Hi readers, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. I didn't get around to it this year, but when Walmart has sales after Christmas Day, I'll buy a small tree and ornaments to place in my apartment next year. I'll also buy the Christmas cards I'll mail next year. I have my kids with me right now, which is the best Christmas present I could ever get.
Last week I rang the bell for Salvation Army -- a Christmas tradition for me that started when my ex-wife took our son out to do it when he was 5. He's 16 now. Our daughter is 13. I was assigned to stand outside a Dillons store from 4 to 7 p.m., but the preacher relieved me at 6:30 p.m., for which I was grateful. I was freezing ass cold -- actually my feet were freezing. God bless you, Commander Johnson.
On Christmas Eve night, I went to the candle light service at church. My belief is that the birth of the Christ child was like light breaking through a world of darkness.The pastor, Neal and his wife, Jayme, are good friends of mine. They've supported this blog and encouraged me in all my writing endeavors. I never thought I'd be buddies with a pastor. Thought I was too much of a rebel, but Neal and I -- we get each other. Lately, we've taken to trading theology books with each other. Oh, and Jayme gave me a bunch of crockpot recipes after my dad and step-mom gave me a crockpot last Christmas. They knew I was without some essential things and gave me a special present this Christmas, said I didn't need to give them anything, but I'd already gotten them a Christmas card. Neal lost his mom to cancer this year. (His dad died around 12 years ago.) Several of my friends lost parents this year.
Among other supporters of this blog, there's my friend, Stan, who serves on the Wichita Board of Education and ran for a state legislative seat, but unfortunately for Kansas, he lost. I wrote some PR material for Stan, much like 19th century novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter, House of Seven Gables..) wrote a campaign biography of his college friend Franklin "Handsome Frank" Pierce -- one of the worst presidents ever. He was an anti-abolitionist. Anyhow, Stan is a super guy. I can bounce writing ideas off him and he always listens and offers advice and encouragement. Unlike Franklin Pierce, Stan is all for good causes like racial, gender and socio-economic equality.
Then there's my friend, Alana, whom I've known since junior high, but we were more acquaintances than friends in school. More recently, through the blog and sharing stories about our kids, she's become a friend. Her husband, Craig, also went to school with us. He's been serving the country for years in the military, which I respect. Alana was a PTO (Parent Teachers Organization) dynamo, raising money for her kids' public schools. Her daughter is now a realtor. Son is a rock guitarist who can play Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir."
Among people I've known since I was a kid, but only recently became friends with, probably none is more surprising than my friendship with Dawn. In junior high, we hated each other. Don't know why. That's just the way it was. We were cruel to each other. One day I said (this is so juvenile), "Dawn, is that mayonnaise on your lip or are you back in business?" In junior high, I projected a certain stupid no-holds-barred vulgarity like I've never exhibited before or since. I'm glad the profanity gene missed my kids. Anyhow, Dawn is now a stalwart reader of this blog, which makes her a friend. She's worked for years, making airplane parts and has a daughter who got a degree in marine biology from some university in Oregon. I think she has a son who's a high school wrestler.
My friend, Jeannie, in Michigan, is another faithful reader of the blog. She's a good hearted person who takes care of people in her home. She lost her brother this year in an accident, which sucks. Her father died in 1969. But I'm happy to say her mom, who's in her 90s, is still alive and doing well.
Then there's Denyse in New Mexico aka Inciting a Riot. She has regularly read the blog for years. Life has been up and down for her, but I hope and pray her fortunes soon take a turn for the better. Denyse is, like, 10 years older than me. I saw a picture of her, taken in the '70s, and all I can say is "Foxy lady."
Yeah, most of my friends are chicks. Sorry, they make up most of the audience for my blog. Maybe they're more in agreement with my somewhat liberal views, I don't know. (Well, not Alana.) It seems like if I say something liberal on Facebook, Stan and maybe one other guy will "like" it and I get eight or 10 "likes" from women. I don't know, I guess if you have a cock and balls, you gotta be a big tough conservative.
A new year is fast approaching and I plan to do all I can to make it a good one. I've had my share of being depressed the past couple of years. Who needs it? Things will always get better and no matter how far I may be into darkness, I'll never stop striving to be happy.
I'm reminded of Winston Churchill, whom Gary Oldman portrays in the now playing biopic, Darkest Hour. Churchill had terrible depression (he called it "the black dog") and he was an alcoholic, but he was exactly the right man to lead Great Britain when Adolph Hitler and the Nazis threatened Europe and virtually the whole world. Churchill lived to be 90-years-old. Anyhow, despite all his problems, he said, "I am an optimist. There does not seem to be too much use being anything else."
One of my favorite writers, J.D. Salinger, who participated in the D-Day invasion and came back from World War II with PTSD, battled depression. He wrote about people having nervous breakdowns and captured what in the '50s was called "middle class neurosis." Salinger's weltschmerz has influenced my own writing, but I don't think I have to be in misery to write well. Ideas can spring up any time, any place, in all kinds of weather. Some people may think I can't be happy and creative at the same time.
Greetings to all friends, kith and kin & Christmas fans throughout the world. It's that time of year again for watching reruns of Santa Claus & Kakeman (those of you who grew up in the Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area in the 1970s know what I'm talking about), drinking egg nog shakes from McDonald's, eating tacos and gazing at the rich people's Christmas lights when you're out cruising through the fancy neighborhoods with your girl. Imbibing an English porter with cheery friends while taking in the Ghost of Christmas Past.
Christmas 1977
Sir Paul McCartney
So what's happened in the big wide J. Guy world this year? It's been an interesting year to say the least as I severed ties with the Underground Writing Society I had been afiliated with for several years, I had a bout of homelessness (well not literally homeless, I lived in my car, but it was all right) and saw...can we get a big Ringo Starr drumroll here? Sir Paul McCartney! Yeah, I saw a Beatle live in the flesh. The man is still a force for rock n' roll and all music, love and peace the world over and has lost nothing to age. I brought my son, Max, with me so he could see history. Would've brought my daughter, Gabby, but she doesn't like noise. "Oh shit!" I exclaimed as the arena went orange with the booming explosion accompanying "Live and Let Die." But it was all right. And no, I'm not going to play "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time."
When I hear music like the Beatles, I think of how we need to get back to good old fashioned basics. Didn't America (well, actually Alabama) have the chance to do this by electing a good Christian man to the U.S. Senate? How Christian is he? As a judge, he posted The Ten Commandments on his courtroom wall. Sure, he got in trouble because they said he violated the separation of Church and State, but isn't that just like a lot of godless liberals to pretend such a separation exists? We all know our Founding Fathers built this country on good ol' white male evangelicalism. Some said the good judge preyed upon teenage girls 40 years ago. But hey, as his Good Christian supporters said, he was a "man's man." Furthermore, didn't the Gospels say Mary was a teenager and Joseph was 35 when they got together? I'm sure it must have. Our glorious President (take it easy on him, he's a new Christian) campaigned for the good Alabama Republican. After all, the senate candidate shares the president's goal to Make America Great Again. Yes, he did say the last time America was great happened to be during the era of slavery. You know when people, due to their skin pigmentation, were beaten, tortured, murdered, separated forever from their families and women were raped by slave masters and their sons? But hey a few white people had it good so it's all right.
I'll have to admit in some ways, things are improving. Men can no longer get away with being dirtbags. Those rich, powerful men who sent x-rated videos to female co-workers and subordinates, locked them in rooms and flashed their dicks at them -- they're being held accountable. Karma has got 'em by the balls. All the bad guys are being held to account. For example, if you walk in on young ladies undressing because you own the Miss USA pageant or brag about how you're a celebrity who can "grab em by the ____" --- you -- uh, well -- shouldn't you be nailed to a cross by the media? -- uh, well I guess if you're loved by Jerry Fallwell, Jr. and Franklin Graham, you're all right.
