Sorry. . . Sorry

 O.K.  I'm not saying that all the major news outlets follow the blog, but really. . . .  I'm not going to write about it again, but it seems clear to me.  This clipping, by the way, was sent to me by someone who doesn't even know I have a blog.  My influence on the world. . . . 

As I've already reported, though, when parents of grown children were asked if they had it to do over again, would they have children, the answer was overwhelmingly, "No.  It was not worth it."

(link)

I swear, though. . . that's it.  

Because. . . you know. . . not being a parent may be just as bad.  They didn't do that study that I know of.  I mean, I'm as fit as a fucking fiddle, but I have some child free friends who are looney.  

"He just sits in his t-shirt and boxers all day watching t.v. and drinking beer.  Nobody calls, nobody goes to see him.  He has no family, just that feral cat he talks about.  It's sad, really. . . ."

On the other hand, how bad can that be?  Right?  Beats living in Haiti.  

What does it take to be mentally happy/joyful/normal?  Who is the mean from which the standard deviates?  

"He always seemed like such a nice boy.  He was quiet, you know, and was a good student.  No one would have suspected anything like that."

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked; 
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

This is not what I had in mind today at all.  It wasn't planned.  I am responding to the texts my conservative friend sent me this morning, I think.  He likes to provoke me.  It gives him great pleasure until I go a bridge too far and hurt his feelings.  

"I'm signing off now.  You are being smug."

I shouldn't read texts or the newspaper before I write.  Those things often make me peptic.  All I'm saying is I am not trying to be smug or make you mad.  I think I am as hard on myself as I am on anyone.  

"Except you, you piece of shit."

O.K.  That was an Aubrey Place moment.  Goddamn, she is funny.  I've fallen under the spell.  

(link)

I know you know that you don't have to click on the links.  They are just there if you want to be as stupid as I.  But if you care to have a little peak into my noggin, you'll find pieces of the puzzle.  Most people I know will not find her funny and will tell me how stupid that or I is/am.  

No argument here.  

I think I've already driven away the populace anyway.  These are, by and large, missives to the void.  And this one is, like the photo at the top, "White Man 'Splaining."

Obviously, I need to get away from the computer and out the door for a little gentle exercise, so I'll leave you with a happy song.  I'm in a goofy mood.

More to My Liking

I went out with the 100 Million Dollar Boys Club last night.  It just happened.  I was with others who had been with them earlier, then they just showed up.  We moved from the bar to a big table where I learned all sorts of things as I sat quietly eating my dinner.  

"I can't believe I'm eating this early.  I have to come out with this guy who has to get the Blue Hair Special at five.  What's the matter, dude, does it take you all night to digest now?"

That from the Black Sheep.  

Conversation ensued.  These are men who like golf.  They really like to talk about golf and golf courses.  And politics.  One of them is hosting Trump at a fundraiser at their home here in my own hometown.  Another fellow said he meets with Biden about once a month.  

"He's out of it.  He can't remember my name."

Cabbage Head.  That's what they call him.  I'll tell you, they convinced me not to vote for Biden this time 'round.  

One of them won a court case that will allow him to strip mine a western state where environmentalists have opposed him.  

"We're sure to win if it goes to the Supreme Court."

There were other deals.  

"I'll skull fuck him if he blows this for me, I swear to God."

Then there was talk of Special Ops.  Inside information.  It seems I'm the only person who doesn't have secret insider knowledge.  I am merely a naif who depends on a free and independent press for his information.  

They are all younger than I by a couple decades.  

Black Sheep, the youngest in the group, refers to me as "dad" to the waitress.

"He's been calling everyone that since he got out of prison.  I don't know what happened to him, but he has a prison tattoo that says "Papi" on his lower back now.  Show her."

General laughter.  I'm not much interested in the conversation going on.  I smile and nod at appropriate moments, but there is a table full of flirty girls nearby.  These guys are good at picking up the tab, so I send them a round of drinks.  They are probably Russian hookers. . . or worse.  

The food is good here at my favorite Italian restaurant.  I get a seafood stew packed with everything that swims in the sea or sits on the ocean floor.  Delicious.  Black Sheep orders a clam linguine.  When it comes, he is dissatisfied and sends it back.  Half the shells didn't have clams in them, he said.  

The boys have been drinking since noon, or so I'm told, and soon they begin to leave.  I stay to finish my wine.  A torrential downpour hits and I pull my chair away from the edge of the awning.  Black Sheep wants to go.  Tennessee isn't going out in the rain to get the car.  Some beauticians from down the street come over.  We'd spoken to them earlier when we were sitting at the bar.  One of them gives Black Sheep a hit off her vape pen to calm him down.  I tell Tennessee we should buy them a drink.  Somehow, we end up buying drinks for a whole gang of people.  The rain ends.  We clear the tab.  

When I get home, I look at the clock.  Nine o'clock?!  I pour a whiskey and turn on the television.  Aubrey clips.  Jesus, she's funny.  When I wake up, it's midnight.  

I have been sleeping well, but not this night.  Strange dreams about my ex-girlfriend.  She is not being nice to me--all night long.  I'm not comfortable in my bed, but I never wake up totally.  I just seem to be in that ether between waking and sleeping.  When I open my eyes and look at the clock, it is six-thirty.  I'll be tired, I think, but whatever.  I get up.  

That is not how I want to spend my nights, my life.  I feel a hollow emptiness this morning.  I need company/companions, of course.  It is good to get out.  But I need something more.  Life in the company of men is not my vibe.  I don't like men much at all, in truth.  They bore the shit out of me.  I can deal with individuals, of course, but I don't like them in groups.  There is too much playing the dozens, if you are familiar with the phrase.  

As I come to my senses now, I remember something.  Just as I was leaving the bar, I saw an old friend.  He is captaining a pontoon boat tonight, his first time through the lakes giving a boat tour.  I'm to be there at six.  That will be alright.  

"And make sure to tip the captain," were his parting words.  Yea, yea, yea.  But. . . this will be more to my liking.  

Last One. . . I Swear

There is much hoopla around the coming Kate Winslet movie "Lee" which will be released in theaters next month.  It is reportedly a very average movie with a strong performance by Winslet.  If you don't already know, the movie is about the life of Lee Miller, best known as a war photographer in WWII. . . perhaps.  She was famously beautiful in her youth, gracing the covers of magazines from the age of 19.  She was at times the lover of Charlie Chaplin, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, and for years the partner of Man Ray who was both her lover and photography mentor.  Her biography is peppered with tragedy.  She was raped by an unnamed family member when she was seven and contracted gonorrhea which took years to treat.  As a teenager, a boy with whom she was in love fell from a boat before her eyes and drowned.  Her father, an engineer and amateur photographer, photographed her in the nude obsessively from the age of seven through her relationship with Mann, the two of them photographing her nude in bed with three other women when she was twenty-three.  The nude photos her father took of her were often beautiful--but you will not see them.  I came across them years ago on some internet website.  Somehow, Miller's son, with whom she had a fractious relationship, has removed them all and taken control of her legacy--from which he has attempted to make a handsome living.  

Father's and daughters, mother's and sons.  It continues to be a theme here, parenthood and all.  

Kathryn Harrison is an author who came through the M.F.A. program at Iowa, the (in)famous Iowa Writer's Workshop.  Most of her writing is about her nearly surreal relationship with her mother and father, though she was raised, in the main, by her grandparents.  Two of her most read works are "Exposure," written in 1993, and "The Kiss," written in 1997.  The first, a novel, is about a young woman and her photographer father whose work features nudes of his daughter as a child.  The second, a memoir, is about her incestuous relationship with her father when she was in college, a willing participant in the arrangement.  Both works have received high praise and terrible criticism.  

