The New Children Laugh

You thought there would never be another post

2010-06-13T12:59:00.000-04:00

Some New York Sights

2008-07-24T13:59:00.001-04:00

2007-10-29T19:53:00.000-04:00

The Front

2007-10-13T15:54:00.000-04:00

This has been unlike other Octobers
my month of majesty and promise
transformed by static high pressure
into endless heat
parched fields
and the desire for air conditioning
when I need to hear the night crickets.
But this evening comes wind
the dry leaves scuttle along the blacktop
twirling between parked cars
and abandoned shopping carts
the curtain's slow dance with the window
intensifies as the white noise banter
of swaying branches climaxes.
Come morning I know the sidewalk will crunch
and my bare arms will acknowledge
a crispness that children of the air once knew
when they still went outside to stare skyward
as geese flocks honked to the South
in formation against a washed out, purple, gray sky
that hung heavy and lifeless over porches where pumpkins sat still un-carved
and they laughed in raked kaleidoscopes
when the weather wasn't a channel.

Orchard, Markham, Virginia

2007-10-13T14:37:00.000-04:00

Harvest

2007-10-09T16:27:00.000-04:00

Poultry

2007-10-08T15:03:00.001-04:00

Money Means Everything in Politics if you're already among the chosen who adheres to the prevailing philosophy of imperialism

2007-10-03T20:36:00.001-04:00

I don't really have anything to say tonight, except that Ron Paul raised as much as McCain and Richardson, and more than twice what Biden or Dodd took in. Of course this new found mometary strength won't allow for his ideas to get a fair airing. He'll still only get asked two questions in a two hour debate, and they'll be snearing with ridicule, same way Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich were treated by Tim Russert. At a time when the polling data shows America, not just Democrats, wants the war over, you'd think the most anti-war candidate of all would have a chance, but he'll be treated like crap again next Tuesday, just wait...

Knocknarea, County Sligo

2007-10-01T19:06:00.000-04:00

Harpers Ferry

2007-09-29T18:06:00.000-04:00

Connemara Coast

2007-09-28T23:06:00.000-04:00

View from the ferry to Aran-July 18, 2000.

A Replay

2007-09-27T16:36:00.000-04:00

Aquarius

2007-09-25T17:01:00.000-04:00

We lived in Ginsberg prophesied Baltimore madness
one brief night you an I saw industrial sky rainbows
stars for billions of thoughts and flowers in iced January
music in our head as we parted concrete seas
lost in love with everything
turning the car away from warehouse wonder
to 29th street possible ways home
crazy 7-11 ponderings of direction asking
finally just driving into the weirdness
in the back of our minds we knew we were going to die
but the colors were beautiful
and you had five miles to draw a picture.

"Who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy.."- Allen Ginsberg

Highways of spirals
spectra shooting from our fingers
candy stained skeleton faces
warm vibrating gas pedal
mellow 50 mile per hour beltway murder games getting us home
and you had five miles to draw a picture.

