The places you’ll go.

I went to the library today and I got a couple of books that were on my to-read list. One was by Larry McMurtry, noted author a quite a few books about the Wild West and cowboys and such, called “Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen.” It’s a book of his recollections of his growing up in the context of storytelling; where he grew up, everyone was working, and there was very little time to sit around and tell stories. Part of his point (I’m on page 70 at the moment) is that storytelling loses a lot in a society where everyone is either too busy to listen or have nowhere to go to laze around and listen.

When I started the book, I was put off a bit. Here was this white dude, speaking of a country long gone, of a people who inevitably vote Republican and proudly don’t go more than 20 miles from where they’re born. The kind of people for whom work is a currency, and social issues boil down to “I have it bad, and no one else should really have it better than me.”

Anyway, what drew me in was our community. He spoke about the stories of his childhood, and I saw a ton of parallels. He was made to do the manual work of a rural life, but everyone sensed that he just wasn’t good at it. He got ahold of some books and was sold; these Anglophile writers wowed him with their language and their storytelling. He saw how he could apply those lessons to the stories he wanted to tell.

The difference, which became glaring to me, is that he wanted to immerse himself in that Anglophile world. The world of European writers, who he was introduced to and were soon lifted up as examples and roadmaps to follow. I’m a bit different, and I hope others are, too. The key is a saying that I’ve heard over and over – “if you know better, do better.”

I cannot imagine a list of inspirations that doesn’t include James Baldwin or Audre Lorde. Pablo Neruda and Amy Tan. Alexander Chee and Ta-Nehisi. And I mourn the people who look to Europe for these classic writers but don’t see the talent under their regional noses because “woke” or “diversity writer”. What treasures he missed!

The book was published in 1999, and now I have to wonder if he didn’t read the older writers because he didn’t know about them, or they weren’t “as good” as the people he names as influences. And that’s the rub with being a non-white person consuming media; you are surrounded by such great talents, see them every day, seek them out, read them, wonder at the sentence structure and ways to turn a phrase…and find out that there are people who are so hung up on the European artists that were allowed to publish and be lionized those many years ago.

But at the end of the day, the urge to read, to consume, to be influenced by all that the world has to offer is its own reward. I grew up in a different Wild West, but while I can struggle with questions of representation and who gets to be the big name and who can’t, I can connect with him on essential questions of environment and telling stories. You know, human traits and qualities that can shine in my writing just as they do with his.

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Not quite helpless, but.

She’s gone inside, mentally exhausted. He sits outside, smoking the last of his cigar.

The taste of the Nicaraguan leaf swirls around the inside of his mouth as he stares up into the sky. He exhales, and the smoke hangs in the still night air, illuminated for a while by the porch light. If he squints, he can make out a star, shining dimly, but still shining. He closes his eyes tightly, then opens them, but things aren’t any clearer.

Across the world, at that very moment, there are people hurting, but he can only think of one person and her hurt. A hurt that he cannot fathom, but he has a front row seat to. He can only do so much, but there is so much he can’t do. And that is the worst feeling.

To want to help, but not being able to; is there no sadder circumstance?

He leans forward, puts out his cigar, takes the last sip of his bourbon, and heads inside.

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Formative memory.

I was outside having a smoke with my wife when I remembered a fond memory of Sundays when I was a kid. Let me tell you..

We would start early with Sunday School. To my mom’s credit, she hated being in church all day, and Sunday School was 9-10:30. She thought it important that I get a little God in my life; plus, she didn’t really like the minister, who was our example of What Not To Be As A Man Of God. So we’d go, leaving Dad at home, and get our God on, and come back.

If there wasn’t a football game to attend, we’d go shopping. We’d take a trip out to Cerritos to Fedco, which was a goverment-employee membership store about 40 minutes away. On the way there, we would turn on KLON 88.1 from Cal State Long Beach, as they played jazz and blues on Sundays. We’d go and get groceries, and.I would be turned loose in the book section as my parents shopped.

We’d leave there and maybe go to Cerritos Mall, or maybe Lakewood Mall for a while, and then back home with KLON playing their music. I’d be in the backseat as we would talk. We’d have great conversations, and I remember feeling…free. Happy. Content.

