The Daily {W}rite August 2018 wk o4

I'm taking an hour or more to just shut down the TV, headphone into my Spotify list (playing the Baby Driver soundtrack right . . . ). You know? I just turned off Baby Driver. No distractions as I write this entry. Nothing but the ambient sounds from the outside, the beelike sputter of a small motorcycle speeding by, the hissing sound of car tires on hot asphalt . . . that sound, that constant sound that the Physical Management building makes . . . the gurgle of a Cessna flying towards the Norman-town airport.  Those little things, noises inside my apartment: Some one just slammed a door shut. She (or he) is stomping down the stairs . . . and then there's that buzzing sound inside my ears, inside my head. Saw a doctor about it . . . basically? Yeah, nothing to be done about it. It's a part of me in my "old age." Better to just get use to it, welcome it like the other "natural" sounds my body makes . . . breathing, my heart beating. 

4:39pm

Easy to realize that you're not living in the moment, the real moments that pass so fast you can't tell where one moment begins or ends. I've probably gone through at least a billion moments since I started this portion of today's blog entry. Okay, I may be exaggerating. It's probably on been a few moments not a billion. It's hard to tell. For the Greeks, a moment was 2.5 seconds in duration.  As an actor I measure a moment by stage time. "playing the moment" is a term we throw around in the thespian culture. So, two actors on stage engage in a scripted conversation, each actor having an objective that is related in some way or other to the response of the other actor. A moment ends whenever the objective is won, or lost or put on hold by one of the two characters. But for some acting coaches even that is too long a time. For others, a moment is one response from whichever actor is speaking at the time:
Actor 1 says a line, 
end of moment. 
Actor 2 takes in what Actor 1 said
and then responds with his/her line, 
end of moment. 
Confusing? Probably. But it is a very useful equation for an actor . . . but for  real human beings in real life? Well, before we can answer that question we have to define "real life", and to tell you the truth, right now, I'm not willing to waste the moments it would take to define "real life. " So, why don't we define a moment as whatever length of time it takes to think a moment. {smiles}

10:12pm

John McCain died today. He went off the cancer treatments last night and died today. I almost voted for him for POTUS. Almost. He was the strongest advocate for veteran's rights. Often enough, when his party was on the wrong track, John McCain was the only Republican to stand against them. His own part. He was labeled a maverick and there were times when he was exactly that.  Trump Hated him. Today "That Guy in the White House" tweeted a few mousy words about McCain's death . . . but he didn't mean I thing he said. 

Monday, August 27, 2o18

I love a parade! We all do, don't we? The 4th of July parade with its marching veterans, the beautiful prom queens with dazzling  bright white smiles, and then there's the politicians . . . they too in shinny new convertibles or replicas of old cars from the '30s/'40s . . . those go old days when white was right and straight was great! And yesterday, in Norman town, we had a parade! The Norman PRIDE Parade . . . and yes, it was just like any parade in any city or town across the nation. And there were vets marching, and beautiful girls waving, and politicians . . . and the LGBTQ community. In fact it was a parade that focused on theLGBTQ community, the celebration there of . . . but not solely that. It was a celebration of diversity within the American culture. A celebration of our humanity, love for each other, of love for the sake of love without borders, mental or physical borders that have always kept America ununified. Yes, what a beautiful day it was. And I hope it continues.  {BIG smile}

TUEsday, August 28, 2o18
Already everyone on Facebook is anticipating Halloween! If you know me, you know that yes, it is MY favorite holiday. Even though we are more than a month away from Halloween, I thought I'd share a Halloween poem I wrote a few years back.

I love Halloween!

The sun is finally going down

the moon dressed in her starry gown

the season’s here for children’s glee

tonight’s the night of Halloween.

Monsters dark and nasty ghouls

will fill the haunted night with boos

and candy apples tart and sweet

will fill our bags on Halloween.

