Blues Traveler

"I like coffee and I like tea."
- Blues Traveler, 'Run-Around.'

Yet another lyric about coffee. You know, I looked up the lyrics to Memphis (see last post) and it says I had it wrong. It SAYS the lyric goes like this: "Good coffee, well, it's just hard to find.' But I'm fairly sure on the live version he sings it like this: 'Good coffee, hell, it's just hard to find.' Anyway, I guess it doesn't matter. I forgot to look up who it was that wrote that song. I should have done that. That would have been good..

Well, I guess that doesn't really matter, either. What does matter is how messed up my little list has gotten. I'm on song #236 right now and I'm going to roll a few more off and then take a break from the list for a time. I'm completely lost, folks. I'm not sure which songs I've listed and which songs I only think I've listed. So to get us up to #240, let's do this: #237 - 'Memphis,' sung by Lyle Lovett. #238 --'Step Inside This House,' also sung by Lyle Lovett. #239 -- 'She Runs Away' by Duncan Sheik (Duncan Sheik That's a groovy name. Have I ever mentioned that?) and #240 -- 'Save it For Later' by some group called 'English Beat.' Don't ask me, I don't know. All I know is it's a catchy song and it's been used in every movie since 1946.

So there. The list is on hiatus until I can write it all out and see a) where I am and b) where I have to go from here.

Lastly, a poem:

Two dreams per day come true
Some folks
store
their dreams
in empty coffee cans.
Who am I
to say they're wrong?
I drink mine
by the cup.

back to business

"I don't know where the sunbeams end/and the starlights begin/it's all a mystery..
- The Flaming Lips, 'Fight Test.'

So the other day I was out walking our dog. I walk our dog each morning at roughly 5:15 a.m.; I don't usually wake up until sometime around 6:20 a.m. Actually, most days it's more like he's walking me. But that's all beside the point. Two days ago we were walking and it was still dark out. Suddenly, I looked up and there was an unidentified object in the sky and coming toward us. It could have been an airplane, but I knew it wasn't. The speed wasn't right. Frankly, I didn't know what it was, so we both just stood there, looking up. I remember thinking, 'Yes! Something to blog about!'

But then, as happens so often, reality stepped in. It turned out it WAS an airplane. The angle must have been funky or something. Actually, I think it was the flight path that confused me. Planes flying over our neighborhood are usually on a southeast heading. This was flying more...west to slightly northeast. Anyway, the point -- if there is one here -- is that I realized then that a lot of my waking hours are spent trying to find something to blog about. You could say I'm a beachcomber, of sorts. And on that note, that serves so well as a natural segue, let's add that song to the list -- 'Beachcombing' (#228) by Mark Knopfler and EmmyLou Harris. Then let's roll with 'Fight Test' (#229) for the song after that.

You know, all this talk of planes and UFO's calls to mind a poem I'm about to write that's based on a real experience in my life. This one is really true, believe me!

Most dreams are roundtrip
I was lying in bed
one morning
when I heard the drone
of a plane
overhead.
I let my head
scroll across the pillow
so I could see the alarm clock.
It read: 7:47.
I thought about that
for a little bit,
then glanced away
and thought about it
a little more.
When I looked
back at the clock
again,
it was 7:48
and I noticed then
that the plane was gone.

I wonder to this very day,
was it all a dream?

Life on Flinn

People stop me all the time and ask me what it was like to live on the planet Flinn. Usually, I have my corncob pipe at the ready and I pull that out and regale them with bittersweet reminisces of my time on that stately sphere.

The temperature on Flinn is always 82 degrees -- always. Except when it dips down to 62 degrees, which it will do from time to time. We call that our winter. It lasts, on average, fourteen minutes per year. We Citizens of Flinn bear it, though, as we do all of our trials, with a firm jaw and a stiff upper lip.

The sun shines all the time on Flinn. And though we have no photographic evidence of a moon overhead, we suspect that one is there all the same. Something is making our sixteen seas awfully jumpy. And if it's not a moon, we don't want to know about it!

Upon birth, all Citizens of Flinn are awarded a black belt in karate. No one ever fights anybody on Flinn. It just doesn't happen. Who would want to mess with anyone who has a black belt in karate? You'd have to be crazy!

For the time being, I'm afraid that's all I can tell you. I'd like to tell you more, but I had to fill out a whole bunch of forms just to tell you the things I just told you. And I'm on probation already.