A Mutant Mini Sonnet.
_____________________
How quiet comes this little night, so threadbare are its shoes
arriving here without a clue and nothing left to lose.
I search around with all my might, to try and find some patches,
but all are too small to fill the holes, and nothing ever matches.
How quiet comes this little night, on broken un-flapped wings
stepping soft on specks of dust t’where no one ever sings.
I try to let the song take flight, and sing without the fear,
but though song be there, and note be struck, there isn’t any ear
How quiet comes this little night, as empty is it’s bowl
it’s clear so far its pilgrimage has taken quite a toll.
I try to offer some respite, a crumb or two at least,
but it knows not on what to dine and so has yet to feast.
How quiet comes this little night, so cold, so small, so blind
knowing not of what or even that which it has left behind.
I try to spark a little light, to cast a warming glow,
but it’s chills doth kill the fire, and it will never know.
How quiet comes this little night, just like the night before,
and on, and on, and on, it seems, Im sure there will be more.
And though this repetition musters neither tear nor yawn,
my spirit needs an ending, and I can’t wait til dawn.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Ted
How I had come to live with Ted Morrow in a storage shed in Isla Vista California is an epic tale that I will save for another time, but suffice it to say, he was one of my closest friends. I mean, you would kind of have to be under the circumstances. He was a big black guy with a mowhawk, an easy smile and a off beat sense of humor. He was an extremely talented musician, playing congas mostly, but also tearing apart a bass from time to time. In fact, it was the band that he was in’s practice space, the shed, which we called home for a good six month stretch.
We had been through quite a bit considering the brief 2-3 years I knew him. The stories of shed life alone could fill some pages, but I will go you one better. Once he and I had been detained on suspicion of murder. I kid you not. Isla Vista is just north of Santa Barbara, adjacent to the UC school there. While I wouldn’t call it a sleepy town, it being the most densely populated square mile west of the Mississippi, I wouldn’t exactly call it crime ridden. The police blotter there reads more like minor in possession, public urination, property crime and maybe the occasional date rape thrown in for spice. So when an older couple were robbed and one was killed up the coast about a mile it was big big news. And what sensation.! The story had built itself in the press like this: Man and woman are sitting on the beach, enjoying the fresh pacific air, when they are approached by two men, one white, one black. White man says “Do you have any marijuana?”. When they said that they did not, black man draws a gun and shoots male in the head – killing him instantly. The suspects then fled the scene. See what I mean? Crazed drug addicts out of control, murder in broad daylight, this story had everything. It almost had us.
Now at this time of my life, I almost was never without an enormous, yet always under an ounce for legal purposes, bag of weed in my shoulder bag of tricks. We can talk about that more later, but I am merely stating facts. I had long long hair and was extremely scrawny. I was always dressed like I rolled out of some gypsy’s laundry basket. Freakshow. So me and Ted were out strolling around headed god knows where for who knows why and we get rolled up on by the police. Hard. Two cars. It all happened really fast, and they were really nervous like they were afraid of us. You know how police get, and who can blame them? I wouldn’t want that job. So anyway, they begin to interrogate us as to our whereabouts a couple days ago. Being slackers under the influence, we a) had a hard time getting a coherent story together out of genuine memory loss and b) did a very poor job of covering that fact up. So it was time for searching, and of course amongst the many strange objects that a modern day witch doctor is required to carry around, they found my sack. No not that sack, the weed sack. They found both OK? Ok. So it was time for new bracelets and a free car ride to the cop shop. I mentioned that we had not been read our rights, and the cop in front said we were merely being detained as persons of interest in the crime of the century. Merely. Turns out, we fit the description the woman had given exactly. That plus the whole “marijuana” connection and we were well, persons of interest if not extreme curiosity and scrutiny. We were given complimentary e tickets to jail world for a few hours while we awaited our further interviews and while the police tried to arrange to have the woman come and positively identify us. I was bummed, but knew in my heart that I was innocent, so she could pick us, and it’ll all get sorted, right? Right! And it did too, because before even being interviewed, I was given a citation for possession as a souvenir, and released without explanation. Whew. That was close eh?
