Faint Damnation

After flailing around last week for over an hour trying to synch Netflix with my antiquated Mac, I finally caved and downloaded a movie from iTunes.

Screw all the interesting choices that could've been, I thought, let's just go Hollywood and cocoon myself in mind-numbingly mainstream cinema.

I then downloaded "Constantine" with Keanu Reeves.

(pause)

What's that you say? Pay money to watch Keanu act? I know, I know. But in truth...

I liked it.

Yeah, yeah, I know what my father's going to say, and no, Dad, there aren't any pods in my basement, the moonies haven't gotten me and I haven't drunk any kool-aid. Okay?

True, Keanu's style is generally stilted - with flat, affected line delivery and physical movement better suited to a cardboard cutout (I don't think his head turns, for instance, independent of his shoulders) however... in the case of a comic book adaptation?

Flame On!*

Or should I say, "ex-cellent!"?

Left handed compliment? Maybe so.

But as my very own father has been known to say "less is more;" and while Keanu's skill set may be lacking... there are times when it simply plays.

Uh, "Point Break" for instance. And maybe you've heard of a little move called... "The Matrix"?

'Course he doesn't get many lines in the latter, but he sure can bend a spoon! Meanwhile...

And yeah, it's true I purchased this movie and have now watched it 32 times in a row - can quote it in my sleep - and have attained enlightenment in regards to all things Keanu... Keanu... Keanu...

What? Hunh!?

It's as if I've awakened from some horrible nightmare only to remember that...

Oh, yeah.

"Constantine" with Keanu Reeves.

See it.

(pause)

Unless you're my dad.

Then not.

*And no, this is not a gay reference**, it's from the Fantastic Four. "Flame On!" is the command Johnny Storm would use to transform into the Human Torch. Duh.
**On the other hand they did all wear powder-blue spandex and were consistently "fantastic!" Hmmm.

Untended

Thoughts like fallen leaves,

dried up and skittering
over concrete and slumbering brown earth,

crackling
with chitinous distinction
under foot,

amassing
into great whooshing piles,
stirred by winds and ardent striding

(deeper meanings
hinted at within
insistent susurrus),

accumulate
round tree trunks
and then,

untended,
trodden,
and rained upon,
become

a glistening wet chrysalis?

-Or-

wet brown sludge
to be scraped off the lawn
like excrement from the bottom of shoe.

You decide.

Satori Memo

Listening to Fat Boy's Gangsta Trippin'* as I write - a classic groove that puts some pep into this old man's step on a rain sodden day such as this.

Did I say old man? Well...

Chronologically speaking, I'm 44, which has it's own connotations, depending on who you are and where you've been.

But the underlying truth is:

I am neither old nor young, but, like everything else under the sun and stars, my little bits swept apart and continually re-shaped by the ethereal and howling winds, am timeless.**

My knees, on the other hand? Did not get the memo.

And a crackily crunch to you Mr. Knees! Is that a good morning I hear?

*Have also been dipping into the blues again lately, including Mr. Mississippi Fred MacDowell, "I do not play no rock and roll" and John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom" and "One Bourbon, One Scotch, etc." And if you haven't heard the last, done as an ode to recovery, you really should. Highly entertaining.
**All disclaimers by my curmudgeonly progenitor aside!

On the Fade

I feel as if I'm running out of second chances.

As if all my choices have led up to this moment and there’s no going back.

Remember that scene in “No Country for Old Men” when Javier Bardem flips a coin to decide the fate of his victim?

He says something like that, how the coin is only the instrument of - not chance - but fate, of inevitability. How previous choices have led to that moment, as surely as a mathematical equation produces its answer.

This may sound cryptic or even cynical, but there is an upside.

If I am running out of time, out of choices, what moment could be more important than

this?

Brunch

Went to L.A. last weekend to hang with my buddy, TLR.
He took this of himself, and though it is somewhat bizarre and ripe for comment, for now I think I'll just let the old adage speak for itself...

A picture is truly worth a thousand words.

A more polished version of my aforementioned friend.

Must be the hat.

Blackberry Phone Pic

Taken with my little Fuji Z7, using $5 sunglasses as filter, this was shot in Puerto Penasco not far from the beach.

This is a friend, and I initially shied away from posting this pic with it's somewhat bleary, brutish qualities; however there's a certain painterly feel (Francis Bacon , perhaps?) that while disturbing, draws the eye.

It's one of those I keep re-visiting, wanting to re-touch and crop, drawing out certain elements, but in the end, like most of my pics, seems best to present unedited.

Witness

through
dirt-speckled panes
a robin's egg
pale blue
sky

- criss-crossed by clouds,
diagonal
and Dali-esque -

while street lights
flicker
luminescent,

and
wink out
one by one,

acquiescing
to the growing light.

It's morning
-and-
I am awake once again.

As the light fades

I went back in time this a.m., pouring through this blog to find an old poem.

Didn't find it at first, then got distracted looking at old pictures, and snippets of articles past.

Made my heart swell a bit, to see who I was, who we were, and I write this out of... what exactly, I don't know.

Longing, perhaps? For a different place and time.

(beat)

I wrestle each day, with acceptance of who I am, while at the same time, trying to be a better person.

I fail and I succeed, advance and recede, like the tide.

And my heart swells.

I am reminded of a line from Shawshank Redemption, which sounds trite, but there are some gems there.

The one I'm thinking of now is spoken by Morgan Freeman after Tim Robbins escapes. He talks about the grayness of life, after his friend has left.

Am I so different from then?

Yes and no.

