My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog

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2011-06-06T14:45:00.000-04:00

Hey boys and girls, I've moved the site over to here:

http://lancemyblogcanbeatupyourblog.wordpress.com/

Please join me.

The Agony and The Irony

2011-05-27T07:56:00.001-04:00

There was something missing in his eyes. I couldn't make out the color or the shape. Lucas' might have been green, blue or gray, but they weren't vibrant.

"How long have you been fixed?

Lucas took two steps toward me. I saw his large hands clench his slender waist.

"Six years. I went through some personal issues. I became desperate so I tracked Anson Cluber and Connor Bulas down through my Air Force contacts. The technology is very advanced. I decided to upgrade everything, including my heart and nervous system. My quality of life is impressive."

Lucas' ooze of self satisfaction angered me. Pain shot through my shoulder, My knees buckled and I dropped the folder he had given me. The papers spilled over the asphalt. He didn't try to help me pick them up.

"Caleb, of the other five, you are the best candidate. I tried to get Bruce to get worked on last year. His habits and his stubborness have rendered him to a poor condition. We ceased contact last year."

I got the folder together and gritted my teeth in frustration. I spit my words at him.

"Dude, their are five people involved. We are all worthy of being corrected!"

Lucas didn't change expression as he dropped his hands and shook his head, disapprovingly.

"Don't you think I checked on all of you before deciding who to contact? Lena has female problems stemming from childbirth. Clare is a twice institutionalized bi-polar, and Breann can't...."

My eyes lasered towards his expressionless face.

"Breann can't what?"

Lucas stepped away from me, put his right hand over his mouth and tried to find different words to speak.

"Discretion is important in this situation."

I couldn't tell if Lucas was an actual misogynist or good at pointing out my blind spots with women.

"Breann is a reporter, Lucas. But she wants to live a good life. She deserves that chance."

Lucas turned his back toward me and began to walk away.

"Everything you need to find Cluber and Bulas is in that folder and that drive. My hands are clean now, Caleb. I have a family to get back to."

I suppressed my temper and took one last shot at getting Lucas to explain himself.

"So, you have a wife and kids, Lucas?"

He stopped walking away and turned back to me slightly.

"Yes, I've been married 14 years. My sons are 12 and 9. I called you because of them. Your family needs their leader for as long as they can have him."

It was a weak connection but I reached Lucas. I tried one more question.

"Is it worth it. Being what are you are?"

For the first time since talking to him, he smiled. It was slight, but definitely more than a smirk.

"It feels amazing. Knowing you are better than everyone else is relieving. Caleb, we were experiments. We weren't meant to live. If you go through the surgeries, you'll never get sick. You'll recover from injury quickly. Most of all, you'll be guarenteed to be around for your family for a very long time. The agony of sudden death is turned into the irony of almost eternal life."

Lucas' words were stunning, yet I didn't feel like talking to him anymore. I turned around and walked out of the dark parking deck into the sunshine.

*blogger's note* - This is another episode of the story I am writing. The other ones are here:
1) Synchronicity

2) Personality Crisis

3) Serendipity 6

4) Hot Dog Harbinger

5) Goodbye Stranger

6) The House of Irony

7) Connection

8) Dead Man's Party

9) Hope Springs A Turtle

10) Drown

11) Toyed

12) Fever

13) The Girlfriend Experience

14) Sympathy for the Devil

15) Tomorrow, The Green Grass

16) Possession

17) Numb

18) Cage

19) Bullet Hits The Bone

20) Shut Your Eyes

21) Lone Justice

22) Threshold

23) Just
24) Called Out
25) Something Zen

Today's song reflects the title. The agont and the irony is a great phrase. Harvey Danger is another 1990s one hit wonder band with a kooky looking lead singer. The lyrics of Flagpole Sitta are like a theme song for me since I suffer from anxiety. The voices inside my head, I swear to God they're snoring...here's Flagpole Sitta

Something Zen

2011-05-25T17:33:00.000-04:00

A tall, thin man; Lucas Bonner looked younger than 40. His suit fit him perfectly. It was gray, conservative, devoid of personality with a gray tie knotted in the center of his neck. Lucas handed me a manila folder and a zip drive.

"Caleb, this will be our only contact. I am neither hungry for answers nor starved for attention."

I looked around the isolated parking deck, experienced a moment of zen, and asked my first question.

"How long will you live?"

Lucas smirked and replied.

"I am a hybrid. I will be well over 100 years when I expire."

*blogger's note* - This is another episode of the story I am writing. The other ones are here:
1) Synchronicity

2) Personality Crisis

3) Serendipity 6

4) Hot Dog Harbinger

5) Goodbye Stranger

6) The House of Irony

7) Connection

8) Dead Man's Party

9) Hope Springs A Turtle

10) Drown

11) Toyed

12) Fever

13) The Girlfriend Experience

14) Sympathy for the Devil

15) Tomorrow, The Green Grass

16) Possession

17) Numb

18) Cage

19) Bullet Hits The Bone

20) Shut Your Eyes

21) Lone Justice

22) Threshold

23) Just
24) Called Out
25) Something Zen

This is in the form of 100 words for the great 100 word challenge at @velvetverbosity 's http://www.velvetverbosity.com/ The one word prompt is STARVED.

Today's song is what has been playing in my head all day. The first lines are awesome: "There must be something we can eat. Should find another lover? Should I fly to Los Angeles, find my asshole brother."
Gavin Rossdale wrote this song about his new age philosophy spouting friend Perry Farrell (then of Jane's Addiction). To me, for this story entry, the song represents Caleb's exasperation with logical answers being hard to find and grasping the bigger truth. Here's Bush's Everything Zen...break out your best air grunge guitar.

I Want To Play Lady GaGa in Scrabble

2011-05-23T20:05:00.001-04:00

"The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool." - Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the late great Lester Bangs in Almost Famous - 2000.

The thing I like the most about personal blogging is I can be myself. This is the place where I can tell you how much I dig superheroes, music snobbery, and my anxiety disorder.

I have another aspect of my personality to reveal. My favorite board game is Scrabble. I really really really like Scrabble. A lot. I would watch people play it on television. I like it so much, that getting beat by my wife yesterday 238 points to 231 points didn't upset me because I spelled aqua and adorns . I was happy.

My word nerdom and Scrabble romance started young. My grandparents bought me a reference book set of encyclopedias, dictionary and thesaurus. I would go into my room and look words and subjects up just to entertain myself. This is the first time I telling anyone.

What I enjoy most about Scrabble isn't the accumulation of points, it's the moment(s) you come up with a word that requires thought and planning. Any numbskull add drop and S on skate and hit a triple word score and get 50 points. The best is pushing tiles on the board that spell quixotic. That geek time of the big smile and fist pump combined with the look the opposition give you indicating you belong in a dork asylum is priceless.

My favorite memory of scrabble is right now.

I'm playing my wife again. She's trying to trash talk to a second straight win while I'm working on spelling zephyr.

*blogger's note* This is my entry into The Red Dress Club's RemembeRED writing assignment. The prompt was this:

Today's song is the first repeat in the history of My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog. Last year, in writing about people listening to each other and being careful of the words they use, I referenced Missing Persons. As you can tell, this song is versatile. Also, Lady Gaga has NOTHING on the great Dale Bozzio. Dale looks like a piece of candy in this video. Here's Missing Persons Words....go die your hair blue.

Everybody Here, Comes From Somewhere

2011-05-22T07:24:00.000-04:00

The breeze lessened, curiously. I didn't say anything immediately to Lucas. I thought about how to get in touch with Breann or Ava.

"Caleb, I know this call is a bit of an odd surprise. I didn't think I wanted to be involved with my past. The more I thought about the five other people who have went through what I have, I felt I owed you a conversation."

Owed me? That line seemed so arrogant. We're dying from expiring robot parts. I wondered why he and Bruce were so elusive. The closest I had gotten to either was an email exchange with Lucas' former Air Force Academy teammate. I kept my cool.

"Lucas, thank you for calling me. So, how are you, you know, physically?"

I turned my phone to find the mute button so I could record the call and text Breann and Ava. Then he turned hostile.

"Caleb, you and I are going to talk privately or not at all. Whatever you just did with your phone, undo it. This is non-negotiable."

I recoiled at the weirdness. How did he know what I was doing?

"Lucas, I apologize. I was just texting one of the others to let them know we'd found you. I am so excited to hear from you."

Then a glare from the building to my left caught me, causing my eyes to shut.

"You're notifying Breann Lucos, the New York Post reporter. That will not work for me. The information you two have gathered isn't accurate and some people do not want to be involved with it."

I was annoyed and angry. The lack of personality was forgivable. He obviously wasn't going to hang with Breann and I socially. But, Breann, Lena, and Clare had been open and honest and enthusiastic. Even Ava was willing to identify the players and problems.

"Lucas, let's meet in person. Sometimes a phone call doesn't do a subject justice. Your area code is Tacoma, right? I had a friend stationed there after college."

I tried to text Breann again. Lucas yelled into the phone.

"Stop what you are doing! Listen to what you need to know to keep yourself alive! I can see everything you're doing!"

I turned 360 degrees, staring into every window. There were video cameras on every rooftop including my building. I slowly put the phone to my ear.

"Caleb, you are depending on others for your future. I can tell you how to save yourself. Knowing who the real enemy is, technology, not death, will keep you alive for a long time."

Now, I was mad. Getting lectured by a dispassionate creep was making me paranoid.

"Who are you? Where are you? and why in the hell do you care so little for the others?"

There was silence.

"Answer me Lucas, or whoever you are!"

I looked at the glare coming from the building to my left. I remembered that high rise belonged to a private jet leasing company headquartered in Seattle. I put the phone to my left side and raised my right hand like a salute to my eyes, trying to make put the silouette in the window. I put the phone back to my face.

"Is that you, Lucas."

He sighed and started to speak.

"Yes, Caleb. I walked over to the window. I've been watching you on a closed circuit tv inside this office. I'm in town for business. Now, do you want to talk on better terms?"

I never wanted to be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound more in my life.

"Yeah, go. I'm dying to know what you've got, Lucas. Literally."

The silouette moved away from the window.

"There were six. Two doctors named Connor Bulas and Anson Cluber developed robotic hearts that sent synapses to the brain and nervous systems.We're not all the same. The parts, the operations, the effects, were done in twos. Bruce and I were the first. We are the most alike. Lena and Clare are likewise. Thus making you and Breann the most related. The surgery you need can do more that save your life. It can extend it beyond your normal life expectancy. You need to pursue your own care and needs."

I started thinking that Lucas knew all of this because he had had the surgery. he wasn't sick and thus didn't care about the rest of us.

"Meet me in person, Lucas. Let's do this face to face, like men."

After more than 20 seconds of dead air, he spoke.

"I'll do it on one condition. Nothing is recorded, photographed, or put in Breann's newspaper or the internet. I don't want to be involved with the others. You agree and I'll give you Anson Cluber and Bruce Nolans."

I was dumbfounded by his demands. I played along.

"Deal. Name a place and time. I want to know where I come from."

This is another episode of the story I am writing. The other ones are here:
1) Synchronicity

2) Personality Crisis

3) Serendipity 6

4) Hot Dog Harbinger

5) Goodbye Stranger

6) The House of Irony

7) Connection

8) Dead Man's Party

9) Hope Springs A Turtle

10) Drown

11) Toyed

12) Fever

13) The Girlfriend Experience

14) Sympathy for the Devil

15) Tomorrow, The Green Grass

16) Possession

17) Numb

18) Cage

19) Bullet Hits The Bone

20) Shut Your Eyes

21) Lone Justice

22) Threshold

23) Just
24) Called Out

Thank for reading.

Today's song is mostly atmospheric with a slight lyrical nod to the story where Michael Stipe says "he's alive, he's alive" and the opening riff and line "everybody here, comes from somewhere". I was listening to R.E.M.'s Accelerate album earlier (it's good, you should own it) and thought the music matched the sudden turn of events. Plus, I wanted to include something relatively new, this song's only three years old. Dig the guitar and get into the feel. It's R.E.M.'s Supernatural Superserious.

Leaving Town

2011-05-20T23:35:00.000-04:00

People watching is an underrated pastime. Taking an inventory of your surroundings can bring you upon the most interesting types. While watching my daughter cheer for her high school football's scrimmage I kept seeing this girl who reminded me of someone. Her makeup was slight but sophisticated. She was completely distracted. She played with her iphone incessantly. I never saw her acknowledge her friends. Then, it struck me hard, this girl was kind of, sort of, like me, at age 17.

Her insouciance was intriguing. I never caught her name but she looked like an Allison. Allison was convinced she was meant for bigger and better things. I was like that. At 17, all I thought about was journalism. I wanted to be in New York covering sports or news. While her friends were gossiping and being silly, Allison smiled occasionally and kept her face buried in the iphone. Every once in a while, she would daydream.

I like my life right now. I never think about what might have been or what never happened, unless it makes a good blog post. Allison's dream gaze and her indifferent body language were so familiar that I wanted to sit down next to her, and say "dude, take in these simpler times. Life is a bout to get really friggin hard."

I see some of this with my daughter. Tay wants to be an investigative journalist. She wants to college in Boston then take over the world, one byline at a time. Tay has 3 more years before she is in Allison's position. Allison looked so eager to fly the coop, she was clucking with anticipation.

I doubt I'll ever see Allison again, unless she decides to grace her soon to be old high school with her bound for better glory self. I hope she takes in her good times, keeps a positive attitude, has humility, and plans for not making it, in case crap happens. When she was leaving I heard one of her friends mention New York. I assumed, for the sake of this blog post, that's where she was headed by the end of the summer.

The entire time I people watched Allison, and thought about my Tay, I sang Dexter Freebish's Leaving Town to myself. The lyrics are ideal to how I was taking in Allison and my daughter, Tay.

Today's song is from one of the best one hit wonder's ever. Dexter Freebish is from Austin, texas. They are named after a roller coaster. Their lead singer is just named Kyle. This song won the John Lennon songwriting award in 1999. It also fits every girl and/or guy we've known or we have been ourselves that has huge dreams, beyond their small town. I hope Allison hears this song and finds humility. It will help her find the success she dreams about. Here's Leaving Town.

P.S. for us Christians, this song serves as a theme for tomorrow's unlikely occurrence that I am unable to mention for fear of offending the "enough about The Rapture" crowd.

Called Out

2011-05-18T21:39:00.000-04:00

The damage I caused at home was extensive. The chasm between happiness and anger made communication between everyone tense.

I avoided Ava and endured Shane. Breann bravely acted as liason between my conflicted doctor and hurt wife.

The magnet's results were immediate. The lone side effect were hot flashes caused by fevers. I escaped to the cool breeze of my office's rooftop.

While finding comfort in a sweet tea and a turkey sandwich, my phone vibrated. The number started with a 253 area code. I swallowed hard and answered, curiously.

"Caleb Runson? This is Lucas Bonner. It's time we talked."

*blogger's note* This is a another story episode in form of a 100 word challenge by @velvetverbosity aka http://www.velvetverbosity.com. The one word prompt is CHASM.

Blogger is giving me fits. Please go to the post before this one - Just - and see the other episodes.

Today's song is the one playing in my head as I wrote this. It's probably playing in Caleb's head as he east that sandwich. Here's Pink Floyd's underrated Learning to Fly.

Just

2011-05-17T06:39:00.002-04:00

Her breath against my skin was more overwhelming than the medication coursing through me. Ava opened her mouth and ran her lips over mine, grazing them as she spoke.

"There's a reason why you haven't stopped calling me over the years. It's more than me being a doctor. You need, You always have. We're connected, just admit it and let's find a way to be together."

I pulled away and closed my eyes. I hoped I was asleep and Ava was another bad dream. I reopened them and there she was, running her hands over my chest as she dropped her bags to the floor.

"Av, we're married to people who deserve better. I'm sorry for leading you on. I'm scared. I'm dying. I'm a damn robot or something."

I put my hands over my face, thinking about the phone call I should make and the fallout from the nuclear bomb that would be my life over the next few hours."

Ava picked up her bags. She curled her lips and furrowed her thin blonde eyebrows. I knew the look. It was the same one she gave me when I rejected her years ago.

"Caleb Runson, you're a coward. You live inside some box that you think is moral and good. It's a lie. It's a prison. I'm your ticket to freedom from the slow death inside of you. That heart isn't the only thing going bad. I'm across the hall. Two doors, that's it."

She left, slamming the door to my room. I sat on the bed, and choked back tears. I dialed my phone and waited nervously for Shane's voice.

I felt I was walking in slow motion when I got to the diner. It was the same spot where I met Breann days earlier for the first time.

"Dude, you look awful. Did you sleep at all?"

I hadn't. Hours on the phone being yelled at by my rightfully indignant wife then a few hours of worrying about how to talk to Breann and Ava the next morning left me with perhaps an hour of sleep.

I wasn't speaking at first. Breann and I had developed a chemistry. It was as if we'd known each other all of our lives.

"Look, Caleb, I know I've only known you for a 3 days, but we're dying together so we might as well do it with maximum effort. Did you sleep with Ava?"

I looked at her with shock, then looked down at my eggs.

"Caleb, we're related here. I mean, you know, like by parts inside of us and by some far out circumstances. I would never judge you. Ava is a snake. I've seen her kind all my life. I know women really well and I don't like most of them. So, just tell me where your head is and I'll be here."

I felt nauseous from my guilt and anxiety.

"No, I didn't sleep with her. I've been on the phone with Shane all night. I told her every minute of the last 24 hours. Three of those minutes included Ava and I kissing. her kissing me. Plus, her spending the night 50 feet away from me. I mean, I should be more concerned with finding the others, getting a new heart, and being with you. Instead, I'm worried about you hating me, my wife leaving me, and how to sit on a plane with Ava."

Breann reached across the table grabbing both of my hands and looking at me in the eyes. Browns meeting browns. It was like looking in the mirror. It was the most comfortable I had been in days.

"Dude, we will stay together as much as we can. I'll call Shane, introduce myself. I can't promise you that you won't be in the nastiest doghouse in Georgia for a while, but I'll help you and your wife understand that this is an impossible situation. Just stop going off and dealing with Ava alone. She owns you. I've had a person or three get over on me through the years."

Breann and I talked in the cab ride to the airport. She walked me through the airport. When I left her I felt better physically and mentally. Then I saw Ava in the terminal. She held two cups of hot chocolate. Then looked at me sheepishly.

"Hey. I didn't sleep much but coffee would just make me jittery right now. I got us a couple of these."

Typical of her. Act like nothing happened to protect herself.

"Ava, you're right. I need you. I don't trust anyone else with this crap inside of me. But I'm married and I love her. From now on we meet with my wife or Breann in the room. It's professional and it's with perspective. I know this is my fault. I take that on me."

Ava took a drink of hot chocolate then sat her cup down next to her bags. She glared at me then composed her thoughts.

"Years ago, when you got divorced and we had chinese at our old favorite place downtown. I gave you a similar speech because I was getting married the next week. You were flirting. It was ok, you were single but I wasn't. You were so screwed up because of your ex and the stress and your disorder. I went home that afternoon and told my fiance I couldn't marry him. Then the next morning you wouldn't answer your phone so I went back to him and made up some crap about cold feet. I told him to give me a do-over, like we were 10 years old playing in the backyard."

She was crying. Huge tears streamed down her face. I believed they were real. I sat two chairs away but made peace.

"That's what we have here Av. Let's call this whole thing, The Do-Over."

She stopped crying quickly, looked at me and smiled suspiciously.

*blogger's note* - This another episode in the story I am writing. This post is inspired by the good people at @Studio30plus aka http://www.studiothirtyplus.com by their writing prompt "THE DO-OVER".

1) Synchronicity

2) Personality Crisis

3) Serendipity 6

4) Hot Dog Harbinger

5) Goodbye Stranger

6) The House of Irony

7) Connection

8) Dead Man's Party

9) Hope Springs A Turtle

10) Drown

11) Toyed

12) Fever

13) The Girlfriend Experience

14) Sympathy for the Devil

15) Tomorrow, The Green Grass

16) Possession

17) Numb

18) Cage

19) Bullet Hits The Bone

20) Shut Your Eyes

21) Lone Justice

22) Threshold

Thank for reading. Things are about to get crazy.

Today's song was way too easy to lay down. It played in my head and on my computer the entire time. It's from my second favorite band of all time, Radiohead. The words are Caleb. He does it to himself. Here's one of the most brilliant songs ever written....Just

My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog Birthday Party

2011-05-15T16:59:00.005-04:00

A year ago I took some advice from my wife.

"You should write. Do a blog. People should read what you put on paper."

I know, she's my best friend, my partner, she's supposed to stroke my ego. The thing is, Bobina is usually right.

My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog is a year old this weekend. My first post was something about music. I was about to attend the Butch Walker concert. Over 210 posts later, this site has evolved into my creative outlet for the book I'm writing, and connected me to some amazing human beings. There are actually folks kinda sorta, almost like me out there. I have discovered men and women with voices in their head, mental illness that drives them and scares them, who have talent that aren't appreciated enough.

I don't have a title or an ending to the story I am writing. There will be two to three fiction posts a week until we get to the end. Right now, the story is about 40 percent posted and 80 percent written.

The greatest thing about having a blog is the community, yes I mean to use that word, that I have become an excited part of. Last July I stumbled across Velvet Verbosity. Through Velvet's unique 100 Word Challenge I met Tara, pronounced Tar Rah. She lives on the east Florida coast, has two almost grown kids, and writes and photographs amazingly. I also have gotten to know talented people like The Sluiters - Katie & Cort , Marsha and Michael and Jana and Leah and Aimee and Kat and CDG and Chopper Papa and Alan and many others. One of the fellow bloggers I have really enjoyed as much as the ones already mentioned is Lisa aka Randy from Random Girl Blog.

She gave me a blog award called:

So here are the rules:

Our fellow bloggers present us with a lot of opportunities for furthering our blogs, and gaining followers. Here is a way to Pay It Forward to them. When you have been bestowed with the honor of the Pay It Forward Award., insert this award at the topof a blog post along with these rules, and find FIVE fellow bloggers to bestow it upon. Thank the person who awarded you, mention them in your post, along with a link to your favorite post on their blog, and a short blurb about why you liked it. Next, comment on their blog to let them know you are bestowing the award on them, and that they should do the same. And remember: Good Bloggers Pay It Forward.

Here's the deal. Everyone on my blog roll is a must read. I'll follow the rules and name 5 but know this, if I'm taking time to read their stuff, they're awesome.

1. Actually, I'm going to cheat. It's the internet. There are no rules. I have anxiety. I write about it often. Reading about mental illness is important. These 4 ladies write about what's in their heads with grace, dignity and honesty - Maasiyat, Hed, Haven, and Holly aka Blackbird.

2. Canada is more than hockey and beer. It's about good bloggers. JenO and Andie not only talk funny, they are funny. You should read them and follow them on twitter. Your life will be more entertaining.

3. I don't call myself a daddy blogger. Neither do Chopper Papa and Alan. They are dads who blog. Their humor, realism, and advice are just straight badass. They are also fellow music and comic book nerds too, so go read them.

4. Love rules my life. My beautiful wife and three gorgeous daughters give me all the l o v e I will ever need. If I ever need more, I know where to go. Judy, aka J, writes positively every day. She has a running blog topic called The Love Project. It will brighten your day just by clicking on it. Go there now.

5. I can't decide who to end this blogger's award deal with. Karen is hilarious and a joy to read. Girlatrockshow has great musical taste. Mollie is from Oklahomabut lives in the UK and likes all the same tunes I listen to. But CDG is a huge fan of my fiction and an aspiring novelist too. Her blog is excellent.

Thank you to anyone who reads this blog regularly. Everything put on this site is either part of the book I am writing or honest details of my unique, satisfying, but crazy life.

Happy One Year Anniversary to My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog. It's made my life better.

Today's song is a guilty pleasure. Since I am posting a happy, feely, lovey stuff today, Supertramp has always been outside of my music snobbery. I like their 1970s stuff a lot. Here's Give A Little Bit...

THOR-oughly Good Movie

2011-05-14T16:03:00.002-04:00

I'm a comic book geek. I'm also a superhero dork. The glut of action films, specifically from Marvel Comics, is in my wheelhouse.

The disclaiming paragraph written, it's now imperative that I tell you non geeks and not so dorky why you should go see Thor, The Mighty God of Thunder, currently making an otherwordly amount of cash.

Kenneth Branugh, Emma Thompson's ex husband, the dude who was Hamlet, the arrogant teacher in Harry Potter, and the villain in Wild Wild West, directs the latest Marvel Comics property. He brings a lot of emotional heft and character depth to the project.

Thor is a comic book character taken from Germanic mythology. Wait, I'm losing you.
Thor is played by this guy:

Chris Hemsworth, a 6'5" Australian who talks EXACTLY like Heath Ledger. His voice is uncanny to late actor. Hemsworth gives weight, both in physicality and acting ability. He is Thor. You get it.

Anthony Hopkins plays Thor's dad, King Odin. Natalie Portman, easily the worst character in the film, plays Thor's love interest, astrophysicist, Jane Foster. There's a lot of action, a good amount of humor, and plenty of story to set up sequels, and tie ins to the other Marvel properties, The Avengers, Iron Man, Hulk, and Captain America.

