"PRACTICING BEING"

I learned this weekend that there is a difference between "Practicing Open-mindedness" and 'Being Open-minded".

In the spirit of prcticing being open minded, I went to church this weekend. Friends had invited me, and I figured it couldn't do any harm to practice a little open-mindedness. After all, being open minded that maybe I never have to do any drugs again has brought me a long ways, and being open minded about a higher power and God of my misunderstanding has been a right and good thing in my life and given me a new way of looking at some things., like paying my bills on time, and having Inspection Stickers, and not stealing batteries from the Walgrens.

But once I got there and they started talkin' about Jesus I remembered how much I hate talking about Jesus, and hearing about Jesus, and how closed-minded I really am about making Jesus the most important thing in my life, but I didn't get up and walk out, not so much because I was practicing being open minded, but more because I was practicing being polite, and I stayed through the benediction and everything. And I couldn't wait to get somewhere else, to crawl back into a simple place without all the agricultural metaphors and holidays celebrating events that may not have actually taken place, a place where all that I have to really be is open-minded about not using any drugs today, express some desire to not use, and find some new ways to live and think about things.
And I’ll probably go back to that Church again next week, as a way to practice all this new found good-mannered open-mindedness, and because even though I don't believe THE STORY, its still a GOOD STORY, this story about the son of god who was a real cool dude but they killed him, and you come to find out that was sent to die for everyone's sins like its really going to change anything except as an opportunity for me to be Open minded, but I really don’t expect I’ll get saved or start believing in Jesus no matter how cool a dude he may have been.
That would take a miracle, and I’m a bit close-minded about those kind of miracles.
Its all I can handle just to practice being.

DRUM CIRCLES

"Typically, people gather to drum in drum "circles" with others from the surrounding community. The drum circle offers equality because there is no head or tail. It includes people of all ages. The main objective is to share rhythm and get in tune with each other and themselves. To form a group consciousness. To entrain and resonate. By entrainment, I mean that a new voice, a collective voice, emerges from the group as they drum together."
Mickey Hart


Here a man plays Air-Accordian in Drum Circle

PASS THE BISCUITS

We were standing on a corner in Dalhart Texas when Rucker flagged a carload of girls down. They pulled over to the side walk and Rucker sets the date with them…
“Meet us here at 2AM, don’t be late”
and he and I went back into the Poolroom where the 50 boys of Troop 345 would be spending the night on our way to Red River New Mexico for Summer Camp.
I don’t know how we did it, but somehow Rucker and I crawled past Chan, the grizzled old Scoutmaster; past Mr. Hill, the Assistant; and even past Owen Kaiser, a great big grouchy bear of a man who likely would have skinned us alive had we made so much as a squeak and woke his brawny  German ass up.

When we made it to that dark Dalhart street corner at 2 AM there was no carload of prime Dalworth pussy waiting for us. We still had to count ourselves the luckiest kids there could have ever been because we didn’t get thrown in jail and we managed to get back into that Pool Hall undetected by ol' man Kaiser.
Later that trip, Rucker would take on a fever and talk deliriously, sequestered and quarantined in the tent and near death on his cot, shouting "bring biscuits and whores" untill we finally found Chan's beer in an icy New Mexican stream and carried it to share with poor Rucker in order to break the fever, which it did quite well.

Of course, within about a year or so we would find ourselves in a bit of a bind with some runaway shavetails and a pack of Swisher sweets in Southlake Texas, a small town that they roll up the streets at 6PM, back when the entire Jail was made of chicken wire, where we waited till our parents came to get us at 5 O'Clock in the Texas morning.
Ol' man Kaiser was there by virtue of his son John having been an accomplice. My good friend who lived across the street, John.
Herr Kaiser simultaniously held John by the ear and kicked him in the ass all the way from the chicken wire jail to the car.
Poor John got it the worst, and never hung out with me much after that.

BUBBLE-GUM NIPPLES

I was on roller skates at a Skate party and I actually made it five times around the rink before falling, balancing like an overeaten bear, fantailing as a whale on wheels might to "Saturday Night Fever", and when I finally fell I was not hurt but I was so out of breath a little girl (I think it was Brandywines daughter) brought me a "walker on wheels" that you skate with and it is exactly as it sounds, this walker, and many pictures were taken as I went around the rink the way very old people might get down the hall at the Nursing Home or at the Walmart before they make it into the store and get a Motorized cart, but that didn't stop me or slow me down one iota; I even did some tricks too, ham that I am, lifting my leg high like a ham and extended out behind me like a ham as I held onto the walker for dear life and twice passed by where the camera was set up, it was ham and cheese and smile for the camera and this led to a most magnificent fall, a flying freefall that lasted at least a ten-count, with a twist and a triple-toe loop and ended with a big echoing "Thoomping" sound like a watermelon the size of a Volkswagon had rolled off the countertop, whereupon the guy with the whistle was called and there were many concerned faces that appeared in my field of vision while I was flat on my back and completely gassed out of breath but I wasn't really hurt like from a cracked skull or a broken neck I was just completely gassed and I was carried from the Skating surface and placed on a bench the way OD'd guys are put on cots in the freak-out tents at Dead concerts, or the way a fish is set on the board gasping before being gutted, breaded and fried.

No bones were broken, but I was terribly out of breath and after a few moments my heaving labored way of breathing subsided and I looked up to see the most beautiful girl in the world looking down upon me and she was backlit by some Heavenly Light, and there were violins playing and birds chirping and it seemed like she had a halo of stars around her head and Angel Wings tucked under her blouse, her sheer cherub blouse with the big bubble-gum nipples, and I got my second wind, my strength returned, so I motioned for to her "come closer" and she bent down and in my best deepest sexiest Leonard Cohen/Barry White voice I whispered softly into her ear:

''Monique, baby, how would you like to get me out of these skates"

She saved me!

TROGOLODYTE

AS I COOKED DINNER AND THE EX TALKED TO MY SON IN THE LIVING ROOM

“Rip, your Dad has the most addictive personality I’ve ever seen. He’s been addicted to Bubble-gum, Model Rockets and Boy Scouts. He had a fifty dollar a week Raisin Bran habit till he burned himself out, then he started hittin' the hard stuff, the Grape Nuts.
He has been addicted to Hearts, Golf, Bowling, Bob Dylan, Fishing, and Gardening. I caught him playing Risk all by himself one night. He has been addicted to Badminton, for Gods sakes!
And now... your dad is completely addicted to Narcotics Anonymous!”

It was at this point that I had to come out of the kitchen, flailing my hands about and shrieking like a madman:
“I’m addicted allright, and I just can’t stop !!! Its too late, I am hooked on NA, and I just keep going back to meetings almost everyday! I have it bad!!”
It was then she said what she always says at times like that, which is:
“Are you going to let me finish?”

ART WILL BREAK YOUR HEART

This is like a Film Noir in color. It depicts an utter hopelessness that is exceeded only by the incompetence displayed due to the fact that the subject cannot seem to get the bullets into the gun.

It is the anti-thesis to the movie "Dirty Harry" where Harry and the Perp have lost track of how many shots were fired.

Here it looks athough there are 9 bullets out of the gun, and the Observer is left to wonder:"Is there one in the Chamber?"

Truly, the question appears to be moot because we have what appears to be a bomb, styled in the classic "Spy vs. Spy " Tradition, the fuse already lit and about to blow. So the question has to be:

"Is this my lucky day? Well, is it, Punk?"

Which might make a great title were it not a bit lengthy.

I call this one "Dirty Harry".