“Which is better: 1 or 2? — 1? or 2?”

Anyone who wears glasses (or contacts) recognizes the question and when it’s asked: during an eye exam.

I just had my annual eye exam yesterday, the latest in a long string of eye exams for me. They started in kindergarten when I complained of headaches trying to see the chalkboard. That led to my first exam. That means I’ve had over 60 years of eye exams.

Since it’s an exam, I always felt compelled to do my “best,” especially as a kid. So, although I can’t really read all the letters in line 4, you bet your ass I will likely hazard a guess before I say I can’t.

As to the comparison questions, like the title, those felt even worse since there’s no “right” answer. That never occurred to me as a kid so I was always straining to get it “right.” Even when I could no longer tell any difference between two options, I would just go ahead and pick one rather than say I saw no difference.

I had to get glasses before I hit first grade. I can still remember my eye doctor (still my preferred term over ophthalmologist) uttering the phrase no doubt heard verbatim by generation after generation of kids getting their first set of glasses:

“Now, you will start to see the individual leaves on the trees, not just a green blur…”

See (pun intended), I’ve never really minded the whole eye exam thing. I just hated that afterwards, my dilated pupils wouldn’t let me enjoy the simplest of pleasures. No walks outside — too bright. No reading — can’t focus. Little use for internet — that’s just more reading. Several hours of dealing with severely dilated pupils  has always been the worst aspect of the whole experience as far as I am concerned.

Well, this time, they didn’t dilate my pupils. This new eye doctor I went to uses a machine that can image your retina without dilating your pupils. Naturally, most insurance won’t pay for it, so it was an extra $45 out-of-pocket. I wouldn’t have necessarily paid for the convenience alone, but they also pointed out it helps the doctor do a more thorough exam of your the back of your eye. 

Given that it was my first visit to this eye doctor, I opted for the more thorough paid exam. Maybe I won’t next year. But I will gladly admit it sure was nice not to have to deal with the post-exam dilation effect. It’s not just driving that’s a problem — though Sara & I commiserated about our old drives down MoPac after exams in Austin — but not having that lingering effect of not being able to read felt great.

Yes, I’m thinking $45 is not bad for an annual fee for that feeling. Yes, I can manage to deal with dilation — but it was so much nicer not to have to.

Songs of Will T. Massey — “The Biggest Horse”

Will, on the back “patio”  of the tiny studio apartment where he lived in early 2005

Here’s another tune Will brought back from the lengthy hiatus he took before his comeback in 2005. Initially included on 2005’s bare bones CD “Acoustic Session,” it got the full production package the following year on “Letters in the Wind.”

Will’s word play and evocative imagery are at play in this tune, painting us a picture that is not quite ballad, not quite dream, but definitely all Will.

To beyond, she was blonde,
In an old western town.
He was high in the sky
With the rain pouring down.
From the ground came a sound
Like coyotes wild,
Kiss for the bliss
Which could bear her a child.
When at last he was fast
Out where dreams understand —
He had the biggest horse in the land.

And they rode for the road
Before it was born
Soft they’d talk of the walk
That could leave them forlorn,
For a fair not the mare
When saddles were hung
At the need for great speed
When goodbyes were young.
To the paint like a saint
Or a fast turning sand —
He had the biggest horse in the land.

And though I suppose
They barely got by
She could rear like a rose
For a paint’s distant sky…

Looking fine for to dine
Blonde was walking to town.
He was west in a vest
With a watch hanging down.
Although calm, she pledged all
Her good love that day.
Its end was the wind
As watch gold ticked away
On the plains with the rains
Standing tall, a good hand —
He had the biggest horse in the land.

By the mount, lucky count
Where giants, well, stand —
He had the biggest horse in the land.

Bonus track: solo acoustic version from Acoustic Session (2005)

 

5 for Friday— YouTube Rabbit Holes

Happy Friday!

Time for some weekend entertainment, so we’re offering 5 absolutely free YouTube rabbit holes. These allow your to freely access hours on end of weekend entertainment in 5 categories: hot links to music and poetry and other items of interest.

