Just Sittin'...Thinkin'...

2008-07-04T16:34:26Z

6:24 AM.

89 degrees on its way to 110.

There's a 13 mph breeze blowing out of the Southwest.

Independence Day and St. Arbuck's is surprisingly busy yet missing the typical morning demographic of overly stressed and harried individuals on their way to someplace more important than here.

Today the clientele is mainly comprised of families getting an early and leisurely start on a day at the lake, the park or a day trip out of town in search of more moderate climes.

I, on the other hand, am content to just sit, sip and ponder.

I have been thinking about this whole "independence" thing.

Our local paper, the Review-Journal, printed the entire text of the Declaration Of Independence on its Op-Ed page today.

So I read it.

All of it.

I can't remember the last time I had done so.

It triggered a thread of thought, and when presented with such a distraction I will, in typical fashion, commence tugging for the simple curiosity of needing to know what will unravel...what is at the other end.

I gave that thread a little tug.

Dependence is when you can't live without the support of someone or something else.

Doesn't sound that great...I pulled some more.

Co-Dependence describes a relationship where one party is physically or psychologically addicted, and the other is psychologically dependent on the first.

Scary.

A few additional strands of thread unravelled.

Independence is when you are free from the control, influence, support or aid of another.

For some reason, that's not sounding all that great to me either, so I yanked a bit more.

Now, "Interdependence" (according to RG's paraphrase) is a reciprocal relationship between two or more individuals (or groups) wherein it is mutually agreed that life is better together.

I'm not sure how this plays out in your world, but as for me...I have tumbled down the days to arrive at the stark realization that I need people.

Plain and simple.

And...there are people who need me.

Wouldn't it be something if all of us, regardless of race, religion, political ideology or social status, somehow became interdependent.

The conclusion of the matter is this: if you want to celebrate something today, celebrate Interdependence for it is the very means by which our country came into being, by which our "independence" is is possible.

Enjoy the day, neighbors.

RG...out!

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Conversations With Eddie

2008-07-02T17:37:00Z

"Been thinking about getting a real job."

This from Eddie, my disgustingly good-looking African-American best friend as we sat on the patio of our favorite beachside St. Arbuck's enjoying a pleasant, if overcast, afternoon.

"A real job as opposed to what, the unreal one you have at present?" I said while watching a young couple streak by on inline skates, hair flying in the breeze, their skin glistening from a light sheen of perspiration.

He said, "Nah, man, the job's real, but right now it's real slow."

A reality affecting nearly everyone I know in the music industry.

"So what's slower, studio sessions or live gigs?"

"It's all slow, Jack!" he said firmly. "Been slow for most of this year, but nothing like it is right now."

"What about that thing at the Bellagio?"

He screwed up his face in puzzlement and said, "What thing?"

"You know, that thing where you were going to do five nights a week with your quartet."

"Man," he said, waving his hand dismissively, "that was all a bunch of hot air. Dude never intended to follow through on that for one minute. Just blowing smoke is all."

I said, "As I recall, the music biz has more than its fair share of that."

"You sure got that right. The whole industry runs on--"

"The stuff that sticks to your boots when you walk through a cattle yard?" I said.

"Exactly!"

Three teenaged girls entered the patio from the sidewalk still dressed in their beach attire--which wasn't much--walking in a tight cluster and all talking excitedly and simultaneously about a boy they had just seen surfing.

Once the twittering trio had made their way inside Eddie said, "That thing about getting a real job. I've actually been thinking lately about just getting out of the music business altogether."

"Because..."

"Well, because it's hard. I mean, you know that."

Immediately a line from "A League Of Their Own" sprang to mind in which Tom Hanks' character says to Gina Davis' character, "If it wasn't hard it wouldn't be baseball."

But since I valued our friendship, I let it go.

"I understand what you're saying," and I truly did, "but it'd be a shame." After a pause of a few seconds I said, "What does Sylvie think?"

He laughed humorlessly and said, "She said she just wants to see me smile again."

"And it's such a nice smile. At least I remember it being so, although it has been a while," I said and took a sip of my iced tea-lemonade. "Any idea what you'd do to replace the income?"

"Income?" he said mockingly. "What's that!"

"You must have thought of something."

He was slow in answering, and when he finally spoke his voice was coated in sorrow.

"That's just the thing, RG...apart from music, I basically have no skills. At least none that are marketable."

We sat there for a few minutes in morose silence.

Then out of the corner of my eye I spotted a guy walking purposefully toward our table.

Ignoring me completely he walked right up to Eddie and said, "You're Eddie Washington, aren't you?"

"Guilty as charged," Eddie said, making a brave attempt at humor.

"I knew it! I told my wife--that's her over there--that it was you."

The guy introduced himself and motioned for his wife to come over, a cute thirty-something blonde woman with a smile that could light up a room.

He said, "We saw you and your quartet last September at that jazz festival down at the beach."

"Really," Eddie said. "Were we any good?"

The guy's wife said excitedly, "Are you kidding? You guys stole the show."

