A portrait of useless philosophy and domestic (canned) drunkenness.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Monday, January 29, 2007
Seeking cadence within the confines of attention defecit disorder.
I've been waiting for that rapt attention to steal me back and bring clarity to this existence. Like a sail awaiting wind, or artist biding time for inspiration, or lonesome old fool praying for a good piece of mail in the post. It has been some time and i believe i'll wait longer...
This city lulls me in a comforting din, sooths my assent to being without escort. Days have tripped by in a growing haze, content yet aloof to something greater than myself. I had a few days to spare and so drove southward into the Mojave Desert, hoping to cozen an epiphany or perhaps elude my growing reticence for a spell.
The skies were limitless and draped a shimmering web of stars overhead. I skipped my poor sedan through empty washes, planing on washboard, dipping into sandy culverts. And with the coming night joshua trees turned to silhouette astride spiny saltbush, creosote, and brittle bush. I drove into the empty desert dusk. It was reckless and i knew it, but it felt like life and so i welcomed it.
The first night i laid aside a tuft of desert aster and felt the days heat radiate from the coarse ground. The wind sailed above me but settled with the final waning light to the west. I only awoke once to the assault of nearby coyotes giving unified cry a few tens of yards away. I talked myself back into my bag and fell asleep until morning.
The following day found me hiking into the canyon and up unnamed slopes and peaks. The silence deafening, welcome sounds of a train in the distance or falling rocks as i scrambled a loose ravine. I don't know where i lost it, but somewhere it caught up to me. I don't want this; this is too much, too big, too open... i need a translator! So midday i drove into town over the dusty washboard again. Thought about my day with a goblet of margarita in my hand at a dusty mexican joint on the roadside. I felt sense coming back, no matter my failure or the absurdity...
Bought a six-pack on the way out of town and returned to the Mojave. Watched the sun set over the Clark Mountains, leading toward the logistical hell of Los Angeles. I started humming a song that seemed appropriate to the occasion. Leonard Cohen said it, "I fought against the bottle... but i had to do it drunk. Took my diamond to the pawnshop... but that don't make it junk." I sat back against the hollow refuse of a downed joshua tree with a bottle of red ale in my hand. And only then could i let everything in... the immensity of space.
This city lulls me in a comforting din, sooths my assent to being without escort. Days have tripped by in a growing haze, content yet aloof to something greater than myself. I had a few days to spare and so drove southward into the Mojave Desert, hoping to cozen an epiphany or perhaps elude my growing reticence for a spell.
The skies were limitless and draped a shimmering web of stars overhead. I skipped my poor sedan through empty washes, planing on washboard, dipping into sandy culverts. And with the coming night joshua trees turned to silhouette astride spiny saltbush, creosote, and brittle bush. I drove into the empty desert dusk. It was reckless and i knew it, but it felt like life and so i welcomed it.
The first night i laid aside a tuft of desert aster and felt the days heat radiate from the coarse ground. The wind sailed above me but settled with the final waning light to the west. I only awoke once to the assault of nearby coyotes giving unified cry a few tens of yards away. I talked myself back into my bag and fell asleep until morning.
The following day found me hiking into the canyon and up unnamed slopes and peaks. The silence deafening, welcome sounds of a train in the distance or falling rocks as i scrambled a loose ravine. I don't know where i lost it, but somewhere it caught up to me. I don't want this; this is too much, too big, too open... i need a translator! So midday i drove into town over the dusty washboard again. Thought about my day with a goblet of margarita in my hand at a dusty mexican joint on the roadside. I felt sense coming back, no matter my failure or the absurdity...
Bought a six-pack on the way out of town and returned to the Mojave. Watched the sun set over the Clark Mountains, leading toward the logistical hell of Los Angeles. I started humming a song that seemed appropriate to the occasion. Leonard Cohen said it, "I fought against the bottle... but i had to do it drunk. Took my diamond to the pawnshop... but that don't make it junk." I sat back against the hollow refuse of a downed joshua tree with a bottle of red ale in my hand. And only then could i let everything in... the immensity of space.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Thoughts from a year to date...
I was born a few years after Mt. St. Helens erupted on the exhausted holiday commemorating Christopher Columbus. For this reason, and perhaps also due in part by my Libran nature, i've been forced to solve the riddle of decision-making. Columbus was not so savvy in discovering much of anything and his accounts show stretches of the truth and, at other times, flat-out lies of reaching the New World. Instead, Columbus' alleged route took him directy into the tropical doldrums where he and his crew awaited near death by dehydration, while they scrawled pretty delusions such as, "What i thought was the land was but a cloud."
I've recently discovered that doldrums are not only confined to 0-30 degrees latitude, but seem to wreak the same havoc at... let's say 45 degrees, in the domain of the prevailing westerlies. I feel akin to each, since i'm certainly prevailing here in the west, though at times i feel like a recyclable plastic bag blowing in the breeze, or at other times just lying in the road waiting to be swept up by artificial vehicular wind.
In recent days i've been cast about on a sea of snow and ice wondering to whence i came and to where i go. And to more neoteric times, i've returned to a splendid summer mantra that kept my engine upon the rails for the warm months: "Lower the bar. Be Philistine." Which upon utterance, quelled feelings of alarm and anticipation, anxiety mind you. With the return of these passing nuances, adjustments have been made and this calming sutra has been reinstated.
It seems that we are all at the mercy of our own scrutiny and introversion. I, for one, would greatly appreciate the absence of deep thoughts for a spell and more profoundy contemplate the complexities of NFL football in its final weeks. Wouldn't that be a more worthwhile ponderance than continuing to wrack my brain upon a future that will never come, for the present is ever-residing?
I've been intently considering the metamorphosis to a Himalayan blue sheep, or Bharal, which is hypothetically an evolutional divergence between goat and sheep. Bharal especially enjoy crashing their heads and horns together in a way of solving dispute (rather than sitting astute and solving nothing by way of thought).
"For most creatures, such an encounter would be fatal, but bharal are equipped with some two inches of parietal bone between the horns, together with a cushion of air space in the sinuses, thick woolly head hair, and strong necks to absorb the shock, and the horns themselves, on the impact side, are very thick and heavy. Why nature should devote so many centuries- thousands, probably- to the natural selection of these characters that favor head-on collisions over brains is a good question, although speaking for myself in these searching days, less brains and a good head-on collision might be just the answer." ~Peter Mathieson, The Snow Leopard
I've recently discovered that doldrums are not only confined to 0-30 degrees latitude, but seem to wreak the same havoc at... let's say 45 degrees, in the domain of the prevailing westerlies. I feel akin to each, since i'm certainly prevailing here in the west, though at times i feel like a recyclable plastic bag blowing in the breeze, or at other times just lying in the road waiting to be swept up by artificial vehicular wind.
In recent days i've been cast about on a sea of snow and ice wondering to whence i came and to where i go. And to more neoteric times, i've returned to a splendid summer mantra that kept my engine upon the rails for the warm months: "Lower the bar. Be Philistine." Which upon utterance, quelled feelings of alarm and anticipation, anxiety mind you. With the return of these passing nuances, adjustments have been made and this calming sutra has been reinstated.
It seems that we are all at the mercy of our own scrutiny and introversion. I, for one, would greatly appreciate the absence of deep thoughts for a spell and more profoundy contemplate the complexities of NFL football in its final weeks. Wouldn't that be a more worthwhile ponderance than continuing to wrack my brain upon a future that will never come, for the present is ever-residing?
I've been intently considering the metamorphosis to a Himalayan blue sheep, or Bharal, which is hypothetically an evolutional divergence between goat and sheep. Bharal especially enjoy crashing their heads and horns together in a way of solving dispute (rather than sitting astute and solving nothing by way of thought).
"For most creatures, such an encounter would be fatal, but bharal are equipped with some two inches of parietal bone between the horns, together with a cushion of air space in the sinuses, thick woolly head hair, and strong necks to absorb the shock, and the horns themselves, on the impact side, are very thick and heavy. Why nature should devote so many centuries- thousands, probably- to the natural selection of these characters that favor head-on collisions over brains is a good question, although speaking for myself in these searching days, less brains and a good head-on collision might be just the answer." ~Peter Mathieson, The Snow Leopard
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Pause.
