I.  Entries

 

 

Fido (Early June, 2001.  One Saturday Night.)

 

In how many instances do we duck behind papers and furniture, plant pots and coffee pots, pretending not to see that startling familiar face?  My sister-in-law’s client is here, with the guy with green hair—the two who drove a stake through my friend’s heart—and met up with Lucky Lisp with the utility jacket, and I sat listening after she left, as he talked about her—the temptress, the enchanter.  (The psycho freak.)  I am reminded vividly of why I normally avoid this visibility.  The reconditioned air and slushy latte make me shiver.  I think of—I see—everyone I’ve ever closely known.  Overhead speakers pump droning bass and oriental vocals, the same people pass our booth a succession of times, and I tire anew of my own culture.  Nerves revert to the condition immediately before each cigarette three years ago to the day, stomach lining joining in the nostalgia.  Everything about this city I would have planned differently, every detail of the lives of those inside.  Save mine.

 

 

Cross-Hatch:  In Response To The Slightest Stir (10/01)

 

French overemphasized from the living room, latches banging corrupt motion from the dryer, piercing then the study with a sudden shriek, the cat poising to pounce at penmanship, while between the realities of noise I arch, sore spinal vertebrae and compressed chest across pricking squares of down and shaking box spring.  The cat steps steadily and subtle over scratched mahogany reflecting imperfect, dimming, swallowed light.  Thick dusted cobwebs form overnight in passageway flumes, lining wasted hearths with gas-burning heaters.  Allergies attack sounds from across the meadowed wood floor, and the spouse shifts templates to favor the duvet slip covering sleeping bags of blankets under no tent.  The table is short and cluttered with annual bric-a-brac impossible to clear of dust, broken and reglued shakers reused for décor, but empty of content.  Signs of day to day wear lie folded open irreverently as humming electrics deny their appliance heritage, calling to the outside wind through cracks and uninsulated panes that it is safe to come in.  Day has retired its opposing view, offering up sacrifice with a sigh, suggesting chores left in the brief span just before midnight, when frequent neglect leaves subsequent editions unwritten, responses to provocation swallowed in deep breath, eyes gaining weight enough to crack another line just beneath partly closed scowls of ambiguity.  Single words like that encapsulate, resonate, capitulate aggregate perspectives agitated by the resetting of the alarms that start the whole notion over.  It occurs to me after much deliberation, as to why I live so much in future tense and am so barely here… I was never happy before.  Why should I expect to be now?  Or ever?

 

 

12-10-01

 

            I can’t tolerate another five years of this mundane café work.  Without hope I will not survive, hinged as it is only on talent.  That is not enough.  I can not fail.  I’ve decided to return to school.

I near a breakdown, teetering on the rims of coffee cups and slowing steps toward doors.  All day yesterday tears pelted outward, denting my contorted face in awkward bouts.  Today I am constant and silent, bound by my own thoughts.

Enter the season.

 

 

Sometime Around Christmas, 2001

 

            I cannot resist the urge to write.  Where this morning I was slicing bread, racing with vengeance the digital microwave display, nearing our onslaught of vastly ranging emotion, fearing the inevitable drying up of decaf, I now sit knees upraised on a bar chair, back to covers of half-century-old men, meeting for the first time our maid of honor’s future husband, scanning congealed faces for traces of familiarity, finding at once none and all, pace slowing with each taste diminishing through smoke into phased grins, sensual spinning glances, knowing and mischievous, yells getting louder while further away.  I cannot resist the urge to write only to the mind, with no tangible evidence.

 

 

01-02-02

 

            The purpose of this journal is to assure my productivity in measurable terms.  On the first of the year I gave our home a thorough cleaning, having strung white globes over our bed, and photos of my wife in seductive poses and lighting near the mirrors on the walls.  Tonight the rooms are soft and romantic and I can undoubtedly rest peacefully with my night mask on (which Marci hates, but she has the good pillow, so we’re even).  I no longer procrastinate, as in applying to Belmont quickly and with determination, knowing my resolve will make me a jewel in people’s crowns.  Perhaps I should begin a humility journal… or perhaps a notepad.  I am withdrawing myself slowly from the thankless, unnecessary burden of café responsibilities, not in the smallest part due to self-centeredness, but because I love my wife without boundaries and commit further time to lying in bed with her.  And then, ultimately, to employ myself and fall constant prey to her mercies.  You have the idea.  I slip out of my clothes and into her skin.

 

 

03-10-02

 

            This is it then.  Two months later I am well into the school year, having spent all of spring break neglecting everything but the house, and now gauging the microwave clock for possibilities.  With only half an hour of holiday left I’ve fallen desperately behind, formulating now some insane notion that I might squeeze an incremental twenty-four hours of study into one three hour session.  Instead, I will retire late and burdened into a reasonable pattern of sleep and begin anew the vicious cycle of pitting my efforts against society and time.

            The house is perfect, each individual item weighed of significance, dusted and repositioned, shelves painted and hung, every loose board nailed, every shadow moved slightly for effect.  I should think I would be quite eternally happy to host for my remaining years an inn or a bed and breakfast, sweeping the floors every night, tending to the details the masses assume correct themselves.  I am narrowing my scope with the passage of time, more concerned with washing every dish to touch the sink than corresponding with peers.

            For two months I have been a twenty-five year-old freshman, taking Guitar and Art and English and Statistics and Psychology.  I’ve assimilated yet another world and adopted hundreds more contemporaries, and have to show for it an almost complete lack of writing, becoming instead an ephemeral contemporary performance artist, so subtle that even I am mostly unaware of the impact.  I am the most supremely ordinary person I have ever met, and desire to be nothing more.  I shall spend the next four years perfecting this medium.

 

 

04-08-02

 

            I spent thirteen hours on Statistics homework yesterday.  Thirteen hours.  That made my third consecutive day not running three miles and my third consecutive month without productive guitar practice.

            Todd and Lizzie came over to eat and wash their laundry.

Outside looks like a dust storm.

            I’ve done well, twenty pounds lighter and nearing the end of the semester.  I think I might pass.

            My wife approaches.

 

 

Friday Night, Beck & Rog’s, Fairview

 

Roger is late.  We’re somewhere in Fairview, waiting around to go and see a bluegrass show we were told about that they hold in a barn.  He shows up in tussled work clothes while we watch The Osbornes on MTV.  He offers me a beer.  Beck politely reminds him of our plans.  “Hey Rog, do you know anything about this place?”  I raise my brow when he answers, “Aww, man!  I was talking to some firemen buddies of mine, asking if they ever went, and they said it was closed.”  “What?” Beck asks.  “Yeah, there were too many people.  There were like four hundred people packed into this tiny little room with only one door, so they had to shut it down.”  I start laughing, “Seriously?”  Roger replies with a drawn out “Yeaaaahh, maaann.  I’m sorry.  I forgot.”  He hands me a beer.  I guess we’ll stay in tonight.

 

 

Saturday Afternoon, Broadway Music Consignments, Nashville

 

The walls go thirty feet up, but gear’s been slow coming in this season, so the guitars only hang from about ten feet off the ground.  By the door is a bulletin board covered with posters and ads and business cards—“Vocalist Seeks Band” type things.  Two thirty-somethings work behind the counter, dressed down in jeans and tees.  Tim was giving directions to a family when I walked in.  He knows everyone’s names, even mine, because I worked with him years ago in an old café down in Franklin.  I find out later that he only works here two days a week, while he builds up his own side business making pedals and technical things I know nothing about.  Faint instrumental and classic soft rock plays interspersed through white noise in the corner.  “We’d probably rather consign this,” Tim says to the man whose tiny, cheap guitar he holds up.  The man answers, “Oh, I was just hoping to sell it.  I was only looking for like thirty or forty bucks.”  Tim shakes his head a little and slightly winces, “We’ve honestly had one here since ’97.”

James walks in—a regular, checking on his gear.  Every so often someone picks up a guitar and plays a lick or two.  They check the amps.  Everyone who walks in gets immediate recognition—at the very least a “Whahaat’s uuup!”  “What am I doing inside on a day like today?” Tim says.  It was rhetorical, but Steve answers, “If you wanna work on my yard….”  Tim launches into a story about a band he sold gear to in Minneapolis.  Customers keep walking in, a few with drinks from the coffee shop in the back room, some leaning on the glass cases, scanning the wall for cords or strings, or outlet adapters or whatever.  Everyone interrupts everyone else.  Some people are in a hurry, but most are on breaks from any of the studios on “The Row”.  Neil, the other worker, picks on Tim like a six year old and they play fight frequently, manufacturing their own ninja sounds as they do.

Tim explains something about a signal pass to someone who tries hard to understand.  They mention internet a lot—E-bay, buying and selling, updating, waiting, checking, posting.  There is a kind of lull for a moment.  Tim talks to the same guy about building another amp, using words he assumes are common knowledge; he uses terms like driver tube, reverb, tremulo-something, talks about how a Marshal can sound like a Princeton.  I assume most of the time he’s referring to manufacturers.  He talks fast, rattling off things about speakers and cabinets and matchless something-or-others, then switches quickly into recent shows or upcoming gigs.  I feel inadequate and slightly retarded when I can’t keep up with his prototype design for a “gritty” pedal made from a tuna can, which somehow outputs true bypass fuzz….  At least I think that’s what I heard.  Tim continues telling Steve about his website where you can click on the pedals and hear how they sound.  They discuss contracts and legal plans, thrown in with a little unrelated banter about Nick’s rack mount.  I’m completely lost.

Another guy walks in, glancing around nervously, carrying two cases, and says to no one in particular, “I was gonna try and sell this.”  Neil takes it, gives it a play, while Tim’s talk of subsidiaries and power supplies fades into the background.  Neil goes over a few thorough details and sends the guy away to think about his offer.  He goes back to sidework, eating something while thumbing through a notebook.  Neil doesn’t have quite as many answers to things as Tim does, and I start thinking after a while that he and the owner must just be good friends; it seems maybe they go to the same church.

I fixate on Tim again because I want to know what the hell he’s talking about.  He seems to know every trick.  He tells someone how to hook up gear to serve alternate purposes—GCX footswitch instead of MIDI cable.  “You can set the levels….”  It’s more like they’re trading ideas about hookups then dealing in equipment.

A family walks in, probably shopping for a first guitar for the oldest boy.  The mustached father picks up a bass.  All the kids start touching instruments.  A man looks up from a half written check; “How much?”  “Ten grand a piece amps” they talk about.  “Marty Stuart’s guy has two of them.”  Customers interrupt their own questions with accessories and side thoughts.  Half the customers wear athletic gear—sweats, running shorts, sneakers; the other half wear denim and roadie shirts.  Neil looks slightly irritated and mildly amused.  There is another short lull.  Neil and Tim talk about the lack of good coffee since I left.  It’s nice to be remembered.

 

 

Saturday Night, Todd & Lizzie’s, Sylvan Park

 

Venus Hum’s singer sits out with us under the canopy for a cigarette.  Modern Zero are huddled by the stereo listening to their own disc, just finished.  Annette talks about London.  About a dozen of the people here now are guitarists, but nearly everyone is in a band—even Chris’s wife.  Jay had to leave early to work at a coffee shop by his house.  Someone mixes a gin and tonic while the women with babies head off with a “See ya in church in the morning.”  Todd chimes into Annette’s story with details about Venice.  He wears women’s jeans and a leather jacket, with a fluffy pink hat pulled low.  I pass through the living room on my way out, and everyone is crammed around the VCR watching Atticus Fault’s first video, fresh out of post-production.  Kevin Clay seems quieter than usual, almost as though he’s a little jealous.  He slips someone his latest “Viva Nash-Vegas” CD.

 

 

Thursday Morning, Second Story Café, Green Hills

 

Dell takes up counter space, leafing frantically through the phone book.  “William Morris Agency… why can’t I find that?”  I laugh at her for always being so melodramatic.  “Hey, you know people,” I start.  “Do you want to give a guitar survey to some of your friends for me?”  She looks up.  “Oh, yeah.  I’ll fill one out myself, because I play, and I’ll give some out.  I’m glad I can help.  How many do you need?”  None really, I just think you people are terribly interesting.

 

 

Friday Night, 12^th & Porter, Nashville

 

It turns out Modern Zero and Atticus Fault are playing 12^th & Porter together, so Friday night we’re there.  By a bizarre coincidence, Modern Zero’s manager turns out to be Christian, who used to work with my brother back at Rocketown when he wasn’t playing for All Star United.  He also turns out to be dating our next-door neighbor, who insists on buying us a round.  Nashville might just be the smallest city I’ve ever lived in.  Anyway, Smirnoff in hand I turn to the stage to give Modern Zero a shot.  They’ve got the typical setup—shirtless, tattooed drummer back and center, the as always overlooked bassist on stage left, the lead screamer with his enormous ear things dressed in all black and trying to grow some kind of facial hair, and in this case, a pretty average, too-loud lead electric guitarist.

Atticus Fault starts the set with “Maybe”.  This is the first show they’ve played in town since reaching the No. 1 most requested song on The Buzz over a month ago.  A woman in a Merlin shirt offered me a mixed drink when I walked in.  Most people take shots or drink bottled imports.  Heads bob.  Feet tap.   People clamor for the good seats.  We find ours in the balcony.  Marci makes the rounds.  We know about a fourth of the crowd—at least by sight.  Molly and Angus take a video.  Taylor plays along invisibly with Jay’s guitar.  Jay switches pedal effects while shaking his guitar violently in front of the monitor to manipulate feedback.  They launch into “Too Late”, which would have made a much better single than “Mars”.  My wife lights a cigarette, sips a cider, and tickles my side.

Taylor closes his eyes and dances to himself, Jared comes up with a fresh drink.  Lizzie runs the merch table downstairs.  It feels like we’re all melting.  Higgie hits my pen.  My wife crouches on the floor and bites my shirt.  Smoke lifts from beneath us.  Jason wears flares and a Stones shirt with the sleeves torn off.  He spins in circles amazingly not getting tangled in his cord.  My wife goes crazy when he hits the first note of “1000 Years”.  Jay and Todd both play electric, though most of the early writing was on acoustic.  They’re both shaved bald, Jason intense and nearly anorexic.  I break for a cigarette.  Someone mentions Waffle House.  Jared holds up his cell phone to leave a message for a friend that stood him up.  Higgie tries to read my journal by the light of his palm pilot.

Jason switches guitars between every song.  The feedback is all him and all intentional.  They play “Soundtrack” and Marci screams “Pink Floyd” in my ear.  More drinks, more smoke.  Jason’s muscles and veins bulge as he takes a solo.  Every part of his body plays.  Todd leans his head back as if in worship; only one arm moves.  Taylor mimics it beside me.  They save “Mars” for the encore.  Jason thanks someone, as is his custom, for the beer.  Marci and Michelle dance together like lesbian groupies.  Angus gets it on tape.

 

 

Friday Night, En Route To Beck & Rog’s, Fairview

 

On the way back from the supermarket for snacks, we pass by “The Barn” that was supposedly shut down by the Fire Marshal’s orders.  It apparently didn’t take, because the place is packed.  Those animals.  Those musicians.

 

 

Saturday Night, Beck & Rog’s, Fairview

 

            Mr. Bungle plays on the stereo.  Rog’s boot is displayed prominently in the front window.  A black acoustic leans in the corner.  The Mary Kay wife mixes me a drink.  I fall asleep in the comfy chair and nobody minds—or nobody notices.

Jeff and Leslie are in the kitchen when I wake up.  Jeff wears camo shorts that show a leg-full of tattoos.  Rog’s own tattoos are not as large and colorful.  They obviously never think about them.  Talk is all about pets and food and surgery.  The Mary Kay husband says to write down that the house is possessed.  He’s a medical guy.  They talk about suicide and homicide; they have to make light of sick deaths.  They’re a lighthearted bunch, drinking Southpaw when it occurs to Roger that he should introduce me.  They have serious jobs.  Jobs no human should be exposed to.  They tell stories beyond horror movies.  The music switches to jazz.

After about six hours James picks up the black acoustic—he’s always the one to start.  He’s a scraggly, balding twenty-something who sends inappropriate e-mails to his best friend’s wife.  He walks around while they all make up verses on the spot.  As Jeff and Leslie leave with beer, James is alone in the living room, playing to himself loudly enough to be overheard.  The songs last about a minute each, until he loses interest and the next song refrain starts.  Rog calls from the smoking porch.  Time to go.

 

 

Wednesday Afternoon, Broadway Music Consignments, Nashville

 

            A little more stocked than last time.  Everything is colorful and in perfect rows.  Someone’s been cleaning.  Traffic outside is busy, but only Dana is at the counter when I walk in.  He listens to praise music over speakers from the corner.  A shrill phone ring interrupts the calm.  A few customers trickle in.

Lyle is on the floor now.  He’s the owner—a tall, thin, Laurel-&-Hardy-looking gentleman.  Neil walks around holding someone’s credit card, looking down at paperwork.  Dana is frequently on tour, so this must be off-season for that.  Lyle fiddles with the sound system while Neil puts a few calls on hold for him.  The merchandise is all tilted toward the front entrance, where the bright city street flashes strobe effects off the shiny surfaces.  Neil hands a customer an electric drill to take a component apart.  He flashes it around like a rapid-fire handgun, spewing sound effects.  He kills a few spare moments to come shake my hand, doing his cross-eyed retard impression.  I small talk at how orderly everything looks and he nods proudly at his work.  “Yep… did all that last week.”

They spend a good twenty to thirty minutes with each customer, practically escorting them around.  Lyle’s youngest son, probably around five years old, saunters around running into equipment, repeating the names of whoever is on hold until his father picks up.

When a customer picks up a guitar to test it, they generally start with a familiar lick, and then run through scales to check the range of tone.  Neil looks down from the loft office, detailing invoices over the phone.  Someone gazes up at a few hanging electrics, then walks out before Dana can greet him.  I mentally inventory a few things to come back for when I have money.  Sonic Flood’s guitarist walks in and Dana shows him an article in The Onion.  He laughs inaudibly.  Neil walks around looking for his next joke.  I decide to come back later, as their food discussion raises pangs in my stomach.

 

 

Tuesday Night, Belmont University, Nashville

 

            Jeremy opens the door steadily and floats in.  He carries, in addition to his hard plastic guitar case, a large duffle bag full of playing and teaching items.  First he sets up a music stand, flipping through his notes to find what page in Allan Shearer’s book, “Learning the Classic Guitar”, they left off on.  He flips with one hand while fixing a six-inch footstool into position with the other.  “How’d practice go?” he asks a young girl.  She launches into a meandering explanation of why it went so horribly.  He tries to hide his frustration.

 

 

Thursday Morning, Broadway Music Consignments, Nashville

 

            Coffee cups irreverently settled on dusty equipment.  Old eighties guitar rock overpowering to conversation.  Dana’s euro-hairstyle ages him an unintentional decade.  Lyle backs a car to the side door to unload.  He’s dressed up today.  Way up.  So is the obvious executive, except for a wallet chain.  These are all just old men.  Mostly sad, disillusioned old men, following the same dream they’ve had since starting out as their younger mirror images decades ago.  There must be a life of its own in the instrument itself—a life these poor, sad, stagnant, overgrown children still hope to find.  Neil pulls a lute off the wall and reminds himself of the simple beauty of playing.

            Dana comes back for his coffee.  A musician never forgets his drink.

            This time the whole building lies depressed, recessed into dry, busy streets for wanderers looking for the dream to stumble into on a solitary, pointless day.  “Mornings are generally slow, then midday gets a little crazy,” Lyle tells me.  He lightens my mood a bit.  He loves what he does.  He loves the people.  Every customer.  Individual.  By name.  He’s the perfect balance of solemn businessman and jovial good fellow—it’s bad wording, but it makes sense when you stand caught in his wide smile.

            I mention it seems stale.  Neil and Dana lift their heads and eyes, giving that look—that look of “if you only knew.”  Neil, especially, sighs with tired eyes.  I talk to him a bit without taking notes.  Sometimes I have to close my journals to hear.

 

 

07-08-02

 

            Allie, Eden and Emma are in town for the week.  I’ve taken on a supplemental job in the adoptions program at Catholic Charities, and continue working at Davis-Kidd.  Now I’m sitting in Physical Science at 7:30 in the morning.  Mancy just walked in—John from the bookstore’s wife now.  (You may remember her from a handful of entries years ago.)  The website is up and running, and I’ve lost another ten pounds, teetering now around 140.

            Hmmm… the class fills up and the teacher—the only other male—has walked in.  I should mention, for the sake of remembering it later, that Marci and I finally made it to Hawaii last month.  The highlight is having said it.

 

 

Corresponding to the first day of class, 07-02

 

            Obviously, we should begin a stress journal with classes starting again.  Specifically for me, the known constant stressors are financial, educational, professional and social.  More particularly still, my job at Davis-Kidd is horrendous; my social calendar is filled, giving me less time to work on my website or publication; my wife is also in school; I start my second job this week at Catholic Charities; and all this week Marci’s friend Allie will be staying with us, with her two very young daughters.  My car has no air conditioning, or working windows or doors (or radio).  I cannot practice guitar while the girls are here, the refrigerator is shutting itself down, and my exercise regimen had slipped since our “vacation” in Hawaii with the in-laws.

            I rather think I take on inordinate amounts of stress at once in hopes that I can check it off my list of “bad things to come.”  Perhaps my negativity is my downfall.  I always though it was discipline.  I really should try to sleep, as I left work after only an hour today on the verge of a breakdown.

            Also, the text for this Exercise and Stress Management class is mind-numbingly dull.  Still, I’m glad to be in these two Phys-Ed classes because I hope to rethink my exercise habits, with a little better background.

 

 

Corresponding to the second day of class, 07-02

 

            Fortunately, my two Phys-Ed classes draw a great deal on last semester’s Intro to Psychology, as Dr. Loftin’s main concern was with promoting a low-stress lifestyle.  I don’t know how well that took, because I think I merely transferred what I obsessed about.  Rather than poetry, my focus since January has been on my body.  So I’m actually quite glad to be under the instruction of two physical trainers who know a good bit about how to exercise correctly.  It felt good to be in The Wellness Center, having been unable to exercise since the girls arrived.  I really very nearly broke down Wednesday night, so I left work to rest and work on the website a bit.  I’ve been smoking more than usual because we’ve had more company than usual.  My other coping mechanism is cleaning, which is also impossible with a visiting four-year-old who should very clearly be paddled occasionally.

