BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
The birds fly away
When the weather turns to autumn
In spring they return.
They fly, fly, fly,
Their wings carry them;
Suddenly you notice
That they already
Drink of the distant blue sky.
They fly so swiftly that one takes
Them as disappearing dreams.
What flies more swiftly
Than the birds? Life!
But, unlike the birds,
It never comes back.
…………………………………………..Adapted From “Satantango,” a Hungarian Film
Saturday, December 13, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
Far away, a man on the beach
With a flashlight.
What does he think about?
'Whatever death is
Life is worth more.'
You who are tied to me by friendship's chain,
And with whom together we kept
Wide awake so many nights;
You may want to
Mourn over my corpse.
But I say to my friends
Do not mourn me;
You know that with us
It was mostly laughs;
And mourning would strike
Against our normal selves.
But, for sure, come out to me,
And as you stand over my grave,
Cheerfully tell the jokes
We told ourselves.
And laugh some more
And mention all the old names
And know that your blood ran in mine;
---------------------------
Inspired by Satantango, a Hungarian Film.
Far away, a man on the beach
With a flashlight.
What does he think about?
'Whatever death is
Life is worth more.'
You who are tied to me by friendship's chain,
And with whom together we kept
Wide awake so many nights;
You may want to
Mourn over my corpse.
But I say to my friends
Do not mourn me;
You know that with us
It was mostly laughs;
And mourning would strike
Against our normal selves.
But, for sure, come out to me,
And as you stand over my grave,
Cheerfully tell the jokes
We told ourselves.
And laugh some more
And mention all the old names
And know that your blood ran in mine;
---------------------------
Inspired by Satantango, a Hungarian Film.
Monday, November 03, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
On this earth there is one thing that is dreadful: Everyone has his reasons. Eugene Jarecki
On this earth there is one thing that is dreadful: Everyone has his reasons. Eugene Jarecki
Why We Fight - A Film By Eugene Jarecki
Monday, October 27, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
If all this dying doesn't end soon everything will turn to shit. mek
Like most good Americans he was fervently materialistic and oblivious to the incongruity of wealth and poverty around him. (mek?)
"Music of Chance," Paul Auster: "Something was finished and something was about to begin. Each citizen carries the entire world within himself. "
"In the Country of Last Things," Paul Auster
"Make plans. Consider the possibilities. Act. Unless you learn to accept what has given to you , you will never be at peace with yourself. "
"The Book of Memory," Paul Auster
"It was. It will never be again. Remember. "
"Leviathan," Paul Auster
"Every man is a prisoner of his pecker."
"Once you turn against yourself, it is hard to believe that everyone is not against you too. "
If all this dying doesn't end soon everything will turn to shit. mek
Like most good Americans he was fervently materialistic and oblivious to the incongruity of wealth and poverty around him. (mek?)
"Music of Chance," Paul Auster: "Something was finished and something was about to begin. Each citizen carries the entire world within himself. "
"In the Country of Last Things," Paul Auster
"Make plans. Consider the possibilities. Act. Unless you learn to accept what has given to you , you will never be at peace with yourself. "
"The Book of Memory," Paul Auster
"It was. It will never be again. Remember. "
"Leviathan," Paul Auster
"Every man is a prisoner of his pecker."
"Once you turn against yourself, it is hard to believe that everyone is not against you too. "
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
Many years ago I was standing at the urinal of a VFW in Skowhegan, Maine, when the man pissing next to me allowed that it was too bad that you had to pay for a drink and then piss it all away.
+++++++++++++
He bears the heaviest chain -- that of maturity.
++++++++
His smile was kept locked away in some small drawer somewhere in a cellar.
Many years ago I was standing at the urinal of a VFW in Skowhegan, Maine, when the man pissing next to me allowed that it was too bad that you had to pay for a drink and then piss it all away.
+++++++++++++
He bears the heaviest chain -- that of maturity.
++++++++
His smile was kept locked away in some small drawer somewhere in a cellar.