This morning i tossed all of my clothes and towel into my hiking pack and walked to the corner laundromat. This neighborhood, in the Mission, should be renamed for its many laundry options. It seems every other corner has a laundry; i've never seen anything like it. Further down toward Bernal Heights and Potrero, the corner laundromats are replaced by corner day-workers. Three to four Mexicans per corner, sitting on the curb, leaning against convenience store windows. Yesterday walking from the library, i counted twelve of them dispersed to each of the four corners at an intersection. They speak excitedly amongst themselves, smiling, and frenetically gesture at slow-moving vehicles. I walk by and nod...
I brought my book this morning, occasionally glancing up to watch the tumble cycle or to doodle on the steamed window pane. Besides the clothes on my back, every single sock and skibby and shirt was tumbling in that dryer. This simple existence i was thinking, and still i have no idea what i'm doing. For the past two weeks i've been signing my name, printing it, filling in the boxes, checking yes and no. Potential employers, strangers, and friends... they've been asking me, what do i want to do? And i've been answering them in complete sentences, begging decent grammar and syntax. I've been pretending that i know just what it is that i want. Do any of us truly have a clue?
Day to day i fill my time with trips to the park, grocery, library. I pore over books, read them and give them away, i search for good music and then attempt to turn others on to the same. Every now and again i stop, and looking around i wonder what i live for. Do i live for these activities i fill my day with? Am i waiting for something? Do our ambitions and motivations drive and sustain themselves, or must we only use our imagination...
I brought my book this morning, occasionally glancing up to watch the tumble cycle or to doodle on the steamed window pane. Besides the clothes on my back, every single sock and skibby and shirt was tumbling in that dryer. This simple existence i was thinking, and still i have no idea what i'm doing. For the past two weeks i've been signing my name, printing it, filling in the boxes, checking yes and no. Potential employers, strangers, and friends... they've been asking me, what do i want to do? And i've been answering them in complete sentences, begging decent grammar and syntax. I've been pretending that i know just what it is that i want. Do any of us truly have a clue?
Day to day i fill my time with trips to the park, grocery, library. I pore over books, read them and give them away, i search for good music and then attempt to turn others on to the same. Every now and again i stop, and looking around i wonder what i live for. Do i live for these activities i fill my day with? Am i waiting for something? Do our ambitions and motivations drive and sustain themselves, or must we only use our imagination...
Friday, January 12, 2007
Cardinal Crumbs...
Have you ever loved someone that you barely even liked? Oh... what a royal pain in the ass! I was burning some home-made tortillas in a skillet and had music on the shuffle. And somehow a song managed to make it to the play... and a feeling got me from nowhere. It was a song that once brought me thought of her. An old face, a young face... and how i loved her. But she was mad! She was a selfish brat! I thought about it, looking down from a second story toward the corner of Haight and Scott. A quick-stepped bald man hurrying about the corner barber shop turning out lights, readying for home. And the evening cold pushing down the street over our many-bodied hills.
Nursing a bottle of Wild Turkey and feeling better about it. Not really a sore thought in my body tonight, only the thought of why and how i could love such a person so fiercely. Those tremorous thoughts come once in a while, and sometimes i'll receive them. And it struck me that maybe, yeah maybe... it had nothing to do with her. What a thought! "Baby, i love you, but..." A real mother.
Since technically everything is in your head, maybe i should elaborate. Love is not something one could simply conjure at will, and that's a fact (i've tried to... i really have). But, every now and again it sneaks into the strangest episodes and nothing will fit for reasoning. It makes me fantasize of the door opening. That familiar face looking toward me. I'm on the couch with my sixth drink smiling... "I really love you. I don't know why. It has nothing to do with you. You are beautiful, but that's not it. I think if you completely changed it'd work out... Still, for what it's worth, regardless... i love you." Yeah. That's about the extent of it... the Devolution.
Nursing a bottle of Wild Turkey and feeling better about it. Not really a sore thought in my body tonight, only the thought of why and how i could love such a person so fiercely. Those tremorous thoughts come once in a while, and sometimes i'll receive them. And it struck me that maybe, yeah maybe... it had nothing to do with her. What a thought! "Baby, i love you, but..." A real mother.
Since technically everything is in your head, maybe i should elaborate. Love is not something one could simply conjure at will, and that's a fact (i've tried to... i really have). But, every now and again it sneaks into the strangest episodes and nothing will fit for reasoning. It makes me fantasize of the door opening. That familiar face looking toward me. I'm on the couch with my sixth drink smiling... "I really love you. I don't know why. It has nothing to do with you. You are beautiful, but that's not it. I think if you completely changed it'd work out... Still, for what it's worth, regardless... i love you." Yeah. That's about the extent of it... the Devolution.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
On Tour in America...
I was never much for new year recap and resolution, but it does have a certain charm about it. And my good friend, i hope you don't mind if i borrow a page. For this past year was quite interesting and it will never be again...
A sigh for the innocence lost, that adolescent associative that neither existed in time nor place. It couldn't be helped... and now it's time to move onward. I wonder at which point i lost this undefinable, imaginary precept. Was it as i came of age, clueing into the melding wheels of academia and vocation? Maybe earlier, as i swirled my cap'n crunch berries in a sea of purple milk? Or later, holding a straw to the broken bulb? The three beds in a week that i slumbered?
The year began a veritable mess. Key components: a brain of booze, packed car, six thousand feet elevation, hour of midnight, and a blizzard, and the going-away gift of drinking water thrown in my face. Salud! Young Werther! Yet hey, when you start low, the inevitable climb awaits.
I climbed into the Sierras from the upper-plains of Nevada. A dear friend awaited with Mt. Gay Rum and Jameson and some similar turmoils. We mulled our thoughts together in the old-fashioned way, on the rocks. Then to the lights of Reno and the banks of the Truckee River for a spell, onward to the Bay for a spot of regathering my wits. Seven lanes of traffic brought me in and those same seven took me away. But the city was glorious with its music and food. Reconvening old friends and lovers; absurd situations that turned the dial and forced an objectivity to my life, just when i needed it.
I worked a few months for my parents in Washington, found the calluses in my hands and dirt beneath the fingernails. Caught a flight to Florida to visit an old friend. A week of smoking and margarita stupors that found us shouting prose at the alligators, joining a pool tournament in some Buffet bar, and pushing the mangrove coast to Willie Nelson on repeat.
Flew back to the West and repacked my car, pushed it across the flats of Eastern Oregon beneath the double-arch of the most amazing rainbow i have ever seen, and then up into the high valleys of central Idaho. Andrew and I scoured the hillsides for woodpeckers and bluebirds. We did this project on behalf of humanity, funded by hard sought taxpayer money. We marvelled at the scenery and our growing collection of bottles and cans.
Then it was the Inside Passage beneath the wing, flying over the southeast panhandle toward Baranof Island where recreational drinking compliments and strikes awe to the scenery. I haphazardly fished, visited the cultural saloon centers in my slippers, and became a familiar face to every librarian and grocery store clerk.
My year ended restless again without much learned or gained except that the wings of whim can be soft and gentle. If you're driven then do it, because we can only let ourselves down, and i can see now... there's really no need.
A sigh for the innocence lost, that adolescent associative that neither existed in time nor place. It couldn't be helped... and now it's time to move onward. I wonder at which point i lost this undefinable, imaginary precept. Was it as i came of age, clueing into the melding wheels of academia and vocation? Maybe earlier, as i swirled my cap'n crunch berries in a sea of purple milk? Or later, holding a straw to the broken bulb? The three beds in a week that i slumbered?
The year began a veritable mess. Key components: a brain of booze, packed car, six thousand feet elevation, hour of midnight, and a blizzard, and the going-away gift of drinking water thrown in my face. Salud! Young Werther! Yet hey, when you start low, the inevitable climb awaits.
I climbed into the Sierras from the upper-plains of Nevada. A dear friend awaited with Mt. Gay Rum and Jameson and some similar turmoils. We mulled our thoughts together in the old-fashioned way, on the rocks. Then to the lights of Reno and the banks of the Truckee River for a spell, onward to the Bay for a spot of regathering my wits. Seven lanes of traffic brought me in and those same seven took me away. But the city was glorious with its music and food. Reconvening old friends and lovers; absurd situations that turned the dial and forced an objectivity to my life, just when i needed it.
