Pay Attention, It’s Cool!
May 23, 2012
Have you ever had one of those moments of clarity that rivaled Plato, or Leonardo da Vinci? Maybe the Dalai Lama or Tom Petty? We’re talking moments, okay.
They seem to come to me when I’m exercising, like riding my bike, or lately, walking and listening to Pandora. (You can listen while you read by clicking here http://www.pandora.com/#/station/play/749768438523820680) Lynyrd Skynyrd and Barenaked Ladies does it for me. Okay, Tom Petty, too. http://www.myspace.com/tompetty
Today it was the bike ride. I decided to really pay attention to things around me and boy was it cool. (Who says cool, anyway? Me.)
A robin flew with me for thirty yards, off to my left flank, glancing at me, keeping pace, flap and coast, waiting for me to catch up. I could see his feathers flutter in the wind, and his eye keeping an eye on me. Then he cruised over to a fence, lit, and glanced back as I pedaled on. I waved bye. That was cool. http://www.weforanimals.com/free-pictures/birds/robins/page-1/pictures-2.htm
The smell of fresh mown grass on the Cathy Fromme Prairie; the piercing, plaintive song of the Meadow Lark, (and the in-between chirps, like preparing for the opera); the clacks and squeaks of the red wing blackbird; the feel of the rhythm in my pedaling and breathing; the gray clouds gathering from the mountains and cooling the air; the many greens and textures of trees. All of this kept me company today. Yeah. Cool. Click on both videos together and get the real feel.
Not on the bike ride, but most important to observe is family. My grandson saw me for the first time in five days (I was away fishing–go figure), and ran to me with arms outstretched, yelling, “PahPas.” When he hugged me I could feel it in my chest, and my eyes watered. The best cool there is.
Maybe the exercise is like flushing the old stagnant blood from the boulders of gray cells and putting in new oxygenated blood. Yep, a fly fishing analogy. Alas. (I know–no one says “alas” anymore? Deal with it.) Maybe the last several days of fly fishing opened up my mind, kind of like putting aside a novel I wrote for a while and going back and editing and making it so much better. Time does that sometimes: makes us better.
Not sure what, but I do know it was cool . . . right up until the time I thought I was still young enough to pedal, drink water and look at the scantily clad girl walking by. Fumble water, almost break ankle trying to clip out of pedals before nearly falling. I recovered. Geez, I just looked at her. Okay, so I ogled. She walked off. Probably noted my fall in her daily journal under “Pay Attention, Dummy.” Right, she has a journal. More like a facebook page. Hope she didn’t take a video with her iPhone. I’ll have to ride at night from now on.
Anyway, maybe just paying attention to all those little things each day will help me feel good about the world and avoid anger that can lead to arguments and war. Me and Tom Petty. Don’t forget the Dalai Lama. Yeah.
In the words of the immortal, or irreverent, Bill Murray, in Caddyshack, “So, I got that going for me.”
Milt
REVIEWS: http://tiny.cc/mt6b7
Buy it now–Amazon: 
$1 of each book goes to Veterans
Barnes and Noble:http://tiny.cc/htmrb
Smashwords for all other e-book formats:http://tiny.cc/o0nh3
More at my Facebook Author Page:http://tiny.cc/sumdo
Contact me at www.miltmays@gmail.com
How to Handle Insults
May 14, 2012
“Darn, I forgot to get the eggs.” I thought I said it nicely to the young man at the checkout station in King Soopers.
“That doesn’t surprise me, gramps. You’re old.”
I’m hoping that angry young man, barely old enough to sport a whisker, will call someone to help. He merely holds out a hand towards the back of the store. “Better go get it, grandpa.”
What do you do now?
Behind door #1: I rush back and find the extra large Eggland, the most expensive, and jog back to the nice young man in his oil-speckled shirt with his sarcastic eyes.
I stand there. He finally stops texting.
He sips his Monster energy drink and eyes my eggs. “Wow. You should really stop eating those. Next thing, you’ll be having a stroke and lose more of your pathetic memory. Good thing for you we have an AED on the wall to shock your worthless old butt back to life so you can spend the next year in rehab spending the rest of my Medicare benefits.”
I open the package and smash the eggs on his head.
He pours his drink on my head. I must admit, I feel energized.
I get out my Rohrbauh r9 pistol and aim it at him. Not great for long range, but at five feet, I will have no problem etching two eyes and a smile on his forehead, à la Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. Of course this hairless, skinny-assed sixth grader only knows Mel Gibson as a priest on Signs, or a wannabe priest in real life. This little tadpole missed the good stuff, the long-haired crazy-assed Mel. And he’s going to miss a lot more.
