2ndclepunkbuddha

It's now the end of the year, and it is once again time to wax poetic and reflect on the lessons of this past year.  2014 had its ups and downs as most recent years have been, but unlike last year, I face the new year with more hope than the last year brought me and all of us. The biggest accomplishments of this year were in educational, professional and artistic achievements.  I finally finished the degree and made it through the machine of CSU.  It was a rough road, one that I did not anticipate would be as such but I learned as everyone else does when they start down the path.  The last two classes were taken, the last assignments were graded and submitted, and, at last, the degree was earned.  It's easy to see why it is that people drop out of the place because they make it so hard for you to actually graduate from the institution, you get so frustrated with the changing and the nagging.  If there is one thing I can tell anyone out there who is curre...

The day had at last come for me to once again to do my part for the film.  The director, cast and crew had been working diligently despite all the slings and arrows to make it happen, all were dedicated and the ones who had proven themselves unreliable had long since disappeared.  I arrived at the art school a few weeks ago to do the first phase of the bit agreed upon.  Here the camera was rigged onto a platform where I was to be on display.  Still photographs as well were displayed on the secret Facebook page, and I allowed two of them to be published.  In one I was covered in a makeshift sheet / kimono, in the other I was hidden behind the snapping board that the crew uses to announce takes and reel numbers.  This time, however, I was in a more obvious situation.  I took everything off and put on a robe and flip flops, as did J.  We were to be models in an art class, sitting upon a platform on the second floor.  J laid back so we were ...

Earlier today, I regret to inform, a member of the tribe past was lost.  Mary Campbell Nir was a truly wonderful person, and that's not just nostalgia talking either.  I knew her when she was a kid, but her qualities were felt and enhanced as she went towards adulthood.  Not even the most talented of writers of trashy books or soap operas could have come up with her life story, and her story should be remembered. Mary was an adopted child.  If this story about her adoption and discovery is true or if some of this is myth and legend, perhaps, but this was the story I was told.  Baby Mary was found in the back of a church in a laundry basket somewhere on the west side of Cleveland one day in 1978 (or thereabouts).  The only documentation about her birth came in the form of a hand written note from her birth mother, explaining how and why this came to be.  According to the fabled note, Mary's birth mother and father were college students who were no lon...