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Friday, November 29, 2013

what you going to do about me/ part 2/ draft 1

what you going to do about me/ part 2

reflections on "black Friday"

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

How many conveniences and comforts of modern life do we need to be happy?

Do our wants or our needs drive us to work and acquire the comforts of modern life? Number and sort out your needs as compared to your wants. Categorize how our wants confine us to adopt certain choices, choices that in aggregate direct how we live our lives. Civilized habits can be expensive to acquire and time consuming to maintain. A proper education, striking appearance, remarkable first impressions, a fully furnished nest, and then recreation and escape are paid for by our time, labor, and limitations on our freedom to be ourselves.

Given a choice most of us would prefer to have a car to drive if we want to go anywhere. It's a form of freedom to move about the landscape we inhabit. A horse and wagon work to move us about the place we live in but it is no longer a practical option to drive about in a horse drawn cart. Civilized habits require us to own an appropriate car.

As soon as we have the luxury of owning a usable car we begin to take drives to escape from ourselves. We need to escape from ourselves because our nest, our house, the place we live in and store our things in can confine and overwhelm us at times. Civilized habits require us to own or rent a proper house.

To maintain our house and car civilized habits require we own certain tools and accouterments to maintain and defend our major possessions. Lawnmowers, tool chests and leaf blowers are stored in a garage or tool shed along side our house. Garages and tool shed must be insured and defended from thieves.

Sometimes it's too much trouble for some of us to maintain our life style. We might become vaguely unhappy without understanding why. We acquire books and entertainments to return our happiness. Large cable ready TV's, internet connected cell phones, portable electronic devices to read books on and extended vacations abroad appear to distract us from our lives.

To what extent does your first choice of how to live you life confine your choices of how much freedom you have to be yourself? Do we have free will in our first choice of how to live our life?
How much complexity is necessary to live our lives properly, in a proper civilized manner?

  Just asking the question of how our choices effect our life is to lift our eyes toward the horizon that surrounds and confines us. What is beyond the invisible horizon that surrounds you?

Thursday, November 28, 2013

what you going to do about me?

what you going to do about me?

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

It's a good time to think about the original Americans on thanksgiving evening after we sleep off a too large scrumptious meal and some prepare to go shopping all night to buy Black Friday bargains.

Native Americans are a forgotten group, invisible since the 19th century for the most part. Yet their values and spiritual beliefs gently haunt the philosophies of many of us Americans. Doing with less, minimalism, respecting the earth, recycling and a strong spiritual underpinning to our lives. Spiritual in the everyday observation of the earth's cycles and our place in a grand system of which we are a very small part, a part that quickly passes through the environment we live in.

Complexity characterizes our world. Surrounded by things we seek to find significance in material objects. Material things are not harmful in themselves but they confine the imagination as it is continually necessary to store, insure and repair what we own. We seldom spend time in nature and we ignore the cycles of the earth we inhabit so briefly.

It's been nearly fifty years since Quick Silver Messenger Service sang " What you going to do about Me"?. Have you taken your stand? Tonight as you plan your day for tomorrow think about the original Native Americans and how they would have spent a late November day here in cold snowy Ohio two hundred fifty years ago. Is our lifestyle superior to theirs?

As a start perhaps we could read " Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" to raise our awareness. Not to feel bad, or shameful but out of respect. Also maybe to learn again about another lifestyle that existed once where we now call home.

My crush Lesley Gore misbehaved on the bus to nowhere/ draft 1 in progress

My crush Lesley Gore misbehaved on the bus to nowhere/ draft 1 in progress

please watch Lesley Gore sing on you tube " sunshine lollipops and rainbows" from 1965's " Ski Party"

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

My crush Lesley Gore misbehaved on the bus to nowhere. See her on you tube perform " sunshine lollipops and rainbows" posted by orele 1. Lesley has been riding around on that bus singing the same upbeat song over and over for nearly fifty years never reaching her destination somewhere off in cosmic beach movie nirvana.

The short you tube video starring Lesley Gore singing presents a brief essay in video of how a group of budding actors and actresses vie for success in America while riding endlessly on a bus to nowhere and breaks new ground as two handsome leading men dress in drag and pretend to be girls to pursue some other girls. As you listen to the song " sunshine etc." that Lesley sings note how the other actors and actresses interact with the camera and adapt to Lesley Gore's light hearted and unaffected domination of the camera and the spotlight.

Duane Hickman, he played Doby Gillis before this role, is the center of Lesley's attention as she sings and dances in the narrow aisle of the bouncing bus. Lesley misbehaves by laying Duane's right hand and arm across her left breast as she dances, and that's after putting her arm around his neck earlier in the performance. There's a lot of subtle context going on in the number as Lesley dances and the bus rolls along back in 1965. Duane rolls his eyes appropriately, sex was just blossoming in America prior to the summer of Love of 1967, before that sex didn't exist in America, just by suggestion.

In the movie, " Ski Party" the bad guy is blond arrogant handsome Aron Kincaide.  See his reaction to Lesley inadvertently poking her elbow into his face.

They say Lesley Gore's sexuality is provocative. As she rides along singing and swaying on the bus to nowhere she seems always a Lady to me. 

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

more sexist literature; the technlogy of today

more sexist literature; the technology of today

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

Dearest Marianne:

Please pardon me a thousand times my love, it was not my intention to ruin our fifth anniversary nor was it my intention to suggest I have grown tired of you or anything about you. You will always be the girl of my dreams, only you can make me feel a certain way. You know that. I apologize for the misunderstanding the night of our fifth wedding anniversary.

I do not want someone else. I only want you. What I suggested was to use multi tracking, a new form of video technology to make a video of three versions of yourself singing and dancing to 1940's Andrews sisters music. Similar to the Star sisters 1985 video I showed you on you tube video. With the sailor hats and tight long navy blue skirts. I just wanted for you to sing and do the arm and hand movements. It would just be three separate videos of yourself singing and dancing sliced together to spice things up a little bit. So I could watch it in private. I am sorry if in my clumsiness to describe my preferences I have caused you offense.

You know I love your voice as you sing and I love to watch you move and dance about Marianne. I did not mean to imply that you should portray a blond, a brunette and a red head in the video. For now yourself would be fine. Perhaps we can discuss this at a later date.

your husband of five glorious years of marriage,
Myron

the search for significance

the search for significance

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

I sit in a new car, we call them vehicles in the Automobile business, and I ride on a large transport as it hauls the vehicles from the factory to the dealerships to be sold. Someone will buy the new vehicle and I ride in the vehicle as it travels 300 miles or so to find it's new owner. I sit in the vehicle driver's seat as it bounces along the superhighways; some one else drives the transport that hauls the vehicle I sit in, I just sit and listen to the radio with the engine off.

It's a union job. To promote employment each new vehicle must have a representative sit in the drivers seat during the vehicles maiden voyage, factory to showroom. Long ago as part of a court settlement it was agreed that each vehicle must have a custodian to care for it as it was initially driven across America. The auto dealerships were charging the customers and buyers a destination charge and a lawsuit ended by agreement that a ride boy, that's what they call us, would make $11.25 per hour to ride on the vehicle transports taking new cars to the showrooms of America for sale. Each transport carries six or seven vehicles and each transport employs along with the truck driver six or seven ride boys. It helps the economy to have six or seven more people working. The auto business is vital to the economy in many ways.

I listen to the radio mostly as the transports hauls us out across route 80,  77 south or some other major highway. We are not allowed to start the engines of the vehicles we sit in so it can get cold in Winter. It's best when the vehicle I am assigned to monitor has padded leather seats and good leg room. Sometimes when I am driven along I try to reach back home on my cell phone depending on reception. As soon as one run is over I hop into another transport and board another vehicle and head back the other way. Back to my home town. Two trips a day is usual. If it takes more than eight hours road time I get time and a half.

It's a life. Sometimes I wonder though, If there really is a God who decides everything; is this how I should spend my life? What's the significance of it all anyway?

Monday, November 25, 2013

Holiday meeting

Holiday meeting

fiction
edward w Pritchard

five minutes is so long/ repost, edit

At the Holidays I ran into an old girl friend from my youth. We hadn't been intimate back then but I thought of her sometimes and I ran into her and her husband and two kids at the home center store, the store where I didn't like to go but had to sometimes, like today.

Her husband was one of those people who can only value things or people monetarily and it was tedious to be around him. The kids weren't too bad but she didn't seem connected to her own children. The husband had a habit of saying exactly the obvious thing in the wrong way that could be quite cloying. All in all my old girlfriend's family didn't seem a family at all.

The children and the husband wandered off and we stood and talked for a minute or two.  My friend from before relaxed a little as we talked about the old causes and ideals and it was pleasant to remember what I had liked about her. Eventually her family came back and she had to resume her role again. It was a persona that I didn't know and didn't like.

I was glad when they had to go, five minutes is so long to be with some people.

