Work Up

I dropped out of the truck in one of my typical, awkward, spiderman-esque dismounts; it's a sort of game I play with myself in the moments between relaxing in the passenger seat, cruising down Old Natchez Trace in Tennessee, and firing up the weedeater and getting back to the mind numbing tedium that is my living wage.

We're out in the luxury farmlands, on the sort of property where people raise horses not as a livelihood but as an indication of status. The property we're on is sweet, not too ostentatous, a big main house and few smaller guest houses, none of them bigger than any upper middle class home. The acreage is modest, most of the land is rolling grasses thinly wooded and there is plenty of grazing lands for the animals. I kind of like it here, it's not so bad, at least it's got character. It sure beats the endless plats of Mcmansions in Brentwood. Houses so foreign and ill conceived they look like children's drawings from Playskool's my first architecture fun kit.

As I'm walking back to the bed of the truck I stop to stare at the horses. The corral is next to the driveway so the big filly is staring at me over the fence. I smile, I like horses, I like the idea that an animal of it's size and power will entertain my humanity. I bet if I hung around for a few days and fed her some carrots, told her some stories, and brushed her, she would take me for a ride. I've never ridden a horse, I used to climb on my dad's back when I was kid and demand "a horsey ride" and remember thinking that was pretty great, I can only imagine what an real horse could be like. While I'm making eyes at the pretty girl, a sad eyed burro saunters up to the split beam fence and sticks it's nose through. For some reason I speak to him in Spanish.

"Hola, Senor Burro, Me llamo Jaunito. Yo es tu Amigo, si? Come mas llierba porfavor."

I tear some of the longer wildgrass out of the ground and offer it to Sr. Burro, he backs away at first but then creeps closer, first sniffing my hand then taking a tentative bite. I reach down and pull up another handful of wildgrass, I feed the burro several times, all the while speaking a poor broken spanish in what is an undoubtedly offensive spanish accent. While I'm busy making friends with the only live action Eyeore I've ever met, my hat goes missing off to my left. I turn around to see if Chris, my employer, has noticed that i am wasting his time by hanging out with farm animals, but he doesn't, he's on the phone, as usual. I do however come face to face with a Shetland Pony, or a caballo peqeuno, as i call them in my head. There are two of them actually, and they are eager to taste that greener grass just out of their reach on the alien side of the corral. I hang out with the horse, two tiny ewok horses, and the burro until I hear Chris wrap up his conversation. So far this has been the best day ever.

He begins by bringing me around the property, showing me where I should put my attention, what I should ignore, the various in's and out's of the task at hand. While walking across the back yard, in between the barn and the pool, i notice the high voltage lines bisecting the property. " You'd figure people this rich would pay to have their lines buried." I wonder aloud.

Mistake.

"Oh yeah man, they tried..." Chris begins " But when they started digging in the yard here, the shovel on the back-hoe came up with a couple of skulls on it's teeth."

"What??!!" I exclaim, my mind racing with nefarious possibilities.

"Yeah, man" He continues " This whole yard is big Indian burial ground, the Smithsonian had to come down here and examine all the remains. I think some of them are on display up in D.C."

"Holy shit man, that is fucking intense!" I let my enlightened mind shine prominently.

"Yeah, this is Old Natchez Trace man, the Trail of Tears ran right through here." Chris reveals.

"Wait...THE Trail of Tears?" I ask

" Yeah, man, Andrew Jackson, the whole bit."

I stand there for a minute, and as is common in a cloudy head like mine, I begin to see things. Old things. Not the way they were, but the way i can best understand them. I see the long line of reddish brown skinned refugees slowly plodding through the well manicured lawn, some fall, cannot get up again and are thrown by their ankles into an unmarked hole in the ground. Some of the bodies in the pit are still, some are still moving. Blue coated soldiers begin throwing dirt in on top of them, and some courageous brown skinned men and women try to keep them from burying their loved ones alive, thunder cracks and they fall, the line of broken hearts marches on.

Chris is talking about the lawn again, he wraps it up and gives me the thumbs up "Okay?" he asks, seeking confirmation. I collect myself, shake the dreams away and ask him very dryly with the hint of disgust " We're going to mow the Trail of Tears?"

"Yeah, man, it's nuts ain't it?"

Somehow the morning cools and darkens, yet the sun remains shining and the temperature the same. I come from a different part of this country, a part whose blood soaked history has been very consciously and systematically erased, paved over, denied, forgotten and rewritten. A place that makes the past a different nation of different people who have left us no inherent debt to the ones we tortured and displaced, the ones we erased. Here in the south, things have been left raw and untouched. They don't lie about who they are and what they've done. I like the horses but i can do without the history lesson, but i guess even those two things are completely intertwined, brown skinned women and men never knew a horse till we brought them here. Just another token of supposed cultural superiority.

Before I'm half way through my job, Chris comes back to see how I'm doing. I'm just about out of gas and about to refuel, so he decided to ice the cake for me, so to speak.

" You haven't seen any spirits out here have you John?"

