Click click

This is crazy. I need another hobby like I need another hernia. Like I don't have enough to do.

A couple weeks ago, I went onto Flickr to find Creative Commons works for a brochure (to use with attribution to the artist). I had never spent much time on the site, and I was blown away--not so much by the quality of photographs, but by the size and depth of the shooting community, the camera comparisons, the ability to see which camera and which settings were used for so many shots, the comments, the ability to control rights, blah blah blah and etcetera.

I was hooked. I wrote down the names of cameras I was interested in, that I might be able to afford. I didn't actually think I'd buy one... I had way too much Christmas shopping to do.

Then I went to Circuit City's going away party in Concord, looked inside a lonely glass case, and saw the Nikon I had researched only a few days before--for neary $300 less than its normal retail.

Mind you I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing with this thing, or with Photoshop for that matter. It doesn't matter. I'm printing out free guides from friends and the Internet. And already I have nicer photos of my family than I ever had before. If I could just squeeze some non-working time out of the daylight... if if if...

"Already dumb"

I read something like Already Dead and wonder about the limits of my own imagination. Denis Johnson besides being deliciously poetic captures the interiors of multiple charaters without ever being duplicitive or cliche.

On the one hand it's inspirational. On the other, I look at my own writing and the complete life and death struggle that goes on just creating Scene, and I want to cry.

At least I'm enjoying a great read.

Knife Rider

I'd promised, but I really didn't want to go ice skating. It's a rotten business. I last went years ago and nearly died. I'm tall with weak ankles and have trouble keeping my feet on top of what are essentially knives turned sideways. Plus the slip-sliding part and the ice being hard part ... it all sort of makes my tailbone want to hide inside my colon.

But when they opened up the yearly ice rink as they do each holiday season, I was stuck. If you break a promise to a kid you lose respect, and when you lose respect you lose everything. That's my thinking. So if not losing everything meant I had to ride on knives, so be it.

The kids and I started out by clutching the wall, then letting go and slowly getting better, each in our own way. Joey became Brian Boitano on crack. Tanner employed what she called "the bicycle method," and stopped hollering for me every fiften seconds to save her. I scritched, jiggled and flailed, but my tailbone did not go down.

I began to sweat. I took off my jacket and let November raise the hairs on my skin. I hummed along to Christmas tunes. I guess I bounced a little.

Rounding a curve, an arm reached over the wall and grabbed at me. Momentary panic -- I couldn't fall, not now! -- turned and saw a co-worker from one of my 37 different jobs. I once helped her out with some online flyers. "Hey!" We smiled and hugged. I felt a warm kiss on my cheek.

We chatted a little. Then I pardoned myself and went on skating. Because I hate ice skating, you see. Can't stand it.

...

Toss out this model and find me a substitute
It doesn't work for me
Its functions are limited, like my body
its scale is uneven, unbalanced
like my temperament
it's portrayal of reality is inaccurate and ugly
like my thoughts.
It's a poor enunciation of my hopes and dreams.
In fact
just forget the whole thing
and get me
a cupcake

Regret

When I’m close to operating at maximum bandwidth, my mind contracts, and I go straight for the TV. It really is heroin for the brain and I can’t help but succumb. I go and go and go and then I drop and allow all the cynicism of the Daily Show and Family Guy and the violence and cynicism of sporting events to take over.

This duality seems to be my fate. I've been unable to escape it, even though I know I should by reading more, or meditating more, or just watching the wind push around the trees. And the days fly past, I mean really fly. Kids grow. My stomach grows.

Something’s gotta give. Just hope it’s not a stroke, at least not yet. I was actually thinking about it before I went to sleep last night. Man, that would just screw up everything.

Happy Thought For The Day!

This is a beat up world. The world is getting beat up. It’s a bad world, though.

-Joey, 7

Sucking is good for you

I'm not the rabid Ira Glass fan, but what he says here on the creative process is pretty dead on ... and makes me more comfortable about sucking so badly.

RIP

My father is my greatest hero, not so much for what he achieved, but particularly for what he surmounted late in life. He was tough, unflinchingly honest, and sensitive -- and always my biggest fan.

The closest I ever came to idolizing any other man was Paul Newman, who happened to be born in the same year as my father.

What I learned from Newman's movies, and later, from what I read about the artist himself, was no less than how to be a man. From his philanthropy and playing against his looks to the gutsy, unforgettable roles in Hud, The Hustler, Butch Cassidy, Slap Shot, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and my favorite (and that of many guys I know), Cool Land Luke.