Friday, October 24, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
There is a time of life when preferences and antipathies are easily implanted and grow to be ineradicable moral sentiments of maturer years.
Lord Salisbury 1865
Apparently after having been molded by friend Dr. Horowitz, few of us have been able to move our heads from side to side so that we could see the rest of the world.
There is a time of life when preferences and antipathies are easily implanted and grow to be ineradicable moral sentiments of maturer years.
Lord Salisbury 1865
Apparently after having been molded by friend Dr. Horowitz, few of us have been able to move our heads from side to side so that we could see the rest of the world.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
It seems to me that much of what we call Truth is tentative, subject to change.
It seems to me that much of what we call Truth is tentative, subject to change.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
Mike
This is beauifully written and a rare tribute to a friend. However, I disagree when you say Hal was surrounded by creative people but he wasn't one of them ..In my occasional get-togethers with Hal over the years we often talked about business, first his advertising work and later his role as producer/director of TV commercials. It was his job to be creative, and I think he did his job well.
John
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
When I think about Hal I try to bring together each of the facets that made up his personality. He wanted to be outsize and memorable but he banged up against his limitations and couldn't bring himself to accept them. He was in a business surrounded by creative types but he wasn't one of them. He wasn't 'talent' but he wasn't a 'suit' either.
He kept his insecurities to himself, he was very closed, very private, so it is doubly hard to put him together in a written sketch. He hid so much of himself from us, and only occasionally, when he was bleeding, did we glimpse a little of what lived under his skin.
His self-protective shield was anger, not a blistering anger, but rather a blustering anger. I loved him for it. It was clear to me that he used his anger to keep himself separate from his life's accumulation of ticks and harrumphs, experience and memory.
When Hal dressed for his role -- the role he played before us, his audience -- when he prepared the fiction that became his self, his character, he dropped deep into his unconscious and the role he played actualized into himself, without deliberate intention, and therefore, paradoxically, into a genuine self. The man we saw on on stage was real.
He never told us that he was dying. We are not sure whether he knew it or whether he was in denial. By not telling us, he deprived himself (and us) of a farewell; we never got to tell him directly how much he meant to each of us, how important to us he was, and, most important, how much we loved him.
When I think about Hal I try to bring together each of the facets that made up his personality. He wanted to be outsize and memorable but he banged up against his limitations and couldn't bring himself to accept them. He was in a business surrounded by creative types but he wasn't one of them. He wasn't 'talent' but he wasn't a 'suit' either.
He kept his insecurities to himself, he was very closed, very private, so it is doubly hard to put him together in a written sketch. He hid so much of himself from us, and only occasionally, when he was bleeding, did we glimpse a little of what lived under his skin.
His self-protective shield was anger, not a blistering anger, but rather a blustering anger. I loved him for it. It was clear to me that he used his anger to keep himself separate from his life's accumulation of ticks and harrumphs, experience and memory.
When Hal dressed for his role -- the role he played before us, his audience -- when he prepared the fiction that became his self, his character, he dropped deep into his unconscious and the role he played actualized into himself, without deliberate intention, and therefore, paradoxically, into a genuine self. The man we saw on on stage was real.
He never told us that he was dying. We are not sure whether he knew it or whether he was in denial. By not telling us, he deprived himself (and us) of a farewell; we never got to tell him directly how much he meant to each of us, how important to us he was, and, most important, how much we loved him.
Friday, October 10, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
Lifeboat an Alfred Hitchcock film with Walter Slezick ,William Bendix Tallula Bankhead directed by Hitchcock.Walter is the german uboat captain;Tallula ,the starlet. Slezack was committed to survive and secreted food while the others starved. I think Bendix who was wounded was weaked and unfit was killed by Slezak so they could conserve water. Lets all as survivors, the remaining beings in our lifeboat, commit to share the remaining supplies and nobody pushes anybody overboard.
ss
At the moment of death life stops -- and we will not know that our existence is over.
ss
What has HAl's death meant to us, personally and as a group. What did it feel like when realizing that the number of empty chairs for Greenberg, Aronsohn, Spencer and
Alas, as Hal's parting shot reminds us, we can not, like those in the movie, be saved from death. None of us can survive. Now what the fuck can we do about that? Make believe?
g
The emails before our meeting were thought provoking, the conversation outdoors at Henry's helped to add definition and clarity to the summation of our view of Hal but the ass kicker, the
post script to the story was Craig's revelations and additions to Hal's life and death story.
