a young student of psychology with a name almost like mine writes (in an academic essay):

“From 8:45 til 5pm I worked as a cashier for the All-Vendor Demo Day, one of the biggest days in golf retail. For your information: I could give a shit when it comes to golf, I just happen to work in a golf store. To prepare myself for the inevitable chaos of consumerism and misplaced priorities, I took an aderall, a friend’s prescribed medicine for Attention Deficit Disorder.”

aderall and ritalin flow like muddy river in research libraries nation wide (or so i have read). i’m looking for the kids selling opium. opium could stand to make a comeback between these research ears.

a sort of warning spoken some fifteen odd years ago from a young father to his then six year old daughter. the question is telling; the answer is as capital T as truth ever gets:

daughter: daddy, who is rod stewart?

father: rod stewart used to be a rock and roller. now he’s a fucking pussy.

fathers, love your daughters. be real. be wise. speak the truth. no lies.

comedian artie lange, responding to humorist and radio personality howard stern’s lengthy riff on ted kennedy’s brain cancer. stern, in his megaphoned-boston-brahmin “err-a …” kennedy persona, joked that they should just take the brain out. you don’t need it. it’s like the appendix. or the spleen. to which, lange responded, in typical jersey fashion:

“all you need in this life is balls and luck.”

err-a, you are correct sir …

i was (briefly) in the largest target on the planet today. this is an unofficial claim, but if there is a larger target anywhere, i sure as shit don’t want to know about it.

the irony is the contradiction between this image, the postmodern landscape of this economically strapped bastion of excessive, rampant, hyper-capitalist, mindless consumption and the reason for my visit.

not that i’m above mindless consumption or anything. you’re reading the words of a guy who was online shopping for generic finasteride from australia earlier today. look it up. but sometimes, you enter the world of the great american moral purpose, and your reason for being there just doesn’t … quite … fit.

i mean, if i was in need of body wash or swifter sheets or ky jelly or a stopwatch or season three of lost on dvd or easter candy or a new pair of slacks or a softball glove or a toilet bowl brush or a condolences card or nose hair trimmers or tube socks or a mini-pizza-oven or a stackable closet organizer or a tiger-striped steering wheel cover or a hanna montana virginal lunchbox or guitar hero stevie ray vaughan or gum or tampons or ammunition that would be one thing.

but i wasn’t.

i was there to buy dirt. needed to re-pot some herbs that are thriving on my window sill. talk about commodification. i need to go into here …

to buy … dirt.

we’re going away folks. tim o’gara, poet/songwriter/gardener, will appropriately take it from here:

i’m gone away, i’m gone away
tommorrow will be yesterday
i’ll drink until i’m sober
i will fall until i fly

i’m gone away, i’m gone away
this whiskey tastes like ginger ale
you’ll find me
or my footsteps
in the meadow

i can’t remember how this picture got on my phone, but i think it’s pretty hot.

i’m not even positive who this is … (and the lass sings, “i don’t wanna go to rehab, i said, no, no, no …”).

being in a good band having a good rehearsal is the best thing in the world next to being in love …

well, one (and a half) out of two ain’t bad, i suppose …

i went to a poetry reading the other night and a real life poet read a real life poem written about … me. my own poem. had words and images and metonymy (i think it did anyway, i still don’t understand what that is, really).

this was a beautiful first.

i have had friends paint pictures for me on two occasions. by friends, i mean ex-girlfriends. and the inspiration was, in both instances, a sort of visual soul purging following explosive, dysfunctional conflict.

nice pictures, though.

but the poem was wonderfully different. it made me feel touched and honored and proud and warm and loved. that’s a good combination (one that i don’t even think the opium resurgence could touch.)

speaking of pictures, i painted a picture of an orange tree and gave it to a friend once. the tree was the tree in the walt mink song “tree in orange.” and the friend was kevin depugh. the painting was terrible, as i recall, but it was fun doing it. and kevin is a lovely guy. hey kev.

i usually write songs for people. and by people, i mean girls (but not always). sometimes the songs probably aren’t much better than the painting of the orange tree, but sometimes they are ok. i wrote a record called ‘music for activists’ that was for one girl (mostly … songs for a couple other girls made it onto her record, but she never knew). i wrote another record called ‘miss direction’ for another girl. most of those songs on that record were actually about that girl. interestingly, both of these girls had the same name. go figure.

i wrote my first song sitting on a lawnmower when i was 16. that was for a girl too, and it was about how time was going to pass and she would learn one day that she loved me. i don’t think she ever did, but that song opened up some doors in college …

i wrote a song for a girl i fell in love with in prague when i was 20. we knew each other for about ten days. i don’t think it was really love, but i really wanted it to be so i could feel like i was falling in love in prague and writing songs in a little apartment overlooking the city while drinking wine. so romantic … i played it for her and she said, ‘that is such a sad song,’ and then we took each others clothes off.

i wrote another song for a girl in greece when i was still 20. i think i did kinda love her, but i didn’t know it for sure until i got to england and spent another few weeks with her. it was there that i found out she was 16 not eighteen (and i had turned 21 and was no longer 20). our relationship had awkwardly aged three long years in one quick second while sitting at the dinner table with her parents.

maybe i should go back to painting orange trees …

maybe i need to go buy more dirt and try to grow some more.