Satisfied With Myself and the Rest of the World

I was standing at the urinal
at the Valley Forge rest stop
when a guy beside me asked,
How are things?

For a moment
I wondered if he was gay
but I’ve never been approached
by anyone gay, and it seemed
a pretty prosaic question
for someone on the make.

So I just told him Fine.
He said, I mean
how are things–really?
as if the world
were too terrible a place
for anyone to say fine
and mean it. I said
I live in a nice town,
driving to a nice city,
with a great friend,
and the sun is out.
So honestly, things
couldn’t be better.

The guy passed me again
while I was waiting in line
for the ATM, and he said
You really mean it,
don’t you? and I nodded,
satisfied with myself
and the rest of the world.

Nothing Adds Up

You can buy so much stuff around here. And you don’t need too much money. It’s only 3 bucks for some delicious Pepperidge Farm cookies; they look like they should cost more, but really, they’re still normal-person cookies.

If you have an extra two bucks, you can buy a useless balsa-wood box that you could keep, maybe, three Polaroids in, or some pens. Everyone has two extra bucks.

How about a case of Red Bull? It’s only 20 bucks. That’s a lot of Red Bull. That’s a lot of energy. Who doesn’t have 20 extra bucks? C’mon, live a little. What are you saving it for?

Oh looky here. REO Speedwagon’s greatest hits. CDs are so cheap nowadays. You can get this one in cheap-ass cardboard packaging with no liner notes for 6 bucks. It would cost you more than that to download these songs. Why not? 6 bucks won’t drain the coffers; that’s the price of a Big Mac. Buy the CD; what have you got to lose?

I know you want this M.R. Ducks t-shirt. You’d look so good in it. It’s a cotton/poly blend. It’s 20% off. How can you resist it? It’s so clever. You know what they say: you can’t take it with you.

Look at all this stuff you could buy. None of it costs anything. Nothing adds up. C’mon. You’ll feel better.

Gratitude Through ‘Life Wasted’

It was a longer than normal day at work.  I haven’t slept well the past few nights, nor eaten properly.  I am driving home hopped up on caffeine, majorly.  My body is weak, tired, shaking a little.  But it is sunny, and I am headed home, and everything is pretty close to being almost perfect.  I riffle through the CDs in my console.  I come up with Pearl Jam’s newest album, which is self-titled but affectionately referred to as The Avocado Album.  I slide it into the CD player, which eats it like it does any other CD.  The first track, Life Wasted, begins to play.  The opening riff is monstrous, thunderous, and somehow sparse.

Bum-bum-dumdum, Bum-ba-dumdum!

Then the drum and bass kick in:

BUM-BUM-DUMDUN (wuaa!), BUM-BA-DUMDUM!

I know before Eddie even sings a word that somehow I am now hearing this song for the first time. Months ago, when the CD first came out, I knew I had a connection to this song, as most people probably feel. Anyone who is through something, on the other side of something, who is doing good or feeling better, probably feels a connection to this song.  I’ve used a quote from it as my MySpace headline more than once.   Maybe it’s just that there are so many Pearl Jam songs that are already personal to me, so many that I’ve internalized, that for awhile there wasn’t room for one more Big One, one more emotional juggernaut for me to process.  But today, on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, that opening riff hit me square in the gut like a dead fish on the poop deck, and I knew I was in for a ride. He started singing, and I started to sing with him, loud and with more gusto that I expected:

You’re always saying that there’s something wrong. I’m starting to believe that was your plan all along.  Death came around, forced to hear it’s song. And know tomorrow can’t be depended on…

It’s seven years ago. Younger me sits by a fire, a bonfire of sorts, in the yard of some tiny cabin in some vast woods.  I’m by myself on a makeshift bench formed by a log and two large rocks.  In the cabin, 50 yards away in the darkness, loud thumping rap music is playing and the kids from work are dancing.  Some of them are probably making out.  The stars are out in force but I can barely see them.  My head spins wildly, like the amusement park rides I’ve always been too scared to get on.  I’m wondering where all my money went.  I got a 600 dollar paycheck just three days ago, and upon opening my wallet at the liquor store this afternoon, found only a twenty.  And I cashed the whole thing–there’s none in the bank.  I had enough for a bottle of gin and a pack of smokes.  After the party tonight, I’ll be distinctly fucked.  Nobody wanders over to sit next to me and chat, because I turned into “Wolfman” an hour ago.  I snipe at everybody who comes near, or tell them there’s no God, or their shirt is ugly, or they’re fat, or whatever I deem to be wrong with them.  I drink my gin and coke and my stolen wine coolers like they were Gatorade and wander off into a meadow, where I pass out wondering where my money went and why women don’t jump at the chance to sleep with me the way they used to.

I’ve seen the home inside your head, all locked doors and unmade beds.  Open sores unattended.  Let me say just once that–

It’s eight years ago.  Younger me is crouched alongside the house I’m sharing with a married couple.  It’s somewhere around 2 AM, and it’s raining.  It’s not pouring–this isn’t a movie, after all–it’s just drizzling.  But it’s cold.  It’s that barely-autumn part of autumn, where it wants to be summer during the day and winter at night, and fools like me refuse to change from shorts to pants.  I have no idea why I’m not inside.  Maybe I’m locked out and maybe I’m not.  I’m drinking the cooking wine my friends kept in the bottom cabinet, beside the dishwasher.  It’s salty as hell; it tastes like flavored tears.  Even for someone in my desperate position, I must drink slowly or risk vomiting.  It’s a small bottle–probably two liters, but it takes me over an hour to finish it, chain-smoking menthol cigarettes and, yes, singing Pearl Jam tunes.  When it’s finally empty, I find I’m not even buzzed.  But I managed to keep the shakes away, and somehow (and somewhere) fall asleep for an evening of listless, dark-dread dreams.

