What I'd Say If You Were Listening (or, Me Talking To You Talking To Me Talking To Everyone, Everything, All The Time) or, (Self Flagellation, Fun For You & The Kids)

When I was a senior in high school, I had the good fortune of having a family friend who took a special interest in me and my endeavors. As he was himself an outdoor enthusiast, much of our time spent together was in pursuit of summer outdoor activities- hiking, rafting, etc. What's more, he was (and continues to be) an elementary school teacher and so his available time for the pursuit of these endeavors was nearly endless.

It was on a hike one blindingly bright summer's day, as we traversed the snaking switchbacks of a trail, that we spoke about career planning and what I might (or might not) want to spend the bulk of my adult life doing. I (casually) mentioned that I had considered teaching at some level. He stopped, which of course, startled me. He turned and his teeth shone in the sun as he gave a wide, shit-eating grin.

"You know that best part about being a teacher, right?

I replied that I did not.

"The old J-J-A," and with that, he turned around and continued up the trail.

"J-J-A?"

"June, July and August, baby!" he said over his shoulder as he motioned with his arms to the world around us. "Kids are great, but THIS is even better!"

Now that I am myself a teacher and am enjoying the relative stillness of Christmas Break, I am coming to realize just how correct he was (and is). But, because I am who I am, I cannot help but feel a deep, pressing need to be productive to some degree and so, over the past few days I have constructed a website for my musical and writing endeavors (which I will share soon, I promise), create mass piles of artwork (how I love and abhor watercolor!) and even created a stamp to use as a cover design for press packets to disperse to various venues in the pursuit of gigging opportunities.

Not to mention the absurd posts I've made over the past few days.

In the last few hours, I've spent a healthy portion of time going through my worldly material possessions. You see, I hate them. Well, everything besides my guitar and mandolin, that is. Even the drum set, that beautiful pile of wood and steel, has drawn my ire. Because everything I own and possess makes it that much more difficult for me to just pack my things into my car and go somewhere else, move- go.

Of course, this is a constant cycle for me. After all, I am an American- land of the fawning and home of the burdened by clutter, stuff and things. Consumerism is so engrained in me that I occasionally don't even realize that I'm buying stuff just to buy stuff. Then, when the realization does indeed hit, I become struck by a wave of claustrophobia and I tend to react rather violently to it, tearing about my small place in a flurry and flash of trash bags and self-loathing. Piles quickly grow- one of things "to keep" and one of things "to go". Once this is complete and I have some measure of peace, the process begins again as I go about unconsciously filling up the empty spaces with more stuff. However, rants and tangents about consumerism, while (perhaps) funny, are not the point of this writing. What is important is this: in the process of this weeding out, I've had an epiphany. Or perhaps it is just a re-realization of the human condition that may (or may not) sound terribly peculiar.

We humans are walking weapons of emotional mass destruction.

I realize that this assertion is fairly disconcerting ("Why was he talking about a mentor, a hike and now, all of a sudden, getting emotional on me?", one might ask themselves), a little anti-climactic (what isn't anti-climactic these days?) and, for some of you, a little cliche. After all, did I really need to use the term "weapons of mass destruction"? Really? (The answer, of course, is no.)

As I furiously pulled books from my bookshelf, I came across a nondescript pile of letters. It is this bundle of paper that has driven me to this re-realization; a collection of things that I have, inexplicably, kept over the past few years- various emails, handwritten notes, letters- all assertions of deep feeling, of love or care and concern. Mementos of friendships and weddings and relationships, of specific events and snippets in time. Things that alternately bring a smile to my face and a lump to my throat. The specifics of these events are inconsequential- because we all have these sorts of collections. For some people, these things are kept in a shoebox under the bed, for others they are in a file on a hard drive. For me, they are held together with a large, black binder clip and kept on a shelf- near enough to access for nostalgia's sake and far enough to forget about. Finding these things is always disconcerting for me, because I tend to recognize people's handwriting and I feel transported, almost immediately, back to wherever I last saw that person. This slanted block print is from an ex-girlfriend that I left sitting on a park bench, this flowing and exact cursive an ex-friend I left a few hundred miles away, and this haphazard, rounded, profligate and flowery hybrid cursive/print from another ex-friend who is only a few neighborhoods over and who left me.

