Woman

"You're very generous."

"No just happy."

Those stolen at birth. Those floated down the river in a basket meet your face, and into your arms they fall...into your bosom they find rest. The Morning Glorys lie at your feet, as they make no sound passing through the garden. Your voice like a beach off Thailand, your hair like the spool of aureate shimmer. Horses run wild and evoke this response in the hearts of men. Skin like porcelain, and eyes like diamonds. Shine and crest and reflect the light of humanity in it's cradle. A chalice holds your elegance, and lips touch the rims. Only to drink you for a day, or a night, whichever the fates may hold. In song, we men revel and cultivate multi-billion dollar industries when our hearts are broken by your scent, your touch, and your release. I once heard that if no woman would have a man unless he walked on his hands, half of the world's population would be doing handstands within two days. No truth was more exact or literal. No more perfect truth comes from your ruby lips and the soft curves of your figure.

The sundress you wear is like a brandy drowning brain cells. Fortunate lottery winners are those who find the likeness of you. To gather strength and deal with the faults of man, you should not be enticed, but your heart rests easily on our shoulders and your tears fall gently on our laps. They are soaked up as a sponge would find spring rains, freshening the house with the windows down, wind blowing through, spreading your scent making everything new and vibrant. We watch you with curiosity. We are enthralled by your movements. All the art of men is somehow inspired by you. Wars have been fought over your preferences and men have died for your honor. Amorous is your vision and your warm preparation of our sons for the world is what passes the fondness of our admiration through the generations. You sculpt your daughters in an instinctual way. No man can comprehend your moves and never will.

Thirst is the way to describe the longing for your touch and "jealousy" does no justice to describe the feelings of betrayal. There is no word for the time when you turn your back in search of a more capable suitor. Murderous rage ignites, but c'est la vie. Fish in the sea, ahh...see.

Devotion hangs by a balance and when we are young we listen to testosterone, we listen to locker rooms, and we listen to foolery. But when we mature, and our minds find solace, we look to our mothers to find that which ushered us into this life and that which will hold us in the end. You live longer than we...and you see more of the world through your eyes, because God granted you longer life. But our life is cut short so that your's could be made long. It is a man's duty to find a mindful and loving woman. One who will dance in the rain. Let her shirt fall to the floor when unprovoked. Find a way to our hearts and calm the animal that surfaces when we are utterly violent. One who desires to be held and protected from the macabre in the world, trusting us with your safety. The words from your mouth can shatter glass and your look can break the hardest of hearts. You are the strongest drug in the universe. You are God's most beautiful creature.

We live for you.

My Father and His Father Before Him

My father is stoic. When he talks we listen. Reserved are the thoughts, poised for the right time. His wisdom is simple yet profound. His ethics are unbreakable. My father's mental capacity is an immovable force. He lost his father, my grandad, at the age of 13. The son of two depression-era children, he learned how to be capable and complete without any preparation. Hours sweating in a field, to help feed my aunts and my grandmother for years. At 13 he was burdened with the task of helping to prepare a life for three women that grown mature men are subject to endure. My father is quiet. My father is loving. My Dad doesn't judge, nor does he condescend. He is not without fault, but if our fathers are our models for God, then God is iridescent and complete. He once told me...in his logic, that the key to life is very simple yet profoundly difficult. He told me that life is successfully navigated by simply doing the right thing. No matter how hard, always do the right thing...no hesitation or wavering. I have tried to live by that. Failed around every corner, but have tried.

My Dad cut timber rows in Colorado to free up river passages down the Colorado River. He fought forest fires in Idaho during college, living on little more than beef strips and rice in the Rocky Mountains. He worked in Saskatchewan, Canada, learning all the wonders of the outdoors. He put himself through college and provided for my family when we were a young family starting out and were shit poor. He married my mother and has been a model of matrimony and sacrament to her throughout the years. My Dad taught me how to throw a baseball. He taught me to respect women. He taught me that at times we won't understand women, but to treat them kindly and offer support, and they will in turn, be faithful and mindful to you. He taught me not to settle for anything less. He taught me to respect nature, and it's power....and the wreckless power that we hold over it. He taught me that patience is one of the most important facets of life. He taught me to pray. He taught me that life is hard, but it's important to give every effort to be harder. He taught me that life is beautiful, and to take time to enjoy the pleasantries. He taught me how to be a man.

