Mostly Sports

My head is in the clouds and so are my feet... and everything else. Couldn't see a thing out-da-windas when I first got up, but now, three cuppas deep, the sky is starting to lift off and an actual horizon is making an appearance.

Horizon is a good word because it has a z in it. I think the z is our most used but least written letter. Think about everytime you write s but say z. Pleaze, for instance. And all our plurals. Catz in the hatz and batz in the belfryz. What'z the deal with that?

You can tell I'm at a loss this morning. There's no subject knocking on my frontal lobes saying let me out, let me out. Unless it's sports. Sports are always there. I started Pat Conroy's "The Losing Season" last night and only managed to put it down when its pages and my eyes slammed shut simultaneously. When a great writer brings his eloquence to my favorite sport, basketball, it's an exquisite pleasure on a par with searching for cameltoe. (Far better actually, but I needed a joke there.) Conroy's prologue by itself is a small masterpiece. The guy is a tormented "Tragic Romantic" and has the verbal skills to make you understand exactly what that is. I plan on spending a large part of today absorbing his "4" point of view on his senior basketball season at The Citadel. A losing season at that. (My senior season at LHS we were 1 win 20 losses. I think I can relate. The team that we beat for that one win went 20 and 1. Their only loss was to us. That's why they play the games. Cool.)

I got to Conroy after I had watched five innings of the Sox/Angels game. Sox got pounded. This was only the second Sox game all year where we here in Panama got an English speaking feed and both times Curt Shilling, who may have to change his name to Half Pence, got spanked like a red headed step child. (I threw in that cliche for my son Roll On Deodorant Head as it is one of his favorites.) And while this was happening the Yankees got Bobby Abreu to sell his soul and join them in New York. Bummer.

A book I read in Spanish earlier this year, "El Demonio and Senorita Prym" has hit No. 22 on the NYTimes Bestseller list in English. The demon in this one, contrary to popular belief, was not George Steinbrenner.

If I quit now, I can catch the second half of Sportscenter.

The Losing Seaon and The Lost World

For those of you worried sick about the disappearance of the rooster, quit it. He's back and he's still lost in his parallel rooster universe where dawn arrives well before dawn arrives.

While Woowoo Charly and pal Victoria prowled the aisles of The Bookmark Bookstore, I leashed up Gus The Wonder Dog and took him for a walk on the sidewalk of Dolega. That's sidewalk, singular. It runs along the road to Boquete and fronts a lot of old Panamanian houses that back up to what appears to be, from the sidewalk, Panamanian jungle. Two lane blacktop in front, Tarzan to the rear. Nice contrast. We ambled amiably along for a half mile or so looking for nothing in particular and finding lots of it until we u-turned and headed back to the bookstore. The point of the walk was merely to give Lady Charles a little time to pick out a book or two. Gus isn't welcome in the store because he doesn't read, has no money and poses a serious threat to the well being of the owner's two rotweilers. Gus comes from a long line of English Cockers, while the Rots roots have them fleeing The Father Land shortly after WW2. There is some tension there. (An aside: I think it was Bill Maher who wondered if the Germans would have been less rigid and authoritarian if Germany had been called The Dad Land. And, for that matter, Russia The Mom Land.) When it was Chuck's turn to keep Gus's 30 pounds away from the 100 pound Rots, I made a beeline to The Dick Francis section and scored four I haven't read. I also found Pat Conroy's "The Losing Season." It's probably the only copy in Panama. Needless to say - I don't NEED to say any of this - but if I don't nobody will - I am now happy as a harp seal hidden out by conservationists.

On the way to the plant place, our next stop, we passed a baseball stadium with a game under way. Gus and I decided we would rather be there oohing and aahing at line drives than tip toeing through the tulips with the mujeres oohing and aahing at lines of lillies, so when we decarred, the mutt and I streaked up the block to the game. We found a nice spot in the bleachers and watched as two teen aged teams took turns making baseball blunders. The stands held mostly player's family members sporting coolers and picnic stuff. Between innings some of the players would come flying up the stairs to grab a sip of coke, juice, water and what have you. It was fun. Gus, of course, was not impressed. He couldn't understand why when someone caught a ball they threw it to someone else. When he catches one, he keeps it.

There was other good stuff between then and the moment later that night when my wife said somethingI had never heard before, but none of it captured my attention like her vaguely sexual, partially, I think obscene though I really don't know for sure as she wouldn't elaborate, comment. Yeah, I know, sexual and obscene and I haven't heard it? Seems unlikely. So what I'm asking is for somebody out there there to enlighten me. I need an explanation. What my constant companion and raison d'etre said, as we watched Jill St. John traipse through the jungle wearing tight, stretchy, pink pants in an old version of "The Lost World," was... "all the money they spent on wardrobe and makeup and she's still got cameltoe." "Cameltoe?" I said. "What the hell is cameltoe" "Just look at her crotch" my wife shot back cryptically. Now when your wife tells you to look at another woman's crotch you might as well take advantage of it and do exactly so, because she is not likely to say that again, ever, but by the time I did, the screen was filled with small lizards blown up to look like large dinosaurs. Bummer. Cameltoe. Give me a clue.

Friday and Saturday

A glorious Saturday morning here in Panama. We've got a blue sky...

Wait! You can't just say a blue sky, everybody's got a blue sky. Either that or grey. You have to be more specific, narrow it down, let the people know what kind of blue you got hovering over your head. Let's get with it.

Well its a, don't rush me I'm thinking, it's a, it's a, "It's A Boy" kind of blue. Now where's my cigar?

That's better. Now what else is happening?

Well not much really. The sun's real bright and...

Hold up, hold up! The sun's real bright? You ever see a dull sun? What do you mean the sun's real bright?

Well it's rays are lighting up the mountain greenery like the kleig lights on an MGM technicolor musical from somewhere in the ninteen fifties. You know, the kind that could make even Gordon McCrea and Kathryn Grayson look good. Everything's all shiny and clean.

Alrighty then. What else?

Well Baru is jutting up in sharp relief against the baby blue like a man in profile lying on the beach with a hard on in his swim suit.

I'll be going now.

See ya.

Okay. Now that I have established that it is a nice day...yeah, I know...nice as a nurse with cleavage and pain pills, let's talk about yesterday, which was also a nice day even though I spent part of it with a dentist shoving shiny, silver implements into my mouth. What happened was, I got the back up dentist and the back up dental assistant and they somehow managed to fill my two cavidads while carrying on a conversation, in Spanish of course, which they thought I couldn't understand. They were mostly right. HOWEVER, I did grok about half and although the words were seemingly innocuous, I gathered that there was some double meanings going on and some serious flirting being done. All that and I'm only part way through my Spanish Now Level 2 textbook working on preterito verbs which is one of two past tenses because, apparently, Spanish people have more than one past. I can't wait to go listening in on some other unsuspecting Spanish speakers, but I am hoping that next time they won't be hovering inches above my face with one holding a miniture jack hammer and the other hanging a spit sucker from my lower lip. Makes it hard to concentrate on the eavesdropping.

But back today. If all goes as planned we should be off to the neighboring town of Dolega where we will swap books we've read for some we haven't at the Bookmark used book store within the next couple of hours. Not that we don't have plenty of the unread variety at home, but there's no Dick Francis and I'm jonesing. Jonesing like a jelly doughnut junkie with nothing but cookies in the cupboard.

Dentists and Domes

I have to go to the dentist first thing tomorrow morning, a thing I like about as much as, well, going to the dentist. Since I can't rely on the local rooster to wake me at the crack of, I thought I'd get a word or two in tonight. Problem is, there's a lot of words out there and it's difficult to narrow down the choices. Frock is a good one for example. It sounds like something you'd say after stubbing your toe, but is actually something you wear. That's something YOU wear. Personally I'm thinking there's no frocking way. Still, if you're sitting in the dark looking for words like I am, frock's not a bad starter.

