Val Kilmer! You were a Part of me and Us! We will miss your mortal State, Cherishing the Immortal

    My wife thought that you had luscious lips. Okay, my words, but gazing at one of your glamorous images, discussing your passing, she was impressed by your mouth. Fair enough. When you were 25 or 30, maybe. A lot of us looked better then, in those younger ages, no? You were a good looking, striking man. An actor, sometimes an icon, and a man that in his peak was one of the best and most alluring, while in his last years became a bit more like many of the rest of us. It was not all about looks, either.

    You had a big screen and quirky personality. You were amazing, to me, in The Saint. Back then when I saw you portray all the covert characters, I fancied myself a man with some kind of plan about making or being in films. I thought that I might be part of the craft of pushing celluloid and stories out to the masses.

    Pipe dreams, in some ways close to home for me, in some ways farther away from me than ever.

    Val, you were a part of me, I realize. The cool guy, but also the dork. That is who you could be. The awkward German character with the funny teeth. Who are you? Who do you want to be? Who do you need to be? Does the beautiful woman really love you?

    Can she love me?

    Who is she? Who am I? What are we all about?

    Kilmer explored roles, like the enigmatic Jim Morrison of the Doors. Who was that? What was that? How does he come to be? Who is that crazy, genius artist who sings his ballads and rants his rages from before my birth, and dies tragically in a drug-laden life in France?

    A poet, he wanted to be. I read the ground-breaking book about him more recently. "Nobody Gets Out of Here Alive." Clues to the rest of us, indicators of other lives lived, how life can be a toss-up. Mysterious, full of riddles. Big and glorious and small and insignificant.

    A paradox. 

    But, Val, from what I know, or knew, was not too far off from the rest of us. He made it to age 65, plagued and hounded by a throat cancer for some eleven years. He got that malady at the age I am now.

    I hope to make it to that age, with no cancers.

    We all must suffer some fates, known or not known.

    We can see ourselves in films, in the lives of others. Stories and narratives

    We saw ourselves in him, through him. Fantasy and foil, hero and regular no one.

    I saw me in him, or him in me. He has the look, or the girl, or the attitude, or the perplexed questions.

    Like me, or at least what I have many times wanted to be.

    Complete. A complete person, a complete life. A guy with lips that attract someone he cares for.

    I do not know that much about this guy, at the end of the day, but his passing awakened in me a part of myself, a part of my youth, and part of my hopes, my dreams, my fantasies.

    He was not too cool to be above the cool. He could be the fool. He was a talented portrayer of us humans, of you and me and that next guy.

    Thanks, Val, if I can call you that. You gave and shared a lot, with me and others, and I wrestle with it and I cherish your place in me. In all of us, you transcended quite a bit.

    Take care, buddy; I will see you in future shows and perhaps the heavens, in dreams and memories and in between. I will see you in me, and in her, and in and out of all existence.

    Life is what you make it, it seems, and you and I and the rest are trying to make it choice and real.

    I think that you did. I knew guys that reminded me of you. In Los Angeles, maybe in South America, perhaps in the Middle East, or at a training with guys and gals in uniform in some off forsaken base here in the U.S. or elsewhere.

    Maybe it was in my home state Indiana.

    I think that I have known you and your type across my life. And I will miss that you are no longer here, and that I can only reminisce about how you made me laugh, and thrilled me, and sometimes that was me. I was that guy, too. You and me, we had some great times.

    Take care.

    

    

 What I Would Like to Say

    Hello. Me here. Some of you have known me for a while.

    I like to think I am steady, that I am strong, that I am dependable, that you can trust me.

    I can be all of those things in given moments and times of my life. The life that you, many or some of you, have shared with me. I thank you for sharing so much of it with me.

    Yet, I realize that I can be less than all those things, and I can consistently be a no show. Too often I come up short.

    I am sorry. I apologize that I cannot be as present and as there for you as I should be.

    I can withdraw and disappear. I can be the guy not to volunteer to be with you and them, when really, I should prioritize you and them. My best friend. My child. My family. My neighbor. My friend. I feel bad that I have missed so many opportunities to be there. With you. And listen. And share.

