Ah, Mug-O-Chum

During these cold wintry days, I know a lot of you like to curl up, Rockwellian style, with a hot coccoa in front of the fire. Yummy. But, did you know that during these chilly days sharks also like to snuggle up with a bucket of warm chum? Why if you look close you can even see the marshmallows in the back. Good times, good times ...

Entrepreneurial Spirit

The wheels are turning today. I am taking a class at the University of Akron called Idea Having and the sparks are starting to fly. Check it out.

I have a back hair concept. Had an indoor pool party for Whit's birthday recently and there was this man there with more back hair than Robin Williams. And I got to thinking about Back Hair Mullets -- like a back mowhawk -- and wondering if I couldn't start a craze and then create a line of grooming products to support said craze. Wheels are turning. Big time. Note the density around/along the spine? Nature's so wise.

These are my endeavors.







P.S.
Last night I watched Teeth, the movie about the girl with vagina dentata -- lots of blood. Chunks of wang on carpet. I am also endeavoring to purge the movie from my mind.

P.P.S. I still get dreamy, and a little breathless, wondering what it would have meant for Ann Wilson to go Crazy on Me. I am endeavoring to figure this out as well.

Birthday Goodies

My birthday went pretty well, though I did have to work (had a little freelance disaster) all day into the night.

But I got breakfast in bed, a 'best dad' declaration from Whit--hand drawn, Stranger than Fiction DVD from my wife Ahleah, and Chicken Parmesan for dinner--made according to Cook's Illustrated (also from Ahleah). Yummy.

Here's to 46

Today's my 46th birthday.

I Found Frost in My Bathroom

this morning. Not this Frost, but the cold kind. A patch of frost on the wall by the window and I scratched a line through with my fingernail. It is that cold. -11 at the moment. On that note it seems appropriate to announce that I will turn 46 in a few days. Old. Cold. Blah.

Cold Advisory - Schools Closed FOR WINTER

Whitman is home today because the schools all closed thanks to the weather. As I write this, he is in the room next to me singing "School's Out" in that loud, "I have my ear buds in and don't know how loud I am" way. No more teachers, no more books. Etc. Hearing what he listened to on his own, it became clear he had a metal head's orientation so I put Cooper and a few other older rock songs on a mix for him. Bad to the Bone. Some Hagar. Power by Rainbow. Last week I played him old ZZ Top, before they joked out with Sharp Dressed Stan. He likes La Grange best and says "play the one with the deep voice". Weird thing is, it all seems backwards. As a young kid, shouldn't he be the one into Emo instead of me? I long for the day as well, when we can sit and listen to The Smiths in our black t-shirts and talk about howzitgoing.

And then I woke up ...

This is great news.

Apparently heavy coffee drinkers hallucinate more. Any minute now I will snap out of it, the veil will lift, and I will discover I didn't lose my job last March, didn't gain 20 pounds, didn't stop writing poetry. Maybe it has been a lonnnnnng hallucination and Bush was never president. Maybe I was never born?

Seriously, the new year is off to a great start for me. I added two new freelance clients to my roster last week. My head is spinning now trying to accommodate their projects and the steady trickle of work from my older clients. And in the category of professional growth, I started taking a night class at the University in the latest graphic design programs ... Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop. The idea being that I am already doing the copywriting so if I can master the art and design side of advertising I will be a complete package. More marketable, etc.

As I write this, Otty is curled up against my stomach. Looks like 20 lbs. to me so I guess that much I wasn't hallucinating.

Good Riddance %%$#head

How nice to listen to Bush fart on about his legacy these days.

His attempts to warm fuzzy his informal style.

His sad efforts to paint an alternative reality where he's only experienced a few "disappointments".

Wished he done this or that differently. To hear him try and speak, you'd think he's recapping his choice of golf clubs at the last eighteen holes. Bush is like an arsonist who claims innocence because he didn't make the match.












And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, Ill say it clear,
Ill state my case, of which Im certain.