We had a quiet day today, Woowoo Chuck and I. 'Course that's our plan. We're saving loud days for later when we can share. We are headed into Dahvid or Dahveed, we 've heard it pronounced both ways, tomorrow for this, that and the dental thing. I'm looking forward to feeling the wet heat of that tropical city and chewing abstractedly on the inside of my cheek until the novacaine wears off and I realize I've been eating small bits of myself. And that's the fun part. Which is your favorite drill? The low grrrrrrr one or the high weeeeee one? Our dentist, Dr. Arrozmenos is a good guy, but if you break down his name it means less rice. He has a friendly nurse though. Cute too. She holds your hands while Lessrice does his thing. This may just be a way to avoid being struck, but it seems kindly and concerned.

I got an email photo of my oldest son earlier this week. He has a shaven head. Cue balled. Don't know what inspired him, Budweiser, Guiness or Jamison, but as a show of support I rushed right downstairs and drank Budweiser, Guiness and Jamison. Kidding. What I really did was shave off my mustache. It's a radical transition after lo these many years. Not rad like my son Penis Head, but radical nevertheless. Years ago I shaved my dome and the kid said I looked like an extra in Shindler's List. I'm thinking he's in for his share of baldy barbs even if razored pates are more common now than back in the day. He can thank Michael Jordan and Bruce Willis for that. Still, what compels a lad with a thick head of the bushy to whisk it all away? Don't know for sure, but I can tell you one thing. It's better than a sharp stick in your mouth.

Rooster Tales

Our nextdoor neighbor, a man whose house I can just see through the thick greenery between us some hundred or so yards away, has recently added a rooster to his menangerie. Prior to the addition of this manical sleep usurper, the only unwanted noises emanating from that direction were barking dogs and crying children and these were mostly relegated to daylight hours. More welcoming sounds that drift our way from there are those of the same children laughing and the mad cackles of a parrot that our neighbor brings out to his porch on weekend mornings. Both of these quiet interrupters manage to induce our smiles. It's not so with the rooster.

I've never actually seen the foul fowl. His predawn screeches are akin to a ghostly rattling of chains and things that go bump in the night. They're eerie and don't seem to come from any particular spot. I can picture this bad bird strutting around the haunted hen house scaring the... eggs out of his frightened flock. Forget cockadoodledoo. Like too many Spanish speakers, this feathered fiend swallows his vowels and what hits the airways is a screeching oooaaaaooooeloooooh; the last part trailing off like a scream dying on the wind. It's a sound that will wake you and wake us it has, somewhere around four thirty or five in the morning for the better part of the last two weeks. Dawn, I would point out to the bird if I spoke chicken, is over an hour later. But of course you can get used to anything if you hear it long enough. That scratching in the walls isn't really rats, it's just loose insulation flapping on a draft. Those footsteps on the roof are just the wind playing with the tiles. GI's, I'm told, even learn to sleep through shellings. And so, though I never quite snoozed through, I did get to the point where I could access some small consciousness, note the soft breathing of the soft woman beside me and the fussy noises of the dog at my feet and await the morning howl. When it was complete, I'd return to serious sleep.

This morning, wouldn't you know it, there was no howl. Did the bird sleep in? Cat get his tongue? Laryingitis? Or did my neighbor dine on fried roster anoche? Whatever the case, I lay abed listening for the sound that never came. More lost sleep. Fortunately, when you're a jubilado, sleep is found as easily as it's lost. There is always an insurance meeting going on somewhere. But what to do tomorrow morning? Expect the racket and lie awake listening or don't expect it and be startled from a dream. What to do, what to do?

And you think you've got problems.

Life and Laughter

We lasted less than an hour. The speaker at the insurance seminar was painting his picture with broad strokes. We were looking for details. Narrow strokes. Actually, here in hindsightville, no strokes makes the most sense and what with Murphy's Law, Murray's if you're jewish, being what it is, the best way to achieve no strokes is to have insurance for them. Nevertheless we slipped out the back door before the tears of boredom could gather in force.

I've read that it is necessary to shake up your routine from time to time. Give everything a different look, a fresh face. Make your reality new, your perspective altered. Since I believe everything I read except for the stuff in newspapers and nonfiction sources - the people who write in those are really creative - I decided first thing today to give this change-your-habits thing a go and radically rearrange my morning. You know, toss out the old and let the sun shine on a bright new vision. I'm having coffee instead of tea as I write this. Call me a wild man if you want, but hey, you've got to take a risk once in awhile.

And now a word about humor because, afterall, it is a funny subject. I have what may be an overly developed sense of humor. (Note that it IS a sense like touching, smelling, hearing, detecting extraterrestrials disguised as humans and all the others. It doesn't get the press that say, seeing does, because it's the one sense so many people lack.) I laugh at everything except bad slapstick. Bad slapstick: someone slipping on a banana peel. Good slapstick: George W. Bush making an unscripted speech. I particularly like clever word play. "When the president learned that sectarians polled against him, he called for an immediate invasion of Sectaria." That's funny. The buddhist approaching the hot dog vendor and saying, "make me one with everything" is funny too. Most of my life when viewed from my distant perspective - I am within a couple of decades of getting close to old - has been a laugh riot. Too much of it bad slapstick, but lots of straight forward funny as well. What an idiot I've been. Most of your life when viewed from my distant perspective has been a laugh riot as well. What an idiot you've been. And the funniest of all are the people who take themselves seriously. They are seriously idiots, so let's get together and laugh them out of office. How about Seinfeld for president? Robin Williams? Jim Carrey? Hillary Clinton? Now we're talking funny.

Something About Insurance

I am a bit rushed this morning so I'll postpone writing The Great American Blog until another day. We are off to an insurance seminar in a little over an hour and I await that moment with the same thrilled and anxious expectation as my dog Gus exhibits when the word vet is tossed about. When the appointed hour arrives I might, like Gus, have to be lifted into the car. Or maybe coaxed with a cookie. It's not that these things are boring, it's just that they make boring look like a reasonable option. It's little wonder that coffee is the only beverage available when you consider what the average age in the room is likely to be. Panama may not be south Florida yet, but its geriatric quotient is on a steep upward curve. Retirees, Jubilados in Spanish, a much better word, are being beamed down from Bushworld at alarming rates. Since U.S. Medicare doesn't pay here, all the Jubies will be showing up at today's meeting to find out who has the cheapest rates on arthritis creams. We'll be looking for Big C insurance ourselves as our current coverage provides for most of the common complaints like bunny flu and the removal of alien implants, but has no cancer provisions. A further aggravation induced by having to attend this sort of meeting is that here in Boquete the gathering is held in a hotel bar. Note that earlier I said the only liquid available is coffee. That's droll, or once again considering the group's age, drool. Personally I think the hotel and the insurance agents are missing a sure bet by not opening the bar part of the bar when the day's subject matter is as mind numbing as insurance. Might as well numb the bod too. Get a couple of drinks into these old codgers, pass out your pamphlets and sign 'em up. Everybody wins. Why don't people listen to me?

THE Open

You've got to love the British Open, THE Open as the Brits call it. Unless, of course, you have no idea what I'm talking about in which case you're forgiven as I am often esoteric which means abstruse and both of those are excellant words to use when you're trying to convey "known only to a few and unclear to the general public." (A thing I doubt is a good thing for a blogger to be. I am sure, though, it's good thing to loose the monkeymind after a four day hiatus, which, by the way, is not a sexual term but probably should be.) (The girl had a hiatus that just wouldn't quit.) In America land of the free and home of monster truck rallies, golf course designers find a beautiful piece of landscape and make it even more so by putting in acres of really green grass, digging difficult to find holes here and there, and planting ferns and flowers and what not for a small percentage of the overall population to enjoy. On the British Isles, golf course designers find a patch of land where nothing but weeds and gorse and brambles and the like will grow, a patch that is usually windswept, wet and cold and there they dig the same random bunch of holes for a small percentage of the overall population that are both masochists and golfers...to enjoy. When you turn on your television to tune in golf and see brown fairways, lighter brown greens and galleries wearing rain gear and parkas (although this year's weather was unusually clement) (global warming?) you know you've found THE Open. Another good hint is that it's on at seven o'clock in the morning which begs the question, what the hell are you doing watching television at seven in the morning if you're not looking for THE Open?

