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

Companion Piece (Characters)

Walking around the streets of my old town .. the Upper West Side, where I lived and breathed.

Where Amy's boyfriend broke the bar sign ... Joe G. (and Jeff G. - Jg²!!) shared a "bromance" before there ever was such a thing ... Skinny Jen and her Nicolas Cage-looking fella consoled each other through various episodes ...

Where Rick and Judith became "JewRick" ... where the multi-talented Angry Black Man targeted his future wife (proving there's trueness to "love at first sight") ... Where "Humphrey Bumphrey", "Gus", "Sergeant (Pepper)" and "Ass Feast" (don't ask!) trod the boards ... "Zoo Loser" and her sister, "Scab" (...seriously);

where Wolf and Ernest prowled the streets, the latter with his harelip up, a picture frame around his neck ('cause he was "FRAMED!", see?); or imploring passersby who'd listen, "What's the greatest nation on earth?"

Why, that would be the "Dough-nation!

"Donate to the United Negro Pizza Fund?" Ernest would ask, and I always would.  For one thing, Ernest was pleasant ... He was personable.  Not full of these fake Munchausen-esque self-pity syndromes, sitting planted on the sidewalk in people's way.

No, Ernest didn't have a new scrawled sign with a different sob story, in a different neighborhood, each night or week.  He didn't dress up for Halloween and make angry demands ... nor did he own a cell phone or iPad and sit there entitledly, chatting or tapping away on the sidewalks while fully expecting someone, at least, to rain into his paper cup ...

Ernest spoke for his place and time, in a way, and his generation:  he was engaged, first off ... He would make eye contact ... made an effort ... He was annoying, a little, but not unpleasant or nasty.

My pal Wolf, on the other hand ...

Though Wolf was also engaged:  in keeping alive, afloat, on the move (always prowling) ... He was never just sitting there, obnoxiously waiting.  Wolf, and I'm pretty sure, friendly Ernest, would have accepted employment had it been offered.  Neither seemed entitled or above it all (despite appearing on, and of, the streets) ... and neither one of them was overtly faking.

I think of old friends on the Upper West Side, and acquaintances and names I knew ... More clearly envisioning 20+ years ago, than my life here this century, which ended last decade ...

I've moved on.  Though I still think of Amy, Joe G., Skinny Jen ... auld FU in general ... Wolf, Ass Feast (!), the Angry Black Man and Ernest ... and I think still of Zorro, who loved to dream ...

Each night, caught her traipsing her mangy hound here ... the two of them dressed to the nines, fit to kill!

Then, "Zorro" was sixty, if she was a day ... apparently living to find a friend.  I followed her down for ten blocks the first time, the wide and noisy street between us:  me, on the east of Columbus, that is, and she and her mutt traipsing down on the west side ...

And Zorro flicked hair from a flattish sombrero, this dyed blonde, unruly and posthumous mane.  Her little pooch cried out as well ... the two of them begging, imploring attention ...

It was me, though, who tanked on that need as they vibed there!  That mutt, but outrageous, and yapping like mad.

"Sssshh," Zorro pampered and squatted down then ... to cuddle and fondle and soothe her dog friend ... and down there like that, her short skirt rode up high, and her narrow and varicose thighs kissed the midnight.

... As much as it hurts me to realize, admit it, I've outgrown New York.  Or it's left me behind ... or I've simply and finally, indeed, moved on.

* * *

The "Zorro" bit, adapted from Central Park (a work in progress) ... Thanks for reading!

Bad Lines and Inspiration

"Some might argue that it’s hubristic to write in the first-person.

"I (me, myself and … ) disagree.

"What I would argue is that the first-person, as a narrative form, should be retired. This would limit, if not eliminate, all the posers, pretenders and Starbucks dreamers who 'share' themselves like drunken cheerleaders. It would also pretty much lay waste to the 'blogosphere' … this, arguably, not a terrible thing.

"Several decades ago -- before our Facebook, cut and paste, 'open-source' world --  there were older siblings … also scribbling, pos(t)ing dreamily, into Barnes & Noble 'journals' the size of granny panties … or contributing to Fray."

It's All About Me(dium)

in

Inspire the World

It's ME(dium), Fuckers

photo(s) by Jglo

Some might argue that it's hubristic to write in the first-person.

I (me, myself and ... ) disagree.

What I would argue is that the first-person, as a narrative form, should be retired.  This would limit, if not eliminate, all the p(r)osers, pretenders and Starbucks dreamers who "share" themselves like drunken cheerleaders.  Before them, of course -- this Facebook, cut and paste, "open-source" crowd -- there were the older siblings ... also scribbling, pos(t)ing dreamily, into Barnes & Noble "journals" the size of granny panties ... or contributing to Fray.

To me, it was this wave that killed the first-person ... although I completely missed this wave.  While struggling to keep jobs and apartments back then, and a marriage more or less intact, with regrets and recalcitrance rearing up on determined hind legs at every turn -- plus an afraid, douche-y dilettantism which sidelines and holds me at bay, to this day -- I avoided the fray.

Instead, I declared the first-person "dead", and missed that whole boat!  Like telling the Beatles guitar groups are out, I turned myself down -- didn't bother to show up -- at countless auditions and opportunities ...

I was stupid.

I've always considered myself a writer ... Writing!  No more shitty gigs!  No odd job mental patient lot, no theater, theayter ... NOT!  I'm never gonna work again! 

... But when life interferes, when you're forced to make choices, it's easier to think those words than to be them.  Writing came easy ... The living, less so.

So in missing the first-person boat first-time round, I declared that I never cared to sail.

Then into this self-pity party, stepped Medium.  As an unfettered, unadorned platform for writing -- and for putting eyes upon (my) words -- there's at this moment, in my estimation, no equal.  Any genre -- save maybe the fevered erotics of (my!) especially wet dreams -- is game ... and automatically "accepted" for publication; i.e., published.

This is huge.

And with seemingly built-in SEO, Medium serves, for me, a dual purpose:  It gives me a chance to throw my own "I" into the ring (although fifteen years or so late to that game) ... and also affords me an audience of readers.

Type a little, bop and weave words, save and enter ... BOOM!

"Jeff Glovsky" is in your face!  And in your "reading list" - the 21st century equivalent of a humble, early (wet) dream of mine:  to see my name on a bookstore shelf.

As a Writer, exposure is all I need ...

So thanks, Readers.  Thank you, Collection Editors.  And thank you to Medium ... for giving me (myself, I ... ) a second chance.