But if you sleep with the Russians in order to win a Presidential election, well then...Oh, not then either? Never mind, he's a good Christian. A good pussy grabbing Christian who might be into golden showers.
Best kids in the world. Right here.
Boy, I sure wouldn't want to go to the Jingle Bell Ball with that guy. Speaking of which, my teenage son, Max, went to such an event at the high school. Max is a good boy in every sense of the word -- recognized for citizenship at school, a respecter of all races, genders and creeds who loves Minecraft, Star Wars and playing Cards Against Humanity with his buddies at lunch. My boy would never light a joint in the school cafeteria like that dumb ass from his shop class did. (I mean, hell, if you're gonna light a joint, you don't do it out in the open.) Kid got kicked off the football team for the dumb stunt. Max, of course, is smart. He's even into smart human tricks. For example, there's this 300-pound kid named Kian who's on the wrestling team with my son. Max, like the other boys has experimented with getting on all fours and seeing how long they can last with Kian sitting on their backs.
Then there's my daughter, Gabby. She's into decals, making cartoons on the computer and anything Harry Potter. In another sign of the shifting times, my baby, my princess -- the little girl who wanted to grow up to live in a "magic castle" -- turned 13 just this month. My baby girl is a teenager now. (I guess I'm getting to be an old man.) She got a ukulele and a guitar this year. She's as bad ass as Patti Smith Carrie Fisher Erin Fitzpatrick and as sensitive as Stevie Nicks singing "Landslide." If any guy tried that sexual harassment shit with Gabby, she would, like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, go medieval on his ass.
Along with the other changes in my life, I entered a relationship this year. My girlfriend, Kayla, writes me love notes and sends me sweet text messages like this one: "Come over if you feel like it, but you can't do what you want, I'm on my period."
Kayla's brother, Townes, had a bout of anal fissures this year. Anal fissures, in case you don't know, are splits or cracks in the lining of the anal opening. This can result in the passage of very hard or watery stools. Townes had the hard kind. He told us all about it during a high fiber lunch at one of Wichita's trendy health food restaurants. Guess the plumbing was a-clogged-up at the sewer down Townes. (Ha ha chortle chortle). But I want everyone to know that Townes and his anus and bowel movements are now doing A-okay.
Well that's about all my news. And remember, Christmas has done good things for me and it can for you as well. Think about that as you feast upon the cooked goose and potatoes at your family dinner table. I mean, think hard about those things that truly matter in life. The Screw You Party is giving the tax system and internet to the oligarchs and maybe President Grinch has no respect for women as he all but admitted once to Howard Stern, but by God, he'll make us all say "Merry Christmas" and isn't that what this special time of year is all about? No Ebenezer Scrooge, that guy.
As I alluded to before, I better get my white ass 'outa here. But, let's keep the joy that is Christmas in our hearts all year. Oh I'm as happy as an angel, merry as a school boy and giddy as a drunken man just thinking about it. To my friends, I say I get high with a little help from you. To my kids, you're the reason I exist. You complete me. And remember, no matter what your faith, God is. So have a good year and, with regard to your personal plumbing, may you pass no hard stools. And if you start feeling too high, straying past yourself and thinking you're all about something, get back to where you once belonged.
God bless us everyone,
Jeff
P.S. I have long labored over writing at my local hamburger establishment, McDonald's, from which I've talked to my friend Joel who keeps the dining area crisp and clean. Joel is a retired guy, a Navy veteran with a tattoo and a white mustache that sets his smile aglow. Here's to Joel and that lovely yuletide poem he wrote many years ago, ending it on a sensitive note: "Shove that Christmas tree up your ass."
"We got Bo Didley playing & Leslie the announcer at the cash machine. The garage is rock'n and NO PARKING IN THE DAMN YARD!"
So she said on Facebook that Saturday morning. The day was bittersweet for her, but she'd face it with the courage of someone laughing so much, it would almost drive away all today's tears. She'd escaped to the back porch for coffee and a cigarette, and that's where I caught her. Slyly sitting back in her chair around the patio table. Her face, rosy in the gray morning, was cool as Kentucky Derby Days. Her kid sister, Amy, a younger forty-something, provided sweet comic relief.
Then they saw me.
She jumped up. We hugged. People tell me I give good hugs and I guess I do. Can anyone underestimate the power of a warm, tight hug in these days when we're just trying to get along?
"Oh Jeff, thanks for coming to the freaky damn backyard," Suzanne said.
She was wearing faded blue jeans with the pocket ripped on the left cheek of her ass. Purple K-State T-shirt (her alma mater), sleeves pulled up to the elbows, revealing the fiery serpentine tattoo on her left arm. (Some 50 years ago, her dad, a young ensign, got a tattoo, while in the Navy. Anchors aweigh.) Blonde hair tied back in a pony tail and jet dark glasses that made her look like a nerd even though back in school I always considered her one of the "cool kids." That was the pedestal people put her on, but you always caught the sense of resistance in every way she walked. In every damn thing she said. There's a photo (circa 1994) of her in khakis in some train, revealing a window to mountains in Germany. Mischief in the black pipe hanging from a corner of her mouth. Fun emanating from the beer stein in her hand.
Somewhere in the middle of life, I would discover that Suzanne was in many ways, a product of her parents' coolness.
When she'd posted to Facebook about the garage sale at her parents' house, she said it all with such fun, I knew I had to come. For as long as I'd known Suzanne -- since third grade, actually -- her parents had lived at 409 Akron, a red brick house in Jett, Kan. (pop. 4,000 in the 1970s).
But they didn't live there anymore.
Suzanne's mother, Madelyn, went for a walk as she did every morning around 5 a.m. in their suburban neighborhood, and had a heart attack. She died right there on the sidewalk. An unexpected death.
With Madelyn gone, there was no one in the house to take of Keith anymore. For the past year and a half, her husband had become increasingly more forgetful and disoriented. The love notes, the drawings he was always making for his wife -- had become a thing of the past. He could no longer drive. For years, through the decades actually, he'd restored old cars. Suzanne and her sisters placed him in a home with a memory care unit. Her dad had Alzheimer's, my mom has it. Suzanne and I relate to each other.
Car show. Movie show
Restored (or in the process of being restored) Thunderbirds, Corvettes, Impalas and my personal favorite, the sleek, black GTO. All of them for years parked in that driveway, in that garage. Paraded in the Classic Car Club show on State Street on sticky, summer days. It's good to live. And to bring disparate parts from the car graveyards, piece them together with precision like the supernatural and there they are -- touching, rubbing together, glistening as if rolling straight from the factory floor. Just resurrecting that baby.
"Come on inside," Suzanne said, motioning to the house. "It's kind of freaky and surreal right now."
I followed her in, past the now stark living room, into the kitchen, loaded with boxes. She introduced me to a woman -- I think it was an aunt from Colorado -- there were so many relatives at the house that day, it's hard to keep them straight.
Then she poured me a cup of coffee. It was a black hole sun-colored mug with a crude white cartoon drawing of a hot rod on it. "Cream or sugar?," she said. "Are you kidding?" I answered. "Black, no riff raff." I also chose a black doughnut from the box she offered me. Chocolate glazed. Coffee and doughnuts. Couldn't refuse.
I so wanted to come over and take for my treasures a piece of her family and heritage. At the same time I felt like an intruder. A vandal. I said as much, expressing my ambivalence.
