Author: Jay Leonard Schwartz

In For A Penny: Debtors’ Prison In The USA

Jay Leonard Schwartz Occupy Karma, Uncategorized , , , , , , ,
Debtors; Prison – Anywhere, USA

“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.”

– Mahatma Ghandi
 
“The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens.”
– James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, Jr.

 

I had a different post in mind for this week … until I read about the following news item that just made me sick:

Lisa Lindsay, a breast cancer survivor in Illinois, was arrested for a disputed $280 medical bill, which in fact she was told she did not have to pay. Nevertheless, the bill was turned over to a collection agency, and the next thing she knew, local State Troopers bombarded her home and hauled her off to jail in handcuffs. (Insert painful pregnant pause here) Yes, apparently in the United States of America – the home of the co-called ‘free’, debtors’ prisons, previously abolished in the 1830’s, are making a comeback.

You read this news item (links below) and you get the idea that there has to be more to this story. You get the feeling that the thousands of dollars that went into the arrest of this poor breast cancer survivor, over a billing error, just doesn’t make sense. But it’s true.

Folks, something is very wrong in the United States of America. Something that defies all logic and what might be referred to as ‘humanity’. Something that should be an insult to all … but it’s not. Instead, its ‘business’ as usual. It seems the game of ‘life’ is really just a game of ‘Monopoly’ to the government and Big Business. No money? Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go …

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Dialing For Rejection: Just Say No

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations , , , , , ,
It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don’t matter, anyhow
An’ it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don’t know by now
– Bob Dylan (Don’t think twice, it’s all right)

Do you find it hard to say ‘no‘? By the same token, how easy is it for you to accept rejection? In reality, these are two sides of the same coin in respect to how developed your ’emotional intelligence’ is … and perhaps how stable you are as an individual. Now to be honest, if you are already questioning your stability, then you might as well question that of society’s, as well … as I often do on this blog.

Back when I was in kindergarten, I distinctly remember being told “when you grow up you can be anything you want, even the President of the United States!” In retrospect, I wonder what the point of this ‘pie in the sky’ pep talk was? On the surface, it was surely to motivate us kids to succeed in life. Certainly it was to inspire us to set goals and to be all that we were born to be. Yes yes, we all know teachers are liars but …

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The Letter I Never Sent

Jay Leonard Schwartz Uncategorized , ,

Dearest Dear,

I know it’s been awhile since we’ve talked or even exchanged insubstantial pleasantries. In fact, I can’t even remember that last time your name came up in conversation. Still, I feel there are things that needed to be said even after all this time has passed. 

I know you might still be angry, or elated … maybe a bit of both. I wouldn’t know since we seem to have lost contact – neither of us taking the time to give a damn and both of us more than happy to let the distance and time to grow between us.

I’ve often thought that maybe it’s better this way. Maybe this is the way it should be. Maybe we both feel ‘off the hook’, as you once suggested … or was it me? Still, there are times when all the old feelings rush back to me … and somewhere deep inside me a subtle urge begins to build, boiling my psyche alive.

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Weed Whackers

Jay Leonard Schwartz Dadaism, Dialogues , , , , , ,

PROLOGUE:

Herb: In the known universe there are beings that never quite question their existence. They wander wildly through the underbrush of society, slowly strangling the life out of all within their grasp, including themselves. It’s senseless. 

 

DIALOGUE:

Charlie: And so it begins, our journey … our wandering.

Ivy: I wonder … will we wander in vain? Is there a point to all this creeping about?

St. John: About our destiny,  yes. And, we must have faith in our function, our purpose, our very reason for being.

Charlie: Being that you know so much about life, the universe and everything, don’t you think it’s about time we questioned our existence and that which drives us?

Ivy: What drives us is life itself. Isn’t it? 

St. John: It is! Our very existence demands we kowtow and bow to the will of what we were born to do.

