Thanks Missuz J

It does seem kind of silly, now, but I think someone else on this blog network said that deep down inside, we all really do like to talk about ourselves. And this challenge served as a pleasant distraction. So, without further adieu (that should've been on my list)...

7 Things I plan to do before I die:

1- Support a family (or at least contribute more than I do now) off my writing, which leads to…
2- Per our pact, buy a Harley for myself, and then one for my older brother.
3- Go to Europe, Central and South America
4- Probably Asia, too. And Australia
5- Stop smoking entirely.
6- Raise a child (I’m already partially involved in this, but it would be fun to try from the start)
7- Most importantly, make my girl happy until my last breath.

7 Things I can do:

1- Ride a bike with no hands for long distances while drinking tea from my travel mug.
2- Barbecue.
3- Recite most of “Raising Arizona.”
4- Sing a mean David Bowie, Waylon Jennings, and Neil Diamond.
5- Get along in a crowd of strangers.
6- Listen.
7- Finally give my love to a woman who appreciates and reciprocates.

7 Things I cannot do:

1- Not finish a book once I’ve started.
2- Easily admit when I’m wrong.
3- Play basketball.
4- Pull off most of Led Zeppelin (Robert Plant really could hit those high notes).
5- Do anything more mechanical under the hood than change the oil.
6- Watch “Chicago” again.
7- Imagine life without Jennifer.

7 Things I say most often:

1- Jiminy Christmas!
2- hmm. (as a way of avoiding comment)
3- Oh, for Hell’s sake.
4- Okay, then. (see #3 from Things I can do)
5- Hair of the dog
6- whatchoo’ talkin’ ‘bout, Willis?
7- I love you (glad to be able to use this one more than just with my parents)

7 Things that attract me to the opposite sex:

Well, I basically just like the opposite sex, in general, and have dated a few different brands and styles of women, but having finally found someone I feel truly compatible with, I’ll change this to

7 Things I love about Jennifer:

While she has other, more-refined tastes in these first three arenas, Jennifer loves
1- Beer,
2- Harder music, and
3- while she may watch through her fingers, she likes horror movies.
4- She has an artist’s soul.
5- Laughter. Lots of laughter.
6- Three words. best… sex… ever.
7- She’s just different enough from me to keep it interesting.

7 Celebrity crushes:

1- When I was younger, I really had a thing for Meg Ryan, but figuring that whole Dennis Quaid marriage was solid (oops), I gave it up. Since then, the only real celebrity crush I’ve had is on Fiona Apple.

7 People I’d like to do this list:

1- Pope Benedict XVI (do you think “become the Pope” would be on there?)
2- The President (although the “7 Things I can do” might be difficult)
3- God (there’s some serious comic potential in this one)
4- Albert Einstein (“Adaptation” anyone?)
5- Willie Nelson (mostly just for the 7 things he’d like to do before he dies)
6- I can’t think of anyone else, except for
7- My Tourjete. While unfortunately her new job won’t allow the continuance of her blogging (not that she minds that much, I believe, except for not being able to comment on others), I’d like to see her list. Maybe she’ll give it to me, and I’ll post it.

Patience, my friends

Old friends and new friends.

I just realized how long it had been since I posted (wow, how time flies) and wanted to let you all know that I will be back on Monday with either my Seven List (someone finally tagged me after I whined a little. I actually liked this one.) or the final installment from The Windjammer in Misquamicut.

I'm pleased to announce that I've finally started with my new schedule of writing first thing in the morning after Jennifer goes to work and before Kira gets up for school. It's a great time for the craft, with dawn just waking up and the world still quiet. So I'll probably be wrapping up the tales of my Summer Karaoke Tour soon (probably just in time to get back to editing my book). Just a little teaser... next stop after finishing in Connecticut is Montreal, possibly my worst karaoke experience.

Until then...

because we didn't take pictures

author's note: This is another one for my girl, and as the title implies, I wrote it to keep the memories fresh from our trip to Montana and Idaho (three months ago?!).

because we didn't take pictures...

A full car from the very start.

Probably 500 CD’s (and no I-Pod), sleeping bags, pillows, clothes, collapsible chairs, my laptop, books we never found time to read, two empty Kettlehouse growlers, (add in two endtables on the trip home), and two cowboy hats fitting two people in love and on vacation.

Heidi and John’s back porch, Rattlesnake Creek rumbling through Greenough Park just beyond our visual senses.

Dancing to Tom Catmull at Sean Kelly’s.

dried peaches and olive cheese bread at the Farmer’s Market.

Sun. Thank God for the sun.