I worked a few months for my parents in Washington, found the calluses in my hands and dirt beneath the fingernails. Caught a flight to Florida to visit an old friend. A week of smoking and margarita stupors that found us shouting prose at the alligators, joining a pool tournament in some Buffet bar, and pushing the mangrove coast to Willie Nelson on repeat.
Flew back to the West and repacked my car, pushed it across the flats of Eastern Oregon beneath the double-arch of the most amazing rainbow i have ever seen, and then up into the high valleys of central Idaho. Andrew and I scoured the hillsides for woodpeckers and bluebirds. We did this project on behalf of humanity, funded by hard sought taxpayer money. We marvelled at the scenery and our growing collection of bottles and cans.
Then it was the Inside Passage beneath the wing, flying over the southeast panhandle toward Baranof Island where recreational drinking compliments and strikes awe to the scenery. I haphazardly fished, visited the cultural saloon centers in my slippers, and became a familiar face to every librarian and grocery store clerk.
My year ended restless again without much learned or gained except that the wings of whim can be soft and gentle. If you're driven then do it, because we can only let ourselves down, and i can see now... there's really no need.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
The New Reebs Revolution.
I am the human sneaker wave. I'm the guy you kissed at that party years ago; what's his name? I'm the quiet freak in the last row of the classroom, disproportionate to his desk. The one who never took his eyes off the pool felt at the bar. Remember that guy who held your hair back while you threw up? That was me. Or that guy in traffic holding a conversation with himself? Yep. I bagged your groceries once. I didn't ask; I knew you wanted plastic...
I was an unhappy janitor, paralegal assistant, diligent gardener, nursery hand, introverted biologist, chatty barista, warehouse clown, promiscuous server, afterschool human jungle gym, church donation dude, sexy-ass delivery guy, professional birdwatcher. I got the data, then i analyzed it. I crossed the t's, dotted the i's. I signed on the line, i served, i filed... but never, was it hand-to-mouth.
The New Reebs Revolution is a 1-step program. It's a theory i've developed for explaining a thoroughly baseless existence, rooted in the depths of underachievement. It recently struck me that i'm not existing and doing with a sense of contribution or purpose. Often times there's no reason; not even my dear desire to do it (though i usually enjoy and appreciate my present state of being). Rather, i am guided by whim and ethereal command.
Since i have rarely found myself in a financial fix, or otherwise jonesed the carpet for dislocated rocks... i've developed a new expedient for the mundane world of business and its employment: the hand-to-mind existence. Wouldn't it be terribly depressing if one only worked for the money? Work should be even more than the experience itself. It's the combination of absurdity, sure effort, and accomplishment; beginning the task and the satisfaction of being part to true chronology in completion. It's the act of taking the ridiculous (my life) and alchemically making gold of it.
I was an unhappy janitor, paralegal assistant, diligent gardener, nursery hand, introverted biologist, chatty barista, warehouse clown, promiscuous server, afterschool human jungle gym, church donation dude, sexy-ass delivery guy, professional birdwatcher. I got the data, then i analyzed it. I crossed the t's, dotted the i's. I signed on the line, i served, i filed... but never, was it hand-to-mouth.
The New Reebs Revolution is a 1-step program. It's a theory i've developed for explaining a thoroughly baseless existence, rooted in the depths of underachievement. It recently struck me that i'm not existing and doing with a sense of contribution or purpose. Often times there's no reason; not even my dear desire to do it (though i usually enjoy and appreciate my present state of being). Rather, i am guided by whim and ethereal command.
Since i have rarely found myself in a financial fix, or otherwise jonesed the carpet for dislocated rocks... i've developed a new expedient for the mundane world of business and its employment: the hand-to-mind existence. Wouldn't it be terribly depressing if one only worked for the money? Work should be even more than the experience itself. It's the combination of absurdity, sure effort, and accomplishment; beginning the task and the satisfaction of being part to true chronology in completion. It's the act of taking the ridiculous (my life) and alchemically making gold of it.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
In Response To Everyone...
{Nearing the podium the house lights raise to meet my eyes. A massive arch of light framed above the stage glints downward. The crowd has become silhouette, anonymous shadows seated beyond the stage. I can hear their tenebrous shuffles and murmers. My fingertips find the microphone before me and lightly tap a digital heartbeat. My fingers then reach toward the breast pocket of my shirt. They unfold a piece of paper neatly scrawled with a farewell speech.}
I guess i'm dead. And despite my steadfast belief that our spirit follows its corporeal form above and below ground... here i am.
Jesse: [Clears throat] Um, hello everyone [the four people that read this shit]. Thank you for coming. I would like all of you to feel free, at any time, to question or comment on anything i've said, or am about to say. To begin, i'd like to answer a few questions posed before my stylish exit from the secular life i was leading. Yes, Margie in the front row.
Margie: Were you really epically falling in and out of love at 17?
Jesse: Notwithstanding an enormous influx of viable drugs previously, yes... i believe i was. We led a healthy life together and meticulously studied food labels. Wholesome and whole-grain have a similar ring, don't they?
---
Andrew: Is there really any reason to get bombed out of your gourd by yourself?
Jesse: From time to time, yes. But one needs to get bombed on only the finest. This forces moderation by sheer inability to afford frequent debauchery, as well as solves the problem of poor taste and wicked hangovers from cheap liquor.
---
Manita: Do you ever plan to not make any plans in an attempt to be present?
Jesse: Yes, but it rarely works in the Western World. The way i feel, there's plenty of time for everything, including fruitless planning. What ever happened to that gig for being a Seahawks massage therapist? You'd get to meet the Seattle SeaGals...
---
Dustin: Why do the Seahawks suck so bad this year? And do you feel in any way attached to their failure?
Jesse: They suck because they struggle with putting points on the board, and also find it difficult to stop opponents from doing the same. And yes, their failure resonates deeply with me. We are bound like Pepsi and diabetes.
---
Benjamin: Remember when i toasted you on the Chinese New Year in San Francisco, that you may not hold any more grudges? How's that working out for you?
Jesse: Well, it's going pretty well. I only have one now and i'm working real hard on it...
---
Anne: Do you love Jesus?
Jesse: I had to answer that question for at least a decade. Next question please... Yes, the old man in the back row.
---
Peter: Did you see the light?
Jesse: No, not until ten in the morning. And then it set at half past two. Alaskan winters...
TO BE CONTINUED...
I guess i'm dead. And despite my steadfast belief that our spirit follows its corporeal form above and below ground... here i am.
Jesse: [Clears throat] Um, hello everyone [the four people that read this shit]. Thank you for coming. I would like all of you to feel free, at any time, to question or comment on anything i've said, or am about to say. To begin, i'd like to answer a few questions posed before my stylish exit from the secular life i was leading. Yes, Margie in the front row.
Margie: Were you really epically falling in and out of love at 17?
Jesse: Notwithstanding an enormous influx of viable drugs previously, yes... i believe i was. We led a healthy life together and meticulously studied food labels. Wholesome and whole-grain have a similar ring, don't they?
---
Andrew: Is there really any reason to get bombed out of your gourd by yourself?
Jesse: From time to time, yes. But one needs to get bombed on only the finest. This forces moderation by sheer inability to afford frequent debauchery, as well as solves the problem of poor taste and wicked hangovers from cheap liquor.
---
Manita: Do you ever plan to not make any plans in an attempt to be present?
Jesse: Yes, but it rarely works in the Western World. The way i feel, there's plenty of time for everything, including fruitless planning. What ever happened to that gig for being a Seahawks massage therapist? You'd get to meet the Seattle SeaGals...
---
Dustin: Why do the Seahawks suck so bad this year? And do you feel in any way attached to their failure?
Jesse: They suck because they struggle with putting points on the board, and also find it difficult to stop opponents from doing the same. And yes, their failure resonates deeply with me. We are bound like Pepsi and diabetes.
