baldmike2004's Xanga

A "jstickmann" Tribute blog

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:11:48 GMT

Xanga Legacy Tribute Blog

A Xangan died yesterday. A Xangan I did not know. I wish I had known him. Now it's too late for me. But it seems he has touched a great many of his fellow Xangans, and I feel I should pay this fellow artistic soul a tribute here on WhenWordsCollide.

I may have stumbled upon his blog in the past, but my memory didn't click when I visited there this morning. I just spent about two hours "visiting" however, and I'm a little choked up, a little sad, and perhaps a little amazed. But I'm getting ahead of myself. (This entry isn't really "prepared". I'm witing as I think, and my thoughts are a jumble with a mixture of awe, grief, and friendship, and all for someone I didn't even "know" inasmuch as we can ever get to know someone on the internet.)

While I was answering comments this morning, one of the bloggers I read paid tribute to a blog and Xangan called "jstickmann". At first I thought she was saying he'd shut down his blog, like so many seem to do. I was writing my comment to her, and started to talk about how I hoped he would "come back" with another blog, a sort of generic answer, since I didn't know the Xangan. She supplied a link to his blog in her entry, so I clicked it. The blog belonged to John (jstickmann), an artist, photographer, and a poetic soul, who passed away yesterday. His brother, Greg, also a blogger on Xanga, had written a beautiful "last post" for his brother, explaining that John had been quite prolific of late, and he and John's nephews, also Xangans, could keep his artisitc legacy alive for quite some time by posting photos of art and his writings.

Throughout the day, I kept going back to John's site. When I "meet" a blogger for the first time, I regularly go back to his or her earliest entries, read the profile information, and check out the photoblog and videoblog sections to see what they post, especially if they are artistic. John's posts were an amalgam of his paintings, photos, installation pieces, collages, drawings, and what I would call "poetry", snippets of thoughts and beautiful spare words. Knowing this man had just passed away, I felt as if I had come to a party after it ended, or missed the last plane to nirvana.

Reading his replies to comments he received made me realize this was a special person I certainly wished I'd crossed paths with while he was still in the corporeal world. I know that he is looking down from above, and he is fully cognizant of the love I witnessed in comments on the tribute post, both from bloggers he "knew" and from many whom he didn't.

I didn't leave a comment. Perhaps I shall a bit later on. When I was driving home, I kept thinking about this man I didn't know. You might remember I just posted an entry not too long ago, when one of my neighbors died, about how I wondered what would happen if I should suddenly pass away. I even wondered about my blog. John's readers had nothing to wonder about. His family stepped in and let Xanga know immediately. I could sense that John's brother Greg was really touched by the love he witnessed when reading the comments on his posts. He wrote: "You all have touched his life and made it so much better than most will ever begin to know." My eyes teared up as I read this. I didn't know him, and I'll never know him. I have been touched by so many people here on Xanga, and here's a guy I'm sure I would have loved to have "known".

The amazing thing is that after spending a few hours on his blog. (I always tell people they are my "project" when I wander about.) I felt as if I did "know" him a little. I'm even jealous of his artistic talents. I always say I'm a "failed artist" with no muse, nor direction when it comes to creating art. John created some fantastic pieces, and the neat thing is that he's a "lifetime" Xanga member, so his site will stay up as a legacy. I'm always writing about how websites and blogsites should stick around after our physical death, as a legacy to our lives. I still leave comments on Terry Cuthbert's (lordpineapple) blog, three years after his death. I did get to "know" Terry before he passed on. I am getting to know John after the fact.

I found myself copy/pasting John's art into a folder on my computer. He featured the music he listened to as he painted on his blog entries, so his readers could listen themselves as they viewed his work. I listened to quite a few of these music tracks. I copy/pasted some of his words into a notepad file.

From 5pm to about 7:30pm tonight, I created a tribute video for this unknown friend. It's "rendering" as I type this entry. I hope he "sees" it from above, and appreciates the sentiment. I use his words, his paintings and drawings, with a music track I hope he would have approved: Cat Steven's "On the Road to Find Out". This is the first "internet movie" without the familiar MikeVideo logo. This isn't about me. It's about John. I know I just posted a video in the entry below, but I felt as if I needed to use my artistic talents to pay tribute to John's, of which I only today became aware.

If I were to leave him a comment, it would say:

Dear John,

I never had the pleasure of visiting your blogsite before. After spending a few hours viewing your art, and reading your words...I wish I'd known you. The greatest compliment I feel I can give you is to present your art and your words in tribute to your life.

Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool

Here are his own words (and since John seemed to have a habit of capitalizing, I'll do so as well):

MY ART IS.. THE WORDS MY HEART ARE NOT ABLE TO SPEAK, THE LIGHT MY EYES CANNOT PROJECT OF THEIR OWN, THE SOULS LONGINGS LOCKED INSIDE THE FRIEND/LOVER THAT NEVER LEAVES . A GIFT MEANT ONLY TO GIVE... jstickmann

Click Play below to view the art of John E. Pfeiffer:

I've always enjoyed the sense of "community" I find on Xanga, and I've been a member here for over 5 years. John's blog was active since 2008, and I'm sure his is one of hundreds, or perhaps thousands of blogs I will never see. Some Xangans are always bemoaning "quality" sites and sniping about the lack of "good writing" and artistic talent they see on this service. For one, I can't understand why some of the people who complain the most, seem to always be "featured" in some way and always seem to have lots of "readers" and comments. I hope Mr. Pheiffer was "featured" a few times. His art deserves a wider audience. He had over 150 Xanga "friends", and from the comments I read on dozens of entries this afternoon, I know he passed from this plane of existence knowing that the camaraderie he experienced in his Xangaworld was real and heartwarming. I never left him a comment, except for the one at the end of my tribute video. I can only hope that I do him the justice he deserves.

Posted: December 15, 2009 9:37 PM

Uncle Mike Story: 20 year anniversary edition

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:59:06 GMT

From the MikeVideo Archives:

"The Uncle Mike Story (Part 1)" from 1989

As most of you know, I've been creating my MikeVideo movies for over 20 years. I display almost 60 videos online on my Xanga Video section, my YouTube Channel, on Vimeo, and on the MikeVideo Website. Over this past weekend, I watched my old "The Uncle Mike Story" video, from 1989, and decided to upload it in sections to the internet. This video was made only 3 years after I got my first videocamera, and the tape I have is a 2nd generation dupe. I made the vid for my then 12 year old niece and she has the original, which was edited on two VHS and two Beta tape machines 20 years ago.

I'll write a DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY sometime in the near future, but I'm excited about being able to present this on Xanga, YouTube, and Facebook. I won't write a novel sized commentary right now. This chapter is 13 minutes and 39 seconds long, so it will take up a little of your time. PART 1 (embedded above) covers the years from 1953-1964, when I entered 6th grade. You will see my "baby pictures" and lots of snapshots of my siblings and myself from the 50s and 60s, heretofore never shown online. The narration is original, recorded in 1989. The music track consists of hit songs from the years chronicled in the video. For now, YouTube has not deleted the soundtrack for "copyright infringement".

This is my "Christmas Present" to my readers and Xanga friends.

If you would like to see more now, here are links to PART 2 (1965-1969), PART 3 (1970-1976), and PART 4 (1977-1986) on YouTube. Next weekend I intend to upload the rest.