            I suppose I should see what my other classes require for tomorrow.  Oh, but one other thing I just thought of… another great relief this week has been my Lemony Snickett book.  I think reading must be nearly as therapeutic as writing.

 

 

Corresponding to the first weekend, 07-02

 

            “The company” left Saturday evening just as I arrived home from work.  I spent the remainder of the day cleaning… a definite attempt at purging the week from my system.  Sunday I woke early to finish uploading the corrections to the website.  I’ve noticed lately that my right ankle nearly always registers some discomfort.  I wonder if perhaps it hadn’t entirely healed from that nasty sprain before my overkill on running since February.  I’ve had to almost entirely stop my treadmill exercise in favor of Pilates.  All I really wanted to do was tone my stomach.  Instead I dropped thirty pounds, but still have no definition in my torso.  I’m trying very hard to rewire myself for moderation.  The thought of food is quite repulsive to me, but we have garbage left over in the house that I’ve found myself picking at.  I’m trying to drink coffee instead of beer, but I suppose tomorrow I’ll get around to juicing those carrots—although they taste a lot like dirt.

I frequently wonder how many dysfunctions I really do have.  I suppose I’ll read before bed.  I’m anxious to develop a workout regimen.

 

 

07-15-02

 

            The refrigerator is making sounds like leaking.  The car’s front right tire is losing air.  Marci stayed home sick and overwhelmed today.  I slept only three hours last night, and now I’m not sure the website will ever be quite impressive enough to suit me.  Our next-door neighbor, Shelley, the hostess of some new TV show, has our stereo hostage.  The cat is attacking something large and plastic in the other room.  The electricity has always flickered, but is getting progressively worse.

            My 7:30 class let out by eight, so I had two hours to kill before Health and Fitness.  I tried to eat fruit, but still had three large cups of coffee.  I considered buying cigarettes, but thought I would rather be able to breathe deeply and not be winded taking a staircase.  Marci bought me some small t-shirts and women’s size seven jeans.  I find I’m more likely to exercise if my clothes fit tightly.  It makes me feel skinny and I’m psychologically pressured to maintain it.

            My ankle has still been bothersome, so I only walked the track at The Wellness Center.  I don’t know yet what proper exercises I should do, so I’m keeping things light while I’m in these classes.  My obsession with running earlier in the year was undeniably detrimental, so I’m reading through this combination of textbooks to try and develop a workable routine for the fall.

            My other conscious effort was to drink water instead of Diet Coke… although I had three more cups of coffee at work when my head kept bobbing and eyes kept shutting.  Now I’ll attempt more homework.

 

 

Supplemental for 07-15-02

 

             I should note that the school’s scale weighed me at 144, rather than my 140 at home.  And according to the One-Mile Run test, I am in excellent shape.

            That’s all fine and good, but if I keep defaulting to running, I’ll soon be walking with a cane again.

 

 

07-19-02

 

            Class on Thursday was the best one yet.  Wednesday was a sufficient warm up to it, as I tried out most of the exercises Tara suggested (she is my Monday and Wednesday instructor).  But Thursday was genuine progress, as I was taught ab-specific reps, only to reinforce that I am in worse shape than I assumed.  Angie (my Tuesday and Thursday instructor) really got involved and convinced me that she really is there for us.  She won me over, where I’ve never had respect for athletic types before.  Maybe I really am changing.

            I plan to start Sunday on editing my tenth book, as of yet untitled—something along the lines of “Of Course I’ve Still Got It”, since my output has been so minimal since registering the copyright for “The World Wants Me To Fail”.  I want people to see the clear progression of a healthy human being.  I can no longer simply point things out; I now feel a responsibility to offer a few solutions.

 

 

07-22-02

 

            Running on two hours of sleep.  In Physical Science right now.  Adrenaline rush.  Been working on queries for publishers.

 

            Fifteen exercises later, after classes and working both jobs—nearly fell asleep on the way to Davis-Kidd—it is nearly one in the morning and I want to go to bed.  Marci is impatient with the computer.  I just want to sleep.  I have homework first.

 

 

07-28-02

 

            My time is not my own.  After Thursday’s class I took the weekend off from exercising… and I feel the repercussions now.  My Physical Science class stresses me more that anything else.  Not because the class is anything challenging, but because I loathe having to work in a group with that horrendously uptight nursing student.  Forcing groups is a poor social practice, in my case counterproductive.  Oh well, just one more week of two hour sessions of hell.  It’s wearing me down to go from school to work to work to social gatherings.  My only time off, which I plan for projects, gets sucked up by friends.  Not really even my friends—I pretty much have my wife, and that’s all.  So I never get any closer to publication.

            At least I have, for the first time ever, a job I enjoy.  Caring Choices is wonderful.  I wish I could be there full time.  I hate my customers at the café.  I hate the first-timers, I hate the occasionals, and I hate the regulars.  They’re all getting fat.  Another piece of me is eaten up like cancer each time I step foot in the building.  I never want to see any of them again.  I want to leave the city.  I hate Nashville.

            I want to work with computers.  I want to be obscure.  I want to see fewer than ten people a day.  I want to see birds and trees and rain clouds, and exercise in private and eat almost nothing and write and read whenever the inclination hits.  I want to be in bed before midnight and up with the dawn.  I don’t want to think about money and grades and people and time constraints.  I want everyone but my wife to leave me alone.  I’ve adapted for too long, submitted myself too wholly.  I deserve my break.  I’ve worked hard.  I earned it.

            Where is God’s grace today, when I am overwhelmed?

 

 

07-29-02

 

            Just failed a Physics test.  It’s too bad… I really like the teacher.  Just don’t have time to do the math.  Coffee hasn’t been enjoyable for years.  I’m listening right now to the children chatter.  They’re all so serious.  They know so very much. 

Right now I miss Grammy Skippy’s air conditioning vents.  I was a peaceful kid.  I was quiet and good, and acted and made up songs to myself.  I loved my mother and always drew pictures.

The teacher has arrived.

 

 

08-04-02

 

I can’t tell if this is a stress journal or not.  All of my journals are a way of dealing with stress.  I’m afraid there have been noticeable gaps in entries, but I can justify that by claiming priorities.  Anyway, last week was impossible to chronicle because I had a major Physics project (a group project) due, I had to keep track of everything I ate for one of Tara’s labs, I had to learn how to open adoption cases at Caring Choices, and I consistently have to deal with the Davis-Kidd regulars.  (I want to tell them that it’s unhealthy to eat out every day, the lazy gluttons.)

Anyway, the summer semester is nearly over, so I’ve got six more hours out of the way.  I’ll take the two-week break between sessions to query publishers, now that everything is finally pulled together.  And my schedule is all planned out and ready to be implemented.  Next project, please.

 

 

08-20-02

 

            Fall semester begins.  At ten ‘til eight I’ve already been to the gym, and am mentally arranging my schedule when the youngish looking teacher walks in wearing a newly bought and ironed shirt and a stiff tie.  I’m assessing my method in the class as I sit in the far corner in the back.

            There is an enormous bruise on my arm.  I don’t know from where.

 

 

09-17-02

 

            I have decided to ease up.  I am too hostile, too aggressive, too intense.  It does not serve me.  I wonder if I have ever enjoyed anything.  Rain falls lightly, straight and intentional, spread across the length of planking turning gray beneath me—Indian style; as if Indians do not use chairs.  Someone has burned, and someone else stapled, the trash can beside me, and it tucks its shawl into its hood to prepare for a cold front.  My glasses are off to avoid eye contact, but a voice pauses at the door and hovers congenially for a split second of discomfort.  Soon the classmates will begin arriving and I will be forced by attention to collect my spread of material and turn myself inward once more.

            What I really want is to empty the house.  I want to be rid of the accumulated media, the heaping drawers and cupboards of utensils and too many ceramics.  I want the files cleared, and mail thrown away daily with receipts and capfuls left of cleansers and lotions.  I want no more bags of chips or cookies, no more soda and excessive beer piling beneath the sink.  I want no more TV or music or photographs or posters.  No schedules or printed backups.  I am so drained of pallor, so tired of putting forth the effort.  I am appalled by society and over conditioning.

            As I predicted… they have arrived.

 

 

Undated Entry

 

Stupid, stupid world.  Whatever it is, my kindreds, I cannot, I’m afraid, agree with you.  Influential and indistinguishable begin the same, perhaps end the same—who knows?  This world is so stupid I can hardly bear it.  Everything.  Everyone.  Everything is against me.  Everyone misunderstands.  Kava-kava will not make me pleasant.  I will just barely pass my classes.  I will just barely make a living.

            I cannot breathe properly.  I need cigarettes and beer.  I am sexually frustrated.  I sleep at exactly the wrong times.  I cannot provoke appropriateness.

            Right now there are protestors, my favorite cousin among them, while another cousin just returned from Guam.  Activists are undoubtedly the least productive, least effective people on earth.  The A.C.L.U. are idiots.  Protestors aren’t worth protecting.  Not one of you—yes, even you, dear readers—deserve to know my leanings.  You are too stupid to understand.  You pretend to listen, but delude yourselves.  Fans are the worst pitiable creatures of all.  Let no one comment on my art.  Ever.  You will be wrong.  It is not even for discussion.

            It is so unbearable.

 

 

II.  Essays

 

 

ENG 110:  04/08/02, Dinner Music For the Homesick Restaurant

 

In Dinner At the Homesick Restaurant, Anne Tyler’s deliberate use of music reiterates each major theme throughout the novel, going so far as to assign each main character an appropriate theme song, and even suggesting resolution to each individual’s memoir.  The underlying preoccupations of the story are threefold:  how did the Tull family begin, how do they fare in the present, and what will become of them—what will future generations make of their family history?  How each individual character deals with each of these questions is clearly illustrated by the suggested soundtrack, even when the content of the songs can not be found in the book.  The course the music takes throughout the story ultimately ties together the loose ends and redeems the account with an optimistic outlook.

The main problem the Tulls face, which indeed sets the tone for the entire course of events, is that the real life family never lives up to the idealized visions in their heads, most poignantly illustrated through Pearl, who never stops worrying that something will go wrong.  One of our earliest exposures to her thoughts is a flashback to a dance, where she is too uptight to turn her back even for a moment (18).  Her neurotic behavior carries through the years, to the point where she is jealous even of the peaceful sound of her children asleep, provoked to her mundane tasks by a neighbor’s piano playing “Chattanooga Choo Choo” (17).  “She wore me out,” Beck later concedes, adding that he couldn’t deal with “the grayness of things” (300, 301).  Jenny, whose life in significant ways mirrors Pearl’s, is pensive from the very moment it occurs to her—most likely mid-song, as Cody observes that musical notes fill her and Ezra’s heads to overflowing—that Beck has left (41).  Even Ezra, reading his mother’s diaries years later, finds real life “plotless,” unlike novels, unlike the comic opera Burt Tansy escorted her to (268).

In the mundane immediacy of life, the Tulls—and even Ruth, who becomes a Tull by marriage—find their existence unsatisfying, scored with melancholic notes.  For Cody this is recurring, succinctly embodied in the Edith Tabor incident, when Ezra once again wins the girl, in this case because of a recorder, a “goddamn whistle” (56-57).  Jenny’s jealousy is revealed in Ezra’s misplaced nostalgia, when he misses the restaurant more than listening to The Cities Service Band of America with her (71).  Ruth is worn out by Mrs. Pauling’s theories and gripes regarding Arthur Godfrey and Perry Como, feeling with increasing intensity that life itself is “constant pain” (161-162).  Cody revisits this sadness on the train with Ruth, with an uncharacteristic moment of compassion for Ezra, when a whistle catches him off guard and he thinks, just briefly, that he hears “a little scrap of melody floating by on the wind and breaking his heart” (166).

The music chosen to represent the young lives of Cody, Ezra, and Jenny has an innocent quality, but carries the same somber feel as that found later; it holds the faint but foreboding tone that something is slightly wrong.  “Mairzy Doats,” for instance, is a children’s favorite and a classic, but historically it is a wartime song; its popularity was due to the public’s need for relief from the terrible reality of the day  (288).  It is an ominous presence as Jenny’s favorite song while she is eight or nine years old, knowing Beck has left, but singing along, hesitant to vocalize her underlying concern (41, 288).  “Le Godiveau de Poisson,” mentioned three times as the tune on young Ezra’s pearwood recorder, becomes the theme for The Homesick Restaurant itself—a fish recipe in fact, not at all common, but incredibly important for its dual ownership, Ruth humming harmony as they contemplate the menu, and Cody irate that Ezra can be so carefree—brooding over it, in fact (106, 143, 146).  On Cody and Ezra’s hunting trip, the two have a typical fallout, with the oldest child once again seething  while the “golden boy” sings “Mister Rabbit” (a song about enduring with what limitations one is given—a definite Ezra parallel) off key (133, 146).

In addition to providing a soundtrack for the substantive content of the novel, Ms. Tyler gives us insight also into the philosophies of each character by her use of very particular, well placed theme songs, adding depth and humanity to what already seems a familiar, sympathetic cast.  Pearl’s theme, “In the Sweet By and By” is a traditional hymn—as most of her associated songs are—which speaks eloquently about heaven, promising to reward faith, shedding light on her discipline and toil while painting a picture of her overall optimism that time will in fact heal all wounds (21-22).  The song is an interesting choice in that its equally famous parody, “The Preacher and the Slave,” written as a protest against the Salvation Army, deals largely with food—appropriate given the significance of food as symbolic nourishment throughout the novel.  This secondary implication toys with Pearl’s obstinacy, her refusal to admit that there is anything wrong or to ask for anyone’s help.  Meanwhile, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” is Beck’s somewhat self-righteous anthem, sung over beer most evenings, until he finally gives in to despair and abandons his family, leaving Pearl behind to analyze and agree with the old words, “Nobody knows but Jesus…” (8-9).

Cody is an exception, intentionally lacking a song of his own so that when the need arises, as when he and Edith are walking together, he ends up whistling one of Ezra’s favorites, “The Ash Grove,” of which most versions lose their love and grow forlorn in the second verse, foreshadowing Cody eventually stealing Ruth (54).

Ezra, having lost “The Ash Grove,” is assigned “Greensleeves,” a song wrought with desperation at being cast aside by the object of the author’s affection—there is no more fitting song for Ezra’s eventual situation, and it resurfaces regularly until he retires his recorder altogether (42-43, 82, 133).  This is the turning point of the novel, the most glaring division, once Cody courts and wins Ezra’s fiancé; it is when Ezra’s heart breaks, the conflict reaches its darkest moment, and the music dies for nearly a decade.  “Ezra arrived—not whistling, oddly quiet, as he’d been since Ruth had left….  (He) no longer played tunes on his recorder” (171).  There is a long silence, during which Pearl grieves for her youngest son (171).

Although the Tull family will not see resolution until every theme has played itself out, there are occasional moments to refresh us with a glint of hope.  A shining example of this is when Jenny returns home and feels at peace, when she longs for Pearl’s tea, prepared while humming a hymn and looking “almost pretty” (101).

There are other hints within Jenny’s daily life of music eventually resurfacing, mostly through those surrounding her; she harbors the sounds of her children, her childhood, and even Sam Wiley, culminating in “Let It Be,” which is attributed also to the older version of Ezra (208, 266).  The significance of Jenny’s staggered music is that it reflects her scattered and hurried life—Slevin’s tape recorder, Becky’s radio at night, toy trucks and xylophones; even so, it all fits together in a workable fashion after her breakdown (195, 206, 210, 213).  The connection between Sam Wiley, “the one she’d loved the best,” and Ezra, who, as we said, share “Let It Be,” is that the attributes she had found appealing in her second husband were those same “liquid” qualities she longed for in Ezra—the nostalgia she felt, the love and need for her family (166, 207-208, 266).

Life and sound are reintegrated when the grandchildren are old enough to bring the adults nearly full circle, once again filling the air with music.  Slevin listens on headphones to Janis Joplin, to “Me and Bobby McGee,” which suggests an affinity with Luke, an understanding that running away is appealing when parents can’t make their marriages work (193, 230).  Luke’s runaway experience is encapsulated in Billy Swan’s hopeful, eager, “I Can Help,” after being driven out emotionally by Cody’s poor reaction—his misplaced comparison to Ezra—upon hearing “White Coral Bells” chime out from an old tonette (225-226, 230).

In the final scenes, the days just before and the day of Pearl’s wake, music, again and for the last time, plays its succinct narrative role, resolving as only it can the jumble of memoirs Ms. Tyler set out for her readers.  In remembering the softer, tender side of Pearl, Ezra reminds Cody of the soft-shoe they used to do, astonishing Beck at her diversity—the depth he had not known (295).  Ezra is in this position from having lived his entire life at her side, in the later days of her blindness reading to her from her own diaries.  Where they left it, in perfect resolution and peace, was an entry where Pearl had been weeding, with piano scales softly in the background and a bottle fly buzzing around, where she wrote, “I don’t care what else might come about, I have had this moment.  It belongs to me” (277).  At her funeral, the mourners sing “We’ll Understand It All Bye and Bye;” what could say it any better (286).

 

 

ENG 110: 04/02, Ethnography Prewriting

 

Why I Chose Guitar Culture & Broadway Music Consignments

 

Writers have animosity toward nearly everyone—themselves even.  We especially look down on people who are unable to write.  We assume it is this lack of talent that causes those unfortunate souls to take up instruments.  I loathe the sound of most guitars.  I turn the radio when I hear it.  More so, I loathe guitarists, those self-centered wanna-be rock stars.  They elevate themselves to gods without being able to eloquently pen a lyric or passionately sing a song.  Oh, that’s the other thing… I’m also a singer.  That part of me detests instrumentalists even more than the writer part.  Guitarists so infrequently know when not to play.  They’re very inappropriate.  And all they really want is to get laid.  It’s just so needy, so pathetic.

Nashville is the very last place on earth I ever wanted to live.  God plopped me here as the setup for some twisted joke.  Here I am then, the polar opposite of the city’s core, the antidote to the glossy, overproduced, over-advertised state of contemporary music.  That’s shooting high, I realize, but give me a few years—I’m young yet.

Nevertheless, these people are my friends.  Or rather, their circles touch mine in unexpected ways, and to be fair I should try to find some merit in Nashville’s guitar culture—at least the part of it I will undoubtedly keep running into as a writer, or else I shall make my life quite difficult in the future.

 

My Plan of Entry

 

That’s where Broadway Music Consignments enters the project.  My “in” is that I used to manage a coffee shop in the same building.  We shared a lot of clients—you know, someone coming in for coffee and leaving with a $3000 mixing board, or vice versa.  Here it is nearly two years after we shut Union 5 down and Broadway is still going strong.  I step in briefly, very occasionally, when I need something like a metronome or a windscreen.  I think it’s about time I invest myself enough into Nashville’s heart to at least appreciate it for what it is.  I’ve simply been too self-centered to look past my journals to tolerate what is for a good number of my friends the most supreme reality.

 

A Time Management Plan

 

            Tracking this culture, though may prove challenging, as it is liquid, flowing into wherever it is invited at its own pace.  Uhh… let me say it clearer.  Guitar culture doesn’t end at the retail outlet.  It follows through to the daily lives of the guitarist.  In most cases, it may be the same unspoken sort of foundation as my poetry journals; it may be that guitar dictates when and where it will surface, and it is my responsibility to recognize when it does.

            For the most part, I am already an ethnographer.  Poetry is about observation.  That’s what I’ve been trained to do.  My challenge, then, is to pay closer attention to the prevailing theme of Music City, the bits and pieces of its makeup that I had turned up my nose at and ran from before.  Let’s say this is my attempt to step out of my comfortable writer mode and participate in daily life—albeit briefly.  My task then, is to force myself to socialize when the opportunity arises.  Believe me, it is a stark contrast from what I’m accustomed to and content to do.  Broadway will be my starting point and home base, but musicians are out in the town playing, and I shall have to follow them to a few of those places if I am ever to consider myself well balanced and a good friend to my Music City neighbors.

 

What Is My Expectation?

 

            I’ll admit, I hate this project.  It’s time consuming and has a lot more to do with Sociology than English.  I’m old.  I’ve met my quota of people I wanted to know.  I had resolved not to ever meet another person when I decided to go back to school.  So much for those plans.  But if I shall proceed, it will be with full intention and fresh perspective, so wholeheartedly I delve into the culture surrounding that horrible instrument, the guitar.  I honestly don’t know if it will reinforce my aversion or if I might find a new respect.  Most likely I will be disappointed.  And that will undoubtedly spur me to another resolve, but we shall have to wait to see what that is.

 

 

ENG 110:  05/06/02, Ethnography Artifact

 

            There is only one thing in the center of a guitarist’s universe.  His guitar.  Everything revolves around it.  It creates entire worlds for itself, in which it can reign supreme and dictate commands with its powerful voice.  The guitar is something to be respected, revered even; it enslaves its owner and always gets its way.

            The guitar promises at first to be simple, individual, a loner, but it is a liar.  The guitar knows that it must not remain alone.  It needs a bed—the guitar case.  It needs a stereo, a metronome.  Classical guitars require the company of footstools.  They ask for the companionship of books, and then bookstands.  Before long one case isn’t enough; the guitar would like a hard, plastic case for heavy duty moving around and a lightweight, cloth case for slinging conveniently across the back.  Soon the cases are not quite as helpful as those more easily accessible stands with the yellow rubber arms.

            Plectrum guitars need picks, and those picks need to be in every pocket alongside the lint and loose coins.  They need amplifiers.  They need stickers across their shining bodies.   They need straps, and suddenly a lineup of pedals with every conceivable effect.  They need cords and pickups and tuners and capos.  Eventually they need duplicates of themselves with just a few minor variations—at once as similar and different as the Hoth figure of Luke Skywalker and the one from Tattoine.

            Guitarists were seduced by their instrument.  They were promised fame and fortune and love and respect, but now they give constantly as if in an abusive relationship—they have never finished giving to the guitar.  It always needs more.  Now it even more time.  At first it was content to be strummed and flashed around as a trophy, but with time it grew envious of other relationships.  It grew jealous of the girlfriend; it wanted him to ditch her, not pick up the phone, stay home caressing its strings.  It gave out a gorgeous and seductive sound, begged the guitarist not to neglect it.  The guitarist obliged.

