I’ve never been compared to…

I read an artist’s self written profile on-line in which they wrote “My work has been compared to Norman Rockwell.“

OK, so, first off, Norman Rockwell was an illustrator and painter. This person is a photographer who after taking the photo uses software to alter the photo to the point where it no longer looks like a photo. OK could be nice, but the results is that all of the work has a dingy brown hue to it and they just lack any life. But, that’s a matter of taste. They claim to sell thousands of dollars of work every year, yet, I’ve never seen anything from them on a ‘sold today’ page on any of the print on demand sites. A lie, perhaps, ego.. for certain. To bad for them.

But back to the statement of being compared; to me, it’s a joke. I mean, so what?

You can compare an orange to a daisy and find they are nothing like each other. You made the comparison and the orange could say it had been compared to a daisy. So what?

Be careful how you make comparisons.

My reason for writing this is not only to make the point about a comparisons as I did, but to write about how I have never had someone remark that my work was similar or in any way like that of someone else.

I think that is a good thing, a great thing.

I’d much rather that my art is taken as just mine. My own style, my own take on photography and my own ways of presenting the subject.

I feel that if one aspires to be like another artist, they lose themselves in that pursuit. To aspire to the level of regard or achieve sales or fame as another artist has it not bad. One might aspire to, for example, have their work appear in a particular publication or hung in a museum. Wonderful.

But, do so on your own terms, with your own artistic expression. 

Have your own vision and make that happen.

Music in my life

I'm going to age myself here and mention a TV show that I was permitted to watch when I was growing up, one of only a few. The Friendly Giant. It was on PBS and for me, while the whole show was fun to watch, I was always enchanted with the ending and the instruments that played. One of them was the recorder.You can see what I mean here: http://youtu.be/WV2P6P4p6Hg

When I was in 2nd grade the school offered a class on playing the recorder and for the whopping total of $5.00 a student would get a few weeks of classes, and a recorder to play. Plastic of course, but still, playable. I was denied taking that class by my parents, for reasons that like many things of them, are beyond my understanding. I carried with me a longing to learn to play, or even just have one to play around with and make music. My sister was able to take guitar lessons and was supposed to teach me, but she never got around to it, and didn't take them very long. So, I spent my childhood longing to play something.

Fast forward to age 28. Newly divorced and trying to figure out life, a friend asked me if there was something that I had always wanted to try as a kid, but never got to. My first answer was playing recorder. So, I went to a music store and bought one, a nice pear wood soprano recorder. I lived in a lower flat of a rear cottage on the east side and the other tenant was gone most of the time, so I didn't have to worry about bothering her. (There is no way to play one very quietly.) I started to play and eventually could play by ear, having no ability to read music, yet. I gained a lot of confidence in my ability and even played a duet with the church organ during a service at the Methodist church where I was going. It went pretty well. "Let there be Peace on Earth" was the song. It felt like I had come home to something that I wanted. I went on to purchase an Alto recorder and could play either of them pretty well, again, by ear.

I carried them everywhere I went. I played during a service during a silent retreat. Yes, the same song, but as a solo.

I enjoyed making up melodies, and I could repeat them from memory, having never learned how to write them out. I had been doing that sort of thing since I was a small child, sitting in the back seat of my father’s Robin Egg Blue, 1961 Ford Fairlane with my ear pressed against the metal on the door, humming a melody to go along with the changing sound of the pavement. Something my mother found very annoying.

On another retreat, not a silent one, several of us had brought instruments with us. One man his guitar, a woman her flute, others, some small percussion instruments, and me, my recorders. We were sitting around one evening and the topic came up that we had brought them with us and we took off to a room in the basement of the center. There, we started to play together, sitting on the floor. Since I had become pretty good at making up a tune, the guitar player – who was in a rock band – and I’ll call Mr. Guitar since I can’t recall his name, started playing chords, a simple progression. Someone started playing along on a small drum and then I started with my recorder. He changed keys, something I did not understand how it worked, and somehow, I changed with it and was playing along, just making something up. It was so much fun.

