What Goes Up Must Be Loud

What was that noise? It sounded like a City bus  being towed away by a Sherman tank, but it was far too early in the morning to actually get up and look...at first, anyway.  After a few minutes of metallic clamor, I heard my neighbor Scotty join in the fun , adding his loud and colorful commentary to the ongoing din:

"Muggerfuckershoespitter! Shitpaperbookfuckerbox! Nipplepaintpeelingcuntwall! Fuckwaterbottle!"

Without my glasses, this is all I could see (below), but it, combined with Scotty's interjections, was enough to wake me up.

I suspect that Scotty suffers from some combination of Tourette's Syndrome and alcoholic dementia, on account of him pretty much always wandering around the neighborhood, half-drunk and talking crazy to himself; I mean, he's been doing it for as long as I can recall and is a harmless neighborhood fixture, but he does tend to frighten the uninitiated...anyway, he had a  valid point this time.

I got dressed, put on my spectacles and took a look outside .

Well.

I'll be a muggerfuckinfuckerwatershitbottleshoespitsonofabitch...this was the view from my front door, 8am Saturday:

My block was closed to traffic while a work crew was using a crane to replace the old giant metal boxes on the hospital roof with new metal boxes arriving by truck...there were trailers in place to haul away the old ones and other trailers pulling up, containing the newer, sleeker replacements.

Scotty  (red coat, above) didn't even seem to notice any of this.  He was explaining "fuckbox sandtraps" to the sidewalk when I stepped outside.

"Good morning Scotty, what's up?", I said, sipping my first coffee of the morning.

"Antmorning! Shitwalkantsgoupandown. Muggerfuck! Ants!"

"Muggerfuck", I agreed, pointing at the crane.

"Slattassfuckershittrucktruckfeets!", he replied, seemingly in agreement...then he shuffled off, which is a rather muggerfucking sloooow process, him not walking so good and all. It's sad watching him shuffle and mumble his way through a haze of mental illness, walking his endless, aimless and heart-breakingly ironic loops around the hospital all day.

It wasn't until later that morning that I noticed that Scotty had dropped an impressively large and fly-covered  turd onto the walkway between my building and the adjacent one. I dealt with this mess the only way I know how: by ignoring it and hoping that magical 'de-turding' elves would materialize from the Faerie realm and cart Scotty's spoor away to an enchanted farm where it would be used as fertilizer for growing giant beanstalks. It was either that or wait for Superman to stop by and use his heat-vision to incinerate the unwanted poo...but I got lucky and a torrential downpour washed Scotty's filth out of my sight and into my local groundwater...oh.
Perhaps that isn't so good...

Anyway.

Imagine yourself recuperating from a major surgery. If you haven't had one, take my word for it that it will leave you tired and a little grumpy. Plus, you will be in a strange bed and surrounded by all sorts of machines that healthy people seldom encounter. In general, it is a bummer situation.

Now add heavy construction machinery to the mix.  Look outside- there is a loud crane swinging a very heavy-looking piece of metal around, directly outside your window. If you have one of those 'self-serve' morphine drips, this might be a good time to press the button that dispenses your ration. If you aren't  already having a heart attack, feign one- maybe the docs will give you Xanax or Valium to calm you down.

This operation was actually  interesting to watch for a short while- but when I realized that it was going to be a lengthy and very loud affair, I was forced to leave the house...but where to go?

Might as well hit the airwaves:

THE NEW BREAKFAST SNOB, SAT. SEPT. 26,2009





Atris- Status Update
The Cranberries- Close To You
Hawkwind/Motorhead- Motorhead
Cursive- Lovecats
Kathy Fleischmann- He's Erasing Me
Jim Protector- The Hallmark Channel
Cary Grace-The Scarab
Portishead- Biscuit


Cafebar 401- Blame The Villian
No Restraints- I was Wrong
Firewater- The Circus
Dread Zeppelin- Viva Las Vegas
Planetary Nights- Blisters On My Soul

NUE!- Isi
Here and Now- City Man Cry
Cupero- La Sombra
Omar Alexander- Breathe In
Pretty Things- All Light Up
Jennings- Doorway
Damien Dempsey- Negative Vibes
Jeannine Hebb- All The Way Down
Megaphone- Write It Down
Angelfish- Dogs In A Cage
Beauregard Ajax- Loneliness Is A Sometimes Thing
Lou Reed- Hanging Around
Atomic Hooligan- Thief
Amon Duul II- Kanaan
Joe Croker- Lil' Miss Combat Boots
Dead Smiling Pirates- I 18
Clara Bellino- Goodnight Baby

Shot Across the Bough

*ding-a-ling* ding-a-ling*

I awoke to the sound of bells. At first, I dreamily thought of ice cream trucks; in my sleepy mind it seemed perfectly reasonable that an ice cream van would be making the rounds at 8 AM- the only question was: could I get dressed in time to catch it?

But my head cleared and I realized I wasn't hearing Good Humor, I was hearing Jingle Bells. And Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And Winter Wonderland.

Across the street, the hospital had erected a small Christmas display- nothing ostentatious, just a few fake trees and some lights- but this year they had added an audio element- a loudspeaker blaring a handful of X-Mas Muzak songs in an endless cycle.
The brick wall of the hospital acted as an amplifier- the sound reflected off the wall and echoed back directly into my apartment- I like to read and write in silence- so those activities were proscribed...maybe some TV?
It was unseasonably warm outside and I had the window open, which allowed fresh air and stale music to enter- at one point, I couldn't hear the news announcer because 'Winter Wonderland' was drowning her out.

After an hour of watching Close Caption TV, I walked across the street to the hospital, where I asked the receptionist if there was someone that I could speak to regarding the loudspeaker outside.
She didn't know, but she did answer two of my questions.

-The music would only play between 8 AM and 9 PM. This meant I would only have to hear Frosty the Snowman 37 times per day.

- It would only be played until X-mas. X-Mas was 29 days away, which meant I'd only have to hear Frosty 1,073 times over the next four weeks...I felt prematurely waterboarded.

The lady helpfully took my name and number and assured me that someone would call me, but they never did. I called a few hours later, the same lady answered the phone, which lead me to voice mail limbo. Eventually, I abandoned my home for the evening;Rudolph and Frosty had won.
I retreated from Retreat Hospital, defeated and distraught.
For the moment.

That night, I was explaining the situation to a friend. She suggested I call the ACLU.
Huh? Why?
Because it's a X-Mas display on public property...yadda, yadda...maybe I could call City Hall.
City Hall?

My friend missed the point. It could be a Nativity Scene, a giant Buddha or Madonna* on a fucking cross- that wouldn't bother me- it's the constant noise that was driving me mad; I felt like the killer in Poe's Tell-Tale Heart, except without the murder.
Make it stop. Make it stop.
The thought of having to endure it for another 28 days was unbearable. Unfortunately, I had to return home at some point...maybe tomorrow I could talk to someone 'in charge'.

The next morning it started again. I asked a different Desk Lady about the Muzak speakers. She said Security was in charge of the display.
Great! There's a Security Guard right here- I'll ask him if he can turn the Muzak box off.
He didn't know how. I wanted to call him an idiot but he had a gun, so I politely asked if there is someone who might know.

At 9 pm a man will come and turn it off.
Oh.