Mild Rant

2007-09-24T20:19:00.001-04:00

Thinking about next year I can only shake my head. Here you have the most unpopular president since ever and his party filled with johns and wide-stance bathroom users who block votes in the senate on allowing soldiers to have sufficient rest and on letting DC have a vote, and yet I'm convinced the Democrats will blow this big time. The stupid NYT ad is emblematic of the dark future I foresee-a perfect example of Republican genius-taking our minds off eternal war and a collapsing economy to let us know that what's really important is the implied content of a political print ad. In a sense it was another swiftboat moment, where patriotism and loyalty get turned on their head by people who have neither, but yet come out looking rosy.
Even Newt is convinced that odds are 80-20 the GOP will lose the White House. Me, I'm not so sure. I think the odds are decent if Romney or Thompson are the nominee, but Giuliani is the ultimate nightmare candidate in that his whole persona is built on milking terror and fear. He is the polar opposite of the GOP on most issues, even recently opined that illegal aliens aren't criminals, but yet he may well get nominated even though he is odds with all the social planks of the platform. Perhaps the people who base their vote on protecting the unborn by voting for the ones who will wage war on the born will sit this out, or find a third party, but if they cover their nose and vote for someone whose life and politics are anathema to evangelical conservatism than I think the Dem's are doomed. I guess this is when we find out if conservatives are really values voters or if they're filthy pragmatists like the rest of us.
As far as the democrats being doomed-well, except for the minimum wage they've accomplished nothing against a lame duck president who has an approval rating in the 20's and an opposition party whose rank and file are being arrested and exposed as purveyors of the sexual deviancy they condemn. The party is composed of cowards afraid to take a stand because they lack the sick genius to fight off the attacks of being defeatists. When the president can't define victory (even though he declared it 4 years ago) how can they be afraid to challenge his contention that somehow there is a an American victory ahead in a war that we are merely stuck in the middle of and not actual participants?
Hillary had better nominate Biden or Wesley Clark as her VP, because someone has to explain a way out of this nightmare and she doesn't have the courage or the acumen to do so.

Another Victory For Home Depot!

2007-09-24T16:33:00.000-04:00

Navarro River Redwoods State Park

2007-09-22T13:54:00.000-04:00

Light Through Yonder Window

2007-09-19T20:10:00.000-04:00

So Much For Diversity...

2007-09-18T17:51:00.000-04:00

The indigenous languages of Australia and North America will be gone soon, except as academic curiousities

Cedar of War

2007-09-16T17:32:00.000-04:00

We took Grace for a walk at the battlefield this afternoon to soak in the perfect 70 degree, cloud free day. It wasn't the right time of day for classic photos, but this tree at least looked cool in person.

US Army Training Center, NOT in Warrenton, Va

2007-09-15T12:39:00.000-04:00

Actually located near Brandy Station.

The Traveler's Delusion

2007-09-14T19:00:00.000-04:00

My longtime friend and fantasy baseball addict, Gel Paco, has started a new travel blog to showcase his exemplary travel photography covering four continents of exploration over the past ten years. You would be doing yourself a favor to take a look at Traveler's Delusion.

A Waste of Time

2007-09-14T16:30:00.000-04:00

Through Digital Camel I discovered a website called Nova Town Hall. It's a website run by one of Kevin's friends who happens to be a leader in the Loudoun County anti-immigration movement (Help Save Loudoun!). The site is a blog with posts regarding political and social issues that are 99% of the time to the far right of your humble correspondent. Any comments posted that are not within the world is black and white sphere of these peoples minds is attacked immediately with the word liberal being thrown around like it was akin to being a child molester. Any criticism of anything these people write is easily dismissed with comments such as "____ is off his medicine again" or "typical liberal".
One regular poster there always feels compelled to defend the sorry statistics about crime and violence in this country by constantly breaking the statistics down by race, and pointing out that we're as safe as any western European socialist country if you just subtract the blacks and hispanics.
Another will argue forever about his dual love for the US and Confederate flags, claiming both as his heritage.
The flame wars just go back and forth forever on this supposed town hall for Northern Va that seems to only have about a half dozen devoted members who are in complete lockstep with each other on every issue and I can't even figure out why they bother writing anything.
So if you're ever on Kevin's blog you might click on the link if you're interested in nativist, racist, Confederacy defending, pro-war, pro-death penalty, anti-abortion commentary from northern Virginia's far right.
I however have made it a point to never visit the site again, as the closemindedness and orthodoxy there makes meaningful discussion impossible.

