Broken World

Gravity-Supposed To Grow Old

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Sometimes being alive is good enough.  Breathing, walking, thinking, feeling—–waking to color, to sound, an awareness that I’m unexplainably here, a pulse circulating blood, air filling these lungs—-one more glorious morning—-(I mumble to myself) “how accommodating—-another day tailored to fit”—–I know such a statement must sound arrogant and self centered, but I take this life very personally.  Maybe that’s being a success, just knowing that out of thin air we all walk this earth.  This thing called gravity stubbornly holding all this shit together, only God could think up something so unimaginable as this.  Gravity—like the grace of God holding us together. Planets circling suns, a black-hole in the center of our Milky Way Galaxy swallowing entire solar-systems whole, in one bite—– and then they too, are once again gone, into thin air—-hurled beyond this limited version of time and space—-everything spinning, tumbling, upside-down and caterwauling into eternity—-I feel your smile, and for that moment we’re eternal, twin evanescent souls dipped in heavens ebony well.

Come with me down to that old cemetery where on September nights we use to walk your dog, as this was the closest thing we had to a park beneath those tired Denver skies.  After all, cemeteries are nothing more than parks for the un-living being re-remembered—no street lamps burning here, just the spine of the Milky Way bending over us.   I’d watch your dog as he stared intensely into the blackness. I swear that he could see them frolicking and dancing about—free from the gravity of these earthly woes.  The neighborhood is windy and dark—-the tree limbs moan and creek—- a damp fog crawls its way across the pointlessness of this American suburb—- there must be a God, cause even the stanchest atheist needs something to fill this landscape of loneliness.   The bland rows of stucco track homes suck the life out of everyone and everything.  There is no staving off Autumn now, even the hell-hounds in the distance howl in defiance of September’s grievous demands. The moon tags along, watching over my shoulder, reminding me that he too is a child of gravity.

I wish I were back home in California where the sound of waves pounding against the rocky Pacific coastline would put my jangly nerves at ease.

Life is a living thing that moves through us, from us and back into us, it’s everywhere yet inappreciable—-imperceptible.  Hold on to it with all your might as it will roll over you, past you—– and then leave you in the park with the rest of the un-living, dancing to a choir whose voices only they can hear.  No drug or drink can compare to being awake and walking out into the thin air.  It is sustained by wonder, blind-faith and the gravity of grace.  Everything collapses and then folds in on itself, where it leads from here, no-one knows for sure.  So for now, we’re supposed to grow old.

One last time let’s hold hands and walk together under those big ole cemetery tress.  We’ll kick a path through the dead dry leaves as the branches maliciously sway against the change of seasons.

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Feeding Crows

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Craziness, madness the big crack up is a disease of bad thinking.  My latest drinking escapade has left me with two options in regards to what it says about me and the rest of the world as a whole.  Either I drink too much or the rest of the world is too sober.  I wish it were the latter, but at night when there are no distractions and I am stuck with only myself to consort with, it’s then that the line of insomnia creeps ever closer towards lunacy.  In the shadows of a 3:00 am quarter moon, there is no backtracking, no sidestepping, no skipping through the spotlight of truth.  At this hour, when the music stops and there is no chair to be found, I find that there is no place to go but inward. The voices in my head mock my foolishness, they scoff at my big plans, calling them nothing more than pipe-dreams, they let the air escape from my inflated thoughts of becoming a better person.  To have flaws is to be human, to be flawed is to be broken.  Isn’t it strange—-that the things you think may save you, may very well kill you, and those things that you think will kill you, may very well save you.  I appreciate the words written by Bukowski, “Find what you love and let it kill you.”  I’d rather die of fatigue chasing my loves, than blindly sleepwalk into oblivion.

My heart flexes with a contraction and then spasms outward like the legs of a startled bullfrog.  Am I having a heart attack, is this how a massive aneurysm feels as it bursts within my chest?  My body is suddenly glazed over in a cold sweat.  My mood flips from a sullen depression where nothing seems to matter, to an all-encompassing sense of dire anxiety and a fear of losing my foot hold on the slippery rocks of consciousness.  God please absolve me of all my sins, save me, don’t take me now, not here, not all alone in these loveless sweat soaked bed sheets.  Where does that piteous sun go when I need it most?

