A Tribute, Of Sorts
The City Girl
I've been finoodling (what a great possibly non-existant word) with this story for a while now, and I think I've finally got it just how I want it. Either that, or I'm just real fuckin tired of reading it over and over again. I want to record it, I mean, me reading it out loud to some Massive Attack songs, because it just seems right that while you read the story, there should be a good, cool song in the background. Definitely adds to it.
I spent an eternity finoodling (there's that word again!) with my computer last night trying to use the sound recorder. Then (lightbulb...dim, but there all the same) it occured to me that I just might need a microphone.
So, updates as they happen on that little project. Hope you enjoy this, those of you who read. Did I mention I totally love those of you who read?
cause I do.
The city's skipping outside my window, like all those dirty CDs kicked under my bed. I'm flicking my cigarette out there, because Philadelphia already looks ashy today anyhow.
I push back against the seat, pushing out grumpy, creaking protests. I lean back as far as the busted thing will go, which, by the way, isn't far. It's not my car, but I've got shotgun forever in here. Not a pretty privilege or an especially special right, but sometimes it's good enough to know a place is saved for you somewhere. Because I really know it's big world outside of this little car. The thing reeks of cigarettes, and he doesn't smoke...I feel like I left a part of me in here with him.
He's driving, yah, but only so he gets unchallenged control of his shit radio. The speakers strain out some smooth processed beat that keeps touching my skin. Yah, another song I don't know the words to. The music does the talking for us, and I'm fine to just chill.
Up there, on top of the city, good old Mr. Benjamin Franklin watches us roll by. For decades, the city's rambled on all it's noise at Mr. Ben, that good and patient old man. He's sweet enough to pretend to listen, when there are other things on this man's mind...Ben and the city age together, and that's how they pass the years.
My eyes trace the outlines of cracks and tags all over Philadelphia. They're this city's wrinkles, proof of time whizzing past without a second look at the damage. Inconsiderate and uncaring prick, that fucking time. Primitive modern art spray painted on abandoned walls blend into the everything else of every day. And really, no one gives a shit. The winding splits in the cement where people tramped all over; they talk about being late for appointments or missing the bus, but mostly, about being lost.
I feel old with the city. I'm just about ready to lay down with this city. I feel like an artifact to everyone after me, like a warning: This isn't quiet where I'm supposed to be.
He stops to buy a bottle of water. "Ice-cold," the ratty man working the median is telling us. The driver asks me if I want something. "What can I buy for sixteen cents?" He doesn't offer a damn thing, yah,and I didn't bother to hope he would. Fine. I stare at the little bit of change pooled in the center of my hand, reflecting back the metal taste in my mouth. Fuck. I'd be rich...if I was employed. Him, though, he's already running late for the job he never really wanted. Soon, he'll break out that cell phone and call in and fuck off. Yet another damn call out. Doesn't he know that folks are starving for what he's got?
I hand over the sixteen cents to the tired water man. Something about a lack of charity makes me want to give up everything I got. We just go on driving.
His cell phone's in his hand, calling in to call out. Vibrations gently shake the window that I'm leaning into, so I roll it down and my eyes gaze on forward to the buzzing thump starting far down this street. He's got to know that over the phone they'll hear the pounding rhythms that are still blocks away. But he lies over all of it, not even really trying. From far off still, the music stomps and shouts out towards us through the entire call. It's sad when they don't even try to make you believe their bullshit anymore. I don't say anything, no, I'm giving my voice up to the city, and whatever festival is going keeps on belting out a blurred message through some massive bass. He hangs up, smirking; the evil genius. Just like that, him and me are free in Philadelphia.
Swarms of bodies crawl through the traffic, fixed and intent on a some pilgrimage through Philadelphian streets. Missionaries hawk shirts with faces--Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Malcolm X, Tuskegee Airmen--as offers to the gods of equality, peace, and a fucking profit. With thousands of purposeful people piled vertically down the walks, I'd think it would be hard to feel so damn alone. It's just a car door between us. Really, not a thing. I glance over at his oblivious self, and he's all sucked into the rhythms inside our own little mobile world. I know where ever we go, I'm in the same damn place.
