Several years back, I received an email out of the blue from a guy named Danny that read:

“Hello,I’m in Seattle for a conference, was at a bar and some woman came up and introduced herself…’Hi, Daniel, I’m….?’ I gave her a warm but confused look as I was pretty certain I’d never met her before.  She said…’Daniel I’m on your Facebook page I can’t believe you don’t remember me…you are Daniel House?’

So I checked you out today on your various online pages…Definitely a resemblance and looks like we both have August ’61 B-days…and of course have the same first name.”

A little more than a simple resemblance. I wrote back immediately:

“I looked at your pic, and the resemblance is really quite remarkable. Different mouth, but I swear our eyes and nose are almost exact. Do you remember who it was…The woman? If so, I’d love to drop her a note on FB…so strange – and awesome. What is your actual birthday? Wondering how many days apart we are.”

And he responded back (certain parts have been removed in the respect of privacy):

I can’t remember her name. Looked like she was in her late 20′s or early 30′s. No features that I can recall. The club is at Pine and Broadway and the band was Voyager 1…if you need/wanna do a brief life-role switch…I suppose we could trade some wardrobe…I make it to LA occasionally. Lived there from about ’88-91 and keep in touch with a couple of friends, x-fiancé and a couple of family members.”

So not only were we born in the same month in the same year, have (almost) the same first name, but he was seeing a band that I do in fact own at least one CD by, but he’s even lived in L.A. for a brief stint. It’s really the photo that got me. I felt that I was looking at a picture of me in some alternate universe…except that it was in Seattle, a city that I had lived in for over twenty years. Perhaps this is of interest to me and me alone, but the resemblance is more than a little striking. I do not think this sort of thing happens to everybody. Did I have a fraternal twin that nobody ever told me about?

I am the oldest of three grandsons on my mother’s side. Of the four of us, I was the one who was most interested in, and knowledgeable about art and art history at a fairly young age. By seven or eight, I was familiar with dozens of artists. Among my favorites were (and still are) Van Gogh, Klimt, Monet, Escher, Saul Steinberg, Rembrandt, Albrecht Durer, Renoir, and Henri Rousseau. I bring this up to provide context for the photo below and for the story about it.

I don’t know if I was eight or nine when this picture taken, but it was taken by my friend Chuck Gould, a contemporary of my father, and somebody I have known for the bulk of my life.

On this particular day, for reasons unknown, I decided that I was going to dress up as Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec. His art utterly fascinated me, as did the fact that his path as an artist started at about the same age that I was then. I started with grabbing an oversized jacket worn by one of the adults, something that would dwarf me, or at the very least come down to my knees. Next, I grabbed a fat black El Marko pen and proceeded to draw a beard, moustache and glasses. I was ready to present myself. The resultant conversation went something along the lines of this:

Ivory (my father’s girlfriend:)  “Oh my god, what did you do to yourself?”

Me: “I’m Toulouse-Lautrec! Whaddaya think?”

Ivory: “what did you use to draw on your face?”

Me (proudly): “I used this El Marko pen!”

“…But…isn’t that indelible?”

“‘Indelible’? What’s that?”

“It means that it won’t wash off your face!”

That was the day I learned what the word “indelible” meant.  I have never forgotten it, and indeed the mighty El Marko was just that. We spent a while trying to scrub what we could off, but for all intents and purposes, I got to be Toulouse-Lautrec for the better part of a week.

* * *

This image is included in a fantastic collection of photographs by Chuck from the Digger Archives. These photos are of particular excitement to me because they chronicle a world that my father was part of in the late sixties and into the early seventies….and by extension me.  I know or knew most of the people in these photos, so it’s really great seeing these photos all pulled together like this. From an historical perspective, this collection is perhaps one of the better visual records of activist hippy life in and around the scene that surrounded the Height back then….and of many of the Diggers.

Hello 2012. Your predecessor was not particular easy, so I hope that you are a bit friendlier in the changes and challenges that you present.

I have been thinking about the whole notion of New Year’s resolutions, and what they represent.  The New Year is a symbol of new beginnings; a fresh start with a clean slate. With that in mind it has always baffled me that the time-honored tradition the night before is to “Party like it’s 1999,” eat with gluttonous abandon and see how you trashed you can get on an assortment of various alcoholic beverages. Followed the next morning by…crawling out of bed and stumbling to the medicine cabinet to down 3 Ibuprofen in hopes that the pain will soon subside.

