FLA Dispatch: AKA Family

As I write this, it is 59 degrees and I'm typing on my sister's back patio.  I guess that's chilly for Florida, but the warmth I feel is more than enough to finish this blog post.  Yet, it will be short.  My sister's kids are awesome.  Her daughter, Catie, is whip smart and had several well-earned high fives tonight.  There is a 10-week old kitten roaming around the house and a 9-year old dog.  It is all surreal and a far cry from "home."  Got a game date with Matthew to learn how to play Call of Duty tomorrow.  Grandma's broccoli casserole, a squash  recipe from the Times.  Family is what makes you feel good no matter what.  All of the bad that does flow through our veins, all of the misfortune and what the fuck questions that won't be answered are subsided in unexpected ways when you are with family.  And there are only two of us, immediate siblings that is…..and we are going through shit.  Yet, the love abounds.  Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers.

15 Cold Weather Haikus

Like a switch turned off.
The phosphene lasts forever.
Scattered and blurry.

The conversations,
from mundane to important
have ceased to exist.

Unrealistic dreams,
words I'll never hear for real,
a jarring wake-up.

To keep your secrets,
have internal dialogue
alienates us.

How they just creep up.
Some good and bad memories,
just to turn and shake.

Hard to look at them,
my photos from the last year.
The smiles, now frowns.

Now, for the first time
have painful, throbbing migraines.
They are beyond cruel.

The darker the day,
the longer they seem to last.
An eternal black.

Used to be so warm,
then all of this had happened.
A frosty icebox.

The same Brooklyn streets
are now redefined patterns
of yearning and loss.

Looking for patterns,
like fine stitches on a quilt.
Yet, all is static.

Dying to be back,
to my self.  Normality
seems light years away.

Heard of the headaches,
had never felt them before.
Pain you can't explain.

Alien city,
far detached and more removed,
as if it were Mars.

Frayed bones and a heart,
lean towards some type of flame.
Or at least embers.

Oh, Deer (Part I Maybe?)

One of the  things that has consistently stuck with me about riding out to Montauk was the number of deer I saw in the night.  They were everywhere.  Yet, I couldn't see them with my naked eye at all.  The last leg on my ride was pitch black, yet every car that came over any crescent, or not, be it flat, illuminated their eyes.  Rows and rows of odd glowing eyes peered out onto the road from bushes.  As I rode, my arms were wobbling and my headlight was next to useless.

This set of entries is dedicated to the deer and how they look at us.  I've been writing this for  a few days now and not sure how it is going, but these are the first few ideas/starting points I have:

I.

"I SEE YOU"

The absolute silence in which I traverse this world, man, will always confound you.  My ability to be allusive and non-combative must make you question everything about yourself.  I do not kill anything, nor do I want to see you kill my family.

II.

"I STAY AWAY"

I have to admit it, it does suck to always be in a sate of panic; running and hiding and hiding and running.  It really isn't that much fun.  It brings little joy to my life.  But, it is better than being in the open; the center of attention.  Your kind loves to "look at me" because it is temporary.  I will run away.

18 New Haikus

Down to one eighty,

nothing to be that proud of. 

Misery eating. 

Red-faced in mirror,

memories of cactus spine

lodged deep in my foot. 

There are many days,

all come and go and pass by. 

Yet, some stick with you. 

Way too much of it. 

Blasting eternal Fridays

blend into next days. 

Faulty wiring

like fireworks, off and on. 

Blinking and reeling. 

Imaginary

streets populated with ghosts

All just drifting by. 

She is an echo,

such as she always comes back

in explosive ways. 

Avenues for miles,

all leading to my dark heart

lacking a crosswalk. 

Many addresses,

all home at one point of time. 

Never really home. 

They are passing by.....

cars, meteors, people, deer. 

Pausing for a min. 

At a coffee shop,

Crying woman to my right

absorb all her pain. 

Unabashedly 

and listlessly reeling on. 

Time is suspended. 

Dying to feel it. 

Weightlessness and lost spinning. 

Abandon control. 

Topsy & turvy,

to be surrounded by kids. 

So much kind laughter. 

And they have reached out,

only to pull far away. 

A heart demolished. 

Movies about boats. 

Utter sea devastation. 

A man left alone. 

Dreaming of ocean

or another vast expanse

to soak all away. 

Rush water on me,

Running water doesn't work, 

not at all cleansing.  