Freud's relationship with his own daughter, Anna, was fraught with obsessiveness and control.  

I am fascinated, I must admit, by mother-daughter-father triad.  I am a great observer.  I've watched with tremendous interest.  Freud was not wrong, I think, about daddy's little girl competing with mommy for his affection.  It is, I think, more obvious than the well-worn Oedipus complex syndrome.  

Larkin nailed the whole thing in "This Be the Verse."

I am pretty sure Winslet's movie won't touch on her childhood traumas in anything but oblique ways, but I could be wrong.  Such things are just too weird for a general audience and would surely be box office poison.  

Having no siblings and no children myself, I am the perfect person to opine about parenting and relationships.  Who possibly could know more than I? 

So you've said to yourselves many times, I'm sure.  But, and this I am confident of, I am more likely to look on in amazement and fascination than those who toil away in familial matters day in and day out.   It all seems so curious to me.  

And one thing I know.  Your children prefer one of their parents to the other.  That must be a little odd to deal with.  But they do. . . whether they are close to their parents or really just can't wait to get away.  I've made a regular study of it, you see.  All things are not equal.  

But that's enough of that.  We make our bed and then. . . we die in it.  Or something.  So the saying goes.

Still. . . we should take a poll: "What's the weirdest thing you've ever done to your child?  Have you ever done anything that might distress others?"

Or, conversely: "What was the weirdest thing one of your parents ever did to you?  Is it something you have kept secret?"

O.K.  I'll leave it for you all to discuss among yourselves.  I need to kick this day in the butt.  I have dinner plans for this evening with Tennessee and the black sheep son of a very wealthy family.  And OMG--you should hear the stories they tell about their parents.  Such things.  

"I'll tell you one thing, you son of a bitch--I'd never let my kid stay over at the Neverland Ranch, that's for goddamned sure."

"Well, then. . . ."

Bad Parents, Pt. II

On the other hand, there are parents who rarely mention their children.  You might think I would enjoy them more, but they are often crackheads or people offering to sell their children for heroin.  I'm not saying the upper middle class obsession with parenting is ALL bad.  There are a lot of kids who grow up in neighborhoods without nice cars and manicured lawns.  O.K.  Most of them.  I grew up in one where people's cars often had fucked up paint jobs and/or dented fenders or tape on broken side windows.  Lawns were mostly native weeds and Bahia grass that rarely got mowed and there was never any trimming along curb lines or driveways.  And look at me!  I turned out. . . . 

Most of the kids I grew up with didn't do so well.  The most successful aspired to work for the county in one way or another, and of course. . . kids.  

Dresser, one of my biker friends from the old steroid gym, was a parent.  Dresser had a bad limp due to a motorcycle accident before I met him.  I had seen him a few years before I knew him in a bar sometimes frequented by bikers. He was wearing one of those little caps like Brando in "The Wild One" and his biker colors.  He was an unbelievably handsome fellow with a winning smile.  But his loving heart got twisted somehow over the years, and his pretty wife kicked him out because she could no longer suffer his wandering ways, and she raised their daughter alone.  Sort of.  Dresser would go back and forth once in awhile when he was desperate for a place to stay.  Eventually Dresser started turning tricks.  It was something several of the fellows at the gym would do.  Dresser, like a few others, drove a cab at night, but he eventually/inevitably lost his license and turning tricks was his main source of income.  None of these fellows who did this considered themselves "gay."  It was an open secret, of course.  They wouldn't kiss a man and would never perform oral.  It was sort of the old saw, "I'm not gay, but twenty bucks is twenty bucks."

One night, Dresser called his ex from the hospital.  He had been found in a dumpster with his head bashed in.  I later learned that he had tried to hustle a fellow who hit him with a tire iron.  Dresser was a little simple for awhile, quiet-like.  He would sit with his hands folded in his lap and simply stare out at the world.  His daughter was in high school at the time, a pretty girl who was a good student, and she looked after him.  For awhile.  Dresser seemed to regain most of his senses in time and returned to his wayward lifestyle.  He broke the heart of his only child.

But Dresser and I got along famously.  I was his source of reading material each time he went to jail--Kerouac and Bukowski are two I remember giving him.  He eventually got his drivers license back, and it wasn't more than a few months before he got drunk and ran head on into another car on a lone highway to the beach.  

He decided to skip town.  A few months later, I got a telephone call from him at the gym.  He was living in Milwaukee working in a shoe factory.  He wanted me to know that he had a Black girlfriend with whom he was living.  They had become Brewers fans and went to many of their games.  All in all, he said, he was doing fine. . . and ended the conversation with a laugh.  

He would sneak back into town from time to time, I heard, to see his daughter.  The last time I saw him, I was walking back from lunch with one of my buddies in Gotham.  We passed a bum walking ahead of us on the street.  The bum had straggly long hair, ragged clothes, and a limp.  The sole of one shoe was flapping.  As we passed, something clicked, and I turned around to look at this disheveled pirate fellow.  

"Dresser!"

"Ha.  I wondered if you would say hello to your old friend," he growled.

My buddy looked on at us with some distressed amazement as I chatted with Dresser for a few moments.  This was Dresser, the once beautiful outlaw biker who danced in chaps onstage at gay bars to pay his way home from Key West, who slept for a month in a lawn chair in another gym guys garage, who had eventually been banished from the biker gang he had helped to build.  

He didn't mention his daughter.  

I'm just sayin'. . . blah blah blah.  

It's not just the upper middle class who have children, and their incessant jabber about little Timmy's soccer games isn't really bad. . . probably.  I have bohemian friends whose kids turned out terribly.  Mental illness, drug addiction, bad crimes. . . . 

So yea.  Teach your children well and all that.  Just know how inane talking about it can be.  Take a lesson from Dresser.  

Joke.  Just a joke.  As I say, I like kids.  It's the parents that kill me.  

But that's enough of that.  One last thing.  YouTube gave me Aubrey Plaza last night.  I watched clips of her on talk shows and other things for an hour.  I didn't know who she was.  Really?  It turns out she was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022 by Time Magazine.  WTF?  I had to look her up.  Most of what she was famous for was alien to me.  I never watched "Parks and Recreation" because it was on commercial t.v.  But. . . I HAD seen her in two things--"Bad Grandpa," and "White Lotus."  

Huh.  

I think her best performances, from what I can surmise, were on those t.v. talk shows and in random interviews.  Holy Christ at Christmas, I was bowled over.  Seriously.  

It seems my aversion to all things commercial cost me something.  But. . . I started catching up last night.  

Thinking About Tomorrow

Country Club College is back in session, and oh. . . beautiful youth. Girls and boys stand about in groups on sidewalks catching up with one another. 

"Hello, Megan. . . how was your summer?"

Glib answers.  Funny answers.  Promises of future drinks and fun.  Everything lies ahead.  

As I've said so many times, Counrty Club kids are much different from State College kids.  You could stand them in a courtyard side by side and immediately tell the difference.  It is not just the clothing, though there is that.  It is privilege and the associated manners.  They stand straighter, move with assurance.  There are boys, of course, but one rarely notices them.  They are still goofy boys, by and large, though they are not like State School boys at all.  But the girls. . . .   They make one yearn for youth and immortality.  

Nikki Glaser nails it.  

She nails a lot of things.

