoping humble truth comes first.

143 Days

Sold a house. Bought a house. Moved from the end of the world to the center of the world. Took 2 and 1/2 months off from work. Got a job. Quit that job 30 days later.

My grandson was born.

This series of events essentially began on October 31, 2023 and culminated in divine deliverance on March 22, 2024.

143 days. 

Holy shit. I would be hard pressed to identify a more intense emotional roller coaster than these 143 days in any other period of my life. And I have been around for a hundred years.

2/12/1978. 5/03/1980. 10/23/1983. Those were emotional explosions, massive shifts in my life that created ripple effects that will last for the rest of my life. Happiness extraordinaire.

But shit, man - I flew close to the sun for 143 straight days. A little bit of bad mixed in there, some fucked up stuff, but mostly good, good stuff. And the beeswax in my wings has not melted.

How does one compare? You don't.  HST said: "No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride............and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well... maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten."

In the space that I occupy right now, "get beaten" does not apply. I have been beaten - many, many times in my life. But the beatings were self-orchestrated.

I bought the ticket - despite the fact that I did not believe in marriage, or kids, or fucking jobs - in anything predictable, anything expected or "normal", anything that could impose obligations on me, anything that could distract me from fully realizing the potential that my soul made available to me. Anything that remotely resembled the life my parents lived. 

And I ended up with an amazing wife, who I worship, two sons, who I worship, a grandson who I worship - Jesus fucking Christ - I ended up with human beings in my life who I would die for. That's how much I love them.

So I took the ride. The destination was improbable but glorious.

Now I am experiencing forced consciousness expansion. At the age of 70.

I sold a house I considered a piece of shit. And made out like a fucking bandit. That opened my eyes.

You know the rest of the story. I went on a happiness jag for a while there and you were forced to read about it. Or not, depending on your level of interest.

Other than my grandson being born - which is a high I will ride for the rest of my life - things have evened out, things have settled down a bit. Still, the newness of it all is exquisite.

I am in a new place. I am thinking new thoughts. Even since 10/31/23 I have learned stuff.

I feel different inside but I can't explain it to you.

It doesn't matter. All that matters is the road ahead.

All I need now is a little bit of luck, a few more years of life than maybe I deserve, to smooth things out for me and everyone I love. 

The Weather Man

"I remember once imagining what my life would be like, what I'd be like. I pictured having all these qualities, strong positive qualities that people could pick up on from across the room. But as time passed, few ever became any qualities that I actually had. And all the possibilities I faced and the sorts of people I could be, all of them got reduced every year to fewer and fewer. Until finally they got reduced to one, to who I am. And that's who I am, the weather man."

Nicholas Cage as Dave Spritz in The Weather Man.

Reject Me Not Into The World Again

On Hearing a Symphony of Beethoven 

"Sweet sounds, oh, beautiful music, do not cease!

Reject me not into the world again.

With you alone is excellence and peace,

Mankind made plausible, his purpose plain.

Enchanted in your air benign and shrewd,

With limbs a-sprawl and empty faces pale,

The spiteful and the stingy and the rude

Sleep like the scullions in the fairy-tale.

This moment is the best the world can give:

The tranquil blossom on the tortured stem.

Reject me not, sweet sounds; oh, let me live,

Till Doom espy my towers and scatter them,

A city spell-bound under the aging sun.

Music my rampart, and my only one."

Edna St. Vincent Millay

No Answers

 "And whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding as it should." Desiderata.

It's inspiring, comforting, but a tough nut to swallow. Really? Is this life you're "living" actually unfolding as it should? How can that fucking be?

We fool ourselves. "I'm living my best life." Nope. Not a chance. That's marketing. That's all that is. You hear the phrase and you adopt it because it makes you feel better about yourself. Even though you know you are pissing your life away.

You are accepting where you are in life as your best effort. Which of course is bullshit. Few of us give life our best effort. Which is bizarre because we all know how this story ends. Every single time. Prematurely or not. You are going down, motherfucker.

I love Desiderata. It's one of my go-to's. I use it to toughen up when I have to walk into a building of torment to do a job. But I have been questioning the wisdom lately.

It's entirely possible that the phrase - and a million more like it - originate from a place designed to numb you to the viciousness of life.

I have been numbed by good fortune lately. I decided forty years ago that life was set up to drive razor blades up my ass. Suddenly, the sun shined. And I did not have the tools to respond. I staggered around like Bukowski in a skid row bar at 2:15 a.m. until gratitude kicked in and I righted the ship. Sort of.

Took a look around - clarity got blurred around the edges. The ship was no longer righted.

I want to believe my universe is unfolding as it should. Because I have little time left, and I require comfort. Good fortune came upon me unannounced and unanticipated. I got dizzy.