We’d get home, and Mom would cook early dinner, and we’d eat around 3. Any amount of goodness would away; Mom was, and still is, a master in the kitchen.

Afterwards, I’d help clean up, and they would adjourn to watch TV. I would turn on the little radio in my room and tune in to three radio programs that evening. The first was a spoken word program, kind of like the Moth, where people would tell stories. Secondly would be the Dr Demento Show, where he would play all and any mater of comedic songs and radio bits.

Thirdly, the 24 hour radio news channel would, for an hour, play two 30-minute episodes of old time radio shows. Those shows would vary, but I probably got my love for audio engineering from that show. The Cisco Kid. Green Hornet. The Jack Benny Show. Buck Rogers. I would sit only bed and draw or read, aware that Monday lay on the other side of sleep, but in those days, Monday just meant school, not a soul-crushing job or mandatory interaction with middle management.

As I got older, my bedtime was relaxed, but early on, bedtime was 8pm, and sometimes, I would smuggle my clock radio under the covers, turn the volume down REALLY low, press the speaker against my ear, and listen.

I wonder what it would take to get that peace back, of a routine that centers me, calms me.

Sitting outside with my wife listening to jazz is doing a good job of it now, though.

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Rabbit holes.

One of the things so great/wondrous about social media is the ability to go in and out of rabbit holes, to have your attention for a few seconds before you think of something related and go of on that tangent. You learn the darnedest things that way, and often can’t wait to tell others about that time where you went looking for videos on how to paint a room and came out knowing the chord progression in a Kendrick Lamar song makes it sound extra melodic.

Anyway, I was appraised of these guys who do some very nice paint colors. I went from that, to a recollection; hadn’t I heard of a particular interior design style that uses color like this? A quick search led me to “Dark Academia” and this good video on that. That led to a discussion about what room we could do in this style, and cost and possible color and accessories. Then into looking for interior design classes offered by my local art schools.

Very excited. And all because of a fleeting question about dark walls in rooms.

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“Fan” short for “fanatic”.

So, college football is upon us, but I don’t think that this is confined to just this sport. I’m sure people worldwide go nuts over their local sports teams. College sports are special in that you don’t necessarily even have to have attended the school in question to feel this level of belonging. And that’s what it is, right? Belonging. Anyway, this dude posted this on Twitter:

A little backstory. Florida State had very high hopes this year after doing very well last year , but they lost their first game to a team they were supposed to beat handily. Florida State fans felt some kind of way about it.

So, second game of the season, against Boston College, another team who, on paper, they were better than. The above fan posted this announcement a few days before the game.

It was Boston College 14, FSU 6 at halftime. This guy deleted his Twitter account completely before the second half started. Florida State ended up losing, 28-13.

It wasn’t even the lengths to which this fan felt he needed to go to get across that his team would definitely, for sure, completely win this game that kinda caught my attention. Hell, in this age of “engagement” and “content”, someone eating dog shit out of a cup is, um, not the content I want to see, but I know it exists somewhere. What gets me is the level to which this person is engaged on a level that, logically, makes no damned sense.

This person doesn’t play for Florida State. Isn’t a referee. Isn’t a coach. In no way, shape, or form can this person affect FSU’s chances to win said game. But that will to win is so in them that they offer to make a public display if what they want does not come to pass. And it didn’t.

I think I’d like to read more about the psychological perks of fandom; why do we do what we do for organizations we’re not part of, for schools we didn’t go to, amongst others who feel the same way? Because this shit able? That borders on psychosis. But that’s part of what “fanaticism” is.

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Words of venom.

Note: this was written in response to a thing I saw on FB. Now, I’ve taken to not engaging and trying to be right online, but this tickled me AND aroused my need to defend summer as a season, especially since all of the fall aficionados can’t hide their glee for much longer. Thing is, I wrote this…and then proceeded to dip below 80. So my wrath was…late? Betrayed by Mother Nature proving her point herself. Ah, well. I had fun writing it.

Ray Bradbury, in his excellent book “Zen: The Art of Writing” asks the reader “How long has it been since you wrote a story where your real love or real hatred somehow got onto the paper?” That emotion shows through the writing, and I think this did too. Only thing was, my timing was off. Or Mother Nature’s. SOMEBODY was off.

