Michael's Chronicles: Fried Spuzzles

When Ernie and I travel with Michael on our yearly road trip, we stop at Fast food joints sometimes, usually getting the chicken Something, which is the healthiest choice we can make under the circumstances. I'm sure he's stopped at a lot of Carl's Jr.s on the road between art shows, too. So when he talks about the fast food spiel, he's speaking from long experience -- you can count on it.

Fried Spuzzles

Within certain realms in life there is an “edge” toward which one can be pushed over time. One doesn’t arrive there spontaneously or as the result of some single encounter but rather as the result of an aggregate of constant nudges. One night, with a carload of teens at a Jack In The Box in Sunnyslope, Arizona, I had reached that edge. A lot of food was going to be ordered through their miserable little speaker system and things - as they commonly do at the drive thru - we’re going to go distinctly south. Again. Nothing had yet occurred as I drove up to the order box but the very act of being there had managed to inflict that last tiny insult upon that small minded little alter ego inside my cranium and I was suddenly no longer in control of normal conversational skills. I realized somewhere within that I had no idea what I was going to say to the young lady inside the speaker box. I had reached the proverbial edge out of seemingly thin air.

To be fair, the order girl, no doubt wearing a headset of some sort, had not yet uttered a word at me and was no doubt near exhaustion late at night after a likely long shift. But someone was going to have to pay for earlier encounters that had occurred far too frequently at fast food joints. She just happened to be the someone.

I am not a vengeful person. I don’t get mad, and I don’t get even. I’m not some power crazed orange haired clown posing as a president. So, let’s just say that from time to time I put things “into balance.” I am “responsive” to past injustices. Fast food order takers have been guilty of a particular type of injustice over the years. The conversation goes something like this:

“Welcome to (you name it), would you like to try our special roasted something or other tonight?”

“No.”

“Then what can I get you?”

“I would like to order your grilled chicken sandwich. Not the meal, no drink. Just the sandwich and nothing else.”

“Would you like to upsize that, sir?”

“Upsize what?”

“The meal. You can supersize it for only an extra dollar twenty nine.”

Me: Silence.

“Sir………?”

“I’m here.”

“What size do you want your meal?”

“I told you I didn’t want the meal. Just the sandwich.

“Okay. What size drink?”

Me: Silence.

“Sir………..?”

“I told you I didn’t want a drink. Just the sandwich.”

Pause, I presume for thought. “Okay, that’ll be something, something, whatty what at the window.”

I don’t know how many times I’ve been put through this conversation. I never order the meal. Never. But I can say that the person at the other end of the order box more often than not takes me through the dog and pony show. Tonight, someone was going to pay.


The kids in the car were not given the opportunity to tell me what to order for them. They sat speechless as I launched into my spiel.

“I would like four orders of the fried spuzzles. You can supersize all four. Are they still on special?”

“Did you say puzzles, sir? We don’t sell those here although they used to come with the kid meal. But they were small. You talking about those?”

“No. I’m talking about the fried spuzzles you’ve had on special for the last month. They’re great. Are they still on sale?”

“Did you say spuzzles?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you spell that? I’ve never heard of it.”

“S…p…u…z…z…l…e…s.”

Silence toward me, but a few words with someone in the background.

Finally, “Sir, maybe you got those somewhere else. We don’t have anything by that name. What are they made out of?”

“How would I know? They just taste great. And don’t tell me you never heard of them. You’re advertising them on that billboard at 7th and Missouri.”

Not knowing where else to go with this she began reading me the menu:

“Hamburger, Cheeseburger, barbequed this, Sourdough that, to all of which I repeatedly said, “No.” she moved away from her station abruptly and her voice was replaced by that of an irritated man.

“Sir, if you want to order something real, do it. It’s been a long day, and this young lady doesn’t get paid enough for you to mess with her.”

“Fine. I’ll take my business elsewhere.” We left and went down the street to the Carl’s Jr, where the kids finally got to order real meals. They talked about the Jack In The Box caper for weeks afterward, though I can’t recall ever telling them why I’d done it.

Since my bypass surgery I rarely eat fast food and, to be honest, hadn’t been going to such restaurants very often anyway. I can’t call the incident cathartic in any meaningful way but, for my money, it did have the effect of righting some series of wrongs. I like to think I’m being heard. Perhaps fast food joints aren’t designed for that. How would I know? I just want some fried spuzzles. Supersized, please.

 

 

Michael's Chronicles: Laney

Mostly Michael writes about stuff that happens between art shows, but occasionally some fiction comes bubbling up from his subconscious, vignettes inspired by life on the road and life in general. Hey, he can't spend all of his time making drum boxes and peddling them all over the country. Sometimes the self expression takes a different form.

Laney

She was a hair twirler. Index finger and thumb. Sometimes the middle one too. It was one of those absent minded habits. Better than nose picking or knuckle cracking - the kinds of things guys do. But habit, nonetheless. And it caught his attention.

She felt his gaze before she caught it in her eye.

“Are you staring at me?” Her mother had always encouraged her to be direct.

“Well, no, actually. I’m watching you.”

“Watching me what?”

“Twirling your beautiful hair.”

She turned up her nose and looked away dismissively.

“You asked.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Do I call you “Twirly” or do you go by something else?”

The voice in her head said, “Who is this guy? Who does he think he is?”

“I can live with “Twirly.”

“That’s not my name and you know it.”

“Throw me a bone then. What do your friends call you? Got any of those?”

It had been three days since she broke up with Jimmy - well, technically, two and a half and she’d sworn off relationships forever. She’d made an agreement with herself and she wasn’t going to break it just like that. 

