Hey Look, I Forgot To Add A Title — Again!

It’s been time to write a post for a while now.  Hell, it’s been past time for a while now.  But…

Yea, there’s that damned but again.  God, I hate that fuckin’ word.

What sentence, statement, wish, or thought ends well that has the word “but” figured prominently in it?

Ahem.  Anyway…

I still find the time to write nowadays.  In between meetings and research and accounting and planning — and all of the other things that crowd the top of your To Do list when you’re opening your own business — I still try to make time to write.  Unfortunately, there really isn’t anyplace near me where I’m comfortable enough to sit in the corner and lose myself in the words.

Well, not until the Depot opens.  Then…

Then, all bets are off.  And, shit, do I love that thought.

When worries about costs and fees fill my days…

When thoughts about lights and tables and chairs keep me up at night…

When stress about licenses and certificates and approvals wake me in a cold sweat…

I picture myself sitting in the corner and writing.  And I smile.

The joy this whole process has brought cannot be overstated, by the way.  Oh, not just my joy — and trust me, there ain’t really a limit on just how much freaking joy this brings me — but the simple, honest joy of others, too.

The joy of my friends in this new home of mine at the promise of a place built to bring something  different — something real — to a town with little on offer besides corporate schlock…

The joy of my dad’s friend at seeing his grandfather’s picture still hung on the wall of the vestibule…

My dad’s own joy at seeing the happiness grow in a son more known for cynicism and writing about the dark side of life…

The joy of that son at building a legacy — a legacy not just for a father, but for a grandfather and a great-grandfather…

Look, if I don’t stop now, I’m gonna go all writerly and start trying to cram a series of profound thoughts and emotions into a two-hundred flashfiction piece.  I think I’ll skip that, for the moment.

I’m going to skip ahead to the end of the story, actually.  I don’t know about other writers, but I write — and think! — in images.  Most of the time, when I write a piece, I have a final image I want to leave in the heads of my readers.  That finally image is always intended and designed to elicit certain specific emotions and thoughts.  

On this blog, I tend to replace that final written image with a musical thought.  I use a song in place of a mental picture to try and convey some of the thoughts and emotions that went into the creation of the post.  Honestly, the best way to really understand what I write here is to listen — and pay attention — to the music I post.

Oh, it doesn’t always work.  Sometimes my mind — and my writing — changes direction in ways my ear can’t keep up with.  But today…

Well, if today’s post ended up being a short bit about joy, rather than what I first set out to write, the song I initially thought to build around still holds some very real elements of truth.  Plus…well…it’s really fucking good.  It is, in fact, one of the two or three most evocative songs I can think of (and I can think of a lot of songs).  It also happens to be one of my favorites…and I don’t mean just from this specific band. For me, this song stands up there among other, far more well-known songs & bands.

{Musical Note — just turn the volume up.  No, really, turn it all the way up and let the music wash over you!  That is how I write, by the way, with music blaring in my ears and the world held at bay.  That is when I write the most — when I feel the most — when the music is felt as much as heard, and the world is nothing but a distant tug, easily ignored.}

It’ll Come

Want to know what’s really hard?  Lighting.

No, seriously…freaking lighting is a nightmare.  Table lamps, chandeliers, recessed, track, indirect, spot, flood…

Lights are, to all intents and purposes, flat out evil.

Have you ever tried to find the perfect pendant lights for a brewery in a 100-year-old train station?  Good lord, I feel like a 14 year old trying to find just the right outfit for his first date…

*sigh*

See, this is how places end up with basic fluorescent lighting that doesn’t only look like shit, it also pisses off the customers: it’s just easier that way.  There are companies out there whose entire business model is based on our society’s subservience to FOMO.*  But not these lighting folks, nosireebob.  They’re just the opposite; they build their model off our willingness to surrender and simply settle.  They know someone shopping for new commercial fixtures is likely starting a new business.  They know that particular someone is going to be stressed and overwhelmed.  They know timelines and costs are probably already out the window by the time the buyer gets to lighting, so they base their marketing and product selection on that other little nugget of societal gold: “Stop dithering and just buy something, ferfuckssake!”

*Fear Of Missing Out, if you’re wondering.

It’s insidious.  It’s evil.  And, of course, it works.

Crap, I wish I had known more about sales and marketing when I was in high school and college — I wouldn’t have left “those” parties and bars alone quite so often.

Ahem.  Never mind.

The good news out of all this is that I am at the point where lights are a concern.  Freakin’ lights! That right there is progress, if I do say so myself!  Remember way back when I told you about how I really am able to write — really write — only in taprooms?  And when I hinted about becoming my own best friend in that regard?  Yeah, that “really far down the road” ain’t lookin’ so far away now…

Of course, then I just have to find (or manufacture) the time to actually step away from everything else and just write.  Ah well, it’ll come…it’ll come…

Ray Bradbury was really good at titles.  Yeah, the man could write, too…but he truly ruled at creating titles.  My favorite title of his?  Something Wicked This Way Comes.  Change your perception of the second word to our modern slang interpretation, and…oh my, does that title work even better for me right now!

