Truth is stranger than fiction

February 5, 2013 1 Comment

What lurks in the deepest recesses of our brain? What hides behind our pleasant out-going demeanor? Not all wounds heal. We can bury the hurt but it can also be exhumed; either by choice or behind our backs when we aren’t looking. These are the places I want to explore. I want to forge head-on into the darkness and shine the bright light of compassion. I want to swing open the closet doors and meet the skeletons stashed within and give them a hug.

I must be honest, to do this scares the hell out of me. I’m going to need courage and I’m going to need protection. I find my courage in a bottle of wine. I find my protection in undying love. But how do I protect those who walk beside me? As I set forth to tear down the wall, who is going to be hit by the falling bricks? Who will stick by me as I journey into the realm of secrets and unleash the demons we have locked away?

—-

Who was that girl that I met last night? I know I have met her before but she usually comes out in twilight. This time she came out of the blackest of nights, beaten and abused, ready to unleash fury on her attacker. But instead she met me, a lonely brokenhearted boy who meant her no harm and was in deep need of comfort. She was a warrior; fearless and strong. Certainly she could defend me. Grateful to no longer be alone I approached her in hopes of being received by her embrace but as I got closer I could tell she was lost. She had run from the terror that had found her earlier, to place of safety and solitude but she knew not where she was. I wanted her to know that she no longer had anything to fear; that I was there to protect her.

Unbeknownst to me, I had been followed. For how long, I don’t know. Perhaps he had been there all along. There in my shadow lurked a monster. I caught his reflection in her eyes but not in time to avoid her attack. I guess she must have thought that we were together, and there is no denying that we were. Her assault with fists, feet and fangs were indiscriminate; half hitting me and half hitting the monster. I didn’t want to fight back. I didn’t want to hurt her but I didn’t want to run away either. I didn’t want to leave her alone with the monster. If I could convince her that we where on the same side perhaps we could defeat this threat that plagued us both.

I grabbed her arms and said, “Please stop! I’m your friend.”

But this just seemed to enrage her more. A friend would never bring a monster into her sanctuary. A friend would never violate her solitude with requests for affection. A friend would never restrain her ability to defend herself.

At this point her aggression was squarely focused on me. The monster stepped back to shout taunts and egg her on. He was enjoying this. For him, seeing two friends fighting was pure joy. As I was trying to calm her down the monster was adding fuel to the fire. I had become the target of her rage and there was nothing I could do. There was no way to find peace and everything I tried only made matters worse. I was helpless. I wanted to resolve this but I was not in control. I don’t know if anyone was in control. Among the three of us there was not a rational brain to be found.

I needed reinforcements. I needed calmer heads to prevail and there were none around. I ran off to find help. My girl retreated to her den of solitude and the monster, bored with the lack of violence, returned into the shadows. Once again, I was alone. I wandered until I ran across a woman who knew of the keepers of law and order.

“Can they help me?” I asked her. “Can they resolve this conflict?”

“The keepers of law and order can only address conflicts between warring nations. This sounds like an internal struggle. You need to speak to the sage.”

I protested but in the end I had to concede that the real struggle was within. The battle had ended yet I still carried the fight. I had no adversary but myself. She pointed me off to the mountain where the sage resides. The walk wasn’t far but the wait in line to see him seemed to go on forever. Apparently there are a lot of internal struggles going on.

When I was finally able to speak to the sage I broke down in tears.

“I know that she knows me but when I look in her eyes all I see is hate.” I explained.

He responded with some mumbo-jumbo about living in the moment and that spirits work in mysterious ways. But for some reason it made me feel better. Maybe it was just the passing of time that calmed me down or the fact that there was another person to talk to and I no longer felt so alone.  In either case I knew what I had to do. I had to return to my girl and make things right. I believed deep in my heart that love would always triumph over hate.