    I see that these moments are fleeting, and many times, too often, I have been elsewhere. My own fantasies, my own selfish whims and sometimes obsessions, have taken the place of the more valuable times with family, friends, and being with people that we are attached to. I have taken for granted too much. Too much. I have been another child of the house, not leading or loving properly. That is not right.

    I am too old for that. I should be too smart for that. But I pray I am not too late to the party. The last stages of the show can be better. There were some lulls and lapses in a lot of scenes.

    I am late or absent too much. I can be better; I should do better. Ask me to try, remind me to improve.

    I can. I can be more present. I can participate more. 

    But it is not on you. It is not for you to be the better fix here. It is on me and God. We, me and Him, can make things right, can restore and restitute things as they can be. You can help too, of course. I think you always do. We can be a team, and I can be more present and observant and caring.

    I have woken up from something, or some things, and I am different. A new me? Sort of, yes. More present, more observant. More aware, more cautious. More appreciative of what I have and what I should care about. Whom I should care about, and who truly cares about me.

    Why do I write this? Not all the truth should be aired, but I believe that this is where I want to be: out in the open and speaking to those that can hear me, including my Creator and all my loved ones, and perhaps a few of my somewhat enemies. We want less enemies, more friends. And we want our friends to be closer. Better. Friendlier.

 

    I want to be friendlier. Better. Closer to you. I want to talk with you. Not at you. I wish to listen to you. I want to walk with you. Hike. Swim. Bike. Travel. Camp. Sleep. Dream.

    Live. I want to live with you. I want to die with you. Many years from now, granted.

    Thanks for the time that you have shared with me. Thank you for being who you are, and all that you have done independent of me and all that you have shared in dependence, not necessarily co-dependent, related and in coordination to me. With me.

    Thanks for being who you are, where you are, what you do, how you are to me and others.

    Thank you. Thanks for giving me more chances. Thanks for letting me part of your life and continue to grow with you.

    Together. 

    I will say it: forever. That is the plan that I plan on. 

    I am ready. I am willing. And I will always love and cherish you. Nothing changes that for me.

    I may not show it well, but that is who and what I am.

    Anything from you?

    I'll put the pen down and listen.

 Bryce Harper Starts off 2025 with a Blast

While there is negativity in the world, locally, internationally, even on some personal level.

Some, or many, like me, are looking for jobs. Pass me the blessings, I hold out some hope.

Meanwhile I can stay a little (healthfully) distracted by watching a few statistics in the newly christened baseball season, where Mr. Harper has again gone long, as you can see below:

103.	José Bautista (15)	344	7244	R	HR Log
	Curtis Granderson (16)	344	8306	L	HR Log
105.	Nolan Arenado (13, 34)	342	7096	R	HR Log
	Evan Longoria (16)	342	8206	R	HR Log
	Manny Machado (14, 32)	342	7536	R	HR Log
	Ron Santo+ (15)	342	9397	R	HR Log
109.	Jack Clark (18)	340	8230	R	HR Log
110.	Tino Martinez (16)	339	8044	L	HR Log
	Dave Parker+ (19)	339	10184	L	HR Log
	Boog Powell (17)	339	7810	L	HR Log
113.	Don Baylor (19)	338	9401	R	HR Log
114.	Bryce Harper (14, 32)	337	7103	L	HR Log
115.	Joe Adcock (17)	336	7305	R	HR Log
116.	Robinson Canó (17)	335	9550	L	HR Log
	Darryl Strawberry (17)	335	6326	L	HR Log

Bryce is now all by himself at 114th all time, having now surpassed Joe Adcock, the man who played 17 seasons and hung up his cleats in 1966 with the California Angels at age 38. He was born in Coushatta, Louisiana.

Cano and Strawberry are dangling there at 335 all-time, the former in 2022 and the Straw man in 1999, all at similar ages 38, 37.

Don Baylor is next! Big bopper that I remember from the 1980s. He was a leader in Hit-by-pitcher. I think that Bryce Harper will reach the top 100 home run hitters of all-time, if he is lucky, but July.

    Time will tell; I will check the Phils right now. Not playing! Whot! How now... many other teams are. 

I will check on Schwarber and Soto later. It is a season. And there is that Judge and Stanton fellows, too.

