Earnest was caught speaking to a condom this afternoon. It was a brand new Trojan Intense Ribbed Ultrasmooth Lubricant condom in a mustard yellow wrapper. He found it under some papers, in a place he had forgotten he put it. He was alone, so it was he who caught himself talking. He said, before he noticed he was talking crazily to a condom, "ah, that would be nice..."
I cannot blog here anymore because this site is doing very strange things. Like when I type an apostrophe, it opens an odd menu. I cannot write without apostrophes. I will not write without contractions. It is sounding unnatural.
But I wanted to part with this observation, which occurred to me tonight while watching a dance band of a certain popular foreign culture. A macho man had cut in front of me in line, reminding me of my six months in South America.
The thought I had was: "if I do not value or respect my own culture, why on earth should I value yours, when it is clearly just as stupid."
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
real connections are easy and everywhere, sex is not
Mouthy ducks, screaming up at me from the mud for not feeding them. They've got to learn to go eat naturally. There are no more French fries on the creek.
Earnest attracted another mentally ill woman online tonight.
As the chorus of the latest country hit says, "Hey, whoop-dee-do"
Anyway, the mentally ill woman wrote:
"I don't know if you're for real or just looking for sex. My friend says people on cl mainly have the latter in mind. I like the real. Sex is easy and everywhere, real connections are not. A friend first would be nice. Hopefully you are not married."
For Earnest, real connections are easy and everywhere, sex is not.
Who is to blame, he wonders, for this conundrum?
Earnest attracted another mentally ill woman online tonight.
As the chorus of the latest country hit says, "Hey, whoop-dee-do"
Anyway, the mentally ill woman wrote:
"I don't know if you're for real or just looking for sex. My friend says people on cl mainly have the latter in mind. I like the real. Sex is easy and everywhere, real connections are not. A friend first would be nice. Hopefully you are not married."
For Earnest, real connections are easy and everywhere, sex is not.
Who is to blame, he wonders, for this conundrum?
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
My favorite radio station ASKED for emails regarding their decision. So you see they ASKED for it.
I heard the announcement today about the program changes.
The reasoning you're giving on-air is perfectly honest: "listenership has remained flat during those weekday night shows while it's doubled during other programming."
You could say the same about many aspects of local or regional cultural flavor that remains in Austin: just like the listenership of KUT grows, the general population grows, and as a result, what made it a special radio station, or a special place, to begin with, is diluted. Your income as a station has more than doubled, or whatever, and most of that money has come from people new to the area, naturally.
But just like people have been reacting with "keep Austin weird" in this town, with panic in their eyes, I find myself reacting with "please, keep KUT, KUT."
Or, go plow right ahead with your goals to become more broadly palatable, like WXPN or KCRW, which no longer transmit with any detectable local or regional flavor.
That way, as you explained quite plainly today, you'll be able to continue to make more money during these hard economic times. How can I make a persuasive argument against that, when whoever may or may not read this wants a steady income during a time when most of us are taking financial hits? Who can blame you for wanting a comfortable salary?
But if you care about KUT as a one-of-a-kind cultural institution like I do, and if you take your very own logic, and project it into the future, look what you get: total dilution. A radio station and indeed a local culture indistinguishable from any other in the country. That's where you are headed. I suspect you don't even realize that your own on-air announcement today prescribes exactly that: "my paycheck is more important than your silly local and regional musical flavor" is a fair paraphrase.
I personally owe Larry Monroe and Paul Rey a vast portion of my appreciation and knowledge of the very best local and regionally distinctive music that makes Austin and, until now, KUT, unique in the world. There has been no other station like it, even in the age of internet and satellite radio. For 12 years I lived in other places, streaming KUT online almost daily just to listen to the very shows you are now bulldozing.
Your justifications to make room for more generic and marketable music is the exactly same as what developers use to bulldoze historic buildings, because modern condos are without question much more profitable. You admit it in your own on-air announcement. And who can argue with the developer who says "we're so sorry to do this, but you must understand that these new condos are 100% more profitable for us..."
Hey-- I'll simply follow my favorite deejays and their unwanted kind wherever they go. Just like I followed Bob Edwards to satellite radio when NPR bulldozed his historic ass to make way for something much more hip and marketable.
By the way, what do you think the musicians-- I mean the living Austin legends-- what do you suppose they think of your profitable little demolition scheme? Did you run it by any of them yet? I mean, they're only the musicians that created the music that built the station you now enjoy a paycheck from. Do you think Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, Nanci Griffith and the like think what you are doing is just totally cool and understandable because of needing to maintain your salaries during a depression? Do you even care anymore?
How about if we keep the classic, heroic, world-class, one-of-a-kind deejays and their encyclopedic regional music knowledge, get rid of whoever you are? The station could be run just as well with the talents of volunteers and students, keeping the senior on air talent perfectly intact, "during these hard economic times."
And whoever YOU are, bulldozing old unprofitable institutions, YOU can simply move to another city and work for a more generic public radio station that suits your tastes better and will always alter its programming in order to sustain your paycheck, no matter what? That way everybody's happy-- you get your guaranteed income, and we get to keep the unique character of our radio station.
What if the senior on-air talent isn't the real problem here, rather, it's KUT's finance people and their stats and projections? How many hundred thousand are saved if you cut them out instead, and keep the only programming that distinguishes you from every other public radio station in the country?
Look, I'm only 37 years old, but I know exactly what's driving this change, I see where you're headed with it, and I know what these people who are creating your cozy paycheck are going to turn KUT into. It's sad but so are a lot of similar things these days.
Thank God for satellite and internet radio! I will support my heroes there!
The reasoning you're giving on-air is perfectly honest: "listenership has remained flat during those weekday night shows while it's doubled during other programming."
You could say the same about many aspects of local or regional cultural flavor that remains in Austin: just like the listenership of KUT grows, the general population grows, and as a result, what made it a special radio station, or a special place, to begin with, is diluted. Your income as a station has more than doubled, or whatever, and most of that money has come from people new to the area, naturally.
But just like people have been reacting with "keep Austin weird" in this town, with panic in their eyes, I find myself reacting with "please, keep KUT, KUT."
Or, go plow right ahead with your goals to become more broadly palatable, like WXPN or KCRW, which no longer transmit with any detectable local or regional flavor.
That way, as you explained quite plainly today, you'll be able to continue to make more money during these hard economic times. How can I make a persuasive argument against that, when whoever may or may not read this wants a steady income during a time when most of us are taking financial hits? Who can blame you for wanting a comfortable salary?
But if you care about KUT as a one-of-a-kind cultural institution like I do, and if you take your very own logic, and project it into the future, look what you get: total dilution. A radio station and indeed a local culture indistinguishable from any other in the country. That's where you are headed. I suspect you don't even realize that your own on-air announcement today prescribes exactly that: "my paycheck is more important than your silly local and regional musical flavor" is a fair paraphrase.
I personally owe Larry Monroe and Paul Rey a vast portion of my appreciation and knowledge of the very best local and regionally distinctive music that makes Austin and, until now, KUT, unique in the world. There has been no other station like it, even in the age of internet and satellite radio. For 12 years I lived in other places, streaming KUT online almost daily just to listen to the very shows you are now bulldozing.
Your justifications to make room for more generic and marketable music is the exactly same as what developers use to bulldoze historic buildings, because modern condos are without question much more profitable. You admit it in your own on-air announcement. And who can argue with the developer who says "we're so sorry to do this, but you must understand that these new condos are 100% more profitable for us..."
Hey-- I'll simply follow my favorite deejays and their unwanted kind wherever they go. Just like I followed Bob Edwards to satellite radio when NPR bulldozed his historic ass to make way for something much more hip and marketable.
By the way, what do you think the musicians-- I mean the living Austin legends-- what do you suppose they think of your profitable little demolition scheme? Did you run it by any of them yet? I mean, they're only the musicians that created the music that built the station you now enjoy a paycheck from. Do you think Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, Nanci Griffith and the like think what you are doing is just totally cool and understandable because of needing to maintain your salaries during a depression? Do you even care anymore?
How about if we keep the classic, heroic, world-class, one-of-a-kind deejays and their encyclopedic regional music knowledge, get rid of whoever you are? The station could be run just as well with the talents of volunteers and students, keeping the senior on air talent perfectly intact, "during these hard economic times."
And whoever YOU are, bulldozing old unprofitable institutions, YOU can simply move to another city and work for a more generic public radio station that suits your tastes better and will always alter its programming in order to sustain your paycheck, no matter what? That way everybody's happy-- you get your guaranteed income, and we get to keep the unique character of our radio station.
What if the senior on-air talent isn't the real problem here, rather, it's KUT's finance people and their stats and projections? How many hundred thousand are saved if you cut them out instead, and keep the only programming that distinguishes you from every other public radio station in the country?
Look, I'm only 37 years old, but I know exactly what's driving this change, I see where you're headed with it, and I know what these people who are creating your cozy paycheck are going to turn KUT into. It's sad but so are a lot of similar things these days.
Thank God for satellite and internet radio! I will support my heroes there!
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
GREAT NEWS
All day I thought I was going to post this incredible blog tonight. It was going to start like this:
"I was thinking to myself today, I love my new job, working on the water, though the scenery sets a post-apocalyptic tone in places because of the drought and the vast areas of exposed garbage-strewn mud that was recently hidden lake bottom. And as I was thinking this to myself, I noticed a tornado. Granted it was a very small one-- technically a whirlwind, I suppose, but it was distinct and at least 20 feet high and whipping up leaves and dust like a blender..."
Or something like that.
But instead of posting, I went over to the fountain next to the ClearChannel HQ across the street, next to the cafe I've been going to almost nightly. Tonight was salsa night and I skipped it. Why try to train a dead horse, I figure.
But the fountain area is somewhat secluded at night, and I could open up and sing, which I can't really do here in the apartment. Not REALLY. Not without irritating someone or other. Especially not at midnight.
So I did that for an hour. Even that was magical, because as I strummed the first chords of Steve Earle's "And the Rain Came Down" which is both a traditional starting tune for me and an actual prayer for central Texas weather, the frogs started in. And I swear, it was in key. The frogs were singing the same cliche G C D I was strumming as the intro to this first country tune I ever learned. And then we were trading verses. Okay go think I'm exaggerating or tripping. I don't blame you. But you weren't there. I heard what I heard.
Then I came back home just now, reciprocated the love fest the dogs greeted me with, and sat down to write something really profound and journalistic about my new job on the drought-damaged lake. Or about these bands I'm going to be mixing.
But first I opened my email box, out of impulse. Nothing, but okay it's late and I got plenty of great email and other messages today. Still, I opened my hotmail box, which is all spam these days and I rarely open it. It had the latest spam newsletter from a genius dating guru who I signed up for by mistake maybe six years ago or more, and never bothered to remove myself from, once I noticed what an unsung genius of psychology he is, though I've never bothered to buy his e-book or anything.
Anyway, his spam newsletter today said the following, and once I read it, I only felt like cutting and pasting it here, instead of wasting more of my time writing my own words:
First off, I want to mention that LIFE isn't
fair. In case you haven't noticed, almost NOTHING
is fair.
Fairness is an idea that people have created. I
think we probably created the concept to torture
ourselves, in fact.
Here are a few ways that life isn't "fair", as
the concept relates to women and dating:
1) Some men are taller, and some are shorter.
Women tend to prefer taller men. How unfair.
2) A very small portion of the women that are
alive are as perfect and beautiful as the women in
magazines, and therefore it's
impossible for every man to have a woman that is
this beautiful. How unfair.
3) Many men go their entire lives without ever
having sex. How unfair.
4) Some men have sex with hundreds or even
thousands of women in their lives. How unfair.
5) Some men know the secrets of creating that
magical emotion called ATTRACTION inside of women
even though they aren't rich, handsome, tall, etc.
and wind up having their choice of beautiful young
women. How unfair.
The point I'm trying to make is that LIFE
ISN'T FAIR!
Dating isn't fair, either.
Sometimes a woman will respond positively to
you, then the next day she'll act strange.
Sometimes a specific technique will work for
you, and sometimes it won't.
Sometimes you'll feel great and confident
inside, and sometimes you won't.
Now, most people don't like the idea that life
(and dating) aren't fair. They get upset when
things don't go their way, place too much meaning
on things that happen to them and responses they
get from women, and generally act like life should
be different.
Of course, this is CRAZY.
The more that I realized this fact... that life
just isn't fair... the more that I realized
another PROFOUND truth:
IT'S GREAT NEWS!
"I was thinking to myself today, I love my new job, working on the water, though the scenery sets a post-apocalyptic tone in places because of the drought and the vast areas of exposed garbage-strewn mud that was recently hidden lake bottom. And as I was thinking this to myself, I noticed a tornado. Granted it was a very small one-- technically a whirlwind, I suppose, but it was distinct and at least 20 feet high and whipping up leaves and dust like a blender..."
Or something like that.
