[Surrogate's Blog]
A day without surrogate, is like any other day, except... without surrogate.What did you expect?
2007-06-28
Good morning Boys and Girls.On the streets of the city, he was an icon. Everyone had seen him, though no one knew his name.
An overcoat, a long scruffy beard. Red Tennis shoes.
He made his living selling rhymes, sight unseen. He'd have these beige envelopes in his backpack and you never knew what you were going to get.
Usually they weren't bad, but the fun was in the not knowing.
One time I bought “snatched” and “attached.” My buddy bought “zeal” and “appeal” one day and was so happy he searched the guy out the next day too, but was disappointed when he got “from” and “one.”
“Those don’t really rhyme,” he complained to the guy after excitedly tearing open his envelope and then feeling let down and a little cheated; a contract unsatisfactorily fulfilled.
The guy shrugged. “So make up one of your own, ya lazy asshole. I don’t make any guarantees. I do this to amuse people, not to complete their lives.” He picked up his backpack and turned to walk away, shaking his head, “stupid f*cker,” he muttered to himself...
It gave me an idea...
Be good to everyone.
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Look at that guy move through the ball... pure artistry...
2007-06-26
Good morning Boys and Girls.So, had MSNBC on this morning.
A commercial comes on advertising a "commercial free" premier for a new show on... I think it was U.S.A. network. The show is called "Burn Factor" and is about retired spy from some alphabet soup agency and what appears to be, his topsy-turvy retirement.
I couldn't possibly care less.
Except...
The star, the retired guy, looks to be twenty-five years old.
I'm not kidding. Maybe - maybe, twenty-six.
I want to go back in time and shoot my counselor from high school. I had absolutely no clue that had I gone the spy route, instead of the "Holy shit surrogate, I have no idea what to tell you; get a job, maybe? Probably one of the fast-food restaurants will hire you," route after high school, I could have been retired for twenty five years by now.
Do you know how good my golf game might be?
I might have had the time to get my short game ready for the senior tour. I could have developed my own "look," the way some golfers do.
That much of it I have managed to work out over the years.
The announcer, whispering, would say, as I stalked a putt to take the lead on the back nine on Sunday at the Roto-Rooter Open in Tuscaloosa, Alabama...
"Well, now here's the story of the year, isn't it Gary? This unknown fella with the homemade loopy swing, surrogate, with his trademark overalls, no shirt, and wearing those lime-green golf shoes of his - that ubiquitous huge unlit cigar constantly clenched off to the side of his mouth, showing his teeth...
Now he's plumb-bobbing this left-to-right twenty-five footer. Ya know, if he had some hair on his head, he'd be quite a handsome man, still the women simply can't stay away, so charismatic is his personality... I hear he donates half his winnings to charity... What a guy... The crowd is hushed... Here we go..."
I wonder if I'd make the putt?
Either way?
-They'd never forget me.
(snicker...)
Be good to everyone.
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Shamelessly promoting my family? Me? Why I never...
2007-06-25
Good morning Boys and Girls.Received some interesting news over the weekend.
You've heard me yap on endlessly over the years about my son's music, and you've always been kind enough to not say, "shut the hell up, would you?"
Well... The fact is, my brother Matthew is incredibly talented too, though his band, "Discipline," hasn't done much for a number of years, while Matt's kids have been young. He did release a damn fine solo album a couple of years ago called "Astray," and has performed a couple of times individually - including an appearance at a pretty cool progressive rock festival in Portugal - in support of that album, but all along, his relatively small but enthusiastic fan base has been after him to start recording and performing with the band again.
Well, a couple of weeks ago, my son Ryan, who works with Matt at their "day jobs" (-they're both entirely practical people) mentioned that he thought Discipline might be signed to play at next year's Nearfest in Philly, but that it wasn't to be made public yet.
Nearfest is the preeminent U.S. East Coast Prog Rock Festival every year, and tends to sell out very quickly.
