I wonder what would happen if I shot a speed ball, while smoking crack and pot, and drank a fifth of Jack Daniels, or Why I Left My Space

By Mikel K


I went to Catholic church almost every Sunday until I was 19 years old, when I looked across the aisle from the pew* that I was sitting severely hung over in and saw a guy that I knew sitting in his pew looking all holy, and I said to myself, "What is he doing here, he was drunk last night and trying to get laid!?

Then the future poet looked at himself, and said, "Whew, what am I doing here? I was drunk, last night, and I did get laid.

That was the last time I went to church.

*What kind of a word is pew anyway?



I wonder what would happen if I shot a speed ball, while smoking crack and pot, and drank a fifth of Jack Daniels, and as many brewskies as I could pound?. Something would have to happen, wouldn't it? I mean, the intake of these substances into my body would have to cause something to occur, wouldn't it?

I would get high. I would die. I would wind up in a jail, or a mental institution. I could live a normal life, be a loving husband to a wonderful wife.





The day that Obama walked on water

So I agreed today, with my therapist, and with the book on meditation that I had been reading on the train, on the way to see my therapist, that depression is self-induced and can be self-lifted. My question, tonight, as I sit here at my desk, in the wee hours of the a.m., because I drank a late night coffee, and had a late night cola drink, is, is the same true for the bi polar thing?

I probably won't get, or figure out, the answer, here at 3:52 a.m., in Atlanta, Georgia. Morrison is asleep on the floor. Damn dog either has fleas, or his dry skin condition is back now that I have been feeding him regular ole cheap dog food. I guess "cheap" is relative. From what I hear, a lot of folks are having trouble feeding their dogs. Many are taking them into other neighborhoods, and leaving them there, I guess hoping that someone will find Fido and take care of him or her.

A guy was telling me, today, that they are finding a lot of dead dogs in the basements of foreclosed houses, where people have left their pets to die after their houses have been foreclosed on.

And I am forced to watch Bush goon it up with the girls on the Olympic volleyball team, while I'm waiting for Phelps to grab his eight golds.

Obama did his thing, tonight. The waiting is the hardest part, as Tom Petty, once said. I can't wait until Bush is gone(he should be locked up, and not let back to his fancy ranch in Crawford.) I can't wait until the American people send John McCain back to the senate, where he can grow older with the other old men who still have a stranglehold on a nation that is no longer really theirs. I'm thinking that maybe America is tired of the old school methodology, and may no longer allow these men to impose their outdated and obscene minority views on the majority.

Anyway, I'm starting to rant politically, and that just isn't good for my blood pressure.

It was interesting to note that a doobie brother sang, "America the Beautiful," at the Democratic National Convention, and yet pot is still illegal? You can fry your brain on gin and vodka, but you can't sedate it with pot? I don't smoke it, myself, but if you can drink vodka or gin martinis, legally, in this great nation why can't you fire up a phattie?

The Obama/Biden thing tonight was like a Rolling Stones concert. The McCain and whoever thing, next week, will, comparatively, be like a Monday night in a club in a big city, where there are seven people in attendance to see the band.

Keep your mouth shut and observe, just said the man on the TV.

Ed McMahon will reach out to the Lord, as he enters Heaven, with his hand out trying to sell the Creator something.

Dennis Miller sucks, and I'm going to bed.





McCain picks a hottie

McCain picked a hottie to be his running mate. Imagine if his melanoma gets him, and we are left with a really good looking President. Too bad she is a Republican, but maybe George Bush and Dickhead Cheney don't reflect what Republicanism is truly about. Maybe Republicanism isn't just a smash and grab theory. Maybe there is more to it. Maybe this woman represents something different, than crushing the poor and the middle class, and helping the fat get fatter. Maybe; but there is still old school John McCain standing between her, and her chance to maybe run the show.

McCain must go; too bad for the hottie.



O.k, the hottie has a name, Sarah Palin. She is currently the Governor of Alaska. She calls herself a "hockey mom." I had never heard of her before(had you?) I found a New York Times article that she a little bit of light on her for me...

The Times article informed me that Ms. Palin, is "an evangelical Christian."

I wonder exactly what this means. It scares me, somehow. The Times article states, "Ms. Palin opposes abortion rights, and continues, "Although Ms. Palin had seemed like a long-shot, she was the subject of an effort on the Internet by conservatives to draft her as vice president."

Perhaps the most moving, and eye opening segment of The Times article was, "She is known to religious conservatives for choosing not to have an abortion after learning that she was carrying a child with Down syndrome. "It is almost impossible to exaggerate how important that is to the conservative faith community,” said Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition. She gave birth to her son, Trig, in April."

Conservatives jockeyed on the internet to get her the V.P. slot, and Ralph Reed really likes her.

Now that is scary.

God Is The Word Used To Scare Me

I can drink soy milk in my coffee, and enjoy it, these days, which is amazing because, in the past, I would gag at having soy milk anywhere near my precious cup of coffee. I would assume that this is progress, hoping that soy milk is at least a little bit better for me than hormone laden regular milk that is stolen from a cow.

There are times when you think that no one is watching you, times when you think that no one cares, times that you are so alone, and it hurts so bad, that you don't know if you are ever going to recover from it; but you do. And what amazes me is how people appear, from seemingly nowhere, to take your hand and guide you from the abyss to a higher, happier ground.

Is this God working?

I almost hate the word God. God is the word used to scare me, to subjugate me, to keep me in line. The Creator sounds more inspirational to me. I'm going to try and drop the use of the word God. God is like some stern father, or father figure, watching your every move, counting your sins, waiting to send you to hell, if you don't follow his rules and regulations. The Creator brought into existence this beautiful world, that man is not so slowly ruining, in his pursuit of higher dollars.

I'm getting on my soap box; time to step down.

August 29, 2008

Notes on The Nuge Giving Head To The Beck, and complete predictability from Hucka pee pee and Mute Gingrich

The Nuge gave head to The Beck on CNN, tonight. The Nuge told The Beck that he gets high smelling the blood of a dead deer.

Ted Nugent wanted Mike Huckabee to be President. Ted Nugent said that he would kill an illegal alien, if he, or she, came on his property. Ted Nugent thinks that it is wrong that people on welfare, "collect plates on their walls."

Wango. Tango.

Fox News Contributor Mike Huckabee had his lotion out, and was working it, girl, on The Hannitty and Combes show, tonight. The Religious Right is happy that Palin had a baby with Downes Syndrome. I'm not sure what to think about that, are you?

Newt Gingrich just told Greta that he shed a tear listening to Mrs. Palin speak, today. That ought to make us wonder.


In the name of WHAT?

In the name of WHAT?

Some people say, "Gimmee a dolla,"
all they lookin' for is a cigarette or a hit of something.

Some people say, "Give me a billion dollars,
our nation won't be safe without this helicopter
type tank that will replace humans in the ranks.
The threat to our security is imminent. Sign the check now,
Senator, and I'll treat your family to..."

Now, who is more evil, who is more a threat to our nation,
who steals money that could have been used for food for the poor,
for education for our children, for the least among us who could be helped with their addictions,

and who has helped themselves to our tax dollars in the name of...

in the name of
in the name of
in the name of

WHAT?

Gimmee a dolla

Riding my bike home, tonight, I passed two guys walking down the sidewalks of the great city of Atlanta, Georgia screaming at themselves, and screaming at the world around them. They were obviously out of their mind. There was a fancy restaurant near one of them. People were having a damn good meal in there. I know, I've eaten there before.


We ignore these people. We consider this normal, to have the addicted and the insane walk our streets day and night.
Is this the mark of a compassionate nation, or of a nation that doesn't care, or of a nation that is too busy trying to keep from winding up on the streets themselves?

Subconsciously we are probably all thinking, "I don't want to catch what that guy has: he's homeless."

I don't have any answers, and I don't know that I am working towards, or for any solutions. When things are going good for me, I don't much notice these guys. When things are going good for me, I don't much care that things are not going well for others out there.


Does that make me mean, evil, lazy, or callous, or does it, maybe, make me stupid because what can happen to another can certainly happen to me? In this great nation, right now, abhorrent kinds of things are happening to all kinds of folks who never thought that it could happen to them.


There is an old saying that goes, "Nobody loves you when you are down and out?" I'll leave it at that. I need to mull this thing over more, spend more time on my bike seeing what is really happening on the "skreets."

And oh yeah, as one crack head that I used to work with used to say all the time, "Gimmee a dolla."

THIS HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS

You know what I have the most trouble getting rid of as I downsize from a large house to a small studio apartment? Stuffed animals; I can't let them go, especially the ones that belonged to my kids when they were young. I want to hold onto them and give them to my grandchildren, and see the surprised, and happy look in my kids' eyes when they see things from their childhood introduced into their children's childhood.

Be warned: Newt Gingrich shed a tear, and Ralph Reed, and Mike Huckabee are doing cartwheels down the aisle of their churches

What do you think of a woman who knows that her fifth child will have Down's Syndrome, and she chooses to bring that child into this world, and that disadvantaged existence, such as Mrs. Palin, the Republican candidate for Vice President of The United States chose to do?

I bet that right now, in darkened rooms all across the country, Conservative, Evangelical Republicans are busy with the lotion, looking at their new Goddess. Newt Gingrich said he shed a tear at her being nominated, and Ralph Reed and Mick Huckabee were turning cartwheels down Evangelical Christian church aisles.

Hugh Hefner, Larry Flynt and whoever does the hiring, these days, over at Penthouse, are probably pondering offering millions of dollars to McDoushbag's nod for Veep to bear all in their magazines. I wonder if any racy pictures of her will surface on the internet?

Her husband is a fisherman. Gee, isn't that somewhat Christ-like?

She is a woman yes, and it is great that a woman was chosen for such a high level position. I mean gosh, she could become President if McLoser doesn't live through his four years, if he gets them, BUT, you have to look at what she stands for, and where she is coming from and not just vote for her because she is a woman.

This is kind of like not voting against Barack Obama because he is black. You have to put some head, and heart, and soul into the decision, and not just vote like you were, maybe, trained to vote by an old culture when it comes to Barack, and, if you're a woman, you have to investigate whether you really have come a long way baby by putting this lady in The White House, or whether she is sort of wolf in sheep's clothing, even more dark, and demonic than the dark and demonic duo that currently reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I was talking to a female friend, tonight, who said that she commends Ms. Palin for bringing a child with Down's Syndrome into the world. She split before I got her explanation as to why. The young man who was accompanying this lady, this evening, said that he could not afford to do such a thing, financially, and that the Vice Presidential candidate was fortunate to have the money to be able to raise such a special needs child.

It really is a tough question. Do you only allow the Einsteins and Michael Phelps type of person to be born, now that we can look into their future when they are in the womb?

Abortion sucks, but freedom of choice doesn't. I'm glad that my son's mother and I decided not to scrape my son, but I'm not sure just how much control you or Ms. Palin, or Ralph Reed, Newt Gingrich, and Mike Huckabee should have over your decision on all this.

I think that life is hard enough,
and to bring a kid with the Down's Syndrome disadvantage into this world might be a bit cruel. I certainly hope that Ms. Palin's decision wasn't made solely to reinforce her anti-abortion stance.

What do I know really? The older I get, the more I'm still trying to figure it all out.

God Bless Us All.


Axl Rose gets depressed in a frigging mansion at the top of a hill in Malibu, California, and I was depressed for about a week,about a week ago, in a house in East Point, Georgia. Axl is probably carrying a heavier level of stress than I am. I was bummed out that this thing I had going with this gal had come to an abrupt end.

I forget what my point was to have been with all this; I was probably going to say that Axl has it made, and I am just a schmuck, but I got sidetracked by looking at my turtles, Rue Paul, and Prynce swim about in their aquarium. They are some graceful mother frigging turtles, I tell you. Watching them is, I think, a form of meditation. I can forget about all my problems, I can forget about the rest of the world,for awhile as I watch those two turtles swim around.

No one can measure anyone else's misery. I wound up a father, not looking to be a father, and that has turned out to be a life saving and life giving experience far greater than the one that I had planned for myself. You see, I really wanted to be the lead singer in Guns and Roses.

I need an estate on a mountain in Malibu like Axl Rose has. I really do. Even though I don't play the game, I need a bunch of pinball machines in my estate like Axl has. I could invite Henry Rollins over to shoot the sugar with, but I bet Rollins doesn't play pinball.

The pinball games would just sit there as a testament to my success in the world. I would offer Axl's housekeeper more money than he pays her, and maybe she would come to work for me. Gosh, how frigging awesome would that be? I would have pinball games like Axl Rose has. I would have Axl Rose's housekeeper, and I would have Henry Rollins as a house guest. I mean, it couldn't get any better than that, could it?


I'm not sure where I'm going with this, and, sometimes, with life, in general, and, thankfully, and, conveniently, I have forgotten large parts of where I have been. I don't think that this is the living in the now that people who claim to have it together will tell you that you should be living, because my recent days have been full of fear, self-loathing, meanness, and depression.

Hey wait, maybe that is living in the now. Maybe my living in the now is different than the living in the now of the gurus who sell us the self-help books. I don't really know, and I am doubting, right now, that I will ever figure it out. If I had several million dollars, would I be happier right now.

Fudgicle yes. Bring it on!


My son said the other day that, "maybe we will see each other more," once I move closer to town, which I am doing at the beginning of next month. Last night, he had a car and he didn't drive out and see me. What a useless scumbag mother feather. How dare he have his own life, while I wallow in miserable self pity, out in East Point, without a car, without a job. (Unless you count BEING a poet and a writer a "job.") I guess that both of those things are only a "job" if you are getting paid for them, huh?


I can't stand to listen to John McCain, and I can't stand to look at Bill Clinton. What a bunch of scumbags politics attracts. (Clinton wound up redeeming himself with his speech at the DNC. I still think he let a lot of us down, with his previous self-righteous behaviors, but, hey, he was more honest about it than a lot of Catholic priests were, and are, about their behavior.


Coffee is often my saving grace. It is an angel sent to me by the Gods to take away all my problems, like cigarettes used to. Will coffee rear its ugly head on me, someday, like the cigarettes finally did? I have cut back to decaf mainly. Sometimes, I will drink a half caf mixed with decaf like I am this morning. Extreme coffee consumption can make me an angry monster.


I fight a war against myself, at times, I really do. I create demons in my brain. I create problems that don't really exist. I blow things out of proportion in my mind. I make monsters out of mole hills. I'd like to trade my brain in for a new one. Are they doing brain transplants? Will they do a brain transplant for a broke person?


Crisco is a really nasty product. I can't believe that they are allowed to sell that it to humans. My pal Chunga fried some fish in it, last night. The fish tasted good, but when I came out into the kitchen, this morning, and looked at the frying pan that he used, and saw the mass of hardened grease that is now, also, in my arteries I felt an anger at the makers of this product.

Who do they aim their marketing rifle at, poor black people? What an evil bunch of carrot-suckers. Hopefully, Obama will give them the choice to either walk the plank or straighten up. I'm going to talk to Chunga about using olive oil in his cooking. I don't much care for the government telling me what to do. I would never buy Crisco.

Never.
Choices, honey, choices.


The old dog, Javi, wakes me around seven a.m. whether I want to be awake or not. It seems, somehow, highly unfair. The dog doesn't give a fart that I went to bed around 3 a.m. He just wants to be let out and fed. I need help with the dog, and I'm not sure how to ask for it. I'm not sure who to ask. Simple things are a burden right now. I'm about to drink a cup of coffee, but I'd rather be asleep. Sometimes, in the morning, I drink a cup of coffee and then go back to sleep. It's supposed to rain all day, which fits my mood. I wish I could be less me, me, me. I really have to work on that.

Labor Day: Taking What They're Giving

I knew that I had been hearing voices coming from the attic in this old house, as I was trying to go to sleep at night, and I just found one of the sources of that after midnight murmuring: a big frigging rat.