Ive lived a life thats full.
Ive traveled each and evry highway;
And more, much more than this,
I stayed the course and did it my way.

Regrets, Ive had a few;
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.

I planned each charted course;
Each careful step along the byway,
But more, much more than this,
I stayed the course and did it my way.

Yes, there were times, Im sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall;
And stayed the course and did it my way.

Ive loved, Ive laughed and cried.
Ive had my fill; my share of losing.
And now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing.

To think I did all that;
And may I say - not in a shy way,
No, oh no not me,
I stayed the course did it my way.

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows -
And did it my way!

Snow Dogs

Akron got its second big snow of the season - so far. The dogs were happy to bound through it and do doggish things. A little tug of war here, and little hang on for dear life there ... that is Indy showing that she has some badger in her.

Smile and say "Barefoot"!

My wife Jenzie turned me on to this hilarious web site called Stuff White People Like. Now, in the throes of the holiday season I see and think about family portraits and ask (in my best Andy Rooney voice) What the hell is it with barefoot people in studio portraits? I think it's more stuff white people like.

There is a secret code going on here in the second photo. Notice how gramps (on the right) has on shoes, but grandma does not; and the dad's barefoot, and mom is in sandals. I think this is what it means to be half casual. Probably some insider photog secret re: flesh to fabric ratios.

Bagassora Convicted

Last year, I read several books on the genocide in Rwanda. All very hard to read for the cruelty and disregard for human life they revealed. Not simply the Hutus killing Tutsis, but people like Madeline Albright (and others in the Clinton administration), and key figures in the French government and the UN. By all accounts, Bagasora was the Hutu leader most responsible for the butchery. He was finally convicted. Read Canadian General Romeo Dallaire's book for starters.

The Value of a Dollar

Recently, I thought I wanted to create a new Blog, a kind of good will log. A place where you could share experiences of giving and receiving 'random acts of kindness'. I know it might feel self-serving to talk about the good you do, and the good others do to you, but I thought it'd be useful for the someone who might stop by and need a lift.

Because while Lady MacBeth's worries Macbeth is too full of the milk of human kindness, I worry I am not. I am an old dog learning a new trick, or trying to learn. Millions of people live by this creed of giving every day and to you I take off my hat. But in my life I have stumbled along, doing it here and there, but it is not a way of life for me. And that is the strange part because when I do it, it feels like bliss.

I have always liked a line from a song by The Smiths: it takes guts to be gentle and kind. Makes a lot of sense to me, as does this from my old friend WW:

An excerpt from the Old Cumberland Beggar:

" ... man is dear to man: the poorest poorLong for some moments in a weary lifeWhen they can know and feel that they have beenThemselves the fathers and the dealers outOf some small blessings, have been kind to suchAs needed kindness, for this single cause,That we have all of us one human heart."

The idea behind starting this new Blog started with a lift home, an act of kindness from a total stranger. I was at my mechanics recently, trying to mooch a ride back to my house after dropping off my car, but the drivers were all out plowing snow. A well-dressed man (who I had thought to myself looked corny) overhead the conversation and offered to give me a lift. We chatted about the neighborhood on the way to my house, and as I got out of the car I said, "Well, I am gonna half to figure out how to repay this kindness." "Yeah, keep it going you know, " he said. The next day, with more snow falling, I hauled out the new used snow thrower I bought from our neighbor. I did our drive and sidewalk. But then I started thinking, who else can I do? I ended up doing our whole sidewalk, the driveways of three friends in the neighborhood--one woman had let me pick pears off her tree all season long.

The Karmic wheel turned, and the next day while fueling up the van at a station down the street, some big husky fellow starts talking to me about the economy, how his dad was always saying he didn't know the value of a dollar. I told him I had been laid off in March, and that I knew the value of a dollar. Long story short, he pulled out his money clip and gave me a $20 bill.

So that's the value of a dollar, right? That you can give it away.