Most of the videos are short, usually 5 minutes or less. Each rabbit hole has multiple videos, and I’ve embedded a suitable sample to get you started down each one. That oughta keep you busy.

Letters Live — Featuring clips from a live performance series, this channel captures notable actors reading letters aloud to an audience. Some of the letters come from famous people (Napoleon, Queen Victoria), some are about famous people (Elvis, the Beatles), and some just amusing tidbits and exchanges. I particularly loved the one debating whether dogs are fascists.

Here’s frequent reader, Benedict Cumberbatch, with a series of invitation refusals from that great literary grouch, George Bernard Shaw.

Benedict Cumberbatch reads George Bernard Shaw

Charles Bukowski — A true Writer in his every ounce of his being, the noted poet, novelist, and columnist cranked out curmudegonly words for a weary world. There are plenty of recordings of Bukowski reading some of his poetry on YouTube, easily found by searching YouTube for his name. I particularly enjoy the ones from this created/curated playlist from YT creator illneas.

“You know and I know and thee know…”

George Ensle — Longtime Austin singer-songwriter, George dazzled the Chicago House scene years ago because he’d released a record. Not a cassette but a real record — the kids call ’em “vinyls” now. George is still out there, recording, performing, and touring. We missed a recent chance to see George “right around the corner” in Alamosa but discovered the livestream in time to catch a great show from him (George starts at :39 in the clip). George consistently delivers heartfelt tunes laced with homespun wisdom, delivered with love in his heart. This tune is a perfect example.

“I’ve got the world in a raindrop
And a promise in a seed —
I’ve got all I wanted
When I’ve got all I need.”

“From Texas with Love” — Carrie Rodriguez hosted a number of notable Texas musical guests in this series. Each of the 9 episodes focuses on another performer, sharing songs and conversation — in the great outdoors. Guests included people like Emily Gimble, John Doe, Bruce Robison, and as seen below, Jimmie Dale Gilmore.

Carrie Rodriguez with Jimmie Dale Gilmore

Kat McSnatch — Nothing like a peppy pop ballad laced with profanity to lift your spirits. Before you know it, you’re singing along with Kat’s karaoke version of “You’re a C*nt,,” one of her more popular ditties. Please note: Unlike me using the asterisk there, Kat censors none of her words — and she showcases them all — but she does sing them quite beautifully.

 

“I Don’t Like You” — one of her few songs actually “Safe For Work”

BONUS: Anyone who watched the latest version of “Shogun,” knows the lead actor, Cosmo Jarvis, now. Many people remain unaware of this viral video hit of his from 2012, though. Once we stumbled across this tune, well, every episode of “Shogun” had an additional soundtrack for us as we watched.

There you go — hours of fun for your weekend!

 

IYKYK — Gotta go!

Two words: Colonoscopy prep.
If you know, you know.

“Stay home and close to a bathroom.”

And if you’re over 50, you definitely ought to know by now — colonoscopies are usually recommended over age 50 to screen for colorectal cancer.

It’s sure not my first rodeo.

Oh but if it only were a rodeo. Anyone who’s had a colonoscopy will tell you the prep is worse than the procedure. Since they will be sending a probe up your, uh, well, you know, to look at your colon from the inside, you’ve got to get it cleaned out but good before they’ll go in.

Sounds simple enough — laxatives plus liquid diet will do the trick. Large doses of laxatives rapidly accelerating the usual process of elimination plus a clear liquid diet the entire day before and nothing by mouth after midnight kinda clears the pathway for the probe.

Simple — but not exactly pleasant. To quote the instructions: “Stay home and close to a bathroom.”

Right about now, I’m into the phase of downing a glass of my favorite Gatorade-Miralax cocktail every 15 minutes and starting the inevitable, innumerable urgent trips to the toilet this afternoon, this evening and tonight.

So, I’d write more, but right now— I really gotta GO!

Intrepid Nellie Bly, Fearless Female Reporter

Happy Birthday to Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman — better known as Nellie Bly, globe-trotting newswoman & pioneer of investigative journalism!

