Bob – Page 30 – Headthegong.com

August 9, 2008

Enough

I love it when a little epiphany strikes me when I least expect it. Yesterday I was walking between buildings on campus when I noticed a dead mouse lying next to a cigarette butt. I stood there for a few seconds in a daze, not sure what I was looking at. Suddenly I was laughing audibly and, furthermore, I felt completely free from the tension that had been building all week as I wrestled with job-related decisions. I suppose a dead mouse, in and of itself, isn’t all that funny but, for whatever reason, the juxtaposition of the mouse and cig-butt struck me as so absurd, I couldn’t contain myself. My only thought as I headed back to the office was “This is enough.”

As in, this is sufficient, just to be a human being, to breath and notice things and laugh once in a while. I had just interviewed the day before for a fairly well-paying mental health job. Had they offered me the job on the spot I would have accepted, for the simple reason that doing so would end the madness, the struggle not only to find a “permanent” job, but to be fearlessly honest with myself about what I really care about. Somehow, between me and the mouse, I was able to admit that it doesn’t matter to me whether I’m helping suffering people get better (what I’ve done for the better part of fifteen years) or whether I spend all day folding name tents, making copies, and editing course syllabi (what I’m doing at the moment). Truth is, if someone offered me a job with my ideal schedule (30 hours a week or three days off instead of two), I wouldn’t care what I spent my time doing, as long as I could make enough to deal with my expenses.

I mean, I wouldn’t participate in some evil enterprise, like helping to elect John McCain, but as long as the job didn’t stress me out too much and it involved pleasant interactions with people, then I could just as well be a mailman as a therapist. In fact, delivering supplies to various offices on the UNC Campus was probably the most enjoyable job I ever had. Cruising around campus in my beat-up truck, listening to the radio, leisurely strolling up and down the halls with a printer cartridge under my arm, the pleasant exchanges with the front desk workers as they signed the invoices. Too bad it only paid seven bucks an hour, or I might still be doing it.

This job I just interviewed for, it’s serious business, helping abused kids get the appropriate mental health services. It’s so important that you have to carry an emergency pager and be ready to jump in the car 24/7 to save the day in a crisis. Of course, you don’t get holidays off, because human suffering never takes a vacation. Presently, I’m the “Minister of Tedium” for the UNC Office of Whatever. If I put a staple in the wrong corner or use Times New Roman instead of Calibri, it’s no big deal. And I’m kinda liking that. Nothing’s ever really that big a deal.

What do I really want to do? I just want time to “be,” to live. To dick around on my guitar. To write on my blog. To snuggle on the couch with my wife while we watch a stupid romantic comedy. Without exception, I stuck with my previous mental health jobs not because I was “helping people,” but because those jobs fit into an overall life-picture that included a smile on my face. As soon as that smile disappeared, I disappeared. The fact that I was helping people was great, but it was never what kept me showing up day in and day out. I’ll always care about and try to connect with the people in my life. And damn it, that’s enough. In fact, it’s just perfect.

August 3, 2008December 19, 2009

Goodbye Allison

So I woke up from a nap yesterday, shuffled into my little studio, and dazedly recorded this little song before it drifted back into the ether.

Goodbye Allison.mp3

No, I don’t know anyone named Allison, and yeah, I suppose taking a picture of myself immediately after each new recording is pretty weird. Given the sad look on my face and sad tone of the song, I imagine folks might think I’m hopelessly depressed. I actually feel great at the moment, but admittedly there’s been an undercurrent of sadness this past week. My Mom has been in the hospital with heart trouble (she’s okay) and I miss my wife to an almost unbearable extent (she’s returning to the US in four weeks!). And besides, the creative process for me always seems to kick in during the dark times. When I’m happy I just enjoy the moment, and rarely feel like writing a song. Whatever — Here’s a happy photo I snapped about an hour later, after I spoke with my Mom on the phone.

When I’m alone too much I start to develop a peculiar relationship with myself, one that manifests in some peculiar ways. Taking photos of myself is just the tip of the iceberg people. The tip of the iceberg.