I have faced it, a life wasted! I’m never going back again!
I escaped it, a life wasted! I’m never going back again!
I have tasted a life wasted! I’m never going back again!

It’s seven years ago. The alcoholic girl I am dating has stood me up again.  I don’t even like her that much, but it’s fun to have a girlfriend after all these years without one, and especially nice that she doesn’t even look at me funny, no matter how much I drink, and she lets me fuck her no matter how drunk I am.  We made plans to meet at 2 PM at Nell’s Supermarket, because she has to drop her sister off there for work.  I prepared for the evening by waking up at 11, showering, dressing and getting thoroughly drunk.  Swaying and stinking I left my Dad’s house and drove the 20 minutes to meet her.  At 2:30 I already know she’s not coming, but I keep hope alive by getting the ready-made gin and coke out of my car.  I’ve always got one in there, in a McDonald’s Super Sized soda cup.  I replenish it every time I go home, so it’s always full.  It’s a sunny winter day and the sun sets early.  The black flat pavement cools like a huge ice pack.  I wander around in the dark, sipping my drink and smoking, looking in people’s cars, admiring the red Exit sign glow in the closed banks, talking to some local skateboarders about God-knows-what.  I pass out in my driver’s seat around 7 PM.  I awake, with no saliva in my mouth and an intense need to pee, at 3 AM.  I drive back to Dad’s house and pee in the lawn.

The world awaits just up the stairs…leave the pain for someone else. There’s nothing back there for you to find…or was it you, you left behind?

It’s a little over six years ago.  It’s my first morning waking up in rehab.  It’s a strange, glowy feeling.  I need a drink, that much is clear.  I also can’t seem to move.  It’s about 18 hours since I had a drink, which is much longer than I’ve gone over the past year.  The shaking is bad.  The fever is worse.  And yet, I am not afraid, because here I am safe.  Here I cannot get it.  Here they will make me whole.
It’s a 3 bed room, but I am alone in it.  The other 2 beds lay undisturbed, made up with precision like a hotel bed.  My blinds are drawn but sun beats through them, is hot and sticky like summer, although it’s December.  Shadows of people move across the window, they laugh and blow smoke out of their mouths.  I wish I could join them out there, but am afraid.  I’m afraid I won’t ever be able to move again, I’m afraid I won’t fit in, I’m afraid they won’t identify with me, I’m afraid they’ll call me short and laugh, I’m afraid I won’t know what to do.  I’m afraid I’ll want to drink for the rest of my life, always and forever, without ceasing.  I’m afraid everyone will know that about me.

You’re always saying you’re too weak to be strong.  You’re harder on yourself than just about anyone.  Why swim the channel just to get this far?  Halfway there, why would you turn around?

It’s six years ago.  This is to be my last day living with my mother.  It was a nice, idyllic half-year stay in the countryside of New Jersey.  Almost a second childhood.  Her home, like her, a womb.  Her three silent cats who seemed to know I was nursing back to health.  The sun-drenched linoleum floors while I had the place to myself, shiny like a summer lake.  I watched the years final snow melt from my bedroom window and watched Spring inundate the thirsty world with water, and green, and everywhere insects.  I gained real weight and shaved everyday, ate candy like I meant it and apples, too.  I wrote so many poems about so many things, my mind surprised by time and clarity.  I cried with joy and sadness as I drove away, toward home, toward my boyhood town, to see if I could now do it this time.  To try to live on my own without fear.

Darkness comes in waves.  Tell me, why invite it to stay?  You’re warm with negativity, yes, comfort is an energy, but why let the sad song play?

It’s three years ago.  I’m moving the last of my boxes into my my first very-own apartment, the first place that I will live totally by myself.  It’s a nice, wood-panelled place with a pretty big living room and off-street parking.  I’m not worried about affording it, or about being alone, or fitting in or being able to do the next right thing.  I walk into the bathroom, looking at the sink and the mirror.  My sink and mirror.  I just stand and stare, because I can’t believe I have my own sink and my own mirror.

I have faced it, a life wasted! I’m never going back again!
Oh I escaped it, a life wasted! I’m never going back again!
Having tasted a life wasted, I’m never going back again!
Oh I erased it, a life wasted! I’m never going back again!

Seven Mary Three in Reading

A few things here about an upcoming Seven Mary Three show.

First:  I just bought a ticket to a Seven Mary three show on Friday, August 14th, at The Silo in Reading, PA.  I bought it from TicketsNow, which is a subsidiary of Ticketmaster, but is is not Ticketmaster.  The convenience charge was four dollars, which brought my total for the ticket to twenty six dollars. How awesome is that in this day and age????

Second:  I welcome anyone who might want to come to this to buy a ticket and tag along with me.  I’ll drive.  Caveat:  there are three opening bands, and they all fall into the “hardcore” genre (oddly, since 7m3 is anything but).  I’ve checked them all out on MySpace and they’re not, like, devil music, or super-tempo, like Pantera or anything.  They’re quite listenable, and I kinda liked one of them (Seventh Corvus, who call themselves hardcore but sounded more like Dashboard Confessional mixed with O.A.R.).  After listening to them, I decided it would be worth it.  And they’re all local bands, so chances are over 50% of the crowd will be there to see 7m3.

