I express my love with Pork

Last night I went and bought a 10 pound ham and took over the kitchen with a fit of frenzy. I prepared the ham in the tradition of my people, which involves pineapple slices and brown sugar.

Unsatisfied that ham alone is the full embodiment of comfort, I peeled, boiled and mashed potatoes with generous additions of butter, cream, salt and pepper.

I got some of those big foil roasting pans and prepared everything to take upstairs to Isaiah's grandmother. She was not home, which ulimately was a good thing as it gave the ham time to cool from third-degree-burn-straight-out-of-the-oven temperature to warm and ready to eat.

I heard the sound of people walking around which meant that someone was home.
When I got to the door, the next door neighbor saw me and just opened the door.

I walked into an apartment full of older women in flowered dresses all scuttling about. Isaiah's grandmother was not there, but one of the ladies helped me carry everything to the kitchen and then I departed. I hope that the ham goes to good use. I know it's hard to think of food when grieving, but I just hope that my love expressed through pork will warm their souls a bit.

Celebrating a Life/Losing Isaiah

Yesterday was K's birthday. We celebrated in grand style with a dinner of seafood namely our luxurious crustacean friend, mister Lobster. We then gathered with the lovely KL, DD and LMO for drinks. I feel very blessed to have K in my life and am
thankful that he was born and is alive and well. I could not have asked for
a better soul mate. I am truly blessed.

We were making our way back home, opening the apartment door when we ran into our friend Emma who lives one floor directly above us. She was on her way to the hospital. Her grandson Isaiah had been hit by a car and she informed us that he was unconscious. I could see the pain and distress in her eyes. I could sense the shock and I had a hard time taking in what she was saying. I tried to continue the acknowledgement/celebration of K's birthday, but I couldn't stop thinking about Isaiah.

We went about our evening trying not to think about Isaiah and finally went to bed.

This morning we woke to the sound of someone ringing our doorbell. K got up to answer it as I was still bleery-eyed and not yet ready to greet the morning. As soon as he opened the door, I could hear her cries "He's gone. He's gone" Everything else was muffled unintelligible echos swelling in the hallway. Konstantine returned to bed asking if I had heard and if I knew what she had said. I said I didn't think I wanted to know. He confirmed that I had heard correctly. He's gone.

Isaiah was 13 years old. He was a musician, a writer, a very special little man who
always addressed me by name and looked me in the eyes. He had kind eyes and a soul that glowed beyond his skin. There was something wise about him, an old soul. Isaiah had trouble walking due to being born with spina bifida. I'm not sure if this in part led to the tragic accident. I don't know all the details. I just know that he is gone and that his family now grieves. I find myself filled with overwhelming sadness to know that he died so young. He had many songs and stories to write that will go unwritten.

It is a tragedy like this that makes one really appreciate life and the loved ones we have. Every day could be our last and every moment is so important.

Isaiah, I am so sorry that you did not get to do everything you planned to do in this life. I hope that you are at peace. You will be missed.

I now find myself trying to decide what best food to cook for his family.
I know it's not exclusively a southern thing, but most of my upbringing being in the south, there is some automatic caserole instinct that kicks in and takes over. It is my knee jerk reaction to tragedy that I must turn the oven on. I must cook.

Death of a Harddrive a new play in two parts

A couple of years back, my laptop stopped working very suddenly without any warning at all. I self diagnosed the problem as a failed hard drive. Despite my friends' pleading and apprehension, I decided to fix the computer myself. I have never been so nervous, sweat so much or seen so many tiny screws in my life. I managed to successfully replace the hard drive on my laptop and get it back up and running. It felt like a real victory. At that time, the true loss was the data on the hard drive. I was living from sofa to sofa doing shows promoting my album and everything was in storage. I did not have an external backup of my data so everything was lost.

As a result, I bought an external hard drive and another one to back that one up. Well, I must not have truly learned my lesson because tragically over the weekend my external hard drive died. I had just moved a bunch of files temporarily to that drive because I was out of room on my laptop and the other drive. In my long list of to dos for the week was the purchase of an additional drive to back everything up. Unfortunately, death came to my hard drive before I was able to do that.

I have lost music that I was working on, but oddly I am not freaking out. I am trying to work with the company that makes the drive to see if it is an issue where the data may still be recoverable. If it is a failure to the power part of the drive only, then this is a possibility. If not, then sadly I will have to start from scratch on a couple of songs. Luckily 90% of my music is on another hard drive which is still operational. I am waiting for the arrival of another drive tomorrow and I will back that 90% up onto that. The one good thing is that even if the drive that died is completely dead it is still under warranty so the worst case scenario is that I will be given a replacement drive.