But instead of posting, I went over to the fountain next to the ClearChannel HQ across the street, next to the cafe I've been going to almost nightly. Tonight was salsa night and I skipped it. Why try to train a dead horse, I figure.
But the fountain area is somewhat secluded at night, and I could open up and sing, which I can't really do here in the apartment. Not REALLY. Not without irritating someone or other. Especially not at midnight.
So I did that for an hour. Even that was magical, because as I strummed the first chords of Steve Earle's "And the Rain Came Down" which is both a traditional starting tune for me and an actual prayer for central Texas weather, the frogs started in. And I swear, it was in key. The frogs were singing the same cliche G C D I was strumming as the intro to this first country tune I ever learned. And then we were trading verses. Okay go think I'm exaggerating or tripping. I don't blame you. But you weren't there. I heard what I heard.
Then I came back home just now, reciprocated the love fest the dogs greeted me with, and sat down to write something really profound and journalistic about my new job on the drought-damaged lake. Or about these bands I'm going to be mixing.
But first I opened my email box, out of impulse. Nothing, but okay it's late and I got plenty of great email and other messages today. Still, I opened my hotmail box, which is all spam these days and I rarely open it. It had the latest spam newsletter from a genius dating guru who I signed up for by mistake maybe six years ago or more, and never bothered to remove myself from, once I noticed what an unsung genius of psychology he is, though I've never bothered to buy his e-book or anything.
Anyway, his spam newsletter today said the following, and once I read it, I only felt like cutting and pasting it here, instead of wasting more of my time writing my own words:
First off, I want to mention that LIFE isn't
fair. In case you haven't noticed, almost NOTHING
is fair.
Fairness is an idea that people have created. I
think we probably created the concept to torture
ourselves, in fact.
Here are a few ways that life isn't "fair", as
the concept relates to women and dating:
1) Some men are taller, and some are shorter.
Women tend to prefer taller men. How unfair.
2) A very small portion of the women that are
alive are as perfect and beautiful as the women in
magazines, and therefore it's
impossible for every man to have a woman that is
this beautiful. How unfair.
3) Many men go their entire lives without ever
having sex. How unfair.
4) Some men have sex with hundreds or even
thousands of women in their lives. How unfair.
5) Some men know the secrets of creating that
magical emotion called ATTRACTION inside of women
even though they aren't rich, handsome, tall, etc.
and wind up having their choice of beautiful young
women. How unfair.
The point I'm trying to make is that LIFE
ISN'T FAIR!
Dating isn't fair, either.
Sometimes a woman will respond positively to
you, then the next day she'll act strange.
Sometimes a specific technique will work for
you, and sometimes it won't.
Sometimes you'll feel great and confident
inside, and sometimes you won't.
Now, most people don't like the idea that life
(and dating) aren't fair. They get upset when
things don't go their way, place too much meaning
on things that happen to them and responses they
get from women, and generally act like life should
be different.
Of course, this is CRAZY.
The more that I realized this fact... that life
just isn't fair... the more that I realized
another PROFOUND truth:
IT'S GREAT NEWS!
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Part Two of our interview with Earnest
EaEdE: So are you ready to talk about what you meant by "I think I care about sound more than most people?"
EARNEST: Yeah. I think what I meant was sounds. I pay a lot of attention to sounds. After spending the better part of an hour reading an impassioned online debate by guitar players about whether a particular microphone is amazing or terrible, I remembered that there are plenty of people, musicians, who care a great deal more about some sound specifics than I ever will. But for a non-musician, I care excessively.
EaEdE: You call yourself a non-musician, but you put on something of a show in public today, no?
EARNEST: Yeah I was beating two sticks together. Accompanying a pair of those loud djembe drummers that annoy people in public.
EaEdE: What made you do that all of a sudden?
EARNEST: The guys knew some complex rhythms but couldn't hold them together. They needed help. I did it for the sake of the many dozens of people and wet dogs in the captive audience.
EaEdE: You got a lot of compliments on your clave-playing, and you gathered a small crowd. You haven't done anything like that in a number of years. Do you even remember when?
EARNEST: No. I don't remember. I think it's rude to subject people to loud spastic hand drumming in public, especially at such a peaceful and crowded place like Barton Springs on a 100 degree day.
EaEdE: The one drummer guy said you were playing a 12 count rhythm.
EARNEST: Yeah that's what he said. I've never been able to count and play even though I can hold some pretty tricky beats. I suppose if I could count I could consider myself a percussionist for real. These guys, you see them everywhere. Especially anywhere hairy people are partying hard outdoors in nature somewhere. I thought it was funny that we were sitting by a natural creek but it smelled like a bar, or a dead concert parking lot. Anyway these types often know an awful lot about hand drums and ethnic rhythms, but they just sound awful. I got fed up with this scene many years ago. Hand drums should always be played dynamically and respectfully. They're sacred in many cultures for a reason, and they piss people off in ours for reasons just as good.
EaEdE: So what else happened today?
EARNEST: I went swimming with my dog, Cafe.
EaEdE: What else?
EARNEST: I agreed to do one more blog entry in the style of a magazine interview. I kind of wish I didn't.
EaEdE: And?
EARNEST: I got a job. Driving a boat. On the lake.
EaEdE: Pretty fucking sweet?
EARNEST: Yes. I'm ecstatic, to tell the truth. It pays much better than I thought because there are tips as well as a decent base pay and benefits. It will allow me to keep accumulating sea time towards a captain's license someday, as I was doing when I quit my job on the dolphin boat in Key West over a year ago. It never occurred to me to update my boating resume for finding a job in central Texas. Then I saw this ad on Craigslist, stayed up nearly all night tweaking a fourth version of my resume, had a great interview this morning, and I start tomorrow. I was really getting burned out on resume editing and sending, as you may have noticed.
EaEdE: Yes, you were sniveling again.
EARNEST: Well no more.
EaEdE: And what about the personal life?
EARNEST: Well I'll just say that if you think these blogs are stupid, too revealing, and go way too far, you oughta see some of the personal emails I compose. Good grief. They do me no good whatsoever but I'm not sure I'll ever learn.
EaEdE: Learn what?
EARNEST: Not to compose and send drivel. Blogging snivel, and emailing pathos-soaked drivel. I want to learn to stop doing that. I'd also like to finally learn the craft of technical writing now that I'm here in one of the capitals of it. I'm going to start looking for a part-time internship. There is a lot of work in this field here, and I know I can do it. I just need some training. I spent an hour just this evening writing a pretty darned technical email to a band that wants me to mix a few shows for them.
EaEdE: For money?
EARNEST: Yes, money and a hotel room in Dallas for a big show they are doing. But I can't commit to it until tomorrow, after I check with my new boss on the lake. That's my bread and butter, or my sprouted tortillas and organic vegetarian refried beans. I'm trying to ween off the Taco Bell addiction and I'm having some success. That's why I yelled "FUCK" when I saw there was one near my new place of employment today.
EaEdE: You think you're pretty funny, don't you? Are you sure you don't want to mention anything specifically that might be worth noting that happened in your personal life today?
EARNEST: No, dude, leave me alone about that.
EaEdE: Well you don't seem to be sniveling about it, so that's good.
EARNEST: Yeah that's good. Let's just leave it at that for now. It's all good, in fact. I'm starting with nothing but I've found a bottom rung to reach up for. I mean that about the job, not the personal life. I don't have a ready metaphor for the personal life. I just think once I have a job, and then in good time my own place, I'll appear more normal and less creepy to people, and more importantly, I'll feel better.
EaEdE: Well Earnest, I'd like to thank you very much for joining us.
EARNEST: Enough of that already. I know your wires are a little crossed from listening to way too much public radio over the years. But this format is giving me the creeps. Just go back to writing about me tomorrow in the third person narrative format that absolves you of all responsibility, or the more fun journalistic layout with headlines. Or I'll just write the fucking thing myself....
EARNEST: Yeah. I think what I meant was sounds. I pay a lot of attention to sounds. After spending the better part of an hour reading an impassioned online debate by guitar players about whether a particular microphone is amazing or terrible, I remembered that there are plenty of people, musicians, who care a great deal more about some sound specifics than I ever will. But for a non-musician, I care excessively.
EaEdE: You call yourself a non-musician, but you put on something of a show in public today, no?
EARNEST: Yeah I was beating two sticks together. Accompanying a pair of those loud djembe drummers that annoy people in public.
EaEdE: What made you do that all of a sudden?
EARNEST: The guys knew some complex rhythms but couldn't hold them together. They needed help. I did it for the sake of the many dozens of people and wet dogs in the captive audience.
EaEdE: You got a lot of compliments on your clave-playing, and you gathered a small crowd. You haven't done anything like that in a number of years. Do you even remember when?
EARNEST: No. I don't remember. I think it's rude to subject people to loud spastic hand drumming in public, especially at such a peaceful and crowded place like Barton Springs on a 100 degree day.
EaEdE: The one drummer guy said you were playing a 12 count rhythm.
EARNEST: Yeah that's what he said. I've never been able to count and play even though I can hold some pretty tricky beats. I suppose if I could count I could consider myself a percussionist for real. These guys, you see them everywhere. Especially anywhere hairy people are partying hard outdoors in nature somewhere. I thought it was funny that we were sitting by a natural creek but it smelled like a bar, or a dead concert parking lot. Anyway these types often know an awful lot about hand drums and ethnic rhythms, but they just sound awful. I got fed up with this scene many years ago. Hand drums should always be played dynamically and respectfully. They're sacred in many cultures for a reason, and they piss people off in ours for reasons just as good.
EaEdE: So what else happened today?
EARNEST: I went swimming with my dog, Cafe.
EaEdE: What else?
EARNEST: I agreed to do one more blog entry in the style of a magazine interview. I kind of wish I didn't.
EaEdE: And?
EARNEST: I got a job. Driving a boat. On the lake.
EaEdE: Pretty fucking sweet?
EARNEST: Yes. I'm ecstatic, to tell the truth. It pays much better than I thought because there are tips as well as a decent base pay and benefits. It will allow me to keep accumulating sea time towards a captain's license someday, as I was doing when I quit my job on the dolphin boat in Key West over a year ago. It never occurred to me to update my boating resume for finding a job in central Texas. Then I saw this ad on Craigslist, stayed up nearly all night tweaking a fourth version of my resume, had a great interview this morning, and I start tomorrow. I was really getting burned out on resume editing and sending, as you may have noticed.
EaEdE: Yes, you were sniveling again.
EARNEST: Well no more.
EaEdE: And what about the personal life?
EARNEST: Well I'll just say that if you think these blogs are stupid, too revealing, and go way too far, you oughta see some of the personal emails I compose. Good grief. They do me no good whatsoever but I'm not sure I'll ever learn.
EaEdE: Learn what?
EARNEST: Not to compose and send drivel. Blogging snivel, and emailing pathos-soaked drivel. I want to learn to stop doing that. I'd also like to finally learn the craft of technical writing now that I'm here in one of the capitals of it. I'm going to start looking for a part-time internship. There is a lot of work in this field here, and I know I can do it. I just need some training. I spent an hour just this evening writing a pretty darned technical email to a band that wants me to mix a few shows for them.
EaEdE: For money?
EARNEST: Yes, money and a hotel room in Dallas for a big show they are doing. But I can't commit to it until tomorrow, after I check with my new boss on the lake. That's my bread and butter, or my sprouted tortillas and organic vegetarian refried beans. I'm trying to ween off the Taco Bell addiction and I'm having some success. That's why I yelled "FUCK" when I saw there was one near my new place of employment today.
EaEdE: You think you're pretty funny, don't you? Are you sure you don't want to mention anything specifically that might be worth noting that happened in your personal life today?
EARNEST: No, dude, leave me alone about that.
EaEdE: Well you don't seem to be sniveling about it, so that's good.
EARNEST: Yeah that's good. Let's just leave it at that for now. It's all good, in fact. I'm starting with nothing but I've found a bottom rung to reach up for. I mean that about the job, not the personal life. I don't have a ready metaphor for the personal life. I just think once I have a job, and then in good time my own place, I'll appear more normal and less creepy to people, and more importantly, I'll feel better.
EaEdE: Well Earnest, I'd like to thank you very much for joining us.
EARNEST: Enough of that already. I know your wires are a little crossed from listening to way too much public radio over the years. But this format is giving me the creeps. Just go back to writing about me tomorrow in the third person narrative format that absolves you of all responsibility, or the more fun journalistic layout with headlines. Or I'll just write the fucking thing myself....
Monday, August 3, 2009
Earnest: The EaEdE Interview
EaEdE: Earnest, isn't this another potentially shining example of acting creepy, interviewing yourself?
EARNEST: That don't deserve an answer, hoss.
EaEdE: Fine. But really, "hoss"? What's with all of this southern and Texas lingo that has crept into your vocabulary and the twang that comes out when you sing? What are you trying to prove? You're not Texan, you're not southern, and you're not even a redneck. You grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs. You're a vegan for chrissake...
EARNEST: My maternal grandparents were from Alabama.
EaEdE: That's your only explanation?
