All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers

I know I've dropped out some. It's evident in most parts of my life, except perhaps this blog. But most parts of my life are not public or even known to an extra person beyond the immediacy of each part of my life. Most people I know don't know the others I know or else are no longer in contact with the others they used to know. My mutual friends have drifted apart. Every relation is an isolated one. I wander lonely as a cowpie, gradually mentioning people less and less to one another, as well as myself less and less to each of them. Email used to be a Godsend for old friends, now it’s something that one does mainly with strangers. Things change so fast.

I would like to say aloud that I'm getting more than a bit suicidal, but so far I've never had the nerve to even formulate a plan. So, how serious is that? And which is more frightening, life or death? I am sick to death, but I am also very sick in life. Stiffness and soreness and poor circulation all over and pains that come and go, but must be serious, for they have a great deal of kick. I could wait and be knocked off by my own bodily decay and enfeeblement, I guess, though the drawback is that I might be struck down where someone could Save me. Then, plop, right back in the cowflop, but with everyone knowing my mind. Too bad I was never a gun nut. I’d already be armed, instead of putting myself to sleep contemplating various implausible schemes.

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Title blatantly stolen from Larry McMurtry's novel.

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Holding Hands With George

I often like a nasty joke. I’m perfectly willing to make fun of the pervert Michael Jackson because I believe he is a pervert and deserves all the disrespect I can muster. Nonetheless, I’ve been sort of nonplussed at the garbage and the tawdry remarks and snickers that President Bush has drawn about his holding hands in the Arab fashion with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah this past week.

I’m not especially well informed and yet I knew from the moment I saw it what he was up to. Someone on his staff had informed or reminded him that this was a good way to show respect in Saudi culture and the President had decided to go for it. He needed to curry some favor, didn’t he, as badly as every foul-minded disrespectful “my president must be a homo” American yokel who is crying for lower oil prices this year and yet doesn’t want to give up a fucking thing for it? Well, the President gave up something for it, so shut the fuck up, willya?

As much as I despise Bush and have not witnessed him perform very many acts of grace or of respect toward “the other guy’s” culture, I knew from the git-go (as should everyone) that Bush isn’t usually “sensitive” or a man of the world to any degree. So if he was behaving oddly with the handholding, he was clearly up to something, most likely practical or diplomatic. Most likely, kissing up to somebody to get this country some cheaper oil! Diplomats and Presidents are allowed to behave that way in order to get along with the world. I give him credit for it. If we went to war every time Joe Sixpack thought we’d been insulted or rudely cut off in traffic, Bush would be an even more warmongering president than I’ve found him to be, and he’s pretty bad as it is!

Jay Leno and the other comedians, it’s their job to do this kind of sniggering and grinning and trying to make everything into a joke about somebody’s penis, but I don’t understand why these shallow newsreaders on TV found it so amusing. Oh, that's right, it's because they're shallow and not news professionals. I’d like to have seen someone doing their jobs as reporters the first few times the handholding was shown by explaining in an ordinary tone of voice what they’re just now bothering to explain many days later, that it was a cultural thing, perfectly ordinary in the Arab world.

It’s ordinary in other parts of the world, too, though not in Texas. Not everyone on the planet is afraid of showing affection. It’s bad enough that Joe Sixpack in the 21st century is still such an ass-scratching hick, but that these college-educated News Shills do it, too (just Mr. Regular Guy, thet’s me!) makes me feel I’m living in the same kind of backward caveman country we accuse Iraq and other Muslim countries of being. It gives me the shivers that some people in ALL countries are apparently so ignorant and allowed to be so damn proud of it.

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You're Sweet

Overheard while he had all his clothes on

"Thanks a lot," Tanner said. "You're sweet, even if you don't mean to be."

"I do too mean to be!" Sallye laughed. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Oh, I know you are," he shrugged. "Sometimes things just sound like they'd be interesting to say or interesting to hear. It's the English major in my soul, not to mention my twisted sense of humor."

"Your sense of humor isn't very twisted, I don't think," she said, shaking her head and smiling. "You're just shy, that's all. You think if you stop talking for too long, someone will catch on to it and throw you out!"

"Out of what?"

"Out of the house. Out of the club. Out of the game."

"Is that it?" he asked, pretending surprise.

"That's it," she grinned. "Now go on, get the hell out of here, I've got work to do."

"Ah ha! Uh, say, may I come back later?"

"Unless someone beats you to it," she grinned.

"Someone always beats me to the nice women," he said.

"Not if the nice woman tells 'em to bug off!" Sallye laughed as she leaned over and kissed his cheek.

Tanner walked away with a look on his smug face like he was about to whistle.

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"Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit." — Aristotle

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Judy Garland’s Blues

Why was Judy Garland sad?
Did she have everything—but not love?
What drove Judy Garland mad,
Or do I give her too much credit?

