caveat emptor

Diabolical Syncopations and Roller Guy on Good Authority

Dervish, you swirling devil of arms and sticks, beating rhythmic thunder from stretched skins over chrome and wood, whipping cloud of black hair tentacles hypnotizing my soul and hijacking the pounding of my wanton heart, what do you think when you lay panting and wet, the deed done? You are for me the big boom, creation of funk and feel spring from your sweat like the first day dawning in storm. Hard.

Some people say ice skating is easier than roller skating. I think this cannot be true. I am all suspenders and cut-off jeans, far too short. My tank top, two sizes too small, shows my navel and my socks are pulled up almost to my knees. My headphones are fat like Princess Leia hair and my ball cap says, "Keep on Truckin'!", so I do. I rock and kick along the beach-side sidewalk singing aloud to secret stashes of KC and the Sunshine Band on cassette. It's Saturday and I've fallen behind the times but my spirit is indomitable. Disco forever! Right on!

Science tells us green is our favorite color, but it doesn't tell us why. According to the news, my arm hurts. I have it on good authority that you like to be touched in a certain way. Experts estimate that pleasure is up 25% since last evening. God told me you swoon when she looks at you. It is written. Amen.

Hello, friend. How are you today.

Later. Love.

Lycanthrope Confessions

The worst part about being a werewolf is the pain. It hurts. Bad. You're basically paralyzed with muscle soreness the day after, and no amount of pain killer really helps. The second worst part is the smell. OH. MY. GOD. You don't even want to know about the smell. And you're too tired and sore to drag your bloody, naked, sweaty ass to the shower. After those two logistical problems, there is another problem with being a werewolf, and, although the pain and smell are overwhelmingly tangible, this issue is the one that really gets me down. Here's the deal: When people find out you're a werewolf, they treat you as though being a werewolf is all you're about. Before I was a werewolf some people thought of me as a writer, some as an artist, some as a singer, some as a software engineer. These days, though, I'm just "that werewolf." That's only for a couple of nights for each lunar phase. I'm a human every damned day, and I need to feel appreciated for what I am. These days I either get redneck assholes trying to shoot me with silver bullets or Emo chicks asking for my number. How many times do I have to tell Geraldo he cannot film my transformation? How many times do I have to turn down Howard Stern? I'm not your freak show, people. I'm just a man, trying to make a creative contribution to the world. Am I also a werewolf? Sure, but we've all got our thing, you know? Am I right?

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

The Protocol Post

Two old men, strangers it seems, break the ice and make small talk. A T-shirt prompts a question about place of origin. "Are you from...?" It's a pattern, one of many. Light, empty conversation ensues. To me it's like a documentary. "This is how people used to talk to each other," says the Narrator. "This is how they passed the time. Sometimes real friendships developed from such simple beginning. Usually, however, it was just a diversion." It's fun to remember what it was like when humanity was alive. Robots trade messages over the network, experience a virtual reproduction of warmth. End transmission.

It's just symbolism, just building words to make a point, like disconnected rhetoric, like phantom pain. In truth I'm amazed how we have humanized this robot handshake, pumped blood through protocols, grown nerves to tele-feel. My hand is on your shoulder as you read this. I hope that doesn't make things awkward between us.

An old black man and a young Mexican girl play chess on a sidewalk table downtown. They don't talk — don't even look at each other much — but there they are. Playmates. People want this to mean something about society, but they're just playing chess. Everything around us means something about society, like it or not. Checkmate.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Learning Not to See

Is it more sad that we had to invent the idea of hell or that we had to invent the idea of heaven?

He used to see mystery in fire, like something spiritual dancing wildly in the heat. He used to be surrounded by spirits and spectres all around. Fire, however, is just a chemical reaction. "Like love," he thinks. He knows different things these days than he knew before. The sudden collapse of the pyre startles him as the branches, glowing red hot under a crust of grey ash, break under their collective weight. Tiny frightened faeries of orange light leap in every direction out from the circle of rocks. "No, they're not faeries," he thinks to himself. "They're embers and coals, small pieces of burning wood." He is right, of course. He is often right these days, though not always. Orange and yellow flicker across his blank features as he studies the complete lack of mystery deep in the center of the blaze, where the heat destroys the impurity of world, but not really. "The world is what we see," he whispers to no one, ignoring the despair brought on by this thought, trying to believe that it comforts him.

