You are all my Valentine! (hand-painted lovey-dovey cards)

This Valentine's Day was more or less an excuse to bust out the ol' water colors and get to work.

A Valentine to myself

I made a bunch of hand-painted Valentine's this year. I will post them on Valentine's Day but until then, I'll post just this one. This was made for a friend. But it was only made by person who can completely relate. So this one's really for all of us. Here's to we who are still trying, still looking, and still loving ourselves.

Happy fucking Valentine's Day!

Dear Dad, life will go on after this Super Bowl

Dear Dad,

I just left the sports bar early so I could get to Skype because I am waiting for the news that you burned our house down. I hope this message gets to you before you smash all our dishes.

Listen, take it from a girl whose been broken hearted by many guys before. Payton is a jerk. And you can do better. You don't want a guy who won't work hard for your affections.

We've all been disappointed before by a man. It's hard to watch a man you love so much just break your heart like that. I know. I promise. But you know what, it gets better.

Little by little, this day will feel farther and farther in the past. I'm glad you retired recently, because I know there will be days and days of mourning. But one day soon, you'll wake up and hear birds chirping, feel the warm sun and think, Payton who?

For now, remember that life goes on. Cinnamon rolls still taste as sweet. Cocker spaniels are still just as cuddly. Bruno Mars is still a dreamboat.

I suggest you buy yourself a copy of "Eat, Pray Love", tear up your photos and love letters to Payton, and mix yourself a Skinny Girl Martini. That's what I do when a guy like Payton breaks my heart.

Just tell yourself that you are done being let down. And there is true love out there. You just need to find someone who won't let you down. And I think I've found just the guy. His name is Doug, and he is perfect for you. In fact, he lives just around the corner.

So, if you haven't thrown the remote out the window, once your ready, turn the channel and watch some Bluejays. Because unlike the Broncos, they are going all the way.

And when these fingers can strum no longer…

I got to the JRS office in Beirut at 8:30 Tuesday to start my day only to see that Pete Seeger had passed away. We all knew he wouldn't live forever, although all lovers of music and peace and 3-part harmonies hoped he would; no one, no group of people can fill the space that Pete leaves, although he tried his entire life to get us to.



It's hard to put into words what Pete did for the world through his music; his most popular songs weren't often written by him- The Seeger Sessions, Bruce Springsteen's folk tribute doesn't contain music by Pete. But he rather chose songs, plucked them from all over the world and delivered them to us, like spreading "We Shall Overcome" through the Union movements to the Civil Rights
movement.



One example, that I think ties up Pete into a nice little bow is the song "How Can I keep From Singing," a hymn written in 1868 by Robert Wadsworth Lowry. 
Originally strictly a church song packed with "thou"s and "God"s it was retooled as a folk song in the early l950s.



The refrain went from "Since Christ is Lord of heaven and Earth, how can I keep from singing?" to the version we know now, "Since LOVE is LORD of heaven and Earth, how can I keep from singing?" Pete heard this new version and ran with it, singing it at protests and folk gatherings all over the country.

So why does this sum him up to me? Because Pete believed in the accessibility of the spirit. That is, once this song had been stripped of it's religious phrasing that would alienate people, and replaced it with universal language saying essentially the same thing, he shared it with the world, because he wanted to bring us out of our small boxes and bring us together in the wider human community. Pete Seeger didn't stand on the side of the road holding a sign about stopping this war or that war, he stood on the highway holding up a sign that said "Peace", an idea that unites rather than separates.





So now Pete is gone, only a few months after his wife of 70 years, and it's our turn to live by his example. We, the next generation have to continue his work for peace and ecology and love. Pete said there is only a 50/50 chance humans will survive the next 100 years. I'll take those odds.


Here’s the big ask: think of one thing YOU can do this week to prove that Pete's message will keep going.



"And when these fingers Can Strum no longer, hand the old banjo to young ones stronger."

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Feel free to read my other blogs about Pete here:

January 2011 – Pete Seeger, As Always, Thanks

August 2012 – Getting a Tattoo on A Thai Island, Check

August 2012 – Quite Early Morning

November 2010 – Pete Seeger Saves My Sanity

June 2009 – My New Favorite Thing

Our 2013 college mascot scares the SH*T out of me, but not as much the 1955 one

Like the headline reads, our new logo for the Creighton University Bluejays could scare the blue right off a bluejay. It either didn't spend enough time in incubation, or was shoved out of the nest a little too early and is suffering from mommy problems, or perhaps he built his nest at the Fukushima power plant. Either way, our Billy Blue just went from "curmudgeon" to "out for your blood."