Lonely Financial District

2007-09-13T21:39:00.000-04:00

Sweetest New Mexico

2007-09-10T21:13:00.000-04:00

Watching buttercups

2007-09-06T17:33:00.000-04:00

15 years ago this week I began my junior year of high school, perhaps the most insane year of my life, certianly up to that point, at least. It was a time when the Beatles' album 'Let It Be' was in near constant rotation on my cd player until I discovered Syd Barrett. A time when an odd creative writing teacher named Mr. Mariani helped me to realize the usefulness of actual narrative and the value of editing, a time of first loves, Boxes of Rain, maniacal visions never to be replicated, great friends like Ryan, Shane, Nik, Kevin, and Sean, getting busted for a journal, first roadtrips, Hemlock, misery, raves, and concerts.....
"Time it was
and what a time it was, it was
a time of innocence
a time of confidences
long ago it must be
I have a photograph
preserve your memories
they're all that's left you."
---Paul Simon
In those days I had the motivation to record everything in either poem or prose, and at least in my nostalgia the material holds up pretty well. I'm not sure why I lost the will to be penning thoughts everyday like I used to, but that doesn't mean I won't nostalge just as much, if not more, over these days in times to come.
"I'll never be able
To relive this day
except in memory."--Mark Kozelek
How much slips by every hour forgotten or longed for forever? Only 8.5 years until I'm 40. It seems like only last week I was discovering Bob Dylan and writing morbid poetry of my futile longing for a girl named Asia, only minutes ago that I married and stomped across Ireland on the perfect honeymoon, a blink since my daughter came screaming and wrinkly into the world:
"Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun"
---Waters/Gilmour

View From Our Hotel

2007-09-03T20:11:00.001-04:00

Old Orchard Beach

2007-09-03T20:09:00.001-04:00

California Again

2007-08-28T12:51:00.001-04:00

The Door

2007-08-28T12:43:00.003-04:00

Lowell, Mass Mill

2007-08-28T12:43:00.001-04:00

"The Alleys Are the Footnotes of the Avenues"

2007-08-12T13:15:00.000-04:00

Where Not To Stay in PA

2007-08-10T15:32:00.000-04:00

A couple weeks ago en route to Canada we stayed overnight at the Inn at Nichols Village, a hotel near Scranton, PA. I had won it on Priceline for 50 bucks, and they claimed it was a 3 star. I guess things have changed in the hotel rating business because the only people who would give this place even a single star are the types (I know you're out there) that enjoy walking into the hotel room after a day's drive and finding the toilet filled with some stranger's shit, the sheets stained and dirty, and trash on the floor. So I called the front desk and told them about the welcoming mound of floating feces in our room ,and we were promptly moved to the next room over. I guess the question is was that crap left by the previous guest or did the housekeeping staff decide to relieve themselves in my room? Either way it points to one thing, this hotel is horrible. If you are ever considering going to the Scranton area, and I wouldn't encourage that, don't use Priceline to book a room. You may end up staring down at a mound of filth some piece of filth left behind.

Ross Alley, SF

2007-08-09T15:43:00.000-04:00

Down this alley there is a little hole in the wall where these 200 year old ladies make fortune cookies by hand. They sell them in big bags for a couple bucks, and it's 50 cents to take a picture of them busy at their work.

North Rustico, PEI

2007-08-08T13:33:00.000-04:00

This is an Acadian fishing village on Prince Edward Island's north coast near where we stay each year. A place that I would truly have no trouble settling down in for life.

Base Camp

2007-07-15T12:36:00.001-04:00

2007-07-15T12:34:00.001-04:00

The Trail Boss

2007-07-15T12:33:00.001-04:00

Kevin at gorge's edge

2007-07-15T12:32:00.001-04:00

2007-07-03T12:11:00.000-04:00

More From the West

2007-05-29T18:00:00.000-04:00

Missing Alberta and BC

2007-05-18T20:51:00.001-04:00

My Soul's Ancestral Country

2007-02-13T20:56:00.000-05:00

Harney County, Oregon

August 1997

From the first glorious 3 week western ride with Michelle. This day had begun in the backcountry of Crater Lake on the Pacific Crest Trail and would end well after dark at a fairly decent motel in Boise, Idaho.

Stops along the way included the Winmill Pizza Kitchen in Burns, Oregon, crossing the great StinkingWater Pass in Malheur County, and watching one of the finest Snake River sunsets I've ever seen from an Idaho welcome center.