So, yea. . . youth and immortality.  Who needs that?  Let me teach you how to grow old.  Most of my friends and colleagues are younger than I by decades.  I like that they don't talk much about the past.  They don't have so much of it as my older friends do.  My older friends, of course, talk about the past a lot.  I don't mind talking about the past if it is in a historical context, but the personal stuff just starts to depress me.  The younger friends with children, though, bore the fuck out of me when they talk about being parents.  It is the most inane thing people can talk about.  They all tell the same stories in different settings.  It is comfort to them, of course, this kind of shared experience.  It is the same kind of comfort as a chain restaurant or a Holiday Inn, I reckon.  No surprises.  You know exactly what to expect.  

"Little Timmy's playing soccer now."

"Oh my God. . . aren't kids great.  Bobby is on a really good team right now.  We love his coach. . . ."

The kids are much better to talk to, of course.  They never talk about their parents unless it is in pejorative terms.  

And, as they grow, it is all about bragging that they are in college or are about to graduate and get that million dollar job.  Or, in a different crowd like my relatives, it is about meth and prison and overdoses.  

Oh, those Country Club College kids. . . they are going to make out.  The future's so bright (as the song goes) they gotta wear shades.  

You've never seen such beautiful hair, such flat stomachs, such long legs.  

I watched a documentary on Leopold and Loeb last night, though.  These kids, apparently, don't all end up well (link).  

Selavy.  I'm not saying they are all good kids.  Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts and minds of. . . "them"? 

You know well that I have Gatsbyitis.  I've lived as a Gypsy in the Palace.  There are plenty of twisted hearts and twisted minds there, but the decor looks great.  

The black sheep son of the fabulously wealthy family is only 30, but he thinks he knows more than I do.  He does, of course, about country clubs and summering in the right places, about captained yachts and fund raisers.  He has a prep schoolboy charm even at his age.  But he IS a black sheep.  I find him more interesting than his wealthy, more steadfast friends do even though his family will be hosting a Trump fundraiser.  

But I don't want to get into that.  Besides, he is thrust upon me, a friend through acquaintances only.  

I was sitting in the Cafe Strange yesterday afternoon, drinking a latte and writing in my notebook.  I hadn't any ideas.  They just wouldn't come, and I wondered if I have written everything I know now, wondered if I was written out.  

"More figurative language," I put down.  "Tropes.  Suggesting rather than saying.  The old sleight of hand."

I used to know how to do it.  You see a fly caught in a spider's web and report it in deathly detail, then move out reflecting on some cosmic "truth," some greater meaning, then finish back with the spider and the fly.  Virginia Woolf stuff.  Annie Dillard.  

I should have done that with the coyote sighting.  Maybe I've lost "it," whatever "it" is.  

My phone rang.  It was Tennessee.  Normally, I don't answer the phone, but since I had nothing to put on the page, I took the call outside.  It was, of course, a driving call.  He was on his way to the dispensary.  

"What are you doing, homey?"

"I'm sitting in the cafe drinking an afternoon coffee and trying to write."

"You should start a blog about the people in the gym."

I snorted.  I told him there was nothing to write about them, that they were "normal" republicans, that they did nothing of note except make money and talk about their children.  They were bland, I said, which is not necessarily a bad thing in people, but you'd have to be a John Cheever to write about them.  I didn't really mention John Cheever.  I just put that in there now for you.  

"I'm not a republican," he objected.  "You know that."

"You're just a Melungeon," I said.  "Makes you a little interesting."

I like safe, don't get me wrong.  Leave It to Beaver and all that.  It's where I want to live.  But when I jump the fence, I'm in search of "the other," I don't want the ordinary. 

When I went back in, I still could find nothing to write about, so I put away my pen and looked out over the freak show around me.  These were not Country Club kids, but holy shit, they were fascinating.  One day, I'll get my camera. . . .  

The process of life is a downward spiral.  It just is.  From those magical days of youth, we head into the void, each step bringing us closer to the despair we must not acknowledge.  So, you know, people talk about their kids, their beautiful past when they drank all night and fucked like little animals.  

"I remember this one time we were doing blow, you know, and everybody was getting crazy and we decided to go to the club.  I knew the dj and so we all got in, and man, somebody had some Molly and when we left, the sun was coming up, and we all went back to my place to continue the party. . . ."

Told on bleachers overlooking the kids soccer game.  

The past, of course, is one big lie we keep telling, and the future. . . well, best not to think too much about that unless you are deeply religious, and even then. . . .

Still, thinking about tomorrow isn't a bad thing.  

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning - So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

And now, I'm going for a run.  

Footnote: I like live performances like this much more than studio recordings that are so overproduced.  And here is Beth Orton "then," a little moment caught in time.  And the photo. . . I took that in a NYC museum lunchroom in 2010.  Another little bit of the past future tense.  

Early Bed, Fair Mind

There is less than one month of summer left.  Finally, here in my own hometown, the afternoon rains have arrived.  Now we begin hurricane watch in earnest.  Batten down the hatches.  

Elsewhere, I imagine, the weather is beginning to temper.  Soon, in "the heartland," or what I always think of as "Dick and Jane America," not the midwest, per se, but anywhere that has something resembling four seasons, the last days of summer soon will be followed by the blustery coming of fall. And then, friends, romantics like me living in the sunny south will begin to lose their wits in envy.  

I'm told that the recent Covid vaccine really hits the mark, and it is predicted that anyone receiving it will have very little illness from the virus.  

"Get your vaccine in September and be free in NYC in October."

That was the message I got yesterday.  It sounded so hopeful. 

I am, as are most romantics, I imagine, emotionally manipulated by weather.  I didn't buy a sailboat once because the weather on the day I test sailed it was dreadful.  The most memorable days in my life have happened in cool, dry weather, hiking in mountains, sitting in cafes, driving, windows down, through open countryside.  Those days are like paintings in memory.  No significant event, nothing dramatic. . . just scenery and weather.  

"I've been all around this big old world and I've seen most everything."

I should clarify that those were the prettiest memories.  I have others that are not so wonderful.  I am that most Germanic "Young Werther."  

Sturm und Drang.  

I should tell you that the cat is alright.  She came for food the past two days.  Her boyfriend has been around, too.  

And the vivid dreams seem to have come to an end since I have been slipping into bed early again.  Early bed, less liquor, and a more peaceful night's rest.  I'm thinking about eating an apple a day, too.  Somehow, my outlook on things is. . . "sunnier." 

I've been asked to do a guest lecture at the local college.  I don't think I want to.  I am wanted to do an hour on Florida Photography.  I laugh inwardly at the suggestion as I don't think I could do anything that would be "appropriate."  

"For over five years in a studio only blocks from here. . . ."

Nah.  

Most of my work or the work I truly like is risky at best.  "All art is a form of pornography," one of my cohorts says, "or it should be."  I'm not sure that is exactly what he said.  That is, in essence, how I remember it.  Whatever he said pointed to the idea that art should never be safe.  I sure as shit don't want to go into the classroom and show the photos of Clyde Butcher.  

And yet, that photo at the top of this post. . . what the hell am I saying?  A picture like that. . . .  Who am I trying to please/bullshit, anyway?  

But this morning, I am not of darkened mind.  I feel like a spectator on the verge of an adventure of which he doesn't have to suffer the consequences.  

Yea.  I've got that summertime sadness.  That's what she says.  Don't let your deal go down.

Spicy Soundtrack to a Mundane Life

Did I say something about finding a groovy thing to do on a Saturday in yesterday's post?  Ha!  I didn't leave the house but for a visit to my mother late in afternoon.  After rising early and feeling like the poster boy for pain, I went back to bed for most of the morning.  When I got up (again), I ate.  I thought about taking a walk, but first I needed to download the scanned images from one computer onto a hard drive so I could move them to another where I do my post-production schtick.  Trouble is, once again, I have bunches of hard drives and though I've gone through them and tried to label them, I really don't know what is on each one, so I plugged some in to find the one I have been putting recent scans onto.  What I found was a hard drive with a folder labelled "Travel."  I have a hard drive with the same label, so I opened it up to see if there were images there that had not made it to the "Travel" hard drive.  

