Good Riddance to 2006

Pardon my being a little personal in this post…

I don’t think any man can lose as much as I did this past year and have any swagger left. My car, my health, my father, maybe my better half… and it all took my hope with it. Along with my ability to let my guard down.

How easily it can all be washed away from you! It’s as close to having nothing I can be. Some strange super glue must bind us at the joints and intersections of the body.

It’s only appropriate that I lost one more dash of flavor on Christmas Day. My life’s time-line has overlapped with more people’s than I can imagine. But few left me with gratitude. I am incredibly grateful to have been alive while James Brown was.

Listen to any James Brown recording and I defy to fight it. You can’t. It’s the sound of humanity, in its lowest, cave dwelling, beast-clubbing finest. It’s the rhythm of breathing, heart beating and hip thrusting. There’s nothing finer and lower.

I lost a hero and a demigod.

“Some of us would rather die on our feet than die on our knees.”

Here’s to 2007 and the clean slate it brings.

Still burning

With maggots eating his eyes and the flesh rotting and stinking off of his bones, Johnny Cash’s music remains better than 98% of the stuff we mortals squeek out in a lifetime.