The next day in Mountain Home, ID I won the lottery at a truckstop buffet (1 dollar prize).

This particular shot was taken at a pull off where Oregon Trail ruts ran nearby.

Big Bend

2007-02-13T20:54:00.000-05:00

December 30th 1998 taken from Rio Grande Village campground, TX looking across the river into Coahuila state at dusk.

Nicholson Hollow

2007-02-13T20:49:00.000-05:00

Michelle and I hiked to this old cabin on the Hannah Run trail on the outskirts of Nicholson Hollow in September 99.

A year later this section of the park had a major wildfire. I've never gone back to see if this relic still stands or not, but it's doubtful.

December 31, 2005

2007-02-04T22:04:00.000-05:00

Pt. Lobos, CA

2007-02-04T22:00:00.000-05:00

2007-02-04T21:57:00.000-05:00

Smart Fellows Could Put Their Elbows Up On Such A Thing

2007-02-04T21:54:00.000-05:00

December 26, 2004

Balcony View of Grove From 1600 Apt 6

2007-02-04T21:31:00.000-05:00

Pictures By Amir

2007-02-04T21:20:00.000-05:00

Wizard Island, Crater Lake

2007-02-04T13:56:00.000-05:00

Santa Elena Canyon, TX

2007-02-04T13:42:00.000-05:00

The cliffs on the left side are in Mexico. This pic was taken at 6am on the slopes of the Rio Grande.

2007-02-01T22:27:00.001-05:00

The View From Knocknarea

2007-02-01T22:25:00.000-05:00

Michelle looks down on County Sligo, July 2000.

Lake VCU

2007-02-01T22:24:00.000-05:00

1600 Grove

2007-02-01T22:23:00.000-05:00

2007-02-01T22:21:00.000-05:00

Opening day at Wrigley Field, 2002.

SnakeHandling

2007-02-01T22:03:00.000-05:00

Adam and I left Richmond one afternoon and drove to Florida, arriving in St Augustine by 10pm where Shane Runyon and hyper-beauty Dawn were eagerly awaiting our arrival.
All night long we wandered the ancient streets, at last watching the sunrise from a beach before returning to the apartment to sleep until 3pm.
Dawn's pose surely qualifies her to be somewhere on the cover of Bob Dylan's "Bringing It All Back Home."

2007-02-01T20:49:00.000-05:00

Camera zooms in on a boy sitting by a creek wishing he was somewhere else, but at the same time he is totally cognizant of the paradisian surroundings of waving fields and waterside trees with their roots extending out over the stream's edge like little chairs for fishermen if you don't mind getting a little dirt on your trousers, but it's summer so it's just dusty and he's wearing shorts so his legs take the brunt of it-all sorts of pieces of dead leave shavings and other decadence caught up in his fuzzy obscene calf hair like the day you really fell in love with her lying on a trail trying to figure out where to go with people walking by saying excuse me in the cigar cloud and you knew then she was everything at least until she'd realize you weren't.

Canaan Valley, WV

2007-01-20T12:10:00.000-05:00

More From Cape Chignecto

2007-01-07T22:49:00.000-05:00

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

2007-01-07T22:27:00.000-05:00

The first time I ever saw this view the slopes were buried under several feet of snow and Ryan needed to pee.

Along The River Clyde, Prince Edward Island, Canada

2007-01-07T22:20:00.000-05:00

This was taken in the garden at the PEI Preserve Company.

Cape Chignecto, Nova Scotia, 2004

2007-01-07T22:14:00.000-05:00

Another of the greatest backpacking spots-this was the morning of day two along the trail at Cape Chignecto Provincial Park in Nova Scotia. Here is Michelle crossing a bald cliff 200 meters above the Bay of Fundy.

Not sure why the scan came out this way. It looks great if you click on it!

The Yellow Banks Area-Olympic Nat'l Park

2007-01-07T22:11:00.000-05:00

One of the top 3 places I've ever backpacked.