Sometimes I just get plain sick and tired of everybody and everything; myself included.  I swear—-nothing is ever good enough for anyone anyways, especially for someone with such a ruptured sense of wellbeing as me.   I’m forever over-thinking things, over-feeling things and over-analyzing everything. People say, think like a buddhist and live in the present moment, but that’s so fucking clichéd and trite.  I can’t keep pinching myself saying, “Now is now—-Now is now”.  I need my past as an anchor to prevent me from being set adrift and left at the mercy of the currents.  And, I need the future as my lighthouse to guide me through the fog keeping me clear of the treacherous rocks.  I pop in and out of the present moment as it suits me. I prefer to fondle that illusive “now” in-between my daydreams and fantasies.  Occasionally I catch a fleeting glimpses of that camouflaged illusion ironically known as reality.  I prefer to say, “What is, is.” That way I can choose to surrender to it, or to do battle with it.  “What is, is”, can be expressed as a statement or a question.  The seeds of wisdom or madness always germinate within a question.

I’m better off alone.  That way I don’t piss people off, or more honestly, they don’t piss me off.  How is it, that everyone is so fucking calm, boring and self-assured.  They plod along through life as if they’re going to live forever, as if the planet isn’t dying due to their own personal selfish excesses and abuses. They idly stare at the T.V. news as if they’re somehow exempt from all the calamity and misfortune that descends upon “those other poor souls”.

Life is not tidy, clean or simple—-it’s a madhouse, an asylum filled with desperate people running around seeking some form of refuge.   Refuge means different things to different people.  It might be a religious creed, a bottle of whiskey, a cause to defend, a love to possess, a dream to fulfill, a profit to be made——these concessions make up the tiny pieces of hope and faith strewn behind us, a trail of stale breadcrumbs to guide us back home.  Beware of those thieving black-crows of time—as they steal away our paths, leaving each of us standing alone in the wilderness asking “What is—is???”

Performing Without A Net

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Tonight I’m drinking with Fitzgerald, Bukowski and Kerouac, those fuckers sure could spin a tale and drink like a school of drowning fish.  I invited Hemingway to drop by, but he was busy playing nursemaid to a typewriter and polishing his guns.  It’s just as well he couldn’t make it, as guns and alcohol make dangerous bedfellows.  Although, spilling ink can be equally as painful as spilling blood.

These fellas had so many foibles and bad habits that it would be hypocritical for them to say a bad word about anybody else, that’s why I hangout with them, cause they don’t come at me sideways with their God-speak, patriotic-mumbo jumbo or self-righteous, sanctimonious finger wagging. The whole lot of them are serial liars and dexterous sinners. Ya see, writers don’t really lie, they just kind of bend the truth a bit—-and as for being sinners, a life without sin possesses no sustaining storyline.  If ya don’t believe me, just ask God about his favorite protagonist—the devil. We all need our devils and our Gods to test our balance as we wobble across life’s tightrope.  One misstep and you could end up in jail, or worse yet, a Mormon or a new-age vegan.

In the corner of the dark dank bar Waits meanders about the piano keys playing a melancholy jazz riff on an old battered upright piano.  His whisker stubbled face is silhouetted in a smokey blue light, the derby on his head cocked forward and a cigarette dangles from his perturbing lips.  A cat named Bird stares blankly into space as he lifts a shiny alto to his mouth.  His improvisations are a soured marriage between black blues and leftover notes that fumble their way into dissonance—more or less a drunken lullaby.  Vincent sits at a table near the musicians. He makes his childlike sketches and occasionally looks up at the band to lend them his ear (so to speak). The duo plays forlorn melodies that we slowly get sauced to, as we indulge our miseries, such is the sad yet beautiful futility of recounting a long-lost love-affair or friendships now withered and gone by the wayside.  Most love affairs are doomed from the get-go, but friendships are all we really have to sustain us, someone to catch us should we fall.  I miss my friends.

I only see my old pals now at weddings or funerals. I once unsuccessfully attempted to organize a Mens Retreat. I called a few of the old gang and emailed a couple of others.  Most of them never got back to me and those that did offered up some slipshod excuses about how they were predisposed.  They awkwardly mumbled on about work responsibilities, family responsibilities, money responsibilities and other middle-age obligations.   This may sound crazy, but I miss my once young irresponsible friends—what they lacked in maturity they more than made up for in temerity.