This, as you might imagine by now, is my biggest problem with this collection of mementos- every person and every letter has a prefix attached to it, and usually that prefix is an "ex". Ex-girlfriend, ex-friend, ex-roommate, ex-compatriot, ex- commiserator. Perhaps more disheartening are the people who just fell through the cracks, people I, quite unintentionally, just fell out of touch with.
Still, as consternating as these mementos are, they cannot begin to compete with the amount of unfettered emotion and regret that I see filling the posts of this website. The confessions that people make via posts that may or may not be read by hundreds, thousands and even millions of people are astounding. "I can't sleep, you're so far away from me", "Head filled with elsewhere, heart filled with troubles", "Do you remember that day? I always will", "I'm scared because there's only one of you". Millions of unaddressed, vague and yet pointed confessions, admissions and fervent desires that we send out millions of times a day to people who may or may not be reading what we hope they will, and moreover, reading what we hope they understand as pointedly for them.

Perhaps people don't keep shoeboxes of letters, notes and mementos any more. Perhaps all they have is a tumblr account.

I realize that I am in the vast minority. That I am one of the few people who still choose to still keep their "exes" and "formers" and confessions to themselves, private and tucked away. Perhaps for the vast majority of people the very act of writing even a vague phrase for that particular someone and posting it for all of the world in the chance that they might, somehow and against all odds, read it and know it and react to it, is cathartic and relieves their burden. Perhaps I am, as I've now long suspected, still hopelessly weird and now, despite my relative youth, growing antiquated.

Perhaps not.

Either way, and whether one chooses to keep their confessions private or prefers to post them for G-d and the neighborhood to see, I can't help but think that we are all walking weapons of emotional mass destruction. Because we want to hurt and want others to hurt over us and about us and for us. If not, why would we post these things? Why would we say to no one in particular "I shouldn't be jealous. You aren't even mine." and yet say that phrase in the singular- to one specific person. Detached, yet hopelessly hanging on.

As much as it pains me to admit, I am no different. No better, no worse. There are things that I'd like to say in vague posts (or, in my case, song lyrics) in the hopes that she or he or they might read them. There are things that I want to say to myself and post in a sort of online self-flagellation. Perhaps this is the worst part- that I want to remind myself of my- or others- hurt.

Of course, I may just be melodramatic. Perhaps all I really need is a trash can and a new tumblr to follow. But I really can't be sure. And really, who can? So I put my pile of letters, bound up again by the thick, black binder clip, in the "things to keep" pile and move on to the next section of my place that needs tearing through.

Small Courtesies, Home Rule Municipalities & Me

I must have one of those faces.

While not consistently the case throughout my life, I have found that in the five years since my twentieth birthday I can go few places without being talked to, accosted, asked for an opinion or, in particularly concerning circumstances, fondled.

Allow me to explain.

I stopped at the grocery store this afternoon after walking my dog and on my way home. I've had a hankering for fresh asiago cheese and so, I endeavored to indulge myself and make it a part of my evening meal. As I stood in front of the refrigerated display that houses the sundry fresh cheeses in the store trying to discern which was the best deal, a middle aged woman walked up beside me and picked up a brick of cheese marked "Dubliner".

"Have you tried this?" she turned to face me.

"No, I'm afraid I haven't," I replied in a manner that I hoped would give her the idea that I had absolutely no desire whatsoever to be lectured at and or spoken to about cheeses.

"You haven't?!" she gasped, not at all taking the bait. "Oh G-d!!! It's absolutely to DIE for!" This middle aged woman had, in a matter of seconds, begun speaking at an above average conversational volume. A few people in the neighboring produce aisle actually turned to see where the commotion was coming from.

"It's SO FLAVORFUL AND RICH!!! SOOOOOO FLAVORFUL!"

