A burn on the world.

You could see it from the freeway. Going up, up into the sky, mingling with the particles of smog like blood pooling in water. It turned the air into a sickening yellow cloud. Anyone driving by, they could see it. Helicopters soaring overhead, vivid orange colors dotted, dancing through that nasty yellow. There sat slouch-backed I, one person, staring it down, watching entropy work its way upward towards the blue, hazing up the gentle air. The air that we happen to breathe.

Well, it happens, and we -- this stink of a sweatpit of a claptrap of a squeezebox of a limpet of a city, that sticks to the side of greater whatevers with a sense of purpose that doesn’t seem to make much sense -- are still here to breathe. As it happens, as it stands -- it’s terrifying. As terrifying as a day. As terrifying as a life. Watch it: there it goes on.
All the time, this happens.
All the time, this stands.

All the time, this is what we view, and keep on living through.
After the smoke went higher and higher, just like the Sun in the Sky, I went onward to the post office. It was where I had been going, all while something burned hot underneath the heat. It was full of people.

There they were, the lot of them in a holding pattern. Holding off on living for however much time they would be spending under those buzzing lights, smelling nothing but the sweat deposits building on people’s shoulders, and the scent of cardboard in the air. It was hot. It was something, it was something, it was something…it was something to see.

It really was.

Because the post office is like an airport, or a traffic jam, or a frigid street corner, where people gather while waiting for the bus -- it’s a place where people can be seen. Their fibers start to unravel, because of the heat and the cold and the tedious sways and half-hearted half-steps. It’s where people let elements of their façade start to flake away, falling down like their skin, hitting the floor, becoming the dust.

Outside, the world was burning up.
Inside, the world was burning down.

It was a place where people could be seen.
Like the balding man with sweat-stained shirt of robin’s egg blue, holding sadness back in his eyes, only letting it escape through the distance of his thousand yard stare. He looked worried about something as his young son came up beside him, gibbering happily about the dinosaur on the poster that stood to remind people about the eventual switch to digital television signals. His father nodded his head, while never moving his stare from their spot in the vicinity of nowhere. But he…he cradled his son’s head, carefully, delicately. As if it were the only thing that he knew was real. In the face of his terrifying life, that was the only face that he could feel, like the hands of the blind, feeling out love.

He was living through the ways of the world.

PS
I got a new job so you dont have to worry about being paid on time ever again. Im sorry about everything.

That was the notice scratched on the back of a piece of scrap paper, pressed against an assortment of other things so that I could not see the other side. The man with the new job was sending a money order, with the note to be delivered alongside. He was two people ahead of me. He borrowed my pen.

He was getting by, as best he could.
All the while, things were burning.

Things are always, always burning. Out there. Way of the world.
Right?

I suppose so. I suppose it’s terrifying, in a way. I suppose it’s comforting, in a different way. I mean it. Because if things are always burning, that makes it easier to understand when things are happening closer to home. Things are happening, out there in the world. To people of mine.

And yet, as people speak in hushed tones, I find myself surprisingly unafraid. This is what happens, as the world out there continues to burn. This is what is supposed to happen, so that the world might turn. Sun in the Sky. People who cry. Moving on, getting on by. In a terrifying world, where people can be watched scrawling fear on bits of paper, where men can stare into an abyss but still hold onto something they know is real, then that which is always happening -- naturally, expectedly -- is nothing to fear. Entropy burns the world down, while life builds it up again.

So don’t cry, dear people. Look out there, out at the haze from the fire.
Look at it, and don’t worry.

Things will grow again.

A WHEN for the EVER.

WHEN that time comes around, the time when I find myself yearning for steps, when I find myself desiring concrete getting softer beneath the rhythm of my steps -- when that time comes around, I never find myself expecting much. EVER.

If I did, it would rarely matter if and WHEN I would EVER find something. Those times, where I look down. Where I see the place for what it was, and find that things, that normal things always have more impact than you might expect. At first glance. At a glance. To see the world, you have to look.

I try to look. I really do.

WHENEVER I get the opportunity, I try. Most of us do, I think. I might not know, because WHEN do I EVER know anything? But I think it, goddamnit. I try to.
I try to expect something glorious, fascinating, wonderful and lush. I try to expect a nervous dive into a stank-ass pool of personality and grandeur, ranting and raving and anger and fear, countless things that affect that which is dear. I expect to be interested.
I try to.

WHENEVER something happens, I try to let it mean something.

