westerns part two

The voting is on. Categories include TV and movies and whatever else you think of. Even Spaghetti westerns and down under epics can be considered. On that note you gotta love Quigley Down Under -- another film with Alan Rickman to grace its scenes, and the ever watchable Tom Sellick too!

Top Ten????? That's complicated. Start with The Magnificent Seven and you begin to realize most of the best were made in the late 50's and the 60's.

Then came Blazing Saddles.

10 Seconds

Immortality beckons
just out of reach
like so much dust on the moon,
my footfalls marking
unknown passageways
through my own mind.
Comfortable there, safe,
unchallenged, gifted
without tragedy or pain,
yet I fear. I fear
the anonymity.
I fear the slippage that awaits
with no paragraphs of remembrance
printed around the world.
Ten seconds, then forgotten,
not even stumbled upon
by accidental tourists
centuries hence. My books unread.
My name spoken only by accident
in Dutch townships
where hausfraus purchase
serving pieces and towels
for their kitchens and their guests.

Rambling Man

It is a new day. Boy does that sound corny and kind of dumb -- of course it is a new day! This one has been odd, though, as Diane and I try to fit new ideas (well, old ideas that are reawakened) into our lives. My mother used to say, ask a busy man to do something and he will find the time. I am beginning to feel that, at 60, I am actually finding the time whenever I look for it! And a good part of that time I spend writing.

i have submitted articles and poems to Helium.com in droves lately, and plan to keep on doing so. I am also re=thinking my novel and my "memoir" and even considering blogging them page by page or chapter by chapter. All the while working, trying to sell stuff on eBay, and keeping track of all the people I love. Busy, indeed! And time is becoming my friend for a change.

Plus there's TV to watch -- Lost is winding down, Chuck is on demand, and the New Doctor Who is delighting me --- David Tennant was a tough act to follow, but so was Christopher Eccleston. Matt Smith is doing just fine so far.

But nobody is Rose.

O Blah Dee O Blah Dah!!!

Thinking

Been thinking about fun things. Two come up for your consideration and feedback. Later I will share my opinions.

One: What are the best Westerns of all time?

Two: What would you consider to be the best job ever for you?

Have thought will travel!

Safe Landings

Safe Landings


The years take off
like rude children
mindful only
of their own desires.
Perhaps you are an airport
busy with comings and goings;
life itself can be
touch and go.
But it is the flight
that excites you,
adventurous destinations
and safe landings
that await.

Fledgling

Fledgling


I am no longer young.
I am not altogether old just yet,
archaic, an anachronism
wandering my own box canyons, lost.
My words still make some sense,
at least to me;
they carry inside them unknown songbirds
screaming to get out, take flight
high above the sheer canyon walls
comforted by your wise counsel,
kept warm by the grace of your
cozy, careful nest.

I see myself a poet
with cascading insights and clever phrases
locked in a toy store of my own design, forever.
I take no risks, face no rejections.
I feel no crying need to publish,
chapbook or solitary tome,
it’s all for me, all for me.
Not even your eyes may behold
the wonders etched on parchment
and tell me of my brilliance.
My light shines well enough for me,
I wander my box canyons alone.

New Arrival!

Congratulations to young master Jonathan Layne McCarthy, who arrived into this world in the usual way yesterday and already shows all the signs of a real heart breaker! We welcome you. Live long and prosper!

avatar

On Sunday our friend Carol took us to the movies. All in one swift movement Di and I became NOT the last people on earth to see Avatar, as well as once reluctant and now wowed by both IMAX and 3-D. Our previoys experience with IMAX had been Fantasia 2000, and the whales were life size, the screen was overpowering and we were overwhelmed. The IMAX at Cannery Row was not AS huge, not curved, and we could handle it. As to 3-D, my lkast experience with the medium was Jaws 3D, which was an awful film with cheezy effects that played to the 3D, leaping ouyt at you with severed fish heads and whatnot. But this! James Cameron did not play his scenes to the 3d effect; instead, he used 3D simply as the canvas. And it was exceptional. Plus the glasses were much more comfortable and only a graction as silly looking as the old cardboard and green-red lense jobbies of old.

As to the film -- it was beautiful, well told, busy, and fun. An e-ticket! The story was predictable but well presented, with enough tension at the outcome to keep you riveted. The film flew by, leaving me satisfied, awed, and ready to attack 3D again.

Sheri's Thanatopsis

Something I wrote when she passed. Di thought it should be shared for anyone and everyone who has suffered a loss -- thyat would be alomst all of us. It feels important somehow. Here goes:

Death slid into the room
like smoke billowing inward
through the open screen door.
He knew his victim, if victim she was;
she had danced with him for years,
had bedded him, sung him arias
filled with pain and longing,
and in return he had promised
to come back when she was ready,
and gently so.
The room was filled with sound,
our laughter, our tears, our lives
freely given freely shared,
so many cut flowers in a shrinking vase,
but she no longer followed us
and Death only smiled at our
sentimentality and sense of loss.
And all the while I wondered whom
next he would invite to dance.

apology of sorts

Dear friends, family and followers:

I guess I owe an apology to anyone I emailed the Charlie Rose article. Feedback shows that some of you are confused. Let me make this perfectly clear: I do not oppose taxes. In fact, I would willingly pay more taxes if one, I had confidence that the money would be used as earmarked and without superfluous waste; and two, if I had more say as to where my tax dollars went. Henry David Thoreau went to jail rather than pay a penny of tax to support the Mexican-American War. But he was a hippie radical commie loving pervert. Oh, wait, that was 1848.

Charlie Rose gives us food for thought, and I do think that we should consider ridding ourselves of an ineffectual Congress that seems more intent on petty bickering than actually getting anything done. And when they do get something done, the minority side goes ballistic. I mean, a year to get a watered down health care bill passed, and half of America is up in arms about that, with Sarah Palin yelling, "Reload! Reload!" Oh, please!

Ah, next time I will be either more fun or more serious. Depends on my mood. So, sorry everyone!