Love Over Gold.

 

Thought… Emotion… Action.

You know sometimes I really wonder about us, Humankind I mean, Not just Americans, when you get right down to it, America is still very young on the world stage. No, I mean human beings in general, no matter the geographical location.  See, we’ve been around for a while now, we didn’t get this life thing in the beginning, and we really still don’t get it now. I mean, here we are, supposedly, maybe even arguably, the most intelligent species to ever roam the face of the Earth, and we Don’t GET life. We bicker, we fight, and we argue, as people, as countries, over shit that is really meaningless in the grand scheme of things. 

Think about it, we fight over ground, we fight over oil, we fight over religion. We bicker, we banter, we hold great disdain over anything or anyone who may hold a different opinion other  than our own. We have voices, but we do not communicate, we yell, we shake our fists angrily at the world, but we do not talk. Our Governments, on the world stage, chose to wage war rather than peace, and at the drop of a hat they will place thousands, perhaps millions, of lives in harms way to obtain or defend a piece of land or oil that was never really theirs to begin with. When are we as human beings going to wake up? We don’t OWN the world, it owns us. We don’t control anything, control is an illusion. We have shown an amazing capacity for love, and yet perhaps for no other reason than spite, and rather many choose hate. 

We allow ourselves to be divided, through color and class, always dwelling on how we are so different rather than drawing focus on how we are the same. We all bleed, we all hurt, we all feel pain, and yet there is still room for love. Mother nature, now SHE can be a ruthless bitch, but at least she gets it. And when she’s ready to evict our asses off of this planet, We’re history, plain and simple. No money, No power, no war will save us from her wrath. So while we’re here, right now, maybe the best thing that we can do, for ourselves, is to stop what we’re doing and just think about it.. Feel some real human Emotion. And maybe then we’ll take the best action of all, by simply choosing Love over Gold and Life over Death.

Make love… Not war… Peace my friends…

Scratch.

CDs Of The Stone Age.

 

October 31st 2010.

I don’t know why it is, but sometimes I’ll go for days without writing a word and then other times something will just click in my head, a word or a phase that someone may have said on X or someplace else that I frequent, and it's as if they turned on a faucet. The ideas just start flowing and won’t stop until I make them. Funny how that works, but it happened recently as I was chatting with a friend on X, she mentioned something about her daughter not knowing what a record/record player was, I got this line in my head, and I couldn’t get it out, I knew I had to do something with it, but it wasn’t coming to me. Records: CD’s of the Stone Age. Damn, that was too good not to use on my blog somehow. I tried to write a post around it- several times in fact, nothing worked with it though. It somehow made me picture this older guy, maybe in his late 50s, completely disconnected from modern technology, still has everything stashed somewhere up in the attic. I figure he has two sons in their mid-teens, and probably a daughter maybe a year or two younger than the boys, or maybe she’s in between them in age. He has a decent paying job, is forced to use a computer at work, but really can’t stand it. He fights it every day, won’t buy a cell phone, etc. etc. etc. If it weren’t for his wife and kids, he probably would be totally lost when forced to use any of the modern technology.

He comes in the front door one day after work and stares at his two teenage sons, one is in his recliner, the other is sprawled out on the sofa. Both are wearing these things called ear buds and are plugged into their iPhones. They are both jumping around like a couple of frogs that have been thrown on a lit hot plate. Their eyes are closed, and their heads are bouncing back and forth almost violently. He stares at them for a time with a look in his eyes that has long since crossed over from one born of pity and has bloomed into full-grown disgust. His eldest son opens his eyes, at sits up straight, removing the ear buds and setting the iPhone down on the table at the end of the sofa.

“Hey pop! Got home early, huh?” He says.

He nods slowly, all the while eying the curious contraption suspiciously.

“What the hell is that you're listening to there son?” He asks.

“What? This? This here is an iPhone pop, It plays all of my music.”

He bends down and picks up the device and carefully begins to examine it.

“Music?”

