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 |  If you havent ever read my blogs, give them a go! You will be amused at my journey! |
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Me and Holo-Zoo are building a submarine here next to the pond. We're determined that we're gonna find out what's at the bottom of this damn thing... ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ... If you're new to my journal, you've got a lot of catching up to do. So, don't be a slacker, get the full story. Here are my first two journals for your reading torture.
You don't have to read them all at once. Print 'em, and take them to that little reading room with the white chair. You know you love to read in there. Or print 'em out and use them as doorstops, bookends, or paperweights. You may prefer to leave a message on my voice mail. I award weekly Gift Points for clever, and or entertaining messages left there.
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| Wouldnt you know it . . . Every couple of years, the company that I work for swaps out the old company car that I drive for a new one. I scheduled the pickup of the new car to coincide with an All Employee meeting in Austin that was on the calendar for today. On my way in to work this morning, I was rear-ended by a Ford Fiesta driven by a twenty year old texter/driver. The line of cars in front of me stopped, so I did too, but she didn't. I dont even think she hit the brakes.... just slammed right on in to me and was "so sorry". Just the other day, I was considering the idea that for all the driving I do, I havent been in an accident since I was probably nineteen years old. Well, I was in the car when my wife was rear-ended about 12 years ago, but other than that.... no accidents. Well, nobody got hurt today anyway... I drove my damaged car to the Nissan dealership after the company meeting, and swapped the Camry, back bumper molding hanging on for dear life, for a new Altima. I wish that every few years we were allowed to swap out our physical bodies with a newer model. Z |
| Grasping at straws, stretching the limits, or even allowing yourself to make a loose reference can be a wonderful vehicle in any creative pursuit you may be engaged in whether it be music, dance, literary, or otherwise. Z |
| Anyone recall the old Spy vs. Spy cartoons? All black & white, ridiculous looking bird-guys blowing each other up? Classic. Really though - I am not a part of the Facebook Brigade, I'm just using it as a vehicle for my own devious devices. And by the way, that's the name of my new band - devious devices - yep. thats right, all spy-like, cloak n dagger n what not - Devious Devices. Okay. That's stupid. G'nite. Z |
| The slope of our property runs from back to front, a sliding, sandy swampiness, if ever I saw one. The front yard near the road is wet almost all year round, as the clay hangs onto every ounce of moisture that it can. The water table is very near to the surface down there, and it has been getting more and more crucial that we take steps to prevent our front yard from slipping away under the road out front. Every time it rains, the tide carries away the soil in buckets. This part of our property has always been this soggy, but we never noticed it because of the build-up of pine needles on the ground, and the density of the undergrowth. But now that the forest is gone, rains just flows over sand and seeps into clay. Big, sudden, rain showers pull all my soil away from the lot, all the way to the front ditch. It used to be even worse before we had the county come and put a culvert through to the other side of the road. Now, all our of our dirt ends up over there... I will go retrieve it soon. That's MY dirt. Weird that we have erosion issues and flooding issues..... Railroad ties. Hold dirt back good. Must have railroad ties. Soon. And beer. No owls. Z |
| In case anyone would like to hear my homemade tunes, I threw up some youtube links on my Facebook page. 3 songs. You can find me there as Mike Salvo. On youtube, I think I am ekimovlas. Z |
Lord, I sure dont want to have to rake all these pine needles up today, and cut these dead trees down, and I surely dont want to have to clean out the attic today... theres so much junk up there, and what about all that stuff in the garage? Lord, you know Im not lookin forward to the headache of remodelin that garage this winter. I just want it all done. Lord, please just make it all done And He did. The very next day he dropped the humidity and blew in 50 mph winds from the north that swept telephone lines down, igniting the parched Central Texas region and engulfing Bastrop, Texas right in the middle of the worst wildfire the Lone Star State has ever seen. We were outdoors, wrestling a dead tree to the ground with a hatchet and a piece of garden hose when we noticed the cloud through the trees of our forested front yard. An hour later, we were following the train of cars out of town. Behind us, was holocaust, an orange and black, billowing sky, silhouetting a water tower that someone had painted with a big, giant smiley-face. Z |