“Been working on your pickup lines, huh?”

“Sure have. Started with dogs and gerbils. They follow me everywhere I go now.”

She looked around.

“Don’t see any gerbils.”

He furrowed his brow, leaned forward and cupped one corner of his mouth squeezing out a whisper as though it were some sort of state secret. 

“Dogs ate em.”

She cocked her head sideways and squinched out a look of fake disbelief, then looked around once again.

“Don’t see any dogs.”

“Close your eyes.”

“Wha…….why?”

“Just do it.” Slowly, she complied.

“ Woof……………………woof.”

She couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed with a guy. Thoughts of Jimmy began to percolate up from somewhere inside but were quickly dashed by a question: “Who’s Jimmy?” She opened her eyes. He was smirking. Not smiling. Smirking.

“Okay, it’s Laney. Laney Harper. How about you? You got a name?”

 

Michael's Chronicles: Snowme

Michael lives in Flagstaff, a high altitude place the he loves because it's got mountains (in fact, it's got volcanoes), but there's a price to pay for that real estate. No wonder he would rather be on the road most of the time . . .

Snowme
March 14

Let me make a disclaimer here, paragon of truth that I am. I am not a malcontent. There are plenty of things in my life that please me no end. Snow simply is not one of them. Trouble is, I live in snow country. Seven thousand feet off of sea level in the direction of the universe to be precise. There’s a reason there are no palm trees here. They don’t like snow either. See? I’m not alone. And we’re not the only ones. What about citrus and rubber plants? Oh, yeah, and throw in Venus fly traps for good measure. Getting my drift?

So when they call it God’s country it sets me to wondering just what god they’re referring to. Boreas was the Greek god of winter and ice, as well as the God of the north wind. In ancient art, he was depicted as an elderly man or a strong, bearded man with ice in his hair. Not my kind of guy. I don’t even like his name. If I saw him walking down the road I might run over him with my car. Johnny Nash got it right in his song, I Can See Clearly Now, when he said “gonna be a bright, bright, bright sunshiny day.”

But for me, even bright sun isn’t enough. I gotta have warmth. I mean, if the Good Lord had wanted us to worship the cold so much don’t you think he’d have lined the birth canal with ice, and we’d have all slid out with popsicle sticks for legs? News flash: he didn’t. 

By the way, have you ever looked at snowshoes? Who had the audacity to call those things footwear? Oversized tennis rackets or trout nets if you ask me. But don’t go out on this day in your Buster Browns or your Keds. The drifts that fell outside last night will eat your feet alive. Can’t a man just walk around without having to pull on fleece lined boots? If I spent the money on those things I won’t be able to feed my turtle (who, by the way, doesn’t like snow any more than I do) for six months. What do I write on his gravestone? “Paid the ultimate price for snow boots?” Hope the ASPCA doesn’t hear about me.

Fortunately I don’t have to shovel the junk. I can just have son, Joah, do it and listen to him bitch and moan about it for the rest of the day. It’s worth it. Perhaps he could shovel some heat into the air while he’s at it. I’m ready for my lawn chair and sandals. Am I the only one?

Michael's Chronicles: Dawn

This is not one of those On the Road musings. There are multiple hints in this one that Michael is at home -- so to speak. He's in his woodshop, making more stuff. Hooray for stuff!

Dawn

Dawn is approaching
Just east of my ridge
This morning I don’t really care
I’m snug as a bug
In my studio bed
Not planning to go anywhere

Early is good
It’s peaceful and sane
With no other bodies around
But I’m thinking right now
And I don’t want to move
I don’t need my feet on the ground

There’s plenty of time
For industrious work
For forming the shapes into sound
For cutting and fitting
And gluing, of course
And hoping for something profound 

I’ll soon feel the urge 
To get out of this space
To abandon the dawning’s sweet quiet
But not in this moment
I’m far to content
I can’t even make myself try it

Michael's Chronicles: Dumb Dream

To recap earlier episodes of The Chronicles, Michael is still on the road selling drum boxes, is still recovering from Heart Surgery, and is still missing his sense of taste (which must be very annoying). To cap this off, he's having dumb dreams, but I admire the fact that he has the energy to wake up from those dreams and write them down before rolling over and going to sleep again. That's more than I can say. 

Thursday, Feb 6
Dumb Dream

You’d think I could catch a break. I was sleeping so peacefully tonight when I found myself on a transatlantic flight to a country I’d never heard of on one of those megaliners with about eighteen seats across. The first thing I saw was that the overhead screens were showing a game involving black ants playing soccer. I don’t care for soccer. Don’t play the game and have no earthly idea what they’re up to.

Soccer fan doesn’t care. He (she) goes nuts watching it and can become extremely animated. Problem one: ants are playing - not humans. Black ones. Problem two: none of the ants is wearing a uniform so how people are rooting for a “team” is a mystery to me, but all these people are going nuts cheering anyway. Problem three: ants, even big ones, are notoriously small. They can’t really kick anything around. I guess the upside is that they’ll never get a foul for using their hands because they have none. Who cares?

So the ants have limited choices. They seem to surround the ball in huge numbers and are carrying it forward while the opposing team is amassing twigs and other shit down field in front of them to create impediments to forward movement. Passengers on this flight, mostly from Somethingvakia are all cheering. Still can’t figure out why. Thankfully at last there is a break in the action. The overhead lights come on and carts begin rolling around with what I assume to be refreshments.

