Fire and Nail Polish
I took this place in great part because it has a fireplace. So it is early May, the first in fact, and it is still cold and rainy, God damned global warming. Anyhoo, I light the fire every night, and it not only takes the chill and dampness out of the air but gives me something much more. Movement. Life. Burning. Something not stagnating. Indeed, something in constant motion, its nature is to change, to grow, to burn, to feed. Since I was a kid spending weekends in my Grandparents house in Vermont, not far from Mount Snow, I would spend hours watching the fire. The flames, never repeating themselves, constantly licking and reaching upwards. Never a pattern. Fire is life itself, as it should be. Like the ocean, in constant motion, tides in and out and in and out and up and down and water where it shouldn’t be and where it’s not supposed to be and moving always, to please itself. Not governed by anything. I could watch the water forever, I have always been drawn to fire and water, but for the last ten some odd years I can’t remember the last time I took it upon myself to go to the beach, which is two minutes away, (except on the weekends, when Old Greenwich becomes the fucking Hamptons), I can’t remember in recent history when I prioritized what I have always known as a return for me to peace and harmony. Why? What happened? I took the kids to the beach on the weekends feeling like I was not a member of this club but a visitor on someone else’s account. But I GREW UP THERE. I smoked hash every day on that beach, and I should feel like it’s mine. It is mine. It is not theirs, those yuppy scum clogging the tiny concession stand with their impatient attitude directed with contempt and palpable disapproval verging on hate at the poor high school kids just learning about having a job, something these rich fucks don’t instill in their BMW spawn. And here on this beach, once my sacred land, because it sits on the sea, and because it raised me, as I traversed it’s trails in my acid induced un-reality/reality, grasping for life on a deadwood walking stick, thinking of everything, feeling everything, but mostly absorbing the essence of the earth, the reverence of it, the completeness of it for me as a human visitor to it’s timeless truth….these beasts of consumer burden made me feel shame here because I didn’t make enough money.
I blame myself for letting them get to me. I will never make that mistake again. That’s my water, my trails, my lost deer looking for some scrap of undeveloped land, sometimes swimming to their death in hopes of finding it.
I would go with them now, into the water, to certain death, rather than staying on these tainted shores.
Let us swim away dear deer, away from the talk of Luis Vitton and pedicures.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
What's the Point
What’s The Point?
I had my kids here today at the villa de disseverance. We had a very very good time. My son my son is just thrilled with the idea that I have a place for us to just be us, without the commandant issuing orders. We had lunch from Garden Catering, a little fried food joint right around the corner. They have a pineapple as a logo, but trust me, they don’t serve them. We then went to the little beach in Byram, a beach for the less fortunate. Old Greenwich has a beach down through town. It’s been open only to residents of Greenwich since 1940. Tod’s Point became infamous when a lawsuit garnered national attention due to a class warfare scandal involving Brendon Leydon, attorney at Law, who sued the town on behalf of the downtrodden and Beachless. He won, and it was opened to the public. The town hadn’t received any money other than from residents since it had bought it from J. Kennedy Todd in 1925. Actually, when Tod died in 1925 he gave the 147 waterfront acres to the Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital where it was used as a nurses’ retreat. Finally in 1940 the town bought this most pristine sanctuary from the Hospital for $550.000. As I say, Greenwich has never asked for any money from the government since then for hurricane and flood relief and whatnot; an anomaly for a town in any state; but that didn’t stop the liberal rhetoric, and the fear and accusation of racism won as it tends to and it was opened to the public. Of course, this is Greenwich, and they just made it rather expensive and mildly difficult to get in. But back to Byram. The “other beach” on the other side of town, near here, Chickahominy; in the undesirable underbelly of Greenwich. But when my kids and I got there a funny thing happened, it was deserted. I very much doubt the Old Greenwich beach had anything less than a thousand moms and nanny’s and little Tylers and Tiffanys. But most people in Chickahominy work, so there isn’t as much leisure time here in bluecollarland. As a matter of fact it’s quieter here than in Old Greenwich, because people who live here are blowing the leaves of the rich. Old Greenwich is the nicest little trailer park in the Universe. 1/64th of an acre with a salt box on it is worth two million. But in the summer it is LOUD. The second class citizen lawn crews wreak havoc on the peace and tranquility the Hedgies thought they were buying into. But here in Byram and Chickahominy (virtually sister towns), it is quiet as an urban church mouse. So we played at the playground with the background of Long Island Sound, and we threw the ball, and we ran around in the sand, and it was magical. There was no sonic backdrop of rich white women loudly proclaiming their manicure dilemmas. There was a noticeable lack of Hedge fund dialogue. An aside: I was at the gym yesterday and two Hedgies were in separate stalls in the shower, loudly promulgating that you could still find a decent townhouse in Greenwich for one five. Maybe one six. The timbre of these voices echoing in the gym bathroom was cocky and yet pathetic. They must suck their thumbs in a dark corner of the trading room floor. Back to the beach: We came home, here; View Street, and their mother showed up for dinner. She darkened the mood significantly but that is understandable. So we ordered food from a great Italian Deli right across Hamilton Ave even closer to me than Garden Catering, and got a pizza and some salad. My wife’s mood continued to be dark, and I asked her to quit it. She did her best, but our relationship is so damaged, and so elongated, that it is hard to see this thing as a means to get back together. But here is the part that kills me: when it was time for them to go, my daughter broke down. She is four. She has never cried to stay with Daddy before and she wouldn’t stop. My insides wanted out. My heart broke completely, and I felt like dying. And this is what we do in the name of passion for ourselves. Of course she’ll survive, but did we just imprint a terrible memory into her that perhaps we will repeat again and again? Will this in some way define her, and is that acceptable? The truth is, I’m here, and there is no going back. And what will be will be. But when my daughter asks for a Daddy snuggles tonight she won’t get one.
I had my kids here today at the villa de disseverance. We had a very very good time. My son my son is just thrilled with the idea that I have a place for us to just be us, without the commandant issuing orders. We had lunch from Garden Catering, a little fried food joint right around the corner. They have a pineapple as a logo, but trust me, they don’t serve them. We then went to the little beach in Byram, a beach for the less fortunate. Old Greenwich has a beach down through town. It’s been open only to residents of Greenwich since 1940. Tod’s Point became infamous when a lawsuit garnered national attention due to a class warfare scandal involving Brendon Leydon, attorney at Law, who sued the town on behalf of the downtrodden and Beachless. He won, and it was opened to the public. The town hadn’t received any money other than from residents since it had bought it from J. Kennedy Todd in 1925. Actually, when Tod died in 1925 he gave the 147 waterfront acres to the Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital where it was used as a nurses’ retreat. Finally in 1940 the town bought this most pristine sanctuary from the Hospital for $550.000. As I say, Greenwich has never asked for any money from the government since then for hurricane and flood relief and whatnot; an anomaly for a town in any state; but that didn’t stop the liberal rhetoric, and the fear and accusation of racism won as it tends to and it was opened to the public. Of course, this is Greenwich, and they just made it rather expensive and mildly difficult to get in. But back to Byram. The “other beach” on the other side of town, near here, Chickahominy; in the undesirable underbelly of Greenwich. But when my kids and I got there a funny thing happened, it was deserted. I very much doubt the Old Greenwich beach had anything less than a thousand moms and nanny’s and little Tylers and Tiffanys. But most people in Chickahominy work, so there isn’t as much leisure time here in bluecollarland. As a matter of fact it’s quieter here than in Old Greenwich, because people who live here are blowing the leaves of the rich. Old Greenwich is the nicest little trailer park in the Universe. 1/64th of an acre with a salt box on it is worth two million. But in the summer it is LOUD. The second class citizen lawn crews wreak havoc on the peace and tranquility the Hedgies thought they were buying into. But here in Byram and Chickahominy (virtually sister towns), it is quiet as an urban church mouse. So we played at the playground with the background of Long Island Sound, and we threw the ball, and we ran around in the sand, and it was magical. There was no sonic backdrop of rich white women loudly proclaiming their manicure dilemmas. There was a noticeable lack of Hedge fund dialogue. An aside: I was at the gym yesterday and two Hedgies were in separate stalls in the shower, loudly promulgating that you could still find a decent townhouse in Greenwich for one five. Maybe one six. The timbre of these voices echoing in the gym bathroom was cocky and yet pathetic. They must suck their thumbs in a dark corner of the trading room floor. Back to the beach: We came home, here; View Street, and their mother showed up for dinner. She darkened the mood significantly but that is understandable. So we ordered food from a great Italian Deli right across Hamilton Ave even closer to me than Garden Catering, and got a pizza and some salad. My wife’s mood continued to be dark, and I asked her to quit it. She did her best, but our relationship is so damaged, and so elongated, that it is hard to see this thing as a means to get back together. But here is the part that kills me: when it was time for them to go, my daughter broke down. She is four. She has never cried to stay with Daddy before and she wouldn’t stop. My insides wanted out. My heart broke completely, and I felt like dying. And this is what we do in the name of passion for ourselves. Of course she’ll survive, but did we just imprint a terrible memory into her that perhaps we will repeat again and again? Will this in some way define her, and is that acceptable? The truth is, I’m here, and there is no going back. And what will be will be. But when my daughter asks for a Daddy snuggles tonight she won’t get one.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Target?
