Our weekly tour around the web to bring you positive and happy news ~ Rev Kane
Video of a sweet little 2 year-old boy with Down’s Syndrome reciting the alphabet.
Baltimore pays teens to shovel sidewalk for elderly and disabled
Strangers form human chain to save trucker from fall
Mosque opens it’s doors to stray cats to keep them safe and warm
Our weekly tour around the web to bring you positive and happy news stories ~ Rev Kane
From the Huffington Post, 5 Headlines that will restore your faith in humanity
Woman Drinking Coffee
How to Hack Your Day, So You Can Have the Best Monday Ever
Cat rescued by 3 Huskies made part of the pack
Video of Panda at the Washington Zoo Enjoying the Snowstorm
Some people go crazy, what horrible lives they must leadTonight I feature my favorite poet the quotes are his as well. I first discovered him through his books and stories, Ham on Rye, Post Office and sprinkled through the books there were poems that I found interesting. I did not know he was actually far more well-known as a poet. I myself had been writing poetry for a couple of years at that point and had literally told no one. Not a single person had ever seen or read one of my poems. In addition to all of the normal fears that any writer has about their work I had an additional anxiety about my poetry. You see my only real experience with poetry growing up was from the poetry we read in school. I liked some of it, Shakespeare, William Carlos Williams but in general the classic poetry we were fed didn’t resonate with me at all, and all of the poetry we were fed had some common characteristics. The language was flowery, lots of twenty-five cent vocabulary words, there were certain structures that had to be followed, generally things had to rhyme. It all seemed like writing meant to point out to you that if you weren’t highly educated and well-spoken that poetry couldn’t be created by you, and should be read as a world you aspire to but can never have. It was a false opinion but I had limited exposure.
In contrast, what I wrote was not flowery, it was direct, dark, I swore it looked and felt nothing like the poetry I had read before. Then, I was introduced through his books to the poetry of the Poet Laureate of the Gutter, Charles Bukowski. He didn’t write flowery positive pieces about beauty and love, he wrote about how hard life was, being drunk, feeling inadequate and alienated. He was distinctly middle class, his subjects included other drunks, hookers, and bums. He bared his life and his soul and made no excuses for it not being pretty and it wasn’t.
But there is a difference between pretty and beautiful and although Bukowski’s soul was pretty, it was absolutely, horridly beautiful and it connected with me. He pointed to the same absurdities in life I see every day. He felt like an alien on earth and I identify with that feeling completely. Seeing his work, seeing people react positively to it gave me the courage to share my work. This is why I have said on many occasions that Charles Bukowski gave me permission to write poetry and I thank him for it. My writing has become an outlet that has made me a saner and happier person.
So here are a few pieces by Bukowski for your enjoyment. I’ll share links for more of his stuff and other poets below, you see knowing about Bukowski opened a door for me into a whole world of poetry I never knew existed. Through that door I’ve found folks like Peter MacWilliams, Sapphire, Warsan Shire, Doug Draime, and most recently Ashe Vernon. Their writings are raw, brutally in your face, unapologetic for their hard views and in doing so they make you have to deal with the realities of the world. In my literature I like escapism, in my poetry, harsh reality. Enjoy and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Our weekly tour around the web to bring you positive and happy news stories ~ Rev Kane
Iranians Create Kindness Walls to Help Out Homeless
Valedictorian anonymously posts positive comments about every one of his classmates.
Anderson Cooper outfits all K9’s in Virginia Police Department with Bulletproof Vests
Ellen Degeneres Wins Humanitarian Award, Donates $200K to St. Judes
Tonight for my weekly arts post I decided to reach back and drop a quick sample of three of my favorite poets, Sapphire, Warsan Shire and my newest, Ashe Vernon. A piece by each with a link back to where you can get more of their work, enjoy and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Excuses for why we fail at love
I’m lonely so I do lonely things
Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.
You hate women, just like your father and his father, so it runs in your blood.
I was wandering the derelict car park of your heart looking for a ride home.
You’re a ghost town I’m too patriotic to leave.
I stay because you’re the beginning of the dream I want to remember.
I didn’t call him back because he likes his girls voiceless.
It’s not that he wants to be a liar; it’s just that he doesn’t know the truth.
I couldn’t love you, you were a small war.
We covered the smell of loss with jokes.
I didn’t want to fail at love like our parents.
You made the nomad in me build a house and stay.