There are 31 Frosties between now and 9pm.
31 Rudolphs.
By 9 PM Winter Wonderland will have played 31 times, yet it will have snowed not a single flake. It is 60 degrees outside.
There may be several hundred playings of Wonderland until we see snowfall here- if we ever do. It doesn't matter, I'll have gone mad by that time. The X-Mas siege is only in it's second day and I'm already near the edge. I doubt that I'll last a week.

So I walked outside and stood underneath the deck. Directly over my head the loudspeaker blared the melody of Frosty the Snowman, # 41 in a series of 1,073- it wouldn't be impossible to climb up there, I thought, but there are cameras, guards, lots of traffic etc...I may be an anarchist but that doesn't mean I enjoy going to jail.


I ruled out the climbing option. I had a better idea. Loudspeakers, just like lights, use electricity.
I saw two cords plugged into an outdoor outlet on one of the deck's columns. I unplugged the one that wasn't blinking.

Ah.

I walked out to the sidewalk and looked up. The trees were glowing in golden silence.



--------------------------------------

(*As long as she isn't singing)

Goodbye To All That

I finally got laid off Friday. It was a real relief, it has been an emotionally devastating struggle to restrain myself from walking out in a ugly and hateful fashion, but if I quit, I cannot collect unemployment. I was laid off without cause so I qualify for the dole.

Dole is only my short-term goal.

When the new boss asked to see me in private, my thought was "Thank Godzilla, finally...", new boss knows she can't do the job without me and she says she begged her boss, Mr. Hole, to keep me but he said "no way". New boss knows that I've been running the office this week and that she's lost without me, but her superiors will not listen.

To them, I'm seen as a menace.

Their stated philosophy is thus: "perception is reality".
This translates into "we believe our own bullshit".
I told Mr. Hole " ... if you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig, but that fact is usually lost on pig-fuckers such as [him]self, since pig-fuckers only see the sow from behind."
(I was so happy with this ad-lib that I wrote it down!)

After that outburst, it took him FIVE days to get up the nerve to have someone else fire me...what a pig-fucker. Any man would have started swinging at that point, but he ran away and never faced me again.

She told me that her boss, the loathsome Mr. Hole, advised her to call security for back-up when she fired me - he was afraid of me, so he passed the duty to her and seemed to think that I might get out of hand (please realize that I would bathe in a pool of sulphuric acid before I would attack a woman) and it might be wise, he said, if she had 'back-up'. Apparently, my verbal assault on Mr. Hole really shook him up- he actually thought I was going to hit him and that I was a dangerous lunatic.

Man, hearing that was music to my ears! I've never thrown a first punch in my life , but I've learned that if you stand up to a bully , he will skulk off- because bullies are nothing but cowards at heart. Mr Hole is a weak bully and I'm pleased as punch that I scared the shit out of him.
I can't believe that he would leave a new, female manager alone with an employee that he felt was capable of physical violence, but that's just another testament to the utter lack of management skills displayed by Hole.

What he didn't know that is that she and I have been getting along fine. We even hugged when we said good-bye. She's a pawn just like the rest of us. I feel sorry for her and I tried to teach her as much as I could in the last week, but she just doesn't have the skills and I'm not gonna be there to do everything anymore. The company has set her up to fail and she knows it ...they told the Firm that she has extensive software experience that she doesn't really have.
The Company didn't tell Newbie that she was a software expert. She was shocked to learn that she is expected to know about programs that she has never even heard of. I'm the only one in the office who can run the programs and they laid me off...brilliant!

I've been brutalized by a barrage of conflicting emotions all week long. I'm outraged at what they did to my boss and to me;I'm insulted, hurt and degraded by the inference that I am not a good worker (if I am so unskilled, why are they trusting me to train the manager?) and I'm a bit melancholic over leaving a familiar place behind...but that passes. I'm also a bit excited about the future. A little scared, but optimistic.

It's been difficult to sift through all the noise and find the music inside the mess, but there is certainly a song in the cacophony; now that I'm no longer in the middle of the lying din I can eliminate the discordant notes and find the harmony, look for the melody...it's telling me that the best thing that could happen for me is a major, upward job change and that it's a realistic goal to shoot for.

This past week I have known that my work days were numbered, so I felt free to speak my mind- I don't know how many readers have had a chance to tell a hated boss to FUCK OFF, but if you have, you know how good it feels. It feels even better when he runs away in fear! Years from now, I will look back on this as a small, but significant victory.
After that encounter, I took the high ground and tried very hard to get Newbie educated enough to stand up during the coming storms. I did a great job and nobody can say I didn't- I beat the fuckers by being better than them. I was tempted to sabotage the entire system, but instead I trained Newbie as best I could, considering the short time available and her considerable inexperience.

I wish her well but my hopes are dim and slim.

In the long term, it doesn't matter to me. I've done more than was reasonable and now I have my own future to look forward to. I've got a show to engineer tonight and one to host tomorrow morning. Then I'll relax and do whatever the hell I want to.

Monday morning I'll file for unemployment and then drive to visit my grandmother.

I haven't looked forward to a Monday for a long time. It feels good.

Got Schmooze?

I'd like to thank my stalwart blogpal Sling for this award, even if I'm a bit mystified as to what I did to earn it. A 'community involvement/schmoozing' award is an odd thing for a self-professed subversive, reclusive, anarchistic, iconoclastic and downright anti-social Intertube crackpot to receive...or is it? Up is down, war is peace and American Idol is entertainment, so I suppose that by following that logic, I must be a pillar of strength in the blogosphere; a regular paragon of virtual virtue.

My award-winning humility is one of my myriad superlative qualities, but my rockin' modesty prevents me from listing them all- one of the drawbacks to being the Most Humble Man on Earth is that it doesn't come with bragging rights...but I can boast about some of the people who are lucky enough to have 'met' me online, er, uh...I mean that I have been fortunate enough to meet.
Yeah. That's it.

#1) Whim: Last year, quite a few bloggers with whom I had a passing acquaintance received emails regarding me from a shamelessly self-important blogger with a marginal messiah complex- he was warning them of my nefarious plan to commit suicide on-air during my Sunday morning radio show. I was one of the last people to hear of my own plans, very few folks took the time to write to me and ask me what was going on; most simply accepted this self-appointed arbiter of Blog behavior at his word.
I frequently point out the perils and folly of believing unsubstantiated claims without checking the sources, but a few readers did write to me and ask WTF? Whim was one of them. Whim understands what it feels like to be a survivor, and although we both get depressed at times, neither one of us is in need of a suicide watch. I quit drinking in order to live, not die- that's a major theme of my writing since my illness of 2005. Whim, who has fought to survive as hard as any human can possibly fight, understood this and after a short time she became one of my favorite penpals of all time. Her support during a period when it felt as if nearly the entire blogiverse had turned against me - for no reason- was invaluable in keeping me 'in the game'. I sure hopes she gets back on-line soon.

#2) Jackie Sue :Yellowdog Granny isn't old enough to be my grandmother, but she's cool enough to be my mom. Even her bad moods are funnier than 10,000 sitcoms, and when she starts dissecting the news and adding her own observations, you can see well how she uses humor to cope with a world that she is unblissfully aware of. I am glad she is my friend, because she'd be a formidable adversary. You absolutely DO NOT fuck with her.
Freya watches over this one.
'Nuff said.
(Under those big Texas Titties beats a heart of gold- see her latest post for details.)

