Cutting ears

I stopped minding Holly

I stopped minding Holly because of a few passing comments about how I stopped minding Holly. So I let months pass and then finally decided to return.

And run a marathon.

And make some beer.

And reinforce normalcy.

big wheels keep on turning, plastic lifeless resin chairs______something

It's an August night in Brooklyn where the summer the clashes with forces of passing meterological anomalies and unmolested thoughts stewed upon remind one of how decent people behave in the most inopportune moments. We help out our brothers and sisters.

Then we go back to our stupidity. Of eating our tails, inflating our prides and hoisting our flags.

Good thing I did my part already for god and country. Now I can go back to cleaning the gutters and shaving my head.

Returning to Holly after a long winter

I spent the memorial day weekend at the shore, biding my time until I could tell everyone that I spent the memorial day weekend at the shore. I don't actually ever go to the shore. I am not someone who ever makes plans to visit the shore, to go to the beach, or to swim in salt water. I like cold, and overcast, and dark. In fact, right now I am typing this from the darkness of my dark patio, with a cold spring wind blowing through my hair. My long luscious hair. You should just see it.

I visited the shore by getting dropped off in Perth Amboy and squandering the better part of a Saturday afternoon meandering along the shore line in search of Avon by the Sea on bicycle. These town are in New Jersey, home of the New York Giants, and the New York Jets and the Frank Sinatra and that mother fucker Rudy Van Gelder.

I love him actually. He made a recording studio in his parents house. He recorded some of the best musicians this country has every known. He recorded those recordings. They define our culture. He is from New Jersey.

And that is not right there.

Okay...so I rode for something like 50 miles in and out of shore towns, passing young ladies and men in their summer best. And some orthodox jews on the Sabbath. I found a bar mitzvah yarmulke by the road side and tucked it away. I knew John would get some use from it. I was right. It perfectly matched his summer best.

I finally made it to Avon by the Sea, and was told I was mispronouncing the name of the town. It's not pronounced like the cosmetic company. It is pronounced like the way Moses spoke to his disciples. With gravity, candor

and a little jazz.

Fucking Rudy.

My man.

park, singing, dancing

I remember standing under the arch at Grand Army Plaza from several years ago. Then climbing inside the Soldiers and Sailors Arch with my parents, looking down Flatbush to the island of Manhattan. I turned around and saw the Park, a stand of green amid high rises, its entryway patrolled by four spires, with eagles perched on top. The thing about Grand Army Plaza is this: from anywhere on the plaza, you feel majestic, immersed in an anachronism, poised, ready to wait for the horse drawn buggy, model T ford, Ford Edsel, or any matter of chariot, ambulatory gadget, bringing you up to the gateway of Brooklyn.

Prospect Park's characters change daily, weekly, yearly. I have been a minor cast member for years, appearing here in there in productions of such things as:

1. Man at outdoor party surrounded by scowling, judgmental lesbians. What had he said? And was he dressed in white or was that the tablecloth?

2. Man observing Raccoon, named Rocky. He would become a close acquaintance over the years, protecting the man from would-be attacks from historically acute rats, still bearing a grudge, holding the man accountable for that accidental killing of a rat, brain smashed in one night, brought down by the accidental fear.

3. Man running the traverse road at dusk, no one there, bracing for attack by alien, knife wielding child, rats still bearing grudge.

4. Man alone. In the dark. With loneliness spreading, covering the ground, filling in dank corners, the leafless trees, the still sheep meadow where the sheep no longer graze, he stands on the outside of eternity. Waiting for the bus. The cat bus perhaps. A way to get home. A way to return.

These things. They are as much my memories of the park, of places gone, dispersed like pollen on a windy spring day, coating table tops, pool covers, the unused props of a long winter.

Welcome back.

The rats. They grudge you still.

The day after the morning after

It begins with a a light drizzle and ends with solitary confinement.

I am not sure where that came from. That doesn't bode well for my year. I can see it unraveling now. I watched the film "A Serious Man" last night, seeking a retreat from a New Year's day of sleeping in and drinking late and Bloody Mary recapitulation. Instead I watched a story of a man losing what little grip he had on his world. He was never king of his domain to begin with, something more like a middle manager. Like me.
Middle manager. And like any good middle manager, I have some good excuses on why that project didn't get finished, why that deadline was missed by 12 weeks and why god has taken it upon himself to persecute the witless.

My top five excuses for 2011:

1. I do not need butane for my hair curler iron. It's for my lighter. I certainly would not being using that butane for other activities, like volatile substance abuse.
2. I am too working here at my desk. I am having a work conversation. About work. I am certainly not spending this past hour talking about flammability aspects of butane or how to set the neighbor's kidney shaped mailbox on fire, the kind of fire that may burn up not only their hideous mailbox, but also their wooden replica of Boxcar Willie, complete with a full-sized boxcar.
3. I didn't touch that woman's ass. I was taking dust samples. From near her midsection. With my hand. For a project. That involves dust samples.
4. I am sorry that I missed our lunch engagement. I stopped eating lunch. It hurts the environment. And Jesus didn't eat lunch. He ate big breakfast burritos in the desert with quail eggs and buffalo meat. So I am kind of like Christ by missing our lunch date.
5. My asthma caused me to forget that zombies lack common decency. They do not pardon themselves or ask permission to leave the table . In fact they lack all social mores, and fashion sense as well. Their clothes are always stained with blood. They kill indiscriminately with neither malice nor passion. So when I assumed that the zombie was holding the door for that woman in the Brookstone's store, I misread that moment entirely. The zombie was holding the door for me. To eat my brains. So I let him.

2011. The year I operate with no frontal lobe. The best excuse of them all.

Bonnie Prince Billy for the holidays