Gday Kyle,
I stumbled across your Coachella reviews, and found the bands
mentioned quite interesting. I went out and purchased ‘Funeral’ and
‘Blueberry Boat’, merely to listen to something outside of the Top 40
that plays all day every day on most radio stations.
I’ll admit I was a bit ‘WTF?’ when I first listened to them.
Listening to ‘Quay Cur’, ‘Straight Street’ and ‘Blueberry Boat’ was
definitely a change, as I was amazed at how they could drastically
change the styles of music in their songs, and yet it didnt seem
strung together.
With ‘Funeral’, the male lead singer’s voice was disconcerting at
first, but it grows on you when you listen to the whole CD. I can
definitely see what you mean about ‘Wake Up’, that wouldve been
brilliant to bellow at the top of your lungs with so many other
people.
Thanks for taking the time to do all the research, it has opened my
eyes a little wider than they were before.
Cheers,
David
Again, thanks a ton for emailing, David. When I began writing, I figured I’d receive little more than various hate or correction mail (uh, hate to bring it up, but you got so and so’s name mixed up. Just thought you should know, etc). Praise mail is so much better than regular mail. Everyone should get it.
Just wanted to let you know that I love reading your column! Please keep writing more incredibly interesting and hilarious columns!
Sally in San Diego, CA
Thanks again, Sally. Regular columns will return next week. This week, I’m going to present one story from a collection I’m putting together, entitled EP. The working title for this story is Pacing, and I hope everyone likes it. As per usual, links, news, and Lyrics To Live By are found beneath the main section.
***
Pacing, from the short story collection, EP, by Kyle David Paul
The afternoon sun is searing on our backs as we lift the last piece of furniture, an oak, two drawer coffee table, into the back of the Uhaul. With the steel hatch sliding down, I see my stuff for the last time in this neighborhood. Jesse and I, we both leaned against the giant truck for a few seconds, satisfied at the job but realizing that now we have to drive all this stuff 8 miles to my new apartment, fit it all in an elevator, and lug it all through tight corridors and low ceilings. Moving out of a house in the suburbs, with all the space money can buy, it was a little too easy. The difference between moving out of a house and into an apartment is the difference between buying groceries and hunting for bear.
I moved because I got a job teaching grade 7 English last year and the commute was terrible, but I had a lease. This new place, I’m two blocks away from the school. I can see the entire grounds from my balcony. It’s a nice little middle school, nestled in a nice neighborhood, and I do my best to be a nice teacher. I was in a great mood today, but that May sun, it was beginning to wear on me.
“I’m never leaving my apartment,” I said to Jesse as he jumped in the passenger side of the Uhaul, “At least, not all summer. I’m going to sit in the middle of my living room, all splayed out on my couch, listening to old Beatles albums. I’m serious, once I get into a place with air conditioning, and I don’t mean that box in the window at this place, I mean like central air, I will need absolutely nothing else. It’s going to be such slightly breezy bliss.”
“Say that five times fast,” Jesse said, and I started the engine.
“Say what? Slightly breezy bliss?”
“You messed it up again, man,” he said, “when you say the ‘r’ in breezy, it sounds like an ‘l’. And when you say the ‘l’ in bliss, it sounds sort of like an ‘r’.”
“I guess I did, didn’t I?”
Jesse shook his head, looking so disappointed. “I feel sorry for those kids man. They’re all going to end up talking like that. Nobody will talk to them after a while. All the girls will look at boy bands for fantasies instead of their former crushes three rows up. All the boys will have to drop out of the football team. They’ll end up collecting Dungeons and Dragons cards. They’ll spend all their time in their parent’s basement, only dating girls online, becoming more and more isolated by the day.”
I say, “There’s nothing wrong with Dungeons and Dragons.”
The drive down is like this. What we remember out of this conversation is mostly the music coming from the shitty Uhaul radio. Jesse flips the dial and finds the classic rock station. They’re playing Free Bird. Air guitar promptly follows.
“I just don’t get you sometimes,” I say, passing a smaller, much more insignificant car. I think about that smaller car, how maybe they’re looking back my way, noticing just how our shadow completely covers their car. I wonder about those people, you know, if they’re going to be okay after going through an experience like this.