When I finally found her she was held up in a cave guarded by two ferocious lions. Tried as I might I could not penetrate her defenses. Exhausted, I took refuge under a tree. Perhaps she would come out on her own and find me laying there, helpless, and take pity on me. She did in fact come out eventually, but pity was not what I received.

“What the hell are you doing under my tree? Get the fuck out of here!”

I rolled away to a nearby tree and we both sank into slumber.

I woke the next morning to inspect my wounds; flesh torn from my chest, shattered teeth, choke marks around my neck and a bruised ass from where I fell upon a rock. But I was alive. No one had died. Perhaps the monster was right. Perhaps this is fun.

I looked over and saw my sleeping beauty laying there. I walked over and stroked her hair.

“Wake up. We need to talk.”

She had no recollection of what happened the night before and I started to wonder whether it was all a dream. But then I grabbed my chest and realized it wasn’t.

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Birthday Suit

February 4, 2013 Leave a comment

I woke up this morning to find myself lying naked on my friend’s couch. I thought to myself, “This seems like a perfect way to start my birthday!” You may be thinking that it’s the perfect bookend to a night of debauchery but last night was pretty tame. Tonight might get out of hand though. It’s my birthday so there is no telling what might happen. But last night I was just tired. By the time I got my friend home I could feel my brain starting to shut down. The drive back from Downtown St. Paul was really stressful, the roads were full of drunks after the Super Bowl, it was snowing and the road conditions were horrible. It just didn’t seem wise to attempt that again. The naked part I don’t know about. I was wearing pajamas when I went to bed. But it was really warm in her apartment and I’m not a fan of wearing any more clothes than necessary.

I did have some really crazy dreams however. One I want to share. I was in this town and it seemed like all the teen-age girls were coming-out as lesbian. I know that girls are coming-out at a much younger age these days but there was no way that all of these girls were actually lesbians. Then I realized that I was in a very conservative town and anti-gay sentiment was rampant. At least some of these girls were identifying as lesbian as a way to rebel against their parents. I don’t know how much that actually happens but I’m sure it does. I’m not offering this as hope for parents of gay kids who really want to deny who their kids are. That wouldn’t be helpful. If it is going on it is still caused by the nonacceptance of homosexuality. The only way to combat it is for people to get over their close-minded bigoted way of thinking and accept their children for who they are even if that doesn’t fit in with their perfect image of an idealized world. With any luck, this will be the last generation that will be able to use such a tactic to rebel against their parents.

I did have other dreams but they were all pretty sexual and I’m going to keep them to myself.

I am realizing that there are some things in my life that I am not writing about. My last post ended with me on my way to pick up Jazz. I didn’t mention anything about the studio party which you would think was the highlight of my day, and it was. It just didn’t motivate me to write anything. There was no drama, no revaluations or inspirations. Everything went just as I expected. I’m not saying that I find that boring, just that it’s not anything I wanted to write about. Plus, I can’t write about everything. There simply wouldn’t be enough time. There are a couple of tidbits that I have deliberately left out. These have to do with people with whom I’m experiencing strains in our relationship. I am avoiding writing about those situations, at least for now, out of respect for them and not wanting to make matters worse. I guess that’s what my therapist is for.

—–

Yesterday I started my first article for this website which is to be titled Fear and Loathing in Minneapolis. I’m finding the articles much more difficult to write than these blog entries. Also, The Bad Waitress may not be the best place for me to get work done. I have a lot of distractions there. The best distraction was when my son showed up with two of his band mates and another friend to have dinner. He was in town to play a show in St. Paul. He goes to college three hours away so I haven’t seen him since Winter break.

Funny story… we were sitting there at the restaurant when this song came on internet radio:

My table of college students all look at each other with faces half stunned, half filled with glee. “Are they playing Peaches?” surprised that they would be playing such a song in a seemingly family-friendly establishment. “No, you’ve gotta watch this”, I reply having experienced this situation before. At that moment Kate, one of the baristas, runs out from behind the counter towards the jukebox, has to double back to grab the key from one of her co-workers in a great feat of teamwork. Luckily the song has a long opening because she skips to the next song just as we hear “Sucking on my…”. As Kate walks back in triumph we greet her with round of applause – makes me wonder how many of the other patrons where aware of what just happened.

