Who Asked Me?

Spending a lot of time on the interstate lately between sea level and Tahoe. I was stuck in a three-hour standstill just outside of Roseville a few Thursdays ago. Ninety degree heat with the engine off watching a lot of men unsuited for shorts getting out of their cars to try and get a look down the road. Sometimes you just have to hunker down and resolve to not going anywhere. It’s a big part of life. Roseville is the kind of place where you’ll catch a sign hung outside some newish, still available prefab condo project. “If You Lived Here You’d Be Home Already.” The ‘already’ is the giveaway. Beware of any location whose primary appeal is being an alternative to a three hour traffic jam.

Having to pass through Sacramento and the like is part of the process of driving to Tahoe. All spectacular locations require wading through crippling mediocrity to arrive. And they typically come with the caveat that no great place goes undiscovered. We may have cheated the Native Americans out of Manhattan for the price of some tobacco and a sack of beans, but they were the last to see Tahoe in August before the Germans arrived. (Using ‘Germans’ here as a general metaphor for any group descending on a area from afar with pale legs and inflatable arm floats.) Still, there’s always the final drop down from 267 and spotting that particular body of water. I had a friend in New York who bragged on her family vacation spot upstate at Lake Luzerne. She contrasted it with Tahoe, where she’d never been, asserting that it was the superior spot. My take at the time, having visited both places, was that if I’d lived at Lake Luzerne I would’ve been home already.

“Never get married.” This is Clarence Williams III’s (“Linc” from “Mod Squad”) advice to Prince in a poignantly funny scene from the movie Purple Rain. My updated version, based on a years-long project at our family cabin, is “never remodel.” Buy new, sure, if you’re young and have it all in front of you. Or, alternatively, rent and enjoy the freedom. But under no circumstance remodel. Particularly if there is nostalgia involved and the idea involves some version of upgrading the past. The past is a memory, the future a mystery, and the present a gift. This is why they call it the present. I stole this years ago from that Indian snake oil salesman, Deepak Chopra. Having undertaken a years-long remodeling project, I now wish I’d had Deepak as a contractor. Shoddy workmanship is a given, even with the licensed variety, but at least he could have spun some first class bullshit to make it more palatable. The first guy I hired was a short, turquoise  and cowboy boot wearing Qanon type. All of which works for me. Unfortunately, he was also prone to rage and stroked-out about halfway into the job. The second guy, an industrious Mexican fellow with a small construction empire out of Truckee, has been marginally better. The work is still rough around the edges, but it’s getting closer to the point where I can sell the place and put the past behind me.

“Champagne problems,” as somebody accurately pointed out when I was in the middle of this maelstrom. (Learned that word too late after wondering why Mr Turquoise called his company “Maelstrom Construction.”) But problems are problems, whether you’re being hit about the head and neck by a homeless chap with a stick or wrapping your Mercedes around a tree. And short of the occasional loving mother or faithful offspring, nobody cares about yours. Instead you get all kinds of hints dropped as you near completion of this nightmare. “Would love to see what you’ve done with the place .. no need for you to come along.” The other piece of this equation, of course, is the unfathomable expense. Mr Qanon dropped that bit of wisdom halfway into his stint and before blowing a gasket. “Actually, remodeling is more expensive than new construction.” You don’t say? Might have mentioned this when you were listing your bona fides. All water under the bridge now and further reason to embrace these Everly Brothers lyrics, later covered by two late greats, Tom Petty and Jimmy Buffett: “And if you ever wonder why you ride this carousel / you did it for the stories you could tell.” Might have to change that last part to “the inane blog posts you could write every four months,” but still better than shelling out for Deepak Chopra.

A long while back I took a crack at answering a post on ‘Quora’, which is a question and answer website. The question was straight-forward: “What’s so good about Bob Dylan?” Here’s what I came up with:

The standard answer here, to paraphrase David Letterman on his penultimate show, is that Dylan is the greatest songwriter of the modern era. And it’s a good point, both in terms of prolific output and quality of work.