After badly singing “And this bird you cannot change/ Lord knows I can’t change,” Jesse looks at me with the same look he gives every time I bring this up. He pulls back his grungy long hair and shakes his head, “You know I’m a God fearing man, Troy. Well, before I go to bed every night, I pray to my God. I pray that my mother will always be healthy and happy, that my wife will always be the woman of my dreams, and that my son will be a good boy. I don’t pray for much, really, just the general expected stuff. However, every single night, at the end of all my usual loving stuff, I pray to the good lord above that you will someday learn to appreciate a Lynyrd Skynyrd guitar solo.” Jesse leaned half against the seat and half against the door and looked at me drive, air guitar still going. “You know,” he said, “I think now’s a good time to do a little extra.” Jesse rolled down his window, and clasped his hands together, pointing out into the open May sky. “Please God, I don’t ask for much, I am but a modest guy. But my buddy here, Troy, he’s got something slightly wrong with him. It’s not a disease, or anything physical. I mean, he could learn to dress as well as me, but that’s a whole other matter.”
I had to scoff and shake my head. “You’re being ridiculous,” I said. Free Bird, now almost at the 8 minute mark, was finally beginning to wind down.
Jesse said, “Shh, talking to the big guy.” He rolled his window all the way down, and was half leaning out now, but I could still hear him say, “Please God, if there’s anything you can do to cure this poor, poor peasant of his terrible taste in music. If you could please just allow him the simple pleasure of enjoying the classics.”
I asked, “I like the Beatles, the Stones, and the Clash. Isn’t that enough compulsory classic rock?”
“Bleh,” he said back to me, then turned back toward the skies, “And if you could make it music that was created by artists that share the same continent as he does, all the better.”
Just as the last chords of Free Bird crackled through the bad reception, another song came up. It was stairway to heaven. Oh God it was Stairway to Heaven.
“What about Led Zepplin? Aren’t they British?”
“With the exception of Led Zepplin. Amen.” Jesse rolled the window half up, sat back and smiled. He said, “I don’t think I could ever move as much as you have. I mean, I’ve known you since high school.
That’s like, ten years now, and I think you’ve moved once a year. That’s every year man. What does that do to a person?”
“It’s wasn’t my fault in school,” I said, “It was my parents. They always did that, even before then. They were constant renovators. I think they have a credit established at Home Hardware. It was just what they did, you know? They’d move in to a place with an unfinished basement or terrible finishing on the walls, or a kitchen so ugly it just begged to be either redone or burnt down.” Stairway to heaven was going through the period in the song where, when played backwards, you heard all these crazy satanic lyrics. I asked, “You know about Led Zepplin, right? The devil worshiping thing?”
“Man, that’s just a rumor. And even if you could hear something weird, it’s just because it’s a freaking record being played backwards. You’re not supposed to play a record backwards anyway, it’s bad for it.”
We were almost there, and I said, “Right here man, this is the spot where it happens. Right when he says ‘there’s still time to change the road you’re on,’ when you play it backwards, he says ‘here’s to my sweet Satan.’ I’ve read about this. They’ve got proof on it. I imagine it’s pretty hard to accidentally put something like that in there.”
“You know,” Jesse said, as I turned into the parking lot, “For someone who hates classic rock so much, you certainly know a whole lot.”
“Well, I’m not about to be ignorant about something. Besides, I had this one roommate in College who played that station non-stop, for the whole year. I’ve got every song, all 30 of them, totally memorized.”
I parked and the engine purred.
We got out and the sun was still there, beating down on us. The apartment was fifteen floors of concrete and wholesomeness. Mostly elderly couples and the odd divorced dad, the complex was a suburban outpost of familiarity. The sun reflected off all the windows and flat, grey concrete, and today everything seemed to glow in soft light. Standing in front of my new home reminded me of old Star Trek episodes, where they changed the lighting in the camera to make everything seem more alien. My brown brick house eight miles back never shone like this.
“You’ve got a laundry room, right?” Jesse asked.
“Right next to the front door.”
“So you don’t have to share it with anyone. You’re moving up in the world.”