Even though I've known this day was coming, I still feel like a baby. A world without Paul Newman is just weird.

Shameless

Republicans aren't stupid, but compared to Democrats, they have a better idea of how stupid Americans are. Too often, we prove them right.

I hope this isn't one of those times.

...

Nowadays, when I move my head too fast, I get dizzy. I discovered this while playing with my 18-month-old son, Sonny. What I do is I turn my head in big circles and “snap” it into a funny face pointed directly at him, which always makes him smile. After I do this a few times, my eyeballs start feeling like they’ve detached from whatever fleshy goo holds them in place.

It makes me sad that my body doesn’t hold itself together like it used to. I feel like I should start riding roller coasters, or surf, or run – something – to get my body tight again. It’s the only way, right? I can’t just take a crescent wrench and turn every loose nut, like I did with my green Schwinn with the flatback rear tire that I Evil Knieveled over sidewalk squares a long time ago.

But sometimes it seems no matter how much body maintenance I do – and I’ve done a fair share – Sonny, or his children or his children’s children, will eventually find me one day in the back corner of the garage covered in cobwebs and rust, and they will try to climb on and discover some unknown, disgustingly sticky substance, or some part will fall off. I’ll be useless, or just not useful enough, and they’ll be disappointed and leave me in some dark, dank place where the pace of my deterioration will be left unfettered, until no one can stand the sight of me. The image won’t wash with the person they knew. It will actually be painful for them.

Then, in my final moments, as they’ve gathered around some technological feat of a hospital bed that hasn’t yet been built, I’ll snap my head and make that same old funny face -- but this time with big, yellowy, darkness-encroaching eyeballs and a mouthful of nubbed and missing teeth. It may not be my choice, but I may even expel loudly a load of auburn-tinted diarrhea smelling of dead cat, just for extra impact.

The reaction will be my joy. The horror on their faces, the running around to plug my holes, the frantic search for the nurse button. Someone may barf. Or, on the other hand, they may just laugh. Either way, it'll be sweet.

And I’ll close my eyes, apologize, and promise never to do it again.

'They were just there to make us look as ninja as possible'

I don't have the time to really put this into personal context.... just imagine me and an unnamed friend in this photo, and replace any altrustic excuses in story linked below with police discovering certain substances in our car as well as a video documenting the depths of our stupidity.

Video here and story here.

Q: What are you doing with weapons?

A: Those weapons, they were just there for show. They were just there to make us look as ninja as possible.

Lessons...

Joey and I are listening to some of my favorite tunes on YouTube. Joey loves punk rock. To mix it up a little, I play “Straight To Hell,” a menacing yet slower tune than what we had been listening to.

“This isn’t punk,” Joey tells me.

“What are you talking about?” I say. “Of course it is.”

“No, it’s not!”

“What’s punk, then?”

“You know."

Joey immediately flails his entire body like only Joey can, like linked, snapping wires -- like those tiny plastic dolls that when you push the bottoms their limbs collapse and fling back into place, except Joey does over and over again and in a blur, convulsing and contorting… I see a foot here and a butt there and I swear a hand almost touches the ceiling despite the fact he just turned seven and does not yet reach four feet. This entire display lasts but three seconds, whereupon I decide that my son is the King, no-- the POPE of this particular kind of physical madness that falls one step short of epilepsy and a trip to the emergency room.

I’m so enthralled I’ve completely forgotten his point. But he hasn’t.

“THAT’S punk, Dad," he says.

...

Why, yes... Yes it is. Good boy, Joey.

F.U. to arrogant so-and-so's everywhere

Six months or so after my first iPod committed suicide, my wife got me a new iPod Nano (as some sort of make-up present for neglecting the dishes) and it’s simply awesome.

Watching Metalocalypse cartoons at lunch is bomb-riffic. But the best thing is that I’ve rediscovered podcasts, including the jazz, poetry and fiction ones I can listen to while driving (always with one earplug) or during non-demanding periods at work.

Yesterday I came across two stories. One was about Steve Almond, a short story/essayist who recently came out with “My Year as a Poet,” about his failed attempts at poetry. It’s pretty funny. However, I was a little saddened to hear Almond gave up his awful poetry after a more established poet, who Almond won’t name, told him that, well, he wasn’t really a poet.