The boy nods.

“How do you fit a CD in this thing?”

Now the other son has removed his ear buds and both boys are giving each other confused looks, the youngest looks up at his father, and then at his brother. Both are now smiling.

“Geez Pop, these are phones, not CD players. Cd’s are a thing of the past, pretty much.” The oldest son says.

He gives them both a cold blank stare. Before looking back down at the device.

“I just bought both you and your sister brand-new CD players. What happened to them?”

The confused looks return on the boys faces.

“Geez Pop, that was 10 years ago.”

“What did you do with the CD’s then?”

“We downloaded them onto our computers hard drive, then put them on iTunes and then synched them onto the iPhones, then the music is stored in the cloud. We put the CD’s away a long time ago, Pop.”

CDs were obsolete now too? All this time he was still trying to figure those out, and now they went ahead and made something new? He is never going to catch up, he thinks to himself. He sets the iPhone back down on the table, and now the confused look is all his. He slowly walks past them but says nothing further, just when he figures out how to use one thing-they go ahead and spring something new on him. It isn’t fair.

He finds himself almost unconsciously heading towards the entrance to the attic, he climbs up into the dark dusty room and locates a chair and begins to mull through some old boxes that he and the wife stashed up there years ago. He finds some boxes filled with old LP’s and when he picks up the Iron Butterfly album it brings a smile to his face.

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Lord, it's been years. He hears a noise that pulls him back to the present and turns to see both of his sons staring at him.

“Whatcha doin Pop?” They both ask.

“Reminiscing.” He tells them.

The boys both appear at his side, looking down in amazement at what he’s holding in his hands.

“Wow, Pop, you still have some old records? That’s kinda cool!” They both say.

He turns in their direction and gives them a surprised look.

“You know what records are?” He asks.

The oldest son smiles proudly.

“Sure, Pop, we were talking about them in history class just the other day. I bet you still have one of them antique record players too, doncha pop?”

“Yeah, there’s one around here somewhere, my old stereo is long gone, but I think your mother put a portable one in that old trunk over there.”

He rises to his feet and walks over to the old trunk and opens it, there are old magazines and several 45’s laying on top, and the smile slowly reappears on his face, as he digs deeper, exposing even more hidden treasures, an old varsity letterman’s sweater causes a memory to resurface. And then there just underneath the sweater he sees the old portable record player and pulls it out of the trunk. The boys both circle around behind him.

“Hey Pop? you don’t suppose that old piece of junk still works, do ya?” The youngest says.

He opens the top and closely inspects it.

“I suppose with a little tinkering I could get it working if it isn’t already.”

The oldest son is now holding the Iron Butterfly album and carefully slides the record out of the jacket and marvels at the shiny black disc as though it were a relic from a dark distant past.

“Just think Pop, these were like the Cd’s of your day, and that was probably YOUR Mp3 player.” The oldest says.

He slouches back down in his chair, suddenly feeling very old. Until he sees the youngest pull a familiar looking cigar box out of the trunk. He stands and hurriedly takes it away from him, almost acting as if he is somehow embarrassed.

He slowly opens the cigar box and looks inside to see some old Zig Zag rolling papers along with a couple of roach clips, and remnants of a half smoked Marijuana cigarette. The boys lean forward and manage a peek. They give each other a look.

“Mmmmmm. Hmmmm. Doobage.” They both say in unison.

He wants to be concerned as to how his sons seem to know exactly what doobage is… But somewhere deep inside, he is secretly relived to know that at least there are some things haven’t and may never change.

~Scratch.. A.B.T. Copyright © 2010~

Aliens, Bigfoot and Atlantis... With a little bit of Elvis Thrown in.

I just love all the conspiracy nuts on the Internet these days. They seem to think that everything, (and I do mean EVERYTHING) is either a multi layered cover up, or an out-and-out full-blown governmental conspiracy. Granted, there is more than likely SOME shit out there that the government definitely has its hands in, but these nitwits blame everything on the government. Can’t find Bigfoot? Must be a governmental conspiracy. Space aliens kidnapped your dog back in 1963? The government must have covered it up. Can’t find new evidence at Roswell? the government covered it up- (And Bigfoot helped them) the world is all one big conspiracy, wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in an enigma. 