“Not to mention the foot of concrete between all the suites.”
Jesse paused, and before he lifted the back hatch, he said, “There’s more than 30 songs in that radio station.”
“Not many more,” I said. He lifted the hatch and there was all my stuff, carefully crammed together in a twenty feet square of aluminum. The first thing to come out was the coffee table.
“I really like this coffee table,” Jesse said.
“You want it?”
“You mean it?”
“When I die, it’s yours.” I laughed as we hoisted it off the truck.
“I might just throw you off your balcony,” He said.
“To get the coffee table?”
“That,” he said, “And because you’re a douche bag. Now, where are we going with this?”
“The side door. They use it for moving stuff in and out. Then to the cargo elevator. I called just before we left so they would get it ready.”
I led us to the side, this little insert with two grey doors. We dropped the table and I opened it, and we were in. The hallway was so brassy, the floors, you could see your reflection in these floors. The elevator was on my right, his left. It was already open, and there were carpets hanging from each corner.
“That’s a nice touch.”
“Yeah, good that they trust us.” He said. We tilted the table upright and leaned it against the wall. As we headed back to the truck, the superintendent came out of his room.
“Ah, Troy was it? How’s the move coming so far?” The superintendent of the building, he looked like Axle Rose except bald. He was pretty short and slightly Scottish and looked a little too happy to be a superintendent. He wore flannel and when he smiled you could see all the creases. I don’t even think he was all that old.
“It’s fine. Just getting started really.” I said, not bothering to stop, though before I walked outside again, I made sure to say, “Thanks for getting the elevator ready.”
Outside, Jesse said, “He looks like a peanut.”
“He does not.”
“He totally does. Or, like, one of those dogs that has really loose skin. You know the kind?”
“No, but I think I know what you’re talking about.” I said. “Shit.”
“What?”
“What is that type of dog?”
“I can’t think of the name. Is it a Pug?”
“No, those are smaller. They’ve got that kind of squished face, you know?”
“Oh. Oh yeah.” I said, scratching my head. We were at the back of the truck, and the next thing to take off was a mattress. We each grabbed an end and I said, “Shit. This is going to bother me all day.”
Jesse said, “You mean, how much your superintendent looks like one?”
“Well, it is now that you’ve mentioned it, yeah. Thanks a lot, jerk.”
The mattress was light and the wind almost pushed it out of my hands. A trio of kids on street bikes whisked by down the street. The air felt light and care free. Cars on the street were going no quicker than 30mph.
Jesse wanted to smoke already. I said, “Not until at least two elevator trips.”
The mattresses were in, two end tables, the coffee table, my ironing board and my speakers all fit in the elevator, along with us. While we were going up, Jesse asked me about Cassandra. Oh God he was asking me about Cassandra.
“What was the deal with that?” He asked. “You never really explained the situation.”
I looked over at him, inches away from me, pressed against the door by the first round of my stuff. I said, “We broke up. She moved out. A couple months later, I moved out, and here we are. You know, moving me out.”
“You can’t pretend like that’s all there was.”
The door slid open and we nearly fell over. I said, “Oh, that’s where you’re mistaken. I can most certainly pretend like that’s all there was. It’s been a few months now. I’m pretty much over her. Grab that end table.”
I slid the key from my pocket and twisted the door open with my free hand. The door had the letters ‘909’ on it. The door was a slight blue, and the rug was maroon. I walked in, turned on the lights, and the place was so clean. I had so many windows. I had so many walls. I could do, really, so much with this place. This was my home now.
“Where do you want this?”
“Over in the far corner for now. We don’t want to block anything.”
“This place is huge. And so freaking bright.”
“It’s kind of welcoming, I think.”
“Feels like a trap, man. I mean, see these walls? They’re a little too clean, you know? I figure, they’ll wait until you’ve got your bed set up and you’re fast asleep. Then, when the moon comes out and it’s like, three in the morning, everything here is gonna turn into something evil. The walls will become these haggard rocks and vines, like that scene on Dagoba with Yoda and the cave where Luke kills the spectre of Vader, but then it shows that it’s really Luke in there, and it’s all trippy.
