Devil's Night, I only recently found out, is more of a Michigan thing. So far nothing has been set on fire but we can't seem to keep an Obama sign in the lawn to save Christmas.
I wish everyone could be in Detroit tomorrow night to share in the magic. But for those of you that can't be in the mitten urban, rural or otherwise, here is a little tasters of how we do:
Thanks to my sister and Robin for staying alive and to Bob M for the music suggestions.
I've been staying here, in this small troubled town, hanging in this cold cold county, for over two months now. I grew up here and ever since I can remember there has been a crime (murder) of passion every six months or so. I'm sure boyfriends run over their girlfriends in the big city just as often, probably more, but when it happens here we all have plenty of time to think about it and plenty of opinions and testimony and readjusted proximity the people involved. We are neighbors after all. These are small town values and the murders are the houses sitting on three-acre-plus plots; isolated incidents next to another isolated incident, fortresses of space and solitude in the midst of everybody's business.
What does Don Draper want from his past? I thought Mad Men was falling apart in the second season until this evening. I feel much better and more resolved now about the election, about the Drapers, about the National League, about the scheming, selfish timing of truth, the power and double meaning of oversight, and the irritation and confusion of a cryptic blog post.
There reaches a point in any long endeavor where the endeavee crosses over, loses her mind, takes everything her friends say and everything that is too blue or too red or too still, and the fact that SNL Election update wasn't funny enough, personally. I worry that I may have a stroke before election day and I blame it all on undecided voters. (yeah, yeah I heard ol smushvoice wrote something funny bout em already -- it's all hilarious until the stroke)
On the phones yesterday a woman told me she doesn't know YET if she is going to vote for Obama. "I'm just not sure he has enough experience." Well aren't you interesting. What a thinker. Would you say it's really the lesser of two evils? Because I think you are really saying something there that hasn't been put quite so eloquently ever before. It's not about who she is or isn't going to vote for. It's that she doesn't know. Look, Em and I ran into a guy that said he wasn't going to vote because he was already aware of the five parties and the women of 18 years is just about done with her two year term and mars, and space, and nickel nuts. Makes sense? Well F no but at least he knew what he believed. I prefer the "I'm writing in my cat" crowd.
I'm sure this election is the one event in her life where she (the undecided voter) feels like she has power over someone. Unless she is one of those office Wo-Man-agers Cari and I love to discuss. Then she gets a surge of elation with every vacation day she denies. Anyway, I told her "Well I'm not sure YOU have enough experience - you're the dumbass that picked up the phone at 8:30pm from an unidentified caller. Eat sh**"
One more vote for Barack, I'm sure.
E told me that she is starting to break down too. Everything seems so divided. The Elites and the Plumbers. The oppressed and the people that believe in conspiracy theories because they want to be oppressed. The News and The Free Press. The Phillies and the Rays. Lee and Levis. Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship. I just want to be whole again and go back to hating people for regular stuff. I prefer judge a person by what they drive or what their facial hair looks like, not by what they think for goshsakes.
I'm so glad socialism has come up in the presidential campaign.
Recent conversation with family member:
"Sometimes competition is good. Look at Wal-Mart. Competition drove down prices."
"At the cost of enslaving the working poor to a less-than-living wage with no benefits. But yes, I do like their prices on Loreal eyeshadow. Although if we averaged out the cost of paying for the uninsured through taxes for medicare/medicaid and higher private insurance premiums, that eyeshadow probably cost me $54.00 per color. And that's a quad color palette."
A short speech I will give to a group of impressionable college freshman:
We are competitive. But when you look at examples of great competitions you will see boundaries, goals, parameters. Capitalism and greed have no end, a ball game or a race to the moon have clear end goals achieved by groups of individuals and celebrated by many.
The only thing that capitalism has "given" us is Rock and Roll and that didn't come from competition, it came from revolution. And now, in the spirit of Chuck Berry...
My favorite Angelinos, Bethany, Heidi, and JG are making their way through the Pennsylvania wilderness (turnpike) right now. They are on the run from a bar fight after last nights Philly-Dodger "game". The last text I got from JG was "F these Goodwill Hunting MFers" and I assume that he got punched in the face for mistaking Philly for Boston. It's an honest mistake for a west coaster. The whole Atlantic coast is just a blur of people and funny accents anyway. Not many people know that Goodwill Hunting originally took place in Saugatuck, Michigan but there has been an aggressive anti-peninsula sentiment in mainstream entertainment since the eighties (American Pie and 8Mile are proof).
