The Last Day of 2007

Why does this time of year promote such reflection? Is it because there is time around the holidays to think? Having time off from the day-to-day stuff? Is it because of the sentimentality of Christmas, the Christ Child? I wonder.

It seems we always think about our lives and think about doing something different. The whole “New Years Resolution” thing. I mean, you have to actually think about that. You can’t just pull it out of a hat. And many do. I guess that is why people fail at diets; new exercise regimes and all the traditional things people start anew each year.

I’m not sure whether I have a resolution this year. I haven’t had one for many years. I’m also not sure if it is necessary to have one, but I know, I am thinking a lot this year.

Happy New Year!

The Saga of Ronny Comes to a Close

Well, Ronny got out of jail last month. It’s kind of interesting (Ronny and I are no longer friends) my perception of Ronny was that he wanted to get his life together, he just had this jail time to do, and then he would. What really he wanted was to continue to live the same kind of life, pilfering this and that, not working, but doing little things here and there, living with anyone who had a sofa and would let him and continue his lifestyle of drugs and robbery. It’s too bad. I can see that without a strong parental figure in someone’s life they have no clue of what they should be. I mean, he has 5 brothers and sisters with three fathers. Mom married a shyster insurance person 20 years ago and he screwed the kids up. Can you imagine a stepfather saying, “I married your mother, not you kids.”

The guy is kind of a grifter. Packing the kids in the car and dragging them to church asking for handouts. Moreover, a different church each Sunday. Therefore, Ronny’s sense of growing up is exactly what he is doing. Going around looking for handout’s day to day, not really taking life seriously or growing up.

After he was released, I tried to be a good example for him, but when I found that he was just abusing my friendship, nickel and dining me to death, I gave up. You can’t change people, I know. I guess he did a good job of convincing me he wanted something he didn’t.

Therefore, here I am, once again, with my friends numbered.

It's almost my birthday

It's been a long hard Spring, Summer and partial Fall...

Well, I go to pick up Ronny in two weeks. Yup, his time is up. Finally. I hope he learned something. I'm not sure what, but I hope he learned. I think he spent much of the time sleeping from what I gathered in our last conversation. I would have chosen to read everything I could get my hands on and write. But that's the choice I would have made and I cannot disrespect him for doing it the way he did.

In the meantime, I'll be happy to have my friend back. At least for awhile!

One Friend at a time

An update on "Ronny". He has served 6 1/2 months of his one year (reduced to 8 months) sentence. I guess he finally showed up.

Time flies --- I didn't even miss my one friend.

Stoli & I

I Am Changing

Look at me, Look at me
I am changing
Trying every way I can
I am changing
I'll be better than I am
I'm trying to find a way to understand
But I need you, I need you
I need a hand
I am changing
Seeing everything so clear
I am changing
I'm gonna start right now, right here
I'm hoping to work it out
And I know that I can
But I need you, I need a hand

All of my life I've been a fool
Who said I can do it on my own
How many good friends have I already lost?
How many dog nights have I known?
Walking down that wrong road
There was nothing I could find
All those years of darkness
Looking for some light
But now I can see

I am changing
Trying every way I can
I am changing
I'll be better than I am
But I need a friend
To help me start all over again
That would be just fine
I know it's gonna work out this time
'Cause this time I am
This time I am
I am changing
I'll get my life together now
I am changing
Yes I know how
I'm gonna start again
I'm gonna leave my past behind
I'll change my life
I'll make a vow and nothings gonna stop me now

from the Tony Winning Broadway Musical, "Dreamgirls"
Music by Henry Krieger, Book & Lyrics by Tom Eyen

Three Generations

Yep, here they are. My biological Mother, my half-sister and her daughter. Pretty amazing! I guess you could say I come from good looking stock. Mom is 1/2 Italian, 1/2 Dutch, German, English & Irish. My father is 100% Italian. And the talent...whoa! The three of them took tap dance in their little town of Walden, Colorado. The picture was taken at the recital where they performed to "The Way you Look Tonight!". I saw the video and they were the stars.

The New Seven Wonders of the World

The new 7 Wonders of the World...well, who says?

Released on Friday by some group who took almost 800,000 votes. Whatever.

1. Great wall of china
2. Petra - In Jordan
3. Brazil's Chirst the Redeember Statue
4. Machu Picchu
5. Chichenitza Pyramind - Mexico
6. The Coloseeum
7. Taj Mahal


Notice Stonhenge is off the list as well as the Great Pyramid in Egypt, however the Ancient Wonder of the World remains
Egyptian Pyramids.

