--IT WASN'T ME

…Hey, it’s the weekend.  Do you have big plans?  Hopefully you’ve got something fun scheduled.

…So I saw “Book of Mormon” the other night.  

I didn’t really know what to expect, but I didn’t anticipating the whole show being a mockery of Mormons.

The crowd seemed to love it.  Me, I felt embarrassed to be there.  It was like watching a defenseless 3^rd grader being ridiculed.

 I kept wondering how the crowd would have reacted if it were Christians, or African Americans, or Jews, or over-weight people, being ridiculed.

It’s interesting what is allowable and what isn’t.

I’m not overly P.C., but the play really disturbed me.

Then again, I may be on the fringe.

…This weekend I am going to try seeing “Amour”.  What will you do?

…”Whether you be man or woman you will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor." James Lane Allen

"When nothing is sure, everything is possible." Margaret Drabble

"Sex can be frightening, but love contains and banishes fear." PW

"We find rest in those we love, and we provide a resting place in ourselves for those who love us." St. Bernard of Clatrvaux

"Humankind cannot bear very much reality." T. S. Eliot

"The best mask for demoralization is daring." Lucan

"There is no gene for fate." Gattaca

"Life goes on no matter what the hell you do." Leon Panetta

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it.  You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.  You are responsible for your rose." Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist when you grow up." Picasso

"To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue... gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness." Confucius

--NOTHING IS GOOD ENOUGH IF YOU THINK IT'S NOT

…I have really been enjoying “Justified.”  It’s one of those rare shows that just gets better the more it goes along.

I think you’d like it.

…Here are some random things I’ve learned that you may already know:

…The top five New Year Resolutions for 2013:

21% -Weight loss

14% -Improve finances

14% -Exercise

10% -Get a new job

7% -Eat healthier

…Congress has a record number of women holding office:

20 in the Senate

78 in the House

…The average rate on a fixed 30-year mortgage is now a record-low 3.34%

…Transocean, the drilling company that owned the oil rig implicated in the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was ordered to pay a $1.4 billion fine.

...Last week Starbucks opened its first store in Vietnam.  Vietnam is the world's second-largest coffee producer.  Starbucks is currently in 50 countries.

…Last week, actor Patrick Dempsey, of "Greys Anatomy" fame, purchased Starbucks rival Tully's out of bankruptcy.

…2012 was the warmest year ever in America, eclipsing the 1998 record by a full degree.

…Percentage of Americans saying laws covering the sale of firearms should be more strict:

2011: 43%

2012: 58%

…1 in 15 12th graders smoke pot daily.  6.5% of all 8th graders do.

…Last year, over 35 million (MILLION) copies of the erotic trilogy, "Fifty Shades of Grey" were sold.

…It takes the average man 97 days to say, "I love you" to a person they're dating.

78% of men check a woman out online before a date.

…The average cost of an academic year at a four-year college soared 71% in the last decade, now averaging $22,100

…There are 2.2 billion of the world’s people, or 32 percent, who consider themselves to be adherents of the Christian faith. Islam follows in second place, with 1.6 billion believers. In third place is the category “none,” consisting of 1.1 billion of the world’s people who claim no religious affiliation or proclaim themselves to be atheists or agnostics.

The world’s Hindu population totals 1 billion, followed by 500 million Buddhists, according to Pew. There are 14 million Jews in the world.

--THERE'S NOTHING I WOULDN'T DO FOR YOU

…Today, right this moment, I am listening to Patty Griffin, specifically her album “Flaming Red.”  I love Patty and this album.  There are some terrific songs, especially “Tony” which will break your heart a few times.

…Christmas finally came down at our house.

I got out the big blue tubs from the storage room and while there came upon one of those cardboard boxes we likely all have around somewhere, the ones with old photographs and clippings from high school and college, maybe even earlier.

It was interesting seeing myself as the boy I was—long hair, flared jeans.  In one box was the plastic picture insert that goes in your wallet and every photo was a girl.  Now it’s not because I was a Lothario, because back then I was very, very shy.  But it’s interesting that the only friends I had were female.

I used to have a column in the High School newspaper.  It was called “Word For The Wise.”  I’d saved many of the issues and read a few while I was procrastinating packing up the holiday doo-dads.

Boy, I was a shitty writer back then, not just in my column, but all the other articles I’d written for the newspaper—and there were many—were pretty atrocious.

Maybe I’m still awful and in twenty years I’ll find the stuff I’m writing today and think it’s gibberish.

I sure hope not…

…I saw “Zero Dark Thirty” in a crowded, amped-up theater that charged $14 a ticket because the seats were nice.  The film was pretty much what I expected, with the same esthetic stylistically as “Hurt Locker”.  It rambled and was slow in parts, yet it overall it was compelling. 

I’d give it a  B-.  It might get a lot of nominations, though I can’t see it winning many Oscars.

Jessica Chastain is a great actress, but maybe her part demanded she be a little restrained.  It didn’t allow her to go much out of a certain range.

It really makes you think about torture, however, I’ll tell you that.

…Here are a few things I like on the start of a rainy, blustery day:

"Inspiration is for amateurs—the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will—through work—bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great ‘art idea.’ And the belief that process, in a sense, is liberating and that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today, you know what you’ll do, you could be doing what you were doing yesterday, and tomorrow you are gonna do what you did today, and at least for a certain period of time you can just work. If you hang in there, you will get somewhere." —Chuck Close

"Change means movement, movement means friction, friction means heat, and heat means controversy." Saul Alinsky

"And when I see you happy, well it set my

heart free.