Almond thanks this guy, quits his folly, and seems much better and happier for it. Good for him. I, on the other hand, am left somewhat shocked and disgusted. Who the f&%$ does this other poet think he is???

I’m all for someone’s ability to criticize my work, even if they have no talent whatsoever. That’s part of the craziness that is America. But who is anybody to tell Almond – as bad of a poet as he may be – is not a real poet? If you set about writing poems as your main “thing” in life, and you write and perform poem after poem, you are a poet regardless of your talent level, which is entirely subjective – even if you poems are so horrible they trigger mass suicides.

I mean, the arrogance!

Man, I was pissed off. I’m getting pissed off just thinking about it again.

But then I heard a story that made me chuckle at the self-importance of entire literary industry construct (a construct, which, I admit, I have had little to no dealings with, save for a handful of rejection letters).

Let me say right off that “The Lace Reader” by Brunonia Barry is a book I’ll probably never read. It’s apparently about women who can “read the future from a pattern of lace.” I might read it, I don’t know. But the subject doesn’t really appeal to me.

The beauty of this book is that it was initially self-published – on unbound sheets of paper – and passed around at a series of book clubs long before the plus-$2 million publishing deal came around.

Rare, perhaps. Still, for circumcising the entire we-bestow-book-deal-upon-Thee-ishness that makes or breaks writers (real writers and "not really writers"), Brav-O, Ms. Barry.

Why I don't do math

I was looking up the word "catenary" for work and I see this:


..and I think to myself, thank God I learned to write.

I remember being about 7 or 8 and finding some old book on calculus in my parents' bookshelves. I thought, "I'm going to read this book and go right to college. Everyone's going to be so impressed!"

Then I saw stuff like the "thing" above. And I thought, there's no way. My mind isn't built like that.

I'm a curious person if nothing else, but my brain actually seizes when I see mathematical formulas of even mild complexity. I still think people who do those things are somehow alien life forms.

Pieces

Can we please stop?

Now what?

Just stop.

The car skids and leans sharply on the Twinkie-soft embankment. I can't catch the notebook. It slides across the dash, slaps off the passenger window, and lands on Candice’s lap.

Hell, I would have opened it, too.

Ka-blooey.

Always a great quote from this pisser

Johnny Lydon, interviewed in '87 while drinking beer for breakfast (which is one of my favorite treats, by the way):

Q: One last question. What do you think of Deep Purple?

Lydon: Nothing. My mind is a blank. (laughs) Why, are they big here?

Q: Yes.

Lydon: Oh, how pathetic. I thought we buried that lot years ago. Ah well. Bad habits die hard.

Off to work we go

No, we don't just regurgitate cracked-out reality TV stars on this blog. Here's a fuzzy view of the monkeys streaming in from Pittsburg at 4-something in the morning--and at 4-something a gallon. You can almost smell their deodorant and taste the protein bars still stuck to their teeth. At least I can. I know, that's gross.

I'm losing my marbles

Verne Troyer sues over sex tape. World jolted by news, loses collective breakfast. Sewers clog, panic ensures, society collapses, Earth implodes. *Poof*

Hey, at least one freaky midget/dwarf/little person/weeble is getting some, as well he should. I wonder if he did it in his electric cart and peed on a flower pot afterward. Cuz if he did, like, he would so be the "mack."

Rock!

It happened.

Eleven years later, Kung Fu Grip returned to the scene of the crimes (of which there were many) and ripped it up.

We rocked. We sucked. We were loud. Every band we played with was better than us, but we still felt like kings.

I saw people who were KIDS when I last saw them, now grown up, and playing in their own bands. They said we were the shit. I admit, that felt gooooood.

There were no kids, no wife, and no money. For a week, I lived off Lone Star Beer and V8s. Check out the pint of whisky in my back pocket.

There's not a lot I can write about it, except I love Brent, Tom and Pete like brothers, and I never even realized it. There's something to be said about music, punk rock, friends, alcohol and freedom, but I'll be damned if I know what it is.

I'll regret a lot of things on my deathbed, I'm sure. This ain't one of 'em.

