Author: BuddyCushman

Easy Like Thursday Evening

It’s funny that here just after 8pm I just said to myself, “Well, I didn’t do a thing today”, and yet the facts would bear out that I was busy doing “stuff” and some of it real “important stuff” from the time I pulled myself up from the meditation chair just after 5am until maybe…

By BuddyCushman 02/05/2021 1

Nutty Buddy

“The monkey may be off my back, but the circus is still in town.” I like that saying/description/self-evaluation and most days it fits just right in here. You know……..in here. I woke this morning feeling as if aliens had transported into the bedroom the middle of last night and sucked the brains from my head.…

By BuddyCushman 02/03/2021 0

Rejoice In It

Let me set the scene. It’s the summer of 1987, around then, on the central east coast of Florida – specifically the town of Edgewater, about 20 miles north of Cape Canaveral. Most Monday through Friday afternoons would find me sitting in a small clubhouse on a side street off US 1, there with a…

By BuddyCushman 02/03/2021 2

Monday Mateus

It is so interesting to wonder, for me anyway, where ideas come from. Not their source, their place and time and terrain of origination. Assume they exist and all those categories can be explained, can be mined for their facts. No, I’m talking about the “out of the blue” quality of ideas showing up. I’m…

By BuddyCushman 02/02/2021 0

Friday Way Approximations

5 a.m. Meditation 7 a.m. Morning Pages 9 a.m. – Zoom meeting 10 a.m. – Finished one book, began another 11 a.m. – Long walk through the Hood Noon – Mailed “Milky Dent” and Greeting Card to San Fran 1 p.m. – Coffee and heavy reading 2 p.m. – Electric trim beard, hair….shower 3 p.m.…

By BuddyCushman 01/30/2021 2

Times

I entered the Fred Meyer grocery store just after 8:15 this morning, holding a shopping list of weekly foods for my son Spenser – who was home asleep in a warm bed. In addition to the shopping list, I had in my long, hand-me-down coat left pocket a rag soaked in bleach, zipped in a…

By BuddyCushman 01/29/2021 4

Wednesday – Rosy Redux

Early this morning I was reading the ‘Preface’ Italo Calvino wrote for his book “The Path to the Spiders’ Nests”. The book was originally published in 1947 and this preface written 17 years later, in ’64. He had gone back twice in those intervening years and made substantial changes to the book, adding here and…

By BuddyCushman 01/27/2021 0

The Pieces I Am, Too

This morning early, up there in the living-room recliner, I finished reading Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye”, the paperback with her 1993 Afterword. My first thought, closing the book, was to run down here to the basement and gather every unsold copy of the books I have written and not sold and set fire to…

By BuddyCushman 01/26/2021 5

Any Given Day

I was running a tad slow earlier this morning, before the light of day, before the call of chickens down the street, before even the mile-away peacocks. Sort of casual, I was, and digging it, all the ambiance and evidence of abundance and ways to find small joys, delight, within my own creations and expanding…

By BuddyCushman 01/25/2021 0

Twists in the Road

This morning, sitting in the mauve, living-room recliner, sipping hot coffee, I found myself slipping back through the time and times of my life – these 72 years – and it came to me I had experienced four moments during all that time where causes and conditions, a specific event or two leading the way,…

By BuddyCushman 01/23/2021 2

Daily Weather

Posts here at ‘Couch Surfing at 70′ have been few and far between the last number of months, a psychic break from the one-after-another 2020 ’30:30’ timed-writing blurbs which morphed into the bulk of “The Files of Milky Dent”, that book ultimately taking most of my writing energy within the process of editing and revising.…

By BuddyCushman 01/22/2021 0

A Coffee with Bruce

Wilson Yang rang me up Thursday morning, asking me about Bruce Sylvia. Do you remember Bruce Sylvia, you class of ’67, Wareham gateway to Cape Cod, Massachusetts kids? My across-the-street neighbor? The call got me thinking. Also writing. ….Letter to Bruce S from your Brah across the street…. Bro!!! – Man, long time no see.…

