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Some Favorite Posts...

I get a lot of ideas for blog posts when I'm on facebook. Someone will post something that gets me started on a train of thought and by the time I get off that train, I've written a little mini-article on the subject. Then, with a few modifications, I end up posting it here. Once I've posted it, instead of re-thinking the whole thing, whenever someone stirs up that same train of thought, I can refer them to the caboose I parked right here. Sometimes too, what people post on facebook will inspire me to post some little thought or inspiration of my own.

What follows are some of the comments I made on other people's posts as well as some posts of my own that somehow didn't inspire entire blog pieces, but that I didn't want to just throw away either...

What's the opposite of "gravitas"? Would it be "levitas"? I got that.

I don't feel like a loser, but I sure as Hell don't feel like a winner. I guess I'm kind of a woozer...

My facebook privacy setting is set to "Cavity Search".

Whenever a politician, or person in power, says that anything is about "the children", or "protecting the children", or "our nation's children", you can be pretty sure...it's not about the children.

Today, near where I teach in the park, a tree with red leaves was hit by a strong wind as a storm moved in. But instead of falling, the leaves held on. As the wind hit them, they flipped up and over revealing their yellower undersides. The whole tree turned yellow in front of me, and then, as the wind died down, the whole tree gradually turned red again as the leaves returned to their earlier positions.

Something about life strips us of these things: ! I've noticed that very few of my older friends use more than one or two in a post, while my younger friends use as many as 5 in a row, and often more than a dozen per post. I wonder why!!!!!

I think anything that be imagined or conceived of exists, if only as a pattern of molecules in the brain. There might be such a "thing" as nothing, but not if you can think of it. When you think of it, it's something.

The big question, in my opinion, the one that no one seems to have any satisfactory answer for is this: If anything at all exists...Why something and not nothing? Why does anything exist?

The weird thing about the "blackness" you see when you close your eyes is that it is made up of points of light. Your optic nerve can only transmit light. That's why you "see" light flashing when you push on your eyeballs. When you close your eyes, you see black "light", when you open them you see light "light".

Did you know that a girl who'd been blinded in early childhood had an operation later on that restored her sight and it took her weeks to be able to tell the difference between a circle and a square? You don't just open you eyes and see "this", you need "software" to decode it into what you call "this". When this girl opened her eyes, she saw chaos, like any infant would. She would say things like, "The tree has lights on it." If this confused her, she'd just close her eyes and touch the tree with her hands and it instantly made sense to her. Her kinesthetic software map of the world was highly developed while her visual software map was rapidly updating, but way behind.

Will one or two of you movers and shakers, writers, tech geeks, designers, or Hollywood types please come up with some timeless, meaningful, new pop culture words that rhyme with "girl"? I'm sick of the usual suspects and half rhymes. Personally, I rarely find myself needing or wanting to rhyme the word "girl", but I'm far from the only one writing songs...

Sometimes No is the only word worth saying. One time I was teaching T'ai-Chi in the park and this little kid in her mom's arms walking by was clearly fascinated by what we were doing. She stared very intently and then said, "No!" I took it as a high compliment. I think at a certain point "No" not only means no, but means "this is the most powerful word I can say right now". The kid in the park clearly liked what we were doing and so assigned it the most powerful word she had. At least that's how I felt it at the time.

Based on the response to my facebook photo albums, I'm putting Samarra's picture on my next album cover.

Caring about music, and caring about "good" music, which is to say "music you like", are not the same thing. In my opinion: Caring about music means caring about MUSIC, not just the kind you like. To paraphrase Voltaire: "I do not like your tunes dude, but I'll fight to the death for your right to sing them."

Started off sunny, but the wind and rain are pushing through big time. Change is afoot people, it never stops, it's just sometimes more obvious than others.

In the music world, actions speak so much louder than words that compared to actions, I can barely even hear words anymore.

I don't trust the data my senses take in or my inner sense of intuition to "know" anything with certainty or precision. In other words, based on my sensory input, I don't know that a table actually IS a table, is actually over there right now, or if in fact there's any such thing as "now" "there" or "tables". I don't trust my intuition to nail this down in any precise way either. But I do trust my senses, my intuition and my general sense of what feels most deeply right to guide me toward the life that's best for me.

Man, sometimes I really miss the Midwest. I know it's dangerous and crazy cold out there right now, but I just love big weather. When we lived in Iowa whenever there was a tornado warning, we'd run outside and practically climb up on the roof to see the sky...And we always dug those snow storms...

Short Poem:

Watching this
Mountain stream
I remember Iowa
And how I used to say
The sky is my ocean

If you want to have an argument or be ignored, I think the best way is to state your opinions as though they are facts. If you want to have a discussion and maybe get to know someone, I would suggest that you state your opinions as opinions and then ask, "What do you think?"

Here's an expression I haven't heard in a decade or more: "Excuse me, do you mind if I take your picture?"

Merry Christma-Solsti-Kwanza-Kah to all! And remember, if you didn't get what you wanted...There are more and better gifts in losing than in winning...They just take a lot longer to unwrap. Be well everyone and have a great day!

New Year's Eve...Waitin' for the missus to decide what to wear...Thank God I'm a man and know instantly what will be perfect: Gold lame´jockstrap, hunting boots and a goat head.

New Year's Eve...Alcohol has never been my drug of choice. When ever I see Champagne I always think of Curly from The Three Stooges saying, "Oh! Sham-pag-nee. I'm a common sewer!"

This year has ended quite nicely. Lots of time with my soon to be very busy wife, posted a new album on my site, 3 nice tips in my digital tip jar, a couple of CD sales, and one of Samarra's tango students, who teaches poetry/psychology at SOU ordered one each of my two poetry books. That last one is really amazing. $20 is actually about a grand in poetry money...

This year, why not make your resolutions do-able and realistic? Take a quality in your life that you want less of and say, I want to be or have less _____. Or take a quality in your life that you want more of and say, I want to be or have more _____. Most of my goals have the words "more" or "less" in front of them. Much easier to focus my intention and energy on than some more general or impossible abstraction.

Of all the things on the net, I am most thankful for youtube and facebook. Both have helped me connect with many, many people, musically and personally, who I would never in a million years have found all by myself. I'm also very thankful to my friend Datta Groover for keeping my site going. To Ben Grunde for helping me with graphic design and printing for my albums. To Tom Freeman for helping me record, mix and master my albums. And all the places that let me play: The Wild Goose, Liquid Assets, Tease, Key of C, Downtowne Coffeehouse, and more. And all of you who bought albums, left tips, watched youtube videos, posted nice comments and just smiled when you heard one of my songs. And to all my T'ai-Chi students who brave the elements all year to meet me in the park and dance around in circles. To Andy Dale for teaching me T'ai-Chi and answering more questions than a teacher should have to be asked! And to my lovely wife Samarra who puts up with more than you all can imagine and loves me just the way I am. And to all my friends who watch my back, and front. To my family for getting me here. To Nature for providing water and all my other teachers. To Music for being the best way I know to say, Here I am~Wanna dance? And to Love for all of the above.

Happy New Year everyone!