A Daily Dose of Dio

Dio was also in a little band called Black Sabbath. He replaced Ozzy Osbourne. I mean, who could replace Ozzy? Dio, that's who. And you know what? He was, arguably (okay, that's a big old massive 'arguably'), better.

Be Excellent to Each Other

The Wyld Stallyns. You know their name*. You know their claim to fame: bringing humanity together to live as one. It was a lofty goal. A seemingly impossible goal. A goal only a fictional movie could give us. 

Or could it happen in the real world? Is there, somewhere, a Wyld Stallyns in our world?

I believe so.

But to help me believe, I called on the ancient art of Science. Science is good for things. Things like this.

To find the One, I spent years and years--if I had a guess: two. Two years--of my life researching music, all music from all genres from all over the world. And with the use of graphs and waveforms and the Gale-Shapley algorithm, I have found an answer. I have found the One. A One, I think, that may take some time to process, but if one really thinks about it, makes perfect sense.

I present to you today what Science has revealed to me. The Wyld Stallyns of the real world.

Peace, thy name is Dio.

Yes. Ronnie James Dio. Old metal horns himself.

Of course, Dio fans already know this. They've known for years. But now they've got Science to back them up.

If the music of Dio can reach the ears of every person in the entire world, as impossible as that may be, there may still be hope for us all. Yes, like the Call and Tim Cappello, I Still Believe we can save the world. With a lot of help from Dio.

Can we do this? Can we get the word out? I think we can. Repeat after me:

Dio. Dio. Dio.

Thus begins a Daily Dose of Dio. No need to thank me:

*And if you don't, please check out Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and the under appreciated Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. Or, you know, just Google it.

Three hours of shoveling snow ain't so bad

I live on the East Coast--please, don't hold that against me--and you might have heard we got some snow this weekend. It's funny, when I was living in Michigan we got snow all the time but USA Today never wrote articles about it. Nor did Al Roker come for a visit. Oh well, such is the fate of the flyover states.

Anyway, so we got a few feet of snow and everyone has been pretty much hunkered down in their homes the last day or so, thanks partially in part to the governor's driving ban--with up to a year in prison if you get caught or some such bullshit. It's mainly to stop joyriders, but still.

There are four humans stuck together--not literally--in my apartment right now. (There's usually three, but there's an extra this weekend so four instead of three and if three's a crowd what's four make?)

There's also one non-human in our apartment.* And, no, we do not have any pets.

Above our ventilation fan in our bathroom, a bird of some kind has made a nest for the winter. I think it's just the one, and not a family, by the sound of things. The lone bird was probably an outcast and while he or she hasn't bothered us too much up to this point, that changed during the blizzard. Now, we haven't bothered removing the bird since, unlike squirrels or rats or what have you, you don't have to worry about a bird chewing through wires or destroying any other part of your house. Well, it's unlikely a bird would do that. Still could, but unlikely. Oh, and it's not my house. Not that I don't care about or respect the property I rent, it's just that, well, it's not my house and we all need a place to call home during the winter, don't we?

When I woke up this morning and walked into the bathroom--as I am wont to do after a good night's sleep--I stepped in bird shit. We're not talking Radagast the Brown levels of bird shit, but shit is shit and even a drop on the floor is too much of it.

I cleaned it up all Spic and Span like and I had a few words with the bird. Me and the bird are copacetic now but I'm a bit worried. The fan is above the very spot where I brush my teeth and spend hours preparing my luminous hair.

Will tomorrow bring more shit?

Will tomorrow I be shit on?

I'd rather deal with the blizzard.

*we did have a bat once that circled the ceiling light in our living room several times before I noticed it. From what I've read, one of the main reasons a bat would ever fly into a house or any place it's unfamiliar with is because it's rabid. Rabid. Yikes. I managed to trap it in the stairwell and leave the door to our back porch open for it to find its way out. When I got back from work that day, the bat was gone. So it either flew out or found a home somewhere in the rafters of our Harry Tuttle-esque/Super Mario Bros.-inspired pipe-filled basement. So it's possible I have two non-humans living with me.

Thor Meets, ahem, Mephisto

I leave this here, unaltered and without comment, as a testament to the power of the Comic Book.