He reaches under the counter and pulls out his Berretta 92FS. Nice gun. A bit heavy and hard to conceal, but it will do the job.
And it does.
There’s lots of blood mixing with eggs and Monster drink. The AED won’t work for either of us. Damn. He died an angry young man. I died an angry old man. Billy Joel was right.
Behind Door #2: Instead of smashing the eggs on his head, I shout, “I want the manager.” And the older woman behind me says,”Damn right. Get the manager over here for this sad excuse of a checker.”
The manager comes over, and I say, “This is the third time this month one of your checkers insulted me. I will no longer be coming to your establishment.”
All the other “time-challenged” wise people in other lines yell, “Yeah. We’re not going to take it any more!” Us old guys can be grumpy.
The manager’s eyes resemble Eggland extra-larges. “I am so sorry. How about this. For the next ten minutes all Diet Coke will be one dollar per twelve-pack. No limit.”
There’s a big crowd at the DC. Go figure. On the way back, a rather sexy brunette with a few too many wrinkles to warrant that beautiful black hair says, “This store has gone downhill with that new manager. I don’t care if he gives us free sirloin steaks, I’m not coming back.”
The crowd huddling around the manager agrees. “We’re still not coming back. You can shove your store.”
These guys are even grumpier old men. Okay, here’s the sex–Well at least inuendo.
Next week I see that poor little boy downtown, on the street by The Mission, smoking and looking pretty scraggly, along with half the other King Soopers checkers. I pull over (a bit brazen for an old fart, I admit, but I have my gun) and ask him, “How come your not checking, wise ass.”
“Oh, Grandpa Moses. You’re the one got us all fired. No health insurance. Got a few dollars?”
Guess he learned a lesson. Don’t mess with us wise old coons.
Choice #1=direct armed conflict: You pick it: Colombia, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria, etc. There are twelve major conflicts (they don’t like to call them wars) in the world right now. Major=1000 deaths a year. Okay, so that’s not so bad. Hiroshima was 150,000, give or take 10,000. That only took a month.
Choice #2=Embargo. Rememeber Iraq. Only problem, 300,000 children perished in those years.
Okay, so wars and embargoes cost a lot of lives.
There’s got to be a simple solution to handling an insult that prevents loss of lives and suffering. Any ideas?
Come on people. There are over 7 billion of us now. We need to learn to live together. So give me some suggestions. Please.
Milt
REVIEWS: http://tiny.cc/mt6b7
Buy it now–Amazon:
$1 of each book goes to Veterans
Barnes and Noble:http://tiny.cc/htmrb
Smashwords for all other e-book formats:http://tiny.cc/o0nh3
All proceeds go to US Veterans
More at my Facebook Author Page:http://tiny.cc/sumdo
Contact me at www.miltmays@gmail.com
Adios Amigo
April 25, 2012
Adios amigo
Peter Gallagher died on 4/23.
He was my stepfather, a friend really. What can you say about a friend who can no longer listen with wise ears, can no longer edit my writing with expert care, can no longer comfort and love my mother, his dedication most dear?
I saw their last dance together. I’m so glad I did.
He wanted no fuss. Just a quiet goodbye. Let those who survive remember and carry on in goodness. He trusted that would happen. He spread his goodness a long time:
88 years.
There were those saved by his service translating Chinese for the OSS in WWII. Who knows exactly how many, or what he did. He would never say. Secrets until the end. The only thing I knew was he hated war. Imagine that.
Many legal clients were helped by him, both in Albuquerque before he retired some thirty years ago, and in Manzanillo, Mexico, where he lived and offered his services, usually for free.
His palpable legacy is a beautiful house in Manz, wonderful children, whom I have come to know and respect, and the lovely Luce, my mom, a woman without equal. That should be enough for any man.
There is the legacy, though, you can’t see, or touch, or hear. It is there, in the minds and hearts of those he knew. That legacy is more than the stars.
Thanks, Peter.
Goodbye, my friend.
Milt
War, Oil, and Family
March 30, 2012
(No one came up with an answer to my last blog. So I will keep trying.)
In my life, War and Oil are intertwined like a crown of thorns and thistles around Family. They make my love bleed. The biggest thorns are war, causing untold injuries the results of which I see and weep over, every damn day: Agent Orange causes diabetes, coronary heart disease, all of which blossom into strokes, heart attacks, stents, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, etc., etc., etc. Every war breeds mental disabilities, PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury, leading to alcoholism, other addictions, cigarettes, depression, suicide . . . etc., etc., etc. There is no end.
Really?
Yeah.
