Condensed Milt

Send Deb Dawson to Coney Island!

2010-08-25T22:43:00.000-07:00

Deb Dawson's latest cartoon, "Ray Condo's Crazy Mixed Up World" is 'World Premiering' at the Coney Island Film Festival at the end of September. It has also been chosen for programming at the prestigious Ottawa International Animation Festival in October.

This is a labour of love that Deb has been working on since the untimely demise of the legendary Ray Condo.

To see her demo reel, go to http://iliketoanimate.com/

Unfortunately, the way arts are funded in our province, it is very hard for creative people to support themselves, especially in a way that allows them to go to New York, even for a World Premiere!

That is why I am appealing to you. Send your donations to help Deb get her cartoon ass to New York; better yet, acquaint yourself with the artist that is Deb Dawson. Say Hey! Does your company or project need a brilliant animator that could use a few paying gigs?

Check out Deb Dawson's website at http://www.iliketoanimate.com/
Or send your cheques payable to Deb Dawson to

Apt C 2404 Guelph Street
Vancouver, BC V5T 3P3

$5, 10, 20, 50, 100- whatever you can spare! Make the world a better place and hire an artist today!

Fingers on keys

2010-08-23T23:15:00.000-07:00

Fingers on keys, resting, waiting for inspiration to move them. Spell it out, let the thoughts flow from mind to fine motor skills, gently pressing on the keys, but not moving, and then moving again as the thought takes flight. I keep hearing what sounds like water running through pipes, a release of pressure, the computer itself is percolating like a pot of 60's folgers from the can, the eruption of caffeinated concentration and then the sigh, eruption, sigh; this is the sound that I would awaken to as a child, better than an alarm- alarms don't have aroma, alarms don't imply mother, and father, and two poached eggs on buttered toast, marmelade or strawberry freezer jam. My mother stretching the food budget with postwar frugality.

And now, hands on keys, fingertips poised to remember, to translate transfer the roar of the rotary phone, the smell of Vitalis on the favorite chair, television that you had to get up out of the chair to change the channel, My Mother the Car, Dark Shadows, It's About Space, The Time Tunnel, Lost in Space, as tv tried to make sense of our increasingly fragmented world. A time when news was news. When war was bloody and on television, not sequestered and embedded, but raw screaming bloody children and monks on fire, and assassinations, and rye and ginger, and sliding down a mountain of Montana snow on a flying saucer.

All this and more brought to life again, by the mere placing of fingers on keys.

Shit happens....for a reason

2010-08-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

Shit happens.....for a reason. Shit meaning stuff, meaning bad karma, meaning bad events, meaning cancer? Because "everything happens for a reason". Or so I said to my wife in the car, who replied, I don't buy that. Bad things happen and then people try to make sense of it, by reasoning, it was meant to be. Or I deserve it, or God knows better than we do, you see, there is a plan!
Or is there? Our lives are ruled by randomness. The only guarantee of success is persistence, and luck.
Or birthright. As we know from looking at all the great talented suicides of even recent history, talent is no measure of success. Far from it. It is often a curse in a world that is increasing becoming stupider and stupider by the minute.
So does shit happen for a reason- well, if that candy makes your life sweeter, or that dream makes the next morning bearable, or that old time religion helps you to screw your neighbor's wife and cheat at business, only to be pious and proud on Sunday, well then shit happens for a reason.

Decline of the Art of Cake-Baking

2010-08-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

A terrific peal of laughter from the others was released by my "Decline of the Art of Cake-Baking." The matter was as follows: for a time giant, larger-than-lifesize cakes appeared to me. Like standing in front of a lofty mountain, the cakes were so gigantic that I could only see part of them. I launched into detailed descriptions of how such cakes were so consummate that it was not necessary to eat them, for they immediately stilled all appetite through the eyes. And this I called "vision bread" [Augenbrot, literally "eye bread"]. http://www.wbenjamin.org/protocol1.html#IX

Last night went to an opening for Rosmond Norbury, and was instructed in a good way by artist Cornelia Wyngaarden on the origins of the word Flaneur, leading me to read up on Walter Benjamin. And we know, it is all about the Benjamins!
This great site http://www.wbenjamin.org/ has many of his writings available to read. Drawn like the proverbial fly on the wall to ....I see that Benjamin and his fellow travellers in thought wrote a book On Hashish, about their experiences with the drug.

I particularly loved the idea of The Decline of the Art of Cake-Baking and "vision bread", as I have always said "we eat with our eyes", and "never eat anything bigger than your head".
If the way to a good man's heart is through his stomach, and your eyes are bigger than your stomach, and the eyes are the window to the soul, then close your eyes, dream of diets, and hug yourself, because life is full of crap and cruelty, and every good boy deserves fudge.
There. I've finally said it. It needed to be said, and I said it.

America is Angry

2010-08-03T22:44:00.000-07:00

America will work for food.
America enjoys a smoke.
America needs a drink.
America is angry.

America likes to take drugs.
America wants to sleep with you.
America would kill for a day off.
America is angry.