July 26, 2008

Fear and loathing…

Maybe it’s because I have a heavy heart, being apart from my wife for so long. Or else it could be the stress involved in this life transition: Moving, searching for work, financial insecurity, etc. But that’s not what I fear. I fear that I’m just past my peak, washed-up, burned-out. Getting older has a lot to do with the growing sense of dis-ease. I’m noticing changes on a daily basis, it seems. Hair thinning, gut growing, moles popping up everywhere. Is that a hair growing out of my ear? For the love of Christ.

Last night I watched “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” For the record, I thought it was terrible. “Pointless” is the word that jumps to mind. I put it in my Netflix queue because the new Hunter S. Thompson documentary is not available yet, and despite not really being a huge Thompson fan, I find myself drawn to his story. I enjoyed the book “Fear and Loathing,” and I like the whole “Gonzo” vibe in general. The guy had fire and could write, and I say I’m not a huge fan simply because I haven’t yet read much of his work. The movie, however, just seemed to be, well, pointless. It was like: “This is how a psychedelic trip can be portrayed on film.” And not much else. But I continue to be drawn to Thompson’s life story: the gonzo, all-out approach to experience and art, and the seemingly inevitable downfall, in his case ending with a self-inflicted gunshot blast to the head.

Disillusionment. This word has weight for me right now. I’m at a point in my life where I can look back and see how certain life experiments are panning out. And the data is not always inspiring. Did I think I could somehow avoid the inevitable slings and arrows? What DID I expect anyway?

I’m certainly not ready to give up the ghost just yet. I’m just sinking down a bit into the mire, and I don’t like it. All this struggling, this grasping for a way out. Out of what? Where do I think I’m going?

July 24, 2008

Changes on Chapel Hill?

It’s amazing how quickly things change. A few months ago I had this little raised freckle on my neck. Now it’s a hideous, potentially cancerous mole that needs to be removed. Then there’s the little college town of Chapel Hill, NC, where I was married two years ago and where I lived (or lived right near) from 1998-2003. Now I’m back, working a temp job on the University of North Carolina campus, just as I did ten years ago when I first arrived here. The buses here are still free, but nearly all the people who ride them now have iPod “earbuds” in their ears, along with half of the pedestrians. This morning I tried it out for myself, strutting around campus to the Bee Gees’ Stayin’ Alive, feeling like Travolta swinging a paint can. At the Open Eye Cafe in nearby Carrboro, you’ll now see folks’ heads buried in their Mac laptops instead of their philosophy books. Without exaggeration, at least half of the customers on any given day are sporting Macs. And if you’re walking down Franklin Street on a bright Sunday afternoon, you just might get… a shotgun stuck in your face and asked to fork over all your money.

Yesterday afternoon was for fourth armed robbery in Chapel Hill in three days. We’re talking broad daylight. Sawed-off shotgun. Last week I heard some people talk about the recent murder of Eve Carson, the former student body president at UNC. I was in Mexico when this tragedy happened, so I needed to Google it to learn about the details. Apparently, in March of this year, two guys from nearby Durham just walked right into Eve’s house, abducted her, forced her to withdraw a bunch of money from an ATM, and then shot her numerous times. I read about this Thursday, then I find out Friday that someone had been beaten and robbed on campus the previous night. Monday morning I turn on the news and find out that two men were robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight on Franklin St. (the major, heavily populated hotspot in town) on Sunday afternoon. Also on Sunday, a woman was robbed at gunpoint at an ATM machine at the mall. Also, a man was robbed at knife-point in front of the Franklin hotel. Today on the news they report yet another ATM robbery. Again right here in little Chapel Hill, in broad daylight, with a gun. Now I’m starting to get a little freaked out. This is the place I convinced my wife was the best place for us to live? I do some more Googling. Find out that Chapel Hill’s annual “Apple Chill Festival” was recently cancelled–as in, it will never happen again–due to multiple gang-related shootings during the last round of festivities.

The community is obviously shaken by the recent turn of events. I’m shaken. People are talking and blogging about it, but discussions seem to come to a screeching halt as soon as the issue of race is brought up. It so happens that the perpetrators/suspects in all of these crimes fit the same general description: Young black male.