"It's okay, Jeff," she said. "It's only stuff. I'd like to see you have some of it."
"That black jacket hanging up there looks about your size," the aunt from Colorado said. It was Keith's leather jacket.
"You can just have it," Suzanne told me. "You don't have to pay me anything."
But that didn't seem right to me. "I'll tell you what. You're asking $10 (which was a steal) for it. I'll give you five." So I handed her a five from my wallet and she placed it in the cash box.
Of course I had to go through the boxes of books. Most of them were stuff like How to Draw Cars. I didn't buy those. Felt I should leave them for some aspiring artist who might saunter in. Let that person connect with Keith's artistic genius. And the old Rodder's Journal mags. Let those go to a true car enthusiast. I'd just seize on some of the rock n' roll.
Everything we have here is on loan and we just pass through it, make it a part of ourselves until we check out and pass the cool vibes on to others, which will always include people we never knew in this life.
"I know it's weird, all these strangers going through your family's stuff," I said. "We had the estate sale at my grandpa's place when he was still alive. It paid for him to live in the nursing home."
"It's hard, but it's gotta be done," she said. (My God, it sounded like something I would say.) "Last night I was going through these old drawings my dad made. Some were for my mom. She had this big piece of his heart."
"I hope you're hanging on to those," I said.
"Oh absolutely, I'm going to have them framed."
"And I saw these detailed diagrams of ships in one of the boxes," I said.
"Oh my God, those gotta go to Jax," she said, referring to her son. After graduating from high school, he followed his granddad's lead, joining the Navy. He's currently stationed in Yokosuka, Japan and deployed on the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan. Eerily, his first station is where the old man was stationed when he was young.
"He vacillated back and forth on whether to join the Army or Navy," Suzanne said of her son. Her ex-husband had been in the Army. She was an Army wife stationed in Germany when the picture on the train was taken years ago.
Outside the window, I saw Suzanne's teenage daughter, Karah. (Like me, Suzanne has one boy, one girl.) She smiled at me, just as she had as she walked down the aisle with her family and noticed me sitting there at her grandmother's funeral.She was a wearing KU T-shirt and shorts -- flaunting sweet rebellion at her mom. Actually, I think Karah's going to turn out tougher than Suzanne. Like my daughter, who also has a sensitive older brother, she's a take-no-shit kind of girl, the type who mentally drop-kicked teenage boys at the high school with their indecent proposals involving camera phones. "Fuck you" -- and they were brought down. But she had a sweet smile. I told Suzanne so.
"She knows who you are," Suzanne said. "You 'oughta say hi. Maybe she knows your son from school."
Outside, along the splendid driveway, I caught the young woman's attention.
"Hi Karah, I'm Jeff, a friend of your mom's.
She shook my hand, smiled that smile. "It's nice to meet you."
"Would you happen to know my son, Max Guy? I know he's a couple of classes behind you."
"I don't really know him, but I've heard the name. I know he was Student of the Week last week?"
"Yes, thank you for mentioning that. I was quite proud. His mother and I have always tried to instill good citizenship in our kids as I'm sure your parents have with you and your brother."
A few feet away, the garage started rocking again. The early Rolling Stones' cover of Chuck Berry's "Carol." Cash box shakin' like a money maker should. A group of men, young and old, some smoking, some not, were rolling it up. Leslie -- 5"1" and 118 pound of dynamite -- was like a maestro. In his dementia, Keith had forgotten his oldest daughter's name and took to calling her "The Announcer." The gray garage looked for a second like something from Grease.
When Suzanne and Amy came out and saw me in the leather jacket, it was all real. There was a red pin on the jacket that read, "Rod and Custom magazine." I'm keeping that. Suzanne had another Marlboro Light. Three months earlier, she'd been on Facebook, talking about how she'd gone 21 days without a cigarette. With all the stress, she's taken it up again.
"This is just temporary," she said. "I'm gonna quit again."
"I hope so," I answered. "We'd like to have you around for a while."
The Bridge
"Thank you so much for coming," she said, helping allay the guilty outsider feeling inside me. Then I realized my being there, whether I'd meant it that way or not, was really about two old friends facing the end of those lives that anchored us, our innocence long diminished, the fragility of our own mortality.
"Dad's not eating anymore," she said.
"I'm sorry. I wish it didn't have to be this way."
"He's turning off the lights and he's gonna do it his way."
In the garage, they were wrapping things up like a life. Impact wrench, air compressor, creeper, paint stripper, grinder, tin cutters...all the tools of auto mechanics and restoration. Being sold away (to live some more). The Announcer maintaining cool authority. She was back in town, having boarded a Boeing Jet plane from Philadelphia, PA.
They'd all be there to meet him. Just as they had for Madelyn. A caravan of classic cars lined the parking spaces outside the Methodist Church at her funeral. Keith was a founding member and past president of the Jett Classic Car Club. He wouldn't be forgotten. Some of his contemporaries are still around; some, yeah, they aren't living.
Three weeks later, Suzanne would be on Facebook again, summoning the ghost of her little brother Justin who died in a car accident when he was 21.
"Hey Justin, we know you can hear us. Get that Big Garage in the sky ready for Keith/Dad."
At last, the lights went out. The Big Garage in the Sky was open for business. The grease, soul, the rock n' roll, a revival. (Don't we all need some kind of revival today?) I think the old man's got a hold a' the keys. And he'll never have to clean the place or worry about door dings again.
7:30 a.m. Sunday morning. Alone in the laundry room of Liberty Apartments at the east end of town in an undisclosed convention-defying Kansas community. I'm drinking Maxwell Piss coffee and and speaking to you over wheat fields and over Facebookland and Twitter through an apparatus in a medium that might be felt by you. And isn't that what we're all looking for these days? Some feeling?
We occupied tables at The Galveston, an upscale restaurant off Douglas in Wichita's Old Town District that sometimes featured jazz combos with weekend brunches. It was the kind of event I attended more for professional reasons than any desire to bullshit with people even though that's what I always end up doing. The Big Names from the Wichita Media and Communications industry were there.
At every such meeting, attendees have to stand and introduce ourselves. I stood up from the oval table and my honey garlic chicken with potatoes and wine glass and talked for 30 seconds. I can BS, I can speak extemporaneously. Shoot from the hip as they used to say. It reminds me of high school speech class when Mrs. H assigned us to give an improvisational speech. What she didn't know was all my speeches had been improvisational. Today I'm a member of a Wichita branch of Toastmasters, from which I've won four blue ribbons for public speaking. We have yet to become a chartered organization.
"I have an online presence," I said. "Some of you are aware, there's a small cult of readers. I'm not like Big Time Viral Bloggers -- Hyperbole and a Half and Nadia Bolz-Weber's Sarcastic Lutheran. My presence is unconventional -- or to use my friend, Shannon's word, 'edgy.' In my day job I work for an underground writing society where I write in a more conservative fashion, but I'm not at liberty to divulge details about that at this juncture."
I was told me I might want to meet the Date Goddess. "She's unconventional too," Shannon said as she poured herself a glass of water. "I'm aware of her," I said.
Janna Hauff is the self-proclaimed Date Goddess. She's a local relationship expert and matchmaker who primarily works with professionals because they're the only ones who can afford her services. Her website is topnotch professional. She's a hell of a marketer.
I introduced myself after the meeting as people were networking. Told her I was a big fan. She had purple streaks of dye in her almond-colored hair. Jewelry around her wrists. A psychedelic mini-skirt dress with pink Go-Go boots, sundial necklace and Etsy bracelets bearing hemp and a longing for the beach. She talked about the "art of relational existence," of connecting people who share a congruence and setting them free to share space together.