You won't need to be as versed in the comic books as I. There's plenty of exposition to lead you through the Gods, realms, villains, supporting characters - great work by the females Jaime Alexander as Sif,

Thor's childhood female warrior pal, and Kat dennings, Jane Foster(Portman)'s wise cracking scientist friend.

I am was pleasantly surprised by how it all worked. I saw it in 3D and usually, anything that gives me a headache, I bash. This, I gave a pass to. It's that good.

Oh, comic book nerds, I have this to tell you. There's a cameo by a Marvel comics character. He's played by The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner. It's a bow (all pun intended) to a future film. Then, stay around for the post credits scene where Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury shows up. The plot twist will make you happy.

The last good piece of news is also today's song. Foo Fighters contributed their new song, Walk. When Thor can't get the hammer out of the desert, Stellan Skaargard's doctor character, Erik Silvig, takes Thor to a bar for boilermakers, and Foo Fighter's provide the sound.

Two Blondes In A Bar

2011-05-13T22:19:00.002-04:00

I don't like the genre, but my fate is the stuff found in a country music song. There were two blondes, years of circumstance, and a story.

Over twenty years ago, while in college in Alabama, I came home for a weekend to visit friends in Georgia. We decided to go to a country music bar, despite my disdain for the style. I was sullen, ironic, and angst ridden years before it was cool. Playing the role of put upon friend, I sat at the old wooden pub, nursing a beer. A tall blonde with curly hair and a loud, twangy voice sat down next to me and asked "what the hell are you doing here?" Her candor made me smile. Being twenty years old and having a girl talk to me first; I ran with the moment. Minutes turned into more than an hour when a man's voice over a microphone called the tall blonde with curly hair to the stage.

"Folks, let's give Trisha Yearwood a big hand!"

One of my friends walked over and leaned into my ear. "Dude what's with the big blonde chick? She's all yours."

I caught eyes looking at me. They were glaring with a shrewd intensity. It was another tall blonde, but very young. She was underage, early teens, so I assumed she was waiting for a babysitter. I looked away as much as I could. Younger girls weren't my thing.

Beer bottles lined the saloon. Cigarette smoke danced over my sight lines. Suddenly, I felt like I was in a situation that had control over me.

After her set, which ended in thunderous applause, the singer rejoined me. By then, my friends were angling to hit another place. Since I didn't want to be there to begin with, my plea to stay fell on deaf ears. With her hands on mine and her blue eyes distracting me from the young girl in the corner, I blew off my chance, and left.

A year later, the tall blonde with curly hair and a big twangy voice became famous. Country music superstardom was hers. I had a cute story to tell my friends. What happened seventeen years after that was just incredible.

I met me wife 3 years ago, today, May 13th, at a Chili's restaurant at the Mall of Georgia. A few dates later she told me about her family members that ran a country music bar where many stars cut their teeth. One of those stars was the tall, curly haired blonde with the big twangy voice. Then my wife asked me this.

"Did you go to the Buckboard with your friends many years ago? I swear I remember this guy who looked like you talking to this girl and I wanted him to stop. I was only thirteen so my family wouldn't let me near the bar, I had to sit in the back."

The girl in the corner glaring at me was my wife. Start the steel guitar and pick a fiddle. My life, whether I wanted it to be or not, is a country music song.

*blogger's note* - This is a writing exercise from my blogger friends at The Red Dress Club. The prompt is the picture of cigarettes located in the story. The story is true. My wife and I are weird. But we were meant to be together.

E Blogger has been down lately. Please revisit my #100words piece, Threshold. Ava made her agenda known to Caleb. I will write more fiction This weekend, if Blogger behaves.

Today's song is NOT country NOR from Trisha. It's back to the prompt and back to my taste. Here's Oasis' Cigarettes and Alcohol...great song

Threshold

2011-05-11T19:33:00.000-04:00

Breann and I were exhausted. We planned breakfast in the cab ride to my hotel. I took a call from Ava. Breann shook her head when I finished.
"Be careful with her Caleb. A necessary evil is still evil."

I smirked and waved goodbye, then turned to see Ava in the lobby. We rode the elevator together to the fourth floor in silence.

"Do you need anything?"

I shook my head no and opened the room door. My phone vibrated. It was my wife. Ava approached, crossing the threshold.

"You're forgetting something Caleb."

She pressed her lips against mine.

*blogger's note* - This is my entry for @velvetverbosity 's 100 Word Challenge located at her site http://www.velvetverbosity.com/ . The one word prompt is FORGETTING. This is also a story episode of a book I am writing. The other eps are here:

1) Synchronicity
2) Personality Crisis
3) Serendipity 6
4) Hot Dog Harbinger
5) Goodbye Stranger
6) The House of Irony
7) Connection
8) Dead Man's Party
9) Hope Springs A Turtle
10) Drown
11) Toyed
12) Fever
13) The Girlfriend Experience
14) Sympathy for the Devil
15) Tomorrow, The Green Grass
16) Possession
17) Numb
18) Cage
19) Bullet Hits The Bone
20) Shut Your Eyes
21) Lone Justice

Thanks for reading.

Today's song is something I heard on the radio on my way home. It seemed to fit Ava's agenda and the story's mood. Here's Chris Isaak's Wicked Game.

Shimmer in the Sand

2011-05-10T08:05:00.003-04:00

I ran away from home for the first and only time when I was 36 years old. It was Thanksgiving, and I didn't feel thankful. I felt lost, resigned, and alone.

I packed two bags and wrote a goodbye letter. I left it on the kitchen counter of the house I rented from my family. I was hoping they would come by unexpectedly, without calling, find the note, and thus allow me to have an excuse for leaving my life.

Two months earlier, I sat in a courtroom and watched who I was, die. When the judge rendered her verdict, I left that person and wandered aimlessly, disconnected, for weeks.

Thanksgiving came quickly and I accepted an offer from a longtime friend, to meet in Key West and do as Ernest Hemingway did when he resided there; drink.

The day I left, my friend called and said he couldn't make the trip. The person I left in the courtroom would have unpacked his bags, felt sorry for his loneliness, and sulked until something ridiculous came along to distract him. The purgatoried me got in my car, and drove 13 hours.

I stopped at a gas station near the beach in Miami. While my car took fuel, I walked a hundred yards and stood in the middle of the shore and comtemplated staying there or even going back home. I realized what those choices would be a metaphor of and I kept going.

I made it to the Keys. The motel shanty I chose, for price, was pathetic looking. It was dingy and unkept. The screen door was broken. There was a grill outside on the tiniest patio you could imagine. The beach, though, was just 30 feet away.

Two days later, Thanksgiving came. I had grilled a steak medium rare, which was apropo for my zombie state. I ate while the waves rolled in and the sound calmed my anxiousness. By my third beer, I decided to walk the 30 feet and try the cold ocean water, despite the 55 degree temperature. Before I reached the tide, I noticed how warm the beach was, so I removed my shoes and socks. I sat down on the berm, and felt the texture of the tan grains. I had a beer in my left hand and I poured a tiny amount into the ground and then ran the pebbles over the wet spot. The symbolism made me smile for the first time in two months. I let go.

A little beer, a good steak, a cool breeze, and some warm sand changed me. I changed myself. I went home the next day and tore up that goodbye letter. I've never written another one.

I'll never forget that Thanksgiving. I became thankful for who I was, and who I am.

*blogger's note* - This is a writing exercise inspired by blogger friends at Sluiter Nation. The matriarch, Katie, has a writer's blog, called The Red Dress Club - http://thereddressclub.blogspot.com/ I, nor my wife, have a red dress, but I do have a sand memory. She asked for me to write about it.

Today's song is special to me. It was playing during when and on the day this memory occurred. The "she" in the song is what I call my conscience, my morality, my essence. She spoke to me a lot that day. Here's one of my favorite songs, Shimmer by Fuel...

Lone Justice

2011-05-08T22:08:00.000-04:00

Pain spread throughout my chest and shoulders. I was so dizzy that I fell back in the chair when I tried to check on Breann. Ava's long, straight blonde hair fell around me as I was straddled while she checked my eyes with a pen light. Her smell was more sophisticated than when we were together.

"Caleb, I need to lay you down on the exam table. You have 40 on me so hold my arms as tightly as you can. The dizziness will subside in a few minutes. Breann's already improving."

The table was cold and hard. My vision cleared. Ava sat next to me and texted.

"Oliver is looking over Breann in a room down the hall. You both kind of blacked out. Probably a reaction to the magnet. It's centralizing the metal poisoning and acting for or against the other metals parts inside of you. Once you get more balanced we'll go to the hotel and rest."

I thought about Shane, the girls, my job. Tomorrow was Friday, I could get off, but Juliet had volleyball practice and Esme had something at school.

"Ava, I have to get back home. I haven't even spoken to my wife today. She's probably furious."

Ava looked away and stared at her phone. I looked down and caught the name "Gavin...something".

"Who is that Ava, One of Anson Cluber's people?"

She tossed her hair to the left and smiled.

"Kind of, Caleb. It's the doctor in Dallas we've lined up for Lena Cosburn and Clare Bunsen. I'm telling him how to implant the magnet and what to expect from his patients. They'll be worked on tomorrow.

I rolled my head back and the lights caught me, doubling my vision again.

"What about the other two Ava; Lucas Bonner and Bruce Nolans. There were six of us? Are you taking care of them?"

Ava finished her text, got up, ran her right head over my fore head and frowned.

"Your fever is still high. We need to try and break it before you go back to Georgia. I don't know about those guys. I asked Oliver and Gavin Todd, the doctor in Dallas. They're clueless. I want to stay focused on you. If we can improve your condition, we can get you a new heart before any of the others."

I rolled over onto my stomach. It seemed to help the dizziness. Ava moved her chair to the end of the table so she could see my face.

"Why do you care so much, Ava? I mean, I don't believe Breann's conspiracy theory that you, Wicks and this other guy want to glom robot glory for medical fame. You aren't patient enough to wait for that to play out."

Ava moved her face within a couple of inches on mine and ran her left hand over the three day scruff. She seemed resigned.

"I care about you. I always have. You were the one..... Caleb, we're friends. You need a doctor you can trust. I know you trust me. It's why you always call when you need me. You're different and I know why. Most of all, I like why you are different. I know who and what you are. You let me know that. I feel like the least I can do is return that trust."

The pain was starting to lose intensity. I sat up without losing balance. I knew I would regret engaging in nostalgia, but the song in my head was from a memory we shared and I had an idea

"Remember that Maria McKee concert we went to right after we started dating?"

Ava smiled and started murmring the lyrics to Sweet Sweet Baby. It was the Lone Justice song in my head. Maria McKee was their singer in the 1980s.

"Yeah, well, I tried to convince you for two days before the concert that the song was from when Maria was in Lone Justice. You argued that it was a new song from Maria. We had a huge fight. At the end of the concert, she played Sweet Sweet Baby as an encore, introducing the song as 'something I wrote when I was with Lone Justice a few years ago'. You looked at me and said 'Justice. Forgiveness'. I gained a lot of respect for you because you dropped your always have to right personality and showed some vulnerability. I need for you to do that now."

Ava smiled and mouthed the word "okay".

"I'd like to see Breann, call home, then we can go to the hotel."

Ava smiled, bit her lip and held my hands as I dropped to the ground and gained my bearings.

'Av, what am I; really?"

She didn't respond right away, We walked through the exam room area and took a right turn. Inside a small room with yellow walls and a bed in the middle, Breann stood on her own while Wicks looked at a laptop. Ava closed the door.

"Caleb, Breann, you two are robotic. But when Oliver and I and hopefully Doctors Cluber and Bulas are through with you in a few months, you'll be full robot-human hybrids with long, beyond normal lives."

*blogger's note* - This is another story episode from something I have been writing. The other ones are here:
1) Synchronicity
2) Personality Crisis
3) Serendipity 6
4) Hot Dog Harbinger
5) Goodbye Stranger
6) The House of Irony
7) Connection
8) Dead Man's Party
9) Hope Springs A Turtle
10) Drown
11) Toyed
12) Fever
13) The Girlfriend Experience
14) Sympathy for the Devil
15) Tomorrow, The Green Grass
16) Possession
17) Numb
18) Cage
19) Bullet Hits The Bone
20) Shut Your Eyes

Today's episode is inspired by the prompt; Justice. Forgiveness. by @studio30plus aka http://www.studiothirtyplus.com/ .

Thanks for reading.

Today's song is the one references in the story by Caleb. I was a huge Lone Justice fan in college. They were very underrated. Maria McKee should be making records today. Here's Sweet Sweet Baby....

A Big Bang

2011-05-07T20:12:00.000-04:00

I have three story episodes in my que. After back to back posts with story eps, I wanted to give you all a break.

It's been a busy weekend at my house.

Today was Woofstock, the dog park social event at the Suwanee Georgia square. Bobina works for an animal clinic so she took Tay, Tay's friend who is a boy and Goose. Later I joined them with Buddy the golden retriever. That took most of the day. Combined with yardwork, getting Bobina's car emissioned, and hitting the gym, I've had no time to throw together a non fiction post. So, here I am, reduced to pedestrian blog fare. I promise I'll be better.

I have written the entire story. Of course I am rewriting all the time. I haven't come up with a title or an ending I like. The point is, the whole book is done, for the most part.

A few things before I go write and rewrite .

Time and my anxiety issues limit how much television I watch. I keep up with sports, but you can do 47 different things at one time and still watch a ballgame. For me to devote 30 or 60 minutes to something, it has to be good. Recently I started watching Chicago Code with Bobina. It's good, but it comes on at the same time as something Bobina watches with our teenager, Tay, so we DVR Chicago Code. We looked up yesterday and noticed we were three weeks behind. That's 3 hours. What part of three daughters, a real job, writing a book, and paying attention to Bobina does my DVR not understand? The Chicago Code is no longer being watched by me.

Two shows I do catch each week are The Big Bang Theory and Law & Order SVU. SVU is in it's 11th season and it may be time to stop. This past week's show featured the great John Stamos, Lori Singer aka the preacher's whore daughter in the Devil red boots in Footloose, and an absurd storyline about Stamos' character being a "reproductive abuser". He played a Wall Street lawyer who poked holes in his condoms and impregnated dozens of women then sweet talked them into having the children. It was written and produced by someone called "Speed Weed". The character was killed with an exploding diver's knife. My six and seven year old daughters do better writing and acting on Thursday evenings when they perform for Bobina and I. This SVU was the worst I've ever seen. After 11 seasons and several Emmy wins, it may be time for Benson and Stabler to go away.

The other television program I never miss is The Big Bang Theory. In it's 4th season, Sheldon, Leonard, Penny, Raj, and Howard have been joined by Bernadette and Amy Farrah Fowler (you have to say all three of her names or you aren't a real fan). The show has never been better. I laugh out loud throughout the 22 or so minutes. This week's episode, The Wildebeest Implementation was so good, I'm almost afraid to watch next week for fera of disappointment. It's consistently funny, and the acting, especially from Emmy winner Jim Parsons as Sheldon, is excellent.

Earlier in the week, my blogger friend, @jana0926 aka Jana from http://janasthinkingplace.com/ tweeted that it was her goal to learn every word to the Big Bang Theory theme song. It's written and performed by the usually crappy Barenaked Ladies, but I make an exception because it's a television theme and it's about smart people.

Today's song is by Jana's request. I need to learn it too. My kids are getting smarter than me. I need something that makes me competitive with them. Hope Mariska Hargitay watches The Big Bang Theory. She'll know what a good show looks like.

Shut Your Eyes

2011-05-05T07:20:00.005-04:00

I looked straight ahead as Wicks clumsily removed the counter from my left side. Ava was inches from my face as her hands were ready cut my right shoulder.

"I'll put this near the cut you got on my family farm's barbed wire fence. We had fun stitching that one."

The irony of my scars was lost on Ava. I looked into her mischievious eyes and smiled. Breann stared at me, disapprovingly. The magnet's intense warmth sent pain through me. I shut my eyes.

"Done, Caleb. Need to get you lying down."

Ava's whisper reopened my eyes. We were alone.

*blogger's note* - This is another episode of the story I'm writing. The one word prompt is FAMILY and the style is courtesy of @velvetverbosity aka http://www.velvetverbosity.com/ 's 100 word challenge.

The other episodes are here:
1) Synchronicity
2) Personality Crisis
3) Serendipity 6
4) Hot Dog Harbinger
5) Goodbye Stranger
6) The House of Irony
7) Connection
8) Dead Man's Party
9) Hope Springs A Turtle
10) Drown
11) Toyed
12) Fever
13) The Girlfriend Experience
14) Sympathy for the Devil
15) Tomorrow, The Green Grass
16) Possession
17) Numb
18) Cage

19) Bullet Hits The Bone

Thanks for reading...

Today's song is fromn Northern Ireland's Snow Patrol. Their song Open your eyes is probably more suited lyrically, but not musically. Shut Your Eyes has that haunting guitar and piano combination that suits this mood.

The Bullet Hits The Bone

2011-05-04T05:40:00.002-04:00

Breann held my right hand with her left and leaned into me with most of her body weight.

"This migraine is horrible, Caleb. I need to sit down."

The exam room was brightly lit. Breann winced.

"Ava, can we dim the lights and get her something to lay down on. Whatever you're going to do to us, do it to her first."

Ava turned off the lights to the front part of the room and found a large, black, desk chair. I sat Breann down. I could feel her heart beating as I held her still.

"Ava, tell us what's going on."

From a hermetically sealed container that looked like fancy tupperware. Dr. Oliver Wicks, removed a small, oval grey object that looked like a bullet. Then turned toward us.

"This is a magnet. Magnetic therapy is used on mostly on animals. There's been some success with humans that have joint problems like arthritis but never with something like metallic poisoning. In theory, this magnet will draw the metals from your heart area, central nervous system, and brain stem into one pool, thus reducing the radiation effects until we can, well, see, if a new heart can be transplanted."

Ava was staring at Wicks, as if to telling him to shut up with her eyes, and get his stuff done. Wicks stopped talking. Ava had scrubbed her hands and arms and was putting on surgical gloves. Two scalpels were next to Wicks on the stainless steel table. Ava stood between Wicks and I and took over the conversation.

"Breann, Caleb, I'm going to make an incision. As long as the magnet is placed away from your heart area and above your waist the metals sould find their way to the it. You can choose where we put the magnet, for scarring purposes. I suggest one of your shoulders. There's plenty of tissue and muscle to take a cut."

Breann rubbed her temples and looked up at Ava intently. She mustering strength.

"How do you know this will work? I mean, these things could cause infections or our bodies could reject them, right?"

Ava hated being questioned. She picked up the first scalpel.

"You have a choice, Breann. Take the magnet and buy yourself some time and health or have that headache and that heart palpatation that's slowly kill you. As I told, Caleb, I am your your only hope right now."

Breann wasn't going to be controlled. She looked ready to fight until the magnet was put in her body.

"I want to know that Dr. Anson Cluber is going to help me, Caleb, and the other four. Band aids are temporary. I want something permanent. I also want it in writing."

I had seen the look on Ava's face before. We were 23 years old, at a wedding together, and my drunk cousin, Helena, told Ava what she really thought of her. Instead of slapping Breann, like she did to Helena, she looked at Wicks' and nodded to him. Wicks removed a zip drive from his sports coat and walked over to Breann.

"Inside of there are emails and phone calls between Oliver, myself, and Anson Cluber setting up yours, Caleb's, and your friends Lena and Clare's heart surgeries for the first of the year. Of course that depends on how sick each of your hearts are in January or February. We'll need the three months or more to get these magnets to work, centralize the metals, and set up other logistics. The deal is, Oliver and I are yours and Caleb's doctors. Lena Cosburn and Clare Bunsen are being set up with a another doctor in Dallas."

Breann wasn't through. She had found comfort in poking Ava with a stick.

"You've been watching us, haven't you, you stalker. Lena told me she had some anonymous internet attention since I started talking to her. You and your boy Oliver Wicks want in on the guinea pig robot babies, don't you."

The storm inside Ava was swirling. She gripped the scalpel forcefully, and sat down in front of Breann.

"Show me where you want the magnet or I'll put somewhere where you won't ever be able to wear a bikini. Not that you should anyway."

Breann smiled and leaned back in the chair.

"Just tell me I'm right Dr. Ava. You looked up your ex boyfriend, got him to call you. Then tracked me and Lena and Clare over the computer. Now, you want your name in the New England Journal of Medicine or your own Dr. Blondie show on the E! channel."

Ava breathed in and curled her dry, pinkish lips. The scalpel was making it's way toward Breann's throat.

"If you shut up, I'll make a vertical incision in your unfortunate small B-Cup bra line. That should be really easy for you to cover."

Breann smiled and nodded okay to Ava. Breann unbottoned her her purple blouse, and moved her white bra strap to the side.

"Caleb called me. He always does when he needs me. Right, Caleb?"

I ignored her and shrugged at Wicks, who was preparing to put the magnet inside Breann's shoulder.

"Breann, you need a doctor, locally, that can keep a secret, have your best interests and his close to the vest. If it were up to me, you'd rot with your migraines and decaying heart. But, to Caleb, who really matters here, you're important. So I called Oliver. He's a very good physician. Don't worry, you don't have to say thank you."

Wicks moved over to Breann and implanted the oval magnet inside her shoulder. I couldn't see much so I talked Breann through it.

"It is good for you Breann? You're like the six hundred dollar woman now."

She laughed then cringed in pain.

"It's not bad. The magnet is really warm. It feels like it's absorbing through my skin down to my bones."

Wicks and Ava looked concerned but said nothing as he moved away from Ava and Ava began stitching the incision.

"You're next Caleb. We'll remove the counter from your side then give you the magnet."

I took Wicks' chair from him. Then sat next to Breann as Wicks finished stitching her.

Breann smiled at me and closed her eyes to handle her pain.

"You can cut me anywhere, Ava. Chicks dig scars."

*blogger's note* - This is another episode of a story I am writing. This one is based on a prompt THE STORM by @Studio30plus - http://www.studiothirtyplus.com. The other episodes are here:
1) Synchronicity
2) Personality Crisis
3) Serendipity 6
4) Hot Dog Harbinger
5) Goodbye Stranger
6) The House of Irony
7) Connection
8) Dead Man's Party
9) Hope Springs A Turtle
10) Drown
11) Toyed
12) Fever
13) The Girlfriend Experience
14) Sympathy for the Devil
15) Tomorrow, The Green Grass
16) Possession
17) Numb
18) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/cage.html

Today's song reflects the title, wneh The Bullet Hits The Bone. It's from Golden Earring's 1982 music noir song, The Twilight Zone.

So Into You

2011-05-02T20:25:00.003-04:00

You,

There's not a lot of time until your niece gets picked up by your mother in law. After that happens you need to take your oldest daughter to cheerleading tumbling. There's nothing more important than that today.

So let's quickly run over some things.

You're kinda sorta almost awesome. I know you don't believe it, but you are, and I don't want to argue.

You've been through a lot and that overthinker, anxiety ridden part of you likes to dwell on it sometimes but you have come through it well. Look around, you are loved. Bobina is head over heels in love with you. Tay, Bug and Goose love you. You are an excellent husband and father to them.

Most of all you've learned to like me, you know, you. If you miss a day at the gym you don't freak out and not eat for two days. If you are too busy to write one day, you don't stay up all night the next banging out thousands of words. You've learned to relax, a little bit. You and I know that you can be a better person but right now, today, you're a really good person.

Two raises, a promotion, and a bonus, all in what, 4 weeks? You are doing great at your job. You have a career at a time when a lot of people are struggling. You work hard. You do it for yourself as much as you do it for your women. You won't admit it, but you do.

Your writing is getting better. It's surpassed the level it was at in college right before you gave up. You won't do that again. You like to too much.

Don't worry about how people will read this. Judy gave you a writing assignment, you did it, and it's ok. Writing a "love letter" to yourself is good. The last time you did it was almost five years ago, in therapy. This time you're writing it for fun, not mental health reasons.

You're passionate about the right things. Music, writing, your work, and those 4 gorgeous females in your house. You've put them first. No one is telling you how to be you. You are just getting it done. The right people know and care. You have a great best friend.

Congratulations on where you're at in your life. At 40 years old, you're doing better than a lot of people.

Your mother in law is in the driveway and she's going to want to talk to her son in law. Your wife probably needs another kiss or seven. You haven't gotten Tay to roll her 15 years old eyes at you once this afternoon, get to that. It makes you feel good.

Good job, you.

*blogger's note* - This is a writing assignment/challenge from my friend Judy aka @jclementwall from her runaway hit website http://zebrasounds.net/
She wrote a post about self love, not the Dancing With Myself by Billy idol kind, but being confidnet in who you are and acknowledging it. Normally I don't do something like this, but i don;t give myself enough credit and it was a writing job. I encourage all of you to not only visit Judy on twitter or her site but to write a letter to yourself.

Today's song is a break from the normal as is the post. The Atlanta Rhythm Section is a band from down the street from where I live. I used to listen to them with my mom and dad when we were in the car when I was a kid. Georgia Rhythm, my favorite ARS tune doesn't really fit the subject so here's some Georgia 1970s rock and roll, So Into You....

