Feel free to browse my website and enjoy yourself as well as every moment of your life. This video brings back memories, enjoy your Holidays. Keith
As a writer and musician it seems I am always searching for something creatively to fill a hole. It seems I am always looking for that perfect word, or phrase in my writing, or that perfect sound or riff on my guitar. Hauntingly, nothing I will ever create will be perfect enough for me. It may be good, ,and I may have to settle and be satisfied with it, but never will it be perfect. Us creative types are never understood, people can't understand how we can sit for hours trying to perfect one paragraph, or sentence even. They can't understand how we can play the same organization of chords over and over. Fact is maybe us creative types don't either, it's just something we do. I know I have to do this, it's a deep urge, my soul deceased if I don't create everyday. It is a gift but also a curse.
Feel free to browse this website and enjoy yourself as well as every moment of your life. Keith. The store was built back in 1920. The money I made from the Bedlight, I used to remodel it a few years ago. One side of the store is a grocery area and the other side a small coffee and doughnut shop. On a daily basis, I converse and listen to the same individuals. The same old men have told the same stories for years, I’ve witnessed them all. The stories are what get me through this shithole year after year. Shady Ray, one of the regular customers, built the building, or so he says. Ray’s frequented this store every morning for many years, ever since my parents owned it. The day would not be the same if he did not start it off by dropping by for a bagel and coffee. This particular morning is unseasonably cool, and Ray is complaining about his aching bones from arthritis. “How are you Ray?” A friend asks that hasn’t heard his belly aching. “I hurt; cool day for June.” Ray prides himself in being a good storyteller. All his friends in the store love to hear him tell one even though it has been told a thousand times. Everyone knows exactly which story will part those lips because of keywords, this particular day, the key word being, Cool. Before gracing us with a story his buddies will talk about for the rest of the day, Ray needed coffee and bagel. Clumsily he walks behind the counter to pour a cup of hot black coffee. “Hello Ray.” “Hey, how’s it goin’ this mornin’? Kaley?” “Good, better now that you’re here.” “Yep, because if I were someone else I’d be happy as hell to see me.” Sipping black coffee from a styrofoam cup, he walks over to his table trying not to spill it on the freshly waxed floor. “How’s everyone?” “Good and you?” Five voices say in unison. “Happy as a tick on a hound’s ass. Cool for this time of year though.” He continued once again about the coolness. He has a habit of always repeating phrases, but everyone always answers as if the first time. There again, that key word letting us know the story that’s coming next. He takes one last sip of coffee, clears his throat, and begins. “Reminds me of the time when me and my crew built this very store. There was so much snow, shit, more than there ever has been here in West Memphis. The wind chill was twenty below and it was a blizzard, but we kept on workin’. I shit you not my good gentlemen, it was so cold my ball sack froze to my leg.” As everyone sat laughing and listening, he knew by the hungry look in their eyes, that their attention was his. To make it more interesting he lifts his size ten scuffed work boot plopping it down on the table with such a heavy thunk, the vibration knocks the napkin dispensers over, as well as everyone’s cup of coffee. Not expecting that to happen, he apologized, but oh well; the fellows didn’t seem to mind too much. He proceeds pulling off his gray sock showing his buddies at the table where his toe used to be and explains how he lost it from frostbite that cold miserable winter while building this very store. First, Ray didn’t even build my store, second, and I know this for a fact, he lost the toe while cutting wood when as a boy, the fellows don’t need to know that though. To my surprise, all of them begin pulling off various pieces of clothing and showing each other wounds and explaining how they got them. Yesterday I went on a venture to find an air machine that works to put air in my car tire. This is always a mission, but yesterday was the worst. I went to eight stations before I found an air machine that worked. Several I went to , the hose was completely gone, others had out of order signs on them, and even a couple just wouldn't turn on when I put my money in. Every time I go out to do this it takes at least forty five minutes to put air in my fucking car tires. I still find it unbelievable that I have to pay for air, this shit should be free, most of my life it has been, but everyone is out to make a buck now days. Sometimes if you go into the store and stare the clerk directly in the eye with your, "Turn on the air machine or I will jump across the counter and do it myself,", look, they will usually turn it on for you. If they don't , what I do is empty their penny cup on the counter and pay for the difference. It is bad enough I have to pay for air, much less drive around looking for a machine that works. You can't make this shit up. Anyway, one hour later and eight gas stations later I had air in my tire, and then to top it off the one I finally found only lasted about two minutes, barley enough time. What the fuck.? "Notice every moment." Keith
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AuthorKeith Kelly currently lives in Rio Rancho New Mexico. Archives
October 2020
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