October Song

"To most men the past is never yesterday, or five minutes ago, but distant, misty epochs some of which are glorious and others abominable." - Henry Miller

"Excuse me!" he whirled, on the airplane in flight, to the fat woman sitting behind him and armed to the teeth with a duty-free magazine.

The woman had rolled up that weapon and clocked him over the head with it ... because he'd had the temerity, in flight, to recline his seat into her overweight lap.

"Excuse me!" he whirled ... and the woman played dumb, trying proudly to play like she hadn't just done that.

I wonder where those two are right now?

I think of the 'ones who got away' sometimes ... those fleeting passengers through my life, who wouldn't have reason to think of me, but nonetheless made their impressions felt and registered on my akasha.

I think of the 'ones who got away' ... From the roadside café in Pennsylvania, that angry, long-legged bird with ripe plumage ... I spied her storming, arms crossed, smoking, stomping down the roadside, carless ...

Left my café booth to ride her.

Many years later, this hotel AV gig ... The "V" guy (I was doing "A") raced sloppily through his post-show chores, because, as he put it, "the wife" promised him "a little fun" if he managed to get home early that day.

I cried at the innocent beauty of life ... then went home to my own wife and "fun" of our own, as we fought about money and tore down our scene.

Growing up, on a ship, northern Michigan waters ... My little baseball cap blew off.  A fair-haired, red-nosed Minnesotan joined me hanging over the railing, waving my baseball cap bye-bye.  Her name was Dawn, that's all I know ...

I wonder where Dawn rises now?

Little League, early effort at teamwork ... I whacked that baseball almost out of the park.  Watched it sail, like Icarus, into the sun.  Then I chased it ... past first base and into the outfield.

No one told me where to run!  No one told me what to do when I hit it ... I had a coach (and had a dad ... but Dad cared as little about sports back then as I do now, if that's possible (and if not less) ... My dad can't be faulted.

... I guess.).

I asked the coach which way to run ... What to do, if I ever hit a baseball.  Not believing, dismissing my foolish question -- because in Coach's athletically fit, trim mind, it couldn't be anything but foolishness -- he answered my dumb, yet sincere, ask with sarcasm.

"See that scoreboard?" he chewed and spit, and smiled sort of shittily.  "Ya run out there, climb up that fence and touch it!  Then run back to the dugout when you hit the ball."

He said that.  I did it.

... My dad watched, his heart sinking faster with each step my cleated feet took, charging and high-stepping out toward that scoreboard ... racing the ball I just whacked toward the sky.

I wonder whatever became of that coach guy?

With every year that passes by, the incidents, visages, in my mind's eye grow clearer, taking on lives of their own as my own life counts down toward an inevitable 9th inning ... beginning now, slowly, to stretch toward the 7th ...

I look back, slow motion sometimes, sometimes smiling, and think of the ones who got away.

"The Memory", ©Jeff Glovsky

Labor, No Love Lost

(or, Square Peg in a Round World)

I'm ill-fitting, and self-absorbed.

Most of my writing is in the first person, and I'd never heard of Paula Deen until last month.  Even in my salad days -- or more accurately, my bacon cheeseburger (medium rare), profiterole sundae days (and late night, bad life music nights) -- I couldn't care less about popular culture.

Knee-jerkingly antipathetic toward anything "mainstream", I pointedly avoided the sardonics of "Seinfeld" ... the cloying, warm fuzziness of "Friends" ... the bilious pomposities of Rosie and Oprah, the horse jocularities of Ed and Jay Leno ...

Of course, Ed McMahon was with Johnny Carson - I stopped having time for that guy too, when he hosted the Oscars!  Billy Crystal, Tom Hanks, Whoopi Goldberg, forget it.  And Robin Williams ended up going the same route:  essentially abandoning all that shtick about "drugs and people passing out" ... betraying his essence, reigning himself in and joining the cloying and warm, fuzzy "mainstream".

When Howard Stern became a judge on "America's Got Talent", all bets were off.  That, more than anything, put a nail in the coffin of what I perceived to be my 'youth':  rebellious, obnoxious, enigmatic ... Outside looking in, but not wanting to be in.