All the same, I can't help but crack a grin when skinny drunk-ass college kids stumble past, draped all on each other in a intoxicated shot at stability. The bodies of little children bobble steadily on the shoulders of their strong fathers, and I think that maybe a good pair of shoulders can make the world better. A good-looking dude is trailing pathetically after his girl, looking pleading and apologetic. From in here, I'm feeling envious of their muted fight--better than just being on mute. Youth and passion flow free in this place, running all through every street and alley and heart. Anger and love and stupidity all make a mad momentum that shoves people along through their lives when they'd rather just fucking stop. Philadelphia can be that slap in the face you didn't see coming, or an unanticipated fuck in the side closet, or shouting to be quiet when you're drunk at 3:37 A.M. Deep down inside, I'm screaming in full sympathy with the insanity of the city. On my quiet ole outside, though, I just watch and I just feel the ripples and reverbs of sound and life radiating from the celebration all coming through this dirty window.
He takes a turn away from the crazed, happy crowds, and I'm craning my neck all around to see all the architecture of my city. I'm eyeing up those artful columns and elderly arches that gracefully compose the quiet, old elegance of the place. The works of art sprinkled on the city gleam, and I think ancient ornaments, rusting but impressive, pinned the blouses on young, proud ladies. The trees are rare, but beautiful in their rarity. The trees don't really belong here, and they don't really care. Like lost women in staggering high heels, striding confidently along and refusing directions. Philadelphia's like those silent film starlettes who never made it to talkies, but they maintain their beauty and sophistication forever in black and white photos. The glory has faded, but it's still everywhere. So much classier than the chain-smoking, nail-biting, make-up smeared girl listening to the streets on a dirty radio could ever be.
It's all entirely separate from the murals that we flow past--pretty pictures plastered up over rotting hope, like the make up I apply every morning, careful and careless at once. The junk I smear on that he never comments on, yah, and maybe it never really covers anything. The vibrant colors of the murals cry out something, a desperation for equality, or just balance, a strive for strength and a love of community. There's that, sure enough, but I feel something else in the street art. Red blood lipstick. Black fishnets on peach skin. Purple velvet and amber overflowing champagne and white stains. Each stroke squirms on the cement for attention, like a tattooed teen expressing herself. She and I and Philly feel that gurgling growl in our hearts and we all ask in the brightest, sexiest, dirtiest ways we know how to be completely filled up. Love, we beg, or the next best thing ya got. Fill us up.
Only when he hands me another tape to pop in do I realize the only sound is how loud we aren't speaking. My mind sizzles and simmers in the summer afternoon. I grudgingly shove the sounds in the little radio, putting in his real passion. I look back to the mesmerizingly lonely murals that say more to me than the driver. It's alright to be alone, I think, because I'm having an affair with my city.
Maybe because he was busy selecting the next cassette and wasn't paying attention, we seem even more turned around. This section of Philly looks familiar, yah, but isn't somewhere I'd voluntarily travel. Tired houses hunch and lean on each other in sympathetic dilapidation. Sick doors puke out jumbled porches and dry yards, and everything is gray and ashy. I suck the smoke deep in, burning away my insides. The dirty toys of neighborhood kids are paralyzed and catatonic, kicked over in front of houses. It's hard not to imagine smudge-faced children here the same way, all frozen up in the summer sun. I can see their large vacant eyes seeing a world that's empty for them. The corporate streets piled high with lucrative chains don't touch this filthy place, afraid or disgusted or both. We pass a tiny florist stand, and for a second, the smell of lilies and roses overtakes the smell of decay and cigarettes.
He turns a corner and narrowly avoids an urban wanderer, all decked out in the customary costume of tatters. I almost eek out a sound of warning, but he sees the man and doesn't need me to alert him. The man barely notices and doesn't even consider a shift in path. Where are you headed, I wonder. Are you determined to be good and lost, like us? I lean my head against the warm window and watch the sun sink into Philadelphia, brimming into her cracks, the places between the bustling buildings filled with pointless offices and the packed schools with students studying the science of surviving life and the museums with questions and the make-believe answers of art and the places of silence where this man carries on his useless journey. Tell me your story, man, and I'll tell you mine. I'll tell you about how old I've grown in my young age, and how irreverent my maturity is. I'll tell you about how ugly my pretty parts are, and what a beautiful disgusting mess I am. I'll talk about how my poverty is a condition of wealth, and how I can afford anything with no money. I'll tell you how we're everything and nothing, this city and me. She's where I belong, inside myself--almost alone.
"Well," he sighs. He twists up around to orient himself. "We're completely fucking lost."
I look right at my driver, and for a second I smile. "I know."
the end!
