Coming home to my beloved New Jersey

I have to say it - I can't wait to be back in New Jersey. I miss home. I miss Boo.

I miss real people. I miss substance. I miss normal hours of eating. I miss ... ok, no I don't miss that it rained for ten days up to my flight out and seems to be raining in NJ again! Shit, what's up with that!?

I miss my own bed. I miss the quiet. I miss my Angel.

I'm coming home soon; Saturday. I can't wait to be back where I belong. L.A. just ain't me.

Technology run amok!

I am not technologically illiterate by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I am pretty good with the stuff. However, staying in my brother's condo here in L.A. has led me to believe that we have gone waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy over board on gadgetry.

His living room TV has four remotes and I can't get the set to go on. I hear sound, but no picture. The bedroom TV was working until the dog stepped on the remote. It took me ten minutes to get the channels to change again. I wanted to print something on his computer, so I turned the printer on. There's paper in the printer and the printer says all is well. Nothing is printing.

Oh, did I mention that in his downstairs lobby, you can't open the doors between the front desk and the elevator? They have to open it for you! I was pushing and pulling yesterday with no luck until the woman came back to the desk and freed me!

HELP!!!!!

Movie: The Squid and the Whale

"The Squid and the Whale" is a smart independent film directed by Noah Baumbach, and starring Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney. It is the story of a troubled and breaking apart family. Daniels plays the struggling and superior father and once-respected writer who can barely make ends meet now. Linney is his suddenly successful novelist wife, who has long been left unsatisfied by her husband. As the family breaks apart, their two sons, played by Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline, must find their own way in dealing with their parents and their individual lives.

Both Daniels and Linney, who is brilliantly understated, put in excellent performances, but it is Kline, and his foul-mouth, beer drinking and sexual escapades that steals the movie at times.

"The Squid and the Whale" is smart and funny; sweet and frustrating. It probes the duality of loving, but also being self-absorbed, the caring about family, yet wanting nothing to do with the members at times and the coming to realize the imperfections of those around us and ourselves. It is true to a dysfunctional existence, and is willing to expose the human frailties and failings of the lead characters.

The ending is unexpected, but speaks the perfect message of realization and desire.

"The Squid and the Whale" is a movie worth seeing. After, it is a picture worthy of thought.

Thinking about the weather

Katrina did not devastate New Orleans because of the culture of that city. Wilma is not beating down a path on Florida, as the handful of storms did last year, because that state made a mess of the 2000 election. Storms don't care about blue states or red states.

We have more major hurricanes, horrific tsunamis, much more severe weather patterns, increased snow and rain accumulation, and a warming of the planet that is far beyond safety levels because of mankind. We have abused this planet, mistreated it, shown it no respect or love, ignored its needs, looked at it as our own personal possession, and put ourselves above all the other life-forms of this world. For that Mother Nature has struck back with a vengeance and will continue to do so with increasing wrath.

Everything is connected. Like the story says, a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil and it causes rain in New York. If we continue to screw up this planet, we insure our own destruction.

Remember that next time you litter, throw a cigarette out a car window, mindlessly kill animals, over-develop, drive an SUV, favor laws that allow for polluters to flourish, don't force alternative energy sources upon our society, and dump waste into a river. You are committing suicide.

L.A. - Lost Souls

After a few days in San Diego, I have returned to my brother's home in L.A. Maybe it is my perception of what the people are like here, as opposed to the reality, but I don't think so. It seems as if this is a city of lost souls who wish to be someone else. Everyone is an illusion or attempting to wear a mask here. It's all a show and all appears shallow and empty to me. I miss my east coast.

Poem: Silence

Silence, stillness, it is all the same. If you allow yourself to be an observer or a watcher, you see so much more at times then if you shove your own ideas or thoughts into the world. An expansion of self can take place by simply listening in the silence.

Silence

Silence
Filled with sounds
Channeling the world
Of energetic flow
And quiet awareness

Silence
Listening as birds chatter
Over a soothing ocean's beat
As gentle winds blow

Silence
Allowing life to breathe
With knowing lessons
Contained by subtlety

Silence
Silence
So much to hear

Copyright SGW 2005

Gay in L.A.

Here I am now, in California; first in L.A. with my brother and now in San Diego with him and his gay cadre of merry men in tights (Ok, that part is not so far-fetched.), and so far, I am able to report to the fundamentalists the world over, that I feel no symptoms of gayness overtaking me. It's amazing! I thought for sure that the gay mind control techniques they employ would break me down. Ha! I was worried about sharing a bar of soap in the shower with my brother. Nothing! To my girlfriend, I am safe - to this point - and remain firmly hetero.

Maybe the wingnuts in this country, who provide us all with an endless chatter on homosexuality, are simply of a small-mind, fearing what they do not understand, and what God has created. Hmm. Just a thought.

Ambition is not chasing dollars

Yes, I am an accountant. I live a somewhat comfortable life. However, I have also maintained my artist's persona as a poet and have turned down countless opportunities to advance my accounting career. Why pass up the bigger bucks? Don't I want to be a Vice President or some other trifling title?

