Jumpin' For Joy

QUITTING IS EASY

I have an imaginary cousin named Dee. Dee stands for Depression. Despair. Doubt. Drink. Death and Delete...Dee's last visit left me with serious case of of deletion ideation and my finger came perilously close to answering the "Are you sure you want to...?" question in the affirmative- after all, it's been five years, right? What is the average blog's lifespan, anyway?

I've had a lot of blogs in the past, but at the moment I have only this one. It's an inchoate mess (and I have no plans to change that), but it has introduced me to some good folks that I don't want to part ways with. I'd be worried and lonely if all contact were to cease...
Deleting is easy. The difficult part comes afterward.

DON'T JUST DO SOMETHING, STAND THERE

Work is at a temporary standstill. I am the putative Help Desk pitboss, but our telephone routing system has never worked properly and has been off-line since Monday...my clerks can't get calls, as the phones are connected to a dead network. HQ, fully aware of the problem, has nonetheless ordered that the four Help stations be manned during all business hours.The Desk is supposed to serve our field agents, but at the moment we have none. If we did have active agents, they wouldn't be able to phone us, because the computer that routes the calls is broken.

Each day, we take turns 'baby-sitting' the PC/Phone combos. We know they won't ring but we are required to man them at all times. We are not to leave them unattended for any reason.

Let me point out that my office is in desperate need of PCs. There are only a few computers that are 'shared' and those are always in use. The rest of the staff sees 4 (FOUR!) PCs sitting idle in the middle of the room and they are told that those PCs are 'Help Desk Use' only.

"But the phones are dead! The Desk can't get calls!"
Yes. We know. You still can't use them.

Meanwhile, my hapless clerks have spent the last two and a half weeks drawing ire and staring at blank screens while waiting for their disconnected phones to ring...I need to pee. Can someone watch the phone for me?

Sit and do nothing for eight hours a day, forty hours a week...ugh. The clerks don't have Internet access and they aren't allowed to play games or amuse themselves with Paint or Word. No snacks or crosswords either...I hate enforcing these rules, but I will get fired if I don't and I cannot afford to be unemployed right now.

HQ IS SERIOUS

We got audited Monday and Tuesday. We passed the audit, but we were officially reprimanded for not having an Emergency Contact sign posted. The exchange between my boss (MB) and HQ went like this:

HQ (w/checklist): I don't see your Emergency Contact sign up. Do you have it posted?

MB: What is an Emergency Contact sign?

HQ: It's a sign with your Emergency Contact information on it.

MB: Oh, that. It's posted at the entrance.

HQ: No, that is a sign with the emergency phone number on it. I need to see an Emergency Contact Sign, it's an official document, form number [such-and such].

MB: Oh. We have never seen or heard of that. Can we have one sent to us?

HQ: No. I'm penalizing you ten points and I expect you to be in compliance within 60 days.



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The New Breakfast Snob: March 21, 2008

Officer Roseland- We Want Your Money
From the CD, Stimulus Package

Anouschka- Buried Alive
Earthy!

Astronauts of Antiquity- Everywhere
Ubiquitous...or it should be.

Dare Dukes- Kick and Holler/The Prettiest Transmitter
Dare has top-notch storytelling gifts and a well developed sense of sound.

Say Hi- November was White/Oohs and Ahs/Barsuk
One man band. Interesting CD.

Arvel Bird- Red Ride
Cool electric fiddle with an unwavering Native American beat.

Shawn Farley- Squandered All My Time
No kidding. Cool tune with neat prog-rock flavors.


Cursive- In The Now/Mama I'm Swollen/Saddle Creek
Fuckin' great band...I was into Cursive before they were cool. So there.

Trey Green- The Last Flight
I like Green and this song fits in with my aviator moods.

Green Man- She Moved Through The Fair
I play this band a lot.

Joel Plaskett Emergency- Fashionable People
Crazy Canadians! Good song for jumping up and down. More to follow...

Chris Huff- Then We're Dead/Death or Texas/Huffmusic
One of the better CDs to cross my desk this month.

Kaiser Cartel-Okay/okay and.../Blu Hammock
I didn't like this at first but the gentle intensity is growing on me.

Michelle Malone- Grace
I'm a sucker for rockin' female guitarists.

Can- Halleluwah/Anthology/Mute
I needed some krautrock!

Jon Prophet-End of the World
This guy is good. More coming. Unless the world ends.

Kelly Richey- I Want You
Rockin' female guitarist!

Jenn Cleary Band- Wish You Been Here
Is that a bit of T. Rex I hear? That's cool.

Carrie Rodriguez-50's French Movie/Seven Angels On A Bicycle
This is not country music. It's much better.

Telling On Trixie/Mad About You
Ow.

The Duhks-This Fall/Fast Paced World/Sugar Hill
Canada is my new favorite state!

Norine Braun- Evolution of the Blood Star
Canadian and possessed of mad talent.

Atlas Soul- Lamour de Beneluie (sp?)
Are they talking dirty? It's in a foreign language.

Gong- Heaven's Gate/Shapeshifter/Viceroy
Wherever you're at , that's where you are.

Well, here I am.

Niav- The Devil
Not-country unfolk.

Patty Hurst Shifter-Mr. Soul/Fugitive Glue/Pants On Fire
Buffalo Springfield forever!

Cecile Corbel- Suil a Ruin
This song is 'Louie Louie' for Irishmen...but it's a nice, upbeat take nonetheless... Corbel does have a sweet voice.

Elu- Lose Control
Should I like this? Ah...why ask questions?

2008-Late Addition

This year some of my resolutions went into effect early. It took until this year to realize that I had resolutions, but I do. They sort of created themselves. I'll write them down so I don't forget:

1) Improve mnemonic skills.
These resolutions were supposed to be in the preceding post. I think I pasted the original into a job application by mistake.

2) Don't take any pill that isn't a vitamin.
It crept up on me that I'd been leaning on certain prescriptions a bit too much during this holiday season- last week I felt awful and couldn't figure out why. My brain was so lumpy and dull that I feared I had some sort of stroke. Why was I so fuzzy-headed?
Hmmm.
I haven't taken a pill for several days now and I feel a lot better. I don't know why I always forget the basics regarding my mental state. If I don't feel well, I have to ask myself:

-Am I high?
-When was the last time I ate? Slept?


3) Gain weight.
Like five to seven pounds. Maybe ten. I'm not much of a eater and my low-budget diet is way too healthy...I will soon need smaller clothes. I'm skinnier now than I was in the 1990's pic that was supposed to accompany these resolutions.

4) Be in a band.
I don't think my world will be right until I get back on stage and embarrass myself in public again, so I answered a 'guitarist wanted' ad on craigslist and the guys seem pretty decent. I'm going to meet them later this week. I don't have any illusions about making any money or winning any accolades, I just want to have fun and show off. And meet girls.

5) Write a good short story or maybe even a book. Nah. A story. Or a screenplay,heh.
Something I can try to sell. I haven't been crushed by the publishing world yet, so I still have dreams. I used to write comics, even sold a few scripts...then I got a 'real job' and a steady girlfriend etc ...shit happened ...I sorta forgot about writing. Today,I'm unemployed, single and have no excuse for not writing.
Last night I was trying to find an idea but was empty- today I found it. It's brilliant and scary as hell...all I have to do is write it. Duuuuude... it would make an awesome screenplay.
Ha!
I guess this resolution should include: Don't fear objective criticism.

6)...I have forgotten what #6 is. I need to go back to one and start over.

Mother of all Defense Mechanisms

Shortly before Christmas 1996, I got a call from my mother, who I'd not heard from for several years. She was in Billings, Montana and seemed to be at a loss for words when I asked her how she wound up there- she really wasn't making much sense at all, she was drunk, rambling, crying.

And coughing.

Mom had been sick for a long time. First she thought it was the flu, then pneumonia or even TB- she had started noticing blood in her phlegm and went to a clinic; it turned out to be lung cancer, which had already started to metastasize. Mom had no insurance , in any case it was much too late for anything but palliative care. She only had a few months to live.

