blue girl

The Music Can Free Me Whenever it Starts

Driving is dangerous in ways you wouldn't expect. It's dangerous in ways I expect.

Driving on the highway Thursday, in the middle lane, going about 70, with the flow of the traffic, I had been in the car for a little over an hour, heading to southern Ohio for business. I was scanning the cars in front of me and all around me for trouble like I always do. In front of me in the right hand lane was an old beater Corolla whose hubcap was spinning and wobbling fiercely, just about to pop off the rim.

I imagined that it was going to fly off the rim like a razor sharp, steel frisbee, come careening through my windshield, cutting into my neck, like a scene out of some Quentin Tarrantino movie. I started acting! Making choking and gurgling sounds, tongue hanging out, tilting my head, letting it bounce off my right shoulder, like I was dying a grisly death. And then I thought...

Stop being such a weirdo!

Just then cars in front of me began to swerve to the left, to the right as a huge cement block was bouncing off the road then high into the air barely missing the Honda sedan, bouncing to the right of the black pick up truck, then behind the Volvo wagon, heading straight for me.

OhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGod... that's a concrete block!... OhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGod... about a foot long and six inches thick... OhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGodddddddd!

I ducked. And heard a deep, heavy kerchunk-a-blunk on the hood of my car. It bounced off my hood then off to the right and I lost track of where it bounced to after that because I was too focused on my racing heart and the fact that I had just escaped the grisly death I had just imagined moments before.

After a few minutes I had settled down when I saw the sign for Zoar, Ohio. And I thought what I always do when I see a sign for Zoar.

Man, I am so glad I don't live in Zoar.

Because if I lived in Zoar, I would never stop thinking of Ghostbusters.

"Where are you from, Blue Girl?"

"I am Zul from Zoar. I am the Gatekeeper. Must prepare for the coming of Gozer."

So I was busy being Zul from Zoar except I was being Bill Murray from Caddyshack saying I am Zul from Zoar the way he would say...

This crowd has gone deadly silent, a Cinderella story outta nowhere. Former greenskeeper and now about to become the Masters champion ... He's on his final hole. He's about 455 yards away, he's gonna hit about a 2 iron I think ... IT'S IN THE HOLE!

....and laughing, thinking to myself... Well, at least I can't get slimed. You may imagine some lethal object coming straight at you on the highway and then it actually happens, but there's no such thing as sliming, so you're good. Oh, he got out of that... the crowd is on it's feet at Augusta!

A minute later I was stuck in the right lane wedged between a semi to my left and a little white GTI ahead of me. Who decided to clean their windshield with what turned out to be their super duper extra strong GTI windshield wiper cleaning mechanism that in no way cleaned their windshield, but mine. Their windshield washer fluid shot up over and over again back over the hood of their car, soaking my windshield and my newly kerchunk-a-blunk'd hood for the next two minutes.

I was being slimed in Zoar, Ohio!

What's next?

I saw a sign for Tuscarawas. Will an Indian with a single tear running down his cheek jump out in front of my car? And then I saw a sign warning of "Fallen Rock" and I imagined falling rock, which scared me until I remembered I had already dealt with falling rock and I thought I might be safe because the Indian hadn't yet appeared. And it had been a whole three minutes since I thought of it.

I was now in the middle of nowhere and getting no radio reception. Which is unacceptable. So, I kept scanning, scanning, scanning the stations until, finally, a song.

Well, of course, I thought to myself. What other kind of song would possibly play in the middle of nowhere after most things I had thought of happening that morning actually ended up happening? And Yes, I do believe in magic, I continued thinking. How could I not? But I decided to believe in good magic, bubble gum magic, the kind of magic in a young girl's heart, how the music can free me whenever it starts, the Lovin' Spoonful kind of magic. Happy magic where nothing goes wrong.

And deciding that was a very good thing. Because after exiting the highway, I had to drive 55 miles to the west on a two-lane country road where semi after semi came barreling towards me one right after the other. And all I could think about was Pet Sematary.

