over joy

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testing. testing.

We've removed the ability to reason from the people who are supposed to be in charge. ~ Adam Carolla

Sometimes the best thing to do is take life as it comes. Life is after all a particularly specialized form of live theatre. The heat of the lights are always on you, someone is always watching, and that mistake may turn out to be a happy accident. But there's no need to beat yourself up over that missed cue. Move along. There are more interesting things coming up.

That said, I haven't written here in some time. In fact, I have barely posted anything during the last several months. I have simply been too busy with work to have a moment to bother with it. I'm only now having the chance to breathe, to collect my thoughts.

Here's a little story. Some of it will be familiar. Some of it won't.

I work for a big, steadily failing ninety year old corporation. Let's call them the Loathe Shack. They've got a piss poor reputation, and when I first applied I was surprised they were still around. Of course I get hired there. For some reason every other place in town has passed me by on multiple occasions, but this joint scoops me up on first go. I figure it'll be a good bridge out of my fascist previous job and toward whatever the universe promotes next.

I counted wrong. I'm still there. And I've watched as floor slave after sales sucker has come and gone. And I've watched as manager after manager leaves either with a jumbo grab bag of filched items or within a moment's reach of insanity. It's kind of a sucky place to work.

But I'm a writer and an observer and I have a bit of a masochistic streak in me. I also happen to be terribly good at it. I'm not trying to be immodest. It's just an underpaid job with an ever expanding job description, overwhelming demands and expectations, and very little reward, but I work really well under such pressures and constraints. Plus I just happen to work at the store wherein a reality show could easily take place. And I don't mean the fabricated kind. I mean the pseudo-documentary sort. The lunatics, nimrods, and characters who cycle through make it worth the commute. I do have a love-hate relationship with the whole mess. And I get bored at jobs that keep me chained to doing two or three different things and only those, conveyor belt style.

So, what should happen when yet another manager's head explodes? Well, since I was already doing half of their job anyway, I stepped up to the plate, dusted off my distaste and said I'd watch over the place until someone else was hired. No one else was going to fix the situation, after all. It didn't take long for the whole thing to start fitting quite well. It became clear to the higher ups that I meant business, and that this guy isn't the usual fly by night slacker they usual stock their ranks with. They were listening! And receptive and open to offering me the store.

For the last three months I have overseen our little shack through a bevy of tidal waves and morale quicksand. I inherited a completely messed up lil' shop that soon swelled up with every problem under the sun, but I helped pull the place through it all.

So, what thanks do I get? I get the left field surprise return of the store manager who hired me, who has a fused temper the size of flaccid rubber and who I distinctly recall being forced to resign in lieu of actually being fired. This woman has bounced between a handful of jobs in the meanwhile. (Let go from each, by the way.) And now I am given the unpleasant task of teaching her how to do the job I have been doing so I can play second fiddle while I theoretically wait for another store to open up.

Everyone can't stand her. Our vibes live in different countries. No one has any idea how this egotistical show-off who was previously running the place into the ground could have been the better choice, but there it is. This job isn't my calling. I am terrific at being in charge of complex efforts. I suppose this is not really one I want that badly. I could do with a bit more respect than I've been shown, but it is what it is.

The universe clearly has other plans. Therefore, I play along.

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empty promise

“Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.”

~ William S. Burroughs

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arty choke

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left alone

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face forward

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easy tonight.

a song that got you through a hard time

Life always has a way of working itself out.

When things are rough, it doesn't often feel like it, though. Change is frequently drastic, evolution can be exceedingly painful, and much like that twisted comedy we are all cast in, everything always seems to fall apart all at once.

There is an undeniable healing quality to music. These are a few of the songs that have had that power to me:

"Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley & the Wailers (1977)

• Don't worry, 'bout a thing. Every little thing - gonna be alright. It's as simple as that. When all else fails, Bob is there, giving it to you straight. This is a perennial favorite of mine, and one that works in a multitude of contexts. The spirit of the track ensures its portability from lullaby to funeral anthem, and back through all of the times it was just the sentiment I needed to hear.