So I flew to Chicago and from there the Twin and I drove to Billings to see what could be done. When we arrived, we found Mom living as a boarder in a dysfunctional house of alcoholics and addicts. It was a terrible place to live and a worse place to die.

At this time, I had just ended a bad relationship with a heavy drinker, and I had decided to "take some time off" from booze- I hadn't admitted yet that I was an alcoholic , but I could certainly recognize it in others and Mom's room-mates were drunks of the worst kind- violent, thieving dangerous people that physically scared me. None of them had Mom's best interest at heart.

We convinced Mom to return home and stay with her brother in Richmond.

She arrived here early in 1997. She survived an entire year longer than the doctors said she would, and she and I used that extra time to try to mend what at one time was an irreconcilably estranged relationship.

She had abandoned us as kids...but we worked that out. Finally.

That's what I told myself.

After Mom died, I boxed up her meager possessions and put them into my closet and pretended they weren't there. I ignored them for years.

Sometimes, when the subject of cancer or illness would come up in a conversation, I would talk about how doctors are sometimes wrong, about how my own mother was granted an extra year of life etc etc...

My friends and family would sometimes look at me strangely when I made those sort of comments...but I never really thought about why. I just figured the whole subject is an uncomfortable one- it is- what I didn't know is that they were watching me for signs of a mental breakdown.

They needn't have worried. I had my breakdown a long time ago and it's over now. It was so traumatic that it took me almost ten years to even know that it had happened, and now it doesn't really matter- I had to face facts is all.

Last winter I started going through my mom's belongings, seeing what I could put together of her life, much of which is mysterious to me. In her things, I found a journal which I cannot help but call her "Death Book", because that is what it is.
It's her journal of dying.

It ends, suddenly, in 1997. Her last entry mentions going shopping for wigs with me.
I remember that trip- we had a blast, Mom had the saleslady cracked up laughing, trying to find the worst possible wig- "I want to look my best for my cremation!"... I remember that.

But I also recalled that extra year of life that Mom never really had.
I remembered an entire year that never was.
I first noticed this last winter when I couldn't find any photos of X-Mas 1997 that included Mom. I thought that was odd. She was here... where are the pics?
Then I read her Death Book.
There was no X-mas 1997 for Mom. She was ashes.

The truth is, Mom came home in 1997 and passed away shortly thereafter. There was no extra time.

After she died, I resumed drinking with a vengeance. Literally.
Not only was I punishing myself for a past I couldn't change, I was also trying to comfort myself with memories of things that never were.

I didn't just realize this this morning. I've known it since last Christmas, but it's not an easy thing to accept or discuss. I'm quite used to the idea of missing memories- some are repressed by trauma, most are blotted out by liquor- but I'm uncomfortable with imaginary memories. It makes me question reality, and that is a slippery slope...but now, when I try to recall that never-year, I find nothing. I'm glad it's not there.

I remember remembering it, but there are no details left at all. I find that to be reassuring, since that year didn't really happen the way I remembered it.

What really happened is that after Mom died, I tried really, really hard to drink myself to death and I failed to do so.

I failed because I wanted to live.

When I questioned my own will to live, I used my mother's memory as a source of strength- Mom was sick and she didn't give up...I would tell myself.
This was about as useful as a delusion could ever be- it kept me away from the booze for over a year; by the time I started to notice that 1997 didn't exactly happen the way I thought it did, I had already started to find other reasons to stay sober- one reason, really.

Not dying is my one-step recovery program.

So I guess I should be terrified that my mind is capable of fooling me in such a significant way, but I'm not. I think I created that extra year because I really needed something to hang onto, a source of courage-anything to get through my post-drinking adjustment to life- and when my subconscious decided that it had served it's purpose, I was compelled to finally read her journal, and learn the truth without falling to pieces.

And it worked. Despite my endless litany of complaints and troubles, I haven't felt the urge to drink. That imaginary year might have saved my life at one point, but I don't need it any more and it seems to have erased itself.

Better it than me, I say.

A Pep Talk

Yop, I sure done fixed my car good. It ran wonderfully until I got a block from the garage- then the CHECK ENGINE light came on and the motor started ghost-revving crazily- the engine runs faster in Park than Drive...I don't know what that means, but I don't think it's good.

Remind me to never, ever be optimistic, cheerful or upbeat again. If I let myself become happy, I am almost always immediately crushed by circumstance.
According to one friend :
" Everyone is put here for a reason, and some people seem be placed here to suffer. You are one of those people."
They meant it as reassurance- that God had a plan and that I would get my reward in Heaven for my suffering on Earth; but I didn't find any comfort in that idea. I almost snapped at my friend:" I don't believe in God, or Heaven or the afterlife and it really pisses me off that people who have known me for years just assume that I am a Christian! Why do you assume that? Blah, angry,blah!"

But I held my tongue. If I am consigned to Damnation, it won't be for being an asshole to my well-meaning superstitious friend.

Anyway, I had to put my car in for a tire alignment and a new pair of tires- I was told it would be approx. $200 total, which isn't too bad. I dropped it off at 8AM and was told it should be ready by lunchtime.

At 10:30 the phone rang. It was the garage.

"Have you been driving this car much since the accident?"

This wasn't what I wanted to hear.

"Yes. Almost 1,000 miles just last week."

"Mmmm. This vehicle is highly unsafe.You really should have your car checked out immediately after a major collision..."

Yeah, I knew that, but I was too busy losing my job to do much more than get the body repaired, besides, I have been broke since the accident...anyway, after I got a mini-lecture on collision protocol I was told that the front wheel assemblies were basically bent all to hell and that there was no way to align them, that they would have to be be replaced. This would add $400 to my bill.

Oh. How about the engine?

They still hadn't run the diagnostic on the engineso I asked them to hold off on that. I don't have the money for it- I'm going to have to call my Twin and ask for another loan just to get the front end fixed.

The bad news is: Volvo parts cost a lot of money.

The good news: Volvos are very safe cars. I was told that most cars wouldn't have survived hitting a deer at 55 mph and I was pretty lucky to walk away from the scene. When I told the mechanic that the deer has been literally split in half, I could hear him whistle to himself..."you got lucky", he said.

Lucky? Since July 4th I have lost my savings , my job and my health insurance. I've had my heart used as dual-purpose trampoline/doormat. My grandmother is back in CCU and I don't even have a car at the moment- it may be a couple of days until I can get the cash to retrieve it...yeah, I feel lucky.

I must admit that my first thought was :"I wish that fucking deer had killed me, because life has pretty much sucked since then."

Then I realized something important.

Exactly two years ago today, I had less than 72 hours to live and I didn't even know it at the time. Back then, I had somehow managed to convince myself that vomiting "a little" blood was normal...that 18 beers and a fifth of vodka per day was perhaps "a little" too much, but certainly not deadly.

Sept. 7, 2005 found me with a ruptured esophagus, bleeding out on a hospital's ER floor, struggling to survive . During this, I went into alcoholic withdrawal and suffered a grand mal seizure on the operating table while I had an endoscopic tube inside me. The docs were sure that I was going to die. Obviously, they were wrong.

Nearly a week later I was released. I am not ashamed to admit that I lied my way out of getting placed in the Psych ward- over and over again I had to tell therapists that , no, of course I never think about suicide, that I never cry for no reason -I even told a priest that I would start going to church if he would just let me go home. I just gave the nodding heads the answers they wanted and kept hoping they'd release me.

Was I sure that I had never thought about suicide?, I would be asked.

Yes, I would lie. I didn't mention that my uncle had blown his own head off just a few months ago or how many times my mother had hurt herself during her drunken depressions...shit, why in the world would I ever think about suicide? Please note that there is a significant difference in thinking about suicide and considering it. I think about it often but I have never consciously
considered it- the drinking was as close as I ever came to tying my own noose. I didn't feel that explaining this was going to do any good so I lied. Repeatedly.

