It always makes him sullen and resentful when he doesn't have anything to be sullen and resentful about.
Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman, Zits

When art, science and philanthropy merge, I tend toward joyous-and-thankful, but not this time.  The Cleveland Clinic to manage Lou Ruvo brain center in Vegas headline shot my sullen-and-resentful-meter sky high.  It isn't architect Frank Gehry's 'rippling grid of stainless steel' or the 'way north of $120 million' price tag that confound me.  It's this:

'I'm going to have the best doctors in the world here,' Ruvo said he told Gehry.

Who am I to disregard today's chocolate-with-impunity Valentine soirée?

So it is, with cocoa butter coursing my veins, I tweak a Feedblitz email (to send you, whenever I publish here), picks and previews purring along when, suddenly, like a vision, a mysterious menu glides down from the browser toolbar.  It contains one word, 'focus,' and the OK button.  Hmm.  Focus.  I've been focusing - or is the muse of confection warning of false highs?

Ever eat a pomegranate?  It tastes delicious, right?  Until you neigh choke on the bulbous seed of each red ruby.  A pomegranate is like the suave gentleman who never quite proposes to the lady because of his plethora of wife, children, parents, mother-in-law, mortgage, job, church... inner conflicts of interest.

There's a reason I bring up the Jane Austin of all fruits, besides wanting to feast your eyes with this alluring photo.  The necessary work of art can be daunting, too, if you fall in love with a creative idea before you understand the swallowing hazards involved.  I love to perform music.  I've worked hard to be good at it.  But venues tend to hire bands to get people onto bar stools and keep them there to drink, and drink... and drink.  Or they invite musicians into their cacophonous bookstores and cafés to play for tips, exposure and CD hawking.  These hard kernels have nothing to do with my love of performing and everything to do with saying, 'no.'