Posted: December 14, 2009 7:08 AM

Books of the Realizations 3 and 4

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:58:31 GMT

THE BOOKS OF THE REALIZATIONS: A series of philosophical/spiritual essays

Today's blog entry comprises the THIRD & FOURTH BOOKS of THE REALIZATIONS. These five chapters were written in 1999 as a preface to what eventually became "The Universal Blog". , a website where I post my spiritual entries. The Books of the Realizations tell the story of my own "personal" journey toward enlightenment. For those of you who might stumble across this entry and are interested in perusing the complete text of Five Books or Chapters right now, the complete Books of the Realizations are on the web HERE. Chapter Three and Four, or The Third and Fourth Book follows. MFN (Originally Posted: 3/23/05)

The Realizations
the true story of faith and how it can be obtained.
by Michael F. Nyiri

THE BOOK OF THE FIRST REALIZATON

THE BOOK OF THE SECOND REALIZATON

THE BOOK OF THE THIRD REALIZATION

Another Plane of Existence

Dissatisfied with the search for meaning and purpose in life, by the dawn of the eighties, I had pretty well given up on gaining any insights at all, and dove headfirst into a life of rampant hedonism, fueled by the good money I made as a truck driver, and then warehouse manager for the retail chain. Spirituality really had nothing to do with my life at this point, but I gained the third realization as a result of experimentation with drugs. The spiritual meaning imparted to me came after reading Carlos Casteneda and injesting vast amounts of LSD.

Every disjointed connection in my tortured psyche was shown to me under the influence of LSD. Although I was using the drug recreationally, the truths it gave to me far outshone it's entertainment qualities. First and formost, it was the first drug I ever took which "altered" the concept of reality. People have long discussed the hallucinogenic qualities of acid. Even before I used the substance, there were quite a few treatises written on the subject. I knew that with a drug that powerful, people could tend to believe the misconstrued reality, and in effect, go crazy. That is what Albert Hoffman had in mind when he invented the properties of the drug to study the schizophrenic mind.. The main thing LSD taught me was that even though the hallucinogenic feelings and images seemed to be real, I knew they were not. But little things the drug did to the mind, like bending the perception of one's field of peripheral vision, for instance, told me that the human mind is not being fully tapped, and there are perceptions and properties of the mind, that through experimentation with drugs like LSD, that have not fully been realized by mankind.

In no way do I condone drug use. As I have related,, the genesis of my introduction to the drug culture came about merely as a result of the times and my youth.The drug itself was not beneficial. The opening of Aldous Huxley's "doors of perception" was somewhat beneficial by default. Since I now saw that the mind does not use all of it's power, I wanted to see how many doors I could open. In the end, what I realized was quite simple. There is another plane of existence which coincides with the corporeal plane in which we all live. It is not visible, but it exists, Just like the perceived realities which I experienced while on acid,, my mind perceived that the current reality , i.e., our existence on Earth in the "here and now" was not the only existence. I did not receive this realization from Religion, but from "expanding the mind" through mind altering substances. There of course is a precedent for this. The indigenous peoples of this continent used peyote and psilocybin as a means of "connecting" to the spiritual godhead.. Some tribes believed that the substances opened a "spiritual window" through which they could gain insight into the spiritual world. Although Western Civilization discounts such beliefs, they are somewhat true.

The process of my "realizations" was not quick nor prescient. Throughout time, with the life lessons I learned gradually simply by the process of living and noticing the clues life had to offer, I came to know the truth. Eventually, the drug use abated.. As I grew older, I did not need this means of entertainment, and in fact was nearly fired from another management position attained at the retail establishment because of drug use off work. That point proved moot however, as the retail chain could not find a foothold in the Los Angeles marketplace, and went out of business, so I found myself out of work again in 1982.

Since my position as a "Merchandise Manager" for this chain was pretty far up the store management ladder, I found myself without a job but with a sizable severence income. I used the three months taking vacation trips and spending money. I had three months rent paid, on the apartment in which I lived, so sought to take pleasure in the time off. By Christmas, I had a new job at a new retail establishment,, but farther down the chain of command. When one retail chain goes out of business, the pond is then full of managers who need jobs with the established chains. I had experienced this firsthand. My "Godfather" had been downsized. Now so was I. Before I gained employment during Christmas season of 1982, I was hit hard by the fourth realization. Up till then, I had really been abusing alcohol. Although the drug use tapered off, I had a penchant for drinking large quantities of beer. One evening, while at a bar with a friend, I had "a bit too much" to drink, and found myself literally "in the gutter" after being beat up in the bar parking lot by a couple of bikers who stole my money, broke my glasses, and knocked me out.

This was enough of a realization that I had to quit drinking.

THE BOOK OF THE FOURTH REALIZATION

Destiny Is Preordained by the Self

A lot of the lessons I have learned come from simply living in the world, watching the actions and reactions of people, and using the information gained to chart my own course through the time I have on the planet. After a particularly brutal beating while drunk, I literally found myself "in the gutter" and quit drinking. Since I had been drinking , mainly beer, since before I was even of a legal age, I had been pulled over a few times on the road while drunk, and eventually even had my driver's license revoked by the State of California. With a new job at a new retail establishment, I realized I had a commitment to make to my sanity. So I gave up drinking "cold turkey", on my own, simply because it was the most intelligent thing to do at the time.

Again, like most of the "realizations" which have come to me, this was not a spiritual message from some ethereal presence. It was a hard life lesson which had to be followed. The fourth realization was that I was completely in control of my destiny. Other people had problems "going sober". Other people needed some sort of crutch to get them through life. I realized I did not need any crutches. I suddenly realized, that I was totally in control of every aspect of my life. I also realized that even though no one admitted it, they could "throw away their crutches" as easily as I had. Some friends would tell me it was only because of "my nature" that I could go from drinking twelve cans of beer a night to total abstinence. (Well, actually not total abstinence. I started eating a lot of ice cream. But I never felt this was another crutch. I like ice cream.)

If a human being wants to accomplish something, it is in "his nature" to do so. The "self-help" movement of the seventies was merely an attempt to foist this philosophy on paying searchers, most of whom didn't "realize" it was that easy in the first place.I spent the remainder of the decade sober, and rose through the ranks of the retail establishment, finally becoming an "Area Manager" in charge of four departments before the company went out of business. My personal life was fairly stable at this point. I had a couple of relationships with "girlfriends" that didn't last too long, and I was writing poetry , drawing artwork, and making videos.

Since the fourth realization had already taught me that I was in charge of my life, the loss of meaningful employment did not really bother me. I pretty much knew that I had nothing to worry about, I knew I would get a job, and did. Even before the company closed it's doors, I had found work in management for another retail chain. Since I obtained the job before the company I worked for closed it's doors, this time I didn't receive any severence benefits. I did receive the benefit of getting a higher management position than I would have if I had waited for the pond to fill up with other out of work fish.

My understanding of the principles of life were paying off for me, Of course one cannot with certainty say that one is completely in charge of his destiny. One could get hit by a bus crossing the street. But essentially, the roads one chooses to take in life are chosen either because of knowledge of self , or because of the philosophical equivalent of a coin toss. Those who misconstrue the lessons life teaches and do not learn by them are usually the ones who complain about the random nature of existence. There are those who passively become part of their own scenery, and there are those who carry around their own paintbrushes.

My father's family came to this country from Hungary.. He always told my siblings and myself that an explosive temper is part of being Hungarian. I have always had an explosive temper. But it became very interesting to me, that although I do tend to get "explosive" and yell a lot when confronted with small trifles, the larger problems and setbacks which have occured in my life do not really bother me. I seem to sense that even though a major loss like that of one's livelihood, or even a friend's death, will not really "bother" me. I never get really upset when major setbacks occur. If anything, I tend to become calmer. I see the connections taught by life. I learn and I go on. So far, I have been either lucky, or I have been able to gauge my existence and react to each setback in a proper manner.

Although not a true realization, this quasi realization had occured some years earlier after I had been in a car wreck on a particularly hairy California freeway on the way home from classes at USC. It was raining, and my Volkswagen hit a puddle while maneuvering a turn, hydroplaned, and hit a fence at 60 mph. I walked away from the wreck with no injuries and had no one else in the car. Serendipity had been at work and I spun out between packs of traffic, and although one whole side of the freeway had to be closed down in order to get what was left of my car disconnected from the chain link fence, nobody else was involved in the accident. I remember thinking that I was indeed lucky to be alive, and I remained calm as two tow trucks arrived to try to figure out a way to remove my vehicle. The highway patrolmen were very humorous in the situation. It seems that the fence I had destroyed was a known "danger zone" and had just been repaired a few weeks earlier following another wreck. Since the fence separated the freeway from a concrete "wash", it was serendipity again that decreed that it had been fixed or else I might have sailed into the culvert and met my final realization. That was not the case, however. I always will remember the song playing on the radio right before I spun out. It was "Jesus is Just Alright With Me" .