Just about the only true thing that I said was that I really didn't feel like drinking again. That's the only thing no one believed. Eventually, they reluctantly let me go. One therapist said that she felt there was a high probability that I'd be back very soon. Or dead. She was wrong.

When I was finally released, it seemed that I had nothing to return to. My old Honda had gotten me to the ER,but it was in worse shape than me. I had lost my temp job, my uninsured medical bills had consumed my entire life savings and I was sobering up and finding out that I was very, very lost and afraid. I didn't want my family to know how bad I had become, so I couldn't turn to them...I had also lost most of my friends by this point-albeit temporarily in some cases- nobody wants to be friends with someone who is drinking themselves to death.

I remember getting home and scrubbing the dried blood off of my bathroom walls and noting how the splash pattern looked exactly like the one Mom left on her bedroom wall when she died.
Then I wondered what sort of splash pattern my uncle Steve left. He used a gun.
After that,I curled up on the cool tile bathroom floor and cried until I was exhausted. It may have been for hours or for days...I forget.
I had a lot of mourning to catch up on.

I kept thinking: "I am never going to make it. My mind is going to snap and something terrible and uncontrollable is going to happen. I am helpless, hopeless and doomed."

I was wrong. I was none of those things and nothing terrible happened.

Lately, I've been having brief episodes of that hopelessness again, but this time I'm much better prepared to face them. I've come clean about the booze and illness with my friends and my family and have found that they are still there for me- I was the one who went away, not them.

Today, almost exactly two years from the time I quit drinking, I find myself in nearly identical straits- broke, unemployed, forced to borrow money just to pay for day-to-day expenses-but it's different this time. This time my friends and family know what's happening and I'm lucky to know that if things really get bad, there are people to help me- if I had a dime for every person who has offered to loan me money over the last two weeks, I wouldn't be in debt right now! (...except for their no-interest loans, of course)
I can't begin to list all the small favors that folks have done for me since i sobered up, I can only try to make it worth their while.

When I was a hopeless drunk, not many people wanted to do me any favors. Not many people are willing to waste time and money on someone who has given up, no matter what their former relationship may have been. Even family has limits. I turned my back on my own father- but he came back last month and I have set aside my anger. For now.

Today, I have help and it is offered willingly. Hopefully, I won't need to accept it, but it is there. That means that there are people in my life who have not given up on me.
There always have been, I just wasn't always one of them. That was a shame.

So yeah, I'm fucking sick to death of my $3 a day diet , I'm tired of getting ambushed by devastating repair bills , my creditors from 2005 are howling again and I pray to Godzilla I can find a decent job before I am forced to become 3rd shift assistant manager at Skippy's Quik-Mart for $9.65 an hour...but I haven't given up.

Sad? Sure. Why shouldn't I be?
Depressed? Yes, but I recognize it this time so I won't let it win.
Despair? Nope. I am done with despair.

I'm down and out but this time there's no shame in it, it's just me being 'lucky'.
Shame is the difference between mere sadness and utter despair. When I drank, I was consumed by shame that could only be eased by shameful drinking. It was truly horrible and I promise that I will never let that happen again.

The only shame would be to give up after surviving so much- first I tried to destroy myself, then others tried to break me and failed and finally it all came full circle and I was watching my grandmother fight for her life in the Critical Care Unit, hooked up to many of the same machines that I was attached to in 2005. As her blood pressure dropped, she reached out her hand and gripped mine with an impossible strength and it was at that moment I realized that she was afraid to die- not because she fears death, but because she is worried about me and what might happen without her to look after me.

I want her to get out of the damn hospital and go back home where she belongs. Then I want to drive my fully-repaired car (it was a beauty before the wreck) show it to her and tell her about my great new job. This isn't likely to happen overnight , but it won't happen at all if I give up now.

I meant for this to be a bitter, depressing post much like the ones that used to cause readers to jump ship in droves- if three can be considered a 'drove'- but when I started putting things into perspective I realized that I'm not as unhappy as I thought. I'm hardly radiant with joy , but I don't exactly have a personal storm cloud either. Things are what they are, is all.

I'm not done yet.

I have shows to do.

Don't touch that dial.

Your Comment Is The Most Fucked-Up Thing Ever

Yesterday I got a phone call from a friend of mine who happens to be a blogger. They were a little agitated. What's up?

"Do you wanna see the most fucked-up thing, ever?"

"Um, I'm already watching that. It's on TV right now."

We were thinking of two completely different Most Fucked-Up Things Ever. That's part of the diabolic nature of MFUTEs- they should be singular but in reality they are infinite. I'll post about my MFUTE later, but my buddy's MFUTE took the form of a comment left on their blog.
Could I take a look at it?

If you took an infinite number of monkeys , gave them an infinite amount of bathtub-grade LSD
and made them fight each other for the right to randomly type on a single keyboard, you'd get a more coherent text than the nigh-infinite comment that was my friend's MFUTE.
It consisted of dozens of paragraphs of Unibomberesque rantings - it made my eyeball hurt to look at it, but I did note that it had absolutely nothing to do with my friend's blog. In fact, it looked exactly like the kind of lunatic spam that my old pal Jerky used to get on his sorely-missed website, the Daily Dirt. He'd get dozens of letters like this every week, but his site was extremely political and in the wave of post-9/11 nationlistic hysteria, the simple act of criticizing Dubya was 100% guaranteed to garner at least a few ALL CAPS DEATH THREATS, not to mention dozens of schizophrenic manifestos such as the one my friend received. There's no shortage of avoidable lunacy on the web, but it's never fun when it seeks you out.

"I have never seen anything this insane...why would they put this on my blog? "

"This is some crackpot's personal agenda- I'm sure it makes sense to him , but I'm glad it doesn't make sense to you. It's probably on his clipboard and he's hopping blogs and pasting it everywhere he can. I bet if you spent sometime trolling other blog's comments, you'll see this rant posted over and over again."

Sure enough, a cursory morning skim of some of my fave blogs revealed that some of them had been gifted with the mystery jeremiad. It's probably grabbing URLs from our blogrolls and spreading itself, so there's a good chance you have already received it.

I got mine at 2:13 am. The weird thing is, the 'hit' didn't show up on my traffic counter at all. The Unispammer is using some sort of proxy or software to mask his tracks...anyone got any info on this? It puzzles me.

I hadn't planned on posting about this- my drafts are piling up-but after seeing traces of the Unicomment on other blogs, I'd thought I'd toss it out there- please note that the title of this post does not refer to your comments.

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Shameless Plug: Get your fix of obscure 1980's music by streaming my radio show, Songs From the Big Hair, today from 3-5 PM, EST.

A Sign

Yesterday I saw this sign as a portent.

Usually I interpret traffic signs with a decidedly un-philosophical literalness. "STOP" simply means " stop your car." The subtext implies little more than: " look both ways before proceeding."
It's not very complicated- or at least it shouldn't be.

Yesterday, I saw this particular sign and instead of it's predictably consistent insistence to STOP, it was covered in fine, nearly illegible print. I had to get out of the car to read it.

It read something very much like this:

Stop. You are very hurt and angry right now and you don't even have a plan do you? I bet you're going to rush off and do something incredibly embarrassing, stupid or even deadly and then you will have some serious repercussions to deal with, so instead of driving off in a rage, why don't you go buy some pastry instead? I know that doughnuts aren't in the budget, but if you allow yourself to get too upset about that other thing, you will start feeling like a victim- and you aren't. You weren't betrayed- despite your protestations, you knew the truth. It wasn't hidden, you were just ignoring it in order to suit your own needs. If you insist on letting that sort of willful ignorance dictate your behavior, you will get hurt- victimized- and once you lapse into the role of resigned victimization,you will eventually pick up all the old habits of self-destruction that chronic victims tend to utilize.
In simpler terms, I bet that you could drink yourself to death in less than a month if you allow yourself to give in to the sadness and anger that you are feeling at this moment.
These feelings will pass.
So my advice to you, as a STOP sign and a friend, is to calm the fuck down and reflect a moment. You have no one to be mad with but yourself and even that is a stretch- why can't you just give yourself a break ? What happened to all that 'fresh start' talk, eh?