The rat was as startled, and as scared of me, I think, as I was startled and shocked to run across him. Mr. Rat made a beeline for places East, scrambling across the top of the garage, frantically, losing footing and almost falling, several times. I would talk to the landlord about the rat, but by the time he got around to doing something about it, I would have vacated this building anyway. I guess I will mention it to him, though, so that, maybe, he will do something about the situation, before he collects another deposit and has some unsuspecting renter move in. There are big ole brown spiders all about this house, too, but that's another story.

The rat situation reminded me of a book by Georgia Poet David Bottoms about shooting rats at the dump. I don't own a gun, and don't intend to buy one. I totally believe in the second amendment, but people with depressive natures like mine don't need the final solution just an arm's length, or so, away in their home. Juan found Hunter in the kitchen, I don't want William, or Graem, or Scout to come home and find me with a bullet in my head in my bedroom.

Tomorrow is labor day. What a great holiday; a celebration of the worker! But exactly how is the worker doing, these days, in the great ole U.S.A.? I recently watched every drooling capitalist's and wanna be capitalist's hero, Warren Buffett, smile into the camera, with a wry, and somewhat evil looking grin, as he said, "that's capitalism," in explaining why he had finally started sending U.S. jobs to India and China.

Sure, it's "capitalism," Warren, but how about some patriotism, how about some loyalty to the country that made you a frigging billionaire?

I wasn't an Economics major in college, either time out, but my gut instinct is to think that what we have in the U.S.A. is not a form of pure capitalism, anymore, if it ever was, with true competition happening, but a sort of weird fascist lead capitalism where the haves have it all, and are getting more, and the have nots and the startups and wannabes, either are going to have trouble being, or simple can't be.

So, from all I have read, and seen on t.v., most everyone except for George Bush and John McCain thinks that the U.S. worker is, currently, getting worked over. CEO's are getting million dollar bonuses, and workers are getting tickets to walk. Factories are being shut down in America, and are being reopened in China and India, and any other country that will allow its workers to work for cheap.

But, tomorrow, on Labor Day, a great deal will be made about the worker. It's kind of like a lot being made of soldiers on Memorial day, while we hear horrific stories about how soldiers are being treated after returning home from three to five hitches in Iraq.

Eat burgers. Enjoy your families, and then those of you that have them, got back to the job on Tuesday.

Gustav is attracting more attention than Sarah, right now...

Normally, when the weather reporter appears on my television, I hit a button on the remote control to take me somewhere else. I get all the weather reporting that I want from a Weather Channel application that pops up on my computer screen, every time that I turn my computer on. The little blue box, on the monitor, tells me how hot it is going to be in my hometown (Atlanta) all day long, and what the chances of rain are, all day long.

This might be a bit insular, but really all I want to know about the weather is how it is going to affect me where I sit.

That thinking changed, this morning. Even before I hit the button to start the coffee brewing, I turned on the t.v. to see what the weather was like in New Orleans. I figured that the weather might be pretty lousy, in that geat city, this morning, to say the least. I mean, you don't evacuate nearly two million people from an area on a whim. Something big has to be happening.

My kids love weather reports. My middle boy, Graem, who is now nineteen, used to sit in front of The Weather Channel on my t.v. for hours, when he was younger fascinated by what I'm not sure, not being a weather fan as I have already implied.

At that point in time, I was convinced that Graem was either going to be the Major League Baseball player that he said that he was going to be, or the meteorologist that he seemed to be interested in being.(Both of these interests were subverted when he discovered skateboarding!)

Geraldo is crazy. My buddy Road Warrior Dave told me via Yahoo messenger that CNN had the best coverage of Gustav's invasion of New Orleans and other parts south, but Geraldo hooked me with his usual enthusiasm, and usual insanity in pursuit of the story.

Rivera just walked up to a levee, with seemingly dangerous amounts of water pouring over it, and seemingly stared down the beastly waters stirred by Gustav, microphone in hand, gabbing away to those who were watching and or listening to him. We then watched this madman drive away through basically torrential rain.

Fox just reported that, "the people who decided to stay in New Orleans, were pretty scared right now."

Well, duh.

Who the hell would elect to stay home when a level 3 hurricane is about to hit you, especially in a place where Katrina, another level 3 hurricane, had hit you just three short years ago, bringing all the death and devastation to town that she had; the insane?

I respect The National Guard members, and the Army Corps of Engineers personnel who are positioned inside of New Orleans, fighting the hurricane.

I bet we would all like to know who the soldier was who jumped into the stormy New Orleans waters, and tied a cable to the dangerously adrift barge that was deliriously drifting in the violent New Orleans waters and was very liable to collide with one of the New Orleans levees and devastate it, any minute, letting the angry waters rush into the city.

I think that Michael Phelps should give one, or all of his medals, to this brave soldier who risked his life, jumping into the Hurricane Gustav provoked New Orleans waters, to help save lives and property in New Orleans.

I'm not a yeah rah rah kill kill kill the enemy type of guy, thinking that the Obama thinking, and not Bush or McCain thinking, is the correct type of thinking in that talking to the enemy, before you invade his country, shoot em up, and try to show 'em what is up, is the right thing to do, morally, socially and financially.

Just because we are the U.S.A., and we have the biggest guns, does not mean that we have to shake them at people, and use them on people, without a damn good reason. The rest of the world doesn't have to bow down to egomaniac, maniacally madmen, and do what they say when they say it, because they claim to represent US.

We are part of the world, we are not THE WORLD, but it is GREAT to see such an act of courage in this scary situation in New Orleans, and I want to pat this guy on the back, and give him a big smile of thanks. Thank you soldier, for showing me that our armed forces are not always used as pawns by the players in Washington.

Anyway.

Side News...

It was just announced, on one of the t.v. channels that I am flipping back and forth between, watching the progress of Hurricane Gustav, and the progress of the brave people who are fighting Hurricane Gustav, that Sarah Palin's 17 year old daughter is pregnant, out of wedlock.

The reporter was quick to mention that the young girl would be getting married, SOON, so I probably heard the news on Fox!

God bless The Palins. They are, in a sense, just like any other American family facing the same challenges that we all face.

My thought on Ms. Palin is that she is TOO hot to not have had some hanky panky in her Evangelical Christian past, herself. Those most hard line among us, are often hiding or compensating for SOMETHING.

From what I've been taught on the t.v., over the last week, it would seem that Ms. Palin has been a great Governor for Alaska, BUT she has set herself up to be, or has been set up to be, and is accepting the role of a Virgin Mary type of person, which would be hard for anyone to pull off.

God Bless her, and God Bless her daughter, but don't try to impose your Christ on other women's bodies, or let yourself be used by the Christian Right as an example of how all women are supposed to lead their lives.

We don't all have story book beginnings, middles, or endings, and I bet that, in actuality, neither does Ms. Palin, and why are we calling a woman so happy to be married, a Ms. and not a Mrs., anyway?

I will bet that Obama and Biden, and the democrats are reacting to the news of Ms. Palin's daughter's pregnancy much better than the Right Wing Christian Evangelicalist who were salivating so hard, last week, when Ms. Palin was tapped by John McCean to be his Vice Presidential running mate.

Anyway, back to Gustav.


Gustav has relaxed so we can now get tense about this V.P. Lady

After I let the dogs out and fed them, fed the cats, turtles and fish, and poured myself a large cup of coffee, I turned on the television to see two women fiercely arguing about whether a woman with five children would be able to be Vice President of The United States.

One woman said that many people felt that raising children is a full time job, and the other woman said that that was a sexist attitude.

I'm not voting for her, but Ms. Palin has a husband. I'm sure that he has been supportive of her, and has helped raise the children while she has been active in politics in Alaska, and I'm sure that he would continue to be their for his wife and children should she, unfortunately, be elected Vice President.

What are we supposed to have as our first Republican Vice Presidential candidate, a spinster?

Kids running around the White House would be a good thing. It will remind us of whose world this really is. I would dig seeing kids in the White House, as with Caroline and Jack Kennedy Jr., but I would like to see them be Obama's kids and not Sarah Palin's!!

The turtles get to lay around on their rock under their hot lamp taking it easy, while I have to figure out a way to produce income.

I have an optimistic attitude about the whole thing, because of things that Joe Biden said in his speech last week, at the DNC.

"You will get knocked down," Biden said that his father had said to him, "but you will always get up, and dust yourself off."

I'm up, from a recent knock down, and I am ready to dust myself off. Recently, I became too dependent on another person to provide cash for me. It seemed like a good situation, at the time. It allowed me time to write, but I think that I also wasted a bunch of time. When you have a lot of free time on your hands, or at least when I have a bunch of free time on my hands, I find that you, or I, tend to wallow a bit and not fully concentrate on things that need to be done.

This is not good. I must have no wallowing in my life!

I have friends who try to tune them out, but politicians have a big affect on our lives, often in many ways that we are not even aware of. I don't much think that the methods that I am hearing about, on CNN and Fox, that are being employed by "The Anarchists" on the streets, outside the convention hall are worth a durn.

People who knock over newspaper machines, break store windows, and throw rocks at cars are not initiating any type of revolution that I would be down with. There is a lot that needs to be worked on in this great nation, but wanton destruction, such as this, is not the way to work on it.

Say you did overthrow the government in this violent manner, what you would have is a violent government.

No thanks.



Someday I Will Start The Revolution
By Mikel K

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but this morning I had to bring cleats
and a baseball uniform to my son.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but, for right now, there is cereal to buy
and Nintendo games to rent.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but my son's sneakers are worn
and he needs new clothes for the spring.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but my daughter needs a new dress.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but I've got these student loans to pay back,
and these credit cards to pay down.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but I just got this new apartment,
and the cable hasn't even been put in.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but right now I am late for work.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but I need new tires for my car.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but I want to get a Masters degree
in poetry, first.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but this woman just walked by,
and man she looks good.

Someday, I will start the revolution.

Luara Bush Scares Me

Laura Bush scares me. How could any woman sit, or stand by, and watch her husband do all the mean and evil things that he has done for the last eight years?

Tonight, addressing a seemingly delirious gang of Republicans infesting a large hockey rink, Mrs. Bush appeared to be, as she always appears to me to be, stoned on a downer of some sort; prozac, maybe, or valium?

She told the crowd what a great man her husband was, repeatedly, as if that had been in question, which it is, and she also told the crowd what a great man John McCain is, which he isn't.

The crowd responded by screaming, "U.S.A., U.S.A.," which they did as often as possible during the night.

While Laura's drug of choice appeared to be a downer of some sort, the rest of the people at this Republican National Convention might well have been snorting methamphetamine.

"U.S.A. U.S.A."

I mean I am down with loving my country, but this near psychotic exhibition of "patriotism," was somehow a bit unnerving.


I thought that Fred Thompson would never shut up. Did no one put a time limit on this guy? A seasoned actor, Thompson had his lines down, but I felt no real heart and soul coming from him in what he was saying. I think that he still wishes that he had gotten the nomination.

Then some guy who looked a bit like Don Knotts in the movie, "The Incredible Mr. Limpet," wandered out, and told the crowd that he was a Democrat backing McCain. It was my impression that Joe Lieberman had switched to being "an independent," when he lost the Democratic primary in Connecticut, in his last Senate reelection bid.

Lieberman is some wack sellout.

Is he a Democrat? Is he a Republican? Is he an Independent?
He is some weird sort of political schizophrenic, me thinks.
.
When ole Lieb was slagging Obama, I found myself shooting a bird at the television. Like I said, Ole Lieb reminded me of Don Knotts in the movie, "The Incredible Mr. Limpet." What a fish. What a lame excuse for a human being. What a backstabber.

Lieberman talked too long, also. Is somebody giving these guys extra time because their first night was basically cut off because of Hurricane Gustav?

I wonder how Lieb's democratic playmates in the Senate will react to this Benedict Arnold when they all get together to be ineffectual, once again, in Washington when the Senate reconvenes?

Joe Lieberman is not the one to bring the people(Republican, Democratic, and Independents) together, as he was telling the audience that he was there to do.

No one will follow a sellout anywhere.

Wolf Blitzer said that McCain and Lieberman love each other.
How chummy.

"He's sincere, but he's sincerely wrong," said CNN analysist Donna Brazile, and she was right.

Isn't it funny how the commentators at CNN and Fox watch the exact same conventions, Republican and Democratic, and come up with the almost exact opposite conclusions.

Fair and balanced?

The Scary Republicans Were At It Again, Tonight

The scary Republicans were at it, again, tonight, once again psychotically SCREAMING "U.S.A., U.S.A." during both Rudy Giuliano and Sarah Palin's speeches. The only time that the well coiffed, but obnoxious crowd, with nice haircuts, got louder than they were during their patriotic gang screaming was whenever Barak Obama's name was mentioned. Then they boo'd the man, as if he was the anti-christ or, perhaps, even Bin Laden himself.

Rudy nailed Barak to the wall, like any good former State's Attorney would, but at this point in his meanderings, do you really trust Rudy? It was apparant, that though Guiliano was fairly charismatic, that he was reading words that someone else had written.

Ho hum.

Sarah Palin gave a nice speech. If it was she, and not McCain, that were running for President, I might vote for her. But, she's not; so there.

One of the Fox news commentators, or was it CNN, said that President Bush's speech writer had written Ms. Palin's speech.

Wait, that was the Obama camp reaction to her speech.

It was a nice speech, but like Ms. Palin said herself, it is not all about nice speeches.

Yawwwwwwwwwwwn

McCain's speech was boring. McCain is boring, even Sarah won't be able to save him.

Sept. 4, 2008


Is it time to clean house in Washington, also?

Tonight, I cleaned a great portion of this great old house that I am living in, for one more month, in East Point, Georgia, which is a small town just south of the big city of Atlanta, and I found that I rather enjoyed cleaning it. It is nice to have things sparkle. Another reason that I enjoyed cleaning this house, tonight, I think, is that I am starting a cleaning business, and it is best to enjoy what you do, especially if you are not being hired by "the man" or "the woman," to do it!

The appearance of Sarah Palin on the American Political Scene, now, makes it imperative that I list, "the woman," as one of the evils that we, the ordinary folk, are facing. This lady has a lot of redeeming features, but, actually, she is more dangerous to this great nation than even John McCain is. She is a wolf in sheep's clothing, so to say. Just because a politician is a woman, does not, unfortunately, mean that she is better, automatically, than a man.

I won't list all her pitfalls here, you can Google her for yourself and make your own decisions.

I have never been a Michael Moore fan. I have always thought that he was a pompous grandstander, an extreme liberal, in a world where we need moderation, and not extremes.

My opinion was changed of Mr. Moore, tonight, as I watched him talk to Larry King, from a bowling alley in Michigan. I don't know if Michael Moore is really a bowler, of if it was just a suitable backdrop for him to use to push his points, much as John Edwards traveled to New Orleans from North Carolina to try to push his points, but Moore came across as a calm, and well-thought out individual, who made a great deal of sense to me.

I would like to apologize to the man, for previously thinking, and telling people that he was a dick head. It just goes to show you that you can't really get a true take on a person from the media's portrayal of them.

I say a prayer, tonight, for Little Caylee, who used to live in Orlando, Florida, and that makes me want to say a prayer for Jon Benet, who used to live in Colorodo. It is a sick sad world, at times. I wish that children could be immune from it, but often they are its biggest victims.

May the creator look over all of us, and help us make the correct decision on November 5 about which team of individuals should lead our great nation during these very trying times.

I Bet That They Are Betting Not

It is a Saturday morning, and I am not watching cartoons like I did when I was a kid. The television is turned on, but I have pushed the mute button. If I catch something out of the corner of my eye that looks interesting on the news channel that the t.v. is set to, then I will turn on the sound, but not before then.

My turtles, Rue Paul and Prynce, are wandering, aimlessly with seeming purpose, up and down the lengthy, but confining, ranks of their tank. I am having a coffee. It is a no dairy in my coffee week. I like soy, but I love half and half, and milk in my caffeine, but I think that I consume too much milk, normally.