EARNEST: Well, and it just feels right. I don't care much for the Northeast accents.
EaEdE: So how did it go today?
EARNEST: Great!
EaEdE: And the nice California girl you met-- do you think she thought you were creepy?
EARNEST: No, I think she liked me just fine.
EaEdE: What did you think of her?
EARNEST: I don't think I'm ready to answer that.
EaEdE: What did you have your panties in such a wad over this morning anyway when you wrote that blog? You caught yourself sniveling again, didn't you?
EARNEST: Indeed. I'd like to point out that I am listening to my favorite DJ in the world right now, over the airwaves, on KUT, Mr. Larry Monroe. He is singlehandedly responsible for a massive portion of the kind of music I love most these days, largely from these cassette recordings I made of his late night blues and Americana programs I made while voluntarily incarcerated at the Pharmaco pharmaceutical testing facility for 24 days in late 1997.
EaEdE: Okay. But will you answer the question?
EARNEST: Sure. I woke up to an email this morning from a certain close family member that was disappointingly distant and curt, when my communications are always expressive and expansive and heartfelt. Then I realized that the bellydancer I wrote to last week didn't read the message I wrote to her. She just discarded it and probably got the serious creeps just from seeing the photo of who sent it. Myspace tells you these things.
EaEdE: Don't you think that finding her online and writing her that message on Myspace was, like, the definition of creepy?
EARNEST: No. She gave me a certain look after the show that made me feel like maybe she'd be interested in talking to me.
EaEdE: So why didn't you just talk to her?
EARNEST: There was a very big man talking to her very intently. After that she looked kind of like she wanted to be left alone. And I was drinking a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, which I wasn't proud of. They're two bucks at Ruta Maya.
EaEdE: Aren't you really just an introverted creepy weirdo anyhow? Didn't you hack into your ex-girlfriend's email and read it when you were working on that yacht in St. Thomas?
EARNEST: No. And Yes. And I apologized for it and we're still friends. Why does this have to be an interrogation? Why can't you be sensitive and endearing like Teri Gross or Diane Rehm? Jerk. Why don't you change the name of this thing anyway? I'm not going back to Ecuador anytime soon, and there's not much to write about poor Eeyore these days.
EaEdE: Fair enough. Why don't you even talk to your best friends about your personal life?
EARNEST: It just seems too personal sometimes.
EaEdE: But you write about it here for the all the googling world to look at.
EARNEST: Right. Well, that's not my real picture with the dead possum, and Earnest isn't my real name.
EaEdE: But this blog is linked from your real Facebook page.
EARNEST: Yeah I've thought about changing that.
EaEdE: Do you think doing this type of interview is going to lead people to suspect you suffer from some mental illness?
EARNEST: I imagine that's commonly assumed enough. But everyone talks to themselves in one way or another. And the DSM manual is thick enough to label us all with something. I'm addicted to hot sauce and fresco style bean burritos from Taco Bell, for example. But I don't have the other addiction issues I once did. It's hard to believe, but years of extremely healthy eating and supplements can do wonders. There are some very scientific books about this but I doubt Dr. Oz will be touting them on Oprah any time soon. Gary Null is my biggest hero in this department, but there are huge efforts to discredit him because of what a liability he is to the drug companies. I do have mental illness in my family though. When my brother committed suicide, he was on any number of anti-psychotics, which are given out with unbelievable fickleness these days. If I sound like I'm exaggerating, do your own research. It's fucking crazy. Seeing what the drugs did to people when I worked in psychosocial rehabilitation, and watching my brother slide off into oblivion, well it showed me things I couldn't possibly describe in words.
EaEdE: So if you're not crazy, why do you have so many issues with things that other people don't?
EARNEST: You mean like the hunting and killing of dolphins and whales?
EaEdE: Yes. You really got upset about that the other night.
EARNEST: I did. That is a little embarrassing in a post-caring world. Caring is so not cool.
EaEdE: Speaking of caring, you claim to care about sound more than most people too. Can you explain this?
EARNEST: Sure. But I don't feel like it right now. It's a subject that's too important to me to give short shrift to right now. I'm hungry.
EaEdE: But you did get a reply to the Craigslist ad offering to mix bands for free, right?
EARNEST: Yes. Right away. And they offered to pay me.
EaEdE: And someone you really like who you thought was ignoring you emailed you this morning right at the end of your sniveling rant you wrote, right?
EARNEST: Right.
EaEdE: And that's why you're not sniveling right now?
EARNEST: You're a fucking genius.
EaEdE: Takes one to know one. I'd like to thank you very much for speaking with us.
EARNEST: I'm not speaking, I'm typing. To myself. Like a crazy person. But close enough...
EARNEST: That don't deserve an answer, hoss.
EaEdE: Fine. But really, "hoss"? What's with all of this southern and Texas lingo that has crept into your vocabulary and the twang that comes out when you sing? What are you trying to prove? You're not Texan, you're not southern, and you're not even a redneck. You grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs. You're a vegan for chrissake...
EARNEST: My maternal grandparents were from Alabama.
EaEdE: That's your only explanation?
EARNEST: Well, and it just feels right. I don't care much for the Northeast accents.
EaEdE: So how did it go today?
EARNEST: Great!
EaEdE: And the nice California girl you met-- do you think she thought you were creepy?
EARNEST: No, I think she liked me just fine.
EaEdE: What did you think of her?
EARNEST: I don't think I'm ready to answer that.
EaEdE: What did you have your panties in such a wad over this morning anyway when you wrote that blog? You caught yourself sniveling again, didn't you?
EARNEST: Indeed. I'd like to point out that I am listening to my favorite DJ in the world right now, over the airwaves, on KUT, Mr. Larry Monroe. He is singlehandedly responsible for a massive portion of the kind of music I love most these days, largely from these cassette recordings I made of his late night blues and Americana programs I made while voluntarily incarcerated at the Pharmaco pharmaceutical testing facility for 24 days in late 1997.
EaEdE: Okay. But will you answer the question?
EARNEST: Sure. I woke up to an email this morning from a certain close family member that was disappointingly distant and curt, when my communications are always expressive and expansive and heartfelt. Then I realized that the bellydancer I wrote to last week didn't read the message I wrote to her. She just discarded it and probably got the serious creeps just from seeing the photo of who sent it. Myspace tells you these things.
EaEdE: Don't you think that finding her online and writing her that message on Myspace was, like, the definition of creepy?
EARNEST: No. She gave me a certain look after the show that made me feel like maybe she'd be interested in talking to me.
EaEdE: So why didn't you just talk to her?
EARNEST: There was a very big man talking to her very intently. After that she looked kind of like she wanted to be left alone. And I was drinking a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, which I wasn't proud of. They're two bucks at Ruta Maya.
EaEdE: Aren't you really just an introverted creepy weirdo anyhow? Didn't you hack into your ex-girlfriend's email and read it when you were working on that yacht in St. Thomas?
EARNEST: No. And Yes. And I apologized for it and we're still friends. Why does this have to be an interrogation? Why can't you be sensitive and endearing like Teri Gross or Diane Rehm? Jerk. Why don't you change the name of this thing anyway? I'm not going back to Ecuador anytime soon, and there's not much to write about poor Eeyore these days.
EaEdE: Fair enough. Why don't you even talk to your best friends about your personal life?
EARNEST: It just seems too personal sometimes.
EaEdE: But you write about it here for the all the googling world to look at.
EARNEST: Right. Well, that's not my real picture with the dead possum, and Earnest isn't my real name.
EaEdE: But this blog is linked from your real Facebook page.
EARNEST: Yeah I've thought about changing that.
EaEdE: Do you think doing this type of interview is going to lead people to suspect you suffer from some mental illness?
EARNEST: I imagine that's commonly assumed enough. But everyone talks to themselves in one way or another. And the DSM manual is thick enough to label us all with something. I'm addicted to hot sauce and fresco style bean burritos from Taco Bell, for example. But I don't have the other addiction issues I once did. It's hard to believe, but years of extremely healthy eating and supplements can do wonders. There are some very scientific books about this but I doubt Dr. Oz will be touting them on Oprah any time soon. Gary Null is my biggest hero in this department, but there are huge efforts to discredit him because of what a liability he is to the drug companies. I do have mental illness in my family though. When my brother committed suicide, he was on any number of anti-psychotics, which are given out with unbelievable fickleness these days. If I sound like I'm exaggerating, do your own research. It's fucking crazy. Seeing what the drugs did to people when I worked in psychosocial rehabilitation, and watching my brother slide off into oblivion, well it showed me things I couldn't possibly describe in words.
EaEdE: So if you're not crazy, why do you have so many issues with things that other people don't?
EARNEST: You mean like the hunting and killing of dolphins and whales?
EaEdE: Yes. You really got upset about that the other night.
EARNEST: I did. That is a little embarrassing in a post-caring world. Caring is so not cool.
EaEdE: Speaking of caring, you claim to care about sound more than most people too. Can you explain this?
EARNEST: Sure. But I don't feel like it right now. It's a subject that's too important to me to give short shrift to right now. I'm hungry.
EaEdE: But you did get a reply to the Craigslist ad offering to mix bands for free, right?
EARNEST: Yes. Right away. And they offered to pay me.
EaEdE: And someone you really like who you thought was ignoring you emailed you this morning right at the end of your sniveling rant you wrote, right?
EARNEST: Right.
EaEdE: And that's why you're not sniveling right now?
EARNEST: You're a fucking genius.
EaEdE: Takes one to know one. I'd like to thank you very much for speaking with us.
EARNEST: I'm not speaking, I'm typing. To myself. Like a crazy person. But close enough...
creepy crawly
The discrepancy between my opinion of myself and the feedback I get from the rest of the world continues to widen at an ever more alarming rate. I'm not sure where this is headed exactly.
In my head, in my body, I feel better than I ever have. I feel like I'm getting smarter and growing younger. The diverse organic vegan/mostly raw diet has been doing wonders to slow the aging process to a crawl. People tell me all the time that I look 10 years younger than I am and my energy level is just ripping. Even after staying up most of the night memorizing the Austin Craigslist postings of various categories.
I've spent this last week revising and rewriting and revising again the four variations of my resume: sound tech, boat hand, food dude, office drone. Each new version I come up with makes the previous one look like it was written by a developmentally disabled version of myself. My best explanation is that this stuff takes time to get used to again. I was out of the country for a year, not even speaking English half the time, much less thinking in terms of proper business etiquette.
I see people all around me, everywhere I go, with jobs, and I observe that a lot of these people aren't nearly as smart or as clean-cut and healthy looking as I am. At night I go to these live music events, which are world-class in terms of the performers, but the sound guys are all complacent and essentially asleep at the wheel, resulting in a flat, undynamic sound.
I look at the ads on Craigslist for servers wanted at various restaurants around town and then I go straight to yelp.com to look at what customers have said about their experiences at those restaurants. The writing, about how bad the young waitstaff is, is often fantastically descriptive and a hoot to read.
I see room for improvement everywhere. I send off concise, witty and highly appropriate cover emails with my resumes to jobs I am certainly qualified for based on my work history. I go to bed at night confident I'll hear at least something the next day.
But I've got nothing. And it's not just with job-hunting. I don't really want to get into what's going on with dating and friends. Refer to the blues standard "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out"
The thing is, I'm not down, or out. Yes, my bank account is starting to get pretty low after a year of mostly not working or working in Ecuador for $100 a week. But I'm in no way depressed or feeling negative. I'm writing this more out of astonishment than self-pity.
It's like something happened over the last couple of years and I completely missed it. In both my writing and in my speaking I am giving everyone the creeps.
There was this American couple I met in Ecuador. They were from New Hampshire. The girl was about 23 or 24, and in the Peace Corps in a rural village near ours. She and her boyfriend invited me to a party they were having, and said I should bring my guitar and play around the camp fire.
Well when the party happened, I had a sore throat and couldn't really sing worth a dime that night. But I tried. And the boyfriend knew and loved all of this obscure-for-Ecuador old Texas country music I always do: Jerry Jeff Walker, Waylon, Townes, Willie, Robert Earle Keene, Steve Earle, etc.
A week later I stopped by their bamboo hut, unannounced since there's no cell signal in the village, with a mutual older American expat friend of ours. I was there to pick up a puppy she had called me to tell me she had for me a few days earlier. By the time I got around to getting there though, the couple had fallen in love with the puppy and wanted to keep him. No surprise there. But what surprised me was I kept hearing the couple use the word "creepy" in reference to me. At first I thought they were just sort of joking and didn't even think about it.
The following week I was in Quito, at this very popular cybercafe in the new part of town, which has smoothies and cocktails and big windows so you can watch the tourists scene stroll by as you update your Facebook. So I'm updating my Facebook and having an over-sweetened carrot juice when I see this same American girl get out of a taxi with some gringa friends. She looks wasted. I picked up my phone and called her, and said "hey, look, I'm right here..." etc. and waved. She was all cold to me, as if I were just a guy hitting on her on the street, and used the word "creepy" several times. Quito is about seven hours by bus from the part of the country where our villages are. I just thought it was an interesting coincidence to see her there like that. I wasn't hitting on her. Her boyfriend is a great guy and she's not even my type at all. When did I become so "creepy" all of a sudden?