Target?
From Target I shuffled over to a recorder recital at my son’s school. My son is nine. Here’s the thing: I went to school there. I performed in that same auditorium when I was nine. Same stage, same curtain, same smell. It jogs ones sensibilities to say the least. I make the best out of a situation where one could be considered a townie. I remember when we first moved into the O.G. house about 10 years ago, this house I was raised in which I bought from my Dad, I was working on a rock record with an up and coming rock band. The lead singer and I got quite close, and we are still now, but we never made love despite an excruciating sexual tension. During this time of getting re-acquainted with my old home and my old home town, I was never there; I was at the studio well into the nights, so I didn’t really feel it. But then my son was born, and in we came into the quaint yet queer community called Old Greenwich. Being a musician, I was home days, and I built a studio off the house where I could work when the work came in. So I was in the unenviable position, as my estranged wife works from home also, and also in the music business, to go to drop offs and pick ups at pre-school and of course the dreaded “concerts”. The fall festival recital, the spring into music celebration, and so on. At these pickups and drop offs I was forced to interact with these things, these “women” as it were, these stick figure blonde bobbed inanities. My first reaction was to want to seduce them of course, but then I was struck, as they politely snubbed me, (for what kind of a man is not in an office on Wall Street?) by the feeling of not being good enough, of being unpopular. This for me was a new feeling, because all through school I was popular with the freaks ‘cause I partied, the jocks because my band played at all the keg parties, and obviously the band crowd. Woman from all these groups saw me as a kind of Jim Morrison, if I may be so bold. An enigma, an artist. And so I had no trouble with popularity or girls. Fast forward in time to 5 years ago, me standing next to Barbie Doll with feted breath from abstaining from food but yielding to a white wine at lunch. And I am unpopular? The truth is, these girls were the cheerleaders, they have always been snotty, and now, with their husbands’ money, their clicks in place, they have no need to talk about something of substance! Who of them could be served by a conversation about art? Music? You’re a musician? Oh my, Oh, my my my. This just won’t do. And so that year, and several years after that, I let myself feel like that guy in high school that the girls turned their backs on because he wasn’t even worth worrying about if he was dignity was blatantly wounded. This had a damaging effect by the way on my sexual identity. Having just come off doing a record with a beautiful young girl who would have, in an instant, jumped into bed with me, I was now faced with feeling like I couldn’t have these girls if I was the last guitarist on Earth.
But back to the most important thing; my beloved Target. I went shopping for my sheets, and my lamps, and my carpets, and my drapes, and my windex, and my paper towels, and my phone, and my soap, but forgot shampoo for some reason, but remembered pillows, but not pillow cases, had the presence of mind to borrow some Fabreeze from Vinnie, but spaced out on light bulbs. And I made my bed and I was happy. And that makes me feel like I am betraying my wife. But this is her doing, no, it is our doing, but this whole thing feels like freedom mixed with regret. Shaken not stirred. But it feels good to drink it. I can’t help but feel guilty that I like it there, at 5 View Street, because I feel free again, and at the hand of my wounded wife, the last person you’d ever suspect as the hero, is the reason I have come alive again. And I’m worried that she will be the victim of her own gallantry, her finest hour will be her undoing. I have moments when I see her being alone, and unhappy, and that makes me very sad, but I have just as many moments seeing her making love to some rich fifty year old divorcee, him devouring her because she is to him young and she is very good in bed.
And of course the newness, the elixir of the sexually satisfied. And so my happiness cannot be real, because it is actually paralleling a new sexual experience. Of course this feels great, I don’t have to live with someone who sees me as a liability. But how long will this last? How long will freedom span into reality?
From Target I shuffled over to a recorder recital at my son’s school. My son is nine. Here’s the thing: I went to school there. I performed in that same auditorium when I was nine. Same stage, same curtain, same smell. It jogs ones sensibilities to say the least. I make the best out of a situation where one could be considered a townie. I remember when we first moved into the O.G. house about 10 years ago, this house I was raised in which I bought from my Dad, I was working on a rock record with an up and coming rock band. The lead singer and I got quite close, and we are still now, but we never made love despite an excruciating sexual tension. During this time of getting re-acquainted with my old home and my old home town, I was never there; I was at the studio well into the nights, so I didn’t really feel it. But then my son was born, and in we came into the quaint yet queer community called Old Greenwich. Being a musician, I was home days, and I built a studio off the house where I could work when the work came in. So I was in the unenviable position, as my estranged wife works from home also, and also in the music business, to go to drop offs and pick ups at pre-school and of course the dreaded “concerts”. The fall festival recital, the spring into music celebration, and so on. At these pickups and drop offs I was forced to interact with these things, these “women” as it were, these stick figure blonde bobbed inanities. My first reaction was to want to seduce them of course, but then I was struck, as they politely snubbed me, (for what kind of a man is not in an office on Wall Street?) by the feeling of not being good enough, of being unpopular. This for me was a new feeling, because all through school I was popular with the freaks ‘cause I partied, the jocks because my band played at all the keg parties, and obviously the band crowd. Woman from all these groups saw me as a kind of Jim Morrison, if I may be so bold. An enigma, an artist. And so I had no trouble with popularity or girls. Fast forward in time to 5 years ago, me standing next to Barbie Doll with feted breath from abstaining from food but yielding to a white wine at lunch. And I am unpopular? The truth is, these girls were the cheerleaders, they have always been snotty, and now, with their husbands’ money, their clicks in place, they have no need to talk about something of substance! Who of them could be served by a conversation about art? Music? You’re a musician? Oh my, Oh, my my my. This just won’t do. And so that year, and several years after that, I let myself feel like that guy in high school that the girls turned their backs on because he wasn’t even worth worrying about if he was dignity was blatantly wounded. This had a damaging effect by the way on my sexual identity. Having just come off doing a record with a beautiful young girl who would have, in an instant, jumped into bed with me, I was now faced with feeling like I couldn’t have these girls if I was the last guitarist on Earth.
But back to the most important thing; my beloved Target. I went shopping for my sheets, and my lamps, and my carpets, and my drapes, and my windex, and my paper towels, and my phone, and my soap, but forgot shampoo for some reason, but remembered pillows, but not pillow cases, had the presence of mind to borrow some Fabreeze from Vinnie, but spaced out on light bulbs. And I made my bed and I was happy. And that makes me feel like I am betraying my wife. But this is her doing, no, it is our doing, but this whole thing feels like freedom mixed with regret. Shaken not stirred. But it feels good to drink it. I can’t help but feel guilty that I like it there, at 5 View Street, because I feel free again, and at the hand of my wounded wife, the last person you’d ever suspect as the hero, is the reason I have come alive again. And I’m worried that she will be the victim of her own gallantry, her finest hour will be her undoing. I have moments when I see her being alone, and unhappy, and that makes me very sad, but I have just as many moments seeing her making love to some rich fifty year old divorcee, him devouring her because she is to him young and she is very good in bed.
And of course the newness, the elixir of the sexually satisfied. And so my happiness cannot be real, because it is actually paralleling a new sexual experience. Of course this feels great, I don’t have to live with someone who sees me as a liability. But how long will this last? How long will freedom span into reality?
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Woman Target
Woman Target
Women. They have a propensity for manipulation I sometimes think. Perhaps, and I say perhaps; it’s an unconscious thing, but I have become a victim of the greatest manipulation of all time. I remember my girlfriend sat me down one night about TWENTY YEARS AGO at Tuscons, a bar in Greenwich, and she said and I quote “I need for me, to move to the next level in our relationship, but this is not an ultimatum”. End fucking Quote. Not an ultimatum? It’s the biggest one of all time. And so, not wanting to lose her, I with great trepidation agreed to marry her. I didn’t even ask her to marry me, I asked her to get engaged to me on a snowy ramp in Byram on New Years Eve of all things. Actually it’s not far from my new separated husband domicile. And she did in fact marry me, and now, she says, and I quote, “I’m not sure if I can ever love you again like a man, but what’s at stake is so important that we need to find out”. What the fuck am I? A fucking idiot? Not only is the writing on the wall, it is the wall. She wants to come with me and the kids to go to Target to get sheets and pillows and lamps for the separation casa. How sick is this? Making this a family outing is like inviting your friends to witness a suicide. What the fuck is wrong with this woman?
