This article was included in the July 2026 issue of Story Impact magazine.
Remember “The Two Horse Brand” blue jeans?
It’s what Levi’s were called from the late 1800’s until 1928 when the company switched their brand name to simply, Levi’s. Their iconic logo of two horses pulling in opposite directions trying to pull apart a pair of jeans with the slogan “It’s no use, they can’t be ripped.” jump-started the company and persists to this day. Now, let’s get metaphorical and imagine the two horses are Calliope, the muse of literature, and Euterpe, the muse of music. That makes me the blue jeans hitched to the muses, being stretched to the breaking point, hoping that my rivets hold out.
Meanwhile, the Greek muse of comedy, Thalia, points a finger laughing at my painful situation. All my life, it’s been this way.
Euterpe was the first to visit when I was about 8 years old. We had a pair of maracas, and I would furiously play along to the Nutcracker Suite. I got so good my mother would have me play at her Tupperware parties. I was an instant hit! Euterpe was pleased. She had planted a seed. Still, I was just a little kid easily distracted, and Euterpe would have to wait a while because another muse had found her way into my young brain.
Jim and Kathy Ocean are the creative force behind OceanWorks Productions. This artistic duo blends music. cultural activism, and
literature, recently debuting their rock ‘n’ roll fantasy novel, John Lennons Glasses.
Calliope, the muse-in-chief, was not one to surrender a young mind so easily. She waited for an opportunity, and it came in the form of The Twilight Zone, which I watched religiously every week. Gazing at Rod Serling’s furrowed brow with smoke curling skyward from his lit cigarette, ! longed to write like him. Calliope heard my wish and urged me on. I began writing short, quirky stories and continued doing so for years. But then, I impulsively gave the collection to a high school crush, who promptly and unapologetically lost them. Calliope was pissed.
She couldn’t believe I was so stupid as to give away my only copies. Meanwhile, Euterpe–sensing her chance to win me back, played her trump card. The Beatles. With puberty in full bloom, penning weird psychodramas paled by comparison to the allure of cashing in on Beatlemania. So, I put down the pen and picked up the guitar. And like Ulysses on the Isle of Calypso, Euterpe kept me enthralled, imprisoned and inspired for decades.
Until… eight years ago when imagined John Lennon looking over my shoulder as I labored to write a song about universal love. It turns out that Euterpe and Calliope had formed an alliance, teaming up with Lennon to inspire not only “The Lennon Song”, but also the novel, John Lennon’s Glasses. Unfortunately, Calliope and Euterpe ended their détente and returned to their tug-of-war; and I’m back to being the blue jeans.
Meanwhile, Thalia, with eyes twinkling behind her comic mask, leans in and asks, “What are you going to do?”
I swear, can’t we all just get along?