While I won't be buying any Creighton merchandise picturing this new SOB anytime soon, it certainly won't appear in my nightmares like this guy...

Yeah, totally crazy right? This guys used to be our mascot! He looks like the kind of mascot that got in trouble for petting bunnies to death. He looks like he has a skin disease that ruffles his feathers – a contagious one.

Whoever drew up this 1955 guy clearly didn't get the point of the assignment. Do you think the head of athletics in 1955 noticed his son had recently begun to draw? "Hey, Timmy, that's a nice attempt at a pigeon... how about you take a stab at drawing Creighton's mascot..."

This reminds me of the old 2007 White House Easter Egg contest. Every state in the country submitted a work of art from an Easter Egg. Indiana, breathtaking. Kansas and Louisiana, quaint but cute. Viginia and Vermont, detailed to the extreme. And there's Wyoming... Poor Wyoming. Did no one give you the memo, or did you never learn to read?

And that is what our old logo is - The Wyoming egg of college basketball. And trust me, you never want to be the "Wyoming" of anything in any analogy.

Yes, our new mascot is fierce. But this old guy, is bat-sh*t crazy. I wouldn't want to run into him in a dark alley. He is a bird that can't be reasoned with. Bring back the old mascot! Because the 1955 Billy Blue, like the Wu Tang Clan, ain't nuthin' to f*** with.

Little Monsters (sorry, Lady Gaga)

So I've spent hundreds of dollars learning French since I've been in Johannesburg. So you would think after my classes at night I'd be practicing my flash cards. Well, instead I've been drawing monsters. I mean, I've been drawing les petits monstres.

James has a tail like the Cowardly Lion and has a nose that keeps growing. He got tested for cancer, and while they did find a tumor, it is benign. He enters the Kansas State Fair pie contest every year. He always places, but this strawberry rhubarb pie in the picture is his best yet. He works as an out-of-court litigator during the day and builds forts with his kids at night. He only has one tattoo and his wife doesn't like it. When she drinks too much she gets a little jealous of James' relationship with his mother. He always reminds her that he got it before they met. It's a sore issue, but they love each other.

Frank doesn't have any arms, which surprisingly hasn't kept him from fulfilling his dream as a small business owner. He invents different flavors of ice cream for his small shop in downtown Buffalo, New York. While most people bypass the city on their way to Niagara Falls, he is saving up to put up what he calls a "Bill Board Blitz." He got the idea when crossing South Dakota and was in awe of the Wall Drug advertising campaign. If you visit his shop you can see the special cooking utensils his brother-in-law built for Frank's special needs.

This is Jeanie, doing a curtsy. She is a stage performer at the University of Indiana where she majors in Basque Literature. She dyed a streak of her hair blue after breaking up with her live-in boyfriend in an attempt to reclaim her personal identity. I think it's working.

What do you mean Millenials don't like Bruce Springsteen?

According to the Internet, which always tells the truth, my peers don't like Bruce Springsteen. Well, maybe not my peers, but "Millenials." Certainly I'm not one of them, because I was called "old" the other day.

Of the two times I saw Bruce this summer, I had to buy my friends' tickets because they didn't consider him worth paying for.

Listen, my too young friends. I know. I listen to some music that's a bit dated. I don't expect you all to be interested in the genius early country yodels of Jimmie Rodgers (although you really should be). And I know I can only get some of you interested in the music of Blind Willie Johnson if I quote line for line the West Wing scene about him, and pretend I'm coming up with it on the spot. Maybe old 1920's x-rated 78s aren't your thing. I get it.

BUT BRUCE ISN'T OLD MUSIC. 

He's still doing 4-hour live shows, crowd surfing, and more importantly, he's still writing kick-ass, angry, tear at your clothes rock and roll. Besides, it's not like you've never listened to music that was written before you were born. Did you ever lie in bed in high school listening to "Wouldn't It Be Nice" by the Beach Boys wishing you could be lying next to your boyfriend or girlfriend? Yes you did. Don't lie. Well, you should have been listening to "I'm on Fire," because bets are, that song speaks more to what you were feeling than the Beach Boys. 