And what is wrong with me that I keep holding on? This is what I ask you, this is the question: am I being desperate because I was dumped first, or do I really want this to work? And either way, I feel in my heart it won’t. And here is where I get angry: I know in my heart she knows she can never love me again like I need her to, but she, a woman, knows, as a master manipulator, that this thing will go a lot easier if we do it in stages. Be it conscious or un, they do what they do, because it is their nature. I am becoming angry at women and I don’t want to be. But will one of you please, for the love of God, prove me wrong? I have never felt so used and so alone as I do right now. And what do I do with this?
I guess I have to shut down. Yes, that’s the ticket. What else can I do? I must become humorless around her, for why does she deserve it? I need to beat her at her own game, and manipulate HER to my unconscious gain. Which is what? My gain? Just to fuck. So that won’t work. So I need a new unconscious gain. I need a new unconscious gain. But I’m an ape, just released out of the glass; I don’t think like this, I’m out of my element. It’s Insidious. The only thing I can think of is to go get my separation sheets on my own. And deny the illusion, the manipulation, and my collusion in this web of lies. So it’s off to Target!
Women. They have a propensity for manipulation I sometimes think. Perhaps, and I say perhaps; it’s an unconscious thing, but I have become a victim of the greatest manipulation of all time. I remember my girlfriend sat me down one night about TWENTY YEARS AGO at Tuscons, a bar in Greenwich, and she said and I quote “I need for me, to move to the next level in our relationship, but this is not an ultimatum”. End fucking Quote. Not an ultimatum? It’s the biggest one of all time. And so, not wanting to lose her, I with great trepidation agreed to marry her. I didn’t even ask her to marry me, I asked her to get engaged to me on a snowy ramp in Byram on New Years Eve of all things. Actually it’s not far from my new separated husband domicile. And she did in fact marry me, and now, she says, and I quote, “I’m not sure if I can ever love you again like a man, but what’s at stake is so important that we need to find out”. What the fuck am I? A fucking idiot? Not only is the writing on the wall, it is the wall. She wants to come with me and the kids to go to Target to get sheets and pillows and lamps for the separation casa. How sick is this? Making this a family outing is like inviting your friends to witness a suicide. What the fuck is wrong with this woman?
And what is wrong with me that I keep holding on? This is what I ask you, this is the question: am I being desperate because I was dumped first, or do I really want this to work? And either way, I feel in my heart it won’t. And here is where I get angry: I know in my heart she knows she can never love me again like I need her to, but she, a woman, knows, as a master manipulator, that this thing will go a lot easier if we do it in stages. Be it conscious or un, they do what they do, because it is their nature. I am becoming angry at women and I don’t want to be. But will one of you please, for the love of God, prove me wrong? I have never felt so used and so alone as I do right now. And what do I do with this?
I guess I have to shut down. Yes, that’s the ticket. What else can I do? I must become humorless around her, for why does she deserve it? I need to beat her at her own game, and manipulate HER to my unconscious gain. Which is what? My gain? Just to fuck. So that won’t work. So I need a new unconscious gain. I need a new unconscious gain. But I’m an ape, just released out of the glass; I don’t think like this, I’m out of my element. It’s Insidious. The only thing I can think of is to go get my separation sheets on my own. And deny the illusion, the manipulation, and my collusion in this web of lies. So it’s off to Target!
Monday, March 8, 2010
BONGO
Bongo
I have told my son I am staying in a “Club House” for a while, and that we will have lots of fun there. No problem. But he told a friend of his today at school and I’m sure it will get around. And we know that one of those kids is going to say, “Oh, your parents are getting a divorce”. And we will do damage control the best we can. This town is filled with divorces and second and third marriages, there’s just too much money here to stay together. Too much time to want more. But I never thought in a million years, even though sometimes I wanted it, that I would be one of them. They always seemed lost to me. Disoriented. Confused that what had happened, happened to them. And now I walk among them, not legally one of them, but I am one of them. We are vampires walking among the married, ashamed, yet not for being who we are, but for being out of place. Like we took a wrong turn and ended up staying in the wrong town for 20 years. All of a sudden, you, and they, realize, your not one of them, you are an outsider, a stranger, not to be trusted.
A pariah. An anomaly. Having just come from the Bronx Zoo recently I can now relate, even more than before, to the Apes behind the glass. Living in a created environment, a false one, indeed, it mocks them, look, here is a tree….enjoy! Some grass….see? You DO belong here! And those people staring at you day after day, just pretend they’re not there. I’m sure they don’t feel sorry for you Bongo, I’m sure they don’t know something you don’t know. Why would you think this is not the way it is supposed to be? Look, here’s some dirt. See? It’s all good, now shut up and act like a fucking cute little monkey. I saw their eyes; they know it’s a joke. My wife let me get a vasectomy THREE months before telling me she didn’t want to fuck me anymore. Don’t worry, she said, everyone says it’s not so bad. And I did it so we could have sex more without worrying about getting pregnant. That was the plan, our plan. So I cut my balls to try and save our sex life, and she said, “Look, here’s a nice house in a nice suburb, see? Now shut up and act like a husband, oh, and by the way, no more monkeying around for you.”
I’m out of the glass Bongo, but I’m lonely, and I wish you were here.
I have told my son I am staying in a “Club House” for a while, and that we will have lots of fun there. No problem. But he told a friend of his today at school and I’m sure it will get around. And we know that one of those kids is going to say, “Oh, your parents are getting a divorce”. And we will do damage control the best we can. This town is filled with divorces and second and third marriages, there’s just too much money here to stay together. Too much time to want more. But I never thought in a million years, even though sometimes I wanted it, that I would be one of them. They always seemed lost to me. Disoriented. Confused that what had happened, happened to them. And now I walk among them, not legally one of them, but I am one of them. We are vampires walking among the married, ashamed, yet not for being who we are, but for being out of place. Like we took a wrong turn and ended up staying in the wrong town for 20 years. All of a sudden, you, and they, realize, your not one of them, you are an outsider, a stranger, not to be trusted.
A pariah. An anomaly. Having just come from the Bronx Zoo recently I can now relate, even more than before, to the Apes behind the glass. Living in a created environment, a false one, indeed, it mocks them, look, here is a tree….enjoy! Some grass….see? You DO belong here! And those people staring at you day after day, just pretend they’re not there. I’m sure they don’t feel sorry for you Bongo, I’m sure they don’t know something you don’t know. Why would you think this is not the way it is supposed to be? Look, here’s some dirt. See? It’s all good, now shut up and act like a fucking cute little monkey. I saw their eyes; they know it’s a joke. My wife let me get a vasectomy THREE months before telling me she didn’t want to fuck me anymore. Don’t worry, she said, everyone says it’s not so bad. And I did it so we could have sex more without worrying about getting pregnant. That was the plan, our plan. So I cut my balls to try and save our sex life, and she said, “Look, here’s a nice house in a nice suburb, see? Now shut up and act like a husband, oh, and by the way, no more monkeying around for you.”
I’m out of the glass Bongo, but I’m lonely, and I wish you were here.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Cable Guise
Cable Guise
Got my cable installed today at casa de separate’. I’m lying there on my friends old King size bed (it has no sheets yet and my skin cringes as it touches the polyester surface, I thought you would want to know), The cable guy was there for about an hour or so and as he was leaving I had a strange instinct to ask him…”hey, what’s the rush, c’mon stay a while”. It hit me how lonely this has the potential to be. When I came home, or I guess I need to change the connotation of “home” now, when I came back to Old Greenwich to pick up my son from school, I got a call from my wife, asking how I was doing. I told her it was a bit strange and lonely, and she said she thought she would feel that when she occasionally stayed there. I then informed her she would never know this feeling, because she would be a guest there, like in a bed and breakfast, and in fact she would most probably love getting away from the kids once a week in a little cottage. Who wouldn’t? But it’s not like that for me; I’m gonna be fucking living there. So I have to wonder where this is really headed. I think they call it the best of both worlds. She gets to have me around when needed, or even wanted, but she doesn’t have to deal with all other bullshit in marriage, and I get that too, but she gets to STAY HOME. Throw in the added benefit of no sex which, as we all know, is easier for women, especially women who don’t love you anymore, or should I be more accurate, not IN love with you.