“And then the drapes will become tentacles and the windows will turn into vortexes into vile alternate universes, where everyone has evil little Hitler mustaches and night is day and day is night and 7-11 serves gourmet menus only. The kitchen will be this beast that eats little children and their grandmothers, and he needs to feed endlessly or else he’ll die, and when that happens, you wake up the next morning and your kitchen will be gone, man, gone.”
I said, “Man, quit it. You’re worse than my students.”
“No wonder you got the place so cheap,” he said, carrying the other end table in, knocking on the walls as he goes, checking either for the spot where the cable goes, or for the secret hiding places of carnivorous trolls.
We cleared the elevator of the first batch, and went back down. The superintendent was waiting for us.
“You boys need any help?” He said. What a nice guy.
Jesse said, “No thanks pea…sir. We’re fine. This guy, he doesn’t have much stuff.” He pointed at me and they shared a laugh.
“Yeah,” I said, winking, “I mostly live with his girlfriend.”
The superintendent didn’t get the joke, but walked off anyway.
“Man,” Jesse said, “Why do you insist on being a Douche?”
“Is that the only insult you know?”
“You’re superintendent is a Pug.”
“It’s not a pug.”
“Well, what is it, then?”
“English Bulldog?”
“No, those are too big.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s bugging me too.”
May is always the best month to move. It’s a little more pricey because of summer rates, but it’s worth it. Move in April, and you get rain, almost as a default. I’ve never moved in April and not have it rain. Move in March, and there’s a big chance you’ll freeze to death doing it. Every year that I didn’t move in March, it was always nice, warm and mocking. And Don’t even think about moving in February or January, not unless you’re looking to die freezing out in that small space between the house and the truck, waiting for the neighborhood kids to make a snowman out of you. Anywhere between October, November and December can be a fatal mistake for the same reasons.
However, the possibility of death-by-move during the winter is nothing compared to the kind of move I’ve had during warmer months. Last year, when I moved into the two story flat with Cassandra, we did the move around mid-August. The forecast was about 35 degrees with not a cloud in the sky. Next door, the neighbors’ kids were trying to boil eggs on the sidewalk to see if the cliche was true. I always did worry about those kids.
What makes a mid-summer move the worst isn’t the heat, it’s the breaks. I don’t work outside. I work in a, on average, nicely air conditioned school. I am not conditioned to work outside for four or five hours, and neither are any of my friends. If the move is only a two person ordeal, like today’s, then it’s not so much a problem. But add even one person and you’ve already got a mutiny waiting to happen. One guy suggests a break, a glass of water maybe, and a few minutes sitting down. Not long, he insists. The second guy sort of agrees, but waits to see what the third guy, the head of the group says. The head guy naturally wants to get everything done as quickly as possible, and since the second guy is rebellious, because the second guy is always a prick, the head guy is left to work on his own. After a while, the head guy is tired, and he convinces the other guys to take a break with him, and the cycle continues. What could be a simple two hour move ends up taking all day.
We’ve got the elevator filled and we’re emptying it into the slightly-less-empty living room.
“Three or four more of those and that should do it, eh?” Jesse asks.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You know,” he says, putting his hands on his hips like an old wife on a cooking show, “If I had known that moving was so easy, I would have done it twice as much as you have.”
This comment kind of hurt, because I knew, and he should have known, too. “It’s because I don’t have as much stuff, Jesse. Remember? She took half of it?”
“I know, man, I know.” He said. But I know that he didn’t. Jesse and Courtney were the happiest couple I’d ever seen. They met in high school. They got married the day after College graduation and had a son the year later. They had a nice house with a satellite and a kitchen with tile. They had a brown boarded fence with a flowery lattice on top. And they had some love, too.
“That’s what I mean,” he said, “When I say that you can’t pretend that’s all there was. I mean, people don’t get divorced six months after getting married for no reason.”
Today was supposed to be a nice, relaxing day. I slept in, didn’t feel any rush today, I woke up at nine. That sun woke me. I had a lazy cereal breakfast and watched the weather network. It was a beautiful day outside. My place was all packed up and half empty. My bed was still together, but nothing else. I got the same feeling this morning that I got every other time I moved. I felt like nowhere I would ever go would be home. With your stuff in boxes, all wrapped up neatly, with everything at 90 degree angles, you realize how temporary it is.