Don’t get me wrong: I love good food, and I enjoy drinking, however I’ve thought for years that the best way to start a new year with a fresh slate is to wake up on January 1st well-slept and refreshed, ready for a year full of new possibilities clear-headed and full of hope. Instead the majority of us start the New Year feeling about as shitty as we’ll feel all year. Honestly, this is not how I want to welcome a new chapter; I do not want to be spending the day nursing a hangover, eating greasy food and feeling like crap. Instead I prefer a quiet morning before anybody else is mulling about, taking in a crisp clear morning (if you live in SoCal anyway), drinking some tea, and spitting out some small creative nugget (like this blog post).

Now, about the resolutions themselves:  Mr. Opinionated Soap-box Guy has also always thought that the tradition of the New Year’s resolution is kind of ridiculous. Resolutions in general are a great thing, but the arbitrary marking of a New Year with the symbolic gesture of “How I am going to be better this year” is invariably doomed to failure. Goals and resolutions should be a constant part of the fabric of our day to day lives. We should always be looking to become better versions of ourselves, take stock in our shortcomings and discover better ways to live more principled lives. I don’t presume to suggest that I know what principles might work for you, but all of us have some internal compass that we live by, a picture of how we would like to engage with the world as we gain more perspective, balance and peace within ourselves.

I have some resolutions –they are the same ones I’ve been working on continuously, and will continue into 2012 (and further) until I feel that I have accomplished them sufficiently, or until they get pushed aside by something bigger. These are some of the ways that I hope to become a better version of myself:

• Leave the past behind and look towards the future
• Be a better listener
• Be less judgmental/be more accepting
• Avoid tension and stress whenever possible
• Avoid anger
• Be meditative
• Disengage when baited
• Stay focused and disciplined
• Smile
• Laugh
• Love

I woke up at 4:00 this morning and was not able to get back to sleep. I became preoccupied after reading the recent Boing Boing post by Xeni Jardin the night before describing her positive diagnosis for breast cancer. It is an honest and poignant piece. I think it was also brave to put it all out there for all to see, but then she may not think so. This is a woman who lives so much of her life digitally (seemingly in public), so maybe it just seemed like an obvious thing to do.

She and I have never met, although I have always wanted to: I’ve followed her in Wired and Boing Boing (one of the best blogs ever) for a number of years and have always enjoyed her posts and articles. She is a smart cookie with a sharp mind and a clear and unfettered perspective in her missives. She is also a music head, so that pretty nails it for me. I guess I have to admit that I have a little web/blogger crush (don’t worry @Xeni, I am not a stalker, I promise).

Her diagnosis piece hit me square between the eyes and left me feeling sad, frustrated and angry. Perhaps because it was so unexpected (like news of cancer ever is –unless the news comes from the mouth of a chronic smoker), but this was from a person who I do not know. Perhaps it is because I am in the middle of reading the intensely fascinating The Emperor of All Maladies, so talk of cancer is top of mind right now. Most likely though, is that it is still an emotionally sensitive topic, more than I had realized. I experienced the loss of an important person in my life to breast cancer less than a year ago and I still live with that weird sensation of disbelief, like it’s something that didn’t really happen –just a bad dream that continues to stick with me because it was so vivid and visceral.

This last few years though, I have begun to be confronted with the odd reality that many of my friends are (also) getting cancer and this disturbs me to no end. I lost another dear friend a couple of years ago to liver cancer. She was in her early ‘40s. Another friend of mine in Austin is undergoing chemo for her breast cancer diagnosis.  A friend who played in one of the bands on my old label informed me that he’s been dealing with pancreatic cancer while another friend from the old music biz has just finished her final round of chemo. Every one of these people are younger than I am and it just seems…abnormal ….as it does with Xeni. She is –I believe—41.  The probability of a positive diagnosis at this age is still statistically low, but it seems like I am witnessing more and more people dealing with this sort of news at earlier ages than they should be. Am I simply getting to an age in my life where this is just par for the course? I hope not. I will be thinking good thoughts that Xeni’s post from Dec.1 will indeed be the case: “There is a long road ahead and it leads to happiness and a cancer-free, long, healthy life.” For her and for my friends as well.