The major decisions I have made in my life were poor, and they dumped me on the doorstep of "and whether or not is is clear to you".....................

Should I believe that? Or take a hatchet to its throat?

The crossroads of life. A million times over. Take action, or repose in benign acceptance.

50% of my life is outlandish to me. Which is an improvement. Used to be 98%. Still, 50% is unsettling.

I so want to let go and let the rest of my life wash over me in trust and confidence.

I also want to buy a flamethrower and lay waste to all who attempt to poison and destroy me.

I am not alone. Many of us are driven off-track, uncomfortable, lost and unaware, wondering in tortured thought "How did I get here?"

No one can help you. There are no universal answers. 

You gotta figure it out for yourself.

Giving trump credit

He was put on this earth to accomplish one thing - to lay waste to and expose the weakness in our legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government.

He has done that in spectacular fashion.

He could use the opportunity to repair the damage and make the country stronger. Of course, he will never do that. Never.

To him, the Presidency is a pipeline to fatter bank balances. Nothing else matters.

The irony is that those who support his reckless ways are precisely those who will experience the biggest betrayal.

Of course everybody else will be in prison, so it doesn't really matter.

Line?

 Everything I say is scripted.

Even my thoughts are scripted. Very strange.

That's how I view life. As a series of scenes where I speak whatever words are necessary in the moment, completely detached from who I am.

I never speak the truth. Or rarely.

Even my deepest, darkest, innermost thoughts - when I am alone in the dark - have an element of play acting about them.

The Verdict

Great movie. Paul Newman. 1982. Newman plays an alcoholic lawyer. Which is probably a not uncommon occurrence.

The opening scene is Newman in a run-down bar in the afternoon, playing pinball. A half empty mug of beer sits on the windowsill next to him. Alongside an ashtray with a cigarette smoldering in it. Maybe two other people in the bar.

Stripped of responsibilities, I wouldn't mind living my life that way.

A couple of scenes later he's back in the bar in the morning. Circling obituaries in the paper. He's an ambulance chaser. Got a shot of whiskey next to him. He picks up the shot but can't get it to his lips because his hand is shaking. So he bends down to the shot and takes a sip. Then he picks it up.

I wouldn't mind living that way either.

I Dunno

 I may eat beef that is responsibly raised, but my sons certainly weren't raised that way.

I Was Born For This

I stress about this, I stress about that, but every time I come into contact with anything suggestive of decadence - like hearing Keith Richards sing "I'm Waiting For The Man" - a soul-deep serenity comes over me.

I was born for this.

What Would You Do?

What would you do if you were trapped inside your own skull, and crippling thoughts were flashing through your brain like lightning? Bouncing off the walls, criss-crossing each other in a maddening cycle of inevitability and intractability?

Like that time you were drunk at 3 a.m. and put a potato wrapped in tinfoil into the microwave, set the timer for seven minutes and then sat on the kitchen floor in wonder watching the light show.

What would you do if you knew deep down in your gut, you fucking knew, that these thoughts were not based in fact, that they were an evil presence created by a mind soaked in poison, a mind so far removed from the reality of who you are that it felt like a foreign object in your head?

And there was nothing you could do about it. You could not kill these thoughts no matter how hard you tried. 

You study up on critical thinking and emotional intelligence, the concepts make perfect sense to you. But every time, every fucking time the opportunity pops up for you to apply these principles you fall back on the diseased thought patterns that got you where you are today. Which is nowhere.

What would you do?

Who would you be?

Nothing Left

 I am 70 years old.

There is nothing left that I can do in innocence.

Strange feeling.

Here's to You

Whiskey for breakfast, lunch, and dinner yesterday.

Rough day.

Cent'Anni!

Hey - It's a Philosophy

 It's better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.

Springsteen Wisdom

Just ran out to Walgreens to pick up antibacterial ointment for the cut on my nose.

Carol wacked me with a broom again. And my sons wonder why I beat her.

Along the way I listened to Springsteen. Heard No Surrender, Jungleland, and Thunder Road. 

No Surrender: "Well, we made a promise we swore we'd always remember, no retreat, baby, no surrender."

Jungleland: "The Rangers had a homecoming in Harlem late last night, and the Magic Rat drove his sleek machine over the Jersey state line. Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge, drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain. The Rat pulls into town , rolls up his pants, together they take a stab at romance, and disappear down Flamingo Lane."

Thunder Road: "Don't turn me home again, I just can't face myself alone again.......................So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore, show a little faith there's magic in the night, you ain't a beauty, but hey, you're alright, oh, and that's alright with me."

The man is either painting pictures so vivid in your mind, or speaking truths so honest they sting, or projecting defiance to inspire. Beautiful stuff.