Looking at Life Tonight

Sitting in my office bedroom, I clicked and read this and that and this and that and finally this by Dominique Browning:

...As I wandered downstairs, drawn by the sound of her rich, contralto voice, I became flooded with memories...first hearing Joni Mitchell, introduced to her in high school, at exactly the time of this BBC performance, by another extremely talented musician, my friend Ray. He knew everything about jazz, and about great music in general, and we would spend hours listening to new albums, poring over the liner notes, lost in the sounds, captivated, enchanted, as children can be, because they are open to entering into music and becoming one with it.

Becoming one with the music as only a child can was something I desperately needed to do because I had spent my day being far too much of a grown up.

I found this:

I sat watching, listening, and singing, with my head tilted to the left, my cheek cupped into the palm of my hand, lost in the sounds and the idea that I don't know much.

I glanced to the right as Woody, our oldest cat, came walking slowly into my room. He's twenty. He's been with us from the beginning. He's been through, and tolerated it all. All the comings. All the goings. He doesn't feel good now. He hasn't for awhile. He got off his spot on the couch downstairs, that he doesn't move from very often, to find me, to yell at me.

He walked into my room very slowly and meowed very loudly.

"What's wrong? You lonely?"

I got off my chair, the spot I don't seem to move from very often, and lay down in the floor next to him. He inched closer as I stroked the top of his head and that soft spot in the nook beneath his ear. His meowing and the sound of saying I love you right out loud echoed through the room. And I thought about where we are, where I am right now.

Everything she sang about, I knew I would get to eventually. Love, loss, despair, pleasure, joy, confusion, amazement, loneliness, independence, anger, and yearning, yearning, yearning--for more, for better.

I leaned in to Woody. He curled up closer, purring, nudging his nose into my neck.

Our House

Our realtor stopped by late Saturday with her husband and her mother. She wanted to apologize for the other realtor confusing houses, getting our hopes up. She also wanted to show her mother The Skimmer's oil paintings that are hanging in every room of our house.

Our dark house.

When we moved in we painted the walls in the living room and into the kitchen a deep blue gray, to set a mood -- an intimate, oh, can't you just sink into it and aren't you just so comfortable? -- mood.

Our realtor made us bring extra lamps into the living room that were not turned on Saturday evening.

I offered them something to drink. As her daughter grabbed a couple of Cokes from the fridge, her mother, a cute little lady in her early 80s, looked around smiling, then raised her shoulders way up high while tilting her head to the right and said, "I love this room. I love your house. It's so cozy."

"Yeah. Thanks. You think so? Yeah, me too."

Head Games

Our house went on the market 11 days ago. We've had about 15 people come through it. Not that many. But I've heard from others who've been trying to sell their house now for 130 - 275 days that 15 people coming through is good. They've had open houses where no one's come through at all.

We had our second open house yesterday. Two couples came through. Both want a house in this neighborhood but both would have to sell their house first to be able to move.

Get 'em on the market, people! What are you waiting for? Move, move, move, move!

The Skimmer told me to stay above the game. Don't get in the game, don't try to play the game. Stay completely out of the game. But I can't help but get in the game.

Saturday we got a call from our agent saying a couple wanted to stop by in 15 minutes for a second showing. They had come through during the first open house. I started running around picking up tennis shoes and coffee cups and magazines.

"A second showing, Skimmer! Know what that means? That means they just saw it and they want to see it a second time which means they are enthusiastic. They like it! They want to see it again. They're having fantasies about living here. They're decorating in their heads already. They're imagining their cars parked in the driveway..."

"Stay above the game."

"...their kids running down the sidewalks!"

"Don't get too up. Don't get too down."

I finished chopping up lemons to put down the garbage disposal right before I ran outside to clip more boxwood for the flower arrangement in the foyer. I hung the hammock between the two oak trees in the backyard as the dappled sun danced across the freshly mowed grass. Then I lit the Sun-Dried Cotton fragranced candles both upstairs and downstairs. And then we waited.

And waited. And waited.

They never showed up.