To much time alone can cause a man to substitute regret for nostalgia.  What is, “is”—- what ain’t—- “ain’t”—-and what never-was— “ain’t never gonna be”.   Everybody changes, some for the better, others for the worse.  Shockingly, some of my old buddies have even thrown their lot in with the right-wing conservatives—-go figure?  I do my best to remember the good-times—And I’m fortunate to have absorbed so many fond memories.

I’m reminded of one of my old favorite tunes by Simon and Garfunkel, “Bookends”.

Time it was and what a time it was it was,
A time of innocence a time of confidences.

Long ago it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you

Unexpectedly, Twain, Steinbeck, Armstrong and Columbus drop by. They’re all excited about heading out west to explore some uncharted territories. They claim to have some rough draft maps and charts they got from a couple of fellas named Lewis and Clark. They came by to ask if we might like to throw in with them. We all looked at one another with that singular writers eye. Most stories don’t come to you, on the contrary, you have to seek them out.  Ah yes, only through adventure do we discover new worlds and in the process come to better know what we’re made of.  The decision is unanimous, we’ll all head out west come first dawn.

To often adventure is perceived as a young man’s game.  But I say, attitude will always trump age.  Adventure demands an odd mixture of risk, courage, stamina and as some might see it—-a shit load of irresponsibility.   George Mallory expressed it so concisely when asked, “Why climb Everest?” George responded, “Because it’s there.”  Now isn’t that a Goddamn foolish and irresponsible reason for doing anything—-”Because it’s there?”  But as for me, those three words sparkle with a stark and eloquent truth, to evolve and grow the heart must be pierced with a curiosity to see what’s over that next horizon.

What I love about adventurers, artists and writers is how they peer at the world through the eyes of a child.  They never seem to lose that youthful sense of wonder and imagination.   They may come off as brash, irresponsible and even a bit mad, but perhaps that’s why they aren’t afraid to perform without a net—–.  So Adios mi amigos, I’m off to see what lies out west.  Hey, why don’t you saddle up and come on along as well.

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This piece is dedicated to my life long brothers—Steve, Django, Mike, Chris, Pat, Danny and Norm.

Satellite Wishes (I Wish I May, I Wish I Might)

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03 Runaway Train

From a God’s eye view it all must seem so silly.  Lines drawn separating one person or place from another, borders, boundaries, the yours and mine of desire and regret—the willing, the wasted, the reluctant and those forgetting that we all end up old, ugly and woeful, but hey, ugly ain’t so bad once you accept that at best we’re all sideshow attractions in a traveling freak-show in this two-bit carnival life.  Oddballs, freaks and outcasts have always been my companions of choice—-so if you’re still my pal, buddy or sweetheart, then yeah, I’m talking bout you buster.  We all have our own personal measure of beauty, but baby you give me that sweetest ache deep in my chest, just like that feeling I get when I awake to a clear snow-covered mountain morning.  You make growing old not such a bad prospect when I know I have you as my mirrored companion—-you pump collagen into this weary heart of mine.  I’ll always follow you down.

Everybody’s scuttling about to secure their share of food and shelter, maybe even love scraps or its ghostly shadow locked within ones own pleading soul.  Down here, it’s a macro playhouse of clogged freeways, early morning skyscrapers blooming above the yellowish haze, the broken, the woebegone, those lucky few with the taste of a new kiss still on their damp lips, old creepy guys in shiny new cars, commuters waiting on meaningless buses taking them to meaningless jobs, lonely guys on desolate Nevada desert roads seeking something just over that next ridge, plain Jane looking girls clutching romance novels with their ragged dog-eared dreams, a dog pissing on someones perfectly manicured rose garden, mountain thunderstorms, salty sea scented beaches, coconut smelling  sun tanned bitches, grimy unshaven bums on skid row, blue birds on telephone wires joyfully singing above a gated community, breached levee’s drowning someones hard-earned promise land, someones first breath, another’s last—-uh-hum?  Mister, most are gonna lie to ya, but not me—no sir!

All the wise ones, like the giggling Dali Lama, chubby Buddha, rabble rousing Jesus wear that same smug lil grin.   They’re like a pack of good ole boys sharing some private inside joke.  They know the jokes on us as we do our twisted dance with Maya.  I feel my time slipping away, what will you do with your time here.  I do know this, that regardless of my foolish carrying on’s, I’m a lucky guy, to be chosen, to be alive, to be wandering this blue spinning sphere—-a temporary oasis for those trapped by space and time, a far-flung and forgotten Eden set against a backdrop of flickering lights and mumbled prayers.    I try not to forget this within each dissolving moment.  I stare up at the night sky and I can’t tell the satellites from twinkling stars, but they’re all oh so pretty—and I wonder what becomes of my satellite wishes?

