Sonoran Dawn Digital Art Piece Inspired by the Effloresce Chapbook Cover Art

I do my own cover art. I do other people's book and album covers too. Digital art is rehabilitation for my brain inflammation. 

I was playing around and created the new Effloresce chapbook cover and a watershed of creativity opened up inside me. 

The inspiration created the art piece I called: Sonoran Dawn (left). I did it for my Zazzle Art Collection I. Then my publisher with the same name, Sonoran Dawn, decided to update their logo with my color scheme and motif.

The Sonoran Desert is represented by the bison skull, cactus, cross, sun, vines, and colors. 

The earth tones are muted like sunsets. The luscious green not only represents my Irish descent but also the green of the Palo Verde trees, Saguaro cacti, and wildflowers.

Abstract, expressionist, impressionist, the Sonoran Dawn art piece is an exquisite example of fine art in digital form.

If you would like see the Sonoran Dawn updated logo visit their site here.

Have a great and wonderful day!

Rain Showers and October Flowers

A scary, electric thunderstorm rolled through my neighborhood this evening. 

The storm appeared to build on top of our area as an orange sun set in the distance. The cloud to cloud lightning illuminated the sky in muted tones of blue and white. The trees and bushes swayed under the wind bursts and blows. The rain splattered and spit until the gush of a downpour soaked everything in its path. 

The last surge of the monsoon was the best one of the season. Finally the parched earth saw some measure of moist relief. The dirty air from previous dust storms was cleaned as the smell of humidity doused the otherwise hot and dry molecules. A faint odor of ozone hung between the hydrogen and oxygen covalent bonds. The air was indeed electric to the smell as well as touch.

Now the season is over. 

Will this rainy evening bring with it flowers in October? Or just the memory of the last vestiges of summer spilling over into an autumn night? Sunflowers have hidden away to sleep until the sun rises in half a day's hours. 

The night is calm once again. The stars beam their lights. The nestled birds are quiet upon the wind.

Have a great and wonderful day. 

The Heat is On in the Sonoran Desert

120 this coming week. 

For good measure, I am getting all my chores done this week. I am going to be hiding out writing in the darkness of my room. 

It only seems fair. We had a beautiful and cool month of May. Now the Monsoon needs to be pulled into our deserts for July and August. In order for that to be done, the desert floor needs to be hot, hot, hot! So a small period of extreme heat followed by humidity and rain. 

I will see you in October... I am crawling under my rock until then! 

Just kidding. Immobility will give me a chance to catch up on some of my upcoming publications: Manufactured Consent; Marijuana Legalization, Rights of Others, and Solving Health Issues with Nutrition; Haunted Arizona: Travelogue of a Paranormal Enthusiast. 

To name a few, I hope you return to read more about these topics, and even some poetry and fiction. 

So buckle up... and get into the air conditioning! It's going to be hot this summer on the writing front.

Have a great and wonderful day!!! 

 

Spring is Here, Sports are Overrated, and Stories Abound

Yes, I know those in the upper and eastern portions of the United States are frozen.

In Phoenix, 80's are on their way! Good, I hate the cold. I hate snow even more. I did live in Iowa as a child and I am so glad we fled, I mean: moved.  

The only wish I have is that frigid weather would ruin the Super Bowl. Then maybe Arizona would not be cursed with having to host another one. 

I know that sounds harsh but sports are not important. Sports are for fun. Sports are not supposed to be a person's main focus in life or take up their extra cash.

Let's put it this way.... We pay men to play with a ball in several sports more than we pay our teachers to teach our children, people to watch our children while we are at work. It is really obscene once you put sports in perspective to the rest of our world. 

These examples demonstrate the failing of ethics and morals. Roman Gladiators and idolizing current sports figures are but two different sides of the same coin.

In writing, a writer can find the similarities between the past and present as well as what irritates him or her about their own culture and use that experience to create another society in fiction.

Perhaps writing about how cultures defeat their male worship sports binge might be a good novel to write.

That and the weather. I cannot wait for our nice warm weather to stay awhile, even if the temperatures do not ruin the Super Bowl. At least I will have a good time being outside again. 

Well, if the planes stop spraying lines all over that make me ill and cause breathing problems. Yeah, clean air days and blue skies would cure a lot of what ails me.

Shut the Door

116F 

Should I say more? I'm not going outside unless I have to. I could die of heat stroke just walking out my front door at 9am.

Welcome to the desert in late July.

Most people I encounter online ask why I live in the hottest region of the United States besides Death Valley. I list the facts: there are no tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, blizzards, or other potential natural disasters apart from some monsoon action. 

I don't have to run to a basement or tuck myself into a bathtub. I lived in the midwest and western coastal region. Phoenix may be unbearable for about 90 days a year but at least if all else fails, I can go to the local grocery store and hang out until the sun goes down. 

It's not perfect but at least I am not afraid. 

Plus it is the perfect weather to write. I'm not going outside. I'm not jogging or walking or exercising of any kind. Nada.

I have a plan and that is to write 2K to 5K words a day. 

A person I know said one paragraph a day and you can write a book in a year. I'm too OCD for that. I like writing, then I stop for a while, and then I begin again at a furious rate. 

So it's time to do a little pacing of my writing habits. 

It's better than pacing in the heat!

Have a great time writing this summer.

Time to Clean House, Pt 44

It seems like every day I want to clean my house.

I like a nice, neat house, but I have kids. Right now, those kids are running through the house chasing each other and jumping onto the furniture.

Good thing, my kids are cats.

Luckily, it's going to be warm this week until the beginning of next. The only complaint I have is the lines in the sky. Damn, geoengineering chemicals! Ruins my fun every single time.

I have to keep my house closed and the air cleaners on. When those trails get to the lower atmosphere, I start having respiratory and other problems.

I'm not the only person in Arizona upset by these chemical lines. I just did a story for the Gazette about a man in Mohave County: Geoengineeing: One Arizonan's Battle Against Being Poisoned.

I couldn't make this shit up if I wanted to. 

So I have got to get everything done so it can go out into the recycling and trash bins for pick up tomorrow morning.

Then hide again, I must, until someone stops the planes from poisoning all of us.