This year's Open was won by Tiger Woods who differed from the Tiger Woods who won last year's Open only in that he was a year older. A thing you couldn't say about his father. OKAY, I TAKE IT BACK. I'M SORRY. I DON'T ALWAYS KNOW WHERE THE MONKEYMIND WILL TAKE ME. Sheesh. Tiger was out there to win for his dad who had died recently and Chris DeMarco was out there to win for his mom who had died recently and Sergio Garcia was out there to win for his taste in clothing which died when he was twelve and his mother stopped dressing him. Sergio was attired in a color described as saffron. If I am ever dressed in a color described as saffron, I better have died recently and the person who dressed me better hope I can't come back. Saffron. Of course, Sergio is from Spain where saffron is pronounced thaffron as well it should be. On this same subject, I have to mention that my favorite comment of the entire four days was by a British announcer who clued us that golfer Aaron Baddely was nicknamed Dressed by the other golfers. For those of you slow on the uptake, that makes him Dressed Baddely which, I guess is better than being nicknamed Played. Aaron and Sergio should swap names.

A Small Conversation

“Happy go lucky” Wilson says to his wife of more years than he can remember, “That’s what everybody always calls me, happy go lucky.”

He turns to the bartender before she can reply and orders another round. “Quisiera Senor, dos mas por favor” His Spanish is uncertain, but he’s pretty sure he’s got that one right.

His wife looks at him a moment wondering where he’s going with this new thought and whether they really need another round. “ Well,”she offers in her always logical straight forward way, “It’s mostly true you know. You usually are happy and of course you’re lucky or you wouldn’t be with me.”

Wilson blurts a “ha” and sprays a little cerveza across the bar. “Yeah and besides that”
he says, smiling at her, “ I’m supposed to be the funny one.”

Wilson’s wife, Emma, still starkly beautiful in her early sixties, gives him an appraising glance and asks, “What’s bothering you?” After thirty-six years she knows this doesn’t come out of the blue, something is on her husband’s mind.

“I don’t want to be mister happy go lucky anymore” he says. “It sounds too flip, too trivial, too, I don’t know, lacking in weight. I mean old happy go lucky is just a sidekick to the dark, brooding, sexy guys. Nobody takes him seriously, he’s just the comic relief. Well, c’mon now, I’ve been working for fifty years and I’ve done good things, important things. I’ve even done serious things, so from now on I want to be thought of as someone with ah, depth and ah…ah, substance.”

Emma points at her husband’s fresh drink. “Substance abuse is more like it.”

Wilson can’t help himself, he laughs again. “And I still want to be the funny one.”

“That’s the point querido mio, most of the time you are the funny one. And you’re good at it. Don’t you think people know you’re smart? Don’t you know that it takes smart to be funny?

Wilson deliberately avoids looking at his wife when he speaks. Even after so many years he knows that if he makes eye contact his current thoughts will dissolve and be replaced by something a whole lot less intellectual and a whole lot more... edgy. She, on the other hand, stares at him like he's the only guy on the planet. Wilson, of course, loves that.

“Well sure I know that and you know that” Wilson says, emphasing the I and the you, “but does anyone else really know ?” Do they know that the life of the party guy may be consciously playing the fool, consciously being the clown, consciously bringing energy to the room? I don’t think so, I really don’t. I think they think he’s just naturally that way.”

“That’s because he is.”

“What?” Wilson says, turning to look at his wife. He hadn’t been expecting this response. He thought maybe something more sympathetic might have come his way, something more supportive. But then, this was Emma talking after all. You are going to get what’s on her mind. “How can you say that?” he says, looking at her, but still dodging her eyes.

“Well, I think it’s like this. You have to be the way you are naturally or it wouldn’t even occur to you that the party needed more energy or laughter or whatever. Even if a few others of us did recognize the need for more juice at the party, we still wouldn’t be compelled to supply it like you are. It's what you do naturally. Myself, I’d fall back in horror if I was just asked to tell a joke while you'd come flying to my rescue and volunteer one.”

Wilson thought a moment then said, “You would, wouldn’t you, withdraw I mean. I guess most people would. Most people are just flat afraid of making a fool of themselves. Bombing as it were. It’s odd when you consider all the hidden fears I live with, that making a fool of myself is not one of them. I gladly risk embarrassment for a good laugh. Hey, if I bomb, I bomb. At least I tried to brighten the moment.”

“And people appreciate that Wilson, they really do. It’s why you get invited in the first place. Besides,” Emma says leaning close to her husband’s ear, “some of us find humor and energy sexy. You can take your dark, gloomy guys some place else. They’re so busy being serious and mysterious they don’t even notice they’re boring you to tears.”

Wilson gives his wife a quick, small kiss. “Thanks” he says. “But c’mon, don’t you ever get weary of your own self, your own schtick, your own big pile of stuff you bring to the world everyday? Doesn’t it just feel old and tiresome sometimes?”

“You mean do I get tired of being the one standing on the sideline looking bored and aloof? Hell yes. But I can’t seem to help it either. It’s my fall-back position. I really don’t know how to be any other way.”

“Well, you’ve got that don’t speak unless you’ve got something to say thing down really well. People respect you for that. But don’t you ever feel uh... uh, carefree or... or frivolous? You know, the I don't give a damn, I'm hell bent for leather kind of thing?

"Well sure“ says Emma, "when I'm suicidal. Or, ah, with you."

“And that" says Wilson, "is redundant! See, I AM the funny one.”

My Bookish Babe and a Short List

My wife like me and three of my four other personalities including the debonair, charming, witty, man-about-town who made only one appearance back in 1972 signing books at The Tattered Cover... while the actual author was on a break... is a reader. I define a reader as someone who, at roughly age ten, read a book and has had one at arm's reach ever since. The difference between she and I is that my wife reads fast and also her arms are shorter so she saves a lot of time that way. Now when I say she reads fast, think of Evelyn Wood on speed. Think of that Japanese kid eating hot dogs at Coney Island on the 4th of July. No don't think of that, that kid's disgusting, just take my word for it, my wife reads fast. She is also not particular about what she reads as long as the book is not horrible. This means, of course, that her reading list is somewhat different than mine. If I had to estimate I would say my wife reads three books for each one I polish off. Maybe three and a half. Okay four, but some of them are real skinny. So when you see my list of 25 completed books at the bottom of this page, you will know that my wife has buzz-sawed through, let me do the calculations here...a lot more. I am a word for word reader which means I read them all, even the little ones. I read at about the same speed as I talk. My wife claims to be a word for worder as well, but if she spoke at the same speed she reads, I'm thinking auctioneers would stand and applaud and drug companies would be knocking down our door to sign her up for those disclaimers they use at the end of their ads. "Side effects may include pain, debilitation, death and please donate to the Republican Party." You know, those. Luckily, for my wife anyway, there are many books to be read. The Library of Congress has at least eleven or twelve she hasn't gotten to yet. And new ones are being written everyday. Hurry up, I say to the book writers. The pile at her arm's reach is getting precariously low.

My wife took a second (literally!) to read this and said, "I am too particular about what I read."
So there you have that.

Here's my list:

Book List 2006


1. The Book of Secrets Deepak Chopra Non Fiction Essays on achieving a spiritual life of peace, free of fear, doubt, uncertainty, anger, etc. This is a book to return to often.

2. On Bullshit Harry G. Frankfurt A 67 page essay on the nature of BS that reads like a doctoral dissertation. Could have been amusing, but wasn’t, isn’t.

3. Horse Heaven Jane Smiley An excellent read that follows six horses and a couple of dozen people through the ins and outs of the thoroughbred racing world.

4. Death In A Strange Country Donna Leon Murder mystery set in Venice, Italy. Compelling characters, well told story, but lacking a satisfying ending.

5. El Demonio and La Senorita Prym Paulo Coelho (In Spanish) A stranger bearing a demon comes to a small town to make a bet and prove a point. Srta. Prym saves the day. I enjoyed this immensely.

6. Dolores Jacquelin Suzanne (In Spanish) I bought this book for a quarter at The Bookmark, a used book store in Dolega. It was worth it…but not much more.

7. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell Susanna Clarke A very long book , 781 big fat pages, about magic and magicians in the 19th century. A good read I guess if you like that sort of thing. My wife loved it.

8. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Mark Haddon Most books don’t live up to the hype that is plastered all over their covers and early pages by other authors and kind reviewers. This one exceeds everything said.

9. High Lonesome Barry Hannah Stories that aren’t, really, about people who shouldn’t be but probably are, really. Amazing prose. Poetry… really.

10. I Love You More Than You Know Jonathan Ames Humorous Essays about the author’s humorous and overly self examined life.

11. To The Hilt Dick Francis All Francis’ efforts are good and worth a read. This is my favorite so far. An excellent and complex mystery solved by an engaging protagonist.

12. The Weather Makers Tim Flannery A tome on global warming, its causes and consequences. Skimmed most of the book as it was densely fact laden. I get the idea. The world’s in trouble.

13. The Grand Slam Mark Frost Biography of Bobby Jones the great amateur golfer of the Twenties and Thirties. Well written history of Bobby, golf and America. Loved it.

14. Rat Race Dick Francis Francis’ books are the literary equivalent of comfort food. They are always tasty and satisfying. Don’t know what I’ll do when I’ve read his last.

15. White Ghost Girls Alice Greenway American sisters coming of age in Hong Kong during the Vietnam War. This is one of those books that is more about the feelings evoked by the story than the story itself. A “4” read. Emotionally absorbing.

16. By Sorrow’s River Larry McMurtry McMurtry is not always great as he was with Lonesome Dove, but he is always entertaining. This is the third book of a series. Now I have to find the two that preceded it.

17. The Nibble Theory and The Kernel of Power Kaleel Jamison An interesting little book that touches on some of my own unvoiced ideas. “You are who you pretend to be” is one example. In essence the book is a simple guide to personal growth.

18. Whale Season N.M. Kelby On the cover it says “A really good story. And it is.

19. Night Elie Wiesel Brilliant, but horrifying account of the author’s days at Auschwitz and Buckenwald . I was glad when it was over for both him and me.

20. One Liners Ram Dass A little over 200 spiritual observations. Good stuff. I will use many of these.

21. Dressed For Death Donna Leon The kind of mystery where it is not so much who done it as how are they going to be caught.

22. Red Weather Pauls Toutonghi A terrific read. A novel that reads like a memoir, but maintains the drama of a novel. Loved it.

23. Golf Dreams John Updike Golf musings. Some better than others. Some terrific.

24. Street Lawyer John Grishom Entertaining, but his people are never quite real.

25. Harry Potter Y El Caliz De Fuego (In Spanish) The fourth in the series and the best so far. But do they have to be so damn long?

26. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid A Memoire Bill Bryson You wouldn’t think that a childhood in Iowa during the 1950’s would have much to offer, but Bryson proves otherwise. Witty, informative and very well written.

Woowoo Magic 102

I have been asked why I do that do do that I do so...often. Am I just fooling around?

There is a precarious balance in the world between the heavy and dark and the lighthearted and carefree. Picture a teeter-totter which is the same thing as a seesaw only in a different state, both excellant words by the way, and place on one end the heavy and dark. If you need actual people to complete your visualization, go with Cheney and Rumsfeld. That Death guy with the hood and the scythe would be good too. On the other end you will have to put a whole slew (I've got to keep using the word "slew" until its meaning is solidly established as "many" and not, you know, the biblical thing where old Josh used an Ass's jawbone to slew or is it slay, let's see, past tense of the irregular verb to slay is, give me a minute, I've got it, tobaggon, a whole slew of Philistines, whose great grandchildren would go on to be Mickelson fans slewed later by Tigers) of the lighthearted and carefree, because they have barely enough psychic weight to keep them defying gravity on a daily basis. They do this in-your-face take-that gravity by not being, you guessed it, grave, which is another word that conjure's up dire consequences and needs to be put on the end of the seesaw with the those people who see the world as a harsh mistress. (I had a harsh mistress once, but as I said in an earlier bit, I'll get to "Dominated By The Fair Sex" another time.) If you need to put faces to this end of the saw, you can use mine and anyone named Golightly except Holly, who didn't. In the book anyway. It takes a lot, a pile, yes a slew of us to keep the totter from tipping to (where have you heard this before) the dark side where sunshine is just light to find oil and conduct wars by, and not to warm your world and brighten your smile. It is to this end, you know, the whole balance thing, that Woowoos United Ltd., a corporation I think my wife should start, says I am contributing when I send my blogs (although blog sounds like a heavy kind of word) off into cyber space. They don't even need to be read she says. The energy expended towards capturing a chuckle or landing a laugh is energy that finds a home on the light side of the teeter/saw and thereby protects us all from gloom and doom.

And you thought I was just fooling around.

Woowoo Magic 101

Here's how it works. Most of the people on this small blue planet would like world peace. However, that same majority doesn't believe world peace is possible what with terrorism, ignorance, religious disputes, the designated hitter, war mongers, Bushism and the like running amok. What we need, as my man Deeprock Chopsticks - that's Deepak Chopra to those of you who aren't close - said in his recent tome, Peace is the Way, is a "change of consciousness."
This does not mean tequila shots on Friday night. What it does mean, as any woowoo worth their crystals will tell you, is simply that we must start thinking differently.

"HEY! HOW ABOUT AN EXAMPLE."

Okay an example has just been called for, so I'll give you one. Lets go back in time all the way to yesteryear when The Lone Ranger rode the range and Silver too. You are walking along on wooden sidewalks bumping into people and asking them if they knew who that masked man was and did they think space travel was possible. "Why that's The Loooonnne Ranger" they reply, followed by "What's space travel?" and the William Tell Overture getting louder in the background. Ninety nine percent of the people on the planet, Jules Verne and myself being notable exceptions, at that time, believed that flying to the moon was just not possible. So now we fast forward a few years and we find that some people do believe, as Judy Tunuta would say about a date with Brad Pitt, "Hey, it COULD happen." Skipping the light fantasic forward a few more years and we discover that a whole slew of people - slew being a southern word meaning more than two - believe the moon is reachable. They're writings songs about it. "Fly Me To The Moon" is one you will remember if you happen to be as old as dirt. By the time we get to the Ninteen Sixties, the majority of the people, and here is the key, BELIEVE we can get to the moon and jumpin jiminy - I pick up the oddest expressions time traveling- we do. More than once. A whole slew of times, in fact. What has happened is that we have gone from most people NOT believing we can travel in space to most people believing we CAN. And so we do. This was a change of human consciousness that created a change in human reality. Cool.

Now that that's cleared up, all we have to do is start believing that world peace IS possible. And also the decline of The New York Yankees. I believe it and now if you believe it, together we can convince the next guy and pretty soon, what with the accelerated rate of change and all that, we'll have a majority of people believing it and when that happens, holy woowoo smokes, consciousness changes and there's NO MORE WAR.

Piece a cake.

Tomorrow I'll cure cancer.

Taking the Air

Took is an odd word. Considering how the word "too" is pronounced, how do we get tuhk for took? Why isn't it tewk? The same goes for look, book,cook, etc. Who decides this stuff anyway? Whenever I get stumped by these great dilemmas of the ages, I go to the source of the English which is, of course, the English. In England they pronounce took, borrowed.

Last night we watched Latin American Idol. The format is the same as the U.S. version. The judges have somewhat different personalities than Randy, Paula and Simon - the guy in the Randy spot, for instance, breaks out laughing whenever a contestant is really bad - but other than that, the show is much the same. I wish I could say my Spanish was good enough to understand everything that was being said, or sung, but it's not. I get about half, which is enough to make the show watchable. I'm not sure I'll be able to say that when American Somoan Idol airs on cable.

And speaking of air, last night during the set your watch by it 5:15 deluge, it occurred to me that the air in Panama smelled, tasted but mostly felt like the air I remembered as a kid growing up in rural New Jersey. It's wet. I don't think there is a rural New Jersey anymore and if there is air, it probably resembles Campbell's soup, the chunky kind, so I can't go back and compare. I spent most of my adult life, well, adult might be a little flattering, breathing what passes for air in Colorado. It's dry, thin stuff. In fact, Colorado air is dry even when it's raining. It lacks a couple of essential ingredients, moisture being the obvious one, enough oxygen being another and something else I can't put my lungs on. Something like effluents probably, but I'm not really sure what effluents are. It's a funny word though. When someone tells you to take a deep breath in Colorado, what they mean is take two, or three. One won't do it. So it was nice last night inhaling the rich, wet, heavily oxygenated Panama air as I sat out on my balcony watching the rain. The cigar I was smoking didn't hurt either. In fact it added something. I'm thinking effluents.