I have to admit, I find myself “profiling” based on race, dress and class in a lot of situations. Given there’s apparently a young black male–about six feet tall, wearing a solid colored T-shirt, sagging pants and baseball cap–running around town with a shotgun robbing people, one would have to be crazy not to be cautious around someone fitting that description. The problem is, of course, there are lots of people that fit that description, the vast majority of whom are not criminals. But what do we do with the fact that such a disproportionate number of violent crimes are being committed by young black males in Chapel Hill?

And why is it I only hear bigots and black stand-up comics talking frankly about racial issues? I admit it, I’m hesitant to post anything more about it on my blog, even though I’ve been thinking about this stuff for a week straight. I’ve deleted about four pages worth of thinking on this.

Fear breeds ignorance and ignorance keeps the status quo in place. And right now, I’m afraid.

Some things don’t change.

July 18, 2008

To pee or not to pee…

It took me a few seconds, but now I’m grasping the concept: I’m emailing myself. In one sense, it’s not that strange. It’s a way of journaling while I’m at work, without having to save files on my work computer. On the other hand, it just epitomizes the sense of being imprisoned–in my own skull, my own little cubicle, my own world–that has been setting in as I wind up week number two on the job. It’s difficult for me to imagine working here beyond my two month temp assignment. The whole “office culture” thing is just bizarre in many ways, which makes it such fertile ground for sitcom writers I suppose. Don’t get me wrong, though. This is no “holier than thou” put down aimed at the people around me. There are some bright and bubbly people bouncing around the place, making the rest of us look like sleepwalking clock-jockeys. I’m just saying that strange internal worlds have come into being during my short time here, and I can only assume I am not alone, that from 8am to 5pm, Monday through Friday, suspended above countless cubicles like Dilbert dialogue boxes, there exist these strange, idiosyncratic psychological universes, any one of which would make the Twilight Zone seem ho-hum by comparison.

My own private world revolves around the bathroom, or more accurately, the three or four bathrooms nearest to the office. I know what you’re thinking: “I don’t want to hear about this guy’s bathroom habits.” Bullshit. Then why are you still reading? At worst, it’ll just make your own life seem a little less insane. Anyway, not only do I guzzle water all day long, but I typically “drop anchor” three to five times a day, like clockwork. I like to be as comfortable as possible during these little breaks, and for me this means having some privacy, which of course is not a guarantee in a public restroom. If I walk in and see shoes in the stall–any stall–I just turn around and head to another bathroom. Unless, of course, a co-worker standing at the urinal or on his way out spots me, in which case I’ll pretend I was just stopping in to wash my hands. This happens at least once a day. Some days I’ll have rotten “bathroom luck” all day long, other days the stars are aligned in my favor. The worst is when the cat’s already out the bag (so to speak) and someone who doesn’t share my need for privacy comes in and plops his ass right down next to me. Now, if I’ve just sat down, or I’m still prepping the seat with a double layer of TP, I will not hesitate to abandon ship and head to another bathroom. Nothing says “You gotta be kidding me” like listening to another man grunting and whistling Dixie out his ass for ten minutes. I’ll pass. But sometimes there’s no choice, which means I’ll either hurry things along or else wait the other guy out, depending on the circumstances. After lunch today–after having already gone in and out of two over-crowded bathrooms, I was just getting settled in when three–count ’em three–dudes came bursting through the door, one camping out next door with a newspaper and letting loose a stench that could make birds drop from the sky.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a neurotic freak when it comes to such things. I’m also cursed with a “shy bladder,” and so I don’t particularly enjoy the urinal scene much either. I know I’m not alone in this though, because I’ve “heard” many a man come up empty after standing awkwardly beside me for way too long, waiting for the stream to burst forth but finding no relief, only the shame of having to zip up and walk away with his hope for humanity fizzling if not extinguished entirely.