Anne Margaret; What is about women with red hair that is so arresting? part 2

Anne Margaret; What is about women with red hair that is so arresting? /part 2

fiction
edward w Pritchard

Someone has read one of this author's stories, about the red head Miss Ford and she has judged author a sexist. Author certainly appreciates any notice even criticism and sexist sounds pretty good to one with such advanced years. So to respond to critique that author is sexist in his approach to red headed women, author will stir the pot some more. Here is further voyeurism about the consummate redhead, Anne Margaret singing the intro and outro in "Bye Bye Birdie".

start

Two minutes and forty one seconds never looked or sounded so good. Curvy Anne Margaret sings and dances the bye bye birdie song at the beginning and end of the movie " Bye Bye Birdie".

Miss Margaret begins the sequence walking straight into the camera displaying her alabaster skin and beautiful face, glistening red hair and ladylike but intriguing decolletage. Immediately Miss Margaret begins the sensuous undulating hand and arm movements that makes her performance memorable over decades and decades to admirers of female beauty.

The poor innocent dear is broken hearted because her celebrity crush has been drafted and Lady Anne now has no one to fantasize over and can only send secret love letters from her bed each night. The girl promises to always care even though her celebrity crush has vanished from her life. Dipping and swaying and tossing her arresting red hair the sweet young girl bids the vanished Conrad Birdie farewell ending the intro to the movie.

Things heat up in the outro to end the movie as a sadder but wiser Anne demonstrates timeless techniques of feminine persuasion using voice, hand movements,arms and the rest of her charms to convince herself that she can forget her juvenile crush. Pouting and pursing her luscious lips Miss Margaret tosses her skirt as she dances and sways singing, smiling, and showing her audience her beautiful eyes. As she dances it is like a private performance just for moi. Wide eyed Anne concludes the performance. Her final statement is to call Conrad a  "gas" as she blows us the audience a spectacular kiss good bye.

As finale the sexy redhead waves goodbye to us with one finger and then raises her arms Venus de milo style as she bids us "ta ta old sweetie pie". Finishing Miss Margaret demonstrates how to fly off by rhythmically shaking her upper body in a most interesting way while using her inner forearms to control the wobbling. Tossing her head, standing sideways and statuesquely smiling Miss Anne Margaret  concludes a memorable performance by slowly fading out.  Bye bye now our sweet Lady Anne. We always will remember the first feelings you aroused in us.

What is about women with red hair that is so arresting?
end part 2

Saturday, November 23, 2013

the railway to the stars

the railway to the stars

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

They call it the railway to the stars and it's a union job for women only. The women's jobs are not just for girls from the porn industry, that's a piece of mis-information. Any gal who was once famous, sorry guys women only, in any thing related to the sex industry, actress, singer, model, some porn stars, and just about any other job related to bringing adult entertainment of a tawdry nature to American audiences is welcome to steady work as a call operator on the railway to the stars. It's a televised weekly show about girls who sit in a small roller coaster car and take phone calls from the television audiences out across the country while they race up and down on a small circular roller coaster track. If no one is calling for a particular guest the girls are expected to make out going calls, it's a telemarketing job. The show is televised and runs once per week, late at night.

The telemarketing lists are of viewers who have called in before, ordered adult entertainment from numerous sources, subscribed to men's magazines or attended a strip club and signed up for the free offers. Like any telemarketing job it's plain hard work. The longer you keep the guys on the phone the more commissions you make. Five bucks a minute the guys pay to talk to us as we fly about the tracks in a little car talking to them about naughty things. Some of us wear special costumes and some of us have specialties, you know those topics men like that are odd and peculiar related to sexual preferences. We get half of the five dollars per minute as commission less certain expenses.

The show only runs once a week but there are a lot of meetings and practice runs and rehearsal throughout the week for base pay only. Base pay is twenty five dollars for once around the track. The union got us that benefit. Some of the girls set up their telemarketing calls in advance so they seem to always be talking to someone during the actual televised show, like anything else nothing succeeds like success. Most people like to see a woman be busy but don't always respect them for it.

Management sucks. They walk and ride around with their little clip boards working on a thousand ways to cut your pay and charge you double expenses, for swearing on air, being too explicit, or the worse sin of all have no "sales" for three straight rides around the merry go round. Naturally a lot of the management are men and they exploit us adult workers. We are always on camera and it's paramount that we always look "on".

New celebrities give me a pain in my rear. Princess is only here for a few weeks until the contract is signed and she is back on the director's "A" list. She can't talk to you, she is watching her text messages. Any day now she will be back on her back in front of the cameras or on the cover of "Us' magazine half dressed and the most shocking gal fatale of the day again.

Most of the girls are nice to each other and they got your back. I've had girls transfer me a call in sale call when I was in a slump or help me with my costume two minutes before air time. I support the union. No one else cares for us girls. To most of them out there we are just a piece of meat for them to gawk at while they secretly make fun of us. No one much respects us because they don't want to be reminded later of their secret base urges. Strict age restrictions apply, I'll give my opinions on that later. I wouldn't say we are exploited by having to be pretty or look a certain way. The men out there like all types, believe me men have some unusual tastes in women. Still management is after a certain look for the television audience and they enforce it when they interview and hire. There are a lot of blonds and full bosoms and anyone else pretty who can look dizzy and scared at the same time while clutching a cell phone racing around the track in a small roller coaster car whispering in a raspy voice while checking names off their telemarketing list.

It's a very stressful way to make a living. I am training a new girl, ex runway model. She whispers a lot in French. Still I'll try to show her the ropes, this one has got to be under eighteen, the guys out there will like that. She is kind of vulnerable, her life isn't going like she expected it to I imagine. She needs a costume, a specialty and a persona. I'll help her learn to cope like others did for me. I'll help her join the union, it will protect her later.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Texting at Holidays can ruin the mood

Texting at Holidays can ruin the mood

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

repost/ edit

Texting at Holidays can ruin the mood Molly. Molly, after I take the Lexus in for the twenty dollar car wash morning special, I should drive over to the West Point Market to buy two extra large  coddled red azaleas, one for the hall near the real silver framed mirror where you hang your scarves and keys when you come in from teaching and a second bright red azalea in a silver box for you to take to your Mother's a few days before Thanksgiving as the annual surprise.

It's hard for me to get anything done when I keep looking at my cell phone for a text from you Molly. I am afraid things might have went too far and you will be sending me that text you yelled at me about. How's Mrs. Parker from school? Is her leg better? I can take her some bourbon flavored sweet potatoes like you made last year for her and me if you wish.  Pete and Laura from the Trust Department were asking about you, they invited us over for drinks Friday after Thanksgiving. The new baby is seven months old now. She crawls and you know Pete she talks already he says.

I missed you this weekend. The house seems so lonely without you. I think I will head over too the West Point Market and get the Azalea's, I will put them in the hall by the silver mirror if you just want to stop by for a minute and pick them up, I'll leave you my bonus check too, signed, we got 4,000 this year in case you want to shop this weekend. I think I'll get two bottles of bourbon for me in case you don't make it back to the house for a while. Just don't text me goodbye Molly.


Don't text me good-bye Molly, the breakup

Don't text me Molly.
Listen to my voice mail and call me
or, come to the house.
Be mad at me,
slap my shoulder, Molly
thump my chest with the back of your hand.
Pour my bottle of French Cognac down the drain again. 
Talk to me Molly, I want to hear your voice.
Use your small voice. Tell me how you feel.
I need to taste your smell again. 
Lock yourself in the bathroom again and cry.
Sit on the floor in the lotus position and bang the back of
the bathroom door with your fists again. 
Sleep all night in the car in a snow storm rather than come to our bed.  
Please don't text me Goodbye Molly
Texting  is;
stealthfully premeditated, passionless, words over words, impersonal symbols, guileful phases, hidden feelings, logical darts to the heart. No way to talk to a friend.
Come back to the house Molly. Lets argue. Throw things, put the baseball card collection on the curb again.  
Don't text me good-bye Molly,
Call me,
love Bobbie
happy Holidays



Thursday, November 21, 2013

What is about women with red hair that is so arresting?

What is it about women with red hair that is so arresting?

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

Here is something I wrote before that never developed. Gentlemen readers take an extra moment as you read the story below and picture Miss Ford. I'll give a few extra clues, pieces of information to assist you in part 2, below part 1.- author, for our Miss Ford

story 7 of 11, Guy returns to fourth grade/ edit repost


It's difficult for a 27 year old graduate student to  return to the fourth grade. It's a technicality, a bureaucratic nightmare. Still it is happening. I can't get my PHD in economics from Yale until I spend one month in fourth grade in the local public school system.  My State requires a minimum attendance to finish grade school and because of my Father's international travel back when I was ten my absenteeism has caught up to me.

Being the biggest kid in the school is one thing. Failing arithmetic because you are fantasizing about the Teacher Miss Ford is something else. Miss Ford has long red hair and a ...

Part 2

I honesty think Miss Ford doesn't know what she has. She can't move or exist without drawing attention. She's impossible for me not to stare at. Of course the ten year old boys in the class stare at her and joke about the way she dresses but I am a 27 year old graduate student from Yale; my lust is of the highest caliber. Miss Ford is about twenty one and she slowly walks around as she teaches. Sometimes she smacks a ruler against her left forearm. Other times she stares at a book while I stare at her. I can never decide where to look. Up or down all the parts are wonderful.

