Every once in a while I have a weakness for Bukowski. It's not necessarily the raw beauty of isolated incidents strung together with a rhythm that's hard to beat. And it's not the guilty pleasure of reading about hookers and booze, gambling and violence. These are only parts of the whole. 

The thing that sticks with Bukowski is this overwhelming desire to create. I'm thinking of his one poem that makes an attempt to explain the urge. And with the wonders of the internet, all you have to do is think of a phrase and type that in and next thing you know there's the poem you were looking for. ​

It is the end of 2016 and if I wasn't such a slacker, I'd review all of the big stories of the year and make predictions for 2017. That's for newspaper writers who get paid to do that kind of thing. I suppose if I got paid to gather my thoughts in such an organized manner for the three or four of you, then I'd review the year. But I don't get paid for this. And you don't get paid for reading this. No one's getting paid around here and, hopefully, that keeps this blog at least a little pure and uncompromising. 

For some reason, as with the three or four of your who read my blog, Christmas reminds me of the people who made an early exit stage left. That happened with my mom, who died roughly half my life ago, in 1988. I don't know why this milestone somehow makes me miss her all over again, but it does. It makes me think of all of the time she fought cancer before she passed in a hospital room at the University of Chicago. Afterwards, my four brothers and sisters and I and my dad walked silently down the hall toward the elevator carrying balloons and stuffed animals and a few pictures of when she was little. It's those pictures, or thoughts of them, that have me up at 3:25 on Christmas morning.

It's 3:07pm on Christmas Eve and as you can tell I did a couple of videos in the past 24 hours. One started as a dare to play pieface, and the other above video germinated nwhen I got really weary of waiting for my wife in the women's clothing section of Carson's. 

It's a choice, really. You wake up and you have to decide how to create. Today's it's video and this blog. Tomorrow maybe I'll write a poem and play a few songs. A few days later, let's do a podcast. The day after that, let's put together a proposal to get funding so that I can hire a bunch of interns to push the technology. Finally, let's do a morning radio show 250 times a year. ​