Ode To Bad Poetry

Ode To Bad Poetry

Confusion caked upon a web of sounds,
A scattered marking, like a liquid shat.
Useless musings covering the ground,
Letters wasted on page by noxious brat.

A relationship of feelings meant to emote,
Ideas fleshed and finally understood.
Is not a hosed plastering of words remote,
Spread willy-nilly for no earthly good.

We poets don't get paid by quantity spewed,
So why use more when less will do?
Reaping scorn when scribblings are viewed,
So richly earned by shoveling poo.

Without a metered flow or well-reasoned point,
A so-called poem is public pulling at your joint.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

The Tower Of Pisa... Make Up Yer Mind!

Seven come eleven, roll them bones and go to heaven!

Sometimes I feel like that as I make the mistake of projecting forward instead of living in the now. The two theories come into play and all of a sudden I get vertigo as I feel that I am on the edge of a precipe. Perfectly understandable, but boring. I wish I could just pick one and stay with it.

The theory of timely existence states that unless we want our life to work very poorly, we must reach out and make positive plans and then translate the plans into deeds so that we are doing good things and living in comfortable surroundings.

The theory of now states that thing never really change and you must relax into the now, drop the inner dialogue and enjoy existence because the rest is a puppetshow.

But somehow I cannot really stick with one or the other. I sometimes believe one, I sometimes believe the other. They're both right... and wrong.

So, as I trip my way along, I make sure to breathe on the dice... and to just breathe... whichever.

The Night Still Holds Its Terrors

I blame Rod Taylor. It all began with him. You know Rod, that Australian actor of the late 50's and Early 60's who tried and almost succeeded in becoming a true star and idol? In 1960 he starred in a movie called "The Time Machine" which was a rather well-made telling of H.G. Wells' story of the future and all that awaits mankind. At the tender age of eight my father took his family to the home of a friend where we were treated to a rare home-viewing of the movie in his friend's home theatre rigged up with reflective screen and 16mm projector borrowed from the school where he taught. As an impressionable child I loved the movie but one creature jumped off the screen and implanted himself into my psyche in a life-altering manner. He was The Morlock. That troglodytic cannibal imprinted his horrific existence in my mind and altered my dreams to a great extent.

The Morlock began what has continued to this day, namely my night terrors. After watching that movie I began having nightmares so upsetting that I soon could not sleep without a light on in my room. I would awaken, in the middle of the night, terrified and with beating heart and find that I could not get back to sleep. My terror was so complete I would have to sit with my back to the wall in my bed (after having checked under to make sure nothing lurked) and keep my eyes opened in order to protect myself from the creatures in my closet who were lurking to grab and devour me. I knew it was silly, I understood that it was only my sub-conscious mind run rampant, but it didn't matter. I was in fear for my life and must keep vigil least it be forfeit.



My old AM radio became my ally. Tuning knob in hand I would search the late-night airways looking for the ionospheric bounce which would bring me lonely sounds from Wichita or other places unknown and I would listen to the high, lonesome sound of Hank Williams and the sad ballads of Mickey Newbury. I would hear Red Sovine tell me the tale of "Phantom 309" which is still a favorite today because it told me a ghost tale of a different kind. A tale of a ghost who meant well for all and in the sacrifice of "Big Joe" I found an icon which warmed my heart and gave my juvenile mind an archetype of friendliness to emulate. Many were the hours I sat, tuning knob in hand, searching for the distant sounds which would tell me that I was not alone in my dark vigil. These sounds soothed me and eventually I would be able to sleep again, confident that the world went on and I was safe from the cannibalistic evil seeking my hide.

But although the heavy terrors of the night are gone, I still awaken sometimes with racing heart and dreams I cannot recall. I find that in the lonely hours of the night I must reach out again for the radio, the sounds different these days but the same in so many ways. I listen to plaintive celtic ballads and rock music talking of love and loss and if I'm really lucky, I'll find a college station where the late-night DJ is playing Tom Waits' excellent re-telling of "Phantom 309".