Women and the Written Word

I've just returned from random readings of other blogs. There are a lot of women bloggers out there. Clicking on neutral sounding blog titles, two of three were penned (that's the literary sense of penned) (as if I had any literary sense) by women. This did not come as a shock to me. I am an inveterate peruser of best seller lists and these are often dominated by the fair sex as well. (Dominated by the fair sex will be a whole nother blog.) (Nother is actually a word, or should be, but don't try to use it in Scrabble.) I'm talking the fiction best seller lists for the most part, although women are also well represented on non-fiction lists. Why, do you suppose, this is? Are women just naturally more inclined to put thought to word to paper? Are they brighter, more artistic, more creative? Or... are there just more of them with free time on their hands? Part of the reason I'm sure - because of my own completely scientific sampling of the general populace, which is to say I asked a few people - is that women read more. More, at least, of non-work related material. They are not quite as big as men on "The Subatomic Analysis of the Quartz Driven Freelinger" or "This Is Your Fuel Injector, Use It Wisely" but scan any magazine section of your neighborhood mom and pop store like Seven Eleven and you will notice that the majority of the titles are geared to women readers. Granted many of the men's mags are behind the counter but still... Pair this with the best seller thing and what I get is that women writers are writing for women readers in larger numbers than men are...well you get the point. It doesn't tell me why though, so I'm going to go with the more time on their, I mean they are smarter, scenario. Another scientific poll I have conducted reveals that the largest percentage of this blog's readers are women. This might be attributed to my having three daughters and only two sons. I'm not great at math, but come on, with three out of five readers being women- that's like, what, I'm thinking three fifths- I should probably reconsider my content. That being said... tomorrow or the next day or someday, when I write Dominated By The Fair Sex, it will feature a lot more silk and a lot less leather than originally intended. If you want the leather version you'll have to go to Seven Eleven. Behind the counter.

Radio Remembered

I caught a glimpse of David Letterman on a news flash of some kind. He looks old. Leno is no kid either. Then I remembered... that I remember... The Tonight Show before Johnny Carson. It starred Jack Paar, an amiable, but not nearly as funny a host as those who would follow. Before Jack, there was radio. I remember that too, but lest you think this is a treatise on aging, let me remind you that I do do time travel. Do do time travel. Alrighty then.

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear (there's a good word) when the Lone Blogger (or something like that) blogs again. My favorite all time radio show aired when I was in my teens and television was catching the fancy (and the advertising dollars) of most of the nation. It came on quite late, I'm thinking eleven, and ran for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. I don't remember for certain, because good as the program was I almost always fell asleep before it was over. The show was The Gene Sheppard Show - don't fault me if I've spelled the name wrong, I'm talking radio and you can't see the credits - and also I don't do research because that would require from me skills I don't have, among which is not being lazy - and featured Gene just gabbing into the mike about his childhood in Indiana, his army days, his start in show biz and the like. He was brilliant and he was funny and he had, in our town, a strong cult following of two, me and my buddy Denny Dey, pronounced Die, don't ask me why. I remember one show when Gene talked about being on KP duty "kitchen police, there's a misnomer" that was so accurate and funny that a couple of years later, when I was actually on KP, I kept breaking into laughter and my fellow GI's thought I was Section Eight. Gene went on to do many other things including putting some of these same stories in writing and getting them published in Playboy. Don't laugh. If you get published in Playboy, you are A. very good and B. well paid. The stories are among the funniestI have ever read. Gene later scripted a few movies, the best of which is "A Christmas Story" which is now shown during the holidays almost as often as "It's a Wonderful Life." The movie is about a kid who wants a BB Gun for Christmas, but is continually told "no, you'll shoot your eye out." The kid is, of course, drawn from Gene himself and the unseen narrator, the voice over, is the grown up Gene...himself. I watch the movie in part to hear that voice and be reminded of lying in the dark listening to radio. Not a bad way to fall asleep.

Oldie #3 Don't read unless you are a golfer

QUEBRADA GOLF COURSE AT VALLE ESCONDIDO
By Doc Walton

Hollywood has nothing on the Quebrada Grande G.C. Nestled in a sweet, green valley just back of town, this nine hole beauty looks like the backdrop for a remake of Shangri La, but plays more like Alien vs. Tiger Woods. You would think on first sighting of the seemingly harmless fairways and benign greens that comprise Quebrada’s six par threes and three par fours, that there would be little danger awaiting the average Joe Golfer. But looks, as we have learned from countless B films throughout the years, can be deceiving. Quebrada has a dark side.

The sixth hole, for instance, has been nicknamed Psycho by the Joe Golfers who play there on a regular basis and it is easy to understand why. At a listed 78 yards it is a mere wedge away and at first glance seems to pose few problems. Of course you are hitting from an elevated tee across a flowery, jungle covered gorge to a postage stamp sized green, but c’mon, it’s right there. Pay no heed to the steep drop-off right of the green or the bunkers that guard the back and left. Forget that a shot hit just a smidgeon right, left or short means a lost ball and enjoy the beauty of the towering wild fig tree that over hangs the green waiting to catch a shot arcing too high, so it can juggle the ball in its branches before tossing it over the side. Really, just ignore all that and play! Oh and that guy standing on the nifty elevated footbridge that leads to the green? Ignore him too. I can’t be sure, but I think it’s Norman. Norman Bates.

The horror movie analogy doesn’t begin and end with the sixth hole. It begins like all good stories – and good golf courses - at the beginning with the first hole and ends with the apparent defeat of the monsters on the ninth.. Of course the monsters don’t really die. They are reborn each time you return to the course to play a sequel. Let’s take a quick look at what else lurks out there at Quebrada G.C. and awaits the unwary golfer. And while we’re at it, let’s give them all names too.

Hole number 1 plays 108 yards from an elevated and palm tree surrounded, back tee box. The fairway drops down in a couple of stages to a goodly sized green that looks close and inviting. Right of the fairway there are hedges and trees landscaped to protect the Pro Shop and Cantina that lie just beyond them. Down the left there are flowerbeds and it is easy on a sunny day for Joe Golfer to stand there on that first tee, look about and say all is right with the world. While he is in that state of mind, the pond in front of the green doesn’t look that big and the sand traps left of the green and just beyond the water don’t seem to pose a serious problem. You can always, Joe thinks, give the shot a bit more oomph and clear everything. I should mention though, that if he clears everything, including the green, there is a river just a trifle beyond it waiting to drown his golf ball. So with a watery grave to the front, a watery grave to the rear and an out-of-bounds watering hole –the Cantina – to the right, all calculated to make your ball disappear, let’s call this hole The Bermuda Triangle.

The river hiding quietly behind the first hole snakes loudly down the entire right side of the second. This hole is a long par 3 - it plays 192 yards from the back tee box - and its principle horror is its narrowness. A very straight shot must be played to the green as any sort of fade will be greedily swallowed by the river and anything hooking or drawing left will vanish in the lush vegetation of a steep hillside that flanks the fairway there. With trees bordering the river right and the hillside left, there is a sort of tunnel feeling here. It is as if you had to hit a ball down a city street without breaking a window. Since having to hit a shot long and straight under pressure is one of Joe Golfer’s most frequent bad dreams, let’s dub this hole, The Nightmare on Elm Street.