            The guitar is beautiful.  Its long neck is straight and flawlessly decorated with golden frets.  Its sound hole is vast and mysterious and deep, beckoning all who hear it to dive in, swim around in the saturation of emotion, of pure passion, and never want to leave.  It is polished and sheer and smooth, curved like a woman, or a banshee with her heavenly voice.  It calls out with sweet tones, whispers and shouts in equally passionate sounds.

            To the music fan, the guitar is an instrument.  To the player, it is an extension of his arm, an extra appendage more useful than the rest, the singular digit that controls more than the tongue, the rudder that directs the ship.  He grows extra-long fingernails to accommodate his muse’s desire, to scratch behind the ear like a purring cat.  The guitarist is not free to put his instrument down; he must nurture it like a crying baby, rocking it steadily to and fro as the sounds diminish or get louder, depending on his motions.  The guitar is more of an investment than any child.

            The guitar wants everything.  It wants all the player’s time.  It wants all the player’s money.  It wants a seat in the car, and the place of the backpack.  It wants the spotlight in a crowd, the highest red bars on the mixing board, the most prominent position on the stage, and the loudest track on the CD.  The guitar has a mind of its own; the player cannot adapt it, cannot sway it, cannot persuade it to take a less active role.  The guitar is king.  The guitar is idol.  The guitar is god.  The player is its eternal subject.

 

 

ENG 110:  04/02, Ethnography Character Sketches

 

Dana

 

Dana plays part time with Smalltown Poets.  He wishes they had a little more ambition, the drive to do a little more.  He hates retail, but, “If you have to have a job…”.  He’s one of the touring part-timers at Broadway Music.  He has bad hair—straight from the seventies without drugs as an excuse.  His bulging little belly is beginning to obscure the cool, alternative exterior he used to showcase.  He looks like he should live in his parents’ basement and collect comic books, but he’s actually married to a decent looking, working class girl.  I don’t get a tremendously strong work ethic vibe from him.

 

Jason

 

Jay is Atticus Fault’s lead guitarist.  He plays with the passion of King David.  He’s married, but flirts anyway.  He has a perfect body, the perfect jaw structure of a model, has that slight hint of distinguished homosexual when he talks, and just bleeds guitar.  He’s clashed with Todd more than anyone, and he’s usually in the wrong, imagining himself a frontman more than is merited.  He’s intelligent, but imperceptive and gullible.

 

Jeremy

 

Jeremy is a grad student and guitar instructor.  I’ve met with him once a week since January, and only started to find definitive characteristics this past month.  He seems lonely.  He makes me sad.  He tries hard to remain encouraging and optimistic, but it seems thin and masking.  He loses himself when he plays, consumed by nothing but the instrument, as if it blocked the whole world from seeing Jeremy’s little quirks.  He has bad skin, bad hair, disgustingly long (but necessary for playing) fingernails, and a squatty little awkward frame.  He teaches guitar, but still stops himself mid-measure when he hits a bad note, twitching with one of his seizure-like jerks at a perversely unnatural angle.  He becomes possessed by the instrument.  I expect his head to start spinning around.

 

Neil

 

Neil is the most average person I’ve ever met.  He’s approaching middle age, has unassuming, short, dirty blonde hair, always tucks in his shirt, holds a full time management position on Broadway Music’s sales floor, goes to an average church, has average kids, and just barely plays guitar—just enough to know a little bit about it if anyone asks.  His jokes are unoriginal, but mildly amusing simply for the effort.  He eats normal, drinks normal, talks and dresses normal, and has no real aspirations to ever do otherwise.  I shouldn’t be a bit surprised to walk into Broadway Music in ten years and see Neil there behind the counter, just exactly as he is now.

 

Roger

 

Rog is military.  Not in the annoying ROTC way, but in the real, kick-ass soldier instinct sense.  He’s had a hard life.  His parents died when he was young, leaving him to be raised by his grandparents.  He had some bad religious leaders feeding him bad theology when he needed it the least.  He’s kind of a loveable goober.  He has that naturally curlicue, fiery red hair, a dozen or so intimidating tattoos, Mad Magazine kind of stuck out ears, and bottle thick, round rimmed glasses.  He likes everything from Robert Johnson to Johnny Cash, to Bone Thuggs ‘N Harmony, to System of a Down.  He’s part of the Mr. Bungle cult.  He hates the Manchester sound—effectively metaphorically spitting on what is my salvation.  We never see him and Becky (his wife) without smoking and drinking a little too much.  He doesn’t believe he’ll ever be in a band again, but he’ll always wish he could be.

 

Taylor

 

Taylor is young.  I mean, we’re talking he went to Prom again this year.  He slipped me a CD he made at home when he found out I liked Weezer a little.  The sounds jumped in schizoid patters across his songs.  Volumes and mixes were inconsistent.  His voice was terrible.  He lunged forward with ideas regardless of transitions or respect for foundation or structure.  In short, he’s a genius—you just don’t want him to know it until he grows up a little more.  He looks like he should be my little brother, with the same style of geek rock glasses and highlights in his short hair and slight goatee.  For a while we even had the same ear piercing, until mine got infected and I gave it up.  Taylor walks around in Hawaiian shirts and Old Navy cargo pants.  He stops by unannounced for awkward, four-hour visits.  Still, you can’t help liking him a little.

 

Tim

 

Tim is a goof.   When I first met him, years ago, I wanted to cut his awful long hair.  He eventually got married and figured out the short hair part of image for himself.  Now he’s gaining weight—a few too many mochas perhaps, or a few too many beers.  He’s mostly self-employed now, working only two days a week at Broadway, and the rest of the time inventing guitar effects pedals.  He has dark hair and only wears jeans and t-shirts, always has a coffee mug in hand—sometimes a French press.  He always jokes, and always makes you feel like you’re his favorite person in the world.  He knows absolutely everything about every aspect of guitar.  But he’ll always be a tech, never a guitarist, even though he plays proficiently and constantly.  He has all the education and most of the skill, but just doesn’t have the charisma.

 

Todd

 

Todd is the singer and primary writer for Atticus Fault.  I met him at Rocketown while working on an art project, maybe as far back as 1995.  He shaved his head since then.  And adjusted right nicely to life without medication.  His marriage is tense at times.  His life gets royally f—ked up sometimes.  His circle of friends is a cluster of irresponsible rock stars who still call themselves Christian.  I suspect he has it hard because he’s a genuine artist.  A truly emotive, passionate artist—possibly the most legitimate talent I’ve ever known.  His voice melts women.  His songs make people cry.  All he wants in the world is to be normal.  That will never happen.

 

 

ENG 110:  04/29/02, The Inanimate Culture (Guitar Ethnography)

 

            Settled into the corner of 19^th and Broadway, just off Music Row, there’s a small neon “open” sign and an even smaller logo indicating Broadway Music Consignments.  I used to pass it every day as part of a shortcut when my car was in the shop.  I was never the slightest bit curious as to what kind of place it was, this after all being Nashville—Music City, USA.  I knew there was a string of studios and record companies down “The Row”, but it never occurred to me that this might be the only local shop to get gear in a pinch.  What, after all, is one to do when a processor or something goes bad halfway through a mix, or if a pedal doesn’t sound right or a cable goes bad, and the studio is only rented out for two more days?  “Alright guys, let’s hit Broadway.  Lyle will help us out.”

            The selling point from the moment you walk in is the guitars.  There are three thirty foot high walls covered with them, all hanging slightly tilted toward the front entrance so as to catch reflections from the street outside—literally blinding you as you proceed along the glass counter.  There are worn but polished old guitars, with the names of the famous country stars who played them still stenciled discreetly across the bodies, as well as “factory new” Danelectros and Epiphones, electric and acoustic, classical and plectrum, with every conceivable variety of colors, shapes, and sizes.  There are cases and stands stacked against the walls, and amps and keyboards forming islands of gear over the thin, fading blue carpet leading you along the length of the lighted and stocked counter running the length of the first level of gear.

            The store is visibly broken into sections, bass equipment underneath the enormous front window, a drum and mixing board room nestled into the back corner, a row of amps leading to a conglomeration of keyboards and Wurlitzers—pipe organ type things.  Up a short ramp is a construction consisting of players and processors and intimidating looking equipment I wouldn’t know what to do with, accompanied by another island of much larger monitors and speakers.  There is a telephone on a pole in the center of this upper section, with one computer ten feet away from it, and two more leading back down to the lower level.  One double door in the corner is nearly always propped open with a car or van backed up to it, unloading still more equipment.  A hidden staircase leads up to the office and shipping area, where once a day UPS drops an overwhelming stack of boxes at the foot of the stairs.

            Every employee plays guitar, most of them professionally and on tour part of the year.  Dana plays with Smalltown Poets, Duane with Sonic Flood, Steve with Michael Card, and Jason with any number of artists on the Goatee label—usually Knowdaverbs.  Lyle plays in church and sits in on recording sessions, which are considered the opposite of live performances; the live and the studio musician are distinctly different characters.  Tim plays with a few bands, but focuses mainly on building guitar effects pedals.  Neil plays just well enough to sometimes accompany a worship team, but mostly it’s just to soothe his mind after a full day of work.

Back when there was a small coffee shop in the far room, there used to be live music nights on the weekends, mostly local or Christian musicians, but always of the very best caliber.  Tim used to work the door, and any of the other guys would run sound.  They soon found out that there just wasn’t enough income through music without serving alcohol, so it was a short lived era.  You hear different stories about that period depending on who you talk to.  I mostly talk to Tim and Lyle.

            Lyle is the owner.  He usually dresses fairly casually in some golf shirt and jeans, although the last time I popped in he was wearing a respectable button up and his hair was pressed flat.  He looks almost exactly like Laurel… or Hardy—whoever the skinny one was.  His management style is very hands on, as if it is absolutely essential to know what every customer, employee, friend and family member is involved in at any given moment.  It’s very reassuring.  His children wander around the store playing on equipment, his wife calls every few minutes on the cell phone affixed to his belt, every customer asks for him by name, and every question an employee comes up with gets an immediate, precise and informed answer.  There is no guesswork, no miscommunication, and basically very little room for error.  Lyle has a stern but good natured tone that makes you trust and respect him completely.

            Neil is technically the floor manager, but as the only full time employee, his distractions as a salesperson wear him down and he ends up putting in countless extra hours to catch up with things like inventory and records.  He may be the most average person I’ve ever met, with normal length blondish hair and jeans and a t-shirt, and always a short sleeved button-up shirt worn like a cardigan.  He used to play baseball up in Minnesota, but moved down to help Lyle out.  I talk to him frequently and in depth, without taking notes, because he seems the most human and really willing to talk, openly, honestly, about how the job wears him out.  He mentions how difficult it is to manage a staff that are always on tour, or doing sessions, or whose work ethic is just not there; “I mean, they’re all musicians, you know?”

            One Saturday I stay closest to Tim because he only works two days a week, and because he seems to know everything about every aspect of guitar.  He casually throws around stories about meeting Eddie Vedder back during a session in L.A., or different bands he’s partied with or worked with, or sold gear to up in Minnesota.  (It seems most of the workers ended up here from there.)  He always has a travel mug of coffee within reach, gesturing in sounds how good it is every time he takes a gulp.  Whenever a customer walks in, he shouts their name across the room like they’re old college buddies, opening them, it seems, to more of his constant stream of anecdotes.  He never stops talking, even as his audience walks away, but it never gets annoying because he throws in a fair amount of humor.

            When he starts talking to a regular about gear, I get lost immediately.  They start throwing out brand names and web sites and technical terms that must have taken at least twenty years to learn.  I try to write them down, but they rattle off words and skip from topic to topic so quickly that I just can’t keep up.  I notice instead how every customer gets personal attention, for as long as thirty minutes sometimes, being personally escorted around the store and through whatever purchase they might make.

The guys seem to have an immediate sense of who mean to buy things and who just want to play with the various guitars.  Only the large, upright bass has a “Please ask for assistance before playing this instrument” sign on it.  The rest is fair game.  Families walk in from time to time and children scatter as if playing Marco-Polo, random notes calling out their locations over amps left on throughout the day.

            When a customer picks up a guitar, they generally start by playing an instantly recognizable lick—or guitar riff—and then launch into scales, playing up and down the fret board to check the range of tones.  The serious players don’t linger; they hear what they need instantly, then move on.  The younger, aspiring musicians are the ones who tend to play entire sections of whatever songs they must recently have figured out at home.

You can also tell the younger players from the established ones by the focus of their inquiries.  The older musicians ask almost no technical questions; instead they focus on gigs or inquire sincerely about friends and family.  The younger players instead try to portray an image of “artist… cool guy… rock star!”  When they ask questions, they ask about specific gear and effects, trying to appear that they know about it all already.  “Some days I just want to stop… and say, ‘I’m not answering anymore questions today!’” Neil whispers to me.  “They just never end.”

            “Mornings are generally pretty slow,” Lyle tells me, glancing at his watch.  “Then lunchtime picks up; the afternoons can get pretty crazy.”  I gather that musicians aren’t much for the mornings.  Dana drags himself in with fresh coffee, with an extra cup for Neil.  They get it at J & J’s Market across the street, even though there is a new café where Union 5 used to be—that far room I mentioned earlier.  “Man, there’s just such a bad dynamic between us and them,” Lyle says, referring to the new business owners, “that I don’t even go over there.”  He stares off into space whenever he has to say something negative; he’s generally such an amiable man.  I know it kills him when he has to be stern.

            Business always seems just barely where it needs to be.  Some days the guys seem discouraged and afraid the doors are going to close, most of them hoping the next tour season will bring in enough money to take some time off for new projects, Neil quietly hoping he can make it through a year of night classes to be certified as a drug and alcohol counselor so he can move on.  “Customer service is just the worst,” Dana confides, then continues, shrugging, “but… it brings in money and it’s better than waiting tables.”  I never quite figure out what Dana’s ambition is; he seems to rely heavily on what other people have going on musically.  He seems lethargic, maybe even a little depressed.

            Tim actually left Broadway for an entire year, working with his wife at some night school, and building his pedals and tinkering with studio projects on the side, but the jobs didn’t pan out the way they’d hoped.  Lyle tells me this on my last visit while I’m already forlorn.  “Isn’t it funny the way people work things up in their minds,” I say, “and then the world falls apart around them?  That’s my favorite thing.”  Lyle laughs heartily.  Then a family walks in and he leaves me to go and welcome them.

            There is a lull, so I close my journal and inch back toward Dana and Neil.  “How do you do it?” I ask.  “It just feels so stale in here sometimes.”  They both look up with sincere eyes and audible sighs, giving that “if you only knew the half of it…” look.  I feel compassion for them.

Looking around at the customers, it seems to me that the whole culture is based on dreams—of being famous or being adored, or being able to make ends meet.  The constituents showcase outdated clothes and bad hairstyles, talking too expectantly, hoping too transparently, exchanging paltry stories and similarly boring plans for future projects.  They all feel like failures.  They all seem to cling to either yesterday or tomorrow.  But in the present they only endure, just waiting for that impending success—that big break that will set them apart from every other guitarist in every other music store in Nashville.

            Broadway Music Consignments has a life of its own, for sure.  On any given day you can see familiar faces from any era of your own life—from Phil Keaggy to Marty Stewart to guys from Slaughter and Cinderella—walking around like normal, tangible, not-on-TV-type people.  Some only stop by in emergencies, some come in every day to check on consigned gear, and some stop by occasionally just to talk to Lyle, Tim, Neil, or Dana.  The place can seem to pulse with the city’s lifeblood at times, and seem like a benign tumor at others.

On my first visit I was envious, listening intently and taking notes as though my life depended on learning guitar.  I longed to take part in Tim’s gear discussion—to be so informed about equipment and techniques and able to rattle off terminology like a roadie.  But with each subsequent visit I felt more and more compassion for guitarists.  I noticed that when they actually play, there is no acknowledgement of any other human being; the guitarist either stares at the fret board or closes his eyes.  I ended up feeling lonelier with every note—like that Beatles song, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”.

I think of Tim, up all night in his empty studio, making pedals in absolute seclusion for people who will hook them up in similarly empty studios and play to nobody.  I think of Dana, sitting on an amp practicing Smalltown Poets songs in case he gets called back to the road.  I think of Neil, tapping the hollow shell of a lute and tilting his head into each somber note, leaving Broadway as far behind as he can, if only for those few serene moments.

In the end, I think guitar culture is really about the relationship between a man and his instrument.  There is no talking while playing.  Human connection to the pure, emotive sound is on an empathetic level—a level which simply acknowledges, “Yes, I am lonely too.”  Guitar is not about community; it is about solitude.  It takes the place of society.  It may in fact be the most inanimate culture I’ve ever seen.

 

 

ENG 110:  05/02/02, The Inanimate Culture (Critical Evaluation)

 

            Guitar is the loneliest of instruments, and guitarists are therefore condemned to lead unfulfilled and solitary lives, struggling along in a cyclical pattern reinforcing their seclusion from the fortunate majority of the population who do not play guitar.  The problem with the instrument is that all its initial selling points—its versatility, its superior gorgeous sound, its portability and affordability, its relative simplicity—brought it to a unique standing as the most popular instrument, and it has in turn come to be the great downfall of many musicians.  Loneliness and despair have become so deeply integrated into the guitarist’s life that it is nearly impossible for any serious player to ever be truly happy.

            Guitar is, by nature, independent.  Other instruments require the support of ensembles in order to have their full impact.  Orchestras, for example, would not meet a composer’s standard if any individual sound was missing.  Drums and bass, for a more pop oriented illustration, must work together to form the low end of a rock band.  Even the serene and beautiful piano, although it can be fully appreciated on its own merit, is so large that it depends on a physical playing environment—namely, whatever room it becomes furniture in.  Only the guitar is versatile and complete enough to exist wholly unto itself, since the earliest days of traveling minstrels.  The guitar is a wandering instrument, intended to move with the player, to stay with its vagabond master wherever he may lay his head; it is a common theme in music to roam from town to town with just a guitar slung across the back.

            The customers and employees of Broadway Music Consignments in downtown Nashville are perfect illustrations of the unhappiness inherent in guitar’s associated culture.  They show us why the Nashville musician has become a stereotype, why the city itself is synonymous with loneliness and broken dreams.  Business cards, show flyers, and freebie local music guides lie in stacks by the littered bulletin board, in fact resembling most of the telephone poles in town, collecting dust in the hope that someone might wander into a gig and become an instant fan.  The CD rack behind the counter is overfilled with local independent releases and poor quality demo recordings, packaged with over-the-top self promotion that the staff, upon receiving by personal delivery or by mail, huddle together and pick apart for future inside jokes.  The store is a magnet for people who are going nowhere, people who walk the physical streets of Nashville day in and day out, and for whom the luster has faded.

Ask Larry Stevens one day how he’s doing and you’ll get a forced, “Never been better!”, but the very next day he’ll be “just trying to make ends meet.”  A few of the vaguely recognizable customers, like the guitarists from Cinderella and Slaughter, stop by with relative frequency to visibly impress through their outdated looks that a quick run of success will not make a person better suited to fit into society; it seems they keep clinging to their past glory days, believing they really must be something else if people keep acting excited to meet them.  This must be terribly hard to reconcile with that feeling that “it’s all downhill from here,” that nagging suspicion that people are silently mocking them, as Paul Allen of Nouveax once asserted.

            The employees, all of whom are musicians themselves, are equally as unsatisfied with the course guitar has taken them.  Tim has been “talking record deals” with companies for nearly four years, but ended up back behind the counter when other work and projects didn’t pan out.  Dana plays on the road sometimes with Smalltown Poets, but is the first to say—while flipping through a magazine and adding another donut to his gut—that he wishes they were more ambitious.  Jason nearly had a solo career after singing backup for Knowdaverbs, Out Of Eden, and Toby McKeehan’s worship project, but the album was never released and he doesn’t like to talk about it.  Even Neil no longer wants anything to do with music, but instead devotes his free time to learning drug and alcohol counseling—in his words “doing something useful.”

            The stigma of guitar is a recurring theme in popular music; it is almost always presented as a curse, or in some way associated with unobtainable love, usually also with life on the road.  In “The Six Strings That Drew Blood,” Nick Cave sums up a guitarist’s life by dubbing him “the master and the slave of his six strings.”  David Gilmour refers, in “What Do You Want From Me,” to playing guitar until his fingers are raw.  In “Homeward Bound,” Simon and Garfunkel paint a slightly more sentimental picture of a traveling musician who dreams of his love waiting at home, but taking for granted that the musician actually chose a life of isolation.  In “Superstar” by the Carpenters, the person left alone at home reciprocates the usual longing, in a forlorn manner that tears at heartstrings, ending with a plea to “come back to me again, and play your sad guitar.”  “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” perhaps the most poignant Beatles song, laments the ineffectual love dormant in the population.

            The prominent theme of loneliness in guitar culture is due, at least in part, to one of the reasons behind learning it in the first place.  Guitarists choose their craft to compensate for the loneliness they already feel.  As Doug Jones writes in an e-mail survey, “Guitar was a great way to get chicks!”  Most musicians had childhood dreams of stardom that could quite easily cross over into delusions of grandeur, usually unwarranted.  Speaking of other guitarists, Mr. Jones asserts, “Honestly, most guitarists demonstrate the lowest common denominator of intelligence.”

            The tradeoff that most aspiring musicians have not planned on is that playing guitar proficiently actually demands spending a great deal of time alone, practicing the instrument.  Drew Porter replies to an e-mail survey question by writing, “I was in my prime when I was practicing three hours a day and my fingers were bleeding.”  Players frequently divide their practice time between studies and sight reading and older and newer repertoire, which is the preferred method taught by Alan Shearer in his books Learning the Classical Guitar, Parts 1 and 2.  Mr. Jones reinforces this, emphatically stressing hard work and discipline.  Guitar instructor Jeremy Fritts goes one step further, insisting that his students practice, alone, up to one hour a day with a metronome to keep the pace and structure, and to avoid distractions.

            It is perhaps this rigid structure that wreaks havoc with a guitarist’s personal life; the instrument becomes in a sense a mistress, reinforcing the sense of isolation and loneliness that the guitarist sought to overcome by taking up the instrument to begin with.  The sad reality is that band rehearsals and touring schedules chips away at the quality time available for a musician to devote to his spouse, and if ever there is a tense moment in the relationship, the guitarist always has the instrument to redirect his passion into.  This is the unfortunate, recurring scenario in Nashville’s local music scene, one which only escalates the dysfunctional nature of guitar culture.