America likes the bright lights.
America likes the dark corners.
America wants its cake.
America is angry.

America bombs the poor.
America needs to see a doctor.
America is going postal at the workplace.
America is angry.

America likes heavy metal.
America fears God.
America will sacrifice her babies.
America is angry.

America likes having sex with strangers.
America likes blender drinks with bendy straws.
America doesn't want to play today.
America is angry.

In Support of Little Mountain Art Gallery:

2010-07-31T16:48:00.000-07:00

Support of the arts is integral for all levels of government, starting with our civic leaders. Little Mountain Gallery is a unique performance and visual art centre that fills a void in Vancouver culture. It is nothing less than our civic duty to support organizations like Little Mountain Gallery.

It is always a challenge in our modern cities to balance the needs of residents and business.

When it is a case of residents and the arts, one has to understand that support for Little Mountain Gallery does not just come from the direct neighbourhood. The scope of programming draws people to Vancouver, supporting neighbouring businesses and helping to enrich our civic life.

I have been asked to be a part of a few events at Little Mountain Art Gallery, making the journey from my home in White Rock to Vancouver.

We have been a part of project to digitize and promote the archived video history and art of Vancouver's music scene of 1979-1982.

I have found the organizers to be honest, energetic and organized, working with very little money, and yet working hard at creating a vital art centre.

As a former (and future) resident of Vancouver, I would suggest to City Council that support for local organizations like Little Mountain Art Gallery has wider impact than you imagine. It is organizations like this that need your support at the grassroots level. Plant a few seeds here, and watch the creativity grow and enrich the Vancouver landscape.

Thanks

Dennis Mills

Waiting Out The Wolves

2010-05-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

At night they circle the campfire

Calling to one another

This one is mine

He's ripe for the plucking

Heads he's mine

Tails he's yours

You always get the head

Aaaah but the tail is where the meat is

Howl a song for me

You know the one about the headless camper

They laugh and howl and chase each others tall tales

With further tales of flesh and consumption

Suddenly the mood changes and the laughter dies

A far more serious tone envelops them

Like the fog it comes upon them silently

It pervades the prey almost sinister

Did you see him?

He's still moving

I don't need to see

I smell his fear

He won't get far......

People Like Me

2010-05-21T21:16:00.000-07:00

My inbox keeps me awake at night. I am not comforted in the knowledge that tripling the size of my penis will save dolphins from being slaughtered in Japan; gluten-free jelly donut recipes bring on paralysis, and offers of friendship and requests for money lull me into a stupor of inaction. There is the starving child homeless in Haiti and I can’t believe there are so many people like me who cannot find just 5 minutes a day to respond to her cries for help, but my sleepless nights seesaw with skeletal images of this poor child, and then there is the poor man in Nigeria, a former prince actually, who was left this rather large sum of money by a distant relative. He needs my help - I know it sounds incredible, but he plans to share his enormous fortune with me, and I barely know the man, but since he cannot collect this princely sum without my help, I must step up and be a man because there is help with erections, and a man with erections can always help because there are insanely low interest rates that only online banks in Eastern Europe can offer to people like me, which is why I must invest in tomorrow today with the help of other people like me. There are even points I can collect if I sign up now because people really do like me, I know this for a fact; everyday I receive requests for my friendship from high school chums I cant even remember, but however foggy my memory of these friends are, I know that I am so blessed for a limited time, as I can now purchase gingko for wholesale prices, God knows I need to save my pennies, because for pennies a day I can change a life, and you can too, so reach out and touch the life of someone like Mali, who lives in a small village in Africa, ( did you know it takes a village to raise a child?), and Mali needs more than just my beer money for mosquito nets, which he must have or he will for sure catch malaria, SARS, bird flu, the clap; maybe Mali will die from HIV like his poor mother, Madonna, who left Mali an orphan. It is no wonder I cannot sleep. How do I get the image of my new friend Nikki69 and her triple DDD size breasts out of my head? She wants to follow me on Twitter, because.....well, people like me.