O Superman

O superman. o judge. o mom and dad. mom and dad. o superman. o judge. o mom and dad. mom and dad. hi. Im not home right now. but if you want to leave a message, just start talking at the sound
E tone. hello? this is your mother. are you there? are you coming home? hello? is anybody home? well, you dont know me, but I know you. and Ive got a message to give to you. here come the plan
O you better get ready. ready to go. you can come as you are, but pay as you go. pay as you go. and I said: ok. who is this really? and the voice said: this is the hand, the hand that takes. thi
The hand, the hand that takes. this is the hand, the hand that takes. here come the planes. theyre american planes. made in america. smoking or non-smoking? and the voice said: neither snow nor
Nor gloom of night shall stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. cause when love is gone, theres always justice. and when justive is gone, theres always forc
D when force is gone, theres
Always mom. hi mom! so hold me, mom, in your long arms. so hold me, mom, in your long arms. in your automatic arms. your electronic arms. in your arms. so hold me, mom, in your long arms. your
Chemical arms. your military arms. in your electronic arms.

Brent & Pete, Art Studio, Beaumont, TX 4/19/08

Brent & Pete, Art Studio

Cousin Phelpy

Scrabble Robot

Bathroom, Vortex, Beaumont

Tommy, Port Neches, TX

KFG, 2008. (I'm hiding)

Drinkin' at Lola's, Houston

Lone Star Beer Diet, lost 15 pounds!

Brent, trying to remember his own lyrics...

No country for old men...

...totally country for snakes, though

El Rio Grande

San Antonio

Whistle Stop Art Studio, Santa Barbara

You can see it from the station. Cool building. Reminds me of where I'm going...

Micro packer

11-day trip, and this is all I carry. I'm pretty fuckin' proud of myself. Includes 3 sets of clothes, laptop, various pills, towel, food, vitamins, water bottle 3/4 full of Seagrams, and first season of Starsky & Hutch. I am sooo hyphy I could pee myself.

View from a Window on a Train

Ahh

Congress Hotel, Tucson

Drinkin Red Stripe ... yeah, I know these pictures are totally out of order...

Sittin' on the Embarcadero

Eastbound and down...

Henry on DJ'ing

watch video

Disclosure: I like some DJ-ing. I think DJ-ing is an art.

Yet I'm closer to Henry's view on the matter.

Working too damn much

...but making good money.

Actually, the money hasn't been that great until now. I got my first real copywriting gig, and I think I charged too low, but the end result is it's more money per hour than I've ever made in my life.

Last year I went bananas reading all these self-help, motivational books and starting planning what I wanted to do financially with my life. It's nice to see things not so much coming together, but getting better, and habits forming that mean something.

The goal was always working for myself, personally controlling how and when I worked, and spending quality time with my family and friends. Lately it's just been WORK... but I'm starting to see some light at the end of the flashlight.

Today, for instance. I could afford to wake up and drink a beer for breakfast. Just one beer, because I don't have to think too much today. I can't tell you how good it feels, day or night, to be in the shower with hot steaming water engulfing your skin and the cold, hoppy goodness of a Lagunitas IPA sliding down your throat, generating a warmish glow in a very chi-ish place.

No. I couldn't begin to tell you.

What's up...

Damn what a holiday season. Six birthdays in the immediate family, Xmas and New Year's all in one month. Nintendo DS's for three kids. I'm a broke ass mutha.

Got sick with one of my vintage Coughs From Hell. Still don't think I've buried it yet.

The band's getting back together. Bought a new guitar and amp, heading to Texas in April. Maybe getting a band together here. Learning old songs, writing new ones, getting my musical chops back... however shitty they were to begin with. Sometimes I think the only musical gift I have is playing loud. But I love it.

Writing. Forcing myself to. Working 60 hours a week, four kids, force is the only way.

Oh, and a bright spot. I go into work yesterday, and Sharon's trying to score tickets to the Deadheads for Obama show at the Warfield Monday by refreshing Ticketmaster over and over again. I offer to help, she sends me the link and blam! we both hit the jackpot. So within ten seconds, I decide I like Barrack Obama, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Phil Lesh just enough to buy my own tickets.

The show sold out in nine minutes. Craigslist is littered with sad Deadheads looking to pay between $1 and $1,000,000 for a ticket. But I'm getting my Dead on, ya'll!!!

Writing in the present tense

Struggling right now with this. A while back I started righting short fiction in the present tense. It was fun to reveal story as it happened. I liked the immediacy of it. And in first-person, I felt it was almost easier to hoist the reader on my back, so to speak, and show him or her around.

This seems to work particularly well in short, single-scene pieces. In longer form, however, I'm finding that staying in the present tense is pretty tough. It's tricky to describe the past in the present without it feeling cumbersome or awkward.