I spent only a year at the last retail establishment before getting fired for what was supposedly an infraction of company security. I still believe I did nothing "wrong" but was merely a pawn of the company's established principles. Although a key carrying "duty manager" in charge of the total operations of the store, in the Christmas shopping season of 1987 I offered a friend of mine, a church deacon in Orange county, a "markdown" for some defective typewriters which his churchmembers would repair and use in the ministry. I did not use the company's "posted" markdown procedure, and was recorded by a security camera. The store manager even saw these events as ridiculous, but was a slave to the company dictates. I was without work again. But even this turn of events for me did not signal a mind-boggling sense of loss. A few months earlier my best friend had died in surgery following an operation to repair his spinal column after he fell twenty feet off of a "picking machine" at his work pulling merchandise for distribution by the Toy manufacturer for which he worked. Neither of these events caused me that much grief. I had lost jobs before. I had lost my parents. The events merely set me up for the fifth realization.

Each decade taught me lessons. Each realization built upon the last. Things change, people die, time marches on. You either learn to live with what you've got, or you lose your somewhat fragile sanity. Some people cannot cope with loss, but these people probably have not been able to learn from their life lessons. This is what I have learned, and what I am learning every day of my life.

The stage was being set for the fifth realization.

Next time: The final Chapter, or click here for the rest of the story.

From the Philosophy Section in 1999: For years I have held to a belief system which incorporates lessons from life which I have learned. I call these lessons realizations. They lead to the final realization, from which humankind will embrace the Universal Mind. These beliefs are not new, and are not mine. They are realizations which affect everybody. With the Millennium upon us, I feel compelled to write down the history and origins of these realizations. This is a work in progress.

The Personal Journey to the Realizations is over for the writer in the book of the Fifth Realization.
From the beginning part of the foundation for AllThingsMike consisted of a philosophical discussion of existence and the existence of the Universal MInd, which supplants and replaces all religion and philosophical thought which has gone before. MFN 1999

Posted: December 11, 2009 6:43 AM

News and Notes for December 2009

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:18:33 GMT

Last month I promised to post a "New and Notes" column at the top of every month, and here it is the 8th already, and December is almost a quarter over. This shouldn't take long. Not a lot has happened since the first week of November.

HEALTH: About a week ago I went in for my six month checkup with my orthopaedist. Even though the appointment, scheduled for 11:00am, didn't occur till almost 12 noon, which is usual for this particular doctor, once the doc had my x-ray in hand, the actual check up only took about 10 minutes. Doc saw me walk to the check up room and when he appeared he told me he saw no limp at all. He put me on the table and checked my "rotation", including of course some movements I couldn't perform before the operation. I saw both the post op and the current x-ray, and the doc pointed out where bone is growing in over the top of my prosthesis on the hip already. All told, a wonderful check-up, and I won't have to check in again till next June, a year after the operation.

I'm awaiting a referral for a "gum specialist" for my mouth. My dentist performed a "deep cleaning" last month, which took two appointments, and he ordered a checkup with a gum specialist, to see why my teeth seem to be so loose. As soon as the insurance company approves a referral, I'll be seeing the specialist.

I will probably wait until 2010 to go see the opthamologist. I'm pretty sure my right eye cataract is growing. My eyesight is clouded and blurry in that eye, but it isn't any worse now than it was last month. I might see my optometrist, but will probably wait till after a visit with the opthamologist. I wouldn't want to have a new prescription for glasses prepared, and then go through surgery and have to have another prescription so soon. (like last time.)

I'll also probably wait till early next year for my regular checkup with my general practitioner. I've modified my medication. I'm not taking the cholesterol medicine every night, cause I'm exercising now, and my diet is completely regulated since I'm not eating in restaurants. I also stopped taking the medicine for my enlarged prostate. I was getting up to go to the bathroom every hour for a while there, and after I stopped taking the pills, it's a longer wait between bathroom trips. This doesn't make sense, of course, since the medicine is supposed to stop me from going to the bathroom repeatedly. Well, anyway, the bottom line is that I will at least save money by not buying the pills so regularly, and I'll consult with my doctor in January or February.

WEALTH: Still drawing from the overdraft account sporadically, but I'm as frugal as I can be these days! One thing our controller advised, and which I did last week, was to up my dependents on the W-4, from one to three, so that I get more take home money each week. She suggested this a while back, when I bought the mobile home and made the decision to itemize deductions for 2009. But I forgot. It's netting me almost $40.00 a week more, which is like getting a raise. I still have to go over to the irs.gov website and see what forms I need for itemization, and get some tips for filling out my 2009 taxes. Our accountant at work has "volunteered" to help me with my taxes for only $20.00. I'm sure that's cheaper than H & R Block, and I might take her up on it. It's interesting to note, that since I've been single all my life, and have always lived in rented homes, I've always used the 1040EZ form when filing my federal taxes! That will change this year. So I expect my refund check will be a lot larger than $600.00 this year. Also in February, one year from the date when I moved into the mobile home park, I will get my "security deposit" back, which is $1400.00. That money will go right into the overdraft account, and reduce that debt by about a little more than a third.

WINTER: The second rain, (and the first big one) hit yesterday in the Southland. It rained pretty heavily in Long Beach, where I work. Since my convertible top leaks, I pulled the car into the dockwell, so it could stay dry, but I opted to go "rescue" the car during a downpour, and my slip on shoes filled up with water from just the walk/run to the car. I had to dry them out using the space heater in my office! They left the heat on overnight, so it's quite toasty in here this morning. At home, I turned the central heat on yesterday. I've got the thermostat set at 68 degrees, and when it gets up there, I turned off the gas. I don't want to have the heating bill I had last year, but I don't want to freeze either. Temps are getting below 50 in the evenings now. There was quite a windstorm last night, after the rain, which blew the clouds away. This morning there wasn't even any wetness on the streets, so the sky is bound to be clear and crisp this afternoon. I brought the camera to work with me and might take a jaunt to Signal Hill after work to see if I can get some shots of Long Beach Harbor and perhaps a nice "zoom" shot to downtown L.A. with my 2000X zoom on the new videocamera. (Of course in some parts of the U.S. it's "really" cold, and snow is falling, so it must seem like I'm being somewhat weird complaining about the winter when I'm posting photos I took at the beach!)

XANGA: I've been using the "Universal Inbox" for about a month or so now, and I don't really like it. I carom back and forth from it to the "old private page" which looks like the blogpage itself. I never did switch to "themes", and I would probably use the "unibox" as I've heard it called, if it were more "customizable." At the top of the unibox page are tabs for "all items", "feedback", "subs", "friends", and "recs". I wish there was a "default" "custom" tab on which I could "pick" which friends/subs I would like to see featured there. I'd mix this with the "feedback", which shows messages, comments, etc. Although my blog isn't "popular" and I get about 15-20 comments on each entry (which stays at the top of my page for 2-3 days) it seems I'm always seeing the updates and recommends of dozens of Xangans I really don't know! They have "befriended" me, you see, but they aren't "subscribers" to my blog, and either rarely or never visit my blog. Yet I see them show up again and again. For a while, I would make an attempt to visit these kinds of bloggers, and leave comments. If I would leave three comments and not get any reciprocation, I'd "delete" their friendship. I don't like doing that, so it would be far nicer to be able to modify a "custom" tab on my "Universal Inbox" to feature just those bloggers I choose to appear. I'd also like to be able to turn off the recs of those bloggers who seem to recommend every post they read. I don't mind this among those whom I consider real "friends" who visit and leave comments on my blog regularly, but since Xanga is probably not going to initiate any customizable inboxes any time soon, I might just keep using the "old private page". You might see that I will subscribe to more of my "favorite bloggers" so they show up on the subs module on the "old" page.

