Interluden der Musik

Ever heard the term, tone poem? If not, that doesn't mean you've never heard one:

Boycott the Royals with a Morrissey-thon

XVI

So, Sixteen years later, it is with great pleasure that I tell the story of my father's last day alive.

Saturday, April 22, 1995, was three days after the Oklahoma City bombing. That event cast a pall over the country and diminished my father's already weary spirit. He was doomed, regardless. Doctors had given him six months to live that prior Christmas. Booze, cigarettes, and a lousy diet hat clotted and pickled his heart. Here it was, four months later, and his anguish for the dead would finally squeeze the life out of him.

I was living at home with my parents at the time, having just passed the bar with a hundred and twenty grand in law school loans coming due. That morning, my mother was out and I was left alone with my father as he absorbed the news of the rubble on TV. My father watched TV a lot. He often slept in front of it. He would die in front of it. He sat, ashen-faced and out of breath, staring at the tube, clutching a pillow to his chest.

The Clinton's were on C-Span, talking to a group of children at the White House about the terrible events in Oklahoma, trying to express to third-graders why such horrors happen and how we should respond to them. The president was talking to children about death, about living on after losing a loved one, about honoring the memory of those who die throughout your own life. My father and I had tears in our eyes as we listened.

I made breakfast for the two of us: bacon, eggs, rye, and we ate together.

C-Span then presented Jerry Lewis at the National Press Club. He was starring in a revival of Damn Yankees! at the National Theater in DC, and spoke with ease and humor about his life. He was genuinely funny. Gone was that maudlin Lewis from the telethons. He peppered his presentation with "Ooofs" and "Hey, Laaay-deee's" and had the crowd roaring. My father and I roared, too. We laughed until it hurt. We laughed until we cried.

Those were curious tears. We were laughing together, of course, but we were also in the grasp of a rare spectrum of emotions. Joy, sorrow, regret, relief. Fathers and sons. Life and death. 8-25. 33.

I had cleaned up all traces of our breakfast, but when my mother returned, she smelled the lingering aroma of bacon and knew she had missed out on something.

The day went on. I left that afternoon knowing that I'd be sleeping elsewhere. I had a date to see The Spanic Boys, a father/son alt-country duo at Wilbert's.

According to my mother, the day ended with my father on the couch as she went to bed. She'd be awaked hours later by the extraordinarily loud volume of the TV. When she investigated, she found my father struggling and unable to speak. Had he summoned her with the remote control?

The ambulance came and took him to Parma Hospital where he was pronounced dead in the same hospital where I was born on his 33rd birthday. I picked up my mother and we got there moments after he did. He was gone. But I must tell you this: He was still warm when I touched him, and I was shocked to notice that he looked better than he had in years. He had the curl of a smile, and peace on his face, and bacon and eggs in his belly. I believe the word to describe his appearance is: beatific.

Because Clevelandia is, Practically, Canada...

Here's a geocaching puzzle pome for our Rockin'Canadians visiting our beloved,cursed berg:

Annunciation: Clevelandia
The world is recreated
a billion times a day
by Google maps
and Jesus traps
and souls above the fray.

These words are scored in stone
upon the rocky shore:
"He is faithful."
"He is faithful,"
is what the words implore.
first coordinates: 41*29'30.67"N 81*44'17.98"W elev 574

The water washes sins away
as hands and face we clean,
Annunciates
Greek palindrome
in church tiles' waxen glean.
second coordinates: 41*28'56.72"N 81*41'26.73"W elev 678

The weighted Dame leans overburdn'd
by Clair and Lakeside door.
her scales are tipped,
unjustily gripped,
which makes her feel a whore.
third coordinates: 41*30'04.90"N 81*41'50.87"W elev 723

Beware the Ides of Rush

Baby Sabbatical Soundtrack

My Kubricky Kitchen

"My kitchen's gone all Kubricky
and I like it not one bit.
A massive blackest monolith's
descended in to it."

So sayeth monkey wife unto her monkey husband.
and in reply, he said

"Mind you not, that monolith
until the film is shot and cut.
'til then I'd say, poor dear,
just keep your eyes wide shut."

Dylan in a Downpour, Springsteen in Neverland, Jung at Giant Eagle

I picked up a disc of lullabye versions of Springsteen songs at the library for Luna yesterday. Unfortunately, all songs had this breathy synth St. Elmo's Fire Theme Song thing going on which made it pretty intolerable. But it set in motion a train of thought about the song, Born to Run.

It is a verified fact that Springsteen wrote the song in his beach-side bungalow in Long Branch, NJ, where a poster of Peter Pan hung on the bedroom wall -- a picture of the eternal man-child leading Wendy out her own bedroom window. Wendy as in, "Wendy let me in, I wanna be your friend/ I want to guard your dreams and visions." Wendy as in, "I wanna die with you, Wendy, on the street tonight in an everlasting kiss." A great Slate article on the song includes this point.

It is also a verified fact that Bob Dylan was detained by police in 2009 while meandering the streets around that very same beach-side bungalow.  He looked suspicious, and the twenty-something female officer who held him had no idea who he was. As this ABC News article points out, Dylan may have been searching for Springsteen's old house -- he'd recently visited the early homes of Neil Young and John Lennon, the first, unannounced, the second, among a gaggle of tourists.

So I had this exact jumble of thoughts in my head today as I drove to the grocery store, Luna in the back, listening to lullabye Springsteen.  I had in my mind Dylan, soaked and elderly, peering into bedroom windows looking for a Peter Pan poster.

I parked, piled Luna into a grocery cart and pushed her through the automatic doors. And Springsteen's beloved [P]anthem began the moment I entered the store.