MCL

Ten Minutes

Ten Minutes

I’ve seen the stories about rocking chairs
That sit on creaky wooden porches
That old people sit on, rocking
While smoking cigars
Or drinking iced tea
And thinking about the good old days

I see it in movies, these rocking chairs,
These old people, senile and content,
Or reflective and dissatisfied
At who they have become
At who they could have been,
And what they could have done.

I know a man with a rocking chair,
An old black man, with an old grudge,
Who used to yell at me, years ago,
When I walked by his house with my dog.
He would scream, “You better pick that shit up,
Partner,
Or I’ll cut off your fucking thumb.”

I laughed when he said it, just laughed,
And kept walking, and relayed the story
To everyone who would listen.
“And then he said, ‘Partner,’” I’d say,
And the room would be laughing,
I’d kill them, I thought, I’d kill with this story

So many things, in rocking chairs,
Are misinterpreted,
And I know this for a fact,
Because I have personally sat in one,
I rocked for hours,
And I thought about nothing
Except that warm summer breeze,
That erased all those regrets

Pass the Vodka

Dear Reader -

I'm not really the religious-type, but even a paegan like myself will occassionally cross his hands and close his eyes and face Mecca when the situation presents itself. Tonight was one of those nights.

Katrina is heading toward New Orleans, and there doesn't seem much likelihood of the city evading her. Having lived there for three years, I've experienced several hurricane scares, but none of them severe enough for me to evacuate. I stayed in town and watched them take clockwise-turns to Alabama and the panhandle of Florida, drinking egregious amounts of beer and whiskey and dancing in the hard rain and moderate wind as the serious stuff was striking to the east. The parties were carefree and endless, lasting until nine, ten in the morning. During them, I frequently recited one of my favorite quotes from Woody Allen's "September" : "When God comes, I'll be ready. Pass me the vodka."Not that there wasn't damage. I saw my favorite tree on Perrier - an enormous, savage oak seemingly older than time, it's roots breaking and pushing up the concrete sidewalks built around it - fall onto the roof of a newly renovated house at the corner of State Street. My apartment - a lower level shithole with 6-1/2 foot ceilings and an incurable flea infestation - was mildy flooded after a hurricane-turned-tropical storm, and my bed (sans frame) and several personal items were ruined as a result. But the brunt of the storm hit our neighboring states, and the threat of total submersion was alleviated. So we drank and laughed and drank and laughed, enjoying our vacation days and loving our lives.

These kinds of parties will no doubt take place during Katrina, but I'm not so sure they are going to be so joyous. Instead, I have a feeling most eyes will be on The Weather Channel...until the power goes out. I've spent most of my evening on the phone with my loved ones in New Orleans, and most are currently driving along I-10 to get to Arkansas or Texas or Indianapolis or Lafayette, Louisiana. But a handful are staying there to see things out.

And for this, I cross my hands, and bow my head, and...

New Orleans - all Girls Gone Wild! and boob jokes aside - is a city of rich culture and limitless personality. It is one of the only major cities in the United States that has yet to become Starbucked and Applebeed to run-of-the-mill. It is also one of the poorest cities in the country, and if this hurricane strikes the way the meteorologists say it will, the damage will extend far beyond lost incomes and broken buildings. It has the capability to destroy an identity.

The city is the least-landlocked city in the country, sandwiched between the Mississippi River, Lake Pontchartrain, and the Gulf of Mexico. Category Four Hurricane? French Quarter and Central Business District are under 16-20 feet of water. Some of my friends will be drinking on the third-floor of a brick apartment complex when Katrina makes her entrance. Pass the vodka.

A Nice Change

Dave Baer dropped his fiancée off at the airport, kissing her on her mouth and cheek and giving her one of those awkward, in-the-car hugs. He thought about getting out to hug her, but with the police lined up at the passenger drop-off, he decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. She had only one, small bag, and she wouldn’t have any trouble getting out of the backseat by herself. Still, he thought about it, and as he drove away, he felt guilty for the informality of her leave. He picked up his cell phone and plugged it into the hands-free device he had purchased when the City of Chicago made it illegal to be holding a cell phone while driving.