Something is wrong, I can tell almost immediately. Flight attendants normally dress in company uniforms so they can be distinguished as legit and official. Not these ones. No, not these ones. These ones are dressed randomly as if having been selected from among the passengers themselves. I spot a guy in a business suit with a tie that keeps dipping into the pitcher of what he is serving. (I find myself disturbed by this but no one else seems at all daunted.) Incidentally, any variety of beverage is offered on any normal flight - coffee, water, juice, soda - even booze. The pitcher into which this guy’s tie is dipping is filled with prune juice. It is the one and only drink available on this particular flight. Tie flavored prune juice.

There is a girl in a tennis outfit pushing his cart, smiling all the time but saying nothing to anyone. The second cart is piled with what looks like bite sized chunks of brightly colored lava biscuits. It is piloted by a kid with a very runny nose and the server is a nurse wearing a baseball cap, canted sideways with the bill folded up. At this point I begin to think I must be having someone else’s dream. I’d like to find him and give it back.

The guy next to me reaches out to receive a rose colored lava chip but before he takes a bite he examines it closely, turns to me and asks me in a language I don’t know yet clearly understand if I think the thing will taste good. I tell him I don’t know because I recently had open heart surgery and thus nothing tastes right. I do, however, advise him not to bite it because it is made of rock. Yes, he says, but do I think it will taste good. No, I offer. It is not digestible. He bites it anyway, despite my good Samaritan advise, and I hear teeth disintegrating. I am nonplussed by this but what can I say? Then all hell breaks loose.

The flight attendants suddenly move aside to allow the onrush of some sort of air cops. Multicolored lights begin flashing as though we are in a casino and someone has just won big at a slot machine. They stop at my aisle and point at a lady wearing a Carmen Miranda looking hat with fake fruit all over it. In the unknown language they say in absolute unison, “you’ve been drinking.” The other passengers begin hissing and the poor woman turns beet red with embarrassment. She is summoned to the aisle and informed that she can either endure a breathalyzer test or a mobile chest X-ray. Bewildered, she chooses the latter.

Hell comes in degrees. Hell, Hellier and Helliest. What transpires next is the last and obviously most profound of the three. The largest of the four cops - a male - slips his hands under her blouse and moves them up to cover her breasts. She is so shocked by this that she exhales suddenly and vehemently. The other three officers lean forward to smell her breath. The look at each other and around at the surrounding passengers and proclaim, “Nope, she’s not drunk.” Relieved, she matter of factly pushes the officer’s hands off her chest (which have by this time been lingering for no justifiable reason) and matter of factly returns to her seat. 

The lights dim once again, the cops and flight attendants fade away and the ant soccer game returns to the overhead screens. Once again we’ve returned to normalcy. Soccer fan is going nuts. The guy next to me is staring into his left hand examining a few broken teeth. I lean over. “I told you that was a bad idea.”

I need to locate the guy whose dream this is and return it. I’d rather dream about motorized pomegranates on a go cart track or watch ticks playing baseball. Think I’ll try to get back to sleepThursday, Feb 6

Dumb Dream

You’d think I could catch a break. I was sleeping so peacefully tonight when I found myself on a transatlantic flight to a country I’d never heard of on one of those megaliners with about eighteen seats across. The first thing I saw was that the overhead screens were showing a game involving black ants playing soccer. I don’t care for soccer. Don’t play the game and have no earthly idea what they’re up to.

Soccer fan doesn’t care. He (she) goes nuts watching it and can become extremely animated. Problem one: ants are playing - not humans. Black ones. Problem two: none of the ants is wearing a uniform so how people are rooting for a “team” is a mystery to me, but all these people are going nuts cheering anyway. Problem three: ants, even big ones, are notoriously small. They can’t really kick anything around. I guess the upside is that they’ll never get a foul for using their hands because they have none. Who cares?

So the ants have limited choices. They seem to surround the ball in huge numbers and are carrying it forward while the opposing team is amassing twigs and other shit down field in front of them to create impediments to forward movement. Passengers on this flight, mostly from Somethingvakia are all cheering. Still can’t figure out why. Thankfully at last there is a break in the action. The overhead lights come on and carts begin rolling around with what I assume to be refreshments.

Something is wrong, I can tell almost immediately. Flight attendants normally dress in company uniforms so they can be distinguished as legit and official. Not these ones. No, not these ones. These ones are dressed randomly as if having been selected from among the passengers themselves. I spot a guy in a business suit with a tie that keeps dipping into the pitcher of what he is serving. (I find myself disturbed by this but no one else seems at all daunted.) Incidentally, any variety of beverage is offered on any normal flight - coffee, water, juice, soda - even booze. The pitcher into which this guy’s tie is dipping is filled with prune juice. It is the one and only drink available on this particular flight. Tie flavored prune juice.

There is a girl in a tennis outfit pushing his cart, smiling all the time but saying nothing to anyone. The second cart is piled with what looks like bite sized chunks of brightly colored lava biscuits. It is piloted by a kid with a very runny nose and the server is a nurse wearing a baseball cap, canted sideways with the bill folded up. At this point I begin to think I must be having someone else’s dream. I’d like to find him and give it back.

The guy next to me reaches out to receive a rose colored lava chip but before he takes a bite he examines it closely, turns to me and asks me in a language I don’t know yet clearly understand if I think the thing will taste good. I tell him I don’t know because I recently had open heart surgery and thus nothing tastes right. I do, however, advise him not to bite it because it is made of rock. Yes, he says, but do I think it will taste good. No, I offer. It is not digestible. He bites it anyway, despite my good Samaritan advise, and I hear teeth disintegrating. I am nonplussed by this but what can I say? Then all hell breaks loose.

