The Final Note

Summer has finally, at long, long last come to Erie, and a happier man, I could not be.  As everyone knows, heat is my wheelhouse.  I feel alive, caffeinated, abuzz with ideas, inspiration, energy and hormones.  The world is absolutely mine.

Summer has always been my most creative season.  I realize I’m not an “artist” of any stripe, per se.  An amateur creative writer would best describe me, I suppose, although I like to think I simply live a creative life, from doodling while I watch TV to giving people nicknames.  I’ve come to a point in my life where I’m perfectly content with the fact that I will never be famous for any of the creative arts (I’m simply not good enough at anything), but I like to keep doing things anyway, because a body’s got to do something with all this time, no?

For just about as long as I can remember, I have taken great joy in the act of creation, from words to drawings (bad as they may be) to short films and photography.  I remember in my teens, I spent almost a whole year simply putting words together by twos, on reams and reams of white lined notebook paper (for instance, copper elephant, democratic pants, shoeshine sunrise, garden car, and on and on, thousands of them).  I did this for no other reason than it brought me joy.  I have dozens of other examples like this from my life.

Which brings me to my point.  Despite numerous attempts to deny it to myself, Notes From the Fire is not only no longer bringing me joy, but I believe it to be sapping my creative energies.  I no longer write anything for fun and excitement, but instead to get “views” on my blog.  I no longer write what I most intensely want to write about, but what is “safe” enough for the blog, but “personal” enough to maintain it’s tone.  I also have made myself feel compelled to post with a certain frequency, thereby often resulting in diminished quality and repititious horseshit.  I know that all these problems are simply results of my own mindset regarding The Notes, but I have tried repeatedly to change this mindset, to no avail.  In short, the blog rules me mentally and is crushing me creatively.

I need some time to once again find what it’s like to write for oneself, or for a future audience—and not for immediate consumption.  In addition, I’m feeling my creative juices pulling me in interesting ways, away from simply the written word and into visual arts.  Right now, I really feel like taking some pictures with actual film, having them developed, and collaging them…some sort of themed collage, perhaps.  That sounds fun.  Maybe I’ll do it in my attic and even throw paint at it or something.  But I’m going to do it for myself and nobody’s going to see it, at least not for awhile (and it will probably be no good anyway, but I’ll have a ton of fun doing it).

Don’t worry, I’m not taking The Notes down.  This website will always be here.  Feel free to peruse old entries; I’ll still reply to comments you make on them.  Also, you can always check out my Netflix queue on here.  :)

Something tells me I’ll be back sooner than I imagine, but on a different site and perhaps in a different format.  Or the break will do me wonders and I’ll be back at The Notes sometime.  Who knows?  There are no rules, and now that it’s summer, I’m going to be proving that as much as possible.  For instance, right now it’s 4am, I haven’t slept yet, and as soon as the sun comes up, I’m going to ride my bike all over this town and take lovely pictures all damn day, because I can.

However, you won’t see them on Notes From the Fire.

Don’t worry though, they’ll still be on Facebook.  I haven’t lost my mind!

Thanks to all of you for reading and making Notes From the Fire a lovely, rewarding experience for me!

Still not interested in “The Tree of Life”?  Read this.

Mom heading onto the USS Niagara.

Notes From the Fire is currently on a 4 or 5 day blog hiatus, to allow Mr. Notes to spend quality time with his mother, who is visiting.  Please refer all your business to my friend Duane.  Thank you very much.  Also, I didn’t take this picture but I love it:

Suddenly Reaching the Waterfall

Like a road that ends in a sudden barrier.
Or a bridge that collapses just
as you reach it.  Or maybe it’s only a door
that always stood open but is now
firmly locked.  You thought
you had time to explore
every highway and biway, every meandering
small lane at whichever hour
of whatever day or night you pleased.

Yet don’t pretend such surprise.
Everyone always mentioned
an ending.  You never doubted their
word.  Just you didn’t expect it
quite like this, or quite
so soon.

