(Re-publishing this now. It was taken down for some incredible, stupid, selfish reasons. It had nothing to do with Salinger - but it had everything to do with everything else. Viz. life)
The trip is over, might as well come out and say it. And this blog has been a complete failure. [edit- delete]. I am driving into the firey pits of the Mississippi and the purple and yellow smoke, and the purple and yellow smo...
I was walking today and there was one hawk flying high above the tennis courts, and then there was another hawk, and the two predators they danced and loved each other, even as they were awe-shaking and terrible from below - and I thought of my first love, a girl I loved very much, and I thought of this eagle that flew me across the country once - not literally of course - but I saw an eagle and then I knew it, I had to leave. And then I saw a frozen eagle in the Indian chief's freezer, stored and kept with the hamburger ...
And even today! Today I told you: I decided to become a) a lawyer b) an English prof and c) a poet. And I became very, very angry that life is like this. That life is hard.
And so let me please finish this blog with a little bit of dignity. And perhaps with a promise and a request.
But first a note, one more, just one more, of observation. I will never be happy unless I can manage to forget my ego. But until then, I will firmly believe, that the only suitable thing to do in life is change people (with your art, with your science, with your law, with your bare, bleeding hands). I believe that change is the important thing.
And yet souls are stone, are diamonds. The most hard, awful things in the world, the most stubborn, are souls. And so art must be tough, and must be tougher. This is my aesthetic anyhow, and it is the reason I feel such a let down; for I am a softy.
I know that I won't be sharp enough with out a good chance to practice, and yet I just waste I waste I waste: (for proof, read the last three or four entries. For proof read anything from me. I do not focus. I need focus).
This whole thing has been the diary of an egomaniac.
***
One more thing about my beautiful dad.
When I was in Grade 5, I came home from school, and out on the lawn he had collected about 6 large sofas, 3 of those old-time oversized radio-recordplayer combos, and a random and vast collection of junk.
I first saw all of this from about two blocks away, as I was getting off my school bus. For the next minute, walking to my front door, I had burst into tears: Dad was really losing it. There was no more denying it.
There was another time, and it is very likely that it was the same day or week of the mad sofa collecting, but there was one day where I came home and when I got to the basement, there Dad had assembled another mad, manic collection of stuff. This time, however, Dad bought about three guitars - one of them was a black and white Fender Squire Strat, and the other two were sort of Epiphones, shaped like violins - and about four large, silver-screened and black amplifiers. All this wonderful, strange and alien equipment had been plugged in. And later that night, maybe it was a Friday, Dad had his buddies over and they were smoking weed and drinking whiskey.
And he gave me the Fender, and I plugged it into one of the big amps, and played my first guitar for the first time.
(Now, this part is distracting, however it happened so let me get it out of the way: the amp was not grounded, and was wired all wrong - Dad had bought a junk heap - and within a few seconds a current of electricity was shot from amp, to guitar strings, to my tiny little fingers, and I was fried for about 3 seconds, unable to move in what seemed like an eterinty of intense, horrible and dull pain).
And just this last week I opened up the crazy play that had occupied my father's last 10 years of his life: from writing it in his most manic, gambling fueled rampages, to selling it and republishing it later while he was melting away in a retirement home. The page I opened it to had a stage direction at this crucial part of the play - which is a kind of an epic Rock opera starring Mick Jagger - that Toby, me, and Paul, an old band buddy, would play their "Blues Dues song."
Now I haven't really cried all that much since he's dead, but this got to me.
Last night I dreamt of Dad and he could drive, and he could drive and smoke at the same time, and we cruised down a highway in his classic old sports car - which he destroyed in the bad years - and he was smacking the steering wheel singing along, and I could sing with him. And I could hear him playing guitar as we drove, perfectly, just powerful, unlike anything he could ever do in sickness. And we just drove down the road, full speed, with the windows down, enjoying life, singing and singing and singing.
