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Sounds from the past met a sight from the past when I drove to an abandoned Kmart on State Ave. last weekend.  I found some cassettes that played inside Kmart stores when they were open in the 90′s, and drove north to see if I could find a time portal.  I parked the truck, popped the cassette, and heard Little River Band’s hit, ‘Take It Easy On Me,’ followed by an advertisement for specials in the auto department.  My eyes were closed and fingers were crossed, but I was still in 2024 *sigh*

…make it SOUND broken!  That’s what I did when I bought this $40 Flamma FC05 pedal for my guitar.  Last week I took some time off work to do “Dave” stuff & one thing I did was try all the settings on this pedal.  Chorus, flange, and phaser are 3 of the 11 effects.  When I found vibra, the guitar sounded like a cassette getting chewed up in a tape player, and that’s when I knew I was onto something cool.

James Dean, Jim Morrison, Jimmy Durante… if I let my imagination run wild, anyone or anything could emerge from the fog– even dead celebrities.  When my family left California, the smog was so thick we rolled down the windows to listen for cars before driving through an intersection.  Last week there was a heavy fog that settled over the metro.  My eyes were peeled, and my phone camera was ready, but no one from the past ever came out of the fog.  I shrugged my shoulders and went to work.  This is what it looked like at 7:30.

I am not greater than, I am not less than, I am equal.  That’s the message on this t-shirt that I designed a few months ago.  If I have hard feelings toward someone and blame it on the other person’s behavior– I am being ‘greater than.’  If I feel intimidated by someone else and their personal convictions, I am thinking of myself as ‘less than.’  Being ‘equal’ to everyone, and recognizing my own value and worth without anyone’s approval or validation is a new concept to me.  It’s going to take practice and meditation, but I’m worth it.

They were bright, red, and beautiful.  Betty had the brightest pair of fingerless gloves I’d seen in a long time.  When I told her I had a green pair, she said “I can’t feel anything unless I wear these!” I nodded my head and asked if I could snap a picture of our hands together.  She didn’t hesitate.  Afterward I read back her name & birth date, and handed her a clipboard to give her nurse.  Yep, I check in some cool people at the clinic.

Pearls of wisdom from the driest man I don’t know: Steven Wright.
“When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.”
“The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”
“Hard work pays off in the future– laziness pays off now.”
“The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.”

I remember this picture (without the pumpkin) hanging in my grandparent’s living room, it always seemed sweet and sad because no one ever answered when Jesus knocked, and it seemed like they never would.  Even as a kid I was able to grasp the guilt that was associated with the unanswered door, and how the person on the other side must be a miserable wretch because they left Jesus standing outside knocking like an Avon lady when he could be inside enriching their lives.  This image made me smile… maybe because I felt like someone finally might be ‘tricked’ into answering the door with Skittles, Butterfingers, and a Hershey Bar.

We don’t get all shook up around hot surfaces, our Elvis oven mitt still keeps us from becoming a hunka hunka burning love.  I don’t how we acquired this memento of the first pop icon postage stamp, but I do remember that we were living in Virginia when everyone started “itching like a man on a fuzzy tree” for the Elvis stamp.  Roman Mars and the good folks at 99 Percent Invisible brought me back to that time with this story.  Also thanks to my mother for my earliest Elvis memories, and for taking me and my sister to see him in concert.  Happy birthday Mom!

There are names that my grandparents knew that were forgotten by the time I was born, and someday all the pop culture references I know will fade into obscurity.  I’m not sure how many of my co-workers were familiar with the name I chose for my Chipotle order– but that’s ok.  I did it for myself.  As I took it from the group I started to sing “I knew a man Bojangles and he ate my lunch…”