Strong at the Broken Places

Brilliance and Madness are seperated by the finest of lines, Mr. Hemmingway utilized the movement of that fine line to his greatest advantage. Brilliant, tragic, insane, war hero, incredible author, sociopath, never been or will be another like him.

I don't really know what to say about Hemingway. He was one of the first BIG writers I ever read, and I'm sure he has influenced me.

I think without our flaws, we are completely unbearable. Thus, it was also with Hemingway. Perhaps it was a question of balance. When he touched his brilliance, tapped into it to put words on paper, breathing such raraified air could only be sustained for so long. When he fell, mayhap the drinking was the only way to numb the emptiness. Saddly, I have to wonder if in this current climate of the publishing industry, could Hemingway get a six figure deal with Random House? 

Bukowski said it best.
"I don't like jail... They got the wrong kind of bars in there."
 

I think it was one of Richard Brautigan's succinct "Poems":-
 
Every time I look at him, I think
Gee, I'm glad he's not my old man.
 
 
 
 
 

S BLUME...................hello! If he wrote a book about teenage vampires he would.............
 
Nice leather notebook..........................

Never was much of a fan of "Papa", tho I did like the movie version of "..Bell" with Gary Cooper & Ingrid Bergman.  My favorite author is Harper Lee.

Ahhhh- the notebook. Writers comfort blanket & constant companion of the elderly & forgetful. My current one is a strange mix of TO DO lists, shopping lists, scribbled down bits of overheard conversation when I was doing said shopping, recalled dreams, recipies, reminders to myself of the date to give the cats worm & flea & tick treatment. Doodles, bits of italic writing to get my pen going. It's a great read in its own write. I love it when I'm doing a big tidy-up & find a notebook from 10, 15, 20 years ago. The tidy-up grinds to a halt - any excuse to stop housework. People said things about people like Hemmingway. People have said things about me. My notebooks are testimony to the fact that me-ness is not a fixed condition.

Bebe -- that IS a nice leather notebook .... do you think Mr. Peterman will offer it?

Haze, I'd like the full set in hard cover please. I'm not blowing sunshine up your skirt. THAT'S something I'd give much to read.

Your post should be the prologue.

My way or the Hemingway

by tommy t

Find my soul skipping
over oceans

and my spirit on an
evening flight

sail a cruise beneath
tropical moon

feel the essence of
the sultry night

Red Spanish wine and mint
mojitos

make my chi flow
without restraint

juicy key west conch lunch
beachside

my art as words on
journal pages paint

 Luggage packed with
portable possessions

passports stamped
with lifelong dreams

discovering the whole
in the midst of nada

while yanking trout
from mountain streams

Sometimes I have and
other times have not

as distant bells toll
this sun will also rise

and I am equally the
old man and the sea

with papa beneath
white bearded disguise

 Mi papa es su papa.

Tommy Typical on the Bearded One 

It is not a Narcissistic personality disorder to be your own hero. It is a moral imperative and the search for your own "meness" a lifelong process as Haze described separates us from the herd who live in quiet desparation and establishes us as Children of God. One can only be humble when one realizes how much one is giving up and "chooses" to do so voluntarily.  If you don't have a personal journal, it is never too late to start. Everyone has a Field Report of Great Import I say. J Peterman has never said be like me but rather Be like You.  

I have the journal (so it was called) above, or at least one identical to it. I also have 20 or 30 more in various styles, all of which inspired me at the moment of purchase, all blank, or with only a few pages used. Although "writer" is on my resume (PLEASE feel free to laugh, it's funny), I have a very hard time writing work requiring true sustained effort. Stream-of-thought, written or emotive, fine. It's lack of discipline I'm sure. Great editors have always shielded me from my lack of education, so I can't plead that.

I've never enjoyed the Hemmingway titles I've read. We share a medical problem (not alcoholism) that probably makes some of it cut to close to the bone. But I respect his process, his ability to finish his current work though not his life. I'd like to do that, (both) but the fiction will probably will remain unwritten. The non-fiction, only through periodicals, and in those around me. Hopefully not in the hurricane of pain that seemed to surround him.

It'll be interesting to see at the end of the day, love him or hate bin, whether we all identify with some part of him.

Some TERRIBLE, poorly written sentences! I plead writing on my phone! I DO want to finish my life and I realize he's not still working on current projects. ;-P

Hiya SBlume! Welcome! I can't make out what your profile is? Looks like some kind of a (model?) of a fish?
Bebe, Andy...yes, it is a nice leather notebook, though it looks more like a document holder to me....
Hazel....i love that "me-ness is not a fixed condition"...its an excellent statement to say how we continue to grow. I must remember that; would be a useful quote at times ...hehehe! 
 
Why do some display their noxious character behind brilliance? Or does their brilliance give them an excuse? Hemingway must have been a very difficult person to live with. It's sad though that his family is riddled with suicide - his father, brother, sister, himself and his granddaughter.