---
Benjamin: Remember when i toasted you on the Chinese New Year in San Francisco, that you may not hold any more grudges? How's that working out for you?
Jesse: Well, it's going pretty well. I only have one now and i'm working real hard on it...
---
Anne: Do you love Jesus?
Jesse: I had to answer that question for at least a decade. Next question please... Yes, the old man in the back row.
---
Peter: Did you see the light?
Jesse: No, not until ten in the morning. And then it set at half past two. Alaskan winters...
TO BE CONTINUED...
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
The Impossible Dissolution of Love.
I had a vivid dream this morning sometime nearing the five o'clock hour. It was haunting and bittersweet and packed more punch than Hawaii, more spike than a game of beach volley, and more genuine pain than a real heartache. How about contemplating that between crunches of 5 a.m. raisin bran and a wicked strong cup of coffee. What the hell brought it on?
About seven years ago i fell in love with a woman and i said some things that commited me to a cause, intended an eternity between us. We swore up and down and everything we mused, except the words near the end, didn't come to pass. It took a long time to heal but as sure as a Manhatten martini costs ten bucks, the day came.
Seems that certain promises have a residual, lasting effect. I imagine it has a lot to do with actually meaning it or not. And i'm guilty of bona fide sincerity in this case; i meant every goddamned word. Perhaps for this reason it haunts me still. Does every one of us have a certain ghost that visits us without warning? At one point my ghost visited every night for three months running. She has the face of an angel and brings me to my knees. She dissolves hope and tears at my insides. And i awake embittered, embattled to panic, and that's it... I hadn't seen her in half a year, until this morning.
There were those books we were reading. The ones with Carlos and his Yaqui teacher Juan. The story goes: the teacher and pupil were seated near twilight on the back porch looking out toward the stretching Sonoran desert. The pupil was getting tore up on a bottle of tequila but failed to mention that in his book. Around this time the teacher revealed the presence of a certain being never identified by science: the 'mud shadow.' It could be viewed best at dusk, a breathless silhouette leaping on the eye's periphery. What does this being do? asked the young pupil. Well, answered the teacher, it preys on us. "We are food for them, and they squeeze us mercilessly because we are their sustenance." At this point the teacher laughed and laughed, while the student grew uneasy (and strangely infuriated) by this information. The teacher further explained that it would be ridiculous, and arrogant, to posit human beings atop the food chain. That, in fact, we ourselves have a predator that rear us as "chickens in chicken coops." And, that daily we are consumed in our places of work, school, or church. And nightly, in our very beds, in our homes, in our dreams.
I have always had a difficult time explaining my ghost in terms of a self-projected phantom, something i create in dream and exploit myself with. That just doesn't work for me. This other theory works better, but also falls short by its sheer scope of science fiction. Perhaps that's also why i kind of dig it. I know some jerkoff psychiatrist could have a hayday on this stuff.
Whatever the case, it forces me to realize that words hold physical strength. That they create and form that which we cannot see. And, the syntax of sentence and phrase, its due meaning, and reciprocation thereof can liberate or bind the speaker. Unspoken word: thought, can bring the same result. Hence, the promise even now i cannot break...
Sonora near the border...
About seven years ago i fell in love with a woman and i said some things that commited me to a cause, intended an eternity between us. We swore up and down and everything we mused, except the words near the end, didn't come to pass. It took a long time to heal but as sure as a Manhatten martini costs ten bucks, the day came.
Seems that certain promises have a residual, lasting effect. I imagine it has a lot to do with actually meaning it or not. And i'm guilty of bona fide sincerity in this case; i meant every goddamned word. Perhaps for this reason it haunts me still. Does every one of us have a certain ghost that visits us without warning? At one point my ghost visited every night for three months running. She has the face of an angel and brings me to my knees. She dissolves hope and tears at my insides. And i awake embittered, embattled to panic, and that's it... I hadn't seen her in half a year, until this morning.
There were those books we were reading. The ones with Carlos and his Yaqui teacher Juan. The story goes: the teacher and pupil were seated near twilight on the back porch looking out toward the stretching Sonoran desert. The pupil was getting tore up on a bottle of tequila but failed to mention that in his book. Around this time the teacher revealed the presence of a certain being never identified by science: the 'mud shadow.' It could be viewed best at dusk, a breathless silhouette leaping on the eye's periphery. What does this being do? asked the young pupil. Well, answered the teacher, it preys on us. "We are food for them, and they squeeze us mercilessly because we are their sustenance." At this point the teacher laughed and laughed, while the student grew uneasy (and strangely infuriated) by this information. The teacher further explained that it would be ridiculous, and arrogant, to posit human beings atop the food chain. That, in fact, we ourselves have a predator that rear us as "chickens in chicken coops." And, that daily we are consumed in our places of work, school, or church. And nightly, in our very beds, in our homes, in our dreams.
I have always had a difficult time explaining my ghost in terms of a self-projected phantom, something i create in dream and exploit myself with. That just doesn't work for me. This other theory works better, but also falls short by its sheer scope of science fiction. Perhaps that's also why i kind of dig it. I know some jerkoff psychiatrist could have a hayday on this stuff.
Whatever the case, it forces me to realize that words hold physical strength. That they create and form that which we cannot see. And, the syntax of sentence and phrase, its due meaning, and reciprocation thereof can liberate or bind the speaker. Unspoken word: thought, can bring the same result. Hence, the promise even now i cannot break...
Sonora near the border...
Monday, December 11, 2006
Thursday, December 07, 2006
In from the bath...
In the past weeks i've taken to the bath with an increasing urgency. I have begun daydreaming of it at work... the nearing moment when i can draw hot water, shed my clothes, and grab a book. I don't remember such a feverish desire for submersion since i was young, pushing yellow ducks across the surface or watching as technicolor sponges wax into dinosaur shapes (remember those? fucking amazing shit...).
It's the release of breath as i inch my body beneath the surface. The water drawn to redden the skin, almost burn. And then feet up and hearing that hollow ring of surrounding tile and lately the faint murmur of Dvořák's piano trios from the other room (my chosen bathing music~ highly recommended).
In the bath i realize so many things about myself. For one, i'm incredibly tall... how far away my feet are! And skin still tanned from a season or two ago, in the tall ponderosa pines of Idaho. The smooth hairless patches above my knees where my pants have worn the skin, from legs pumping like pistons aboard my bike. That my voice can do amazing things in this private studio of watery reverbration and human echolocation. Or how easy it is to turn everything off, i mean every goddamned voice that jaws throughout the day... they have no place in the bath.
And then i've had enough silence and i let the voices in... thinking of Gary Snyder's The Bath, and discarding that i hum the very best bath song ever written, perhaps ever sung. Bilbo Baggin's Bath Song:
Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
that washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!
O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain,
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams,
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.
O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat, and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack
and Water Hot poured down the back.
O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!
Amen brother... i feel ya.
It's the release of breath as i inch my body beneath the surface. The water drawn to redden the skin, almost burn. And then feet up and hearing that hollow ring of surrounding tile and lately the faint murmur of Dvořák's piano trios from the other room (my chosen bathing music~ highly recommended).
In the bath i realize so many things about myself. For one, i'm incredibly tall... how far away my feet are! And skin still tanned from a season or two ago, in the tall ponderosa pines of Idaho. The smooth hairless patches above my knees where my pants have worn the skin, from legs pumping like pistons aboard my bike. That my voice can do amazing things in this private studio of watery reverbration and human echolocation. Or how easy it is to turn everything off, i mean every goddamned voice that jaws throughout the day... they have no place in the bath.
And then i've had enough silence and i let the voices in... thinking of Gary Snyder's The Bath, and discarding that i hum the very best bath song ever written, perhaps ever sung. Bilbo Baggin's Bath Song:
Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
that washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!
O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain,
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams,
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.
O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat, and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack
and Water Hot poured down the back.
O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!
Amen brother... i feel ya.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Other places, other rooms...
A storm was coming on, the air had cooled and a sharp breeze cut the streets. Up ahead a vacancy sign blinked haphazardly. We'd been walking around Missoula for hours looking for a place to stay. I'd lost track of how many lobbies we'd entered, prices i'd negotiated, and rooms surveyed then dismissed. My girlfriend seemed intent on finding something that Missoula would not offer.
