We tent camped by the river;
Talked to ourselves the entire ride and laughed off the questions
that repeatedly took stabs at if we were alright.
Alright is alright
but alright is a state of mind,
Right?
Having spent our last dimes on grape cigars and grape sodas
we skipped setting up the tent and let the trees canopy us from persistent downpours.
The raindrops wapping the wide leaves made the silence enjoyable and the sugar sweeter.
Oh, when I was 17-
My mother said to me:
Don’t stop imagining
The day that you do is the day that you die.
…
At least God doesn’t judge me by the thoughts that I find.
The snakes I couldn’t find,
I don’t want to find.
Three Floyd’s Dark Lord Day, an annual event held for the release of their Russian Imperial Stout (Dark Lord), is all that it’s cracked up to be. I met so many generous and genuine beer lovers-I can’t remember half of their names or occupations.
The quick and dirty rundown -
Took the shuttle from REGGIES // Great experience that will be duplicated next year if we’re lucky enough to get a ticket to Dark Lord Day. Reggies is top notch for beer selection (had a Dogfish Head 90 min and a Half Acre Daisy Cutter while waiting) pub food, and the shuttle was a ton of fun.
On the shuttle on the way to Munster // Generous folks pouring a lot of Surly, including Darkness, Peruvian Morning, and Six Point Bengali Tiger. Metal blared as we screamed down to highway to our destination.
At the brewery // Somehow we managed to get past all of the (massive lines) people waiting in line to get in and right up to the front. Grabbed a Zombie Dust and a Hells Black Intellegencer and quickly lined up to get let in for group B Dark Lord sales.
In line // talked to Indianan that went to school in Madison. At this point, my head was already full of delicious booze so I can’t remember what we talked about besides Octopus Car Wash. Sampled Dark Lord 2010 while in line. Tasty but the Hell’s Black overwhelmed my pallet with coffee and made it impossible for anything memorable to be gathered. That’s not a complaint, it’s a fact and a coffee and beer lovers dream.
Inside the brewery // Traded my ticket to an employee and wound up with one of the many ‘Golden Tickets’ that were handed out on this glorious day of the Dark Lord. I fumbled around, motor skills failing, in my pocket to get out money to pay for all the beer. Seriously- Hunter S. Thompson on ether at this point – I asked if where I was standing wasn’t a reasonable place to park. I then somehow managed to make a decision, after being handed some dollars from my friend, on which elite barrel aged bottle of dark lord I would take home. Vanilla Bean.
And from there it was thunderdome. I met a coffee roaster, a dead head, students from Michigan, cab drivers, beer brewers, contractors, and a slew of other generous individuals.
After all that, I saw no metal bands, didn’t breakdance in the brewery at close, and ended up back at home safe and sound. One note to self for next year -Don’t stand on a hill with a backpack full of beer – you’ll lose your balance and take a digger almost breaking all of the beer that you traveled to buy. No one will laugh but it will still be embarrassing.
In fiction, I like bleak. I like grim. Despair. I’d even say that I like depressing narratives. I feel that they create a negative pulse. A gulp and frown reaction at the end of nearly every chapter that makes you realize that maybe you don’t have it too bad or in some cases, that you’re not alone in whatever darkness envelops you.
I also like having physical reactions to literature.
My physical reaction to Bukowski’s semi autographical novel, HAM ON RYE – multiple showers after reading.
There’s just something about the story and the telling of it, a coming of age tale where there’s no redeeming qualities and not a single character that I felt attached to or sympathetic for, that was fascinating. I read it in two days. And I don’t normally do that. And I can’t tell if the fast pace was because I was flipping pages faster than usual because I needed to find out if the main character ended up getting laid, to me the quest at the heart of HAM ON RYE, or if he actually acquired anything resembling compassion.
If there’s bait for a reader to plow through this book, whether or not it was purposeful or not, the masterful tension created by the main character’s lust and a lasting hope for the reader that an author wouldn’t create such an ugly and revolting character that would go through even a small change for the better by the end.
HAM ON RYE closes with disappointment. It’s a firecracker that never goes off. A let down. But that doesn’t take anything away from my enjoyment. Henry Chinaski, the protagonist, winds up in the same place as he was at the start – defeated and a total prick. While the reader gains insight into why he’s a prick – the terrible acne, the uncaring parents, etc. but what really influences my final diagnosis is the fact that he makes no attempt to change his shit situation in life and his proliferation of hateful behavior (could/should) lead the reader to detest him.
And I was more than okay with that.
Some people read books as a guide for how to live a better life and this, you would read this as a guide on how not to live your life.
All that said, I enjoyed the hell out of it. It’s honest and ugly.
I’m cracked.
Slowed by the dayswimmers
and gravediggers.
Nightcrawlers and court justices.
I sold my ego to pay a parking ticket,
threw my hat into too many rings.
Question:
Is it really better to burn out
than to fade away.
I blew up.
And instead of fading away,
I tossed it,
wrapper and all,
into some trash heap gutter.
Dust to dust,
Earth to earth -
Sometimes it feels good to rid yourself of it when you can.
As a kid, we blew up a fish.
We shoved a bottle rocket into its respiring mouth and lit it.
When it didn’t die,
awestruck,
one of us flicked it back into its habitat
while we watched it slowly descend .
