CONVERSATIONS WITH MYSELF 01/26/13

The plague arrived at our house this week. We made a futile effort to avoid it but, it came in spite of our best efforts. Everyone in the house has come down with it at least once which has caused us to avoid each other as much as possible. This drove me into more of a hermit-like existence then I’ve already had the past few weeks. I don’t dare venture into public for fear of contaminating more people than this flu already has. It’s sadly comforting in a bizarre, unexpected way. This has also provided the added benefit of having a reason to sit on my hands for a while. Since our great and all powerful President has implemented his useless healthcare plan people get to sit and wait while doctors and healthcare providers argue over the necessity and cost effectiveness of any and all medical procedures from giving someone an aspirin to MRI’s. Needless to say many of my tests are now on hold for the moment while they continue to collect monthly payments from us hoping not to do anything in return. So here I sit talking to myself, drinking my green tea, taking lots of naps and trying to remember or decipher my dreams. Dreams… small word… big meanings, it seems like, in many cases, the bigger the dream… the harder we chase it. The unfortunate part is we seldom really make solid, realistic plans for when and/or if we catch them. A great many people insist the seldom, if ever, dream. According to most all researchers we dream 4-7 times a night but rarely remember all or part of any of them and the ones we do remember have some degree of significance to them. Small children don’t include themselves in their dreams until the ages of three and five due to their limited life experiences. Here’s another interesting tidbit if you’re going to be on Jeopardy any time soon… the term “nightmare” was created in the Dark Ages to support the claim that they were the work of female spirits messing with your head… doesn’t that make you feel better guys? Also… everyone has “wet dreams” and interestingly enough, they seldom have anything to do with sex. This disturbs me on a number of levels. I would really hate to think that on those rare occasions I was woken up by a raging hard-on was because I was thinking about mowing the lawn… that would be a supreme verification as to just how pathetic a person’s life is at times. I did have an interesting dream the other day though. It involved a group of people I respect and admire all sitting around drinking and talking in, what I assume is my studio that I have yet to find and occupy. Some of the people I know (or knew at one time or another), some I would like to know, some I’ll never know because they’re already gone. An eclectic group of bombastic free thinkers who seldom color inside the lines and could give a shit if you don’t agree with them and, apparently, have gotten together often enough we have named ourselves “The Curmudgeons Club” and proudly accept that moniker. People like writers, poets and essayists Jim Harrison (Legends of the Fall…among others), Henry Miller, Richard Brautigan, Shel Silverstein, Allen Ginsberg, James Thurber and Hunter S. Thompson (just because he was Hunter). Musicians like Joe Walsh, Sting, James Taylor, Marilyn Manson, Trent Reznor, Michael Stipe, Dave Brubeck and Cole Porter. Painter’s Chuck Close and Picasso and Photographers Robert Mapplethorpe, Helmut Newton plus newcomer chef and writer Anthony Bourdain, others would roll in and out from time to time like Nicholson and so on while we drank, bantered and joked about while periodic arguments would break out over art, philosophy, politics, social changes and more with terms like “asshole” and “bastard” being thrown at each other with good natured love and affection of brothers having fun. Songs would be played, statements would be made, pictures would be taken and then suddenly… out of the blue, Thurber would quote a passage from one of his own books… “It is better to have asked some of the questions than to know all of the answers.” Everyone nods in agreement and the magic stops and they all grab their coats and head out the door leaving me to contemplate on what had just happened alone in my studio. The quiet is as comforting as my real life “hermit hole” yet I find myself anxiously waiting for the next get-together. Is this a Bohemian dream or a glimpse into my own future? Time will tell.