I’m not a dog.
We were trying to prove our blood wrong.
I was still lonely so I did even lonelier things.
Yes, I’m insecure, but so was my mother and her mother.
No, he loves me he just makes me cry a lot.
He knows all of my secrets and still wants to kiss me.
You were too cruel to love for a long time.
It just didn’t work out.
My dad walked out one afternoon and never came back.
I can’t sleep because I can still taste him in my mouth.
I cut him out at the root, he was my favorite tree, rotting, threatening the foundations of my home.
The women in my family die waiting.
Because I didn’t want to die waiting for you.
I had to leave, I felt lonely when he held me.
You’re the song I rewind until I know all the words and I feel sick.
He sent me a text that said “I love you so bad.”
His heart wasn’t as beautiful as his smile
We emotionally manipulated one another until we thought it was love.
Forgive me, I was lonely so I chose you.
I’m a lover without a lover.
*****************************************
You were melt-in-my-mouth—
Tuesdays under the sky.
I picked your words like
fruit from the vine;
we were decadent.
Stretched out in the sunshine-touch
of each other’s lips,
your skin hot like a Texas summer,
I could have spent forever
tucked against the apple orchard of your chest.
My sundress hiked up around my thighs.
The two of us, laughing, with
“Someday” on our tongues—dripping down our chins,
all gold and vibrant.
We were ripe for eating.
We were sticky-sweet.
We were less Forever than we thought.
And when the cold set in,
I was still eating apples
even after you’d dug up your roots and gone.
(You said I held my hands too still.)
I wasn’t doing nothing.
I was putting down seeds
and waiting for Spring.
*******************************
And I´m running,
running wild,
running free,
like soldiers down
the beach,
like someone
just threw me
the ball.
My thighs pump
thru the air
like tires
rolling down
the highway
big & round
eating up the ground
of America
but I never been any
further than 42nd Street.
Below that is as
unfamiliar as my
father´s face,
foreign as the smell of
white girls´pussy,
white girls on the bus,
white girls on TV
My whole world is
black & brown & closed,
till I open it
with a rock,
christen it with
blood.
BOP BOP
the music
pops thru me
like electric shocks,
my sweat is a
river running
thru my liver
green with hate,
my veins bulge out
like tomorrow,
my dick is
the Empire State Building,
I eat your fear
like a chimpanzee
ow ow
ow whee
ow!
My sneakers glide off
the cement like
white dreams
looking out at the world
thru a cage of cabbage
& my mother´s fat,
hollering don´t do this
& don´t do that.
I scream against the restraint
of her big ass sitting on my face
drowning my dreams in sameness.
I´m scared to go
it hurts me to stay.
She sits cross-legged
in front the TV
telling me no
feeding me
clothing me
bathing me in her ugliness
high high in the sky
18th floor of the projects.
Her welfare check buys me $85 sneakers
but can´t buy me a father.
She makes cornbread from Jiffy box mix
buys me a coat
$400, leather like everybody else´s.
I wear the best, man!
14 karat gold chain
I take off before I go wildin´.
Fuck you nigger!
Nobody touches my gold!
My name is Leroy
L-E-R-O-Y
bold gold
I got the goods
that make the ladies
young & old
sign your name across my heart
I want you to be my baby
Rapper D
Rapper G
Rapper I
my name is lightning
across the sky
So what I can´t read
you spozed to teach me
you the teacher
I´m the ape
black ape
in white sneakers
hah hah
I rape
rape
rape
I do the wild thing
I do the wild thing
My teacher asks me
what would I do
if I had 6 month
to live.
I tell her I´d fuck her,
sell dope & do the wild thing.
My thighs are locomotives
hurling me thru the
underbrush of Central Park,
the jungle.
I either wanna be a cop
or the biggest dope dealer in Harlem
when I grow up.
I feel good!
It´s a man´s world,
my sound is king
I am the black man´s sound.
Get off my face whining bitch!
No, I didn´t go to school today
& I ain´t going tomorrow!
I like how the sky looks
when I´m running,
my clothes are new & shiny,
my tooth gleams gold.
I´m fast as a wolf
I need a rabbit,
the sky is falling
calling my name
Leroy Leroy.
I look up
blood bust
in my throat
it´s my homeboys
L.D., C.K. & Beanbutt!
Hey man what´s up!