All of these stations dedicated to one artist have the fan thing where they come on and play their five favorite songs. They tell stories of what the songs mean and how they came to mean that. It is stunning proof of the magic of music.

The woman playing these songs this morning said, when introducing Jungleland - "This is my father's absolute favorite song." I loved it.

It is so cool when your kids know you in that way. When your relationship transcends the parent thing and crosses over to the human thing. I mean, if you are lucky, the human thing outlasts the parent thing by a long shot. If you are lucky, your kids know the human behind the parent - the vulnerable person who did the best they could to protect and love and - eventually - release the kid.

Music can be the magical bridge to get from here to there.

Fucking amazing.

You Alone

You get to a place in life where you have to make a choice: Either you say "Fuck it - I will be who I am no matter what." OR you say: "I will continue to the grave as the empty fraud that I am."

It's inevitable. If you spend your entire life playing a part, circumstances will eventually conspire to back you up against a wall to the point where your fucking head and heart explode OR your spine finally and fatefully dissolves.

Because life is relentless and cuts you no slack. 

For Your Consideration: Dissolving is death. Explosion is rebirth.

But, most likely, when you get to the moment when you have no choice but to explode, you are not ready for it. It makes you uncomfortable. You have put yourself in a situation where you have to speak out, to strike out, to raise your fist and your voice. As opposed to your typical reaction - smiling weakly, allowing others to place the boot to your neck.

You have made bad decisions. Or no decision. Over and over and over again. Until the morning you wake up to a bloodcurdling scream. Your own. At 3:00 am. Ragged, cutting through your throat like jagged glass. And you drool like a mad dog.

You know you have to do the right thing. You HAVE to do the right thing.

Or die.

This is gonna be really uncomfortable. People will be inconvenienced, and many will think less of you. But who the fuck are they to judge? Their lives are equally meaningless. Vapid and misplaced.

You alone hold the truth of who you are.

It is time to live up to that expectation.

You Are Not Blind

 "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Creatives

Creative people are one degree removed from reality.

This is why they create. This is how they survive.

A creative person does not come up against a problem and think: "How can I fix this?" A creative person comes up against a problem and thinks: "How can I talk about this? How can I present this? How can I express or define this problem to others?"

The problem is not concrete. The expression of the problem is.

That's why it is so hard for them to negotiate life. They take life - which is a black and white and overwhelmingly boring concept - and try so hard to make it into art.

Sisyphus every time.

Creative people do not comprehend how to register a car. Or even why it is necessary. They don't get real estate taxes. They don't understand feigned politeness or conversations about the weather. They are not interested in anything that is defined by the word municipal.

They lament those who lie to themselves and others consistently as a means of merely survivng a life they should celebrate.

Creatives cannot deal with anything not connected with the truthful expression of emotion. Raw and honest.

I relate to creative people.

?

 If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?

Fuckadocious (and Shakespeare)

 In a fucked up world, you gotta be demonstrably more fuckadocious to have even a snowball's chance in hell of surviving.

Unrelated: I fucking love Shakespeare. I love reading it, I love watching it, it brings me enormous peace. It's one of the random and unpredictable (to you) things that puff up my soul and give me LIFE.

Heed The Fucking Warning

 "If Biden's hubris is such that he doesn't understand the best interest of his party, and more importantly, his country, then he has to be shown the door, period."

"Because, if trump is a threat to democracy - and in many ways he is - so too are the Dems who are in danger of being as feckless as the Republicans have long been shameless. If they're gonna send this guy out there - if trump is a monster, and in many ways he is, you're gonna send this guy out to slay the dragon? I don't think so."

Bob Costas on Real Time with Bill Maher, talking about Biden's diminshed mental capacity

From Now On

From now on, when you pour yourself a whiskey, pour three fingers more than you think you need. 

If you don't, you know you are only gonna go back for more. Why waste time? You can use the extra time to savor the flavor.

And reflect upon your life.

I Am A Strange Man

A heavy load was lifted up off of me a few months ago.

As a result, dark thoughts were exorcised from my brain. Gone. Just like that. Thoughts that had festered and poisoned me for decades. Truthfully, for the vast majority of my adult life. Assuming I ever had an adult life. The handcuffs, choke collar, and leg shackles were removed; I started staggering around uncertainly.

A different man was left behind.

Since then I have been trying to fill the void with heaping helpings of me. Trying on various personalities. I am forced to do this because I have no clue who I really am. The simplest solution, of course, would be for my real self to step forward to shock the world. But he doesn't exist. Not just yet.

I made an ass of myself at the family Christmas gathering because I was juggling personalities. Sidelong glances abounded.

Last week we attended the baby shower for our soon to be born grandson. The women did the shower thing, the men retired to a local bar. Where I made an ass of myself. Because I tried too hard to be whoever I thought I was.