Miss Ford is unaffected. Totally dedicated to her craft as a new teacher. Actually she is a student teacher, still in college but since Mr.Wilson is very sick Miss Ford  has been allowed by the school board to teach alone for the next month which is exactly how long I am here, back in grade school finishing my high school requirements.

Of course Miss Ford has a boyfriend, named Willard and naturally he plays football at some dopey junior college I suppose. I have a girlfriend too Kathy who is perfect for me.

The problem is Miss Ford's navy blue skirt. It's long and tight and straining very hard not to burst when Miss Ford saunters about, about and down the rows between the desks. Back and front, up and down I watch Miss Ford slowly walk about. Left foot, right foot, head toss to left, green eyes darting here and there. Somehow Miss Ford manages to be leggy and short at the same time. 5'3 but taller with those spiky fancy call me sailor shoes, a different pair every day; I think I am developing a thing for her shoes. Red hair of course, and silky ultra feminine cream colored blouses that try to conceal her across the chest. A wafting scent, also different everyday and a soft floating buzzy raspy deep mellow voice.

Whatever Miss Ford is talking about my mind is somewhere else. So I am flunking six grade math and my girlfriend Kathy is getting real suspicious. Women have a way of knowing these things and Kathy is sensing something about me at my six grade classroom.

Sometimes I will ask Miss Ford a question after class. Miss Ford, I never call  her by her first name Yvonne at school, has a habit of sitting against the front of her desk with her legs crossed swinging her left foot and leaning forward as she becomes engrossed in our math book. I am about a foot taller than her and I suspect she has some inkling of my feelings. Perhaps she likes it.

What is it about women with red hair that is so arresting?

your grown children, if you are lucky enough to have children

your grown children, if you are lucky enough to have grown children
fiction
Edward w Pritchard

repost with edits
your kids aren't you

Once I went with a girlfriend to see her friend who she wanted to show me the new boyfriend off to. While the girls talked I spent some time with the friends Father in his small garage in a City neighborhood. After working each day all day on the day shift he would eat a little supper and then work on his hobby till bedtime there in the garage. His hobby was to build a light airplane in the garage that someday he would actually fly over our city in. After seeing the intricate workings of the in progress home built airplane and his drawings and plans we inspected the workings of each section of the actual plane at length. Engine, fuselage, wings, tail, being young I finally blurted out "but how will you get the plane out of the garage? The plane's wingspan  was bigger and wider than the collapsible garage door. The guy who was a sort of every man's philosopher said "well  if the plane ever actually gets done I might have to tear out a wall or two." To which I said, " well it would be worth the sacrifice if the plane actually can fly."

Worth the sacrifice if it can actually fly has become my secret motto when it comes to my grown children and how to view them now that they are all adults.

It takes you twenty or thirty years to learn your kids aren't you. They look a little like you and they remind you of your partner sometimes but sometimes your grown children confound and confuse you and you don't understand them so it's understandable that your kids aren't you. Your kids are unique individuals a special part of God's creation that you helped to create.

It's still hard for us parents to butt out of our children's lives. Don't say obtuse things but be there when you are needed and then vanish. It's fine to love your grandchildren, even if you don't get to see them much. Have your own life but pick up the phone quickly when one of your kids call and don't let their calls go to voice mail. Try to keep a scheduled time to see each of your children as often as they wish to be seen. It's OK if your grown children feel obligated to see you as long as you don't become a burden. When you see your grown children you can relax and be yourself.

Most important concerning your grown children is don't get co dependent when there's bad trouble in their lives and don't try to love them too much but keep in touch. It's dandy to ask them fishing if they like to fish. Mexican food is fine unless they don't like spicy meals then let them pick another restaurant. Don't talk too much at the restaurant about when they were little children. If you give advice most of the time tell them what they want to hear but be supportive and act out of your genuine love for you children. It's profound to be pleasantly surprised to see a secret part of their Mother you had forgotten about manifested in the persona of one of your grown children.

Your children aren't you but they are a part of you, part of you and their other parent who is someone once very special to you who you loved and who you chose special to create life with.. Each child is uniquely an intricate part of the vast mysterious universe. Like a small finely intricately honed part of the plane at the beginning of this story that someone was building in a garage. It is an act of faith that someday your children will fly off and soar without you or your daily guidance. Go about your daily tasks without the needless fretting of listening for the sound of far off whining or stalling airplane engines.

 Just be sure to listen for your cellphone for a call from your grown children and always pick up the call and not let it ever go to voicemail. Also try not to deluge them at holidays with used books on philosophy or historical trivia.
end

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Romeo and juliet at 59

Romeo and Juliet at 59

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

Juliet had a fast couple days there in Shakespeare's play. Refusing to marry Paris, chit chat with Romeo to all hours, brush off her cousin's death, union with Romeo, marry, defy parents, contemplate death and then suicide. Things moved fast for a fourteen year old girl in those days. Yet throughout the play Juliet is more mature and less impulsive than Romeo.

Had Juliet not died in the original play " Romeo and Juliet" of which she is a title player, what would she be like to court at age 59? What would Juliet be like for a man to approach after her youthful hormones have become drenched in 45 years of life experiences?

Juliet as a woman of 59 would by then be a strong willed woman and her persona would be formidable, a mask to shield her anima from the eyes and judgments of a hostile world. What would the real Juliet be like and how would a determined suitor seek to charm and woo her as a mature woman?

Is it wise to rehash the past, revisit things Juliet did at age 14 or 20? How about discussing family relationships among her cousins and other relatives? How to breach with Juliet the other Romeos she has known, for every 10 or 12 years a new young Romeo circles across the stages of the world.

The subject of sex? To be or not to be? Wrong play or wrong decade? Should a subtle Romeo at 59 be sublime and ignore men's base urges focusing instead on spirituality, timelessness and philosophy to charm fair Juliet? Writing poetry and odes to her bare shoulder? Romeo should skip the balcony climbing scene and be realistic about the limitations of mature males of certain age in times before Viagra.

How to woo fascinating Juliet now that she is not an innocent  maid? What's the real Juliet like and is it possible to get to know her as a mature woman?

 "Hark, what light through yonder window breaks?" Ah, to write like that would be a start.

How will you spend Black Friday?

How will you spend Black Friday?

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

repost/ edit 1

Cell Phone Messages


The Group's objective was to enable anyone at any time, any where in the world to listen to a spiritual message from their cell phone for solace delivered as an "app" for free  pushing a certain code.

Originally it started as a Christian message service but expanded to all the major religions of the world.

However, this year the cell phone solace messages by free "app" have powerful enemies because they are deemed to be anti-materialism and anti-capitalism by economic power brokers, merchants and capitalists.

In the recent past when people were in need of solace they had taken to shopping, buying and consuming, and now the messages are proving bad for business and consumption and the powers that be are seeking government assistance to stop the free spiritual cell phone messages delivered by app.

Nameless powers that be are pushing Congress to rush restrictive legislation to stop free spiritual messages by app on cell phones before jinxing Black Friday which actually begins on Tuesday this year two days prior to Thanksgiving.

writer's are a little odd

writer's are a little odd

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

An older man sat at McDonald's near a young couple. The young couple were a normal young couple engrossed in their lives.

After a few minutes of quietly watching the couple, the old man said: " I used to be in business in this area".

The young couple nodded at the odd old man with half a smile and returned to their lives.

Later that night when the old man was frantically writing about the default and bankruptcy in Detroit the old man a writer managed to work the normal young couple into his invented scenario about Detroit despite the fact they were quite ordinary in every way.

finding our direction in life

finding our direction in life

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

the road crew/edit 1, repost

Mike was late for work and no one else on the road crew had remembered to put the detour signs out and drivers were getting all the way up to the end of the street before it became known to them that they couldn't go any further in this direction. About 100 feet before where the men on Mike's crew were working the driver's could see and hear the bulldozers and equipment and men in orange vests digging and talking and sometimes smoking cigarettes. The drivers of the cars couldn't go any further on this street because of the roadwork. It was a crowded neighborhood and there were houses on each side, three or four fine houses must be passed until it was the end of the road, where the actual repair work was being done.

Everyone after they noticed they couldn't go any farther on this road in their cars went to the last house on their left, and then pulled into the drive and backed up and turned around and went back to where they had come from. No one turned to the right to turnaround and noticing their faces as they drove the drivers didn't look mad about being inconvenienced. Once the drivers realized they couldn't go any further they just turned around and continued on their way. Everyone however, always went to the end of the road before they turned around in the last driveway on the left.

The fact that Mike had been late for work and hadn't put out the detour signs didn't seem to matter to any of the drivers.  Still, it would be more than polite if road crews would always be sure to put up detour signs when they are going to deny us access to where we want to go.