            There may be exceptions to this bleak overview of this one instrumental culture, but everywhere guitar is found, these solemn elements will invariably surface.  From the counter at Broadway Music Consignments to the stage at 12^th & Porter, from the classrooms of Belmont University to the worship team at Belmont Church, guitar will always have that melancholy sound, weeping aloud with saturated overtones of loneliness and despair.

 

 

ENG 110:  05/06/02, Ethnography Self Evaluation

 

            As I sit at my computer at seven in the morning on the very last day the assignment is due, having once again not slept, having instead spent the better part of the night painting the final two boards of the never-ending art project for 2-D, and with a several hour drive to Atlanta in the immediate future of this morning, I reiterate the all-too familiar sentiment that I just want to go to sleep.  But that is impossible now, as it has been for too many nights over this, my first semester in school.  If it stays like this, I will physically die, just like the few times I was physically unable to stay awake any longer and fell asleep in unnatural poses on my chair.  I have done everything.  The first semester is over.  I’m taking a break.

            I started school at twenty-five.  I didn’t know what it would be like.  I’m already married and already know exactly what I’ll be doing for a living; I’m just not there yet.  There are too many distractions.  But I have drive.  I have more drive to succeed in life than anyone you will ever meet.  I have plans—enormous, complex plans, with every detail laid out, every intricacy accounted for.  All I’m missing is time.  I have the discipline.  I have the talent.  I have the faith.  I even have the support, which is a rather new addition, in fact—I didn’t have support before my wife.

            I look at the clock and think, “It’s seven ten in the morning and I want a beer and a cigarette.  That should register as a problem.”  But I did it.  I did it all.  Every class.  Every assignment.  Every shift at work.  Every social engagement.  I did every single bit of it, and didn’t enjoy a damn thing.  I don’t need to enjoy it—not yet.  That’s why I’m in school.  I want to work hard now and retire early, sit back on some chair on my estate when I’m fifty and think how long and full life has been, then be ready to get home to heaven.  I don’t want a long life, just a full one.  I have love, I have art, I have God; what more do I hope for?

            My grade for the class… my workshop grade?  What difference does it make?  As long as I don’t have to repeat the class I’m happy.  English teachers have always had kind of a hard time knowing what exactly to do with me, so I’ll be happy with a C.  I don’t expect to do so poorly, but I like to not get my hopes hung on things.  I’m a little more concerned about the other classes.

            But for your sake, so you’ll know how I’ve functioned this semester, let’s consider my habits.  As with every book (except Homesick), I got through two or three chapters of the text book and got bored to death and stopped reading it; most writers just don’t know when not to write—there’s too much writing in our world.  But I did put a tremendous amount of effort and research into the papers, even if I didn’t particularly enjoy the structure or subject matter.  I wasn’t wonderful on rough drafts because I was channeling most of my energy into Statistics, which was absolute hell for me; one must prioritize, you know.

            I wasn’t much of an ethnography partner, I’m afraid.  Truth is, I avoid talking to any girls who aren’t my wife beyond what is absolutely necessary.  There were a few e-mails, and Amanda was in my 2-D class, so I got to talk to her a little then.  But I’m disappointed that I couldn’t come up with the extra cash to get something pierced or tattooed as a show of support.

            I never missed a class, and the only times I was late were due to math tests.  I never procrastinated, but I had to prioritize, and English was not always my first priority, but please don’t take it personally.  In fact, this is the absolute last thing I have to do for any class this semester.  So I’m done now.  Now I sit back and wait for grades to see if I’m allowed to register for summer classes.  Until then, damn it, I’m going to try to sleep for at least an hour before going to school to hand this in.

 

 

PSY 110:  05/06/02, Stressors In My Life

 

            The top five stressors in my life are as follows.  First and foremost, I am married.  While that is in fact the best thing in my life, it requires constant attention to do it right; too many of my friends are failing as spouses, and I simply will not allow that in my life.  Secondly, I am an aspiring writer, which leads into other things, such as not being happy at my current job serving coffee at a café.  This leads directly into the third stressor, which is financial strain, made worse by the fourth, which is that both my wife and I are in school.  Again related is the fifth stressor, which is a complete and utter lack of time to accomplish all that needs to be done in a timely manner.

             A few major recurring techniques in the field of stress management seem to be meditation, autogenic training, progressive relaxation, and biofeedback.  There are many different methods of meditation, some involving chant, some music, and some centering techniques, but for it to be applicable to me, I choose to bring about a similar effect through prayer, recitation of scripture, and sometimes a visualization of heaven.  Autogenic training, which has more to do with relaxing certain muscles in order to evoke a sort of self-hypnosis, I assume can be similarly experienced through certain yoga exercises my wife keeps begging me to try; eventually I’m sure I will.  It does share a certain something with meditation—carrying it, it seems, a bit further.

Progressive relaxation may prove to be most beneficial to me, as I find that I give myself headaches simply by scowling too frequently and intensely.  Only since being married have I seen the relationship between physical tension and emotional disquiet, as once again my wonderful wife has added to my life the tendency to exercise regularly and also frequent massages.  Biofeedback seems the least relevant to me personally, but my sister-in-law has an expensive machine for just that purpose in her living room, which I’ve been tempted once of twice to experiment with.  It does seem that most techniques are very similar in nature, easing your mind, consciously letting go of things, exercising in a variety of ways, a heavy emphasis on breathing, remaining still and silent, and so on.

The other major field of stress management is changing detrimental behaviors.  These are where my vices currently lie—smoking, drinking, caffeine, and unhealthy patters such as bottling things in.  Slowly walking away from these vices—as I certainly have been—and replacing them with good patterns such as exercise, getting sufficient sleep, and a maintaining a comprehensive and healthy diet, is my current focus.  And the support of my wife and friends has made it—and continues to make it—easier.  Oh, and eventually I should quit my nowhere job, as I continue to focus on the poetry writing that makes me happy.  Also, I took up guitar, which can be very therapeutic.

 

Sources

 

Beech, H., Burns, L., Sheffield, B. (1982). A Behavioral Approach to the Management of Stress. New York: Wiley.

 

Greenberg, J. (1993). Comprehensive Stress Management. Dubuque, IA: Brown & Benchmark.

 

Sauter, S., Murphy, L., Colligan, M., Swanson, N., Hurrell, J., Scharf, F., Sinclair, R., Grubb, P., Goldenhar, L., Alterman, T., Johnson, J., Hamilton, A., & Tisdale, J. (1999). Stress… At Work.  <http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/stresswk.html> (2002, May 6).

 

Williams, K., Kolar, M., Regar, B., & Pearson, J. (2001). Evaluation of a Wellness-based Mindfulness Stress Reduction Intervention: A Controlled Trial. American Journal of Health Promotion, 15 (16), 422-432.

 

Wrosch, C., Heckhausen, J., & Lachman, M. (2000). Primary and Secondary Control Strategies for Managing Health and Financial Stress Across Adulthood. Psychology and Aging, 15 (3), 387-399.

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 1

On William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence & Experience”

 

            Based on a single straight reading, my first impression of William Blake is that of surprise, not that I still am not sure how much I actually liked, but that I am quite familiar with references to Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.  Interestingly, my exposure was in the form of alternative Christian music of the ‘80s and ‘90s.  Terry Taylor referred to (if not blatantly ripped off) Blake’s writings in a solo album and in DA’s Fearful Symmetry.  Similarly, Jeff Johnson created a theme album surrounding the poems, the most memorable moment of which was a somewhat progressive version of The Tyger.  There was even a dance band called The Echoing Green.  Only now do I rightly attribute these creations to William Blake.

            Now, why should that be at all interesting?  It depends on your interpretation of the poems themselves, and on what significance you attribute to the arrangements and timing of the works.  Having only an initial impression, without allowing myself enough time to pour over each stanza, my feeling is that Blake’s preference was for the darker images, which makes it unusually appealing to equate his art and mindset with the progressive Christian music of my formative years.  It reinforces that Christianity can be—and possibly should be—quite sobering.  This solidifies the influence of the Books of Wisdom, which are notably poetic, such as Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job.  Most great art borrows liberally from the Scriptures; usually, the more passionate the work, the more doctrinally sound.

            Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are rich with Biblical and religious imagery.  (Yes, they are intentionally two separate entities).  The Biblical imagery seems to mirror nature—the lamb, the sun, the spring, the green—and the positive wellspring of attributes like mercy, pity, peace, and love, followed by wonderful things like playing, laughing, and joy.  Then with the dangers of nature—the night, the sea, the pebble, the tyger—come also despair, jealousy, cruelty, fear, bondage, poverty, misery, and death.  On the other hand, religious imagery seems to dominate the harsher, later poems.  The Holy Word (from Introduction) and Holy Thursday feel ceremoniously Anglican and cold, the praise of God leaves the Chimney Sweeper singing “notes of woe”, The Garden of Love finds the priests entrapping Blake’s joys and desires, and the institution of Marriage is equated with death.

            What I want you to notice is that Songs of Innocence was written first, in 1789, and that Songs of Experience followed a few years later, in 1794; and these were not Blake’s only projects at the time.  My suggestion is that Blake began with Innocence as the framework for his intended ultimate collection, not because he felt life could be pure and untainted, but because he knew the inevitability of the realities of observation, much as Solomon did.  The point was to expose the ugly, unpalatable truth that nothing is untouched by wickedness and decay.  That is why each poem has, or can be interpreted to have, a counterpart.  My impression is that Songs of Innocence was written fro the perspective of life trying externally to squelch the Spirit, while Songs of Experience was written from the perspective of the internal Spirit coloring the perception of external life.  Purity and wickedness always coexist, and I believe Blake’s purpose was to portray each of them both inside and out.

            Each example is gorgeous in its own right, and I do us all a tremendous disservice to narrow the comparison to just two poems, but I think I am particularly fond of the Infant Poems.  Similar to, say, Psalms or Proverbs, and employed still today by the likes of Nick Cave (in Black Hair, for instance), the use of repetition in Infant Joy reinforces the sentiment, almost suggesting a loss of words—typical when overwhelmed by emotion.  You will find no such repetition in Infant Sorrow, perhaps because the author has grown apathetic toward even the marvel of childbirth, instead seeing only the inevitable pain the child will suffer, entering the world already screaming, acknowledging already the helplessness and vulnerability we all share.  The poem structures are interesting to note as well; while the Innocence viewpoint is presented in a somewhat freer, flowing, inspired and unrestrained form, Experience is forced into symmetry and rigidly adhering to syllabic continuity, with strict attention to rhyme and rhythm.  Yet, even when the content of the later poems demands structure, Blake is more likely in the later poems to ignore things like proper capitalization (“My mother groand!  my father wept.”), which is not a content issue, but one concerning writing proficiency; the longer you write, the more freedom you have to pick and choose which rules must apply to a particular piece.  I think it is hugely significant that Joy preceded Sorrow.  Such is usually the case.

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 2

On William Blake’s “Proverbs Of Hell”

 

            “The hours of folly are measured by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.”

 

            Obviously, wisdom is patient.  But this suggests many possibilities.  Folly is also impulse, as linear time is more equated with youth than age.  Perhaps the immediate consequences of an action can seem more destructive than if the scenario is stretched further into the future, where grace and mercy can redeem any past error.  If “time heals all wounds”, all history is melded into a final good.  Perhaps wisdom removes time from consideration, if after all truth is eternal.  The interesting thing about the Proverbs of Hell is that they can all well be true, which Blake certainly reinforces throughout the work.

 

            “Excess of sorrow laughs.  Excess of joy weeps.”

 

            The immediate image is of laughing so hard that one is reduced to tears, or weeping so miserably that it inexplicably turns to laughter.  But I think another possibility is found in the process of carrying an idea out to its logical end.  If I by nature am given to bouts of sadness and tend to see only the bad in life, my solemnity will ultimately be touched by grace and mercy, and the epiphany will be such a tremendous relief as to consume me with the peace and laughter of the Holy Spirit.  If, on the other hand, I am by nature accustomed to merriment and goodwill, I will undoubtedly be taken aback when sorrow rears its unfortunate head, knowing not how to respond, and will end in misery.  It’s the pendulum theory of balance, or even Blake’s sparring natures, both of which I think he completely agreed with.

 

            “One thought fills immensity.”

 

            I have always said that poetry can sum up all of life in a word, or stretch a moment out to infinity.  I think this, coupled with the final “Enough!  or Too Much.” is really the point of Blake’s work—at the very least this one.  It is reiterated in “Every thing possible to be believ’d is an image of truth.”  I believe Blake is genuinely frustrated at, and simultaneously fascinated by, his capacity to see every possible angle of every possible situation from every possible perspective.  That is the simple, palatable reading, yes, but because the concept in practice is too exhausting to explore, having to show for it nothing at the end but further questions—which certainly can be of merit, but seems less so if your life pattern is to dwell on such.

 

            “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.”

 

            This is interesting in its possible ambiguity.  On the one hand, it could refer to the detriment of squashing inspiration or primal instinct—the lust of the flesh—suggesting that it would ultimately cause more harm for having simmered, festered, and feverishly built than having simply initially explored the innate desire.  But it could also be a commentary that impulses should be immediately squelched; the infant being the things which dare not be harbored since it will inevitably grow (having been nursed) into an even more reproachable, abhorrent device.

 

            “Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ’d.”

 

            This could be read either of at least two ways.  By one reading it could be meant to say “truth can never be told, understood, or believed”, which is quite negative.  By another token, it could be interpreted as “if truth is ever able to be articulated, it will be impossible to discount”—quite the opposite.  Both of these can be wholly true, but I submit that it is more likely that case that truth will never be successfully articulated.

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 3

On Jane Austen’s “Persuasion”

 

            Anne Elliot is, of course, the central character in Jane Austen’s “Persuasion”.  Immediately we are sympathetic to her, partly because she stands counter to a nobility-class mindset and is thus disproportionately regarded by her own siblings and father, partly because she experiences the lost love we most as human beings are prone to empathize with at least sometime in our lives, and partly because she is noted to be on the outer edge of her “blossoming”, her beauty fading with age and prospects diminishing for it to ever be maintained of appreciated in its waning prime.  She is many ways an anti-hero, more compelling to the reader for her humanness then the fortunate upper echelon whom luxury affords to become quite distinct in their perceived perfection; she represents the common, or at the very least the humble, sensitive kindred that we today, under the banner of equality, choose (not without some sense of irony) to champion.  It is, in fact, the flaws in her character that draw us to her, as a more perfect character would—being quite unrealistic—provoke us to negatively respond.

            To begin with, she is not particularly strong against the influence of others, which wholly accounts for the great disappointment in her life—the loss of a love perfectly suitable and catered to her own unique needs.  She maintains a sort of “martyr complex” wherein her strong desires are usually sacrificed, not without grave consequence, to those even she finds somewhat pitiable.  Her capacity to understand importance, and indeed, her own passions are too easily abandoned in action, whereas her thought-life never quite surrenders causing a perplexing situation of disciplined submission without full intention, resulting in the impossibility of her ever being truly happy despite circumstance.  She sets a pattern for herself in which quiet desperation encourages itself, meanwhile possessing the imagination to acknowledge alternate possibilities hinging on endless “ifs”.

            She is likewise intelligent, which any reasonable person can tell you is a prerequisite for misery.  That is not to suggest that unfortunate lots might not also befall unthinking people, but it is not far from true that such folk are easily distracted from, if ever capable of realizing at all, the tragic implications of such things.

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 4

More On Jane Austen’s “Persuasion

 

            “Poor Fanny!  She would not have forgotten him so soon!” says Captain Harville of Captain Benwick.  This is a most interesting charge in that quite the opposite is true; Benwick has surely not forgotten his dead fiancé, but it is rather the constant awareness of her absence with which he transfers his love to Louisa Musgrove.  Indeed, his misery after her death has come to be accepted, expected, and somewhat facilitated by those around him, with complete understanding on the grounds of how truly together the two were.  The only way with which a small part of Captain Benwick might keep his beloved alive is to find in someone else the dear attributes he treasured.  While Louisa is in no manner equal to the standard, her willingness to allow the treatment should certainly be enough for so desperate a man.  The inconsolable Captain Harville is in his bias unable—or unwilling—to appreciate the obvious displacement, as is apparently everyone else, but the indication of Benwick’s tormenting anguish over his lost love is clear in the misaligned and grossly inadequate match.

            It is also most significant that it is discourse over this arrangement in particular that finally breaks Captain Wentworth, drawing a parallel to how deeply affected that two men’s spirits are concerning the women of their idolatry.  Austen’s earlier suggestion of an implicit relationship possible between Benwick and Anne served to foreshadow (through association and the parallel just set forth) that Wentworth, too, was unchangeable in his affections, and that a man so inclined could not be denied.

            Personally, I find most particularly interesting the contrast between Benwick’s lost love and his pursuant lament and longstanding misery, compelling him even into a pattern of sustained, silent regret (in the sense that his transference is a means of not giving up his intended) and the absolute shallowness of Sir Walter Elliot in his negligent treatment of his own dead wife, the Lady Elizabeth.  Indeed, as his favorite pastime is rereading the very page on which her fate is noted, he fails even to see past his own family name, regards his late wife as no more than she who bore his beautiful, fortunate offspring, if even noticing the name at all.  In a situation otherwise given to despair, Sir Walter sees his greatest personal merit, an altogether different reaction to love lost than the tormented Captains Benwick and Wentworth.

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 5

On The Film Adaptation Of “Persuasion”

 

            If I had to choose an aspect of the film version of “Persuasion” to discuss how it did or did not work, I would instantly choose to dismantle the very production of it.  You understand, then, the part of the movie that doesn’t work is that it was at all made into a movie.

            What I mean is that we began with a very intelligent piece of literature, the novel by Jane Austen, and thought to ourselves, “Well, this is enjoyable in this form; let’s convert it to another and attempt to retain its nature.”  Let me tell you this is impossible—it’s like eating warm ice cream.  We have in essence now taken a single interpretation of a work and presented it as the definitive representation of the original author.  Blasphemy!

            For one thing, I am not able to see why a minor name change like Fanny to Phoebe is at all necessary.  And the director also takes for granted the ability of the audience to infer anything; as an example, beginning immediately with a military scene, “Gentleman, the war is over,” as if that were the most natural thing to say to the people who just fought it.  To change the beginning and “embellish” the ending of a text is unforgivable—therein lies the essence of the mood.

            There is a great injustice in casting, as well, with certainly no directorial effort to improve the choice.  The portrayals were transparent and one-dimensional, never allowing for either sympathy or empathy to creep in.  Wentworth and Mr. Elliot were too unappealing, Sir Walter was too comical, and Benwick was too eager and not nearly aloof.  As for the women, the Miss Musgroves were not remotely attractive, Mrs. Clay was appalling, Elizabeth had not the slightest refinement or dignity, and Anne unforgivably lacked any composure whatsoever.  Only Mary and Lady Russell were played well.

            I confess, though, that even with these glaring deficiencies, I might have forgiven the movie’s existence if it had been able to capture, at the very least, the emotion of the book.  The most unfortunate part of the whole effort is that Austen’s narration was entirely neglected, and that is where the emotion is found.  The film should not have focused on the action of the text, but on the faithful effort to connect to human passion.  Though it is not a horrendous film in it’s own right, it is an utter disappointment to me in relation to the book.

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 6

In Ruin My Abbey Lies

 

No longer, in this world, is there an Abbey,

for now that age has swept in with cleansing,

purging thoughts against such immoral musings,

I have seen a larger surrounding encroachment

which reduces the overwhelming conviction—

on which you settled for great many a year—

and it is this sight:

 

a sectioned off patch of grass

just sufficient for a traffic light.

 

I have a good many reasons for erasing nostalgia from my life.  I find it difficult to enjoy Wordsworth at this point because my restoration lies not in the past, but solely in the future.  I am not able to conjure lost images with fond recollection because I was no better off as a child than I am in experience.  This may seem vague and in direct contrast to Wordsworth, and I will grant you both; rather, I was keener on Blake because he dwelt less retrospectively (and more introspectively), less in the past.  My past is without merit.  My wife is my peace and hope.  I let everything go when I bound myself to her.

            That is not to say I have never had a Tintern Abbey.  I have had more than any contemporary I am aware of.  Each of them was explicitly detailed within the meandering chronology of my first seven books of poetry—ah, there it is!  I finally let on what anyone who attempts to navigate my prose would readily suggest, and that is my preference for verse.  But I must also assert that neither do I fully trust it.  Indeed, I despise all forms of writing every bit as much as I love the written word!  This will most likely be judged harshly and impatiently, as by precedence I am, but let me present you with one possible scenario (not you, my immediate instructor, whose misfortune it is to be the first reader, but you, each subsequent reader who will stumble across a collection of these coaxed tangents).  Here is the truth, in fact; I write for myself and those who understand only.  I care not for anyone else’s difficulty at it.  It is just that lack of uniform appeal which leads me into it.  To even begin to fully understand what lies beneath what I say, one has to familiarize him/herself with the, oh, fifteen years of poetry that got me to this point.  It is impossible for me to be other than I am, and I make no apology for it.  That was another of the main themes my anthologies addressed.

            All of that is to say that, yes, I could come up with a good Tintern Abbey of my own if I were to sift through all of my old material.  But it is just that—old.  I, unlike Wordsworth, do not wish any longer to return to anything earlier than my wife, because all of my blessings begin with her, and the only good in my life is the direct result of my faithfulness to that knowledge.  I am not emotionally invested in Wordsworth because I see God and nature—all things worthy of praise—only in her (at least any longer).  I have intimately known nature on the coasts of Maine and Florida, in the mountains of Virginia and Pennsylvania, in the fields of New Jersey and on the great Stone Mountain of Georgia.  But nature no longer pleases me—except when God smirks over rain clouds—and memory is not anything I encourage.  It is my wife’s eyes and smile that still me now, the way her head lowers when her cheek raises, and she steps into that look that obsesses me.

            In fairness for the assignment, my most similar place and moment would be the back or the front parking lot of the old Caffé Milano, where on a winter night and a summer eve I heard the voice of God during a particularly emotional era.  It counts as nature, not because I was immersed in it, but because I noticed it amid the ugly chaos of downtown Franklin.  It does prove true that it is sometimes easier to hear God when all is quiet, and I believe that was Wordsworth’s main draw.  At any rate, I have addressed, and settled to my own satisfaction, every imaginable theme in life, and I therefore exempt myself from proceeding.  The work is my testament, while my life is my ministry.  Remember that by my age, many, if not most, of the greatest writers had already written their favored material.  I am prepared to decline now.