JaxZ~ Thanks. Your mention of the word skirt has me off at tangent. My mother would always buy dresses & skirts too long for me & have me, cross & sweaty-fingered, doing battle with needle & thread to turn up the hem neatly. A few months later, I'd be steaming out the old crease to lengthen the skirt. I suppose it was the Hemmingway of keeping your kids clothed on a tight budget. Can't remember when I last wore a skirt. Hate them.

Maybe it's because it's Thursday or maybe because I read Hemingway when I was too young, I just can't seem to work up any enthusiasm for the man or his work. Color me a Faulkner fan. In my own defense, I do have a copy of A Farewell to Arms in the re-read basket.

Good morning, all, and welcome New Friends.  SF, I believe SBlume's thang is a FLYING FISH.  One thing to remember about Hemingway's works is that roughly half of them came out after he was dead and no longer able to keep them for a little further editing.  The difference between the OED (useful and lovely though it may be) and your favorite novel is editing. And if you don't have the OED handy, I expect you could accomplish the same thing with a few weeks worth of the NY Times stacked in the corner. Just rearrange and cut a little.

good morning everyone!
 
papa lived in arkansas, and brought his famous cats up here.  i have one of these cats. 

cuukoo, good morning! Wow! Please tell us more?

cuucoo1~ Salutations to your cat from mine. Have'nt seen you for ages - you OK?

That was the job, paying four times what I had been making and with much better benefits and shift options that allowed me to go to college.
The first night, something peculiar happened: the college student I was replacing and whose dad was a big deal there, happened to mention Hemingway's suicide.
It was not that I felt a great sense of loss, I had then as now read only two of his novels and a few short stories, it was rather a feeling of cultural illiteracy having missed knowing that.
I read and enjoyed Hotchner's book and came away liking him more than his subject.
You have to admire courage and even more, bravery, or courage put to use saving a skin other than your own but Papa wouldn't make the cut and find a seat in my duck blind.
Tappinger's blind actually, the only big, stone, eight seater, suitable for this stiff nor'wester that is sure to clear the Canadian pothole prairies of sky-ripping divers and send them our way.
Hottchner is in for sure, Thomas Hoving, C.S. Lewis, Robin McNeil, T.H. White and the man whose writing I most envy and another Canadian: Witold Rybczynski.
Then, because I would be busy pouring coffee and taking notes like a madman, Mr. Willie Trask, because somebody is going to have to shoot some ducks.

cuukoo1
So nice to see you.
Are they rising or sulking in the deep pools?

Molto Graze Stoney,  I would be honored to be there, but I hope you can get in a few shots of your own.  Maybe when we go out to the farm, we can get Mr P to put out some quail. If not, my uncle does that sometimes, too.  In a few minutes I will be driving past where Havilah Babcock used to live.  I will try to remember Hemingway and Dr Babcock and a few other tale tellers as I go past.  In case we don't get to shoot together in this life, I will certainly join you in my thoughts.                       On, King!

Not to detract from the seriousness of the days
topic, I was led in this direction and couldn't resist.  To Willie and Stoney I
ask...
 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECODePT6VHM

When it comes to adversity, "Papa" had experienced it, felt it, wrote about it.  He encouraged us all to get a little on us and rub it around for the feel of the thing.  As I used to tell my kids (all boys) when they complained of hard times, "The finest steel is forged in the hottest fire."

Ummgawa ~
Apparent genetic tendencies notwithstanding, to struggle living a life without women and children close enough to let you love them would encourage most men in the direction of risky behavior hoping to die a sudden and heroic death.
Hemingway would have profited, had he been able, from this bit of wisdom:

"Flirting with madness was one thing; when madness started flirting back, it was time to call the whole thing off."

~Robinton Mistry~
(google if you must but that is not a misspelling)

I've posted a photo of my book. I am lost without it but never fly with it for obvious reasons.

WT ~
Posted a pic just for you.

Hemingway's former Key West residence is worth visiting, it's a private museum. The proprietor has kept it authentic, right down to feeding the feral cat population, all of whom have an extra clawed toe. Often being really gifted carries a heavy price. I'm thinking of Dustin Hoffman's savant card counting character in Rain Man. Notwithstanding those exceptional skills, the man was disfunctional in most tasks that the rest of us do effortlessly. Einstein was marginal as a student, and was informally voted "least likely to succeed" by his middle school teachers. I prefer not to try to see exotic personal interpetations of Hemingway's works. They are what they are, and he, god rest his troubled soul, is someone our great grandchildren will still venerate. Sure would have liked to have had the opportunity to get the tour of Havana's pre-Castro entertainment district by him.....

First and foremost........ So very glad to read you here today cuukoo1! I hope you enjoy the ride on thesepias cow catcher!  

