LB: Live! From Paradise #211 “The Cloud Creek Gang”

(The Intro above is from this column's previous web incarnation)

by Larry Brody

I love when I learn something.

Especially when it’s completely unexpected.

Today’s case in point comes courtesy of the group of creatures Gwen the Beautiful and I have begun calling “The Cloud Creek Gang.”

Huck the Spotless Appaloosa.

(Let’s hear it for Emmy the Bold!)

Rosie the Romantic Arabian.

Emmy the Bold.

Decker the Giant Hearted.

Belle the Wary.

And Ditsy Dixie, the young yellow Lab who gives not one hint of being anywhere near growing up.

What is it they’ve been ganging up together to do?

Ah, that’s what I’ve just learned.

Thanks to a nifty little gift given to me by Youngest Daughter Amber’s Boyfriend. A strap-on headlight I can wear to see into nooks and crannies in the house and across our property while keeping my hands free.

Yep, I look like an idiot wearing it. Absolutely. But without my headlight I never would’ve known what the Gang was up to when the dogs barked and growled and yowled in the night.

Without it, I would’ve (and did) believe I was saving the dogs from the horses, and the horses from the dogs, when, at two or three in the A.M., their frenzied noise forced me to wake up and stumble downstairs and outside.

There I would see shadowy dog forms leaping at equally shadowy horses whose heads were pushed over the fence separating the backyard from the corral. Worried about the safety of all the creatures involved (and eager to get back to sleep, glorious sleep!), I would call the dogs and they’d come running inside.

Decker and Belle would curl up on the floor of the great room, while Emmy and Dixie bounded upstairs to hog as much space as they could on our not-so-big bed. Secure in the knowledge that I’d prevented at least one if not several veterinary emergencies, I’d get back under the blankets with Gwen and snore away—

Until a couple of hours later, when the dogs would sound off again as though the most life-threatening critters anywhere had appeared on the porch and, with more than a little encouragement from my worried wife, I’d rush down and let them outside again.

It was no easy gig, the Doggy Doorman thing.

Until a couple of nights ago, when I discovered what really was going on. I woke up before the barking started and, driven by my unending curiosity, I strapped on my new headlight and slipped outside to see Huck moseying across the corral to the fence with Rosie right behind.

I’d always thought the horses and dogs spoke separate languages, but in the new illumination, I watched as Huck looked over at Emmy and called out with a whinny. “Emmy? You ready?”

“Absolutely,” Emmy barked.

Huck turned to Rosie. “Ready,” she said.

Emmy whined at the other dogs. “Ready,” they too said.

Ms. The Bold turned back to Huck. “Go for it, my friend.”

Huck made a sound like a laugh, and there went his head, over the fence and then down toward the grass. Immediately, Emmy pounced at him. But Huck was faster than she was. She got nothing but air as he jerked his head up.

Huck nickered, like another laugh. “Missed!”

“Try again, big guy,” said Emmy, and she backed away just a bit to give him room, even as the other dogs moved in closer.

Huck did his head-over-the-fence thing again, and beside him Rosie did the same. Emmy and the other dogs sprang at them—

And the usual wild cacophony ensued, animal voices punctuated by hoofbeats as the horses pounded the turf and bucked and reared, keeping the dogs at bay. Only Dixie came close to either of their faces, by springing up and down like Tigger in the old Disney Winnie-the-Pooh cartoons.

“Stop!” I roared. And, to the dogs: “Get over here! Now!”

Three dogs rushed to me. Only Emmy held back, and that was for just a few seconds, a time so short I wouldn’t have noticed it if not for the headlight. A few seconds in which she turned back to Huck and winked. “Thanks, Hucky,” she said.

“See you in a few,” was Huck’s reply.

But he didn’t see them till after sunrise. Because when the dogs made their “We’ve got to get out of here! Now!” move, neither Gwen nor I responded.

Because now we knew the truth. Danger? Ha!

Nothing was going on out there but the four-legged Cloud Creek Gang having fun.

LB: Live! From Paradise #210 “T-Shirt Electioneering”

(The Intro above is from this column's previous web incarnation)

by Larry Brody

Burl Jr., computer genius turned bluesman turned farmer, just opened his very own recording studio, right in the Paradise Town Square.

“It’s my little den,” Burl Jr. told me, “where I can prove I didn’t give up on my Billboard Top 100 dream.”

We were standing in the middle of the room, a smallish space filled with microphones and lined with sound-proofing. At one end, a window looked into the control room, which was even smaller yet filled with the latest digital audio recording equipment. At the other end of the studio was a door linking Burl Jr. to his old stomping ground, Paradise Music.

“So this is all about recording yourself? Can’t you do that at home?”

“Sure. But there are times, you know, when a man’s got to get away from the house. I wanted to have a place here in town where I could hang out on my own terms. My old haunts aren’t doing it for me anymore.”

He frowned. I know Burl Jr., and I know that look. Something had happened that really bugged him. I didn’t want to push, but, well, not only do I know this kid, I love him, so I wanted to learn what had gone wrong.

“Let’s just say that after all the time I’ve spent away, Harriman’s Mountain Stream Bait & Tackle seems kind of out of it, okay?”

