Compliment someone today. Tell ’em how nice they look.
Better yet, tell someone you meet what movie star they look like.
Monthly Archives: September 2010
Secret code broken by number of rings
I’d ring twice, hang up, then call back immediately.
Hearing the signal, my friend would pick up, knowing he was being called by someone other than a bill collector. Or a “process-server.” Learned to do this while growing up in Brewerytown, a working-class section of Philadelphia, and continued it following a divorce and working as a newspaper reporter.
Who needs glasses to see your self within?
- I wear glasses. Well, I don’t wear ’em, even though I should.
They pinch me. At the bridge of the nose. Cause an irritation to my left ear. Make me feel less good-looking, less acceptable. (As if I really need to be more acceptable nowadays!)
Healthy disdain for $$$ really not healthy
Could never be a good businessman. Did not love money enough.
Never put wealth at the top of a “to do” list of things to achieve. Oh, I wanted to make a comfortable living and get a nest egg for the future. But I had no drive to accumulate big bucks.
You man a job right, job’ll right the man
Jobs have a way of defining us. We become “the job,” or rather grow into what we perceive to be the “ideal performer“ of that job. Whether we like it or not. The job. Or ourselves.  Continue reading
Some lessons go down easier than others
My God, when will this pain end? I can’t take it anymore. Please, just take it away. Or let me die.
This could be the worse day of my life. That would include the pain I’d suffer as bombs explode and persons around me later die in Vietnam. At least that will be quick and done with . . . This agony is so prolonged. And the worst of it is, I brought it all on myself.
Reporting the news takes courage & trust
Most of what I learned about journalism came from observing a true crime reporter named Michael Sangiacomo.
I was just hired by the Pottstown Mercury, a small newspaper some 25 miles outside of Philadelphia (and the home of Mrs. Smith’s Pies), when Sang (Pronounced Sange, as in “Angie) took me under his wing and showed me the ropes.
Never, never reveal your source, he said. And always attribute your source whenever you can.
Utopia Exists in a Mere Change of Focus
Another Reality exists within the here and now, if I can disengage and step out of the World that I am sleep-walking in.
Short Stature Grows Larger With Love
Mr. Nice Guy wins, but loses in the end
I’ve had to push you from my mind, to save my mind. Get you out of my Life to live my Life.
A taste of heaven offered here on earth
Pizza pie and a chocolate milkshake.
Each drew me like an oasis to a man walking alone in a desert.
Meditation helps writer find a gem within
The excitement would start while half asleep, tossing and turning, waiting for morning to jump out of bed, freshen up, and make my way downstairs to discover my latest surprise.
Dance with Achilles Contoveros again
“To Dance with My Father Again.”
What I wouldn’t give, to dance with my father again. Or, more likely, watch others — what seemed like the whole Greek nation — dance with him. My father was a dashing man on his feet. Could pass for the brother of the actor Errol Flynn, always taking the lead for what I called the “Greek Snake Dance (See you tube).”
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Hard to believe it got up for TV viewing
“It’s hard to get up for it, sometimes.”
As soon as I saw a videotape of myself mouthing those words on television, I knew I had crossed the line.
But, nobody caught it. Never put infertility and sexual intercourse together to catch the play on words that somehow slipped out, with me never actually intending to say what I had just said.
Injustice should make us all ‘go berserk’
“Going Berserk” has always had a wicked appeal to me.
For brief moments, I’d go “mad,” and not care for my safety or well-being, but focus instead on the object causing a “crazy re-action” on my part. It was as if a volcano had erupted and I wanted to punish those perceived as evil-doers. Might have had a bit of “religious fervor” involved, as I saw myself correcting a wrong or an injustice with a quick upper-cut to the jaw.
Swimming makes the heart ‘go’ fonder
“Smile, breathe and go slowly”~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Feel like I stepped from suspended animation and awoke on a star-ship outside the Galaxy where I’m “floating” majestically on a current of the air.
Can A Wrong Ever Serve Into A Right?
“Conduct Unbecoming an Officer and a Gentleman.”
Never thought an affair I had with a married woman before turning 21 would qualify for “conduct unbecoming,” but looking back, I see how conflicted parties to such an act could become.
Do not disturb a man who’s sweating it out
Growled like a dog at a guy making noise in a sauna I was meditating in Tuesday.
Three times in a row, I gave him a dirty look, lifting my head from the bent, meditative pose staring long, hard seconds as he eventually quieted down. He was drinking water from a bottle. So he says. But it sounded more like he was bathing by splashing water on his arms and legs for some reason only God knows.