#3) Angel: Like Whim, I was introduced to Angel by a blogger who no longer talks to me, but that's OK because Angel still does. She's a unique woman with a heavy load- but she bears it with dignity, humor and just the right amount of outrage. She is active in many blogging groups and has won so many awards that I fear her blog may tip sideways from the weight of all the trophies on her sidebar, but hey, what's one more? I am out-of-my-territory when it comes to child-rearing, but Angel seems to understand parenting and she knows how to get involved with web-networks of parents with similar situations and understands the importance of the support these groups provide. For that alone, she deserves this 'community' award.
(It's a secret fantasy of mine to start a communal ranch and raise domesticated mythological beasts. Angel would be my Dragon-Keeper)

#4) Skeet: I honestly don't know Skeet all that well, but she is an extraordinarily prolific blogger and I especially enjoy her observations on living in Hawaii- it's not what you get from the travel brochures. At one point -perhaps even now- she had numerous blogs on various hosts- like Angel, her sidebar is choc-a-bloc with accolades and blogger community widgets - Skeet does do some 'Post-for-Pay' work and she has been back-handedly criticized for that, but I would like to come to her defense: Life is hard and expensive, her blogs are well-written and she has told me she would not endorse products she found distasteful- I say if she can make a few extra bucks by doing something harmless that she obviously enjoys, then she deserves some respect- a few paid posts, contrary to the opinions of some, will not ruin blogs, blogging or the blogosphere. For all I know, those paid posts might be what pays her Internet bills and make the whole blog possible...always check your facts and sources before you presume to attach motives to the actions of others. Oh yeah, she has some great pics too...except maybe the fried food...that looked nasty, heheh.

#5) Cruel Virgin, AKA, Enemy of the Republic: Anyone who can get 71 comments and answer all of them must be doing something that involves the 'blogging community', the fact that she manages to upset, piss-off and generally outrage some truly stupid commenters indicates that she must be doing something right- she's spiritual, but not dogmatic- I suspect that it's her never-ending critical examination of the Divine that upsets the nutjobs, at least one of whom seems to really, really want to sleep with her, despite her frequently mentioned marriage . That thinly veiled desire is about the only comment from that person that makes sense to me. Smart women are sexy as hell and EotR is very smart.


#6) CS- CS has picked up on the usefulness of blog as therapy, she's had some major turmoil but manages to find some peace and beauty -or at least insight and irony- in nearly all her works. I think she's be a fun person to hike with..."ooooh, look at this" would be a phrase heard often, I imagine. Did I mention that smart women are sexy?
There is a cleansing, transitional quality to her recent posts, which seem to appear every sixty seconds or so, complete with photos that bring vicarious joy to my precarious state of mind.
For these brief moments of beauty, I have added one more blogger to the mandated list of five.
I never was very good at following rules...some are better broken.

#7) Craig D.- CD understands the beauty of truly cheesy LPs and he is an unabashed punster. I find these to be admirable qualities. It wasn't until recently that I found out that he also has a history of Rockin'...on the trombone! I think he eventually switched to MIDI banjo or something...in any case, he's almost as famous as I am, so you better treat him right. Don't misunderestimate the trombonist -or bassist or whatever- if you can play original music in front of a live audience, you are already ahead of 9o% of people who merely own a musical instrument. Keep on 'Bonin'!

NEXT: Bridges, and how to burn them.

Nothing Personal

I'm walking to the bustop and I'm forced to pause a moment when a blue Toyota noses out of the parking garage to my left. The driver, a beautiful dark-skinned woman, waves at me and smiles.
I smile politely back and continue walking, but she keeps waving.
Her window comes down and she calls me by name, beckons me over to her window.

Me? You know me? You want me to talk to you? Can do!

This is exactly the kind of thing that should happen to me every day but in reality never does. Except maybe now.

" Hi! Hi! Remember me?"

Wow. She is remarkably beautiful. My IQ plunges as a dormant part of my mind rouses itself and starts searching for something cleverly stupid to say, draining resources from my already faltering memory.

I don't recognize her.
Or.
Maybe I do. Ah...it's like a mnemonic sneeze waiting to happen.

"Uh..."

" I'm Kris! From Bank of Generica! How are you?"

Oh yeah. Now I remember. Kris with a 'K'... I liked her, but we didn't work on the same "team", so we didn't get much time to chat. She looks different now, but I can't say how.
I was mortally drunk during that period, so my recall of those days is just a little blurry.
She was nice to me. I remember that much . It's a start.

"Doin' good! Nice car."

Jay-sus. That's not quite the dumbest thing to say, but it is close. There's a second car pulling up behind her, forcing her to move out of the lane and I've blown my one chance at being witty and charming. Her face is round, beautiful, her expression expectant; I look at her and I go into instant mourning for our never-to-be children. They would have been wonderful, talented kids. Our life together would have been a blissful celebration of unending love- but I have already fucked it up. Our future dies a painfully existential imaginary death.

Years into the future, I feel the leaves falling on my solitary, unvisited gravestone.
No one clears them away.

"Need a ride? I'm going towards Suchandsuch street."

"Sure! Thanks!"

Hah! So much for falling leaves and unmourned graves!

This is cool. It's twenty years in the future and we are walking hand-in-hand along a moonlit beach and laughing about the old days which have suddenly ceased to not happen yet.

But first we have some small talk. We live in the same neighborhood, just a few blocks apart.
Good.
She refers to our ex-boss as a "fucking asshole", breaking the profanity barrier and establishing some common ground.
I am so digging this.
Ha ha, yeah you are right, I agree, that dude was a major asshole. Fuckin' checklist this, ya know?

Haha!

Do I need to be somewhere? No, not really.
Why?
Sure, that sounds great. They have a patio bar, maybe we can sit outside.
Park and walk? No, I don't mind waiting on your porch while you change.
Trust me, I understand what you mean when you say it's a mess inside!
It's a gorgeous day, take your time.

She's a quick changer and she looks great in jeans, two admirable traits. We head to the corner bar.

Dude. You are rolling. Don't fuck up.

Kris orders something with Crown Royal in it. I order coffee. Kris doesn't say anything specific, but I sense that my failure to order an alcoholic drink is a minor breach of an unwritten social contract. Not a fatal error, but a sign. Of what?

Nevermind to all that. This is going really well. Kris just got a promotion, she's branch manager at a competing bank; she's pumped up about it, thinking about buying a house...I can feel her imagination from across the table and it is warm and inviting. Kris is very articulate and funny, haha- I think everyone hated the "ice cream socials" at the Bank, but no one said so- Kris tells me she despised them, I tell her that I was actually ejected from one.
That was you? Haha! Awesome!
She gives me a hi-five. Well done!

The ice cream the bank served was barely edible cheap, mushy, terrible stuff made from tainted Chinese yak milk; yet we were supposed to act grateful and obedient for having it foisted on us in lieu of raises. Ten cents an hour more would have been better for morale than bad ice cream.

Kris points this out:
"The only thing worse than having a shit job is being forced to enjoy it".
Ha! Damn, that's true.. I like women who say stuff like that. It shows realism. I bet she's a good manager.
Hello, comfort zone.

Sure, why not have dinner while we are here?

Tonight's special: filet of carpe diem served with a garden salad of earthly delights. Just don't fuck up.