The people who were enthusiastic about seeing their new house for the second time, who envisioned their hutch here and their book case there, the people who were having fantasies about their children running up and down the sidewalks were having fantasies about some old, dilapidated, wallpapered shack up the street.

Their realtor got our houses mixed up and called our realtor by mistake.

That night as The Skimmer and I sat reading and watching TV in, My God -- the cleanest and most lemon-y fresh living room you have ever seen or smelled! -- Lemon-y fresh because the kitchen, where I had chopped up the lemons to grind in the disposal, opens up to a great room. Totally open floor plan. Perfect for entertaining. Ideal, even. And did I mention the hardwood floors? -- I stopped reading, looked up over my glasses and said, "I can't believe those people like that house up the street better than this house. Why? Why, do you think? It needs so much work! Sure, they've got a screened-in porch but we've got a deck. And two perfect trees for a hammock. They will have to strip wallpaper off of every single wall in that house. They won't be done stripping wallpaper for 25 years, that's how much wallpaper that house has. That house is nothing but wallpaper. I can't believe they like it better than this. I mean....smell."

"Don't get too down. Keep the faith, BG."

Traitors

1. Art Modell

1a. LeBron James

Lost on Us

From Charles Pierce:

The poison dulls the mind and enervates the body. It leaches away the critical faculties and leaves in their place a kind of dull-eyed acceptance that borders on chronic lassitude. We accept what we cannot change and then decide we can't really change anything, and thereupon, we accept anything. A political party that embraces public lunacy in its candidates, and public dereliction in its elected officials, should pay a political price for that. It will not, because the only people motivated at the moment are the people who are motivated in support of the lunacy and, in fact, who would like to see more of it. And they may well do so. Instead, we study the lunacy as if it were a phenomenon detached from our daily lives, the way that we have detached ourselves from the discipline and responsibilities of self-government, congratulating ourselves on how fair-minded we are for giving the lunatics a hearing and then becoming mystified when we realize that, if they are empowered in the government, they mean to do what they say.

An unemployment rate that nudges 10 percent should occasion societal upheaval. Instead, we give a polite hearing to responsible "moderates" who argue that it's pretty much the way it's going to be for a while, and to conservative voices telling us that the unemployed are simply entitled parasites, drowning in indulgence and flat-screen TV's. And we congratulate ourselves for being broad-minded enough not to call an obscenity what it is out loud. In a properly functioning, self-governing republic, the corporate criminality that nearly brought down the economies of the world, and the corporate criminality that has turned the Gulf of Mexico into flaming toxic stew, would demand a vigorous political response. But, generally, we accept the notion that the latter would be impractical, that it essentially would be requiring one conjoined twin to beat the other one over the head.

That this is a mortal sin against what we are supposed to be, a primary heresy against the American faith, is lost on us.

Read the rest here.

Waiting on Independence Day

From Wheelie Catholic Ruth:

It's hot out there. Tempers run short. Sometimes the people who think they run the place wind up having to answer to the people who really run the place, but aren't there to run the place. Those of us with disabilities know what that means. It means we get denied access. Or we're told to sit in a corner and wait because we may be in the way. Even if we make noise and get an apology, there isn't justice. There isn't justice until it stops happening.

They may as well say Yankee go home. That, like fireworks, drowns out the rest of the celebration sometimes. We stare up into the sky, the sparkling lights so far above that we're in awe, until things go wrong and a house starts on fire. Then we remember that even fireworks are set off by some guy who may not do it too often, who can make a mistake, who may say he gauged things wrong.

Gauging things wrong can hurt people. It's not a good thing to guess at who's allowed to go where, who has permission to use what. It's illegal to boot. That's called civil rights.

Read the rest of Ruth's post here.

sifting through the madness for the Word, the line, the way

I decided I wanted to post a poem by Charles Bukowski a few hours ago. It's taken me awhile to find the one I wanted.

The other night Blue Kid and his friend, along with their two girlfriends, were sitting in the living room. I walked into the kitchen and overheard BK's friend say, "Well, if I'm going to read any poet, it should be him."