 

Upon reading that back to myself, it sounded harsh.  Please know that I was not attacking anyone, but rather I was caught up in the exhilaration of words stumbling forth, if only for myself (which they were).

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 7

An Exercise In Listening

 

            While I usually enjoy listening to music, this was a task to accomplish, since it is quite difficult to allot time to linger in the library.*    “Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t exaggerate so,” you’re thinking to yourself, but trust me, my plate is full.  (Hmm... that makes me want to write a song called “My Plate Is Full, But My Cup Is Empty”—I think I’ll work on that next weekend.)  Anyway, here is my quick critique (as it is four in the morning).

            The use of a choir on “Jerusalem” was effective in giving that feeling of religious zeal and prophetic overtones which Blake may have been happy with.  However, I personally found the whole production too clean, not quite gritty enough to show the world as it is—full of contrast, as Blake saw it.

            “The Lamb” I loved.  The first verse exuded solemnity, with the a cappella voices evoking a profound sense of sorrow and serenity to which I’m drawn.  The progression of verses was somewhat discordant, adding contrast to an instable peace.

            “The Tyger” was horrible to listen to—far too wandering.  It could have stood to follow the obvious flow of the verses rather than opting for the overdone aria style.  The drama was forced and, in my opinion, showed complete disregard for the continuity of the work.

            “The Last Rose of Summer” was gorgeous.  Sad, pretty, nostalgic, lamenting—all the things I look for in art.  The single notes of solo piano fit with the imagery and perfectly met the singer’s tone.

            “So We’ll Go No More A-Roving” was set too traditionally to be appropriate to Byron.  I should have liked a more sensual underscore, with a deep-throated baritone to sing it.  If a soprano must attempt Byron, she should control her vibrato and think more ethereally.

            “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” is one of the better interpretations, although a minstrel would have been better for it.  The tremolo in the vocal very nearly works.  My only true complaint is the switch to major chords, which I think was uncalled for.

            So then, what shall we say?  The six-song listening experience was mildly interesting, but nothing I haven’t heard (stylistically, not particularly) before.

 

* [This was not a lengthy or laborious assignment.  –Ed.]

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 8

On Keats’ Melancholia

 

            Many would suggest that Keats, in “Ode To A Nightingale” is cursing his illness, wishing to cease for its painful physical implications.  Others who study him may suggest that his death wish is in mourning, as a response to his brother’s death.  Still others may point to his search for a female complement and maintain that it is an expression of loneliness.  Allow me to answer for Keats that all of these factor into the morbidity, but that the poem itself is a mere expression of his underlying predisposition to melancholia.  There is a danger in making too much of an expression, because poetry itself exists not to articulate, but to suggest.  Keats was simply responding emotionally to a beautiful provocation, with hopes that readers could then respond emotionally to his response.  Art is a reciprocal process; it requires the sentimental investment of an audience in order to live.

            That said, “Ode To A Nightingale” presents no danger, only enlightenment.  A work of art cannot connect unless the recipient has within him/herself those same elements which sparked the “creature” (the work of art) in the first place.  If this can be considered a suicidal poem, it is passive rather than active, as it only appeals to those particular human emotions which, unexplored, untreated, can lead a person into action.  Calling attention to such feelings is no more dangerous than a counselor asking probing personal questions.  The danger lies in the course of response, in which the artist plays no role; that is the responsibility of the individual.  Awareness is not the danger, avoidance is.

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 9

On Lord Tennyson’s “Light Brigade”

 

            Yet again, ancient references spring up in my sickening remembrances of growing up with Christian music.  DeGarmo & Key had an album called “Commander Sozo and the Charge of the Light Brigade”, and I’m ashamed to admit that at the time I thought they were original.  Poor deluded me.

            I cannot take the position that Tennyson is praising the soldiers, as the action was recounted as “someone had blundered”.  I think he was probably somewhat nauseated at the whole affair, or else I doubt he’d have written so quickly after reading about it.  Poets have a tendency to explicate the things they do not respect, often taking for granted what they do.  After all, what would be the purpose of writing about something that did not need to change?

            Tennyson did, however, treat the subject with an amount of delicacy, as he—even if mockingly—wrote in a way that could be interpreted as nobility.  The truth is, people see whatever they want to see, and whether or not a poet despises or admires his subjects is irrelevant and frequently impossible to know.

            It seems likely, rather, that Tennyson was critical of the public response to the event.  A massacre could have been avoided had caution been observed, but much of the response seems to have been undue praise for the nobility of meeting death head-on.  Tennyson was probably making a harsh rebuke against the military for demanding that soldiers not think for themselves, but blindly carry out orders, trusting that the higher-ups know what’s best.  In that sense, the poem could in fact be a statement of human equality and capacity to discern.  It could be quite in praise of human potential, even while scornful of its not living up to its potential.

            I personally would not have thought the event worthy of a poem.  Instead, I think the whole thing deserves a single panel comic strip.  I am of the mind that Gary Larson could have offered a more effective commentary on most things than Tennyson did.

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 10

On “Crossing The Bar” & “Prospice”

 

            My first and foremost concern always is with style.  Browning I usually like, Tennyson I frequently do not.  It would be easy to say that this is because Browning is less kind than Tennyson, and I am obviously rude, but I go further than that.  Tennyson writes too flippantly, relies too heavily on being a poet and focuses less on being a person.  He has less to write about because he is respected in his lifetime for being a passive observer, which kills art.  Browning seems the opposite.  My evidence for this is his anger, his indignation, his unabashed attacks on individuals—a somewhat self-righteous indignation.

            A clear difference between “Crossing The Bar” and “Prospice” is the emphasis in the latter on humanism.  “Prospice” seems to continue the theme of mankind being powerful and in control of his own destiny, even while necessarily acknowledging that death will still ultimately take us all.  The impression I get is that Browning challenges death, while Tennyson embraces it—has come to terms with and made his peace with the inevitability of it.

            The distinct difference between the poets is that Tennyson longs for death, while Browning merely accepts it.  Tennyson’s longing is evident in his request to always end his collections with this work.  Browning, meanwhile, presents his challenge as just another poem.  Tennyson thinks of the afterlife as an adventure, while Browning thinks of the crossing as a fight.  It seems possible that Browning does not even believe in an afterlife, in the way he speaks of snow and blasts of cold.  His view seems stark and cold compared to the other poet’s inviting warm—where there shall be “no sadness of farewell”.  I have actually written both, and am currently manic as to where I stand.

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 11

God’s Grandeur (Paraphrased)

 

What can be experienced of God is infinitely more than can be communicated; he can be seen and understood by simply acknowledging the vastness of nature—by appreciating it.  For instance, he can be seen in a lightning storm, ordered randomness set forth in unpredictable, persistent flashes from clouds.  His crude, primordial, pure form of creativity expressed in this natural world is terrifying, fear instilling in scope; yet when respected, tamed, refined with wisdom, acknowledgement, respect and understanding, it is utterly breathtaking and of utmost usefulness.  It can only be considered blindness, vanity, or sheer stupidity that a man can remain unmoved by God’s complex contribution, his expression of loving beauty to us.  Mankind has involved itself so increasingly and mundanely in idle pursuit that we have become calloused to and ignorant of God’s fingerprint surrounding us—even inside us.  God’s beautiful world is marked up like a master’s canvass thrown to children with markers and scissors, torn, marred, covered, nearly unrecognizable unless care is taken in its restoration.

            Even so, the master strokes of God’s hand, the genius imprints and gorgeous form, reappear in each twinkle in nature’s eye—the movement of a stream, welling up purity and coolness from fresh springs deep in the earth, or in a storm, or with the changing of seasons.  God’s contributions are limitless, fresh each day, renewing and reforming from second to second, able to be appreciated, to be experienced, by anyone with the stillness of soul to take them in.  It is an effort not unrewarded, but rather infinitely blessed, immeasurably wonderful.  God will never stop investing in his constant creation, never cease his guidance of the birds of the air or the beasts of the field—much less will he forsake man!  God did not create once for all time, then recline back to watch.  Rather, he is at work always redeeming his treasure with redemption, available to any who seek for it.

            (The God depicted in “God’s Grandeur” is compassionate and loving, as opposed to “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”’s vengeful God of retribution.  Hopkins offers hope to contrast Coleridge’s bleak view of the Creator.)

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 12

Proficiency In Bunburying

 

            “The Importance of Being Earnest” presented us with a model “Bunburyist”.  Bunbury was the character created in order that Algy, the man who would become the other “Ernest”, could successfully excuse himself from unpleasant social obligations, much as Jack created for himself the identity of his own brother Ernest so that he could have two separate and distinct lives—one for the country and one for the city.  Where the creation of the entirely new entity of Bunbury trumps the creation of only a second identity of a single entity is that Bunbury actually garners sympathy by appealing to the sensibility and human decency of whoever the presentation of the character happens to be intended to deceive.

            In a sense, every poet is a Bunburyist.  He creates for himself an idealized character who exists only in print in order to sway his audience’s emotions in a manner of manipulation—however pure the end may, in intent, be.  The character of the author, in my case, is not entirely accurate in its portrayal of who I am at the moment.  Rather, it is intended to evoke a certain response from my future audience, to evoke and compel an empathy (however misguided) to solicit praise and a continued fan base, or means of support.  In my case, the invention of Bunbury is both financial and meant to serve my pride.

            I think I might be hard pressed to produce a single person who was not able to unmask a Bunbury in their life.  It is a sympathetic character who achieves a goal of evasiveness, adding a particular and often undue measure of freedom to its creator.  Indeed, marriage is also a sort of Bunbury, perhaps even the most blatant and shameless.  I can’t tell you how many times my “wife” has saved be from dreadful social outings.  For that matter, study, homework, is also a Bunbury, and equally as sympathetic, as everyone can relate to their time belonging to someone else.  A point, though, is that Bunburys may actually save people a good amount of embarrassment.  After all, would you not rather be told “I’m just too busy” than “I just don’t want to see you”?

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 13

Further Bunburying (and a merely adequate review)

 

            You, then, in a way became a Bunbury for me, in the sense that I am always desperate to waste money on impulse buys, but I cannot without justification do so.  This entry, then, is the Bunbury, the excuse, for my buying the recent DVD release of “The Importance of Being Earnest” (I still can’t get over the wordplay in the name—just wonderful!).  It is the newer version of the film, with Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Frances O’Connor, Reese Witherspoon (incidentally, a Tennessee native) and Judi Dench. 

            I tried to follow with the textbook, and in a very few instances it worked, but either the book left a good bit of material out or the movie added a good bit more.  It was magnificently done, though, seamlessly integrated into what I had originally thought must have been Wilde’s writing.  The film does not suffer from the same prolonging of books peculiar to movies, but rather the timing moves quite quickly, delivered by a superb cast (except for Witherspoon, who was perhaps cast as “eye-candy” and common denominator box office draw alongside such more proficient and revered actors—although I adored her in “Man In the Moon”).  The British accent is particularly suited to delivery of such charming characters as Wilde was able to write, and notably accentuated in the subtle mannerisms of Colin Firth and Rupert Everett.  The film manages to avoid being “Hollywood”, though marketing may at times fall into that trap, neglecting some of the fine detail in favor of the more obvious selling points.  But the details are there, and the movie, at least this version of it, is quite enjoyable.  I highly recommend owning a copy.

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 14

‘Til Death Do They Part

 

            At the conclusion of Joyce’s “The Dead”, I would be hard pressed to find either Gretta or Gabriel to be sympathetic in the sense of justifying their actions toward each other.  I am a bit more lenient on the internalized anguish they each must feel, but equally so; I could again not choose one above the other as a hero or heroine.  To me, they are both supremely unfortunate as individuals, and tragically unfit for each other, which I suppose is Joyce’s intent, but I like it not.  Where I am supposed to feel pity, despair and frustration, I am actually slightly provoked to harshness and a mild manner of wrath.

            For Gretta’s allotment, she is responsible for her own misery in not dealing with her past, especially for allowing it to carry into her marriage.  There is no acceptable justification to leave such an experience locked away; it is particularly inexcusable to harbor such deep emotion and never open that segment of her soul to the one she then pledges intimacy to.  Marriage is sacred; she obviously entered into it lightly and with unnamed, hidden reservations.  It is further damning that undoubtedly over the course of years there was ample opportunity to expose that raw nerve to Gabriel, inviting him to help her heal.  That is what marriage is about—mutual strengthening and growing together toward fullness and vivacity.  The neglect of that vital element is Gretta’s downfall, to which I am unsympathetic.  That is not to say that the intensity of her emotion cannot be mirrored in my own self; only I dealt with my past, head on.

            For Gabriel’s part, it was negligent to allow so many years to pass without compelling the story forth; there were undoubtedly signs—little gestures, a simple melancholy—enough to spark devoted persistence in identifying the source of her malady, an attention that would have promoted intimacy.  While his reaction in the end is understandable and justified, it can be seen also as quite weak in his quick surrender to quiet desperation.  I cannot say that he is the more sympathetic for the reason that his task is to provoke her passions—whatever they are, and he seems to have failed... then even further, given up.

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 15

“The Dead” Brought to Life

 

            John Huston’s version of “The Dead”, starring (suspiciously) Angelica Huston, was his last film, and highly acclaimed.  I am reluctant to confess that this is probably due solely to his name, and hers, and to James Joyce’s reputation of being a rather good author.  I honestly didn’t like the film.  Don’t take that wrong, I didn’t dislike it—it simply bored me.  And if that was the point of much of the discourse and dialogue in the book, it made a particularly poor jump to film.  Naturally, a filmmaker wants to pay homage to his inspirations, his heroes, but I think a truer respect would have been to acknowledge that the work may have been better to remain solely in print.  (Although I was quite happy to catch a glimpse of who I think was O’Brien from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—yes, even I can be somewhat geeky at times—in one of the small walk-on roles.)

            Some of the cinematography was beautiful, particularly toward the end, and some of the scenes were less tedious than others to watch.  The downfall, I believe, is that we are much more tolerant of Joyce’s writing because of the manner in which the evening is relayed, whereas the film suffers the loss of that particular vehicle of words—the arrangement and structuring of them.  There are moments of hints of humor, but I fear they are not enough to redeem the transition to screen.  Even much of the poignancy is lost, even in the final scenes, when acting is propelled too quickly to allow who would be the reader, but is instead the viewer, to search his/her own soul for provocation or stirring.  While this is a classic case of the prose being better than the film, I must also confess I was a bit bored with the prose.  This may have been an instance in which the movie version should have taken enough liberties in an entirely different direction—merely based on the origianl—that it essentially presented a wholly new work.

            But alas, John Huston is not me; nor am I Joyce.

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 16

Prufrock: Typical Me

 

            Canadian band Crash Test Dummies is quite fond of T.S. Elliot.  They refer to him with their song “Afternoons and Coffee Spoons”, and I’m sure in other references I have yet to discover.  Elliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is as brilliant as they are.

            My reading of it may be quite different from others’—I’m not sure.  To me, Prufrock is the stark realization that there exists no romantic ideal, which is most interesting for the subject of a poem because poems have the ability to idealize even the drastically inept.  He then immediately becomes an anti-hero simply by being written about in contrast to the unrealistic expectations of women.  It’s sort of like how the fat guy on “King of Queens”, or Drew Carey or Woody Allen, are able to be lead males despite being hugely flawed; it becomes an entire social cult of exploited imperfection—the reason “geek rock” happened when Weezer reintroduced the Elvis Costello, Buddy Holly look.  Prufrock’s thinning hairline brought to me immediate images of the aging Nick Cave, my current idol.

            The content of the poem is the mundane character of life itself.  It is a love song for the housewife, the working man, the non-elitist who is incapable of rising to “Hollywood” standards or ever attaining a “Byronic Hero” status.  He will probably never achieve anything beyond mild mannered, blue collar living.  Indeed, he is increasingly less appealing according to idealizations and visions of the chivalrous man whisking his woman away.  He accepts his base normalcy, his average-ness, his commonality, and appears to make no real apology (at least, not by my reading).  Instead he sort of champions his shortcomings, points them out as if they are his only strength, which indeed they might be.  The wonderfully compelling thing about the anti-hero is that it is easier for the majority of us to relate to him.  Therein lies Prufrock’s merit, and therein lies mine as well, and the everyman.

 

 

ENG 212: Journal Entry No. 17

A Music Un-Collection

 

            Perhaps the school should buy you a CD burner.  That way, you could have all your suggested songs on one CD.  I nearly volunteered to undertake that project myself.  Nearly.  I could have done that while reformatting all your handouts.

            There Is Sweet Music.  What I don’t like is the liberties in timing and composition, nor the repetition.  The piece is too prolonged.  I think Tennyson would have preferred a simple “glimpse”, rather than a dwelling on the theme... like that moment of gorgeous druggedness just before falling asleep; as long as this arrangement is, the listener would already be in R.E.M..  It just misses the point.  It is pretty, though.

            The Oxen.  Opera can bother me.  It’s often too meandering, to wandering.  It pays no regard to the flow of words, focuses too heavily on virtuosic singers.  I am adamantly opposed to orchestrating the work of other artists, especially without their guidance.  It seems arrogant.

            Is My Team Ploughing? and Loveliest of Trees.  The Lance Baker recording, I actually quite liked, in spite of myself.  It seems to respect the pop sensibility of the rhyme.  In a good work, you hear the mood over any instrument, and this is accomplished.  Also, these versions are brief, concise, as good poetry should be.  The orchestration’s tones and pitches are particularly effective at creating a sort of escapist vision.  Bryn Terfel’s versions, however, are bothersome to me, as if he didn’t care what the words were—just point him to the notes and dynamics and he’ll hit them, with no thought to overall effect; a bit self indulgent.  Nice technique, bad idea.

            Anthem (The Dove Descending).  Normally, I like Stravinsky, but this isn’t his medium.  It’s experimental to detriment, lackluster, irreverent.  (Not to mention it sounds like a host of unimpressive cartoon voices.)  A fine example of voice as an instrument, but all meaning is lost (as Stravinsky probably intended).

            All in all, they weren’t bad, but I should make you a CD of what I grew up hearing in relation to British Literature.

 

 

ENG 212: 03/12/03

Fitting Epitaphs: Romantic Poets In Response To Living

 

            It has been suggested that the purpose of the artist is to remain uninvolved; to stay detached, remote, to simply reflect life as a passive observer, but the lives and work of the Romantic Poets reflect otherwise.  Indeed, endurance through hardship has produced some of the most significant art we study, and it should be noted that every great poet has some meaningful poignant, deeply personal events by which their writing profited.  All of this can be found in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Seventh Edition, Volume 2^1, and is only interpreted here to support the notion that effective writing is in response to personal provocation.

            At twenty-four William Blake was married, unhappily if gauged by his writings.  This can be seen in My Pretty Rose Tree, since the rose is a symbol of love, and upon turning away another flower and tending the tree, jealousy and thorns are his reward.  His 1803 encounter with John Schofield tried him for sedition, of which he was acquitted, but those involved resurfaced in later caricatures, such as in Jerusalem.  He attempted a one man show with no success, then faded into anonymity until his later years, as recounted in late letters such as to George Cumberland, in which he enumerates the costs of his work, but doubts he will find a buyer.  In fact, the whole of Songs of Experience discredits the misguided idea that an artist must only observe.

            William Wordsworth’s mother died when he was eight, and his father when he was thirteen.  His failed love of a French girl aided an eventual breakdown.  A good friend of his died shortly thereafter, and Wordsworth came to live with his sister in Dorsetshire, where he met Samuel Coleridge, in whom he had a peer.  Once he finally married, his brother drowned, two of his children died, and his relationship with Coleridge was strained.  Meanwhile, his beloved sister declined in health.  This intimacy with death is most poignant in We Are Seven, where the little maid’s insistence that the buried children be included in the count tugs on the heartstrings of anyone who has experienced similar loss.  It is likewise addressed in Three Years She Grew.

            Samuel Coleridge, as well, lost his father while still young.  He entered into an unhappy marriage due to poor politics, and fell in love with Mary Hutchinson’s sister.  He became addicted to opium and fell into an unhealthy pattern for years before reconciling with Wordsworth and regaining some momentum before his death.  Kubla Khan is a clear product of opium, and continues a Coleridge tradition of recounting the exact circumstances which spurred particular poems—once more a definite argument against passivity.  Also, his personal investment in Wordsworth was a constant tremendous source of inspiration and material.

            As a child, Robert Burns was forced into hard labor when his father died.  He carried heart trouble throughout his rather short life; he had written most of his best poems by twenty-seven.  His promiscuity was scorned by many, and he was frequently ill, finally dying at thirty-seven.  His being attuned to the day and speaking for his immediate community, because he was so integrated into the nation, is his primary fame.  His poems were what he—and by extension his peers—knew and experienced in gritty, daily life.

            Thomas Moore was a musician friend of Lord Byron.  Enough said.  His passion is evident in The Time I’ve Lost In Wooing, and could not have been written in third person.

            Percy Shelley was an aristocrat targeted in his youth by bullies.  His philosophical leanings ended his university career with the printing of The Necessity of Atheism.  He married Harriet Westbrook, with whom he continued a political agenda, and then left her for Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin... and then invited Harriet to live with the two of them (three if you count the stepsister).  Harriet then drowned herself.  Shelley was widely regarded as immoral, and did not gain custody of their children.  His health and finances were poor and his children with Mary soon died, destroying her.  Shelley then died in a boating accident.  The entire disillusioning experience of life was captured in Stanzas Written In Dejection, and his philosophical and political experiences color A Song: “Men Of England” and England in 1819.

            Following the trend, John Keats’ father died while the boy was eight, his mother following when he was fourteen.  He was forced into medicine, which he then abandoned.  After several prolific years of poetry, critics and his brother’s death—and a following intense walking tour—led to his own illness.  He then fell into an impossible love before finally yielding to his diminished health.  This is treated in When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be, and his lament and despair are given voice in Ode To A Nightingale and Ode On Melancholy, perhaps most vividly in the latter’s lines:

 

“She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;

            And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh....”

