There’s a chill in the air…

Things are heating up, just in time for the first cold front of the season!  It’s a chilly 72 degrees here in Miami, and between the election and the coming Halloween madness things are about to go nuclear.  Check out the prize card in the photograph.  The kids always pick their rewards at random, and this one fits just right.

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I got my Greatest Hits.

Every other Saturday I will be re-posting something special from the archives of the blog. The inaugural edition is inspired by a connection I made via Facebook with a teacher I used to work with who is now rollin’ in a ’69 VW van!

That’s me with my mom and my beloved Aunt Donna, in 1987. I actually drove that VW micro-bus around Miami for six years during the eighties. Bill and I painted it, and then something magick happened. It died mechanically and was sent to the junkyard. Nearly two years later, I looked up to see a beige VW micro-bus driving down the street… with the painted nose and front doors of mine attached! The dude had driven down from North Carolina, smashed into something, and replaced the whole front with a psychedelic upgrade. He said he might even keep it like that.

Sometimes we look back and see a person so different from the person we have become, and sometimes we don’t. I haven’t been clean shaven for at least twelve years, most of the hair on my head has disappeared on its own, but I am still the wild and crazy guy I was back then.

It’s just a different decade.

Glowing with the act of giving.

That’s my class, glowing with the act of giving.  We decorated some boxes for the the annual Toys for Tots biker run that combines gleaming chrome with glorious compassion.  Here’s some pics of that from a previous roaring give-o-thon.

Whether it’s a screaming parade of Harleys or a squealing pack of second graders, it’s the spirit of the gift that counts.  It’s an opening of the self, reaching out to expand the possessive nature of ego to embrace the greater community.  It’s a beautiful thing, and my life has been dedicated to it.

“To make every blade of grass sing with joy.”  That’s the motto that Nina brought into my soul oh so long ago.  That’s what expands and sustains me.

In terms of Vs. System, it has been such a tickling squizzle of joy to see the students receive some random common card for good behavior and watch them cherish and trade the things as if they were solid gold.

It makes our cards glow, like never before.

Barack Obama loves the Rays.

What perfect timing.  From an awesome article by Scott Helman on boston.com:

Thanks, senator, we really needed a reminder.

Barack Obama is campaigning today in, of all places, Tampa, where Red Sox fans’ hearts were broken last night in a season-ending Game 7 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. Oh, well, we pushed them to the brink, right?

As if the dateline from Obama’s event wasn’t enough salt in the wound, he chose a half-dozen Rays players to introduce him, including relief pitcher David Price, who closed the door on the Sox in the late innings. The players basked in their win, and helped Obama make a pitch for early voting, which begins today in Florida.

“Give it up for the Rays!” Obama said to cheers after giving high-fives and hugs to Price and his cohorts.

Oh, and if you didn’t think this was torture enough, this all happened at (gulp) George Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, the winter home to the New York Yankees.

“I have said from the beginning that I am a unity candidate, bringing people together,” Obama said. “So when you see a White Sox fan showing love to the Rays, and the Rays showing some love back, you know we’re onto something right here.”

Obama joked that he was going to get a mohawk, in solidarity. “My political advisers said they weren’t sure how that was going to play with swing voters,” he said.

He doesn’t have enough hair for a proper mohawk, but he sure was in the right place at the right time for some good lovin’.

Rays Win The Pennant!

David Price was right as rain, and Florida baseball once again dealt the pain.  Bring on the Fillies!

Hello, have you heard Goodbye?

Sometimes I cry for joy, hearing an old song that touches my heart.  It happened just now.

I was toying around on www.pandora.com and I created a Sundays radio station.  The first song?  This one:

“Goodbye” by The Sundays

I vow that it’s goodbye and God bless.
Why did we have to assume we’re exactly the same?
Oh no, talking about yourself.
I could never be seen
falling down on my knees crawling.
Oh no, talk about a sell.

I vow that it’s goodbye to the old ways.
Those stories were a good read,
they were dumb as well.

As the heavens shudder baby,
I belong to you.
They said you get what you deserve and all they said was true.

So is this what it’s come to?
Am I cold or just a little bit warm?

Oh well.
Give me an easy life and a peaceful death.

I was astounded when I googled those lyrics.  The song fills me with hope and bliss when I hear it, kindling fond memories of a heart bursting with real deep love.   The lyrics are rather bitter and tortured, yet the incomparable voice of Harriet Wheeler melts my soul every time.

Art is a curious thing.  The audience brings such sublime subjectivity to the activity.  No matter what a musician, or a painter, or a writer puts out there – it always carries the potential for triggering transcendence.  Quite often it makes me cry for joy.  It happened just now.  Listen to The Sundays and see if it happens for you.

Taking Requests.

Guess what? I got my interwebs back on en la casa! That’s right, Full Body Transplant will be back to daily updates and Vs. System ramblings are about to commence.

In honor of the occasion, I dove back in and found this gorgeous example of chaotic synchronistic epiphany by googling “sloppy bliss connection”.

Julie Andrews herself, from her memoirs:

Once in a while I experience an emotion onstage that is so gut-wrenching, so heart-stopping, that I could weep with gratitude and joy. The feeling catches and magnifies so rapidly that it threatens to engulf me.

It starts as a bass note, resonating deep in my system. Literally. It’s like the warmest, lowest sound from a contrabass. There is a sudden thrill of connection and an awareness of size — the theater itself, more the height of the great stage housing behind and above me, where history has been absorbed, where darkness contains mystery and light has meaning.

Light is a part of it … to be flooded with it, to absorb it and allow it through the body.

The dust that has a smell so thick and evocative, one feels one could almost eat it; makeup and sweat, perfume and paint; the vast animal that is an audience, warm and pulsing, felt but unseen.

God, I love that feeling. Leave it to Mary Poppins to remind me.

Now it’s your turn. Submit your requests. What do you want from me?