Tag Archives: Love

Service

I spent my high school prom night working the night shift at the Village Inn, happier to be folding dollars into my pocket than shelling them out for carnations and wine coolers. I got traded to the other team, and worked at Howard Johnson’s for a brief stretch. I showed such promise in the service industry so I was recruited by Ginnie, a 72 year-old waitress who smoked Benson and Hedges Deluxe Ultra-Light Menthol 100’s, the cigarette with the longest name. Ginnie respected work above all, and as the story goes her dying words to the evening shift manager of a 24 hour chain pancake house were, “I’m sorry.” True to her values, not finishing her side-work was her final regret on this earth. She was good people, and if I could find her kin today, I would tell them that she was a ball-buster who treated this high school kid right and despite my frequent requests, she never let me bum a smoke.

I studiously avoid topical blogging, but service is on my mind today.

To be honest, I always meant to be a famous writer, which is a plan with some flaws. I know now that the goal is to be an honest writer, and through that to hope to be a good writer, but back then I just wanted to be paid for my words. I wrote a lot about people who helped people. Being close to those kind of folks and telling their stories seemed like a good way to go. As I suffered through early rejections and numerous unpaid publications I questioned my motives. I decided that helping people was a safer bet. If it turned out to not be my calling, I thought, I could rest easy that it was still time well-spent.

Service and charity are not altruistic, far from it. Giving someone a leg up, or standing next to those who need support is both priceless and intoxicating. Those who choose to help others are not self-sacrificing, they are self-fulfilling. They chase a good buzz.

A little secret for you- dealing with volunteers is a pain in the ass. If you volunteer one hour of your time, it probably costs some full-timer two hours to prepare for you to be there, get your feel-good, stroke you up, and send you on your way. Don’t stop doing it, just understand it is for you more than for anyone else. Each time you do it, you require a little less handling, and eventually you might break even on the day.

There is still time for me to be a real writer. It might be too late for you to become a trapeze artist, but the circus still comes to town.

Juancho

Familiar

My paternal grandfather, Ollie, whom I called Papa, lived in a little enclave of a trailer park for all the years I remember. It was a community on a little lake, with a pavilion where people gathered to fry bluegill, crappies, and bass the residents caught as they enjoyed their retirement. Papa was an anchor in that park for a lot of people, so I remember him driving friends to the doctor, fixing lawn mowers, and generally holding court on his front porch where he sat on a slider, legs crossed and usually smiling. I remember him as a happy guy, clever with his words and hands.

His part-time job in that park was taming squirrels, who would one by one learn to trust him and take peanuts from his fingers. When he sat out on the patio, the squirrels would gather about the edges behind ficus trees and hanging ferns, twitching their tails and sniffing in anticipation. The park, the squirrels, My papa, and his frost-blue Buick all lived under a dome of oaks and tall pines.

I think this is one of the reasons I love Munson Hills so much. It smells like I remember Charlie Oaks Trailer Court smelling. The squirrels that live out there are mythic in size, equal parts bold and elusive. Big bull grey fox squirrels– as big as cats- rule alongside the Pileated Woodpeckers who coast between the trees. Last Sunday I got to ride out there with a long-time friend who moved on from Leon County to greater things. His name is Mel, but that is not his real name of course. There are no bike trails in Singapore, where he lives today, and yet he rode like it was 1991 when he was known for pedaling hours beyond the rest of us, and into neighborhoods and land we never saw.

The Big Greys were either out in force, or one was following me, as I sighted at least five in our 8 mile cruise. I stopped at one point, dumbfounded at the nonchalance of one particular squirrel stallion, shimmering black stripe down his back, with grey wispy sideburns. He rooted and picked over acorns not 20 feet away. I whistled a long, low note and he spun to face me. “Hey old squirrel!” I said, and my words echoed back off the packed needle floor. He wandered a little further off as Mel approached to find me standing in the trail, resting on the bars. “Are we almost done?” he asked, ready to put this ceremonial roll in the books.

“Yeah, just one last little hill that goes a bit further than expected, and we’re out of here. “No reason to hold back, so just charge it and get yourself good and winded.”

I wanted a picture of that squirrel so bad, but he wouldn’t stand still and I’m no photographer. More often than not, as I’m slowly learning to get used to it, you just have to appreciate that you were there for the moment at all.

Juancho

Baaaaa!

This story finds the writer walking up and down the block with a zip-loc sandwich bag full of water. In the other hand is a leash. At the end of this leash is a diminutive dog, an apricot poodle-cocker-spaniel mixed breed, commonly known as a poodie-cock.