Charlie: Do tell! We are slaves to our wills then … or the wills of our nature … and after we do whatever it is we are supposed to do then what happens? What then?

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Crabalocker Crabs Boxed In Sideways

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations , , , , , , , , , , ,
Some get the gravy
And some get the gristle
Some get the marrow bone
And some get nothing
Though there’s plenty to spare.
– Joni Mitchell (Banquet)

 

They say that moving houses is one of life’s most stressful situations. With this statement I tend to both agree and disagree. However, more to the point is that it’s just a depressing affair. There are surprises, usually of the morose kind, as well as subtle disappointments, bith expected and unexpected. The ‘normalcy’ of what you have come to expect, even if defined by ‘normal standards’ as ‘abnormal’, tends to be replaced by a form of irreverent and frenzied ‘hell’ …a helter skelter of sorts that fans of the ‘Lost’ television series know all too well. Yes, I think ‘lost’ is a shade of one way of describing how I feel these days.

I really don’t know where to begin in attempting to extricate myself from this self-imposed purgatory, because ‘sideways’ is not a usual option. But, that is pretty much the way I’ve been moving through life the last 2 months or so. Shuffling to the left, shuffling to the right, I shuffle and shuffle … and then I shut down. Not one for banging my head against a wall over and over again, I’ve just withdrawn into my crabby shell and have been waiting for this state of suffocation to pass … sometimes even forgetting to breathe.

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Decluttering Clogged Clingy Clutchers

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations , , , , , , , , ,
What lies in tatters,
trouble be known.
Seeking some wisdom,
so far from home.
It’s been a long time not comin’.
A heavy cross to bear.
A long road of spinning wheels,
leading nowhere.
– Jay Schwartz (A Pocket Full Of Holes)

It’s time denude yet another myth about life with the following reality check: life is not always what you make of it. Whoever said it was was just being pretentious. Most people who are born into poverty stay in poverty. Most people who are born into middle class households stay in middle class households … unless of course they slip into poverty. Very few really ever get ahead or even make it out alive.

It’s the truth. You know it. I know it. We all know it. Nevertheless, we feign denial, shake our heads and cry “no, no, no” and desperately want to believe that ‘change’ is just around the corner or that hope springs eternal. It’s not folks. Sticking your head in the ground like an ostrich only makes it’s easier to lie down in your grave. And, the morbid reality is that ‘life sucks and then you die’.

The poor and the homeless know one thing all too well, ‘you can’t take it with you when you go’. The rest of us, however, find ‘comforting denial’ in our possessions which we accumulate to build up a fortress of sorts in order to keep out intruding thoughts and sobering realities … until the walls come tumbling down and we take up residency on skid row. (Pregnant pause) Oh, did I mention I was moving?

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Fettering Fetid Feta Cheese

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations, Occupy Karma , , , , , , , , ,
What lies behind you and what lies in front of you,
pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. 
 – Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is dangerous to be right
when the government is wrong. 
– Voltaire

 

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I am not an economist. That’s ok though because the lesson of today’s sermon has less to do with economics and more to do with emotional blackmail and bullying … and yes, a bit of politics, too – especially in relation to Greece where these days insanity is the ruling rationale of the day.

In my last post, I referred to the dire economic straights Greece is in concerning it’s debt. It’s a precarious situation to be in because in deciding how to resuscitate itself the country is basically in a ‘damned if you do and damned if your don’t’ position. Meanwhile, economists far and wide have weighed in on the crisis, mostly waxing doom and gloom. More troublesome still is that the country is practically being forced by its peers into adopting austerity measures that are not only unpopular back home, but also quite ineffectual in both the short and long term. 

For its ills, Greece’s economic ‘partners’ in the European Union (EU), all with vested interests, have prescribed some very bitter tasting medicine. Unfortunately, in this metaphor, the patient has been misdiagnosed and the medicine will eventually prove fatal. Some even argue the country is already brain dead and that it’s only a matter of time before the decision must come whether to amputate from the neck up or neck down before ‘the plug is finally pulled’.