I tell this story because this is the feedback I have been getting on every front since returning to the states. And the feedback seems to be oscillating to a deafening crescendo. Women cannot get away from me fast enough when I open my mouth and I know I have fresh breath. Friends and even family are reminding me of the old Martin Luther King quote: "lukewarm acceptance is far more bewildering than outright rejection."
Yet I'm not depressed by it. I'm really not. I think it's puzzling. But fascinating at the same time. Obviously I need to do something differently. But what? Okay, I could, I suppose, learn to talk about more normal things. I've already stopped telling people I'm vegan or that I lived in Ecuador for the last six months.
Perhaps I should learn to like and talk about sports? A good teeth-whitening would certainly help. Everyone else is light years ahead of me on that one. I have excellent oral hygiene but I've never had the teeth whitened, and as everyone else has it done, the natural off-white color of my teeth stands out more and more. Sort of like if I were the last naturally small-boobed girl in Vegas.
I prefer small boobs. Oops, that was creepy wasn't it...
But what about the cover letters and resumes that seem to be getting me nowhere? Actually, it's not entirely true. I have an interview tomorrow to do something at one of the marinas out on Lake Austin. The pay is really bad. But I was able to throw together a resume comprised of all of my boating experience and I guess it must have impressed someone.
Whether or not I get that position, I'm going to start focusing more on looking for work doing sound again. I'm really good at it, have solid experience and references, and I now live in the live music capital of the world. But the entertainment business is notorious for its nepotism and I don't know anyone here yet to even try to help me get a foot in the door. I posted an ad to Craigslist this morning describing my abilities and offering to work for free.
Having typed all of this, I just got an email that may well prove that I've just spent the last half hour or so habitually whining into the keys again. Please disregard.
In my head, in my body, I feel better than I ever have. I feel like I'm getting smarter and growing younger. The diverse organic vegan/mostly raw diet has been doing wonders to slow the aging process to a crawl. People tell me all the time that I look 10 years younger than I am and my energy level is just ripping. Even after staying up most of the night memorizing the Austin Craigslist postings of various categories.
I've spent this last week revising and rewriting and revising again the four variations of my resume: sound tech, boat hand, food dude, office drone. Each new version I come up with makes the previous one look like it was written by a developmentally disabled version of myself. My best explanation is that this stuff takes time to get used to again. I was out of the country for a year, not even speaking English half the time, much less thinking in terms of proper business etiquette.
I see people all around me, everywhere I go, with jobs, and I observe that a lot of these people aren't nearly as smart or as clean-cut and healthy looking as I am. At night I go to these live music events, which are world-class in terms of the performers, but the sound guys are all complacent and essentially asleep at the wheel, resulting in a flat, undynamic sound.
I look at the ads on Craigslist for servers wanted at various restaurants around town and then I go straight to yelp.com to look at what customers have said about their experiences at those restaurants. The writing, about how bad the young waitstaff is, is often fantastically descriptive and a hoot to read.
I see room for improvement everywhere. I send off concise, witty and highly appropriate cover emails with my resumes to jobs I am certainly qualified for based on my work history. I go to bed at night confident I'll hear at least something the next day.
But I've got nothing. And it's not just with job-hunting. I don't really want to get into what's going on with dating and friends. Refer to the blues standard "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out"
The thing is, I'm not down, or out. Yes, my bank account is starting to get pretty low after a year of mostly not working or working in Ecuador for $100 a week. But I'm in no way depressed or feeling negative. I'm writing this more out of astonishment than self-pity.
It's like something happened over the last couple of years and I completely missed it. In both my writing and in my speaking I am giving everyone the creeps.
There was this American couple I met in Ecuador. They were from New Hampshire. The girl was about 23 or 24, and in the Peace Corps in a rural village near ours. She and her boyfriend invited me to a party they were having, and said I should bring my guitar and play around the camp fire.
Well when the party happened, I had a sore throat and couldn't really sing worth a dime that night. But I tried. And the boyfriend knew and loved all of this obscure-for-Ecuador old Texas country music I always do: Jerry Jeff Walker, Waylon, Townes, Willie, Robert Earle Keene, Steve Earle, etc.
A week later I stopped by their bamboo hut, unannounced since there's no cell signal in the village, with a mutual older American expat friend of ours. I was there to pick up a puppy she had called me to tell me she had for me a few days earlier. By the time I got around to getting there though, the couple had fallen in love with the puppy and wanted to keep him. No surprise there. But what surprised me was I kept hearing the couple use the word "creepy" in reference to me. At first I thought they were just sort of joking and didn't even think about it.
The following week I was in Quito, at this very popular cybercafe in the new part of town, which has smoothies and cocktails and big windows so you can watch the tourists scene stroll by as you update your Facebook. So I'm updating my Facebook and having an over-sweetened carrot juice when I see this same American girl get out of a taxi with some gringa friends. She looks wasted. I picked up my phone and called her, and said "hey, look, I'm right here..." etc. and waved. She was all cold to me, as if I were just a guy hitting on her on the street, and used the word "creepy" several times. Quito is about seven hours by bus from the part of the country where our villages are. I just thought it was an interesting coincidence to see her there like that. I wasn't hitting on her. Her boyfriend is a great guy and she's not even my type at all. When did I become so "creepy" all of a sudden?
I tell this story because this is the feedback I have been getting on every front since returning to the states. And the feedback seems to be oscillating to a deafening crescendo. Women cannot get away from me fast enough when I open my mouth and I know I have fresh breath. Friends and even family are reminding me of the old Martin Luther King quote: "lukewarm acceptance is far more bewildering than outright rejection."
Yet I'm not depressed by it. I'm really not. I think it's puzzling. But fascinating at the same time. Obviously I need to do something differently. But what? Okay, I could, I suppose, learn to talk about more normal things. I've already stopped telling people I'm vegan or that I lived in Ecuador for the last six months.
Perhaps I should learn to like and talk about sports? A good teeth-whitening would certainly help. Everyone else is light years ahead of me on that one. I have excellent oral hygiene but I've never had the teeth whitened, and as everyone else has it done, the natural off-white color of my teeth stands out more and more. Sort of like if I were the last naturally small-boobed girl in Vegas.
I prefer small boobs. Oops, that was creepy wasn't it...
But what about the cover letters and resumes that seem to be getting me nowhere? Actually, it's not entirely true. I have an interview tomorrow to do something at one of the marinas out on Lake Austin. The pay is really bad. But I was able to throw together a resume comprised of all of my boating experience and I guess it must have impressed someone.
Whether or not I get that position, I'm going to start focusing more on looking for work doing sound again. I'm really good at it, have solid experience and references, and I now live in the live music capital of the world. But the entertainment business is notorious for its nepotism and I don't know anyone here yet to even try to help me get a foot in the door. I posted an ad to Craigslist this morning describing my abilities and offering to work for free.
Having typed all of this, I just got an email that may well prove that I've just spent the last half hour or so habitually whining into the keys again. Please disregard.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Here is an email I sent that perhaps I ought to be ashamed of, but I'm not, in fact I'm so proud of it, I'm posting it here for the world to shake their heads at:
First of all I want to apologize for looking you up like this-- it was pretty easy with all the Austin-based belly dancing sites-- but it feels like I'm being creepy and I don't mean to be.
My name is J. I'm the guy in the tank top who said "you guys were great" last night and then scurried off to the men's room.
What I said was an understatement. I've never really seen belly dancing before, except at one Mediterranean restaurant in Savannah, Georgia of all places. But that was just one style, and one dancer, and I was busy eating and not paying too close attention.
Last night I feel like I had something like the experience that I imagine was originally intended for an audience to have to this kind of dancing, way way back in the day, in a land far far away. I think it literally hypnotized me at one point.
And what I wanted to say to you afterwords, as you were trying to leave with your big mysterious jug of tea, was that I think the way you move your body is truly one of the wonders of the world. Seriously. I'm sure you get a lot of come-ons and this may just sound like another one, but if I were to list my own personal living wonders of the world, it would be things like the taste of a ripe passionfruit, the color of the ocean the moment the sun rises or sets into it, the view of the planet from the air on a clear day, the play of a dolphin in a good mood, the sound of a live band playing their best-- and your hips locking with the wild rhythm of a doumbek. Or your whole body writhing so slowly it's like you've entered another dimension and I've somehow followed you into it.
I am a big music person and don't know much about dance, so this is all coming from a pretty naive observer. All of the other dancers were really good too, and I told a couple of them as much. But what YOU did was, I believe, an ancient form of magic. I could not take my eyes off of you during your performance even if I had wanted to. I left there feeling like I'd had a spell cast upon me and I haven't been able to quite shake it all day.
So all of this is what I wanted to tell you as you were leaving, but you seemed to be patiently wading your way towards the door through the other adoring fans, so I figured I'd just leave you alone, and just hope I run into you sometime and get another chance.
But today I was online and I got impatient and when I found you, I couldn't resist the temptation to write a note. It feels kind of wrong. So again I apologize if this comes off as a violation of your privacy. I'm perfectly safe and sane and I should know better.
And I live right next to Ruta Maya and just wandered in last night having no idea what I'd be getting into! I'm glad I did. I've just moved back to Austin after being away for many years, and I don't really have many friends here or know what's going on most nights, but wandering into Ruta Maya has so far produced excellent results. I'd even say magic.
I've also played percussion for almost 20 years-- very tastefully I should add, in jazz and hip-hop and world music projects, and I realized I think I'd like to get involved in playing for some form of entrancing dance like this. I thought the percussionists you guys had were phenomenal though, and there doesn't seem to be much room for improvement there.
Anyway, all the best to you! Thanks for reading...
First of all I want to apologize for looking you up like this-- it was pretty easy with all the Austin-based belly dancing sites-- but it feels like I'm being creepy and I don't mean to be.
My name is J. I'm the guy in the tank top who said "you guys were great" last night and then scurried off to the men's room.
What I said was an understatement. I've never really seen belly dancing before, except at one Mediterranean restaurant in Savannah, Georgia of all places. But that was just one style, and one dancer, and I was busy eating and not paying too close attention.
Last night I feel like I had something like the experience that I imagine was originally intended for an audience to have to this kind of dancing, way way back in the day, in a land far far away. I think it literally hypnotized me at one point.
And what I wanted to say to you afterwords, as you were trying to leave with your big mysterious jug of tea, was that I think the way you move your body is truly one of the wonders of the world. Seriously. I'm sure you get a lot of come-ons and this may just sound like another one, but if I were to list my own personal living wonders of the world, it would be things like the taste of a ripe passionfruit, the color of the ocean the moment the sun rises or sets into it, the view of the planet from the air on a clear day, the play of a dolphin in a good mood, the sound of a live band playing their best-- and your hips locking with the wild rhythm of a doumbek. Or your whole body writhing so slowly it's like you've entered another dimension and I've somehow followed you into it.
I am a big music person and don't know much about dance, so this is all coming from a pretty naive observer. All of the other dancers were really good too, and I told a couple of them as much. But what YOU did was, I believe, an ancient form of magic. I could not take my eyes off of you during your performance even if I had wanted to. I left there feeling like I'd had a spell cast upon me and I haven't been able to quite shake it all day.
So all of this is what I wanted to tell you as you were leaving, but you seemed to be patiently wading your way towards the door through the other adoring fans, so I figured I'd just leave you alone, and just hope I run into you sometime and get another chance.
But today I was online and I got impatient and when I found you, I couldn't resist the temptation to write a note. It feels kind of wrong. So again I apologize if this comes off as a violation of your privacy. I'm perfectly safe and sane and I should know better.
And I live right next to Ruta Maya and just wandered in last night having no idea what I'd be getting into! I'm glad I did. I've just moved back to Austin after being away for many years, and I don't really have many friends here or know what's going on most nights, but wandering into Ruta Maya has so far produced excellent results. I'd even say magic.
I've also played percussion for almost 20 years-- very tastefully I should add, in jazz and hip-hop and world music projects, and I realized I think I'd like to get involved in playing for some form of entrancing dance like this. I thought the percussionists you guys had were phenomenal though, and there doesn't seem to be much room for improvement there.