"NYC 2010."

What's in that?

Oh. . . shit. . . cool!  There were many images I had never cooked up shot on. . . what?  My old Nikon D700.  I bought that one because I had old Nikon film cameras and lenses, and the mount was the same.  Those old lenses were all manual focus, however, and not auto, so. . . a lot of the images were useless. . . but I was amazed at how many were spot on.  How'd I do that?  

Well. . . not all of them. . . but Q always quoted Cartier-Bresson in saying focus was a bourgeois concept. 

Here he is, all blurry, at the height of his musical career, bigger than life.  Nothing bourgeois in this one.  

I dove in, head first.  I thought to work on a couple images just to see.  I didn't even put on "the music."  But cooking up photos is what I did for the rest of the day.  While I was working on them, I got a text from my old NYC gal friend.  She said she had just come from an extended stay in the city.  "Kismet," I wrote.  "I've been working on NYC photos from 2010 all the live long day." She lived there then, too, and like Q, was at the height of her professional power.  So, as a naif will do, I began sending her photos.  I think she was, by and large, unimpressed.  You know how it goes, like sending your music library or a mix tape to someone 

"It looks much the same," she wrote back, "but for the clothes." 

But I was eager and undeterred.  I was having fun.  

"It makes me want to go back and make more."

It takes an afternoon's work to get a picture that might be good.  And I might have gotten one.  But what is "good"?  What the hell. . . take more pictures, friends.  Let's see what the world looks like.  Or used to.  

I don't know. . . did I do something groovy or not?  Everything is work except for play.  Making pictures and blogs and websites (which I'm gonna, I swear) is work whether the work is good or isn't--but it can be joyful.  

After the DNC, it is difficult to use the word "joy" and not cringe just a little.  I think in just one week they were able to turn the word into a tired cliche.  I'd like to know how many times hackneyed journalists have written that word in the past week.  

But. . . I'll say it.  Sort of.  I had fun.  

Still, one needs to move in life.  I think I might today.  No promises.  I could just as easily make mimosas and eat Egg McMuffins.  

After coming home from mother's where I did a little dirty, sweaty gardening for her (I planted some pineapples), I cooked up a frozen pizza and topped it with avocados and fried eggs.  I had company for a brief moment, then watched some photo porn and went early to bed.  The thing about early bed is that you don't drink as much.  And if you don't drink as much, maybe you sleep better.  And I slept without disturbing dreams.  Indeed, I had mundane dreams in which nothing whatsoever happened.  My old NYC friend was in them, sort of, but I could see neither her nor me.  We were simply present in a very boring dream.  

BUT. . . this song was the soundtrack playing over everything all night long.  Ferrell's songs have gotten into my brain.  She can do things with her voice that are transcendent.  Call it "phrasing."  And if you watch her in concert--and you can all day and night without making a dent, it seems--you will see some twisted but authentic. . . "joy."  Maybe.  She looks to be keeping a dozen or more crazy secrets in her head with the twisted joy of a maniac clown.  And yet. . . . 

I thought about posting The Ramones "Rockaway Beach" to go with the photo at top.  But, I'll have to go with the song that haunted my mundane dreams.  Good gosh, though. . . it's a good one.  

That's the gypsy version.  Here's a country copy of the Charlie Pride tune.  

I like the sassy one better.  

Coyote

I saw a most magnificent thing yesterday, but I am afraid for the little feral cat.  As I was driving home from the grocery store, just as I was to turn onto my street, a coyote came bolting out of the City Gardens and across the road into my neighborhood.  I turned dangerously in front of an oncoming car to follow it.  He ran down the street before me.  "Ran" is less than accurate.  It didn't run like a dog, that's for certain.  It was more like a cheetah as it streaked through yards looking every which way, cutting and weaving, looking to scare up, I presume, some small animal that might be in hiding.  It had better lateral movement than any dog I have ever seen, and it bounced and never settled.  I followed it for two blocks before it cut into a jungle-like yard just three houses down from my own. 

It looked dangerous.  

A small animal wouldn't have a chance against its speed.  I'm sure its goal was to surprise a rabbit or other  small animal and scare it into movement, then. . . boom!  

Maybe it has been around before.  Maybe that is why the little feral acts so freaky.  She's a wild animal, but that coyote was something else.  If I came upon it on a walk, I would be fearful.  They don't attack humans, but this one was big enough that it could.  And it could be rabid.  There are rabies among the raccoons around here.  Now I don't know if a coyote would be willing to go after a raccoon.  I know raccoons can tear a dog up pretty badly.  But a coyote might eat a rabid raccoon that had died.  I don't know if. . . .

I'm going to go check.  

Yup to both.  Coyotes feed mainly on mice, voles, and rabbits, but it could eat a raccoon, especially a young one.  And yes, it is possible to get rabies by eating a dead rabid animal.  Coyotes, I just read, eat possums and armadillos, too.  So this neighborhood--especially my yard--is a smorgasbord for coyotes.  

Yea. . . I am worried about the cat.  I haven't seen her since I saw the coyote.  I'll be anxious to see her sometime soon.  I worry about the neighbor's cat, too.  He likes to wander the properties like a badass.  

I stayed home last night and cooked my first meal this week.  Home on a Friday night.  In bed by ten.  I dreamed, but nothing crazy.  Well. . . a little. . . as I think about it.  But not in technicolor.  

How should I spend a Saturday?  I will go now and think on that.  I'd like to come up with at least one good thing.  

The Nightlife Ain't No Good Life

Too much nightlife for me lately.  I woke in the night knowing I was done with it.  There are many reasons for the decision.  It is expensive.  I am getting fatter.  It bores me.  I won't be missed.  

That's not an extensive list of reasons, but it will do.  I will refocus my attention now on other things.  But last night felt like the last night.  I won't reveal any of the details in order to protect the not-so-innocent, but things went south for me from the start.  Four hours later, I was standing in the street saying, "No. . . I'm going home."  It was early, but I was done.  I'm turning it all down a notch.  

I'm not saying I won't go out for dinners.  Occasionally.  With friends.  Everybody needs that.  But there is not going to be five nights in a row weeks any longer.  My mind and body become mush.  

Redirect. 

I got a text from my old office manager yesterday.  Trouble at the factory.  I was almost willing to go back to work part-time to "save the day," but it wasn't going to work out well--for me.  So. . . I took a pass.  

People continue to send me memes or other provocative messages in an attempt to drag me into a debate about the election.  I am done.  I'm out.  Leave me the fuck alone about the election.  There is nothing anyone can say to change anyone else's mind.  If you are willing to vote for a criminal in order to return him to the White House, there is nothing I can do or say that is going to make a difference.  It only makes me despair.  That the Republican Party nominated him is crazy.  

But these are crazy times.  

And I am enervated.  I could use a personal win.  I need one.  Soon.  Until then. . . . 

Go Team Go

I went out last night with one of my conservative buddies.  He explained to me how Biden could not have won the last election.  It was impossible.  He explained to me how much corruption there is all over America.  

When I got home, I had texts from friends about the Dem Convention.  The convention is very diverse.  I wonder how they are planning to steal this election, the sneaky fucks.  But they are.  Trump is already telling his crowds so.  You know. . . bags full of fake ballots and all.  