She was at this point moaning in the grocery store. For my part, I began to look around to see where the person who dared her to do this was. As they were nowhere to be found, I can only assume that they are of an above-average talent when playing Hide and Seek.

"You want to know what really gets me about this cheese though?"

I was very tempted to say that I absolutely, unequivocally was not as I found myself suddenly very fearful about what "what really gets me" might possibly mean- and the connotations, even now, are endless.

I elected to say nothing.

"It's over a dollar and a half cheaper in Bayfield! Bayfield! I'm going to be headed there later this week and so I think that I'll just save myself a dollar and a half and buy it there! I can't for the life of me understand how a grocer in such a small town gets it so much cheaper than we do! After all, we're on the main highway and closer to their distribution centers! Not only that, but our town is bigger than theirs! We're a main municipality! The most populous city in the whole county!" She paused for a moment, considering the implications of what she has just said. "I wonder if he has an in with someone somewhere," she concluded.

I was stunned. Absolutely speechless.

"Speaking of cheese," she abruptly halted what had up to this point been an endless wave of verbiage. "I've been trying to find cottage cheese for the past half hour. Do you know where it is by any chance? I've been wandering around like a cat in heat."

"I think it's in the dairy section, ma'am," I guessed.

It was at that moment that I realized what this woman just said. While she showed no outward signs of insanity and indeed, was even put-together and dressed well for a Durangoan- meaning that she wore a blouse and pants that matched and didn't pair her work attire with Crocs- she seemed to me crazier and crazier with each passing moment.

"Yes ma'am. I'm sure the cottage cheese is in the dairy section,"  I said with every confidence, though neither had nor have the slightest idea where the cottage cheese might be in a grocery store. Still, I gestured with my finger in the direction that put her as far from me as possible.

"Oh! That makes so much sense! Why didn't I think of that?! The DAIRY section! Young man, you've just saved this kitty a whole lot of time! Thank you!" she smiled widely and walked away.

A few moments passed as I tried desperately not to think of what she could have possibly meant by referring to herself as "kitty".

"Cottage cheese in the dairy aisle! Across the store! Thank you!!!" her voice screamed to my back from a few yards away.

Suddenly, saving a few cents on generic cheese didn't mean a whole lot to me. I chose the nearest wedge and made a bee line for the checkout stand. I sincerely feared that the next thing I'd hear would be her shouting, or even worse, whispering in my ear, "MEOW!"

The overwhelming awkwardness of this moment strikes me for several reasons. I cannot help but wonder if G-d is bored, as this is not the first time that such an awkward interaction has occurred for me and it most likely will not be the last, either. I've been asked my opinion on the state of American sexuality at a Redbox kiosk, given a critical dissertation on the film, "Watchmen" by a seventy-year old woman and had my posterior grabbed by an overbearing soccer mom at the local post office.

These odd events and interactions occur so often that I now tend to respond poorly, even incorrectly to legitimate, reasonable questions from well-meaning and intentioned people. An elderly gentleman walked up to me at the gas station as I was pumping gas recently and asked, "Son, do you know where you are?"

I paused for a moment as I sized him up. He held no map, he didn't look like he was lost and so I responded, "Do you mean other than at the gas station?" I didn't intend to be snide or sarcastic. It was, for me, a very legitimate clarification.

It was not for him.

Still, G-d's boredom is only part of what really bothers me about these things. I am a large and outspoken proponent of being human with people, of having visceral connections with them, acknowledging their existence and, if possible, even making their existence a bit better. It is for these reasons that I ask everyone- from the barista at the coffee shop to the customer service representative for student loan processing- how they are doing, how their day is treating them and thanking them for anything and everything that they do for me.

I believe in small courtesies. A lot.

But, I also believe that small courtesies can mean being left the hell alone while choosing cheese, mailing a package or renting a movie- and I can't for the life of me understand why no one else seems to take that into consideration when they decide that they need to lecture me about home rule municipalities, Kim Kardashian's divorce and, inexplicably, the cut of my pants.

