Conversation Over Sunday Breakfast

Me: I think Peter Cetera made a big mistake when he left Chicago. I mean what - he had a couple duets and the theme from the Karate Kid?

Kevin: Hey the Karate Kid is a classic! I bet he made a lot of money off that song.

Me: We’re talking about the song not the movie. Do you ever here that song on the radio today? No. And Karate Kid two??? SO not a classic.

Kevin: Well it’s not THAT terrible. (This is where I try desperately to keep the coffee from coming up my nose.)

Me: Did the chick that Mr. Miagi loves in part 2 leave Okinawa and come back with them?

Kevin: No

Me: Why is it the movies end with them getting the girl, but then at the start of the sequel they’ve broken up?

Kevin: Well in 2 Ralph broke up with the girl…

Me: No no no Elizabeth shoe dumped his ass.

Kevin: Yeah but only because he wouldn’t put out.

Me: You’re telling me Elizabeth Shoe dumped Daniel because he wouldn’t have sex with her?

Kevin: Yeah. But in part 2 it was the other way around. See, Daniel wanted to get some but the oriental girl was all good.

Me: Asian. People are Asian – things are Oriental.

Kevin: Whatever. They didn’t start getting bad tough until Karate Kid 4. Three was ok.

Me: With Hillary Swank?

Kevin: No Ralph Machio.

Me: There’s no Karate Kid 3 with Ralph Machio.

Kevin: Yes there is - Ralph Machio and Mr. Miagi try to open their own dojo but the punk with the spiky hair messes it all up. You know the spiky haired guy – what’s his name? Eric….Eric Barnes*. Daniel tries to crane kick him but he catches his foot. That one’s not as bad as 4.

Me: So part 4 is the one with Hillary Swank.

Kevin: Yeah – she’s not hot yet. And the karate isn’t even that good.


*The rival fighter character in KK3 was named Mike Barnes, not Eric.

Future Self Redux

A most bizarre event.
The reading, the meeting
The gaze from across a lattice work
Of metal and fire.
Does she know what I see in her eyes?
Her voice inflicted with inflection
I can’t discern
But it sounds like whiskey tastes.
And she wouldn’t cough
If she didn’t smoke like I do --
Professing, proclaiming it social nuisance
As she lights the fresh one
In her red-tinged-blue lips
With the butt of the one she hasn’t
Yet finished.
Does she know what I sense in her gaze?
Dark swimming orbs
Surrounded by shadow that’s almost not there
Above, finely arched brows.
Below, a smear of lipstick
Smudged in the divot of her cupids’ bow.
Do I do that with my water, too?
As she grips my hand
In a too-soon fare-well,
Her salutation more sincere than imagined,
She gets one last good look
And sees --
Within her smoke-whiskey eyes
What I see
Is me

Reading Cate

Listen to your story

..........Do each other’s hair
..........Have a drink or ten
..........Dance and laugh
..........Borrow your make-up
..........Giggle at nothing

May I tell you mine?

..........Till 4 A.M.
..........Show you the town I don’t know
..........Be your midnight confidant
..........Smoke more cigarettes than you
..........Here, have a brownie

We needn’t have bothered

..........Do each other’s nails
..........Yours are chipping
..........Mine would be too, were they painted
..........Is your hair that carelessly pinned on purpose,
..........or haphazardly lovely?

For they reflect and refract an image

..........Open your book
..........Swim inside,
..........read through the wake
..........of your Ink-stained typhoon
..........And share the audience burden

Equal to that before the glass

..........Have a drink or a hundred
..........Feed from the town that brought you
..........I’ll wear that lovely hair
..........When I be you,
..........in a year or ten,
..........And I’m inside your skin.

Friend like mirror,
be patient.

Cali 1, technology...

Ok so technology will always one(hundred)-up me, BUT I did finally figure out how to embed a video into my posts and will no longer need to add those silly "click to play" captions. Jolly smashing!

So for my very first embedded video, I'd like to share my favorite on YouTube. It has everything - drama, tragedy, laughter, pain, triumph, and forgiveness. And two adorable british boys.



Oh yes I am genious!