Third: If any of you are in the mood for a cheap dose of live music, but are largely unfamiliar with 7m3 outside of “Cumbersome”, I have just created a rockin’ mix disc which I would be happy to get to you if you aren’t sure you want to come.  Adrienne, I’m dropping yours in the mail tomorrow.

Also, is it possible to sleep on your head wrong?  Cause I think I did last night.

Seth’s Summer Movie Scorecard

So far:

Wolverine: 3 out of 5

Star Trek: 4 out of 5

Terminator Salvation: 4 out of 5

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian: 4 out of 5

Drag Me to Hell: 5 out of 5

Land of the Lost: 2 out of 5

Year One: 4 out of 5

Bruno: 3 out of 5

Public Enemies: 3 out of 5

Things That Are True Facts and Beyond Dispute

Nobody understands the economic concept of “futures”.

Chinese food delivery men are the nicest delivery men.

Stephen King’s best days are behind him.

The best Stephen King film adaptation is “The Shawshank Redemption”.  The best horror film adaption of King’s is “Misery”, unless you categorize that as Suspense, in which case the best horror adaptation is “It”.

The best color is green.

Foreign money always looks weird.

Vinyl is better than CDs.

Daylight Savings Time is stupid.

Ten things that are “masterpieces”:

1. Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Oddysey”.
2. Tupac’s “Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.”
3. Dave Eggers’ “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”
4. Carnivale
5. Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs”
6. Roy Thomas’ 1992 run on Dr. Strange
7. Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself
8. Picasso’s “Guernica”
9. Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”
10. Any “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live featuring Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon

Ten things often mistaken for “masterpieces”.

1. Stanely Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove”
2. Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”
3. Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections”
4. Twin Peaks
5. Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction”
6. Chris Claremont’s Days of Future Past
7. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl
8. Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”
9. August Wilson’s “Fences”
10. Gilda Radner on “Weekend Update”

Cherry is by far the best wood for furniture.

Al Gore would have made a fine president.

Philip Larkin is the best British poet ever.

Pink Floyd does have a masterpiece, and it is of course “Echoes”.

Three languages that are attractive:
1. French
2. English
3. Russian

Amnesia would not be fun.

Pooping is fun.

The best ending of any book ever is the last page of The Grapes of Wrath.

Nobody really likes cigars.

Ticketmaster really is evil.

G is the most pleasing chord.

Anyone can golf.

Maya Angelou is a terrible poet.

One pair of new socks is better than three new shirts.

The best “indie rock” song ever written is Death Cab For Cutie’s “What Sarah Said”.

David Lynch movies don’t make sense, and it isn’t admirable, either.  Even “Dune”.

Sleeping more than 9 hours is bad.  So is less than 5.

Haircuts are a waste of money.

The five best Johnny Depp movies are, in order:

1. Dead Man
2. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
3. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
4. The Libertine
5. From Hell

Are We All Big Brother?

A few days ago, I quite accidentally, and with no little surprise, saw myself on YouTube.  I was wasting a few minutes before bed by looking up video of concerts I had been to, because watching video from a show you were at is both very fun, and very surreal.  I looked up footage from the Presidents of the United States of America show I attended a few months back, in Lancaster, with my friend Mary.  We had been in the front row, so the last thing I expected to see was us.  Well. lo and behold, the only video from that show was taken from behind the stage, and Mary and I are quite visible up front.  Here is the video.  Mary and I are pretty much directly in front of the lead singer, Chris Balew.  She’s the one with the blonde hair, pulled up, wearing a blue semi-V-neck top.  I’m next to her, quite obviously unimpressed with the show.

The shock of seeing this got me to thinking: how many places was I visible on the internet, without even knowing about it?

This is a more difficult search to undertake than you think.  I started with concerts and events, as it is a specific place and time which can be pinpointed and searched for, and where video and photographs were almost certianly being taken.  However, my penchant for being in the front row disqualifies me for most YouTube concert videos, which are normally taken by people behind the front row, focusing on the act.  The Presidents show was quite a fluke.

However, I did hit minor pay dirt when searching for images from the recent Explosions in the Sky concert Mary and I attended in Central Park.  Here is a picture from a website called Brooklyn Vegan.  Mary can be seen on the far right of the photograph; she’s out of focus, but it’s definitely her.  I was to her left, so I’m not in the picture, although you can see my white t-shirt and half of my head.

What is amazing is, if you go to the full article on Brooklyn Vegan, which is here, and page down and look at all the photos there, you’ll see it’s kinda amazing that Mary and I are not visible in a clear-as-day, professional photograph on that website.  There are photos of just about everyone in the front row except for us.  And how many of those people know their pictures are there?   Sure, this has always happened, to an extent, with background photos in newspapers and other print media, but with the explosion of content which is the internet, it must be happening alot more often, and people probably know about it alot less.

I found one more image of myself (and once again, Mary) during my admittedly short-lived search. Here is a photo collage of Constantines, who were the opening band for Explosions in the Sky.  Mary and I can first be seen in the fifth photo.  I am the last front-row spectator able to be seen before the rest are obscured by a keyboard; I’m wearing a white t-shirt.  Mary can be seen to my right, once again recognizable by her blonde hair.  Once you’ve gotten a bearing for where we are, we can be seen a handful of more times throughout the collage.

Now, these are, of course, small, almost unnoticable examples.  If I had shown you that Constantines video collage, you would not have known I was there.  But, where else am I on the internet that I’m not thinking to look?  Was someone taking pictures at the Newville Fountain Festival last month–the small-town, blip-on-the-radar event that the world doesn’t care about?  Maybe they were, and maybe my face is emblazoned on some website of an artist who specializes in photographs of small town celebrations.  Or someone just taking pictures on the street.  Or maybe someone was taking pictures of airport departures the last time I got off an airplane.  And there are almost certainly more of me at concerts; I got exhausted looking after only half an hour, and there’s a whole lotta internet out there.