Dylan is deceptively simple. He’ll use an unremarkable turn of phrase that becomes ingrained in one’s subconscious. And he does it on album after album. Take “I Feel A Change Comin’ On” from 2009’s “Together Through Life.” It’s an ordinary tune on first listen .. perhaps about a shifting relationship, and set to simple melody. Then a closer look at the lyrics: “the fourth part of the day is already gone.” What exactly is the fourth part of the day, and who uses this as reference? His baby’s comin’ .. “walking with the village beast.” Some assert it’s “priest” but in either case it’s an attention-grabber. “You are as porous as ever / baby you can start a fire.” Of all uses of fire as a metaphor for burning love, who adds “porous as ever”? Talk about a flame-stoker. For me, the image is a Weber charcoal starter, with porous holes in its sides allowing for oxygen, heat, and flame. For you, it’s likely something different. His words mean something powerfully different to each listener.

But why pick “I Feel A Change Comin’ On” from “Together Through Life”? Because unless you’re a fan and attuned to Dylan‘s recent output, you’ll likely never listen to this tune. Nothing about Dylan is particularly flashy or attention-grabbing, outside of his eccentricity and curious moments like his Christmas video “It Must Be Santa” (a brilliant aside in a career packed with them.) It’s his ability to use words, a talent spanning six decades, which sets him apart.

Knocks on Dylan serve to reinforce his greatness. Old hippies who have seen him live at some point over the last decade often complain that his voice is terrible, and that he doesn’t play any of his “protest songs.” Dylan never claimed or wanted to be a protest singer, even when given the label and dubbed the “voice of his generation.” There’s a 60 Minutes interview with Ed Bradley from years back where Dylan explains that his songs were just songs, “not sermons” and that he never saw himself as a generational voice. “It’s ironic,” Bradley notes, “that the way people saw you was the polar opposite of how you viewed yourself.” Dylan: “Isn’t that somethin’ ?”

This leads to another of Dylan‘s greatly underrated attributes — his sense of humor. He’s always been aware of his surrounding myth and has had great fun with it. Another superb Bob tale from 2009 occurred when he was far from his tour bus in pouring rain, walking in an affluent Long Branch, New Jersey neighborhood. Someone called the cops on him. The young female officer didn’t believe the soaking wet 68-year-old when he told her who he was. “I’d seen pictures of him and he didn’t look anything like them.” She asked what he was doing there. He told her that he was looking at a house that had a “for sale” sign on it. When that didn’t suffice he added “I’m on a big tour with John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson.” Was this spontaneous or a conscious effort to pad his legend? Does it really matter?

So what has Dylan been writing and singing about in recent decades, if not protest themes or social issues? Besides the eternal topic of love — which he hits on like no other — he’s been covering growing older and closer to death. About being there “when the deal goes down.” Not with morbid repetition, but with the same insight and language that has supported him through his entire career. He’s always of his time, regardless of what time it is, and is novel in approach. His voice? Come on .. this is Bob Dylan. Anyone complaining about that never got it anyway. There have been accusations, particularly in recent years and around the era of “Modern Times,” that Dylan steals from songwriters and poets of another generation. And of course, it’s true, just as those songwriters and poets did in their time. Ultimately, what he creates is uniquely his own and a revelation.

The above really only scratches the surface and the best answer is contained within the original question. What makes Bob Dylan so great? He’s Bob Dylan.

The thing about eulogies is, despite your best efforts you can never be sure how they will handle your own. As much as we all have egos, we’ve imagined our funerals. It’s really the last grand foray into self indulgence. But that’s all it is, and at the end of the final day we have no idea or control over what will happen. Will we get one? Will anybody actually say anything? And if they do, will it come close to what we’d have wanted? When I’ve overheard or been in the presence of others talking about me, it generally falls into two categories: pointedly cruel and inaccurate, or overblown, grandiose, and exaggerated. In truth, these are the only two that register and I likely ignore the vast majority in between (“Did Rick eat the last piece of cake?”) But it applies to this eulogy thing. As much as “he ate the last piece of cake” would suffice, people tend to go overboard when speaking of the deceased at a funeral. The majority lean into the positive, but there are certainly examples of folks shuffling up to the podium, nodding in the stiff’s direction, and taking a final swipe.