Views From the Trail at Sky Meadows

2007-01-06T17:55:00.000-05:00

The Life Aquatic

2006-12-31T14:14:00.000-05:00

2006-09-07T21:25:00.000-04:00

From the top: Emerald Lake, BC; Athabasca Glacier, AB; and Kicking Horse River, BC

2006-09-06T20:54:00.000-04:00

2006-09-06T17:55:00.000-04:00

View From The Whistlers

2006-09-06T15:58:00.000-04:00

Hooray! We Win!

2006-09-03T14:55:00.000-04:00

On September 29, 2005 this blog reported there was great skepticism about Bush administration claims to have captured another "number two leader of Al Queda in Iraq". Well, folks, a mere 339 days later they've caught the number two guy again-of course different from the other #2's who get caught along with platitudes about how this means the insurgency is in its last throes.
Think what you wish, but past reports of captures and killings have done nothing to improve things.

Scenes From My Canadian Rockies Trip

2006-09-02T20:44:00.000-04:00

Republicans To Sue Bush For Violating Constitution

2006-07-25T16:18:00.000-04:00

Apparently at least one GOP senator still thinks Congress has oversight authority over the imperial idiocy of George.
Read More

Fort Valley, VA

2006-07-20T17:06:00.000-04:00

2006-07-20T17:02:00.000-04:00

Sleep Delays My Life

2006-07-20T16:43:00.000-04:00

I was visiting a friend (who looked like no one I'd ever met) in what seemed like a mountainous rural region. He told me we were in Venezuela. I said it seemed like we were pretty far out in the country, but he informed me it was only 10 kilometers or so to Caracas. It was essential that doors be kept locked at the white, wood, peeling pain shack where he lived. There were motorcycle bandits seeking to kidnap his girlfriend, a Spanish girl looking something like Freida Kahlo who kept glancing out a smudged pane of glass toward the cloudy damp afternoon. I wanted to go home. I felt very unsafe with them, but it was too dangerous to open the door and leave.

Last Night

2006-07-14T15:08:00.000-04:00

I had this dream where my wife had smeared the walls of my parent's shower with wheat germ. We returned a day later and the walls were writhing with mealworms. There were so many you could hear them making a slapping sound against the tile like fish out of water. We tried to knock them from the wall, but then they coated the floor and crunched beneath our bare feet...

I Shot a Man in Reno Just to Watch Him Die....

2006-07-13T12:15:00.000-04:00

"These are society’s lost souls. Your pen, paper, and stamp along with a few kind words of inspiration may provide solace and hope in a world of despair. Reaching out to prison pen pals may be the most unselfish act you perform in your lifetime. Will you please reach out to another human being and write a prisoner today?"
Yes, and make sure you include your return address, phone number and a picture. Then you'll be able to hang out when, or if, your special penpal is released.
A Bad Idea

"Give A Gasp of Life Today"

2006-07-12T20:12:00.000-04:00

Here's a poem I wrote in February 1994 about the man who inspired me more than any other poet with the exception of Dylan:

How many thoughts could he hold in a note?
Happy little boy British voice
Musty, fish stick childhood
Crying mad
To wind up crazy
Not old, forgotten
Like downer, short ballads
Retrieved only in monumental griefs.

2006-07-12T17:16:00.000-04:00

"I'm most obliged to you for making it clear that I'm not here...."

---Syd Barrett (1968)

Syd Barrett

How I Wish You Were Here

2006-07-11T12:18:00.000-04:00

I heard today that Syd Barrett died at the age of 60. I'll never forget when, at the age of 16, I first heard "Piper At the Gates of Dawn". It was nothing like the sing song psychedelia of the Beatles. It had a maniacal, although ultimately peaceful sound that forever changed the way I viewed music. He was the poet idol recluse of my youth, and now he is gone.
With Eskimo Chain I Tattered My Brain
This afternoon I was driving around listening to some of his solo work- the most whimsically melancholy songs of love's sadness ever recorded. His voice carried charm, wit and gloom, and his lyrics defied categorization.
A line stuck in my head right now:
"Remember those times I could call through the clear daytime and you would be there?"
(from "It is Obvious")
For years I've carried in my mind the forboding heartbreak sound of his last verse ever sung with Pink Floyd: "And the sea isn't green/And I love the queen/And what exactly is a dream?/ And what exactly is a joke?" It was Syd who earlier had sung "Wondering and dreaming-the words have different meanings..."
I just can't believe he's gone.

