I only knew that you were thirsty

Easter Sunday, 2011.

I need Half and Half.

Sitting in my car in the parking lot of a normally 24 hour grocery store at 6:15am, I began wondering how in the hell I forgot that today was Easter. Everything is closed. I told myself to go to the grocery store before work, but I didn't want to listen. I sat there, as the last of the early morning fog evaporated into nothing, and the sun on the horizon like God's flashlight stabbing me in the face. I was bleary eyed, perturbed, and wondering about my faith and where I put my chocolate Jesus.

What is faith, exactly? Call up Webster and he'll tell you it's “confidence or trust in a person or thing”, followed up quickly by definition number two that says “belief that is not based on proof”. All around the world there are people following their own little brand of religion, and a lot of 'em think that theirs is the right one and everyone else is going to hell. Some find the church late in life, others say they were following a calling right from day one. Maybe it's habitual, going way back to when their parents were simultaneously telling them about Jesus and the Easter Bunny. Try explaining that one when the kid hits 10 or 11. “The Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, we lied about those, but Jesus...Jesus, that's all true.” No wonder we're confused.

The holy ones up in front at church, with their vestments and collection plates, they say we're in the end times. The end is nigh. Repent. And because this person is at the head of a congregation, they are believed. Shit, there's a guy on my bus every Wednesday who says the same thing, but everyone just thinks he's crazy. The only difference is the location of the sermon and maybe the fact that my fellow commuter looks like he's a close cousin to Boo Radley.

But what if...what if he isn't crazy? What if he isn't on drugs or drunk? What if...and I'm just sayin' what if...what if he knows something we don't? What if he's actually illuminated? But let's face it, this guy doesn't fit the pastor profile. Last Wednesday he was one testimony away from getting kicked off the bus into a decent spring shower.

Sure enough, we hit the transit station and the driver stomped on the brakes and put it in park before the bus had quit movin'. He had had enough. A couple people swore from the back, the driver swore from the front. He chased ol' Boo's cousin out into the rain then closed the door with a hiss. I could hear Boo's cousin yelling “alright” over and over as I trotted into the building. I looked over my shoulder, and as the door closed I saw him there at the foot of the curb. He was looking up into the downpour, shouting hoarsely.

“Alright...alright...I don't want to do this anymore.”

At least that's what it sounded like. The door closed and the din of rain was sealed out with a click, and I just stood there a second and watched. He was just a silent drowning fish now, mouthing and gesticulating with the lunch crowd zipping by in all directions as if he wasn't even there. They disregard him as just another lost soul.

Now, perception is reality. What each person sees, hears or feels at any given moment is their reality. Boo's cousin appears crazy as a loon, but I have no idea what has happened in this man's life that has led him to this point. I only know that he believes what he is saying just as much as any preacher in a pulpit. I want to believe in something that strongly, but I'm sick with experience.

It sounds crazy but I kinda understand Boo's cousin. Sometimes I kinda know when a sound is just the house settling and when it's something else. I've heard voices on the wind and watched movement in my periphery. Once I left my body while sitting at the foot of a Redwood tree at Muir Woods National Monument. I've been visited by mom, and my old cat Whiskey.

It's possible that we all have been contacted by something unexplainable, but choose not to acknowledge it. Maybe we just call it a miracle. Maybe it's all garbled, like with Boo's cousin. Maybe we keep it a secret for fear of being labeled 'crazy', when there is no such thing as 'sane'.

Home before last call

A few nights ago, I managed to get all my hairs to lay down in one direction, ran a brush across my teeth and headed out into the unseasonably cold, dark, narcotic American night.

I'd say winter is subletting spring right now, but its more like squatting. Another dash of wet snow, another night full of people climbing the walls.

I sat at my corner stool at Governor's and hoped to run into Boone.

Lou was working the bar alone and he was kinda in the weeds. I've never been here when it's this busy. It was a little disconcerting, like walking in and finding a bunch of strangers in your office.

Lou set my beer down with a “hey buddy”, his face brightened just for a minute before he went back about his work. I'll bet you he's wishing he didn't offer drink specials because he's getting his ass handed to him right now by a group of 40 something fellows in the adjacent room.