When it comes to number one, I’m a stall guy–call me crazy. I mean, what the hell, I spent the first eighteen years of my life getting used to going into a bowl in total privacy, then all of a sudden I’m in a college dorm standing in front of some trough hanging from the wall, making small talk with a Jewish kid from Long Island, trying not to notice his kosher kielbasa in the periphery of my vision. Like Ernie and his rubber duckie, bathroom time for me was always a time to relax and experience the joys of bodily release. In any event, it’s not a social activity. Which reminds me of another formative freshman dorm experience. I was finishing up a numero dos in one of the stalls when I notice this very tall kid (a six foot six basketball player we called “Stick”) looking down at me from the next stall. As if he were asking me the time he says, “You wipe standing up? I’ve never heard of such of thing.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so. Why? Do you do it sitting down?”

“Of course, man. I mean, you’re already sitting down, and your butt cheeks are nice and spread out that way, so why get up?”

“Uh, yeah. I guess that makes sense man. I really never thought about it before.”

From that day forward I wiped sitting down. An eighteen year daily habit was transformed just like that. There’s a lesson there, but I’m still trying to figure out what it is.

One thing I know for sure is that there’s something about public restrooms that invites otherwise respectable citizens to act like disgusting freaks. I mean, the building in which I work is populated by professional types exclusively. We’re talking guys with PhDs. Graduate students. Well-dressed executives. Yet at least one of these guys thinks it’s okay to piss on the seat once in while. And the wall. And the toilet paper dispenser. For Christ’s sake, what are these people thinking? And which one of these Soccer Dads leaves us these racist screeds and homoerotic cave drawings? I would love to know. Or would I?

With that, I think I understand your earlier hesitancy about exploring this territory together. Maybe our private worlds are better off left to ourselves. Maybe making such things public is taboo for a reason. Sometimes when we tug on that thread we end up with an unsightly hole or, worse yet, the whole bloody works comes apart at the seams. I’ll have to think about it some more. In fact, I think I hear nature calling again, and with a little luck I’ll have some quiet time to contemplate. I think I’ll try the bathroom up on the third floor. I’m pretty sure most folks in that office go home by 4:30.

July 12, 2008

Drapetomania

According to Encyclopedia.com, drapetomania is form of mania supposedly affecting slaves in the nineteenth century, manifested by an uncontrollable impulse to wander or run away from their white masters, preventable by regular whipping.

An extreme example of pseudoscientific psychologism, to be sure. But the shit that psychologists, psychiatrists and drug companies peddle through the media these days is just as shameful, as far as I’m concerned. The fact that highly educated and otherwise reasonable people parrot back this “psychological problems = brain dysfunction” nonsense is upsetting, to say the least. If I were hooked up to brain scan machines, just thinking about this crap would undoubtedly set off a flurry of glucose consumption somewhere in my head, and the trippy colors on the screen could then be used as proof positive that I am suffering from a chemical imbalance of alarming proportions.

I’ve ranted on this too many times before [See Brain Rape and Anxiety and Elephants, Parts One, Two, Three, and Four] to say another word. Here’s Thomas Szasz making the point far better than I can:

June 29, 2008December 19, 2009

Godspeed

I felt like crap today after a late night out reacquainting myself with the Carrboro music scene. However, I promised myself I would record something this weekend, come hell or high water, so I pushed through the fog and pushed out the following piece of strangeness.

Green Desk Studios is back in business.

Godspeed.mp3
The question that eats you like cancer
I have the answer
Are you ready to hear it?

Godspeed through all your dreams
You’re such a lonely animal
So spread your seed
Godspeed through all your dreams
You’re crawling back from Mexico
On hands and knees
Godspeed through all your dreams
You’re finally on the radio
But no one’s listening

Clarity came like a storm to my brain
It blew in from the South and blew out of my mouth
in a long string of words never meant to be heard
Only seen in the sky like the Fourth of July
All the red and blue lights like the stars in the night
must all come to fade with the dawn of the day

June 20, 2008

Bang Bang Bob

I woke this morning with these words echoing in my head: “Lackawanna High School, ball and chain.” Utter nonsense, random words that spilled from whatever meaningless dream I was falling in and out of. It occurred to me as I rolled out of bed that I was as far removed from the state of equanimity I enjoyed in Mexico as I possibly could be. My mind is filled with echoes of used car commercials and the theme to Family Guy. My body is stiff with tension and I shuffle across the bedroom floor like I’m wearing a suit of armor. I tell myself “Today I start to come back to life”, but by the time I reach the bathroom I’m thinking it again: “Lackawanna High School, ball and chain.”

