Reflections

The weather has become inclement. Cooler temperatures, rain, sleet and occasionally snow. The ground is littered with the multi-hued debris that once festooned the oxygen making machines of our planet. Everywhere you go you wear an extra shirt and bring a coat, maybe a hat and gloves as well. Just so you get wet, catch a chill or even be discomforted in any way.

            Where ever you go, you see sparkling lights, cheerful music and ads for sales that seem to assault your every sense. Ads designed to make you pull out your wallet and spend money you don’t want to or don’t have. You do this, happily. You can’t help it, you’ve been trained over the years to respond this way. It seems to be almost un-american to not do so. To not go out and spend money, to not dump countless dollars, time and energy into the season that has been so forcefully shoved down our throats. I’m guilty of it, and so are you.

            We’ve all gone out and bought things for people we barely know for reasons we can’t truly fathom. It has become an almost Pavlovian response in our culture. In spite of this deluge of commerce hype, for the past few years, me and mine have chosen to not partake of any of these shenanigans. Instead, we simply sit at home, eat our meals, watch football and feel good films and at one moment or another, we reflect back upon the year and count our blessings. I, myself, have been known to reflect upon situations where there was nothing but a grim outcome and yet, somehow, someway we came out of the mire of life without a scratch, scrape or any damage of any sort. We survived and we are better for it.

            This year, after weeks of endless tasks for the upcoming not-to-be-mentioned-holiday, our planning was minimal for our day of thanks. Food was bought and prepared with little or no discussion. Plans of visitations of family members and travel arrangements were an afterthought. Instead, a quiet day of familial peace and tranquility was enjoyed like a warm blanket and a hot cup of cocoa on a frigid day. Comfortable places were claimed on the couch, warm food filled stomachs and the background noise of parades on the television, truly bliss and the American dream.

            But what of all the hype for crazy sales, long lines and impending affection yoked to monetary displays of affection? Simple, the commercials will be ignored. They have to be. After all, in this day and age, what with the advent of instant updates on one’s phone, television and computer for sales of goods and services offered at discounted rates for one day only, or is it two, or three, and in some cases a week, why even bother. After all, we have a warm home, a fridge filled with food, lights and power at the will of our fingertips. What would the pilgrims think of such excess and convenience? I believe they’d be flabbergasted and start some sort of witch trail. But that is just my thought.

            Once again, I digress. I’ve gone off again on a tangent. So back to the show.

            I believe in our way of life. I believe that if a person works hard, does good things and tries to not goof up too badly that he or she will be rewarded with a better and more comfortable way of living. This means that one does not simply follow the heard, does not buy into the hype of all things commercial and definitely does not take for granted the gifts and blessings bestowed upon them. Yet we are human. We are susceptible to the metric-fuck-ton of shit that comes our way. We can’t help it, we’re like the squirrels, and we have short term memory in what makes us truly happy and grateful to be alive. When shown something new and shiny, we immediately have to have it and believe that once we have obtained said new and shiny that we will be happy. Only to discover we are not. That in truth, we are emptier and hollower than before. There is a void in us that can’t be filled with material objects. Yet we insist that void can be filled with a piece of plastic or paper.

            We don’t learn. We should learn yet we can’t tear ourselves away from the blitzkrieg of bullshit to truly learn what will make us feel whole, true and right. This is the fallacy of our lives. This is democracy gone awry. This is the American life.

            Now, I’m not saying that one should not want things in one’s life. Hell, I want shit all the time. But if I break it down, if I cut out all the fat and look towards the lean, I only want and need a few things. Those things are different for each and every one of us. What might be right for me, may be wrong for you. So, I won’t divulge my truths here. But I will say, we all need to focus on our compass points, figure out what we need to survive and thrive and that will give us a starting point.

            On this day of thanks and wonderment, I’ve narrowed down what I’m thankful for which has given me a direction for my future endeavors. One, I’m thankful for you, my dear reader. I’m thankful for my family and I’m thankful for my ability to work, survive and wake up every day. I’m thankful for the people in my life who’ve taken time out of their lives to become my friend and get to know me for who I am and what I am. I’m also thankful that I live in a country where I can voice my opinion and say disparaging things against those I don’t care for without suffering any ill effects.

