Yesterday's Stories of Tomorrow

A candle flickers, her shadows dance upon the wall
And a crumpled newspaper sheds a tear for the fears of the world
'Another coffee,' she says, 'another coffee for our souls,
And we'll wait, to sleep with the dawn'

She holds her cigarette like we always used to do
Lets the ash fall to the floor
She's reading yesterday's papers, while she tells me of tomorrow
But I've heard it all before, for it's the same dreams we had last year...

It's been a bad year
And the fallout, is tearing you apart
But please, please don't start...

Street lights blink on through the car window
As you're driving downtown at dawn
There's a sign in the window, of the only place you know
Saying 'Please, please don't go...'

One Smidgen More

Fall is here. Brisk mornings, clear skies... and nothing else that's really changed. For this is Texas, and the leaves don't ever change color, they just fall off sometime right before Christmas. Sometime during that one week of proper cold weather we have. Happily though, I've never been a fan of cold weather. I'm a fan of high-70's weather and sunny skies, with just a hint of a breeze. And I'm a fan of outdoor swimming pools and lounging in the grass. And reading on the rooftop, or playing guitar on a fencepost. And trick-or-treating, and dressing up, and jack-o-lantern's, and all things generally considered Halloweenish. And I like that Halloween's called a holiday. 'Cause it's not. It's anything but holy. Which is why I shall dress up as Pope John-Paul, find two friends to go as George and Ringo, and be the Beatles for Halloween this year. Restore some holiness. Wanna come with?

I like dropping portions of prepositional phrases. And I like pens. But I hate pencils, and I hate losing my pens and being forced to use pencils. Which is why you're supposed to always keep a pen in your backpocket.

Everybody knows that.

There's a System?

What if this is all we get? What if this firefly's existence is really all that's been gifted to us, and when we blink out tomorrow, that's it. Eternity's simply a fairytale we tell ourselves to stay sane. And because it paints a pretty picture; takes the sting out of 'the end.' Maybe there's no real point to anything we do beyond scratching out the most basic of subsistences. What's the point of building the tallest building, the fastest car, the deadliest missile? And the point of society creating this ideal and then creating the people to fulfill it? I mean, cosmically speaking, what's it all about?

And more importantly, if this is really all we've got, why am I inside reading 'Culture and Social Thought in the Depression Years,' when it's a gorgeous day outside?

Don't Panic

Do you know where your towel is? 'Cause I think it's high time to start waving it around to flag down a spaceship and catch a lift to the moon. If ya want, you can join me there and we can watch the end of the world with front row seats, before the sudden melting of our former home planet and the resulting loss of gravitational attraction sends us hurtling off to who knows where. The current rulers of the world can't seem to simply wait for global warming to destroy our world like any normal person would. They seem instead to be actively seeking it out. The Middle East is forever threatening to boil over, Iran are keen to continue researching nuclear weapons while the rest of the world says no, and now North Korea claim they've got them. Oh yes, and now that they have them the world is a safer place. So who's gonna press that little red button first? Dubya, now's your chance to be remembered forever, or at least 'til the end of the world. And who's gonna say it has to be done now, before it's too late? And when the hell is Tahiti going to become a world power and tell everyone to chill the fuck out?

Note to the reader- The views contained within this rant are solely those of the author, and he is well known to have a penchant for sensationalist writing and wholly making things up. To which I'd like to add that this is largely a fabrication, but I do think the moon is a groovy place, I do love to hug trees, and I quite fancy kissing the sky.

So 'scuse me while I...

When the Levee Breaks

You've seen it, but it doesn't make it any easier. All the pictures and movies and stories and images and stats. But you still gasp when you see that house on top of a car. A year after the fact, and New Orlean's Lower Ninth Ward is still devastated. Driving through and it took me a moment, a long moment, to realize that those fields going by the windows, with 4 foot tall grass half covering concrete stairs, were actually hiding the foundations of houses that no longer exist. And then the ones that do exist are so broken it's almost more painful. Where are these people now? I walked around a house where you could see the flood line 3 inches below the top of the door and inside you could see dishes still strewn about the kitchen, and broken records and books lying on the floor. No-one's been back in that house since the flood. And the desperately sad thought, maybe there's no-one left to go back in that house. But it's beautiful to hear a guy talking about returning to New Orleans and rebuilding his home. To hear him talking, with a tear in his eye, about children once again playing in the streets. To laugh at the pride he showed for his football team, the Saints, home at last. And to wonder how people go on.

Maybe it's easier to go on... when there's nothing left to go back to.