On to Hemmingway..... or is it "How much does a Hemming weigh?"..... well anyroads.... Back when I was muddling my way through Grammar School and Middle School.... this was long before I realized that I get the heebie jeebies if I don't have at least three or four unread books waiting for me to devour immediately upon the completion of the book that I am currently reading....... the only assigned books that I would force myself to read where by Hemmingway.

Although I never became an aficionado of his works, he did manage to ignite the kindle that turned into a fire of affection within me for the written word. Prior to Hemmingway, Cliff Notes where my best friend.

It has been such a long time since I read his novels that I may have to read him again to see if I can determine the source of the interest his words had quickened within me.

From what little I know of the man, I've always thought he was one who was best admired from afar and in broad daylight because his qualities could not sustain him up close or in the shadows. I hope I was wrong.

All that I am is bits and pieces of people greater than myself that I have collected over the years. I must have been exposed to some pretty good people, if you get my drift.
 
I contiunue to grow, be fed by and celebrate the minds of all who appear here. How sweet it is!! Sometimes inspired, sometimes moved to tears, sometimes laugh my ass off, always entertained and informed!

I will say, one of the selling points of the "Moleskine" notebooks is the little card inside about artists and writers like Van Gogh and Hemingway using them . . . even if the company that now makes them wasn't around at the time.

And, yes, I do buy Moleskines and use them daily.

http://www.moleskine.com/

I have read just about everything that Mr.
Hemingway published excluding his journalism and I have always enjoyed the read.
Like Steinbeck, he takes me back to the basics.  If I want something cerebral, I
will read Powys, Balzac or Thomas Wolfe or even Saul Bellow. 
 
I have never asked myself if a writer is moral,
amoral, heroic or cowardly.  It is not important to me.  In the same way I
never ask if a team's quarterback or a starting pitcher is a saint, it is a
non-issue.  I have the same non-standards for actors and musicians. 

 
In areas of caretaking and business, my standards
change.  I have no idea how Mr. Peterman lives his life anymore than he knows
how I live mine.  I prefer it that way.  I trust that he is an honest business
man and will supply me with a quality product at a fair price. That is the one
standard I hold for him or for any merchant.  If I were to ask him to babysit or
teach my children, I would hold him to a higher standard. 
 
If I ask someone to be my spiritual guide, I have
another set of standards and it may not be the same set of standards I would use
if that someone were to ask or demand to be my spiritual guide.
 
It has been my experience that that a sinner can
pretend to saintliness much easier than a saint can pretend to sin. 

The only thing you really own is your life. Tragically, some like Hemingway or Hunter Thompson who live on the edge make a choice to let it end on their terms. Bukowski's tombstone reads "don't try" which says to me that writing, a metaphor for living, does not require as much overthinking as we might suspect. I frequent this site because it is an experience I like.
 Respecting the work and not actually having to like it is part of the mystique of folk heroes like PAPA. I separate the real from the Jungian Archetype of the hero. To me, Hemingway is an icon of the adventurous politically incorrect approach to grabbing life by the balls. A worse tragedy might be for this type of figure to be shown drooling in a nursing home. To that end, perhaps I am a little selfish to want my heroes to exit boldly. Gauguin jumps out at me because it is so primal yet beautiful.   Personally, I chose the spiritual life for happiness now but also for the hope and purpose of an eternal number of Today. I often say if I am wrong, I have still enjoyed many great days of living in ignorant bliss and if I am right as I think I am, then all the better.   Anyway I love this Mighty Bosstone song because it sings of what I sometimes think. 
  http://youtu.be/NIGMUAMevH0

OK, Paolos, you asked for this one...             http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je8MXiwmNIk                                featuring what Dave Barry correctly called "THE WORLD'S GREATEST STONES TRIBUTE BAND". Be sure to listen until 3:38 or so...  I was going to post my H'way photo, but remembered it is already up- check it out, y'all.

How about THIS?             http://gardenandgun.com/galleries/photos/ernest-hemingways-guns

y'all can call me THE HARDEST WORKING MAN IN THE BLOGOSPHERE...  Well, after Peter Lake and Paolos and Stoney and Jalopkin and the Captains, and Our Host, of course, and several others, plus  people who I hope will be pleased to be called, at least for this post, HONORARY MEN.  So maybe, the nineteenth hardest working man...                                             For years I was so spooked by the lyrics of Sympathy that I didn't realize how good the music is.  Here is another version with some amazing blues licks...              http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WvFO-V8Ub0&NR=1  ; I am still getting around to Sunday's article in the Times on Keith, but let's face it, those guys have a few broken places and lovable faults, too...

