A dream and a dream and a concert and a fall.

Earlier this week, I had a dream.
It happens, I guess, and it wasn’t much to write home about: Just a simply-structured situation where I found myself at my old grade-school, suffering my nervous ticks through a one page test on transitive verbs in my 8th grade math class, all with my current boss playing the role of teacher. Not much happened.

But still. I remembered it.
That’d be the odd thing. For me, at least. Because it’s not something that’s done. It’s not something that I really do, as if my conscious thoughts were trying to create a buffer zone, a dense wall built of spittle and tar and chunks of dried-out bread, building it high to keep my subconscious and my open eyes in a place where they can cohabitate, but not coexist. It’s rare, truly rare that I remember my dreams.

Earlier this week, I had a dream.
Another one. A second one. And…and I remembered it.
It was stranger, this one. Longer, and stranger, and far more dangerous. Still, in the end, after all of it -- after the sudden screeching halt of my cars tires, and the sudden dive behind the barricade on the suspended bridge; after the excessive debris came crashing towards damnation upon the Earth, and the entering without breaking but still without asking; after the garbage can full of hot urine, and the solemn summation outside of a screen door where I sat next to a mustachioed police officer while being calmed by the gentle lapping sounds of the sea -- not much happened. There were some wacky circumstances, but I got out alright. Except afterwards, I remembered.

Again. I remembered again. And as I said, this time, it felt far more dangerous.
I expressed this sentiment to someone, the very next day. Not just the explanation of the events -- because again, while amusing, it wasn’t exactly a holy terror riding roughshod across my mindscape, laying waste to all thoughts that I could ever hope to have. It was the way that I felt afterward, in the new light of day. It was the memory that did it, the memory remember-ed. When I felt my temples that morning, they seemed dense and malignant, as if a tooth were rotting inside. So I told someone. I told someone about my nervousness, about this transparent ghost from my subconscious, the one that found itself transubstantiating into a solid thought under the glow of fluorescent work-approved bulbs, the one that used its new weight to lay heavily upon my blade of nerves, not caring as it began to cut deeper. My friend, she told me to wonder, “Why?”

Why feel that way?
Why worry about dreams made solid, even if they rarely choose to make themselves known? Why care about newsreels cut and color-timed by random happenstance in the depths of the subconscious, burdens let loose in a dark room for the sole purpose of a safety-net for sanity, helping me and you and I along a guide rail so that we might fare better in our waking hours?

That’s…that’s a damn fine question, I tell you what.
So damn fine, that as is our custom, the answer is hard to find.

I know that for a long time, I’ve found myself wary of dreams. Both kinds: The thoughts of the resting night, and the aspirations of the driving day. One because they represented thoughts that could never really be realized, ideas that existed only in chaotic realms, sometimes to be harnessed by other ideals, but never really there as a solid benefit, never helping nor harming in the way that me and you and I have grown to appreciate, in a world of consistently better things. They’re just…there. And for a man that hates sleeping, it always feels better if the act doesn’t leave things behind.

As for the other?
Because of what I’ve seen them do. Human beings wearing themselves down past flesh and into bone due to the misjudged, sometimes misguided desire to consider themselves as human doings. People should keep trying, of that I’ve no doubt, but still… “Dreams shouldn’t control you. You should control them.”
Sometimes, it’s alright to be content. Maybe.

Maybe.
Maybe I was thinking about that, while at a show last night. About those ghosts of the subconscious sticking like spurs underneath my ribs, striking me more with the sudden metallic cold than the scent of my blood in the air. About those fateful aspirations, the kind that lay waste to men that sometimes might be construed as Good. John Darnielle was playing, as he is wont to do. And as I was watching him, Miss Kaki King was watching that mans back. Eyes riveted to that space, fingers moving in the dim light, as if she were seeing the future unfold on that dark patch of cloth. Who knew what her aspirations held, and who knew what her subconscious wanted her to think; who knew that the force of that room bursting with energy and love and sensation and thoughtless, fruitless, thankless desire were enough to strike someone down where they stood?

Someone was struck down.