Kris is very animated, I'm entranced by her delicate hands as they tell the story of how she went from temp worker to management in less than a year. She is looking at houses, thinking of moving to the country even though the commute will be long. She would like to have a greenhouse and an outdoor dog. She has a cat now and it's stir-crazy in her apartment; her fingers make scampering motions on the tabletop as she talks. Manic cat, they say.
Her talking hands are not wearing a diamond. They gesture at me.

"How did you do that?"

Do what? My exploits are legendary. She could be referring to any number of my award-winning accomplishments but I haven't even had a chance to tell her how totally fucking awesome I am yet.

"What's that?"

"The weight. How'd you lose it? I hope that's not being too personal...but you look great."

That's right! I was fifty pounds heavier back then. At this moment I feel 75 ft. tall, but in reality I am short. Fifty pounds was 25% of me. I was in terrible shape back then.
I'm proud that I look good to Kris.
Don't fuck up.

"Well, I...uh...well let's just say there's a lot of calories in beer."

Her gaze shifts to my coffee and then to her cocktail and back to the mug. Behind her bottomless brown eyes, her banker's brain is busily calculating, doing the math. She adds it up. Smart woman.

"So...you don't drink at all?"

"No."

"Oh."

She needs to tell me something. She has dated two alcoholics and they are both dead. She was engaged to the second one when he killed himself. It is nothing personal, but if I have a drinking problem, she'd appreciate it if I told her now.

Don't fuck up. Now is not the time to mention my family history of self-annihilation, yet here it is again- the past is destroying my present.

I pause, fumble around... a refill buys me a few seconds to gather my thoughts.
This is tricky stuff.
I am convinced that I will never drink again, but I can't deny that I have a drunk in my past or that a single drink might kill me. I won't let that happen but I don't know how to explain this to her. There is no guarantee. I can't promise anything to anyone.

"I used to drink. I don't anymore."

"Used to... a lot?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

Again, it's nothing personal, but she can't take a chance with a drug-using heavy drinker again. It's been too hard on her and she can't go through it another time.

I can tell that she has been having an imaginary future too, and in her vision a life that never was has just ended.
It's a familiar feeling and I recognize it for what it is.
And she is right.
It's nothing personal. I've had a number of variations on this conversation over the last two years and I know the only reasonable outcome is unfavorable to me- in an impersonal way.
I can't offer up any proof that I won't drink again. There isn't any.
I can't expect her to take a chance - not after what she's been through.
If you are betting on horses, it's not wise to put money on the one with a record of falls.
Given her luck, maybe it's best to avoid the track altogether, but we are all gamblers at heart, so some chances will always be taken.
Some will not.

Like people, the better the chance, the more likely it is to be taken.

I am an untaken chance.

This is an awkward moment. The chemistry is intense but Kris isn't looking for a one-nighter and frankly, neither am I.
It wouldn't work like that. We can both tell, no use pretending otherwise.
We are both looking for a nearly identical imaginary future and that search is what separates us.
Her dream requires an absence of alcoholics , mine merely requires my own sobriety.
It's a subtle but irreconcilable difference and it brings our imaginary tomorrow to a real end tonight.

Maybe my feelings should be hurt. Maybe they will be, but I doubt it.
I didn't do anything wrong- I didn't fuck up!- but I can't ask for trust that can't be given. Watching someone you love kill themself will fuck you up, no doubt about it. I know.
Two drunks in her life was two drunks too many and there is no third chance to be taken or given.
Who wants to volunteer for a suicide mission?
I understand this. It bothers me but it doesn't destroy me.

It's nothing personal.

CAUTION: Improved Conditions

September 7, 2005 was a bad night for me. I didn't know it at the time, but decades of heavy drinking had given me a large number of separate tiny bleeding ulcers in my lower esophagus and upper GI tract. On 7 Sept, these small perforations united and I began hemorrhaging. I was losing blood by the mouthful.

I knew I was dying but I wasn't sure I cared. I did some truly last-minute thinking and I decided I didn't want to die, so I drove myself to the ER late at night.
I got lucky.
I walked into the ER and vomited blood on the floor, an act for which I gained immediate attention, medical and otherwise. The medical attention saved my life. I was later informed that I had anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or so to live at the time of my arrival- without immediate care, I wouldn't have lived to be outraged about this story:

LOS ANGELES—A woman who lay bleeding on the emergency room floor of a troubled inner-city hospital died after 911 dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility, newly released tapes of the emergency calls reveal.

Relatives said Rodriguez was bleeding from the mouth and writhing in pain for 45 minutes while she was at a hospital waiting area. Experts have said she could have survived had she been treated early enough.

If you are vomiting blood, your life is in serious jeopardy. ER personnel should know that and I'm sure that they did. What they lacked was concern and any semblance of human empathy. The staff and the 911 dispatcher display a sociopathic indifference to human life and suffering:

"I'm in the emergency room. My wife is dying and the nurses don't want to help her out," Rodriguez's boyfriend, Jose Prado, is heard saying in Spanish through an interpreter on the tapes.

The man was calling 911 from the ER. It wasn't a frivolous call. He was unable to get help , which prompted a bystander to place a second 911 call. The police finally responded by driving to the hospital and arresting Ms. Rodriguez for a parole violation. They put her in a wheelchair and started to remove her from the hospital, presumably to jail, but she died before they could leave the hospital .

The woman went to the ER , in obvious peril for her life, and wound up dying in police custody.

UPDATE: Here is a more detailed account from the LA Times.

The Hospital, (King-Harbor), had already been cited by the Federal government. The Feds don't seem to realize that if you are puking blood, you don't have 23 days to wait for the medical staff to rehab itself:

Federal inspectors last week said emergency room patients were in "immediate jeopardy" of harm or death, and King-Harbor was given 23 days to shape up or risk losing federal funding.

Dr. Bruce Chernof, director of the county Department of Health Services, which oversees the facility, has called Rodriguez's death "inexcusable" and said it was "important to understand that this was fundamentally a failure of caring." He has said conditions are improving, though.

Conditions are improving? The police just arrested a dying woman in the Emergency Room. She didn't survive the visit.
What was it like before the 'improvement'?

"Conditions are improving"...hmmm. That sounds familiar. Where have else we heard that sentiment expressed?

"In the 83 days since I announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq, we have made progress, steady progress, in restoring hope in a nation beaten down by decades of tyranny."
-George W. Bush
July 7, 2003. 2003. 2003.

"The plan sets out ambitious timetables and clear benchmarks to measure progress and practical methods for achieving results. Rebuilding Iraq will require a sustained commitment. "

-same asshole, same speech

What happened to the clear benchmarks? I thought BushCo was against putting timetables on American withdrawal from Iraq. In fact, Bush recently vetoed a withdrawal timetable.
BushCo argues that timetables encourage terrorists...we've seen a massive upswing in terrorism since Bush gushed about his "timetables" in 2003, so perhaps they are correct.

Bush in 2003:

"America has assumed great responsibilities for Iraq's future. Yet, we do not bear these responsibilities alone. Nineteen nations are providing more than 13,000 troops to help stabilize Iraq. And additional forces will soon arise -- arrive. More than two dozen nations have pledged funds that will go directly towards relief and reconstruction efforts. Every day we are renovating schools for the new school year. We're restoring the damaged water, electrical and communication systems. And when we introduce a new Iraqi currency later this year, it will be the first time in 12 years that the whole country is using the same currency.

