Weird Wedding Music

The Big One just came downstairs with her Mom and 'The Quote of the Day': "That's weird wedding music, but I have weird parents."

First, let me say: Our wedding didn't last this far into the album -- The Beastie Boys instrumental CD called The In Sound From Way Out.

Next, I will say: The song she was referring to is actually a little weird, but the rest of the album is jazzy and funky and fit us perfectly at the time.

Also, all parents are weird.  It's caused by having children.

The girls were looking through our wedding album earlier.  After they went upstairs to give themselves baths I looked through the pictures from that day, this day, thirteen years ago and wondered: Is that us?

We're at a scenic overlook in the desert just west of Vegas, being married by the Reverend Julie Nourish.  Yeah, nourish.  I remember asking my Fiance (at the time), "Is that her stage name?"  Some Harleys pulled in and a pack of leather-clad bikers walked around behind our ceremony.  It was a bizarre wedding, but we were adults and we were getting married for us.

I laugh when I look through the pictures.  I'm getting cactused in every one.  Seriously.  Every one.

"It's a Joshua tree," my Wife always says, and it is, but it is either sticking out of or poking into my head in every picture from our wedding album.  All of them.

I go through the pictures and I say, "Look, I'm getting cactused in this one.  This one, too.  Yep.  Yep, cactused again."  There is one where I am in profile and the cactus is sticking out of my head and halfway down my spine like I'm a well-groomed dinosaur in a tux.

As I page through the pictures I remember the Beastie Boys playing jazz from the boombox on top of our rented limo.  I remember the opening of the fourth song, POW, where the volume picks up and our entire wedding party scrambled to turn the music down.

Everything after that has been a blur.  The apartments and jobs, the friends and vacations, the children and the trips to see family, the sad times and the joy, it all blends together and here we are.  Even the Beastie Boys are men now, grayed and worldly.

Written: Jan.21, 2012

The Little One cried at bedtime.  It was quite unusual, typically she falls right asleep.  The wife went up to check on her.  I received the summary a couple minutes later.

The wife had gone into the bedroom and seen The Little One sitting up in bed.

"What happened, [Little One], why are you crying?

"I had a bad dweam,"  The Little One said.

"Oh, no.  What was it about?"

She pointedly lifted and opened her hand so she could count on her fingers like we do when we list reasons she can't have another [insert toy/sweet here].

"Thwee things.  One.  I was the only one left on the earth.  Two.  I was going to die.  And thwee. I was thinking about Chicken Licken."

"Wow.  Is there anything I could do for you?"  Mama replied.

"I'd weally like a cough dwop.  I think the fever's kicking in, Mom."

She got a cough drop, though I think she meant Chicken Little.

Written 1/3/12

I read my short story called Sharing Words tonight at the open mic.  The story is about my writers' group and opens with one of the members throwing up behind a tree during our first-ever outdoor meeting.  The other two rip him apart when he gets back to the campfire, asking why he needs to drink so much, especially with people he knows so well.  He claims he's happiest when he's drunk, but they know him better than that.  Doesn't matter, he isn't going to change.  He will continue to drink and get drunk and there's nothing they can do about it.

The story went over very well.  I knew a couple of the regulars at the open mic are non-drinking alcoholics.  I overheard them talking one night, so I assumed I would get a couple laughs.  I did.  In fact, I received several compliments after the show.  I felt pretty good as I left the stage and one of my least favorite performers was on after me, so I went to the bathroom.  I mulled around afterward, not wanting to sit down and distract everyone, then I remembered Tom said some of Murray's drawings were in the back room for sale.  I went in and looked at them.  They were small and mounted high on the wall, but good, worth craning my neck.  I followed them down the long wall and turned and followed them back the opposite wall.  I was almost to the corner when I noticed a giant cabinet -- indicating the drawings must have held my attention.  There were books in racks on top of the cabinet.

I began to chuckle to myself.  The books had titles like: Come to Believe, Pass It On, and Living Sober.  I had been there dozens of times, even poked my head into the back room once or twice, and I had no idea it was an AA meeting place.  What a night to find out.  It was like I was performing an intervention on myself.  And like so many interventions, nothing happened.  I was at a bar half an hour later.

I waited too long ...