Just something bugging me right now, because I like the present tense and want it to work. With a couple days off, I may try finding novels that manage to do this. We'll see...

Tom Wolfe on writing

My latest hobby is scrolling through the NPR archives for interesting pieces on books and other stuff. I know I'm late to this particular party ... I used to only listen to public radio -- or any radio -- while driving. I don't drive that much.

What I just realized--duh--is that I don't have to wait for the clock to roll around to catch a good program on the radio. I can just go to the NPR site and click what programs I want to listen to. Somehow I always knew I could do this, but hadn't really wanted to until I missed a Normal Mailer interview that took place earlier this year.

After that, I hit up a Tom Petty retrospective interview, caught up on This American Life, and some odd book readings that I'll never have the time to make in person.

The best one so far was a Tom Wolfe interview aired 20 years ago and re-aired to celebrate Fresh Air's 20th anniversary. Wolfe talked a lot about writing and the genesis of his writing style... like writing a novel like you're pretending to be writing a letter to a friend, and how he purposely choose clothing that stood out, which seems antithema to the traditional fly-on-the-wallishness of being a writer.

"It is much more effective," he said, "to arrive at any situation as the Man from Mars, than to try to fit in."

I'm probably guilty of idolizing mainstream or popular authors like Wolfe too much. It's not like I don't read lesser known scribes. But I'm fascinated with why certain authors are considered greats, and I often find I waste little time when reading them.

Anyway Wolfe's interview is good stuff.

Norman Mailer, RIP

Seems all the giants of letters that I got to know as a young man are going, one by one. This week it was Norman Mailer, arguably the biggest one left. (Not too long ago it was Vonnegut.)

NPR had a really good interview with them recently, by Michael Krasny, that they aired tonight. In it, Mailer toys with the idea of death and reincarnation, and how God judges our worthiness by what he assigns us to be in a second life. Mailer wants to be a black athelete, but figures he'll just be a cockroach -- but the fastest cockroach on the block.

I, like Krasny, hopes he becomes a black athelete. Toodles, Norman.

Aldo Nova, say it 10 times fast

I've been working too hard lately and I know it. It's nice to have money. I wish, though, I could have more time to write... and to twibble around on the Internet.

No idea what "twibble" really means.

I like my jobs, though. The second one is the best. Lots of weird, interesting people. Kind of like a newsroom. I feel right at home -- and appreciated.

The first job -- in daily order, at least -- is a little more jarring, in a capitalist sort of way. But good for cash.

The third I never go to anymore. That's a story for another time... or another blog.

The fourth is writing. I do it when I can. Like, I'm writing right now. And what I want to write about, I can't even explain.

It's about this guy, and this song, and I don't know. I'm just dreaming of leopard skin.

God help me.

NERDIEST picture ever

Six albums for a penny!

When I was 12 years old I took the record club flyer out of the Sunday paper, chose six albums and taped a penny into the circle.

The albums came. They reflected my taste in music at the time, which reflected my friend's taste in music, who lived across the street and had two older brothers. (Everything I learned about sex, drugs and rock and roll came from you, Jeff. Muchas gracias.)

I don't remember all the albums. I remember some.

Foreigner, "Foreigner;" Eagles, "Hotel California," Queen, "Live Killers," and Styx, "Cornerstone."

Come September, I'll see two of those bands en concerto: Foreigner and Styx. I'm more looking forward to the latter.

Without a doubt, Styx was the last great "concept rock" band of the 70s. "The Grand Illusion," "Renegade," "Come Sail Away," all classic gems.

The band was ill-suited for the 80s, a little too deep and not quite cute enough, I suppose. They literally got laughed off the stage with their Mr. Roboto stage "play."

I think there were some reunion gigs with Dennis DeYoung in the years after. But according to the best "Behind the Music" VHI ever produced -- in my humble opinion -- DeYoung got some strange disease where he was allergic to light. I don't think he tours with them any more.

Anyway, going to see them, along with 3 3/4ths of the original Def Leppard. RAWK!

By the way, that record club? My dad called them up and told them I was only 12 years old. Never joined their stupid club. Kept the records, though.

RAWK!

Goodbye black tar

I think I give up. I need sugar and cream -- or milk -- in my coffee. And that's that.

I tried to be the total con-o-sewer and drink it black. I wanted to like the taste of coffee for what it is. It would streamline my morning, too, not having to fool around with granules, a gallon jug and a spoon.

