So life is a juxtaposition of people and places
And things that happen
And everyone we meet for some reason
Things we see and do
And can never take or give back
Everything true and none of it false
When you really get to the heart of it
Everything is always true
For other people it's different but for me it starts and ends at the office:
---- Them -- you have to go to Germany and Armenia and probably Italy, before November
---- Me -- great, wonderful. You know why people have heart attacks? To get out of shit like this.
---- Them -- please don't have a heart attack.
---- Me -- Sometimes I'm really tempted, you know?
Radio loud on the way home from work - Dave Matthews, sotto voce, at the start of "Time Bomb", I think of sometimes
"Relax." Then he sings a song.
Relax. In my book
If Lyle Lovett had become a plumber there would be no reason for country music.
Though some would argue he's not exactly "country". More "Texas".
Amazon lists him as "alternative country".
He's got this cello player that comes out in the middle of a song and does a classical solo.
And a black gospel backing group
And a modified mullet.
And Tonto saying, "Kiss my ass," to the Lone Ranger.
We were in the third row and when they played "Penguins" The blonde haired girl broke out in uncontrollable laughter over the lines
"I don't go for fancy clothes
Diamond rings.
I go for penguins
Oh lord, I go for penguins.
Penguins are so sensitive.
Penguins are so sensitive
To my needs..."
so much so that the rhythm guitar player kept looking over and grinning.
Maybe he hadn't been around people who had paid $120 a seat to see Lyle Lovett and his Large Band
And didn't really know the music at all
During the economic downturn when people are being bankrupted by medical bills
We are laughing at Lyle Lovett
In the cold Saratoga night
We will always have the penguins, the blonde haired girl and me
**And I will rise up.
Though I be a dead man...**
Etc.
"Tomorrow we will play in Monterey, in an air conditioned theatre. Inside the way you're supposed to be in the summer," says Lyle about the fact it's 58 degrees F and dropping fast in the damp ocean breeze.
This is really country music, apparently,
To play jazz with a Gospel group and sing
"If I had a boat
I'd sail out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I'd ride him on my boat...
me upon my pony on my boat."
Which made me think of kids. It's a kid thing, to wish to ride your pony onto a boat.
So then me sentimental--a stressed out old sap--nerves frayed from weddings three days prior.
Shell shocked by the impact of the visiting ex's, and their accusing glares and my-life-was-ruined-head turns
then having to dance with your married daughter thinking -
I already did this once
She was just a little kid
Very small smiley criey blue eyed person thing
Head in the palm of my hand
Legs splayed on either side of my forearm
In one hand I held her dancing in the living room
To the vinyl music on the stereo
Stop crying till mommy comes home
No need to cry for I will slay lions
Bare handed and sharp toothed
Work to the bones for you
One day you will be married and I will be old
One day you will leave the same way I did
And everybody everywhere
else
**And I will rise up. Though I be a dead man.** Lyle's choir sang and me thinking - dear lord, when I was stoned last Thursday I thought it was the same as Alzheimer's. Just more of the distance that's already forming.
"You know, when I was a kid I thought you wrote this song for me," my wedding-dressed daughter says in my arms about Paul McCartney singing her name.
**And I will stand tall, until I meet my end.** I could knock on the door of many Gods. I could demand audience and they would speak to me.
"I did," I told her before I couldn't talk anymore.
"We'd like to invite the father of the bride to dance with his daughter."
"The Beatles stole it from me."
"Gina's worried you're going to try to ground her."
The younger sister's got her own car. She's got her own job. She lives in Santa Barbara. I could ground her about as easily as I could become Governor of California.
"Are you okay, now?" the bride says to me while we do that movement in embrace that seems like dancing to the people doing it and some kind of circular rhythmic walking to people watching. There is a story here about my eating some confection, fresh out of my freezer, that tasted of chemicals, and I found myself tripping through the rest of the day when I should have been doing errands. Everybody laughed. I sat around wondering about things most of the time. Like is this going to go away before I have to drive to the wedding tomorrow.
I ran errands anyway. Just like the 93-year old guy who drives into the farmer's market in Santa Monica killing 7 and maiming 12.
"Something wrong?" said the car wash lady who took my money when the stuff kicked in and I could barely count. I shook my head, wondering how I was going to drive off the lot, trying to remember which pedal was the clutch. What do the kids see in this? Is their reality so vivid they need to beat it into this real-time imagination? Oh, yeah. My friend Mark was there. He drove me home.
"Got your back, buddy," I remembered 200 times per second.
"She said she told you not to drive," my daughter says in my arms.
"She shouldn't poison her father," I say, forgetting the waltz.
"You shouldn't just eat random things," the bride says, sticking up for her miscreant college age sister.
"But it's my house."
"Well, okay." She says.
"You never did things like that. You were always a good kid."
"Daddy, I love you," she forgets she shouldn't say things like that when the camera guy is around. Too late.
**Though I be a dead man I will stand tall till I meet my end **
"He just spent the whole meeting yelling at us," says my chief technologist about the meeting I missed while dancing with my daughter. Because life gets in the way of work.
"I spent my whole night staring at the ceiling, imagining how I was going to confront him and probably lose my job," I say, because it's true
If I had a pony on a boat
I'd sail into the ocean.
"Don't do that," says my technology guy.
"Don't eat stuff people put in your freezer," says my daughter.
"Weddings make me very sad, " says the blonde haired girl, nearly in a catatonic stupor.
"You have to tell them on Tuesday what we're doing - " says the sales guy. "Oh by the way, congrats on your daughter."
"Thanks."
"You can make it at 7AM, right?"
"No problem, I'll just hit the road by 5."
"He tossed out the preso we worked on."
"The one we spent the week on?"
"Yeah, he wants another one, by Monday so he can see it before the Tuesday meeting."
"You know why people have heart attacks?" You know why I'm dizzy all the time and can't remember where my glasses are?
"I love you, Daddy," says my daughter
"Relax," says Dave Matthews.
"If I had a boat and a pony," says Lyle Lovett. "I will stand tall."
Though I be a dead man.
After the drugs and the emotion wears off, it feels like waking up. All the time.
While waking up for hours I scribbled this to me - please don't forget
And write it the way it's supposed to be written