"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Found parking quickly this morning! Yay! Salomé and the kids are back tonight! Yay! Going back to Hartsdale. Boo! Last night's slam... Need another day to digest it. Maya Azucena: WOW! The slam took a back seat to her performance. Read my new poem (the end result from last week's free write) at the end of the showcase. It got some surprisingly strong reactions that caught me off guard as I'm not good with compliments. Not sure if it's because so many people that are around now have never really heard me read or the ones that have are just…
Looking for parking in the morning so completely sets my day off on the wrong foot! Looking for it in Brooklyn Heights on a Monday morning - where after driving around for 30 minutes, you stick it on a meter and cross your fingers you'll ONLY get a ticket - sucks like a five hour open mic in the park where the swings are off-limits and there is no shade. I'm a little poetry'd out at this point. Since last Monday, I've been at a poetry reading every day except for Wednesday. Haven't done that since '98 when I used…
"The most common misperception about financial planning that many Americans adhere to is that you can't afford to retire if you don't have a million dollars in your retirement account. That assumes everyone needs a million dollars to retire. The most damaging effect of the statement is to cause the average citizen to throw up his or her hands and say that a million is unreachable, so therefore they will save nothing! The implications for our economy and political environment are monumental." William Gustafson, Ph.D., senior director of the Center for Financial Responsibility at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas NOTE:…
When I first came on the slam scene, I ranted a lot. In my poetry, I mean. Or what I was passing off as poetry. :-O My free write from yesterday was turning into something interesting by the end of the day, too complex to finish before Urbana, and I wanted to read something new in their open mic. Sitting in my old home, Botanica (bizarre now, sans smoky haze), I scribbled out a good ol' rant while thinking of the morons lined up outside of Tower Records the other day for Madonna who pulled her video American Life from…
This is what happens when you take a notebook with you to lunch... "The View From Airplanes" (1st draft, free write) From the air I remember the city of brotherly love mostly for the fact that I don't remember it at all. Like movies filmed in Vancouver non-descript vague images of buildings not tall enough to be New York I do remember how close they seemed when we hit the air pocket dropped a couple of hundred feet and wondered what the news coverage would be for a commuter plane crash killing six of the United States Army's newest recruits…