Words

The white paper was tightly bound around the green tasty filling, which was now hanging from my lips. Standing James Dean proud the crisp sound of the safety match across the back of my 501’s becomes joined by the fresh flame. Introducing the two of them, they begin their dangerous dance and in moments I am reduced to a fool with his weapon.

Multiple colored words weave in and out my brain. Some touching, rubbing together, creating friction, starting sentence structure while others lay in mid air, useless to me. I reach out, almost touching the word “FUCK” but it slips between my fingers as it floats past. Soon the words overtake my will and my fingers defect to them, now doing their evil work by typing this nonsense up.

I curl up on the sofa, listening to their arguments of what they want to be, and how they wish to be remembered. These words are crazy, but I listen and wait. “Clouds of smoke”, three of the words that formed a partnership early on are attempting to win over the “Seasons” group, which consists of “summer”, “autumn”, “winter” and “spring”. I don’t know why, but Hubcap” is pissed at this. Grumbling can also be heard from “Texture” as well as “Pigment”; still I am unable to break this hideous code.

I look left, but not at “Right” who is watching me closely, I spot something that may help me with my escape. I ask if I may get a fresh pen from the desk drawer, now to busy with their infighting I am allowed with the wave of the “Hand”. Sweating it, I carefully reach down, taking the jumbo gum eraser from the drawer. Its time to erase these bastards from my mind.

This Simple Man

This simple man, who writes to battle the pains, many deserved, that have collected around my heart. I have had my fair share of troubles in life but at the same time I am so blessed, I can still see, feel and dream, while others have been lost to drugs, or alcohol, or have just made poor choices. Understanding pain opens the door to the healing process and I use my ever-increasing knowledge to express myself. So often as I write, I began to cry, and my emotions overtake me even if what I am writing about has never happened to anyone I know. I think I am able to place myself in the shoes of others, taking on their pain, letting it spill out on the page. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing to do or not, I’d never hurt someone purposefully, but when the idea comes, I become a man possessed, I seem to channel that pain, it becomes part of me.

Honey Tribe Concert Review

Honey Tribe
A Concert Review

The band cranks out song after song, as what’s left of the 60’s love children gyrate at stage center. As if attempting to relive something from their past, each seemingly longs for a taste of immortality, even if its found in a drop of sweat from the very talented Devon Allman. Front man for a hauntingly pseudo-reincarnated Allman Brothers Band called Honey Tribe, it is indeed sweet as. Part way through this opening acts repertoire Mr. Allman takes us back in time with ever so subtle licks from “Travelin’ Man”. Their beat and drive is pure Allman through and through. One can see not only his famous fathers musical savvy coming through, but his uncles as well. This band is out to have fun and they want to take us all along. Their new “album” is entitled “Torch”.

Too Short The Day

“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see. The longer I live the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and wonder of the earth”

John Burroughs

Reno 11-26-06 Pictures

The Hand Of God

Here's a picture taken from my hotel in Reno Sunday 11-26-06

Shadows and Sunshine

“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

He went to Paris

A Jimmie Buffet Classic

He Went To Paris

He went to Paris
Looking for answers
To the questions
That bothered him so
He was impressive
Young and aggressive
Saving the world on his own
The warm summer breezes
And French wines and cheeses
Put his ambition at bay
The summers and winters
Scattered like splinters’
And forty-five years slipped away

He went to England
Played the piano
And married a actress named Kim
They had a fine life
She was a good wife
And bore him a son named Jim
And all of the answers and
All of the questions
Locked in his attic one day
Cause he like the quite,
Clean country living
And twenty more years
Slipped away

Well the war took his baby,
Bombs killed his lady
And left him with
Only one eye
His body was battered
His whole world was shattered
And all he could do
Was just cry
While the tears
Were a falling
He was recalling
Answers he never found
So he hoped on a freighter
Skidded the ocean’
And left England without a sound

Now he lives in the island
Fishes the pylons
And drinks his green label each day
Writing his memoirs
Losing his hearing
But he don’t care what most people say
Through 86 years
Of perpetual motion
If he likes you he’ll smile and he’ll say
Just some of its magic
Some of its tragic,
But I had a good live all the way

He went to Paris
Looking for answers
To questions that bothered him so

The Death of Pain

The Death of Pain"

A short rambling made up story"
By s.redenbaugh



The cheap metal wheel spun, striking a small piece of flint, which produced the flame that brought a red-hot tip to the joint that now fills my lungs with an ever expanding smoke. In my lungs that smoke swirls, brushing against the fine cilia fibers, sending waves of euphoric bliss straight into my brain. Like a bullet, these freshly clipped, primo Humboldt buds draw smooth as silk. Expanding my horizons as well as my mind and lungs. I smile, exhaling and look out the window.

The rain is falling, cascading down, stripping the leaves from the trees. Pushed into the street, which is empty, they float along the gutters and then disappear, into a system that will someday carry them to the ocean where they will no longer be my concern. The only concern I seem to still have is her. The radio noise from the condo next door is loud, and the singer is expressing how bad he feels about his woman leaving him. This cuts deep into my weary mind, and it feels as if my beating heart is in that gutter, drifting away from me.

Now my memories of her are all that remain. Even after two years I think about her every waking moment. Once I even called my girlfriend of nine months her name in the throws of passion. She moved out that night. A flood of others have come and gone because of my inability to move on, they all brand me damaged goods, and for understandable reason. A soul mate cannot be replaced by quantity. It can only be dimmed by quality. No amount of smoke, nor liquor, or other drugs can erase them. No amount of nameless sex partners can bring me peace. Her image is burnt upon my retinas and I can no longer live this way.

Without a coat, and in the falling rain, I walk to the cliff where she had died. The sheared off trees tops and brush are still visible where her car had shot off the road that night. Moments of madness rush my thoughts and death seems all that could relieve the inferno of pain with in me. I lean over and hold my arms up, lifting my hands, I begin to cry out “take me, me. Why didn’t you take me?” And then in that single moment I am back to that night. I am again just waking as the car begins to skid out of control. I can still see the fear in her eyes as the first tree rips the auto apart, her hand reaching for mine, fingers, briefly touching, then nothing but darkness, nothing but sobs, nothing but death. And then, unlike the thousands of other times I have stood her and replayed that night I leap.