I got the moon
in my throat,
I remember when
Christ sucked my dick
behind the pulpit,
I was 6 years old
he made me promise
not to tell no one.
I eat cornbread &
collard greens.
I only wear Adidas
I´m my own man,
they can wear New Balance or Nike
if they want,
I wear Adidas.
I´m L.D.
lover
mover
man with the money
all the girls know me.
I´m classified as mildly retarded
but I´m not
least I don´t think
I am.
Special Education classes
eat up my brain
like last week´s greens
rotting in plastic containers.
My mother never
throws away anything.
I could kill her
I could kill her
all those years
all those years
I sat
I sat in classes
for the mentally retarded
so she could get
the extra money welfare gives
for retarded kids.
So she could get
some money,
some motherfuckin´ money.
That bitch
that bitch
I could kill her
all the years
I sat next to kids
who shitted on themselves,
dreaming amid
rooms of dull eyes
that one day
my rhymes
would break open
the sky
& my name would
be written
across the marquee
at the Apollo
in bold gold
me bigger
than Run DMC
Rapper G
Rapper O
Rapper Me
„Let´s go!“ I scream.
My dick is a locomotive
my sister eats like a 50 ¢ hot dog.
I scream, „I said let´s go!“
„It´s 40 of us
a black wall of sin.
The god of our fathers
descends down & blesses us,
I say thank you Jesus.
Now let´s do the
wild thing.
I pop off the cement
like toast outta toaster
hot hard crumbling
running
running
the park is green
combat operation
lost soul
looking for Lt. Calley
Jim Jones
anybody who could direct
this spurt of semen
rising to the sky.
soldiers
flying thru
the rhythm
„Aw man!
nigger please
nigger
nigger
nigger.
I know
who I am.“
My soul sinks
to its knees &
howls under the
moon rising full,
„Let´s get a female jogger!“
I shout into the twilight
looking at the
middle-class thighs
pumping past me,
cadres of bitches
who deserve to die
for thinking they´re better
than me
You ain´t better than
nobody bitch.
The rock begs my hand
to hold it.
It says, „Come on man.“
T.W., Pit Bull, J.D. & me
grab the bitch
ugly big nose white bitch
but she´s beautiful cause she´s white
she´s beautiful cause she´s skinny
she´s beautiful couse she´s gonna die
cause her daddy´s gonna cry
Bitch!
I bring the rock down
on her head
sounds dull & flat
like the time I busted
the kitten´s head.
The blood is real & red
my dick rises.
I tear off her bra
feel her perfect pink breasts
like Brooke Shields
like bitches in Playboy
Shit! I come all over myself!
I bring the rock down
the sound has rhythm
hip hop ain´t gonna stop
till your face sees
what I see every day
walls of blood
walls of blood
she´s wriggeling like
a pig in the mud.
I never seen a pig
or a cow
´cept on TV.
Her nipples are like
hard strawberries
my mouth tastes
like pesticide.
I fart.
Yosef slams her
across the face with a pipe.
My dick won´t get
hard no more.
I bring the rock down
removing what she
looks like forever
ugly bitch
ugly bitch
I get up
blood on my hands
semen in my jeans
the sky is black
the trees are green
I feel good baby
I just did
the wild thing!
I’d like to live as a poor man with lots of money ~ Pablo Picasso
This week’s Powerball jackpot is 1.5 billion dollars as I write this, the worlds largest ever lottery jackpot. Yes I have tickets and yes I’m good at math. I completely understand the odds of a single ticket winning is 1 in 292.2 million, I know that I have a hugely better chance of being struck by lightning. But what I paid for is not a realistic chance of winning, the fact is someone will eventually and it’s utterly unlikely to be me. When I normally play the lottery I play the fantasy 5 games that have long, (but if you’re going to win huge money the odds will always be long), but better odds of winning. I figure it’s worth $2 a week to try to win a few hundred thousand. Besides, no matter what people say, that $100 a year properly invested is not likely to make much of an impact on my finances.
No, what I’m paying for with my Powerball tickets is the opportunity to fantasize for a few days. Sure, I can sit around all day long without a ticket and dream of ways of spending that money. However, having even just one ticket in my pocket makes that fantasy actually possible and that ups the ante on the fantasy and makes it that much more enjoyable. I mean you can play poker all day long with peanuts as a stake but the game is infinitely more fun even at just a penny ante level. It’s the same principle at work here.