Speaking of "recommends", I went to read a blog entry which was "recommended" to me yesterday. The blogger was one of those who seems to forever bemoan the "death of Xanga". They noticed that they were only getting 100 or so page views on their entries, and only 4000 views when they were on the Top Blogs page. I had to chuckle. Most of us are lucky to get 15 comments and 50 page views. I guess I just don't notice the "death of Xanga" because I always have a core group of readers who keep returning, and I always seem to pick up new subs to replace the ones who go away. As it is, I find it incredibly difficult to "keep up" with returning comments to the people who regularly drop by my blog and comment all the time. I'm in the middle of returning comments for the Nov. 27th post right now!

One last thing. I recently particpated in a Xangamercial Contest (I posted my "commercial" on Nov. 29th). There is an entry where Xangans can "vote" for the commercials. I recommended the entry yesterday. It's on Nick's (npr32486) blog. He's hosting the competition. There are some really great "commercials', er, I mean, "Xangamercials" featured. Check it out.

Ciao.

PhotoPost: Laguna Beach, Orange County

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 22:35:05 GMT

On Sunday, November 29th, the last day of the long four day Thanksgiving Holiday, I traveled down the coast in Orange County, to the picturesque town of Laguna Beach, CA. The day was warm and bright, and perfect for taking coastline photos. Laguna Beach is known as an artist's colony, and has several art festivals throughout the year.

As soon as I got into town, around 9am, I stopped at the Cottage Resturant for breakfast. The Cottage is a reconverted private residence, on the corner of Coast Highway and Aster Street, built in 1917, and is in a somewhat oriental Craftsman style of architecture.

This is the "lifeguard tower" on the Main Beach Park. Unlike some other beach towns, like Huntington and Bolsa Chica, which have "State" and "City" beaches, the beaches in Laguna are all parks. This photo could have been taken at any time of the year, since it's usually always nice out here in SoCal, but you can tell it's Christmas time by the wreaths on the tower.

A young beachcomber takes a stroll near the lifeguard tower. Although I rarely have people in my shots, I never seem to care if I get a young lad walking along the beach. This guy is framed by some beach fowl in the background.

Along Coast Highway in downtown Laguna are artist's easels with Christmas themed art. These could be the wise seals looking up at the Northern Star. I was hoping a promised rainstrorm would have blanketed the area over Thanksgiving, so I could have cloudscapes backing these photos, but that was not to be. The sky was a nice blue, however.

Another artist's easel on a light post in downtown Laguna Beach, right by the shoreline on which the lifeguard tower shown earlier is located. All along the shoreline, trees such as the one on the left are bent in intriguing poses because of being buffetted by beach winds throughout their lives. I didn't "edit" out the circle in the camera caused by the wide angle lens. Depending upon where the sun is (directly behind me) I might or might not get these shadows, and sometimes I edit them out in "post production."

This is inland a bit. I always love the clock towers outside of jewelry stores. This one even has the right time.

This is up in the Laguna Canyon, at the James and Rosemary Nix Nature Center. Here one can sit and enjoy the view into the hills before setting out on any number of hikes into the hilly environs. Just minutes up the freeway from Laguna Beach and the water, one is confronted with the canyons of the Laguna Hills, also home to the city of Laguna Hills.

This is the Sycamore Canyon Creek Bridge, under which you can hike to "Barbara's Lake" in the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park. The highway runs across these bridges, which were constructed in 2003.

Barbara's Lake sort of suddenly jumps up at you as you are hiking along the trail. Out in the middle of seeming nowhere, this lake is filled with fish and home to mallards. Orange County is certainly not known for lakes. However, the word "laguna" is Spanish for "pond" and Barbara's Lake is one of three natural "lagunas" in the Laguna Canyon.

I think this is a heron I photographed at the other edge of the lake. You couldn't get around to the other side by the hiking trail, so I used the zoom lens to try to get as close to the bird as possible in camera.

Here is another view of Barbara Lake in Laguna Canyon, at the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park. It could have been just another sunny day in the Southland, although this is late November!

As I mentioned, Laguna Beach is an artist's community. Wyland, who is known for his marine paintings, has a mural on the side of a rock and mineral store on Laguna Canyon Road. I love the contrast between the "ocean" in the painting, and the hills in the background. This image sort of characterizes the area perfectly, a beach town which stretches up into the hills.

The Sawdust Festival is a famous Laguna Arts festival, and is held a couple of times a year. Although I didn't want to go inside. (I think it was $8.00 for parking and $5.00 to get inside, money I just don't have to spend right now) I did take a few shots of the architecture, which reminds me of an alpine village somewhat. And a "fairy tale" alpine village at that.

Another interesting building at the Sawdust Festival location.

Laguna Beach is also known for the Arts Festival and the Pageant of the Masters,which takes place in the summer. The Pageant showcases great artworks "performed" by actors in three dimensional sets designed to look like the actual paintings and sculptures. I've never seen the Pageant, but hope to get around to it sometime in the near future. Here is a shot of the box office.
This is the entrance to the 2009 edition of the Pageant of the Masters, which is located in an ampitheater on the other side of the entrance. I was impressed with the painting on the side of the building. (I'm not sure which piece of art this is. Perhaps one of my readers might probably know and mention it in comments. )

After hiking about in the Laguna Hills area, I came back to Heisler Park, another beach park, and one with curving paths and neat outcroppings. I always love palm tree stands, like the planting of three in the center of this photo. There is one of these in the clubhouse area of the mobile home park in which I live too.

The beachfront at Heisler Park. It's only about 1:30pm in the early afternoon, but since it's early winter time, the sun is really low on the horizon to the right, which gives some great highlights to the water, which you will see in the next photo. Coming up to this park from the street, there was an amazing shimmer to the water, but I didn't get a photo. (I did get some video, which might show up in my new upcoming planned "Arbitrary Images" MikeVideo.
A lone beachcomber walks in front of the shimmering water. The sun is right out of frame. It's incredibly difficult to shoot into the sun this way. Digital cameras seem to go haywire when confronted with the glare, and I had to 'throw away' a lot of useless shots. This one came out fantastically.

I haven't created many "composite artworks" this year. However, here is a simple one with the photo above cropped a little differently and backed by a cloudscape from another of my photos.

This is another artistic shot of the tidepools around Heisler Park. It isn't really tweaked that much. The sky is artificially darkened, and the contrast is heightened. This is also obviously in wide angle.

Lastly, here is a shot of a little beach bird grabbing a quick snack in the shallow water by the sandy shore. I followed him for quite a while, and took lots of video footage of this little guy. This is the first of what I certainly hope with be numerous PhotoPosts from Orange County, which is south of Los Angeles, and "virgin territory" for my roving cameras.

A WayBack Post: Toys: A History of Playtime with the Mikester

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:30:43 GMT

Toys: A Personal History of Playtime with the Mikester.

My siblings and I have always been imaginative and creative. We inherited my mother's creative gene, and our playtime was varied and elaborate. I think possibly because my mother might have been trying to make up for the fact that she hardly ever let us out of our own yard, because it was unsafe to "play in the street", she and my dad frequently bought us toys, games, and sporting goods. We did not lack for playthings, and these playthings embellished our imagination, spurred our storytelling acumen, and helped to cement us as a family which played together. We had our quarrels, and sometimes mother had to show us the "spanking stick" when we got a bit too boisterous, but for the most part, all three of us were able to develop complete worlds of play, with continuing chapters, favorite characters, and involving plots, which had, from playtime to playtime, intrigue, adventure, and a bit of soap opera. Instead of playing like we were in a war movie, we would "construct" a war movie, with sets, actors playing parts, and a definite plot with an ending. Perhaps we didn't exactly know the ending when beginning play, but by the time playtime was over, one scenario would be ready to "pack up", and the next playtime might bring something completely different.