We at that moment, had no idea just how close. In the paper the next day it was revealed that the woman had set her husband up for insurance cash or something, had hired a killer, and had given completely false descriptions and story, which just *happened* to look Exactly. Like. Us. Now, as so often is the case, if the timing of this whole scenario had been even slightly off, I imagine I would be telling a different story, and from the rec room at Folsom. She could have easily come in and fingered us. The cops, proud to show how quickly they solved the case and made arrests, would have stopped looking into her, and started looking into us. The Law and Order sound hadn’t been invented yet, but Im pretty sure it played in my head anyway.
We kinda bonded over that one, but this story isn’t about that. I only told it to illustrate that we were close. In fact, it was with mixed emotions that I told Ted some months later that I had managed to find an apartment. Granted it was a seven bedroom, ten person chop job, but it wasn’t a shed, and had you know, plumbing and stuff. He told me that the folks at Meade House – all the traditional freak houses had names back then, this one, the oldest building in town was on Meade street and supposedly, Margaret Meade had lived there – had said that he could stay there. So that was it. The end of shed days. There was a party at Meade House that night, and I would see him there. No biggie.
It was your typical jam band college freak party, all our friends just smoking weed and talking about the stupid idea du jour. I had been to a hundred of them. I was tired from a hard last day of schlepping skulls, antlers, artwork and general caravan of abode adornment that used to follow me around at that time. I was also excited as it was cool to finally have a place to go that was *mine*. Well mine-ish anyway. I told Ted I was bailing. He had found out that his room wasn’t quite empty yet. I told him to come crash on my floor, but he said he was faded and was just going to go sleep in the band practice room. Yes. Meade house had a practice room too. Yes. EVERY last person I knew was in a band. But me. I walked the several blocks home in the Santa Ana-y swirly twinkly SoCal night and went to bed. I believe I reflected on how cool things were as I drifted off to sleep.
I awoke to a couple of friends of mine pounding on my door, inconsolable, at about 8 am. There had been a fire. Ted was burned. Bad. Meade House was completely gone. I couldn’t get but little bits of this horrifying tale. I grabbed my bike and rushed over to Meade House only to find well, it is hard to describe. I can only describe it as kinda like a movie set for a war in only one house. The two story place had burned completely to the ground. There were fire trucks, and firemen hosing the smokey soggy wreckage, but no ambulances. There were many onlookers, but the people who lived there weren’t there. It took me a while but I got the story together. And slowly my friends started arriving back .
After I left, the residents and some stragglers had decided to hit an all night eatery for some scoobies. Ted had long since passed out in the band room. The band room was insulated, wall and ceiling with foam rubber and carpet, which the firemen said was like solid petroleum. Add to this that the walls had been insulated with blotter paper from old printing presses. Add to this that Ted had a very peculiar way of sleeping, zipped all the way up to his nose in a mummy bag. An ancient electrical outlet in the band room had jumped, igniting the foam rubber and apparently the whole house burned to the ground in fifteen minutes. Ted was the only one inside. He had apparently almost made it out but his sleeping bag melted to his body and he was on fire by the time they got to him in the door way. He had been flown by helicopter to Orange County, as I guess they have the best burn trauma center there. He had 3rd degree burns over 90% of his body. He had no more fingers, ears or face. Goddamnit, you know, just… fuck. I was devastated.
Before letting himself go, Ted stayed alive like that for nearly two months, during which our whole extended peer group lost their collective minds. There were fund raisers, story telling and memorials of all kinds when he finally went. All of this is well and good, healthy even, but it was the first real time I noticed it sharply. I noticed a social tendency that often rears its ugly head during times of such unfortunate occurrence. Maybe I have just been down the dead parent/friend/relative highway a few more times than average, or maybe it was just particularly crystal this time around for reasons unknown, but it was undeniable. Suddenly everyone was Ted’s best friend. Knowing Ted, yeah, he probably was everybody’s best friend, but this was not the implication. The implication that annoyed me to no end, and one of my personal herd of bette noire to this day, is that they hurt the most. Our extended circle had become the host nation to the grief olympics, and everyone was shooting for gold in their own overly dramatic, overly selfish, overly act outing way. I saw it in everyone. I saw it in everyone and it annoyed me. And it annoyed me because I saw it in myself.