The question is, do I care?  Or should I care? And should you care?

I have no idea.  What do you think?

Six Picture Sunday

Welcome to the first of a new tradition I’m going to have here at Notes From the Fire: Six Picture Sundays.  Every Sunday, I’m going to post six pictures here.  I’ve made a rule for myself that they must be taken this day, so they can’t be old pictures or even pictures from this week.  It’s sorta a challenge to myself, to get myself taking pictures more regularly, and with a purpose.  These can be pictures of any kind, but they have to be something I consider interesting.  They can be pictures of myself or friends, but they have to be interesting, not just pictures of us goofing off.  And most of you will probably see them before you get here anyway, as I’ll post them on Facebook and Myspace, as well.  Click on any of them to see the full-size version.

A Big ‘Huh?’

Now, I love Judd Apatow as much as the next movie geek, but the man just said the most gigantically stupid thing on Fresh Air on NPR.  He was asked how his childhood, and high school, affected his comedy.  He said this:

“Well, I was born in December, so I was always the youngest kid in my class, so I was also the smallest, so I was horrible at sports.  I think getting picked last in gym class all the time really had an influence on me.”

What? I can’t even believe I heard that.  Let’s dissect this, coming the viewpoint of my own personal experience:

1.  I was born in January, but I was never the oldest kid in my class.  There were kids born in August who were older than me.  I’m not sure how this works.

2. Does Apatow mean to tell us that the difference of a few months in age, in high school, is still effecting your size?  Um.  Ok.

3.  More about number two:  I was born in January, and I think we know how that worked out for me.

4.  I was a very little guy in high school, but I was never picked last in gym class.  You can always own in gym class if you just play your ass off.  Don’t blame your size for the fact that you’re a pussy.

Really, why would you say such a magnificently idiotic thing?

They Were Long Ago, and Far Away

It was the only car I ever had with Cruise Control in it. When I slammed into the deer, it was a spectacular sight.

The way her hair falls across her face; the way the light catches her lips.

I remember we were just laying there in a field. We were high as kites and had a bright idea.

It flew off the hood as though it were rubber, or as though it had been pulled by strings. Even in that immediate, gasping instant I thought of Santa’s Reindeer. One second, leaping onto the road from the brush. The next, quite airborne.

And then there is her little cough, the stuttering lip. The upturned, pleading eyes.

Why not stretch some Duct tape across this back country road? we thought. And wait for a car to hit it.

The noise was incredible. The front section of my little whatever-it-was car crumpled as though that was what it had always wanted to do. I was suddenly motionless.

Of course she doesn’t want me to cheat. Of course her eyes aren’t begging me to take her pants off, to fumble her lips with mine, to stroke my hand in her hair in a together-colored instant. Of course she knows I have a girlfriend and things are different now. Of course she isn’t breathing in my ear.

It took almost a whole roll to stretch from one side of the road to another, and securely fasten to two trees. We hid in the corn. We waited.

It still surprises me how calmly I got out of the car. How serenely I looked at the smoking heap in front. The silence of the surrounding fields. The rustling wind. The complete darkness. The sound of the deer, smashing his antlers off the pavement in agony.

But I go along. I can’t stop. I run my hands down the outside of her thighs. The urge is growing now. Still she breathes in my ear. The unfairness of it bothers me.

It seems we waited hours. Finally, headlights over the crest, the silouhette of a line in their path.

Mennonites in a van stopped to help me move the car from the road. The glass cunched underfoot like dead grasshoppers. My taillights were still on. Fifty yards in front of us, the deer thrashed, bleating, moaning, it’s innards exposed. It seemed as though you could smell it’s shit. A Mennonite said I wish we had a pistol.

I tell her we’ve got to stop. She puts my fingers in her mouth.

The SNAP was louder than either of us had expected. We wound the tape too tight round the trees. The car screeched to a halt immediately, with such vigor that the burnt rubber smell from the tires was instantly in the air. We turned. We ran into the field.

A local stopped. He was driving an enormous white van and was interested in the dying deer. He pulled over onto the shoulder and got out, asked if everyone was OK. I told him everyone was fine. It was so dark out and so cold. The man pulled a crow-bar out from under his front seat. He walked toward the deer. A Mennonite said Oh thank God.

I stand up with a quickness, bound from the bed. My shirt is on the floor. She’s asking what’s wrong. I can barely breathe.

We ran so hard and fast the corn stalks cut our legs and we lost our shoes in the mud. We heard cursing from behind us. I think at some point we climbed a tree. We were kids then and everything was so much more important, and so much less important, too.

He grabbed the antlers. It didn’t look easy. The head was still thrashing quite a bit. He beat it and beat it. The head stopped moving but the legs kept twitching. He kept beating it. The Mennonites and myself stood, watching, until it was done. We had to. There would be no other goodbye.

Some PJ Love

I just opened the latest issue of Esquire (I’m a little behind though, I’ve had it for 2-3 weeks) and one of the first features in it is a graph of live musical acts called “9 Shows a Man Should See”.  The graph shows all 9 acts on a “hugeness” scale.  At the very, very top, of the “hugeness” scale of bands a man (this is a men’s magazine, after all) should see, is Pearl Jam.  And this is the text accompanying this grand honor:

“That Jane’s Addiction and Nine Inch Nails are on the road reliving 1991 seems even more embarrassing when you consider that Pearl Jam is filling stadiums by forsaking nostalgia.  They do a few hits at their shows, but it’s their reputation for the unexpected that moves tickets–and bootlegs.  Pearl Jam is the new new Grateful Dead.”