So if I win, no I won’t be going back to work. Yes, I’ll still be doing the Ministry of Happiness and writing. I’ll get to do a lot more adventure travel and travel in general. I’d move toward a life of travel and writing, the same thing I’d do if I could make an equivalent living from writing instead of being an educational administrator.
The beauty of the big money however is that I’d have a house on the ocean. A really nice cabin in the mountains to go with it. I’d be a bit decadent for sure, I think we all would. But I’d also take care of all of my nieces and nephews educationally, I’d surprise some good friends with some great gifts. I’d bless a few charities with some significant help. I’d have really good season tickets to the Steelers.
So great, the Powerball ticket allows you to do a bunch of frivolous daydreaming, so what? Well, positive day dreams are fun, they make us happy and that by itself would be worth the $2 ticket but there’s a bigger reason this can be important to your happiness. You see your daydreams tell you something important. Those what if daydreams are showing you what you love, what you want, what you are passionate about.
In mine, I’d become a full-time travel writer, well that’s what I’ve been gradually working toward for the last few years. I may not get there until I have enough retirement set up in my current gig. But this says I’m passionate about writing and travel. I hope you know those things about yourself already, but if you don’t, this just might be a way to figure them out. And I’m sorry in advance for suggesting the idea, you see when you do this, you might leave out some people and things that you feel should be important, that’s telling you something as well. Below are a couple of links on how daydreams and happiness intersect.
Creativity, Happiness & Daydreaming
TED talks – Surprising effects of a wandering mind
So drop $2, daydream away and have a happy day and maybe you’ll even hit the jackpot and have a very happy day my friends. Besides, if you’re suddenly a billionaire, you can become Batman! ~ Rev Kane
Remember that those who are happiest are not the people getting more, but the people giving more ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Our weekly tour around the web to bring you positive and happy news stories ~ Rev Kane
Alarm clock wakes you up with aromas instead of sound – I totally need one of these.
Get your own face 3D printed on a Lego figure
Mother and Kids Treat Homeless Community to Sweaters & Food
There are Angels Among Us – A true story of a friend who we’ve lost
The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us. ~ Ashley Montagu
I was driving the other day and the phone rang, it was my brother, he doesn’t typically call during the middle of the day so I was concerned there might be something wrong. So I answered the phone and asked what was up, “A lot actually.” It turned out that my newest nephew had been born a month early and on my brother’s birthday. His other son’s birthday is two days later so the beginning of January is now a three way birthday convergence in his family. I was really excited for him, it was a heck of a birthday present.
The end of 2015 was a bit of a rough time for me but 2016 seems to be starting out pretty positive, I’m making good progress on the book I’m writing, I have a new nephew, I recently got to spend a bit of time with an old friend and a have dinner with a friend I made on the Appalachian Trail this summer. Someone suggest recently that it looks like 2016 is going to be a great year, but I’m not quite ready to go there. I’ve never experienced a year that was wholly bad or good and I’m sure 2016 will bring with it a mix of both, but whether it’s a good year is really all about our perspective, that’s the point I want to bring forward tonight.
You see no one’s life is fully bad or good, in fact, if you carry that thought out nothing is wholly good or bad. It’s the idea behind the Yin/Yang symbol or the saying every cloud has a silver lining. There’s a little bit of good in all bad, and a little bad in all good. In most circumstances in our life we don’t experience the extremes, we aren’t constantly faced with really terrible or really wonderful situations. What we see are situations that are a mix of both good and bad. What really determines whether we see them as good or bad situations is the way we decide to to look at them.
So our attitude is really important to whether or not we see our lives as going well or not. So why not give yourself the benefit of the doubt and choose to look at the positive in any situation instead of focusing on the negative. One place this is really important is in controlling our thoughts and guarding against worry. Worry is automatic focus on the negative and worse, negatives that may never come to be making worry a waste of time. I have written about this before in a piece called, worry the enemy of happiness. the piece has some great tips on reducing worrying.