My early work life, not a whole lot different.  The fake camaraderie and/or seeming pointlessness of the American "air-conditioned nightmare", as Henry Miller put it (and as it perfectly describes too many of the office work wheels I've been a cog in) provided a woefully bumpy labor ride as a young adult ... and working in restaurants, I would either stare wistfully at a couple's table, assessing their body language, watching them smile and behave with each other and wishing I had someone to do the same with;

or wistfully stare at the asses of waitresses - blithely ignoring all other needs.

I've lost jobs and had businesses fail, often through nobody's fault but mine.  I've been labeled inappropriate, apathetic, inefficient, off my game, "superior to superiors", inferior to what's needed, beyond what's acceptable ... and, almost as ludicrous as the suggestion of (I guess) arrogance or condescension in the superiority comment above, I've been called unclean.

Now as you might imagine, of all of these, the complaint about my personal hygiene stinks the most.  Then again, it was probably the most head-scratching and off the mark, in terms of not only my work ethic and job performance, but also (as anyone who knows me will attest), my person.

Simply put, I am clean.  You're welcome to smell me.  I lift up my arms, with my shirt off, and dance; I blow in your face my hot, sweet-smelling breath ... I trust you'll inspect the long middle fingernails thrust with insouciance deep into your eyeballs.  And lick me.

By all means, you can lick me.

I'm clean.

This is what ricocheted through my brain, the day I got sent home from the lakeside restaurant where I used to wash dishes -- an early foray into underemployment -- and where, just a few hours earlier, Big Katy (Boss Lady) had reprimanded me that day about not chopping up some lettuce correctly.

"Make sure you really chop it!" said she ... pushing another fingerful from the salad bar into her mouth.  "This way, the customers can really get at it!"

She left the dining area then -- and me, in my filthy dishwashing apron, standing there with a head of lettuce which she'd lobbed my way like a softball pitch, after peeling a leaf off and blowing her nose with it -- and a few hours later, I get sent home because I'm "unclean"!

This is how people roll, of course.  The dirtiest, weakest, sickest links are always the quickest to point and think, "Do (and say) unto others ... "

And thus they do ... when they fit well.

Happy Labor Day!

"Night Work", ©Jeff Glovsky

Gifts and Ripoffs

"Thanx to all the cats ... in our brotherhood." - Boris Koslov

I was digging around some old notebooks the other day, looking for a phone number I knew I'd scrawled - an old (212) number from 'back in the day', before telephone land lines (or spiral notebooks, for that matter) became obsolete ... and I was struck by what a fan I'd been.

In learning the craft of writing, and of becoming (more or less) myself, I seem to have tuned into a few of the biggies ... certain manna, and ticks and inflections of theirs, picked up by my young and thirsty antennae, all bursting with needing to take it all in.

All words and text below are mine (by Jeff Glovsky), as they were written -- sometimes thirty (!) years ago -- in the (sometimes overtly) sampled stylings of ...

John Lennon: 
Taking a might bath arggh, wee Bob?  I'll go ant pack me baggies!

Bruce Springsteen: 

Crucifix Jemina crossed me off the sidewalk.   Didn't have a leg to stand on anymore.

Charles Baudelaire: 

This city, even under the weight of fat tourists, reeks of thirty years ago:  all the noise and crime and ghetto-blasting; drugs, ill-tempered ugliness ... Its beauty become horrible, its awfulness old hat.

Henry Miller: 

New York now is dozens of little acceptances, all at once working to keep you down.  You're not a success, for one example -- or even taken seriously -- if you're not shelling monthly, say, two thousand for your hellhole.

Jack Kerouac: 

It's Tuesday, 10:15am ... What job to go, to do all day?  Resumés - Too many in the past too many each weeks.  Yet the phone's as sick and dead as soul.  Now she won't call.

There's been Steinbeck and Steely Dan, Dylan and Ginsberg, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain ... and, when needing to take Mathers into my own hands ... a little Eminem even enters my prose mix.  I've got a work-in-progress with a title Charlie Mingus might be proud of, and I reference Mingus (Mingus, Mingus) often ...