 

            Time and time again, writers have dealt with suffering the only way they knew how, and the world is better off for the tremendously affective art.  We do well to thank God these writers were moved by the events that shaped their lives, so as to offer us the balm of their words.  The artist is certainly not the passive observer, but rather the passionate, tangible, emotional human being who is able to express what each of us must at one time of another feel.  For that, the artist must be more alive than anyone else, and more sensitive to what the world has to offer, as the Romantic poets were.

 

 

¹ Abrams, M.H. and Stephen Greenblatt, editors.  The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Seventh Edition, Volume 2.  New York, London: W.W. Norton & Co., 2000.*

 

* There are no in-text citations because the entire work is interpreted from this single volume.

 

 

ENG 212: Spring 2003, Final Essay

Finding My Fathers

 

            I am told one of my ancestors was a ghost-writer of Shakespeare’s.  Before knowing that, I became a writer.  I am now a poet.  I took British Literature II my second year in college because I wanted to find my fathers.  I may not yet have traced my bloodline, but my influences are certain.  I am a child of Blake, a byproduct of Wordsworth, an image of Burns, and the logical extension of Keats, Tennyson, Hopkins, Hardy, and Houseman.  I am a peer of Elliot.  I am even a reflection of Beckett and a glimmer of Stoppard.  The following, then, is the first canonical list of the influences and forerunners of R.C. Hedegard.  To the dismay of my instructor, it, too, is grand in scope.  It is so because that is how my work is formulated.  There is a grand equation I fit into, and I can do nothing else but respect it.

            From William Blake I adopt the sense that everything in this world may fall simultaneously into both good and evil, creative and stifled, prolific and devourer, Heaven and Hell.  His “Divine Marriage of Heaven and Hell” further explicates the simple complex illustrations set forth in the plates of the “Songs of Innocence and Experience”.  He enumerates examples of situations being seen from either of two opposing perspectives.  He uses the nobodies in life to expose the controlling powers, to shame them, as the scriptures suggest “the foolish shame (confound) the wise”.

            From William Wordsworth I inherit a healthy respect of nature, the praise of God’s creation and the spark of nostalgia for past, that ache for regained childhood wonderment, passion and beauty.  I echo his innocence of youth, his childlike faith, praised even by Christ himself.  I mirror his reflection of serenity and wistfulness for purity.  His “The World Is Too Much With Us” and his “We Are Seven” particularly lodge in my consciousness to be evoked when I need that faith, that longing to see with fresh eyes and forget this world’s cares.

            From Robert Burns I adopt a vernacular, a pointed use of everyday speech to catch attention and grasp the public, to speak for the common man in a way realistic and true.    I take his sarcasm and harsh rebukes and make them my own, then turn around offering them to my own culture as it stands in 2003 and beyond.  I take from him the pride and nationalism, the rich sense of heritage, and even something of the brutal honesty and inbuilt cynicism that accompanies.  I take his popular sensibilities, and turn them to saleable entertainment.

            From John Keats I inherit melancholia, and the fears of persecution, rejection, and betrayal.  I take also the position that learning is always possible, as he reminds us in “On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer”, that we may yet find meaning if we remain open to possibilities.  In his ballad “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” I find my own estrangement, I recall my break with ladies of past and explore the reasons.  In his “Ode to a Nightingale” I claim my heartsickness, my deep sorrow and lingering feelings of hopelessness.  I further explore suicidal temptings, and am empathetically drawn to his scorn of the present, his rebuke of the accompaniment groaning in a helpless situation.

            From Alfred Lord Tennyson I adopt devotion, remembrance, tribute, and a measure of healing, and of the chronicle of the process.  From his “Lady of Shallot” I borrow consequence and illustration of responsibility, and even a little humor in its exposition (just as in Lancelot’s somewhat inappropriate response).  From “The Charge of the Light Brigade” I adopt and adapt a tributary respect, a responsibility to honor who deserve not to die unremembered.  I closely parallel his most ambitious “In Memoriam” with my own collections of death and remembrances, and his true chronicle in lyrical form of the healing process, the ups and downs, the very real moments when passion opens floodgates and urge a fresh downpour.

            From Gerard Manley Hopkins, my brother in form, I inherit sprung rhythm, internal rhyme, vowel and consonant repetition.  I take also the preoccupation with spiritual matters, even as they often pertain to crushing blows to emotion, to feelings similar to doubt, yet resolute with endurance and hope.  From Thomas Hardy I borrow a self-learnt dependency on and love for words, a knack for painting tapestries with words that at first may seem careless.  From A.E. Houseman I steal humor and novelty, ambiguity of purpose and directness of statement.  I take also controversy and cult status.  From T.S. Elliot I take quirkiness, disjointedness, allegorical similes and metaphorical texture.  I take sections of reality and cut and past them together in a tapestry to which there is only an overview and no map or guideline.  And now, finally, from Samuel Beckett and Tom Stoppard I adopt a preoccupation with theatre, and satire and wordplay to new extremes in its company.  I develop a sympathy for the actor, a compassion most authors to do find important.  I pull the play into the audience, or pull the audience into the play.

            The preceding, then, constitute Part I of the first canonical list of the influences and forerunners of R.C. Hedegard.  They are directly responsible for my idiom of poetry.  I owe them a debt of gratitude that can only be fulfilled by perfecting my craft, and in so doing further aiding the evolution of theirs’.  The other poets or authors we studied I deem unworthy of canonization, due in part to my sneaking suspicion that their intent in writing was frequently not as purely motivated as these, but rather blatant attempts to garner merit; my overlooking anyone was quite intentional.  My fathers are few, and represent the best of the best.  Within a lifetime my work will be studied alongside theirs.  I am R.C. Hedegard, proudest poet of them all.  I continue in the manner of my fathers.

 

 

TDR 352: Is Popular Entertainment Worthy of Study?

Of Course Not: Four Arguments Against

 

1.  The two fields are distinct.

 

            Popular entertainment is not yet developed enough, since we are yet in the midst of its dominance, to study for its implications.  The purpose of study is to lay a foundation for application, not to draw the immediate application.  There is a distinction, for example, between a technical auto manual and a chronology of the development of the automobile; the two fields, though related, are separate.  It is possible to apply technical knowledge of how to fix a transmission without taking into account a history of the Ford Motor Company.  Similarly, it is possible to become involved in any popular art form without having the faintest notion of who has been involved in the past.  The two fields are unique; popular contemporary entertainment having been built on a historical foundation, but intended for a different audience.  Where sociology studies current patterns of interaction, psychology studies the roots of it in order to better understand.  Ultimately, the goal is toward an applied technical knowledge, but the fields are separate enough to warrant entirely unique professions.  It is true that there is merit in drawing fields of knowledge together, but this is the concern of the individual, not the body of information.

 

2.  There is already a saturation with pop entertainment.

 

            A point which cannot be overemphasized is that we are already saturated with enough popular culture to avoid the necessity of studying it—it has essentially been instilled in us.  The point of studying history is so that it is not forgotten.  By nature we learn things backwards, delving deeper inward as we sift through the barrage of facts in order to make sense of what we already know.  It is therefore counter-productive to include popular entertainment—that which we already have overwhelming access to—in the repertoire of history—that which is in danger of being forgotten—simply on the grounds that it would consume with an imbalance the time devoted to foundational information.

 

3.  We do not yet know the influence of today’s art forms.

 

            History has been carefully sifted (as if panning for gold) to glean the significance and influential movements, highlighting important names and events while omitting those which bore no fruit, whereas popular entertainment is too new, too fresh, still in its prime, and yet incapable of extending its grasp across time.  We cannot give equal treatment to possibly ill-fated ideas that may prove not to withstand the pressures of the evolutionary process.  A study of popular entertainment involves a treatment of contemporary society, of which we are a part, objectivity therefore being lost.  There should be a sort of “buffer period” during which movements can play themselves out in order that their influence be properly, fairly reported.  It is only the passage of time that adds perspective and rightly assigns each movement in art—by a sort of compartmentalizing—its place in the overall tapestry.  Studying an era we are yet so involved in is like viewing a pointillism painting from close up; we remain unable to see the larger picture because we are too close.  Certainly popular art will end up contributing to the study of future generations, but we must patiently restrain from jumping ahead in the interest of subjecting all eras throughout history to equal scrutiny.  Popular art will be studied... but it should be by our predecessors after our time has passed.

 

4.  Popular entertainment contributes nothing new.

 

            As Ecclesiastes claims, “There is nothing new under the sun.”  Every conceivable variation of every art form has been attempted, and contemporary society is only able to rehash old ideas, expound further upon tradition, or consciously move away from establishments and trends to, in essence, do no more than offer commentary on what was in history original.  Modern critics, for example, are only able to compare and contrast recent productions from what has come before, sometimes drawing obvious, and sometimes obscure parallels (which may or may not have been intended by the producer).  Every form of entertainment offered in contemporary society has been influenced by classic or ancient works fixed in their historical significance.  Why then study updated versions of classics when one might instead study the unadulterated classics themselves, especially when there is a danger of misattributing the initial genius of a piece to a contemporary figure, who has obviously no more than repackaged it?  A possible harm of including popular entertainment in a serious study of, for instance, theater history, is the possibility of equating greatness with each subsequent commentary on it.  In such an atmosphere, “Psycho”, for example, could be given equal treatment as, um, “Psycho”, the remake, or Jane Austen could be overlooked as the actual author behind “Clueless”.  It would amount to the same feeling of betrayal when we finally learned that Tiffany did not write “I Think We’re Alone Now”.  There is simply too much thievery in popular entertainment to be worth sifting through for an original thought.  Indeed, there can not be an original thought, at least not anything which cannot be psychoanalytically traced to the influence of some prior form, and so our studies should focus on the very beginning of the art forms, when conception was untainted.

 

 

TDR 352: 04/03, “The Wall” As Postmodern Theatre

 

“...I came up with the idea of building a wall during a show. The idea gripped me at once. Quite apart from its personal significance, I thought it would be a great piece of rock theatre.”

-Roger Waters; lyricist, bassist, vocalist, co-producer

 

"I fought for the introduction of the orchestra on that record—the expansion of the Floyd's sound to something that was more orchestral, theatrical... 'filmic' is the word.”

-Bob Ezrin; composer, producer

 

            “I've worked quite a bit in opera and the theatre, so the sheer scale of that theatrical device immediately engaged me.”

-Gerald Scarfe; animator, illustrator

 

            “I could see that the show was going to be a very powerful visual experience, as well as a musical one.”

-Richard Wright; keyboardist

 

“This meant creating on stage what were effectively studio conditions. I don’t think anyone had tried to mount such an elaborate show before.”

-James Guthrie; engineer, sound designer

 

“It pushed rock shows another step in the direction of pure theatre. Nor was this only a matter of building a wall. All through the show there were radical theatrical gestures.”

-Nick Mason; drummer

 

“I think what struck us both was that it was a great opportunity to do something new and bold and wonderful. Something on a grand theatrical scale.”

-Jonathan Park; technical engineer

 

“...The shows were fantastic in their own right. To assess the phenomenon properly, you have to shift your focus. It was as much a theatrical experience as a music one.”

-David Gilmour; guitarist, vocalist, co-producer

 

“The show was a landmark – it’s one of those things that is marvelous to lock away in the memory.”

-Mark Fisher; stage designer and architect

 

The Concept

 

            After over a decade of growing success, rock band Pink Floyd, dubbed “first in space” for their atmospheric live performances, lost the intimacy with the audience they had once enjoyed—the integral part of their early shows.  By the late 70’s, due to the popularity of “Dark Side of the Moon” and “Wish You Were Here”, on the tail end of the “Animals” tour, the only venues they were able to play were arena and stadium shows, and they quickly developed a disdain for the sense of alienation—the disconnecting from the audience.  Roger Waters, the primary writer for the band, after having spit on a fan climbing a scrim, had a vision of the audience being bombed and squealing with delight—this scene perhaps evoked in his mind by the enormous inflatable pig that accompanied the tour, and for which his contempt grew nightly.

            After the tour, Richard Wright and David Gilmour both completed solo projects, but Roger began work on a conceptual piece that would become “The Wall”, a double album, a live show, and a cult classic film.  The metaphorical wall was a combination of things from Roger’s personal past—his father’s death in World War II, bad experiences with teachers growing up, an overprotective mother—and his unshakable sense of alienation and estrangement from his fans and band mates, coupled with the realization that his lifelong dream of being a rock star proved unfulfilling.  Indeed, during the process of the album’s realization, the band essentially split into warring camps—Waters against everyone.  But the work itself was significant enough to endure the trials of its production and live on into a legacy long after its originators and collaborators have passed.  When Roger left the band after unsuccessful lawsuits attempting to dismantle it, he took with him only the rights to “The Wall”, which he would stage in 1990 in Berlin without Pink Floyd.  Aside from that, the show that was built to tour played only twenty-nine times, beginning in the Los Angeles Arena, continuing at Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, then finishing off at Earls Court in London, and in Dortmund, Germany between 1980 and 1981.  There was a subsequent performance unrelated to the tour, filmed for use in the film version, but this material went into storage under Roger’s protection, not to be stirred until the twentieth anniversary release of “Is There Anybody Out There?  The Wall Live”.

            The remarkable and unprecedented scope of the work set it apart from any art—musical, theatrical, or visual—of the time, and continues to be one of the most influential pieces to this day in a variety of mediums.

 

The Players

 

            The lineup at the time of “The Wall” studio sessions was the prime team of Roger Waters on bass and vocals, David Gilmour on guitar and vocals, Richard Wright on Keyboards, and Nick Mason on drums.  Longtime Floyd co-producer Bob Ezrin worked with James Guthrie, who engineered both the studio album and the live show—with some persistent cajoling by Roger, as he was until then strictly a studio man.  There were five additional engineers on the album, an orchestra arranged by Michael Kamen, and at least two full choirs.  Phil Taylor ran sound on both the album and the “tour”.  Perhaps the most memorable and interesting recruitment was cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, who has worked with Disney, whose illustrations for the album and film versions of “The Wall” are now legendary cult classics.  The live show added the genius team of Mark Fisher and Jonathan Park, whose job it was to work out the realities and practicalities of staging Roger’s and Scarfe’s ambitious vision.

            When Waters performed “The Wall” a decade later in Berlin, Pink Floyd was replaced by his six-piece Bleeding Hearts band, which included some of Floyd’s stand-in and touring company, two orchestras, a host of choral voices, as well as Scorpians, The Band, The Hooters, Sinead O’Connor, Bryan Adams, Cindi Lauper, Thomas Dolby, James Gallway, Ute Lemper, Joni Mitchell, Jerry Hall, Paddy Moloney, Van Morrison, and Marianne Faithful.  The Trial Sequence added to the cast Tim Curry and Albert Finney.  In a sense, even the audience were players, each issued a mask upon admission, holding them up when appropriate to create a sea of screaming clone faces, while Waters picked out audience members, exclaiming, “If I had my way, I’d have all of you shot!”

 

The Staging

 

            Originally, architect Mark Fisher intended to create an enormous inflatable “Slug” to serve as a portable concert venue—a wasteland fuelled by the concept of alienation, but licensing became too complex, and instead the show was designed to travel to arenas and stadiums.  Roger’s main concern was that a physical wall was to be built onstage during the performance, by intermission entirely sealing the band off behind it.    The idea was that the band could, for all anyone knew, leave the stage during the show, allow recordings or a fill-in band to play, retire to their hotel rooms throughout the second half, then return just in time for the final number, and no one would be any the wiser.  The band’s concerns were that the audience would not appreciate this symbolic gesture; the production team’s concern was in the detail allowing it to happen without endangering the audience when at the end of the show the wall came tumbling down.  Also, the idea presented problems with construction and transportation; the set had to be lightweight enough for a cast of humans to manage and overcome any obstacles from venue to venue.

            The band’s concerns were overcome when other elements were introduced into the spectacle, making a much larger visual experience than any rock band had yet attempted.  For instance, an immediate start to the show was a bomber flying over the audience and crashing into the stage (this was of course a model on aluminum rigging, with pyrotechnic effects).  In the original 1980 shows, the opening number was performed by a surrogate band wearing perfect latex Pink Floyd masks, which the audience did not realize until Roger walked onstage behind his replica.  Gerald Scarfe’s illustrations were made into oversized (30 foot) puppets, some towering over the wall, some dangling from it like marionettes; in some shows the floating pig broke over a portion of the wall and launched into the space above the audience, with beaming eyes.  Limousines and ambulances, accompanied by motorcycles and marching troops of soldiers carrying huge propagandistic banners, drove across the stage as if it were a city street.  The bricks were stacked in perfect time by a human cast, then once erected the wall replaced Floyd’s trademark “Mr. Screen” circular lighting backdrop to be used as a projection screen for Scarfe’s cartoons.  At one point a section of the wall folded forward to reveal a hotel room set in which Roger sat for his dramatic insane tantrum scene, throwing lamps and a television out the window to the stage below.  Gilmour appeared high atop the wall for his vocals and guitar solos on “Comfortably Numb”.

 

The Costumes

 

            While the Berlin show was more elaborately outfitted, featuring Roger in full nazi-like uniform surrounded by likewise garbed soldiers, Tim Curry’s features plumped and exaggerated as the lawyer, Thomas Dolby’s ridiculous madman hairdo, and most musicians taking on their own personalities (unfortunately for the leather-clad Scorpions), the original 1980 shows uniformed everyone in black, with the now famous “Hammers” logo on the shoulder, except Roger who wore a giant number one on his shirt.  Roger had several costume changes, but always draped over his slacks and t-shirt, including a doctor’s coat for his verses in “Comfortably Numb”, in which he used as a prop a visible syringe.  Ute Lemper looked like a Batman character, in a bright green dress with wild matching hair.  The venues were so large (Berlin estimates about 300,000 in attendance) that even exaggerated makeup would have been futile.  (Although, for some reason, Tim Curry’s eyes still stood out.)

 

The Lighting

 

Marc Brickman designed the lighting for the live show.  Other than lighting behind the wall strictly for the musicians, aside from spotlights, the challenge was to light in a way that would allow Scarfe’s projections to be visible against the wall.  The main noticeable effect was that each band member had a monstrous shadow draped over the audience—a technique Pink Floyd still uses during “Learning To Fly”.  The challenge in Berlin was that the venue was an open area, so lighting had to all come from scaffoldings and rigs designed specifically for it.  Mr. Screen is known for each individual light on the track having its own control, although each is precisely timed with every note of music.

 

The Sound

 

            Here is where the staging gets even more complex.  Not only is this a rock show, nor even a theatrical rock show, but it is a precisely timed realization of one of the best selling studio albums of all time, by the most discriminating band of (architecturally trained) musicians in the world.  The sound, therefore, had to be perfect, not just for the audience, but for the onstage mix of monitors as well.  That in itself was a challenge, because the layout of the vast stage, with countless microphones, could very easily lead to interference between the front-of-house and center stage.  Roger Waters took several weeks to convince studio engineer James Guthrie to accompany the tour and mix the live sound.  The resulting combination was Guthrie and two choice engineers, Rick Hart and Greg Walsh, one on either side, who each paid heed to half the stage, and then fed their lines when appropriate to the middle console where he was working.  In agreeing to work a live tour, Guthrie brought with him all his favorite comfortable studio gear, and worked the show as if it were a studio production.  His main concerns were in the arena shows, which echoed like bathrooms when empty, but absorbed sounds differently with each audience.  One aid in controlling the sound was a surrounding system of speakers underneath seats to capture the low frequencies—essentially to rumble and shake the building during certain samples, like the plane crash and the helicopter sounds from “The Happiest Days of Our Lives”  (although, in the Berlin show, actual helicopters were flown in over the crowd instead of using samples).  There were monitors and foam absorbers hidden all over the stage, and a series of hanging tapestries featuring the “Hammers” logo which served to further control the echoes and brilliantly convert the wild acoustics to manageable, studio-like conditions.  He also, in a manner usually vehemently fought against at rock shows, kept the band at an uncommonly low volume—just loud enough for Gilmour’s guitar to get sufficient sustain—so that minimal frequencies were lost.

Worth noting is that the show required a “previously unheard of 106 unautomated input channels”.  There was enough other equipment to keep any sound nerd happy for years, including Altec 15 inch woofers and 2x18 inch subwoofers, a Martin quad system and Phase Linear amplified rigs for bass, a Stanley Screamer, 2x15 inch Court DLB-1200 cabinets, a UV-lit Midas 40 channel mixing board with an additional 24 channel stretch and endless 10 channel stretch units patched in, Urei 1176 and DBX Limiters, Eventide Harmonisers, Publison DDLs, K&H Parametric Equalisers, and a host of microphones, including an AKG D12, 202s, 421s, Shur M57s and 58s, and the roaming Nady radio mic.  David Gilmour brought a Revox and tape of portions of guitar, and all of the studio tapes were also available to enhance portions of the concert, although it was completely live; for the most part, the tapes or click tracks were fed into monitors or headphones for the band to keep time—the crucial element of the show’s many parts, such as the animation, working together.  Subtractive EQ was used sparingly.  Guthrie worked with Phil Taylor, who controlled backline sound, to create a studio environment using foam baffles by the guitar amps and keyboard Leslies.  Nigel Taylor was also tremendously helpful in controlling acoustics.  Behind the wall, where the band was, Seth Goldman managed a Midas console with Pro 2 and Pro 4 modules with an Altec mixer.  Roger used a wireless Koss 240 headphone system in the 1980s, then Garwood monitors in 1990.

 

The Production

 

            The main thing was, of course, the wall itself.  Park and Fisher had to come up with a way to quickly assemble, utilize as a secure structure, and then quickly tear down the wall without scaffolding, injury, or infringing on Roger’s vision.  They settled on constructing the bricks out of cardboard with center diaphragms, stabilized by a telescopic mast (whatever that is) along the wall’s baseline, ultimately attached at the top to levers that would serve to knock the wall safely over at the end, aided by heavily modified hydraulic lifts.

 

The Legacy

 

            Over two decades later, Pink Floyd’s... er... Roger Waters’ “The Wall” stands as a testament to ingenuity, innovation, and passionate vision. It bridges a gap between theater and music in a way no other work has done, bringing both audiences a fresh sense of awe.  The work is as relevant and compelling now as when it was produced, already adopted as a classic, with no signs of decreasing, but rather strengthening with age.  The 2000 release of “Is There Anybody Out There: The Wall Live” pays tribute to that, as does each amateur school production staged.  “The Wall” is a complete work of art; no one can add to it, no one can take away from it, and certainly no one will write its equal.