When a pillar of the community is removed by the mis-wound hands of time, everybody hurts. When its someone you know, man it hurts fucking bad. I can understand the hollow, the empty, the torture of the lack of reason. I have been there and so have you. I understand. It hurts soooooo bad, that sometimes it seems like it isn’t possible that anyone could hurt any more than you do, and to somehow demonstrate that is a totally natural impulse. But you know what? Its one thing to feel that way and another to externalize it. I think its ugly, though that may be my own neurosis, and I may be alone in that opinion. There is a certain beauty in grief if you let it exist. It can be a terrific lens, a powerful motivator, and an unbreakable glue. In times when everyone is grieving, be extra gentle and let them all have their grief – if at least only so that you do not annoy me. I mean, can’t you see how sad I am?
We had been through quite a bit considering the brief 2-3 years I knew him. The stories of shed life alone could fill some pages, but I will go you one better. Once he and I had been detained on suspicion of murder. I kid you not. Isla Vista is just north of Santa Barbara, adjacent to the UC school there. While I wouldn’t call it a sleepy town, it being the most densely populated square mile west of the Mississippi, I wouldn’t exactly call it crime ridden. The police blotter there reads more like minor in possession, public urination, property crime and maybe the occasional date rape thrown in for spice. So when an older couple were robbed and one was killed up the coast about a mile it was big big news. And what sensation.! The story had built itself in the press like this: Man and woman are sitting on the beach, enjoying the fresh pacific air, when they are approached by two men, one white, one black. White man says “Do you have any marijuana?”. When they said that they did not, black man draws a gun and shoots male in the head – killing him instantly. The suspects then fled the scene. See what I mean? Crazed drug addicts out of control, murder in broad daylight, this story had everything. It almost had us.
Now at this time of my life, I almost was never without an enormous, yet always under an ounce for legal purposes, bag of weed in my shoulder bag of tricks. We can talk about that more later, but I am merely stating facts. I had long long hair and was extremely scrawny. I was always dressed like I rolled out of some gypsy’s laundry basket. Freakshow. So me and Ted were out strolling around headed god knows where for who knows why and we get rolled up on by the police. Hard. Two cars. It all happened really fast, and they were really nervous like they were afraid of us. You know how police get, and who can blame them? I wouldn’t want that job. So anyway, they begin to interrogate us as to our whereabouts a couple days ago. Being slackers under the influence, we a) had a hard time getting a coherent story together out of genuine memory loss and b) did a very poor job of covering that fact up. So it was time for searching, and of course amongst the many strange objects that a modern day witch doctor is required to carry around, they found my sack. No not that sack, the weed sack. They found both OK? Ok. So it was time for new bracelets and a free car ride to the cop shop. I mentioned that we had not been read our rights, and the cop in front said we were merely being detained as persons of interest in the crime of the century. Merely. Turns out, we fit the description the woman had given exactly. That plus the whole “marijuana” connection and we were well, persons of interest if not extreme curiosity and scrutiny. We were given complimentary e tickets to jail world for a few hours while we awaited our further interviews and while the police tried to arrange to have the woman come and positively identify us. I was bummed, but knew in my heart that I was innocent, so she could pick us, and it’ll all get sorted, right? Right! And it did too, because before even being interviewed, I was given a citation for possession as a souvenir, and released without explanation. Whew. That was close eh?
We at that moment, had no idea just how close. In the paper the next day it was revealed that the woman had set her husband up for insurance cash or something, had hired a killer, and had given completely false descriptions and story, which just *happened* to look Exactly. Like. Us. Now, as so often is the case, if the timing of this whole scenario had been even slightly off, I imagine I would be telling a different story, and from the rec room at Folsom. She could have easily come in and fingered us. The cops, proud to show how quickly they solved the case and made arrests, would have stopped looking into her, and started looking into us. The Law and Order sound hadn’t been invented yet, but Im pretty sure it played in my head anyway.