Hemmingway was his own best creation.  And he chose his friends well, that is he was the youngest in his "crowd" who was offered and took the offered leg-ups from those who were already published many times over.  They treated him as a good looking young man, a show off (thus the "papa" moniker:  "you know how to do everything, papa, why don't you show us how it's done"-- it wasn't a compliment, but it stuck, and as stories are wont to do, "Papa" made sure it evolved into a compliment.).  He used people, especially his wives, all four of them -- he used his friends, as JP mentioned above -- most notably in "A Moveable Feast" he spewed forth such insulting stull at his friends, most of whom were dead by then.  Those who were still alive didn't call him "Papa" anymore, and they wouldn't call him friend.  So by the end of his life, he had few friends, one wife who nursed him through imagined illnesses, those things that neurotic narcissistic egomaniacal creative types tend to catch.  To a person, the few obligated friends who went to visit him in Idaho in his last years said he'd deteriorated physically and mentally to the point of being unrecognizable.  It can be argued that he inherited this depression from his father, or that his mother made him crazy...but Hemingway even at the end of his life was writing the end of his life, creating himself unto his last breath.  Hemingway would have the last word on the era during which he lived and wrote, hang anyone else who dared try.  After all, Papa knew best.

Nice post, Park4. I got the feeling that women were sort of fashion accessories to Hemingway, now I think I'm right. He sure had some talented beautiful daughters.....

PARK4, One day when I had other things to do but did not want to do them, I scrolled through the archives and read with interest many of your previous comments on Hemingway.  You were very passionate about your dislike for the man and you expressed  opinions that I had not heard before.  I knew you would be contributing like comments today and though it is none of my business I am interested to know why you harbor such a strong distaste for the man.  It's almost as if his life or some part of it was a personal affront to you, a close friend or a family member. I will also respect a succinct It's none of your business, Paolo, just as I respect all of your comments.

Park4- Well said....Creating himself...True Gen

PARK4, Thanks.  I would aspire, if to nothing else he did, to make myself my own best creation.  I really do think he deserves a little credit though for biting his tongue on A Moveable Feast, which came out 3 years after his death. I do not deny that he wrote and said things he probably shouldn't have, especially concerning people he shouldn't have said such things about, but somebody else decided to put those things into a book.   I will not blame anyone, but I would suggest that AMF was an early example of the kind of thing we see daily in the 21st century: the living squeezing a little more from the dead, be it output, income, sampling, lost episodes, or image licensing.  Of course, I did read the other day that the dead still outnumber the living and that tradition is our way of allowing them a vote in the great cosmic democracy.  Viva Los Muertos, or something like that.

It didn't take long after reading "Big Two Hearted River," to get myself up there and fish it.
Unlike Nick Adams, whatever suffering and pain I had experienced hadn't made the trip and I was grateful for not having to leave them there.
"A Clean Well-Lighted Place," struck a chord with the old waiter knowing how nice and probably important it was as a sanctuary for the old suicidal man. I liked that.
I liked how Hemingway complimented his readers by leaving something unsaid and knowing we would "get it."

When Abercrombie & Fitch still meant something that mattered, a salesperson urged me into a field jacket... The field jacket you might say with a poster sized photo of Papa in one that had seen a lot of use, nearby.
Apart from a beaver collared overcoat in an upscale suburban Chicago  department store, nothing I had ever stepped into had felt as perfect.
There are times, however, when it is not necessary to wait... for your friends to laugh at you.

Willie T - I'm honored and humbled to be included in such grand company.... 'tis a fine round table we have here that is made up of such very thoughtful, insightful and sensitive folks; all possessing such a high degree of interestingness don'tcha know.

 Today's topic and ensuing discussions reminds me why I, when it comes to getting to know more about the author behind the pen/typewriter/keyboard; subscribe to the 'ignorance is bliss' theory. 
I am content and comfortable to limit my knowledge of an author to what is contained between the covers of any novel that I enjoy. For me, when it comes to good fiction, having knowledge of who is behind the curtain.... usually only serves to distract from the experience and perhaps siphon away the pleasure. Once I know the author as well as the book, it becomes difficult for me to compartmentalize them and judge them independently.

Same thing with actors, movies and all manner of entertainers.... but with that said..... I do like to think I still have an inquiring mind... 

This probably goes a long way to explaining why I have such a jaundiced opinion of politics and politicians....

Gee... I feel so much better now...

paolos~ You'd have to be married for a while to a Hemmigway type man to understand why some women dislike him passionately. My Ex 2 was such a man & had much in common with Hemmingway, good looks, beard, a fondness for cats, mental health problems, a family history of suicides, a way of using people & subsequently abusing them. It is possible to love & hate a person at the same time with equal passion. It was like living on a roller coaster blindfold.

Stoney- Yes, A&F was quite the store and so was Sharper Image. I had a signed copy of Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It and a Warren Spahn baseball that I gave away on a gut feeling to some friends in a Saturday Morning Bullshit Group I used to attend. I have some purple Peter O'Toole socks and my Adam Smith suspenders that get a laugh or two but we are all fruitcakes in the end.    I like old fashioned Hardware Stores like Fred's General Merchantile in Beech Mountain, NC and often buy clothing at such places. Tough, reliable, and an aroma of earthiness. 

