you never know what'll wash up from the depths.
Time travel; 2,831 miles and a 1/2 century.
My sister bought the house four doors down from the one we grew up in. It has the same floorplan and the same view of the park. Sitting on the bed in my niece’s room and looking out of the bedroom window. Same view I had as a child. Through the afternoon, evening and now early morning. I’m a guest in my own childhood. Here, the permanent resident Canadian Geese honk as much as New Jersey drivers and the cars do not. The sparrows and robins lett all within hearing know that yes once again the sun will rise and do it’s thing. And the beat goes on: day follows night, the moon chases the sun, spring and summer tumble and fall into winter. Breathe in, breathe out ... repeat. My sister says who needs a white noise machine when you have 520 passing by. The wheels humming and hissing their gentle differentiations. Every now and again a truck and then a motorcycle. A comforting whirr to lull your dreams, day and night. I am okay right here and now. A child in my own private world, resisting sleep. Why sleep, when you can stay wakeful within this awareness. But the wheels are also an invitation. Where is everyone going? Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado? California, Texas, New York even? Can I come too? My restlessness was born here and now spent it comes back to rest.
A visit from Dad.
I got a visit from my dad last night. He showed up in a dream. He was his old self, but somehow, younger. Tougher, more virile. His better self.
He started talking about money. How he was going to take a little extra and do something with it. I walked up to him. I could still feel that weird electric tension between us, like oppositely charged magnets. I said, “If you have any extra money, I’m sure your grandkids could use it for college.” He looked me up and down then right through me and asked, flat but not without insight and a dusting of compassion “What happened to you?”
It was a rhetorical question, like “What the fuck happened to you since we last talked? Why are you so beat up? What happened to the swagger? The twinkle? The easy laugh? In summary, why all the heaviness … Don’t you remember who the fuck you are?”
And then he was playing piano - really well, in a Jazz style, like it's time to sit in with Stan Getz or Wayne Shorter - and maybe he had been, where ever they all are. He was reminding me that all of life is artistry. Not just what you do. Or what they do. Or what I do. And most importantly, we’re not here to conquer the world. Win or lose, there is no win or lose. We are people that have a good time. Son, whatever you think the problem is, money, work, shake it off. Let’s go sailing.
(Only later did I realize that I'd had the dream on what would have been my parents' 59th wedding Anniversary, April 10, 2024.)
He started talking about money. How he was going to take a little extra and do something with it. I walked up to him. I could still feel that weird electric tension between us, like oppositely charged magnets. I said, “If you have any extra money, I’m sure your grandkids could use it for college.” He looked me up and down then right through me and asked, flat but not without insight and a dusting of compassion “What happened to you?”
It was a rhetorical question, like “What the fuck happened to you since we last talked? Why are you so beat up? What happened to the swagger? The twinkle? The easy laugh? In summary, why all the heaviness … Don’t you remember who the fuck you are?”
And then he was playing piano - really well, in a Jazz style, like it's time to sit in with Stan Getz or Wayne Shorter - and maybe he had been, where ever they all are. He was reminding me that all of life is artistry. Not just what you do. Or what they do. Or what I do. And most importantly, we’re not here to conquer the world. Win or lose, there is no win or lose. We are people that have a good time. Son, whatever you think the problem is, money, work, shake it off. Let’s go sailing.
(Only later did I realize that I'd had the dream on what would have been my parents' 59th wedding Anniversary, April 10, 2024.)
And what did happen? A "perfect storm" of homesick, untreated depression/anxiety/insecurity/"bipolar 2"/etcetc and I lost my protective outer shell, loss of ego in not a good way, and I was defenseless. Buffeted by impressions. No sense of anchoring of self. The body and mind broke. Possible classic nervous breakdown. Possession by a foreign entity. All options are open. Many theories have been offered.
The inconvenience of aging. |
|
In 1900, a baby born in the USA could expect to live 47 years and 1 in 5 children died before the age of 10.*
There was a time when age was an anomaly and therefore worth of respect and perhaps even wonder; but now – how do we feel about age?
It’s inconvenient in ourselves and others. Sort of embarrassing. It’s just not sexy.
****
*Quoted from the New Yorker, April 22,29 Issue 2024. “No time to die” , when does the quest for a healthy life become unhealthy? by Dhruv Khullar. No idea where Dhruv got the stat. He did this sort of sloppy job of a summarizing Dr. Peter Attia's work. A little bit of contempt prior to investigation. Instead of reading the book "Outlive" he went to Austin, TX and met with Attia who gave him the Cliff Notes. What's more important, your lifespan or your "healthspan"? And is this controllable? Can we train our minds and bodies to be more active and healthier in our last decade of life? As a personal aside, I'm must glad that I enjoy working out and being outside - that makes the whole thing a game. If it's a mere inconvenience, then wow. That's tough. But no judgment.
