Guest Blog

Recently a good friend and fellow blogger gave me the opportunity to guest blog over at her site called Red, White, Blue ... and Green.

http://redwhiteandblueandgreen.blogspot.com

She's a very cool person who is fundamentally concerned about a number of issues, especially those which involve justice, liberty, equality and the environment.

I heartily recommend reading her blog on a regular basis and provide her with encouragement and feedback.

Thank you, Watermelon, for letting me contribute to your blog! Keep doing what you do and write about it too. We want to know!

New look, ... and an apology.

So I got to fooling around with the look of this blog. Before I knew it, an hour had passed with me going from design to design. I finally settled on this one.

Actually, I'm not completely settled. My eye was drawn to the stained glass pattern and the color palette. Maybe it's too busy. I might change it soon. If you, gentle reader has an opinion about the new design, please let me know.

I had also gone back and reread the smattering of posts contained herein. While I am in the main pleased with the content and style, I am chagrined to read what are obviously blatant typos that now leap off the screen at me as if circled in red by a tongue-clucking grade school teacher, yet somehow completely evaded my normally eagle-eyed editor. (Me.)

I am sorry. You can't see me, but I'm hanging my head and pouting my lower lip. Of the things I intend to do more often, blogging and getting the typing correct are amongst them. Thank you for your understanding. Stay tuned!

Do you want to bring down unemployment and stimulate the econonmy? Here's one way.

Legalize same-sex marriage.

It struck me the other day. There is a sure-fire way to jump start our lagging economy and for a true fiscal conservative the issue should be a no-brainer. The financial upside for making same-sex marriage legal is the weddings.

Think of how much money is spent at a typical wedding. Sources vary about what the average amount of money that gets spent on the wedding, but in 2011 the range for average is twenty-five to thirty thousand dollars. We all can grasp that it's a pretty significant sum for each and every wedding.

There is the wedding dress, and bridesmaid's and groomsmen's clothing. They need to be made or rented. Engagement and wedding rings need to be made and sold. The reception hall needs to be booked. There must be entertainment at the reception. Invitations need to be printed. Vehicles rented. Flowers to be grown, delivered and arranged. A cake needs to be baked and delivered. Caterers must be hired, and bartenders to keep the libations flowing … quite a tidy sum of money is spent and it all goes into the local economy. The happy couple have a (hopefully) perfect day, and a tidy number of local small business get a boost of much needed capital.

Now consider this. Who would throw as lavish a wedding and reception as gay couples? Say what you will, but gay men especially tend to have pretty good taste and a willingness to exhibit that good taste. They're not afraid to spend money on what they want.

It only makes sense for an economy to encourage this kind of behavior. Allowing gay men and lesbian women to legitimize their love in the eyes of the law will not decrease the number of “traditional” man-and-woman marriages, and would benefit every single local economy in America with the increased money put in circulation due to all the new weddings every year.

Chances are, these small businesses in the wedding industry will see a pretty good increase in business. It stands to reason. They would have to hire additional help to handle the increased business. Unemployment could drop. Each of these business would presumably have to pay an increased amount of taxes, which would further benefit the local and state governments of areas where they are being starved out of existence by the “something-for-nothing crowd” who hate the idea of paying ANY taxes.

I think it's pretty safe to speculate the increase in business to the wedding industry would be significant. Any increase of business to just about any industry would be a good thing right now. A good thing in any economy, but notable so in this one.

It is a sad commentary on us as a society when we allow the small-minded and withered of heart to dictate our economy the way we do. I for one know that business can be a positive contributor to our society. I know that more money flowing around means a better life for everyone.

I also know how hard it is to find someone to love in this world. How incredibly fortunate it is to have someone who loves you for you. Who am I do deny that to anyone?

Summer soundtrack 2011

Sheesh! My most profuse and humble apologies for contributing nothing here in quite a long time.

As most who know me know that I walk. A lot. Not having a car contributes to this immensely. While I walk, my brain will search my memory for songs and play them for me. I've not been trying to force any from memory. I'm content to just let them play as they come.

