Delray Beach Drum Circle – April 15, 2016

Here we go again! As long-time readers know, my Unpacking The Writer series is where I peel back the curtain to reveal the inner-workings of the mind of a one-man newsroom operation. 

The Wizard of Oz analogy is always appropriate since I once wrote under the nom de plume of Aunty Em and christened my haters The Flying Monkey Squad. But enough about those crazy MoFos.

I usually begin these Unpacking The Writer on the 15th of the month and spend a few days slapping down the points I want to make for the month. Then I use part of another day to kick it into shape, finally publishing the sucker under this rubric when it feels right. It hasn’t felt right because I’ve barely had time to work on this.

I started putting this together in my head at Wednesday’s Delray Beach Drum Circle. I’m still going to drum circles whenever possible. Over the last year I’ve developed some Drum Pals, and we either meet up or share rides to the event. I am generally the designated driver; not because anyone is drinking alcohol, but because I just love to drive. I am fascinated by my interest in Drum Circles. Why is this so important to me? I’ve never been a joiner, but find myself abandoning my inner curmudgeon to get together with other people so I can bang wooden sticks together.

I know there’s a story of several thousand words in Drum Circles, but it’s yet to find me and I have not found it, either. Like I used to tell my children when they couldn’t fall asleep, “You can’t go looking for the Sandman. He has to come find you.” Same with stories I really want to write.

Campaign Carl helping me cement our great friendship. We’re now like THIS!

The last week has been somewhat hectic. I went to the Marco Rubio campaign kick-off and managed to get 2 separate and totally different stories out of it. Three Stooges In The GOP Clown Car is my take for the Not Now Silly Newsroom, while Outside The Curcus Tent At The Marco Rubio Campaign Kick-Off was an EXCLUSIVE for PoliticusUSA.

However, the best part of last Monday was exchanging information with my new best friend, Campaign Carl Cameron, Chief Political Correspondent for the Fox “News” Channel. We had a few laughs over the fact that his bosses hate me, but he had to do a live pop for Cavuto (or was it The Five?) before we got around to discussing anything important, like “Is Hannity as crazy as he seems?” or “Does Loofah Lad Big Foot everyone in the Fox corridors, the way he does guests on his show?” However, there’s always the next time. Call me, Carl. You have my business card.

Politically, NNS started this past moth with Cruzing Back To The ’50s ► Presidential Politics Post, which tipped my hand as to how I plan to follow the GOP field of candidates. I’m not going to take any of them seriously until the field has been narrowed to the top 3 or 4, and then I’m going to start making fun of them.

This month also included A Passover/Easter Pastoral Letter, the latest in that series. While I have a great need to be exploring these issues, I’m not so sure Pastor Kenny shares my need. What has me puzzled is why Pastor Kenny doesn’t sense my need and minister to me. No matter, because I am still making discoveries on my own, mining an area I call “The Trunk Lost In Transit.”

The month ended with another campaign event (and my first real headache of the season, but I’ll get to that eventually). Compared to someone running for POTUS, the Miami District 2 campaign is small ball. However, aside from the fact that the District 2 Commissioner is considered the most powerful in Miami, local politics is really where the rubber meets the road. Think globally. Act locally.

Lorry Woods in conversation with a voter in West Grove

Restauranteur Lorry Woods has been on what she calls a listening tour of her potential constituents in Miami’s District 2. Because she held a Meet & Greet in the part of the district 2 that interests me the most, I drove down to West Grove and posted my day as Coconut Grove Is Not Out Of The Woods Yet. It was nice to run into so many people I knew at the BBQ and meet several new people.

That’s where the headache comes in. I was fine when I left Coconut Grove, but partway home I started to get one of my debilitating migraines. By the time I got home, I could barely see straight and had to crawl into bed to try and nap.

I go through this every Spring. It’s a symptom left over from when I had a vestibular disorder almost 2 decades ago. While the constant dizziness and vomiting eventually dissapated, 3 symptoms never went away: 1). When I am in a room with an awful din of background noise, I can’t hear the person right next to me; 2). I have occasional attacks of tinnitus. These are not as difficult to handle as some people experience because it only ever lasts from a few seconds to a minute, tops, and then it fades away to nothing. Although, it’s incredibly painful; like high-pitched feedback. Instructively I cover my ear it hurts so much; 3). And, massive headaches when the air pressure is changing rapidly from RAIN to FAIR. That tends to describe Spring and, to a lesser extent, Fall.

Sure enough, as I was driving home, the clouds rolled in and I could see lightening in the distance. When I finally got home and upacked the car, I checked the barometer in the kitchen. The needle had swung all the way over to LIE DOWN NOW!

The biggest news this month is that I have FINALLY reformatted the hard drive in my PC tower, after threatening to do it for so long. It kept the Not Now Silly Newsroom off the air for 2 weeks, but it was worth it. I’m now running WinDoze 8.1 and everything is a whole lot faster than it was previously. At the same time, to help facilitate the downtime without a RC tower, I bought a laptop, which is also running WinDoze 8.1.

The laptop and renovated tower will, hopefully — because that’s the plan — make the Not Now Silly Newsroom more productive. With so many stories in the hopper, I should be busy for quite some time. F’rinstance, there’s a whole new Trojan Horse Parking Lot story I want to write, not to mention a more recent story on a brand new way the City of Miami is trying to keep public information from the taxpayers. However, there’s still some more research and a few interviews I want to conduct before that sucker’s ready.

Meanwhile, I recently had a whole new idea to explore that has nothing to do with writing, politics, or Drum Circles. However, I can’t tip my hand yet. Maybe by the next Unpacking The Writer, I’ll have all the disparate threads on that tied up and can make an announcement on this new venture.

Until then, we take you back to our original Not Now Sill programming, already in progress.