I guess I must have been 19 or 20 when I met Helen Caswell. Helen was a friend’s, best friend’s girlfriend. She was a film student at SF State and looking for an “actor” for her project. My friend didn’t want to do it because he thought she was a bit too strange so I volunteered. Here I was, a want-to-be actor … soon moving to Hollywood!

In any event, she told me to dress casually and come out to her parent’s house out in the peach and almonds orchards of Modesto, in the Central Valley. I remember the heat of summer and an older forties style farmhouse way out in the middle of this orchard. I arrived and was met with about six or seven different cakes…all kinds, chocolate, white, cupcakes, double-decker’s, you name it. I think she baked all but one.

We quickly dispensed with our “how do you do’s” and got to business. She had a pretty old 8mm camera, as I remember. (This was way before computers and automation so I know it was old.

She filmed me doing a number of things. Eating the cake, smashing the cake, prodding and sticking my finger in the cake. It was fun. Then she asked be to get this really devious look on my face. She filmed that. And finally, she asked me to look off distantly and sink to the floor and she opened a freezer filled with dry ice. Interesting.

On my way home I thought about the evening’s events and agreed with my friend, Helen was a bit odd!

Cut to 1998 some 18 years later. The Telephone rings. My friend answered the phone. Helen is on the line and asking for a Bill, who did a movie back in the ‘70’s. Luckily I was just coming in the door from work. I had all but forgotten that strange summer evening in the orchards of Modesto…with all those cakes! It was interesting explaining that to my friend. Well, low and hold, Helen had become mildly famous in a very small circle of San Francisco filmmakers with her two-minute film, “Cake” A short film about a young man’s fancy for sweets. She wanted to see me and further invite me to a screening of the film at the San Francisco Film Festival in the newly opened San Francisco Center.

As my friend and I walked into the theater, I heard from a small group of people in the front section things like: “Cake Boy!” “It’s him!” “He’s here!” “Of course it’s him, don’t you recognize those lips.” “Those ears!” Well honey… I had arrived! Now mind you all these people had seen the film and I hadn’t so I had no idea what I was in store for.

Helen and I said our hellos as the lights dimmed and the film began. Woody Herman’s seductively erotic striptease “The Flame” began playing and there I was…on the big screen in an erotic tantalization of teases, with the cake. I sank deep into my seat! I didn’t realize her concept was sexual when she filmed it. Anything but! After the screening, she asked me what I thought. I truly was speechless. Never the less, in a small group of San Franciscan’s I shall be forever known as Cake boy!

Rainy Days and Mondays...

Or is it Sundays?

Yes, it's true. Rainy Days and Sundays always get me down. When I was a child, my parents and I would go to Mass, go out to lunch and then come home. At that point the SF Chronicle would open and both of them would be immersed for hours. Now today, for me, that would be fine, but for a 9 year old, it just wouldn't do.

Being an only child, the only playmate I had was myself. After a few years I, quite frankly, got boring. I couldn't satisfy myself. As I looked around for other friends, they were all congested into their own family units playing with their brothers and sisters. I don't know why, but Sundays will always conjur "family" for me. My lack of it and my luck of it.

Later in life, (my 30's) I would find out that "Sunday" and "Family" would mean the Eagle SF's Afternoon Beer Bust. And what a bust it was. Being a pissy queen, I never, ever did the beer bust, preferring Bud in a bottle. Something about the smell of that nasty beer on everyone's breath was something to behold. And I swear, it must havee been fortified because most everyone was drunk out of their mind. While I may have been drunk, I never wanted to be messy. Unfortunately, I think I was way messier than I'll ever admit.

Some of the best times in my life were on the patio of the Eagle. I actually would like 1/3 of my cremains to be spread on the patio on a Sunday. Come to think of it, when I was in my early 20's, in Los Angeles, it was Greg's Blue Dot Lounge on Highland and "Sunday Church". The same sort of thing. Way more fun, way more drugs and ofcourse, way younger.

Someone said, "With AIDS, all the people that could actually verify that I was once cute and young are dead". That would be true for the crowd at Greg's. I doubt there is anyone left.

At the Eagle one day it crossed my mind that I was now one of those "hot" older guys I remember from my days at Greg's. Me at the ripe old age of 38 with such realizations. Amazing. But was I really "Hot"? I'll never know.