A Burning Poem

When everything folds in on itself
like a freshly laundered black bath towel
(I picture before me the faces
of my unborn children—
both boys—
their mouths hanging open as they watch me
climb from the wrecked car,
or the oldest one’s simple relaxed pleasure
as he plays his trombone on our brown
living room couch,
or the watermelon-sized thing in my stomach
the day I have to explain wet dreams)
I hope there will be some signpost
(when she takes deep breaths near the bowl of apricots
she sneezes without fail)
or word balloon maybe
(in the mail this day I happily open
my first AARP newsletter.  It is surprisingly
well put-together, and folded with an intense precision.
I thought this would be more depressing.)
that somehow encapsulates what this whole damn thing
was about, why there were so many
(a winter sky has never been so blue as this crisp morning)
comings and goings and crude botched plans,
(the stethoscope is cold, like a pen left in a car,
but she is nice.  I like nice doctors.  Her long brown hair
and puffy cheeks say she is too young for me,
but sometimes I still wonder; I wonder
if she knows she smells so nice or that she
should go fuck people before she dries like the rest of us)
so many unsaid miracles of devotion.
(when Norah, my youngest granddaughter, asks me
how grasshoppers work, I tell her what I know,
which isn’t much.  We walk a bit more through the tall browning grass,
stopping before we get too close to the creek.
Her parents tell me to keep her away from the creek,
which is fine by me.  I hate mosquitos.
I stop by the old Spruce and tell her how
when I was thirty-four I climbed this tree
with her grandmother and we kissed in a glowing sunset
and how then, as now, the night smelled like new milk,
still steaming from a cow’s insides)

Grey Gardens

I just cried like a total baby watching the HBO film version of the classic documentary ‘Grey Gardens’.  If you haven’t seen the Maysles’ brothers’ documentary, the existence of this new film may not excite you, but to those of us in ‘the cult’ of the movie. well…I for one wasn’t sure this HBO movie (starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange) was a good idea.

Well, it was a good idea.  The basic human problems that these women’s lives represented–faded, failed dreams, the loss of youth, creating your own cages, and both the glory of family and the burden of it–could not have been scripted any better (and they weren’t scripted).  Even the house, Grey Gardens itself, stands as one of the most incredibly obvious symbols in the history of film–and it was real.

I just finished the movie, and I am reeling.  It has done to me what all good films need to do; it has moved me for the characters, it has made me contemplate my own life, and it has filled me with a desire to tell everyone I know about it.  Please, if you have access to a disc-by-mail service, do yourself a favor and watch the classic documentary ‘Grey Gardens’ (and then watch everything else the Maysles’ brothers did), and if you have access to a video store, go rent the new film based on the documentary.  You won’t regret it.

Hits From the Blog

Some of you long-term readers may notice I am posting some things frm previous blogs; I have gained some new readers lately, and it seems a waste to leave these older entries just atrophy on an old, unlooked-at website.  If you’ve seen any of these entries before, feel free to just ignore them.

Whispering Back at the Hard Man

At first I barely noticed him—the sly, implausible, mean-spirited loiterer whispering Hard Man trash in my head.  I dismissed the filth and noise as an insignificant side current—something that could have been running in me, polluted and unnoticed, for years, hidden by high-level self-regard.  Who let this in?  Who could the Hard Man hurt?

But over time, he’s claimed space.  Before my own eyes, not (I think) because of any overt action on my part, I have changed for the worse in thought and feeling.  It’s a done thing, seemingly, over and done.  The Hard Man has finished the job.

The easiest place to notice the Hard Man is while watching television with other people.  Shake my head slowly, nod disapprovingly, frown, frown.  The newscasts with the reports of their dead do not truly sadden me; the earthquakes don’t make me question God or want to donate money or clothes; the latest Surgeon General’s report doesn’t scare me; the Hard Man whispers in my ear, more, more.  I continue to frown on the outside.  The purpose is to forestall charges of heartlessness.  My humanity isn’t yet extinguished, says the look—my anguish at the suffering of the dead and injured and bereaved.  Naturally the look isn’t to be trusted. The numbers delivered by the anchorpersons settle and spread within the Hard Man’s body much like any middle-range substance fix.  Always I’m aware that the emotions I present to the human tragedies are removed (either slightly or far) from the emotions felt (which can include gratification).

Wanting terrible news to be worse, relishing catastrophe whose depth cannot be known—this condition developed quite swiftly, moving me (via the Hard Man) away from appropriate feeling toward the forbidden.  The Hard Man commenced functioning as a mind-within-a-mind, finding satisfaction in crashes both abstract and substantive.  At the very first suggestion of his whisper—maybe at ten years old?—I could easily separate my mind from his.  I, after all, was compassionate and sane.  He was not.  He was some otherworldly distaff, sent to test me.  As I’ve grown, his voice and my inner monologues have meshed, melded.  There is now a clear division between my outer and inner selves.  My outer: what the world expects of a humane person.  The inner is all Hard Man.

Only when I recognized this was I able to try and change.  I haven’t tried yet; it is too hard.  I give money to Amnesty International, the Red Cross, the Sierra Club, the Four Diamonds fund and the Democratic Party.  Shouldn’t this be enough to bridge the disparity the Hard Man creates?  I help others as much as I can; what do my inner thoughts matter in the face of such action?  It is difficult to convince oneself of the import of inner change.  Society (perhaps correctly) only values your outward actions.