"And the way you play drums," her husband added quickly with a sense of wonder in his voice. "I've never heard anyone do what you do. It actually made me feel things I've never felt before when I was listening to music. Anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt your conversation, but I just had to come over and say thank-you." They started to walk away but the man turned back and said, "And don't ever stop. We need you."

With that the two went back to their table leaving Eddie staring after them with a look of, well, I'm not sure what it was. Perhaps the best way to describe it would be to compare it to the expression on the face of a man dying of thirst who has just had a taste of cool water.

"So," I said, drawing the vowel out longer than necessary. "You got a date in mind when you're going to hang up the ol drumsticks?"

Eddie's gaze snapped back to me and he said, "Not quittin'! Not now...not ever."

And with that, the subject was closed.

I chuckled softly prompting Eddie to ask, "What's so funny?"

I said, "Oh, nothing. I just had a mental picture of you greeting people at Walmart is all."

He threw his napkin at me.

RG...out!

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One Down...

2008-07-01T21:32:40Z

So, as of this afternoon, the manuscript is done.

I mean done.

As in, all editing has ceased.

I sent in the final approval for the last proof from the layout editor and it's ready to be sent off to the printer...

As soon as the cover is finished.

With a sense of utter horror I realized just moments ago that I don't have one solid idea for the back cover OR the spine, and, trust me, the spine is more than likely the first thing people will see of your book.

The back cover?

It is the first line of marketing.

Both of vital, incalculable import.

Gotta' go.

I have some work to do.

RG...out!

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Believe It Or Not...

2008-07-01T16:52:18Z

So, we were driving to the gym this morning and I saw something unbelievable.

Something so awesome as to leave me breathless with wonder.

Something so unusual that I wanted to immediately call all of my friends and tell them what I had seen.

Brace yourselves...

At my friendly neighborhood Sam's Club the price for a gallon of gas had been LOWERED by $.02 since last night!!!!!!!

I'm not lying.

Believe it or not.

Have I somehow slipped unawares into an alternate universe??

RG...out!

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Feedback

2008-06-26T16:25:32Z

Just a quick "Thank-you" for all of your feedback regarding the book cover.

Based on the collective input, I'm going to be making a few alterations.

You guys make a great test group. :-)

RG...out!

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Book Cover

2008-06-25T23:39:41Z

So, I just got the final proof of the book cover.

Let me know what you think.

Snapshots-ver-1.0.3e_phontphreak

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Impossible Is Nothing!

2008-06-24T12:20:50Z

Once again, RG is up way too early.

How early?

Like, four AM early!

Like 0-dark-thirty early.

Like getting up half an hour before you go to bed early.

And I don't know why.

Well, that's not entirely true for I'm pretty sure I know the culprit.

Truth is, I know him quite well.

It's that relentless, gray stalker that dogs my steps and drives me down the days.

His name is doubt.

Hooks where there should be hands, sunk deeply into my soul where they remain embedded in spite of tireless efforts on my part to extricate and dislodge.

He whispers, "You're too old." "It's too hard." "You don't have enough money." "Quit now and save yourself the embarrassment." "No one will buy your books." "You can't do this...it's impossible!" "Wait until the circumstances are right."

You know what the problem with that is?

Circumstances are almost never "right."

There will always be a good reason not to attempt the impossible.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard someone begin a sentence with, "Well, under the circumstances..." and have wanted to say, "What are you doing under there?!"

We are meant to live on top of our circumstances, not under them.

I've been thinking a lot lately about a recent advertising campaign for Adidas.

I'm not sure if it makes me want to buy their shoes, but it is revolutionizing the way I look at life.

The voiceover for the pilot ad said, "Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they have been given than to explore the power they have to change it."

To that is added:

Impossible is not a fact, it's an opinion.
Impossible is not a declaration, it's a dare.
Impossible is potential.
Impossible is temporary.
Impossible...is NOTHING!

Now when I hear the simpering sibilance of doubt telling me how impossible this endeavor is, I throw my head back, laugh and say as loudly as I can, "Impossible is nothing!"

Try it.

"Impossible is nothing!"

Feels pretty good, doesn't it?

RG...out!

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[5WC] carpet, jury, pasta, shapeless, whey

2008-06-23T20:51:29Z

Face down on the carpet. Oddly enough, humiliating though it was, I found that I was completely okay with it. At least for the moment, which was really all the time I needed to pull myself together, or so I thought.

Opening my eyes--make that "eye" for only one seemed to be working--I looked out on a shapeless void where once had been a courtroom filled with people all of whom had come to see the criminal get what was coming to him.

That would be me. The criminal, that is.

Oh, I'm not a for real criminal, at least not until the jury says I am. Although if you were to inquire of my soon-to-be ex-wife, she of the bottomless, boiling cauldron of spousal hatred, she would most likely argue energetically in favor of immediate condemnation. Suddenly I was quite grateful that she didn't get to decide my fate.

Just as suddenly I realized that the floor was no place for a man of my stature and started to wonder what had precipitated so demeaning a position. The answer came slowly, in lockstep with a clearing of the haze that had clouded my mind as well as my vision.