 "I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash (1972)

• I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind. This little breakthrough reggae-infused gem is so full of positivity and hope. Simple as it seems hope doesn't always come in big doses. Sometimes it feels downright unlikely. I have been that man. I once found myself under that constant cloud of uncertainty with a dangerously murky view of the road ahead. This is the song I prefer when it comes to being reminded that the sun will come out tomorrow.

"Drive" by Incubus (1999)

• Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there with open arms and open eyes. This is arguably their best song. Even though they often had the tendancy to mince styles, the MTV unplugged vibe merged with occasional subtle record scatch expresses to me the moments when life truly jumps the groove. Fear often keeps us from the path we should be following. I have known well the freefall feeling of not knowing what's next, but allowing it all and taking enormous chances. Sometimes you just have to let go.

"The River" by Garth Brooks (1991)

• Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance that tide. Pursuing a dream in the daylight is very different than that overnight afterthought we so often stumble upon. Whether or not we jot them down, we all have a bucket list. We all have in common longings for certain experiences or tidbits on our dossier. What we're rarely told is, though we may pick the big picture idea, the universe gathers up the details. How our dreams play out is never how we conceived of them. Often they nonetheless become just what was needed though.

house sitter

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earthen creature.

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coy conspirator

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
~ Lao Tzu

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passionate kisses

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pragmatic me

There is a negative connotation to being opportunistic. I have certainly had troubled dealings with the sort who would attempt calculated positioning like the sad, chessboard bishop, sliding predictably here and there in the hopes of getting a leg up on the competition. I have seen it a lot from both highly competitive fields I have worked: sales and the arts.

Certainly, there's a value in bettering or challenging oneself, and of holding expectations for yourself and others to a high mark. But then there's the key phrase I have heard abused of late, in too many misguided ways: seeing the opportunity and taking it. At the extreme, this is a breeding ground for corruption and rape. Me. I think of myself as pragmatic. I am often better at making the best of a bad situation than at being the sort who would dive into the deep end of a pool they don't belong.

I work at the appropriately named $hack out on Main Street where the ghetto meets the smelly indie kids. It's an old delapidated, outmoded store built in 1974 that shows signs of age, neglect, and reeks of constant overturn. In management and on the floor this company can not hold more than a handful of people, as one peek at the addictive site glassdoor reveals.

Now I'm acting itinerant captain of this ship of fools.

It's a comedy of sorts. And not unlike Hard Core Pawn given the stranger than fiction oddballs, idiots, and eccentrics who step through the door. This aspect is the primary reason I haven't been a part of the turnover, or a transfer to the dull location three minutes from my home.

But here I am, in charge of the whole damn thing. It's a few fingers shy of a perfect fit. I don't want a career with these people. The problem is that I'm really good at it, to quote others, and my own recognition of the situation.

Ah, shucks.

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what's this?

a song in a foreign language

Some might say music is the universal language.

We are born into this world, clinging like a kitty cat to the familiar rhythm of a heartbeat, letting ourselves become comforted by certain sounds and unsettled by the dissonance of others.

Though my personal collection contains upwards of 550 instrumentals, I have always been more drawn to songs with lyrics. In a manner of speaking an unfamiliar song sets out to be learned like a few new phrases of a language from a foreign land. As popular music has evolved, artists and styles from around the globe have found at least a temporary relationship with the Top Ten, as it were. Even the most middle of the road, tentative listener knows the chorus to Richie Valen's Mexican standard, "LaBamba", the melody of "Frère Jacques", that French nursery rhyme of yore, or comes to the realization that Falco's 1985 hit "Rock Me Amadeus" offers the unique opportunity to learn a bit of useless German.

When assembled onto my iTunes, my personal tastes do seem to play like a layover at an Epcot Center done right. Whether due to country of origin or influence, one can sample a little bit of everything. And for someone who has to live vicariously through Anthony Bourdain for his world traveling extravegenzas, my ears don't particularly mind the present substitute.

That said, here's a poo-poo platter of tasty morsels:

"Isla de Encanta" by The Pixies (1987)

• I know. I know. The Pixies were formed in Boston, Massachusetts. Sure the local accents have more in common with drunken and disorderly lazy speech difficulties and non-lager drinkers might feel out of place, but Pixie head honcho Black Francis (Frank Black) is highly inspired by Latin culture. That's the first type of song in a foreign language: non-native speaker variation. I first encountered this brief ditty about the Island of Enchantment during Jonathan Demme's bright and shiny comedy "Married to the Mob".