A woman, a girl fell in front of me, her body going limp in a flash of time that couldn’t even be considered a second, sending her falling, crashing, dropping down onto the surface of my knees. I caught her; a reflex action. A cradling action, bringing her down to the floor, trying to figure out what was going on without losing hold of the sudden weight that had been brought upon me. This happened to me, once before. A girl got drunk and fell on my head, as I was squatting down to give the lengths of my legs a rest. On that previous night, she laughed, and I silently rolled my eyes and went the way that I knew was mine. I thought that this happened to me, once before. This night…not quite. I was wrong. Looking at her face, I knew I was wrong. Hearing her boyfriend’s voice, I knew I was wrong. Her eyes weren’t moving. They just stared straight ahead, as if they were made of glass. I snapped my fingers, dropped my sweater upon the ground as I tried to get a better grip, moved my knee underneath her to support her weight, all while the lad she knew was calling into her face, trying desperately to get a reaction, to get some sort of action, to see some indication that sparks were still flying in the engine of her heart. As I held her, I felt something wet expanding on my knee, and without any clarity of vision connecting the thoughts, I found myself in a moment where she was dead. Whether it was true or not, I couldn’t really say, but to me… Her skin was so pale.

Like rice paper wrapped tight around a spring roll, showing the immobile pink and blue underneath. Her eyes still didn’t move, even as colored lights still rained down upon us, the various hues giving her skin an illusion of a life song that made clarity all but impossible in the situation that we were presented with. In my arms, was a ghost. No Conscious, no Subconscious, no nothing left to worry about. As I glanced up to see that the person who had accompanied me for an evening of musical revelry was dialing the appropriate numbers, the girl’s friend who was a boy and I set to work cradling her within the womb of our arms, trying to carry her back towards life. Pallbearers, working in reverse, drawing her back from her supposed grave as best as we could.

Around the edge of the crowd, they cleared the way; they parted easily without a word. The music played on.

We stumbled outside, propped the limp form up in a chair, shouted with clear, directed voices, waved an LA Weekly in her face, trying to force air toward her as it is done in the moving pictures, brought out cold water, rubbed it around her eyes, felt the bass pumping through the wall of the club, waiting for the siren to begin making its way down the boulevard, hoping to see a lucid spark, trying to figure out a new motion, one that would serve the right purpose, bringing this situation to a place that we could manage. A place where there were no ghosts, and no subconscious. Just open minds, and thoughts singing aloud, clear as bells of brass.

She came back to us. Frankly, suddenly, immediately. As if someone had flipped a switch, her voice came to her mouth, and she wondered aloud just what the hell had happened, her eyes moving freely while surrounded by skin that was still so, so pale. As the siren began to reach our ears, I looked down and saw the dark patch of dampness on my knee that was growing chill in the night air. It was what had supported her, her lower extremities, back when it was bad back in there. She had urinated on me.

In her more lucid state, she thanked my friend and I. She shook my hand, and asked my name, which I happily gave. I’ve forgotten hers. I’ll never see her, and I’ll never remember her name. Just how my mind works. She got questioned by the FDLA about her health as well as food/alcohol consumption, while my friend and I stood off to the side. Eventually, she signed herself off, and her lad and she wandered off to a place where they would eventually discover that his car had been towed. But before that was revealed, it was just my friend and I, left alone out there in the night. When all was said, and all was done, I noticed my coat resting in a bundle on the edge of a sign by the door. I still don’t know how it got there.

So then. All that we’re told inside our heads, all of the horrors that erupt in the spaces of our dreams, all of the wishes that tear us apart like screws driving into meat; well, they are important. Like so many things that I know that scare me, that I know I don’t desire, sleep and wishes and the sun on my face…I know that I need them, sometimes. I hate those ghosts, fading in and out. But even with that said, I think that I know something else. In my lucid mind, in the thoughts that I make for myself, formed with the clarity of cold air and buzzing light.

Dreams -- Dreams cannot tell you what you are.
And they can’t -- they can’t tell you what you’ll do.
As horrid as your mind might make you feel, in the real world, you might still do the right thing. You might not.

But hey…there’s a chance. Whether you dream it or not.

***
*
***

In the process of writing this, I found that I had fallen asleep. There I was, listening to live recordings made of .m4a formatted audio through individual Quicktime windows, when all of a sudden my eyes were open. Daylight was setting the room aglow through the diffusion field of my thick curtain, keeping it bright, but keeping it soft. Night/Day. One to the other, no time in between. When my head rose up, there was no fear, and no uncertainty. Although logic regarding sleep cycles state otherwise, as far as I could recall, there were no dreams.

