Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Mary Sue and and Johnny's Blue Crawdad


When was it?  Maybe 1954?  She and her little brother, Johnny, were deep within a Rosebay and Laurel thicket where the water cascades down the side of Wiley Arms Mountain, interrupted by ancient rocks, slick with life, hiding strange and brilliant creatures.  Mother Gravity pulling at the cold mountain water into her subterranean aquifer.  Life.  Abundant Life.  Waterdogs, Tadpoles, Mudpuppies, Crawdads.  These treasures awaited my Mother and her mean little brother, Johnny, somewhere down in Gobey, where Wiley Arms shed her cold water.

The rocks were slick and she slipped.  She fell hard, her head absorbing most all of the impact on the mountain stone.  It would cause her to vomit a few minutes later.  She pled for Johnny to help her, but he had zeroed in on the motherlode of aquatic life:  a rare blue crawdad.  "Johnny, help me up and back to the house.  I'm getting sick."

"Mary Sue, I swear I would but I'm about to catch me a big blue one."

That's all she remembered.  She was sick for days.  She never quite got over it by her own admission.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Alcoholics Anonymous Doctrine for Drunk Sheep

"It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us."  Bill W. from 12 Steps and 12 Traditions.

This statement has been read at one time or another at every AA meeting place I've attended since 1994.  When I see it coming I've learned to simply leave the room rather than attempt to argue the fact that this statement (doctrine from the guru of AA, Bill W. no less, designed to subordinate his followers) is pure nonsense, e.g.:  I find my house engulfed in flames, my family inside, I get "disturbed," to say the least.  I'm not supposed to though, lest I fall into the ominous pit with those who have "something wrong" with them. There may well be plenty of things wrong with me, but they are not revealed every time something disturbs me.  AA members forfeit the luxury of getting disturbed.  What bullshit.

Nelson Mandela - Attorney at Law


July 18, 1918 - December 5, 2013

Friday, November 22, 2013

The Truth Underlying the So-Called "Acceptance" Principle of AA/NA.


"We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it."
                                                            Bill W. (A.A.'s Third Promise)

This is a towering promise that is grounded in nothing but nonsensical cult indoctrination that borders on sociopathy.  The promise invites suffering alcoholics and addicts to a fairytale land that never materializes.  In fact, this particular "promise" would have them conveniently set aside the harm they visited upon people, animals, and the environment as if they never happened.  Or, conversely, if they acknowledge the existence of these past errors, they may be led to believe in the insanity that would tell them that they were led to commit these negative acts for some greater purpose.  Maybe God in his mysterious ways wanted the father to get drunk and back over his six year old daughter -- for the greater good.  Perhaps this sacrifice was the sea change that got the guy sober and thus allowed him to spread the gospel of AA to others.

I read about a survey where the participants were shown a picture of three horizontal lines.  One line encompassed the entire page.  Another fell just short of the first.  And yet another fell even shorter than the second.  In the experiment the participants were actually told to pick a line that was clearly not the longest.  Then, the second group of unknowing participants were first told of the en masse conclusion drawn from group one.  In a terrifying conclusion the study revealed that despite the obvious collective error committed by the first group, an alarming number of participants chose the shorter line.  (Remember please these people were told to pick the longest line."  Afterward their results were exposed and they participants questioned about the obvious errors; about the etiology of their retarded responses.

  The response was ubiquitous:  the fear of being different.
  

Friday, November 1, 2013

Daughter


"Collecting pictures from the flood that wrecked our home."
"It was a flood that wrecked this home."
"You caused it."

Monday, October 28, 2013

From Ulysses

"Our lust is brief.  We are means to those small creatures within us, and Nature has other ends than we."  James Joyce.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Rebecca Sedwick, age 12 -- Bullied to Death


I read accounts of bad news all the time, but I can't seem to shake this one.  You'd think that in a planned world children would not be among the most vile, hurtful segment of the population.  Rebecca solved her predicament by jumping to her death.  The bullying continued posthumously -- one of the bullies wrote this on her Facebook page:   “yes I bullied Rebecca and she killed herself, but I don’t give a fuck.”  There's a little secret that enlightened first-grade teachers keep to themselves:  some children are just no damned good.  I argue that these little monsters are even worse than that.  Just ask Becky's family.  Existentialism has a pretty face.  She wears no makeup.  She's confused.  She's terrified.  All the Gods and Goddesses wouldn't, didn't, couldn't intervene in this, the latest of innumerable human horrors.  I think that if someone were to reason that this was "God's will,"  I'd lose all control.  Insanity reigns hallowed within the cells of human ignorance.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Reading Ulysses