Monday’s song: Woodpigeon, “Home as a Romantisized Concept Where Everyone Loves You Always and Forever”

Home as a Romantisized Concept Where Everyone Loves You Always and Forever
by Woodpigeon

I got a reason
to know there’s more than you,
an untold season
spent elsewhere…somewhere true.
I go to those parties
where everybody is.
I try to find you
but I don’t know who anyone is.

Can’t come home
even if it’s all you want.
Can’t come home
even if it’s all you’ve got.
Lover’s sprain
(though one thinks there’s no such thing);
Can’t come home.
No one wants you once you’ve gone.

I don’t need this,
but I need this to save my face.
You complete it,
my stupid little search for a place.
A place you go into
to be healed and to be free.
Somewhere where there’s no one
quite so beautiful as me.

Can’t come home
even if it’s all you want.
Can’t come home
even of it’s all you’ve got.
Lover’s sprain
(though one thinks there’s no such thing);
Can’t come home.
No one wants you once you’ve gone.

The McBride Viaduct

Not far from my apartment, there is a short bridge known as the McBride Viaduct.  The viaduct connects the east side of the city (the side I live on) to the “bayfront connector”, which is an express thoroughfare with vital access to highways and interstates.

I’ve never driven on the McBride Viaduct, because it closed to traffic the week I moved here.  It was one of the first Erie news stories I was aware of.  A small but extremely vocal group of citizens insists it should stay open, while the local government insists it is unsafe (they waffle on whether it is fixable or eternally doomed).  The vocal group of dissenters will not let the issue go, often throwing rallies, taking out ads, and leaving flyers on our cars.  It has never been made clear to me why they are so concerned about the viaduct staying open.  Although I was never able to use it, I don’t see it as all too important.  There are plenty of other, convenient options for getting where we need to go.

Although it is closed to vehicle traffic, it is open to foot and bicycle use.  Kind of.  There seems to be a gentleman’s agreement on that front; the city seems to indicate that they won’t police the bridge, as long as everyone understands that if they’re on it when it collapses, well…tough shit.  So of course I had to ride my bike across it.  Mom and Dad:  sorry.  I know you hate it when I ride my bike across crumbling, retired urban bridges.  Please avert your eyes.

Here’s some pictures I took on the short but very interesting journy across the bridge, which is closely lined on both sides by aging, decrepit industry, some clearly still active and others in a confusing state of blighted activity.   I actually have a whole lot more really cool pictures from this, but this entry was giving me a lot of technical difficulty, so I’m leaving it at this for now and will post more photos in a few days in a new entry.  And I just discovered something you all might have known already, but in case you didn’t: if you click on a picture, and then when it shows you the “solo” version of that picture, if you click on it again at that point, it shows you a full-screen version of it.  Which I never knew, but is awesome as that is how most of these are meant to be viewed.  After the pictures is some video I took.  It’s not that cinematic—I didn’t expect to use it for anything but once I synced it with the Explosions in the Sky song “Have You Passed Through This Night?” I just had to post it.  As far as I’ve been able to tell, it’s the only video on YouTube of the de-commisioned McBride Viaduct, so who knows, maybe I’ll get famous!

The entrance on the E. 12th St. side of the viaduct, about 5 blocks from where I live.

Me with my trusty steed

 

Audio poem: “Pittsburgh (II)”

Year written: 2003
Collection: White Sugar Man

Nobody seems to have ever given a shit about this one, but I maintain that the ending complex images (and hence the image that the entire poem becomes) is one of my all-time masterstrokes.  If I do say so myself.  Click the gray arrow for the audio version.

Pittsburgh (II)

The white and brown houses
(little giftbox sized things)
are stacked on the hillside
like haphazard pancakes,
so close to each other
it seems from this distance
you could spit into
your neighbor’s kitchen.
The trees
(bulbous barely green things)
are nuzzled densely among the homes,
like proud plant pubics.

The fog clouds slide slowly across it all
like television shadows
across a stroke-stricken face.