Started the new job this week. More torture. A new beginning - I want my co-workers to know the real me - no more Pacino - but I struggled with it. I checked in, I checked out. Over four days I'd say I batted .500. Two good days, two bad days.

Old habits die hard. All of my learned responses, my misguided emotions, my rehearsed reactions - man, they are powerful and overwhelming. I gotta beat them back with a stick.

It seems I need something to obsess about. I have been handed happiness on a plate, yet my mind slithers around like a fucking snake, writhing around the happiness warily.

This is the inevitable conclusion. My life's denouement. Denouement is defined as the final part of a play, movie, or narrative, in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved. That's where I am at.

Resolving the mystery of me after all these years. I suppose I should be grateful for the opportunity. The forward motion. It's quite possible in different circumstances that this moment would never have come.

One thing the new guy - me - has on his side is optimism. Bringing a new weapon to the fight.

And so it goes, as you well know.

On and on and on........................

It's Coming. You Know It's Coming.

 "But I regret that I took too much for granted and now face a death for which I am not prepared."

From Flags on the Bayou, by James Lee Burke

We Get What We Deserve

There is a man who wants to rule the country who maliciously and incessantly lies about who he is, and about the motivations for what he wants to do as ruler.

Tens of millions of people believe the lies because they want to believe the lies. They want to believe the lies because previous rulers let them down. Over and over again, every single fucking time. These people are tired and frustrated, angry and afraid. They are blissfully unaware that they are being set up for the biggest let down of their lives.

There is another man who wants to rule the country even though his mental state borders on senility. His ego is huge. He ignores what his heart is telling him and instead convinces himself that he is fit for the job. Tens of millions of people see this man as a savior. Maybe he likes that feeling. His supporters are blissfully unaware that they are being set up for the biggest let down of their lives.

These two men are perfectly content to gamble with the hopes and dreams of 332 million people, knowing full well they can never answer those hopes and dreams. 

How did we get here? It's a long fucking story.

The solution would be for these two ego-bloated men to step aside and let others step up who are more fit to hold American lives in their hands. After our system of government is revamped to plug the holes of exploitation and manipulation and vulnerability. Holes that men like these two happily take advantage of.

That will never happen.

Because this is America.

What Life Does

 "It was as though instead of having been subtly slain and corrupted by the ruthless and bigoted man into something beyond his attending and her knowing, she had been hammered stubbornly thinner and thinner like some passive and dully malleable metal, into an attenuation of dumb hopes and frustrated desires now faint and pale as dead ashes."

From Light in August, by William Faulkner

And I Will

 I see my light come shining

From the west down to the east

Any day now, any day now

I shall be released

From "I Shall Be Released", by Bob Dylan

And So A Peaceful Interlude Comes To An End

Starting the new job tomorrow.

Feels weird. Haven't worked since November 13. Been a nice run.

So tomorrow - new job - one I have not done before, new people, new challenges. The training period is lengthy, which suggests there is a lot to learn.

I have worked hard on my body and my brain since November. The theory being a healthier mind and a healthier body can only make new stress easier to handle. I am right about that. I was feeling great - healthy and confident.

Then I got sick over the weekend. Really pisses me off. Haven't worked out in three days now. Instead of bursting into newness with the right attitude and the right feel, instead I am tired, dealing with a head cold, and bleeding energy instead of renewing it because I am not exercising. Not good.

Shitty fucking timing, but that's life, baby.

Working Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday - BOOM! 23 hours right off the bat. Hell of a way to shock the system back to "reality."

But this was my short term goal, so I gotta make it work. Bank some bucks, build up a protective wall of financial security, then move on to soul-nourishing pursuits.

Feeling a little shaky today. That's only natural. A little heightened by being sick, not really where I want to be but, as Tony Soprano always said (especially when someone died) - "Whaddya gonna do?"

I'll take a whack at it. Try to survive the week.

Then move on from there.

Robert Duvall

 I will watch any movie with Robert Duvall in it.

Any movie.

Any time.

Anywhere.

What Is and What Could Be

"I wish someone had told me that my first step, the first step anyone must take, is inward."

"I wish someone had told me when I was lost and desperate for direction and support that I was really longing to meet myself."

"I wish someone had told me I was the only one who could give myself what I asked from and wanted from another."

"I wish someone had told me that from going within I would meet the only person who could give me the love I longed for, the only person who could carry me through my darkest nights, the only person who could heal the hurt inside me through unconditional love, the only person who could truly love me and that, that person was my highest self. The self who knew of my greatness, my capacity, my truth, my limitlessness. That there behind all the tremendous noise my mind created, behind all my resistance to the quiet, was all I had been looking outside of myself for."

Sarah Blondin, meditation guide

These words are from a meditation I have been digging lately - it directs my thoughts to the right place. Either you are there, or you are trying to get there before all is lost. Or you don't care.