As someone told me when my laptop died... "It is not a matter of IF your hard drive will fail. It is a matter of when."

Always back up the data that is important to you. It could happen at any time.

It's a broken hard drive. I know what to do. I just need some duct tape and superglue.

Apocalypse over Manhattan?

This place is starting to feel like a funeral home. Yes, I know Billy Mays the oxyclean guy died, but I can't bring myself to post one more R.I.P. on here. Sorry Billy.
Not to mention Ed McMahon. Who would have every thought that cracked out Amy Winehouse would have outlived them all?

On Friday, after being soaked to the bone in a rainstorm, I paid a visit to the lovely Ms. Beverly and listened to old records as we tend to do. As I was leaving, we were both commenting on the beautiful light reflecting the sunset from a neighboring building. When I reached the street, I knew something was fishy, because people had stopped their cars and were hanging out their windows taking pictures of the sky.

I looked up and about peed my pants. It looked like a scene from the movie ghostbusters and I was sure that the Stay Puffed Marshmallow man was about to come stomping down the avenue crushing pedestrains and cars like ants. The image for this posting was taken by my camera, but to get a better idea of what was going on check out this great compilation of photos taken during the same evening.

I was unaware that there is a type of clouds called mammatus clouds. You learn something new every day.

?RIP? Michael Jackson????!!!?

Does TMZ know something the rest of us don't?

R.I.P.Farrah Fawcett(1947-2009)

As a child I adored the show Charlie's Angels.
Sadly today one of its stars, Farrah Fawcett died
after a three year battle with cancer.
my thoughts and much love go out to her family and friends
at this difficult time. May they find peace and acceptance for their loss.

Meth=Death

In case you haven't heard, these two dashing young men were
arrested in connection to a possible assassination attempt on presumptive democratic nominee, Barack Obaama. Meth really does equal death, and if you can't handle looking this lovely, then I highly suggest you stear clear of it.

These dear readers are the poster children for the Rant's anti-drug campaign.

The Death of Customer Service

After a slow and agonizing battle with apathy and disgruntledness,
customer service was pronounced dead today at around 3:15 Eastern Standard Time.
Being a long time fan of customer service, I mourned the loss like many,
by asking to speak with customer service's supervisor.
The supervisor promised to call me back, but alas,
I have held my breath until a tinge of blue has enveloped my entire body.
Perhaps the supervisor also fell victim to a similar malady to that which cut short the life of customer service.
I would call back to confirm my suspicions, but I fear that the zombified corpse of customer service might answer the phone and pulverize my brains with a subsonic death rattle.

I have resigned myself to never special order anything ever again.
I have also asked jesus to give me the serinity to accept the fact that
my expectations should remain as low as a hooker's panties
following a night at the bingo parlor.

R.I.P. Estelle Getty (1923-2008)

Let's have a moment of silence for my favorite "Golden Girl" who slipped away from us this morning.
She had been ill and suffering dementia for quite some time. I hope she is in a better place, at peace.
Thank you Estelle for the countless smiles and laughter you brought us all.

Figure It Out

The Rant's very own Carrie Thomas has just posted a riddle in response to the letter we received regarding Elliot Smith.
I post this image as a clue. The answer to your letter comes cryptically and in pieces dear reader. I have only owned one Elliot Smith CD. It was a gift from Kassandra Smith formerly known as Jessica Dowell and one half of a set of identical twins who I met at drama camp in Lawton, Oklahoma.

Habits and Addictions

Most of us stumble through life on crutches of various types. For some it is booze and cigarettes. For others it porn and pixie sticks.

I would say that I have an addictive personality, but I think that to be human is to be drawn to addiction.

I lived with a girl who ate a very strict diet, obsessive. She would steam greens to go with her long grain rice and miso soup. She would criticize me with her nose held high as I fired up the skillet for fried pork chops and butter drenched mashed potatoes. Secretly she had a stash of twinkies and ding dongs in her room. She would binge on sugar and chocolate full of preservatives and then sob alone in her room, consumed by her secret sin. I would find the wrappers, little clear pieces of evidence exposing her daily crimes.

When I was 24 years old, the floor fell out from under me. I wanted to die. After 4 1/2 years, my relationship was over. I had lost my job. I was broke and felt so desperately alone. I found that drowning my sorrows in booze was the only way that I could bare to even breath the air. Every little thing brought me to tears. I screamed. I stayed in bed all day. I played my guitar on the street for loose change to buy food but more often a drink. I needed something, anything to numb the pain. I thought my life was over.