"So you're the guy with the blog?" she said.
We shared our Linkedin pages. Connected there. Exchanged business cards. Mine features the caricature that my cartoonist friend Bryan Clark drew for me.
Threshold
Two days later I sat in the lobby of the clinic, reading a book, when Jennifer poked her head out.
"Jeff," she said.
I sat my marker in place, closed the book, grabbed my fedora hat and walked in front of her, back to her office.
"How's Mr. Jeff?" she asked.
"Well, I'm alive."
"That's a victory," she said. "Every time you go out, you're winning."
Skin protectorate
I took a seat on the couch in her office and applied Chap Stick (skin protectorate) to my lips.
"I like Butter Cake," she said.
That's Jennifer. She has several flavors of coffee for the keurig stationed by her bookcase, from which I once noted she had a copy of Jung's Man and His Symbols.
"I just use Classic Chap Stick," I responded. Original style.
"You're a basics kind of guy, aren't you?"
"Perhaps."
"You must have a lot to talk about. That's a long list," she said, referring to the list of topics I'd jotted down on the Sticky Note affixed to my book cover. It was my old copy of Ken Keasey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? "We had to read it in high school English, Jennifer told me. "This book depresses me," I said. "The writing is brilliant. Next to this guy, I suck."
"Who says you can't write something and accidentally create something as good as 'Blowin' in the Wind?' You project your own insecurity on the world, into your relationships." Other books her shelf -- Rollo May's The Courage to Create and Robert A. Johnson's Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection.
Then I told her how I get jealous of married couples with cute little kids. "That used to be my life," I said.
"That's normal," she said, tying her dark hair back in a pony tail. "It's like a couple struggling with infertility. They see another couple having babies and they're happy for them. But at the same time, yeah, they're jealous."
"You're one of those people I'm jealous of," I said. She has two kids of her own. The oldest is 5.
"I know."
Then she added how she's just a normal person and has problems in life like everyone else and it's not all idyllic. I knew she'd say that. My envy? "That's silly," she said.
"Yeah, Maria always said how I looked at the past with 'rose colored glasses' and wanted what I didn't have."
"We've talked about that."
Oh God, I miss having someone to do my laundry with, someone to throw ingredients in the crock pot with, but I just can't see myself stepping out in that world, I told her.
"When you're ready, you'll know it," Jennifer told me.
Now she thinks I've crossed a threshold.
"You were a basket case in the beginning," she told me, while simultaneously spraying a fragrance on her wrists and rubbing them together like writhing bodies. Pressed together and rubbed like so many emotional rhythms.
Night moves
Friday night. Got a text from my friend Sawyer. "In town, you wanna go grab a beer?"
Back when he lived in town, we both wrote for the Industrial Media Complex. Now, he's news director of a radio station in Kansas City, Missouri, but says his days there may be numbered.
Back in those wild days, he lived on the third floor of a kick ass apartment building -- Empire Apartments -- down the block from the office on the left side of the street and the stately Barron Theatre, built in the 1930s in Blushing, Kan. (oops, looks like I revealed the name of the town). The apartment building also dated back back to the 1930s and had recently been restored to its original grandeur. (I guess people wanted glamorous movie stars and opulence to take their minds off the Depression.) There was a spacious lobby with an ivory colored sculpture of a gown-wearing goddess leading to stairs. Elevators with neon buttons and gold framing the door. There was a sleek wooden floor in his apartment and room for a washer and drier. Back at Liberty Apartments, (a rundown building also built eighty-some years ago) I didn't even have a dishwasher.
On a few occasions, we jammed together in the industrial building where we worked. Why not? We had the fucking keys. We plugged into the amps. Just played stuff I could handle. Old, moldy versions of uncomplicated stuff. "Smokin' in the Boys' Room." "Summertime Blues." "Louie Louie."
Sawyer and I met at The Cave, a rathskeller off Main and Sycamore streets. There were Miller Lite and Budweiser bottles everywhere, but Sawyer and I are what my Apple Ale drinking pastor at the Church of All Saints and Sinners calls "beer snobs." We both ordered Irish Red. Waitress said we were a couple of smart guys. We were joined at our booth by my gardening gurvi friend Jessie and her husband, Shane, looking like they'd emerged from an ashram. They were also drinking craft beers, but would you expect anything less from a couple of lovers of earth-grown farmer's food from the local free land?
At the back of the bar, drunk girls sang karaoke. "A lot of sexual tension here," Sawyer said.
A guy and two girls, on the high road to oblivion, sang the country weeper, "Don't Take the Girl."
"Johnny's daddy was takin' him fishing when he was 8-years-old," they sang almost off-key, but kinda cool and buzzed.
As it eventually always happens, later in the evening a drunk blonde chick would be holding a mic, singing "Like a Virgin." Lyrics sliding down the screen.
A woman, I surmised to be about 35, sauntered over to our booth. She had a mildly attractive face, and thirtyish crows' feet, signaling she'd been around in life. There was nothing remarkable about her except the black yoga pants. When a woman wears yoga pants, I don't care what she looks like, how big or little she is, I'm gonna look at her ass.
She said something about how her kids were with their dad that weekend.
"Macy (we'll just call her Macy), this is Sawyer and Jeff," Jessie said as she motioned to each of us. They used to work together at the ______. Jeff did that special on us for channel 8."
"Oh yeah," Macy said & turned to me. "That was brilliant."
Jessie and Shane sat on Sawyer's side of the table. "I'm sitting by Jeff," Macy said, as if she wanted to and not because there were no other choices.
"You write that blog," she said.
"You've actually read that thing?" I said.
"Dude, we follow each other on Twitter," she said, taking a sip of her drink.
"We do?"
"Yeah, I follow your personal Twitter handle and your blog's handle."
Suddenly, I remembered. She looked more chill, less reserved than she did in her Twitter profile.
"Oh yeah!," I said. "Now I remember. You tweet about stuff like chauffeuring your kids to soccer games and being in PTO."
"That's my life," she said. "Now, it's the kids' dad's weekend and I get to indulge in a little me time."
She was having a Dark n' Stormy, a highball cocktail made with dark rum and ginger beer over ice with lemon lime.
We all laughed characteristically for a bar. Talked over the noise of the crowd and the karaoke singers. Did shots -- Irish Car Bomb and the Mind Eraser. I ordered more beer, told stories about living in Liberty Apartments -- "There's this stoner kid there, thinks he can do levitation and have out of body experiences. Some old hippie-ish woman whose into sock puppets and Jesus freakery. This other woman, fortyish -- she's into bourbon and body art."
"Liberty Apartments," she said. "Back in The Village where the writers, artists, musicians and drug addicts live."
I told her I'd written on my blog, while sitting right inside that bar when it was as crowded and noisy as it was that night. I just tuned everybody out. Sometimes listened to Davis or Monk with my ear buds.
"Writing is just the greatest goddamn thing," I said. "I publish something good and feel like freakin' Elvis. It's like cocaine, sex."
"Probably better," she said, looking straight at me. Wide-eyed and with intent. We both looked at each other right then with that look you give someone when you know it's going to happen.
One-thirty a.m. Last call. Jessie, Shane and Sawyer were talking more low key with stupid laughter, finishing drinks. A week later, Jessie would tell me she knew something had gone on with Macy and me before Macy told her about it.
We were legitimately buzzed. Not fucked up, but over the legal limit. She used the Lyft app on her phone to get us a ride.
She had her legs wrapped around me as I turned my key into the hole, getting into my apartment. We hurried inside 'till we were standing by the bed, taking each others' clothes off. I was expecting drunk, sloppy sex but a few seconds after I got on top of her, she rolled me off, got on top of me and rocked her body, it was mind blowing.
