Bird Day

Today is National Bird Day. No it's not Larry's or the Admiral's or Mrs. Johnson's or Big Bird's birthday. I'm not real sure what this day is about other than taking the time to observe birds, but it's the oldest day set aside for birds on record. It was started on May 4th, 1894 by Charles Almanzo Babcock who was the Superintendent of Schools in Oil City Pa.

I'm observing National Bird Day for two reasons. First of all, I have a large rose bush I planted outside my window nine years ago. I look at it everyday when I'm sitting here writing and for nine years it has not produced a single rose. This year a Cardinal I have been watching for quite some time decided to build a nest in the middle of it. About a week ago I looked out and the bush was covered in beautiful pink roses and today the cardinal is looking after a couple of chicks.

And the second reason is I keep thinking about all the birds and other creatures that have been or going to be harmed by the oil spill in the Gulf. Thank you BP for your fine work once again. We here in Houston know all about BP and the crappy corporation they are.

A couple more books I would like to recommend and they are both by the same author, Stieg Larsson. They are part of a trilogy and feature one of the best characters I have come across in years. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did because Stieg Larsson passed away shortly after finishing the last one.

The first one is The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and the other is The Girl Who Played With Fire. The third one The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest debuts later this month.  I hope you seek them out and give them a read.

Stay tuned for future adventures.

Mercury in Retrograde

Mercury In Retrograde is an astrology term. Astrologist say that it means Mercury is standing still or moving backwards and everything in your life slows down.

Mercury is the god of communications and travel. They say it is not a good idea to sign contracts or order electronic things during this period of time. Travel can be troubling when Mercury is in Retrograde. Just ask the thousands of people stranded in Europe this past week. I have no idea if there is any hard data on this but I do know for a fact that when Mercury is in Retrograde I have had lots of things get lost, mixed up, and crap happen that will drive you up the wall.

This particular Mercury in Retrograde started April 17th and continues through May 11th. So far my computer has picked up a virus which I lost all sorts of data and programs and have had a number of things fouled up because of mis-comnunication. Probably this is not the best time to be trying to communicate to you the problems of communicating during Mercury in Retrograde but so far nothing else has gone right this week so what the hell.

On a happier note, here are a couple of more books I would like to recommend. First a non-fiction book I found to be excellent reading is "Imperial Life In The Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Rajiv was a journalist embedded in Iraq who shares his experience living in the Green Zone during the early days of the war.

And a novel that I found to be one of the best books I've read in years called "The Art Of Racing In The Rain by Garth Stein.
I hope you will check out both of these and enjoy them as much as I did.
Stay tuned for future adventures.

Good Reads

After much thought and consideration for the last 24 hours, I have come up with the first book I am going to recommend. It is entitled Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen.This book is set in the Depression era and is a great story about a traveling circus. At first this didn't seem like the type of story I would have been interested in but I found it to be captivating from the beginning.

Looking back over my reading history, I was surprised at the variety books that I have consumed lately. I hope you will try some of these and get as much enjoyment out of them as I have. I will have more good reads forth coming. Stay tuned for future adventures.

Reading & Writing

If you have read my blog, then you know that I am a writer, and for the millions who haven't read my blog, I am a writer but I am also a reader. A voracious reader. I went back and looked at my reading habits for the last six months and I have read 58 novels. That averages out to a little more than two a week.


I have decided to start sharing my finds of good reading, some great, with you. I am not going to give you a review but simply let you know when I come across what I consider a good read. I don't read reviews myself, mostly because 99% of them give away too much of the book. I don't even read the inside flap of the book. I don't want to know anything about the story, I want to discover it all for myself. Here are some of the ways I decide on a book; knowing the author,looking at the cover, reading the back, and reading the first chapter of the book.

I will tell you I lean toward thrillers, but I read all kinds of books about all kinds of things. I read mostly fiction but do read some non-fiction. I am interested in a great story that is well told and I will only tell you about books that I enjoy, I have no interest in slamming something I didn't like.

Next post will have a few of the good books I have read lately. Stay tuned for future adventures.

National Poultry Day

Today is National Poultry Day. I wasn't going to write about this but my wife egged me on and I knew if I didn't, I would probably end up with egg on my face so here it is.I'm not sure what we are supposed to do or how we are to celebrate it, but here are few ideas. One thing is, you could go visit the National Poultry Museum in Bonner Springs, Kansas. (Here's a link for Backyard Poultry telling all about it.) It looks like a fascinating place if you are a fox. Another is to make a list of every "Why did the chicken cross the road?" joke you can think of and have it framed to be hung in your kitchen. There is even a "Why did the chicken cross the road?" website to help you out.

You could also adopt a chicken for a pet or put on a chicken suit and tell everyone your name is Chicken Little and that the sky is falling. (I did a tv commercial once where I had to wear a chicken suit so I really don't recommend doing this as they are very hot.) How about talking like Foghorn Leghorn for a day or throwing away your alarm clock and hiring a rooster? These are just a few suggestions and I'll bet you can come up with many more to do or say, unless you chicken out.

I personally think the day came about to honor the world's first and greatest debates, and there have been many; the Lincoln/Douglas, Kennedy/Nixon, less filing/great taste, to be or not to be, Coke/Pepsi, to name a few, but the original debate has always been; which came first, the chicken or the egg.

I do want you to know, I had to scramble to get this together but I hope you enjoyed it.

For future adventures, stay tuned.

Writing Woes

One of the things that gives me the most pleasure in my life is writing. Writing makes me feel alive. It also gives me a feeling of accomplishment like nothing else. I have been writing for a long time yet it wasn't until a few years ago that I would actually call myself a writer. Writing was always that other thing I did, not what I really was doing. I can remember when I was in high school and the principal would come and get me and say "Uh, we have a assembly program coming up but we don't have anything" and I would write them something to do.

I have written two screenplays, a three-act play, sketch comedy for television, lot's of jokes for myself and other comedians including Jay Leno, poems, a recorded country song and currently working on my second novel.

So the question is....Why is it so damn hard? I can find more trivial, meaningless things to do than sit down and write and yet it gives me enormous happiness.

Oh well, back to the grindstone.
More adventures in writing later.

Fun in the Studio with Sound Breaking Ground

An update on the fun in the studio. I love working in the studio with talented people and I am very fortunate to be working with some extremely talented folks right now. The band is called Sound Breaking Ground or SBG as I refer to them most of the time. They have been together as a band for about four years but they all have been playing music for years and it shows. Speaking of shows, their live show is incredible.

Recording a song is like painting a painting. It comes a few layers at a time. About mid-way through you are wondering if this is going to be something or not, but as the layers come together and the picture starts to come into focus, it's like magic. At times it is very tedious and nerves can get frayed quickly when you have to work on one tiny section over and over but, when it finally comes together it is a feeling of great joy.

To me, being in the studio and bringing a song to fruition from beginning to end is the ultimate creative process in action. Don't I look active on the couch?