The lady at the front desk gave us the key to a room. We went up a flight of stairs and looked down toward the courtyard. The swimming pool was drained and heavily cracked, collecting paint flecks and maple leaves in its basin. We pushed open the heavy door of our room and stepped inside. It reminded me of an enlarged janitor's closet. An oversized water pipe was fastened along the wall above the bed. The no-smoking sign had been ignored hundred of times, perhaps thousands. I sat down and divided the blinds with my fingertips and looked out at the courtyard again. The place was deserted. A rundown job with a tacky name like The Oasis or Hotel Paradise. I remember a palm tree on the sign and a shabby room that we didn't take.
An argument had started during lunch. We were the only table at this small joint and the undertasked waiter kept checking on us. His boyish good-looks and 90210 spiked hair were enough to make me sick. I was worn thin now realizing we were at the end. In a little while we would return the key and leave another lobby behind. The lady at the front desk would make a slighted comment about questionable elapsed time. I would smile and tell her to get tossed. Part of me would remain in that room, a single meaningful thought preserving in memory four walls and one door.
My whole life has passed thus far in rooms. And each one returns with a thought, an event, a face.
There was the final night on the campaign when John Kerry lost. i went home with a fellow canvaser and we rung some passion from our sad, weary bodies in a fascimile apartment room. The hardlined creations typical of Orlando outskirts; conspecific condos with only numbers to differ one from the next. Dusty popcorn ceiling above us and a hard white light from the street lamp. It cast a barred rectangle of light over our bodies; three a.m.
My first night as a gringo backpacker. Checked in at the Hotel Imperial in San Jose. The cardboard door, blankets washed down to a paper thinness... late night shadows beneath the door, squeaking bedsprings. The realization that i've been alone all my life, but had to check into this hotel to finally realize it.
There was the night in Montreal when Rebekah and i told stories from our bunkbeds. Our small room was painted light blue and i nearly expected a mobile to dangle above my bed. I was up above looking out toward the city while she brushed her hair on the bottom bunk. Low clouds were engulfing the skyscrapers of downtown. The sight reminded me of Batman's Gotham, the clouds eery glow from within, the mosaic of lit rectangles on the building faces.
I'm a sentimental young fool. I can only wonder at what my gerry years will bring. I wonder if my grandkids will listen to this drivel...
The lady at the front desk gave us the key to a room. We went up a flight of stairs and looked down toward the courtyard. The swimming pool was drained and heavily cracked, collecting paint flecks and maple leaves in its basin. We pushed open the heavy door of our room and stepped inside. It reminded me of an enlarged janitor's closet. An oversized water pipe was fastened along the wall above the bed. The no-smoking sign had been ignored hundred of times, perhaps thousands. I sat down and divided the blinds with my fingertips and looked out at the courtyard again. The place was deserted. A rundown job with a tacky name like The Oasis or Hotel Paradise. I remember a palm tree on the sign and a shabby room that we didn't take.
An argument had started during lunch. We were the only table at this small joint and the undertasked waiter kept checking on us. His boyish good-looks and 90210 spiked hair were enough to make me sick. I was worn thin now realizing we were at the end. In a little while we would return the key and leave another lobby behind. The lady at the front desk would make a slighted comment about questionable elapsed time. I would smile and tell her to get tossed. Part of me would remain in that room, a single meaningful thought preserving in memory four walls and one door.
My whole life has passed thus far in rooms. And each one returns with a thought, an event, a face.
There was the final night on the campaign when John Kerry lost. i went home with a fellow canvaser and we rung some passion from our sad, weary bodies in a fascimile apartment room. The hardlined creations typical of Orlando outskirts; conspecific condos with only numbers to differ one from the next. Dusty popcorn ceiling above us and a hard white light from the street lamp. It cast a barred rectangle of light over our bodies; three a.m.
My first night as a gringo backpacker. Checked in at the Hotel Imperial in San Jose. The cardboard door, blankets washed down to a paper thinness... late night shadows beneath the door, squeaking bedsprings. The realization that i've been alone all my life, but had to check into this hotel to finally realize it.
There was the night in Montreal when Rebekah and i told stories from our bunkbeds. Our small room was painted light blue and i nearly expected a mobile to dangle above my bed. I was up above looking out toward the city while she brushed her hair on the bottom bunk. Low clouds were engulfing the skyscrapers of downtown. The sight reminded me of Batman's Gotham, the clouds eery glow from within, the mosaic of lit rectangles on the building faces.
I'm a sentimental young fool. I can only wonder at what my gerry years will bring. I wonder if my grandkids will listen to this drivel...
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
The produce man speaks...
This Tuesday had all the makings of a Monday. I walked into the grocery before the 180 degree hour of six and was greeted by the sounds of new country music. My friend in produce, Tom, was fumbling with a cart full of bananas and tuning out the world. I decided to sing along to the Larsen Blaine song by his side, delivering those ridiculous lines... "I don't know what she said, but i sure like the way that she said it...!" A carefully crafted song about a gringo in some Mexican beach resort hotel and his eyecandy maid. True love...
What is it about the talk of "senoritas" and "crossing the border" that country is so latched to? I understand the relation to cowboys and rugged terrain, but this latest draw for margaritas and pina coladas and brown-skinned mamas, what's that? And remember, the vast majority of country music listeners are Republican bigots who probably are all in for building a three-thousand mile border fence, but love a competitive minimum wage. And Acapulco, Cancun, the street boys of Juaraz and Mexicali and Tecate, fuck it man! "Bring me two pina coladas, i need one for each hand (Garth Brooks)" and "Senorita Margarita i'm as lonesome as a man can be (Tim McGraw) or "Some beach, somewhere there's nowhere to go, when you've got all day to get there. There's cold margaritas and hot senoritas... (Blake Shelton)" It sells for a reason...
Tom wasn't feeling it, a little surprised that i knew the song so well. He leaned toward me and asked in confidence, "You know why we listen to this shit everyday?" He didn't seem to mind my closet love for new country. "It's cos everybody in here is divorced and pissed off. I know... cos i did the same thing. There's something about this cheap music..." he trailed off. Quite a thought for the hour. I thanked him and got to work.
It struck me that right about the time i started listening to country music two things had happened. The first, i'd split with my first love and wasn't feeling terribly happy about life. And the second was my car attenae broke. That left me with only AM radio, which further narrowed the choices to Rush Limbaugh, NPR, oldies, circus tuba music (from across the border), and good ol' new country music. Perhaps a tape deck would have solved this tough decision.
I was driving down to Portland, Oregon in 1999 with that country music playing. I'd recently had that separation i mentioned and was feeling in loose ends. And on came an old favorite song by Mark Willis, Wish you were here. It's about this fella that has to catch a plane. He says goodbye to his baby and buys a postcard with a picture of paradise on the front, it just reads heaven. Then he gets on the plane and WHABAM! Of course, the whole thing goes down. But, wouldn't you know it. He writes her from heaven and she finds this postcard, "That just said Heaven with a picture of the ocean and the beach... and the simple words he wrote her, said he loved her and they told her, how he'd love her if his arms would reach..."
And it was too much for me. Sentimentality knows no bounds to appropriate outburst. I sang for a little while to this cheezy song and kept pushing the car forward, but i finally had to pull over. The emotional vehicular breakdown. Maybe Tom's right; broken love makes a maudlin person, susceptible to the insipid tastes of new country music. Sometimes you gotta dumb down to feel it.
What is it about the talk of "senoritas" and "crossing the border" that country is so latched to? I understand the relation to cowboys and rugged terrain, but this latest draw for margaritas and pina coladas and brown-skinned mamas, what's that? And remember, the vast majority of country music listeners are Republican bigots who probably are all in for building a three-thousand mile border fence, but love a competitive minimum wage. And Acapulco, Cancun, the street boys of Juaraz and Mexicali and Tecate, fuck it man! "Bring me two pina coladas, i need one for each hand (Garth Brooks)" and "Senorita Margarita i'm as lonesome as a man can be (Tim McGraw) or "Some beach, somewhere there's nowhere to go, when you've got all day to get there. There's cold margaritas and hot senoritas... (Blake Shelton)" It sells for a reason...