I must have one of those faces.

A Very Fun Word For A Very Bad Feeling

I have had the word 'lugubrious' floating around in my head for the last few days. It comes as no surprised. This happens to me quite frequently. A word that I do not commonly use and yet, somehow know, comes to the fore of my mind and will not leave my attention until I have sought out and mastered its definition (which, in the case of 'lugubrious' is "mournful, dismal"- a very fun word for a very bad feeling).

While this is indeed odd, we've established several times, whether you know me personally or just via this blog, that I am indeed an odd sort.

What struck me even moreso than this esoteric word floating about the avenues and pathways of my cortex is that, upon searching for the definition of 'lugubrious' on merriamwebster.com, I was notified that 'lugubrious' is among the top 20% of "lookups" (mw.com's term, not mine) on their website.
Really? 'Lugubrious', of all things, is a word that is being so commonly looked up that it is in the top 20% of the hundreds of thousands of words in the common English language?!

For obvious reasons, this really surprises me.

That is until I thought back to a book that I read my sophomore year of college- a philosophy text that, among other things, spoke at great length about the concept of the collective human consciousness. The theory is that we humans somehow share a subconscious wavelength on which we share information. As odd as this sounds, there is empirical proof that would at least suggest that this is indeed the case. Take the New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle, for example. Here is a nationally syndicated puzzle that not only stumps millions of readers worldwide (yours truly included), but can also quickly ruin a peaceful Sunday morning because of aforementioned stumping.

Let's be honest. The damned thing can make a reasonably intelligent man feel much like an illiterate child.

At some point, there was a test run among a control group that gauged how much more quickly a puzzle could be solved if that puzzle had been solved prior to it being given to the group. The results were staggering. Times to solve were cut nearly in half.

Of course, the empiricism in this test is a bit wanting.

Whether in the high school classes that I teach or in the casual conversations that I hold on a day-to-day basis, nary a day goes by that someone does not stop me mid-sentence to ask me to define some word that I've used. Indeed, it has become for my high school students a fun game to take more notes on the words or phrases that I use than the actual concepts I'm attempting to illuminate them on. It's not that I try to use polysyllabic words to appear more intelligent or somehow a cut above- they are simply the words that come to mind. Which is probably why I'm so irked that 'lugubrious' is in the top 20% of "lookups" (again, I really don't care for that term).

Why irked, you ask? Because that would suggest that my vocabulary, these words that float around in the ether of my gray matter, are not necessarily unique to my person. That they do not drift to the bow of the boat of my brain due to superior retention or memory, nor a preternatural affinity for them, but simply because I am picking up on things that many people are already thinking.

How bitterly disappointing, this loss of individuality. A lugubrious feeling, if there ever was one.

New Song Demo - "Road Song"

Another song from the weekly songwriting workshop. The week's prompt was to write, you guessed it, a road song. The title is tentative, but everything else is just about where I want it. Recorded on my MacBook Pro's internal mic with my Collings D1 guitar.

"Road Song" by Cyle Talley on Soundcloud

Lyrics:
The rosy fingered dawn peeks out over the mountaintops
Through thin and tinted glass, yellow lines blur into paths
Away from you, a disheartening truth
One hand grips the wheel, one hand through the window feels
The wind through fingers spread, warding off the coming dread
I miss your scent, its not yet been an hour since

The porchlights singing laments and bringing a good thing to a close
One last quick kiss, we'll part fingertips, both uncomfortably exposed
Cursing the distance and damning the road

A glance at gauges true, searching for any excuse
To turn this car around and point towards more appealing ground
This feeling is new- this incessant sense of missing you

It is safe to assume that anywhere you are, I'd like to be there, too
But for now, we will oblige and surrender to the distance for a while

A Tired & Worn Greyscale- Now In Technicolor

Rain has been my alarm clock for the past three days. Its gentle, persistent footsteps wandering across the roof of the house, slowly rousing me from my hibernation-like sleep patterns. That it has rained with any modicum of consistency in the southwestern Colorado town where I live is surprising. This is not a town usually associated with rain. Sun? Yes. Snow? Even moreso. Having rain consistently though, is akin to a person suddenly being taken from their home and thrown into a foreign country, finding no one there who speaks their own language. Life goes on in vaguely recognizable patterns, but they're only vaguely recognizable.

