Birthday Love

            I celebrated my birthday on January twenty-first and I’m just now recovering. I tried my hand at keeping up with twenty-one year olds. I lost. It’s not easy to admit, but yes, a pair of twenty-one year olds, women I might add, drank me under the table.

            It must be something in the DNA of the modern drinker that helps them sustain themselves. I felt like crap afterwards. I broke all my rules with regard to mixing as did the young women, but I suffered and they didn’t. I had a good time. It was a fun birthday. Beauty is the beast that can kill your liver.    

My Blood

            I wrote the cowboy song and now I’m recording it. It’s called My Blood. I went into the studio with an acoustic guitar part and words and true to form, I improvised an electric guitar part with a Fender Telecaster played through a Vox guitar amp. There’s a wicked sound to it. It’s kind of spooky in a way. 

            I had the intention of trying to avoid the cliche cowboy sound, but I’ve learned that the cowboy song has a will stronger than my intentions. It just came out and I can’t rightfully reject what the cosmos give me. I suppose I could and I have in the past, but in this instance the part I came up with is unique enough to keep. I’m looking forward to adding some bass and some more guitar parts. It should be a pretty good tune when it’s all said and done. It would be nice if it found a home in a western.   

Flowers In My Mind

I’ve been riding the trains to and fro. I was sitting on a train the other day and I found myself getting a little uptight. Most people who ride the trains in Los Angeles are poor like me. I was looking at the people on the train and for a moment I somehow put myself above them as if I was not one of them. I settled down and told myself I’m here now, try to appreciate the beauty.

            In that instant the faces on the train became more interesting to look at. We're all here for a short time. Some of us have our marching orders and some of us don’t, or at least some of us aren’t paying attention. We’re part of the system. The system is set up so the wealthy can steal without reprisals. The poet in me thinks it’s all silly. Materialism is silly. It can turn good people into the dirty faces of the poor. The same faces that are now flowers in my mind.  

Listen: It's No Secret

            I’m trying to be mindful of the way I listen. Not just for music but in the way I interact with people. The human connection is largely about listening. I find myself wondering about what I look like when I’m listening. Someone will be talking and I’m thinking about how I’m standing, or in what direction I’m facing, or if I’m looking the person in the eye. Do I look sincere while I’m listening? I don’t feel sincere. I often wonder what the person who’s doing the talking is thinking about how I’m listening. It’s a strange concept the idea of listening because in many respects it's more than just paying attention or giving the illusion of paying attention, it’s the human connection. It’s the need we all have to be heard. Yet, I must admit I sometimes take listening lightly. It’s not always easy to listen. Sometimes I’ll give people my full attention when frankly they don’t deserve it. There’s a fine line between listening and being abused. Some people are selfish and needy and demand your attention to the point of insanity. Shut up! Thank you.  

Killing Spiders

            I’ve been killing spiders. I use to have a catch and release program but last night and today I found it easier just to whack them. I don’t feel good about it, but the little buggers are like cockroaches. They multiply real fast. I like having a few around during the summer months when the mosquitoes are prevalent. I’ll let one spider keep a web on a window seal as a natural defense for my skin, but it’s winter now, and the spiders are a little too comfortable. I guess everybody wants the easy life, even spiders. They do fascinate me but from now on they’re on a quota system.  

A Good Thing

The reports are in. It was a down year for poetry and short fiction but an up year for songs which exceeded all expectations.

            I like to take inventory at the end of the year. I’m a little late this year. It’s already January the sixth. Some people collect cars or like to have money stashed away. I collect poems, fiction and music. As the years pass and I look back on my collection I’m reminded of where and when I wrote a poem and the state of my constitution at the time. Some poems are bleak and others are down right quirky. But that’s the nature of poetry and why it’s so damn exciting. You never know what you’re going to get, or how many you’ll end up with when it’s all said and done, which is a good thing, a real good thing. 

The New Year

I spent New Years Eve at James M. Cain’s old house in Beachwood Canyon, I was in Hollywoodland, and it felt like it. The house was spectacular. It was built in the late twenty’s and it had old Los Angeles written all over it. The tile work was something to behold.

            The matron of the house liked me, and at one point she asked me to dance with her. You don’t say no to the matron. I got on the dance floor, and sure enough her husband was threatened by the events, and he started to dance as well. No big whoop, I didn’t want dance in the first place, so he kind of saved me. 

            There were people singing Karaoke at the bar, the house had its own bar. All and all it was a pretty good time, although I’m not much for Karaoke. On tis night it felt like a false excitement. 

            I went to bed and was awoken in the middle of the night by the sounds of sirens. It sounded like fire trucks going back and forth. I found out later that the arsonist was captured on Fairfax and Sunset later that night. The arsonist was going nuts. He was lighting cars on fire and setting carports a blaze. He must've not liked cars. He started over fifty fires in four days before he was captured. People were really upset about it. There was a foreboding in the city, a mystery that brought in the New Year.