I've made it through the thick, sticky, near hardened yet still malleable foreskin of James Joyce's masterpiece, Ulysses.  I've pierced the intimidating veil, though it's more aptly described as a leathery drape.  I'm learning that I should first know how to read the book before I simply step off into the sea that surrounds the saga.  This is my second attempt.  Third maybe.  But, as I said, I've made it through the bootcamp at the beginning.  I'm duly initiated.  Anointed.  It's like Joyce wanted to separate the wheat from the chaff early on in order to posthumously and cleverly select his audience.  I know that I'm in way over my head, but I can hold my breath longer than most of my kind, and I'm not afraid to abort, rise to the top, and descend again into a dark blue I'd only heard about until now.

Midway through this rigorous, bizarre beginning I elected to research the novel independent of its pure text.  (I also realized early on that I wanted to, or rather need to obtain an annotated version of the work so that I would not miss any of Joyce's beyond-brilliant musings.  I hesitate to continue on with the un-annotated version I'm reading because I know that I probably won't go back to boot camp if I obtain the annotated copy.  I'll come out of it with a passing mark nonetheless, and a private's bar when I could emerge a second lieutenant).  When I reviewed summaries of the three chapters I'd read I realized that this trek I am beginning will have to be supported by extrinsic assistance if I'm to tease all the brilliance and comedic seasoning from Ulysses -- not unlike the Appalachian "through hiker" whose spouse opaquely meanders in the general direction of the Mr. or Ms. Hiker, meeting up at predetermined mountain townships and glacial gaps to reinvigorate his love with dark chocolate, fresh wear, and a rented showerstall.

I'm headed to Maine.

I've hit another almost unbearable series of pages.  Going to require assistance.  It's time to create an algorhythm that will map my progress in terms of miles, rugged miles, toward Kennekaw or Kennisaw or Mount Kennicutt (now I'm going to pause and find out), Mount Kathadin (I was close).

So there are 783 pages.  I read about every third page twice.  That's 261 additional pages.  Have to count them, too.  So the total punishing pagewidth is 1,044.  Now, the Appalachian Trail extends 2,180 miles.  Roughly twice the page count of Ulysses.  So, for every page I read, I've travelled two miles toward Mountain Katahdin.  Kathahdin mountain.  Now, I thus far read 92 pages.  Add a third back to it, you get about 120.  I'm out of Georgia.  Technically, if you go by actual pages read, I'm at Bly Gap.

I think that this plowing furlough has given me a brain tumor in my left eye.

At this juncture I've read 250 pages that detail nebulous characters walking aimlessly around nebulous early-twentieth century Dublin.  I hate this book.  I hate the man who wrote it.  But I hate with exponential force those who dubbed Ulysses the greatest work of fiction of the twentieth century.  I gave up last night, but I'm re-considering my decision now that my blood pressure has eased.  I DON'T GET IT !

I did learn a term that is new to even me, who has maybe the best grasp of profane vulgarity in Dublin and elsewhere.  "Bitch's Bastard."  He's a bitch's bastard.  Can't wait to use this when I'm talking behind the back of some bitch's bastard.

But the investment of time and sentience cannot justify the yield.  Not yet anyway.

I'm starting to hate James Joyce.  I'm starting to wish that Irish dogs would dig up his bones and scatter them around Dublin.

Alas I've reached a plateau, where the hike levels and the flowers bloom for all bitches bastards who pass.  Protagonist has ADHD.  Midway during a conversation he imagines a giant sitting on a boulder and then carefully inventories every square inch of his massive frame, straps and logos an all.  At once I understood.  Ulysses is meant to be read aloud!

Holy God from Holy Hell!  Midway in my trek I rounded the tailend of another of ten thousand switchbacks, rose up above the rocks to the mountains yet, and just before I began to cry because I had made a massive error in taking this adventure, I was visited by a fairy, and she was red hot, compliments of a man from another world, named James Joyce:

 "[O]ur lust is brief.  We are means to those small creatures within us and Nature has other ends than we."