It felt good, crossing that divide. Quick and clean, solemn and steady.
So perhaps that’s it…moreso than any deep seated contradictions, or fears that give way to the Right Thing in a pinch. It’s might just be a desire to step away from that yawning black pit, taking it as a fresh start every morn. Here are our thoughts. We’ve made it, me and you and I. Our eyes are open, and there are things to see and say.

I am refreshed, and I am ready, with no baggage of the night before weighing me down. Duty-free. This is how a day should begin.

And today, I'm glad it has.

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 Roman Goddess (Juno is).

It only took a few clicks forward into Juno’s initial succession of color-moderated shots before something…before something altogether striking happened. For me, at least.

Before everything began good and not quite proper, before the screenplay sets forth upon its trek of fingersnap dialogue and human conditions; while the majority of the audience members were still sitting back and taking care to properly situate themselves within the frames of deep blue seats, I saw something that really, truly, utterly endeared itself to me.
It got to me.

There sits a boy, there stands a girl. She approaches him, small creases forming on the sides of her mouth, marks of effort formed by hard-earned smiles. They come close. So close that all we can see are mouths surrounded by soft skin, mouths that don’t quite touch, mouths that are just taking a careful moment to breathe heavy and warm.

I see this, and I remember.
There sat a boy, and there stood a girl. The boy was me, the girl was she. Coming together in a series of moments that seem altogether separate while being all together, a myriad of feelings forever encapsulated into a series of steaming breaths. Moments in close-up. Bright eyes, close to mine; quick glances toward the door, in case her lesbian mother might burst in with the hope of catching an untrustworthy boy in the act; mouths on mouths, mouths not on mouths; fingers sliding over smooth spaces, common places that we still could not see from the proximity of our interaction; finally, a sweet voice uttering “Hi,” into the depths of my ear, a word dripping with sweat that tasted sweeter to my ear than that word ever has had the right to be. Yes. We were in love, she and I -- as simply and sweetly and completely as it gets. We were just another pair of ridiculous youngsters, but it was love.

First loves are in soft-focus.

And they are close. And there it was. There was my past, the way that it cannot help but be remembered. After that?
There were jokes.

That’s the beauty of it, you see. Because of all the elements that turn this screenplay by the indefatigable Diablo Cody (copywriter turned stripper turned blogger turned biographer turned screenwriter) into an act of wizardry, the part that makes it so goddamned watchable is that even if it didn’t bother with dredging up slivers of pastlife that make the pretentious blathering of Quarterlife seem as loaded and grating as they actually are, the words present in Juno would still get around to making me laugh like a H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S S-I-M-I-L-E when the receptionist at the Abortion Clinic leans in to discreetly reveal that boysenberry-flavored condoms make her boyfriend’s dick “smell like pie.”
Nothin’ says lovin’ / Like somethin’ from the oven.

Which brings us to the baby.
As I appear to not have previously mentioned, the titular character of this earnest little snark-bomb of a movie happens to be exceedingly pregnant for most of the running time. However, separating it from the recent swell of surprisingly high-quality comedies about women who are with child when they would rather not be (the charming Waitress, and the hilarious Knocked Up) Juno manages to differentiate itself: It’s not actually about the baby at all. It’s not quite about motherhood or fatherhood, not quite about buying diapers and cribs, not quite about the choices that we make. It’s about the things that we actually do, when presented with choices that we didn’t make ourselves. With jokes.
And with truth.

Earlier in this year that ends with a series of ferocious films (No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood come immediately to mind), I had the pleasure of seeing a film that was so, so, so…genuine, in the way that it conveyed human speech-interaction-emotion, the way that it wove it with music and spoke its feelings in such a way that gave us a beautiful taste of something real. Once, that movie was called. It was something special. Juno is something else altogether, but something about the pairing of them…

While Once stood from the pack by being entirely genuine, Juno earns its praise in a similar, yet significantly different manner: by being unwaveringly honest.