                                                                                                                                       The Mighty Thor #443, January 1992

(Most true believers out there will notice it's not the "real" Thor above, but the mere mortal Eric Masterson, who once temporarily replaced Thor after Thor was banished, yet again, by Odin after killing, yet again, Loki [they both got better]. After his tour of duty as Thor, Masterson went on to become Thunderstrike, whose claim to fame was a wicked awesome ponytail. Comics!)

Staring at Slides of David in Art 101 

This is creation,

he says,

a work of art out of rubble.

Imagine Michelangelo

chiseling masterworks of the human form

from what amounts to a lump of rock,

a rock teetering on the edge of a cliff,

waiting for the coyote to come along

and push it over the edge,

only for said coyote

to trip and fall and somehow end

up underneath the falling boulder

and they fall together,

fall long enough for the coyote

to pull out a sign saying

“yelp” or “help” or “wouldn’t you just know it?”

before he hits the ground

before the boulder hits him

and together they hit the earth hard,

but the coyote slinks out from underneath

as flat as a pancake

in time to see the dastardly 

road runner speeding by

only to stop long enough

to stick out his tongue--beep, beep--

in a mocking gesture--meep, meep--

only so the coyote can rise

accordion-like--phoenix-like--

from the rubble to do it all again,

but next time he’ll build his own wings

and glide on air, hovering 

over the road runner for miles and miles

only to fly into 

the side of a mountain.

This is what art takes,

he says,

pain and failure

and the ability to get up and do it all again

and for nothing, for no monetary gain whatsoever.

Ah, the coyote, the wild and wily coyote,

a truly respectful figure,

someone out of the days of chivalry,

an idealized form, a person,

a Don Coyote,

whom we all should aspire to.

Forget the fact  

he never gets what he wants,

he never gives up

and there is the art,

there is creation.

But that’s the trouble, isn’t it,

he says,

the never giving up?

It’s not easy to sustain such an attitude

after years and years of pain and failure.

But you must remember

the years and years of pain and failure

will eventually pay off,

maybe not in financial rewards,

but personal rewards,

personal triumphs.

Someone, somewhere, one day,

will see what you have done

and they will respond.

But remember,

the years and years of pain and failure

lead the way to art

and art leads

the way to life.

So I say, to myself,

Is that why you're here, oh Yoda

lecturing us about art 

instead of creating it? 

 

In defense of future posts

"Advice From the Experts"

I lay down in the empty street and parked
My feet against the gutter's curb while from
The building above a bunch of gawkers perched
Along its ledges urged me don't, don't jump.
                                              --Bill Knott

I don't write a lot of poetry. Mainly because I'm not very good at it. And yet, I can't stop writing it.

Poetry is unappreciated in today's world. Not under. Un. Unappreciated to the point of obsolescence. That much is obvious. I get it. I do. But it's a shame, really. Poets used to be highly regarded citizens. The word of a poet could change the world. But that's all disappeared. Writers, in general, have loss their influence. Books, too. No one seems to want to learn anything anymore, not since we've been able to open up a Search engine and find what we're looking for within a few seconds. That's not knowledge. That's laziness. Here's the things: thanks to the Internet, there's so much information out there, more than we've ever had access to before. It's too bad all we use it for is porn and pictures of cats. The cats! The cats!

I'm not any better than anyone else when it comes to laziness (for example, abusing the Internet for a laugh when I really should be writing). But, dang it, there's so much potential at our fingertips.

With our increasingly short attention spans and our need for a quick fix (thanks, again, to the Internet), poetry as an art form should shine on the Internet. Got ten minutes? Pull up a poem. It's that simple. It's that complicated. 

There are poetry phone apps out there. And that's good. But the only people who most likely know about them already read poetry to begin with.

Poetry, like comic books (whoa, where'd that come from?), needs better marketing. (Now that is a phrase I never thought I would say. But there it is.)

In the future, we will all wear sterile silver clothing. No, wait, that's not what I meant.

In the future, I plan to highlight some of my favorite modern(ish) poets who I feel are worth anyone's time and effort to read. And by modern I mean contemporary poets not modernist poets (although a few will more than likely creep in).