Slowly, with time all wounds heal leaving scar tissue that is tougher than the soft untouched baby skin that was there before the trauma. I am covered in scars. It is a blessing to have been cut deep. As I have healed, my drinking as gotten more and more manageable but has still been a crutch, a way to numb. I think that there is a comfort in habit. There is something soothing about a cigarette and a beer to calm the nerves. It is nice however to take a moment and experience clarity.

I think that I will always be a drinker. I don't know if I would have been able to make it through some of the trauma without a bit of numbing. I know that if I hadn't been able to express myself with song, I would be dead. I'm addicted to music. It is my #1 addiction. Everything else is habit.

I had quit smoking 3 years ago after a pack a day habit that somehow crept its way back into my life recently. Today, it is 9 days since I have had a cigarette and almost 3 weeks since I've had a drink of alcohol. Oddly, It's been calming. I feel very zen and upbeat. It's nice to step away from my habits for a while.

I'm not standing up in front of a group of people in an awful VFW hall basement with flourescent lighting that gives everyone a hue of sickly green. I'm not reciting the serenity prayer or gleaming with pride that I was given some sort of pin, the human equivillant of a dog biscuit for learning a new trick. I have merely sent my liver on a vacation as it has served me well in many a war and deserves some recouperation before being sent into battle again.

I'm thinking of going back to Yoga. Apparently it's what I'm supposed to do now that I have become so centered and filled with clarity, free of habits and addictions.

Uggh, when fashion kills

As warmer winds blow our way signaling the start of spring, the ladies begin to shed their layers. The emergence of mini skirts and shorts to show off those soft well shaven lady legs is all fine and good until someone gets hurt.

Despite the lack of rationale, it has become socially acceptable for women to wear Uggs (pictured above) without long pants amidst an obvious lack of snow. I blame Jessica Simpson for this tragic fashion misstep.

Not only is this combination a confusing footwear no no, but it is also a deadly time bomb, ticking away at the tender piggies of innocent young women, ready to cut their lives tragically short.

I direct you to the story of one such victim. If you care about your lady friends, you will save them from the clutches of sure death by showing them this article.

Remember, only you can prevent a fashion tragedy.

Paralyzed & Brainwashed

I feel paralyzed. I think I have for some time.
I know it's a combination of things, but I can't put my finger on it.

I know I felt weird and detached about finishing Sirens of Brooklyn but now I'm having second thoughts about Sunrise at the Speakeasy. Is it done? Will it be ripped apart and crucified?

A part of me doesn't care. Apathy. I think that's what they call it.

Something happened at the end of the summer. A part of me snapped. After three years of not smoking, I suddenly started puffing away at that familiar cancer stick. They're like Potato chips. You can't have just one. Something was different this time. I didn't feel guilt or failure for smoking. I just accepted it and secretly reveled in some sort of pre-30's rebellion. Yes, I'm approaching the end of my 20's. It's all slowing down and sagging...or it will anyway. Have I hit that point where I've stopped growing and started shrinking?...where the hair on my head starts migrating to undesirable locations just to taunt me? When do I need to start monitoring my fiber intake?

Last night K and I watched public television. It was a show on how by a bizarre set of circumstance, the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses I. ended up in a house of oddities in Niagara Falls. I want to visit Egypt. It struck me as rather disrespectful and morbid though that these mummified remains are on display in glass cases for tourists. How is this any different from going to the cemetery and digging up the grave of let's say Heath Ledger to put on display at Planet Hollywood? ew. Well, I guess after a few thousand years, you cease to be a person and become a relic of curiousity. What is the cutoff? How long does a person have to be burried before they can be put on display?

After Mummy TV, we turned on NPR to hear election results. I'm glad Obama is doing so well. Most of the people I know are all pro-Hillary and want to beat me or tell me I'm brainwashed for supporting Obama. I don't want to start a huge string of political discussions, but I will just say a few points.

-It's time for a change. I don't believe in Dynastic rule and after 2 Bushes and 1 Clinton, it's time to let the other kiddies play with the ball.

-I can't support anyone who voted for the Iraq war, one of the reasons our country is in such a nosedive. We've let schools, bridges, roads and the economy turn to crap so that we can blow up half of iraq, a country that still has not been proven to have any connection whatsoever to the attacks on 9-11.