Most people are not really going anywhere anyway so most of the time one direction is just as good as any other to most of us, is probably what Mike and the guys on the road crew would say if pressed on the matter.

poverty mistress of the misfortunate, part 1 and 2 with edits

poverty, mistress of the misfortunate, parts 1 and 2 with edits

fiction
edward w Pritchard

edit, repost 1

part 1

Poverty is a fat girl in a dirty torn stained tee shirt with a tattoo on her ass. She sleeps till 1 pm and then eats off a paper plate and drinks from a leaky Styrofoam cup. She never cooks or cleans and next week she is hoping to hear about getting a telemarketing job 56 miles west of here, up north in the snow belt. The first two weeks of training for her telemarketing job will be without pay and then is minimum or commission whichever is worse. Her first three paychecks are subject to garnishee for back court costs.

Poverty doesn't build character and it doesn't make you appreciate what you have. She comes to you because you have character shortcomings and she stays and stays. She never picks up her clothes and she doesn't understand how a washing machine works. Poverty masks one's humanity and condemns one to silence and solitude. Poverty has no immense pity as she slowly reveals the face of anguish of her victims. Poverty has no spirituality about herself and spends afternoons watching reruns of the wheel of fortune on the neighbors black and white television.

The best way to avoid the clutches of poverty is to have money. Living without money is absurd and awfully inconvenient. Sometimes if you are lucky Poverty will pack up and leave your flat there in the project and move in with a guy with a motorcycle or two and three children under five that his ex won't take care of.
end part 1

part 2

Poverty my mistress

Poverty is a fat girl in a dirty stained tee shirt with a tattoo on her ass who use to be a porn star. Every time poverty smiles at you she winks, two of poverty's teeth are missing in front and the other two blackened teeth are chipped. Poverty sits around the broken wobbly picnic table in the filthy kitchen there in the project at 8:30 AM drinking strawberry Boone's farm wine from a broken glass with shards of glass floating on top of the congealed liquid, left over spirits from the last six years of binge drinking. Looking at her expression  as she coyly smiles at you you see apparitions of Poverty's past life as a 17 year old porn star.  Sirens scream through  the cluttered parking lots of the project where you and poverty stay temporarily the last six years. Your car out in the parking lot is safe for now from youthful thieves, the head gasket is blown and oil leaks underneath. It's another day in the project.

Poverty winking means she needs attention and is the mood for some extended sex. It's nine AM, the sun is bright, and your stomach turns as you remember years ago all the unspeakable things you used to enjoy doing with Poverty that caused poverty to stay and stay with you now. Before things start you have to high tail it over to Assad's convenience store and buy Poverty two packs of Marlboro's long, an extra large bag of fire style cheetos, and three slim Jims for breakfast. 

About 11:30 you trot down to burger king and buy Poverty two double whoppers, an extra large pumkin shake, and two double orders of holiday french fries. Poverty wants you to sit with her while she leafs through the 8 used people magazine she got at the jail last week when she served 24 hours for slapping the Watkins girl. .Poverty likes you to see which Celebrity is dropping jaws this week by wearing a tight fitting fish net leotard. Three thirty poverty takes a four hour nap. At six you buy poverty the Swansons hamburger steak TV dinner, seven instant lottery tickets and two bottles of mint Boone's farm for tonight. Two policemen knock at the door around nine looking for the Williams boy. Poverty winks twice at the Hispanic officer.

About ten you sleep on the floor in the corner with you face against the wall. In the background you hear Poverty listening to right wing radio about a big five per cent cut in food stamps threatened for next month. About midnight you hear poverty sneaking out for a few hours probably trying to find that Hispanic police officer.


Sunday, November 17, 2013

philosophy works around the clock but it's blues after midnight here

philosophy works around the clock but it's blues after midnight here

fiction
edward w Pritchard

Mornings here it's Aristotle's practical advice on finding happiness from Nicomachean Ethics. Afternoon discussions are Spinoza or Hume. Come midnight here at my house philosophy works around the clock but it's blues after midnight.

Muddy Waters starts off, " You Can't lose what you Ain't got" and then Muddy continues all night blues with " blow wind, blow wind, blow my baby back to me", and "people, had a fine little home, but it's gone now ain't that sad. "


Bessie Smith at 2AM, " nobody loves you when your down and out".

Rousseau back at 5AM philosophy sign on,  " the heart has it's reasons the mind can't understand. "

an apparition always arrives after midnight after a long wind storm outside

an apparition always arrives after midnight after a long wind storm outside

fiction
edward w Pritchard

Because of my low status as an author tonight's apparition that always arrives after midnight after a long wind storm outside has no name. The powers of darkness have sent a mere clerk from the world of darkness to speak with me. I take offense to the fact that the apparition that visits me tonight to scare me, or to fan the fires of my fears is just a clerk from the underworld not even important enough to have a name.

I am no Montaigne. Like him I set down to writing my observations on whatever suits my fancy. Unsystematically I survey the human condition. Unlike Monsieur Montaigne I am not well received as a writer. Financially, I am not recognized writer by reputation but rather known by lack of same. Also I am judged an impractical dreamer not a bona fide money producing author by eye rolling acquaintances. My friends and admirers, few, look on me writing as a cheap form of therapy hopefully an antidote to despair and melancholy.

Emerson or even Will Rogers as an essayist I approach not. Practical sound wisdom and advice in pithy sentences from me are not read by American Presidents or foreign dignitaries.

Still to have myself stoop to address this apparition who always arrives after midnight after a long wind storm who has no name himself is an insult to my dignity and I refuse to speak or listen to this nameless entity.

That's that I am going to sleep with out further delay.

man versus nature; Twenty minutes with Jack London/ draft 1

man versus nature; Twenty minutes with Jack London/ draft 1

fiction
edward w Pritchard

You were right old timer, I did stray too far North and didn't carry enough baggage to ward off the extreme cold. Now I know, nature is brutal and unforgiving and is about to enforce an inopportune sense of embarrassing timing against me, inviting me to die well ahead of my time.

I have to blame the boys though sitting comfortably in front of their fire at the forks of Henderson creek. Tomorrow the boys will find me frozen and pathetic here where I stumbled and fell after a wild dash to reach them. The boys will philosophize a bit on how harsh life is up here in the extreme North. A bit smug will the boys be knowing it couldn't happen to them; freezing to death like a new comer. Spot on their minds will race back to the cabin at Henderson creek and sneak a plan of how to split up my share of our Gold. That damn indifferent and disloyal trotting dog will want my share of the meat in the smoke house as well.

If I could get up one last time before I die I would go back to that fire I made under that tree and remove all the evidence of my epic rookie mistake; a fire under a tree a blunder too mundane to joke about. What I would tell the boys is it, death, is going to happen to you too, later; you will die and meanwhile, while you suffer along, I will be comfortably sleeping waiting for you somewhere.

Jones, Thomas Jones my friend, I leave Matty to you, the blond dancer back in Seattle at the can-can club. Sorry about the fisticuffs old buddy. Matty, that blond, was too tall for my tastes anyway, me fighting over a woman with me mates, embarrassing. More than any woman right now I sure would like to be back in Ohio for a few hours. Under a tin roof in a warm spring rain. Someone should invent a device that automatically lights fires. So you don't have to burn the heels of your hands doing the match thing when one is about to unceremoniously freeze to death and die. Nature can be brutal and unforgiving I suppose. Sort of like a woman. I wish I cold remember one special woman to think about in the next twenty minutes while I lie here freezing to death while I think about the boys at the forks of Henderson creek sitting by the blazing fire flush full of the crackling wood I cut last spring. Save some of my money for later boys and try to invent a device to automatically start fires, in case, in case your hands are too cold to strike a match one last time.

40 years a Pope/draft 1

40 years a Pope/draft 1

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

Forty years a Pope, Pope Leo the 9th, a man of business was forced by circumstance to perform an act of human kindness. While walking about his chores and duties performing the sacraments during important and timely affairs of state the Pope noticed a little girl in row nine begin to yawn, perhaps a precursor to nodding off entirely.

Deep among the vestments strategically placed for later lunch the Pope took an orange, sweet and flavorful and walking down the aisles in formal two step handed the orange wrapped in fine silks to the surprised girl and smiled once to her chagrined Mother and Father.

As he handed the girl the orange the Pope heard the distant ping of the drumming rain on the fortress church roof high overhead and wondered briefly what time of day it was back home in blue Tuscany.


Saturday, November 16, 2013

Hank Williams, stranded on the road to Canton, Ohio

Hank Williams, stranded on the road to Canton, Ohio

fiction
edward w Pritchard

Twice now I have given directions to the young man. The tall handsome Country western singer. He had been drinking and driving both times. He was driving a big new Cadillac, only the new Cadillac was a 1952. He was North his destination, five miles north of Canton, Ohio.

The man said he was Hank Williams. He was looking for the Palace Theatre in downtown Canton. I told him I saw the burlesque there in 1970. We bantered back and forth about the year, about past and future. I hated to be impolite but I think I convinced Hank that he had died long ago, in 1952. Hank Williams died on the road traveling to play in Canton, I said. His driver carted him around dead from Bristol Tennessee through West Virginia, up to Bluefield, the drivers carted him like Ma was carted after death  in the wagon in Faulkner's "As I lay Dieing." Hank was 61 years late for his engagement in Canton. That's a long time to travel about on the road looking for the Palace.

