Iphone Gone...Life Updated

Not too long ago I got rid of my Iphone. I traded the sucker in for an old flip phone that is best used for conversation...of the verbal kind. Hold on a second -

I hadn't planned on using the word "sucker" until I was composing that previous sentence. "Sucker" is such an appropriate term for the Iphone that the whole premise for this piece just changed.

Hello, my name is Basil Tydings and I was addicted to Iphone apps.

But I do have an addictive personality. I was not strong enough to set my Iphone aside in order to pick up and book and read it. I was too weak to address all kinds of creative projects that were hopeful jumpstarts to a career because I had too many Words with Friends games going on. I was becoming a technological recluse, hiding in any dark corner where I could still see a touch screen yet avoid a conversation. Now I am free and re-entering a society that has its collective head down with its ear buds in. I feel so all alone.

Oh well.

There are perks to being old and outdated. Silence and plenty of free time make for a productive day. I am enjoying being a new member of Barnes and Noble. Books arrive at my door and I don't have to pay for shipping. The newspapers aren't piling up as high without being read. I cooked four out of five nights last week and the apartment is clean. There isn't any reason to check my new phone because texting with that thing is one complete pain in the ass. I am getting a lot done that might help me improve my situation, one would hope.

My local environment is brighter because I actually take the time to look around and see what is going on. The female Downy Woodpecker that came to my feeder...I saw her because I was not engrossed in an application that was draining my lifeblood and furthering the pain caused by TMJ. The local news at 6pm is exciting to watch because I haven't received 14 updates about Kim Kardashian's wedded bliss. It feels like back in the day when the family would gather around the table for dinner and the evening news at my Grandfather's house and it feels good. Now if only the paper would be delivered in the evenings!!

By by 100 dollar waste of money every month. Some of the apps I purchased  were supposed to help further my career. So what if I knew the exact position of the sun on any given day; that $5.99 didn't get my any more work on movie sets. Nobody bought any of the comic strips I created with the photos I took on my phone. All the home movies I took of Boo eating blueberries look like crap on a larger screen. I wish I had a nice film still of Boo taken with my medium-format camera instead of wasting all that time with the Iphone. I am going to have so much money this winter I might be able to buy groceries!

We will see about that.

Don't be fooled by my new found happiness; I still go through periods of withdraw. It took me ten minutes to text Gracie asking her to bring home a certain bottle of wine from Treasure Island. In my old age where dizziness comes quickly, I hate not knowing where magnetic north is. Creating voice memos is a thing of the past. I may have gotten rid of the Iphone but now I might need to buy a man purse in order to carry my compass, notebook, camera, voice recorder, pencils, sharpies, laptop, and sextant. Lewis and Clark did it; I guess I can too.

But I hear the Iphone 5 is going to be amazing...

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Technology Makes Me Want to Puke, Especially in Modern Times

Remember when you had a travel agent take care of all your vacation plans instead of the Travelocity gnome?

Maybe many of you don't, but I do. That person was a living breathing human being who had a job and earned an income. When I turned sixteen I used to pull into the Shell station on Route 3 and ask the guy who was attending to all the pumps different questions about the way my car was running. He told me a lot of stuff that I don't remember at all, but we developed a good relationship. I knew my car was in good hands when I left it with the really cool Shell guy.

Now I put my card in the slot, pump my gas and get the change rounded up to the nearest dollar in my Bank of America account. I would trade in my "keep the change" account to interact with a neighborhood gas station attendant that would take good care of the Sapphire Hornet at ANY point in time. Hell, at this point in time I'll take on the job of the gas station attendant!!

Where did the checkout girl go at Walgreens? Why do I have to drive several miles, in a city mind you, to get film developed with care? Is there such thing as an independent bookseller who caters to customer's tastes? The only good customer service left is the pot dealer who delivers right to your front door in 30 minutes or less.

Technology is killing the job market, or at least any job I am qualified for. Yeah yeah yeah, it makes everything easier, but it also makes you dumber and the gift of patience is becoming lost upon us as human beings. Nobody can spell anymore except for the 25 kids who end up in Putnam County. We are becoming too reliant on the ease of things and that is hurting America, socially and economically.

Somebody please tell me what the space program ever done for the greater good of our country...besides heighten the arms race? Get rid of NASA then those folks can go teach math somewhere...but who the hell wants to teach anymore? Very few people I know would be hurt by NASA closing because they couldn't work there anyway! I couldn't. Take that spaceship fuel and convert it to unleaded gasoline and fill up a few dozen cars.

