Sometimes we go through life looking through a rear view mirror...

- McLuan

My new favorite phrase

Electile Dysfunction : the inability to become aroused over any of the choices for president put forth by either party in the 2008 election year.

Empties...

Have you ever sat
by the railroad track
and watched the empties comin' back?
Swinging alone with a groan and a whine,
smoke strung out in a long gray line,
puffed from a panting engine's stack,
just the empties comin' back.

I have and to me they seem
like dreams I sometimes dream.
About a girl or money or fame,
my dreams have all returned the same,
swingin along the home bound track,
just the empties comin' back.

- Anon

What time is it?

"On an ancient wall in China
Where a brooding Buddha blinks,
Deeply graven is the message
It is later than you think.

The clock of life is wound but once
And no man has the power
To tell just when the hands will stop,
At late or early hour.

Now is all the time you own,
The past a golden link,
Go cruising now my brother...
It is later than you think."

- framed and hanging on the back bar at "The Spot" in La Jolla.

"Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength."

The Dalai Lama

Couldn't have said it better myself...

Angie Rossini: "Do you want to get married?"

Rocky Papasano: "Well, I said I would, didn't I?"

Angie Rossini: "That's not what I asked you!"

Rocky Papasano: "Who wants to get married!"

Dialog between Angie (Natalie Wood) and Rocky (Steve McQueen) in Lover With the Proper Stranger, 1963

Our most brilliant President?

"The last time I checked, the Constitution said, 'of the people, by the people and for the people.' That's what the Declaration of Independence says."

Bill Clinton, 1996...

...or maybe it was the Gettysburg Address, Slick

Timeless wisdom...

"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices."

-Voltaire.

Simple truths...

What is a home without children?


Quiet.

- Henny Youngman

Simples truths...

A President once said,

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"

Now it seems like we’re supposed to be afraid

It’s patriotic in fact and color coded

- Randy Newman, A Few Words in Defense of this Country

Iphidamas

no one who has ever read the Iliad
has remembered you
until me

raised by a loving family
your father a king
you married
but left for the glorious war
before you had lain with your bride
and in your first combat
Agamemnon killed you

that is all

Homer gave you perhaps twenty lines
blew life into you
marched you into battle
had you slain
meat butchered by heros

the first time I read the Iliad

even I did not notice you
but the second
during my “honeymoon”
absurd word
in Chicago in 1962
with a woman from whom I am long divorced
your brief life made me wonder
what happened to your virgin bride
how soon did she forget
and you
did you have time for regret before you died
or was the thrusting sword too quick

you could not know
that Homer would sing of you
however briefly
and that in 3000 years
I at last would be touched by your death

but if you had known
I wonder
if that would have been enough

Webb Chiles - 1975

Read more of Webb Chiles' poetry here

Prosperity fosters bad tempers.

The rich believe that their money will insulate them from problems and setbacks.

- Seneca

One of my goals in life is to own as little as possible.

- Eugene, on the zen habits web site

The meditation word for today is...simplicity

Perfection is boring, a scar always has a story.

Wisdom from the Bold and the Beautiful

Young, beautiful girl, who has just been proposed to:

"I can't marry you! I'm a sex addict! I can't control my physical desires!"

Older man who has just proposed:

"You say that like it's a bad thing!"


The meditation phrase for today is..."dream come true"

A favorite joke of mine...

Two atoms were walking down the street.

The first atom says, "I think I've lost an electron!"

"Are you sure?" asks the second atom.

"Yes, " says the first, "I'm positive!"