I poked my head around the corner and said, "Didn't mean to eavesdrop, but what poet do you want to read, Steve?"

"Charles Bukowski."

"Ah, he's good, I think. Dark, crass. Sometimes too crass for me. But, there's beauty too. I read a ton of his poems over the last couple of years." I grabbed "sifting through the madness for the Word, the line, the way" off the bookshelf and handed it to him.

"I bought this a few weeks ago but I haven't read any of it yet."

"I don't know this one. I bought, um, "Burning in Water...um...."

"Drowning in Flame."

"Yeah, Drowning in Flame. I haven't read mine yet either. Bought it on Monday. Some people say you should go to the library. And you should. I know why they say that. But, I like to own my books. I like them to be mine." He said, handing my book back to me.

"I know what you mean. I'm the same way. Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame. That's a great phrase."

"Yeah, I want to read Bukowski and, uh, Kurt Vonnegut. I also bought Slaughterhouse Five."

"That's a good one to own. And you'll never go wrong with Vonnegut. He was the coolest guy ever. You're gonna love him."

I took my book up to my office and read for an hour and a half. Didn't dog-ear any pages, so a couple of hours ago I wasn't sure where to find the poem I wanted to post that struck me the other night. But, I was almost sure it was towards the end of the book. So, I started at the back, page 365.

As I read backwards through the book this time, I re-read the ones I had liked and skipped others that I had skipped before. The ones that are too dark, too crass. The ones about racetracks, and whores with yellow teeth, drunk, their stockings puddled around their ankles.

And this time I dog-eared a few. Like this one, page 296.

words for you

red dogs in green hell, what is this
divided thing I call
myself?

what message is this I'm offering
here?

it's so easy to slide into
poetic pretension.

almost all art is shot through with
poetic
pretension:

painting
sculpting
the stage
music

what is this foolish
strutting and posturing
we do?

why do we embroider everything we say
with special emphasis

when all we really need to do
is simply say what
needs to be said?

of course
the fact is

that there is very little that needs
to be said.

so we dress up our
little artful musings
and clamor for attention
so that we may appear to be
a bit more
important
or even more
truthful
than the others.

what is this I'm writing
here?

what is this you're reading
here?

is it no worse than the rest?

probably even a little bit
better?

And this one, page 244.

excuses

once again
I hear of somebody who is going to
settle down and
do their work,
painting or writing or whatever,
as soon as they get a better light
installed,
or as soon as they move to a new
city,
or as soon as they come back from the trip they
have been planning,
or as soon as...

it's simple: they just don't want
to do it,
or they can't do it,
otherwise they'd feel a burning
itch from hell
they could not ignore
and "soon"
would turn quickly into
"now."

Or this one, page 239.

she was really mad

I love you, she said
and spit in a bowl of
jello
put it in the
refrigerator
and said,
you can eat that later
for dinner!

then she was gone
like a whirlwind
out the door
in a rush of angry
skirt.

I love the title of that one. So simple, boy-like. And to be a whirlwind out the door like a rush of angry skirt is more vibrant and life-affirming than to be a yellow-toothed drunken whore wearing baggy hose.

But, that's just me.

I didn't read the one entitled "work-fuck problems."

I started to read "you never liked me" but had a hard time getting past the second line.

I let Reena give you a blow job
even though she was my wife

Bukowski's a good storyteller, so there was probably a good, or least interesting reason behind that decision of his. I skimmed the rest.

where you tried to rape Robert's widow...

you tried to drown him afterwards...

you wanted to suicide...

I was the one who talked him out of killing you...

I just wasn't in the mood for that kind of story tonight. Maybe I'll go back to it someday. Or maybe not.

I flipped through 362 pages and re-read, flipped and skipped until I found the poem I had wanted to post.

It was the first poem in the book.

My memory ain't what it used to be. Or maybe it never was what I imagine it once was. Maybe I've always gone backwards, starting at the end of things to find what meant something to me.

so you want to be a writer?

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently,
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in
you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.