I just finished watching the movie It's a Funny Story.  As the closing credits rolled I thought: I've waited too long to go crazy.  Truth be told, I thought of it as a facebook status.  Todd Jackson ... waited too long to go crazy.

I'm not talking about talking to yourself crazy, though I do.  I'm not talking about the kind of crazy where I hurt myself or other people, quite the opposite.  I'm talking about an odd type of crazy where I no longer walk the tight rope, towing society's lines while peeking over the edge, jealous of the people who live for and as themselves, wondering how they make it, how they survive.  I never questioned if they were happier than me, these artists, musicians, and work-at-home people.  I knew they were.  I've been half-crazy since I started kindergarden.  Tonight I realized, without question, it was the half that concentrated on following the generic path laid out for me, not the half that stayed up late and got up early, cheating the day to chase a dream, take a walk, and write my thoughts.

We all go through our ups and downs.  I've said it a lot lately -- to my new friends, the people fate has timely sent to help me -- happiness isn't about smiling or laughing all the time, rather it is about working towards contentment.  I can be happy -- I am happy -- while in the midst of a grand struggle, as long as it's my struggle.  My crazy struggle.

another Actualist

I met a guy named Dave Morice last Wednesday at the open mic at Uptown Bill's.  I'd seen him up there before.  He is in his sixties, I'd guess, and comes with his wife.  They are pretty out there, which I appreciate.  He read a piece on a million year old language called it; four languages, actually, all called it; based on truth, falsehood, beauty and love, respectively.  It was great.  The audience got into it.

I read four completely random pieces from my Internal Narrator's Prosetry stuff (It's Happened Again, I am Dead Serious, When the kids go to bed peacefully, and Leaves me to wonder … in case you want to see for yourself) and somehow was able to find a way to tie them all together during my required intro.  You can't just read a poem, it seems, you have to tell why you wrote it first.  I'm fine with that, I guess. 

Dave came up to me after the show was over and told me he really liked my stuff.  I sensed he was going to continue, so I shut him down, asked about his piece.  Was it a real interview of a fake person or was the whole thing made up?  In the early-to-mid-seventies, he and an old girlfriend had created an imaginary poet.  He would write the words and she would go out and perform them, presumably in disguise.  The poet, Joyce Holland, lasted several years without being discovered.  (My detective work later showed she made quite a splash on the poetry scene of the time and was published in 29 literary magazines.)  I'd actually read about Dave in Joe Michaud's Iowa City – City of the Book.  He was one of the founders of The Actualists, along with Chuck Miller.  They were roommates.  I told Dave about the message I'd received from Chuck.  He agreed it was very complimentary.

He had said that the fake poet, Joyce Holland, had written a lot of concrete poetry and I asked him what that was.  (I'm never afraid to show my ignorance with literary things; I figure they don't know much about the design and testing of airbags; people study different things.)  Turns out that concrete poems are pieces that depend as much on their form / shape as they do on the words.  I've actually played with that kind of thing before, not knowing (or caring, at the time) what it was called.  This morning I wrote a concrete poem with Dave in mind.  It's called:

A Better Shape

(for Dave Morice)

I've

shed

eighteen

maybe

twenty

pounds

in

the six

or eight

months in

which I've

been out of

employment.

I no longer sit

within earshot of

those god-damned

vending machines,

depressed and list-

ening to candy

dropping all

day long.

I still

don't

exer-

cise

the

way

I'd

like

to, though.

Crossing the line

I've mentioned it before, but not in a while, so I feel obliged to tell you that these pieces are simply things I thought.  They haven't been edited or intricately studied.  They're blogs.  That said ...

A couple days ago I was going to pickup my daughter from preschool when some dipshit crossed the yellow line and kept drifting.  I moved over and laid on my horn.  He pulled his head out of his ass and returned to his lane, avoiding a head-on collision.   I glared at him as we passed, pissed that my horn sounded so wimpy.  I almost never use it and feel it should scare the shit out of anyone that deserves to hear it.  I want a horn makes them jerk the wheel so hard the whole car bounces off the opposite curb and rattles them for the rest of the time they drive, hopefully much better.