A Stuttered Goodbye, A Quick S-P-E-L-L

Last year, when my driver's license was pending due to a clerical error by the fine folks at the Jones County Police Department in Laurel, Mississippi, I was stuck in the pergatory known as New Orleans. All of my possessions were spread throughout apartments in the city:
My bed, chair, desk and dresser were in Noah and Rob's mansion; all of my clothes were at the lawfirm of Kellough, Fernandez and Phelps; books and cds and other thises and thats were at Chris and Tanya's. And most importantly, the love of my life - my retarded cat - was getting shelter from the storm at Alex's place.
Where was I? Usually, I found myself somewhere between drunk and hungover in what amounted to a Three Week Farewell. Every night, there seemed to be a new reason - or excuse - to celebrate, and my friends never pass up a celebration. Usually, these nights would begin and end at the Milan Lounge, a little hole in the wall that Harry Carey once refered to as "Wrigleyville South" as a tribute to the devoted Deep South self-deprecators who drank their baseball worries away during each and every televised game. The moments that occured after leaving the bar are nothing to speak of (mostly because I can't remember them), but they manifested themselves with me waking up on that famous green couch that so many of us know so well, the one that at the time sat in the slowly deteriorating lawfirm loft. Gripping my back. Massaging my head. Trying to decide whether to have a pitcher of water of a pitcher of beer.
During one of these mornings (or afternoons, depending on how you see 2:30 PM), I discovered something about which I had heard but to which I never bothered to pay any attention. But it's sometimes amazing to me the things we have the capacity to endure while hungover; on this day, I woke up to find the television on. The channel: ESPN, the SPORTS network. The SPORT: the annual Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee.
At first, I decided to watch a little bit for two disparate reasons: number one, I was mildly curious; number two, the remote was not within my six foot wingspan. Three hours later, however, I realized that a person with an addictive personality can get addicted to anything - alcohol, cigarettes, sugar, American Idol - and I was Hooked on Spelling. At the end of the game - er, I mean, 5th-8th grade spelling contest - I refered to it as the Greatest Show on earth. The next morning - anticipating another late night - I set the alarm on my phone (as well as the alarm on the television, and the alarm on my watch) in order to ensure that I wake up for the Finals.
You couldn't write drama better than this. These are kids who have been subjected to hour upon rigorous hour of training in Latin, Greek, Spanish, French, German, and every other language spoken on God's Green Earth, and in one instant, one "gnathostome," one "schipperke," one "oestradiol," the kid is watching from the rafters. Will she faint? Will he cry? Will she burst into a turrets-like rage after she starts to spell gneiss (a metaphoric rock formed at high pressures and temperatures...thank you, Dr. Cameron) with an "n" before she realizes what she's done?! This is the stuff of legends. Last year, an Indiana boy - from South Bend, in fact - took home the big prize (which, at $28,000, needs to be raised SIGNIFICANTLY to reflect the amount of money this contest produces for ESPN and Scripps Howard nowadays). This year, it was a very deserving Anurag Kashyap, a 13-year old who nailed "appoggiatura" to defeat Samir Patel (an 11-year old I rooted for the entire show) and Aliya Deri.
The beauty of the contest: you interact, you relate, and more often than not, you're being outsmarted by someone half your age. It's the most humbling thing on television.
But I'll tell you what...Appoggiatura? I beat Kashyap to the punch by forty seconds! I stood up. I cheered. I looked into the television and said, I shit you not, BOOYAH! And I was alone, all alone in my apartment. Booyah, I said to the television. Booyah.

Why-orless

Sitting on the porch
I find out that my stock
has plummeted,
And sip on a manhatten.

Sitting in my living room,
A message pops up,
And I'm talking to friends
Without hearing their voices

Lying on my bed,
Minutes before slumber,
I pick up my mail,
Without lifting my feet

Sleeping at night,
three o'clock in the morning,
the cat hits a button,
And a message appears

What would I do,
if I needed to function,
Without this fantastic
Wireless devise?

I'd be forced to imagine
What life would be like
With this fantastic
Wireless devise.