Cold Wind
A poem, today. For you—and for me.
Cold Wind, by Jim Harrison
"I like those old movies where tires and wheels run backwards on
horse-drawn carriages pursued by indians, or Model As driven by
thugs leaning out windows with tommy guns ablaze. Of late I feel a
cold blue wind through my life and need to go backwards myself to
the outback I once knew so well where there were too many mosqui-
toes, blackflies, curious bears, flowering berry trees of sugar plum
and chokeberry, and where sodden and hot with salty sweat I'd slide
into a cold river and drift along until I floated against a warm sandbar,
thinking of driving again the gravel backroads of America at
thirty-five miles per hour in order to see the ditches and gulleys, the
birds in the fields, the mountains and rivers, the skies that hold our
10,000 generations of mothers in the clouds waiting for us to fall
back into their arms again."
The Weekend Report
Attended: Birthday party at the Bracewell residence. A fire pit crackled. Rock bands played. Then everyone hung out in the kitchen.
Saw: Boyhood, by Richard Linklater (the guy behind the great Dazed And Confused). A meandering assemblage of moments in the life of a family—all strung together in a way that's just very, very REAL.
Drank: Americanos with honey—a more delicious, more manageable, more healthful cocaine of sorts.
Read: This sentence by Heidi Swanson: "There's a lot to be said about doing the work you want to be doing. And chipping away at it, regularly, as a practice, has the potential to help show you the way." Thank god for work. Sometimes. You know?
All Hallows
The year is turning toward darkness—here sits Halloween already. It's the portent of a season when holidays barrel haphazardly at you. I'm cool with Halloween, though, cuz it's a holiday of a different sort (I.E. it isn’t for family, it’s for me and for you).
Costume-wise, I tend to do the bare minimum to not be deemed a hack or unfun. I also generally attend a party where I lean against a wall admiring all the magnificent costumes people arrive wearing. Edgar Allen Poe and his spectral mistress, Eazy-E and Ice Cube, the bunny from Donnie Darko, Bob Ross, et cetera, et cetera. At a certain point, I always seem to discover myself tipsy, this coinciding with a realization that I've lost all my friends. Suddenly all the masks are jeering at me, all the face paint nightmarish. At this point, I leave—without telling anyone good bye, just quietly wandering home to sleep the sleep of the dead and not wake up again until November.
Anyway, I've never stayed home and handed out candy to the little people roving from door to door with pumpkin-shaped buckets held before them. Is this any fun?
Bob Ross in all his glory, some pioneers heading westward ho, and NWfrickinA.
See? I don't try very hard.
Sometimes all you need is a couple rolls of duct tape to dress up. But then what happens when you have to pee? I don't remember how Billy solved this dilemma.
Stormytelling
Normally I do spectacular things on Saturday nights.
But this Saturday night I spent on the top of a ladder in the darkness and storm wrestling with pieces of corrugated roof that were torn away by the raging wind. I employed a power drill in the spectral light of a flashlight with dying batteries. I sliced my finger pulling wet screws out of my back pocket. I teetered dangerously atop the tippy-top rung ("this is not a step") and legit almost fell three and a half times.
All the while the gusting air perpetuated savagery in the huge evergreen above my head, adding to the sense of urgency—the immediate need to fix the patio roof, I.E. prevent the downpour from pooling right there at my backdoor and (as anyone would) inviting itself inside.
Anyway, a huge storm came through this weekend, like a vanguard of winter, and as I met its wrath on a Saturday night while most people I knew had run off eating and drinking and such, I suddenly knew that, for real, I am grown up—like a grown up grown up.
But the next day I slept in, ate peanut butter from a jar, and skated all afternoon in the newborn sun. Okay?
Saturday Night Stuff
On Saturday night, I rode my bike all over town, but mainly to a foot stompin' show near Belmont Street—a benefit for My Voice Music put on by The Lonesome Billies, my fave Portland old-country band.
Last year, I attended the same event, with the same people, on the same bike. This is a big deal, because it's late October—and normally you can't ride your bike drunkly around town in late October on account of the damn, damn rain. However, both this year and last, soaring down dark, empty streets with leaves flying away in our wake happened, so perhaps it's all predestined.
Along this ride, we breaked for a stiff drink on Burnside Street, forged a crowd waiting to get into a "Burning Man after party," and were nearly scooted off the road by a left-turning semi truck. It was all good—all part of the journey.
Upon our arrival, pro-skater Leo Romero’s band Travesura played—who I've been following since I stumbled upon their show last winter—and much dancing immediately ensued. The place was filled with pals. Strings of white lights winked overhead. Arms hung over the necks of neighbors, and everyone sung along. It was a pure good time (for a good cause) that should def not be missed by the likes of you next year, okay?
October street gang.