I think he's messing with me.

" Man I swear I saw a little girl up in that front balcony over there one day. I mean, it was getting late you know? So it could have been my eyes playin' tricks on me, but I know these folks ain't got no kids.

I have that "You've got to be kidding me" expression on my face. But he continued undeterred...

"And you know what I found out? Back when this house was built, like a hundred sumthin years ago, they all had a little girl who fell off that balcony and broke her neck. Yeah, and it was one of those winters that was too cold to dig in the ground, so they had to keep her in the cellar for three months till the ground thawed."

I stare at him blankly. I don't need this shit.

" Yeah, so that's why I like to do this place in the morning. It gets real creepy out here at night, man."

I make a mental note that this day is disqualified from the running for best day ever, I would say that this could be a really creepy friggin day, but all of my jobs seem to turn out like this, maybe it's just me, maybe I just look to close, fixate too much on my imagined stories of places, maybe I'm just really bored. Eitherway, at least i got to hang out with those mini horses, and in a month I can leave the heavy south and go to a part of California where people are too self absorbed to know the story of their town. All blessings and curses, these days.

WWMD? ( What would monkey's do?)

Good question. I'm locked up solo-style in the tight quarters of a socially packed servant's house, this place is thick as theives. I can't manage one night on the couch without some gang of fools waking me up with their late hour's carrousing. I got Joe Rogan over here, smoking DMT, sleeping in his salty isolation tank, and telling me how humans are bacteria and sentimentality is a coping mechanism, I'm just nodding and sing songing "truuuuuueeee". Then you have Howard Bloom, in pole position on the porch, telling me not to give into the God of War, while he makes eyes at Leslie Feist who is still wearing that blue sparkley number and getting all the misty wraiths under the floorboards to clap in time. Teenage hopes indeed.

This Confederate Colonel is on my ass for trying to date his 150 year old corpse daughter, ghost cat wants some whiskas, maniacal squirell is all hippedy bippedy on the tree over there and I'm sweating through my sleep sack like it's the summer of '68 and I'm back in "the shit". Let these poltergeists take a hike, I'm too dense for haunted Nashville, they're all trying to get some Yankee nerves riled up but man I got the sleep apnea, I haven't been the whole night through since grade school.

Next thing you know Lazy Magnet will be rolling into town to commiserate on the fate of the dolphins in their constant struggle with our hidden adversary (who's rising), then I'll have no choice but to stay up all night drinking Pabst, listening to Art Bell and screaming at the walls till the shadow people vector in from the Netherverse and do my fucking laundry.

So to answer the question, What would Monkeys do? I would have to say, probably much the same thing that Jesuses would do. Howl and screech, groom each other for snacks, furiously masturbate then throw their scat at each other... like good Catholics.

Morning Meal

The scrambled eggs were good, there were tomatoes and peppers mixed in, and the biscuits are (according to Val) Angela's award winning recipe. I believe it, they are tender, crisp and buttery good. The bacon is some kind of out of sight, local pig, that is salty and juicy and perfect. Wash that down with sweet organic vegetable juice and you'd smile the way I smiled as Val and Angela, my official Nashville welcoming committee, regaled me with tales of how haunted my house is and the general history of the neighborhood. I love it, I can't get enough, I stuff another biscuit in my face and plan the midnight seiza stance seance that i will hold in order to connect to the history and hollow time-space of my new home. I do funny things in my sleep, Beth or Nicki can tell you, so I'm sure that some twilight slumber dances with the fair southern belles of old will be no step out of line for me.

The drives have been long, and I have been by myself, but not so much alone. I have no music of my own so I have been diligently scanning and absorbing the radio since I left my home in new england. I have observed the stark changes in culture and taste from northeast to mid atlantic to mountain south, and have noted the similarities as well. Listening to pop radio is a good makeshift replacement for the company of freinds, and here in America it's a small comfort to know that no matter where I am I can probably turn on the radio and here Rhianna's "umbrella" song or some serious classic rock that brings me back to the days i smoked weed and zoned out to my father's record collection. Warmer, brighter, younger days, heart felt times...or maybe it was just the drugs, never the less, I have landed and will stick (the bulgarian judge give me a 8.85!) for a matter of months before I pack up what little material belongings I have, and do my best to cram my collected memories and emo-style sentiments into my speedy little black car and head further west, further into the setting sun and towards a different flavor of my blessed transient lifestyle.

Down Time

There have been times where I've walked with a swagger, times where I've beheld the entire world with contempt. I was a shark easily sliding through life, devouring it's challenges and quickly becoming the most feared animal in the ocean. Now is not one of those times. These aren't the "date three girls at once" days, these are the small and alone on the road days. These aren't the chest out, chin up, full stride, pride days, these are eyes on the road, jaw clenched, "we can do this" days. I feel fragile and exposed out here, I'm far away from everything and stuck with only myself to keep me company. Me and my memories...great. I remember the faces mostly, and the how their bodies felt next to mine and as always in times like these I wonder how I ever took such comfort for granted. This is it though, this is the next phase, I'm not going back so I'd better get used to it.