Now that I have read these words I am eager to die so that they can be engraved on my stone just below my meaningless name.

Ulysses is not really a novel.  It's a poem.  It's the sign language that our silent consciousness uses to "communicate its rigor."  I'm learning sign language.  Ulysses is teaching me sign language.  And I read my lessons aloud now.  I am quite honestly in awe of this work of art.  You have to earn it, and I now see the reward.  My fairy awaits me behind the sandstone.  She is turned over and she is turned up for me.  Just for me.  It's all been worth it.  Thank you, Mr. Joyce.

September 14:  I thought I was finally levelling out.  In my mind's eye I saw miles of non-threatening plateau.  It was not to be.  I'm at the midway point.  Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania.  The topography is ostensibly non-threatening.  So what is it that is making it midway to Maine that is vexing me so?  I'm in trouble again.  I remember just a bit back when I was around 290 and the prose just seemed to leap off the page and right into my cerebral pleasure center.  That shit seems to be over, for now.  Must buckle down.  Must stay hydrated.

I'm in too deep.  But, I'm going to complete the mission if for no other reason than this:  I will not be haunted by the ghosts of Ulysses, who tease me for not completing the balance of the crooked line that meanders up the Appalachians to Mt. Katahan in Maine.

It's going to happen like it's already happened to Blazes Boylan and Mrs. Molly Bloom.  I can see the mountain from here.  I smell a faint waft of Lobster and Mayonnaise.

The final 100 or so miles (45 pages of Molly Bloom's musings) was rigorous.  I found that the best way for me to read the so-called stream-of-consciousness narrative was to read aloud, which I did.  It worked for me.  Molly's recollection of Bloom's proposal to her in Gibralter completed the work:  "I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

Having now plowed through Ulysses for the first time, I'm ready to read Ulysses.  Reading Ulysses is predicate to reading Ulysses.  So, having now read it, cover to cover, I can safely concede that I'll probably never get around to reading Ulysses.

Friday, June 14, 2013

In Memoriam: Ray McAlexander Peek, Attorney at Law

Ray McAlexander Peek, C.P.A., J.D.
Attorney at Law

Ray Peek and I entered law school at the same time.  The same time as Dan, Tara, and my library buddy, Ernie Baker, who once worked as an announcer in Memphis in the radio industry and who had a voice like god himself.  He died about the same time as Ray.  One could say that the forces of nature kept them alive just long enough to take and pass the Bar Examination and nurse their respective practices into operation.  I don't try to look for the justice anymore.  It's not there.  Instead, there's just what is and whatever result it brings.

There were many others who shared this grueling, depleting and exhausting scholastic experience with me.  Paul, for example, who was married to Wendy, Gary, who has done well since then.  There was Bobby and Jim and Denise, . . . et alii.

Ray worked for the United States Government.  He was incredibly smart, though his demeanor discounted it almost completely.  He was a rotund, cigar smoking sports-fan the likes of which you might catch on a crowded couch in a Sunday Budweiser commercial at halftime.  He was yet another avid U.T. fan; his alma mater.  He had a brother who died young.  I remember that.  Now I especially remember that in view of Ray's death, at 33, from the total destruction wrought upon his body by a combination of deadly diseases that were about to flourish unfettered because of Ray's infection with the AIDS virus.

Ray once told me that he had the key to completing law school at night without going mad:  "two beers."  The whole experience is now a blur to me.  I return to it mentally but cannot really grasp the difficulty in presented in attempting to earn a four-year law degree at night, work a full schedule during the day, and raise a family during the time left over.  This difficulty that would narrow the graduating members of my class to less than half of those entering as first year students.  I don't know the percentage of those who passed the bar exam.