            Mostly, I’m thankful for all the men and women who came before me. The people who not only built this country but also laid the groundwork for how open and honest we can be. So, if you’ve ever stood against the crowd, believed something different from the masses, chose the underdog over the sure fire winner, then I’m not just thankful for you but I’m grateful as well.

            Like the ending of the warm season and the oncoming war of the frigid cold, we will all fight to survive in the dark hours of our lives. The only ammunition we have in the cold, dark, and lonely places is the knowledge that we do not go alone or quietly into the night. No, we have the generations of our fore-fathers and our family and friends to help quiet the ill will of the darkness and voices of ill will.

            Have a great week and a great Thanksgiving.

Greed

            I like science. I can’t help it. I like to learn how things work and why they work. So much so that I listen to at least four science podcasts a week. Read a ton of internet articles on science and even watch a bunch of television shows on science. It doesn’t really matter what the topic of the article, show or podcast is. I find it all very fascinating. One of my favorite scientific websites is maintained by NASA.

            Why NASA? Simple, above all of my interests, space has been one of my favorite topics. I suppose I got bit by that bug by being a kid in the 1970’s and watching all the rocket launches, and in the 1980’s the Space Shuttle launches. Whenever a new photograph of some discovery in space pops up, I usually end up staring at it for minutes without end. A new plant or planetoid or planitismal is discovered… I read about it.

            Some people, when told or shown the vastness of not just our solar system or galaxy but our universe, seem to shut down. Truth be told, I was explaining, or better yet, attempting to explain, how miniscule our little mudball is in the grand scheme of the vastness we are floating around in and they sort of shut down on me. When I paused in my explanation, the person in question simply looked at me, shook their head and said “I can’t handle all this information. Not only that, it hurts my head to even think about it.” Then they walked away.

             I stood there a bit dumbfounded. After all, I could not comprehend how someone couldn’t or wouldn’t even try to understand how crazy our lives are on earth in comparison to the stuff that’s going on amongst the stars. Or for that matter, the stuff that’s going on just outside our door in nature. I suppose this person’s attitude towards the universe was mirrored in me being incapable of understanding their position. (Touché Karma)

            All this thinking about big stuff really gets my brain synapse going. Then, I start thinking about my life. More to the fact, the pressures in my life. The bills, the seemingly endless hours of work. The small tasks to perform around the house. The weather on cold days, rainy days and even sunny days when I want to be out riding my motorcycle. You know, living my life with myopic glasses. Not thinking about the people around me, their problems or their lives. This seems to be a common theme of all people. After all, how many folks do you know that are out there that are dreaming and thinking of a larger life? Not many that’s for sure.

            Sure there are scientists and genius’s that are part of think tanks and large conglomerates who are devising, discovering and implementing deep thoughts, ideas and inventions. Things that make our lives easier and supposedly better. Me, however, I don’t believe all new things are good for us. How could they be? After all, I’m a guy who was raised on three channels of television, no cell phones and no computers. If anything, I believe a lot of modern things do nothing but hinder our lives by separating us from the people we are supposed to be interacting with. (Note: I don’t like to interact with a lot of people. I’m sort of a hermit that way. I don’t like to become attached to folks because life is a transient existence.)

            All that being said, I do believe in interacting with people you want to interact with. Yet, it gets me thinking…

            I have a house, a mortgage actually, I have bills and requirements I need to meet every month. These items of interest seem to keep my focus grounded on creating a life not for myself, but for my family. I know I can’t be the only person who has ever existed that has seen the insanity of this way of life. How could I be? After all, there have been many people who are smarter than I that have come before me. Folks that have dreamed larger, lived bigger and done more for humanity in one week than I’ve done in my entire life. I’m talking about board certified genius’s.

            So what happened? What happened to humanity and our way of life that pulled us from looking up and out to looking down and out? I wish I could give you a simple answer. I have a one word answer prepared but I feel the explanation goes so much deeper than that one deadly sin.

            Truly, ask yourself, why are you where you are? Why haven’t the ideas you’ve had been taken advantage of and why aren’t isn’t there a mob of people outside your home with fist fulls of money and throwing that money at you just for your thoughts?