I’ll dress myself as Spider-Man

then door to door and hand in hand

with little sister Sara Lee

I’ll beg for candy on Halloween.

I hope I do not see a ghost

I think they frighten me the most

the pumpkin’s carved he looks so mean

Sometimes it’s scary on Halloween.

Mother quick no time to waste

the witches’ brewed us treats to taste

my friends are dancing down the street

MOM, Hurry up! Come on!

It’s Halloween!

Woodie 9-26-09 (rewrites 1o-25-13)

WEDNesday, August 29, 2o18

Went out to vote yesterday. Never much of a voter as young . . . er man. Did vote for Jesse Jackson in the primaries once when I was living in Hollywood. When got back to Norman-town in the very late 80s, when election year came around I voted for Clinton for POTUS. Other than that, I never voted. But when got older, in my sixties, I started to take more interest in politics. His second time around I voted for Obama. Been pretty active since then, I mean, I vote now on a regular basis, local and national elections. 

4:56pm
The last few days I've felt a bit lethargic. Hard time keeping my energy up. Been depressed, also. I don't know if my not feeling well is triggering my depression or my depression is triggering my tiredness. Either way, I've been fighting off my usual depression. Well, fighting off isn't quite right. Trying muscle my depression out of myself doesn't quite work. I mean, Lady Macbeth tried to cure her depression and guilt over the murder of King Duncan . . . that didn't work out too well for her. There's no "out, out, damn spot!" cure when it comes to depression.

But I don't want to go on some kind of happy drug. MY depression may well be a psychological/physical response to my subconscious, my dream state (which is made up of a bunch of memories that still haunt me) that to often I find myself drowning in. See, that's the problem, I think. I keep trying to make myself well by trying to get rid of all that emotional, that baggage my thoughts have bought into. It can't be done. You can't just say "GO AWAY, BAD, BAD THOUGHTS!" It doesn't work. But what might work is accepting my "craziness" as a part of me, a wonderful part of me, know it's there and use it to keep me sane. Yeah, I see all the psych majors I nodding knowingly, "Yeah, that'll work. You just do that." We I hate squat on their PhDs, but I think I'm in a good place with changing myself without changing the essence of that which I call my . . .  self. 


THURsday, August 3o, 2o18

I've been sick all last night and into the early morning. So uncomfortable in my skin I couldn't sleep more than an hour. That's tight. One hour of sleep and there I am up and about. My mind was sharp, like it got 8 hrs. sleep . . . but my body. Man, so worn out, tread bare, if you could get a ticket for walking around the apartment while intoxicated, I'd have been pulled over before I could make it to the bathroom to puke up a dream I was having in that tiny hour of sleep I had awaken from. No, I really wasn't drunk. But my equilibrium was all messed up. I kept bouncing into walls, my bike, door jams . . . it was like I was some kind of flesh covered pinball. And dizzy. Sitting in front of the computer, my eyes blurring and my head hosted a school of piranha that ate through my brain matter all the way to the shores of my fragile skull. I was a mess.  

10:21pm

Just about the end of the month which means we are just that much closer to Halloween . . . On Saturday Norman-town has its first game (football) of the season. Man, it seems to early for that. I like to get out on game day and shoot the crowd. Lots of people on game day and my camera loves it. I may post a few on here during the year. I love game days. Here's a sample from last year.

FRIday, August 31, 2o18
I like months that end with 31 days. It just feels right. 31 days. Yes, I know we say as a general rule that a month is 30 days long . . . nice round number, heavy, well-fed number. But the mind says, NO! 31 is the perfect number. The brain is strange. It will think whatever it wishes to think without reasoning gumming up the works. See you next month. {smiles}

The Daily {W}rite August 16, 2018 wk o3

Muscle Shoals Blues

LUTHER, Oklahoma—

A fourteen-year-old girl
stabbed multiple times
by a fourteen-year-old boy.
The girl was flown to

OU Medical Center
via medical helicopter.