Take good care, you are loved by many.

I am a pretty sick lover of dogs; however I’ve only been a parent to a dog twice in my life. The first one was when I was eight years old. He was an Irish setter, and his name was “Branch.” Branch was a rich reddish brown – you know the color of a branch. Leave me alone – I was eight. Ok, so anyway, I loved that dog like any kid has ever loved another animal, so when he was “stolen,” my heart was broken, and I felt a pain like I’d never known in my life. The word “stolen” is in quotes because I’ve always suspected that Branch was in fact sold by my junkie mom and her junkie friends (another post for another time) so that they could get some quick cash to get high.

Branch was dumb as a rock but sweet as they come. My mom used to let him out in the morning to pee and what have you, and when she’d let him back in, he would have dumped the entire garbage can over so that he could dig through the trash in order to find the one treasure which he would sweetly leave on the foot of her bed as a gift, a token of his love and gratitude. My mom never had the heart to scold him for dumping the trashcan and spreading out the garbage across our back yard because the spirit of the thing was just so sweet…but over time my mom got more and more strung out and eventually Branch just disappeared that one afternoon in the hills of Berkeley…and was gone forever. I cried every day for at least three weeks, every night riding my bike with the banana seat as far as my legs would take me for an hour – sometimes two – everywhere calling out Branch’s name, screaming Branches name, tears streaming down my face the entire time, knowing that I’d never see him again but holding on to that thin glimmer of hope against all hope that just up this next street, he’d come bouncing out, tail wagging so excited to finally be reunited with the boy that loved a dog more than humanity ever knew to be possible.  It never happened, and eventually I stopped searching, and eventually I stopped calling out his name. It seemed that I ran out of tears, but a tiny part of my soul had been crushed and squeezed into a tiny black speck of resentment and hatred for the unfairness that the world throws at you just to spite your very existence – just to see how you’ll react. It’s got nothing to do with if you’ve been good or bad, it’s just a test; a little piece of glass in your yogurt that you only notice the moment after you’ve swallowed.

After that I had cats.

Cats are cool. Cats are independent: they don’t necessarily need you though. They love you on their terms, and if you’re not down with that, well…“whatever dude, I’m a cat – live with it.”

Fast-forward 30 or so years. I’m living in Seattle. I’ve been there for 20 plus years, way too long if I’m to be completely honest. I meet Patty. Things got serious. She moves in and eventually we moved to the City of Angels together in 2003…and she wants a dog. OK, I’m still a sick animal lover, that’s something that’s never really changed. I’ve always loved the doggies, but on some core injured inner-child level was never willing to allow myself to get another dog as that pain of losing Branch was still lurking in the recesses of my psyche.

But she said “I want a dog.”

And I said “ok.”

Upon arriving in Los Angeles, my quest was simple. It was not to find a dog. That is not how I typically proceed in life. The focus was that I needed to find the dog, and so it seemed that Pippa was presented to me…almost magically. I could bore you with that “everything happens for a reason” line that so incredibly annoys me, but I’ll spare you. I’ll just call it a strange form of alchemy, magic, or coincidence. Call it what you want, I don’t care. There she was, special, delightful, in the cage at the shelter, magical little 3 month old puppy amidst all the chaotic noise of the dozens of scared dogs barking, and the smell of piss and shit and fear, because these dogs have mostly been aware of other dogs they’ve been cage-mates with having been taken away to be euthanized. The thin sense of death hangs in the air, and the dogs understand that these people that come in and look at them are in essence their saviors; these are the people that will take them away from this horrible place and give the their life back, a life that is hanging by a thread, all for something that is has nothing to do with anything that they’ve ever done. There is a pureness to their life, and there is no consideration of spite or of malice. In this regard they are like children, and for many of us, they are our children.

Consider this: you are born in a litter with a bunch of other pups. You are born into some shitty circumstance that inadvertently lands you in this place which is in essence, a jail. You haven’t done anything that justifies your unfortunate arrival in this place. You were just born, and now you are in a cage–and considering the statistics of dog euthanization–may or may not make it out alive.

So…Pippa.

