I tried my best the other day to put my Daughter into perspective with the nastiness of the world and the image that young girls must face , nose to nose. She is young enough that maybe I might have an impact on that, but I am smart enough to know that a Father’s word is kept about as close to the chest as herpes, once they reach the menstrual years.

Upon talking to a friend today (she is having a granddaughter to be born in months and her daughter and her were discussing names and the regular proclivities), I relived a very profound moment of my existence. I was reading a lot of Chekhov and Kafka at the time (along with Mark Twain), but that did not seem to be the sole rudder twist that I speak of.

My ex-wife made a 'wonder' out of the pregnancy. She was an absolute miracle. She did not change that much. She actually had anti-cravings, so I had food aversion under my belt as opposed to food shopping at two a.m. She was a baby machine saint. A holder of sacred worship without demand. She was not an un-agreeable pregnant wife. She was the exception. My Mother may call her a cunt, but I call her Andrea; someone I should have paid more respect to than my Mother.

I recall listening to the baby in the belly via ultra-cool headphones. I loved to hear the swish and swoosh, even though I should have shown that joy more often and more in genral.

While I was under my (or her's as some would say) spell of pregnancy (which was one of denial), I attended La Maas classes with Andrea. I worked graveyard and the classes were next to work but at 8 p.m. I woke up 6 hours early (which meant earlier slumber) and went to meet her at the hospital. I did the class and then sat around for an hour or two and then went to work. I was going through mental and hormonal changes at the time (much like her but for very different reasons) and it was a hard time. During one of the classes, I left due to increased blood pressure and a sense of being ill. I had to run out and breathe deep as not to vomit. At the time, I thought she was supposed to do that. I was ok and we learned very well how to breathe.

She went into false labour the week before my child opened eyed the Sun of our reality. I received the phone call at work and wondered what was going to happen or change. It was a false alarm, but I still remember the intercom beckoning my name to service that night in the market. It was about midnight. All of the guys were smiling and full of handshakes and back pats. I was going to be a Daddy.

It was a practice run.

The following week was the big event.

There was less co-worker enthusiasm during the real run.

We walked for hours up and down the hallways of the prison-like hospital. Beverly Hospital’s maternity ward is on the same floor, and next too, the mental detention ward. I thought about how unsafe it was to have mental midgets next to the recently birthed ones. I wondered about that gated, chained, and metal windowed door each time we passed. I think it was the third floor. The old courtyards of brick reminded me of Chekhov and Tolstoy. The moss that grew between the reddened faces of each square reminded me of change and growth - it brought forth the fermentation of formation. I was not to be me or us - I was to be a family; in just hours. Such a responsibility. Such a burden. Such a privilege.

She wanted to do natural child birth and after 20 hours or so and one false alarm, she opted for a newer shot of medicine - not the full rig. After it was vein injected and a couple more bounces on the birthing ball, she began the water break birth.

We had no idea what the sex of the child to be would be. We had everything in that pastel green mint color found within the innards of an Andes Mint. We did have two names. If it were to be a boy it would have been Owen Xavier; if it were a girl we had picked Morgan Abbagail. I know; I have her name tattooed in an Old English lettered band around my right calf. I would have done the same had it been a Son.

Due to ripping and tearing (as well as a bed nurse utterance of ‘don’t push’ denial on my ex-wife’s behalf), I was the first one to hold my beautiful baby girl - my daughter - my prodigy.

My ex got sewn up right. The baby was fine - she was finer.

I get to see her again come October.

I dance a jig in glee.

My kiddo is me.

I am my kiddo.

I love the bubb-o so much.

My Hambone, Savage, Mrs. Magoo. Gooners, Ready Freddy, Crazy Larry.

My Morgan Abbagail.

And yes, that is like ABBA.

She is a dancing Queen …

Writing about University last night has made me want to share a smidgen of those interlaced years of attending and not.

Those years of orange English major.

Those years when I thought I had not only the World by it's balls, but I had them in my teeth. 

One more and then a bonus post.

Both contrast.

I am 'preparing Lev'.

Politics come back tomorrow and they are strong indeed.

Buckle up ...

The neon streaks seizure and shake about so hard that one can only think the lips of light will turn blue and fall upon itself, creating a black hole for us all to gaze into and question, “What the Hell happened here?”