            I have an answer for all those questions, yet those are my answers, you have to find your own. So where does all this leave me? Simple…when my corporeal body leaves this earth, the only thing I truly have left behind is a slew of bills that may have been paid in full. I also will leave behind a generation of people who will end up paying their own versions of bills.

            While elsewhere in our galaxy, our star cluster and our universe, suns will be born, planets will be giving life to strange and unique creatures and life, not necessarily as we know it will go on. I hope and pray that one day, we, as a race of humanity will realize that our mundane lives of are scaled on the miniscule will one day realize there are more things unknown and worth our attention than the daily needs of our masters.

            Have a great week.

Vets Rule (or they should)

I served four very happy albeit stressful years in the United States Navy. Four of the greatest years of my life. I met scores of amazing people. People with talent, brains, attitudes and ideas from all walks of life from across the globe. Most of them were my shipmates. We were all serving for one reason or another. Some were trying to escape from their past, some were patriotic, some were not really given a choice and some felt serving was the only way out of a miserable life. Me, I was trying to escape, trying to reinvent myself, trying to see the world and lastly, I felt it was my duty as an up and coming citizen of the my country.

            I didn’t serve for gratitude. I didn’t serve because it was right. I didn’t serve because someone wanted me to. I served for my own reasons. It’s as simple as that.

            Which brings me to recent postings on facebook, twitter, and a fuckton of other websites, newspapers and local news broadcasts. Each one advertising free coffee, free donuts, free meals and discounted consumer goods and services. I avoid these like the plague. I don’t want free anything. I want to pay for what I need and want. But, you know, it goes deeper than that.

            You see, I am a lucky vet. I have a house and a family. Two jobs and if I want I could easily get a third. Some vets aren’t so lucky. Some vets struggle with the demons from their service. Demons that have taken a deep rooted hold on their lives. Making them almost completely incapable of holding a job, having a family or even a place to live and food in their stomach.

            Men and women who have served in war zones and seen the atrocities one human is willing to bestow upon others in this world with no conscious about the terror they are instilling in the observers. Soldiers and sailors who’ve followed orders from their superiors because that is what they were trained to do. Not fully realizing the future repercussions they will eventually have to face in the mirror.

            I feel terrible for these vets. I know I’m not alone in these feelings. However, I don’t think our elected officials do. Cuts to Veterans Affair Benefits, cuts to mental and health care. Endless miles of paperwork and red-tape bog down a system of care that was instilled to help the transfer from military life to civilian life.

            Hell, if you’re brave enough do a quick internet search on the care of veterans in our country. It will scare the hell out of you. I know it did me.

            Which brings me to my point on this whole blog. I don’t want free or discounted shit from anyone because of my service. Why? Because I can get what I want on my own. Instead, take all that free food, those discounted goods and services and sell them to the regular customers and then… and here is the crazy thought… give all the profits to the men and women who served who are incapable of providing for themselves. Help the ones who served who can’t help themselves. They deserve it more than I do.

            After all, I still have all my appendages. I have my mental acuity, which is a bit skewed off of center, but I still have it. I have my will to live and a family who cares more than they should about me. The vets who are homeless, limbless and are broken mentally, need more help than I do.

            Hell, I’m sure we pass them every day on the street, or see them in the bars or outside a local convenience store panhandling for change. The change is not for food, nope, it’s for cheap booze that helps quiet the demons screams inside of their heads.

            I don’t know how to implement this idea. I wish I did. I wish I were smart enough to be entrepreneurial enough to implement a foundation that would go out and find the broken servicemen and women who need the help of countless dollars and food. But, I’m not. I’m just a Pollack with a thought. A Pollack who served and survived. A Pollack who is part of a brotherhood that helped build this country and is pissed off at how a lot of my brothers and sisters in arms have been treated.

            Have a week. 

C is for?....

            Normally, this time of year I write about Guy Fawkes and revolution. It’s true, check out my previous early November blogs. Why do I talk about revolution in November? Simple, Guy Fawkes and his failed attempt at revolution. However, some strange force in the universe has guided me along another path.

            Growing up, as a child of the 1970’s, when television offered only three corporate channels and one public access channel, my entertainment came either from prime time programing or the Children’s Television Workshop. Sesame Street to be exact. For some reason I didn’t connect with Kermit or any of the feel good Muppets. Instead, The Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch were the characters I identified with. Not the normal connection a young child should make.