Milk is not good for you, like they used to tell us that it was in commercials that they aired while we were watching cartoons on Saturday as kids. A lot of things that "they" told us were good for us, have turned out to not be good for us. I guess that telling us lies turned out good for "them" because they made huge amounts of money off of their lies.

Do you think that there is a God up in heaven who will punish these men and women for their evilness and greed? I bet that those men and women are betting not.

The Daily K: Pulled While Pedaling

A good friend of mine got pulled over by the police, recently, while riding his bike, here in Atlanta. I don't know the details, but I'll bet the he was riding his bike at night with no lights.

It seems weird that the police would bother with bicycle riders, but in the case of someone riding their bike, at night, with no lights, they are a danger to themselves, and others. When I used to deliver pizza and Chinese food, I can't tell you the number of times that I almost ran over bike riders who were riding, after dark, with no lights on. You simply can't see people, if they don't have lights on their bicycles, and, or helmets, and they are on the streets after dark.

I don't have the full details of why the police pulled my friend over. This is the second case, recently, that I have heard of where the police have pulled over a bike rider, here in Atlanta. In the first case, a co-worker of my older son was riding home around 2 a.m. from work with no lights and got pulled over.

There are more and more bicycles on the streets, due to the ripoff gas prices, so I guess we will see more and more police intervention of our pedaling. I wonder if the police have learned that bike riders are more likely to have old traffic tickets that they haven't paid off, because, unfortunately, "law and order," often boils down to making money for "the man!"

Light your bikes at night; it's the safe and smart thing to you.

To my friend who got pulled over, I love you like a brother, and through this you will, too, pull, and pedal through!

"MTV GET OFF THE AIR…"

The allegedly beautiful people got together on a back lot in Hollywood, last night, and the results, for those of us watching at home, were mostly ugly. The supposed to be funny, host from England, Russell Somebody, wasn't funny; he talked more about masturbation than he did music, which I guess fit in well with an inept rapper named Lil Wayne's performance, where he grabbed his penis and balls while pacing back and forth across the stage, while muttering unintelligibly.

What is the demographic that THE MUSIC CHANNEL is after? Isn't it primarily young teens? I know that today's teens fully understand what masturbation is, but wouldn't it be nice if the men making millions from their "music" channel could program more music on MTV, and less sex, both during the Video Music Awards, as the show was called, last night, and during their regular programming?

Why not let our kids tune in to Dr. Ruth to hear about masturbation, and let them see, and hear music on the music channel?

Britney Spears looked a bit like a deer caught in the headlights, the three times that she had to face the audience, and say thanks for another "Moon Man," award. The remark was made from somebody in our house, that her record label must have bought the night for her. She was everywhere, opening the show, by introducing a performance by Rihanna, and ending it with a golf cart ride with a google-eyed Russel Nobody to, basically, end the show.

Slash, who I dig, somehow looked like a caricature of himself, last night. I mean, he was SO Slash, down, or up to his trademark black top hat.

The Jonas Brothers were billed as being incredible, and they were not, and are not. They simply are not; and I don't care whether they are having sex or not. I simply do not care, anymore than I care about Brittney, Rihanna, Lil Wayne's or anybody else's sex life, especially when I am tuned in to watch a show supposedly about MUSIC.

And why is a basketball star presenting a music award? Are there not enough music personalities in the world who could have presented the Best Music Video Award, leaving Kobe Bryant to stay at home and practice dunking his ball?

I kept waiting for someone, anyone, to light my fire, to give a performance that would make me get up and say, "wow." The closest anyone came to doing this was Kid Rock (I still stayed in my seat, though.) Funny that you have to get a guy who is old school, or maybe just down right old, in this business, the business of music, to make us almost move. Unfortunately, Kid Rock felt it necessary to show how hip he is by bringing Lil Wayne back on the stage, so that Lil Wayne could get some more camera time running around grabbing his balls some more.

Lil Wayne: the current King with no clothing, in the world of rap that sucks, that the the probably white businessmen at the record label have hoisted on the Caucasian kids in the suburbs because they'll buy anything to be "down."

Kanye West: the new song he presented last night, was disappointing, but sometimes songs take time to sink in, and I have faith in Kanye.

I would like to have seen Paramore perform live, on the VMA stage, instead of via satellite from The Whisky A Go Go, a club that has a bit of a reputation for not being as kind to bands that are not superstars, as they are to superstar bands.

Remember, the Whisky A No No even kicked out Jim Morrison for singing, "The End." And this is The End of this.

September 8, 2008

Changing the world starts with changing your turtles' water

John McCain and Sarah Palin are showing the same respect to the musical group, "Heart," that they will show to the American people, the same respect that George Bush and Dick Cheney showed to the American people, the last eight years: none at all.

Nancy and Ann Wilson, the Heart sisters have asked, via a cease and desist letter, that the Republicans not to play their song, "Barracuda," at Republican campaign rallies, but the Republicans are ignoring the sisters, saying that they have paid to use the songs.

If elected, John McCain and Sarah Palin will, in a similar fashion, ignore what the American people want, and do like Bush and Cheney did, and do whatever the hell they want.

I have to change the water in my turtles' aquarium, right now. Rue Paul and Prynce are swimming in somewhat murky waters, and taking care of things at home, something that I can do, is more important than trying to change the world, something that I most likely can't do. We must, after all, "think global, but act local."

What good am I to the world if I am telling John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the rest of the Republicans how to act, if I am not taking care of my own family?

PS My family also includes three children, two of whom are mostly grown, two dogs, Morrison and Dylan, two cats, Jaggar and Kobain, the aforementioned duo, and a black moor named Sydnee V.

Take care of your family, too, won't you?!

--Mikel K
September 9, 2008

Little Miss Spontaneity

"None of the candidates in this race has been so shielded from the media, so protected from any spontaneous situation,(as Sarah Palin) and Palin's unvarying remarks give the impression that she and her message are being tightly controlled."-- SARA KUGLER

AP Kept Off Plane; All Press Off The Record

Does the above headline remind you of a news report that you would associate with Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, or Fidel Castro, or Kim Jong-Il?

Or maybe it reminds you of Dick Cheney's unorthodox, and creepy treatment of the press during his reign as Vice President of our United States of America. I mean the guy never talked to the press at all, in the beginning of his eight years as Bush's henchman, and, then, he made great strides forward in enabling the free press to be free by going on The Fox Network, once or twice.

Well, if you picked Vladimir, Fidel, Kim, or Dick, you were wrong.

The headline appeared in the September 9, 2008 edition of The Huffington Post, only it appeared like this:

AP Kept Off Palin Plane; All Press Off The Record

"Everybody brings a different set of experiences to the office and also a different kind of understanding with whoever the president is," Dick Cheney told reporters in at the US ambassador's residence in Rome, the other day, according to the Associated Press. "Each administration is different. And there's no reason why Sarah Palin can't be a successful vice president in a McCain administration."

Hell, if Dick Cheney likes her, then we ought to vote for her; don't you think?

There is nothing like a government that operates in the sunshine.

Chuck What's His Name Wants You To Vote For...

Chuck Dickhead is on Larry King tonight. Does anybody, besides Larry King, really care who Chuck wants for President? He sure didn't help Mike Huckabee any, standing next to him on various stages across the United States, waving at folks with his B actor smile. Obama had Oprah's backing, so every other candidate in the primaries pulled out whatever loser actor they could get to wave at people with them from behind the podium. Are people really that stupid that they would vote for a person for President because an actor or actress says that they should?

Of course, Chuck Norris has a book to sell, "Black Belt Patriotism." Chuck reminds me of Ted Nugent: they both have all the answers. And like with Ted, you have to buy Chuck's book to most of them.

I used to take karate. In those days, I respected Ted Norris's karate kicks. I remember thinking that I would hate to get hit by one of his kicks. Having a good karate kick doesn't qualify you to tell everybody else who to vote for. Wait, Chuck is saying that he is undecided on who to vote for, so I am wrong, he is not on Larry King, tonight, to tell everybody else who to vote fore.

Well, schmuckoo, me.

No wait, now he is saying, "Obama is NOT the man for the job." So, isn't that like kind of saying that McCain is the man for the job?

No wait, now, Chuck is saying that he is, "leaning towards a third party," but Chuck won't commit to Larry as to who he is going to vote for. It seems very important to Larry King to find out who Chuck Norris is going to vote for.

Chuck will say that, "Obama is not experienced enough."

Chuck says that we are going to go bankrupt, bailing out banks and airlines, although he tells CNN co-panelist, Arianna Huffington, that he wants to keep dumping 230 million dollars a day into Iraq, after she asks him isn't that a waste of a lot of money.

Chuck tells Arianna that she is a coward, and a loser because she doesn't think that dumping all that money is a wise thing to do.

I want to finish the fight, you want to run away is what he pretty much tells Ms. Huffington, cutting her off and nearly going into a fit of rage.

Now Chuck is saying that McCain would be better for the job, and Larry is congratulating himself, saying that he has gotten Chuck to make an endorsement. Chuck is trying to act all cool, but he is not cool. He is still very mad at Arianna, spitting out the words "you are a liberal," at her, as if that means that she has just turned Jesus over to the opposition.

If he could only land one of those sidekicks on that liberal's knee or on her big mouth…

Chuck cuts Arrianna off, again and again, like a mean old man shutting his dog up. Arianna protests that Chuck is being sexist in not letting her talk.

Sometimes, karate kicks that look good from a distance, are ineffective close up. The old saying is that, "he couldn't kick his way out of a paper bag," applies to Chuck, and his political views.

Kei ihe.

September 10, 2008

CERTAIN DEATH…

"Certain Death," were the two words that CNN's Anderson Cooper kept saying over and over, tonight, on his 360 television show, with regards to people living in one and two story houses, in Houston, who decide to stay and weather Hurricane Ike, when it hits, sometime tomorrow.

"Certain Death," he kept saying over and over, amazed that that he was delivering such news.

Today is September 11. Seven years ago 3,000 people died in New York City, as a result of two hijacked airplanes being driven into a two buildings housing people doing what people do in a weekday in the USA, work.

Seven years later, we have no real idea who did this or why? I find that amazing.

The two men who have all the answers for all of us, John McCain and Barak Obama participated in a forum, of some sort tonight, at the University where Obama matriculated.

Thinking how neither of them ever talks much about real issues, and figuring that it was would be much more of the same, tonight, I took a break from the campain, by hitting the mute button on my television, and let them both candidates blab away to ears that instead listened to John Fogerty sing, "Proud Mary," "Fortunate Son," and "Who'll Stop The Rain?"

Why is it that certain songs by certain artists seem to offer hope, and have answers that endlessly babbling politicians never have?

Daily K Side Quotes:

Most folks would agree that singer Jessica Simpson looks good in underwear. What does that have to do with her desire to become a country singer? Are the American People, in general, and Country Music Folk, in particular, so stupid(is that the word?) that they go, "Wow, nice underpants, Jessica, I'm going to buy your country music c.d.?"

I don't much, yet, get comedian Russell Brand's brand of humor, but some of the political things that he spews do make sense to me, such as this,

"A mistake that I will never make is to forget that there is a distinction between American foreign policy and the American people," said Brand, to whom, I forget right now, but I do know that it wasn't to me.

Rapper T.I., a fellow Atlantan, said something to Rolling Stone Magazine that made a great deal of sense to me, "The road to success is filled with things you're not going to want to do. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you get paid."

He was speaking to a group of school kids as part of his Community Service punishment, for being caught with an arsenal of weaponry, and enough pot to get at least several gangster rappers high for an afternoon, or two.

I leave you, tonight, with this quote from Dennis Kucinich, writing in an essay for RS that makes a great deal of sense to me. May there never be another 9/11, on American soil, or anywhere else, (yeah, right.) And may there never be such a manipulation of our people by our government. (Sure, Mikel, sure...)

"We suffer in our remembrance of 9/11, because of the terrible loss of innocent lives on that grim day. We also suffer because 9/11 was seized as an opportunity to run a political agenda, which has set America on a course of the destruction of another nation and the destruction of our own Constitution. And we have become less secure as a result of the warped practice of pursing peace through the exercise of pre-emptive military strength.

September 11, 2008







If you pray, pray for Texas…

My black cat, Jaggar, greeted me in the front driveway, this morning, as I let the dogs out to do their thing. It is funny that when I let the dogs out the front door, they go to the vacant lot across the street, take care of business, and then come home, but when I let them out the backdoor, they run off into the neighborhood. Jaggar was meowing loudly, which might mean that he was saying good morning to me, but more likely means that he wanted something.

Or, maybe, but I doubt it, Jaggar was meowing for the people in Texas who are close to being hit by Hurricane Ike. It is weird to watch a hurricane come into existence on television, to have it be reported on by news folk, almost as if it was a championship football game, of some sort. It is awful to sit there, at home, and realize that the waves that you now see pounding the beach, will soon turn into waves that will be killing people, and destroying homes and businesses.

This afternoon, Friday, September 12, 2008, CNN's Rick Sanchez, is somewhere near Galveston, right at the edge of the beach, near the pounding waves. He has a long thick cable attached to his laptop, which is sitting on a little table of some sort, and Mr. Sanchez is reading to us comments that people have left him on Twitter.com. The idea of of a man bringing his laptop, to check his messages, in the face of an oncoming hurricane, especially, and the scene of it on t.v., are a bit absurd. I mean, I am a laptop/internet addict, but this is ridiculous.

If you believe in prayer, say a prayer for the folks about to get hit by Ike. If you don't believe in prayer, then maybe just send them some positive vibes, will you?

The Highway To Heaven Was Destroyed.

Stuck on Earth

The stairway to heaven was destroyed,
either by an awful, awful hurricane
or by the collapse of the banking system.

Either way, the government couldn't
fix it.


k poems 9.12.08

I'm in love with the woman who wrote the poem about the red dress

I'm in love with the woman who wrote the poem about the red dress.

I'm going to move to Oakland to be with her,
because of this one poem that she wrote.

I know that that seems stupid,
but, most of the time, love doesn't make any sense, anyway.

--Mikel K




A dilemma way less worse than the one faced by those facing the hurricane

I need milk because I want a hot tea,
and I have to have milk in my hot tea,

but I don't feel like walking to the store.

--Mikel K



Till death do we...

The preference for separate spaces has even begun to affect home design. According to the National Association of Home Builders, there's been a steady increase in the number of requests for "two-master bedroom" homes since 1990, prompting the organization to predict that by 2015, 60 percent of all custom upscale homes will be built with two "owner suites."

--Some news service

Poor people will be stuck with each other, be stuck in the bed facing the same fat ars until death do they part.

Big wheels keep on turning…

According to the Weather Channel, it was 75 degrees outside, here in Atlanta, when I woke up this morning, with a 20% chance of rain.

I don't see Geraldo on FOX this morning. I bet that he is sleeping in late, after being out in the storm all night. FOX just lost me to CNN, because they were going to have a panel discussion about Sarah Palin, instead of continuous coverage about the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Sarah is old news, now, honey please, and not all that important, today, in relation to Ike. I want to hear how Ike affected the people of Texas and beyond.

Did the people who chose to stay and face Ike die?

"Three people died, because of Ike," just said a CNN correspondent, "one was a ten year old child hit in the head by a tree branch."

"The cost of Ike is billions of dollars," said another reporter at CNN.

"Write your social security number on your arm," were the instructions given to people deciding to stay for the storm, by the authorities, last night, as the storm was starting to hit.

What a grim edict.

CNN keeps teasing us with this story about how babies were protected, in a Houston hospital, in the face of Ike. We have to sit through commercials to get to the story, both on CNN and Headline News.

If the commercial is T. Boone Pickens telling me how he has an energy plan to save us, I will gag myself with a spoon.