For the money space aliens seems to be the biggest governmental cover up of all, from Roswell to Area 51, we are nothing but mushrooms to them, they keep us in the dark and feed us bullshit and expect us to grow and lead healthy productive lives. Now I have seen the customary “Lights in the sky” but honestly? there was only one time when I wasn't exactly sure, that they were just lights, seriously though? it could have been a lot of things, it was dark out, and I never got close enough to tell what it actually was or could have been. But I’m still not convinced that everything is a cover-up or conspiracy. And so after careful deliberation, after careful consideration, I have formulated, calculated & devised my own theory. I promise, dear reader, this shouldn't take too long.

After meticulously examining the evidence, I have concluded the following, the existence of space aliens is a bunch of Hooey Phooey. (Okay, granted, Hooey and Phooey may not be real words, and you are welcome to look them up at your own leisure.) The reason that they can't find Bigfoot is he moved to the lost continent of Atlantis where he has a time-share with Elvis, Bruce Lee & Amelia Earhart and the only way to get there is to travel by boat into the Bermuda Triangle, through a time warp discovered by Edgar Casey in 1929. But you would have to be a total Ninny to believe in space aliens. 

How about we throw this out there for a theory? if it took our government this long to address the issue of health care in America, And the idiots haven't even scratched the surface of the daily struggle of the mental health crisis, that many American taxpayers live through and deal with on a daily basis, the economy is in the shitter, the world around us is crumbling at the foundations as we speak, so maybe just maybe they don't have time for all of these conspiracies, I think that perhaps when it comes to these types of mysteries? Aliens? Bigfoot? Elvis? The mystery of Atlantis? Yeah, I think we're on our own here, we are after all talking about the government here, Our GOVERNMENT? I think it may come down to what most of us have suspected all along, that they really are as clueless about EVERYTHING as we thought. Hey, it's only a theory. Forgive me for babbling, I probably just need a nap, or coffee, I haven't really decided which yet.

Under Construction...

I usually don’t find myself in the habit of barging into a conversation, even if I know the participants, unless of course someone involved decides to test my opinion. After work one day, I ran into a couple of people that I have known for a while now, they came into the restaurant after I did and decided to sit directly across from me, the conversation started out on the light side before getting a bit more serious shortly thereafter. Each of us offered their own perspective based on our different opinions of the subject, dinner came, so the talk was cut short we all ate and went our separate ways without any further exploration of the chosen subject. But it wouldn’t leave me be. So here I am at the time of this writing, sitting up in a dark room with nothing to cut through it but the light of my computer monitor.

Mentally, I try to retrace each footstep of the conversation, I contemplate, I type and then erase, and then start over only to erase the empty page several more times. I get up and turn off the monitor and turn to the darkened living room window looking out at a sleeping world searching for a bit of inspiration, I rise to make a pot of coffee before returning to the monitor turning it back on. It’s a strange subject, I’ll admit, but something about it won’t let go of me. Walls. The way people build them. Hell, we’ve been doing it for years on end. In ancient times we built walls around us in more obvious ways, for more obvious reasons, to keep out the hostilities of the world, to keep out all the shit that frightened us even when we didn’t want to admit that there was always an underlying fear that kept at us.

The walls helped us to keep the world at arms length, gave us some sense of control, even if it was merely an illusion. Kept out all invaders and gave us a false sense of security. Walls crumble, walls fall, but we tend to keep rebuilding them. Even now, we all try at least in some way to separate ourselves from the ugliness of the world by trying to keep it there at the end of arms reach. People are still in the business of building their own walls. Oh, you can’t see them, but they are still there. We just don’t do it in obvious ways, but the walls we build are still there, keeping the ugliness out, giving us that same false sense of security. every time we turn the other way, every time we ignore the pain, and injustices of our world, the walls that keep us away from each other just keep getting bigger. Every time we close the curtains, put bigger locks on the doors, buy bigger guns, turn a blind eye or a deaf ear. every time that we choose to ignore the human condition, it seems that we become somewhat less human.

