Even in New York City, you have to take time out to smell the flowers, or, in my case, today, to hang out with Kennedy Miller, age 3 1/2. I didn't go out and knock on literary agents' doors, I didn't try to find a publisher, I didn't do anything to further, my "career," to make me the next all American novelist, or poet, or journalist, or whatever it is that I am. I hung out with Kennedy. We made videos using my digital camera. Kennedy sang; she danced, and she did a little routine where I asked her who her favorite person was, and she shouted out the answer. Guess who she picked? Keep in mind, that I had bribed her with the promise of chocolate milk if she gave the right answer to the camera!!

The Palomar(www.palomartheband.com) cd release show is tonight. I hate bars, but I am looking forward to going to The Mercury Lounge, tonight, in the Village, for this show. My connection to the band is their drummer, Dale W. Miller. He and his wife(and now their child, Kennedy!!) are old friends of mine. Dale was the drummer and my Keith Richards or Joe Perry type( in that he also worked his ass off to make that band a sucess) in The Mikel K band, a spoken word, musically improvisational group that put out two cds, and raged, baby, raged. Dale and Breigh met in Atlanta, ten years agao, moved to New York and got married, I guess about five years ago, now. Dale is still living his dream of playing music. He is lucky to have a wife who lets him go on the road, and spend all the time that it takes to be a musician. Dale is a great drummer, but more importantly, he is a great husband and a great father.
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I was saddened, last night, to see that Kurt Vonnegut had died. What a great talent. I am up in New York, as I said, primarily to see Dale play at his band's cd release party, and I was at a bookstore in Williasmburg, last night; they had several Vonnegut books on a table with other books. I thought to myself how I probably wouldn't see Vonnegut on the display tables in the bookstores back in Atlanta, and then I got home and found out on the internet that he had passed. He lived a rich life. He brought great joy to many of us. May God rest his soul.

Here's a piece that I wrote last night on the Harper Perennial's My Space Blog, when my emotions were raw about the passing of this great man...http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=58175312&blogID=252321062&Mytoken=EE7FE6F3-DC5E-42C7-ABD782B03D0CE92D1845207

Ps I feel really stupid. The bookstore in Williamsburg must have already heard about Mr. Vonnegut's death before I got there and that is why his books were on prominent display and I bet that his books were on prominent display in Atlanta because of his death. Death can be good for book sales.