This year, I've taken to paying closer attention to the mental soundtrack. I've listed them, for your entertainment. I ascribe no meaning to the selection. They're just songs my brain has stored and play back unbeckoned. In alphabetical order the songs are:

A Passage to Bankok-Rush
Beauty of a Dream-Thomas Dolby
Behind Blue Eyes-The Who
Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)-Steely Dan
Do You Close Your Eyes-Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow
Everyone's Gone to the Movies-Steely Dan
First Look-Jimmy Buffett
From the Beginning-Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Gone Daddy Gone-Violent Femmes
Grass-XTC
Hip Hug-Her-Booker T & the MGs
Hold Your Head Up-Argent
Jole Blon-Gary "U.S." Bonds
Jump-Aztec Camera
Narrakesh Express-Crosby, Stills & Nash
My Old School-Steely Dan
On Broadway-Eric Carmen
She Caught the Katy-Blues Brothers
Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours-Stevie WOnder
This Time it's for Real-Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes
Tube Snake Boogie-ZZ  Top
Walkin' with a Mountain-Mott the Hoople
What is Life-George Harrison

Luckily there are more great songs stored in my memory than lousy ones! If you are unfamiliar with any or all of these songs, GO FIND THEM. Listen and enjoy. If you're lucky to have a memory for music like I do, treat yourself to some long walks and listen to what your brain plays for you. You will probably be surprised.

Enjoy the rest of your summer. Make the most of it. We're only allotted a limited number of them.

You gotta love Firefighters.

Today's most controversial and absolutely outrageous news story involves a Florida minister with a room temperature IQ and a bad mustache. 

Caught up in his own overinflated sense of self-importance, Terry Jones (I will NOT use the title Reverend as there is nothing reverent about this mouth-breather) is the preacher of a tiny and unimportant ultra-right-wing Christian church in Gainesville, Florida called, ironically, the Dove World Outreach Center, is getting a lot of media attention by announcing his intention to carry on with a bonfire book burning of the Quran on September 11.

It's a sad fact of American existence that our Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression includes allowing stupid expressions to have the same weight as intelligent and wise ones.

In spite of the fact that many, many voices have taken up the call to give up this proposed idiotic and incendiary (intentional pun) event. In spite of the many appeals to reason, to decency, to tolerance, this moron Christian minister seems to think that his God wants him to intentionally provoke angry reactions from Muslims.

Yeah. Right. God wants you to burn books. Is there anyone out there with any education at all who thinks this is a good idea? I just can't imagine it, and I can imagine a lot. More than many people. I'm not one of the faithful of anyone's religion, but I don't think it's a good idea to burn the Bible or the Torah. I don't think it's a good idea to burn Steven King either. I don't like to read Steven King, but I don't think his work needs to be burned.

Jones has insisted that he will carry on with the planned Quran burning.

Enter the Interim Fire Chief, Gene Prince. A bonfire is illegal in Gainesville, and books are considered hazardous waste. The ink, it seems, is not healthy to breathe when burned. The Chief has stated he will not allow the burning to happen.

Gotta love those firefighters. Go get 'em boys.

Another story idea blooms.

One of my biggest personal failings is finishing a project before the idea for a new one strikes.

Since the story of Fin Port and his friends has stalled for now, I submit an excerpt from a new story. This one's a vampire story, but things are a little different for vampires in my universe.

As always, polite critique is greatly appreciated. Please allow me to introduce you to Alec Sangrey, vampire.

The Unlife and Times of Alec Sangrey

Even the neon lights hurt me now. It’s very hard to keep it together, shuffling down the sidewalk. I try to duck from shadow to shadow. I only manage to stumble.

When the Thirst is on you, your senses shatter. Everything is louder, any light breaks upon you like a tidal wave of broken glass. My mouth tastes like copper. It’s like sucking on pennies.

Being a vampire is not what you read about. It sucks, if you will pardon the pun. We’re not gods. We don’t have supernatural powers. We can’t control anyone’s mind. Hell, we can’t control our own minds. We can’t turn into bats and fly around. I really wish I could fly about now. My legs feel like tree stumps, my feet like cinder blocks. My insides roil as if snakes are fighting it out inside me, trying to consume each other.

Vampires are not given super strength, or the ability to climb walls. Not one of the supernatural abilities you may have read about are gifts of vampirism. Vampirism does not have any gifts.

It does, however, make vampires very vulnerable to light. Daylight kills us for good. It looks like a horrible way to go. I knew a female vampire once to simply walk out into the dawn. She didn’t say a word, just walked out into the horrible, keening daylight. There was no flash of sulphurous flame. No smoking and screaming. Sunlight kills a vampire from the inside out. She started shaking, then she fell and started convulsing. While I watched in terror, she levitated off the ground while the convulsions threw her around like a doll. She didn’t scream. She didn’t make a sound. She simply stared at me, her mouth open and her eyes insanely wide with fear. Almost as if she were begging me to grab her, to pull her to the safety of the doorway I was crouching in.  Finally, after an eternity, she fell to the ground and simply vanished. I scrambled as fast as I could to the darkest corner I could find and waited until night came again. I like to think the light took her soul to heaven. That it cleansed her, made her whole again and brought her to God.

