Social Workers are so silly.

At the North Hills Living Center, which is a retirement/rehabilitation home for the elderly and sick, the following are the names of the building's living areas:

1. Honeysuckle Lane
2. Razorback Lane
3. Rehab Lane
4. Whispering Willows

Which one doesn't fit?

Dear, friend

Today I delivered to a young family with two kids, probably between the ages of 4 and 7. As I was walking up the sidewalk leading to their front door, I noticed that on the concrete, scrawled with pink chalk in a child's hand, was the following:

Dear, friend most dearest of all. I GIVE UP!

Delivering Gen Rx

I fell out of blogging for quite a while, but I have an idea.

I work for a local drug store here in Fayetteville delivering medication (and the occasional order of ten Klondike bars for Mrs. C and the four liters of Mountain Dew for Mr. H) to the poor, the sick, the elderly, and the exceedingly rich. Needless to say, I get let in on a diverse cross-section of Fayetteville - I go from one-room, roach infested "apartments" to the underfunded City Hospital to the mansion of, ironically enough, the CEO of the largest nursing care supply company in the country.

It's a rich job in the way of experience, to say the least.

So I'll start posting little bits of my day here on blogspot, but I'm not going to say very much, because these experiences tend to happen in the span of a door opening, an exchanging of money for meds, and the subsequent close of the door.

---------

[At City Hospital, 2-2-08, 10AM]

Old Woman in wheelchair: Hello [smiles].
Me, in passing: How ya' doin'?
Old Woman: Well, I guess I'm living [smiles].

Dwayne

I doubt anyone still reads this, but if they do, here's something.

I work at Collier Drug Stores at the Dickson St. location as a delivery guy and just about everyday this guy named Dwayne comes in to visit. He's schizophrenic, really sweet, and he's always dipping - he must be in his 30s. The other day he came in and Jake and I started talking with him as usual, which tends to be pretty scattered and strange, but this time he said something really touching, which I promptly wrote down:

When I hear that song Love by John Lennon I think of flowers at weddings. I think of my Grandpa. We put flowers on his grave on memorial day. Me and my family put flowers on his grave. He hated flowers though. Loved beer. Yeah I cry sometimes when I hear that song.

Happy Mother's Day!

Bootylicious

This is why Gregory and the Hawk (AKA Meredith Godreau) is incredible:

I Feel Like Dancing

I think capturing, via photograph, hipsters in mid-dance may be one of the funniest things in the world.

The Stolen Child

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you
can understand.

W.B. Yeats wrote those words in 1889 at the age of 24 as he realized his sense of idealism was slowly slipping away.

I watched the news yesterday with my Irish roommates as reports came in of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

32 years later, in "The Second Coming," Yeats wrote:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

It's interesting how things like poetry, music, or prose can have such impact when delivered at the right time. I feel like Yeats came to me in the same respect that he lowered his pen to a blank piece of paper - with coffee nearby, sending its heat upwards into the air; and outside, a storm unfurling it's dark cloak.

I just spent

the entire day reading Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," which, I discovered, is a complete abomination of a book. Utterly terrible - not the least bit engaging. A few paragraphs were well-written - I did my share of underlining bits I enjoyed, sketching a star here and there, an exclamation point on occasion. However, it felt as if I had listened (and actually paid attention) to an entire album and only enjoyed a couple verses. No redeeming melodies or choruses, just the occasional turn of phrase that jumped out at me.

The story begins with a whimper, continues like a prolonged, sickly wheeze, and finally fades out into a little more than nothing (for at least "nothing" in and of itself is an end; "Mrs. Dalloway" can barely claim to possess such.)

I know it's highly pretentious of a young writer to criticize one of the most highly regarded authors, but someone's gotta do it - I mean, she did suffer from bouts of mental illness. "Mrs. Dalloway," I suspect, was a manifestation of said illness - a manifestation the world could do without and I sure as Hell could do without writing a paper about.

Like the Linen

Everyone leave this page immediately, and go to this one.

Fatt turned me on to this site a while ago, and I just rediscovered how awesome it is. Read about Thao Nguyen, the new love of my life and download four of her songs for free. She's got kind of a Memphis Minnie (v.2k7) / Regina Spektor "Soviet Kitsch"iness about her, but, y'know - Asian.