-Final point... Two of the worst pieces of legislation that set back civil rights for gays were signed by Bill Clinton...Dont ask Don't Tell and DOMA. Bill Clinton heavily courted the gay vote and then did not follow through on his promises. Hillary Clinton is heavily courting the gay vote and I fully believe that she will follow the same path as her husband.

ok...sigh...calming down.

In other news, I quit smoking. It is 10 days since my last cigarette.
I feel out of sorts a bit, but calm. I'm trying to breathe, but it's hard when you're both paralyzed and brainwashed.

His Head on a Platter

I would not generally repost something from Perezhilton.com, but after reading/listening to this, I became angry. John Gibson, over at fox has very homophobically mocked Heath Ledger on his show.

I have just sent an email to fox letting them know that I think he should be fired and that the network should be ashamed of itself for allowing something like this to air.

Check it out here...and feel free to bombard Fox with your angry emails.

Rest in Peace, Ashes and Dust

Early this morning very quietly and I hope peacefully,
my grandmother took her final breath and slipped away from this world.

Leona Messer raised 7 children, one of whom is my mother.
I know that her life was hard at times. I know that she wasn't always
able to deal with the hardship. I understand.

My fondest memories of my grandmother are the car rides to the orthodontist
when I was only 14. I was allowed to drive because Kansas laws are strange, but
I had to have an adult in the car with me, so grandma would come along.
She would let me get fast food from McDonald's before they tightened my braces and the pain was so intense that I couldn't eat solid food for days. At the time, this felt like a naughty treat.
Grandma btw was a terrible driver. My sister once returned from a trip with her
saying that grandma had cut off a man, forcing him to take an exit to Amarillo, TX.
Apparently the man wasn't planning on going to Amarillo.

Over the last couple years my grandmother's health rapidly declined and dementia began
to take away her memories and eventually even her will to eat. She no longer recognized her own family members. The last time I visited her, she did not know who I was. After I left she kept asking where that boy had gone, wandering around looking for me.

In the last few months
her quality of life reached a place that was heartbreaking.
She no longer found anything in life that she enjoyed.

I am glad that she is no longer suffering and I hope that she is at peace in a better place.

The final song on my album is titled ashes and dust. I have never posted the lyrics. K and Laura both have requested this song played at their funerals. Today I post them in honor of my grandmother, a strong woman who lived a full life.

Ashes and Dust

In the beginning there was dust
the sun, the water
then there was us
but all the bridges began to rust
we must all return to dust when we are done

In the beginning there were ashes
there were no wars or social classes
now the buildings burn to ashes
we must all return to ashes when we're done.

In the end I wish you virtue
to hold the hand of the ones that hurt you
to heal the pain that is inside you
to hear your heartbeat and let it guide you
to have a smile for the ones that greet you
to find the time for the ones that need you
to let the love pour out like water from your soul.

Don't hold it in.
Just let it go.

Anne Bancroft was divine

After finishing up in the studio on Sunday, David showed me this clip of 1970's Anne Bancroft. She was so brilliant.

You may have seen a modern adaptation on this sketch.
I have the feeling most of the people mentioned are dead, sadly, so is Anne Bancroft.

a shift in the tide

something has shifted and everything is changing.
I fell down the rain soaked stairs to my apartment last night whilst wearing rubber shoes. i have bruises and soreness throughout my body. I am covered in bug bites on my legs from watching the sun set on turtle bridge.

I have scrapes on my arms and legs from climbing a tree to comfort a rather upset cat. i am in-fact a boy.
I watched hours of animal planet with K, because we are lame little nerd boys. I now have a love for wombats and want one for a pet. The closest thing I have is this picture that K made me. This morning I got a message from my mother letting me know that my uncle Louie has died. The funeral is in North Dakota on Monday. He was such a great man with a sweet heart. I hope he his smiling wherever he is.

R.I.P. Anna Nicole

Anna Nicole Smith
1967-2007

Mupples

The word mupples was coined a few years back by my then roommate, Piia, The Finnish Wonder.

Mupples=Male+Couple.

This weekend was one of absolute laziness, I must admit. Remnants of the tropical storm had fluttered their way up to Brooklyn bringing sideways rain and turning umbrellas wrong side out. My umbrella was beat to begin with, and was laid to rest late Friday night very unceremoniously.

I spent Friday through Sunday mostly just curled up on the sofa watching mindless television. This is a strange departure for me as I really don't watch TV much at all except for the show, Lost, which was injected into my veins like dirty heroin last fall, afflicting me with an instant addiction. It's return to television in October will mean that I will get my weekly fix and stop the shaking in my hands.