The river of broken dreams and water logged golf balls flows across the third hole as well. Here it widens and streams in front of the green which lies some 119 yards from the furthest of the three tiered tee boxes. Bordering the fairway on the left are three Spanish styled condominums whose occupants are sure to smile and wave as they watch your ball splash down and be taken away by the river’s current. It is once again easy for Joe Golfer, already water weary, to lose his head and put a little something extra on his shot. In doing so he may avoid the river, but find his ball flying the green to the paved road beyond where it is likely to bounce and land in Valle Escondido’s horse stables. Lost heads and horses? We must be talking The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

The fourth hole is a 260 yard par 4 with a nice wide fairway and a tempting look at a green that is slightly dog-legged left. The dog-leg puts it in line with a lake that borders the left fairway, but ends about eighty or so yards short of the green. From the lake to the green there is a sort of run-off brook that continues down the left side. Big hitters will be tempted to hit over the lake to the putting surface, but most Joe Golfers will try to hit straight down the fairway. The danger here is that at about 200 yards, a distance Joe can often reach either on the fly or with a roll, there is a small, evil creek that flows right to left directly across the fairway. There is an elevated cart path skirting that right side and next to it is, you guessed it, another small stream. Shots right or left will usually find water as will those carefully calculated lay-ups that roll too far. Joe Golfer’s best bet is to swing a club that he is confident will fly his ball to dry land. The Creature From The Black Lagoon seldom leaves the water.

The fifth hole turns back and runs parallel to the fourth. This puts the cart path and the small stream to the right. To the immediate left are condos under construction and beyond them steeply rising mountains. To the fore sits the hole, a par 3 some 165 yards from the back tee. Between the two lies mostly mud and bog. The green is a large one, but its back and left sides roll sharply down to the aforementioned stream. There is more muck and mire to the greens left, so another accurate shot is required. Should you fail to do so, say hello to your new found friend, the Swamp Thing.

Tip-toe by number 6 so as not to disturb the Psycho and you will find yourself at the 242 yard par 4 seventh hole. Here the fairway climbs gradually up a doglegged left slope to a sharply elevated green. The ubiquitous water on this hole is a stream that runs along most of the left side. Adjacent to the stream is dense and foreboding jungle. Balls hit left on this hole by Joe Golfer are just that… left. A ball hit to the right of the fairway will bounce along a road that parallels the course in search of trouble it will surely find. To aid in its search for golfer agony, the fairway here slopes to the road side. Second shots must reach the green or they will also find trouble. Front and right of the green there are steep and heavily roughed hillsides that include a couple of trees whose branches disrupt any kind of lofty, soft landing return shots. Back and left there is more jungle including some kind of cave or grotto where a light wind emanates and whispers to wayward balls to come and find their final resting place. For this reason let’s name hole seven, The Haunting.

The eighth hole is simply a fright. There are two elevated tee boxes here and from either the distant green seems much further away than its advertised 165 yards. The right side of the fairway is guarded by tall evergreens and a sneaky little rill that twists around and crosses in front of the green. Just beyond the rill and also in front of the “dance floor” is the same river that bedevils Joe Golfer on holes 1 thru 3. Here he can hit a straight, solid shot and still find ball stealing water! I must also mention that to the left of the fairway is a ball gobbling, densely shrubbed hillside. One of those places that Boris Karloff would softly lisp, “man should not tamper with.” Nevertheless, standing on the tee and looking over the vista that is this hole, it is easy to be struck by its beauty and not its bite. In fact, for a name, Beauty and the Beast seems about right.

The end of this Silver Screen journey is nearly in sight. Joe golfer has only to survive Hole Number 9. The last and longest par 4 at 272 yards this monster has given birth to some really horrible shots. Joe Golfer must tee off from a hobbit hole hidden in the woods and fly his ball across another evil lake that surely houses bad tidings and land safely short of the Devil’s own river which has once again wandered in his path. Left lies land Tarzan wouldn’t try, and right there are sand and palms and water and other places where golf balls go to die. If Joe’s ball does manage to land where it can be struck again, there is still a second shot that needs to seek a green surrounded by sand traps and not hooked into the “Oh no, not the river” that has snaked back to his left. This hole should be played with a Priest and crucifix. The water here is not, I repeat, not Holy, so let’s play it with The Exorcist.

After the curtain closes, Joe Golfer can retire to the splendid Cantina to medicate his wounds and replay The Little Shop of Horrors in his mind. There are toasts and kudos to Sam Taliaferro and company for their vision and design of the Quebrada Grande Golf Course and a final thought: That was very hard and very great fun. Can’t wait to go around again.

There’s no accounting for golfers.

Golfers are gluttons for punishment.

The 9th of July

Five days after the fourth, let me see the fifth, the sixth the...yeah that's right five days, the Founding Fathers set forth, a different kind of fourth, upon yet another celebration, the already long established holiday, Doc and Charly's anniversary. Anniversaries being what they are, that is, the yearly toasting of a union, this could have been called Dependence Day, but coming so soon after Independence Day, the Father's decided it just wouldn't sound right, so they opted for the simple and clear, but somewhat long and unweildly title of Doc and Charly's Anniversary. Over the years, as calendar's got smaller, it became impossible to fit this holiday into the little day squares - especially when you added the year, the thirtieth, the fortieth, the one hundred fifty second, etc.- and it was dropped entirely. The omission, however did not stop the celebration.

In keeping with the tradition established by the Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, Bobby Jones, Adams, Trevino, Franklin, Palmer, Watson, Hamilton and the like, we played golf. I won't bore you with a blow by blog description of every hole, - that I've already done in a piece I'm going to send as the next blog - but I will say that we played well and came within inches of a story I would have really liked to write. First I want to tell you about the amazingly long putt Charly made on the fifth hole and the four iron I pured on the eighth. Okay, that being done, let me tell you about the sixth. It was there one year ago that Charly made a perfect swing and recorded a perfect result, an hoyo en uno, a hole in one. I was very aware of this as I stepped to the tee with the clear and present swing thought of "now it's my turn." And that was the problem... my turn. Any golfer will tell you that if you don't get the proper turn of hips and shoulders, you are not going to strike the ball properly. I didn't and I didn't. The ball landed short of the green. Charly, looking for a repeat performance was long. We both chipped up and got down in two for bogies. The story that almost was came later, because the course we were playing is a nine holer and we were down for eighteen. The Sixth came around again. This timeI had no swing thoughts as I teed up and let 'er fly. A nice high arcing PW that looked just like PW shots are supposed to. I could see the ball was coming down a little left of the flag but would be pretty close. And it was, maybe six feet. The ball, however had a little spin, a little juice, a little English on it, and it began to roll toward the pin. Back on the teebox, I'm thinking it might be, it may be, it could be and Charly's holllering, "go in, go in" but...to no avail. The ball came to a final rest at what, from the tee box, looked to be right on the edge but was actually about 5 or 6 inches short. Close but no cigar. Well, not right then anyway.

The cigar came at the Cantina where we had beers and watched the first half of the World Cup final. Zinedine Zidane scores on a penalty shot and France leads uno a cero.

After that it was home to watch the second half and wait until we were hungry enough for dinner. Italy scored on a header to tie the game and went on to win in a post overtime shootout.
Yeah, I'm thrilled too. Zidane got kicked out for knocking a guy down with a headbutt. Nice.

I would tell you about dinner, but really, what is there to tell about a dinner unless you are Andre and that other guy. It was lovely. I say lovely because anniversary dinners can't be good chow, great grub, hearty fare and like that. They have to be lovely and ours was even though we both had steak and potatoes.

Home to music, wine and dancing in the dark. We left the fireworks to that other July holliday, but we did make some noise. The Fathers would be proud. Here's to us.

Powerless in Panama

I just finished showing my wife the generic Latin move. This is a move one must be able to execute if one ever hopes to dance to Latin music. I use it to shake out the kinks I acquire from sitting at the keyboard for a couple of hours. I do it to the music in my head. As my wife doesn't hear the music in my head, she merely peers over the top of her book and looks at me as if I were crazy. This look and the exasperated, now what are you doing, are two of her most common expressions. I love her very much.

Yesterday our power was out for several hours. We were powerless. Helpless. At the mercy of the elements and Union Fenosa the power company. Say that a couple of times, Union Fenosa, it's kind of fun. What does one do when one has no Power, you ask? (I'm using "one" here instead of the more common "you" as a way of classing up the blog. It's a Norman Mailer thing.) What we ones did, (see how classy that is) was to move chairs out front, pour some wine and watch the flowers grow. We also had a deeply intellectual talk. Something to do with golf, a deeply intellectual subject. Eventually our power was returned to us and we went inside and watched some deeply intellectual tv. Scrubs was on. But the whole thing got me to thinking, which, as you know, is rarely a good thing. How could our power just go away like that? We paid for that power. Does Dubya's power shut off unexpectedly? Heck no. He's paid millions for it. In fact there are corporations paying him millions to get some of his power for themselves. So I guess that's the answer. If you can afford a lot of power, you can keep your lights on and you can, you know, rig elections, start wars and buy a lot of red ties. One would think though, maybe even two or three, that with all that power, GW's bulb wouldn't burn so dimly.