I shook my head. Burl Jr. let out a deep sigh.

“Back before I became a daddy, my own daddy and I fished together whenever he could grab the time. He’d send me to Harriman’s Saturday mornings for supplies. It was kind of like I grew up there. I know everybody, and they’ve all known me from before I could even walk or talk.

“But last year, before the November election, I went in and everything was different. Nobody would speak to me. Frankie Harriman’s my Godfather, but he just looked right through me when I said, ‘Howdy.’ All the boys did. They wouldn’t answer my questions. Acted like I wasn’t even at the counter when I tried to pay for a couple of buckets of worms.

“I couldn’t figure it out. How’d I get invisible? I whined, and then I yelled and made the kind of fuss I’m too ashamed of to even talk about, and went home empty-handed. I wanted to tell my daddy what’d happened but figured it would be better to fight my own battle. If I could just figure out what the battle was.

“A couple of days later, I came back. This time Frankie was all smiles.

“‘Hey, Junior,’ he said, ‘good to see ya. Where ya been?’

“I said, ‘Been right here. Just the day before yesterday. Don’t you remember?’

“Frankie shook his head. ”Course I’d remember,’ he said, ‘if you was here.’ He turned to the rest of the boys. ‘Any of you seen Burl Jr. in the shop recently?’

“They all shook their heads.

“‘No.’

“‘Nope.’

“‘Not for at least a month.’

“And then it hit me. When I came in before I was wearing a campaign T-shirt with a big picture of Obama on the front. And now I was wearing one that said, ‘Arkansas Razorbacks.’

“It was like all of a sudden I was hearing the song from Deliverance. Men who were near family to me had cut me like I was dead ’cause I was voting for a Black man. It was so old-fashioned. More than that, it was so wrong!

“I got as mad as I’d been frustrated before. But I held my temper and left with a lying smile. And decided to put fishing behind me and build a place where nobody could judge me…but me.”

As Burl Jr. spoke, the door connecting the studio to Paradise Music opened, and DW, its owner, peered inside. Heard what Burl Jr. was saying.

“There’s something you don’t remember,” he said.

“What’s that?” Burl Jr. said.

“Frankie Harriman is County Chairman of the Republican Party. Harriman Bait & Tackle’s not just a store, it’s party headquarters. Could be he wasn’t mad because you were voting for a Black man but because he thought you were voting for the wrong man. And throwing it in his face.”

“Why didn’t Frankie just say that?” Burl Jr. said.

DW shrugged. But an answer came to me like a jangly blues chord.

Maybe because he didn’t think he had to. Because Frankie too believed he was absolutely right, and in a place where nobody could judge him…but himself.

LB: Live! From Paradise #209 “My Sweet Angel”

(The Intro above is from this column's previous web incarnation)

by Larry Brody

Back in the day, I worked for Glen A. Larson, the most prolific writer, producer, and TV series creator in Hollywood history.

Glen was responsible for shows such as B.J. And the Bear; Quincy, M.E.; Battlestar Galactica; The Fall Guy; Magnum P.I.; Knight Rider.

But his imagination always was tempered by practicality.

“Our job isn’t to make the best show possible, it’s to get the best show possible on the air,” he would say.

Because nothing counted if it wasn’t finished in time for Wednesday night at 9 pm.

“You’re overthinking,” Glen would tell me as we worked down to the wire, often finishing an episode within as little as half an hour before airtime.

I’d argue that I was doing only what needed to be done. And argue. And argue.

Until—

Well, until I moved outward and upward and found my way to Paradise.

Where I can overthink to my heart’s content and no one comes down on me with as much as even a breathy little, “Un-uh.”

This week’s overthink has me pondering issues that very easily could’ve been raised in one of Glen A.’s shows.

Am I alive or am I dead?

And if I’m dead, am I in heaven or hell?

Because of a song that keeps repeating in my head.

Not the whole song, just two lines from a real Golden Oldie, Jimi Hendrix’s Sweet Angel.

“And I said, ‘Fly on, my sweet angel. Fly on through the sky….'”

When the sweet angel first began flying through my mind, I knew I’d heard it but had no idea when or where. I didn’t know it was a Hendrix song. Or any of the other lyrics or music.

Some midnight Googling cleared up a little of the mystery, but even after downloading and listening to the tune a dozen times I still can’t hold onto any of it but:

“…’Fly on, my sweet angel. Fly on through the sky…'”

It’s as though the angel angle is all that matters.

Which ties in with a dream I reported here about a month ago. A dream in which I, Good Ole Larry B, was an angel.

Why would I dream that?

Why would anyone see him or herself as an angel unless–ah, it’s starting to make sense now, isn’t it?–unless that particulary anyone was…erm…dead?

I’ve used this space to question the nature of life and death before. I’ve even written about times I was sure I was supposed to have died but obviously didn’t because, hey, here I am.

But what if what happened wasn’t so obvious, after all?

What if way back in the earliest of my “deaths,” the myocardial infarction over 30 years ago when my heart literally stopped and I floated in the tunnel toward the light, I didn’t come hurtling back into the material world the way I’ve always thought?