It was ironic I told Hank Williams, that he was driven north toward Canton, dead for hours and hours. Ironic that Hank who often sang " Some sweet morning I'll fly away" actually died in a vehicle racing up 77 North toward Canton, Ohio to sing at the Palace theatre. Hank didn't see the humor in the situation. To change the subject I told Hank I walked on the Appalachian trail down around Bluefield, WVA. We both agree the food at the diners down that way is very good. On that last trip for him though Hank hadn't eaten, him being in the backseat sitting stiffly dead. Sitting dead with his arms in place to hold a guitar.

Dead or not I enjoy Hank Williams music. Sad he had to die at only 29. Too bad Hank didn't make it to Canton, we could use another shrine up here, good for attracting tourists and all that.

end

ladies, never say unkind words/ a parable

ladies never say unkind words/ a parable

fiction
edward w Pritchard

Astrology is Born/ edit 2


Ten thousand years ago a man had an argument with his lady friend. She shook her fist at him, called him a fool, and the man left their house in anger to go sleep alone on a hillside on the cold hard ground.

That night as he slept, restlessly, the man dreamed that the stars influenced human events. The man  awoke in the predawn very excited by his revelation that the stars influenced human events.

The man rushed to tell the tribal elders his wonderful idea.

On his way to find the elders, the man encountered his partner and they continued their argument and discussion from the night before.

In a short time the man lost the wonder of the star idea and decided not to mention it to the elders because in the full light of day the idea seemed irrelevant. The idea did take root in the man's consciousness and his later comments, in passing to others, on the idea of the stars influencing human events was further developed later and become a part of lore and myth of the human consciousness influencing religious thinking and everyday reasoning.

Ladies never say unkind words to your loving friend though a fool he be.

update Beverley's dream

update Beverley's dream:

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

a poem from original stories about Kent State shootings by author: The pear is partner one in a break-up, the building is partner two. How things ended.



Things had ended like a lush over ripe pear hitting the side of a red brick building. The impact annihilated the pear but the changes to the building were subtle and took time to work out.

The Pear:
First went logic- gone in an instant
Then went sensation- a massive shock of pain was felt
Last went experience- experience hung on for a few extra moments and passed something on through the heart
then the pear was gone. Reality vanished, memory edited everything.

The building:
the bricks in the vicinity of the pear's impact absorbed the sugar from the pear and attracted bees and insects
bees and insects attracted birds
birds nested in the holes in the bricks
in time all evidence of the pear's impact was gone
the building is still there
no worse for wear from the impact with the pear
except for a few nesting birds
who lay very tiny turquoise colored eggs in the spaces between the bricks.
The building is empty now, cold, desolate and all seven stories are vacant.

me adopting JD Salinger's Glass family as my family

fiction
edward w Pritchard

here author adopts Glass family as his own" Les Glass=Father, Bessie Glass =Mother

Less' blues= Les Glass's blues, less=author

fiction
edward w pritchard

It's their Father's fault really. Books. My kids are freaks. We will skip the why for now. But, the problem is none of them have professions. They are all merely intellectuals. Not frauds really, but only passive observers of life's passing parade. Less is an impractical dreamer. Disturbed I suppose. I am Bessie I have to keep the family together somehow.

I'll admit I liked Bessie's legs. From that came the partnership, song and dance in vaudeville, then from that also came the children. I tried to be a good Father, brought my daughter oranges when she was sick. I didn't know the older two boys would obsess about Buddhism and teach it to the younger two. Now it seems less than real. And Bessie, all she wants to do anymore is have painters in to paint the New York apartment, and make the apartment bigger.. I am Less, I miss the kids being little, when they were all on it's a wise child on radio. I still love Bessie though.

I AM SEYMOUR, and I come and go like Banquo's ghost sitting at the table sometimes at holidays prophesizing great things for us all. I am a metaphor for the past. Sometimes at Holidays we have fried banana fish.

I am Buddy. I write and write but never sell anything.

I am Zooey. That's about it. Sometimes I impersonate buddy on the phone when I call Franny.

I am Franny, fried banana fish aren't vegan you know.

I am the corporate family. All families are a little dysfunctional I suppose. I hope we all love each other and stick together in a crunch.

Friday, November 15, 2013

after midnight, needing a torch singer

after midnight needing a torch singer

fiction
edward w pritchard

Friday night, way after midnight; suburban cowboy tired of writing about war, peace, people long ago and bad luck in ill timed lives.

Julie London will you sing "Fly me to the Moon" or "Cry me a River". No one understands me anymore but you Julie.

Norah Jones sing real slow tonight, Just for me, "  I'll be your baby tonight" shut the light, shut the shade, pass that bottle over here.

Bessie Smith you know where I am coming from. Can you sing ' aint' nobodies business if I do" , it's true what you say, "Nobody loves you when your down and out". St Louis woman she wears a diamond ring, I got the St Louis blues I'm as blue as I can be.

I'm just trying to get by. Calling the Toys, will you sing " Lover's concerto". Something upbeat; if you don't start singing  I will be listening to Fione Apple again " after your gone". That one makes me so sad, Fione displays too much emotion sometimes, she's too honest, not strategic at all, poor girl. I can relate.

Maybe something really different, I am in a strange mood. Phoebe Killdeer singing " River of no return," Phoebe waive and roll your arms and eyes like Isis in ecstasy. Isis the ideal wife?

Susie Thompson sing " paper tiger" I love it when you roll your "rrr's"

Back to Lesley Gore, again " sunshine lollipops" uplifting, Lesley and I have strange attraction, we both are confused, but better than Marianne Faithful and I, will you sing  "sad lisa", please my Marianne .

I need sung to sleep, how about "Long long time" by Linda Ronstadt, caught in my fears, blinking back the tears,

good night ladies.

Can a cover be better than the original?

Can a cover be better than the original?

fiction
edward w Pritchard

Can a covered song be better than the original song? The original is well known and it is the "official version" of a song by the accepted "original artist". After the original all other versions are covers.

Sometimes the cover of a song can be better than the original. One such example is " Your cold cold heart"  by Hank Williams as covered by Norah Jones. Norah Jones version is in a different style than the original emphasizing her piano playing rather than Hank William's original twanging guitar. Somehow, for this listener, Norah Jones piano version is superior to the excellent Hank Williams version. Although both versions of very enjoyable.

The message of the song is a plea for one's lover to not Judge the current romance by past romantic failures. Norah Jones does a better job of emoting the plea for a clean break with the past romantic record while still expressing the inevitable sadness the singer foresees that may doom the chances for the current romance.

you can't retract whispers of love

you can't retract whispers of love

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

Things said long ago in love cannot be retracted. Words spoken in the voice of love can be forgotten, smeared or regretted but they can not be recalled after the feelings that birthed them have changed. Love words between people are etched in their personal annals of record. Whether in writing through poetry or in voice through music or dictate, love's soft whispers cannot be retracted after the fact.

A palinode is a formal retraction of love statements. A palinode may be necessary to reflect the true state of current feelings between persons. Once however feelings were different and original feelings have existence in time that are ir-retractable both in law domestic and in authenticity trans-persona.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

The Piano comes to America/ part 11/ draft 2

fiction
edward w pritchard

author is editing  "The Piano comes to America" part 1 through 11, Wiley is a gay beautician, Wiley is very strong but he wishes to be demur, Wiley is hard working and ambitious, Wiley is Afro-American, his partner Dexter is Hispanic, an ex major league baseball player. The couple has had a fight and breakup and to get them back together, Dexter buys Wiley an old piano that Wiley wishes to turn into a desk to use in his beauty shop:


draft 2

Wiley was in the new boutique and was so busy he was thinking about hiring an assistant. He was thinking carefully because expansion was a big risky decision in the beauty business. Wiley was a veteran of watching costs in his small business.

After a 12 hour day Wiley was relaxing, still at the Beauty shop, by disassembling, sanding and eventually staining a dilapidated piano Dexter, his partner had bought and moved to Hartford, Connecticut from Adkins Va. The Piano was made in 1843; Wiley had found out yesterday that it was made in England according to the markings inside the piano.

Dexter, Wiley's gay partner, was returning to his old self after the identity crisis caused by leaving major league baseball and becoming unfamous. Dexter was adjusting to his new job at the insurance company and this afternoon him and some people from work were going to a minor league baseball game. Wiley was going to get a few minutes to himself and Wiley wanted to get started with turning the old piano Dexter had bought him, into his desk for use at the shop. Wiley had an image in his mind of just how the piano would be and look when finished and Wiley was excited to start the mountain of work required to do before he could sit at his new desk.

Wiley had several tool cases that he had bought himself over the years for such projects. Back in Ohio, when he had set up his first beauty boutique Wiley often worked all night dry walling and cutting molding and staining wood and doors.