The slow, rainy mornings have been a welcome reprieve, I will admit. I greatly enjoy starting the morning slowly and generally require an hour's time before being fully awake. The rain makes for an excellent excuse to boil water for an excessively long period of time, to use that strong roast of coffee hidden away in the back of the pantry, to find and wrap myself in a favorite wool sweater and to listen to those very particular, very specific "rainy day" songs. Even better, once the coffee is made, to sit in front of a window and simply watch the water as it cascades, almost sensuously, down the glass in ever changing, twisting lines.

Of course, the slowness also brings time for my ever-active mind to question more deeply, to probe more thoroughly and to send my quandaries into the day like a shotgun blast- everywhere all at once. As luck (or fate or irony, etc.) would have it, there has been an awful lot to think about recently.

I have, as an adult, come to realize that things are never "bad". Life is never "bad"- it just might not be as good as one thinks it ought to be. (Of course, I say this as a privileged Caucasian male living in relative solidarity, land locked in Colorado and safe from war, riots, third-world economies and dictators, et al. and so I realize that I am biased.) I am a thorough believer in the merits of weathering the proverbial storm- seeing anything through, regardless of how unbearable it may seem in the moment.  So, regardless of how many things are on my plate right now and despite a litany of what I commonly refer to as "that dirty 'F' word" (feelings) regarding or thereby related to: a pending death, a poor choice that I wish I could change for someone dear to me, a closely held family member feeling adrift from her surroundings, concerns over the future/economy/state of the world/state of education/state of the general populace, etc. I know that I need to take it all in- to weather the proverbial storm.

It is difficult for me to believe that anyone actually likes the rain. People say that they do- that they "love" it even. But I am certain that it's a ruse. Rain is, for all intents and purposes, an inconvenience to modern day life. (Farmers and their trade are a notable exception.) It makes us wet on our way to work, to school. It makes being outside a dreadful nuisance- whether exercising, walking the dog, running errands or otherwise. Modern life is defined by constant motion- and the rain can, in very short order, put a stop to all motion.

Instead, I think that what people really love are the moments after a rainstorm. Those short, faint and almost imperceivable sighs of relief from the earth. The sun peering, whether brilliantly or faintly, through the trees or windows or skyrises, reflecting and being magnified by the hundreds of puddles and streams on the streets. The pooled vestiges slowly dripping off outside tables and chairs, awnings and street signs. I am certain- what we love are the moments after the storm. The sigh of relief from the earth mirroring the sigh of relief from ourselves.

It was raining harder this morning than it had the last few. Coffee in hand and sitting in front of the window, all I could see was the steam from the cup and the sheets of water on the window. My constant motion stilled, stilted even. For a moment, all I could see was the rain and everything I've associated with it over the last few days- the unyielding torrent of demands, needs, scheduling crises, harsh and presumptive judgments, challenges to my character and the fear of letting a loved one go.

And then, it stopped.

Every once in a while, it seems that G-d gives me a cinematic moment to show me that there really is a plan, a path and order. To stop me. To still me. This one began with the storm silencing, the last bit of water sliding delicately down to the sill. I would've liked to have had a crescendo from the string section of a grand orchestra, but Damien Rice made for a fine substitute as the sun bullied its way through the fog and din, shining triumphantly on the grass, through the trees and through the window. My world, though cast throughout the morning as a tired and worn grayscale, now shown in stunning technicolor- fiercely green, yellow, orange and light.

The world's sigh of relief, mirroring my own.

New Song Demo - "I Think You Like Me Too Much"

I feel a little guilty. After all, I have completely ignored this blog for the last several months. My last post was just after Father's Day! Good G-d, I'm miserable with consistency.

