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...and they lived happily ever after. Smith & Lady: poets, artists & urban adventurers.
Our relationship was forged to the soundtrack of Yoko Ono's magic,
frenetic, angst-laden hit, "Walking On Thin Ice." ( play song )
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Archive for the ‘life’ Category
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
my Picasso sweetie - foto by Smith
No collages were created last night - we have a paper-making artist staying with us and there was no paper-putting together time for me. How odd - no paper collage because of a paper-maker. The gods live on irony.
Probably no collages tomorrow either because we’re two of three featured poets at a reading tonight in Toledo. Sorry burglars, it won’t do you any good knowing we’re away tonight because we live right above our landlord. Plus we’ve nothing worth stealing except art we made, and there doesn’t seem to be much of a black market for it.
Turned 64 today. My present is I get to read to a brand new audience who have no idea whom we are. A half-dozen highlights of my life have been reading to stranger folks in London, Krakow, Oaxaca - folks who came to us cold and left warm after declaiming us poets.
When I’m Sixty-Four
The Beatles
When I get older losing my hair,
Many years from now,
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine?
If I’d been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door,
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m sixty-four?
oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oooo
You’ll be older too, (ah ah ah ah ah)
And if you say the word,
I could stay with you.
I could be handy mending a fuse
When your lights have gone.
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride.
Doing the garden, digging the weeds,
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m sixty-four?
Every summer we can rent a cottage
In the Isle of Wight, if it’s not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck, and Dave
Send me a postcard, drop me a line,
Stating point of view.
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, Wasting Away.
Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m sixty-four?
Whoo!
window shopping - foto by Smith
Posted in life | 5 Comments »
Saturday, February 27th, 2010
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dork Alert Dork Alert Contact the Fool Killer - we got to the Feed The Gays benefit to read our poetry a weeeeeeeeee bit early today, in fact a whole thirty days early. I got the date right but the month wrong - it’s on March 27.
Good thing it wasn’t today too — we’ve 8 to 10 inches of snow and more coming down so no one would have come tonight anyway.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Posted in life | 1 Comment »
Thursday, January 14th, 2010
the blizzard of id - foto by Smith
Found this on the last page of my back pocket notepad - three different entries fill the one page, yet flow into a found poem self portrait.
Me = need
Myself = logic
I = ego
I’ll piss any where
but I like to shit at home
Each night I go to bed wiser
knowing more of what to do
tomorrow but tomorrow
forgets –
is this my life
over&over?
The Big Necessity
The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters
by Rose George - foto by Smith
Posted in life | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
body mind - foto by Smith
“The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.” - W. C. Fields
I am no longer the sleeper I once was but still manage to get the job done right most nights, so I was somewhat taken aback to come across a pretty plethoric plague of online articles, studies, and advice on sleep and sleeping. Here’s but a fractal fraction of a taste.
Not Guilty By Reason Of Sleep
Feng Shui, A Solution For A Good Night’s Sleep
Sleep Boxes: Coming To An Airport Near You?
Sleep. . . And Get Rich
In Bed With Someone: Do I Sleep Better?
“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?” - Ernest Hemingway
Should Couples Sleep In Separtate Beds?
Eat More Bananas, Get Better Sleep?
Lack Of Sleep Increases The Risk Of Colds
Sleep Better, Golf Better
Retirement (And Money) Can Improve Sleep
Warm Skin, Cozier Sleep
“The serpent, the king, the tiger, the stinging wasp, the small child, the dog owned by other people, and the fool: these seven ought not to be awakened from sleep.” - Chanakya
Get Sleep, Get Smart, Get Sane
Energy Drinks Stealing Sleep And Sanity
Could Sleep Aid Your Contact With The Divine?
Want To Be More Creative? Just Sleep On It
Older Women Sleep Better Than Men
“Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” - Noam Chomsky
Women Prefer Sleep, Water To Sex
Wake up, women: Sleep is a feminist issue
The Scent Of Sleep
Who Needs Sleep?
My Top 10 “Don’t” List If You Want Your Beauty Sleep!
Teens Who Don’t Get Enough Sleep Risk Depression and Suicide
“Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine.” - Saint Thomas Aquinas
Want To Be Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? Be A Better Napper Than A 2-Year-Old
Top 10 Sleep Mistakes And Their Solutions
Is Sleep All It’s Cracked To Be?