"Everybody knows that the dice are loaded, everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. 

Everybody knows the war is over, everybody knows the good guys lost.

Everybody knows the fight was fixed, the poor stay poor, the rich get rich.

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking, everybody knows that the captain lied.

Everybody got this broken feeling, like their father or their dog just died.

That's how it goes.

Everybody knows."

From Everybody Knows, by Leonard Cohen.

Here are my thoughts. 

Sarah Blondin's words are about true life and true self - you cannot live life fully if you do not know and love yourself. Her words should inspire us to go from "wishing someone had told us", to actually doing the things that allow us to be ourselves naturally.

I think we all know that the self has to come first. Trouble is, it's a simple concept but a challenging reality. We get distracted because life demands so much from us. Compromise. Responsible things, survival things, unfun things, things that kill dreams and diminish happiness. And happiness is what we all strive for, endlessly and in great frustration.

Know thyself, and happiness. These are at the core of life. They matter.

Leonard Cohen's words describe the world as it is. No sugar coating. Like a slap to the face. We all know that too. We want a better world, we want it to be fair and just, we want everybody to have an even chance. But the world is a vicious place; always has been, always will be.

The only way to make the most of your life in a world as cold as this one is, is to take Sarah Blondin's words to heart. To look inside yourself, cut through all the defenses and lies and fears, figure out exactly who you are and exactly what it takes to make you happy - and then do it.

The world and everybody else be damned.

Me & Patsy & The Future

Listening to Stephen Stills. Manassas.

Patsy is on my lap. It's her turn tonight.

Feeling peaceful. 

This room is ground level; somehow that seems appropriate. My room in the old house was on the second floor - touching the sky never brought me luck.

I'm looking out at the snow in my yard as darkness falls. Close up.

Been a strange journey. And the road ahead is unmarked and unmapped - I don't know what to expect. But I know where I've been. I've learned some lessons. I'm not afraid.

My mind has been opened up. That changes things. A lot.

I'm gonna keep moving. Motion feels right, and inertia would be the death of me now anyway.

Wish me luck.

I'm having good thoughts for you too.

God As Slacker (Be Afraid)

 "For we do not know what beasts the night dreams when its hours grow too long for even God to be awake."

Hildred Castaigne 

Perfect Tranquility

Sitting in the recliner this morning reading in rapture.

I was at the point where the sun was radiating upon me through the picture window next to me, making me even warmer, even more comfortable, even more content.

Patsy was in my lap. She moved over so that her ass was on my thigh and the rest of her body was draped over the arm of the recliner, head and front legs curved downward, facing the window. She fell asleep.

And there you have it. The thing we all covet - perfect tranquility.

I can get peaceful but it's never perfect. How about you? Is it just me? Am I more neurotic than your average human? Or do we all compromise tranquility with worried thoughts?

I am much better at it than ever before. (Shut up, Joe - for Christ sake, are you going off on another rant about how fucking happy you are?) I have moved along the space-time continuum by leaps and bounds, but there is still work to be done.

Bank teller is a stepping stone. To something. I don't know what yet. But it will give me the financial security I need to sleep at night, and to pursue the re-making or rebirth of the Joe, successfully. 

What I am doing to myself is roughly akin to the chiseling of Mount Rushmore, which took 14 years. I don't have 14 years. I have only a nanosecond. To accomplish the important stuff. To get a writing career up and running. To burn away all misguided thoughts, emotions, and reactions, so I can get to Genuine Joe - for my own peace of mind, and for the entertainment of family and friends. To create a path to retirement.

This is where I am headed. I should start working on this today, with extreme prejudice.

But fuck it. It's Sunday. Two NFL playoff games to watch, which I hope to be spectacular. Carol's company to enjoy. Patsy and Emmy Lou to love. Myself to love.

Today I am seeking perfect tranquility.

I learned that from Patsy.

Time to Change My Profile Picture

 "You know who wears sunglasses inside? Blind people and assholes."

Larry David

Define Excessive

 I must acquire excessive wealth immediately if I am to live the life of my dreams.

Dichotomy

 I LOVE hockey.

I LOVE tennis.

Is this even allowed?

Australian Open 2024, baby.

Noble Goal

 In addition to bringing beauty, learning, fun, love, satisfaction and achievement into my life right now, I may as well also focus on becoming the grittiest, kick-ass 70 year old motherfucker on planet earth.

Flex Any Muscles Lately?

 "Freedom is something that dies unless it's used."

Hunter S. Thompson

A Wasted Day (Where My Head Is At)

I'm jazzed.

That's where my head is at. New home, new community, new town, new surroundings, new job. How's that for a clean slate?

