Oh, frig.

I hate the NY Times.  It makes me think about things I don’t want to think about.

It’s going on and on about Gingrich.  I’d take an Xanax if I had one.

It told me that even though I’ve lost a lot of weight the chances of keeping it off are well, frankly, remote. I’ve just made a vat of chocolate sauce.

But, the most alarming story is about my precious IPAD.

The human costs of the IPAD made by Chinese workers. Here’s the article.  It’s not pretty.

Chinese workers, in the hundreds of thousands, work on them.  And, I recently purchased one as a Christmas present on-line.  Within three minutes of finishing the transaction through the online Apple Store, I realized that I wanted it to be gift wrapped.  So, I called the telephone number they give you if you want to change or amend your order.

I got a perfectly nice gentleman who said he’d be happy to help me amend the order to include gift wrapping.  I had made the order at let’s say, 2:25.  It was now, 2:32.  He told me he was unable to amend the order because according to his computer screen, the order had shipped.  I asked him to check the time of the order.  He did.  2:25 PM. Now, I said, what time is it?  He said 2:34.

Now, I’m laughing.  He’s laughing.  And, I say, “That’s one efficient factory considering I’d asked for it to be engraved as well!”

I’m not laughing now.

Bridges, like this one  to Newport, Rhode Island, span deep waters. They are also magnets for those with troubled dreams. This blog is about jumping into deep waters through creativity and definitely not from steel railings.

It is every bit as transforming as death except for one ironic thing: you are more alive than when you started.

But, there is a cost.

You have to say “yes” to your own creativity and you have to encourage someone else to tap their own creativity.

Bridges to creativity are not made of steel but of one word, “Yes”.

Yes, I’ll pick up that brush. Yes, I’ll pick up that yarn I saw in the store. Yes, I’ll take that course. Yes, you should try that thing you’ve always wanted to do.

Bill Murray recently was asked to present an award to Sofia Coppola. If I, with this blog on creativity, can encourage you to go into your own deep waters when life hits your hard, as it always will, with just half the humor and truth, we’ll all be the better for it.

Here is the text of his remarks, reprinted from the NYTIMES, Carpetbagger. He was drinking a can of “Red Hot” during the speech.

“They told me I have two minutes. I’m going to pop this Red Hot, so I can finish in two minutes. [He pops the Red Hot.]

Why to give this award, why? Because you have to throw a party. Because you have to compete with the Golden Globes. We all ask that question, if you were able to get out tonight, celebrate, without your relatives, you’ve earned it, you deserve it. Meredith [Viera, the host] is doing a really a good job moving the crowd along, isn’t she? [Applause as he mouths the Red Hot] Why would you give it to Sofia Coppola, why? Because you want to encourage her, I think. I think that’s the real reason. Look at her. [yelling] Look at her! She comes from a family, mother and father, both very successful creating entertainments and amusements and thought-provoking work. She wrote a spec on script for the ‘Virgin Suicides.’ The ambition of these young people, can you believe it? The ambition. She got the job as the director. She directed ‘Lost in Translation’ in another country and another language and got a prize for it. God, this is a hot, hot Red Hot. I’m not going to fool you people because I got another half in my pocket. [He pops it in.] I got one-and-a-half in my mouth right now.

Then she decided to work in France and do ‘Marie Antoinette.’ A woman who was beheaded, not a sympathetic creature, you know what I mean. A lot of directors who would pass on that. Who do you root for, you know? She did that beautiful, beautiful movie and now she’s done this ‘Somewhere,’ which takes place – somewhere. I know, it’s the west coast, southern California basin. So why do you give this person an award? You give them an award because they need to be encouraged. You can look around this room and you could look around the world of film and you can see people that had great success early in your career. Some earned it, some were lucky, some got it, but in a certain point they live life, they get into life. Like Sofia’s gotten into life. She’s married, now she’s got a French lover [Thomas Mars, the singer of the band Phoenix]. She has two children, beautiful children by this French lover — and honestly I’m sick of these directors with the homely kids, I can’t stand it anymore! – she’s got beautiful children and she lives with a man who is the only Frenchman that could ever play rock and roll, ever. [Expletive] Johnny Hallyday! [Beat] Pardon [beat] my [beat] French.

