REPOST from SARAH VZ

READ BELOW. WE SHOULD ALL PAINT OUR NAILS!

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Work sucked and my allergies are killing me, so this week's HNT is late and brief!

We found out last week the Doctor's cousin has an large, ugly tumor in her stomach region. Not fun. Her family, however, has shown tremendous love and support and a terrific outlook. I admire a clan who can stick together and see the positive.

One of their, I must say quirky, ways to show support was not only naming the tumor, Toby, but by also starting the trend of "Toby-Terminating Teal" nail polish. The whole family, including the males, has painted their nails, at least for a brief moment, and sent a picture showing the cousin that she's cared for.

So here's my support to the family that I've wiggled my way into:


This actually shows a lot of support since I hate my toes.

I really just hate feet in general.

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The polish is: Wet n' Wild Caribbean Frost. Available at Walgreens!

Paint your nails, send me a picture at tony_persons@hotmail.com, I will forward it on to Sarah who will forward it on to her boyfriend's cousin! Do it! I dare you!

Read more of Sarah's blogs at http://sarahvz.blogspot.com/

AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1)

Here is a part 1 of a long poem in progress:

Incense ash hanging by a thread like umbilical cord – dancing silk wafts of smoke reaching down in rhythm to my tea cup steaming – Chinese Black Tea – cha – window shade open to let in grey shine of fog in winter January – like a black & white movie the colors of the pine and shrubs are dulled. No blue no sun no movement except for the dancing plumes of this incense stick as it burns down over skull dish. Beautiful smoke designs like expensive fabric in high winds, or a flag on high staff with a light shining up from the ground. I remember sitting at the breakfast counter on vacation in LA at the home of family friends and watching their cigarette smoke swim around hair and head in the air lingering making rivers of smoke currents – hanging streams. This incense the same, but much more pleasant aroma. It dances just the same, but does it have the same ill effects? It doesn’t matter really. This vision it conjures up is a pleasant one. Cats in the house, and comfortable chairs and a pool table on the screened-in porch – game after game of pool to the tunes of The Doors – LA Woman – and BBQ Weber Grill and steaks – always good food, good laughs, good TV, good times with Disneyland just down the way - we always paid it a visit – two birds . . . Mickey Mouse and the Matterhorn and Tomorrow Land. I was born in LA – Huntington Beach – with pier and sand and surfboard shops on old downtown strip – bikinis and skin and broken sand-dollars along the shore. Wave one after the other moving in and taking the beach out with it – 1969 – October. Month of Halloween howls and goblins – trick-or-treat is my favorite holiday with vampire bats into blood sucking monsters and werewolves that slash the hearts out of pure innocent angels out knocking door-to-door looking for free candy handouts. I like Halloween – it’s my favorite holiday. Huntington Beach we lived on the corner of Main in the corner house next to the corner mortuary where my old man worked – 625 Main Street – a yellow place with porch and windows and neighbors on all sides – dead neighbors on one side but neighbors just the same. I stubbed my toe in vacant lot across the street – lost the nail – OUCH – and sat on kitchen counter crying while mother snipped off the hanging part. Blond hair kid left in walker and then filmed on 16MM – home movies – “You loved that chair,” my mother saying as we sit around watching the funny looking kid staring blank at the camera in the front yard while world spins and days become night – we laugh – brother and sister laugh. I was born in 1969 in Huntington Beach. I was very young. Just a kid – not even in school yet, but there was a bus for that – a bus for a kindergartner. The house on the corner is gone now – torn down and leveled for parking lot spaces for the dead relative family and friends. One needs to park once in a while. People die – check out – fall asleep forever. 2 hour parking – quiet please the dead are trying to nap until the resurrection of the body. Corner cleared and paved over and lines of battle drawn – painted in white with several blue Reserved slots for our handicapped brothers and sisters. Now visits south with family friends ever once in a while – been six years or more since I’ve been there for pool and darts and cribbage. Too long between . . . too long . . . gotta get back and feel the surf crash into my legs my shins soak me – out on the horizon always a tanker carrying zillions of gallons of crude – back and forth along the hazy horizon disturbing the sunset scene all orange glow and sizzle as the sun goes out. West Coast night hand-in-hand walk footprints washed away.