And I fear the Hard Man is spreading, hopping from innocent bystander to innocent bystander, loosing his whispers like rancid television commercials.  Beware of him.  Care about the dead and the dying, the suffering and bereaved.  Be careful of what you watch and listen to, and how much.

And once he hatches he digs his claws in deep.

Have I mentioned how much I despise the Newsweek re-design?  I really, really hate it.

7/19/09

1.  Before an awesome lunch with Joni, we saw a squirrel trying to get into a drainpipe, and it was hilarious.

2.  Joni also wore what I would consider to be the shirt best matched to the person wearing it, ever.  It’s like someone made that shirt for her.

3.  Started off my day by watching 2005’s ‘Rumor Has It’.  I loved it. What’s going on with me and romantic comedies?  I used to think they were the devil.

4.  Saw the very first guy who was my roommate my first time through rehab walking down the street with a case of beer.

5.  I’m going to mention my sister now so I can create a sister tag for my blog, which I don’t understand how one doesn’t already exist.  PS my sister rules.

6.  Walked from my apartment to Thornwald Park, did some reading, met Michael there, and we watched a nice free bluegrass show in the park.  Talked through most of it.  Beautiful evening for sitting in a park for live music.  Instead of walking right home, I stopped at the theater and saw ‘Bruno’.  It was OK.  It’s no ‘Borat’.  Then stopped at the chinese buffet.  Then went to wal-mart and bought more stuff than I should have, since the walk back was rather long.  My shoulder hurts.

7.  Quote from Michael today:  “You want to eat my arm, don’t you?”

8.  Mary is a freelance writer.  She got a job today to write a screenplay that apparently involves a road trip and medicinal marijuana.  I’m excited for her!

9.  Took some dumpster pictures on my walk today.  I continue to be amazed by how many great dumpster pics I can get in this one podunk town of Carlisle.

10.  Going to bed now, going to try to catch up on the 8 unread magazines on my bedside table.

11.  Oh, PS, another quote from Michael today:  “What’s a romantic attachment?  Is that like a dildo or something?”

12.  Things I need to add to this entry to create tags for my blog without having to actually write an entry about them:

Paul, Modest Mouse, NPR, P.T. Anderson, Philip Larkin, High School, Childhood, spirituality, woods

Seth’s Summer Movie Scorecard

So far:

Wolverine: 3 out of 5

Star Trek: 4 out of 5

Terminator Salvation: 4 out of 5

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian: 4 out of 5

Drag Me to Hell: 5 out of 5

Land of the Lost: 2 out of 5

Year One: 4 out of 5

Bruno: 3 out of 5

For Ruby

Following is one of my favorite poems that I have written.  Whenever I list my favorites, it still typically ranks in the top five.  However, it has now garnered an interesting history.  I wrote it for a woman I knew who was dying of cancer; in fact, at the time of its writing, the doctors had given her a month to live.  Miraculously, she did live, pulled through, made a full recovery, and then proceeded to pursue me romantically.  We dated, in a minor way, for a month or two until I perceived she was a chronically bad person, and I cut ties with her.  Shortly after cutting ties, it dawned on me suddenly one day that she had been faking her cancer, along with many other smaller aspects of her life.  Recently, other people in her life have been uncovering her web of lies, and I was, briefly, drawn into the fracas, despite the fact that I don’t care about this woman any more.  Anyway, long story short, this whole affair has made me think alot about this poem again, and ponder how much the true events of life might change the content of the poem–but that’s all a discussion for another day.  I still love the poem, and if she had been dying, I think it’s a pretty swell tribute, and it aint easy to write a good poem for someone who’s dying.  I have changed her name (and hence also the title of the poem) because she doesn’t deserve to be associated with it anymore.  So here it is:

For Ruby

There are men with grease-covered fingers
Who in shack-like bars
Drink strong whiskey
Night after night
And speak of earthy things
Like work and sports
Cars and overtime
Night after night.
They wear the tattered clothes of toil
And smell like mud and forgotten coffee;
These men with the grease-covered fingers
Don’t come and go
(don’t change season to season)
And for better or worse
They know the value of a passing hour.

There are wrinkled women with knitting needles
Who in large bay windows sit
As the town becomes cold
And all around them lights go dim
(pull the needle, pull the string).
They watch the cars drive slowly by
While inside their brains
The foggy undercurrent of old age rages
(the broken bones of youth?
the marriages, the foot doctors,
the miserable trips to the beach with the bee stings,
remember?)
And the smells of fried eggs and moth balls
Leak from under their doors;
These sagging women with the knitting needles
Have forgotten what they used to know about time,
And bodies.

There are the lawyers, the savages, the body-building kids;
There are men in tight pants, women at car washes, babies in blankets;
There are balloonists, enthusiasts, part-time party clowns;
There are the frat boys with the tucked-in Polos,
Women on Death Row delivering infants,
The dry-wall hangers with the nagging cough, the cab drivers who smell of leather,
Shoe salesman round every corner,
Folks asking for coins,
Mail ladies with Carpal Tunnel
Soda-guzzling fat kids
Coked-out sweaty toll booth people
The nameless the homeless the shoeless the hairless
There are the football players, the deacons, the late-night whores;

There are the gray judges, trampoline families, laughter running through sprinklers;
There are Lobster-catchers whose hands smell like salt and death;
There are Siamese twins, plow drivers, folks with no faith;
There are musty shut-ins,
Gamers, the high-fashion minded,
All of them silently ticking, ticking, ticking,
The world a massive mutable bomb.