Just outside the circle of light, at the edge of the dark, angels and demons crowd around, staring in stunned silence at the tortured beauty of the human soul.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Here. Today.

Crunchy walking in hot
  This dirt road afternoon
    Dusty white like
 Smoke each footstep puffs
   And dragonflies, always
     In wildflower array beside
    Drainage ditch crickets
Who sing content or
  Searching
 For something they've lost
   Heron shadow from above
  Passes quick like black ghost
     Distorted over tall, dry weeds
    Light breeze
 Rattles dry leaves somewhere
  And love behind, off down the road
  Getting farther with each noisy footprint
    Might make you sigh
  And love ahead, off down the road
  Getting closer with each noisy footprint
    Might make you sigh
On this road we call
Today
Here

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Realizations and Attempted Realizations

Welcome to the brand new day, where we do things the way we do them now, not the old way. Yesterday we were backwards and flawed, not having the understanding with which we boldly confront this morning, the first morning of the future. Remember those tears in the evening, sitting on the edge of the bathtub with a cigarette and no matches, squeezing the filter with our lips and wiping our eyes and nose with the back of our hand? Well, forget all of that. We've grown since last night. That cavernous emptiness in our chest went away and we know that it won't return this evening as it always has in the past. Why? Because this is the future, my friends. For today and forever forward we struggle no more. We are all about potential. We are focusing our energy. We are being the best we can be, because we know better today. Let's get started. Come on.

Were you ever walking along a stony path in the deep, deep woods when suddenly your throat was clutched with crushing loneliness? Did you stop in your tracks and shudder or sigh. Did a tear roll down your cheek? Did you keep walking, dragging the pain behind you along the twisting, plunging, climbing path through the tall, crowded trees? Did you wonder why you always find yourself alone? Did you enumerate your personality flaws? Did you fear that you might never be loved? Did you ask yourself what you lacked? Did you ever consider that maybe you spend too much time in the deep, deep woods? Stop and look around. The woods are full of lonely people, millions of them, and they are all out there alone. Get out. Come home. We love you and we miss you.

One final note:

The CAN DO CLUB meeting that was scheduled for this evening has been canceled. No one seemed very excited about it and, to be perfectly honest, I haven't been able to get my shit together anyway. We'll have a meeting next month if we can manage it. Until then, remember, you can do anything you set your mind to.

Hello, friends. How are you today? Won't you tell me?

Later. Love.

The Award Post

It's finally the day for which the world has been waiting. Today I announce the winners of the first ever Freibesh Plubacity Awards. We've been delaying for a while because we were trying to come up with a nickname for the awards, since their actual name doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. We thought of calling them "Freibees" and "Plubys", but everyone here at Caveat Emptor HQ agreed that those names weren't catchy enough. "Freibees sounds like something you'd use ointment or spray to get rid of," said Dr. Bartholomew Q. McMurphystein, Department Chair of Ancient Civilization Research and Chief Poetry Architect, Northeast Region. He's always ending sentences with prepositions like that. It's an idiosyncrasy of his up with which I put.

But, I digress.

Then we thought of calling them some name, like they use the name "Oscar" for the Academy Awards. We thought about "Williams" and "Peters" and "Mildreds" and "Warrens" and "Ronalds" and "Dweezles"  and even "Ivans", but eventually decided that none of those names really meant anything to us. By the way, do you know why the "Oscars" are called "Oscars"? Have you ever heard the story? No? Neither have I. I'll have to Google it later.

But, I digress.

So, we decided to call them the Freibesh Plubacity Awards. How do you pronounce that? Is that what you're wondering? Well, we get that question a lot. There are more than two thousand different possible pronunciations for Freibesh Plubacity, and almost all of them are ridiculous and wrong. The correct pronunciation is best remembered with the following heuristic: It's pronounced exactly like it sounds, but only when said correctly.

But, I digress.

Here, in no certain order, are the winners of today's Freibesh Plubacity Awards.

