A little Hopefulness goes a long way

It's Been a while... but then again, not so long. Summer is by far the worst season. Why God created summer will forever escape me, because it just breads rottenness. Yes, rottenness. It's hot, it's muggy, no one wants to be cordial or understanding and at the same time, every one expects you to accommodate them! The summer causes people to do terrible things. The hot, sweat from a day of toiling away at a computer drips down your face slowly, leaving a tiny stain on your shirt. You'll be talking on the phone walking down 9th street and you'll try to hang up, but the phone is still sticking to your cheek from all the sweat. Makes you wanna scream, or cry... sing a gospel tune. Maybe write a poem or practice my Jai alai. Go down to the ole fishin' hole with a fresh sapling; gonna catch a trout for Ma and Pa to throw on the grill for dinner... See; all the heat is driving me in to a nonsensical hallucinatory rant.

People do a lot of awful things in the summer. Then again, people do a lot of awful things year round... One awful thing is my beloved New York Yankees the greatest team to compete at anything ever) are playing sub-par baseball. I won't say they're sucking, cause I love them that much and all, but seriously (OK they won 3 out of 4 against the twins) their record is 40-42... SUB -PAR. And this isn't golf where you're supposed to be sub-par. People do a lot of rotten things. And most of them... some of them are the result of miscommunication. I can attest to this personally, as most of my problems are the result of miscommunication. But sometimes those rotten things that people do, aren't a result of miscommunication at all... They're the result of Rottenness! Some people are really just that fucked up, that they can't see past the end of their own nose, and notice that holy crap... THERE ARE OTHER PEOPLE ON THIS PLANET TOO!

The other day I was feeling very blue. So I decided to hop in my car for a cathartic drive... hmm. What to listen to, what to listen to. I'll just listen to whatever's on. What was in the CD player? Garrison Keillor and The Hopeful Gospel Quartet! I listened to the soft low brassy baritone pontificate on Lake Wobegon, Mid-Western life, religion and rhubarb pie. Oh isn't it time for a piece of rhubarb pie (which I don't particularly care for) but the way Garrison Keillor sings about rhubarb pie, it almost makes me wish I knew what a rhubarb was. Keillor and two women and a guy from Prairie Home Companion were singing before a broadcast in the Fitzgerald theatre one night and decided that the four of them sounded pretty good in a stair-well. So I've been listening to this CD over and over again for a week now; listening to songs like The Lord Will Make A Way Somehow, My Rock, and There is a Fountain. Who doesn't like four-part gospel harmony!? Now, I was raised in the Catholic persuasion (The Hopeful Gospel Quartet are Lutherans from Minnesota), but I've since converted to heavy narcissism. These songs still make me feel happy somehow. Maybe I just listen to a lot of Prairie Home Companion, but for some reason it really lifts me up. To put a bow on GK and The HGQ, I don't think you have to believe in Jesus, to sing about Jesus. Am I right? I don't know. The idea that 95% of the world is convinced of some higher power scares me. Did I not get the memo or something?

On to something entirely different... Ok, so I've been writing and organizing material, and pretty soon I will unleash Desperate Times: A Song Cycle on the unappreciative public. That means that in a couple months, you people out there reading this are gonna have to show up or else no one will come. We're about half way there as far as polished material is concerned. Look for songs about whiskey, miscommunication, rottenness, women and rotten women... I don't want to be dubbed a Bukowski-type woman hater here. I'm not. I love women, some of them. Hot lesbians are teases and I don't know how to act around them. Women are great, they make me feel amazing... sometimes. But it's just that much easier for me to write a song about the numbered instances where a woman makes me want to drive off a cliff, than to write one about the wealth of joy and gladness the gentle sex brings to me. I'm thinking an August debut perhaps. Maybe some duets, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.