I've been finoodling (what a great possibly non-existant word) with this story for a while now, and I think I've finally got it just how I want it. Either that, or I'm just real fuckin tired of reading it over and over again. I want to record it, I mean, me reading it out loud to some Massive Attack songs, because it just seems right that while you read the story, there should be a good, cool song in the background. Definitely adds to it.
I spent an eternity finoodling (there's that word again!) with my computer last night trying to use the sound recorder. Then (lightbulb...dim, but there all the same) it occured to me that I just might need a microphone.
So, updates as they happen on that little project. Hope you enjoy this, those of you who read. Did I mention I totally love those of you who read?
cause I do.
The city's skipping outside my window, like all those dirty CDs kicked under my bed. I'm flicking my cigarette out there, because Philadelphia already looks ashy today anyhow.
I push back against the seat, pushing out grumpy, creaking protests. I lean back as far as the busted thing will go, which, by the way, isn't far. It's not my car, but I've got shotgun forever in here. Not a pretty privilege or an especially special right, but sometimes it's good enough to know a place is saved for you somewhere. Because I really know it's big world outside of this little car. The thing reeks of cigarettes, and he doesn't smoke...I feel like I left a part of me in here with him.
He's driving, yah, but only so he gets unchallenged control of his shit radio. The speakers strain out some smooth processed beat that keeps touching my skin. Yah, another song I don't know the words to. The music does the talking for us, and I'm fine to just chill.
Up there, on top of the city, good old Mr. Benjamin Franklin watches us roll by. For decades, the city's rambled on all it's noise at Mr. Ben, that good and patient old man. He's sweet enough to pretend to listen, when there are other things on this man's mind...Ben and the city age together, and that's how they pass the years.
My eyes trace the outlines of cracks and tags all over Philadelphia. They're this city's wrinkles, proof of time whizzing past without a second look at the damage. Inconsiderate and uncaring prick, that fucking time. Primitive modern art spray painted on abandoned walls blend into the everything else of every day. And really, no one gives a shit. The winding splits in the cement where people tramped all over; they talk about being late for appointments or missing the bus, but mostly, about being lost.
I feel old with the city. I'm just about ready to lay down with this city. I feel like an artifact to everyone after me, like a warning: This isn't quiet where I'm supposed to be.
He stops to buy a bottle of water. "Ice-cold," the ratty man working the median is telling us. The driver asks me if I want something. "What can I buy for sixteen cents?" He doesn't offer a damn thing, yah,and I didn't bother to hope he would. Fine. I stare at the little bit of change pooled in the center of my hand, reflecting back the metal taste in my mouth. Fuck. I'd be rich...if I was employed. Him, though, he's already running late for the job he never really wanted. Soon, he'll break out that cell phone and call in and fuck off. Yet another damn call out. Doesn't he know that folks are starving for what he's got?
I hand over the sixteen cents to the tired water man. Something about a lack of charity makes me want to give up everything I got. We just go on driving.
His cell phone's in his hand, calling in to call out. Vibrations gently shake the window that I'm leaning into, so I roll it down and my eyes gaze on forward to the buzzing thump starting far down this street. He's got to know that over the phone they'll hear the pounding rhythms that are still blocks away. But he lies over all of it, not even really trying. From far off still, the music stomps and shouts out towards us through the entire call. It's sad when they don't even try to make you believe their bullshit anymore. I don't say anything, no, I'm giving my voice up to the city, and whatever festival is going keeps on belting out a blurred message through some massive bass. He hangs up, smirking; the evil genius. Just like that, him and me are free in Philadelphia.
Swarms of bodies crawl through the traffic, fixed and intent on a some pilgrimage through Philadelphian streets. Missionaries hawk shirts with faces--Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Malcolm X, Tuskegee Airmen--as offers to the gods of equality, peace, and a fucking profit. With thousands of purposeful people piled vertically down the walks, I'd think it would be hard to feel so damn alone. It's just a car door between us. Really, not a thing. I glance over at his oblivious self, and he's all sucked into the rhythms inside our own little mobile world. I know where ever we go, I'm in the same damn place.