I saw a UFO once.  I can eat a whole lot of plain white rice.  What’s with people pronouncing the “day” part of a day as “dee”—like “Mondee”?  I just can’t bring myself to dust things.  You can’t talk me out of taking multi-vitamins.  I’d spend the night with Barbara Walters.    Underrated:  Brazil nuts.  Sometimes I wish my middle name was Balthazar.  I probably couldn’t live without Q-tips.  The three camera sitcom is cool again, in my book.  I’ve never liked fancy bookmarks, which is unfortunate, as they are a frequent gift I recieve.  Is there a future for dry erase boards?  Stop telling me that women like gray hair; I’m not worried about that, I’m just not ready to die.  I’m pretty sure Pennsylvania is the best state in the union.  What the heck is seaweed?  Denim sucks.  I have Emily Osment’s autograph.  I love opossums.  I’ve always wanted to go tobogganing.  This weatherman needs to stop saying “washout”.  I love when women can rock a baseball cap.  I just keep buying Sharpie markers—you can’t stop me.  I’m really good at mopping floors.  I pretend to like “Office Space” more than I actually do.  What’s the deal with flat paint?  I want to learn how to fly a kite.  I’m a surprisngly good swimmer.  Oh, and I’m a fast as hell runner.  Just not a distance runner.  But you aren’t beating me at the 50 yards.  Nope, not even you.

The Tree of Life

What I Look Like on the Outside

Spring nudged its way into winter
perhaps a bit premature,
though the sun tried diligently to warm my face
in between the sullen winds
that tried to whip my hair around,
though I won that battle by having very little hair.
I went about my business
at the bank, the post office, the grocery store,
my usual stops.

She approached in some small black sports-type car
(I don’t know much about cars),
damn near ran me over.
A pretty, petite, twenty-something
sitting mysteriously behind tinted windows,
waved me past–
a pedestrian courtesy.
Then, through an open window,
Excuse me, sir, is the bank open?

Is that what I look like on the outside?
A sir?
An aging man
who’s seen the most of what life has to offer?
Shit!

I can’t sleep.  This happens often because of my ever-changing work shifts.  Usually, I have tricks to jolt myself into sleeping when I need to.  But sometimes they don’t work.

Everyone seems to have a strong opinion about this Osama Bin Laden thing.  Everyone wanted him dead when he was alive, and now that he’s dead, a lot of people seem to have suddenly come across the notion that killing people is bad.  It’s odd.  I really don’t know what to make of it; mostly because I’ve been avoiding doing much thinking on the topic.  Some things just seem too confusing at the outset for me to approach them more closely.  I will say that I am certainly not sad he’s dead.  But also, certainly, killing people always sucks.  It seems to me that, for the most part, nothing major has really happened except an interesting news cycle.  The military/ industrial complex chugs on and Glenn Beck is still a vampire.  Really.

It’s more difficult in the spring and summer, because the birds start chirping around 5am, and sometimes, that is exactly when I want to fall asleep.  I’ve no idea why birds chirping should keep one awake; after all, train whistles and thunderstorms put me to sleep.  Is this an ingrained but learned reaction, from years of hearing birds in the morning?  Or is it something even further inside us, a pattern stitched onto our DNA, a swatch of our instinctual fabric?  Who the fuck knows.

PBS sure has a great lineup of shows coming up on Wednesday night.  First there’s an episode of “Secrets of the Dead” that’s all about that wicked crazy army of statues that were created for some Chinese emperor dude like a bajillion years ago.  I learn about that army of statues about once every five years.  Then I forget all about it and am all too happy to learn about it again later.  Then after that there’s an episode of “NOVA” all about Machu Picchu.  Most of it focuses on whether or not I spelled it correctly without utilizing Google, which is right beside me and which I could have easily used, but did not.  But the rest—about how they built it and such—seems pretty interesting, as well.  Then after that, there’s another interesting thing, but I forgot what it was.

It will forever be a mystery to me whether or not thinking about sex as I lay in bed keeps me awake or helps me to sleep.  I have tried this technique every single night of my life since I was 14, with what could only be called a mixed bag of results.