No Boone yet...but to my right there's an older guy/younger girl combo. In my periphery I can see his hand climbing up and down her thigh. She must've put the skirt on earlier in the day when the temperature was still decent. It's a bit early for a skirt that high, pale skin be damned. She kept grabbing big hunks of his chest and jerking him closer. Then shoving him back. After a big, open-mouthed kiss, she grabbed a bill from the stack in front of them and headed over to the juke box.

“Sorry...” he said, not looking up, arranging his clothing. His date had punched up an awful number on the juke and began gyrating suggestively. Her date blushed, scooped up the stack of bills and muttered something along the line of he was getting too old for this shit.

It sure isn't like in the movies.

Talking too much. That's a definite problem. For a lot of guys it isn't knowing how to start a conversation, but knowing when to shut up. This guy didn't have that problem, it was clearly one of those dates; down and dirty. He's putting up a good fight, but he'll feel it a little too hard to smile through tomorrow. They say you should be yourself on a date, but what if you're an asshole? C'mon, on...usually on a first date everyone is smilin' and putting their best foot forward. Like anything, you need practice. Especially if you've been out of the game for awhile. If you go on too long, you're bound to screw things up.

No wonder so many people are getting cleaned up to go to farmer's markets and coffee shops. Going online. You don't have to go through all that horse shit, that whole carousel of mingling. Plus as the night wears on you're dealing with people whose standards are lowering in proportion with the beer they've drank. You can hang out at one of the hip places and pretend you're not trying to get in someone's pants, or you can bring your clandestine tryst to a place like this and play grab ass in the shadows. Me? I think I need a wingman. I drank my pint, paid Lou, and went home to play my guitar on Gchat. Good trade.

I shaved for this??

There is a series of commercials that run a lot lately on networks that tend to get a big single male viewership in the wee hours of the morning. It is the most obvious, brilliant use of marketing to date; run Match.com ads during Robot Chicken from 11 pm to 3 am. Single men sitting on the sofa see footage of an actual date going swimmingly, with the tag line that now 1 in 5 relationships start on a dating website.

All I can think is “I'd love to see the footage from the other four...”

These websites are the penultimate point to the zenith of online dating. The only thing missing is to have your date hit the mail box 3-5 days after you click 'send'. If you end up not liking it, just turn it back in and order another. Out in the real world, it seems men and women both are having way too many dating experiences that make them wonder why they got cleaned up in the first place. With this, you don't even have to leave the house until you meet for coffee.

One morning this past weekend in the middle of Robot Chicken, I was browsing through a site that was not Match.com, but a flimsy and free knock off.

What? Quit looking at me like that.

I thought what the hell, if nothing else there will be a little correspondence. Who knows. Anyway, I ran across the profile of an acquaintance of mine. It was really well written. And in case you didn't know, poor spelling and grammar is the online equivalent of approaching someone with your fly down and toilet paper hung up in your belt. Hers breathed more like a book than a screen. Great pictures...those one-of-a-kind candid shots that put you in mind of a 60's beach vacation. Moments that would make a man say “yeah, I remember that day”. She's confident and relaxed. Poised and present.

I scrolled through a couple other profiles and they were exactly what you'd expect to see on a free site; I think the words I'm after are “a hot mess”. These are the people who have given up on Match.com, fer crissakes. Evidently bad grammar and punctuation are not gender specific...it's like a dead tooth in an otherwise pretty smile. The pictures were everything you'd see on a college girl's refrigerator to mug shots. Quick tip ladies, if you can field dress the deer you've just shot, I'll take your word for it. And another thing, don't post a picture with a strand of Walleye the length of your boat. The guy you're after doesn't want to be out-fished by his girlfriend. Unless of course you have a nice, big boat. Some were pretty good, but just like fishing you have to be patient to catch the good ones.

She's out of place here and it's clear as a bell, the reason why. She's a woman amongst girls. So few will understand her nuance, too many are intimidated by the photographs. In 8 or 10 years, her son will start bringing girls around and they're gonna say “holy shit, your mom is hot.”

