hey there everyone -
just a shout out to all my friends and relatives that are also fathers (as well as my father - Hi Dad!)... funny thing, our society, that we set only one day a year aside each for fathers, mothers, grandparents (grandma and grandpa don't even get a seperate day)... and it seems anymore to be just a day to push cards. (at least dad won't check the back to see if it's a specific card manufacturer or not)
here's a thought. try to connect with your dad more throughout the year than just once a year. pick a random day to call him up or go visit and just hang out doing whatever it is you and your dad do. "cat's in the cradle" always comes to memory when i think of days and times like this, yet most of us - even the ones that get choked up over the song - don't ever do to much to remedy the situation. it's always tomorrow, next weekend, no time, etc.
there's always time to *make* time.
is the game really that important? will your house/apartment still be there when you get back? then go! stop reading this email and do something with your life - take control instead of spiraling through life on the h*llmark holiday whirlwind.
life does take place every day, yet so few of us decide to live it. it doesn't take much, unplug the tube, play a game, play some music, go for a walk... heck, go for a sit on a park bench and people watch. those are the moments you will remember when you are old. not what happened on the latest cable series, or who slept with who on the evening police/lawyer/investigator drama will make any difference when your ready to depart this life.
okay, getting off the soapbox. and yes, i'm going home to see my Dad tomorrow.
somewhere between the moron who had nothing better to do than make a movie about himself living on fast food and blimping out, and the nut who's living as if tomorrow didn't exist, there's plenty of room for you and i.
on that note, time to get back to cleaning my apartment so i can actually invite the people i care about over and not have to worry about them breaking limbs tripping over things.
okay, I leave you with one of my truly favorite poems - and no, this is not becoming a poetry room...
"Success" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
---------------------
To laugh often and much
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends
To appreciate beauty
To find the best in others
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch,
or a redeemed social condition
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived
This is to have succeeded.
6.19.2004
6.17.2004
one last thing.
i found this in my stack of little typer poems. thought i'd share it too...
(you didn' know it was open mic night, did you?)
(also written around the spring of 2002... and remember, i'm trying to present these as they were typed - no stopping to correct the errors or really bad typos)
--
more or less, less or more, the night skyline of indy stretches up outside my window. there and not there, to be seen, but not lived for the living of it can quickly destory the dream, a little further away, pushing yourself further than you really ever wanted to go as a child... when is it enough... when are we happy... when will we start to live again, and breathe in like we have never breathed in before.
a voice can cut through your soul and repair things that a surgeons scalple (?) could never touch. beyond the reality of it, and into the true, whole living beauty of it.
it.
the common bond that unites us and brings us closer together than any wars can take us apart.
the common bond you feel when you meet someone for the first time, but you feel that you have known them for years.
it is the stuff of life that I seek... the sunsets, the sunrise, the gentle breeze in the spring, and the soft caress of the fall, gathering around you to hold you close before winter settles you indoors and lets you rest to start over all over again... another first blade of grass, the first smell of real green (not the paper kind) carried to your face, maybe over the trace of snow left hanging on as the sun drives it back into the air.
-------------------
-------------------
sappy as it is, hug a loved one, even when you feel like the whole world is out against you. tell your mom and dad, brother and sister, wife/husband and children that you love them. because you do.
pray too. but i'm not the boss of you. sleep tight, or have a good day wherever you are, but i am off to the inner workings of my mind, and the now empty bedroom that calls out to me to retire.
.jason
(you didn' know it was open mic night, did you?)
(also written around the spring of 2002... and remember, i'm trying to present these as they were typed - no stopping to correct the errors or really bad typos)
--
more or less, less or more, the night skyline of indy stretches up outside my window. there and not there, to be seen, but not lived for the living of it can quickly destory the dream, a little further away, pushing yourself further than you really ever wanted to go as a child... when is it enough... when are we happy... when will we start to live again, and breathe in like we have never breathed in before.
a voice can cut through your soul and repair things that a surgeons scalple (?) could never touch. beyond the reality of it, and into the true, whole living beauty of it.
it.
the common bond that unites us and brings us closer together than any wars can take us apart.
the common bond you feel when you meet someone for the first time, but you feel that you have known them for years.
it is the stuff of life that I seek... the sunsets, the sunrise, the gentle breeze in the spring, and the soft caress of the fall, gathering around you to hold you close before winter settles you indoors and lets you rest to start over all over again... another first blade of grass, the first smell of real green (not the paper kind) carried to your face, maybe over the trace of snow left hanging on as the sun drives it back into the air.
-------------------
-------------------
sappy as it is, hug a loved one, even when you feel like the whole world is out against you. tell your mom and dad, brother and sister, wife/husband and children that you love them. because you do.
pray too. but i'm not the boss of you. sleep tight, or have a good day wherever you are, but i am off to the inner workings of my mind, and the now empty bedroom that calls out to me to retire.
.jason
thanks to the computer
a little poem with that title (the subject of this blog) caught my eye tonight, and though i am far closer to being ready to sleep for the night, i thought i'd pass it along. it's by Charles Bukowski. "Hank." he wrote a lot of good poems, a lot of bad ones, and most of them were not the kind of poems you'd read to anyone under the age of eighteen... and - like me - he tended to have a slight disinterest in the proper use of the key.
basically the poem is about his nifty new computer, and how it pleases him - and how it probably kept some of his other work hidden - once electrons passing on data to the screen, and then no more. a little easier than the wastebasket, and a lot more permanent. no second chances if you aren't saving backups, and don't have access to undo what you've done.
anyway - just hadn't said hi lateley. getting a new job at work (cool), but i'll have to leave you in suspense with that for now, as i only feel like typing the poem and going to bed.