I almost forgot -- one night after classes Ray and I raced each other down Third Avenue.  I was driving a Chevrolet Citation and he had some kind of weird-looking Nissan.  All in all Ray should have beat me handily.  However, I had an Ace up my sleeve, and that was this.  As we sped down third, side by side, I let him know quickly that I had some kind of weird determination that would make my victory inevitable, even if it meant brushing up against him to get ahead.  And that's exactly what I tried to do.  When he saw that he was going to either get hit or run into the side of an abandoned storefront, he caved.  I won.  I knew I'd win. Ray was from Nashville; lived there all his life.  I, on the other hand, was from East Tennessee, where we began negotiating sharp curves and thrill hills at twelve.  From that point on we realized that the name of our law firm should rightfully bear my name first.  But, "Whetstone & Peek," didn't hit the cadential mark, so we settled for, "Peek & Whetstone" for our Moot Court moniker.  So far as I know Ray never got his name billed any further than that, though he did work for a time for Finch & McBroom in Nashville.  Ray McAlexander Peek, Attorney at Law.  I've Googled this in all of its possible variations.  Nothing came up.  I guess that's getting ready to change now.  I trust that my lingering affection for this eccentric, larger-than-life man will justify his first entry into the broadband.  And I'll make this statement for you, ol' pal:  Ray was not gay, though no particular group is either more or less deserving of the horrors that await the activation of this biological terror.  However, Ray would have been among the first to stand up for their gay civil rights -- he was progressive and left-leaning, which I admired.  He apparently got infected with the HIV virus through a blood transfusion several years earlier.  I sincerely believe that the activation of "full-blown AIDS" probably began in his first year of practice.

In any event, in those days a Bar applicant first learned whether he passed or failed the Bar examination by effectively camping outside the L&C Tower in downtown Nashville in the early morning hours of the results' release.  We had both taken the exam in the summer of 1990, so, in the following October Ray and I awaited the posting of the names of those who had passed.  I had an almost sickening anxiety and from the looks of things, Ray was not far behind.  A woman finally appeared with a about four to six pieces of  standard paper, all conjoined with tape.  She then posted them and the search and scanning could got underway.  Students from my night school, Vanderbilt, U.T, and the University of Memphis Law School were present, biting nails, pacing, smoking cigarettes, holding Styrofoam cups of morning coffee.  It was the fall of 1990.  I was 29 years old.

When we saw our names printed on the face of the huge document, we embraced each other, exchanging bear hugs.  Ray's fat belly pushing up against me.  I wonder if the horror had hitched itself to Ray's biology by then. A fit comparison would be a liberalized Archie Bunker with AIDS.  That's pretty close.

Fast forward to my practice.  There was Lionel, Rich, John, Glen, Randy and Rick.  There was Brenda and Cheryl.  And there was Dan Garfinkle, the last unschooled attorney in Tennessee, who offered me the following advice for quoting a fee:  "Quote twice what you're worth and get half up front."  And then there would be Donald Givens and his victim,  Ron Wallace, Millard Curnutt and his victim, Hugh Huddleston, Donald Ray Middlebrooks and his victim, Kerrick Majors.  And Ricky Vaulton.  Many others.

After Ray and I went our respective ways and dove into the practice of law, we met up again in Judge Wyatt's criminal courtroom one morning.  Ray was awaiting his case to be called from the docket.  He looked different.  He looked scared.  Terrified.  Gaunt.    He had lost his confident and obnoxious gregarious countenance. He had started smoking cigarettes.  I found that odd even though I knew he liked cigars.  I never saw him alive after that.  In fact, I never saw him at all after that because his casket was closed.  The closest I ever got to him was when I, as pallbearer, helped carry his casket to his grave.  I remember that the casket was so utterly light.  A tiny band of vicious monsters had devoured my buddy's body and had left in their wake only remnants of what was once an intensely animated character, who wanted to become a lawyer. And did.  I remember that his father was given the option of viewing the body of his son before the morose, rolling trip to the cemetery began.  His dad, who had divorced his mother years earlier, had not seen his son during his last chapter of his life.  So, when he elected to view his body it was probably a mistake.  I remember he had to be helped back to his seat.  The pallor of his skin said it all.  He shouldn't have looked. It had indeed been a mistake.  Or not.  Maybe there was some kind of postponed psychological utility that helped his father cope during the time to come.  Who am I to say?  I, too, have been haunted by horrific images.  They're permanent.