So I only got about a third of the way through my article. I did manage to get some bills paid and still had a few bucks left over to register my domain name. You can now find this blog at: lefreakshow.com.  That was all I could do before getting distracted by The Puppy Bowl which was playing on the monitor about the bar. Seriously, too cute!

After that it was time to head to St. Paul to see my son play at Station 4. He was playing a benefit put together by an Anoka High-school student called Young Musicians for the Greater Good. I was really impressed with how well it was put on. I think they raised around $380 to support local homeless shelters which is quite an accomplishment. I do this kind of work with an organization called Rock The Cause and it’s not easy. To see what high school students are able to pull off gives me a lot of hope for the future.

My son’s new band is called 8-bit Johnson. The original name was 8-bit Dildo but when they realized that the band could actually go somewhere they decided to change the name to something a little more radio-friendly while still being no less profane. I guess I’ve done a good job teaching my son about the power of language.  I have not taught him much about being a musician or encouraged him to pursue that vocation in any way; at least not conciously. That he did on his own. And he’s doing amazing. I couldn’t be more proud. To see him on stage with such confidence and command of his presence; it makes me think of myself at that age, were I to have been more well-adjusted.

This being a Sunday night and an all-ages show they closed up early. My friend and I stuck around to finish our beers and swap stories about the bar with Renee, the bartender/general manager. I seem to spend a lot of time in bars after the doors have been locked. It wasn’t my first time doing it here. This bar has a multi-generational history of musicians who got their first bar gig now returning to see their children play. There are not many bars like it and every time I’m there I’m overcome with nostalgia. While it’s gone through many name changes and a few cosmetic improvements it still has that seedy rock club ambiance that I remember from my youth. Back then it was called Ryan’s and I remember by first time there; drinking beers at age 15 after seeing Van Halen on their 1984 tour. For years, my mother tried to get the place shut down while she was on the St. Paul City Counsel but you can’t kill this place. No matter what, they keep pushing on. Now with the light-rail coming in and stopping right out side their door I expect that they have an even brighter future. Times may have changed but I’m glad that they are still around, providing a venue for our youth, the next generation of rockers and freaks.

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The secret of success

February 3, 2013 Leave a comment

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” – Michelangelo

I agree, and my aim is high, and I rarely hit my mark, but sometimes I need that feeling of success. Some days I just need obtainable goals. I have found that life is a lot easier when I don’t try so hard. I know that much of what makes my life hard is my own doing, my drive, my ambition, my need to be more, and I’m okay with that. I am not driven by a quest for success. I realize that success is not a destination. Success is a feeling, a moment, and it is fleeting.

So yesterday was a day of realistic goals. It wasn’t suppose to be. My plan was to enter the drunken alley-cat bike race known as Stupor Bowl, held each year in Minneapolis on the Saturday before Superbowl Sunday. This is typically one of the coldest, harshest weekends of the season, so it’s not for the faint of heart.  After that I was planning on going to The Crooked Pint where my friends Viva Knievel (not to be confused with the riot grrrl band from the 90’s) were performing and another friend was celebrating her birthday. We were going to make it a joint celebration given that my birthday is on Monday. That would have been a crazy day!

Instead, against my request, my band leader scheduled a studio performance at our rehearsal space/recording studio. Well, things being what they are and as much as I enjoy getting drunk and riding through the wintery streets of Minneapolis with a bunch of crazy bike messengers, I enjoy playing music more. On performance days, if at all possible, I don’t focus on anything but the show. I know that the key for me is to stay relaxed. There is usually a lot of work to do but no matter how prepared I am something unexpected will still go wrong and when it does probably no one will notice and even if they do, who cares? It’s rock-n-roll and it always works out in the end… or you die.

