Monday, November 02, 2015
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Monday, October 05, 2015
Finding your place inside a single glass of water...
So, I was getting a glass of water last night before I went
to bed. Nice glass of water with a few ice cubes. And I looked at those ice
cubes and I thought about the life span of those ice cubes. You see, those ice
cubes came out of my fridge, which took hours of churning and spinning or
whatever the hell it does to spit out ice cubes in my glass on command. And
that’s exactly what it did, giving me this nice glass of ice water.
And as I brought that glass up to my mouth, I realized that
the life span of those ice cubes traces back a lot longer. Because those ice
cubes were made of water pumped from miles – hundreds of miles – away. Since I
live in Southern California, I could even say thousands of miles away. A rain
cloud smiles on a flower somewhere in Yakima or Boise and through the magic of
semi-modern engineering I’ve got ice cubes.
And not a second passed before I understood that I had no
idea of scope here. And I just gave up on the ice water. Those ice cubes had come
from water that went far beyond Yakima or Boise or wherever it fell as a
raindrop. Because that raindrop had been collected on the other side of the
world, and those water molecules predate even semi-modern engineering. They
predate all of our cities. They predate anyone we’ve ever read about and
anything anyone has seen. They were old when the first creature walked and that
very same water was imbibed then, too.
And it passed through their bodies and it evaporated and it
froze and it eroded and it shimmered and it cleaned ecosystems and it hit
umbrellas and maybe just things that looked like umbrellas until it fell on
that flower and took a ride to my ice maker.
Now, this is where my mind took a turn. Because once you
follow that water up from the primordial goo, you also have to take it far past
you. And me. That ice is going to shoot through me at a rate that would make it
dizzy, if such a thing were possible. I’ll eject it in the standard way –
please let our standards be equal here – and it’ll sail off to some new
horizon, some distant shore, some foreign tap.
And it will outlast you and you and you. It will be around
long after all of your children turn into little, old people. It will pass
through no type of creature you’ve ever heard of and that will be right here on
Earth. It will bathe the flesh of people we probably wouldn’t recognize who
worship dieties of one type or another you’ve never heard of before, who use
currency more valuable than anything you have, own technology so much better
than yours it’d make you sick.
Everything will pass before and behind and beneath and all
around that water until it has passed as well. And through this glass of water,
we are given an incredible gift. A way to not only observe our world but to
taste our world, to be a part of our world, to see our place in our world, and
to partake in the miracle that is our world.
What more do you need?
Sunday, October 04, 2015
Friday, September 11, 2015
Never Remember...
While you're "REMEMBERING" 9/11 today, take a moment as well to remember how our nation reacted to that day, with paranoia, racial hatred, and the most childish kind of temper tantrum. We invaded a country that had nothing to do with it and killed hundreds of thousands all in the name of getting revenge. We tortured thousands of innocent people and we bombed innocents in numerous countries.
Take a moment to remember that because while we cannot change what others do to us we can certainly change how we choose to respond. And that is the lesson we all should learn.
Take a moment to remember that because while we cannot change what others do to us we can certainly change how we choose to respond. And that is the lesson we all should learn.
Friday, September 04, 2015
Monday, August 10, 2015
Friday, August 07, 2015
Thursday, August 06, 2015
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Friday, July 24, 2015
Monday, July 20, 2015
Friday, July 17, 2015
Friday, July 03, 2015
Monday, June 29, 2015
Monday, June 22, 2015
Monday, June 15, 2015
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Friday, June 12, 2015
Monday, June 08, 2015
Tuesday, June 02, 2015
Monday, June 01, 2015
Monday, May 25, 2015
Friday, May 22, 2015
Monday, May 11, 2015
Friday, April 24, 2015
Monday, April 20, 2015
Monday, April 13, 2015
Friday, April 03, 2015
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Monday, March 16, 2015
Monday, March 09, 2015
Sunday, March 08, 2015
Friday, March 06, 2015
Monday, February 23, 2015
Monday, February 16, 2015
Friday, February 13, 2015
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Monday, January 26, 2015
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Monday, December 15, 2014
Monday, December 08, 2014
Sunday, November 23, 2014
The Wrong Magic is coming soon...
Don't forget to order your paperback copy early for just $12.70!
http://widopublishing.com/the-wrong-magic-by-ken-la-salle/
http://widopublishing.com/the-wrong-magic-by-ken-la-salle/
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Friday, November 21, 2014
Monday, November 17, 2014
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Monday, November 10, 2014
Friday, November 07, 2014
It gives me the creeps...
It disturbs me greatly that there is a large group of Americans out there who think electing politicians who hate government is okay. They think allowing foreign corporations to funnel billions into our political system to get what they want is okay. They think letting politicians lie and cheat and deceive America to get votes is okay. They think that politicians rigging voting machines so they register the votes as theirs is okay. They're fine with politicians giving away the country to the uber-rich and they think the country would be just fine if they could just test the poor for drug use, keep starving children from eating, let corporations pollute all they want and make as many children as sick as they want, fill our jails with innocent people, and put just one more black man out of a job. If it wasn't for that, the country would be just fine.
I find that truly disturbing.
I find that truly disturbing.
Monday, November 03, 2014
Saturday, November 01, 2014
Friday, October 31, 2014
Monday, October 27, 2014
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Friday, October 24, 2014
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Thursday, October 09, 2014
Monday, October 06, 2014
Monday, September 29, 2014
It's the Monday Morning Show for September 29, 2014...