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Cages, Walls and Prisons

18 Track 18  Soundtrack to blog.

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A good friend of mine recently went to prison.  I hate to say it, but this news came as no huge surprise.  You see, he had always lived his life behind one wall or another—–a wall of alcohol and drugs (until he got help and quit) a wall of pretension and success (until he lost his business and money) a wall of arrogance and deceit (until his fraud was exposed) a wall of emotional insulation (until he was filleted and spiritually gutted).  In jail there are no walls between you and yourself, the only walls there are the ones keeping the rest of the world out. The prisoner and his keeper are forced to coexist—-hope—like pardons, float just out of reach.

Sometimes when I consider this life, I see each of its participants living out their existence where “they need to be”—-please don’t misinterpret this as meaning “where they may want themselves to be”.  Perhaps its arrogant of me to say such a thing, who am I to know what another may or may not want or need?  I am arrogant.  Arrogance comes with the territory of being a writer.  A writer is the last unwitting peddler of authenticity for all crumbling cultures.  To be a good writer, you need to have something to offer, something new and interesting to say, a revelation to shine a light upon.   As for me and my writings, I intend to confound the smart asses, frustrate the conventionalist and piss off the righteous. Cause, if I mix the colors just right, I might create a picture that becomes a window for another to peer through.  I always wonder the same thing about others, “Tell me what you see—what you feel?”

I loved a girl once.  And maybe she loved me back, these things are illusive and subjective—or more than likely, I’m just plain hard to love.  Love melts in your mouth not your hands, and it’s very difficult to see whats going on inside another’s mouth, let alone within their heart.  M&Ms lie, they all look different, but they all taste the same.  She took me to her home, a place where she kept her clothes, slept, stocked her cupboards and fridge, where she dreamt her dreams, hid her tears, bathed, put on her make up and stored her smiles.  I tried once to live with her, but my stuff cluttered up her neat organizational scheme of things.  I left before the walls she was constructing became to high for me to scale.

There’s a place in the High Sierra’s known as Desolation Wilderness, what a mystic and daunting land. A place of stark granite walls, gnarled pines and hidden alpine lakes, a place where one can either lose themselves or become re-aquatinted with what was meant to be.  It is here that I sort out my devils from my angels and decide who is the lion and whom is the lion tamer.   The lion cage is where I go to discover what comprises the alchemy of my soul.  And I will tell you this, it takes a lot of courage to put my head inside that lions mouth.

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Casting Spells

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Lets share a cigarette baby, there is something sexy about having you partake in my bad habits, why?  I don’t know, does it matter?  Lets drink a couple bottles of wine and we can say things that we make up along the way, just little thoughts about this or that, it doesn’t really matter.  We can stumble down some dark small town streets or take our clothes off and stand in the sun on some vacant summer beach, like the one that runs across from the railroad tracks out highway one north between SF and Santa Cruz.  But maybe you got better things to do these day, I sure as hell don’t.  Do you got any new tunes on your iPod that you can turn me on to?   We always like the same artists, the odd ones no one else has ever heard of.  Pass me that cigarette again baby—-where’s that cork screw? I don’t want to feel like shit tomorrow, but fuck it, tomorrow is another fabled world away, put your coat on and I’ll tie these unruly shoes of mine and we’ll go outside and walk around, stumble about and I’ll tackle you and bring you down to the earth next to me.   And we’ll laugh at this life with its promised death and we’ll pretend today is our last day, maybe it is, who knows, who cares, cause sweetness, right now it don’t matter.  Why do people die, they get taken away from us, I don’t like that, I hate that.  But you’re alive today with me.  Lets go get high and then eat cinnamon graham crackers with sweet Nutella chocolate spread all over them.  And then, I’ll make you-up stories as we lay in one another’s arms staring up at the ceiling and we’ll see all these undreamed-of-things tumbling from my mind, hanging right there within the emptiness above us, as if they were real, as if they belonged only to you and me—–cause imagination and fantasy is the spell that once cast, holds love together.  Come on darlin, come on along with me and we’ll just keep goin on like this.  That wouldn’t be so bad now, would it?