Though I've posted what will follow on my Tumblr and Facebook, I will, for prosperity's sake, post it here as well and endeavor not to ignore my little corner of the blogging world in the future.

New Song Demo: "I Think You Like Me Too Much" on SoundCloud

My friends and I have restarted our weekly songwriting workshop and it's awakened my strident desire to create and be creative. Suddenly, I find myself doodling everywhere, digging out my fancy pens and sketchbooks and pulling out the guitar and mandolin quite a lot more often. Now, if only I could find a place to keep my drums set up, I'd really be on to something.

This week's prompt was to write a song inverting the normal love song dynamic of the narrator (singer) describing or singing of their love for another. We were, essentially, writing songs about someone loving/liking/etc. us instead.

The recording was done on GarageBand with the internal microphone on my MacBook Pro. I played my Collings D1.


Lyrics:
I am afraid that you have placed me on a pedestal
Perched up precariously high
I am concerned, indeed in each passing turn
As these are heights I cannot hope to climb

I think you like me too much.

It's in your tone when we are talking on the telephone
Feeling more than a few miles away
It's in your heart, its every beating part
That seems to sing in symphony to say

We think you like him too much.

It's all that I do- I just go around in search of the flaws in you
But you are lovely, disarming, intelligent, sweet and dare I say cute
Which leads me to the conclusion that I am irrevocably screwed.

I think I like you too much.
(end)

As ever, thanks for the listen, read and of course, your time.

Manhood, Masculinity and Manly Men on Father's Day

There is a very large willow tree that stands in front of my parent's house. It splays towards the sky and has littered the yard with its leaves for years. As the house was my grandparents home before it was my parent's, the tree and I have a lot of history. Many hours have been spent climbing, traversing and abusing it with my cousins, brother and sister. For it's part, the tree has always been more than up to the task, patiently weathering our various and sundry affronts to it, simply happy to have some attention paid to it.

Yesterday morning, in what I can only assume was a fit of loneliness, the tree gave up one of its large branches, dropping it onto the doghouse that has sat beneath it for several years. Though no animals were harmed in the process, my dad took stock of the situation and, as he is wont to do, quietly went to the hardware store to procure a chainsaw.

On Sunday mornings, I lead worship at a church. It is one of several jobs that I hold and the only one that requires me to be up at an early hour. As it is one of several jobs, schedules are bound to be tight or, at the very least, closely coinciding with one another. On a typical weekend, I will work at a bookshop from noon to nine forty-five Saturday evening, arise for the church rehearsal at seven o'clock Sunday morning and then go back to the bookshop an hour after the final church service has ended at eleven to again close the bookshop at nine forty-five. As one might imagine, it is a very long two days. As such, I recently requested to have Sunday's off at the bookshop to which they (very kindly) obliged.

Yesterday was my first Sunday off.

I stopped at my parent's house yesterday, shortly after the church service had ended. I had a few things to drop off to my mother and thought that I ought to take care of those things before going to enjoy the pleasant Sunday afternoon or, perhaps take a nap somewhere. I arrived to find my father and grandfather standing beside one another and staring up in to the tree branches. My father held a chainsaw.

"That can only mean trouble," I said to my mother as I entered the house.

"Oh, you know it," she replied, laughing. "And what do you have going today?" I thought long and hard about it as I looked through the window at my father pointing at a tree limb, miming it coming down.

"Well, I guess I'm helping Heckle and Jekyll cut down a tree."

So we did. We mounted a full-scale assault, climbing the roof and cutting down section by increasingly heavy section. It was a game of cut, catch and throw where my dad manned (and I do mean "manned") the chainsaw, where I caught the falling limb and them threw it to my grandfather who waited on the ground to take the fallen limb to an increasingly large pile. After an hour or so, my grandfather tired and went inside. My dad and I persisted. He cut and I drug, he made an impromptu sawhorse and I lifted branches onto it. A seventeen foot long limb became enough firewood to fill a 7x9" flatbed trailer. We drug the remaining branches and made a burn pile, raked the yard for stragglers and decided that, while we were at it, an old stump that had worn out its welcome in the front yard would be cut into manageable pieces and carried away. The din and whine of the chainsaw filled the neighborhood for the better part of four hours.

