Coming down

When I have writer's block, I can't do anything else. Read a book. Watch TV. I feel like such a blank person. But if anything brings me to my typewriter right now, it's you. You've supported this blog & I love you all & I never wanna let you down.

It's just so fucking hard, being a cog in this system. This secret society I write for. Only it's not me writing. It's like I'm out of my body & somebody else is writing. writing writing for my money paycheck I wish I was solving an unsolved murder. I wanna see my boy. my girl. my princess, I call her, but I'm stuck in this backwater. Oh it's a funky town especially here in a section called "the village" where i live with all the artists & dopers, people of all races.

I have the record player going. Sam Cooke. "Bring your sweet lovin', bring it on home to me." The turntable will spin and spin & the antenna on the fucking TV isn't right. And it's scrambled like so much of life. Oh, did I mention Sam Cooke? I liked him best when he sang gospel.

I remember the kitchen and the dining room table where we played Scattergories with the family. Her family. There was a den that I called my "man cave.' There was a red chair in that room & it was the most uncomfortable chair in the world, but I loved to sit in it because I called it my "thinking chair" just like the red chair on Blues Clues. When Max was learning to talk, he used to point to the TV when the dog came on the TV (my TV worked then) or when Elmo would come on. We used to play in the backyard. I remember when he started riding his bike with training wheels. The neighbor kid was a teenager who played loud rock n' roll in his garage. At first, he sucked. Then he started getting better & his friends joined him on drums & bass. There was a man in the neighborhood so serene he had a TV in every room. I was so afraid the other shoe would drop. It did, of course. Life humbles you that way.

When I see her with another man, it kills me. I've died inside a million times & then I die again. Noises I never knew I could make have come out of me.

If I could feel her body next to mine in bed, it would be so reassuring. To be with somebody, to be on top of her, inside her, then I exclaim "I love you, I love you" like I'm trying to prove it to her & I want to hold tight for life.

My lifeline now? God? He ain't gonna strike me with a disease like I asked him to. Sometime in the course of recent history, He invented what my son calls "Dad's happy pills" and I'm out now & the pharmacy hasn't refilled & the fucking pharmacy is closed.

So
     i'm
           jonesin'

When i'm blank, it's like i slipped off the world. I was always afraid of that when I was a kid. Those were apocalyptic times, particularly on Sunday nights when I dreaded school the next day. Now it's work. When I'd rock back & forth, my ex-wife called it "stimming."

Sometimes you're so alone, you don't want to check the "Donald Trump is Not My President" page on Facebook. Me, I'd just get more down.

Somebody mentioned Branson, Missouri today. I came to dislike that corny steal-your-money town with its tie dyed shirts and rebel flags sold in the same damn shops. But a picture came in my mind of how young she looked in a picture & she was so beautiful as she pushed our baby boy in a stroller & Mom was in the background (she went with us) and Mom still had her mind and it was such a lovely moment in my mind.

Imagine such a moment when none of that apocalyptic shit bothers me. And the sun is out & I feel -- not blank, but whole -- & the words, like Solomon Burke on my turntable right now, flow and flow with the peace of a still river. And it's just me and rock n' roll and love from the sun and no trees are dying. In fact, there's a garden all around. I remember a garden around an old farmhouse built in 1886. I think of volunteers right now. Volunteering for the house and making your world --- a little better. And as Teenage Fan Club sang on their 1991 Bandwagonesque album -- Jesus Christ is knocking at my door. It would have the feel like that, of words and connections and synapses and the Beach Boys and Big Star. But the picture would sadden me right now so I don't look. Like I don't read all the letters.

I don't know if I can go on some times & I feel like saying to somebody, "Tell my kids I love them." But haven't I loved so many, some who don't love me back anymore, all of it like i write here

& give to you now

                           "I'd Rather Go Blind" -- Etta James