Winter Wonderland my butt..............

Say what you will about how wonderful it is to play in the snow like when we were kids but then think about this. Who is the lucky one that gets to shovel it out of the way to get the car out on the road just to see if maybe you can go somewhere, anywhere? That's right, I do. It wouldn't be so bad except for the almost 3 foot drifts by my truck which were extremely difficult to move and I still didn't even come close to getting it dug out all of the way. More work ahead tomorrow and then I can try to get to my job. With the way weather works in Oklahoma it will probably be 70 degrees in a few days followed by rainstorms, tornado's and sleet.

The Bathroom Wall

Fuck you all

Bless Jesus
Five words. Two lines. I found them on the wall of the bathroom that I frequent which is around the corner from my office. It is the bathroom most usually used by the dock workers and transport personnel around here and as a result it can get quite dirty but it is also the one closest to me and I tend to value how quickly I can make it there over anything else. Occasionally some of these people take it upon themselves to bestow the rest of us with their scribblings of wisdom. Normally these scribblings stay there for a undetermined period of time before being cleaned off or painted over because not a lot of professionals make their way to this bathroom. I mean you don't really see any presidents or CPOs in this area.

As I said, on this particularly fateful day I came at my normal prescribed time to take care of my business and I noticed these two lines that had been hastily scrawled on the wall. They clearly came from the same pen and the handwriting was the same. What struck me immediately was how different each line was from the other in content. The first line is very angry and antagonistic. Fuck you all. To me it means that everyone has either done something to anger the author or at least he believes that they will given the chance and he is taking the time to deliver a pre-emptive strike before they get their opportunity to do so. It speaks of a disdain for everybody else, no matter who they may be.

The second line, Bless Jesus, is much different in tone and on the surface the meaning is very clear. I mean, Bless Jesus doesn't seem to have many ways you can go with it. Basically you are blessing Jesus. Short, sweet and simple. You really can't even debate what the author intends with this line. However I must admit that it took me aback to see it following the first line and that really changed the meaning when I read both lines together.

There is this strange duality in these two simple lines. Remember this is only my opinion but to me Fuck you all Bless Jesus was written by a person who thinks that they are above everyone else in some way. Either morally, spiritually, emotionally or even monetarily and this person felt compelled to notify the rest of us about this fact. He damns us all and then takes time to show that he is better than us even if it's only in his mind. I'm not saying he is right and I'm not saying he is wrong and I'm certainly not saying that I'm perfect because I am far from it. I make just as many (my wife might say more) mistakes as anybody else but I'm not trying to go around putting myself on a pedestal either.

Of course I did notice that however superior the author feels he is, he did leave his missive unsigned which signifies that he doesn't want to take a chance on anyone really identifying him. Perhaps he feels it's better to reign in anonimity rather than have all of the lesser people angry with him. Or he could be just a loon. Or I could be reading too much into the situation. Or it could be time for me to go for now.

The Cars - Free - New Clip

Here is another clip from the THe Cars for their third new song from their forthcoming album "Sharp Subtle Flavor."

Tuff Turf - It's Too Late - The Jim Carroll Band

I've been in a Jim Carroll Band mood lately and in particular have been digging on the song "It's Too Late." While watching the video on YouTube recently I noticed that there was a video of the song from the movie Tuff Turf. I didn't really remember a great deal about the movie but the title sounded familiar.



I cannot honestly say whether I ever actually saw the film but it's more than likely that I did. The vast majority of my time in college was spent watching movies with my friends in the frat house (think more dirtbag Animal House than preppy rich kids) which was the only one on campus or even near it. It was our favourite pastime. Plus when you had HBO or any of the other movie channels they constantly played the same movies over and over and occasionally threw you a bone by playing a new one. So more than likely I did see but just don't remmeber it.

Tuff Turf has a familiar 80s movie plot of a new kid moving in to a new town and getting in trouble while trying to find true love. Footloose did it to much more acclaim but it's an idea that never seems to get old. The interesting thing I thought of while watching this video is that it features Jim Carroll playing in a band with some of the high school actors who manage to over do it a bit. What strikes me most is that it plays like an adult director or writer who tries to tell us what it's like to be a kid, whether they're in a band or a gang or just a regular person. For instance in the video you can see kids dancing in the crowd while the band plays but you can clearly see mixed in with real regular kids several professional dancers doing moves that nobody I ever knew would be caught attempting. Of course maybe I'm not the poster child for what was normal back then.