I've never had kids. I did spend three years with a girlfriend who had two children, ages 12 and 14 at the beginning of our relationship. The girl was a preteen, and she liked her CDs and walkman, and was developing friendships with schoolmates in the 'hood, something my mother wouldn't let us do even at 14. The boy was into videogames and videotaped movies. He could watch the same Disney movie endlessly, on tape, and he always had his gameboy in hand. Neither of Pat's kids "played". Possibly because they had to age rather quickly being the son and daughter of a woman who was more "roommate" than mother. Their interests were very passive, TV (They had their first experience with cable when I moved in and activated my subscription.) music, and videogames.

Growing up we had a TV but we didn't get a record player, until I was in the latter half of high school. While Pat's kids could basically be found sitting in front of the television set from right after school until bedtime, including mealtime, my siblings and I would spend whole evenings participating in playtime of some sort or another. After my dad bought our house, in 1960, he made us each a wooden toy chest in his shop, and each chest was about 4 x 3 x 3. I remember regular trips to "Toytown" where Dad would give us a certain spending limit for being good all week, and I would get things like bags of plastic cars or dinosaurs. Each toy was givne it's own "place" for storage. There was "the block box" and the "little men drawer." No matter how many toys we "needed' for playtime, at the end of play, everything was piled "neatly" back into it's particular receptacle.

The most imaginative toys were the simplest. Blocks. We had alphabet blocks and those shiny brightly colored wooden blocks in different shapes, but since my father was a woodworker, he made us thousands of blocks from pieces of pine lumber. He would cut them in different shapes, and then sand them so that they were smooth. We would construct Egyptian pyramids, modern cities, and movie backlots with our blocks. Building toys were always special to me. My dad constructed an electric train layout with tunnel and bridge for me on two pieces of 4 x 8 plywood before we moved from our rented house in the late 50s. At the time I didn't realize Dad had given me the train set. It was a gift from "Santa Claus" and miraculously appeared in the living room by the tree on Christmas morning. By the mid fifties, Tinkertoys, American Plastic Bricks, and Lincoln Logs joined the toys in our rooms. Tinkertoys were good for everything from making vehicles and structures, to making "people". A "blue stick" in a "spool" was a young boy. A girl had a piece of string (for a pony tale, like my sister) inserted into the slot at the top of the stick. She wore one of those cylindrical tinkertoys with the hole in the middle for a "dress". "Red sticks' were teenagers, and "green sticks" were adults. They lived in houses made with our blocks constructed from blueprints in housing brochures.

Paper bags were "puppets", and I had about 250 or 300 separate "people" in the 5 or 6 years I was making them. My brother and sister similarly had whole populations of puppets made from #6 small grocery bags. We used crayons to color their faces and bodies. They were even easy to store, as they folded flat. My brother and I imagined "planets" where our toys lived. His was "Cowboytown", and mine, "Cartown". We also had a "movie studio" for producing "movies" which came in handy when we were limited to only one and a half hours of play.

Favorite "toys" were the kind we made ourselves. I had a "TV" made out of a shoebox with slots in the sides where I could slide the "film" which consisted of "frames" like a comic book. One playtime "adventure" I remember well was "lava". The contents of the dirty clothes hamper would become steaming lava which was forever bearing down on our GI Joe action figures and Tammy dolls.

Until we grew too old to believe in Santa, he "brought" one "special" toy, usually the largest, the night before Christmas. We children had to stay in our beds, or else Santa might not "come" to set up the toys. Dad and Mom would literally spend the complete night arranging the three setpiece toys for our "surprise" on Christmas morning. Each of us received about 10-15 toys of varying size and cost. Usually half of these broke within a week of Christmas.

Christmas always held an abundance of surprises, and besides the toys which seemed to be engineered to break immediately upon playing with them for the first time, like my GI Joe Helicopter, we did keep most of our toys, and so our "collection" just kept getting larger and larger.

Sis had those tin doll houses, and then one Christmas got a plastic "Dream House" furnished in the best 60s modern style. Both my sister, brother and I constructed whole cities and towns out of construction paper cutouts. Looking back on our play, it seems no wonder that we liked to "build things". My dad was in the process of adding a bedroom and bathroom on the newly purchased house. Building was in our blood.

My brother and I both collected and traded cards. Playtime at school recesses usually involved sports or trading. I still collect trading cards from time to time. In the 80s I had two complete Garbage Pail Kids card sets because they reminded me of gruesome monster stickers I traded as a kid.

My brother and I loved playsets, and these were the toys "Santa" usually brought. Sister had "The Flintstones". Brother had a medeival castle and a western town, and I had Cape Canaveral and Moon Base Alpha. You can't buy something like the Cape Canaveral setup these days. The spring loaded "rockets" had enough power to take out one of your eyes. My favorite playset was "The Blue and The Gray", a Civil War playset with so may soldiers, building, bridges, horses, and ammunition, that I got tired after I spent two hours setting it all up.

As a preteen, I graduated from building blocks to model kits. Starting with military vehicles and planes, I immersed myself into model building, and I got "into" building customized cars, by combining pieces in different kits. In my slideshow above I show a photo of my first auto kit, a Duesenberg, and also the "Big Deuce" a 1/8 scale model '32 Ford which had windows which cranked open and closed and working headlights.

My taste in "toys" changed in my junior year in high school, when I was able to drive my best "toy" to school, a 1965 Dodge Dart I nicknamed "The Fantastic." I've "collected" some vintage cars since then, and I always think of them as my "toys". In the late 80s, I rode a motorcycle.

Since I never married, I have continued to buy "toys". The latest "toys" are electronic in nature. My love of music began by listening to radio, since we didn't have a record player, but as soon as the family started to spin platters, I began buying albums weekly, and this has grown into collecting media of all kinds, including movies on five different formats, three or which are obsolete.

The most recent "toys" are my computers. I could even say I have a "collection" of not only the hardware, but all the software as well. I was an "early adopter" and as the technology quickly changed, I wanted to keep upgrading. Now, thanks to my latest "toy", I have enjoyed an avalance of personal creative energy and production unmatched since my youth.

Everyone has their own toys, and their own way of playing. A lot of social interaction is built on our experiences at playtime. Much of our imagination and creativity first receive inspiration during playtime. And probably, we all remember our toys throughout the decades, and playing with our toys helped us to begin acting and reacting to the pitfalls and foibles of life in the "real world"

I used another "toy", the Slideshow feature on the Xanga Photo Manager, to create the slideshow of my "toy history" when I first presented this entry in 2007. I hope you all can watch it. Perhaps you'll even remember some of the toys presented, all of which I or my siblings had at one time or another in the 60s. I searched for images of specific toys I remember from childhood, then created the composites, and built the slideshow. Believe it or not, it took about four hours! This entry was originally posted on my blog on 5/27/07 for my late Internet Island blogring, and I was inspired to post it again as part of my monthlong "Christmas Celebration" here on my blog when I read Dawn's (CelticDawn) entry about her memories of her children's toys, "Toys of Christmas Past".

Reflections on some Last Christmases

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:22:25 GMT

My Family's Last Christmas

It doesn't snow in Southern California, and sometimes Decembers can be quite warm. It was one of those warm Decembers, in 1972, and a couple of months earlier, my parents, siblings, and I had moved to Glendora, nestled in the crook of the San Gabriel mountains, after having lived in the San Gabriel valley for over a decade.

Mother had been experiencing a lot of nervous energy in the previous few years, and it was she who wanted to move. Even though Father had only recently gone back to work following a long recuperation period after having broken his pelvis in a forklift accident, he gave in to her wishes, and we gathered up over ten years of our lives and deposited them in the foothills. I was in college, majoring in English Literature at USC in Los Angeles, and the drive to school was over 50 miles each way. Sister and brother had transferred from Rosemead to Glendora High, not without some bitterness, having been yanked from their friends and social lives.

It seemed nobody in the household was particularly happy. However, to appease Mother's wishes, we put on our bravest of faces and stuck by her as we all readjusted to the new environs. Christmas was a very special holiday for our family, and we had no idea as we decorated the tree, and Mother unpacked half a dozen large cardboard boxes of decorations and holiday crafts and knickknacks, that this would be the last Christmas we would spend together.

