My God, But If That Wasn't The Worst Piece Of Advice I Ever Took--more Than Once, To Boot, I Can't Imagine

There was still such optimism about the future, then.

“Space station” by Denise Watt-Geiger, 1979.

Kurt Vonnegut:

“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”

As renowned as the Blue Note Sleeves are, that cover from Impulse steals this show. It's a great album too. 🎼🎼🎶🎺 🎷 🎹🎶🎼🎼

There is so much great music in the world, but there is nothing like the worlds of music in jazz.

Smoking Jazz Smokers

To be fair, I don't make it easy.

Lest We Forget On Remembrance Day

Willie and Joe by Bill Mauldin

Thankfully, I retired relatively young. Not that retirement is a gig worth being too grateful about either.

Back when cans were cans❗

Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co, 1963

I'm thinking about how I use tumblr. I look at weird or wonderful words and art, on the occasions that I take a break from my more regular habit of looking at sexy pics of women.

I'd like to start blending or mashing up the artsy or wordy elements with incongruent unrelated libidinous photos of women being sexy.

It would be something to do. Anything, as long as I start to occupy and ground myself, because I'll finish withering and die otherwise.

The bleak obscenity of how isolated and horrible my life was, bore down relentlessly on me me even before the pandemic rose up to join with other forces of chaos and shut our angry polarized culture down when we all sorely needed to relearn to connect.

The pandemic whooshed in like a cyclone, and the last shreds of my life were torn away in an instant, with me practically sucking for air in the void. Now, isolation and idleness is an absolute state. Virtually all my interactions in recent years were with community resources, social type services, hospitals, and shelter workers.

They've all stayed closed or been modified and telewhatevered. So, my health is eroded by physical atrophy and my mind is not grounded at all because I so seldom speak to anyone. I've started to behave erratically on the internet, leaving ten page comments in reply to strangers, adopting this tumblr page of mine, or spewing vitriolic invective at people online, like a crazy man.

So there you have it, if anyone ends up on this page.

Ironically, social media is showing me that there are millions of lonely folk needing validation, who curate their digital lives with passion. So much yearning to be seen and heard.

Unfortunately, it seems everyone is selling, no one buying: a global chorus of need howls noon and night, wanting any attention at all.

We need a Namaste Army to comb this world for the humans behind the screens.

Bodach out.

“You cannot make everyone think and feel as deeply as you do. This is your tragedy … because you understand them, and they do not understand you.”

— Daniel Saint

Yes.