But, I come FIRST!

My friend Barry has a saying about younger women. “They're living in their own world, their own bubble. Nothing else is real outside of that. If it doesn't pertain to them in some way, then it doesn't matter.” He's gone on to say that we're all guilty of this as well from time to time.

This morning, I'm looking in the mirror at the white beard stubble I need to shave off and the ever deepening crow's feet I have around my eyes. “Sigh...There's no stopping it is there?” I tell myself. Woe is me. Me, me, me.

I then hear my dog explode in a fit of deep barking. I go out into the living room to see him yelling at two fire trucks and one ambulance parked outside my neighbor's house. It's Gladys once again. She very old and has had one stroke and I suspect she's in danger once again as the firemen dashed into the house this time around.

Who here has the greater claim on want and desire?

Pauly Anghinetti, an old English professor I once had, use to opine daily in his classes about people in general. “People are the worst!” he'd say. We're all greedy, selfish and forever grabbing at what we desire and want it NOW. Here is a poem he once wrote:

Gimme, gimme, gimme

I,I,I

Now, now, now

Me, me, me

Mine, mine mine.

But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I Sleep

 

You can't waste a cold, November night. Especially if the moon is full.

I finally went shopping for food. I make sure the dog always has something to eat but do I make sure I do? Nope. So it was past time to stock up my shelves. As I was driving home through Seekonk, the moon was appearing on the horizon and was already casting shadows. It was then I thought I needed a little walk in the woods.

You'd think I'd have all the peace and quiet I want living alone. I do, but I also want to remove myself from the noise in this world. The TV, internet, phone, stereo...other people. I want a to be by myself for an hour.

I knew a pretty girl who once sported this tee-shirt when she was twenty. It said, “Leave.Me.Alone.” I loved it. I want one of those when I have that craving to escape.

Cold air can enshroud you, as can the night but that's obvious. The cold muffles the noise of the city that can drone on and on. All I can hear as I walk the trails is the shuffle of leaves around my feet and the quick activity of unknown creatures scampering away. At times I'll stop, turn my head so the good ear is up, to hear what I can hear. I can count on one hand the number of things that make any noise. I might, might hear the rippling of the river. If there is slight breeze and I'm by the fields, I can hear the rustling of the dry grass. If I'm lucky, I might startle a duck or goose and I'll hear that splat, splat, splat of their wings smacking the water as they try to gain height as they fly away. It can be that quiet.

It won't take long, but there's that point when I feel relaxed..blissfully ALONE. Not only alone from other people, but alone from myself. I'll explain.

You can successfully get away from the noise of other people and the world at large. But can you get away from the noise you generate in yourself? You can. It takes some doing, but you can achieve it.

Perhaps you are like me. My mind can toss and turn and ruminate and think things over for the umpteenth time. I have schedules to remember, car repairs I promise to deal with but blow off again, short and long term concerns and memories. This constant self-chat goes on all day with me at times. Busy, busy, busy.

But, if I put myself in a place that's conducive for quiet, even my damn brain can take a break for a while.

Once my mind takes that break, I can finally notice what's around me.

Tonight, I was reminded again of how blue-white everything is with a full moon. This surprises me each and every time I see it. There's no mystery as to why I don't remember it. I always forget about it when the day to day world is always entreating my attention. You forget about a lot of things when your focus is “elsewhere.”

But not tonight.

As the moon lights everything up with that surreal light, it also casts shadows. The tree branches now are pretty much bare and the shadows thrown by them are the blackest you'll ever see. On the ground before me as I walk under the trees, I see a tangled, haphazard weave of sharply defined black bands. My own shadow is there too, moving along ink black as well. On the side of the trail, I cannot see at all into the larger scrub oaks and bushes. It's all obscured. It's worrisome. What foxes and coyotes are watching me pass by? I know they are in the woods somewhere, I've seen them at dusk and dawn.

I'll make a wandering circle through these woods. I know where I am. I've tromped through them since I was a child. Eventually I aim back to my car, get in and join the world once more.

But, while I sit at the intersection of Armistice and Newport avenue red light, I don't acknowledge the traffic, the teens gathered in front of the Quickie Mart nor myself. My brain is still quiet.

This will last till I go to bed. Excellent!