We kinda bonded over that one, but this story isn’t about that. I only told it to illustrate that we were close. In fact, it was with mixed emotions that I told Ted some months later that I had managed to find an apartment. Granted it was a seven bedroom, ten person chop job, but it wasn’t a shed, and had you know, plumbing and stuff. He told me that the folks at Meade House – all the traditional freak houses had names back then, this one, the oldest building in town was on Meade street and supposedly, Margaret Meade had lived there – had said that he could stay there. So that was it. The end of shed days. There was a party at Meade House that night, and I would see him there. No biggie.
It was your typical jam band college freak party, all our friends just smoking weed and talking about the stupid idea du jour. I had been to a hundred of them. I was tired from a hard last day of schlepping skulls, antlers, artwork and general caravan of abode adornment that used to follow me around at that time. I was also excited as it was cool to finally have a place to go that was *mine*. Well mine-ish anyway. I told Ted I was bailing. He had found out that his room wasn’t quite empty yet. I told him to come crash on my floor, but he said he was faded and was just going to go sleep in the band practice room. Yes. Meade house had a practice room too. Yes. EVERY last person I knew was in a band. But me. I walked the several blocks home in the Santa Ana-y swirly twinkly SoCal night and went to bed. I believe I reflected on how cool things were as I drifted off to sleep.
I awoke to a couple of friends of mine pounding on my door, inconsolable, at about 8 am. There had been a fire. Ted was burned. Bad. Meade House was completely gone. I couldn’t get but little bits of this horrifying tale. I grabbed my bike and rushed over to Meade House only to find well, it is hard to describe. I can only describe it as kinda like a movie set for a war in only one house. The two story place had burned completely to the ground. There were fire trucks, and firemen hosing the smokey soggy wreckage, but no ambulances. There were many onlookers, but the people who lived there weren’t there. It took me a while but I got the story together. And slowly my friends started arriving back .
After I left, the residents and some stragglers had decided to hit an all night eatery for some scoobies. Ted had long since passed out in the band room. The band room was insulated, wall and ceiling with foam rubber and carpet, which the firemen said was like solid petroleum. Add to this that the walls had been insulated with blotter paper from old printing presses. Add to this that Ted had a very peculiar way of sleeping, zipped all the way up to his nose in a mummy bag. An ancient electrical outlet in the band room had jumped, igniting the foam rubber and apparently the whole house burned to the ground in fifteen minutes. Ted was the only one inside. He had apparently almost made it out but his sleeping bag melted to his body and he was on fire by the time they got to him in the door way. He had been flown by helicopter to Orange County, as I guess they have the best burn trauma center there. He had 3rd degree burns over 90% of his body. He had no more fingers, ears or face. Goddamnit, you know, just… fuck. I was devastated.
Before letting himself go, Ted stayed alive like that for nearly two months, during which our whole extended peer group lost their collective minds. There were fund raisers, story telling and memorials of all kinds when he finally went. All of this is well and good, healthy even, but it was the first real time I noticed it sharply. I noticed a social tendency that often rears its ugly head during times of such unfortunate occurrence. Maybe I have just been down the dead parent/friend/relative highway a few more times than average, or maybe it was just particularly crystal this time around for reasons unknown, but it was undeniable. Suddenly everyone was Ted’s best friend. Knowing Ted, yeah, he probably was everybody’s best friend, but this was not the implication. The implication that annoyed me to no end, and one of my personal herd of bette noire to this day, is that they hurt the most. Our extended circle had become the host nation to the grief olympics, and everyone was shooting for gold in their own overly dramatic, overly selfish, overly act outing way. I saw it in everyone. I saw it in everyone and it annoyed me. And it annoyed me because I saw it in myself.
When a pillar of the community is removed by the mis-wound hands of time, everybody hurts. When its someone you know, man it hurts fucking bad. I can understand the hollow, the empty, the torture of the lack of reason. I have been there and so have you. I understand. It hurts soooooo bad, that sometimes it seems like it isn’t possible that anyone could hurt any more than you do, and to somehow demonstrate that is a totally natural impulse. But you know what? Its one thing to feel that way and another to externalize it. I think its ugly, though that may be my own neurosis, and I may be alone in that opinion. There is a certain beauty in grief if you let it exist. It can be a terrific lens, a powerful motivator, and an unbreakable glue. In times when everyone is grieving, be extra gentle and let them all have their grief – if at least only so that you do not annoy me. I mean, can’t you see how sad I am?
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