I feel blessed to be where I am, to be blessed with the temperature and chance of rain that The Weather Channel tells me that we Atlantans are facing. Like life itself, Mother Nature is not always fair.


PS: What ever happened to the freighter Antalina, and its 22 crew members? Remember, yesterday, that most news sources made a great deal of this tragic occurrence, a freighter with crew on board being trapped in sea waters, unable to escape from the oncoming Ike? I can find no news about it, so far today.

Any clues?

Someday I Will Start The Revolution

Someday I Will Start The Revolution

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but, this morning, I had to bring cleats,
and a baseball uniform to my son.

Someday, I will start the revolution
but, for right now, there is cereal to buy,
and Nintendo games to rent.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but my son's sneakers are worn,
and he needs new clothes for the spring.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but my daughter needs a new dress.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but I've got those student loans to pay back,
and these credit cards to pay down.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but I've got this new apartment,
and the cable hasn't even been put in.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but right now I am late for work.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but I need new tires for my car.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but I may want to get a Masters in poetry,
or creative writing, first.

Someday, I will start the revolution,
but this woman just walked by,
and, man she looks good.

Someday, I will start the revolution




I Need A Rich Girl

I need a rich girl
to drive my deceased car
to the unemployment line,
so that I can get food stamps,
and avoid a job.

I need a pill that will fill me up,
not with envy.
I need a pill that will make me
feel friendly, not want to kill

I need a friend
in these united states of isolation,
where even hell's angels are afraid
to hitchhike,

where thinking outside the norm
could land you in jail.

I need a reason to go on living,
and I think that my children will do.





We Are The Children

We are the children of the sun
and the stars.

We are the children of the hippies,
who were strung out on peace and love,
and heroin when they conceived us.

We are the children of alcoholics,
conceived in blackouts.

We are the children of the punk rockers,
screwed into this world on beer and anger.

We are the children of the poor,
raised on welfare and food stamps,
and government housing.

We are the children of the middle class,
borrowing from the government to get a college degree,
to get a job with a pension from corporate amerika,
who has already fired our fathers and mothers,
before they could retire.

We are the children of the rich,
who, like our fathers and mothers before us,
care only about obtaining more wealth.

We are the children of the doctors, dentists,
and lawyers, who care more about their Porsches
and Mercedes than they do their patients.

We are the children of the American dream,
roaming the streets with a blanket,
and a garbage bag full of aluminum cans.

We are the children, who now have the children,
and we hope they won't learn racism from us,
like we learned it from our moms and dads.

We are the children who can change the inevitable,
alter our destiny, change the future from futile to
fruitful.

Amen.






Look At The Bums

Look at the bums,
here another one comes;

last week, maybe he had
a job in a factory,
but they downsized.

CEO got a bonus
for thinking that way;
everybody, especially
the stockholders, thinks
that he s a great man

eats off a ten thousand dollar plate
at the White House,
shakes the right hands.

Here comes a bum,
got a tear in his eye,
I immediately criticize,
say that he is a crack addict
who will want a quarter
from me.

He asks for money for food.

Why don t you get a job?
Why don t you get a job,
like me?

See,
you and me
we're living in the land
of opportunity.

Oh no,
I just lost my job.







Let's pretend that Lawrence Ferlinghetti is a liar

Let's pretend that we don t have a soul,
that we don t know what s going on,
that as long as we keep paying the mortgage
that everything will be o.k.


Let's pretend that Lawrence Ferlinghetti is a liar,
and that people with millions, and billions of dollars
will act in our childrens' best interest.

See my child.
See him grow.
I don't want him to go to war.
No, no, no.

Let's pretend that if we close our eyes,
they won t cheat us blind,
that after all this time of screwing us
that they will now suddenly play fair.

Let's pretend that if it s happening over there,
it can t happen here.
Let's pretend that the religious man on the t.v.
doesn't just want our dollars,
and that politicians are not sleeping
with the chairmen of the board

Let's pretend that ketchup is a vegetable,
and that the homeless person is happy
living on the street.
Let's pretend that we don't need clean sea water,
and that it's o.k. that our rivers are polluted, too.
Let's pretend that three corporations owning
all the news outlets is the best way
to disseminate information.

Let's pretend that there really is a Santa Claus,
and that he will tell us what to do.




Freedom Was A Whore

Freedom was a whore.
I abused her.
I misused her.
I confused her
with something else.
I neglected her.
I bet that she would
be there for me
for forever.

Freedom just walked
away.




Everybody Works At Wal-Mart

Everybody works at Wal-Mart,
and they drink coca colas,
while watching American Idol.






I'm A Challenge To The Process

I'm so dangerous,
I'm a challenge to the process
of evolution,
revolution is my solution,
not bloody, but of the mind.

Be kind to everybody;
don't screw your brother for a buck.

Help those down on their luck.

Fuck the millionaire and his money,
he doesn't care about the man in the ghetto,
wants to keep us all down.

I'm no clown,
got a family to raise.

When I was younger,
I used to run around in a drunken daze.
See the malt liquor commercial
on the billboard bordering the bad side of town.

What's so dangerous about being
poor and black?

Cut me some slack.
They killed the Indians.
They killed John Lennon.
They'll kill you and me
for trying to get to higher ground.

We've got to get it down.

I'm so dangerous.
I'm a challenge to the process.
Judge's gavel can't bring me
down. I quit wearing the uniform
of conformity. You might not look
normal to me. You might not like
what I say, but I say it in the name of
freedom, not for pay.

I'm a challenge to the process.





I can't afford a gun

I saw Kurt Cobain on the MTV,
he was seven months dead.

Sometimes, when I'm depressed,
I want to put a bullet in my head,

but,

I can't afford a gun,
I can't afford a gun,

and, besides
I have a son.

A lady at the grocery store
asked me if I wanted a haircut.

I asked her for a business card,
she just smiled, instead.

I can't afford a gun.
I can't afford a gun.
I can't afford a gun.


The record company
killed Kurt Cobain,

they would do anything
to make another million
bucks,

fill Kurt full of heroin,
ignore his depression.

We need another hit
for the MTV,

we need another hit,
we need another hit,
we need another hit;

that is how we measure
success.

We need another hit
another hit,
another hit,
another hit,
another hit,
another hit,
another hit.

The record company
killed Kurt Cobain.





The revolution will not be televised
at a five star restaurant

I'm so much a part of
the machine
that I will probably
never revolt against anything
more than the waiter who brings me
my steak cooked incorrectly.




Has Anybody Seen Bob Dylan?

Has anybody seen Bob Dylan?
I heard that he was down on Rodeo drive.

Has anybody seen Bob Dylan?
Does he know that there is a war in Iraq?

Has anybody seen Bob Dylan,
since he used social protest
to make a name for himself;
Zimmerman sure knew how
to sell c.d.'s?

Has anybody seen Bob Dylan?
I sure hope that I'm wrong in this song,

but I heard that Bob Dylan
is primarily counting benjamins
in Beverly Hills.

Has anybody seen Bob Dylan?
Has anybody seen Bob Dylan?

What's the solution to war?

What's the solution to war?
We should send old men and old women
to war, let them kill themselves off
in the name of bigger cars and better
air-conditioning.

Let the congressmen and the kings,
the presidents and the heads of state
pull out guns and knives and battle
to the death.
Why should my son or daughter fight
for you, you fucking cowards, you killers,
you creeps.

You hide behind your hallow halls,
you hide behind your laws that money buys.

I want you out in the open
looking down the barrel of a gun,
see what my son would see,
before he pulled the trigger,
a man just like himself,
scared just like himself,
put there just like himself
by a man like you.

The blood that spills
the guts that pour
should be yours, Mr. President.

The guts that pour,
the blood that spills
should be yours, Speaker of the House.

The brains that splat,
the guts that pour,
the blood that spills
should be yours, Senator.

Teenagers should not be killing teenagers,
they should be studying math.
or tearing down an engine,
or hitchhiking through Europe.

War is not a game of chess.

(These poems are from Mikel K's forthcoming book
entitled, "Someday I Will Start The Revolution."


LIVE FROM MY LIVING ROOM…





It's Saturday night, and I am partying down. I'm slugging decaf and gulping homemade brownies, while watching the first Saturday Night Live of The New Season. I don't recall seeing pictures of Michael Phelp's mom with him at the strip joint, last week, when pictures of him at a strip joint were circulated on the internet. I'll have to track those pictures down and look again to see if she was there. She seems to go everywhere with him. She's in the audience for Phelps' appearance on SNL.

Tina Fey just did Sarah Palin better than Sarah Palin does Sarah Palin. Lil Wayne just performed. He didn't hold his crotch throughout his entire performance like he did, recently, on the MTV VMA's. Maybe he only does that for younger audiences.

Saturday Night Live had a few funny segments, especially the opening monologue between Hillary Clinton and the aforementioned Palin. Michael Phelps was effective in the skits that he appeared in, though I wouldn't call it a gold medal performance. Lil Wayne appeared a second time and, again, refrained from grabbing his privates while emoting. My son says that Lil Wayne is "bad." I guess that I'm getting old.

The Michael Phelps diet segment, where you can eat a football field full of food, if you want, was funny. Arby's ran the same commercial like nine times. They call what they sell roast beef. Now that is really funny.

Dream until…
I had no dreams, last night, that I remember. For most of my life, and I am way past eighteen, I have not woken to remember and contemplate what passed in front of my shut eye lids while my nostrils sucked air from my CPAP machine all night.

Several night ago, I had a dream that an old girlfriend of an old friend of mine, neither of whom I have seen in over two decades, (whoops there I go giving away my age)and I, were in a church where a game of strip poker was being played. The thing that stood out in this dream is that this woman had very long legs, and wore very white cocktail napkin like stockings on those legs.

They say that you should chart your dreams. I wonder what my therapist would say about this dream?

Repressed sexual desires?
Animosity towards the church?

And how would my therapist's interpretation of this dream, if she had one, be different, if the lady in question, and I, had been playing bingo, and instead of wearing near sheer white stockings, the young lady had been dressed in a nun's smock?

I have more important things to talk to my therapist about than this kind of weird dream. We are working on breathing in and breathing out to push mean and useless thoughts to the side. If I told her about this dream, she would probably just tell me to breath in and breath out. At the rate that therapy costs, I'm probably better off to analyze this dream myself, like I have here.

Thanks for lending an ear, or at leat a couple of eyes. I'm going to go take a nap.

September 14, 2008

Teach a man to not eat fish…

It is another normal morning around here. The dogs let me sleep until 9 a.m., which is a nice thing for them to let me do, especially on a Sunday, though I don't see why I am saying that Sunday is different than any other day. I haven't gone to church in 32 years.

The turtles are sitting on their rock under their sun lamp looking quite happy. They are not fighting, as they were, last night, when I turned off their lamp for the night. There are a few bits of their breakfast still floating about the aquarium. I guess they weren't hungry, this morning.

The dogs have all gone back to sleep. Lazy dogs need to get out there and make something of themselves. The two cats who show up, every morning, when I am feeding the dogs, expecting plates of wet cat food to be served to them, showed up this morning right on time. The youngest cat could care less about wet cat food. He is happy to chow down on the dry cat food that I try to keep ful, inside this massive white bowl, for the felines, that sits on top of the washer, so that the dogs can't get into it.

I recently stopped eating meat. I do eat fish, some, still, and as I was looking at my black moor, this morning, floating about his world, after I fed him, I wondered if I would eat him. I don't know if that means that I am embarking on a path to not eating fish, either. I really loves me some shrimp.

Just an average guy…or Every author wants to sell books

It is a Sunday afternoon, near fall, 2008, and I am sitting at my desk, with the television turned on, waiting for people to check in and tell me how great I am. The t.v. is tuned to football. I never watch football, but the local team, the Falcons are playing, and I'm trying to be just an average guy, today.
Of course, real average guys are watching the game with other real average guys, patting, err pounding each other on the shoulders, when the home team does something good on the screen, and swallowing suds, dude. I am watching the game with my dogs and turtles and fish. The cats don't seem interested; they are not even about.
I'm going to paraphrase something that writer Laura Miller wrote, recently about a man who writes, or wrote, who left himself to be found by his wife hanging in their house,
"Every author wants to sell books, to please his or her publisher, to reap critical accolades and to bask in the admiration of colleagues. However, all great writers have a preeminent purpose: to tell the truth."
That's all I have for now. I need to check my email and find out if anyone has said anything great about how great my writing at Salon.com is, and the halftime show is over, so I need to get back to being an average guy and cheer my team on.

I can't always get what I want
I stick my nose on the screen door, maybe to get some fresh air, maybe to see what is happening outside. Nothing is happening outside, and I doubt that the air outside is much fresher than the air inside. One of the dogs follows me to the door. He hasn't learned yet, still, that he doesn't get to go outside every time I go to the front door. He's a puppy, and puppy's are stubborn. They think that life should be the way that they think that it should be.

I used to think like that, and sometimes I still do. I had to learn the hard way that I can't always get what I want.
(Perhaps to be continued later...)


The Future's Uncertain And…
As I let my dogs out, this morning, so that they could run to the woods across the street and have at it, I thought how lucky (blessed) that I am. I have been allowed, once again, to wake and see the air of a new day, breath the air of a new day. The arthritis in my left knee woke me in the middle of the night. I was in a bit of pain and could hardly move the knee. This surprised me, because I thought that all the good work that I had been doing in Iyengar Yoga had remedied this situation permanently for me. I had not felt any pain or stiffness in either knee in months.

The weather turned to in the 60's, here in Atlanta,last night, as I slept, and I still had the air conditioner on. I think that the chill in the room is what got to my knee. The pain in both knees had lead me to stop my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training, several years ago, and until I started taking Yoga, I had thought that there was no cure for the arthritis pain, that it was something that I was going to have to live with for life. A doctor, with a great demeanor, had once prescribed a pill for my knees, but soon after that pill was taken off the market for being too dangerous for human consumption, in some respect.

I think that I have talked too long about my knees.

What I was thinking of, this morning, was the people in Texas, and the other areas, hit so hard by Hurricane Ike. In front of me, here in Atlanta, were cars not submerged in water, homes not destroyed by insane winds. The challenges facing the people devastated by Ike, surely, must seem, at times, insurmountable.

How long will it take for these people to get back to their homes? How long will it take these people to get their homes back into livable shape? How willing will insurance companies be to give cash up to help these folks? In essence, how long will it take these folks get back to normal? How great "normal" must seem when you are living in your car, and living hand to mouth, as many people affected by the hurricane are.

I guess what I was trying to say, in talking about my knees, is that it is a blessing to be normal, to have "normal" things going on in your life. I pray that things get back to normal for the folks in Texas asap.

Time to feed the dogs.

September 15, 2008


Your credit cards subjugate us


A writer hung himself the other day, and there was a great outpouring of sympathy for the man; his book sales shot up, and many people said how awful it must have been to be him to have to do such a thing to himself. I wonder about his wife, the wife who came home to their house and found him hanging in the closet, if that is where he chose to end it; maybe he went out to the garage like Kurt Cobain did.

The same pouring out of sympathy went out to Hunter Thompson, when he shot himself in the head, in the kitchen of his house, in Woody Creek, Colorado, leaving a bloody corpse bent over the microwave for his son, Juan, to find.

What about Juan, how did Juan feel finding his dad bleeding from the head in the kitchen?

If I kill myself, I'm going to do it at a Motel Six, leave a nice tip for the maid, or walk way out in the woods where you will never find me. I'm not going to leave dead me for one of my kids to find. I love them more than that.


Warren Buffett is a pig. I'm sick of this man being paraded in front of me in the news as some sort of example that I should follow. I wouldn't follow the man to the all you can eat buffet, if I was starving to death. I saw him laughing on television recently, big smile on his fat face, saying, "that's Capitalism," while explaining to the host why he was now, also, like so many other American Corporations, exporting American jobs to China.

Read that, if there is a buck in it for Warren, he's down with it, no matter who gets fucked over. What a true American hero. Gag me with a spoon.