Right now, I am trying to avoid finding out for myself. I can hear the sunrise. It’s about an hour off, but I can hear it like a choir of unholy angels riding a herd of mustangs beyond the horizon. The Thirst has got me so strung out and vulnerable, I want to vomit just from the smell of the sunshine coming. But there’s nothing in me to vomit, only the goddamn taste of copper, with just a touch of battery acid.

I stumble into a trio of young cowboy types. They reek of beer and cologne, tobacco and marijuana.

“I’m so-sorry.” I stutter, bending over and dry retching at their feet.

“Goddamn junkies.” Says one of them, “Don’t bother, he ain’t worth the effort.”

“Heh” I mumble to myself, “Probably the pot that mellowed them out enough to save me a beating.”

The urban cowboy didn’t know how close to correct he was. A vampire is nothing but a God damned junkie. That’s me, Alec Sangrey, junkie vampire.

To a vampire, human blood is a kind of super heroin. Whatever it is that gives someone the Thirst, once you have it, you’re never free of it. The Thirst makes human blood taste like cherry pudding and sex and heaven and rock & roll all rolled into one. It makes you wonderfully calm, completely at ease with the entire universe, God and all. It also makes a vampire very tired. It’s a magnificent high. But it can leave a vampire motionless. Unable to do anything but lay still and dream. And what wonderful dreams they are.

A lot of vampires have had the Dreams be their undoing. Some just lay there, oblivious to the passing of time and the night, to be caught by the sun next to their victim’s lifeless body. The vampire dies. The victim remains, and it’s another unsolved murder.

Smart vampires will have a lair, a safe house where they can quench their Thirst, then Dream in safety, far from the sunlight. There aren’t many smart vampires.

The bloodlust makes us stupid. It’s consuming. It gets harder to think clearly until nothing matters except making that next kill. Blood means peace, contentment, and lovely dreams.

And forget about fangs. Vampires don’t have fangs. It’s very difficult, I would imagine, for a vampire with the Thirst full on being able to actually hit a vein or artery. I’m sure I would butcher the job, and the prey would get away.

No, all vampires I have met (which haven’t been very many, we are both solitary and uncooperative) have a favorite blood letting tool. Ice-picks, scalpels and single-edged razor blades seem to be most popular, but a shard of glass, a credit card or even a nail have been known to have been used. I have a beautiful, antique stiletto. I pretend she once belonged to Lucrecia Borgia.

Also, I’m not sure if we are truly immortal. I don’t know how old I am. I don’t remember becoming a vampire, or the passing of time. I have no idea what year it is, nor how long I’m immobile when I’m Dreaming. When I’m feeling philosophical, which is usually in the time between waking from the Dreams and the onset of the Thirst, I always come to the conclusion that we can’t be immortal, by definition, because we’re already post-mortal. We’re corpses who just haven’t laid down to the final rest. I really hope that I won’t be a vampire forever. It’s Hell, it really is, inescapable, all-consuming damnation. 

This is a work of fiction and all characters are completely imaginary and represent no actual persons, living, dead or undead.

Drenched by a Wave of Nostalgia

Once upon a time, in the century past, I was forced to sell some personal items of value in order to pay my rent. Two vintage electric guitars and several dozen valuable comics.

-sigh-

Yesterday, I found this on eBay.

This is a 2007 release of my main guitar in my rocker days! It's an exact replica of the was my old SG Jr. looked when it was new. It wasn't new when I bought it for $200, but it had been treated nicely. It was the first real guitar I owned, and I made some changes that made it better. I replaced the stock trapeeze bridge with a Leo Quan Badass tunable bridge, and the old soap-bar pickup was replaced with a DiMarzio soap-bar humbucker in creme, and the old knobs gave way to gold barrel knobs.

The original tuning machines on my SG had been the open-gear, ultra cheapo ones Gibson used to offer, so I replaced them with nice chrome Schallers. I also replaced the strap pegs with Jim Dunlop Straplocks.

I bought mine when I was still in my late teens, in my first band Achilles. It was my main guitar in White Harlem, although I had bought a Stratocaster by that time, the SG was my main instrument. It was so light and easy to play. The 24.75" scale was perfect for my small hands and the mahogany neck and body had such a nice warm tone. I wish I had never sold it.

But now this one appears on eBay for $790 plus shipping!

I want it. I really want it. Even though I have a perfectly wonderful Carvin AE185 already, I still want it.

AIn't she pretty? Sweet, versatile and just about perfect. With all the pickup tonal options, Gina is all the guitar I should ever need.

But that's one of the curses of the guitar player. You always want more. I guess it's no different than anything else people geek about. You always want to collect more of the things you love. So the reasonable side of me says to be grateful for what I have. But the irrational side still wants to recapture that magic of my youth. Financially, I could swing it, but it would be a pretty hard hit and I just can't justify a luxury such as this right now.

But I really, really want this guitar.