The flight attendants suddenly move aside to allow the onrush of some sort of air cops. Multicolored lights begin flashing as though we are in a casino and someone has just won big at a slot machine. They stop at my aisle and point at a lady wearing a Carmen Miranda looking hat with fake fruit all over it. In the unknown language they say in absolute unison, “you’ve been drinking.” The other passengers begin hissing and the poor woman turns beet red with embarrassment. She is summoned to the aisle and informed that she can either endure a breathalyzer test or a mobile chest X-ray. Bewildered, she chooses the latter.

Hell comes in degrees. Hell, Hellier and Helliest. What transpires next is the last and obviously most profound of the three. The largest of the four cops - a male - slips his hands under her blouse and moves them up to cover her breasts. She is so shocked by this that she exhales suddenly and vehemently. The other three officers lean forward to smell her breath. The look at each other and around at the surrounding passengers and proclaim, “Nope, she’s not drunk.” Relieved, she matter of factly pushes the officer’s hands off her chest (which have by this time been lingering for no justifiable reason) and matter of factly returns to her seat. 

The lights dim once again, the cops and flight attendants fade away and the ant soccer game returns to the overhead screens. Once again we’ve returned to normalcy. Soccer fan is going nuts. The guy next to me is staring into his left hand examining a few broken teeth. I lean over. “I told you that was a bad idea.”

I need to locate the guy whose dream this is and return it. I’d rather dream about motorized pomegranates on a go cart track or watch ticks playing baseball. Think I’ll try to get back to sleep.

Michael's Chronicles: If Not

Like Michael says, there are worse places to be than with ourselves. And there are definitely worse places to be than on the road. (God, I wish I were on the road!)

If Not . . .

If not tenderness
Then what?
If not Beauty
Then what?
If not love
Then what?

If not tenderness
And beauty
And love
Then, I ask, what?

If not consciousness
Why think?
If not caring
Why act?
If not kindness
Why speak?

If not for consciousness
And caring 
And kindness
There is no we. Only I

We are never alone
Sometimes we
Are only with ourselves
There are worse places to be…..

So love yourself first
One never knows
When one may need
A friend

One grounded
In kindness
And beauty
And love

Michael's Chronicles: Gluteus Maximus

It should be apparent, if you're keeping up with these posts (or even if you're not), that Michael is on the road schlepping drum boxes, and there is a price to pay for those shenanigans, the slings and arrows of outrageous (if self-inflicted) fortune.

Gluteus Maximus Right-Sideus Michaelis

Sounds just like it is. Exactly like that. My right ass cheek. I crushed mine while breaking down the Mt Dora Art Festival last night. Let me get something out of the way here. I am not clumsy. Whatever forces perpetrated this insult upon my body will, therefore, be dealt with in the cosmic scheme of things. Of this I have been assured by voices I heard in between my spasms of pain in the immediate aftermath of the event. Voices. Sympathetic, empathetic voices. None of them was that of my oldest son and business partner, Joah. Why is this no surprise? There is a reason his Latin name is Buttheadeus Joahnus. I’ll get back to him - trust me.

In the aftermath of my very recent open heart surgery I was advised that I was to do absolutely nothing to stress or strain the stainless steel wire mesh that had been sewn into place in my sternum to close the wound left from the operation. I wasn’t to stretch my arms wide open or drive or to lift any but the lightest of objects for the foreseeable future. The damage, I was warned, would be in some ways worse than the surgery. Got it. I have complied, by and large, with these edicts. But, as we all know, shit happens. While breaking down the booth last night shit did just that.

The corners of our display tent are typically tethered to cylindrically shaped concrete weights of approximately sixty pounds each, equipped with rebar handles to which we affix tie down straps for the purpose of holding the tent in place in the event of threatening winds. I routinely lifted and moved these weights around even up until the weeks and days leading up to my surgery even though I was, at the time, a spring chicken of but seventy eight years of age. They were now strictly off limits and during our show set up Joah had removed them from the van and placed them in the booth. I had cinched in the tie downs.

We’d been breaking down the booth for some two hours when it came time to remove the weights to the vicinity of the van for packing away. Joah was still busy moving fifty to seventy pound boxes of unsold instruments from the display area to the vehicle and lifting them inside. There I stood looking at the weights and wondering when Joah would at last be able to get them out of my way so that I could take the tent down. A light bulb came on. I couldn’t lift or carry them so why not simply push them onto their sides and roll them to him using my feet. Seemed like the perfect solution and one that wouldn’t stress my chest in any imaginable way. I set about the task.

Weight number one was a piece of cake. Even Joah liked my trick. The second was going great until suddenly it wasn’t. Somehow I managed to push my right foot up and over to the front side of the rolling cylinder from whence the forward motion took over, I lost balance and went tumbling forward. I realized that breaking my fall with any portion of my upper body, hands and arms especially, would likely tear loose the knitting mesh in my chest. There was but one choice and that was to throw my weight backward and land on my ass or back. 

I keep my admittedly too stuffed wallet in my back right pocket. Full of business, credit, I.D. cards and some folding money it is about an inch and a half thick and way too hard. My butt cheek landed on it dead center and I went through the roof in pain. Joah, hearing my yelp, came running over thinking I’d done the unthinkable and messed up my chest which thankfully I hadn’t. Things went downhill from there.

It hadn’t been the best day for the right side of my body. In the morning, I had pulled my right hamstring hiking the hilly terrain around Mt. Dora and, favoring it as I walked back to the show, had rolled the same ankle on uneven ground. Later I had smacked the right side of my forehead on the wall of the building behind our booth while reaching for a box. The contusion required a large bandage to stem the bleeding as I am now taking blood thinners. Finally, I ganked my right wrist on a concrete block I was placing in the van requiring three more bandages. The good news is that I was stung by no hornets.

