How Are You Doing?

           
            It never fails. Whenever I'm asked "how are you doing, or, how've you been?" My brain finds a way to seize up on me. I don't think I've ever answered that question to my satisfaction. I rarely think about how I've been, so when I'm asked, I'm caught off guard. And how you answer a question like that can have an effect on a relationship.
            If I played golf it would be easy. "I've been playing a lot of golf." But I don't play golf, and to condense my life into a few words is not realistic. But I try. "Ah, I've been pretty good, I'm writing songs and working on my book."
            But this answer leaves me feeling empty inside. I leave out the juicy parts, the details of my life. I don't tell anybody that I've rewritten my book hundreds of times, or that sometimes writing a song can take months. They don't always take months, but sometimes they do. And when I'm finished writing a song, I may or may not even use it.
            A part of me wants to carry a scroll with the particulars of my life. When somebody asks me what have I been up to, I could reach for my scroll and read it top to bottom without having to think about it. But that will never happen. I'm not going to carry a scroll. That's just plain silly.
            So instead, I'm going to try to be more honest about it when I'm asked how I'm doing.
           "I wish I could explain it to you, but it's not easy."

The Rebuild

            
            My car conked out on me. I had it towed to a mechanic that I'd never used before. I'd talked to him once prior and I had a good feeling about him, but when he told me how much it was going to cost to fix I had a immediate reaction to it.
            "That sounds high." I said.
            "I know," was his response. 
            I have an older car, and the parts are hard to find. In this case I needed a distributor. I asked the mechanic if I could find the part myself. He agreed to it.
            I found the part for less money on the internet, but something felt funny about buying it on the internet. I wasn't sure what the exact part was, and I didn't want to buy it blind. I decided to check with a neighborhood Latino shop that did me right once before. They deal with starters and alternators, but I thought I'd ask if they had distributors. The man at the counter said no. But then he added, Yoonikee.
            Yoonikee?
            He wrote down a number on a scrap piece of paper and sent me on my way. I called Yoonikee. He said he could rebuild it at a real fair price, half of what the mechanic was going to charge me. I picked up the distributor from the mechanic and took it to Yoonikee's. It turned out Yoonikee is Unique. The man at the counter had his doubts about rebuilding it. He made a phone call and talked to Unique and told him I was waiting for him.
            When Unique walked in he seemed to circle around the distributor and eye me at the seem time. He picked up the distributor and examined it closely. He turned to the man at the counter and said a few words in Spanish. He was still holding the distributor in his hand. I was getting a sinking feeling, like he wasn't going to be able to fix it. The the man behind the counter translated for Unique, "It's going to be a little more, the parts are hard to find"
            Then Unique spoke to me in broken English. "I've been doing this for forty years. I gave you a good price." I nodded my head in agreement. Unique was wearing a Dodgers cap. He had small eyes, and a big heart. I felt like the cosmos had cradled me in its arms. 

The Pine Tree Dropped Its Seeds

           
            I'm a compulsive weather watcher. I like to look at satellite pictures from the National Weather Service. I'll check the site two or three times a day to see what the clouds are doing in the Pacfic. My hope is that it will rain someday. But I'm constantly fooled. I've been let down so many times, I'm beginning to resent Oregon.
            A curious thing happened the other night. I was awoken from a deep sleep by the sound of pine nuts falling on my deck. The pine tree that abuts my cabin is dropping seeds. The seeds look like, and are about the same size as Milk Duds. I thought it was odd that the tree would be dropping seeds without the prospect of rain. At least that's what the experts were saying. No rain. But when I looked at the satellite picture it looked like rain to me.
            Does the pine tree know something about the weather that scholarly man does not? As it turned out, it rained the following day despite the forecast. Just lightly, but it rained. My assumption was, yes, the pine tree does know more about the weather than scholarly man. Of course it could be coincidental. But it's cloudy now and the forecast says clear days. The satellite picture says rain to me, and the pine tree dropped more seeds ... I'm betting on the pine tree.
             Days later: It never rained. The storm conked out. Lesson: Never bet on a pine tree when it comes to predicting the weather. 