Then, we noticed that our flautist was sitting, watching, her instrument at her side. We stopped and the guitar player asked if she was OK. She told us how she had learned to play by reading sheet music and could do so on sight, having even played on several professional recordings, but had no idea how to improvise. So, Mr. Guitar played a chord, and asked if she could play a note from it. She did, a perfect note, so, he played a related chord and she found a note in that. And so it went. After a few chords, she broke into a huge smile and then some tears. He asked she was ready to try making something up. I remember her saying she was a little afraid, asking “What if I play a bad note?” Mr. Guitar player told her that it was OK. It was her first time and that no one expected perfection and anyway, discord is a good thing too. So, off we went. Sort of a jazz jam session with an acoustic guitar, a flute, recorder and percussion. Some people had just come down to watch or enjoy and have fun, but ended up playing something of percussion or clapping hands or even singing some notes to join in. I don’t know how long we played, and then, started something new and played that. It was early in the morning when we decided to call it a night.

As I look back on that evening, I recall that there was a bond that took hold. Something beyond words or description.

Life moved along and I remarried, this time to my wife now of 19 years, and life was such that I could not make space for playing very much. I'd sometimes go to a wooded spot in Door County, WI and play there while sitting on a stump. The sound echoing around me, bouncing off the trees. Think surround sound, only better. But, after a while, I packed my recorder away and had not played it for years.

Today, on a dreary, rainy day, I felt an urge to find one of my recorders and see if I could play it at all. I knew right where it was and assembled it, needing to clean and lube the joints. Then, came the moment of trying to play. I blew my first note, a C, requiring all holes covered. Yeah, it was a note, perhaps a bit fractured, but a note just the same. This was followed by playing some scales, now knowing what note is which having learned to read music.

Then, something just improvised. That felt great. I remembered the joy of that first time I got to play a recorder, the first instrument I loved the sound of, above all others, and that joyful evening, making music with others.

Now, I make music, singing the notes written by others with an all men’s chorus and truly love that. I've sung with symphonic groups and during stage performances  I play piano, a little bit, having taken a few lessons up to a little less than a year ago.

I might never be able to write a piece of music, except to now write out the melody of something made up on the recorder or piano, but music has been, and will be a source of joy in my adult life. I've found fellowship and connection with others, I've experienced standing next to the composer of a great work while singing for a recording of it. I've seen people emotionally moved while I was part of performance. It's been good.

I hope you find your joy. I hope that music is a joy for you as well. 

Why Affordable Health Insurance Matters

With all of the recent events around the Health Care Mandate, aka Obamacare, I’ve considered chiming in on the topic.

Nearly 22 years ago I was single, working a full and a part time job, and did not have health insurance. My full-time employer was a small company of only 15 employees and did not offer any benefits. I had lost the insurance that I had with my first wife in the course of the divorce and even if I could have access to a policy on my own, I could not afford it. The divorce and paying off our bills resulted in my living from paycheck to paycheck.

At one point I was resigned to packing a few things in my car and that would be my home. Sleeping in cheap food and lived a very simple life in a small run-down flat in a rear duplex behind an apartment building. I had to make the decision between eating and paying the rent or buying health care insurance. So, I tried to stay healthy as best as I could and prayed that I would not need medical care.

Then, I awoke in the middle off the night with a very sharp pain in my right eye. It felt like someone had stabbed me with a knife. I tried eye drops but could not even open my eye to do so. With total panic going on and knowing I could not afford it, I had to go to an emergency room of what was then a county ran hospital. I had heard that they could not refuse you for treatment even if you could not afford it. With one hand over the injured eye and fighting to see through my eyes watering and the pain, I drove several miles to help.