Anyway, all the best to you! Thanks for reading...
more recent email excerpts...
i have spent an entire day today removing malicious software (viruses, worms, etc...gross...they ate a bunch of my music) from my laptop, thumb drives, mp3 player and digital recorder. that's what i get for plugging in to random public computers all over central and south america. i was in front of the computer all day.
it's almost too hot to go outside anyway. but i did get a little restless. and for about ten seconds i experienced this deep, gut wrenching feeling that i made the wrong choice in coming here, that life with you would have been better than anything at all that could possibly happen here.
then after about ten maybe twenty...maybe thirty... seconds, the feeling faded, and i reminded myself that even though i'm starting with nothing here, it's going to get a lot better. and i do realize that fact, when i'm being perfectly rational, which is most of the time. i have an interview tomorrow morning for a temporary job at the university book store. i think i'll be more immune from these painful little moments when i get out and start meeting people.
my friend R is really heaven sent to me, and not just because i am staying in her swank and modern condo in exchange for walking her dog. she's a true friend who believes in me, at a time when a lot of people simply don't. she's probably going to be able to help me get a high paying tutoring job, at least part time, which will give me an infinitely higher quality of life than waiting tables or whatever else i could find with such a scatterbrained resume like mine. i'm sure i'll eventually find my way back into professional sound tech-ing but it's very much a who-you-know business so it may take time.
as for my other two college friends who are here in town, one of them hasn't gotten back to me yet, and granted he is probably scared that i'm going to try to come live on his couch again like i did 12 years ago. the other one, a former band mate and something of a musical hero of mine, i haven't contacted yet, and i think i'm going to wait until i'm a little more settled here before i do. his rejection would sting too much right now to risk it...
it's almost too hot to go outside anyway. but i did get a little restless. and for about ten seconds i experienced this deep, gut wrenching feeling that i made the wrong choice in coming here, that life with you would have been better than anything at all that could possibly happen here.
then after about ten maybe twenty...maybe thirty... seconds, the feeling faded, and i reminded myself that even though i'm starting with nothing here, it's going to get a lot better. and i do realize that fact, when i'm being perfectly rational, which is most of the time. i have an interview tomorrow morning for a temporary job at the university book store. i think i'll be more immune from these painful little moments when i get out and start meeting people.
my friend R is really heaven sent to me, and not just because i am staying in her swank and modern condo in exchange for walking her dog. she's a true friend who believes in me, at a time when a lot of people simply don't. she's probably going to be able to help me get a high paying tutoring job, at least part time, which will give me an infinitely higher quality of life than waiting tables or whatever else i could find with such a scatterbrained resume like mine. i'm sure i'll eventually find my way back into professional sound tech-ing but it's very much a who-you-know business so it may take time.
as for my other two college friends who are here in town, one of them hasn't gotten back to me yet, and granted he is probably scared that i'm going to try to come live on his couch again like i did 12 years ago. the other one, a former band mate and something of a musical hero of mine, i haven't contacted yet, and i think i'm going to wait until i'm a little more settled here before i do. his rejection would sting too much right now to risk it...
more recent email excerpts
Again, I am recreating the old autobiographical flow of the blog with excerpts from recent emails I've sent to friends and family...
i went to an open mic night tonight at this incredibly chill cafe across the street, and even though not every performer was great, the sound system and house band was, and there is a great vibe among the peeps in attendance. i exchanged contact info with one guy who was a good singer in that old-Texas style i love so much-- the old country and blues sound of the 1970's which most of the kids these days aren't so hip to. i'm not sure if i'm musically up for it as i haven't touched my drum kit in over a year but i'm rehearsing with his band next week.
later R and i started talking about this whole twentysomething generation in general. (not so much you my dear, because you're just a bit older and unusually independent-minded). but i was saying that people in their 20's these days are very cliquey, and hard to penetrate culturally. like they have a very stringent and specific set of unspoken rules about what and who is cool and what and who is definitely not and never will be.
then R made an even stronger point, suggesting that the entire generation seems to behave like aspen trees, which are actually only appear to be a lot of individual trees but are actually all the same organism connected by a common root system that's underground and invisible to the naked eye. i was like, wow, yes, that's exactly how i feel about this generation! holy smokes. it's true. it's so goddamned true and my mind if flooding with real life examples. it's like they have to consult what the entire generation thinks about something before they can come up with an opinion of their own about it. generally speaking, i generally feel rejected by average members of the current twentysomething generation, as soon as i open my mouth, or even before, maybe because of the shoes i'm wearing, or something even more random and silly-- probably something i'm entirely clueless about.
we tried to figure out how an entire generation got like that, and guessed maybe it's got something to do with always having had the internet and cell phones to consult everyone else about everything all the time with. i hadn't thought of this before. i had always supposed it had something to do with growing up with all those reality shows, where everyone behaves in the same predictably shallow and narrow manners.
R and i disagreed only in that i sometimes wish i could penetrate their group-thinking, and fit in with them, whereas she's just generally doesn't care to spend her time with them anyway, and i don't think she means "sour grapes" either. to me they're sweet grapes and i wish like hell i could crack their code for access.
having said all of that, everyone at the open mic show tonight, mostly twentysomethings, was really nice and friendly to talk to.
so anyway i haven't gotten back to writing the blog yet, but i will be using some of my emails to you like this one to pluck ideas from.
i have an interview coming up for doing surround sound and home entertainment center installations, and i've also been taking advanced Microsoft Word and Excel tutorials so i'll do well on the computer tests at the temp agency, for good placement in a temp office job, which actually sounds kind of nice to me right now...
i went to an open mic night tonight at this incredibly chill cafe across the street, and even though not every performer was great, the sound system and house band was, and there is a great vibe among the peeps in attendance. i exchanged contact info with one guy who was a good singer in that old-Texas style i love so much-- the old country and blues sound of the 1970's which most of the kids these days aren't so hip to. i'm not sure if i'm musically up for it as i haven't touched my drum kit in over a year but i'm rehearsing with his band next week.
later R and i started talking about this whole twentysomething generation in general. (not so much you my dear, because you're just a bit older and unusually independent-minded). but i was saying that people in their 20's these days are very cliquey, and hard to penetrate culturally. like they have a very stringent and specific set of unspoken rules about what and who is cool and what and who is definitely not and never will be.
then R made an even stronger point, suggesting that the entire generation seems to behave like aspen trees, which are actually only appear to be a lot of individual trees but are actually all the same organism connected by a common root system that's underground and invisible to the naked eye. i was like, wow, yes, that's exactly how i feel about this generation! holy smokes. it's true. it's so goddamned true and my mind if flooding with real life examples. it's like they have to consult what the entire generation thinks about something before they can come up with an opinion of their own about it. generally speaking, i generally feel rejected by average members of the current twentysomething generation, as soon as i open my mouth, or even before, maybe because of the shoes i'm wearing, or something even more random and silly-- probably something i'm entirely clueless about.
we tried to figure out how an entire generation got like that, and guessed maybe it's got something to do with always having had the internet and cell phones to consult everyone else about everything all the time with. i hadn't thought of this before. i had always supposed it had something to do with growing up with all those reality shows, where everyone behaves in the same predictably shallow and narrow manners.
R and i disagreed only in that i sometimes wish i could penetrate their group-thinking, and fit in with them, whereas she's just generally doesn't care to spend her time with them anyway, and i don't think she means "sour grapes" either. to me they're sweet grapes and i wish like hell i could crack their code for access.
having said all of that, everyone at the open mic show tonight, mostly twentysomethings, was really nice and friendly to talk to.
so anyway i haven't gotten back to writing the blog yet, but i will be using some of my emails to you like this one to pluck ideas from.
i have an interview coming up for doing surround sound and home entertainment center installations, and i've also been taking advanced Microsoft Word and Excel tutorials so i'll do well on the computer tests at the temp agency, for good placement in a temp office job, which actually sounds kind of nice to me right now...
Every time this happens, every time I fail to post for a month or two, the backlog of my story piles up to daunting heights and it's hard to know where to begin. I prefer not to repeat myself so I think I'll start by posting a few informative emails I've composed recently...
So yes, indeed, we did make it to Austin. I say we because I took Mom's dog with me. Actually, she was my dog who Mom and Fred fell in love with back in 1999 and refused to give back to me after we visited their house on the Chesapeake. Her name is Cafe. Cafe spent a few years fishing every day with Fred on his boat, and she's been a bit of a neurotic mess since Fred died. Before Mom met P, Cafe was an indoor dog who was never more than two feet from Mom's heels, guarding her and "herding her" night and day. She's a mix of Chow, Australian Shepherd and Border Collie, and it's those last two breeds that make her such a determined and hard-working herder, rounding up and protecting her flock of humans or single human as the case may be.
After Mom moved in with P, Cafe was no longer allowed in the house (although Mom was allowed to fund the building of the house-- don't get me started) and poor Cafe was left to a life of standing outside waiting for Mom to go check the mail or hang out clothes. Then Mom started disappearing to Ecuador for three or four months at a time. Some neighbor came by to put food in Cafe's dish every few days. The story breaks my heart just to tell it, but you know how I am with animals.
The happy ending is that Cafe is now with me. At first, she looked at me as if to say "this is so exciting! I haven't been on a ride in the truck in ages!" Then when we were still in the truck five days later, she started looking at me as if to say "what exactly is happening that we are in the truck for five days straight?" She did enjoy checking out every rest stop in Florida and on the Gulf Coast.
Now she and I are enjoying the modern comforts of upscale apartment living. My good friend R, who I went to college with, has a job in which August and September are months when she is essentially living in airplanes and hotel rooms. So I'll be here apartment sitting and walking her dog Wesley, who is now Cafe's new best friend.
Cafe still herds me from the desk here in my little bedroom to the kitchen and to the bathroom and back, but she is showing signs of adjusting. It's about 100 degrees or more every day here-- they've been calling it a permanent heat wave and drought. July was the hottest month in history in Central Texas.
Actually it doesn't seem that bad to me after Ecuador. And I can say that about much more than the weather. I love this city. Putting together a decent resume is a far bigger challenge for me than any job might present to me that I ultimately find. I have a sound production resume, a food service resume, and an administrative resume which I have doctored with a little help and a lot of prodding from my friends, who don't want to see me end up in another job that is pure misery when I am so damned obviously capable of working in an office like anyone else.
Today I actually came across an ad seeking an experienced boat operator for a little marina shuttle on Lake Austin. This was not something I anticipated at all, and I've been scrambling this morning to piece together a fourth, nautically themed version of my resume.
The live music scene here is good beyond all description. Austin is a lot like Nashville not only in that all your waiters and cab drivers happen to be genius songwriters and mind-blowingly talented guitar players and the like, but you can also find these nondescript little holes in the wall in strip malls scattered throughout the city with world-class country and blues music and photos on the wall of the night Willie Nelson or Bonnie Rait just dropped by unannounced for an impromptu show.
So you're driving to Montana? Hope you get your satellite radio working again. My favorite channels are 12 and 13, "Outlaw Country" and "Willie's Place" respectively. This is a link you should just be able to click on to listen to the perfect tune for your upcoming trip:
Big City
In 2005 I took the train from Chicago to Whitefish, Montana and it goes right through the park. There are double-decker cafe cars with skylights and the views were spectacular of both the mountains and the wildlife. It might even be worth taking the train just for that section of it. But however you enjoy the park I'm sure it will be enjoyable and unforgettable. Swing back through Texas on your way home-- it'll only ad 3000 miles or so to your trip, and that's nothing with satellite radio...
So yes, indeed, we did make it to Austin. I say we because I took Mom's dog with me. Actually, she was my dog who Mom and Fred fell in love with back in 1999 and refused to give back to me after we visited their house on the Chesapeake. Her name is Cafe. Cafe spent a few years fishing every day with Fred on his boat, and she's been a bit of a neurotic mess since Fred died. Before Mom met P, Cafe was an indoor dog who was never more than two feet from Mom's heels, guarding her and "herding her" night and day. She's a mix of Chow, Australian Shepherd and Border Collie, and it's those last two breeds that make her such a determined and hard-working herder, rounding up and protecting her flock of humans or single human as the case may be.
After Mom moved in with P, Cafe was no longer allowed in the house (although Mom was allowed to fund the building of the house-- don't get me started) and poor Cafe was left to a life of standing outside waiting for Mom to go check the mail or hang out clothes. Then Mom started disappearing to Ecuador for three or four months at a time. Some neighbor came by to put food in Cafe's dish every few days. The story breaks my heart just to tell it, but you know how I am with animals.
The happy ending is that Cafe is now with me. At first, she looked at me as if to say "this is so exciting! I haven't been on a ride in the truck in ages!" Then when we were still in the truck five days later, she started looking at me as if to say "what exactly is happening that we are in the truck for five days straight?" She did enjoy checking out every rest stop in Florida and on the Gulf Coast.
Now she and I are enjoying the modern comforts of upscale apartment living. My good friend R, who I went to college with, has a job in which August and September are months when she is essentially living in airplanes and hotel rooms. So I'll be here apartment sitting and walking her dog Wesley, who is now Cafe's new best friend.
Cafe still herds me from the desk here in my little bedroom to the kitchen and to the bathroom and back, but she is showing signs of adjusting. It's about 100 degrees or more every day here-- they've been calling it a permanent heat wave and drought. July was the hottest month in history in Central Texas.
Actually it doesn't seem that bad to me after Ecuador. And I can say that about much more than the weather. I love this city. Putting together a decent resume is a far bigger challenge for me than any job might present to me that I ultimately find. I have a sound production resume, a food service resume, and an administrative resume which I have doctored with a little help and a lot of prodding from my friends, who don't want to see me end up in another job that is pure misery when I am so damned obviously capable of working in an office like anyone else.
