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...

     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 ...

      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...

     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 swimmi...

FREEDON--The quality or state of being free.  2. The absence of necessity, cohesion, or constraint in choice or action.  3.  Liberation from slavery or restraint of from power from another (independence).  4. The quality of being exempt or released from something onerous. LICENSE—Permission to act, freedom of action.   2. Permission granted by competent authority to engage in a business or occupation or in an activity otherwise unlawful.   3.   A document, plate or tag evidencing a license granted.   4.   Excessive liberty, abuse of freedom, disregard of law or property.      Freedom and license both have a number of reasons as we can see from the definitions above.   Using the definition above for license we see that the word freedom appears in it twice in two different ways.   Both of these ways shows us the difference between these two words.   As compared to freedom license can either be a pe...

     “Four fifteen already,, fucken great, that's just fucken great”.  A lousy fucken bank, I can't believe these asshole's don't prepare for Friday's when everybody is cashing their pay checks.  Look at all these shitheads on line in front of me too.  I can't believe this, don't these people have anything else to do.  Three, five, seven, ten.  Ten people on line in front of me.  I might as well just bring a bed in here and get some sleep, cause Lord knows it's gonna take this brain child teller a couple days to get to me.      How in the hell did anyone so stupid get a job handling money.   Oh never mind I see it, look at the size of the melons on her.   I suppose if I were her boss and dogging her like he surely is, than I would have given her a job too.   It looks to me like she's one wild ride.      Great, thanks you fat fucken slob, thanks for blocking my view.   Ted...

     “When you die, no one will come to your funeral” screamed Sal.      “Oh, don't you worry about it!   I'm going to be cremated so you won”t have a funeral to go to!”       One big happy family.   We used to be, not anymore.   No one would ever believe my two brothers and I were once very close.   All that changed when we married, but became more obvious when my father died.   Our family bond weakened.      I could very well be dead and my brothers would never know it.   I's so tired of picking up the phone to see how they're doing.   I'm tired of hearing,”Oh that's boys for you.”   My own mother says, “My sons don't even call me on a daily basis.   I only hear from you.”       My brothers only call me when they need something.   In most cases, they call because they're having what I call a fund raiser, an event to collect mon...

     You know, if I could have spoken at the moment I was born, I think I would have told the world to shut-up and leave me alone.  No, no I wouldn't, I'm not that cynical.  Yet I know there are some people who wouldn't agree with that.  People say I come across mean and intimidating.  But So What.  What do those people know about me anyway?  It's not like I was born this way.  At one time I was very trusting and idealistic.  But, of course all that changes over time.  How'd it happen?  I don't know, little things adding up I guess.      I blame it on my time spent in the service now.   But, that's not where it started.   No, it began years ago.   You see I'm dyslexic.   Not like everyone else today, but a real one.   I'm only saying this because it seems to be the learning disability of choice today.   Dyslexia the disability for the masses.   Everybody has to...

          I have selected three pieces for my portfolio.  All three were completed during my time at Ithaca College.  The first, “What the Monkey Said' is a semi-autobiographical stream of consciousness monologue.  It is generally considered my best work to date, and won honorable mention at an Ithaca College personal essay contest.  The second, “In Vino Veritas” is a series of lightened the mode a little.  The last piece, “Forgive Us Our Debts”, is a straight satiric monologue, and although closely resembles the first piece; I think Debts is a much more humorous and self-mocking piece.  I hope you enjoy them, and thank you for this opportunity.

Necessity is the father of all alcoholic's From the gutter I hear what words are often muttered. Should I decide to leave I'm afraid I wouldn't know what to say. If I weren't a drunk then I'd only be a bum and I prefer to specialize. If all we have to fear is fear itself then let's all have a drink of bourbon and hail ourselves the conquering hero's. Should liquor be spilled and the mouse take hold let the cat run away and the dog be bold. Though the long battle hours many a bar maid has fled the whiskey's been spilled and you've turned sour. The end is near fate has spoken all those who've made it this far must leave It's closing time. In empty bottles there are empty lives. In full bottles there are hopes and dreams. From a sip of the nectar of the Gods to a drink from the stock of man, ending with Nightrain in an alley, was money turned a drunk from man. From...

     A friend of mine is having some marriage problems.  His wife admitted to having an affair a few months ago.   I suppose I should change their names to protect their identities.   Let me call him John and her Christina.   It's not a big surprise that this happened, in fact it was predicted from the very beginning.   So why am I going to write about it?   I don't know, perhaps simply because it's on my mind.   One thing I do find interesting about the situation is the way that everyone involved and everyone around the situation has perceived and reacted to it.   In my own case, I have been a close friend with John for over 25 years.   So, I cannot say that my own perceptions are not biased.   However, they are quite different fro John's.   Before I become involved in this that John and Christina have two young daughters.   This of course complicated the matter severely.      Just ...

     In attempting to write something intelligent and legible about George Orwell's use of satire in writing, I have found it best to draw from the mans own words.  In his essay “Why I Write” Mr. Orwell or Eric Blair (his true name) attempts to explain the drive behind his work.  He describes that there are four major reasons any serious writer practices their craft.      “I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose.   They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living”   ONEF, p 141      These four great motives as he sees them are “Sheer egoism”, “Aesthetic enthusiasm”, Historical impulse”, and “Political purpose”.   He goes on to describe all four, I will endeavor to hit the high lights for you.      “Sheer egoism” as Mr....

     With his heart pounding rapidly, his eye's burst open.  He had to know.  He had to know if it was a dream or could it possibly be real.  “Oh please God make it a dream” his mind repeated over and over again.  “Make it a dream....”      “A dream, thank the Lord only a dream.”   Father John Conner said as he tried to breath a sigh of relief.   Only somewhere in the back of his mind he still wasn't sure it had been.       He had been having this same nightmare every night for the last two weeks and every night the dream consumed him a little more.   It was becoming harder and harder for him to wake himself from the nightmare.        For a man of seventy he considered himself to be in as good a shape as any man in his fifties.   He took pride in the fact that he could still run the young priests of his parish into the ground.   Only now, in the la...

     To analyze the MacNeil/Lehrer news hour, my first thought would be to say it was extremely boring.  The news summary at the beginning of the show was done in much the same way as every other news show with either MacNeil or Lehrer presenting news stories covering the Bosnian Civil War; the British withdrawal of aid from Bosnia after a British truck driver was killed there; the Prime Minister of Japan who made a deal saving his reform program and his government; and the Lyle Menedez mistrial.  Other stories included a 5.9% increase in the Gross Domestic Product in the 4 th  quarter.  Laura Tyson, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers has attributed this to the President's economic policies.  The U.S. Conference of Mayors called for the passage of a tough crime bill while they were meeting in Washington, D.C..      On the debate half of the show I have chosen to talk about the debate between Congressman Cooper...

     I am not sure what we were supposed to take away from the film”Ways of Seeing” by John Berger, and I don't believe Mr. Berger said anything in the film that with a little thought and common sense I couldn't have figured out on my own.  Still the film was filled with pictures of beautiful paintings and to be honest I never gave anything Mr. Berger talked about much thought so the film did open my mind up to so some new ideas.      In the film Mr. Berger talked about how paintings are still, silent images, which to me sounds like a moment in time or maybe a moment from the painter's mind captured in silence.   He also talked about how paintings are painted from the perspective of the viewer, and how paintings were specifically designed for specific places or buildings.      He then went on to discuss how with modern technology and inventions like the camera, paintings could be manipulated and used for other ...