Since I had a job, for the first time in my life I had some "spending cash" at Christmas. In the past, while my siblings and I were children, my parents bought the presents, and we opened them. This year, I bought presents for my parents and my brother and sister. I spent a lot of time in gift stores looking for the right gifts. Sister and brother made arts and crafts, not having much money to spend. In the past, the tree held only the gifts our parents had bought for us. This year, most of the presents were gifts we gave to each other, the first and the last time this occurred in our family.

It was a special Christmas, filled with joy that really hadn't entered the household since we had moved. I still have fond memories of that last Christmas. I remember opening presents my brother had made for me. A poster he drew for me is hanging on the wall not four feet from where I am writing this blog entry on my computer. We all joked and laughed. Our parents beamed when opening gifts we had given them, instead of the other way around. We all didn't know it then, but my parents would never know another Christmas, and it wouldn't be exactly the same after they had gone. Imaginary sleighbells and Santa's hearty laugh could clearly be heard.

Mother had her bilateral stroke the next February, paralyzing her completely. Her kidneys falied her, and she had to be hooked up to a dialysis machine. She was stuck in a hospital bed, virtually a vegetable for the rest of her life, which didn't last long. Dad died in July of 1974, felled by the 13th heart attack. He'd been caring for my mother as best he could for over almost two years, and his heart just couldn't take it anymore. Soon after he died, my brother, sister, and I went our separate ways.

Tom's Last Christmas

My buddy Tom was a best friend to everyone he met. At over 6 feet, and weighing about 350 pounds, with a laugh that could stop traffic, Tom stood out in a crowd, and nobody who ever met him would ever forget him. We were like Mutt and Jeff, sizewise as well as friendshipwise, for a good 20 years. After my mother's misfortune, and my father's death, Tom's family sort of "adopted" me, and I spent subsequent Christmases with Tom's family.

There was always a gift for me under the tree from Tom's parents, and I and Tom would always exchange gifts, usually rare jazz albums or books about rock and rollers. Tom was the consummate music freak, and could recite not only the history of rock and roll, which we both loved, but blues and jazz as well. Many a time I have memories of us both being far too drunk, and Tom regaling me with half slurred histories of his favorite artists.

In 1985, I was living in the South Bay, about 60 miles away from Tom. We only saw each other on rare occasions, since I had developed a "gang" of new friends from workmates at the retail store in Torrance, where I worked. Still, as I did every Christmas, I drove up to Tom's family's place in Whitter for dinner and a gift exchange. Tom still lived at home, even though he was in his late 30s. His younger brother and sister had already moved out of the family home, but of course they came back for Christmas. I wondered if Tom would ever move away from home. He worked at a toy distributorship, so he was quite busy at work during the holiday season. I remember that Christmas as being full of warmth and wonder. Tom's brother Chris chided him about leaving home. Tom's mother was ailing a bit, but this didn't stop her from exhibiting good cheer. By this time, I was treated just like a member of the family. The meal was filling, and the spirit was exuberant. None of us knew this would be the last Christmas we would spend together.

Early the next year, Tom was in an industrial accident, falling 20 feet and breaking his spine. He died after the spinal operation when blood got into his lungs. His father died soon after, followed by his mother. Sometimes I "visit" them in the Rose Hills Memorial Park, right down from where my own parents are buried.

Bob's Last Christmas

From 1987 through 1991, I lived with my friend Bob in his home, which I called the "Frat House". He shared his family home after his mother died with three roommates. First there was Mike and I, then Mike moved out and Jim moved in. Jim moved out when he got married, and we invited my firend Joel to move in. When I got together with Pat, I moved out, and Joel and Bob shared the house together. In 1994, after I found out Pat was cheating on me, and I moved into the garage in our rented house waiting for the lease to expire, I spent weekends back at the "Frat House". Bob was only 47 years old, but he seemed sickly. Joel told me that he wouldn't go to the doctor, and he didn't eat right. He seemed to be in enough good spirits one weekend right before Christmas 1994. Joel went over to visit a friend of his, and Bob and I went out to do some Christmas shopping and eat dinner. Bob rarely went out, and I think he liked the company.

He bought some cds for some of his friends, and we went to eat a "holiday meal" at Alberto's Mexican Food in Lomita, a local hangout where Bob and I had spent many times together in the past, when I lived with him full time. After our meal, which had to be cut a bit short, because Bob was complaining of a stomach ache, we went back to "The Frat House" and listened to some of the cds he had bought. I told him he shouldn't open the packaging, but he said he hadn't heard these cds yet, and the guy who he bought them for wouldn't mind. I wasn't going to worry about it, nor complain to him, although I thought it was a bit weird. We listened to the music. I drank a beer or two. We both smoked some dope, and after a while Bob told me he had to go to bed.

I joked that it was about an hour too early for him, since as long as I'd known the guy he always went to bed at 10pm on the dot. He retired, and I went into the living room, closed the sliding door between the living room and the hall, and made my bed on Joel's foldout, my regular weekend sleeping accommodation, since I and Pat had broken up.

That was the night Bob died of a heart attack. Joel came home later in the evening, and found him in the bathroom on the floor. He tried to give CPR, to no avail. Joel awakened me, and we called 911, since Bob didn't have any close family.

Last Christmases

I have some great memories of Christmas time. I have a lot of great memories of family and friends who aren't around anymore to celebrate the season. I toast them frequently, however. Just recently, my buddy and roommate Joel (who was the guy who found Bob in the bathroom) passed away at age 53 after a three year battle with cancer. He died in the summer time, but we did have a "last Christmas" together in spirit. Even though I rarely buy or decorate a tree anymore, when we first moved into the house we shared in Lomita back in 1995, I decorated, and bought presents for Joel and a few of my friends, whom I invited over to celebrate the holiday. I got Joel a VCR. His had just broken down.

At work, our CEO Jack is Mr. Christmas this time of year. That is, usually. He isn't around the office now, having suffered a stroke last March. He is on the mend, however. Usually, our Christmas party at work, which is held in a nice restaurant right before the holiday, is my celebration of the holiday in recent years. I wondered if we'd even have a party this year, because of Jack's condition. His three daughters run the company, and I was told that we will still have a party this year. I don't know if it will be in a restaurant or at work, but since it's Jack's favorite time of year, we simply have to have a company Christmas party of some sort. Let me tell ya, I'm really looking forward to it. During Jack's birthday, he was brought to work in his wheelchair, and he beamed a million watt smile. I've seen him at home and I could tell a definite difference in his demeanor. After all, there aren't too many people in their mid 80s who still come into work every day. Jack did, right up until the stroke. (He should have retired long ago, but his company is his hobby.)

It's said that some people suffer from depression at Christmas time. That's a shame. My Christmases sure have had some bumps in the past, and even this year, it won't be a holiday like "usual". This doesn't mean that the holiday needs to be dismal or dreary however. As I look around the mobile home park, I see people putting up decorations. Lost of inflatable Santas and artificial icicles in SoCal. Still, the holiday season is upon us, and as I remember the "last Christmases" of my memory, those special times when I last saw my family and some of my best friends alive, I give thanks and I pray, and I celebrate life, and bask in the wonder of it all.

Merry Christmas to my fellow bloggers. Hope you have a wonderful holiday season, and if there has been any loss in your lives, either recent or long ago, or people with whom you cannot spend this Christmas, I hope and pray that you miss them terrribly, but that you spend your energy not in mourning, but in celebration of their lives, and in the wonderful memories of Christmas Past, as I do this time every year, when I contemplate those "last Christmases" in my life which were, and still are, so special to me. I may be alone in "reality" but I am never alone in spirit.

It's December 1st as I write this. Just 24 more days till Christmas.

God bless us every one.