Maybe it's because I got most of my stuff stolen on my last night night in Philadelphia, maybe it's because I walked away from a pair of big brown eyes, a bigger heart, and the offer of a good life in order to chase down my demons, maybe it's because deep inside I know that in no way shape or form am I a man that a six year old me would be proud of, be excited about, or look forward to becoming. This is a time to ruminate and reflect, to lock doors and bleed silent tears, this is a time to reset, reorient, and reclaim who I want to be, point my heart in the right direction and move. I'm not done yet, I may be down but never out. Just wait, just wait and see, the best part is coming up, this is going to get good.

Good time summer style

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Wanderlust

Stuff my pockets full, strap my slick black bike to the back, and into the highway headwind I will press, onward and outward into the new and perpetually lonely. I left a good thing behind, a home, an extended family of friends, collaborators, and teammates, but I have to be willing to sacrifice these comforts to find any sort of meaning and purpose. I'm walking into the cold alone, to the places where no one knows me, cares to, or tries to hold me up. Statue time for Mr. Jack, hungry time, time to choose a war, to face west and watch the sun sink into the ocean. It's that small joy, in between towns, out on the road, that little freedom, what Robert Parker calls " All we have left." It's mine, I'm going to look at the land, ghost through cities and towns, and find that place where I make sense. It may actually lie somewhere along the way, I may have already left it behind, but I'm not afraid of losing it because if it's real, if it exists, we will find each other in time.

New Town Smell

So when you ride down the street in Philadelphia and try, like i do, to take in as much as possible, you can't help but be a little overwhelmed by all the new things, the things that didn't exist in your old town. Like for instance, you're following your lady down Arch street, both of you whizzing around late-night on your fancy "cool kid" road bikes, and you zip by a little place called
" The All-Night Pleasure Palace".
Whoa! Holy Fuck! Are you serious???!!!
You screech to a halt and go back because you can't believe it. She doesn't think its a big deal, but thats because she didn't sit through five consecutive summers of Shane P. Callahan regaling you with farcical tales of the unfortunately fictions A.N.P.P. or All Night Pussy Palace, the type of dreamy locale that only libidinous adolescent males could conjure up. Alas, this Palace is only a late night dirty bookstore and probably a bit too grimy for you or your special lady to endure, but it is smack dab in the middle of Downtown, on the main drag not some shadowy alleyway (thats where the Occult shop is). Don't believe me? Have a look, it's only a few blocks past the Federal Corrections Facility. OOP.
Yeah thats right, amongst hotel high rises, commercial skyscrapers, and other testaments to architectural engineering, there sits a a large tower made of glass, steel, mandatory abuses of authority and butt rape.
Right. Down. Town.
Why? Why the fuck is there a federal detainment center in the middle of downtown Philadelphia? Could you please pick a better location for the homicidal maniacs, child rapists, and pot smokers besides in my main commercial district? Thank you. I mean Jesus Fuck! it's right there in between the Ben Franklin Colonial Taekwondo Dojang and the GlaxoSmithKline Compound. Have some decency, at least put it between two Starbucks so if the butt rapers get out they can sodomize that section of the population most entitled to it...Make mine a grande'.
The other thing, besides the fresh out of the oven soft pretzels (from one of the many soft pretzel bakeries here in the greater Philadelphia area), this city stinks! No like seriously...for real. There is some kind of thing with garbage around here, like the sanitation engineers don't really like handling it even though it's their job. You always see bags of it hanging around in random places, outside the Art museum, on the sidewalk in front of your house for three weeks, in the bathrooms of the statehouse...though never around the Masonic temple...hmmmm. It's like the city is full of freaky-deak trash-o-philes who just love buttering themselves up with rotten vegetables and old baby-wipes before they get all nasty and start vomiting cheesesteak oil and old Wawa Sweet Tea onto one another, slapping their stinky asses, and calling each other Barry.
Not that i know..
So as you ride past such wondrous and historic sites, like the All Night Pleasure Palace, the Federal Fecal Impaction Institute, and the big fountain there ...the one where the turtles and frogs are spitting on the naked men, you'll catch these ghost vapors, these putrid phantom smells that almost pole-axe you off your ten speed. It's funk man, and you can't fake it. It just makes me wonder, how does Providence smell? I mean no one around here notices the stinkies any more, which is all the better for me, because my girlie has me eating more beans and vegetables which always leads to me slipping out steamy little secret messages during the course of the day...none of which you would care to decipher. So as I get ready to go back to my homepiece for a couple of days, I steel myself for the brutal reality that my hometown reeks of rancid quahogs and system wieners that have all been shat out by a lactard after a coffee cabinet drinking contest. Grosser than gross.
So in closing, I guess I wasn't ready for my new town smell, the unshowered, sweaty, pit-stink of my new home. Not that i mind really, it still smells better than pussy, and I voluntarily stick my face in that stuff all the time.