Do It Now!! NOW!!!

Children's merriment and joy,
All the hopes we used to know.
All the dreams we used to have,
In the oh so long ago.

As our souls are soaring high,
To the furthest reaching stars.
Can you here those voices sing,
Of the treasures to be ours?

If we started once again,
Would we walk a different track?
Could we change a slight degree,
Change our course and not look back?

It's been long years since last we trod,
Along these avenues of dreams.
And yet we see through filtered hearts,
The sunlit end where hope still gleams.


Have a dream? Have an ambition? Ever want to do something different with your life? Let me ask you this, how many oppurtunities have you passed up to be where you are right now? And what wonderful dreams are you still planning for "someday"?

Let's go back in time. Come with me...come back to a place far away and a time long ago...back to your childhood. You used to say "when I grow up..." now finish that sentence in your head. "When I grow up....".

Now let's move forward, move forward....to high school or maybe college or maybe that first job you ever had. You had such big dreams, such high hopes! Anything is possible, everything is before you! Maybe you had a goal, a plan. Maybe you had a dream.

Now come back with me to now. To the present. How long has it been since those early days? Five years? Ten? Twenty years? How far are you from where you thought you would be? Let's ask someone a simple question, let's ask that little child who used to say "when I grow up..." what they think of this adult. "Little child, this adult had big plans and dreams just like you. This adult didn't fulfill those dreams. What do you think of this adult?"

Now let's ask that cocky 20ish person who was going to move the world what they think. "What do you think? Are you disappointed? Depressed? Does it bother you that this person is so far off from where you thought they should be?"

Okay, the truth is we ALL end up different from what we planned. But in the end, when all is said and done, when that great hour is upon you, and time will be no more for you, the last thoughts of a dying soul will be "I should have spent more time at the office..."

Think that's ridiculous? Well then think what your dying thoughts WILL be. What regrets will you have? What "might have beens" will you dwell on?

We all have dreams...ALL of us. But time is a relentless pursuer, and the dreams begin to fade like the last glimmer of sun on a late summer's evening....until they are gone!

I have a friend who wants to start his own business. The nature of it is irrelevant, it's something the average person would not consider. But that's his DREAM! Ignoring it is like ignoring who you are. I know someone else considering moving to San Diego. Don't wait!! Go!! Don't sit here, year after year, thinking about doing it and not doing it.

I was recently told by a coworker that I had outlived my usefulness. It's true. I'm a has-been. My time in the sun has gone but I don't yet realize it. My only reason for coming to work is to provide for my family. On my deathbed I will not give a red rat's ass about the software I'm currently devoting my life to. I have other dreams, other hopes...I have faith in a different future for myself. Will I follow those dreams? Or will I sit here, year after year, day in and day out, caring less and less, and becoming less noticed, less important.

What are you dreams? What do you want out of life? What do you want to be when you grow up? Now what are you doing to get there? Think it might take a long time? If it takes five years to reach your goal and you decide not to try....guess what, in five years you'll be five years older and no closer to your goal.

Wait a few years, maybe longer, keep putting it off, and do you know where you'll be many years from now? Look around you...that's where.

In our last hour we still have a chance to shine. In our final moment we still live! Until the end comes, life is there. Make it worth living.

Almost There

I almost made a pilgrimage to Nick Drake’s hometown. For those of you not familiar with Nick, he was an English folk singer/ guitarist who left this planet way too soon. Nick was only 26 years old, when he died on Thanksgiving Day, 1974. He had been suffering from severe depression and took an overdose of antidepressant drugs. No one knows if his death was intentional or accidental. Nick’s music is very haunting. Some of his songs have crept into my dreams. More than once I have awakened in the small hours of the morning with Nick’s unusually pitiful and wailing voice sounding the lyrics of “Black Dog” off the walls of my brain. Believe me, there is no going back to sleep after that dirge runs through your processor.