What in holy hell does it mean?!?! I think it three or four more times before I finish my morning pee. When I look in the mirror I can’t help but think back to a conversation Eric and I had this past weekend while we moved my stuff from Kentucky to Carolina. We were catching up during the ride to Lexington, chatting about old friends and some of the familiar faces I’d be seeing around town now that I’m coming back to Carrboro. It’s been five years, long enough to notice how people have aged. Eric joked how so and so had lost a lot of hair, grown a gut, and now looks like “Old Bart.” My friends and I often communicate like this using Simpsons references, this one referring to an episode where Bart is shown as he might look in the future, if he became male stripper with the moniker “Bang Bang Bart.”

It was hilarious when we were talking about so and so, but this morning it wasn’t so pretty standing in front of the mirror with Bang Bang Bob looking back at me.

So I’m tired, worn down by the move and anxious about being broke and jobless. But today the dust is starting to settle. I know this because I wouldn’t be writing if it weren’t so. Soon enough I’ll be working again, and I’ll lament that I didn’t enjoy being jobless while I had the chance. Soon my wife will return from Mexico and my heart can at long last settle into its joyful rhythm.

Right now though, today, it’s finally hitting me–I’m back in Carrboro, this town that I love. There are boxes to unpack, errands to run, resumes to send out, things to remember, and things to forget.

“Lackawanna High School, ball and chain.” Maybe it meant nothing to me an hour ago, but now it’s a fucking mantra. Nothing means nothing.

June 6, 2008

Voodoo Chile

The ecstasy and abandon of sheer rock. The facial expressions alone are worth the watch. This is what it’s all about, as far as I’m concerned (and trust me, you don’t need LSD or virtuoso ability to tap in to it). What is it? Just watch:

February 15, 2008December 19, 2009

B-sides

I miss my little bedroom studio and sharing the results of my audio experiments on this blog. As I get ready to return to Mexico (on Thursday, February 21st), I’m checking off things on my to-do list, including sending off a few copies of my last record to friends and supporters.

To date I think I’ve sold, let’s see here… zero CD’s or songs. That’s a net profit of, let me get this straight… zero dollars and zero cents, I think. Simplifies my taxes.

The copies I’m sending out today are “Deluxe Editions,” which include B-sides and bonus tracks. The two tracks posted below are new to this site and so, in keeping with tradition, I offer them up under a present-time photo:

Track notes:

Fine upstanding young man.mp3
Perhaps the only real up-beat, poppy thing I’ve ever recorded. The music and chorus are from maestro Eric W. Back in the My Dear Ella days, this was one of the first times Eric and I semi-collaborated on a song. It only went as far as me putting down some verse ideas on a four-track tape, and then it was put on the shelf along with the six billion other undeveloped song ideas in Eric’s and my respective archives. Years later I recorded this version, for the sheer fun of it. The lyrics are goofy and idiosyncratic:

I saw your sister at The Cave [a Chapel Hill rock club]
She was at the bar and had a bit too much to drink
She didn’t even know my name, but she waved
I saw her later on the roof of The 506 [another local rock club which occasionally had after-hours get-togethers on the roof]
She was looking for some kicks
And even though I wanted more,
I just took her home

He’s a fine upstanding young man…

I guess it’s time for me to get a job
I gotta play my part in the cosmic symphony
Maybe I’ll go back to grad school
Just a few more years and I’ll have my PhD.
Then I can give it up from 9 to 5 until I’m rich enough
to buy a big house in the woods
Where I can sit out on the porch with my guitar
Just like I’m doing now [We (the guys in the band) were living in a great old house together, and indeed I was sitting on our porch when I wrote this verse]

He’s a fine upstanding young man…

You are only anybody
You are only everybody

He’s a fine upstanding young man…

****

Bonus.mp3
I love splicing together bits and pieces from my audio journal. The intro is a random moment from Mexico, as I lay in bed nursing my knee injury. Then there’s a segment from an unreleased version of “Missed Connections,” a song I’ve yet to do a proper recording of. The end is a montage of special moments from days gone by.