Have you ever stood at the edge of the hole called ‘What the Hell happened here’? I have. I camp out on the ledge, the precipice. Like the cartoon elephant holding itself up with it’s tail by the daisy, I wonder, “I am here again and why?”

Questions in life flood into one’s daily humdrum and conundrum like bending deep notes from an SV that only nimble, yet strong, fingers bend and warp like a first date’s hood of uncertain treasure finding. Everything as the imperfect uncertainty of being raw and real, like the soundtrack to a Herzog Werner film. Real. Like Earth beneath those kids nails as the watch ol’ Sam interweave his fingers with whiskers.

Remember when fashion was something creative and not something that required sales tax?

Can you imagine the World as it were up till about 35 years ago, complete with ‘costume’ choices and attire decisions that made the man or woman who they were upon first glance. I would be dressed much more extravagantly. Much more eloquent would my tweed twill torque and twist be. Bad magazines of feminism, cocaine, heroin, and chain stores led to the down fall of self expression. Now, self expression, through outward appearance, requires a flesh hole or epidermis ink or such a ridiculous train wreck of a satirical self that no one can seem to look, unless it is of the same gaze used to watch motorcyclists decapitated due to their own freeway freewheeling wheelies. The death trance of curiosity. Listen to the advice of the cat at the milk dish wishing for fish. “Curiosity sucks!”

I had a ‘look’ in college. I suppose we all did. We all tried in High School, but that was High School, and we hardly took ourselves seriously enough to have any one else return the favor of attention paid.

At University, I was ‘Tigger’ the hippie-punk. I had a costume. I had an obnoxious demeanor and an atrocious set of actions and ticks to whip from the bag of tricks at any time.

I was very thin in college. I wore a pair of dark sage coloured Dickie’s slacks that would make any school janitor green with envy and purple with jealousy - he would have been ‘preen’. I normally wore a t-shirt underneath a flannel - western Massachusetts is cold in the school attending months. Over that was always the tweed overcoat that led to a very comic book or wino vagrant look. It was hip for early ‘80’s kids in Ivy League schools to wear them. I was just doing it at a State school in the early nineties. From my waist always hung a chain wallet and sometimes the chain went all the way down to my ankle ala zoot suit. I also had a little Fury knife in my back pocket called the 'Claw' - a little fold out three finger joby that would allow just the right amount of protection on a night gone dreadfully awry.

I wore a bowler to cover up my skin shaved bald head that was kept slick and bic’d most of the time. I had a very long goatee, much like the one I have now, but while in school I had a pink, black and white wrap in/on it that made it extend down to my navel. At the end was a femo (ceramic) bead about the size of a grape that was orbited by three smaller metallic moons of pea size. I had my own galaxy at the end of my facial hair.

Upon my ever so walked around tootsie’s was a pair of Ox Blood Dr. Marten’s boots with rainbow stitching. I still have them for the ‘Moron Museum’. I was one bad … ‘shut your mouth’.

Needless to say, yet I am saying it, I had presence when I walked into a room. People asked who the hell I was. I was also the chain smoking Son-of-a-Bitch who would stand up on tables in the dining common and kick away plates of food and scream and yell and recite poetry or song lyrics while people watched the improved reality and performance art paddy-wack known as the ‘Hippie-Punk’ freaking out on the World. I had groupies. All I needed was an instrument and I could have been Ace Frehley.

Fashion meant something. I created a persona. I was the guy pretending to loudly, mega-phone blare, jerk off in the corner and throw a bowl of cottage cheese against the wall (from underneath aforementioned overcoat) and walk away smiling and relieved, asking for a smoke. I played a mean hand of Chinese poker. I had a silver cigarette case that flipped open with the splendor of a twenties Hollywood extravaganza wet dream that would be wrapped up into the same sheets of yesteryear as Marilyn Monroe’s body after the overdose death. Such a sad woman.

We all shook hands upon greeting. We all lit each other’s cigarettes. We all shared. It was a socialist utopia, complete with a full range pasquinade. We looked each other in the eyes. There is truly honour among thieves.

There were a wide array of nicknames and attire to represent those nomenclature eccentricities. We all were in a comic book, a graphic novel, of silly and vivid extreme, extraneous, existence.