But this is not a political blog, this is an educational blog. This is a blog where one goes to learn the esoterica of a monkeymind. And today's bit of that is...the English language has 42 sounds that are spelled, are you ready for this, 400 different ways! Or, if you are George Bush, several thousand. (Whoops, sorry.) And here I sit with a spell check that doesn't work. Also not working is my grammar check, my content check, my focus check and my where am I now check. I can dance though, watch this. I'm empowered.

Inspiration and The Blues

I'm sitting here bright and awake, but once again, uninspired. What is inspiration anyway? I mean apart from the old saw that says it's two parts sweat, one part vodka martini. Yeah, I know perseverence is one of the synonyms bandied about for inspiration, but any word that has severe as part of it can't be all good. You just never hear severe used in a happy context. It's always, "she has a severe case of this or that" or "he's had a severe heart event." Heart event. Yeah that's a good one too. Can you get tickets to those? I had a severe recovery from my pneumonia. It just doesn't work I tell ya, so I'm ruling out perseverence. You also hear hard work bandied about as the key to inspiration. This one's truly a crock. Hard work. Next time you see some guy swinging a sledge or digging a hole, ask him if he feels inspired. Don't stand too close though, he might be inspired to lend you his shovel. Can it be luck, good fortune, joss, karma? Nah, too much brilliant stuff out there to be chance. I have heard it said that inspiration is just another way of saying talent, but, Damn! I hope THAT'S not right. I hate being left behind. Nope, I'm thinking the old axiom I started with is the only answer. Two parts vodka martini, one part sweat. I'll be right back.

Kenneth Lay has had a heart event. A SEVERE heart event. This event will be the inspiration for millions of written words. I may even toss out a few. He was the potato chip guy, right? Just kidding. Even I know about Enron and what I know could fill up a darn big thimble. I don't like to speak badly of the dead but sometimes it's called for. Hitler was a bastard, Stalin was a son-of-a-bitch, you know, like that. I don't think old Ken is going to make their list, but it will be interesting to see what is written about him in the coming weeks. Kenneth Lay dead is just the first.

The Blues versus The Blues is the World Cup's final match up. France against Italy and both teams calling themselves the Blues. That's the color not the music. I am rooting for France and I have a good sound, ah sound, reason for doing so. They have two players whose names I really like to say, Zinedane Zidane and Thierry Henri. Go Blues.

An Independence Day Carol

Last night, after a long day of burgers, beer, beans, salad, a delicious mystery dessert and enough Chilean wine that that country's trade minister was seen facing France and saying, "in your face", at precisely 2:am, I was visited by the The Ghost of 4th of July Past. He was dressed exactly like the guy in The Samuel Adams beer commercials, but he wasn't smiling because his pewter mug was empty. I took him downstairs to the fridge, got him a refill and poured myself a bracer as well. It's not everyday you see a ghost. "Sam", I said to him, because what the heck I had to call him something, "what seems to be the problem?" He looked at me for a few seconds, threw back a long sip of suds and then pulled a small 13 starred colonial flag from...somewhere. Thin air comes to mind. He waved it about a couple times, like a kid at a parade and zap I was transported to a room full of serious faced guys all wearing wigs. "Gustavo" I said to my dog, "I don't think we're in Panama anymore." It was pretty clear that none of the wigwearers could see or hear us, but when I started to say something to Sam he gave me the shush sign, so I did exactly that and just listened. Some of the guys in the room looked vaguely familiar and as they talked to each other I got their drift. These were our country's fathers sitting around founding. They were trying to compose some kind of document to send King George in England that would give him a hint what they thought about him and also be an outline for a new country they were proposing to start. One of the guys, whose name was Walton and who would later be a signee on the finished product said, "Why don't we tell him to just go eff himself?" Most of the others agreed this was a good idea, but the guy named Jefferson who was taking notes, softened that a bit when he wrote it down. After a while they got down to the crux of the matter and started talking about freedom and the inalienable rights of man. I wasn't sure what inalienable meant, but I think it had something to do with Signourney Weaver. Mostly they seemed to be talking about freedom from government. Things like no wiretapping phones, no stealing elections, making sure everyone could see a doctor and get leeches when they needed them, no invading foreign countries without Congress' permission and insuring the right to wear wigs whether you were bald or not. They were really a well meaning bunch of guys. After a couple of time travel units, I really don't know how much regular time had passed, Sam did his flag waving thing and we were back in my kitchen. "So," Sam says to me, "you see how it was." I nodded and poof...well not really poof, it was more a kind of gradual disintegration like getting beamed up on Star Trek, the first one...he was gone.

I stood there in the kitchen with my empty beer mug thinking I should either refill it or give it up forever. I decided to sleep on it. No sense being hasty, it might all be a dream.

Sometime later, again I'm not sure about the time thing, I've got to give Steve Hawkings a call, I was awakened by The Ghost Of 4th of July Present. This guy looked nothing like a beer commercial. He was dressed in a nice suit, wore wing tipped shoes and carried a bible. "Come with me" he said, and zappo we were transported to a place that- I've never really been there so I'm only guessing - could have been The White House. Again a group of guys were sitting around drafting a document. I couldn't actually see what they had written so far, but the title of the manuscript was The Declaration of Oil Dependence. Everyone in the room seemed in agreement that this was a good idea, including the King George who was present this time, and they all thought they could sell it to the public because they had another work to be called either "NeoConstitution" or Neoconning- the-Institution, they hadn't decided yet. This work had some interesting chapter headings like, "Who Needs the Environment?", "God's On Our Side Or We Wouldn't Be Rich", Up The Corporation Because We Won't Always Be In Office" and near the end, a chapter called "Overpopulation" with the subtitle, "The Poor May Be Edible." These were all earnest young men who thought they were doing the right thing, because they all had personally met Jerry Fallwell. "Yo Ghost," I said to my spirit guide, "whatdaya say we move along?" And we did, right to the Future.

Somewhere along the way I was passed off to another ghost whose attire changed spookily from one minute to the next. First it was a kind of space suit, then cave man furs, then something from a Madonna video, then, well, on and on. The way people dressed in the future seemed to be either a matter of choice or, it dawned on me, uncertain. That's what I was getting as the ghost and I watched the human race being wiped out by natural disasters, invaded by bugs, saved at the last moment, beamed to their home planets, living underground, living in bubbles, eaten by the rich and, in one instance, living happily ever after. The future was uncertain. Up in the air. A matter of choice. Personally I liked the insect scenario, because I'm a SciFi buff, but when I mentioned this to my ghost buddy he turned into a giant version of a tomato bug and I quickly changed my mind. I ate tomato bugs. Shortly after that I was plopped back in my bed and all the ghosts were gone.

I lay there awhile thinking what was the point, what was the point? I'm not real bright about politics, I'm much better with literature. I suppose that's why, in the end, I gave up trying to figure it all out and decided on a simple course of action. I'd find some crippled kid name Tim and buy him a turkey.

Damn I enjoyed The 4th.