PL- Cheers. I say in one's yellowed jaundiced opinion, there often is a great deal of piss and vinegar. Alas the storyteller's flaws are precisely what make the characters real.     Your method
is obviously one which enables you to express what you have to
say in a very small compass." -- Editor Max Perkins on Hemingway's
In Our Time after an early reading.

Haze- You raise a question I have often pondered and raised in pubs around the world and so I ask the women: What exactly do you want in a man? (I mean really)
 **My wife once told me, "you were the biggest risk I ever took and thankfully it paid off." Has always made me wonder. 

Tommy - I think you just answered part b) of my question while I was still formulating it!  

STONEY, I knew you weren't  through with my velvet suit just yet...  T Square, I meant to thank you for the BossTones.  I followed up something I thought I remembered- that there is one BossTone who only dances, neither singing nor playing- it is mostly true. He is ( or was)  the band's Road Manager, but he is onstage with just his feet to contribute...       For people under a certain age, it is impossible to explain about A&F.  It would be like Ferrari selling rollerblades. No, a thousand times worse. T shirts with pictures of rollerblades on them.  J-Pop bands singing songs about rollerblades. No, that's an insult to the Japanese  and still not as bad... There is a really sad, dark Rip Van Winkel story to be written there, about a man who has become so upset and confused by 21st century life that he goes into A&F hoping for alittle masculine sanctuary...

Mahalo. Willie T. Love dem mighty mighty. 

Spring, yes I thought so too - either/or, I like it.

Ahhhh..... Memories of A & F.... I'd be lured into the stores with the antler chandeliers hoping to find the ultimate flannel shirt and walk out with a rustic looking globe, leather bound map books, and an aching desire to buy the canoe that was leaning against the wall........ And then I'd go back a few minutes later and buy the flannel shirt.

the only thing missing was a burning campfire in the middle of the store.....

I also have fond memories of the J. Peterman retail stores.  I always wanted to hijack the motorcycle with the side car from the front of the store in Newport Beach and drive it back to Illinois with just the right jacket, Fort Knox sunglasses and the Aviator Scarf flowing behind me....

Willie ~
That was some "This" alright. Thanks as well for the scathing remonstrance of the once-proud brand... I can't even say it again.

T.T. ~
There was a group of older guys with whom I hunted quail in Nebraska. I was attired in: a blue chambray shirt, claret bow tie, a Dunn's moleskin vest with lapels and leather buttons, whipcord field pants, bespoke Russell Upland Bird boots, and a tweed jacket that had come down to me from some guy's grandfather in Scotland.
It held four boxes of twenty-eights in its pockets and I was by a wide margin, the least sartorially splendid of the bunch.
I began the first hunt tripling on some easy bobs but soon enough, they let me get into the middle of the covey before rising (exploding, actually) between me and the gun and then, they had me on the defensive. It was laughable. They pooped on me lid... a soft stalker from The Bates Hat Shop on Jermyn Street.

I cannot somehow pull the Goodwill trigger on a new pair of Irish Setter, Vibram soled (although, not the deep lug), dark leather, nine inch upland boots in a size nine. They are simply not a comfortable fit.
Anyone??

WILLIE ~  thanks for the tunes.  I enjoyed the
second take of SFTD.  Some say that one of my favorite novels The Master and
Margarita by Mikhael Bulgakov might have been an inspiration to Mick. 
Seems as if Michael and Lucifer are always playing off one another.

 
HAZEL ~ Sometimes my curiosity overwhelms any hint
of good breeding that I may have, at any time, possessed.  I probably should not
have asked P4.
 
TOMMY ~  There is a flip side to your question and
the answer is always too obvious.

Paolos: I didn't do nuffin!

I hope some of you (women) will respond to Tommy Typical's question. I can't think of a better place for the question to get ask. 

For tenth grade English, my 15 year old daughter is required to choose books from the "classics" and read a minimum of 100 pages a week. I encouraged her to read "For Whom the Bell Tolls". I'm sorry to say, it didn't take. She complained it was boring and, that she just couldn't get into it. When left to her own devices, she chose "Huckleberry Finn", and liked it so well; she has decided to choose another MarkTwain work, when the time comes.

"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. "
Ernest Hemingway

Spring Fragrance, I suppose I display noxious behavior behind brilliance.LOL

Hello cuukoo1, hope you are doing well!

Time for cocktails in the Club Car, don't you think?

Heh, heh, heh... for you Mr. Stoney
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-y33Uq6HGs ;
 
The rest of you can only dream.  It's the bow tie
that gives it away.
 
MICHAEL ~ I think that's why Lucifer is POd...you
were always the GOOD angel.

T.T

What do I really want in a man?

PATIENCE! ( and kindness and a sense of humor....)

