The Black Forest

Random blaghness...

Still Rolling Em' After All These Years...

Have you ever read "Roll the Dice" by Charles Bukowski? It's my pep talk, my slap in the face, ice down my pants, my knowing smile, my kick in the ass, my ejection seat to the street, my "stop your friggin' whining" card, my hand in my pocket, my "pick me up, dust me off, and put me back in the dirt" surrogate father speech.
I didn't need it today. Every once in a long while I do, but not today. Today I'm just sharing what many people already may know, but it's good to hear again and again. This elixir of the artistically damned does it for me like a new box of Kleenex. *laughing* Why you ask? A new box of Kleenex smells exactly like my first guitar case when I was 15. A whole new world was sucking and taking me into it's arms...making everything exciting, fresh, wide-eyed with no limits and untold possibilities.

Roll the Dice
if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try, go all the
way. this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or
4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the
worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the
gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.
you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter,
it’s the only good fight
there is.

1977, 007 and 420...

Once when I was a kid, after school while walking home another kid pulled out a knife and told me to do what he said or he'd stab me. Surprising considering we were pretty young (This was when Jimmy Carter was president, "You Light Up My Life" was the number one song and "Hotel California" came out.), we were 10 years of age. Even more surprising was when he did it, from all my years of watching television and movies I immediately bolted into action and kicked the knife out of his hand and punched him in the nose. I had never done such thing before, never thought of doing it, never planned it, but there I was playing 007 on the street corner. Later that day my sitter took me to an Eagles concert with her boyfriend, (Unbeknownst to my parents who thought I was at her house.) and I got my first contact high with all the marijuana cumulus clouds in the air. It was my first concert experience and it was a good day.

Today is a good day. It's a rare overcast day in May and I'll be meeting my friend Itai for an avocado smoothie with boba and talk about his album we're recording this August...then off to the Casbah for some music, art, and friends.

Pruriently Lascivious...

Pruriently Lascivious...well those two words aren't being used in today's texting world...though many are indulging in those behaviors with bold and brash sexty-texties. Words are falling by the wayside like our animals are, never to be seen again and only mentioned in museums, dictionaries and old movies, "What did Barbara Stanwyck say?" Your spell-check won't even know what you're talking about! How scary! Ooooh....how could you tell your lover of your prurient behavior in the work bathroom if you couldn't really trust your spelling of the word without spell check to save the day? Spell-check is the "falsies" of the 21st Century. Damn it! I thought there was really something in there! Nope...nothing...just emoticons.

Barbara Stanwyck...Phyllis Dietrichson...Double Indemnity...Billy Wilder...oooohh. Now that was a good movie! Sorry...but stream of consciousness blogs will do this. They jump train tracks...JUMP!!!!

Phyllis: Mr. Neff, why don't you drop by tomorrow evening about eight-thirty. He'll be in then. 
Walter: Who? 
Phyllis: My husband. You were anxious to talk to him weren't you? 
Walter: Yeah, I was, but I'm sort of getting over the idea, if you know what I mean. 
Phyllis: There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-five miles an hour. 
Walter: How fast was I going, officer? 
Phyllis: I'd say around ninety. 
Walter: Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket. 
Phyllis: Suppose I let you off with a warning this time. 
Walter: Suppose it doesn't take. 
Phyllis: Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles. 
Walter: Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder. 
Phyllis: Suppose you try putting it on my husband's shoulder. 
Walter: That tears it. 



The Real Led Zeppelin...

I mean "Lead Zeppelin" actually. I'm referring to us as a species. If you look at us from the outside we look like something that will take off and fly and go to uncharted places filled with high adventure! But then you realize we're made of lead and will never get off the ground. I see such great and amazing things from people and society (...and I'm not talking about the movie "Zardoz" however much guilty pleasure I have in watching it...) and such horrific, selfish, ignorant hatred filled with fear I am sickened to the point of losing my California burrito. History has never taught us a damn thing. I'm convinced it's because we don't live long enough. You might argue we live too long, but I think we don't live long enough to really learn from any of our mistakes. By the time we've screwed up enough to straighten ourselves out we're too damn old or dead to do anything about it. Another serious problem is that we learn more by experience than being told. "Watch out little Johnny...the stove is hot!" You warn him, as Johnny listening and nodding his head all the while slowly reaching his hand out to burn himself. He needed to find out for himself. Apparently we all need to find out for ourselves what it's like to kill, maim, destroy, stand by and watch people suffer and starve, and have our world get either blown up in a mushroom cloud or cooked to a crisp with the global BBQ we're engaging in. I'm truly not trying to be negative or a pessimist. I am full of hope and great expectation that someday we will stop fucking around being "Little Johnny" and shed this lead and do what we're supposed to be doing...watching Russ Meyer's flicks, listening to 50's Cuban music, drinking mojitos next to a large body of clean bristling water with beautiful colored birds flying in the air that won't shit on your head on your favorite thrift store H Bar C Western shirt with people you love, sometimes lust and respect.


Seussian 70's....

You ever have forgotten something that you thought would never think you could forget? Not an Alzheimer's moment, but just gone. It never existed and then WHAM!!! (No George Michael isn't in this one..) It's back! It happened to me last night before going to sleep, I was thinking of when I lived in Florida when I was 8 years old and we had these neighbors next door that had this huge black cat. She was ginormous but sweet. Me and my friend would play with it all the time, I even rode it for about 5 seconds. It was that big. Years later, and I'm talking to my Pop about those days and I mention the cat, and he says "What cat? You mean the panther?" "The PANTHER???!!!!" Are telling me you let play with AND RIDE a friggin' panther?!!!!" I said almost having a full conniption. "You rode the panther?!" my Pop laughed and laughed. See in the 70's my Pop explained that wild animals as pets was a much looser thing in those days. Our neighbors had a de-clawed panther as their pet. She was really sweet, but I guess she had to be since she have little to defend herself with. Yea...the 70's...back when I could sit on my Pop's lap and drive the car as he just sat there and drank a can of beer and just used his foot for the accelerator and brake. Nowadays, the cops would have pulled him over, put him in jail and maybe even taken child custody away from him. You know what I say? However funked-up the 70's were, things weren't so controlling and litigious as they are now. Lighten up people! Life is short and I can say I rode a panther for 5 seconds!