My grandmother on my mother's side, towards the end of her life, became very philanthropic with her thought processes. She wanted to bestow something great to a service which had helped her through very dark days...even though her mind might have been off-center of right. My mother and father had only been married for a short time. My grandmother wanted to sell the family ranch to a charity, while noble, almost succeeded in depriving her children of their inheritance and the lot of land that my grandfather had built and sculpted with his bare hands. Hours and hours of frustrated pleas by my mother and her brothers got them nowhere in diverting her intentions. After she had solidified her stance with her children, ceasing anymore of their pleas, she turned to my father and asked him what his advice might be on the matter. In typical fashion, he sat there quietly observing, replied by saying, it's not for me to advise, but your husband poured his life on this land. I think it would be a mistake for you to let it go. My grandmother simply replied, "okay....I won't." My father is sincere, and out of his sincerity comes the respect that others have for him.

My father is faithful, in all facets of the word. He is a man. He is the quality of man I hope to become. He is cut from a cloth of persistence and faithfulness. He is a provider and I've found him to be more wise over the years. He's proud of his son and daughter, and he let's them know this. Despite their many faults. We differ in innumerable ways, but by blood we are the same. He is my hero.

Bloody Knuckles On a Bloody Easel...Bloody Hell

My youth is a weapon.

No one listens. Until the bang grabs attention. It's the driving of my fist through a cinder block. White knuckles turn red. Blood tastes like wine. Drunk is my eyesight. Piercing is my energy. It's the energy...it swells and radiates a soft glow and lifts high into the air. Lofty is it's perch and blue is it's color. Fills the sky, and white wisps carve it up and pour down below the residue, washing everything anew, and regenerating emotive all the while. After turbulent waters, rivers are calmed and serene. Fertile valleys profit from havoc and disarray.

At peace...like how the other pillow smells like her well after she's left in the morning...or the come down after sweating out the toxins in a muscle-fiber rage...or pain killers camouflaged and hiding in my spine...or the drunk that makes the laughs harder...or when my mother calls on a lazy Sunday afternoon...or the cool air rolling through the truck with the full moon shining through the windshield, turning everything silver, Harvest Moon escaping from the speakers.

Walk to the shoreline, down the beach, into the water. Frenzied and hurried, but at peace...alive and surprised at my lucidity. My fist submerges, attracting the streamlined torpedos. Voracity on it's way. Dark, shadowy rogues encircle, swirling the water, face to face. Stalking the seduction of red blood cells. They bleed resonance. They bleed red. Teeth shine and water foams. Energy is reborn again.

And I'll end my life the way I lived it. Inside the mouth of a bull shark.

My youth is a weapon.

Chlorinated Pools

First of all, you must buy the new Wilco album...Sky Blue Sky...it's like being in love, and high, without paranoia, sitting on a beach and watching the sunset, with possibly one of your favorite people there with you...or being in love with being high. Es muy bonita...

It's nice to sit alone and think sometimes, but sometimes I do it too much. And sometimes...the devil creeps in and starts his subversive dancing. Luckily, I've developed a big bruising bouncer that will usher him out when he gets all too real and out of hand. A good friend told me that my thoughts were visceral and real. Like jumping into a cold, clear pool after boiling in the running heat...wash the salt off. But it's mostly just a geyser of bullshit. I've learned in recent years a very efficient way to cleanse myself of such thoughts of piercing uncertainty...and insanity to a degree. Maybe cleanse isn't the right word, but moreso manage. It's a pretty refined process now, and it only gets more practiced and proficient as time goes on. Like when I deal with issues of envy or denial or disallowance. You just remind yourself when times get too intense (as they often do with me) that there's always an upswing. Being patient and managing that shit is the key. Just wait...it gets better.

One of my friends, whom I consider a brother, just found out that he's going to be a father. This venture into fatherhood was not planned.

Diminutive and trivial are my doubts.

*insert veiled reference to some girl*

Trademark Insanity

I feel like this blog is like a canvas sometimes...a meaningless one, but a canvas nonetheless. I throw shit at the walls and see what sticks. But it keeps me in practice for more purposeful endeavors I suppose. Whateva.

Let's see here...

