The “what would I do” game
February 16, 2010
Let’s say somebody had a gun pressed against your temple and they were going to pull the trigger unless you, for example, prayed, or wrote a story, or stood on your head. Let’s assume that you didn’t want to die, weren’t anywhere near ready, had important things left undone.
Of course you can easily imagine such a scenario. I’m sure you play that game with yourself sometimes. It’s fun. The “what would I do if” game, the “If I only had a week to live” game. These games make sense because they are a cheaper alternative to years of psychotherapy or career counseling: Finding out what your life is worth to you and why. Read more
A Simple Martini
January 31, 2010
It wasn’t that I ordered the martini, or drank the martini and didn’t have a second. It wasn’t that she had a martini. After all, it was lunch with the girls, two for one, a few hours before I left town.
We hadn’t seen each other in a long while. Although we’d enjoyed a few socially acceptable wine and cheese fests, nothing seemed out of the ordinary until the second week of my visit. Behind the wheel of her car, at her computer, or walking on the beach as we chatted about the Haitian earthquake or our kids, the conversation magically steered itself toward the word “drink”.
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Pulling A Runner
January 21, 2010
In spite of self-help advice to the contrary, if you feel like running away from a problem, challenge, crisis, person or place, get going. You may have responsibilities, contracts, moral imperatives, and a car that needs a tune-up. Get in the car anyway and just go. Move. You’ll end up, at least temporarily, in a situation that is worse than the one you ran away from, but you will at least be away from something or someone that enticed you out of your complacency and into the realm of the sublime, i.e. A Comfort Inn in the retirement metro area known as Sun City, Florida. A place so far from where you want to be that you like it because it deduces each moment of your life into a fragment of pure disgust at American Culture. Yes, I ran away from something unpleasant in Savannah and then Sarasota, clocking 1,672 miles on my old Volvo, only to find myself writhing out of a bi-polar agony into a rapturous hysteria at the fact that I was comfortably comfortable at a Comfort Inn watching dead bodies being bulldozed past their relatives in Haiti. A big, beautiful TV Screen pummeled me with spitballs of media packaged terror, interrupted by advertisements for Thermacare pain reliever patches and Quietus, for ear ringing relief drops. I had found the ideal location to watch the horror. I decided, because the Haitians were dying of thirst, to drink the Sun City tap water, and while lying in bed I allowed one foot to dangle outside the comfort zone of my blanket. My toes felt a slight chill, but I was steadfast. If I had not Pulled a Runner, I would not have experienced tap water or the automatic almost dead zone of Sun City. It was cloudy.
Belly-Up Bead Shop
November 3, 2009
“I am not at liberty to disclose that information.” said the bookstore clerk when I asked who owned the Vermont Bead Shop. The bead shop, next door, had a yellow “By Order of Police” sign duck-taped to the window. The sign was large, the black tape slapped on crooked.
“I left my sweater there. I just need to call the owner and get my sweater back.”
“I’m sorry,” said the salesman. “I cannot discuss the bead shop?”
“Who owns the bead shop?”
“I can’t divulge that information.”
“Why? Is it a secret, who owns the bead shop?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care why it’s closed. I just want to call the owner and get my sweater.”
The salesman stared at me without emotion.
“Do you know who owns the bead shop?” I asked him, point blank.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You can’t tell me who owns the bead shop or you can’t tell me if you KNOW who owns the bead shop?”
“I don’t understand the difference.”
“I don’t think it’s top secret, who owns the bead shop. I can probably call the Chamber of Commerce.”
“You are certainly free to do so.”
“Why? Why would you put me through that trouble?”
“Ma’am. I simply cannot help you.” He said, not budging. He didn’t have any customers to wait on. He didn’t bother pretending that he did. He stood behind the counter, motionless, at liberty. He awaited my response patiently, as though we were playing chess.
Where did I go. I miss me.
November 2, 2009
The Hour of Crooks
October 19, 2009
It is the Hour of Crooks. Crooks write confessionals. Crooks advise. Crooks are key-note speakers. Crooks live in big houses. Crooks are admired and forgiven. Crooks get the girl.
A few slaps on the hand and a couple of crooks go to jail, but they already had their fun, so what do they care? Better to live like a crook for ten years then a clock-punching, spam eating clod for fifty years. That’s why crooks don’t stop crooking and crook classes abound. Where do I sign up?