Syd Barrett
Pink Floyd

Reparations Now!!!

2006-07-10T20:54:00.000-04:00

Every year billions of Euros are pumped into the Italian economy by people eager to see the great monuments of slave labor. The Coloseum, Pantheon, etc... were built with the sweat and blood of the slaves of the Roman Empire. It is imperative that the Italian government begin paying reparations to all people within the historic range of empire whose ancestors 1,900 years ago may have been forced to build the aqueducts and forums, etc... which drive the tourism engine of Southern Italy.
Although, this raises thorny issues like, should the northern counties and shires of England be forced to pay reparations to descendants of the ancient tribal peoples of the region since it was through their enslavement that the popular tourist attraction Hadrian's Wall was constructed to keep out the Scots? Those counties benefit from the tourism. And there are other places all throughout Europe where cash is still being raked in by those who would gawk at these symbols of oppression.
So what if everybody remotely related to the Romans has been dead for 17 centuries? Us sensitive, 21st century people need to show that we have the courage to tackle injustices left festering for two millenia.

The Grills of Richmond

2006-07-09T13:06:00.000-04:00

The most surreal of afternoons, mundane by the standards of a wider world, but totally unexpected amongst this crowd-who could've forseen lazy afternoons of barbequing and drinking limeade showing off our offspring? We were older now, and I was subtly conscious of the fact that a threshhold had been crossed and there would be no retreat out the door into younger patterns. We were who we had become, and we were comfortable with that.

All The Concerts I've Been To

2006-07-07T14:17:00.000-04:00

In chronological order (as best as I can remember. There seem to be some holes in this list))

Lou Reed

Catherine Wheel

Soup Dragons

They Might Be Giants (twice)

Gram Parker

Sonic Youth

The Boredoms

Superchunk

Blind Melon

Adam West

Luna

Dave Thomas & Ira Kaplan

Inspiral Carpets

Sunscreem

Basehead

Aphex Twin

Lemonheads

Yo La Tengo (twice)

Pere Ubu

Grateful Dead (thrice)

Slowdive

10,000 Maniacs

Velocity Girl

Belly

INXS

Stereo MC's

Iggy Pop

Shudder to Think

Pavement (twice)

James

Hole

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Stereolab

Smashing Pumpkins

Beastie Boys

P-Funk

Bob dylan (5 times)

Rusted Root

Bob Weir and Ratdog

Mickey Hart

John Wesley Harding

Los Lobos

Pulp

His Name is Alive

REM (twice)

Red House Painters

The Orb

peter, Paul and Mary

Tom Paxton (5 times)

Greg brown

Dar Williams

Garnet Rogers

The Nields

Saw Doctors

Seldom Scene (twice)

The Silver Jews

Ugh....

2006-07-06T22:22:00.000-04:00

Why does it seem like every time I tune the radio to a so called classic rock station they're playing Fleetwood Mac?
They've gotta' be the most overplayed band in the whole pantheon of 70's lazy music.

Supermarkets of the Old West

2006-06-23T13:26:00.000-04:00

This is the Safeway sign in Lakeview, Oregon, a small town located on the edge of the outback. North from there we coursed along the Abert Rim and Lake scanning the high desert nothingness for signs of desecration and finding none. The igneous intrusions cut through the gold grasses waving their August goodbyes.
US395North from the California line to US20 junction near Burns is one of America's greatest exursions into emptiness. I highly recommend you don't go so it stays just as lovely.