CONVERSATIONS WITH MYSELF 01/18/13

“I’m going to say four words and I want you to remember them. Banana, truck, apple, cat” …and so began my visit with young doctor “Spooky” my Neurologist (although he isn’t as spooky as he used to seem to be to me anymore). I’ll be honest right here…I really don’t remember the words he said at that time but for the sake of this missive let’s pretend those were the words. As we’re talking about how the seizure meds are doing and if the dosage should be increased he scribbles a pentagon on the back of one of the forms and hands it to me and says “I want you to copy that for me” as we continue talking. “This is a piece of cake!” I’m thinking to myself, “I’ve been a fucking artist my whole life! What’s this going to prove? It’s like that old ad in magazines and gum wrappers when I was a kid…”If you can draw this YOU could have a career in Art” it would proclaim.” I indignantly think in my head as I draw the shape…sort of. A pentagon has five equal sides, all connecting. Mine was a little shy of equal and one side didn’t connect. Perhaps it was a “deconstructed” pentagon or just after 9/11…who knows. We keep talking about this, that and the other thing while he looks at my drawing and then without warning he asks “So what were those four words I told you to remember?” The look on my face must have spoken volumes. I desperately try and remember the words and the only word I can come up with is “apple”. “OK…I’m fucked” I think to myself as I try and gage Dr. Spooky’s expression. “I’m going to refer you to a specialist to run several more tests.” He finally says. “But aren’t YOU a specialist?” I ask somewhat befuddled. “Yes, but they have the right equipment to run all of these tests accurately” was all he said rather matter-of-factly. As he walks me over to the scheduling desk to set up my follow-up appointment and my referral scenes from “Rocky Horror” dance through my head, “What twisted “experiments” am I going to be subjected to now?” I nervously wonder. “If this “specialist” turns out to be a transvestite who looks frighteningly similar to Tim Curry I may decide to take up marathon running in spite of my health issues. During the cab ride home all sorts of potential scenarios are bouncing around in what little brain I seem to have these days. Suddenly…in the middle of all this internal angst the word “banana” pops into my head. “Oh that’s just fucking great! I couldn’t have thought of that sooner? I would have at least gotten a 50% on that stupid test!” I think to myself. I didn’t want to say it out loud and scare the hell out of the cab driver. And so the adventure begins and what is typically the case in my life these days, it’s not on the right foot… so what else is new. One only wonders.

CONVERSATIONS WITH MYSELF

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Hamlet: Act 1, Scene 5 William Shakespeare This won’t be as disturbing a rant as you might think. I will be the first person to point out that I do talk to myself…a lot even though much of it is in my head. However I don’t have imaginary friends or hear voices that tell me to do (or not do) things or think I live in an alternate universe. It’s not that I think I’m the only one capable of understanding what I say and it certainly isn’t because I like the sound of my own voice. I actually hate my voice. For these reasons my conversations tend to be more internal rather than bad public theater or an opportunity to show the world just how egotistically ignorant I could possibly be at times. I don’t suffer fools well and have a highly developed bullshit detector so I often come off as arrogant. The word diplomacy and my name have seldom (if ever) been used in a sentence together and have been known to insult, hurt or otherwise burst someone’s bubble or call them on their shit at a moment’s notice without remorse. My blunt delivery sends even the bravest of verbal adversaries running for cover from time to time. Even at that…I’m wise enough to realize when an apology should be genuinely extended and do so without any sense of false pride, expecting nothing in return. I enjoy a good conversation (even an argument)…probably more than most. As a student of philosophy I find myself more driven every year to search for the truth in everything and less likely to buy into party rhetoric and agenda or bigoted, poorly thought out opinion generally filled with hate and egotistical bullshit. Far too many people actually have no clue what “Hedonism” really is anymore today because of this thinking and more. Needless to say…a good conversation is difficult to come by for me these days and has brought me to an unusual conclusion and the topic (in part) of this rant. This is a New Year. There is much that is going to happen in the next twelve months on a personal level as well as the world at large. I plan to approach things differently than I have in the past. I have always been a social person and the lifestyle I live in has always given me more outlets for interaction with interesting and creative people. Something I probably haven’t fully made use of so far in my life. Some think like I do, some don’t but, regardless of that fact, I intend to engage and observe them more closely than I already have and find out what really makes them tick. Then I will dutifully record my findings in my “brain” to be used from time to time as additional information for the series of rants I will, no doubt, do this year. After I’ve had time to digest, filter out the BS and run them through the truth tables that is. I have already had more lovers and “friends with benefits” than most so, I expect, I will be more concerned with quality than quantity this year. I have nothing to prove in that regard anymore but the intimacy is still seductively intoxicating and worth seeking out and validating the body, soul and mind still exists and functions. There’s another reason or two for taking this approach in the upcoming months. One is to establish a “benchmark” for myself. I will need to know with a great amount of certainty that I know what I think I know as I travel through the maze ahead of me as I am being scheduled to undergo tests to determine what is quite simply memory loss, my Cerebral Palsy is coming out of hibernation, perhaps dementia or worse. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate medically let’s add to the fun…right? I already can’t drive, stand or walk great distances anymore. I voluntarily decided owning a gun may not be in my, or others, best interest as I journey through all of this silliness so why not! Hamlet had his moments of uncertainty and so will I. The other reason is I want to chronicle this transition so that at some later date I can look back and see where and how I got to where I am at that moment in time. It’s bound to be a surreal ride anyway so pop some popcorn, sit back and enjoy this adventure with me. It won’t be boring I’m sure.