I spent the afternoon just getting ready, dying my hair, trimming my beard, painting my nails, doing my makeup, picking out my stage clothes and running through the set. I used to worry a lot about promotion. These studio parties are private invite-only events so I would spend all day txting my friends encouraging them to come out but it never seemed to pay off. It’s a different crowd that goes to these things. And I don’t care how many people are there. I’m going to do what I do no matter what. I’m there to put on a good show for anyone who wants to be part of it. I’m there to have fun with whoever shows up, not worry about who didn’t. Still, I had some time so I decided to take a minute and make a post on Facebook reminding my Minneapolis friends about the event.

Turns out it was a really good thing I did. Moments after posting I get a call from our drummer, Jazz. He asks, “What are you doing?” I say, “I’m about to head down to the studio.” Apparently he had no idea we were having a studio party because he asked if we were rehearsing.  Anyway, he says he’s going hop on the bus and meet me at the studio. I thought to myself, “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea!” I got off the phone feeling annoyed. I didn’t know whether I was more annoyed with Venus for not communicating better or with Jazz for being a dumb-ass.  It only took me a few minutes to realize that it didn’t matter. These things happen. My only question was what could I do to make it better. I called Jazz back and suggested that I pick him up on my way. I figured I could do more good helping Jazz get there than I could getting to the studio earlier. Plus I needed coffee and the co-op I go to is in his neighborhood.

On the way to get Jazz I stopped in at the Wedge co-op. I’m wearing high heal shoes, thin silver sparkly socks, tight black pants with slits up the side, a long lime green trench coat, a black glitter eye-patch and a black sequined cap. It’s 9 degrees Fahrenheit and it’s snowing. Yeah, kind of crazy but at least I wasn’t biking. A woman in line at the check-out asked if I was warm enough in what I was wearing. I said, “Hell no! This is a fashion before comfort situation!” To which the cashier chimed in relaying her story of getting caught under-dressed when the temperature  dropped 40 degrees recently. Yes, Minnesotans are a hearty stock but we love bitching about the weather while simultaneously bragging about how tough we are.

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A day of beauty

February 2, 2013 Leave a comment

This is a little better. Last night I fell asleep at 8pm, woke up at 10:30pm. Went back to sleep around five in the morning. That’s actually a good sleep pattern for me. I do best when I get and hour nap in the afternoon and six hours of sleep at night. Unfortunately, my schedule (or lack thereof) rarely allows for that sleeping pattern. And waking up from a nap at 10:30 at night doesn’t place me in the most productive hours of my day. Sure, I did do some writing which I guess is an important part of my life these days but after that it was just beer, whiskey and watching TED Talks and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia until 5am. TED Talks are absolutely amazing. I could watch them all day. If you haven’t seen them I would highly recommend it. Highlights from last night are posted on my Facebook Page but there are hundreds of videos available on YouTube.

Okay, I’ve cleared the whiskey from my brain – gotta love coffee. Time to log yesterdays adventures.

So I did manage to get some shit done yesterday. Basically just what had to get done. I had to get my invoice submitted to one of my paper delivery customers. It involves a little bit of tedious paperwork but it usually isn’t that bad as long as my technology is working. This wasn’t one of those days. I recently got a new computer so that I could do this blog and hopefully much more but that means I need to re-install all the office software that I use. Not all of it works the way it used to. This includes my scanning software. I need to be able to scan documents and save them to PDF format to email to the customer. It wasn’t doing that so I went on the hunt for a free app that would. It took a couple tries but I finally found one that will do the job.

I also got my dishes washed. Oh, and a load of laundry run through my busted out washing machine. The rest of my time I devoted to my daughter, making her lunch and playing chess and Othello. I may even be getting better at chess because I totally kicked her ass this time. We had a discussion about parents who let their kids win to build self-confidence and she agreed that was fucked up. I fully expect her to beat me one of these days and she’s going to know that she did it fair and square. We both still have a lot to learn about chess but she is a much faster learner. Othello on the other-hand I’ve pretty much got mastered and I think she will in no time as well. We are both pretty bored with Master Mind by now.