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Our Saving Disgrace: Economic Sheep Dip

Jay Leonard Schwartz Occupy Karma , , , , , , , , ,
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled
on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles
in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
– Bob Dylan (A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall)

 

This morning I awoke to the sound of a hard rain washing away yesterday’s fog. I’m an American; I live in Greece.

In the ‘States’, yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday, in some respects a day that has become less about NFL football and more about big business and advertising. In Greece it was just a ‘lack of business’ as usual. While pre-game tail parties and the commercial brainwashing of Americans were in full swing, political theatrics were being played out by Greek technocrats and bureaucrats that have turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the will of the people.

And, all the while bankers and ‘big business’ continue to turn the screws on ‘we’ the sheep.

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Slacker Talk: Loitering Thoughts On Life

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations , , , , , , ,
I remember thinking this just can’t be right
Got to be a better way to live your life
Slow like a soft southern breeze
Nobody take time to breathe
Everybody always rush, rush, rush around
Rush, rush, rush around
Rush, rush, rush around
– Edie Brickell (Rush Around)

 

Some called him a Bohemian. Others said he was a slacker. In truth, it doesn’t matter what he was called; all that matters is what we learned from him.

Life is not about learning how to win or lose, as much as it’s about learning how to play and even enjoy the game. For many people, however, this and other life lessons are often lost in their rush to cling to their delusions about what life is really all about: the attainment of some ‘cracker jack prize’ or ‘hollow victory’, if you will. The morbid and honest truth is that rushing your way through life yields the same ‘trophy’ as those who take it slow: a tombstone.

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Chronically Yours: A Sick Chronicle Of Sorts

Jay Leonard Schwartz Dialogues, Intrasomatic Conspiracy , , , , , , ,

Overture:

Two siblings, living on opposite ends of a great pond, catch up over the phone. Ill tidings of assorted aches and pains are exchanged. Morbid moroseness, often misspelled as ‘morosity’, ensues. Based on a true story from the Intrasomatic Conspiracy files. Written for those who enjoy listening to other people’s conversations.

Disclaimer:

Warning! Not for the hypochondria oriented! Please consult your physician or psychoanalyst before reading any further.

——————————–

Gil: Hello? Are you there?

Jill: Hey!

Gil: Oh! I almost didn’t see you there. How are you? I’m crappy.

Jill: Crappy or crabby? (laughs)

Gil: No, not crabby. ‘Crappy’, with a capital ‘C’. Sorry, you just caught me at a bad time.

Jill: Sorry to hear that. What’s up?

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Pot Watching: Waiting For Fisher

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations , , , , ,
Well I got a lot of patience baby
That’s a lot of patience to lose
– Laura Nyro (When I Was A Freeport And You Were The Main Drag )

 

It’s often been said that football is a metaphor for life. At the time of this writing, I along with all fans of the Miami Dolphins and the St. Louis Rams NFL football teams are anxiously awaiting some word of which team Jeff Fisher, the best coaching candidate on the market at this time, will choose to take over the reigns as head coach. Obviously, there is a good deal of negotiating, contract haggling, power vying and money dangling at stake.  For many fans, the future of their teams’ success rides on this one man’s decision. Word was supposed to have come over the weekend, then on Monday or Tuesday … and of course this limbo has now extended to the mid or end of the work week, leaving many fans pulling their hair out. Yes, suffice it to say that everyone is watching ‘the pot’ waiting for it to boil, even as all involved know that a ‘watched pot never boils’.

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Blogging The Light Fantastic: Writing In Stages

Jay Leonard Schwartz Writing ,
I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.
– James Michener

 

This post is not so much about blogging, as it is about writing. Of course, if you are a blogger, then you obviously write, so this post is for you. My aim here is to provide some insight into what we call the ‘writing process’. I’m sure you will agree it’s a creative process that sometimes turns chaotic, but there are ways of going about taming it, if you will. Mind you, although I tend to be a chaotic person, I’m also a teacher of English (when I’m not wearing a cape that is), so I can at least pass along what I ‘preach’ to my students.