Back to Joah. When he discovered that I had suffered a severe ass bruise he proceeded to begin laughing at me. Not fair. The bruise was sufficiently severe that I could barely limp around and sitting on the toilet seat later on sent shooting pains to places I was unaware I had places. The day had turned me into a walking field hospital. I got no mercy from Joah.

You know, I begat him. No, I did not bake him for all those months - true enough - but I was the begatter. You’d think this fact would have yielded never ending respect. Perhaps even reverence. Nope. No such luck. 

I’m not the sort of guy that gets angry with others. I don’t “get even” and I’m not all about vengeance. I do, however, take steps to, shall we say, balance things. Yup. I’m a balancer. So, for example, perhaps one morning while he’s preening in front of the bathroom mirror a sudden intestinal illness overcomes him - a malaise due to someone having poisoned his mirror. Hashtag SAD. Or maybe one day he opens a package from the mailbox inside of which is a spider whose bite induces random insults to emanate from his mouth at inopportune moments - say when he’s lying in bed with his lovely wife. Hope he has a comfortable sofa. Wouldn’t it be a shame if someone put voodoo pins in his car doll? Perhaps in the area of his engine or transmission.

Shit happens, remember? I have wounds to lick. Have a nice day, Joah.

 

Michael's Chronicles: Gotta Stop Doing That

I don't have much to say about Michael's latest installment, written on the road, except for one thing: fall asleep with grapes? Who does that . . . ?

Gotta Stop Doing That

Fell asleep last night
With green grapes on the bed
Gotta stop doing that
Don’t know the first thing
About making wine

Glad it wasn’t a candy bar
All dark chocolatey 
Housekeeping wouldn’t appreciate
Seeing that dark brown stain on the sheets
Gotta stop doing that

Saw some lady yelling 
At her baby in Mt Dora today
Thought all the wrong things
Gotta stop doing that
Maybe the baby’s a jerk

But what do I know anyway?
And why care what it all means?
It’s all above my pay grade
Near as I can tell
Thinking?

Gotta stop doing that 

Michael's Chronicles: Rummaging

I know for a fact that my brother Michael is, indeed, a rummager. I have personally observed him rummaging through thrift stores and antique shops on our roadtrips every year, and I think it's not unreasonable to assume that he also rummages when he's on the road between art shows, tucking his finds between the drums he's planning to sell. After all, rummaging is a disposition, not something that one only does when one's sister is present. 

Rummaging

I don’t know “why we’re here”
I really don’t
But as long as I am
I’m going to do some rummaging around

I’m pretty sure
I’m not looking for clues
To life’s mysteries
I’m not much of a detective

But consciousness
If we may call it that
Exposes great wonders
If that’s what one’s looking for

I have no compunction
To tell others what they are seeing
If asked I will share my view
Knowing all along about life’s parallax

How about we just get together
Over a good cup of coffee
And share some thoughts and amusements
And let the absolutists sit in the sand

I have no gripe with dogmatism
Save the tedium and bland taste inherent
In servicing some need to ignore
The glorious beauty of imagination

If life is to breathe
And I believe it should
Then perhaps we should pick our minds
Up off their duffs and take them for a little walk

Michael's Chronicles: End of January

A couple of friends of mine have had knee surgery recently, and one of them is having terrible, persistent pain at night (though it seems to be not so bad during the day), but the most interesting thing he told me is that the body apparently has some reactions to major surgery that no one tells you about. For instance, his sense of smell has gone AWOL. And so it is with great interest that I note my brother Michael's reference to a similar loss of smell after his heart surgery. Will either or both of them regain this sense eventually? I suspect that they will, once they've healed from the tactical outrage perpetrated upon their persons, but I'm taking notes for when I get the hip surgery I suspect I'm eventually going to need. I really like my sense of smell. It's almost as much fun as my sense of taste.

The whole Sense of Smell thing wasn't even the main point of Michael's latest installment, written while on the road to sell drums, but it has twinkled at me among all the other ideas. What twinkles at you? (Or honks? Or tweaks that sense of smell Michael doesn't currently have?)

End of January
2:30 a.m.

Here I am again. Middle of the night. Not really awake but not really asleep. I am a pillow flipper both in the real and in the allegorical sense. Looking for the cool side. Always chasing that. 

They’ve given me four at the Quality Inn this time. Four great ones. Perfect shape, size and feel to go along with the perfect shower head under which I luxuriated for way too long tonight. After all it’s their water bill and not mine. Yeah, I know, good old eco-conscious Michael assuming these guys have an efficient and functioning gray water system nourishing the local flora……. 

 

To be truthful though, I’ve been traveling for several days, and this is the first shower I’ve taken. My sense of smell was queered by the heart surgery so I can’t tell, nor do I care what I smell like. The shower decision was driven far more by tactile than olfactory preferences.

Cool sheets, cool pillows. I know I should be sound asleep if all that’s being served is a value judgement. Problem is, moments like this toss me about from pad to pad on those little ponds of self-reflection. 

I have no answers and, frankly, don’t crave them at all. Everything seems like hypothesis to me. I have no fear of not knowing. I’m simply afraid to stop asking. I know life is finite. I could have given this truth more reflection before the operation, to be frank, but I didn’t. All I could think about was the strangeness and the wonder of it all. I witnessed vast and brilliant colors as I was coming out of the anesthesia post-op. I’d heard of people’s descriptions of witnessing a bright white light when passing on from this life, only to return. Never heard of a technicolor show. Certainly not that. All I could think of was that if this was “passing,” it was pretty damn beautiful and pretty damn painless and cool. Then I heard the voices. I was waking up.