I remember the day that bomb was dropped. We were headed home from visiting friends in Sharon Connecticut, and I sensed something wrong with my passenger. I asked what was wrong and she said, as she always does, nothing. But that day there was something more. Something right at the surface. So I pushed. And boy it came up out of the water and kept going like a tactical nuke being launched from a Sub. She said she was not happy. And she wanted more. She wanted to feel passion again. Naturally, I asked, what 17 year marriage has passion? She said that didn’t matter and that it was what she needed. So I said, what are you saying? And then, the words came. I love you; I’m just not IN love with you.
Thus began the terrible campaign in the war against commitment.
Got my cable installed today at casa de separate’. I’m lying there on my friends old King size bed (it has no sheets yet and my skin cringes as it touches the polyester surface, I thought you would want to know), The cable guy was there for about an hour or so and as he was leaving I had a strange instinct to ask him…”hey, what’s the rush, c’mon stay a while”. It hit me how lonely this has the potential to be. When I came home, or I guess I need to change the connotation of “home” now, when I came back to Old Greenwich to pick up my son from school, I got a call from my wife, asking how I was doing. I told her it was a bit strange and lonely, and she said she thought she would feel that when she occasionally stayed there. I then informed her she would never know this feeling, because she would be a guest there, like in a bed and breakfast, and in fact she would most probably love getting away from the kids once a week in a little cottage. Who wouldn’t? But it’s not like that for me; I’m gonna be fucking living there. So I have to wonder where this is really headed. I think they call it the best of both worlds. She gets to have me around when needed, or even wanted, but she doesn’t have to deal with all other bullshit in marriage, and I get that too, but she gets to STAY HOME. Throw in the added benefit of no sex which, as we all know, is easier for women, especially women who don’t love you anymore, or should I be more accurate, not IN love with you.
I remember the day that bomb was dropped. We were headed home from visiting friends in Sharon Connecticut, and I sensed something wrong with my passenger. I asked what was wrong and she said, as she always does, nothing. But that day there was something more. Something right at the surface. So I pushed. And boy it came up out of the water and kept going like a tactical nuke being launched from a Sub. She said she was not happy. And she wanted more. She wanted to feel passion again. Naturally, I asked, what 17 year marriage has passion? She said that didn’t matter and that it was what she needed. So I said, what are you saying? And then, the words came. I love you; I’m just not IN love with you.
Thus began the terrible campaign in the war against commitment.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The Sockless Rich
The Sockless Rich
My wife and I made friends with a couple, the husband a decent well meaning man who perhaps pushes the threshold of parental discipline than I would like, and his bleach blonde slave to the treadmill social climbing counterpart. They don’t quite fit in, but they are desperate to. So we’ve been hanging out with them for the last year, and it has been nothing short of uncomfortable. But since we don’t fit in, we had something in common, or so we thought. Since my wife told her “friend” of our separation, she is understandably conflicted as to how to proceed. She has not returned my wife’s calls.
And I know why.
Married people see couples that separate become liberated in some way, they grow from the truth, and survive, and most importantly, thrive. The statistics prove me out. A stagnant marriage exists in the womb of denial. And unfortunately, no marriage is immune to stagnation; indeed, it is the nature of the beast. And make no mistake; marriage is a beast that will not stop until it has consumed truth. And so, the ones brave enough to sound the alarm, that there is indeed a fire, a fire ignited by contempt bred from familiarity and sustained by fear of change, and those couples who question the feasibility of marriage are pariahs , a threat to the status quo. Most who are married are unhappy, within the context of passion, change, growth, self renewal , and they all live in fear of admitting this, and when two married couples who related to each other in the fraud of marital bliss, and one of them jumps up out of the cocktail couch and shouts, No, there must be more! This truth becomes a virus, that is feared and reviled, and the couple that chooses the path of denial and mediocrity are terrified that this virus will infect them. Perhaps if a separation paid better and got us a table at L’Escale my wife would be worthy of support. But our separation and pursuit of personal growth and happiness threatens the robots, and so they make some beeping sounds, turn on their Jimmy Chow heels, and walk longingly towards the promise of more money, more house, a better blackberry , the new Audi , and an invitation to a proper country club where they can touch the hand of God, or, in their case, rub not elbows but ankles with the sockless rich.
My wife and I made friends with a couple, the husband a decent well meaning man who perhaps pushes the threshold of parental discipline than I would like, and his bleach blonde slave to the treadmill social climbing counterpart. They don’t quite fit in, but they are desperate to. So we’ve been hanging out with them for the last year, and it has been nothing short of uncomfortable. But since we don’t fit in, we had something in common, or so we thought. Since my wife told her “friend” of our separation, she is understandably conflicted as to how to proceed. She has not returned my wife’s calls.
And I know why.
Married people see couples that separate become liberated in some way, they grow from the truth, and survive, and most importantly, thrive. The statistics prove me out. A stagnant marriage exists in the womb of denial. And unfortunately, no marriage is immune to stagnation; indeed, it is the nature of the beast. And make no mistake; marriage is a beast that will not stop until it has consumed truth. And so, the ones brave enough to sound the alarm, that there is indeed a fire, a fire ignited by contempt bred from familiarity and sustained by fear of change, and those couples who question the feasibility of marriage are pariahs , a threat to the status quo. Most who are married are unhappy, within the context of passion, change, growth, self renewal , and they all live in fear of admitting this, and when two married couples who related to each other in the fraud of marital bliss, and one of them jumps up out of the cocktail couch and shouts, No, there must be more! This truth becomes a virus, that is feared and reviled, and the couple that chooses the path of denial and mediocrity are terrified that this virus will infect them. Perhaps if a separation paid better and got us a table at L’Escale my wife would be worthy of support. But our separation and pursuit of personal growth and happiness threatens the robots, and so they make some beeping sounds, turn on their Jimmy Chow heels, and walk longingly towards the promise of more money, more house, a better blackberry , the new Audi , and an invitation to a proper country club where they can touch the hand of God, or, in their case, rub not elbows but ankles with the sockless rich.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
The lease I can do
It’s The Lease I Can Do
I woke up to sign the lease to rent a house for me to live in day. An auspicious day to say the least. My family will stay in Old Greenwich, which has become the lair of the rich hedge fund robots, the house my father built and the house I grew up in. Now, or should I say up to now, I was raising my son and daughter in the house my father raised his son and daughter in. Now I must move to a stranger’s house, a couple of exits away on I95. For the first time since I can remember, I will be completely alone. I hope I don’t kill anybody. I will still see my children, almost every day, as my production studio (I am in the music business, such as it has deteriorated into), and my studio is on the same property as my home. I mean her home. Their home. My father’s house. He built it from a kit from Sears, back in the forties, I think for about fourteen thousand, we “fixed it up” with borrowed money and it is now worth about two million. We’re in a very nice little area in New England, called Old Greenwich, although perhaps it should be called New Whitewich, because of the void, the perfect dearth of ethnic diversity. This is a hedge fund paradise. It’s where the white, and khaki, strive and thrive. I have socialized with many of these subjects, been forced to, because of my sons school related events. These are “men” that are shockingly devoid of personality, humor and light. This is a town, and we’ve all heard the cliché about epicurean Connecticut towns, but this is a town which whole heartedly deserves its reputation. This soulless “more is more” mentality has been cultivated to an art form. The tear downs, the Macmansions as they are called, the BMW’s, the convertible Lotus, the five hundred dollar loafers WITHOUT SOCKS, the combed side part, the bleach blonde bleached toothed fake tan fake breasts tennis playing social climbing “women”, who have no substance whatsoever, but believe that they are the cream of the crop, a crop I would consider rotten, this is the place I leave behind. The only problem is that my children are here, and I feel like I am feeding them to the lions, but the lions are wearing pink polo shirts, with the collar starched and raised, like a flag from a country of lost souls, and they wave the flag, and shout “I hate myself but money makes me good, my wife is a robot and I have lost all sense of what really makes a man, and I wear our uniform, which lets the others of my ilk easily identify me, because if I don’t fit in, than I am a gypsy, a pariah, a threat to the collective, and I for one, do not have the stomach to be Locutus.”
