Welcome to Vegas

What follows is a snipet from a short story I am working on, "Welcome to Vegas." Let me know what you think....


* * * * * * *

Now look at me.
I had a future on Tuesday.
It's Friday and I'm a joke.
Now I have darkness and refuse.

Rotting garbage, that smell, that’s how I know I'm in trouble.
When you're in trouble you can smell it.
The smell of Carter's Heineken foul breath.
When I was a kid the acid smell, dreck of my father's tobacco spittle stuck to my face.

I know my life has taken a turn for the worse, the stench.
But the smell is a distraction, making the cold not so cold.

I can only feel one thing at a time, so the smell of the garbage battles back the cascade of my newest failure.
The cold, the hunger and the loss, they’re all tucked in, somewhere behind the stink.

AUGUST RUSH

I just saw a great movie.

It's called "August Rush."

It is also NOT a great movie.
Completely predictable.

It is also a GREAT movie, completely magical.

It reminded me of what art should be: It should be inspiring.
Art should be like spirituality, it should call on us to be our very best, no half-steppin'.

Art is meant to be more than entertainment.
At its height, it should remind us to reach for more, to be present, to be grateful, to live as though it matters.

The screenplays I am at work on, are certainly entertaining, but I don't know that they reach the level of art.
I don't know that they stir the Soul.

Maybe that is what I will work on next......

Have some fun ,,,,, see this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Rush

Mitch Part 2

I love Mitch Lerner.
I owe him.

He is the kindest and best among people and he reminds me to dream and dream big.

He makes me want things I don't have, he makes me wish for Superman.

Mitch Lerner reminded me today that:

1 Everyday we all have a challenge to face.
2 That everyday is a step toward, or away from the dreams we hold dearest.
3 That it can all be lost in an instant.

Hold a thought and a prayer for my friend Mitchie, hold a thought and a prayer for yourself.
Hold this: that today we will all take another step toward the fulfillment of our dreams.

Mitch

Call home or call someone damn it! There is a person at the Sister's of Mercy that wants to speak to you urgently.

For the rest of you, if you have seen Mitch Lerner, lend him your cell phone so he call some people. Thanks

Blame

It's been a while seen I posted anything.
What follows is a snip of something I am working on.

The question I have been grappling with lately is how to translate real life into a kind of poetry, that is sometimes missing from every day life.... please share your thoughts.
**

Can I blame my sister?

She is the one who insisted I have a toaster oven, when I was perfectly happy with a toaster.

Every apartment needs a toaster oven.
Bagels she said, and what about little pizzas?

So I sit here crying at Denny's rubbing my fingers back and forth, blaming her.

I stuck my hand in the toaster oven to grab my already buttered bagel and I started to cry.
Woozy even.

The heat on the back of my hand.
I didn't burn it.

But the heat on the back of my hand.
Had it really been a year since the fire?

Chastity slept.
I had one more cigarette on the porch and then to bed.
And then nothing.

Less then nothing.
The house was gone, she was gone and I was empty.

Now in a Denny's more empty because of the fatty comatose crowd, crying.
Wishing for less memory.

Wishing for more time.

**
end

Sex...

Father's Day makes me think about sex....

My question is this; where does it go in the daytime?

In my country, my America, where does sex go in the daytime?

At night I see it on television, cable and network.

I know it is in the bedrooms, car-seats and maybe even the kitchens of this fine land, but where does it go during the day?

I don’t see it in suits or in sales meetings.
In these meetings I see pretense and misery.
If there was a blade of honesty there might be some tears in every meeting.

Is it at the post office or the grocery store?
I don’t see it there.
Mechanized people as consumers, automatons behind the desk.

It is buried too deep.
Deep so that our children won’t see, deep so our wants won’t betray us in polite conversation.
Deep. So the creative self muted finds acceptable avenues of self-expression.
Buried but not dead.
But buried deep.
I promise you that.

A huger denied.
The eyes that never quite focus but train themselves on the ass of some pretty, young thing.

To live, I know where it should be, it should in our words and our glances. It should be implied in a light embrace with a pour amour. It should drip from side-ways conversation that can’t be overheard at Starbucks.
In our handshake exchanges, rubbed together dangerously like dried twigs near flammables.

It should live and be warmed by the light of day, heated by the sun’s light so it ignites with a snap as the comes up.

Imaged used by permission of Fotos De Karina - http://www.fotosdekarina.com/

Wonderings....

It is a challenge for me as a writer, as a human being, to just say what is true.

A challenge to just say what is true for me, so here I go...

I miss you.

My Arizona friends.

My Texas friends.

My Kanas friends.

I miss my family.

I miss my daughter and granddaughters, we don't talk enough.

My Washington family is great and I miss all y'all.

Washington is great and different.

The Seattle sunshine is like a new shy friend that reminds me of his cousin, the Phoenix super nova of purification.

I wonder about turning 40.

I wonder about our country.

I wonder if the planet is better off after 2 million year of us being upright.

I wonder if there is some cosmic punch-line.

I wonder how long it will take me to finish my 1st screenplay 

( I said it would be done by the end of June)

I wonder why I love the move Superbad.

I wonder all these things and then I remember I have bills to pay and I think maybe I should stop all this wondering and just "do" some stuff for a while.

It's an endless loop of wondering and doing

As I write, I feel a certain sweetness to my life, your life.

Patriot Act

Patriot Act

©2005 by Keith Stefanczyk

Send inquiries to 

keith@bluewolfstrategy.com

It's Raining (Or, guess what, we live in Seattle)

We live in Seattle, or are about to. This is still news to me, it may be news to you as well, but sometimes it is news to me. I woke up this morning and had a thought... "Where the hell am I?" This is NOT the East Bay, it's not Oakland, Berkeley or El Cerrito or anywhere else we have lived in the last two years. Where am I? I thought about waking Karen up and asking her, but then I remembered, we are in Washington. 

We are staying at Karen's mom's place until our house in West Seattle is ready.

We now live in Washington. I am typing this out for my benefit, not yours. I never thought I would leave Arizona. And here we are, one country, seven cities later, here we are.

Here's what's true.... I don't miss the desert, but I do miss my friends.

I will never miss San Francisco, but the people I met there, I have in my heart.

I have been trying to come up with something poetic about this move, about dedicating myself, and my Self to being a writer.

But nothing comes to mind... all that is there is a feeling, like being gently guided by Spirit.

 After years of what seemed like indentured servitude, I am feel like I am free, free from a Self that had to be good and sedate. Free to write and succeed or write and fail. I am free to be.

In this freedom I find myself more available and more ready to listen as well as to write.

I am writing, and am 1/3 of the way through my 1st screenplay.

Hope all is well in your world, talk to you soon.