Our greatest ally in the vital work of stabilizing and rebuilding a democratic and prosperous Iraq is the Iraqi people, themselves. Our goal is to turn over authority to Iraqis as quickly as possible. Coalition authorities are training Iraqi police forces to help patrol Iraqi cities and villages."

47 months later:

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 13 (IPS) - The U.S. Coalition is the principal cause of Iraq's current woes, charges a report released Wednesday by the Global Policy Forum (GPF), a New York-based watchdog group.

Since the March 2003 invasion, the U.S.-British occupation of Iraq has "utterly failed to bring peace, prosperity and democracy, as originally advertised," says the report, entitled "War and Occupation in Iraq".

"The United Nations and the international community must end the complicity of silence and they must vigorously address the Iraq crisis," it says.

Produced by GPF and 29 international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the report was released to coincide with U.N. Security Council consultations on the Iraq problem. The 117-page report assesses conditions in the country, especially the responsibility of the U.S.-led Coalition, for violations of international law and concludes with recommendations for action, including a speedy withdrawal of Coalition forces.

It covers areas such as destruction of cultural heritage, unlawful detention, killing and torture of civilians, displacement, corruption and fraud, attacks on cities and long-term military bases.

"This is ongoing, is not under control, and is something the Coalition is saying it is doing under mandate of the U.N. Security Council," James Paul, GPF's executive director, told reporters Wednesday.

'Progress is being made.'

'Conditions are improving. '

Lovely epitaphs, those.

Security

I wonder what would happen if you tried to carry this aboard an airplane? I'd wager that you would miss your flight. I forget exactly what it is , but I do know that it's a harmless device, some sort of audio relay/processor. But how could you prove that to an over-zealous TSA security guard? You'd hear dogs barking and the sinister snapping of latex gloves.

I know what the object below is. It's my Boss BR-8 Digital Recording Studio. If I ever forget what it is, all I need do is look at it. It's labelled in print that isn't as blurry as this pic:

I also know what will happen if you try to bring this object on-board an airliner as carry-on luggage.
In fall of 2002, I flew to Chicago to visit my brother. Due to illness, I hadn't been able to play guitar for nearly two years and I was thinking I'd start again while I was on vacation, so I brought my portable studio. I was quite aware of the post 9/11 airport hell, but I figured, what the heck, I'll just stand in line with everyone that has a laptop. My device is pretty much the same size and shape as a laptop and is in a laptop case. It's got writing on it that explains what it is.

I reached the checkpoint and unzipped my bag. The guards went silent , save for the quiet gasp of the middle-aged woman who was checking bags.

"What...is...that?" , she asked, drawing her hands back involuntarily, as if afraid to touch it.

"It's a portable recording studio. You use it to record music. See, you plug a microphone in here,
and an instrument here and record just like on a cassette deck."
I helpfully pointed to the inputs that were labeled "mic/vocal" and "guitar/bass".

"That..is not a tape deck"

"No, see, it uses computer discs, it has a Zip drive."
I may as well have said that it was a remote control device for piloting 757's.

The red-coated woman used her radio, requested assistance. She waved a burly male guard over. The man escorted me aside and opened my suitcase, checked the contents.
He examined my shoes and waved a wand over me. He didn't seem frightened of me, nor did he act mean or abusive.
He just seemed bored. I had dull luggage and my shoes were less than thrilling.

He then escorted me back to the checkpoint where there were a half-dozen TSA guards and -get this- a soldier in full uniform , complete with assault rifle. They were all looking at my BR-8, except the soldier, who was instructing me to stand back.

Hoo.Boy.

I was afraid of being marched off, searched and interrogated, possibly deported or even covertly executed. The rest of the passengers were looking at me with suspicion...why do they have that guy standing over there, under guard?, I could feel them wondering.

Suddenly I heard one of the guards speak up. It was a youngish black man with his hair in neatl- arranged cornrows and wearing a necktie. He , unlike the other TSA personnel, looked competent. He was my savior.

"Hey. I know what that is. I have one at home. It's for music."

Ohhhh....whewwww....Ok...went the other guards. They conferred briefly, the young kid nodding a few times, pointing at my device. The soldier beckoned me forward.

I made my flight with five minutes to spare.

My BR-8 hasn't worked properly since that day.

Lucid in the Sky

My dreams have changed.
I know this because I keep a sort of dream-journal.

What I try to do is scribble a few notes as soon as I wake up and then I review them after I have my morning shower- this helps with recalling the details, but it took me longer than I would have thought to notice the bigger picture- the change in framework, if you will.

It's all about the starting point. I used to begin my dreams at the bottom of cliffs; the interior of labyrinths; the doorways to tall and forboding buildings; inside strange familiar rooms with only one exit-into some form of darkness...always a daunting position to be in, one in which I felt like I was in a mad flight of escape- from what and to where was not usually clear- and when I awoke I was often more tired than when I went to sleep. All that climbing and running can wear a man out, even in dreams.

There are roughly a half-dozen fixed locales that I visit in my dreams, but instead of arriving lost and afraid and struggling to escape, I am now at the top of the Dream. There's no panic- I feel a great sense of calm when I see the people and things that I have come to expect.

And if things seem awry?

I can change that.

I'm on the roof of a tall apartment building. There's a low brick and mortar fence around the ledge and a small wooden hut smack-dab in the middle of the tarpapered roof, the sort of structure you might expect to find a pigeon roost in- or a stairwell. It has a flimsy plywood door and one of those infuriating combination locks found in Dream- no proper numbers on it, just shifting and unrecognizable characters that make it impossible to open.

I have spent endless hours fiddling with that lock.
Spin. Twist. Whir.
Yank.
Nothing.
PULL HARDER. TWIST MORE.
Nothing.

It seems as if years have passed and I still can't get that goddamned lock to open.

Well.

Like I said, I can change that.

I've spent too much time in the center, trying to solve the unsolvable. It's a waste of time and energy, which are precious commodities, even in Dream.
If I want change- and I do- then I must move away from the center and investigate the edges. What lies beyond?
Might as well take a look. My footsteps are steady and sober- no reason to fear a fall.

Wait. This is a tall building. I should be able to see other buildings from here, but I don't.
It should be loud but it's quiet.
I should be cautious when peering over the edge of the building, but I'm not.
There is no fear as I look over the side and see nothing but turquoise water, clear, deep and stretched to the horizon- which is exactly 100 miles away.

In Dream, reality extends 100 miles in every direction and then ends. I don't know exactly how I came to this knowledge, but it's true. Or it was.

For a while I watch the water and forget where I am. Right. Now I recall...
I came to this particular edge because I noticed a loose brick here during an earlier visit. It's still there, loose and wiggly as a baby tooth. I work it free and feel it's weight in my hand. Heft.
It feels right.
This brick will work.

I carry my new prize back to the little shed. I hold the brick up, it's quite ordinary-looking, but next to it , the lock on the shed's door looks profoundly delicate.

Didn't that lock used to have the word 'Master' printed on it?

I don't see that word on you now, motherfucker, I think as I smash the corner of the brick down upon the lock.

It shatters like fine crystal.

I walk back to the wall and carefully set the brick back into it's original position before returning to the shed. Behind the unfinished wooden door is a flight of solid-looking wooden stairs descending rather steeply. I could have a flashlight or torch if I wanted one, but I already know what's down there.