I walked into the shelter in South Central, a facility with nine cement rows, each lined along both sides with cages full of dogs, most of whom will not make it out of there alive, a great majority of them Pitbulls or Pitbull mixes. And there in the third cage on the left is this adorable little 17 pound hunk of sweetness who upon meeting my eyes does not get, up, does not start barking, but instead just quietly meets my gaze and starts wagging steadily in a way that felt like she was saying, “there you are. I’ve been waiting for you…I’m so glad you finally came…” It is immediate: I am daddy and she is my daughter. I love this sweet little baby. She is mine. I am taking her away from this terrible place. And so I did.

At the time, I had the good fortune (or maybe it was her good fortune) of being unemployed, so for those first several months, we spent our days together. When I did finally have a job to go to, the hard part was leaving her alone in the house, but she seemed fine with it, and the nice part was that she never had to be crate trained because she could roam in and out of the house into the backyard, or at the very least let me know when she needed to go out. Over those months we developed a deep bond, and our relationship as father and daughter was established and cemented. She re-awakened a place in my heart that I don’t think I’d known since I had been that child that lost Branch. That tiny black speck was beginning to crumble. I was finding what the phrase “unconditional love” truly meant. With the one  exception of my son, before this it was a concept and a theory, but something that I did not necessarily believe actually existed in real life. It does; it was just not something that I was completely capable of until Pippa entered the scene. She’s been here for eight years now, and has been one of the best things about living in L.A. She is not a dog, but simply one of my very favorite people in the world. Her expressive little filo-dough ears (you can’t help but wanna nibble on ‘em) and her zen demeanor…I think somebody needs a little treat…

Today is my fiftieth birthday. Half a century. I am more baffled by these words than I am concerned really. It is strange though to realize that my life is now most certainly over half over. I have been telling people that I was totally freaked out leading up to my fortieth (I was), and that now I am just annoyed. The fact is, from this point the next “big one” is sixty, and THAT is weird. That is officially “old” in my book, always has been since I was a little kid, and that picture still holds in my mind.

My father called yesterday to wish me a happy (pre) birthday. He said that he loved turning fifty. I asked him why that was, and he said that he had spent much of his forties wondering whether he was young or if he was old; when he turned fifty that was no longer a question. Thanks, pops, very reassuring.

I am aware that this is just another number, and that the value we put on these milestones are essentially arbitrary. But I also think that milestones in life are important. They are markers in life that give us reference; markers that we can measure our accomplishments against our plans and the expectations we put on ourselves.

For me, twenty five was the first time a birthday made me take pause and evaluate my life up to that point. Was I happy with what I had accomplished? Was I happy with who I was and what I was doing? When I turned twenty five, I had been living in Seattle for 5 years. I had managed one dream that I had had since high school, that of playing in a band writing original music (I had been in a few by then). The Deep Six compilation had come out and contained the first recordings by Skin Yard, the band I had started with Jack Endino the year before. I was working full-time in a restaurant and was going to school at Seattle Community College on and off, my A.A. still unfinished. I had my own apartment, one half of a side-by-side duplex on the edge of Capitol Hill. Skin Yard was just finishing the recording of our first full-length record. It was a massively creative time in a city on the verge of a musical explosion…though none of us had any idea where we would be over the next several years. The band seemed to be picking up steam. My life was good.

My next “big” birthday was my fortieth. That one was hard. As mentioned above, during the six months leading up to that one, I was completely freaked out. I still don’t know why that one hit so hard, but a lifetime had happened since my previous milestone birthday fifteen years before.  Skin Yard had fully run its course a decade prior, but it had been a good ride. We had stayed together for 6½ years, had released 4 studio records, a handful of singles and had been included on a number of compilations. We had toured the west coast countless times and had embarked on several national tours during our time together. We had shared the stage with Soundgarden, Nirvana, Faith No More, The Flaming Lips, Melvins, The Butthole Surfers, Snakefinger, Redd Kross, Meat Puppets, Malfunkshun, Green River¸ Bad Religion, Alice Donut, The Afghan Whigs, The Goo Goo Dolls and a host of others.