I've been doing this sort of thing since I was a kid. Old habits never die. I'll probably do it again and continue to write about it.
 

 

 

 

Wild Child

I'm working on something incredibly heavy, damned serious and dark. Gee, that's out of line for me huh? Anyway, here is a lighter memory before, and if I decide, to drop a bomb on here.

I was watching Nick Gelder's “Hot Child in the City” video a few hours ago. I like to trip down memory lane via YouTube. You too will do this one day, if you're not already doing it.

We knew of one “loose child” back in 1979. Kathy, was a 16 year old runaway from Zanesville Ohio. She dropped into our orbit for a few weeks before she rocketed off to God Knows Where. Needless to say, all of us boys tried to get her as she needed a place to sleep, finally wash her greasy clothing and shower. I think she was passed around between three of us before she just up and left one July morning. I never got a crack at her because I couldn't keep strays at my house.

She wasn't a druggie from what I could tell. She didn't need drugs, she was screwed up quite organically. If her story was to be trusted, she bolted home after Mom married a new Dad who didn't quite like her and was beaten up like a rag doll. So she split. Now why she landed in Slater Park one night was probably due to being dumped by whoever had her before.

She was expert though at getting what she needed though. She kept requesting if anyone had a washing machine because she had no money whatsoever for a laundromat. Her entire wardrobe was on her back. She found a washing machine, for the price of doing Todd for the night.

That was her currency. I guess it's the currency of all teen girl runaways. She created one hell of a sensation as word about her spread. At the park, she'd ply the boys with her very experienced ways and blow off most till she found one who had money or place to stay. All I got off her was her sitting in my lap in my old Nova while she “interviewed” me about how many people were living in my home. After a shower and nicer clothing, she did clean up nicely. I can't vouch for any medical issues she may have had, though none of the boys admitted to anything afterwards.

Perhaps she's a Senator's wife by now?

I Can See You! Sort Of...

You may not know this but this blog has some data mining involved with it. I'll say now that I DO NOT KNOW just who specifically reads this. All the metrics that I can know is that how many people come, what blogs are read, on which days and which blogs are read and re-read again. This data is used by people who put advertising on their blogs and Google apparently pays you one-billionth of a penny each time someone clicks on. I don't have any advertising so I get the minimal metrics.

 

I say again, I do not know who you are! All I can know is what country, state and area you may be from. For all of you from Rhode Island, the closest it'll pin you down is to “the Providence area.” If I wanted to know who you were I'd have to pay Google a generous fee to cough up that information and I'm too cheap to do that.

 

What's surprising is that I have a following in Germany and Russia. There's a smattering of people from Denmark too. Go figure? But the greatest following is USA.

 

The most read blog I have is the “Jack Straw” one. The others that get many hits are where I speak of very personal stories. Those that involve self-discolure seem to be a bit hit with you out there.

 

So, I'll have to work on something juicy one day.

Spencer, MA

 

 

 

 

Ever try Trappist jams? They're absolutely killah! The problem is that they charge you an arm and a leg for a 12 ounce jar. So, on occasion, if Stop and Shop is willing to drop the price, I'll pick one up.

 

My last bit of heaven was their Blueberry jam. It was thick as tar, full of blueberries and sticky as hell. If you're not careful, it sticks to everything. Beautiful!

 

So, who the hell are these Trappists? Where do they come from? Since I read constantly I learned they're up the road in Spencer, MA, where they make all this jam.

 

There are some hard core Catholics that live there, but in the most quiet of ways. Silence. Solitude. A strict observance of the time of day and prayer. Repetitiveness in daily activities that supposedly brings calm is practiced.

 

In my search for Trappist Jam I came across a blog by one of the monks who lives there. Reading it was sort of boring as most entries were tied tightly with passages from the Bible. I do however give this guy a pass as he's made this his life's vocation. My initial distaste for it is due to being harangued by Jesus freaks who use passages like a light saber. I've come across too many of them in my life.

 

What was interesting, were his comments on the fields, the season and the weather around him. He claims once you quiet your life down, you cannot help but notice the slow and small changes that occur day to day.

 

He was walking along a path with another monk when this friend points out a new, small sprig of ivy growing out of a stone wall and remarks, “Ah, a small poem!” You have to have removed all that damned clutter in your mind in order to see just what is around you.