The Two Morons of Heligoland

2010-05-19T23:48:00.000-07:00

Identical twin boys of little intelligence were born to Heisenberg, the physicist from the archipelago of Heligoland in the Northern Sea, and actress Jane Fonda, the most famous descendant of the predominant tall, big-boned and blonde haired ethnic group of Heligoland, the Frisians; Fonda was formerly called Hanoi Jane, due to her youthful activism, but became better known later in her life for looking good in spandex; she arrived in Heligoland after hearing about the mild climate, its beautiful cliffs, and the relative lack of pollens in the air ( this feature being beneficial for her allergies), and so, she fell in love with Heligoland and the much older physicist Heisenberg, who was the author of the Principle of Uncertainty, which postulates “the more precisely one property is known, the less precisely the other can be known”, a principle that encapsulated the many personal doubts that Heisenberg struggled with when the famous actress “fell” for him. It was commonly understood by all Heligolanders, both Upperland and Lowerlanders (most Middlelanders being undecided in this matter) that Heisenberg’s inner doubts and demons may have physically manifested themselves in the birth of their identical twin sons, who were unfortunate to be possessed of little intelligence; in fact, the two boys were morons, a more accurate term describing their relative intelligence in comparison to the average Heligolander. As the identical twins grew older, their moronic adventures brought much embarrassment to the highly intelligent Heisenberg. Too many times, their daily walks upon the edges of Heligoland’s strange triangulated cliffs, in particular, the southwestern cliff that drops over 50 metres to the ocean, and then another 56 metres to the ocean floor would be the talk of Heligoland; the moronic twins loved to get as close to the edge as they could without falling to their deaths, and would peer across the cliffs to the most famous free standing rock column of Heligoland, the "Tall Anna". Many Upperlanders believe that while the beauty of Tall Anna may have drawn the brothers to the edge of the cliffs, surely, it was pure dumb luck that saved one of the boys that fateful day, the day that one twin got too close to the edge and fell to his death; the Lowerlanders, being Frankish descendents of Charlemagne, had openly cheered for both boys to plunge to their watery grave, for the Lowerlanders disdained Heisenberg and his famous Frisian wife, and had made them the butt of a rather racy but convoluted Quantum Mechanics joke, one that compared Heisenberg’s wife with Einstein’s Slit; however, it was the Middlelanders, who having survived the repeated bombing of the Big Bang in WWII, reasoned the survival of the one moron brother was most likely due to the simple fact that one of the moron brothers was a little “more on” the cliff than the unfortunate moron brother who fell off.

I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT- NOW IF I CAN JUST GET OUT OF THE WAY

2010-05-16T20:47:00.000-07:00

The White Page

2010-05-03T08:38:00.000-07:00

The white page begs for words like the drug addict who, asking for spare change for food, really want drugs to satisfy their craving, but the white page, while literally starving for verbs to fill the barren expanse bereft of subject or predicate, will not be satisfied with mere words as the real craving is for something better, something like the complete thought that turns into a perfect sentence, a sentence to end all sentences, a sentence that shouts to the world, I Will Work for Words, until word after word the white page fills with words and is no longer blank or void of meaning, but still this is not enough, no the half page mocks the writer, whispers in his ear, taunting him with the thought that anybody can draw up a list- this is not talent; what a page desires are full blown stories, romances, mystery, nods to the masters, not just words lifted from the latest book you have read, but instead a humorous tale with a payoff line that screams brilliance, please don’t even consider stopping here when you have more to give, just acknowledge that a page has needs too, and so the writer proclaims to the page that the words he has written will grow like seeds upon the ground, and gathering hubris, says that one day he will be called the Johnny Appleseed of words, and his words will propagate, spreading far and wide, single words begetting more words, until fruitful sequences of words dream of becoming paragraphs, paragraphs that force pages into turning over, and soon both sides of the page are completely full and satisfied, and the writer, who is now on a roll, reaches for a new white page.

Hunger

2010-04-25T22:44:00.000-07:00

The dogs lay on the bed beside me, as I turn off the lights, and put down the slim book I am reading, a small compact book filled with 104 short stories by the great Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard; each story begins with a memory and ends with misfortune or death, so these are the thoughts that fill my head as I close my eyes.
Imagine my surprise to awake to the sounds of whimpering, so I leap out of my bed, and shake off the remnants of last night’s dream where I was wandering through a high school, and my teacher gives me an assignment to write a short paragraph about one of the objects on a table, and I panic as I have already read all the books assembled, and besides, they are stacked so precariously that if I make the wrong decision, I will cause the rest to cascade to the floor, and so that is why in the end I pick up a stale raspberry poppy seed muffin, thinking what is there to say about a muffin and knowing full well that a muffin is not a book.

I follow the sounds of whimpering and scurrying feet upon the floor, then pause at the door for dramatic effect, opening the door with a flourish, and the dogs bound down the stairs just like this is the first time we have done this routine - every time like this is the first time. The whimpering signals the start of the dance, this natural pattern of hunting and circling the prey before the final kill. They split up at the base of the stairs, and one goes east and one goes west, and in the middle of the yard they meet, and attack each other, or sometimes, distracted by a scent in the air, they race to the base of the tree and look up in the hope of catching the ever elusive squirrel. I watch them for a short time, then turn back toward the kitchen, and upon the counter I see a stale raspberry poppy seed muffin.

I return to bed, picking up the Thomas Bernhard book where I had left off reading the night before. I regret to say that nobody dies in this story.