I'm also aware. Aware of exactly where I am at and pretty sure about what I need to do to make the most of it.

Yesterday I made a bad choice - I chose to be angry instead of choosing to be light-hearted.  Made an hour trip to a strange and congested place to get fingerprinted for the job. Couldn't find the building, walked around in the cold looking for it; GPS failed me twice - the trip was difficult overall.

The GPS thing was funny. Could not get it up and running at all for the trip home - I have NO sense of direction and had no idea where I was. Carol became my human GPS. I called her, she stayed on the line, pulled up directions, and left turned me and right turned me until I got to a place I recognized. 

Funny stuff. I should have laughed, should have joked with Carol as she saved me. But I didn't. I let the frustrations of the day fuel my anger, and I let it burn well after I got home.

I wasted the day.

I finished reading a biography of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young this morning. What a ride. I've read the autobiographies of Crosby, Nash and Young - Stills has not written one - but reading about the band as one was a cool perspective. They were so beautiful together.

They wasted a lot of time, money and talent. They admit that. They feuded all the time, and lost so many opportunities because of their egos and petty differences and misunderstandings and abuses. Their lives kind of parallel mine so I aged with them through the book.

I am 70 now. I cannot afford to waste any more time. But I extravagantly wasted yesterday.

This cannot happpen. I am trying to bring beauty to every day. Or learning. Or fun. Or love. Or satisfaction. Or achievement. Or some combination of the above.

Slipping into old, predictable reactions, or destructive emotions, or self-sabotaging thoughts is anathema to the man I am becoming. Wasting time peals the death knell.

I cannot have that.

I will not have that.

And Thank God For Jack Daniel's

I know you have seen the ad by now.

The one with all the rock 'n rollers rockin' out, with a bottle of Jack Daniel's prominently displayed in every scene.

I loved it the first time I saw it. Because it makes the connection between whiskey and rockin' out. It doesn't just make the connection - it celebrates it. Which is only right and natural.

The pairing is perfect. You cannot have it any other way. 

PB&J. Turkey & Swiss. Bangers & Mash. White wine & Fish. Cheech & Chong. Jack Daniel's and rock 'n roll.

My soul suffocated many years ago when musicians started showing up on stage with bottles of water and no cigarettes. I knew then that society was headed in the wrong direction - antiseptic, watered down, spineless.

Rock music is defiant, man, and the people who play it need to be the same way.

Shit, man - when I was a kid, rock bands would walk on stage, plant a bottle of Jack Daniel's firmly on their amps, cigarette dangling from their mouth or tucked under the guitar strings up by the nut, and go to work.

Those are real musicians in the Jack Daniel's ad, by the way, spreading the gospel. And the sound track is AC/DC - Back In Black, which is fucking perfect. Straight ahead kick-ass rock 'n roll.

We should all live our lives with Jack Daniel's on the amp and a cigarette dangling from our lips. But we can't. So it's up to musicians to shoulder the load.

If they continue to let us down, as they have been for quite a while now, we might as well all just give up and agree to wear beige jumpsuits, watch The Brady Bunch in endless reruns, and talk about the weather.

My god - bile is rising to my throat as I think about it.

I look awful in a jumpsuit.

The Third Act

 I'm on stage, baby.

Caustic Words

 "Don't make me laugh. We're one people. It's a myth created by Thomas Jefferson."

"My friend, Jefferson's an American saint because he wrote the words "All men are created equal." Words he clearly didn't believe, since he allowed his own children to live in slavery. He was a rich wine snob who was sick of paying taxes to the Brits. So yeah, he wrote some lovely words and aroused the rabble, and they went out and died for those words, while he sat back and drank his wine and fucked his slave girl. This guy wants to tell me we're living in a community. Don't make me laugh. I'm living in America, and in America, you're on your own. America's not a country. It's just a business."

Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) in Killing Them Softly.

Cogan is in a bar talking to another guy. There's a tv over their heads. President Obama is on the tube delivering his election victory speech. Cogan is reacting to that. Cogan is a hired killer.

I'm particularly fond of the lines: "America's not a country. It's just a business."

Somebody Actually Hired Me?

Got me a job.

I have been busting my ass doing everything I can think of to get me a leg up in my dogged attempts to procure employment.

I have put enormous effort into it. Hours and hours and hours reading up on current approaches to writing resumes, then actually creating resumes, revising resumes, and revising the revisions. Applying for jobs through Indeed, Monster, LinkedIn, Retirementjobs.com and more and more and more. Some jobs I wanted, some I didn't, but I applied because of the money or the convenience or just to soothe my tortured soul that I was doing everything I could do to set us up for peace, love, and security.

I contacted a bunch of employment agencies online. I verbally communicated with three of them, and then rode their asses to pressure them into presenting me with opportunities.

