WALKING IN DIAPERS FEELS OKAY

At Starbucks in Portland at 28th and Burnside, I'm dressed for the walk I just finished, and it was a chilly walk. Greater Portland Area is expecting maybe some few drops of snow mixed with rain during the next few days. Found some more interesting restaurants along 28th between Burnside and Sandy Blvd. Found Epif, a vegan restaurant with South American flair that has been advertising on PIFF screens. Tonight, however, I'm going to dine Italian. Saw a place with a vegetarian pasta dish...tomatoes, broccoli, you name it with zita pasta I think. Worked on rewrite of Ghoul World some little bit in early afternoon, and 70 people checked into this blog since yesterday. Thank you who are following my bucket list saga. Movie I'm seeing at PIFF tonight is Life After Life. Sent out a few more things recently to be considered for publication. I really don't do enough of the "sending out". Life is good, even in diapers. It's great walking the streets of a liberal modern city not caring if you poop your pants because it won't show through your diapers.

BEATNIK MEETS SELF IN SUNTAN

Today 92 people checked into The Silent Boomer. Have no idea why, but the number of people following this blog has leaped in the last week or so. Thank you to anyone looking in to see how I'm progressing toward my sole bucket list item. Still patiently awaiting the official contract about that poem of mine. Writing progress is as boring a report as I can give—I rewrote Chapter 7 this early afternoon while a steady rain fell on Vancouver Washington across the river from the Portland International Film Festival. Heavenly PIFF XL has gotten in the way of my rewriting task. I'm joyously crossing the Columbia River almost daily to catch a show. Saw the second best film so far last night at Cinema 21—Suntan. Found myself many times during the film, back in my falling apart days in the 1960s and early 70s. A late start after a four year term in US Navy made me an "older dude" as a teaching assistant at Southern Illinois University, drinking heavily and too much attracted to far too many women too young for me. Of course, I didn't go half so far as Kostis does in Suntan, but I felt what he felt more than once back in those bedeviled days. Worse...I was married.

Last night before the film, after eating at Dick's on 21st, I took a dreamy rainy walk eastward from 21st Avenue toward the heart of Portland, found a little coffee shop on 18th, World Cup Coffee. Sat in the rainy night across the street from the International Hostel building, reading E.O. Wilson's brilliant book, The Meaning of Human Existence and dreaming about all those things an aging man thinks about who has not exactly stormed the citadel of fame and fortune as a writer. I tried to start a poem and laughed at myself. Those poetic days are through, I thought, then found myself starting another Up Your Ass prostate cancer poem last night about the bloody pee I splashed into the bowl two nights ago. I mean bloody pee. Scared the living daylights out of me. But such events often result from irradiation of the prostate. E.O. Wilson makes me want to live to be 150 and see what wonders lie ahead. A delicious night last night, all in all. 

BEATNIK BOOMER IN BURST OF JOY

Here's looking at you. This will be short and sweet. Got to get on to exercise. Yesterday I pushed myself hard on the bike and brought my heart rate to the "high level" for a 79 year old male. I felt invigorated afterwards. I'm emerging from the physical weakness created by the radiation treatments for prostate cancer. Am rewriting Ghoul World at a chapter a day pace and believe it's as readable as a novel can be. Where in hell is that perceptive agent who sees its worth and its cinematic potential? Yesterday 82 people looked in on The Silent Boomer writing blog, AND I got news about a poem of mine that I won't disclose until it's confirmed by contract. It's a bit more than a publication in an anthology and encouraging and humbling at same time. AND tonight is my first film at the Portland International Film Festival: We Are The Flesh. Wahoo!

ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH GOES THE BEATNIK

Found here:

I'm in pain. My hormone shot day before yesterday has made my left butt sore. Yesterday I had to walk up stairways by putting my right foot on a step, then bringing the left foot up beside it. Could put no weight on left leg. And so it went. I'm also in psychic pain because after 18 chapters of who-knows-how-many rewrites of Ghoul World, I'm going back to first chapter to begin again. Why? I thought I was being clever in setting my novel 250 years into the future, but I was doing it so I could cleverly talk about a time when the year 1700 had been designated as the beginning of the new First Century, AS [After Science] as compared to all that went before as BS [Before Science]. Get the pun? Of course the change created many problems, not the least of which was that I couldn't think far enough into the future for the story line and culture I was creating. I have begun to realize my novel just isn't fantastic enough to be 250 years in the future. And all these problems were just so I could pun around with BS, so now I'm forgetting all about BS and AS and setting Ghoul World in the not too distant future after an asteroid has hit Planet Earth and spread the Rotting Plague. Too smart for my own good. I have one other idea that steals from Solient Green, but it would create the need for an entirely new plot. The rewrite would be massive. Opposing all that is the thought never too far from my pre-frontal cortex that it's time to quit this hoping game.