Tag: Rick Reilly
Frustrated
Take the good with the bad I suppose.
I’m about back where I was a year ago — or over a year ago at that. I am not quite able to go out and do stuff on my own but I am not a gimp anymore. I don’t want to be stcuk home all day and at the same time — it’s not like I can go out and do something.
I read an article by Rick Reilly about Lance Armstrong and then I listened to Max Cleland’s speech before John Kerry was introduced to the DNC and between both stories of overcoming — I felt like I was wasting what I have accomplished and what I can accomplsih. I’m ready to do again but I don’t know what. I am not totally read y to do again but I can’t just sit here and wait. Time won’t let me. I won’t let me for that matter. I’ve done too much waiting for the opportune time in my life for certain things as is.
Lightning does strike twice with me…. But waiting for it to hapen is getting really tiring, especially when I should be able to accomplish on my own.
Poetic Meanings — just found out
You know, I was just going through something or other on the web and I came across a little factoid that just hit me a certain way that made me laugh and think at the same time about a poem I wrote a few years ago (song Poem) and how true the lyric is, in a sad way…
The song-poem was Java Jungle which I wrote at Palm Harbor’s “Java Jungle” coffee shop years ago when I was still very much a lyricist and poet. The song is just rambling verse that makes sense to me and probably me alone in some of it’s meanings but has a little niftiness to itself… if you can find the rhyme scheme and what could have been the beat or what the music could have turned into with the song…
At any rate, I’m going to post the lyrics now – then I will tell you more about that “ironic and funny” little meaning I didn’t intend that I just found out about…
Sally-man say:
“Who led the way,
“Across the Great Red Sea?”
Way back,
The long way back,
Back home
Tell Mom and Dad
That I’m going mad
Sitting here on the porch
Deep toking’ a dead roach
Fabulon
And Mickey and Brand,
Across the great land
Living at the center of life
Metropolitan life
Ju-Ju-Ju-Ju-Juniper chaos,
Had a little seance
To find her kindred soul
(Only she’d be so bold)
Cold hard wind, yeah
It’s stained with sin, yeah
Only known as the doldrums
The silence hums
Play on
Easter day
Saint Jude’s Parade
Lennon Lad,
Lennon Lad,
Lennon Lad
The kingdom’s your to have
Silence abounds
© 1997 John P. Fontana
So what’s the big deal? Well, I could break down the meaning of each stanza and verse to you but some of it is boring and some of it – as I already alluded to — should make sense only to me (Mickey and Brand across the great land, for instance, is a reference to friends of mine who used to come down to be with family here in Florida, I would see them every summer).
The lyric that I found funny is one of the closing lines… I talk about Easter Day and St. Jude’s Parade and then make a reference to “Lennon Lad”. This is all talking about Julian Lennon. “Jude” being direct reference to “Hey, Jude” which was written by Paul McCartney for Julian during the time John Lennon was divorcing Cynthia Lennon.
The entire line was actually supposed to be reference to St. Crispian’s Day, I believe I had seen Renaissance Man not very long before I had written this poem and I was very fond of Shakespeare at the time after a year of his works being passed on to me through Ms. Ciccone at East Lake High School.
Well, St. Jude got worked in there and the reference to Julian was made — “The kingdom’s yours to have” and silence abounds… That’s saying that Julian could have easily followed John Lennon’s footsteps and gone to the top of Rock and Roll but failed to do so… Of course, Julian is still involved with music and still battles demons involved with his father and his childhood… That being said, there are reason the kingdom was never entirely inherited by him or by Sean Ono Lennon for that matter.
The ironic – funny twist that I keep making reference to is St. Jude. I didn’t know who St., Jude was nor did I ever think to find out… I just threw the name out there for the rhyme and for the reference (Jude, Jules, Julian) and only recently (reading another Rick Reilly article) found out who St. Jude is:
The Patron Saint of Lost causes.
So, Lennon Lad, the kingdom may be yours to have but from what the Java Jungle tells you, it’s a lost cause trying to inherit it…
The FAT of the Land
I’ve been putting off this journal entry – might be something I’ll put on the KilltheWeb.com blog in the future but I don’t know right now…
I was flipping through Sports Illustrated and it’s current issue with Mia Hamm on the cover and got to Rick Reilly’s Op/Ed piece that is stuck on the last page of the magazine. He started talking about kids and obesity problems and it started making me think of this whole weight issue that keeps coming up with Americans.
As my friend Keith from Calgary noted to me after his trip to Seattle — Americans are fat! The question is WHY are we fat? Looking at the world (and even the current political conditions in the US), it’s easy to see why we are obese.
Americans do not sacrifice when we come up with hardships, and the powers that be push that in order to gain extra support — don’t make sacrifices with things you love, keep doing it just as you did it and we’ll make do! What we’re making due with, however, is increased risk of heart disease, of heart attacks, and other health problems brought on by too much. It’s gluttony and it’s not just a food measure.
Anyone remember the current Energy Bill that Herr Dubya has tried pushing on America the last few years? Dick Cheney stumped for this bill early on and he talked about MORE, MORE, MORE when it came to producing energy. He didn’t talk about conserving energy, he didn’t talk about alternate means of energy (or if he did, he talked about how they were unrealistic). He just stressed the Republican preamble: Enjoy thing sto the fullest and lets deal with the problems only after they have screwed us to the moon.
Gluttony.
What happened to conservation? What happened to making sacrifices? I mean, we are footing a huge bill on a war in Iraq and we haven’t been asked to cut back in any way to make funding this farce any easier. In a hogwash move, instead of trying to find the money to fund this thing in Iraq, we’ve cut the amount of money the government has to play around with and started wracking up even MORE debt on our United States Credit Card.
At one point in the near future, creditors are going to demand their money and when it comes due — all hell will break loose.
We’re a fat nation because we don’t compromise, we don’t make shared sacrifices in order to do things as a country and achieve things… Instead we sit on our asses, watching NBC Must-See Thursday and wondering who else Rachel will end up fucking before the Series Finale this year. We don’t think of the people who can’t afford a TV – can’t afford health care, can’t afford a domicile (home or apartment), can’t afford health insurance… We don’t even WANT to think about it. We want what’s ours and don’t see the reason why we should let any of ours help their cause. That includes having our food or other things rationed off at wartime. We don’t sacrifice in times of trouble – we just keep going at the same rate. That’s how it’s been since the end of World War 2.
Here’s another example of the greed/glutton of America. Pinellas County, the county I live in in the Tampa Bay metro region, wants to raise the gasoline tax six cents in order to pay for new roads and road maintenance. How did people react? 70 people spoke and they all said no. How much would that tax be? 12 cents, total, on a gallon of gas. I know, with gas prices skyrocketing, having 6 cents added on to the current tax level seems like a stiff increase… but when you consider 6 additional cents in the grand scheme of things – it’s really sad to see that no one is willing to cough up just a few pennies more at the pump.
And this goes for everything in America — who wants to pay for schools when you can have a tax cut and have a few bucks more in your pocket? Who wants to pay for health care for others when it’s your own health that matters — and you never need to use your health care options anyway?? Who needs it? Who wants it? You need MORE of this and MORE of that and god damn it – you will get more.
America isn’t the land of the free and home of the brave any more — it’s the land of the greed and the home of the lame. Unless we take back America from the fat cats and special interest groups, the prophecies i have been reading are going to start coming true and things are going to get bleak — especially when Herr Dubya realizes god wasn’t on his side when he started wars.