Going AWOL helps a boy grow into a man
Went AWOL while a private in the US Army in 1968.
Continue reading500th milestone within October 1st reach
Lord, I’m one, Lord, I’m two, Lord,
I’m three, Lord, I’m four, Lord,
I’m five hundred miles away from home.
Conceal the word until all are ready for it
Wearing a chest full of ribbons on a khaki-colored shirt with Russian-like epaulets on the shoulders, I grew lots of attention at the Russian Appreciation Day at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia yesterday.
Truth once hidden usually surfaces later
“State Trooper Using Hypnosis for Investigation“
That was the headline for one of the strangest cases I ever reported.
Seeking the ‘Bliss Queen’ in Philadelphia
I wanted so much to be the Queen’s Concert.
But at what age? What stage of her life called out to me the most, as we, the audience members, watched her grow into a Spiritual goddess, one I desired to be like, to become with as One?
Buy yourself a friend – read his good word
“Make yourself a Rav, and buy for yourself a friend.”
— Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Perachya
Could never relate to the old “Church Lady” that seemed so righteous and God-fearing.
You know, the one that constantly quoted the Bible and swore everything you ever wanted to know about anything could be found in “The Good Book.”
The Great Awakening can be hard on a guy
Ashamed. Impure. Dirty.
All these feelings flashed through me as I slowly came out of what seemed like a trance, halfway between sleep and wakefulness, only to notice growth at a part of my body where there was none before.
Swimming meditation floats troubles away
Swimming meditation can work. You heard it here first. One can “nudge” out most thoughts and focus on the “here and now” as you swim one lap after another. I did. Got so relaxed, I lost count for a while, but then didn’t care how many lengths I had traversed.
Saying ‘I Love You’ Over & Over Again!
“I love you” was not in the way you said it, but how you said it.
Recovering from my road rage confession
Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I have cursed out drivers on the open highway and prayed their mothers had never conceived them. In or at of wedlock, those dirty b . . . . . .
You’re ‘Over the Hill,’ Once You Hit Forty
Requested a dollar coffee at a Burger King last night and the Gidget-like youngster asked if she could serve a “Senior.”
No, I replied, not wanting anything more or less then what’s on a “dollar menu” for cup I could refill, if need be. I handed over $1.06 in change, placing it carefully on the counter in front of the short blonde teenage girl. “It’s 50 cents,” she quipped, all bright and full of sunshine. “It’s a senior cup.”
Living like I’m one of ‘All God’s Creatures’
I dove into a World of Make Believe, changing from one past life to another while underwater and on land yesterday.
Can Hell Actually Be Just ‘Other People?’
Felt disconnected from the World as I knew it yesterday.
A tough road makes journey a little easier
When my father spoke Greek with the disciplinarian of the Catholic High School where I played hooky at age 14, I thought I had it made.
Continue readingImpeachment turns a loser into a winner
Each day for twenty years, the spirit of Don Quixote welcomed me into my law office. This picture hung above my desk reminding me that it was the “impossible cases” a good public defender relished. The ones you didn’t expect to win, but somehow, now and then, you’d convince a jury to see the facts your way, which in most cases, was the right way.
Continue readingBestowing spirit & essence to a new friend
I told someone I’d give up my life for them. And, I meant it.
I was so low, I was willing to forego this body and offer my spirit to someone, anyone who’d have a greater chance of gaining enlightenment than me. Give to someone who was nearing to what Kabbalists call the final “correction” of all of one’s egotistical desires.
Forgive warrior’s defense of the sensitive
You invited me to your House, and I broke confidence in you.
Love Thy Neighbor: Don’t burn his book
Heard some Christian minister was planning to set fire to a Muslim Holy Book, the Quran, to mark the Anniversary of 9-11 this Saturday, September 11, 2010.
Walk a Labyrinth full with love & no desire
All I want to do, is Give. Not Take.
Give without seeking a thing in return. Oh, I’ll get pleasure out of the deal. But I’ll put a lid on it. Screen out the joy that can overwhelmingly fill me, and direct the bulk of that feeling to another. Deflect it to one needing nurturing that only a mother’s love could offer her youngest child.
Amy, you smile & I find pure paradise!
Thank You Amy. Let the Good Times Roll!
Sit and do nothing, but only do it better
Sit and do Nothing — Better.
You don’t know how hard this is for me. To do nothing! Forget about the better part. The word “better“ implies you’ve been able to do “nothing” sometime in the past. Or that you can do nothing “better” than someone else.
Contoveros 