Tommy Typical~ That's a million dollar question! Right now, I'd like a man to ..... take the trash out to the wheelie bin. It's dark & raining. He'd be my hero for at least ten minutes. I'm sure you have heard it before, but:-
Women do have many faults.
Men have only two.
Everything they say
and everything they do.
 
I'm sure everybody has their grouchy days when there's no pleasing them. Dealing with that is a walk in the park compared to living with a person who is metally ill & whose manners & social skills can inexplicably & unpredictably vanish in an instant, to be replaced by a darker, sinister & downright frightening other side of them.
 
Outdoor clothing. My must-have is a Barbour waxed jacket. ( The poacher's pocket inside is just the right size for my notebook.)  I'm on my second one - the first one I had for years & consigning it to the bonfire was as bad as having a faithful dog put down.

Paolos- you are correct, sir.  Miss Blue- A good start- I am glad you didn't say washboard abs are a necessity. 

80's hair. Now THERE is a topic...

S Blume- Spot on about Hemingway and today's publishers. Can you imagine Hemingway on The View? Barbara Walters had enough trouble with Sean Connery. I think we have to leave everyone in their own time and place like poor Andy Griffith, that cigarette smoking, male chauvinst sheriff, who didn't put Otis through a proper rehab program or recognize that Gomer might be a victim of don't ask don't tell. 

Stoney - I believe Fall fell today.  We may be hearing the WC word on the weather channel.... Wind Chill.

Washboard abs? Hah! Gimme love handles.  Miss Blue has made a good start on the shopping list. Honesty & open-ness
LOTS of hugs & cuddles
Must scrub my back in the bathtub
Be able to hold an argument without it turning into a fight
And NOT sulk afterwards. ....... how long have you got?
 

The game's afoot. As long as the barkeep is pouring.  But I must ask, Was Cagney and Rhett Butler justified in their physicality even as a screen gesture?

Tommy T: My 2¢

Makes me laugh
Forgives easily
Holds my hand in public
Is not afraid to take the best bite from my plate when I offer it
Listens fully when it's important
lets me snuggle when I'm cold (ok, WHENEVER)
Thinks MY jokes are funny
Doesn't make fun of me in public
Takes me seriously when I say "let's go:
Skinny-dipping
Ride the ferris wheel
To Paris for lunch
buy that car you want
Doesn't mind corny
Understands we can have mutal, different interests
Is never raunchy (rowdy, lusty, tender, yes!)

Is that too vague for starters? {{laughing}}

On the flip side, what's up with always ponting the finger at women on the "not tonight" issue? If I had sex for every time that was true in reverse......well, I'd be in bed, or on any number of interesting surfaces right now.

(sorry, but you asked and it needed to be said.)

paolos ~
Careful, I know where you live.

Peter Lake ~
You ain't wrong, mon ami, the impatiens curled up and died.
Funny: I met Guest for lunch at the hot dog place and a lady created a scene demanding to know if he had brought a dog into an eating establishment.
He had not. He had brought two inside his coat.

JaxZ ~
That sounds like a good man right there.

BTW, if that portfolio, or whatever it is, up top were mine, I would have treated that leather to some kind of oil or wax or something.

Stoney - what's wrong with two warm dogs in a coat in a hot dog place....... the noive of some people.

Will there be brownies again?.......

Jax- Bette Midler could write a sassy song about that last comment. 

Haze- Good to hear a thumbs up for love handles- a lot of time and money invested in those puppies.

I think she has. I distinctly remember her singing "When A Man Loves A Woman" and pausing, while lying on her back on the stage, sort of ssslithering along saying; "Oh my Dear, How does Marie Osmond do it?" {{wide-eyed look towards the audience}}

I think the line just blurred between lusty and raunchy. Sorry about that! I'd probably not measure up well against one of your lists either. So what are you GUYS looking for?

JaxZ~ Silly quetion.

Being a dog person my whole life, I am surprised at how much the cats have taught me in the last two years and being a Michael Franks fan- Tiger in the Rain kind of says it for me. Most of the time I am fearless but every now and then I get frightened for some mundane reason and having someone in those moments to hold me has been incredible. Seeing me vulnerable and being OK with that. It's the cat's pjs it is. So here's the song.  http://youtu.be/uwPeXsjhLRQ  ;

A Hemingway list.
Short sentances.
Tells a story.

Good grief, every Officer's Club happy hour full of fighter pilot's jokes is now ghosting back to haunt me.

#1 - must believe that the Pink Panther Movies..... the ones with Peter Sellers that is....... are funnier every time you watch them.

Tommy Typical~ you just answered your own question.

That's a priceless Steinway!!!

Not anymore.

Well, me luvvlies, it's duvet time over here. Thanks for an interesting day. Nos da.

Nos da, our Hazel.

Since we've never met, I guess I might as well come clean...your list and I could pass for twins!
 