My life as an artist over the past fifty years has been arguably nomadic. I’ve turned a lot of pillows far from home. Driven a lot of back roads through small towns in quest of God knows what. I’ve talked to so many strangers that I’ve grown convinced that there really is no such thing as that. Strangers are just people I’ve not yet met. Cool sides of other pillows. 

I don’t consider myself a hoarder, but I’ve gathered large numbers of artifacts along the way. I often as not tell myself that they’ll be incorporated into some art piece, which in some cases they have been. Some of them. Most have not. Perhaps I just want them near me to remind me of the hunt. I don’t spend much time reflecting on it. 

This restlessness - this endless turning of life’s pillows in pursuit of the “cool side” - came from somewhere, I know. It is not an emulation of the “cool” envisioned by Jack Kerouac. It is merely a comfort thing with me. It makes me happy. I’m going to flip them again, nestle on in and go back to sleep. Perhaps I’ve gotten it out of my system for the moment.

Michael's Chronicles: Ostrich

The two novels I've been working on for the past few years and my energy-sapping day job hav e conspired to keep me from writing much in this blog, but fortunately my brother Michael is feeling prolific, despite the heart surgery he had in December and a demanding art fair schedule for selling his wooden drums. The tap has been turned back on. However, the well is a bit weird . . .

Ostrich
Two A.M.
BEAUMONT, Texas 
January 29, this year (I think)

I had never seen an ostrich at the Arctic Circle. Two reasons mostly covered this truth: I’ve never been to the Arctic Circle, and I would bet no ostrich has either. This had to be a dream. As such, all bets were off. I couldn’t say how long I’d been standing there watching the ostrich and pony show (sans the horse) before I’d realized that the whole scene was pretty unlikely. I wondered for a brief moment if I had popped out of some Randy Newman song and was expected to know what to do next. No such luck. I began reasoning. As always this was a bad idea but, as in every preposterous dream I can remember having had, I forged ahead as if explaining to a group of bald faced idiots why the whole thing was highly unlikely. I could hear myself talking. I’ve been told that I talk out loud and in complete sentences during these dreams. Told by whom? Eavesdroppers, that’s whom.

Dreams are precarious enough without voyeurs watching us systematically saw off the psychic limbs upon which we are perched. Arctic Circle. Ostrich. Really? I wanted to ask him what he was doing there but I speak no Ostrich, and I couldn’t bear the thought that he (an assumption, of course, because I’m not trained to determine the sex of one of those things) might actually answer. In English. At that moment he raised his head suddenly from the ice upon which he’d been pecking and fixed me, large dark eyes and frowning brow, with what seemed for all the world to be a severe and accusing glare. The thought hit me: there I was stuck in a dream at the Arctic Circle with a large pissed off bird. The dream evolved. He suddenly broke out in uncontrollable laughter. He laughed so hard, in fact, that his knees buckled, and he keeled onto his ass and began coughing. He pointed at me. It was only then that I realized I was wearing only shorts, a T-shirt and low cut tennis shoes with no socks.

I was speechless, yet I talked on reasoning the whole thing out. I asked him what the hell he was laughing at. After all, I said, look at his skinny ass legs and feet. At least I was wearing shoes. He was not. And he, just as I, had no socks. He laughed on and pointed now at his feathers. My teeth began chattering. Hope no one was listening. Joah was in the next bed snoring, but we are in a budget motel with those notoriously thin walls. 

Suddenly the Ostrich stood up, fetched a huge Cuban cigar from between his feathers, wicked it up with an invisible match and turned away chuckling and blowing smoke rings. I felt lonely, isolated, embarrassed and - oh yeah - cold as hell. Fuck you Randy Newman. And fuck your stupid songs. I need a Rolaid. 

Michael's Chronicles: Joah the Unjust

I wondered how long it would take my brother to start writing again after his heart surgery. Apparently not long at all. Some people get knocked for a loop for months, even years, and I don't blame them for that, but I was pretty sure Michael would make his own path. That's just what he does. Check out his site for Hardwood Music Company to see what else he does.

Joah the Unjust

As I lay on the pillow last night attempting to drift off to sleep Joah (four feet away in the next bed) lay down a fart so heavy with stench that it fell to the floor, shattered into pieces each of which sprouted little legs and scurried off to find hiding places from which it could exact olfactory vengeance upon innocent passersby. I, locked in the motel room with him, was its only victim. Things went downhill from there.

A recent survivor of open heart surgery, I was certain that I would be found dead the next morning or in some irreversibly catatonic state that would be mistaken by paramedics for a stroke. Clearly, not only uniquely venomous snakes shut down the central nervous system. As they began to burn I closed my eyes - to very little avail.

The front desk had exacted a hundred dollar damage deposit from me upon my arrival. Said it would be returned to me if, upon inspection, the room were to be found “in good condition.”. Easy come easy go. They’ll need a restoration crew in hazmat suits to deal with room 119 on the east side of the building. Can’t wait to see the bill.

Since mine was the only face the clerk encountered at check-in I know who’s going to take the blame for the peeling paint. Thanks Joah. See if I ever travel with you again. 

Michael's Chronicles: Cling

I wondered how long it would take my brother to start writing again after his heart surgery. Apparently not long at all. Some people get knocked for a loop for months, even years, and I don't blame them for that, but I was pretty sure Michael would make his own path. That's just what he does. Check out his site for Hardwood Music Company to see what else he does.