And then the renewed discussion after Craig's departure . Now there was brand new information which shed light on all the principle players and their motives. What a spectacular evening. Unrivaled in the annals of "Boys Of HM regular evenings out and about". A rare peek in to the clotted heart of a man who was overcome by disease and twisted disappointment in life and love.
Whether we understand it or not we have witnessed a very sad waste of human potential and it ain't over yet.
ss
When Gross pointed to the places, "over here," for Aronsohn, and "that place" for Spencer, and "this place for Danny, and Hal, by me; for a moment, I felt as though each were present. Something broke the spell, someone said something too soon--maybe it was Hal....
All worlds change and vanish. It looks as though our's is vanishing now. I have had enough of change. Lets think of another way our only experience is life. We will not experience our death. We may be bailing as fast as we can; but there's no one who can repair the leak in the lifeboat. The odd, strange thing is that we will each carry on, mostly ignoring the dead end in our future, until we arrive it --and then we won't know it.
mek
Lets think of another way our only experience is life. We will not experience our death. Death is
this then when there is no more life. Only the survivors will experience our absence of life.
If you want an afterlife ,a second installment then there are alot of good stories out there. Learning everyday how to live fully in the present. That is it a finite number of present moments
till the last one. The biggest economy to prolong the number of present moments in which to live is sleeping less. That gives me more real added time not hopeful fairy tales.
ss
Lifeboat an Alfred Hitchcock film with Walter Slezick ,William Bendix Tallula Bankhead directed by Hitchcock.Walter is the german uboat captain;Tallula ,the starlet. Slezack was committed to survive and secreted food while the others starved. I think Bendix who was wounded was weaked and unfit was killed by Slezak so they could conserve water. Lets all as survivors, the remaining beings in our lifeboat, commit to share the remaining supplies and nobody pushes anybody overboard.
ss
At the moment of death life stops -- and we will not know that our existence is over.
ss
What has HAl's death meant to us, personally and as a group. What did it feel like when realizing that the number of empty chairs for Greenberg, Aronsohn, Spencer and
Alas, as Hal's parting shot reminds us, we can not, like those in the movie, be saved from death. None of us can survive. Now what the fuck can we do about that? Make believe?
g
The emails before our meeting were thought provoking, the conversation outdoors at Henry's helped to add definition and clarity to the summation of our view of Hal but the ass kicker, the
post script to the story was Craig's revelations and additions to Hal's life and death story.
And then the renewed discussion after Craig's departure . Now there was brand new information which shed light on all the principle players and their motives. What a spectacular evening. Unrivaled in the annals of "Boys Of HM regular evenings out and about". A rare peek in to the clotted heart of a man who was overcome by disease and twisted disappointment in life and love.
Whether we understand it or not we have witnessed a very sad waste of human potential and it ain't over yet.
ss
When Gross pointed to the places, "over here," for Aronsohn, and "that place" for Spencer, and "this place for Danny, and Hal, by me; for a moment, I felt as though each were present. Something broke the spell, someone said something too soon--maybe it was Hal....
All worlds change and vanish. It looks as though our's is vanishing now. I have had enough of change. Lets think of another way our only experience is life. We will not experience our death. We may be bailing as fast as we can; but there's no one who can repair the leak in the lifeboat. The odd, strange thing is that we will each carry on, mostly ignoring the dead end in our future, until we arrive it --and then we won't know it.
mek
Lets think of another way our only experience is life. We will not experience our death. Death is
this then when there is no more life. Only the survivors will experience our absence of life.
