The Adventures of Bloggard

Been Around the Block. Got Some Stories. These are Them.

The Scent of a Memory

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Medford, Oregon, November 14, 2015 — Some folks complain about airline food, but personally I think it’s wonderful. Not that it’s truly exceptional, because frankly I can cook lots better. But the fact that you can be served food, while sky-rocketing through the atmosphere at 16,000 feet and beyond … well, that’s amazing.

Kind of like a talking dog. He doesn’t need to say profound stuff; just the fact that he can talk at all is the wonderful thing. Because sometimes, good enough is good enough, right?

And the reason I’m thinking about airline food is that, I’m thinking about the carved box, and the reason I’m thinking about the carved box is because I cleaned my hairbrush this morning.

It happened like this — [Read more…]

An Implosion of Life and Love

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Medford, Oregon June 27, 2015 — Since she lost her vision, Susan has remained stand-offish, edgy, sometimes crying alone in her room. Coming to terms, but it’s hard. She doesn’t want comforting from me. Doesn’t want to be touched or held. Sometimes friendly; sometimes not exactly.

A few weeks ago near the beginning of the month, at the table she said we need to talk. You never really want to hear those words.

The story, made simple, is this: She said she didn’t want to be in a relationship any more. She says she feels like a different person. She says she finds it uncomfortable living in this house with me, as she doesn’t feel she has enough space of her own. I am “too big a personality.” I think that means too noisy, when I’m talking on the phone with clients, always present in the house for I work here. She says it’s too much for her current state of mind.

She’s going to move out just before July first. She’s paid her share of rent for June. Her daughter Saradevi has offered that Susan can live with her, and she’s going. Oddly, Saradevi has recently moved to the teeny-tiny town of Caspar, near Fort Bragg on the Mendocino coast, in a tiny house out in the middle of nowhere.

Since Susan’s catastrophe, which wiped out her artist work and her bookselling business, I have been focusing on my work, to get more clients and income, thinking how to increase our income, for she cannot work and her social-security check is small. But now it seems that’s not to matter much. I love her as intensely as ever. But she doesn’t want me to take care of her.

My belief up to this point was that we would spend the rest of our lives together.

And now, the plan has changed. [Read more…]

Which is Alive? The Singer or the Song?

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Medford, Oregon, May 2, 2015 — Now that I live on Siskiyou Boulevard, next door is a sometime fiesta. That is to say, the Latino family next door has the house on the corner, and apparently a never-ending extended family and circle of friends. So often on a Friday evening there is a gathering with Spanish music and beer. And when one of the children has a birthday … oh, my.

So when I returned from an errand this afternoon, and saw an inflatable tent thing in which children can bounce and fly around, I recognized birthday in progress. Sure enough, around dark, headlights and cars arrived, families spilled out into the pools of light, and now as I go to bed there’s a wonderful party going on next door.

It’s summer, and I have the window open beside my bed, so I can enjoy the party almost as well as if I was there. Past my window, in their back yard, children run, and scream, and yell stories, accusations, laughter, curse words, and insults. In other words, they’re having a good time.

You might think this would disturb my sleep, but it doesn’t. Somehow I like it, and despite the startling loudness and excitement, it’s pleasant and soothing.

I drifted off, smiling, and then … [Read more…]

Twenty Second Tune-Up Makes You Feel Good

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Weed, California, Easter Sunday 2009: Here is an Easter gift for you … a super-quick little thing you can do in about twenty seconds, and it makes you feel really good. Most likely this is very good for your body and mind as well, though I can’t prove it!

I call it ‘Arthur’s Twenty Second Tune-Up,’ and it’s both startlingly effective and super-easy.

How to Feel Good in 20 Seconds

First, get an index card, or something similar, about 3″ x 5″. And then … [Read more…]

Sponging at the Girl’s Dorm

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North Texas State University, Denton Texas, 1962: When several of us lived in a house in Shady Shores on Lake Dallas, there was kind of a “girl gang” who came to visit.

Jan was round and pretty, and she liked Hardy.

Jill was thin, clever, and funny, and I liked her.

Shayna was mature, beautiful, and she liked Paul, who was actually engaged to someone else, though that didn’t seem to interfere much.

They’d all show up at the lake house. We laughed a lot. I remember nights with a bonfire on the beach, a lot of beer. I remember driving to some dive up the road where, again, we drank a lot of beer. I grew sleepy and closed my eyes and pretended to be blind for a while.

“Come on, blind man!” Shayna said, “Stay with us!”

She was Jewish, daughter of a well-to-do Dallas family who owned a milk company. I didn’t know much about being Jewish and asked questions. She said they didn’t believe in the Devil, and so I asked if she would sell me her soul.

She said she would.

We wrote up a contract

So I bought her soul, for five pieces of silver, writing up the contract on my typewriter, an impressive red IBM Selectric I’d inherited from my stepfather’s office.