The piano was in bad shape because it had set out in the weather in Virginia in front of an abandoned bar and grille. Wiley carefully removed each piece of wood trying to get to the steel skeleton that supported the old piano. The finish veneer was long gone and the outer wood was dry and brittle and shattered to the touch. Wiley switched from tool to tool as he removed the dry wood and each time after he removed the wood and piled it for possible use later, Wiley dusted the tool he had used and returned it to the tool case. Each tool was secured into each appropriate tool case by a strong red Velcro strap.

As he took off a bottom panel Wiley found a tattered envelope in the old piano. The envelope was old, faded, pinkish and sealed.
,
The old envelope was addressed to my "Dearest Husband Bradford" but the ink was faded, smudged and barely readable. Wiley decided to open the envelope. The pink letter inside read:

My Dearest Bradford:
"I was so proud when you received your Doctor of Divinity. My life seemed fulfilled to be a Minister's wife and to travel West to the backwoods of Ohio. I left Connecticut in 1844 willing to travel through Pennsylvania and come to Ohio where I knew no-one, joyous and happy just to be at your side. Traveling In Pennsylvania, I patiently endured the insults and sour judgment of the other Minister's wives hurled at me just because I wanted to study and learn philosophy, my lifelong passion."

"When you lied to me however Bradford, and attempted to beguile me concerning my most important dream, I knew I can no longer be with you. I have decided to return to my grandfather's house in Connecticut , please know Bradford I will always cherish and love you..."

Wiley stopped reading lit a match and carefully burned the letter and envelope. The letter was too personal to read further and Wiley decided that although it had happened long ago he would respect the woman and not pry into her heartache. Wiley did however look at the signature of who had written the letter and it was a woman named Olivia. A woman named Olivia whose husband a Minister had shattered his wife's dreams.

As the letter burned Wiley returning to work wondered what had happened to Bradford and Olivia long ago and began to speculate on that as he continued his renovation of the old piano that would soon become a most unique desk at a most unique beauty shop run by a 190 pound gay beautician struggling with his weight to keep off the muscle and be lithe and demur. As he worked Wiley began to sing a song in Spanish he had learned from his friend Dexter.

end
For more on Olivia see the piano comes to America part 3 to be re-edited soon.

character flaws/ edit 1

character flaws/ edit 1

fiction
edward w pritchard

We do more harm with our character flaws than our sins. Oh God, must we stomp on someones joys in spite of our intentions.

Remember the pleasant rushing someone special did to fit a new dream into their world. Through the grace of God you were part of their world then. For a long time they would share with you their plans and dreams. Now everyone is too busy attending to their needs to share what they want.

It's not the gently stalking au boudoir but the careful surveying of the hearth to accommodate a new need that's missed most.

Remember in sadness the plans and dreams of things past and diminished.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Lebron James, a tribute; over the hill at 30

Lebron James, a tribute, over the hill at 30

tribute to Lebron James/ part 3
again no jinx or disrespect intended
A what if; there but for the grace of God go I, what if Lebron James was stuck in D league due to an injury early in his career

fiction
edward w Pritchard

It's a short drive from Cleveland to Canton, Ohio but it's an insurmountable distance for a D league Canton Charge player to reach the Cavaliers, Cleveland's professional basketball team. It's insurmountable if the player is 30 years old with a bad knee and an ex-wife and two teenage children. Having no back ground in College ball is a minus as well.

The knee went in the last high school game of a spectacular pre-college career, the nation's top young prospect. Followed by 12 years in D league as an affiliate player and a few years playing in Europe, some good years some bad. Every Fall it gets harder and harder to race up and down an off site court and every year the head coach  gets younger and younger. It's hard to remember your teammates names in the twelfth year in D league.

D league is the farm system for professional basketball. Any NBA team may acquire a D league player. That's the dream that keeps players coming back each year and pushing themselves to stay in shape at 25 or 26 years old. It gets harder and harder each year. With a salary range of $25,000 or so along with a love of the game of basketball and being an optimistic dreamer, a D league hopeful must be agile enough to train and work a couple of part time jobs.

Maybe a D leaguer grew up between Canton and Cleveland in Akron. Maybe he is 30 years old and works for the City water department. Maybe each years he promises himself this will be the last. One more shot at the NBA, championships, product endorsements, best dressed lists and fame and screaming fans.

The hardest part of playing in D league is training. Twenty one year olds in top shape racing through the drills, hanging on every suggestion the coaches yell out. Playing in D league at thirty, even the cheerleaders look like teenagers.

compose your own story

compose your own story

fiction
edward w pritchard

reader, compose your own story

Father's finger floated finally; [ etc.]

next,

The woman police officer was shocked by the crime but the images of the inside contents of the multi- colored backpack left her scarred for life;.....

next

Three grand armies converged on Salt Point but Denise and I lay blissfully entwined caressing each other with love poetry and toasting our good fortune in salutation;....

Example- Standing in foul swamp water a sudden wind stirred the miasma; Father's finger floated finally so Denise and I returned successfully from tonight's adventure at Salt Point. ...

waking at 3AM to write something

waking at 3AM to write something

fiction
edward w Pritchard

toiling alone for the god's glory: another metaphor, why we write



Toiling alone for God's glory a lone native American Indian worked in front of the ancient vacant cliff dwelling piecing together rocks to form symbols known only to the tribe that he was now the last living member of. The work was hard and very hot and since there was no water he often drank the bitter juice of the dessert cactus to maintain his strength. He needed his strength because the task at hand was monumental and he wanted to finish the project and his message to God before he collapsed from exhaustion at his toil.

Spanish conquistadors came on the old withered man and were set to kill him when they found he had no gold or accumulated wealth. It happened by chance that one of the Spanish soldiers was in addition to be an adventurer and searcher of fortune; also had been a man of God in his youth. That soldier stopped his fellow conquistadors from killing the toiling Indian, who the soldier saw was a self appointed holy man working alone for God's glory.

Although they couldn't read the symbols of the tribe, for a few days before they left in the search for gold and wealth, the members of the small Spanish party helped the old Indian finish his secret message to God. When the project was finished the Conquistadors held a small funeral ceremony for the old Indian who died as soon as his labors in competing the message was finished.

Later when the Spanish party returned to Spain, the soldier who had intervened to save the Indian was curious to what the message the old Indian had said and sometimes the conquistador speculated in his old age on what would be so important to say that the tired Indian back near the cliff dwellings would toil and sweat alone in a race to finish the message before his death. What was his secret message to God?

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Suburban cowboy; Sunday morning blues

Suburban cowboy; Sunday morning blues

fiction
edward w Pritchard

I miss but don't remember the music in the mighty mouse cartoons that were on television on Sunday mornings back then. Of course I routed for mighty mouse, it was predictably good to always see him win and overcome the forces of disruption. Except I also identified with the wolves, so cool in their zoot suits. To be one of those zoot suited wolves whistling and eying the pretty girl in the skirt with a slit up the side. The skirt was racy in the mighty moose cartoon but the music when the wolves eyed the blond was orgiastic. Quickly old mighty mouse would come along and prevail over the wolves. The pretty blond with the glasses would go back to her librarian job, not to be.

It's always cloudy on Sunday mornings and there is never any bacon and eggs cooking around the drafty ranch house. The cook, the maid, the girl in a slit skirt and the pretty friend in the parlor to tell about what's in the newspaper are gone. The back forty is infertile and the well is dried up. There's no heat anymore, natural gas keeps getting cheaper and cheaper but no one can afford to turn on the furnace. There's no television either. Technology changed television, television is too complicated to watch and all the shows are about someone else getting paid to earn a living.

Sad music is available from the Internet. Johnny Cash " Sunday Morning coming down" for starters and then " I'll fly way". Maybe the four seasons, not Vivaldi  for now, the Four Seasons "Opus 17".
Check email for purloined letter from the past. Blog some jumbo-ed thoughts, in futility send.

There are ten churches within ten miles of here. None are of my philosophy. The good women at one of the churches do make some good apple dumplings. No one goes to church anymore, its too crowded. [ attributed Yogi Berra ] . No baseball till April either.

The exercise gym is closed Sunday. More music instead, Heifetz plays Mendelssohn.

Drive somewhere and look for something, maybe a Librarian will want to hear me talk about what's in the newspaper today.

how to properly run things

how to properly run things

fiction
edward w Pritchard

How then do we run things so that a minimum number of humans are required to enable maximum satisfaction and well being for the artificial intelligence units now inhabiting the Earth?

Simplify. As example the music business. Huge royalties involved. A picture of the Beatles. Without mercy we must crop the picture. First Ringo then George, too idealistic too ethereal. Drums? Use technology. Technology not available; invent it. Paul and John necessary producers for now. Some human producers are still necessary for now.

Humans are necessary for now as end consumers. Necessary for now. Necessary for now. Necessary for now.

Sunday morning's reflections on Divine bengs

Sunday mornings reflections on Divine beings

fiction
edward w Pritchard

repost/ edit

Immanuel Kant [ paraphrased] we have neither enough or not enough information to prove God's existence

expansion and reflection on the bell curve on a Sunday morning



Carl was going to sit in his garden and read. The garden was surrounded on four sides by the walls of the house and various gazebos and was a pleasant place to sit and read. The walled garden was inspired by the Alhambra in Granada Spain and was expensively decorated with understated fine marble statues and tiled fountains. The sound of running and cascading water provided a backdrop and muted sunlight filtered through the trees to provide shade and light.