I've been through every room on every floor of this building, tracing and retracing my steps in a vain search for an exit and have never quite found it. That's because it's not in there. I don't live in that building and I have no business trespassing in it, even should I desire to.

On a whim, I pull the door loose from it's hinges and kick it down the stairs, where it clatters and disappears.
There.
That should make it easier for the next poor son-of-a-bitch who winds up here. I think this is my last visit, so I want to leave my mark, and I hated that locked door.
Enter if you dare, but I'm done with it.

I walk back to the ledge.

From here I can fly anywhere- 100 miles is a lot of world for one man- or I can dive and test the water. I wish that I could do both, but I only get one choice.
This is my last visit to the roof.

But I remember that I also have beaches- amazing beaches- and at those beaches I can swim as much I wish- I have gills, you know- so today I choose flight.

Up, up, and away and suddenly the roof is a tiny gray square in a field of endless azure.
Bah. Who needs rooftops?

I look around me and I see the world. It is curved, round.

It's much larger than one hundred miles.

It is forever.

I begin my flight.

Flat Stanley's Day of Horror

Last night Blooger wouldn't properly upload pictures. In the morning, I was delighted to see Horror on my computer. I had to wait for the plumber to get the hot water fixed, so I had me a little extra time to think this morning- and that's usually how I get myself in trouble- by thinking.
Well, maybe it's not the thinking that's the problem, it's the ideas and thoughts that come with thinking that mess things up. I started thinking that trying to make sense out of why people do what they do is about as easy and useful as trying to make a canoe out of mud. Just thinking about all that crazy uselessness made me want to do something crazy of my own. So I took Horror out on a Flat Stanley Day.

First, we had coffee and blogs."Look," squealed a giggly Horror, "I'm on TV!"

So what else is new? Fuck, I'm running late waiting for work because I had to wait for a shower- I'd better drive in and eat the parking costs...damn.

--

You know, by the time I pay for tolls and parking, I'll lose money by rushing to work. It costs almost twice as much to park for a day as I make in a hour- I'll save money by arriving at work later. I love this logic!
I opt for the noon bus. Honestly, I wasn't too keen on driving around with Horror, so the bus was kinda my excuse to keep Horror off the road, if you understand.


--
I'll give Horror credit for this : It can sell the motherfuckin' hell out of some newspapers. The last time I saw this box empty was after the Harvey family murders.

--

"No one likes me," pouted a petulant Horror as it sat alone on a cold metal bench.

If only that were true, I thought.

--



Usually, I relax and read on the bus, but today it was hard to concentrate with Horror looking at me like that.

--


Downtown Horror. It's not so bad really, except the clock in the tower Horror is leaning on has some chimes that are seriously out of tune.

It's horrible on the hour.

--


Well, here we are. There's nothing between me and the office except traffic and Horror.
That's pretty much the case every day.

--


I do not like elevators. They don't exactly fill me with Horror, but they do make me nervous. Going up?
Crowd me in with Horror and it's more like throwing up.

--


Horror likes a good cup of coffee but we don't have that kind here. I give it some decaf and hope it settles down. I have work to do and don't have time to busy myself with Horror.

--



Horror awaits me at my desk.

--


I guess all those newspapers Horror sold had to go somewhere.

--

I've seen a few training flicks about what to do in case of a mailroom Terror incident, but I'm really not sure what to do with Horror. My first impulse is to mail it somewhere very, very far away- like to the Sun. The hot part of the Sun.

--

I looked at our building's All-You -Can- Eat buffet with Horror and sorta lost my appetite.

--

A real Horror NEVER gives it away.

--
A little indoor garden of Horror brightens up the lobby.


---

And finally, home with Horror. It instinctively leapt from my hand and into my mailbox, which is where Horror customarily waits for me in the evening, nestled amongst the bills and pre-approved credit card offers.

----------

The really weird thing is I spent all day taking pictures of public Horror and no one- not my boss, no one- nobody at all even gave me a second glance or asked what was up with the Horror pics.

That's horrible.

Rabbit Desecration, Pt. 1

Used Without apologies.

UNCLE WIGGILY GOES OFF

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gentleman rabbit, hopped out of bed one muggy Baltimore morning and started to go to the window, to see if any of the Charles Street whores were straggling home in the early dawn hours. Like most rabbits, Wiggily usually had a hard-on when he woke up but unlike most rabbits he still had a few dollars left from last night's crack-fueled guttercrawl. Perhaps Susie Littletail would hop by his window.

But, no sooner had he stepped on the floor, than he cried out:

"Oh! Ouch! Fuck me with a corncob! I just stepped on a goddamn glass stem! Sammie Littletail must have left it there! How careless of him! I'm gonna kick his crackhead ass jest as soon as I fuck his sister."

You see this was the same Uncle Wiggily, of whom I have told you in the Bedtime Books Scared Straight Series—the very same Uncle Wiggily. He was an "Uncle" to Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit children, and also to Billie and Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel boys, and to Alice and Lulu and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck children, but it was widely acknowledged that he was actually the father of most of these unfortunate urchins. Wiggily wasn't much interested in fatherhood, he just liked to fuck. He wasn't especially picky about species either- those squirrel boys had some mighty long ears, if you know what I mean.

Now I thought I would write something just about Uncle Wiggily himself, though of course I'll tell you what all his nephews and nieces did, too. It's pretty sordid stuff, so I think you will enjoy it.

Well, when Uncle Wiggily felt that sharp pain, he stood still for a moment, and wondered what could have happened.

"Yes, I'm almost sure it was a stem," he said. "Maybe there's a hit left in it."

So Uncle Wiggily looked on the floor, but there was no stem there, only some empty zip-loc jewelry baggies and a drained bottle of Thunderbird he and Sammie Littletail had been bubbling back the night before.

"Oh, I know what it was; it must have been my jones that gave me the pain!" said the old gentleman rabbit as he looked for his red, white and blue crutch, striped like a barber pole. He found it under the bed, and then he managed to limp to the window. Surely enough, the jones was kicking in. Uncle wiggled.
Wiggily got his name from the way he shivered when the jones made the invisible spiders crawl all over his mangy body, and the spiders were starting to breed. Like rabbits.

"I'll certainly have to do something about this jones," said Uncle Wiggily as he inspected the empty baggies for any overlooked crumbs. This was the third time he had done this in the last ten minutes and there still weren't any rocks in the tiny square baglets.

"I guess I'll see Dr. Possum", he said.

So Wiggily walked down to the 'outgoing calls only' pay phone on the corner, Dr. Possum was telephoned for, and he came to see Uncle Wiggily.

"Yo. Knew you'd call!" exclaimed the dealer, looking very tired, but alert with greed. "You have the jones very bad, Mr. Longears."

"Why, I knew that before you came," said the old gentleman rabbit, blinking his eyes. "What I want is a goddamn eightball."

So Wiggily got his eightball from Possum and everyone lived happily ever after all day.

The next morning it started all over again.

Someday

One morning in November of 2001, I awoke with my left arm numb and inflexible- not paralyzed, just very hard to move. I was drinking heavily at that time and I was quite accustomed to waking up and finding out that things had gone wrong the previous night- but I hadn't had this particular problem before.

I must have slept on it wrong , I thought, as I struggled to get ready for yet another day at what was easily my worst long-term job ever- manager of a discount shoe store.
Driving with a hangover is a lot like driving drunk- except this time I couldn't use my left hand to cover one eye. I couldn't even use it to steer. The only thing I could do was watch the fingers on my left hand change color from pink to purple, a phenomena I found a bit unsettling.

