Band update

It's been ages since I've been here. But that doesn't mean I can't start again. Right?

Writing projects are in the works. I shall post some here later.

Our band is in its infantile stages but if you're open to it, check out our bandcamp page

Also, my solo work is being included on soundcloud.

ciao for now

Chris Cornell "Nothing Compares 2 U" Prince Cover Live @ SiriusXM // Lit...

Thinking of both incredible artists who were lost way too early.  This song is so true.

Happenings

It has been a long while since I have posted. 

The paperback and kindle versions of my book, "The View from Willow Hill" are available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com. Check it out.

Also, the audio version of my book is in production! I am narrating the story myself. I've been working with a local sound engineer and we hope to wrap up the project this fall/winter. I hope to have the audio book ready for sale on Amazon in early 2016! 

The Milwaukee Public Library is reviewing my book to add to its collection. I hope to receive the news that it will be available in early 2016.  



I am also working on a new writing project -- a poetry book. This will be the next item to produce after the audio book project is done. So, stay tuned for more information on that soon. 

I am also excited to say that my music is progressing. I am giving the drums a rest for a bit and concentrating on my electric guitar and songwriting. My fiance is playing bass. We will continue to write music and will find a drummer soon! 

That's all for now. Thanks to family and friends who have been so supportive.

Make it a positive day! 

He proposed. I said yes. My heart is  bursting right now!!!

An Afternoon in February's Sunshine

"Lovers alone wear sunlight" -- E.E. Cummings

P.S. I love you, Raven

Epic

Just imagine, lovers in the 16th century had to wait months or perhaps years for their messages. I think an epic is in the works.

To the artist I am missing right now

Tableau 

The voice of your words creates a Color Field painting
decorating that quiet gallery of private works
to blush in the monochromatic.
Longing adorns the white space.
Never to question your designs,
how they gently sketch vignettes to be remembered.      
Golden rose and lemon light warm the space, leaping
from the depths of your deepest palette.
I am happily drawn into your canvas,
enveloped within your lustful blue seascapes with no horizon.
It is like dancing outside the lines in surreal shades of amethyst.
It is the riptide pull of a dream from which I wish not to wake.
What part of me brushes across your landscape?
I wish never to be a watercolor in the rain.
Like the Ming, that which brings together sun and moon,
your abstract brings ancient questions of intent
and how far reaching its pathos
but never does the artist nor subject ask why.

-Julia Rose

Together and centered as one

I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am that place within me, we shall be one.
- Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (circa 1840-1877)

P.S. I love you, Raven

Wisconsin Winter Twilight

Wisconsin Winter Twilight

Scope of stark sable space,

enfolds the night sky above the horizon.

The deepening stillness is a landscape of forgotten echoes

just the shattering of ice crystals underfoot

Sheets of frosted brilliance,

gulp every sigh of the bristling biting wind.

Lily-cream moonlight under a frozen river of stars,

spotlights my humbled measure.

Remaining relentless in wide-open greatness,

Earth’s window devours me as a mere fraction.

In a field of lightly falling snow,

my small footprints fade.

And I remember buried colors of verve

waiting to be forgiven by a sage sun

The book is done!

I finally did it. After many years of hiding it away, I published my first novel. It is both scary and surreal.

The paperback version of The View from Willow Hill is available to order at the following Create Space link:

https://www.createspace.com/4468129

It's also on Amazon.

There will be a Kindle version also available soon.

As readers, send me your comments and suggestions for how you prefer to read your books and anything else that comes to mind concerning my book. Let me know if you would be more inclined to read a downloadable PDF version of the book from this blog.

Thanks to anyone who comes here to this blog to read my words and listen to the music I love.    

A Case of You

Just before our love got lost you said
I am as constant as a northern star
And I said, constant in the darkness
Where's that at?
If you want me I'll be in the bar

On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue TV screen light
I drew a map of Canada
Oh Canada
And your face sketched on it twice

Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
Oh you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh I'd still be on my feet

Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I'm frightened by the devil
And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid
I remember that time that you told me, you said
Love is touching souls
Surely you touched mine
Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time

Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
And you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
Still I'd be on my feet
And still be on my feet

I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said
go to him, stay with him if you can
but be prepared to bleed
Oh but you are in my blood you're my holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter, bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I'd be on my feet
I'd still be on my feet

-Joni Mitchell


Have a listen

Ain't a man in this world who can pull me down from my dark star, dark star i will remain there...
it’s done me good so far

When the heart is with someone, and it mates for life, nothing and no one else matters quite as much...