The boy was taken

into custody by
local police authorities.

In other news—

Aretha Franklin died today.

Woodie o8.16.18

The newscaster woke me up to the news: Aretha Franklin has died this morning. The coffee I brewed right before I went to bed was still warm. I got a cup of it and listened to the details: She had succumbed   to her ongoing battle with pancreatic cancer, friends and relatives where with her when she died . . . 

La Puente, CA, 1967

I was what, still eighteen years old? Hadn't yet gone into the Marine Corps but I was close. Anyway, driving around La Puente by myself, saying good-bye to friends because in about a week later or so I'd be at MCRD San Diego going through boot camp. Anyway, riding along and this song comes on the radio, driving baseline, just cooler than shit. So, I pulled over into a Target parking lot, turned up the radio loud and listened to the most soulful voice I had ever heard:

You're a no-good heart breaker
You're a liar and you're a cheat

And I don't know why

I let you do these things to me

My friends keep telling me

That you ain't no good

But oh, they don't know

That I'd leave you if I could

I guess I'm uptight

And I'm stuck like glue

Cause I ain't never I ain't never,

I ain't never, no, no (loved a man)

(The way that I, I love you)

And that was my introduction to Aretha Franklin. 

FRIday, August 17, 2o18 1:47am 

I'm having a bit of a problem with the air-conditioner during this slow transfer from summer to autumn. I have it on at night but it gets too cold when I'm dressed (or undressed) and ready to sleep. So, I turn it off. But then after a few minutes it's way too warm and I must turn it back on again! I hate the seasonal transitions. Why can't summer be summer and then when it's autumn let it happen all at once. More colds are caused by the fickle nature of the seasons. 

4:15pm
Guess what? I got out for an hour or so on the bike! Yes, I know! Hoorah for me! But I didn't get far. The heat was really beating down on me hard. So, I stopped by the Greek House to have lunch. You know the Greek House. Great gyros samwiches! And a delicious yogurt sauce instead of mayo or mustard. Mmm.

I started to get off the bike at the Greek House and my left foot got stuck in the stirrup. My weight coming off the bike slammed me into a lamppost pretty hard. THUD! But fortunately, nothing got broken. Some guy in the Greek House saw me take a tumble. He was laughing and pointing out the window at me, telling all his friends to "Look! Look at the dummy who fell off his bike. Dumb fuck." Actually, I made up the dialogue. But he did look, laugh and point.

11:15pm

So, off to the dream factory pretty soon. Need to get up relatively early and bike down to Speeding Bullet Comics and  pick up a book from an author I met at SoonerCon. I meant to buy a copy of Freaks while I was at SoonerCon . . . but I'm old and I get tired pretty fast and I just wanted to go home . . . I forgot about the book. Anyway, the author J. O. Young will be signing copies of her book at the Bullet and I promised myself I'd get down the and pick up  a copy.

SATurday, August 18, 2o18
Got out for a few hours. Rode the bike down to Speeding Bullet to pick up a copy of the first book in the Freaks series. And it pretty much wrecked me. Damn. So hot outside. My lungs were on fire by the time I got there, and  I didn't have all that far to go. It was only about 1.6 miles . . . my legs ached, my back ached, My neck! What pain. Okay, I got two choices here. Either I just except that this body is just to old and worn-out to ride my bike anymore . . . or . . . I bite the bullet and just ride! Slow at first, not too far, maybe. Get my body back to a point where it's strong enough to ride my bicycle.

SUNday, August 19, 2o18

Well, meant to go out on the bike and buy a few groceries . . . but it rained most of the day, and when it finely stopped and the sun came out . . . I wasn't in the mood to go out. So, tomorrow for sure. No, really. I gotta get bread, apples and bananas. MUST have bananas to keep my hands and feet from cramping up.