She's great.

Stop reading - leave. Go here.

Visual DNA

I got this from my brother's blog and decided to make one for myself - actually pretty cool site. Try it out.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

It's the Little Things

The purple Skittles in Ireland are NOT grape - they are, in fact, blackcurrant.

Also - an equal combination of red, yellow, and green Skittles (The Rasta Rainbow, as it were) is the most satisfactory way in which to enjoy the candy.

Go forth and Skittle.

Legend American Buskers

So I know it's been a while since I've posted, but -- actually, no excuses. I've had plenty of "material;" I just haven't gotten around to it. But today, on this fresh, mowed-grass, Irish morning - I'm going to post, as it were - pictures and all. Thank you for your patience.

---------corona&coltrane---------

Mundane backstory: A few weeks ago, my friend, Mike (SWM, Boston, seeks SWF), and I went down to K 'n B Music to purchase cheap guitars to sate our finger-picking, good-time tendencies. I bought the cheapest one they had - a decent (looking) classical for about 70 Euro - Mike, on the other hand, going East Egg on me and springing for a nicer solid-body acoustic.

So for the next few weeks we jammed, received noise complaints, et cetera, et cetera. He taught me a lot, as he is a lot better than me, and I learned a lot. Let's just say don't worry about bringing a copy of Nelly's "Ride Wit Me" to the next party - as long as I've got my axe, we've got the raps.

We finally decided that we should give busking (playing instruments and singing in the streets) a shot - despite my complete lack of experience as far as performing goes, I was comforted by the fact that Mike could more than compensate for my mistakes and lapses, so I agreed - next weekend, let's go busking in Dublin.

Book.

So we spent that week frantically working on our "repertoire," if you will, which consisted of little more than a few Oasis, Creedence Clearwater Revivial, Bob Marley, Kings of Leon, and Britney Spears songs - very few of them in their complete state, save Oasis and KoL.

Regardless - on Saturday morning, we hit the streets of Dublin.

We found a nice little tunneled alleyway in the Temple Bar area that served as a perfect shelter in case of rain and also worked as a good people-funneling structure - anyone entering Temple Bar after crossing the River Liffey pretty much had to lend an ear, provided the individual was endowed with such.


It was such a beautiful day - partly cloudy, people everywhere doing their shopping, buskers on every corner, trad music spilling out of the center of Temple Bar, birds, smoke, the city.

So Mike and I stationed ourselves in the tunnel picture above, and began to play. I was somehow thrust into the position of singer, which should've bothered me a lot more than it did. But I was somehow comfortable with it all, maybe because I knew we were on the periphery - we weren't in focus - just extras in some urban musical depicting life in Dublin. I found myself actually singing out and people seemed to be enjoying what we were doing.

At one point, an older Asian man video-taped his timid son, probably about 4 years of age, waddle over and toss a coin in my guitar-case. I think that was the most beautiful moment of the day - the realization that we would now be packed up, loaded onto an airplane, flown to wherever they call home, and finally watched on some rainy, reminiscent Sunday.

Do you remember that, son?

Dublin? Not really - I was like, three or four, right?

And maybe the Dad will smile and remember it all so clearly - the jacket he was wearing, how his son fell asleep on his shoulder as he carried him back to the hotel, how the two young men had smiled when his son tossed a coin in their bag.


We ended up making almost 50 Euro between the two of us - quite a bit when we expected to barely make the train fare back to Maynooth.

Three Spanish girls stopped to dance, laugh, talk, and sing with us while we played.

Two Dubliners, about our age, stopped and talked music for a while and listened to us, calling their friends when they found out we could play a Kings of Leon song.

While he was on the phone, I heard him say to his friend, "Some f-ing legend American buskers are playing f-ing KoL..."

It felt good to be embraced by people.

A camera crew filmed us for a Spanish television show.

We played music in Dublin.

Jacob Smith says that I crave glory, and maybe that's why I loved busking so much. Maybe I do want those things - respect, esteem, glory, et cetera. I know I do desire those things to a certain extent, but the home video remains with me.