All this thinking about how we’ll be remembered is going on in our own heads. It’s only in the ego of others, and how they wish to be perceived, that it will come to fruition. I have a friend whose ego lies squarely on the relative merits of his sense of humor. He’s spoken about making a video to be played at his funeral, an irreverent, brave, and above all hilarious final send off to be lovingly crafted by him. What he likely doesn’t get is that it’s just another vain example of ego indulgence. Even if he does this and his wishes are honored, people will react as people do. Some will indeed be thinking “my god, his wit transcends even this” while for others it will be “thank Christ this is coming to an end.” Implied ironic hilarity aside, there’s no getting around it. The only freedom comes in doing what almost none of us can do until the end: letting go.

There are exceptions. Unconditional love, ephemeral and elusive as it may be, transcends the ego. But it’s tricky and a large section of those believing they possess it are still trying to fill some self need. Like my writing this, it’s just another reach, another flailing stab at affirming that I matter. I had another friend, a short, combative individual who, interestingly, had a keen appreciation for my own brand of humor. His ego was so acute that he once asserted “the difference between you and me is that I have no ego.” I thought about it for a second and replied that, if this were true, he’d feel no need to say it. This seemed to stump him and, in deference to his ego, he replied “OK .. yeah.” An egoic Chinese finger-trap if ever there was one. All of which is to say it’s time to lay this post to rest. Please reserve all comments for after I’m gone.

Deadlines and commitments,
What to leave in; what to leave out – Bob Seger “Against The Wind”

The Detroit Everyman really had something there, and he put it in non rocket scientist terms, which is central to this leaving stuff out theme. What good is art (music, writing, talking, loving, moving) if nobody gets it? Subtraction or an initially light touch are ultimately more important than delivering the goods with a knockout blow. Take Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man.” How many potential chords had to be eliminated before arriving at that plodding intro? Jeff Tweedy, the AntiSeger, put it well in his own mopey, depressive way: “The best song will never get sung / the best life never leaves your lungs.” Kind of a killjoy, no doubt, but even Senor Sunshine had to sing those words to make his point. What am I driving at? I think it’s best I don’t say. It only becomes apparent after years of playing guitar or putting brush to canvas (and I suck at both, relatively speaking.) Those who do it best know what to leave in, what to leave out. And lest you think these rules only apply to whispy, artistic types, the same can be applied to world class athletes. Watch some of those early Tyson fights (speaking of knockout blows) and observe what comes just before that beautiful moment of violent devastation (punching the ‘nose bone through the brain’ as Mike put it, just before getting dropped by Coca Cola.) There’s always a slight move left or right, a graceful shoulder dip, a slight repositioning of the body. The part he’s leaving out is any exaggerated move or demonstrative display. Any showing off or excessive effort. That’s the magic in those bouts .. the part that leaves you thinking “what did I just witness here?”

I could’ve left half of the above out, but there’s something to be said about moving on, too. Going back to the non rocket scientist terms, it reminds me of an incident with my pool man. Sounds kind of gay, no doubt, (and please, hold your cards and letters until after I’m gone .. there’s nothing homophobic about that quip if you think on it for a minute.) The fact that I have a pool man is kind of gay, though, and that remark would qualify. It was either this or learn how to add chlorine and remove leaves myself, which was clearly out of the question. Anyway, the original guy stopped doing the job himself and hired a crew as his business grew, and things got sloppy. More than once the water was left on while filling the pool and excess poured down my street. Wasting water in Marin County is akin to being the last guy on the block with a Ukrainian flag or BLM sign. People start to stare as you back out of the driveway. So I had to find a new guy. My neighbor, who used the same pool guy as me, found herself in a similar situation.