I had worked at Sub Pop for a few of their first years as a record label, had run C/Z records for over a decade, building it up to a company with a full roster of artists and a staff of thirteen. I had released over 90 separate titles including the very first record by Built to Spill and a couple of the first songs ever released by Nirvana. I watched my label crumble due entirely to one of the worst distribution deals ever. I had become a parent, had gotten married, and had gotten divorced. I had seen too many friends die including my grandfather, the most influential male in my life, Andrew Wood, Kurt Cobain, Stephanie Sargent and a load of others whose name may not be recognizable, but were sad losses nonetheless. I had begun working with web media for the previous several years at Real Networks and had just been laid off. I had been on antidepressants for the previous seven years and had been completely done with Seattle for the previous four years. Like a bad marriage, one of us had changed (maybe both?) and it was time to move on.

It still took a couple more. To move on, that is. After the layoff, I went back to school and finished my degree in web development. I was living with my then girlfriend. She had been laid off too and was also back in school. I decided it was time to move to Los Angeles where I had wanted to live since 1997. I sold the house and we moved down to L.A. together. Within 4 months I was off of antidepressants, and haven’t needed them since. I oversaw the development and build of the now-defunct DownloadPunk.com, oversaw the development and launch of ShoutFactory.com, conceived of, and oversaw the development and launch of RocknRollDating.com, oversaw the development and launch of Peer², bought a house, got married, got a couple of dogs, managed to get out of the music entertainment business, and made the shift into a profession in healthcare. I still work in web and social media and project management, but now I have a viable and sustainable future. I have a sense of stability. My son has just moved to L.A. He is here and will be starting a new life for himself. I see him as being in a similar place as I was when I first moved to Seattle. It’s all a blank slate for him with every conceivable possibility at his disposal.

I am settling in, but do not feel in any way resigned. I am back in school again, this time concurrent with my job at the hospital. I have all sorts of plans for after I graduate. I still have a book to write, maybe two. I think I have a screenplay in me, but won’t know until I dive in. I want to create more music, some with my son, some I am hoping with a (sort of) reunion with Jack and Barrett from Skin Yard. I am in good health and I love living in L.A. I have great friends here and a happy life.  I guess being fifty aint so bad. So why do I still feel annoyed?

Today is a day of emotional tumult. Waves of emotion keep crashing, each time a little different from the last, waves without any sort of consistent rhythm or pattern. So it is with the passing of somebody we love.

Jane Duke died this morning at 12:43 A.M. She had been battling her third bout of breast cancer, but this time it had spread to her bones and to her liver. We have all hoped that she might manage to beat it this time while still preparing for the possibility that this day might come.

Jane and I have not been together for fifteen plus years, but we’ve always has Dashiell— her and my only child— in-common. He has been the binding force that kept us in contact, and while we have not always in agreement about the “right” ways of how our son should be raised, have never wavered from the love we both shared for him and our common desire to have him go out into the world, take charge of his life and find those things that will provide him with a sense of purpose as well as personal and professional gratification. This was one of the biggest things weighing on her mind when she called last week at 11:00 at night on a Saturday. We spoke for over an hour: It had felt like 10 minutes.

Jane talked about gaining strength and her eventual desire to be independent again so that she would no longer have to “burden” her loving sisters and family who have been there for her these last many months as she fought against the ravage that was insidiously taking her body away. I think she knew that her days were coming to an end. She made sure that we covered the entire  checklist of things on her mind. She wanted to make sure I knew that she loved us, and wanted to make sure that Dash would be ok after she was gone.

I reassured her that Dashiell would be ok, that we would be there for him, and that I would do my best to encourage him towards a  path that would give him happiness, success and solid ground.

That was the last time that Jane and I ever spoke. It was all surreal and sad, but was also much needed. There was a sense of finality in that talk, a sense of closure.

This morning when the phone rang, before I even said “hello,” I knew that this was going to be the call that indeed it was. It was Dashiell. He asked if I had read my email yet.  A kick in the gut and that burn in my brain. He told me what I knew was going to be his next words: “Mom died last night.”

Each time one of us would start crying, one would trigger the other. We talked until we couldn’t. We exchanged “love you”’s, signed off and agreed to talk again later in the day.

* * *

I met Jane when I was 25 and she was 30. We were both attending Seattle Central Community College and were student liaisons for an annual student arts publication, she for the photography department and me for the offset lithography/printing program.