• Abigail, Heather Anne, Jennie and Kat over at The Collective win for operating a thriving blog in this day of non-thriving blogs. The Collective is alive and fresh and fun and those are all good things.
• Susan (my wife) wins because she sexes me as often as she can stand it. She's a hero in my book.
• Twitter wins because I enjoy it, most of the time. They even have a whale, the Fail Whale, and their whale has a fan club.
• Mike from Unremitting Failure wins because he's just always funny. And smart. Smart funny is the funniest funny of all.
• And last but also least, Bigfoot. The dude doesn't even exist and people still won't leave him alone. Is that a Bigfoot in your freezer, or are you just happy to see the press?

That's all. Some of you (I'm looking at you, Bigfoot) are probably hoping to receive a big fancy trophy. Sorry, LargePaw. The Freibesh Plubacity Award is made entirely of positive psychic energy and it will be beamed directly into the pre-reflective cogito of each winner while they sleep. You're welcome.

That's it. The award show is over. I'm going to the after-party at Brad's and Angelina's place. Bye.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Two Tales of Us

Highways seethe with little boxes full of surging life, barely contained. Laughter and tears and wild fancies power the driving will of thousands of probing fingers of humanity. We are animal force caged only by our own moderation. If traffic stopped and all the life spilled out onto the road we could tear this city down. Then we could build it again. As animals go, I think we kick ass. People marvel at the bees and ants - and they're pretty amazing, considering - but have you looked around you lately? Art and technology, jazz and calculus and International Space Stations? Comedy and drama and fantasy and porn? Novels and essays and poems and manifestos? If I could give humanity a huge kiss I would do so. I love us.

And also there is this:

When I am filled with the quiet of this house
I brew Oolong tea and lightly butter dark bread
because these things taste like you are here.
The smell of the front door open and the screen closed
in the warm evenings of September
when the wind blows the scent of dry sage around
tells me the story of you long gone.
Sitting in the chair by the western window
in the dust-filled beams of the afternoon
with a radio playing faintly in the kitchen
sings to my heart the memory of your hand
on the small of my back
as we danced on the wood floors
when you were.
You are as gone as yesterday
and I have to live in this house
and haunt myself.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Today's Submission. You're Welcome.

You'll never know what it's like for a legless man in a wheelchair until you have walked a mile in his shoes.

I knew a guy who lost his middle in the war. He had arms and shoulders and a head and he had legs but there was nothing in between the top and bottom. The Army issued him a prosthetic middle, but he said it was itchy, so he didn't use it. He just walked around with no middle at all. Sometime his legs would walk away without his top and leave his top floating there with no legs to walk around with. So, he started wearing suspenders. If he wears a long shirt sometimes you can't tell he has no middle, unless the wind blows and you see that the shirt is empty. "The hardest part," he says, "is that, without a stomach, I can't tell if I've gained weight or not. What if I'm getting fat and I don't even know it?"

One intestinal parasite says to the another, "Hey, where the hell are we?" The other responds, "I think we're in the middle of no one."

Here ends today's submission. You're welcome.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Interview Monday

As I've done for the past forty-seven years, I'm going to be interviewing a personality from the blogosphere this fine Monday morning. This marks my 2,468th interview. I'm pretty excited about that number because it's like counting up by twos. Here's the interview. If you don't like it I'll be sad, but I won't tell you that. I'll act like it doesn't bother me.

Scott: Hello, Chuck. How are you this morning?

Chuck: [silence] [also blinking and playing with ladybug in grass]

Scott: That's great, just great. Well, the Internet is dying to know how you've been. What have you been up to lately?

Chuck: You got your water contraption fixed.

Scott: What?

Chuck: The little fake rain thing, the pipes that run under your grass with the sprayer things that pop up like moles.

Scott: The sprinklers?

Chuck: It comes on at night sometimes. Did you know that?

Scott: Yes. I told it to do that. I scheduled it.

Chuck: [pulls a pipe from the thin air in front of him and, twiddling his fingers quickly, lights it; leans back against the brick wall of the house and puffs away]

Scott: [inhaling deeply] I love the smell of a pipe.

Chuck: [stares off into the scrubby trees and bushes over the back fence]

Scott: It reminds me of something, but I'm not sure what. I think it reminds me of things I've never seen, things older than me. Do you ever feel that way?