I couldn't see much from where I lay, but what I did see wasn't good. A ring of faces bearing expressions that were mostly devoid of anything save disgust and not a little anger, all of which were looking down upon my supine form.

An ill-advised attempt on my part to turn over did nothing but provoke an immediate threat from my digestive tract to disgorge the entirety of the pasta prima vera which had been so hastily consumed over lunch. No doubt the culprit behind my ignominious collapse.

"Counselor?" came a resonate basso from the direction of the judge. "Are you able to continue or do we need to call for medical attention?"

Somehow I managed to make it onto all fours, raised one hand and said, "Fine. I'm fine. I don't know what happened, but I'm fine."

"Yeah, you look it!" said my ever-cheerful estranged spouse from her place by a lawyer who, to my eyes anyway, had facial skin the color and texture of whey.

Once on my feet, I did my best to straighten my tie and smooth my hair back into some semblance of coiffure, realizing in the process that spittle clung to my chin in sufficient quantities as to warrant the use of the handkerchief I had stupidly left behind in the stupid apartment I'd been forced to rent while my wife and I haggled over this stupid divorce like a couple of stupid school children fighting over a place in the stupid cafeteria line!

I had no choice but to wipe my chin on my coat sleeve leaving a most unattractive trail of slime which was, true to form, turned iridescent by the courtroom's fluorescent lighting.

"Perfect," I said out loud and apropos of nothing.

"Well, then," said the most patient judge. "Shall we continue?"

And I wondered for about the ten thousandth time what there was about trying my own divorce case that had ever seemed like a good idea.

RG...out!

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Major League

2008-06-23T14:23:53Z

I may have mentioned this before but if so it bears repeating.

I don't like change.

This being a well-established fact I find it incomprehensible that my wife and I have been "trying out" a new St. Arbuck's.

Our reasoning is that it is much closer to our house than our (read "my") St. Arbuck's.

I don't like it.

I don't like anything about it except possibly that it is in close proximity to a quite lovely city park.

As in right across the street.

And from the air conditioned comfort of its interior you can see much of said park.

Our routine of late has been to rise early while it is still cool (I say this with tongue firmly planted in cheek for "cool" these days relates to anything around eighty degrees which is about all we can expect for a nighttime low) and walk our dog around the park and then over to the St. Arbuck's for coffee, morning paper and conversation.

It's a good routine and sometimes there are things happening in the park that are worth noting.

For instance...

Yesterday morning--that would be Sunday morning--I was easing my way through my coffee and attempting to make sense of vastly conflicting articles on the Op-Ed page when some movement caught my eye.

It was a young couple with two tiny children--both of whom were boys--getting out of their car.

Those of you with young children know all too well the enormous amount of effort this entails what with all the accoutrements one must schlep around now days if one has young children.

One of the boys was perhaps five while the other was no more than two.

Mom took charge of the younger while dad took the elder, along with a bag bulging with various pieces of baseball equipment over to a grassy area for some training.

I'm talking serious training here.

The boy may have been only five, but he knew how to throw, catch and hit.

I casually walked across the street so I could more closely observe the goings on arriving just in time to hear the dad say, "Remember...as soon as you hit the ball start running. Worry about whether it's fair or not later."

The little boy nodded his understanding, shouldered the bat and awaited his father's pitch.

Now, when I say "pitch," I mean it was a real pitch; not some sloppily lobbed cream-puff that one would expect to see with so young of a batter.

And the kid hit it!

I was amazed.

He dropped the bat and raced toward a base marker that had been set up at an appropriate distance as fast as his little legs would carry him.

"Safe!" was the call from a very proud father who, no doubt, had dreams of that boy being Major League someday.

Mom and Junior had wandered into the playing area where the little brother immediately picked up the bat, which was comically large for his tiny frame.

My first thought was that big brother would reprimand his younger sibling for messing with his stuff, but instead he very patiently positioned the bat on the kid's shoulder and showed him how to swing, which he did to the delight of all.

I watched for a few more minutes before making my way back across the street to collect wife and doggie and begin the trek home thinking all the while about the scene to which I had just been witness.

It was all about generations.

That father was no doubt passing along to his children that which had been passed along to him.

Planting seeds is a more accurate descriptive for what I had seen.

It's what we humans do.

We plant.

Water.

Harvest.

Good seed or bad, it matters not for the process is the same.

That young father and mother were planting good seed...very good seed from which, in a few years, will come a bountiful harvest.

My children are grown, but I have grand children about the same ages as those two little boys.

With a final glance back over my shoulder, I mentally started planning our next trip to San Diego, for I have yet a few seeds to plant.

RG...out!

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QotD: Glazed Over

2008-06-22T17:03:06Z

What's your favorite type of donut?
Submitted by tomatshonino.

These questions really need an upgrade!
All right, my favorite type of donut is found at VG's Donuts in Cardiff, CA and is a raised donut with chocolate frosting smothered in a sugar glaze.
Incomparably good.

RG...(drooling) out!

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