So why do you encourage these people, because now she’s had this success, she’s had this work, she has this life, she has this family, she has this thing going and now is when people like you have chosen well to say, let’s give this person another boost, let’s give this public person another boost, to say, keep going, because now life will come to you, hard, like it’s come to everyone that’s lived long enough, it comes hard, it gets in the way of your career, it stops your career, it stunts your life. It definitely will make your career go left. You show me an actor doing a [expletive for terrible] movie, I’ll show you a guy with a bad divorce. [Looking directly at someone in the audience] You know who I’m talking about!

I want the best for her because she’s a lady, she acts like a lady. The women in her movies are ladies, they have strength and they have power and they’re strong. Even the pole dancers in this movie had enough of themselves to call the lead actor a moron, as all you women should call your men this evening – pole or not. Give her a boost to say, go on, you’ve made it this far, push her out into the deep water, push her out into bigger and deeper films, more and more films. She has a beautiful eye, she has great taste in the people she chooses to work with, she’s a kind and thoughtful director and editor and producer. She’s all the things that we hoped we could be when we work like this. She’s been lucky so far and she’s been strong so far. Let’s keep her going. I appreciate your asking her to receive this award for filmmaking achievement. Miss, Ms. Ms. Ms. Sofia Coppola.

Ms. Coppola, after giving Mr. Murray a hug on stage, said, “I just got a whiff of Red Hot.”

—————————–

I don’t know about you but I’m going to the store to get a six pack of “Red Hot” right now.

©Pat Coakley

www.patcoakley.com

Where have I been?  Let’s put it this way, if AMC needed to cast for their award winning TV show  “Mad Men” (advertising agency from the 60′s) they’d just have to cast one person, your “moi-ness”, SFAR.

I have become an ad agency.  Who knew?  Me, who lives one exit from the world’s most popular mall and has been there exactly once in two years.  Me, who never wears jewelry, now has a Deluxe Jewelry Photographer’s Kit complete with “dazzler” bulb.  I’m not kidding.  I love photographing jewelry.  Just don’t ask me to wear it.  I’m a bit eccentric, of course.  And, I don’t think I could do this for someone I didn’t love (my cousin, Mary) which may restrict the pool for future clients.  Let me see how would this “meeting” go….”I’m sorry, I can’t work with you because frankly I’m not feelin’ the love.”

So, you see, I’ve got to work on a better business strategy.

I’ve became all the characters: creative director, art director, accounts manager, product photographer, copywriter, graphic designer, and buxom secretary.

Well, that last part needs props.

Here is a little video of the “stuff” that I’ve been doing.  Or, if you prefer to see the exact ads, you can go to a gallery on my website called, “Palm Beach Ads”. Its the first one when you go to www.patcoakley.com.  Most were published in print but some on web.

I am awaiting a UPS package of some more jewelry tomorrow and my dazzler bulb is all a twitter.

Cousin Mary sells fashion, too, and gifts of serious and whimsical varieties.

On my agenda is to write once weekly on Waving or Drowning, on the subject of creativity, which as many of you know, I consider a life saver in every sense of that word. Of course, I haven’t done one yet, but I’ll let you know when I turn the dazzler bulb off and stop procrastinating.  (PS.  I just wrote the first installment.  Thank you, Bill Murray.)

I am putting SFAR out to blog pasture, and it also coincides with my no longer having cable TV or a land line.  Yep, my hermit credentials are increasing by the hour.  What’s next, a cabin in Montana?

The only difference between me and the Unibomber these days is I have my hair done once a month.

Yep, the time has come.  But, I’m still going to visit all of you and your sites cuz Mad Woman may be mad but she is not crazy.  She knows that the only folks who probably thought this type of venture possible would have been you.

Creativity needs encouragement and I bow at the waist for all you have given me.

As my father (W1KKP were his call letters) would say in his sign-off to his ham radio worldwide buddies he’ d speak to every day…he’d say this into his large steel mesh microphone after each session of talking back and forth across the world.

“Over and Out. W-One-King-King-Peter.”

©Pat Coakley 2011

www.patcoakley.com

I had the Apple salesperson take my photo with the IPAD.  I then emailed it to my great nieces and nephews.  “Here I am just lookin’, not buyin’.”

The 8 year-old said with wisdom, “This does not surprise me that Pappy is in that Apple store!”

