View current page
...more recent posts
Letter To Clifford, 6
You may be musing, Jim, in the last seven months you've lost a girlfriend, a mother, and pretty nearly the city that most inspires you, does anything good ever happen to you? and if by that you mean something other than being (sort of) free, (mostly) white and (considerably older than) 21, then I would say, well, let me think on that, while you go about minding your own f-ing business, what do you think this is, some sort of online gab forum where I spill my guts about everything from safely sordid sexual encounters with boxes of fried chicken, to personal letters to my recently deceased mother? Because if you think that then you have got another think coming. But all right, Ima give you a bone, because clearly these curiosities of yours imply that you're at a commercial break of American Idol and, although generally I don't do requests or answer questions, except obliquely, or sometimes straightforwardly and you can't shut me up but that's your punishment for even talking to me. I got this gift from Mr. BC over a year ago and it was a 5gb digital music player, a pre-release limited edition, number 131 out of 500 and I don't know what value that adds to what is essentially a disposable piece of electronics but it was really just the right player for me. I had it loaded with the equivalent of about 80 CDs or albums of music and even though I didn't pay for the music any more than I paid for the player, we're talking, in some world, where people actually pay for things, about $1,300 worth of pure musical enjoyment. The music I got from this music hoarding Cajun Russian Jew who holes up on New York's Lower East Side, and on his better days seems pretty intelligent, but still insists he won't come down south for a visit--not just because all his Cajun relations are long departed, or ficticious, but--because he blames the south for the holocaust. When I tell him the holocaust didn't happen down here, exactly, he insists, "oh yah it deed, it moist cer-tain-ly deed." I sometimes suspect his accent is as affected as my every supposition, as spurious as my ability to spell it out effectively. But, accented or not, how you gonna argue with a boneheadedness so thick and complete? This particular chunk of digital music I got from him is a sublime playlist of a thousand songs which often very effectively blot out the noise going on in the internal confusion machine of my being. Stuff like The Velvet Underground, Yo la Tengo, Calexico, Dylan, Cat Power, Four Tet, Fruit Bats, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Fuck, to name a few. The thing about digital music players, and really, so many things if you think about it, is that they don't perform that well, or at all, after being dipped in soapy bleach water. Which is what happened to my Rio player when I stupidly stored it in my front pocket while scrubbing the black, greasy flood line off of my house back in November. Bending over the bleach bucket the player took a bath and henceforth did not work. I bought a little replacement player, a 1gb Ipod, and I hate it, just hate it. In fact, I bought the Ipod product just to prove to myself what I have said all along, I hate them, just hate them. The Rio player sat in my room, first on the table saw I was using as a bedside table and then, when I had to use the table saw to actually cut something, the shiny Rio sat on the floor. I would look at it occasionally, and sigh, wistfully. The other day, almost four months after the bath, exercising my option towards futility, I pushed the on button, and the Rio lit up and came on. I then crawled through the attic, my backseat, and every box I brought with me from Virginia, looking for the charger, because the battery icon was low. I found the charger and even though the player acts just a bit wonky now and again, it still performs beautifully, all the digital music data is intact, and I listen to it at work, painting, with small, cheap, over the ear headphones, the player comfortable of weight and operable through the fabric of my front jeans pocket, and there you have it, requested or not, a good thing that happened to me. I think American Idol is back on. As for me, I leave you with another Letter to Clifford. Her first name was not an informal appellation but rather her given name.
Dear Mom, 5/29/05
Today is Memorial Day and I went to my girlfriend's house (her name is T ) and worked on her (small) farm, or (very large) garden, whatever you want to call it. She is growing part of her vegetable crop in rows of concentric circles and today we weeded around and around in the asparagus ring.
I got a letter from my brother, and your son, W*lter, yesterday and it says his oldest son is getting married, I think in August, in Kansas. I don't suppose you are going and I'm not sure if I am, but I am thinking about it. His oldest son is M*cah. I think he is still in college.
I am still working on this vacation property of my childhood friend, JF, out here in Virginia, near the mountains, and it is very pretty countryside but kind of dull sometimes if you are used to lot's of excitement, which I'm really not, but I am used to being closer to excitement than I am out here. I am going to the Memorial Day gathering of some people I sort of know, later this afternoon, and that, I expect, will be as much excitement as I can stand. I like people well enough but I don't usually go out of my way to be around them. T, she likes socializing a little more than me so this is one of those things--me being a good sport. I'm sure I will have some fun, even though I don't feel overly sure of that at this point in time.
JF came out for a day with his kids and his wife and that is always a bustle of excitement but then they leave and it seems like a lot of effort and expense just to keep a property like this for such short stays. They bought the property as an investment so I'm sure they know what they are doing. There is plenty of work to do out here on the two houses and the grounds of the property, but it is kind of a strange job, with me deciding what to do more than I am ever told what to do. Like this is something I should complain about, but still, it leaves me feeling a little unsettled, at times.
T is younger than me, she just turned 30, and I just turned 46. I'm not complaining about that either and what good would it do if I were?
It's raining now. I hope this gathering later is not outside.
love, Jim.