Is it that I find comfort in permanency? That I want to spread my effect across the globe and thus insure that I am in some way remembered?

I haven't figured it out yet. It is not something that bothers me or arrests sleep from my nights, it is simply something that I wear like a shirt - it's comfortable, lightweight, and it doesn't cost much. But then I remember that at one point very early on in history, the shirt and every other kind of adornment - shoes, necklaces, crowns - all of it was completely

superfluous.

Go Maire Fheile Vailintin!

A lesson in Irish (sans accent marks - haven't figured out how to type those yet) for Valentines Day.

La Fheile Vailintin (Valentine's Day)

Go maire fheile Vailintin! (Happy Valentines Day!)

Bi mo Vailintin (Be my Valentine.)

le gra (...with love.)

Tusa mo ghra geal (You are my bright love.)

Ta me i ngra leat (I love you; I am in love with you.)

Go maire fheile Vailintin - le gra,
SCRAM

Happy Happy Joy Joy

(L to R) Naimh (pronounced "neeve"), Connor, Ema (pronounced "m-uh"), Sorcha (pronounced "soar-sha"), and myself (pronounced "sam"). The blow-up man's name is Josepe (sp? pronounced with a soft j - "Juh-sepp-e"). Naimh and Josepe are happily married.
(L to R) Max, Dan, Sorcha, Naimh, Mike, and myself. We had a huge sing-along the other night after Mike and I bought guitars - featured hits included: Hit Me Baby One More Time (Britney Spears - acclaimed songstress), Ride Wit Me (Nelly - renowned singer-songwriter), and Wonderwall (Oasis, British brothers lauded for incredible ability to hate).

Important Video Message from Scram

So I think I figured out how to post videos on here.

The following video is for people that I love, which may or may not include YOU - but even if it doesn't, there's a great shot of my chair that'll leave every last one of you in an indescribable state of envy (for said chair, of course.)

NUI Maynooth Campus

St. Patrick's cathedral (which, unfortunately, is being worked on right now, as you can see by the scaffolding) and part of the courtyard.
Where the town meets the campus - I like the fact that in these days we can capture a Coca-Cola sign and a 900 year old castle in just one picture.
Part of the original castle built by the Fitzgerald family in the 1100s. You can see the main street in Maynooth in the distance.
A really awesome tree lined pathway on campus - the light at the end of this tunnel is, appropriately, the entrance to an old cemetery.
A beautiful garden on the edge of campus - I like the fact that there are flowers blooming, yet in the background you can see some of the snow that fell this morning.
This is one of the main buildings on the Old (South) Campus, which is characterized by old, beautiful architecture. You can see St. Patrick's Cathedral on the right.
Opposite of the building pictured above this one - the buildings form a square, with the courtyard in the center.
This is the view from my window this morning. Apparently, it rarely snows in Ireland, but I've been fortunate enough to have been here for two already - one via Cork to Limerick, and now in Maynooth.

This place is incredible.

Flying from London to Cork

The waves break white - pushing back against the ocean - the wind like a mother pulling her children along - dragging their feet & moaning about home & "How far?"

NYC 3:31 AM

It's amazing how this city augments movement.

A truck rumbles across the BQE & this apartment trembles.

In the subway stations, as a train thunders in, the ground shakes & the air blows like a burst of breath thru a blue trumpet.

At sunset, the glow of Manhattan slides across the clouds, lazily mingling with the last of what the sun has to offer.

Cartography

A man’s struggle to be exposed
is a long, slow climb
through treacherous territory—
“Harrowing the whole way,”
he says across napkin boulders
and steaming pools of coffee.

“Bears at the tree line
could tear your heart right out—
Bam— one swipe and you’re done for.”

She sighs, knees pulled close
to her chest—prodding a plateau
of eggs over easy.

“Altitude sickness.
Exposure at 12,000 feet,”
he adds and subtracts—
“can’t get ahead of yourself.”

“Why go through all that?
Seems silly to me,”
she replies— snowing salt
over biscuit mountains.

Giant slabs of sugar & ice
break off & crash
into sweet tea springs.

“The view from the top is incredible,”
he echoes through silverware valleys,
“everything spread out & open—
like a map of the face of God.”