Why can't every day be Friday the 13th?
Why can't every day be friday the 13th? Because then I'd be in charge and none of us want that...really :)
I'm a triskaidekaphilliac....I love the number 13. I turned 13 on Friday the 13th and my best birthdays have been the ones that fell on Friday. I always wore 13 whenever I could on jerseys, I sit behind lane 13 at the Bowling alley whenever possible, I use washer and dryer 13 in laundromats when available, etc. Today snuck up on me though. I'm not nearly as aware of the day of the month(or anything calendar or time related) as I was when I lived in the mainstream. Someone pointed out in a thread in the internet community I call home(www.tehsoapbox.net), that it was friday the thirteenth shortly after midnight or I wouldn't have known at all. I've been in a bit of a pissy mood. I'm having trouble kicking the serious writing back into gear,and that plus this horrendously grey, wet stretch Seattle has been in for 26 days has just.....meh. It has sucked eggs faster than Cool Hand Luke. As Bobby says...
Buckets of rain
Buckets of tears
Got all them buckets comin' out of my ears
I was supposed to meet up with Michael, the guy who is helping me put together a film about my life as an urban vagabond at 1:30 am. When 1:45 rolled around and he hadn't arrived I made a comment to millapants that it didn't look like he was gonna show up. She had scarcely finished giving me the razz over the fact that he was only fifteen minutes late when he plopped down next to me. Michael's a great guy, we've become good friends as much as co-producers, but he has no respect for my pissy moods, undoubtedely one of the reasons we've become friends :) He just makes sure there's nothing wrong besides me being a sullen, tempermental poet, then moves on. He pulled out his digital cam, loaded in a fresh tape and pointed at me. He actually made a joke about me saying hi to my best friend Mr. Cam that loosened me up a bit and off we went. We shot ninety minutes of footage...as always it consisted of me talking about a myriad of subjects and him asking a question here and there. Some inside the bowling alley some outside. Good stuff I think. It was good for me to be a but less electric verbally than usual, as well as....um....well hell...I was pretty damn scruffy. I hadn't shaved in a couple weeks, and I was wearng a baseball cap and black framed reading glasses, with my dark blue hoody. I mentioned that I had taken the Seattle public access cable orientation and that the guy who did the orientation was one of the most offensive people i had come in contact with in a long time, and that I had actually written a poem about the experience. He asked if he could read it. Michael writes about music in newspapers across the country and makes a living from it. Despite the fact that he has been very supportive of my work, I took a deep breath before I said yes. Milla and I had both felt like it was a poem that would work best if I read it aloud. It has a very personal cadence and switches rhyme formats quite a bit. I was relieved when Michael's head started going up and down like it does when he likes something. There's a line in the poem that goes
"Endlessly trying to swim upstream,
in thick purple migraine mud
from a troubled child's dream."
I think it's the best line I've written in a while, so when he got to it and started pounding his index finger on the table as he read it again and then again I felt my night start to brighten.When he looked over at me with the look that the times I've seen it always reminds me of Willow looking at Mad Mardigan after he sees Mardigan in a sword fight for the first time and said, "This is the best line of poetry I've seen in a long time", well....heh...it was friday the 13th.
I went to the camper after Michael took off about 4a.m. and slept till the sun came up...er, I think it came up though once again Seattle never saw it all day. I cleaned the camper for the frst time in the 3 weeks I've owned it and then went back to sleep for awhile. Got up about 2 pm and walked two miles from where the camper is to the downtown library. Hung out for a bit then decided to partake in a free dinner that happens every friday night in the University district. The dinner is served in an auditorium style room in a church and there is usually somebody on the small stage, playing guitar or piano and singing during dinner. Whenever I've been there it was one of a few guys who were more passionate(or lit) that professional and I seldom really listen to it. But tonight it was a younger guy I'd never heard before. I was quite a ways back form the stage and while the young man seemed to be projecting pretty well...the chatter of the crowd of drunks, psychotics, and assorted street people like myself was keeping me from hearing what he was playing. As I always do at some point I wondered if he played any Dylan. And since it's friday the 13th, as I completed the thought I distinctly heard the words, "I aint a sayin ya treated me unkind...you coulda done better but, I don't mind". OHMYGOD....he's playing Dylan! My ears perked up as he went from "Don't Think Twice, it's Allright", to "Girl of the North Country." It was then that I noticed he was not just playing acousitic guitar and singing..both beautifully...but he was wearing one of those harmonica thingies around his neck and blowing a pretty decent harp as well. I scarfed down the rest of my food and took my tray up front. Then I sat down on the edge of a table as close to the stage as possible and listened as the young man went through a litany of Bobby's stuff...songs I knew and some I didn't. He sang like Booby in parts and switched it up in others. It was NOT a Bob Dylan impersonation. But I could tell he was singing these songs because he loved the songs and the guy who wrote them. He did a version of Mr.Tambourine Man that threw me at first because he did all the verses and the choruses, but he did them all in half. Like this....
