The Body of Christ...

During a phone call a while back, a friend was bemoaning the fact he was spending Easter alone. I thought, “Easter alone...so what? What happens on Easter anyway?” The difference between his and my families is that they were Italian and ours, Irish. His family threw out the great spread of food and everyone shows up. He missed his now long dead relatives, but mostly all that food they would bring over. The Irish, who have NO culture of food to speak of, don't throw spreads out like that. We're incapable. As a kid, I remember very little if anything was done on Easter except give us kids candy. If our families were going to do anything, it would be to invite each other over to drink, but on Easter? The Irish can be drunkards but not that bad. Not on Jesus's biggest celebration. So that holiday took a back burner. 

One Easter, my brother's sick humor got the best of him as he was watching me eat miniature chocolate bunnies. He gets up and runs to the kitchen to tell my Mom an awful lie. “Mommm! Ronnie's only eating the heads off the chocolate bunnies!” That caused her to come find me and only to find out I wasn't. We both could hear my brother's guffawing from the kitchen over that. I swear at times he was trying to convince her I was a serial killer in the making. Sibling rivalry...go figure? 

I have scant memories of most Easters.

One sticks out though, but it wasn't on Easter but close enough to it, First Communion. We kids were put through our rehearsals, dressed up and ordered not to Fuck It Up. That was a huge day when every Irish family in this town showed up at St. Joseph's. (As important as an event as this, there still was no food offered afterwards). We public school kids had to go to a catholic school once a week for catechism. It was called “Released Time” and it was when I discovered how Catholic schools were just as violent or if not more so than public. It wasn't the nuns, the one I had was actually human despite the horror stories I heard about them, it was the other kids who were headbreakers. The first day we public kids showed up, the toughest, meanest Fenian bastard Catholic 8 year old chose to pummel John W. in the schoolyard. The nun's broke it up with a, “well, this is first of six fights today” attitude. 

Our classes consisted of this: Repeat the Lords Prayer and Hail Mary a thousand times till we got it stuck into our heads. The other lesson was our First Confession. Either we were stupid, rambunctious or both, the nun had a hell of a time trying to get us kids to remember what to say in the confessional booth, how to line up, what to do after. I can remember some of the boys hoping to tell the Father their most vile, disgusting and worst sins. They were proud of it! I heard one weird looking kid telling me he was going to say he was “sorry” for pulling a clump of hair out of his sister's head once. I told him perhaps he shouldn't as telling the world his little crimes as the people will adjudge him a sick mofo. He was the type of kid with a barely misshapen head topped with a bad crew cut. A very slight hint of an extra chromosome there in him. 

My sins? I took a boring route. Fighting with my brother, yelling back at my mother and using the cat's tail as a handle to lift it up once. I barely understood the mumble coming through the screen but I did hear the penance, three Hail Mary's. That was easy! I knew the Hail Mary by heart! By now I did. 

The Big Day came. I was dressed in gray wool pants, a white shirt and a red blazer. Red? I looked like a lounge lizard act. Perhaps it was in style in '73? My Dad slicked my hair with this green goop that you dipped a comb into, so much you could feel it running down your neck. I was pronounced exhibitable to the public and off we went. 

The church was packed. Everyone was dressed, even the Priests wore cassocks I had never seen before. As I was looking around, I saw the other 8 year old girls dressed in their whites when I spied one girl and she sort of shocked me, Ann Darracks. 

Ann was an accomplished 8 year old teacher's pet. She was also very accomplished at getting us boys into trouble by first inciting us, then looking innocent while she ratted us out to the teacher. She was talented. For some reason I had an especial hatred for her. Hey, I wasn't alone...the other girls hated her for her easy ability to form and destroy eight year old girl cliques. 

I saw her sitting there in the pew across the aisle in her white dress, holding a bouquet of white flowers in one hand and a white kid's sized Bible in the other. She looked completely different. Add to that, the sweet smile she shot at me when our eyes locked took me for a loop. She looked so clean, innocent and angelic. She looked like she never stepped on a worm in her life. 

I'm not joking, I can remember the feeling I had inside when I saw her. I almost wanted to jump up, point at her and yell out, “Don't believe it! She's a bitch! She's a LIAR! She's got you all FOOLED! Don't trust her! She's worse than the Bitch of Buchenwald!” 

I could see Ann's parents, relatives beam at her as she stood up to walk down the aisle for her communion wafer. Did they really believe it too? Or were they all just as bad as she, putting on a nice public show. Though true to form, when she found the right moment and again, she was good at it, she shot me a sneer as she went back to her seat. Again I wanted to alert everyone there. Vile girl...