 

The Historical Exposition

 

            “The Wall” is the full realization of ideas set forth and progressing since the earliest theatrical form, and more directly the result of movements and developments in theatre from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, into the present age of absolute sensory overload, multi-media presentations, by which an artist or cast connects (or in this case, re-connects) to the audience as intimately as possible.  The industrial revolution and social upheaval, evolution, and drastic changes of the late 1800s began to stir artists and entertainers in ways increasingly more relevant to the societies that absorbed them.  Nationalism further encouraged wars and the social climate became bleaker with each decade.  In “The Wall”, each influence on the theatre is reflected in the hopes that its creator might find his audience again, that people might understand all of the things which tear relationships apart and see the clear need for basic humanity to once more override the chaos.  Elements of escapism echo through vast musical landscapes, surreal and exaggerated images of vaudeville freaks and dehumanized animals stir feverous crowds.  The mock rock opera, with ballads and tragicomic elements, flow through an epic, well-made (in exposition, gambits, and resolution with a moral point, even when obscured by fragmented symbolism) realism, exploring the inner turmoil of its main character with expressionistic and surreal twists that nod to the eclectics.  This is the ultimate use of the most poignant elements of theatre for an explosively artistic entertainment event in  pop culture.  It is a sensory overload in environmental theatre, in Berlin actually reconstructing the infamous wall where it once stood, painting huge existential tapestries with an onslaught (or rather, a blitzkrieg) of inter-related suggestive images and naturalistic interspersions, documentary footage, and historical photographs.  This is all postmodernism in a single package, simply titled “The Wall.”

 

Sources:

 

Pink Floyd.  Shine On.  London:  Pink Floyd Music, 1992

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Stage/4800/PFlive.html

http://www.geocities.com/volga_777/lyrics/cd/walllive.htm

http://www.rogerwaters.org/fishpark2.html

http://www.sonymusic.com/artists/PinkFloyd/walllive.html

 

 

TDR 352:  04/28/03, On The Topic Of Controversial Theatre:  Lessons From General Education

 

Name Dropping:

 

            “Controversial Playwright”—the two words have become an expression, a term in itself.  Somewhat carelessly thrown around, these words seem to equal avant-garde theatre in many circles.  Most of today’s controversial artists are politically motivated, such as Edward Bond (Saved) on social injustice, gay rights advocate Tony Kushner (Angels In America: Millenium Approaches), Mormon playwright Neil LaBute (The Shape of Things), and Dario Fo (The Pope and the Witch) on women’s rights and religion.  It seems that controversy adds legitimacy to a cause, at least in the minds of the public.  There is an unmanageable amount of material to be found when researching controversy in art.

 

Constant Controversy In Media:

 

            Within the last few years, popular entertainers have stirred dialogue and hostility in an increasingly visible way.  Eminem and Marilyn Manson use violence and misogyny as part of their medium, Britney Spears and Christina Aguillera have followed Madonna’s lead of promoting themselves with sex appeal, urban music has consistently equated itself with gangs and drug use, and actors and directors (notably Michael Moore, Martin Sheen, Tim Robins, etc.) have in the last few months come under fire for targeting the Bush Administration and the “Coalition of the Willing” in “Operation Enduring Freedom”.  At the moment, the Dixie Chicks are in a public campaign of damage control for controversial remarks made in Europe.

            Controversy in media has led to heated debate about responsibility and censorship, and led to the formation of such watch groups as the Classification and Rating Administration (CARA), television parental guidelines, the Recording Industry Association of America’s Parental Advisory, and the Entertainment Software Rating Board, as well as a Communications Guide from The Vatican.  Whereas in the past, and in repressive governments, censorship was aimed at politically motivated material—anything critical of the ruling powers, as in communist governments—this newer development seems to target more blatantly destructive material such as racism and sexism.  The debate is perpetually fed each time a questionable work comes along, but the pattern for challenging the established social tolerance has long been established, as we have seen this semester.

 

Text Book Outrages:

 

            Reviewing just the plays we have dealt with this semester, it seems no important work is unmet with resistance.  Not only did the playwrights deal with their respective societies’ problems within the popular form of entertainment, but they also faced the inevitable backlash against their work—in the forms of theatres refusing to stage them, critics refusing to praise them, or in some cases (such as Lorca’s) death.  We have seen that Henrik Ibsen caused a stir with “A Doll’s House” when the female lead broke with the traditional role of women and went out on her own.  We saw in Pirandello’s “Six Characters In Search of an Author” that the audience could be manipulated toward a response, blurring the lines of reality.  We saw in Lorca’s “The House of Bernarda Alba” the lives of women paraded as a sort of social cause.  We saw the role of educators and the structure of education questioned in Ionesco’s “The Lesson”.  We were treated to commentary on racism and inequality in Baraka’s “Dutchman”.  We were stricken with helplessness by Marsha Norman’s “Night, Mother”, and enraged by David Mamet’s “Oleanna”.  Finally, we dealt with homosexuality and again with racism, in the form of police corruption, in “Angels In America” and “Sleep Deprivation Chamber”, respectively.

            The conclusion, then, is that great art must stir something, must evoke some kind of reaction from the audience if it is to have an impact.  Otherwise it is a mindless pastime, more like a sport or video game.  If theatre ever becomes a mere hobby, its essence will have died.  It must be controversial in some manner, even miniscule, if it is to meet its goals for existence.  Writers mean to impact their society, whether it be by mirroring, mocking, or leading by example.  The arts, then, no matter how hard they might try otherwise, must necessarily compel a reaction, negative or positive, to validate them.  Every memorable piece of theatre, music, visual or literary art has done so.

 

The Connection To Society In The Form Of Belmont, 2003:

 

            What I have learned this semester, through a mixture of general education classes and a few oriented toward my Audio/Video Production Major, Theatre Minor, and English Concentration, is that I am on the right course.  It has affirmed everything I suspected to be true about art and culture, about the artist’s role as an active participant—even when only by way of accurately reflecting—in society, and strengthened a call to responsibility in its use.  For a work to be controversial neither validates nor discredits the work in itself, but the effect on its audience is the true measure of worth and lasting significance.

            Belmont is primarily a music school.  I was appalled only last week to be the only person in MBU 138 arguing against money being the motivation for the production of music—it didn’t used to be that way, and the falling record sales are an indication that society is once again shifting in an effort to weed out the unnecessary leeches who do not belong in the industry.  The poor attendance of “The Game of Love and Chance” is a further indication that self-centeredness and self-absorption is rampant, and I am furthered resolved to change it—just as the playwrights and artists who passed before me had inclination to do.  Art is an intuitive response to culture; in whatever form it arises, it is all at heart meant to do the same thing... ring true.  That is where I come in.  You see me now as a sophomore turning in grade-oriented task work, but look for me in ten years and see where I am.

 

The Applicability And Interrelation Of Courses:

 

            One of our expressed aims this semester was to see how each course, each discipline, is related.  To me, the ties are essential and impossible to overlook.  I have one goal, so the integration of every area of my life, and the reconciliation of those parts, is my natural focus.  My first class this semester was a “Survey of Recording Technology”.  So, while the timeline of playwrights, directors and artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, on into the twenty-first, was filled in in “Theater History II”, I was learning also how innovations in the recording of sound evolved.  Thus, I can make the connection between Wagner’s multi-media events at his “Festspielhaus” and the advancements of music for mass consumption, just as popular entertainment form increased in popularity and relevance as socio-political conditions such as are dealt with in “U.S. and Foreign Affairs”.  There is of course directly overlapping material as well with “Fundamentals of Production Design”, largely the significant technologies and names in the physical production of plays and related media arts.  And while we mention Wagner and  his contemporaries, and come across names like Buchner and Brecht, and relate them to wars and national tensions from “U.S. and Foreign Affairs”, it seems perfectly fitting that I at the same time learn German, and in so doing am further exposed to significant philosophers, authors, and composers.  Then there is the obvious overlapping of material from “British Literature I”, as we this semester dealt with Samuel Beckett and Tom Stoppard.  There has been a heavy European focus this semester, with nods to the farther West as tension increased with North Korea (as the war with Iraq approached, and my “U.S....” class continued discussions of cultural differences) and I just happened to be taking Tae Kwon Do, it’s martial art.  Then there was the boycott of French imports just as we began “The Game of Love and Chance”.  EVERYTHING is related.  Closely.  I could go on through last semester’s connections as precursors to this one, but we all get the point.

 

The End Result:

 

            Where this leads me, then, is this:  I am an artist.  I can be nothing else.  Everything I see is art.  Everything I do is art.  Everything I witness is material, and everything I produce is a reflection.  I am in school—a married man, 26 years old—because I have to produce art, and I have to learn as much as possible about it... even through general education classes.  There is no end to my thirst for knowledge and no quenching my expressions of the process.  Every project while I am still in school is utilized as a further expression of my aim.  I am thankful for every bit of it.  I have no regrets.  You give me a grade, history will give me a place.  Thank you for everything.

 

 

III.  Poems

 

 

These Guarded Thoughts

 

These guarded thoughts, discarded,

dislodge in a requiem of solemn afterthought.

Unlocked and unloaded bodes the clip,

this ammunition positioned at the cuff.

This impetuous, incestuous look,

disassembles what vows I undertook.

Blast fascination’s tirade,

aberration’s scathing masquerade.

 

The words are meaningless…

BUT THE EMOTION!

 

 

Take Me Through

 

Take me past the leaders, Father,

past insolent, self-seeking adulation,

through motives deeply—guttural, their hearts;

through to the presence of you.

 

 

Skip, The Lonely

 

The bug man

as he left

said

“had it not been for

compassion….”

 

What did he mean?

 

 

This Perch

 

Something about that song on the radio

and the speed and motion of the clouds

--how in the past ten minutes the

shades have been drawn

and outdoor sections of restaurants sectioned off—

pricks in sudden, unexpected ways;

emotion rushes forward, surges unrestrained,

            uncontrollable.

I wait with heavy shoulders

            for the unveiling of sky,

the full impact and realization of nostalgia,

how right now I could jump from this

            perch of building

and never touch concrete.

 

 

Heat

 

Somewhere between polar

ice cap and magma (spurning),

in the peaceful melding

somewhere tropical, Hawaii or Jamaica,

or in this case a beach of shell and

sand dollar on the gulf,

voices crack and crinkle like candy

wrappers in a movie theater,

with impure sounds adulterated,

gulls squeaking child toys,

liquid pen consistency altered—oil, fluid;

skin darkening, tattoo lightening.

Names in close relation irrelevant and regardless,

eyes blurring in blinding reflection,

narrowing spectrum to goggle sized vision.

 

 

Barfly

 

The discothèque is dead, friend, silenced under rubble,

irrelevance rendering inept that left over

trailer trash—I apologize, there is no more fitting word—

strung with tether-ball head from the register,

circling in occasional rounds, bobbing head, mustache

begging head to be bashed in, making concentric

ripples in the Alabama coast line.

 

Alabama.  No, there is no more than,

“some poor Alabama girl.”

Ten years on, floors will be gum-caked and crowded over.

Slot machines will be fixtures in thrift stores.

The pony-tailed pornographer will be defeated,

confined with rotting teeth to the flaking white

painted wood, turntable atop boxes half packed in

final separation, cabinet doors crooked over rusted

full sink, stray cats nesting ill and half starved in the

carport overstacked with crates.

 

I will always be reminded of this,

and always think myself fortunate

each time I step back into the gulf breeze.

 

 

Sometimes, The Voice Of God

 

I listen

for waves gripping the beach with

fingers arched and sturdy,

bearing down with repetition, slapping

jabs with the ocean’s immense spanned wings,

flailing in nature’s blow like thin sheets

on a clothesline, harsh and stark tatters.

I listen,

leaning in from eight stories of balconies,

for that whisper of God

able to jerk my body with shivers,

fresh and alive with each thrust, every twist.

We have blockaded our beaches with

gates and manmade dunes, lighted sections

labeled and lined with rows of benches,

then wandered off into the vast great unknown

to once again feel in tune with the

enormity of expanses in pitch black.

Dragging sandals rise prominently to the deck,

then suddenly vanish, erased under concrete

rooftops, and vacate geometric layouts of slab.

Architecture collapses into night’s shadow and

nature exists, not only unappreciated,

but unable to be grasped—its force and power.

I listen sometimes, amid the clamor and surf

of the great nothingness indistinguishable

from sky, for the thundering whisper of God,

and nearly swear his intonation approaches

when a stray sound illuminates the backdrop

of window to my back, and I myself become

a silhouette to that speck in the depth of

blackness actually near the audible sound.

 

 

In The Lighting

 

I have never seen this part of morning before,

this light cast in this manner across hard wood floor.

I had surrendered this something to thoughtless task,

gone about routinely obsessive, unprovoked,

given myself over to measurements, precision, and

seeing every hour the same faces.

But today I wake at an interval fresh and unforeseen,

when minutes, hours, give way to years.

I am nostalgic and introspective

and once more hopeful.

 

 

Jordan’s Send Off

 

Most people didn’t show,

knowing the somber occasion

calls for rough tones.

Shadows fall blue and solitary

across chipping floor.

Sole polo red with matted hair

over denim acoustic crackles

sets as idolatry the growing

sadness downed from each cup,

as if we all sat on a patio laced with

blue umbrellas, stretching out

arms beneath sun streaming streaks

through clouds broken by

sound of idle chatter, good—

natured laughter.

 

A million moments like this

coexist, responding with the late

evening news.

 

 

Thursday Early

 

The pace today is slow.

the morning breakfast check settled.

Post-holiday lethargy moves slow

across tornado skies.

 

 

Love Letters In The Drive

 

Drinking margaritas from

a plastic child’s cup

at a case’s family reunion,

in the rolling suggestions of hill

outside of town,

smoke pouring like a chemical plant fire,

confined to the smothering cover of

painted black metal

cowering off the side of the

just finished house.

My wife disappears to the lake

with a fourteen year old with light skin,

sound fading to inaudible dog barks

three estates over.

I sit in the circular rock quarry drive,

leaning against the car’s plate,

writing love letters on chiseled granite.

 

 

A First Time In Austin

 

Having been several days in

The Lone Star State,

dry heat and simmering sun giving way

to cigar drifting incense across

wide, friendly streets uncluttered by kids,

the shadowy evening draft breathing comfort and

courage into stringed instruments,

chilled glasses and marble slapped ice cream;

tender, gracious leather strips

peer over table tops to where

increasing volume settles, steeping

ambiance with garnish like

a five-star establishment’s gourmet special.

Lights climb limestone slides,

shying away from laughs under polite,

anonymous, pipe cleaner poses.

 

Any other city, I would plot foundational

timbers falling, silently grin, inwardly

toppling gestures, sneer outwardly at

stumbling clods and beer swollen football fans,

but in Texas all sins are forgiven, encouraged

perhaps, debauchery and artful craft

the material for next year’s songs.

 

A few beers later, my wife speaks louder,

somewhat, so I will re-invest in the conversation.

 

 

Before Again Winter Beds

 

Before winter, again,

the season kisses lightly cherub cheeks,

dusting talc and baby powder breath,

before again sun dresses with halos,

dots “i”s with hearts,

before silence and muted hues rule,

separation must set in,

distance over warm length of icy brook,

and memory faint with passive longing,

will again settle like cloud

against an awkward mix of emotion,

cold against outcrops of hearth.

 

 

Cologne

 

Mundanity  wears relevance like expensive cologne,

waving about its arms in exaggerated motion,

calling attention to its every sigh.

Living in absence, life in lack,

stitching shows its tendency to loosen reigns,

sending forward, jolting, its absurdly acquired taste

for successive bouts of thorough, saturated depression.

 

 

Spring Cleaning

 

I have figured out

that my obsession for cleaning,

that innate haunting that sends

me into cupboards and bottles,

is not for the preparation for

company, nor for the bracing,

but sprung from that inner

distaste for society;

it is my need to erase from

the palette all traces of mankind,

to disinfect the evidence

that anyone was ever there.

 

 

Thought-Life

 

I find myself imaging you

into where you clearly are not.

 

 

Others Still Live

 

Others still live….

There are frames held together by frail stitching,

able to be knocked open and spilling by limbs,

unaware also of parallel story lines

shortening like fuses to the inevitable end.

Others likewise unstirred by familiar ingredients

nudge, purring, the outer shell of complete realms,

nestling for a moment against its own warmth.

 

 

At Work

 

Some days I want to maim

even those people I like.

 

No, I don’t like them either.

 

 

10-17-01

 

Since it has been written,

I no longer think of the past,

not only not giving it credence,

but not even thinking of it,

afraid a stray wind might uncover

some deeply unaffected feeling,

some stark and poignant reminder—

a relic of names no longer breathed—

which would in turn pry open a box

supposed to have been long weighted

with earth, setting in motion of

flight a succession of repercussions

spiraling free and reckless.

I do not—I will not think of the past,

ink spilling like blood for martyrdom and cause,

echoing in ears as a battle cry,

adorning armaments ideas like valor and justice.

Peace is as dead to me as revolutionary ideas,

acknowledging that every caste member

meets the same inevitable end.

I do not finger the upraised just that

once were open wounds, never nostalgic,

never remembering where I’ve been,

never in anywhere but future residing,

but even then without dreams or imagination.

I have tempered the vivacious spark

that could once have enlivened cities,

ignited civilizations with a single furious stroke;

there is no longer any call for such charisma,

so I spend time quelling passion,

rarely living in the now, and never,

NEVER thinking of the past.

Those are dams I do not wish to stir.

 

 

Sabbath

 

God must have created ice cream

on the seventh day,

when he wasn’t stressed about

the other things.

 

Then beer on the eighth

while he was on a roll.

 

 

Irrepressible You

 

The you that you feel, poised,

perched atop cinder blocks for shoes,

still so tiny looking up

from circus tents harboring eyes,

deep with mystery and

rich with anticipation,

pricking the slumbering limbs of social ambiguity

with mischief and upward curving grins;

that you in whom your own hopes lie,

that smooth carved marble representation

encased in glass, protected from ultraviolet light,

untarnished and well-lit behind frosted words

engraved in hovering shadow;

that you to whom the stories and legends point,

under careful surveillance 24 hours a day…

that is the girl whose caretaker

I enjoy my coffee beside,

the image to which I add my own adulation.

It may not be quite everything,

but what an amazing premise.

 

 

Smiling At Pages

 

The moment I live for

is that once in a five year span

when reading someone else’s words

excites me more than writing

a string of my own, when,

while flipping through pages,

a stray line causes me to laugh out loud,

sizzling with pride and sparked anew

with pandemonious ignition,

and I genuinely smile as though

ingesting the whole fresh world.

 

 

17 (A Third Poem For Dycee)

 

I am at this point

a seventeen year old girl,

remembering from afar

other seventeen year

old girls… traced with

envy in perfect poems

and exquisite essays,

realizing that every writer

has in common that

overpowering urge to

actually talk, and sharing

the frustration of not

knowing how to.  I fashion

in my audience at least

one loving, bewildering

response amid the scores

of followers, knowing

that if we stumble across

just the right analogy

love will understand.

 

I am from this point

the hollowed out shell

of a seventeen year old

boy, scooped thin to

the outward skin by

another seventeen year

old girl’s spoon hand,

reminded as I am of

timeless gestures from

ageless, white skinned

dolls, acknowledging that

very few shine in such a way.

 

I am, in fact, somewhat

removed from that

seventeen year old,

certainly refilled with words

and no longer held up by

scaffolding.  I close my

eyelids with tired breath and

scowl with added crumples

to avoid the thoughts of past,

the subject matter of being

seventeen again.  It is not

far off—rather, it would not

be were it not for the eight

years of rebuilding I am

only now the result of.

I have no memory of being

seventeen, just as you have

no memory of twenty-five,

and as neither of us, not

even together, know

anything of forty-two.

 

So then, you are fully adept

at living without age, just as

I remember you, just as you

will be years from now when

we stop to consider how much

time we have collected.

You will always be a

twenty-five year old boy.

I will always be a

seventeen year old girl.

That is the nature of poetry.

 

 

Ailment #894

 

I scowl so hard

that I give myself headaches.

 

 

Unscene

 

A man in a pressed business suit

            walking on a leash

            a German Shepherd.

 

Isn’t that something.

 

 

For No Other Ears

 

A harsh man’s crackling voice,

when speaking to his wife alone,

becomes a soft, fuzzy kitten,

purring unspoken.

 

 

Tangible Skin

 

Tangible skin, alive and warm,

raises slightly, whimpers coy,

satisfied and playful,

presses to the outward limits of snuggling in.

Light and darkness, woven to cover, blankets both

wrap together bodies to marry flavors.

Heavy eyes fall intentionally with pivoting neck,

burrowing as it does wherever it may.

 

 

Before Noon In The Sun

 

Sometimes it takes

sitting fully in the sun,

leaned back in a patio chair,

spread across salted brick,

construction rigs clanging

like far off dinosaurs,

and a tour across the campus,

to be reassured

that civilization itself

surrenders to

the serenity and peace

left over from Eden,

found now only scarcely

in random nuances

hinted.

 

 

My Hands Are Old

 

My hands are old, trembling

like Vincent Price or Bella Lugosi,

wrinkled, pale and dry,

knuckles swollen, skin cracked

with elongated nails

shining with vitamins and acrylic lacquer,

much more aged than my face,

though troubled eyes agree.

 

 

Black ‘N Tan

 

There is a delicate balancing act

among the kingdom of the tactless.

I am the sole voice of dissonance,

seen as cold indifference.

Yet, is not the God the same?

Can not praise as quickly profane?

Vague recognition of reconditioned air,

set forth under the guise of prayer,

poignancy stagnant in regurgitated verse;

I can’t decide whose worshipping is worse.

Sitting with a journal in hand,

a black and gold and an black ‘n tan,

where reverence hangs like a porch swing,

cradled in the beauty of everything.

 

 

The Noblest Profession

 

Having written never a word,

only fingering dust lightly in response,

having truly worked,

toiled tiresome hours at daily tasks,

having built both physically and metaphorically

households upheld through living generations,

we learn at long last

that after everything else

your legacy was

the symbolic gesture of living poetry,

acknowledged now in the reenactment

of communion.

