beautiful, funny, sad & true

I’d like to take a minute to tell you a story in the long string of heart-warming online tales that illustrates the power of the internet to connect people who have been estranged for decades.  It also illustrates the power of music, and the power of a certain kind of mental pathology, too.  You’ll see what I mean.

One of my cohorts from Iron Horse received an out-of-the-blue message on Facebook yesterday, at 1:30 in the morning, from someone he didn’t know, that said, “Are you [misspelled his last name] from [our high school]?  I remember you; we wrote a song in detention.’  He named the song, and correctly wrote out the chorus.  No, I’m not going to quote it here, because then it would be searchable, but he totally nailed it.

His profile was private, there was no picture, and he had a very unusual first name, but my friend didn’t recognize him in any way.  He had eleven online friends, all of whom shared his surname.  My friend responded, “Yeah, that was me.  I kinda remember writing that in detention. . .I changed the lyrics around, and my old band used to play that song.  Do you have a picture or something to jump-start my memory?  What years were you at [our high school]?”

The guy wrote back that he moved away from Yakima in 1987, and that he’s living in California now.  He’s of a certain nationality, and “try to get sum pic’s.”  (I took the liberty of cleaning up his grammar and punctuation before, but it was all typed lower-case, with slightly awkward punctuation.)  My friend accepted his friend request, and we’ll see where the story goes from here.  The two of us can’t help but wonder what the guy’s life is like, since he’s writing to someone he met only one time, in high school detention, twenty two years ago (!), and seems to be hoping to rekindle a friendship where it left off.   I mean, sure,  my friend is a great guy, and we were a pretty good band, but this guy doesn’t even know about the band, because he left town before my friend and I even started it.  Oh, AND.  I should mention that my friend was neither a miscreant nor a ne’er-do-well (I love those two terms, and I love it when I get the opportunity to use them), he was only in detention that one day, and never saw this guy ever again.  He’s not anyone I knew, either then or now, but I haven’t been able to find my yearbooks to investigate him.

Incidentally, speaking of the band, the community access TV station still plays our videos to this day, which completely mystifies my friend and me.  These are not new videos I’m referring to, either.  They were filmed and originally aired during that same time period, from 1987 to ’89, which is when the band was in existence.   We were just a bunch of high school kids, playing some songs that we wrote ourselves, and I can’t imagine why anyone watching now would even enjoy the songs these days, let alone find a bunch of kids from twenty years ago compelling.

Be all that as at may, I admit that it’s gratifying (in a weird way) that they do still play that stuff.  We had a good time making the videos, and like I said, we were a pretty decent band, but we had no delusions about our abilities or chances for stardom, either.  We were just a bunch of kids who had a band, like a million other kids in a million other bands.

Just for fun, here’s a picture from our very first show.  In fact, it could well be of the song in question, too, because I just now remembered that I actually sang the whole second verse of it (and I didn’t sing lead very often), so it seems very likely that this picture was taken during that song.

I just love the oversize mirrored sunglasses, and you can see that I was working hard on Mullet Number One as well.  Gee, I wonder if this was the 80’s?

Meanwhile, back to the topic at hand.

In the interest of full disclosure, and the interest of fairness to this guy, I’ve spent the better part of this month reconnecting with friends from years ago, one of whom had also been twenty years ago (she reads this blog, too, by the way), and it’s been really great for everyone involved.  You probably already knew that if you’re reading this, though, since I’ve written a bit about it lately.  More than once but fewer than three times, in fact, just in case you were counting.   So I have no business knocking the guy for trying.  As human beings, we all are basically social animals (some of us more than others) who are looking for connections wherever we can find them.  But the people I’m talking with are people with whom I had actual relationships and friendships.  They’re based on more than just a one-time meeting, in detention, more than half a lifetime ago.

The title of this entry, incidentally, comes from a book that our high school’s choir director had on the bookshelf in his office, and it seemed apropos to use it here.  Iron Horse shortened it to ‘Mental Game’ and we used it as the title of our album.  I mean cassette.  Oh, how dearly I wish I had a copy of that.  I have a lot of old videos, and tapes, and pictures, and notebooks, but I’m not sure I have that cassette cover floating around anywhere.  I’ll have to do some digging.