How Sleep Is Like Steroids…Without The ‘Roid Rage’
Stormy Weather, Stormy Sleep
“I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.” - Mark Twain
Sleep Is Sanity
How Sleep Smart Are You?
Sleep Late On Weekends To Fight Fat
Nap vs. Caffeine vs. More Nighttime Sleep?
How Sleep Improves Memory And Cultivates Genius
Sleep Tips: How To Sleep Better, Lose Weight, And Live Longer
When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, “Did you sleep good?” I said “No, I made a few mistakes.” - Steven Wright
The Girlfriends’ Guide: Sleeping Single Terrifies Me
Sleep Challenge 2010: The Good, The Bad And The Coffee
‘Don’t Go To Bed Angry.’ Oh, Really?
STUDY: Sleep Helps Us Let Go Of Negative Emotions
3 Things About Sleep I Wish I Had Known Years Ago
Sleep Deeper With Better Nutrition
“Life is something that happens when you can’t get to sleep.” - Fran Lebowitz
Sleep: Most Adults Get Insufficient Rest
How Late Did You Sleep In This Weekend?
Sleep: Mother Nature’s Weight Loss Drug
The Young And The Sleepless
Pooping Where You Sleep: Bad for the Economy
Whatever Gets You Through The Night
“Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.” - Herman Melville
sleeplessness - foto by Smith
Posted in life, news | 1 Comment »
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
life graph - foto by Smith
Going through my pocket notebook searching an idea for a blog, I came across these two poemettes. Do two poemettes equal one poem?
~ ~ ~
Double Talk
I wouldn’t want to be with me
I wouldn’t even want to be me
But I am me
My am is my me to be
So I be what I am
To be or not
But not not to be
So I be the be I be
Since I don’t want to be any other
I better my being being me
~ ~ ~
Evidence Bag
That said
or this done
and WHACK
out comes the evidence bag
microscope
puzzle pieces
quantum analysis
till confusion rains
the cat’s put back
in the box
and all returns to all
with no done
till
again
that said
or this done
and WHACK
out comes the evidence bag
~ ~ ~
high walker - foto by Smith
Posted in life | No Comments »
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
$1,000 reward - foto by Smith
I’m looking at alternative sources of money since it’s expensive to be poor up here in the Corporate States.
I tried spending a dollar on the lottery and won two - that’s a 200% payoff, but somehow I don’t feel rich.
So I think for serious money I’m going to have to accept one of the crooked bank offers slimy folk from Africa, Hong Kong and London keep emailing me.
Mr.ARWAN IBRAHIM, the manager of Auditing and Accounting section of Bank Of Africa (B.O.A) in Ouagadougou Burkina Faso has fifteen million five hundred thousand dollars he wants me to help him steal from the bank he works for. The owner of the account died along with all his inheritable kin in a plane crash July 31st, 2001.
This same Bank of Africa in Ouagadougou Burkina Faso has eight other of their employees who want me to help them rip off their bank:
Faso’s Dr.Malik Ali - $ 7 SEVEN MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS U.S.A;
Faso’s MR OMAR FELIX BONGO - USD$14.MILLION US DOLLARS ;
Faso’s Mrs Stella Akah has twelve million five hundred thousand;
Faso’s DR HAMED SMANI offers nine million eight hundred United States dollars;
Faso’s Amina Kipkalya Kones tearfully begs me to help move $5.8 USD;
Faso’s Zhang Tiejun - ten million five hundred thousand United States dollar;
Faso’s Mr Mohammed 12,300.000 MILLION USD;
Faso’s MR AHMED SALAMA is the highest with twenty two million seven hundred thousand US dollars, but he’s only offering me 30% of the theft while all the others all promise 40%, so he’s out of the running right away.
All the B.O.A. Faso employees are trying to steal the same account from people who died in the plane crash with all kin. Each offer me a link to the news article describing the crash, so it must be real.
All that these employees need to do this are the name of my bank, my bank account number, and my private telephone and fax numbers. Oh, they also all want my name, which I’d have thought they knew before offering me all this money.
I’m a little confused why the Faso folk’s offers vary from 5.8 million to 22.7 million dollars since they all spring from the same plane crash, but there’s probably an honest explanation for the discrepancy - perhaps the plane’s passengers consisted of nine really rich people who happened to each be traveling with all their relatives.