Anyway…

I will not harsh your mellow; time passes, and soon it will be Spooky Szn and the reign of pumpkin and turkey, and you will find abject joy. Meanwhile we, the children of Summer, dread the coming of our mortal enemy. You bemoan Mother Nature’s Broil setting, but act like she doesn’t have a Flash Freeze button, too.

We wouldn’t have minded the three day stretch of days below 75 if you’d have simply shut up about it. Instead, we got wishes and dreams and pronouncements about how you simply cannot WAIT for fall. You got caught out there, twisting in a cooler, drier wind, wishing for something that has yet to come. Meanwhile, the force of corporations loom behind you, eager to restock store shelves in aisles labeled HOLIDAY and introducing orange products where there were none before. Do you really want that?

You say we have fooled ourselves, that just because we had summers off as kids, that we still hold a childish affinity for these warmer months. If you were an adult living in cooler climes, though, you recognize summer for what it is; an answer and a rebuttal of these days where Mother Nature wants you frozen. Where that wintry bitch wants your skin scraped away by snow blowing sideways at high velocities, where any weak point in your fur and leather armor will expose you to hypothermia and the very real feeling of impending death, frozen in place and peed on by dogs in fuzzy, handmade sweaters who think you’re a lamppost.

Can you just allow us the mirth of a Slurpee? Of napping in front of a fan? Wearing novelty T-shirts for as long as we can? Or do you just hate those of us who make Summer our business? Shut yo ass up and wait your turn, and after we get done with fall, you better not say a gotdamned thing about it being too cold.

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Chicagoan.

A fun thing I’ve done recently is ask friends of mine if they feel like a Chicagoan.

These people have been here around 20+ years -I just realized that this year marks my 30th year In the Chicago area – and I have to ask the question. Do they feel “real”? What entails that? When did you get that feeling? What does a “real” Chicagoan do, or feel?

Besides the funny retorts – “a real Chicagoan puts no ketchup on their hot dog, hates going to O’Hare, and idolizes the ’85 Bears” – the question is a ponderous one.

Thing is, almost to a person, all of the people like me, who moved here in early adulthood, say that they consider themselves a Chicagoan…but not to born-and-raised Chicagoans. They have no problem telling their friends and family in other places that they are a Chicagoan, and thusly well versed in the city’s culture, happenings, and ephemera, but they cede the title of “real Chicagoans” to people born and raised here.

And I find that really telling. Myself, I was born a Comptonite, a Los Angeleno, a Californian. In the 30 years I’ve been in Chicago, I’ve gone back five times. But yet, I still feel weird about calling myself a Chicagoan to locals. I’m far removed from the goings on in my hometown, but I am still a part of its fabric somehow. And I would think I’m more ingrained here, but I struggled to figure out why I couldn’t own up to such.

Thing is, I get it now. I didn’t go to high school here. I didn’t hang out on State Street or 79th or Milwaukee with my friends while I was a teen trying to figure things out. I wasn’t around to savor the air when Harold was running for mayor, or feel the loss when he died. This place didn’t shape my beginning, my formative years, my “how does the world work”, because where I learned all that was 2,000 miles away and very different.

The label is very difficlut to assume because we are surrounded in our daily lives with people who went to school here. Catholic League. The Chicago accents. And while we’ve lived and expanded and nested here, we are not from here, and that makes a huge difference in how a lot of people see themselves.

I love this city, and have a ton of history here. I can go home and say that I’m a Chicagoan. I just know too much about what I missed by not growing up here to say that here.

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Political leanings.

I believe that the law should apply to everyone.

If your crime is payable by a fine, then that’s just the going rate for doing a bad thing.

I believe that we are not put on this earth to work.

I believe that those without still deserve a place to live, food to eat, and all of their human rights met, and not at their minimum.

If more police is the answer, then the question is stupid.

Racism is stupid logically, in theory, and in practice. All the isms, actually, are roadblocks to a better society.

Real change isn’t comfortable, and a lot of people have found comfort in the status quo.

Travel is the number one thing in realizing that you are a citizen of the world.

Old people need to be taken care of.

Young people deserve a chance.

Fear is a helluva motivator and plot point.