The writer is menacing the poodie-cock with the zip-locked baggie of water, this water-bomb. The writer has no opportunity to explain this to approaching walkers, who are pressed into service as necessary distractions. The walkers approach. The poodie-cock coils to unleash a withering bark, but a-ha! Pre-empted by the writer with a swift trebucheting of the shoulder the baggie explodes on the pavement next to the dog and the writer utters his disapproval with a gravelly, ominous baaaaaaaaa!

Just days prior to this moment the writer was pedaling a bicycle furiously across lands known and unknown, absolutely crushing the pedals towards the earth when this same baaaaaaaaaaa! escaped his lungs in a wheezing deflation like a piano falling to the earth, or a water buffalo felled by a bullet. Then all went quiet. The writer gazed up into trees, now in light fall colors, beset by a sprinkling of stars or flashes of light sprinkle-sparkling around his vision as though he were wearing goggles and swimming in a bio-luminescent tide. Toes move, then ankles, knees, hips- Oooo the hip! Then tender ribs accordion a breath and bloody elbows prop the writer prone, a thread of drool descends to the cinnamon dust and lifts again as the wheezing writer regains his senses.

The world is so quiet and calm after a crash, like a period on the end of a rambling run-on sentence that just doesn’t know when to quit, constantly striving to include one more appositive phrase, which is a description of something already named when you get right down to it, but before the writer attempts to stand he thinks about that apricot dog, and the baggies of water, and of winning the battle for control of the pack.

He brushes himself off, mounts the bicycle again (he is still so far from home) and considers the possibility of writing of himself in the third person, knowing that it is an eye-rollingly dull gambit, but useful and fun all the same.

Juancho

Special-versary

One year ago today, the Angry Monk retired. No more barbed wire for breakfast and turpentine for lunch. Hate is a powerful motivator, and I thank Hate for all it did for me, but Love is better. Now I am one happy kitty. Meow!

Juancho

Write one for us

I spent a month on this guy’s couch in 1996. Seven of us returned from all corners of the earth- Oregon, Ft. Myers, Sarajevo, D.C.- to organize an event in Tallahassee to help the Bosnian people who were being shot in the streets and starved to death.

It was a heavy time, and we were by and large a bunch of young unemployed dipshits. While we sat around this guy’s living room drinking Scotch and making international phone calls, he went to work every day to make signs. Big signs, little signs, vinyl signs, metal signs, it didn’t matter as long as he made people’s signs NOW!

He came home every day to a changing scene. One of us adopted a puppy that ate the couch and crapped indiscriminately, thanks Tim! Another day a busload of Rainbow Gatherers appeared and laid siege to the house for a week in a passive-aggressive occupation. We skirmished with the hippies all day, fighting for control of Chuck’s thermostat and remote while he made the signs, paid the bills, and came home to play guitar in his room and sob quietly in his sleep.

You know how that story ends. With a little help from Bill Clinton and Richard Holbrooke we saved Bosnia, went broke, and left Chuck to clean up the garbage bags of moldy bagels, the dirty ashtrays, the empty bottles, and the dogshit.

There are no friends like old friends, right?

Now Chuck is a full time artist and a musician who makes signs for no man, woman, or child NOW or any other time. Signs can kiss his ass. He does it all, living the dream by playing in three bands, making art, and supporting the work of his immensely talented fiance, Kelly Boehmer.

Together they are anchor members of the art and music ensemble The Glitter Chariot. The GC is a family, and when love found me last year, the GC were quick to adopt her and draft her into service as a hair and makeup artist. We love the Glitter Chariot and everything they stand for, and the shiny, tiny horse they rode in on.

This new song was written and recorded here in Tallahassee at Harmonic Cycle Studio, by my friend and first bike mechanic at Joe’s Bike Shop. The yellow guy (sad Bert) in the video is Ryan Berg, Glitter Chariot co-founder and pioneer. He drives the GC vision like a stolen Prius and he loves the wings at Hooter’s.

There a lot of links in this post, and there truly should be more, but the talent runs too deep in this group to list everyone here. There are many links because we are all connected.

All I’m trying to say is that I am so proud of my friends, especially Chuck, who knows hard times and heartbreak, and wasn’t afraid to share it in this sad and gorgeous song. He got the girl too, and now he has this.

Take a moment to unpack your baggage and listen by clicking here.