Cling

Cling to passion 
Submit to her power
You have nothing to lose
She will show you
Who you are
And who you can be

You are a mere
Work in progress
Aren’t we all?
Do we really care
About the end,
Or is it all about the pursuit?

Attend to longings
Let hunger be your guide
Be driven by the need
For beauty
Let it be
The very breath you take

Find your other
Travel the path together
Keep no secrets
For they will only cloud the joy
Sure, you can do it alone
But who will ever know you?

Cling to passion
Regardless of doubts
Someone will see you
And honor your vision
With love and connection
Cling to passion

Cling to it 

Michael's Chronicles: Cracks

I wondered how long it would take my brother to start writing again after his heart surgery. Apparently not long at all. Some people get knocked for a loop for months, even years, and I don't blame them for that, but I was pretty sure Michael would make his own path. That's just what he does. Check out his site for Hardwood Music Company to see what else he does.

Cracks
2 A.M.
January 28, Amarillo

Walk between life’s cracks
Or hop over them but I must ask,
What interest have you in solid ground?
Have you not been there before?
No worthy journey is about the rinse and repeat

What earthly things do we learn
By traipsing along the beaten path?
If you landed on some strange planet
Would you find joy in seeing footprints
Or a planted flag? I suspect not.

I prefer to stumble through unanticipated places
To be graced with surprise and wonder
The morning rain on my imaginary tin roof
Embroiders my awakening with thoughts of adventure
I will not sit still this day - not this one

Let me not walk with blinders on
For I may miss something quite funny
Or something so beautiful and strange
That it my change my life forever
Well, maybe not forever but at least 
Until the next time
Yeah, at least until then

Michael's Chronicles: Recovery Part 2

My brother Michael has been dominating this page lately, mostly because he's the only one doing the writing these days, and considering that he also works full time in his wood shop and drives all over the continental US selling drums and musical furniture, not to mention doing all the driving on the two-week crazy road-trips we take together, I can definitely understand why you would think he's Superman, made of steel, the Energizer Bunny, unstoppable.

Turns out he's not so unstoppable. He had a full work-up from a doctor, and it turns out he needed open-heart surgery. The surgery went well, and being Michael, he is recovering in his own (kind of peculiar) way. This is what he's got to say about it.

Recovery Part 2

Nothing tastes right. I like peaches. I don’t like asparagus. Got it? So why should my peaches taste like asparagus? They shouldn’t, right? But, since The Surgery, I assure you they do. And there are innumerable other examples. I thought to myself, “Gee, I’m just going to look this up,” and I did. I, as they say, Googled it.

Turns out this side effect is common. Real common. No one claims to know if the queering of taste is a by-product of the open heart surgery or the medications associated with recovery but the problem is said to be widespread. Not in my view a ringing endorsement for the heart bypass thing.

One would think that smell, a companion to taste, would be equally affected but I see no evidence of that. Bad deal. Here’s why. When a food item smells familiar (as in how it has always smelled) one is encouraged to go ahead and eat it. But when its taste doesn’t match the smell the brain can’t handle it. I’m not sure what the banana thing tastes like any more but it ain’t monkey food.

Back to smell. On yesterday’s walk I was near a park. A big dog had just laid down a huge steaming pile of shit, the effervescence of which was the same old rank I have grown to know and hate. I didn’t taste it - never have - so I had nothing to compare it to. This is a good thing. If it tasted like blueberries or marshmallows I might have acquired a taste for something I’d have been challenged to defend to friends and family. God is good. He protecteth my judgement.

In the end I’m hoping this all changes for the better. I actually like food and am told that eating is related to staying alive. Wonder what I have to eat to simulate the taste of strawberries. Sauerkraut? Hope not.

Later

Michael's Chronicle: Recovery

My brother Michael has been dominating this page lately, mostly because he's the only one doing the writing these days, and considering that he also works full time in his wood shop and drives all over the continental US selling drums and musical furniture, not to mention doing all the driving on the two-week crazy road-trips we take together, I can definitely understand why you would think he's Superman, made of steel, the Energizer Bunny, unstoppable.

Turns out he's not so unstoppable. He had a full work-up from a doctor, and it turns out he needed open-heart surgery. The surgery went well, and being Michael, he is recovering in his own (kind of peculiar) way. This is what he's got to say about it.

Recovery

I fell asleep with my glasses on last night. Don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve heard of night vision, but sleep vision? I don’t think so. They may have messed with my dream which included a guy in an ice cream bar outfit (the stamp on his single stick leg said Good Humor, though he did not look tasty to me), a dog with just two legs ( one front and one back) who didn’t even limp and an apple wearing tennis shoes and constantly running off so it couldn’t be eaten.

The dream seemed pretty normal to me since I’ve had much stranger ones but perhaps I just needed some entertainment. I’m recovering from open heart surgery though not on drugs known to have weird dreams as side effects. Perhaps I should be happy to be dreaming at all since this sort of surgery is, if nothing else, somewhat invasive. Perhaps they inadvertently left a gag toy in an artery leading to my brain. 

On the other hand, if the operation is in any way related to that dream sign me up again. I can’t stop laughing.

Michael's Chronicles: Rittenhouse Square

I haven't had much time to do blog writing these days, as anyone who wanders onto this page will quickly notice. My brother Michael is a heck of a lot more prolific with the writing these days than I am. He travels all over the country selling hardwood drums and playable furniture at high-end art fairs. He's got stuff to talk about, so he's up and I'm not. Maybe that's for the best? Anyway, here's the newest from Michael Thiele, Hardwood Music craftsman.