I have a bad habit of saying things on Facebook that make people mad at me. One guy got mad when I commented "Legs, wings  . . . . I don't care as long as it's Popeye's." Well, me friend Lee ( a friend in my real past-life) commented back, "Dude, what's wrong with you. You're disrespecting the Queen of Soul! You need to delete this!" I found out that the post was meant to pay "respect" to Aretha Franklin. "Do you want a wing or a thigh?" It was Aretha's line in the movie The Blues Brothers. I didn't know it was a line from that movie. And I'm not sure anyway how saying what I said was "disrespecting" the Queen. So, I got pissed, deleted the comment and unfriended my real life friend.

MONday, August 2o, 2o18

5:46pm
I don't like writing so early in the afternoon. I don't know why but I feel more inspired to create something late, LATE at night . . . sometime after midnight and into the early morning. I pretty much stop at 6am and go to sleep or pass out. Yeah, I don't fall asleep like a new born baby does. I slam into the dreamland atmosphere like a HALO jumper.

WEDnesday, August 22, 2o18
Well, finishing this week's blog a bit late. My friend got back from his reunion in Berkley the day before yesterday. So, yesterday and today we sort of hung out a bit. I don't have much to say to end this wee. Maybe I don't need to say much. Hope that what I have written is somehow worth the time it takes you to read it. {smiles}

The Daily {W}rite August 2018 wk o2

Sometimes you have to shake hands with the monster. Unnerving? A bit. A tiny bit because you're never quite sure how he will react to your open hand moving towards him. I mean, He is a monster after all. I mean, I was told that, mother and father always told that that in the  rhyme my parents and I  uttered every night as we knelt beside my bed:

Now I lay me down to sleep / I pray the Lord my soul to keep / If I should die before I 'wake / I pray the Lord my soul to take . . . Amen.

Mom would tuck me in, and secretly whisper in my ear a final warning, "Be wary of him . . . of it. That thing that exists inside your head." The thing inside my head. Not in the closet or under the bed, not hiding beneath the neatly folded socks in my underwear drawer . . . but inside myself.

THURsday, August o9, 2o18
Today . . . It snuck up on me while I slept. I don't like that. I've suspicious of the sun. I mean, what is doing when I'm asleep? Plotting is my guess. The sun is the perfect politician . . . always smiling at you while all the time killing you with its radiation, turning human skin to leather.  A murderous fiend that we worship.

 "The America we know and love doesn't exist anymore. Massive demographic changes have been foisted on the American people, and they are changes that none of us ever voted for, and most of us don't like ... this is related to both illegal and legal immigration." 

Laura Ingraham (Fox News)

Sunday, August 12, 2o18

MSNBC had the quote above plastered across the TV screen. When I woke up, this was the first thing I saw BEFORE coffee! "The America we know and love doesn't exist anymore." Weeeeeeeeeeell, yeah, it still exists. We still have racism, gender bias, homophobia, anti-immigration . . . THAT really hasn't change. As my friend, David Slemmons, keeps pointing out to me, The Constitution to the United States was written by landowning "White Men" and the Bill of Rights was written for them and no one else." Okay, I buy into that. Yes, written by "White Men" FOR "White Men." BUT  it no longer refers to only the "White Man", it applies to ALL American citizens. And that's what's bothering Ingraham. The "White Man" is losing his power over other American citizens and he don't like that one bit.

Note: I didn't get much written this last wk., but I plan to try harder in the coming weeks. :)

The Daily {W}rite August 2018 wk o1

WHEN YOUR EYES engage those of another person,

great him or her with a smile and they will smile back.

this is one of the essential techniques of

the ART of PEACE. -Morihei Ueshiba

The doctor's office called early Wednesday morning: "Is Robert Woods in?" "This is he." "Can you give me your birthdate?"  "May 23rd . . ."  "That's enough. The biopsy on the growth . . ." "Yes . . .?" "was benign." I still had to go into the office today just to let the doctor look at the wound. I smiled at both of the receptionist, the two I had gotten a bit angry at the last time I was in over being double-billed. They smiled back. Life was back to a more study, gentle flow. But it didn't last for long. I got pissy about the new restaurant that David took me to because they didn't have hamburgers on the menu. I snapped a the waitress a bit. It's hard for me not to get angry with the world when it doesn't turn in the direction I tell it to.