Once there, they determined that I had somehow torn the cornea of my eye. I was given some drops and I admit I took the bottle of drops that was on the tray that the doctor used to numb my eye so at least he would be able to take a look at it.

Not a major medical event, but painful. Then, came the bill. An emergency room visit is costly. I had to work out with the county that I would pay as much as I could to just keep paying something and keep a collection agency from hounding me, or worse yet, legal action taken against me. I had a bill of over 1000 dollars and I was paying them 20 dollars a month. I’d skip a couple of meals to make the payment.

So, I understand what it’s like to be a burden on the health care system.

Oddly enough, being a true lefty, it was hard for me to support the idea of mandated health care when it was first proposed by the Republicans during the term of President George W Bush. I felt it was an imposition to require that each person have health insurance.

When President Barak Obama came around and proposed the same basic idea, I saw it differently. The law that is now being debated by the Supreme Court has features to it that actually work. The law does not say that even if you can’t afford it, you have to try to find a way to pay for it, it helps people get support by things such as government subsidized medical care.

I know that some on the right feel that it’s a bad idea. I just want to remind them that we the founder of the Christian Church, Jesus said that we are our brothers keeper.

Having said that, I feel that it’s best to put every person in a health insurance program of some type. That way, no one becomes a burden on everyone else as I did when I had to go the emergency room. Someone had to pay for my medical care while I slowly paid it back, and sometimes people don’t.

Who? The rest of those who consume medical services through higher medical bills, higher insurance rates.

We’re not talking about free health care for everyone as is done in Canada and elsewhere.

One of the things that happens when you lose a job is they give you “Cobra” which should be called “Health Insurance You Can’t Afford”. The rate is usually 3 times what you had been paying. So, you can pay in some cases over 1000 dollars in a month for family health insurance. What makes this even worse is that it comes at a time when you are living on 1/3^rd of the income you had when you were employed, until even your unemployment insurance runs out or you decline a less than suitable job and it is taken away.

Do we need everyone in American in an affordable health insurance program?

You betcha!

An open letter...

A couple of weeks ago I restarted this blog and then came up with a few ideas for what to post as the return to blogging after the announcement that I was back.

I thought about a number of subjects, most of them that you might in some way be able to relate to.

A dead motorcycle and the frustration with mechanical objects and how costly they can become. Or, the incident that came when I took the bike to a local repair shop and it nearly resulted in a fistfight. 

My laptop going in for repair a second time, being only a few months since I purchased it. How frustrated I was with the repair service at the store and the people who it seemed ignored my thoughts of what was wrong.

A prospective on my health issues.

A bit about a new group I sing with, complete with thoughts about our perceptions.

But, honestly, they all paled by something, but what it was I could not put my finger on. Glimpses, but only glimpses. How to restart this blog?

I now am pleased to present this entry.

Topic – Friends for life.

19 years ago on a very cold November morning while protecting women from people who wanted to harm them, I met a woman.

She didn’t know who I was and she was ‘captain’ of that location so she introduced herself to me. Actually, I had noticed her a few minutes before that. There was a guy who was very tall and large who was supposed to be there for the same purpose as I was, but that day, the words and deeds of those protesters got to him and set him off. He had only a few brief seconds of that before I saw a woman walked up to him, a foot or so shorter than he was. She took him gently by the collar and looked at him eye to eye. I saw no fear in her; only compassion and purpose. “You’re not going to do that today.” And she encouraged him to leave the scene and go with her. They were gone for a bit and I drew my attention to other things.

And then I heard a smiling female voice next to me, “Hi, I don’t know you,” and introduced herself. I introduced myself and oddly enough, felt no need to try to make small talk with her. Instead, we started a conversation on how we ended up at this moment in time to be standing here. Truly, the journey of it.

Over the next 3 hours we talked. I learned that she had lived in a number of countries and states. That she was of Arabic decent, and would be traveling to Dubai in a few weeks. We established, in perhaps subtle ways that we were both of orientation and lack of a relationship to be interested in each other. I told her a bit my life story, being a bit shy about it. She was cool about everything the morning flew along.