An editorial about the proper role of girls (birthing children and keeping house) prompted young Elizabeth to write a letter to the editor signed, “Lonely Orphan Girl.” Impressed, the editor asked her to write more and she responded with “The Girl Puzzle.” That launched her career in newspapers under the pen name, Nellie Bly, given her by the editor.

But when she started writing about working women and their desperate conditions, she was reassigned to the fashion and society stories. Frustrated, she went to Mexico as a foreign correspondent for half a year. After writing a piece critical of the policies of President Díaz, she fled arrest in Mexico, fearing for her own safety.

Back in the States, she found herself relegated to “women’s pages” again but bristled at the work. Wheedling her way into the offices of The New York World, she pitched an audacious assignment for herself: reporting on conditions at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum — from the inside.

Feigning insanity, Nellie got herself admitted as a patient. There she found rampant abuse and neglect plaguing the patients, many of whom driven at least partially mad after admission to the asylum. Nellie’s news stories about the horrendous conditions and mistreatment of the women in the asylum would lead to reforms. Originally appearing in October 1887, “Ten Days in a Mad-House” would then be published as a book and win Nellie widespread acclaim.

The following year, Nellie had another unusual proposal for her publishers: she would be the first to attempt to match Jules Verne’s globetrotters from “Around the World in 80 Days.” Indeed, she beat Phileas Fogg’s amazing feat and summarized it in her own account, “Around the World in Seventy-Two Days.”

Nellie Bly’s exploits captured the imagination of the world. Though a rival newspaper attempted to have another woman reporter, Elizabeth Bisland, “race” after Nellie who also beat Verne’s fictional feat, Nellie Bly beat her and gathered the glory.

There was even a board game based on her journey that became quite popular!

Next, she turned to writing novels. Her serialized novels appeared in The New York Family Story Paper starting in 1889. She wrote 11 novels in all, thought to be lost, but recently recovered and republished in 2021. She also returned to reporting while writing fiction.

Then, she married an elderly millionaire manufacturer of metal cans such as those used to make boilers or store liquids. Nellie started working with her husband as his health failed, eventually even earning patents for her own inventions, an improved milk storage can and a stacking garbage can.

She became one of America’s leading women industrialists but her benevolence combined with a factory manager’s embezzlement eventually bankrupted the company.

Returning to journalism, Nellie wrote of the women’s suffrage movement, accurately predicting in 1913 that women would win the right to vote by 1920. Before that would come to pass, however, she once again found herself making, as well as reporting, headlines — as a war correspondent, the first woman reporting from the war zone between Serbia and Austria during World War I.

Nellie Bly died of pneumonia in 1922, aged 57. Her fame and her name live on. Time and time again, Hollywood has told and retold tell her story. There are certainly plenty of pieces out there about her, from short YouTube biographies to dramatizations.

We watched one several years ago that seemed like a pilot for an intended TV series. The movie focused on her asylum undercover story but the closing credits featured a peppy young woman gallivanting about. I’m not sure, but I think that was 2015’s “10 Days in a Madhouse.”

While reading up again about Nellie today — her story fascinates me! — I discovered another more recent movie, Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly Story, starring Christine Ricci. Since that one’s currently available on Hulu, I figure on watching it soon.

Meanwhile, here’s a trailer for the 2019 short animated documentary, “Nellie Bly Makes the News.”

 

Songs of Will T. Massey — “American Séance”

Will released Wayward Lady in 2008 to showcase songs he’d written in reaction to the ongoing political climate after 9/11, during the Iraq War.

Several people advised him not to make the album, saying any political song runs the risk of alienating part of the audience.

But Will still felt he needed to share these songs of peace with the world, the same way he’d always shared his more personal material.

I woke up and my country was gone —
Blown away like the Pentagon.
A paper trail led to a king
Who signed away everything —
The stuff of where our rights begin,
Being free of the likes of him…
The President wanted more power —
He made the Constitution cower.

