Bye Kurt

So Bif cuddled up next to me this morning after putting Riley back down to sleep and whispered to me that Kurt Vonnegut had passed on. I let the news sit for a second, and then thought, "well, he's been wanting to go for awhile."

I can't say that Mr. Vonnegut's passing will effect me in any huge way, but his work certainly did.

When I was 18, out on my own, not realizing that I didn't need to struggle to find my identity (but struggle I did), I got my first real taste of Kurt Vonnegut. I had certainly heard of him, vague whispers of books condemned to banned lists and this masterpiece called Slaughterhouse Five which was even mentioned in Footloose, but even though I went to high school in a fairly forward thinking part of the world, no one seemed brave enough to teach it just yet.

Dave came down from the university while I was working in a gas station and going to Saddleback Community College. He sat by the pool reading Cat's Cradle by our man Kurt. I asked if it was any good and he gave me a brief rundown on the plot. I filed it away under "Things A College Person Reads" for future perusal when I needed to be reminded of what I was supposed to be doing.

Not long after, I was searching out reading material at the bookstore and remembered about Mr. Vonnegut. They didn't have Cat's Cradle, so I picked up a copy of Breakfast of Champions.

Breakfast of Champions blew my mind. Literally, it was as if Kurt Vonnegut crawled into my head and gave my brain a blow job. It hadn't dawned on me until that moment that you could fuck with literary structure in any damn way you felt like, suddenly there were no rules. I look back at that first reading of Breakfast of Champions as the first timid steps through a gate and onto a wildly overgrown path I would do cartwheels down

I began to delete the "Things A College Person Reads" and "Things A College Person Listens To" files.

Every time I went to visit other works by Mr. Vonnegut, it always felt like I was being invited along by a friend. A friend with a wicked sense of humor, a friend who was a little sad at being able to see all the wrong there was, a friend who understood the frailty of people but also got the triumph, a friend with that sparkle in his eye that just gave you kick to the heart.

Thank you Kurt, for doing what you did.

Just Plenty

I had one of those moments this morning on the way to work, one of those kick in eye moments, one of those moments where you know you're healing.

I once went to a healer, and it was honestly a little more new agey and woo woo than I would normally care to deal with, but I was in a fairly desperate situation. The healing involved my lying down and the healer putting herself into a near trance state. She went through a list of things that she was getting from me and I knew that if there stood a chance for this to work, I needed to let go of preconceptions and leap into this unreserved.

It's difficult to dredge up exact memories of what I was told or what I felt; it's reminiscent of putting yourself wholly into some creative endeavor, where there are only hazy, shadowy memories of what you just did. I was told that in a past life I was myself a powerful healer and had the ability to heal myself. I was told that I was holding onto a mother figure within me, that we had been together for ages and ages, and now it was time to let her go. I remember weeping uncontrollably, the healer asking if I was okay and my shaking voice reassuring her that I was just fine.

The point is, when I feel those moments like this morning, I equate it to something kicking over inside and the healer within me coming forward.

It was the perfect combination of just the right point of "Blame It On The Tetons" by Modest Mouse, and the cold air on my face, and the early pale spring morning sun shyly brushing the bricks around me, and the green shoots of the trees... I was hit by a strong, but far too short feeling of hope. Not the light in the darkness hope, but the remembrance of everyday magic.

Then "I'm A Steady Rollin' Man" by Robert Johnson came on, and I thought to myself, "Yeah, I AM a steady rollin' man."

I reminded myself to hold onto the images of the world shaking itself back to life, hold onto the blinding smile your son flashes you when he sees you first thing in the morning, hold onto your wife telling you that she loves you, hold onto the feelings of love from friends, hold onto the kind words and the even small rewards granted after immense struggle. This is how you heal, by not taking your own life for granted.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: "Living On A Prayer" by Bon Jovi. Seriously, it's not funny. My god, it's bad and getting desperate.

Tethered To The Logic

There were childhood obsessions with things like lava rocks (which I grew out of) and sharks (which I did not), and I remember a passing fancy for quicksand as well.

The 7 year old Billy version of quicksand was an almost sentient thing, a pit that patiently awaited some poor traveler, complete with pith helmet, to enter and sink. I imagined the shrieks of the trapped, traveling unnoticed through the jungle swampland. I did a small amount of research on quicksand, and what the 7 year old Billy retained from this, was that quicksand is often made when an underground spring over saturates some sand and turns said turf into a funnel of wet death.

Oh, and I remember quite clearly a pencil drawing of someone caught in quicksand laying on their back with arms in a “Y”. Apparently this is how one survived the death sucking of a pit of quicksand, do an impromptu back float until a boy scout came along with a 2x4 to assist in pulling you out.

Okay, apparently I believed that quicksand pulled you down into the crushing depths of thick wetness, slowly crushing the very life out of you. I imagined being pulled finally into the very underground spring, thick and wet sand flowing from nostrils no longer in use, being pulled along to a dark place that my child's mind feared to ponder.

