Hi there!!

Wonder if this will work?




When there is no sun.

Inspired by Sun Ra and John Gilmore


The sky is a sea of darkness,
A blanket sewn of shale.
Loosened from its harness,
A perforated widow’s veil.

Without the sun, there is no day.
There is no day.
There is no day.

The sky is a sea of darkness,
The earth a drying ball of clay;
Adrift without an orbit,
Searching for a vacant quay.

When there is no sun,
There is no day.
There is no day.
There is no day.

Without the sun, the moon will hang,
It’s orbit gone askew,
Its presence only felt by us,
When hiding stars from view.

There is no day
There is no day
There’s only darkness
Eternal sea of darkness

When there is no sun, there is no day.
And now I have no doubt –
My planetary carousel,
Is starting to rust out.

Hello, still here.

Well, I'm out of Stanford, (d'uh!) and still dealing with Cancer as best i can.

Here's a cool record I picked up this year by a group from Michigan called the Fun Company. They were a group from Michigan who played some of the tightest funk music I've ever heard!

Killer stuff to be sure. Many thanks to Carl Pellegrino for trading it to me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7w6PS8dN5U

I'll be back to writing soon!

-a

Getting the Ball rolling again!

This past week, the McCoy's were kind enough to invite me and a couple of Mike's dentistry buddies up to their Cabin on Mullet lake, just a few miles short of the U.P.
Despite the lackluster weather, it was definitely a memorable experience. Acts of kindness like those exhibited by the McCoys feel mean so much to me these days; I can hardly put it into words. The McCoys have recently purchased a new condo on the lake and it is just gorgeous!

While I was there I got a chance to spend a couple hours in a local junk shop that just so happened to be full of records. And whaddya know it, within the first 5 minutes of being dropped off by the wonderful Stacy McCoy, what record do you think I step over, but one of the best and rarest Modern soul records from West Michigan. Seriously, I had to pause when I bent over to examine the 45, because - for only the second or third time in my life - I thought somebody must be playing a trick on me! It was that surreal that my hands started trembling and I began to worry hat the fellow attending the counter wouldn't sell it to me! All, however turned out fine, and I was able to purchase the Cloudburst 45 for the princely sum of $.50; easily my best 45 find of the year and not a 45 I'm liable to let go of anytime soon.

Hi

Well it's been another year since I last posted anything and I suppose I'd like to get the ball rolling again since my most recent scans have not looked too pretty. On Thursday I'm driving to Ann Arbor for a spectroscopy scan so Dr Junck can get a better look at some areas of concern he noted on the previous scan. I hate to say it, but I'm slowly starting to lose faith in my ability to beat this thing. That's a terrible thing to say, and deep inside I'm not sure i really mean it, but it's been a very frustrating past couple weeks for me.

My headaches have been getting worse recently, and I can't help feeling that they may be heralding the end. Everything's a portent of death these days! And yet my spirits are still generally high. After my last scan, Dr. Junck did the usual field of vision test and my performance was especially poor. So much so that he advised that I stop driving because my peripheral has apparently taken a dive. I told him straight away that it was out of the question, but it made me think...and it made me depressed.. Several days after that discouraging news, I scratched up the side of my Element trying to Park behind Dodd's Records on Division st; talk about slap in the face. Mortified as I was, I don't think it was the result of my compromised visual field, rather it felt like an error I made in my estimation of distancel. The voice of denial is loud and persistent it seems :)

It is not all bad happenings with me though. Earlier this week I had a very lovely and long overdue chat with Vilma, who is now in Brazil continuing her research. I had been worried for a while that she was attempting to cut off contact with me completely, as several initial efforts at contact were ignored/unreturned. We had a great chat though that totally made my day and restored a portion of my faith in the justice of the universe. lulz She's back in Brazil right now doing research for her PhD. I'm sure we'll talk more once she returns.

...And then there was Alex


So a couple weeks ago I flew to California to attend the yearly Dragons Orientation in the Sierras. (I still owe mom a couple hundred for the ticket I think...yikes!) The Orientation was, as usual, AMAZING, but the unexpected presence of the one Alex Kendall made it especially memorable. Alex is a girl I've had a crush on for years and when I found out she was going to be in the Sierras (after I had already arrived in LA, mind you) my heart skipped several successive beats before finally fluttering back into my chest on the soft winds of anticipation. She arrived just as perfect as the picture of her I keep in my head. I had heard that she had recently broken up with her longtime boyfriend, so I was hopeful that I might be able to assert myself tactfully. Of course, within moments of her arrival I learned that she is already in possession of a new, presumably improved, boyfriend. And how could I have been surprised? A commodity so precious (lol) has but a snowflake's chance in hell of staying single for long.

Alex and I spent both free days hanging out together, and it was great. If anything, she's even more impressive than I thought she was. She not only seemed to take a real interest in my birding exploits, or at least her interest in my interest seemed real, but we also discovered a kindred love of literature. We ended up exchanging lists of our top 5 favorite books with the intention of starting up a literary correspondence :)
Right now I'm reading "The Things They Carried" and enjoying it very well. In fact, I think I may postpone the completion of this post so that I may read a bit. :)