She took the five dimes and signed the contract. So I have owned Shayna’s soul for many, many years, because I kept the contract safe in my red box of important stuff.

The red box stayed with me through college, Dallas, St. Louis, England, Los Angeles, Texas, and San Francisco. There were a lot of documents in there, transcripts, and government cards, and drawings, and other stuff, including Shayna’s soul.

Meanwhile, back in those college times, I turned to crime

But this is getting ahead of myself. Back at North Texas, the next year I got a tiny apartment across from the English building, and I rarely saw the girl gang. There was always a blitz of study right before Christmas Holiday, and unlike my friends, often I didn’t go home right away, but rather stayed in my quiet apartment.

The campus was empty and thoughtful, the weather clear and chill. Restful, it was, though I had no money. One night I spent the last of my cash on cigarettes rather than supper, and in the morning, I woke up hungry.

Down on the corner in the early morning light, I saw the bread truck, parking to deliver to the Hob Nob. As the driver went inside, I crept from the bushes, jumped into the back of the truck, stole a loaf of bread, and ran.

As I glanced behind me, I saw Larry Burns, the young man who operated the Hob Nob, standing in the back doorway. He was watching me and laughing. Damn!

Pondering starvation

Holed up with coffee and bread and cigarettes, pondering starvation, I remembered that, during the holiday vacations, the cafeterias of all the dorms closed, except for one. The same dorm where the girl gang lived.

So I called on them about lunchtime, and then discovered that any dorm students stranded on campus over the holiday took meals there in the girls’ dorm. I walked into the dining room between Jill and Jan. Lunch!

Free lunch! Lots of lunch! Plenty! Free!

The cafeteria ladies, seeing so many unfamiliar faces, just assumed I lived in one of the dorms, and fed me along with everyone else.

I went back every day.

Ah, those good times …

That was the last time I saw the girl gang. Things happened, and you lose track.

And twenty years later, in a flat overlooking Geary Boulevard in San Francisco, where I lived in a small room at the back of Network Answering Service, I found Shayna’s soul stored carefully in the red box.

Through her family’s milk company in Dallas, I located her, married long since and living on the coast north of Los Angeles. I called her.

She didn’t remember that I owned her soul. She hadn’t missed it. We hadn’t much to talk about. Things had changed.

After the phone conversation, since I had her address, I mailed her soul back to her.

It was the least I could do.

How to Get a Girlfriend (or a Boyfriend)

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Romance Fer Sure!

Midwestern University, Wichita Falls, Texas, 1970: As a teen and a young adult, for years and years (and years and years) I was very clumsy when it came to women, and having returned to college at age 26 I decided that this really ought to be something that I could learn.

So I thought about it, and thought about it, and had a brainstorm!, and developed a method, and it worked for me. (I realize this is starting to sound like an infomercial, but it isn’t! I promise I’ll tell you how to get a girlfriend if you could use some help.)

I told some friends about my marvy new method, and several tried it, and it worked for them, too. Seems to work for guys wanting girlfriends; seems to work for women wanting boyfriends; probably works for other combinations too.

So after refining it over several years, I wrote it all down. I once thought I might publish it, but later I decided just to sell it very cheaply on EBay, in hopes that some other guys won’t have to go through being awkward as I was.

This surprisingly-effective method is written up like a report — very easy to read — and along with two more handy ebooks as bonus material, you

True Romance!

can get this method online with direct immediate download. For lots more information about what’s in it, and how it works, and details about our TWO money-back guarantees, see our infopage at —

Get A Girlfriend … Guaranteed!

(On our infopage you can also get a free subscription to the Outrageous Dating Tips Newsletter along with a sample chapter from the Sweetheart Method.)

Want to save a little money? You can also get this special method on a cd mailed out to you through the auctions at our EBay Megatar Store

(The EBay Megatar Store is where my company sells Mobius Megatar instruments which are ready-to-play and ready-to-ship, along with accessories and music books. Everything sold there, including the Sweetheart Report, comes with a money-back guarantee. In fact, the Sweetheart Report comes with two money-back guarantees. That’s how certain I am that it will work perfectly for you.)

There is no catch. It’s exactly what I claim: A powerful but simple method that will show anyone how to get a girlfriend, spelled out in complete detail, and easy to get online, day or night.

From the time I developed this method at 26, I’ve had no difficulty meeting women. (Getting along with them, now that’s something else!) Now I’m over 60, and I’ve been with the same woman for the last 15 years, so the method actually worked big time for me.

I suppose that it’s possible that it might not work for you, but I’ve received rather enthusiastic feedback so far. You could try it. With our two money-back guarantees, you have to be happy, or you’re out nothing. So you’ve got nothing to lose but lonely.

Sweet Stuff!

If you’re experiencing anything less than fun in your woman-searching, let me do you a favor. Check it out and try it. Most likely it will do the job. If you can’t try the method now, for some sort of good reason which your mind will make up, bookmark the site and try it later.