On Sunday, I decided to venture out into the world, which had turned from apocalyptic to rather pleasant. However, a strange wind was blowing through Brooklyn. As I walked down the street, I kept passing couples. Let me correct that. I kept passing Mupples. Some of them were hand in hand. Some of them just sort of skipping along. All of them looked medicated with happy pills or some sort of potent love tonic.

I wanted to be happy for these frolicking couples, but they only served as living reminders of my singlehood, which seems to have settled in like a pair of old jeans that maintain the shape of my ass even after they've been thrown in the laundry hamper.

I passed the bus stop and noticed that the bus was coming, so I decided to get on it. I had no destination. I rarely ride the bus because I feel that it is a portal into a strange world which smells and tastes of something of which I just can't quite comprehend. It scares me. If there are vampires in Brooklyn, I think they ride the bus.

Three stops into my busride a gentleman got on. I knew him, yet we had never spoken. It's strange how you can see a person repeatedly yet you never say hello. I knew that he had to recognize me as well. We are familiar strangers, an odd urban phenomenon that would never fly in a small town.

I used to see him walking his dog. I would see him go into his apartment, which was one block away from mine. I always felt sad when I would see him, because he looked sad and his dog was very old and could barely walk. I knew that the dog would die soon. At some point, I guess the dog did die, because I didn't see him walking it anymore.

I feel that it had a profound effect on him because I noticed that it coincided with his appearance at the gym. He was working with a personal trainer, very intent on some sort of fitness goal, I thought. Next came subtle changes. The grey hair he had atop his head changed to dark brown. His clothing changed from loose fitting outdated garments to tighter and trendier threads to showcase his developing muscles.

I think the death of his dog made him feel old and alone. He decided to turn back the clock in little ways. Of course this is all speculation, coming from a passive stalker.

It had been months since I had seen this familiar stranger. He sat there on the bus with his dry cleaning neatly folded over his lap, the grey hair emerging at the roots, the muscular frame softer than the last time we had met but not said hello. I think that he has forgotten his mortality again. How many dogs must die for him to stick with his gym regiment and the regular maintenance required when one commits to coloring one's hair?

We got off the bus at the same stop and walked in opposite directions, not saying goodbye. I walked past more mupples, feeling that there is some factory pumping them out in twos. I stop myself. Have I become bitter?

It is then that I notice a young boy feeding McDonald's French Fries to a squirrel and realize that the world has gone terribly awry and I might as well just eat package after package of bacon and embrace the fact that I am not part of a mupple and that ultimately, that is a choice.

I am single. I accept it and embrace it. I sit at restaurants alone like a mysterious European professor, obviously wearing tweed. I talk to myself. I take bubble baths and listen to lesbian folk music. One day I will own many cats and have stacks of newspapers. Eventually, I will stop shaving and take up whittling. I will learn the banjo and lose some teeth. I will lose touch with the world and become what many call crotchety. I will make my own loose fitting clothing out of burlap sacks and rock on a porch with cracked planks, which I will never take the time to repair. I will reject technology and be the last person to send paper letters as everything becomes wireless. Above all things though, I will maintain my sanity.
We must all have romantic notions.

Photo by the lovely Carrie Thomas

Science has failed us

I awoke this week to the unsettling news that Pluto is no longer a planet. It had in fact been demoted to dwarf planet. This came at the same time that I found out I had slipped from number 4 to number 10 on the Sirius Countdown.

As you can well imagine, It was a devastating day, more for the fall of pluto than my position on the countdown, but the combination of the two sent me into a downward spiral from which I am just now recovering.

I was barely able to eat my BLT last night as thoughts of pluto's demise still reverberated through my confused head. How could they do this to us? Why did I feel so empty, so cold inside? Apparently, Pluto had provided a comfort to which a value could not be assigned, much like bacon.

I began to go through the stages of loss. Anger, denial....
bargaining. I was ready to do anything to make it all go away....To make the world right again.

As my fellow American's stuff their faces with fast food fatness, overeating to obese results, Pluto has somehow slipped through our fat fingers into the abyss, the victim of our need for bigger, better, and bolder.

Are we all going to sit back, complacent? Is this really the end?

The world no longer makes sense. You can't take hand sanitizer on a plane, but snakes on a plane? Sure.

Pluto's not a planet? Why???? Why???? Why???? Pass the bacon, please.

photo used with the kind permission of the multitalented, Carrie Thomas