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Life Between Two Shakes (and how we spend our days—)

They call it retirement, but the word sounds so—so—how should I put it—-um—ah—-old? The word retired carries with it a tone of being “tired” as in, re-“tired”. By definition the word seems to mean “tired and then tired again” (now that’s freaking tired). It conjures up visions of someone sitting alone on an old tattered Chesterfield with an afghan covering their varicose veined legs as they blankly stare at a rerun of Wheel of Fortune. An ageless Vanna White smiles out at the audience of drooling geezers as she flips over another vowel. The phrase at the bottom of the TV screen reads, “Frogs in biology 101?” The excited contestant hits his button and shouts out, “I’ll solve the puzzle! What is, stiff and waiting to croak.” Now that’s a tad bit harsh, but being new to this élite group known as retiree’s has taken some getting use to.

Recently at a dinner party a balding gentleman with a first trimester pot belly inquired, “So, what do you do?” Awkward silence. I grimace, lick my upper lip and then say it. “Oh, I’m retired”. More awkward silence. He smiles and then looks me up and down as if to see if I am missing any of my appendages. I can see the thoughts ticking away in his worker-bee mind, “This guy is either very lazy or very rich.” Then he try’s to feel me out with some of his own self disclosures. “Oh hell, I’d like to retire too, but I cant’ afford to pull the trigger yet.” This is a guy with a 2012 Navigator and 2011 BMW in his garage, lives in a 3,000 sq. ft. home with just him and his wife, has a pool, hot tub and belongs to the Racket Club. I smile, “I didn’t pull the trigger, I just decided to take the bullets out of the gun, in other words, I choose to down size a bit.” He stares at me with eyes of pity that’s usually reserved for panhandlers and bums. He gives me a fatherly pat on the shoulder and says, “Ah, you’ll be fine. I’ll buy ya a round of golf at the country club someday.” I give him the hang loose hand sign, “Yeah, how bout we play this Monday, there’s hardly any one on the course during the week and the green fee’s are half price.” He answers me without skipping a beat, “Oh no, I couldn’t do that. We’re in the middle of mid year projections and our new revenue production targets have been increased by 15 % for this fiscal year.”  The office-speak creates a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.  “I’m putting in fifty, sixty hours a week right now to try to keep the workload manageable.” The lines on his forehead clench into a tight little fist. “Jesus, the road work on the inter-state has increased my commute to an hour and a half each way. Not to mention the price of gas.  Damn, that V8 of mine is guzzling down the gas like its water.” He nervously rattles the ice in his tumbler of Scotch and then throws it back in one quick gesture of defiance.

More awkward silence—-. I extend my hand to give him a parting farewell. We struggle for a second trying to figure out if we should give each other the “bro shake” or the formal “businessman grip”. We end up with a kind of uncomfortable middle of the road handshake that is indicative of our disjointed conversation. “Well, stop by the house and maybe we can take the kids for a hike or go to the beach or something.” He nods and gives me a noncommittal, “Yeah, sure, sounds good.” I give it one more try, “No I really mean it. We can get up at the crack of dawn and hike up Mt. Tallac.” He only provides me his partial attention as he hastily appeases the annoying ringtone from his iPhone. Ironically the little device is playing the song, “Help” by the Beatles.

As I turn to walk away he grabs me by the arm and motions for me to wait. He quickly taps out a text message and once again addresses me. “Maybe we can hike Mt. Tellac. I’ll email you and then put it on my outlook calendar and its a done deal. By the way, what is the elevation at the summit?”  It is my turn to look him up and down as I respond with a  bit of  trepidation in my voice, “It’s above 10,000 feet.” He sucks in his gut as he pulls up his Dockers, “We can do this bro!” I smile, “I think you’re right man. Sometimes ya got to get above all the crap to enjoy the view.”

As I drove home from the party in my 2002 Outback (4 cylinder), I am reminded of a quote by Annie Dillard, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

Disclaimer: This blog is by no means insinuating that working into ones golden years is a bad thing. In fact, many people love to continue working well into their later years, as their profession is their passion—and this is a beautiful thing. This piece is intended to examine how two individuals with different perspectives seek to find common ground and a mutual understanding of the other’s lifestyle. With that said, I accept the fact that subjective observations are biased, but that comes with the territory of being a writer.