The thrill of sharpened knives - thrown into the air and falling like rain, only to be caught and hurled up again - no longer hold the appeal they once did.

(beat)

And yet.

And yet, and yet, and yet.

The glint and glitter of knives dancing on air, my eyes a-gleam, lips curled up, and blood surging forward;

I will not forget,

Even as the light fades...

(exhalation)

Rocky Point

Bridge over Trouble Waters

Yep. You guessed it. Bridge again.

Rio Salado.

The Bridges of Maricopa County

In apparent continuation of the "bridges" series.
McClintock & the 202.

Under the Bridge

16th Street & Buck Eye
Not brilliant but...

Film Bar

This is my friend, Punker Rob, and we are hanging at Film Bar in Downtown Phoenix.

You can't tell from this picture so much,* but he's got this goofy, rambling charm that reminds me most of Mike Meyers in "The Spy Who Shagged Me," with a big, toothy grin and seemingly random segues that eventually weave back into the topic at hand.

Rob doesn't know about the "punker" tag, incidentally, but them's his roots and I had to add something to discern between he and Australian Rob*, when talking to others.

But this isn't about him.

It's about Film Bar and "Dirty Minds," which I most recently saw there.

On the other hand, it's now 6 a.m. and I have to trot off to work quite soon, so maybe it's about Punker Rob after all.

Time will tell.

*Rob's going thru a tough time with his soon-to-be ex, and well, you know how that is...
**The dread-locked Aussie head-bartender at Carly's, known for his working man's, seemingly indifferent manner - brusque and friendly at the same time.

Man vs. Cactus

We went riding into the desert as dusk fell, myself and three others.

It was to be a perfect evening for mountain biking - low 80's and breezy - with well maintained trails, and an experienced veteran, Tim, along to point out things like gearing ratios, weight distribution, following your line and such.

I'd borrowed his wife's extra bike, and after a couple of spins around the parking lot to get my bearings, we hit the trails.

I should mention, I own a bike and ride fairly often, but what I own is essentially a stripped down ten-speed - thin tires, heavy tubular frame, and handle bars like ram's horns pointing down - and its primary use is to navigate between coffee houses, bars, theaters, and galleries throughout the downtown area.

Typically, the most perilous obstacles to such meanderings are the occasional drunk, patch of rough-hewn asphalt, or vacuous vehicular operator - all fairly easily avoided.

Traffic lights abound, after all, and I hardly ever run into any of those.

(pause)

Enter... the Cactus.

The thing about mountain bike riding in Arizona - there's a fair amount of cactus. There's the iconic, some would say, majestic Saguaro. There's the almost equally well known prickly pear, indigenous to more northern climes. And then there's the Staghorn Cholla.

Myself, I've never found Cholla all that visually appealing, or even noticeable, really - just a part of the landscape, something that receded into the background.

They're sort of thorny and dirty, and tend to attract a fair amount of debris, looking most like a mound of something you'd rake up from hell's own backyard (spines, thistles, brambles and thorns being primary components, with maybe a little dirt and leafy bits thrown in for good measure).

Did I mention my rash?

Well okay, it's not really a rash. Just looks like one. A little raised red bump for each point of introduction with my new friend:

So... about 5 minutes away from returning to the car, I was riding point when Tim called out to take the right line on the drop into an upcoming wash. Which sounded sufficiently daunting that I turned my head away from the path and called back to him to come around.

Then I turned back.

Say hello to my little friend.
(more later...)

Music

It's 4:40 in the a.m. and I've gotten up early to work out.*

The alarm went off at 4:15 and though I turned it off and dozed for a few minutes, I managed to swim up from the depths a few minutes later when a deep, thumping rhythm woke me up.

But what had filtered through my subconscious as the rumblings of a bass-thumping low rider, sliding slow and sinister by, was actually the click and clack of a distant train.

So yeah, I've been sleeping with the windows open , which can get noisy in the evenings, with the ebb and flow of baseball fans parking on the street below or the meanderings of the Job Corp peeps from next door, but the mornings, most recently:

A cool breeze creeps in with the morning light (blue-gray at first, then growing luminescent) as the birds rise, lyrically chirping. They are accompanied briefly by a drunk, warbling in the distance (think Eddy Murphy singing "Roxanne" in 24 hours) but I'm awake and it only adds to the ambiance, so what the hell.

This morning -apparently- it's all about the music.

*And now I've missed my opportunity to work out while waxing poetic. Eh. I'm doing a bike ride tonight and frankly, Gold's Gym, though conveniently close, is starting to wear a little thin. More on this later...

Day 1

I recently started a book called "Vows and Observances", a collection of writings from Mahatma Gandhi.

The body of work is about what you'd expect - do unto others, etc. - but the foreword, written by his grandson, Arun, caught my attention.

It speaks of the importance of vows in Hindu culture and recalls two examples from the Gandhi family, one humorous, the other, less so:

1. Arun, as a child, had boasted to his fasting sister he could live on nothing but bananas and milk, which, when overheard by his parents, became his vow.

2. Mohatma's mother, on the other hand, had vowed to eat only when the moon shone. This was during the Monsoons, when clouds dominated, and the whole family grew more and more concerned, keeping urgent watch on the night sky to allow her to eat.

Why that particular vow?

Really, I have no absolutely no idea, and what's more, I don't think it matters.

The keeping of the vow - the promise made to one's self - that's the crux of it and that's what sparked my imagination.

And so, in keeping with that sacred tradition, I've decided to make a vow of my own.

(pause)

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.*

*So yeah, it's not Ahimsa! : )**
**Ahimsa - The practice of non-injury in thought, word and deed to other living beings.