            To be truthful, I think that, at the time, CTW placed unsavory characters in their shows to instruct kids how they should not be. Grumpy, greedy, one sided and maybe a bit self-centered. A monster, no, a person in touch with their inner selves and life.  Someone or something that truly knows what makes them happy. Someone who knows what makes them happy in life. Be it cookies or the suffering of others. Yup, they were the ones I identified with were the outcasts and the disenfranchised.

            Then they introduced Mr. Snuffleufagus. His first name, Aloysious. A name I’m more than familiar with. This character was usually depressed and felt like he was invisible. Another trait I could identify with. Muppets with a singular purpose. A goal in life and the knowledge of what makes them happy. Yup, that is what I felt streaming out of the fluorescent information of the cathode ray tube of small screen, large box televisions.

            I was a quiet and surly kid. A child who revolted and rebelled against any and all authority that I came into contact with. My teachers, my parents, the neighbors and the local police held any control over me. All I wanted was to feel normal, to be accepted and to feel as if I was not as fucked up as everyone told me I was.

            Doesn’t seem like much to ask for, but ask yourself, “How do I explain to the world at large and the folks in my life who and what I am?” You can’t. After all, how many people in your life would really accept you for the person who stares back at you in the mirror every morning? I mean seriously, what sort of fucked up secrets that are rattling around inside of your head can you truly divulge to the people in your life? You can’t. It’s simple math. Really, it is. Reach down inside your most heinous thoughts and desires and then divulge them to the person and people that are close to you.

            My bet is that you won’t do it. But, in this instance I can. I like being an outsider. A person who is not in touch with his co-workers, their inner machinations of life choices or the secret and unsubstantial jokes that provide a daily recognition of one’s personal need for acknowledgement in life. Nope, I prefer to be the one outside, the one who observes and sees the writing on the wall of others path through this existence.

            It is where I am most comfortable. Like Oscar, like Cookie, like Mr. Snuffalapugus. I prefer to be a ghost in the machine. After all, I know who and what I am, where I belong and my eventual path will lead me. So, I will break all of this down for you…

            I have maybe two or three friends I can talk to completely unshielded. If you think you know who you are, then maybe you are. I have about fifteen acquaintances who are right now thinking they are amongst the two or three folks in my inner circle. Then there are the rest of you, the ones who read my blog, who I talk to occasionally and we both walk away from the conversation feeling better about ourselves. Then there are the people I’ve never met, who if they met me in real life, on a day when I’m surly and cold would walk away thinking I’m nothing like the person they thought I was.

            Basically, I’m Oscar the Grouch with a large portion of Cookie Monster thrown in and a dash of Mr. Snuffflupagus. Yeah. I’m a muppet for the ages and I like it that way.

            Recently, some co-workers told me I said something that I don’t recall saying. I trust them in what they said and in the context of how I said it. Do I remember what I said? Nope. I don’t. Are they at fault or am I? I would like to think they are but I know differently.

            I know who I am and what I am. I am a man, a frustrated and sometimes angry man. A man who tries to hold the ever changing world at bay and fails miserably. I’m a person who doesn’t accept change readily or easily. I like the status quo and I don’t want to diverge from it. No matter what the cost, the benefit or the detriment. I like to keep things true to the nature of what is going on in the world as I know it.

            I am Oscar the Grouch, I am the Cookie Monster. I am a disgruntled and frustrated middle age person who longs for a simpler time. A time before mass media and instant gratification of the internet. Even though I benefit from the later more than I do from the former.

            Which muppet are you?

High School Confidential

            It is the last day of October, the air is cool, and the streets are filled with super-heroes, zombies, mad-scientists, princesses and snowmen. This year, instead of sitting on my porch, smoking cigars and handing out candy to the creatures of the night, I attended my daughters first High School Homecoming. It was a bit odd, to have a Homecoming football game on Halloween, but, truth be told, it was completely appropriate. Especially since her school colors are orange and black. Which added to the whole feel of the night.

            The schools clubs even had a “Safe Trick or Treating” event. My daughter, a member of the film club, helped set up her booth, provided candy and dressed up as “Sandy” from the movie “Grease” and her current boyfriend dressed up as “Danny”. At first I was a bit confused about the costumes but then I remembered going to the theatre with my mom when the film first came out, I recalled the homecoming scene in the movie. You know the one, where it was homecoming and Sandy was dressed in her cheerleader costume and meets Danny again for the first time since summer? Yeah, that one. That’s when the costume made a lot of sense to me.