In other words, life isn't that bad. You got hurt. It happens. Now you need to get over it.

It seemed like strange advice to receive from an inanimate object, but it made sense. I got back in the car and instead of purchasing a handgun, sixty dollars worth of crack cocaine and a 1.75 liter bottle of vodka, I went the other way and scored a pound of butter, two boxes of fresh (day old) muffins and a half-gallon of grape juice.

My cholesterol and my weight are perfect. I can survive a two-day buttered muffin binge without a hitch, no problem. Grape juice, according to some, is actually good for you- but I like it anyway and it goes inexplicably well with blueberry muffins...almost made me forget that I really wish I'd bought milk. Oh well. I'll live. My stomach hurts, but in a good way.

I'm considerably less sanguine about my chances of surviving a bitter, drunken, crack-fueled handgun misadventure, so I'm glad to say I that have ruled option out. I didn't need a road sign to tell me what a bad idea it is to follow that path , but it didn't hurt to have the reminder either.

I suppose that it's not a very good indication of my general mental health that I am having impromptu therapy sessions with traffic signs, but in this case it worked- with some long-distance assistance from my friends and family. Allow me to digress and offer my biggest thanks to my brother, my grandmother and my friends for offering to help with next month's bills, allowing me to finally turn on my air-conditioner (it wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't lost my savings and my job inside a 30 day period)...fuck, I just remembered that I'm going to need extra money to buy medicine once my insurance lapses... I wonder if my stop sign offers medical treatment as well as psychological counseling?

Come to think of it, my tax dollars paid for that traffic sign- perhaps the occasional therapy session is not too much to ask for? I am a long-time advocate for socialized health-care, after all.

Anyway, I have been a bit disorientated lately. I was so busy trying to understand what was happening in the alley that I almost forgot about the traffic on the street.
Feel that warm diesel breeze? That's the bus that almost hit me.

I think I should pay attention to signs.

Big Picture Playlist

Steeleye Span- Calling Song/Blacksmith
I got off to a great start by introducing this band as "Steely Dan". More coffee!

J.D. Steele Singers- How Shall I See You Through My Tears?
Speaking of Steely Dan, Donald Fagen produced this record. It's Oedipal Gospel.

Peter Tosh- I'm The Toughest
I dedicated this song to myself.

Blue Oyster Cult- Godzilla
"Folly of Man" is my new favorite phrase - this song points it out again and again.

Damien Dempsey- Marching Season
Hatred is on parade and Damo wants it to stop. Why won't anyone listen?

Bob Marley- Hold On To This Feeling
Years later, this feeling will bury it's fangs in your ankle while you sleep, causing you to wake in the dead of night, clammy with cold sweat. Perhaps I misinterpret this.

Lucinda Williams- I Think I Lost It
OK. This is what I was thinking of. This morning I asked Lucinda if I could be her roadie. I'm still waiting for a reply. I don't think she listens to my show.

Bob Dylan- Idiot Wind
Remember that mixtape I gave you in 1988? This song was the first song on that tape for a reason.

John Cale- Rise, Sam, Rimsky and Korakasov
Synethesia is sorta like seeing sounds as colors or something...some chick is rambling on about some old Russian dudes and I'm letting Bob Dylan play his harmonica solo in the background as the strings on the Cale piece swell in the key of Green. It's pretty trippy, even without drugs.

Can- Spoon
I like the way this looks.

Spoon- Everything Hits at Once
This one goes out to the deer I killed on July 4th. There should be a suicide prevention RoadKill Hotline for wildlife. It would've saved me $1200.

King Crimson- Three of a Perfect Pair
One is the loneliest number. Three is the jealous numeral.

Frank Zappa & Mothers- Concentration Moon
Way back in the Sixties, FZ was singing about the US Government rounding up innocent citizens and placing them in Camps. It's already been done once and the New Camps are being built as we speak:

the Army Corps of Engineers awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root a $385 million contract to construct detention centers somewhere in the United States, to deal with "an emergency influx of immigrants into the US, or to support the rapid development of new programs," KBR said.

New programs?

Marianne Faithful- Brain Drain
Did Barry Raynolds win a medal for his production on Broken English? He should have.

Pretty Things - Blue Serge Blues
Bonus points to Phil May for not dying.

Soft Boys- Muriel's Hoof/Rout of the Clones
Muriel was a deer who lost the will to live. Her hoof went through my headlight. There is enough of her DNA on my car to clone her.

10 CC- Speed Kills
Yes it does. Ask Muriel.

Red Noise- Revolt Into Style
We are a giant blob of rebellious non-conformists with discretionary income.

Chris Spedding - Video Life/Radio Times
Did I mention how much I love the radio? I do, I do. Video...eh. Not so much.

The Who - Naked Eye
The stars are all connected to the brain...

Be Bop Deluxe- Sister Seagull
You're the reason I survive... dedicated to Volvo for making such survivable cars.

Tom Verlaine- A Future In Noise
Fuckin' guitarist getting all philosophical and shit...Reemco School of Numbness...I feel smarter just listening to it.

Belly- Geppetto
Rocks in threes.

Big Brother & Holding Co. - Joseph's Coat
Recorded after Janis Joplin died. Big Brother were an under-rated band, this album (Be a Brother) is actually pretty darn good.

Lou Reed -Kill Your Sons
Sometimes things seem...intense. But not enough to warrant electro-shock therapy. Before you check yourself in for a 'rest', listen closely to this song.

Snakefinger - 8 1/4
During an LSD-fueled jam session with avant-garde musicians The Residents, all the participants watched in disbelief as Phil Lithman's fingers became elongated , glowing snakes and wrapped themselves around his guitar, giving birth to his adopted moniker. Wikipedia has it slightly wrong- I heard the story from Snake himself. I got the impression he enjoyed telling it.

Nina Hagen- Superboy
Nina escaped from East Berlin back when that meant something.

Stranglers- Sweden (All Quiet on the Eastern Front)
My Teenage Swedish Internet Girlfriend was born in the same month as my 1990 Volvo. This is for Em.

Paul Simon- Late In The Evening
Dude. It isn't even 9AM yet.

Gary Numan- You Are In My Vision
I can see you in my microphone. It's that synethesia thing.

Circuit Breaker

I am burnt. Shattered. Toasted.
It's been a long week. Too many problems all at once.
It all caught up to me when I called my grandmother late last week. She is in a 100-day convalescent program to determine if she will be able to return home or if she will need assisted living.
No one except my granny thinks she can complete the rehabilitative therapies.
When I talked to her, she could barely speak; I don't know if it she was drugged or not, all she could do was cough. Into the phone.
LOUDLY.
Then she would gasp and cough again.
"A...A..Allan? * HACK* "is that y..*HACK!..*gasp*..."
I tried to keep talking about the nice weather and the pie my neighbors gave me; about how my car runs better now ( omitting the fact I spent my vacation money on it), but I couldn't maintain my composure.
Her coughing was causing me physical pain and her palpable suffering was shutting me down emotionally.

Here comes the panic. Every problem, real or imagined, was being encoded into my grandmother's tortured breath and passed along the telephone wires until it reached the bullhorn I was staring into on the other end.

I can't breathe either, I want to tell her, but I can't speak. I can't think. Panic.
Forgive me, but I'm having a freakscene attack and I can't talk.
I love you. Goodbye.
I had to take two Ambien before I could sleep that night.

Saturday, I took my panic pills in the morning. I almost never do that but I felt twigged even before I showered.
I did two loads of laundry; swept the apartment; did the dishes; bought groceries and made a nice green chile, rice and cilantro dish; scrubbed the litterbox closet and started organizing my comic collection. I kept getting distracted by reading them so I didn't get far with that.

I did everything except what I was supposed to do, which was to drive north and sit by my grandmother's side.

The guilt from this dereliction kept me awake all night and I had to do my early morning radio show with barely any sleep. Now I'm too exhausted to make the six-hour round-trip, so I'll take my guilt to bed with me again tonight. Maybe I will visit on the Fourth.