And then there is you, Ruby, with your
Six-to-eight weeks to live
And your twirling dance ’round the dining room;
Oh how I wish I could know you more
(ask you more questions, tell you more things)
And that time could stop for now.
But it won’t
(it doesn’t; it never has)
And when your spark arcs over my roof some night
On it’s way to where you’re going
I hope we can share a brief glance
So you can see me smiling so wide
Thinking
You lived!  You lived!

I Swelled, Everything Swelled

Saturday after a small rain, the air still thick,
the stream loaded with silt and fertilizer.
I need to run but my lungs are thick with
too much of some things, not enough of others.
A few mosquitoes, lots of sweat, the calm woods
and if I look close the light from the stream
moving on the undersides of the high leaves.
Why should I care about pronouns and referents
when the purple wildflowers I can’t name are
standing tall, when the birds are crooning easy,
when the cricket I saw ten minutes ago
is still crossing the path?  I thought
crickets hopped but this one was walking,
hustling but not going fast, a slow foot
onto the hardpack and a long way to go,
some distant kin to the little mammal
like a round tube of hurry that scuffed out
fast onto the highway and met neatly
with my left front tire so that I saw it again,
a week ago, on the way to Pine Grove.  I said
nothing to my friend about it as we drove past,
and she didn’t notice it.
It had seemed to know what it was doing.
I have had it with road kill poems
larded with large noble animals, with
invisible strangers who leave the terrible
bags of evidence to swell and testify,
and yet I know it is not enough merely
to mourn our own small dead, the ones
we do not know or love until we kill them
helplessly, just going where we need to go.

Hail, Hail

I know this might blow some of your minds, but after much careful thought, I have decided to not see Pearl Jam this year.  I know this doesn’t affect any of your lives, but this post is just an attempt to cut down on the amount of times I have to say this to people, who will inevitably be asking me about it as the shows grow nearer.  I’ve seen them 15 times.  I need a few years off.  The last few times I saw them, I felt like the magic had gone out of the experience for me; in addition, my musical tastes have been evolving rapidly and there are countless bands I want to see who I haven’t even seen once, let alone 15 times.  I am going to save my money and free time for shows and experiences I haven’t had before.  I hope as many of you who want to see pearl Jam this tour get tickets and get to go, and hopefully text me the setlist so I can be excited by proxy.  Hail, hail the lucky ones!

Mercedes

I used to write about more than just women, he thinks to himself.  I used to write about politics and death.  And sex.  Sex is a separate subject from women.

The lights are out and it’s 6pm.  He’s just told a friend he is in a “minor funk”, but that he likes it because it makes him feel artistic.  What a liar he is.

He has lit at least ten votives and sat them strategically around the apartment.  The cigarette smoke hangs impotent in the air.  This room is like some sort of mourner’s tomb.  Whatever that is.

It’s not even that I’m lonely for a woman, he thinks. Women are around me all the time. My life is FILLED with women.  They’re just such an easy topic, and perhaps I’ve just become a lazy writer.

It’s amazing how much he lies to himself.

Why do I keep thinking of Spanish class? I’m not even sure what grade I’m remembering.  But I remember HER. Mercedes. At least, that’s the name she used in Spanish class.  She sat behind me, because her last name started with F. Mercedes. I remember how I would drop my pencil, turn my head to the side for just a moment, to catch a glimpse of her thigh.  My heart would race, my stomach would cramp, I’d feel sick with desire.  It’s been over a decade and still I remember it, as though it were a string of momentous events: like every time I saw her it was my birthday.  She was just a woman.  I still don’t understand.

Rising from the computer chair, he fills his coffee.  He still hasn’t eaten today, and the caffeine is making him tremble.  He’s running low on smokes and the thought of a trip to the gas station fills him with dread.  What if he should see an attractive woman while he’s out?  Would it ruin his day?

She would bite her fingernails in class, and then after removing the shards from her mouth she would hand them to me.  It was a joke.  But I kept them.  It was a piece of her.  After Spanish let out I would go to my locker, fumble through my bag for my hidden pack of cigarettes, and put that day’s fingernails in the cellophane.  Later, at home, I would take them out of the cellophane and put them in the small locked cedar box I kept under my bed.  Inside that cedar box was a large white jewelery box–the kind wedding rings come in.  That’s where I put the fingernails, and that’s where they still are.  For reasons beyond my understanding, that’s where they’ll always be.

Snuffing the votives, he turns the TV on and sets the channel to the blue screen, the one where the DVD player is waiting for you to put a disc in.  It fills the dark room with a warm, dim glow.  Lights another cigarette.

I had English class with her, too.  I’d bring lollipops to that class with me and give her one each day, so I could watch her.  It was a miraculous sight to a 17 year old boy in the thrall of his hormones, but even more miraculous because I knew it was the only way I’d ever see her do anything like that.  She was a mountain I’d never climb, more out of reach, even, than the popular girls who didn’t even know me.  It was incredibly sad and exciting.  Which I suppose is why I still think about it: it is still and always will be sad and exciting.  Distance from an event does not change the nature of it, and while time does heal all wounds, sensations–like a dissolving sugar cube on your tongue–remain constant yet diminishing until our last breath.

He rises, turns on the lights and pops some Rice-a-Roni in the microwave.  He thinks about calling the friend back and telling them that his “minor funk” is over, that he feels very much better now.  But best to not bother her with his banter.  She’s probably sitting down to dinner with her husband and kids, she is probably very much busy doing other things.  Mercedes–although she’s a very good friend nowadays–is living quite a different life than he is.

Welcome to the new and FINAL blog!