I did OK when it was the boy's turn to go up. I got the wafer, made it back to my seat and didn't pray at all in silence, though I was supposed too. I thought the taste of the wafer reminded me of wall paper paste. I knew this because Dad was papering the upstairs a few weeks earlier. 

Afterwards when we got home, I was in the living room stripping off those damn itchy clothes when my Mom stops me. “What are you doing? We need those for PICTURES!” Jesus...I have to keep wearing these? I thought. 

Pics of me standing in front of the yew bush. Pics of me standing in front of the forsythia bush. Pics of me with Grandmom...endless. Finally...when it was all over, I could doff that itchy wool and get into decent clothing, jeans and a tee. Though there was a reward for putting up with it all after, the largest Easter bunny basket was waiting for me. If there were chocolate figurines of Ann Darracks in the Easter hay there, I would've just bitten ONLY the heads off of them...and NO confession would be necessary later.

Not Even Trying and Nailing It

I finished watching the biopic on the National Lampoon and I liked it, considering I felt the Nat Lamp was my Bible when I was ten years old and on up. What I was reminded of again, was of “heyday,” when you reach your greatest point and have a ton of fun while doing it.

I watched the movie as they chronicled the rise and peak of the Nat Lamp magazine and I swear I was rooting for them as the flick unfolded. I understand why older guys glorify and cheer on younger men in sports, it's great to watch someone or something reach their peak. This can be applied to anything. On this blog I spoke of how I felt about Paul Simon when he struck his prime time and again.

One of the things I do is have an “audio” nightlight. I can keep the stereo on all night long, soft enough to allow sleep but to further enjoy the songs. You know those moments where you're not quite asleep but drifting in that nether world? It probably feels like what Oxycontin is all about. Anyway, listen to music at that point and it's literally “better.” If you play with this, you can set the stage for some dreams that'll be just as good when you finally do slip into unconsciousness.

I did this today and all sorts of songs came on and propelled me to memories in my life when I was batting them out of the park with no effort at all. All in my early 20's. I remembered friends, parties, college, first jobs, small insignificant snapshots where my life was nearly perfect. After waking up I lay there some and enjoyed the pleasant feeling.

“There were many times I reached it.” I thought to myself. You never can rest on your laurels, you can only reach it for a while and then must move on. These periods of your life cannot live forever. The are born, mature and die, just like everything else. But, if you're lucky enough, you can have those times when you win and score big, for a while anyway.

Generally, I can't stand most of newer music that comes out. My theory (and I stand by it) is that we all consider the “best” music to be was what you listened to when you were from 13-25. After that, it's just noise. There may be a few gems along the way but the body of it bites.

However...

I set my stereo to WERS, which is out of Emerson College out of Boston and is nothing but newer music. I once opined here that one reason why I listen to it is because, listening to 60's and 70's mainstream all the time is like a diet of cheeseburgers for months. It does get boring. WERS generally plays some decently crafted new music, along with some dogs that make me go 'yeccch.” But you can't get it perfect all the time, can you?

But as I lay there in bed today, half awake and pleasantly tripping down nostalgia lane about music and scoring big, I realized a second reason why I listen to WERS. I listen to a group of people who are, at this time, are at their pinnacle. There is now, a group, around 18-24, who are riding high. Good for them! They don't know it yet, but probably suspect, that there is nothing they can do that will go wrong. All your faculties are tuned up, your body is lithe and responsive and all else is in congruence too. It's effortless and easy to sink a basket. The talent you always had, be it sports, education, career or just plain living life, is at it's best. Do you remember that feeling? Shit, I did this morning.

So, I have another reason to listen to music written and performed by “kids” of that age group.

Do I pine away to be that age again? Sure, but not for too long. I do know that at that age you are also quite inexperienced, you are always learning, making some massive mistakes and stumbling into this and that, because you don't know yet. The anxiety of your own future tugs at you too. Career? Marriage? Kids? What is it that I really want? All those things are in the realm of that age group. What's great about being that age is that you are made out of rubber, life can whack the hell out of you because of some damn fool thing you did, but you can bounce back.

What did I worry about then? Easy, what every other 20 something quietly wrestled with.

“Does she like me?”

“Should I tell her that I like her...alot!”

“I have two job offers...which one? If I take the wrong one...I might be set on a path that sucks?!”

“A masters? A CAGS degree...perhaps none at all?

“What if my goals aren't attained, because I was shoved out of the way by life?”