    Enjoy, baseball and long ball fans.

Second in the List of Least Favorite Teachers: Mr. McMillan

    What have we learned so far? That my 7th grade teacher for a quarter who gave me a C (I earned the mediocre 2.0 grade, sure) for terrible, non-pertinent home work that I failed to complete was a hypocrite and misguided, i.e. dumb, and I should have bitten the bullet and done the stupid word problems about counting calories per fictional cases of people according to the Weight Watcher's system of losing weight, the thing that this same teacher could not seem to do for herself. Projection much? 

    The C "that I earned" hurt my ego. I did not think of myself as a bonehead C student. But there it was. Luckily it combined with a B+ or so in the computer class with the Vice Principal Mrs. Walsh, so for the semester it combined for a B or B-, but still, a mark of sub-standard ratings. Was this me? A "C" for Clinch. Ugh. I knew I was smarter than that. This was a chink in my mental, or intellectual armor.

    I thought of myself as an A student, with some occasional Bs.

    I made it through the next couple years okay, but then some teachers began to wear on me. Education.

      8th grade and 9th grades were not that bad. No baddies. Two more least favorite teachers made it for my sophomore year, however. And perhaps my motivation for scoring high and memorizing less interesting things was really starting to wane. Things that in the present have vexed me in the last year, half-way into my 50s. These are patterns that I recognize. Patterns and problems that I have not conquered in full, and that have led to my own issues in success and prosperity. Even now. That is why I write this. The seeds of doubt and struggle go back.

    To chronicle my life's impurities. My bugaboos. My drawbacks and limitations. I disliked them, these least favorite teachers, because I was not stronger, not better, not more clever: to counter the blahs and braggadociousness of this windbag of a high school teacher, in this case, a health teacher with his own biased and less than pertinent agenda and maniacal ravings.

    It was luckily only one semester, which was required. "Health." We had a textbook, which I wished we had cracked open at and shared as a class at least a little bit, day after day, week after week.

    This guy, I think his name was Jim, was shorter, and sort of soft and pudgy, and had chipmunk cheeks. He has a beautiful daughter about a year older than me named Heather. Poor thing. He was such a blow hard! He would bloviate ad nauseum all the time, and rarely got input from the rest of us. I do not think he was good at eliciting interaction or proper responses. I know now his teaching style was severely lacking. He used us as punching bags and some kind of odd daily therapy as he was the wind bag.

    I may remember it way wrong, but he was an awful bore most of the time; he did not share much of the given material and simply waxed effusive on his own thoughts. Many of his thoughts were as vacuous and obtuse as his teaching curriculum.

    Were we his therapy guinea pigs? Maybe.

    I got a B in the course. I learned less.

    I sat next to Jonathan Hill, a church and Scout friend, who would eventually be my co-brother-in-law with whom I would share five nieces. His brother married my sister about five years later, after one of our few classes together while we shared schools from 8th to 10th grade. But Jonny would move with his family the following summer, and all of us would continue in our life pursuits. Jonathan was smart and better at math, and most likely thinking out logical processes in computers and science than me.

    Most of my friends were better at math than me. Some concepts were harder to grasp or incorporate than others. Newer principles and techniques came, at times, relentlessly. Newer ways to solve for x, to plot y. There was always another method and technique to go to, which I was willing to work on and plod through, but sometimes I needed extra questions and understanding, a simpler practice of the work instead of the "gotcha math" that I have bemoaned about before.

    But, all these years later, there are similar ways that I see I may the one at fault. I have the slowness or poor ability to pick up on the tricks and techniques of manipulating data. Yeah. Not great, me.

    I am speaking a lot about mathematics here while sharing about health and some anatomy, which we were supposed to tackle with Jim McMillan. At least a small portion of his daily class was used up by a little of the daily announcements. From the rather oafish voice of the southern Hoosier guy, but able enough to speak on our school intercom.

    Yes, I thought that I was superior to a lot of those adults that I was surrounded and affected by, but I had large chinks in my armor, for sure.