Once we’re out of Africa, Mrs Sarah Grant just sends me a couple sentences: MY HUSBAND DEPOSITED 7.5 MILLION POUND WITH A BANK, I AM DYING, STAND-IN AS MY BENEFICIARY AND COLLECT THE FUND TO FINANCE CHARITY ORGANIZATION, REPLY TO:
Then there’s Mr. Robert Penman of the World Bank in London who wants to give me $3.5 million to eradicate poverty. I must admit this would definitely help eradicate my poverty.
Mr. Peter T.C. Lee of South Korea needs me to help him transfer large sums of money out of Hong Kong, where there’s also Patrick Chan of the Hang Seng Bank in Hong Kong with $10.5 million that’s stealable, and Chan Lee of BANK OF CHINA, HONG KONG who offers me $17.5 million.
Mr. Charles Nqakula from the South African Communist Party wants my help in investing his stolen money. Makes me wonder what communists are doing with so much money.
My favorite is Mr Elvis, a computer scientist working with Central Bank of Nigeria who says these emails are all a scam, that they’ll never release any money to me, but that all I need to get $15.5 million is an “Anti-drug/terrorist clearance certificate” which he can help me with behind the Nigerian Mafia’s back. I think I trust him the most because he’s admitting he’s a crook stealing from crooks and if there’s honor among thieves he’s the most dishonorable therefore the most trustworthy.
Maybe I’ll take advantage of all of these - it adds up to at least 164.5 million dollars, and my 40% would be 64.8 million minimum, which would at least be enough to get me through Christmas.
It’s good to finally have a financial plan.
My palms itch, I feel rich.
end this endless financial war - foto by Smith
Posted in Humor, life | 1 Comment »
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
rain Lady - foto by Smith
One of my newly harvested news headlines is “WOW! Monkeys Can Recognize Their Pals In Photos”.
This reminded me of a study I read 30 years ago in which the scientists taught a monkey to sort a stack of fotos of apes and people into human and monkey piles. Later the scientists added the monkey’s own foto and when the monkey came to it, he added it to the human pile.
Another legendary study was a group of monkeys were put into a room, then a scientist looked through the keyhole to see what the monkeys were doing without any humans in the room. When he looked through the keyhole, he saw a monkey’s eye looking out at him.
I wonder what they’d do with mutant monkey me.
I stopped toking a week ago because daily sips of ganja makes me forget my nightly dreams and I wanted a dream status update to see how my head is doing.
Tonight I awoke at 1 a.m. with dream shock. In the dream, Lady and I and others were in a hostage situation with the bad guys getting badder. The leader was threatening to hurt me unless the authorities caved in, and I told him he’d best back off and let us go. He laughed, said he was going to hurt me and just what was I going to do about it. So I shoved a pencil through his neck and watched him die, both of us in shock at my totally unexpected action. And then I snapped awake. It wasn’t a nightmare - I felt no fear - it was more an “I don’t have to put up with this-shit” feeling. There wasn’t any premeditation or if-he-does-this-I’ll-do-that sort of thing; it was simply instantaneous call and response. Lady’s and my life was endangered, so I saved us.
Went back to sleep, but then Lady awoke at 2:30, got up, made her coffee and breakfast and started working (she creates web sites for her mother’s company).
I lay in bed 30 minutes smelling the coffee, trying to get back to sleep while my mind raced over our evolving style of life until I finally gave up and got up with 4 hours of sleep. Came out, had my own cup of coffee and talked awhile; then she said she was going back to bed - after she’d had two cups of strong pan coffee. So here I am at 4 in the morning with a cup of serious caffeine running through my veins, tired as hell, and unable to go back to sleep.
Our life is getting odder. Lady starts thinking of going to bed around 6:30 at night. Last night she lasted until 7. I go to bed at 11 or midnight. She gets up anywhere between 2:30 and 4 while I wake at 7. Some nights there’s 12-13 hours between when she goes to sleep and I wake. The other 11-12 hours of our day together, she basically works, Facebooks, surfs the web, or we do chores. I can’t talk to her while she’s web designing because she concentrates so completely she doesn’t hear me; and if I do get through, it’s obvious I’m interrupting her work flow and she’s torn between work thought and me.