America, are you in the room?
It’s a séance — you died too soon.
Will you come back, free of sin?
America, be born again.

We voted him out and he waltzed back in,
A war for foreign oil to win.
If you didn’t support the cause,
You lost your liberties of laws.
Your huddled masses were turned away,
Without their protected say.
The Founding Fathers here tonight
Would tell us: fight for the Bill of Rights.

America, are you in the room?
It’s a séance — you died too soon.
Will you come back, free of sin?
America, be born again.

I always believed in the best of you:
Your Constitution, your backbone, too.
But sometimes I wonder if you were real,
Or just a big hallucination
Of revolutions, graduations —
Did you ever really care how I feel?

God always did bless your soil.
But you were trading blood for oil.
And traded away your rights to be
Alone within conspiracy.
Then if you fought for privacy,
You were seen as an enemy.
Tyranny’s all you protect
When everyone was a suspect.

America, are you in the room?
It’s a séance — you died too soon.
Will you come back, free of sin?
America, be born again.

America, are you in the room?
It’s a séance — you died too soon.
Will you come back, free of sin?
America, be born again.

America, be born again.

 

A Pet-Shaped Hole in Our Hearts

Losing a pet means losing a beloved family member, tearing a hole in our hearts.
Sometimes, it even hurts more.

That can be confusing, making it seem as if we loved our pet more than our own family. It’s not that, though. It’s more that the beloved pet loved us more than any human really can. For all the talk of unconditional love, only a pet ever truly gives us total and unconditional love.

Sure, we speak of how parents bestow unconditional love on their child. But we’re only human and there are times when that parental love wanes or even vanishes under duress.

Likewise, a chid loves a parent unconditionally — until they don’t, during a tantrum or their teen years.

Dogs & cats enter our lives in great part of teach us to love. They bring joy and laughter, smiles and cuddles, fun and loving caresses. Then, they teach us the ultimate lesson of love — how to lose and let go of the one you love.

I believe we outlive our pets for that very reason. It’s been said that grief is the “souvenir of love” and the grief we feel at the death of a pet signals how deep the shared love ran between the two of us. Knowing that doesn’t reduce the pain but maybe it makes it more bearable.

Logically accepting the shorter lifespan of our pets is one thing. Knowing it on an emotional level is different. We strive to keep our pets healthy and we worry as they age and grow infirm. Many people go to great lengths to prolong a pet’s life, which sometimes simply serves to prolong their suffering. Finally faced with the futility of pushing on, we’re often called upon to end our pet’s suffering by ending heir life.

Euthanasia gets called “putting (the pet) down” or “putting (he pet) to sleep” because it simply sounds horrible to say you’ve killed your dog, or had someone else do it. Yet, having owned, loved, and lost many dogs and cats through the years, I understand it often comes as a blessed relief.

We were fortunate in having a home visit vet, Dr. Michael Mullen, who could take care of this final act of love in our home so our pets died in our arms. He brings a compassionate and caring heart to every procedure, including euthanasia. He told me once that as a veterinary student, he had been required to euthanize many animals, some just for the convenience of the owner. He promised himself to never again do that once he was fully licensed.

Dr. Mullen kept a notebook that documented the death of every pet he put down. He showed it to us when he ended Wiley’s suffering for us, noting, “By now, I’m putting down animals I helped birth.” His compassionate end-of-life care for pets — which certainly includes the humans owned by the departing pet — has now been showcased in a short documentary called “The Passing.” When I ran into him last year, he shared some raw footage with me but it has now been completed and shown at multiple film festivals, including the 2024 SXSW Film Festival.

I can’t wait to see it sometime!

For pet owners, visions of an afterlife for their furry loved one might include romping through open fields or crossing the fabled Rainbow Bridge. I can’t speak to that. But if what they say is true — “Every dog you’ve ever owned comes to greet you when you reach Heaven” — well, that could be a mess for me if Brutus still figures to scrap with any & all unknown dogs.

Or maybe, that wave of unleashed unconditional love will envelop all of us.