 Nah, what I was looking for I found in Cumberland Md 54 years ago and the story continues. (My screen saver is a picture of us on our wedding day.) We are happily incompatible. She took the risk of her life with me and she has lead me to believe it was a good one. What was/is she?:
 
Pretty
Smart
Determined
Appreciates our lives together
Challenging
Artsy
Mother of our 3 children one of which is a regular on this show!
Equally yoked with me and on and on.
Thanks for asking.
 

and you bake brownies too!  ...........   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29fHc0tnavI&feature=related ;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQAMvmi1Zwk&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29fHc0tnavI&feature=related

Only for special people PL.

I thought you said your dog did not bite????

Zat iss naht mine dog.

TOMMY T............Kindness, sense of humour, intelligence, kindness to people he meets, loves animals, MUST floss, smell like soap & not cologne please........... love me, put up w/ me, love food, love candy, like to travel, & be Italian..........large nose & full mouth preferred & found.................
 
CUUKOO............ my cats say HUUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO................................ always so good to see you!
 
ANDY & HAZEL.............if I get rich I will order one for both of you!

George Hall, compadre, veteran, kith and kin, it's so very good to have you here!

(I'd love to know Mrs. Hall, she obviously has impeccable taste.)

Hi beebster!!!❤
I'm forever leaving when you're arriving or vice versa. :-P

Will check in at bedtime, looking for more lists. :)

Stoney if I could figure a way to shrink those boots I'd fly out to get them.

Hey JAX..........Doesn't make fun of me in public & forgives.......I'm stealing these for my list.....so there! Ha! I always feel sorry for women who have men who are mean........it seems an awful way to live............good to see you.........

Miss Blue- Huck Finn, my most favored book over the past 48 years since my Dad chucked our TV and we read books for entertainment. She has chosen wisely. Connecticut Yankee is a good second selection. Beach Music by Pat Conroy or Prince of Tides might do well as a second.

JaxZ- my dear, if you have broken the frequency code with Mr. Jax, then you are a millionairess in the making, seminars and best selling books await you pen and voice.

JaxZ...as does Mr. Z!!

Heart back JAX.................

I know what a beautiful woman wants:

1. A man that falls short of his potential.

2. A man that has faked a good attitude.

3. A man whose chosen profession has all but died.

4. A man who is optimistic when he probably shouldn't be.

5. A man who questions his parenting daily, even after they've gone.

6. A man who is so very much in love with his wife, he is still amazed she loves him back.

7. A man who said "I do forever" and means it.

She sealed her fate with a simple two word promise to me in front of God and witnesses.

She might disagree, but for me, there it is. This is what a woman wants in a man.

A delightful and hardworking old couple, the grandparents of a friend, hosted a tired, cold, briar-torn and cold group of grouse hunters in Northwestern Wisconsin. 
They were some sort of Scandinavians who had been raised in England.
Their enormous house had dozens of comfortable places to sit and I had one of them-- a corner chair that I was sharing with a black & tan English Cocker that looked like a mini Gordon Setter.
The old girl had given me a couple of her Pedro Ximenez sherries. The rest were drinking some kind of lighter fluid called aquavit and it showed.
The old gent, gone misty, recalled how having caught an indecent peek at her substantial bottom and broad hips, he had concluded: "That's the girl for me!"
She brought the house down describing him coming out of the sauna; a case of what she called-- "Full noodle frontity," that caused her to conclude-- "That even if the act is as beastly as Mommy said, I shant be all that badly hurt."

There are now, and have been in the past ... a very large number of Fine Authors ... and I have been enthralled by them all ... But Hemingway, is my all time Favorite ... He had experienced so much of life, on purpose, that he was able to lean down into one's very bowels and whisper or scream in relating Life(whichever was appropriate) such that we can feel him experiencing every thing that he is relating, and his unabashed delivery, while seemingly crass at times, certainly left no doubt about what was going on, and so often spoke of things that some of us can remember experiencing also ... which is exactly what made Hemingways Books pull us into the pages and come alive all around us ....... The most amazing thing to me is ....... that he did it consistently ... because, I am sure, of his True Zest for life ... which is exactly why I have never believed that he killed himself ....... 

I just wished that damn chicken had not crossed the road. Then he would not have died in the rain. Alone. And Dos Passos still owes me a drink. Set em up Big Skinner. The luck she is still runnin good.

beebe!!!❤ You are a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

Ummgawa, I do give seminars, but not on that.
Occaisional private advice to women friends when requested.

Sweet George :)

•I forgot to add to my list: Fully and irrefutably understands that the only way he's leaving me (in the marital sense) is in a pine box.

Stoney, do you put these stories in that intriguing book? I certainly hope so. It causes considerable heartache to think they are only passing through.

It appears as if the Giants are going to walk away with
another win over the Rangers.  Jane is happy.  Lotlot is notnot.  

It Ain't Over Till Its Over, Paolos .......