It's nearing election time and I cannot take listening to anyone's solutions to our problems. There are a few easy solutions like take away age limits for some jobs. I could beat out more than half of any group trying out for the military, the police department, or the fire department in both physical and mental challenges, but I am over 40 so I can't even put my genius and somewhat in shape shoulders to work. There are a lot of people over 40 who want steady income who could perform a number of services as an "elderly" civil servant. Make credit cards harder to get. If you want a 2000 dollar limit for a credit card then you better show that you have 2000 dollars cash in an account. It's as simple as that. Less available credit that is killing this economy would force people to pay cash for necessary items and maybe bring about a higher demand for people in necessity stores...like Walgreens. Also, take some of the money from the now-defunct NASA program and fix the infrastructure of this country!! In Chicago they started at the wrong end of North Ave fixing potholes and there is plenty more that needs to be done. Local governments can't afford to maintain, I said maintain not improve, their facilities and roadways.

Hey politicians...come up with viable solutions and create some damn jobs!! And tax the rich so more money can be doled out at the state level for contracts that will make public transportation safer, roads smoother, and classrooms less crowded.

Wendell Pierce, an actor from the Wire and Treme, tweeted that he is part of the very small percentile that makes over 200,000 dollars per year and feels very little demand from the federal government. I applauded his honesty:

WendellPierce Wendell Pierce
Only 3% of Americans make more than $200,000. I'm one of them. For 10 years I have had a tax break. 10 Years. A 3% increase in tax nothing

The solutions seem simple but I have no idea what I am talking about. Hell, I was a theatre arts major. But our county is getting ridiculous and there doesn't seem to be anybody on the horizon who appears to be able to fix things unless you are talking about the distant hoirzon and the Rapture!!:) I will say this: take away age restrictions and I will put out some fires.

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Wasted Opportunity Wasted

Since Spanish class at VES with Senor Sullivan I dreamt of donning a pair of white slacks, a nice soft Egyptian cotton button down, a red kerchief, a pair of track shoes, and hitting the streets of Pamplona for a little jog...a very fast-paced jog. Throughout the years when news stations broadcasted highlights of the Running with/of the Bulls I always thought to myself - I could do that and I could probably do it faster than anybody else. I used to be quick, very quick and I used to be acrobatic. If there was a ledge I could do a back flip off it and land on concrete or grass or whatever. I used to have the clearest picture of doing a back flip off of some part of a bull to the cheers of thousands of adoring strangers in some plaza de toros, but then I turned 40. Some of my dreams have changed. This morning I watched some footage from San Fermin and my thinking was very different. I thought to myself, damn I wish I had done that when I could have. Maybe I have become older and somewhat wiser or maybe older should just be capitalized.

I used to follow up on all kinds of whims because they were part of my dreams. I used to tell close friends and family that I never wanted to look back and say what if. The locales for these experiences were never very exotic. Usually I had to stay within a gas tank or two, when gas was affordable, of Oxford and all I could take with me was whatever I could fit into the back of my car. Following up on whims left very little time for settling into well-paying careers so the existence was often bare bones and simple. Jobs were diverse but very low-paying. I worked as the shoe guy at the Rock-n-Bowl in New Orleans, mated on a charter boat in Key West, helped build a boat in Charleston, answered phones for a fashion designer in New York, washed dishes at a bistro, fetched coffee for the Treasurer of the National Gallery of Art, moved stuff for a world-reknowned sculptor in Canada, stocked shelves at an independent bookstore, and taught school. Now, my resume is too expensive to fax anywhere and nobody wants to hire a "flight risk" as I was once called. The whim pursuit has slowed down to anywhere I can walk or bike to.

One might say I already lived my retirement, which is great, but now I am going to have to work until I am 107, and I am fine with that. At one point I sold a bunch of bank stock that was at an all-time high to pursue some of my impulses. That was supposed to put my kids through college and be a down payment on a house. My family was furious and told me how foolish I was. Guess what...some very rich people who started running that small-town bank have made that stock almost worthless and there is very little hope that it will ever recover. Look who's the financial genius now! I satisfied a lot of urges and got out while the getting was good. Yeah, I have a fair payment plan with the IRS to take care of the capital gains but it's all good! I don't have to wonder anymore if I can play in the NHL. I can't nor ever could, but at least I found that out first hand and in a very hard way.

Seeing the Running of the Bulls this morning made me upset but it was only for the briefest moment. It is very rare that I ask myself - what if? A lot of what I tried to accomplish did not happen but I tried. I went after numerous goals and achieved very few if any at all. Are those failures, no, those are answered questions that don't bother me in my adult life. I am free to just get through life with a big old smile on my face while I try to pay off all that I owe.