When there was no more wood to cut or haul away, the chainsaw was stopped and we were left with sawdust littering a good portion of the lawn. My dad and I both reached for rakes and we quietly, without talking, raked the yard until it looked pristine. It was about that time that my grandfather came back out and stood on the porch with a dark beer.

"Boy, what a well-oiled team we were today!" he surveyed the yard proudly.

My stepsister arrived at the house as my dad, grandfather and I were arranging the porch furniture back into a recognizable order. The various chairs and tables were collateral damage from the fall of the branch and had been stacked to one side of the porch. We again formed a line, lifting, handing off and setting down. She quickly gathered what had happened and watched as the three of us completed the final details of getting the yard in order. At last, the only remnants of the day's work were the two ladders we climbed to get onto the roof. I folded them up, gripped one in each hand and walked them across the yard, putting them in their proper place behind the shed.

"Cyle, don't take this the wrong way," she began tentatively. I have learned that when she begins a sentence in this manner, I have to throw away any and all expectations of proper compliments. Though she means well, these sorts of compliments rarely, if ever, actually sound like compliments.

"Fire away, Jess," I said as my grandfather chuckled.

"Well, you know, I've been watching you, you know, do this stuff..."

"Uh huh, go ahead."

"Well, you know, I never really think of you as a real 'manly man'. You know, I mean, you're, well, I think of you as sort of a delicate flower and stuff." She makes flexing motions to emphasize her point.

"But, you're all sweaty and you normally, well, you know, you're sort of bouncy when you walk..."

"I prefer the term 'light of foot'. We'll also accept 'graceful',"

"Shut up, Cyle. No, I mean, you know, you're just, I think of you as sort of well, not like I see you now- which is all sweaty and carrying ladders and wood and loading wheelbarrows and stuff. But now that I think about it, you really do walk like a man. I guess I've just never thought of you that way. You know, because you're artsy and you don't say stuff about woman like..."

"I get it, Jess. Thanks, I think."

"Well, I mean, you know- you sort of think like a girl!"

"A brain doesn't have a gender, Jess. A body has gender, but a brain doesn't. Or, at least, it shouldn't."

My grandfather looked at me in such a way that said that he couldn't believe what I had just said. For my part, it wasn't a phrase that I've considered before or even consciously thought before. I was just reacting in the moment of the conversation.

"Damned straight," he said, putting his beer on the table for emphasis and leaning back in the chair, folding his arms.


"What does that mean?" Jessie stared at me as though I had spoken French.

"It means that being a man doesn't mean that you go around proving it all the time. Being a man doesn't mean that you have a particular genitalia. You know, there are two sorts of men that I can't stand to be around- the first is the man who goes around wanting to fight everybody and the second is the man who hasn't got a thing in the world for which he's willing to fight or die for."

My dad just sat on the edge of the porch, his shoes off and, as he's said to me at the end of so many days, "letting the old dogs breathe".

It seems extremely apropos to me that my dad's Father's Day was spent cutting down a several hundred pound tree branch. As three generations of men sat on the porch, contemplating the day's labor, I thought about the lessons my dad and grandfather have taught me that I appreciate most. One of them was evidenced by my dad's attitude towards the fallen tree branch. He didn't complain or bemoan the damage. He didn't try to call the insurance company to collect damages. He went out, bought a chainsaw and quietly took care of business. The other is that I ought never to take a day off- either literally or figuratively. Sometimes, things just need to get done, despite whatever schedule you had in mind and whether you mind or not.

As for me, I didn't mind that my day off was taken up by a day's work. Thanks Dad. Happy Father's Day.

The World Is Going to Hell...

...or my songwriting is. I'll let you decide after you've listened to the demo for the new song I just wrote. It’s tentative title is, “Shoulders (The World Is Going to Hell)” but we’ll see if it sticks.