Like Bill Knott, for instance.

Poetry seems to be synonymous with "pretentious," with "boring." If people think about it at all. But it doesn't have to be boring. People seem to forget poetry can be funny. Granted, some might disagree with me there, having their own opinion of what "real" or "true" poetry is, but it's true. Poetry can by funny. And fun. Like a trip Cedar Point. Or the Moon. Fun!

And that's what I hope these future blog post will be. Fun.

Remember: a poem a day keeps Alzheimer's at bay.

Here's a story I wrote for another, uh, story. It was written as a bedtime story a father told his daughter. It didn't quite fit in the story. At all, really. I'm not sure how successful a story it is on its own, either. Of course all the stuff about Mali and the Sahara are actually from the father's POV, not mine. So, please, don't take this as my personal feelings on Mali and its people.

I was going to rewrite it a bit, clean it up a bit, but then I thought screw it. I did cut a few references to the daughter and made it a little less dad-telling-his-daughter-a-story-ish. No one is going to read it anyway. So here it is. For no one.

Good evening. You look all snug and comfy in your bed. Bet you feel nice and warm under the covers, don’t you? Well, tonight’s story doesn’t come from a book, so there are no pictures for me to show you, you’re going to have to see the words, see the pictures, on your own. Close your eyes. Just try to see the what I am saying. It’s not hard. Ready?

What I see is sand. Hills and valleys full of sand. And a deep blue sky. Can you see that? Now open your ears and listen to the history of a certain man and what he did to help others.

In the deserts of Mali, there is no water to drink.

Mali is a part of the Sahara, one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. It is so dry nothing grows there. For miles and miles all anyone can see is sand. And for miles and miles there is not a drop of water to drink. Water, as I’m sure you know, is why we are all here on this planet. We are all water people. It’s good for everything. We can drink it. We can cook with it. We can swim in it. It keeps us alive. Well, unfortunately, not everyone has enough to drink. That’s a bad thing.

A long time ago a man set out from Mali to look for water for his people. When he left, his name was Nabo the Foolhardy. No one believed in him. They all thought they had seen the last of Nabo. He wandered the desert for a long time, finding nothing, nothing at all. 

Until one day he found a frog. 

Frogs, you see, are full of good things, even though people may tell you different. You can’t get warts and they can’t get stuck in your throat. They're harmless and they’re special. He watched this frog for hours, until, as the sun began to sleep, the little frog hopped away. But the frog had left something behind. No, no, it’s not what you think. You know what that frog left behind? 

Water. 

Water in the sand that had seeped from its skin. So, Nabo the Foolhardy grabbed all the frogs he could find. Now, this wasn’t easy mind you. There just are not that many frogs in the desert. In fact, it was a task that took him several years, but he managed to collect enough frogs for a little experiment. And you know what he did with all those frogs? 

He took them for a walk. 

He walked long and far, through sand and dry river beds where the mud was too thick to drink for humans but the frogs soaked up all the moisture,all the water that was still in the mud and then when he saw that the dry river bed was even dryer than when he started he picked up one frog, brought it to his lips, and squeezed. Not too hard, though, he didn’t want to kill the kind frog, but he squeezed just hard enough that water came spilling through the frog’s skin. And Nabo drank and drank until his thirst was quenched. 

Then, he smiled. 

He gathered up all his frogs and went back home. When the villagers saw him coming over a hill, they rejoiced and then they laughed. They rejoiced that he was alive but they laughed, for they saw what was following him. As Nabo came down the hill, he was followed by hundreds and hundreds of frogs. A few of the people didn’t laugh. A few screamed “It’s the plague, the plague” and ran away forever. But Nabo calmed the rest and answered all their questions and showed them the miracle of the frogs. 

No longer was Nabo known as the Foolhardy. He was Nabo the Great and he lived a long, happy life as a hero to his people. 

Today, if you go to the center of Mali, you’ll find Nabo’s Frog Farm, a fenced-in, tarp-covered pen holding thousands of hopping frogs, one for each member of the village. One frog supplies enough water for one person for an entire year! That’s how the people of Mali have survived for a thousand years.