I also made eye contact with the lady following him in her mini-van.  She seemed saddened, concerned for the portion of our society that can barely drive anymore.  I had seen him pull out in front of her as he got onto the road.  The guy had a cell phone in his lap.  I could tell from the way he was holding his arm, in a position that used to indicate creepiness and now signifies stupidity and a deep lack of concern for the people around you.  I have hated cell phones in cars since they were invented, but now that texting is an option, the hate has turned.  It used to be that I would see someone talking on their phone and I would think they were self-centered and ugly, probably lonely, possibly stupid, certainly incapable of being alone with their thoughts for a few minutes, now I drive around and see people looking at their laps and I know for certain whatever message they are sending is not more important than my safety.  I want to pull these useless, self-absorbed texters out of their car, right through the window, grab their phone and smash it into the pavement.

Mercedes has a commercial in which it touts a new accident-avoidance system.  In the commercial they show cars swerving around semis and fallen trees, rocks and other stuff, in between these clips they show people – I assume actors – talking into the camera about the system, telling potential customers how it saved their life.  One guy says, "I had no idea the car in front of me was stopped."  The first time I saw it I shouted at the tv.  Really?  Where were you looking?  What were you doing that was more important than not hitting something with your outrageously expensive car?  May I take a guess?  You were busy not paying attention to your driving.  "I had no idea."  I still can't believe it.  Really?  Is this problem becoming prevalent?  If so, let me be the first to give everyone a tip, no, a RULE, on how to tell if the car in front of you is stopped:  It becomes larger, quickly.  Often there are bright red lights on the back of it and appears to be headed directly at you ... at the exact speed you are traveling.

I heard about a girl that died half a mile from her boyfriend's house.  She had left to pick up a pizza and was in the middle of sending him a text – HIM, the person she had just been talking to – when her car left the road at fifty, veered into a deep ditch and rolled several times, tossing her around until her head was smashed.  The girl was the neighbor of a friend I used to work with.  As he told me the story we both agreed it was sad that she died, a tragedy that the family shouldn't have to face, but neither of us could work up any real empathy for her.  What would Darwin say about a single-car, texting fatality?

I don't know.  But I could venture a guess.  One thing I do know is that if you aren't paying attention and you hit me while I'm driving you had better hope that I am badly injured and it's left to the insurance company to settle, otherwise ... well, I'd like to say that you'll have to learn to text with your sphincter muscles, but I’m afraid that would be used against me in a court of law, so I will simply state: whatever happens from the point of impact forward will have been initially instigated by you, thus entirely your fault.  I've been dodging shitty drivers for years.  I'll keep trying, but one's luck can only hold up for so long.  Maybe just knowing I'm out there with fifteen years of fury over people not paying attention and fully intent on kicking someone's ass if they drive into me while using their cell phone will help reduce the number of idiots.

A poet's voicemail

Sometimes it is nice to know poets.

I met Chuck Miller through my friend Joe Michaud.  The three of us had lunch at a Mexican place on the south side one Thursday.  Chuck was a member of The Writers' Workshop, but does not associate with those people anymore.  He moved on.  To look at him you'd think he was just a grumpy old man -- which he is -- but there is so much more to him.  He has taught English on four different continents and devoted most of the last fifty years, his entire adult life, to living and writing poetry.  At lunch, he told us he was waiting for a translator to finish a long-dead Peruvian(?) tomb in order to finish a poem he was working on.  He has never been shy with an opinion, which isn't always great with regards to employment, as he has very high standards.  I'm trying to be polite.  What I should say is that Chuck shoots his mouth off and loses jobs, always has.  Some people are sensitive and don't want to hear negative things even if the source of the negativity has a valid point.

It turns out that Chuck lives in my town, not far from me.  One day towards the end of December, I lent him my copy of More Notes from a Dirty Old Man by Bukowski and gave him a copy of The Judge T Chronicles.  In exchange, he gave me a book of his poems, Crossing the Kattegut, which I read right away and liked.  I had kind of forgotten about the exchange.  I moved on and worked on other things.  My phone was dead when I got up this morning, so I plugged it in and and found out I had a voicemail.  It went like this:

Hey, this is Chuck.
Read your book.
It's good, so
be happy. 

All right.
Bye bye.

I'm going to follow his advice.