 

Happy Arbor Day

Happy Arbor Day

Walking past a neighborhood park, I spotted a group of children romping around the grounds where a work crew had just planted a tree. Several kids carried little cups with seedlings in them.

That’s when I realized it’s Arbor Day.

Not something I ever routinely celebrated. I don’t recall any planting ceremonies at our school.  But I’ve certainly enjoyed, and, yes, celebrated many trees throughout my life.

As a kid, I lived right next door to the yard with the Big Tree in our neighborhood. You know the one. Bigger than any other tree anywhere nearby and bigger than a skyscraper to a kid and used as a local landmark of sorts. Houston had pine trees and you learn to love the sappy oozes and sweet scent. Oaks and pecan trees and countless other varieties abound in the Bayou City.

One huge attraction for us buying our house in Austin was the twin sycamore trees towering over the front yard. A stately cottonwood shaded the backyard from a corner. Unfortunately, trees can remind you sometimes of their mortality. One of those sycamores dropped limbs on our power line to the house not once, but twice. It also dropped another on our neighbor’s car and, later, yet another on a worker’s truck. Both that tree and the cottonwood out back were dying when we sold the property.

Here, we have only a few trees in our yard, mostly just bushes. Several neighbors have old trees we can enjoy as part of our porch view. We can visit even more huge, ancient trees all along our Riverwalk nearby, also. And we certainly don’t mss the worry of crashing limbs in high winds or heavy snow.

I’ll leave you with three tree-inspired pieces, starting with the familiar Joyce Kilmer poem, “Trees.”

“I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree…”

Are schoolkids today still taught this century-old poem with its simple sentiment that strikes so deeply? It sure has stuck with me through all my years — one of my earliest memories of poetry moving me.

Our old favorite singer-songwriter, David Wilcox, sings of the whole cycle of a tree’s life on the track “Tree” from his newest release, It’s one of the quieter, slower flowing stories on the record, elegant in its eloquence.

“Standing on the ridge for ages,
Long before the maps were drawn —
There’s a tree that is bending in the storm…”

Finally, let’s hear from the Tree itself — via the dreams of another of our favorite singer-songwriters, John Gorka, I first heard this song at the Kerrville Folk Festival way back in the 80s — while wishing for a tree for just a little shade there in hot Texas sun.

“When I grow up, I’m gonna to be a tree,
I’m gonna make my home with the birds & bees
And the squirrels, they can count on me…”

So while you’re out and about today, breathing the plant-provided oxygen the whole time, you might give a quick thought of thanks for trees.

Maybe even plant a seedling.

Our Movie “Bluff”

In memory of my best friend, Mike MacNaughton, who would be celebrating his 70th birthday today if he were still alive…

We were going to make movies, Mike and me. That was our Grand Vision, guiding us through high school and college. Now, in spring 1976, we were making a movie as a final film production project, a crowning jewel to our UT RTF careers.

Actually, I’d graduated the prior December since I’d taken the scriptwriting route to a degree, writing screenplays & scripts, mostly terrible but all showing “promise.” MacNaughton took the film production pathway and planned to partner up with another film school friend, Mike Miskei, for their final film project with Miskei directing and MacNaughton running camera. MacNaughton paid me “room & beer” (no food involved) to act as production manager during the shoot, we filed a DBA (“Doing Business As”) as Teonanacatl Films, and got ready to roll.

Miskei had written a script about a young woman slowly going mad with several striking visuals in mind (an army of toy tanks advancing on our petrified protagonist), so we figured we were set. Except one thing: the script relied heavily on the woman acting. There was very little dialogue or other characters. Miskei realized that without a strong lead, the script simply wouldn’t work. And we knew of no one who could do it.

Serious scramble time. No script = no film = no degree for either Mike.

I mentioned a short script I’d written a couple of years earlier just for laughs. Set in modern times, the plot revolved around Old West themes like gambling & guns & cash. All it took was mentioning I had a script and our project suddenly changed directions — quite drastically.