The last decade of wars aches for more oil. Please, we must have it. Oh, and keep the oil companies in profit (Billions a quarter? No prob.). Who cares if us lowly peons have to pay more and more for gas? Grow that crown of thorns, war, by ensuring the thistles, oil companies, are as healthy as possible. Those two weeds are choking our priorities of life right off the planet. Soon, flowers, trees, wilderness will be merely another challenge to overcome in order to feed the weeds. Well, actually, they already are. Don’t look now but a fracking well may be moving in next door.
Then there is family, our loved ones, those who support us when we fight for our country, defend freedom. They support us and cry blood for years after we come back. If we come back. Are we defending freedom, or ensuring the continued survival of an overwhelming machine of war and support for oil. Can we tolerate $10 a gallon, or will civil war result in son fighting father? Sister killing brother? What is the price we are willing to pay for driving our cars to work? Mowing the golf course twice a week? Four-wheeling for fun over wilderness terrain?
We are the most powerful nation the world has ever seen and we act like adolescents in conservation, peaceful negotiations, and putting love before violence. Can we survive? That is why I wrote Dan’s War, to ask some of these questions, and get people to think. Every word, action, and evolution in Dan’s War is not only possible but becoming more probable every day. It can happen. Tomorrow. And the only thing left will be our humanity—if we haven’t destroyed that, too, with war. In Dan’s War humanity may save the hero. May. We must find a way to make humanity work, to rid beauty and peace and all those creations that make us laugh and cry, from the most destructive and ugly force in history: War.
As long as we are at war, ugly things happen, like killing children, massacring villages, virginity checks. Who knows, we might even drop a nuclear bomb or five that kills millions, “To Save More.” How can war not cause bad things, when war sucks out love and preaches kill thy enemy, and do it now, and move on; kill more. Can you find a way to stop it? Please.
I know you have hope. We have a whole generation of new fodder for war that we can save with that hope. Do it. Find a way to prevent another war.
Maybe even a cookie?
Milt
REVIEWS: http://tiny.cc/mt6b7
Buy it now–Amazon:
Barnes and Noble:http://tiny.cc/htmrb
Smashwords for all other e-book formats:http://tiny.cc/o0nh3
More at my Facebook Author Page:http://tiny.cc/sumdo
Contact me at www.miltmays@gmail.com
Kony 2013
March 11, 2012
Kony 2013
Yes, I know, the big deal is the Kony 2012 video.
My question: Where will this be in 2013 and how will we get there?
The YouTube/Facebook video, now over 50 million views, touts getting rid of Kony, a warlord for LRA who kidnaps kids in the night, has them run his “revolutionary” army, disfigure his enemies, kill their own parents. This travesty must end, and the Invisible Children supporters, including the great guy who made the video should be applauded.
But, and this is a very BIG BUT, are we waging another war against another boogie man instead of finding peaceful solutions? The video wants us to support military “advisers” to the African Army so they can find this monster and bring him in. What exactly is their “advice?” Hint: They are military. The video wants us to make Kony famous, so we can get everyone to be against him. Got it.
Historical rewind: We all wanted to do the same for Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, bin Laden. How many lives were lost in the War on Terror because of one man—bin Laden. Bin Laden was famous in an instant—9/11. Our country tried to end his continued reign of terror worldwide, not just of a small part of Africa, like Kony. How much money was spent on this same War over the last ten years? But, we finally got him, right? Was it worth it? Did we work hard on peaceful solutions during those ten years of war? How much money went into peaceful ideas vs. new Humvees, tanks, drones, jets, soldiers, soldiers, soldiers, etc., etc., etc.???
So, in 2013, if we still don’t have this guy, Kony: What then?
My pessimistic side says probably we won’t get him, though my optimistic side hopes for a quick capture, using a “surgical strike” (that means only a few get killed in the “tiny” attack—Right.). And if we do get him, will his methods, his LRA end?
My plea is: Let’s find peaceful solutions to make Kony go away. Any ideas?
Come on! Did you just want the social media to be a video fest, or actually do something useful?
Milt
Dan’s War is an award-winning novel about the end of world oil . . . in two weeks. Cajuns and one lone computer geek try to save us against an eco-fanatic and his army who want to get rid of OIL to end global warming.
It’s about WAR, true, but also about family struggles with teenagers serving their country vs. college, and a computer genius with near-Asperger’s and desperate to be a hero at his job, but most of all in his son’s eyes.
REVIEWS: http://tiny.cc/mt6b7
Buy it now–Amazon:
Barnes and Noble:http://tiny.cc/htmrb
Smashwords for all other e-book formats:http://tiny.cc/o0nh3
More at my Facebook Author Page:http://tiny.cc/sumdo
Contact me at www.miltmays@gmail.com