Well, lo and behold, evidently it was announced at this year's Nearfest, which just ended yesterday, that the first band signed for next year, is Discipline, and throughout the day yesterday I received email forwards from excited people announcing as much from his fan supported "Into the Dream," what? bulletin board? -I don't know what you call it. I just know I get these emails. Fan club? Perhaps.
Anyway, it made me smile.
Also, a big thank you to Adrian Belew for granting me permission to use his lyrics of the King Crimson song "Indiscipline," in my novel "Alma Matters," and to fellow author, (and mother of two-thirds of the Adrian Belew Power Trio,) Robin Slick for acting as go between.
Be good to everyone.
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Go west young man...
2007-06-22
Good morning Boys and Girls.Actually had to turn off the little desk fan that circulates air here in my little office, it's so nice and cool this morning. The weather this week has been top notch. Highs of around 80, low humidity, and sunshine almost all the time.
I played golf last night with a transplanted New Yorker who told me our weather this week feels just like San Diego, a place I've never been.
My ex-brother-in-law, an unhappy guy by nature, loved that city. From the time I first met him, he talked about San Diego like it was Shangri La and moved out there soon after he graduated from college.
It did seem to brighten his spirits to be there, allowing him to play softball and golf year round, and he became a big-time San Diego Padres fan. He even attempted to obtain work in their front office numerous times - his dream job was that of a Major League Baseball general manager, and he did know his stuff.
I know he was mightily annoyed a few years later to find himself transferred to Miami, where the sweltering wet heat made him miserable.
Eventually, he quit the job, moved back out to San Diego and found another place to work. Back there again, I assumed he was happy. He bought a little house for a staggering price and then had nothing but problems with it. He also dealt with an extreme fear of flying that kept his visits home to the barest of minimums.
I hadn't seen him in about three years - since his Dad's funeral, if I remember correctly - when, at Thanksgiving time of 2000 we got word that he'd shot himself.
At the time, my ex and I were having problems anyway, and her brother's suicide added another severe speed-bump in the road.
Isn't that awful? I was obviously sad for him and his family, (my ex's,) but I also resented him afterward for adding his situation to the detritus of our failing marriage.
Pretty selfish of me.
Nevertheless, for some reason, I still have no desire to visit San Diego, as beautiful as I know it is, and I can't even hear people talk about it without instantly making the association.
Weird.
Be good to everyone.
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it's all about..................................... timing.
2007-06-20
Good morning Boys and Girls!The California Gold Rush took place in 1849.
Thousands, no millions... no billions of people went West to seek their fortunes in hastily dug mines and along the dusty shores of streams digging for and/or panning for gold, or better yet... platinum, no, make it diamonds.
Out of the trillions of people out there, a few lucky ones found what they were after, while the rest built expressways and began building sets for movies in anticipation of Thomas Edison inventing the motion picture camera forty-five or fifty years later.
A decade later in Michigan, my great - great - great - great - grandfather, who didn't live here yet, was waiting in one of the chairs to get his hair cut at a local barbershop. One of the papers at the bottom of the stack, yellowed with age, was from January of 1849 and told of the riches to be had if you simply showed up in California with a sack and a screen and a little determination.
He knew disappointment well, having just missed out on inventing the steam locomotive and the telegraph each of which he'd said, upon seeing them for the first time, "Aw shit! That was my idea!"
Unfortunately, there is no record of him after he left to go out West, but his son, Willard surrogate Junior, went on to not invent the Gatling gun, the phonograph record or the electric light bulb, all of which he'd been working on, sequestered in a lab, only to find, once he'd announced the inventions to great publicity of his own making, that he'd been a few years too late.
The press conference for the introduction of the light-bulb was especially embarrassing since there were incandescent spot lights used to illuminate him at the event.