Tom wasn't feeling it, a little surprised that i knew the song so well. He leaned toward me and asked in confidence, "You know why we listen to this shit everyday?" He didn't seem to mind my closet love for new country. "It's cos everybody in here is divorced and pissed off. I know... cos i did the same thing. There's something about this cheap music..." he trailed off. Quite a thought for the hour. I thanked him and got to work.
It struck me that right about the time i started listening to country music two things had happened. The first, i'd split with my first love and wasn't feeling terribly happy about life. And the second was my car attenae broke. That left me with only AM radio, which further narrowed the choices to Rush Limbaugh, NPR, oldies, circus tuba music (from across the border), and good ol' new country music. Perhaps a tape deck would have solved this tough decision.
I was driving down to Portland, Oregon in 1999 with that country music playing. I'd recently had that separation i mentioned and was feeling in loose ends. And on came an old favorite song by Mark Willis, Wish you were here. It's about this fella that has to catch a plane. He says goodbye to his baby and buys a postcard with a picture of paradise on the front, it just reads heaven. Then he gets on the plane and WHABAM! Of course, the whole thing goes down. But, wouldn't you know it. He writes her from heaven and she finds this postcard, "That just said Heaven with a picture of the ocean and the beach... and the simple words he wrote her, said he loved her and they told her, how he'd love her if his arms would reach..."
And it was too much for me. Sentimentality knows no bounds to appropriate outburst. I sang for a little while to this cheezy song and kept pushing the car forward, but i finally had to pull over. The emotional vehicular breakdown. Maybe Tom's right; broken love makes a maudlin person, susceptible to the insipid tastes of new country music. Sometimes you gotta dumb down to feel it.
Friday, November 24, 2006
Wordless wisdom from G-D...
Oh yes, the day has come. Blitz Day, Black Friday, or also known as the day after Thanksgiving. A day for sexually-depraved, discontent, soccer moms to punch it out on the consumer beat. A day filled with belated DUIs; which reminds me i'm still drunk, and now on the timeclock.
Last night i got thoroughly tossed with a kind bottle of Bogle to warm me up at noon. Downhill, gravity, exceptional slow motion. Nearing a full turn of the clock, i attempted an exit homeward. Nearing the truck i got dropped by two friends. Placed roughly in a snowbank kicking and screaming while the keys were removed from the ignition. Coup de Morale. Morality by force. So i returned indoors and played tremendously sober, winning cribbage which was terribly convincing.
Within an hour i earned my keyring back. Heading out for the second time into the thirteen degree frigid night, i made it just beyond the driveway. Back wheel spinning, back wheel set; the e-brake locked, shoes frozen solid about the axle. Burning rubber on ice i managed to reverse back into the drive and shared a good curse with myself. Returning indoors yet again my numb fingers curled in the anti-form of a steering wheel. I fumbled with a bottle and sat down. Sometimes we can't turn away from drunkenness... we must face it, forget about tomorrow's work, and play another game of cards.
That's my bike on our porch. Mount Edgecumbe back there in the sunset... ten degrees and windless.
Last night i got thoroughly tossed with a kind bottle of Bogle to warm me up at noon. Downhill, gravity, exceptional slow motion. Nearing a full turn of the clock, i attempted an exit homeward. Nearing the truck i got dropped by two friends. Placed roughly in a snowbank kicking and screaming while the keys were removed from the ignition. Coup de Morale. Morality by force. So i returned indoors and played tremendously sober, winning cribbage which was terribly convincing.
Within an hour i earned my keyring back. Heading out for the second time into the thirteen degree frigid night, i made it just beyond the driveway. Back wheel spinning, back wheel set; the e-brake locked, shoes frozen solid about the axle. Burning rubber on ice i managed to reverse back into the drive and shared a good curse with myself. Returning indoors yet again my numb fingers curled in the anti-form of a steering wheel. I fumbled with a bottle and sat down. Sometimes we can't turn away from drunkenness... we must face it, forget about tomorrow's work, and play another game of cards.
That's my bike on our porch. Mount Edgecumbe back there in the sunset... ten degrees and windless.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
A picture and a thought.
At home I caught myself facing the jars and cans in the cupboard. This besetting behavior was unconscious and troubling. Work has followed me home like a poor, hungry kitten. I was listening to what perhaps is my favorite song, "My Way," Frank Sinatra. I remember reading something Ol' Blue Eyes said once, "Don't get even, get mad..." I wonder what he meant by that.
For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way.
-My Way
Thursday, November 16, 2006
A letter to M.
I would like to dedicate this entry to Margie, my West Coast correspondent reporting the fair pulls and beautiful travesties of San Francisco Bay...
M. the weather is something to admire. We're all watching it with our hands around shovel handles, gloved and hooded and booted. All natural color has vanished but the coniferous green (is white a color?... and black, the absence of color?) wandering up the hillsides, and the occasional gap from gray overcast to incandescent blue, shortwithstanding.
All this water around us in the form of ice and snow, and yet it's bone dry. And you're right M., dry snow is slippery... i found that out this morning with a mug of coffee walking my bike down the hill. One slip on a right step and i was sliding textbook baseball style with one knee bent, foot below the other knee (i would've been safe). It was gallant and sacrificial the way i protected the coffee and surrendered to the snow. Not a drop spilled and my bike still by my side after taking ten feet on my bum. I managed a wobbly ride all the way to work without another fall... you would've been proud, i know.
Maybe i'm looking for reasons, but it's more than definite now... this temporary state of working for Pepsi-Cola. Something magnetic about me and absurd situations; spontaneity and the least-likely have become dear companions of mine. I've always figured that the more ridiculous my current placement (vocation, location, situation...), the more simply i'll become indifferent and objective, hence more apt and adept to deal. But this is a new one, new limits are being set.
It began yesterday, the realization that absurdity may have an accumulative effect on the relatively sensitive individual. I was hauling some storage carts through a frozen parking lot, puffing clouds of breath and trying not to slip on my face. A man shouted to me and approached, asked me if i was the Pepsi Guy. Well, you know, shit... a celebrity. He wanted to request the return of 12-pack Diet Mountain Dew to his chosen grocer. I've heard this request everyday for weeks now, unbelievable firstly that people imbibe of this ungodly shit. And secondly, it's outrageous the response, and in a few cases~ fury, people have managed to this given situation. Consumers have banded together and complained on a daily basis at every grocery, multiply, since the obscure product disappeared from the shelf. Imagine if we could get this societal response in a real situation, you know... one that mattered. Like perhaps an unnecessary war, education, or global climate change.
So i stopped in my tracks as the wind kicked up rooftop snow and blew it across the lot. As the man carried on a one-person conversation about sodapop, and the lack of his favorite flavor, i tried to make some sense of my coat zipper. The damn thing was broken and i was beginning to freeze. I looked up into this man's overly-attentive eyes and explained to him that, yes, i know. And, yes, i'll take care of it when i can. Fifty cases are due in on the barge from Seattle, i said. And for now, could he go drink something else... He smiled, a deeply discomfiting thing for me, and leaned closer to touch my jacket. "You know," he said, "i can fix zippers." Jesus, a real celebrity.
So that was the first thing M.. Remember Bob Packwood? Well, i felt like his secretary. The second thing was listening to my co-worker, who normally only converses about his exercise routine or getting his sales up, talk about the Duh Vinci Code, which he rented last night. I asked him if he ever read the book and he replied, "I haven't read a book in years." I thought, huh, that's great. Then later on today, without even prodding, another person told me the same thing. We were at the office talking about getting the hell home and away from work. I audibly imagined myself in the bath with a book and mused, wouldn't that be nice? She answered, "Oh, i don't read." What? What do you people do?
M. i'm a sheep among lambs. Someone spiked the grass, it doesn't chew right. The shepherd's not here; sometimes i wonder if there even is one.
Sincerely, your devout facsimile friend,
J
M. the weather is something to admire. We're all watching it with our hands around shovel handles, gloved and hooded and booted. All natural color has vanished but the coniferous green (is white a color?... and black, the absence of color?) wandering up the hillsides, and the occasional gap from gray overcast to incandescent blue, shortwithstanding.