Anyway, I did manage to do my show:

Soweto Gospel Choir- Many Rivers to Cross
I do not think that one must necessarily believe in God in order to draw strength from spiritual music. This song just sounds good to me.

Talking Heads- Take Me To The Water
More river music.

Peter Tosh- You Can't Fool Me Again
Perhaps you can't, but someone very much like you can. And has. And will.Again.

Damien Dempsey- Celtic Tiger
"I am your Goddess Greed, you shall have no God but me"

Fairport Convention- The Way I Feel
I don't recall what I was dreaming about, but in it, this song was playing. Who says dreams never come true?

Clarence Fountain & 5 Blind Boys- Lift Me Up
All the way to Olympus.

Loreena McKinnett- Gates of Istanbul
It's almost as if you were there.

Kinks- Waterloo Sunset
I believe that this is one of the most beautiful pop songs of all time.

Clash- Hate and War
Lest we get too complacent, let's remember what's really happening in the world.

Emmylou Harris- Here I am
At the end, the songs picks up a percolating, electronically-assisted groove as Emmylou announces her presence. Sweet production , sweet voice.

Camon Friel- Yanks
"If ya wanna make money, ya gotta sing like one"

Grace Slick/Paul Kantner- Walkin'
Wandering through the wasteland.

10 CC- Sand In My Face
Dynamic Tension!

Gary Numan- M.E.
Why should I care? Why should I try?
Oh no. Oh no.
I turn off the pain like I turned off you all
Now there's only M.E.
Gary Numan sure has some cheery lyrics.

Fiona Joyce- The Juggler
This is a current release from a St. Clair Records promo compilation. I don't like a lot of the stuff in their catalog, but Joyce is wonderful.

Graham Central Station- Can't Stand The Rain
It's warm and sunny and I can't stand feeling this tired on such a nice day. I'll pretend it's raining and try not to feel guilty about not visiting my grandmother.

Savoy Brown- Poor Girl
This song is for Moon Pie. Moon Pie was a girl I used to live with whose head and ass were both pale, nearly-perfect spheres; reminding me of twin Moons. I never did explain this term of endearment to her.

Pretty Things- Bitter End
Phil May feels your pain. What a great, underated band the Pretties were.

Atomic Rooster- Don't Know What Went Wrong
Story of my life. Same old song, don't know what went wrong, etc etc...

Lou Reed- Leave Me Alone
Really. I have maximum straws on my back.

Eleni Mandell- I Love Paris
I wish her records were easier to find. Perhaps in Paris?

Steeleye Span- Lowlands of Holland
After your husband drowns at sea, it's laments , homesickness and sorrow from there on out.

Maire Brennan- Beating Hearts
Yesterday I was outside, using a broom to beat the cat hair and dust out of my throw rugs. It's amazing how much crap is in those things. It reminded me of this song's title.

Marianne Faithfull- Broken English
I dedicated this song to "my good buddy in the UK, Tony B. Naming you envoy to the Middle East makes as much sense as making Pete Rose commissioner of baseball." I wonder if anyone knew what I was talking about?
What are we fighting for? It's not my security!
No shit.

Flaming Groovies - She's Falling Apart
She's my foundation.She keeps me standing. Now she's falling apart.
Dude. Eggs in one basket...tsk.

Golden Palominos - Pure
She has never felt so pure...
This song is so groovy and sexy that it almost always gets a call :"who is that? This is cool etc".
I love it when people call and ask what they just heard.

Velvet Underground- Train Goin' Round The Bend
I honestly don't know how I made it through the week, but I did.
Now it's over and it's time to rest. Maybe I'll scrub the bathtub...

Don't Join The Baby Seal Club

I think I have undergone a cuddly, Kafkaesque transformation. Unlike Gregor Samsa in Kafka's famous The Metamorphosis, I do not wake up and find that I have become a vile giant insect. I wake and am somewhat slow in realizing that I have changed into a precious Baby Seal.

Goddamn, but I am a cute bastard, I think as I look into the mirror. And it is true, for I am adorable. I'm a baby motherfuckin' seal!

Hello Mr. Bus Driver!

Hello My Favorite Passenger!

The driver grins and lowers the wheelchair access ramp for me so I can waddle aboard.
A disembarking gentleman gently lifts me into one of the front seats before stepping off onto the sidewalk. He waves goodbye.
I make a squeaking sound, pleased.

The entire bus erupts in cheers and applause, two dozen beaming smiles light the vehicle's interior with a warmth that would make roses bloom. I resist the urge to take a bow, a prudent caution given that I have no legs or waist with which to bow.

Instead, I wiggle my flippers in happy reply.

They love me, I think.

I love them back. It's a special feeling on the bus. This is the bus to happiness and I am it's happiest passenger.
We are riding on paradise and I'm the only one who knows it.
It shouldn't be a secret.
Who should I tell?
I tell everyone I see, and they all concur.
Some of the people even give me sardines.
Life is good. You don't have to be a baby seal to know that.

At lunchtime, I try to tell this to the Fur Trappers.
Using mallets, they bludgeon me to the edge of extinction.
Crimson stains blossom on my snow-white coat.

I escape their nets and somehow manage to make it back to my lodgings.
On my porch, someone has left a bucket of herring guts decorated with a ribbon. I nourish myself with this gift and my wounds quickly mend, my fur regains it's unsullied fuzzy whiteness.

Ahhh...

And that's how it's been the last two days. Everyone I meet either wants to cuddle and feed me or they want to beat me with blunt objects and flay me alive. That's how people react to baby seals. Cuddle or destroy. Compassion or cruelty.
There are no minor events, only the grandest of celebrations and the starkest of tragedies.

Ahhh...*ahem*

Dude. Don't you think that just maybe you are getting a bit worked up over a few bills and petty aggravations? Why don't you change back into a human and start over, and try making sense this time, eh?

Um. Ok.

Well, yesterday sucked. But I can't go into that here because it involves 150 other people.

So...good news!

Today I finally got my raise! It's only a few cents an hour, but it's retroactive to the beginning of the year- I am suddenly two hundred dollars ahead!

When I got home, my mailbox was jammed with bills. First I open my power bill.

Good news! The power company has issued me a credit for nearly $175! I had been over-charged last summer, something I thought was a lost cause, but someone must have filed a class action or something...I dunno, all I know is I won't have a power bill for months!

Hot Buttery Damn! How often do you open the power bill and do a Snoopy Dance?
First, a retroactive raise and then a credit from the Electric. Now I'm $375 ahead!

Keep on rollin'...

The cable bill is exactly what it should be. The last one.
I have canceled my cable and decided to save the money for better things: fifty bucks a month = $600 a year. That's airfare to London, that's what.

This makes me pause and think of other good news- today I got confirmation from the State Department that I will have my Passport within three weeks. Application approved! Anyway...

That leaves the phone bill, which is always the same.

Except it's not. It's $375 more than it should be. I have let my guard down and Verizon has shafted me to the tune of ninety cents a minute- for 400+ minutes! After sifting through the gobbledegook, I find that next month my DSL goes up from $15 to $40. Injury! Insult!


Screw that. I had to work my ass off to get that $15 price- years ago, Verizon had tacked me with $400 of long-distance that I contested-and won.
After they cleared my account , I was so mad I told them to cancel me, I was switching. To appease me and keep me on-board, they offered me ultra-cheap DSL and a cheap long-distance plan that was subject to change.
Frickin' fine print. Damn me for missing it.

I called the competition and got my services switched- at about half the price. The slight increase in my new DSL is offset by the savings on the phone, so I feel pretty good about it- I'll save about twenty bucks a month...

Hmmm...for twenty bucks extra, the new company will add digital cable w/ a year of HBO.

Sold!

Dude. So after all that kvetching and gnashing, you are basically even, money-wise, as well as being a few steps closer to travel? Things have evened out and as a bonus you also get cable TV again . Is that what you mean? Is it?