The 10 year old, named after my late brother, is coming to visit tomorrow to spend the night and to read the new book in his favorite series, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”.  I bought the book on the day it was released, November 9th, and I’ve just made up his bed, put the stuffed animals all around, and stood the book up next to the new Dog Pillow Pet.  He’ll be thrilled.

I’m thrilled he still wants to come visit.  He’s worried that I’m getting rid of cable.  I told him we’d watch Netflix movies on my laptop.  I just put up an easel with nice paper.  Maybe he’ll paint me something.  He’s good at drawing.  I stink at it.  But, this is a read weekend: He’s going to read his book and I’ll read mine.(“Freedom”, Jonathan Franzen)  We’ll make heath bar crunch cookies.  I’ll say it’s for him that I’m making them.  Bacon Pizza.  The boy never met a piece of bacon that didn’t call him by name.

We’ll go to see “Megaminds” on Sunday and then end at a restaurant that has delicious fried haddock.  Haddock is his favorite.

His mother said he was really looking forward to coming.

Honestly?

Isn’t this a far better gift than an Ipad?

Yes, of course, it is.

But, if he arrived at my door, say… suitcase in hand, smile on his face… with an Ipad for Pappy in his other hand?

Snap out of it, Pappy. Snap. Out. Of. It.

You have everything you need when the doorbell rings.

©Pat Coakley 2010

PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

**Select photographs from this blog and my wider archive

Thank you Anna and Bernhard Blume for this 1986 parody of housewives who have been in the kitchen too long, domesticity run amok, with potatoes of their own volition (that’s what the placard next to it said) flying all about.

It’s part of an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC that I recently enjoyed to the utter max.

And, it prepared me for today, Election Day 2010.

I just returned from casting my vote.

Proudly.

Every democrat on the ballot got my vote. I don’t care if he or she was a felon and shouldn’t have been on the ballot in the first place, I’d have voted for the bastard.

Potatoes are flying of their own volition today.  The rules of gravity and common sense simply don’t apply.  Something other than reason is operating and I’m calling it Spud Physics.

I’m secretly hoping several of those flying spuds hit those drones of the airwaves tonight as they begin their “analysis”.  Watch for the scroll on the bottom of your TV screen:

BREAKING NEWS!!!! ****”Flying Spuds Attack Glen Beck’s Tear Ducts”*****Breaking News!!!!Flying Spuds Land on John Boehner’s Nose*******Breaking News!!!!Flying Spuds give Anne What’s Her Name a haircut and a plaid dress******

©Pat Coakley 2010

Select photographs from this blog and my wider archive can be purchased or licensed at www.patcoakley.com

It’s apple pickin’ time.  I went to a farm that picks them for me because lord knows I don’t want to have to exert myself during fruit gathering.

Five of these apples cost me 5 dollars.  They are the size of Cinderella’s coach. They are called Wolf River apples, (named after a spot in Wisconsin) and they are good for cooking and, the reason I bought them, for photographing. Folklore says you can bake a pie with just one of them they are so big.  They are beautifully colored, sort of like a Gala apple on steroids.

There.  Now, to the news.  I am renaming my blog, giving up cable TV, and going to get off my la la and stop waiting for my ya ya.

Yep, after two and half years of writing and posting under “Single For A Reason” I am going to transition over to either my own domain name site, patcoakley.com or to another blog I have called,”Waving or Drowning”.  I’ve written short articles about caregiving on this site in the past but it has been sorely neglected and still is.  But, the name suits me to a T which is why I took the time and money several years ago to register its name.

I felt that it would either be this name (SFAR) or Waving or Drowning that would be the title of “things”…blogs, articles, books, sitcoms, cattle auctions, you know…things of interest.  I did a Google Alert on ‘Single for A Reason”, the phrase, and 100% of the time it is used in blogs about dating.  People unhappy or unlucky in love.  So, I bequeath them the name and wish them well with their co-mingling.

I’m Irish.  I coexist with hope and doom on a daily basis.  I’m neither unlucky or unhappy but the poem by Stevie Smith, Waving Not Drowning, strikes home.   It is about someone who has taken a swim, gone out too far–the water is much too cold, exhaustion sets in, and when they turn to signal for help, the people on the shore think they are just waving “Hello.”

It makes me laugh out loud as well as feel a footfall of profound recognition.

Creativity has been my life jacket throughout my life and so I’m consolidating my creative ventures under a new umbrella, more of which I’ll write about later.  The blog move is just a part of what is going on.