VDOC- Rock Against Prisons March 9 2010- Back to the Future

2010-03-07T13:05:00.000-08:00

We're going to go way back, back, back, back in the way back machine, Sherman. The time was 1979.
The place was the Ukrainian Hall in Vancouver BC. The event was called Rock Against Prisons. The bands were Female Hands, the Zellots, the Devices, AKA, Tunnel Canary, Rabid, and the Subhumans.
Recorded for time by video artist Doreen Grey.
I see this is an early version of AKA with the beautiful Tommy Wong on keyboards, the two Warrens (Ash and Hunter), Alex Varty and myself, dense milt.
The songs still not quite fleshed out. But still they danced. On stage even. I wore a pink vintage shirt which still hangs in my closet. Doesn't fit me anymore, but it hangs there as a reminder. Of thinner days of idealism, anger, and adventure. My kangaroo Tony Lamas cowboy boots. Long gone with all the other cowboy boots.
Seven bands representing the full spectrum of Vancouver Punk Art Music. On the punk side, the Rabid, the Subhumans, Devices and Zellots. On the wild art side, AKA and Tunnel Canary. Bridging the two realities, the inventive power pop punk Female Hands.
This was the night I first went home with my wife of 31 years. We have celebrated this night for many years, and not out of any kind of political activism.
Vancouver scene was a strange brew of activist politics, rage, melodicism, art and influences. There were the bands influenced by England, and those influenced by New York, and those influenced by LA, and that special Vancouver magic that held it all together.

Dutch Savage

2010-03-07T11:53:00.000-08:00

Is he not the coolest wrestler of all time?

Dutch Savage

Points for the beard and sideburn combo

The scar studded forehead

The West Virginia Coal Miners Grudge Match

Metal folding chairs, always something sharp and hidden

To scar and bloodify

He was a good guy

A tough guy but a good guy

Decent
destructive
dare I say devilish?

The Dutchman

Hard Nancy and visionary outsiders

2009-10-17T12:44:00.000-07:00

Somewhere along the way, instead of keeping all my writing on this one blog, I diversified. I have quite a few different blogs now. Too many actually. But I imagine them to be forums for different things I might want to express.
I have two new blogs that may interest any readers of this one.
http://www.visionaryoutsiders.com/

visionary outsiders is what it says. Its about those artists, musicians, writers, people who interest me. Even the one's who have some notoriety have come by it from the outside looking in. Its my forum for shining a light on these inspirators.

The second blog is Hard Nancy. http://www.hardnancy.com/
It is a novel in progress. I encourage your comments.

Don't Try This At Home

2009-09-18T00:39:00.000-07:00

The following post was originally posted
Sunday, August 26, 2007
It has been two years three months and twenty two days since that night. I count my blessings I can still do all the things I love to do. I still need to exercise more and lose that extra twenty lbs, but its good being on the green side of the grave. I would like to thank all the wonderful people who have written to my blogs, commenting on what I write. Thank you Rachel in CA for your wonderful words. I'm sending out positive energy to you and your family. There is always a light if look long enough. Even when darkness threatens to press in from all sides, there is light. There is light in the beauty of a smile, in the child that looks for comfort, in the animals who share our houses and give only love, This is a story of survival in the face of that darkness.

One of the things I have learned this summer is that I would not recommend having a heart attack while flying. Now I'm not totally sure that was when it all happened, but I do know I had a heart attack sometime between 7:00 Thursday evening and 10:00 Friday evening when I checked myself into the emergency ward of the local hospital outside of Atlanta.

As I explained earlier, I have been feeling lousy since the Thursday evening, in mounting waves of discomfort, nausea, cold sweats, shortness of breath, and this incredible feeling that my lungs were on fire, and every breath I took was increasingly difficult. My good friend (best man to be precise) Broadway Sol Goodman and I had left his apartment in Long Island City headed to the airport by subway first.

"This is the right line for JFK", he said. I said the ticket says La Guardia. Ooops... We exited the station and crossed the street, finding the right line to take us closer to La Guardia. Even though I was travelling light, the weight of the baggage, the humidity, and what I later learned was the symptoms of a heart attack, started to weigh on me.

I started the game we have all played of making deals with God. Just get me to ____, and I'll _____. We start small with "get me to the bus to the airport", then "get me to the airport check-in", then "get me through the check-in". Anything in the baggage, sir? Let me see, when should I tell someone that I might be having a major health crisis?

I move on to the airport bar, which is very full, this being Memorial Day weekend in America. I contemplate what kind of food goes best with a major health crisis, and decide that beer is what has got me this far, so it should be good enough to help me get where I need to go.

In America, nothing is done half-ass, except perhaps wading into a hornet's nest of blood hatred in the land of sand and oil like a drunk at a kid's pinata. The beer was gigantic, but even with my major health crisis, I was able to get most of it down. Not all of it, which shows that something was definitely going wrong for me.I made my way to the boarding gate for cheap flight from NYC to Atlanta. My nephew (and godson) had become a high school dad, and they were having a baptism for his son. I was totally pleased with my week long stay in NY with my best bud; we had turned the clock back so far that a spring had sprung. But I was looking forward to getting to Atlanta and being with my family. My mother had surprised all of us by booking herself a ticket to join in the fun, and my sister was coming from Toronto where she had been on business. It looked to be a great finish to what was already one of my best vacations. Too bad I couldn't breathe.