I'd like to be as good a friend to you as you

are to me."

--Joni Mithcell

"Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach

them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try

to follow where they lead." Louisa May Alcott

“We all have our dark sides, and that’s what makes us human.”

“No one ever succeeded by quitting.”

“Failure is the first step to success.” --Robert Dugoni

--YOU’VE NEVER LOOKED BETTER

…Blogspot did something, changed something, and now it’s not letting me post photos.

That’s a tad frustrating.
I’ve been trying to figure out a work around, but so far I haven’t been successful.

…Anyway, what I wanted to say is that lately I have been a little negative lately and I’m going to try to be more aware of what I think and what I say before I say it.
I don’t like negative people and I sure as hell don’t want to be one.
I’ll be better, you’ll see.

…Today I’m going to see “Zero Dark Thirty.”  I think it’s going to be terrific.  That should about do it, as far as seeing Oscar-nominated films, unless “The Impossible” or “Beasts of The Southern Wild” get a tilt.

…Next week I’m going to see “The Book of Mormon.”  A friend gave me tickets.  I’m not thrilled, but have the feeling it will be great and that I’ll be glad I went afterwards.

…I hope you are having a fantastic weekend.

…Here are some things I like:

"Art is the noblest human efforts: to construct, and to refrain from destruction." Evelyn Waugh

"Don't bother about genius. Don't worry about being clever. Trust to hard work, perseverance and determination." Frederick Treves

"Judge people by their questions rather than by their answers." Voltaire

"A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it." Dōgen Kigen

"He could catch a songbird with his hands and break its heart with his thumb. With the animals in traps, the ones with the fancy coats, he wouldn't shoot them and muddle their coats. He'd stomp on their hearts with the heel of his boot. He'd always know where its heart was and he'd stomp it there. It would never seem too painful. It would just break the creature's heart." -Joy Williams

"It's counter-intuitive but qualities that make you likable and popular in real life - good looks, wild success, happy marriage, lovely home, healthy confidence - will make a reader despise you. The more of a wreck you are from the start, the more the audience is hooked." Susan Shapiro

"The last of the human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." Victor Frankl

"All big things in this world are done by people who are naive and have an idea that is obviously impossible." Dr. Frank Richards

--YOU THROW AWAY THE THINGS YOU LOVED

 …I hope you had a fabulous New Year’s.  Mine was.

After having seen six outstanding movies—
1.     Moonrise Kingdom
2.     Lincoln
3.     Argo
4.     Django Unchained
5.     Les Miserables
6.     Silver Linings Playbook
I saw “Life of Pi,” a colorful, cinematic little masterpiece.  Actually it wasn’t little.  It felt very big, physically universal.
It followed the book fairly closely, but was even better and far more tender and thought-provoking.
Next up is “Zero Dark Thirty.”

…Yesterday Washington State raised its minimum wage to $9.19, highest in the country.

…Over one million people turned out in freezing temperatures to see the ball drop at Times Square in NYC.  Afterward, cleaning crews picked up 50 tons of garbage.

As Andie MacDowell’s character so famously asked in “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” where does all that garbage go?

…I had a very productive day yesterday and also wrote this:

                                                                     Evergreen

 

            When I get to the meeting, it’s just Zac and a new girl, a woman actually.  Females rarely attend, mainly because they make themselves and the rest of our group uncomfortable.  The things we share here we wouldn’t tell our wives or closest friends.  Some days we paint the floor with our shame and misdeeds.

            The woman’s name is Joan, and her goal is to make 30 meetings in 30 days.  She says her habit has eaten her alive and destroyed everything.  Looking at her, you can see she’s a jittery rabbit, a ragamuffin stuffed inside an army jacket and black sweat pants.  She barely raises her head, even when she reads the first meditation.

            Me, I’ve been coming since winter of last year when I was discovered, when the world then collapsed, Mary leaving with the kids and not saying where she was going, saying only.  “You’re sick and you disgust me.”

            I share this with our tiny group and it does and doesn’t feel good.  The long hand on the clock resembles a knife I was once going to shove into my own chest but didn’t because, in the end, I’m something of a coward.

            We finish early, after reciting The Serenity Prayer and telling everyone to keep coming back “because it works if you work it and you’re worth it.”

            Zac tells me, “Happy New Year,” and that he’ll get the chairs.

            Outside I find Joan on a curb having a cigarette.  It’s so cold there’s barely a difference between the smoke and her breath.

            “Want one?” she asks.

            Now that her head’s lifted, I can see she’s pretty and that one side of her face is bruised purple and evergreen.

            “Thanks,” I say, “but I gave them up.”

            “Lucky you.”

            “Nah.  I’m an idiot.”

            “You got a car?” she asks, her oily blonde hair not blowing at all in the breeze.

            I tell her I do.

            “Give me a lift?”

            It’s a bad idea all the way around, but I let her get in.  After I crank up the heat, the sound of the vents makes my skin prickle.

            We’re not even a mile out when she scoots against my side and puts her hand on my thigh.  It’s been a long time since a woman touched me without being paid to do so.

            At my apartment that night, I get down on my knees.  I try clearing my mind of the things Joan told me, how she begged, how she said she was lonely and broken and just wanted to feel skin on skin.  I remember the money I gave her and her stunned expression when I said I wouldn’t do it with her, that one false move on my part would rip me open forever.  She might have understood, but she clawed at my jacket nevertheless.

            I close my eyes and picture a beach with Joan and her husband on it.  I make them a happy pair.  Then I do the same for myself.