Speak up...I can't hear you..there's a banana

I haven't been this sick in years. I'll spare the details..... but it has been five days of feeling like shit and I am still not completely back to normal. Whatever normal is.

So I don't have any big news.

Max won an award at the National Broadcasting Society annual convention in New York at the end of March for one of his radio dramas. Of course, he wasn't there. But that hasn't stopped him from being very pumped up. He has a new movie planned, too. I am loathe to break the news to him that it has been done. Let someone else burst his bubble.

I haven't died. I have just felt like it.

Now...... back to the office.

http://www.scenic.org/billboards/background/tree_cutting/

It's a straight up ride on Hwy 41 to work. Twenty-five minutes and six lanes, most of the way.,most of the time. Billboards galore. I mentioned that I thought Billboards ugly..... that they should be outlawed. The Dude in the carpool said, in essence.... fuck everybody... if the land owner wants to lease to a billboard company, he can do what he wants. He called it "Property Rights".

Then we came to a spot where they recently clear cut and bull-dozed a small woodlot along the road to make way for..........another billboard. I mentioned that I thought it obscene. He retorted that I didn't have to 'look' if I didn't want to. He said he rather enjoyed the ads.

The Dude is basically clueless. One of those, "Everybody is wrong except me and folks that agree with me" people. A 'Guns Don't Kill People..etc' NRA Fanatic. He is a hip-pocket Christian, too. Doesn't go to church, but likes to pull religion out of his pocket whenever he thinks it makes his arguments stronger. He also lurks on my blog...... he never will 'write', but he sure likes telling me how 'stupid' my writing is.

I posted the Billboard in the previous post for him. He hasn't said much the last couple of mornings. He has been quiet.

The Billboard is going up a lot faster than I care for.

In other news............... my buddy, Curt, finally burned me a copy of Renaissance's 1973 album, "Ashes are Burning". I haven't had a copy since my vinyl got ripped off. It was always a favorite of mine.

Ashes Are Burning

Travel the days of freedom
Roads leading everywhere
Come with me now and show how you care

Follow the dying embers
Cross on the paths that they lay
Breath of the past the earths yesterday

Clear your mind maybe you will find
That the past is still turning
Circles sway echo yesterday
Ashes burning ashes burning
Colours are fading starlight

Silver the way to find
Walking the shadows, there in our mind
Changing the order slowly
Leaving the mist of time
Fingers are holding fragments of mine


Imagine the burning embers
They glow below and above
Your sins you won’t remember
And all you’ll find there is love
Ashes are burning brightly
The smoke can be seen from afar
So now you’re seeing how far

Ashes are burning the way
Ashes are burning the way

Jesus drinks Bad Beer

For if heartaches were commercials..

We'd all be on T.V.

Yes, We Have No Agendas

I had an Agenda, once. We were blissfully happy and even raised a couple of addendum together.

Then, one day, I awoke and found half of the bed empty. She had run off to Wyoming with a Random Flow Chart of dubious character.

At first I felt lost, aimless, lonely without my Agenda, but as time passed I missed her less and less.

I feel freer, now.

I think I will get rid of my underwear next.

The itsy-bitsy spider

Climbed up the water spout

Down came the rain

And washed the spider out..................

Ok. I have not been about the blogs a bunch. Shit gets in the way. My lap top crash in a bike accident ( I told it not to go riding without me!) and my access at work has been significantly reduced. Lately I have been reading the blogs on a PDA device that I checked out from work ( the better to delete-designate emails at work) but it really doesn't allow me to do much on the internet.

Soooooo..... it just is what it is..... I am still writing, but it is transcribed on those wonderful yellow tablets that I love so much, and I am really, really doing well with my soon to be unpublished new book, "Translating Pornography into Braille for Blind Chipmunks" and the local Piggly Wiggly had a great sale on Skippy Peanut Butter and Sardines, so I stocked up. See!! Life is good if you want it to be.

Anyways...... While I was sneaking through alley-ways, scrounging spare change to buy my next beer, Randal, The Dude Duke of Cleveland hath tagged me with a meme thingee...... Six Random Things About Moi......

.... But it is all Random, right?

I am ignoring the rules.... not enough time....but it seemed like an easy lob pitch that even I could hit.... so here goes.

Randomnessity!

1) I was an actor in college. After the football team at the U told me they really had little interest in a 175 linebacker with a bum shoulder I checked out the Theatre Dept and discovered that THEY had a NEED for ONE!! It was good stuff.... most fun I have ever had with my clothes on. I used to write long rambling pieces for the U newspaper, too, and had one article illustrated with a caricature of myself done by a guy named Mark Gruenwald http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Gruenwald... who ended up as an Editor/Illustrator for Marvel Comics. I enjoyed journalism. It was the most fun I had with my clothes off. ( Thank you Julie Jones!)

2) I have broken my nose twice, my right big toe twice, and index finger once, cracked a heel (falling off ladders is not good) and chipped some bones in my left foot. Never broke anything big...... except my heart. (well, the nose is a bit large..........maybe.)

3) I used to be an antique dealer in my spare time. But then I got too old to keep up with antiques.

4) I am really a shy person stuck in a gregarious personality. My shrink said there is no cure but it probably won't kill me unless I move to Illinois.

5) I have read 'The World According to Garp' five times and the 'Lord of the Rings' ten times. Sometimes it leaves me with a feeling of deep melancholy and an urge to speak Elven.

6) I blew out an eardrum about thirty years ago while high diving from quarry cliffs. The right ear is pretty screwed up, but I have learned to adjust.

I am losing the sight in my right eye. Dr.'s are not sure what is up. I am not coping all that well with it at present.

...........Out came the sun
And dried up all the rain
And the itsy-bitsy spider
Climbed up the spout again

...Yuppers, it really ain' no deal. I'll get up early tomorrow, and the day after that, until saturday..... on which I will sleep late.

I see trees of green, red roses too

I see them bloom for me and you

And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue and clouds of white

The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night

And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky

Are also on the faces of people going by

I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do

They're really saying I love you.

I hear babies crying, I watch them grow

They'll learn much more than I'll never know

And I think to myself what a wonderful world

Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.

I guess it is all how you look at things.

Swimming lessons

O Captain, my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Walt Whitman

But it's been a tough few weeks..... and I am still afloat.... kinda sorta.

It's just that really sinking is not an option............ I owe Billy Lang twenty bucks and he will not let me drown until I pay up!

Happy St Paddy's Day

..have a beer on me...........................

...... I'll pay you back later!!!