There was a time when age was an anomaly and therefore worth of respect and perhaps even wonder; but now – how do we feel about age?
It’s inconvenient in ourselves and others. Sort of embarrassing. It’s just not sexy.
****
*Quoted from the New Yorker, April 22,29 Issue 2024. “No time to die” , when does the quest for a healthy life become unhealthy? by Dhruv Khullar. No idea where Dhruv got the stat. He did this sort of sloppy job of a summarizing Dr. Peter Attia's work. A little bit of contempt prior to investigation. Instead of reading the book "Outlive" he went to Austin, TX and met with Attia who gave him the Cliff Notes. What's more important, your lifespan or your "healthspan"? And is this controllable? Can we train our minds and bodies to be more active and healthier in our last decade of life? As a personal aside, I'm must glad that I enjoy working out and being outside - that makes the whole thing a game. If it's a mere inconvenience, then wow. That's tough. But no judgment.
And this little piece of beach glass from June 18, 2019
My first day in advertising was a car wreck.
Back then, I tried one job after another. I kept getting canned. I worked for an eyeblink at this designer deep dish pizza place called Testa Rossa on Broadway in Seattle. The manager walks in and looks at me chatted it up with the fellow waiters, leaning on the counter. I think he let me go right then. "If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean." I think he actually said that, and I thought "How clever. That's catchy." When I'm the boss, I'll have to say stuff that rhymes.
After that, I stumbled around from one construction day labor job to the next. Grrgh. I ended up working for this restaurant Boondockers and Humperdinck’s or BJ O’handeryanks. Porkwattles and Thundercocks. Something like that. In the 70s there were alot of restaurants that had names like that. This place - and I do think it was called Boondockers - was a classic upscale gay establishment that had seen better days. No one ever came in except for these rich old queens. Apparently, it used to be a scene but now it just smelled of stale nostalgia and old hollandaise. That's right. I was parking cars at a place with no customers except for a few rich old queens capturing the good times of yesterday. They would pull up in their Rolls Royces or red convertible roadsters and I didn't know how to drive a stick. I would pop the the clutch, and have a panic attack, not always in that order, but you get the idea. My tip would disappear beneath the sound of grinding gears.
I was standing out front on Tuesday night and a carload of partyers drove by. Jason Wells, their clown prince, hung out the window, shaggy cascading locks blowing this way and that and yelled:
“How’s that college education working out, Max?”
Thanks Jason. It was time for me to do something with my life, besides watching gorgeous jokers like you sleep with every woman I liked and was friends with. Something positive, besides listen to Nirvana albums and think, I had that riff. We played that one too ... I decided to quit playing backgammon against myself and take the LSAT/GRE and go to Law School or graduate school. For me, tests had always been the way out of mediocrity. What I mean by that is I'm a mediocre student, have minimal personal charisma, so much social anxiety that stuff like making restaurant reservations terrifies me, but if I'm asked to choose the best option between a, b, c, and d ... I can do that. So I bought the LSAT study guide.
It looked thick. And it looked like this test wasn't going to be multiple choice.
Plan B) Okay so maybe first, I'll take a class in advertising. My guitar player in Stomach Pump - Seattle's least successful "grunge" band – Leighton Beezer, also known professionally as John Beezer because he got sick of spelling "Leighton" over the phone – was working at John Brown and Partner, the first agency to work on the Nike running shoe brand. John Brown was this chain smoking writer who had written "There is no finish line." Which was sort of the "Just do it." before "Just do it." And Leighton used to call me up and we'd bat around ideas.
So I signed up for my first class - a writer's course.
I didn't have a car so i decided to walk. The School was at 540 Aurora Ave, kind of in that no-person's-land at the foot of Queen Anne Hill. So I'm walking down Denny way over the steep bridge that crosses over I-5. At the bottom of the hill is a four way stop, with one street sort of at an angle. A pickup truck comes barreling down the hill trying to make the light and as it’s going through the intersection it gets T-boned - absolutely broadsided by a car headed south.
The pickup truck flips over to its side and continues turning and now it’s sliding upside down on it’s compressed cab for another 40 yards. I take off running toward the pickup truck hoping to help but imagining the worst – because the cab of the truck has collapsed and now there’s only pavement where a driver’s head should be. As I reach the truck a man climbs out, stands up and we grab each others arms and hold each others elbows and we look into each other’s eyes, all shock and surprise. He’s unhurt.