| When I told him I was going to work for a stock brokerage firm in New York City, Dad bought me a pair of cowboy boots, saying something about boots and concrete belonging together, and I recalled an old TV show; horse and rider chasing criminals down well lit city streets at night. It was hot in the city, and the boots didn't fit quite right. Pinched to a point, my toes and I took a taxi, sweating on the way to every miserable meeting. When I longed for my flip flops, Mom said why? There was no soft grass in the city, no peach blossoms in the air, just indoor/outdoor carpeting, and exhaust fumes. I recalled an old TV show; green acre country folks climbing the utility pole to answer the phone. It was good to hear Mom's voice. Gentle and warm and certain. Before I boarded the train, Dad pressed two fifties to my palm, smiling, “just in case you miss your Mama’s cooking,” he said, and I recalled an old TV show; June and Ward calling Wally and the Beav in for dinner. Blue gingham apron, full course meal. Knives and forks and napkins. Today, I choked down a dog with kraut while waiting for the train, sweating in my wool suit, texting my partners one last time that pig bellies were down, and country livin’ was up, telling them,"Get out now, before the sun sets forever behind the steel and glass and noise." They won't know what that means. But I'm leaving. I never belonged here anyway. I called Mom and Dad, told them I was on my way, then unloaded the cellphone on a puzzled looking transient, slumped on a bench. As if it were a big city survival skill, I showed him how to play Tetris on it. It comforts me to know that he'll be sitting on that bench at the train station, happily pushing buttons on my cellphone when my partners call later. I wonder what he'll say. I wonder what they'll say back. I wonder what time I'll be home tonight. |
Before the fire, Little Bear died, and we buried him the front yard at the base of a giant pine. In the process, I managed to expertly cut the phone line to our house. We put him in the hole anyway and used to joke that he was screening our calls. If we ever missed him we could just pick up the phone... In the 30 minutes that we had to load up three cars with people pets and possessions, we managed to grab quite a few things. Computers, monitors, musical keyboards, guitars, a box of pictures that happened to be by the front door, a stack of vintage comic books also conveniently located by the front door, Mr. Jankins, Liberty, five cans of Milwaukees Best Light, a bottle of champagne, a handful of clothes on hangars, my overnight bag, a portfolio of watercolors that had been living in a garment bag for years, a few pictures off the walls, and a Bob Marley poster. We fled to Marv's Mom's house an hour away and stayed there for a couple of weeks before moving into a temporary Allstate-provided rent house. In the first few weeks that we were there, two stray cats adopted us. One was an orange striped tabby that we named Nugget. The other was his sister, a pretty calico that we named Mabelline. When we moved back to our rebuilt home a few months later, we took Mr. Jankins, Liberty, Nugget and Mabelline with us of course. Mr. Jankins promptly ran off followed by Mable a few months later. In between we took on another kitten, Hattie McCoy, a tiny black and grey tabby. So now we still have Liberty, Nuggett and Hattie. Maybe the others will come back, but more than likely they have found a new home somewhere else. At least that's what we keep telling ourselves. It's better than the alternative, which goes something like " a big, cat-eating owl swooped down when we were not looking and absconded with our cats ". Not a pretty picture. I hate owls. They have those swivelly, Chucky-esque heads that spin all the way around. And they hoot. I hate hooting. And owls. And owls that hoot. Z |
| Faced with so many creative outlets at my disposal, I find it hard to sit on Facebook with any great deal of regularity. It seems to be very time-consuming, and after a few hours of checking it out, I'm done. This afternoon I ventured in there to see if that was still true. It is. If I were to start socializing there, it would suck my brain into its spinning vortex, and I'd be lost forever in the twisting corriders of friends, would-be friends, and friends of friends, like it or not. Some person named Brian Matthews has invited me over 30 times to play some sort of Disney game. I dont even have any idea who this guy is. And "Disney"? Brain dont know me very well, either, it seems. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back in the day, I used to have a small Panasonic cassette player. It had a red colored "record" button that you held down when you pushed the "Play" button. Real mechanical buttons with a spring and a latching mechanism that you could really feel. As kids we would make up our own radio shows, complete with commercials, interviews and 45's that we played on a littel portable turntable. This year I bought its great grandson, a Tascam DP03. The DP03 is the evolved digital version of yesteryears toy. It records on eight tracks, and stores the recording on an SP card - and the entire project can be burned directly on to a CD using the same device. I've been dumping some songs that have been bumping around in my head, plus a few new ones that seem top pop up more easily these days - onto CDs that I can play in the car while I travel. There must be someplace where I can make a stand Dig me a water well Down by the Rio Grande. Put up some solar panels where they cant ever find me Get offa my doorstep, step offa my liberties. Get offa my doorstep, step offa my liberties, Dont want your band aids, dont try to pacify me. There must be someplace in Texas, Where you cant tread on me. They gon' make you pay for it. They gon' make you pay - try to make you cry I know you say that this land is your land... But this land is mine. There must be someplace in Texas Where a good man can hide. |
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