Life is Gritty and Great.

I thought 'The Wrestler' was gritty - even great. I watched it at the downtown Alamo Draft House on my 51st birthday with my wife, daughter, a friend, bbq wings, pizza, and a pitcher of beer. So, there's lots of personal nostalgic and environmental settings factored in. At one point, I deemed it the best movie I've ever seen. I loved the simplicity. (My new tat by the way is - "Simplicity.") I loved the brutal honesty and the behind the scene rawness of love, comraderie, and pain. All endured for the glory - that is even itself - so shallow and temporary. It was existential and cathartic for me. I shed more than one tear. See it on a big screen, with beer if possible.

Praise song for the day.

[Inaguration poem for Obama by Elizabeth Alexander - read aloud Jan. 20, 2009]


Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

Merry Christmas from the family

Coyotes and Chest Pain

Coyotes were yipping and howling late last night. Of course my dogs have to join in with their yodeling which makes sleeping very hard to do in my little cabin.

I was having a dream about a witch-doctor lady who was trying to minister to me by pressing hard on my chest while I lied down across her desk. I expressed to her this tightness and pain I had in my chest and she was trying to remedy me.

There's sometimes in my waking hours an awareness of anxiety or a tenseness I carry around in the center of my being that feels like my heart. I press and bang on my chest some but it doesn't go away. It is mental or emotional, not physical – I think.

As I'm lying there listening to the coyotes and my dog howl. I realized how much I worried about the ability of outside life - for example, wildlife, and even maybe nature - to survive outside of man. Somehow I've become convinced that if mankind doesn't change behavior, we will wipe out all life on earth. Well, maybe not all life, but surely the newly arrived surrounding coyotes in my neighborhood will more than likely be shot and killed out by someone, making them at least locally extinct.

I felt this same burdensome pressure in my chest.

Then I thought about the wily nature of the coyote and how sneaky he has been to successfully avert the onslaught of man with his semi-civilization of dogs, guns, and farming. Realizing to myself that in spite of man, coyotes have still so far survived. If man completely became extinct, coyotes might still survive on the outer edges somewhere.

Just knowing that I myself and mankind in general isn't completely in control and responsible for all wildlife - that man might die out someday and other wildlife could continue - released the pressure in my chest.

I exhaled and felt better than I've felt in long time. The pain in my chest went away.

Deer Fighting

It's rutting season for the deer in the Texas hill country and we sit on our porch nightly and catch a few bucks fighting now and then. It is amazing and intense.

Seeing some of these trophy bucks almost makes me want to go back to my deer hunting days.

When asked why I don't shoot one of these deer I reply, "I'd rather see that head and rack running around in the woods than cut off and hanging on my wall." We haven't filmed any of these incidents but I found a few interesting deer videos on YouTube.com.

Mountains, Texas, and Texas mountain music

Mountains are on my mind and I just wrote a bluegrass song about a man that gets jaded at the altar - it's called "oh, the pain"..... lots of lyrics and i find myself having trouble remembering my own lyrics. My wonderfully beautifully daughter recently went to Enchanted Rock had a picture of herself looking out upon the true West of Texas hill country. She is beautiful and enchanting. If you haven't found the internet stream ripper yet, go get it and rip some good music..... you won't regret it.

The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace

Thanks Mr. Shapiro for calling Americans what we have surely shown to the world that we are - petty, disloyal, and short-visioned. Why Americans are so shallow as to place all the hopes, blames, and problems upon a single man - the President - is beyond me.

I hope Americans grow up and stop looking for a father-figure to solve their own problems. Unfortunately, Obama has taken his new post on that very platform - that things have been very bad for us and now "change" has come in the form of a black messiah.

I guess we'll find out soon enough. I hope Obama remembers how fast the public turned on Bush from a 90% approval to 20% over matters mostly beyond his control.

Americans should be proud that we have come such a long way that we can elect a black President. We should be ashamed again for our past for so easily disdaining a man like George W. Bush.