Uh...yeah. I guess it is. Balance is maintained and all that. Harmony, y'know?

So have you learned anything from this?

Um...it's better to act like a man than to feel like a seal?

Welcome to the world. Have a sardine.

Tying Lois

In the 1960's and 70's DC Comics published a seemingly endless number of spin-off comics featuring nearly all of Superman's friends and 'family'- Jimmy Olsen, Supergirl, Krypto the Superdog, Superboy and even Supertramp.

Superman fought Muhammed Ali. Supes lost in a repeat of the Great White Hope fiasco...I think space aliens intervened to make it a fair fight. Anyone got a copy?

Anyway, the longest running one was Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane. It was the book that Superman editor Mort Weisinger would assign to writers and artists he was miffed at. It was intended as a sort of punishment, but some of the writers may have enjoyed themselves, perhaps too much.

One has to wonder at the 'creative process' behind this cover. In the illustration, Superman's two rival 'girlfriends ' have grown tired of Superman's unwillingness to commit and decided to put themselves in suspended animation for 5,000 years to punish him. The note at the foot of their iceboxes reads:

"Goodbye Superman! We're tired of waiting for you to propose. When we wake up in the future , you'll be DEAD, DEAD, DEAD! Lois and Lana

That's a pretty hateful goodbye letter. Vicious and frigid.

I must admit that I'm appalled at Supe's reaction to this. He's agonizing over what to do when what he should be saying is:
"Thank God the two most fucked-up bitch-persons I know have removed themselves from my life for 5,000 years. I'm freakin' Superman- I should be able to find a girlfriend that isn't completely insane. "

Instead he's acting like a SuperWuss.




After Julie Schwartz took over as editor he tried really hard to boost sales. Lois Lane was tied-up and threatened with all sorts of bizarre defilements every thirty days. I'm not sure exactly who these comics were being marketed to and apparently neither was DC Comics; eventually they stopped publishing Lois Lane, but not before she got into some pretty interesting binds.


These covers
are fairly blatant examples of fetish art, yet they were approved by the puritanical
Comics Code Authority,
which once refused to 'approve' an issue of Amazing Spider-Man because it featured drug use.
In the story , a druggie got high and flipped out and Spidey had to save him from leaping to his acid-induced death, so it wasn't exactly a pro-drug story, but the mere mention of dope, even in a negative sense was considered to be unsuitable for children.
Marvel Comics ( with Stan Lee calling the shots) published it anyway, without the CCA seal of approval. This was very controversial at the time and some newsstand distributors wouldn't carry it but I have always been grateful to Stan Lee for having the balls to tell the CCA to get lost , helping pave the way for the 'Non-Code'
"mature readers'' books that came later.



Lois should be grateful that Superman never seemed into getting down with her. As writer Larry Niven points out in his essay Man of Steel , Woman of Kleenex:

... Superman's sex problems are strictly physiological, and quite real....Assume a mating between Superman and a human woman designated LL for convenience.

The problem is this. Electroencephalograms taken of men and women during sexual intercourse show that orgasm resembles "a kind of pleasurable epileptic attack." One loses control over one's muscles.

Superman has been known to leave his fingerprints in steel and in hardened concrete, accidentally. What would he do to the woman in his arms during what amounts to an epileptic fit?

Lastly, he'd blow off the top of her head.

Ejaculation of semen is entirely involuntary in the human male, and in all other forms of terrestrial life. It would be unreasonable to assume otherwise for a kryptonian. But with kryptonian muscles behind it, Kal-El's semen would emerge with the muzzle velocity of a machine gun bullet. (*One can imagine that the Kent home in Smallville was riddled with holes during Superboy's puberty. And why did Lana Lang never notice that?*)

I wonder if this is why they don't show 'Smallville' on my local cable?

*****************
Covers found here.

In Search of

Saturday becomes Sunday and I know it's going to be one of those nights.

There will be no sleeping. I have taken as many pills as I feel safe with and they haven't done anything.
I get out of bed at 3:30 AM and make coffee- not so strange considering that I usually get up at 5:30 on Sundays to do my show- when I turn on the radio I hear the same goddamned Mix Loop that was playing last week- it's what plays when the 3am-6am DJ doesn't show up. Drums n' Bass 180 BPM headache, I can't even shave with it playing, much less think.

Well, if I don't like what's on the radio, why don't I change it?
Good question!

I get dressed, grab some extra records and head to the station to do exactly that.


PART ONE- 5am - 6am:

Gong -Vive Gong, Gong est Mort - Sides A and D
I have some wiring to work on and it's much easier to work when there's no one else in the building- I put a record on each turntable and attempt to 'un-spaghetti' the cables behind the console. This is probably the best Gong record ever released, it's gets me into my zone.

Atomic Rooster W/ David Gilmour- Hold Your Fire
This isn't as good as I was hoping- I have a Pretty Things CD from around the same period (2001?) that also features Gilmour and he's not especially good on either one.
Oh well, it's 5:45 am and it sounds OK to me.

Cop Shoot Cop- Last Legs
I love this band. This is not a very nice song. Too bad.

Hawkwind -Master of the Universe
I think this is the first song that I ever learned how to play on bass. One of my bands used to do a cover of this and I was always too stoned to recall the lyrics, which was OK - "the winds of time are blowing through me/It's all a figment of my mind", it always worked out somehow. We used to play at parties in Park City,Utah - mushroom tea was served at the door, so we could be a little sloppy, if you know what I mean.

Billie Holiday- Lady Sings the Blues/Come Rain or Come Shine
I love Billie, but have a hard time working her into my regular show. There's a Gospel DJ coming in at 6AM, so I start toning it down with that it mind.

Anuna - Invocation
This Celtic choral ensemble are the second-closest thing to Gospel that I ever play...Hawkwind's Live- Space Ritual being the closest. (That and Aretha Franklin)

The 6 o'clock guy is here now:

"Dude! What are you doing here? Was that you playing all that space-warp music?"

"Well, I took a couple Ambien, went to sleep and when I woke up , I was here, playing records."

This is true- except for the sleeping part. I drive to a 24 hour pancake joint and have breakfast during my one-hour intermission. Mmmmaple syrup...mmmmaple syrup...
I'm tired.
Can I get two large coffees to go?

What, you don't have large cups?

Make that four coffees to go then.


PART TWO:
Spoon- Believing is Art
If there is Spoon that I don't like, I haven't heard it yet. The title of this track says it all.

Thin Lizzy -Johnny
This is what happens when I have too much time on my hands...there is exactly ONE person that knows why I'm playing this song. I'm hoping that they are in the audience, thinking: " He is playing it just for me!", because in this case, it's true. Plus I like Phil Lynott, he's seriously under-rated. Irish rockers rule!

10 CC- Worst Band in the World
Godley and Creme make me laugh...but they weren't even close to being the worst band in the world.

Uriah Heep- Roller
This is as close to the worst band in the world as I feel like getting. They aren't the worst, but 10CC was better.

Funkadelic- Cosmic Slop
Oh man, I was watching an interview with Bootsy Collins, he was talking about playing with James Brown and how you gotta get it on the 'one'- ONE 2,3,4 -ONE, 2,3,4...this, for me, is a very suitable Mother's Day song.
"I can hear my mama call, I can hear my mama call"

Ray Manzarek- Bicentennial Blues (Love it or Laeve it)
This is starting to become my favorite album of all-time. I bought it thirty years ago and it just keeps getting better. At the end of this song, Ray slips the organ riff from "Light My Fire" into the vamping...did he used to play in some famous band?
(You may gaze upon the fish-eyed majesty of Ray Manzarek's superlative sideburns here)
"Guess I'd better get out"

King Crimson- Heartbeat
I saw this tour. It was awesome...the contrast in style between Fripp and Belew was a joy to behold- Fripp sitting on a stool, staring at his floor pedals; Belew up front , whanging his twanger...ahhh, you shoulda been there.

Fiona Joyce- Cry Over You
I wrote about this song last week. Today, it reminds me of someone that I used to know.
No more tears, but I wonder: where are you?
People are looking for you.