"Oh fuck," I said, caught up in momentary passion. "Oh my fucking god."
She rocked back and forth. Wild.
"Do that again. Can you squeeze your vagina?"
"I'm trying" she said.
Near the end, she said, "I'm gonna ride you like a horse."
years ago when Maria and I were living together before we got married, i had a dream that she was riding a mechanical horse outside some small town '60s looking Dillons Grocery. as she tilted back in forth with the horse's motion, she spoke those same words in my dream i'm gonna ride you like a horse
I looked up at Macy -- "yes, yes, yes," she said -- and I exploded inside her.
Snoopy
***************
I woke up alone at 6:30 a.m., but I knew she was still there because I smelled fresh brewing coffee. I rose, put on my boxer shorts and a T-shirt, went to the adjoining bathroom for a needed morning piss. When I walked into the living room, she was sitting naked on my couch, reading my journal and drinking from my Snoopy coffee cup.
"That's private," I said, a little pissed. "Those are my own personal thoughts."
I grabbed my a mug (It had a seal and contained the words, "State of Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation." I collect coffee cups) from a cabinet in the adjoining kitchen and poured myself a cup.
"You already reveal a lot on your blog."
"Maybe so. But that's all for publication. This is not. It's the principle of the thing."
She ignored what I said.
"But this goes beyond your blog," she said. "Why don't you just go there?"
"My audience ain't ready for that shit."
"It takes two people. You don't have to live in a house of regret."
"Okay, but you wouldn't know about all that if you'd respected some boundaries and hadn't gone where you weren't supposed to. That journal is my own, you know."
"I'm sorry," she said. "I was wrong, but I wanna see you happy. Wherever you land."
"I have a therapist. Her name is Jennifer. Actually, I wouldn't mind sleeping with her too. Of course she has this thing about not wanting to breach her professional ethics and I don't want to do anything to destroy our professional relationship of counselor and client."
No need to explain why to her why I looked the way I did. She'd read the damn thing. It's my place, I should be able to lay that damn notebook anywhere I wanted. I lightened up a little, told her a little history. "My high school English teacher, Mrs. Hanzlicek, had us keep journals. I just kept mine going."
She looked penetratingly at me, the cartoon-covered notebook resting on her naked thigh. "I wouldn't have let you pick me up if you weren't something."
It was dawn outside the window curtains and I stared, for no reason, really, at her nude body. So blessedly real in the emerging morning light. All its imperfections.
"Set that bird free," she said.
I took a wooden chair from the attached kitchen, sat across from her. "Before I had this longing to live kind of artsy," I said. "Maria said the grass is always greener with me."
The Club
A recent Saturday afternoon. I went to the Kansas Authors event at Wichita Public Library. I had a limited amount of time before I had to shoot a small town drag racing event down a farm town main street. A thing my producer, Reese, had suggested. It would probably be a minute-and-a-half story for KPTS's Kansas Personalities. There were children's authors, mystery authors, Christian writers. (I remember there was a Christian sex therapist displaying her book, Like a Soul Virgin.) Hindu stuff. Buddhist. Fiction. Romance. Self-help.
I ran into Janna Hauff, the Date goddess. Wearing a tight mini-shirt, sleaveless black shirt, loopy ear rings and high heels. She displayed the three books she'd written. They were all about about relationships, dating, sexuality. I hadn't read any of them yet even though I was a fan of her website, which contained a short blog. Her latest book was called, Perpetual Emotion: Being Attune to Your Emotional Rhythms (and Your Partners).
"Remember me?" I said.
"You look familiar," she said, inquisitively. "Tell me where we met."
I reminded her of the social function a couple of months back. It came back to her, how we'd connected on Linkedin.
"Oh yes," she said. "Sorry I haven't gotten around to reading your blog yet, but I will. I've been very busy."
I admitted that while I've read her blog and was a fan, I had yet to read any of her books and didn't have the money to buy one that particular day. "That's okay," she said. "You're here."
"I am what my friend Jennifer would call 'being present.' Hope I'm mindful too. She talks a lot about being mindful."
Hopefully, I would be at the author's event next year, I said. "The pastor's wife at my church told me emphatically that I had to write a book. I thought she was gonna take me to task for all the cussing and sinning in my blog. My ex-wife likes to remind me, 'You're no saint, Jeff.' But the pastor's wife -- her name is Emily -- she was pretty cool."
"Well I hope to see you next year with our group of authors. It's a diverse club. There's definitely a place for you here."
"We all need to fill space," I said. "I'm still figuring out where I belong, being divorced, losing my identity as a Family Man. And I severed my ties with the underworld writing organization. It felt like the ground fell underneath me, but perhaps I'm finding my footing again."
"Welcome to life," she said.
"Yes, I'm finding it to be quite transitory," I said. "And I've moved back to the Wichita Metropolitan Area."
"You have to stay activated to your social network. Stay engaged."
"Well I'm meeting my friend Reese for a beer tonight at Maggie O'Malley's pub. We meet there for a book club."
"Super. We all need a buddy even if it's a drinking buddy."
"Yep. Then I have a date. A new gal. Meeting her at IHOP. We'll see how it goes."
"Don't Do Me Like That" -- Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
I saw a Facebook item about the 30th anniversary of George Michael's Faith album. I wish I would've read it. Can't find it now.
When George Michael died last year, my mind drifted back to what a groundbreaking accomplishment Faith was. It was artistry. True pop craftsmanship. I wouldn't call it a sense of Heaven or sublime pop infinity. That's a definition I reserve for works like the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque, but Faith moved me.
I was primarily a hard rock and metal fan (even though I'd mostly been metaled out by the time I turned 16). Around the same time Michael's album came out, I was listening to Metallica's Master of Puppets. The first sign that this was a great album was the funky, in-your-face "I Want Your Sex." I knew the title was indicative of all the hell my mother said society was sliding into (even though she had a youthful record collection that entailed the Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together" and Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit."
But although it was outside my essence, I liked the song.
My friend Alana remembers me working at Western Sizzlin' steakhouse where I stacked a bunch of plates off tables and pushed a cart around. I was naive, green, but an older guy at the restaurant -- Brett, a 21-year-old attending Emporia State University -- was a man of the world. He explained to me how "I Want Your Sex" was an "anti-Aids song." The lyrics, "sex is natural, sex is fun, sex is best when it's one-on-one" celebrated monogamy. It was socially interesting in an era when the President's response to the AIDS crisis was no response -- ignoring. After all, it was a gay men's disease and who cared about them.
George Michael
This was year's before Michael would come out rather infamously, getting busted for soliciting gay sex at a public restroom only a few blocks from his house. He'd abandoned the effeminate Big Hair look he'd had as part of the pop duo, Wham. ("I thought he looked like a fag." Yes, I actually made this unpalatable quote and said that ugly word to a friend 30 years ago. I've sinned in my life.) In the video for the song, "Faith," he'd adopted an early Brando-Elvisish retro look -- the leather jacket and boots and all -- that looked surprisingly contemporary and new again.
The song lived up to its title with a cathedral organ, followed by an up-tempo Bo Didley signature chugga-chugga guitar sound, acoustic, neo-rockabilly and pleasantly pop. It was catchy. Around 10 years later, I would love Limp Bizkit's rocking cover of the song. That version had a sense of humor about it.
The superior pop vibe of Faith came across most acutely in songs like "One More Time" and "Father Figure" -- my favorite cuts from the album. I hadn't had any sex or love affairs yet so I didn't know what the hell it was all about, but I sensed from these songs that there were things dark and psychologically troubling in the universe of love.
