Bring Me Your Higher Jump

Today was my son's last swimming lesson for the summer. The last few weeks he's climbed onto the board in the deep end, stood there, then sat there. Last week he got tossed in from a sitting position. This week they took it to the next step.



He does like being tossed around in the pool, and being in twelve and a half feet of water does not faze him either. He is a very good swimmer and can tread water very well. They're cleaning the pool and fixing it up for a few weeks. Next time in is September 10th.



After his lesson he and I went to a event. A few weeks ago we received an invitation from one of his classmates to his birthday party. This was the first time he has been invited to a birthday party. I was a bit nervous myself, meeting new people is not activity I seek out, but I sucked it up and we went.

As it turned out, he was the only one of his classmates who attended. We were around people who understand special needs children and while my son sat next to me most of the time, we had a good time batting balloons around the living room with everyone. They own a couple of nice, smallish dogs that he was a bit vary of, but they did not really bother him, or anyone else. One child though, is afraid of dogs and was very uncomfortable with the dogs barking in a shut room so they had to leave early.

When the cake was cut I had some yogurt and pudding ready for him, and a splendid time was had by everyone. Very glad I crossed my own comfort zone to do this for him.

He's been in OT for his eating issues for a month and a half now. He's getting on with his therapist but she's not able to break through. He does great, follows along with her, until it's time to eat. You put a couple crumbs of graham cracker, or any thickener into his food he notices and completely shuts down. It's going to be tough.

Oh what the hell

What the Guide Dog Smelled

If it were possible to unsleep with you,
I’d give it careful consideration
To take back every forced smile, every coerced commiseration when your overwrought voice
told me another nut job cut you off in traffic
I want to put back thirteen years of every drink too many and turn them into cigar smoke, into poetry good or bad
Expensive alcohol was a waste, getting trashed a formality
Every hangover an unnecessary battle scar, a weapon of mass consumption too easily found
Once the humiliation was uncorked it became an unspoken disease
Untreated, and cured only by loss
All the cashiers who you said were stupid are filling up an arena, rising up from the past and calling you for what you were to them
For all the arguments you picked I’d turn into a mile of highway I should have traveled with you at my back
I wanted to run more but I was not capable of walking, let alone driving
The distance I put between us you put out there years too late
And when your own worst enemy is one person, alone in a bed
Regret is an energy best spent somewhere else
As much as I try though, memory will always remain
It’s impossible to kill something that ink never should have been put upon

Get this before it gets you

In 2008 Donald Ray Pollock, a former plant worker from Chillicothe, Ohio, released a book of short stories titled Knockemstiff. A book that was grim, heartless, cruel, but painfully true to its characters of small town Ohio.

This month Pollock has followed it up with The Devil All the Time a novel set in the same area of southern Ohio and West Virginia with characters who are drawn up with unflinching brutality and honesty. It's a book of killin', stealin' and whorin' and Pollock masterfully stays on the side of telling us about the gore without graphically showing it. The book is not without many moments of shocking and gruesome behaviors though.



These stories have been told before by lesser writers - orphaned children, drifters, shady preachers but Pollock knows these characters and reveals them to us with uncliched prose. He spins a tale that is fantastic in not what he tells, but in how he captures and concludes the story. In other, less hectic times I would have read this book on one sitting. It took two. Best book of fiction I've read this year.

We put some Fairy Dust on it

It was a somewhat productive day yesterday. I took advantage of my auction win and went into the studio with Sean FM.

I got slightly lost and confused trying to find his house, but as I doubled back he was waiting at his front door for me. He probably saw me about to pass out from heatstroke or something. It had been about two years since I had been in any type of studio. The last time was for a narration I did for a work project. This was the first time I was going in with my own stuff in many years.

Love the basement studio. The recording room is a room within a storeroom. I call it, The Quilted Womb.



In about two and a half hours, I banged out a baker’s dozen of my poems.

What can I say about Sean’s skills as a producer? At one point he said, “Let’s take a break.” He then played up some of the poem I was recording and pointed out a few difficulties in my delivery. Sean was telling me I was reading it wrong, in the nicest, most supportive way anyone has ever been.

More important, he was right.

He offered tips, advice, and cheered me on when I hit the mark. He is great to work with and I recommend him highly to any poet or artist looking for a producer.

He can be my George Martin or T-Bone Burnett anytime. He has to do some editing to turn me into a Wall of Sound and I'm looking forward to the finished work.

So? Once the editing is done and I have an audio project, how do I market this? Hell I do not even have a title for it!

In other news I noticed that another artist died this weekend. This man touched the lives of many of my friends. Rest in peace, David Blair.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be

If the world shifted on its axis a few months ago, it might be due to Woody Allen releasing an anti-nostalgia film.

Midnight in Paris asks the question, "Is it better to live in your own time, than one you fantasize about?"

Owen Wilson is an admitted hack of a screenwriter who travels to Paris with his fiancee (Rachel McAdams) and her wealthy parents. Wilson is trying to break with his image by writing a novel and is obsessed with 1920's Paris - the city of American ex-pats and foreign artists.

After an evening out with friends of McAdams, Wilson gets lost in the streets and is invited into a 1920 Peugeot Landaulet



Where he arrives is where the fun starts, and it reminded me of some of Allen's fiction, mainly The Kugelmass Episode.

Wilson runs into some well known characters, and offers up some wonderful throwaway lines regarding the value of Matisse paintings. He also falls in love with a muse, beautifully played by Marion Cotillard.



It's revealed that Cotillard's character wishes to live in another time as well, and people in other eras have similar wishes. In the end, some dreams are realized, others are not but there's a bit of hope for all of us.

It's the most enjoyable Allen film I've seen in years but it's not without its flaws. While lovely to look at, McAdams is way out of her comedic depth and her parents are extremely superficial. I can't see the two main characters as a couple. Wilson is perfect in the role Allen would have done himself thirty years ago.

Another one gone at 27

The woman could really sing, perform, she had it. Now the why begins. Who was around her? Where was her support? Or, like my boss, who died of a crack overdose at 33, was she on her own road?

It's a very little blip in the great scheme of the world (outside of her family and friends - where were they?), looking at what happened in Norway yesterday, a relatively insignificant loss.

She could really sing though. What a waste.

Taken at Rust Belt

I want to thank Will Evans for posting this. I know he did not take the picture because he's in the background of the picture with One Truth. So whoever took the picture, thank you.



I like how my shirt matches the color of the logo. Never liked how I photograph, but this one is acceptable.