Led Zeppelin- Ten Years Gone
Ten Years After-Once There Was a Time
For Mom.


The Wipers- Window Shop For Love
"I feel like a piece of cold ice forming inside a chamber of lost illusions...maybe the ground below will ease the pain- a perfect landing might just ease the pain, ease the pain, ease the pain...loneliness is such a drag"
Next Valentine's Day, I'm putting this song on a loop and playing it for 24 hours. Actually, I probably won't do that, but there was a time when I would have.

Hey, I left my Gmail chat open and one of my favorite bloggers (semi-retired) has tuned in!

"Play Misty for me", she asks, a request that I cheerfuly deny. I don't have the Kinks song she wants either- I usually do, but not today dammit!- but I must admit being called 'Mr. Fantasy' is kinda sweet.
I'll find something for ya...doing dishes, are we?
Gotta find something bouncy...

Joe Jackson- Sunday Papers
Oh yeah! Bouncy, subversive and it mentions Sunday. This could be my show's theme song!

XTC- My Weapon
I have no idea what this song is about.

Bill Nelson's Red Noise- Substitute Flesh
Does this relate to the preceding song or the one following? I don't know what it's about either. The word 'penetration' is used a lot.

The Kinks- Artificial Man
Need Kinks? I got Kinks.

Jethro Tull- Too Old To Rock& Roll, Too Young To Die
Yeah, I used to think that too.

Frank Zappa/Capt. Beefheart- Carolina Hardcore Ecstasy
This song makes me think about The Liberator.
"She put a Doobie Brothers tape on/ I had a Roger Daltrey cape on"

Flaming Groovies- Teenage Head
One of the best rock and roll records of all time.

Eleni Mandell- Dreamboat
If Tom Waits was a female punk rock caberet torch singer, he might sound like Eleni Mandell.

Eleanor Shanley- Road To Glory
Did you know Dublin was founded by Vikings? It was.

Nina Hagen - White Punks On Dope
Pure guilty pleasure- a Teutonic Tubes Tantrum! I love this! I think I'm the only one who does, but it's my show. Suffer! Love that guitar at the end...

Gary Numan- Film
Gary was singing about YouTube before it existed. Gary was way ahead of his time.

Wire- Ambitous
Wire were way ahead of their time.

Damien Dempsey- Celtic Tiger
Damien, where are my CD's? I wrote such a nice letter...well, if he won't send them to me for free, I'll buy them. New and at the 'import' price. I like the guy's work that much.

Paw- Seasoned Glove
I finish my Mother's Day show with a song about the world's worst father. Mom would be proud.

Early Late Stories

I am nearly finished with a project that I only recently became aware that I was working on.
I've been learning my mother's story.

She and dad divorced almost as young as they married; Mom remarried (and later re-divorced) and moved to Evanston, Wyoming.
She spent most of her life living in the West- Montana;Utah;Wyoming- pursuing bad marriages and abusive relationships; alcoholic partners and cocaine husbands.

I didn't know her that well in life. I loved her and a peace was made before she died but I never really thought I understood her.

But I do. A little.

Mom spent entire years in near-total seclusion , a self-imposed estrangement from her children and siblings that lead me to believe that she had stopped caring, that she had abandoned us in heart as well as body.

I've been reading her letters and journals, sorting and scanning photographs that she had carried with her for as long as thirty years and it's clear that, if anything, she cared too much. Her pain caused her to withdraw into physical and emotional isolation, months spent drinking alone in remote Montana cabins or ramshackle Wyoming cottages.

Through it all, she maintained a somewhat erratic correspondence with friends of hers that I barely remember- it seems that my mother really liked to write letters, she received so many. I
I wish I had the letters that Mom sent but the ones she received have quite a bit to say; it's my choice to leave that for another time. I've heard their story and that is enough.

The few possessions she kept have their own tales.

In the X-mas photo, there's a painting, two figures on a road (a copy of a 'real' painting) that my father painted for her. It's on cardboard, a square cut from the corrugated side of a box.

The date stamp on the photo says "Jan.67", placing the setting as Christmas, 1966. I was 3 months old.

Today, ten years after Mom's death, I have finally finished sorting through her belongings. I have thrown some things away, donated others and some I will keep. My brother will get the rest.

One of the things I will keep is that painting. It's in a portfolio case of prints and pictures that she somehow managed to cling to through thirty years of drifting and drinking.

The painting reminds me that my father- whose whereabouts are currently unknown- once possessed a capacity for art, for hope and for love and that he has long since squandered those precious gifts.

It's a warning to me to never, ever take the things I care about for granted. It's too easy to lose everything if you do. Not knowing that simple truth very nearly cost me my own life, but I held on and I am not following my father's path. I hope.

The painting also tells me that although Mom told me to never forgive my father for a certain deed, that she must have forgiven him in some way or she wouldn't have kept that painting. She saw something in my father that I have never seen, but if she saw it, it was once there.

My mother is dead and my father is lost, but the painting is still here and so am I.

I've made many of the same mistakes as they, yet I'm here and they aren't. I like being here.
I can still feel the passion of art, the breathless touch of love and the driving force of hope that they must have once felt. I thought I had lost those things but I was wrong. They are with me.

I found something new in myself while I sifted mother's papers. I found forgiveness.
I can't forgive my father- there are limits to everything, and some trespasses I just cannot abide- but I can forgive her for telling me what he did and I can also forgive her for doing what she had to do.
Which was to leave her children behind.
It wasn't easy for her. She never got over it and neither did they.Until now.

Getting over it is my gift to her and to myself. So this year my Mother's Day gift is a few days early and ten years too late.

Mom, I forgive you. Can you forgive me?




Love,
Allan

Cheerful despite it all

I fully intended to spend the day in a goddamn bad mood, I truly did, but sometimes things just don't work out quite the way a feller wants them to. Sometimes stuff goes wrong, even simple things like waking up in a mean-tempered cussin' kind of mood.

I don't reckon this'll make any sense to most of y'all, but on some days- and it ain't often, so don't think I'm askin' for much- some days I just want to be pissed-off. I want to wake up angry and I don't particularly go lookin' to get cheered up, if you see what I'm sayin'.

You might think: "well shit, how hard is that to do? This world ain't nothing but a winking stinkhole and if it wasn't for the rainbows and unicorns in my medicine cabinet I'd be exercising my 2nd Amendment rights until someone stopped me or I ran out of ammo. What's so damned special 'bout bein' mad as hell?"

Well, what makes it special for me is I failed at it and I'm the kind of guy who just don't sit too comfortable with failure. I wish I could say that the reason I don't sit so well with failin' is on account of being accustomed to success, but I can't rightly say that. I just ain't fond of failing , is all I can say.

So anyway, I'm waiting for the bus this morning, just enjoying the sun and reading a book like I always do, and a nice old lady carrying a umbrella starts asking me questions about the bus service.

Now, me and the old lady both know that there ain't a goddamn bit of sense in talking about the bus since there ain't nothin' you can do but wait no matter how much talking gets done, but she just wants to talk because she didn't think to bring a book. It's a sunny day and she's carrying an umbrella , so I speculate to myself that this lady isn't so hot in the thinking department. I'm too much a gentleman to tell her that ,though.

"It'll be here soon," is what I say, which is true, even if I don't exactly know what minute it'll arrive.

She starts describing the weather conditions to me, like we are talking on the phone and I'm somewhere else, somewhere that's always dark and wet and I don't have a fucking clue in my clammy heart what a blue sky looks like. Which is kinda true, but she doesn't know that.

It is beautiful.
I agree with her and keep reading.

In the book, Marvin Molar has snapped. He's tied a rope to the boat's wheel and grabbed a hatchet.

"Oh, what a nice cat", says my wrinkly new pal, pointing across the street. "Here kitty! Here kitty!"

What I feel like saying is :" Lady, that's my fucking cat and it's the second dumbest animal on this planet and if it even thinks you are calling it, it'll probably run over here and get flattened by the goddamn bus we were just talking about. The shock of seeing it will probably kill you and if it doesn't , I might."

