“Catharsis”: Release, Purification, Cleansing, Liberation ”. T he act or process of releasing a strong emotion, especially by expressing it in an art form” I have often sat in an attempt to write, without much on my mind as to direction, content or context. The blank screen stares back at me and, usually, wins the stare down contest. Sometimes, however, a tiny spark ( and I mean tiny ) of imagination lights up the back burner and, slowly, a warming feeling comes about, from back to front. Much like a spreading pool of brackish water as a tilting, unseen ladle slowly feeds the growing puddle. As this feeling grows, an idea begins to be born. A random thought; a small bit of information which wants to grow, to form, to take substance. Sometimes it is a diffuse silhouette which has no real meaning; yet, sometimes it becomes a recognizable shape, one which can actually be morphed into a somewhat intelligent line, a story, a telling. I have to be truthful. The less I sit to write...

With the help of electronic and social media, the old “ambulance chasers” are exploding all around us in an all-encompassing virtual universe. During those long nights when it is difficult to reconcile sleep one sits in bed and stares, half alive, at those late night movies which loosely fall into the C+/- category. I do not really expect to see an Oscar winning performance ( although sometimes there has been a surprise or two ) relegated to that time of the morning. Of course, as an alternate, there are the cheap ads and innumerable "infomercials" to be had. Worse than cheap sweet wine. What used to be exclusive selling time for vacuum cleaners and kitchen knives has become time for learning about all the diseases you might have been exposed to from the day you were born, and how you can become rich by just calling (888-SUE-THEM) and talking with one of the available specialists on the subject. Apparently these phone people are extremely well versed in all possibl...

Everyone wants a little piece of the pie, and everyone wants to have their 5 minutes of fame … We live in a country that was founded on very basic principles. There would be no royalty, no feuds. A duly elected government where all would be equally represented. Everyone would have the same possibilities and each individual would have the opportunity to pursue those very possibilities, according to his/her capabilities. That was some two hundred years ago. The world has changed since then. It has become much more complicated, faster, smaller in a way. We now know what happens on the other side as it actually happens. Whether we want to, or not. We as a nation have grown, mostly along with the rest of the world. Scores of nations have come and gone -and some come again- in that time, but we persevere. We are here. A little bigger around the waist and perhaps with less hair than years ago when it was customary to wear a wig, so we could emulate those very folks “over there” w...

Sometimes writing is difficult. Like now...  Like when pure laziness has kept me from sitting here, in front of the one-eyed-monster and actually thinking about something, anything at all, which can be written into this God-awful blank page into which my eyes stare… hoping for an apparition to come and say the “writing muse” is OK… that it has just been resting, tucked away in a corner of my mind. That lost corner where all things ignored go and hide, hoping not to be called back into service any time soon. Then, the fishing begins. A look at FB to read about friends and family, where they are and what they are doing this early in the year… some are dining, some are traveling… some put pictures of family and accomplishments and some are reliving past times and reviewing what was, or what may have been had it not been for life itself and the way in which “she” ( must be a she… no? ) chooses to hand out little triumphs when she well knows, with her unerring foretelling visio...

2014 is nearing the end; perhaps before its time, perhaps too late in coming but… ready or not, the New Year is ready to roar to life… A review of the year’s happenings is a “de-rigueur” thing to do about this time. Every radio or TV program has its own mini history reduced into a few thousand pixels or sound bites of what went on during the year. On a TV show I saw recently for a few minutes, there was a review –with graphic pictures- about the deaths of several renowned actors and singers. Seems people can’t get enough of their idols, live or dead… As citizens of a country which has grown to accept violence as a somewhat normal day-to-day issue, Mexicans have adjusted to living in this uncertainty… but even they were shocked into action by a mass murder which took the lives of 43 young students for expressing themselves against abuses of the local political czar. Not too far south, Venezuela has become the second most dangerous country in the world, under the totally...

Much like the emperor of fabled fame, President Obama was left with no clothes on and saying thanks for the memories…   Yesterday was another day in a week which promised to be just another week, filled with regular, routine days. Yet, we were given some news which broke this uneventful moment; news which, in a different context and parameters, would have been welcome. As the President spoke from the podium, we were informed that there had been an agreement to exchange prisoners and to re-establish relations with Cuba, after 50+ years of diplomatic void. There would be new business avenues open, and even the status of Cuba as a terrorist sponsor nation would be subject to revision. All this, in exchange for basically… nothing. What happened was that with one unilateral (and probably unconstitutional) decision, Obama has given a new lease on life to a tired, sagging regimen that has oppressed 11M citizens, caused massive people flight and has germinated untold deaths thr...

Fall Is Coming. It has always been my favorite season of the year. That is, since the first time I experienced seasonal changes as a teen, after coming to this country. This affinity, however, is now taking on a different meaning for me. I cannot help but understand and accept that as time passes on, my life is a very much like a one year calendar which is becoming a little faded but yet comfortable to hold and to read, and that the approach of the fall season is very much like the approach, in my own life, of that period when an invisible barrier is passed and one accepts the fact that a good part of an existence has passed on, much like those pages on that calendar. Not morbidity, just reality. Those older sheets in that calendar are choke full of notes and anecdotes; of happy notations and very sad marks… sometimes just a dark exclamation point on specific dates that mark painful moments; moments which leave a memory forever. Some of those pages are relatively blank. I...