On my refrigerator, I have an old "Zippy the Pinhead" cartoon. Zippy and his friend Claude are discussing worry and love.
"When I'm in love, I worry I'll fall out of love. When I'm out of love I worry I'll never love again..." says Claude
"It's a vicious cycle of ecstasy and despair, huh, Claude?" observes Zippy. And with a wistful look, Claude replies, "Wouldn't want it any other way, pardner!"
So that's a bit of where I am now. No names (though those who know me can figure it out...), but since I've been back and since Cathy broke it off with me, I've been feeling smack in the middle of that vicious cycle. Several women on my mind...one lovely lady I met at Starwood last year who I'm hoping to see again; one friend I've been sweet on for as long as I've known her (eight years or so); ok, another friend I've been sweet on for even longer time and once had a tryst who has also been in my thoughts; there's a new lady who's a writer and a book lover; one ex-brief-girlfriend who called me today; one friend-and-one-night-lover who seemed interested when she heard I was unattached; one lovely lady I met in Japan who I just heard from; one cute new recent internet correspondent...what's that song? "Seven women on my mind, four that wanna own me, two that wanna stone me, one says she's a friend of mine...."
Anyway. Went to the reading at Minas today, a Gimme Shelter benefit for a well for a village in Africa, did some stuff at the open mic. The guy running it hadn't seen me read before, which points out how lax I've been the past few years about getting out into the scene. Anyway he was interested in booking me for a future reading, so I ought to get my ass out and read some more. A nice after-party, then dinner, hanging with Robin and Carla and Brian.
Also trying to get out and do some more music, played at the open mic at the Judge's Bench on Tuesday. Got a good response from the host at least, even if it was mostly empty by the time I played.
Now I'm having a beer at Fletcher's...been a while since I've been here at the downstairs bar. Came here back in the day sometimes to shoot pool,or to hang with the Zelda's crew after a workshop...now my #1 pool partner is married with a two year old daughter, so I don't get out to shoot so much.
(UFC action was on the TV, now they've changed the channel over to some bad cheesy pro wrestling. Remembering one night in Japan riding back from the black belt clinic in Nagoya....Japanese pro wrestling on the TV, just as cheesy as the U.S. version. Oh, and seeing an ad for the "Hairspray" musical playing over there - Baltimore, represent!)
Talking with Robin about Japan and shallowness of culture tonight, realizing how my time with Kuwa Senpai and his students had shown me the depths that can be there in Japanese culture, even as watching fashion victims on the train showed me the shallowness. But is it different than here, pop tarts versus indie music, Altscape versus Artscape, mass sitcoms versus art culture?
Anyway. It's a tricky thing, being a bit in love with a friend, balancing the (however remote) possibility of finding a lover to be that ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, with the possibility of losing a friend by acting like a jerk in the pursuit of same. But then, it's balanced by the knowledge of the potential, that one is not just trying to get a random lay but connect with a person you already know to be wonderful, wonderful, wonderful...
A viscous cycle of ecstasy and despair, indeed.
No good answers here, just more questions...it takes so long to learn to be a wise human, we're just getting started on the job when Death comes knocking. Not fair, but then how interesting are fair games? Much more interesting to face impossible odds and try to snatch love and wisdom from the jaws of death than to have an even chance, eh?
I think of a Dylan song when I think of her - "She's got everything she needs, she's an artist, she don't look back...she could take the dark out of the nighttime, and paint the daytime black..." I could only live with a girl of whom I could sing that, I think.
(Watching two girls at the end of the bar, been here all evening, at least since I got here... now two guys trying pickup - observing Homo sapiens barus in its mating rituals, how educational...)
politics
poetry
politics must serve poetry
the jobs of politics is to clear and hold space for the poet to lead people to truth
if the poet must be political, if the poet must be aware of politics, the system is already sick
if even the physician must be political
if even the chemist must be political
if even the musican must be political
if even the physicist must be political
then the system is already sick
when arts must serve politics
and not politics art
then the system is near death
So this guy sits down next to me. asks if I like to watch hockey, or football. When I say no, not so much, he asks where I'm from - not what city, but what country...France?
The girls at the end of the bar leave alone...I feel a certain schadenfreude, a justification that the doofuses didn't succeed...