The movie poster you never saw for the movie we never finished…

Appropriately titled “Bluff,” my script had lots of dialogue and lots of characters interacting in multiple scenes moving the plot along.

Rather than needing one strong actor, now we needed about 8-10 people but all the roles, save 2, were minor ones.

Once again, though, we thought we were set with a cast when 3 of them dropped out — including the male lead. Miskei, slated to direct, stepped into the role and I stepped up as one of the henchmen of the gang of thieves.

Back on track.

We needed a main set with locations nearby for other scenes. I convinced my friends in the country, Nancy & Larry, to let us shoot the movie at their house. They would come to regret that. We started invading their home early every weekend morning, taking over most of the house including the kitchen, and shouting “QUIET ON THE SET!” whenever they made the slightest noise elsewhere in the house.

I’m still surprised they never just kicked us out.

Our frugal food plans fell apart on our 1st shooting day. Mrs. Johnson’s Donuts got us going each day, but we’d planned cheap spaghetti lunches for shooting days. We quickly discovered the subtle sound of the boiling water was picked up on our microphones, ruining our first several takes. We barely got anything done that first day but readjusted by the next day.

We’d planned something like 3 or 4 shooting weekends but delays started bumping our schedule out. Miskei got sick at one point. He got better quickly enough to shoot that weekend but then got sick again the following week.  When he got sick a third time in 3 weeks, the doctor at the student health center said, “You have the FLU. The stuff that KILLS thousands of people every year. It’s going to kill YOU if you don’t slow down!” We slowed down to get back on track.

Then, Miskei’s girlfriend since high school left him. He fell apart. He was a mess. He had no interest in filming. I don’t know what he self-medicated there towards the end of production but MacNaughton had to take over for him. By the time we wrapped on the final day, the audio guy was directing scenes.

My role in the saga was over. Itching to get out in the world now that I’d finished school, I hit the road briefly before coming back in May. MacNaughton had mostly left it to Miskei by this point, so  I found Miskei in the editing room, trying to pull together the footage we’d shot. To say it was a mess would understate the task he faced with school winding down.

The film never got finished. Neither MacNaughton nor Miskei finished their degree at that time. I never again saw any footage of that film. None of the three of us ended up in the movie business.

Our “Bluff” got called and we came up short. But we did have fun!

 

Dipping a Toe in the AI Pool

Well, I’m late to the party again.  It seems like everybody else has already been dabbling in artificial intelligence (AI) with chatbots and AI images and here I am, a typical high-tech Luddite, intensely interested but extremely wary.  But after my recent experience at SXSW Edu hearing educators talk about positive aspects of AI, I’ve become curious to decide to check it out.

To dive right in or to dip a toe? As the title suggests, I’m taking it slowly. Here’s an initial conversation I had today with ChatGPT:

AI image by Craiyon, prompt: “Artificial Intelligence”

HOW DO I EVEN BEGIN?

(ChatGPT) Beginning can feel overwhelming, but breaking things down into smaller steps can make it more manageable. What are you trying to begin? Let’s figure out the first step together.

I WANT TO TALK TO YOU BUT YOU WORRY ME.

(ChatGPT)  I understand that talking to an AI might feel unfamiliar or even worrisome at first. It’s completely normal to have reservations. If you have any concerns or questions, feel free to share them with me. I’m here to assist and provide information to the best of my ability. Your comfort and trust are important to me.

I’m still at the barely dabbling stage, hoping that my gradually increasing familiarity will free me to play around a bit more freely. The promise is alluring. I need to experience more before I can even begin to know enough to ask myself the right questions. Then, I can learn how to ask the right questions — prompts — so the various AI engines will produce useful results.

Like a toddler still cautious of standing alone, I find myself stepping lightly.

Fortunately, there are plenty of helping hands nearby. I am excited to find out that tomorrow is National AI Literacy Day, with a mission “to promote AI literacy through education.”

The Colorado Education Initiative is offering an hour-long free webinar as part of AI Literacy Day so I figure I’ll tune in and check it out. Drop in if you, too, want to learn more about AI.