I woke up to sign the lease to rent a house for me to live in day. An auspicious day to say the least. My family will stay in Old Greenwich, which has become the lair of the rich hedge fund robots, the house my father built and the house I grew up in. Now, or should I say up to now, I was raising my son and daughter in the house my father raised his son and daughter in. Now I must move to a stranger’s house, a couple of exits away on I95. For the first time since I can remember, I will be completely alone. I hope I don’t kill anybody. I will still see my children, almost every day, as my production studio (I am in the music business, such as it has deteriorated into), and my studio is on the same property as my home. I mean her home. Their home. My father’s house. He built it from a kit from Sears, back in the forties, I think for about fourteen thousand, we “fixed it up” with borrowed money and it is now worth about two million. We’re in a very nice little area in New England, called Old Greenwich, although perhaps it should be called New Whitewich, because of the void, the perfect dearth of ethnic diversity. This is a hedge fund paradise. It’s where the white, and khaki, strive and thrive. I have socialized with many of these subjects, been forced to, because of my sons school related events. These are “men” that are shockingly devoid of personality, humor and light. This is a town, and we’ve all heard the cliché about epicurean Connecticut towns, but this is a town which whole heartedly deserves its reputation. This soulless “more is more” mentality has been cultivated to an art form. The tear downs, the Macmansions as they are called, the BMW’s, the convertible Lotus, the five hundred dollar loafers WITHOUT SOCKS, the combed side part, the bleach blonde bleached toothed fake tan fake breasts tennis playing social climbing “women”, who have no substance whatsoever, but believe that they are the cream of the crop, a crop I would consider rotten, this is the place I leave behind. The only problem is that my children are here, and I feel like I am feeding them to the lions, but the lions are wearing pink polo shirts, with the collar starched and raised, like a flag from a country of lost souls, and they wave the flag, and shout “I hate myself but money makes me good, my wife is a robot and I have lost all sense of what really makes a man, and I wear our uniform, which lets the others of my ilk easily identify me, because if I don’t fit in, than I am a gypsy, a pariah, a threat to the collective, and I for one, do not have the stomach to be Locutus.”
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Resurrection and Frogs
Resurrection?
My wife is a child of an alcoholic. Her mother would drink herself into a coma for months at a time. She was only ten when it started, and it never abated. Her dad couldn’t handle it and split. Till death do them part? He eventually drove himself into a ditch, spilled his brains all over the steering wheel, and she got a new liver paid for in cash and is now drinking it to death too.
But ironically that isn’t what is killing my wife’s mother; it’s the doomed dream of her dead husband no longer loving her. But he stopped loving her long before he was dead. But she was dead long before he stopped loving her.
So my wife has some issues.
I married her to save her. She needed to be healed, and in some way I did. And then I abandoned her just like her mother and father. I stopped adoring her, and it was too familiar a death for her to bear. So we died, but now, we know we died, and we’re no Jesus Christ, but we might just not be breathing, and if we’ve already buried the corpses, but they’re not really dead, then I wanna exhume us.
I want to kiss her one more time, and I want her forgiveness. And I want her to know that I am not her mother and I am not her father, and that I love her. Such as I am, I love her.
And then, when I let myself feel things of that ilk, it hits. Remember, she doesn’t love me.
Frogs
This is what I do best, gravitate to the sadness, because sadness is very strong, and of all of the feelings a creeping, crawling, grabbing, flailing, stabbing in air, shit to the fan throwing idiot can have, sadness is the best for art. And so if sadness is what I inadvertently choose, then what chance do I have for happiness? I don’t think I like it. It’s trite, and if you find happiness, and try to hold on to it, it will, there can be no doubt, die. Like keeping a frog in some little plexiglass series of chambers. I liken the frog and it’s false habitat to a relationship, eventually outgrowing the chambers, but not able to admit it, because of the fear of what might await them outside the plastic prison, and so accept it, and give up, and ultimately live for the sad little frog food that comes to them at the whim of the plastic tube God, or, the creator, whoever that is, whoever it is that has made us so afraid to leave our tubes and chambers, lined with little algae ridden pebbles and fetid cloudy water, our jobs our yards, and our lives, the only environment we ever knew, our homes, our marriages, our little prisons.
And so we wait for frog food. But it can’t compare to flies, grabbed in midair with free tongues. Do frogs get tired? Tired of trying to escape? Does one ever get tired of hoping things will get better? I’m tired. Sleeping dead tired.
My wife is a child of an alcoholic. Her mother would drink herself into a coma for months at a time. She was only ten when it started, and it never abated. Her dad couldn’t handle it and split. Till death do them part? He eventually drove himself into a ditch, spilled his brains all over the steering wheel, and she got a new liver paid for in cash and is now drinking it to death too.
But ironically that isn’t what is killing my wife’s mother; it’s the doomed dream of her dead husband no longer loving her. But he stopped loving her long before he was dead. But she was dead long before he stopped loving her.
So my wife has some issues.
I married her to save her. She needed to be healed, and in some way I did. And then I abandoned her just like her mother and father. I stopped adoring her, and it was too familiar a death for her to bear. So we died, but now, we know we died, and we’re no Jesus Christ, but we might just not be breathing, and if we’ve already buried the corpses, but they’re not really dead, then I wanna exhume us.
I want to kiss her one more time, and I want her forgiveness. And I want her to know that I am not her mother and I am not her father, and that I love her. Such as I am, I love her.
And then, when I let myself feel things of that ilk, it hits. Remember, she doesn’t love me.
Frogs
This is what I do best, gravitate to the sadness, because sadness is very strong, and of all of the feelings a creeping, crawling, grabbing, flailing, stabbing in air, shit to the fan throwing idiot can have, sadness is the best for art. And so if sadness is what I inadvertently choose, then what chance do I have for happiness? I don’t think I like it. It’s trite, and if you find happiness, and try to hold on to it, it will, there can be no doubt, die. Like keeping a frog in some little plexiglass series of chambers. I liken the frog and it’s false habitat to a relationship, eventually outgrowing the chambers, but not able to admit it, because of the fear of what might await them outside the plastic prison, and so accept it, and give up, and ultimately live for the sad little frog food that comes to them at the whim of the plastic tube God, or, the creator, whoever that is, whoever it is that has made us so afraid to leave our tubes and chambers, lined with little algae ridden pebbles and fetid cloudy water, our jobs our yards, and our lives, the only environment we ever knew, our homes, our marriages, our little prisons.
And so we wait for frog food. But it can’t compare to flies, grabbed in midair with free tongues. Do frogs get tired? Tired of trying to escape? Does one ever get tired of hoping things will get better? I’m tired. Sleeping dead tired.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
the mirror is the window
if you can't live in the moment, you can't live.
so many mistakes, or so you think...but they're not mistakes, they are lessons, constant.
litmus tests.
i could, we could, all of us, second guess, but that's the ruse, that's the challenge. I may have burned plastic in the fireplace tonight which is not the best of head gas experiences but it was a small christmas tree with a plastic base and wow does my house smell not great...and but hello motrin.
every single experience is an opportunity to reset re-ask re-think.
nothing is a mistake.
how do you like them apples?
no mistakes, none.
everything is what you need it to be.
your bitterness is your mirror. or i should say the mirror is your window.
there is said it.
the mirror is the window.
so many mistakes, or so you think...but they're not mistakes, they are lessons, constant.
litmus tests.
i could, we could, all of us, second guess, but that's the ruse, that's the challenge. I may have burned plastic in the fireplace tonight which is not the best of head gas experiences but it was a small christmas tree with a plastic base and wow does my house smell not great...and but hello motrin.
every single experience is an opportunity to reset re-ask re-think.
nothing is a mistake.
how do you like them apples?
no mistakes, none.
everything is what you need it to be.
your bitterness is your mirror. or i should say the mirror is your window.
there is said it.
the mirror is the window.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Initial Separation
I’m holed up in my studio. I’m a music producer and I built a post production suite over my garage. Normally at this hour I would be watching TV. But I don’t watch TV anymore. I used to watch so much, and each night was in part about what I would watch that night. And I would sit and drink and watch them. I could never get used to how soon 11pm came. Because then, nothing was on, and then I was chasing the dragon, anything but going to the marriage bed, that abyss of unrequited emotion.
And eventually, drunk and relatively painless, I had to go to bed where she lay, asleep, yet palpably resentful of a man who could not provide for her. Now, I realize that I did not provide for her in ways it never occurred to me to do so. Or her for me. Even in sleep, I felt the cold coming off her. That bed was like a coffin, without the peace. A prison, without ever really being convicted. No official verdict, but the sentence was life nonetheless. I guess the jury finally walked in now though. Not guilty, by reason of an insanity born of and cultivated by ennui.
She says she wants me to try and find someone else, and she is convinced she is not the love of my life. I don’t know if she is right, how could I? Love of your life? I would settle for love of my day.
So we are separated. And trying to put on a good face for our two children. The real loves of my life. And every moment feels alternatively like ascension and demise. But mostly, demise.
I’m holed up in my studio. I’m a music producer and I built a post production suite over my garage. Normally at this hour I would be watching TV. But I don’t watch TV anymore. I used to watch so much, and each night was in part about what I would watch that night. And I would sit and drink and watch them. I could never get used to how soon 11pm came. Because then, nothing was on, and then I was chasing the dragon, anything but going to the marriage bed, that abyss of unrequited emotion.