"Though I know that evenings empire has returned into sand
vanished from my hand
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping"
"hey Mr. Tambourine Man play a song for me
in the jingle jangle morning, I'll come folowing you"
But when he was done with the song, I had to admit it worked. Worked very well in fact.
At some point I noticed a guy probably about my age who would walk up to the edge of the stage and talk to the singer between songs and figured it must be his dad. I knew I had to find out who this young man was and where I could hear him play again, so I wrote the location of this journal and my email address on a piece of paper. When his set was through he came off stage and walked past me. All I said was, "really nice stuff man". He smiled and thanked me and walked on by. Then I went to his father and introduced myself and asked if it would be possible for his son to appear on the cable access show I'm putting together that were going to tape at a local record store. The man smiled broadly and said..."I think he might like to do that...why don't you ask him", he turned to his son who had just come up behind us...."Dylan, this is LaptopBob". We shook hands as my jaw dropped...."Your name is Dylan?". "Yessir", he grinned. I mumbled something along the lines of "too foogin cool", and asked if he'd appear on my show, explaining that it was a one time thing on public access for now. "Heck yes", was his reply. I gave them my web info, and we talked a little more. I encouraged him to come play at the open mic at The Chai House on Thursdays, and he was enthused about that as well. We said our good-byes and as I walked off down the back alley in the darkness of the gloomy Seattle night, 4 words ran through my head, the last one drawn out as my eyes looked up into the heavens beyond the rain that pelted my face and mixed with 2 tears, one of sadness for having lostTodd, one of joy for having met Dylan....How does it feeeeeeeel?
Damn good.
Happy Friday the 13th.
I'm a triskaidekaphilliac....I love the number 13. I turned 13 on Friday the 13th and my best birthdays have been the ones that fell on Friday. I always wore 13 whenever I could on jerseys, I sit behind lane 13 at the Bowling alley whenever possible, I use washer and dryer 13 in laundromats when available, etc. Today snuck up on me though. I'm not nearly as aware of the day of the month(or anything calendar or time related) as I was when I lived in the mainstream. Someone pointed out in a thread in the internet community I call home(www.tehsoapbox.net), that it was friday the thirteenth shortly after midnight or I wouldn't have known at all. I've been in a bit of a pissy mood. I'm having trouble kicking the serious writing back into gear,and that plus this horrendously grey, wet stretch Seattle has been in for 26 days has just.....meh. It has sucked eggs faster than Cool Hand Luke. As Bobby says...
Buckets of rain
Buckets of tears
Got all them buckets comin' out of my ears
I was supposed to meet up with Michael, the guy who is helping me put together a film about my life as an urban vagabond at 1:30 am. When 1:45 rolled around and he hadn't arrived I made a comment to millapants that it didn't look like he was gonna show up. She had scarcely finished giving me the razz over the fact that he was only fifteen minutes late when he plopped down next to me. Michael's a great guy, we've become good friends as much as co-producers, but he has no respect for my pissy moods, undoubtedely one of the reasons we've become friends :) He just makes sure there's nothing wrong besides me being a sullen, tempermental poet, then moves on. He pulled out his digital cam, loaded in a fresh tape and pointed at me. He actually made a joke about me saying hi to my best friend Mr. Cam that loosened me up a bit and off we went. We shot ninety minutes of footage...as always it consisted of me talking about a myriad of subjects and him asking a question here and there. Some inside the bowling alley some outside. Good stuff I think. It was good for me to be a but less electric verbally than usual, as well as....um....well hell...I was pretty damn scruffy. I hadn't shaved in a couple weeks, and I was wearng a baseball cap and black framed reading glasses, with my dark blue hoody. I mentioned that I had taken the Seattle public access cable orientation and that the guy who did the orientation was one of the most offensive people i had come in contact with in a long time, and that I had actually written a poem about the experience. He asked if he could read it. Michael writes about music in newspapers across the country and makes a living from it. Despite the fact that he has been very supportive of my work, I took a deep breath before I said yes. Milla and I had both felt like it was a poem that would work best if I read it aloud. It has a very personal cadence and switches rhyme formats quite a bit. I was relieved when Michael's head started going up and down like it does when he likes something. There's a line in the poem that goes
"Endlessly trying to swim upstream,
in thick purple migraine mud
from a troubled child's dream."