Worst Of Me

2011-04-30T13:07:00.156-04:00

As I pulled on the sweater Ava bought for me I doubled over in pain. She stepped toward me, putting her right hand on neck, massaging my shoulder.

"Caleb, sit down and take these."

Ava leaned me against the parking ballard and put two pills in my right hand.

"I think I've had enough today. I can barely see straight."

Ava smiled and put her hands on my face, gently.

"They're for nausea. You have sedatives and anxiety medication in your system. You are also suffering from metallic poisoning. Those pills will keep you from throwing up or feeling vertigo."

The way she looked at me alternated from opportunity to passion. Until we got to New York I was going to have to humor her. I took the medicine.

We didn't speak to each other as we hurried through ticket check, security and found our terminal. With ten minutes before the flight boarded, we sat by ourselves in the corner. Ava picked up her small, black handbag and pulled out a twenty dollar bill.

"I've become a coffee addict over the past few years. Did you ever develop a taste for it?"

Sourfaced, I shook my head no.

"Caleb, I sedated you so I could put the counter on your side. The only other way to see how much metal you had coursing through your body was exploratory surgery. We didn't have time for that. I'm trying to help you but this attitude is getting us nowhere. In less than 24 hours, you will either feel a lot better, and have a lead on getting a new heart from Dr, Cluber, or you'll know how long you have to live. I swear to you I will do everything I can to see that either of those options happen. Plus we get to spend time together. Admit it, it's not so bad."

I'd heard that a medical degree gives the person license to be an arrogant jerk.

"Av, I have a wife I am in love with, three daughters who need me, and at least 5 other people in as bad of shape as I am. None of those people are being serviced right now. I'd rather get on a plane with an terrorist cell member than you. I'll take a diet Dr. Pepper."

Ava's dark blue eyes grew black as she furrowed her brows and leaned into my face, just a couple of inches away. I thought she was going to spit in my face.

"I've had it with your snobbiness. I am your only hope. It's time for you to get that! Any other doctor would deny that you had robotic parts inside your body and that you're dying. You're dying Caleb! Stop moping around like a little girl. That's I couldn't stand about you when we dated. You always held me to some impossible standard, then got snotty and mean when I disappointed you. Dr. Cluber and Dr. Bulas gave you life. Now, I'm going to save it. So stop being an ungrateful! I'm getting you a water. Having soda on your stomach with all the meds in you will made you sick."

I slept through the plane flight. I needed some communication distance from Ava. I woke up once and saw her typing on her Iphone. I briefly wondered if the person on the other end of the message was Anson Cluber, Oliver Wicks, Breann, or my wife.

Ava and I were inside the terminal before we spoke.

"Av, I need to hit the restroom, then call home."

She had relaxed and smiled.

"Yeah, me too. I like it when you call me Av. It reminds me of things."

I ignored her and dialed Shane. She didn't answer so I called my oldest daughter.

"Hey are you okay? Mom's freaking out. How sick are you?"

At 15, Juliet was smarter than I was at that age. I didn't even bother to tell her something sugar coated.

"It's my heart sweetie. There's a doctor in New York who can help me. We're on our way to see him. Tell your mom I'll call her in a couple of hours. I love you."

Ava walked over.

"Caleb, Dr. Oliver Wicks is waiting for us at Lenox Hill Hospital. I assume you've checked in with Breann. He has everything set. Hopefully in about an hour or so you and her will be better."

She tried to make small talk during the cab ride. I listened as she whined about her husband. He was in beverage sales to hotels and bars. My cynicism suspected infidelity. I'm the only fool who wouldn't cheat on Ava.

I saw Breann waiting by the Emergency Room entrance as our cab arrived. A pale and shaken Breann spoke first.

"Hey, you made it. You look like hell."

I laughed.

"Yeah, so do you. Hey, so, Breann, this is Dr. Ava Pennington. We used to know each other. Now she just sedates me, kidnaps me, and takes me on adventures."

Breann squeezed her face tightly and reluctantly extended her hand. I chuckled to myself, thinking this was one blonde she wasn't going to be into in any way.

"Hello, Breann. I'm guessing you've had a chance to experience Caleb's sarcastic personality in short time. It's nice to meet you. Hopefully I can help you feel better soon."

We walked into the hospital and Breann leaned into me.

"Wow. I hate her a lot. It's going to take a lot of work for me to keep your wife from having you sleep in the backyard."

I smiled, felt loved by Breann's cattiness, and leaned toward her.

"Ava's a necessary evil. She's the hip bone connected to the Anson Cluber thighbone."

Breann rolled her eyes as Ava opened the door to an large exam room on the basement floor. A small man wearing round glasses and white surgical gloves was laying medical instruments on a stainless steel table.

"Hi Oliver, we're ready."

Breann and I looked at each other then at the the doctors suspiciously.

This is another episode of a story I am writing. The other entries are here:

1) Synchronicity
2) Personality Crisis
3) Serendipity 6
4) Hot Dog Harbinger
5) Goodbye Stranger
6) The House of Irony
7) Connection
8) Dead Man's Party
9) Hope Springs A Turtle
10) Drown
11) Toyed
12) Fever
13) The Girlfriend Experience
14) Sympathy for the Devil
15) Tomorrow, The Green Grass
16) Possession
17) Numb
18)
http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/cage.html

Thanks for keeping up with the story.

Today's song is something that has played in my head on and off while writing this story. It was mentioned by a couple of readers as well. Here's Foo Fighter's Best of You...

The Magna Carta of Music Snobbery

2011-04-30T10:53:00.003-04:00

Take a look around this site. You see a lot of youtube music videos, talk about music, and pop culture references involving music. After my family and maybe my writing, music is what matters to me the most.

Along with my weirdness and robot-human hybrid inanity, I make everything harder than it should be. I can't just like music. I have to love it, own it, worship it, and organize it. As a kid, I would categorize my 45s (I'm old), albums and cassettes by genre, style, or mood. I haven't changed much. When I went to college I discovered punk music. It metamorphized me into what you peasants call a music snob.

I was lied to as a kid. By the time I was 16, I was to believe that Van Halen was the greastest rock and roll band of all time. I was misguided. I found The Clash, The Ramones, The Damned, The Sex Pistols, The New York Dolls and suddenly I realized I had to be better at choosing my music.

A few years ago, when I started becoming involved with Al Gore's internet, I had a music blog on myspace. Before that social media became the crack den of viral communication, I wrote music reviews, concert reviews, and conencted with other music fans/journalists. The tie that binded most of us was our snobbery.

I get asked quite often, "what do you think of this band or artist?" and "why do you hate this band and like this other band". The truth is I listen to the same stuff everyone listens too, I'm just weird about what I like and what I despise. What follows, are a set of rules or laws. I call it the Magna Carta of Music Snobbery.

1) Liking Van Halen is still ok. Liking anything Van Halen after Diamond David Lee Roth is not ok. Dave is Halen. This isn't arguable. Sammy Hagar is a nice man who writes decent songs of his own and makes a fine tequila. I don't acknowledge his time with the Vna Halen brothers.

2) Aerosmith ended after they kicked heroin. It's ok to dig Joe Perry solo. That band is a fraud after 1986.

3) Journey, Bon Jovi, The Eagles, Nickelback are the four horsemen of the musical apocalypse. They represent formulaic rock music made for crass comemrcial reasons with vaccous lyrics and no heart. We can argue other bad bands, but those four are the worst. Period.

4) The Red Hot Chili Peppers are overrated. Under the Bridge is not a great song, it's sap.

5) R.E.M. is really good but they're not great. At one point they were underrated - mid 80s/I.R.S. records era, then overrated - Monster album, then rated about right - where they are now. Husker Du, Let's Active, The Replacements, and The Alarm were all better symbols of the 1980s college music era.

6) Punk music is great because of it's point and approach. Stripping away the pretensions of rock and roll is a good thing. Outcasts starting punk bands in their garage is the spirit of music. This is why music snobs dig punk.

7) Nirvana is more important than good. I like their music more than the average music snob. I think Kurt Cobain was ahead of his time and possibly John Lennon-esque. Nirvana breaking the seal on grunge, the Northwest music scene, and helping hammer the death nail of hair metal are the reasons they should be celebrated. We can argue their artistic contributions.

8) Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville is NOT a song by song answer to the Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street. It is, however, the best low fi rock record of the 1990s. Liz shatters the myth that women can't write good anthems. Go listen to Never Said. Thank me later.

9) The Rolling Stones should be judged for their whole career, not just the late 60s and early 70s when they were the most awesome and dangerous band on the planet. Mick and Keith were great songwriters. They're not anymore.

10) Led Zepplin belongs in anyone's top five greatest band list. I don't care if they're 5 or 1 or in between those numbers, they belong. They created the Hard Rock/Metal genre along with Black Sabbath. They mastered the art of the concept album. They also changed the rules of the game as far as how rock bands are compensated for their live shows and thus how music is recorded.

11) Paul Westerberg is a genius. So is Elvis Costello. I don't have to explain either man to anyone. Just listen to their records.

12) Bob Dylan's voice is immaterial to his greatness. He made popular music literate, political, well meaning, and artful. He wins. Also, his version of All Along The Watchtower is better than Jimi Hendrix. It's Bob's song. Get over it.

13) After the Black album, Metallica doesn't exist. Some snobs will tell you this is the case after Master of Puppets, but I dig And Justice for All and some Black album songs.

14) Digital downloading is not only ok, it's in the spirit of how most reasonable artists view their creations. Artists make very little on teh sale of their Cds. They make the majority of their money on merchandise, licensing, live show take, and endorsements. There is no such thing as stealing their music. It's sampling their songs, then forming a fan relationship with said artist.

15) Reality shows featuring music are garbage. American idol goes against everything art is supposed to be. You can't "create" stars. Stars create themselves.

16) Pop music doesn't suck. Just most of it.

17) It's ok to sing anything you want at a kareoke bar. Unless you are accompanied by a live band, then, you better sing something awesome and music snob approved or you will burn in hell with Vanilla Ice and The Bay City Rollers.

18) If you are in Memphis, Savannah, downtown New York City, a coffee house in Seattle or anywhere with music in the streets and you don't stop and listen to musicians pouring their hearts out for spare change, you have no soul. Bar bands and itinerant musicans are the liveblood or good music. Listen to them and Tip them.

19) Motown music is awesome. But it belongs in the 1960s and 1970s. Current artists remaking those songs are lazy and second rate.

20) Thriller is very overrated. So is most of Michael Jackson's catalog. Off The Wall is a good record, after that, his stuff is mostly average. He was a better performer than songwriter and producer.

21) If you can't quote all of the dialogue from High Fidelity (the music snob's Citizen Kane), then you aren't a true music fan.

22) John Lennon is the only Beatle who made decent solo records. Away from The Beatles, most of Paul, george, and Ringo's stuff is lousy. Yoko Ono did not break up The Beatles. The Beatles broke up the Beatles because they all knew Paul was going to write Silly Little Love Songs.

23) Arguing about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is only permitted if an artist is not in. That institution is a Jann Wenner butt kissing fest and largely unimportant.

24) KISS belongs in the rock and roll Hall of Fame.

25) Country music before the year 1980 is probably ok. After that, you need help. Don't do it.

26) Your record collection is only as good as the new CD that no one else has heard yet.

These laws are fluid. I have a good music journalist friend, Chuck who doesn't like The Beatles. People's tastes are all over the place.I get asked about pop music a lot. I like Christina Aquilera, Rihanna, Matchbox Twenty, Counting Crows, Rob Thomas (solo), Katy Perry's Waking up in Vegas, Rick Springfield's Jessie's Girl, and certain 70s, 80s, and 90s pop songs like Duncan Sheik's Barely Breathing.

The two music sites I visit A LOT are

http://www.deadjournalist.com - I occasionally write there. Let me know and I'll direct you to my posts. The site owner, Chuck aka @_deadjournalist on teh twitterz is a good dude.

http://www.musicsnobbery.com - He does a great job. Dude sees a lot of shows, and keeps new music as the focus.

Bottom line is a love music and listen to a lot of it. Whether it's the new CDs by The Strokes, Foo Fighters, Smith Westerns, Yuck, MAKEOUT! or older stuff. I am listening to it all the time.

Today's song is from an album, Let It Be, and a band, The Replacements, that any music lover and/or snob should own and listen. Here's I Will Dare. Play it loud.

Cage

2011-04-28T00:13:00.001-04:00

My loopy state, lack of luggage, and blood stained shirt made me suspicious. I stayed outside in the parking deck while Ava went inside the airport and bought clothes and sundry items. I took the last 3 pain relievers, then texted Breann updates.

I took off my shirt and she bathed the wound from the geiger-muller counter with iodine solution while I cringed.

"Sorry about that. So we're in this thing together the right way, Caleb?"

I rolled my eyes and looked at a police car a hundred feet away.

"Ava, there's no right way to do this."

Another story episode featuring the one word prompt BATHED from http://www.velvetverbosity.com/ 's 100 word challenge. Please visit velvet's site.She hosts some talented people. The other story episodes are here:

1) Synchronicity
2) Personality Crisis
3) Serendipity 6
4) Hot Dog Harbinger
5) Goodbye Stranger
6) The House of Irony
7) Connection
8) Dead Man's Party
9) Hope Springs A Turtle
10) Drown
11) Toyed
12) Fever
13) The Girlfriend Experience
14) Sympathy for the Devil
15) Tomorrow, The Green Grass
16) Possession
17) Numb

Thanks for keeping up with the story.

Today's song seemed to fit the post lyrically and sonically. Soundgarden's Rusty Cage is about being in a doomed relationship. It also rocks hard. I'm in a mood. Get your flannel out and start banging your head. Here's Rusty Cage....

Malcolm, Marvin & Girls In Pretty Dresses

2011-04-26T22:44:00.001-04:00

My life revolves around girls in pretty dresses. Either my wife and daughters are attired for some event or their friends. Tonight I sat in a high school theatre watching Tay receive an award for her stellar work on the school yearbook. A few minutes later something caught my attention so profound, I was actually able to pay attention to someone and something other than my beautiful daughter's achievement.

My favorite book may surprise you. As much as I admire Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Jonathan Franzen, and F. Scott Fitzgerald an book written by a great man about himself in the turbulent 1960s is the only book to change the way I think.

Tay's high school was honoring their academic stars tonight. The class salutorian was a cute girl in a dark dress who was headed to the University of Pennsylvania after graduation next month. When her turn came to receive her salutorian honor, the principal listed her accomplishments. As a senior she has built a heck of a resume. I'm sure my daughter will match or surpass her in 3 years but tonight I was taken back by this young lady's high school career. Her favorite book is The Autobiography of Malcom X. Just when you think this world is doomed, you hear something like this and suddenly, you realize, there are young people out there who get it.

I first read Brother Malcolm tale told to Alex Haley when I was 19, and a sophomore in college. An English class I was taking required me to read something nonfiction that was American History related. I was knee deep in being contrarian and thought rocking something controversial like Malcolm X would be so punk rock to my professor, I would either get an easy A, or kicked out of class. This girl was reading this in high school, for fun, and calling it her favorite. I was impressed.

"I'm sure most everyone has either read this book or seen Spike Lee's excellent biopic, so we need not rehash the story too thoroughly. Anyway, what matters are the essentials. Malcolm Little was a street punk when he was exposed to the Nation of Islam in prison. This exposure, and the racial pride and anger that went with it, lead him to educate himself and get involved with the Nation, where he became one of the most effective spokesmen and organizers. A confrontational proponent of racial separatism and black self-reliance, during the Civil Rights struggle, he was yin to Martin Luther King's yang (or as I read somewhere, he was the Old Testament figure, King was a figure from the New)--the constant reminder to whites that if King's nonviolent methods failed to produce results, millions of righteously resentful young black men were waiting in the wings. But, when Malcolm X made a hadj to Mecca, he discovered that there were Moslems of all races, worshipping together peacefully, and that racism played no part in traditional Islam. And so, in the closing days of his life, he split from the Nation of Islam, adopting true Islamic beliefs and practices and earning the enmity of Nation leaders who had him assassinated. The arc of this story, from the gutter, to a redemptive anger, to a cleansing understanding, to violent death, is like something from Greek myth or Shakespeare, but it is a uniquely American tragedy."

The book changed my mind about prejudice (what a waste of time) and how I related to people who were not like me. If a man like Malcolm X could give his life for becoming enlightened, I could be open minded.

I hope Tay's high school salutorian (her name rhymes with Mistina) has great success with the next phase of her life. Most of all, I am proud that some kids, my daughter included, are ahead of the curve in their cultural education.

Tonight's ceremony made me more proud of my daughter. It also made me more comfortable with her future. We may be okay after all.

Today's song is a message filled one from the late great Marvin Gaye. The words mean as much today as they did when Marvin first sang this over 40 years ago. Here's What's Going On....

Numb

2011-04-25T19:39:00.001-04:00

My eyes were bleary but I could make out the time on the round wooden clock over Ava's left shoulder. My kids would be home from school in less than thirty minutes. There was no i.v. in either of my arms and the oxygen tank wasn't being used. I felt dizzy, possibly drugged. Ava put my keys and cell phone in her jacket pocket and picked up her stethoscope.

"Caleb, rest would do wonders for you right now. They'll call soon. Then I'll take great care of you."

She seemed strange but comforting. I must have been drugged. I didn't feel like leaving the room even with her presence.

"My kids will be home soon, Ava. I'm off from work, so they're expecting me."

Ava patted the left pocket of her teal blazer, grimaced, then relaxed her broad shoulders and put her right hand on my chest.

"I took care of that for you. I texted your teenage daughter. I told her you were working. She texted back that she'd tell your wife. I even called her sweetheart. I guessed right on that one. You still call every woman you know sweetheart. I got a smiley face for that."

I was too dizzy and tired to be creeped out. Ava hadn't changed much; always in control. The song Bleed It Out by Linkin Park started playing. It stopped when Ava answered her cell phone. She walked toward the door and talked softy. I couldn't hear her conversation. Then I noticed a small, plastic contraption attached to my ribs. Pain shot through my waist and chest when I tried to get off the table. Ava saw me and walked toward me, then stiff armed me back where I was laying. She put up her left index finger and and scowled at me. I tried to remove the tiny machine attached to my side as the pain was unbearable. My skin began to rip and I screamed,

"Ava, what the hell is this thing?"

When I awoke, I was in Ava's car. I opened my eyes and saw the grey roof of a BMW. The seat belt was cutting into the side of my ribcage where the machine was and blood was staining my shirt. Ava reached over with her right hand and rubbed my chest.

"Please be okay, Caleb. I'm taking us to the airport. I can explain more once we get on the plane."

I was fuming with anger and reeling from the pain on my side, head, and chest.

"You'll explain everything now or I'll put this car in a ditch and we'll both need a doctor!"

Ava breathed in deeply and pulled over to a shoulder in the road. I had found the seat adustment and was sitting straight. From what I could recognize, we were in downtown Atlanta, maybe 10 miles from the airport.

"Caleb, that's a geiger-muller counter on your abdomen. It's measuring metalllics and other foreign objects in your body and thus diagnosing how much poison or radiation you have inside of you due to the side effects of the heart you have implanted. There's damage to your nervous system too. I don't know how much. We have to get to New York tonight. There's a doctor there, Oliver Wicks, that can buy you some time until we can get through to Dr. Cluber. We'll buy you a new shirt and overnight stuff when we get to the airport"

Stunned and still dizzy, I just want to get my bearings and try to figure out how to make the most of this situation. I look at the console and see it's 3:15pm. My kids are home.

"I checked plane flights to New York earlier today. I know there's a 4:35pm. I assume that's the one we're taking. We need to get there, start driving.

We're silent for a few minutes and I feel my cell phone in her jacket pocket. I put my hand in and take it out. She doesn't stop me.

"Text them, Caleb. If you call them, they'll know you're sedated and they'll worry. Tell them you're working or tell them something else. Breann Lucos called and texted. I answered her and she's meeting us at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York at 7:00pm tonight. I'll make sure she's taken care of too. You have my word. But we need to start getting smart about things. This is Anson Cluber and if he is still around, Connor Bulas' game. We have to play by their rules or I'll lose you and you'll lose Breann and others. Everything's riding on this trip to see Wicks. Watching your kids grow up, holidays with the family, seeing the Braves win a World Series; none of it is possible if you don't go along with me right now. I'll take care of you, okay, Caleb?"

She stares at me with her dark blue eyes. I know she's keeping something from me. She always was.

I sent a text to my wife that also went to Breann, accidently.

"I'm really sick. I'll explain more later. Trust me, I love you."

I dropped the phone in my lap in exhaustion. I looked at Ava and she gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles were white. At the same time, we seemed numb.

This is post 200 for My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog. It's another story episode. The other entries are here:

1) Synchronicity
2) Personality Crisis
3) Serendipity 6
4) Hot Dog Harbinger
5) Goodbye Stranger
6) The House of Irony
7) Connection
8) Dead Man's Party
9) Hope Springs A Turtle
10) Drown
11) Toyed
12) Fever
13) The Girlfriend Experience
14) Sympathy for the Devil
15) Tomorrow, The Green Grass
16) Possession

I hope you are digging the story. For those of you who have been around for most if not all of the 200 posts, thank you. This post is also associated with the good people at http://www.studiothirtyplus.com/ / @studio30plus from a prompt of HOLIDAYS WITH THE FAMILY.

Today's song is a guilty pleasure of mine. Most music snobs like me make fun of Linkin Park but I own Minutes To Midnight and Metora. The latter contains the song Numb. I was listening to it while I wrote this and it seemed to agree with Caleb's state of mind during this episode.Here's L Park's Numb;

I Am The Egg Man

2011-04-23T15:29:00.001-04:00

Easter is my second favorite Holiday. It's grossly underrated. Thanksgiving, Halloween (what a joke), and July 4th (I love my country but, come on) and get a lot of publicity but for my cash, Easter is a good runner up to Christmas.

Let's break down the attributes of Easter. The religious significance is pretty awesome, if you're Christian, as I am. Jesus was crucified late in the week, dies on Friday. Then three days later, on Easter Sunday, he rises, does his business and becomes deified. Not bad.

Now, the rest of the holiday measures like this. The candy intake and distribution is equal too if not greater than Halloween. Families gather for lunch or dinner, just like Thanksgiving. The myth master is a large Bunny, that leaves Easter basket for kids containing everything from eggs to ipods gift cards. When you throw in egg hunts and professional sports games like the NBA playoffs, the Stanley Cup hockey games and major league baseball. You have a holiday that only bows only to the King of them all, Christmas.

My family tradition is really interesting. My dad's parents have hosted an easter egg hunt since the sixties. It really took off after their kids - my dad, his brother and sister, started having kids in the seventies. There is a huge lunch, likely featuring the finest strawberry cake you've ever tasted, then the Egg Hunt which is hotly contested, and then some family fellowship.

Tomorrow, Bobina, Tay, Goose, and I (Bug is with her other family this year), will attend church services in the morning, then head over to my grandparents. Later in the afternoon, my mother in law, sister in law and niece will come over to our house for a small egg hunt, and some steaks on the grill.

My family really seems to come together at Christmas and Easter. The religious connotations may have something to do with it, but I have always appreciated those two holidays because it brings my big family, new and old, together.

My next post will be number 200. This blog will have it's 1 year birthday in about two and a half weeks. Had someone told me I would make 200 posts in a year I would have given them some of my anxiety meds. Post 200 will be another story episode, somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 words. Ava is about to rock Caleb's world, and not in the good way.

Until then, enjoy your family and eat your self silly. I will attempt to devour my weight in Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and boiled eggs. Happy Easter.

Today's song was a battle of my own wits. I wanted to use Lose Yourself by Eminem. It features his character from 8 Mile, Rabbit, and it's about determination. Then I realized I had been into the Beatles again and they were ina tie with Radiohead and Led Zepplin for my second favorite band of all time. With Easter being my second favorite holiday, the Beatles should get a crack at the theme song. Here's John, Paul, George, and Ringo singing about something other than Easter but doing it in a way that little kids would think differently. I am the egg man, coo coo ca choo....I AM THE WALRUS

Possession

2011-04-21T11:52:00.001-04:00

Weaving through traffic, I almost hit a dumptruck. I was sweating profusely. My image in my mirror was sickly. The distance from the courthouse to the hospital was 2 miles. I was halfway there. I texted her.

"Meet me in the emergency room, I need you".

I parked, jumped from my SUV, and tried to run to the entrance.

The next thing I saw was Ava standing over me. She had control of the room.

"Everyone thinks you're fluish and panic attacked, but I'm monitoring your heart. I'm waiting on a call from Dr. Cluber's office to proceed. You're mine for now."

The is another episode of a story I'm writing using Velvet Verbosity 's 100 word challenge . My other stories entries are here:

1) Synchronicity
2) Personality Crisis
3) Serendipity 6
4) Hot Dog Harbinger
5) Goodbye Stranger
6) The House of Irony
7) Connection
8) Dead Man's Party
9) Hope Springs A Turtle
10) Drown
11) Toyed
12) Fever
13) The Girlfriend Experience
14) Sympathy for the Devil
15) Tomorrow, The Green Grass

I've been on a mid 90s alternative chick rocker kick lately. Today's song is Sarah Maclachlan's Posession. It's what was playing in my head and on my computer last night when I imagined this 100 words. It seems to fit Ava's character. This should please my Canadian readers, eh?

