"The Man With The Beautiful Eyes", by Charles Bukowski

"Nirvana" by Charles Bukowski - read by Tom Waits

Marimba Solo

This is something I made with my phone on a Saturday afternoon at work.

Pre-coffee thought...

I am a sock...

Stretched out by society’s designs,
Stuffed into situations I hate
Smelling of compressed sweat
Stuffed into a basket full of shirts and sweaters
Swirling in the soapy water of the washer
Sailing and soaring in the sizzling dryer,
Sojourning in the basket until I am sorted
and joined to my mate again.

Mike Love - Permanent Holiday

Post by Marcio Sabia.

Drifters

Urban Isolation

Happy Friday. Check out this sublime little short film that makes Los Angeles even a little cooler than it already is.

JaBig Marvin Gaye Remix

One of my friends turned me on to the DJ JaBig on Soundcloud. He's really phenomenal and most of his work is available for free on soundcloud. Check out the Marvin Gaye remix below. I like it all except for the inclusion of the Blurred Lines part, but that's for the lyrics only, the jam itself is tight.

A Softer World

The website A Softer World is really a literary gem of a website.
The authors write little bits of prose/poems and pair them with interesting photos
in what looks like a comic strip but really isn't. Fair warning though, some
of their stuff can be vulgar and "R" rated, so don't point your young children
their for poetry appreciation month. Here's a sample of some of their stuff
that touched me or made me laugh.

I especially liked how the last one looks like its going to end all puppies
and unicorns and then proceeds to swerve into a three car pileup with
oedipal issues. It made me feel like someone just played an awesome
joke on me and I have to do a standing slow clap for the talent.

 

Radio Free Babylon - Coffee With Jesus

You should like this facebook page.

Billy Collins versus Charles Bukowski

Two books of poetry at the local Barnes & Noble.

1. Billy Collins, brilliant, hilarious poet laureate of the United States-a mere 88 pages.
2. Charles Bukowski, hard drinking, horse racing aficionado, lover of cats and classical music, a bum who made it- a whopping 408 pages you could probably use as a light bludgeon.

Both books are $18. Both are great poets, but Bukowski is a $5.00 Chinese buffet with pizza and ice cream and Collins is a delicately prepared meal of haute cuisine that still tastes like real food, but empties your wallet.

I`ll take the buffet...at least I'll go away full and not feel cheated when I come to the end of the book.

RIP Horace Silver, founder of the Jazz Messengers. You brought a lot to our world. Thanks.

This Is Your Brain On Mobile

This is your brain on mobile

Still I Rise By Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

Officer on San Diego Homeless Team

Steadfast Stanley

Cantina Band Try outs

Sometimes, Dreams Do Come True...

Twitter entry at 6 am as I am packing my bag to go to the YMCA to swim...

Sending psychic signals to my boss & coworkers that someone needs to bring in donuts...specifically maple iced cream filled long johns.
— John Homan (@john_homan) April 25, 2014

8 am as I arrive at work...I find this on my desk from my coworker Kimberly.
She does not use Twitter at all.

Real Life Starter...

Satire...it's satire, ok? Language is a bit rough though.

Today I'm a cowboy.

In the movie City Slickers, three friends from New York go on a vacation to work at a cattle ranch.
They are supposed to help real cowboys move a herd of cattle from one ranch to another, then things go horribly wrong. The trail boss dies, the cook gets injured and the cowboys paid to move the cattle and the guests from ranch to the other abandon both cattle and people in the middle of the wilderness.

Its really a movie about male mid-life crisis and male relationships. It's also one of my favorite movies of all time. Here's the dialogue from the scene that meant the most to me. The two friends Phil and Ed are trying to move the herd through the mountains to the other ranch after the cowboys have left them and the rest of the guests have fled to safety.

Phil: "Look we did the best we could. Let's just leave the herd and get the hell out of here!"
Ed: "No! A cowboy doesn't leave his herd."
Phil "You are a sporting goods salesman!"
Ed: "Not today."

Ed's statement has more power when you take into account the beginning of the movie. The three friends spend all of their vacations doing dangerous things like the running of the bulls and skydiving, but they still have that restless feeling that middle aged men get. This time, Ed doesn't just treat this like an adventure he can walk away from, he treats it like its real life and that he is the one that chooses to define who he is.

The reason I can relate to this is that it perfectly illustrates that essential American ideal that individuals can choose to define themselves. We don't have to let the day to day life wash over us and define us by our work alone or by our place in society. Our entire world may have chosen to define us one way, but we are still the one who accepts or rejects that identity.

Many people think that you must be naturally gifted to do something, to write, sing, play an instrument. A gifting is helpful, but desire trumps gifting. If you desire to be something and you put your time and resources into becoming that thing, you will go farther than someone with simple gifting but who possesses no true desire to see that dream through.

In my later years in life I have found myself stepping away from what I thought I would be and finding my desires leading me. The desire to write, to play music and create is becoming more and more important to me and I'm finding whatever avenues I can to share what I create. When I feel that its a waste of time, and that voice that we all seem to have says to me, "You're not a poet, you're not a percussionist,  you're a customer service rep! You need to spend time paying the mortgage! You're just a redneck kid from Oregon who flunked 9th grade grammar!".