 

Other sections speak of the scent of July meadows or fields of snow that glow at night from a full moon. It's those times, he says, that he feels closest to God. It occurs when he's alone too.

 

“Hmm...this guy isn't a shallow, Bible spouting jerk. “ I think.

 

 

*****

 

I'm not religious. Nor am I “spiritual.” Spirituality as it's kicked around today encompasses far too much New Age crap to be meaningful to me. But, there have been those moments when I came “close.” It had nothing to do with Jesus, Buddha or Whoever.

 

I was reminded of the times I had come close when I read about Frank Beazley, a paralyzed man who lived at Burrillville's Zambarano Hospital. Burrillville is where most of us call “out there.” Beazley's life was portrayed by the ProJo back in 2006. In it they tell his story of being sent to a Halifax orphanage, finally getting on his own, married and during some stupid luck mistake, fell down a flight of stairs where he snapped his neck for good.

 

There was one passage in the article where he wrote down a few lines he wrote as a teen while living at the orphanage. He was walking across a snowy field late at night, in those bitch winters Canada is known for, watching the aurora flit about and he was completely alone with his thoughts. He said a calmness overcame him out of nowhere. It wasn't contrived nor sought for. It evolved on it's own. He wrote a small poem about it and it stayed in a notebook for decades till he ended up in Rhode Island.

 

I knew this feeling. I have had it.

 

It's happened when I was alone. I wasn't looking for it either. It's happened while I sat on a rock escarpment overlooking a lake near Thompson, CT. There was another time while I sat next to a meandering river here, the Ten Mile. The leafless trees were being whipped around by a passing cold front that had quickly dropped the temperatures into the upper thirties and I didn't mind it at all. I thought of nothing but what was happening around me. My life at the time concerned itself with book reports, homework and the “career” I had trying to maintain an A- average. That all fell away. My mind then became concerned with the empty woods, the clacking of the tree branches and how wildly blue the sky gets when the sun sets in late autumn.

 

I'll tell you where I can sense it too sometimes. Right here in my own house. If it's very late at night, preferably winter and a passenger jet is starting it's turn over Seekonk on it's way to TF Green, there is a strange whooshing sound that it'll make in the freezing air. At times, I'll get that “calm” from it. You know why? Because this is a constant, common event that I can rely upon. I can count on it. It's been happening since I was a child. There are a few things in my life I have always been able to count on. Even if it's damned flight path.

 

You and I know many people, who are harried by life. Bills, the kids, old childhood wounds that still need care and all the pressures daily life throws at us. Hurry! HURRY! Get this done! Get THAT done! Rush! We're running out of time!

 

No wonder people seek the beach, the woods, a Trappist Abbey or a snowy field. Or even perhaps a single plane cutting the air on it's return over Seekonk.

 

“You're home now” those all say.



My Ears are Bleeding!

Here's a command performance. I know someone who wishes to be a “star” in a story.

Oh, are you going to get it Matt. You can say good bye to your marriage, career and any friends you thought you could count on!

Ah, don't worry, you've told this one yourself.

Montreal, Canada. Specifically, Ste. Catherine. A street where debauchery is legal and encouraged. Our college spring break crowd took it all in. Beer, wine, more beer, strippers, breaking into high rises slated for implosions and hotel room antics. We were in our early 20's and did it all, or we tried to.

 

I was a psychology major and Matt was a history major with an interest in urban development, go figure. In one of our just past dawn hangover walks through the city, we happened upon a construction site where they were wiring a high rise to destroy. Matt decides to peel back the hurricane fencing to get inside. I stood there wondering what could be so fun about a construction site and also if there were any early morning Montreal police around. It wasn't the joys of seeing rubble, but I soon became entranced with the idea of a little mischief. Why not criminally trespass in an area with dynamtage signs all about? Christ, have some balls and let's go exploring in dangerous areas.

We stumbled around for about forty five minutes when I noticed a huge chunk of flooring, barley hanging on still via it's rebar, swaying somewhat in the wind about 50 feet up. I think it was then I told him it was time to go when I noticed pieces of the building could squish us. He was plenty amazed and happy to be in the rubble, but that's urban planners for you and he got his fill.

