Posted 3:02 AM by sport

Criminy, reader, the strange swoops-n-snarls of a mind subjected to forced idleness and constant fatigue! Got a nice batch of pleasant email from people I truly miss and want to reconnect with, but the few replies I could muster were bland and brief. These rare contributions to the blog likewise suffer from a lack of the sort of pizzazz that would render my whines at least moderately less redundant.

I’m no more capable tonight of typing anything interesting than I’ve been the last few times, but I reckon it’s time to try. If it means anything, I’ve decided to expel from my mind all wearying hatreds. There is nothing to be accomplished railing against the likes of grice-Vega and the murderous hordes of muhammed, and brooding over it all means I’m taking on a burden that is really not mine to bear. I am no more in a position to forgive than to affect matters, so off it all goes into the pyre along with the frustrations of my creative misadventure.

The misadventure itself will presumably continue if it wants to, so acceptance of that must include acceptance of its one true purpose: to keep my brain alive. There is, after all, an album here, which needs only to be chipped, like David, out of the stone surrounding it (and there’s a tellingly pompous simile for you). If even the 3 righteous motherfuckers who express some interest in helping to realize the thing decide to bail, then by gum I am only where I began anyhow, and I can’t lose much by having at it all alone. Same with the comic, which is worked out page by page awaiting only pencil and brush on Bristol board to manifest all its sweet satisfying irrelevance. Since I truly believe a patiently constructed model train layout is infinitely superior to a passionately held conviction about how to fix the world (did a song called Frogs are Singing about that), calling the stuff irrelevant is no self-castigation. The former inspires a benign smile; the latter inspires religions and fights.

So I hope to complete these little train layouts and remain content to watch my loco motives chug around and around. Opting for the “sweet lemon” over the sour grapes a while, remembering that success is often the killer of life’s joys. To wit:

I’m reading Nick Kent’s THE DARK STUFF along with Peter Guralnick’s LOST HIGHWAY and John Strausbaugh’s ROCK TIL YOU DROP. These turn out to be very interesting contrapuntal choices at this juncture in my life. I'll explain once I’m done with all 3.

Had a weird morning last week… with Shelley and the babies safely asleep, I had a few green hours with 4 bottles of absinthe (no, I didn’t down all 4 bottles, silly): Versinthe blanche from France, Mari Mayans and Serpis dry from Spain, and Mata Hari from Austria. High thujone. They conspired to create the exact state of sensitivity I’d hoped for; music sounded SO fucking good. It was like being 16 again and discovering everything anew. Nice thing is, you don’t need to drink a lot of it and so you remember it all and don’t get hungover. But the sensitivity became too acute when I listened to a Thomas Moore number entitled “Farewell! But whenever you welcome the hour.” The song is on a tenor-with-harp collection of Moore’s adaptations of ancient Irish melodies, which I’d bought awhile back and first listened to along with my parents in what turned out to be the last of our little “cd concert” evenings together. I was suddenly overtaken by the most intense waves of grief since Dad died. Sobs and sobs and blubbering communion with all I was somewhat prevented from fully feeling by the need to keep Mom together last winter, and somewhat cushioned from through the early months of my own fatherhood.

One day a few years ago, the Skeeter Davis record “The End of the World” came on during a car ride and brought on a similar tsunami of sorrow regarding Pete.
Fucking music, man.
Anyway, I wept and bawled and played the fucking thing over and over. An aging Irishman on absinthe… damn I miss my Dad. What’s the point? I dunno. I’m glad I can still feel that deeply, I guess. Whenever we bring the babies to visit my Mom, Miles stands by her chair (where Dad used to sit and watch the tube all day), staring at some nonspecific place above her head. It’s the damndest thing. He’ll play and crawl around and all that shit, and periodically go back over there, staring up for a while, smiling. Everyone asks: “What is it you see, Miles?”

Who knows? He sees something, though. And he doesn’t need absinthe for his epiphany, and he’s not crying about it. Keep an eye on him and Lily, Pop. Me, I just endure the incredible stress of minding them every day with the incredible joy of their presence as reward. There’s something in all this that might be served by the making of another album after all. Not that anyone will or should give a fuck, but part of releasing hatred can maybe include releasing that infernal work-stopper as well. It would be nifty to make at least ONE album that I can play for the kids someday and say, “listen… this one wasn’t too meaningless.” Dad was proud when Richard Robert and Baptiste told their readers about “Uncle,” so it’d be good to make the bambinos proud of their Daddy’s stuff. I never wanted fame and money, just a goddamn audience. If it’s down to these two, then I’d better look sharp. They already have better taste than most of you*, and you are reading this, so you have better taste than most others.

Oh, yeah… had some home-crafted Poteen, too! Slainte, Dad!

*they dig Dean Martin, Ives and Leonard Cohen. They ignore anything on MTVH1.