I’ve been thinking about this lately and I feel compelled to write it down. So I am.. here in this unknown and unseen blog. I guess I should tell someone about this blog so that, after I die, they can read my "will", or my desires for what to do with my funeral, or wake, or kick-ass party.. whatever materializes. I think I put something at the top of this blog that says "If I die before I wake", or "start here" or something like that. Anyway - on to the rambling rant I'm writing now:

I’m not positive, but I think marriage should happen while you are young, because then it really is a combined effort and shared commitment. Obviously I cannot speak about the realities of waiting until you're in your late 20's or early 30's to marry because I didn't do so. But an instinct inside my heart and head tells me that when and if you "wait", then attitudes will have already been developed, or will be actively developing, which affect, on possibly a subconscious level, attitudes and/or thoughts that cause reluctance or apprehension or whatever when it comes to the realization that marrying someone has far reaching implications. Implications that are shrouded in mystery and of going up against the unknown in perhaps one of the most important "fights" that you will ever have in your life. I think that marrying while in your 30's can lead to second-guessing other major life decisions and a general glazing-over of reality. My experience was that of marrying young, well, relatively young. I was 23, Helen was just 19. Sometimes I wonder how different things might have turned out had we waited another 4 or 5 years. My first thought is that my kids would not have come to be quite the same way they are. I mean they most likely would have been great, happy, smart, kind, and considerate people - like they really are, but definitely not the same kids. How could they be? Butterfly effect, etc...

I also wonder if Helen and I would have, by virtue of being 4 or 5 years older, been better equipped to deal with the normal emotional ups and downs of a committed relationship. Or that our capabilities to make it through the "tough times" and/or rough patches that come and go, and are a part of every relationship between two people, would have been more mature and therefore not ended in divorce for our marriage. It is impossible to know how things might have gone differently since any one of a million various scenarios could have played out.

I guess I'm trying to learn more about myself through thinking these things and questioning the merits or drawbacks associated with marrying while you are young, or waiting until you're just a little bit older before entering into such commitment with another human who has their own world of thoughts running through their head as well. I feel that I don't know what to say or suggest to my children if they ever ask my opinion or thoughts on this issue. Most likely they will never ask that of me as the events and experiences of their own adult lives will force them to ask, and answer these questions for themselves. It does not matter in the least whether I would like to be a grandparent sooner or later or never at all.

I guess the truest answer I can give myself is to just concentrate on my children's happiness and encourage and celebrate whatever decisions they may make - right or wrong, good idea or bad, because none of us has the ability to know for sure if what we are doing, or what we have done, is or was the "right" thing for our life. I want for all of my children the magic and wonder and adventure that Helen and I had. I also want for them the wisdom and possible better outcome in their lives if they wait before hitching their star to another person's sky. Time and circumstance has already sort of made decisions for each of them, and their futures remain to be seen. I suppose that is all anyone can expect and is what we should all become comfortable with. I just wish there was a way to know that everything will turn out fine for them. I think that "way" is called, simply, faith.

I love my kids with every fiber of my earthly presence and with every spark of eternal energy that resides inside of me. I hope I get the chance, or having been given that chance every time I see them, hug them or speak with them, to be able to instill in them the depth and purity of that love. Grand babies or not. Now or later. I am truly rich beyond my wildest dreams just to still be here and to be a part of their lives and to have them as such an amazing part of mine. But getting to play with, and spoil, and most of all - laugh, with my children's babies would be very wondrous indeed.

A film critique, because I have to.

Even though I have a great love of cinema and do have opinions and criticisms of films, I do not usually offer up a critique unless moved to do so. This film did more than move me. It jolted and jerked my head around like a drug. As if, once I understood what was happening, all I could do was go along for the ride.

"The Letter" starring Winona Ryder and James Franco

For me, this film is an exercise in minimal dialogue cinema, evocative of uneasy tenderness and mistrust in the realm of relationship. The audience rides along with Winona's character down the slippery slope of schizophrenia and palpable paranoia. There is tension in the details and silence of this film. I find it to be a magnificent use of characters that you don't really care about at all, but a story that you kind of do. You can't help it but you do care. You care in a similar way as when you gaze at an auto accident as you drive by. The twists and turns are simply dizzying. They are mostly psychological, but dizzying none the less. "Quirky" doesn't fit at all because "quirky" usually carries with it a sense of levity, large or small, some "lift” of some sort. This film does NOT have that "lift", yet seems to exude all the "quirk" anyone would need.