I remembered my Grandmother’s house. Every time I visited, the only differences were some new family pictures on the walls. Every doily was intact. The chairs were never rearranged. The television was always against the same wall. Even the books in the bathroom never changed.
Jesse got there with the Uhaul around noon. It’s not like there was any rush. It was supposed to be a relaxing; the easiest move I’ve ever done. Because I didn’t have as much stuff as usual. Because it was a nice outside in the middle of the amazing month of May. Because I was going to leave it all behind again.
I left the apartment without saying anything, and waited for him in the elevator.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I said. “I don’t see why I have to talk about it. I don’t see why I have to be held accountable. Some things, you know, some things you’re allowed to just not explain, you know? You’re allowed to be private about it. I’m sorry, Jesse. You’re my best friend, really, but I can’t let this kind of stuff out. Please man, you don’t have to understand it, but that’s all you’re going to get out of me today.”
“I just thought,” he said, shifting his feet in the elevator, “Maybe you’d want to talk, you know? But that’s cool. You deal with it however you want to.”
There was still four floors to go down, and neither of us spoke, so for the first time all afternoon there was silence. I didn’t really know what to do with that. We exited and walked to the truck in silence, too, and that seemed even worse.
I can understand the confusion in Jesse’s voice. It had been a few months since Cassandra and I divorced, and I hadn’t said a word to anyone about why. Cassandra moved back into her parent’s place for a month, before finding an apartment downtown. She’s doing fine. I don’t think she’s dating yet. I haven’t talked to a single woman since, haven’t thought about women really. I can understand Jesse wondering about me. I can imagine him and Courtney talking about me some nights, talking about how depressed I must be, how I’m only happy when in public, but in reality, every night I sink to my knees and sob for hours under the wanting gaze of the night. What they don’t know is I’m okay, and Cassandra is okay, and that sometimes these things happen. What’s important is that nobody is hurting. That’s the best explanation I could ever give.
Jesse needs more than that, I know. He needs more than a restful pat on the shoulder and an assurance that nothing is wrong. He needs deep confessions, the ones with cigarettes late at night, only interrupted by Letterman uttering on about whatever. What Jesse wants is something to hold onto, so when people ask him about Cassandra and I, or when his imagination roams to question things like this, he’s got an answer.
At this point we’re not quite ready for a climax yet. We’ve still got a few more hours to go before that. We’re still building, hoping that some of this foreshadowing will stick in the minds of those who need it, or, even better, they come back for it again and again. However, things are definitely moving forward.
It’s been silent for a good couple minutes now. Neither of us seems to know what to say. I can’t think of the afternoon going like this, couldn’t fathom it, so I say something that might cause a complete shock to Jesse’s system, prompting him to fall to the ground, convulse, and force me to call the proper authorities.
“You know,” I said, “I don’t hate classic rock as much as you think.”
And when I said that he looked like Christmas. He grabbed one end of my computer table and looked like he could carry it all by himself, but I helped him.
“I knew you were faking it,” he said. A kid in a candy store. A shining lightbulb of joy. A young couple rolling around in a field of freaking daisies. Nothing compared to the happiness Jesse showed at that moment. He said, “I knew it all along.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” I said as we placed the desk at the edge of the elevator. “I’m not about to endorse it or anything. It just doesn’t make my ears bleed like I let on.”
“Oh, I knew, Dammit, I knew all this time,” he was almost jumping for joy.
“Careful there,” I said. “Don’t drop anything. I broke enough stuff last time I moved.”
“That’s what you get for moving mid-August.” He said.
We were going pretty quickly. We stacked eight boxes and the computer desk into the elevator and made our way up. When those were all in the living room, we went down and filled another up, and another. All the while, Jesse was sort of elated.
“So, what’s your favorite?”
“Don’t do this man. I don’t have a favorite.”
“Sure you do. Everyone does. You know what mine is?”
I guess maybe I’m just not confessional about things. I said, “I’m dying with anticipation to find out.”