"He's a sweetie," is what I say, but I send a look at my cat that says: "Get near the kerb and I'm gonna spank you with a broom." He gets the message and slinks off.

Meanwhile, Marvin has walked in on Hester while she's fucking the Greek. I feel Marvin's anger rising from the pages- its much hotter than mine- and I'm almost envious of the purity of Marvin's rage. Almost.

"Is this the downtown bus?"

"Yes. Right on time."

I don't know if it's on time or not, but I'm trying to be reassuring. All hell is about to break loose in my book and I don't want the old lady to be spooked any more than she has to be, which is sayin' not spooked at all.

The lady boards the bus and hands the driver a twenty. I don't have to be a mind-reader to figure out what he's thinking. He's thinking: "This isn't a fucking taxi."

I'm on the steps below her and I'm thinking that I've got my nose about eighteen inches from a pair of adult diapers. I'm so convinced of this thought that I feel safe in calling it knowledge, which isn't always as great a thing as it's cracked up to be.

But I don't say that. Instead I swipe my bus pass through the meter a second time and smile at both her and the driver.
Such a nice young man.
Everyone smiles back at me. The whole bus is smiling.

In the book, Hester is smiling too. Marvin hits her in the mouth with the hatchet.


It cheers me up and makes me fail at being pissed-off, which would make me angry if I wasn't in such a good mood.

Marvin spins on a fingertip and waits for the Coast Guard.

I go to work and wait for five o'clock.

The Doctor's Office

I have only mentioned this to a few people and never in public, but I've been feeling poorly lately.
Fatigued at mid-day.
Out of breath for no reason- jog up several flights of stairs, carry heavy loads etc, no problem...get up in the middle of the night to pee? I'm winded.
No pattern to it. I have a not-so hidden fear of illness, and heart disease is near the top of my list of medical phobias. I am so afraid of it that I have only mentioned my recent poor health to a few people- knock wood.

I have likewise been keeping mostly mum on my insurance woes - but today I finally got my health insurance. I called my doc right away.

When I mentioned shortness of breath, he said he wanted me to come directly in. So I did.

There was a new receptionist on duty, a middle-aged woman with a very sad face...as she weaved her way through my new insurance info she muttered something about insurance carriers. There was a peculiar, intense edge to her mumbled words that caused me to do a double-take:

"Pardon?"

"I said you've had quite a few carriers in the last several years, Mr. C.," she said, her voice now heavy with weary compassion.

It was a statement, not a judgement , but my reaction was defensive.

"Well, I've had a lot of jobs...and the ones I keep usually change insurance carriers every year. To save money, they say."

"Honey, we see this all the time ...all day...it's terrible. Do your premiums ever go down when they "save money?"

Aha. This woman had some sort of issue with The System, not with me. I felt like I could talk to her, so I did.

"No, of course my premiums never go down. I can barely afford my share, in fact. I've felt like hell for a month and haven't been able to afford a visit until today. It's absolutely shameful how our country refuses to care for it's citizens."

"If you were in prison, you'd get free medical."

Prison? Huh? Where is this headed?

"Excuse me?"

" The bastard -pardon my French- who killed my son. He gets free medical care. For life. He had an appendectomy last month and I was praying that he would die. He didn't. He killed my boy. My boy was only 23."

"I...."

"Your new co-pay is $20. It was ten. They need the extra money so they can give free medicine to the man who killed my son. They plan on keeping that man alive forever. In prison."

As she said this it was clear that she considered the murderer's incarceration to be her own, that her life would always be stalled at that moment , the moment that she learned her son was dead. In her heart, as long as her child's killer had a future, she herself did not.


"I...I think I know...," I stammered, but I don't know, so I shut up and listened. This woman's anguish was compelling.
I am strong.
I am powerful.
I am helpless in the face of a mother's grief for her murdered child.

I have been told a little about this sort of justice and how it feels.
Told by someone who wasn't quite murdered and by someone who was.
But that's all I can know.
Because I wasn't there. It didn't happen to me.

It wasn't my son who was killed.

It wasn't my son who grew up wanting to be a soldier just like his Daddy, only to drop out of West Point because he was broken-hearted over what had happened to our military. It wasn't my child that returned home without any dreams left, and it wasn't my kid who lost his life just because he wanted to help his mom by taking out the trash.

It was her son who wanted to be a soldier and it was her son who was shot in the heart while dumping the garbage for his mom. He died in the alley a few seconds after his parents heard the shot.

He was murdered as part of a gang initiation. When apprehended, the killer explained that it was nothing personal, just that "somebody had to die that night and he was there"...as the woman told me this story, I could picture this inhuman creature as it calmly explained how sure, "it wasn't personal - we just murdered your son because it's better than being bored..." and I KNEW that this animal would never, not once, have even the slightest touch of remorse over what it had done.
In fact, the creature didn't seem to think it was treated fairly.
After all, someone had to die. It wasn't personal- why was everyone so upset?

That is how the animal thinks. It wasn't my son in her story , but I have met the animal.
I know others who have and not a single one of us is better for the meeting, but we have survived the encounters, with varying degrees of success.
Nietzche was wrong.
Not everything that fails to kill you makes you stronger.

I managed to choke out a few words about two friends of mine who fight this animal war every day but I couldn't get it out properly. I could tell from my voice that I was about to burst into tears and I wasn't sure I would be able to stop if I did.

"I'm sorry...I'm not used to talking about this. I didn't mean to bring all that up...", words that could have been spoken by either one of us, but in this case it was her to me.
And I'm not used to it. I'm used to writing about my feelings; I am not used to talking about them.
There is a huge difference.

" No," I said, " it's OK. Most people don't talk about this sort of thing. We hold it in until it kills us because that is easier than talking about it."

She reached through the sliding glass window and squeezed my hand.

"People should talk more often," she said and handed my paperwork back to me.

By the time the doctor saw me I had almost finished crying.




My doctor is an extraordinarily kind man and I've been seeing him for almost ten years. He has seen me through a (temporarily) crippling neurological illness; my first panic attacks and a nearly fatal addiction.

He has never seen me cry.

But he understood.

Now. What seems to be the matter?

I described my symptoms.

Hmmm...I haven't started smoking cigarettes have I?

No sir, just marijuana.

No alcohol?

Not a drop.

Mind if I look?

Go ahead, please.

(Note to alcoholics who think that they can fool their doctor: You can't. He can look down your throat and tell if you are a drunk. If he can't , you need a new doctor- not that drunks practice much preventive health care. It's almost always a sudden ER trip that gets them)

My doctor is very proud of my sobriety. He tells me that the chances of me doing what I have done are almost impossible, yet here I am.
I am not ashamed to admit that I needed to hear that.
That I do need to hear it from time to time.
That I will probably always need to hear it.

He used his ears and a stethoscope- still one of Medicine's finest tools- I took breaths until I nearly hyperventilated. Through the nose. Now the mouth. Nose. Mouth.
Dizzy.


Well. I was sent to have some precautionary X-rays, but the doctor seems to think that I have developed an allergy- my heart and lungs sound fine, but my sinuses are draining and seem obstructed.

He believes that I have developed an allergy or twelve and it is causing mild asthmatic attacks. This , I was told, is not nearly as bad as a heart attack.
Cool.

So I was given an inhaler.
I have to laugh.
It fits.

See, despite all the hype, I'm really just a nerd who likes Dungeons and Dragons, comic books and record collections.
I'm not even cool enough to wear horn-rimmed glasses- only cool geeks get those...but now I do have an inhaler!

I'll keep it in my Pocket-Protector, next to my Bic pens, my d20 and my Texas Instruments math machine.

Right above my heart, which seems to doing fine.

Man, I was really worried and was afraid I'd have a stroke any second or something...asthma?
The inhaler seems to work.

I am literally breathing easier!

Now, will my new sleeping pills be enough to counter the speedy feeling from the inhaler?