Observations/Wishes

Logo created for upcoming weekend with Hank Vegas.

All that I am saying is she got married 'cause it is convenient.

I wish the Chicago Bears would get an offensive line.

I wish that ABC would pony up some dough to get people who could spell to do captions for Monday Night Football so I could listen to Guy Clark during the game and still read what Madden had to say.

I wish that Madden would say something in the first place.

I wish that Madden would keep on stating the obvious, because that's what I love most about him and expect out of him, and if he ever did anything more than that, I would be rather confused.

I wish airfare to Burlington wasn't so expensive this time of the year.

Lap dances should cost 5 dollars so you could then leave a 5 dollar tip.

The war on Iraq will happen... again.

The war on Iraq is overrated.

Whiskey makes my words more flowery, not gin, it makes me mean.

Whiskey gets in my heart, gin in my head.

Hank Vegas (link to MP3) is cool.

I love New York.

And Chicago.

I don't love the Yankees or Mets.

I do love the Cubs.

When baseball season ends, I get depressed, and write posts like this one.

Art Parties

I heard he even felt out of place at his own parties.

Art parties are mostly excruciating. People dressed in black, or better yet, black leather. Matching jackets on cold nights like last night. I went to one last night hosted by the artist R. Land, and although I am sure he was there, I didn't meet the guy. Didn't really meet anyone as a matter of fact. Saw some folks I hadn't seen for awhile and that was nice. The local politics writer for the local entertainment weekly who was the girlfriend of a guy I used to be in a band with, and another woman who has reached virtual legend status with a group of friends that I met living in the town I lived in before. It was cold outside and way to hot inside in the studio. One smattered from wall to wall with the art I would call 'unique' - manipulated photographs of kittens one with a paw brandishing its middle finger etc. A TV in the corner played artist manipulated videos complete with subtitles of men and women in passe undergarments in sexually provocative poses and scenarios, doing things that at a glance looked like sex but really wasn't upon further investigatin. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, and in the end decided that that was precisely the reaction that was intended. Despite the fact that it was so cold outside, the party had reached a critical mass and sent people spewing out the door with cold Black Labels in hand. My claustrophobia in such situations got the better of me and I found the cold outdoors, complete with King Crap (Port-O-Let) to be refreshing after about 6 or 7 minutes of the party. Besides that's where the smokers always are and the party conversation alwasy seems to be better where the nicotine intake is occuring. The strange thing about it all is that the ones of us that were inappropriately dressed for the weather, only at best with a long sleeve shirt and the occasional sweater, seemed to be the ones that found the outdoors to be the best place. All of those black leather coats (there was no coat check girl) filled the space before it was all over and even getting to the bar was difficult to do over or around the wallish mass of cowhide. Ther were no mylar pillow cloud balloons. Even the mention of Andy or the factory would have surely gotten sneering glances and jeers. To be honest, it was good to see the people I saw, and as far as art parties go, this was one of the better ones (conversation managed to achieve a modicum of genuineness. But I can never seem to get around the odd feeling at these things. that everybody really wishes that they have the life that they act like they have at these things. That we are all really that cool. I guess I gave up on 'cool' a while ago, and being there made me feel as odd as I imagine the snails on my porch feel this time of year.

First Love

Teddy Roosevelt on horse not disimilar from one ridden at Ann Marie's 13th birday party.

My first kiss was with a redneck, non-catholic girl named Ann-Marie who lived in a ramshackled old farm house off of Wake Forest Highway between my house and my grandmother's if you went the long way. It was her birthday, and although she was turning 13 and I was only 11, we were in the same grade together at Oak Grove Elementary School.

She was the biggest fan then, and probably forever, that the artist (formerly?) known as Prince ever had. It was because of her that I bought the Purple Rain album, the first time. And because of her that I searched out, in the dictionaires that came with the World Book Encyclopedia, the precise definition of 'masturbation' after listening to and reading the lyrics in the liner notes of Darlin Nikki. It was all downhill from there. It was also because of her that I bought the heinous purple sheen bookbag that plagued me for the better part of my 5th and 6th grade years.

Ann-Marie was turning 13, the virtual land of plenty - teenage-hood. I wasn't sure whether she had sprouted hairs on her pubis, but I knew from the picture that she had clandestinely slid me after PE one day that indeed she was sprouting things on parts higher up her abdomen.