Anyway, for every John Hughes who got it right there's hundreds others who were so far off base it isn't even funny. To be honest I'd have to watch it again before really deciding where it falls. At least it gave James Spader and Robert Downey Jr a place to hone their chops before moving on to bigger and better things latter in life. Plus it actually had some cool songs in it from Jim Carroll and you can never get enought of that in my book.

One last post.............

I have time for one last post of the year before starting a hopefully better new one. Normally I don't make resolutions or anything like that but this year I hope that my family can leave behind the bad luck with illness and sickness and money problems and have more prosperity. I know that there are people out there who have had much worse luck than I but there are a lot also who have had much better. I'm thankful for all we have and all we've experienced but I really want to try and better myself and my family. It's about moving forward instead of running in place, growing instead of being stagnant, learning instead of keeping that status quo. I hope everything goes well for everyone out there and that the new year will bring you happiness and health.

Hammerbox

Due to a technical glitch with my Ipod I had no podcasts to listen to tonight while at work and instead listened only to music which is becoming a rare thing for me. I left it on shuffle for the most part until a song by the band Hammerbox came on and I ended up listening to all of their songs from their album Numb which was released in 1993. Hammerbox formed in Seattle somewhere around 1989 to 1990 and got lumped in with the so called "grunge" bands of that era. They called it quits in 1994 which just goes to show that in the music business it's not always enough to have good songs, a fantastic singer who has a powerful voice (Carrie Akre) and quality musicians. You also need to have luck and a good deal of it. Unfortunately Hammerbox didn't have enough and never followed up what I call an unsung album that was a favorite of mine for a long time. So now I look back and remember the short lived brilliance of Hammerbox.

Dude, Where Have You Been?

I'm just now starting to get back into the swing of posting on my blog and while I have a plethora of ideas to write about there still is the little matter of finding enough time to write about them. It hasn't been easy for me the last few months but things are starting to look up. Basically what happened is that my wife has been out of work for the past few months due to a Baker's Cyst in her calf. Normally when I would get home from work she and our son would be asleep and that was my time to get on the computer and write. Since she hasn't been working I would come home and most nights she would be on the computer and I'd get up the next day and either her or our son would be on the computer. My online time has been very limited.

At first her problem was mis-diagnosed by a Nurse Practitioner (last time we allow one of them to see either of us) which set her back two weeks from getting real treatment. Once the doctor figured out what was wrong he sent her to a specialist to get an evaluation. The specialist wanted to get an MRI of her knee and to try and aspirate the cyst which didn't work. It seems it wasn't liquidy enough and was instead more like a thick syrup which was unusual as was it's location. Normally these cysts are behind the knee but sometimes push down between the calf muscles and descend. As I said aspirating the cyst did not work so the next step was surgery which was compounded by the MRI showing that there were several small meniscus tears that required an arthroscopy to be done as well as cutting into the back of the calf to remove the cyst.

Fast forward a few weeks and my wife has been going to her physical therapy and has been strengthening her leg. Only now my she is convinced she's feeling the same thing and that her leg is developing another cyst which I pray isn't true. We've been struggling to make it financially and the only thing that has saved us is that we've been getting food and household items from our church and that my mother has been paying for our son Johnny's pre-school tuition combined with my wife's mother sending clothes for her him and helping out in other ways. If it weren't for that help and the overtime that I've been able to get at work I think we would have lost our house by now.

A few weeks back my wife's cousin came for to visit us with her soon to be one year old daughter. Now it has been a bit of a strain on our already delicate situation but we have the space and it's been nice to have them in the house. Plus there was a very good reason for them to visit us for this perhaps indefinite stay but since it's highly personal I won't go into now, Perhaps in a future post about what kind of a man doesn't mind not being around for his only child's birthday, Christmas, etc. At any rate, I was overjoyed to receive a bonus from my employer and with that and some overtime I bought a brand spanking new Dell laptop with which I am posting on this very blog at this very moment. Okay it's also thanks to the WiFi at work (I'm off the clock) but this has made me very happy and I can't wait to really get some writing done once my wife starts working again and I can cut back on the overtime.

I know that as long as we keep plugging away and do what we know is right in our hearts that it will all work out eventually. You just got to persevere and have a little faith.