My wife and I were in a large multi-story loft in a room full of dead people and animals that we we loved who are now gone. It wasn’t heaven, unless heaven is a loft on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. There were also unfamiliar faces and animals as well as people we know that are still with us. I remember a hybrid monkey / cat coming in the window from the fire-escape who had long, crooked fingers like roots that crept up beside me and slowly, very deliberately felt the contours of my face as though it was blind. We became friends.

The dead people were mostly relatives and all looked youthful and healthy as though they were at their prime age in life. My mother was busily zipping around getting things in order. Kristen’s grandmother and grandfather sat in ornately carved wooden chairs next to each other holding hands. Of note was my wife’s very cheery and youthful uncle - looking dapper at perhaps 30 years old. (Who just passed away earlier this year at age 71.)

There were numerous people and cats running amok from room to room in some kind of odd celebratory chaos. I remember wanting to ask my mom a question about Shakespeare but she held up a finger and dashed off. I walked about the place - which had cavernous, high ceilings and massive, castle-like doorways 10 feet high - all trimmed with elaborate wood finishing. Every room was abuzz with conversation. The cacophony of voices made it difficult to discern what it was all about.

Some dirty faced red-headed kid tapped my hand and indicated that he could probably get my car started;  that is, the ’73 Galaxy 500 with side-pipes parked in the alley. The same one I took to the junkyard in high school after the engine blew on the highway. I told him to have at it.

Finally it was time to leave and I descended via the fire escape, a couple of cute girls smiling through open windows as I passed down by their lofts. One asked me if I knew any magic tricks. I responded that I did, and reached into my pocket for a deck of cards, but my wife nudged me to keep moving. I indicated that I would show them some magic on my way back. The younger one laughed and said, ‘Oh, silly! You’re not coming back.’

Friday, May 4th, 2007

Worthless information? Maybe.

At three minutes and four seconds after 2 AM on the 6th of May this year, the time and date will be 02:03:04 05/06/07

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

whatever became of local radio??

what has the loss of local radio to clear channel and the like – what has that done to the fabric of the country?

has the death of local radio, fueled by big business and the internet… what has that done to community?

Monday, July 24th, 2006

I dreamed I learned an intricate card game from my cousin Kenneth, but I can only remember vague details. The game involves an extremely complex and detailed point system, as it revolves around conceptual theories of human existences”pitting biblical against scientific explanations of how life began. The Old Testament's Adam, for instance could represent the Jack of Hearts, the heart symbolizing the apple as one example, but the characters represented on each card are capable of changing at any given point in the game depending on the numerical circumstances set into play. So while the Jack of Hearts could be Adam, it could also represent Adonis, Greek God of Love, or the popular chivalrous character Don Quixote or perhaps even a more contemporary figure such as Albert Einstein, who was renown for having numerous women admirers. Numbers and the order of the numbers as the cards are played is key, because there is no such thing as a good hand. It simply depends on the cards laid down prior to by you and your opponent who, may not be your opponent at all, but your ally, depending on the string of cards played, the sum of the numbers and the equations and / or icons they represent. Certain sets of numbers laid out in a row denote laws of physics, others evolution, still others mythological and finally biblical. There are also multi-sided dice involved that serve to calculate equations in concordance with the cards. Some dice represent science, while other dice are rolled to determine the outcome of spiritual quests. There is more, so much more, I can't remember. But I'll sit here with a deck of cards, some dice and a bottle of wine, and by God, I'll figure it out.  

Tuesday, March 7th, 2006
Welcome one and all. This page will attempt to be the online equivalent of intelligent dialogue. Or not intelligent, but clever. Or not clever but witty. Or humorous. Perhaps dry. Sad. Thought provoking. Meaningful. Lighthearted. Deliberate. Focused. All over the map.

No matter what you have to offer. Make it count. Go ahead…roar.

Thursday, March 9th, 2006
A sprawling European resort in the South of France, perhaps the Riviera. Befriending members of the mafia who are eating at an outdoor cafe. Jovial, fat, Italian men. Later, with some people on a couch–few familiar faces. Distant, past friendships or maybe not. Perhaps Lance, from Decline of the West. A stripper offers to dance. I decline and hold out my hand to keep her away as she is approaching me. She stumbles forward and vomits into my lap. Shot glasses adorn her breasts. The distant friends laugh. Lance laughs. I think of punching them in their faces, but decide to wait. After all, I have friends in the mafia. The bathroom is uni-sex and the toilet seats are all broken or missing. The stripper pulls back a curtain and steps into a shower there.

In the bow of a speeding boat, rocketing through shallow, muddy water down an extremely narrow channel. Several times I am almost flung overboard. But I trust the captain. Another boat meets us head on in the channel. As we rapidly slow down, chocolate water floods over the bow into my lap. The water will make it difficult to hang on once we speed up again, as it slips between my hand and the rail of the boat. I mentally note this and worry. Perhaps I should alert the Captain. There’s a Mandarin Chinese man, very distiguished looking in the other boat. He has a well groomed beard and he’s dressed in a silk white robe with red oriental letters and designs. He’s holding a white box. It says something in fuzzy red letters. I read it. The message makes perfect sense to me. I make a mental note to remember it later. But I know I won’t.

And I don’t.