Joseph and the Sky That Broke: Masterpieces of a Different Sort - #7

 

I found this one at the dump. I reminded me of my great-grandfather, Joe and his eldest son - my grandfather, Forrest. The painting is real and the story is true-ish.

They say it started with the wind. Not the kind that passes through, but the kind that stays. Hangs in the air. Gnaws on your skin. Teaches you how to live small.

Joseph York was a farmer in western Oklahoma. The kind of man who didn’t waste a word or a meal. He and his wife had five children, and they all lived in a house that leaned a little too far to the east—like it, too, had started to give in.

By 1930, the sky had turned mean. Rain stopped visiting. The crops died with their roots curled like fists, and the dirt began to lift—at first just a haze on the horizon, then something closer to judgment.

One day, Joseph saw the sky fold in on itself. Dust boiled up across the field like smoke from a fire that hadn’t started yet. He called for the children. Told Forrest, the eldest, to pack what they could into the truck. Told the others not to look back.

But Forrest—he did.

And what he saw stayed with him for the rest of his life:

His father, standing in the doorway, one hand on the frame, the other shielding his eyes as the land he had worked his whole life became a memory he couldn’t hold onto. The dust didn’t just take the farm. It took the years that built it.

That’s the moment this painting captures—or seems to.

It’s not signed. Not dated. Just left behind at the dump like a story someone didn’t want to tell anymore.

But I think it’s Joseph.

Or maybe it’s every Joseph who stood still just long enough to lose everything but the will to keep going.

We Did It!

 

We made it.

Shrek the Musical opened this weekend—and somehow, despite all the chaos, all the costume changes, all the quick cues and frantic prop swaps—it came together.

And it came off almost without a hitch.

This show is big.

Big cast. Big voices. Big green prosthetics.

A fairytale circus on a stage held together by choreography, backstage whispers, and an unreasonable amount of faith.

I have the smallest of parts—just a moment, really.

But even from the wings, I’ve never been prouder to be part of a cast.

Everyone showed up. Everyone shined.

Opening night is behind us. The story lives now.

And I’m thrilled I got to help tell it.

Lucky Me.

 

Lucky me.

It only cost $25 this time. And three hours of my life I won’t get back.

Every spring, the house reminds me who’s boss.

A new broken pipe. Or two. Sometimes more. Always outdoors.

The indoor plumbing is mostly civil.

The yard, though?

It’s a calamitous, confounding, concatenation of shallow-buried pipes laid like a drunken game of Tetris over decades.

The frost heaves the ground.

The ground breaks the pipes.

The pipes break my resolve.

Back in winter, one line froze and started gushing.

I ran to shut off the main outdoor valve—just in time.

The valve stem sheared off as I turned it.

Good thing it happened after I got it closed.

If it hadn’t, this post would be about a flood.

I left it like that for months. Let the problem hibernate. It was too cold anyway. The ground was frozen.

Now that the frosts are gone, I went out to assess the damage.

I thought I’d be digging deep, replacing the whole mess.

But somehow—miraculously—I managed a workaround.

New tool. Bit of pipe.

And now the valve turns on and off slowly, and with some trepidation. And that's good enough for me.

For now, anyway.

Lattes & Loitering, Episode 52: A New Book (with a twist)

It started, as these things often do, with a book.

Not a new book, exactly—just new to me. One of those titles that practically taps you on the shoulder from across the digital aisle:

13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do.

Catchy, right?

Enough to make me hover over the “Buy Now” button for a moment.

But then I pictured it—the sorting facility, the barcode scanner, the box making its journey across three states and four highways just so I could sit in a café and feel slightly more emotionally fortified. And I thought: maybe not.

So I let the AI do the lifting.

In a few minutes, I had a clean, thoughtful summary. A clickable mind map. A podcast voiced by two eerily calm digital humans, swapping insights over a topic they technically can’t feel.

And honestly?

It was enough.

I didn’t burn any fuel. I didn’t wait three days. I didn’t add another object to the great domestic archive of unread personal development literature.

I got what I came for. And then I lingered.

Because sometimes strength isn’t about doing more.

Sometimes it’s about knowing when not to.

And loitering with a latte, apparently, still makes the cut.