My own Grandfather, Willard surrogate the fourth, was two years late with the automatic transmission, five years late with the atomic bomb, and just before he died in 1997, was very excited about something he was calling "the radiation oven," which he said would revolutionize cooking. I had to excuse myself at that particular dinner at my house, to go get the recently frozen, but now piping hot Lasagna from my microwave.
"See," he said, as I served him a slice from the plastic tray, "in my radiation oven, this would have cooked in fifteen minutes!"
"Uh huh," I said, knowing better than to argue, "That's great Grandpa!"
Personally, I'm working on an idea to make pictures and sound travel across space and into a box-like receiver device that would decode the signal and display an actual moving picture on a screen of some sort.
I'm going to call it "the pic-t-viewer." And after it's released? -I'm going to get up the nerve to ask Anna Nicole Smith on a date.
Be good to everyone.
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I used to think it ought to be James Earl Jones, but....
2007-06-18
Good morning Boys and Girls.There are times, not often, mind you, but there are times when I feel like I'm still a kid.
All I have to do is look in the mirror to quickly remind myself that I'm a fifty year old guy who certainly isn't getting any younger, and that I'm far from a kid these days, but still, sometimes, without that mirror? -I'd just not have a clue that I'm not eighteen... Or twelve... Or seven.
My sense of curiosity is still there, tempered as it has been, with a healthy dose of cynicism due to reality poking it's way into my life on a regular basis over the years. However, my overall outlook is still one of hopefulness and thankfulness, I think, or at least it is most of the time.
I'm convinced of a few things...
I'm convinced that no matter how it's phrased, one of these days, "The War On Terror," will be seen for what it is, which is really just a simplistic way of saying "we don't like it that some people don't like us," but like us, they think "they're way" is "the only way," and some of them too are willing to kill to prove it.
One of these days, someone is going to come along, on one side or the other, who will be able to articulate that killing one another does nothing but forward that flawed premise in a way that will click with enough people that maybe, just maybe, a breath will be taken; a pause may take place; a realization may sink in; and all of a sudden, extremist Muslims will see that killing themselves and others may not really lead to however many virgins waiting for them on the other side; that people here may realize that targeting other cultures for not thinking the way we do does nothing but bolster their hatred of us, and in some disturbing but understandable way, to them, justifies their actions.
When I was a kid, if we saw someone as a bully, we did all we could to eventually take them down, and when it wasn't possible to openly beat the hell out of them, we always found a way to humiliate them, which was easy because they were always so loud about what they thought, that figuring out what was dear to them only took listening to them for five minutes.
Am I saying we're a bully nation? No. Not especially. But I am saying that we're seen as a bully, and that makes us vulnerable, especially when we do things to bolster that image.
I have a feeling that this will a moot point ten years from now. Someone with a strong clear voice is going to emerge from somewhere in the world who will be heard. Out of six billion of us, someone will have the right words - the right voice - and the right motives - that he or she will be listened to by enough of us to move us all forward, at least an inch or two.
After all, even baby steps can get a kid to the coffee table - eventually.
Be good to everyone.
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Gold plus one.
2007-06-16
Good morning Boys and Girls.Today would have been my folks fifty-first anniversary.
My Dad died in July of 2001 while warming up to play racquetball, something he'd done most early mornings for the better part of thirty years.
He ran a small business all his life with the exception of when I was a baby, when he sold insurance for a couple of years, soon realizing that the sales game wasn't for him.
Having said that, in his own business, he was a great salesman. He had a way about him that made most people like him right off the bat, and he followed through on the things he said he'd do for his customers.
My brother took over his business when he died, and has done his best with it, but, he's just not Dad, and even though, in many respects, he's better than Dad was at many aspects of the business, I just don't think his "likability factor" is as high. Neither is mine, for that matter, so I'm certainly not criticizing him.
There's a certain something some people are born with that, even if carefully copied, can be spotted as anything but an original at a glance.
I know I'm a bad copy.
-a new toner cartridge maybe?
