Bunnies From Heaven

I spent Easter Sunday with the family. We have a long tradition of getting together to eat and take pictures and have an Easter egg hunt. I seldom if ever feel like attending, but once I’m there it’s not half bad.

I don’t have a whole lot in common with my family. They tend to be normal with steady jobs and kids. I’m the black sheep, the artist. I don’t play golf and I don’t go to church. I read, and try to learn as much as I can about the world around me.

I have one cousin, the only thing he can talk about is golf. There’s not much to his personality, just golf, god, and aircraft and missile components. He said a prayer before the meal, and all I could think about while he was praying was, what a phony!

Thank you god for this meal, and the special order of ACR gun parts, and bless those who prepared the food, and thank you for the bombs bursting in air, and the rockets red glare, and we ask these things in your name, amen.

              "Baaa!" the black sheep says, "baaa!   

Harvard Tom Addendum

I was driving down the hill in my convertible when I noticed an attractive young woman washing her car in front of the plumber’s house. She was wearing a pair of black workout shorts and a black workout top. She had a water hose in her hand and was hosing the suds off her car. She was all legs from a distance, and more legs as I approached. The car wash scene from Cool Hand Luke came to mind as I neared.

The woman paused to look at me as I drove by. It occurred to me that Harvard Tom had it wrong. It was the plumber’s house that he was thinking of when he mentioned the pretty lady, not the house next store. I was thinking she was the plumber's daughter, or the plumber's wife, but it was pure conjecture on my part.  

Was Harvard Tom trying to trick me? He did go to Harvard. Some of the best criminal minds have come from Harvard. Is he that smart? Naah!

Harvard Tom

  I ran into Harvard Tom. I sent him an email about a man in a maroon Sports Utility Vehicle that was parking on the hill. The man just sat in his car for hours, and he was doing it every night for a couple of weeks. I thought it was odd.
                 Harvard Tom is a National Rifle Association member. I was hoping he’d dust off his gun and show his metal, or at least show an interest. He didn’t. He didn’t even reply to my email.

  Tom and I were talking. I was explaining my email to him. He seemed interested. Then, a good-looking woman walked by. Tom craned his neck toward her mid-sentence to get a better look. He lost his train of thought and the conversation was interrupted while he gawked.

  “Wow! The neighborhood is really picking up,” he said. Have you seen the lady down the street?

  “No.
                  “She lives next door to the plumber. She’s gorgeous.”

             A couple of days later I was walking down the hill when I passed the house Tom had mentioned. There was a young woman in her twenties walking down the driveway. She was a heavier woman. It looked like she was working on her second chin. That's Tom's girl I figured. I tried to slim her down in my mind, to trick myself to her beauty. It didn't work. I guess Harvard Tom likes them big I gathered. Real big.

The Money Transfer

I paid Bill the Google Master a visit. There was a worried look on Bill’s mechanic Sergio’s face. Bill was out of funds and was waiting for a money transfer from Germany to clear. Bill sold a 1964 Ford Galaxy station wagon, but without the money he couldn’t pay Sergio his salary. 

Sergio’s rent was overdue, and there was a three-hundred dollar ticket he needed to pay. Sergio was all nerves. He was biting his nails and shaking his legs as we sat and talked. Bill and I showed no mercy. We took it upon ourselves to tease Sergio for worrying.   

"What are you worried about? You’re not going to jail.” Bill said.

             “You don’t mess with tickets, that’s the one thing you don’t mess with, you pay tickets on time,” Sergio said angrily.

“There’s no room for you in jail, even if they wanted you, there’s no place to put you.” I said. 

“Just show up to court with a sling, and a cane,” Bill said.

             Sergio was not amused. He was still biting his nails and shaking his legs. 

Just Like God

            I tend to think of god as ineffable, too big for words. I have a brother who’s deeply religious and from time to time he leans in on me and attempts the process of conversion. But I don’t want to be converted. 
            I’m often offended by his behavior for he assumes a certain knowledge I don’t believe he has. He laughed at me when I told him I didn’t have the answers, that all I know is that I don’t know anything at all. My brother has the answers, but his answers seem more like questions to me. So, around and around it went. He tried to put me in a box and I tried not to be put in the box. He wasn't making any sense to me, and I wasn't making any sense to him.

            I asked him if he thought god was religious? “No!” he said unequivocally.

            I was relieved when he said this, he gave me an opening. “Well then I’m just like god. I’m not religious.”

            My answers didn’t satisfy him. Nothing I said satisfied him. I walked away from the conversation feeling bad, as if I had done something wrong for defending my views. 

Alopecia Areata

I haven’t heard from my friend Don in a while. The last he mentioned, he was under immense pressure from his wife to find a job. I empathized with him. I told him a story about a time in my life when my girlfriend had a shotgun barrel pointing at my head to find a job. I developed a bald patch the size of a silver dollar on the top of my head from the stress.

Don was slightly amused by story, and seemed to play it off. As time went on and the stress increased from not finding a job, I’d ask Don if he still had hair.

“It hasn’t fallen out yet, but I had to cut it to look more presentable,” he answered.

“Oh, you’re not looking hard enough,” I said, that’s what my girlfriend use to say to me.

                There’s nothing worse than trying to find a job during a recession, and it’s even more aggravating when there’s a chirping bird in the background saying “find a job, find a job, did you find a job yet?” every fifteen minutes.  

Guitar Talk

I went to the studio yesterday. It didn’t pan out the way I had anticipated. I had it in mind to re-record the acoustic guitar part. There’s buzz on the original track. It's a buzz only I can hear, but I thought I'd bring my guitar in and replace the Gibson J45. I learned that you can’t replace a Gibson J45. I have a nice guitar, but it didn’t record well. It sounded thin and lacked the depth I was looking for. I was disappointed with its performance.

            Sound is a funny thing. It’s no accident that Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan used Stratocasters. Some guitars are proven and I learned that the hard way yesterday. I’m still going to use the tracks. I’m going to combine the two and bury the cheap sounding guitar in the background. Nothing is ever wasted.