    And later in the day of that sophomore year was Geometry with Mrs. Kinzer. Perhaps the cementing of my resentment to the scientific ways of assembling logic and amassing the methodical processes of arriving at the "right" answers through tried-and-true operations. Techniques that are good, but can prove as challenging.

    Well, these musings these many decades later may shed some light on me, and life then, and how things play out, or have continued over the years. At least we have a bit of perspective and reminiscence, a small erstwhile post operational analysis of my and others' woes and trials.

    Thus, the chipmunk prof, ersatz thinker and mentor Jim McMillan. He was the one who would dress up as the foolish mascot, maybe, at our rallies. But there was Mr. Marsh, too. He, at least, was a better influence on me a year later. More my style. I guess.

    Hurrah. Go South.

    Happy me.

    I am not cynical (completely).  I am not hopeless. Wary and a bit jaded, or bitter, sure. But, I am reviewing and complaining, taking stock of my brain, behavior, and observations over time.

    Blog. It. 

    (I wrote a similar period-entered phrase a few Fridays ago on a group chat. More on that, perhaps, later.)

    

 Coming Up Short - Going the Distance

    A poem about life.

   

    I realize I come up short

    I see and feel the reminders real time

    In rejections

    In failures

    In stumbles

    In falls and tumbles

    In misses

    In errors and faults.

    All those things, and a few things more.

    Comments, looks, avoidances, evaluations.

    They can be added up and can take a toll.

    The ego and the psyche can be wary and run down

    So much to absorb.

    Sometimes overwhelming to ingest.

    Death is hard, sure. Some accuse me of thinking of those who have passed too much,

    Guilty (I am) that I think of them, yes, and I wonder, I expostulate.

    The dead are still with me.

    Most of them never go away. 

    I keep them near and far.

    As for the living, there is plenty of heartache and sorrow.

    Not that the good and joyous do not abound, either.

    I think the good and happy largely outweighs the bad and the painful.

    We can be hopeful and optimistic, we should be.

    Yet we learn new things at later ages.

    A few haunting and harrowing facts.

    A close family member was attacked, physically and intimately, a few years ago.

    I learned of it just now.

    Another close family was not satisfied in their relationship,

    Finding comfort in another's path.

    It should have been me.

    

    I was absent.

    I was not there enough.

    I was wrapped up in my own meanderings and pursuits.

    Not present for that one.

    The one I vowed to give to, to share with, to be there for.

    I failed consistently.

    Aware but unaware.

    Clueless of my surroundings.

    Selfish, and not helping. 

    Not giving, not sharing.

    Not sharing enough.

    Oh, what lowly beings we can be and become!

    Where is the sense that should be delivered upon our heads and hearts?

    Where is the trust and the bond and the love?

    Absent, too often, missing, forsaken. Forgotten, abandoned.

    I left my loved ones, me absent-minded, selfishly seeking elsewhere.

    Coming up short.

    I am sorry. 

    

    I must be present. 

    I must share.

    I must care more.

    I must improve.

    I must complete my tasks better,

    I must and I must continue stronger.

    Not faster, not overwhelmingly powerful.

    But solid full.

    If it is God, and Jesus, with them fully.

    If it is with others of other holy names, with them, too.

    Commit to the texts, commit to the prayers.

    Sing the songs of life, the songs of joy and redemption.

    We must go the distance.

    I want you there with me.

    I am sorry I slacked; I am aware I was unaware.

    I want to be with you.

    Let me stay by you.

    I will listen to your words.

    I will share what you are.

    We will make it the distance.

    I must do better.

    I must right these wrongs.

    There are many ways to succeed and advance, progress.

    Yet there are always many ways to err and fail.

    Life is choices, living presents priorities.

    I know we all can reach our goals.

    Our hopes.

    Our dreams.

    Our best selves.

    You and me.

    The family.

    Together and unafraid.

    Together and giving

    Sharing,

    Caring.

    Preparing.

    Daring to be present.

    And alive.

    And aware.

    I love you.

    I have come up short.

    I will be there 

    For you.

    For me.

    For God.

    For all.

    And, again,

    I recognize my weaknesses.

    I can do better.

    I will go this distance.

    For all of us.

    And you can stay with me

    We will make it together.

    Be happy, and free. and rejoicing.

    All the way there.