I worked with another guy, the editor of the campus newspaper, The Lighthouse, at Grossmont Community College in nearby Beaulah, Kan. Along with being a waiter, he moonlighted as a dee jay and he told me the kids went crazy at middle school dances when he played "Father Figure." I wondered why and was compelled to speculate. It was obvious even to my young mind the song was about psychological projection and dysfunctional love. A father figure? The high-tech pop-soul-gospel-harmony of the song. What was it that drew in these kids?
The album wasn't cock-oriented hard rock, but I could more freely admit I liked it after reading a Rolling Stone profile of Guns n' Roses that Axl Rose listened to George Michael. But he also listened to things like Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime, an album Rose described as "the best screenplay I've ever heard." The one album that affected me more than Faith 30 years ago -- a favorite to this day -- was GnR's classic debut Appetite for Destruction. The pop crossover of the jangly, rough "Sweet Child O' Mine" largely signaled the enveloping of a musical landscape I would explore, if not as a musician, than as a writer.
In 1987, Michael Jackson recorded his Bad album, which I've always believed exceeded Thriller. Prince recorded his most critically acclaimed work, Sign o' the Times. A year later, my mind would be opened more by such albums as the Cowboy Junkies The Trinity Sessions, Midnight Oil's Diesel and Dust and the Sugarcubes' Life's Too Good.
But largely, the '80s were a suck decade. Bland. Insipid. Uninspired. Mirroring the empty materialism perpetuated in the decade. At least in the confined Top 40. Disasters like Foreigner, Loverboy, Nightranger, Warrant were tragic jokes. Synthesizers and plastic-pop pretensions were vapid and lacking anything resembling punch. I consider The Smiths to be the antidote to such wasted pop contrivances.
Alex Chilton
But it was all going to open up for me. In 1987, I also discovered Minneapolis, Minnesota's The Replacement's Pleased to Meet Me album -- its cut, "Alex Chilton" getting play on the local AOR (album oriented rock) station. This would lead me down the rabbit hole of Hootenanny and Let it Be -- introducing me to Memphis cult figure Chilton and his ground breaking early 70s band, Big Star, just as the Stones would turn me on to black music -- everything from Marvin Gaye to Solomon Burke to Howlin' Wolf to Muddy Waters, back to Robert Johnson -- as George Michael's "Kissing a Fool," with its retro pre-rock pop sound would turn me on to Sinatra, Dean Martin and that whole cocktail era.
Thirty years later I'm still opening doors -- in music, film, television, literature. Still going down rabbit holes. (Have you read John Updike's 1960 novel Rabbit, Run?)
Before I sign off, let's look at some other groundbreaking music from the '87-89 period.
5:26 a.m. (drinking coffee) It was all a dream. The type I haven't had much since Hot Fisher, Texas nearly 20 years ago, but they still appear in my sleep sometimes. When I wake up, I'm not unsettled as I was circa 1998. I take it for what it was -- just a dumb dream. Although I have a friend who may not be so dismissive. She has books on Jungian symbolism and I just know she has Freud's Interpretation of Dreams. And she talks a lot about the struggle between the id and superego, cooled by that distillation method, the ego.
Anyhow, I dreamt I had two choices. It was a night when I could enter one of two houses as the end of the world drew near. "Right down to the wire," an old man told me. ("My family expects me to be a famous writer, but that won't happen?" I asked another old man who got a few fingers blown off by the Germans in World War II. "I'm afraid not," he said.) I was younger in the dream, not a teenager, but perhaps a twenty-something around the quarter of life. I could enter the safety of the house with the old men and perhaps be spared the death and destruction that would plague the world in ways never seen before, nor ever to be seen again.
The house would be immaculately clean and sterile -- sterile as the blanks this middle-aged, post-operation version of me is shooting. They would be meticulous pacifists, punishing unrepentant sinners only by psychological means. No men touching women as this was a sexless society. Purity and such. The most beautiful religious songs in the world, they would sing backed by a lush Tchaikovskyian orchestra (although such pagan, Christmasy relations would be overlooked as the focus was on the serene paintings on the dining room walls of green meadows, streams and sidewalks to an exclusive paradise.
Then, there was the other house. They would be drinking beer, cranking up loud rock music. A few people would be smoking cigarettes and if I wanted to get laid that night, I could get it. House was enticing. "Won't be a party till you show up," the guy with the '70s hair told me. We might get drunk, fight and throw our arms around one another's soldiers. "C'mon, I'll buy you a beer."
She was Jake and Cal's favorite aunt -- and everybody's cool favorite aunt, for that matter. As music would play from the karaoke machine, she would sing every lyric without missing a word, mic loose in her hand -- "That's right it starts with an earthquake, Birds and snakes and aeroplanes and Lenny Bruce is not afraid." She would trudge on effortlessly as the lyrics got tougher:
Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs, Birthday party, cheesecake, jellybean, boom, you symbiotic, patriotic, slam but neck, right, right."
"What the fuck," I said. "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints."
the sinners are much more fun
And entered Animal House.
Death of me.
Apocalypse.
While I was partying.
Next morning I awoke at my old childhood home, which isn't there anymore. Only, it was there in my dream. The side streets outside my house were flooded with muddy water and I saw, floating on the water, the dead bodies of people I'd known all my life. Old men. Teenagers. Like refuse. And I knew I'd done it, this one for the last time. My doom awaited me. There might be a few storefronts downtown selling fake religion, but the temporary nature of it all in the cloudy air only underscored the realization that this world was finished.
It's after 6 a.m. now. Coffee ain't as warm. I'll take pills with a glass of milk. Walk around the lake before the sun emerges in the clouds. Dawn breaking through and the world, the living thing going on years from today. Long after I die of old age.
Lately I've been writing freelance stories for a publication in Newton, Kan. called Newton Now. It's an upstart paper that started two years ago as an alternative to the official city paper, the Newton Kansan -- a former employer of mine.
When I heard Pulitzer Prize winning Miami Herald columnist and author Leonard Pitts, Jr. was coming to the area, I excitedly volunteered to cover the event. The editor, Adam Strunk, wanted to be there, but had to cover a City Commission meeting. "Looks like you're gonna get your wish," he told me.
If you don't know of Pitts, you would do well to familiarize yourself with his writing. He's an African American writer who says things that need said about things like race, politics and culture.
I didn't get to see him when he came to Wichita a few months back, but I was not going to miss him in North Newton, a small town of around 1,700 people to the immediate north of Newton. Pitts was scheduled to speak at the town's Bethel College, and I would've attended his speech even if I wasn't covering it for the paper. His presentation was entitled "What Now? America in the Age of Trump."
Pitts called Trump and the toxic political climate he has stoked "a new and existential threat."
While not everyone who voted for Trump could be called a racist and misogynist, they (63 million Americans) supported somebody who was, he said.
He talked about the Republican politicians who referred to Pres. Obama as "boy," "uppity," "Chicago thug," referred to the Affordable Care Act as "reparations" for slavery, perpetuated the birther controversy and called his wife, Michelle, an "ape."
"Did this not represent a new low that we haven't seen in modern American history?" Pitts said. "You've heard the phrase 'barbarians at the gate.' Well the barbarians are through the gate, and they have their feet up on the couch."
Pitts' speech was peppered with such quips. He wasn't what I expected. Raised in Los Angeles, Pitts entered college at the University of Southern California at age 15 and graduated with a degree in English at 19. He has taught at schools like Hampton University, the University of Virginia Commonwealth and George Washington University. Hence, I thought his demeanor would be more scholarly, but Pitts was accessible and down to earth.