At times like these I find that I'm in love with my lonely vigil. It has given me a view-point of life which, though singularly difficult to express, has moulded me into the man I am. I would not change my quiet walk with the distant drummer for anything and though I blame Rod, I also love his work and will sit up late at night to watch his movies. Soon my heart subsides from its racing and I will go back to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream.

I wonder where my old Red Sovine album went...

So What's Another Birthday?

So What’s Another Birthday?


As once again in this spiral dance of years
comes the day I celebrate my induction into these
human ranks, I find it right to think of days
spent uselessly under spreading oaks and lavished
upon lessons of unending indolence.

I was a rotten child.

Lazy and filled with lasting youth I was content
to waste the years in a fixated trance of time-enough.
Only now as the celebratory day brings the double-
digit desire for the reducing lie do I realize the depths
of my slumber.

I was a wonderful child.

Basking in the sunlight summer of potential I
could spend half a day watching a caterpillar
weave it’s prison doom and set itself toward
mighty transformation. In such importance
did I hold that world that even now I remember
the passing parade.

I am still a child.

Running cartwheels in my mind, I explore the joy
of wonderment that still confounds me and teaches me
what little humility I have. I spend my days skipping
in the bliss of eternal discovery.

I will still be a child,

as I step, eventually, into that other beyond, and
partake of what is to be. With stubborn will I
refuse to surrender the playing boy who keeps
my humor victorious over the humus. I will
always crave the new.

I will get older, but I will never grow up.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

Oh, How Well I Fought 'Till Then

Well... they got me! The chocolate demons have taunted me for days and advertisements for Reese's and Snickers and Milky Ways ganged up on me today and finally I caved! (I feel so dirty!) Granted it was only two tiny Snickers bars but you all know that these were the thin edge of a very large wedge!! Pray for me!

At least I'm only chippin'... I haven't gotten around to the bag of Oreo Doublestuffs with the Hershey's sauce for dipping.

(Chocolate Horror Count = 2)

Truth, Love, Peace, Beauty, Pizza!

People have asked me about my unfettered and potentially fatal love affair with food. They have asked me to explain to them what food is my favorite and why. Well, as to favorites, I really don't have one. I do have certain food experiences which were exquisite and left memories of contentment in my brain and I can speak of steamed mussels (with sourdough bread to soak up the cooking liquor) and comfort foods like macaroni and cheese. I can speak of taste experiences like sautéed morel mushrooms with garlic and wine. I can talk about the "perfect" paella my friends and I made while camping which sent me to bed loving humanity. I can speak of all these foods and express that perhaps they and other gourmet treats are my favorites (or maybe it was that prime rib cooked perfectly and served with the brown sauce with the herb infusions). Perhaps if I spent another week I could talk of other foods but when you talk about "binge foods" there has to be a pride-of-place mention given to...(wait for it!)... PIZZA!

What is it about the simple pizza which makes me head towards that particular food when I am seeking to use food as a drug to assuage my bruised and battered ego? Perhaps it is the fact that the mixture of bread and tomato sauce is a match made in heaven. Perhaps it is the joy of melted cheese - fats and protein transformed into a chewy mess which goes straight to my serotonin and dopamine receptors. Perhaps it is my love of sausage and anchovies which I love to indulge with slices of both upon the top of said pie. But in reality it is ALL. Pizza is the perfect junk-food. It is bread, tomato, melted cheese and salty protein sources like anchovies, pepperoni, linguica etc. These all get mixed together and come out of the oven hot and tasty and ready to scarf!

But what makes a good pizza?

