Music:

Soundtrack for Nocturnal Admissions written and / or performed by

Sergei Rachmananof      Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky     Vladimir Horowitz    Frederic Chopin
Johann Amadeus Mozart       Igor Stravinski     Sergei Prokofiev      Johann Amadeus Metesky
KVOD, Denver, CO
Mr. Riley B. King     Buddy Guy     Eric Clapton    Stevie Ray Vaughn    Albert Collins
Canned Heat     The Allman Brothers Band     Paul Butterfield     James Cotton
Janis          Jimi          James Douglas Morrison      John Fogerty
Bob Seger

John Lennon

Brian Wilson             Raymond Douglas Davies, CBE

Leon Russell         Joe Cocker
Francis Albert Sinatra
Ian Anderson          R. Carlos Nakai
Jon Mark & Johnny Almond
Robert Zimmerman
Eddie Vedder      Dave Grohl

Kruk & Kuip

David Crosby         Graham Nash

 The Band:
Rick Danko      Levon Helm     Garth Hudson     Richard Manuel      Robbie Roberston

The Grateful Dead

Bruce Springsteen
and the
heart-stopping, pants-dropping, house-rocking, pulse-shocking,
earth-quaking, booty-shaking, breath-taking, history-making
Le-gen-dary
E      Street    Band

Stephen Stills

&

 Neil Young

 

Kaiser Permanente Thrive

It’s been a very long year

The “Mini-me” as covert child abuse

You’d have to check with our son to get his take on things, but I was never one to have him cast as my “mini-me”.
Never had him even audition.
Always had it in mind that he’d develop into a “maxi-him”.
Super-sized “Maxi-him”.
I had been led to believe that was my calling as a father.
We were blessed to share some interests and some passions and some concerns and even more memories. Possibly more than I remember bringing along with me from my childhood.
But if my life hasn’t turned out to be the epic I had always worked towards dreamed about, don’t want to saddle him with having to ease my unworthy mind by taking care of that for me vicariously.
And I should know that whatever it was that worked for me might not for him. Whatever didn’t might.
It’s a crap-shoot.
“Mini-me”.
Kind of insulting, actually.

And whatever I really do think about me?
At least that’s not him.

He is.
And he’s doing just fine as him.
Maybe better than I did as me.
He might have done as well being me as I did, and I don’t know that I could cut it as well at being him as he has seemed to master it.
I dunno.

At least he’s not me.
Or even a pallid facsimile.

“Mini-me”.
Don’t care who the hell you either are or think you are.
You don’t need one.

In search of the Muse

How many of us are fortunate enough
to look our muse in the eye?
To have them look back?
To see the depth in their eyes,
feel the inspiration even in their most fleeting glimpse?
How many can say they have ever completely felt that almost divine presence sitting right next to them even if just internally?
It’s something we all strive for.
There’s no way of telling how many of us have ever actually met them.
We might think we have, and that very well might be the case, but I believe often our muse retreats somewhere that deep within us that not even the most exquisite of love sonnets will bring them out to see the light of day.
That’s just where they feel most comfortable, where they can do their best work.
That’s where and how they become a part of you.
And out of those lucky enough to actually meet that person / soul / entity who embodies the spirit of the Muse …
how many of them have been blessed with a choice between two?And how many of us have been that blind that we let them walk away long before we took our first substantial steps with them at our side?
We’re also meant to be there for them if it’s gonna work at all.

from the Book of Nash: Chapter 20, Verse 24 “Stepping in it”

I encountered a young lady a while ago, young lady I can reasonably conclude is somewhere in her early twenties.
Obviously intelligent, incredibly well spoken, amazingly insightful …
and, yes now that I think further of it,
most assuredly in the outlying regions of the sinkhole, being drawn into the central realm only to be sucked into the vortex at thirty a little too quickly for her own comfort.
From all outward appearances and behaviors, she takes herself way too seriously. It approaches reverence.
That supposition would make for a safe bet.
The operative phrase necessary to fully contemplate the depth of those gifts graciously given to her – to qualify if not able to quantify them – would be “in her early twenties”.
In saying that, I don’t mean to denigrate nor to mock her or anyone suffering that rambunctious rite of passage.
The human brain is just not capable of grasping certain concepts or process sundry precepts until the age of twenty-five. The brain is just not fully developed until then, and at one point or another during that growth period it is unavoidable that one will eventually step in a pile of dog shit.
Far be it from me to insinuate that it was anything less than a common occurrence within my experiences,
and I pity the fool who in their pomposity either forgets or denies it within theirs.
And I pray for the child who can’t accept that inevitability and their concurrent fallibility.
Who am I to judge if they’re still scraping the shit off their boots?
Everybody steps in it once in a while.

I can’t, however, recall ever having seen a dog step in its own shit while people seem to do exactly that all the time.

J. K. R. Nash IV