Here's an oldie, but goodie...


Your credit cards subjugate us

Your credit cards subjugate us,
your oil companies strand us,
their mound of cheese grows bigger,
while we nibble on air
polluted and pumped into what?

We eat chickens and cows
so strung out on growth hormones,
that they make it seem like
Jim Morisson wasn’t even getting high.
Everybody’s got to die;
why does it have to be
such a pain in the ass to get there?

There will be a doctor waiting
to buy martinis with your liver,
a soulless surgeon will have
already stolen your heart
sold it on the internet
given your descendants not a pint of blood.

Perhaps your Christ shouldn’t be
so harsh, he causes you to be mean,
gives your children no alternative
to the noose, when they do
what nature says to do.

--Mikel K


It weirds me out to think that an American Corporation
will ask the Government for $40 billion to bail them out.
What consideration are you mostly given when you call the
credit card company and ask them if you can pay a bit less
because you're not doing so well this month?

The train is loud, at the time of day that the kids get out of school. The kids don't seem to care that there are other people riding the train. The train is their playground. They shout at eat other, and run about as if there are, well I am not sure where to say as if where. Surely, they don't run around like this at home or in school.

It would seem like a good idea to have a moderator of some sort walk through the trains. He or she wouldn't have to be a uniformed, armed cop, just a person who could remind the obnoxious people on the train that they are in a public place, and are, in effect, sharing the train with others.

My son started a full time job today. I am proud of him. He is learning to be an auto mechanic. He said that things were slow, today. I asked him what he learned, and he said that he learned how to put spark plugs into an engine. Like I said, I am proud of him. I don't really know how to put spark plugs into an engine. I mean, I think that I could in an emergency, but it is not something that I am masterful at. I hope that my son will get sharp at fixing cars. Such a trade seems to me to be a good thing to have. I have a college degree, almost two college degrees, really, and neither one of them is putting butter on my soy pita bread.

The turtles get a lot of coverage in my writing, the reason being that their aquarium sits right next to my desk. They are pretty mellow tonight, kind of walking about, in tandem, from one end of the aquarium to the other. I have been told that my turtles will live for a long, long time, that they will outlive me. I wonder who will take care of my turtles when I am gone?

The dogs are asleep. It's midnight; I should go to bed, also.

September 15, 2008

A Daughter Who Brings A Flashlight To Show Me The Stars
Brooke Hogan, Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan...these are the women who our daughters are presented with as role models. And Sarah Palin is the woman presented to them as Vice President material. No wonder the banks are crashing.

It is cold here this morning in Atlanta, Georgia, but I am not complaining. I do much better in the Atlanta cold than I do in the hot, humid Atlanta summers. I ran into my cat, Jaggar, as I was walking the dogs down the driveway this morning. Jaggar kind of brushed himself against my leg as he walked by. This is his way of saying that he loves me. I guess we all, animals included, have our own special ways of showing affection.

I really can't believe that there is even the remotest possibility that John McCain and Sarah Sarah might get elected. But then I really can't believe that George Bush and that mean old man who has been "our" vice president have been in the one two slots for eight years. I'm hoping that this nation has a heart and a soul. I may have to close my eyes to all the political stories on the internet and on the television for the next six weeks. It's easy to get wired out, tuned into all that high voltage blah blah, and forget to feed the cats and walk the dogs.

I'm kidding about the cats and dogs, but I am feeling kind of beat up by all the coverage of "the race." Maybe it's my own fault for seeking it out, like I so often do. Maybe I need a twelve step program for political news junkies. Do we create our own problems, or are problems an inherent part of our existence?
Parting thought: You're only as good as your last blog!
Poem of the day: I leave you with a poem that I and others have always found uplifting, "To Show Me The Stars."
May your day be a great one. (Breath In Breath Out!)

To Show Me The Stars

There is nothing to calm
the fear of the day
full of creditors
who cant be satisfied,
dunning letters that
cant be replied to

Except for...

A walk in the dark
to the store for ice cream
with a dog happy to see me,
and a daughter
who brings a flashlight
to show me the stars.

--Mikel K

September 16, 2008

I'm Going To Get You Sucker

I have just re-validated a long standing theory of mine, that my level of determination does not translate into whether I will be able to kill a fly who has invaded my space. There is one in the kitchen, right now, hovering over, and on, the large white bowl of dry cat food that I leave on top of the washer, for my cats, 24/7. (Yes, my washer is in the kitchen. It's an old house, don't ask me why they put the plumbing in there.)

I tried clapping my hands together to kill this disgusting intruder into my sacred territory, and then I got a newspaper, folded it, and went after him (her?) with that. (I am unable to find one of my three fly swatters. They seem to have disappeared in the move to this house.)

Neither type of attempts worked.

Some things are like that. We are powerless over them. Sometimes, I think, it takes awhile to figure out which things we are powerless over, and to let them go, or to turn them over to the great beyond, or, if you believe in that kind of thing, to a "power greater than ourselves." There is a school of thought that says that we are powerless over "people, places and things." That pretty much covers it, wouldn't you say?

Being powerless does not mean that we should throw ourselves on the bed and say, "feck it."I think that it just means that we should pick our battles, and not waste our time, and energy, beating our heads on the kitchen wall, trying to do things that we can not do. Somewhere is that fine line between what we can do, and what we can't do, and finding that line and staying on the right side of it, will give our lives great balance.

Funny that all this thought should come from me running around the kitchen clapping my hands at a fly, and waving a newspaper at it(the only time I pick up a print newspaper, these days) and whispering, "I'm gonna get you sucker."

I will not give up on my attempt to rid my kitchen of this fly. He is the type of fly that flies away when you attack him, but almost immediately returns, as if he is taunting you, and I just can't put up with that type of behavior in my kitchen.

I don't let my kids do it like that in there, I don't let my dogs do it like that in there, I don't let my cats do it like that in there, and I ain't going to let this fly do it like that in there.

Capiche?

Think of the fly as other things that bother us in life, and maybe there is a greater lesson in here. I'd hate to think that I gave up an afternoon of my life, thinking about a fly.

Peace,
Mikel K


September 16. 2008

Someone referred to me as, "Mr. Healthy," today, and though I think that this person was being a bit cynical about it, it certainly didn't bother me. I have been called, "fatso," a time or two in my existence, and what this fellow's statement told me was that the Yoga was starting to pay off. People who I hadn't seen in awhile could see the difference in me.

This guy was drinking beers with several other guys. I haven't had a beer with the guys, or alone, in over seventeen years. It is funny to note, that it was when I quit drinking that I got fat. While drunk I was always a skinny fellow. Isn't that kind of funny?

On the train coming home from, of all places, Yoga, I had a weird thought. Which President made love or banged his wife the most times in The White House, while the two of them resided there? Something tells me that the answer is not Bill Clinton.

"She likes bread, I could tell by her thighs..." If I ever get around to writing short stories, I think that that line might be the introduction of one of my characters.

That's all I've got for today/tonight. The Yoga and lots of bicycling riding, today, are sending me to the showers early.

Sleep well.

All Men Should Have To Wear A Dress

Some guys just look like boneheads to me. Mostly they dress like I did, in college, when I was in, of all things, God help me, a fraternity. It is the same look that elected officials have, the bonehead look, the I have a coat and a tie on, so I must be dressed for success look. Most of the men who are dressed that way are conmen, and swindlers, trust me. I think that there should be a law that all men have to wear dresses. That would straighten things out.

I Read The News Yesterday Oh Boy

“I think the American people have had it with this situation where the middle-income people in our country are not protected from the ramifications of the risk-taking and the greed of these financial institutions,” Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

(So, whatcha gonna do about it, girlfren…?)



House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, told reporters Tuesday: "The American taxpayers have been ripped off for years on offshore drilling."

(That's not the only place that they have been ripped off.)




"Let me tell you, my friends, there's no place I'd rather be than right here with the working men and women of Ohio."--John McCain.

(Of course he wouldn't rather be at one of his seven houses. Without wife Cindy's help, he probably can't find them.)




WASHINGTON - With little explanation, President Bush on Tuesday scrapped a statement he planned to give on the tumultuous financial markets, abandoning any press coverage of his meeting with key economic advisers as more developments roiled Wall Street.

(Government in the sunshine…just like in Russia, Cuba, Venezuela…)




WASHINGTON - An undercover video shot at an Iowa pig farm shows workers hitting sows with metal rods, slamming piglets on a concrete floor and bragging about jamming rods up into sows' hindquarters.

"Abuse on factory farms is the absolute norm, not the exception, and anyone eating factory-farmed meat is paying to support it," Bruce Friedrich said.

(You have to be a real man to shove a rod up a pig's ars.)

September 17, 2008

Maybe he's blind

This guy just pulled a nice black Lexus into the handicapped parking space that sits in the parking lot in front of me, as I sit on this bench. I don't see a handicapped tag hanging from his mirror. "What a lout," I think, then I see that he has thrown the tag onto the dashboard of his vehicle. I watch him put things in his trunk. I watch him bend over and do something in the back seat of his car. I watch him walk away, pretty lively looking fellow, really; doesn't look handicapped to me.

September 17, 2008

Poet seeks job taken by 19 year olds

I try not to operate out of fear, anymore, I really do. I'm looking down at a restaurant that I dropped a resume off at, several weeks ago. I was shaking in my newly shined shoes, as I handed the resume to a young man who remembered me as, "the poet."

The poet, who used to perform at the restaurant, and many other venues around town, with his bad ass band, was, now, 51 years old, and was looking for a job as a busboy, or a dishwasher. As he looked around the restaurant, he saw 19 and 20 year old kids running around the restaurant, filling the positions of "server," as they call it now. He wondered if they wondered what this old man was doing down here trying to get a job.

The girl who was responsible for hiring wasn't there. The poet knew her fairly well. Several years earlier, at another location of the same restaurant, before a greedy landlord had forced the restaurant to move, the girl, then a waitress, not a server, had loudly stammered, "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO," right there on the dining room floor, in front of all his friends, when the poet had asked her out.

Until that point, she and the poet had had a nice relationship, but, maybe, she thought that the poet had crossed over some imaginary boundary that strongly existed in her mind, by trying to go from a tipping customer to a man holding her hand over popcorn and coke at a movie.

Anyway, I was glad that she wasn't in the restaurant today. I think I'll go to another place and see if they need a 51 year old busboy or dishwasher.

There's been a change…

I've been worthlessly manic over this,

"I can't believe my son is smoking cigarettes," thing, running from one thought to the next, saying one thing to him, one minute, and another thing to myself, the next minute, without opening my mouth at all to anyone.

The conversations take place in my head.

For a bit, I am calm, when I imagine myself talking to him, understanding, in control.

"Well, you are an adult. And they are your lungs."

And then seconds later, I am raging in my brain, wanting to yell some sense into him, "Don't you see what you are doing to yourself? Don't you see how you are ruining your life? This could be your first step down the painful road that I went down."

I envision my son drinking next, winding up in jail cells covered in blood and puke, winding up in mental institutions, zonked out on LSD, full of their Thorazine, trying to tell them what day it is, trying to tell them who the President is, telling them that he doesn't want to kill himself or anybody else.

But my son is not me, and he is an adult now. (Old enough to die in Iraq.) But I won't buy the cigarettes for him. He'll have to do that for himself. It's time for the kid to get a job.

"And don't blow any second hand smoke on me, boy."

April 24 2007 Tuesday


Turn down the dogg…

It is probably the most brilliant of days ever, here in Atlanta, Georgia this fine, fine Tuesday morning at 10:35am on February 27, 2007. The sun is shining. The temperature is not too hot, not too cold; the temperature is perfect in fact. Birds are chirping. They nearly drown out out the nasty sounds of the leaf blowers and the car stereos that are set to a volumes capable of breaking ear drums.

I'm glad that you're into Snoop Dogg, pal, but I just woke up, could you turn the Dogg down?

I'm bitching.

I started out saying how blessed I was to be enjoying a beautiful day, and then I, immediately, start to whine about things that piss me off about life among the humans.

I just took the older dog for a walk. Javi is no longer capable of going on the long, fast walks that we used to take. He is riddled with arthritis, and he is a tad overweight, to say the least; so we talk short, slow walks, and I allow him to mostly sniff anything that he wants to sniff, for as long as he wants to sniff it, and, of course, he pees often.

I guess that Javi, despite his age, is still marking his spots, still trying to retain control of the world around him.

Thursday February 27, 2007

Al Gore pisses me off.
He wants you and me to use less energy, but he is unwilling to sign a piece of paper that says that he will use no more energy than you or I. Al Gore is special. He's a millionaire. He was born into money.
Why is it that people with a lot of money are always going around trying to tell people without a lot of money how they should live? A lot of these people with money, who want to tell us how to live are called politicians.
These people with money make "our" laws.
In whose favor do you think that these laws are made?

Don't worry about it. The Super Bowl will come around,
again, soon.
Friday March 23, 2007

work on this
The lady who lives across the driveway from me has a problem with her pit bulls; they like to jump out of the bedroom window of her apartment. The property managers don t much like this, because the dogs break either the window or the screen to do this. I don't much like this, because I don't like unattended pit bulls; I'm scared that one will sink their teeth into one of my dogs' neck, and possibly end a great relationship that I have. Living in an apartment complex is a trip. Complete strangers lives randomly impinge upon yours. Some people try to take advantage of the situation. They try to get all cozy with you and act like you and they are supposed to be all buddy, buddy because we happen to have somewhat collided because the rent here is all that either of us can afford. Aspiring buddy buddy neighbors are usually saddling up to you to get something.

I would never put a welcome mat in front of my house.

Confession of a Serial-Poster

I eat too fast. I still need to lose weight. I don't always do the dishes in a timely fashion. The last woman I dated soured me on dating at all. I won't ever get married.

Do you think that my writing is too me, me, me?
What is the word that describes that?

Megalomaniac?

Somewhere along the line, I stole from a drugged out sixties journalist the idea of inserting yourself into the story. I think Bukowski did it in poetry. It seemed like a good idea to me, in both cases.

I don't know if inserting myself into the story was taught to me in any of the journalism classes that I took on the way to an English degree. Hell, I don't remember being in any of those journalism classes, the second time out, in college.

The second time out, I was trying to do as many drugs as the aforementioned drugged out sixties journalist, and was definitely drinking as much as the poet. Funny how you can be influenced by the writers that you like.

Anyway, do I write too much about me?

September 17, 2008

PLACE THIS AT THE END OF THE BOOK, HONEY.
YOU ARE A GOOD PERSON, YOU ARE GOOD!!

From The Extremely Weird And Somehow Dangerous Dept.

People in Nebraska are dropping their kids off at the hospital, and are never coming back to get them. There's a new law there that says parents can do this.

Junior, if you don't do your homework, I'm going to hand you over to the state.

I'm weirded out by this.
What do you think?

Sept. 18, 2008


My, uh, errrrr, friends...I'm not running for anything

I may need milk for the morning, but I'm concerned that I drink too much milk. Dairy is not supposed to be good for you. This acquaintance of mine told me that she used to loooooove cheese, but when she gave up all dairy, she went from being fat to skinny.

So, what did I do? I started checking out cheese, and developed a love for it myself.

I swear that John McCain reads the words "my friends," from the teleprompter when he is giving a speech to "his friends."

I can not, I simply can not drink my coffee black. I have tried before, and I simply can't do it. I use stevia instead of sugar, but that is a side issue. I have to go to the grocery store. I simply have to go. I have to have milk, I simply have to have it. I hope that the milk that I buy is not from China, or from a human female breast, like I read that some Chef, somewhere, is using in his recipes. I doubt that my mother breast fed me. I have all these insecurity issues, and I bet that that is where they came from, my lack of getting fed by a breast.

Maybe that is, also, why I have to have milk in my coffee?

