eric bonge, multifaceted musician, member of Barkuna AND goodbye blue monday’s resident piano tuner asked me about having a fundraiser for the people of burma (or myanmar, whatever your choice. a rose is a rose, a disaster is a disaster). naturally, having been the recipient of such kindness by groups of friends in the past [...]

it’ll probably be a recurring thing. i mean fred and ginger, not that i’ll relentlessly bombard the reader each and every time i write something, but it’s a nice lead-in for writing something that i haven’t thought too much about. it’ll reinforce the statement i had written a while back about how i seek refuge [...]

today was a wonderful day. rather than become disheartened at the state of affairs that is my financial life, i chose to gather up maxx (pictured, above) and head out to his favorite place in all the world, fort tilden (in gateway national park – google it if you’re interested). from may till september this [...]

this past weekend, what with the “troubles due to the correction in the market” (ain’t that a line!), knowing full-well that whatever martian lizards, weasly powergreed-maggots and crooked politicians do is far beyond my control, i spent a few hours looking at what i could do to stave off my own scary monsters; right off [...]

I had been immersed in gobbling up facets of the economic trainwreck until i couldn’t take it anymore and literally stumbled onto this interview. It was a small revelation. This econo-angst that’s been building inside of me didn’t have a face and the endless drivel coming from everyone from NPR through MSNBC and every other [...]

so maybe i’m not the brightest bulb on this planet’s string of christmas lights (uhhh, “holiday” lights). sometimes i think i have too many “bright” ideas. my mind abounds with plans and scenarios. “in a perfect world…..” probably the most nerve-wracking and frustrating part of my relationship with my family in the first-third of my [...]

a couple of blogs ago there was a picture of me with a brown fedora and a buckskin jacket. i have a story about that fedora and peggy lee. oh yeah, i’m in the story, too, but before i go on, i need to say something. i always have to say something. it’s what i [...]

if you were to type UMBO into the browser, this is what you’d get!, however, there was an initial-driven meaning for this word that never made it to the internet or into Wikipedia; the u.m.b.o. box or the “utilitarian monetary bullshit organizer.” that’s what H.K. Thurwell called it, no doubt, a cynical man who got [...]

last night (sunday) i was held by a tremendous sadness. it hung over me life a spaghetti-western poncho that was filled with time and dust, sortalike my coffeehouse. i found myself examining my quality as a human being, something that’s not a very good idea if you’re in a “self-hating-loser” mood; when you find yourself [...]

i can hardly look at the television. the nausea. the “information.” the presidential race. the trainwreck our country and economy have become. we need more trainwrecks. we need them to remind us of our aging infrastructure. we need them to remind us of bygone days when industrialization meant something massive, grey and heavy, i mean….that [...]