Mood:  blue

The Forte Manor was located in Spring Lake Heights, New Jersey. It probably doesn't exist anymore. I worked there my first summer from college. 1975. Her name was Cathy Hanlon. She gave me a kiss when I left after the summer to go back to school in Texas. Not really a kiss. A quick peck on the lips it was. It’s 2009 as I write this. Just reminiscing. I’m at the office, but I want to feel the years ago. I want to touch that feeling. I want to reach out and touch all those years back. I think it’s possible to go back in time. Not here on earth. In this life. But after we pass on, I think it’s possible our next existence can allow the past to return. We CAN go back to anytime we existed. I traveled in other parts of New Jersey those early years of my arrival in the US. The jersey shore, Shipbottom, Wildwood, Cape May. Shipbottom, cool name. So’s Wildwood. And it was wild. I pumped gas on the graveyard shift, 11 to 7 in the morning. For 2 weeks I would go straight from that to a factory that cleaned linen and laundry from motels and restaurants. My college friend and I were the only 2 Asians in that factory. The rest of the factory hands were black, perhaps a couple of latinos. The management was white. I quit after 2 weeks. It was just too tough for me to stay awake and do that dreary factory job. Can you imagine spending longer than a year doing work like that?

One day last week, I was cruising the internet and googled her. Just for the hell of it. Her name had popped into my consciousness. And this link popped up which led to an image of her shooting a basketball in 1979. She was playing for her college, Lafayette College, Pennsylvania. Unbelievable. Here it is 2009 and I had met her for a brief moment in time 34 years ago, and through the marvels of technology, I was connected with that face again. It sure looks like her. It is her. Cute, pretty gal, hair tied back in a pony tail. What would she think if she knew some stranger in her past was looking at an image of her taken in 1979 today in 2009? Would it give her the creeps? I’m not that type, not even close, I don’t think. Just a normal, lost soul, wandering about in today’s Google world. Amazing.

Posted by l4ever at 7:44 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, 24 August 2009 8:01 PM EDT

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Mood:  caffeinated

You know what else I think? There are 2 types of humans: the good and the bad. Further subdivided into varying degrees of either. Let me provide 2 specific examples of the best and the worst in humanity. We're all dealt our hand in life and what determines which type we are is what we do with what we were dealt. Our journey, so to speak. You take someone in the person of David Duke, the KKK fella who went to prison in 2003 for tax and mail fraud. Here's a fella who was dealt a pretty good hand one would say, good looks, white man in a white-majority land, all the advantages to begin with in life. Instead of doing good deeds for what he was "given", he spends his life trying to deny others, usually not of his race, any opportunities, spreading hatred, scamming and taking advantage of others, all sorts of bad and evil stuff. To me, he represents the worst kind of human.
Then you take the person in the form of Mother Theresa. Here you have a human being who wasn't dealt a great hand - homely, tiny, born poor in a poor land. With all that she was "given" in her life, she could have just lived a bitter life and no one could have blamed her. Instead, she spends her whole life giving and spreading love to the most disadvantaged in life, her work in Calcutta speaks for itself. Mother Theresa represents the best example of what being a human is, of humanity.

So, these 2 represent the scale by which I judge all others. Bush may have been the decider, but, by golly, I'm the judger. THAT'S RIGHT, I'M THE JUDGER!

Posted by l4ever at 5:57 PM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 18 July 2009 4:05 PM EDT