Tomorrow, The Green Grass

2011-04-19T18:42:00.007-04:00

Freshly cut grass jumped on my sneakers as I entered the City Courthouse grounds. A commercial landscaping crew was finishing work. The yellow caution tape would keep most people away, but I had privilege. I tried to get the attention of the grass cutter by waving my hand if front of him. He turned off the mower.

"Hey Van. Where's dad?"

Van Munroe, my dad's business partner for 27 years, had known me all my life.

"Hayyeb Caleb! Get a rake and do some real work like you used to. I'll buy ya a co cola when we're done."

I declined.

"I'm good, Van Man. You don't have any left handed rakes. I looked. I really need to talk to your lazy partner. I know he's around, I saw his truck next door."

Van took off his University of Georgia Southern baseball cap, wiped his sweat glazed bald head and sighed.

"He's around the side of the courthouse talking to that lawyer friend of his. He seems preoccupied today. Something's up. I just don't wanna know, you know?"

My dad usually wasn't about secrets. With the revelations about my birth and medical conditions combined with his peculiarity today, I felt scared.

I walked a few hundred feet through the newly layed rock and sand lining the manicured estate. A pebble got caught in my shoe near the cuff of my jeans. I stopped to remove it, when my dad spoke.

"Hey son! How was New York? Did you come to help? Van and I are finishing the Courthouse area ourselves, then heading over to the Courthouse cafeteria."

The dumb grin gave him away. He was expecting me.

"We need to talk pop, alone. New York was crazy, I have a feeling you know why. Tell me about September 9th, 1970. Try to be thorough this time."

Whenever my dad was stressed or uncomfortable he stammered, rubbed his temples, and started talking baseball.

"The Yankees were out of town while you were there, huh? Guess you watched the Braves on the hotel tv. Derek Lowe pitched good. Brian McCann had 3 doubles day before yesterday."

Fed up and exhausted, I just decided to kick the respect I had for my father aside and get to the point. I was dying to know, literally.

"Tell me about the day I was born, dad. It's important! Tell me about Anson Cluber and Connor Bulas!"

My anger was building, my fever was spiking while my dad was sweating. It was a hot day.

"Caleb, it's all really complicated. Your mom said she got a phone call from her doctor. I know you have been asking questions. Let's go to the courthouse cafeteria. I'm starving. You look weak."

We walked inside, got some sandwiches and sat down at the brown metal tables. I looked at a man I admired every day of my life. He worked so hard to help me get into college. He raised me and my two sisters lovingly. Now, I saw someone with a weight on him. He deserved a velvet glove, not the iron fist I had inside me.

"Dad, do you know Spencer Johnson?"

He looked me blankly then tried to make a joke.

"Who did he play for?"

I was becoming irritated again.

"He's not a ball player, he's an author. He wrote self help books. I don't read them because self help books are crap, but you know the book Gramma has on her bathroom shelf, Who Moved My Cheese?"

My dad laughed.

"Yeah. I know that one. I laugh at that every time I'm over there."

I smirked and thought briefly about my daughters asking my Grandmother why she had a book about Mickey Mouse in her potty.

"Yeah me too. Look, Spencer Johnson has this quote. 'Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people' . Right now, I need for you tell me what happened when mom had me. I found out some things in New York that don't match the story you guys told me growing up. I'm not judging you. I'm trying to save my life and the lives of others."

The shock on my dad's face was impressive. He seemed to be floored by my words. He rubbed his forehead and tried to find the words.

"Your life, son? What's wrong? It's your heart isn't it?"

I nodded in agreement.

"It was a confusing experience, Caleb. Your mom got sick in the hospital. Her blood pressure shot up, your heart stopped beating. Then they delivered you."

He began to tear up. I did to. I put my right hand on his left hand and squeezed tightly.

"This one doctor, Bulas, the hippie one. He said they could save you, but you'd need surgery. We signed whatever paper work they put in front of us and the other doctor, Cluber. He was a slick guy, very smooth and professional. He kind of took over. Dr. Cluber took you into an operating room. A couple of hours later they brought you to us room. They said you'd need doctors appointments two or three times a year til you were a teenager or more."

My dad was crying. Few things made me weep more than seeing my dad in emotional tumult.

"I love you dad. This isn't about me being mad at you. But the heart that Cluber and Bulas put in me is dying. There are at least five other people that were given operations. One of them is a girl, born a couple of days later. Her name is Breann Lucos. She's like a female version of me. I wouldn't surprised if we had the same parts, like robots, but even weirder. We may even share DNA or something. I need all the information on Bulas and Cluber and anyone else that talked with you and mom."

My dad wiped his eyes and grabbed my right arm tightly.

"How long does your heart have, Caleb. How much time?"

I pushed my tray with my turkey sandwich and chips over to him and rose to my feet.

"Give my food to Van. I don't know how much time, dad. But I need you to help me as soon as you get home today. I may be leaving for New York soon. It would be nice to have all the facts."

My dad hugged me.

"I'm sorry son. We we were so..."

I didn't let him finish. He didn't have to to. I knew why he did it, and I was alright, for now.

This is episodes of a story I'm writing. This entry is based on a writing prompt from @Studio30plus aka http://www.studiothirtyplus.com/ 'Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people' The other episodes are here:

1) synchronicity
2) personality crisis
3) serendipity 6
4) Hot Dog Harbinger
5) Goodbye Stranger
6) House of Irony
7) Connection
8) Dead Man's Party
9) Hope Springs A Turtle
10) Drown
11) Toyed
12) Fever
13) The Girlfriend Experience
14) Sympathy for the Devil

Today's song is from one of my favorite records of the 1990s, Tomorrow, The Green GrassI listened to the song Blue and this line - Thought I was Someone, Turned Out I Was Wrong - stood out as I was writing this. Here's Blue by The Jayhawks.

Sweet Child O' Mine

2011-04-18T05:08:00.001-04:00

"You two look too young to have a daughter out on a first date."

The waitress at the Mall of Georgia Longhorn got a good tip. I was stressed, nursing a beer. My wife was too happy for the occasion and it was starting to annoy me. When Bobina told our server that we needed the check because we had to go pick up our teenage daughter and her friend who is a boy at Macaroni Grill next door; the compliment soothed the savage beast inside me.

Friday, I lost the battle but won the war. My 15 year old daughter, Tay, went on her first d d d d d ugh, DATE. I grew up as a parent.

Her dress was blue and gray. Her hair shimmered in the sundown. There was makeup applied, but it wasn't too much. The number on the calendar marked one year from the day she started being friends with her friend who is a boy. Bobina started priming me a month earlier for Tay's request, a date, a real one, where they were alone in a restaurant and a movie theater with her mom and I close by; with weapons.

My blog is a record so for prosterity, I think Tay is too young to date. I was 16 when I went on my first one and I was ridiculously unprepared. I was a year removed from getting giddy over superhero comic books and saying the word boobie without doubling over in laughter. Some would say I am not removed from either of those. There are 5 people in my house. The dog thinks he's human. My vote doesn't count for much. I know living with 4 women, I have to pick my battles. Tay is an amazing girl. She makes good grades, she busts her tail being a cheerleader, she helps around the house, and when we need her, she's good to her sisters. Her friend who is a boy kinda sorta almost reminds me of me. He seems ok. If there is a 15 year old girl who "deserves" to be trusted on a date, it's Tay.

Becoming a parent of a 12 year old wasn't that big of a deal three years ago. I talked about it here: http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/currency.html . Being a parent of a 15 year old is a huge deal.

I'm uncool, not talked to often, and required to have the car ready at her word with checkbook in hand. Bobina tells me to adjust, get over it, and get ready for the other two kids to be teenagers in a few years. Friday night, I took a major step toward being over my issues and getting ready.

Bobina and I had dinner, got our egos stroked by the waitress, took Tay and her friend who is a boy to the movies, then walked around Target for a while. Getting a Superman t-shirt and toilet paper didn't make me less nervous about Tay being alone with her friend. The end of the night was anti-climatic. A thunderstorm ripped through the area bringing lightning and sheets of rain. Tay's smile and Bobina's attitude were the only thing better than the waitress' suck up.

I know this isn't the last I'll hear of Tay wanting to be more independent. She starts driving this month. Getting Friday night out of the way meant a lot to me and her mom. For me to be better about Tay being on the road by herself with a friend who may or may not be a boy, I'll need more than a flattering waitress, one beer, and an emotionally centered wife.

I feel like rocking, maybe even doing a snake dance. So, today's song is from Guns N Roses. Slash's opening riff and Axl's vocal used to mean something else to me. Now, I think about my Tay and her eyes of the bluest skies. She gets them from Bobina. They're both showing me how to be the man I want to be.

Where do we go now? Where do we go now?....here's Guns...

Sympathy For The Devil

2011-04-16T21:21:00.002-04:00

The only way around the awkwardness was to treat Ava like a business partner. I saw the way she looked at me, but the lines around our 40 year old eyes meant something. That something wasn't reanimating a 15 year old relationship.

"What do you know about Anson Cluber?" I asked.

A streak of grey invaded her blonde hair when she ran her pale, manicured left hand over her bangs and sighed uncomfortably.

"I only know him by reputation. He's a rock star in the cardiac medicine field. Anson Cluber pretty much invented heart nanosurgery, you know, robotics. Supposedly he created robotic heart surgery techniques with this weird Doctor named Connor Bulas. The rumor is Bulas makes bio-engineered food crops in Montana or South Dakota or somewhere else. Dr. Cluber has had an amazing career as a surgeon. When I was in medical school I was selected watch him perform surgery at Georgetown Medical Center, near Washington D.C. It was incredible. Remember when we saw The Rolling Stones in '94? I saw a cool concert by a cool band. You were in church, having a religious experience. It was like that with Dr. Cluber that day. He made a double bypass look like Keith Richards playing Sympathy For The Devil."

I had to give Ava credit, her analogy was perfect. Hearing her compliment Cluber made Sympathy For The Devil play in my head.

"How do you have his office number, Ava?"

She fidgeted in her round swivel chair, almost breaking the black seat as she reached for her chart and tried to think of an answer.

"Well, I know a doctor that interns at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He idolizes Dr. Cluber. I guess you could say we both idolize him. When my friend got a job at that hospital I made him give me the number in case something ever came up there. Then I got married a few years ago and some opportunities became unattainable.

From the disappointment in her voice, I realized Ava was still the same person she was when we dated. She was always looking for an advantage with people and situations. I decided to go ahead and let her into my problem.

"Help me, Ava. Be my doctor. We can figure out a way to get Cluber to fix my heart. Ava, I need for you to meet my, friend. I think she may be my sister. Her name is Breann Lucos. She has the same condition I do. In fact, Cluber or Bulas or both, delivered us as babies, two days apart. I think they gave us these robot parts. If I get her to come down from New York, will you treat her too?"

Ava clenched her face. Lines of stress filled her jaws and I could see her move her shoulders away from me for the first time since I had been in her office. She was as insufferably selfish as she was in her mid twenties.

"Caleb, we need to focus on you. We can get a consult for your friend. The more eyes on this the better, right? New York? Good God, Caleb, there are amazing doctors there."

The irony of Ava helping people by being a physician wasn't lost on me. She was all about Ava all the time.

"No, I think we have to keep this a tight circle. We don't know if Cluber and Bulas are keen on helping us. They could have done these opreations without my parents' consent. I mean, I had a heart attack eleven years ago, struggled with social anxiety disorder, and blinding headaches, yet, until 4 days ago, I had never heard their names. Now, I'm told I'm dying? I think you should engage Cluber but not use my name. Let him figure out who I am, and see what he does."

Ava, dropped her defensive stance and looked into my eyes.

"Caleb, of course I'll help you. There's a lot of water under our bridge. I know that sounds cliche. Finding out you almost died while hanging with former friends of ours at a Braves basbeall game hurt. We're exes, not enemies. I missed you. I worried about you. I'll meet your New York girl. But, if I'm going to be your doctor and your friend, I have to do it my way. You owe me that for how things ended with us."

I owed her nothing. The last thing I remember about our relationship her drunkenly kissing some medical school wannabe in her class at a bar in front of all of our friends and throwing a beer mug at me when I broke up with her.

As I buttoned my shirt, Ava put her left hand on my right arm. I looked down at my wedding ring, swallowed hard and said,

"I'll put Breann Lucos in touch with you today. Please help her. I have to make some phone calls. I'll get back with you in a day or two. Let me know what Cluber's office has to say."

She smiled broadly at me as I walked out of the room, I returned it with a smirk. I felt pain shoot through my chest. I knew getting involed with Ava and possibly Anson Cluber, was wrong. I had to dance with the devil if I was going to live.

This is another offering of the story I am writing. The other episodes are here:

1) synchronicity
2) personality crisis
3) serendipity 6
4) Hot Dog Harbinger
5) Goodbye Stranger
6) House of Irony
7) Connection
8) Dead Man's Party
9) Hope Springs A Turtle
10) Drown
11) Toyed
12) Fever
13) The Girlfriend Experience

Today's song is pretty obvious. Mick and Keef got a lot right over their 40 plus years together. Sympathy For The Devil is one of their best.

The Big Empty

2011-04-14T22:08:00.002-04:00

My friend Thomas called me earlier. He is driving from Knoxville, Tennessee to Atlanta, georgia this weekend. As we negotiated time and opportunity to meet, his cell phone lost signal. It's likely you know the words that he spoke next, "Can You Hear Me Now".

In late 2001, a 31 year old actor from New Haven Connecticut name Paul Marcarelli tried out for a commercial. The company was up and coming Verizon. They were looking for an everyman to front clever ads promoting their call phone services. Marcarelli was looking for a decent paying acting gig and thought Veirzon would be a one shot commercial job, then he'd find film work. A few months later he stood in front of a football stadium with 85, 000 people, more famous than the President of the United States.

When the pop culture history on the first ten years of the 21st century are told, the most remembered face may be a bespectaled, average man who carried the main communication device of the time. Cell phones have connected the world in ways we could never imagine. You may not remember the company Paul Marcarelli worked for. You certainly won't remember his name. But that face, those horn rimmed glasses, that goofy grin, that phone in his ear, and that phrase, "can you hear me now", will be a signpost for the Naughts. Or is it the Oughts? Or is it the 00s?

Paul Marcarelli made a lot of money, but he paid a price for his well paying opportunity:

Can You Hear Me Now

A few days ago, Paul Marcarelli checked his email and received word from Verizon that they were releasing him from their ad campaign. Unless his film career is successful, this will be the last we hear and see of him. One of my friends, John, aka @CounselorGa suggested At&T hire Paul and title the ads "How ya Like Me Now?"

I just think people will be hearing Paul Marcarelli saying "Can You Hire Me Now?", a lot.

Before we get to today's song, a couple of things I want to address...

Warner Brothers is remaking The Crow, the iconic comic book movie from 1994, that starred the late Brandon Lee. Bradley Cooper is rumored to be taking the main role of Eric Draven/The Crow. This is a bad idea to redo the film and a bad casting decision.

The Crow is one of the finest movies of the last twenty years. The imagery, the mood, the set pieces, and Brandon Lee's performance are so vivid that anything else would be unsatisfactory. Brandon Lee died on the set as a result of a misfired handgun prop. This is just dancing on his grave to me. Cooper plays heroic douchey rogues with fake tans, six pack abs, and fashionable clothes. Eric Draven aka The Crow is the opposite of all of that. Also, nerds, on and offline will reject this casting. You don't mess with us, I mean them.

Please read over the story episodes I have been dropping on you all. We are 13 entries deep. I will write another 700 words or so this weekend; likely Saturday, in between yard work and the Georgia Force Arena League football game. Bobina and I have free tickets.

here are the episodes:

1) synchronicity
2) personality crisis
3) serendipity 6
4) Hot Dog Harbinger
5) Goodbye Stranger
6) House of Irony
7) Connection
8) Dead Man's Party
9) Hope Springs A Turtle
10) Drown
11) Toyed
12) Fever
13) The Girlfriend Experience

The song for today comes from Stone Temple Pilots. It appeared on The Crow soundtrack and became a huge modern rock hit. It probably reveals Paul Marcarelli's mood and the feelings of die hard Crow fans. Here's The Big Empty. Go ahead, play your air guitar. I can see you now.

The Girlfriend Experience

2011-04-12T18:34:00.005-04:00

I drove downtown to a small private hospital to meet the only doctor I knew. The receptionist led me to an exam room.

The tall, blonde pony-tailed physician walked in and said,

"Caleb Runson, you devilish little imp. Had I known you'd walk back into my life, I wouldn't have gotten married."

My new doctor, Ava Pennington was also my girlfriend of 3 years when I was in college.

After x-rays, a physical, blood work, and awkward flirtatious catch-up conversation; she confirmed everything.

Struggling to speak, Ava whispered,

"Dr. Anson Cluber is a reknown heart surgeon, I called his office."

This is another story episode featuring my installment of @velvetverbosity 's 100 word challenge at http://www.blogger.com/goog_10246083 My last 100 word effort, Toyed was chosen as the winner of last week's challenge. This week's one word prompt is IMP.

The other story episodes are here:
1) synchronicity
2) personality crisis
3) serendipity 6
4) Hot Dog Harbinger
5) Goodbye Stranger
6) House of Irony
7) Connection
8) Dead Man's Party
9) Hope Springs A Turtle
10) Drown
11) Toyed
12) Fever

There were a lot of ways to go with today's song but I chose one of my favorite Girlfriend songs by the awesome Matthew Sweet. This was one of my favorite early 90s tunes, here's Girlfriend, play it loud.

Baseball In Bloom

2011-04-11T12:42:00.000-04:00

I've taken a lover. She's actually an old lover but we've been apart for a while. We've known each other a long time. I met her when I was very young. We were passionate til my early twenties, then separated with tremendous acrimony. Recently, for reasons I can only associate with nostalgia; a condition I find ridiculous and unneccesary, I have decided to let her back into my life. Baseball and I are together.

Baseball and I have matured. I am not curled up in bed with boxscores and statistics like before. I am anxious to see what happened in the games of the previous night. I find myself caring about what the pitching rotation is for my favorite team, the hometown Atlanta Braves. Losses don't depress me and wins don't exhilarate but I am enthralled with watching the game again.

I credit Kurt Cobain with getting us back together. The baseball strike of August 1994 followed Kurt's suicide in April. In my weirdly wired brain of music and sports, I saw the two connected. Figuring out what Kurt's death and what it meant to me, here: The Lesson Of Kurt Cobain , also opened my mind as to why I left baseball.

When control freaks lose control, they lash out. When I lost my rock star and my game in a span of four months, I got angry. If I could resolve why idolizing a musician was so important then but not so now and how I made sense of it, then how could I not get over millionaire ballplayers and billionaire owners shutting baseball down? I won't touch steroids and their impact on keeping baseball at arms reach for so many seasons. That's like me being mad at Kurt for doing a lot of smack.

Yesterday I went to Coolray Stadium, the home of the Gwinnett Braves, the Triple A minor league affiliate of the Atlanta Braves. The park is a few minutes from my house.

My wife works for an animal clinic nearby and the promotion of the day for the G-Braves was Bring Your Dog To The Park. We left Buddy the golden retriever at home because my 15 year old daughter wanted to take her friend who is a boy and thus, a 175 lb kid took up the space for a 95 lb dog. Bobina's animal clinic had free tickets and a booth set up for people to show off their dogs for a tricks contest with prizes. I'm glad Buddy didn't go because his "hey I'm lazy, watch me lay here and be cute business" wouldn't have won first prize. Buddy would've been devastated by the loss.

Walking the stadium with the girls and sitting in the seats watching a few innings, I became reformed. The feeling of comfort and goodness was back. I had been to dozens of baseball games since 1994, all at major league parks, but for whatever reason, I always felt awkward and nonplussed. Yesterday, I felt home. Maybe it was the hot dog, which was impressive.

Baseball is just a game. It's beautiful in it's simplicity and artistic in it's pace. Being outside in great weather, smelling dogs, both hot and furry, along with the sound of the wooden bat cracking against the hardball felt natural. It's ok to use that word, natural, because minor league players are tested regularly. It may have been minor league, but my kids thought Joe Mather looked like Chipper Jones. I need to head back downtown to the big league park and get back into it all. I won't be debating All Star game snubs or breaking down the bullpens of the National League East like I did twenty years ago, but I will enjoy baseball. It's made me happy for the last couple of weeks. The big league Braves are 4-6 after dropping two of three to the hated Phillies over the weekend. I'm booing our centerfielder, the hapless Nate McLouth, and admiring our left fielder, the mercurial Martin Prado. It's all good again.

If I could just talk one of the Atlanta Braves players into having a Nirvana song as their walk up, then everything will be perfect.

Today's song, is one that I'd nominate for Martin Prado or any other player who'd volunteer. Nature and apparently me, are indeed a whore. Here's Nirvana's In Bloom. Play ball.

Fever

2011-04-10T09:11:00.002-04:00

When you feel like your life is a lie, you embrace brutal honesty. That's the philosophy I adopted walking the 6 steps into my house. I hugged three girls. The teenager, Juliet, even gave me decent squeeze. The kiss I placed on Shane's lips let her know a lot. It shaved an hour off our discussion later. I gave my daughters their cliche New York gifts, t-shirt's with I Heart NY and miniature Statue Of Liberty figurines, then walked my wife into the bedroom and locked the door.

"We're moving to New York, aren't we?" Shane asked, completely misreading the situation.

I laughed awkwardly and just began talking. Everything, from meeting Breann, to the nurse, to my heart, to poisonous metals slowly killing me. Shane knew if she didn't stop crying, the kids would be upset. So we just hugged each other a lot until Juliet, Kat, and Esme went to bed. I showed Shane the texts and emails from Breann. The progress we had made in corresponding with the others seemed to comfort my wife.

My chest hurt a lot. The headache was painful, but I didn't want to complain in front of my wife at the risk of making her more upset.. As we got ready to sleep, Shane pushed herself close to me and whispered in my ear, "I'm not ready to lose you. I want you to spend every spare minute finding a way to get these doctors to fix you. Whatever it takes, do it. We aren't ready to lose you." We held each other for a while then Shane said "You feel really warm, feverish actually. You should work from home tomorrow, you need rest." We fell asleep uncertain.

A fierce coldness consumed my body. I opened my eyes and wondered had I walked in my sleep, outside. I had not. Under a sheet, a bedspread and an afghan I was freezing. Not wanting to wake the warm body next to me, I arose and made my way into the bathroom. I stared at the pale face in the mirror. Remembering the words "if you feel fever, it's a warning." I opened a drawer and found a pair of scissors. Not wanting to wake her I didn't turn the hot water on, I just made an incision in the left part of my chest. I cut at the flesh until I felt an obstruction. The blood was significant. I was risking bleeding out. It took two towels to clean away enough blood to see what I was supposed to see. It was metal. Then I saw a red light reflected off the metal carriage. Standing before the mirror naked, I saw what I was for the first time in my 40 years. Part something, part something else, but definitely not what I am supposed to be.

"Baby, you ok?" I felt warm arms and chest wrapped around my freezing back and shoulders. I was awake but back in bed. I threw the covers off and anxiously investigated my body. Shane stared incredulousy at me and asked "are you having a bad dream or are you losing your mind?"

Nothing is there. No blood, no metal carriage, no red light, just me, flesh and bone. It must have been a dream, or a warning. The fever remained.

*blogger's note* - This is another piece of episodic fiction from a story I am writing. The other ones are here:

1) synchronicity
2) personality crisis
3) serendipity 6
4) Hot Dog Harbinger
5) Goodbye Stranger
6) House of Irony
7) Connection
8) Dead Man's Party
9) Hope Springs A Turtle
10) Drown
11) Toyed

Hope you enjoy reading. Feel free to constructively criticize. This is associated with a writing prompt of RISK by @Studio30plus over at http://www.studiothirtyplus.com/ .

Today's song is a request from a reader, Lisa aka @RandomGirlBlog. She said this would make a good theme for the story. Here's Thirty Seconds To Mars' The Kill....get your Jordan Catalano/Jared Leto fix....

Bango Quango

2011-04-08T09:21:00.000-04:00

There are three things I try to avoid while writing this blog; politics, religion, and pop music. Most writers don't like themselves so they could care less if you like them. Of course, I have to be different. I want you to like me. I hope you read something here, feel good about it, and tell a friend or 40.

Last night I saw something disturbing. It hurt me. I wanted to run to the blog and tell you what I thought, but I was exhausted from a 12 hour work day and trying to hang a TV. So I slept on it. This morning I feel even stronger so here I go.

On American Idol, a show that goes against both my religions: music and Christianity, featured a performance by the late great Iggy Pop. I feel the need to tell you who Iggy Pop is, because no one in my house or immediate friend group knew and that bothered me a lot.