ANTS MARCHING

Fear not friends… I am not about to break into a classic Dave Matthews song (although I may refer to the title of that album later on). January 2013 has arrived and, so far, not in the overly dramatic fashion 2012 had done for me. New Year’s Eve was spent at our favorite wine bar with one of our daughters and her boyfriend. It was a surprisingly quiet, but enjoyable, evening and my evil twin came out for only the briefest of moments (to the relief of my family and friends). The evening was hardly the noisy chaos of NYE’s past…and considerably cheaper than past experiences as well. A few days later Wendi & I went to see “Le Miz” with our eldest daughter “Typhoid Mary” who happened to have what was believed to be the waning remains of a bout of bronchitis. The movie was spectacular from the opening scene on. The sight of the prisoners pulling on the ropes to drag the ship into dry dock reminded me of watching ants climb vines in search of food and water when I was a boy. The movie was everything I expected from a Dumas story…anger, obstacles, betrayal, love, selflessness and eventually…redemption, all on a grand scale. The company made the evening all the more special. As our daughter returned us to our cozy little cave I noticed as we hit a high point on the freeway the cars going and coming in front of us. Red lights heading in one direction, white in the opposite direction. Everyone headed somewhere as if their destination was of maximum importance…ants marching…to survive. Our daughter dropped us off and in her wake left us a reminder of her presence. Less than forty-eight hours later I came down with a serious cold and sinus infection and Wendi ended up with bronchitis and so begins the first, no doubt, of many visits to all of those lovely people with initials behind their last names. On the appointed day I got up to shower and get ready to go see Howard. I’m standing in the shower trying to get myself to smell less troll-like than I had been earlier when I noticed a line of ants marching back and forth along the back edge of the tub. This is not unusual here in Arizona. When the weather is hot and dry ants will seek out water from any source they can to survive, but this is the middle of the freaking winter! Not only that, it’s been a reasonably wet one. What do these measly little ants know that WE humans don’t? Granted the major internal waterways of this country are damned near dry and the short term prognosis isn’t rosy, but I couldn’t help wondering if somebody isn’t telling us the whole story here as I got dressed to leave for my appointment. Howard did his usual superb job and prescribed heavy duty antibiotics for both of us strong enough to tranquilize an elephant. I’ve been taking a lot of naps the past year or so… now a coma seems like a power nap yet, I am happy to say, Wendi & I are on the mend. While we sat and waited for our cab to return us home (not being able to drive sucks big time) I thought about Dave Matthews and the album “Under the table and Dreaming”. Interesting title…I don’t remember being under the table as a child with one slight exception. I was in that age group where we had to endure Civil Defense drills where we had to hide under our desks or tables when that awful siren went off…that, ultimately, protected us from absolutely nothing. As I grew older being under the table meant I had succeeded in drinking one or two more drinks than I should have and would pray I woke up the next morning alive and in my own clothes instead of someone else’s. In either case…dreaming wasn’t involved. Maybe I’ve just picked all of the wrong places to dream during my life. Our cab driver finally arrived and we merged on to the freeway to head for home. The driver did his best to keep from getting us killed by the other unconscious commuters in a hurry to get nowhere in particular as quickly as possible. Once again I found us, as I often will this year, in a steady stream of red lights and white lights. All of us “Ants Marching” too…