So high you were
so long ago
chiseled with character.
Your weeping walls
rich with mineral and strength.
Stern and aged ridges alongside
little space between perfect gravity
You are the mighty
you are the ruler
you will crumple long after I am gone.
Your handsome features
remind me that I’ve been taking myself
too seriously.
~Edward Austin Robertson
We’d made promises that I couldn’t keep
over sandwiches I shouldn’t have been eating.
Lying in bed later
between the naps
and lovemaking,
I was awake
planning my (our)next move.
I was being reckless
and she happened to be an innocent bystander
I didn’t mean to hurt her though
but that’s not a good enough excuse.
I was old enough to know better.
Whoops.
~Edward Austin Robertson
Wish I could say it gets better
But it doesn’t
Ask “The Playmaker”
about the ones that got away
Tempe, Arizona 1987
San Francisco 1995.
Even the biggest winners sometimes lose.
Though it hurts for those of us who care too much,
I can’t imagine how it feels to be you
so close you can taste the champagne
and embrace the thrill of the accolades,
only to realize how small the margin for error really is,
the difference between second best and champions.
Though you have nothing at all to lament
and everything in the world to be proud of,
there is nothing you can do to ever get it back
which is why losing is probably worst feeling in the world
— no many how many times you’ve won it all.
Sometimes there is no closure
sometimes there is no justice.
Sorry.
Timmy Time Machine and Kawhi were the only ones to have good games the other night.
What exactly does it mean to be righteous?
How does one get there?
Is it a matter of making the right (un)informed choices?
What made my choices so different from his
that led me here this particular morning?
By all external measures
happy
brooding inside
over things I could not control.
This morning found me in a church parking lot
putting in a prayer request
at a church I would never attend
to a congregation
I would never meet.
What could it hurt?
Maybe magic existed
in forms other than
music, birth and life.
Which made the situation feel
even more egregious
what a waste of all things precious
so that rich men could get fat
on our ignorance.
He’d allowed himself to become a pawn
in their dope game
and all I could do now
was hope (pray?) for positive results
to emerge
from what I considered
to be a massive mistake
on so many (cosmic?) levels.
My brother,
you may be in hell now
but I know
that you can escape.
Pleasant thoughts await your return
Blue Bell Ice Cream
cream cheese pie
and mom’s mediocre pot roast,
dice games at the casino
poker with the fellas,
dollar bills at the strip clubs
and fine shoes and fancy threads.
Keep it together
stay focused
and you’ll be home soon.
We love you.
You’re not the only one in hell.
~Edward Austin Robertson
Spock was my dude
As a kid I always dug the old school Star Trek. Spock was my dude. First of all his uniform was my favorite shade of blue (my favorite color back then), secondly he was so analytical–he was a doctor for Pete’s sakes. I liked the fact that no adventure was too out there for them. They even went back in time to the Roman Empire days.
As much as I dug Sci-Fi back then, I liked the theme that they were rootless….going anywhere and that the only home was the vessel they were traveling in.
I had no idea how much this theme resonated with me until recently. Here are a few others that I came to like:
1) A-Team- a band of renegades betrayed by their government forced to become soldiers for hire, helping out the little people against the bad guys. They were always on the move and could never get too comfortable in one place with the dreaded Army and (Col. Decker)on their tails. The show always was good for a couple of chase scenes and shootouts, a little bit of comic relief with Murdock and Mr. T. and they always had a well organized plan to come out on top. Good stuff.And a great theme song:
2)Kung Fu- Couldnt tell you anything about the show other than David Carradine was traveling across the world fucking people up, with random flashbacks to his training.I was a kid when this was on syndication. I just loved the theme song–seemed epic to me I always hoped someone would make a hip hop beat from it.
Incredible Hulk was genius to me also. The Hulk was always my favorite Marvel Comic character outside of Wolverine (another dude with mad anger issues).Mild mannered David (Bruce for TV) Banner traveling across the country, looking for a cure to his ailment, hulking out on folks on principle alone. Bro just wanted peace. I could dig it–that was how I felt as a kid–peaceful, but folks kept fuckin’ wit me so I’d have to Hulk out on people, then folks would think I was crazy cuz they pushed me to that point and got stabbed with a #2 pencil. Whoa sorry, just got triggered for a second. The theme song was haunting, but the one for the cartoon series way more ill:
I would be a liar if I said I didn’t spend part of the ’90’s getting stoned and watching this show.
4)
Quantum Leap was a bad one too. Loved the fact that he bounced back and forth through time, hoping the next leap was the leap home. Sometimes I feel like I’m in an episode of that show, trying to right a wrong that BMICk did in the past, trying to keep things in order by avoiding life altering mistakes. The only negative part is that the theme song was kinda weak.
5)
Lastly there is Scooby muthafucking Doo. Some goofy shit I know, but the theme song was entertaining and they always had the best guests on there.
Honorable Mention: I really wanted to throw the Man with No name trilogy series in with this. Clint Eastwood basically rode around the west on his horse fucking shit up, meeting ladies, and making money. Loved GOOD, the Bad, and the Ugly, Fistful of Dollars and a Few Dollars More. Plus it led me to discover Ennio Morricone’s music. But they were movies not a tv show.
Stood in the rain
grinning like an idiot
like THE idiot
crying in that infamous
video clip.
I wondered if I should run the risk
of missing out by running inside to
grab the camera,
or be truly in the moment.
Five years before
I had no choice
as I had no camera
and had to settle on enjoying
it through the car window
as we crossed the Morrison St. Bridge out of town.
I ran back into the restaurant
reached into my backpack
to grab my camera phone
in an attempt to capture
what appeared to me as a divine sign of sorts,
saying that everything was okay
there was nothing to be afraid of
and that I was exactly where I needed to be.
~Edward Austin Robertson
I guess this is the kind of stuff you miss out on when you don’t have a Facebook account:
Nuclear Polio Vaccination 