And eventually, drunk and relatively painless, I had to go to bed where she lay, asleep, yet palpably resentful of a man who could not provide for her. Now, I realize that I did not provide for her in ways it never occurred to me to do so. Or her for me. Even in sleep, I felt the cold coming off her. That bed was like a coffin, without the peace. A prison, without ever really being convicted. No official verdict, but the sentence was life nonetheless. I guess the jury finally walked in now though. Not guilty, by reason of an insanity born of and cultivated by ennui.
She says she wants me to try and find someone else, and she is convinced she is not the love of my life. I don’t know if she is right, how could I? Love of your life? I would settle for love of my day.
So we are separated. And trying to put on a good face for our two children. The real loves of my life. And every moment feels alternatively like ascension and demise. But mostly, demise.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Troublesome Truck
I’m a troublesome truck, you’ve done nothing wrong Thomas, you’re still a very useful
engine, but I was born with furrowed brow, and the need to run you off the tracks, and
may be, you needed all along, to be derailed and forced off, by the likes of me, off your
safe, shiny, go nowhere rails. I’ll see you at the quarry, I mean no harm. I have to
somehow let you go now, you pull away, I’ll push. I’ll look into your beautiful green
eyes that once adored me, and stay with you, in your eyes, as you steam away.
The Sadness Calendar
Some days are earmarked for sadness. It seems to me there is some schedule I am unaware of that dictates what will be a good day and what will be a terrible day. I think there must be some cosmic schedule. I don’t want to see it though, would you? It would include the day the love died, the day you found out you had breast cancer or the day you realized your parents were closing in on death. The calendar of the future, if you could glance at it, would have a date on it when you watched you aging father hobble to a chair and ask for his scotch refilled for hours on end. Unending hours. There would be a date and time on this calendar that you first realized your mother more closely resembles your grandmother, an aging decaying relic, holding on, because of a non existent alternative, and she is confused and tired. Most disturbingly however is watching her in servitude to a more immediate victim; her time ravaged betrothed. My father, the icon, literally fading away before my eyes. Shrinking, drinking and waiting. Playing out his hand. Playing the cards he was dealt? No, I think not. HE did not choose wisely. He gave up too soon. He waited to see what was around the corner instead of choosing which corner he wanted to turn. I love him, I love my father, I love my mother, but I can’t repeat them, I can’t be like them. They sit, and commiserate, and go over the days events. What events? They drink Cutty Sark of all things by the fucking gallon and talk about I can’t imaging what.
I can’t be like them, or like the old me for that matter. I am a reeling vessel in space with no connection whatsoever to what or where I’m supposed to be. I am Major Tom, lost in space. I’m the chimp stabbing at a short circuited control panel. I’m waiting out my air supply in my strapping white and orange space suit, running out of O2, running out of answers, running out of the will to live. Let me go gracefully though, not like the elderly, not like the common folk, not like a shadow with a bottle of air, a plastic mask on my face, a diaper on my torso, iron wheels with rubber tires and a colostomy bag like a spoiler in the back. Let me lead me not to the fiscally prudent brown tinted macaroni and cheese in the cafeteria of the assisted living half way house to inevitability. Save me Jesus? I wish. Save me me.
But how?
How?
I’m a troublesome truck, you’ve done nothing wrong Thomas, you’re still a very useful
engine, but I was born with furrowed brow, and the need to run you off the tracks, and
may be, you needed all along, to be derailed and forced off, by the likes of me, off your
safe, shiny, go nowhere rails. I’ll see you at the quarry, I mean no harm. I have to
somehow let you go now, you pull away, I’ll push. I’ll look into your beautiful green
eyes that once adored me, and stay with you, in your eyes, as you steam away.
The Sadness Calendar
Some days are earmarked for sadness. It seems to me there is some schedule I am unaware of that dictates what will be a good day and what will be a terrible day. I think there must be some cosmic schedule. I don’t want to see it though, would you? It would include the day the love died, the day you found out you had breast cancer or the day you realized your parents were closing in on death. The calendar of the future, if you could glance at it, would have a date on it when you watched you aging father hobble to a chair and ask for his scotch refilled for hours on end. Unending hours. There would be a date and time on this calendar that you first realized your mother more closely resembles your grandmother, an aging decaying relic, holding on, because of a non existent alternative, and she is confused and tired. Most disturbingly however is watching her in servitude to a more immediate victim; her time ravaged betrothed. My father, the icon, literally fading away before my eyes. Shrinking, drinking and waiting. Playing out his hand. Playing the cards he was dealt? No, I think not. HE did not choose wisely. He gave up too soon. He waited to see what was around the corner instead of choosing which corner he wanted to turn. I love him, I love my father, I love my mother, but I can’t repeat them, I can’t be like them. They sit, and commiserate, and go over the days events. What events? They drink Cutty Sark of all things by the fucking gallon and talk about I can’t imaging what.
I can’t be like them, or like the old me for that matter. I am a reeling vessel in space with no connection whatsoever to what or where I’m supposed to be. I am Major Tom, lost in space. I’m the chimp stabbing at a short circuited control panel. I’m waiting out my air supply in my strapping white and orange space suit, running out of O2, running out of answers, running out of the will to live. Let me go gracefully though, not like the elderly, not like the common folk, not like a shadow with a bottle of air, a plastic mask on my face, a diaper on my torso, iron wheels with rubber tires and a colostomy bag like a spoiler in the back. Let me lead me not to the fiscally prudent brown tinted macaroni and cheese in the cafeteria of the assisted living half way house to inevitability. Save me Jesus? I wish. Save me me.
But how?
How?
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Q20
I had some idle time in my little doll house here in Chick. Self induced. I forced myself to stop thinking for a little bit. I drank a couple of Corona lights, and was in the bathroom pissing, and as I stood pissing into the clean white porcelain bowl, I was eye level with a device my son had left here; it’s called the Q20.
It is a small red orb that fits in the palm of your hand.
It is essentially a modern day equivalent of the magic 8 ball. It’s electronic; it in theory will guess a thought in your head within twenty questions. Guess what? It’s right 90% of the time.
It has guessed snot, grass, vomit, a giraffe, cement, the sky, an arm, a hand, a corpse.
So I, on my “break” from “thinking”, I asked it to guess something.
It starts, on its digital display, by asking:
Animal, vegetable, mineral, or other?
I put other.
Is it flat? I put no.
Is it hard? I put sometimes.
Could it be found in a classroom? I put yes.
Can you play with it? I could go on and on about this, but I put no.
Can you put something into it? No.
Does it use electricity? I struggled, but entered no.
Is it found in a desk? No.
Does it shine? Oh yes, it shines.
Does it come in a box? Women seem to think so, but I put no.
Do you hold it when you use it? I have to say no. But I have.
Is it smaller than a loaf of bread? Not applicable, so no.
Is it manufactured? Well, you certainly have me there. But I will have to say no.
Is it heavier than a pound of butter? Again, N.A. no.
Is it something you bring along? I must say, sometimes.
Do you use it at work? Use it? No.
Is it small? Absolutely not.
Is it usually visible? Oh yes.
Would you use it daily? Would I? You mean do I? Oddly put, so no.
Does it bring joy to people? Yes with a capital Y.
Then its 20 questions are up and it takes its guess.
Is it a rainbow?
Sadly, how close you are my little plastic friend but no.
Then it asks:
May I have five more guesses?
Of course, go ahead.
Is it heavy? Let’s not over think, so no.
Does it live outside? Way off, no. It’s not going to get it.
Can you find it in a church? Uh Oh, shit, what the fuck? Yes.
Do most people use this daily? Yes, yes they do.
And then the last question stopped me in my tracks.
Can it bend without breaking?
Oh fuck. What the fuck. What the fucking fuck. Of course it can, it’s what it does, it’s what makes it what it is that is nothing else, and so I answered, yes.
And then it asked me, this little plastic thing, it’s LED blinking and struggling to complete its task from a lack of battery power, it asked me;
Is it love?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
It got it. Fucking love.
And then a funny thing happened, it broke. It made a weird high pitched squealing sound and I couldn’t stop it so I had to put it outside in the pouring rain. Sorry.
It blew up. I’m not making this up. It short circuited. Most assuredly a silly coincidence, but you know, still.
My little funny plastic red orb. I didn’t mean to break you.
But then, love broke me too.
I had some idle time in my little doll house here in Chick. Self induced. I forced myself to stop thinking for a little bit. I drank a couple of Corona lights, and was in the bathroom pissing, and as I stood pissing into the clean white porcelain bowl, I was eye level with a device my son had left here; it’s called the Q20.
