Brian Wilson and Me

The songwriter shopping, in the old days.

I keep looking for a place to fit where I can speak my mind. I've been trying hard to find the people that I won't leave behind. They say I've got brains, but they're not doing me any good. (I wish they could.) Each time things start to happen again and I think I got something good going for myself, it goes wrong.

Sometimes I feel very sad.  Can't find anything to put my heart and soul into.  Every time I get the inspiration to go and change things around, no one wants to help me look for places where new things might be found.

Where can I turn when my fair weather friends cop out? What's it all about? I guess I just wasn't made for these times.

(Lyrics to "I Guess I Just Wasn't Made for These Times")

What Should I Do With My Life?

An article in today's paper woke me up with a jolt this morning with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance: "Prayer is in all action." The author went on to explain, "No farmer wakes at mid-morning and says, 'Gee, I wonder what I should do today.'"

That concept of mindful action hit close to home as I struggle with the quandary daily, being unemployed. (No matter how menial, a job does fill up one's time, which is one big reason why so many people want one even when they don't need the money.) And since I'm not given to prayer, at least not in the conventional sense -- dovening over a bible or counting my rosary beads -- I cast about for some sort of meaningful activity to justify my very existence.

Farmers may work hard, but in one sense they have it easy. Milk the cows, plant the crops, feed the chickens, harvest the corn. No need for yoga classes, YouTube or Game of Thrones when you've got a list of chores a mile long waiting for you each day.

Thank Yelp

Jackson, are you singing?

As I do every now and then, I checked the Internet to see if Jackson Browne, my favorite performer of all time (except for all the dead ones) would be heading my way anytime soon and struck gold. Yes, in fact, he is giving a concert right here in Portland this June! Visa card in hand, I was eager to buy tickets while I still could, but then I stopped and considered the venue: The Maine State Pier? What's that?

Turns out to be an actual pier, "a municipal-owned deep-water marine facility and music venue" right on the water in downtown Portland, where they put out bridge chairs and erect a stage and jam it full of people, many of whom pay to be in what is called the "General Admission Standing Area." Thinking that could be iffy -- a sudden rainstorm, annoying seagulls overhead, drunken throngs lined up at the porta-potties, passing trucks belching pollutants all but obliterating the quiet troubadour's angelic voice and soft guitar -- I needed more information before I plunked down hundreds of dollars for a potentially disastrous experience.

That's where Yelp comes in, the tell-it-like-it-really-is website with reviews written by real people with no agenda. And what I learned was that, according to numerous reports (certainly enough to convince me), attending a concert at the Maine State Pier is fraught with problems, including all of my imagined worries and then some.

Unlike so many of our politicians, Yelp delivers.

Country Life, In Case You Wondered

Garrison Keillor would have a field day around these parts. Like last week over at the college in Brunswick, just about ten miles from Freeport as the crow flies, a group of students had a tequila party. Some of the attendees got into the spirit of things and wore sombreros. That turned out to open up a hornet's nest, with several of the school's Hispanic students finding the sombreros to be offensive. Next thing you know the school officials are dreaming up punishments for the students who came up with the sombrero idea. Who knew hats could be racist?

The big news over in Yarmouth, seven miles south, is that the old Handy Andy's general store is now selling Holy Donuts. You might not know, but Holy Donuts are a real big deal down in Portland, a clear twenty miles away, so to be able to get them in Yarmouth is worth talking about. They put out about 250 donuts first thing in the morning and I'm not sure when the last one goes, but by noon there's not a donut in the place. The thing about Holy Donuts is that they're made from potatoes, which is what they grow up in Aroostook County here in Maine. Lots of potatoes. In fact, they grow so many that the schools close every year for a few days so the kids can help with the harvest. So it's lucky they can find a good use for them, especially since Mrs. Obama decided that French fries could no longer be included in school lunches.

We got about four inches of snow yesterday. It started at about nine in the morning and came down steady until almost three. Our vegetable garden, newly planted with peas and carrots, was completely under snow, and several of our blooming plants that were forgotten out on the screened porch didn't make it, what with the overnight freeze. But then today the sun came out and temperatures went up to where they should be this time of year, and finally the pansies and primroses that were buried under the snow poked out again, none the worse for wear.

One Teeny, Tiny Question for Hillary Supporters

Last night I watched Hillary Clinton scream at her supporters for close to an hour in what was supposed to be her victory speech after winning four out of five of yesterday's primaries in the Northeast. Shrieking is her first language, let's face it; around our house we call her Shrillary. It is beyond my comprehension how she is considered to be the one and only Democrat who could be our next president.