I can’t wait to see how this story unfolds.

I’m going to do another of those quick little recaps, since it’s been another whirlwind week.

Went to Yakima and stayed at Mom ‘n’ Stepdad’s, since it was a class reunion weekend for my high school.  It wasn’t my year, but a few of my friends were going to be in town, so I figured I’d go and make myself available in case there were some activities or whatever that I might be able to be a part of.   I ended up going to the Friday night meet-up and hanging out with a couple of people, one of whom was a guitarist I played with once or twice when I’d been playing for about two months.  Since I’ve been playing for twenty four years now, that’s how long it had been since I’d seen him.  Another visiting friend was ChefSLC and a couple of friends from Seattle, who happened to be in town for a wedding and had nothing to do with the class reunion.  As if that wasn’t enough, I met up with another friend from college, who I found with a little help from Facebook.  All around, it was a fantastic weekend.

The weekend before was a party, a party, and a wedding.  PartyOne involved a lost dog, whose owner seemed to abandon him in a parking lot across the street from where we were having our little party, which quickly turned the party into a session of calling 9-1-1 and Animal Control and the police.

PartyTwo was a birthday party for Violinist from IrishBand.  When we arrived, we found that not only was it Violinist’s birthday, but it was a meeting of the two-member Portland Cigar Club, of which Violinist and Singer decided to become the third and fourth members for the day, despite never having smoked cigars before.  They warned Singer not to inhale, but he accidentally did, and found himself all cracked out, and had to go running up and down the street in the hopes of burning off some of the excess energy.  It was pretty funny.  I have the sneaking suspicion that was his one and only day of membership in the Portland Cigar Club.  After the party dissipated, I took LJ home and then went back to continue the party at the house we’d been at the previous night.  It was a blast, again, and the dog problem seemed to have been taken care of, after they let him spend the night in their home.

Sunday night was a wedding of two of my friends and building-mates.  It was a lovely ceremony at the bride’s mom’s house in Banks.   My pictures of the ceremony itself weren’t so great, but on the way out there, I stopped to take some pics of the beautiful countryside.  I parked my car on the side of the road, and someone actually stopped to ask me if I was lost.  It was very kind of them, and was something that rarely happens in the hectic life of the city.

After the ceremony, there was dinner and drinks until dusk, when the party really started.  Since the bride and groom are professional musicians, the majority of the guests at the wedding were musicians as well.  There was a contingent of guitarists, a cellist, two trumpet players, a violinist and I brought my accordion.  At one point, one of the guitarists pulled out one of those huge pads of art paper, on which were written the lyrics to a bunch of songs, including “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, “Across the Universe” and many other songs.  He arranged them with his other band, when they wanted to have a sing-along around a campfire, but no one knew the words to anything, so to write the lyrics on a huge piece of paper for everyone was a brilliant solution. The party lasted until about three-thirty in the morning, at which point most people camped out at various places on the property, but I decided to drive home.  On the way, I remember that it was now Monday morning, which meant that my friend John was doing his radio show.  He told me a few days prior that if I ever found myself in one of the many sleepless nights I have, that I should feel free to come down to KBOO and play a few songs.  So I called him.  “Hey, I’m driving home from this wedding. . .what are the chances that I could come down and hang out for a bit?”  He readily agreed, so I sped through the night to the station.   Got there about four, had a great time, played a few songs (Indigo Girls, Azure Ray, and Neil Finn), and then John played a couple before launching into the entire Side One of the Decemberists’ “Hazards of Love” record.   The guy with the show after John’s arrived around that time, and he told us that he’d been to the Decemberists’ show the night before, so we asked him if he’d want to come on the air and talk about it, which he gladly did.  It was really fun.  It’s a shame that the show isn’t podcast or anything, because the time slot of 3:00-5:30 a.m. is a bit prohibitve for most people to listen, but it’s well worth it if you’re up at that hour.  John plays all kinds of incredible music.

After the show was over, we had to put away all the records and CD’s that he’d played during the course of the show, which took a half-hour or so, by which time it was 6:00 a.m., whereupon I said “good night” to the guy doing his show (John asked me, “Did you just say ‘good night’?”  It was hilarious.), and then drove home to spend the rest of the day in bed.  It was a stellar ending to a stellar weekend.