Juancho

Zugzwanged

I was recently challenged to a game of chess by a friend, Mel (not his real name) who resides in Singapore. I delightfully accepted. This led to an invitation from another old friend who hails from Hoboken, NJ. We don’t see much of each other anymore so I thought a vigorous battle of wits would be a good way to keep in touch and enjoy a bit of the old camaraderie we enjoyed as planetary vagabonds during the nineties. I dispatched Singapore Mel in the first match after a hard-fought pawn battle for the west flank. Our rematch is underway and he recently described the board as “an anthill that someone has kicked over” and this before a single shot was fired.

The second match, against Hoboken, became an epic struggle. Like an alligator eating a snake which is in turn eating it, we grappled. Oh the bloodletting! The traps and hard bargains! The mental chessery of it all! 72 moves later, his king quietly succumbed to my persistent army and I walked away delirious with victory. In preparation for the rematch I studied legendary games such as the Opera House Massacre and the Immortal Queen. I devised a strategy comprised of ideas I could not understand and tactics with which I was aggressively unfamiliar. I crowed to my beloved incessantly. The fool! He has no idea what awaits him! When he falls for my knight’s sacrifice it will be brilliant! Oh, if only I could see the look on his face when he realizes the fix is in, that all hope is lost!

42 moves later I am wondering what went wrong.

The number one rule of chess is never forget that your opponent is trying to win.

That goes for a lot of things.

Juancho

On losing someone close-

I ask the world to break my heart and leave her heart alone.
The world says I can’t do that and it cuts me to the bone.

I’d rather cry a thousand tears then see her cry just one-
but grief’s a selfish gift and so her tears are not my own.

If I could beat it senseless grief would fall into the dirt,
but grief’s the one who does the beating, the one who leaves us hurt.

I’ve said that grief’s a gift, and an honor to the past-
We do not miss the ones not loved, forgetting them so fast-

but those are empty words I throw into the great unknown,
I ask the world to break my heart and leave her heart alone.

Juancho

A Closer Walk

Where better to hide than the great City of Loss? The no place matters but this place and no time exists but now brittle facade of the French Quarter? They sell masks right on the street to hide your crying eyes and give you saucers of sugar to dip your fingers.

Where else but a town that lives ever on the cusp of oblivion to pray for someone who stares off that balcony last night, today, tomorrow? Might as well drink, be merry, and join the second line. We all will get our chance to lead the parade.

And not enough beads in the world to change that. Laissez les bons temps rouler.

Juancho

Repetition

I came across the term “Character Pathology” at work yesterday, and I stumbled over it. I couldn’t quite get a handle on the concept. It has something to do with a psychological disorder related to multiple personalities, or so I deduced.

I called for back-up and reached out to a bona-fide professional and he explained it to me this way.

“The brain does well what the brain does often.”

As in, if you are attacked by murders of crows every day of your life your brain is excellent at swishing your arms around your head and screaming. This is not a problem and a perfectly healthy way to respond to bird attacks, and not just crows. It becomes a problem when the crows go away and get replaced by other things, like having to be at work on time, or improving your lap time at Munson Hills, or responding to stressful situations. Your many years of arm-flapping screaming become hard to undo.

I am talking about habits I think.

We all know it is hard to get up and exercise, it is hard to learn new things, it is hard to quit smoking, it is hard to change your life in any measurable way because we are all suffering by degrees a level of character pathology, or more simply, inability to adapt or initiate new behaviors.

Stuck in a rut. Give someone a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Like this…

“Would you like a glass of water?”

Response: (Waves arms about head and screams a lot.)

“Does that mean no?”

“I’m sorry, I spent a significant portion of my life being attacked by crows, I would love a glass of water.”

If any real psychotherapist would care to weigh in and save me now would be a good time, but what I am really getting at is that in order to change something significantly, like a lap time at Munson, you have to lean in towards the adversity and change the way you think, which changes the way you act.

You can’t just buy a new bike.

Juancho

Babalu

Click this before reading

There is so much history in this picture, telling a story of music and friendship that reaches back over 50 years to the island of Puerto Rico and extending all the way to right to this very minute. We immersed ourselves in music Saturday night, taking in so much I could gargle and spray it into the night air like champagne. Golden notes spill out of my pockets and my footprints track a glissando path to the cheap burnt coffee in the office break room. No es cafe con leche este morning, but tendria hacer que no?

We woke to the first real change in the weather yesterday morning, and I am making a motion that anecdotal time begins on the first touch of fall air in Tallahassee. It is now 2013. Bienvenidos!

Time to make resolutions, and mine is to be in the right places at the right times, and I am not talking about work.

Toma! Baile! Viva!

Juancho