Let's talk about the heart of pizza, which is the bread. The quality of the bread determines why some pizza's are good and others are horrid. Pizza Hut and other chains sell pizzas with horrible bread and seem to think that by covering these abominations with cheese and sauce they can get away with calling them pizza. They cannot. A good pizza, in my opinion, is primarily bread and you cannot make a good bread in a pan. Chicago-style pizza is not good bread. It is the NY style which is superior and it is not wrong when people say that nobody makes bread like the people in New York City. The secret is two-fold. One is the water, the other is the yeast. The water in NYC is perfect for bread. It is slightly acidic and clean and this seems to inter-react with the hard spring wheat flour that is used to make a superior bread. The water in the West of the USA is too alkaline and I recommend anybody in those areas to add a teaspoon of cream of tartar to their pizza-making water to make the bread work better. The yeast, however, cannot be duplicated in the West. If you want to make a good pizza, I recommend having good yeast imported from NYC. With the imported yeast and acidic water you will make a good bread, once you have a good bread the rest will follow and a good pizza will be easy to make.

The next step is the sauce. I have never tasted a pizza made with anything else but tomato sauce to be correct. The tomato sauce is irreplaceable and Wolfgang Puck and his celebrity gourmet cutsie-pies can go jump! But you have to make a good sauce by cooking the tomatoes with spices and herbs and simmering the sauce at least 8 hours to get the deep tastes necessary into that sauce. You cannot just open a can of Heinz tomato paste, add some salt and pepper and "pizza seasoning" and think this will do. It will not. The subtle flavors of a good sauce travel from your nose and mouth into your system, transcend the blood/brain barrier and build the horribly exquisite nature of a great pizza.

Then the cheese comes next. You cannot skimp and hope to survive any pizza taste test. Good whole milk mozzarella is the best, you can add other cheeses and I personally like adding a bit of Pecorino Romano for flavor but without the stringy, tangy nature of fresh mozzarella, you have lost. If you want to go truly upscale, get the buffalo-milk mozzarella still in the brine and let it sit in a cheesecloth to drain and then slice very thin and place upon the pie in slices instead of grating and you have found the ultimate. It is the juxtapositioning of cheese/bread/and sauce which makes pizza work. Topping then become a matter of personal taste because you already have a great pie!

But if you want a great pizza, try anchovies. Those who say that they don't like anchovies aren't ready to live! The salty and deeply subtle nature of a good anchovy is unimpeachably perfect.



And there you have a great pizza. I have, in the depths of a pizza binge, been able to eat one and a half of these beauties (large) before my belly becomes so distended that you could thump it like a melon and I will be unable to rise from the sofa for hours. The self-satisfied coma which follows will cure any bout with unfeeling family members, demanding bosses, unfaithful lovers or scarily stupid presidents. And that is the perfect high.

(Chocolate Horror Count... still 0)

The Sin Eater

There is a legend of our early times when society was made up of small rural communities both here in America and back in our old countries in Europe and elsewhere. The legend is of the Sin Eater. This was the man who, outcast and shunned by his fellows, came to the funeral of the newly dead and ate a bowl of food placed either on the coffin or the chest of the deceased. This person, in the act of eating the food, took into himself the sins of the dead, releasing them from purgatory or hell. Once the Sin Eater had done his job, the villagers would then hound the wretch out of their midst with beatings and abuse to live a life of poverty and loneliness until the next death occurred. Then they would entice their Sin Eater back into their midst with blandishments of food and drink in order to have him perform his fell duty again.

The Sin Eaters are still in our midst. They are buried in our consciousness' but there just the same. They are the people we heap our fears and despair upon so that we can feel good about ourselves and pure in our sullied existence. Usually they are family members, sometimes they are acquaintances. The truth is that they are the unwilling repositories of those feelings about ourselves which we find it inconvenient to feel about ourselves. We project our shadows upon these persons and we shun them until such a time as we need them to "eat" our sins.

We spend little time worrying about them, but these poor blighted souls are necessary for our un-regarded lives to be lived. We hate them, we put our sins on them, but we need them and when they refuse to eat our sins any longer we get angry.

Consider the Sin Eater, consider his pain and feelings of hopelessness. A role was thrust upon him which he is unable to break free of without resorting to violence or fleeing his companions. He has the choice of cutting ties with his fellows even though his very existence is painful or clinging sadly to an unsatisfying life in order to have a portion of those human affections we all find necessary. One is reminded of those sad monkeys raised without the necessary loving touch of a mother who cling to the surrogate furry post in a pitiful effort to find some sort of connection to affection.