But, as of November 13, I’ll have no more cable TV or land-line telephone– which if you know me, you are a little bit slack-jawed– and that is the date I’ve determined to transfer this blog to one name or the other.  If I could figure out how to do it all on my own domain, I’d do it.  But, I’ve got some techie issues.  The next paragraph will give you an idea how serious the problem is.

I’ve been a TV girl from sprout status.  I had an HD TV before most people I know.  Why?  Because it was important to me.  Now, unless I can figure out this antennae business…I bought an antennae that is supposed to get me over the air “free” channels but in order for me to get the stations I have to stand in the middle of my living room holding up the antennae like the Statue of Liberty.

I’m stopping short of buying a cabin in Montana and growing a beard but I am loosening the grip of media madness and relying only on an internet connection.

We’ll see.  I’ll write about it, photograph it, dip it in detergent, and leave directions on this site where to go to find me.

Hope you do.  I’ll be here till November 13, though.

Waving.

(Here’s a link to that silly song, “Ya Ya”  by Joey D and the Starliters that was so popular when I was graduating from high school.)

©Pat Coakley 2010

PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

Select photographs from this blog and my wider archive can be purchased or licensed at www.patcoakley.com

I had an aunt who used to store her booze in the pantry off her kitchen where she lined up her household detergents.

She was tall, lithe, and impeccably dressed and very religious and strict but would swoop into a room like Loretta Young at the beginning of a party at her house but by the time the evening was mid-point, she’d be emerging from the kitchen wearing rubber gloves and her kitty on her head.  She was never observed drinking in public.

When she was older and a widow, she had a companion whose nickname was “Pet”, and they went to church and came home and pretty much drank the rest of the day.  They used to ruminate about the past, fight once more battles long settled, and pretty much feel the righteousness of a muddled mind, lurching from one dictum to another.

I’m thinking of auntie today because I read in the paper that Clarence Thomas’s wife had left a voice message on Professor Hill’s office phone at Brandeis University, about 15 miles from me.

Apparently, her message was suggesting Professor Hill apologize for her testimony to the Senate Judicial Committee when Clarence Thomas was being confirmed.

She has confirmed leaving the message through her publicist (she’ll be needing several more after this) but said it was some sort of offering of an olive branch to Professor Hill.

This isn’t sizing up as an olive branch to me.  What about you?

My guess is pure mathematics: Self-Righteousness+ Spirits +Cellphone = Drunk Dial!

If auntie had lived in the age of cell phones she’d have needed Don Draper from “Mad Men” to grass over the bloody battlefields caused by her unsolicited gifts of olive branches.

©Pat Coakley 2010

PHOTOGRAPHY CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

**Select photographs from this blog and my wider archive can be purchased or licensed at www.patcoakley.com

The best vote I ever made and will again in 2012.

©Pat Coakley 2010

PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

••Select photographs on this blog and from my wider archive can be purchased or licensed on www.patcoakley.com

I have cornered the market on manhole covers and brother nostalgia who is portrayed here with a little–no, a lot– of Ocean Liner nostalgia as well.  My cousin calls it “otherworldly”.  Good enough.  It’s the past world.

It began as a Kodachrome slide taken in 1956 by my father of my 14 year old brother standing in front of The Queen Mary in Southampton, England.  I did a polaroid image transfer in 2007 (over 50 years later) which accounts for the jagged edges and subtle coloring.

Then, last week,  prompted by having to give a talk about digital collage on the anniversary of my brother’s death in 1998 (The professor said it went very well, btw, he said, “They weren’t on Facebook while you were talking.  Amazing!”  I bet he says that to all his guest lecturers.)

Anyway, since they are doing a project on someone who has died but who has left an ongoing narrative to their life, I updated my polaroid transfer with one of my Citra-Solv papers with a hint of text to suggest the conversation that still goes on in my head with the past world of ships and brothers.  I didn’t get to talk about this one though because the quality of the overhead image was so terrible, it wasn’t worth it.  So, I sang, “Feelings” instead.  There’s probably a viral youtube video circulating as I write this blog.

That’s it for nostalgia, at least for awhile.

(C’mon,  I did NOT sing, “Feelings”.  It was too hot in there already.)

@Pat Coakley 2010

PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

**Photographs from this blog and my wider archive can be purchased at www.patcoakley.com