Sometimes when I've written something I think is halfway decent, I imagine my Dad reading it and saying,"It's good. Can you punch up this line here?" He'd point to it and then, I bet he'd give the perfect suggestion.
I miss him.
Be good to everyone.
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It.
2007-06-15
Good morning Boys and Girls.Had this idea for a poem this morning...
Got a couple of stanzas done - a couple of times.
Was supposed to be a serious poem about searching for "it," something that's been on my mind of late.
Well, let's just say, my attempts, um... sucked.
My favorite lyrics about "it," come from the 1974 Genesis album called "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," still among my top five favorite albums of all time.
The story of a young hoodlum named "Rael" trying to find his way in New York City; the concert to support the album was simply awe-inspiring.
(Saw a Genesis tribute band from Quebec, called "the Musical Box," redo the entire show a couple of years ago, and even it brought tears to my eyes.)
The final song of the album is called "It," copyright 1974 by Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Michael Rutherford and Steve Hackett
Here's the set-up from the "handout" at the concerts and then the lyrics:
(Rael cannot look away from those eyes, mesmerized by his own image. In a quick movement, his consciousness darts from one face to the other, then back again, until his presence is no longer solidly contained in one or the other. In this fluid state he observes both bodies outlined in yellow and the surrounding scenery melting into a purple haze. With a sudden rush of energy up both spinal columns, their bodies, as well, finally dissolve into the haze.
All this takes place without a single sunset, without a single bell ringing and without a single blossom falling from the sky. Yet it fills everything with its mysterious intoxicating presence. It's over to you...)
"When its cold, it come slow
it is warm, just watch it grow
- all around me
it is here.
it is now.
Just a little bit of it
can bring you up or down.
Like the supper?
-it is cooking in your hometown.
it is chicken,
it is eggs,
it is in between your legs.
it is walking on the moon,
-leaving your cocoon.
it is the jigsaw.
it is purple haze.
it never stays in one place,
but it's not a passing phase,
it is in the singles bar,
in the distance of the face
it is in between the cages,
it is always in a space
it is here.
it is now.
Any rock can be made to roll
If you've enough of "it" to pay the toll
it has no home in words or goal
Not even in your favorite hole
it is the hope for the dope
Who rides the horse without a hoof
it is shaken; not stirred;
Cocktails on the roof.
When you eat right through it?
-you see everything alive
it is inside spirit,
with enough grit to survive
If you think that its pretentious?
-you've been taken for a ride.
Look across the mirror sonny,
before you choose; decide
it is here.
it is now
it is Real.
it is Rael
'cos it's only knock and know-all,
but I like it...
yeah, it's only knock and know-all,
but I like it... (repeat and fade...)
Be good to everyone.
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Use the force little hummingbird. Use the force!
2007-06-14
Good morning Boys and Girls.Ever notice how certain people just make you smile when you think about them?'
You can be annoyed with them, angry with them, deliberately avoiding interacting with them, and still, when you think of them? -they make you smile - which, of course is in itself, annoying.
I have people like that in my life.
In fact, that wouldn't be a bad sort of person to aspire to be, would it? -Hell, I want to be one of those people.
Last week, I wrote a little about the pair of hummingbirds living out front. There's also a large bright blue dragonfly that I've seen each morning outside the sliding door out back.
Just went out onto the front porch to have a cup of coffee, and the hummingbirds were duking it out with the dragonfly, which is longer than they are.
I like to think they were defending the feeder out there, which, I'm pretty sure, the dragonfly couldn't use anyway.
The female hummingbird was the better battler of the two.
Wow. I just realized what the hummingbirds sound like when they fly nearby the feeder and then away... Their beating wings sound exactly like the Star Wars light sabers. Zwohoah... Zwooooooahahhhh.
They make me smile too.
Be good to everyone.
(Ha. Just ran spell check. It wanted me to replace "Zwoah," with "swoosh"....