We need to stop this. We need to bring our shadows into ourselves and wrestle with our demons ourselves and cease making others carry them for us. If we do not, then when our Sin Eaters rise up and strike us, we will have no others but ourselves to blame.

Skill Set

Skill Set

Pitched quickly from my shovel the brown soil scatters
upon the pile in hopes of re-interment as deeply I set
the manly hole in line across the hillside. Here is the
pipeline set... one by two by ohgodhowmany?

Back, grown crick and groan... I stretch and find my
mind drawn further up the scale of days away in
multi-tasking splendor. Thank god I am not here.

Down goes the tool, up comes the soil and once
again I reach for more to crush and pull.

A skill-set this, when thinking fails me and the
many trained skills fail me, I am here... digging
this ditch and pitching a lifetime earned upon
this continuous byre.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

Chocolate Horror Count = 0

DANGER WILL ROBINSON!! CHOCOLATE APPROACHES!!

The "Halloween Season" is officially here and all the food stores are flogging large bags of small bags of candy...



Gods there should be a law!!

So, I'm startin' my Halloween Countdown... How many bags of candy can I avoid eatin' during the next month.

Y'know, the worst comes the first few days after Halloween when the stores are selling the stuff at half-off so that they can get ready for Thanksgiving food and your friends and neighbor's kids have huge stashes and want to share with "Unka Stu"...

Pray for me Saint Victor Buono!

"I beg upon my dimpled knees, deliver me from jujubees!"
~Victor Buono~

Halloween Chocolate Horror Count=0

Even E=instein Had Bad Hair Days

Even E=instein Had Bad Hair Days

Being and nothingness, no conclusion.
Could the choices breed more confusion?
Hamletization no temptation, I think I’ll have a drink.

Professing no illusions, I slip into fantasies of profusion.
Intimacies not close enough for me.

Though energy enough for time, couples with mass and is frozen.
Nothing relative is chosen.

Crazy thoughts and conditions,
Eliminate other renditions.

Quirks of quarks cannot figure, randomness so pure.
Mighty questions of absolute,
Nothingness does not compute.

The park looks peaceful today.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

I'm OK, I'm OK, I'm OK, I'm OK......(repeat as needed)

One day a man went to the doctor... he said, "Doc ya gotta help me, 'cause it hurts when I do this!" The Doctor said, "Don't do that!"

Such simple and wise advice. I am constantly finding myself wondering about that as I go through my days. I seem to suffer (as many do I'm sure) of an innate ability to beat myself up emotionally for no good reason. I will just be minding my own business; reading, listening to music, watching a movie, or cleaning my apartment; when I find that I am running some sort of scenario from my past through my head and slaggin' upon my poor soul about my shortfalls and misdeeds. It is counter-productive. It is wasteful.

It is unnecessary.

When I catch myself doing this (or as I like to say about it I am 'running a tape' upon myself) then I stop and get back into the moment. If I am obsessing about the past and worrying about the future, I'm not being real about the now. I'm forgetting to breathe. Then I get into trouble, then I start to be an asshole and bother people with neurotic behavior and I begin to hurt myself with addictive acts (such as eating a whole bag of Oreo Doublestuff cookies dipped in Hershey's Syrup) and then I end up unhappier with myself than before.

The trick, I'm beginning to see, is to just relax and be OK with me now, in the now. Then I won't find myself fatter than before and unhappy with what has happened to me and wondering how I ended up this way.

You will only be happy if you allow yourself to BE happy. Or even just allow yourself to BE.

Of course this is fine to write about but hard to remember as you obsess about the time you made an ass of yourself in college.

Life: Easy As Chicken Soup

I just made a pot of chicken and vegetable soup. Delicious it is.
I am curious, however, about all the people in this world who
do not seem to be able to boil water without burning it. How
could this be? Is it fear? Is it some sort of genetic lack? Or
is it, perhaps, that they haven't been given the chance to find
out for themselves. Too many have told them how hard it is,
too many have worried about ruining their food and being told
that they are incompetant. I've always understood in my family
that if you can read, you can read a recipe and learn to cook.
My brother made a pie for a high-school pot-luck party and only
after he had the finished pie ready for people to eat was he told
that pies are hard to make. Good thing he didn't know that
before he started.

