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Sol set

  Sitting on the metro in Madrid, travelling from Ventas to Plaza de España… the first or second stop brought a vision of beauty beyond belief at the window. She was waiting to board the train and I could not help but smile at her. She smiled back. She stepped onto the train coyly and, after a little twirl and swirl, sat beside me. I was struggling to breathe and to cope with my heartbeat speed. I looked at our reflection in the window and we both had a grin on our face. The heat rose from within and I was staring at her shoes, her socks, I was seeking something… something to say. She started to message on her phone but almost as if she was trying to show me what was on the screen. My eyes flickered over it and I could see that her messages were in English. I pulled my headphones off and she seemed expectant. I looked at her face, it was beautiful, with a sprinkling of freckles over her nose. And, yet, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t speak. We pulled into Sol and she got up and left. ...
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personal

  I use social media to let people know I am still alive when I don’t show up at the bar in Dallas. Beyond that, I find myself increasingly disconnected from, and troubled by, social media. It’s the era of everyone believing they are a star… the whole world is watching them every moment of the day. No talent or training required, no unique character needed.   Alas, I am currently in Madrid, Spain, after a week in the South of France. France was work, this is holiday… but I am surrounded by people who are at a company event, and it makes me feel like I am working. It should not trouble me, the view is beautiful and the alcohol is flowing. Madrid is a wonderful city, my old home, one I cannot get tired of. It seems a little busier these days, but that may be because I am used to living in Texas where there is more space and less people.                     In terms of global events, it was ...
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25 years

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  25 years ago I wrote my name in a book I had just bought. I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma (I wrote Oklahoma like a drunk guy, but did not drink at the time). At the time the book was 82 years old and now it is 107. Demian, by Hermann Hesse. The book is about finding meaning and one’s inner self in a world that is on the brink of war. Two months after reading it, I flew American Airlines over the twin towers in New York, exactly two weeks before they were destroyed. 25 years later, I’ve just re-read the book. We are at war. I’m in Madrid, Spain, but now live as a British American in the USA. Times passes rapidly and so many suffer in this unspeakably cruel world. Yet there is also profound beauty, and all we can do is to try to make the most of it along the way. be kind to people. Smile. Survive.
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Fear III

  Everything is a reflection of the times. Popular culture reflects what people are feeling. In the 1890s we had Frankenstein and Dracula because it was not possible, then, to speak directly about the geo-political situation and the changes that drove society to fear. The railroads were taking over, nature was being destroyed, and mankind was terrified. If you launch your streaming platforms of choice today you will discover that most films are some form of gothic horror… this is because mankind is once more terrified of things such as AI, but, even more so, a leadership of ‘the most powerful nation on earth’ that is simply pathetic in its volatility due to insecurity. Just open the ‘GIFs’ section of any app that you are using, and they reflect what is happening at the present time. Memes, too. Through memes we can see that people really hate their jobs, they hate waking up early to commute through traffic to sit in an office. However, due to the extensive lay offs we are seeing, p...
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their envy

  They drive home from their 16-hour shift in the office and pull into the carpark… then they sit in their cars, engine running, lights on… they sit and sit. What are they doing? It becomes clear, they simply don’t want to go home. They are afraid of the boss all day in the office, and they are afraid all night of the lack of privacy they have in their home. So, that period in the car park after parking their car is the only period of freedom that they have in their day.                     Couples always want single people to date and ‘find a partner’. That is because they want single people to be as miserable as they are. They see the happiness and contentment of a single person and their envy makes them want to destroy it.  
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giving

  They wake up at the same time every day, get dressed, get into their cars, drive the same route, arrive at the office at the same time, sit at their desks all day, hating everything until they drive home at the same time every day, along the same route in the same traffic to get home to the same faces in the same house and prepare to repeat it all again the next day. They exist in fear that they may lose their job, and this routine and their income will be taken away. Meanwhile, the owners of the companies for which they work are sitting on balconies overlooking oceans or seas or lakes or vast cities, sipping mimosas and eating crafted pancakes. The owners check the stock market and sigh a little as the volatility increases because they are ‘letting people go’ and experimenting wildly with AI. Just keep on giving until it is all taken away.  
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fear

  There are moments of fear… not a fear of being alone, but a fear of being disconnected from everyone to the extent that, if I were to die right now, there would be no funeral, there would be no gathering, there would merely be sadness for my father and brother and a wondering at what happened. People say ‘give my name as your emergency contact’ but even I can’t get a response out of them. An emergency contact is someone who should suspect something is wrong. If that person doesn’t hear from you for a full day, they know something is wrong.                     It is difficult to relate to people. They seek marriage, children, ownership… they don’t like music, they lead such lives of convention. I have always been a loner. I have always sought and loved the solitude of a quiet room at home, far from the crowd. Inside the room, as a child, I would play with figures, making them play ‘soccer’. I...
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