I'm really looking forward to moving to. . . where?  That monoculture without strife.  Uh. . .  maybe I'll just check into a sanatorium.  I need some peace.  

I'm feeling punky.  Weak-ish, tired, but unable to sleep.  I skipped the gym and all physical exercise yesterday.  I hung around the house, scanned a roll of film I had developed and then developed another roll.  When I went to the kitchen sink, I stood looking at a great backhoe digging a giant trench in my yard.  Men jumped into it shoulder deep digging out whatever was left.  They took out the giant conduit that has been sticking out of the ground for a month since they were here last time.  They are laying the tubes for the underground power our town is installing.  I stood watching them work (with some horror) while I developed the film.  They must have thought I was keeping an eye on them, so I made a show of turning the canister over so they could see.  

Later, my neighbor knocked on my door.  

"Is your cable out?"

"Let me check.  No.  It's working."

For many years, one cable company had an exclusive contract with our town to be the only cable provider.  Everyone--E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E--hated the company.  Last year, the exclusiveness came to an end and other providers lay underground cables tearing up the neighborhood and offering new services.  My neighbor was one who switched.  I, being lazy, didn't.  

"Shit. . . mine has been out since this morning.  I don't have internet, phone, t.v.. . . nothing."

"They must have cut through a cable," I said.  

"I've been on the phone for an hour trying to get someone.  Finally I got someone in India.  He said they would have someone out tomorrow.  A little while later, he called back to say they wouldn't be here until Monday!" 

There was a justifiable look of disbelief on his face.  

"They gave me a good deal on 5 gigabytes of fiber optics speed."

"I don't know. . . mine is a lot slower than that, but I don't know if I could really tell.  It's like watching a race car flying around a race track alone.  You know. . . 'wow, how fast do you think he's going?' 'I don't know. . . pretty fucking fast.'"

"Yea," he chuckled.  "I've got to go."

Later in the day, I felt the need to get outside to take a walk.  Just as I stepped out the door, it began to rain.  Fine.  I took a shower instead.  I still wasn't feeling well when I went to my mother's house, but I had to rally to go to dinner with my friend.  My mother can't hear anything I say now.  It is difficult.  

I met my buddy at five.  We had a drink and ordered dinner, argued over the problems of the cosmos, me holding there were no moral truths, that we just make up our moral values, he telling me that of course there is right and wrong.  You can do one or you can do the other.  It was the world view that I grew up with.  They taught us that in Highlights Magazine and on Romper Room.  

"Do be a Do Bee."

And truly, I prefer Gallant to Goofus, and I think it is smart to be a Do Bee.  I just don't think there is a place in the cosmos you can find these values privileged or written in stone.  I subscribe, but it is voluntary.  Not everybody does.  

My buddy would throw up some videos of the Black Lives Matter riots in Minnesota.  I would, too, if I had ready access to them.  I think it would simply be more support for what I am saying.  He, however, doesn't agree.  

But it's difficult. . . you know?  Oprah, Pelosi, Clinton, Kenan Thompson, Amanda Gorman. . . . This is a difficult party, too.  

I begin to envy my neighbor.  Cut the cable, turn off the lights. . . I just want to lie with my head in the lap of my own true love.  Politics has turned into a sporting event.  People will fight to death for the blue team or the red.  

"Go, team, go. . . fight, fight, fight!"

"Boy, that one was close."

"Bullshit.  Those fuckers cheated.  Deflate Gate, you know?  They were stealing signals.  The refs were paid off."

I may still feel off today.  Just not right.  Let's go to our secret room and hide out until it all gets settled, what do you say?

Well. . . that was a kind of cheap ending/intro to the song.  Amateurish.  Yea. . . I'm off.  But I AM the guy who made that photo at the top. . . and that, at least, is something.  

Loopy

Here it is--Smalltown U.S.A.  Middle-class, working-class.  Dick and Jane America.  This is who the dems say they want to help.  This is who will vote for Trump.  

It's what we call a conundrum.  

I didn't watch the 2nd night of the convention.  I didn't watch the first night, either.  But last night's speeches have gotten a lot of attention.  I've seen clips of Biden, of AOC, of the Obamas and Hillary.  Rapper L'il John.  I may not have that name right.  I've read about Sanders.  

Polarizing.  Red meat for Smalltown.  

"But I thought this is who they were saying they wanted to help."

"Yes.  They want to help them with change."

There it is.  The whole dilemma.  

I'm sick of getting political memes.  But they keep coming to my inbox every day.  

O.K.  I was just trying to justify the photo.  I have nothing else, so I had to think quick.  But it's true, isn't it?  You know in your heart of hearts why you will be voting for who you will be voting for.  

I'm tired.  I've been up late too many nights in a row.  I have a few more to go.  I will definitely have a nap today, but I need a full night of sleep.  This morning, for reasons unknown, the lyrics to "Crying Time" were on loop in my head.  

It's crying time again, 

You're going to leave me. 

I can see that far away look in your eye.  

I can tell by the way you hold me, darling. 

That it won't be long before it's crying time.

I don't like the song, so it is really weird that I keep thinking these lyrics.  I decided to look to see if somebody did a better version of the song than the traditional arrangements.  Nope.  Not that I could find.  Maybe there is no way to make the song more interesting.  But those lyrics. . . what's up with that?  I don't even have a girl.   

Yea, I need more sleep.  I need a lot of things.  

Moon Dance

It's the best I could do with my phone. I was sitting inside and had to be reminded of the moon.  Oh!  So I took a stroll down to the lake and got a lucky look.  The moon was rising far to the south.  It was a Southern Moon, I'd say, on a balmy southern night.  Crickets, frogs, bass, snakes, and gators.  I lingered for awhile in the quiet night.  

Back home, I was getting texts about the Democratic Convention.  I couldn't watch it.  I don't have cable and have yet to buy a digital antenna.  And last night, I was glad not to be remotely tempted.  I abhor pomp and circumstance.  It frightens me more than clowns or Sierra Ferrell and is hugely less entertaining.  I had other texts, though.  Tennessee invited me to dinner at his house too late for I was already cooking.  My old college roommate texted to say that our other college roommate had come to his house unannounced and unexpected.  "I haven't seen him since the 80s," he said.  My buddy lives in a gated community and the visitor was told he was unavailable.  This visitor was the roommate who told me god had come to him one night and said I couldn't have my girlfriend spend the night anymore.  My buddy and I moved out, and that was that.  The Christian fellow ended up being a big player on the state's education board.  He never had children.  

But neither did my college roommate or I.  Huh.  

My longtime pal who I am seeing again after our break up some five years ago was texting about the convention, too.  He and C.C were in agreement about it but for different reasons.  Funny that.  

I heard from others, too.  Texts.  The lifeblood of a shut-in.  

Nobody uses the telephone for talking anymore.  It is more a camera than a phone.  It is a teletype.  

Travis sent a phone pic of the moon.  For travelers and adventurers, there is an essential connection with it.  It is what you gazed at from your perch on a deserted beach or from your balcony in some primitive desert.  The vision of the moon was the same there as it was from your home.  The moon, "that inconstant orb," is a traveller's constant, steadfast, and stalwart companion.  

The television quiet, I drank coconut water and thought through a million complications.  Then, of course, when I went to bed, I had the most vivid dreams.  I woke once and rose, but when I went back to sleep, it was the same dream or, rather, a continuation of the one I'd been having.  It was not only vivid, it was bizarre. 

But enough of that.  I have tentative plans for nights out the rest of the week.  Nights out or nights with company.  

Here's a thought.  Yesterday, sitting with my mother, I heard the ice cream truck's little jingle.  I said to my mother and her across the street neighbor, "You know what would make more money than an ice cream truck?  A martini truck!  Hell, people would be lining the streets waiting."