            To get back on subject… I believe in my high school career I only attended two homecoming games. My freshman year at my first high school, where the game was held during the day and followed by a dance after. Then I went to a homecoming game my senior year at my third high school. I spent most of the time at that game under the bleachers with my buddies smoking and drinking. Afterwards we went to a house party. No dance, no watching of the game and a total lack of school spirit.

            What I do remember, or should I say, my primary memory of those two events was the concession stand food. The rubbery hot dogs that were too hot and overcooked sitting in a soggy bun. Then to help kill the over salted taste of the meat tubes you’d end up dumping as much ketchup, mustard and onions on it just to fool your palette into thinking you were eating something else. Then there was the luke-warm soda pop in a three ounce cup followed by the cold, stale and once again over-salted popcorn.

            In order to get these glorious gastronomic treats you’d have to stand in a line fifty people deep and hope no one tries to jump in front of you. Back then, in the early to mid-eighties, I was about five foot four inches tall and weighed a whopping one hundred and fifteen pounds, was unable to stop anyone from jumping in front of me. But it wasn’t just my size, I was a bit shy, unless directly confronted. So I kept my mouth shut, my head down and waited… and waited… and waited. After all, I always seemed to be the new kid in town, or in school and pretty much anywhere I went. However… I always seemed to find a good party, filled with greasers, stoners, jocks and wall-flowers. I got along with them all, yet never really fit in with any of them. After all, there was no place for a motorcycle loving, camping all summer, partying, rocker with an affliction for reading to fit in. Nope. There sure wasn’t.

            Fast forward to today, as I sat in the bleachers, making snide comments that bordered on the rude and perverse and bringing laughter to the one or two people who could hear me, I reflected upon those long lost days of my youth.

            A youth filled with pain, loss, laughter, great rock music, constant moving and a sense of total alienation. I don’t really feel that way now. Those feelings disappeared when I was in the Navy. That’s where I learned your past doesn’t matter and that when people ask you questions about who you are and where you are… you don’t have to tell the truth, nor do you have to lie. All you have to do is give cliff notes and deflect the answer and let the questioner fill in the blanks and then you just have to sit back and let the tales get taller as they get passed on down the line.

            About this time in my train of thought I looked over at my daughter, she was huddled up in her pink ladies jacket, and under the arm of her boyfriend. They were talking, laughing and drinking hot chocolate. She didn’t appear to have any of the awkwardness I had, nor did she display any of the disenfranchised emotions I had at her age. Nope, she was enjoying her first homecoming and absorbing all the craziness a homecoming football game has to offer.

            The cheerleaders screaming and dancing and totally distracting the onlookers from the extremely amateur game being played on the gridiron. The costumed kids walking by in all sorts of modern character driven extremes. One kid, dressed in a green nylon suit from head to toe must have walked by us thirty times. There were a few zombies, a couple super heroes and even though the temperature was a tepid forty-eight degrees, some kids were barely wearing any clothes at all. Shorts and t-shirts were in abundance. (I believe there will be a large population of my daughter’s school whose kids will be sick next week.)

            One of the biggest differences I discerned was the lack of participation from the high school bands. Back in my day, the bands were everything. The marched the field, they played loud and crazy when the home team scored. And they definitely were the biggest instigators of crowd noise during the game.

            Yeah, there was none of that. They were present and even sitting in the bleachers, but I didn’t hear one single note come from any of their instruments. However, there was a DJ. He was sitting in the announcer’s booth playing hip-hop music so loud my teeth were rattling. I didn’t hear a single common sports song. No “Crazy Train”, no “Rock and Roll Part 2” and no school fight song. Nope, instead we were accosted with club music. The cheerleaders were happy to bump and grind to these tunes. Their gyrations made me feel a bit uncomfortable because the last time I saw girls dance like that was in a club, overseas, with chrome plated poles that went from the ceiling to the floor. Not at a High School football game.