At the end of his speech, he took questions from the audience for 30 minutes. There was no way I was going to miss my chance to talk to the man.
I took to the microphone and mentioned how the man who introduced him, Mark McCormick, executive director of the Kansas African American Museum in Wichita -- had referred to James Baldwin -- the late writer who has had a resurgence lately through the documentary, I Am Not Your Negro.
"In his book, The Fire Next Time, Baldwin said if we don't have an honest, painful discussion about race, it's going to be a conflagration, Armageddon. But every time an issue about race is brought up, there are white people who cry about 'the race card' or they use Martin Luther King's quote about judging men 'not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character' to shut down any meaningful dialogue about race. How do we get past what seems like an impregnable mountain?"
Pitts talked about how Germany has confronted its Nazi past and South Africa's Truth Commission. If America doesn't get honest about race, he said, "there's gonna be someone standing up here 50 years from now" saying the same things he was about racism.
With all the Confederate memorials, it's like the South won the Civil War, Pitts said -- a subject James W. Loewen dedicated a whole chapter to in his book, Lies My Teacher Told Me. I've been a fan of Pitts' writing for over 20 years, but some things, probably as a white male, didn't come easy for me at first.
Pitts was talking about the racist legacy of Confederate statues back in the '90s, and he was taking on all the nonsense about a noble Southern heritage -- the Lost Cause mythology. He wrote in a column that these Confederate "heroes" might actually be called "traitors" and ended his piece, saying, "Hate is their heritage."
What? "Weren't these just people defending their homeland?" I thought. (I was more moderate than liberal then.) "Wasn't that extreme to say their heritage was steeped in hate?" No, I would say today. Racism was almost universal in America in the 19th century in the North and South. The entire Southern Confederate ideology was predicated on the disgusting premise that black people were inferior and slavery was a Christian God ordained arrangement.
Today, I see where Pitts is coming from. I get him.
Beyond his enlightened views, I'm influenced by Pitts by the fact that he's shown a certain prolific quality, branched out and evolved as a writer. McCormick said his favorite Pitts' book is the non-fiction Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood. I'm interested in how he became a novelist.
I bought his novel, Freeman, because I was interested in the historical research Pitts did about African Americans' lives in the early days after slavery was abolished. This was the book I would have Pitts autograph for me. Later, I want to read his novel, Grant Park, about white supremacists who kidnap a black columnist and plan to bomb Barack Obama's Presidential inauguration. I understand it's based on horrifyingly true events.
While standing in line waiting for an autograph, I got into a conversation with a woman named Lori who had driven from Wichita to see Pitts. She took part in the Women's March in Topeka and regularly takes part in demonstrations.
When I got to the desk where Pitts was sitting, I opened the book for him to sign. "Would you like me to personalize it?," he asked. "Yeah, please personalize it," I said and gave him my name.
"I'm a writer too," I said. "I have a blog. A few years ago, I sent you a piece I wrote about Trayvon Martin. You didn't respond, but I know you get thousands of emails."
"I do."
He signed the book and told me, "Good luck with the writing."
Here I am sitting in a booth at Freddy's Frozen Custard on a Saturday night in Salina. I had business to take care of. That's what brought me here. Nothing illegal. Just stuff. I can't believe a Journalism King -- Dan Rather -- stopped through here earlier this summer on a road trip with his grandson. Years ago, my conservative, non-press understanding Dad (God love him) thought, held the weakened thinking that Rather was too tough on George H.W. Bush in that interview on TV. I took the view that a journalist -- and Rather, dark and hard ass, was a Journalist -- could ask a guy running for president damn near anything he wanted. In his hillarious, piss-in-a-beer-can book on press coverage '72 campaign, The Boys on the Bus, the young writer Timothy Crouse mentioned a then young hot shot Dan Rather getting awed at by all the nearby women and how he turned around and pointed his finger "reminiscent of Elvis Presley." I knew an old guy in East Texas who saw Elvis and the Blue Moon Boys at the Lousiana Hayride in Shreveport, Louisiana (circa 1954). "That kid," the man said. "When he left, the stage was still vibratin.'"
The old man in East Texas had his basic training for the Air Force in Salina, Kansas.
"September Gurls" -- Big Star
They originated in Memphis. Southern, but untraditional. Not rockabilly, southern rock or soul. Just jangling power pop that evoked seeing you at the pool with life where rock n' roll will never die, a thinking man's band bordering on nihilism. They emulated the harmonic and songwriting style of the Beatles, the rhytym mode of the Rolling Stones. They were Alex Chilton, Chris Bell, Jody Stephens and Andy Hummel. Lead singer Chilton was only 6-years-old when his older brother brought home a Coasters record "but by 1959, Elvis was syrup and Jerry Lee was over." The next wave, a tide from across the pond, would signal the picking up of guitars. At 16, Chilton sang lead on The Box Tops' hit, "The Letter." A few years later. 1971. Big Star was born in Memphis's Ardent Studio. Their album, Number 1 Record sold fewer copies than The Velvet Underground's debut, but was just as influential. Without Big Star, there would be no REM or Replacements. But that was years into the future. Unforseen. Circa 1972, it was fist fights, betrayal, break-ups with girlfriends, depression and hospital psych wards.
My musician and cartoonist friend, Richard Crowson, himself from Memphis, is a Big Star fan and it's only one of the reasons to love Crowson. He highly recommended seeing the documentary about the band -- Nothing Can Hurt Me.
Of the four original band members, only Stephens survives. Big Star. They will break your heart. Beautiful.
"On My Way" -- Split Lip Rayfield
1996. It was September. I was in the Pecan Grove with my reporter's notebook and pen in my back pocket and I was kind of drunk. A new band, built by members of Scroatbelly -- a Wichita band I'd loved -- were on the renegade Stage 5 at the Walnut Valley Flatpicking ("bluegrass") festival. A young lady at a table told me her boyfriend played in the band. They were thrashing rock accoustical bluegrass. Dark outside and they were outstanding. The Wichita band was Kirk Rundstrom-guitar, Eric Mardis-banjo, Wayne Gottstiner, Mandolin & Jeff Eaton, bass. Eaton played a one-string bass called "Stitchgiver," built from the gas tank of a 1978 Mercury Grand Marquis, a piece of hickory and strung with one piece of weedwhacker line.
In 2007, Rundstrom died of esophogeal cancer. The documentary, Never Make it Home, directed by Echternkamp, portrayed the founding group member's illness. Every show the band performs now is dedicated to Rundstrom. Split Lip Rayfield played the town festival in Burden, Kansas last night, but as I was in Salina, I was unable to attend. I'm sure they rocked it. And Burden is Gottstiner's hometown, which is cool. Glad to call these guys friends of mine. The above track is from their most recent album, On My Way.
"Blue Monk" -- Thelonious Monk
I'm just getting into jazz iconoclast Thelonious Monk. Dean of Rock Critics Robert Christgau lists Monk, as one of his favorite artists of all time, along with the Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry, the Beatles and the New York Dolls. When my wife was pregnant with our first born, a baby book I was reading suggested the music you play for your child in the womb should be melodic -- which Monk's didn't. His sound was of dissonance and abrupt percussive piano. One reason I like Monk is because he battled mental illness and was prescribed drugs like Lithium. It's too bad the quality of help we have today wasn't around in Monk's time. Check out the documentary film, Straight No Chaser, which attributed his quirky behavior to mental illness.