If you want an afterlife ,a second installment then there are alot of good stories out there. Learning everyday how to live fully in the present. That is it a finite number of present moments
till the last one. The biggest economy to prolong the number of present moments in which to live is sleeping less. That gives me more real added time not hopeful fairy tales.
ss
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
My life-long friend Hal died on September 26. So I looked up "friend" in a few books of quotations. Some fit, some don't.
"Friend: a single soul dwelling in two bodies." Aristotle -- not Hal and me, no we were certainly not a single soul.
"A friend is, as it were, a second self." Cicero -- could be. Hal had some attributes that I would have liked to have had. His quick wit. His ebullient self-confidence. (Well, he really wasn't self-confident, but rather, he knew how to act with confidence.
"A friend is a present you give yourself." Robert Louis Stevenson...could fit. He was someone whom I always enjoyed being with. Lots of laughs.
Well, none of those ideas about friends exactly fit my relationship with Hal. Ever since I knew him when we were 13 or 14 he was angry and had a hostile wit...I never figured out his source of anger but it was deep and inbred. I knew both his parents--is mother was warm and very beautiful brunette, and been a B-Movie actress in the thirties; his father was a very wealthy man, but a little distant.
Hal had been adopted by his father. Hal was actually the son of what used to be called a "butter and egg man," who is buried in Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn, off Ocean Parkway. I never learned his name. Something in me remembers Hal referring to Breakstone Cottage Cheese, but I don't know whether that's my faulty memory or Hal's imagination. Who knows? It might even be my own imagination's eagerness to build a story.
As a boy Hal valiantly went out for football and warmed the bench with me, rarely, if ever getting into a game. He was afflicted with the flattest feet his doctor had ever seen; but that did not dissuade him from going out. Coach Quinn kept him on the team mainly because Hal was an inspiration to us all, running laps with his guts falling out, but persevering when others quit, and always finishing the required number of laps, even as night fell on the track.
He told us that he went out for football at Michigan. Of course, he never expected to make the team, at least I think he never expected to make the team, but with Hal one never knew what his expectations of himself actually were. He didn't make the team, but he went out.
After college his father offered him the family business. Hal turned it down. He wanted to be in show business and so he took an usher's job at the Ed Sullivan Show on CBS. Imagine, turning down a fifty-thousand dollar job that was guaranteed to lead to the ownership of a huge company--but Hal was true to his heart. Show business it would be and he took an ushers job.
Somehow, that lead to advertising where Hal eventually was responsible for directing and producing many of the Procter & Gamble and Timex television ads for Grey.
Later he opened his own production company, Randelman Productions, and Grey continued to use him because of his extraordinary abilities. He was proud of being a "producer," and being able to pull thnigs together when other people couldn't. He won a Cleo or two, but never bragged about it.
Hal was proud of knowing the "right places." Whether it was travel or dining, I could count on Hal to tell me where to go...
My life-long friend Hal died on September 26. So I looked up "friend" in a few books of quotations. Some fit, some don't.
"Friend: a single soul dwelling in two bodies." Aristotle -- not Hal and me, no we were certainly not a single soul.
"A friend is, as it were, a second self." Cicero -- could be. Hal had some attributes that I would have liked to have had. His quick wit. His ebullient self-confidence. (Well, he really wasn't self-confident, but rather, he knew how to act with confidence.
"A friend is a present you give yourself." Robert Louis Stevenson...could fit. He was someone whom I always enjoyed being with. Lots of laughs.
Well, none of those ideas about friends exactly fit my relationship with Hal. Ever since I knew him when we were 13 or 14 he was angry and had a hostile wit...I never figured out his source of anger but it was deep and inbred. I knew both his parents--is mother was warm and very beautiful brunette, and been a B-Movie actress in the thirties; his father was a very wealthy man, but a little distant.