Family

So that is my mother.  Beautiful.  Young and vibrant.  Yet, she had such a dark past.  She was beaten by a drunken aunt underneath a kitchen table once.  I recall a big fight we had in high school when she pulled that card….."Well, at least you weren't beaten by your aunt as a child…"  Those were the last words I heard as I stormed out of the house as an angry 16-year-old boy.  Can't recall exactly what I was angry about.  Yet, was angry nonetheless.  That is an undercurrent in my family.  Anger.  My sister has a case of it, I have a case of it and it never really seems to subside when you need it to.  But, that is family.  You know each other and you know how it ebbs and flows.  You know when to take a break from eating at each other and you know when to dig in.  Somehow, you just know.

I'm leaving out a picture of my father for a later post.  It's creepy how much I look like him.  Yet, I am very different from my father, but the same in ways, I act like him and don't want to die like him….heart attack with newspaper in hand (I still get the daily paper, subscribed, and never thought about that until now), and found in between the front door and the main door of his house.  I'm leaving out his photo for now because I'm at the point where I remind myself too much of him.  Everyone loved him except for his wife, my mom.  Yet, they were 16 years in the marriage wormhole.  My father punched a huge hole in the wall when my mother spoke of leaving him.  Never thought she would, I guess.

And this is me, just a little over a year ago.  Happy as a lark.  Really, really happy.  Yet, this darkness crept in.  Could that be my father?  My mother's father running through my veins (he straight up abandoned her after she was born)?  Could it be our inability to make a child when everyone else around was able to do so?  Could it be drinking too much?   These are the questions that swirl and swirl, tilt and whirl around my mind when I get to the concept of family.  I keep on swinging back to the idea that my family was too fucked up to let me experience one of my own.  That, in a weird way, or not weird at all, I'm not supposed to plant a seed in this world.  My family's soil is too tainted, the earth too broken in our veins of life, to make anything grow.  And with that idea, I will crash.  Wondering what exactly it is that makes me fail at being a father I'm not even allowed to be, a husband who can't even be given the chance to work on his faults.

My definition of family is not what it is supposed to be.  It is defined as temporary and that……..sucks.

The Long Journey (Brooklyn to Montauk) The End

The beginning of this last and final entry is lacking a photo to start, as there were few chances to really stop and the sky's light was fleeting….but there is photo porn at the end.  It was getting closer and closer to darkness and  the ability to see the road was going to wain.  The time was slipping away and really didn't want to be on the road that late.  As posted in an earlier portion of the blog, I was pissed I had slept in, but if I hadn't a lot of the meaningful parts of this trip wouldn't have occurred.  So, I rode past Hampton Bays, which was the last photo of the earlier Montauk entry….blue skies, filled with grey and white patches of cloud and then onto South Hampton, which according to my GPS was about 97-98 miles and just about under 8 hours.  There are these Indian reservations all along old Montauk Highway selling cheap cigarettes.  I pull into one, asking for a pack of American Spirits.  They don't sell them.  I move on.  For the ENTIRE ride, I hadn't passed another person on a bike and then see this kid in front of me.

For my life, I felt as if I must catch up to him.

"Hey man, how are you?"

"Good.  You?"

"Good, too.  Where are you riding from?"

"Brooklyn."

And that is the first what the fuck moment of the ride.  Another comes shortly after that.  So, meet this kid, Matty, from Brooklyn and he becomes this inspiration in a way.  He is 24, young as shit on a fixie on his way out to Montauk keeping a 16mph pace.  My god, he was like an angel from heaven.  I felt as if I were slowing down……getting tired…..just pedaling.  But, this kid coming from the same place, doing the same ride I was, was exactly the jolt I needed….on a single speed fucking bike no less!

We got to talking while riding, hit some hill in East Hampton and right before that happened, he asked me where I was originally from.  I told him Pittsburgh.  The guy is from the same fucking place.  Really?  Pittsburgh.  Amazing and surreal blood begins to flow through my veins.  It didn't matter if I had a hotel booked or not, this shit was happening.

And, to not go into exposition, the conversation Matty and me had was beyond amazing.  He showed me photos of his work.  Incredible!

So, we keep riding to Amagansett.  He has some work that he wants to show to a gallery owner out there.  I carry on.