It’s getting to be like living alone, only with another person I have to work around.
So I shut down into alone node inside my head, and sometimes when she’s ready to interact, I’m in screen-saver mode and no longer quite interactive.
I’m an anti-social natural-born hermit who has become hooked on a her who is frequently elsewhere in cyberland even though she’s physically here. Sounds like a techno country & western song.
Now I wonder if these early morning hours are her private time and she went back to bed because I interrupted them. I remember my father used to get up at 5 in the morning so he could sit in silence in the pre-dawn darkness and sip his coffee and be alone before he went off to lay brick, block or stone. A few mornings I got up to spend time with him until I realized this was his time and stopped (he was polite those few mornings, talked to me and all, but I could see his heart wasn’t in it).
Things are changing for me. my body hurts more up here in the cold and humidity, I’ve lost enough teeth lately that I can no longer casually eat, my first winter in 4 years is shocking my system, I no longer have enough of my own money coming in to live in America, I’ve lost 7 pounds in the past 8 days, even my Google searches have stopped working and freeze up my computer, etc. I wonder if I’m caterpillar in cocoon becoming butterfly, or life form being slowly wrapped in shroud.
Whatever. Life is process. My job is to finish our book, get it published, make more art, write more poems, take more fotos, blog as near daily as possible, support Lady anyway I can, somehow get more money coming in than goes out, and see what flows down the line.
I have no doubt Lady loves me (though don’t know if she actually likes me anymore, especially since her absence and life back in America are making me crankier and harder to be around), but she’s going through her own changes and has her own growth needs which I need to support. I’m thinking some of this is the inevitable cost of the 27 year age difference in our May-December romance marriage. Different folks flail different strokes.
Life’s a beach twixt wet and dry
leaving me to ask what’s next, and why
life - foto by Smith
Posted in Lady, Relationships, life | 1 Comment »
Friday, December 4th, 2009
inside car looking out - foto by Smith
I’m going to try to regenerate some firm flesh around the tooth my dentist ineptly loosened.
I’ve done one “maybe” body regeneration according to dead mom, and did a definite regeneration last year down in Mexico when my thumb tendon was damaged and I lost my ability to bend my thumb. It took three months, but I made it work again.
The “maybe” regeneration comes from almost-dead mom telling me I was circumcised back in 1946. Told her she was mistaken because I still have my skin hood. She insisted I was circumcised because it was on the hospital bill. (Did she misremember? Did she confuse me with my dead brother Jay or my dead brother Cat? Did the hospital bill for it but not do it?) So I asked my professional curmudgeon-poet-friend Jim Lang to ask his doctor friends where he works if foreskins can grow back, and they said it may be possible, while the online community seems to think otherwise.
So I’m going to attempt tightening my loose tooth flesh by using just my mind.
The tooth was firm when I went to the dentist last Saturday to get my broken tooth pulled; I know this because: 1) I had a dental checkup three weeks ago at the same office and they found one upper front tooth was loose but the rest were fine; and 2) I was constantly touching the broken tooth for the two days before they pulled it and the tooth next to it was not loose. The dentist had a hard time pulling it, kept jerking it back and forth and sideways while slipping off with the pliers smashing into my other teeth making me fear for more broken ones. And as soon as he was done, he casually said the tooth next to it was loose and I’d soon lose it.
Reality seems to have turned nasty on me lately. With the newly lost pulled tooth, that leaves 9 on top, with two of those loose and most the rest not lining up with any teeth below so basically I can’t chew - I’ve lost five pounds in the last six days (which is cool; want to try my no-chew few-teeth loose-teeth weight loss diet program?).
To add insult to insult to injury, this morning we tried to go out to have some soft pancakes for breakfast, and COULD NOT GET OUT OF OUR APARTMENT; the rod that works the deadbolt lost its connecting screw so the deadbolt wouldn’t unlock. By the time I disassembled it and finally got the door open, it was too late to go because Lady had a work appointment. So now I have to go out, buy a new deadbolt, and hope the installation instructions are clear enough for a mechanical malfeasant misfit such as myself to install.
Normally I’d ask our landlord to fix it, but he’s the drummer for the math rock heavy metal band Keelhaul, and they’re on tour in Europe for a month.