Hal had been adopted by his father. Hal was actually the son of what used to be called a "butter and egg man," who is buried in Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn, off Ocean Parkway. I never learned his name. Something in me remembers Hal referring to Breakstone Cottage Cheese, but I don't know whether that's my faulty memory or Hal's imagination. Who knows? It might even be my own imagination's eagerness to build a story.
As a boy Hal valiantly went out for football and warmed the bench with me, rarely, if ever getting into a game. He was afflicted with the flattest feet his doctor had ever seen; but that did not dissuade him from going out. Coach Quinn kept him on the team mainly because Hal was an inspiration to us all, running laps with his guts falling out, but persevering when others quit, and always finishing the required number of laps, even as night fell on the track.
He told us that he went out for football at Michigan. Of course, he never expected to make the team, at least I think he never expected to make the team, but with Hal one never knew what his expectations of himself actually were. He didn't make the team, but he went out.
After college his father offered him the family business. Hal turned it down. He wanted to be in show business and so he took an usher's job at the Ed Sullivan Show on CBS. Imagine, turning down a fifty-thousand dollar job that was guaranteed to lead to the ownership of a huge company--but Hal was true to his heart. Show business it would be and he took an ushers job.
Somehow, that lead to advertising where Hal eventually was responsible for directing and producing many of the Procter & Gamble and Timex television ads for Grey.
Later he opened his own production company, Randelman Productions, and Grey continued to use him because of his extraordinary abilities. He was proud of being a "producer," and being able to pull thnigs together when other people couldn't. He won a Cleo or two, but never bragged about it.
Hal was proud of knowing the "right places." Whether it was travel or dining, I could count on Hal to tell me where to go...
Saturday, September 13, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
This is what I wrote on June 15, 2003. That is what I am doing today.
Sunday, June 15, 2003
My job today is to re-file or toss all of my files. At present I have laid them all out on my dining room table in an effort to sort them. Looking at the mass of materials is making me very anxious. Bloggerbasic still hasn't answered me about sprellschek.
# posted by Buster Stronghart @ 1:22 PM
This is what I wrote on June 15, 2003. That is what I am doing today.
Sunday, June 15, 2003
My job today is to re-file or toss all of my files. At present I have laid them all out on my dining room table in an effort to sort them. Looking at the mass of materials is making me very anxious. Bloggerbasic still hasn't answered me about sprellschek.
# posted by Buster Stronghart @ 1:22 PM
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
What I don't know of a subject I fill in with an imagined rainbow of facts, distant from the subject at hand, somewhat hazy, and yet fulfilling a general need for knowledge--whether accurate or not.
---
I am one of those men who keep a running ledger of losses.
What I don't know of a subject I fill in with an imagined rainbow of facts, distant from the subject at hand, somewhat hazy, and yet fulfilling a general need for knowledge--whether accurate or not.
---
I am one of those men who keep a running ledger of losses.
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
I want an attorney who is prudent and wise, and provides me with deliberative counsel.
Here's to us
Who's like us?
Damned few.
And they're all dead!
I want to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
I know a man who clings steadfastly to an ever changing set of principles.
If your mother says she loves you demand a second source.
He gazes back with nostalgia to a world that never was.
I have read so many books that promised to change my life. -- But none have.
My adolescent dreams follw crooked paths. Empty prayers dwindle.
I want an attorney who is prudent and wise, and provides me with deliberative counsel.
Here's to us
Who's like us?
Damned few.
And they're all dead!
I want to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
I know a man who clings steadfastly to an ever changing set of principles.
If your mother says she loves you demand a second source.
He gazes back with nostalgia to a world that never was.
I have read so many books that promised to change my life. -- But none have.
My adolescent dreams follw crooked paths. Empty prayers dwindle.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
Was it you?
You think I forgot
The iron bed
and those yellow sheets
The whiskey bottle on the night table
The quiet music coming from
The next room. Your clothing
on the floor, A fragrance of
only you.
Whispers coming from the leaves
Of the oak tree at the window
And your whispers, too, in my ear,
Did I bite or was it you?
That, at last, I have forgot.
MEK
Aug 2008
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