All the same, I can't help but crack a grin when skinny drunk-ass college kids stumble past, draped all on each other in a intoxicated shot at stability. The bodies of little children bobble steadily on the shoulders of their strong fathers, and I think that maybe a good pair of shoulders can make the world better. A good-looking dude is trailing pathetically after his girl, looking pleading and apologetic. From in here, I'm feeling envious of their muted fight--better than just being on mute. Youth and passion flow free in this place, running all through every street and alley and heart. Anger and love and stupidity all make a mad momentum that shoves people along through their lives when they'd rather just fucking stop. Philadelphia can be that slap in the face you didn't see coming, or an unanticipated fuck in the side closet, or shouting to be quiet when you're drunk at 3:37 A.M. Deep down inside, I'm screaming in full sympathy with the insanity of the city. On my quiet ole outside, though, I just watch and I just feel the ripples and reverbs of sound and life radiating from the celebration all coming through this dirty window.
He takes a turn away from the crazed, happy crowds, and I'm craning my neck all around to see all the architecture of my city. I'm eyeing up those artful columns and elderly arches that gracefully compose the quiet, old elegance of the place. The works of art sprinkled on the city gleam, and I think ancient ornaments, rusting but impressive, pinned the blouses on young, proud ladies. The trees are rare, but beautiful in their rarity. The trees don't really belong here, and they don't really care. Like lost women in staggering high heels, striding confidently along and refusing directions. Philadelphia's like those silent film starlettes who never made it to talkies, but they maintain their beauty and sophistication forever in black and white photos. The glory has faded, but it's still everywhere. So much classier than the chain-smoking, nail-biting, make-up smeared girl listening to the streets on a dirty radio could ever be.
It's all entirely separate from the murals that we flow past--pretty pictures plastered up over rotting hope, like the make up I apply every morning, careful and careless at once. The junk I smear on that he never comments on, yah, and maybe it never really covers anything. The vibrant colors of the murals cry out something, a desperation for equality, or just balance, a strive for strength and a love of community. There's that, sure enough, but I feel something else in the street art. Red blood lipstick. Black fishnets on peach skin. Purple velvet and amber overflowing champagne and white stains. Each stroke squirms on the cement for attention, like a tattooed teen expressing herself. She and I and Philly feel that gurgling growl in our hearts and we all ask in the brightest, sexiest, dirtiest ways we know how to be completely filled up. Love, we beg, or the next best thing ya got. Fill us up.
Only when he hands me another tape to pop in do I realize the only sound is how loud we aren't speaking. My mind sizzles and simmers in the summer afternoon. I grudgingly shove the sounds in the little radio, putting in his real passion. I look back to the mesmerizingly lonely murals that say more to me than the driver. It's alright to be alone, I think, because I'm having an affair with my city.
Maybe because he was busy selecting the next cassette and wasn't paying attention, we seem even more turned around. This section of Philly looks familiar, yah, but isn't somewhere I'd voluntarily travel. Tired houses hunch and lean on each other in sympathetic dilapidation. Sick doors puke out jumbled porches and dry yards, and everything is gray and ashy. I suck the smoke deep in, burning away my insides. The dirty toys of neighborhood kids are paralyzed and catatonic, kicked over in front of houses. It's hard not to imagine smudge-faced children here the same way, all frozen up in the summer sun. I can see their large vacant eyes seeing a world that's empty for them. The corporate streets piled high with lucrative chains don't touch this filthy place, afraid or disgusted or both. We pass a tiny florist stand, and for a second, the smell of lilies and roses overtakes the smell of decay and cigarettes.
He turns a corner and narrowly avoids an urban wanderer, all decked out in the customary costume of tatters. I almost eek out a sound of warning, but he sees the man and doesn't need me to alert him. The man barely notices and doesn't even consider a shift in path. Where are you headed, I wonder. Are you determined to be good and lost, like us? I lean my head against the warm window and watch the sun sink into Philadelphia, brimming into her cracks, the places between the bustling buildings filled with pointless offices and the packed schools with students studying the science of surviving life and the museums with questions and the make-believe answers of art and the places of silence where this man carries on his useless journey. Tell me your story, man, and I'll tell you mine. I'll tell you about how old I've grown in my young age, and how irreverent my maturity is. I'll tell you about how ugly my pretty parts are, and what a beautiful disgusting mess I am. I'll talk about how my poverty is a condition of wealth, and how I can afford anything with no money. I'll tell you how we're everything and nothing, this city and me. She's where I belong, inside myself--almost alone.
"Well," he sighs. He twists up around to orient himself. "We're completely fucking lost."
I look right at my driver, and for a second I smile. "I know."
the end!