I have had four or five interviews - I lost track. The last interview was yesterday.

Got a phone call this morning - they offered me the job. I accepted.

The job? Bank teller at TD Bank.

I hear you mocking me. "What? A talented, charismatic, educated, talented, creative 70 year old man like you taking a teller's job?"

Hear me out. The job pays $5 more per hour than I was making last year. The bank is located ten minutes from my house. Ten minutes. My ego is not so big that I can brush aside opportunity.

I got an amazing vibe from every person I spoke to during this process, four in total. Not one negative vibe. No second guessing on my part. My gut tells me the truth.

It is a small branch - 7 employees. I like that - huge organization but intimate work environment. I get benefits, even as a part-timer (20 to 30 hours per week).

Most important of all - I have achieved everything I wanted to achieve since we set the "let's try to sell the house" vibe in motion. Sold our old house for maximum value in a simple twist of fate, bought our new place outright. Ended up in a house that we love, in a community that we love, in a region that we love.

The final piece of the puzzle is the job. I so wanted to live my entire life in this area - no commuting to fucking Concord or anywhere else. And I wanted to make enough money to fatten up our bank account as protection against the evil forces of life who try so hard to break your back.

Now I have it all. And it all happened bewteen October 31, 2023 and January 11, 2024. That is lightning fast, baby. 

My head spins.

Since October 31

Happiness bullets are coursing through my bloodstream, taking aim at every malevolant cancer cell and ill intentioned microorganism intent on shortening what's left of my lifespan.

I feel safer since October 31.

In Those Moments

Often, when the Bruins are on a West Coast swing, I end up alone in the dark.

Digging the game.

Carol goes to bed. Patsy is stretched out in my lap. Got a cup of whiskey next to me.

The game goes into OT. It's midnight.

In those moments, I feel like an Evil Genius.

One Must Adapt

"I feel good about myself."

He said the words out loud. So he could hear them. So he could see how they made him feel.

He had never said those words before; never even thought them.

They rolled off his tongue self-consciously but felt holy when he heard them. And natural. Which is odd because it took a long time - an awful long time, to get here.

He had beat himself up for so long and so viciously that his insides were black and blue. "You end up like a dog that's been beat too much, 'til you spend half your life just covering up." Springsteen is a genius of human nature. 

Beatings come from without, beatings come from within. His were internally administered.

But a dog that's been beaten and is suddenly offered love, is tentative. He knows how it goes - he doesn't trust the love, he's ready to cower. Self-preservation, baby.

It wasn't like that for him. He was ready. Ready to feel good. To step inside himself fully and present an honest face to the world.

Feel good is medicine. Feel good is a weapon with which a person can do honest battle against what life dishes out. 

There were missteps. Moments when he felt compelled to express and define his happiness. It doesn't work that way. Happiness just has to be.

He was learning.

It would not take long.

Powerful Words

 "A father is a man who expects his son to be as good a man as he meant to be."

Frank A. Clark

These words pack the powerful punch of truth. And the sting of underachievement. Fathers try, fathers fail.

Their sons become the living embodiment of hope.

For Me

Just read a book titled The Butcher's Daughter, by Victoria Glendinning. Set in 16th century England.

A very fine book.

Lots of nasty things were going on in the 1500's in England. One of the characters, during some nastiness that was causing a great deal of uncertainty and unhappiness for a lot of people, said in a spirit of hopefulness: "There will be butterflies."

I love that expression. I love the hopefulness of it.

I am adopting it as my own.

What a Difference a Day Makes

Then again, a person can use a happiness platform to launch a new reality into the stratosphere.

What did I just say?

Happiness is a fine commodity. You take what you can get and then build from there. You gotta savor it, appreciate it, and celebrate it. What you don't want to do is pollute it. That would be a sin.

Happiness is fragile. It is subject to the whims of the mind. A diseased mind threatens happiness, more often than not undeservedly. A mind once diseased but now flooded with happiness, must adapt. A new reality is dizzying - you gotta get your feet under you. But quickly. Happiness must be nourished and delicately cared for so it can bloom into ecstasy.

Lesson learned.

Ten Minutes Ago

I welcomed 2024 with ecstasy. 

Today is January 5, 2024.

I am living in a new house that I love, in a new town that I love. I have no mortgage to pay - I own my house free and clear. 

I have a chunk of money in the bank.

I am surrounded by convenience in every possible way, as opposed to where I used to live, which was on the edge of the world - miles and miles away from anything that could make my life easier. 

I quit my job, haven't worked in coming up on two months - it has been divine. 

I am getting close to landing a decent paying job ten minutes from my house - second interview coming up on Wednesday.

My life got exponentially easier, happier and more beautiful as of October 31, 2023. I am happy in a way I never thought possible.