So then last weekend was Yakima, last night was a Breanna and Justin gig with a Birthday Girl, and this weekend (tomorrow, actually) I’m driving over to spend some time with Dad ‘N’ Stepmom at their house near the coast.  Today I finally had enough time to sit and write all this out, so now it’s back to broiling in record-high weather in Portland (107 degrees today, and I don’t even own a fan!  Yikes.) and listening to Crowded House.

I went through all my boxes of stuff in the basement, and finally found the one that contained about a hundred CD’s that I’ve been missing for a while.  Crowded House, Tears For Fears, and Thomas Dolby were among the ones I’d been looking for recently, and I’m reunited with them now, and it feels so good.

I had a fairly stupid dream this morning, which I wouldn’t normally recount here, but for some reason I want to this time.  If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t enjoy reading about peoples’ dreams, this is one of the ones you’re not going to enjoy.  Even if you are the kind of person who enjoys reading about them, you may not enjoy this one, but I should mention that I do have quite a hefty backlog of dreams here on the blog that make for very entertaining reading.   Okay, that’s enough preamble and disclaimer.

* * * * *

I’m sitting in a bean bag chair on the floor of a large chain grocery store in my hometown, just between the foyer and the row of checkout counters.  There are five other people sitting there in beanbags as well, two young guys and two young women on my left, and a young woman on my right.  Despite being in the middle of them, I’m not participating in their conversation.  I’m not even looking in their direction, for the most part, except occasionally the young woman to my right.  I’m naked from the waist down, so I’m trying not to attract anyone’s attention to me.  I have a crumpled hand towel over my lap, but I don’t want to stand up because it wouldn’t provide enough coverage.

So I’m sitting there and listening to the others talk, and I finally decide that I’m not fooling anybody by pretending to be removed from the group and not looking at them, and that I should at least attempt to participate.  The woman on my right and one of the guys are dominating the conversation, so I turn my head back and forth between the two of them, but still I say nothing.  The woman gets a call on her cell phone, and everyone stands up to leave, including me.  By this time, I suddenly have pants on.  I’m the first to walk out the door, and the woman is about three feet behind me, so I can clearly hear her side of the telephone conversation.  We walk to the parking lot, and I look back at her a couple of times, because we’re heading in the same direction.  I look for my little red car and don’t see it anywhere, even though I remember where I’d parked it.

The dream’s location changes, and I’m at my childhood home.  I walk into the kitchen to get a glass of milk.  The well-stocked fridge is in the middle of the room, and there are two milk containers; a nearly empty half gallon carton and a two-thirds full gallon jug with funny little phrases like ‘do not touch this milk’, ‘this means you’, ‘back off’ and ‘seriously. . .stand down’ scrawled all over it in black marker.  I finish off the half gallon by pouring it into a short glass, and then I walk over next to the small rolling cabinet to pet the black-and-white cat that is sitting on the floor.   I pet her head for a second and then stand up to look at something on top of the cabinet, but the cat wants more attention, so she stands on her hind legs and stretches herself up to the edge of the cabinet, which is around three feet high.  I laugh, pet her head and say, “Yes, ma’am. . .guess you weren’t finished yet.”  I pick her up and walk into the living room, where my mom and a couple other people are watching TV.

“You’ll never guess how tall she is,” I say to everyone.  “Over three feet.  Isn’t that amazing?”  I scratch the cat under her chin.  “Yes it IS,” I continue, looking down at her little face.  I notice that my friend LJ is curled up in a blanket on the floor next to the sofa, and I can barely see her face peeking out of it.  I start to say something to my mom, but that’s when I wake up.

* * * * *

See what I mean?  What a waste of good sleep time.  I’d much rather dream about Christine again, and I’m sure you’d like that too.

When I was about eighteen, I had a girlfriend, B, whose estranged, abusive stepfather was the guy in town who sold worms out of his front yard. He had a very famous and weatherbeaten sign facing Sixteenth Avenue that said in scrawled black letters, ‘BAIT WORMS HELLGAMITS’. I still have no idea what ‘hellgamits’ are, but based on his childlike handwriting and second-grade education, I strongly suspect a misspelling.  Yeah, I know, an internet search would reveal the answer easily enough, but I actually like holding onto that particular little mystery.