            I guess I’m just getting old. I suppose that Mr. Jefferson was right when he said “The earth is for the living.” My life is past its half-life and I don’t think when I have a grandchild I will attend his or her homecoming game. I don’t think my ears could handle it, I don’t think my mind could handle the machinations of the younger generation and I know that the football being played will be so far away from where I’m sitting that I wouldn’t be able to see it.

            So, just prop me up on my porch, put a lighted cigar in my lips and let me drool uncontrollably as I attempt to curse at the kids walking in my front yard.

            Have a great week.

Pre-Digital Holiday

            So, here it is a week before Halloween, the streets are filled with people moving to and fro dressed as ghouls, goblins, zombies, werewolves, vampires, cups of coffee, mad doctor’s, zombie killers and serial killers. The weather is cooler, the leaves on the ground crunch pleasantly under my boots and on television there is seemingly no end to any and all horror movies available to the young fear mongers and elder fear aficionados.

            It is truly one of my favorite times of year. Ghost stories abound as people light camp fires in their back yards and celebrate the ending of summer and the beginning of the end of the year. So what am I doing? For the past two weeks I’ve been carrying elves, Victorian figures, Christmas trees, train sets, sound systems and garland by the acre. Yup, I’ve been getting ready for the impending festival of green and red lights, mint flavored everything and an unabashed consumer mentality that borders on the obscene.

            It appears that I’m not the only doing this however; Nope, not at all. Two weeks ago when we started all of this, on a trip to the local big box hardware store, there were two aisles dedicated to the season of overindulgence. Yet, only one small display, not fifteen feet square for the night of the dead. It is a bit disheartening to me. I suppose it’s because I don’t have much time in my life now as I did when I was younger to immerse myself into the make believe culture of terrifying thrills.

            It’s not that I ever really dressed up in excess. Not like some folks. Nah, that wasn’t me. I just enjoyed people watching. Sitting back in a pub or at a party and marvel at the creativity people put into their costumes. I also enjoyed popping some popcorn, flipping channels to find a good or fun horror movie, or curling up with a nice scary book and in some cases, sitting by a campfire with friends and family telling ghastly stories and even some funny ones of days gone by.

            I suppose what I’m trying to say is that when I was younger, had too much time on my hands and not enough work and responsibility, I lived in the moment. Most of those moments were at this time of year. The time, in the Midwest, when all the farm work was pretty much done, food has been canned, dried, smoked and stored. The cords of wood, all chopped, split and stacked from one end of the house to the other and stood six feet high and four logs deep. Enough to keep the cold wind of Wisconsin winters from permeating the house.

            No matter where I went back then, during the fall season, I always seemed to end up surrounded by friends and sometimes family. Although some friends seemed like family and some family didn’t seem like any relation of mine at all.

            Then there were the Octobers where I spent with a special lady friend just curled up under a blanket on the couch, sipping beverages and watching the latest installment of Halloween, or Nightmare, or Zombie series. Nights that ended in sleeping with the lights on because she was a bit more afraid of the creepy crawlies than I. Nights where I had to call home and tell them I was not going to be home but instead I’m spending the night at a friend’s house.

            Of course, my memories also bring me to the days when I was a kid back in Green Bay, where me and my buddies would rush home from school, don our costumes, grab pillow cases and rush out to meet each other under the street light just to go door to door demanding candy in exchange for not egging the house once the darkness set in. After our initial round, we would switch costumes and head out again. After all, most folks would remember a five foot tall Lone Ranger and a four foot five tall Batman, but when you look and see a five foot tall Batman and a four foot five tall Lone Ranger, they readily give more candy. Then again, maybe they did know and just didn’t care.

            Then later, sitting in our basement, our candy splayed between our legs the trading began. No one wanted the gum, everyone wanted the Snickers and only one or two wanted the 3 Musketeers. Yeah, we swapped our goods and no one ever fought about it. We respected each other tastes. Although one of our crew loved the Pixie Stix, while the rest of us thought they were the worst damn things in the world. His name was Ricky and he would give away whatever he could to get every tube of powdered color sugar he could get his hands on. We were more than happy to give it to them.

            Yup, I have plenty of fond memories of this time of year. As well as a yearning to make more. To experience more, to fill the void in my heart for this time of year. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to happen any time soon. How could it? As a man in the middle age of his life, much like most people at this station, there are bills to pay, plays to see, work to perform and four hours of rest to get to each day.