All this water around us in the form of ice and snow, and yet it's bone dry. And you're right M., dry snow is slippery... i found that out this morning with a mug of coffee walking my bike down the hill. One slip on a right step and i was sliding textbook baseball style with one knee bent, foot below the other knee (i would've been safe). It was gallant and sacrificial the way i protected the coffee and surrendered to the snow. Not a drop spilled and my bike still by my side after taking ten feet on my bum. I managed a wobbly ride all the way to work without another fall... you would've been proud, i know.
Maybe i'm looking for reasons, but it's more than definite now... this temporary state of working for Pepsi-Cola. Something magnetic about me and absurd situations; spontaneity and the least-likely have become dear companions of mine. I've always figured that the more ridiculous my current placement (vocation, location, situation...), the more simply i'll become indifferent and objective, hence more apt and adept to deal. But this is a new one, new limits are being set.
It began yesterday, the realization that absurdity may have an accumulative effect on the relatively sensitive individual. I was hauling some storage carts through a frozen parking lot, puffing clouds of breath and trying not to slip on my face. A man shouted to me and approached, asked me if i was the Pepsi Guy. Well, you know, shit... a celebrity. He wanted to request the return of 12-pack Diet Mountain Dew to his chosen grocer. I've heard this request everyday for weeks now, unbelievable firstly that people imbibe of this ungodly shit. And secondly, it's outrageous the response, and in a few cases~ fury, people have managed to this given situation. Consumers have banded together and complained on a daily basis at every grocery, multiply, since the obscure product disappeared from the shelf. Imagine if we could get this societal response in a real situation, you know... one that mattered. Like perhaps an unnecessary war, education, or global climate change.
So i stopped in my tracks as the wind kicked up rooftop snow and blew it across the lot. As the man carried on a one-person conversation about sodapop, and the lack of his favorite flavor, i tried to make some sense of my coat zipper. The damn thing was broken and i was beginning to freeze. I looked up into this man's overly-attentive eyes and explained to him that, yes, i know. And, yes, i'll take care of it when i can. Fifty cases are due in on the barge from Seattle, i said. And for now, could he go drink something else... He smiled, a deeply discomfiting thing for me, and leaned closer to touch my jacket. "You know," he said, "i can fix zippers." Jesus, a real celebrity.
So that was the first thing M.. Remember Bob Packwood? Well, i felt like his secretary. The second thing was listening to my co-worker, who normally only converses about his exercise routine or getting his sales up, talk about the Duh Vinci Code, which he rented last night. I asked him if he ever read the book and he replied, "I haven't read a book in years." I thought, huh, that's great. Then later on today, without even prodding, another person told me the same thing. We were at the office talking about getting the hell home and away from work. I audibly imagined myself in the bath with a book and mused, wouldn't that be nice? She answered, "Oh, i don't read." What? What do you people do?
M. i'm a sheep among lambs. Someone spiked the grass, it doesn't chew right. The shepherd's not here; sometimes i wonder if there even is one.
Sincerely, your devout facsimile friend,
J
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Be there now.
Today began with a dull howl of wind beyond the door, window, wall. A miniature spindrift of fresh snow on the porch covering the welcome mat and "snow lying deep and even" (Gray) up the steps toward the drive. I shouldered my yellow-fendered bicycle toward the road and peddled on to work. A crisp line delved in snow and the soft crunch as the wheel parted through... And me, menial Moses.
The peace i knew at five o'clock was shortlived as a wind picked up, snow melt to rain, and rain took another elemental leap to hail. The way the sky falls up here in the northern latitudes is something to behold. Weather has a sinewy force and insistence that reminds me of the cloud forests in Central America, awe-striking and temperamental.
I had an epiphany today as i worked my way through the grocery stores, looking up into ultra-violent light of 200 watt bulbs dancing behind lined bottles of juice and soda. I was resetting the order of products on brazen display to the customer quirking alignment to hold as much as possible. It struck me that evolution and maturation of the self is very misguiding by the precept that it's a forward movement, a development in complexity. It's not so; can often even be the opposite, remember the Devolution?
All these years i've been convinced that i was growing more intelligent and acquiring refined skills and no-how. It surprised me; not only was this far from accurate, i found it a brilliant relief. I'm moving sideways and that's okay. It reminded me of a song, as most everything does. Somewhere in the day i'll pick up a tune that plays softly until i recognize its presence. And further in, it makes another connection. Every song has at least two reasons to be remembered. This morning in the clouds i was singing:
two little feet to get me 'cross the mountain
two little feet to carry me away into the woods
two little feet, big mountain, and a
cloud comin' down cloud comin' down cloud comin' down
I hear the voice of the ancient ones
chanting magic words from a different time
well there is no time there is only this rain
there is no time, that's why I missed my plane
John Muir walked away into the mountains
in his old overcoat a crust of bread in his pocket
we have no knowledge and so we have stuff and
stuff with no knowledge is never enough to get you there
it just won't get you there
-Greg Brown
Over the years i've grown bored with trying to be present all the time. I wanna play inside from time to time. If i had to face the sodapop i deliver everyday without a little imaginative wandering, where would i be? Exactly, with the sodapop. I think that's what age has given me... a quick shot of gerry in the arm, less care to my coffee-stained teeth, the ability to drown out the (micro)manager talking in my ear about product display. Ever wonder of the peace of mind to come as the layers are stripped from us? Will we all become storytellers and daydreamers? Is that what lies beneath?
All i know is, that as i stared into the bright mosaic of brightly tempered cans and bottles i was in at least three other places. I was riding a bicycle with the song.
In Seattle asking Manita "What do people think of when they think of Morocco?" And she was telling me, "Tiles, mosaics... we should go."
I was tightly lacing my new white basketball shoes and shooting hoops with my friend Willie, our plan for the evening.
...Then, i wasn't anywhere at all.
And when i came back i felt better. "Stuff with no knowledge is never enough to get you there..." Oh man, i love that line. I had to think about that for a while...
Sunset in Portland, Maine from a favorite spot...
The peace i knew at five o'clock was shortlived as a wind picked up, snow melt to rain, and rain took another elemental leap to hail. The way the sky falls up here in the northern latitudes is something to behold. Weather has a sinewy force and insistence that reminds me of the cloud forests in Central America, awe-striking and temperamental.
I had an epiphany today as i worked my way through the grocery stores, looking up into ultra-violent light of 200 watt bulbs dancing behind lined bottles of juice and soda. I was resetting the order of products on brazen display to the customer quirking alignment to hold as much as possible. It struck me that evolution and maturation of the self is very misguiding by the precept that it's a forward movement, a development in complexity. It's not so; can often even be the opposite, remember the Devolution?
All these years i've been convinced that i was growing more intelligent and acquiring refined skills and no-how. It surprised me; not only was this far from accurate, i found it a brilliant relief. I'm moving sideways and that's okay. It reminded me of a song, as most everything does. Somewhere in the day i'll pick up a tune that plays softly until i recognize its presence. And further in, it makes another connection. Every song has at least two reasons to be remembered. This morning in the clouds i was singing:
two little feet to get me 'cross the mountain
two little feet to carry me away into the woods
two little feet, big mountain, and a
cloud comin' down cloud comin' down cloud comin' down
I hear the voice of the ancient ones
chanting magic words from a different time
well there is no time there is only this rain
there is no time, that's why I missed my plane
John Muir walked away into the mountains
in his old overcoat a crust of bread in his pocket
we have no knowledge and so we have stuff and
stuff with no knowledge is never enough to get you there
it just won't get you there
-Greg Brown
Over the years i've grown bored with trying to be present all the time. I wanna play inside from time to time. If i had to face the sodapop i deliver everyday without a little imaginative wandering, where would i be? Exactly, with the sodapop. I think that's what age has given me... a quick shot of gerry in the arm, less care to my coffee-stained teeth, the ability to drown out the (micro)manager talking in my ear about product display. Ever wonder of the peace of mind to come as the layers are stripped from us? Will we all become storytellers and daydreamers? Is that what lies beneath?
All i know is, that as i stared into the bright mosaic of brightly tempered cans and bottles i was in at least three other places. I was riding a bicycle with the song.