“Sympathy for the Devil.”
“Oh, what do you know, mine too.”
“Really?”
“No. That song sucks.”
The most important aspect of a move is pacing. Pacing is what killed me last August when moving, because we all went too slow and everyone ended up bitching about it. Pacing is what always killed me whenever I moved in the winter, because the rush would wear me out too fast and I’d freeze my ass off. If I ever move again, wherever he may be, I have to track Jesse down and have him help me. We’re in exactly the same shape, and we’ve got pretty much the same work ethic. We don’t f*ck around, but there’s no real rush, either. Everything just seems perfectly in sync.
The next hour felt like a montage more than work. You could break it down in 9 pictures, and have them all float around the front of the video camera over and over, and do that for several minutes. The first picture would be Jesse and I picking up a box or a piece of furniture off the Uhaul. At this point, Jesse asks me if I liked Alice Cooper or Motley Crue better. The second picture is us coming into the building, the sun behind left behind, and I tell him “Secret option C, David Bowie.” Jesse sounds surprised and says “They’re not even the same genre ”
The third picture, we’re placing the boxes neatly into the elevator, and there’s the superintendent, and after we exchange pleasantries, one of us guess the type of dog he most looks like, because we still haven’t figured it out.
“St. Bernard.”
“Definitely not a St. Bernard. That’s like, not even on the radar.”
“Is too.”
“Don’t be that guy.”
“What guy?”
“The guy that comes back with inane grade school defenses. The guy who is intelligent enough to make a poignant argument, but instead chooses to be sort of funny instead, making himself look like an idiot. Don’t be that guy.”
The fifth picture is us unloading the elevator, piece by piece, and placing all the stuff in my living room. The sixth picture is Jesse looking in my fridge for a drink, and then doing this big overacted mime pout as he realized I still hadn’t put anything in there. The seventh is me kicking his ass out the door, back to the elevator where we get more stuff.
The eighth shot is Jesse, alone in the empty elevator, doing his sad mime thing when he realizes there is no more. For a little bit I’m worried that he might consider becoming a professional mime. Of course, when I ask him, he’s all avoidant.
“You could be a professional mime.”
“I was,” he says. “Years ago, before I knew you, or Courtney even. I lived in England and was a street performer. I’d do the craziest shit man. I’d juggle, and I’d do it balancing on stilts. I’d juggle fire, man, and then I’d eat it. I’d do these mind boggling acrobatic acts with all my little street performer buddies. We’d toss each other around all day and light one another on fire for just spare change, man “
“Buskers,” I said.
“What?”
“That’s what they’re called.”
“You mean the dog that your superintendent looks like?”
“No,” I said. “I still can’t think of it. I meant the street performers. They’re called buskers. And you’re full of shit.”
“I’m serious man, I’m telling you. Nobody knows about this side of me. I’m really opening up here, man. You should feel privileged.”
I had to say, “Oh, I do.”
“Well, on some lazy Sunday afternoons, when there weren’t many people around, so the boys and I would practice our mime skills. Like, for hours we’d do this. I’ve got the rope and the ladder and the box down to a science. I can do them in my sleep.”
The ninth snapshot would be me punching Jesse in the arm as we made it back down to the truck and repeat the whole thing, with only slightly different conversation.
When it was all up there, Jesse and I stood inside the empty shell of the Uhaul truck and looked around.
“That was fun,” he said.
“I owe you at least a beer.”
“Oh, right, in the cooler.”
We hopped out of the truck and Jesse dropped the hatch and locked up. Then he said, “Ladies first.”
The superintendent was sitting on the couch in the lobby, listening to the music coming out the little speaker above him. From what I could hear, it wasn’t anything like the classic rock station. He waved and smiled and we went in the padded elevator for the last time.
My apartment wasn’t spacious anymore. It had rocks and mountains and wildlife. All my boxes and furniture created an unconquerable jungle that spilled into the kitchen and hallways. The dining room chairs were the only thing remotely in place.
I cracked open the cooler and handed Jesse a beer. We sat down on the chairs.
“At least you’ve got chairs.”
“Yeah.”