Fashion was the key.

No one does that anymore.

Not even gang members.

We were the last. The hippies are dead in spririt and soul. No cause and cantor - a simple relinquishment of the same for the change of green - from one green to the other.

The one’s who stood tall all have joint and liver and lung and kidney problems and wish they could have been Dean-o or the Chairman of the Board.

Funny how looks go to lifestyle, but that is not necessarily true.

Upon gazing at me out in public (which is mostly after work) you would think me to be an ignorant homeless man wandering and wondering about the foot trekked sphere seeking out cans and other redeemable refuse. I am obviously not, if I do say so myself.

The spies are watching. They come out at night, after too many cigarettes and coffee and too much curiosity.

They call and report back.

Restraining orders will ensue - regardless of fashion.

Step away from that which is not yours.

Leave the child alone. Break the chain. End the cycle.

Do not bring on the battle of the costumed man. Do not make the ferocity rip through the embryonic gelatin.

Make sure you do not poke the sack.

Unless, you are getting 200 an hour to tickle my fancy and curl up my toes.

Keep cruising’ for burgers.

Keep thinking about how your style can be you.

Mine, now, is a black suit with straight black tie and white flared collar shirt. It is very Blues Brother or Reservoir Dogs.

It suits me just fine.

Everyone has a costume that fits and is acceptable.

Just don’t pay the tax unless it is with imagination and flare.

Be yourself and we will ALL rejoice …

I was thinking of Oliver Wendell Holmes when I recorded the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote last week.

This is still not the precise quote I was looking for but have found this one to be equally profound. The quote I am looking for was set to Irish violin and was on a mix tape that I recieved about 15 years ago. If memory serves right it had to do with the Civil War.

If anyone knows what I am talking about please let me know. On and on and on ...

Little stone soldiers lined up to dust themselves off and hear the eulogy of someone that led them into battles of another time. The passing of each stiff minute can ease the atrophy and harden the mind. Ahhh, what a bore for these little men, in their little hats, with their little salutes. One never knows what a day of service holds.

What will these little vigilant figures think when they attend your mass. Will they partake of the Eucharist? Will they want so badly to twiddle their thumbs or whistle to make the time past? They must do nothing except stand in respect. Some holding flags, others in a perpetual salute to eternity that is meant for the one laying in state.

Will there be missiles and banners in the street? Will the children weep and set fire to the buildings of power? What will the housewives do as they use Palmolive to soften their hands while they do dishes? Will businessmen stop short of martini two at their two drink luncheons that leave matters at hand on the little whittled stick that once held the olives like impaling doom?

I once dreamt of armies carrying up guns and cheers and bloody flags on pikes to the edge of the horizon that ended a field. Their cackles and chortles and death screams curdled the pink orange dawn that shed shards of day ray through the brimstoned smoke of gunpowder release and eventual decay. The noise would rise up and falter in waves intrinsic to trigonometric periods.

In the silence there was nothing to fear, except maybe Mark Twain running out of bait as the children sat in over-alls that were nothing more than tattered cuff suspended Capri’s. They all sat on a distant dock while Mr. Clemens fingered his mustache in thoughts to address the serenity with. Ahhh, the disappointment of the wormless children, digging through the rich black soil that would creep up under their fingernails as they searched for the possibility of one remaining nightcrawler.

When the noise would begin to build, you could see the pike flags begin their line dance like a half time show extravaganza of evil to ensue, and the children would run into their homes in hopes to hide beneath their Mother’s apron while she stand their covered in various baking powders making her seem like an apparition of shelter. Men would come in from the fields and the slaves would scurry into the woods, the serfs would wonder what was to be their death.

Such a Mephistophelean noise of unintelligible din. The wickedness could be smelled before the noise squeezed through your ear canal and danced on the drum. All would know upon it’s hearing that a flagitious death would await them.

Then the diabolic noise would die back down and the war banners would become still once more.

On and on and on; like green and red dancing in front of the color blind.

The unknown.

I wonder what the little stone soldiers did after the doom, after the atrocity.

The battles rage on, as they always will.

Uniformed men will always stand at attention.

Flags will always be waved high and proud or burned with vile disgust.

I wonder where I will be when the day comes.

I wonder what they will say when I lay still …