Two years ago, I found myself back in London. It was May, and in contrast to the murderous winter that I had experienced the last time I was there, the weather was pure gorgeous springtime. I had set aside a day in my vacation, to go see Nick. Nick came from a small town in the midlands of England called Tanworth-In-Arden. A three hour train ride from Paddington Station to Wood End and you are there. My trip to see Nick was fully prepared. I even knew the name of the street he lived on (Bates Lane) and that his house was called Far Leys. I even knew where he was buried. In the center of Tanworth-In-Arden is a church called the Parish Church of St. Mary Magdalene. Under a big oak tree, beside a well worn path is the small unobtrusive gravestone of Nick and his parents. I had made the journey to this place many times in my dreams (although I can never find Nick’s grave for some weird reason). I have imagined myself walking down Bates Lane, trying not to look out of place, while searching for a gate with the words Far Leys on it. I have imagined having a few pints in the pub before getting the courage up to take a walk in the church yard.

The day I had scheduled to go to Tanworth-In-Arden, I got up early and told D I was going to be gone all day. But something was stopping me. Normally nothing can get in between GS3 and his objectives but something was telling me to stay in London with D. Maybe part of me wanted this adventure to stay in my heart and remain unresolved. Maybe if I saw Nick’s grave, my dreams (although I could lose the scary ones) would stop. Maybe I was just worried about D becoming the next victim of the Ripper. Whatever the reason, I never made it out to see Nick that day. I always tease myself that the next time D heads off on one of her trips I am going to zoom over there (stand by of course) and complete my mission. Looking back on things, I should have shook off whatever was holding me back that day, and just hopped on that train. I still don’t know why I did not go. I was almost there.

"Where have all the beach-bum-dreams gone.... Long time passing..."

Having a full wall-sized mural of a beach scene on your dorm room wall makes you a little more popular, or more interesting at least. But for me, it was more than just a picture, it was an obsession. It's almost amazing I even made it as far as college, considering I once dreamed of moving to a Caribbean Island and getting a job at a resort as a dishwasher, just to be near the beach.

By the time I was 20, it was full blown. I had spent a month in the Bahamas and had come back with treasures to decorate my room and life, as well as a head full of ideas about getting a small boat to live on, and a fishing pole, cast net, and diving gear. I had a goal. A career choice. A dream.

I researched, went to the library, looked up maps of beaches and what kind of fish are good to eat and easy to catch. I knew which beaches would let someone camp out indefinitely, where to anchor my boat, and where to start diving for treasure. South Florida and the Caribbean was all I could think about. Names and words like Turks and Caicos, Mangrove swamps, Barbados, Spanish galleon, Dry Tortugas...they all swirled in my head like taunting, ungraspable images.

Anyone who ventured into my dorm room would have assumed I was studying marine biology. One look at the salt-water aquarium, the decorative fishnet and starfish on the wall, the pictures and posters of tropical scenes, you would wonder what I was doing there and not at a college closer to the beach. Indeed, I actually went to Armstrong State College in Savannah for one quarter for the sole reason that it was close to the ocean.

Songs swirled through my head like Beach Baby, Sloop John B., and Kokomo. In the early fall, when the bright green leaves of summer began to show the first hint of red, and a the slight crispness and long afternoon shadows gave an atmosphere both cheery and mournful, I didn't think of Halloween or hayrides, I thought of...it was time to go. I could feel a pull in my blood towards warmer climates and sandy beaches, a pull like the urge of a salmon to swim upstream for hundreds of miles. A desire I could hardly put into words, but felt as powerfully as any obsession I'd known.

Now, 20 years later, my dive gear sits in a box in the basement, my wall mural is rolled up and stored in the attic, and my wife is unlikely to agree to live on a boat with our two kids while I try and catch dinner and dive for treasure. Damn this bothersome streak of responsibility...got to go to college, got to get a job, got to make money...blah blah blah...

It's not that I regret having my family, they are my greatest joy. However, I wonder what happened to my youth, and my dreams, and my desire for the sound of the surf to lull me to sleep, and wake me at dawn.....the gentle sea breezes blowing open my unbuttoned shirt as I stroll under palm trees, looking for whatever the tide brought in the night before.... gently strolling, without a care in the world.