Click-on Breasts

     
          Here's a question: Why is it acceptable to be deceptive on the Internet? It seems like if a website is not trying to trick you, they're not putting in the work. I think most people have come to accept this as normal. Or they don't even think about it as depraved.
          I'm not saying the Internet should have rules or anything like that. I'm just saying I'm aware of how its affecting my life. I can't even click on a photo of a nice pair of tits anymore. It's disgusting. I'm led down a rabbit hole to a world of horrifying faces and tummy tucks. It's just not right. Nobody asked me if it was okay. Would you like to see our horrible world? No, they just put their foot on the gas and blammo! I'm looking at cosmetic surgery disasters. It's hostage taking that's what it is. And it ain't right.

The Catholic Funeral

     
          I had to go to a funeral. It was a Catholic mass. I've always wondered why Catholic funerals were so long. I grew up Methodist, and the Methodists will sing a few hymns, say a few words and blam, send you on your way. Not the Catholics. They make it last.
          It occurred to me during mass that the church probably charges by the hour. That's why the masses are long. You get the church, the father, the organ player for an hour. And the fathers don't short change their customers so when you go to a Catholic funeral expect to sit for that long.
          I didn't time it, but it felt like an hour. I can only sit still for a little while before I get ants in my pants. At Catholic masses I get antsy about three minutes in. So it feels longer than it actually is.  
          I'm not sure why the fathers still speak Latin. Nobody speaks Latin anymore. There was a whole segment of the mass where nobody knew what was being said. They could have said anything they wanted. They could have made fun of people and said the most ridiculous things. A part of me wishes they did. 
          All I was thinking about, and I'm probably going to hell for this, was Cheech and Chongs' character Sister Mary Elephant. O' felli me fossi a sus dominos.
          

NBA Basketball

         
            I don't usually blog about sports, but this has been on my mind and I need to get it off my chest. There's a lot of generational comparisons of the NBA. Who was better? Would Stephen Curry be as good a player back then? I think he would have been.
            What no one is talking about is the game itself. What is the object of the game? The object of the game is to put the ball in the basket, and to stop your opponent from putting the ball in the basket. Whoever gets the most points wins. The easiest and best shots are slam dunks and lay ups. The hardest and worst shot you can take is a three point shot. It's such a bad shot that you're awarded an extra point if you make it. Simple, right? There's a logic to it.
            When I was growing up, when we walked to and from school uphill both ways, basketball players abided by these simple principles. Sure, players took three point shots, but it was understood that it was a bad shot. Nowadays, players are chucking three point shots as if they were good shots, and that can drive a thinking man crazy. It's hard to watch. Even the best three point shooters in the league miss half of the time.
            When I played on the playground, if someone was chucking threes over and over and missing, we'd either tell them to stop shooting threes or not pass the ball to him. Sometimes I'd look a player right in the eye and pass it to someone else.
            The object of the game is to win. The best shot in basketball is a slam dunk or a layup, the worst shot in the game is a three point shot. That will never change unless there's a four point shot. And let's hope that never happens or we'll have change the name from basketball to bouncy ball. 
             

Drum Circles

           
            I went to a drum circle. I never felt more empty in my life. I got there a little late so I sat outside the circle with some other guy. He had a blank empty look on is face. He could have been a robot spy for all I knew.
            I grabbed a drum and sat on a love seat. A man walked up to me- without me knowing it, I had sat on his shirt. I apologized. His shirt looked like part of the couch to me.
            I started drumming and true to form at most drum circles no one was holding down the bass. I looked around the room and people were frantically drumming away. I was like having a room full of lead guitarists. Whatever, I'll hold down the bass.
         The man whose shirt I'd sat on kept looking over at me. I wasn't sure why. He looked just like a snake oil salesman.
          The hostess brought the drumming to a stop and suggested that people outside the circle find a seat in the circle. I got up to move toward an empty chair. I was reaching for it to sit down when the snake oil salesman cut in front of me and took it. I stood in disbelief. I would have said something if it weren't a drum circle in a respectable home. My idea of a drum circle is good vibes. I let it go, sort of.
           Now I was sitting behind the snake oil salesman, and the energy of the drumming picked up. I was pounding on my drum pretty hard. All the while I was thinking that my drum was the snake oil salesman's head. I'd look at his head and pound my drum left, right, left, right over and over. I really took it out on him. Deep down that's what I wanted to do, I just wanted to slap him silly. We were instant enemies in my mind.
           So much for good vibes at drum circles. Sometimes they're just pure evil.