As far as I know, he’s still in business.  I haven’t driven that stretch of Sixteenth Avenue during the last couple of times I was in town, but as of a few years ago, he was still at it.  And no, I didn’t stop by to say hello or anything.  In fact, I never met him back in the day, and I didn’t want to, either, all things considered.

And what happened to B?  Well, I was in college at the time, and one of the things college is good for (aside from the whole getting-an-education thing) is meeting significant others.  I think you can imagine where this is going.  After a couple months of dating B, I met K, who would change the course of my life, and I knew that our orbits would synchronize from the first minute we met.  K and I would be together on-again-off-again for the next five years, through both of my mullet haircuts.  B joined the Navy and I’m sure is living a perfectly functional life somewhere.   Last I heard, she got married and had a baby when she was around twenty years old.  My mom really liked B, actually, and they kept a friendship going for about a year or so after that, and wrote long letters back and forth, much to my annoyance, because I felt it sent a terrible message to K, who I count among the great loves of my life.

I still find myself wondering about K occasionally.  She moved to EmeraldCity at the exact same time I moved to Portland, and we went our separate ways and lost contact, somewhat surprisingly, after that.  She’s not on any of the usual social networking sites, and doesn’t seem to have an online presence, despite the fact that she works as an artist for a well-known video game company.

I’m not feeling romantically nostalgic for her, even though it may seem like I am.  I am curious, however, to see how her life has turned out, and every once in a while I’ll see something or someone that reminds me of her, and that will make me start to wonder.  We’ve all known people who really made their way deeply into our hearts, and sometimes the echoes of their voices seem to reverberate back into the world again.

But I’m not a Pollyanna, and I’m not stupid.  There were good reasons for us to split up, despite how much we loved each other, and I’ve never regretted our decision.  Most important of all is the fact that if we had stayed together, I would never have met the myriad of great people I have in my life now (hello, myriad of great people!), or made the changes in myself that needed to be made.  The people I’ve been with since then have affected me even more deeply, thanks in part to the experiences and expectations that I learned from my time with K, but also thanks to all those years of therapy, if we’re being completely honest here.   Doesn’t mean that I can’t wonder about her sometimes, though, and that’s perfectly okay.

There’s a Decemberists song, one of my very favorites, called Red Right Ankle, which has a poignant final verse that sorta sums up this weird, non-nostalgic nostalgia that I’m feeling, and I’m going to use it in an attempt to tie up all of the loose ends of this entry into a neat, tidy little Scooby Doo ending.

This is the story of the boys who loved you, who love you now and loved you then
Some were sweet and some were cold and snuffed you, some just laid around in bed
Some had crumbled you straight to your knees, did it cruel, did it tenderly
Some had crawled their way into your heart, to rend your ventricles apart
This is the story of the boys who loved you
This is the story of your red right ankle.

What a strange feeling this is.   What a strange entry this is.  And not a bit of Scooby Doo in the ending after all.  Sorry about that.

It seems that the town in which I grew up is in the national news again, and for all the wrong reasons, as usual.

A five-year-old boy had an accident in his classroom, and it may have happened a few times before.  Let the record show that the boy spends part of his day in special education and the rest in normal kindergarten.  So what does the teacher do upon finding the accident?  She picks up the poo in a paper towel, stuffs it into the poor kid’s backpack, and sends him home with this note on it:

Nice, teach.  Way to be the adult in the situation.  Oh, and thanks for putting Yakima back in the spotlight in such a poetic and brilliant way.  My previous favorite Yakima Moment, which I’ve written about before, was the upholding of the ban on Ralph Ellison’s book Invisible Man by the Yakima School District.

It absolutely made my day to find such a hilarious picture of what appears to be one of the school board members holding the actual note in the Yakima Herald-Republic’s coverage of the story.  Here’s the story on CBS News, too.  Better yet, do you want to watch a video about it on CNN, in which the kid’s father is trying valiantly not to laugh?

Priceless story.  These things can’t be made up.