There was a point when I went to a nearby store to use their restroom and while I was walking I summoned the courage to ask her for her phone number. I felt that if I didn’t, I would regret that for a long time. When I returned, she had a piece of paper in her hand. It had her phone number on it. I gave her mine.

My plan after that was to wait 3 days and call her. I didn’t want to seem too eager. OK, desperate.

I came back to the flat that I shared with a roommate and told him that I had met a woman that morning. He was surprised and I told him all about her. It was cool that he was excited about it, but then, my phone line rang. (This was before cell phones) It was her, the woman I had met just a few hours before. She was going to a party that evening and wanted to know if I’d like to go. I said yes.

There are some I know who in that situation or during it they would have dated others, or wanted to. I can tell you that since that morning, I have never been on a date with someone else. By the way, I do not hold judgment of those who have, it just never happened or was something I wanted. It’s been just the two of us.

There was a night, a few weeks into the relationship when we stayed up together, talking. Just talking. We talked about our lives, from my life at home living in a dysfunctional home and the chaos of it and her life, with parents who were at times strict and the many cultures she has experienced and how they formed her to be who she is. There was a digital clock nearby and it was near a mirror that reflected the time backwards. One of us noticed that it was 11:11. Later 11:21 in the mirror and yet later, 11:01 until 11:40. I’ve never spent a night like that with anyone else in my life time. As near as it comes to that is staying up with a male friend in a “Dark night of the soul” night. I appreciate both.

Less than a year after that first meeting and date, I asked her to marry me. We were sitting on the edge of a lake that formed in what had been a quarry. Yes, our marriage started out on the rocks. We married in the court room of the Juvenile Detention Center of the county where we lived. That was where the judge was. After the ceremony we took photos us and out witnesses in the judges chair and so on. Later we met friends for dinner. It was a very simple day. But, the start of something amazing.

In the vows we took that day – we went traditional – we vowed to be with each other in good times and in bad.

And there have been good times. A trip to the middle east, complete with me waking up the first morning to the amplified call to prayer at sunrise, yelling as Joe Peshi did in “My Cousin Vinny” when the nearby factory whistle awoke them, “What the &^%* is that!?” When I see that movie, I laugh at myself. And being overseas, something my parents had never done.

There have been camping trips, and evenings when we just sat and talked, baring our souls to one another. Trips to other states and sight seeing. A new home – something we experienced twice. Concerts and dancing and singing on the stage of the Marcus Center for the Arts with the cast of Hair and a bunch of other people from the audience, while the audience watched and sang along.

There have been bad times. Automobile accidents, my crash on the moped I had at the time. Layoffs and stretches of unemployment, the death of friends. Problems with friends that lead to putting them to “no longer friend” status; Not on Facebook, real life.

Through it all there has been love. It shows up in simple ways. A “Good morning, I love you” note on the counter. My favorite coffee cup always clean and next to the coffee maker ready for me. Working long days to earn a living. Giving up weekends together to work and keep our financial heads above water. A simple hug that comes for no reason at all. There was the compassionate way she told me that a friend of ours who’s mental and medical state had deteriorated and I was involved in helping her and the family had passed away. The nightly fist bump at 11:11 or a text message.  

There is the way that she is able to show me every day how to live. She inspires me. She forgives after a short while of dealing with the hurt of what ever happened and whoever did it. I struggle with that and like most men I conceal my feelings at times – even from myself, and thus I tend to take longer.

There is the daily joy of cooking a gourmet level meal together and enjoying every bite of it. Or relishing the cooking of the other person.

And, after 19 years of marriage, being unable to end a phone conversation without saying “I love you.”

There is the simple honesty that exists between us. And that comes from trust.