The lounge for departure was overfull, with many people hanging around trying to get home on a standby ticket. Standby, as the very funny Indian ticket agent informed all who cared to listen, was what you had to do when waiting to see if someone might not show up. If they all show up, then you keep standing. One guy was told that it was likely he would be there until Monday (this was Friday). Even though I had a ticket, my fear was that I would be left behind in this hot, humid, stinky departure lounge suffering from what I did know for the next few days. Finally, the plane boarded, and I found my seat. They informed us that just as soon as everybody got on and we were able to leave, they would then turn on the air conditioning. Until then children, you are all to sit and sweat and enjoy the fact that you were flying for next to free.

All very well except that every moment I am having to making bigger deals with God just to get me to Atlanta. I thought maybe I had come down with pneumonia since I had that in 1989, and the feelings in my lungs were similar. I tried concentrating on my breathing, concentrating on how an extremely tall black man with a ipod could actually fit into one of these sardine size airline seats next to me. He was prepared with his tunes for the trip and all I could do was hope to hear some kind audio exhaust; alas, his earphones were top quality, and no leakage of the tunage was possible.

It's amazing just how long an hour and a half flight can be when you are having a heart attack. The deals were made with God and Devil and I landed in Atlanta drenched in my own bodily liquids. I turned my cell phone on, and my sister let me know that they were waiting for both me and my mother, who was fortuitously coming in about ten minutes after my flight. I informed her that I was feeling majorly lousy, and not to expect the party animal I can be.

The airport in Atlanta is so big that they have a subway train that takes you from the gates to the baggage area. I made it to the train, and held on for dear life, getting to the baggage area and my waiting family. We picked up my mother and headed in airconditioned SUV to suburban Atlanta. It felt so good to be off the plane and among my family, that the symptoms of the heart attack ebbed until I arrived at my sister's beautiful house. I told them I thought maybe I had pneumonia and they hooked me up with some killer antibiotics that reported killed the walking pneumonia. They apparently were not so effective for myocardial infarctions. After a tour of the house and up the stairs to the deck, I informed my brother-in-law that perhaps it was the "widowmaker", a term I had picked up after reading the great Joan Didion book, A Year of Magical Thinking. My brother-in-law said if that is what you feel, you should get it checked out. I called the 1-800 number on my extended health care card and they said if you are having chest pains, get thee to a hospital, dummy. OK, they didn't say dummy, but by now, that is what I was thinking. As I was told later at the hospital, I was extremely lucky that I was still living.

Posted by dense milt at 12:21 PM 0 comments Posted by Dense Milt at 12:22 AM 0 comments Links to this post

Like drowning in your own body

2009-09-13T00:49:00.000-07:00

In April of 2006, my father died of congestive heart failure. Congestive heart failure is like drowning in your own body. The body produces more and more fluids and cannot get rid of them. This puts strain on the heart, which lacks the power to pump all the blood, causing more fluid to collect, making the heart work even harder until finally, the day comes when it can work no more, and you drown in your own body.
From 1979: (I was mad at dad when I wrote this poem)

the heart: it chokes the lodger in my throat
the father a man but not a family man
his love his company his children his interest
his use of vocabulary was economical
his power unconscious
he was not a bank,he said.
he said he was not a bank.

the heart: it chokes the lodger in my throat.
dense milt 1979

Despite the feelings this poem recalls from almost thirty years ago, my father and I had grown close as he neared the end of his life. My sister and I had travelled to visit him on what turned out to be his last day. His knees were the size of thighs, and his body was heavy and full of fluids. His breath was laboured, and he drifted in and out of full coherence. Still, he knew we were there. I don't remember him smiling, or having words of wisdom to impart. He was in pain, and he knew that he was dying. At one point, he wanted to go to the bathroom, so we helped him up and started to guide him to the toilet. He was really out of it though, and started to stumble. I was trying to hold him up, but he ain't heavy, he's my father. The weight was simply too much for me to keep him vertical. This is why they call it "dead weight". My sister went to get nurses to help, and it took about 4 or 5 of them (and these were all big overweight American nurses) to lift him and get him back to his bed. From then on, they told him that it was bedpans or diapers as he would not be allowed to go on his own.
Knowing the force and pride of this man, I knew this was not in his plans. It seemed that he would not be long for our world. We said our goodbyes, and he held my hand and thanked us for coming. I remember the feeling of my father's hands. Like other hands of his generation, they were the hands of men who worked with their hands- bigger, meatier than hands today. Our relationship which had not always been so close, had changed (for the better) with the birth of my daughter.
Growing up, my dad was often "not there" for me. I grew up thinking that somehow this was my fault, but found out after he died, when I had the opportunity to spend some time with my second oldest brother, that my father had not been there for him either. He related stories of my mother getting him up to go for hockey practices on the other side of town in the nether hours of the morning. He would take the bus on his own. Where was my dad in this? Probably in bed, although it was entirely possible that he could have been active in coaching other people's kids as he was always more comfortable in the company of strangers.
About a month before he died, I woke early in the morning to the type of dream where you are almost conscious. Your dream plays like a movie, and you are the director. My dad had become a very good grandfather; he was much better at that than being a dad to us. He was always telling his grandkids wild stories of his youth. We would listen as he told us how he was taking this girl home up on Dunbar St, then discovering he didn't have fare for the bus, and had to walk all the way back to east Vancouver. He stopped at the Aristocrat on Broadway and Granville as he had enough for a coffee, and met up with a neighbourhood celebrity who was a prize fighter. The prize fighter asked Freddie (my dad) what he was up to, and he said he was on his way home. The fighter said hang with me for the rest of the night and I'll get you home. He then gave my dad a giant roll of money to hold for him, as they embarked on a crawl of epic proportions through the many afterhour places of ill repute. This, like the Johnny Cash story, was only one of his stories. There were many, and they seemed to improve upon each telling. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. As my father neared his death, I worried that his stories would die with him. I thought what about all the ones he had yet to get to telling; no one would ever hear them again.
As I lay dreaming, I reasoned that I was created from dna that came from my father. Perhaps memory could be stored in dna, then if I could just concentrate hard enough, maybe I would be able to tap into his dna inside of me and "remember" all the stories that he knew but had not had the time to tell. I remember trying very hard to drift back. Just as the memories started to flood back, I awoke and once again they were lost.
Posted by dense milt at 12:24 AM

