dream

welcome
wheels
any
impossible
being
rhythm
openin'
happy
good
mountain
anything
more

The balcony

and her legends to come

Please don't stay there.

Please come home. I miss you.

ideas....

there are days I miss it.
I recently read that the human body recreates itself every six months. That means, each bone and cell changes in some way. And that I am not the same person I was last November.

"i can smell the grease-paint" repost

For J.P. - may you always smell the grease-paint. godspeed. - JCJR 
(March, 2008)
i can smell the grease-paint

electricity runs
through their
veins
the smiles
the laughs
the hope
the questions
the introductions
"what are you selling?"
someone asked
"nothing, but wait until you hear this..."
i replied
there was such
an ethereal
energy
that has finally
been sparked
such a rebirth
for the mind
finally
the seed of hope
planted today

wading through the
rain and puddles
i saw the sun
in their eyes
the best
was one man's
yell...
i explained to him
the matters
and his first
reactions were
eyes lit on fire
arms flung in the air
and hopping
up and down
while giving a very
loud piercing
yelp for joy
"WHOOOO"
a call to his friend
who soon met us
"the best news i've heard"
they jumped
and danced around
"back before modern advances
in stage make up
we used greasepaint
and i can still smell it"
he told me

"i can smell it already"
he left me with...

the energy
of this place
the energy
of town
the energy
of our universe
the energy
of this day
the energy
of the people
of their lives
of their joy
the energy
only EVER
matched and
duplicated
by the energy one feels...

...on stage

"follow every rainbow
till you find your dream..."
-r&h

Why I stopped texting

"I worry that some day we will lose our ability to talk to one another."

Someone spoke those words to me today, and I completely understood them. You're probably wondering why, Jim Cook Jr., master of the text-crazed world, would ever stop texting. And the reason is simple—

It's none of your damn business.

Neither is what I'm doing right now, so don't expect me to tell you when you ask me "what's up," or "whatcha doin'?"

The only two people who deserve a direct answer to that question are my parents since I still live with them, and my employer, since they provide me with salary/benefits/insurance, and I represent them. 

But I can honestly say that I did not come to this conclusion overnight. However, a string of overnight annoyances did drive the nail in the coffin. But I won't even attempt to open that can of worms agains (thank you Facebook).

Lets get to what's really important here— my opinion. 

When you send someone a text message, you're sending them a piece of data that you've constructed in your mind. It's not your response to a message someone sent to you. It's your carefully crafted, carefully disguised commentary on the previous message. 

Texting is the most uninspiring thing ever known to man.

In fact, I thought it would be a great idea to rant about this via a Facebook note, but I'm hardly able to draw inspiration from anything. Nothing. Except for the fact that when I was a teenager, I called people. I would stay on the phone for hours with close friends discussing our lives, our plans for the week, new music, our favorite games, gossip around school, who we liked, who we hated, what we wanted to change in our school, what we were learning in school. We'd debate something we disagreed on and we heard each other instead of creating some arduous inarguable response. We put ourselves out there. We were not afraid of each other and we spoke up and let our voices be heard, even if it was to an ear of the same age on the end of the receiving landline.

And it's deadly if I have it in my grasp, since I'm a writer. If I'm angry and I have a keyboard in front of me and your name on the receiving end, beware. I can use words in ways most people couldn't imagine. And I thank many great professors and teachers and writers of the past for instructing me in that little talent. So if I can use texting to my benefit, if wouldn't be fair for non-writers.

But after reading a few texts, you'd be surprised how many great unknown writers there are out there.

Texting, however, ultimately is a sign of our willingness as a society to be openly dishonest with one another. When was the last genuine honest text message you sent? Meaning, the last time you didn't immediately take a second to think how to respond, or hesitate by placing an "LOL" or "Haha" at the end as insurance that you're not completely serious or offensive. 

Speaking on the phone (or god forbid, face-to-face) is honest. You can imagine (or see) the person's face. You can hear their voice, their breathing, their thinking, their humanity, and their reason for being treated with honesty. No matter how you look at it, we're still human beings, and there is nothing different about us as compared to ancients, crusaders, colonists, slaves, rebels, or many other generations of people who made this country before leaving it to us. The only difference is our knowledge and our technology and how we use it. And a couple other things.

We're still humans. We're precious people inheriting an Earth for only a few years. Only a small time to make our mark and say who we were and leave an example. 

My point in all of this, is that the more we stare at a screen, the less time we are looking at the beauty (or the ugly) in the world. And from that, we become incredibly less inspired than Mozart or Beethoven, Franklin or Jefferson, Lee or Grant, Kerouac or Salinger, Warhol or O'Keeffe, Murrow or Bradlee, or any great that came before us.