Anyway,

I was watching television, this evening, while having some tofu and rice, with fresh basil from the garden, my garden, I grew it, like wow, am I heading back to Woodstock without all the drugs, I wonder...and this elected official was being interviewed because he is trying to get the top medal for a fellow, who in some recent American conflict, grabbed a grenade and pulled it under his stomach, killing himself, and saving his fellow soldiers. It seems that the heroic young man might have been shot by one of his own men, and that is why he didn't get the top honor, but some secondary honor instead.

He pulled the grenade underneath himself to save the others. What balls. What big brass balls. I can't even imagine. Can you?

Medals are stupid, in a sense, like trophies given to kids as children for winning basketball games and tennis matches. Give them cash. Give his family cash, save the medals. Give all the soldiers cash, treat them right when they come home, after promising them the world to get them to do what you want them to do, will you please?

My turtles' water is almost dirty again. I am going to have to teach these turtles how to clean up after themselves. Have a good evening, my friends. I said that without the use of a teleprompter, but don't vote for me. I'm not running for anything, but peace of mind.

Peace
K

You can't steal love

The answer is no longer blowing in the wind. I'm not sure where the answer, is, and I bet you are not either, my friend. And there are so many questions, also.

The dogs like it when I wake up early. In fact, they often try to wake me up early, so that they can get outside for a minute, and then come rushing back inside, anticipation high for the breakfast that I will soon fix them. A vet with mine, and your, dogs' best interest in mind, once told me to feed my dogs green beans and carrots as snacks, instead of the sugar laden treats that you buy in a box from the store.

I know from past experience that my dogs won't eat carrots, and, last night, I learned that they won't eat fresh green beans. (I think that they will eat green beans from a can, so the ones in a can must be at least touched with sugar.) I just picked the two green beans up off the floor that I offered to the dogs last night. The dogs will also eat tomatoes, but not onions, and they will eat apples.

I'm having to teach my younger dog, Dylan, that you can't steal love. When I am petting my other dog, Morisson, Dylan can't come and stick his nose between my hand and whatever part of Morisson that I am petting, be it his head or his butt, and try to steal the action. I simply won't let him. Dylan is slow to learn this lesson, and when I think back on it, I think that Morisson was slow to learn this lesson when he was a puppy, also, also trying to steal time from Javi, our Senior Statesman Dog.

I just played ball with Dylan for the first time. He is great at fetching, but not so good at coming to me with the ball when I say to him, "Gimmee the ball." He will learn, if I spend time with him, just as he will learn that he can't steal love,if I spend time with him. For love to grow you have to spend time with it, and then give it time.

In one of his spoken word poems, on the An American Prayer album, Jim Morisson, screams, "I don't know about you, man, but I'm going to get my kicks in before the whole sh** house goes up in flames."

Has the sh** house been going up in flames since the beginning of time, did it start to go up in flames during Morisson's time, the '60's, or did it just start going up in flames in the last 8 years?

What about you, man/woman? You gonna stick your head in the sand and get your kicks in or are you going to try and put out the fire?

They say that this digital age that we are living in, is affecting our kids in great ways. I know that my kids are even more bored in school than I was. I must say that I made better grades than they are making, but there was more pressure on me to make good grades, than there is on them to do the same.

After all, look how I turned out!!!


I'm supposed to love everybody
According to this meditation book that I am reading, I am supposed to love everybody.

Sometimes, I would rather look at the world around me, than stick my face in a book, while I am traveling on the subway train. South of the city, as we are, mostly, I see people of a different color than me sitting next to and in front of me.

A friend of mine emailed me, this morning, and said that she and her husband might lose their home to foreclosure. Her husband used to make 150k annually; now he can't find a job.

If the leaders would lead, the people would follow. Who said that?

I am supposed to love everybody.

We just pulled through the downtown stop. People of my color have joined the mix. They wear coats and ties, and the women are dressed for success.

A cute girl just smiled at me. I have resolved to not meet women on the train, or on the internet.

President Bush was mostly ignored or laughed at, today, at the U.N. meeting.

I'm supposed to love everybody.

A query about the rat that lives in my oven
I don't want the rat to get one of my cookies
that I just baked. Do you think a rat would
eat a hot peanut butter banana oatmeal cookie
with chocolate chips in it?
September 24, 2006

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!!!!
The world is ending, so I have decided to not turn on my television, yet, today and feed into the frantic mania that the media is feeding us. There is nothing that I can do about what other men have done to ruin this great nation for all of us, so why should I live in the fear that they are trying to induce in every one of us to get more of what they want: America's Money. I watched "The President," last night, and all I felt was a sickness that this piece of work has been in the position that he has been, for the last eight years, to ruin our nation.

I'm going to focus on my dogs, my cats, my turtles and my fish, today, and concentrate on packing for the move that I am making next Wednesday. Yesterday, I had the cable turned on, for a greater part of the day, and watched McCain trying to posture himself to be something that he is not, a great leader. This country will go down the tubes, if McCain gets elected. We will all have to move to Sweden. There will be more war, less money for all of us, more opportunity for those who already are over saturated with opportunity.

See, there I go. I am feeding into it, even with the TV. off. You can't escape it, if you are alive and breathing.

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!!!!
When people have you by the balls
It's funny, when people have you by the balls, it is usually a corporation, of some sort, and it is usually a corporation that has government backing, of some sort. I'm here to bitch, so if you don't want to hear me bitch, back off baby.

Two years ago, I shut off the electricity on an apartment that I had been paying for electricity in for eight years. For the last two years, the power bill has been in my roommate's name, at the humble abode where I have been living. I'm moving to a new place, next week, and I went on the internet and did the keyboard punching necessary to have "service" set up there. This morning, I woke to an email that said there was something wrong, and that I had to call the "providers." When I called, I got a real polite gentleman who told me that since I owed seven dollars, I would have to come in to a local office and pay the seven dollars, and have a credit check run on me to see if they wanted to get a deposit from me.

Seven fucking dollars.

These people want theirs, and they are going to get it from me/you no matter what. There is one electric company, and you have to buy their electricity from them, on their terms or live by candles.

Bitching doesn't do much good, I've learned, in this life. Taking positive steps does, so I'll just step down to the electric company, later today, and let them bend me over. I wonder if I was an elected official, if I would be made to show up in person with seven dollars.

Ha ha. Doubt that.

Corporations have been raping this land, and its people for as long as there have been corporations(the idea for them being no personal liability in doing "business,") and by now, most of the citizens of this great country know it. If I had had an extra cup of coffee, this morning, I might not have bitched to you about this minor fucking detail in an otherwise grand frigging life.

But I didn't.

The Great Debate Was Boring
Neither man, McCain or Obama, bred in me, tonight, a feeling that either of them is a great leader. Obama was timid. McCain was like the big mouthed white man boss that you have to listen to, on the job, because he was "the boss," and not because you respect him, or can learn from him, or want to go where he can lead you.

Did anyone count how many times McCain invoked the name Ronald Reagan? McCain must think that the more he mentions Reagan, the more likely he is to get elected, as if everyone hasn't already figured out that Ronald Reagan was not God, especially for poor people, and the middle class. At least the war hero, who voted to leave hundreds of POWs behind him in Vietnam, didn't use his worn out, "I was a foot soldier in the Reagan army," statement, tonight. I would have puked onto my fried fish and hot tea had he done so.

Maybe timid wasn't the correct word to choose for Barack's performance, tonight, in his and McCain's first Presidential debate. Cautious is maybe the better word. Having the lead in the polls, maybe Obama just wants to hang in there, and get the job, and not go out on any limbs, and chance blowing it.

I don't know.

I've waited for weeks for this debate, and, basically, I found it boring. Obama has gone from electrifying to almost hush, hush. McCain has gone from being a pain in the ars, to being even more of a pain in the ars.

McCain, as President, of The United States of America, would be some serious evil; I mean ole John would be some Satan, and I not going to be voting for no Satan, mon; he been in da job for the last eight years, and da times they be a scary.

My dogs were all about me during the debate. They could not believe that I did not have my face in the laptop all night, and that I could, and would, actually pet them for ninety minutes.

When the debate was over, the dogs told me that they can't wait until Joe and Sarah go at it. Now dat might really be a triller in da Maniller.

September 26, 2008




I seek blood in the morning before coffee
I prick my finger, seeking blood, in the morning, even before I take that first sip of coffee. If I have been good, the day before, and watched what I eat, specifically trying to not ingest food laden with sugar, and if I have ridden my bicycle a suitable distance, I will get a low reading. If I have relapsed onto the cola beverage that I am addicted to, or have been unable to pull myself away from this laptop, I will get a high reading. Going to Yoga classes helps me to get low readings, also.

It would seem that with the risks that diabetes offers to my very life, that it would be easy to do what I am supposed to do to keep my sugar level low, yet, sometimes, it seems that I forget that I am diabetic, or that I am in some sort of denial.

I took a long bus ride, yesterday, to see my chiropractor, here in Atlanta, Georgia, and I was impressed by the fact that I was the minority. Most of the people on the bus were African-American, Mexican and Asian. Where have all the white people gone?

I know that it is a stupid question. In the Atlanta suburban areas, as I was traveling in, to go to see the man who keeps my back from inflicting crippling pain on me, the white people have cars. They also live in rather large houses, I noticed as our bus traveled through their neighborhoods.

I've always been a renter. My temperament never suited me to a long term stint at any job, and that best selling book is still a dream. I don't feel like I have missed out on anything by not owning a large house in the suburbs. Such a house would be hard to keep clean,(I have trouble keeping a small space dust and dog hair free)and I really don't care for mowing the lawn, and pulling out the weed eater to fine tune the lawn's appearance.(I would rather get my exercise sitting at the laptop, tapping away at the keys.)

Maybe all this means that I am God Bless Paul Newman
I just read that Paul Newman passed. Now that makes me sad. There is a guy who succeeded in an ego filled business, who seemed down to earth, and altruistic.

God bless him.
inherently a city dweller. Who knows? I'm ready for that second cup of coffee, now.

September 27, 2008

Google This
Our dog, Shawtie, a Shar Pei mutt, of some sort, used to hunt wild pigs in China, I learned this morning, via Wikipedia, but, these days, she mainly hangs out on my son's bed, waiting for me to rattle the tin that holds the treats, and scream to her and my other two dogs, "Who's been good? Whose been good?

Where would I be without Wikipedia?

Easy segue, here, to ask, and, where would I be without Google, and where is Google taking me(and you)?

You must know, by now, that you, or anyone, can get a close up look at your home, rather easily via Google. I think I see me looking out my window, wondering what the weather will be like, one morning, before coffee, in my Google look into where I live.

I met a guy with an iphone, the other night at an art opening, and as he was giving me the iphone tour, he said, "Hey, what's your address," and then he took great delight in zooming into my backyard, right there at the art opening. I think that he thought that he was going to surprise me that he could invade my house like this, but one of my sons had already shown me that trick awhile back. Since it is such an amazing, and amazingly, somehow, intrusive thing, I said, "Wow!" anyway. The whole iphone trip, that he took me, the iPhone novice on, was fairly exciting, though, especially for a guy who doesn't even have a cell phone, right now.

I'm kind of a loner. I don't know if I like all this access to me.

I looked a lot better naked, when I was younger, and I can't trust that these pictures being taken from satellites will have my best interest in hand, as Google goes about the land showing what everybody's got to everybody else. On the other hand, I don't have anything to hide. Maybe they will start a Google magazine, and I'll find myself, and the house that I rent, on the cover, one day, and all my dreams will come true.

As you read that last line, please hum, in your head, the music to The Rolling Stones song, "Far Away Eyes," the part where Mick sings,

"Well the preacher kept right on saying that all I had to do was send ten dollars to the church of the sacred bleeding heart of Jesus located somewhere in Los Angeles, California and next week they'd say my prayer on the radio and all my dreams would come true..."

I love Google. I'm a Google it addict, just like I am an internet and laptop addict, a coffee addict, and an addict to my kids, dogs, cats, turtles and my lone fish, Sydnee V,

but,

am I correct in thinking that Google seems to be getting a little bit too much up our collective ars?
Sept. 28, 2008



The Politics of Love
My Love, and I, have this game that we play. I break up with her, usually because I feel that she is not paying me enough attention, and then she turns my cell phone off.

She does this, as she says, because she can. For whatever doltish reason, (this is how I feel when the phone is turned off) my cell phone is in her name, maybe, partly, because, when things are going well with me and her, I don't think about the fact that she can shut it down when we are not getting along, and I forget to call and get the phone transferred over to my name, or, maybe, partly, because she has more money than I do, and she pays my cell phone bill for me, while she waits, fairly patiently, for me to become the next Hemingway or Hunter Thompson.

This lady really believes in me. She must, because she puts her money where my mouth is, and, as I said, when we are getting along pays my cell phone bill.

It is bad enough when one person, yourself, is waiting to "make it, but when you throw another person into the mix, the pressure is, at times, more than I can deal with.

Stress is my enemy. I do not handle stress well. Most of my activities, outside of the word, are geared towards reducing stress: yoga, and fifteen minute bouts of breathing in and out, watching where the breath goes, something a good friend of mine tells me is called meditation.

I'm not sure why I'm telling you all of this. Maybe I'm doing such, because, as a good little Catholic boy, I was trained early on to confess. I left the church thirty years ago, though.

Maybe I'm purging, because yesterday, after seven weeks of staying away from her, I let Love back in my life. I told her that I am going to play it one day at a time with her. Expectations usually never come true for me. Expectations bring me down big time.

I think that true love should be structured so that you can walk away from it anytime without "things" keeping you together; things such as houses, and cars, and stocks and bonds, and, of course things such as cell phones.

True love is not the stuff that you have accumulated together, or the stuff that you rely on each other for; true love is the stuff that you feel in your heart, and your head, and your soul.

Hey, I got to go; I hear my cell phone ringing.
September 29 2008

Nothing Is Insurmountable
Friends,

I get The Daily Om, and this one seems to me to be a real good one, especially with all that is going on in our Great Nation, right now, relating to this bailout bill, so I wanted to share it with you.

Best, Mikel

The Light at the End of the Tunnel
Nothing Is Insurmountable

"When our next best course of action seems unclear, any dilemmas we face can appear insurmountable. Yet there is nothing we cannot overcome with time, persistence, focused thought, help, and faith. Whatever the situation or problem, there is always a solution. And if you remember to look within, even as you search around you for the “right” course of action, you will be able to center yourself, clear your mind, and see that nothing has to be impossible.

The first step in overcoming any obstacle is to believe that it can be overcome. Doing so will give you the strength and courage to move through any crisis. The second step is to make a resolution that you can prevail over any chaos. Enlist your support network of family and friends if necessary. The more minds there are to consider a problem, the more solutions can be found. Don’t discount ideas just because they seem impractical or “unrealistic,” and don’t keep searching for the “best” alternative. Often there is no “best” choice, there is only a choice to make so we can begin moving beyond whatever is obstructing our path. At the very least, making a choice, even if isn’t the ideal one, can give you a sense of peace before you have to figure out what your next course of action will be.

If you feel overwhelmed by the scope of your troubles, you may want to think of other people who have turned adversity into triumph. We often gain a fresh perspective when we remember others who have overcome larger obstacles. It can be inspiring to hear of their victories, helping us remember that there is always light at the end of every tunnel. It is during our darkest hours that we sometimes need to remind ourselves that we don’t have to feel helpless. You have within and around you the resources to find a solution to any problem. And remember that if a solution or choice you make doesn’t work, you are always free to try another. Believe that you can get through anything, and you will always prevail."

--The Daily Om
http://www.dailyom.com/
September 29, 2008


Woman Seeks Dinner

I'm trying to sell a couch, a chair, an Ottoman, and a clothes washer on Craig's List, and doing such is a fairly boring experience, so I headed over to the Female Seeks Male ads to see if love awaited me somewhere behind a headline on Craig's List.

It seems to me that mostly hungry woman place ads on Craig's List.