It’s like this. Once you taste good cheese, good wine, and experience Egyptian sheets, you can never be content with anything less. Sure, you put on a good face and say, ” I can do with or without, I’m adaptable, I can live in a tent and eat beans.” The truth is, although beans are palatable with hot sauce, the memory of exquisiteness overtakes rationality.
Like any addiction. Maybe not the first taste of good cheese, but the second or third, and you’re quarked out with it. You’re broke, and you’re grocery shopping, and there in front of you, two cheeses. One is the good cheese, one is the lousy cheese. You will choose the good cheese, hell or high water, and either go bankrupt, or steal, or cheat, or fuck your way to that bar of cheese. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?
I suggest you don’t taste the good cheese if you haven’t already. Instead, best to enjoy the shit cheese and make up for it by wallowing in your self-righteousness. ” My life is not about cheese” You’ll say, ” I have more important things to do than eat cheese.” Good for you. Eat that shit cheese and smile, sucker.
Mission Statement
October 9, 2009
(A mission statement defines in a paragraph or so any entity’s reason for existence. It embodies its philosophies, goals, ambitions and mores. Any entity that attempts to operate without a mission statement runs the risk of wandering through the world without having the ability to verify that it is on its intended course.)
“ I intend to run the risk of wandering through the world without having the ability to verify that I am on my intended course.”
Theatrical Performance Work in Progress
August 30, 2009
Woman in an Adirondeck Chair:
The perfect day is agony. Not a ripple on the lake, although a soothing breeze moves trees, wind chimes, the abundant petunias. It’s a dry air today with plenty of sunshine, late afternoon in late summer, chores completed. No impending bills, social engagements, deadlines. The muffler on the old car has started to rattle but it isn’t a bother today, just a reminder of the wisdom in nursing an old car instead of being pressed with a car payment each month.
I can sit and simply indulge in the glory of the aging process, observe how each day knocks off another sliver of expectation, closes another door to a potentiality that would, in the end, become a burden, something that had to be ‘kept up’ like a rose garden or a hair highlight. For now, no such pain in the ass to contend with. Career in the shithole, mood in a hell hole, lips sucking on a beer. The monotony of lethargy. The consistency of hopelessness. The insight of mortality. The wisdom of nihilism.
And here it is. Perfection. The moan of locusts, the buzz of flies. Lack of desire, motivation, schedule. A few bucks in the bank, enough to eat. A quiet interlude before the next humiliating defeat, disaster, freak-out, agitation, betrayal. A ladybug crawls up my age-spotted claws. It dances circles on my wrist. I think about the awful movies at the film festival and the film makers and their make-up plastered wives.
“I just got into film-making. Was an actor, Search for Tomorrow. Put my wife through law school so now she makes the money, I take care of the kids and make films.”
Where are you from?
“New York, just outside, the island, takes fifteen minutes on the PATH train. People don’t realize it. Closer to Times Square than people who live on the Upper East Side.”
Gee, that’s great.
Wife in white pushes towards us. Huge leather purse with matching high-heeled sandals. Blonde, large face, large lips, lawyerly lids. Porn star pretty, in other words, sexy ugly. Eyes blue and dull. Neanderthal qualities. Silk scarf tied just so. Kisses film maker husband on ear. He’s shorter.
This memory of a third rate international film festival experience passes through my mind without a shift in mood. The hoards of film makers and their entourages, riding the PATH trains, making bad films, wearing white jeans and white high heeled sandals, carrying pillow sized leather purses with studded inlay. The world wouldn’t be twirling without their earnestness. I am off the hook. Don’t need to make a bad film. Can take the day off. Can take this life off.
But first, there’s research to be done. Gin. Feeling poor, I grabbed a bottle of Gordon’s instead of Tanqueray, got it home and wanted to know if there was scientific difference. After two drinks, I have lost interest. Seems fine to me but I won’t have a third. A third drink is the teller. You can drink two of anything, -kool-aid and rum, grape juice and gin, vodka and urine. If you want three drinks, you don’t buy Gordon’s, you don’t buy fructose sweetened juices, you don’t piss in your cup. And you eat. Cheese, crackers, bread, scones, beans and rice. Eat and grow fat and drunk. Ten dollars more and you’ve got a professional buzz going. Three or four drinks. No matter. Who wants to count on a hot day? Cut costs in other ways, sleep in the street if you must.