That’s why this is funny, it seems to me. That’s why this I find this weird.
I’m sitting by myself, on that red faux-leather couch of times past, listening to the Allman Brothers play “Ramblin’ Man,” into my cochlea. If I look over my shoulder, out through the window, out into the light, I can almost glimpse a place. A place that almost seemed to mean something.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a fella sitting on the street, his back against a stoplight. He had a violin gripped between fingers that were surely strong. They have to be strong. Fingers and arms, gripping as tightly as can be done, moving assuredly, swiftly, sharply. It’s the only way you can play. It’s the only way it can be done right. He was busking in a decidedly non-showy manner, nothing but his checkered shirt on his back, his violin in his hands, and an empty tin can, polished to a brilliant sheen. The can granted images of a man on the rails, washing metal in clear river water. And it reminded me of a WHEN.

EVER since past.

I moved on.
Until I saw that fellow again.

Same spot, same checkered shirt, same gleam of machine-fashioned tin. Except this time, something was different. Except this time? The fella had hisself a banjo.

Just sitting on that corner, with assuredly strong fingers picking themselves something that could be called Banjo Fury. That’d be a reference, if it wasn’t just a wee bit off. But then again, then again, then again…the whole thing was just a wee bit off to its own side. It’s a combo that you don’t see all that often. Violinist/Banjolier. In my own life, I can only recall one such previous instance. And WHENEVER it’s remembered, I find myself struck down.

Even after time has passed, it’s surprising how little it takes.

WHEN certain times come, I find myself talking within this light of boxes -- scratch that/reverse it -- box of lights about a period of my life where things were not getting better, instead always sinking towards the bad. If you’ve read these things, you might know. You might think you know. You might think you know what happened, you might think you know what it meant. You might think you know how bad it was. Believe me, good friends, good family, good people whom I love with all that I can muster -- believe me, such things are probably beyond what can be explained. Not to be known.
Not EVER.

There was a time WHEN things were bad. WHEN I heard the siren call of the violin, WHEN I heard the spark of the banjo string. EVER and EVER, I run these times by my understanding of the world. And EVER and EVER, I find myself a little bit lost.

On that street corner, only a few days ago, I couldn’t have told you what I was looking for. But believe you me, nice people -- it sure as fuck-balls wasn’t that.

I might have kept looking forward, but there was water in my eyes. So I looked away. So I walked away. I looked again. I walked back. WHENEVER and EVER, I walked in circles around that block. Wondering what there was to think. If anything at all.

I looked around, at the other things that might be seen on the scene. I looked around. A too-young girl with attractive socks, men who reeked of ganj; the roadtrips we will never take, the days that run so long. In my head, instruments dueled away, refusing to be lost. So I walked away. Not far.

WHENEVER I feel depressed, I go and eat Ramen by myself. Not that it makes me feel better -- it’s simply what I do. I go and I eat the food that makes me sweat. Sweat like I’m sweating right now. Seeking clarity through the water in my eyes.

WHENEVER I feel lost, as a person, as a man, I sit down and watch Fred Rogers speak before Congress. Not that it puts things in perspective -- it’s simply what I do. I sit and I watch the things that make me cry. Cry like I did on that corner, back where. Seeking clarity through the water in my eyes.

WHENEVER I bring myself out into the world, I never expect to be introduced to anything of particular consequence. Because that’s not how the world works. There are always things, various bits of life ringing out like the clearest bell on the tallest hill, echoing across our landscapes, singing in our ears. But rarely, if EVER, do we notice. The ringing is loud, but most of the time, WHEN we hear it, the frequency is just beyond our range. We never think we’ll find something. Not something that will change our time, anyhow. Nothing like a fateful knock on a wooden door. Nothing like spittle flying on wings of misdirected anger. Nothing like lives that aren’t really worth anything, but still shouldn’t be considered cheap. Life is never cheap.

WHEN it finds us, we’re not going to be ready. Not EVER.
WHENEVER it finds us, we always just do the best we can.

A day of infamy.

Today is December 7th, 2006.

As of this moment, this day appears quiet. I can only hear the faintest traces of the outside world leaking into this in, without even the generally prevalent sound of HeliCoppers on the prowl for…whatever it is that they tend to be on the prowl for. No true light aside from the piercing stare of a yellow moon. But it was not always so. Way of the world.

December 7th. You know, I know. A date that’s managed to actually take hold within the collective unconscious, a byproduct of history classes and television commercials; good movies and terrible movies; wizened old men sitting on porches, speaking as well as they can manage from the depths of their memory -- sadness in their tones.

A day that will live in infamy.

Locked into the history books, chiseled deep into the face of time; a day that will live in infamy. A day that we’re supposed to remember. These days, it seems like we get more and more. Days meant to be known for terrible, terrible, terrible things.
But that’s not all that it is. Nor all that it can be.

So, in the interest of perspective…These days, I drive around a lot.

I’d never planned to do such a thing, and it hadn’t been particularly desired. I’ve never been the sort of man who cares much about vehicles, aside from their general handling and functionality; nor have I done much more than turn my foolish nose up at the people who desire useless behemoths with petrol-gullets that reach depths as terrible as that memorable Sarlacc pit. I’ve never lain awake at night as an impressionable youth, utterly transfixed by the sounds of automobiles that roar down the asphalt under harshly orange light. I have a car. I drive it.