Language, Poetry, Art and the F-bomb

I started this blog…well for lots of reasons but mostly to break away from fear, out of myself and past the block I’ve been rutting in for oh…about 3 years. I have all these poems and snippets (things I haven’t looked at in years if I’m honest) and thought I’d start there – revisit my writing past, see if I can’t trigger some cogs into motion. But when I read them and think of posting them…I can’t distance the words from the girl who wrote them enough to be objective. I remember where I was then, and it’s SO FAR from where I am now. But I know, too, that being an artist means putting it all out there, even the ugly. I know that despite our differences, that girl did what I am struggling to do - put it all out on the page, especially the ugly, so that whatever power it held could be transformed into something else....something that might just touch a cord with someone, something that could possibly resonate on a different scale, something that would mean more than a singular moment in a single day of one ordinary person's life. She knew that if you write something that doesn’t come from a place of truth, your reader will know it, you will know it, and yet…here I am agonizing over the last poem I posted. Why? Because it uses a certain word some people might find offensive.

Oi vey.

When I wrote Act... I found that specific word to be the most appropriate expression befitting the poem, line and momentum…I still do. Read aloud, there’s no mistaking that word is there for a reason, and everything that word carries with it is intentional. The explosion of the hard consonants after the push of breath between teeth and lip – there’s no getting around that sound. So why am I wringing my mental hands over a four letter word that might offend someone who reads my blog?

“I think there’s something missing in an actor’s persona, or maybe mind, about censoring out certain emotions. They are “overreceptive” …People who are tremendously good at closing out the troublesome tend not to be brilliant performers.” Michael Boyd from Mind, Memory, and the Actor a public discussion held at New York’s Columbia University.*

I think what Mr. Boyd speaks to here applies to all artists and art forms. I think it’s a crucial, integral part of creativity, and that same “overreceptivity,” I believe, is what compels an artist to create in the first place. And it is fear (another four-letter-word beginning with F) the stunts that creation, or keeps it in hiding. Do I really want others to see the world as I perceive it? Maybe. Do I really want to show the world my vulnerabilities? Mostly (like 99% mostly) no. Do I have to bear my every tender feeling, bruised heart, or wrenching sob story for the world to see? No, I don’t HAVE to.

That being said…I will. While I may not give away every naked detail, I will at times allow (or force as the case may be) myself to pour out whatever prompted the work in the first place, warts and all. Because I must never allow the feared reaction of others to affect my pen, I can never allow my own trepidation to make my voice stutter, I cannot hesitate to embrace the embarrassing and painful as I reach for the wondrous and joyful. MUST I be completely honest with my subject, and myself, and my work if I’m to be even remotely satisfied with any artistic endeavor I embark upon?

Without a doubt.

So prepare yourselves.


*Thanx for the article Eric .

Blogging is hard...

Well, maybe not so much the actual blogging as the blogging every day part, and so I don't. Blog every day that is...though I want to....and know I should...but I don't always seem to be able to carve out the time to do so. Or the time I have carved out to do so is interupted by cats, or rehearsals, or slick infomercials (those walk-fits I ordered better be damned good), or the crack-of-literature-that-is-the-Twilight-series, or boys who have to use the computer to play games....you see where this is going. And then there's the never-ending question: What to write?

Conundrum! Any excuse at all to use the word conundrum.

So today, in keeping with the upcoming holiday, I will post about things for which I am greatful.*

Borrowed Grandparents + family of significant other (especially that sweet baby - I may have to get one of my own someday)

Realizing there is SO much music out there that I have yet to sample and that I DO, in fact, like indy, folk, country(ish), choral, anything-with-an-accordian-except-polka (thank you Emelie sound track), rockabily, fill-in-obscure-genre-here music AND discovering new-to-me musicians that I love love LOVE! (such as She & Him, DeVotchka, First Aid Kit - the Sweedish sisters, not the electronica group from the 90's) and that I don't have to be a slave to free radio's current rotation of crap (yeah!)

The color pink. And green. And tangerine.

My cats - I promise not to be that crazy-talks-about-her-cats-all-the-time girl (though I am feeling an ode to felines post coming soon) BUT - I love them.

Surprise outings with old friends (yeah Carrie!) and being reminded yet again how very blessed I am to know such amazing, wonderful, talented people, and to be able to call them friends.

My Kevin, who's smile still brightens my day more than any sun ever could.

This blog, where I get to say stuff I might otherwise not, or forget, or write but never share. I shall no longer neglect you blog, but use you with new vigor...next week...after my wee trip for the holidays. I swear.

*Confidential to Hawking - notice I used "for which I am greatful" and did not write "am greatful for" thus avoiding the "ending a sentence with a preposition" grammar trap. I do promise to work on the spelling!

You might be better off with a chop stick...

If you don't know the spongmonkeys, you should.

Click to watch

Go - know them, love them, laugh till you cry.