Being ageless when it comes to your dreams

You can be ageless. The good news is the best is yet to be. It is a fact that Julia Child wrote her first best-seller at 49; Harry Truman was first elected to the Senate at 50; Paul Cezanne didn't have a major exhibition until he was 65; and Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa at 75.

It's never too late so you can't make that excuse. These people didn't and it's not that they were better than anyone else, they just DID IT:

35 yrs old - American sprinter Evelyn Ashford won her final Olympic gold medal at age 35, old for a sprinter.
36 yrs old - German chemist Friedrich August Kekule discovered the ring structure of the benzene molecule in a dream.
37 yrs old - Jersey Joe Walcott became the oldest man ever to win the world’s heavyweight boxing title.
38 yrs old - Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon.
39 yrs old - Charles Goodyear discovered vulcanization and led the way to the effective use of rubber.
40 yrs old - Joan Ganz Cooney founded Children’s Television Workshop and became the mastermind behind “Sesame Street.”
41 yrs old - Rudyard Kipling became the youngest Nobel Laureate in literature.
42 yrs old - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar became the oldest NBA regular player.
43 yrs old - John Fitzgerald Kennedy became the youngest man elected to the United States presidency.
44 yrs old - Assistant cashier Jim Priceman returned an envelope containing $37.1 million in negotiable bearer certificates found outside 110 Wall Street.
45 yrs old - George Foreman recaptured the heavyweight championship with a 10th round knockout, becoming the oldest person ever to win the heavyweight championship.
46 yrs old - A Scottish surgeon, James Baird, discovered hypnosis.
47 yrs old - Edward Jenner, an English doctor, pioneered the use of vaccination against smallpox.
48 yrs old - George Blanda played his last year of NFL football.
49 yrs old -Well known author Julia Child published her book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
50 yrs old - Barbra Streisand won a 10-year film and recording contract estimated at $60 million.
51 yrs old - The Marquis de Sade, imprisoned for much of his life, wrote the novel Justine.
52 yrs old - Francis Chichester sailed around the world alone in a 53-foot boat normally manned by a crew of six.
53 yrs old - Inventor Walter Hunt patented the safety pin.
54 yrs old - Annie Jump Cannon, the dean of women astronomers, became the first person to systematically classify the stars according to spectral type.
55 yrs old - Richard Daniel Bass reached the summit of Mount Everest.
56 yrs old - Mao Zedong founded the Peoples’ Republic of China.
57 yrs old – Betty Ford was frank about her cancer surgery, in an effort to alert other women to the danger of breast cancer.
58 yrs old - Sony chairman Akio Morita introduced the Sony Walkman, even though nobody seemed to like the idea prior to its release.
59 yrs old - Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross.
60 yrs old - Playwright and essayist George Bernard Shaw completed a play, “Heartbreak House,” regarded by some as his masterpiece.
61 yrs old - Richard Milhouse Nixon resigned in disgrace, the first U.S. President ever to quit office.
62 yrs old - J.R.R. Tolkien published the first volume of his fantasy series, Lord of the Rings.
63 yrs old - Countess Rosa Branicka, a wealthy Polish noble, performed breast cancer surgery on herself and lived to be 82.
70 yrs old - Benjamin Franklin helped draft the Declaration of Independence.
75 yrs old - Warren Buffett set up a $30 billion contribution to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for use in various world-wide charitable causes. + Cancer survivor Barbara Hillary became one of the oldest people, and the first black woman, to reach the north pole.
80 yrs old – Jessica Tandy became the oldest Oscar recipient for her work in Driving Miss Daisy.
85 yrs old - At 85, “Coco” Chanel was the head of a fashion design firm.
90 yrs old - Pablo Picasso was still producing drawings and engravings.
95 yrs old - Nola Ochs became the oldest person to receive a college diploma, a degree in general studies with an emphasis on history.
100+ yrs old - Alice Porlock of Great Britain published her first book, Portrait of My Victorian Youth, when she was 102 years old.

I have seen things

In your arms

Every river that you try to cross

Some clear joy is coming

I choose  happiness today