Its coffee's own fault for getting watered down, though. It teases you into thinking it tastes good.

Stick your nose into a bag of cold, rich beans, and breathe in. Oh, sweet delight! But brew it, or french press it, or drip it, and it's a different story.

Speaking of marriage, my wife scowls at my half-finished mugs with the liquid sitting there, fermenting like motor oil, with hint of aluminum. Meanwhile, my credit card surges with Red Bull purchases.

I love my better half, by the way.

But I hate the bitterness of untreated java. I realize that now. When it gets cold, it's even worse. At least coffee that's been properly sweetened and creamified still tastes consumable when it's lukewarm.

So give me a coffee "regular," as they say in Noo Yawk, and call me a moe if you want. See that gleam in my eye? It's my tummy, giving you the finger.

American Hero Redefined

C to the H to the E to the S to the T to the NUT.

Eat your food! Eat it! EAT EAT EAT YAWM YAWM YAWM GAK ...

I'm lost, I'm lost... Find me!

By this blog it seems I live half my life in yesteryear. Anywho...

The good part:

A friend yesterday loaned me the first season of Land of the Lost on DVD. I realize only now what a profound impact it must have had on me as a kid.

It isn't Lidsville, Sigmund, or Pufnstuf. It's actually pretty dark ... and, in spite of the overacting, damn good. I had nightmares about being cornered by Sleestak in the Lost City. And now my kids are as hooked as I was. I mean they LOVE it.

The depressing part is this: There's a movie version coming out. It's described as a drama/COMEDY, starring Will Ferrell.

I admit it, the Brady Bunch Movie was campy and fun. But with all these old TV shows being rejiggered for the big screen, it makes the stuff I grew up with seem cheap, like a big joke. That's my fear.

Yeah, there was some bad acting in Land of the Lost. But it had good writers. And for a sci-fi kids show, it was pretty hardcore. Characters got badly hurt or slipped into other dimensions, and dinosaurs ate each other.

That being said, I'll probably like the remake... making this rant nothing of consequence. Where's my beer?

Father's Day

At the water park
you don't feel so out of shape
you eat fried foods
sit on damp grass
and play guess their age
after a certain time
we're all "old" anyway
we slow down and pick up fat and wrinkles and balding patterns and cankles
meanwhile
the real youth fly
through neon play equipment
collecting scabs and sunburns
in a haze of hot dog smoke
on to tomorrow

Freaking out at the imprinting thing...

My youngest is four months old, and he smiles. A lot.

What I want to know is, what the hell is he smiling at?

I make funny faces, funny sounds. Oo-ba-doo-bee. Shit like that. But what, specifically, makes the grin crack?

Is he copying my smile? Are my words and faces THAT pleasing to look at? Or is it my intent that elicits the response?

If parents never smiled, would their babies never smile, too?

Red Sweater

fiddles and cakes
bitches and flakes
a hand scrubbed hard
with lemon scented lard
in a kitchen with black and white tiles
and one red tile
Coca-cola signs over the sink
all retro and shit
dreaming of showtimes,
a man-sized girl
sitting in a thin steel chair
pasta slipped through the stovetop coils
burnt black
don't look back
eating alone
with a cat
still in her work clothes
jewelry on
she'll make the Disney dream fit

The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste

Welcome to the post that will get me labeled as a weak-willed whacko susceptible motivational crapspeak.

So I've been checking out the "how to succeed" book section at work. These are the kinds of books I've avoided since I first dabbled in them as a confused teen (I once wanted to be a cop, going so far as wearing a tan trenchcoat, a la Columbo), before opting for books for artistic enjoyment or facts.

A few years ago, as I was wrapping up my personal Year Of Hell, a friend's dad recommended that I read "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. It contained the key to life, he said. Read it. Know it. Live it. And you'll be OK.

I had never heard of Napoleon Hill. But my friend's dad was so adamant, I bought the book and forced myself to read 50 pages, until I felt ready to puke.

BOR-ING.

Fast forward a few years. I've now read the entire book and even listened to the audio version. I've also read J. Paul Getty's "How to Live Rich," Bob Proctor's "You Were Born Rich," and a few other sales/motivational tomes. Which is really funny when you think that, 20 years ago, I was sitting in my mom's house, mirthfully running my fingers through the 30 joints I had just rolled, giggling like Scrooge McDuck.