Capturing the Moment

2008-07-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

It was a morning in October. I was sitting at the desk blogging when I heard a thud against the window. A few seconds later I heard a second thud, and I rose to look out the window. Below me on the ground were two birds, robins I think.

One was lying there - the one in the picture- and one was standing guard over her, waiting for movement, a sign of life.

I watched them for about five minutes, and neither of them moved.

I went downstairs, and quietly opened the door. Still, no movement.

The bird in the picture was dead, killed after crashing into the windows, once or twice. The other bird was watching her, like in the song Someone to Watch Over Me. He did not move as I approached. I gently motioned toward him with my foot. He did not move. I touched him very gently. He did not move.

I saw a neighbor and motioned for them to come over and witness this with me. She said, Oh my god, Robins mate for life. One is the female, and the other is the male. He won't leave her.

We both approached, and still, no one moved.

I said, I've got to get a picture of this. I went inside to get the camera. As I came out, and prepared to take the photo, the male bird finally moved, and flew off. I had missed my opportunity to capture the moment.

Still, as you have read, the moment was captured in my memory. The scene of devotion, and connection, and reverence touched me. It still does. Many people talk about birds and animals as if they have no feelings, but it is obvious they have complex emotions. What was going on the bird's brain and heart as he stood guard over his beloved? What was he feeling? Could words express his loss? One moment they were flying, and the next moment, life changed for both of them in a way that neither could imagine. Not that different than our lives, is it?

It is what it is

2008-06-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

The words of Todd Bertuzzi are becoming a catch phrase in this part of the woods. Part defiance, part resignation, part reality, and part of the family. Today is my father's birthday. Except Dad, or the part of his ashes we cast to the sea, is no longer with us. He is resting or floating in English Bay and beyond.
My father was a wandering soul in life; he may have floated over to China. Or maybe he only made it half way- vacationing in Hawaii.

Hell, he could stay at the time share we still have yet to sell.

For a time in the sixties, he was a travelling salesman . Did he get mad and quit the steady job? Was his famous temper part of the reason for the departure? It is what it is.

He had a family of seven to support. This is a concept that is hard to fathom today. For whatever reason, he was usually gone. On the road. Home on the weekend. The Weekend Dad. Late for supper, with a friend invited at the last minute. My theory is that he needed his space. He loved his family and my mother, but he needed his space.

My mother was a quick-change artist. We grew to like our chicken white and dry, because well.....it is what it is. When your husband is late, and you keep the kids waiting for him to be home for dinner, the breast of a chicken can get a little dry.

When he came home, Dad would head to the yard to mow the lawn, or "build". He helped me build something for Scouts. I found out at the race, that he had put it together backwards. I was a bit ashamed, as he had done all the work, and here it was backwards. But we ran that race, and came in second. Backwards!

In later years, he would putter and build and buy things he didn't need, but most importantly, he would volunteer. He volunteered for the Association for the Advancement of Retired People, or AARP. One day, he went to the Governor of Washington's office to present the Governor with an AARP card, as he had just turned 50, my age. My dad had a heart attack in the Governor's office and died. But the story does not end there.

But because he had lobbied for cardiac resusitation equipment for the Governor's office, the aides were able to bring my father back to life. A defibrillator later and he was volunteering more, making sure that this type of emergency equipment was available in every senior's center in many counties in Washington. He lobbied for senior's rights and care,and even had a law named after him in Washington state, The Fred Mills Act.

In the end, which was two years ago, he drowned in his own body with a condition they call congestive heart failure. You fill up with fluids, and your heart becomes too strained to pump the blood, so the fluids continue to build, and slowly you drown. In your own body. Your own worst enemy. It is what it is.

Today is his birthday, which is a day of celebration. So I celebrate his life, as I would not be here without him. I didn't always like him, I even thought at a time that I didn't love him; unfortunately, there were times I did not respect him.