These days I try to put my experiences down on paper. Literature was a bad influence on me. When I became too old to dream of making a living as a pirate I then dreamed of becoming a novelist, thus began the whims and thus began the infectious wanderlust. What my favorite authors wrote about I wanted to taste, touch, see, hear, and smell. Blame James Lee Burke, Pat Conroy, Hemingway, Faulkner, and a few others for my whims. More often than not, when I look back, I thank them.

I hope I can fine tune my syntax because I am not going to be able to throw cable down in gutters for very much longer. The retirement age of 107 is a long way off so I better get some good words down on paper and pray that someone wants to load my experiences into a kindle. The thought of having to go work on a tv show this Tuesday makes my back hurt already. I don't want to sound like a broken record or anything but I think that this will be my last show...

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Remembering When...

I got bullied.

Reading news reports about bullying makes me want to become an advocate for the death penalty. Legalize marijuana but put bullies to death. The effects of drug use can heal over time as I suppose the effects of bullying can too, but, unfortunately, the scenes of being shoved into a bathroom and beaten with fists by more than one person are a lot more vivid today than sneaking a joint and a couple smooches with a raven-haired beauty at camp. I wish it was the other way around.

The other day I was walking the Mongrel and saw a young boy walking down the street with his mother. Joy and innocence of being a pre-teen in the summer time was covered by a mask of sadness over his face. The mother attended to her son with an expression that was a mix of concern and strength. These two were on their way away from a playground. As the Mongrel and I approached the playground I saw more kids than ever playing various games all across the blacktop lot. I don't know the story but I couldn't help but wonder - why can't everyone just get along?

I know it is hard for anyone to believe that such a bad-ass warrior as myself, who turned into one of the most incredible human beings ever, was ever bullied but it is true. The pain both physically and emotionally was exceptionally hard to deal with. I was new at Sts. Peter and Paul so I was attacked in the boys bathroom by two guys who didn't like the fact that I was there. They punched me continuously in the arms and chest so nothing would show and alert the Sisters. I was also attacked by a group of girls who pulled my shorts down outside of the locker room. Today I wouldn't mind that so much, as long as it wasn't too cold outside, but back then it was horrific. Later in my teens, a knife was pulled on me in a  restroom at Easton High School. These are just a few of the incidents.

Maybe it was because my parents made me dress like a geek or I always said out loud that I wanted to be a pirate when asked what profession would you choose. Something made people want to f#*k with me and most of that was the result of my own undoing. I could be a little weird. A lot of other kids had it much worse than I did. There were a few times that someone I knew just didn't show up to school the next day, or any other day after that. You would hear about sightings of that person around town, but they just weren't there anymore. School was awful; no wonder I liked going to church so much.

In Chicago, bullying can happen with guns or big sticks and death can be the result. Times are harsher. I contemplate getting back into teaching so I can be a part of suppressing intimidation. But the thought of doing so also scares me. School grounds in Chicago are no joke!

My trauma happened way before technology made it easier to be crueler. (Even though it is hard for me to imagine anything crueler than a fifth grader having his shorts pulled down on an exceptionally brisk fall day!) I don't know how one deals with bullying in today's society. One of the reasons I stopped teaching high school was the fact that there is hardly any discipline left in the modern school system. Whenever I saw even the slightest acts of bullying by a student I wanted to pulverize him or her into the macadam. Most of what I saw was verbal that had to deal with family income, athletic prowess, weight, or mental capabilities. If there was an incident usually a scholarship student had to deal with harsher penalties more so than a full-tuition student, no matter who was at fault. Witnessing bullying in any form would ruin my day. I took my job home with me and that was not a good thing. I am older now so maybe things are different.

Much respect goes out to the families who have to encourage a child to persevere through the time of their youth, despite the cruelty of others. I don't know why I wanted to write about this...the subject of bullying has been on my mind as of late. A lot of my time is spent quietly sitting back in observation of the world around me. Too many young sad faces pass through my field of vision. I want to stop them and tell them it gets better.

I want to say "look at me; look how great I turned out!"

But then they might say: "you are always broke and looking for work."

Then I will tell them: "I'm an artist these things take time!"

And they will say: "Whatever, old man."

Which is fine. Some people like to be advised and some people just need to get through it and work it out their own way. But it's out there and if there is an opportunity to make some one smile we need to grasp that moment and make it work. Eli Mongrel is good at making kids smile, he is much better at it than I am!

Now it's officially summer! Summer should be a time of carefree activity and growth in a young person's life. I hope all the kids out there get to regroup and enjoy themselves during the time off from school. As an adult who gets to visit home in the summer I sometimes run into or hear stories about the two guys who initiated me into the brotherhood of being bullied. They never look happy and you never hear their names in any of the "good ol' stories" from back in the day that old friends like to tell. Happiness and laughter don't appear to be in their dictionaries. It's almost like the cliche you see in many teen movies and somehow I can't help but smile...

