"Damn! My Hat!"

Many years ago, before I knew any of you, when I was a completely different person than I am today, I lost my favorite hat. It was an Oingo Boingo baseball cap with this like, Latin American lizard design embroidered on it. That thing fit great and was well worn.

I put a hoop earring through the bill at one point and just left it there. I think I put it there just as a way to hold the earring, but it got left and I started giving insane and bullshit answers as to why it was there. Ultimately, it was a meaningless act that I ended up liking.

Well, imagine if you will, a twenty-two year old Billy in the back of pickup truck on the way to my first Grateful Dead show. The wind ripped the hat off my head and sent it in a slow-mo tumble under various automobiles traveling west along I-80.

I hadn’t thought about this hat in years, and then I remembered it strongly last night for some reason. I remember being pretty bummed as I watched that hat with an earring fly away, but then again it was just a hat.

But I got to thinking last night, that at that point in my life, almost to the day, my life was about to drastically change. And yeah, you can say that about any day – our lives change every moment – but check it out:

As I said, I was on my way to my first Grateful Dead show. This was an event that would effect me strongly and change my musical obsessions and concert going for years to come.

And I was mere days from moving from Chico to Santa Barbara, and what I couldn’t possibly know, and what perhaps that enigmatic I-80 that runs from the east coast all the way on in to my beloved San Francisco did know: Santa Barbara would only last 6 months for me before I high tailed it to the city by the bay.

My life in San Francisco changed me nearly to my core. I would fall in love with, and marry, the love of my life. I would meet an amazing collection of people that frankly feel more like family than friends. I would learn to trust myself more and respect myself more. San Francisco is a massive and massively important chapter in my life.

And maybe that pierced Oingo Boingo hat was a sacrifice for the entrance into this amazing adventure.

Candee

They were cruising the street, hopping from bar to bar and generally making asses of themselves all in the name of Randall’s bachelor party. The troop of testosterone rank boys were now drunk enough to enter the Lusty Lass.

“Lap dances everybody! Lap dances!” Peter yelled in a ‘charge ho’ motion as he led the way down the street and into the flashing lights and neon of the strip bar.

The bass heavy bump and grind music was thunder in the ears. It was dark as a cave, hiding the faces of the lumps shambled over in chairs, except for the blinding, fierce spotlight examining the performer on stage.

The group of boys was immediately swarmed by a midget fleet of scantily clad ladies, fresh meat and money had been sniffed out. Peter whispered something into the ear of a buxom lass who laughed amicably and took a wad of cash from him.

“Lenny!” Peter called. “You get a lap dance!”

Lenny was nervous and was trying not to show it. He had never been in a strip bar before, and frankly all of this in your face sexuality made him feel off balance. He stood himself up straight and laid a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“I think I need another drink first,” he said in his best, deep, self-assured voice.

“Go with Candee and get you a lap dance!” Peter boomed.

Candee put her hand lightly on Lenny’s arm and led him back behind a velvet curtain.

Peter turned his attention to the show on the stage. It was amazing the sort of contortions this woman could put herself into. There were things being done with a stiletto heel shoe that just shouldn’t be done. Dollars were flying onto the stage like slow drifting flower petals, long and green. Peter stood mesmerized through one bad song and was beginning to sway to another when Lenny tapped him on the shoulder.

“How was it my man?” Peter asked with a lascivious smile.

“She’s very talented,” Lenny said, pulling an orange balloon animal from behind his back.

Peter stared with disbelief. “What the fuck is that?”

“I think it’s a giraffe.”

Now Just Warm Blooded, Check It And See

Wow, that posting seems like days ago! I’m feeling better, a lot more clear-headed anyway. For awhile there all I could do was laugh at my ridiculous situation; my first phone call this morning was a bute!

The whole experience reminded me of an idea. While I’m kind of a baby about getting sick (I want to be left alone and I want to feel better, NOW damn it!), I also kind of like that light headed, hallucinogenic come on feeling that a fever brings. It’s like doing drugs for free. I would probably be a bigger baby about things if I didn’t get a sort of perverse happiness from being sick.