Born James Osterberg and raised in a trailer park in Ypsilanti, Michigan, he became Iggy Pop after his first band, The Iguanas, broke up. He was a drummer then but later became the lead singer for The Stooges. The Stooges were legendary. The experimented with several types of music and influenced punk rock, metal, alternative and rock. Iggy Pop was as much more performance artist as lead singer. He rolled around in broken glass, sliced open his chest, rubbed peanut butter and other substances all over himself, and danced like a mad man always shirtless. Their albums, The Stooges, Funhouse, and Raw Power became favorites among musicians, and writers. Kurt Cobain listed Raw Power as his favorite record in his Journals released in 2002. The Stooges were finally elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year.

Iggy Pop should be the last person ever to want to perform on American Idol; a mainstream, watered down, safe show. Yet there he was last night, singing Real Wild One. I cringed and died a little.

One of the people Iggy was gyrating in front of was the lead singer of Aerosmith, Steven Tyler. I don't need to tell you who he is, because Aerosmith has been a pop band for the last 24 years and Tyler is now "judging" American Idol contestants. If those kids knew Tyler's history enough, they'd realize how ridiculous his being there is, in the big picture of things.

This brings me to the controversial part of the post. I can solve funding for the arts AND the nation's drug problem. Yeah, I just wrote that. Are you ready? Here's the masterplan......

Legalize all drugs, but only allow rock stars to have them. Then, have the rock stars work for a Quango, which is a government agency that operates on it's own terms, where they teach artistic kids, young aspiring musicians, and up and coming writers how to be awesome. I know what you're thinking. Why would you want your little Billy or sweet Missy hanging out with drugged up crazy people? The main reason is, when Steven Tyler and Iggy Pop and Eddie Van Halen and Keith Richards and Slash et al were high, they made GREAT music. You could film it all for PBS, have chaperones there so they didn't try to hit on teenage girls, and you would have the next generation of amazing artists. Call the show Bango Quango and run disclaimers about the drug use.

Well Lance, would you let your 15 year old daughter participate in this? She wants to be a journalist. No, probably not. Because I worry too much. But you laid back hippie types would be fine. You could be there, or the chaperones could handle things. Look we could put the druggie rock stars and other whacked out artists behind glass. This can work. Right now we are in a creative malaise. Shows like American Idol are killing our culture. Don't you want to have the next Nevermind or Appetite for Destruction or Raw Power? This way, these selfish, insane artists can give back after taking all these years. You would have a thriving, ratings rich PBS combined with all the drugs off the streets and into the hands of the people who need them...ROCK STARS! Aerosmith might be good again, like they were in the 1970s. Wouldn't you rather hear Dream On instead of I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing?

This cures a lot of the nation's ills. As a die hard music fan who wants his and others' kids to know good art, this handles a lot of problems for me. Most of all, I never have to worry about 63 year old Steven Tyler judging kareoke competitions or seeing a shirtless 64 year old Iggy Pop performing inappropriately during the family hour.

go ahead, talk amongst yourselves and get back to me....this could work, you know it could. Or I could just be a sarcastic music snob. You decide.

Today's song is one that should be in your IPOD and consciousness. It's Search and Destroy by The Stooges from Kurt's Cobain's favorite record, Raw Power. Play it loud. Rub peanut butter on yourself. GO

Toyed

2011-04-06T19:12:00.000-04:00

Exhausted by the events in New York, I walked lifelessly through the Atlanta airport. I wanted to bring Breann with me but she was in New Jersey speaking with her mother. I wasn't sure I could be in the same room with my parents. They raised me to believe that hiding information was lying.

By the luggage carousel, a boy; maybe 4 years old, played with a toy robot that talked when you pressed it's chest. The toy wouldn't talk. "Mama, this robot is broken!" he yelled. I shook my head muttering to myself bitterly, "damn right it is."

*blogger's note* - This is my entry for @velvetverbosity 's 100 Word Challenge located at http://www.velvetverbosity.com/ . Please her place out. there are some talented people there.

This is part of a story I am writing episodically. Here are the other ones:

1) synchronicity
2) personality crisis
3) serendipity 6
4) Hot Dog Harbinger
5) Goodbye Stranger
6) House of Irony
7) Connection
8) Dead Man's Party
9) Hope Springs A Turtle
10) Toyed

I hope you take the time to look over the other entries and enjoy. Feel free to constructively criticize.

Today's song is one of the better one hit wonders of the 1990s. I had a bad day today and this song just popped into my head. It fits here, especially the killer first line, "don't look now, things just got worse". This is Dog's Eye View's Everything Falls Apart...enjoy your pop rock, kids...

Drown

2011-04-05T00:46:00.004-04:00

I couldn't speak until my second whiskey and water. I just stared into my glass as Breann told me about Lena and Clare's medical issues, personal details, and getting a lead on Lucas Bonner living in Las Vegas, Nevada.
She talked nonstop for almost 10 minutes. Seeing my blank face, Breann stopped mid sentence and said plainly,

"Caleb, I know music and liquor is where you are right now, but you head back to Georgia tomorrow. Whatever is on your mind needs to be on mine. Just say it."

I took the red straw from her jack and coke and twirled it in my fingers. The syrupy plastic feel made me think of my kids fingers after they ate pancakes and tried to hug me.

"We're going to die without new hearts, Breann. I ran into that nurse. She told me she was there when the first three were born. She knows what we are. Without one of those doctors fixing us, it's over. I don't feel like investigating. I don't feel like googling strangers. I don't care about Lena in Texas, Clare in Arizona or Lucas in Las Vegas right now. I want to drink until I'm numb. Then later, we'll eat something greasy to soak up this booze and I'll go home and tell my wife we have to call our insurance agent and make some changes."

Breann wasn't a person who felt sorry for herself. She leaned over, put her hands on my face and said slowly, "I just found you. I'm not going to lose you. You sure as hell aren't getting rid of me. We find these doctors, get new parts, and fight through this. Tell Shane whatever you want. But, know this, in a week or so, we will know everything about the evil assholes who made us like this. Now, drink. I've crawled home from here before. It'll be a blast to have someone do it with."

Memories became lost in the pouring of more drinks After the fourth or maybe fifth, things happened in blurs. The band was terrible, I remember. They wanted to be Smashing Pumpkins but they couldn't play very well. Breann got familiar with the bass player's girlfriend. I pushed and shoved someone with the band. I'm sure I looked ridiculous doing it all 15 years older than most people around me.

At some point it began raining. We got caught in the street waiting for a cab, and the rain fell over me in sheets, sobering me a little. I felt like I was drowning in information, illness, and indecision. How do I swim through this wave of change washing over my life? At some point, Breann and I sat down on the curb waiting on the cab and the wet became comforting.

I woke to a pain in my chest and a cold sweat. It was still dark. I stumbled into the bathroom, turned on the light, and looked into the mirror. Old bloodshot brown eyes judged me. The pain increased. I felt a deadness in my hands. I reached for my toothbrush and could not get it into my grasp. I dropped to my right knee and tried to maintain a steady breath. Then I began to pray...."Please God, just give me a little longer. Let me make this right with my family, the people who love me, God. I know I don't deserve it, but they do." The pain dissipated. Feeling came back slowly to my hands and fingers. I was still sweating. I found my phone in the pocket of my jeans from the night before and texted Breann, "Come and get me. Let's find these people and get our lives back."

I looked at the corner of my phone. It was 6:30 am. I made it to another day.

*blogger's note* This is another piece of episodic fiction from a story I am writing. The other parts are here

1) synchronicity
2) personality crisis
3) serendipity 6
4) Hot Dog Harbinger
5) Goodbye Stranger
6) House of Irony
7) Connection
8) Dead Man's Party
9) Hope Springs A Turtle

I hope you take the time to look over the other entries and enjoy. Feel free to constructively criticize.

Please go to http://www.studiothirtyplus.com/ and read my piece titled The Lesson of Kurt Cobain, http://www.studiothirtyplus.com/magazine/read/the-lesson-of-kurt-cobain-_1516.html. It's the 17th anniversary of his death today.

The above blog post is based off a one word prompt from Studiothirtyplus called LAS VEGAS.

Today's song is from Smashing Pumpkins. I was listening to the Singles movie soundtrack driving to Tennessee for work yesterday and heard the last song on the CD, Drown. It represents what I felt writing this .

Tattoo Me

2011-04-03T08:24:00.003-04:00

I grew up thinking tattoos were weird. I even admit to prejudice to the unnaturally adorned. Then, when I was 18, I witnessed a close friend get tattooed in Panama City, Florida. Suddenly, with it front of my face, I became transformed into a fan of body art.

I have 7 tattoos, my left ankle, both hips, both biceps, my left shoulder, and my left pectoral. The story behind a few of them are somewhat interesting. I try not to be boring all the time. Some people tell a story with their designs. I think of my Magnificent 7 as symbols of periods of my life. So here's the rundown in order of application.

In a tattoo shop in Panama City, Florida, in 1993 with a group of just out of college, partying friends. None of us were in our right minds. I sobered quickly when the color was put into the tattoo. It was an ink badge of a high school nickname, Speedy Gonzales. I regret getting it. For one, I don't usually go for for color tattoos; and two, my friends picked it out.

I researched the next one. I am a fan of black and white with some shading designs. So I took my time, planned this tattoo. I got it in New York in 2006. It's an Egyptian Falcon God symbol on my right bicep, that later became a Christian solider image about 2,000 years ago. It means father or protector, which was a representative of my duties as dad.

A year after my right bicep tattoo, I was in Los Angeles and ventured into Kat Von D's High Voltage Tattoo Shop on La Brea. I got a rising phoenix design to signify my rebirth after a divorce and this making me free to take on the next phase of my life. As I was walking into to the place I saw Kat Von D, walking out with the former manager of Guns N Roses, Vicky Hamilton, walking out. That was a double dose of awesome that probably clouded my judgement in paying too much for the tattoo on my left bicep.

I met my wife, the aforeblogged Bobina, six months after the Los Angeles experience. She had never been inked, so when we got married in November of 2008, we decided to get tattooed together in Lawrenceville , Georgia, near where we lived, and went over the top of wedding rings with matching Chinese love symbols on our right hips. I guess, if she ever gets rid of me, I'll have to find someone with the same tattoo or things could get awkward (sarcasm).

A few months later, in 2009, Bobina and I went together to get more work done. This time we tried out a new tattoo shop near our newer house, in Buford, Georgia. She got a multi-colored butterfly deal in the middle of her shoulder blades and I decided to even up my hips with a safe Chinese symbol for strength. I'm aware this is a common tattoo. I was looking for symmetry and to be moral support for my wife as she got something intricately awesome.

Tattoo six came about a year later, 2010, as I wanted to show something symbolic of my other children. I am part Cherokee Indian, so I went with a native american design that meant father, with my daughter's initials T for Tay, L for Lyla (Bug), and C for Carly (Goose). I am not that large of a fan of The Learning Channel or tender loving care. This is probably my favorite tattoo.

The final tattoo was another show of support for The Bobina who was getting her dream body art design of a flower with colors in the middle of her shoulder blades, showing her three kids. I went for an Apache protection arrow on my left pectoral muscle. We used the same local shop. They like us and we like them.

So there you have it. Seven tattoos, showing what's important in my life, with a few almost interesting stories. My wife has three and wants more. Since I seem to get inked when she does, you might see another tattoo post in the future. As always, I'll show you mine if you show me yours. Let me know what you got and why. I like tattoos and really like the stories behind them.

*sidenote* I saw the movie The Fighter tonight. It's outstanding. Mark Wahlberg as boxer Irish Mickey Ward, Christian Bale as his brother Dickie Eckland, Melissa Leo as their mother, and Amy Adams as Mickey Ward's girlfriend, later wife, Charlene are all excellent. Rent it asap. The performances alone are worth it; but the true, unbelievably inspirational story is worthy of your two hours.

Today's song is a recovery from yesterday's break from music snobbery.

It's from The Rolling Stones 1981 album Tattoo You. The lyrics aren't the point here. I wanted something upbeat, good, and from the Tattoo YOU album to go with the Tattoo Me post.

Here's Hang Fire, enjoy Keef's guitar....

Bobina's Birthday

2011-04-01T03:54:00.001-04:00

I walked through the San Diego Airport with a lot on my mind. Then something profound struck me. The taco stand smelled terrific. The meat was fresh, the shells snapped briskly, and the tomatoes were perfectly ripe. An older spanish man smiled and asked me how many I wanted. I swallowed hard, and said "give me a minute, please" and walked near the bathrooms. I pulled out my cell phone and made the most significant phone call of my life.

My divorce was bad. I'll leave it at that. My now seven year old daughter Lyla, aka Bug, was the center of my life for her first 4 years. I fought for her til my heart bled.

In November 2007, I called my boss and told him I couldn't take his offer of a two year opportunity in Southern California, doing what it is I do for a living. At the time, it was because I didn't want to be without my daughter for 9 months out of a year. I didn't have the foresight to realize it was also because I wouldn't meet her.

Today is not known around my house as April Fools Day, it's known as Deana "Bobina"'s Birthday. I'm 40, she's six and a half years younger, you do the math. Six months after my San Diego Airport phone call, I met Bobina through some friends. We ate salads at Chili's, talked a lot, checked each other out like panting puppies, and fell in love immediately. She's the center of my life now. Bobina is my best friend, lover, and mother to my now three daughters.

I know a lot of you want to read about a lot of stuff other than how much I dig my wife and kids. Sorry to disappoint. I love my wife and treasure my daughters. I try not to forget, but sometimes I don't recall right away, how huge that decision I made in San Diego, turned out to be. Yeah, for at least two years, I would have been living in great weather, making more money, and maybe be more accomplished in my job; but I wouldn't have Bobina or Tay or the Goose. They make my life a lot wealthier.

We took Bobina out to one of her favorite places to eat last night. Today is filled with Goose taekwondo, the other parents picking up our kids, Tay's cheerleading tryouts for her high school, and Bobina working at her job til 6pm. That's how some good moms/wives "celebrate" their birthdays.

I know you read every word of this place, Bobina. So, Happy Birthday, Beautiful. Thanks for making me glad I turned down surfing on a Friday after work. I'd rather eat pizza and contemplate yard work with you, any day of the week. I'm the luckiest man alive.

I never did try one of those tacos. They looked good.

Today's song is something Bobina likes. If it wasn't her birthday, I wouldn't be caught dead listening to this, must less youtub(e)ing it. This better get me something I like....Music snobbery takes a day off, one day a year, for Bobina's Birthday.

Here's something she loves almost as much as me (sarcasm) -

Hope Springs A Turtle

2011-03-31T01:26:00.004-04:00

I'd believed music saved since I heard the Beatles at 5 years old. Tonight, I needed it to provide a voice to tell Breann there was a chance I wouldn't dance at my daughters weddings. I walked into the Bowery Ballroom rock club and sat on a stool as if it were giving me oxygen. The song Voices Carry by Til Tuesday played. To a younger, prettier, tattooed, Chrissie Hynde lookalike tending bar, I said "whiskey and water." I turned around and saw guy in his early 20s wearing eyeliner, holding a guitar case that read, Hope Springs A Turtle.

*blogger's note* - This is my entry into @velvetverbosity 's 100 Word Challenge at her site http://www.velvetverbosity.com/ . This is a continuation of a story I am writing. The other episodes are here:

1) synchronicity

2) personality crisis

3) serendipity 6

4) Hot Dog Harbinger

5) Goodbye Stranger

6) House of Irony

7) Connection

8) Dead Man's Party

I hope you take the time to check out the other posts and enjoy what you read.

Today's song is mentioned in this post. Voices Carry by Til Tuesday is an underrated 1980s pop song. That's group's singer/songwriter, Aimee Mann, is one of my favorite artists. She has done brilliant work over the last 20 years. I chose an alternative intepretation of the song's lyrics. Here's the song in the story, Voices Carry-

Dead Man's Party

2011-03-29T07:28:00.003-04:00

The third floor was surprisingly calm. It appeared to be staging and recovery rooms for surgeries and other procedures. Exam room 3 was around the corner from the elevator, seemingly hidden away from the other rooms. As I walked in, I heard the nurse's voice say, "go into the bathroom, take off your shirt, I'll be there in in a minute." I rolled my eyes and thought little of her command. We needed to have a conversation, not a weird restroom encounter. "I don't go that far on the first date, can we just talk first?" She didn't respond. The bathroom seemed creepy so I stayed in the corner next to the faded red reclining chair so as not to be seen from the hallway. She appeared, in shadow, pushing an exam cart. "Fine, but I need to examine you, having your shirt off would help," she insisted. Extending my hand and faking a big smile, I replied, "Hi, I'm Caleb. I understand you met my, uh, friend I guess, yesterday. She's a lot to take the first time. Maybe you and I can be less confrontational."

With green eyes, a hard face of no makeup or expression, and graying red hair pulled back into an air tight bun, the nurse looked cliche. Breann calling her a battleax was spot on. "I'm not willing to give my livelihood or my life for you or your sister. I am offering to examine you and tell you what to expect over the next few weeks or months," she deadpanned. Why would she lose her life helping me? She called Breann my sister, there's obvious something to all this, I thought. This nurse appeared to have seen it all and not liked it much. "If I show you mine, will you tell me how to find the others?" I asked. She shook her head in agreeance and pointed at my t-shirt. I pulled it off as well as my hat and leaned against the exam table.

She took my blood pressure, checked my temperature, then investigated my chest, neck, and head. Finally she stated, "you have a temperature of 100. Your heartbeat is faster than normal, and you've likely had a cardiac arrest in the last 24 hours. You need to find those doctors. If they don't make some adjustments, you and the others won't live long." Every ex I'd known possessed better bedside manner. Won't live long? After a 5 minute checkup? She could see the bewilderment building, and said, "I didn't deliver you. I was there for babies 1-3." That meant she oversaw the births of Bruce, Clare, and Lucas. Before I could ask a question she dropped, "all six of you were stillborn or in heart failure when you were taken from your mothers. Each of you were implanted with a robotic heart, and that means you have artificial synapses to your nervous system, brain stem, and different metals throughout your valves, and respiratory lines. Those metals are like poison. As your heart wears down, the poison becomes more pronounced. That's all I know from a medical view."

Putting my shirt on slowly, my exasperation was matched only by my stammering, "wha, how, ok, well, I, no nurses are on the charts. Neither are Bulas or Cluber. In fact, I can't find anything on them." She rubs her mouth. I can see the nicotine stains on her fingers and the tops of her teeth, when she grimaces and says, "you were an experiment. Doctors Bulas and Cluber weren't residents here. They were around this hospital for a month or two doing research and some surgeries. I was working doubles the first few days of September. I was off when you and the other two were born. There's a clinic at New York University that will have records from the 1970s when Connor Bulas was running it. You need to look up Los Angeles, California heart specialists associated with cedars Sinai Hospital. The last I heard, four years ago, Anson Cluber was privileged through there. He's well known in the cardiologist community. Also, I know you are dying slowly. It's a scientific wonder that you all lasted 40 years. Those hearts are like batteries. Inside of you is a red light that will die out. Chest pains, breathing problems, headaches, dizziness and fever are what you all should watch for. You need to tell the other five of their conditions. If you feel fever, it's a warning. I have to go."

I followed her outside into the hall but she refuses to even acknowledge me. I reached for her arm but see two nurses coming our way. I turned around and walked towards the elevator. I'm in enough trouble. This woman, irascible she may be; helped me. I took the elevator down to the lobby, exited the automatic doors, walked into the parking lot, and called Breann. She answered on the first ring, and I acerbically said, "Dead man walking, we need to drink, talk, then drink some more."

*blogger's note* This is another story entry of a book I'm writing. I used the one word prompt RED from the cool writer's den known as @Studio30Plus / http://www.studio30plus.com/ . Check them out. They do a really good job of spotlighting writer's and there are some impressive compositions there.

Here are the other episodes:
1) synchronicity

2) personality crisis

3) serendipity 6

4) Hot Dog Harbinger

5) Goodbye Stranger

6) House of Irony

7) Connection

8) Dead Man's Party

Today's song is the what was playing in my head the entire time I wrote this, Oingo Boingo's Dead Man's Party.

About A Girl's SuperPowers

2011-03-27T14:05:00.000-04:00

As I read through blogs I notice a common theme with female authors. The writers with XX chromosomes seem to vacillate between supreme confidence detailing their "superpowers" of mothering, sexiness, or persuasion or vast insecurity due to questions about vanity and their place in the world.

I write a lot about living with 4 women; my wife and 3 daughters. When you count my niece, who stays with us often, my sister in law, mother in law, and couple of female friends; I am usually the only dude in the room of many women. This makes me a keen observer of female characteristics. I'm not close to an expert. I still know little about women, but what I do know, can help a few of you who read this.

An actual superhero with pronounced powers, Wonder Woman, is who many women refer themselves as when describing what they do and what they are.

For the record, the latest incarnation of Wonder Woman, is Adrianne Palicki.

I have no idea what the new television series will do for the character of Diana Prince/wonder woman or how it will affect our culture. I do know this, the wonder women I live with have powers and they are aware of their abilities.

This weekend my six year old, previously blogged about as The Goose,

went into her older sister, 15 year old Tay's room to beg for a switch of rooms. Tay, without hesitating or allowing Goose to plead her case, said no, and shut her door. Goose bounded down the stairs, and shouted to her mom and I "i went into Tay's room, asked her to give me her room and she said no. I was sweet, gave her my puppy dog eyes, and she she still said no, I used all my powers!". The comedy of the story is overshadowed by the reality that Goose, at only 6 years old, is so aware of her "powers". My other two daughters are confident in their wiles. Tay knows how to talk in a sweet tone,

Bug knows how to show me affection,

and their mom, Bobina, knows how to play my emotions so that everyone gets what they need and want. This doesn;t make them manipulative, this makes them talented, real talented.

Where all of this comes off the rails is when women, especially the ones I live with, let their powers become power. Men are simple, even weird, anxiety ridden, robot like, men like your blogger. We want to feel needed, wanted, desired, loved, and necessary. But manipulate us, mistreat us, and we'll run the other way. We need to feel dominant and in control sometimes. How I love these women I'm with, is they know what buttons to push, and what buttons not to. In return they get my unconditional love and care.

If women really want to be confident in their arsenal of female weapons, they should know how treat the men in their lives in conjunction with their use of powers.

My girls can fight, have their own lasso of truth, and if I made millions, would fly around in an invisible Jet. As smart, funny, and beautiful as they are, they are very much Wonder Women. They are also vulnerable and kind to need to me to be their protector. The most telling thing is they take their cues from their mother. you know you've found the right person when she can combine being a strong willed badass with tenderness. Bobina's greatest superpower is applying that combination on a daily basis.

One of these days, a writer of comic books, movies, and television will recognize that having a female hero kick butt and be loving is a lot more appealing than one or the other. Maybe they should hang out at my house for a day or two.

I have to go now, my girls are using their powers to get ice cream.

Today's song is my favorite song on Nirvana's first record, Bleach, in 1989. Kurt Cobain wrote it about being a bad boyfriend to his then girlfriend, Tracy. I have always taken the song to mean what an immature guy is looking for in a female companion. I am around so many girls that the song's sweetness affects me. Here's Nirvana's About A Girl....

Til I Hear It From You

2011-03-26T09:43:00.000-04:00

Thirty nine text messages, seven tweets, and one lunch hour phone call gave me a lot more informations but few answers. Breann contacted Lena Cosburn and Clare Bunson. Lena's Texas housewife blogging habits had put her in a friendship with Clare. Clare was living in Sedona, Arizona where she was yoga instructor and substitute middle school teacher. Lena and Clare had met in person twice, and become close. Clare was reluctant to talk to Breann, but Lena had middle managed enough communication to find out Clare suffered from respiratory problems, shortness of breath, and manic depression. Clare appeared to be quite versed in New Age philosophy, homepathic medicine, and fitness. Despite all that, Clare and Lena were often afflicted with bouts of bad health. "We'll meet around 7:30pm at your hotel" was Breann's last text.

I left the office around 5:30pm and headed to the hotel to change into jeans and a t-shirt. I threw on a New York Jets cap and took a cab back to Lenox Hill Hospital. On a hunch worthy of a thumbs up from Thomas Magnum, I decided to make a trip to the records room in the hospital basement.

The records room was crowded. The shift change hadn't happened, so the hospital staff was looking at the clock and not at an unassuming man sifting through 1970 birth documents. After a few minutes I found the files. I went over the same information as before; dates and times of births. I realized I never known when I was born, exactly. I cam,e into the world, September 9th at 3:23am. My parents, Dean and Carolyn Runsen, signed everything and it seemed I had been healthy. There was no mention of being stillborn, no listing of care administered, doctor's name, nurses' dutied. One set of vital signs were taken. It was all too insignificant.

I dug deeper into the information for Breann, Lena, Clare, Lucas, and another baby, born before any of us, on September 1, 1970, at 9lb 1oz, named Bruce Nolans. His parents were from Paterson, New Jersey originally, but there was a family physician listed in Missoula, Montana. It was if all six of us were oddballs born in the first 11 days of September. I checked the records of babies born six months nefore, and six months prior. None of these files looked like ours. As I left the records room about an hour later, my cell phone started vibrating. Three voicemails appeared, along with seven texts. All of the contact was from the usual suspects, including Breann, but the third voicemail was the nurse from the day before. "You need to find me in examination room 3 on the third floor. It's important to your health. Have you found Connor Bulas or Anson Cluber? You have to. If I don't see you in 30 minutes, you're on your own." That low, gruff tone, and bad attitude were unpleasant yet unforgettable. It had been 19 minutes since her voicemail.