The neighbor was tickled by that and said it was a million dollar idea.  I should look into it.  

A million complications.  A million ideas under a Full Southern Moon.  And still, I wonder. . . 

"Can I have just one more moon dance with you. . . my love?"

Wicked and Wild

Monday.  Super Blue Sturgeon Moon.  You've all read about it by now.  They steal all my interests and put them in the bigs.  Whatever.  The moon and I have our own special relationship.  I enjoyed it more, though, when I could say to people, "Tonight is the full moon," and their eyes would pop like I had some special secret knowledge.  The Shaman, you know.  How did this moon stuff get to be so popular?  

They just be rippin' me off, man.  

I'll have to move on to some more esoteric thing.  

I made my $100 seafood stew yesterday.  I'm not kidding.  The price of seafood is through the roof.  A pound and a half of halibut cost $40.  Then scallops and shrimp.  I chopped carrots, celery, and a russet potato, a small yellow onion,  a leek, and six cloves of garlic, and sautéed them in olive oil with salt and pepper.  Then I added chicken stock, wine, crushed and stewed tomatoes, and let them stew for half an hour.  Now since I was taking this all over to my mother's, the trick was to put the seafood in at just the right time.  I cut the fish and put it and the scallops and shrimp into a big bowl and seasoned them with Old Bay.  Yea, I know, but it works.  Then, just before I turned off the fire under the big Dutch oven, I dropped it in the pot.  I wrapped the heavy pot in a blanket and put it into the car.  When I got to my mother's house, I put the pot on the stove and just let it get to a boil again, then cut the heat and took the Dutch oven off the stove.  

With crusty bread and two bottles of wine.  There were three of us.  If I calculated right, we each ate fifteen to twenty dollars worth of soup.  Plus wine.  And we each ended up with a container of stew for lunch.  

Everyone was feeling healthy and a little tipsy.  

Cake and ice cream.  Oops.  

I slept well last night. . . but oh, the dreams.  Now here is a weird observation--I never see myself in dreams just as I never see myself in life.  I'm in the dream, of course, but I must be much better looking there than I am here because my love life there is much more interesting.  Sort of.  

It's complicated.  

And I wonder, if you are reading this blog, have you begun remembering your dreams, too?  

Last night, my mother was telling us of her disturbing dreams.  Not interesting, of course, to anyone but her.  I didn't say so, though.  I suffered through the telling.  

If you are having vivid dreams, that's all you need to say.  Don't narrate unless asked to.  I promise.  Nobody cares about your dreams except Dr. Freud, and he's dead.  

And it is funny because people are interested in the real life stuff you tell, and it is much less crazy or exotic than your dream life.  Another thing to ponder.  

Politics get weird(er) today.  My conservative friends keep sending me TikTok videos and memes.  The one making the right wing rounds right now is of a former Islamic terrorist explaining why he would always vote for democrats.  He says republicans have a strong moral agenda and are to be feared, but he considers democrats stupid.  They concern themselves with gay and trans rights and abortion.  All of Islam, he says, will vote for liberals.  He goes on to point out that Ilhan Omar is for all of that, but of course she would never have an abortion.  She would never cut the life out of her belly.  

My friend's kid is 22 years old, a recent college grad, and he and all his white friends are Woke.  Now it really gets confusing.  They are not liberals.  They are against Jews and for Palestinians.  They don't have any Somali friends but support their culture.  I don't know if they mean the genital mutilations or the Shariah Law or what, but they will be part of the protests at the Democratic Convention tonight.  It could be chaos.  They are excited, of course, the protestors.  It will be big.  It will be wild.  

"So it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for.  Don't tell me I don't give a damn, let's stop this. . . ." 

It's a fitty/fitty shot.  The thing is, there is always that grain of truth in the Big Lie.  There is some recognizable thing that will germinate inside the mind of the willing.  Not one ideological side.  Each and all.  That kernel of truth blossoms into a totalizing nightmare.  

Again, I beg you to read "Winesburg, Ohio."  There are millions of truths, and each person takes one to be his or her--excuse me--"their" truth and it makes them Grotesque.  

But even a malformed apple can be sweet.  

So, yea--Full Super Blue Sturgeon Moon, protests, and a Democratic Convention converge and collide.  Just like Trump said to the Jan. 6 crowd, be there.  It will be wild.  

Momma Told Me. . . There'd Be Days Like This

This is all I have.  I'm on empty this morning.  Every broken bone in my body hurts.  I have mud in my brain.  Not an ounce of wit.  I read that the man who discovered why we can't have eternal life died today.  He was in his 90s.  Cells wear out.  That's what he said.  They can only divide and reproduce themselves a limited number of times.  He set our upper age limit at 125.  Later researchers would discover that the ends of our DNA molecules have protective caps called telomeres that become shorter with each replication.  They unravel. 

Ain't science grand?  

No amount of exercise or special diet will save you.  That is what he said.  And yet, we are in the time of diets and exercise routines.  Everyone, it seems.  And Wegovy.  

I should be happier, though, that I'm not an astronaut trapped in space with no way home.  At least there are two of them.  I am stuck here on earth in a capsule on my own.  

Can you imagine if they get pissed off at one another, arguing while trapped in space?  

There is that, at least.  

I tried for a little adventure yesterday.  Late.  I took a long walk at noon, the absolute wrong time to begin a long walk here in the sultry south.  I came back by way of the Boulevard.  It was filled with the hoi-polloi.  And me, wearing a torn t-shirt, limping slowly, belly heaving.  Small children would point and run.  

Home, soak, shower, and then. . . . 

I went to the cafe.  When I walked in, the room was warm.  The line at the counter was to the door.  I saw the owner standing in the hallway keeping eye on his PhotoBooth, that little golden goose.  Last time I saw him, he thought I was the television and movie actor.  It was strange.  I decided things were too crowded, hot, and weird, so I turned around and went back out the door.  But. few feet down the sidewalk toward my car, I heard the owner's voice.  

"Were you going to get a tea?"

"Uh. . . maybe."

"Do you want a tea?"

I was guessing that he was going to get it for me so I could skip the line.  Maybe he was still thinking I was the actor.  

"I was thinking maybe a mimosa, but it is too crowded in there."

"Yea. . . that's why I'm getting out," he snickered.  

Small talk ensued, then we both got into our cars and left the scene.  

It was early, sunny, a pretty day if you were in the shade and not walking long in the sun.  But I could think of nothing else to do, so I turned the car in the direction of my mother's house.  

She was on the couch lying down when I got there.  She was not feeling well.  Telomeres, maybe.  She sat up, then we went to sit outside.  She picked up a bit, but barely.  I talk but I am sure she doesn't hear more than fifty percent of what I say.  Maybe less.  I pick up a broom and sweep out her garage.  I go to the grocery store to get her something.  I tell her I will make a seafood stew for Sunday.  

Back home. . . the cat. . . the Campari. . . the usual.  I make dinner.  I watch more Sierra Ferrell.  I'm obsessed.  There is a seemingly endless supply of live video concerts.  You can watch her evolution over the years.  I think about the popularity of What's Her Name, the one with the football player.  I don't understand it.  Rather, I think, I do.  Listening to her music is like a Saturday afternoon trip to the mall.  That used to be popular, then Covid hit and the malls never really recovered.  Now we have What's Her Name.  

But, I'm told I am missing something, that I just don't get it.  I can only agree.  Maybe I'm obtuse.  

It is still light outside.  I'm antsy but I don't want to go sit at a bar alone.  