Spring Fragrance, my avatar picture is a rabbitfish. Thanks for the welcome! And that would be rather interesting to read, a teenage vampire novel written by Hemingway. Who knows, he might just have that manuscript in a vault somewhere?

JAX..........my heart is blushing............

Paolos:  no no, my dear, it's nothing personal, my dislike for Hemingway...there's so much behind what I write and what I think about him, I can't write it all down here, and you'd be snoring half way through.  In my life sometime long ago, I fell in love with F. Scott Fitzgerald's writings, then with F. Scott Fitzgerald, then with his biographers, then his biographies.  THEN, when I was older, I "discovered"Zedla, his wife, and her writings, and her autobiography,and her biographies.  And I found that you can't know about F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald without knowing and reading Ernest Hemmin'way (Zelda's deliberate mispronunciation), and so I did.  And I got in contact with Scribner's and the editors there who either were working on all of the Fitzgerald and Hemingway and Zelda F. works, or who'd known those who did.  I met with Dr. Matthew Bruccoli who has the largest Fitzgerald Library in the country at the University of S. Carolina.  Bruccoli knew Scottie Fitzgerald, the daughter, he knew through her the Hemingways, he's written volumes about each and both Hem and Fitz together, the lastI just finished, entitled Fitzgerald and Hemingway:  A Dangerous Friendship.  Mrs. Bruccoli was kind enough to introduce me to Fitzgerald's granddaughter,Eleanor (Bobbie) Lanahan, and through her, I was introduced to cousins and childhood friends of Zelda's in Montgomery Alabama.  ....  Hemingway's home town of Oak Park IL is home to his two childhood homes, a museum,  andI livedwithin an hour of Oak Park so I visited there frequently, trying to get a feel for the young Ernest before he became "THE" Ernest Hemingway.  It was, all of it --a fascinating journey, it still is a fascinating journey, because it wil never cease to fascinate me, the relationship between these two men, and this one woman, Zelda -- but if I don't stop now, I'll be hearing you snoring, soon, paolos, and I don't want to bore.  

One more thing? in most instances I'm perfectly able and more than willing to separate the author from his or her fiction.  In the instances of these two men, and Zelda, it's impossible to separate them.  Each put to paper their stories for their own reasons (money notwithstanding), although they were remarkably different stories, the reasons for their writing was remarkable similar:  Fitzgerald, like Hemingway, wrote about himself as he wished he was, and the more he put to paper, the more he felt he could act out this fictional life and make it real, and more and more he'd become his fictionalized elegant, educated, 6 foot 2 inch air force pilot, a man who had everything.  Hemingway, the same thing, but he used the European WWI battlefields on which he'd create himself, from the relatively well-to-do son of an Oak Park doctor to the struggling author living and eeking out a living on the left bank of Paris, with a wife and little son ... the bohemian, not the suburbanite anymore -- to the well to do husband of a Paris Vogue editor, Pauline Pfeiffer, with whom he played the dandy and man about town and the Riviera -- and somewhere in those few years he'd fit in being a war hero, injured, a legend on the battlefield (it's in his books, if not in the Army records) -- through his novels, just like Fitzgerald, he'd become the man who had everything.  Different ways to get to the same place, different roads travelled to get to the Deux Magots bar where they first met, but when they met, it was a clashing of two Titans of the literary world.  Who was the better writer, they were so different...who was the better man, they were so different.  Did Papa really know best, in the end?  It all depends, to this day, on who you ask.

Ivan:  I'm sorry my dear we must disagree.  I believe Ernest did blow his head off.  I'd think otherwise, perhaps, and blame it on geriatric depression mixed with alcohol, except that his father, the Oak Park doctor, blew his head off in his office, at the back of their home in Oak Park one sunny afternoon.  And later, his granddaughter Margaux, was found in a West Hollywood apartment, where she'd died days early of an apparent overdose of a street drug, the specific name I forget.  Her death was ruled a suicide.  Suicides do run in families, as I know you know Ivan...also, Hemin'way was a man who put much store in all things manly, and as he got older and due to alcohol over-consumption and depression, he could no longer perform in the manly way he could when he was younger -- I mean, who can, but Hemingway it mattered more, because that was who he was, this Image he created -- I can see him one night all sodden and soaked and weaving and there's that gun, and life's not worth living, and hell I'm 63 years old anyway, what good am I -- then boom. ....Probably along the same lines that his father was thinking just before he killed himself. Maybe if he hadn't set such godly standards for his image to live up to?  I don't know, but there was no one else there but Miss Mary and she'd be nothing without him, so she wouldn't have done it...unless he was cruel to her?  But no, I think in this case, it was like father, like son. p.

PARK, Thank you for devoting your time to my question.  Your insight is fascinating, as I knew it would be. I will have a look for Bruccoli's work.

Paolos I agree wholeheartedly. It's not just the fascinating details Paula, it's the insight and understanding. You've given me some amazing pieces of knowledge to treasure, turn over and ponder.