She had a sparkle and creative bent that caught my attention. She was focused and driven, serious and silly. Above all she had a caring heart and had an enduring love for the creative spirit and for those people who embraced a creative spirit in their lives. These were the people who invariably made up the core of her friends and her tribe, the same people who would come to visit her during the last few months of her life.

Jane and I  started seeing each other a year later, and seven months into our dating, she informed me that she was pregnant. Three months later we moved in together. Three months after that we were fighting like an old married couple. Three months after that Dashiell was born at home. We had two midwives and five others who were there in celebration and to support her through a grueling 30 hour labor. When one of the midwives said that she thought that we’d have to move to the hospital because Jane no longer had the energy to keep pushing, Jane found what little reserve she had left to insure that Dashiell would be born at home (stubborn Taurus women). She was not about to get that far and have somebody else tell her what she would or would not do. She was determined and she could be tough.

Although she never moved professionally away from nursing, she was interested in the possibility of pursuing something more creative in her own life. She continued to photograph for years, and eventually shifted towards painting, a medium that gave her a better way to express her creative voice.

We lasted another 6 years together, and although it was clear that we were ill-suited to be in a relationship, we tried hard to make things work for the sake of our son. Eventually we both realized that we would both be happier apart, and that we could be better parents living in close proximity.

Several years later I got together with Patty, and when Dashiell was 14, Patty and I announced that we would be moving from Seattle to Los Angeles. Jane decided to move to Salem, OR where her sisters and nieces lived. She bought a cute little house. She kept on painting. She continued to raise Dashiell, and he would visit me here as often as was possible. She continued to work as a nurse and help others in the last stages  of their lives.

* * *
Jane’s determination and strength of spirit carried her through her final fight. It’s hard to say goodbye, but I’m happy her suffering has finally come to an end.

I updated my Facebook status to read:

Sunday, January 30th 12:43am. Rest in peace Jane. I’m glad you no longer have to endure the pain. I am sad to say goodbye and will miss you.

My friend Leah posted the following in response:

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend – or a meaningful day.

– Dalai Lama

I will miss you Jane. Dash will be ok, I promise. In the meantime, I’m gonna be riding the waves.

By now, many if not most of you have already been made aware of – if not have already read – the extensive February 16th article from Esquire entitled Roger Ebert: The Essential Man. A reference perhaps to Leonard Cohen’s “I’m Your Man,” the song that Ebert purportedly played repeatedly while in his hospital room after one of the many cancer surgeries that he’s had to endure since his first one in 2002, the article is a moving and bittersweet account of a man whose contribution to the world of film is immeasurable.

I first became aware of Roger Ebert in the late ‘70s, when he and Gene Siskel, his partner for over 20 years went into national syndication with their Sneak Previews show on PBS.

For me, their show was essential viewing, intelligent discussion about film, and not just the mainstream movies of the day, but also the obscure underground art-house films that could only be viewed in some of the larger cities across America. I was going to Berkeley high at the time, was a terribly shy teen, and spent a lot of my free time going to movies – usually by myself. We had the UC Theater, one of the early Landmark Theater screens, and they played a different double feature pretty much every night. I could be found there three or four nights (or days if on the weekend) during any given week. Each week however, I would always try to make sure that I was somewhere with a TV nearby when Sneak Previews aired. As much as was possible I would never miss a show.

Ebert’s commentary – his words – about film were an essential part of my filmic diet, a veritable classroom doled out in weekly portions, something to be relished. Regardless if I agreed or disagreed with either of the critics, their discourse would invariably spark the critic within me. Their weekly discussions about various films and their relative merit helped to make me a more critical thinker, and ultimately a more astute and critical viewer of film. Keep in mind this is a guy who won a Pulitzer Prize for his work as a film critic, back in 1975, years before he was on TV!

In 1981, I moved to Seattle. The following year Siskel and Ebert moved to network television, and extended their reach to mainstream audiences. I continued to watch Siskel and Ebert review and debate movies until Siskel’s death in 1999, and continued to tune in to Ebert and his new partner Richard Roper who was his co-host until 2006. My love for film never subsided, and throughout, Ebert was a constant voice, one that I did not always agree with, but one that would invariably give me some new perspective to consider. I thank him for that.