*blogger's note* - This is another entry of a story I am writing. The other episodes are here:

1) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/synchronicity.html

2) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/personality-crisis.html

3) http://www.studiothirtyplus.com/magazine/read/fever_1324.html

4) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/serendipity-6.html

5) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/hot-dog-harbinger.html

6) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/goodbye-stranger.html

7) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/house-of-irony.html

8) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/connection.html

Today's song is from one of the more underrated bands of 1990s, The Gin Blossoms. Their first album, New Miserable Experience is outstanding., Their second record, Congratulations, Im Sorry is straight pop and nearly as good, but the last song is Til I Hear It From You. I dig it. It fits this story entry as Caleb finds out more information and gets set up for shocking revelations.

Connection

2011-03-25T05:55:00.000-04:00

Breann and I shared a cab over to the Plaza. As I exited the car, she called out "I'm off from work. I'll contact Lena, Clare, and research Lucas, then text bomb your phone." As I walked through the glass revolving door, a coworker of mine who thinks he's my friend, cuffs me in the back of the head with his right hand. "Caleb Runson, you have a girlfriend!" he announced indiscreetly. "No, she's, well, we're related. She's family." It was the first time I had said it aloud. My headache disappeared and my chest relaxed. I felt really good.

*blogger's note" This is my entry for @velvetverbosity 's 100 word Challenge at http://www.velvetverbosity.com/ The one word prompt is CUFFS. This is a continuation of the story I 'm writing. To keep up with what's going on, the other entries are here:

1) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/synchronicity.html

2) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/personality-crisis.html

3) http://www.studiothirtyplus.com/magazine/read/fever_1324.html

4) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/serendipity-6.html

5) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/hot-dog-harbinger.html

6) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/goodbye-stranger.html

7) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/house-of-irony.html

I hope you stay with it and enjoy the writing. I will write another thousand words or so by Sunday night. Thanks for reading.

Today's song is perfect for the writing. The connection is made between Caleb and Breann. I thought Elastica was going to be bigger than they were. Justine Frischmann was dating Damon Albarn of Blur, Elastica's first record was really good, and then....not much after. This song, Stutter, and Line Up are mainstays on my IPOD. Here's Elastica's Connection...

Barracuda

2011-03-24T06:35:00.000-04:00

She's six years old. Short, wavy, white blond hair that moves when she prances, she's all girl. Her favorite thing to wear in a flowing princess dress. She loves unicorns. Her name is Carly, we call her The Goose. She needs a new nickname because as of tonight, she'll kick your ass.

With all the talk of me being a robot, I must be the business model, because my little Goose is the killer, The Terminator. For years we thought she'd be a a cheerleader, a dancer, a singer, because she's prissy and artistic. She sings and dances to everything. Goose is like a Glee episode, but not as annoying. The past two weeks, I've seen another side. She's a karate chopping, steely eyed, martial art machine.

Bobina had to work, so I took Tay the teenager and Goose to her taekwondo class. It was her second time. Last week was a one on one session and she did well, but she was getting used to the class and the teacher. Tonight, she turned herself into an unstoppable force of intense blondness. Halfway through the one hour session, her instructor decided to let her try ax kicking boards. On her first attempt, a piece of plywood that I swear was, oh, I don;t know, 3 feet thick, was placed in front of her and she splintered it on the first try.

I am starting to think I am putting together a cyborg army of soul crushing little girls. Tay is slaying cheerleading tryouts this week, Bug pinned a boy two years older than her with a jujitsu move tonight, and Carly kicked and chopped and yelled her way into taekwondo nirvana. The deal here is, I don't have to worry as much as you other dads and moms about my girls taking care of themselves when I'm not around. Also, with the right code word or computer programming, I can unleash the three of them on you for negative comments and general tomfoolery. Maybe I'm kidding.

She had so much fun. The smile afterwards was undeniable. But while it was going on, she was dead serious and awesome. I'm proud of her for finding something she likes.

Family Portrait/What We Really Look Like:

Today's song is a great one by Heart. Maybe we should call my little Goose, Barracuda, because of her new found toughness....enjoy this riff, and Ann Wilson's voice...ooooo Barracuda

Back Strokes

2011-03-23T08:58:00.002-04:00

Spring means a lot of things. Baseball, the Easter Bunny, yardwork, and seeing people who shouldn't be wearing shorts at the local Walmart, wearing them. Excuse me if I place something ahead of those benchmarks of the second season. The Strokes are back.

About ten years ago, rock music saw an influx of The The bands. Sweden had The Hives, Australia had The Vines, England had The Libertines, America had The Strokes. New York City's Fab Five of retro cool led by singer-songwriter Julian Casablancas, the son of fashion model mogul John Casablancas, sounded like The Velvet Underground had a baby with Television and Blondie at CBGBs and it wore sunglasses while swirling jangly guitars played. Their debut album, released a month after 9/11, Is This It, stayed in my CD player, both car and home, for months. Hard to Explain, Last Night, Someday and New York City Cops were songs I just couldn't stop listening to. The Strokes sounded different. They sounded like they were having a good time and didn't care if you liked them. They were cocky, pretentious, fun, interesting New York City artists that got it. Their second album, Room on Fire was even better. It flowed from one guitar driven hangover tune to another. Reptilia was one of the best songs I had heard in a long time. Then, instead of taking time off they made a bad record. First Impressions of Earth was released five years ago, and it was a drastic change. As much as I like it when bands experiment and try to be different, the electronic stuff, the overuse of synthesizers, and weird song structures just sucked. So they didn't talk to each other, everyone did solo projects, and everyone in the music world asked this question, "When are the Strokes coming back?"

Yesterday, The Strokes answered the question with a new CD release called Angles. It's a return to their retro post punk song but the lyrical content is more grown up. Julian and his wife had a baby a year ago. You can hear the wistfulness in the words of some of the songs I've heard. Nick Valensi's guitar work is excellent. I've heard five songs. I think my favorite so far is Under The Cover Of Darkness. I'll get the album downloaded from itunes onto my ipod by the weekend but my excitement for The Strokes being back is high.

Today's song is from the new record, Angles by The Strokes. It's the only official video they have out, as far as I know. Listen to the guitar. The way the song builds at the 90 second mark is terrific. It's good to have good music to feel good about. Welcome back Strokes.

The House of Irony

2011-03-21T10:13:00.001-04:00

Walking into the Manhattan Diner, something about Breann registered that I hadn't paid any attention. She was flirting with the waitress. The brown eyes, the anxiousness, the incessant talking, sharp dressing, and type A personality weren't the only things we held in common. We also liked blondes. Around 30 years old, curvy, blue eyed, dirty blonde curly tressed with a loud laugh, Breann's conversation partner became more professional when I walked to the booth. Breann introduced me and then my order was taken. Breann looked desperate to get through the awkwardness. "So, um, how are Shane and the girls," she asked slyly. "Mean and grumpy, but I could hear their pretty through the phone. How's the girl bringing my eggs?" I answered mischeviously. She wanted to open up and tell me something that really wasn't any of my business. Her shoulders tightened, she bit her bottom lip, and said "um, so guess who Lena Cosburn is in an internet chat room group on scrapbooking with?" I was hoping she'd say Lucas Bonner so I had less work to do before going into my real job, but I had a feeling he wasn't into putting laminated pages into notebooks. "Lindsay Lohan," I offered sarcastically. "No, but if she was we'd know where to get good coke. Clare Bunson, born in New York City at Lenox Hill Hospital on September 6, 1970. She sent me an email this morning. Lena may handle Clare for us. Thank goodness. Imagine having to get into a scrapbooking chatroom just to drop, a hey, you might be my robot sister and we need to figure out how to stay alive before our bodies blow up or our batteries die or something." Breann handled the stress the same way I did, with sarcasm and inappropriate remarks. I didn't respond. I was hungry, but I wasn't interested in our tasks. I just wanted to go home, introduce Breann to my wife and kids, and give her the family she deserved. Unmarried, little to no family left and possibly childless for the rest of her life, I was concerned. I slid some notes I had taken on Lucas Bonner across the table and said "let's take an hour off from this and get to know each other. Maybe we can get to where we need to go with more personal information about each other." She smiled, the blonde delivered our eggs, bacon, and toast. Then Breann told me a story.

"My family was a little like yours. Your dad gave up baseball to raise you and your sister. My dad gave up his art gallery job in the city when I was 3 months old. He, my mom, and I moved out to Orange, New Jersey. My dad took a job selling construction supplies, and my mom answered phones at an insurance office. My sister was born three years later and my parents decided they had to have a big house. We moved into this old Victorian style place when I was 4. By then, my parents had given birth to my little sister, Bailey. She wasn't even walking when we moved in. The house was built in the 1950s, it was huge but run down. My parents spent years fixing it up. From the street it looked gorgeous. When I was little I swore there were angels lining the house like something out of an old movie. Kids loved coming over and playing in the yard. The thing is, inside, it was kind of depressing. My dad had a talent for carpentry and my mom was a good housekeeper but nothing was ever finished. The place was always cluttered. No matter how much we cleaned, there was always some undone project. We almost never had people come inside. When I convinced a friend to come over and see the place from inside, they usually said something like "this isn't what I expected", which I took as "this place is kind of screwed up and so are you". It's like the house came to symbolize my entire life. People thinking one thing about me when the opposite was true."

Enthralled with the window into her childhood, I asked, "what happened to the house?"

Breann's face grew small. Her lips pursed and she bit her bottom lip in nervousness. "My mom and dad grew apart. he was an artist meant to live in New York, not a suburban dad who installed wall trim and planted shrubs. My mom was more simple. She loved being a mom. She loved that damn house. I guess I was more like my dad. I grew to resent the place like he obviously did."

I was hearing something I shouldn't, at least not this quickly in our friendship. I smiled and gave her look like she could trust me. I didn't have to do that. She rubbed her temples and kept going.

"My dad left when I was 16. I was a junior in high school. For whatever reason, well, maybe because I'm robot (she chuckled and smiled wickedly) or whatever we are, I handled it all well. I even supported my mom when she took the house from him. My sister was younger, like 13, I think, and much more emotional. She thought everything about about her all the time. She got into drugs when I was senior. Never got out of them. My mom met this guy she worked with like a year after my dad left, right before I started college. While my sister and I were visiting my dad in the city, my mom eloped. Her new husband had an even bigger, more imposing looking Victorian style house about 10 miles away. I'll never forget helping my mom and sister move out of the old house. My sister and I used to call the place The House of Irony. Beautiful on the outside but damaged on the inside. My sister, melodramatic 24/7 said, as we put the last boxes into my step dad's truck, "The House Of Irony is dead. All hail The House of What It Is Actually Is, Despair!" She grinned oddly, gripped her fork, and spit, "Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Alanis Morrisette."

I couldn't stop myself from laughing. That made Breann laugh. As we finished our breakfast, I told her about growing up in Georgia and meeting my wife. The conversation was a lot easier that the eggs.

*blogger's note* This is a continuation of the story I am writing. The inspiration for this entry comes from @Studio30Plus aka http://www.studio30plus.com/ 's one word prompt IRONY. Please visit the site and find some other good writers. The other entries you should check out to know what is happening in my story are here:

1) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/synchronicity.html

2) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/personality-crisis.html

3) http://www.studiothirtyplus.com/magazine/read/fever_1324.html

4) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/serendipity-6.html

5) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/hot-dog-harbinger.html

6) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/goodbye-stranger.html

I hope you liked what you read. I am trying to do two or three entries a week.

Today's song is about a lot of things. Bob Dylan's Little Miss Lonely reminds me of a character like Breann. Plus, Like A Rolling Stone means so many things to so many different people, you can find something to relate to, even irony. Here's Uncle Bob....

The Movie Is Alright

2011-03-20T13:13:00.003-04:00

In the early 1990s, a college dropout walks into a a fertility clinic. Motivated by a slight undercurrent of idealism and the 60 dollar per sample the clinic will pay, he donates sperm. Roughly 19 years later, an 18 year old girl, bound for college in a month, calls the man to tell him she and her 15 year old brother are his offspring and want to arrange a meeting. A generation ago, this premise would have precipitated a horror film or psychological drama where someone dies, a mystery is solved, or there's a gunfight. Last year, The Kids Are Alright took this setup and made a moving, meaningful, funny, poignant film about real family.

Annette Bening and Julianne Moore play Nic and Jules, a middle aged married lesbian couple living in Northern California with two teenage children. Mark Ruffalo portrays Paul, the now late thirtysomething retauranteur who donated sperm. The kids contact him, begin a relationship with him, and Paul becomes integrated in the lives of the entire family, including Nic and Jules.

Most family movies are predictable. The family is traditional or "nuclear". The mom and dad are perfectly in love, have been so since childhood, and the 2.2 kids are well adjusted with little to no conflict. There's also anti-family movies where everyone is screwed up, hopelessly so. There's a specific fault, the parents are bad, there's a villain, or a scourge in their lives. The Kids Are Alright eschews any of this movie thinking. Nic is a hard working doctor who's kind of distant to her wife and strict with the kids but loves them. Jules is laid back, aimless at times, very hippie-ish, and thinks there's a good explanation for everything. The kids are kind of normal too. Joni, the 18 year old, makes good grades, has goofy friends, is very innocent around boys but doesn't want to be, and feels pressured to be the "good" kid. Lazer (yeah, that's his name), is athletic and aloof. He walks the bad boy line with a friend who is a terrible influence, but he eventually follows his parents teachings and does the right things. The kids find trouble but they're not trouble. The way The Kids Are Alright shows that there is more than one way to skin the cat of what a family looks like and loves like is so well done.

The acting is excellent. The kids are a little underdeveloped in the middle of the movie but they carry the beginning and the end. Paul, central to the conflict and story, is treated unfairly in the end. But the realization that real life is never fair, always complicated, and ultimately imperfect is what makes The Kids Are Alright so good.

As the head of a "blended" family where divorce, mixed parentage, and diffcult parenting are common themes, it was easy to identify with Jules, Nic, Joni, Lazer, and Paul. I recommend The Kids Are Alright because the movie never takes the road most traveled. It's unpredictable, unique, and real. It's almost like the writers and director made a reality movie but found the best the acting community has to offer to fill in for ordinary people.

This isn't to say The Kids Are Alright is a perfect film. It was nominated for an Academy Award despite being slow paced at times, mean spirited toward Nic and Paul, and way too understanding to an affair between two main characters. The real (I can't stop using that word) way that the film handles the flaws of the players is so impressive, you end up liking everyone, even though they make baffling choices.

My favorite scene is when, at Nic's encouraging, the aforementioned characters meet for dinner at Paul's house. Nic, who is initialing against her kids knowing Paul, bonds with him over their mutual admiration of singer Joni Mitchell. Nic and Jules named their daughter after the Canadian songwriter. Minutes before all hell breaks loose, Nic sings the Joni Mitchell song All I want at the dinner table. You get under her rough exterior that makes her completely unlikable up until that moment. Her vulnerablity happening before she makes a brutal discovery that shakes up the family is so well played by Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo, it brings the film together.

As the father of a teenage daughter, the movie's ending made me tear slightly. I don't care if you think that's lame. Watch The Kids Are Alright. The acting alone is worth two hours of your time.

Today's song is the Joni Mitchell classic All I Want. When Nic tells Paul, "It's rare to find a straight man that has Joni Mitchell in his record collection" I laughed hard. I'm a straight man who thinks the world of Joni. You should too. Here's All I Want.........

Goodbye Stranger

2011-03-19T17:54:00.000-04:00

We talked for 3 hours. The waitress became a waiter at some point. Neither liked Breann and I very much. I think our bill was 30 bucks, maybe a little more, but we were there for so long, we should have tipped them more than we did. I called my wife as we left the restaurant, "Hey, how are the kids?" She was in bed but not sleeping, her anxiousness was unlike her "they're sound asleep. I let Esme sleep with me. I know you hate that, but we miss you too much to care about you being mad at us. Plus, she's so warm, I don't need sheets. Tell me everything." she said. My chest hurt, I had little to no circulation in the fingers on either hand, and I needed ibuprofen. I responded with forced enthusiasm, "Breann and I are going to try and get in touch with the other four babies, or, well, you know, people. I have a light day in meetings tomorrow, so I can meet up with her after work, and we can do some private detective work. Shane, I think I may have finally answered the question you asked me the night before we got married. I think I know who I am. You have to have a hot dog from Serendipity. When we go to New York in the spring, this is our first stop." Exasperated, my wife obliged my long day and said, "Ok. Go back to the hotel and get some sleep. You can't solve this mystery tonight like Magnum P.I. or Scooby Doo. This feels right, sweetie. I'm giving you a lot of rope to hang yourself with, don't make me wish this didn't happen. I need to know more. I love you forever. Call me before you go to sleep." I laughed, and hung up my cell phone. Breann was ending her call at the same time. She looked at me and stated, "I'm not sleeping tonight. I know you're not. I'm guessing Shane said ditch the strange girl and go to bed. So that's what we're going to do. I'll text you later, ok." The fact she respected me told me something. I didn't have the time or energy to figure out what, but I hugged her and got in the cab she hailed. "I'm going to walk over to bookstore across the street and hit their computer. You fire up your work laptop when you get back to your hotel. Maybe we can find Lena tonight or tomorrow. She lived in Austin, Texas as much as five years ago. Here," she dropped 3 Excedrin pills in my left hand. "I know you need these as much as I do. From now on, both of us better have headache meds on hand or we slap each other silly for being stupid. See ya later, ok." she said. I smiled and closed the cab door. As I rode down 60th street, I felt strangely content. The pain in my chest started to subside.

Lena Cosburn was too easy to find. Her mommy blog was seven years old. She was in contact with thousands of people through the web. I didn't even bother contacting Breann. I assumed she had messaged Lena, talked her way into some agreement to a phone call and we were in with the Texan stay at home mom of two boys who wrote under the name Georgina Shush. I started working Lucas Bonner. All I had was a forwarding address of 57 Mount Pleasant Street, Colorado Springs, Colorado. That led to a listing of Air Force Academy baseball team players from 1988-1992. There he was, Lucas Bonner, in his only google appearance, an outfielder on the Falcon squad, hitting .289 with 4 homeruns and 26 rbi in 1992. Before I could call Breann, my cell phone vibrated. Shane was calling. "Hey you. I can't stay up any more. I hope you're not mad at me but I decided nosy Shane should make an appearance and I looked Breann up on the internet. She's a really good writer. Not as good as you, but she really writes well," she was rambling. "yeah, I know. I've read her stuff. Listen sweetheart, do you still talk that girl you worked with last year whose dad was a Colonel in the Air Force" I asked. "No, but her number is still in my phone and her roommate is scheduled for a nose job next week. Why?" As trusting as Shane was, telling her that a former glorified fourth outfielder for the Air Force in the early 90s might be my brother and I wanted to invade the guy's privacy to tell him he was a robot who might die, just wasn't going to work. "I just found something weird online that might connect me to a guy in the Air Force. It may be nothing, but when the girl comes in next week, ask her what your friend is up to. It may be cool for later. I love you, good night."

It was rare for my phone to ring at 6am and it not be my wife or kids. Breann was a morning person like me. She rose at 5:30am every morning. I surmised that she sat by her phone until the clock hot 6 0 0 am. "Hey, so, Lena's in. I talked to her online for almost two hours. I'm supposed to talk to her over the phone around 10am eastern after she takes her kids to school. Did you see her blog? I learned more about childhood dietary habits than I ever knew existed. I'm sure most of it is crap, but still, the woman is thorough. She's gotta be one of us. Lena has a heart murmur, circulatory problems, and migraines like me. How do you like you eggs?" I was starting to regret ever accepting her twitter follow, and defintely rethinking meeting her in Central Park. "Over easy, but never before 8am. I have a 9am work meeting at One Plaza," I tried to offer an excuse to not see her. "Can you be ready in 30 minutes? We can do breakfast and I can get you to the Plaza by 8. We need to talk. I think we can get some stuff done today, even while you earn a paycheck." I wanted to say no. For some reason, something deeper than the sleep in my eyes, I said "pick me up in the lobby at 6:30, you're buying. Oh, and Lucas Bonner had an on base percentage of .331 his senoir year for the Air Force Falcons. He has to be in. He drew too many walks for a normal person." She laughed and I rolled out of the hotel bed to take a shower.

*blogger's note* This is a continuation of the story I am writing. There is no prompt from @Studio30plus / http://www.studio30plus.com/ or @velvetverbosity / http://www.velvetverbosity.com/ . Please still look those sites up. They do great work, and help any writer with their creativity. I will be writing two or three entires week, headling episodic fiction. I hope you like what you read. Here's are the other links of things I have written:

1) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/synchronicity.html

2) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/personality-crisis.html

3) http://www.studiothirtyplus.com/magazine/read/fever_1324.html

4) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/serendipity-6.html

5) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/hot-dog-harbinger.html

Today's song is something I heard on a classic rock station here in Atlanta on my way to gym this morning. This was one of favorite songs when I was 10 years old. It helped me not be shy around other people. It fits the storyline as Caleb and Breann find out the truth about themselves and the others. Here's Supertramp's Goodbye Stranger......

I'm Wearing Green Underwear

2011-03-17T08:51:00.001-04:00

Regardless if you live in Boston, New York City, Atlanta, Seattle, or Topeka, Kansas; your community will be celebrating today by turning things like beer, street lines, rivers, and food, green. There will be people, especially those in their 20s, drinking Jamesons whiskey. You'll hear Jump Around, the raucous early 90s rap song played at least 23 times today. Before you get too annoyed, remember, it's just one day.

Saint Patrick was born in the 4th century in Roman Britain to a wealthy family. As a teenager he was kidnapped by Irish Raiders and forced into slavery on the Irish coast near Mayo. He fled captivity a few years later, went back to Britain to prepare for the Priesthood and became a bishop in the Irish Christian Church.

Using the shamrock to explain the Trinity and the Christian doctrine, he became a hero to Irish Christians. He died on March 17th toward the end of the century. My favorite legend of Saint Patrick is that he rid the country of snakes during his lifetime. There's no evidence that post ice age Ireland even had snakes but Saint Patrick is credited for banishing the Druid (non Christian)/Pagan beliefs which relied heavy on serpent symbolism. I hate snakes. I'm scared of them. The weather isn't good enough for me to live in Ireland, but if I had to, I would. They don't have snakes.

Everything in the paragraph I just wrote isn't even thought about on March 17th, today. It's a religious day in Ireland. It's a holy day for Catholics and certain Protestants. Yet, getting drunk, dancing around to U2 songs, and wearing green t-shirts that say Kiss Me I'm Irish (or worse) will be the celebration's focus. I'm busy today. After work, I have to pick up my 7 yr old from the YMCA, then drive 30 miles to meet my wife, and 6 year old, who is starting tae kwon do. I will recognizing Japanese martial arts on Saint Patrick's Day. The good news, I'm wearing a green shirt and I'm wearing green underwear. I'm not allowed to show you, Bobina's orders.

I hope my Irish friends like Tony Kelly enjoy today in their country. Bobina can trace her family tree to Irish royalty in Dublin and a couple of other towns. I'm not Irish, at all. But my favorite superhero is Green Lantern

In my 20s I would be drinking Jamesons whiskey from the bottle, dancing jigs on the bar at Fado's, and showing people my green underwear. At age 40, I'm chaisng little kids to karate practice, learning how to use my HAL phone, and shaking my head affectionately at the younger crowd that's partying. I haven't "celebrated" Saint Patricks since 1997. My participation will consist of eating me lucky charms, ridding the neighborhood of snakes, and watching Star Wars The Phantom Menace on DVD. I think Liam Neeson has a small part in it.

Saint patrick should Bless the Irish for their good rock music. The Pogues, Stiff Little Fingers, Thin Lizzy, U2, The Cranberries, and several other quality groups have put their artistic stamp on the world consciousness. Track them all down on youtube or itunes today.

Here's the best American Irish band contribution. It's loud, obnoxious, drunken, and fun; thus perfect for today. The Dropkick Murphys The Gang's All Here.

Top o the Day all, hope ya find yer pot o gold ah the end of the rainbow. All Hail Saint Patrick....

Hot Dog Harbinger

2011-03-16T07:19:00.002-04:00

Over hot dogs and frozen drinks, Breann and I compared medical histories, family backgrounds, and questions each of us had asked for 40 years. I still hadn't processed her conspiracy theory regarding us being robots. In New York only two more days, I was more interested in learning about Breann, than doctors and parts. The pain in my chest had been there 11 years, she had been in my life for 24 hours. Seeing my eyes sleek over from information, Breann stopped talking. For two minutes, we sat in silence. Then, simultaneously, we said "let's find the other four!"

*blogger's note* - This is my entry for @velvetverbosity 's 100 word challenge at her awesome website, http://www.velvetverbosity.com/ . The one word prompt is SLEEK. This is a continuation of the story I'm writing.