The 'Rocky' Effect

The elevator doors opened with a tin ding, the silence broken by a wave of muffled music like a house party two doors down on a Saturday night. The hallway was an outtake from a David Lynch film; long, narrow and high. The blood red paint soaked up most of the light from the low wattage bulbs shoved into the hands of metal cherubs, painted black. Either I was growing or the hallway was shrinking as I walked along the funhouse illusion set up by the black and white checkerboard tile, music getting a little louder with each step...a little crisper, like when you're just about to wake up from a dream.

The kick drum pulsed out low and hard with the far off rumble of a thunderstorm in June, and a whip-crack snare calling back in syncopation like a lightning strike splitting the sky. The guy in back was playing his guitar like a pump-action shotgun with an expression more along the line of reading yesterday's news. Out in front, a rooster in 11.5 cowboy boots strapped to an old brown acoustic that has seen better days. From the sound alone you'd think you were walking into a shack-shaking scene with couples slinging each other around the dance floor and waitresses in tight tops hoisting trays of beer over a brawl. But no.

Tonight the boys are playing to a room with nothing but a couple in the corner and the rest of the musicians waiting for their turn on stage, backed up by a 9 foot angel looking down with busted wings. I tipped the brow of my hat forward and slalomed through the black tables on black floor, faux flickering blue candles and red curtains lining the wall. The only other bearded cat in the place was Ray, already halfway through his first of two drink tickets.

“Now that's a damn shame...” I thought to myself. If you're on the marquee you shouldn't have to keep track of tickets. He was eating a warm pretzel the size of a hubcap. Obviously, I ordered one. We got to talking about how much the lead of this band reminded me of a guy I know back home. His mannerisms, the way he tapped that right foot north and south, the nonchalant way he played as the song unfolded. The only difference was this guy was wearing a gas station cap, where I wouldn't recognize the guy I know without his trademark bent-up cowboy hat. He's the only guy I know that can make that hat look good.

Ray said he recently got a gift from his father who wasn't well. A violin that's a hundred years old, a close copy of a Stradivarius, and its got an ancestor's name engraved in it. 'Thor' something. I don't care what your last name is, having a violin named 'Thor' is cool as shit. Repairing it is gonna cost.

“I know,” I said in a comfortable voice. “I've got a similar situation with an old Elgin watch my dad gave to me.” Of course it's all relative, I'm only pointing out that they were both a shocking number. I told him all about how dad found it on the flight line when he was stationed in the Azores. Dad said the smell of jet fuel was so bad he lost 20 pounds during his tour. It's right about this point I realized how great it was to have this band playing 30 feet away and still be able to have a good conversation. Imagine that, you can even understand the lyrics. You can tell that there are points in the song where the microphone just isn't big enough to hide behind.

They say the bar business is kinda recession proof; that if anything binge drinking goes up in line with stress levels. Tonight it was the opposite. The bartender said it was strange to have such a low turnout for this line up.

“It's late.” Ray said. He laughed, but it wasn't a funny laugh. It was a “I'm screwed” laugh. See, he's not only a bottleneck Bodhisattva, he's also a husband and a father. He's busy thinking about what it's going to be like waking up with a one-year old around 6 am, and when his first nap opportunity will show up. A more modern minstrel.

The guy onstage is a rubbertramp; he travels a lot. Evidently he's a producer too so he spends a lot of time on the road. He sat a couple stools down after their set, still in his coat and smelling from the cigarette he just had out in the alley. His fingernails were dirty enough that you'd think he just finished changing a tail pipe and not everything came off in the washroom.

“Yeah, now I gotta go get in the car and drive, smelling like this.” Turns out, he had in fact been working on his car before the gig. Tomorrow he'll be in the same bar in another town, grinding that leftover grit into his pick guard. Thinking up new songs.

Closing time. Rowdy bunch files in for last call. PBR tallboys and CC shots. That's my cue, Lash LaRue. I thanked everyone for the music, and headed out into the maze of one way streets.

It's nights like this that have the 'Rocky' effect on me; but instead of going home and working out I go home and practice till I can't feel my fingertips, leaving my own grit on the pick guard for someone else to wonder about down the road.