MikeVideo Advertisement for WhenWordsCollide

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:25:34 GMT

A Commercial for my blog, WhenWordsCollide:

I was fooling around with my "Morpheus" software the other day. That's the software which allows me to create morphs, like the ever changing photo of me "growing up" at the bottom of the main page of my website "AllThingsMike" and the MikeVideo "Skyline". The project I was working on is a morph of my over 60 Xanga profile pics, from the first to the latest. I got a "recommend" for a blog entry from a guy named Nick (npr32486) who is hosting a "video contest" for Xangans to create "commercials" for Xanga or for their own or somebody else's Xanga blogs.

How interesting, I thought. Even though the deadline is tomorrow, I rustled up what footage I'd created for the morph, and in a short seven hours, I came up with a high quality HTDV widescreen "commercial" for my blog. I just 'submitted' the commercial to Nick's contest entry HERE. He has a length restriction of under a minute, and mine clocks in at 1 minute 14 seconds. I need this time to present the over 60 profile pics, which "morph" on the left side of the screen.

So as of this point, I don't know if my "entry" will even be in the contest, and I haven't seen a list of links to the other entries, however there is a list of participating bloggers on Nick's site. I copy/pasted the URLs for some of these sites in my browser yesterday, and did see some neat video commercials.

Below, I am embedding first the Xanga version, which is online as I type. And then underneath it the YouTube HDTV version

Xanga (Not in widescreen, but it is letterboxed.)

YouTube (In full 720p HDTV widescreen)

Books of the Realizations 2: Wisdom and Questioning

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 01:38:17 GMT

THE BOOKS OF THE REALIZATIONS: A series of philosophical/spiritual essays

Today's blog entry comprises the SECOND BOOK of THE REALIZATIONS. These five chapters were written in 1999 as a preface to what eventually became "The Universal Blog". , a website where I post my spiritual entries. The Books of the Realizations tell the story of my own "personal" journey toward enlightenment. For those of you who might stumble across this entry and are interested in perusing the complete text of Five Books or Chapters right now, the complete Books of the Realizations are on the web HERE. I am interspersing these five chapters among my entries on WhenWordsCollide over the next few weeks. Chapter Two, or The Second Book follows. MFN (originally posted 3/16/05)

The Realizations
the true story of faith and how it can be obtained.
by Michael F. Nyiri

THE BOOK OF THE FIRST REALIZATON
THE BOOK OF THE SECOND REALIZATION:

Wisdom and Questioning

The second realization in my life arrived after a particularly satisfying trip to New England with a friend and his family for a vacation. Like a mad journalist I respected and copied, we filled a rented car with drugs and alcohol and drove from California to New Jersey with his wife, mother, and two children. The car broke down. The children were impossible, but we were higher than kites for most of the trip, and I remember it as a truly exciting experience. When I returned to my job as department manager, I was demoted from Garden manager to Seasonal manager, and then I was hit with the second realization. I was fired, ostensibly for dress code violations, in reality for drug abuse off the job, but after nearly six months on unemployment insurance frantically trying to find a new job I realized that again, life is not structured, and certain things seem to happen for no apparent reason.

A new job beckoned, for a new retail establishment trying to lay a groundwork in Southern California in the latter part of the seventies. The gentleman who hired me had been a carpet buyer at the retail chain which was swallowed by the new fish, and he had essentially been downsized into being a store manager for the new chain. Since the stores were being remodeled, there was a great feeling of revitalization and rebirth in this particular company, and the gentleman guided me through the machinations of the job as well as the vagaries of his philosophies. At this point, I again began to feel a sense of empowerment, of invulnerability.

My "Godfather", as I called him, had gone through a series of life changes just as recently as I had, the only difference being that he was about twenty years older. He gave me the word: realization. He taught me what he had not learned from his life, and it taught me much.

The lesson is simple, and it has formed the basis of what I believe to be true and fact. The seed which planted for me the secret of the universe. With age comes knowledge. With time comes wisdom. No matter how one perceive's oneself, as an ignoramus or a know-it-all, no one knows anything until it comes to them. In time, almost all manner and matter of life experiences sets one up for realizations. If one keeps passing over these clues to existence, then one cannot be fulfilled by the lessons life has to teach. If one can spot and regulate these clues, then one is on a personal journey toward enlightenment, at least in the corporeal world. My Godfather told me I would see much in time, that I would know things and more. At the time, since these realizations hadn't manifested themselves completely in my psyche, I really didn't know exactly what he was talking about. I felt he was elliptical and senseless. But I listened, and I learned. Age itself is the teacher, and as one passes through this journey called life one is filled with the tools to understand not only the self but the self-in-self, the universal mind which permeates us all. But I am getting ahead of myself.

My second realization was the dictum to watch, live, and learn. All these platitutes passed on for centuries had a little truth in them, and what one had to learn from existence first of all was to sift through and decipher all the experiences and wisdom which have come before and organize them into a tangible plan for living.

My eyes had been opened. But a couple of realizations at such a young age of course did not spell truth for me yet. My Godfather had problems himself, and I didn't really think he had much to give to me in the way of knowledge at the time. He drank heavily, as I was doing also, and when he was kicked out of his house by his wife he spent the first night on my couch in my living room. Eventually the company needed my skills as a truck driver (My Godfather had "taught" me how to drive a multiple speed transmission by putting me in the cab of a company truck and telling me to step on the gas. I essentially taught myself, and this knowledge came to good use.)

Driving a truck full of merchandise around the whole of Southern California, I lost track of my Godfather. The eighties were dawning, and I felt a surge of rebirth. I ceased questioning life, and began living. I still manipulated a sort of double life, and new and more intriguing drugs were added to the mix. I do not discount these experiences with drugs and alcohol. Many souls feel lost because they cannot control their basest desires. I used mind expanding substances first as simply a means of entertainment, but certain chemicals when mixed with those in the brain cause an immersive experience which just cannot be discounted. Again, a realization was about to emerge. A realization which has been around at least since the early indigenous peoples started ingesting certain herbs and roots which transported them to another plane of existence.

By this time I felt no spiritual guidance at all. I had truly "left the church" of Western Civilization. It would be years before I realized the connection between the rise of Western Civilization, and Christianity in particular, with the rise of ill will between the peoples of the world, but that is getting ahead of myself again. The third realization began as entertainment, something to do on a Friday night, partying with friends. My buddy with whom I traveled to New Jersey in 1977 had kept urging me to try acid, lysergic acid diethemilyde, or LSD for about a year. I took my first "trip" that year and after numerous "trips" another realization came to me. One which caused me to question the complete audacity of the teachings of modern civilization and religious beliefs. The drugs weren't an end-all and be-all. Like all life experience, they were teaching tools, and they taught me much.

Also in the early eighties, after much searching for a soul mate, I began a series of short but intense physical and intellectual relationships with women. I couldn't find the soul mate, but I did find a woman who introduced me to some of the more demanding personal growth programs which permeated much of the seventies. She was an EST graduate, and her husband was an acolyte of the Lifespring group. Although no one hears much about these programs anymore. It seems most of the programs advertised nowadays are set up to make you believe you can make more money, at that time many people became "me groupies" enthralled with the idea that they could better their world by bettering themselves. Of course the people who ran these programs elicited much money from the acolytes, and thought they could improve people's worth by belittling them. The point is that people are looking for answers, and though I felt I found no answers within these groups they did answer a need. And that need is still here. In fact, at this turn of the Millennium there is more need for answers than ever before, but the answers do not lie in the betterment of self, but in the betterment of understanding of a new type of belief system, one which deletes the need of self-fulfillment, because it is self-fulfilling in it's simplicity.

At the dawn of the eighties, I was hit with the third realization

To Be Continued Soon, or click here for the rest of the story.

From the Philosophy Section of AllThingsMike in 1999: For years I have held to a belief system which incorporates lessons from life which I have learned. I call these lessons realizations. They lead to the final realization, from which humankind will embrace the Universal Mind. These beliefs are not new, and are not mine. They are realizations which affect everybody. With the Millennium upon us, I feel compelled to write down the history and origins of these realizations. This is a work in progress.