In Seattle asking Manita "What do people think of when they think of Morocco?" And she was telling me, "Tiles, mosaics... we should go."
I was tightly lacing my new white basketball shoes and shooting hoops with my friend Willie, our plan for the evening.
...Then, i wasn't anywhere at all.
And when i came back i felt better. "Stuff with no knowledge is never enough to get you there..." Oh man, i love that line. I had to think about that for a while...
Sunset in Portland, Maine from a favorite spot...
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Questionable, yes.
I recently decided to change course and abandon the common authority of advice. The entire process of influence has little to do with the inevitable outcome (and everyone knows it!). People are going to do what they do 95% of the time, regardless of any preceding advice doled on the matter. Unless, that is, the advice coincides with the already entrenched gut feeling of the recipient.
I know, no one wants to hear this. It eliminates many tiresomely delved dilemnas and seeks to debase the foundation of collective intellect and shared experience. But only for a matter of time until that course is set and experienced; because, as human beings we can only see wisdom (good advice) in hindsight. We learn by falling and for some reason we want to keep doing it. Dr. Thompson wrote:
No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But, if we're fools than so is everyone else and does it matter who says what? In the same way that we analyze a person's record collection or library, we deem merit to like-minded thought. So seek the advice you like. It's not so bad. If one has a question, then chances are (omitting human shells and androids), one has an answer. And due to the instilled terms of self-reliance and personal experience, one wishes to follow their own counsel to hence it leads. But prior to all this, one needs a little confirmation by someone else. That's what friends are for.
The Chipman speaks from Kenora, Ontario
I know, no one wants to hear this. It eliminates many tiresomely delved dilemnas and seeks to debase the foundation of collective intellect and shared experience. But only for a matter of time until that course is set and experienced; because, as human beings we can only see wisdom (good advice) in hindsight. We learn by falling and for some reason we want to keep doing it. Dr. Thompson wrote:
No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But, if we're fools than so is everyone else and does it matter who says what? In the same way that we analyze a person's record collection or library, we deem merit to like-minded thought. So seek the advice you like. It's not so bad. If one has a question, then chances are (omitting human shells and androids), one has an answer. And due to the instilled terms of self-reliance and personal experience, one wishes to follow their own counsel to hence it leads. But prior to all this, one needs a little confirmation by someone else. That's what friends are for.
The Chipman speaks from Kenora, Ontario
Monday, November 06, 2006
Daydreaming: a memoir...
It's a monday morning before election day... all is a ghost town, not a soul on the streets. I'm working in the produce section of a still grocery; the only sound~ a faint echo of new country wafting down from a hidden speaker. The produce manager, Tom, has his hands busy with cantalope and honey dew. Sleeves rolled past the elbow, an apron tied smartly around his waist, he squeezes and rests each melon in a crate. His mouth is hidden with the pendant gray of a handlebar mustache grown to unfettered perfection.
Every morning before the sun comes up, this man greets me with a question mark to a hi or hello. Many of his comments end with that leaping note of askance. Sometimes i'll say 'Good morning' and he'll answer 'Is it?' A fair point... wishing to rid a little of the rhetorical. It helps the already light mood of our contented hands in menial labor. He has a lot to say and sometimes he does... Most of the time we don't say anything at all.
We are working without a word now... i'm thinking of Sundays field trip to the shooting range and a John Prine song on the radio.
---
You and me, sittin' in the back of my memory.
Like a honey bee, buzzin' round a glass of sweet Chablis
Radio's on, windows rolled up and my mind's rolled down...
Headlights shinin' like silver moons rollin' on the ground
Gonna be a long Monday
Sittin' all alone on a mountain by a river that has no end
Gonna be a long Monday
Stuck like the tick of a clock that's come unwound- again...
---
Hearing it again... bringing fragmented images and feeling. A nostalgia, wistful yet dear of an old love in an old town. Being back again in the simple hands of weekday labor. And a song in my head... and the way i make a song sing to me, to what i'm seeing and feeling. Sometimes my mind gets away, translated in music. And Sunday...
The sun was trying to crest the hill, its halo resting on the silhouetted spires of hemlock and spruce. The ground crunched beneath my feet with frost and spent shells of high-powered rifles. I was no longer in the grocery store.
Have you ever found a place that was impossible to think in? and so you didn't... as simple as that. I was at home in this feeling. Even against odds, on the range...
Every morning before the sun comes up, this man greets me with a question mark to a hi or hello. Many of his comments end with that leaping note of askance. Sometimes i'll say 'Good morning' and he'll answer 'Is it?' A fair point... wishing to rid a little of the rhetorical. It helps the already light mood of our contented hands in menial labor. He has a lot to say and sometimes he does... Most of the time we don't say anything at all.
We are working without a word now... i'm thinking of Sundays field trip to the shooting range and a John Prine song on the radio.
---
You and me, sittin' in the back of my memory.
Like a honey bee, buzzin' round a glass of sweet Chablis
Radio's on, windows rolled up and my mind's rolled down...
Headlights shinin' like silver moons rollin' on the ground
Gonna be a long Monday
Sittin' all alone on a mountain by a river that has no end
Gonna be a long Monday
Stuck like the tick of a clock that's come unwound- again...
---
Hearing it again... bringing fragmented images and feeling. A nostalgia, wistful yet dear of an old love in an old town. Being back again in the simple hands of weekday labor. And a song in my head... and the way i make a song sing to me, to what i'm seeing and feeling. Sometimes my mind gets away, translated in music. And Sunday...
The sun was trying to crest the hill, its halo resting on the silhouetted spires of hemlock and spruce. The ground crunched beneath my feet with frost and spent shells of high-powered rifles. I was no longer in the grocery store.
Have you ever found a place that was impossible to think in? and so you didn't... as simple as that. I was at home in this feeling. Even against odds, on the range...
Friday, November 03, 2006
Lassitude be gone!
There's a television in my house. It stares at the upholstered loveseat sofa and the sofa stares back. It's on now and again for the increasingly frequent movie night (alaskan winter recreation), or for a football game, or occasional channel-surfing and things of that nature. It wouldn't be a novel theory to postulate that most programs the tele has to offer include varieties of sexual inuendo (everything), mixed with fraternity homoeroticism (see: MTV), and un-real life slices of brash interlude (commercials)... though it may be a true one.
Okay, that being said, I'm beginning to wonder why it's not working. All this anvilled quasi-colloquial bullshit geared toward my desire to want(!) and to need(!) any variety of things... should at least occasionally function for its set course. Back to that bit on sexual inuendo and the gross marketing by babes and the like. I can't remember the last time any tele knocked my socks off with some delicious prototype of the female form. And quite frankly it doesn't bother me. What does is the rest of the male populace going gaga over airbrushed toehead wonderwoman flashing a new cellphone ring-tone or the dimwit seduction of a Shania Twain applying a nice, thick layer of Revlon on her mug.
My life has always been heading toward quiet solipsism. Certain things reinforce and complement that aim. And the antidote to this dross is the simple pitch to infatuation and hopefully healthy possession with an unfeigned, gospel being. And that's where i'm going cos real love is sharing a good book with someone that you want to ravage, or a dynamite record, or an opinion on something inessential... yet just that.
Okay, that being said, I'm beginning to wonder why it's not working. All this anvilled quasi-colloquial bullshit geared toward my desire to want(!) and to need(!) any variety of things... should at least occasionally function for its set course. Back to that bit on sexual inuendo and the gross marketing by babes and the like. I can't remember the last time any tele knocked my socks off with some delicious prototype of the female form. And quite frankly it doesn't bother me. What does is the rest of the male populace going gaga over airbrushed toehead wonderwoman flashing a new cellphone ring-tone or the dimwit seduction of a Shania Twain applying a nice, thick layer of Revlon on her mug.
My life has always been heading toward quiet solipsism. Certain things reinforce and complement that aim. And the antidote to this dross is the simple pitch to infatuation and hopefully healthy possession with an unfeigned, gospel being. And that's where i'm going cos real love is sharing a good book with someone that you want to ravage, or a dynamite record, or an opinion on something inessential... yet just that.
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