I like movies that are about a poor or underachieving guy that lives close to an ivy league school and sits in on classes every day until he has a chance to do an elaborate math problem on the chalkboard. What was the one with the homeless guy? Was that Pesci near Harvard or Gary Oldman near Columbia? I can't remember. But I want to be clear that just because you live by Harvard doesn't make you smart. I didn't get this adorable because I lived close to Pepperdine and UCLA for a couple years. It took real work. The closest school to me right now is a beauty school. I'm already seeing my next film: A girl, down and out on her luck, damaged hair but a big brain full of fresh ideas for pony tails. She has small hands perfect for rolling perms and she always wears something fun, like a smock. One day after getting rejected from another bank job, she sneaks into the senior class at a beauty school, sets the curls of a cranky blue-haired regular who is about to close the school because of comb sterilization infractions. The old lady is so happy with her hair she forgets to call the state board and actually leaves a two dollar tip!
I think my video is done rendering now.
Can't wait to see y'all soon.
Everything but game information from my phone:
yay. I’m filling in as your seatwarmer. I never thought I could love a team so much!
Woo! I love la! We Love it!
Hellz YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for introducing me to the greatest past time ever! We miss you.
Btw, I’m drunk.
Omg!omg! loney! Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Me, jage, and heidi are watching the game at neighbors. Missing you!
F**k yeah!:D!!!! Yes we did!!
Broxton has earned some serious subs!
Let’s get this party started!
You know Eithier just wants to party on a ranch.
And we would attend every ranch party he threw.
YEAH!
Perfect he can live there and braid our horses tails.
I got my big girl butt in your dodger viewing seat. Wish you were here fighting for it.
Sara Kaye Blake.
Dewitt just gave him a shave.
Yeah, some bad hair all over that Philly team.
The team will shave him in his sleep.
Why is Lowe sweating so much?
His brain is just hot, he’ll be fine. Thinking mans game, you know.
My new religion is dewittism.
Oh damn! Sacfly.
Atlantis and Werth’s facial hair – great mysteries we will never solve.
I don’t know how Manny missed that homerun. He tattooed that thing. More to come, I’m sure.
Please say you just read Lowe’s lips?
F**k Yeah. Mother F**in b***h!
G**D****t
Keep your head up lowe!
FOCUS YOUR MOJO
I think so, he said “F**k Yeah. Mother F**in b***h!”
You gotta love Donnie Baseball
Blake blake blake.
DeWitt!
Wtf? Come on boys!
I was sweating when we were 10-3. I’m just a sweater. Keep ya warm in the winter.
All hail DeWitt!
Yes, Just to satisfy your uniform related lust.
Alright, it’s only one game.
Are you ok?
They played really well. Nothing to be ashamed of. We got this.
Please say you just heard biemels starting line up?!! I want you to marry him. For us.
At a callback, no more Dodgers for now.
That one hurt. Bad
Some little kid just told me he wanted to “hump me in the b**thole”
Oh, I know sportsfan, I know.
Go dodgers!
Praise!
I told him to give ‘lil puddn’ Blake DeWitt a second look.
Trying hard. Go Loney!
Good for you. You are amazing! Now turn on the game: )
You ever run into someone that is a friend of the family in a very un-familial like circumstance? Like when Ronnie Slater ran into his dad's UAW pal in a state park restroom in Petosky Michigan when he was on three, oh what do they call them... doses of LSD and washing his hands after taking five hours to change a flat tire. Ronnie is a prison guard now. Things happen in our lives that send us on trajectories that we could have never imagined.
I like to think I can imagine anything but I am just saying, for some of you stuff is going to happen that you can't possibly imagine. Like, did you know that not only is it a possibility but it is actually a probability that all that we are, all that we do and see is actually a computer program run by a higher being in an alternate universe. We are someone's World of Warcraft. This is hard science and I find it very comforting that what I believe to be my imagination is actually the imagination of someone even doper than I. Someone who loves the Dodgers. Someone who thinks it's ok to apply lipgloss 10X a day and to eat peanut butter a lot.