"Come get me for dinner tomorrow night, or better even, tonight, I like to bowl, also," said one, Female Seeks Male ad.

One woman tried this approach, "Beautiful, beautiful woman
seeks man who is not fat, to buy her dinner. Look at my pictures and see how beautiful, beautiful I am."

I looked at her pictures, and she wasn't beautiful.She looked burnt out, like she had played the game on both ends of the candle for a long time.

Have you ever placed an ad on Craig's List for a date, or met someone from My Space or Facebook or some place like that?

Is it true that your soul mate really only exists on E Harmony?

It's good to be home
Somehow, I have squeezed everything into this small space. Cluttered is the word that comes to mind. I am a pack rat of sorts. I keep everything, from the teddy bears that my kids grew up hugging, to books that I will never read, with titles that I find interesting. My priority, once everything was moved inside these new four walls, was to get my turtle tank up and running. My turtles had spent nearly a day out of their normal environment, because of this move from a house to a studio apartment that I, my two dogs, two cats, two turtles and one fish had made. The next thing that I wanted to setup, even before I got my laptop online was my coffee maker. I found the coffee maker fairly easily, but the coffee pot eluded me for nearly two days. I am not a pretty man, and without my coffee, I become even uglier. A shower and a nice cup of coffee are essential to starting my day on a right foot.

I set the cable up in time to catch Joe and Sarah go at it. Sarah did better than I thought she would. I still don't trust her to be the finger on our nuclear button. Joe came across as a recovering used car salesman, a former crook, who had found the Lord and was now polite to everybody.

This country, this planet are in trouble. Do you think Barack and Biden can save it? They, certainly,(hopefully?) won't continue on the same disastrous path that we are on now, a path that, despite all he says to the contrary, now that the word "change" is en vouge, John McCain would continue to take us down.

I'm tired. Moving from one abode to another is hard on your legs, and hard on your back, but let me tell you one thing: it sure is good to be home!
October 4, 2008


Sometimes, it's better that your dreams don't come true

The cats made it clear, this morning, that they expected to be fed their usual breakfast of wet cat food. The two of them had let me off the hook, for the past couple of days, as I sorted through boxes, trying to find a place to put everything in the new abode.

Jaggar, my black kitty, with the piercing yellow eyes, was meowing loudly, as he is wont to do, when he wants something. Kobain did what he is most likely to do, when he desires something from me, and stared me down, until I started opening the can of cat food that he was expecting.

Neither one of the cats said thank you, in any way, when I put their plates of wet cat food in front of them; they just dived in, as if they had not been fed in days, which is not the case.

Their dry cat food has, again, found its way to the top of the clothes washer. I find this to be a convenient place to put their dry food, so that the dogs will not get into it and eat it all up.

I have not been to a Yoga class in almost three weeks. I now live across the street from the Yoga studio, instead of over an hour away. This should be a great thing. The reasons that I moved to this little studio apartment are two fold; first, the apartment is in easy walking distance to, and from, my daughter's high school, and, second, the apartment is near to the Yoga studio.

My primary emphasis, for the next four years, are my daughter and my Yoga, and what better place is there to be for me than in proximity to both of these?

Cluttered is the word that my daughter, Scout, and I, agreed upon for this new home that I have moved into, even after Scout, and I, spent several hours, this evening, organizing the space.

Due to my daughter's fine work, I can now see my bed, and that somehow has opened the space up a bit. I have been sleeping with the bed half full every night, half full of boxes, and books and notebooks, half-full plus a cat, Kobain, who jumps on my chest, expecting a head rub, the minute that I lay my head on the pillow each night.

Sometimes you spend your life dreaming for something, but life deals you a hand that is far better than the life you dreamed of. I dreamed of being a rock and roll poet, with millions of people loving me, but instead I wound up a father, with three kids loving me, and two dogs, two cats, two turtles, and a fish named Sydnee Vee who respect, and depend on me.

Rock on.

--Mikel K

PS I love the Rolling Stone article title, "John McCain, Make-Believe Maverick." That SO hits it on the head!!!
October 5, 2008

Tis almost the season
Yesterday, I gave my Chistmas tree and all my Christmas decorations to my son, and his fiance. My new place is small, and their new place is medium sized, so I just figured that the decorations would be more at home with them. I was hoping that Tommi (my son's fiance) would want my beautiful fake tree. Tommi has never eaten meat, or fish, so it made sense to me that she might not be into the slaughter of an innocent tree to give her pleasure for a week to ten days during the holiday season. I am going to buy one of those minature fake trees for my space. It is all I need. Sometimes, it is good to need less.
What I didn't give them, are my Halloween decorations. NOBODY is getting my Halloween decorations. I love my fake skulls, and my fake pumpkins, and my little witchy decorations. Have you noticed, that, at some homes, Halloween decorations are rivalling Christmas decorations in size, and uniqueness of presentation?
For me, this is the greatest time of year, weather-wise and fun wise. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are a great one-two-three punch. I just need to keep it all in perspective, and not blow out my expectations.
When the kids were younger, this was easy to do, because it was easy to keep it all about them, them, them. Now that they are mostly grown, I can see that I could take it back to being about me, me, me. It is amazing how easy it is to, once again, become the eagle eyed little kid, who was trained to want, want, want Santa to bring HIM things.
I hope that I give some this year, and not just want.

John McCain's airplane smells much better than Barak Obama's airplane
CBS News' Dean Reynolds said, yesterday, that John McCain's airplane smells much better than Barak Obama's airplane.

"The McCain campaign plane is better than Obama's, which is cramped, uncomfortable and smells terrible most of the time. Somehow the McCain folks manage to keep their charter clean, even where the press is seated,"writes Reynolds in his "On The Road," column.

Reynolds also complained that the Obama campaign does not cater to the press corp., that follows Obama around, as well as the McCain campaign looks after the press corp. that is trailing McCain.

I get the feeling, from Mr. Reynolds article, that he would be happier if someone from whichever campaign that he is covering would write his stories for him; that would really make his job easier.

I'm not fully sure what to make of Reynold's statement about the scent of the Obama plane, but, somehow, I know that it stinks.

www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/10/07/politics/fromtheroad/entry4507703.shtml

If you want to watch them whine

They are losing the election, so they grab at straws.
If you want to watch them whine, watch FOX.
October 10, 2008



All John Lennon was saying…
The Anti-Abortion folks, because they are so into life, are starting to whisper, not so quietly, at their rallys "kill the nigger," while Sarah and John smile at them, pretending to not hear a thing. I might be exaggerating, but from what I've been listening to on the Cable TV, I am not exaggerating by much. The Right Wingers who want John to die in office, and have Sarah take over, are starting to freak out.

A Right Wing mob freak out, is not a very pretty thing, I am sure. I commented a while back on how their mob shout of, "USA. USA," was somehow scary, reminding me a bit of another ecstatic, frantic mob screaming, "Heil Hitler."

I am not saying that John McCain is Hitler, is like Hitler, or has anything to do with Hitler, but I do know that a percentage of the population of our great nation thinks that we are headed to being a fascist bunch of folks. Which state, red or blue would most represent this to you?

Have you ever noticed that your cat heads straight for the litter box the instant that you are done cleaning it, and, immediately, dirties it? I am showing my age, by the fact that, here on a Friday night, the highlight of the evening, is dumping the old litter, cleaning the box, and putting in new litter for the kitties, while sipping on homemade coffee.

Tonight is homecoming night at my daughter's school. Her bio papa told her to come home, to my home, right after the game. Since I live so close to the school, I know that the game ended 15 minutes ago. It will be interesting to see what time she comes home.

It doesn't seem like all that long ago, that I was the one stumbling home, breaking curfew, and breaking my parents hearts by doing everything they told me not to do.

Let's hope that what goes around doesn't come around.

Speaking of coming around, I've been attacked by someone for my posts at Rolling Stone.com, which you'll note, if you go there, are articles that have also appeared here. I'm stupid for thinking what I think I think is the jist of what this courageous anonymous poster, has to say to me, in the dark. The replier to my blogs identifies him or herself as Jann Wenner, the name of the Rolling Stone Magazine publisher.

A John Lennon quote seems, somehow, appropriate, here: "All we are saying, man, is give peace a chance."
October 10, 2008

t cracks me up that some kid, who knows of Slash via the Guitar Hero game,asked him, if he played, "real guitar." Click on link below, to see the complete Rolling Stone interview with Slash.

--Mikel K


http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2008/10/07/slash-this-time-around-were-not-making-compromises/

A beautiful thing to do that doesn't cost you a dime
It's amazing how large some dogs are, I note, seated on a big rock, at the dog park, marvelling at how medium-sized my dogs are, in comparison. Then, as someone else's dog nuzzles my lower back, I turn, and am amazed at how small some dogs are. The big dogs seem to run with the big dogs, here at the dog park, and the little dogs seem to mostly socialize with little dogs.
How much dogs are like humans, in their varying sizes, I think to myself, totally tuned into the dogs, today, and not much aware of the humans who have accompanied their dogs to this dog park, and also surround me.
Morisson doesn't wander far from me, here at the dog park, and Bundy moves an even less distance from me. I wish that my dogs would find a dog to chase, or that they would find some dog that would chase them, wear them out, and send them home weary, wanting water, and rest.
I wish that I had my camera, right now. There is this great shot of a Great Dane rubbing noses with a dog smaller than a Jack Russell. I can't imagine living with a Great Dane. What a presence these dogs have. I, also, can't imagine living with a really small dog.
I am happy with my medium dogs.
Both of my medium dogs are sitting at the foot of my rock. There will be no intense running today. I'm a bit bummed. Maybe I need to get my dogs a personal trainer.
October 11, 2008

How to win friends at The Dog Park
No Great Danes, today, at The Dog Park; there is a kind of goofy Weinheimer, with no testicles, running around looking happy. This Weinheimer is definitely not the same one that I met, here, the other day, because that one had his balls; his owner said that he was going to breed him.

There is a dog fight, happening, near the entrance to the park; fierce noises, the gnashing of dog teeth, dogs circling up around the two dogs fighting, and my dogs, Bundy, and Morisson head to join the pack that is watching the altercation.

A small wimpy dog freaks out because a larger dog has tried to stick its nose you know where. The small dog doesn't stop screaming until its owner picks it up, and repeatedly whispers into its ear, "It's o.k., Boo Boo. It's o.k." The man takes the shaking dog outside the dog park fence, and hugs it to his chest, almost seeming to be singing a lullaby to Boo Boo to calm him down.

Bundy has learned that he can get other people to pet him, here at the park, and that is exactly what he is having done right now, smiling up at a man who sits on a rock, down the way from my rock, who is diligently scratching my dog's head. It takes a village to raise a dog, too, it would appear.

Morisson is making friends with other dogs. I am hoping that he will soon join a pack of dogs and run a bit. I'd like to see Bundy do some jogging, also. Morisson seems to make friends easily, here at the dog park, sniff the right butts, if you know what I mean.
October 13, 2008

Under Their Thumb
I've pretty much had the television turned off the past few days. I turned it on as I went out the door to walk the dogs; it is my poor man's alarm clock. I figure that the crack addict will hear Lou Dobbs, or Glenn Beck talking from my living room, and they will run like hell from my house.

As I left the humble abode, with one dog obediently walking on leash with me, and the other still trying to pull my arm off with him, I guess, boldly going where he thinks no other dog has ever gone before, I heard someone say, "I guess that we are in for a scandal plagued four years."

Honey, please.

Politicians always let me down. It is probably my own fault because I keep hoping for one, or maybe half a dozen, who will turn out to be non-self serving, who will really operate in the interest of we the people, but that is not the type of person who is attracted to the job. You have to have a rock star lead singer type ego to put your name on bumper stickers of cars, and on signs in citizen's lawns, and tell everyone that you are the one. It's sort of a me, me, me job.

Mick Jagger could have been the Queen of England.

Where that leaves us, I'm not sure.A bit fu**ed, I guess, though. Think about it: John McCain is the best man that the Republicans have got, and I'm still hoping that Obama can walk on water, but I'm beginning to get scared that he can't.

With the t.v. turned off, I do more Yoga; I interact with the dogs more; I work on my business more, so it is probably a good thing that I have it turned off; don't you think? The political world can survive without me.
October 14, 2008

The Last Time That I Smoked Pot
Like a junkie seeking more more more sugar

I have one sip left of ginger ale,
and that is going to be good enough,
because it is all that I will allow myself
to sip, this evening.

In the old days, I would have poured another cup;
my cup always ranneth over,
spilled onto the pavement, I might add,
left me wretching and belching, bleeding,
sort of, like a conniving kid, a junkie kind of
seeking more, more, more sugar.

But I grew up, and I threw up old habits,
and I am here to say that the two liter bottle
that used to last only one day, was yesterday,
here for almost a week.
--Mikel K





The last time that I bought pot

There's nowhere to go,
and no one to go there with,

but that's o.k.
I've done my fair share of running around
feel like I've made it to higher ground
I really shouldn't have landed here with both feet
on the ground

but I have
and I like walking my dogs around the block
while other people party down.

A girl came up to me, last night, and asked me
if I "knew where she could buy some pot?"

I almost laughed out loud.
I haven't bought pot in almost twenty years.
--Mikel K
October 15, 2008

You might wind up sitting on a wall, somewhere, screaming.
I took a bike ride, today, and out of everything that I saw, peddling about the great city of Atlanta, what sticks with me is the man who was sitting on a wall screaming at himself. He was alive, but dead at the same time. I could not imagine the hell that he was living, no matter how he had arrived there, whether he was a mentally ill paranoid schizophrenic, or a person that had gone way more than one toke over the line with crack.

Can you imagine just being out there like that, insane on the streets of America? No hope. Nowhere to go.

When you drive by a man, such as this man, in a car, you mostly don't notice him. The radio is blaring, the heat or the air conditioning are making you feel good. You are concentrating on the cars in front of you, the road ahead of you. You are thinking about the kids. You are thinking about buying dog food.

When you are on a bike, you can hear the man scream. You can look into his eyes, as you ride by him, and see the pain that he is in.

Where did this man come from? Where will he wind up?

Guys like this are even more screwed in the world of now. I saw the repo man prowling the street that I live on, in the wee hours of yesterday morning. If people are losing their houses, in foreclosures, as we are hearing about so much on the news, then, too, I am sure, that folks are losing their cars in the middle of the night, also.

No house. No car. You might wind up sitting on a wall, somewhere, screaming.
--Mikel K
October 16, 2008

Should a nation give money to its bankers and arms dealers or feed its people?
I've got to stock up on staples. I've got to grow some tomatoes
Where the line ended, and I began to stand in it, a couple slept in a doorway. He and she were curled up against each other, in the fetal position, under a blanket. The sight would have been cute, had it not been occurring outside a downtown business building at 7:30 a.m. The thought occurred to me that the couple was sleeping late. They did not set their alarm clock to get in line to apply for food stamps, like everybody else around them on this cold, wet Atlanta morning.

How they slept, while this line of people wormed its way around them; mostly shabbily dressed folks chit chatting, as they waited for the food stamp office to open, I don't know. All that the couple owned, I assume, was gathered around them, as they they had their eyes closed: a couple of travel bags. The thought occurred to me that this couple was not going to be going far anytime soon; maybe to the soup line by noon, and back to the soup line around five, and then back here to their building for another night under the stars, and out in the elements.

A short stocky guy, dressed mostly in yellow, walked the line, working it, saying, "Newports. Newports," two packs of the menthol cigarettes in his hand, one open, ready to make a quick sale.

"How much?" said someone in the line.

"A quarter," he replied quickly.

Do the math. Twenty cigarettes to a pack; he's not making much bank, unless he's got a free line of cigarettes somewhere, somehow.

Once the doors opened, a man was thrown out of the line before he got to the desk to turn in the application that a security guard had handed to all assembled. He was talking loud, and I assume that he was drunk. Too drunk to feed himself. Seventeen years ago, I had been very close to that position in life myself. Weird the turns that life takes, sometimes.