 

 

Idol Worshippers

 

Every worship song

lasts three hours,

like the obligatory encore.

Each contemporary worshipper

is like a Journey fan,

pathetic and excitable,

screaming and nostalgic,

a fat, denim-clad biker.

 

 

Seasonostalgia

 

The sensation somehow

was vaguely that of summer camps,

perhaps seeping through misaligned cracks,

supported by widely gapped thin wood

and minimal ceramic of falling metal fixtures.

If nostalgia is seasonal, could it be

that a turning of leaves is upon me,

and a sudden waterfall rush

might steep my ankles like tea

in pools over mossy smooth rock?

 

 

My Murderous Dreams

 

For some reason

my dreams nearly

always surround murderous plots.

I am at night

            never without murderous thoughts,

always chasing, or running,

            being chased,

            always serious, vigilant,

with never a peaceable sleep.

 

The days, then, are no easier,

with thoughts only slightly more gracious.

 

 

Foliage

 

At eight this morning

foliage was visibly

thicker along the street,

plush, deep greens

swallowing wood houses,

sinking back into moisture,

and fresh.

 

It was something to see,

and something more

to see it overlooked.

 

 

Bronze

 

Absolutely perfect

sits platinum skin

for no one.

 

Waiting,

bronze, emblazoned fixture,

impervious to touch.

 

 

Creeping In

 

Growing in my skin;

I feel you slowly creeping in,

with mercury fluid base

and saltwater lapping at my face.

Gestures obsess and engulf

inflamed aggregation of sulfur,

braised with impatience and vexed;

waiting for what may come next.

This moment of monumental silence

inspires a soliloquy of reverence,

until at last the pull

urges under the wool.

 

 

Saint American

 

Lately I’ve been finding

most of America is fat,

disgusting gluttons of

powerless receptacles to restraint.

 

It makes my stomach turn in protest,

as I intentionally waste away

and turn my head for emphasis.

 

I find, these days,

with bad dreams and increasing despair,

most people vile, more so even than

a younger me thought them capable of being,

where even my idols are desolate failures,

and my compassion takes the form of

harsh reprimands.

 

Today I can pick apart,

with pinpoint precision,

allowing no detail to escape,

even the future saints of

stained glass windows.

 

 

Ye39ar

 

Age wears through

the undisciplined,

exaggerating their absurd

quirks, amplifying

their flaws

to the extent man

and woman reach

where romance or any-

thing remotely constructive

are no longer optional.

 

Thirty-nine years ago,

and counting, man

and woman resolved to

unleash on each other

humanity, complete,

with, for it, thirty-nin

years of brooding,

simmering silence.

 

 

House Without A Key, For Cocktails

 

The secret to absorbing culture

is to not search for it,

but to stumble accidentally upon it

while respecting its very presence.

 

We landed seeking postcard snapshots,

an attempt to recapture ingrained images,

spent our time instead

passing the locals with blind eyes.

 

To love and understand a culture,

a favorite thing must emerge

from repeated usage,

a particular worn cut

in the crossing from

hotel deck to alley.

 

 

Galaxy Restaurant & Coffee

 

A small dive on the street corner

across from the hotel—bright,

ugly signs and horrible inside walls,

open air conditioning breathing dry ice;

the conversation finally segues

into comfortable, familiar tone.

 

 

Photographs Rule The Earth

 

Plush green free flowing miles,

falling forever foliage,

wet with painted underbrush,

heavy cover with uncapped peaks

jagged; absolute surrender to….

 

Warm skin twists in.

 

 

The Orchid

 

One day, for sure,

I will open my own estate

to the limited public,

with the supreme efficiency

to settle all disputes,

temper all demeanors,

and make even the impoverished

not ashamed of their heritage.

 

 

In Blue With White Apron

 

Respect is an elusive thing.

We as Americans never know

quite where to stow it.

 

 

Check Out Time, As I Sit

 

We rush because

we must.

We were primed

and unprepared.

 

 

Pass Riding

 

It is best if I remain

asleep through each flight.

 

The beverage man with his

juice box and Aloha shirt

takes his seat for

the descent to Maui.

 

With today’s wind, I will

undoubtedly get sick.

 

 

Dropping

 

Three nights ago, in Brooklyn,

we topped the rooftop lit up

like candles on Italian Wedding Cake.

 

In the afternoon here, at 31,000 feet,

we top the cocktail glass of Hawaiian Islands

like citrus sliced and sugary sweet.

 

The attendants move quickly

through the cabin.

I take my view from the overlook

while Marci’s eyes well wide.

 

 

Kamaole Sands

 

We breach the second Island

overstuffed with cluttered bags.

 

I used to have a girlfriend, Heidi,

who drew cartoon images

of tacky, crabby women.

I muse over this as my

mother-in-law’s crayon colored

pastel stripes emerge into range.

 

 

Travel Plaza Transport 54

 

The driver does not look thrilled,

pacing on her cell phone,

pausing for a thin stance against the wind.

Long shadows fall across the page

while the buss creates its own shade.

She walks toward the crowd to survey

our red dress and face,

and the twenty older blokes

we travel with.

 

 

Haole

 

Hawaii, from a living room

in Nashville, Tennessee,

seems more real that when

you are actually here.

 

From this deck it seems too perfect…

almost a Hollywood set, or like Florida,

ends with the sculpted green and proceeds

directly to the shores of Maine, jagged

volcanic rock charred by tiki torches.

Oriental lanterns perforate

the chromatic gray seascape

reinforcing the lack of dimension.

 

 

Announcement

 

Later we dwindle into drinks,

night draping starkly across

the coast in a perfect line,

heat waves and black smoke

stretching security across

the manicured yard,

white foam suggested offstage,

crashing irregularly and serene.

 

 

Too Much White Conversation

 

The girls leave.

The wind picks up.

This point in the evening,

if I lived here,

would not be the cutoff,

but the very beginning of

the evening,

after we kicked out

the mainlanders.

 

 

Hat Guy (Or Rather, I Think He Wore A Hat)

 

This journal is an exercise

not in restraint, but indulgence.

This is to write for the sake of writing,

simply to see at the end

what was written.

 

The cigar smell from

twenty minutes prior

found its way to my page

and blanket of green.

He puffs his wet end and

throws out my contemporaries,

noticeably content at 42.

 

 

Snorkeling

 

Crabs

are a lot like

spiders.

 

 

Tiny Bubbles

 

The water off Maui

is the same as New England,

only a different shade of blue.

The musician affixes

a plastic fish bowl to the

lower end of the mic stand

with an index card:

 

            Musician.

            Mahalo!

 

I break a twenty with the bar back

while Warbucks runs his casino

voice along the windows.

Marci kicks a sandal half off,

dangling like bait

for the sea turtles.

 

Bob up.  Bob down.

White voices in sea foam.

 

 

Halley

 

A child dedicated on Wailuku, overlooking

the ocean of green and bluest fairway,

child prompted to mumble and garble,

mischievous mountains and clouds of

good fortune surrounding,

on this Thursday of the Outback event,

the day before the colors brighten;

we glimpse our first taste of years from now.

 

 

Houston, Even

 

You know you have returned

to the mainland

when voices grate like a shredder.

 

 

Davis-Kidd

 

Green Hills customers

are the worst.

They make me want to

gouge my eyes out.

No, I’m sorry… their eyes.

 

 

First Day Back

 

I hate men

for

women with children.

 

It is Monday morning,

while the husbands work.

 

 

Nouveau Tennessee Redneck Family

 

Sit there with your Starbucks

and don’t put our magazines back

with your licked, sticky fingers.

 

Yes, I’m writing about you.  Pricks.

 

 

Tuesday

 

Quiche Guy is gaining

noticeable inches.

“So how long have you worked here?”

Since about twenty pounds ago.

 

People use us as their office.

Funny, I feel the same way about the place.

 

 

Third

 

My anniversary

should not be spent

in Nashville.

Nor my life.

 

Children are annoying.

Parents are frustrating.

My boss gets high and

shows up late.

Corporate is exactly

how it sounds.

 

Simple words

simple people

will not get.

 

 

Happy Anniversary

 

On our third anniversary,

my wife and I, in the kitchen,

made carrot raisin muffins together.

With Todd and Lizzie, the night before,

we spent an hour citing

words that begin with “m”.

This is why

this is my wife.

 

 

A Quick Bite & A Write

 

It happened slowly.

I became a bitter individual,

scraping at people like chalk,

watching them crumble apart

as I chip away, with dead stares

and unwelcome looks,

continuing with thoughts of

my own as if they were

never manufactured into the

unimpressive clumps of rot

I sniff and shrug from.

I wear the shirt all day,

but you can no longer

get me on early to serve the

table moving youth “minister”

(the quotes very telling in this point)

an empty glass of water.

 

 

The World Is Not For Me

 

The world is not for me.

It is very clearly for women

and their baby children,

littering the floor with a paste

of towelettes and cheese.

It is blatantly ill-mannered

toward poets and respecters

of solitude, but pushes

them away and bends over

to be defiled by whoever

smiles upon introduction.

Racist whores they are, people.

 

 

Physics

 

The most important thing

is to not pay attention to

what anyone else is doing.

One of the most important.

Everyone else is too uptight;

they say too much in an

effort to be heard.

 

All of this is to say

I don’t like the people

in my Physics class.

 

Perhaps if I chip away,

bit by bit, at everyone

I have animosity toward,

I will find myself

supremely alone.

When this happens,

I shall curl up with a book

I have not written myself,

and stay in my bedclothes

all day.

 

 

Subway 6” Cold Cut With Everything & Coffee #3

 

It looks like a poem,

but actually I just didn’t have

my health and fitness journal with me,

Oh well, public and publisher

won’t know the difference.

I may as well glue pepper

packets to the page.

 

Scratch that… make it

coffee #2.5.

I just realized it tastes terrible.

 

 

We Never Had The Follow Up

 

It occurs to me now,

thinking that we will never

actually say goodbye,

like we each did so many others—

there will be no standing on a silent

day outside a lightly colored car,

gripping as if we both were

parachutes, buckets welling

beneath window panes like freshly

submerged flower boxes after a

spring shower.

We never made any more poetry,

panning out across autumn

covered patio brick, deep shaded

browns and a neutral gray palette;

neither of us will ever be

caught in a maelstrom of fondness

and vividly pontificate sweet,

inane elaboration in sonnet form.

We never did have another walk,

nor ever another movie together;

but I will never allow myself

the moment’s sadness for the lack.

 

 

Plans For A Business Card

 

Clearly, a business card

should have one’s name,

his company, his email

and web address,

possibly his street address

if he intends to stay awhile,

perhaps his home, but

definitely his cell phone number,

provided he does not answer it

while in line or driving,

and perhaps an eye-catching logo.

 

Also, it would be nice if

it doubled as a coupon

for a free bottled water.

I know you were thinking

the same.

 

 

At The Gym

 

Girls who are built

are repulsive.

The type who gather together

in workout attire

disgust me.

 

It won’t help her get a man,

but she can beat me up for saying so.

 

 

Vile, Vile, Vile, Vile, Vile (Tummy Ache)

 

My new children’s book

will be

“I Find Lots Of Things Vile”,

in which

every time I say “vile”

you get a cookie.

 

 

The Great Thing About Death

 

The great thing about death

is housecleaning.

 

 

Back At The Dealership

 

I suspect that the rich

never sit in a Saturn lobby,

while technical jargon is

spat between numbers

like a deceptive casserole.

I imagine that they never feel a

cleansing rainfall,

that they know nothing of relief,

that their hearts do not sink

the way mine does

when I helplessly call my wife

with the quote.

 

The oversized woman with the chicken sandwich

rolls up to the TV and raises the volume

of my pity and derision.

My wife follows up with interest in another bill.

Even here, everything turns my stomach,

and the rain slows too soon.

I cross my arms and feel

my own warmth fade.

 

 

Taught By Celebrities

 

People who as customers

I would with disdain overlook,

in their own natural element

I adore, absorbing mannerisms

like a play.

 

She looks and speaks like Kathy Bates,

which I find oddly comforting.

 

The next day I am taught

by Tom Cruise on a “Shaggy” day,

drawing for the first time

the uncommon, but unmistakable

parallel.

 

 

The Wonderful Thing About Being A Poet

 

The wonderful thing

about being a poet is that

we are exempt from

normalcy and mediocrity.

Not by merit, but by perception.

 

 

Cap In Quotes

 

As I sit back now in

comfortable clothes

hair in teeth pulled back

as if I were being screamed at,

having been raised from my nap

on the green room couch,

sipping now a Corner Café

cappuccino in quotes,

I should mention that last night,

just as I hit that final key,

 a succession of white light

fireballs erupted from the trees

fifty feet across the street,

blowing out the computer,

fans and air conditioners, and

reduced the lights to a

pulsing red heartbeat

before finally giving up its ghost.

 

And today, now, all is as usual.

 

 

Bed Is Calling

 

Occasionally

you do well

to forget obligation,

ignore responsibilities,

discount impending weight,

and get the hell to sleep,

leaving every stress for

another day.

 

 

The Helena Bonham Carter Type (Ooops)

 

There is a particular type

that draws my attention,

and I will not say what that is.

 

Damn.

 

 

Craving

 

For the first time

in a long time,

I want Ramen.

 

 

The Texan Thinks Of Texas

 

I don’t know what I am writing,

eyes half shut and head bobbing,

with absurdly cartoon pen,

having read books of no interest

four days straight through obligation.

The Texan slowly walks the room

speaking soft, soothing monotone

--firm consistency—thinking

behind his head of places

where sunlight still warms the earth

and earth still cools the arch of back

and nape of neck when stretched

out to dry like organic peppers.

I, too, think of an elsewhere,

though unable to place it

in the continuum.

 

 

The Musical Experience

 

Music utterly destroys

and wholly recreates me,

measure by measure,

with embedded fervor,

from the very first note.

 

 

These Hours Are From Hell

 

First to go is money.

Then sleep.

Finally hobbies.

And then, when

nothing else is left…

softness.

 

 

The Chaos Returns

 

I nearly have, of late,

what one might consider friends.

Or, at the very least,

people I enjoy.

I feel about to reawaken.

 

There is rising within me a chaos

familiar to youth.

I will regain my recklessness

with an entirely new frame.

 

Tomorrow I will give notice

at that hell I have been trying

for two years to escape,

then I will exercise,

but not at The Wellness Center,

because I have developed a

quick familiar hatred

for those absolute freaks.

(Except for Karina…

she is a level of cool

altogether unparalleled.)

 

 

One Friday

 

I skipped classes today

for the first time ever

from sheer choice,

but not idly.

In fact, I worked extra hours,

typing a birthmother’s

Surrender of Rights

to her child, for it to reach

court on time.

Now I listen to the crackling

slow spin of solitary country

voices and contemplate

a cigarette.

 

Yes.

 

 

Where Scenarios Begin

 

This is my life,

 

waiting

 

waiting

 

waiting

 

still waiting.

 

Then to the balance

of humor and apathy

resigned.

 

 

The Path Of Most Resistance

 

One sits in pajama bottoms,

one in rock star status,

both in flip-flops.

No one asks questions,

least of all the instructor.

I, on the other hand,

wear my cardigan and knit cap,

in olive greens and light tan,

scratching at my underside of neck,

unshaved, looking definitely like

an author, or a grandfather,

at any rate, not at all my

inexperienced, unweathered 26.

(Hmph… then why

am I dead already?)

Life was not easy.

Neither now is school.

Obviously I got the order reversed,

but at least I got the order.

 

All I have going for me

right now is sex.

One may well argue,

isn’t that enough?

 

 

The Worst That Could Happen

 

The worst that could happen

is that

things could continue

exactly as they are,

never ceasing, never a segue,

with never any evolution,

but the same repetitive

perpetual motion.

 

This break down

might be harder than the others.

This time there may be

no bounce back,

no sudden lightening,

face no longer expressive,

eyes no longer ponderous.

This really could be it this time,

the one finally underlining eyes and page.

There may be no resilience left,

no elasticity,

misshapen as the confines have pressed.

I am depressed.  A certifiable degree.

You cannot begin to understand

how it differs when I say it.

 

(Fix my heart.)

 

 

In Season

 

The way a girl can fill out

(or not fill out, whichever)

a pair of jeans

(or a sweater, whichever)

is just

very nice.

 

 

The Miracle

 

Watching you grow

from girl, child yourself,

daily to woman,

gaining momentum to motherhood,

is perhaps the most endearing,

sweetest thing in all of life.

 

 

Further Car Trouble

 

A normal person,

when his car breaks down,

takes it to the shop, or

has that friend look at it.

I take it as an excuse

to sell it, get a bike,

a helmet, a chain,

roll up my dress slack legs,

by extension (with complex relation)

clear out the house of excess books,

dishes and gift candles,

and further ingrain myself as

a fixture of resistance to society

(an overused word, especially by me,

and concept to match).

 

 

Non-Specific Autumn Mince

 

Mmmm… you smell like a toaster pastry,

sticky with hot cinnamon sugar.

I appreciate

the way Fall wraps you,

and could lick my fingers

after a good portion

of indulgence.

Plated and intricately spread as you are,

light froth steeps mouth’s corners

damp with salivation’s seal.

 

 

Ryan’s Theme

 

I spend most of my life

walking aimlessly to kill time,

approach appointments with caution,

sitting alone with resignation,

in disappointment,

ordaining with sighs my heavy yoke,

chomping the bit with

habitually nervous fingers.

I am a strange juxtaposition

of pent up confinement

and motionless brokenness,

breathless, despairing,

dwelling certainly on

the recurring themes.

 

 

Stage Left

 

Your eyes wander.

Your mind wanders.

I rush to the edge of stage

to see where they fall.

 

 

Rapid-Fire Heart

 

Rapid-fire heart gasps for breath,

stretching out its fingers

in search of a cigarette.

 

I am, as usual, at odds with myself,

quelling—sedating, rather—

my nature with stillness,

pinning down my dissected mouth

with only tongue upraised and preserved,

pickled as the result of some foul research.

 

I no longer speak, ever.

I can no longer emit sounds

or spark emotion,

setting ablaze with simple ignition

the living machinery

of passion.

 

 

Naysayer

 

You will be my naysayer,

educated man, intelligentsia,

or at the very least, perhaps, gay,

never free of word and always with suggestions.

There are pat answers, expectations and disappointments,

guided by the inability to recapture

my scrawlings.

 

 

My Bleeding Pen

 

I write

with a black pen

--never a highlighter,

never sky blue or foliage green,

but sometimes blood red.

I have tried, once or twice

to write daffodils or bird quills,

resulting inevitably, tragically,

in dry, withered thorn vines

and brittle animal bone.

 

 

Vehement Vehicle

 

I feel you cringe

when he speaks,

who, though, continues,

suffering as a vehicle,

formulaic propped mouth.

 

 

Body Wash

 

People now, apparently,

bathe in fruit,

as if rolling around in the garden

were the cleanest thing

of natural beauty,

the thought of it

uniquely appealing.

 

 

Network of Tinder

 

There is a constant redefining

the unspoken space

and ever anew

a filling of wonderful ambiguity.

 

Is it nobler, then, to for the

honest portrayal of art,

account only in barreling over

sensitivities in pursuance of fancy?

I am in myself at odds with this,

as fancy often asserts its

supremacy under a delicate

network of tinder.

Surely I am no nobler with

or without my implicit expressions.

 

If something seemingly

requires effort to understand,

we consider it puzzling.

Yet, when all knowledge

is in uniformity apparent,

we by analogy consider it

fitting together like a puzzle.

 

 

Easy To Please

 

I won’t be happy until

I’ve had a plate

of melted cheese crackers.

I know this now.

 

How simple my life is.

And greasy.

 

 

A Fresh Wound

 

Slow as blood

seeps

the disease that is me.

1:04 on the microwave

and hours ahead,

snow covering ground like dirt,

fresh earth over

a cavity of self worth.

Sneer has been for days my smile,

lined eyes straight, nonplussed,

unimpressed.

cruel wind, reflective draft,

patchwork of skin grafts...

dwindles the night

what should be my undead rejuvenation

into the theatre of cruelty.

 

Quick as a fresh wound

spurt the hours.

Slow as blood passes hope.

 

 

Love At 1^st Sight

 

I looked at you just now

as though we had never met,

and I think it was

 

love at first sight.  Hottie.

 

 

IV.  Songs

 

 

Breath

 

Your words like clouds, your silver strands of hair,

in monochrome tones, cinematic pan of air,

your touch from inches, incense from your mouth,

the warm, soft moisture, salty on my brow;

 

your breath reaches me in waves.

I press my forehead on your face.

Color drains, the world disappears;

you’re the only draft to cross this path of tears.

 

Unheard, the stir to flare against my neck,

the chill, the shudder, the moment we connect,

a hush mid-pause, a tremor from the depths

of that spark from inception suggesting what comes next;

 

your breath flashes over cheeks

like the night wind passing fresh above our sheets.

Scenes fade, replaying in the mind,

a montage of our favorite designs.

 

Suddenly my inhalation takes.

I am overwhelmed and cry myself awake.

Finally, the breach of gazing eyes

embeds itself into that piece so deep inside;

 

your breath carries me away

to a place I never dreamed that I could stay.

My everything defers to being close;

I lap the shore of who endures the most.

 

Your breath reaches me in waves,

comes crashing in with blustering cascades;

I spin like loose sand caught up in the rinse,

mix up with the mixing of your lips.

 

Your breath reaches me in waves.

Your presence touches me that way.

 

 

I Have It

 

I have it.  I have it.

Everything you are looking for,

the award-winning movie stars.

I am your designer drug.

I live out luxury;

I snuggle in its lap,

I coddle its entrappings.

 

I have it.  I have it.

The smoothest skin,

the warmth within,

the moisture, the salty lips,

the slightest perspiration,

that tonic moment of intoxication.

I hold at my disposal all of this and more.

 

From the beachfront, your reflection over glass

snapshots images of days no longer passed.

The sea spray mists gently on the face,

spritzed lightly each memory traced.

Everyone is exactly the same;

your flesh alive, irrelevant your name.

I have left my mistakes in the past,

and none of this counterfeit will last.

 

I have everything, and want nothing more.

 

 

Someone Will Treasure You

 

Just because he cannot see it

does not mean it isn’t true.

And just because his aspirations lead

elsewhere, that doesn’t make less of you.

From where my dust has settled,

I see into your whirlwind.