Chuck: I remember lots of things older than you.

Scott: No. I mean, does anything ever remind you of things before you were born, older things?

Chuck: The water has been good. It's too dry around here these times of year. Everything is better with the water.

Scott: Oh, right. Well, that's good. Not as many dragonflies, I've noticed. Maybe they prefer dry.

Chuck: They prefer to sing. They don't care about anything else. Always singing. Hard to hear.

Scott: Dragonflies?

Chuck: Really high and fast music. Like this. [He fall silent for a minute.]

Scott: Like what?

Chuck: Hard to hear.

Scott: Oh.

Chuck: What do you mean, older things? Before I was born? It doesn't make any sense.

Scott: Right. I guess it might not.

Chuck: [puffs away]

We talked for quite a while longer, but it wasn't really interview material. Just personal stuff, a few secrets. That night I had funny dreams, probably from the smoke. Not sure what's in that pipe, but I think it's pretty potent. I asked him once if I could take a puff and he just laughed like I'd made a joke.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

So Far Away

She has that look about her, given to distracted stares at a nowhere or a nothing only a few feet away, focused on the empty air nearby. Her curls are black in a short bob that falls randomly and bounces when she walks. Sometimes she dresses her head in a scarf, improvising the wrap each time with a natural flair, a quirky chic. She has the fair paleness that one gets from libraries and coffee shops and bus rides behind a book. Her long, black skirt is thin and soft against her legs and a baggy, tan sweater covers her cream-colored, silky shell top. Wispy sandals, almost not there at all, complete the look and feel of her, so inviting but so fragile.

What can we say about her? Often she will smile broadly or laugh quietly at something else, something you cannot see. Inside, in this other place, there are conversations eloquent and warm and lively that you will never share. Speak to her and she will fold in, casting her eyes to the floor in deflation, even flushing red with timidity. Touch her she will shatter or wither and blow away. You might imagine taking her in your arms, holding her close, feeling her fall against you, but imagination is all it is. She is forever and always other and elsewhere, out of reach. She is to be admired from a distance, approached with care.

In another place she falls into the arms of a dance partner and the world spins around them. He kisses her neck and she presses her cheek against his soft hair. She whispers seductions into his ear as the music swirls all around their sweeping, swaying bodies. In the here and now she smiles and tilts her head ever so slightly, pressing against his far away cheek. If you spoke to her now, from across the room, she would burst into blossoms and blow away.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Tell me, have you seen her?

Somewhere in the middle is a nexus. Yes, there is a middle. And yes, there is a nexus. There, at the nexus in the middle, we all come together as one. This is why you look so familiar to me even though we've never met here on the edge. We come together in the middle. At the nexus.

Science tells us the Bigfoot is most likely an Aquarius, but I'm not so sure. An Aquarius? You think so, Science? What information could you possibly have on which to base such an assessment? I don't even think there is a Bigfoot. (Sorry, Bigfoot.)

I clap one hand.
You clap another.
I fall in the forest.
You are not around.
What is the sound?
Is there a sound?
Your sailboat is a triangle shrinking on my horizon.
But I know a secret.
Our world is round.
We will meet again.

In the middle.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

News from Allgood. Most Important.

Sitting on the stone bench in the idyllic front garden arbor, I gloried in the damp cool of the morning and in the sight of the Birdwings silently lighting on and darting from the Jasmine blossoms. I wasn't typically the sort to glory in things, but the peaceful beauty of this place forced my hand. I gloried against my will.

A well-worn footpath in the grass led from the lovely little arbor up the sloping lawn toward the house, a massive, gleaming white, Colonial edifice hedged all around with rose-vine lattices and immaculately trimmed Hawthorns. I watched the side door, whose porch steps rose from the end of the path, for the familiar sight of Thom Allgood shambling out in that mirthful rush with which he always carried himself. I had come to the arbor this morning at seven thirty because he had something important to tell me.

"Important news. Most important. Must speak to you. Arbor. Half-past seven. Your Thom." That's all the note had said. I couldn't imagine what this "important news" ("most important") might be, but I knew not to get too anxious or excited. Thom was never on time, despite his constant rush, and his news was never terribly important.