I think it's the best line I've written in a while, so when he got to it and started pounding his index finger on the table as he read it again and then again I felt my night start to brighten.When he looked over at me with the look that the times I've seen it always reminds me of Willow looking at Mad Mardigan after he sees Mardigan in a sword fight for the first time and said, "This is the best line of poetry I've seen in a long time", well....heh...it was friday the 13th.
I went to the camper after Michael took off about 4a.m. and slept till the sun came up...er, I think it came up though once again Seattle never saw it all day. I cleaned the camper for the frst time in the 3 weeks I've owned it and then went back to sleep for awhile. Got up about 2 pm and walked two miles from where the camper is to the downtown library. Hung out for a bit then decided to partake in a free dinner that happens every friday night in the University district. The dinner is served in an auditorium style room in a church and there is usually somebody on the small stage, playing guitar or piano and singing during dinner. Whenever I've been there it was one of a few guys who were more passionate(or lit) that professional and I seldom really listen to it. But tonight it was a younger guy I'd never heard before. I was quite a ways back form the stage and while the young man seemed to be projecting pretty well...the chatter of the crowd of drunks, psychotics, and assorted street people like myself was keeping me from hearing what he was playing. As I always do at some point I wondered if he played any Dylan. And since it's friday the 13th, as I completed the thought I distinctly heard the words, "I aint a sayin ya treated me unkind...you coulda done better but, I don't mind". OHMYGOD....he's playing Dylan! My ears perked up as he went from "Don't Think Twice, it's Allright", to "Girl of the North Country." It was then that I noticed he was not just playing acousitic guitar and singing..both beautifully...but he was wearing one of those harmonica thingies around his neck and blowing a pretty decent harp as well. I scarfed down the rest of my food and took my tray up front. Then I sat down on the edge of a table as close to the stage as possible and listened as the young man went through a litany of Bobby's stuff...songs I knew and some I didn't. He sang like Booby in parts and switched it up in others. It was NOT a Bob Dylan impersonation. But I could tell he was singing these songs because he loved the songs and the guy who wrote them. He did a version of Mr.Tambourine Man that threw me at first because he did all the verses and the choruses, but he did them all in half. Like this....
"Though I know that evenings empire has returned into sand
vanished from my hand
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping"
"hey Mr. Tambourine Man play a song for me
in the jingle jangle morning, I'll come folowing you"
But when he was done with the song, I had to admit it worked. Worked very well in fact.
At some point I noticed a guy probably about my age who would walk up to the edge of the stage and talk to the singer between songs and figured it must be his dad. I knew I had to find out who this young man was and where I could hear him play again, so I wrote the location of this journal and my email address on a piece of paper. When his set was through he came off stage and walked past me. All I said was, "really nice stuff man". He smiled and thanked me and walked on by. Then I went to his father and introduced myself and asked if it would be possible for his son to appear on the cable access show I'm putting together that were going to tape at a local record store. The man smiled broadly and said..."I think he might like to do that...why don't you ask him", he turned to his son who had just come up behind us...."Dylan, this is LaptopBob". We shook hands as my jaw dropped...."Your name is Dylan?". "Yessir", he grinned. I mumbled something along the lines of "too foogin cool", and asked if he'd appear on my show, explaining that it was a one time thing on public access for now. "Heck yes", was his reply. I gave them my web info, and we talked a little more. I encouraged him to come play at the open mic at The Chai House on Thursdays, and he was enthused about that as well. We said our good-byes and as I walked off down the back alley in the darkness of the gloomy Seattle night, 4 words ran through my head, the last one drawn out as my eyes looked up into the heavens beyond the rain that pelted my face and mixed with 2 tears, one of sadness for having lostTodd, one of joy for having met Dylan....How does it feeeeeeeel?
Damn good.
Happy Friday the 13th.