By BuddyCushman 01/15/2021 0

Checking Out

2020 – “I Think I Prefer They Die” I have hurried to the mirror. For a consultation. How much beast, I wonder at the glass, Do I allow its freedom? And will drugs help again? Not so much influence, politic, go joining, Swizzle weary threats – Under the influence I cannot Remember where I hid…

By BuddyCushman 01/12/2021 0

Quietly Howling

“The Universe is a new flower.” – Allen Ginsberg What he wrote, the Universe being a new flower, in response to a severe criticism in the press regarding one thing or another he’d published, or something he and Jack Kerouac wrote, or something they said, or maybe it was just about who they were. Living…

By BuddyCushman 12/31/2020 0

It Might Be Dos Equis

(Blogger’s note: Another story submitted by my good pal and surely up-and-coming published writer Milky Dent. I’d say this one is pretty much straight fiction, except all the stuff which isn’t – and I’d like to remind you that I have edited and also written the Foreword for Milky’s first ever book – “The Files…

By BuddyCushman 12/16/2020 0

Live the Way I Want

I left Massachusetts due directly to normal average daily winter temperatures, for instance 25 F, though I’m fairly sure even without what one might determine a classical education in the sciences, it’s a tad, wee bit colder on the surface of Jupiter, but right here if you go back to the act of yanking as…

By BuddyCushman 12/11/2020 1

Waking Up Brings Possibilities

(Blogger’s note: What follows is a guest piece for the Blog written by my long-time friend Milky Dent. In fact it was a few months back when Milky phoned and asked me if I’d consider writing a “Foreword” for his upcoming book – tentatively to be titled “The Files of Milky Dent”. I said I’d…

By BuddyCushman 12/06/2020 0

The Return of Nolan James (a 30:30 Report)

(Blogger’s note: Sheriff Nolan James is a recurring character in your Blogger’s forthcoming collection of supernatural/sci-fi tales, “Collected Strays”, due Spring 2021. Making this something of a sneak preview.) Oh, vast nonsense, you trickle through electrical hops and skips there in the old noggin’, slipstream consciousness drooling from either ear, who knows, maybe they take…

By BuddyCushman 11/30/2020 1

Friday Morning, California

There are hangovers and then there are hangovers. This morning it was one of the latter, the big old super-duper crawl to the bathroom, merry-go-round reality, grasp the bowl, tear at abused stomach muscles and wonder if seven cups of coffee and half a three-day bagel just maybe can return this sorry excuse for a…

By BuddyCushman 11/22/2020 0

The Basement

Jasper Silva (Kelly’s cousin) eyed the disaster which was the basement/cellar of the rooming house into which he had recently sunk well-earned cash as a new roomie, a renter of a room, his on the second floor over on the right side of the building when the building was viewed from the street, making it…

By BuddyCushman 11/17/2020 0

Doses of Ramble (Vegetables)

Some 50 minutes after sitting against the living-room wall, the bloody Mary been drunk, I began to stop seeing the world. But I found my palm quite interesting. Very interesting. I raised my right hand below my face and looked down at the palm. It did not move. My eyes did not move. I did…

By BuddyCushman 11/08/2020 0

Jenny, Jenny

“Each individual we meet during the course of our day is at any given moment most likely emerging from a state of depression, is already in a state of depression, or is just about to enter a state of depression. A sensitive teacher always keeps that in mind.” – Eknath Easwaran Kind of depressing –…

By BuddyCushman 09/20/2020 7

Trifecta’s Dream

I have this friend, her name is Trifecta Sanders and this in case you’re wondering is her genuine birth certificate got it at birth celebrated every birthday name, turns out her grandfather on Dad’s side was big on and with and for and about the ponies – you lookin’ for Harry, check the track –…

By BuddyCushman 09/02/2020 1

More LoLo (30:30)

LoLo Reynolds did what she does and dropped the cushion directly in front of the old beater couch and followed with dropping her knees onto the cushion and leaned her arms and elbows and wrists and edges of her palms on the couch and had her fingers intertwined in what could be considered a somewhat…

