Brooklyn Baby

This is the original first two pages from my second book titled..."Lionhearts". Although I liked it quite a lot, I felt it didn't tie in with the rest of the story so well. As a consequence, I edited it out. It's kind of like a mini short story in it's own right, I think. I hope you like it.

The music drifted around the room as Beth Turner hurriedly packed her belongings. The bedroom was in disarray, with boxes and bags of books and clothing scattered throughout.The early morning sunlight filtered through the partially opened curtains, highlighting dust particles in the air. She knew this day was coming and planned her getaway to coincide with him being away.

Him was Peter Channing. Beth's boyfriend for the past two years. They had shared this apartment on W. 70th Street in Manhattan, for almost a year. It was time for her to move on. They had grown apart, she thought. He was gone so often, they had hardly spoken to each other in the last two weeks as it was. Absence was not making the heart grow fonder. On the contrary, she saw things much clearer now and realized their relationship was not working. Her younger sister, Stacy, had invited Beth to live with her until she got on her feet again. She accepted and now was waiting for Stacy and her boyfriend to come by and make the move final.

"You going to take that picture?" asked Stacy, pointing to a rather large photograph of the Grand Canyon on the living room wall.

"I don't think so. It's Peter's and I think he would be upset if I took it." replied Beth.

"So who cares. You've always liked it. I'm just saying he owes you something. Just take it. He can have another made. God Beth, quit being so uptight."

"I don't think so..."

"Ryan... come lift this picture off the wall and put it in the truck, will ya?" Ryan walked up to the picture and started to pick it up.

"Uh, hey, I'm going to need some help over here, you guys. This son of a bitch is heavy."

"Honestly, you're such a weakling, Ryan." Stacy walked up to Ryan to give him a hand. "It's just awkward, that's all."

"Stacy... oh never mind." Beth said, as they hauled the picture out the door and down the hall.


Beth looked around the room for the last time. So many memories. Some good, some bad. It had all started so hopeful and this is how it ends, she thought. Escaping like thieves in the night. She figured she should write a note or something. She at least owed him that.

She sat down at the kitchen table, pen in hand. The late morning summer sun poured through the window, warming her face. But what to say? All she could think to say was, that she was sorry. On a sheet of paper, that she left in the middle of the table, she wrote... 'I'm sorry'. And left it at that.


Here's a hint... the music 'drifting around the room' is Lana Del Rey's "Brooklyn Baby". Check it out. Play it while reading the story for a complete experience.

Stay tuned.

Why I write

 A great quote from Gustave Flaubert---

"It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes. When I brood over these marvelous pleasures I have enjoyed, I would be tempted to offer God a prayer of thanks if I knew He could hear me. Praised may He be for not creating me a cotton merchant, a vaudevillian or a wit."

Announcement

As you can see, I have changed the title to my blog to reflect the new direction I will be taking. I have not been writing much on the blog, lately, because I've been writing fiction for the past year. I've written first drafts for two novels. I hope to have them published, eventually. Whether by the traditional route or self publishing, I haven't decided yet.

So with this "new direction", I will be more attentive to creating content for the blog as a way of keeping my creativity going. Look for the usual memoir stories now and again. I've got lots more to share. Also, I intend to share story ideas of fiction works in progress. Maybe even a snippet or two of my novels I've written or am in the middle of writing. Could be exciting. Also I'm thinking of doing reviews of books, movies and music that I've encountered along the way. More excitement. As always, you know the drill, stay tuned!

How I Saved Sears from Bankruptcy

Okay, maybe that's a little hyperbolic, but maybe not. I was in my local Sears store at the mall and as I was walking out, I noticed a spill of some substance that looked suspiciously like a milk shake. Right on the aisle way. Enough was spilled that if you weren't careful, you could easily have slipped on it with disastrous results. Especially considering all the metal and hard wood display equipment around. The resultant lawsuit, I argue, could put Sears over the top into bankruptcy, considering how poorly they've been doing financially lately. As I walked around trying to find an employee to warn them of the situation, I was amazed to find that there seemed to be hardly anyone working there. I counted three sales people working at registers and all of them busy at the moment. I waited patiently until the one was free to let her know of the spill, keeping an eye on the spill so no one would slip on it. She then told me she would call for a manager. I left thinking that I had done my good deed for the day and that maybe I just saved Sears from a fate worse than death-bankruptcy. Or maybe not. Also- was she calling the manager in the store somewhere or was she calling the manager at home?

I saw The Yardbirds at the Grande Ballroom or That's Not Jeff Beck!