-Nah.)
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Dream a little dream with me...
2007-06-13
Good morning Boys and Girls.So...
I've had a slow leak in my right front tire for perhaps a month. It's not bad at all, probably why I haven't taken the time to get the thing repaired. Every Monday morning when I've stopped to get gas for the first half of the week, I've added a few pounds of air and told myself to remember to get the damn thing fixed when I have time.
The day before yesterday, I had my air conditioning recharged by a guy at one of the places for whom I do work, and afterward cursed myself for not remembering to ask him to fix the flat at the same time, which I didn't think about till I was on my way home enjoying a new level of "cool" in the car.
So...
Monday night, this was a dream I had:
I wake up. Make coffee. Realize I'm out of cancer sticks. Damn. Beautiful morning. I decide to run down to the gas station a mile and a half away and buy some smokes, then come back here to enjoy my coffee and spend a little time here on the puter before I go to work.
I do so.
I drive to the station. Since I'm there I fill the car with gas. I walk in, buy a pack, and say hello to the old guy who opens the place.
When I walked back out I look at the tire with the leak. It's gone. So is the right front fender of my car, and upon opening the hood, I see that the motor is gone too.
Here's where it gets weird.
I curse. I'm hopping mad. Some low-life has stolen my tire, fender and motor right out of my driveway overnight.
I get back in to the Jeep, start it up and race home so I can call the cops and report the thievery.
When I get home, I come down here a second and see that I have a couple of messages from friends, and I get engrossed in answering them, telling each of them about what has transpired overnight. I lament the shape of the world. What, I wonder, is becoming of the world when someone steals your motor, fender and tire right off your car while your sleeping? Something MUST be done.
That's it. That's all I remember of the dream.
I do wonder if my Jeep wouldn't get better fuel economy with no motor? Would taking off the other wheels increase it further still?
Join us next week; same place; same channel...
in...
The surrogate zone.
Be good to everyone
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Time for a song....
2007-06-11
Gooood morning Boys and Girls.
So... It's been a while...
(the spotlight comes up, I walk onto the stage and
into it's glare, shooting a finger gun and winking at
Sneaky Pete and the Boys, who are already working the
beat, crossing easily between a cut-time and an
uptempo waltz beat, as, to a smattering of applause, I
catch the microphone he tosses me as I swagger to
center stage, taking a drag on my cigarette, and
exaggeratedly adjusting my tie. I shade my eyes and
look out at the sparse crowd and speak...)
"Good evening! How ya all doin' tonight?
(I hear a couple of people mumble a response over the
band.)
I'm so glad you came out to be with me and the boys
tonight here at the municipal senior center's fifth
annual potluck and craft extravaganza. How was that
roast beef? Pretty darn bad huh? Tasted like chicken,
huh? Oh? It WAS chicken?"
(I laugh at my own joke, and then take a step back and
lower my voice. I speak slowly and oh so sincerely.)
"Ya know, a while ago - quite a few years ago now,
really - One night I found myself privileged to be
opening for a guy, who'd opened for a gal, who'd at
one time opened for the opening act for the one and
only Sammy Davis Jr."
(I wait for the automatic applause... I hear a single
clap and move on...)
"..who'd just finished a six month engagement at
Caesar's Palace, out there in Las Vegas, Nevada, the
city that never sleeps, just five years earlier. Well,
le'me tell ya, because of that experience I learned a
little something about the importance of being humble;
modest... gracious."
(I twirl again and do my patented microphone flip as
the flourished intro finishes, timed just so, and on
the downbeat, as always, to the tune of "My Favorite
Things," I glance down at my shark-skin suit, wave off
any applause and begin to sing...)