What if I got lost and rushed forward unknowingly instead?

Rushed right into the mouth of

Hmm, could be the mouth of heaven. I mean, look at all I’ve got. A wonderful wife. A haystack high pile of children and grandchildren. The profoundest sense of pure joy every morning when I awaken and feel the room, the house, the land, the trees, the entire world of which I’m such a small part say, “I love you.”

But it also could be hell. Family medical problems. An endless treadmill of bills. Deadly storms. Anguish. Stress. Hope for an end to suffering—not just mine but the whole world’s—held out and then yanked away. Over and over

The Larry Brody who was rushed to the E.R. while an invisible elephant stood on his chest never would’ve been able to imagine either the good or the bad of my current life. His was so very different. All about “sophistication” and impressing the right people the right way at the right time.

The Larry Brody who died and then thought he’d been reborn had no desire to live close to the earth and be encompassed by the Wind of Mystery. No awareness that it could, or should, even be done.

The Larry Brody who looks back at those times and overthinks these thoughts has no need for what’s “sophisticated” and no desire to live any other way but the way I do now.

If this is death, then my death is life.

If this is hell, then my hell is heaven.

“…Fly on, my sweet angel….”

Fly I will.

LB: Live! From Paradise #208 “CyberPals”

(The Intro above is from this column's previous web incarnation)

by Larry Brody

Confession time.

I am the sad sufferer of a secret addiction.

No, it’s not Demon Rum. Although I do have a keen appreciation of Gwen the Beautiful’s home brewed dark ale. Here on The Mountain we call it Manns Beer, after her maiden name, and if we were going to advertise the slogan would be, “A Real Man’s Beer, Made by a Real Manns Woman.”

And it’s certainly not drugs. Why would I want to alter a consciousness that those who visit this space as well as I have learned is already so very different from that of most people that I’ve been labelled “barely tethered to reality” more than a few times? (And that’s by admirers.)

I’m not even talking about my obsessive writing in general. Nor its sister, my compulsive need to reveal what Youngest Daughter Amber calls Brody World to anyone who will read or listen. After all, there’s nothing secret about either of those, is there?

No, my Secret That Must Never Be Revealed—which I’m revealing right here, right now, today—is that I’m totally enthralled with that amazing nowhere-but-everywhere space known as the Internet

AKA, to those of us who consider ourselves aficionados, the web.

AKA again, to those of us who not only are aficionados but snarky ones to boot, the Interweb.

Unlike most members of my generation, I’m pretty well up on the computer and cyberspace realms. Oh, I’m not nearly as knowledgeable as the average 14-year-old, but I got a late start. I was almost 50 when, inspired by all the fun I’d had playing Sim City on Nintendo with a friend’s son, I got my first PC. (Sorry, Apple!)

Over the years I’ve built my own computers, bought those made by HP and Dell and even moved up into the Big Tech PC stratosphere with a couple of state-of-the-art systems from Alienware.

I was an early member of Compuserve, the first nationwide Internet Service Provider, and also of AOL back when AOL did more than merely brand things. My older son, Jeb, turned me onto Netscape when it first came out, and I’ve had my own web site, TVWriter.Com, for about a dozen years.

In fact, TVWriter.Com still is where I spend almost all the time I’m not out enjoying, or writing about enjoying, the deeply grounded aspects of Rural America that make up my Paradise life.

I don’t use this space to write about surfing to favorite sites with arcane monikers like ArsTechnica, Consumerist, DownloadSquad, Engadget, Lifehacker, MediaWeek, TechCrunch, and Woot! DotCom because to me Brody Web World always has seemed totally unrelated to Brody Paradise World. Recently, though, I’ve been thinking that maybe I was wrong.

It started with a passing comment from the Old Billionaire’s Over-Educated Son. “I know my dad loves his truck,” he said the other day. “But would he be so happy tooling around in an old flatbed if he didn’t have his own jet to take him anywhere in the world he wanted to go?”

I couldn’t answer for the O.B., of course, but I knew what Sonny was getting at…and it made me wonder whether I’d be as happy as I am communing with nature if I wasn’t also able to trade e-mails, IM’s, and message board posts with people from all over the world who share my career interests, wants, and needs.

Would Paradise remain my Eden if I couldn’t laugh or argue or otherwise carry on with Old Buddy Cal at his computer in Bellingham, Washington, just as easily as I do with Doug the Dog Breeder at his table in the local Walmart?

Considering how much more complex human beings are than we too often believe, it may well be that one community alone rarely is able to satisfy or fulfill any of us. Which, as I ponder further, makes me wonder if that’s what accounts for how family, work, and play usually spill out from each other and occupy separate niches.

A good way to learn what part of life really makes Larry B feel so good when he wakes up every morning should be to keep a close watch on both my outer life in Paradise and the inner one in cyberspace.

I’ll have to keep my eyes, ears, and mind wide open when the next long power outage keeps me firmly ensconced in nature.

Ditto the next time I find myself locked in a big city hotel room, with nothing to do but surf the web.

Uh-oh. Uncle Larry’s starting to jones just thinking about losing either aspect.

Looks like I have to admit it:

I need it all.