It's the Monday Morning Show for September 29th, 2014! Join me as I talk about young people changing the world and the old people who are trying to stop them. Young people are on the streets in Honk Kong and in Colorado while we're busy wondering if our iPhone's going to bend.
Monday, September 22, 2014
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Just another sign of corporations having too much power…
So, I was out on my morning jog this morning when I passed
by a local concrete foundry pumping out tons of toxic smoke. The smoke was so
bad, I had to stop jogging because I was coughing so hard. I was coughing so
hard, I nearly threw up!
The smell was pretty bad where I lived, a couple of miles
away, too.
Vicky suggested I call the AQMD (the Air Quality Management
District) to register a complaint, which I did. What I didn’t expect, though,
was the lesson I received in just how powerful corporations are in relation to
how much they can pollute.
Here’s what I found out.
In order for the AQMD to even speak with the foundry and ask
them to please cut down on their smog, they need to have six different homes on
the same block all register complaints within the same hour. Then, they have to
remain at their home for an AQMD representative to come to their home and
verify the smell. This AQMD could take as much as three hours to get there, by
which time the wind could shift and the smell could move on.
Can you imagine how difficult that would be to pull off? Six
residents from six different homes all have to call at about the same time.
Then, they can’t leave their home. They have to wait there – not go to work –
and hope everyone else stays put as well. They have to wait for hours, all in
the hopes that the wind doesn’t shift!
And this won’t even get them definite action. The foundry
could ignore the request. When I asked the AQMD rep what the requirements were
for them to take definite action, such as a fine or a court order or anything,
she just shook her head and said, “Well, let’s try to get this first. This is
hard enough.”
Meanwhile, the foundry owners sit back and laugh at us
little people. They’ve made us powerless.
And the sad truth is, so many of us defend our corporate
overlords despite all that. And, in the grand scheme of things, this is
nothing.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Consistency...
"Remember the Maine!"... 1890's Spanish/American War
"Remember the Gulf of Tonkin!"... 1960's War in Vietnam
"Remember 9/11!"... 2000's War in Iraq
"Remember... some people who were killed by some scary brown people with weird beliefs..."... Next Week.
"Remember the Gulf of Tonkin!"... 1960's War in Vietnam
"Remember 9/11!"... 2000's War in Iraq
"Remember... some people who were killed by some scary brown people with weird beliefs..."... Next Week.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Friday, August 22, 2014
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Thursday, July 03, 2014
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Friday, June 20, 2014
Saturday, June 07, 2014
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Friday, May 23, 2014
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Friday, May 09, 2014
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Monday, February 17, 2014
Married Once Before…
For the first time ever, I’m not really sure where to post a
blog entry. Does this have to do with my writing and is, therefore, eligible
for the Ken La Salle blog?... Yes, but… Does this have to do with Vicky and
should, therefore, go on the One Path blog?... Yes, but…
So, with this in mind, welcome to My Side.
Here’s the thing. I’m starting work on my next book, which
is a book on the 1970’s. I decided to use this opportunity to clean out my
steamer trunk, which I packed full of goodies until sometime around 1990. I
thought this trunk would be full of things from my childhood…
Then, I found it was mostly full of stuff from high school,
which means I may have to write a book about the 80’s at some point.
I also found it was full of stuff from she who must remain
nameless, from my first wedding, from my first marriage. Crap. I thought I’d
gotten rid of that stuff years ago.
But no.
And I was faced with a definite quandary.
One thing you may not know about me is that I have picked up
the fragments of my life so many times it gets annoying. Hell, most people
these days think I fell to the Earth sometime in 2004. After picking up the
fragments of my life so many times… I’m kind of tired of it. I’m tired of not
having a history, of not knowing people from before 1995 or so, of that lack of
continuity that comes from constantly restarting my life.
I was thinking about this when I looked down at all this
stuff from my past life, from my past marriage. My wedding album. A photo album
from when the girl and I were first together. Random photographs.
I didn’t want to lose all of that again. Hell, I lost it
once already.
So, as strange as it might sound, I decided to preserve it.
I decided that as I was throwing things away – and, believe me, I threw away a
LOT – there would be some photos that remained. Some that wouldn’t be gone
forever. There would be some continuity.
Yes, I’m married to Vicky now and I love her very much. But
I’m a little tired of denying who I was prior to 2004. I’m tired of playing up
my first wife as a fluke, as a tragic mistake.
We loved each other. I have pictures to prove it. Yes, it
ended tragically, but that doesn’t mean that’s all it was. There was more to it
than that. And I’ve decided to remember that. That’s the least I can do.
Perhaps I’ll post a few of those pictures in the coming
days.
Maybe it’s time I go public with some of the history I’ve
been so quick to write about but so reticent to share.
History shouldn’t be forgotten. And that doesn’t make me a
bad husband to Vicky.
It just makes me honest.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
So Dream Something, featuring DV Berkom...
This month's episode of So Dream Something features spy thriller sensation, DV Berkom.
DV speaks about her writing career and managing in the midst of a changing market. I hope you enjoy it. I know I did.
DV speaks about her writing career and managing in the midst of a changing market. I hope you enjoy it. I know I did.
Saturday, February 08, 2014
My Side: Advertising...
A look at the 2014 Coca Cola Super Bowl ad - and more about advertising - in this month's My Side...
Saturday, February 01, 2014
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