So why am I reading these things?

I don't know. But I know it has something to do with my way of thinking, and probably a bit about where I've been, where I am, and where I want to go.

What I'm learning from these books is that I haven't been preparing for success as much as I've been trying not to fail. For example, I used to say I was always motivated best by desperation. There certainly seems to be truth in this. Proctor, for example, teaches about creating vacuums by getting rid of things you don't want to make room for the things you do want, even if you don't have the money to buy them. You're actually acquiring the need.

Anyway, before, I had lots of confidence. But I was confident only in my ability to work hard, not to get ahead. When I had success, I was always just pleasantly surprised. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. I should expect to reach my goals, and carry on as though I will.

Just thinking out loud here.

I realize a lot of these books are produced by self-promotional wingnuts who had little to sell but their own mouth. Hill is still a boring read, who goes a little overboard with his "master mind" and "power of sex transmutation" crap. But it's not all bullshit I suppose.

Good times, bad times

Good time, morning: Spent five minutes on "floor" time at the office and got a $1.9 million client.

Bad time, night: Took kids to see Shrek III at the drive-in. We were behind the last car that got in. We didn't get in. Cue three crying and confused kids.

Hey, at least I'm drinkin'.

She just put her foot in it

Wife, watching Dancing with the Stars, on Billy Ray Cyrus's routine: "That was very gay."

Marysa, 6: "What's gay?"

Wife: "Uh, it means he's very happy ... and purple-ly."

Wha-??

"Little Sweetie?" Looks like her head was impaled by a bike tire...

Definitely a no-smoking zone

My stepdaughter, bless her soul, loves helping out. Give her a task, she's on it. She's six, adorable, and smart as science.

Even when you don't give her a task, she's always on the lookout for something to do. Some way to contribute.

The other day she was in our front yard and saw a red watering can. "I'll feed the plants," I reckon she said to herself.

Feed the plants she did. With GASOLINE.

Thank heavens it's raining today...

Poem

like a troll
in a dusty hole
brushing one's skin
against the dirt
digging, digging
smells like tinder
and mold
there's no gold
just the aged
bones and ash
of lives that passed
before your own
in a dusty hole
digging, digging
like a troll

Monday, Monday

1:45 p.m.

Got out of interview with "strategic planning officer" of tech company, a lizardy sort who couldn't stop talking though his voice failed. Leaving the Hilton, heading toward Market Street. Hot. I take off the $5 wool sports coat I picked up from Goodwill and think about giving it to a homeless guy.

The bare bones of the situation: I have an hour to kill, I'm done with work for the day, I have no kids on me and it is Monday. I need a bar. But this is not the Market Street I knew in my teens. Between Powell and Montgomery, there are no places to drink. Just Puma shops and electronics stores.

Look down side streets, Swill had said. Look, look. Is that one? Closer... Looks a century old. Crusty tile floor, wooden booths painted brown. Empty, but there's a blonde at the end of the bar on her cell. Yes, we're open. Saved.

Cheapest beer per ounce? PBR. You know it.

I have no cash and there's a $10 minimum tab. But my friend is coming, I will make him, using a magical text message. He will drink.

The beer goes down like soda and the girl cranks up some Bowie. I fold my coat, pull out a notebook, and toss my cell on the brown counter top. It sticks. I smile.

I always feel a little bit fake after talking to people like the lizard man. Now, lifted by the souls of generations of drinkers, I'm starting to feel OK, even if I'm bound to fall asleep on BART later and miss my stop.

An hour later my friend is by my side. He's making me laugh something stupid. Or maybe I'm making myself laugh. I can't remember. Probably both.

Ah, Mondays...

(Turns out I stumbled into a San Francisco landmark. The House of Shields originally opened in 1908. Stanton Delaplane mentioned it at least once, in a story about old watering holes in The Chronicle more than 20 years ago. "Writers discover saloons by a kind of ESP. They get on a stool behind a glass of Heineken and they know they're home. The Wash. Sq. is that kind of place. So is the House of Shields...")

She's a bouncy little thing, isn't she?

I was trying to find out what happened to Kenneth Eng, the "Why I Hate Blacks" guy. It appears I'm not alone. Funny how you can set off a racial firestorm that involves everyone from the NAACP and the House Speaker, and then make the world go away by masturbating into your plushie doll collection.

What I did find, however, was an unedited version of the column, proving the fine folks at AsianWeek at least did some work on this piece. Ha ha.