A twitch of your right index finger can kill multitudes of people, and I don’t think that’s a good thing.

Let’s start where we are. We may not have much time left.

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On the back porch.

Sit and think with a drink about how I’m gonna win.

I may have waxed poetic about this space before in this space, but allow me this indulgence..

Flash back to 2020, and I was sent home at the beginning of Covid, as the world paused.My wife and I had a small porch in the back, but the area was small. We nestled next to our grill as we sat outside and read and talked. We both realized that outdoors was a great place to be, as we began to get used to this new reality of working from home.

So we contracted to expand our back porch. Construction took two days, and after it was done, we had gone from a small area to something more expansive, something we could fit chairs and a couch and an umbrella. We spent that summer outside when we could, in between Zoom meetings and me running into the office, being an Essential Worker.

We call it the best investment we’ve made, and we have spent many evenings outside, sipping drinks of various alcoholic content and indulging in cigars. I bought a small speaker and now things were on and popping. Since then, we’ve had friends over and made a ton of great memories. A lot of great conversations. More than a few musical premieres – the Kendrick diss records were first played out here to our delight – and we hid under the umbrella for more than a few light rain showers.

It is also a great introspective spot, to read and think. And tonight, while enjoying my cigar and reading an issue of the Bitter Southerner, I took time to think on two articles in Issue #7, published earlier this year.

In one article was the story of documentary photographer Paul Kwilecki, who spent his life in a rural Georgia county and took pictures of its 623 square mile area; its people, its woods, its buildings. His images are considered. vital to understanding not only that place, but the rural South. He’s not a household name, and he’s an ancestor now, but there is renewed interest in his photographs and his writings. He attained a bit of commercial success, so he didn’t die penniless or anything, but he was a known introvert who lived very much inside his head. I identified with that.

In another article with cover subject André 3000, written before the release of his flute album New Blue Sun, he says the things us fans have heard a million times about the work. How he’s exploring, how he’s excited to do something new. The interviewer asks him about his legacy, and if this impacts his p[lace in the hip-hop pantheon. And he says a thing that resonated so hard with me.

“A lineage lets me know I’m human. My life meant something. My trying times, my fucked-up times in this world has meant something. I wasn’t just here.”

Kwilecki was a man who spent 60+ years documenting his hometown and its environs, and is largely unknown outside the region and in a very specific genre of photography. But he existed, and contributed. He wasn’t just here; he MADE things. He left a legacy. He did great work worthy of study, and it sounds like he was satisfied with that.

We all know Dre 3K; also an introvert, but his music reached every corner of the globe. Two very different men, different impact, but both men created a legacy. Both men were not “just here”.

And every day, I’m trying to do the same. Leave a legacy, if not of work, but a cadre of people who can tell others that I was here. That I did, or said, or was something that lives on after me.

Don’t be “just here”.

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California love.

So, I left home, to go back home. If that doesn’t make sense, let me go backwards a bit. I left the place I’ve lived for almost 25 years to go back to the place I grew up in.

I went back for a high school reunion, but I also wanted to see my people. The notion that I was on vacation to do things went by the wayside as I realized that I was incorrect. I was not here to go places, I was there to see people.

“I’m going to Amoeba Music! I’m going to LACMA! I’m going to the La Brea Tar Pits!”

No the bleep I was not.

It’s a great problem to have, that. To be in demand to a point where you can’t do things because you have all of these people who want to make time to see you. And I had five days to do it.

I ate great and laughed long. What more could there be to this? We talked about life, adulting, the things we’re doing and want to be doing, a world of imagination and the one we have to deal with in this reality.

I ate outside whenever possible, and soaked up as much sun as I could; we have Vitamin D deficiencies in the Midwest, you know. Had to soak up as much sun and warmth as possible; the day is coming where I’ll have neither.

The place I knew is largely gone; I don’t live in my old house, a lot of the places I used to go to aren’t there anymore, and I really have to come to grips with the fact that there’s nothing still there but my memories. But that can’t stop me from making new memories. Isn’t that a side effect of aging gracefully?

Maybe next year I’ll be able to go to the museums and such…or, maybe, I’ll get caught up again and spend my days with people I love. Why not both, though? We shall see.

Posted on by ~tbg~