Later that day I set off M80s and more bottle rockets with a lit Newport,
secretly hoping I’d blow my fingers off for the fish.
But I only got grounded.
And told there must be a black cloud hanging over me.
It was the last night of summer.
The breeze danced through the screen and past the shade in my room,
It calmed the guilt in my heart.
Kids reveled, laughed, and “made time” with the neighborhood girls on that final night of freedom.
No one would talk to those girls again until next summer.
Or winter break.
They were summer girls.
Mostly.
I can still smell the cool night air and hear the conversations that lived vibrantly without me while the moon rose.
Sunday nights weren’t massive.
They weren’t even nights.
They were Sunday mornings that remained.
Even as the sun would fade,
The slept in clothes remained -
the coffee breath – constantly refreshed -
remained.
And the empty feeling of facing the day’s remainder in a steamy one-room
box where the TV antennae was the only non-geometric shape to meet your eye -
remained.
The floors stayed clean.
Mirrors weren’t smudged.
The words weren’t spoken.
and.
Sundays weren’t massive.
They weren’t even.
We laughed along the way -
brushing our sleeves against one another’s.
I asked silly questions —
but was only curious -
Did you like flowers?
Did you love me?
It was a crash course
that tangled us in the weeds.
You carved my initials into your inner thigh
with a jagged stem -
not being careful or cautious of your artery,
you shielded me from your actions and
the tears that clung to the corners of your mouth.
Smiling.
I ran a marathon last year. I know that most of you either know that already or could care less but … you might care about what I listened to for 4 hours and 50 minutes. The idea for this post comes from NPRs recent Fresh Air about workout music which in turn caused my cube neighbor to ask me if there was a band or song that I would consider motivating. I was also motivated to put this up because I just today found the home of said playlist – my 2nd Gen iPod Nano.
And before you get too critical or threaten to burn any credit I may have as a music recommending friend – all I ask is that you remember the good times. Know that some of the selections were made out of desperation and only to fill time. I know I broke mixtape rules but … this is workout playlist. Cut me some slack. And please, if you can – try and forgive my undying adoration for Jackson Browne.
I’ve also created a playlist of all of the tracks that are available on Spotify.
Here goes:
Arms Like Boulders – The War on Drugs
Texico Bitches – Broken Social Scene
Doctor My Eyes – Jackson Browne
Is This Love? Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Digital Love – Daft Punk
Can You Discover? – Discovery
All I Want – LCD Soundsystem
Black Night – The Dodos
My Old Ways – Dr. Dog
3 Dimes Down – Drive-By Truckers
List For Life – GIRLS
Rock Me on the Water – Jackson Browne
G.O.O.D. Friday – Kanye West
Gone – Kanye West
Shadow People – Dr. Dog
Home – LCD Soundsystem
Your Time is Gonna Come – Led Zepplin
The Righteous Path – Drive-By Truckers
P.Y.T. – Michael Jackson
Death on the Stairs – The Libertines
Fat Man in the Bathtub – Little Feat
The Breeze – Dr. Dog
Crazy Feeling – Lou Reed
What are you Willing to Lose – Lucero
Cameras – Matt & Kim
Fade Away – Oasis
Tine to Pretend – MGMT
Roscoe – Midlake
Holland, 1945 – Neutral Milk Hotel
Hey, Hey What Can I Do? – Led Zepplin
Broke – Modest Mouse
X- Mas Curtain – My Morning Jacket
All of the Lights – Kanye West
The Breakup – The Rural Alberta Advantage
Where to Begin – My Morning Jacket
Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes – Paul Simon
Kill Devil Falls – Phish
Secret Meeting – The National
This Tornado Loves You – Neko Case
Ghost – Neutral Milk Hotel
RIngfinger – Nine Inch Nails
Juicy – Notorious B.I.G.
Stay Young – Oasis
Lost Coastlines – Okkervil River
ATLiens – Outkast
Southernplayaslisticadillacmuzik – Outkast
Little Secrets – Passion Pit
Mahgeeta – My Morning Jacket
I know What I Know – Paul Simon
Stereo – Pavement
Summer Babe (Winter Version) – Pavement
Passing Me By – The Pharcyde
Hallelujah – Ryan Adams
Backwards Down the Number Line – Phish
1901 – Phoenix
Brothers Gonna Work it Out – Public Enemy
12:51 – The Strokes
Imitation of Life – R.E.M.
Everything In Its Right Place – Radiohead
Rock ‘n’ Roll Star – Oasis
Wasting Time – Reading Rainbow
I will Dare – The Replacements
Handshake Drugs – Wilco
Taking the Farm – The War on Drugs
Two Lovers – The Rural Alberta Advantage
New York, New York – Ryan Adams
The Wall – Yuck
The Comeback – Shout Out Louds
Rill Rill – Sleigh Bells
Two Kinds of Happiness – The Strokes
Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground – The White Stripes
Everybody Knows – Ryan Adams
Company in my Back – Wilco
Get Away – Yuck
I always thought we belonged in some gutter -
Together.
Trading punches and clinking bottles.
Shooters, mostly.
Little vessels of strawberry wine. Or maybe something peach flavored.
Something breezy to kill the sting of the harder stuff.
Remember that time the bus driver didn’t let me on?
Said the Greyhound was no place for drunkards.
That was Memphis.
She hated my face, my stale smile.
She said it made her miserable.
More miserable than the smell of the river.