Oh, I don’t think that it's because we are bad people, I think that it has more to do with the fact that the uncertainty of the future scares us more than we would care to admit. We need to feel safe, untouchable, even when it's painfully obvious that we are neither. I am, just as guilty as the next, of it. My wall however is still under construction, and I am in no hurry to complete it. From time to time I like to venture out from under its rubble to not only view the world but to actually take part in it, I like touching upon the humanity of people, I try to see the good in us, but am also careful not to lie to myself when it becomes ever so clear that there are some people that are just not so nice.

I figure it is reasonably safe as long as I can continue to recognize the differences between the bad and the good. My wall isn’t very high, mind you, perhaps just high enough for me to feel some degree of safety when I am behind it. It's funny, every now, and again I can almost feel the hand prints that people have left there, people just trying to reach into me, maybe they are just trying to tell me that I’m not alone. Hand prints. On my unfinished wall. Hopefully, one day the world will be a safe enough place that I may even be able to end its construction, or tear it down completely. Maybe one day, we can all feel safe enough so that we won’t need to put up walls between us anymore. Maybe someday.

~Scratch.. A.B.T. copyright © 2008.~

Blogging VS Social Media.

 

Someone asked me on X (Formerly Twitter) why I do still write on a blog site? well, I've always enjoyed reading and writing blogs more than I have enjoyed sites like Facebook and their ilk. On social Media you have a limited platform in the respect that most of your audience won't have the patience to sift through two or more paragraphs of text to get to a point, when all they can be bothered to read, is what you had for dinner, or some quirky meme or a joke, if they have to engage their brains for more than 2–3 minutes they can't be bothered with it. I remember the first time I saw a text message, I was like, WHAT IS THAT?? it was like I was trying to decipher some long-lost text, from Ancient Greece, or something written in Klingon. What it may boil down to? It's the simple ability to read and write in long form VS the short dispersal of brain vomit that you typically find on Facebook and other social media sites. I really don't like social media for this reason, to me, it's more like short attention span theater, If I post there it's usually just to give family and other people I'm trying to keep in touch with a quick update on my day and to let them know that I'm still breathing, otherwise it goes largely ignored 99% of the time, most of them don't even know what a blog even is. so why blog if you feel like nobody is reading it? well, I suppose there are just some things that we do simply because we enjoy doing it, being creative enough to write in long form at any level is becoming more and more, a dying art. you almost HAVE to enjoy it, or the point of the exercise is lost.

Honing The Art of Story Telling.. (Horror VS Gore)

There is an old empty house that stands alone in the middle of a large group of trees, it is a two-story Victorian style that has been long since abandoned and left to fall into ruin. The paint though bright white has lost its luster and is peeling, showing the house's true age, many of the windows are covered in dirt and most others have been broken out by vandals. The grass lawn has grown out of control and much of it has been taken over by weeds, the narrow sidewalk that leads to the broken down rickety front porch is barely there, the whole scene in front of you gives you pause, as you stop and look up at the black cloudy sky as the first drops of rain begin to fall, in the distance you can hear the rumblings of slow rolling thunder and when the lightning flashes it chills you to the bone. 

The downpour begins, slowly at first, but it quickly builds up steam, and you run for the cover of the front porch of the eerie old house, your foot goes through the rotting wood of the second step and your ankle makes a popping noise, and you make it up to the porch as you wince in pain. But you are out of the rain now, you feel relieved, almost safe, but you never see the door knob slowly turn, the inhuman calculating eyes watching your every move. The door slowly creaks open and a cold dead hand grabs you by the ankle, startled you kick at it but to no avail as it slowly drags you inside you make eye contact with it, and you can feel your own screams rise and choke up in your throat, you hear the door slam, and when the darkness comes to surround you suddenly, there is nothing.