Now his battle with cancer has taken his ability to speak. His entire lower jaw has been removed: The bone that was once there is gone. He cannot eat or drink; he has no voice, no spoken voice anyway. As a writer however, he is more prolific than ever, and since 2008 (when in the midst of a particularly bad fight with cancer) Ebert has been chronicling his experiences and thoughts in a blog that has – as of the writing of the Esquire article – surpassed half a million words!

In the article, Ebert writes: “When I am writing, my problems become invisible and I am the same person I always was.” I read this, and I read it again. I am stunned. He is 67 years old. He has devoted his life to the things he’s loved the most, has honed his craft and continued to sharpen his creative self, and when dealt with a blow that would take the juice out of pretty much anybody I can think of, he finds the sweet nugget and savors the little thing that makes it special. His cancer is in a state of remission, and hopefully it will never return. I cannot imagine what it would be like to go through the ordeal that Roger Ebert has had to endure, but through it all it appears that he has managed to keep his focus, and somehow he has managed to find joy in the things that make his life rich.

This is not a lesson on film, but it is most certainly a powerful lesson in life.  As trite as it may sound, I think we can all do better to learn to let the petty shit go so that we can more fully appreciate the small things that make our lives rich. I will certainly do my best find inspiration in the sweet nuggets.

Read Ebert’s Response to the Esquire Article

See Ebert’s 323 (and counting) Greatest Movies of all Time (alphabetical)

This is a story that will likely ruffle some feathers, and anger more than a few old friends. That is my no means the intent, but it’s about Skin Yard’s old singer, Ben McMillan who very sadly died a couple of years back due to complications from diabetes. The one piece that is rarely mentioned however, is that his diabetes was alcohol induced, something I had never heard about until I spoke with one of Ben’s doctors during the period when he was in a coma several years before.

I know that it is politically correct to not speak ill of the dead, and while I do not even consider the following story to be “speaking ill,” I know that  it’s not uncommon that people tend to remember those who have passed in a selective light. Often, after our friends have left us, friends who – like the rest of us – had their good and bad qualities, suddenly seem to only be remembered for their positive attributes. I suppose it’s human nature, but let’s be honest: we all have our faults, and we all have our damage to varying degrees, and I for one hope to be remembered for both my positive and negative attributes when I finally leave this world. I’ll be the first to recognize my weaknesses and shortcomings. It’s part of who I am. It was also part of who Ben was, and was certainly part of Ben’s magnanimous charm. Disclaimer aside, please read on.

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I think I can say in all fairness that Ben was an alcoholic. At the very beginning of every tour that we ever did, his first order of business would be to have us stop at a store to buy at minimum, a half case of beer. It didn’t matter whether it was day or night, whether we’d even hit the freeway out of Seattle yet, we’d be stopping at a 7-11 or a Safeway so he could get his road fuel, and usually before we were even out of the parking lot, he would have cracked his first beer. Which led to the next one and so forth…within 4-5 hours he would have finished all 12 bottles, which would have been fine, however usually within the first 45 minutes of the trip, Ben would beg for us to stop because he had to piss, which also meant that we’d have to stop every half an hour just so he could empty his bladder. This was – in my mind – unacceptable . We all fussed about how it was not  necessary that he drink beer the entirety of the tour, and that it was not realistic to stop on average every half hour for the next 45 days on the road, particularly on those days when we had a 10 hour drive in front of us. Ben however, was not willing to make that particular compromise, and we were not willing to accommodate his desire to have us stop every damned rest stop and gas station along the freeway just so he could relieve himself. So we came up with a “solution.” Ben would be responsible when we first stopped for his half rack of beer to also grab an empty Big Gulp cup with a top, and that would become the receptacle for his frequent need to empty his bladder. My preference – being the inflexible taskmaster that I was then – was still that he just not drink in the van, but the rest of the troops searching for the path of least resistance, said “ok.” Ben would slowly fill his portable 40 ounce plastic cup doing his best as we were blasting down the freeway to get it all in the cup. A lid was essential to the whole operation. The piss cup was stored along the floor in the recessed area next to the sliding side door, and every 2 or 3 hours, when we had to stop for gas and snacks, we’d spill out of the van and Ben would take care of emptying the contents of the cup. Some of the time however, the cup would be completely full, and we’d be nowhere near a stop, so Ben would unroll the passenger window and toss the cup to the side of the road, and he’d grab a fresh cup at our next refill.