When I got home from dropping my daughter off at her mother’s I realized that I had forgotten to hit the grocery store while I was out. There was no way I was going to go back out in the cold so I wound up ordering Domino’s. I’m not a fan of corporate chains but they are cheap and fast. They had me food in 20 minutes. I tipped the driver 5 bucks; totally worth it and at least I know that money is going to someone in the community who needs it. For many years I wouldn’t buy Domino’s Pizza because of the boycott regarding their support of Operation Rescue. Boycotts are a weird form of protest. I don’t know how often they work but people sure like them. I would rather use my money proactively to support business I like; at least when I have the money to do it. When I don’t, I do what I gotta do. And some businesses you just can’t avoid dealing with so you close your eyes, plug your nose and jump.

So today’s objective is to make myself beautiful – not a simple task. I have really been failing at the personal grooming lately. I need to take a shower (something I haven’t done in days), shave (something I haven’t done in a week), dye my hair (been three weeks) and paint my nails which is something I only seem to manage to do the day of a show.

Looks like I also have to shovel some snow. I’ll probably do that first. At least it’s above  zero degrees Fahrenheit and the wind has died down. It’s not too bad out.

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It’s just a dream

February 1, 2013 1 Comment

Wow, I just crashed hard. I was tired after today and feeling defeated so I went up to bed to watch a movie or something and couldn’t even keep my eyes open. Slept for over two hours. It’s now 10:30 at night but I’m awake so I guess it’s time to write.

I thought that writing would be a lonely profession but I’m actually finding it quite comforting. It’s not simply a matter of being alone with my thoughts. It’s quite different. It’s like giving the thoughts in my head a friend. It’s letting the thoughts in my head play with my fingers. Reading is also like this for me. A book gives my brain someone to play with.

Dreaming is different. I’m not sure exactly what dreams are but I like to think of it as my brain playing with itself when it thinks no one is looking. Kind of like masturbation for the subconscious. I don’t usually remember by dreams but when I do I try to hold on to as much as I can. I feel like they are important, that they can give some insight into what is going on up there in my head.

I did some pretty hardcore dreaming during my little nap. Most of it has already slipped away but I do remember the final scene before I woke up. It took place in a large inner-city high school. Things were pretty out of control, violent and chaotic. This one kid, not that tall, about my height but significantly overweight, was totally losing his shit. He was knocking other kids down, picking them up and throwing them around and generally causing a huge commotion.

I came in and picked this kid up over my head – I’m very strong in my dreams. I’m carrying him away from all the other kids when a school administrator starts yelling at me, “Hey, what the hell are you doing? Put that kid down!” I put him down and tried explaining to the administrator that I wasn’t hurting the kid, I was just trying to prevent him from harming other students.

Then another student gets up in my grill. I put my hand on his shoulder and say “It’s okay, I’m not trying to hurt anyone. I’m just here to help.” At which point he lashes back at me, “Get your hands off of me you faggot! You can’t just go around touching people. Who the fuck do you think you are? You some kind of pervert?!?” I was really taken back. I was trying to show compassion and understanding to these kids but they were incapable of receiving it. I began to imagine what it would be like to never feel love, compassion and acceptance.

I turn to the chubbier kid, the one who had been tossing students around and said to him, “You are clearly very upset about something. What is it that has got you so angry.” To which he replied, “Man, you don’t know what it’s like around here! We don’t even get no fucking popcorn anymore. We suppose to get popcorn on Fridays. That shit only costs like 25 cents a bag and those bastards took it away!”

Yeah… I understand loss. It can feel worse than never having anything to begin with. It can leave you feeling really pissed off – pissed off at the whole world. So I start asking him more questions about the popcorn and before we knew it we had a group put together to make popcorn of Fridays and sell it to the students as a fundraiser.

