El Baloney, to you

"Brave the storm to come..." It's a perfectly cool and gloomy day here which is a fine excuse to recline with the laptop and spin yarns. World cup withdrawal is in full force since this is the two day break before the quarter finals which start tomorrow so I only have Wimbledon. Even then, they mainly cover the smattering of Chilean and Argentinean players but it's available drama and I accept. Viva Fernando Gonzalez, who defeated the evil Russian, Marat Safin, today in five sets so there was much national rejoicing. Anyway, pictured here, as promised, is cousin Nata who shares my sense of humor; no easy match in these parts.

Lying under the volcano
Can sometimes invite trouble
Los straightjackets for the insane-o
Keeps the palace above the rubble

I don't know if she can get behind me on that one but here are a couple of crippled haikus:

Spending here and there
Trying to save my spirit
For the final act

Needing to be young
Whatever the needle says
Time to act foolish

I'm listening to a Dead show from 6/29/76 at the Chicago Auditorium and we hope TCM (The Crass Menagerie- don't sue Mr. Turner) has readers in the city by the lake. Anyway, I thought about the babies born during these couple of hours and that they'll turn 30 today. I also wonder if the mothers back then were hoping to hold out a few more days until the Fourth of July and say their little package came the same day as the nation's bicentennial or if they were just trying to drop that load as quickly as possible during a hot summer. My own memories of 7/4/76 were basically ones of anti-climax but I don't really know what a kid was supposed to expect. The TV showed a bunch of tall ships in the harbor next to the statue of liberty and a bunch of colored smoke poured through the air and I didn't feel any different. I guess as a (almost) twelve-year-old I expected to feel some transformation and couldn't believed it turned out to be just another day (sorry Jim, I know it was your fourteenth birthday-- what do you remember?). I reckon it was just another lesson about getting caught up in the hype. I'm still reinforcing that one but I think I'm improving.
Man, is the Thin Man tall, or what?