“He had no place he could stay in without getting tired of it and because there was nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rolling under the stars.” Jack Kerouac

It is Friday evening, around 6PM. I am home with nothing to do. Really, for most of the day, I was thinking I’ve really got nothing to do when I get here. Life has dramatically changed for me recently. This was the first week, in a long time, when it felt like I was breathing clean air.

My eleven year job is officially over and October 1st was the start of a new life, in a manner of speaking. This is the end of the first week and a time for reflection, because that’s my nature.

I have had one glass of wine and I am now home and nurturing number two. In years past, I’d be smoking pot, in whatever modern methods of transmission have evolved. Once, I wrote and made a big deal out of quitting, because God is not stoned and I wanted to meet him on some kind of equal footing, a serious crock of shit. Well, a couple of months after that confession, I was back at it with a vengeance. Months and months ago, I quietly stopped and that’s that. 

I knew I was going to have this block of time and what the hell was I going to do with it? The first thing I needed to do was to go rucking, putting on a 20 lbs vest and walking up and down German Hill. On a night like tonight, what it does is remove the physical juice from what I am feeling. I can’t fly high and get lost in a word of bullshit, if I am exhausted from schlepping that fucken weight back up the hill.

I had decided I was going to write, long before the ruck, but I knew it would help to ground me and what I wanted to share.While I was marching, wearing this goddamn vest, I hoped that the last song I’d hear on the way back would be one of the specials ones, of which there aren’t all that many. I’ll be damned, Marc Cohn slips between my ears, singing “Walking in Memphis.” I don’t know why I love this song so much. Maybe it has to do with this guy, dreaming he is walking in Memphis and how the spirit of Elvis captures his soul. 

I came back in my space, dropped the vest and held on to him singing the last lines of the song, doing a horrible, impassioned duet. In an unexplained way, it leveled me out, so I wouldn’t feel at all burdened beginning this story to you.

I have a problem. I have to write. Years ago, in Santa Fe, I tried painting. I bought an easel and canvasses, brushes and oil paints. I don’t know why I thought of it just now, but that’s how it goes. I tried painting a landscape, with pine trees and mountains and sky and it was absolutely awful. I don’t even have good handwriting, so I have no idea what I was thinking.

All of the above is true, except the very last part. Throughout my entire life, I have had this need for self-expression. For years, writing endless memos at ad agencies, I was always told, “You know, you should write a book,” A million stories ago, I told you I gave it a try and it was a fucken disaster. I was living in Park Slope, Bklyn in a great, ground floor, railroad apartment. I bought a typewriter, yes a typewriter, put it on my bed, drank some beer, smoked some joints, typed a sentence and broke down in an uncontrollable tsunami of tears.

Years and years after that, I have already gone through the whole story with my writing a memoir for grandson and I will not put either of us through that ordeal again. What started out as something I felt I needed to do, birthed this word monster within me that is a force I no longer have any control over.

I have been mainlining the word needle for years now. If I didn’t totally suck, I would have set up the easel and painted one of the drop dead sunsets that flood my eyes and soul every evening here. Instead, I am stuck with a blank page and this need to fill it with words, like a junkie of jargon.

There are so many words I could snag from my mind and heart on a night like tonight. The best part for me is being able to shamelessly share with you that I am a writer and who knows why it has taken this long. I guess being pushed off the gang plank of repetitive numbness has helped. 

So, at some point, I decided I needed to write you, but had no idea what I wanted to share, other than the need to share.I suppose that is mostly true, but I can’t help, but look around at what is going on and wonder if I am living in some kind of alternative universe, where hatred and vitriol are the vocabulary for nearly all of us.

When the lady asked Marc Cohen if he was a Christian, he said, “Ma’am I am tonight!” He was embodying the spirit of the King, some higher power of adulation. Being serenaded by that tune on the way back helped to settle me down. I no longer want to get into some angry diatribe about how fucked up things are these days and I am talking about the globe. 

When you bother to look around, it seems like the world is coming apart. So many people are just tired of being screwed. Sadly, many are leaning toward extremism and violence as the way out, when all it is, is a way further down the rabbit hole of darkness and despair.

Let me be clear, I am not some naive asshole, who believes if you burn incense and candles, the world will correct itself. We are so far beyond the Zen idea of dependent co-arising, that whatever you do can impact the multitudes, past, present and future. 

Now, that I have said that, I want to take it back and apologize. I guess I am so pissed off and disappointed in my neighbors that I want them to all move out and find another planet, where they can cannibalize each other and live unhappily ever after.

I am still painting that shitty image of pine trees against the mountains and sky. I want to paint a Van Gogh or a Modigliani or anyone and anything other than the ugly scene I am witnessing each day.

I got home this afternoon and wanted to dress my words, like I was going out to party with goodness and mercy. Instead, I am looking at the same scene all of you are looking at and I somehow want you to feel hopeful, which sounds kind of lame.

I am breathing the air of soul freedom and I love it. At the same time, I feel like shit when I look around at the atmosphere we are responsible for creating for everyone, including ourselves. 

I honestly don’t know if we are any better than where we are. At least, I am dressed and ready to celebrate, with “my feet ten feet off of Beale.”

This life is all we got. Get all dressed up inside and walk through the gates of Graceland. Raise your voices in harmony with everyone and be the Kings and Queens we are meant to be. 

LISTEN TO IT HERE:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1292459/episodes/15874567-all-dressed-up