You can compute your way to the infinite numbers of exact yous in parallel places all you want. There is also infinite numbers of almost yous. I like to call those people Sara with an H. Math is fun.
I think my head cold is clearing up but not in time to see THIS because it is one of those early shows, which indicates to me that it might be PUNK. I just wanted to see BFA's young luva anyway. I'll save my strength for my boys in blue.
I loo-oove getting on the ol horn with Tdawg, my BFF who is seven months preggers and who loves chocolate covered pretzels. Tonight I was going off about my other friend that got pissed off at me for being sick and not going to a club meeting, “you have been sick for MONTHS, you are sick ALL THE TIME.” This friend tells me and then adds, “I’m just worried about you.”
T tells me that she got some similar same crap when she was trying to enjoy some nice albacore tuna for lunch today. Apparently people love to tell pregnant people what to eat just in case the woman hasn’t researched how NOT to have a mongoloid child. So one of her coworkers lays into her about tuna and fish and babies dying in the womb and baby brains splitting in half and webbed feet. She, the perp, of course ends with, “I’m just concerned.”
The kicker in these tales is the bullsh*t qualifier. Reminds me of people that just want to be honest. Well I’m just concerned about your assy manners people.
Since I’m no stranger to being sick I’m intimately familiar with the hatred, jealousy, and frustration people feel towards sick people. I often wonder why we don’t say such things to sick children as "Jesus you are sick all the time little man, what's with this? Just trying to get out of play time are ya?" Children get colds and flu way more often than adults. At what age do we start to blame the person? 16? I would guess the blame should start at whatever age people can shop for herbal supplements.
The anti-sick thing, this seeing sickness as a weakness (when really deep down you all see it as a reminder of how helpless you really are)is all part of the great unhinging of civilization. The growing popularity of antibacterial mania and germaphobia represents a deep distrust in the soul and a fear of nature. I want no part of it.
Another response I get from time to time when I have a cold is, “I NEVER get sick.” To which I always respond, “really, that is so interesting. I’d love to hear all about it. Can you tell me more about how you earned your superhuman immune system through living righteously?” My friend Drew never gets cavities. Same with Trimblers husband. They are highly evolved. I’m not. Don’t worry I’ll die soon enough and then everyone who doesn’t EVER get sick (due, I suspect, to a life of mind-numbing sameness and a daily routine that has created an impenetrable fortress of virus-proof boredom blubber) can just f**k each other until the world is full of diseaseless DNA and masters of small talk. Ok, sound great?
If you encounter someone that has a headcold say nothing at all or just, “I hope you feel better soon.” Common manners.
Clear Eyes. Full Heart. Can’t Lose.
I's like to thank Bethany who, upon witnessing several strokestyle head attacks simply said, "so sorry dude, it is the price you pay for a brain like that." Or maybe you were just telling me that you never get headaches and I should go on a master cleanse ... I can't remember.
* this post available on audio cassette.
I got something caught up in my face, some call it a head cold, I call it Memphis. The city is a key player in my next-big-move vetting process so Ems and I took a trip down to The Bluff City to visit my favorite penpal Bob M (who has not approved any of the following photographs or anecdotes and may have to look kinder and more sensitive than he wishes for the sake of readability) and to see if there were any suitable retirement communities that I could call home. As some of you know, I retired from my life of lies a few months ago. Just kidding, if I was living a life of lies don't you think I would come up with something more interesting?
The trip was boppin' right from jump. We stopped at an Applebees to eat soggy salads and watch the Dodgers smear the Cubs all over their old smelly cramped jumbotron-less ball field. I think Em would say that the real highlight was when we stayed at the Super 8 in Fort Wayne to break up the drive. Hotels have cable TV. Emma around cable tv is like Sho in the Kalahari desert around a coke bottle.
She's so cute. They make a good couple.
The only problem was that she was suffering so much from withdrawal that by the time we rolled up to B's place in Memphis, right in the middle of the VP debates, it was nothing but a handshake and a grab of the remote. We were rewarded with cheese and pickled asparagus. Dudes love it when you use them for their tv.
The next day Bob took us to Graceland. He is close personal friends with Elvis and got us passes.
So we TCB-ed around the grounds of Graceland for the afternoon. Sorry. No flash photography.
R.I.P Elvis
Later that night we went to see William Bell at the Overton Park Shell.
A lot of people did the hustle.
