The Weekly Meat

Oh My, What I've Unearthed...

This morning, I found a cache of my old writing notebooks, from the earnest, unwittingly-dilettante college years. Primo stuff.

And so, in the spirit of Mortified — in which "people tell stories about their lives by sharing their most mortifying childhood artifacts (diaries, letters, lyrics, poems, home movies)... in front of total strangers" — I believe I'll have to fully curate these and send the choicest cuts out into the cyber-universe for the sake of public humiliation. Today, though, I offer the following morsel, from the summer of 1990. It sticks out because I distinctly remember a few facts about it.

One: I was quite drunk when I wrote it, lying half off my futon on the floor of a summer sublet. And two: I am to this day thankful I did not burn down that apartment — and myself — that night.

That summer, I lived solo in a garage apartment. The only light in my room was an overhead, which was too bright to use at night, and too far from bed to turn off. And so I used to light a bedside candle to read and write by before going to sleep. I have no memory whatsoever of where I might have been headed with what amounted to the final thought of this too-brief morsel — as it ended mid-sentence, when, apparently overwhelmed by my own brilliance — and drink — I passed out. When I awoke came to the next morning, I was surprised to find no candle by the bedside (if one doesn't blow out a candle, it tends to keep burning — in this case, thankfully, safely, to not even a nub), and the following cryptic note:

Drunk, & most definitely disorderly — long walk home after a night of good blues. Me don't care -- standing at home, in front of my toilet

uncouth, German, hard-edged

Stay tuned... Plenty more to come, folks!

Random Sketchbook Pages

Back before everything went digital and we all got blogs, I used to be better about keeping a sketchbook. I have several from those days, and I page through them wistfully now and then, pining for the analog nature of it all.

Each is filled with sketches. Ideas too. For plays, stories, artwork. Doodles. Chords and lyrics. Words to live by. Lists of books and movies to read and see. Often, just random things I wanted to remember in that long-ago era before we all walked the earth with cameras in our pockets and knowledge lived in clouds.

Like a bar spotted in Ennis, Ireland called Tipsy McStaggers. Or a pawn shop in Sioux Falls called The Happy Hocker. Or how a friend used to refer to masturbation as "shaking hands with the unemployed."

Or a sign at a church in Gaylord, MI: GOT JESUS?

Or another church sign in Brighton, MA:

C H _ _ C H

What's missing?

U R

 

At the very least, they are filled with the innocent, immature, and occasionally incoherent, notions we all have when unguarded. At their best, though, they illustrate the growth of both my creative and analytical thought processes. And contain an immediacy and truth that I rarely, if ever, reach on the pages of this blog.

For that, I treasure them. 

The Mid-Life Crisis

I'm 42, and though it has been slow in developing, I believe I am now fully involved in the proverbial Mid-Life Crisis. It's not manifesting itself in the traditional guy ways of thinking that a faster car or a younger wife, or copious amounts of cocaine or Rogaine, is going to greatly improve my life as I begin to rage against going gentle into that good night. Those, frankly, are dick things. And it's not a dick thing for me. Rather — as work seems my addiction of choice these days — my struggle seems to be all about work.

There has been some mid-life flirtation with running, but the true crisis is about work. It has always been about work. 

Between my day job, the blog, and my artwork, I am now consumed 24/7 with work. And even liking it (despite the occasional grousing). Similar to an epiphany about academia back in college, I've discovered more recently that though it has taken some time, I've finally become quite good at work — even doing the stuff that used to drive me crazy, like the business end of being a working artist (making art is the easy part; showing and selling it is far more difficult).

Still, as I hit the second half of life (and if I do indeed live to be 84, I expect I might be completely satisfied), I wrestle with the question of whether what I'm doing now is what I really want to be doing. The right step for me career-wise? What I could conceiveably do for another 25–30 years? And if not, shouldn't I shit or get off the pot?

There are occasions that try our souls, and the mid-life crisis is indeed one of them.

Sometimes I don't know exactly what I think until I write about it, and this is one of those times. Particularly, when one writes an essay, one needs to put forth a thesis, a sustainable argument. That is essentially, the mission of this blog, for good or ill and whether or not I succeed.

So here we are. And what, pray, is my thesis?

Can't say. But I can tell you that the mid-life crisis seems a hell of a lot easier proposition when one has real money behind them. Or no kids. Or no relationship. Kind of tough to chuck it all though when there is a mortgage to pay, mouths to feed, a future to make. Or maybe that's just me using my family as human shields to mask my fear of serious change (remember Inertia?).

So much to think on — while one sits, figuratively, on the pot.

Meet the Press

True story: 20 years ago, I ran out from my newspaper job one afternoon to pick up my brand new city-issued Press credentials. On the way back to the office, I passed by a building as several cop cars pulled up. I moved closer, as they formed a perimeter and put up yellow crime scene tape. The body was covered with a sheet and nearby was a completely trashed window-washing rig that had given way from 20-some stories up.

The Press pass burned a hole in my pocket. I had stumbled onto a homicide, and I was the first one there. A young writer's dream. A story to work as a stringer on. Break my cherry, get an all-city byline. And yet.

I turned and headed back to the office, back to my desk. Back to my work as the A & E writer/editor for a monthly business rag with a readership generously estimated at 25,000.

Let the dead window washer stay dead, let his family grieve. Let the cops do their grim job uninterrupted. There were things I was ready to do in my life, and things I was not. I knew that then, and — though those things have changed in the past 20 years — I know that now.

There are stories we want in our lives, stories we think we want to tell forever, others we have only passing interest in, some stories we know about but don't want to hear, and still others we don't even want to know about. The key is in the knowing, and the knowing changes as we grow — assuming we indeed do grow.