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Mood:  on fire

You know what I think? Of course not! But seriously, I think most people are decent and don’t mean harm to others, IF they were living away from the masses of humanity. It’s when we come together in big cities surrounded by all the pressures and stresses inherent in dense populations that we, some of us, behave badly. I’m not making the case for isolation. The Unabomber lived alone. And diversity is our greatest strength in America. Most people pretty much live by the rules and mores of the society and culture of the community they live in. But, in the privacy of their homes, away from the public, many release their frustrations of daily life and revert to their more base instincts. It is surely understandable and only human when one is behind closed doors to behave more like one truly is, our true colors are revealed. What am I talking about? Just go to Craigslist Rant ‘n’ Rave of any big city (New York City, for instance) and you enter the world of the most hideous, base, stupid, infantile sputum of hatred, resentment and jealousy you will find anywhere on earth. I’m ambivalent about the site. On one hand, it lets people vent their frustrations in anonymity and that’s perhaps a good thing…I think. Maybe those with advanced degrees in the human psyche can analyze and study what’s going on in such situations, but if it’s only online activity and nothing more, heck, let it be, right? No harm, no foul. But what if some crazy loon out there, and they’re out there in our fine land, reads the shit and take things literally and does not have enough brain cells and control and restraints of civil behavior? What if some loathsome crime is committed because of the nonsense spewed in sites like that? Hard to prove, no doubt, whether forums like these instigate and cause hate crimes by the nutheads getting their “facts” from the losers on the site? Gotta go, I'll have more to say shortly...

Posted by l4ever at 1:07 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 14 July 2009 2:35 AM EDT

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Mood:  chillin'

Wasn’t the 70s a beautiful music decade? Those of you who grew up listening from that era will surely agree with me. Songs with simple, yet beautiful lyrics, and some of the greatest melodies. You can remember many of the song lyrics to this day. And listen to them again and again. Does anyone remember a crap, oh I’m sorry, I meant a rap song from last week?

The Motown greats – Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, early Michael Jackson (RIP), Lou Rawls, Al Green, 4 Tops, Dionne Warwick, Supremes, on & on, the British groups – Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, on & on, the American groups – Chicago, Blood, Sweat & Tears, America, Grand Funk Railroad, Carpenters, on & on, the singer-songwriters – Elton John, Jackson Browne, Dylan, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Carole King, Springsteen, on & on. I would add Lennon & McCartney among them, even though it was at the tail end of their partnership in the 70s. And Burt Bacharach and Hal David. There’s a duo that’ll bring back a lot of memories to a lot of folks. Who can't help but be transported along the cranial canyons of fading memory back to those fabulous days when you hear the first notes of “Reach Out For Me”? Or “Say a Little Prayer For You”. Or “What the World Needs Now”. My favorite song of all time: "Walking In Rhythm" by the BlackByrds, 1975.

And when you talk about 70s music, you gotta talk about road trips, driving long distances along the highways of America, going down that long, lonesome highway, so the song goes. North, South, East, West, made no difference, what a blast rolling towards the horizon and exiting into strange, yet familiar towns and villages. Small towns, big cities, quaint ones, ugly ones, east coast, west coast, midwest, gulf coast, diners, main street, gas stations, rest stops, motels, night driving, Denny's, and bars, lots of bars and clubs along the way, it was all good, so damn good.

Damn, I miss the 70s.

Posted by l4ever at 3:18 AM EDT

Updated: Sunday, 5 July 2009 7:10 AM EDT

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Mood:  don't ask

According to high senior officials in the Smithsonian Institute who wish to remain anonymous, alligators do not have cell phones, theme parks, newspapers, spoken or written language, or even a religion. That's about right, as I've looked around and I don't see alligator churches, or mosques, or likenesses of alligator Gods, symbols, artifacts. Hard to prove a negative, but that's pretty good empirical non-evidence to me.

Furthermore, my “deep throat” sources inform me that alligators have been around for 200 million years. Man, meanwhile, with all his brilliance, has been around for 0.25 Milion years, that's the Homo Sapien variety, modern men like Snoop Doggy Dogg. If you include the proto-humans, like Sly Stallone or those of the WWF variety, that would push it back about 3.5 million years. As another point of reference, sharks go back 450 Million years, the ones found in the oceans, not the "lawyerscheatus andscrewus" species found on land.

So, alligators, 200 million years, Man, broadly speaking, 3.5 million years. Alligators have existed more than 60 times longer than Man has, without needing in the slightest an alligator Paris Hilton or an alligator religion. And they eat all they want. Just ask the wildebeest in Africa.

Somebody tell me, why does Man need religion?

Posted by l4ever at 10:44 PM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 30 June 2009 3:08 PM EDT

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