Winter January cold – stuffed up sinus – coughing that destroys the voice box quality. My eyes hurt. Sick Sick Sick. Sleep would cure me but it don’t come easy – toss and turn so much to do but don’t want to do any of it – want to read and paint and write and walk and nothing else – sex too in afternoon romp // these would cure me but my mind and body are weak like my legs were weak in 1987 ailment that left me stretched out on living room couch in muscle pain cramps – unable to move about freely / unable to stand on tippy-toes / limping from couch to bathroom and back for months – staggering up to receive high school diploma in June – summer and vacation and abduction into alien craft in Idaho mountains – or Montana? – Hungry Horse Reservoir and the Lost Johnny Trail up slope (I couldn’t make it) and lost memory (and time?) unconfirmed. Years later I couldn’t remember ever being there. Was I there? Yes sir/ pictures prove that but I’m missing the memory of it. A vague remembrance of standing knee deep in icy chill water as other fish, but how much of that is picture memory? How much is authentic? O the silver craft that carried me away – its lights blinding and the metallic walls cold around me – Pitter-patter footsteps and big eyes looking down on me lying there exposed. Did we play cards? Did I teach them the magic of cribbage? Search out scrabble words in a jumble of tiles? What happened to me there? Was there the classic anal probe? Or the drill bit into the eye and tubes from above into the stomach for research? What did they want with me? The animals / the creatures of space that spit me out ill and alone on the Lost Johnny / so many years ago. This is my autobiography – where is it coming from? Movie? Book? Authentic memory? My god-forsaken imagination? None of it really matters. What matters is the rain – the snow and rain that falls onto the pavement and into the gutter and down the drain and into holding areas and back up into the sky and all over again. It has snowed in the valley before – but first snow was Roswell snow – O no back to the aliens again – winter 1982 – New Mexico – land where my father searched for a new life and took us with him. Not much good out of desert dwelling back then but the winter. White drifts of soft white ½ a foot deep falling in flurry blizzard – school closed and tree branches iced over – bitter frost to the bone cold – snowballs, snowman, snowflakes, snowplows, snowdrifts, and icicles. Icicles – swords – frozen blades hanging from roofs edge and tree limbs.

Looking out the back window of the laundry – converted to a Rock & Roll den – an escape place with tunes cranked and whirling cycle of the dryer keeping beat and keeping the cinderblock cave warm. It was a room off the garage, off the kitchen, off the dining room, off the living room, off the hall, off my bedroom shared that I shared with my country music loving brother – a large poster of Willie Nelson looking out over the room, keeping watch, making sure the walls were not poisoned with images of heavy metal GODS – AC/DC – red light image of Angus Young – his head a blur – his Gibson SG soaked. Willie watched out and made sure the room was kept pure – kept the devil in the laundry room where he belonged. Outside the window white, a blanket stretched out over yards shared – a community? – we never saw a neighbor one that I remember – so a blanket white reaching, virgin, untouched, no sex for me, lost in adolescence – snow like aerobic workout bodies stretching, reaching, falling, moving to the music of winter. It was so cold. The walk to the bus stop for our trip into school seemed a million miles – feet frozen thru only a few feet from the door. Slushy ice gutters and silent cars moving on to work. We threw rocks into the trees to cause a crash of ice – a frozen waterfall of ice crashing down, burying itself in the snow. Tree after tree crashing just the same. It was a long walk to the bus stop. To school – middle school – a long halled school that was alien to a native Californian – they had corporal punishment policies for crying out loud – foreigner with VANS tennis shoes and OP t-shirts who had never touched a surfboard in his life – a Valley boy growing up 3 hours from anywhere but they didn’t know that, they didn’t know. Every door opened to the ocean, every address was Los Angeles – bikini babes with blond hair and an appetite for going down as babysitters/or girlfriends/ or slutty pick-ups. “What do you mean you have never had a piece of ass? You’re from California ain’t ya?” Let’s Party! Surf’s Up, Dudes!

I grew up in the Valley. Sunsets made orange red burnt by dust. O but they burn. I still see it. I’m still here! The Valley holds you. We were one year gone, only to be pulled back by the curse. Is it a curse though? 99 a blood vein that is so much a part of me it will never clog. The smell of onions through Atwater have never faltered, never weakened. The shit smell of my home town, Turlock, has grown worse – I step on the gas and fly past the Lander and West Main exits. More people, more houses, more strip malls and Wal-Mart’s, but still so much a part I can not deny it’s place. One year gone – away – taken by the alien existence to another planet – I’ve written of it before. Only one year then back to the old house, the old realm, the old address – 433 South Laurel – two blocks off Lander at the 711, across from the Exxon station and a stones throw from Glen’s Liquor with it’s racks of every porn magazine imaginable. The Valley. The Valley. The Valley. I live here still.

DUDES WHO WRITE THE WORLD

There are no words for these writers......

I could go on and on and on and....

BUBBLES ARE MAGIC

Bubbles make me smile. The solution is a mixture of oily rainbow colors stretched across round wand tips, moving in a psychedelic light show. Breeze from nature or mouth expands the slick, threatening to snap, but it doesn't. I grows, billows out until it lets go and drifts with the air of our atmosphere. We chase them, reach for them, try to catch them, pop them, eat them. For a moment in time we are innocent and on a quest. We are children regardless of age.

Grace had a bubble party for her birthday. Bubble technology has improved. Now there are bubble machines that pump out 5000 bubbles a minute. I bought one of these machines. I hooked it up and turned it on. Our yard was engulfed in magical bubbles. The children that came to the party were running around, screaming at the top of their lungs as they ran through this cloud of dancing soap suds. I bought a variety of personal bubble making devices as well: wands, gadgets, fans, sticks, and guns. It was AWESOME! Everyone was laughing and squealing and enjoying each other.