Hillary's entire televised rant was about how much things suck now and how much better they will be when she gets into office. Again and again she screeched about how bad life is for the poor, how pathetic things are for the middle class, how unfair it is that the wealthy get all the money. She will raise the minimum wage! College debts will disappear!! Everyone will have a job!!! Every last immigrant will be welcomed!!!!!! Instead of a wall keeping them out, she will install water slides at our borders so they can get in easier and have a damn good time doing it!!!!!!! The government will provide health care for every last person still breathing!!!!!! Social Security benefits will rise, every one of our students will be brilliant because all our teachers will be excellent, and best of all there will be no more racial bias, and in time under her rule we will all be the same color!!!!!!!!!!

As Brad Pitt so memorably asked of his Jewish recruits in the film "Inglorious Basterds," after describing how they were going to murder every last German they could find, "Sound good?" Sure does, except for one teeny, tiny detail: We already have a Democrat in office and have for the past eight years. In fact, Hillary herself was part of the current administration when she botched Benghazi as Secretary of State, and as a Senator before that. She helped create the very problems she now says she will eradicate.

So my question for the candidate and each of her compliant, complacent, cracked and confused followers is: Did you all forget that the very party Hillary claims will fix all our country's current ills is already in power and has been for the past eight years?

Finding Joy

Finding joy on Mt. Everest: She looks happy!

Today I tried two different approaches to improving my health. The first was calling my traditional, med-school-trained family physician to discuss the fact that I'm not any better than I was two weeks ago when he told me things might "resolve themselves." (Without going into the gory details, let it suffice we are in the realm of digestive issues.) 

Of course I never spoke to the doctor but instead recited my symptoms to the nurse who answered the phone, at least I assumed she was a nurse but she might have been part of the cleaning crew. She said she would tell the doctor what I said and then asked for the best number to reach me. Six hours later his annoyingly unctuous flunky called and said the doctor had gone home but he recommended I "cut back on dairy, beans and onions and take Miralax," which I have been taking religiously since the last time he told me to take Miralax.

The second was visiting my non-traditional, alternative medicine acupuncturist. He stuck needles in various places, and at least a couple were in the abdominal area so one could only hope. After leaving me on a table with needles here and there for about an hour or so, listening to odd Gregorian chants, he returned to discuss my current symptoms and possible treatments for a good long while, during which time I had his complete attention. Feeling slightly improved, I made another appointment. As I left, he gave me a homework assignment for the coming week: Find joy. In something. In anything, just find some joy, dammit!

Right away we can all agree that the acupuncturist trumped the physician hands down. However, he had given me a difficult prescription, not easily filled at the local CVS: Where the heck does one find joy these days? The last time I had a whole lot of it was when my son was born in 1987. Oh sure, I've had plenty of good times, fun vacations, lots of laughs, memorable evenings, etc. since then. But as for finding real joy, I'm stymied.

I can think of some paths to joy that will probably not happen. Like, for example, I could starve for two weeks and then finally have a decent meal. Even one week would do it. I bet I'd feel joy then. But since I have trouble fasting for the whole day on Yom Kippur, that's highly unlikely. Perhaps one of the seventeen literary agents yet to reject my manuscript will email and say they loved my latest novel and want to get it published and sell the movie rights.  I could rescue an abandoned kitten I find by the side of the road and nurse it back to health. Ditto a puppy. My son could get a recording contract or become exceedingly happy for any other reason. Hillary Clinton could quit the race and disappear. My dead shrink could come back to life and bring Freddie Mercury with him. I could summit Mt. Everest (if I were twenty years younger). I could go sky-diving (if I weren't so afraid of free-falling from great heights). All of these would work.

Or I could just find a new doctor.

Now Trending

Ever since I blocked the possibility of readers leaving comments on this blog, I feel so free. I should have done it long ago. Now if I could only figure out how to stop caring about what people think of me in person, I might really get somewhere.

It's got me wondering why we all worry about what other people think of us. Why everyone wears the clothes that are deemed "in" and watches the TV shows that are "must-see" and goes to such great lengths to be just like everyone else, especially when everyone else is doing the very same thing. Just who is everyone trying to be?

For fun, take a break and stop trending. Free yourself and just be yourself. Who knows, you might even like who you really are.