Cold Mountain

2006-06-22T15:03:00.000-04:00

This was our Columbus Day weekend 2000 trip to Dolly Sods. The temperature barely got above freezing by day. At night the ground froze solid. I awoke in my 20 degree treated bag shivering uncontrollably in the night. The next day back at the trailhead someone said the mercury had dropped to 5 the night before.

I'm Beginning To See the Light

2006-06-21T14:50:00.000-04:00

This is late afternoon campfire haze over Red Creek in the Dolly Sods Wilderness area, WV.

Go back to those Gold Soundz

2006-06-20T19:08:00.000-04:00

"But don't forget the songs
That made you cry
And the songs that saved your life
Yes, you're older now
And you're a clever swine
But they were the only ones who ever stood by you"
---Morrissey

Adam,
Consider the above my lifted response to our past discussion on music tastes being in a rut as we age.

File under misery

2006-06-20T18:45:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago today I tore my left calf while running at work. I've been on crutches since then, and for the last week have been wearing one of those boot casts. If you factor out deaths in the family, the last two weeks have been without a doubt the worst of my entire life. When my calf tore, at least temporarily a lot of my life was taken away from me. We had to cancel our vacation to Sun Valley, Idaho since I'd be unable to hike. We couldn't go to the Canaan Valley last weekend for the same reason. It takes me five minutes to go up the stairs to get to the bathroom. I have to crawl into the bathtub every morning since I can't stand for a shower. I can't go down in the night and calm my baby when she's crying because I'd probably fall down the stairs in a tangle of crutches, or else drop her while trying to balance on my one good leg. I can't carry an open drink from the kitchen to the living room. I can't go inside any self-serve restaurant by myself because it would require carrying a tray. You get the idea...
I have joined the ranks of the handicapped for the summer, but no one's offered to give me a temporary handicapped parking pass so I don't have to limp across parking lots in the June doldrums. I've found that most businesses have doors that will slam on you and your crutches, and you're lucky if someone else is going into a store when you are so they might volunteer to hold the door. I've come away from this hopefully short term crippling with a great appreciation for those who spend their lives physically disabled. The world just doesn't do a very good job of accomodating those who can't stand on their own two feet.
My wife keeps alluding to the fact that I must be enjoying just lying on the couch watching baseball. I don't think she has any idea how much I'd rather be able to take out the garbage or carry my daughter upstairs for a diaper change. I'm two weeks into the most physically painful thing that's ever befallen me. I have to take special precautions so I don't get a bloodclot in my injured limb. I take vicadan at night to sleep, but beyond the wall of haze it constructs in my mind I still feel the tightness and burning within a leg that has climbed to the source of the Colorado River and labored the coastal wildernesses of Washington and Nova Scotia. I became a teacher with summers in mind six years ago. This summer though looks to be among the bleakest I've ever known. My daughter is learning to crawl and I'm trying to learn to walk again.

Hey Wha' Happened?

2006-06-16T14:56:00.000-04:00

This blog disappeared into the abyss for 7 months, but now it's back to let you know it can really shake it down...
I figured out how to bring back all I'd thought deleted so I thought, why not...
I'd stopped this blog due to time constraints imposed by a new baby born just three days after the controversial anti-greatest generation post below. My wife thought the afforementioned post might result in me being lynched the next time we're in a Del Webb planned community so to ease her mind I deleted the whole ruddy thing.
I'm glad to have it back though. It's interesting to see what all was important in those faded days of yore. Karl Rove never got indicted, Bush never impeached, but my heart was in the right place.
So anyway it's back.