The superior find, however, was the above video, which immediately transported me back to 1980. When you're 12, there's nothing better than watching Battle of the Network Stars and seeing your favorite TV stars kick the asses of your little sister's favorite TV stars. Except, that is, for Chachi, who, I admit, OWNED the obstacle course event -- and Howard Cosell's heart:

"A tremendous victory! Scott Baio, what a victory! C'mere! Top of the heap! King of the hill! 'A' number one! Scott Baio, what a performance!"

It's almost like Cosell wants to take that scruffy little Scott Baio home and nuzzle him cooingly, while brushing his cigar-stained fingers up and down his back. Step off, Joanie!

Nice, too, were the days when one could call one's female co-star a "bouncy little thing."

Ted Fang

Many years ago, I worked for a chain of newspapers ran by a guy named Ted Fang. It was the kind of place you went to when you were trying to get somewhere else but didn't have "clips." Among us J-school types, Fang -- the scion of a wealthy and politically connected John Fang family -- was a notorious cheap-o.

The newsroom equipment was crappy. The papers were pretty much advertising flyers, distributed free in San Francisco and San Mateo County. "Readers" got them whether they wanted them or not. We called them bird cage liners. The hard work of writers and editors were stretched as far as possible ... one person might be responsible for reporting, editing and laying out the entire editorial part of a paper, as well as doing the police blotter and putting together community announcements.

I got my clips. But I never once saw Fang show an interest in anything that was actually printed ... In fact I rarely saw him at all. The rumor was he was handed the family's publishing business to give him something to do, and that his true loves were comic books and clubbing. That's what I heard anyway.

Which makes the following a little funny to me, even if it isn't very funny at all.

Ted Fang's still in the business, and, among other things, "runs" AsianWeek, another free, crappy rag that parlays the Bay Area's huge Asian population into ad revenue. Thousands, possibly millions of Americans would never have heard of it -- IF Fang didn't hire a 23-year-old science fiction writer/columnist who began penning such gems like "Proof That Whites Inherently Hate Us" and "Why I Hate Blacks."

In the latter piece, published on Feb. 23, the author, Kenneth Eng, actually implores readers to discriminate against black people. No, it wasn't published a century ago ... not that it would make any more sense. It was published last week.

Cue shit hitting fan.

I could turn this into a rant about bad newspapers and the consequences of operating with little or no editorial oversight. Considering the general state of the newspaper industry, however, that would seem to be a waste of time. Sad, too, that AsianWeek probably employs people who might be embarrassed about what was happening, but needed the work. Who knows.

A small part of me, however, is grateful that Mr. Fang is finally getting exposed for being the bad publisher he is. In my experience, few deserve it more.

Ye Olde Dry Witch of Long Ago

He could tell he shouldn't have brought it up. She stopped chasing the baby and put her hands on her hips, mouth open like a caught fish. She used to seem so ... more than flesh and bone, less hollow. Now her lips traced a dry hole, as though when Bonnie was born, all the hope was gone and the moisture with it, until she creaked around the house like she was held together by rotten kindling. There wasn't enough water or skin cream to make it all go away -- those veins had sawdust in 'em. He knew he shouldn't have brought it up, see, because she was about to talk... and the bed and its cotton derby sheets where he could pretend to sleep were all the way on the other side of fuckin' house, and there was simply no way of getting there without feeling sheepish or stupid... anyway, YOU try it.

My latest creation

Sonny

Hernias!

Don't you love them.

Several things suck about hernias -- at least the inguinal kind, which I had:

1) Pervasive fear that intestines have slipped down into your nutsack and are crushing your nuts.

2) Pervasive fear that surgery means cutting into nerves heading toward your "fun zone" and that the surgeon may have been drinking the night before...

3) Pervasive PAIN following laproscopic bilateral hernia repair surgery. Vicodin notwithstanding. Can't do a single situp. Coughing hurts. Laughing hurts. Forget about lifting weights.

4) Because of 3), forced to walk like Fred Sanford. OK maybe not so bad. Fred had a pretty sweet pimp roll.

The benefits:

1) Self-medication. Taking two vicodin and chasing it with beer. A rare chance for us "straight" folks -- with kids -- to get ripped without guilt.

2) Well-wishers and sympathizers. A good friend called me up same day of the surgery to see how it went. Call me a sap, but I got teary eyed. No greater gift than just being cared about.