Now to be honest, I wish there were an exact science as to how I write and develop content. Ideas come to me in chunks. Sentences form at random. Coherence and cohesion come hard. Therefore, one of the reasons I love blogging is that ‘writing’ on the computer has always come naturally for me. You see I’m not a very linear thinker, and as such it’s amazingly helpful for me to type up some ideas up, move them around, tryout different permutations of words and sentences, and then sort of fill-in the blanks between said sentences and ideas. Pencils and pens have become as useful to me as an extra pair of thumbs might be … on my feet. Yes, writing the old manual way is very frustrating for me, unless I’m writing song lyrics, ‘scat poetry’, a to-do list, or a shopping list.

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All Thumbs Going Forward

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,
“Whatever you get paid attention for is never what you think is most important about yourself.”
– David Foster Wallace

Last Thursday, in one of those ‘stupid clumsy me’ moments, I bashed my hand against a wall and screwed up my right thumb. As I’ve had my fair share of broken bones over the years, I didn’t think it was fractured and even managed to play guitar with it for a couple of hours with my buddy. Nevertheless, I had it x-rayed the next morning just to be safe; it was swollen and stiff, and the thumb, too! 

While waiting for the x-ray report to come in, I sat thinking back to when I had broken both elbows in a bike accident a couple of years ago, on April Fool’s Day no less. I thought about how crappy it would be to start the New Year incapacitated, trying to get by with my left hand, especially as I’m right-handed. I thought about toasting the New Year holding a champagne glass in my shaky left hand, as well as typing this post one letter at a time in true ‘hunt and peck’ fashion. I considered how 2011 might be giving me one last kick in the crotch before it winks out of existence. And then, a sobering thought struck me, “aww was 2011 really so bad to me?”

About 6 hours before my accident, I had been reading the last post of Joe Bodolai, a comedy writer with many notable television stints to his credit, including Saturday Night Live (SNL). Eulogizing himself, he listed his life’s achievements in length, as well as noted his regrets, personal peeves and even his sardonic predictions for the coming year. He then closed his extensive suicide note expressing thanks to the many who had been a part of his life, as well as suggesting “I need to feel the good that I did and whatever good I have ever done for you is enough for me.” … Well, apparently whatever good he did in his life wasn’t ‘good enough’ for him to rest his laurels on and so he offed himself by drinking a mixture of Gatorade and antifreeze.

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Reason’s Greetings And The Poop On Festive Poop

Jay Leonard Schwartz Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,
Come To Holiday Inn
If you’re burdened down with trouble
If your nerves are wearing thin
Park your load down the road
And come to Holiday Inn
– Irving Berlin
Twas The Day After Christmas …
It’s the day after Christmas and I’m sitting here reflecting on the holidays as John Lee Hooker sings “Blues For Christmas”. In England, today is ‘Goodwill Day’, formerly, ‘Boxing Day’, a day set aside for  ‘boxing up’ money or unwanted gifts to donate them to the less fortunate. Nevertheless, it’s more than likely that for many people, especially back in the ‘States, boxing up unwanted gifts is merely a harbinger of prancing down to the mall to act on the ‘many happy returns’ sentiment, laughing all the way.
Truthfully, it’s all too easy get up on a soap box and rant about the holidays and commercialism. The often heard lament of Christmas and consumerism is echoing like Carol of the Bells, “Alas, the spirit of the holiday has been lost in the the glitter and tinsel laced marketing salvos designed to trigger both economic growth for the country and increased personal debt.” You’ve heard that one, right? Puritans and Christmas zealots admonish us annually that the holiday season should evoke feelings of ‘Peace on Earth’ and ‘Good Will to Men”. Even stories like ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas‘ remind us that “maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store” and that perhaps the holidays mean something more. Yet in reality, the one thing that most people indeed seem to share this time of year, at least the ones still standing following the Black Friday crush, are over-bloated credit cards and indigestion. In light of this, members of the Westboro Baptist Church would like to remind us that Santa Claus will take you to hell.