Okay… it’s just a dream but the feelings are real. Situations involving these feeling happen all the time. It’s very challenging to be a kid, to not feel loved, to not feel in control. Sometimes there is nothing you can do to comfort them and you certainly can’t control them. Sometimes all you can do is find out what they want and work WITH them to get it in a constructive manner.

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Blursday

February 1, 2013 Leave a comment

I seriously don’t know why I ever plan anything for Thursdays. I always think, “Oh, I’ll be fine. I can do that.” Nope, not likely. Wednesdays tend to wipe me out and I need a day to recover. I need a day to be extremely unreliable. So all in all I feel pretty damn good about what I did manage to do yesterday.

Hell, I wrote 1,500+ words. Don’t know the last time I’ve done that. I’ve been wanting to for quite some time. I spend a lot of time thinking so it’s about time I started writing down those thoughts in my head. And that is something I really need to do. Get thoughts out of my head. I also need to write down what I do everyday because I just can’t remember this shit. I can’t tell you what I did last week. I mean maybe I could if I though really long and hard but my past starts to get really fuzzy really fast. Most of it I don’t miss but it can get frustrating. If I can manage to take an hour out of each day to document my life I can see this being of great benefit to me. If I share it, who knows, maybe it can even be of benefit to someone else. At the very least it will hold me accountable and I want to live my life with honesty and integrity.

So as this blog is starting to take form what I see it being is a fairly comprehensive documentation of my life, the highs and the lows, the trials and tribulations, from the mundane to the magnificent. And then shared with the world in the present day, not as a memoir of the past but as it happens. I don’t know if that has been done before. I don’t know if anyone will find it interesting but I think it has the potential to be. This is my art. This is my experiment. What it becomes is yet to be known. Of course I have to make sure that I have the time to do the living part or I won’t have much to write about. Yesterday’s post took nearly four hours to write. I guess one of my fears is that becoming a blog writer will turn me into a boring person. Oh well, sometimes I am kind of boring.

After yesterday’s writing session I ran off to meet my friend and pick up the chowder she made for me. I didn’t even take a shower. I just threw on the clothes I was wearing the day before and ran out the door. I didn’t have that far to go but I drove anyway. In part because of time constraints but mostly because it was too damn cold out and even I won’t bike under certain conditions.

My friend was getting some work done by Miss Kitty at Live Fast Die Young Tattoos in NE Minneapolis. For someone who doesn’t have any tattoos I sure do love them. And there is something really magical about a tattoo shop. It was a fun time. I enjoy watching people get tattooed and my friend is one hell of a story teller and she had some good ones to share yesterday. BTW, I’m just referring to her as “my friend” because I haven’t decided whether to use people’s names in this blog. I may find that I have to. It may get too confusing or become too awkward not to but in the meantime I will try to protect my friend’s anonymity. It may turn out that people will just need to accept that if they interact with me parts of their life will be publicized.

After that I ran to the tobacco store then home to eat the chowder before my daughter got there. Fantastic chowder by the way! Really hearty, creamy and rich. Other than a few peanuts, that wound up being the only thing I ate yesterday.

My daughter was dropped off by her mother around six. Usually I would have picked her up but she had an after-school class so plans got a bit screwed up. I was actually quite grateful for this. I certainly could use the time and I did not want to go back out in the cold.

I had a wonderful evening with my daughter. We played two games of chess. I haven’t played in a long time but my 14 year old daughter is just learning. She is a remarkably brilliant kid but I still managed to beat her both games. We’ll see how long that lasts. I don’t believe in letting kids win but I did let her know what my strategy was and helped her not make suicidal moves.

After that we watched Rango. I do love me some Johnny Depp and chameleons are bad-ass! After that my daughter went to bed and I returned to my room to watch The Daily Show. I wanted to go have one more cigarette but was simply too tired to move and I faded off into dream land… well almost. I did get a phone-call at 12:54am that woke me up briefly after which I turned off my ringer and was out.

I have much to do today including much that I had hoped to do yesterday. So here we go…

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