So how do I answer that voice? How do we answer all the voices that tell us we can't be what we want to be? Just like Ed, I don't have the luxury of leaving the non-cowboy life totally behind. I still have to earn my bread for now. That doesn't mean I'm stuck. There are still days when I can respond to that voice telling me all that I can't be and tell it without a doubt in my voice, "Not today...not today"

Soundcloud

My newest artistic endeavor is podcasting. I'm starting with my poems and will go from there.

ReMoved

Radioactive Cover

The Expert

" It had been long dark, though still an hour before supper-time"

Poetry by Charles Reznikoff

It had been long dark, though still an hour before supper-time.

The boy stood at the window behind the curtain.

The street under the black sky was bluish white with snow.

Across the street, where the lot sloped to the pavement,

boys and girls were going down on sleds.

The boys were after him because he was a Jew.

At last his father and mother slept. He got up and dressed.

In the hall he took out his sled and went out on tiptoe.

No one was in the street. The slide was worn smooth and 

slippery--just right.

He laid himself down on his sled and shot away. He went down 

only twice.

He stood knee-deep in snow:

no one was in the street, the windows were darkened;

those near the street-lamps were ashine, but the rooms inside 

were dark;

on the street were long shadows of clods of snow.

He took his sled and went back into the house.

Charles Bukowski - The Shoelace

Read the whole poem here:

poemhunter.com

Video of Musée Mécanique in San Francisco

Look at me-all arty. Trying to look at the difference between real life and imitation through a haunting montage of dolls and puppets. I think I will put my black beret on and pretend to be depressed about existential things...

Infographic: 10 of the Most Iconic Swords in Fiction

by IamRobertShaw.
Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

Words to Live By

"...the only way to get through the sad is the funny."-Katie Crouch (The Rumpus Magazine)

Finding God Where We Don't Think He Normally Goes...

“A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there’s more conversation.” William Blake (1757 – 1827) 

Check out this blog entry from Resistance and Renewal  entitled  Finding God on Sundays (in the pub) .

For a majority of mainstream Protestant American Christians the idea of going into a bar is abhorrent due to certain cultural beliefs (not necessarily scriptural based beliefs). That said, a pub in England, (short for a Public House), is not the same thing as most bars in the USA-there are pubs where people bring their kids and its a community meeting place.

Become a Life Coach!

You ever have something annoy you and you're not entirely sure why it annoys you? I saw the photo above on a website and something about it rubbed me the wrong way. I assumed it was just me being in a snit and went about my business. 

A couple of hours later, it hit me: This annoys me because of the assumptions that it makes about being a life coach. This gives the impression that being a Life Coach is a matter of taking an online course and starting to tell people how to run their lives. Remember the old SNL sketch of Matt Foley-the motivational speaker? 

Chris Farley portrays a 35 year old loser who lives in a van down by the river but portrays himself as a famous motivational speaker who scares kids away from drugs by his tough talk. 

Sure, I'm over simplifying it and this could be a fine course with good information. But my point is this-being a life coach should be more than a title that you wake up one morning and decide to call yourself. It should be more than just an online course you take that lets you decide you have the right to speak into people's life. 

Why do I feel so strongly about this? I hate the casual approach to people's lives. I don't feel that a one size fits all approach works in all arenas. Being a life coach, (I prefer the term mentor), should be a result of someone being truly successful in their life; they should be someone who knows you intimately and who you decided to trust. 

In my own life, there have been several people who "decided" they were going to be my mentor when I was younger. Then there were people that I watched from afar and tried to emulate their lives. There are people I have known intimately who have taken me under their wing and helped me and gave me an example to shoot for. 

When I see the difference between that and the casual concept of life coaching, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Yes, I understand that this could be purely my opinion and that there could be valid online courses to teach you how to help others. I'm willing to believe that. However, my point remains that choosing a mentor is not the same as choosing a hair stylist. There are far too many casual relationships in this world that may give us the appearance of real success without producing any substantive growth in our character. 

Scared dental selfie before a root canal.

So the good folks at United cancelled my flight from Chicago to South Bend so I find myself in the last seat of a bus. I`m a little unclear if by law I`m required to be that guy that takes his shoes off & talks to himself loudly so that everyone remembers why they hate riding the bus so much.

Sustainable Kidnapping

What Should I Post?

I've got a facebook account, twitter, google+, linkedin and several blogger accounts. So with all that "connectedness", what do I share? If something makes me happy, laugh or inspires me, then I share it. If I write something I think will resonate with others, then I share it. But I try to never sit down and think, "What should I post today? What will get me more followers, more likes, and more attention?". Any time you do that, you just need to step away from the keyboard. There's a good chance you won't be happy with what you produce, and people will know you are just trying too hard. Good content never comes from that desperate search for affirmation. Good art is never the result of simply wanting to be liked. It's letting what's original about you come out at the right time. 

Broken fingertips in soapy water listening to #jazz & #poetry on my mp3 player. I`m happy...

I`m a lumberjack...and I`m OK.

Top lap swimmers for 2013-I was #4!

Deep High Energy House Music Mix by JaBig

Stikyard Drumming Group

Ginger Cat vs. Paper Army

Carlos Andrés Gómez "Thinking of Each Other as Animals"

What is Love?

"And we know what love is, or we think we do, It's a monster truck that barrels over freshly planted soil burying red flags like bugs, not even feeling their sticks snapping in the knobs on its tires." -Stephen Elliot