It is a small red orb that fits in the palm of your hand.
It is essentially a modern day equivalent of the magic 8 ball. It’s electronic; it in theory will guess a thought in your head within twenty questions. Guess what? It’s right 90% of the time.
It has guessed snot, grass, vomit, a giraffe, cement, the sky, an arm, a hand, a corpse.
So I, on my “break” from “thinking”, I asked it to guess something.
It starts, on its digital display, by asking:
Animal, vegetable, mineral, or other?
I put other.
Is it flat? I put no.
Is it hard? I put sometimes.
Could it be found in a classroom? I put yes.
Can you play with it? I could go on and on about this, but I put no.
Can you put something into it? No.
Does it use electricity? I struggled, but entered no.
Is it found in a desk? No.
Does it shine? Oh yes, it shines.
Does it come in a box? Women seem to think so, but I put no.
Do you hold it when you use it? I have to say no. But I have.
Is it smaller than a loaf of bread? Not applicable, so no.
Is it manufactured? Well, you certainly have me there. But I will have to say no.
Is it heavier than a pound of butter? Again, N.A. no.
Is it something you bring along? I must say, sometimes.
Do you use it at work? Use it? No.
Is it small? Absolutely not.
Is it usually visible? Oh yes.
Would you use it daily? Would I? You mean do I? Oddly put, so no.
Does it bring joy to people? Yes with a capital Y.
Then its 20 questions are up and it takes its guess.
Is it a rainbow?
Sadly, how close you are my little plastic friend but no.
Then it asks:
May I have five more guesses?
Of course, go ahead.
Is it heavy? Let’s not over think, so no.
Does it live outside? Way off, no. It’s not going to get it.
Can you find it in a church? Uh Oh, shit, what the fuck? Yes.
Do most people use this daily? Yes, yes they do.
And then the last question stopped me in my tracks.
Can it bend without breaking?
Oh fuck. What the fuck. What the fucking fuck. Of course it can, it’s what it does, it’s what makes it what it is that is nothing else, and so I answered, yes.
And then it asked me, this little plastic thing, it’s LED blinking and struggling to complete its task from a lack of battery power, it asked me;
Is it love?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
It got it. Fucking love.
And then a funny thing happened, it broke. It made a weird high pitched squealing sound and I couldn’t stop it so I had to put it outside in the pouring rain. Sorry.
It blew up. I’m not making this up. It short circuited. Most assuredly a silly coincidence, but you know, still.
My little funny plastic red orb. I didn’t mean to break you.
But then, love broke me too.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Chickawho?
Today I brought my daughter for a visit to the house on View Street in Chickahominy, the badlands. I was supposed to work today but our twice a week nanny called in sick.
My wife as I had said works in the music business also, and she is contracting, which means running the orchestra, which means hiring each player, making sure they show up and calling the breaks and such, (very union), for a new Broadway show musical cast album. So I had my daughter today because there was NO SCHOOL again due to TEACHER CONFERENCES and we went to the other house on the other side of the tracks to lay out a new carpet and hack around. She, and my son, love this house, it has a beautiful vibe. It has a lawn jockey in the front but they painted the face white, the victim of political correctness. He must feel like a fraud, not himself, but I keep rubbing him in the hopes I will eventually rub him back to his self. We call him Buddy, and with each symbiotic stroke I feel he gives me luck in return.
The first thing I did upon entering the abode of dissolution was to go down to the basement and bring my daughters plastic horse up to the little playroom. The same plastic horse I felt so terrible about relegating to the basement days ago. It felt so good to rescue the little fella. These are the little things that make this separation, hardly a word deserving of what is happening to me, these are the things, like rescuing a plastic rocking horse with rusting springs and peeling paint but somehow expressive little plastic painted eyes, these are the things that make me whole. Because I paid attention to my instincts for once in twenty years. I didn’t balk at the idea that it would make any difference at all where this inanimate object would reside. But it makes ALL the difference in the world if I believe it does, and I believe it does.
So he is rescued, and my daughter feels this somehow. We have evolved into disbelievers, into a society that truly believes in nothing, holds nothing accountable, nothing above ourselves, nothing above what we make, what we drive, where we eat, and who we lie to, including ourselves. But I think listening and following some kind of inner voice is the path to quote unquote God. I don’t believe in any ridiculous religion whatsoever, but I do believe in something. Because of and perhaps only because of, the path I had chosen of denying the possibility of finding some sort of connection with the “universe” has been such an abysmal failure for me. This lack of faith has failed for all of us. Our reaction (and mine today as I lunched with Josie at McDonalds), should be one of horror at the waste we are creating, the slaughter of innocent beings, and I love meat, but not at this level. All these little experiences should bring us closer to betterment, not status quoism not more of this, but much, much less. And marriage is not helping this problem. It feeds the insatiable appetite of the dark lord of establishmentarianism and khakis. We are being Entertainment Tonightified, and we are ignoring everything horrible going on in this magnificent world in favor of conformance. I was watching a baseball practice for my sons’ team this afternoon, and I brought a beer. A delicious Corona Light. An interesting phenomenon occurred. The other men, other than the coaches, were dressed in the uniform of moneymaking, not even in different hues of the same theme mind you, there is only the light blue oxford, the dark slacks, and the loafers adorned vindictively it seems to me, with tassels. These men looked at me, in a tee shirt and jeans, enjoying a refreshing and utterly satisfying bevy in a bottle, with some combination of horror and distain. Hadn’t I heard you only drink on the Stamford local in the bar car on the way home? You don’t bring it home, you come here and you get back in line buddy. You get back in character. This is Old Greenwich, and we don’t drink beer at the ballpark. Who are you? What firm are you with? This does not compute. How can YOU be here in a town in which the average cost of shack is two and a half million dollars?
And then there was the reaction from the wives. Because of the apocalypse of my marriage I have been obsessively going to the gym and have also achieved soul wrecked weight loss, and I look as good as I ever have, better in fact, but now, there’s a mojo going on, and it wasn’t there before. Because I stopped caring what these people think of me. Sweet freedom, thy name is change. I was watching my son, but my friend Vinny was watching the women. He pulled me aside and whispered for me to glance over at them occasionally, and I saw it. I am finally a bad boy again. I have come home. I don’t belong, and now I don’t care.
The Institution
I had my son for a sleep over at the billet de disjuncture last night. We had another perfectly awesome time. We watched Jackass Number Two with Johnny Knoxville and laughed our asses off. At one point I felt like asking him if he wanted a beer, I really felt like I was hanging out with my friend, what a feeling. I took him home to Moneyville and decided to take him and my daughter for the day. We went to Wendy’s, where my neighbor here in Chickahominy works and we got free frosty’s. It just doesn’t get better than that my friends. Then an old friend took us all out sailing and we froze our balls off, but had a great time. I didn’t think about my wife very much, other than to wonder if she was feeling what it would really be like if I was permanently gone and we started joint custody. Which of course, is a distinct possibility. Now I am back here wondering what has become of my life. My wife must think, for some inexplicable reason, given all the evidence to the contrary, that you are some prize I can’t afford. You don’t want me? You are so desirable because why? You deserve my obsession because you….what again? I forgot. You are so sexy because, wait, I forgot, why? I’m not desirable because why? I fucking forgot. I want you because wait, I forgot, why? And you, don’t want me anymore because why? I fucking forgot. You know what? Are you kidding me? I don’t have someone who wants me yet, and until then, this will be harder for me than you. But come the day, when someone loves me not in a complicated way, not in the twenty years of bullshit way, but for what I am, it will be a good day.
I have never in my life let a woman or a man get the better of me, and now, at what seems to me to be the end of my life, am not going to start.
Mae West once said “marriage is a great institution; I’m just not ready for an institution yet”. Could it be that at the inception of marriage it was a good idea because two thousand years ago when marriage was “invented” in the traditional Christian sense, people only lived until they were twenty five?