“I really don't understand a lot of what people do or say...why can't I find their motivation and source for all that shit?”

All these things were due to not having experience. Now, that I have it, life is easier. Gone is that apprehension about what may occur. There is confidence about life that I own now that I didn't then. Why? Easy, because it's all practice. You do a million things over and over again till you get it right.

That takes years.

Still, I do glorify those years the kids at Emerson are now enjoying, spending them like water, as they should. I did the same and I can relish in the old feeling of hitting the bullseye w/o even trying.

Watch this...don't get hung up on all the Zen talk. This is what it's like in your 20's when you are nailing it all the time, same as Caine nails the target.  Thank God I had a periods like this. 

Click and Watch

Now my age requires something different from me. Two things I've noticed, mentoring and learning how the past always becomes clearer.

Don't get it? You have to be my age to get it. You'll arrive there and 'get it,' it's inevitable.

Sparkle City

It's a nice day to do yard work, until one yellow jacket ruined that by spiking the back of my neck. Ok, fine. I'll do the front yard instead. I have a eunomious that's turning into a wonderful arbor climber but it needs a support instead of the downspout I've let it use. So, I need 1x2's to create an arbor. Being the free market cheap bastard that I am, I went to Builder's Surplus in Central Falls to see if they had any at a cheaper price vs. Home Depot. 

Nope. They only have what they have, which means little choice. Ah well, I have to get raped by Home Depot instead. 

I haven't been to Central Falls in a long while, at least in a way that allowed me to really look around. This is probably due that I don't roam like I used to and that I had little reason to go there to begin with. 

What.a.dump. There are plenty of Dollar Stores, Fast Cash Advances, pawn shops and “get your passport here” storefronts. Couple that with plenty of food trucks, bodegas promising Columbian brand named goods and buses that make a stop every 150 feet. I guess we need a place to put our low paid, cheap labor.

Central to it all is Dexter Street, which is full of potholes, shitty patch jobs and worn from years of neglect. I liked how it made the front end of my car buck to and fro. I heard noises coming from there I haven't heard before. My car is a few hundred years old and Dexter made every bone creak in it. 

I remember Central Falls, in the 80's, being a higher class of “dump” than I found it today. Back then, we'd tool around there at times to Stanley's Grease Burger joint, (a true grease burger joint, where their french fries made paper plates translucent from the grease) a few parties and perhaps a couple of gigs at Chapter XI where my brother's band would play. CF could be fun at times. We once accidently walked into a pure Columbian bar where all the patrons turned their heads to see us ofay whities come in. No matter, they went back to their drinks and ignored us. The early 80's was when the Columbians were just starting to come in, hired as cheap labor by the Corning plant on Broad St where they made the old light bulbs. The previous immigrant group, the Portuguese, had made some bucks and moved on. 

One time after work, a little after midnight, I had a hankering for some grease and I hopped off 95 to shoot down Roosevelt to hit up Stanley's. I parked nearby and as I was walking to the restaurant, a groups of young Columbians, hanging out in a parking lot, started chanting: “Federali! Hellooo! We see you Federali!” Coming back out with my bag of burgers I was chanted at again, “Yoo hoo! Federali!” 

There I was, a white, Irish catholic 20 something in jeans and a Beach Boys striped shirt. I guess I looked out of place at midnight. But all I really wanted was a grease burger. I come to find out that the label was meant to accuse me as a narc working for the DEA. The closest I came to the DEA was when I happened to drive by the Federal court building in downtown Providence. Ah well. 

In my 20's, I wasn't skeeved out by the dumpiness of it all. Today, I was...and it was daytime too. But I'm a 50+ year old man and not some kid who thinks he can handle anything anymore. Gak..It's true! I'm wary of a lot nowadays...call it experience I guess.

This House has Many Hearts

“I may not know much about art, but I know what I like!”

"High Art"

Art. My introduction to “art,” like most kids, was in kindergarten. Finger painting with that goo was fun and I loved the smell of it. None of those spaghetti doodlings were worth a second comment. Why would they be? I was five.

We had various art teachers come into our classes to teach us a few things and what I remember of it were not the projects created but the fact the entire class sat there, pretty clam while they snipped or glued. It was calming for the whole class...and for the teacher who wasn't yelling at us to shut up or to stay seated.

The only higher powered class I took in art was at RIC, a 101 course probably labeled, “Art 101, For Boobs and Vulgarians.” I remarked while sitting there one time, as I cut construction paper, that, “I hadn't done this since I was 10 years old.”