The Silence Of The Pews

Jay Leonard Schwartz Dialogues , ,

Prologue:

Inebriated with thoughts of past indiscretions, a pedestrian, his given name ‘Durwood’, bumbles into a place of worship … on the eve of the winter solstice. Upon entering, he is met by a tall gent wearing a frock holding a just lit candle. The wax drips. The scents of bourbon, musk and Cornish hen float in the air.

—————————————————-

Durwood: My but it’s awfully quiet in here.

Scratch: ‘Tis true. So, did you come here to get blessed or what?

Durwood: (hands in pocket) Well, uh, I was thinking more along the lines of absolution.

Scratch: I see. Seeking salvation, eh? (jokingly) Do they even do that here any more?

Durwood: (laughs) Yeah, I, uh, don’t know. You see, it’s been awhile and um…

Scratch: Say no more. I understand perfectly. You know, they say it’s better to give than receive.

Durwood: Pardon?

Scratch: Well, you’re here for the “go forth and sin no more” part, right?

Durwood: (sheepishly) Look, um, this is a bit awkward …

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Overcoming Writer’s Block: Because It Happens To Everyone

Jay Leonard Schwartz Uncategorized, Writing , , , , ,
What a blockhead!

The truly great writer does not want to write.

He wants the world to be a place
in which he can live the life of the imagination.
– Henry Miller
One of my resolutions for next year is to write a bit more about writing, especially in terms of developing one’s creative spirit. Getting ideas and nurturing them into written form is always our main objective as writers. However, there are times when those usual soul lifting notions seem to flop about, inspiring nothing but stress, depression and lowered levels of self-esteem.
For a writer, there’s nothing worse than not getting ideas … except for maybe not getting paid! For a blogger, it’s pretty much the same thing. Face it: writer’s block happens to the best of us. Therefore, in the spirit of this season I thought I would share with you some of my own ideas stemming from my experience as a writer of various forms of ‘this, that and whatnot’.

Drones, Probes And Creative Sorts

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations , , , , ,
Jump in the pigpen,
next time I’ll take my shoes off
Hit the dirt doing two-and-a-half,
next time I’ll leave my hat on…
– Brian Wilson / Van Dyke Parks (Barnyard)

 

Years ago, the prevailing wisdom was that if you traveled too far in one direction, you would eventually fall off the planet. Many years later, the ‘flat top’ hairstyle was all the rage. I’ll leave it to you to connect the dots.

Sometime over the next few months the Voyager 1 spacecraft, first launched in 1977, will cross the line separating our solar system and interstellar space. Of course, there is much conjecture over what exactly will happen once the space probe leaves the warmth of our Sun’s heliosphere and the solar winds that have egged it on along its path.

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Eat The Rich: Socioeconomics 101

Jay Leonard Schwartz Dialogues, Occupy Karma , , , , ,
Los_horrores_de_la_guerra
Just Another Black Friday

Them that’s got, shall get
them that’s not, shall lose
so the Bible said, and it still is news
mama may have, and papa may have
God bless’ the child,
that’s got his own, that’s got his own
– Billie Holiday, (God Bless The Child)

It’s funny how we build thoughts into ideas, concepts into crusades, mole hills into mountains, and pet peeves into perversions. We preach, we scorn, we rave and we rant. We stand on our soap boxes and express our outrage, spitting bile and brimstone in indignation at the very core ideas we embraced long ago, even those that have become part and parcel of what we call ‘humanity’.

