Some seventeen Saturdays ago I was snuggling soundlessly on a sexy sectional with the girl who likes grellow, watching a bit of a chick flick. And it wasn’t half bad. Michael Scott from The Office starred in it, and he’s always good. Anyway, toward the end of the thing, “The Air That I Breathe” by The Hollies came on. I had heard the chorus to that song dozens of times, but I had never listened to the whole thing, soup to nuts, until right then. And my God…the melody during the verses….the word that first came to mind was “haunting.” The lyrics were beautiful, perfectly suited to the song. “That is exactly the sort of song,” I thought, “that I’ve been trying to write for 35 years.” The second word that come to my mind as I was listening enviously to this song was “familiar.” Hauntingly familiar. I knew I hadn’t heard this song before, because I would remember it, but, impossibly, simultaneously, I knew I’d heard it before.

Later that night, I found “The Air That I Breathe” online and listened to the shit out of it.

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…and a laugh like last life’s lullaby.
Alas.

Dear Reader,
It’s been too long, and for that I’m sorry. For what it’s worth (and it ain’t worth much), I’ve been busy doing Very Important Things.
I spent the last few weeks grading standardized tests. Tests in which fifth graders from around the country were asked to list three qualities writers possess that other people do not. The “correct” answers come from a reading the students are provided that lists some pretty banal attributes allegedly found in all writers, such as “writers daydream a lot,” (which is just silly… I’ve known scads of daydreamers who not only couldn’t write but had trouble even reading) and “writers see the world not as it is, but as it could be.” I actually like that second one rather a lot, and would go further to say, “as it should be.” But whatev…they didn’t ask me. Continue reading →

Earlier this week, I asked someone far wiser than me for some desperately needed advice, and last night I received this.  I wish I had gotten it long ago.

Imagine the person you love the most has just been shot.  She is lying in the street, bleeding and screaming.  A guy rushes up and says, “Step aside.”  He looks over to your loved one’s bullet wound and pulls out a pocket knife – he’s going to operate right there in the street.  

You ask, “Are you a doctor?”

The guy says, “No.”

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Sunrise, fog on the river.  Then deer visiting on the hill.  Started writing another song, the second in as many days.   Went on a walk down to the river this afternoon, and found this on the banks. 

That’s a lot of days to have wasted and a shameful sum of blessings selfishly squandered.  So much time hiding in delusion.

The count reset today.  Never again will I waste a day.

…and again, I feel real regret.

Sober and alone, I sit on the beach.  I watch couples walk together, play in the surf.  Not all romantic couples…there’s a mother and child…over there, a brother and sister…their parents…but most of them….

I used to look out to the surf, the massive sea, and gaze in awed wonder, and smile.  Now, perched alone on a sand dune, I look toward the sea, and something is different.  I see things, but I’m not sure if they are really there.  They must be there, if I can see them.

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I was struck by the Full Wolf Moon this night.  I noticed it several times and made silent tribute.  I did not, however, write a sonata.  Alas. Still, if it’s not too late where you are, you might go check it out, Dear Reader. It’s quite…compelling.

I was watching a scene from the Guns n’ Roses 3D concert movie scheduled to be released later this year, and I found myself to be the only person in the room that liked it.  Not coincidentally, I was also the only person in the room who wasn’t a native Seattleite, didn’t have a beard, and never thought Kurt Cobain was all that.

Kurt Cobain was like that shithead kid who came in at the beginning of first grade and sanctimoniously and precociously announced that there was no such thing as Santa Claus, and did it with this super-sneery attitude, as if to say, “I can’t believe you cretins haven’t figured it out yet…you were fools for believing it at all.”  But then, rather than telling that kid to go screw, everybody just said, “Oh,” and quit enjoying Christmas for the rest of forever.

I was there when it happened, and it sucked.

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It seemed to be just one of Those Days.  The sun didn’t so much set today but rather seemed to just give up and trudge out of the sky.  The homeless dude down the street wasn’t jangling his change bucket because he said he “needed a day off.”  And I’m pretty sure I actually saw a crow yawn.  Do crows yawn?  It might have been going to caw but then decided to hell with it.  Either way, it seemed like things were off today.

I will have a word with The Powers That Be and see what can do about making tomorrow better.  In the meantime, Dear Reader, sleep well.