If you’re curious, by the way: Desmond Depot Brewhouse

{Musical Note — Let’s go with a band I haven’t posted on here before…

Edit: the writer created this song while backpacking alone through a strange country. It was a song about alienation, and missing home — and also about hope. It is also, of course, a song about the cost of being away from home. This is, when you get down to it, a song all of us wanderers and hobos can identify with.}

Microfiction: ”Broken”

“Broken”

“Happy Mother’s Day!” the clerk chirped, all brightness and light.

The smile the lady returned was genuine.  If that smile was a bit slow, it still was sincere and heartfelt.  “Thank you.  My son…Mother’s Day is always special.”

The woman gathered the flowers into her arms and headed out.  More smiles and greetings in the parking lot.  Those were exchanged with strangers for the most part, but there were moments with those she knew, too.  Those moments mattered, she thought.  Those moments, with those she knew, they offered depth and color to the day.

Green was finally taking hold again as she crunched through the last vestiges of winter.  The flowers were starting to grow on the verges of the rapidly greening grass…could summer be far behind?  With summer life would return.  With summer would come warmth and visitors and new life.

New life.

She hadn’t cried, not for a month.  She’d sworn she wouldn’t cry that day, either.  Not for Mother’s Day.  He loved Mother’d Day.  He always did something special, even when he didn’t have the time or the money.  She wouldn’t ruin that; she wouldn’t cry.

She just wouldn’t.

The lines were still sharp and clear when she approached.  Wind and rain had not had time to wear them away, but…

Nor had they had worn away the paint, either.

The flowers were laid gently, her few tears breaking that earlier vow.  A choking gulp, convulsing her entire body, as she forced the words into being, “It’s been a great Mother’s Day. Thank you for the flowers.”

She rose and turned to leave. The brown of the leaves marred the black of her dress. A step and she had to turn for a last glance.  The fresh lines and clean whiteness of her son’s headstone were marred by the hateful black paint she’d tried so hard to ignore: God hates fags.

Some of those in the parking lot that morning had been among those who had painted those words.

“I love you, son,” she whispered, heartbroken.

{Musical Note — I have written 5-6 pieces trying to touch on some of the emotion and reality of the piece above, but I’ve held them all back. It’s complicated. “It’s complicated” — what a shitty, stupid excuse. But it’s an excuse I’m stuck with. Anything else I have to say is going to cause problems, so I will let the piece above, and the song below, stand for themselves.}

Welcome To The Jungle

Today’s flashfiction: “Welcome to the jungle…”

You would think the smoke would be all the impetus you needed.  Okay, so maybe the smoke and the explosions…

How do you miss all of that?

Easy.  All you have to do is decide it doesn’t apply; not to you, anyway.  That smoke, those explosions…those are someone else’s problem.  My passport…my passport is blue.  My passport has an eagle on it.  My passport says no one can ever fuck with me.

My passport aside, the bomb still struck.  My passport aside, the smoke and the fire and the violence, they all still fucked with me.

“One minute!” my friend screamed from a thousand miles away.  Weeks ago, we had worked out our escape plan.  One minute to gather our shit and get out.  One minute to grab everything and run for the one car we had all ensured had a full tank.  “One minute!” my friend screamed from right outside my door…

How do you grab a life in one minute?

My books…

My first editions of Tolkien?  Of Dostoyesky and Tolstoy?  My Shakespeare folios?  Hell, my volumes of Japanese manga, even?  When the building is crumbling, who the hell worries about their Norigami collection?!

I do.

Or…at least…I did.

Then the smoke.  And the explosions.  The sirens, and the screams…

The screams…

My life exists in a pair of boxes, and a lifetime of screams.

p.s.

I have friends in Ukraine.  I have friends I have not been able to contact since the Russians invaded.  I have friends in the Baltics, too.  I have friends that fear — as do I! — that they are next.  The worst thing I have ever had to flee was a vengeful ex-girlfriend.  Falling mortars?  Enemy snipers?  Mines?  Yeah, I top out at the fucking Call of Duty series…

Some of my friends are terrified…

Others of my friends are already refugees…

“…as you have done to the least of these, My brothers, you have done to Me…”

This is not a thing of Trump versus Biden…no matter what FoxNews wants you to believe.  This is not a thing of capitalism versus socialism…no matter what MotherJones wants you to believe.  This is a thing of human suffering.  This is a thing of war, and death, and the threat of far, far worse…

In the years before WW2 we as a society missed the signs of the worst that was to come.  We as a society were far too complacent in our isolation and self-absorption, to be honest.  It took violence and blood to break that isolation and self-absorption.  In today’s world, we have missed many, many signs…

Just how much blood is it going to take for us to realize that we are actually a part of this world?

Just how much blood and violence will it take for us to realize that things are not as we want, but as others demand?!

Just how much suffering will we endure before we decide true leadership is more important than partisan infighting?!

My friends talk to me about their fears.  My friends talk about tank divisions, and speed of advance.  My friends talk, even, of chemical and nuclear weapons.  My friends talk of what is to come in the same way Jamie Lee Curtis talked of Michael Meyers fifty years ago…

My country, on the other hand…

My own country…this beacon of strength and freedom…

We can’t get over Donald Trump’s speeches, or Hunter Biden’s emails.

We are so fucked.

{Musical Note — I looked and looked for the perfect song for this post. I failed. Then I decided to look at the music choice not as a commentary or an appenage to the writing, but as a (pretty blatant) subtext…}