The Worst Generation

2005-10-30T16:27:00.000-05:00

If Tom Brokaw really believes the selfish motorcoach traveling bastards of today are the greatest generation then he has never had to suffer through being out for a cheap dinner at a Saturday night buffet when a whole busload of nametagged, hiked up pants wearing, discount demanding old people comes into the place.
I watched stunned as a 60something woman reached her hand under the sneezeguard and squezed a baked potato-then put it down apparently deciding it not worthy of her. My wife was about to take it when I warned her a woman who had no love for tongs had just been fingering it. By the time we made it back to our tables, my wife who is nine months and then some pregnant had stories for me of having serving utensils grabbed right out of her hands, of octagenarian men pushing her aside so they got first dibs on the steamed carrots. I myself waited five minutes in line at a meat carving station only to be cut in front of at the last moment by some old bastard saying his cut of meat wasn't big enough-so he took mine.
When people say greatest generation I remind them-this is the generation that gave us the vietnam war, the cold war, trillions of dollars of national debt, and the ecological genocide of the southwestern deserts with their snowbirding rv, take it all, contribute nothing to anybody lifestyle!

Silver Jews and Corporate Media

2005-10-30T16:25:00.000-05:00

My favorite band that no one I work with would ever have heard of is getting a lot of publicity for their new album "Tanglewood Numbers", including, strangely enough at MSNBC which features an interview with David Berman on its website right now.

Technorati Tags: SilverJews

2005-10-29T13:51:00.000-04:00

On the beach at San Simeon.

Garrapata State Park, Big Sur

2005-10-28T18:02:00.000-04:00

"No human words bespeak
the token sorrow older
than old this wave
becrashing smarts the
sand with plosh
of twirled sandy
thought..."
---Jack Kerouac

2005-10-26T19:46:00.000-04:00

Bush and Cheney, They Too Were Honorable Men...

2005-10-25T19:49:00.000-04:00

In case you needed a laugh, this is from today's White House press briefing:

Asked Tuesday whether Cheney always tells the truth to the public, McClellan said, "Yes."
"Frankly I think it's a ridiculous question," he said. "The vice president, like the president, is a straightforward plainspoken person."

How could any presidential spokesperson, for any president/vice president, make such a patently false comment? I trust none of the journalist assembled for the daily farce take anything McClellan says with more than a grain of salt, but still...
Modern politics is the art of the lie.
Fire the Liars!

Cheney
Plame
Bush

2005-10-24T19:31:00.000-04:00

Here's what republican senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson had to say on Meet the Press yesterday about the possibility of indictments by the Fitzgerald grand jury:

"SEN. HUTCHISON: I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment . . . that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars. So they go to something that trips someone up because they said something in the first grand jury and then maybe they found new information or they forgot something and they tried to correct that in a second grand jury. . . . "
(Russert noted the GOP was all for prosecuting perjury and obstruction of justice against Clinton. She responded by saying there were other crimes being considered in the impeachment. THIS IS A LIE!!! The two articles of impeachment brought against Clinton were for PERJURY and OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE!!! ) Don't buy into these pathetic attempts to make perjury an un-crime when it's done by GOP operatives. Remember, PERJURY is a felony.

And, here's what she said in 1999 during the impeachment of Bill Clinton:(Note that in the case of Bill she didn't even care if there had been a crime):

"I do not hold the view of our Constitution that there must be an actual, indictable crime in order for an act of a public officer to be impeachable. It is clear to this Senator that there are, indeed, circumstances, short of a felony criminal offense, that would justify the removal of a public officer from office, including the President of the United States. Manifest injury to the Office of the President, to our Nation and to the American people and gross abuse of trust and of public office clearly can reach the level of intensity that would justify the impeachment and removal of a leader."

While Asleep:

2005-10-23T14:25:00.000-04:00

A dream last night:
I'm in a large well lit parlour in the White House with a group of politicos including Bush. Apparently the indictments against everyone he's ever known have come down, and I say to him "How could you do this?"
He starts sobbing, and hugging me sputtering out the words "My boss...he made me do it"
"Who's your boss?"
"Cheney", he moans, "It was all cheney".
I pat him on the back and say "You know you'll be exonerated".
Dick, who is in the room, starts screaming, and I realize he is a seriously dangerous m'fer, as people like David Icke have warned.