... the Clown's Afraid Too

All of these influences have shaped and informed not only my writing, but my disposition as well.  While certainly not "sunny" overall, I can make (and sometimes take!) a joke, and efface myself on a regular basis; overall, though my life has sucked at times, it's a blessing to be in for an eighty year plan - which, if I ever do happen to become "sunny" (or in the parlance of DeathClock.com algorithmics, "optimistic"), might convert to 90+.

Thus simply, if not moronically, assured, I was strolling through Greenwich Village last night and I ran into a bass player I've known for the past ten years.  Boris is a valued member of the New York-based Mingus bands, all of the various configurations officially sanctioned by Sue Mingus, the Yoko Ono of Jazz (in a good way) ... in addition to playing out with his own groups and projects.

As we were chatting and catching up (I'd been a sound engineer for the Mingus Big Band), a woman came up to us and asked if we knew where Beyoncé was playing.  Totally rando (as the kids say) - having nothing to do actually with what the jazz bass player and I were discussing ... nor with the jazz bassist or myself at all.  Beyoncé and her (substantial) slice of the music universe light years beyond and away from the both of us, it was nonetheless common ground for the woman to approach, introduce herself and begin sharing her own dreams and small histories in entertainment ... Connecting in a way that only artists know how, because like attracts like, but we're all attuned:  to different stations, perhaps, but all with thirsty antennae and the radio on ...

Now if I could only find that phone number.

Ultimate Pointless

"Destiny is what you are supposed to do in life.  Fate is what kicks you in the ass to make you do it." - Henry Miller

I've been snapping photos for decades.  I've been told (and I know) that I've "got a good eye".  Not to sound immodest, but if there are abilities I possess in which I have complete and utter confidence -- that is, in myself when I'm capably putting them to use -- these would be seeing (perception) ... followed by conceiving (conception), vocabulary/word flow and driving and/or sense of direction.

These are my skill sets.

For one reason or another, I haven't earned vast sums of money with any of them.  A little bit here and there; I've been lucky enough to sell a photo or two ... I've been paid as a delivery driver (bread, flowers, newspapers, musical instruments) ... I've directed plays and designed lighting and websites .. I've written web content, ad copy and had stories published.  But I have never had time to pursue my skill sets as anything other than passionate diversions:  I love to drive, and will travel by highway whenever it's not completely impractical; I love taking photos, composing images, painting pictures with words and rhythm ...

But I've yet to be free enough not to do these things free.

Could I have obtained a commercial driver's license at some point and enjoyed the freedom and responsibility of being a long haul truck driver, say, or a Greyhound bus driver?  Should I have dove into the grind, chasing agents and publishers or crafting the new Great American Novel?  Should I step up my photo game - invest in some gear and finally amp up my tools to match my "good eye"?

Yes, probably Yes and most Definitely, I believe are the answers.

But then there is the daunting, overwhelming Social Army:  the Facebookers, the hardcore 'Tumblrs', the bloggers, the i-news reporters, the You Tubers and Vimeo-ists ... Each with a squadron of "fans" and followers "liking" their largely mediocre output, and piping in with valueless comments and feedback.  "Great work!", "Nice!", "Love this!" are the constructive offerings ... while negative Two Cents from the peanut gallerists, on the other hand, can go on for paragraphs.  People seem to invest real time and thought, know exactly how, and are able to put into words, what they DON'T "like" ... but you'll be hard-pressed to find, anywhere online, a positive, well-written or thoughtful REASON to "like" something.

"See what your friends like!" Facebook and Google+ command ... and you all just do.

This, to me, is amazing.  I understand 'mob think' and 'herd mentality' ... brainwashing, laziness and the basic human need for appreciation.

 "Pedestrian Image", ©Jeff Glovsky

I guess my question is, if everyone is an artist -- a writer, photographer, DJ, musician ... "creatavist" -- then what's the point?  Where does one begin to stand out and become noticed?  Beyond this, where are the 215,000 notes on my own photo blog??  I've yet to receive more than six notes or likes on any image I've posted or shared anywhere!

Though to be honest,  I would much rather cultivate a dedicated follower or two, providing encouragement of value by showing discernment and regular, qualified attention to my work, than a herd of strangers posting, "So cool!".

This, to me, is the ultimate pointlessness.