'thanks to the computer' - Charles Bukowski
you write a bad poem and you just
press the "delete" key and watch the
lines vanish as if they had never been,
no ripping pages out of the typer,
balling them up and tossing them into the
wastebasket.
the older I get the more I delete.
I mean, if I see nothing in a work, what
will the reader see?
and the computer screen is a tough judge,
the words sit back and look at you,
with the typewriter you don't see them
until you pull out the
page.
also, the keyboard on a computer is
more efficient than that on the
typer, with the computer the thoughts
leap more quickly from your mind to your
fingers, to the screen.
is this boring?
probably.
but I won't delete it because it isn't boring
me.
I am in love with THIS MACHINE
see what it can do
now let's get back to
work.
---------------------------------
hmm. in contrast, here's something i typed up a few years ago - and no, i had not read this back then. (i just bought this book a few months back)
(wow, and i used the shift key for abouut eight letters) ... btw, i in no way consider this a masterpiece - it's just a dumb poem i wrote, and maybe it will entertain you a bit. written in 2002, around march.
--
Swing you crazy levers, swing.
so sad is it that so many have forgotten you.
'word' can never replace this feel, and Hemmingway would never have typed as much (whether you like him or not) if he was using a PC.. or maybe he would have drunk less...
i'll try to tell you later, after another drink or two.
so, sitting here now,
neat scotch
radio on
npr - i have these stinkin audio plays - they are good sometimes, but a real bitch when i am just wanting some background noise while i type (other than the ever pleasant ding letting me know that yet another page
is done) unless
i
outsmart it ...i don't have to play the ding
as long as i stop
soon enough.
but sooner or later i forget to stop, i get in a frenzy, and then bam!!
another ding... but that's okay, i really do not mind the ding letters eeerrr... dings... come to think of it, I do not know that I have ever gotten a ding letter of any sort. i guess you could call it a ding letter when undue purversity told me that i was not their type of student, and sent me packing. but i will show them (hopefully :) engineering was not my bag anyway.
but don't tell them that it could actually not be someone's bag.
that would be sacrilidge... at least for it to be said out in the open air - like at halftime at mackey... i don't think Gene or his wife would care however.
I have to fix the typewriter just a bit more, just a bit more tweaking.
one last line before I do that though.
nicely,
perfect,
sweetness.
-----
hmm. i'll be like Bukowski tonight and not hit delete even though I am thinking otherwise.
have a good day, and take care.
.jason
basically the poem is about his nifty new computer, and how it pleases him - and how it probably kept some of his other work hidden - once electrons passing on data to the screen, and then no more. a little easier than the wastebasket, and a lot more permanent. no second chances if you aren't saving backups, and don't have access to undo what you've done.
anyway - just hadn't said hi lateley. getting a new job at work (cool), but i'll have to leave you in suspense with that for now, as i only feel like typing the poem and going to bed.
'thanks to the computer' - Charles Bukowski
you write a bad poem and you just
press the "delete" key and watch the
lines vanish as if they had never been,
no ripping pages out of the typer,
balling them up and tossing them into the
wastebasket.
the older I get the more I delete.
I mean, if I see nothing in a work, what
will the reader see?
and the computer screen is a tough judge,
the words sit back and look at you,
with the typewriter you don't see them
until you pull out the
page.
also, the keyboard on a computer is
more efficient than that on the
typer, with the computer the thoughts
leap more quickly from your mind to your
fingers, to the screen.
is this boring?
probably.
but I won't delete it because it isn't boring
me.
I am in love with THIS MACHINE
see what it can do
now let's get back to
work.
---------------------------------
hmm. in contrast, here's something i typed up a few years ago - and no, i had not read this back then. (i just bought this book a few months back)
(wow, and i used the shift key for abouut eight letters) ... btw, i in no way consider this a masterpiece - it's just a dumb poem i wrote, and maybe it will entertain you a bit. written in 2002, around march.
--
Swing you crazy levers, swing.
so sad is it that so many have forgotten you.
'word' can never replace this feel, and Hemmingway would never have typed as much (whether you like him or not) if he was using a PC.. or maybe he would have drunk less...
i'll try to tell you later, after another drink or two.
so, sitting here now,
neat scotch
radio on
npr - i have these stinkin audio plays - they are good sometimes, but a real bitch when i am just wanting some background noise while i type (other than the ever pleasant ding letting me know that yet another page
is done) unless
i
outsmart it ...i don't have to play the ding
as long as i stop
soon enough.
but sooner or later i forget to stop, i get in a frenzy, and then bam!!
another ding... but that's okay, i really do not mind the ding letters eeerrr... dings... come to think of it, I do not know that I have ever gotten a ding letter of any sort. i guess you could call it a ding letter when undue purversity told me that i was not their type of student, and sent me packing. but i will show them (hopefully :) engineering was not my bag anyway.
but don't tell them that it could actually not be someone's bag.
that would be sacrilidge... at least for it to be said out in the open air - like at halftime at mackey... i don't think Gene or his wife would care however.
I have to fix the typewriter just a bit more, just a bit more tweaking.
one last line before I do that though.
nicely,
perfect,
sweetness.
-----
hmm. i'll be like Bukowski tonight and not hit delete even though I am thinking otherwise.
have a good day, and take care.
.jason
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)