Sooo, McDonalds has robots that pour the drinks now. I hate McDonalds, but was in a rush to get back to work, and yep, I pulled up into the drive-thru and there was this conveyer-belt-ish mechanism that was pulling cups out of a stack, rotating around, filling them with ice, and then pouring whatever drink it was that I ordered in the cup. But the human still has control over putting the lid on. We're not completely irrelevant....yet. Plus, apparently McDonalds is ape-ing the new Shrek movie, which I won't see, but the best part is, they have these little hats. They're green. And they have the little antennae, that Shrek sports, on top of the hat. With that said, what does EVERY SINGLE MCDONALDS DRIVE THRU ATTENDANT LOOK LIKE? Oh you know...if you live anywhere in the Southern United States, isn't it always a 5'3" 180 to 190 lb. latino girl named Maria or Beatriz? Of course it is. She has a really round face and her jet black hair is always pulled back and she looks just....like.....Shrek. So of course, I pulled up to the window and who did I see...Shrekita. I paid my tab, pulled up to the next window and expected to see an Italian girl with a big nose dressed like Donkey. I don't think McDonalds thoroughly hammered out the idea from an employee-friendly demographic perspective when they thought these hats were "the thing to do." I guarantee in Texas alone, there's 4,680 latino Shreks working, swiping your card so you can eat your heart attack. Well done McDonalds.

I've always said, in about 30 years, pending any nuclear holocaust activities, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, McDonalds, and I'm gonna throw Toyota and Starbucks into the mix now, will battle for control of the Earth. I'll be hiding in the ocean by then, on my raft made of Outback bread trays/cutting boards. Shaded by a huge fucking American flag. I really need to sever myself from the zeitgeist surrounding me. Or create my own, I suppose.

So Rolling Stone came out with their 40th Anniversary Edition the other day, and the gig was, they interviewed all of these iconic music and social figures from back when Rolling Stone was a start-up publication. Of course, it's your typical "political activist Rolling Stone" issue. Bob Dylan, Martin Scorsese, Jane Fonda, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, George McGovern, Mick Jagger, Jimmy Carter, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ringo Star, Patti Smith, Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer..you know your standard lineup of 60's art-school figureheads. Every single interview was a "now vs. then," type deal. Vietnam, the draft, the counterculture movement, all of these things were central in every interview. I'm not saying that shouldn't be the way it is. I mean, Rolling Stone was taking it's first breaths in San Francisco in the middle of all that shit, but it's a bit too predictable...if you ask me. There wasn't just a whole lot devoted to the music that was covered over Rolling Stones existence or the impact it has had on the music industry. Fucking anyways, one of them says in the interview that times are different, regarding both of the wars (Vietnam/Iraq), because of the inactivity of the youth nowadays. He's basically calling us apathetic. I agree with quite a bit of his logic. But times are different. They are different wars, and in some instances, they're about different idealogies. Both of which are difficult to make a case for. Everything around us is different, especially our mental proclivity. We're numbed into submission by consumer products and the overload of information that bombards us everyday trying to bogart our attention. He basically says its a junk-image society for a junk-image world. There's a wealth of truth to that...I couldn't agree more. But like all things, it was "better then than it is now," and it was "more meaningful then than it is now." It's all kind of sanctimonious, really. I like it, and that's natural coming from their perspective. They felt their energy was more powerful and revolutionary than any the world has ever seen. The social and cultural impacts they made in trying to usher in this spiritual utopia, even though they fell well short, was the most important time in modern cultural history...in their eyes. Now that could be argued, yes, and I could write a thesis on this shit, about how I think the counterculture ate itself, and how the baby-boomers, who had all these splendid ideas of change and desire for setting a new precedent are the same generation who drove us into this shithole psyche-crumbling existence in the first place. I mean, their intentions were revolutionary, but their greed was ultimately more pervasive. Their drugs then were the vehicles of reformation, but their drugs now are a subsistence of numb coping. But I'm too tired and I won't get into all of that.

My favorite character on the Sopranos died. Chris Moltisanti met his end at the hands of Tony Soprano, ironically enough. He made it till there were 3 episodes left. I rooted for him from day 1, but he couldn't pull out of the funk, man. Too many drugs and bad decisions. All my characters are tragic.