By BuddyCushman 08/31/2020 0

Couch Surfing at 70 Vacay

Three final 30 minute 30 second “Story” posts will appear here in the Blog these next three days – Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Thereafter this Blog will go silent for an extended period of time. Your poster is and has always been grateful for the readers here, and their occasional comments. And hey – Stay…

By BuddyCushman 08/30/2020 0

The Big Whacky

This is what gets called “The Big Whacky”, a lovingly way to describe our get-together every Tuesday night down in the Methodist church basement which we have rented for thirty-five dollars a month and where we gather to recollect fun stories and possibly mythologies of revolutionary acts and behaviors, well maybe they get termed guerilla…

By BuddyCushman 08/25/2020 1

‘You’re It’ They Tell Me (a 30:30 report)

There was a dance in Onset. I was there with my date I’d been dating for some eight months, a crazy chick from up in Lex named Frannie, boy oh boy did I love her for a time, we were of course double-dating with my across-the-street-slightly-older-lapsed-Catholic-still-attending-their-school-bussed-there-every-morning friend named Bruce and his girl-on-the-arm for the night,…

By BuddyCushman 08/18/2020 0

When Listening is Enough (a 30:30 report)

And now, live from the outskirts of Oklahoma City, here comes the Benny Bragg Comedy Hour. Or some such thing, the kind of time-waster most people in the States would be happily satisfied with. Most. Becky Franzine, thank goodness, doesn’t even want to live here cause she’s always dreamed that Portugal or Greece would be…

By BuddyCushman 08/06/2020 0

Ronnie Lawson

They say it’s nighttime after 6pm but in August in West Falmouth none of us would consider it nighttime until something like 9:30 or even up until 10 which is when the very last of the light from the day coming to an end glitters off the water in Buzzards Bay and skedaddles on to…

By BuddyCushman 08/03/2020 1

This Being How We Roll (a 30:30 report)

Sir Rick Fluming, my long-time associate and running buddy, arrived at the Oakland airport later yesterday afternoon. Katie Symonds drove me down the 880 to pick him up, which was all joyous reunioning and new intros and he said he’d seen humongous-sized bunnies hopping on the runway while landing and maybe we could go out…

By BuddyCushman 07/27/2020 2

Here in the Bay Window (a 30:30 report)

Asa Jackson sat in the bay window cut-out, looking through the paned-glass out over the West LA community. A mix of residential and business, the residential both apartment and single family. This is my kind of town he said to himself, sipping a second cup of early-morning coffee. He liked this view, and the angle,…

By BuddyCushman 07/16/2020 0

Kid Time

We had all kinds of rude sayings when we were kids, back there in the hometown which I say with honesty has never left the inner places of my heart. And I believe we have souls and you can add my soul to the places where all those visions and remembrances and goof sayings and…

By BuddyCushman 07/13/2020 0

Asses in Classes (a 30:30 report)

Well, I try never to follow up on my half-hour-plus reports left dangling – even when I promise I will – because where’s the fun in that and what about each of you lucky readers of these (the rumor is) incredibly hip and engaging non-stop damn near breathless tales missing out on the chance to…

By BuddyCushman 07/11/2020 1

The Puking Muse (a 30:30 report)

There was something about ice skating on cranberry bogs, which are words we said to each other 15 years after the fact when we reached our early thirties and we were still lucky enough to not have died from some overdose situation, and for that matter, what about all those times I had woken up…

By BuddyCushman 06/27/2020 0

Jackie Halligan (a 30:30 Report)

Jackie Halligan stopped back at his locker between third and fourth periods. This was in Nauset Regional Intermediate School. A couple of kids he knew were a few lockers down, and Jackie heard one say to the other, “The moon is too made of green cheese. Only an asshole doesn’t know that. Plus, I have…

By BuddyCushman 06/25/2020 0

This Little Harbor (a 30:30 report)

We used to trail horseshoe crabs at Little Harbor beach when we were kids. These beach visits were mostly, and maybe always, on trips with the folks, when a blanket would get spread on the sand and there was likely a genuine picnic basket and tuna fish sandwiches or peanut butter and jelly and pickles…

By BuddyCushman 06/18/2020 0