Was she merely unlucky, after all the luck?
Did she think she had two armfuls of nothing,
A mansion of expenses and pills and airs
Amid lost things forever beyond her reach?

Did she have everything—but not love?
Was she too often left behind
Or was she poisoned in the vein
As by too many drinks or a rattlesnake...

Twisted by some familial demon spirit she became
That dizzied spirit, the reel and spin, the living blues,
Forever frightened—no matter her age or image or magic—
Of what had always been and was out of control to the end?

Did she, like you, like me, have everything—
But could not feel the love?

rcs.

3rd draft: 04/26/05
©2004 Ronald C. Southern

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Dogfight

Overheard from 2 wine drinkers in a movie theater line

The guy named Tanner mentioned a story he was writing in which he suggested a certain dog might have kicked a cat's ass. His friend Phil objected violently, saying cats were tougher than dogs, dangerous as bears, couldn't be beat. Eventually, as he tired of making the argument, he got extreme and seemed to be saying that dogs were By God pussies, Pussies, PUSSIES compared to pussy cats!

"Sure, cats are dangerous," Tanner said, sort of brushing it off. "But I've already described this dog as being a classic brawler, which is a good deal worse than a regular lazy dog. Brawlers aren't compelled by others to win, and don't necessarily stop just because they get hurt. Didn't you ever read that Jack London stuff about stout-hearted dogs, fer chris' sake?"

"I don't think it's so," Phil persisted. "It don't apply."

"Your cats, I suspect, are like fancy boxers," Tanner grinned, wanting to see if he could just wear Phil down. "Put them on the street with a street-hardened tough, a real fighter who doesn't mind taking a licking, and your cat's gonna be like that boxer: either laying on the ground with all his bones busted, wondering what the fuck kind of truck hit him, or else standing over the other guy and wondering why the bloodied bastard just keeps getting up like that."

Phil still didn't agree. "Don't care, don't agree!" he asserted.

It sounded as if no possible twist of reality or fiction in the whole wide world could convince him that this invincibly favorite animal of his could ever be beaten or lessened by a mere dog.

"This is too absurd for further conversation," Phil sighed.

Tanner agreed with that part, looked thoroughly disgusted, and shut up.

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The Old Couple

It was about 1972, I'm not sure of the date. I was living in a low-ceilinged garage apartment—an apartment that used to be the garage!—with two friends and we were splitting an $80 a month rent. We called it "The Cellar" because it had no windows and was dark except for light bulbs or leaving the door open. There was no screen door to keep the Austin insects out, so we didn't do that much. Two of us were hippies and the third a student hippie. I've mentioned this "cellar" before in a previous post, Moen's Silent Screw.

George, Jim, and I were poor and each had a hard time digging up the $27 each per month. Of course we were spendthrifts, too, so sometimes even when we had the money at one point, at least one of us would have trouble still having it when the rent came due! We had a game of musical chairs going about who would cover for whom each month. Somehow it worked out.

I recall there was a pair of elderly homeowners still hanging on to their old proprietary views in the middle of a bunch of rental properties. Despite their distaste and stubbornness, I guess what used to be a neighborhood was now a strange and foreign place, full of young people, Negroes, Arabs, and Orientals. Everything that was foreign. Dopers and fornicators. Gays and Lesbians were beginning to be heard of.

We hadn't met The Old Couple under ordinary circumstances and so we assumed that we never would; there were lots of neighbors all around that we expected to never meet. But the time finally came when I did meet The Old Couple. I came out of our one-room apartment one afternoon to make a food run and found a neat handwritten message on my windshield telling us that they would appreciate it if we'd stop parking in front of the house in which they'd lived for the past few decades. Before I ran my errand or moved my car, I went over to talk to them.

I'd never even seen them, so naturally I'd never spoken to them before. I was more polite to them than I felt like being, but I stuck to my pose. I had tea or lemonade or something else genteel and old-fashioned that made me feel out of place and out of time. They were a very handsome couple. It seemed odd that I'd notice such a thing in older people back then—if I noticed it, it must have been remarkable! They were very polite, too, and seemed from an older world. It didn't take long to see that The Old Couple felt that they had a definite and complete ownership of the street in front of their house. They always had, they always would. I didn't agree with them, but more than that I wondered how they were going to get the cooperation of all the rest of the renters and riff-raff that now came and went on that street? I wasn't a hardhead about such things—I felt angry to a small degree, but I felt a number of the other strangers they accosted about this were either going to ignore them or tell them off.