Just a few feet in front of the bench where I sat grew a massive Tillawink, Mother Allgood's greatest pride in the world. It was majestic, I had to admit, with it's topmost spiral vines draping down like Goldilocks and fiery red winkblooms pulsing mildly to attract bees, and eat them. In the crook of the forked trunk lay a fat spider dragon, sleeping through the cold night and morning to wake in the heat of the day and scour the leafpods for bloombugs. With a son like Thom, Mother Allgood was lucky to have this rare, awesome Tillawink. A woman needed something, after all.

A slam of the screen broke the Tillawink's spell and I glanced up quickly to see the shamble begin. His red-cheeked rush was especially exuberant, and he had a paper in his hand, waving it toward me in unbridled excitement. He was saying something to me as he came, but I couldn't hear him at all from here. I scooted over on the bench to make room for him and waited for the news. "Most important," I whispered to myself. "Most important."

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Late Summer in the World of Paint and Cardio

Days like this - grey puffy clouds in the sky and everything has a certain dim blur - you get the feeling that the artist didn't have the time or patience to fill in all the details. Stippled clouds over a thin wash of sky blue and green brush dabs where intricate leaves should hang on trees betray a rush to get done, a distracted mind. Days like this you drive through the periphery of some creator's vision, no one is really paying attention to you. These are the days when unexpected things happen, cracks open up in the seams of the world and you stumble in, unaware. Today is a day like this, and anything can happen while everyone is distracted.

Meanwhile you're on the exercise bike. Your legs are burning a good burn and your lungs glow with newfound energy, but this seat hurts your butt after about twenty-five minutes. It's best not to watch the little clock tick. This slows down time. Instead, concentrate on the song in your ears or close your eyes and actively notice the joints, one by one, in your legs, first left and then right. This urgency to stop, where does it come from? Your legs, if you pay attention to them, are not really complaining. They're perfectly happy moving in little, pumpy circles. They've been wanting activity like this for a while. It's just your brain, your sense of being engaged in something unpleasant, that cries out for you to quit. You wonder if you might trick your brain into enjoying the exercise bike, but it doesn't seem to work. Then there's your butt. It has a legitimate complaint. This seat is a real pain in the ass. You slide forward, trying not to lose your pace. This change of position and posture gives relief for a few minutes, enough to get to the beep that says you've done enough. You've met your goal. You don't stop right away, being overcome with the relief of knowing you can stop any time. Maybe another minute or two, cooling down. One day, when you're in perfect shape, you're going to set this exercise bike on fire. For now, though, it's just doing its job, a job you hired it to do.

When I drive through watercolor landscapes on the way to an abstract job I think impressionist thoughts. They don't exactly mean something, but they mean very similar to something. Downtown zipping past outside the window is cubist hell, all noses and shoulders and misplaced eyes crowding between the boxes and planes. The road narrows ahead and you proceed at an angle that expresses level ground. You step on the gas and shrink away into the middle. Perspectives flatten out as you approach the vanishing point, and then you're gone, too many dimensions to express with only two.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

With Great Power

She asked me the secret to it all. So I told her to always touch the ground directly with the bottoms of her feet. "Whether in shoes or socks or barefoot, on floors, carpets, pavement, grass or sand, always plant your feet firmly on the ground and live in your own footsteps."

"I don't understand," she said, not understanding.

"It's like this," I said, my feet firmly on the ground. "If you see a cloud you like, you cannot keep it. You can love it, but you cannot keep it. When you see a bird in flight against the burst of setting sun, it cannot stay there. Forces beyond its control compel it to follow to their ends the motivations for which it took wing in the first place. The fact that things change does not mean things cannot be owned. Your bird, your cloud, your feet, firmly on the ground. Do you understand?"

"No," she said. "I mean, I had it for a minute, but now it's gone."

"Exactly," I said. "That's exactly right."

When she left I could see she was still not really on the ground, not completely. Every step missed the ground entirely, send her jaunting forward awkwardly on stumbly nothingness.

Later that day, sitting in a park with my back to a graffiti-covered wall, I couldn't remember what I had told her nor could I imagine why I had done so. "Something about clouds?" I wondered aloud. "Something about the ground?" I furrowed my brow in confused dissipation of memory and felt a flicker of guilt. "I've really got to be more careful what I tell people," I mumbled. Long ago my mother told me that I have a way of saying things that makes people believe I know what I'm talking about. It's a big responsibility and I should take it more seriously.

