Sun Is A Tank On Fire

Do you know what today is? It's okay if you've forgotten, it's been a long time. How about I remind you with.. a song! That's right, it's Saturday Song Salute, ladies and germs. For this salute I've chosen a song sung by a lady who's voice can be the rivets that hold a ship together at sea or the waves that crash that same ship apart. Same holds true for the song you're about to hear called L.A. Song. Quite honestly, I don't know if anyone other than Beth Hart could deliver this one as powerfully. It is the perfect example of a voice matching the mood that the lyrics set and the accompanying music just takes you right where you need to be. The piano part is divine, might I add. I'm a sucker for a great piano song and this one has that in spades. Let's move on to the lyrics. What can I say except... WOW. She tells a story that many of us can relate to on varying levels. It's a story of a girl trying to find her place in an out of place w...

I've ceased all wireless transmissions; have hardwired the lines between all the electronics and the mainframe of my heart. There are no more signals here, I'm pretty sure I eliminated them all. They were disgusting little creatures, invisible beams of sickness that crept through me at night while I slept. Now they are gone and I am left with an eerie stillness that can be felt if I hold my fingers out just right. At a soft angle, adjacent to the floor like this. I still stand on aluminum foil every night before I sleep. It discharges the static freckles that litter my internal frame and make me self conscious with my own soul. It is shaped like a West Virginia golf course- the aluminum foil, not my soul. But both are worth playing on. In the other room I have club music playing loudly and I am pretending there are girls on my sofa getting it on. They are still clothed, but not fully. If I walk out there and peer around the corner I would most likely see exposed breasts ...

I have loved before, sure, and I have watched love go right out the window like a whistle in the wind. None of this is new, it's merely par for the course in my long life of dead-end relationships. I am hardened by this shit by now, but I still cry because it still hurts. I still scream because it still makes me crazy. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm still human, though I would love to change that fact. What would I be if I could step away from my human frame and don that of another? Hmm, let me think about it... Ah yes, I would become the Hawkline Monster that lives in the ice caves beneath the basement! Rawr. Earlier today I decided to play the Magic 8-Ball iPod game. If you don't know what I mean, here's the gist of it: you use your iPod as a magic 8 ball by asking it a question (backed by a lot of emotion) and then hit shuffle. Whatever song it plays for you is supposed to give you all kinds of deep, spiritual insight to the question you asked. Ob...

It's Sunday morning and as I look outside I see the rising sun burning through the tree tops, creating an electric zoo of flash dancing, brightly lit creatures all across the starboard side of my apartment complex. I am drinking my brain kicker coffee (organic dark roast+Kerrygold unsalted grass fed butter+coconut oil+cinnamon+honey+blender) and writing this morning blog while watching god turn sun slivers into marionettes for my amusement. Speaking of god... yesterday I wrote a short story where I played the puppeteer, and in doing so I fabricated the lives of three young American kids and in turn, completely destroyed them, all in an effort to drive home a political point. After having written that, it dawned on me that writers get to "play god" every time they write. We envision, we create, we conduct, we conclude; and during that process we choose all of the emotions and every outcome, which now that I think about it, is actually bigger than god. Politicians can'...

    "I think an iris looks like a mutilated vagina," Danny said as he whacked at the group of flowers with his stick. Justin, being eleven and all, found this to be the funniest shit ever and laughed so hard he almost peed. This was the case most of the time, though. Danny was the compulsory wisecrack of the two and Justin found himself constantly laughing at everything his best friend said, he couldn't help it.     "DANIEL WILLIAMS... I HEARD THAT! NOT FUNNY, MISTER!" his mother yelled through the open window of her kitchen. She was putting together the ingredients needed to bake a cake, seeing how tomorrow was her son's birthday. Danny would be turning twelve, or as he put it, 'turning the dirty dozen'. She leaned forward to yell again, "AND GOD HELP YOU IF YOU ARE DESTROYING MY FLOWER BED... I WILL DESTROY YOU, MISTER!" She had the habit of calling him 'mister' whenever Justin was around, maybe in an attempt to elevate his statu...

Went on a day hike with friends and coworkers this past weekend to the Duffy Lake area in the Mt Jefferson Wilderness. We started at the Duffy Lake trailhead around 9am, hiked in to Duffy Lake, then to Mowich Lake. From here we decided to skirt around Mowich towards Duffy Butte to make our climb, but there is no trail from this point on, so it was bushwhacking all the way, which wasn't so bad until descending Duffy Butte. Not only was it steep and difficult, but it was an open invitation to accidental missteps that could result in serious ankle injury the whole way down. I probably won't do that one again. All-in-all it was a great day for a hike with clear views of all the surrounding buttes and mountains. We were back to the car by 3pm and we estimate our journey to be about 11 miles. Things I didn't like about this hike: thick layer of dry dust that comprises the trail was hell on the lungs if you hiked behind anyone the mosquitoes were very active and hungry...

His campsite was situated beneath a grove of Douglas Firs that resembled armor-plated giants in formation, awaiting orders to attack. Beyond them was a steep slope that rose higher than the three hundred foot tree canopies, so high in fact, it blocked out the setting sun which was already beginning to create an early evening chill. Nearby, the sound of the river could be heard rushing over rocks in a hurried manner. The forest grew louder with insect and bird songs as the young man applied the final touches to his tent, making sure each guy line was taut and secured. "There we go, that should hold" he said aloud to himself. It had rained the day before so he decided to gather up as much dry kindling and firewood he could find before the sun finally gave up on his position. He began the task of roaming the perimeter of the land he was calling home for the night, collecting good wood when he found it. Now and again he'd retrieve the bowie knife from a sheath that hung ...

Here I am sitting at my keyboard once again, staring at specks of grit trapped between keys, staring at a trove of capital letters waiting to be pressed. It used to be when I sat down to write I got excited about visiting that special place inside my mind where creativity flows and ideas flirt with words that give birth to sentences. I don't do that much anymore, as you well know. This is a tragic state of unbearable being, an abstention of balance that creates pockets of sadness all throughout the land. Many a wizard have appeared before me proclaiming that if I do not get "my shit together" that this planet will be in peril forevermore. I understand, I really do, and I'm trying to focus, you have to believe me. I do not want to bear the burden of planetary subversion, nor do I want to witness the nothingness swallow us whole, so I will get back to writing, by god! And this is my attempt. What has kept me silent, you may ask? Several things really. First off, I...

A long time ago, when I lived in North Carolina, the hiking/camping gene got triggered inside of me. I could feel the pull of nature calling me, the constant tug from an ancient, ancestral past luring me into the wild. Back then, though, it was mostly car camping with an occasional long distant overnight hike, but even then I wasn't too hardcore about it. A few miles in with a tent and a blanket strapped to my back, camp the night, a few miles back out the next day. That was a long time ago and I never did fully commit to exploring all that the Pisgah National Forest had to offer. I simply "had fun" a few times and that was it. Looking back, I would have to guess that being a crazy pet person had something to do with me not going deeper. At any given time I had at least half a dozen exotic pets in my care, and that's not a hobby you can just leave and disappear into the wilderness for more than a day/night. I had responsibilities, you see! Parrots, salt water aquarium...