"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" -- Johnny Cash
Forget any other versions. When Johnny Cash covered your song, it wasn't your song anymore. This love ballad, of course, is beautiful on its own, but interpreted by Cash's weathered end of life voice, it's lyrical and layered with vulnerability. A man wrote this song for his lover, while married to another woman. Don't misunderstand me, I believe fidelity is everything in a relationship, but there's something dark and intriguing about something so beautiful being born out of illicit origins. British folksinger, communist and labor activist Ewan MacColl wrote it for American folk singer Peggy Seeger (sister of Mike and Pete) a woman 20 years younger than he was. They later married.
Cash took the song back to its folk origins on his American Recordings IV: The Man Comes Around album, my favorite of the Rick Rubin recordings. Truly a desert isle pick. I wrote a review of this album on a napkin one Saturday afternoon, while sitting at a table by the window with my then wife, Maria, and two, then, small children. What I wrote must have been beautiful because Maria read it and started crying. I like making people cry. Like breaking hearts.
The Pusher -- Hoyt Axton
The late Hoyt Axton is underrated as a songwriter, but he wrote many songs that became hits for other artists: "Greenback Dollar" -- The Kingston Trio and "Joy To the World" and "Never Been to Spain," which were huge hits for Three Dog Nite. "The Pusher" is mostly known for Steppenwolf's version from the film, Easy Rider. But it's Hoyt's version that I love. He wrote the song in 1963 when he'd become addicted to cocaine and recorded it in 1970. Listening to his voice, you hear an angry, addicted man. His growls are mean and bring to mind the agony of jonesin'. You know this guy's been there. And the lyrics are somethin' mean.
You know I've smoked a lot of grass O'Lord, I've popped a lot of pills But I mever touched nothin' That my spirit could kill You know, I've seen a lot of people walkin' 'round With tombstones in their eyes But the pusher don't care Ah, if you live or if you die
God damn, the pusher God damn, I say the pusher I said God damn, God damn the pusher man
You know the dealer, the dealer is a man With the love grass in his hand Oh but the pusher is a monster Good God, he's not a natural man The dealer for a nickel Lord, will sell you lots of sweet dreams Ah, but the pusher ruin your body Lord, he'll leave your, he'll leave your mind to scream
God damn, the pusher God damn, I say the pusher I said God damn, God damn the pusher man Well, now if I were president of this land You know, I'd declare total war on the pusher man I'd cut if he stands, And I'd shoot him if he'd run Yes, I'd kill him with my Bible And my razor and my gun
God damn, the pusher God damn, the pusher I said God damn, God damn the pusher man
Coltohatta" (I think that's the name of the song) -- The Voluptuals
Chicago's own Voluptuals. Saw 'em playin' a favorite dive bar in Wichita. I'm not sure if they're signed, but man, they rocked. After the show, they had a few beers, went outside for cigarettes, mingled with the crowd. I talked to the lead singer, Matt. Nice guy. They hadn't booked a hotel yet. There was this tall blond girl, the same girl I overheard saying, "There's that picture of me sitting on the toilet smoking a joint." She was pretty cool. She was calling her roomate, asking if the band could crash at their place for the night. "You'll like 'em," she said. I think they're all right. And may they continue to benefit fro the kindness of strangers as they play bars across America.
"My Old Man" -- Joni Mitchell
Back in 1994, I was at Kirby's, a dive bar behind WSU. There was a box of record albums on the counter. $10 for the box. I bought it. There was great stuff like Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life, Frank Sinatra's Only the Lonely and Blue by Joni Mitchell. A recent NPR list of what experts considered to be the 100 best albums by women put Blue at #1. My Old Man is a fun song. It's about the joy of domestic life, yet a reservation about marriage. It may have been about her relationship with live-in lover Graham Nash. I love that line, "We don't need a paper from the City Hall." It's a fun little Joni California-esque 1970 song.
"A Nice Girl Doesn't Stay for Breakfast" -- Julie London
You never hear about Julie London anymore. You'll hear tracks from her if you buy some of the Cocktail Lounge series albums, but you don't hear about her the way you might hear about the Doors. Possibly because her music was pre-rock pop and jazz. But she was huge in the '50s and '60s. Her signature song was the 1955 hit "Cry Me a River." I like the above selection because listening to it, you knew the husky-voiced sensual Julie London was saying she wasn't that nice girl and she didn't care. If she stayed for breakfast after a one night stand, by God that's what she did. The song is sex and London was around 42 when she recorded it, which is a damn sexy age for a woman.
"Oklahoma Sunshine" -- Waylon Jennings
In his final years after his popularity had waned, I kept waiting for Waylon Jennings to be re-discovered and enjoy an end of life career resurgance like Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Glen Campbell did. But it wasn't to be. You'll just have to search out the old Waylon stuff on your own. In this song from his 1974 Ramblin' Man album, Jennings is singing about how he needs to get away from New York and this woman he's been laying down with -- a woman who's holding him down and return home to Oklahoma country, to folks, family, a blue-eyed girl for whom he'll dry her tears.
Also I picked this song because Oklahoma sunshine may play a role in one of my upcoming blog posts.
"Amanda" -- Don Williams
Saturday 6:40 a.m. September 10. I read the news on Facebook that country music's gentle giant had died. RIP, the messages read. I don't usually place videos of people who'd recently died on these kind of posts because there's so many of them, but I was planning on posting a Don Williams video anyway. He had a beautiful voice and it made you feel he was a beautiful man. You couldn't help but love him. My ex-mother-in-law was a big fan. She, her husband and kids, including my future ex-wife, saw Williams perform at a club in Wichita years after his 1970s and early '80s popularity had waned. They got to talk to him and he was a pure gentleman. In the early 2000s, I was in Branson, Missouri at the old Hillbilly Inn with my mother, infant son and then wife, Maria. There was an old guy in the diner, playing country music on his electric guitar and taking requests. Maria asked him if he knew any Don Williams. He did. The song, was of course, Amanda.
How many parents named their daughters Amanda after this beautiful song? A lot.
"Promised Land" -- Chuck Berry
Probably my favorite song by the Father of Rock n' Roll -- Chuck Berry. About a poor boy leaving Norfolk, Virginia with Los Angeles, California on his mind. He wrote it while in a Midwestern prison on a railroaded charge of violating the Mann Act. He used a map from the prison library to mark cities he would write about on the cross country journey of his rock n' roll story -- and Chuck Berry was a story teller. In the song, he hints at the travails of a black man traveling through the deep south in the early 60s. Boarding a Greyhound bus past Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, bypassing Rock Hill, South Carolina and heading into Atlanta by sundown till the bus gets stranded in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. He then takes a train across "Mississippi Clean" and "smokin' in the New Orleans", into Houston where the folks care a little about him and "won't let the poor boy down." They buy him a suit and tie and plane ticket to the Promised Land. Los Angeles was, in Berry-esque mythology, an American Eden. Highways, sky scrapers, fast food diners, cool cars -- it'll never be like that again.
Of course the song was derivative of Homer's The Odyssey and the Biblical pilgrimages of Abraham and Moses. The words "Promised Land," like Berry's reference to the Gospel song, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," evoked the Bible, Exodus, freedom, the original Civil Rights movement. And the Promised Land is where Berry's journey has finally taken him. The end of the road.
Los Angeles give me Norfolk Virginia Tidewater four ten O nine Tell the folks back home this is the promised land callin' And the poor boy's on the line
"Wake Me Up When September Ends" -- Green Day
Green Day exploded in 1994 as a post-punk group. They still create abrasive rock in songs like "Brain-Jaded Stew," but, under Billie Joe Armstrong's songwriting craft, the band has also created melodic radio friendly, mainstream songs like "Time of Your Life" and this one -- "Wake Me Up When September Ends." The song is about the painful transition from youth and loss of innocence. It's pop, but not in a sweet way, and it's beautiful.