Instead, I'm stuck this week with Rebecca Black and the song Friday, which espouses such lyrics as "Tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday comes after...wards. I don't want this weekend to end." None of that rhymes. And her vocals are so auto-corrected/auto-tuned it's scary. It's a song about nothing. About partying. I can tell you right now that there is nothing inspiring about a party full of 13-year-olds. Especially when you're that age. All I remember is getting teased and ridiculed— something Ms. Black is experiencing after posting her dissimulate and nearly illiterate videosong-about-nothing on Youtube. 

But apparently she used her own friends in the video. Take a look at the scene where they all pick her up in the car. Look at their faces. None of them want to be there. None of them are friends with each other or her. They have that artificial awkward smiles and deep set squint in their eyes that says they're thinking only one thing.

"I'd rather be texting these people then actually hanging out with them."

a quote on ruin

"A sky as blue as eyes"

"A friend took me to the most amazing place the other day. It's called the Augusteum. Octavian Augustus built it to house his remains. When the barbarians came, they trashed it along with everything else. The great Augustus, Rome's first true great emperor. How could he have imagined that Rome, the whole world as far as he was concerned, would be in ruins. It's one of the quietest, loneliest places in Rome. The city has grown up around it over the centuries. It feels like a precious wound, a heartbreak you won't let go of because it hurts too good. We all want things to stay the same. Settle for living in misery because we're afraid of change, of things crumbling to ruins. Then I looked at around at this place, at the chaos it has endured - the way it has been adapted, burned, pillaged and found a way to build itself back up again. 

And I was reassured, maybe my life hasn't been so chaotic, it's just the world that is, and the real trap is getting attached to any of it.  

Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation."

e.g.

He hadn't thought of it himself.

Minds spinning uncontrollably
flipping our phones, making calls
following our social networks
showing concern and support
without a moment to breathe
from the shock of it all.

He was relaxed and content with his life, laying in his bed.
The boy had moved onto a new job, a new life.
The girl moved on as well, with new jobs and her new love
and her dedication to building the grandest gem in her town.
They became amicable, she even performed in a play he wrote.
To which she did not get the praise she deserved. 
She was his favorite. They were friends again. 
Even in a dark hour of the past year, she was there for him.
He could always trust her. Even if he broke it.


But this afternoon was different. It was cold outside 
but his body was warm
after a nap. Isn't it funny that our bodies always 
seem brilliantly warm after a nap. 
Like furnaces, fueled by our dreams.


And he flipped open his laptop and saw a status update 
he refused to believe.
"Caved in," was the way it was described.
Then crumbled to the ground.
Then collapsed. 


"She must be terrified and sick, all that hard work..."he thought.
So he called his newsroom, he was a reporter now,
and asked if he  could be of any assistance 
despite that this all happened on his day off. 
They agreed and asked him to reach out to her. 


He searched his list of contacts before 
clicking on her name.
He hesitated, "what do I say?" he worried.
So as she had taught him, 
he got a notebook and 
scribbled out his thoughts
and his questions for her and left plenty of space 
so she could share the page with him.
Would she even pick up the phone in a time like this?


Of course she did. 
She always did, no matter what. 
They chatted briefly. He got his material.
And he was determined to help using 
what she taught him.
Help the only way he knew how.


By writing. 


It was news this time. But writing is writing. 
And when the story was filed, he noticed 
an advance editorial for the 
following day's paper sitting on his desk.
The editor wanted to make sure it was OK with him.


It was generic, told the fact, told the story, 
told us everything we knew.
The boy almost crumpled up the editorial and cried 
before he read the last few words.


And for the first time in writing for her, 
he was bewildered that
he hadn't 
thought 
of it 
himself.


(But I can't say what it said
until it's published tomorrow morning...hehe ;)

I wonder if you even still read this.
Not that I think you should.
You're in the middle of a
psychotic tornado.
I don't expect it.
But the event led me back
to our sunny shores
and all of it started rushing back in.
All my fears that I'd forgotten it have vanished.
Just when it looks like their world collapsed,
you woke them from their sleep.
Never stop writing. Please.
You're brilliant.

i forgot we did this...

excerpts of our levoy

from 3/26/08
and when
its finished
let us enjoy it
or let them have it
so we
may run
away
and watch
blue eyes
for you
glow


from 3/18/08
the energy
of this place
the energy
of town
the energy
of our universe
the energy
of this day
the energy
of the people
of their lives
of their joy
the energy
only EVER
matched and
duplicated
by the energy one feels...

...on stage


from 11/27/07
this may not be easy
at any point
the whole road
may be a bitch
but just see the outcome
and see the possiblities
it will change lives

from 11/30/07
the show begins
with a dream
and a
theatre...

we might only be friends now, but don't loose sight of your magic