First Carl's daughter ran out to tell him goodbye. She jumped on his lap and kissed him and gave him a sweet piece of pastry she had saved for him from her lunch. She and her Mother were going to his mother-in laws for the day and she wanted to tell her Father she would bring him back some cherries.

After Carl's wife and daughter left there were some troubling details of business. Carl worked with his business associate who worked for him and they often spent 10 or twelve hours a day at his home working. Today Carl and his business associate had started early and Carl finally was able to drive his associate away. Today was their half-day and Carl wanted to read and reflect. Future business dis-quietations would have to wait until tomorrow.

Today Carl was going to read two books and compare the authors ideas on an interesting phenomena. The first book by Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss, a German, expanded on the work of the Frenchman Abraham de Moivre. The books concerned the bell curve and normal distribution.

Two hours later a screeching bird interrupted Carl from a deep revelry. Carl was thinking about the implications of the bell curve and had taken a pen and a sketch pad and had drawn a point [dot] of ink at each end of the bell curve. Directly below he had drawn the normal bell curve as discussed by Gauss in the folded book sitting on the ground nearby. 

Carl often reflected in this manner and was known to spend his entire afternoon off on some similar sort of reflections, for he longed to understand things ethereal and timeless. Today the two points at the end of the bell curve had set him to thinking about the relationship between man and God. He carefully drew six dots across a large piece of paper and then with a colored ink drew the connecting bell curves. Deep in his mind Carl had an inkling of a thought but could not express it to his understanding. The thought was just beyond comprehension.

He said aloud " man turns into God/ who turns into man /who turns into God /who turns into man/ who turns into God/" what if it would continue? man who turns into God/ who turns into Man/ who turns into God. What did it mean? Was there any significance? Carl studied the bell curve again.

Carl carefully took the paper he had been working on and folded it in half upon itself. He now was thinking non-linearly. Carl moved the first dot and the last dot and lined them up until they would touch except for the thickness of the paper separating them. Carl sat and continued to think about Man's relation to God. God's relations to man. The inkling of a thought about the question of God would not become concrete. Something about the bell curve was related to the thought.

Carl's  daughter raced into his garden and jumped in his lap. " Daddy have you been sitting here drawing the whole time". Carl's lovely daughter handed him a bag of sweet cherries.

Carl's wife came in. She said his business partner was back and had to see him.

Carl rose and took his daughter's hand and went to see his business associate. Carl lost his train of thought about the dots and the paper and the bell curve. Later the screeching bird swooped down and clutched the paper with the dots Carl had devised to add to the nest she was building.

In the walled garden behind the house the sound of running and cascading water and muted sunlight filtered through the trees to provide shade and light to the empty gazebo.
end

no one could speak

no one could speak

fiction
edward w Pritchard

Times past no one could speak.

You lay in a cave alone. Storms and strong winds rage outside. You stir in sleep dreaming in magical symbols. Dreams go on for hours and hours driven and directed by hostile storms.

You wake suddenly. She is there. You want to express something. It is vanishing with each second of daylight. You move your hands and arms. You gesture with your eyes. You try to grunt softly.

Times past no one could speak.

Born to Sell?

Born to Sell?

fiction
edward w Pritchard?

Are some people born to sell and by default some people not born to sell? It's an interesting question that young people face as the pace of change in the job market indiscriminately roars along. Once in America workers found a cherished profession to serve as a backbone of  their security and integrity, supporting a productive fulfilled life. Now in many areas of employment a few years of high stress wages leave half of the workers sucked of enthusiasm for life and unable to adapt for the rest of their lives to the fickle economy and job market. Loss of personal integrity, self esteem and joie de vivre cause social, family and economic problems

Assuming the job market is an impersonal economic force, not directed by the will of God in matching employees and vocations, what is the significance to individuals of the rapid pace of change in the job market under our current economic system? God's only role these days in the job market is to be burdened through his churches to pick up the pieces caused by un and under employment,
and stresses to the family and community of widespread macro economic problems.

It is impolite to say this.  It seems to this observer that most of the job fields that today's young people spend thousands of dollars to educate themselves for won't be able to support all the people who have chosen to educate themselves in said job field. More and more college students borrow money to find a lucrative and self fulfilling job that will soon be obsolete or over crowed with incoming workers. No one can accurately predict beyond a few years which job fields will become obsolete or saturated in workers because of changes in technology or taste among consumers in the market place. Because of the rapid pace of change in aggregate the job market runs undirected to human motivation. Yet these aggregate college students are the individuals we love and cherish most. Who will shelter them from a hostile marketplace, what invisible hands will guide and shelter them?

Employers no longer feel paternalistic in any way toward their workers. Most workers are just a factor of production to companies. Valued when scarce and abused by the marketplace when common. Today's employee must expect several job and career changes that are impossible in advance to predict or foresee. By temperament most employees are not up to this challenge.

At some time in their career most people end up for a while as a salesman. Cars sales, insurance or water softeners sales provide temporary high stress wages to many job seekers, Most of us fail at these difficult job, we fail when our small circle of contacts is exhausted. We fail because we do not have the temperament and psychological skills and the achievement drive to sell. Are people born to sell or is it a skill that can be learned?

Any one can sell for a while. However, day to day and Friday to Friday meeting it is hardly a career to wish on someone. It's easy to train to be a mediocre salesman. It's more difficult to stay properly motivated to sell. To sell and face the rejection of the day to day job takes grit. Grit cannot be acquired, it is inside those who have it. They did nothing to deserve or acquire it. It was given to themselves. Some temperaments are more helpful than others in acquiring material success and comforts. Other temperaments are better suited to other purposes.

Our temperament is divine in origin, mysterious and sacred. What temperament would we order at birth if we could?

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Carmen Electra have you found me?

Carmen Electra have you found me?

see previous two posts, but this will still be confusing

fiction
edward w Pritchard

Google has really zeroed in on finding the real me. Using profiling of my viewing habits and preferences Google is trying to identify me from the at least 2,874 other ed, Edward or Asam Pritchard's using you tube without signing in. Google has even used Facebook trying to profile me . For you stock market investors there is a good stock tip for later - Google acquires face book. But I digress. Who am I to not let Google know exactly who I am?

I write to become known. If I become well known through my blog writing Carmen Electra will notice me and call me. Google is the vehicle acting as a conduit to make me known to Carmen Electra. If I am famous I can talk to Carmen Electra rather than just watch her dance dressed up in costume like a cat over and over on you tube. Google feels I should use their recommendations and face book and twitter to get to know the real Carmen Electra as a person rather than just watch her move subtlety around, over and over, me watching and me having carnal thoughts. Google feels relationships work better if you know the other party and they at least, as a minimum know and acknowledge you exist.

I'll try and listen to and follow Google's  recommendations and help outs. I suppose they know best. In the meantime Carmen Electra have you found me yet?

PS- I would post Carmen's picture in that red cat's costume but it might be a copyright infringement on Google Images, look for yourself if so inclined. She sways in some remarkable ways..
end

Carmen Electra; help outs from Google

Carmen Electra; help outs from Google

see previous post Carmen Electra and Heather Graham... for continuity

fiction
edward w pritchard

Without admitting guilt for monitoring and profiling my online viewing habits, Google has decided rather than using their considerable wealth and clout to destroy me they will help me. Google has offered me help outs from Google. Help outs from Google is a service where other Google patrons advise someone such as me who has been deemed sad, lonely, pathetic and down and out and give them a complimentary psychological makeover.

I have began to watch the videos Google recommends on the side of you tube after I enjoy the original selection of my own choosing. As example if I choose to listen to " Blue Christmas without you" Google help outs will automatically recommend " Love the one your with". Good advice perhaps but not especially romantic.

Still, I have been trying to follow Google's recommendations to integrate my tired soul and refresh my sagging attitude. I'll do anything to be in the good graces of Carmen Electra again. If you are one of my few readers you will know how much I enjoy watching Carmen Electra when she performs in red cat costume at Christmas time with the Pussy Cat Dolls singing and can-can dancing to "Blue Christmas". Perhaps Google is right I have been watching Carmen Electra a little too much. They keep recommending I listen to Lesley Gore on you tube sing "You don't own me". I understand a lot of the videos we viewers watch on you tube are really pirated. Maybe, but I watched Lesley Gore sing "California Nights" from the Batman series recently, Lesley was in a pink Cat suit. I liked what I saw but I understand that she might be alternate lifestyle. All the better, if Google tells Carmen Electra I have been watching Lesley Gore maybe Carmen Electra won't get jealous like she did when I watched Heather Graham more than once on you tube.

Friday, November 8, 2013

Carmen Electra and Heather Graham; the secret police, circa 2013

Carmen Electra and Heather Graham; the secret police, circa 2013

fiction
edward w Pritchard

I have Google for gmail, blog, and you tube. Google has been monitoring and disbursing my viewing habits and preferences. I have indisputable truth.