Today I actually came across an ad seeking an experienced boat operator for a little marina shuttle on Lake Austin. This was not something I anticipated at all, and I've been scrambling this morning to piece together a fourth, nautically themed version of my resume.
The live music scene here is good beyond all description. Austin is a lot like Nashville not only in that all your waiters and cab drivers happen to be genius songwriters and mind-blowingly talented guitar players and the like, but you can also find these nondescript little holes in the wall in strip malls scattered throughout the city with world-class country and blues music and photos on the wall of the night Willie Nelson or Bonnie Rait just dropped by unannounced for an impromptu show.
So you're driving to Montana? Hope you get your satellite radio working again. My favorite channels are 12 and 13, "Outlaw Country" and "Willie's Place" respectively. This is a link you should just be able to click on to listen to the perfect tune for your upcoming trip:
Big City
In 2005 I took the train from Chicago to Whitefish, Montana and it goes right through the park. There are double-decker cafe cars with skylights and the views were spectacular of both the mountains and the wildlife. It might even be worth taking the train just for that section of it. But however you enjoy the park I'm sure it will be enjoyable and unforgettable. Swing back through Texas on your way home-- it'll only ad 3000 miles or so to your trip, and that's nothing with satellite radio...
Just what is it about my face?
I wrote the following a couple of weeks ago, on a southbound train. I think it's pretty self-explanatory. A few days later I drove for a day or two to Key West, loaded everything I own out of the storage unit where it's been sitting for a year, and drove for another day or two, stopping in Jennings, Louisiana to replace a bad alternator. For a moment I wondered what it would be like to get stuck living in that small Southwest Louisiana town, where the people are so friendly. The trainee who smiled at me in the Taco Bell was unforgettably cute. I now live in Austin, Texas, so I'm fixin' to change the name of the blog here real soon...
What is it about my face? I mean really, what the hell is it? I can’t usually see my own face, so I just can’t put my finger on it. The next pair of mirror aviator sunglasses I see, I’ll buy and put them on, and people will leave me alone. I’ll be safe again.
I’m on the New Orleans bound train from Philadelphia, speeding across the lush summer Delaware landscape on a sunny afternoon. But 12 hours ago, I was sitting at a gay bar in downtown Pittsburgh. I was getting drunk, something I haven’t wanted to do in quite a while. I didn’t realize it was a gay bar. Well, not right away. I was just impressed that something was open so close to the train station in the middle of a Tuesday night.
Actually it was the second bar I had found. The first was in the lobby of a big fancy hotel. There I had two delicious pale ales and a Jim Beam, straight up. I haven’t had anything to drink in months and it went straight to my head, which was just what I had in mind. The Miss Hooters pagent was playing out on the flat screen in front of me. A half dozen other well dressed people sat around the bar, watching, murmering comments about the girls’ measurements.
“Thirty four? No way. No Way!” said the young, middle eastern bartender, repeatedly. The measurements did seem arbitrary when you looked closely at the fast-moving girls’ bodies. There were a lot of Hooters girls on the TV, and each one had maybe five seconds to bounce and bubble across the stage, with her measurements displayed next to where she’s from.
It was a welcome if absurd distraction for me. This whole trip was a major failure. I can be philosophical about failures, and won’t dwell on this one for long, but the sting is still quite fresh and needs time to fade. The last month and a half or so of my life has seen a sizeable quantity of time, money and emotional capital invested, gambled, on a venture that turned out to be a wash. It could be depressing to think too much about it for too long. Six hours in that station, waiting for the 5:30AM train, that would have been a lot of long moments to notice my failure. Watching phony looking women parade their 34’s and 37’s across the stage in matching bikinis was a perfectly acceptable diversion.
I can’t believe that I almost moved to Pittsburgh. I know damned well that I cannot be happy and healthy in Pennsylvania or anywhere near it or anywhere like it. I learned this lesson in 1997, 2005 and 2007. And again in 2009. But this time with a twist. A simple twist of fate. A five foot tall, 95 pound, stunningly beautiul little twist who I foolishly fell in love with like a train rolling down hill without brakes. The resulting wreck wasn’t deadly, but it sure smarts. Left me seeing stars. Like a cartoon character with birds circling the new bump on his head. It’s painful. And furthermore, it’s embarassing.
So drinking was the obvious diversion. And watching this ridiculous pagent on TV. If I could have thought of anything else to divert my attention from the thoughts I was having, I would have tried it. A long walk wasn’t looking like a good idea, considering the time and place. A nap would have been nice but they design bus and train stations to be uncomfortable places to sleep. I couldn’t focus on either of my books.
The bar closed up and I was rather high on the booze when I stood up and walked out with my guitar under my arm. The big fancy hotel was right across from the bus and train terminal, and had this nice public looking plaza with benches and bushes. I took out my guitar and started playing and singing. Not real well. I haven’t been practicing much and it takes me some time to get back up to par after a long break. My voice was dusty and my strings were rusty. I always get back into it with something from the Steve Earle’s greatest hits cassette that I burned deep into my memory by listening to almost without pause in the years of 1999 to 2001, before I even had a guitar.
“Goodbye is All We’ve Got Left to Say” came naturally. It felt so good to sing it. Who cares how it sounded. It’s like song therapy. I saing the whole song right away. And a second time. And a third. A sketchy looking inter-racial couple sauntered by, snickering at my country music. I ignored them. The din of passing trains and trucks and the solitude of a downtown in the wee hours gave me the freedom to belt my voice hard, revving it up like a cold engine until it purred to life and rumbled all on its own. I think I played and sang “Goodbye is All We’ve Got Left to Say” about ten times. I’ve never taken anti-depressant medication, but nothing could work better than this. I felt fine.
“It’s not that I’m in a hurry to lose you. I’d call you up but there’s nothing I can do. Talking won’t do any good anyway. Goodbye is all we’ve got left to say”
Then I had one of those magic guitar moments. The tune that follows this one on the “Essential Earle” greatest hits tape that I listened to in my old Volvo station wagon until the tape wore so thin that it wowed and fluttered and distorted from the damage is “Six Days on the Road”. I’ve never even tried playing the song but I just naturally segued into it, automatically. Just like on that old cassette. The end of one song just naturally leads to the beginning of the next, on the tape and forever in my head. And the chords just came to me like I already knew them. It was most satisfying, since I’m not really a guitar player, certainly not a musician and I only know relatively few chords.
“Well I pulled outta Pittsburgh, rollin’ down the eastern seaboard….”
It must have been the Pittsburgh line, and the thrilling anticipation of escaping from Pittsburgh, that inspired this sudden burst into this classic country tune.
I was playing “Six Days on the Road” for maybe the third time when I was startled to notice a big fat bald man standing close enough to me to touch. Close enough to goose me or tickle me if he were gay and so inclined. Another man was walking by, someone really sketchy, someone who looked like he would mug me if he could, and no, not just because of his race. That man said to the big fat bald man, who was dressed in a security guard uniform with a billy club and walkie talkie, “he serenadin’ you, or what?”
Security man replied, “oh I’ve been listening to his little performance here for a little while yeah. He thinks he’s pretty good.” Real bitter and menacing. Like the worst kind of prison guard. And then he turned to me, with the same ultra nasty cynicism, “why don’t you just go serenade the folks outside the bus station. You’ll be arrested if you stay here.”
I didn’t say a word, just started packing up the guitar, which is a much slower process than he would have liked, as I have all sorts of little instruments and accessories in the guitar case when I am traveling and it all fits back together only a certain way. Security man studied my every move intensely, still within tickle distance, his impatience with me as palpable as the carcinogenic diesel soot of the night air.
“Boy, you don’t take no chances, do ya?” he said, commening on what I was doing, and I still have no idea what he meant. I said nothing. Just took a full two minutes to pack everything up, and walked slowly away. I almost said “is this some sort of private property issue?” but just didn’t feel like talking to anyone. I especially did not feel like talking to him. I had the right to remain silent.
I was going to find another place to play by the train station, but I looked way down the street and saw what looked like a cluster of bars, and I thought to myself:
“Well I’ve gotta get drunk and I sure do dread it cuz I know just what I’m gonna do…” (Willie Nelson)
And:
“Since I started drinkin’ again, I ain’t shed one lonely tear over you…”(Dwight Yoakam)
And:
“Could be holdin’ you tonight. Could stop doin’ wrong and start doin’ right. You don’t care about what I think. I think I’ll just stay here and drink.” (Merle Haggard)
I’m typing this, and my southbound train is crossing the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay. Several years ago, I sailed within sight of this very bridge. I get a great deal of satisfaction from thoughts like this. Similar to when I flew over Pamlico sound en route to Florida. “So many nights I just dream of the ocean and I wish I was sailin’ again” (Jimmy Buffet)
Yes, I often think in country music cliché’s and soundbites. Especially when I’m battling the blues.
I knew that if I had another beer I would probably become useless on the guitar. But there was really nowhere safe to play anyway. I’m not stupid enough to sit in some dark alley at 2AM in downtown Pittsburgh. Obvious would-be muggers were circling me, sizing me up as it was. It’s my face, I know it. My face says “mug me! I haven’t a fucking clue!” Open space was the only safe place. But I had absolutely no intention to serenade anyone. I sing for myself, not for others. This is such a common misperception. It used to happen all the time on the beaches in Ecuador. I would try to get away, to get alone, and people would find me and then rate my performance. Sometimes with good ratings, sometimes with odd looks, but the point being, I’m not performing. I’m merely performing therapy on myself.
The bar was several blocks away. An overly friendly African-American man walked with me, chatting me up, sizing up the depths of my naiivete. Later he would find me again, near the train station, at 4AM, and ask me very aggressively for two dollars. I stepped into the middle of the street where he would be least likely to assault me, and told him fiercely, “I got no money for anyone!” He acted insulted.
Is it my face that says “Yes I am willing and eager to whip out my wallet here in the middle of the night in downtown Pittsburgh! I am thrilled that you asked. I’m just so happy to have a new friend, and to be able to lend a helping hand.”
If only my face actually displayed the depths of my true inner cynicism. People would be scared of me.
The bar I found was the gay bar. I was still oblivious as the bouncer collected my $1 cover charge and pointed out to me that my Pennsylvania driver’s license expired just a few hours earlier, and made some very silly and longwinded jokes about it.
I was still oblivious as I sat at the bar, nursing a pint of Yuengling, playing a video game. I hate video games and until tonight, I was really happy not drinking at all or spending time in any bars. But I was in such dire need of distraction, it was all deliciously soothing. The video game was absurdly stupid. But at least it wasn’t asking me any questions. I was supposed to be driving an SUV monster truck with huge tires over bumps and it kept flipping over, no matter what I did, and landing on its back, wheels spinning sadly and fruitlessly like an inverted, defeated turtle. It made me laugh. Then, and only then, did I suddenly notice I was in gay bar.
“You’ve got fins to the left, fins to the right and you’re the only girl in town.”
(Jimmy Buffet)
I would have chugged the beer and ran, but I’m out of practice. And my belly was already full of beer. I needed five minutes. It was not a pleasant five minutes. Being hit on by men is not the kind of diversion that will help me escape the blues. It’s one of the things that makes it worse.
The night before, she gave me a facial. She cleaned my unruly child face, thoroughly, carefully, lovingly, like no one ever has before. It was a birthday gift. One of many she gave me before and after my 37th birthday. She also gave me a professional massage and baked me a cake. I ended up loving the facial. I mostly just loved her being so near me, touching me. I felt her breath on me and I felt in love with her. But initially I had resisted the idea, strongly at first. There was that familiar big crybaby in my head, whining “I want to feel like a man! Goddammit I am a man, not a woman. I don’t want a facial. Facials are for women. I want, I need to have sex with you until you scream. You hear me? This is what a man needs. Not a facial. I could, I should make love to you all night long, starting right now, ending when the sun is up. I don’t need a facial. I need to make you come so hard it turns your entire little limited definition of sex upside down on its head and splits it in two and leaves you quite literally begging me for more!”
But like I said, the facial ended up being nice. I enjoyed it. And I have such a clean, soft, even more youthful looking face now. Perfect for the gay bar.
Now in the gay bar, the big crybaby in my head was having an absolute hissy fit, his panties badly in a wad over this turn of events. “I don’t want to be talking to anyone at all right now. I am heartbroken over a beautiful girl who I almost could have had and now I have nothing. I want you gay men to go away. This is salt in my wounds. I want a t-shirt that says “if you’re gay then go away.” I can’t believe the lines these guys are using. I am a fucking man, goddammit. Why does this shit happen to me?”
I was rude, which doesn’t come easily to me. I was well dressed, which was making matters much worse. My face so soft and clean and fresh. I was almost finished with my beer, and the sharks had mostly all swum away after their initial frenzied circling, when a woman walked by me with her group of loudly lisping and giggling men.