Technically, "The Letter" stirs the pot of editing tricks, and pacing, and sequence, and order or lack thereof. Carried out with excellent use of silence and hesitation, "The Letter" is an aural adventure to say the least of its sound design. Performances are genuinely hard to gauge as character traits are to be discovered instead of portrayed. Franco seems great. Ms. Ryder is stunning and magnetically pitiful in her role as New York playwright "guiding" a workshop theater group towards, well towards something I think. She provides her actors with new dialogue daily, writing as she unravels, thus confusing almost everyone. I'm not in any hurry to watch this one again, but I will definitely want to in the future.

"I felt the shadows across my skin, and I watched." - Last line of the film.

There is much more that could be said about this film, but I can't continue right now. It's all still soaking in. See this one if you can find it.

Je vais bien, ne t'en fais pas

Don't worry, I'm fine.

It has been 10 months, six weeks and six days since I last had a normal conversation with my dearest friend Harry Scott Shimp. The evening of October 28th, a Thursday. We spoke of love, we spoke of baseball, we spoke of things eternal and trivial. We spoke.

The next day was not real. He couldn't make it out of the car for his chemo/radiation/kill-everything-in-you-just-short-of-killing-you treatment. That Friday morning and afternoon we went to the hospital emergency room where he carried on a polite conversation with the girl helping him. He made her laugh and smile. He made her feel good as he lay dying.

He went into Hospice the next day, then onto the morphine train to oblivia, then passing over to death at about 2:45 in the morning of November 6th, 2011, just a few hours before he would have had the chance to say goodbye to the love inside him, his daughter Katherine. Some say it worked out better this way, that she should remember him as she knew him and not as the weakened shell of a man lying in the bed with black, morphine eyes of death. I feel extremely fortunate to have had my ex-wife and my two daughters with me on the Saturday afternoon before he went. He smiled and called their names. I don't think witnessing him in his weakened state affects their memories of him at all. They loved the man, they will always hold his memory dear and close in their hearts. I miss him so much.

On the Tuesday of that last week I think it was, after a nurse came into the room and asked about his pain level on a scale of 1 to 10, to which he replied "about a 7", she left the room to go get the morphine and he turned to Ross and I and said "I don't have any pain, but they give you morphine here whenever you want it, so if it's all the same to you guys, I'm going to 'drug it up' a little before I check out." Which of course made us smile and laugh a bit, knowing that he was getting one over on the world even up to the very end.

I continued to come visit and have very short 3 or 4 word exchanges with him over the next few days, but he was so drugged up that I don't count those as real conversations.

He was the best friend ever. Ne me quitte pas. Ne me quitte pas.

Well Toto, thanks for sticking by me.

Life/happiness/purpose/etc. isn't about where you are or what you're doing. It's about who you're with. That's it. That's all. That is quite enough.

Seriously? Is it because I'm getting older?

I swear to all of the energies in the universe that I must be going through male menopause or something currently because I am so damn emotional right now that I cannot stop the tears from flowing or my malaise from growing. Almost every morning and just about every night I cry. I cry at things that normal people - anybody in their right mind - would cry at, but I also find that I cry at crazy stuff that NO ONE in their right mind would, or should cry at.

A bit of back story - pardon me if you know me and already know this part - I will try to keep it short, I promise.

I grew up wanting to get out of Kansas. I have stated that for the record MANY times over. I was able to fulfill that desire back in 1999 when I moved to Delaware/Philadelphia, and then on to Hawaii for several years. When I became unemployed in Hawaii, I began to think of Kansas as somewhere I should go to make myself available to my mother and sister if the need should arise. By then my father and older brother had both passed away, leaving me as the only male in our immediate family - not counting my nephews or my own sons. I thought I had it figured out somewhat, well, the beginnings of the probable "answer" at least. Then my unemployment ran out and after burning through any and all money I had "saved" I found myself relying on my mother for financial help again. I HATED the position I was in and the state of the economy and the lack of jobs all over the country added to my problem. Try as I did, I could NOT find work anywhere. Then an old friend of mine reached out to me and asked if I might be interested in working for the small company he was working for. I said YES! I couldn't say "yes" fast enough. That meant that I had to move back east, back to the Philadelphia area, this time New Jersey to be specific. Not that big of a deal, I had moved far distances before. I had moved many thousands of miles when my kids were young (they are all grown now). I had moved with little or no doubts or trepidation. Then I got here and "settled in". I am alone. I look back and realize that for the past 30-some years, I had been sharing my daily life, surroundings and routines (or lack thereof) with a woman. Bob Marley sang "No Woman, No Cry", but he couldn't have meant it literally because no woman equals LOTS of crying. Plus, New Jersey SUCKS. I don't know, maybe I'm just going through this male menopause thing I began this note with. Maybe, if I was 20 or 30 years younger the "No woman, no cry" would have been true… or at least more true than it now appears.