Every time I’m in a checkout line recently, I am taunted by TIME’s special edition on the Civil War.  It’s one of these mega-big, laminated and bound almost-book things that TIME puts out like 4 times a year and you don’t get them if you’re a subscriber.  Basically they are books.  And I mean this Civil War edition just looks badass.  It’s got all these pictures from the era (Civil War photographs are mind boggling) and what appear to be some killer articles.  But it’s freaking 13 bucks.  Now don’t get me wrong.  Thirteen bucks, the bank does not break.  But it’s right there in the impulse aisle, right beside copies of “Us Weekly”, chapstick, and 5 Hour Energy.  I can never seem to talk myself into adding thirteen dollars to my total bill when I am already at the register.  What an odd price point, $13.  I’d probably buy it for ten.  Fucking psychology.

Thank you for allowing me to type myself to sleep.  I shall now go lay down and see if the birds will let me sleep.  If I can stop thinking about sex long enough.  Or should I think about it more?  I can never figure that one out.

Monday’s Song: The National, “Squalor Victoria”

This is how weepy indie bands rock the fuck out.  If I had to point to a single song as an example of what my musical taste is most after nowadays, it’s these up-tempo songs by The National.  These are just the bee’s knees, and “Squalor Victoria”, especially live, is as good as it gets (and it’s sister song, “Bloodbuzz Ohio”).  Be sure to stick it out until the 3 minute mark, when this amazingly constructed song begins to fully cohere and make you shit your pants.

Squalor Victoria

by The National

Underline everything.
I’m a professional,
in my beloved white shirt.
I’m going down among the saints.

Raise our heavenly glasses to the heavens! Squalor Victoria! Squalor Victoria!
Raise our heavenly glasses to the heavens! Squalor Victoria! Squalor Victoria!

Out of my league,
I have birds in my sleeves
and I wanna rush in with the fools.

Raise our heavenly glasses to the heavens! Squalor Victoria! Squalor Victoria!
Raise our heavenly glasses to the heavens! Squalor Victoria! Squalor Victoria!

I’m going down among the saints.

It’s 3:30 on the last night for you to save this.
You’re zoning out, zoning out, zoning out, zoning out.

This isn’t working, you middlebrow fuck-up.

Audio Poem, “On Turning Thirty”

Year written: 2008
Collection: White Sugar Man

Click the gray arrow to hear the audio version.

On Turning Thirty

Of course everyone knows there is something ridiculous about the way time moves,
slithering into and out of crevasses, ravines, serpentine granite chapels
like a freezing-cold underground liquidway,
usually unseen,
usually only the merest mention of it on the barest surface of these real things we do,
flowing through sand checkout lines and sky traffic jams
like the most unpredictable ubiquitous damned thing
you ever did see;

It is when turning back,
craning your head to see
the vast vermilion horizon of your own
crusty underpants
learner’s permits
snot smeared on windowpanes
itchy petting zoos
women left in the rain
tears shed in amusement parks
vomit on the lady’s pants
that certain incense in that certain basement
pennies crushed by trains
soaking wet suede sneakers
pot smoked from soda cans
dad catching you peeing in the yard
naked in the car
alone on campus
malls with grandma
the nipple like a bullet in your mouth
and the loudest music you ever heard
that this queerest thing about time is more evident than words;
when you see yourself inside of it,
it seems so long,
but when you try to look back on it,
it’s like there was never any time at all,
that all instants happened at once.

Somewhere I am eight,
and somewhere I am wrestling,
and somewhere my mother cradles my tiny head
and somewhere my leg is broken
and somewhere I am drunker than hell
and somewhere I am one-hundred and ten pounds
and somewhere I am dancing dancing dancing
and somewhere I am in those mountains watching those two rattlesnakes have sex
and you were there too
and somewhere we stand around a swimming pool full of glow sticks
and somewhere a goose is chasing me
and somewhere a man in a chariot just yelled at me to slow down
and somewhere I am on a couch stricken unable to move
and somewhere my father and I are driving around town wearing Halloween masks
and it is funny funny funny
and somewhere I am thirty and somehow remembering the loudest music I ever heard
but that place is not here, not now.