Wegman's 6:32 a.m.

The title says it all...
Except if you don't know what Wegman's is...
So for my Flickr friends; Wegman's is, by world's standards, an opulent supermarket
(currently growing like wildfire throughout the Eastern United States.)

This is what I saw one morning on my way in to fill the prescription that allows me to keep a smile on my face and a song in my heart....

The Acrid Smell of Failure

While recently judging an Odyssey of the Mind competition for grades 6 through 8, one teams' self-designed and self-made vehicle stopped dead. It's batteries had burned out and a pungent odor hung in the air. The sixth grader driving the vehicle hung his head and said, "I love the acrid smell of failure in the morning."

That comment kept spinning around in my head and it began to bond with images of more and more students who I come in contact with whose idea of personal responsibility is to point a finger and say, "You do it for me."

Realizing that I have now crossed that line into unavoidable crotchety-old-man-syndrome, I made this video.

In Praise of Ravens & Crows

I have discovered that my mind's eye needs glasses. For years I have tried to convince myself that, with just a little more effort, I could become an organized, spit and polish professional. Now the people that know me that just read that sentence are laughing. And with good reason too!

I am a scavenger. One who happens upon things and through a maelstrom of unmedicated thought reassembles ideas and items into something "other." I spit but I will never polish.

When I was doing "On the Occasion of a Bloody Nose" (see below). I happened upon a murder of crows feasting upon a rather unlucky bunny. This got me thinking how like a crow or raven I am. In fact, my soon-to-be 18 year old daughter has taken to calling me "Old Crow" with great delight. So I began a web search of all things crow-like.

This piece is the result of that wandering.

"Blackbird" is an outtake from the Beatles Kensington Studio Sessions. It doesn't have the bird calls over the second verse which I have always found extremely annoying...

This assemblage would be nothing without the wonderful photography I found from:

Carl Cook at www.clcookphoto.com/crows.htm

and

Paul Lantz at: http://www.lantz.ca/

Please visit both of their sites and feast your eyes on their exquisite work!

Cohasset Children's Story

I am into the third week of this malaise and now I am getting pissy. I'm done with the 5 day antibiotics, I've drunk enough fluids to sink a battleship and I still feel like crap.

Especially after the 800 mile trip to get to my wife's sister's house in beautiful Cohasset, MA. Our seventeen year old daughter, Wanda Fonda Waterloo, is happy as a pig in filth to be with her five cousins...although there is the matter of the upcoming sleepover party with seven additional 13-14 year old girls tonight.

So now here I am, the ultimate millstone of a house guest, laying in bed and living off the kindness of my caring and concerned wife, Ms. Quincy Squantum Waterloo and her generous sister and brother-in-law.

All I have to do to survive is ignore the 12 screaming kids and then get out of here before the Patriots play. This is due to the fact that they actually like Sweatshirt Bill and his arrogant boys here. (Waza matta, youse guyz from Buffalo can't take winning? Wide Right, 0 for four! Ha ha ha!)

How can a land that harbors such a pure and clean franchise like the Red Sox give rise to the devil spawn that is the Patriots? That's a topic for another post.

In anticipation of tonight's sleep-over, I have taken the liberty of assembling a small film illustrating Tom Wait's "Children's Story" from his "Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards" Discs. I have leaned heavily upon the wonderful illustrations of Windsor McKay's "Little Nemo" series... play it for a loved one tonight.

On the occassion of a Broken Nose

Just prior to my being struck down by whatever virulent strain of flu or God's karma that has kept me on my back for five days, I presided over the breaking of one of my fourth graders' noses. This was accomplished by his sliding down the school's sledding hill head first and right into the shinbone of a classmate.

I always went sledding face first. Of course, I always went sledding on a flexible flier made of wood and steel that you could steer, not these extruded pieces of low grade plastic that have all the handling of a Yugo in a hurricane. But I digress...

After learning of the broken proboscis and resulting concussion I drove to the local Wegman's where upon I observed a road-kill bunny being attended to by a murder of crows (yes, thats the proper name for a flock of crows) and then drove by the ever present oak trees in our valley.

So I made this video vignette....

Hello and Welcome

This is what happens when you are ADHD, have a 102 degree fever, bronchitis and a wireless connection. You start your own video blog site. Come inside and hang out for a while...

Bob Wilcox, American

I am sick and tired of you people
dealing dirt to this true American!!