There are a few women who would come live with me if I asked them to. Honestly, I'm not sure that I would be comfortable asking any of them at this point. For some reason (or many…) I don’t know if I am emotionally "stable" enough currently to ask a woman to share my life again. Maybe that is exactly what I need. Maybe not. I always took pride in the fact that I could figure out the answers to these kinds of dilemmas on my own. Now I'm not so sure of myself. I'm 52 on the outside but still feel 23 inside. Am I just continuing the process of kidding myself? Should I try and act my age? Should I start to try, after all of these years, to take into account what other people think of me? I used to take pride in NOT letting what other people think of me color my decision making in the least little bit.

About a month ago I had an "evaluation" of my performance at my new job, (which there has been NO new work at by the way... just sayin'); the nature of the work is installing components in theaters to enable the theater to digitally project 3D movies. The "evaluation" comments/judgment was NOT even close to what I had expected. I had never - in my lifetime - received such biting negative comments. Granted, he did start out by acknowledging the fact that we have had NO WORK by which to gauge my abilities on, but that he had used a couple of "surprise tests" on me. "Surprise" because I had no idea he was scrutinizing my actions and how I performed certain tasks - with NO instruction or desired details communicated to me ahead of time.

I did what I was asked - I got the job done. Through my life - in live television, live “business theater”, etc., I learned how to get the job done” in record time and IN TIME for the broadcast or show. Because I did these “surprise test” tasks in a way different than what he expected, or in a way that HE would have done the tasks differently, he judged me poorly. That is simply NOT FAIR. I know, I know - "life isn’t fair", but c'mon, this was ridiculous.

Anyway, I digress. The purpose of writing these “journal” things was to let out what I am feeling and take a shot at figuring out why I seem to be getting more emotional in my old age. So, why do some silly little commercials start the waterworks? Why do emotionally packed scenes in movies leave my cold-hearted, but a few seconds about a father admiring something his daughter did when she was little make me weep like a baby?

I think that part of it is because of two things - I have two daughters - one who is constantly changing her mind about some pretty important life decisions - she's going back to a guy who has been abusive to her in the past. She says "only that once", but once is once too many in my book. My father raised me to be a gentleman who NEVER would hit or harm a woman in any way, and I have tried to teach my sons similar respect for "the weaker sex" because they ARE! Sorry all of you feminists out there but women are not as strong as men and should NEVER be hit or pushed or shoved or physically harmed in any way. NOTHING will change my mind about that. Now if she has a gun, sure, cold cock the bitch and take the gun away, but other than that, be a gentleman. Period.

My other, younger daughter is about to graduate from college this coming May. I could not be more proud of her. I could also not be more worried for her future as the state of this economy is terrible and it is extremely hard for ANYONE to get a good job these days, even a recent college graduate. I know that I have no control over either of the things my daughters will be facing soon and I learned a long time ago to exert control over that which I have some control over, and release - do not waste time - worrying about that which I have NO control over. It's hard, but no one ever said it would be easy. I am fortunate to have a true angel as the mother of our children; she is also torn and troubled about the futures of our children. She has done an amazing job raising our kids to be the strong, independent people that they are. I also have two sons, and there are definitely some father-son things that I witness that bring on the rush of emotion in me as well, but both of my boys are fairly deep into their respective careers/endeavors right now for me to worry too much about their immediate futures. I call them my boys but they are men, as sure as any man can be called a man. My pride for ALL of my children is immense and I know, deep down, that everything will work out and all will be well.

None of that explains why I cry at silly stupid commercials now when I didn’t just a few short years ago. Maybe I shouldn’t waste any time thinking of “why” and just let me be me. Hmm, that just might work.

See you in another few months or however long it is until I write something here again! Aloha. Mahalo for reading and understanding, even if just a little bit. Get old, have four children, and then you’ll see what I mean.