So my friends how about a really positive resolution for the new year, that we’ll choose to focus on the positive in each situation and worry less. If we could accomplish those two things we’d have a truly good year, full of happy days ~ Rev Kane
Happiness Resources: Positivity, Kindness & Gratitude
Our weekly tour around the web to bring you some positive news, enjoy and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Three legged kitten adopted by two year-old amputee share a special bond
The city of Austin, TX is meeting it’s goal of housing all homeless veterans in 2016
Pope Francis asks the media to cover more good news
Man takes dying dog on fun-filled bucket list adventure
Rev Kane relaxing in the snow flurries
The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it ~ Richard Bach
I’m having a little trouble tonight coming up with my Sunday night post. This is the one night of the week where I get personal on the blog, most nights it comes easy for me, tonight, not so much. I find myself in the beginnings of another transition phase, I’m in my final month in Florida, working to finish up the first draft of my book, Appalachian Trail Happiness. I’m getting close and it feels good and also creates a lot of anxiety, writing it is the easy part for me, the publishing process brings me anxiety.
I’m also looking at applying for jobs and that brings the realization that my gypsy life is near its end, at least for a time. But there is a lot tied up with that, where will I live, what job will I take, how will I react to my sudden lack of freedom, definitely some anxiety around all of that. Although I do believe what I’ve learned and changed about myself in the last year will serve me well as I move forward.
Smiling even at a Polar Bear Crossing, I must be doing something right
Relationships are changing as well, the loss of my granny has had a bigger impact than I anticipated. A relationship, that I find hard to even define, that I’ve been in for fifteen years is changing and it’s hard. The thing is though, with all of the change, the loss, the anxiety I’m still really happy. My life is in a better place than perhaps it has ever been and I guess what I should talk about tonight is why.
All of our lives our complicated, all of us are dealing with anxiety, change and loss. These three things often derail our happiness, so how is it that it isn’t having that impact on me right now. Well my friends, for those of you who have been reading along 2015 was a wild ride. You see first of all I took a huge risk in 2015, I quit my job, sold my house and came east to hike the Appalachian Trail and hopefully get enough out of the experience to write a book. I completed 1000 miles before a couple of knee injuries finally ended my hike. Even though I didn’t complete all 2200 miles of the trail I was really proud of what I accomplished. The trip led to a lot of learning about myself, I challenged myself and pushed myself physically and mentally. I also had a whole lot of fun, met some incredibly folks, made great new friends and easily get enough material for the book I mentioned above.
Another long distance hike was on my bucket list, writing a book was on that list, taking a year off was on there as well. So why am I so happy, well:
I took risks on things I was pretty sure would make me happy
I challenged myself physically and mentally on the Appalachian Trail
I am in the process of finishing the first draft of a book about that experience, another thing off of my bucket list and an accomplishment I’m really proud of soon completing.
I took time to learn about myself but even more than that over the last I’ve taken time. Just that, taking time to slow down, to breathe, to look around and appreciate life has had an immense impact on me.
When I lost my granny I was in an incredible amount of pain. She’s the one person in my life who I could always count on to be supportive, to be positive. She’s was always thrilled to hear my voice or see me. She was a seemingly infinite well of positivity and good feelings that I could count on. Losing that is terrifying at some level. The one thing however that makes me feel good is that I spent time with her, whenever I could. I called, I visited, I bought her gifts, but most of all I just sat and talked with her. That time is a precious memory and I know she knew I loved her and what she meant to me and I’m sure of that because I told her.
Also this year, because I was east I got to spend a lot of time with my nieces and nephews and especially my youngest niece Rooney. You see hanging around with a three year-old for six months is huge, its simple math, that three months is one sixth of her total life experience, that’s a lot.
So there’s a bit of recipe here my friends, not the only recipe but definitely one that has merit. Do you want to be happier? Take some risks on the type of things that will make you happy, particularly on those things that attach to your passions. Challenge yourself, physically and mentally, you don’t have to hike a thousand miles but find something you want to do, prepare for it physically, plan for it mentally and do it. In the end it really doesn’t matter what it is as long as it challenges you. Click off a couple of things on your bucket list no matter how small. Finally, and maybe most importantly, don’t assume you have time, spend time with those who mean the most to you, especially the very old and the very young.
So my friends, take what time you can and slow down. Spend some time with those who mean the most to you friends and make someone else’s and have your own happy day. ~ Rev Kane
Holiday Happiness: Overcoming Worry
Appalachian Trail Happiness: My favorite little hiker
Happiness is a Polar Bear Adventure (Bears & Northern Lights)
Happiness is a Polar Bear Adventure (A flying Polar Bear)
Appalachian Trail Happiness: Trail Community
Appalachian Trail Happiness: Precious Moments
The Ministry of Happiness 