POISON: The Band

I was invited to the party along with a handful of girls with claw bangs for hair, and unnatural fascinations with the band Poison. I suspected that I may very well be the only boy at the party short of Ann-Marie's father, and for a time after arriving late (as was my father's policy), I was correct in that assumption. For the first twenty minutes or so after my arrival, we waded to the awkwardness of parties for prepubescents. Then I was propositioned by the gaggle of 8 or 9 girls for me to allow them to dress me up in some of Ann-Marie's clothes, to which after a couple of minutes of hemming and hawing, I obliged. I didn't know what I was getting into. The masquerade did not end with the gasoline jeans and girlie western shirt with puppies on the shoulders, it also invloved full facial make up and wads of toilet paper placed inside the shirt as faux breasts. Then Chip walked in.

Chip was Ann-Marie's cousin that apparently kind of lived with her family when her aunt's husband went on a bender that could not be dealt with by ordinary logic and she felt the need to get herself and Chip out of the house. Chip was a year older than me and a year younger than Ann-Marie and was already well into the process of adopting what we politely called 'good old boy' ways. Upon his arrival at the party, I quickly rushed to the bathroom with my boy clothes tucked under my arm and dressed as quickly as possible, performing a cursory wash of the make up off of my face. I came out, looking, I imagine, like a semi-pro drag queen after an all night show. Chip didn't seem to suspect anything and we ran through the pumpkin patch in the backyard crushing the past due ones with our sneakers in a way that obly boys do such things.

After the usual party cake, coke and ice cream, the party moved to the screened back porch which would soon be the scene of the 'incident'. There was the usual awkward joke telling, grabassing, and the occasional busted move. Ann-Marie's mom had pulled a busted stereo speaker out on the porch and Purple Rain was on the turntable. We even got to listen Darlin Nikki at top volume without a single comment from the adults milling around.

Ann-Marie's father who I had not noticed was not present at the party, came home in his late model Ford pickup from Kmart where he apparently had acquired a brand new Stihl chainsaw, which he put to work immediately cutting down trees in the dark in the woods off the backyard, for no apparent reason other than he had a new chainsaw. We heard the crack of the trees and then the fall. This happened several times and then the silent old man of 30 years or so lumbered into the house and was never seen again that night.

Although they were poor, Ann-Marie's family managed to keep a horse for her, which was the only thing that she loved more than Prince. We went out to the little lot where the horse was kept and everyone except me took turns riding the horse completely unsupervised. I was too frightened to ride as animals that large tended to frighten me at the time. Ann-Marie convinced me to ride it with her, and we took a 2 lap trip around the 100 foot square lot. I think of it sometimes now, and how I have heard the stories of girls having their first orgasms on horses, and this is the only thing that can account for the seeminly unnatural fascination that Ann-Marie and all of the other girls at the party had with the horse. We retired to the porch and to a clock that said the party would be ending in a half hour.

Just as my father had a policy of delivering my brother and I late to parties, he also had a policy of coming to retrieve us early so that we would not 'wear out or welcome". I knew he would be there soon and so Ann-Marie and I sat beside each other for the remainder of my time in that magical place on a porch swing, and goofily held hands and listened to noone else, not even really speaking to each other.

Then the unmistakable horn on the 1975 Ford LTD bellowed out and around to the back of the house, and in a Pavlovian fashion I sprang to my feet, running out the screen door and down the steps and half way up the drive and into dad's headlights, when I heard her, Ann-Marie, call out, "Bryan, can you come back for a minute." I yelled to Dad to wait for a minute, and returned to the porch where without a word Ann-Marie stood from the swing and put her lips to mine, her tongue in my mouth, her arms around my neck and I blacked out. My hands fluttered like whirlibirds at my side and everyone laughed, but she didn't seem to care, instead she kept up with the beautiful assault, and I lost several minutes of my life. Then there was the horn again and my conditioned response. This time she didn't call me back. I yelled up as I ran out that I would see her on Monday and then I was off to home with Dad.