4th of July

Cuatro de Julio. 4th of July. Picnics, parades, fireworks. How about that Revolutionary War? That was a good one, wasn't it? Minute men, Washington crossing the Delaware, Bunker Hill, Redcoats and Paul Revere. Pretty much sums up what I learned in school. That and something about throwing all the tea into Boston Harbor because we had decided to become coffee drinkers. Makes for a good celebration though. I wonder if the Madisons and the Jeffersons got together the year after the war ended for burgers and beer? More potato salad Tom? Probably not. What did they do and why don't we know more about it? Why don't our history books tell us more of these important details? I'll tell you why. Because it's a conspiracy to keep us in the dark. The first of it's kind. The founding fathers, a couple of the mothers and one or two kids huddled up and said, now what? We've knocked off the old country, got rid of tea, soccer, good manners and health care, what else can we do for fun? So they decided right then and there to create baseball, the kind without designated hitters, the Super Bowl, the 4th of July and secret societies where they could meet to determine the course of the world and invent other sports. Motocross is one of those. They were, afterall, conspire-ers, which is a word you can't say three times in a row without making your mouth go all funny. They conspired to rid the country of King George, soldiers wearing red and taxes. They did this by making a declaration. That made them conspire-ers and declarer-ers. Sure we've got George and the taxes back, but our troops look darn sporting in those camouflage outfits. They also conspired, which for those of you who don't know, is when two or more people put their heads real close and whisper, several other things like the right to bear arms and children, not knowing at the time that we'd bear too many of both. And then because other people were suspicious what with them whispering all the time, they declared all their stuff out loud and on paper and that's why we have the Declaration Of Independence, The Constitution and The U.S.G.A. Rules of Golf. Reason enough for burgers and beer.

Being Me?

It's not easy being me. Okay it's easy for me to be me, but you try to be me and see what happens. For one thing, you probably won't be able to fit into my head. I have a small head. Size 7. Can you put all your stuff in that size head? I didn't think so. Another thing is, what will you do when an idea like how come sighs and size are pronounced the same pops up? Or what is George Bush doing at this exact moment and why are we letting him? I'll bet you'd have no idea. Some parts of me you'd like though. Some parts are still fully functional after all these years. For instance, my left knee is completely unscarred and I have at least four toes that haven't been broken. You might like my attitude too. I'm generally pretty cheerful and it takes a lot to get me down. A two game Broncos losing streak will do it. That and a chest cold and I'm suicidal, but mostly, I'm up, eager and optomistic. An example of that is I believe I can get to the end of this paragraph even though at the moment it looks like a no-hoper. You see, what I've done is I've written the first thing that popped into my head to find out if it would lead me anywhere. This is another thing that you trying to be me probably wouldn't care for. I'm having fun taking the monkeymind out for exercise while you'd more likely want to cop some extra zzz's. Or maybe read about trade deficits with China. Who are you anyway and why would you even consider wanting to be me? Do you know I have a bad back and my jump shot just...isn't? Do you know I walk, talk and think with a limp? In fact I'm limping the thought right now that you need to reconsider this whole project. Because...as I've said...it's not easy being me.

Annika Sorenstam who is essentially a muscled golfing machine and Patty Hurst who trains at Taco Bell and neither of whom want to be me, are going to duke it out in an 18 hole playoff for The U.S. Open Title, ladies version, in just a few minutes which means I've got to be going. While I'm gone, if you want to be me, have at it.

Oldie # 2

I was browsing through old files the other day and I came across the following bit. It was written as a catharsis to rid myself of a very long day.

ACCOUNTING ESSENTIALS FOR THE NON-ACCOUNTANT
OR
WHAT WAS I THINKING?
By Doc Walton

This all day class and my participation in it was undoubtedly the result of some heinous crime I had committed in my childhood for which I had been previously unrepentant. And, in truth, I thought the Constitution prohibited punishment of a cruel and unusual nature. Some people are just not meant to glean the meaning of “The Accounting Cycle – An Overview” and should not be allowed to commune with those who can for fear of spiritual damage to both.
I meant no great harm at the end of the day when I elaborated to my wife on the depth of the coma and the degree of the boredom I had achieved while attending this class, but I was perhaps too descriptive and too enthusiastic and too colorful in my narration. I should not have dwelled so long on the weirdness and the alien-like qualities of people who do enjoy Event equals Journal equals General Ledger equals Adjustment equalsFinancial Statement equals More of the same for all Eternity, for it was at the precise moment of my most deeply thrust rapier bon mot that my wife leaped to her feet and screamed something about my not knowing what the hell she did all day and how insensitive a butthead could I be anyway!
I plead ignorance, poor memory and being genetically male (hence a sub species), but it did little good. She remained in an angry fugue for the rest of the night and was heard to mumble something about liquidity ratios and my debit and credit entry being precariously unbalanced in her book, so watch out Buster, moments before falling asleep to CNN’s “Wall Street Today.”
I followed her into dreamland perhaps a half hour later; Pat Conroy’s, "Prince of Tides", happily concluded and placed on the bed table beside me. It was on Pat’s pages I had found the words “minatory, circumvallated, flense, anapests, numinous” and more. Words, glorious, wonderful words! I would face the reality and necessity of numbers another day. Tonight I had my words. “Divagation…manumission…chasubles”... sleep.

Bio Bit

Doc here. Six foot four, one hundred ninety lean, hard pounds, cat like movements, gold flecks dance in my eyes. I stole that from a NY disc jockey sometime in the Nineteen Sixties. I can't remember his name, but he could do a mean Ronald Colman impression and, of course, being on radio he could get away with any self description he wanted to use. I used to answer the phone that way, "Doc here, six foot four, etc" Rarely got a laugh, but I liked it. Now when I get the chance I go with "Helloooo, Hellooo, Hellooo, I am your beloved Count Olaf" or, if the caller is a Spanish speaker I say, "Solo Loewe." (Low way way). That's from a men's cologne commercial showing here that cracks me up. Neither of those gets a laugh as well, but if you can't tickle yourself or Halle Berry, what's the world coming to? For any reader out there who hasn't met me - there are a few I'm told that this blog bit is passed along to - I am actually five foot ten, 160 pounds of lean, hard, fat, crablike movements and when things dance in my eyes I up the magnification of my reading glasses. My best impression is of John Wayne and, frankly, it's really bad, so if I start doing it, cut me off and send me home in a cab. Oh yeah, and I'm twenty six years old. (I can only tolerate so much non-fiction.)

I don't know why I wrote that paragraph. One thing just led to another. Kind of like life. Okay, exactly like life. One thing leads to another. It's a good thing too, I suppose, because if one thing led to the same thing I'd be writing the first paragraph again.

I'm looking out my window for inspiration and I'm not getting a thing. There's nothing out there but lush vegetation in every shade of green serving as a backdrop for countless flowers of more colors than your biggest crayon box ever held, a towering volcano whose peak is this morning shrouded in clouds and whose sloping shoulders seem to encircle our house and a huge pale sky with dark, fast moving clouds streaming by like some kind of celestial parade. So with nothing to write about there, I think I'll just call it a day.

It's a day.

Smoking Ban

This is what I dreamed I was writing last night: I've liked bars ever since my father first started taking me to them when I was about eight or nine. Certainly not as old as ten. I liked the smoke filled air and the bitter, clingy smell of spilled beer. These were working men's bars. They were noisy, sometimes raucus and most had either shuffleboards or pool tables. All of them had juke boxes. Five cents a tune or six plays for a quarter. We'd stay while Dad had a draft beer, sometimes two and I drank a coke and listened to the men talk. I really wanted to play Pool, it looked like it would be fun, but the tables were always being used. And then, because I was dreaming and dreams being what they are, I stopped writing and was morphed into some other dream adventure I can't recall this morning. Damn! I was hoping to get at least five hundred words from no work involved dream inspiration. Maybe tomorrow night.

There is though, this link: Denver, the place I consider my home town because I lived there longer than in any other place, put a no smoking ban into effect at 12:01 this morning. That's no smoking in public places including bars. Now, as I've noted in my dream writing above, I like bars. This new ban is going to radically change their character. It is my feeling, yeah I know this is weird, that drinking alcohol should only occur while you are doing one or both of two other things; those things being eating or smoking. Drinking alcohol alone without the social accompaniment of a good meal or a fine smoke means that, it seems to me, you are drinking just to get drunk. Drinking, eating and smoking, are by many accounts, all ways to poison yourself, so why should one be banned and not the other? Shouldn't bar owners have the choice of putting up a sign saying either "Smoking Permitted Here" or No Smoking Here"? I'm not really making a stand, just commenting, because, hey, I'm in Panama. I can eat slabs of bacon, mainline Marlboros, they're a dollar a pack, or swim in rum, but, you know, I like bars and when I go to Denver I'll miss the smoke. Luckily, there's still that swell dead beer smell.