I swear, it must be something about my face. She touched me on the shoulder, as I poured the last drops of the pint down my throat, and she said “awww, are you a little bit shy?”
The venom just naturally spewed from my mouth as I mimicked her instinctively, instantly, from the depths of my most primitive lizard brain: “yeah, that’s right. I’m a little bit shy.”
The way I said it made the smirk vanish from her face, and she retreated out the front door with her friends, her narrowed eyes lingering on me with disdain. I don’t enjoy being nasty to people at all. I didn’t even have time to think—the words just shot out of me like a bullet. Bullseye. It felt good.
But what is it about my face? She wouldn’t say that to just any man. My face must have been saying “I’m insecure and shy and here alone and I just wish someone would talk to me…” Why does my face say these things that I do not approve of or agree with? What does one do with a face that behaves like an unruly child? Will punishment work? Is this something best addressed with a carrot or a stick?
At 5AM, I was sleeping sitting up on a metal chair in the train station. The ticket agent gently tapped me. “Sir? Are you waiting for the 5:30 to Washington?”
I must have said yes somehow, deeply asleep and still drunk. “Well, the train had an accident. It hit a tow truck just outside of Chicago, and it’s going to be six hours late.”
I was awake enough now to think to myself “Sure. That makes sense. I’ve been here enjoying the people and places of downtown Pittsburgh for seven hours, and now I’ll get to be here for another six. This doesn’t even require cynicism or bitterness. It’s just naturally how things are going on this trip. Nothing could possibly surprise me. Let’s lose my luggage and strip search me.”
“We tried calling the number you gave on your ticket reservation…”
The number on my….oh yes, that’s so perfect too, I thought to myself. The number I gave them, since I’m just back in the states for a week or so and still don’t have a working cell phone, I gave them her number. Firefly’s number. The girl I fell in and out of love with like the biggest kind of idiot. The girl whose computer I messed up, whose storage key I lost, whose beautiful gift silver necklace I broke. She’s sick and exhausted and needs sleep bad. She was already hurtin’, knowing she had to get up for work at 7:30. And Amtrak just called her at 5AM to talk to her about my train. Perfect. Nothing could surprise me on this trip.
The good news was that they put me on the 7:30 train to Phildelphia, with a direct connection to Charlottesville on this train I’m writing on, smokin’ towards New Orleans. A young way too friendly hipster from West Philly got on in Johnstown and tried to talk to me for the next five hours, and I tried to sleep. He received text messages about every five minutes, his cell exploding into the same loud hip-hop sample each time. He actually had two cell phones. He told me all about their reception, about his ex-wives (he looked about 21) and he asked me all about my career.
I wanted to be nice. It’s awkward. I don’t know where I live. I don’t know what I do for a living. I can’t answer the most basic questions of small talk. I can’t really explain where I’m coming from or where I’m going if I want to. I’d rather just not talk. But I’m polite. For some reason, I told the young hipster the story about the Ecuadorian bus driver’s assistant lady who molested my crotch in the middle of the night when I was sleeping on that bus to Guyaquil a couple of weeks back. He thought that was pretty weird, and shifted most of his chit chat to the girl across the aisle, glancing at my every move out of the corner of his eye.
When I ran out of my health and psychology podcasts to listen to, I listened to some of the mp3’s that I copied from her computer, right after I wreaked havoc on it by installing Skype on it, slowing it down, making her a little crazier and a little more irritated with me. Her mp3’s were really hard metal. Crunching, relentlessly distorted guitars and gutteral, primal screaming. I tried it. I tried to like it. I tasted each tune, gently spitting each one out. I just don’t like it. In Spanish, we’d say “it just doesn’t please me.” I wish it did. I wish Pittsburgh pleased me. I think I would transform myself into a cat if I could, in order to live in her house and have her stroking me each night. But I’m not a cat. She said that me moving to her town on the Ohio river to be with her felt, to her, like she was caging a bird. And she’s right. She’s so fucking sadly right.
Then I’m in the familiar surroundings of 30th street station in Phildelphia. I’m indluging in the comforting familiarity of NPR talk radio in my earphones and a couple of vegan friendly Taco Bell fresco style bean burritos in my mouth. A man walks up to me who looks quite a bit like legendary jazz bassist Charles Mingus. He’s talking to me. He’s dissheveled looking, and I don’t feel like a racist when I assume he’s asking me for money. I’m dressed like I have a lot. I must look successful to those around me. I have to remove my earphones to hear what he’s saying to me, just like I had to dozens of times for the young hipster seated next to me on the train from Pittsburgh this morning.
He’s pointing at my weathered, black gaff-taped guitar case. He’s saying “Is that a Gibson? Or is it a Strat?” And I reply, “it’s actually an old Seagull Grand, made in Cana—“
“Ain’t nothing wrong with that,” he cuts me off. “Ain’t nothing wrong with playing a cheap guitar when you’re a beginner, just starting out. I learned on a Sears guitar when I was a kid. I play bass, jazz---“
And it was my turn to cut him off. “Actually Seagull makes really nice acoustic guitars. This is one of their cheaper models, but—“
He wasn’t hearing me. He had an agenda for me. My face was telling him “I haven’t a fucking clue about anything.” Why does my face do this? Always when I least expect it.
He said “You in a group?”
“Nope. I just sing and play a little country music—“
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that,” he comforted me. “Ain’t no reason to be ashamed if a little country/western is your thing. Nothin’ wrong with that at all…”
I guess my face had told him that something was wrong with country/western music. I’d like to have a mirror handy in these situations, to catch my face when it’s having conversations with people without me. Telling them things that I don’t approve of or agree with.
“I’m a jazz player myself,” he boasted. “Jazz bass.”
I didn’t want to be rude. I never want to be rude. But even if he were the jazz bass legend Charles Mingus who he looked so much like, I would have had limited interest in talking to him. I’m blue. I’m lonesome too. I don’t want to chit chat. I want to be distracted from my aching heart. I want to focus on the sensation of the bean burrito in my mouth, the burn of the hot sauce. I want the soothing one way conversation of my favorite NPR interviewer, so familiar and intimate and deep in my ears where it does me the most good.
“Be-Bop is what I’m all about,” he continued, “I ain’t down so much for this modern smooth shit.” Personally, I couldn’t agree with him more.
“Well this is a good town for it,” I offered him, but it came out apologetically. Like a question. Because I know that the jazz clubs in Phildadelphia are a bit upscale and exclusive and it’s nothing like back in the 50’s. Back in the days of Mingus.
He shook his head. “Nah, New York is the place to be. That’s where I’m from. New York City.”
I nodded, and sort of drifted, forgetting to reply to him. He was a nice man. But my thoughts returned to my face. What is it about my face that someone would comfort me for having a cheap guitar, when it’s not cheap, and comfort me for singing country music, which I love doing as much as anything and feel no apology for? Other men can’t possibly get this much—this much whatever this is that I seem to get—can they? This is why I like to wear mirror aviator sunglasses. People treat me differently. Those glasses—any sunglasses, really, act like shields. Like in Star Trek. “Shields Up!” and people leave me alone. It’s like an umbrella when there’s rain. Sunglasses alow me to be myself in comfort, without getting soaked. I’d just wear sunglasses everywhere I go in public, if it were practical. Especially in train stations. Especially on trains. Especially in gay bars.
If I had been wearing them in her bed, when she asked me, “what’s your gut telling you?” then maybe we both wouldn’t have burst into tears. This time my face was actually telling the truth. But like the unruly child, it was being careless with the truth, not taking the consequences into account…
What is it about my face? I mean really, what the hell is it? I can’t usually see my own face, so I just can’t put my finger on it. The next pair of mirror aviator sunglasses I see, I’ll buy and put them on, and people will leave me alone. I’ll be safe again.
I’m on the New Orleans bound train from Philadelphia, speeding across the lush summer Delaware landscape on a sunny afternoon. But 12 hours ago, I was sitting at a gay bar in downtown Pittsburgh. I was getting drunk, something I haven’t wanted to do in quite a while. I didn’t realize it was a gay bar. Well, not right away. I was just impressed that something was open so close to the train station in the middle of a Tuesday night.
Actually it was the second bar I had found. The first was in the lobby of a big fancy hotel. There I had two delicious pale ales and a Jim Beam, straight up. I haven’t had anything to drink in months and it went straight to my head, which was just what I had in mind. The Miss Hooters pagent was playing out on the flat screen in front of me. A half dozen other well dressed people sat around the bar, watching, murmering comments about the girls’ measurements.
“Thirty four? No way. No Way!” said the young, middle eastern bartender, repeatedly. The measurements did seem arbitrary when you looked closely at the fast-moving girls’ bodies. There were a lot of Hooters girls on the TV, and each one had maybe five seconds to bounce and bubble across the stage, with her measurements displayed next to where she’s from.
It was a welcome if absurd distraction for me. This whole trip was a major failure. I can be philosophical about failures, and won’t dwell on this one for long, but the sting is still quite fresh and needs time to fade. The last month and a half or so of my life has seen a sizeable quantity of time, money and emotional capital invested, gambled, on a venture that turned out to be a wash. It could be depressing to think too much about it for too long. Six hours in that station, waiting for the 5:30AM train, that would have been a lot of long moments to notice my failure. Watching phony looking women parade their 34’s and 37’s across the stage in matching bikinis was a perfectly acceptable diversion.
I can’t believe that I almost moved to Pittsburgh. I know damned well that I cannot be happy and healthy in Pennsylvania or anywhere near it or anywhere like it. I learned this lesson in 1997, 2005 and 2007. And again in 2009. But this time with a twist. A simple twist of fate. A five foot tall, 95 pound, stunningly beautiul little twist who I foolishly fell in love with like a train rolling down hill without brakes. The resulting wreck wasn’t deadly, but it sure smarts. Left me seeing stars. Like a cartoon character with birds circling the new bump on his head. It’s painful. And furthermore, it’s embarassing.
So drinking was the obvious diversion. And watching this ridiculous pagent on TV. If I could have thought of anything else to divert my attention from the thoughts I was having, I would have tried it. A long walk wasn’t looking like a good idea, considering the time and place. A nap would have been nice but they design bus and train stations to be uncomfortable places to sleep. I couldn’t focus on either of my books.
The bar closed up and I was rather high on the booze when I stood up and walked out with my guitar under my arm. The big fancy hotel was right across from the bus and train terminal, and had this nice public looking plaza with benches and bushes. I took out my guitar and started playing and singing. Not real well. I haven’t been practicing much and it takes me some time to get back up to par after a long break. My voice was dusty and my strings were rusty. I always get back into it with something from the Steve Earle’s greatest hits cassette that I burned deep into my memory by listening to almost without pause in the years of 1999 to 2001, before I even had a guitar.
“Goodbye is All We’ve Got Left to Say” came naturally. It felt so good to sing it. Who cares how it sounded. It’s like song therapy. I saing the whole song right away. And a second time. And a third. A sketchy looking inter-racial couple sauntered by, snickering at my country music. I ignored them. The din of passing trains and trucks and the solitude of a downtown in the wee hours gave me the freedom to belt my voice hard, revving it up like a cold engine until it purred to life and rumbled all on its own. I think I played and sang “Goodbye is All We’ve Got Left to Say” about ten times. I’ve never taken anti-depressant medication, but nothing could work better than this. I felt fine.
“It’s not that I’m in a hurry to lose you. I’d call you up but there’s nothing I can do. Talking won’t do any good anyway. Goodbye is all we’ve got left to say”
Then I had one of those magic guitar moments. The tune that follows this one on the “Essential Earle” greatest hits tape that I listened to in my old Volvo station wagon until the tape wore so thin that it wowed and fluttered and distorted from the damage is “Six Days on the Road”. I’ve never even tried playing the song but I just naturally segued into it, automatically. Just like on that old cassette. The end of one song just naturally leads to the beginning of the next, on the tape and forever in my head. And the chords just came to me like I already knew them. It was most satisfying, since I’m not really a guitar player, certainly not a musician and I only know relatively few chords.
“Well I pulled outta Pittsburgh, rollin’ down the eastern seaboard….”
It must have been the Pittsburgh line, and the thrilling anticipation of escaping from Pittsburgh, that inspired this sudden burst into this classic country tune.
I was playing “Six Days on the Road” for maybe the third time when I was startled to notice a big fat bald man standing close enough to me to touch. Close enough to goose me or tickle me if he were gay and so inclined. Another man was walking by, someone really sketchy, someone who looked like he would mug me if he could, and no, not just because of his race. That man said to the big fat bald man, who was dressed in a security guard uniform with a billy club and walkie talkie, “he serenadin’ you, or what?”
Security man replied, “oh I’ve been listening to his little performance here for a little while yeah. He thinks he’s pretty good.” Real bitter and menacing. Like the worst kind of prison guard. And then he turned to me, with the same ultra nasty cynicism, “why don’t you just go serenade the folks outside the bus station. You’ll be arrested if you stay here.”