There’s ferocity in that, as well. Because while finding traces of reality in the world might be somewhat difficult whilst being distracted by the gaggle of golden colored runners who are continually running through the frame, while girls in high school don’t generally have such silvered tongues that they employ in the midst of Diablo Cody’s charming vulgarity, while the tone of the movie stretches us past the breaking point of things that we might call reality…it never plays a false note. It’s always true, no matter what happens, no matter what words we hear from inside the sizable expanse of Juno’s brain. Yes, even while she’s calling people “douchepackers”. It’s fierce, truth such as this.

It feels right amidst the rest of things, and it breathes warmly into the room of the theatre, bringing with it such a sense of the world and the people in it that when we come to the final, unbroken shot of the movie -- when we came to that, I stared, transfixed, at one of the most romantic images that I’ve seen in a good, long, time. It was like it was reaching out to me, one final gesture, taking a moment to whisper into my ear.

“Hi.”










-ADDENDUM-

At the request of my friend Jorge, I state this here for no particular reason: Skeet, skeet, skeet. Make it rain.

Take that how you will.

A rhetorical question.

Sometimes, there are sallow afternoons.

Where you notice a delicate throb at the back of your head, too small to really take action against, but large enough to occasionally strike you with its pulse, making you shift uncomfortably in your seat. Where your throat closes up, and you can taste something sour creeping in around the edges of your mouth, despite the fact that all you’ve had was water. You remember the water. The water was cold and sweet.

Where you sit silent, and still, and wonder, and wonder, and wonder, and wonder, and wonder, and don’t really wonder about anything worth wondering about. At the end of it.

To-night, under the cover a fresh evening, I went out and bought a bottle of Cool Mint Listerine™ at a 7-11. The man behind the counter -- a man with tired, yellowing eyes -- put the Cool Mint Listerine™ into a tiny, nondescript paper bag that made it seem as if I had bought a tiny, nondescript bottle of scotch. I didn’t think much of it, until I found my way back home. People looking at me, and it, and then making subtle decisions about the life they saw in front of them. For whatever reason, it irked me just a little. The headache at the back of my noggin struck at a sharper 45 degree angle, and I blinked my eyes with a tremendous force brought on apropos of extravagant similes.

All in all, there’s not much to go on. Just another one of those days, as they say. We and you and I, we’ve all been in a place that sits in a position less than the place that we usually hope to be. In our heads, in our minds. In our moods. Sallow days, burning sickly and sweet in the wavering heat of mid-afternoon sun. Days that will surely move on by, like the rest of those things that get easily placed into metaphors of tidal fluctuations. Meaningless, stupid, pointless worries, about a host of meaningless, standard, ridiculous things. There’s nothing to talk about.

So let us talk about something.

Or rather, let me ask you something; something which needs no answer, despite the fact that the host of people who may or may not exist, who may or may not read this website, who may or may not be people that I know; despite the fact that such (existent?) people might actually have an answer that might be declared, the sort of thing that could be enthusiastically thrown out like leaflets into the drift of the common air.

I ask you, compatriots of the electronic variety:

What do you have?

What’s that thing, that illustrious thing that you break out on the already-mentioned-twice days that are colored sickly yellow, the thing that you look over with muddled thoughts with the hope that things are going to be made clear? What’s that thing, the thing that sits in the bottom of some dusty old drawer that is rarely ever opened, seeing as it is only to be opened during those trying times of thought and life where it’s really, truly, genuinely, actually needed?

What do you have when you need something?
What’s the talisman of your life?

I myself have a thing or two. A precious book that has been mentioned within the e-pages as lost, but has now -- at long, long, long last -- been graciously found. A picture that gives me help towards a memory, when I find that I need to remember. When I need to remember more clearly than usual.

And I have a letter.
It’s a formal letter. It was written by a formal someone, serving a formal purpose, one which had been done for other members (but not all, mind you) of my peers. It was something that I asked for, something that I had to wait for. But more than anything else, it’s something which means something to a someone. To me.

It’s about me. It’s someone else, speaking about the things that I have done, and the things that I might do. It was someone I respect, someone who explained how to stand tall despite the fact that he happened to be rather short; someone who could take your shimmering confidence away with nothing more than a wayward glance. If he wanted to, that is.

I have this letter.
It’s there, alongside other things, when I need it.

Where do your feelings go, world-at-large?
What do you have?

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.