I’ve known a lot of people in my life. A small group of them I’ve let any bit close to me, get to know who I am and what I have experienced in my life. Fewer still is the group who remain. Some drifted along as people often do as their lives changed or they did and moved on to something else. One ended his life as we were just getting started. Another betrayed me about as deep as one can. Telling a lie about me and causing all manner of pain and chaos to both myself and my wife. I guess they too drifted to something else. And, showed me what real trust is. Smaller still is longevity. I’ve known only one other person in my life longer than my wife. My best friend, who, like me is male. He has never set out to hurt me and has always looked out for me or tried to do what he could to help me. Friends are precious, trust is even more so.

Do I love her? In a simple word, yes, I do. I can’t ever see myself with anyone else as my companion on this journey of life. No one else in the world gets me like she does. No one understands my moods or my humor the way she does. No one tells me in honest terms how things are, or tells me a view of a situation like she does. I pay someone for that, and even they don’t always get the full picture of it, they can’t. They are not with me day after day. She understands me. And, I try very hard every day to show her how much I love her. Sometimes, and perhaps you feel this too, you feel like you fall short of that. Their love, her love is so big it’s hard to return that love.

She has shown me how to forgive. Yes, she hurts or is angry for a while, but then she’s over it. And not just with me, others. It’s a characteristic I think we all could use to learn. There would be a lot less anger, a lot less war and a lot less pain in this world if we were able to be like her. 

You see my gentle reader. If you had told me that November morning when I woke up that that day I would meet my soul mate and we would be married for at least 19 years, I would have laughed at you.

I am a very fortunate man. Even on the most troubling, struggled filled days between my wife and myself. Days when it seemed we could not work it out between us, as I think any couple has experienced at one time or another in a long relationship; I did not go to bed feeling like I was a very fortunate man for knowing her.

I hope that you have someone who fills your life like she does me.  I hope that you are fortunate like me to find your soul mate.

I'm Back!

After some time away from blogging, I've found my way back to it again.

Life has taken quite a few twists and turns as time has passed.

• A new job, one I love and have been working for close to two years now - running my own company. I really can't hate the boss now. And the commute is easy!
• Singing with a new group, having left one, as I wrote here, joined a new one where I found many new friends. The group is disbanding, having fallen prey to the harsh economic times we are in. So, I'm with a new group, all men. Something different than I have experienced before.
• Learning how to play piano. I've wanted to learn how to play something since I was in 2nd grade and now, I am. This by the way, will be I suspect the topic of a number of posts here.
• A skydiving adventure.. I celebrated turning 50 that way.
• The loss of several people I knew, and singing for their funeral. 4 people in the span of 6 weeks. A dark time for my friends and myself. It was a learning experience.
• Needing to say good-bye to a friend I had known for nearly 20 years. They betrayed my trust and left me a shattered man.

And that's just a bit of it. So, please, check in sometimes, comment on what you read. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

President Barack Obama

I love the sound of that!

Someone took my sign a few weeks ago and I had to go get a new one and signed up to canvass the day of the election. I stopped in yesterday and offered to help and went out to remind people that today was the day to vote, and today went door to door, making sure everyone, regardless of party, voted.

They may have taken my sign, but they didn't take my vote, or my President.

President Obama, please, do as you say and be the person I have come to admire, respect and support.

Blessings on you and your family, Mr. Biden and his family and your mutual Administration.

A Very Proud Day!

Today, Barack Housain Obama became the presumptive Democrat to run against Bush version 2.0 aka – John (Screw the other guys, I got my G.I. Bill) McCain.

A young African-American man is running against an older white man. This is history folks and I hope you are all enjoying it.
Now, a VP. Hillary.. No, please, for all that is holy. No! But that is for another day. Today, I raise a glass of 12 year old scotch in honor of this man, and the country of which I am part of and the party I am part of that can believe in an America where a man of color can be President. (Unlike the GOP, which still thinks that the candidate should be old and white and male!)