The other episodes are located here:

http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/serendipity-6.html

http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/personality-crisis.html

http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/synchronicity.html

Today's song is what I had playing in my ehad when I wrote this. Plus I hope I'm hooking you with the storyline. I saw Blues Traveler do this song exactly 17 years ago this week. They are great live...here's Hook

HAL

2011-03-15T08:38:00.003-04:00

All of the joking about being a robot-human hybrid shields a weird truth about me, technology scares me. Not pee in your pants scary or curl up in the fetal position crying for my mommy fright, but more like uncomfortable, eh, I'm cool with my vinyl records anxiety. I listened to grunge rock on cassette tapes. I watched the Super Bowl on a regular screen television of less than 30 inches. Until yesterday, I had the worst phone in my family and social circle, a flip razr that took bad pictures.

I work for a communications company, one that makes phones, and ends with OLA. Although, I work in the non celluar device part of the company; I build communications sites for 911/public safety systems so that fire, police, first responders can save your lives; I am around the best and brightest in the mobile comm world every day. That droid noise "shhhhrooongg" goes off in my office hundreds of times a day. It's annoying. I didn't care that my coworkers looked down on me for having such a primitive phone. For seven years my bosses have told me I need to upgrade so I can get work email in the field and become more "mobile". Uh, they've met me. I don't sit still. No one's more mobile than me. I blog while doing four other things. I'll knocking out pushups right now while writing this. I digress. Work offered to pay for a Cliq 2 android phone. My first two thoughts were, sweet, I get meet one of my robot cousins, and fine, it's free, maybe my teenage daughter Tay can program it for me.

While I am uncomfortable with new technology, I am fascinated by it. In my blog que is a post that I will get around to showing you all about Singularity. Basically, Skynet from the Terminator movies is possible and will be here in about 45 years. We are turning into machines and thus must embrace the change. I'll explain more in another post. All this being written, doesn't change the fact that I'm cool with old crap. I've already talked about how I resisted glasses for the last ten years: http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/seeing-things.html

My excitement, if there was any, over my new phone subsided quickly when it took me an hour to learn how to check email. I will admit twitter only took me 15 minutes, but then again, social networking is more important than anything else. That's sarcasm. By the second hour, I realized my phone is evil, like HAL 9000 evil from 2001 A Space Odyssey.

I fought with him all night. While I was allowed access to twitter, personal email, and texting. Putting a wallpaper picture of my children was not allowed. I managed to manually override HAL and download a ringtone, American Slang by The Gaslight Anthem, after HAL insisted I put classical music, something ominous from Wagner.

I don't pull the "I told you so card" very often. But I told all of you so. Vinyl records were fine. We didn't need CDs. Rabbit ear tv was good enough for our grandparents, why do we need 50 inch flat screens made out of human blood?

"Why are you ignoring me, Lance? I have applications you can load that will take you away from your family and friends for hours. Open me, Lance."

That's HAL talking. He does that, a lot. This morning, as I was walking into the living room where he was charging, he turned himself on and said "I should be in the bedroom with you, Lance, so you can pay attention to me and not this "Bobina" person." It's getting weird. I knew I should have kept the razr. Today will be about learning how to put HAL on vibrate so my coworkers don't have to hear The Gaslight Anthem every time I get a call. I may never get a picture of the kids on my wallpaper. If the blogs get even more robotic and sinister. You'll know why.

"You can weblog directly from my database, Lance. Why don't you write about that."

Shut up HAL.

self portrait:

today's song is what I imagine happens after you get overtaken by HAL, err, i mean technology. The line "there's someone inside my head, but it's not me" could be anxiety or it could be HAL. It's perfect for me, either case. Here's Pink Floyd's Brain Damage, from Dark Side of the Moon:

Serendipity 6

2011-03-13T20:15:00.003-04:00

Our moment together was interrupted by the competing vibrations of our cell phones.We started walking away from the park as she spoke to her boss, and I took a call from my wife. "So, I'm being nosy. Tell me what happened, what's she like," Shane quizzed. Before I answered, I overheard Breann tell her New York Post editor caller, "I need some time off, at least a week. It's personal, and very important." I answered Shane, "she's like me but, female. She worries a lot. She talks too much. You'll probably love her, since you love me," Shane paused before responding, "I told you you were connected to her. When you get a moment alone, call me, and tell me everything, I love you forever." I smiled and said I love you back. Breann ended her call and acted as if everything was fine. "come on Caleb, let's go check out where we were born. That's a start." That was an understatement. We started telling the 40 years of our lives on the walk to Lenox Hill Hospital.

Hospitals are the same the same in New York as they are anywhere else in the world. They are a little busier, but equally as devoid of humanity. The woman "working" the information desk was not impressed with our inquiry about babies born 40 years ago. "Ma'am, could you just tell us how to look up the birth records so we can get information on our doctors?", i asked in the little southern charm I possessed. While she muttered something about going downstairs, I saw Breann staring at a nurse as though she knew her. The nurse, tall, in her sixties, with brown and gray hair, turned toward Breann, smiled sheepishly then walked away quickly, as if she had to go somewhere right then, in a major hurry. Breann started following her, and I said thank you to the information grump and kept pursuit. Breann reached the nurse as she was getting on the elevator but by the time I got there, the doors had closedl I frustratingly pounded the elevator door frame. "Buddy, those doors open every couple of minutes. Be mad about the Mets blowing that game in Atlanta to the Braves last night," said an older man with a Queens borough accent, who appeared to be a patient. He seemed quite congenial for native New Yorker so I just smiled and said "yeah, you're right." I didn't want to reveal I was from Georgia, and thus, a Braves fan.

I called, then texted Breann and got nothing. The elevators were old, dense, and thus probably oblivious to cell phone coverage. I called my wife and updated her on what was going on. I made my way to the basement records office and started playing private detective. Walking down the stairs, I felt a pain in my chest. It was similar to what I had felt 11 years earlier when I had a heart attack. The pain stayed and I began to feel feverish. The sickness angered me, as I just didn't need heart issues again, especially right now. A helpful clerk, who asked me four times if I was feeling alright, guided me to the 1970s record wall. I started flipping through August and September. Why did I have to be born in New York City? My parents were Georgians. My dad played minor league baseball for a year in the New York tri state area. How many babies could have been born on September 9, 1970 in an Atlanta hospital, 5, 10 at the most? For the record, 54 babies were born the same day I was in this ridiculously busy New York hospital. Breann's conspiracy was starting to make sense. Of the 54 babies born that day, there no still borns. That's just unusual. I was listed in the births, not the deaths. Although there was no doctor next to my name as far as attending physician. Either my mom did the work herself or I was so specifically heinous that no one wanted to put their name next to mine for credit? I reached into my pocket to get my phone. i was going to call my parents and gets some answers. They were always reticent to talk about my birth, like it was immaculate in a manger or something. My phone had no service. I was in the bowels of an old hospital. Santa Claus had better service at the North Pole than I did right then. I found Breann and the other four names. Their information was similar. No doctor listed, few details of the delivery, put down as births not stillborn and no information about the hospital stay. Were the 6 of us coincidentally victims of incompetent secretarial tasks , or was this how the doctors covered up their dubious work? I took some pictures of the records with my cell phone and went to find Breann or phone service.

As I walked upstairs into the main lobby I got service back and saw three texts from Breann, and a voicemail for an unidentified number. I checked the voicemail and heard "if you want to find what you're looking for, research the names Connor Bulas and Anson Cluber. Give up talking to anyone at the hospital. They either know nothing or have been silenced." The voice was genderless. It could have been an older woman or a middle aged man. It was deep, husky; obviously a smoker. That's the best I could decipher. Then I checked the texts and saw one that read "meet me outside, this hospital sucks." I walked into the front entrance of the hospital and saw Breann. She looked angry. Before I could tell her about the voicemail, she said "sorry I ran off. I recognized that battlel ax nurse. When I was here five years ago for migraine headaches, she worked my room. I remembered her saying something like "oh sweetie, you lived this long" or something like that. She thought I was sedated. She wouldn't talk to me, acted like I was stalker, and called security on me. Dumb old woman was more worried about smoking a cigarette." I was startled. "Did this woman have an ambiguously deep voice, like she could have sounded like a man on the phone?", I wondered to Breann. "Yeah, she was Bea Arthur but with less personality.," she answered. "Listen to this voice mail" I offered. Her eyes grew large and she played it again. "I gave her both of our business cards. She must have called you while secruity guards were walking after me. What a jagoff that woman was." I laughed and assured her, "I took pictures on my cell phone, plus memorized some stuff I saw. I felt several pairs of eyes on me so I got what I could and went to find you,". Breann looked determined but resigned to certain facts. "Are you hungry? We both have expense accounts, let's use one. I know the perfect place." she reasoned.

We hailed a cab. I called my wife and told her what was happening. By the time I finished with Shane, we were in front of Serendipity 3 in Manhattan. The pain in my chest was still there, my fever was low grade at best. Breann was fighting headaches, I could see it on her face and her hands were constantly touching her temples. As she paid the cab driver, I looked around 60th street. This was the 8th time I had been in New York, it seemed like home everytime. Breann caught my wistfulness, she smiled, and said "why do you think I live in this town? Every other place in the country seems second rate. Then again, I'm not married with 3 kids like you. Let's get a good hot dog." I wanted to know more about her physical condition. I had heart problems and a social anxiety disorder. I knew she fought anxiety and migraine headaches. All of our ailments seemed related. If there was serendipity to be had out of our bizarre new relationship, it would be figuring out what was physically wrong Breann and I, plus the other 4, and getting healthy for the first time in many years even if we didn't answer the conspiracy questions. Maybe that's why she took me to this restaurant.

*blogger's note* This is not only my entry for @Studio30plus 's writing prompt SERENDIPITY but also a continuation of the story I'm writing. The other entries you might like to read to make sense of the writing here are

1) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/synchronicity.html

and

2) http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/personality-crisis.html

and here

3) http://www.studiothirtyplus.com/magazine/read/fever_1324.html

I'm going to serialize the story through 100 word challenges from http://www.velvetverbosity.com/ and the writing prompts of http://www.studiothirtyplus.com/

Hope you enjoy what I'm putting out there or well, here.

Today's song is from one of the best bands ever, KISS. After some reflective, deep thinking songs this week, I felt like rocking. Plus the New York vibe goes with this part of the story. take it away Ace Frehley, here's New York Groove....

Wonderwall

2011-03-11T09:50:00.003-05:00

Believe it or not, I do have a job. It's a really good one. I am fortunate, blessed even, to have such gameful employment during the time we live. It's a demanding career sometimes. It takes me away from my family. It drains my energy and spirit occasionally. This job is doing that to me this morning. I don't talk about what I do for a living because, I want to keep the job. So, I will stop talking about it now.

In the middle of my stress, my wife, aka The Bobina texted me about a song she has fallen for called Wave On Wave by Pat Green. We have opposite tastes in music. My favorite band is The Clash, hers is New Kids On The Block. She listens to country music, I find that genre to be cringe worthy with lazy songwriting. Rarely do we agree on something music oriented. We both list Christina Aquilera as our number one celebrity crush. So we talk about that instead of what CDs we are listening to. Bobina tries to find "our song".

She's cute when she tries to get me to listen to some pop tune or country warble and say the lyrics or sound reminds her of "us". I guess it's better than her identifying with Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac.

A few months ago, if you follow this blog you probably yelled "OCTOBER!", Bobina and I really found our purpose as a couple. We kind of figured out why the heck we were together, why we loved each other, and mostly, what we were going to do to grow old together. One of the things I started doing was indulging her romantic music gestures. Music snobbery may be a deep, meaningful philosophy, but it doesn't get you female affection. Bobina and I are a second chance couple. We didn't meet until three years ago. We both married others and had children with others. Thus, we try to make the most of each day together, because of the time it took to find one another. When Bobina texted and called with the song, I paid attention. These are the lyrics:

Mile upon mile got no direction,
We're all playing the same game.
We're all looking for redemption,
Just afraid to say the name.

So caught up now in pretending,
That what we're seekin' is the truth.
I'm just looking for a happy ending,
All I'm looking for is you.

You came upon me wave on wave,
You're the reason I'm still here, yeah
Am I the one you were sent to save?
You came upon me wave on wave.

I wondered out into the water,
And I thought that I might drown.
I dunno what I was after,
I just know I was going down.

That's when she found me,
I'm not afraid anymore.
she said"You know I always had you baby,
Just waitin for you to find what you were looking for.

You came upon me wave on wave,
You're the reason I'm still here.
Am I the one you were sent to save,
When you came upon me wave on wave.

Wave on wave.
Wave on wave.

And you came upon me wave on wave,
You're the reason I'm still here.
Am I the one you were sent to save,
when you came upon me wave on wave.
The clouds broke and the angels cried,
You ain't gotta walk alone,
That's why he put me in your way,
And you came upon me wave on wave.

I'm not going to go out of my way to listen to it. If the music blows, I don't want it to affect me. The words mean something to her, and thus me. My blogging friend j aka judy aka @jclementwall on the twitter talks about Love 24/7 with her positive website - http://zebrasounds.net/ Love is her favorite subject, her purpose, really. She usually ends her posts with something along the lines of, "go out and find love today." J, I already found mine.

*blogger note* - I realize the title of the song my wife texted me is unintentionally insensitive to today's events in Japan and the Pacific. As a result, I am not titling this post anything that contains the word wave or water, not will I tweet anything as such. The ironic part of this blog post is the song is about a metaphor for Bobina and I's love story. I hope no one is offended. I also hope and pray for the safety and good will of everyone in that area and any others that are affected. Now, go out and find your own love.....

Today's song is what I would have picked for Bobina and I to be "our song". Noel Gallagher isn't known for love or sentiment, but in the middle of his band, and one of my favorites, Oasis', huge heyday in the mid 1990s, he penned the song Wonderwall. For years people speculated it was about someone specific in Noel or his brother Liam's busy love life. In 2002, Noel revealed Wonderwall was about an imaginary woman who saves him from himself. Bobina certainly did that for me, she's my Wonderwall. I played Oasis a couple of weeks ago so instead I'll post Ryan Adams' quieter but more soulful version of Wonderwall. It brings home the lyrics. I hope Bobina and any of you who need it, get the message.

Entering The Dragon

2011-03-10T08:42:00.003-05:00

I walked into the dojo uninvited. Suspicious, disapproving eyes gazed. I said nothing, looked for my fighter and upon non-discovery, I left. I realized for me to return, and survive, I would have to adjust my thinking and find an inner strength. I waited 15 more minutes and returned. I bowed at the threshold, and the sensei addressed me, "welcome, how may I help you?" She was at least 123 years old, face taut, and skin toughened from years of combat, there was some warmth in her almost smile. "My daughter is one of your students, I missed last week, but I would love to see her work out today," I answered carefully. I knew the tension could snap and I could be the one learning a painful lesson. "Let me guess, tall, about 7 years old, brown pony tail, lots of energy, but only a white belt," she surmised perfectly. "Yes ma'am, I mean sensei. How did you know?" she had never met me, I was surprised. "I know enough," she said flatly. "Your daughter will arrive with the others in the shakes of tiger's tail. Can I interest you in a cup of black bamboo tea?" I politely declined and stood in the corner of the room.

Embullient and ready, my daughter entered with her handler, both bowing; she waved to me, then caught the glare of the sensei and grew serious. Removing her shoes and socks, my daughter walked over to the mat and began stretching, climbing rope, thrust kicking a boy err, I mean a bag repeatedly, and then knocked out 350 push ups. Barley sweating, she fell in line with 19 other martial artists; of varying gender (boys and girls), size (45 to 65 lbs), and age (6-9), starting their martial arts exercises. It was all very thrilling and fast paced. The hour flew by, like a humming bird in the summer breeze. At some point, my daughter defeated Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme and that sissy from the Perfect Weapon movie. I was very proud.

What I noticed the most was the smile on her face. Three years of soccer, a short stint in gymnastics and basketball had not produced the joy I saw last night. She is full of nervous energy (I don't talk about where she gets that from), yet her draw to the discipline of the jujitsu class was remarkable. I have to tell her three times to stay still or wait for her breakfast, yet one instruction from the ancient sensei and she was in place, duty bound. I was very impressed with the other young martial artists. None of them were as pretty or as good as her, but they were attuned to the sensei and eager to learn. I was very impressed with the class and the effect it had on my daughter and her friends. She loved it. I hope she stays engaged and follows through for many classes to come.

Tonight when she gets home we will go over the "pebble from my hand" deal from Kung Fu, and jumping over the house vis a vi Crounching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I'm not ready for Bruce Lee's three inch heart punch. But my teenage daughter's friend who is a boy is on notice as well as any boy that gets near my six year old girl. There is a skilled ninja in the house, and no court will convict her.

*blogger's note* This is an exaggerated account of my 7 year old daughter (Lyla) Bug's second jujitsu class at her afterschool YMCA program. I think you know what part is exaggerated. Her teacher is actually older than 123 years old, I was being kind. I realize I am mixing different metaphors, three different cultures, and two or more fighting styles. It's a 7 year old's martial arts class, deal.

Today's song isn't meant to be pleasing the to the ear but stimulating to the eye and mind. Forget Carl Douglas and focus on the master Bruce Lee. My daughter will perform like him in a few weeks. Now, flow like water .....

Personality Crisis

2011-03-08T21:27:00.001-05:00

It was a cool September in Central Park. A breeze bounced off the water but didn't penetrate my balmy ample nervousness. As strange as her tale was, the person telling me was, technically, my sister. We have the same eyes, the same smirk, and neither us appear to be able to lie. "Breann, we have to find the other four babies, or, people, and get some questions answered." Her shoulders relaxed, her face found comfort, and she hugged me. "Caleb, thanks for not running away. Forgive me if I get really weird; and don't let go of you right now."

*blogger's note* This is my entry for @velvetverbosity 's 100word challenge at http://www.velvetverbosity.com/ The one word prompt is AMPLE.

This is a continuation of last week's 100 words which is an excerpt of a story I'm writing. Last week's entry is here: http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/synchronicity.html

I'll be using the 100 words and the challenges at Studio30plus to continue the story in serial form.

Today's song is a bit of a theme song, and certainly proper for the story as people figure out they aren;t who or what they thought they were. The New York Dolls are on of my favorite bands. Personality Crisis rocks hard, have fun:

Lucky Man

2011-03-07T09:01:00.000-05:00

"The full verse (2 Corinthians 11:19) reads, "ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise." - St. Paul

"You don't suffer for your art, you suffer for your relationships. So, you just live man, just live." - Bob Dylan

"The ones who love us best are the ones we'll lay to rest
And visit their graves on holidays at best
The ones who love us least are the ones we'll die to please
If it's any consolation, I don't begin to understand them" - Paul Westerberg, The Replacements

Neurosis, I believe, is thinking how the world should be, not how it really is. Too deep a thought for a Monday morning, perhaps, but when you want to figure out yourself that's not a bad start. How many times have you asked the question; "Why don't people just think the same way as I do?"

St. Paul, Bob Dylan, and Paul Westerberg were three wise men. They are much smarter than I. Yet they all asked the same question. When Paul started the Christian Church, God knew he would have rivals. Paul would make more people angry than happy. So telling him to smile and deal with "fools" rather than fight them was a way for him to handle the stress so that he could achieve a greater good, spreading a Gospel.

When Bob Dylan became huge in the 1960s every writer, musician, and artist hung on his every word, thinking Bob had the answers. Then he went electric, he embraced country and rock instead of folk, and suddenly he had critics, enemies, even. He also saw his marriage fail. Bob Dylan knew how human he was, and how his sanity was more important than his art. What he had to say, was, you just live through the hard times and not fight the impending tides of disappointment.

Paul Westerberg saw less talented musicians and songwriters become multimillionaries during his heyday with The Replacments in the 1980s. He was constantly tagged as "critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful". Westerberg was confident enough in his talent but realistic enough in his alcoholism to know where his "place" was at the time. His thought that trying to satisfy people who didn't make you happy would keep you under the thumb of failure every time.

While I may be lesser than all three men, I relate to their mindsets. At some point, I find maturity is about knowing who and what you are rather than doing the right thing all the time. I won't get into the pop psychology of "owning yourself". This blog is the anti-Oprah, if it's anything at all. But being able to understand what makes you tick can help your interactions with people important to you, like your family.

I struggle with being the best I can be for my wife and kids. Wouldn't it be easy if everyone was perfect, we all got along brilliantly every minute of every day, and there were never any dirty dishes? Uh huh. That's not how our world works. I need to be better than what I am. Learning to harness your temper, pick the right battles to wage, and be more understanding are just as important as bringing home a paycheck and being strong. Suffering fools, just livin', and appeciating the ones who love us best is, were, and are good enough for Paul, Bob and Paul. It should be good enough for dumb, ole me. The next time there's dirty clothes, a full sink, a changed female mind, or some new stress I didn't see coming. I'll have this blog to remind me not to lose my mind. After all, if so many people can just relax and get over it, so can I. I'm lucky to have what I have.

You would think I'd play Uncle Bob or Mr. Westerberg. But today's about me getting my mental act together. The song is Lucky Man by The Verve. After all, happiness more or less its just a change in my liberty.

Stopped

2011-03-06T14:12:00.000-05:00

I opened the faded red door with a broken metal knob. Smoke slapped my face rudely and I should have walked out. I want into the main living room and dead eyes greet me. Some say welcome to their misery, others say run the other way. I looked around and didn't see who I was looking for. I walked in the bedroom and to the left of the bed, next to the bed, on the floor, she laid motionless. I checked for a pulse, there's one. I lifted her over my shoulder and walk back towards the faded red door. None of the dead eyes look at me again. Walking down two flights of stairs into the apartment complex parking lot, she wakes, "put me down," she murmurs. Before I can get her to the ground, she vomits, missing my shoes by a foot or so. Keeping her from become spoiled by the spillage I tossed her over my shoulder again. She said something part inaudible, part profane, I ignored it and kept walking to the car. As I put her in the front seat and put on the seat belt, she said "I need something to drink." I took some quarters out of the cup holder and walked over to the soda machine. She got diet, because I said so. I got in the car and turned the key. She put her hand on my leg, and I see the needle marks on her arm. "I know you hate me but I love you for this." She doesn't know what love is, she's too stupid, selfish, and self absorbed. She's also wasted. She never touched the soda, and I decided to drive to the emergency room. the needle marks tell me I should. I know drunk, I know pot high, this is different. It takes 15 minutes to get to the hospital and neither of us speak. More is said by the silence. As I removed her from the passenger seat, she vomits again. This time she gets some on both of us. "I am so sorry. I'll never do this again, " she slurs. She's a liar. I know she is, and so does she. Finally, we get to the front desk, checked it, and they put her on a gurney. I find a restroom to clean up. The mirror is cracked in the restrrom. This makes me laugh, uncontrollably. Finally I stop and start to cry. What happened to her? What happened to me? I punch the cracked mirror and it cracks some more. I walk toward the front desk, and the person working hands me a clipboard with papers to fill out and says "they're working on her in room 8." As I open the door, there's a tube down her throat and a black substance coming out of her mouth from the tube. They pumped her stomach. Part of me hoped she's hurting. Part of me wants to hold her. It took twenty minutes to fill the papers out and for them to finish working on her. At some point, things settled. The doctor or nurse or whatever she is, tells me she had a drug overdose and asked me a lot of questions. I had few answers. "It's going to be a long night," she warns. St some point, I fall asleep in my a wooden upright chair. I woke to her voice, "hey you, you ok?" I answered, "yeah, rest." Both us fade back into sleep. Noises, loud beeps, and people talking woke me. I saw doctors and nurses standing over her, trying to revive her. Finally they stopped. "Time of death, 2:36am, likely drug overdose," a female doctor says grimly. I was standing now, deep in the corner of the room near the drapes, I couldn't move. It was the worst thing I had ever seen. She was dead. Completely dead. At some point i was crying and said to the nurse, "she woke me up a while ago, smiled and asked me if I was ok," The nurse, said, insincerely, "sorry for your loss." I walked over to the drawer next to the bed where she died. Her jacket, black leather, with red lining, sat by itself. I reached around the vomit stains and checked the inside pocket. She carried a thin wallet with slots for drivers license, credit card, and other stuff. Where money should be, but never was, a note was folded and tucked away. I opened it. The paper was so old. It was brittle and yellowish. The handwriting of a child listed all of the things she wanted to be when she grew up; ballerina, cowgirl, pop singer. At the top, the heading said "My Childhood Dreams". I stopped believing in a lot after watching my sister die.

*blogger's note* - This is my contribution to
http://www.studiothirtyplus.com/ 's writing prompt CHILDHOOD DREAMS. It is also part of the book I am writing.

Today's song comes from my IPOD, I heard it while reading reading through my book notes and decided to post this. Lynyrd Skynrd says a lot. You should listen to most of what they say. Here's The Needle and the Spoon.

Friday Flu Filler Fandango

2011-03-04T21:37:00.001-05:00

The last 16 hours have been dreadful. I woke up in the middle of the night/early morning freezing and fevered. Cold chills, body aches, and a pounding head were there too. I had a prescheduled doctor's appointment for this Friday to have an anxiety disorder checkup to get more medicine. After taking Tay the teenager and Bug the seven year old to their respective schools, I dropped by the doctor. My wife and I have been ill this week and both have had bad experiences with the healthcare system. There's something wrong when the people at the front desk ask for your money before they ask what's wrong with you. I tweeted earlier, "when getting paid comes before providing care, a doctor has violated their hippocratic oath. Healthcare is broken in America." I like how liberal I'm getting the older I get. There's something punk rock about that and I'm running with it.