For example, this past week we once again had the displeasure of experiencing another Black Friday, an appalling and dehumanizing ritual of consumerism promoted by ‘Big Business’ in the name of the almighty dollar. I’m not sure when this much-anticipated annual display of commercial beastliness became popularized, but it’s certainly become just another symbol of the decline of American ‘values‘ … and I don’t mean the Republican kind. It’s a perverse version of the ‘running of the bulls’ in which the ‘tall and the small’ get to displace their sanity and civility in the name of lethal consumerism. This year’s theme, by the way, was pepper spray.

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Poetic License And The Beads of Sweat

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations, Writing , , , , , , , , ,
These words ~
Where I leave the loose ends
Of my day with lazy boots
They yawn at me
Two round circles
Eager to let go of where I have been –
Looking back across my week
Words are all I have had
They answer my most uncomfortable questions
They dream with me
They sing with me –
– Nicole Rushin
(excerpt from: Before There Were Words)
Here at the Wooly Yarn, I am rapidly approaching the one year anniversary of this blog, having started it on December 31st, the last day of the year and the eve of the next. While balancing in that precarious moment of temporal limbo, I made a New Year’s resolution to try writing the equivalent of one post a week … with some possible time off for good behavior. As my next post represents my 50th, a milestone in its own right, I am safely well on my way to achieving this goal and then some.
Since we are also well into the Holiday Season, and since last week was Thanksgiving, I want to take a moment to reflect on and reply to a comment left by a fellow blogger, Nicole Rushin, who also happens to be a phenomenal poet. As such, I’d like to dedicate this post to her and the artful inspiration she provides at her blog, ‘Writing As Loud As I Can’. If there were ever a great name for a blog, that has to be it.

Gobble Gobble Toil And Trouble: A Wooly Thanksgiving

Jay Leonard Schwartz Uncategorized , , , ,

wild-turkey
“Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare.  They are consumed in
twelve minutes.  Half-times take twelve minutes.  This is not coincidence.”
-Erma Bombeck

Thanksgiving: A time to give thanks for all good things in your life. To be honest, I do have many good things to reflect on in my life and to say thanks for. I’m glad that as an adult I can appreciate the sentiment of Thanksgiving in its proper context; a moment to be grateful for what you have. Over the years, however, the holiday has stood for different things, some of which I can only say ‘thank you very little’ for.

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The OK Factor

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations , , , , , ,
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
– Steve Jobs
Back in 1967, the year SMiLE was supposed to have been released, Thomas Harris (MD!) published his eventual best-selling ‘self-help’ book, I’m Ok, You’re Ok. This post is not about this book.
However, because the book’s title has passed into pop culture and the public’s obsession with ‘self-help’ ideology, I thought I’d reference it. Just as with Sigmund Freud’s works, Harris’ book, at the very least, does lay out some interesting ideas and terminology for others to build on. On the other hand, ‘Dr.’ Harris also endorsed electro-shock therapy as a treatment for some conditions, so I would approach his writings with a long ‘grounded’ pole.

Artful Dodgers In The Blogosphere Mist

Jay Leonard Schwartz Dialogues, Writing , , , ,

Spare us your wisdom
and send us your cash.
A twenty or a fifty …
… or something like that.
– Send Us Your Money (Judd Jugmonger)

Bloggers make for interesting sorts. Many start out as artists with their ‘craft’ in mind, and end up as marketers with ‘sales’ on their minds. The transmogrification of this species usually follows this pattern: I think therefore I am. I am therefore I create. I’m hungry. In fact, I’m starving. So, I create therefore I sell.

Today I read a post on another blog about writing. Well, actually it was about marketing under the guise of writing because no one with any flair for ‘the creative’ really wants to be a salesman. It’s true, isn’t it? If so, why do there seem to be so many blogging ‘artful dodgers’ in the blogosphere?

