Warren Bluhm's Blog, page 41

Just write anything until you write something

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There are a number of things you can do with a blank piece of paper, or a blank screen.

You can stare at it.

You can write on it.

You can draw on it.

(You can also make paper airplanes and origami, but for purposes of this post, well stick with things that involve writing implements.)

Staring at it is the least productive option. Staring usually involves mental paralysis, perhaps even fear that you or I will have nothing worthwhile to say.

And you know how I sabotaged the process just then?

...

The winnable struggle against depression and depression

Its interesting: We use the same word depression to describe a paralyzing melancholy and general economic collapse.

I imagine its safe to say one leads to the other and back.

Some say the cure for an economic depression is to have the government spend our way out of it. That, of course, ignores the fact that the government usually has spent our way into it.

Some say the cure for clinical depression is the right medication. I agree that when a chemical imbalance has caused the depression, a...

Keep a pad and a pen by your bed

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Yes, this was the truth. I finally knew what to do.

I was so sure. It was a brilliant insight.

I brimmed with confidence. First thing in the morning, I would get started. This time, nothing could stop me.

And when I woke, all I could remember was the certainty.

I had no clue what insight had made me so certain, so confident.

How many cures for cancer have been lost because someone said, Im sure Ill remember in the morning, turned over, and went back to sleep?

Grant me the serenity

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Now, see, this is why its not a good idea to look at the glowing screen first thing in the morning.

I walk out with Willow to see to her morning constitutional, and its a beautiful morning, so quiet and still that the roosters crowing a half-mile away is clear as day, and the reverberations from a hunters shot way in the distance can be heard to the last echo.

No wind, and therefore no crashing waves from the bay below us, no traffic on the highway quiet stillness pervades.

I come inside...

In the Attic: Manhattan Spiritual

Reading about Tommy James career got me rummaging through my boxes of old 45 rpm singles last night, listening first to my old TJ and the Shondells tunes and then paging down the alphabet, when I stumbled across my treasured copy of Reg Owens Manhattan Spiritual, which I hadnt heard in years.

I still dont know why I picked this out of the record bin for 10 cents or whatever it cost back when I bought it, sometime in the 1970s or 80s. Id never heard of the song or the artist; maybe the...

W.B.’s Book Report: Tommy James’ autobiography

The magic just grabs some people.

My cousin’s dear one shared his copy of a book by Tommy James called Me, the Mob and the Music, and I raced through the first half last night. It’s quite a tale.

It’s the story of a kid who was gripped by the magic early in life and singing in bar bands by the time he became a teenager. It’s the story of how he saw a rival band drive a crowd nuts with an obscure B-side called “Hanky Panky” and had his band record the song and score a regional hit in no...

Villainy and inevitability

Weary of defying and denying, he walked to the mountaintop podium and barked.

“You’ll never win,” he shouted quietly. “You’ll never take my freedom. Between my temples and between your temples, we both know. I have resisted your lies and your false prophecies with all the strength I had. I am weary and exhausted, but I defy you to the last.”

There was a smirk in the voice that replied. “What need have I for your mind, when I can wear your body down to a nub?”

“Oh, we both know you need ...

A Bridge at Crossroads

Crossroads at Big Creek is a nature preserve in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, that I would visit on lunch breaks when I worked there. A couple of weeks after being evicted from my dream job (“This is an economic decision, not a performance decision”), I sat on a bench near this bridge and wrote these words.)

When you are sad – for there will come a time when you are sad – remember a time you were so happy you wished this moment would last forever – because it does last forever as long as you r...

In the grip of mask hysteria

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A year ago, if someone was spotted putting on a mask before entering, say, a bank, they would have called the cops.

Now, the cops might get called if someone enters barefaced.

I’m not sure I like this new world where we are anonymous to one another. A crinkle of the eyes is all we can see of a big smile anymore. The cues we always took from facial expressions are obscured by a piece of cloth or paper.

Personally, I don’t mind strong recommendations (as opposed to edicts) to cover ...

‘The Uncommon Man’

“Guest post”

In my opinion, we are in danger of developing a cult of the Common Man, which means a cult of mediocrity. But there is at least one hopeful sign: I have never been able to find out just who this Common Man is. In fact, most Americans — especially women — will get mad and fight if you try calling them common.

This is hopeful because it shows that most people are holding fast to an essential fact in American life. We believe in equal opportunity for all, but we know that thi...