Anyway, the idea was a story about plague junkies, people who pay for stronger and stronger diseases whose side effects got them off. Patches of mold could be sold on street corners. Dealers with connections would have this great pharmaceutical shit. Junky kids would experiment with growing their own cultures in their closets.

I might still take a crack at it, who knows.

Thanks to kc! I believe it your “Luck!” that pushed me through…

Hot Blooded, Check It And See

I called in sick yesterday due to a cold, but I think it’s something worse. I cannot tell if I have a fever, but I have that mushy-headed fever feeling. That feeling like I’ve been holding my breath for darn near two minutes and those negative image, black flashy spots are going to start popping at any time. I feel floaty and disconnected from everything.

Woozy seems like a good word.

I have to work my fingers twice as hard to type as it seems they are no longer my fingers.

I probably shouldn’t be here, but I feel weird about calling in sick again. I could possibly make it through the day all right if I didn’t have to sound like I knew what I was doing every time the phone rang.

Wish me luck!

And We Lived Beneath The Waves

A quick one for Friday evening:

Say what you will about the song Yellow Submarine by The Beatles, I'm betting it holds a special place in your heart. I bet as soon as you read the title above me here, the chorus kicked in somewhere in the back of your head.

This song is reviled by a lot of fanboy types, but why?

It's a Ringo song? Okay, granted.
It's childish and not serious? This may be it. I think we expect our "musicians" to carry about a sense of seriousness for their work to be great.

Imagine Pink Floyd doing Yellow Submarine....
Slow, more harmonies, scorching guitar... I can kind of hear it. But they started out with Syd Barrett.

Imagine Nine Inch Nails doing Yellow Submarine...
Imagine Radiohead doing Yellow Submarine...

Yeah, not so easy.

You're Cordially Invited to Rest Stop 27

My email has been down for the second day in a row and I’m getting a little angry.

This is even more frustrating as I laugh at those people who become paralyzed by technology breaking down with one of those deep-throated, ‘I fucking told you so’ laughs. It’s irony I tells ya! Mary Shelley and Stanly Kubrick would be sadly shaking their heads at me right now if they were here.

Which frankly, would be really weird.

I feel cut off and isolated, and I feel ridiculous for feeling this way. That’s way too much feeling! Yahoo is messing with my mind.

This is the same uncomfortable feeling that I get when I suddenly get all uncomfortable realizing that I’ve left my cell phone at home. A cell phone that I’ve only had for about 8 months mind you. A cell phone that I managed to get by without for over 30 years!

How does this happen? How have we duped ourselves into feeling nervous when there is an electronic communication breakdown? Frankly this is frustration that I don’t need, but I cannot convince myself that this is true. And this pissses me off!

I feel a storm of anger and apprehension under my calm, professional exterior that I’m doing my best to push down and keep down.

It reminds me of the feeling I would get when my parents made me go to bed early and there were people over visiting. I knew that there was a party going on, but I was being blocked from enjoying it. That’s what I feel like! There’s a gang of my favorite people, partying at a rest stop off the highway, but the exit has been blocked off to me.

I miss you guys… Sniff!

Maybe It Was The Solstice

We went to see Dubh and Lisa get married last night. I’m not sure what happened exactly, I can only assume a combination of so many things, but I had this moment.

There was this fellow playing Spanish guitar and it sounded so nice. I listened to this combination of flurried runs and hard strummed chords that would never come through my fingers; it would never occur to me to play that way. There was a small child in one of the pews that was taking shifts crying and cooing. There was something in the combination of those sounds that soothed me to a degree I find hard to understand or explain.

I realized that I felt completely relaxed. I felt completely locked into a moment with both this wonderful guitar player and this child. I didn’t feel self conscious and it never entered my mind to worry about what other people might be thinking about me. And this is the important part: I didn’t question it, I just let that vibe roll on out.

I don’t know if it’s that I’m getting older, but I’m learning to quit trying so damned hard to figure everything out. I’ve realized that on those moments when you have managed to grab onto that stream that puts you as one with the universe, just smile and hold on.