I can’t really guarantee it will work for you, because some people can botch up bubble-gum. But it’s worked for everyone else.

Send me no flames, now. If I hear any flames — especially from anybody who hasn’t got it and tried it — I shall laugh like this: Ha Ha!

How to Pick Up Girls (Part 2)

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San Francisco State, 1972: I’d read a book about how to pick up girls. Actually, it was about how to get laid, and was entitled “Scoremanship”. I cannot recommend the book for its attitude, but it had this one magnificent technique for meeting women.

Step One: You go to someplace where there are lots of women, such as a beach, or in this instance in the halls of San Francisco State on a busy busy day such as registration.

Step Two: You walk up this beach or hallway, and whenever you see a woman whose looks you find pleasing, you say something. It can be anything, no matter how stupid. The important point is that you’ve spoken to her.

Step Three: No matter what her response, you keep walking past. Don’t stop and talk. This is a key point.

Step Four: When you get to the far end of the beach or the hallway, now you turn around and you come back.

Step Five: Now you’ll again encounter the woman. This time, on your way back, you again say something to her. But the difference is that this time you strike up a conversation, and in due time you ask her for a coffee date or whatever the next step is. If she won’t talk with you, head on back to the next one. But the surprising is that she will nearly always talk with you … on your return trip.

Here’s How it Works

Why would this work? Why will she almost always talk with you when you return?

It’s because when you return she thinks she knows you! You’ve moved yourself into the class of guy who she’s talking with for the second time. You see, women can be protective and cautious the first time they meet somebody, but they don’t usually have a habit of being so cautious the second time they’re chatting with somebody, and you’ve just moved yourself into that category.

Getting Beyond Shyness

The second wonderful thing about this technique is that it helps you get beyond shyness. If you’ve ever felt tongue-tied in the past, this method is great. You see, there’s so little to lose, since you’re walking away. And if you say something so dumb that the sky should fall … who cares? And if you’ve spoken to a half-dozen women, you can blow it with five and still meet somebody, and that ain’t bad!

Using this particular method in the hallway at San Francisco State, on that particular morning, I met Barbara A., the writer, but that’s another story.

Wizard in a Cave

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Henrietta, Texas, 1951: My mother played her nice radio in the evenings, and we listened to Green Lantern, the Phantom, the Great Gildersleeve, the Lone Ranger, and the Inner Sanctum. Not long after, television would arrive, stealing drama from the radio, but in those days radio was one story after another. Hobby time went well with radio. For example, my mother was a great and wonderful crafts person, and made marvelous things.

As we sat in the evening with one lamp turned on, she was making colored flower stencils on pillowcases. I had a project too. She’d bought me a drawing toy called a Magic Slate. This cardboard rectangle has a gray plastic sheet attached, and a pencil-shaped wooden stylus. With this stylus, you write or draw upon the gray sheet. Whenever it’s filled up, or you get tired of it, just lift the sheet and all the writing vanishes, and you can start over. Oh, the sheer magic of it!

That night we were listening to Inner Sanctum, which was a scary show about some sort of bird or a bat. But I wasn’t scared. My mom was making stencils and I was a Wizard in a Cave.

I saw an image clearly — to be a Wizard in a Cave — staying up late, by candle-light, and writing mystical things upon the Magic Slate.

The only problem was, I didn’t know any mystical things to write.

I was staying up late. I had the Magic Slate. I was all set. I scribbled some words and alphabet things. … But they were only the things I knew. It wasn’t really magical. It made me kind of sad, having no mystical things to write.

This isn’t much of a story. I don’t even remember what happened to the bird or bat thing.

But there is this: I think that the Wizard in a Cave has been the guiding image of my life.

I was no good in sports, so I learned to be a wizard. I was fearful of girls, way too shy, so I tried to appear wizardly, intellectual, knowing magical things, wise. Haw! Seems silly, now. Seemed to make sense, then.

I’m writing this now, late at night. One lamp is on. I’m in my workshop, surrounded by magical contrivances. The musical instruments I design and build, and on which I can compose, play, and improvise. A library of books, on arcane subjects such as mysql and investment charting. Computers are here. On them I have written books, made pictures, calculated mystical things such as additive sine wave patterns.

It’s late, I am no longer young, there’s one lamp, and it’s cave-like. Welcome, Arthur. You are now a Wizard in a Cave, writing mystical things.

It’s been a long road, but to arrive at being a Wizard in a Cave is just the way I thought it would be. I know mystical things, and I can write them down here, on this erasable page. Now they are both hidden, and visible to wizards all over the Universe.

The funny thing is, the most mystical of these magical things are the plain truths of human experience, the stories we all share, the open secrets of mankind, the pain and joy of living, the gaining and the terrible, terrible losses. This is the truest magic.

Even a child knows some of this. I knew magic on that night, not recognizing it there before me. The magic was that night, the color of the light, the human dreams, and my mother making stencils of colorful paint, on pillowcases, making some beauty, for her home.

 
 

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