Personality
Hypocrisy and altruism stop at roughly the same point in a person. Although finally copping to your own rottenness and experiencing exhaustion at the highest level of do-goodishness you are capable of are not the same thing, both terminate close enough to the center of a person to form a picture.
Continue reading “458: Personality Issues; Beautiful Losers and Winners”
The sixtieth anniversary of The Kennedy Assassination is rapidly approaching. It also marks the sixtieth anniversary of my memory because 22 November 1963 is the first certain date I remember (although I hold what are most likely older visions). It is also the sixtieth anniversary of the conspiracy theories that have dogged the event since.
Continue reading “Week 452: It’s All a Conspiracy; The Real Things and X Marks the File”
The Caramel Apple Orchard
Although I will probably have another Saturday post closer to Halloween, it is on my mind now. And since all my other current ideas have the charm of razor bladed apples, I will go with the cheerier topic.
When I was growing up Halloween was mainly for kids, but over the years it has been taken over by The Failure to Launch Generation. I was one of those children who put next to no effort into a costume. I was goods oriented; people were giving out candy no matter how shoddy I looked. So I’d get one of those cheap witch masks (the kind that always got sweaty and smelled like a runny nose after about a half hour of wearing), don a dark blanket for a cape and carry a whisk broom, which inevitably went missing early. The sack was the important thing. And I took the biggest one I could find–usually a pillow case.
Continue reading “Week 450: Halloween Memories and Horror Heroes”
Now that it is officially autumn, Andy and Alfie the Feral Cats are bulking up for winter. Well, actually only Andy, because Alfie is already beefy as it is. He’s a rarity, a Feral Cat who has a double chin. Andy, however, changes his body type with the season. During the warm months he sheds his long coat and becomes lean and ripples with muscles. Come September he begins eating twice his normal amount and by the time November rolls around he looks like a fuzzy Tapir.
Continue reading “WEEK 448- Bulking Up; Another Fine Week; Annoying TV Characters”
DREAMING
Many writers are influenced by their dreams and nightmares–or at least that is the claim. I don’t dispute the possibility but if I had to lean on my dreams for material my stuff would be sparse and even stranger. A fine example of such happened just the other night when I experienced a dream I call “Bug-Bird.” My mind was in a white page and just ahead skulked Bug-Bird. Half Moth, half Pigeon and clad in a flasher’s raincoat and wearing a fedora, I could only see Bug-Bird from behind. But I spied antennae through holes in his hat, tail feathers and Pigeon feet. Bug-Bird staggered forward and I was gaining on him (only a guy would dare be Bug-Bird). I recall wanting to tap him on the shoulder and have a look at Bug-Bird but that is when I woke, with the words Bug-Bird, Bug-Bird, Bug-Bird chanting in my mind by what might be called a “sulfurous chorus” of demon voices. Hardly bestseller material there–and perhaps the only way Bug-Bird can get into print is through something like this.
Continue reading “WEEK 444: Bug-Bird And Dreams”
Jacob used to love his walks. He looked at the wildlife, listened to the river and tried to guess the oncoming weather.
…Rain was always a fair bet.
The Mysterious Ways of Lee Marvin
I was with friends, waiting to be seated at a restaurant, and I kept hearing “So and so party of such and such, your table is ready” over the speaker. Since I cannot keep my mouth shut, I joked “Christ, party of thirteen, your table is ready.” This earned me a sour look from a lady across the lobby, whom God must have endowed with keen hearing. She was wearing a crucifix large enough for a rapper or eighties’ era Madonna. I sighed, for it seems to me that God probably has a sense of humor, although many of the faithful do not.
Continue reading “442: The Leader of the Dirty Dozen Disciples; The August Heat Times Five; The Next Voice of Choice”
The art form that had the biggest impact on my mind during childhood was TV cartoons. Yes, art form. And I will also say that cartoons were responsible for the stimulation of however much creativity I was endowed with.
Continue reading “Week 438: Raised by Cartoons”
Charlie knew where he was going.
He’d always seen darkness and accepted it.
Continue reading “Baara by Hugh Cron”
“I’m fed up watching the news. Seemingly, the queen’s still dead.”
“That’s six months now and they’re still harping on about it. I can’t remember the last time I bought a paper.”
Continue reading “A Conversation About The Sixties by Hugh Cron (Adult Content)”
literally stories 