For an hour I struggled to flex it, get some feeling, make a fist...can't make a fist...ouch, that hurts...it was getting worse, not better. My arm wasn't asleep, it was sick. It was scaring me.

I took Barb, an older lady who was my head cashier, aside to tell her about my problem:

"Barb, I can't move my arm and it really hurts. I'm going to need you to run the store while I go to the doctor."

" Your arm? Is it numb and painful? That's what happened to my husband. He had a stroke and now he's crippled. How is your chest?"

My chest, which until then had been unnoticed, suddenly got very tight.Sharp pains radiated out from my solar plexus in every direction. I couldn't breathe and I knew- I KNEW-that I was going to die.
Of a stroke.
On the sales floor of a crap-ass shoe store.
I called my doctor- "get in here now", he said. "Get a ride- don't wait for an ambulance!" I did.

It wasn't a stroke. It was the first of many panic and anxiety attacks I was to suffer over the next several years- I still have them today, but they don't lay me out like they used to.

After it was determined that I wasn't having a stroke, they went to work on my arm. The heart fears were calmed and I was given a shot of something (morphine?) that made my arm feel very far away from the rest of me. I could see it and it looked funky blue, but it didn't bother me...more needles and electrodes...all so shiny. I was sleepy. Could I have a pillow?

After a week of consultations and tests, it was determined that the ulnar nerve in my arm had died from the elbow down and the flesh around it would eventually wither and become useless , if not dead.
I'd need an amputation from the elbow down.

I'm a musician and all the instruments I play require two hands, the guitar being my favorite. I'm not the best guitarist- (no one is, the common argument over who is the best git-picker is a spurious and wasteful one)- but there isn't anybody anywhere who plays like I do and that is pretty rare. It's a talent that I took a lot- too much- of pride in.
When I was told I'd never play again, I broke. Shattered.

I didn't think about how I would drive, tie my shoes, cook, hold a job, hold a lover in my arms...my first thought was : WILL I PLAY AGAIN?

I was told no, I would not. Not with a stump, I wouldn't.

So, at my doctors advice, I got a second opinion from a surgeon who was not on my insurance carrier's plan. He met with me, had his own x-rays taken and re-administered some tests. He ran an electrical current through my Ulnar nerve.

OOOOOWWWWWGODDDDDDTHHHAAAATHURRRTTTTSSSS

"That hurts, eh? Good."

"Good?" *whimper*

"Yes. Those [the hospital] docs are idiots . This nerve is alive. I can save your arm."

He didn't say say he might be able to. He said he could save it . He said this as matter-of-fact. The sun rises.
Water is wet.
He could save my arm.
Simple.

He had no doubt in his ability and that confidence helped settle me down. That and a giant bottle of Valium. I wasn't supposed to drink - the valium was intended to help with that, but I wound up mixing the two on a daily basis -along with Oxycontin and Demerol. A few Demerol and a fifth of vodka was only a mild buzz for me at one point...but I had to quit before the surgery. Alcohol, despite it's calming effect, is actually quite hard on your nerves and it increases your risk of bleeding out on the OR table.

For my arm, for my guitar, I quit drinking a few weeks before the operations. I had nothing else to live for but that was enough. For that, I would fight.

The operations went well, but it took six months of physical therapy before I could play a few simple chords...but after a few more months I was whizzing over the frets faster than I'd ever been able to play before.
The first docs were wrong. I would play again.
And I was wrong. I would drink again.

I won one fight, but I lost a long war in the process. Alcohol had taken over my life...if I am going to be a one-armed shoe-salesman, I thought, then the best thing I can do is drink myself to death...that was my intent, although I hadn't admitted it to myself yet.

By the time I got my arm back, my soul was lost. My ill- considered drinks of celebration immediately became the same old daily suicide routine. I drifted through an endless series of dead-end temp jobs. I didn't see my friends, the only brief happiness was a brief on-the -job affair that ended badly and left me even more desolate and forlorn than before. And drunk.

My guitar, which was the initial focus of my recovery, sat in the corner gathering dust.

I stopped writing in my journal and notebooks.
No poems.
No letters.
Nothing but me , my pills , my pain and the bottle.
I watched a lot of TV. I used a lot of drugs.

Then Hurricane Isabel hit Virginia. Sept 2003.
The temp agency offered me a job with State Farm handling storm claims, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day.
Amazingly, I accepted it and it was a good thing I did. I still drank, but not as much because the days were so long I had to cut back.
After the initial hurricane paperwork chaos, I started liking my work. I saved a lot of money- all that overtime was great...but I was drifting farther and farther apart from my friends.
It was loneliness and isolation that first drove me to blog- isolation and a deep hatred of Bush's neo-con cabal of war profiteers.


But the booze had me. I knew it had to stop, but I didn't care. I was hoping for death. I didn't have much -in my mind- to live for and I had convinced myself that my life was over and I would never be happy. I was a rotten person- a drunk of the worst kind- and not one person would miss me were I to die.

Of course, this wasn't true, but that is how an addict at the very end of their addiction feels. If they feel anything, that is. I suspect the last thing that you feel is nothing at all, but I don't want to know.

After another year it all caught up to me. I started vomiting blood one night after having to leave work early with stomach pain. I barely made it to the ER, where I was told I only had a few hours to live.
Who should they call?
No one. Don't call anyone.
I don't want anyone to know how bad it had become. I was dying, but I was also ashamed. How did I let this happen?

But the surgeries worked. When I woke up- alive- I had changed. I was still alone, unhappy and bereft of any love or joy, but I had something more powerful that that. Something that (I hope) had killed the urge to drink forever.

I had fear.
I was afraid of dying. I still am. I haven't had a drink since the first week of September, 2005. Not because I am brave or strong- I don't drink because I am weak and I am afraid of suffering and dying.

As time passed, I started finding new reasons to live. The radio station was my anchor. I needed it, and most importantly it needed me. I hadn't been needed for a long time. Anyone can do office work but not many people can produce and engineer live music in a deadline -is-now- broadcast environment.
I can. I even enjoy it and I'm a lot better at it when I'm sober.

And then there was blog. Somehow, I had accumulated a tiny but loyal group of friends, most of whom I've never met and probably never will. Like any group of friends, there were differences and problems and maybe even a broken heart, but by and large I feel that my life is much the richer for being part of this world. Having this outlet and the support that followed was a real source of strength for me during those horrible post-hospital months.


There are some of you that I would love to thank in person, but I will wait until I need a place to crash. Then I will show up in the middle of a hailstorm , huddled on your doorstep, clutching a battered guitar and a grimy paper sack containing my laundry and a pair of well-fed cats.

"Thank you", I will say, then I will ask: "Do you mind if I crash here?" and "You aren't allergic to cats are you?"

I'm kidding, of course. I would never put my cats in a bag with my dirty socks.


For all of our sake's , I'm hoping it won't come to that. For now, just know that I really do appreciate each and every one of you.

I wasn't ready to be sick again so soon, but I am. I don't know how bad quite yet, but it isn't good. No cure, but there are treatments.

But really, it might not be too bad. I can walk, climb stairs, carry heavy weights etc- with only slightly more discomfort than a 'normal' person. I have to quit smoking pot, but I should have done that anyway. I've had my fun with that for what? twenty-five years? Long enough.