In my pocket I keep the cloud I saw that day. It looks like a bird, like a bird in flight.

Hello, friends. Do you understand? Wait. On second thought, don't tell me. Instead there is this: How are you today?

Later. Love.

P. S. - This is my 700th post on this incarnation of my blog (not that I'm counting.) Sounds like a lot. Here's to 700 more. Thanks for stopping by.

Francis's Last Day

Francis's mouth felt dry and chalky as he ran ploddingly out through the giant flap being held aside by Carl, cigarette hanging limply from the side of his mouth. Francis winced slightly as he ran, as always, past the massive speaker stack that blared frantically happy, bouncy music to accompany the frolicking parade. As he ran, his muscles aching from a lack of sleep, he waved to the stands and smiled a huge smile, amplified by the paint, purely out of a sense of professionalism and custom. This is what good clowns do. They wave and they smile, they dance on cue, they entertain. Francis had never had the natural temperament to suit a clown, but he'd always been good at it. He knew how to work. His father had made sure of that.

"Farm work's no good right now, Fran," his mother had said last month during his visit. "Best you stick with clownin'. Bird in the hand, Fran. Bird in the hand."

He'd been pretty good at working on tractors when he was younger. He might be able to get into that if he got lucky. Maybe tomorrow morning he'd wake up early and walk around the town, see if anyone was hiring.

'You're a fool, Fran,' he thought. 'Not this town, man. Damnation. Any town but this one.'

Finishing out a roundhouse flip with a silly little stumble, Fran turned with exaggerated gusto and starting his flopping run toward the first ring where all the clowns were congregating, as always. As he ran a chill of horror crept up his back, filling his head with echoes of last night. He remembered in shudders and still pictures, memories his brain wanted to forget. Carl with that damnable cigarette glowing orange in the flickering dark of the campfire out in the woods. Beer and liquor bottles scattered around. The dead stare of that poor, dumb kid. Shovels in the moonlight. Staring in horror until sunrise at the bunk above him where Carl slept like a baby, blood and soil still caked under his fingernails.

Randy, done up in his Gabby look, leapfrogged over Francis as he crouched in the middle of the ring. He rolled after Randy, who was crouching now, and leapfrogged over him, his muscles groaning silently with fatigue. Randy hadn't trusted Carl from the start. Randy was smart like that.

Up in the stands seat G17 was empty. The ticket holder never showed up.

After the show Francis showered, packed up and hit the road. Clowning was over for him. Climbing into the truck as it slowed to a stop on the side of the highway, he wondered if driving was good work. He didn't mind working. His father had made sure of that.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Veneration

His feet planted squarely, it takes most of his strength and balance to open the pneumatic glass door and shove a shoulder against it to hold it ajar. Then, taking his walking stick from the left hand that has been holding it, he plants it solidly beside his right foot and shambles slowly through the opening. His left hand, now free from other duties, reaches up in old, established habit to remove his baby blue fedora hat as he crosses the threshold. He would no more wear the hat inside than he would leave home without it. With slowness painful and proud he makes his way to one of a couple of small, round tables and, laying the hat in the middle of, claims it for himself before proceeding to the counter. Ordering coffee and a paper, counting out exact change with trembling fingers, retrieving his paper from the rack and lowering himself with great effort into the sturdy wooden chair, these are all the stuff of his own, personal tradition. They are his chivalry and his code. He is like a monk in discipline and ritual. These are the moves of his life's Tai Chi, and he performs them with the deftness of a true master. Dignity walks the earth slowly with a stuttering gait and I wonder, "Could I follow? Would I be able to keep up?"

like knights riding into a history never recorded, never to be told
like the last leaves of fall clinging in the strong wind
like the ghosts of their former selves
like the rain falling to disappear, consumed by the seeds of tomorrow
like the death rattle of emperors and kings
like wisdom waiting for the right question
like the memory of god
they are doomed to yesterday
we are doomed to have them fall away before us
leaving us to stand between the wild
and those that come behind