It was like being pulled to the other side of a black hole... what was there?

I'm now strong enough to know that the quicksand spring created the quicksand in order to pull passerby into it's devious springy-ness, carrying the body to a factory 3 miles below the earth where sightless midgets with 3 arms and antennae harvested the bodies for precious chemicals; chemicals that would be used for warfare with the surface.

I think what still sort of attracts me to the idea of quicksand is the symbolism: A mire that traps within the jungle of the subconscious.

I was more than a little disappointed to find out that there are no known deaths due to quicksand. In fact, one would have to be suicidal and borderline mentally retarded to be killed in quicksand. Apparently quicksand is typically only a couple feet deep, and while struggling can pull one further down, quicksand apparently does not behave like some soil snake sucking you beneath it's gritty mouth. Apparently if you were to just calm your happy ass down, your body would float to the surface.

So, the key to surviving quicksand, and most anything else in life, is to just relax.

I Ain't Got The Power Anymore

There is no due date, no deadline for this thing, yet I feel this near Catholic guilt when I don't post at least close to daily, or in a timely manner. The Catholic guilt could be from this day being so close to the one where Jeebus came to bring the Easter Bunny back from the dead. And even though I've been hellaciously busy today, I still feel bad for not posting in a timely manner. Sometimes I feel like a sick little monkey.

Sometimes I feel like a house frau from Long Island, with one of those loud and annoying voices, sitting in a bathtub with mussed hair, bleeding out of the eyes.

It's interesting that sometimes you don't realize how bad you feel until you look back on the situation. This is how I feel about this weekend. I was still obviously not feeling at the top of my game, but didn't realize how not good I was feeling until now.

The entire weekend seems hazy, which would be fine if I had spent a majority of it swimming in whisky, but I was very prudent with my drinking. I feel like I've spent the last few days quietly in quicksand, perhaps feeling the squeezing pressure but unaware that this is where I was.

It was terrible timing this being buried, as Brandi and Brady and Jill came up for a visit. I barely remember seeing them, which I feel terrible about as there are always great comic moments and probing conversations to be had.

Friends came to the show on Friday, which was nice, and they said nice things, but I cannot judiciously tell you if the show went well or not. Same with Saturday's show; the actors seemed really jazzed about it but, and I think this is when I began to realize that I still wasn't feeling well and not just tired, I really had no way of judging how it went.

I spent most of yesterday with the sort of headache I imagine wished on killers and ambulance chasing lawyers in the 18th level of hell, sometimes nauseous from it, sometimes feverish. Bif at one point asked if it wasn't nice to be feeling better from the cold of last week and I automatically said yes.

But I would rather have a full blown cold than walk around in this codeine haze where I cannot judge highs or lows, where I cannot breathe deep with a smile the rush of wind coming up from the Sound, where I cannot remember clearly spending time with some amazing folks. That's not living.

Some Hard, Cold Facts

I took a couple of days off to fight a cold. I was doing pretty good I tell you, finally adopting a daily dosage of vitamins (having a kid will make you do the craziest shit - taking vitamins, quit smoking, pretending to eat someone's tummy when you're not playing some perverse, zombie sex game) seemed to have fought off for awhile this plague that circled the office a number of times.

But eventually the bill comes due, and sometimes you earn that bill by drinking a fair amount of whisky and beer while bowling on a Tuesday night. Anyway, although I was perfectly capable of doing so, I didn't write anything the last two days and I apologize.

Some things that occurred to me the last two days:
1) Morning "news"/variety shows still keep up with the pretense that they're offering something of use when in fact they're thinly disguised shills for corporations and a method for celebrities to keep themselves bathing in the waters of exposure. They depress me to no end.

2) I have somehow become more socially acceptable by carrying an infant to the grocery store than I do going there by myself. No one ever stopped to talk to me when I picked up some tater tots on a solo mission. How do these gaping ladies know that I'm not hoisting this kid around to sell for drugs?

3) I could probably get a lot of drugs for a healthy, 4 month old baby.

4) If you were to coat yourself in Vaseline (or a generic brand of petroleum jelly for that matter) and then walked a long distance, anytime a passerby spat on you it would run right off of you. But then you'd trap your sweat under a layer of petroleum, and what kind of trade off is that?

5) I've missed you sugar snap peas. Where have you been? Why haven't you reminded me when I have passed you in the produce section that I have missed you? I don't mean to blame you, it's just I feel lame for forgetting.

Honestly, I probably could have used another day to recuperate, my head feels like someone has taken one of those TNT plunger type bicycle pumps and affixed the ball needle adapter and plunged it into my brain. That mad fucker then begins furiously pumping to the strains of "Living On A Prayer". All the while, a fever broke leaving me sweating like... I don't know, something whose soul purpose is to sweat. Anyway, the longer I stay away from this delightful occupation where I get paid to have people yell at me all day, the tougher it becomes to ever go back.