The Kings of Leon concert we went to was fucking unbelieveable. As always. I think this makes the fourth time I've seen them. It saddens me a bit, that they're becoming increasingly popular. You can always tell by the crowd. At the other shows, it was nothing but hipsters, a few drug store cowboys, girls and guys with Buddy Holly glasses, and a few whiskey swilling drunks here and there. This time, I saw quite a few bullhead fraternity assholes with the pink polos, collars popped, Wolverine dura-shock boots, Oakland A's hat tipped slightly to the side...just your typical fucking douchebags really. I mean, I'm rooting for the KOL...I can take pride in showing them to just about every one of my friends who listens to them...I was there from the start, and they're a great band...simple as that. But it would be nice if they'd fly just under the radar a little while longer before they're adopted as the opening songs in frathouse parties, or played on the golf course by drunk salesmen, or at a Mavs game.

After the show, I drank enough alcohol to kill off the remaining rain-forest gorillas, and split my fucking head open like a coconut. I mean, I fucking ruined my face. You see, I think it's always a splendid idea to dance with girl's when I'm drunk, be it in a street or wherever. There doesn't have to be music...or even a dancefloor, for that matter. I usually have some kind of circus music playing in my head, and when I'm drunk, I'm a little misguided in thinking I have skills a la John Travolta. So I'm twirling the little lady around who happened to be with us and I crash like a fucking kamikaze into an aircraft carrier on the concrete....taking her with me. Split the wig with a nice three inch gash and bled like a sieve for 3 hours afterwards. It didn't help that my blood was like paint thinner because of all of the alcohol. It was red water basically. I didn't hurt her...I took the brunt of the fall, which is good...but still not. It's gonna be a pretty gnarly scar. My skull was breathing fresh air above my eyebrow, my ear looked like a terrier had been chewing on it for 3 days, and my shirt looked like "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" had used it as a tampon. I had the fucking wah-wah's in my ears the next day at work and it sounded like everyone was talking under water for pretty much the duration of the day. In fact, I'm not 100% sure I didn't have a concussion. I went to the doctor the next day, because being so drunk you can't conjugate a sentence kinda gives away the mystery of how you acquired said scar. At least the next day I told him some bullshit about a softball game or something. He told me it really needed stitches, but once it closes up, there's not much you can do. My pride probably hurt more than anything. So aside from the fact that I looked like I called Lennox Lewis a nigger to his face, I had a pretty fun time that night.

On another note, there's things she does that are starting to become really cute to me as of late. I don't need those little particles coursing through my veins right now, circling around the chambers of my heart and the folds of my brain. I think I'll drink some lighter fluid tonight....put the ixnay on that shit.

Scissor-Tailed Sparrow

Oh, little scissor-tailed sparrow, why must you sit above my door?
Is it too much to ask that you refrain from shitting on my front porch floor?
I find it ironic that a bluebird chose my sister's house to nest,
And you chose my apartment to rest your breast, on three little eggs.
Safe from the sharp-eyed pellet-gun assassins and cats on the take.
Away from the wind and the rain and the gardener's rake.
I like that you and your husband are of the monogamous type.
One sits on the nest while the other's out of sight...somewhere in flight.
But you're both there at night, by each other's side, watching your kids.
You don't fly away when I unlock my door,
I can tell you've grown to trust me and aren't scared anymore.
When I come home drunk you don't pass judgement or scorn.
You just sit and watch as I fumble my words, and stumble indoors.
I can always hear your chirps in the dark.
It's not that big of a deal, but it makes sleeping kinda hard.
You see, I have to work in the mornings.
I have to get up fairly early.
I don't mind that you're rearing your young on my stoop,
But if you're gonna talk, can we think of something else to do?
Maybe you can use little head nods, or wing-tip signs.
Or maybe I could fashion a little pencil so your feathers can write.
I don't know....
Hey, you know that band, Kings of Leon, that I play in my room?
Well I'm going to see them tonight, it's outdoors, and you should come too.
It's downtown...so I know it's kinda far,
And you have to put the kiddos to bed, it's a weeknight, it's hard.
But I'd love to share something I love with you,
Since you're sharing your little life with me.
I could show you my music,
Just like the music you obligingly sing.
At first, I was a little apprehensive when you arrived, I'm not gonna lie.
Cause you'd swoop and strafe my head like a Spitfire in a nose-dive.
My friends called you "death birds," but that's far from the truth.
You're just dealing with the world in your own little way, it's what you do.
I'm happy you chose my home to make your home too.
And I'm glad you're a little family by my door!
It makes me smile and think that life is worth everything and more.
So take your time mi amigo pequeño, the rent is never due.
And when I grow up, I hope I can build a family as lovingly as you.