But we are a complicated beast. There were also many times I did admire him. And I will always love him, and I grew to respect the part of the whole of the man I called my father.

We are not perfect, and he wasn't perfect, but he was perfectly my dad. And in the end, I love him. It is what it is.

Happy Fathers Day

2008-06-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

Some traditions never die

even though we all will someday

there will always be funny hats

and someone to take pictures

of Sons and Fathers wearing funny hats

and that is a good thing

Happy Fathers Day, Dad

I raise a virtual glass of Ballantynes to you today.

Cheers

Your # 5 son

Happy Fathers Day

2008-06-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

Fatherhood

the only job that requires no training

should definitely require training

wheels

pants

Should definitely require pants

29 years of waving his hands in the air

2008-06-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

The Angry Young Man is no longer as angry or young. Like a fine wine, aged and mellow, corked, turning to vinegar, the sediment rests on the bottom of the bottle until it is stirred, not shaken. Hardstock 08 was everything and more, raising more money for Scott than even we thought we could (almost $25,000). But on a deeper level, it brought people out from the shadows and grips of the computer and television screens and lawn mowing, and bathroom cleaning that is their everyday life. People were given the opportunity to reconnect with friends in a far more personal way than even Facebook. I say that without sarcasm, as Facebook is quite amazing in its ability to reconnect, and to bring together people who really don't know each other. We now have friends, and Facebook friends. And often, the Facebook friends become real friends. This is the real gift and purpose of these shows. Networking sounds like something that only guys in suits can do; in reality, we all are linked in so many ways. Often we just need a small push in the right direction, and then the magic happens.

Sometimes you have to wear the stretchy pants...

2008-03-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

Mexican wrestler bobblehead has the shakes
like Parkinsons for toys
Collect them all:
Cancer Boy Bobblehead
Heart Attack Dense Bobblehead
Transgendered Barbie Bobblehead
The possibilities abound, and shake a bit too
For a good shake, read Stanley Elkin's The Magic Kingdom.

"Abandoned by his wife and devastated by the death of his twelve-year old son, Eddy Bale becomes obsessed with the plight of terminally ill children and develops a plan to provide a "last hurrah" dream vacation for seven children who will never grow-up. Eddy and his four dysfunctional chaperones journey to the entertainment capital of America—Disney World. Once they arrive, a series of absurdities characteristic of an Elkin novel—including a freak snowstorm and a run-in with a vengeful Mickey Mouse—transform Eddy's idealistic wish into a fantastic nightmare." http://www.centerforbookculture.org/dalkey/backlist/elkin.html#magickingdom

Since the blurb above does no justice for the novel, we present the NY Times hyphenated dictum:
"As always, Mr. Elkin plays the crazy music of his prose—takes off at the hint of a theme on his soaring funky riffs and jazzy blue notes. Not only among Elkin's best works of fiction, but a comedy that cuts so many ways that it leaves us bleeding with laughter."—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times
It is Sunday, and I'm in a weird Sunday kind of mood. Drove the family to the airport for their Sun vacation get-away at 4:30 (OUCH) took the dogs with me to minimize the noise for the rest of the sleeping household, returned about 5:30 and we all went back to bed. Thought it was 11:00 so I woke feeling refreshed, only to discover it was really 9:00. Now I feel the lack of sleep. Read the newspaper, scanning for jobs, and the inevitable collapse of our local hockey nightmare. Still waiting for the call from unnamed rock group to "seal' the deal for the first of two big benefits for Mr. Hard.
Some people give without asking. Right away. No questions asked. Special shout out to the Pointed Sticks, Frank Frink, Swank, Dark Blue World, Sandy Scofield, John Korsrud, Clare Love, etc. Others, you call and immediately its What can I do, of course, I'm in.
And still others...what are they thinking...I don't know because they aren't talking. I'm getting the Silent treatment. Doctor, there's a radius clause in my contract (that sounds like something you should get checked out). I hear its bad for him but did I tell you about my aunt who had a dog with wheels for legs.....the list goes on.
Hey Les, it's all just bizness, don't cha know. Well, excuse me, but there is a prince of guy who would give any one of you Schmohawks the button down shirt off his back. And he is lying on his back in a hospital in Bellevue with a parade of friends bringing him a picnic because he deserves a parade. So do something.
I'm talking one night....a few hours....and we have the opportunity of raising what some of us earn in a year for a guy that has no health insurance, the SOB's responsible have no insurance, and ....and.....Calm down, Les. It's only Chinatown.
It's all going to work out. We'll have the shows. We'll have the picnic. We'll even have a parade, for chrissakes. I'll be the one out in front. You'll know its me because I'm the one giving my head a shake.

Put your feet(s) up

2008-03-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

This weekend we are hosting a housefull of relatives, combined with the usual dogs, which is why I am recommending putting your feet up and reading a good book.

I am reading Our Ecstatic Days by Steve Erickson at the moment. Normally I have a few books on the go. Other books in the rotation include Your Brain on Music, and the new Eckhart Tolle.

