In My Absence

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." Thoreau

In my best attempt to fall off the beaten track of a constant life of conflict, with blinking red lights that remind me there is a world out there that demands my attention and understanding, I have succumbed to the pressure of focusing my thoughts toward a miniature screen and sticky keyboard and away from the natural, present movement in front of me.

I do this out of some sort of nudging obligation that says I'm needed, I'm missed, something else is more important...

Instead of diving head first into the saltiness of an escape and letting it wash over me with a simplistic wildness that screams "It's Your Life", I begrudgingly operate the wheel in the direction of someone else's priorities.

This is a minor sickness.

Won't you help me get well?

Doubt Is Loud

"A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench." Matthew 12:20

And It Burned, Burned, Burned

Progress

Searching for my own inspiration as tonight's shadows spread across the streets of Queens, NY.

But couldn't seem to shake these profound words.

"Boy, the way Glen Miller played. Songs that made the Hit Parade. Guys like us, we had it made. Those were the days! Didn't need no welfare state. Everybody pulled his weight Gee, our old LaSalle ran great. Those were the days!

And you knew where you were then! Girls were girls and men were men. Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again. People seemed to be content. Fifty dollars paid the rent. Freaks were in a circus tent. Those were the days!

Take a little Sunday spin, go to watch the Dodgers win. Have yourself a dandy day that cost you under a fin. Hair was short and skirts were long. Kate Smith really sold a song. 

I don't know just what went wrong! 

Those Were the Days!"

I just don't know what went wrong.

New York 1971

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*Retronaut...>>

Life of Leisure

Exhale. At the edge of my street in the dull murmur of a rainy night.

My legs ache . A sign of standing for a living.

Also a sign that I strolled silently across Manhattan at tonight's end.

It took the growing puddles, glistening in the dim lights of quaint West 13th. to reflect back at me the constant stir of motion and motivation that flows through this city like fluid.

I've missed it.
This visual of time...passing.

In this revealing of others, playing out their lives during the bathing of our spring sidewalks and my hooded head, I realized this is precisely how writers, write.

 They examine life around them at a slower pace than the express train to the Bronx or the ticking clock of a production's schedule.  They make the moments to observe amongst the contented and dreamers. They join them. And drink.

This evening, in the 12th hour. They called a wrap on me. Done. Law and Order SVU Season 13.

More the wiser, definitely more the whinier.

But now I have the time, in a simply fantastic city, to muse.

Move On Back Two Squares

"But as for me, my prayer is to you, O LORD. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness." Psalm 69:13

Oh hear my cry.

Not even ten months living in hour long, dramatic episodic television could prepare me for the agonizing decision to give up my Manhattan sublet to the wolves and blindly begin the painful search for the next corner of the my life, wherever that may be.

Either following Goethe's advice:

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back-- 

Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. 

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."

or Woody Allen's plan:

"Right now it's only a notion, but I think I can get the money to make it into a concept, and later turn it into an idea."

I'll Act Natural...He'll Do the Super

"As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead." James 2:28

Three more days left in the season.

I'm doing the ordinary, so my Lord in heaven can do the extraordinary.

And I'm praying I see His vision.

Sinatra Said It Best

"So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it." Isaiah 55:11

Purpose.
That word rears its head in the strangest of mind sorts.
On a relatively still night, high on fermented grapes, and watching a Best Little Whorehouse in Texas promo, I feel a nostalgic pull.
Well, I said strange, didn't I?

 The kind of knocking on my heart that has me remembering my youth and where I've come from.
The sound of my Mama's voice singing 'You Are A Promise' resonates as much now as it did then.

I see the dizzying left and right turns I have made to guide me to where I am . And to who I am.
I hear the voice within me that has told me if I'm close or I've gotten off track yet again.
I think about these years in New York. The sacrifice. The risk.
And all of the necessity it took for this time to happen.

I examine the unfolding ride of Law and Order's 13th season and how I had to endure it and why I was given the opportunity out of so many, to experience it.

I look at what I said I would do. And that I did it fully.

Now, I sit with the unknown of what lays ahead and question why my muscles have to tear, just to rebuild, to conquer the next hill.

Or mountain.

"I planned each charted course. Each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this I did it my way." Frank
What's next?

Just Three White Jewish Boys...

My Chains Are Gone

"For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." Galatians 1:10

Dear Friends,

I write this to you from a legendary advertising agent's apartment, overlooking the quintessential New York Chelsea Hotel. The neon sign is waning.
I am sitting on the black carpet of the sex lair staring into the infinity tub that stands prominently the middle of the living room. Various Karma Sutra statuettes, stuffed gold alligators, and phallic cobras provide the sexual element needed for a straight out of Vanity Fair/ Tom Ford photo shoot.
The back lit shelves of designer shoes lead your eyes to the wall of bay windows stretching the length of the space.
 I can see open sky and a near full moon. The gold lame covered daybed is within eye shot from my perch and the scantily clad "18 year olds" are scattered amongst the black lacquered furniture. The featured Oil on Canvas of the Pope raising an embellished chalice isn't offensive until you notice the nervous gerbil on his shoulder.
Handcuffs sit on the side table and Fifty Shades of Grey the Trilogy is a close reach from the half empty bottle of Astroglide. It is midnight.

Though it may read like a pornographic prison in which I dwell. I actually feel free.

I apologize for the flat out lack of minor communication and simple musings. For the last 96 hours, I have been in a dusty squad room, excruciatingly small interrogation room, and a mice ridden observation room.  Held against my will, being practically force fed pork ribs, licorice twists and crumb cake on an hourly basis and subject to the powers that be.... or as of this morning....powers that were.

One of our number one head honcho's legs were cut from beneath him this morning; With seven days left, a senior producer got his walking papers, leaving everyone with their weary mouth's open, wondering if their job is secure and worrying about whose ass they need to kiss to keep it.

Despite it's regularity, it is still quite the spectacle to witness how a man places his worth and fate in another man's hand.

When will we learn?

Sincerely,
A Wiser Me




* See for yourself....The Black Apartment...>>