The Personal Journey to the Realizations is over for the writer in the book of the Fifth Realization.
From the beginning part of the foundation for AllThingsMike consisted of a philosophical discussion of existence and the existence of the Universal Mind, which supplants and replaces all religion and philosophical thought which has gone before. MFN 1999

Electric Poetry: In my Youth

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:07:26 GMT

"The Poignant Ballad of the Roving Hippie"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
1971 (18 years old)

With Dusty boots he treads the paths of malice.
His hands reach out but no one knows he's there.
He looks around for peace and truth
But never finds it.
They only tell him he should cut his hair.

He's a roving hippie - keeps the love beads dangling
With the cross upon his chest
Knows the answers to the questions --
Keeps his mouth shut knowing what is best.

The light turns green he steps across the street.
His feet turn round and nothing greets his gaze.
He wants to be a friend
But cannot be loved,
As long as no one looks through their deep haze.

He's a roving hippie -- tries communication with the others
But short circuits all the wires
Makes a nuisance for he fails to meet
Approval with establishmentarian liars.

His home was fine but not for his existence.
Yet everywhere he goes they want him back.
He strives for love and grace
But they have fled him.
He cannot help but think he's off the track.

Sing fa la la or ho de ho ho.
Please some body tell me where to go.
They say
Tareyton filters taste right like a cigarette should
Clean your floors with ammonia that's good
Cleanse your breath with Dentyne chewing gum
Do what you like but stop being a bum.

"Angel of Friendship"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
1972

I had a dream the other night
A nightmare of reality
While walking along the streets of L.A.
I saw the Angel of Friendship --
The forgotten life.
She wasn't beautiful
But her homliness was radiant
She smiled in the midst of frowns
She was happy in the midst of sads
And she came up to me
And I couldn't help but smile
She welcomed me into her soul
But I wasn't ready to take it
My astounded nature repelled her
But she remained a friend
This angel wasn't for real
I don't think
But maybe if I had thought of her as
More than a person on the street
I'd feel better today.

I want to have this dream again.

"Future Memories With You"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
Feb. 16, 1973

I used to could say it all before
I used to sit beyond my incapabilities
And talk about myself forever.
They used to call me a good conversationalist
I used to be very popular.

Then I changed
I wanted to face reality with no fronts
I wanted the inescapable "truth."

Then, within the course of a few months,
My mother fell int life's limbo
My family changed
My sister fell in love
for real

I found myself lost
Among all the truths I'd ever needed
I reasoned carefully
But it was no use
I tried to sit beyond my incapabilities
But it was still no use

Then you stepped from out of nowhere
And the faceless girls in dreams assumed identity
And life means something to me
Now.

The past is full of dire memories
But the future has memories which
Haven't been counted.
I want to spend these future memories
With you.

"Depression VI"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
October 1, 1974 12:30 p.m

Ah, to consruct, in the minds e'er widening chasm,
The world of perfection,
The place of serene evaluation.
Why can't the mind go to that place
More often, and why does the mind
Torture itself with dreams.

Many will cry with the weight of time's
Coffins, reflecting dead thoughts with their own.
I try to cry when I think of the past
But the future is e'en wider still.

Friendships are lost with the turning of pages
Life is an unwritten poem in a desk.
My emotions yearn for expression
And half-formulated sentences cascade
Like water from the stone-fronted
Faces at which they've been thrown.

My heart will beat a multitudinous beat
And words will race unintelligibly from my lips
...Then I will turn around to face reality
Where unrhymed poems and unsympathetic people
Serve to mar your heart from joy.

The sadness can be written many times
And many different ways
But as long as the feeling is still there
And it cannot be expressed
Without disappearing before someone else hears it
Then words can fall off cliffs
And water can drown emotions.

"Empty Nights II"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
June 16, 1975 1:05 a.m

I'd like to go home.
I'd like to say 'hi' to Mom & Dad again.
I'd like things to be like they used to
And I didn't have to worry.

Problems were always so slight and
there was always something there
And someone to turn to--

"Mommy, I love you" And I wish you
could come back the way I knew you
But then again can I face it--
And do I only yearn for memories.

Home is so far away
Along with someone to love.
And shattered visions lie around
Waiting for me to pick up the pieces

The days fly by and time is but
Convention.
And little conversations
Do not mend the breaks at all.

When I used to write poetry
And 'hopes' were all I needed,
Life was easier.

I'll say that I have it easy now.
My world is safe and
Free from real problems
And people have more rotten times than I

At least I'm happy.

I tell myself.

"A Thanksgiving Prayer 1978"   Cathy poem

poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
November 23, 1978 12:15 p.m

At times I feel everything is perfect
A beautiful morning makes me want to
burst into song
(like in the movies)
I get that feeling like I used to back in
college when I'd drive down the freeway
after classes thinking - this is it - the
catharsis - me and my my machine - alone - together
winding down the ribbon of asphalt - 
nothing to mess up my thinking - 
total control...
I can reach out and hug strangers 
on the street - I feel like
SCREAMING 
"I'm alive - can you feel it?"

And at times like this I miss you most.

Then

At times I feel like the world doesn't
want me around -
A friendly compliment makes me mad
I feel everybody is playing the game
of MindF**k -
I lash out at people - objects - ideas -
situations
I'd punch the mirror if it would hurt
me -

And at times like this you always
seem to be around

I'm okay
I'm not crying now (well, hardly)
It's a beautiful day
And I view a verdant field
- and you and I are in the picture
Caressing each other with our dreams
And comforting each other with
our desires.

If only
If only
If only I could open up all the time
And feel like it's all right
then I wouldn't worry too much
about your leaving
The problem is with my conception -
I warp it all the time to please
myself

There are only a few clouds
rimming the horizon
The sky is a brilliant blue
The birds sing innocently
I'll see you again
And I'll counter your smile with my own
You are a separate being
Because you're a human spirit
And I love you for that
Too.

Thank you Cathy
Thank you world.

BEHIND THE POETRY: I recently read an entry on Xanga called "Does Poetry Make You Feel Dumb?" It was on Top Blogs, and I neglected to bookmark it, and now I can't find the entry, and didn't comment, cause I was at work when I read it. I'm ashamed that I can't even remember who wrote the entry! (EDIT: 11/26/09 7:07am pst.) Thanks to my determination and elephantine memory, the search engine in my brain found the entry, linked above, written by Victoria (themarriedfreshman) The jist of the entry was that the author didn't think that most poetry was completely understandable, even though she enjoyed reading it. I've always been lucky that most of the readers of my poetry, which I've been writing since 1967 at the age of 14, not only understand, but people who don't particularly like poetry tell me that they like mine. This makes me feel incredibly wonderful. I've been a poet for a long time. I can write in any number of forms and structures. The above poems were all written very early in my life, and have not been featured on Xanga before. "Roving Hippie" tells the tale of a lot of folks of my generation, who traveled the country "looking for themselves" and found nothing but hatred, when they only wanted love. "Angel of Friendship" recalls a real encounter with a lonely gal I met while at college, and is the first of two poems to address this sprite, who really inspired my poetic soul. "Future Memories" is a poem written to my girlfriend Emma, and I've always loved the title line. Of course we broke up, so my "future memories" were never spent with her. "Depression VI" is one of the "depression" poems. I like to be positive and uplifitng in poetry now, but I spent many years depressed, and this is one of the poems dealing with a sense of deep loss. It contains two lines which have inspired lines or titles in other poems, "the weight of time's coffins" and "Life is an unwritten poem in a desk". "Empty Nights II" was written a year after I stopped seeing my mother in the nursing home, where she had suffered a bilateral stroke which paralyzed her. Dad had died the year previous. The fact that I stopped seeing my mother for the last two years of her life still upsets me. Still, I'm optimistic in the end of the poem. EDIT: 10:46 p.m. I just remembered that it's Thanksgiving tomorrow so I added a "Thanksgiving Poem". This from 1978, when I was 25, and in love with Cathy, to whom I wrote 60 poems. This is one of them, dedicated to the love of my life at the time. MFN/ppf