A Van Morrison concert comes up.  Boy, oh boy, he is good.  What genre of music is it, though?  I don't have a name for it.  Ferrell plays all sorts of music, Spanish Gypsy Tango and a whole lotta waltzes.  But I don't have the musical vocabulary to describe the music of Van Morrison.  

I go to the bedroom to get my guitar, but I have forgotten that I broke a string and have not restrung it.  Disappointed.  I was ready to be a musical wonder once again.  

Maybe I'll get some guitar strings today.  I wish I'd learned to play better and to play more instruments.  As with most things, though. . . I was lazy.  I always thought "natural talent" would see me 90% of the way there.  I've always believed I have a "natural talent" for most things.  Not pole vaulting, though.  I tried that.  It scared the shit out of me.  

I'm going to make my naturally talented seafood stew today.  We will have company for dinner at my mother's.  She needs me to drive her to do some financial stuff this coming week.  She is going to need me more and more.  

She worries about me.  So do I.  We have that in common.  But tonight the stew will be good and there will be wine and crusty bread and we will listen to samba and Brazilian jazz.  

So. . . I was too curious.  I Googled it.  Now I know.

Much of Morrison's music is structured around the conventions of soul music and early rhythm and blues. An equal part of his catalogue consists of lengthy, spiritually inspired musical journeys that show the influence of Celtic tradition, jazz and stream of consciousness narrative.  

That's a lot.   

 

Mysteriously Jacked

We both chose the Pan Roasted Chicken Thigh.  It was one of the best lunch choices I have made in a very long time.  With a lager beer.  As always, C.C. and I lingered long after finishing the food.  We sent photos to our friend who moved to the Midwest.  She used to come with us on lunch dates.  She is in Fairbanks, Alaska just now bagging her last of the 50 states, one of her goals when she moved.  We laughed at the good time she was missing.  

After my night at the Moderne, I should have felt like shit.  Surprisingly, I felt more energetic and alive yesterday than I have for a very long time.  I have no explanation for that.  It truly beats me, but I was totally jacked all day.  I was not ready to settle down as night approached, but I no longer feel like going out on the town alone.  

I stopped in a Walgreen's liquor store on the way home from my mother's.  A young Black kid was working behind the counter.  A Mexican worker was in line in front of me buying a 48 pack of Corona.  I guess that's what it was.  It was big.  Being Friday, I was imagining what was about to take place.  It would be fun.  So. . . it's like the beginning of a redneck joke.  

"A Black boy, a Mexican, and a hippie are in a liquor store."

O.K.  The redneck wouldn't have said "Black boy," but I get in enough trouble for what I say here.  

Anyway. . . the kid behind the counter was rapping some shit and dancing around while he rang the Mexican up.  

"Nah, man. . . you gotta sing what's on the radio."

The store always plays popular music too loudly over its speakers.  It is always awful.  

The kid laughed and the Mexican turned around to look at me, then he began laughing, too.  

"I can't," said the kid.  "I wish I could."

The Mexican paid and left with a nod and a smile.  I told the kid I needed the Glen Fiddich that was locked up in a cabinet.  The cabinet door has been off track for about six months or so, and every time one of the cashiers has to open it, it is a struggle.  

"They haven't fixed that thing yet?" I said in mock horror to the kid.  "Claim an injury from it.  I'll be your witness.  You can get worker's comp."

He started laughing.  

"No, man, they'd drug test me.  I wouldn't get shit."

When he was back behind the counter and ringing me up, he asked, "Can I see your I.D.?"  

Walgreens makes them I.D. everyone no matter their age.  The kid took a quick glance and rang me up.

"Really?  You needed to see an I.D.?  What the fuck?"

He laughed but I felt something behind me.  I hadn't seen her come into the store.  

"Oh. . . I'm sorry, uh. . . I. . . uh. . . . "

The kid started talking to someone.  That's when I noticed his phone on the counter.  He was FaceTiming while he worked.

"Hey man. . . thanks.  Give my best to your mom," I said nodding to his phone.  It wasn't until I got to the parking lot that I thought about how wrong that could have gone.  But I was still grooving on the whole thing--The Black kid, the Mexican, and the Hippie.  "It's been like that my whole life.  I'm cool like that," I thought, laughing at myself.  Cool White Boy.  

Whatever.  

I stopped at the grocers and bought chicken thighs and drumsticks.  I was going to cook 'em up and eat 'em.  But I was going to cook up more than I could eat so I could have 'em anytime I wanted some snack.  I had concocted a diet idea.  Chicken.  I was going to eat a lot of chicken.  Instead of having a sweet and starchy breakfast bun or bread of some sort in the morning with coffee (what? I never told you?), I'd have a chicken leg and an apple.  That's the way my twisted mind was working, anyway.  Protein.  D-O-G--chicken.  

I decided to cook them in the enameled cast iron Dutch oven.  I'd brown them on the stovetop then put them in the oven for twenty minutes.  Salt, pepper, red pepper, and teriyaki sauce.  A salad and jasmine rice.  A citrusy New Zealand white.  

Holy Moly. . . that's the way to cook a chicken!  You've not had anything like it. . . unless you have done this, too.  But wow.  

My friend who went to the Zach Bryan concert texted me.  A selfie.  She had a gash across her nose and under her eye which was swollen and purple.  

"Oh, no!  What happened?"

"Bitch pissed me off."

She's a beautiful hillbilly from W. Virginia, so maybe. . . but no. . . she had to be shitting me.  

"Truly?  Or did you just get drunk and fall down?"

She let that hang for awhile before she wrote.  

"I was staying in an air B&B.  I got up to go to the bathroom but couldn't find the light switch.  I tripped over the shower stall and fell.  Yea. . . alcohol was involved."  

I told her about my night at the Moderne.  

"Holy shit.  Did you black out?"

"What?  No.  You would never even know I'd been drinking.  I don't get drunk like other people do."

It's true.  I don't stagger or slur.  I don't have trouble remembering things the next day.  It probably isn't a good thing, though.  For my health, I mean.  

Later on, I had company.  I offered a drink.  The chicken and rice was still out, and she asked if she could have some.  Sure, I said.  I let her plate her own.  Predictably, she purred and swooned over the meal.  

"I should have made asparagus with it." 

"Yea, that would be good." 

She hadn't heard of Sierra Ferrell before, so I pulled up a YouTube clip.  We ended up watching two concerts that I hadn't seen before.  Good God she is great.  

When my friend left, I cleaned up the kitchen and prepped the coffee maker.  It was almost midnight.  What happened to the whiskey?  The bottle must have spilled.  

I still wasn't tired.  I wasn't ready to sleep, but it was past my bedtime, so. . . I nibbled a gummy.  I just don't do well with that shit, though.  I woke up a couple hours later, dazed and confused.  

I didn't get out of bed until eight.  We'll see if I feel as jacked today.  

I doubt it.  

But the sun is getting high in the sky and I need to get the day started.  A little exercise and maybe some hippie shops.  

Here's something new from David Rawlings and Gillian Welch.  They sound good again.  I'm glad. 

A Night at the Moderne

Everything I think to write about last night needs to go in the journal.  I can't write about it here.  I've tried, sitting in my usual chair later in the morning after a night out, thought about how to make a BIG statement peppered with a few details so that I can make a point without naming names or discrediting anyone.  To defame is never my purpose unless I am the brunt of the joke.  Or, you know, if, like Brando, the person is dead.  I'll kid.  C.C., Q, Tennessee. . . but not defame.  And never an old love.  No.  There is no benefit to anyone.  

Tennessee called me mid-afternoon.  

"You want me to pick you up?"