In addition, this is my 4th day of voluntary stonelessness, and my mellow level has fallen to zero while my edge is extra (it takes me 3-4 days to rebalance once I stop stoning). It’s as if reality is trying to drive me back to grass, but it ain’t going to work because I’ve decided to stay straight until I start remembering my dreams so I can judge how healthy my mind is lately (daily stones mean I don’t remember my nightly dreams . . . finally this morning I remember a few fragments of last night’s dream - it was about taking art fotos, so that’s good). I’ve been down since we returned to the States and I’m trying to turn myself around. Doing more creative work, exercising, and smoking less or not at all are three of my plans for lifting myself out of this depression.
To top off my misery index, Lady and I had a nasty tiff over money miscommunication last night, which my flakey brain that believes a dozen incompatible things all at the same time half thinks is what caused this morning’s deadbolt failure, even though there’s no obvious direct cause and effect. Not only did last night go badly, but after midnight when we were sleeping, a sandwich guy kept ringing our doorbell to deliver a sandwich to the person who lives beneath us who either wasn’t home or refused to answer her door. Seems she and we have the same wireless doorbell product and when either bell is pushed, both ring (so I’ll be buying a different brand of doorbell today as well).
A final disappointment is really shallow - I’m a Stephen King fan, have read all his novels and find 25% of them to be better than most the serious literature I’ve read, with his other 75% dependable mostly enjoyable time-killers. The past two days I read his latest 1,074 page Under The Dome and came away depressed. It’s a nasty book about nasty bullies and brought me neither joy nor insight. The only other even nastier novel I’ve read by him was Dreamcatcher, which he wrote while in excessive pain recovering from the car that smashed him to pieces while he was out walking.
There’s more of course, but this is already too much of more than enough.
This world is Maya (illusion), and since this it is the it it is and we all create our own reality, I gotta do some serious soul searching so I can get back to being able to walk on water.
So now you-all can chant, “Hey Smith, you want some cheese with that whine?”
(Actually, maybe I do; cheese is usually soft and I could gum it to death).
PS update - emailed my landlord and he just called from an underground subway-turned-club in Germany and said he’d call his wife and she’d install a new lock because she was a freak and good at that kind of stuff. So I guess I don’t have to see how good I am with the “manly” mechanical stuff today. This is good because I am a fine un-man.
~ ~ ~
Zen over Zero
Dog week later in mourning kitchen pouring
Coffee into my veins with a dull cup
A daze of morals and Moses
Whines and Rosicrucians
It’s raining cats and gods
And I am a fine unman
- Steven B. Smith
outside car looking in - foto by Smith
Posted in life | 1 Comment »
Saturday, November 28th, 2009
$100 worth - foto by Smith
Having a tooth pulled at 8:30 in the morning is not the way I’d choose to start my day. I’m sick of the taste of swallowed blood. That and my love of garlic shows I would make a darn poor vampire - besides, I’ve been to enough parties with the brainless to realize the undead are not my preferred conversational tribe.
Last time I had a tooth pulled, the dentist wouldn’t give me my tooth, said it was against the health laws. Time before that the dentist did give me my tooth and I put it in a fine collage titled Post Coital Repression. This time when I asked, he said sure, and then the assistant threw it away anyway. The dentist came back with a prescription and asked if I’d gotten my tooth. Said no, so he went to the trash can and dug the two pieces out for me. Now that is service.
When my father had his artificial knee installed, I asked if he’d ask the surgeon for his old knee cap back so I could use it in art. The doc laughed, said that was the oddest request he’d heard and that he’d be happy to except old knee caps are sliced out a thin section at a time so there’d be nothing to give me.
The tooth did not want to come out. Believe my body was thinking I’d lost enough teeth already and was fighting to hold on to this one. The doc’s pliers kept slipping off into my lower teeth and I had visions of him breaking even more.
Doc said the tooth next to the one he pulled was loose and would eventually go. That leaves two loose future lost teeth on top. Aren’t you glad you’re not me?
The minor good news is I miscounted my top teeth - I have nine left now, not eight. I’ll take what I can get.
After I left the dentist and spit blood all over the street, I glanced at the prescription - it’s for 30 Vicodins. Last tooth extraction they told me to take Aspirin or over the counter Tylenol, so this is a major gift. In fact, I have a good buzz on now.
I now have 9 left on top, 13 on bottom - foto by Smith
Posted in health, life | 2 Comments »
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