A Plan to Make America Great Again

Say goodbye to tummy aches.... and bulging tummies.

Imagine if food came in a pill. Everyone would be so fit and healthy! There would be no doctors doing stomach stapling or tummy tucks or liposuction. Instead they could use their talents to actually help people with real health concerns. There would likely be no more colon or stomach cancer. The incidence of tooth decay would plummet. No more indigestion or heartburn. Also, no more garlic breath. Bye, bye Tums, Pepto-Bismol, Rolaids, Prilosec and Tic-Tacs.

No more restaurants where people sit for hours yammering about nothing over huge plates of empty calories. And so many restaurants: In Manhattan alone, the number of permits issued for restaurants, bars and cafes rose to 23,705 as of July 2015! Instead, those countless hours spent preparing mediocre food -- an army of servers ferrying it out to the bored and affluent diners who were never even hungry to begin with but just wanted to "go out" and "do something"--  could be spent devising solutions to our country's most dire problems. We could literally make America great again!

Lastly, dare to imagine a pill with only positive side effects! Instead of dizziness, bloating, nausea, fatigue, internal bleeding, suicidal thoughts and actions and erections lasting more than four hours, people would feel energized and tip-top! In addition, it would be so much easier to feed the hungry, and soon enough there would be no hungry.

Someone should get on this right away.

Facing Your Fears

I am tired of being afraid of nameless things. With the clock ticking, ever ticking, it's time to face my fears. The evil Anonymous has struck again, and this was the last straw, causing me to write the following Open Letter:

Dear Richard Jester, Joyce Jones, Mary Doner Baron, Linda Tarlow and Joanne Matuzas:
     I have to assume that one of you is the awful "Anonymous" who left the hateful comment regarding my recent post (April 7, The End of the Road) describing how our friendships ended. Because of your cowardly actions, I have taken the drastic step of closing off all comment capability. If you would like to reach me and say something mean with your name attached, please use my email, which you all have.

Our Iranian President

Oh, how we all laughed!

There was all that talk so many years ago about Obama being from Kenya. True or false, that never bothered me one bit. But lately it seems clear that, wherever he was born, Obama must be of Iranian descent. That would explain why he is so hot to help Iran build up their nuclear weapons capability.

His latest deal, wherein "the White House" agreed to buy thirty-two tons of Iran's heavy water to "buttress the Iranian economy" and help them stick to the no-nukes-for-ten-years agreement they signed last year, seems ill-advised at best. I readily admit to knowing next to nothing about any of this except what is reported in the news, which is likely just the teeniest tip of a gigantic iceberg. Still, it seems to me that nine years from now Iran is going to have one mother of a nuclear bomb. (I guess by then Barack will be living over there, so he's likely not too worried about being burned to a crisp or blown to smithereens, whichever happens first.)

Prince, I Hardly Knew Ye

Farrah Fawcett, 1947-2009

Everyone knows that the news is made by TV producers, which is why nothing ever happens on a Sunday. A slow news day is instantly revitalized by a dead celebrity. That happened yesterday when The Artist Formerly Known As Prince died, truly becoming the artist formerly known as the Artist Formerly Known As Prince. Judging by the media reaction you would think a meteor was about to strike Earth. Last night all the major networks and cable news channels were blabbing about it, the occasion of his death apparently a welcome relief from another boring night of Trump/Hillary/Cruz/Kasich/Bernie bashing.

I understand, but still.... Prince was just one person and someone who has not even been in the news for anything at all in decades. (I'm embarrassed to admit he went to his grave without me ever seeing him perform or even hearing him sing. I kept meaning to listen to "Purple Rain" but never got around to it.) For celebrities, when you die is almost more important than how you die in terms of news coverage, and isn't that what their lives are all about?

Like Farrah Fawcett, a one-time international superstar turned fading actress whose death from cancer at age 62 would have been a huge story except for Michael Jackson dying much more dramatically later that day. Poor Farrah basically got no coverage and was instead just dead, like any other mortal. The same thing happened to legendary film director Federico Fellini, in his seventies, who had the dumb luck to stroke out on the same day in 1993 that the rising hot young actor, River Phoenix, overdosed on drugs. (Quick, name something River Phoenix did.)

I have so much to thank God for it's crazy, but one thing on the list is that I'm not famous and can just flatline when the time comes without my death being analyzed, criticized, ridiculed, misunderstood or, at the very worst, just plain ignored.