 "Concrete Jungle" by CéU (2005)

• Brazilian singer CéU's sensual rendition of Bob Marley's underrated classic represents another variation on this theme: foreign artists performing in English.

"Létt Ma" by Youssou N'Dour (2007)

• Thanks in no small part to Paul Simon's "Graceland" record, musical tones from regions of Africa gained worldwide appeal and recognition. A few years afterward, Peter Gabriel, whose music layers influences that extend the gamut, recorded the spirited and inspirational "Shaking the Tree" with Senegalese legend Youssou N'Dour. "Létt Ma" is a tune from one of his more recent efforts, which I believe spotlights the depths of his beautiful voice and deft, subtle percussian skills.

"Yellow Ledbetter" by Pearl Jam (1992)

• Eddie Veddar brings us to a fourth aspect of foreign language by delivering a famous rock radio tune in his own unique language. Rarely have I enjoyed a song so well without being sure of a single lyric.

snail's pace

Everything has its time. To everything there is a season.
~Ecclesiastes 3, (NKJV)

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child's play

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time capsuled

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.
~ Buddha

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the searchers

“We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.”
~ Samuel Smiles

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break down

a song suitable for a break-up


THEY don't write 'em like that anymore.... I wailed during a spirited rendition of Greg Kihn's classic ode to breakup music at a recent night of karaoke. It's one of the more sparkling examples of sadness and dwelling put to peppy music, and a classic case of pain being masked by a rhythm you can dance to.

Cutting ties. Putting the final nail in the coffin. Burning bridges. Drowning the puppy. These are all concepts that bring us out of the cycle of insanity that is beating a dead horse into submission, leaving little more than that rope that once held a piñata whose sweet contents are but memories. When there's nothing else left to hold, music still remains. And with love, romance, and sex having such a hold over popular music, there's nary a shortage of great music for just those times. Each stage of Kübler-Ross' steps of mourning are well represented: denial, depression, bargaining, anger, and acceptance.

These are a few of my favorites:

DENIAL

• "Still Loving You" by the Scorpions (1984)

Stirring ballad from those hair metal gods of Germany, focused heavily on the impractical concept of winning back the love of his estranged.

DEPRESSION

• "The End of the World" by Skeeter Davis (1962)

Though reasonably co-dependent in its conceit, this is still a devastatingly beautiful song of love lost that has been haunting me since I was young. In turn I have often liked to believe that it was indeed inspired by the apocalyptic fears of its day.

BARGAINING

• "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" by the Smiths (1984)

Of all the sneaker gazing pre-emo shite the Smiths recorded this is one of my preferred tracks. The title is nearly as long as its two minute length and Morrissey sounds as full of pleading as in their staple "How Soon is Now?" but in a third of the time.

ANGER

• "Song for the Dumped" by Ben Folds Five (1997)

There were plenty of ways I could have gone on this one, but this one is simply too much fun to dismiss.

ACCEPTANCE

• "Don't Shed a Tear" by Paul Carrick (1987)

A perfect pinnacle for the whole matter. It wraps up all five stages into one neat package.

---

Okay, that's it.

We're done.

profile pic

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dead center

I am only a couple shots shy of the halfway mark of my pi-inspired 314 photo challenge. This self-prescribed effort has surprised and thoroughly inspired me. I feel a whole lot better for it.

Even though I essentially took up photography many eons ago, recieving cameras for gifts on four or five different occasions, ending up the go-to guy for impromptu shots of nearby posing strangers, as well as often left out of images by becoming family event historian, I have only truly felt like a photographer during the past couple years. Among the images stacked, sorted, and saved that came before are certainly a multitude of gems that make me proud. However, many of the images I have shared here and those that round out these sets, I feel I can identify as some of the best I've ever captured.

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distant glances

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sweetness follows

Live your life with joy and wonder . . .
~ R.E.M. (1992)

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welcome, everyone!

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crossed roads

Every day should be a journey.

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wash away

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
~ Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

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