Then as now, you can find me with a can of Coke in my hand. It was not different in that hotel and on our last day as we were going down stairs. He hands me my can of Coke I had forgotten in that room and as I took a good long swig...GAAAAGGG!

Warm vodka. I was swilling room temperature vodka. Thanks for switching the soda out for cheap Popov vodka Matt! I shouldn't bitch, we were getting drunk at 7am though my favorite drink is beer, not keg party cheap liquor.

Once we were back at Rhode Island College, where we had all met to get the bus to Montreal, Matt wasn't finished. He was to drive me home and drop me off. I think we ended up driving around the Scituate resevoir, Hope Valley and possibly into Foster as he wasn't done partying yet.

All along the way, we recapped our trip. We spoke of trying to get into the pants of a very friendly girl named...well...I can't identify her here. Let's try Debbie Cardboard Boxs. Anyway, we were speaking of things we young 20 somethings were discovering for the first time. We felt like adventurers, explorers who had just come back from being the first ones to reach the North Pole. Ah, all 20 something's do this, it's new to them. Ask me now at 48 about anything new, there isn't anything new. Everything that could've been done under the Sun has been done, a thousand years before we came along.

Be that as it may, being young men with a fresh trip to a foreign country was exhilarating.

My ride with Matt had a price though. I had to listen to his favorite band, Husker Du.

Now, being young and more accepting of anything new, I kept an open mind. I did try one new things to see if they fit. Be it music, food, places and whatnot. Husker Du was something I never really heard of before and it was...ah...different.

Wikipedia describes the band, “Hüsker Dü first gained notice as a hardcore punk band with thrashing tempos and screamed vocals.” They ain't kidding!

I sat in that car while “New Day Rising” was being blarred at me. I was tired, hungover and spent from a four day weekend of hard core partying. We finally ended up in front of my house around 5am while this song screamd, and I mean SCREAMED, out from his speakers.

We are starting a cat ranch and taking one hundred thousand cats

Each cat will have twelve kittens a year

The catskins will sell for thirty cents each

One hundred men could skin five thousand cats a day

We could be dealing a profit of over ten thousand dollars

But what should we feed the cats?

We will start a rat ranch next door with a million rats

The rats will be twelve times faster than the cats

So we can have more rats to feed each day for each cat

But what should we feed the rats?

We will feed the ratsThe carcases of the cats

After they have been skinned

Now get this!

We feed the rats to the cats and the cats to the rats

And get the catskins for nothing

We feed the rats to the cats and the cats to the rats

And get the catskins for nothing

We feed the rats to the cats and the cats to the rats

And get the catskins for nothing

We feed the rats the carcases of the cats

After they have been skinned

We feed the rats to the cats and the cats to the rats

And get the catskins for nothing

Rats to the cats and the cats to the rats

And get the catskins for nothing!

Meanwhile Matt sat there and insisted that behind my neighbor's house, the Courtney's, that the twin towers could be seen. I squinted hard but saw nothing.

Was it skinned cat induced hallucination or beer induced. I know not to this day.

 

 

Blame These Guys...
 

My SubConscious Likes to Sing.

Sangre de Cristo

Paul Simon asks me, “What do you like about the song?”

“The intimate conversation that it is...two people w/o walls talking.” I tell him.

He adds: “How about its circular-ness?'”

I respond with a “Huh?”

*****

Dreams are great. You can have major rock stars sit in your living room while you talk to them. This was what I was doing at around 5 am, talking to Paul Simon.

Hearts and Bones, both the song and the album, was a commercial flop in 1983 and signaled the low point in Simon's career. I never really knew of the song till few years ago when it came on a Nantucket radio station I can get if the atmosphere Gods allow it. It's a quiet, typical Simon song that wormed it's way into me.

I don't consider it his best song, not by as longshot. Simon singing about his dying marriage to Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) just reminds me of her booze swilling, pill-popping life. It doesn't evoke any kind thoughts at all in me. And yet the song still rings to me.