But this weekend is gonna be good weather wise, I've got some fine folks from California coming for a visit and I go back on stage for some more knockin' 'em dead. Look out world, I'm limping towards you.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: "The World's A Mess, It's In My Kiss" by X.

Before The Beep

I listen to a lot of answering machine messages on a daily basis, and while I'm not exactly a tech whore, I'm always a little bit amazed by when I still hear the older taped answering machines going.

I'm even further amazed by folks leaving their outgoing messages who seem confused by the process or better yet treat it like it was new technology. The other day I was instructed by a voice that sounded as though it were bathed in gin every morning that, "after I'm done talking, there's going to be a beep and then you leave your message after that with your name and your number."

Unless Drinky McGlugGlug there gets a large number of calls from the mentally retarded or people who have figured out how to call in from 1952, the instructions on how to leave a voicemail are not necessary. Most of us have been doing this for over twenty years, back when people actually bought tapes that had someone singing "nobody's home" to the tune of Beethoven's 5th.

Things haven't progressed much past the lame novelty answering machine tapes I'm afraid. Yesterday I was treated to some 19 year old stoner telling me that he and TJ and B Money weren't home, and then he used what I'm assuming is a pawn shop Fender Strat to play a bit of Ozzy's "Crazy Train" to close out that party. I did smile a sad smile thinking about myself at 19, probably doing something similar and just as stoned, but c'mon man... "Crazy Train"?

And now all sorts of people let me listen to music while their magic jukebox phone is finding the person I'm trying to reach. Never have I heard a good song while this is happening. Never. I mean if someone had "Fat Bottom Girls" by Queen as the song to listen to while the person being called was roused from their call-less world, I would celebrate them with a hearty "hell yes!" Even "Hello" by Lionel Richie or Blondie's "Call Me", these would be better choices than anything else I have heard.

My U2 loving roommate in college once left a quite lengthy section of "Numb" by said band on our answering machine. I've made mention of my feelings for U2, and I didn't mind this song, but no one is calling you to listen to a minute 45 of a song; get in, get a cheap laugh if available, get out.

I have not heard a lot of people pushing the voicemail out message envelope, I feel like we're in the 80's hair metal stage of this particular art form. I occasionally hear some playfulness, a snippet from a movie, some adventurous folks playing with the form, but I'm looking for a little more surrealism, a little more absurdity. I think I'm going to leave an outgoing message that is mostly a high pitched scream followed by a muttered list of, "Bertha, nutmeg, plastic jet fuel, keystone", with keystone in a high, sing-songy falsetto, and then a whip crack instead of a beep. If nothing else it may dissuade telemarketers and tele-pollsters from ever calling again.

I just realized how Andy Rooney-esque this posting is. I apologize…

April Showers

I listened to the hail lightly scratch against the bedroom window last night like a furtive, yet strangely persistent animal. It was that persistence that made me look out the open blinds and stare at the amazing amount of water falling in the cone of streetlights, but not anywhere else that my eyes could see. The flag at the post office blew in crazed, epileptic dance moves.

And sat and watched for awhile and thought about the Black Keys blues cover album that Nikki 2 K's lent me. I thought about staying awake for some hours, music in one ear, rain and hail in the other. I equated my life at the moment to lying in a fairly warm bed, dry and with the luxury of thinking about a blues cover album a friend had lent me, while just outside the world raged.

I tried to remember what it felt like in those moments when your life was in a bad place of desperation, when your mistakes manage throw a shadow on the better parts of life. I didn't want to remember the actual days, the actions, I wanted to remember the hollow vortex somewhere between your heart and stomach that drained your soul and left you gasping.

I realized that all the rumpled bedclothes and paid credit card bills, a job that's livable and pays more than the rent, a couple bucks tossed to the homeless guy outside the theater cannot be banked against never experiencing a moment of kick in the face desperation somewhere down the line. There's not a karma savings account that allows you to allay feeling the madness of bad things by paying it off with good deeds done. And then I realized I really didn't want to remember that either.

Sometimes the world's going to knock you around sugar pie. Sometimes that rain and hail is going to unmercifully slap around the tulips just opening up all over the city. And when you can count yourself as lucky enough to be inside when it comes, feel lucky.

It's that eternal yin and yang of living, it can't all be gravy and at times it's gonna hurt. But do the good times outweigh the bad? Fuck yes they do! You get blues covers albums and friends willing to share music that excites them, and you get laughter and beer and lovemaking and resounding shouts of 'yes!' to the heavens. You get those meals that make you curse every meal you've had before for not living up to that one, you get wine, you get Harold and Maude and T. Rex. You get handholding and people who will stand behind you and car rides where the music seems made for the landscape and you get tulips that still stand under the pouring rain and hail.