From Amagansett to Montauk is still another 11 miles.  Again, I wish I had a photo, at least one.  But it was about 6:00 or so then.  Sun setting.  Miles to ride.  On and on, beautiful landscape, focusing too much on pavement as the sun is now down to really focus on it.  My phone was down to 1% battery.

Dark now.  Really dark.  There is a crossroads on Rte. 27.  Old Montauk Highway or Rte. 27.  I turn to my left, 27.  Climb a crazy hill.  My headlight on my bike was dying.  No phone to see where I really am.  Climbing, climbing, climbing.  That hill was great at night.  I couldn't see its height so it didn't ruin me.  So, get to the crest and it's awesome riding, rolling, dipper hills....  Then after a few minutes, I look to my right and see all of these lights.  Should I have stayed on the old road?  I panic.

Stupidly, I turn around and go back down the hill, get on the other road and take the long ass, scary, nowhere ride on Old Montauk Highway into town.

Upon getting to the circle of Montauk, I am exhausted. Spent.  Done.  Such a shitty detour.  I search my pockets for the original cue I had.  Gone.  Back pocket, panic.  Left pocket, panic……no idea of the exact name or address of where I'm staying as it was all on that sheet of paper.

All I knew is that is was Kenny's?????something?????Inn????

I got directions, was told it was "about" three miles away on the harbor and up a hill.  Fuck.  Another hill.  As I was climbing the last ascent of the ride, my arms were incredibly wobbly.  My dying front light was splayed across the road in such awkward directions.  Exhausted, and kinda like Alien, a new fear set in.  Deer.  Every car behind me displayed them.  Silent to my right.  Scary shit, actually really scary shit.  Alas, the final descent and then the hotel.  135 miles or so, 10.5 hours.

The rest of the trip looked like this (the last photo is Matty from PGH, a bit of a knucklehead, but a rare one) :

Passed Through:  Southampton, Water Mill, Sagaponack, East Hampton, Amagansett, MONTAUK!

Heavy Rotation 11-2-13

It isn't often one comes across an album and thinks Jesus, this is beautiful.  Luckily, this gem of a record was discovered by yours truly this weekend.  As of now, I've listened to it seven times today.  It has turned out to be a great companion piece to this week's second selection in this entry.  But, we'll get to that later, as it deserves its own space.  This, Mutual Benefit project is amazing.  Most remarkable is that the kid who made it is a 25-year-old named Jordan Lee.  As I get older, 14 years removed form a 25-year old-life, I become more and more amazed by what kinds of music these kids are capable of making.  Moreso, this young kid has created a consistent atmosphere.  The songs feel extremely cinematic and intimate in nature....like you've been there before.  They are layered and layered and linger far after they end.  Usually, someone has to go through some life shit to make music like this.  As of yet, I haven't done much research on Jordan Lee, yet the lyrics and sound make me think he had to have gone through something to be able to develop and nurture these compositions.  Hotels are mentioned and I wonder how he knows them so intimately.  Why was he staying in one?  How can the sounds surrounding the words make you feel as if you are really there with him?  It is all based on atmosphere.  Spooky, yet hopeful.  I wouldn't be shocked if this becomes my favorite album of the year.  Looking forward to listening to it with all the lights off and a candle burning.  Not there yet, but pretty close.  It would only enhance its beauty and simplicity of even how it is recorded.




Finally, there is this...

Pat Noecker is someone I am proud to know.  He explained Transmissions in A and E to me a couple of times, but the concept was so abstract and hard to envision.  I couldn't really "see" it.  The outcome is phenomenal, rich and filled with surprising sonic textures.  Although this obviously wasn't released as a recording, the video proves there is a way sound exists and it can change our environment through its complexity.  Pat controlled the initial sounds through his iPhone.  That is something I greatly respect about this project.  It is experimental as shit.  And that brings me back to the first sentence about this piece and about this work.  I feel like Pat took risks to make this happen.  Of course, it was practiced to an extent, but it is still an experiment in sound and a magical one at that.  I'm not going to give that much away, as it needs to be seen and heard  to fully appreciate it, but here is the concept in a nutshell: Pat played the tone/note of A through an app on his phone, looped it and then had 11 other instrumentalists meet the key.  Instrument after instrument, adding to the layers of a consistent and solid sound to a pitch.  Later, this same concept is repeated in E.  Amazing.

His tumblr/blog is here and it is a good read: Pat's blog