I'm talking about sex… just in case you Millenials don't even bother to look up the lyrics. You're probably all too busy reading 50 other tabs and starting your own business… or blogging.

I don't need to defend Bruce. I'll let his music do that. 

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Top seven Bruce songs young people need to hear. I say "young" even though someone called me old the other day… did I mention that yet? So let's just say, these are the songs for people who still feel young, confused and angry. 


1. I'm on Fire – Ok. This is pretty much the sexiest song I've ever heard. It throbs and sighs better than anything you've got. It's only four verses, and that's all it needs. Because when you're in the state that Bruce is in, you can't think hard enough to write more.

"At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
And a freight train running through the
Middle of my head
Only you can cool my desire
Im on fire"
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2. Ghost of Tom Joad – Are pissed off that we elected a president who turned out to be politician? Are you angry that people are still sleeping on the streets? Can you believe that banks are still taking people's homes? So was Steinbeck when he wrote Grapes of Wrath. And more sickening is that that book written in 1939 could have been written last year. So Bruce is looking for Tom Joad from that book in all of sadness of modern day. Where is our working man's hero? 

"Got a one-way ticket to the promised land 
You got a hole in your belly and gun in your hand 
Sleepin' on a pillow of solid rock 
Bathin' in the city aqueduct"

As he says before introducing Tom Morello in the video above, "If Woody Guthrie were alive today he'd have a lot to say about high times on Wall Street and low times on Main Street."

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3. Thunder Road (live) – This has been my favorite Bruce song ever since my old friend Bob Al-Greene put it on a mix for me back in the day. Maybe because it felt like we were living a Bruce song, driving along highways until the sun came up, listing to music. But this song, for me, is the anthem for something new. I've dated a few people in my day, and this is the song where you meet someone new and think, "Maybe this time it'll be like a dream. Maybe this time I'll be the person I want to be." And just like the Bruce song, the battle between fantasy and reality finishes with reality winning, and I am who I've always been and the person I'm looking at is just a person too. But we keep fighting, or in Bruce Springsteen terms, we keep driving.

Roy orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Don't run back inside
Darling you know just what Im here for
So you're scared and you're thinking
That maybe we aint that young anymore
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4. Death to Our Hometown – Getting to see Bruce Springsteen on his Wrecking Ball(no, not that Wrecking Ball...) tour this year was wonderful, especially seeing him sing this. People say protest rock is dead. Maybe as a genre it's gone, but if this song isn't a protest, I don't know what is.

So listen up, my Sonny boy 
Be ready for when they come 
For they’ll be returning sure as the rising sun 
Now get yourself a song to sing and sing it ’til you’re done 
Yeah, sing it hard and sing it well 
Send the robber baron’s straight to hell 
The greedy thieves that came around 
And ate the flesh of everything they’ve found 
Whose crimes have gone unpunished now 
Walk the streets as free men now
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5. Dancing in the Dark – Sitting in Omaha (or New Jersey, for Bruce) feeling stuck. You don't want to be here anymore – here in town, here in your body, here with your friends, here with your job. Maybe love will solve it. Or lust, at least. 

I get up in the evening, and I ain't got nothing to say 
I come home in the moring, I go to bed feeling the same way 
I ain't nothing but tired, man I'm just tired and bored with myself 
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help

I check my look in the mirror wanna change my clothes my hair my face 
Man I ain't getting nowhere I'm just livin in a dump like this 
There's something happening somewhere baby I just know that there is

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6.  The River – This one can only be listened to live, with the introduction. Tales of Bruce hiding from the cold in a phone booth, talking to his girlfriend for hours, looking for any reason not to go home to his parents' house.

But I remember us riding in my brothers car
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I'd lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she'd take
Now those memories come back to haunt me, they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse that sends me
Down to the river though I know the river is dry

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7.  Born in the USA – Ok people, clearly this is the most misunderstood Springsteen song of all time. I'd recommend clicking on the title and reading the lyrics. As Bruce puts it himself, it's a song about, "spiritual crisis, in which man is left lost...It's like he has nothing left to tie him into society anymore. He's isolated from the government. Isolated from his family...to the point where nothing makes sense." I think we can all relate to that.

Got in a little hometown jam 
So they put a rifle in my hand 
Sent me off to a foreign land 
To go and kill the yellow man

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So there's the top seven. Let me know if you need another 50.