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day lilies and yesterday

A day lily now sits on the front stoop. This plant is more than just a decorative thingy to try and make the place presentable for Art Fair weekend; the day lily represents my childhood. Every time I see a palmetto tree I think of South Carolina. Every time I see a day lily I think of home.

Home for me, meaning subjects of memory, began on Waverly Island Road when there were very few houses around. For those of you who know the area, Woodland Farms was in the planning stages and the Easton Club was a good place to look for beer cans. The footsteps of my childhood fell upon some very special parts of this Earth and day lilies covered quite a bit of that ground.

My incredible work ethic derived from being told to go weed the day lily beds. I remember being drug out of the house, plopped in front of the gardens, and directed to pull out all the unnecessary weeds. There were many times when the distinction between what was necessary and unnecessary became too hard of a decision for me to make so I erred on the side of pulling it...whatever it was. Often, my mother vehemently disapproved of these decisions. I am sorry, but to me there are still no such things as "decorative grasses." If you were all green amongst the battalions of blooming day lilies you were gone from that bed.

Here is probably a good time for me to confess something so I do not lead anybody astray in their opinion of me as blossoming young man - I was not always so diligent at doing what I was told to do...

There might have been a time or two when my mother would lead me to location then go off to work on chores of her own. I would remain in a crouch as if ready to rid the mulch of invaders but as soon as I would see that red hair disappear from sight I was gone. Depending on what bed I was working on there was always Utopia just beyond my mother's line of sight. To the south was the mouth of Playtors Creek, to the north were the Segers' barnes, wonderful lush marshland full of wildlife bordered the east and west sides of the property. It was a win win situation wherever I ran to. That is until my mother came to check on me. My how her voice could carry across the whole neighborhood. I could not stand pulling weeds. The day lily soon became associated with misery.

After my hatred of all things associated with gardening developed, the day lily then initiated me into the world of culinary exploration.

One night at dinner a salad with all kinds of weird ingredients was placed in front of me. Me being me at the time immediately began to protest. I am not a fan of trying new things. When my mother told me what the ingredients were I asked if she was trying to poison me. Tiny oranges and flowers were not safe (these being mandarin oranges and day lily petals). And I hated nuts in everything. This salad was filled with walnuts. The woman was obviously unhappy with what God had provided her with a tried to off me through natural means. I refused to eat any of it and was adamant. Somehow I won that battle and only had to eat my broccoli and crabcakes.

Then one day I was sulking as I fell in behind my mother for another day of torture. Before we started working I remember she grabbed some day lily petals right off the plant and started eating them. I was amazed. I was also scared she was going to die. Seeing raw petals on a plate is one thing but having someone just eat them off the plant was another. Who knew what dreaded plague had spread across the wilds of Waverly Island overnight? However, when she didn't die I became intrigued. I thought my mom was pretty bad-ass to do something so cool as to forage outside of the doors to the Acme.

So I tried the day lily petals and they were absolutely horrible. They were as gross as I predicted they would be. But...as nauseating as they were I did not abandon the practice of eating them right out of the garden. Such an act often provoked spirited reactions from people my age. There were some fine looking young ladies growing up in the area and I would do whatever it took to try and look cool in front of them, even if it meant eating disgusting plants and having to keep from throwing up. Anything for a reaction...

When my family left the Eastern Shore and moved to Virginia the day lily beds were left in the hands of strangers. I was heartbroken. However, the house in Fredericksburg was soon surrounded with them as my parents completely refurbished a property that had been neglected for some time. I was happy to see the day lilies placed around the house. Even at a young age they helped take me away to better times and  places when being in a new area was a hard adjustment. They were a bigger help to me than that dipshit therapist I had to see.

In a new area meeting new people what was one to do to try and make his mark? You guessed it - eat the day lilies. In Fredericksburg when my friends and I got the munchies we ate day lily petals instead of potato chips but only if there were hot girls around. In my youth I rank day lilies just under marijuana and just above Virginia Gentleman bourbon in what helped me get through the tough times.

The day lilies were always there for me where ever my family lived. I cannot think about my childhood and not see them. Today they have faded from my mom's garden schemes. For some reason her tastes have changed and there are more things that I would have yanked out as an amateur landscaper. Now I have my own day lily as homage to a species that played such a pivotal role in my upbringing. I hope the damn thing blooms before the weekend. And don't think for a second that I won't pull off a petal and munch on it should the proper occasion arise...

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