I didn’t say a word, just started packing up the guitar, which is a much slower process than he would have liked, as I have all sorts of little instruments and accessories in the guitar case when I am traveling and it all fits back together only a certain way. Security man studied my every move intensely, still within tickle distance, his impatience with me as palpable as the carcinogenic diesel soot of the night air.
“Boy, you don’t take no chances, do ya?” he said, commening on what I was doing, and I still have no idea what he meant. I said nothing. Just took a full two minutes to pack everything up, and walked slowly away. I almost said “is this some sort of private property issue?” but just didn’t feel like talking to anyone. I especially did not feel like talking to him. I had the right to remain silent.
I was going to find another place to play by the train station, but I looked way down the street and saw what looked like a cluster of bars, and I thought to myself:
“Well I’ve gotta get drunk and I sure do dread it cuz I know just what I’m gonna do…” (Willie Nelson)
And:
“Since I started drinkin’ again, I ain’t shed one lonely tear over you…”(Dwight Yoakam)
And:
“Could be holdin’ you tonight. Could stop doin’ wrong and start doin’ right. You don’t care about what I think. I think I’ll just stay here and drink.” (Merle Haggard)
I’m typing this, and my southbound train is crossing the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay. Several years ago, I sailed within sight of this very bridge. I get a great deal of satisfaction from thoughts like this. Similar to when I flew over Pamlico sound en route to Florida. “So many nights I just dream of the ocean and I wish I was sailin’ again” (Jimmy Buffet)
Yes, I often think in country music cliché’s and soundbites. Especially when I’m battling the blues.
I knew that if I had another beer I would probably become useless on the guitar. But there was really nowhere safe to play anyway. I’m not stupid enough to sit in some dark alley at 2AM in downtown Pittsburgh. Obvious would-be muggers were circling me, sizing me up as it was. It’s my face, I know it. My face says “mug me! I haven’t a fucking clue!” Open space was the only safe place. But I had absolutely no intention to serenade anyone. I sing for myself, not for others. This is such a common misperception. It used to happen all the time on the beaches in Ecuador. I would try to get away, to get alone, and people would find me and then rate my performance. Sometimes with good ratings, sometimes with odd looks, but the point being, I’m not performing. I’m merely performing therapy on myself.
The bar was several blocks away. An overly friendly African-American man walked with me, chatting me up, sizing up the depths of my naiivete. Later he would find me again, near the train station, at 4AM, and ask me very aggressively for two dollars. I stepped into the middle of the street where he would be least likely to assault me, and told him fiercely, “I got no money for anyone!” He acted insulted.
Is it my face that says “Yes I am willing and eager to whip out my wallet here in the middle of the night in downtown Pittsburgh! I am thrilled that you asked. I’m just so happy to have a new friend, and to be able to lend a helping hand.”
If only my face actually displayed the depths of my true inner cynicism. People would be scared of me.
The bar I found was the gay bar. I was still oblivious as the bouncer collected my $1 cover charge and pointed out to me that my Pennsylvania driver’s license expired just a few hours earlier, and made some very silly and longwinded jokes about it.
I was still oblivious as I sat at the bar, nursing a pint of Yuengling, playing a video game. I hate video games and until tonight, I was really happy not drinking at all or spending time in any bars. But I was in such dire need of distraction, it was all deliciously soothing. The video game was absurdly stupid. But at least it wasn’t asking me any questions. I was supposed to be driving an SUV monster truck with huge tires over bumps and it kept flipping over, no matter what I did, and landing on its back, wheels spinning sadly and fruitlessly like an inverted, defeated turtle. It made me laugh. Then, and only then, did I suddenly notice I was in gay bar.
“You’ve got fins to the left, fins to the right and you’re the only girl in town.”
(Jimmy Buffet)
I would have chugged the beer and ran, but I’m out of practice. And my belly was already full of beer. I needed five minutes. It was not a pleasant five minutes. Being hit on by men is not the kind of diversion that will help me escape the blues. It’s one of the things that makes it worse.
The night before, she gave me a facial. She cleaned my unruly child face, thoroughly, carefully, lovingly, like no one ever has before. It was a birthday gift. One of many she gave me before and after my 37th birthday. She also gave me a professional massage and baked me a cake. I ended up loving the facial. I mostly just loved her being so near me, touching me. I felt her breath on me and I felt in love with her. But initially I had resisted the idea, strongly at first. There was that familiar big crybaby in my head, whining “I want to feel like a man! Goddammit I am a man, not a woman. I don’t want a facial. Facials are for women. I want, I need to have sex with you until you scream. You hear me? This is what a man needs. Not a facial. I could, I should make love to you all night long, starting right now, ending when the sun is up. I don’t need a facial. I need to make you come so hard it turns your entire little limited definition of sex upside down on its head and splits it in two and leaves you quite literally begging me for more!”
But like I said, the facial ended up being nice. I enjoyed it. And I have such a clean, soft, even more youthful looking face now. Perfect for the gay bar.
Now in the gay bar, the big crybaby in my head was having an absolute hissy fit, his panties badly in a wad over this turn of events. “I don’t want to be talking to anyone at all right now. I am heartbroken over a beautiful girl who I almost could have had and now I have nothing. I want you gay men to go away. This is salt in my wounds. I want a t-shirt that says “if you’re gay then go away.” I can’t believe the lines these guys are using. I am a fucking man, goddammit. Why does this shit happen to me?”
I was rude, which doesn’t come easily to me. I was well dressed, which was making matters much worse. My face so soft and clean and fresh. I was almost finished with my beer, and the sharks had mostly all swum away after their initial frenzied circling, when a woman walked by me with her group of loudly lisping and giggling men.
I swear, it must be something about my face. She touched me on the shoulder, as I poured the last drops of the pint down my throat, and she said “awww, are you a little bit shy?”
The venom just naturally spewed from my mouth as I mimicked her instinctively, instantly, from the depths of my most primitive lizard brain: “yeah, that’s right. I’m a little bit shy.”
The way I said it made the smirk vanish from her face, and she retreated out the front door with her friends, her narrowed eyes lingering on me with disdain. I don’t enjoy being nasty to people at all. I didn’t even have time to think—the words just shot out of me like a bullet. Bullseye. It felt good.
But what is it about my face? She wouldn’t say that to just any man. My face must have been saying “I’m insecure and shy and here alone and I just wish someone would talk to me…” Why does my face say these things that I do not approve of or agree with? What does one do with a face that behaves like an unruly child? Will punishment work? Is this something best addressed with a carrot or a stick?
At 5AM, I was sleeping sitting up on a metal chair in the train station. The ticket agent gently tapped me. “Sir? Are you waiting for the 5:30 to Washington?”
I must have said yes somehow, deeply asleep and still drunk. “Well, the train had an accident. It hit a tow truck just outside of Chicago, and it’s going to be six hours late.”
I was awake enough now to think to myself “Sure. That makes sense. I’ve been here enjoying the people and places of downtown Pittsburgh for seven hours, and now I’ll get to be here for another six. This doesn’t even require cynicism or bitterness. It’s just naturally how things are going on this trip. Nothing could possibly surprise me. Let’s lose my luggage and strip search me.”
“We tried calling the number you gave on your ticket reservation…”
The number on my….oh yes, that’s so perfect too, I thought to myself. The number I gave them, since I’m just back in the states for a week or so and still don’t have a working cell phone, I gave them her number. Firefly’s number. The girl I fell in and out of love with like the biggest kind of idiot. The girl whose computer I messed up, whose storage key I lost, whose beautiful gift silver necklace I broke. She’s sick and exhausted and needs sleep bad. She was already hurtin’, knowing she had to get up for work at 7:30. And Amtrak just called her at 5AM to talk to her about my train. Perfect. Nothing could surprise me on this trip.
The good news was that they put me on the 7:30 train to Phildelphia, with a direct connection to Charlottesville on this train I’m writing on, smokin’ towards New Orleans. A young way too friendly hipster from West Philly got on in Johnstown and tried to talk to me for the next five hours, and I tried to sleep. He received text messages about every five minutes, his cell exploding into the same loud hip-hop sample each time. He actually had two cell phones. He told me all about their reception, about his ex-wives (he looked about 21) and he asked me all about my career.
I wanted to be nice. It’s awkward. I don’t know where I live. I don’t know what I do for a living. I can’t answer the most basic questions of small talk. I can’t really explain where I’m coming from or where I’m going if I want to. I’d rather just not talk. But I’m polite. For some reason, I told the young hipster the story about the Ecuadorian bus driver’s assistant lady who molested my crotch in the middle of the night when I was sleeping on that bus to Guyaquil a couple of weeks back. He thought that was pretty weird, and shifted most of his chit chat to the girl across the aisle, glancing at my every move out of the corner of his eye.
When I ran out of my health and psychology podcasts to listen to, I listened to some of the mp3’s that I copied from her computer, right after I wreaked havoc on it by installing Skype on it, slowing it down, making her a little crazier and a little more irritated with me. Her mp3’s were really hard metal. Crunching, relentlessly distorted guitars and gutteral, primal screaming. I tried it. I tried to like it. I tasted each tune, gently spitting each one out. I just don’t like it. In Spanish, we’d say “it just doesn’t please me.” I wish it did. I wish Pittsburgh pleased me. I think I would transform myself into a cat if I could, in order to live in her house and have her stroking me each night. But I’m not a cat. She said that me moving to her town on the Ohio river to be with her felt, to her, like she was caging a bird. And she’s right. She’s so fucking sadly right.
Then I’m in the familiar surroundings of 30th street station in Phildelphia. I’m indluging in the comforting familiarity of NPR talk radio in my earphones and a couple of vegan friendly Taco Bell fresco style bean burritos in my mouth. A man walks up to me who looks quite a bit like legendary jazz bassist Charles Mingus. He’s talking to me. He’s dissheveled looking, and I don’t feel like a racist when I assume he’s asking me for money. I’m dressed like I have a lot. I must look successful to those around me. I have to remove my earphones to hear what he’s saying to me, just like I had to dozens of times for the young hipster seated next to me on the train from Pittsburgh this morning.
He’s pointing at my weathered, black gaff-taped guitar case. He’s saying “Is that a Gibson? Or is it a Strat?” And I reply, “it’s actually an old Seagull Grand, made in Cana—“
“Ain’t nothing wrong with that,” he cuts me off. “Ain’t nothing wrong with playing a cheap guitar when you’re a beginner, just starting out. I learned on a Sears guitar when I was a kid. I play bass, jazz---“
And it was my turn to cut him off. “Actually Seagull makes really nice acoustic guitars. This is one of their cheaper models, but—“
He wasn’t hearing me. He had an agenda for me. My face was telling him “I haven’t a fucking clue about anything.” Why does my face do this? Always when I least expect it.
He said “You in a group?”
“Nope. I just sing and play a little country music—“
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that,” he comforted me. “Ain’t no reason to be ashamed if a little country/western is your thing. Nothin’ wrong with that at all…”
I guess my face had told him that something was wrong with country/western music. I’d like to have a mirror handy in these situations, to catch my face when it’s having conversations with people without me. Telling them things that I don’t approve of or agree with.
“I’m a jazz player myself,” he boasted. “Jazz bass.”
I didn’t want to be rude. I never want to be rude. But even if he were the jazz bass legend Charles Mingus who he looked so much like, I would have had limited interest in talking to him. I’m blue. I’m lonesome too. I don’t want to chit chat. I want to be distracted from my aching heart. I want to focus on the sensation of the bean burrito in my mouth, the burn of the hot sauce. I want the soothing one way conversation of my favorite NPR interviewer, so familiar and intimate and deep in my ears where it does me the most good.
“Be-Bop is what I’m all about,” he continued, “I ain’t down so much for this modern smooth shit.” Personally, I couldn’t agree with him more.
“Well this is a good town for it,” I offered him, but it came out apologetically. Like a question. Because I know that the jazz clubs in Phildadelphia are a bit upscale and exclusive and it’s nothing like back in the 50’s. Back in the days of Mingus.
He shook his head. “Nah, New York is the place to be. That’s where I’m from. New York City.”
I nodded, and sort of drifted, forgetting to reply to him. He was a nice man. But my thoughts returned to my face. What is it about my face that someone would comfort me for having a cheap guitar, when it’s not cheap, and comfort me for singing country music, which I love doing as much as anything and feel no apology for? Other men can’t possibly get this much—this much whatever this is that I seem to get—can they? This is why I like to wear mirror aviator sunglasses. People treat me differently. Those glasses—any sunglasses, really, act like shields. Like in Star Trek. “Shields Up!” and people leave me alone. It’s like an umbrella when there’s rain. Sunglasses alow me to be myself in comfort, without getting soaked. I’d just wear sunglasses everywhere I go in public, if it were practical. Especially in train stations. Especially on trains. Especially in gay bars.
If I had been wearing them in her bed, when she asked me, “what’s your gut telling you?” then maybe we both wouldn’t have burst into tears. This time my face was actually telling the truth. But like the unruly child, it was being careless with the truth, not taking the consequences into account…
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