Cars stop. People get out. A crowd gathers. The driver is sort of wandering around stunned unhurt and I wander off to start my career in advertising with sirens beginning to wail in the distance.
Should I have sensed that this was a warning about advertising? Never occurred to me.
My Father was not a spiritual man and he was not big into signs, though he could be ritualistic and superstitious. All sailors are.
My first class was a copywriting class. The instructor was a writer at Cole and Weber named Steve Johnson. He’d been an elementary school teacher and was now a copywriter. He exuded a laid-back, beer-battered, Halibut and microbrew native Pacific Northwest cool. I'd found a home in the world of advertising, the professional island of misfit toys.
What's the name of the word when you combine two words to make up a new word?
Oh you mean a "portmanteau?"
llike
Motel. (Motor-Hotel)
Brunch (of course)
Smog (smoke and fog)
Electrokinetic (Electric - movement)
Sliving. (don't even ask.)
Bromance
Infomercial
Bollywood
Brainiac
Frenemy
Spork
Liger
Athleisure
Sexting
Webinar (do they still have those? I know they still have athleisure and sexting, I'm sure.)
Advertising is all about the puns, parallels and portmanteaus. And, increasingly, turning nouns into verbs. Now we're really ... gerunding. Adulting. "This is how we _______ (future, for instance.) Guest how you guest.
Evidently, so is modern cybersecurity. All about the portmanteaus I mean.
Malware.
Phishing.
Vishing.
Smishing.
Gnishing. (okay, that's not one, but why not. - it's when a person gnaws on a hard drive to get at your personal data)
Motel. (Motor-Hotel)
Brunch (of course)
Smog (smoke and fog)
Electrokinetic (Electric - movement)
Sliving. (don't even ask.)
Bromance
Infomercial
Bollywood
Brainiac
Frenemy
Spork
Liger
Athleisure
Sexting
Webinar (do they still have those? I know they still have athleisure and sexting, I'm sure.)
Advertising is all about the puns, parallels and portmanteaus. And, increasingly, turning nouns into verbs. Now we're really ... gerunding. Adulting. "This is how we _______ (future, for instance.) Guest how you guest.
Evidently, so is modern cybersecurity. All about the portmanteaus I mean.
Malware.
Phishing.
Vishing.
Smishing.
Gnishing. (okay, that's not one, but why not. - it's when a person gnaws on a hard drive to get at your personal data)
file under, pretend obituary entries.
Trevor Lithium, (1964-2024)
Founding member of the Post-Post-Post Post Rock Band, Polar Silence.
Polar Silence was a reaction to the Desert Rock, Stoner Bands of the 90s. They played guitars without strings and drums with "air sticks."
*******
We are all going through the motions, no?
Founding member of the Post-Post-Post Post Rock Band, Polar Silence.
Polar Silence was a reaction to the Desert Rock, Stoner Bands of the 90s. They played guitars without strings and drums with "air sticks."
*******
We are all going through the motions, no?
Sometimes a tunnel feels like a hug
Not like a physical hug but a mental hug. Calming. Once I listened to a podcast about a person with autism who was basically non functioning and they invented this contraption that would hold steers before they were slaughtered so they would calm down. And they realized that this sort of cradling would calm them down. They imagined they were a cow being slaughtered and thus they were able to escape the mind-prison of autism. I'm a vegetarian. This raises questions but I understand and sometimes in a tunnel my brain feels like it's being hugged by eternity and everything could just go on forever - particularly tile tunnels covered yellow like the ancient curve from I-5 south onto the 520. Why I'm never okay with the moment unless that moment is physically moving forward I'll never know.
I had a dream of a branch that was a splinter
As I ripped it out from under my skin I could feel it like a real splinter. I woke up and I know this is my life, the dream analogue, an organic shape beneath the surface, a splinter that branches like a small tree. How did it get under my skin? it has no sharp delving inches it's like it grew there. Regardless, it needs to be removed. The magic is found in what you're avoiding said Russ. These things that grow inside us need to be removed.
Today I saw an outdoor board advertising OKTA
But to be able to read the billboard I had to get a code from my phone. This distracted me and I crashed and I was grievously injured. Efforts to revive me failed and now I'm dead. Yep now I'm dead. "Keeping Technology Safe" indeed.
I'm half lying and 3/4 awake.
I'm half lying and 3/4 awake.
Should this whole area be a blog so people see the latest? So happy-hazard.