This seems to be universal. It is more than cooking wherein I
see this. I, myself, found myself stymied by website design
until I finally started to work with the web pages themselves
and found how I could imitate what others have done, steal,
patch, copy and basically fool around with the code. It is
becoming easy and I am beginning to enjoy it. I will not say
I'm competant, but at least I can fake it.

This has taught me a lesson about life... many times we just have
to "fake it 'til we make it". Don't take things too seriously. Have
fun and enjoy the laughter, even if it is pointed at you. We really
aren't such complicated creatures and life doesn't have printed
instructions so blowing it shouldn't be unexpected. Just as when
I was first learning how to work on a car, you have to expect
that sometimes you won't get it right the first time. People are
much more willing to cut you slack than you know.

Btw... I tipped the scale at 580 today.

Is It Possible For 'Ahhhhnold' To Ruin My Favorite State?

As a fifth generation Californian, I feel that I have some rights
when I say that 'Ahhnold' is a bad governor. He is systematically
selling our state and people and the workers out to the very
private interests he promised to protect us from. I'm not a radical
leftist and I'm not particularly happy with unions but I know when
those who have power try to use it to make other's lives more
difficult and I react to that.

California has been denuded, paved-over and bought and sold
by rapacious people for too long. We need to start being kinder
to ourselves and to the very earth we live upon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So Sweet They Call This Paradise
(California by any other name)


So sweet they call this paradise,
And were this really just a game,
It would be fair to advertise.

Set forth with expert laid advice,
As from lectern we proclaim,
How fairly won and worth the price.

This vista-pregnant paradise,
Virgo intacta we would claim.
Gentle husbanding would suffice.

In truth a stained and jaded slice,
Of crusted tart in fullest shame,
Is all that’s left of paradise.

From those who once possessed the prize,
Was stolen this with force and flame,
Dismantled lives with holy guise.

And now with stone laid down in size,
To muffle-drown this land’s exclaim,
We celebrate the compromise.

And verdant sward called paradise
In hidden glory waits reclaim,
There patient cradled in her cries,
Is fervent hope of fair assize.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

Is There A Euphemism For Lazy?

Sometimes I just want to pull the covers over my head and give up.
I just finished a novel by Nevil Shute called "A Town Like Alice"
which is about a couple of lovers living in the outback of Australia.
It is a touching novel and I recommend it to those who like uplifting
stories. The problem came when I finished the end of the novel
and turned to the blurb on the back where the CV of the author
is laid out. This is the place where the publishers will tell you about
the author, his accomplishments and where he lives (if he still does).
In this case the blurb told me that Nevil Shute had built his own
airplane engineering company, fought in WWII, and then wrote
over 20 novels before dying at 60. So here we have a man who's
done huge things and written 20 books and he died when he was
about fifteen years older than I am now. I've yet to finish my
first novel, am terribly lazy and never fought in any war or started
any business (which succeeded). I feel like the slug I am.
The lazy nature of me and the lack of a mark which my life has
left upon the world indicts me. I want to go back to sleep.

I am tired of being the slow lazy dog of life... but not enough to
actually do anything about it...

Depressing, yes? Aw well... there's always cable TV...

Myn Ynd Wymyn!

I love strange music... White Stripes, White Witch, Gwar etc.
I am attracted to people with wider looks at this world than
is normally acceptable or understood. I guess it's because
I have been an outsider in many respects most of my life.

So I used to have this really strange and fun album called
"Boys Want Sex In The Morning" by a group called Uncle
Bonsai which I really loved. Their album had really
good lyrics and fun style of presentation. So anyway I recently
stumbled upon their website while surfin' and they have this
song called "Men And Women" which is available for
download in MP3 form and I recommend it highly. I think
this song says so much about people's dreams and needs
and the sad/cruel way relationships unfold in this western
world which is so seriously off-balance.