"This is a great gig
My career's, on the re-bound
No more old folk's homes
You've dis'covered the "sur" sound
My-name's gon-na be, up in lights once again
I'm finally moving uptown with my friends
(bump bump, ba'do bump bump, doo bump bump, lah-de-
dah)
Tomorrow I'm play-ing
a small get-to-ge-ther
a picnic, for bankers
-if we have good weather
One guy says he knows a guy I should see
I hope the guy he knows ends up liking meeee!
(chorus)
Twen-ty-nine years
work-ing stea-dy
This life can be cruel
My dry-cleaning bill, by itself, costs a bunch
My agent is one lame foooool
(Do bump bump, ba'do bump bump, doo bump bump, lah-de-
dah)
I heard that there's something
called "hip-hop" emerging
But I just can't go there
despite, all the urging
Like rock'n'roll
it's a fad, it'll pass
Those new kids, "the Beatles?"
Can still kiss my assssss!
(Chorus)
I think this style
has a future
and I'll be, it's king
Just look at the way that I handle this mike
(I flip it again)
-and listen to howwww, I sing!"
(I look out. Is it the spotlight? Nope. The place is
empty. Not a soul.
I look over toward Sneaky Pete, who shrugs...)
Be good to everyone.
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Blog entry # six zillion
2007-06-10
Beautiful day here. Sunny, mild; a few wispy clouds way up there.Nevertheless, a bit empty inside today.
Nothing to be done about it.
It'll pass.
I know how to deal with it.
Smile, pretend, let yourself feel stupid a while.
Then... eventually?
Beautiful day here. Sunny, mild; a few wispy clouds way up there.
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A nice woman named Sharon.
2007-06-06
Good evening Boys and Girls...
Tonight I was half watching a show on MSNBC and Don Cheadle was on talking both about the new "Oceans" movie - this one "13," and some of his experiences during recent a trip to Sudan and Darfur. Some of the clips and what he had to say about what he'd seen, was extremely disturbing...
But my mind went back to the first movie in the series, "Oceans 11," itself a updated version of a Rat Pack movie from the fifties or sixties. I forget which and I don't feel like Googling it.
I was recently divorced when "Oceans's 11" came out and I'd just hopped back into the dating scene. I'd somehow started seeing a cute woman named Sharon with whom I found myself smitten. She was bright and pretty, petite yet shapely and I was pleased to have stumbled into meeting her. One of our first dates involved seeing this movie, and we both enjoyed it.
Over a late dinner that evening she told me she was a recovering alcoholic, her reason for turning down the wine I'd offered to order. I was surprised, but I was glad to be around someone who didn't drink as I rarely drink myself and offered to get the wine more as a social courtesy than as something I wanted.
She'd been sober a year after being arrested for drunk driving and spending a weekend in jail. "Wow," I thought, "she doesn't SEEM like a drinker."
One night, a month or so later, I arrived at her appartment with some sort of carry-out dinner and, within a few seconds, smelled booze, not so much on her breath, but almost as though it was coming out of her pores.
I told her I couldn't be around her if she'd decided to drink. I wasn't being holier-than-thou. It's just that by then I'd heard any number of stories from her about what a problem it had been for her for many years.
She denied she'd been drinking but... well, she called the next day to tell me, yes, she'd "slipped." Would I please give her another chance?
I told her that it wasn't my place to offer her chances - it was her life - but once she'd done what she needed to do, she could call me again and we'd see what fate had in store.
A couple of weeks later, after a binge - from what her dad said - as she tried to maneuver the four steps down down to the front door of her lower flat, she had a seizure. Evidently she slipped and hit her head. She was found the next morning by her neighbor. She was just 40, and her two boys, who lived with their Dad, were twelve and fourteen at the time.
We didn't meet online, but she was one of the first people I chatted with regularly. In fact she's the person who actually helped me download an early version of messenger for Mac for the first time.
Still keep her name and pic on my yahoo messenger friends list, though she's been gone for over five years now. Amazing to me that Yahoo hasn't expunged her profile, but it's still there. She was a beautiful and accomplished woman and I sometimes still feel guilty for not staying in touch when she went through the last of what evidently was many many rough patches. Maybe I'd have been able to help. No telling, I guess.