The heater in the van had stopped working during one of the colder tours that we embarked on. It was November and we were at the tail end of our trip. Our last show had just finished in Chicago, and it was bitter cold outside – somewhere in the high 20s – low 30s. The show was not one of the highlights of the tour. It was reasonably attended, but we were tired, and ready to get home. After getting paid, Ben managed to secure a full case of beer. He was elated. Ben also managed to score a quarter gram of crystal, which was essential as we were going to attempt a straight shot drive – 42 hours more or less non-stop from Chicago back to Seattle, with all of us but Ben trading driving shifts. The crystal was essential, because we needed to be chemically stimulated for this particular leg of the trip. Two needed to be awake, the driver – which was going to be me through the night – and the other – Ben – to keep the driver engaged. Everybody got bundled up wrapped from chin to toe in our sleeping bags trying so stay awake in a van with no heater boring along the dark freeway in the freezing night. It was hellish. I’m driving, and Ben is in the passenger seat, equally mummified with one of his arms out, beer in hand and a half full cup of piss on the floor next to him.

About an hour away from Chicago, Ben had managed to fill his cup. We were all still awake and barely staying warm as we careened west along the freeway as fast as our poor van was able to go. We had almost two days of driving ahead, and we would do our best to make tracks as best as the van would take us. Ben unrolled the window to toss the cup, and the biting ice-wind rushed into the cab of the van. The rest of us were all yelling for him to hurry up and toss the cup fer fuckssake. I slowed down a bit to ease the force of the air rushing in. Ben half unraveled himself from his sleeping bag and tossed the cup out the window.

The events of the next few seconds all occurred in ultra slow motion.

The cup got caught in the air and did two quick 360 degree spins before the lid from the cup became unhinged and the entire contents of the Big Gulp came rushing back through the open window covering Ben from the top of his head down to his waist which was mostly sleeping bag now soaked in his own urine. I saw the splash coming in and actually swerved the van as if to avoid an animal in the road. I never knew if it made any real difference, but the leading edge of the wave missed me by literally an inch or two. I was spared, as was everyone else in the van, now all howling hysterically, completely aware of what had just occurred. Ben was sitting there in his seat, hair completely dripping onto his coat and further drenching his sleeping bag, which he had little choice but to keep on because it was so incredibly cold. It reminded me of that classic National Geographic photo of that monkey in the hot spring, his wet head half frozen and the look on his face pissed off and indignant. That was Ben. Not just covered and soaking in his own piss, but mortified and frozen as the temperature crept in to his hair and his clothes and into his damp stinky sleeping bag. The howling laughter went on for minutes. In retrospect this was perhaps the grossest story in our arsenal of tour stories, but at that particular moment, it was the definitive “told-you-so,” the ultimate cosmic payback.

The worst part though, was that we was still had another 41 hours to go.

“Hello World” is what you are supposed to have your first program print out in pretty much every introductory (computer) programming class. Not particularly exciting, but I suppose you’ve got to start somewhere, and “Hello World” is apparently it…so this being my first post to this – my new website/blog –will (unimaginatively) be my first announcement to the world as well.

Prior to this incarnation, I had a previous websites living at this domain for quite a number of years, but it was static and unchanging, and frankly very “1995.” Considering that my work has – now for many years – been in web and interactive, it only seemed appropriate to update my personal website to one that was (at least marginally) reflective of the “new” web (as in 2.0), one that is dynamic and interactive. This is what invariably happens: you do a lot of great work for other people, that you can never seem to find the time to get up-to-speed on a build of your own. It’s like going to a website of a graphic designer and finding a site that is very poorly designed – not a good representation of that persons work and ability, and certainly not somebody you’d want to hire.

So, welcome to my new face lift. I work full-time, and already I’m finding that I will have to push myself to find the time to write new posts, but it’s important that I do, both in terms of maintaining a creative discipline in my life, but also in terms of the work that I do working with Web, marketing, social media and creative uses of new media on the Web and elsewhere.

This is a good transition, one of many over the last year, but I’ll save that for another post.