Here's some clickable stuff:

• PDF summary 

• Simulated podcast

Mind map of '13 Things'

Oh, and speaking of loitering:

Red Hats, Cold Feet

Meet MAGA Mick

Something new is brewing.




I’ve started work on an animated cartoon—limited animation, to be honest. We’re talking slow blinks, head tilts, awkward shuffles. The kind of movement that mirrors the mental gymnastics of a man caught in a moral midlife crisis.




His name is MAGA Mick.




He’s a dyed-in-the-flannel Republican. Trump voter. Used to shout at the TV. Used to own more flags than shirts. But now… something’s shifting. Not all at once. Not dramatically. But enough that you can see it in his eyes.




The man’s starting to wonder.




The cartoon is satire, yes—but it’s not a hit job. It’s a portrait. It's short and punchy. A study in contradiction. A bit of absurdity laced with humanity, because that’s the most honest way I know to explore what’s happening in the bones of this country.




Mick is fictional. But his story? It’s everywhere.




The project will grow slowly, the way real doubt does. A still photo is the one above. No voices or narration, just a lot of cards that, one after the other, probe the unsettling issues gnawing at Mick. This is my attempt to speak to a fracture in our collective story using the only tools I’ve got: humor, pixels, and a deep love for asking inconvenient questions.

Shrek Rehearsal Continues Apace

Getting there. We're about a month away from the premiere.

Dog Walk In The Rain

 

Rainy all day, but they need their exercise.

The park, emptied of everyone

except me and the dogs—

tails up, noses down,

Bella with her tug ball,

oblivious to weather,

or maybe made for it.

No voices. No cars.

Just the soft drip of water meeting earth,

and the rhythm of paws

in soaked grass.

We got wet.

We didn’t mind. Nothing a car towel can't fix.

The world had stepped out,

and left the silence to us.

BB Gets Attacked. A Bad Day At The Park.

It happened too fast.

My little dog Beatrice—BB—was ahead of me, doing what she always does in the park: sniffing, patrolling, trotting just slightly too far, like she’s got her own errands to run. I was trailing behind, letting her be her scrappy, independent self.

Then I heard it. A scream. High, sharp, unmistakable.

It was BB.

I ran. Not thinking, not planning. Just running. The kind of sprint your body invents when you hear someone you love in pain.

Two larger dogs had gotten her. I don’t know what set them off. I only know they backed off when they saw me barreling toward them. And their owner? Said nothing. Did nothing.

No apology. No concern.

Just… silence.

I had to yell—really yell—to get her to leash her dogs and put them in her car so we could have a “chat.” And we did. I let her know, in no uncertain terms, that what happened was not just unacceptable—it was burned-into-my-memory unforgivable. The owner is older than I by about 10 years. I'm not proud of what I said, but it could have worse. "You're too old to be this dumb! YOU are responsible for your dogs behavior. What the fuck is the matter with you". I felt like throwing a rock through her window. 

Let’s just say: I don’t think I’ll be seeing her again. If I do, it won’t be a quiet reunion.

This is the second time BB has been attacked recently. And Bella—my other dog—was hit by a pit bull a few months back. So yeah, I’m thinking about carrying bear spray now. Not because I want to use it. But because I don’t want to be helpless again. And, as bad as it sounds, I believe in retribution.

BB is moving gingerly today, a little slower, a little sore—but she’s here. Still wagging her tail. Still showing more grace than I’m capable of.

Dogs are like that.

They forgive faster than we deserve.

Nana and the Elephant. A Story and an Instant Podcast.

 

I decided to test out some of Google’s newer AI tools—specifically, NotebookLM. I was curious about their podcast generation feature, and figured: why not throw something personal into the machine and see what comes out?

So I uploaded a story—one I’d written about a conversation I once had with my grandmother, Nana.  A quiet memory, dusted off and given a slight narrative shine.

I fed it into NotebookLM, clicked the “generate podcast” button, and waited. It took about 15 minutes.

Below is the story.

And then—what the AI did with it.

Playing Ukes With The Ladies For Valentines Day

I love getting together to play ukuleles with this group of fun people. For Valentines Day we met as we usually do at our local toy store and sang torch songs together. Bella loves going there too, especially since the place doubles as an ice cream shop (she's fond of vanilla). Look for her. She's partially obscured. I'm in the santa hat. (For Valentines Day ???)