Writer • Musician
Hope and fear have outlined the political discourse since the beginnings of modern democracy. The actors are compelled to either fight for something or to fight against something, and this leads to campaigns that are either optimistic for what we can obtain, or fearful of that which are trying to avoid. At no time has …
Continue reading "Drop Your Pitchforks and Raise Your Glass. Political Parties are No More."
There was a time that when I'd think of my mother and my father, I would see a great life divide that illustrated perfectly the divide within my own mind; and one afternoon it greeted me in raw earthly form across the expanse of West Texas, that region which begins for me just a few …
Continue reading "Oh Texas, oh great American lands. To the mothers and the moon."
Was about to work on the keys but it looks as though I am not allowed. I went to straighten some name issues with SAG, which brings me to this atrium-like cafe on Wilshire and all I can think of is how I need to make it here more, for the sidewalks are as packed …
Continue reading "Coltrane and daylight flights over crystal oceans"
I wanna put you in a dinner dress, get you looking like an Italian woman in the countryside. Living off the vine. The dress will fall to just below your knees And against the rural wall you'll lean, Passioned and endearing, smiling at me And you'll wear no shoes. The dress is delicate and thinly …
Thoughts, feelings return in the chatter and laughter the sacred warmth of the night hereafter Living in a drought, staring at the reservoir holding back pain A circling force the invisible rain Still beneath the toasty smoke she skips, The oblivious child watched by her elder brother so loving as coffee's roasting and the patrons …
But enough about that. Man, I am already feeling a new rush coming on. It's late in the morning and late in May. For the past two months things have been a little in the dark, but we'll see how things go from here. The greatest peak in this period of time, the moment in …
Richard Nixon was not a bad man. He was a man. He wanted to be loved, and they all want to be loved. He just got caught, and so he payed for it. There's a thread of the main intrigue for me. They all go into it with such optimism only to come out beaten …
Continue reading "Leaders and Lions in the Arena of Love and Fear"
Oscar Wilde writes this morning in the preface that art is a rather useless thing, but let me put in context. He says that we can forgive a man for making something useful as long as he does not admire it, just like we can forgive a man for making a useless thing if he …
After searching endlessly for a spot in the ocean of a parking lot and joining the hundred or so other people who had parked illegally, I trekked over to the amphitheater. Carnival lights began to rise before the setting sun as the masses gathered before the entrance. I saw steam rising from inside, and only …
The Miami Heat got the living piss kicked out of them by what is being hailed as the new ‘America’s Team’, the Dallas Mavericks. Why are they hailed as such? Because the Mavericks defeated what eventually rose in the mind of society as an unbeatable, obnoxiously inflated and ego-driven giant of a sports team--a living …
Continue reading "The Case for the Miami Heat, the NBA’s Whipping Boy."
She dances in dim lamplight, Hair a lovely wave Smoke in the clubroom, And thoughts evaporate in a soft and strung-out daze. Did you turn to me? They call you and spit your name Think I'd provide any more than the same? Well there's nothing I can say, though you may take me from my last …
Yesterday I realized that I’d missed Bob Dylan’s birthday. What do I mean by ‘missed’? Don’t know. I guess I didn’t get to stand back in reflection and think about him for a good five minutes or so. Play a song of his off my library or something. Just the idea of that strikes me …
Standing on a hill of greenAnd I stand alone.No people No Trees,No Rivers, LakesNo clouds in the sky.I am a nowhere manFor today.I am not sure how to feelOr what I am supposed to thinkAbout the dayThe nightsThe coming weeks and monthsThought I would stand steadyBut I thought I saw Feeling arrive over the distant …
I’m afraid of squishing a bug because I am always worried that it might be my grandfather reincarnated. Not that I believe he is not worthy of returning in any other earthly form. First, I don’t even know how the process works, if it is even true. If it is true, then I don’t see …
>"What do you look like?", he asks. There is nothing but static on the other end of the phone until he hears the voice whisper back softly. "It depends on who's looking." I've always been deeply interested in the unexplained, or more specifically, in the mysteries of the world that exist beyond the realm of …
Ren Michael 