Born to Run

I'm in Jersey. It makes sense to me to have my mind wander the way it does today.

It's become apparent to me now that all my life I've taken Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" quite literally and have tried to get out of Kansas for about 40 years.

"Oh baby this town rips the bones from your back, it's a death trap, it's a suicide rap. We gotta get out while we're young, 'cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run." "..let me in, I wanna be your friend. I wanna guard your dreams and visions... together we could break this trap. We'll run 'til we drop, baby we'll never go back. Oh, will you walk with me out on the wire? 'cause baby I'm just a scared and lonely rider, but I gotta know how it feels. I wanna know if love is wild babe I wanna know if love is real."

I'm almost sure to write more here today. It's a Saturday in New Jersey after all.

East coast again.

Well, here I am. I've been fortunate to have been hired (at last) by Digital 3D Cinema. Based in central New Jersey, we travel the US and parts of Europe installing digital projection systems, most often 3D systems, in various museums and theaters providing attraction based film production for our clients as well so that the attendees of these exhibits and films experience an amazing, immersive experience.

For me personally, this is the beginning of my "third act" in life. I have chosen to try and focus on this job, my health and happiness in the years to come.

I miss the friends I have in other parts of the world and look forward to re-connecting with friends I made here on the east coast a little more than 10 years ago. I will always wish for someone special to share the remainder of my life with, but if there is one thing I have learned it's that love comes to you when you stop trying to find it. I would not have been able to reach the point I am at now without the help, positive vibes and love of so many. For that I feel truly blessed.

Changes are coming up behind me with no intention of surprising me. They are shouting at me from their distance and seem to delight in the nature of their approach. I tell myself that I'm ready for them. I have to be.

Wish me luck. Please and mahalo! - ~O~

When the cookie jar is empty…

I’ve never been out of work so long in all my life. I’ve never had to fight these internal demons of depression and self doubt so many times – over and over and over again. This is all new to me. This all hurts very badly.

I’m lifted ever so slightly by the existence of a few hundred bucks I should have my hands on by Wednesday. . but that’s it for the foreseeable future. With it I could buy a very nice Sony 32” flat screen TV – which I will use infrequently, if and when I move somewhere for a job. Or I could pay a month of credit card payments to keep those wolves at bay a short while longer… what to do.

Taking the three fifty to the dice table would be the old me. Sometimes I think the old me is the one I should have stayed with. Gut feeling acting, take no safety precautions, and leap before you look Mike. He was a fun cat to hang with. He required a rather specific type of female accompaniment for his adventures, but they were adventures after all. You got that right.

hss

In the topography of Spirit, of the emotions and feelings and continuity of infinite life, there would be an apparent spark if one could see it because of Harry’s light and spirit. And it will live there, in my heart and mind, forever. A once in a lifetime experience for me. I am so grateful to have shared it with such a man, and to bask in his glow as he discovered Earth and life – and to ride along with him as he lifted the moment into a place beyond the reach of the most sensitive ear laid upon the most forgiving ground. Lifted it into the realm of the perception of perpetual harmony. I will forever treasure the moment, and that I was along for the ride. Thank you to all who tuned in across the universe, and to those that came to the show. Here’s to the heights, the incomparable heights of Harry Scott Shimp.

My best friend on planet Earth. 1-19-59 to 11-6-11. Rest in peace brother.

Happy Birthday to my twins Adam and Shannon!

Wow, 24 years goes by pretty damn fast.

Hold on kids, life is screamin' along at a million miles an hour...
Grab every experience and adventure you can and collect memories like they'll be worth everything one day... because they will be.

Toss everything else - money, jobs, responsibilities, etc. - Screw that! Life is for living. Period. Exclamation point. (smiley face)

Proud Papa...

12:03pm,Monday - Oct 24th, 2011:

Thomas:
Hey Pops, I know this is random... but thank you for being a truely amazing father. After talking to some people in trying times tonight
I am lucky to have a dad who lets me know how much he cares for his son. Seriously man you're a pretty rad dad!@

Me:
Aww. Thank you son. That means more to me than you'll ever know - until you have a son. And especially a first son. I love you more than life itself.

---
(with swelled chest) That's my boy. !)

Ne Me Quitte Pas

please.

you are a bright friggin' light. I need you

to see

Here We Go

I discovered that

I've been/was waiting for some sort of permission or "pardon" in order to carry on with improving my life.

