Feel better all ready

Summer breezes sometimes blow cold
Across the bay with pastimes grown joyless
But whip them in the eyes I must
To feel them surge warm and thrill once more

The rising sun and Jimi Hendrix
Losing traction on the curves
Forgetting self on carnival rides
Hypnotized by the abyss

The subtle joy of pain every true skateboarder bemuses
Has taken flight across unskateble cobbles, to werewolf moors
Self absorption steals the joy, lends power to death, fear to life
But the moving love that keeps me free is on the move again

To spin, to dance, to fly & sing
Meditation, music making, progressing across watery bodies
Sensing seasons, ignoring reasons, howling at the moon
Crying with the stars, trees grow with me, coat my car in sap

The Pink Flowers Smell After All

When we inherited our yard it was sprinkled happily with a drought resistant and prolific soft pink flowered annual, pretty little things with lots of green leaves and pert yellow triple-stamens. At some point in my life I decided that most pink flowers don't smell, and always have thought that of these pink flowers. So, as my darling daughter picked one while lounging on her plastic future-vehicle last dusk, and then went to smell it, I looked down and said "Oh, those pink flowers don't have a smell Darling".

"Yes they do smell." she whispered, and handed me the blossom, which had a most divine fragrance. Never too late to discover this type of thing, so packed with delight and simplicity. Right when I'm reading a book on using flower essences for transformation too, my aromatic allies rippling through summer, breathing life into the almost dead, cutting out old wormy wood, communing with the water spirits at dawn with goony grins. I take the form of a lion-man, massive mane, my tail whips, now that's living.

RZA at 1015

Dragged myself to the city on a recent Saturday night that happened to be the summer solstice to see RZA rap with his live band Stone Mecca. The show was spot on rockstar shit, way good. I love the way hip-hop shows have improved the sound such that one can even hear the lyrics now, which was not the usual case 10-year ago. Pretty much a sausage-fest, although there were a few females representing, shaking what their blessed mother's gave them, thank Goddess. Even with a generally sedate and non-dancing crowd I had a great time, which tells one how ripping the show was. Mr. Digital (RZA=Bobby Digital from Wu-Tang) laid down those rhymes as good as any I've seen, way sick.

I do have a bone to pick with the door workers at 1015 Folsom however. I showed up in shorts and was turned away at the front door due to a dress code. My friend Mike and I then drove all over San Francisco after 11PM looking for pants. Found a shop on 18th Street near Castro called Chaps that sold more than pants, stuff like electric enema kits, S&M toys, giant black dildos - you name it. The operator was very helpful, and I purchased a motorcycle-chain choker in addition to a $40 pair of camouflage pants that I very well may never wear again. We made it back in time to see the start of RZA, but found out upon our return that the door people that refused me were for another event that was happening in the front part of 1015. The genius club operators had divided it into two sections with zero signage, and us lowly RZA fans were forced to go around to the side door, like we were the wrong color or something, where there was of course no dress code. The RZA bus (the Wuchess, cute) was parked right there in front of the front door, so the door guy might have guessed that we weren't there for his bullshit dress-code party, and it was natural for us to assume that was the door, but the whole situation made for copious laughter for Mike & I, so I almost forgive him & his ditsy assistant waving the metal-detector wand. Fuck clubs that search you; I'd rather be stabbed.

Dad, Go Team!

Darling daugter has taken to writing cards for folks unprompted. Last night she brought me three cards before dinner, but the one you see here was the first self-initiated card. No matter how many I get they all blow my mind in the best way. The lines that look like a series of cursive "m"s are her version of writing, not bad for barely 25-months old. Summer blossoms in my soul, and mother of god it's hot.

"Summer's here and the time is right for dancing in the streets."

Boy Sings Prine

The boy has taken to singing various Prine Songs, but the one you see below was his first. So strange to hear him try it, alone in the kitchen, unprompted, in his skinny 4-year old child's voice, especially the first time. John Prine is one of the artists that the wife & I share the most love for, so the 59 Prine songs in our collection get a lot of play. Gumbo appears to be using my award-winning karoake strategy of starting with slow songs without too many words.

The heat wave feels plenty hot, burn the tar out of you feet Jamaican sand hot, and I do love it so.

If You Don't Want My Love ©John Prine & Phil Spector

If you don't want my love
If you don't want my love
If you don't want my love
I know who
I'll give it to
If you don't want my love
If you don't want my love
If you don't want my love
anymore.

If you don't want the thrill
If you don't want the thrill
If you don't want the thrill
I know who
I know who will
If you don't want my love
If you don't want my love
If you don't want my love
anymore.

If that's the way that the world goes round
then that's the way
that it all comes down
and when you want me
I won't be around
If you don't want my love
If you don't want my love
If you don't want my love
I know who
I'll give it to
If you don't want my love
If you don't want my love
If you don't want my love
anymore.

The Blaze Of The Sun

"The strife of doubt all passed. He found his sight again. And there rushed over him a tide of emotion unutterably sweet and full, strong like an intoxicating wine, deep as his nature, something glorious and terrible as the blaze of the sun to one long in darkness. He had become an outcast, a wanderer, a gunman, a victim of circumstances; he had lost and suffered worse than death in that loss; he had gone down the endless bloody trail, a killer of men, a fugitive whose mind slowly and inevitably closed to all except the instinct to survive and a black despair; and now, with this woman in his arms, her swelling breast against his, in this moment almost of resurrection, he bent under the storm of passion and joy possible only to him who had endured so much."

--from The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey

the night bird across the street has been singing all night, singing in the heat wave that's coming down. the moon gets restless, hazy, hiding behind trees, while mother earth she warms, in time with me. still I'm lost though, and wonder terrible about the long forgotten path home.

End of Summer

Summer ends and the seed pods prepare for the driest part of the dry season. Our old manx sits on the dried out rear lawn, as did Black Panther, our old manx. He's been puking all over the place a lot and I wonder what pains he endures sometimes. He's a good cat.

The darling daughter, also in the picture, advances along in leaps and a bounds. Just the other day she said "That's a ball."