Christmas Car Talk

  Driving up the GW parkway the other night, watching the snow covered trees flash by,  triggered a rush of memories: I thought for a moment of 1975 when my friend Kevin and I used to hang out with Rachel and Janice in their apartment above a bakery on 7 mile and Van Dyke. I can still smell the bread baking while we sat on the floor and drank Lambrusco and smoked Newports and Kools... Rachel was a titty dancer at the Grand Duchess (though she had really small tits),  I was into Janice who was dark eyed and swayed just so... One time she sang a song she wrote which was stupid (and she knew it) but I still remember after all these years: " The rain is falling from the sky, falling from the clouds, falling from my eyes...” dumb lyrics but it was a sweet moment that she shared... later that year she invited me up north to see her and her new boyfriend on his 'ranch' somewhere way the fuck up near Mackinaw. I was young and dumb enough to think "why not?' and so I drove my Chevy up there in January.rolling past snow covered pines for hours... till I got there and promtly put my  Nova in a ditch on the 'ranch' driveway. Anyhow I remember Janice, her boyfriend (who kept saying to her: "God Damn woman it's 1975!), and I  dropped mescaline and played pool at the local bar with the rednecks. I was quite a sight in those days, a super skinny kid with red hair down to his ass, and a fancy leather jacket with zippers all over it. Some how I managed not to get my self killed by the redneck locals or the cowboy boyfriend... and I can still picture the ride back to the ranch that night in his van... no heat, Janice in the passenger seat, cowboy driving, me hanging on to her armrest sitting on the cold floor, pines and snow banks flashing by at 80 MPH, the three of us tripping our brains out.... seeing her breath in the air...and a sadness in her eyes that she'd ended up with this guy, knowing I'd never see her again, and hearing his refrain... "God damn woman, it's 1975..."

Driving along I got another flash of a Christmas eve car ride when I was about 7 or 8... my dad had a 1961 Comet , and I can remember sitting in the back seat watching the big lit up yellow pages sign along side the freeway as we drove home from my grandpa's house, old spice and whiskey smells  in the cold dark car, mixed with a hint of exhaust (the Comet was a real piece of shit) ... my mother huddled as close as she could get to the passenger door, her lips pursed....unhappy with my fathers drinking... her face lit by the glow from the dash and the streetlights.... for some reason this image is often the one I recall when I think of our family. I guess it sums it up.

That image flashed forward to Nicki in the front seat of my 200SX... we were driving on a wet and dark Telegraph road one Holiday in the '80s and someone cut me off. I had the reflex somehow to make just the right lane change at high speed. And she looked at me and said: "nice job"... I felt like John Wayne... and I remember her hair was so black her flecks of purple highlights shone like diamonds in the light from passing cars....

I remembered a time I was driving home from Toledo up I-75 in the crappy used Mazda I bought when Casey was back in England and "Tasha and I were living at the lake in Howell... some douche bag did a 3 lane dash for his exit right in front of me. This time either my reflex wasn't so fast or the tires couldn’t hold, but I spun 4 times at 70MPH before sliding into the shoulder grass.... all the while seeing Tasha's face wondering what would become of her...

Of course enough Christmas's have passed that I can tell how the story turned out... my folks are long dead, Nicki’s long in England, Janice and Rachael and Kevin are just ghosts of memory,Tasha remains safe at home with Casey and I, but sometimes.... when the headlights play off the snowdrifts just right... I hear a voice singing: "The rain is falling from the sky......

The View From The 39th Floor

New York is full of German tourists

They're marching around the Empire state

There's a woman on TV from Brooklyn

Drinking soup in the wind

(I guess that's news, though no one mentions the Germans)

Macy's is full of knifes and red ribbons

And the old women bitch in the basement about the service

I look out my window to the statue in the south

And see two holes in the sky

New York is full of ghosts ascending

Though no one notices, not even the Germans.

Swept Away

This time of year night falls like a razor

Landing each afternoon like the Mason Dixon line

Dividing north from south and blue from grey

As the colors fade into Christmas.

This time of year night falls and renders asunder

that which was joined

that which was promised

by elfin children,

who grow to be shadows

long now in the weak winter light.

This time of year the choirs sing the songs of Vietnamese barbers

Gloria Gloria snip snip buzz

While the walkers search the seaside for bargains

And the hunters long for love to fall

Like a razor

Like a shadow

Like a lock of golden hair

swept away at twilight.

Clean Up On Aisle Three, Cut Price Salvation, and Thar' Blows Joe (Reprise)

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With A Rebel Yell, Evening Falls (So Hard), And Major Ali Explains Things

Doing a day shift at the Tee Vee machine the other day I rode the 3:50pm train home from Union Station. The conductor is a guy named Frank, and his speciality is his boarding call at each station. Most conductors these days just use their radio walkie talkie to tell the choo choo driver it's ok to go, but Frank is serious old school. At each stop he leans out the door and gives a long loud ' alllaboooooooooooooooard....." fol owed by the most blood chilling 100% aged in the south ' yeeeeeeee hawwwwwwwww!' you ever did hear in your cotton picking life. I've ridden this train with Frank dozens of times, and until now never really considered how a black person might react to all the yee-hawing. Franks is a huge bear of a man, and I have no earthly idea if he has ever had a racist thought. Still.. given the history of race relations in this country, and given the fact that this train runs right past Antietam on it's way up to Martins burg .. I wonder. Of course if some of our Republican friends ran the railroad I suspect that all the conductors would be Johhny Reb yelling (and wearing pointy hoods).