My kids were not enough. My kids were not enough for many, many years when it came to smoking, and quitting that was downright embarrassing(LY EASY). It was so damn simple.

I know now that my life would have at least smelled much better had I quit long ago.

Tonight felt good inside.

Damn those secret prisons we put ourselves into.
We make them so hard to escape.
So brutally hard.

Love is much more powerful than even I imagined. This could change everything.

Here we go.

hss - sos - one19

I can’t stop crying. I’ve never felt this before and I don’t know what to do, how to feel, how to make it through, how to make it all go away. My best friend on this planet has been diagnosed with lung cancer. He can barely talk about it. He’s been whisked away to a land of chemotherapy and sickness. He says to me that he can feel himself "wasting away" and that he cannot eat. We've both been avid marijuana advocates for most of our lives but that ain't the thing. No one is giving him anything for the pain of his sciatic nerve problem though all of this. I thought I had been through a lot in my life already, including my heart attack at 43 when I was sure that I would die. Slipping in and out of human consciousness it was images and thoughts of my children that saved my life and kept me here - for how long I do not know. Now, nothing compares to this agony I feel. This total helplessness and physical pain I feel for my friend.

I know that writing about “my experience” during another person’s time of tragedy may be considered selfish, and I am truly sorry if you feel that way. This process of writing this down as it pours out is allowing me to deal right now at 5:19 am. I’ve been crying since 1:19 am for One19.

There is NO reason, NO justice, NO explanation for this to be happening to him.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm an atheist. Hell, even God knows I am an atheist, but dear Lord, if you exist and, if you must, please afflict me with this cancer and not him. He’s done nothing to deserve this. His only daughter is still very young. My four kids are grown. I have had adventures while he has not. Take me in place of him I beg of you. Do this to somebody else, please.

It is now 10 o'clock in the morning and I feel as though I have been crying all night long - throughout my sleep. I must go see him today. I know that I'll need to "be strong" for him and try to play the part of a true friend and concentrate on shaking him out of his funk long enough to see some reasons to fight this. If he allows the cancer to rule he will most surely slip away from us all, and I for one, am not ready for that, nor will I ever be.

Somebody help, please. What can I do? I love this person and do not want them to suffer or leave... or hurt anymore.

.. work in progress

OK, this stuff just came spilling out of my head tonight so I wrote it down.
Sorry if it's bad.
-----------

I've always had a talent of masquerading my exasperation.
After struggle upon struggle, I took a long vacation.

Magically transforming into more than a couple of years,
the nights and days and days and nights released a flood of tears.

I'm aware the end is coming, hopefully not quite yet.
I want to recognize what I'm missing and start to start the "get".
None of it will be easy, most of it will hurt,
but doing nothing at all will surely cover me with dirt.

Living for the moments and relishing in sins of flesh,
My quest for wisdom strengthened. My will to live refreshed.

Having “scratched all these itches,” turning each and every stone.
I will honestly shout, as I make my way towards "home,"
"Come marvel at what 'normal' is and maybe, with a grin,
you'll come to the conclusion that obstacles are mainly within."

With a resonable faxcimile of my fate having now been set
I feel I can turn the page with only one 'small' bit of regret.

Some June thoughts...

I think, as we grow older, we all get deeper and stronger and more knowledgeable of ourselves, and better at what we do. We also become harder on ourselves when it comes to accounting for the dreams we've reached for, and those we have not. That hardness on ourselves manifests in many different ways and can lead to an isolationism of sorts if we let it control how we feel and act. Forgiveness comes wrapped for individual use too you know. I can think of a few friends from various times ago who, I'm afraid, have taken things too hard and are thereby extremely reluctant to come out of the shell/hole they're in. Our lives come in chapters and if we're smart, we set things up for the new chapter to be better than the one we leave behind. Sure we'd all shine if tomorrow's hindsight were available to us today.

I close my eyes for a while

I close my eyes for a while and whaddya know!? - a year has passed and I'm still in the past. "We gotta get out of this place. If it's the last thing we ever do."

So much pain, so many hardships - and that's just what I'm looking at. I'm lucky only a minimal portion is mine, all mine. My daughters' wings get stronger by the minute. My sons' restlessness starting to show. Ahh but if only I were able to help them all go.
All they need is a little dough.

Cancer casts shadows over friends and their lives. Loneliness and heartache ain't nothin' to bitch about. Shut my mouth, think about south...

..to be continued.