As for even higher art, I shoved my damn foot in my mouth one night trying to keep up with a few people at an East Side party once. The house was very nice, though you wouldn't know it from the outside. All homes on the East Side look like they were owned by sea captains or slavers from times past. Wait..they were! Anyways, the inside of this one must've had a team of competent decorators appoint it tastefully. My idea of décor is vacuuming once in a while and cleaning the toothpaste splatter off the bathroom mirror.

It was Christmas Eve, my brother and I were invited to this party over by Brown U. and it was attended by the most liberal types you can imagine: commies, gays, lesbians, actors from Trinity Rep, some guy from who worked for Ira Magaziner and a damn cute, spaced-out freshman college girl from RISD who hailed from Skokie, IL. Skokie produces art students?

I didn't know any of them so I had to make the best of a Christmas Eve by schmoozing it up lest I sit in the corner, brooding and sipping rum till I was numb.

I ambled into the kitchen and find some people passionately talking of the aesthetic experience. You've experienced that at one time or another. You see, hear, taste or do something that makes you go “Ahhhhhhh...nailed it!” That's it. You're now an accomplished artist!

Anyways, these people are going on about artists I've never heard about so I better keep up, ya know, or else I'll be branded a dipshit peasant that needs a good scrubbing and comb.

I mouth off this, “Look, if swinging a cat by it's tail give you an aesthetic experience, it's valid.”

Things got quiet then for a few seconds.

But, this smaller, older gentlemen, who I never met before, comes up to me to pull me over to a corner to interrogate me further on my learned opinions. I just repeat what I said, that anything can give you that feeling, not matter how high minded or depraved it seems.

“Really...” he says.

At that moment, my brother comes by and this older guy says, “Ken!” They chat for a few seconds when my brother tells him I am his brother. I had no idea this guy and my brother were friends.

The gentleman looks at me and says, “YOU'RE his brother?”

I then ask who he is.

“I”m Mike Fink, I teach Literature, Film...anything at RISD. I've been doing it for 50 years now. He said he was celebrating tonight's holiday along with the release of his movie, a documentary on Jewish art that was suppose to make the art movie house rounds. 

A circuit breaker in my head flipped. THIS guy spent his life in the arts and I'm trying to argue with him? It was like I had been at CalTech, arguing with astrophysicists about the red shift in the Eta Carinae star system. I was dead meat from the get-go. I immediately stopped myself from expressing any more opinions on art.

The rest of the night went better once I shut the hell up.

But to tell the truth, Mike wasn't a up-snooted dick. He was generally interested in me, my life and whatnot. I came to know him better as he would visit our house. We'd sit around the kitchen table just talking of movies, life...what not. He was great for telling the more gossipy stories of major artists, Hollywood stars he came by in his life. If you wanted to know someone who was fair and very open, he was it. I enjoyed the time when he came by.

He did something odd once. On his first visit to our home, he asked if he could walk around. I had asked why. He said he wanted to get a “feel” for it, our family history, to find a theme to the lives lived there. “I like looking for psychological ghosts in people's homes, the history. The stories lying about.” I was a bit put off because I sensed this guy was good at absorbing the truth around him from just looking. Christ, it felt like having Sigmund Freud look at your family album, your checkbook, going through your garbage...and then pronouncing you certifiably “crazy as bat shit” and even willing to stamp that on your forehead too. Our homes and personal lives aren't meant to be dissected like this. My home can be a deep, personal shelter where I can let it all hang out w/o the world knowing just who.I.really.am.

I followed Mike from room to room. He glanced, picked up things and muttered, “Hmmm” to himself at times. He pulled drawers open and fiddled around in them, picked up books and flipped through them. I felt as if there were a search warrant being executed in a most polite manner.

“I have to see the bedrooms.” he demands.

“Why them? What' so important about them?”

“That's the core” he says..to himself mostly.

When he was done, I had to ask, “Well...?”

“You want the truth?” he says.

Yes. I had to know...

“This home is disjointed, askew, fractured and corroborate. Yet...there are islands of creativity...astuteness...precociousness. There's an enormous amount of free thinking here and there too. Independence...I can tell by the books, music..by the piles of various 'hobbies' lying about”

I thought this: “Jesus H. Christ. He just distilled down the very essence of this family and it's history from one walk through.” I didn't admit to him that his accuracy was pretty close. God forbid! I was just rather surprised he could glean as much as he could from just looking. Most people would see just clutter.

Well, that's what you get from someone whose job it is to discern anything that hits his eye, and teaches it at RISD and makes movies about it. 
It felt sort of like this. Tangia in Poltergeist. Click pic and watch!