Now we live to seventy five, and the marriage has to endure many more years than when it was first introduced. Today my son asked my estranged wife when Daddy was going to be moving back. This is a first. He has to this point expressed only pleasure at my occupancy at the End of the line Motel. But now he is getting hip to the reality. My wife told me about this conversation I was not privy to and sold it to me with a positive twist. “I think you just need to put him to bed more, otherwise, I think he’s fine”. She is now buying the crap she is selling. Any good dealer knows you don’t do your own product. The truth is, and I know it is, is that he is starting to feel the burn. And there is no Clinton like spin control that can clean this thing up and make it go away. Eventually, this man needs to be told the truth. What’s that you say? What is the truth? I‘d be happy to tell you. We’ll almost certainly never live together again because mommy and daddy are not IN love with each other any more. My wife walks around in a happy fog, enjoying the best parts of this separation, well, I think we’re about to hit a serious pot hole. I think she thinks she’s driving a hummer, equipped with stabilizer control, side curtain air bags, and a roll bar. But we’re in a broken down Honda Civic we bought from a drunken preacher from Atlanta, giving us the marital benediction while stinking profusely of Wild Turkey. This thing is gonna hit this pothole and the axle is gonna break like a thin twig in January underneath a fat red neck’s hunting boot. We’ll keep driving, but eventually, I hope, she will notice the old jalopy is on fire, and we had better egress, my love, for we will burn inside this vehicle forged from bad workmanship and delusion. Buy American! Get married! Die! Everything is fine, the kids are fine, this is a period of growth! Yay! Well, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust, a worm needs to die before he gives his body to become soil. So how much of this marriage is the dying worm, the cycle of life? How much of this new awareness will be born from death? And what exactly will die to give life? I fear, my friends, that you don’t get something for nothing, I just have to make sure that the life cycle isn’t going to take my children’s confidence to exact payment for our adult “growth cycle”. And I seem to be the only one starting to wonder if this gamble with their little souls is worth the price of the admission to enlightenment. I’m pretty good at poker, but then again, that’s largely due to my ability to bluff.
Today I brought my daughter for a visit to the house on View Street in Chickahominy, the badlands. I was supposed to work today but our twice a week nanny called in sick.
My wife as I had said works in the music business also, and she is contracting, which means running the orchestra, which means hiring each player, making sure they show up and calling the breaks and such, (very union), for a new Broadway show musical cast album. So I had my daughter today because there was NO SCHOOL again due to TEACHER CONFERENCES and we went to the other house on the other side of the tracks to lay out a new carpet and hack around. She, and my son, love this house, it has a beautiful vibe. It has a lawn jockey in the front but they painted the face white, the victim of political correctness. He must feel like a fraud, not himself, but I keep rubbing him in the hopes I will eventually rub him back to his self. We call him Buddy, and with each symbiotic stroke I feel he gives me luck in return.
The first thing I did upon entering the abode of dissolution was to go down to the basement and bring my daughters plastic horse up to the little playroom. The same plastic horse I felt so terrible about relegating to the basement days ago. It felt so good to rescue the little fella. These are the little things that make this separation, hardly a word deserving of what is happening to me, these are the things, like rescuing a plastic rocking horse with rusting springs and peeling paint but somehow expressive little plastic painted eyes, these are the things that make me whole. Because I paid attention to my instincts for once in twenty years. I didn’t balk at the idea that it would make any difference at all where this inanimate object would reside. But it makes ALL the difference in the world if I believe it does, and I believe it does.
So he is rescued, and my daughter feels this somehow. We have evolved into disbelievers, into a society that truly believes in nothing, holds nothing accountable, nothing above ourselves, nothing above what we make, what we drive, where we eat, and who we lie to, including ourselves. But I think listening and following some kind of inner voice is the path to quote unquote God. I don’t believe in any ridiculous religion whatsoever, but I do believe in something. Because of and perhaps only because of, the path I had chosen of denying the possibility of finding some sort of connection with the “universe” has been such an abysmal failure for me. This lack of faith has failed for all of us. Our reaction (and mine today as I lunched with Josie at McDonalds), should be one of horror at the waste we are creating, the slaughter of innocent beings, and I love meat, but not at this level. All these little experiences should bring us closer to betterment, not status quoism not more of this, but much, much less. And marriage is not helping this problem. It feeds the insatiable appetite of the dark lord of establishmentarianism and khakis. We are being Entertainment Tonightified, and we are ignoring everything horrible going on in this magnificent world in favor of conformance. I was watching a baseball practice for my sons’ team this afternoon, and I brought a beer. A delicious Corona Light. An interesting phenomenon occurred. The other men, other than the coaches, were dressed in the uniform of moneymaking, not even in different hues of the same theme mind you, there is only the light blue oxford, the dark slacks, and the loafers adorned vindictively it seems to me, with tassels. These men looked at me, in a tee shirt and jeans, enjoying a refreshing and utterly satisfying bevy in a bottle, with some combination of horror and distain. Hadn’t I heard you only drink on the Stamford local in the bar car on the way home? You don’t bring it home, you come here and you get back in line buddy. You get back in character. This is Old Greenwich, and we don’t drink beer at the ballpark. Who are you? What firm are you with? This does not compute. How can YOU be here in a town in which the average cost of shack is two and a half million dollars?
And then there was the reaction from the wives. Because of the apocalypse of my marriage I have been obsessively going to the gym and have also achieved soul wrecked weight loss, and I look as good as I ever have, better in fact, but now, there’s a mojo going on, and it wasn’t there before. Because I stopped caring what these people think of me. Sweet freedom, thy name is change. I was watching my son, but my friend Vinny was watching the women. He pulled me aside and whispered for me to glance over at them occasionally, and I saw it. I am finally a bad boy again. I have come home. I don’t belong, and now I don’t care.
The Institution
I had my son for a sleep over at the billet de disjuncture last night. We had another perfectly awesome time. We watched Jackass Number Two with Johnny Knoxville and laughed our asses off. At one point I felt like asking him if he wanted a beer, I really felt like I was hanging out with my friend, what a feeling. I took him home to Moneyville and decided to take him and my daughter for the day. We went to Wendy’s, where my neighbor here in Chickahominy works and we got free frosty’s. It just doesn’t get better than that my friends. Then an old friend took us all out sailing and we froze our balls off, but had a great time. I didn’t think about my wife very much, other than to wonder if she was feeling what it would really be like if I was permanently gone and we started joint custody. Which of course, is a distinct possibility. Now I am back here wondering what has become of my life. My wife must think, for some inexplicable reason, given all the evidence to the contrary, that you are some prize I can’t afford. You don’t want me? You are so desirable because why? You deserve my obsession because you….what again? I forgot. You are so sexy because, wait, I forgot, why? I’m not desirable because why? I fucking forgot. I want you because wait, I forgot, why? And you, don’t want me anymore because why? I fucking forgot. You know what? Are you kidding me? I don’t have someone who wants me yet, and until then, this will be harder for me than you. But come the day, when someone loves me not in a complicated way, not in the twenty years of bullshit way, but for what I am, it will be a good day.
I have never in my life let a woman or a man get the better of me, and now, at what seems to me to be the end of my life, am not going to start.
Mae West once said “marriage is a great institution; I’m just not ready for an institution yet”. Could it be that at the inception of marriage it was a good idea because two thousand years ago when marriage was “invented” in the traditional Christian sense, people only lived until they were twenty five?
Now we live to seventy five, and the marriage has to endure many more years than when it was first introduced. Today my son asked my estranged wife when Daddy was going to be moving back. This is a first. He has to this point expressed only pleasure at my occupancy at the End of the line Motel. But now he is getting hip to the reality. My wife told me about this conversation I was not privy to and sold it to me with a positive twist. “I think you just need to put him to bed more, otherwise, I think he’s fine”. She is now buying the crap she is selling. Any good dealer knows you don’t do your own product. The truth is, and I know it is, is that he is starting to feel the burn. And there is no Clinton like spin control that can clean this thing up and make it go away. Eventually, this man needs to be told the truth. What’s that you say? What is the truth? I‘d be happy to tell you. We’ll almost certainly never live together again because mommy and daddy are not IN love with each other any more. My wife walks around in a happy fog, enjoying the best parts of this separation, well, I think we’re about to hit a serious pot hole. I think she thinks she’s driving a hummer, equipped with stabilizer control, side curtain air bags, and a roll bar. But we’re in a broken down Honda Civic we bought from a drunken preacher from Atlanta, giving us the marital benediction while stinking profusely of Wild Turkey. This thing is gonna hit this pothole and the axle is gonna break like a thin twig in January underneath a fat red neck’s hunting boot. We’ll keep driving, but eventually, I hope, she will notice the old jalopy is on fire, and we had better egress, my love, for we will burn inside this vehicle forged from bad workmanship and delusion. Buy American! Get married! Die! Everything is fine, the kids are fine, this is a period of growth! Yay! Well, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust, a worm needs to die before he gives his body to become soil. So how much of this marriage is the dying worm, the cycle of life? How much of this new awareness will be born from death? And what exactly will die to give life? I fear, my friends, that you don’t get something for nothing, I just have to make sure that the life cycle isn’t going to take my children’s confidence to exact payment for our adult “growth cycle”. And I seem to be the only one starting to wonder if this gamble with their little souls is worth the price of the admission to enlightenment. I’m pretty good at poker, but then again, that’s largely due to my ability to bluff.
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