As I sit here on a rainy Sunday in my self-imposed solitary seclusion, I find I long to be ready-ing for a Sunday afternoon at the Eagle. Feeling good about myself again, feeling young again, feeling like I have family, feeling the warmth of the tequila going down my throat and later, most likely, the touch of someone's warm body against mine holding my tight. If only for a moment of make believe.

One Friend at a time

Yes, that's it for me. Too many people in my life gets me distracted. I guess it comes from being an "only child"... and adopted, at that.

Right now my "friend' is a 26 year old homeless guy who is way more chemically challenged than me. I'm sure it's a surprise to read "chemically challenged" but later I'll reveal more on that sugject. Anyway, this guy, straight, didn't graduate from high school because he was in "Juvy" for alledgedly driving a truck for his buddy while his buddy cleaned the house out. He saYS, "I didn't know he was robbing the house...I just thougt he was moving". Now my friend, let's call him Ronny, is a very social guy, as he has to maintain a different place to sleep each night and keep his chemicals at a certain level...well, high. I can only think that he probably has more than one friend and that he probably didn't keep track of where the "mover" really lived. Maybe you could say, "I keep my friends numbered" while Ronny lost track.

In any event, that's my friend for now. Pathetic as I may be . . . I'll keep looking for a new friend though because Ronny has a couple warrants out on him for failing to appear. Yes, on every occasian where court was involved, he just doesn't show.

Good thing I know who my friend is...

The Great Freeze of '07

Bitter cold, yes, bitter. 19 degrees is unusually cold for the foothills of California on the western side of the Sierra Nevada's. The Nat'l Weather Service finally came out and said there was a freeze warning. Duh....two days ago. Or maybe they mean't me!

Our precious fruits will suffer greatly, I'm afraid. That Dwarf Lemon that I've planted twice will surely need anothe planting. Cherries, peaches, God knows what else. My large potted Camellia's have turned to Lot's wife...stone. Even the "Living" Christmas tree, an incense cedar, appears dead. So much for "living" trees. Good thing the roses like it.

And poor little Stoli. When it's time to do her business, she tip toes out onto the pale crunchy grass, drops a log, and runs back inside faster than you can say poop!

Ah, the joys of Winter. I've been in the same pair of woolens for the past week. Better warm up soon because their beginning to have a bit of an odor. (I won't take em off...not until Spring)

Blackberry Pie

Bureaucracy and Blunder

Well it was doomed to happen and now it has. The County has sent the road department crew out to clear the brush in the alley which runs behind the house. So, early this morning I am awakened by the sound of what seems to be 4,000 backhoe's and tractors.

It just so happens that in the corner of our property, on the alley, lies a very proficient blackberry bush which yielded about 8 gallons of blackberries this past Summer. For some reason I wasn't nervous about them taking out the main leaders or the bramble at all.

Luckily, they started clearing with that huge shovel and dove straight into the sewer line. The head honcho got off his rig and said, "Golly, do you think there might be a sewer line there?" Now, I may not be a county contractor or engineer but you would think they might check the location of he manholes (which now were under their equipment) before they took out the sewer. Just a thought.

I guess then there wouldn't be the need for the sewer company to come and do repairs. Hmmm, bureaucracy and blunder at its finest.

At least I'll still have a bountiful basket of blackberries this year.

tweety bird and forgotten birthdays

So, my X way over did my birthday...after not remembering, not celebrateing, nothing a few years ago in a row. This year, a call, with voicemail attached, a multimedia message and a bomb. He and his familiy and his new BF were in "Our - Let's Celebrate My Birthday Place - Puerto Vallarta, MEXICO", As I think about it, a simple voicemail would have been satisfactory from him. Never did have much empathy, that one.

Then - Mom called (before the evening's application of Jug wine), my local friend came by, Heather forgot, and my sister - well, let's seel. I guess I'll hear from her the next time I call....as was the last time.

Needless to say, Dad baked a "scratch" pumpkin pie and bought rib eye's which I grilled to perfecion. Boy, the little birds sound wonderful this winter's morning as I listen to them forage for food.

I wonder how they celebrate...

willyf-reconsidering my life

What a title. Spontanious, at best. But with a certain tone, I can easily recall the events that have made me who I am today. Which is yet to be determined.

I hope to incorporate blogs and responses from friends, former friends and even enemies. A life's story wouldn't be complete without supporting statements.

At the uneventful age of 47, I figure it's time to do something and this is really the easiest way to write my life story. So here we go...working backwards...just kidding.