Carmen Electra has found out that I have been watching videos of Heather Graham on you tube. How else would Carmen know if not for Google spying on me? Now Carmen won't speak to me or contact me; Carmen acts like she doesn't know I am alive. I have been shunned.

Google might have gone too far this time.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

melancholy dancer/ part 2

melancholy dancer/ part 2

fiction
edward w pritchard




Smile, it's removed

swing your partner, look away their gone, dance on fair flatfoot

inundated orgiastic frenzy

propinquity as one hand clapping

all you love, you loved alone

a dream in a dream

a whisper into the well of innocent melancholy

purple passion pledged

response palinode [1]

maintain your stone hedge of sorrow

be sad, it makes you happy

your pyramid endures
end

[1] as in to retract previous amorous proclamations






any one can break a stained glass window, but it's impossible to put back together

any one can break a stained glass window, but it's impossible to put back together

another metaphor about something or other

fiction
edward w pritchard



Any one can break a stained glass window, but it's impossible to put back together. Sharp shimmering shards of stiff broken glass are hard to reassemble and if the broken pieces and chunks of glass and sand can meticulously be rejoined the fissures are obviously visual and spoil the divine effect. Only a master craftsman can conceive and create a stained window to hang above and enclose a temporal  abode of God.

Sometimes an inspiring ethereal shimmering stained glass window is destroyed by war, earthquake, civil unrest or decay of the supporting structure. It's impossible to properly rejoin a stained glass window.

Another window must be conceived and created to repair a broken stained glass window; the theme of the original window may be honored by being recreate anew. Only a master craftsman can conceive and create a new stained window to hang above and enclose a divine abode of God.

God's brilliant light shines subtly in, out and through a recreated pilgrim's shining eyes revealing the eternal soul yearning to rejoin the divine cosmic entirety.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

wretched profession

wretched profession

fiction
edward w pritchard

Some people hate bill collectors, everyone picks at lawyers and dentists, but the most hated professionals are in my line of work, DNA miners. We locate and find the graves of soldiers untimely killed in battle and harvest and mine DNA samples for post living reunion conversion with their bona-fide wives and sweethearts. DNA samples are also mined in various ways from the wives and sweet hearts should they have passed on. We close the loop, as required by law, we insure that all DNA unions that should have occurred have a chance to blossom. It completes the gene pool for future generations.

Maybe we are hated because of the uniforms we are required to wear. Purple is a scary color to see moving about carrying shovels in a grave yard. We wear purple uniforms as required by ancient laws to warn bystanders of possible infection risk due to plague or deadly viruses. Of course  most of the risk is gone now because of the use of dousing sprays.

The money is good in my line of work and no advanced degrees are required to get started. It's manual labor basically, being a DNA miner, but it's a living and a young man is not saddled with a large pile of student loan debt incurred before he can become productive. All in all DNA mining is good honest work. It pays the bills

morning in a city neighborhood disrupted by an arrest

morning in a city neighborhood disrupted by an arrest

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

Have you ever witnessed? In a small store I had ventured to buy flour for cooking and vitamins for my sore back. Two or three boys started to argue with the owner. The owner of the store used the shout box to summon drone security. After that everything happened in slow motion.

Outside the store I tried to hurry to my house. Maybe forty-five seconds had elapsed since the drone security patrol was called. The owner of the store put on a yellow asbestos blanket, looped his arms through the slots and pulled the orange hood over his head and waited outside the front door of his store kneeling per protocol. Across the street an old lady was slowly crossing her yard to get the mail. The boys who caused the commotion in the store joined three or four others youths and strolled toward the intersection. One minute had elapsed. The gang went in the Murphy house.

My chest was tight and constricted as I tried to hurry. I knew what was coming. As soon as the neighborhood dwellers saw the store owner in the yellow suit they began to disperse rapidly, some went in doors but most of the older people bowed in the safe position. The drones will not assault humans in the kneeling or bowed safe position. I can't hunch over, bad knees. I continued dragging along South, a bad left leg. My house is four doors down from Friendly Market. I was unsure if I should drop my cane, robotic units may use force against anyone in a riot area with a weapon.

The lady getting her mail was singing to herself. She was middle aged and attractive. As I thought to myself policemen like pretty girls at that same moment I saw the artificial intelligence drone 54 unit enter the lady who was getting her mail's side door. The drone busted down the side door with a loud crash and in an instant came bursting through the front wall and windows of the small house and grabbed the terrified woman. Using standard idiomic diction the robotic unit read the standard familiar Ohio riot act decree to our neighborhood very loudly as he dangled the limp woman in the air. The volume of the screaming policeman as it shouted was deafening. I could see the terror in the woman's face as the officer held her over his head with one arm while he held in his other robotic arm the siege and capture manual dutifully reading the riot act. Two minutes had occurred since the robbery. I crossed my arms in an X across my face in the normal witness procedure and the silver iron robot dropped the woman gently and faced me. I pointed three times as required by ordinance to the direction the gang of boys had went and held up six fingers to indicate the number in the gang. Within twenty five seconds the robotic unit crashed through the front windows of the Murphy's house and came down the steps holding Nathan Murphy over head. Nathan had fainted I saw. The other boys in Nathan's house were sprinting down the alley behind Murphy's house.

Seven minutes later Friendly market reopened for business. Neighborhood repair central was repairing the lady's house who had been getting the mail, no charge but the Murphy's will have to pay for the repairs to their property mostly completed already by the robotic construction crew.

My first time of witnessing was very exciting. Unfortunately since no one was killed or maimed in the arrest there was no television coverage so my son and daughter couldn't see me on the news that night.One of the Murphy boys brought me back my cane, everyone else was afraid to move evidence; those Murphy boys aren't really bad kids, there a lot like we were back in the day.

Alone in my tent

Alone in my tent

repost/ edit

fiction
edward w Pritchard



Life is difficult when you are alone. It's worse when you want to be somewhere else and you can't be there and the worst of all situations is when you can't be with the one you love.

This story is a metaphor using a soldier's situation in World War two to describe what it's like to be away from the one you Love.

start:

World War Two was awful and being in the army was just all around bad. Every day your friends die, not in any pattern just here and there, now and then. Some just get wounded and that's worse.

Eventually you decide not to have friends. Usually by the time you decide not to have friends anymore all of your good friends are gone anyway. Some other soldiers, as their coping mechanism to survive WW2, decide to make it their philosophy to need friends, so you still know other people, some of whom are going to die or be wounded, maybe yourself. Either way your good friends are gone.

The foods not much in the Army, even for us poor folks but you enjoy meals sometimes, and then life is not that bad for a time. For a few minutes eating decent food or drinking good beer can be enjoyable and significant. Of course you remember how much better it was when your good friend was around to share times like this with you.

Nature is good, woods and stars at night and darting winds through straining trees in Spring or dropping leaves in the Fall. You get to travel from battle to battle but there's always the war lurking in the background. The War is always just over the next hill. You are alone and your loved one is gone. Home is gone too, no longer real or possible. No place or no time feels like Home to you when your loved one is gone. Everything that happens is drenched in memories of things that are now gone.

The only good thing is when you are in your own tent. After supper. Your fellow soldiers are on guard duty and they will be in their tents after while, in a few hours, and all us lonely soldiers work and plan very hard to make it so when one of us is in their tent they are safe, as safe as one can be in the army in the War. When you are in your own tent you have sanctuary for a few moments.

When we get somewhere and I must put up my tent I always follow the same exact ritualistic procedure. I take lighter fluid and burn off the grasses and weeds, to clear the rocky ground and to kill and drive away all flying or crawling insects. I find the best spot to place my tent I can, not wet or sloping and away from trees with some kind of comforting views for coming and goings. Then I put down something for a ground cloth, if available. When you sleep alone it's intolerable to sleep on the cold hard ground. Then I have my tent face the appropriate direction depending on too many factors to list. When my sleeping place is all ready I put my personal stuff in there including my loaded rifle, I don't want to die without being ready, prepared to fight right to the end. I also feel I am duty bound to help and protect  my fellow soldiers, even ones I don't know. Sometimes it seems like I don't know anyone anymore.

Then at last I get in my tent, bravely turn my eyes from the opening and gradually drop off to sudden sleep for about 35 minutes. I always wake up worrying and anxious about the enemy or aggressive toward the world according to what's appropriate based on what I fear might happen next. However, those 35 minutes, timeless minutes when I am very tired and exhausted and instantly slip into a deep sleep are the best part about being alone in the Army.

While I sleep I always dream and dream of my lost friend. It's like I am the Poet Dante traveling through Hell without my Muse beautiful Beatrice to guide me. After I wake up, usually at 3AM I write metaphorical stories about my lost friend and how I feel to be alone. Sometimes I wonder if the Beatrice I remember ever really existed at all. In either case I lay in my tent alone and try to find significance for the next day. First light will appear in three or four hours so in the meantime I sit here and let my mind wander. As my mind wanders it creates it's world and reality based on the sounds and thumps of me being alone in the dark night.