Are the people in this line society's parasites looking for a handout? Are they preying on you, the taxpayer, to buy them breakfast, lunch, and dinner? What makes them any different than Wall Street?

Should a nation give its money to its bankers and its arms dealers or to its people for food?
--Mikel K

Bad dreams shouldn't come true
It is dark outside, and raining. I had the weirdest dream, last night; it combined two periods of my life with one person, who did his best, in one of those periods, to make my life miserable. In my dream, I tried to set this guy up with two cops, who had, somehow, wandered into my life. I wound up not liking one of the cops. He seemed to be doing his best to make my life miserable; a common theme in last night's dream.

Dreams can seem so real. I'm glad that the bad ones, haven't, so far, come true. When I was a kid, I had a couple of my dreams actually happen, later in time. This scared me when I had a dream that The Skipper and Gilligan climbed up the side of our house, and through my bedroom window, and threw my mother out that window, when she caught them in my bedroom.

I loved my mother, and lived in fear that this dream might come true. Bad dreams shouldn't come true; only good dreams.

--Mikel K

I just loves me some butter

I have been in the south since 1982, and, moments ago, I just cooked grits for the first time ever. They turned out pretty darn well, also, especially since I dumped about a half a stick of real butter in them. I could eat roofing tiles, if I put enough butter on them; I just loves me some butter.





What is it with me and married women?

What is it with me and married women?

Nine out of ten women that I meet are married; or so it seems. I met this really nice lady, by the coffee machine, at the grocery store, today. She was there shopping with her mother, an incredibly vibrant 82 year young woman, who gave testimony to doing crossword puzzles, and getting out of the house, every day, as ways to stay clear in the mind, as you approach a century of living this great gift called life.

Mother and daughter were very charming, so charming that I forgot to put cream in my coffee, as I was talking to them. I found it interesting to note, though, that once the charming daughter told me that she was "on her third marriage, the only one that has worked out," that I sort of hesitated to interact with her as much, making eye contact and chatting, mostly, with her mother from then on, as the three of us stood there near the frozen foods aisle.

Married means hands off, right? You can't talk to them. You can't look at them. You can't enjoy a smile with them, because they are married?

I met another married lady several hours later, in a five and dime type of store. I had gone in there because the store was new to our neighborhood, and one of my neighbors had told me good things about it. As I walked in, I saw a hand-written sign in the door that said, "Help Wanted."

I need a job, and I would love to have one that is right across the street from where I live, as this store is, so I approached two people working in the back and asked them about the sign.

A woman who was seated on the floor working, told me that they required you to bring in a hand-written one page resume. I smiled and said, "Well, that is very unique."

The lady and I then talked about the store a bit, the history of it. I asked her if the store was a franchise, and she told me, "No, it was not a franchise, that her husband's family owned another one like it, in another part of town, and that this was the second one that they had opened in 50 years, so, definitely, it was not a franchise!" She had a great smile on her face as she told me this story.

I told her that I was planning on getting an MFA in Poetry, soon, and then she stood up and told me that she, "had a Ph. d in Mechanical Engineering, but that were not many High Tech jobs in Atlanta."

I went home, ate, hand wrote a one page resume, took a shower, put on nice clothes, and went back to the store, sure that my clever resume would get me the job.

I handed the resume to the lady, and a man came running up, looking very anal and nervous. He, immediately said to me, "WE will look at this later."

I said, "Oh, are you the manager," and the nice lady, who was holding my resume and reading it, said, "This is my husband." He was a white guy, very uptight. She was an Asian lady, very friendly. Who do you think will decide on the hire?

I'm not supposed to talk to married ladies, I guess.
October 24, 2008

Nobody Loves You When You're Down And Out!
I gave Amex the wrong account number to draw a payment from, so my credit union charged me thirty bucks when Amex tried to get paid, and couldn't. I went and talked to the good man at the credit union, explaining to him my error, and asking if he could rescind the thirty dollar fee, since I had made an honest mistake, and had never done such before in all my years with the credit union. The good man said that he would talk to another man, who was in charge of such things.
In yesterday's mail, I got another thirty dollar charge, from the credit union, so I assume that Amex tried to run their charge through again. Sixty bucks, right now, is big money to me. It is a week's groceries, it is half of my utilities' bill, it is my cable and internet bill.
How many times can, and will, a credit card company try to collect from you in such a manner? How many times will I be charged thirty bucks by the credit union?
I know that I need to call Amex, and I will do that almost immediately, but it is hard to negotiate with such folks when you have no money to negotiate with them?!!





I'm Sick Of Joe the Plumber
The headline at The Drudge Report said, "JOE THE PLUMBER 'SCARED FOR AMERICA' IF OBAMA PRESIDENT." Who cares what Joe the Plumber thinks? I'm sick of hearing about Joe the Plumber.


The landlord came by yesterday to cut the grass. I had decorated the property for Halloween, and he told me that he was going to move this vase from the middle of the lawn that I had pushed there, and put some fake skulls and plastic pumpkins in. I said to the man, "Hey look, boss, if there is anything that I did on the property that you don't like, please feel free to remove it." It was probably a stupid statement to deliver to him, after all it is his property! My landlord is cool, though; he smiled at me, as he pulled out his lawnmower, and said that everything was fine, that he was showing an apartment and he just wanted everything to look neat.

When I came back from walking the dogs, I saw that my landlord had taken two angels, that I had had at the foot of the vase, and he had put them on a shelf on the front of the house, next to some other larger fake skulls and plastic pumpkins. He had also straightend out the ceramic turtles and angels that I had placed in a flower bed by the front door. Each thing that he had done was an improvement on my placement of things. It is funny that no matter how good you think that your eye is, that someone can come along and have a better eye than you!

This kind of relates to how I feel about writing here at Salon.com. I used to think that nobody could come anywhere near me at the written word. Then I started hanging out here, and I saw just how great the written word can get. I mean, some of you just frigging blow me away. That does not discourage me, though; it is like taking an advanced Yoga class, when you have been in a beginning class only. There is a challenge to it, and it makes you grow.

Thanks for helping me grow.






Back in the day

Some gals visiting the guys downstairs woke me and the dogs up around four a.m. Bundy let them know what was up, barking at them loudly. I'm not sure if I told my dog to hush, or let him bark at the gals, to let them know what was up. At four a.m. some people are asleep. It didn't used to always be that way. There was a time, many years ago, that I was the one up at four a.m., probably being loud. I'm sure that I woke a person or two up, back in the day.







Intimate Conversations

Do you want to leave this page?
Yes, I want to leave this page.

Some of my most intimate conversations, these days,
are with my computer.

Mikel K 5:19 a.m. October 25, 2008

It's only Socialism and Marxism if it trickles down

"We're not spending," said the man on the t.v.
because we don't have any money.

"The trickle down," that Ronald Reagan said would happen
if you lowered the taxes of the rich, "did not trickle down,"
he continued.

There is much talk of the evil of redistribution
of wealth to include the middle class and the poor.

"SOCIALISM," The Right cries, "MARXISM!!" they scream.

Why wasn't it Socialism and Marxism when
income was being distributed up?
October 26, 2008

Do you ever wonder what happens at a dog park in Atlanta, Georgia?

A lady stops in front of me, at the dog park, lifts her foot in the air, and looks at the bottom of her shoe. It looked clean to me, but you certainly can't always be sure of that, here at the dog park.

I'm on one of my usual rocks. Morisson comes up to me, I say hello, and he jumps up on me, leaving a dirty paw print on my notebook.

"Sorry, she has a thing for purses," I hear one dog owner say to another, looking over my shoulder to see a lady stuffing lipstick, and sunglasses back into her purse.

A few dogs stop to sniff me, but none stays long enough for me to pet them. I guess that they could tell that I haven't had a shower yet today.

A three-legged Doberman runs by at a pace faster than most of the four legged dogs are running around at.

Two girls walk up with a little dog that is wearing a pretty sweater.

"That's not a dog!" I say, looking at the cute dog.

"It's a baby! one of the girls says.

"What kind is it?" I ask.

"Shih Tzu," she says.

The girl is from Puerto Rico, but she was born in The United States. Her dog was born in Puerto Rico. Her parents were from Cuba. They did not leave when Castro took power, but some time after that.

As if she has answered too many questions, the girl walks off with her Shih Tzu, and her female lover.
October 26, 2008

Fire The Crooks And Praise The Lady
It seems to me that the "executives" who ran their companies into the situation where their company needed to be bailed out by The American People should be fired, and should not be figuring out how to give themselves bonuses with the "bailout" money. Why should we bail out people that already have several houses with swimming pools, and maids?

-----------------------------------

There was just a story on CNN about a lady who met a lady whose house had been foreclosed on, at a foreclosure auction, and bought the lady's house back for her for $49,000. The two were shown hugging, after the deal was closed. This is a very neat story; we need to see, hear, and experience more things like this, for sure.
October 26, 2008


For Halloween, I'm going to dress up as an unemployed guy
For Halloween, I'm going to dress up as an unemployed guy, who can't find a job, who might have to get in line with the homeless to have lunch. I'll carry a sign around my neck, as I go trick or treating, that says, "Will Work," and when someone, anyone says, "What kind of work do you do?" I'll say, "I do the kind of work that pays; you got any?"

When I was younger, I was telling my son, today, I could land a job in one afternoon, of going to restaurants. I would hit six to ten of them, in one go, and somebody would hire me. I don't know if I am too old, now, to get a "server" position, but something in the equation has changed.

People are handing me applications, but the phone isn't ringing, once I have filled them out, and turned them in. To show how serious I am, I got a haircut and a shave, today. I wasn't planning to cut my hair until it got as long as Willie Nelson's, and my beard was going to make the beards on the guys in ZZ Top look well-groomed.

Maybe people don't want to hire a guy who looks like he just got back from the first Woodstock.

If you know of any freelance writing gigs, that pay, that I would qualify for, please let me know. I want to start growing the hair,and the beard, again, as soon as possible, and it's easier to do with a job that you sit at home on the laptop creating great works of literature, than it is looking all Brad Pitt-like while running down soup and salad for someone.
--------------------------------

Business is slow

I went looking for a job, today,
and I kept hearing the same thing
every place that I went,

"Nooooooooooooooooooooo."
October 29, 2008


October 31, 2008
"OUT OF CANDY, DUE TO THE ECONOMY. VOTE FOR BARACK AND THINGS WILL BE BETTER NEXT YEAR!!"
Some a**hole threw eggs at my daughter and her friends, tonight, as they were out in our neighborhood trick or treating. Both my daughter, and the other girl who got hit by the eggs said that it hurt.

Out of all the kids that came to my door, tonight, bag extended, gleefully screaming, "Trick or Treat," only one group was disorderly. The lead kid in that group was taller than me(and I am six two.) His costume was some sort of a impromptu mask that he had placed over his face, which did make him look scary, but like a bank robber, or a rapist, not a goblin or a ghost. The kid had no bag. He just shoved his very large hand at me. One of the girls that this clown was with took the candy that I gave her, and quickly put it back in my dish, and took another one. Funny how the rude kids run together, and so do the polite ones.

The second kid that came to my door this evening was around two years old. This little girl was sooooo precious. I was really bummed that I didn't have my camera out to take her picture. After I put some candy in the first kid of the evening's bag, I said, "Hey, you don't have a costume on...!!"

This teenager pulled the hood on his hoodie up over his head, and said, "Yes, I do. I am an undercover cop!"

It was a fun night. This is the first time in my whole life that I have been home to hand out candy to the kids. I ran out of treats a bit early. I put a sign on my door that said, "OUT OF CANDY, DUE TO THE ECONOMY. VOTE FOR BARACK AND THINGS WILL BE BETTER NEXT YEAR!!"


You who are reading this are really not with me, are you?
It is time to mount my bike, and ride it for thirty minutes. I told my Doctor that I was riding my bike for about two hours a week, and that was true, when I was living away from the city, because I had to rely on my bike to get into the city. Now, I live in the city, and most things that I need, and most things that I need to do, are close by, and I really don't have to get on my bike to get anywhere, except to a skinnier me, and that is why I am getting up from this table, pulling my fingers off of this laptop, putting on my bicycle helmet, turning on the front and rear bike lights, and heading out into the beautiful, cool dark Atlanta evening to pedal for a half hour. I'm heading to the park, to ride the lit park roads. I will, mostly, be alone in there, because it is night, but that is o.k. I am mostly alone, in here, with the illusion that, you who are reading this, are really with me, but you're not, now are you?
November 2, 2008

What if Obama doesn't change the world by the end of January?
This inconsiderate yuppie trio didn't even look up to see if anyone was waiting to to enter the dog park, as they exited the dog park, this afternoon, like they were walking on water; the chosen ones because they have MBAs, Beamers, and put money in the Priest or Preacher's palm on Sunday. It was as if they existed on the planet alone, and that all people were put here to please them, and all things were put here to be at their immediate disposal.

They went out of turn, for sure, but I think that the caffeine was getting to me, this afternoon. I better return to the decaf, if I want to love all my neighbors; I better lay off the full strength bean, if I want to try to love everybody on the planet.

"What did you just call your dog," asked this woman of me, once I was safely inside the park, and seated on one of the giant rocks that the park has placed there for people to sit on, and for dogs to climb on.

"Shawtie?" I said, not sure what I had just said. I usually only talk to my dogs when I am at the dog park, and I had three of them with me, today; I was dog-sitting Shawtie for my oldest boy, while he went to his fiancée's baby shower.

"No," she said, "That's not what you said."

"Bundy?" I said, kind of amused that this woman had been so intently listening to me banter with my dogs.

"Yes," she said, "That's it. And that is funny, because my name is Bundy."

"So, when I called Bundy, you came closer to me?" I asked her, marveling as she had at the amazing coincidence.
I wanted to tell her, though, how I had wanted to change Bundy's name to Dylan, because I didn't really feel comfortable with the name, since Ted and Al were the only other two Bundy's that came to mind, and how I was with Margaret Bowman a half hour before Ted Bundy killed her, back in my college daze in Tallahassee, Florida;" but I figured that she wouldn't want to get into all that, and we both just told each other to, "Have a nice day," at the same time.

Isn't it funny, "Have a nice day," is the polite way to blow someone off, at least at the dog park.

When I got back home, I looked in the mirror. I am not as thin as I would like to be, but I am thinner than I was, last year.

Isn't that what you would call progress?

But what if progress is not happening fast enough for you; how do you then feel, like, what if Obama doesn't change the world by the end of January of next year?
November 9, 2008

Perhaps there is a message inside that they feel that you must have
The dogs want lots of affection, this morning, and I give it to them, but I want to make a living as a writer, so we reach that point where I say, "Go go," and they just look at me, and keep sticking their noses in my hands, so I say, "Go home." Both dogs know what this means, and they head for spots in the sun, on the porch, and let my hands head to the keyboards, for the first time this morning.

I was thinking, strongly, of going back to bed, when I got half way down my first cup of coffee, so I grabbed the laptop and brought it out into the chilly day that exists on my porch, this morning. I have been reading this book called, "Blue Like Jazz," by a guy named Donald Miller, and it has somehow brought me closer to God, but not to the Christian God that Miller is so close to.

I just ordered a copy of "Traveling Mercies," by Anne Lamott, for a penny, off of Amazon, as much because I have written a book called, "I am the male Anne Lamott, as that Miller mention's the book as an influence in his writing, at one of his websites. I found myself wondering if I was reading a book by an atheist would I be similarly influenced by his or her line of thought, and start doubting, or not believing in the existence of a Higher Power.

Why would someone bother selling a book for a penny over the internet? Perhaps there is a message inside that they feel that you must have.
Nov. 10, 2008

I didn't leave My Space; they kicked me off, because someone complained about a poem that I wrote. One person, out of almost 5,000 "friends," didn't like something that I wrote. There was no recourse.