No, I do not, and for that some call be lacking in ambition. I believe I am loaded with ambition. I wish to save the world. I volunteer many hours to various causes. I create poetry that seems to touch many people. I seek out the energies of the world. I explore God, spirituality and nature. I am highly ambitious; just not in the sense of some others. I find their way to be missing out on life.

While reading Cynthia Yoder's, "Crazy Quilt: Pieces of a Mennonite Life," one paragraph caught my attention. I find it re-affirming of my view on ambition.

"In my work ethic book, the arts do not appear anywhere. My plan appeared under the 'selfish' heading and was cross-referenced under 'leech.' But I decided to close that book and put it on a shelf, where hopefully it would be eaten by worms and pooped out as psychic compost."

Newark Airport

In a word, NEWARK AIRPORT IS HELL!!!!! Ok, four words.

I live 45 minutes from the airport, so it is convenient. Of course, I could have driven to LA yesterday and gotten here sooner!

Continental pretty much runs the show in Newark, and they run it right into the ground! No one has a clue, customer service is as foreign to the airline as much as intelligence and compassion are foreign to George Bush.

After a 2 1/2 hour flight delay because of varying stories - weather, air traffic control, the rise and fall of the Roman Empire - we took off. I made it into LA at 1 AM Pacific Time. By the time I got to sleep, I had been up for 25 hours, but here I am now, the next morning, and I feel rested and am enjoying the sunny skies.

Still, a word to the wise - DON"T FLY OUT OF NEWARK OR ON CONTINENTAL. This is my third experience from hell in a row. Next time, maybe Philly.

I can't take one more friggin' ring!

When you are in a restaurant, eat.

When you are in the gym, exercise.

When you are in a movie theater, watch the movie.

When you are walking with a friend, talk to that person.

When you are at work, work (or at least, blog).

When you are at a sporting event, enjoy the game and eat a hot dog.

When you are at the beach, go for a swim.

Turn off your cell phones! I dare you. You might actually enjoy the moment for a change.

Applesauce

My girlfriend's family makes homemade applesauce and I was the lucky beneficiary of some of this delicious effort. Yummy! Anyway, I am reminded of the first poem I learned way back when I was about ten years old. I do not recall the author or source.

There was an apple sitting on a railroad track feeling blue and cross
Around the bend came number ten, toot toot, applesauce!

A Storyteller Extraordinaire

George Wirth is, without question, one of the best songwriters in New Jersey. Go read a mention on him here that includes the poem I wrote about him, "Storyteller." Also, he has a new CD out, "The Lights of Brigantine," that any lover of music should get. Go take a look at George's website to learn more.

Feeling Seinfeldian

A woman in my office was just saying how her daughter gets straight A's. Would students who are homosexual be more prone to getting gay A's?

Holidays

It occurred to me today, as someone who devoutly believes in God, but subscribes to no religion, that I am missing out on holidays. This is not fair! With my Jewish friends having just had off for Rosh Hashanah and next week again for Yom Kippur, and with Christians always having Christmas and Easter, it somehow seems like I am coming up on the short end of the stick.

How to alleviate this problem. Hmm. Ok, well, I've got Festivus. I also celebrate a generic, December holiday season as I get into the spirit. But alas, we need more for those of us who are religionless. We need days we can take off from work and have sales in the malls.

What do you think? I am laying claim to Thanksgiving so that covers November. Something in the spring would be nice. Maybe an event in July or August, too. This requires more thought.

A Fork in the Road

I don't know who decided to use that term to describe the point where a path splits in two directions. More often than not, when you come to these alleged "forks in the road," does it really look like a fork? Not to me. I would say the splitting roads would be more accurately described as an "open scissor in the road" or a "check mark in the road."

From now on, if you get directions from me, these nuances will be accurately portrayed.

Poem: Lost

First off, mom, don't have a nutty. I just decided to post this poem today.

"Lost" is meant to be read as a frantic, manic run-on sentence. That's the mood of the piece. It was written, essentially, in one breath. The original had no corrections on it; the pen simply kept going.

One more interesting item about "Lost" is that it was written a week before I discovered the musician Sarah McLachlan and her semi-breakout CD, "Solace." The fifth song on that album? "Lost." I have been bonded to McLachlan ever since.

Lost

I am lost in this life
And I'm not sure what brings me this strife
Where did I go
How to find me ... I might not know
But I'm sure ... I was once here
Somewhere near
Yet now so far away
My life seems to stay
And it keeps me searching still
For the will to go on
When I doubt the man I've become
And I'm not one with myself
And the pain inside my soul
Keeps me from being whole
So I look deep within me
All I see
All that's there ... is a pain inside my heart
To the point I now start ... to doubt
Why I'm here
What this existence is about
So I cry in the night
For this life's nowhere in sight
Or within grasp
As I gasp ... for a breath of refreshing air
Or a break in my despair
So I resign myself to this
There is no joy or happiness.

Copyright SGW 1992

Question

How come in the movies people always seem to fall when they are running in the woods? I have run in the woods a million times and have never fallen. No one I know has fallen either. What's up with that? Are people who write movie scripts klutzy doofuses?