A Tribute to Tim Mackie

I've had the same recurring dream again and again since I've taken on my current position as a dry wall-subcontractor..  I'm sitting on a bench in South Carolina with a Guinness in one hand and a cigar in the other.  I'm sitting in the sun watching everybody.  Watching the beautiful people, but it's more than that.  I am one of the beautiful people.  There's no worries about making 

The following is an excerpt from a conversation between Underdog, the famous cartoon hero, and Jim Morrison, legendary leader of the Doors on the meaning of life.  That is, if the dead can still have any concept about the meaning of life. MORRISON:   Hey man, you're, a dog.   That's cool.   I say a dog once floating among the clouds.   It was pissing down on some trees, like an acid rain, finding its way into the waiting open mouths of the children.   The children of the happy blind mice waiting below. UNDERDOG:   Have no fear, Underdog is here. MORRISON:   Wow!   You talk too!   Hey man, you ain't gonna tell me to kill anyone, like that fuckin Son of Sam shit, are you?    Tell me who are you now, and who were you before?   Could you capture your own soul if your hands are fast enough, and what are the colors that lace your mind when all the light has gone out of the world?   Oh, shit man.   I can't stop quoting myself. You know....I knew an Indian onc

     When I was young, my mother would direct me away from, what she referred to as the bad element.  This group included people who tattooed and had their bodies pierced, more than the normal hole in each ear for women.  When my mother saw one of these people on the street, she would grab my are and hold me tightly until we passed safely by, as if these people were ally gypsy's or circus freaks come toe steal her little boy and sell him into slavery.  In short, I grew up stereotyping people because of how they looked.      (A couple of weeks before the start of the fall semester at Ithaca, John moved here from Syracuse.   One of the first things he did when he got here was to register his son in the local school system.   John is a single parent in his mid twenties, with custody of his son.   On the morning he went to the school, he left his son at home.   John is into body piercing and tattooing, and with a stainless steel bolt in his right ear, three holes in the other e

      I've been trying to find a hero in this world of Grey.      Looking for something concrete in the shadows of today.         The black and white of yesterday has merged into one.      The roads to our future are blending with today.      Mixing, blending, merging closer together in every way.      Closer, and closer but somehow further apart, we stand.      Trying to find a hero in our Grey land.      I've been sitting atop silver with my mask in hand. Silver bullets at the ready, but there's not a werewolf in the land.      John Wayne was insensitive and superman's been flawed.      Robin has been killed off so Batman now stands by himself alone.      GI-Joe has lost his innocence and the mighty Casey has gone on strike.      All the bad guys are now politicians, who say there just trying to do right.      Are there any hero's allowed in a place of Grey, or have we been left to ourselves to go blind in the

     There's nothing like fall in New Hampshire.  The picturesque landscape, the cool crisp air, the peaceful feeling you get inside.  When I was young, my family would take its vacations in Lyme, New Hampshire.  We would visit a farm my Aunt Billie and Uncle Charlie owned.  It was a working farm at one time, however that was before I was born.  Now there are only a few cows and chickens left.  We would go up in the fall when the leaves start to change, and before the weather became bad.  The farm was all rolling fields that seemed to go on forever.  Just when you think that you couldn't go on any further you make it to the Connecticut River.  The River divides New Hampshire and Vermont.  It's a beautiful wide river gliding along strong and peacefully contradicted only by the erosion of its banks.  The banks are set about seven feet above the water, as it dug itself securely into the earth.  I never went swimming in it, but I always wanted to.  This was because we never w