Rbutler Knows

I have from a very reliable source that rbutler was very bad last Saturday night. Actually the word I heard was...evil. Who knows what debaucheries can be birthed by the side of Virginia Avenue at two and fifteen past the witching hour? Is he a late blooming graffitti artist trying his first hand at spray painting the pains of growing up short in a town full of tall bullies ? Did he stop to pick up the litter from a Varsity combo meal, and look toward the camera of the moon with a tear in his eye ? Could be..but not likely. Some would say, rbutler drank too much expresso at Apre, and stopped on the side of the road to catch up on a bit of pulp fiction. After all, it is not a strange thing for rbutler to see the dawn. If the Oxford bookstore was still open, one could surely say, he was just coming home after spending several hours purusing the magazine section for already opened copies of Juggs and the Rand McNally, "Complete Dirt Roads of Georgia" map collection. This things could have all been true, but there is one problem...they are not. Whether the details of rbutlers midnight ride will ever see the light of day, well your guess is as good as mine. I only know, there was more than the wind howling last Saturday night. You may have heard it, as you lay asleep, safe in your bed. You may have told yourself it was just the rain hitting the top of your neighbors old tool shed. Or maybe it was a tree branch, blown by the wind and scratching against one of your windows with it's long fingers. In the dark hours, you will tell yourself anything to get through the night.

What evil lurkes in the hearts of men...
Rbutler knows.

The gift of baggage

Somethings just make me mad. Whatever situation trips that wire...starts a process. The old blood flow picks up pace, intellect shuts down, and some primitive survival instinct becomes the driver of my vehicle. All normal, healthy people get mad...but not like me. I must have been a puffer fish in another life because I try to blow myself up bigger than the next guy. Being bigger is all I can think about...scare the fucker away, cause really I don't want to deal with them. Not only does being angry put someone else in charge of my machinery, it makes me sick mentally and physically. Once I was on the job with my father (who removes trees) and he had the crew running chainsaws in the dark, trying to finish up a job. It was dangerous as hell, and I told him so. We ended up slinging branches at one another in the dark.. As I searched my lexicon for a suitable curse word( my favorite word "fuckstick" was on standby ), my stomach cramped like the alien was in there, and I fell to the ground. This however only provided a good opportunity for my father to get a lick in and tell me to load the fucking truck or my ass would be hurting too.
Anger is something that I have so much of , but I can't let it out like a normal person. I go from laid back, happy go lucky GS3, to a hair's on fire, and ass is a catching maniac. There is no middle ground for me. I am like David Banner holding in the Hulk, but instead of the hulk I have Mr. Furious from the mystery men. All anger and no power. What am I going to do ? Get in a fight, go to jail, get sued ? I don't want to do any of those things. I can't even argue because the logical part of my brain is not accessible anymore. A big dumb monster is driving my train.

Me wanna kill you
Choke you good

So, since killing is illegal in most counties in Georgia, I just bit my tongue, put my hands in my pockets and try to shutdown the process before it snowballs. Don't get me wrong, I am not a violent person, ...but it has been part of my training. Threats were not just empty at my house they were followed by a flexible piece of leather reality.

Don't get dirty, I''ll beat your ass
Eat your dinner, or 'll beat your ass
Do what I say or I'll bear your ass
If you don't like me beating your ass, then I am gonna beat your ass
Go get me something to beat your ass

It is easy to understand how I assumed that in order to solve your problems you need to beat some ass. There was one problem though. I was and am all fluff. A bear, yeah sure. But a teddy. So I go through life, taking more shit than a little bit and swallowing another gulp of all american rage. Don't worry, you won't read about me going postal at work, or target shooting college students from the top of a tower. I'll just drink another beer, eat another bag of potato chips and have that heart attack I am looking forward too. Everyone will say:

Did you hear ?
GS3 got so mad , he blew up his own heart !
Man, I saw that coming
Me, too

If there is a good way of being angry, I don't know about it. I guess anger is there to protect us and is like some danger detector waiting to go off. My anger must think a monster is after me, because it wants to be real big. I have come to the conclusion that I have been (and am) a victim of terrorism by my parents. Here is the webster definition of terrorism:

the systematic use of terror especially as a means to restrain or dominate by force

My parents in order to discipline me felt they had to put me in "a state of intense fear" to control me. I was just a little guy, and they were so big. No wonder I want to puff myself up. Only now, they are no longer in my life and I still do it. Why can't I ditch this baggage?