I had learned that Ray was having health problems after I moved to Morristown in March of 1992.  In fact, I called him during one of his hospital stays.  His explanation of his condition does not register with me at all now.  The only thing of which I am absolutely certain is that he did not reveal the true etiology his disease to me.  I even sent him the latest edition of Playboy magazine during his stay.  That must have been anywhere between 1992 to 1993.  I know this because I first learned that he had AIDS in March of 1994 while I was engaged in a fierce battle with my own demons in a drug and alcohol rehab south of Knoxville.  For some reason I had called to check on him from a payphone in the hallway, (I must have known he was back in the hospital), and his mother levelled with me; "Paul, Ray has AIDS."  My heart galloped and my mouth went dry out of vicarious terror for my friend.  He would not win his battle.  I won mine.  But the two should not be compared as I have ostensibly done here.  In any event she advised that I should call back because his condition was dire.  She was sitting with him in the hospital room when I talked to her.  Ray was no longer capable of speaking.  Toward the end of the conversation she dropped the phone and screamed out his name.  He might have died at that moment for all I know because the next thing I remember is receiving a message from her notifying me that Ray had died and that she wanted me to come to Nashville to serve as a pallbearer.

At the funeral service I learned from Ray's best friend that he had begun losing his cognition in the year prior to his death.  At Ray's service he recounted his good times with Ray, and closed with this:
"Peace, Ray."

I concur absolutely.

"Peace, Ray McAlexander Peek, C.P.A., Attorney at Law, Great Friend."



Sunday, May 26, 2013

Alt J in Concert, Courtesy of KEXP Seattle


:43 Intro (?)
3:32 Ripe and Ruin
4:47 Tessellate
8:15 Something Good
12:10 Dissolve Me
16:30 Fitzpleasure
20:16 Matilda
25:32 Breezeblocks
29:30 Bloodflood
34:40 Hand-Made
37:27 Taro






Friday, May 10, 2013

The Cars - Since You're Gone (The Dark Anthem)




In the winter of 1994 I bought an older model stereo and turntable from my uncle, along with a rectangular box filled with first class Rock and Roll LP's, which were in great condition.  Later that Spring, in March to be precise, while in terrific, ceaseless emotional pain over the loss of my children to a malevolent divorce, I remember taking out the Car's Greatest Hits LP so I could play "Since You're Gone." It seemed to strike at a set of neurological chimes inside my head so precisely that I continued to play it over and over, replacing the stylus again and again and again over the tiny, blank, circumference that preceded the opening sequence.

"Since you're gone

[two three],

I've thrown it all away" . . . .

I remember sitting at my conference table, in the suit I'd worn to court the day before, held captive, trying to squeeze some kind of additional euphoria from the music so I would not interrupt my captivity.

The music ended later that morning as I panicked to hear the birds portending the impending sun, and the dreaded day that would follow.

At that moment I was confronted with Frost's metaphorical dilemma in The Road Not Taken,"

                                         "And I,
 I took the one less traveled by,
 and that has made all the difference."

Absolutely.


Gil Scott Heron - Message to the Messengers


Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Django Django - Hail Bop, Firewater, Love's Dart (Live KEXP)




Lose the box.  I wince during this otherwise beautiful musical experience as I endure the beating of a goddamn box adorned with electrical tape.  The idea's great after a bong hit in somebody's basement.  But not in this venue.  The box sounds like shit.  Lose it, boys.






Shins - So Says I, New Slang


Neil Young - Tell Me Why


In 1972 while I was enrolled in a fifth grade class at DuPont Elementary School, my girlfriend, Tina Kirksey, gave me this album for my birthday.  I've been soaking it up ever since.  And by my calculation that's over 40 years.  

I wish that I could have a cup of very black, very expensive coffee with Tina in some quiet hole-in-the-wall somewhere deep within the city so I could relate to her the impact this music had on the aesthetic health of my overall consciousness.  The recollections I have of her are even better.  And that's saying something.





Friday, May 3, 2013

Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt

Left a Slide 
Coal Miners

No Sense In Lovin'



Sandusky (Instrumental)


Fatal Wound

Fifteen Keys


Slate


Windfall (Live ACL)


Windfall and Windfall

Ten Second News

Chickamauga


Black Eye

Tear Stained Eye

I Wish My Baby Was Born

That Year


Caryatid


Ben Set Free

New Madrid