I'm sure I'll think of her if I see "Oceans 13."
Be good to everyone.
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In the garage, maybe?
2007-06-05
Good morning Boys and Girls.Sure sounds like this William Jefferson guy, the Democratic congressman from Louisiana, is a slime ball of the first order. Just what the Dems need. They're already slipping badly in the polls for not having the guts to put an end to the Iraq war so we can fight terrorists more effectively - and hopefully in a way that doesn't encourage more middle eastern children to join the ranks as has been and looks to be the continuing policy of those in charge now.
Guys like Jefferson don't help, and if he's guilty, I hope he spends the rest of his life in jail, which according to the sentencing guidelines for the various crimes of which he's being accused, sounds plausible. The story I read stated that he'd do 235 years if he's found guilty and receives the maximum penalties for his misdeeds.
Actually, that's too long. I say that even if he's guilty, we should cut the sentence in half so that he has the possibility of being paroled when he's 150 or 160 years old.
I don't want it said I'm not compassionate.
By the way, I've been checking my freezer as I get time, digging through the frozen vegetables, freezer bags and ice cube trays, as well as the dregs of an Edie's Vanilla ice cream tub way in the back that unfortunately had developed a bad case of freezer burn.
So far? I've found one aluminum foil wrapped package, and frankly, when I ran across it, my hopes soared, thinking I too might find $90,000 I'd forgotten squirreling away in there. I was excited when I found it, and let me tell you, it was hard to get the foil off cuz' I'd double wrapped it.
-Ten chicken breasts from a buy-one-get-one-free sale a few months ago. I remembered picking them out.
Damn.
Be good to everyone.
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Hummingbird love... Well, lust.
2007-06-04
Good morning Boys and Girls.There's a nesting pair of hummingbirds just outside the front porch. Thanks to the suggestion of one of my good friends, a feeder now hangs off a frame at the edge of the far support post, and the two tiny birds come around frequently. In fact, I've been wondering whether their nest might not be situated in the large bush not ten feet from there. Anyway...
The female is brown with a bit of green on her back, while the male has similar coloring on most of his body, but his head is dark green with a white ring around his neck and a bit of bright red just below there. Between them, they put on quite a show. This morning, just now actually, I was sipping coffee out there and he, the male, did something kind of weird. Showing off for her? Perhaps.
He started doing these big "U's" in the air; flying up to about the height of the porch's roof and then zipping down to within inches of the ground, and then back up again to the same height maybe twenty feet out in front of the porch. Then, without stopping, he repeated the flight pattern a dozen or more times, all within twenty or twenty-five seconds, his wings beating so fast that it sounded like a slightly muffled version of a fresh spoke-flipped baseball card after we'd clothespin one to our bike frames; this assuming we were riding as fast as we possibly could.
A neat thing to watch.
So, I wonder if is one of his ways to make her tiny little heart go a-pitter-patter?
I mean, he is a male - and we're all kindred spirits - and I've read that we guys think of sex hundreds of times per day, so I'm pretty sure this much is true: I think he was putting the moves on her. I think this was all part of an elaborate plan to get his itsy-bitsy rocks off.
Hope they don't beat the hell out of each other with those propeller-speed wings while they go about their business.
For my part, I took a little radio out there and found them a little mood music.
Hope they appreciate the candles and incense.
Be good to everyone.
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Scarface and surrogate
2007-06-03
Good morning Boys and Girls.Cloudy and cool here.
Stayed up till almost three in the morning watching "Scarface." I'd somehow never seen the flick.
It was well done, I guess, but it might have been one of the most depressing movies I've ever watched. Maybe that's not fair though because but then I've never been a fan of ruthless violence. I mean I love Al Pacino, but I just don't understand how that movie has been considered a "classic" since Tony Montana seemed to be such a one dimensional character. Maybe I need to see it again...