“A lot of people go their whole lives without having chairs.”
“If you’re trying to make a metaphor for love, man, just let it go. I don’t need to look at my chairs and think about the unique view on love my best friend has.”
“I remembered when you called Cassandra your best friend.”
“God, not this again.”
He took a swig. Sitting there, only feet from me, he said, “It wasn’t really that long ago. And she totally played up the best friend moniker you threw on her. I remember one Sunday, she got up incredibly early to cook an insane amount of food. She put out snacks all over the place in these big baskets. She lined your apartment with confetti, strings and balloons, and she hid the freaking remote control, so that when you woke up, all there was on TV was the big football game. She bought beer and nachos for the day.”
I said, “I hated football.”
“That was the best part, though.”
“Worst sport in the world.”
“She knew you hated it. But since you were all like ‘oh, I love you so much that you’re my new best friend, kissy face kissy face kissy face’, she made such a huge effort to play it up.”
I said, “Even worse than hockey. And you know how much I hate hockey.”
He asked me, “You miss her?”
“I told you man,” the place seemed like it was getting smaller by the second, “It’s been months. I’m pretty much over it. And it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, as much as there’s not really anything to talk about. It is possible that at one moment two people that love each other as much as Cassandra and I did can instantaneously stop loving each other.”
“So it was a love thing? Why did you get married to her then?”
“I’m not saying it was just a love thing, as much as it was a feeling thing. We both just felt it was time to end it.”
“I have trouble believing that story,” he said. The heat was coming through all those awesome windows. That dusty light was bouncing off all my stuff. Jesse said, “I think there was a lot more to it. And I think you still miss her.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because that’s just how things are, you know? It takes a lot of force to be able to love someone as much as you loved Cassandra, and it probably took more for her to love you. There’s a momentum that surrounds a love like that, and it always acts as this shield against anything that could hurt it. You guys seemed just so indestructible. There is always opposing forces, naturally, but your momentum couldn’t have been stopped by anything less powerful. And that means that something even stronger than whatever brought you together ended up tearing you apart.”
“I understand where you’re going with this, Jesse, but you can’t just grade reasons on their effectiveness. It was a feeling. We both felt it. Neither of us left each other. We just decided it was over. It’s your choice to believe that as truth or shit. You are my best friend, though, and I wouldn’t lie to my best friend. It’s okay to have a breakup that’s clean and does what it needs to do. There was a lot of tears on both ends about it, when we realized it was over, but there wasn’t much point in discussing it. We both just knew. I’m happy, Jesse. She’s happy. That’s the point, isn’t it? That’s the big happy ending these days. I know, it used to be about living happily ever after with f*cking prince charming in a castle surrounded by a moat and fields of daisies for miles around it. It used to be about the dream of perfection and togetherness. Remember how almost every novel from the late 1700’s to 1900 ended in either marriage or death? Well, things are different now. Other things are more important. It’s finding that glimpse of possibility at the end, that shard of hope. It’s the really hard struggle to get the most honest reward. I don’t know why, but I prefer the little, honest reward over the big dream. I prefer to be happy along the way. That way, when I look back on it, I can say no regrets, and that’s worth fighting to say. I can look back and say ‘I listened to some really bad music when I was young, but I really dug it so it’s okay.’ I want to say that my best friend helped me move into a new place. I want to say the journey before this story and the journey after were happy but challenging. I want to be able to say that none of it was easy. So what have I got? I’ve got big windows, and you can see for miles out of those suckers. I’ve got all these boxes to unpack. I’ve got that whole future thing to worry about. I’ve got a superintendent who looks like a cross between a peanut and a French Mastiff. I’ve got my best friend sitting next to me, constantly badgering me about a failed marriage that I would never in my entire lifetime call a failure. But I love the guy, so it’s okay, he can ask me anything he wants to.”
The air in my apartment was wise. It knew exactly what it needed to be. In a few hours, I’d get to putting my bed together and hooking up the TV. I’d maybe write in my journal or maybe not. Surely there would be something worth writing about. Surely something had enough feeling.
Jesse, he smiled and said thank you, that it meant a lot to him to be my best friend. And then he asked, “French Mastiff, huh?”