I’ve got the Gordon’s and I’m stuck. Two drinks and I have to quit. What fun is half a party? Half a party concludes with a restless nap, time distortion, the waste of a day or evening. No experiences worthy of memory, no A’HA moments, no epiphanies. Just a half bottle of Gordon’s left on the counter with the remnants of a lime. An untidy, cheap mess of a half party. A cop-out. And tomorrow? A dull morning sans hangover, sans perkiness. All for the sake of a ten dollar savings.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I won’t be punished by the third drink of Gordon’s despite it being called a Middle Class gin. But if you think I am going to revisit the Gordon’s website for more information on their distillation process, you haven’t had two drinks.
The Chinese definition of happiness is: Grandparents die, then parents die, children die last, but if the decrepit and uselessly aged refuse to kick-off, the rest of us are forced to overstay our welcome as well. It’s the Frozen Domino Effect. Not one domino falls, so no dominos fall, and the natural progression of life comes to a stand still, a stand-off, until the whole planet is a hospice, the entire globe an empty grave. Grandparents and parents will begin outliving their children in greater numbers because the children will kill themselves in frustration at being frozen in youth and middle age, unable to retire and rest unfettered in a shaded hammock because they’re forced to serve their tirelessly immortal ancestral tree.
The walking dead have their spells and bad days but continue, miraculously, to drive to the grocery store and comparison shop. Walking skeletons with wandering minds and milky eyes get a mind for meatloaf or an ice-cream sundae, and they’re up and off the couch. Refreshed with a surprise craving, off they go, back from the brink of a mini-stroke. Dead batteries revived, tough as cockroaches. The human spirit, the will to live, in addition to a myriad of drugs, keep the clocks ticking after time has run out.
Age rage resembles road rage. Somebody is in the way. The life force wants to move forward in the fast lane and there’s a bottleneck. I am aware that even now, although my daughter loves me, there is a part of her that longs for my evaporation into heaven. It’s about the circle, the wheel of Fortune, the next thing. If there is a reverence in aging, there is a reverence in death, so get it over with.
A year ago, standing at the kitchen sink, I suddenly shit my pants without warning. A river of foul soaked my pants and puddled in my shoes. I was 56 and it was a gentle reminder from the Grim Reaper that I was headed for a soiled oblivion, none too soon. I am not saying that diapers are not an option or that a person cannot live a full and meaningful life with a full load in their pants, but as I waddled from the sink to the bathtub for a hose-down, I recognized that Mother Nature did not like to be fooled. Pills, diapers, soap, surgery. Postponement of an idea whose time has come. Rectal mishap as crystal ball. I took note. I await further instructions.
If Frank Sinatra and Paul Newman are dead, how bad can it be?
Walking in a cemetery the occupants silently suggest they’ve got nothing to worry about which balances out the nothingness of their non-existence. They don’t even have to pay to have their lawn maintained. That’s unheard of, otherwise. You don’t get something for nothing, it’s the first life lesson. The first death lesson is, you get something for nothing. Lawn care. Security. Consistency. Freedom from all worry, disease, heartbreak, regret, insomnia, futility, broken electronics.
So, what keeps us here? Responsibility. Somebody loves us and needs our attention. Moreover, they’ll need to borrow money soon, or want to borrow the car. Being bored, they’ll need to visit. Being boring, they’ll need to call and chat about being bored.
A life affirming decision: let your cuticles go. Let them dry and flake and redden from dishwashing. Chew them and let them bleed. Death by degree: the maintenance of manicures. Your hands, dirty and rough, meant to work and then tell the story of that work. Nail file, polish, clippers, buffer brush, tips, full-set, filler. Protective rubber gloves, hand cream. Each item a back step away from hands-on accomplishment. Look away from your hands, ignore them, let them live on their own and follow their lead.
Moment of Reckoning: The moment when you realize that all the people in charge are no smarter than you are, just better public speakers, more efficient test-takers. The moment you realize that all the people in Hollywood as no better looking than you are, just better at applying make-up. The moment you realize that you could be everything you think you could be if you could just shamelessly fake it like everybody else. The moment you realize you won’t fake it is the moment you’d better get used to being miserable.
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Dumb- Ster
The cop looked in the dumpster and noticed a picture of his wife. He had just received a complaint from the Olympic Sports store that someone had dumped bags of garbage in their dumpster. That someone was me. I’d cleaned out a few drawers of hometown memories that morning, – high school notebooks, graduation pictures, diplomas, clippings and headed into what I thought was a free-for-all dumpster tucked behind a strip mall. After I threw the bags into the dumpster I took a walk with the dog and when I returned to my car I was met by the policeman and the assistant manager of the Olympic Sports store. Read more »