Jimmy

I found this picture of my dad last night, it's one of my favorites. It's got a real "here I am, take it or leave it" feel, which is kind of how I try and live my life. When I gave this picture back to my mom last night (I feel like I borrowed it years ago, it was hiding in an old journal) the look on her face was the same she always gets when he comes up. It's been over 11 years since he died, which is insane to think about, but you can see she still really misses him. I had the opposite upbringing of what tends to be common for kids of my generation. Most of them had parents who hated each other and lived together until they got sick of each other and got divorced. My parents never lived together (not after I was born at least) but never got divorced and always loved each other. It was hard for my friends to wrap their heads around, understandably.

Here are some facts about my dad: He was a Marine sniper in Vietnam, he was actually shorter than me but infinitely stronger, he hated being called "dude", he was an excellent singer and wrote some really mind blowing poetry, he thought Barney the dinosaur was a dragon (for some reason I still find this hilarious), he carried a hunting knife everywhere, and was in a garage band in the 60's called Where's My Daughter (some guy once ran into their practice space and yelled that at one of them).

My mom told me that this picture was taken around the time they first met, which I estimate to be around '76?? I was born in '81 and they were together for years before I came along. They had a farm with all kinds of animals and several crazy ducks that I've heard more than a handful of stories about. Now, there's no way of knowing if what is so casually hanging from his lips is a "weed cigarette" or just some kind of rolled tobacco...I've never smoked pot in my life but I would never deny someone who had somewhat recently returned from serving in Vietnam a little relaxation. I remember bringing his Purple Heart medals in to show-and-tell and feeling like I totally smoked the competition. Only a certain kind of child can feel like he WON show-and-tell...I was this kind of child.

Let's not get it twisted, for the bulk of my adolescence my dad and I had a very tumultuous relationship. We always got along but I was very often embarrassed by his attitude and the way he acted. Chalk this up, as I later discovered, to the fact that I was a self-important whiny brat for the years in question. I didn't understand him and looking back on certain situations I'm actually embarrassed with how I acted. He didn't care how he was perceived and he was completely unashamed of who he was, which now I have great respect for, but at the time...ugh, let's just say I sucked and move on.

If your dad dies when you're a senior in high school you can't help but feel cheated, I was just beginning to understand him and vice-versa. I remember once he saw me in one of my Crass shirts that said Fight War Not Wars, Destroy Power Not People and he was really taken by it. That felt like one of those inter-generational moments where you connect with someone that was always a bit of a mystery, or at least had become one since you were a kid. I feel like that's the time, if you're a guy, when you're really supposed to get to know you're dad, once you are more-or-less, a man. Then again, I probably never would have become a man, or at least grown up and learned as much as I did from dealing with his death. It's hard to say, it's such heavy, life-altering stuff.

It's funny, I'm sitting here thinking of stories I could tell (or at least reference) and they're all slightly-to-very intense and could easily be misinterpreted. I hope I'm not making my dad seem like some kind of outlaw. He was just a guy who did everything he could to raise me right and keep me and my mom safe, which is exactly what a dad is supposed to do. I'm sure that not every kid spends time at his father's wake talking to his dad's old biker friends, but I did, and I'm thankful for it. You only get one dad and none of them are perfect but I'm glad James Muirhead was mine.

All the Single Ladies, All the Single Ladies...

Location: Brooklyn, New York. Dog-hair-covered love seat in my friend Rob's apartment.

Time: 9:35 am, much too early to be up, but my body has been conditioned to wake up early no matter what.

On my mind: How to people get together?

I want to a bar last night, simply because there was nothing else to do. My friend Rob and I sat at the bar talking about all the work we didn't get done that evening - we were sidetracked by about 5 hours of the television show Minute To Win It, a show that we agreed would not hold either of our attention for more than said minute if we were to watch it alone, but with someone to watch with the drama increases and you can get REALLY into it. Anyway, as we talked the bar began to fill up, it wasn't 30 minutes between our arrival at an empty bar until it was at capacity. I had to cross the dance floor to get to the bathroom and in trying to get around some dude I inadvertently became his momentary dance partner. I was unwilling to participate as his buddies shouted "Do you know that guy?!?!?!" I assure you folks, he does not.