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

It Will End in Violins

From an open window somewhere above his bus stop bench sadly beautiful (or was it beautifully sad) violin music wafted out into the cold darkness of the city night. Otherwise the streets were oddly quiet for the moment, just a few small noises, faint and far away. Pain pulsed up his back as he sat catching his breath and resting his burning legs. Icy wind blasted him randomly from the top, bottom and sides and he bundled the baggy overcoat around him tightly and stared, glaze-eyed at the sidewalk at his feet. Long, pure notes drawn with smooth, skillful strokes sang from the violin, calming his racing mind. Had you asked him any other time what he thought of the violin, he'd have shrugged or disclaimed any interest. It occurred to him now that the violin was a beautiful instrument. Blood soaked the back of his coat and puddled around him a bit on the bench, dripping through the slats to the cold sidewalk below. "Everything will change now," whispered the wind dancing around his ears. "Everything will change now." He was fading fast, slipping from this cold, city night to another place, a place where the sad violin welcomed him to rest. Blinking slowly he stared through the rising fog of mortality that was clouding his vision at the blood on his wringing hands, blood not his own. A crescendo filled the air with moaning vibrato, taking his last breath away. He died for his own sins at the bus stop, the city singing him to sleep.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

P. S. - Holy crap! I'm officially on empty. I'm now unknowingly plagiarizing myself. Let's see: 1) anonymous man dying; 2) stringed, symphonic instrument music; 3) Man never really noticed instrument before, finds music beautiful, 4) personification of city. Hmmm. Sounds a little like this post, doesn't it? Sheesh. I'm all out of ideas I guess. Wow. Thanks for stopping by.

Random Ramblings for a Change

Over at the neighborhood gym, Muscleheads protect the weight room from evil forces. They are formidable. You have to give that to them. If they're nothing else, they're damnably formidable, the Muscleheads. I've considered engaging one of them in conversation, but I'm not sure what the protocol is. What if I offend them? "I don't like your tone," the Musclehead might say to me, flexing ominously. So, I leave them be. They lumber to and fro from contraption to contraption, always keeping a watchful eye on the floor to ceiling mirror for any sign of trouble. Craft no designs, my evil friends, for invading the neighborhood gym. I'm not sure if you've seen the Muscleheads, but trust me on this: They're formidable like a mother fucker.

Today I'm having coffee with Elvis Costello. Not literally. Still, there he is. His aim is true.

Has anyone else noticed strange behavior from the Square Dance caller? Have you ever actually listened to the instructions he gives? Some of them are getting strange. I think the guy might be some sort of backwoods Svengali. People just dance and clap and do whatever the hell he says. "Grab your ankles and scream your ATM pin number." I swear to you, I heard him say that the other day. And people did it. We all did. "Poke your partner in the eye." "Leave your key under the front door mat." Some of them are just petty and cruel, but some are downright sinister. Am I the only one who has noticed this? I think I'm going to stop going to the Square Dance. I'll be the only one in the world who doesn't attend the nightly Square Dance. The one everyone goes to. In the giant barn. On the moon. You know the one. I'm not going anymore.

That last paragraph got away from me a bit. Elvis Costello doesn't see what so funny about it.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Something I've Been Meaning to Ask You

I've been meaning to ask you if you agree with me that we should start a band. I was thinking it could be fun. We could sing and whatnot. One or more of us could play an instrument and then someone could sing and other people could sing too. We could do songs on a stage and whatnot. We could dance around slightly above people who are facing us and dancing around also. We could be loud and happy or loud and sad or quiet and happy or contemplative and progressive and also whatnot. Let's not forget whatnot. I was thinking that we wouldn't wear uniforms nor have a clothing theme but that we would each just dress as dress can, as they don't really say. Perhaps rock or blues music, funk or soul or jazzy swing. Maybe an occasional punk or country influence, with Celtic undertones and a hiphop sensibility. We could be an indie band and put all our music online for free and promote Tibetan freedom or hemp growing or legalization of pottery. We could sell merchandise, T-shirts and sticker and pins and whatnot, to fund our various habits and addictions. A falling out might be in order, with the inevitable reunion. I'd like to play a tambourine at least once. What do you say? Are you in?

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.