            Hell, in this world of instant information, streaming videos, dvr’s, gratification of anything you want at the tip of your fingers, shouldn’t we have more time to live? Wasn’t the information age supposed to simplify our lives? Give us more freedom? Not constrict our lives to the point where you can barely breathe without being charged data usage rates by some cellular company, information delivery system or satellite or cable service.

            Which brings me to another point, or epiphany, I believe that is what I miss, yet in some strange way I seem to be a part of the greater problem. After all, I spend time writing these blogs and communicating with you instead of seeking out the things I miss from my life before the digital age and the age where Christmas had yet to take hold of the American people as soon as the school year starts.

            Maybe, one day in the hopefully near future, we as a group of disgruntled consumers, horror fans, family units and all around citizens have had enough, we will stand up and with one great voice shout “Enough!” We want our holidays separate yet equal. Give us time to enjoy the moments that lead up to the holiday without forcing the next one, two or three down our throat. No more commercials for car sales, furniture sales, toy sales, and clothing sales to celebrate a holiday whose roots are anything but commercial. After all, to me at least, each holiday is supposed to be a time of reflection for that particular event.

            Of course these are just the reflections and opinions of a middle aged man who sits on his porch hoping and praying he gets to yell at some kid to get off his lawn.

Have a great week and enjoy some good scary movies and stories.

Saturday Scares

            This weekend, on Saturday the 18^th, I will giving my first and most likely last public reading of one of my stories. It’s not a long story, just a bit over sixteen hundred words. I can’t say I’m nervous about standing up in front a crowd of people, nor can I say I’m worried about my reading of the tale. I overcame any fears of speaking in front of a camera, or live audiences a long time ago. Hell, you can’t be an effective waiter, public servant or even a one-time actor if you have those issues.

            The thing that does give me pause is whether or not anyone will understand my story. Is it going to be scary enough? Creepy enough? Will it be too vague? Will anyone actually like it? Yeah, those are the things that make me second guess myself. Less than a handful of people have pre-read and edited this particular tale and they all liked it. Hell, I even like it. So much so that I wish I didn’t have a time limit and could sit down and expand parts of the story to see whether or not it has the makings of a short story or novella.

            Unfortunately there is not much I can do about the piece of fiction I’ve created because the person in charge of the reading has already accepted the tale as is. We are also not allowed to lengthen or make changes to our accepted works. This, from what I understand about these functions, is pretty much standard. I can’t say for certain those are how all the rules go for all readings, but for this one, the rule applies.

            That all being said, during my countless re-readings of the story out loud in an empty room, I’ve made certain tweaks so the story flows easier for the spoken word. Which is something new to me. I’ve never read aloud my tales and I’ve come to realize, when I do read aloud, I find many things I want to change. Nothing that would affect the stories plot or tone, but changes of audible flowing words. Clunky sentences I hadn’t noticed before have been rewritten so my tongue won’t stumble upon the recited words.

            This little epiphany got me thinking about how things are said in real life. Like conversations, body language and how communication in general works between people. It has given my mind a lot of food for thought so to speak. Sure, I’m still a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-cerebral-cortex kind of guy. I’m known for saying inappropriate things at the inappropriate times and that bothers me not one iota. But it has given me a certain… leash, yes, leash on what I say to people and when I say it.

            So much so, today I had the opportunity to actually rip into someone and feel no remorse about it but instead of saying what I wanted to say, I substituted with something a bit less cruel. Then I walked away and realized what I had actually done. It surprised me a bit, but I chalked it up to growing older and wiser. (Yeah, right.)

            I guess what I’m getting at, the enlightened moment where my sharp edges have been softened over the decades so that I have become a more congenial was a surprise. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a long way away from being a civilized person, and there are moments where I want to verbally tear into someone so deeply that when I turn and walk away all that is left of them is a greasy sludge like creature with no hope for a decent life left in their eyes.

            Yeah, I’m getting softer as I step ever closer to my eventual demise. But I’m not as soft as some people half my age and I don’t think I ever will be.

            Finally, if you’re in the Hampton Roads area on Saturday night, stop on by the Portsmouth Arts and Cultural Center and hear several stories that will hopefully haunt you until the day you die.

            Have a great week.