Robyn Hitchcock Appreciation Week: 9/30 - 10-7

For our anniversary this year, Molly wants to spend a weekend in a glass hotel. I don't care, as long as there's a pool.

Ghost of a Dog

Bloomsday searches his mind for the correct approach.  He silently walks his client out of the chaotic courtroom, filled with anxious people waiting for the judge to appear, down the main hall to a quiet spot near the east windows.  He leans on the radiator and gazes out, down fifteen floors to vast construction site: the Burnham Plan, resurrected.

"I am not judging you," he says.  "But I feel the need to put as fine a point on your situation as I can before the judge sentences you.  I want you to know, I see the effort you've put into your sobriety since we met.  You actually look like a different person, you look like more of a person, and I think you're honest-to-God remorseful for what happened that night. I think you've been transformed by this horrible process.  Right now, I'm a fan of yours.

"But I have to prepare you for this: when your case is called, everyone in the room with think you're despicable.  I believe that we're all more than the worst things we've ever done, but most people in the room will find what you did a sickening display of the worst people can be.

"This is no DUI accident where someone got killed, thank God.  But in one way, it's worse than that.  DUI's are reckless, thoughtless acts. When you beat a dog to death in a drunken rage, you show malevolent intention. You show something dark and horrible about your personality to the world.  Maybe it's your drunk personality, which I wouldn't consider your true self, but if people mostly know you by how you act when you're drunk, and the things you do when your drunk, then, I'm not sure what other self you expect others to see.

"Take it from a guy whose father drowned in a sea of cheap vodka: you can never drink again.  That's it. Over. Done. Alcohol must always remain in your past, now.  If you put it in your present or your future, you will kill someone.

"I'm not your friend. I'm not your priest. I'm not your AA sponsor. I'm your lawyer. I look out for your legal interests.  I'm not sure what I'm going to say when the case gets called, but I'm going to try to get you through this as painlessly as possible.  Hopefully, right now, I've awakened you to how you should see your own situation."

Bloomsday sees the bulldozers down below, peeling the surface, digging deep into the ancient earth of Clevelandia. Dump trucks carry away what must be removed. "You're going to have to lay a new foundation, and build from there."

The Temple of the Lonely Word

I pull up to the ATM machine at the PNC on Clifton Blvd. and find a debit card and receipt already sticking out of the machine. I look ahead a see a car pulling off. I beep, but the car is gone. I take the debit card and receipt from the machine, insert my own and transact, then I back the Blue Vibe into a spot.

 I stroll into the bank and I am instantly ordered to remove my sunglasses but some guy in a suit. A security guard is, also, several feet away, inspecting me. I have not taken two steps into the bank before this insult.

 I comply and wind myself through the empty Temple Grandin lane to wait for a teller. "May I help you?" she asks.

"I found this in the ATM machine outside," I say, loudly, like my beloved Temple.

I hand her the debit card and receipt through the slot, and she thanks me.

I walk away, back past the security guard and the other suit who ordered my sunglasses off.

"Thank you," he says.

 "Save it, brother," I say as I put my sunglasses back on. "Everyone's a suspect, right?"

 I push through the door, and leave them all to ponder the moment in silence. Amen.

Popsicle Lessons

The Only Labor Day Song That Mattered

Luna: September Nocturne

"...and what if there were two,

 side-by-side, in orbit,

 around the fairest son?"