I found I kept waiting for the "I like you to meet my leee-tle friend" line I've seen clips of for twenty or more years - which, of course, comes three minutes before the end of the three hour movie... like two minutes before he's sprayed with machine-gun fire and takes the fatal shotgun blast to the back of the head.
By this point, the end of the movie, we're supposed to feel sympathetic toward Tony because he's in trouble with his compatriots due to his refusal to carry out a hit when the target's two children and wife are in the car with him at the time the car-bomb explosion meant to end the target's life is scheduled to take place. Unfortunately for Tony, his anger gets the best of him and he instead kills one of his accomplices in the assassination plot, the brother of the business partner who asked him to do the job.
I didn't "feel" the requisite sympathy.
About the only fun I had was recognizing some of the older buildings in Miami from a few drives down along Route One and A-1A from Ft. Lauderdale a few years ago when I lived down that way.
Well this is a weird post, so, I'll end it with some sage surrogate-like advice...
Be better to people than Tony Montana was.
In fact, be good to everyone.
I was just thinking... Brian DePalma directed it. Maybe it would have been better in the hands of someone else.
Me, for instance.
I'd have given Tony a pet... a cat probably, and instead of guns and cocaine, I'd have changed it to razor sharp comments on other peoples' blogs and mugs of coffee. Huh? Huh? And instead of a facial scar? Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from typing too much...
Now we're talkin action!
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Phone call from Jesus
2007-06-01
Good morning Boys and Girls.June! You believe it?
A phone call from the other night:
(ring)
"Hello?"
"Hey surrogate. How's it goin?"
"Jesus! Wow... Glad to hear from you. Where you been?"
"Here and there. I've been..."
"Haven't you gotten my messages?"
"Yes, but just recently. Where I was, there wasn't cell phone service."
"Jesus, it's a satellite phone. It works everywhere. Do you know what I paid for that thing just so..."
"surrogate, shut up. It still has to be charged and..."
"Oh come on... You have a crank charger. You can spin the handle for half a minute and get fifteen minutes of service."
"Okay... I lost it. Well, lost isn't"
"Lost it? Jesus... But..."
"(exhales...) surrogate. Look. I was traveling down the Amazon about six weeks ago with a friend of mine on our way to visit a little girl who was very ill and a crocodile capsized our canoe. We had other things to think about for a few seconds there, like getting out of the river without becoming lunch. Let it go, okay? Yesterday I got a new phone exactly like the one you gave me. Same number. So shut up, would you?"
"Oh. Sorry. I...."
"Why do you insist on jumping to conclusions?"
"I don't know, I..."
"Anyway... How you doing surrogate? You finish the novel?"
"Yeah. Been editing a lot and I'm working on that other thing I told you about."
"Is the book any good?"
"I don't know. I've had about six people read it. A couple of folks really liked it, it's been mostly encouraging. Enough about that... I want to tell you about...
(And here I'll cut out for a few minutes. Personal stuff... to which Jesus responded by laughing out loud.)
"Hahhhh! You've got to be kidding! That's hilarious!"
"You S.O.B. You're laughing at me?"
"surrogate, you're older than dirt! Hah!"
"Thanks a lot."
"Oh simmer down. You've got to admit it's funny."
"I know... I know. When are you coming this way?"
"Probably not till early July. You doing a party over the fourth?"
"Hope so. You gonna stay here?"
"Planning on it, if you'll have me."
"Of course. I've got something to show you when you get here."
"Yeah?"
"Got a cat. Roadie"
"Really? Neat. I think that's good for you."
"Good for me?"
"Yeah. (laughing again) Pets are good for old people."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for calling. I have been a little worried."
"Me too... that croc was huge."
"Bye Jesus. Call me more often would you... or a postcard once in a while?"
"I'll try. Bye sur."
(click)
Be good to everyone.
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