Well hello.  Welcome to my new blogspace at WordPress.  I swear this is the final home for my blog.  Many apologies to those of you who, over the past 6 or so years, have followed me to, by my count, 5 different blogging sites, all the way back to that weird AOL Journal Community that no longer exists.  I really love the WordPress; as far as free blogging goes, it doesn’t get any better.  You’ll notice I have some sweet shit on here, such as a widget of my current at-home Netflix movies and my Twitter feed (although I’ve been having a few problems with the Twitter feed display, hopefully to be resolved soon).  Keep your eye on here, favorite it, bookmark it, etc, cause I’m not going to alert you via Facebook or Myspace to every new post.

Also, I had to get rid of a few of the posts from LiveJournal because they didn’t make the transition intact; entries that I had originally copied into LJ from Word came through with a whole bunch of code in the text and I just don’t have the time to clean them up.  They will live on forever at LiveJournal, however.  Also, all of the LJ comments have transferred to this site.

If I have linked to your blog on my blogroll and you’d like me to remove the link, let me know.

I’ve got some kickass blogs coming very soon!

Best conversation I’ve had in days

Not Me:  Did you say seafood rub?

Me:  Yep, seafood rub.  Hey (third party, name changed.  Fake name:  Buck) Buck, have you ever had a seafood rub?

Buck:  *shrugs*

Not Me:  I hear they’re very relaxing.

Me:  yeah Buck, you should try it, they put raw lobster and crab meat on you and really work them into your deep tissues.

Buck:  *shrugs*

Not Me:  It’s the best thing that’s happened to me since I married my own balls.

Me:  It’s legal in Massachusetts.

Not Me:  Thanks for walking them down the aisle.

Me:  It was a pleasure to give your balls away.

Whatever There Is

Wake up at 8.  Drive for hours.  Sunny.  XM Radio and Red Bull, menthol cigarettes.  Her, black and blue sheer pants, hair up, speaking over the wind from the windows.  Park in New Jersey, train into Manhattan.  That rushing air from nowhere in the tunnels.  Panhandlers.  Pretty girls. Men in suits.  The East Village.  Coconut Milk bubble tea.  Slow shadows over the pavement.  Spotty cell reception.  I sweat into my t-shirt, a drop falls off my nose.  Subway.  Suddenly air-conditioned.  Uptown Manhattan.  The horns, the bustle.  Central Park.  A Pepsi from a street vendor; her, a Snapple.  Find Summerstage but walk past, searching for a bathroom.  Fountains.  Statues.  Rickshaws.  Horses.  I sweat into my t-shirt, a drop falls off my nose.  Use a bathroom by a tunnel.  Take pictures.  Only one of her–all she’ll allow.  Back toward Summerstage.  Place ourselves in long line, in a cattle chute.  Sun hides.  A bowling ball in the sky.   A flash.  The sky opens, a thunderstorm.  Us, no umbrella, no cover.  At first, this is refreshing.  I like rain; I am not scared of water.  Over time, however, this philosophy changes.  T-shirt and corduroy pants, soaked through like a sunk washcloth.  Shoes, filled with water.  Not just squishing: filled.  Wet is everywhere.  Her pants body-clung, hair disarray.  I like it though she doesn’t believe me.  Line moves, we enter Summerstage.  Rain constant. Astroturf flooring like a thin full sponge.  Somehow we find front row, stage right.  Sheets of water, mini-Niagras, cascade off the roof of the stage, make puddle-pits five feet in front of us.  We cannot speak through the rain.  People dressed in black fill in behind us.  We are allowed to smoke but it is hard.  A security guard gives her a free cup of coffee when he sees her shivering, goosebumps.  I am happy for her but I am cold too.  An hour passes.  A smartly-dressed, attractive hipster twentysomething brunette walks onto stage, takes a microphone.  “Rain or Shine!”, she yells.  Crowd cheers.  But I do not cheer.  First opening act–Castanets–comes out to play.  Horrible. Not even music.  We consider leaving once or twice.  Actually angry at this band.  Torrential rain plus terrible music. We stay.  Castanets finishes.  Rain stops.  Solitary patch of clear blue sky.  Second opening band–Constantines–plays. My ears and eventually my heart likes them very much.  Big pumping rises.  Low heartfelt falls.  Authentic.  On their last song, sun peeks out, catching on leaves behind the stage like hints of a Promised Land.  Cheesy to say but that’s how it felt.  Clothes still soaked, feet miserable, but happy now.  I don’t smoke weed but I smell someone else smoking it and it makes me glad.  Annoying but endearing security guard (of the free coffee fame) chats us up, insists Pennsylvania is six hours from New York.  Explosions in the Sky come out.  It is dusk.  The sky is blue, clear, tiny islands of white clouds drifting over the blue.  “Yasmin the Light” opens the show.  The rising chords.  The flurried hand movements over shiny guitars.  The booming, March Militaire thwack of the drums.  And then into another song, and then into another song, rarely pausing between, a constant rise and fall, an uplift, a pull-back, a wordless sentiment perfectly stated.  Whatever there is within me stirs (I hadn’t noticed how long it’d been stilled)–whatever it is connected to reaches out.  I heave, I shudder, I leak by the light of it’s touch.  What a relief to feel it still move, to upturn my streambed rocks, to get a crawfish to rise, to see it sparkle in the light of my clear-blue day.

Explosions in the Sky setlist for 6/30/09, Central Park Summerstage

1. Yasmin the Light
2. The Birth and Death of the Day
3. A Song For Our Fathers
4. Your Hand in Mine
5. Greet Death
6. Snow and Lights
7. A Poor Man’s Memories
8. Catastrophe and the Cure
9. The Only Moment We Were Alone