I recommend you go here and download it... UncleBonsai.com
You will thank yourself, I believe, It is very inspiring...

Learning To Breathe (Again)

In Comes The Good Air . . . Out Goes The Bad!

Well, the morning scale weigh-in shows that I've not lost any more weight this week... I'm still topping the scale at 590 lbs. (I know, I know, I used to be at 550! I've been kicking myself about that backslide enough, let's just move on shall we?) I'm down 18 from the 608 I was at when I finally got a scale which could weigh me. I cannot recommend it enough for accuracy and efficiency. Costs a packet though.

My brother brought it by the other day as a present (early birthday) and I'm really grateful. I believe having a better feedback system will help avoid anymore of these backsliding situations. I'm really sick of being a lump.

I need to exercise more. I need people to come and take me for walks. I'm such a lazy sod. I am, however, enjoying writing more and doing more of it. Maybe someday I can make a living at it. I dunno.

All that aside, I'm enjoying the act of breathing as a way to getting high. I'm not taking in any appreciable amount of mind-altering substances these days and breathing seems to be my best way to get high.

Oxygen seems to be a wonderful drug... and there's very little hangover.

After The Wind Has Stopped Blowing

Some days I believe that I'm in some kind of shock. I just
don't want to do anything.

I sit at my 'puter and play. I dabble at writing, I dabble
at some 'puter games, all this done in a desultory fashion
as if I just cannot be bothered.

All the while I'm actively NOT-eating and reminding
myself to breathe every time the tension gets too high.

I then play with my pet guinea pig and pet her for a while.

Soon I will get dressed and go for a walk. I know I'm
sick and supposed to be taking it easy and I spend
many hours sleeping because I'm not filled with energy
but I have to actively refrain from jumping on my own
back to flog the lazyness out of me. I know that this
is not the answer, but old patterns take habit-breaking
attention and effort. Breathe. Breathe. The major part
is that most days I feel like a victim of Katrina, I'm alive
but I wonder what next and bemoan the necessity of
putting myself back together again this far into the
process of getting older.

"One day a farmer came out of his storm-cellar to discover
the damage done by a tornado while he'd been hiding. He
looked around and saw the farmhouse torn up, the barn
knocked down, the pigsty destroyed and the corn torn up.
He looked with a smile to his wife and said, "Isn't it nice
now, Hon? I love it when the wind stops blowing."
~Anonymous~

Observations on Self-Improvement

Aw Yes... The Transmogrifier That magical talisman, mojo bag or special item of possession (my favorite is that red swingline stapler) which makes your life better, makes you better, makes everything all right forever more. The one easy way to change ourselves into a more acceptable us. A way to transform us into a version of Homo Sapiens Superior

Oh if only... I'm sure that many of us have looked for this item... That necklace with the strongly stated meaning, like a wooden cross three inches long. My personal fantasy was a huge nugget of turquoise with mystical enchantment placed upon it which would give me the charm to sweet-talk everyone and get what I wanted with just a smile.

I never did find it.

I have, however, discovered how to live in the "now" as completely as I can each day and let the rest of the chips fall where they may. I figure that the person I always wanted to become is the person I am, or better stated: I am the person I always been looking to find for a great friend. With that in hand we find we can relax and... just breathe.

So If Johnny Jumped Off The Golden Gate Bridge...?

I guess the main question is... "Is It Safe??"


Wow... Everybody's got a blog, so I guess I'll get a blog
too!

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know. How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
~Emily Dickinson~

Or is that an admiring blog?

Emily had it right, though... Why do we want to be noticed so
much? I think that is the main reason why poets and writers
write is that they really want to be noticed.

I know I do... The problem is that I'm mostly afraid that what
I write will be crap. So I avoid the whole problem by not writing
at all. With faith and work, perhaps I can change all that. Maybe
I can actually get my stories off the ground and make myself
get that notice that we writers crave.

So there it is, first post. I'm hoping that this will become a
whetstone for my writing. We shall see.

S.A.M.Tanner