Friday, October 11
Philadelphia
Rittenhouse Square

“I’m not homeless. I’m just not living anywhere in particular.” The words stuck to my ribs more than the oatmeal I had just eaten. The man who spoke them was speaking to no one in particular. May, for all I know, have been schizophrenic. 

Another big city. Another park bench dweller. I wondered……where will he be living when the inevitable snow arrives? It won’t be long. Winter’s bite is only a nibble at the moment. But in this part of the country, she has teeth. She is indifferent to human needs. Not cruel. Just indifferent. I started to move on.

“Dilettantes.” 

I stopped. What strange force had sucked this word into this street guy’s vocabulary?

French for dallier or tinkerer. Who the hell was he talking about? 

“It’s not their fault if they have money. Not their fault. Not issued to everyone. Just some of them. Some of them.” I followed his eyes across the park to the PARC at 18th and Locust where, coincidentally, I had just eaten breakfast. Twenty seven dollars (tip included) worth of oatmeal and bacon. Hadn’t even eaten all of it. I don’t eat until I am sated - only until I’m satisfied.

I never eat breakfast. Well, pretty much never. This morning was an exception. I was downtown early in order to take advantage of a break in the all day parking fee if one arrives prior to 7 a.m. the “Early Bird” deal. Some deal. $45. It meant I had un-needed 
time to burn. Burned it at PARC.

He babbled a bit more and I almost moved on when I noticed a red rose on the end of the bench where he’d spent the night. Had to ask.

“What’s with the rose.” The answer nailed me.

“Aw, some homeless bitch dropped it off. Not my type.” Sound familiar? 

I learned something this morning. Misogyny is not just a class thing (can you say Trump?) it’s a guy thing. Oh, and another thing. Parking and breakfast on this square are expensive, dilettante or not.

Later……

Michael's Chronicles: The Early Days

The following is a reconnection about recollections, in this case the earliest ones. I have my own early memory of my mother and my sister gazing down at me in my crib. They really seemed to like me. My brother Michael remembers something more active.

Michael:
The Early Days

I was born broke and wet. I don’t remember it, of course, but I can put two and two together. The broke park I can’t say I minded. After all, I had sponsors from the get-go. Patrons, you might say. I was given free milk and not required to sit on any toilet seat. Thankfully. At that size I no doubt would have fallen in and drowned. My story would have been decidedly shorter.

The wet part? Now that’s another matter. I didn’t swim around in an air tight chamber for eight or nine months in the spirit of voluntarism. A couple of lovers who I later came to refer to as mom and dad put me in that predicament. I kicked around quite a bit in those months in protest - at least according to my mom. Those weren’t her exact words, of course, but what did she expect? Confinement will do that to a person. One ends up running (or in this case, swimming) in place. I don’t remember any of it. I was too busy plotting my escape.

One of my sons, Joah to be precise, swears that he remembers his birth. Frankly, so do I and so does his mom who struggled with the labor thing for hours and hours. I was there as an observer and an advisor. We had taken those Lamaze classes. My job was, roughly speaking, to remind her to relax and all that. I did my job. To no avail. Joah was possessed with the notion of fighting his way out and was taking his own sweet time doing so. Ultimately the delivery doctor grabbed his head with those stainless steel crab claws they call forceps and tugged him into the real world. That’s the part Joah says he remembers. I’ll have to take his word for it. I never had my head pinched that way so I guess there wasn’t much for me to remember.

When it comes to early memories I guess mine kick in at the crawling stage. On Sundays much of the family had a habit of gathering at the home of my grandmother Thiele’s younger brother Carl and his wife Regina’s home in West Los Angeles. The grandparents were there along with me, my brother and sister and Carl and Regina’s two kids. I was the youngest. My grandmother Theresa and Regina seemed to spend all afternoon in the kitchen cooking up that day’s big meal with my mom lending what I later learned to be a minimal hand. That Margaret wasn’t skilled at the traditional homemaking skills apparently was quite a sore point with Theresa, who I take it was less than thrilled when introduced by my dad as the woman he intended to marry. Theresa was old school European. Nuts and bolts.

Regina stored all her canned goods - things like soup and Pet Milk and such - in the lower kitchen cabinets next to the sink. Why, I don’t know. I prowled her linoleum kitchen floor on all fours up to no good. I distinctly remember the white wooden cabinet doors with their stainless steel and Bakelite handles which I didn’t need to reach to pry them open. The hinges were not spring loaded so I could simply grab them at the bottom edge and wedge them free. Once open, the cans were at my disposal. I enjoyed scooping them out, knocking them on their sides and rolling them about the kitchen floor. I was busted again and again for my efforts, picked up and carried back into the living room. I suspect the other kids were told to keep an eye on me but probably had little interest. That I was a serial offender was likely their neglectful fault.

 

 

Michael's Chronicles: Let Your Fears Move On

Here's some good advice from someone who's been on the road for over 50 years. If you drive that far in an old van, you're going to encounter problem after problem, and you're going to get to be really good at fixing what's wrong. 

Let Your Fears Move On

Let your fears move on
To lite in some other place
You won’t need them
To get through the day

Draw your strength 
From a deeper place
Where fear has no purchase
Find your center and trust it

For in the end 
There is no unknown
But merely, quite simply
The not yet known

Walk your path upright
With jutting chin
Spit in the wind
Downwind

Know you are walking
On shared ground
Present past and future
Be a thoughtful visitor

Leave good things
When you go
Leave strength but not fear
Others will need it