The party would go on after that, all the girls were staying over. I am sure there were frozen training bras, and lots of cola, finishing up of cake and ice cream. I am sure the kiss came up too, as several of the girls would not even talk to me at school the next few weeks. Ann-Marie did, as if nothing had gone down, as if we had never kissed in the first place, but we had. It was my first, and we never did it again.

Salvation

Mural in high school cafeteria near the scene of the incident.

Yesterday afternoon, on my way home from the office, a Salvation Army truck almost sent me shuffling off this mortal coil, as I turned the corner from 10th onto Monroe and started to cross the railroad tracks where I have never seen a train, just down the street from where Jeremy used to live, and across the street from the high school where I can hear the band playing on Friday nights during home football games, and sometimes on afternoons, if I cut out of work early to go home and sit on the porch to wait for the snails to come out on damp nights.

Adult-ness

Still photo from film Waking the Dead

I can't seem to handle adult emotions anymore. I swear it's the truth. The older I get, the less I seem to be able to handle these things. Job pressure, romantic strife, friends coming and going, some even dying. When I was younger, all I wanted was to be old, or at least, to adopt the mantle of elderly men. I wore cardigans (still do, come to think of it), support socks, sansabelt trousers...

I guess it was easier in my early twenties to do such things. In college, no real cares other than getting the term paper turned in on time. Now it takes nothing less than a friend coming for a weekend to fill my heart with glee, but upon their departure I find myself completely distraught again. I think my therapist has a name for this kind of emotional swing, but I will just call it "getting old". I mean cardigans are cool. And sans-a-belts can be too in the right situation. (I don't think adult diapers will ever be so I will just content myself with urine stains and leakage.) But the head that you have to grow into when you get older seems to be something that I cannot handle these days. Job pressure, romantic strife, paying taxes - each of these individually are enough to send me into a tailspin for days, but combined make me want to sleep a deep sleep for the remainder of the winter. My therapist says that these are all impetuses for my chronic co-dependency. And I usually say, "huh"? Apparently need hearing aids too now. Then he reiterates, "These are all common elements of the malaise of the codependent subject." Oh well. All that I know is that my baby has moved away. Yep, it started with a job offer in another town and slowly we seemed to drift. Nightly phone calls turned into weekly ones. Trips to visit her became less frequent and less enjoyable. My penis became relegated once again to performing only the most utilitarian of purposes. I curled up after returning from the office everyday and listened to music and watched movies. Sad movies about heartbreak, imminent departure, loss of love. Like the one last night, where the protagonist hovered above her lover and made advances of what can only be called a sexual nature. In that soft light, she carressed his body like she had in every similar scene for the last hour, covering over a decade of time. Everything was the same - the room, the light, the bed. But this time the music had changed. This time he lay there like the last of an endangered species of whale that had washed onto the beach. His arms hang limp to the side of the bed. And the shots of his eyes showed only dark, blank pools. He waited until his unspoken language began to speak to him. To let her know that he was somewhere else completely now. She rolled off - exasperated. He got up and left the room, saying he was going out of town for a few days. She knowing he had already left some time ago.

Snails

Evolutionarily, snails have developed their shells due to their proclivity for tarrying on wet, slippery, vertical surfaces.

Out on my porch this morning, still waking up to get to the office, there were snails stuck to the concrete pillars that serve to hold up the latticed fence. It rained last night, and the preceding 24 hours come to think of it. But at some point the temperature turned colder and the rain began to stop and now these snails are just stuck, wilted, to the concrete pillars there. A couple have even fallen off paralyzed to the 2x6s that make up the floor. Strange thing is, I have seen this happen before. In fact it has been happening more and more as of late, and I know that I will get back in from the office today, another rainy one, and not a snail will remain.

Veterans Day

Bobble-headed shriner not present at parade.

Today was Veterans Day and in front of my office building where there has been a constant stream of anti-war-in-Iraq protestors of late, there was a parade. JROTC to WWII vets, and vietnam broken-down helicopters, and a bouncing motorcycle, and Yaarab Temple clowns in a modified Winnebago, a team that marched in all the way from the North Georgia foothills, and during a smoke break from Marines.com I found myself hypnotized by it all, as did several other hundred that I believe could never have suspected what was going on outside and got similarly hooked into the whole thing. The whole world really does love a parade I guess. Even a Veterans Day parade.