A lot.

So it was, that I was driving on the 405 Southbound. Common enough. I glanced in my rearview mirror. Common as well. But what I saw in that narrow space, that slimline of an image was something that wasn’t particularly common at all. It was an off-white Ford Taurus, one that had its lights shining, perhaps as an act of defiance against the light of the burning sun. Within this car, there sat an immense man, his clay-like face molded into an expression generally reserved for bill-paying and unprecedented flatulence. He manhandled the wheel with a set of enormous knuckles that gave his seemingly normal action an odd sort of comedic viciousness -- similar to the spectacle of Mighty Joe Young suddenly deciding to strangle a Garter Snake to death. And beside him sat a teenage girl. Smiling. While wearing a snappy Fedora.

In the world of the rearview, you never get enough.

Not enough information, not enough scope. A kind of all-too-specific tunnel vision that provides no real insight into the lives of countless Fedora-Girls and Dourpusses, no matter how much I might want to delve deeper. And there are surely things to behold, things to learn, things to comprehend, things to laugh at, and yes, things to be intimidated by. But I will never know. And that is just too damn sad. Losing history, simply by being unable to see enough. Seeing the past through that rearview mirror.

It’s a shame, really.

Because other things happen. Everyday, all day, rightthefucknow day. December 7th.
December 7th, 1949. Eight years after that time of infamy, where an act of bloodshed led to more bloodshed, where that led to death and dismemberment and dismay, all of it culminating in a burning moment; a moment that lived on after the fact with spattered cases of hot sand, and bad rain. On December 7th, 1949: A child was born in California. A child who would grow up to find himself transfixed by the thoughtful glow of the moon, so much so that he would sing back to it, doing all he could to not be drowned out by the sounds of industry around him.

On that day of infamy, we were given a man who could croon.

December 7th, 1995: We, not merely in the capacity of a nation, but instead as humans…we managed to find ourselves just the slightest bit closer to the stars.

On that very same day, 20 people died when a plane collided with a mountain. And that’s the way it goes, isn’t it? Humanity and tragedy coexisting peacefully, because if they ever manage to turn onto each others throats, the world is then the loser. All of it.
Perspective.

Sometimes, it’s what we need. A lot.

We need to move away from the world of the rearview, a world built on small visual planes and instance after instance of hearsay, countless cases of different viewpoints either belittling or embiggening (the smallest man) the stage of history. And so the world is changed, if only by that perspective, if only in a persons mind. But to that person, the truth is lost. The truth of the day, the truth of the world, the truth of perspective.

Only seeing the past in that tiny shimmering rectangle; the place where I once thought I saw Gary Busey driving in a car behind me. Except upon closer inspection? It was a woman. Yeah.

So look at the day. Look at all that has come to pass. Look at who was born, who died, what happened, where it happened, try to see it all.

Let the world explode across the space of your vision in the grandest symphony of Cinemascope™, colors mingling with images, striking your every part of you, working your mind/body/soul over until they cannot possibly take anymore, take any more, accept any more, understand any more…

And it will be a new day.

On this new day of infamy, as on any day of the week month or year…the infamy earned it’s name. Except that for the most part, we never really saw it. Just another case of the world running its course, gain and loss, that epic tug-of-war that -- hopefully -- will never see an end.

Today is December 7th. On this day, many a year ago, yet another musician was born: an Irishman, who floats like a cannonball. I for one, am glad he came to be.
And more, and more. Writers and artists, poets and porn stars. People coming to be, tearing their way through the caul of the world; people ceasing to function, closing their eyes and drifting away.

Happy Birthday, to those for whom it applies. A happy consideration of any-day to all those Fedora-Girls and Dourpusses out there, who may or may not ever glance upon this, and probably wouldn’t think twice about it even if they did. And yes, a Happy Deathday to the others, who I suppose cannot be bothered with such a salutations, all things considered. But that’s fine. It was said. And it will not be taken back, even if I look towards it in the rearview, and wonder what the hell was I thinking on December 7th, 2006. Just another day of infamy.

There’s a person that I know, one that has reason to look at this day with a tilted head, considering it slightly different than all those days that precede and follow it. She’s the type of person who doesn’t wear a Fedora, not on casual days, or even days when the rain falls down from the sky. But she could -- she could wear one, and no one would bat an eye. December 7th. It’s the day from whence her history began.

So both to that Fedora-Girl, as well as that person who screams out a question, asking us all if we can feel…I wish the both of you, separately and at the same time, the happiest of Birthdays.

And to the rest of you?
I hope you see something worth remembering.