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Nervously Unnerved By Noxious Nothings

Jay Leonard Schwartz Intrasomatic Conspiracy, Uncategorized , , , , , ,

Hanging down from my window
Those are my wind chimes
On the warm breeze the little bells
Tinkle like wind chimes
Though it’s hard I try not to look at my wind chimes
Now and then a tear rolls off my cheek
Close your eyes and lean back now listen to wind chimes
In the late afternoon you’re hung up on wind chimes
Though it’s hard I try not to look at my wind chimes
– Wind Chimes (Brian Wilson / Van Dyke Parks)

When was the last time you stepped outside of your head? If you have never done so, I highly recommend it. It can save your sanity. Trust me.

Recently, I’ve had a lot on my mind and just simply ‘too much on my plate’. So much so in fact, that at one point I felt my head teeter to one side, listing and threatening to capsize all rational thought. I did not take this as a good sign. Distracted by the obscenity of this circumstance, I began to obsess compulsively, despite my being repulsed at my impulse to do so. It was then when an errant thought arose, plopping into my mind; it was certainly more of a ‘plop’ and less of a ‘pop’.

At that moment, I found myself standing just off to the side of my mind’s mental highway, staring in bewilderment at a seemingly endless parade of thoughts. They lewdly sashayed their way down the neural pathway, hustling each other along like an errant festoon of Dionysian Mardi Gras party-goers. Now I can ‘surrey and picnic’ with the best of them, but this scene of fervent irreverence was quite surreal. I must confess, I had expected more of my thought processes.

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The SMiLE Of A Dumb Angel

Jay Leonard Schwartz Uncategorized , , ,

Surf’s Up
Aboard a tidal wave
Come about hard and join
The young and often spring you gave
I heard the word
Wonderful thing
A children’s song
– Brian Wilson / Van Dyke Parks

You have to SMiLE at the thought that 43 years after the Beach Boys’ album SMiLE was supposed to be released, an official version in more than one form finally came to be … on Halloween, and in the UK no less. In the United States, the release came 1 day later, on November 1st, the end of the hurricane season in the ‘Atlantic basin’.

Just yesterday I ordered the 2 CD version from the Beach Boys site. I paid extra for the version with a SMiLE T-Shirt. I don’t want to just ‘look, listen, vibrate’ and SMiLE’ I want to wear it, too!

Personal Music: Some Notes & Chords:

There was a time in my life when I would sit at a piano all day and play various chord combinations, without really knowing what chords I was actually playing. Later, I did the same on guitar. I wasn’t looking for a particular mathematical permutation of notes, but rather I was looking for a feeling, a sensation, perhaps even a ‘movement’. In musical terms, this would refer to a “self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form”. For example, on a guitar, pluck the chord Asus2 and let it resonate. To me, such forms don’t necessary come in a string of notes played across a few bars…. but rather in a single blast … a Big Bang, if you will. Listen to the seminal chord progression struck by the Beach Boys vocals in the album’s opening track, Prayer, and you’ll understand.

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The Wooly Hallows: A Freudian Halloween

Jay Leonard Schwartz Dialogues , , , , , , ,
Razor in the Apple - Jay L. Schwartz

‘Tis now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.
– William Shakespeare

No holiday conjures up as much existential angst and parental-control conflict in kids as Halloween does. Really. It’s no wonder many kids have issues with authority and role confusion.

In the days running up to the holiday, most kids dream of toting home the sugar-encrusted spoils from a night of “trick or treating”. On the morning before the hallowed eve, some kids are also trying to figure out how they can smuggle into their bedrooms the stuff they know their parents will most likely confiscate.

Then there are the safety talks …

  • “DON’T eat anything until I can check it!”
  • “DON’T cross the street!”
  • “DONT go into anyone’s house. STAY on the porch!”
  • “DON’T talk to strangers!”
  • “HOLD your baby brother’s hand!”

… and the requisite stern lectures about kooks putting razors in apples and rat poison in popcorn balls.

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