 

One and one-half wandering Jews, free to wander wherever they choose

Are traveling together in the Sangre de Cristo

The Blood of Christ Mountains

Of New Mexico

On the last leg of the journey they started a long time ago

The arc of a love affair

Rainbows in the high desert air

Mountain passes slipping into stones

Hearts and bones

Hearts and bones

Thinking back to the season before

Looking back through the cracks in the door

Two people were married

The act was outrageous

The bride was contagious, she burned like a bride

These events may have had some effect

On the man with the girl by his side

The arc of a love affair

His hands rolling down her hair

Love like lightning shaking till it moans

Hearts and bones

Hearts and bones

And whoa whoa whoa

She said: :"Why...Why don't we drive through the night, we'll wake up down in Mexico."

Oh I "I don't know nothin' about nothin' about no Mexico."

 

 

"And tell me why, why won't you love me for who I am, where I am?"

He said: "Cause that's not the way the world is baby. This is how I love you, baby

This is how I love you, baby"

One and one-half wandering Jews return to their natural coasts

To resume old acquaintances, step out occasionally

And speculate who had been damaged the most

Easy time will determine if these consolations

Will be their reward

 

 

The arc of a love affair

Waiting to be restored

 

You take two bodies and you twirl them into one

Their hearts and their bones

And they won't come undone

 

Hearts and Bones...Hearts and Bones!

 

This song rings with me because because I know exactly what he's talking about. It rings so loud that I dream of it.

The previous bit I wrote about, Peter O'Toole's Venus, came to me because I woke up with Jethro Tull's "Cross Eyed Mary" in my head.

I dream a lot of things...



 

 

 



Venus

It's November 2^nd and some trees are still full and green. My neighbor has her landscape company cutting her lawn today and we had a Superstorm roll through. In a couple of days we roll the clocks back and I've yet to fire up the furnace. In a few weeks, Thanksgiving Day will be here. In years past it could be freezing cold, snowy or typical November. There's nothing typical anymore.

Am I bitching? No, just noticing what's going on around me. Plus I have nothing to talk about as I'm running out of subjects to bore you with. I don't wish to repeat old stories, but as I get older, at times it's unavoidable. You know how I preface some conversations now? I start them with “Stop me if I've told you this before.”

What kind of old man do I want to be when I grow up? A letching gray haired fool might be a career...no? I knew a guy, who at 70 would jog with his best friend on the beaches in South County and as a reward for being so health minded, he and his friend would grab a few sodas, sit back and leer at girls in bikinis. This guy was psychiatrist, with a doctorate, published books and a thriving practice still at that age. He was not your garden variety perv.

He told me sexual attitudes have to change. He wasn't ready to hang his hat up yet as he was still switched “on” in his estimation. “I am attracted to women and still am...not like I can just hang up my work boots just yet...and everyone else isn't going to tell me I'm done yet.”

“It amazes me how young men, in their 20's, will look aghast at me if I point out pretty girls. They look at me with a 'How dare you' look...It's the guys mostly, not the girls who respond like this...and not one guy will dare ask me why I look...they're scared shitless of me.”

“You have ravenous, divorced cougars staking young men, gays marrying, black/white, black/hispanic and every flavor of lesbian out there...but if I look at a younger women...oh no..that's not allowed...I'm a criminal!”

 

*****

“I want to find a rich old man with a bad cough.” Kerrie jokingly once said to me.

“Are you for real?” I say.

She thinks for a moment. Then tells me that to her ex husband, who was her age, was a major mistake. She complained that he was immature, impulsive, never did advance his career and would fuck her like a jackhammer, which she grew tired of. She found that she was carrying the load of the marriage money-wise and effort-wise as well. There wasn't a equal sharing of the burdens in their lives.

She did, for a brief period, date a a 58 year old guy, who was 20 years her senior.

“He wasn't rich but financially stable, emotionally stable too. He didn't fuck me like a 19 year old boy either. He was effortless really, not 'work', like that child I married back then.”

“So why aren't you with him anymore?” I ask

“I couldn't get past, advance past, his aging looks. He was great on the inside though, kind, real, level-headed...but I tried to get past his thinning hair, his crow's feet...and I couldn't. I'm superficial as hell I guess.”

“Kerrie...most 28 year old guys would say the same about you, at your age now.”

“Yeah...I know...love sucks. The same unbreakable rules I hold others too, are held against me.”

“Yep” I say. “Well, hope against hope, you can maybe find an aging CEO with property in the Bahamas.”

“Yeah, and everywhere we go, people can ask him, 'Is this your daughter?'”

 

 

 

 

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