Sisters-in-law Finis

Gone. All Gone. The sisters-in-law are all gone. Take a deep breath, let it out slowly...relax. Ahhhh... So now comes the aftermath.

wife: "Did you eat all the popcorn?"
me: "No....wasn't me."

wife, later: "I can't find the fig newts or the vanilla wafers, do you know where they are?"
me: "I didn't eat them, but I think I know who did."

wife, even later: "I won't be mad, but I just want to know, did you eat up all the peanut butter?"
me: "Nope, not me."

daughter: "Daddy, I want some teddy bears." (in reference to teddy graham cookies)
me: "Well I'm looking for them, I can't find them. Where are they? Hey, I think Colleen ate them all."
daughter: "Colleen ate my teddy bears!" (in a very sad two-year-old voice)

dauther, later to my wife: "Mommy, Colleen ate all my teddy bears!"

So, each day that passes we notice more and more food that has completely disappeared. And I don't mean the apples or bananas we keep on the counter...I don't mean the Special K, or the broccoli or lettuce or squash. I mean the junk food...stuff I forgot we even had but my pregnant wife knew about.

But on the plus side, I can now go into any room in my house at any time I want, and have no fear of getting assigned some task or having someone start telling me about a black and white movie they saw on the late show in 1983. Gone are the days of slinking silently from place to place, hoping to stay unnoticed...gone are the days of hearing footsteps, and doors opening, and having to run and hide in the deep recesses that only I know of.

After all, the back of a man's closet hiding behind the clothes with the lights off is his castle.

Midlife Beginning

I have been realizing that I am not comfortable in my own skin. Not only am I not comfortable being me during normally awkward moments like meeting a new person, going for a job interview or having a big-assed Brazilian stripper grind those two tanned hams right into your meat and two veggies, but I am even uncomfortable when I am alone. I noticed this phenomenon just the other day. Both of my classes had been cancelled at GSU and I decided to stop at a certain Atlanta entertainment broker to wash away another fruitless day programming. As I sat there adjusting my allergy reddened eyes to the darkness, I managed to flag down a particularly non-attentive waitress and order one of America’s favorite watered down beers.

“I wonder if that Brazilian girl with the overstuffed collagen lips is here tonight”
“I don’t see RButlers Connie, either”
“Maybe that blonde girl with the harsh bangs and thick Eastern European accent will stop by and mooch a drink off of me”

All of these thoughts and more trickled over my work weary brain as I waited on that five dollar beer. Then the wiggling commenced. Not like a worm but a movement more akin to nervous agitation. I rubbed my eyes. I let out long deep breaths. I massaged the back of my neck. I bobbed my knee up and down like there was some invisible kid riding it playing horsey. When my six dollar beer (well I have to tip) finally arrived I drank it like it was the antidote and I was snake bit. It did not help. Five more beers and thirty dollars later, I could feel the tension in my back start to ease up, just a little. It was then that I realized that I was in bad shape. At my best estimation, I guessed that it would take over a month of drinking and big booty watching to come down to what most folks call normal. Life has a way of knocking folks out of kilter.

I am tired. I feel like the needle on my fuel gauge has been stuck in the red for years and my body has been sucking up all kinds of trash into my engine just to keep me running. I feel all puffed up like Lon Chaney Jr. after a few drinks. At least I am heading for my mid life crisis at the correct time. Although I could have swore I had a previous one at twenty-five. You know to call it a midlife crisis, is not really accurate. It should be called a midlife moment of clarity. A brief period to let the smoke of work and domestic life settle down and allow you to look at the picture you have painted yourself in. Maybe you need a little more red or a little less green. Or maybe you need a new canvas and a set of watercolors. Like I said, midlife crisis does not really capture the sentiment that I am looking for…How about a midlife beginning?