What is wrong with this picture? There is no blood, no guts, no entrails strewn across the floor, no hulking hockey mask wearing homicidal maniac wielding a chainsaw, or machete, or something far worse.  No collection of body parts, no chains rattling, no moans, so sound at all in fact, just you alone with some unseen monster, who will bring death to you. What scares you? for most people nowadays it seems it's always something different, for some? They like seeing a decapitated head slowly rolling across the floor coming to rest at the killer's feet, for others it's seeing some poor unsuspecting schmuck who never seems to see it coming, getting chopped up into little pieces. but is that really horror? or is it simply something that shocks and shakes you to the core because of the brutality of the scene.

I love the horror genre, but unlike most modern audiences, I really love it when it takes its time, when it shows me that it has the patience to properly set up the scene. To take me by the hand and lead me up to the front door, it pushes me and prods me in just the right direction, and it shows me the main course, but for the first time, for only for a split second. Now I don't mind a little bit of blood here and there, as long as it doesn't disconnect me from the actual story, just don't beat me over the head with it, I'm not bloodthirsty. When I was a kid, Alfred Hitchcock's movies used to terrify me, he was a masterclass storyteller, and he just got it, Hitchcock always seemed to know just the right time to pull back and let the audience's own imagination take the lead. Those were and still are the kinds of movies that just stick with me after I see them for weeks on end. wondering, but never knowing for certain, what was behind that last door? sometimes it's what we aren't allowed to see that is truly terrifying. 

Mother's Kitchen.. (Based on a childhood memory.)

 

This week has been, I would dare say, exceptional for me, and mostly, it was today that pushed it over the top. Of course, whenever I happen upon the opportunity to share some of the wisdom of my mother with other people is a special day for me. I sort of stumbled into a conversation with a couple of friends at work in concerns to their parents and their upbringings. (Both friends are older than me.) mostly the conversation seemed to revolve around how their parents got them to eat foods that they didn’t like. Well as usual it got me to thinking about my own dear mom. They said that their parents were like, “Eat it or else!” nope. Not my mom. My mom was way too smart to try to force anything on me, nope she was too slick for that, instead she would employ all the most diabolical mom tools and tricks of the trade to ensnare me into her little trap. Let me explain.

As with most children in the late sixties or in any other period for that matter, the one sure fire way to get them to run away from the dinner table in sheer terror was to announce that there was going to be vegetables or anything else that was good for them served at the dinner. Well me being the youngest, I was always the last to know, everyone else would go to our older sister's house for dinner and I would be left behind to become the sole guinea pig. The first offering that I can remember was “Liver and onions.” the conversation as I recall went something like this:

“Hey ma? Where did everybody go?”

“They’re over at your sister's house, they’re spending the night over there, and having dinner with her and Richard.”

So, it began, her first entrapment, there on the counter was the bait, a small plate of cooked liver swimming in what looked like to me a sea of cooked sliced onions. It looked disgusting. But soon, feeling the slowly building volcanic like rumblings in my vacant belly, I had to ask.

“Hey Ma? What’s for dinner?”

As I now seem to recall, whenever she answered on those occasions, she would always keep her back to me, so I couldn’t see her face as she further baited her trap.

“Liver and onions son, now before you make a face, I made you a little plate so you could try it for yourself, I won’t force it on you, but I would like you to at least try it first. Then, if you don’t like it, you can to wait until breakfast tomorrow morning before you eat.”

Now, granted, that’s probably not an exact quote, but I do recall vividly the part about waiting until breakfast to eat, so with my rumbling belly cautiously prodding me ever forward, I slowly began to examine the contents of the plate in front of me.

“Ma. That looks yucky!”

“Well, baby, you don’t have to eat it, but it's really pretty good.”