We thought we’d found our man with the second guy we interviewed (let’s call him “Bob.”) Bob was a tallish white guy with a new truck who seemed to know what he was doing. His delivery was a bit laconic, but again, sometimes it’s the words you leave out. My remark to the neighbor (which I later forgot) was “well, you probably don’t want a rocket scientist for a pool man.” Bob worked out well at first. He showed me how I could reduce my pump speed to conserve energy and kept things clean and neat. (Please note the lack of homophobic follow-up on that one.) But as the weeks passed, he started missing days. I was OK with that, actually. The truth is you don’t need a pool man to come every week; it’s just one of those scams they pull on rich people to make up for the bigger ones they lay on everybody else. But then Bob dropped out entirely and the neighbor and I were back to square one, as the people dealing in squares often say. It all led to this remarkable bit of conversation:

Me: “Well, looks like it’s back to the drawing board.”
Neighbor: “Like you said, you don’t want a rocket scientist doing your pool.”
Me: “I said that? I mean, it sounds like the kind of wiseass thing I’d say, but I don’t remember.”
Neighbor: “I still don’t know how you could have guessed ..”

She went on to explain that he was, in fact, a rocket scientist. He was an engineer who worked in jet propulsion at Lockheed-Martin before his young wife died and everything fell apart. He turned to booze and took the gig cleaning pools to make ends meet. It was a longer story than that, and by the time she finished I was curious how she’d grown so close to the pool man in such short order. But I was tapped-out and we moved on to finding yet another candidate. I did explain how the “rocket scientist” quip was a standard refrain, but I don’t think it sunk in and she remained convinced I was some kind of obscure career clairvoyant. There’s a sentence better left out, but who has the time? The comeuppance, as they say, is that we got a new pool man named Lowell and he’s worked out swimmingly. (Insert Mike Tyson punching my nose bone through my brain.) Lowell has a few life stories, too, but I’ll leave those out in deference to today’s theme.

“AK-47 is the tool; don’t make me act the motherfuckin’ fool ..” – Ice Cube

Sage advice from Mr Cube, who also had this ‘equity’ thing figured out when he suggested it was a problem of class and not race. But I digress, and digression can get one killed or expelled these days. No digression, no white chocolate. (And that was Bill Murray, lest you all start reaching for your AKs.)

Sigh. Russell Brand posted to Twitter (ah, glorious Twitter) today, something about a monk who takes his boat to the middle of a lake to meditate, and, shortly after closing his eyes and clearing his mind, feels another boat crash into him. Angered and ready to monk-rumble with the offending captain, he opens his eyes and discovers an empty and unmoored vessel that has drifted from shore. There’s no one to be angry with. His epiphany is complete: anger comes from within. He returns to his monastery, grabs his gun, and sets off pursuing the careless absent boatsman. Just kidding with that last part, but it’s a parable so let’s go with it. What was the monk doing with a gun? What are any of us doing with a gun? Minding our own business, of course, and trying to survive and protect our families in a dangerous world.

And so it goes, round and round. (Ratt; not Bill Murray.) Stop the ride, I want to get off. Some day this war’s going to end (Duvall; neither Ratt nor Murray) but until then, the choices are our own. I wanted a BB gun when I was twelve and my old man objected, but eventually consented after a litany of rules were laid down. It was to remain in a locked room, if I ever pointed it at anyone I was done, etc etc. Things loosened up after I demonstrated responsibility. I never pointed it at anyone and I became a better shot. Interestingly, some years later, my dad obtained a gun himself for shooting rattlesnakes at his country home. He used it once for this purpose, filling the snake and a Weber bar b cue full of .38 holes. (Ronnie Van Zant; not Duvall, Ratt or Murray.) The country home sold and the gun remained in a locked safe. Dad, the Weber and the snake are all gone now. The gun may or may not still be around. Fuck around and find out. (Online meme; not Ratt, Murray, Van Zant or Duvall.) It’s a big, bad world out there with nary an honest voice left. Sometimes the outline of a large object in one’s pocket is enough, sometimes it’s better to be packing.

Some say the Chinese invented alcohol. They definitely invented gunpowder. Some inventions are like viruses; there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. No putting the vaccine back in the syringe. John Lennon said “I hope some day you will join us and the world will live as one.” Salinger wrote “If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn’t rub out even half the ‘fuck you’ signs in the world.” And Chapman was carrying Salinger’s book when he gunned down Lennon. “You’re all over the place — I don’t know what you’re trying to say.” (Meadow Soprano to brother A.J.)

Peace.