Magic. Wonder. Bubbles. Love. Cake.

A REVIEW FROM DODGER-CHASER

This is a movie review from my buddy, Dodger. In regards to the new STONES flick, his words are my words exactly!


SHINE A LIGHT

Papa-T & I just went and saw Martin Scorsese's Shine A Light documentary on the Rolling Stones at IMAX. It was a total blast. I also bought the two disc soundtrack (even though I own every album the band has made). Even though I've seen the band live (1994), it was a worthwhile experience.

It was filmed about a year ago in a fairly small theater (New York's BEACON THEATRE) to an audience of about 3,000 (quite a small venue for a band that usually only plays for 30,000 plus). This made for much better sound quality than their usual stadium shows. The show was some sort of fundraiser for global warming awareness or some such environmental concerns, and Bill Clinton introduced the band (that man is the essence of politician charisma in a down to earth way).

The downside to filming at a political fundraiser is that most of the audience members are middle aged suit and tie wearing country club liberal types who applaud at the end of each song as if they just witnessed Tiger Woods make par on the 11th hole at the Buick Invitational. But the film's producer appears to try to make up for this by putting all hot young skimpily clothed chicks in the front row.

The film's highlights are three guest appearances. Jagger's duet with Jack White on Loving Cup and with Buddy Guy on Champagne and Refer were vintage. When I found out that Christina Aguilera was going to sing on my all-time favorite Stone's song, Live With Me, I thought the tune would be ruined. Much to my surprise it was the highlight of the show.

It's also nice to finally have a version of Some Girls that I can play in public without the dreaded reference to what black girls want to do all night long. The best songs were the hidden gems from Let It Bleed and Exile On Main street that haven't been overplayed by DJ's during the last 35 years. My only criticism of the film is that a few of the songs played from the Some Girls album lacked the cocky playfulness they had from the original studio recordings. Far Away Eyes sounds flat and lifeless. Also, Keith Richard's vocals were showcased on the mediocre track Connection. Though not the best singer, he has done much better songs over the years (such as Little T&A which was included in the expanded two disc soundtrack) that would have fit into this film much better.

I have listed some songs I recommend for download. Though every song is great, the songs I recommend for download are the ones in which the live versions captures a quality not present on the studio original - each of which you may have heard hundreds of times already.


4 STARS

Recommended Downloads: She Was Hot, All Down The Line, Loving Cup, Champagne and Reefer, Live With Me, Shine A Light.

DYLAN SCHEME TO A FUNK BEAT

Sitting in an all day meeting yesterday, I thought maybe I would be able to scratch out a verse or two...maybe a chorus to the next #1 Rock & Roll hit. Not a chance. The best I could do was a couple bad lines. Nothing to get excited about. In a field of clover near the white cliffs of Dover. UGH. I haven't been able to write anything worth using lately. She was a blond haired bimbo with an insatiable libido.

Dylan is a real songwriter. So many hits, so many perfect rhyms. I have always been a fan and have always wondered what it would be like to write something on par with what he would scribble out. It'll never happen, but I could play the game. I could rip him off, or at least rip off one of his schemes. My favorite song has got to be It's Alright Ma (I'm only Bleeding)

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Five rhyming lines with a sixth line kick

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece, The hollow horn
plays wasted words, Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.

The sixth lines rhym. Nice. Easy.

But mine will be a funk jam....

KEEP FROM DYING

Every other shiny coach a celebrity sits in style
Chauffeured home to a sea cliff thrown made of gold and silver tile
Face-to-face with the average joe, cars crawl from mile-to-mile
An Oscar winner, a blond haired starlet, both with a working file
Paparazzi push and shove for a picture of a painted smile
That wonders how the world will keep from dying

The go-go dancer needs to stay upon her neon box
In painted shorts and halter top, she is a seductive fox
Between each crazy mixed up tune, she has no time to talk
It never once occurred to her that she had the right to walk
Come morning light she sits alone on the deserted boating docks
And wonders how the world will keep from dying

Bossman executive in a high rise corner suite
Looking at the city lights from a patten leather seat
Sippin' gin martini buzzin' while a tiny little Asian lady rubs his feet
To carry a nation on a dollar bill is his music with a beat
His social welfare program is a beggar man's meat
That will keep the world from dying

A drunkard sits and contemplates the essence of his grief
With every bottle and every shot the bartender brings relief
There was a time when life was good but those days are short and brief
There are angels watching over us, this his one and only belief
All that was is found in the velvet lined pocket of a lifelong thief
Who is stealing all that'll keep the world from dying.

In a room of broken bottle tears you made an awful fuss
I couldn't find a comforting word so all I did was cuss
We drove together in awkward shame for you to catch a bus
I stood alone as you pulled away, it all settled back to dust
Go get yourself together, babe, and the we will deal with us
And do what we can to keep the world from dying


OK.....maybe not so easy.