"No, I'll drive myself.  I don't want to get stuck if I want to bail."

"Nooooo. . . we'll bail after the first place if it sucks.  We can go have a drink at the good Italian place."

"Yea. . . I'll meet you there."

"Bullshit.  You won't go.  I'll pick you up."

"I still have to get ready.  I just got back from the gym.  I'll text you when I'm done."

Stepping out of the shower, I heard someone knock on the kitchen door, then a voice.  What the fuck?

"You'd better be packing heat, motherfucker."

I walked out with a towel wrapped around me.  There was Tennessee.  

"What the fuck, man.  I told you I'd let you know when I was ready."

"I didn't trust you.  I figured you'd take off somewhere."

I'm always the one eager to leave the crowd and go home.  I like it for a minute or two, but at some point it always become tedious and I'm ready to bolt.  

I got ready while he putzed around the house.  When I was done, it was still too early to go.  

"You want a beer?"

In a while, we jumped into his new BMW SUV.  You need a pilot's license to drive one of those it seemed.  It does shit a simple car should never do.  

"Fuck.  I don't know how to drive this.  My wife told me to take her car because my truck was dirty.  She can track me on this thing."

"It probably has recording devices.  Hell. . . she might be listening to us right now!"

"I wouldn't doubt it."

After a lot of flashing lights, clicks, and high pitched beeps, he got his phone paired with the stereo.  I'd sent him The Gourd's "Gin and Juice" a few weeks ago.  

"Rolling down the street smokin' indo, sipping on gin and juice. . . ."

"I ate a gummy before I came over."

When we got to the bowling alley, the parking lot was full.  There was one space left, but T passed it up.  

"What the fuck is wrong with you?  Do you just want to drop me off at the door?  Did your gummy just kick in?"

He circled back.  Inside, the crew was waiting at the bar.  We moved to a table and the drinks came.  Palomas with tajin.  Icy on a hot summer's day.  The first one went down easy.  

"Do you have a reuben or a corned beef sandwich?"

"No.  That was on the old menu."

There was nothing substantial on the new menu.  A few plates of wings and an artichoke dip showed up with the next round.  The wings sucked.  

A third Paloma arrived.  I'd only had a piece of avocado toast all day.  I needed grub, not more tequila.  All agreed.  We headed for the Moderne.  

I've shown this before.  I stumbled upon the place one Sunday morning when the streets were closed.  I've been intrigued since, but I'd never been.  Alain had been there the week before and said the cocktails and food was great.  But. . . six guys. . . we sat in low slung chairs waiting for something to open up at the very full bar.  

Drinks arrived.  Fancy drinks.  I am not sure what they were, but I think it was the cocktail with Santa Teresa 1796 rum, Amabuki Rosè sake, strawberry mint jam, 
lemon, honey.  Maybe.  We sat and drank and waited.  A fellow approached.  

"There are three of us leaving if you want to take these."

Tennessee and I went over and planted ourselves at the bar.  On the other side, the boys had garnered two others places.  I was sitting next to a woman who had two empty seats beside her, a handbag on one.  I was five cocktails and a beer in and I was hungry.  Somehow, the boys talked the girls into trading seats with them on the other side of the bar.  Five of the six of us were now sitting together.  Then the 6th.  

Here's a photo of the bar from that Sunday morning when the place was closed.  It is a lovely bar, but the food is all small plates and servings.  We got menus.  We ordered.  Everyone's food came but mine.  I had a small plate of edamame.  Another cocktail.  Confusion over the food, then my tuna kabachi.  Small plates, sticky Asian ribs, skewers of chicken, pork Goyza. . . then, in the confusion, an extra Wagu bibimbap.  It was a big bowl. Nobody claimed it.  At last, some real food.  

And more cocktails.  

There is the sanitized version of part of the evening.  Nothing untoward written here.  

Oh. . . I ate a gummy, too.  I woke up half crazed in the belly of the night.  

In a couple hours, I will meet C.C. at another fancy place for lunch.  

I think I won't mind staying home alone sipping tea on a sultry Friday night.  I need to dry out.  

Dog Patch Freak Show

"I'm going to Tampa today."

"Why?"

"I'm going to a concert."

Now I am wondering "what kind?"  Since her divorce, she is out most every night, or so it seems to me, an online penpal.  

"Who are you going to see?"

"Zach Bryan."

Oh.  I know that name.  My old friend, Sky, sent me a song long ago by a singer who, as it turns out, is on the one song I know by him. 

Tennessee is a fan and tells me Zach is the shit.  So, yea, ok, I like this song, but it is a bit too commercial for me to have posted it here.  It is like a lot of things, like "back in the day" when I was a closet Prince fan.  I just couldn't let anyone know.  

I've tried listening to some of Bryan's other music, though, and it isn't making my play list.  I would probably listen to it if I were driving through the west on some lonesome road, windows down, doing a hundred miles an hour, music blaring.  Country music sounds pretty good at times.  

I've been listening to a freakish, drug trip, Dog Patch Ellie May version of a musician, Sierra Ferrell.  Do a search on YouTube.  She has one of the best voices in America, I think, if you like that West Virginia hillbilly sound.  It reminds me quite a bit of Dolly Parton's, and she's even more outrageous.  

But. . . she scares me a bit the way a clown gives children nightmares.  And it is true.  I spent much of last night watching her video performances.  I stayed up too late, then dreamed her weirdness furiously all night long.  I'm beat this morning and will definitely need a nap. . . but we'll get to that.  

Here's one of her Tiny Desk concerts and a Wiki description of her life.  

Sierra Ferrell was born in West Virginia. After her parents divorced when she was around 5 years old, she lived with her mother and one of her two siblings in a trailer. This led to her spending less time with electronics and more time exploring outside. Despite her home state's deep-rooted history in bluegrass music, Ferrell instead grew up listening to 90s music of various genres, listening to and taking interest in cassette tapes of 10,000 Maniacs and Tracy Chapman that her mother owned.

Ferrell's musical journey began in childhood, playing clarinet and singing choir in school, eventually learning to play guitar and even once, performing Shania Twain covers at a local bar. In her teens, she joined a Grateful Dead cover group as a vocalist, but after feeling constrained creatively, she departed the band to independently pursue her musical aspirations.

In her early twenties, she adopted a nomadic lifestyle, hitch-hiking, freighthopping, and living in her van, with the majority of her time spent busking between Seattle and New Orleans. By this point, Ferrell had turned her attention towards playing folk music and its various offshoots, with fellow busking group Yes Ma'am making a particular impression on her musical style.

It was also during this time that Ferrell was also in the throes of drug addiction stemming from her wayfaring way of life, claiming to have died "five times" from narcotics overdoses. After these experiences, she decided to get clean and change her lifestyle in favor of improved health and positive relationships.

I like the whole Tiny Desk concert, but the second song is my favorite, so I made a copy of it for you if that's all you want to hear. 

All this might be ancient news to you, though.  You might already know her.  Selavy.  I always think I'm ahead of the curve by a few seconds.  Coolest kid in the room, etc.  

So, as I was YouTubing her, I was Googling her, too, and found--OMG!--she's been touring with Zach Bryan.  Soooooo. . . . I might be WAY behind the curve.  

I probably need to quit drinking late into the night.  

But not tonight.  I'm going out with the Gymorids to the hipster bowling alley and then to The Moderne, a NYC-style Chinese Gangster Bar.  I've posted images of it here before.  Bar food and tequila are in my future.  

Then lunch with C.C. tomorrow.  

Maybe I'll have tales of adventure and daring.  

But what the hell. . . for now, just one more from this talented freak show.  Can you hear the Dylan?