I am waiting on the confirmation (fingers crossed) of a major rock act to headline the first of two benefits for Scotty Hard I am trying to organize.

Hopefully we will hear soon, but no sense worrying. I have a backup plan in mind, as well. And a backup to that. Once again, no sense in worrying. Like the girl says, "And how's that working for you?"

I've found through my own personal research, and the countless advice of countless experts, that worrying doesn't accomplish much more than adding stress. It doesn't solve the issue, or further along the progress. It is not strategic thinking; it is non-strategic thinking. So put your feet(s) up. Relax. Read a good book, (or blog!) Take a walk. Pray for Scotty's recovery. Pray for your own recovery if applicable. Enjoy a glass of Pepperwood old vine Zinfandel -very nice.

Listen to NPR. Write a poem. Learn French. Go for a workout. Eat lunch. Just don't worry.

There are much better ways to use time wisely or unwisely.

The Devils in my Heart

2008-03-26T22:11:00.000-07:00

"The Only Devils in this World are those running around inside our own hearts, and that is where all our battles should be fought." -Mahatma Ghandi

Three weeks after having my heart attack, I was waiting in a small closet sized room in St. Paul's hospital wearing one of those hospital gowns that leave you feeling cold and vulnerable from the draft coming in the back of the gown. I was waiting for someone to tell me what happened next.

Just before seven in the morning I arrived and had been given an injection of a radioactive dye. This is so they could determine the extent of damage to my heart from the heart attack. I was told to go out to eat a small meal, and come back in about an hour or so.

After my return, I lay down on a table, while a great white machine hovered over my head. My body was transported back and forth under the machine, while it performed its medical magic like a shaman holding his hands over my body chanting and waving a smoking brush.

My next stop was waiting in a closet sized room prior to undergoing the actual stress test, which involves being hooked up with tiny electrodes and many wires attached on your chest. You are then asked to run on a treadmill, until your heartrate reaches what the technicians deem to be a satisfactory result.

Two nurses, a male nurse from South Asia, and a female nurse from Germany, bartered over who would do the honors of shaving my chest hairs to attach the electrodes. The female nurse won the bet. She entered the curtained room and asked me to drop my robe, so that she may shave parts of my chest.

Using a disposable Bic, she dry shaved a few patches and attached the sticky pads of the monitors. I told her that I was a bit nervous about taking the test since I had my heart attack only about three weeks prior.

She said, "You should not worry. This is why you had the heart attack. You have to learn to let go, and go with the flow. I can see you are too young to have had this heart attack. What you have had is a little temper tantrum in your heart. Now you must learn to not worry, to relax, and just go with the flow."

It is amazing how messages are sent to us, and surely, I was receiving one at that moment.

There were devils running round my heart, jumping up and down, having little life threatening temper tantrums, acting like the nihilistic spoiled inner child they were. Anything just to get a little attention. Except this time, the teenage wasteland, the punkrock deathwish had gone too far.

She ushered me out of the closet into the exercise room, and I began the treadmill test for another cardiac nurse. About 5 minutes into the exercise, I started to feel faint.

When asked if I wanted to stop the test, I said yes. What happened next I would not wish on my worst enemy.

Because I had not been able to physically finish the test, I was injected with a drug to artificially induce my heart to reach certain rates. Who doesn't love being injected with unknown drugs?

I'm joking, but at that moment, I did not have much of a choice. The thought that I could say no did not enter my lexicon.

What happened next was worse than having a heart attack, at least for me. I felt tightness in my chest,and the sensation of someone kicking me hard again and again in the stomach. At the same time, my head felt like it was about to explode. It was a Jack Bauer moment, and all I had in the way of relief was the ticking clock. Just three minutes and we will give you the antidote.

I was groaning and swearing and there was no going with the flow here. Just one minute and we will give you antidote. AAAAAAAH! JUST TWENTY SECONDS AND WE WILL GIVE YOU THE ANTIDOTE. IT WILL REACT VERY FAST, AND YOU WILL BE BACK TO NORMAL.

Except after the 20 seconds, I didn't feel normal. So then she said, you can take a break now. Go and have yourself a coffee, and I guarantee you will feel better.

Well, I had that coffee, and I followed it with a decidedly non-cardiac breakfast of chorizo sausage and eggs. I definitely went with that flow.

Ten days later I was given the good news by my cardiologist that I was lucky, as the tests showed that my heart had good flow, and I had suffered no significant damage from the acute myocardial infarction I had experienced in Atlanta.

The devils in my heart were not running my world that day. And the way to keep them from running, was to follow the advice of that small Germanic nurse, who told me to let go, and go with the flow.

Originally posted Sept 25 2007.

In the six months since I wrote this, I made a few changes. To the post, and in my life. My body has never been in such good shape and fitness in all my life. I do push ups and sit ups and work out 3-4 times a week. I am back working, and most importantly though, I am back playing. Not music yet. But soon. My love of writing has returned, and beauty of family and friends has helped to remind me daily of the possibilities.