In my nightstand I keep a report I received years ago from the adoption agency that placed me when I was very young The report reads like a blacked out highly redacted CIA document, but gives the only background information I have ever had about my birth parents. Every now and then I'm drawn to open the drawer and re-read the section about my birth mother. She is described as working as an usherette at the time of my birth, and being a 'sullen somewhat sad person'. The document offers no real clues as to her identity, and I've never tried to find her or my father. I doubt if they are alive still, but sometimes, when the evening falls just so, and the night is made of velvet ... sometimes I wonder about her. Was it as hard as I imagine to give up a child? Or did she steel herself, not let herself feel it.. never looking back? Was she pretty? What did her laugh sound like..or did she not have much reason for laughing. Sometimes, when the evening falls so hard....I take these coffee stained papers... and read them again.... Always before the morning, I fold them and place them carefully back in the drawer.


Last week my great CERT volunteers and I had a chance to participate in some cool training with a combination of Fire Rescue, Military, and Federal Secret Squirrel types for two days in Virginia. The military folks were absolutely wonderful to work with: patient, kind, funny, and competent as hell.I had the pleasure of working with combat vet named Major Ali, who swapped stories with me about stupid media types we have known. He told me a bout a dumb shit reporter who asked the Major how a battle was going one day in Sadar City as bullets whizzed over their heads pinning down our guys. Being a decent sort the Major just laughed at him and said: " What do you think Sparky?". I would have said: " I dunno, how's about you pop yer head up and take a look see...." I'm glad we have men like Major Ali serving our country, and it's probably a good thing I'm not the media liaison for anything. One time at a fire I was standing with my EMS crew watching flames shoot 50 feet into the air from the roof of an unoccupied townhouse, while our wagon and truck boys and girls worked to get a knock on the fire. A civilian tapped me on the shoulder and asked: "You guys got it under control yet...?" Stupid is as stupid does whether in Baghdad or Rockville I suppose.

The World Is Full Of Gods

Everything is made of water, and the world is full of Gods

Born in tears we vanish in smoke

The scientists say there's a ribbon of light half way to the stars

(they can make us remember things that never were)

We are all made of the same stuff, we begin and end in the same place

Heads full of vague memories

of Gods and ribbons

The scientists say that music is mathematics

the world is held together by notes, and strings, and harmonies

The lovers remember the melody

The children recall the rhythm

The dogs and dreamers remember the world as it was

as it really is

full of Gods slowly drowning.

Robert De Niro's Waiting ( Talking Italian), None Dare Call It Treason ( But I Will)

Okay ..here's what I think the 'O' man needs in this so called heatlh care 'debate': a bit more of the stick and a lot less of the carrot. This is what I would like to see:

As Senator Max Bacus makes his way to the door of the hearing room, he is intercepted by a smiling Don Rickles: " Excuse me Senator..can I just have a word with you.. on behalf of big pharma we'd just like to let you count your cash in private.. you know what I mean .. right this way". As Rickles guides Bacus through the double doors to the service corridor we see President Obama waiting with a hammer in his hand... " What's it gonna be Senator? The Public Option or the hammer?"

Speaking of dropping the hammer... the inter webs are a-buzz about the NewsMax editorial calling for ( or was it predicting) a military coup in this country against President Obama. Well Sparky..from where I sit, that there is treason pure and simple.... I didn't vote for Geo W Bush..( or his daddy, or Reagan , or Nixon..etc) but I didn't call for a coup. ( I suspect Dubbya would assume that a coup is a two seat sports car as in little deuce...). On a similar note, let me make one thing very clear: Glen Beck is just a top 40 Morning Zoo jock run amok who is in it for the money. They all are. None of those guys, Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh.. really believes most of the shit they say. Let put it another way: they mean what they say in the same way I meant it when I used to say that Pink Floyd was my favorite band. Yeah right... we are all just Ho's for the money... the only difference being that I never incited violence, racial hatred, or preached treason... (of course if I had maybe I'd be rich and on Tee Vee right now). I used to think I didn't have TV looks.. after all TV guys are just DJ's with better hair.. but after taking a look at the Glenster... well hell this guy has the wild eyed look of a chronic masturbator and Iborgaine addict.... It seems that the rant is all that counts these days. I actually watched about 10 minutes of Herr Beckenfurher the other night. He was railing on about Communism, socialism, and social justice.... and I thought: "Errr? social justice?? He's against it??" Well yes indeedy fuckie do my little snow fakes... in the Alice in Wunderland bizzaro universe of these jack booted jerk offs... up is down, black is white, and social justice is bad, bad, bad. The whirring sound you hear is Thomas Aquinas in his grave on spin dry. What the fuck is wrong with these people? Say what you will about Tail Gunner Joe, or Father Charlie... one was a drunk, and one a power mad true believer..... neither of them got into 'the biz' just for cheap blow jobs and free concert tickets. Hey Glen... come over here for a second... Don Rickles wants to see you..........