“It’s the best idea I’ve come up with. I’m satisfied with it.”
“If it’s good enough for you, then it’s good enough for me.”
“Nice cliche.”
“Hey, it’s good to have them laying around in case you need to make fun of something to boost your confidence.”
“Kind of like your mom?”
“Okay man, seriously. Quit being a douche.”
***
NEWS
Beck, EELS, more to appear on tribute album
On August 23rd, Eenie Meenie Records will release the collection Dimension Mix: The Music of Bruce Haack and Esther Nelson. The album pays tribute to the Dimension 5 which released over ten children’s albums in twenty years. Started by Bruce Haack, a pioneer in the field of early electronic music and Esther Nelson, a children’s dance teacher and lyricist, the label was met with relatively no commercial success before Haack’s death from heart failure in 1988. It did, however, garner the pair an appearance on Mister Roger’s Neighborhood and get their records into classrooms across the country.
Dimension Mix was assembled by Southern California-based multimedia artist and producer Ross Harris and Eenie Meenie Records. It features covers and remixes of Haack and Nelson’s songs. Check out the tracklisting below:
A portion of all sales of the Dimension Mix will be donated to Cure Autism Now, an organization dedicated to the prevention and treatment of autism.
Beck: Funky Lil’ Song
Stereolab: Mudra
Fantastic Plastic Machine: I’m Bruce (Dimension 5 Mega Mix)
The Apples in Stereo: Liza Jane
Money Mark: Spiders
Tipsy: Popcorn
EELS: Jelly Dancers
Brother Cleve: School 4 Robots
Oranger: Catfish
Anubian Lights: Walking Eagle
Irving: Army Ants In Your Pants
DJ Me DJ You: Soul Transportation
From Bubble Gum To Sky: Abracadabra
Chris Kachulis: Listen
Geoffrey Owen & Mary Christopher: African Lullaby
Blue-Eyed Son: Upside Down
The Stones Throw Singers: Rain of Earth
Danielson Famile: Nothing To Do
Credit – Indieworkshop
Pink Floyd to Reunite for Live 8 Concert
Pink Floyd’s classic lineup of Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright will perform for the first time in more than 20 years at the London Live 8 concert. The event, which aims to increase world awareness of African debt and hunger issues, will be held July 2 at the city’s Hyde Park.
Pink Floyd has not performed live since the 1994 tour in support of its last studio album, “The Division Bell.” Waters has not been a part of the band since 1983, and his dealings with Gilmour have been rancorous in the ensuing years. Waters even sued Gilmour, unsuccessfully, for touring under the Pink Floyd name without him following the band’s initial split after the album “The Final Cut.”
Credit – Billboard
***
LINKS
I simply cannot neglect Widro and Rob Blatt covering the ECW show. I just finished watching it myself, and I can sum it all up in one word; Catharsis.
I’m half intruiged by Aaron Cameron’s idea of a 411/Inside Pulse draft. I can’t really think of any reason why they shouldn’t do that.
Gloomchen’s truth bests any of our fictions.
***
Lyrics To Live By
Fresh Feeling – EELS
You don’t have a clue
What it is like
To be next to you
I’m here to tell you
That it is good
That is true
Birds singing a song
Old paint is peeling
This is that fresh
That fresh feeling
Words can’t be that strong
My heart is reeling
This is that fresh
That fresh feeling
Try, try to forget
What’s in the past
Tomorrow is here
Love, orange sky above
Lighting your way
There’s nothing to fear
Birds singing a song
Old paint is peeling
This is that fresh
That fresh feeling
Words can’t be that strong
My heart is reeling
This is that fresh
That fresh feeling
Some people are good
Babe in the hood
So pure and so free
I’d make a safe bet
You’re gonna get
Whatever you need
Birds singing a song,
Old paint is peeling
This is that fresh
That fresh feeling
Words can’t be that strong
My heart is reeling
This is that fresh
That fresh feeling
That fresh feeling
This is that fresh feeling
***
Next week, I’m going to write an essay about how we’re all big country music fans and we should all finally just fess up about it.
Until then, Party on Garth.