SATurday, August o4, 2o18

I wake up too late. Groggily up and about (well, at least as close to the coffee pot as I can get) after 12pm. Totally honest, it's 5:30pm right now and I feel like I'm just fully awake. Something has to give. I either got to just give up on life and live out what human time I have left or . . . or get out of the house, do something, make something happen for me.

I did get some interesting news today. A poet/publisher friend is doing some kind of story about herself as a publisher, AND she's mentioning me as one of the poets she likes(?). Something like that. I'm going to be mentioned in the same article as renowned poet  Maya Angelou! Maybe this will help get me published. Something I've been putting off forever.

I didn't mention before that David bought me a copy of the movie The Crawling Eye (1958). And you know what? It's just as I remember it when I saw it at this little movie theatre in Victorville, CA. I was 10 years old at the time! That's rare, man. I mean, most of the horror movies that scared me as a kid look pretty stupid when you see them again as an adult. But not the Eye! Still creepy to me. So, I got on a Crawling Eye freak out for the last couple of days . . . and . . . I even wrote a poem about it . . . sort of.

The Crawling Eye (1958)

My eye crawled out of my dreams,

the rest of me followed begrudgingly.

In real life a gnat keeps tapping 

a Morse code message on my left nostril:

-.-- . .--. .--. . . -....- -.- ..  -.-- .- ....  

-- --- - .... . .-. ..-. ..- -.-. -.- . .-. .-.-.-

Cold cup of coffee, a fresh piece 

of nicotine gum,

a small sigh from my opened mouth 

slowly transforms into a Christlike moan . . . 

Does heaven hear me?

Bob Dylan, Slim Pickens and I

and the faceless thing in the corner, he 

waits none too patiently 

for the rest of us to follow him 

out of the grey morning light.

But I'm too lazy to dress my own death,

the rouge, the make up that makes me “Look

just like himself” back when I sucked air.

I couldn’t bear the mourners in their mourning wear,

rivers of digital tears 

that they purchased online:

THEY LOOK ALMOST HUMANLIKE!

And then there’s the fiery furnace . . . 

no, not for me, not at this time. 

I'm too much a slave to this 

air-conditioned existence. 

Besides, I’d look awful in ash,

in a jar, sitting on a shelf, in a closet dark

next to the panties, the  wool socks

of some unknown relative who 

while I lived never called.

Woodie o8-o4-18

SUNday August o5, 2o18

Grabbing at me, the sun. My right shoulder doing its best to ignore the assault of late afternoon light bolting through the gaps between the plastic slats of the window blinds. The air-conditioner behind me, mounted in the second widow if the living room hums a cold metallic tune.  Soon, I'll finish this bit of blog, shut the computer down, make dinner for myself.

It's August. The newborn leaves on the neighbor's giant elm are just beginning their lives. Five months old most of them. They crowd each other; each of them battling to get enough sunlight. Greedy little bastards. But how much more self-serving would they be if they realized that in October they will feel the ending of their existence approaching. They won't know what it is. But they will feel it. That cold that just seems to get colder with every day.

MONday, August o6, 2o18
I'm wondering if I have enough nicotine gum to get through the day. I hope so. I planned to jump on the bus to Walmart this morning and pick up a pack along with some bread and such . . . but I got up too late. So, I got to cut back on the gum I got left until tomorrow. I need to give up this damn addiction to nicotine gum . . . but if I did, would I ever leave the house again?  I need good reasons to force myself out of the house and into the world . . . other reasons than just nicotine gum and food.