I didn't want any trouble or even any aggravation about them owning the curb adjacent to their house. Indeed, I was probably not capable of being adequately impolite to break through the brick wall of their consciousness! So I just back-pedaled out of there as quickly as I could. I moved my car to MY side of the street! Their "rules" were authoritarian and inflexible, but they were so polite! I realized as I was removing my car that it had even been difficult to leave their living room, to get away from their graciousness! Someone else could be the heavy, argue with them, force the old man to call the cops. I don't know if he had any other cards up his sleeves than that, if he had a nephew who was a city attorney or something. If they were still "doing well" in the world, I don't think they'd have still been living on that run-down street in the midst of those student rental properties. I might be wrong; I have since met a variety of people who, regardless of their economic situation, if their home was already paid for, would not consider leaving it.

I used to have a clear remembrance of the old couple and had it for a long time, but when I ran across these notes recently, I realized yet another long time had passed and I'd mostly forgotten them. I remember these small bits of detail, a little of how the old man looked, hardly anything about his wife. They were too civilized to be afraid—that's one thing I remember—of me, of anyone. They wanted it to still be a Decent Neighborhood in the capitalized sense of the word, and I knew it couldn't be, not for much longer. To me the decay of the neighborhood didn't seem so terrible, just progress, but whenever the realization may have hit The Old Couple, I know it must have been horrific.

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Jeremiah's Nam-Days Draft

This is a post by Jeremiah who seldom updates his old blog, but I know him and take this occasion of a new post by him about old times to let him fill some space and time that I won't be filling today. Have fun.

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Smoke Signals On A Dark Dance Floor

Voodoo Intuitions

True evil always discerns what you care for —
more quickly than love, it knows what you dare for.

True love is impulsive, implosive, impendent;
intuitive and perplexing and repentant —
yet never more knowing or caring
(never more reckless or careless)
than evil's discerning eye.

What judgment can be made?
In what book is the judgment made?
We see the light pass clearly through the glass,
yet still the pages fade.
See how the pages turn?

The words appear and disappear
and reappear in smoke —
but what does the message mean
when the final word's a joke?

True chaos always knows its master;
time is reframed by time
and sex is infested with sex —
now as your heart beats faster,
everything simple grows slowly complex.

Through the long dormant season
everyone's sullen and silent:
the right, and the wrong, and the dead;
men who must only listen
care nothing for what is said.

See what the words have wreaked? Our souls
are not passions to be carelessly piqued,
nor iron in the fire to be easily wrought;
we are intemperate, yes, yet steel,
no matter what pleasures we've sought.

Oh see that girl with the red dress on!
She knows how to shake it, just for me!

Love comes by surprise, by unreason,
by unfeasible touch in a hot, dry season —
so cool, cool to the touch,
the touch of unpressable flesh pressed,
the rise of unraisable hope risen.

True love is impulsive, implosive, impendent;
intuitive and perplexing and repentant —
yet never more knowing or caring
(always more knowing and caring)
than evil's discerning eye.


rcs.

6th draft: 04/22/05
©1980 Ronald C. Southern

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"After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one." Cato the Elder

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This Tear Drawn Down

This tear drawn down my cheek
Makes sense to none but me.
How can one who hides his heart,
Who has held still, held still,
And held nothing to be true,
Be moved to anything so real?

Cursed are those that drown themselves,
Drown in the thirst-drenched sea;
Cursed are these that live and rue,
Who drew the sea's disturbance to
Their flesh—thus only are we true.

The tear that draws us down to drown
In syncopated frowns; all expression soon becomes
This one face that in the mirror sees its own disgrace.
We are flesh crying out in the night—
Disembodied, and yet remembering.

Of all that we remember,
this tear will be most true.
Of all that we conceive, and
throw away, and then retrieve,
this tear will prove most true.

Ronald C. Southern
3rd draft: 04/21/05

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Party Party

Sheila’s Party

She felt
As cold and tight
As if a spring of steel
Were wound around her throat
And through her guts

And beads of sweat stood attention,
At random and in rank,
And all her heart was open
To the heartbreak her misinformed love had bred.

She was young and noble and grave,
She was plain and lovely and tried so hard to be loved;
She was all she was till a lover at last
Came in like sun through a haze and in no time
Betrayed her, together with her blonde roommate.

Later she stood dead still at her party,
Storm-still in the eye of the swirl,
Needful once more of her lover,
Yet heedful of the things gone astray.

"Why?" cries her beautiful roommate.
"Why?" cry the revelers all.
"Why is this lady sad now?
For what do her eyes look away?"

She's danced her last dance with her lover,
And he’s resigned and turned away,
Gone out the door with the other,
Leaving Sheila cold and frayed.

The whirl of the party heightens without her
As the phone rings off from the wall,
But it’s busybody Smother Levine
And the rest of Sheila’s party is spent in boredom,
Talking placidly to her mother about nothing.

“Goodnight, Sheila!” someone she barely knew
Yelled from the door. “We’re expected at another party!”
Christ, what can we do who choose friends and lovers
That won't love us at all?

5th draft: 4/20/05
©1980 Ronald C. Southern

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The above poem is based on the 1975 movie, "Sheila Levine is Dead And Living In New York City".

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