The weather in general. How perfectly fitting for each day.

Rock Creek. Ray and Marlene. Glad you finally met them. Crushing cans and shooting whiskey. Getting off with just a warning driving back into town. Do you think the peaches covered the whiskey smell?

sitting in the Kettlehouse, sampling the brews. The guy who said you had a great smile first. Unthreatened, I grinned at his comment, and he said the same about me. Ahh, hippy kids.

Tipu’s after a good walk through Caras Park and along the Clark Fork River.

Bald eagles, bison, blue heron and elk. Oh my.

Touring along the Salmon River into Idaho.

Zim.

The next day. The four mile hike to Gold Bug. Light rain running down my face, dropping off my nose. Low clouds drifting across the mountains like smoke. I knew walking behind you that I would follow you anywhere, and thought about our future adventures.

Finally we made it to Gold Bug. Only one other group of three, but they occupied the best spot so we stopped at one of the other pools.

(For the sake of decency and young readers, anything possibly offensive has been replaced with “hot springs.”)

Getting “hot springs” despite the other group, and then having to walk like that over to the better pool when it looked like they were leaving,
past the small group who had chosen not to get “hot springs.”
They just didn’t get the hot springs.
Probably the other car with Utah plates.

After they left, sitting in the pool, I can still picture you standing “hot springs” in all of your glory. You stretched your arms to the sky, your beautiful “hot springs” curved in silhouette by the steam, with jagged granite mountains rising behind.

The rocks and the rain, the bright green, passing scents of flowers and sage.

Do we dare? How couldn’t we dare?

“hot springs,” “Hot Springs,” “HOT Springs,” “HOTTTT SPRINGSSS!!”

The hike back, rain having tapered off, cool air, shards of rock soaked to brilliant colors, wildflowers everywhere.

Back in Challis, the Cowgirl Steak that I would’ve ordered if I thought I wouldn’t have got beat up.

“We just want to watch ‘Time Bandits,’ dammit!”

“YAHTZEE!” The new version developed on the drive back in between belting out Greg Brown and Barry Manilow.

And the most important memories of all.
You.
And me.
And falling more in love with each passing day.

Somewhere Out There is Film Footage- Connecticut? Rhode Island? Part Two

author’s note: Hunter S. Thompson had a great quote. I saw it probably ten years ago, and remember it striking me, but could never remember it until just today (and I’m not even sure this is the right gist, but the combination sounded good when I heard it in my head… and if it’s not the Great Dr. Gonzo, well chalk one up for me. Anyway… ) fiction writer’s often tell stories that they wish had happened, and non-fiction writer’s often tell stories that they wish hadn’t happened. Hmmm. I really think that was the gist, but it doesn’t seem to truly apply to what I’m about to say, which is that I always interpreted that quote to mean there’s a fine line between the two genres.

Now that I think about it, it seems to go deeper than that. But hell, on the surface (and especially since I’m almost on track for “one year later” with this section of my travelogue) I’ll use it as a justification for my belief that not only is there considerable non-fiction in fiction writing, but it also swings the other way. But herein lays (lies? how appropriate) the difficulty. If relaying the past when there’s someone out there who may disprove it, do you venture forth, taking the risk that your creative liberties may not be taken for truth? Afterall, it isn’t only the memory of the storyteller which gets older. Do you think the authors of various books of the Bible had this same dilemma?

But I digress. This sure as hell isn’t the Bible, but I hope it makes a good yarn at least. At about four pages (including this lengthy author's note), Part Two sets the scene. I will actually be taking this section of my trip in three parts (the actual patrons of the Windjammer will need their own section). And now, back to Misquamicut, Rhode Island.


Everybody has a story.

Now to avoid the cliché, I’ll also say that not all of those stories are particularly interesting to me, but they’re stories, nonetheless, and I bet if you dig down past the surface stories (because we’ve all got surface stories, right? the ones we use at parties when someone asks us one of what my good friend/shaman, Zim Broadway, has referred to as the “So…” questions. “So… what do you do?” “So… where ya’ from?”) you’ll find some nugget of what makes that person different. The fingerprint of their soul, if you want to get metaphysical. And I’ve seen some interesting prints, let me tell you.

I’m sure it was Brenna’s idea to bring the video camera to the Windjammer, and to this day, I still debate whether or not I would’ve liked one along for my whole trip. Part of me says “definitely.” That way I could remember all the little details and understand all of the scribblings on crumpled slips of paper accompanied by song selections never performed that I collected in my computer case over two months.

