Wednesday, March 19, 2003

Why is it that playing harmonica badly is acceptable? There are a million no-talent mother fuckers out there who feel that as long as they have a guitar in their hands they can blow on a harmonica. They can't even get the key right. Bad harmonica players are bad enough. Mediocre guitar players playing bad harmonica, with the exception, I guess, of Bob Dylan, who combined it all with bad singing, which somehow makes it harmonic, maybe because of the rule of thirds, is just bad news.  God damn. This makes me want to get my chops together to simply go to open mike nights with my harmonica, played well, and get a guitar, played badly. Just to make some sort of point. Some sort of. Point. I watched a man, a skinny hippy rock climbing man, playing velcro ball with a boy in a wheelchair, outside some rehab center in the central west end today. And I thought of all the skinny hippy rock climbers and how blissful they all are, all smiles, all the time. And I just don't get it. Being blissed out. That mentality freaks me out. Happiness all the time. Even when you're angry. Life isn't endless hacky-sack. Sometimes it throws rocks into the circle. Or biological weapons. If you're life is so oriented towards hacky or frisbee, what happens when a sharp object enters the mix? Maybe you decapitate with a smile on your face. Maybe that's the point. But I think there is something deeper. Not that I'm it. Driving today, and thinking about all the bad drivers out there, made me realize how prepared I've been for death, since getting lost in Jubilee State Park, on a cold February day, shortly after turning eighteen. Everything else has seemed like bonus time to me. I really, really believed I would freeze to death that night. Until the headlights, the road, not too far away, the barking dogs, more that than bite. And I think of D. Christian Demetrius. I don't know his last name. One of the dishwashers. Who would so vigorously shake my hand when I took the trash out. Or ran a load of silver. Which didn't seem like much. But crossed so many boundaries, I guess, that I am too unsophisticatedly Scottish, maybe, to really get. I asked him a few weeks ago whether he prefered Christian or Chris. He said he preferred D. Short for Demetrius. His middle name. Which I called him, through Tueday of last week. Before he died Friday, driving his van, probably on his way to a job, tired from working however many jobs he was working, saving money to buy a house. While I feel prepared for death, D. dying makes me realize that life is too precious, too short, to not ignore the brass ring, and go for that mystery, that open sea. Which makes me think of the possibilities, that sometimes feel like cold ocean spray, stinging against the flesh. The trick to life is balancing, on what we have charted, what is uncharted, what is worth drowning a while for, what helps me float. What takes me to beautiful uncharted territory, what takes me back to some forlorn port. 2:07:46 AM