Now here’s where the words, Hook, Line and sinker come into play. She turned around and took the knife and cut it into little tiny pieces, and told me that it would make it easier to chew. So when she turned back to the stove I slowly edged the fork closer to the plate and sank it into the first piece, and ever so carefully lifted the fork to my mouth, and wouldn’t you know it? She was right,

I did end up liking it.

My brothers and sisters all thought I was a sucker, they told me that Mom played a mom trick on me. Meaning, she got me to eat something that was good for me by tricking me into thinking that the whole thing was my decision. My idea. Well ma played that trick on me more times than I could count growing up, Broccoli, cauliflower, Spinach, you name it, and she got me to eat it willingly. But upon reflection, now I would be more inclined to think that it was testament to her talents in the kitchen, more so than trickery. If you think about it, nobody ruled the kitchen like our mothers, she could make anything taste great. She had that mom magic, nobody did anything like her, they never have, and they never will, geeez, wouldn’t you know it? Now I got myself a hankering for a plate of Liver and onions. I wonder if they make it like mom did?.. Naw… Highly unlikely.

~Scratch~

Let it Rain

 

On some days all that there is to do is sit at the window and watch the rain fall to the earth, its mentally taxing, exhausting even. Your fingers restlessly tapping on the window sill, as you watch cars rolling down the avenue, coming to and fro, there in front of you, the ebb and flow of life in the city. Honking horns, cars filled with impatient people just trying to get on with it, red light, green light, stop and go, people walking, some shuffling, down a crowded sidewalk, some with umbrella’s, and still others without, getting soaked to the bone before they even get halfway to where they are going. And there you are at the window watching scene after unique scene, as each unfolds as if it were on a stage. The play of life, there are no second or third takes here, all you get is one shot at it. And then you see the black car slowly roll to a stop, and she gets out and slams the door behind her.

She is angry, animated even, she’s shouting at the unseen driver of the vehicle, and even though she’s standing in the middle of a down pouring rainstorm she doesn’t even seem to notice it. All of her anger, all of her rage, focused on the black car that quickly pulls away, sending sprays of rainwater into the air in its wake. She is now soaked, and for the first time since her arrival the look of anger is replaced by surprise. And for the first time, you begin to notice how beautiful she is. Her long black hair soaking wet falls to her shoulders, rain soaked fabric clings to her perfect figure as she turns away, fumbling with her keys as she unlocks the door and swings it open, disappearing from view. And for a brief moment in time you try to return your attention to the street below, but she won’t leave your mind to wander for long, as you see the curtains in the window directly across from you slowly open, and there she is in all of her glory, scene one, act two.

There are no lights behind her as she steps back into the shadows of her darkened living room, and with almost a sense of childlike curiosity, you wonder to yourself what she’s doing in there. Briefly you manage to pull your eyes away, slowly returning your attention to the street below, the scene is much the same as it was before, people coming, people going, light slowly drifting away into dark, slowly your eyes move back up to the window across the street and there she is again, standing at the window, wearing a bath robe, smoking a cigarette, silently watching as the life scene below plays itself out. She presses her body closer to the rain soaked window pane, and when she notices you noticing her, you draw a deep breath as if you were caught doing something wrong, but when her beautiful lips purse into a seductive smile, within the confines of a second, everything disappears, all worry, all doubt.

You light your own cigarette and slowly exhale, and you and miss perfection take turns moving your eyes away to look at the street below, only to end up looking back at each other, she presses her hand to the steamy window pane, smiling out at you, with her forefinger, she slowly draws out the form of a heart on the pane, and steps away closing the curtains behind her. You catch your breath, shake it off and light another cigarette. Cars just keep rolling by, people are still impatient, and the red lights just can’t seem to turn green quick enough. Some days can just lock you inside, reducing you to a spectator, and other days there just doesn’t seem to behind enough minutes in a single hour to accomplished all that needs to be done. On days like this is all that there is to do, just sit, catch your breath and watch the rain.

~Scratch. A.B.T. copyright © 2009~