Em is certain that you can do the hustle to ANYTHING. Even silence. Even to the crunch of beet salad at the Beauty Shop Restaurant.
Since we spent Friday in a hedonistic hustle we decided to make Saturday a bit more soulful and went to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Bob wanted to make sure no one took down his article in the gift shop and Emma and I wanted to see Isaac Hayes' Superfly Cadillac.
The museum was definitely a turning point in the trip since we weren't allowed to take pictures inside. We were forced to pay attention, you know, live in the moment. The moments included insider Stax Records details provided by our host.
Then we ate a bunch of fried chicken at Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken. Another round of slaw!
With only a few hours of daylight left we headed to The National Civil Rights Museum. It is built into the Lorraine Motel. No photography was allowed so we just got these pics of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. It's probably better that I wasn't shutterbuggin in there.
It's an elaborate museum full of more stuff to read and video to watch than possible in a single visit. We were about three-quarters of the way through the main spot when closing time was announced and we had to jet across the street to the second building. That's what they kept saying - the second building - it's extremely difficult to write about, let alone come up with sensitive phrasing for public announcements, when the topic is assassination. There is a huge CSI/Minority Report style set-up, spanning about four hotel rooms, that explores all of the evidence against James Earl Ray. It's creepy.
We finished the evening off with a pork butt, more cole slaw, another Dodger's Victory, and a drink at a nautically themed bar.
Em and I got up early the next morning to try and steal the rest of the Luna Bars in our gracious host's home but were unsuccessful and had to spend the first half hour of the trip home trying to find an open coffee shop in town (one strike against Memphis). We survived.
I recommend driving through Tennessee right now. It sure is purty. By one thirty pm we were in Loretta Lynn territory and decided to take a break for a ranch and museum visit. The museum is packed with every outfit and signed autographed picture that ever belonged to Loretta. I'm talking random photos of Sandra Bernhard, Patrick Swayze, Rosanne Barr... you name it. Her scriggly handwriting is featured on white boards next to the bigger exhibits like the cars and tour buses and rooms staged to look like her old coal miner home. No cameras allowed inside.
I ate a ranch style potato and some mushy turnip greens. Emma had corn bread and white beans. Just like regular old ranch hands!
By the time we reached Detroit it was after midnight, cold, and rainy. I'd developed a full-blown head cold that has led me to believe that I may have left Memphis but it hasn't left my face. Whether or not it is a sign that I must take up residence there has yet to be determined. I may have to go back and try sleeping in Overton Park or something more rugged to get a feel for the earthiness of the place. I'm already convinced that the food, folks, and fun categories are covered.
I just recently had a convo that brought up the high-concept of I Love Super Beautiful. It made me homesick for gatherings on Garden Ave.
Also, I have a head cold and I prefer to update my blog in list form until I can get my southern photos uploaded.
So here's a useful list of things I find beautiful (from memory for this evening in honor of nostalgia): National parks, federal land, and commie stuff. Bethany's singing voice, gift for description, and her unapologetic love for love. My car and the two free, three white, and one champagne cars before it. The open road, the closed road, and the dirt road. Heidi's enthusiasm, dog-walking dreams, and classic profile. Sports, narrative structure, and pills. Beth's ability to use an old fashioned corkscrew, her charmful drawings, and amazing freckles. Jamie's born-free-birth-right, hilarity, hair cut, and alcohol tolerance. Peonies and poppies. Emma's huge heart, handsome height, and road trip expertise. JG's confidence and business sense. My sister my sister and my sister and my brothers. My brothers' love for cars and fixing things like my computer and my hi-fi. Cameras, kittens, bulldog puppies, love letters and like-letters. The Desert. Cari's unrivaled - borderline freakish - spontaneity and precious little ones. Coffee and secrets. Liz's man-handlin', beach knowledge, and commitment to higher education. What it feels like to have someone stay after class to show you a draft of their essay. Community. Community service. Believing in someone. Believing in the Dodgers and being rewarded. Music, movies, and music in movies. Walking. Channeling dead writers. Quitting. Starting. Moving. Mojo. Julie's precious helpful intelligent nature, lack of internal dialogue, and badass midCen house in Albuquerque. Kelly's ability to move anywhere on five dollars and self-certainty. And of course: rainbows, found money, and apples.
That is all I could fit in before the Nyquil... How's that for hope?