As for the song itself, it’s two songs written separately that I stuck together because well, they seemed to fit somehow. The first part, the “world is going to hell” part was written while driving through a treacherous, not to mention sudden, snow storm that we had here in Durango on the first day of May. That, combined with other current events put me in a bit of an odd spot. The song really turned out a little more comical than perhaps I had intended.

Still…

Today, I Feel A Little Like Scout Finch...

Perhaps it is good timing or the fates really are out to teach me a lesson (or lessons). I've been having my sophomore class read Harper Lee's classic, "To Kill A Mockingbird" and we've just come to the section where Tom Robinson is killed after trying to escape from prison after being convicted for rape, despite the fact that he was not guilty. The young narrator, Scout and her brother, Jem are trying to come to terms with his death and with their community and the people in it being quite a lot different than they had previously imagined. In more colloquial terms, we have arrived at the section in the book in which our young protagonists are "growing up" and realizing that the fields are not always sunny, the grass is not always green and, as Alan Moore writes in the classic graphic novel, "Watchmen", "it rains on the just and the unjust alike."

Today, I feel a little like Scout Finch.

I drifted off to sleep last night, after a very long day, to headlines of Osama Bin Laden and proclamations and even celebrations of his death. Of course, I didn't think much of it because CNN couldn't be bothered to spellhis first name correctly. I thought that the United States military has killed his son, Usama. I awoke this morning to the newspaper triumphantly proclaiming the United States might, power and justice. I made coffee and opened my laptop, scanning for news stories and headlines in an attempt to have all of my facts in order. Then, because people are far more interesting than news anchors and broadcasters (and yes, there is indeed a difference- I won't allow myself to believe that that droll-faced, expressionless Anderson Cooper is fully human), I got onto Facebook to see what my peers were saying about these events.

It should be known that I neither condemn nor condone in regards to everything I am about to write.

Sentiments quickly made themselves known- and these sentiments were made while sparing no words. Had I not known any better, I would've believed that I was reading the dialogue from the film, "Team America: World Police". "America, f**k yeah!", would not have been a stretch. Actually, I think one of my "friends" did say just that. Comments cascaded down from the screen, "He's finally dead!", "We got the bastard!", "I cannot 'LIKE' this enough!", "The day of reckoning has finally come!", "Mission accomplished!".

I was a bit shocked. These are comments made by otherwise lovely, excellent people and some of whom attend church on a regular basis. These comments are made by people who would quite literally give someone the shirt off their back, help a friend move on a day off, people who give liberally to charities and worthy causes, people who love deeply and compassionately.

And they're celebrating a death?

Osama Bin Laden was an unjust, corrupt and deeply troubled individual- of that, I have no doubts. Do I believe that he was solely responsible for the 9/11 attacks? No, but I believe that he was a part of a large group that plotted and carried them out. Had he committed heinous crimes? Absolutely. Of that, I have no doubts.

However, I cannot say that I am fully comfortable celebrating his death- his murder. He is, despite all of his crimes, sins, wicked ways, et cetera, et al., still human. I understand that many of you do not share my feelings in this regard and I do not judge you for celebrating or doing what you will do in reaction to this man's death. By all means, do as you please. I am merely saying that I, the personal 'I'- me, I am not comfortable celebrating his death. It is still a death and I do not believe that one murder cancels out another. I cannot help it- all I see is a dead man.

Was he wrong in his beliefs? Probably. Was he wrong to inflict pain, torment and fear on our country and the world at large? Yes. Are we wrong to believe that our killing of him is just? Yes. Ought we, as a country who believe ourselves the shining example of freedom, democracy and justice, to have acted according to these long upheld beliefs that we hold so very dear?

Absolutely, unequivocally, certainly.

Short Form; Long Form; Bad Form, Peter.

I have no intentions of leaving this blog to die.
However, I've decided to make it the forum for "long form" endeavors-
mostly because I've been having a really, really good time posting on tumblr.com
over the last few days, thereby rendering it my forum for "short form"-type  endeavors.
Interested parties can find it here...

That's all the news for now, as Garrison Keillor might say.