As the night went on my primary activity became people-watching, a gaggle of hip-ly dressed and hairstyled girls dominated the outer dance floor near my seat. I couldn't tell if it was an anti-guy girls night or a let's-all-go-out-and-find-husbands girls night, but I've never seen anyone dance as disinterestedly as they did...until Beyonce came on, of course. There were dudes too, no different than any other dudes I've ever seen in my life. Bar dudes all wear the same shirt, they all have the same moves, and they're all on "The Hunt". It's ALWAYS bothered me, and I say always because I've spent a lot of my life in bars. My dad would bring me around to all the bars he frequented when I was young, and I'd play pinball or Centipede and watch the sadness. Admittedly, local town bars at 2 pm are different from hipster bars at midnight, but only in the age and lifestyle of the clientele. It's still only two kinds of men - hunters and people who go there just because that's where they go. It sucks that I'm such a bar veteran since I hate almost every one I've ever been to, it's just not my scene.

I don't understand the mentality of bar culture, "hooking-up" and whatnot, it doesn't appeal to me. When I see people leave together I think, What the hell are you two going to do now?? What is the conversation?? Where are you going?? It feels somewhat juvenile to feel that way, but what's the alternative? It seems so sordid, doesn't it? Not that it can't work, I know my parents met at a bar and they were very, very much in love. I guess it just weirds me out to be in such an obvious situation.

I've lost my train of thought since I've spent the last twenty or so minutes watching/listening to The Velvet Underground on Youtube. Probably better that I end where I did. It's no secret that everything I write about love and longing and all of that is just the matter of the moment spilling out of my head. What if I had met someone really cool last night, would I be sitting here talking about how wrong I was about bars all my life? Maybe, but the odds of that are such that I doubt I have to worry. I already know plenty of cool people, maybe I just need to relax. I'm really wishing I brought the first Velvet Underground record with me for the car ride home.

An Evening At Club Silencio

Last night before bed I got caught up watching David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. I haven't seen that movie in about...five or six years I guess, certainly not all the way through, since it's kind of agonizingly long if you're not up for it. Just about every DL movie has a boogeyman: Twin Peaks had Bob, Lost Highway had Robert Blake doing whoever that character was, Blue Velvet has Dennis Hopper being a complete maniac...Mulholland Drive's bogeyman is bit player but every ounce as terrifying. I believe the character is called "Bum", he seems to represent the seedy underbelly of Hollywood, or maybe a loss of innocence, or the dark side of fame. No matter what he actually IS, about 17 minutes into the film he gives a scare that I'm sure I'll never forget. This moment is the real reason I'm writing this at all.
The first time I saw this movie, however many years ago it came out, I was the first of the core group of my friends to see it. My friend Sean and I are huge fans of David Lynch and the first time the 'bum' arrives on the screen was so memorable that I had to tell him about it. I thought about this moment last night, I knew I paused the movie and got in touch with Sean to tell him how great it was so far, but I had no idea how I got in touch with him. My first viewing of this film pre-dates my having a cell phone- so it wasn't via text (I don't even know if texting existed back then), I had no internet access- so it's wasn't via email or whatever social network we were using at the time (Makeoutclub?? Friendster??), I was baffled. Once it finally hit me I felt like an idiot, I called him. I just plain CALLED him on the TELEPHONE. My big ol' beige rotary phone that I had back then. I called him and left a message (I think) about how awesomely terrifying the movie was thus far.
It seems like nothing really, but it was kind of an intense reminder of how communication has changed in just a few years. I never call anyone, honestly. My recent phone history is all calls to my house or to my work and that's it. Everyone else I know I communicate to with texts or on Facebook or Twitter. I'm not trying to put down social networking, I think it's great, and I'm not the kind of person who is going to sit here and say that I long for simpler times (though I do on occasion), that's not really what I'm talking about. It's simply the difference between letting a friend know about something great via a phone call vs. a series of tubes.
Sounds like old news reading it back, and of course it is. I don't know, it just struck me, so I figured I'd put it out there. Into the tubes.

IN DEFENSE OF VALENTINE'S DAY...

A list of 101 things that I love, in no particular order:

White sunglasses. Christmas music. Fake antagonism. Sing-a-longs. My friends. Grilled cheese sandwiches. Cool yet mostly useless superheroes like Hawkeye and Gambit. Water. Dioramas. Dustin Hoffman. Having somewhat deep conversations with people I've just met. Magazines. Canada. The movie Ed Wood. Checkered Vans slip-ons. Swimming. Mid-90's Jennifer Aniston. Sweaters. Bill Murray singing More Than This in the karaoke scene in Lost In Translation. Field trips. Hockey. Frank Lloyd Wright. Distance libs. Baby jungle cats. Dancing. Having very deep conversations with people I've known for a long time. The way that Scottish singers half-sing and half-talk their lyrics. Mummies. Audrey Horne. Making faces. When people look really good in leather jackets because I know I could never pull it off. The Galapagos Islands. Polka dots. Jean-Luc Godard. Being in a taxi in Manhattan. When girls wear monogrammed clothing. Every single thing about John Waters. Cool t-shirts. Outer space. Early R.E.M. Tony Kornheiser. Water parks. Oscar Wilde. Camo shorts in the summertime. Lo-fi. Cupcakes. The movie Fright Night. Sending and/or receiving postcards. Being from New Jersey. Aquafresh toothpaste. Argyle socks. Miniature golf. The B-52's. Libraries. Creeping fog. Seeing turtles in the wild. Trapper Keepers. French anything. Finding other people who still listen to cassettes. Phil Hartman. Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Lemmy. Dinosaurs. Michael J. Fox. Shirts with snap buttons rather than regular buttons. The Union Jack. 30 Rock. Vermiform Records. Wearing a tie. Billy the Exterminator. Kids between the ages of 1-5 (before they become obnoxious). Balki Bartokomous. Thrift stores. Lemons. White Zombie. High school history textbooks. JANE. Hanging out. Frida Kahlo. John Dwyer. Border collies. Air conditioning. Romantic comedies. A nice long walk. Scarves. Staying overnight. Robert Cormier books. Being humorously creeped-out. Lemonade. Advil. Songs about monsters. Wrap-around porches. Zooey. The Aggro Crag. Chocolate milk/hot chocolate. My family. Apples to Apples. Scary Stories To Tell In the Dark. In-depth discussions of Mad Men. The movie Clue. Kathleen Hanna.

DISTANCE LIBS: VOLUME TEN

"The Planets"

There are nine planets in our solar system. They all dawdle around the hunk, which is what scientists call the sun. The sun is a gigantic ball of noble, which has been doggy-paddling for millions of years. Jupiter is the largest Big League Chew in our solar stuffed crust pizza. Earth is the fifth largest Roomba. We must always remember, however, that we live in a very sardoodledom solar system, which is only a tiny baby in the galaxy, which is part of the whole bodacious universe. Saturn is almost as large as Jupiter. It is surrounded by a big linguine, which is really a lot of small moons and pieces of rock that are spelunking around the planet. The planet closest to the sun is called Esta and the one farthest away is called Reuben.

DISTANCE LIBS: VOLUME NINE

"Bird-Watching and Vice Versa"

Bird-watching can be more fun than a barrel of Popes. Our dastardly feathered friends are everywhere, waiting to be watched. An interesting bird to start with is the electrifying oriole, which builds it's nest in Wizard Island trees. Early in spring, we hear the oriole give it's mating call, which sounds like this: "Green-Tea-Frap." Then the male and female get together and mutate. Later, the female lays four billion quintzillion million eggs. Isn't that incandescent? Another fascinating bird is the opulent-breasted nuthatch. The nuthatch is very tame. He will fly down and land right on your inner ear and eat out of your woodland creatures. Other birds to watch out for are the red-crested Spanish Goldblum, the famous-necked thrush, and the yellow-bellied Patty sucker. Now that you know something about birds, get out there and watch!

Winston and Rufus Sing the Hits

I spent the bulk of Saturday and Sunday with my buddy Rob at his place in Brooklyn working on projects for the future, talking about television and dogs and whatever people in their late-twenties to early-thirties talk about. When I mention the fact that we were working, picture George and Jerry in his apartment trying to write the pilot for his NBC sitcom, though I believe we got farther than they did on their first try. When I mention talking about television, I mean of course that we watched the first episode of the new NBC superhero drama The Cape, and I only bring it up to warn others, avoid this show at all cost. It's uncommonly bad. However, there were one or two things on the tube worth watching.
Yes, that is the airplane scene from Jurassic Park III. It's hard to argue that JP3 is a good movie when the opposition can point out that raptors will NOT eat you if you simply give them back their egg and blow into a state-of-the-art raptor voicebox.

Anyway, besides TV the only other entertainment was Rob's dogs, Winston and Rufus, blurrily pictured here begging for food like...well, animals.

These are some great pups, a little in your face, occasionally barky, true shed-machines, but fine company.

The rest of the visit was pretty standard, a bar with an Avatar pinball machine (seems too current, what are you trying to prove??), a jukebox that must have made a fortune (two bucks for seven songs that never played, even after 2 1/2 of waiting), and an assortment of games (I had to restrain myself from asking strangers if I could join their Apples to Apples jamboree). Leaving there I picked up an ill-advised 4am quesadilla and attempted to get some rest on love seat that Rufus would soon make his own.

It's not hard to see here that I don't really have a ton to say about this weekend, but it was a great time and I'm making an effort to write more about day-to-day life (should help to stir the creative juices) and take more pictures (why buy a camera if you're not going to use it?). Maybe 2011 can be a return to form of sorts, there's so much worth remembering.