But the other part of me says “not a chance.” After all, there’s that whole “memory imprinting” thing. More than a moment frozen in time, you get a sense for a place in your recollections, a combination of sights, smells, sounds, tastes and touch. Certain events stick out, but others merely paint the backdrop.

There’s also the fact that most people cease to be “real” when the camera is on them. It’s my whole problem which stemmed from “The Real World,” and has since spawned into the monster we call Reality TV. Granted, it’s closer to reality than a scripted sit-com, but you have to be some sort of actor to ever audition for one of those shows. People perform for the camera. Plain and simple.

And sometimes the best stories for me are the ones never told. Literally and figuratively. Sometimes someone has a wild, different look about them, but once you’ve spoken to them, you learn that their look is the most interesting thing they’ve got going. In many cases, I just like to be the observer of the life, the proverbial “fly on the wall,” catching just a glimpse of someone’s existence, a fragment of conversation or their interactions with others, and the story forms from there in my head.

So I probably wouldn’t have taken a video camera with me on the whole trip. Hell, I had a digital camera for all 10,000 miles of my Summer Tour and only came back with about fifteen pictures, mostly of the neighborhood where I was born. But it made the perfect addition to our night in Misquamicut. Maybe it’s something about Connecticut. Or Rhode Island. Or both. But the people we caught on tape were as real as they came, and when it came to karaoke, they had some stories to tell.

The Windjammer was a squat, single-story building with a flat roof situated modestly next to a hotel and somewhere near the coast (it was too dark to tell). The largest sign hung on the bar (bigger than the name itself) proclaimed the hours which karaoke was held, including the next day on the beach apparently. Tinted waist-high windows lined the front of the building, hiding the depth of the establishment. I was surprised to walk in and find a decent sized dance floor in front of a small stage where a blond woman in a black cowboy hat and black mini skirt ran the show, calling out the next performer through a mic attached to her headset.

The dance floor had an immediate draw, but despite a bungled attempt a little over a year earlier, romance had never blossomed from my friendship with Brenna, and even though I thoroughly enjoyed dancing with my woman friends (usually less pressure to actually look good), I thought it would be awkward this particular evening.

We set up camp at one of the many tables surrounding the dance floor, and I headed to the bar to get the first round. This serves to kill two birds. First, obviously, to get a drink, and second, you can always find a song list at the bar. It’s easier than asking to borrow someone else’s from their table. Then I started the process.

By this point on the trip, I had developed a system. While I got a couple drinks in me (more to ease the nerves than for courage. Even confidence can be accompanied by anxiety.), I scanned the book, choosing a handful of songs that I’d like to perform while keeping an ear to what others sang, judging the crowd, and trying to pick the order of my song list. If you’re an unfamiliar face in a local bar, you better start with something good if you want to get a chance to sing more than once. And it needs to be a crowd pleaser. You may sing the best Joan Baez since the singer herself, but in a room full of cowboy hats, you’re not going far.

This wasn’t a room full of cowboy hats, but I thought a good old country song would start things off nicely. I’m pretty sure it was “I’m a Rambling Man” by Waylon Jennings, although it could’ve been simply “Ramblin’ Man” by the Allman Brother’s version, which has a little bit of country to it as well. However, I still haven’t been able to obtain the actual footage from Brenna, so I can’t be sure. Fear not, any corrections and back story not relevant to karaoke will appear whenever I put this together into book form. Of course, that’s probably a few books down the road, and by then my memory will be even worse, so…

Anyway, I’m guessing it was the Allman Brothers, a version I don’t believe I’d previously attempted. If that was the case, I probably did a decent job (after so many karaoke evenings, the song list kind of runs together). It wasn’t my best performance, but good enough this early in the evening to get me another song (plus I tipped the DJ, something she obviously wasn’t used to). With the first song under my belt, I could relax, and I started taking in the real crowd. Or maybe they just started taking us in. Brenna had the camera along, but besides a quick stop to shoot some fireworks going off over Misquamicut (we still don’t know why), it had sat idle on the table, but when I got up to sing, she turned it on.

Did I already say that people love a camera? Well the nice thing about karaoke singers is that, well… they’re not actors. And they’re usually not professional singers, either (unless you count the trip Jennifer and I just took to Rosie’s bar in New York, but I’ll tell that one soon enough). They’re just normal people who like to sing and perform a little when they can. And normal people love the spotlight, right? I think this is another place where the Reality TV phenom comes in. We watch because we want to know what we would do in those situations (and usually believe we would do it so much better). So in this respect, I’m glad we had the camera (even if I don’t’ have access to it. no pressure, Brenna.). Whatever it was (maybe just New England friendliness), it didn’t take us long to meet some of the other patrons.