I have friends who didn't make it through the last twenty-five years, but not because of pot- they drank. And snorted. And stabbed. Needles and knives. The rope.

Some of the survivors are alive, but they aren't living. The booze- and especially the cocaine- have left them hollow, hopeless and seemingly incapable of dreams.

I haven't suffered that fate. I have spent three days studying my disease and I am convinced I can beat it. Not cure it- that is impossible- but beat it down and live with it. Live well.

Because I can still dream. My latest dream is an old one and it is so pathetic and mundane that I am afraid to mention it because I fear derision and ridicule, which is silly because what I want is only what most of us want.

It's one of the oldest, simplest dreams in the world but it's a bit too complex to discuss here.

I am not even sure who I need to have this conversation with. It's possible that I haven't even met that person yet. I have to stay alive in order to find out.
But when we do meet, I hope that there's a plentiful supply of coffee at hand- because we will have a lot to talk about.

Radio is a Flashlight

(this post has been de-fanged and replaced with a cheerier version)


I wasn't surprised to open up a local activist newspaper and see an ad for our station, but I didn't expect to see my name on it. (Clicking makes it bigger)
There's my show, The New Breakfast Snob, sandwiched between the Gospel and the Jazz.

At first , it was very difficult to adjust to waking up at 5:30 am, but I've been doing it for five months now and I've grown used to it.

In fact, I've grown quite used to the station in general.

For two years the station has been my anchor to the real world. When I got out of the hospital I threw myself into my radio work- it was my sustaining passion. When things got bad , I always had the radio to fall back on- there was always another show to produce, another playlist to program...and at home I could listen to my friends playing good music. There's a special security and comfort in listening to the announcer and not only being able to put a face on the voice, but being able visualize the entire studio. I can hear the music and in my mind's eye I can see all the buttons and knobs and that's a good feeling.

One evening I did an entire two hour show of bands that I had recorded , played in or worked for ..that was a uniquely enjoyable two hours of narcissism. I didn't announce what I was doing on-air but a couple friends noticed and that made it worthwhile.

One savvy friend asked: " Did you just do a two-hour guerrilla tribute to yourself?"

Why yes, I did. And I never played the same band twice.

Yeah , it's vain, but so what?

Check this out:

I have followed my songs all the way from the first scribbled chord progressions and words through the endless failed bands, crap rehearsals, marginal gigs, medieval recording dungeons and personal meltdowns and somehow managed to escort those very songs onto the airwaves where I used to fantasize they would one day be played.

In other words: A dream came true.

I was so busy brooding I almost didn't notice.

------

I find inspiration in odd places.

One show consisted mostly of songs inspired by my blogpals- I have even played music by blogpals and their offspring. This is more indicative of my lack of imagination than any benevolence in my character, but it was still a neat feeling - a real mingling of worlds, if you will. And the music was good, although it's also part of the saddest episode of my sad blooging career...eh,well.
Live and learn.

Every once in a while one of my blogbuddies listens to me live on the webstream and when I get their emails or comments, I feel connected in a way that radio or blog alone doesn't quite provide. (Hello and thanks to Em and JP and Lorraine and Barb and Amy and everyone else who's ever tuned in!)

I often have this almost overwhelming conviction that I am a failure in every way that matters, but then I think about my pitiful little dream and how it actually did happen. No fame, no fortune, just the knowledge that it happened because I made it so, which is more than some people ever get.

When I play my friend's music, I am helping them with their dreams in a tiny, tiny way... it's small and I know that in 'real life' it doesn't change their world or anything, but it is what I can do and it is real.
When I play songs that I grew up with sometimes I talk about those memories. I never know what I'm going to say- music moves me in unpredictable ways, but the emotion is always real.
Real radio- not a podcast. It's personal. Every song has a point.
To me, it's beautiful.

I get to share those feelings every week.

That doesn't feel like failure. That feels good.

So why am I so sad?

What's the Story?

This is the view from my porch. My goal Saturday was to get to the mailboxes behind the yellow van and drop a number of envelopes into one of them. Pretty dull, eh?
Not for me.



First, I wondered if I was having an acid flashback - what's up with the stripes on the brick? That building doesn't usually look like that.
I went back inside to grab my camera...

And then I saw the car. The blue Volvo station wagon.
Actually, I could smell the car, but at first I thought it was the hospital across the street incinerating body parts and infectious medical waste again.
I was wrong.
It was the car.



Breathing as little as possible, I approached it. A bedraggled young man with a scruffy knapsack was standing a few yards away, waiting for the bus. The smell of cheap wine coming from him was staggering, even at that distance, and combined with the stench coming from the car, it was almost pukabley offensive. With the windows up.




I had to get a pic. This sort of thing isn't quite so unusual (or wasn't, back in my hobo days) in NYC ,San Francisco, the DC area and other places that are far too expensive for most humans- but this is Fallentown. It's getting bad, but rent is still pretty cheap here.
Our local homeless people don't own Volvos, they drive shopping carts.

The last time I saw a car like this , it was a battered old AMC Gremlin and it had luggage , furniture, clothes and other readily identifiable items neatly organized inside- it was clearly a 'domestic' vehicle.
Today's car was full of garbage-literally. Rotting offal.
It's been cold lately- what would this thing be like in summer?
Who drives this mess?
I looked around. No one nearby except the drunk on the corner.

"Don't take my picture," said the winey bus stop buzzard. He didn't seem especially drunk, but the smell was awful...oh, man it's bad when you can drink that much without showing it. I know.

I had no intention of taking wineman's photograph but I had to ask:

"Is this your car?"

"No. I'm waiting for the bus. That guy's fucked up or sumpin'.."

"Really?"

So I walked around the car, peering into the windows , trying to discern whether someone was living in it or if was simply full of refuse.
It was refuse alright, rotting remnants of fast-food meals and crumpled wads of disturbingly brown newspaper... but my question of inhabitation was unanswered.
There was a hairbrush and a desk fan on top of the junk in the driver's seat...why?

I didn't see how one could survive it, much less live in it; then again, there wasn't much at all I understood about this car. Curiosity piqued, I decided to sit on the wall and wait for the owner.
I figured I'd interview the driver and get their story; if they were in a bad way, there are places in town for different sorts of help and I know most of them, or people who do- but my motives weren't altogether altruistic- I was simply curious . Nosy, really. I like to know the story.

Speaking of nose...
Usually , one of my cats joins me when I sit outside, but neither one wanted to come close to the Stenchmobile. After a few minutes, the smell started to bother me. It smelled like a dead cow. Or a corpse. Or a corpse hidden in the hollowed-out body cavity of a dead cow.
Bad.

So I mailed my letters and went inside to see if the Dept. of Health and Sanitation was open on Saturday.
Hmmm...there's a number for abandoned vehicles, but this doesn't qualify. From the looks of it, the owner of this Volvo has abandoned everything but the car and it's contents.

Emergency? Given the freaked-out fear world we live in, I imagined the results of a call to the Hotline reporting a vehicle emitting a noxious odor - they'd probably evacuate the area until a CDC ABC team could scour the entire area, including my apartment.
I could find myself living in my own Volvo.
What do do? Nothing.

A few minutes later it was gone. I didn't hear the engine start or the door open and shut.

It was just gone.

The bricks had returned to normal.