Ten minutes ago, sitting in my recliner, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the sense that I am walllowing in unthinking happiness. A happiness that is fantastic and beautiful, but maybe not deep enough.That I am not doing enough; not trying even close to as hard as I should be to make my life better in a meaningful way. Especially at the age of 70.

I'm feeling a little shaky right now.

I Am a Truffle Hog

I am rooting around like a truffle hog, looking for a job.

I know I will sniff one out eventually. I am not worried about it at all.

I have updated my resume approximately 77 times since November 1. In fact I now have three different resumes to cover various situations. I am using current styles, and ways of presenting information - formats that were not standard when I last updated the resume in 1886.

And, of course, I am using every underhanded way of disguising my age that I can possibly come up with, including those recommended by "resume experts." Like not listing the year I graduated college. Like only showing fifteen years of experience instead of the 45 years that actually represent my working life. And by typing at the top of the resume, under my name, "I Am Not Old."

This is necessary because at this stage of my life, most potential employers see me as an imminent corpse more than a future employee.

I have to be careful, though. I can't just jump at anything. I expect a certain level of pay and a certain level of dignity. Understand, I am not looking for a career - I am just looking for a job that will swell our coffers and make life safe and enjoyable for me and Carol. But I don't have to wear a paper hat or a hair net just to get a paycheck.

I came close. Because even though we have a pretty solid level of security for a while, my mind keeps saying "You're unemployed, you goddamn slacker - you're not bringing in any money - you gotta earn!". You know, it's that thought process that is drilled into your brain from the time you are 3 days old.

Christ, I came close. I applied to Staples and I applied to Market Basket. I have no idea what I was thinking. Actually, I do. I am afraid Carol will panic at some point and scream at me "Tiffany's closed my account because I only spent $5,000 last month. Get a fucking job."

Truthfully, I don't want Carol to think I am sitting in my office every day getting pissed and watching porn. I feel like I have to show results. But I need to have patience. I know I am working as hard as I can at getting a job. It will happen. And our good fortune will continue.

Staples interviewed me. When they asked about experience I told them I operate a beet farm. They did not hire me. (Editor's note - They actually did interview me and did not hire me. WTF.) I had an interview scheduled at Market Basket, but I cancelled it. Close fucking call in both instances.

So I'm rooting around. Sniffing out opportunity. I will lower my standards a bit for a job close by - there are a lot of businesses in Tilton and Laconia. A 10 minute commute would be joyous. But no hair nets.

Did you know that when you go through the Burger King drive thru they say "How can I help you? You rule!" And after you place your order they say "Pull up to the window. You rule!" I bet every Burger King employee is an alcoholic.

The good thing is that the sky's the limit. Anything is possible. The whole world is at my feet. Pick your cliche.

I literally have nothing but opportunity in front of me and it feels oh so good.

A Ghost, Not a Spirit

 If you go through life never figuring out exactly who you are, it is the saddest thing conceivable.

College Football Is Rock 'N Roll

Are you kidding me?

Did you see the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl on Janaury 1? Holy shit.

College Ball vibrates at the speed of life. The competition itself is exciting, and the intensity gets amped up ten times over by the crowd - students, alumni, parents, grandparents, infants, and fetuses - who are emotionally invested in their team at a level that explodes skulls.

96,000 people at the Rose Bowl. 74,000 people at the Sugar Bowl. Bringing the thunder.

I caught the first half of the Rose Bowl. Then I fell asleep. I woke up to find that Michigan won the game in overtime. Fucking overtime. And I missed it. There were extenuating circumstances.

I stayed up until 2 am on New Year's Eve sipping whiskey and listening to music. The Allman Brothers, and Leonard Cohen. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Felt good. Felt right. Carol went to bed at 1:00. I was sitting in the dark sitting, listening, and reflecting.

Felt a little beat up on January 1 - my birthday - but nothing I couldn't handle. Carol and I met up with Keith for a birthday lunch. We had a great time. I had a couple of beers. So the odds were stacked against the possibility I would make it through the entire game. And I didn't.

Caught the Sugar Bowl. Another great game. Texas had a chance to win it, literally up until the last second. But they blew it.

Two huge bowl games that delivered big time on the excitement meter.

I was rooting for Alabama. I was rooting for Texas.

The championship will be played on Monday, January 8. Michigan vs Washington. Two undefeated teams. Should be spectacular.

Apparently I need to beef up my insider's knowledge of big time college football.

January 1, 2024

 "This year I will be more thoughtful of my fellow man, exert more effort in each of my endeavors, professionally as well as personally. Take love wherever I find it, and offer it to everyone who will take it.

In this coming year I will seek knowledge from those wiser than me and try to teach those who wish to learn from me. I love being alive and I will be the best man I possibly can."

Duane Allman, January 1, 1969