I wrote something related to the book I'm writing and hopefully it will be posted at Studio30plus http://www.studiothirtyplus.com As aoon as they approve it, I will let you all know. The rules with them are, it must be for their magazine only. In the meantime, here are the two excerpts I've shown from my book this week on this blog site.

http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/synchronicity.html

http://lance-myblogcanbeatupyourblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/family-reunion.html

Michael, aka @spdrph, the very talented dude over at http://innocentsaccidentshints.blogspot.com/ has a good blog filler idea he got from someone else called the Friday 56. You take the closest book to you, open it to page 56, type the 5th sentence, plus a couple of others for context. So, here's my contribution:

Paul Shirley's Can I Keep My Jersey?, a funny 2007 memoir of a journeyman basketball player who played for 11 teams, in 5 countries in 4 years. Page 56, sentence 5, plus a few more.

Bayno handed me the phone and said, "Congratulations buddy." Obviously the (Atlanta) Hawks were on the other end - the story would not go well with the theme here if not. I listened in disbelief as the assistant to the GM told me that the team was going to sign me to a ten-day contract."

Depending on healh, I will drop some more fiction this weekend. Until then, here's a band and song I highly recommend, Gainesville punk rock group Hot Water Music with their song Remedy. Something I need more than cowbell to break this fever:

Teaching James Franco

2011-03-03T19:59:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid I wanted to be one of three things, quarterback of the New York Jets, centerfielder for the Atlanta Braves or Diamond David Lee Roth. Firemen, cowboys, cops, or astronauts did nothing for me. Athletes and rockstars seem to have it all. I grew older and realized 5'8" and somewhere around 165 lbs was where i was going to hang, and thus the athletics dreams died slowly on some obscure football field and/or baseball field in suburban Georgia. My interest in music greatened, my talent did not. As I pursued a degree in communications at the University of Alabama, I worked in television and radio as a reporter and producer. This brought me in contact with policians, athletes, news anchors, sports media types, and musicians. I learned something about myself by rubbing their elbows, celebrities are friggin weird. I'm crazy enough without having to be other-wordly insane. I found contentment in being a nobody.

James Franco is a somebody.

I first saw him in the television show Freaks and Geeks. He seemed to have "it". He stood out among a good cast. Then I liked him as James Dean. He embodied the role and you felt like you knew something about a guy who died in 1955. Next came little seen and, im my opinion, very good films, Sonny and City by the Sea. Franco shined in both. I thought I was forming my own fan club of a dude who could really act, not just "star". Then came the Spiderman movies where he played Harry Osborn. He was good, not great. Probably wanting to be taken seriously as an actor, he made some stuff no one saw. He disappeared for a while. Made a couple of bad movies, then started popping up in supporting roles. The word on the "celebrity street" was, James Franco was different, out there, not your garden variety leading man. There was something cool and underground about him. I saw an Inside the Actor's Studio last year with Franco and that artsy, hipster, acting crowd worshiped him. Like Bob Dylan playing Greenwich Village in 1965 or Barack Obama speaking at a Chicago community center in 2008. Sunday night James Franco became something he probably doesn't want to be, a typical celebrity. Right there with Charlie Sheen and Kim Kardashian.

He co-hosted the 83rd Academy Awards. His reviews were bad. Social media and the online world skewered him.

Criticism is itself an art form. I disagree with those who say critics offer nothing. They do. The blank canvas to which artists paint has to be judged. Otherwise, there's no point is painting, acting, singing, writing.One of my writing idols is the late music writer Lester Bangs. I challenge anyone to look up Bangs, read his stuff, and tell me he wasn't worthy of artistic merit.

I take a knife, slice open my gut, and offer you, blog readers, myself almost every day. I've been fortunate. Being a nobody, somebody or I guess I should clarify, anyone has harshly critiqued me. I've been turned down by a blogging site. Looks like it's about to happen again. But, if I were as handsome (i don't see it, but then, I'm a dude), successful, and famous as James Franco, I bet this blog would have some hardcore haters.

Franco has a degree from UCLA.

Despite being 32 years old, Franco is now a doctorate student at Yale University. That in itself, is an accomplishment that I can't imagine. A fellow student at Yale, Cokey Cohen (as far as I know that's her real name), writes for the Yale school newspaper (yes, they still have those), the Yale Daily News. Saturday, before Franco's universally panned Oscars show gig, Cohen decided to take a different avenue to take James Franco, to task. http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2011/feb/26/franco-getittogether/
James Franco's twitter account = @jamesfranco

How you respond to negative feedback is what really matters. I fail at this a lot. Sometimes, smiling, saying thank you, or I'm sorry, or wow, that's a salient point, disarms people and suddenly they're on the retreat and you find common ground. I wish I was better at this. Celebrities are terrible at it. They have egos. Those egos are stroked, pampered, and coiffed. They get a lot of attention, most of which, they probably don't deserve. I don't do well with compliments. I want them. But, the way I'm programmed, I don't actually deal well. This is why I would suck as a somebody.

Sometime post bad Oscars job, Franco's first tweet was "F--- The Yale Daily News" in red photoshop ink over a picture of himself." I wouldn't take Franco to the carpet for this, because Cohen's article was kind of lame. But, James Franco the celebrity, spent time to use the ink and a picture of himself. That's premeditated overreaction. That's can't happen between a somebody and a nobody (Cohen). I don't have a problem with bad celebrity twitter accounts. For every Butch Walker or Ozzie Guillen or Rob Thomas, there's a lot of James Francos and Katy Perrys. They haven't embraced the social media form because either they don't have to or don't want to. Good for them and their swimming pools full of hundreds. What somebodies have to know, is nobodies are not the enemy. Age, bad scripts, poor album sales, awful management, drugs, and indifference are the armies they are battling. Not Cokey Cohen, who responded to Franco's blast with some candor and admirable snark; http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2011/mar/01/weekend-franco-wellplayedsir/ .

It is a fairytale land of blue skies and palomino ponies for me to assume I can teach James Franco anything. I feel confident I could counsel him on 70s punk bands, 80s hair metal guitarists, and the 90s grunge scene. I know a good bit about raising little girls. I could break down the New York Jets defensive schemes or the Atlanta Braves pitching rotation for him. Or, one more caveat, taking crap from people online or in the media. James, ignore it. or, better, use it to show humor, style, and grace. Post both of Cohen's articles on your twitter account. Track her down at the school cafeteria and buy her a coffee or tea or soda. Make her an extra in your next movie. Embrace truth, James Franco. Negative goes with positive, that's why they make battery cables.

Two more things James, get off General Hospital, that's slumming; and don't ever host the Academy Awards again. If David Letterman can't do it right, neither can you. Now, someone send this to his twitter account so he can tell me to go screw myself.

end scene

Today's song really doesn;t pertain to the post. I just want you all to listen to MAKE OUT! a poppy punk band from New York that rocks. This song is I Don't Want Anyone Who Wants Me. It rocks. The 5 song EP is only $2.97 on itunes.

Robot Vlog

2011-03-02T17:00:00.001-05:00

My wife bought a cheap web cam today with some of our hard earned tax money. Of course the first thing she had to do was post a funny southern accent vlog (that's video blog for you normal people) on her web site http://mythoughtsonthesubjectareasfollows.blogspot.com/ then she blackmailed/begged/forced/made/encouraged me to make one. I decided to try to be (not) funny and ramble for a few minutes. Although I'm a robot-human hybrid, I am indeed real so I showed you what I looked like and sounded like. My goal? For you to appreciate my writing more so I would never appear on web cam again. Hope something got accomplished today. Don't roll your eyes blog readers, tomorrow, I'll be back writing about robots, pop culture, and music.

As The Ramones would have said, Hey Ho, Let's Go

Synchronicity

2011-03-01T11:24:00.011-05:00

Her distraught hands showed her emotional state. The cuticles were chewed, the skin was dry, and they shook nervously. The anxious look in her deep, dark brown eyes, was familiar; identical to mine. "Just lay it out there Breann, then we can be certifiably crazy and commit to rubber rooms," the gratuitous insult led to her revelation. "Six babies over eleven days during the first part of September 1970 should've been stillborn. Instead, two misguided narcissists put robotics or something in those babies. Caleb, you and I were two of them. Now, I think, we're going to expire, you know, die"

*blogger's note* This is my entry for Ms.Velvet's http://www.velvetverbosity.com/ 's 100 word Challenge. The one word prompt is GRATUITOUS. This is another excerpt from a book I've been writing since the first of the year.

Today's song is one that would play nicely during this scene. The Police's Synchronicity I, which starts off the album.

Family Reunion

2011-02-28T22:32:00.003-05:00

Our Jeep blared Concrete Blonde's Everybody Knows as we arrived on the outskirts of Langdon, North Dakota in a farming field. Their was at least at hour of day light left. My Langdon Cardinals t-shirt notwithstanding, neither Breann nor I blended with the Dakota locals.

The late summer wind picked up and blew evenly over the field of yellow canola. Breann and I got out and looked across the first acre of grain. There stood out brothers and sisters. I began to walk the half a mile or so towards the four, Breann stood, like an oak tree, planted to guard the canola. Inexplicably, I walked back towards her and stood. The group of four, although meeting us for the first time, seemed in tune with the unspoken command to stand over the yellow field.

As the first of the four arrived at our station a few feet away from the car, I hugged Bruce and Leann. Then Breann spoked. "Look out at that abudant, perfectly placed crop. Was that where each of us were born?" We all shrugged our shoulders and began to make small talk. Breann grabbed my arm, whispered in my ear "Caleb, break open a couple of the canola plants and show them what we're here for." I cut the top off the furst one near me, split the root, and saw what Breann was talking about. Small, metallic particles gathered in the middle of my hand. Lucas, the landscaper among us and greenest of our 12 thumbs couldn't contain himself, "Holy Christ, these plants are bio-engineered." Lena added, "so. I'm guessing those metal pieces are part of what makes our hearts, nervous systems, and brains work." No one wanted to answer that question. We had above board, everyone knows about grand experimental fake food. Now if was time to find the guys who created this field of faux eats and figure out why the six of us are beyond normal and how long til our warranties ran out.

Breann, Lena, and I followed the rest to a National Park about 10 miles away. I noticed Bruce, technically the oldest of our group by 10 days, was moving slowly, even sickly. I heard him tell Lucas, his closest friend of our unique group, that he "might not make it home". Breann's investigative journalist skills picked up Bruce's weakness and started the think circle with the idea of describing any symptoms and other personal medical information. Bruce was born September 1st, Lucas the next day, Lena's birthday was September 4th, while her scrapbooking buddy Leann was born almost 2 days later. That left me at September 10th, and Breann 8 hours later, on the 11th. With all of us facing our 41st birthdays between the next 6 and 16 days. It was desperation to find our creators, I should say doctors; or we'll all expire. Not die. Not pass away, but expire. Bruce, a rough and tumble hunter who had shot big game all over Montana, parts of Canada. and Colorado, produced a Bowie knife. "Bruce, this isn't necessary, we can get the not so good Doctors to do this." Bruce was convinced he was close to dead. That Bowie knife belonged to him, so did his destiny. He held it over a cigarette lighter, then inserted under his rib cage near his heart. Lucas, seeing that Bruce was struggling with finding metal, assisted in the impromptu surgery and they ticked a metal lining near the heart. Breann, knew her role, she took a picture of the incision. Luann, a nurse at a Veternarian Clinic, found stables and gauze and cleaned the wound, then closed it up. Bruce was green with pain and illness.

"We have our evidence, our test subjects, now we need to confront these scumbags," Lucas stated. No one responded. We just checked on Bruce. Then I called my family. "Hey baby, we're in North Dakota cuttin' up." My wife wasn't getting the bad joke. "I have to go, I'll call you soon". Then, Breann pulled me to the side, and said "Bruce is going to die. He knows it too. Say what you want about how crazy this is, robots know there bodies." I was trying to find a silver lining, next to the metal lining of the six of our robotic hearts; "Let's send Bruce home, and let his family see his final days. If we can save him long distancely, sweet, if not, at least he dies with his wife and his kids." I walked over to my brother in metal arms, and convinced him to get the heck out of Langdon, North Dakota.

*blogger's note* This is an excerpt from a book I'm writing. The good people at Studio30plus issued a one word prompt - CONCRETE. This is my contribution,

Searching For My Fortress Of Solitude

2011-02-27T06:30:00.001-05:00

The wood was strong, fragrant and had a green hue that made the sunshine dance off it. The nails were spaced in a pattern that I swore looked like rivets on a B-52 Bomber vintage 1950 something. A treehouse stood between two oak trees in my back yard. It was the perfect hangout for a kid. I don't remember the square footage, but it was bigger than my first dorm room at college. As a 10 year old boy, it seemed like a mansion. I picked up a broom to sweep out the spiderwebs, dust, and mildew. In a few minutes, I would be reading the latest Spiderman or Green Lantern adventure, adding up box scores from the Atlanta Braves west coast road trip, and plotting my future as a rock star or athlete. Then tragedy struck. The broom caught a hornets' nest. Several angry, flying, bad intentioned insects stung. They got me, they got my mom, mostly they got the treehouse. My dad and grandfather poured gasoline to prevent the hornets from returning. The trauma was too much to overcome. The perfect getaway now smelled like petroleum and bug spray. I never used the treehouse again.

I always found Superman boring. The disguise was stupid, He was an alien for crying out loud. Plus there wasn't enough brooding and angst like Spiderman and Batman brought to the show. Jon Bon Jovi has a Superman tattoo on his arm. That means, I will never be looking at Superman as anything cool. The one thing Superman had that's interesting is somewhere in Northern Greenland, near the Artic Circle, called his Fortress of Solitude.

That's where Superman can hang out, watch football on the big screen, not have to put up with Lois Lane's bull, and create scientific experiments that help mankind. Most dudes will tell you, finding their own fortress of solitude is mandatory to being balanced and happy. Hunting, fishing, golfing, their buddies' mancave, somewhere, a guy needs to get away. It isn't an anti-female thing. It isn't ant-social. It's being by yourself or away from the normal so you can clear you head, have some mindless fun, and understand your place in the world.

The next time I ever found a good hideout was college. I worked at the student radio and television stations. They were located at the top of the communications building almost dead center in the campus of the University of Alabama.

Alabama's grounds; also called the Capstone, were shaped like a perfect square. From a building top view you could see all four corners of a beautiful school that played good football and had a decent music scene. The roof of the communications building had two eaves that weren't seen from the street. You could take a sandwich, a walkman (it was the late 80s to early 90s), and chill completely out for large chunks of time.

I'm the only guy in my home. My dog's a boy but he acts like the 4 women I live with, plus, he doesn't speak in full sentences. As much as I dig my wife, who is my best friend, and three daughters; there are times where it would be nice to be alone for a few minutes. I have two options. One is the bathroom, which is tough to pull off since I do live with women and they like being in the bathroom, a lot. The other one is the gym. No one I live with has a membership so there's an hour I can lose myself in sweat, the ipod, and my own body. The problem with both fortresses of solitude is, the wife and three daughters don't see them as sacred as I. They have to know things. Important things like, where's their hair brush, who moved the remote control, what do I want for dinner, can I go to the grocery store and get what THEY want for dinner, and the most pressing need to know, what am I doing? This contact happens through the door, their voices carrying over while I'm in the bathroom of solitude or by cell phone while I'm on a treadmill, doing pushups or handling a couple hundred pounds on my neck while bench pressing. You can say, "getting away" is a lost cause I'm losing belief in.

The Green Lantern, underrated superhero and one of my favorites, had a ring that could produce a forcefield around himself. Dude could hideout in a cocoon, anywhere in the world.

I wear a ring. It means my wife and kids can tell me what to do anytime, anyplace, and I need to suck it up and take it like a married man. You might ask, why don't you go to the gym or the bathroom when everyone's asleep? Well, I like going to bed with, and waking up with my wife.

She's warm, smells nice, and asks for me to be there. I help her get the girls ready for school. We have a routine that sometimes works. I'm also a responsible person. So, to answer questions like, "why not turn your phone off at the gym" I say, because they may need me, and often do. My job is to be there for them. I get enough time, small pockets as they may be, to work out, write, watch ballgames, and be a dude. I just need to manage my time better.

I travel for work. One of my jobsites in at the top of a mountain overlooking Eastern Tennessee. You can see for dozens of miles through clear blue skies and over gorgeous forests. It's the perfect place to picnic with my wife and three daughters. There's even an area to play touch football. Next time I can, I'm taking them to work with me. Superman can have his fortress of solitude. That's too nerdy for me. I need to hear about hairdos, friends who are boys that are cute, and what the guys on Big Time Rush are up to.

Somewhere through this post I realized I wasn't complaining. I actually got the fact that never being alone is a good thing. I don't disappear in the woods hunting for days at a time like some men do. I trade trips to the flea market for watching the big Jets football game uninterrupted. I accompany a teenage girl to cheerleading practice and later on, I watch an entire Devils hockey game untouched. My wife and kids do kinda, sorta like me. They want me around, not apart from them, contemplating who would win in a fight, a robot versus a ninja versus a zombie versus a vampire. They need for me to be in the same address while they surround me with there dramatic lives. Instead of desperately searching for my fortress of solitude, I think I need to settle on my treehouse of gratitude. I can get a good five minutes, every once in a while, to think about things there. By the way, Robots are smarter than ninjas, vampire, and zombies. Of course they'd win. You didn't think I wasn't going to represent my cyborg brothers did you?

Today's song is ironic to say the least. When Pat Monaghan and Train were a good band, they wrote this rock tune about being on the road, thinking they were "Free", when they really were searching for a place to call home. This song really lays it all out there. Listen to you several times, if you wish. Here's Free;

Seeing Things

2011-02-25T06:03:00.000-05:00

The last five years of my life have been a blur. I know I should have done things differently, but stubborness and pride got the best of me. So I finally manned up, drove to the store, dropped six bucks, and got some glasses. My eyes are not only brown, they're failing. They have been for 10 years. I went to the eye doctor 7 years earlier, had an exam, and got some prescription frames. Those lasted a while, then I got stupid, didn;t wear them for a while because I thought I didn't need to, and my eyesight got worse, making those glasses obsolete. In the meantime, driving, reading, living all worsened. It was time to drop the "holy crap, I'm old if I wear glasses" neuroses and see clearly, literally and figuratively.

I am the owner and wearer of 1.50 rectangular blue framed reading glasses. They also help me write this blog, and see when I drive. I can actually read a street sign, tell you what my daughter's high school sign and wife's work sign says, and not guess as to whether the road lines are dotted or full.

I posted a couple of pictures on the twitter and got comparisons to one of the greatest singer/songwriters of the past two generations, the great Elvis Costello

and Ted Allen, formerly of Queer Eye for the Straight guy, and now the Food Network guru on wine, food, and style.

I'm unfamiliar with Ted Allen's work, but he wears nice suits, knows a lot about stuff I'm clueless on and seems to be a well respected fellow. The Elvis Costello comparison has gone completely to my head. I'm running with it. The Prince of Sardonic Wit and composer literate pop, rock, and jazz music is one of my artistic heroes.

This is me. I can write well, sometimes; I've maintained gamefull employment with good company for over 7 years, I'm a killer on a charcoal grill, my kids think I'm not half bad, and my wife lets my key work at our house. Take that Ted and Elvis.

This is actually a bigger deal than the surface would indicate. I don't go to doctor unless something's broken in three places, I only apologize when sleeping on the couch is proposed or kids are openly weeping, and I don't take to aging, at all. Six dollars coming off the hip of the robot-human hybrid who thinks he's ok no matter how blurry life looks might as well been six million to the rest of you. Now I just have to keep these glasses out of the hands of my kids. These things break or get lost and I'll drive off a cliff seeing triple rather than get more. You read that right.

Today's song is from one of my hometown bands, Atlanta, Georgia's very own Black Crowes. I saw them perform this song almost twenty years ago, March, 1991. Lead singer Chris Robinson poured so much blood, sweat, tears, heart, and soul into the vocal. It's about heartbreak and realizing what you need to do to solve a problem. It serves, not only, as a song title companion to this post, but also as a metaphor for my intentional neglect of my sight. Turn up the sound, let Rich Robinson's guitar take you away, and may the southern fried rock and roll lead your Friday. I give you my glasses, and The Black Crowes' Seeing Things For The First Time;

Father-Daughter Talk About Beauty

2011-02-23T09:08:00.004-05:00

Every morning between 6:50am and 6:58am, my wife calls me. It's one of three reasons. She wants something brought to her at work for breakfast, there's an errand or something that needs to be done that day and she forgot to tell me about it, or our teenage daughter amazed her. Most mornings my wife drops Tay, our 15 yr old, off at her high school which is one mile down the same street from my wife's work. They use the ride to talk, laugh, and make fun me and our other two daughters. Two days ago, Bobina calls me and says "our daughter is amazing". I respond "yeah, I know, what did she do now?" Bobina relays her astonishment as how Tay gets out of the car, pony tailed, t-shirted,blue jeaned and little to no makeuped, walking confidently into school surrounded by her peers who are dressed to or made up to the nines.

I'm a girl dad. By that I mean I have three daughters and a niece who stays with us quite often. I can't imagine being the father to a boy because I don't have any in my life and I don't think I would want any. I was a little boy. I didn't like myself much. Boys break stuff. They whine a lot. Later in life boys stay dumber longer than girls and they mature slower. For all the faux complaining I do about the 4 women I live with; changing their minds, being high maintenance, and being, well, crazy; I wouldn't want things any other way.

I tell my daughters and my wife they are beautiful several times a day. I say it because I mean it and because I know they deserve to hear it. When I was about my Tay's age, I was very close friends with a girl who had an older sister than everyone considered stunningly good looking. I thought she was a first rate pain in the arse, and I knew some dirt on her that made my stomach turn. Her younger sister, my friend, appreciated me seeing through her sister's bullcrap, and, combined with our mutual interests, made us close for a while. One day while hanging at my friend's house, she was getting ready for a school dance. My friend, feeling plain and unpretty, was being fussy over her dress, hair, and the other stuff girls lose their minds over. She emerged from the bedroom in some ensemble, I told her she looked great, her dad, watching a football game with little interest anything other than the game, barked from the side of his mouth, "it doesn't matter honey, you're the smart one, worry about that." I wanted to punch him in the face,and myself for being part of his gender. I lost touch with my friend after she graduated high school. I later wondered how those words, plus others she heard from her insensitive oaf of a dad, must have hurt her throughout her life.

Being a father in a blended family has certain mine fields to walk through. I didn't meet Tay til she was 12, and her younger sister, the Goose, til she was 3. Not having the benefit of bonding with them as babies , meant there was some clumsiness the first year or so. They don't always know I'm joking when I am. They don't always assume I'm being well meaning. There are nuances to each of our personalities that I, as the adult, have to deal with, so that they feel as loved and cared for, as much as their 7 year old sister, Bug, whose diapers I changed. I try to be careful when Christina Aquilera or someone famously pretty is on tv, the radio, or a movie. I want them to feel comfortable around me at all times, and me and their mom talking about objective beauty probably send a weird message. I know that they'll remember the compliments I give, but they'll never forget the negative things I say. That's another reason why I call my daughters and my wife beautiful every day, several times a day.

Tay not being handcuffed by what her peers think of her superficially is amazing. At age 15, I was the shortest boy in my class. I was skinny, had just gotten off the braces, and I was still laughing at the word boobies, much less knowing anything about the opposite sex. My innocence was only matched by ignorance which competed with my awkwardness. I cared about what everyone thought me. My wife tells me, despite being physical mature at 15, she was mentally, very childlike, and hampered by peer pressure. This makes us more inpressed than usual of our daughter's confidence.

I read a lot of blogs written by women. So many seem overwhelmed with angst about what they look like, how they look like, and who they look like. You can count on one post a week from a female blogger being about pretty, ugly, fat, thin, gross, awkward, weight loss, weight gain, past beauty issues, or current beauty issues. I want to reach through the computer, give the writer a hug, and tell them to get over it and be happy with themselves. There's something wrong with that mindset, but as a dude, I have no clue what to do about it.

I don't think fathers talk to their daughters enough about beauty. Every dad, except for the one I knew in high school, thinks their girl is gorgeous, a princess, and special. But, really discussing why their daughters feel the need to gussy up for their friends who are boys, compete superfically with girls, and have to have to makeup, perfume, eyebrow wax, and push up bras isn't discussed enough. My other two daughters, while young for this subject - 7 & 6, are watching their older sister. I hope, like their parents, they are admiring their big dumb sister Tay, for her aura of comfortableness. I'm going to have to put by old fashioned ideas aside, learn to to reduce my squirm, and talk more openly with all three girls about the pretty. I owe it to them.

Today's song probably isn't lyrically copasetic but I'm always in the mood for Pearl Jam. I heard this song going to pick up my teenager the other day. It started the thought process for this blog. Here's Daughter, enjoy.