Ok it's 1968. Detroit Michigan. It's May 3rd. I'm standing outside the Grande Ballroom ( we pronounced it Grandee ) looking at a playbill for the evenings performance that I had eagerly awaited. The Yardbirds! with special guests The Frost and some other group. But I was there to see The Yardbirds - one of my favorite groups. They were one of my favorite groups because Jeff Beck was their lead guitarist. I thought he was and still do the greatest guitarist around. So as I stood looking at the poster of a man with back lit frizzed out Bob Dylan/Jimi Hendrix hair I thought to myself which Yardbird is that? Well, it wasn't Keith Relf. Nor was it Chris Dreja. Could have been Jim McCarty maybe. Why would they use a picture of the drummer to represent the group though? That's how my mind worked in those younger days. Let's see who's left. Paul Samwell-Smith the bass player. Nah that wasn't him either. That left Jeff Beck. Well that's not Jeff Beck- the nose is all wrong. Hmm.  A side note. You have to understand the era. This was 1968. Even though the computer had been invented there was no Google or You Tube or any kind of instant communication to keep up with the news in the music business. Sure there were magazines about rock and roll but mostly teenybopper stuff. And it was all 3 months behind the actual happenings. So I had no idea of the personnel changes within the group. Anyway I'm in the Ballroom and what a time we had. Smoke, incense, purple haze and strobe lights. Darkened hallways, paisley, bellbottoms- man this was really the 60's wasn't it?  Suddenly The Yardbirds are on stage. Wait there are only 4 of them. What's going on? Yes Keith is still the singer/harmonica player. There's Jim on the drums but Chris is playing the bass? And wait a minute whose that playing guitar? That's not Jeff Beck! No it wasn't at all. But -- oh man I'll tell you what-- whoever it was sure knew how to play guitar! An amazing performance by the group. Although you could tell things were not quite right. Sometimes they looked a little tired to me. Keith sounded a little morose with the in between songs chatter. All in all  I left the building happy but wondering who that new guitarist was. It took some months later but I read that the young man's name was Jimmy Page! Of course later that year saw the birth of The New Yardbirds/ Led Zeppelin group. As much as I love Jeff Beck I have to admit it was Jimmy Page who inspired me to learn to play the guitar and his performance that night was spectacular. Stay Tuned.

Nothing Lasts Forever

Well it's been awhile since my last entry. New projects to work on, hard drive crashed you know things like that. No seriously I'm in a band now playing the guitar. Lotsa fun. We did Christmas -Holiday music in December. Of course I had to learn all the music most of which was on an acoustic guitar. I realized that it's a different technique than electric which I'm more used to. Still it was lots of fun. We are now rehearsing for more mainstream music in the lounge style or Mad Men tv show 60's style. Still more fun. Don't know if I can take all this fun. But I bet I can! Seriously my hard drive crashed did I say?  Yep last November it went kaput. My other hobby/profession is as a photographer and I had over a thousand photos on my hard drive. Well that's no problem Dave you say, surely you had them all backed up on an external hard drive, right? Right?   Well I took my iMac down to the mall where they have an Apple Store to get it checked out. They got this thing there called a genius bar. Not sure what that is supposed to mean. They had all these nerdy looking people behind it who I guess looked like geniuses. One of them told me he couldn't find anything on my hard drive. Like it was wiped clean. But not to fear there were people that could resurrect any lost data. For a price. Well I took it there and they did indeed find everything. Yes sir everything but my pictures. Very strange they said. You did they said back everything up on an external hard drive -right? Well- yes I did. Then just bring that in and we'll transfer everything to your new hard drive. I did and they did. Except there were no pictures there either. Curiouser and curiouser. So after much more work on my computer the bottom line is I lost those thousand plus pictures. A whole years worth of hard work in the fields literally so to speak. Flowers -remember. Anyway I've since been told by various people that all might not be lost yet. They could still yet be found if I just let them look at it. So we have our projects this Winter. You know really- this computer is only 4 years old. I told the genius guy that and said I thought these things last forever. He looked at me and smiled with a genius smile and said -"nothing lasts forever". Tell me about it--my brother who is 3 years younger just had his 2nd hip replaced. Jeesh.
Stay tuned.

"Drink lots of water"

I always wondered what a professional massage would be like so one time when a local masseuse had a sale I took advantage of one. Of course up till then I had friends and family practice on me to varying degrees of success but I was always curious what the real deal would be like. So it was with some excitement that I went one cold winter day to have a genuine massage.
I arrived on time and was led to a darkened room by a receptionist. The masseuse was a rather tall woman with exceptional muscle development. She instructed me to remove as much clothing as I was comfortable with. I asked what was usual for this and she said most people stripped down to their underwear and covered themselves with the blanket on the table. She left the room and so I disrobed and lay on the table with the blanket covering me. After a while she came back in and told me to lay on my stomach. She spent the next several minutes walking around the table poking and prodding various spots on my body. I thought this was unusual but I had never had a professional massage before so I had no idea. After a few moments she asked me what areas I would like to have work done on. Well I said my shoulders are always tense the back near my neck seemed tight and also my calves were always tightening up-- Stop she said. I could spend the whole hour on just one of your calves you are in terrible shape. What would you like me to do?  I was nonplussed. I don't know I said just do what you think would be good. So she spent the entire hour going from one spot to the next doing a little bit here and there. This was a deep tissue massage which I had no idea what that was. I found out. This was not my idea of a massage where you end up all relaxed. It felt like she beat the stuffing out of me. She left the room so I could dress. I felt woozy like I just went 15 rounds with her and lost. My muscles ached I felt worse than when I came. She entered the room and told me that to get me in normal shape I would have to come 3 times a week for a month and then taper off to once a week for several months and then at that point all I would need to do is come when needed. This would cost a fortune I thought. How did I ever get in such bad shape I wondered. As  I contemplated this staggering to the door she spoke in a stern voice. Now don't forget drink lots of water. What ? She repeated drink lots of water. I just released  a lot of toxins into your system that you need to flush out. If you don't you can damage your kidneys. Great! Not only do I ache all over and walk with a limp I never had but now I have to worry about drinking enough water so I don't get kidney damage. Wonderful. I never went back.
Stay tuned.