Sometimes we're so interested in telling past stories, or creating future stories that we neglect the present. Occasionally, we're laser-focused on the present and certain it will bear fruit in the form of stories we'll tell again and again. And sometimes we can't see the stories for the trees.

I think what I'm trying to say is that I need a vacation badly and I'm about to get one — out in the wind-blown jack pines and sage, butted up against buttes. I can't wait.

Monologue: God Bless America

I'm on the train. Just now. On the train, and I'm trying to read the paper. There's one of these characters in the seat behind me leaning on the headrest, trying to read over my shoulder. And I can almost feel him, breathing all over my neck. So I turn around, just slightly, so he knows I know. Well he keeps doing it. I figure at first I can just ignore him, start humming something, you know — kind of subtly out-piss him off. So I do. I'm humming — jazz — bopping quietly to myself. Well, the man starts whistling. Whistling. And not to what I'm humming. Okay? So I start humming a little louder. He whistles a little louder, so I get a little louder still. And he steps it right up. It's a dare game now. So I start scatting quietly, you know, like Ella. I'm doing "Salt Peanuts" or something — scatting my ass off. Good stuff too. Well: he starts to sing. Not listening-to-headphones singing. Singing. On the train. People are starting to move away from us. He's doing that fucking song from Oklahoma. At this point I stop. I'm silent. Kind of in awe. This has become a thing. He keeps singing right along. American fucking Idol, this guy. And people are looking. Everybody's looking at him, right. And they're looking at me too, cause here I am right next to him. The whole train car is checking this out. Even the ones pretending that this sort of shit happens every day. Well, at some point he looks at me. Right at me. And I don't know what it was, but his eyes, and . . . well, something clicked. Right there. He's coming to the end of his song, big finish and all, so before anyone could even think about what to think of the guy I start right in with "God Bless America" at the top of my lungs. And I mean I'm belting it out. Kate Smith. God bless America, land that I love . . . . Well, the guy looks at me and smiles. I'm onto something. He joins in. Right on key. . . . From the mountains, to the prairie, to the oceans . . . . I mean we're on too; sounding pretty good. Well, the train is pulling in but we're not finished yet, right? Nobody on our car moves an inch. They're waiting for us. We're the end car and the two of us are standing in front of the exit. No one even tries to go around us. No one moves. Because the thing about it is they know the song and they know it's almost over, so they're waiting there. For us. Waiting.

How to Accept an Honorary Degree

Apropos of nothing but the season. (Though I am available for any and all honorary degrees.)

1. Open with an obvious joke making light of something easily observed on campus, OR on a decidedly somber note in light of recent tragic world events, and then an obvious joke making light of something easily observed on campus (especially if at your alma mater [from which you never graduated because see #6, below]).
2. Give thanks, it's a true honor, you're not worthy.
3. Big up to the parents for footing the bill, with winking aside to the kids and joke about making the parents nervous.
4. Hat tip to your own parents, followed by bit of self-deprecating humor centered around the fact that you are receiving a doctorate for nothing more than simply being famous.
5. Anecdote about your own college days; hint at youthful indiscretions.
6. Anecdote about how you found your calling and became famous through hard work and dumb luck but with the underlying theme being that you made a conscious decision to stay true to yourself, and the audience should too — fame and fortune be damned.
7. Side note about the fact that none of us needs to aspire to saving the world if we each just do our small part.
8. Life is meant to be fun.
9. Five-second group consciousness exercise.
10. Anecdote about your own college days; hint at youthful indiscretions.
11. Note staggeringly-obvious differences between college and the capital-letters Real World (without dating yourself by referring to MTV's The Real World, which surely must have died off in the mid-'90s but I don't care enough to spend the five seconds to fact-check it).
12. Circular logic about contradictory nature of this speech and life itself.
13. Exploration metaphor!
14. Elevated language — you're getting close.
15. Heartfelt congratulations and gratitude.
16. Joke about looking them up in ten years while seeking employment opportunities.
17. Hallmark card advice (e.g., No, for real, see #16, above)
18. Make fun of Hallmark card advice.
19. Give Hallmark card advice anyway, but in sound bite form.
20. Twitter from stage.

Facebook Status Update

I'm on The Facebook.

I'm updating my status, because that's part of the deal with The Facebook. It's the perverse cyber-window into which we allow ask friends and "friends" alike to peep.

But the status update is somehow more than that. Use it enough and it becomes the more real looking-glass through which we not only see ourselves, but through which we want the world to see us.

Too much gravitas? Maybe. After all, life is not about what we're doing at any given moment. But then again, grow your sample size of moments enough (particularly away from the witty or flattering ones), and suddenly it is. Because when we add up all our moments — especially the notable ones, both good and bad — that's all we have. And so, it's something.

What makes an update-worthy moment? Ultimately, it's up to each user, but as one of those ("We few, we happy few") without constant smartphone contact to The Internets, I just smile and nod thankfully when confronted with the more inane moments in my life. Without an uplink, I often find myself blessedly edited by circumstance. Because, in the moment, information that might seem necessary to share with one's extended circle of peers is, at second glance, generally not.

But arguably, it is precisely the small, inane moments that tend to paint a more clear picture of who I am: "BK is having irreconcilable differences with the hotel shower" maybe; or "made a slight error while cutting his hair and now fears Vanilla Ice comparisons"; or "is doing dangerous things involving a large pine tree, a saw and a ladder"; or "is trying not to stare at an Israeli waitress who looks like Angelina Jolie's more natural looking, younger sister." (All of those true at some point in the past several months, by the way.)

[BK is hoping that last one does not get him in trouble at home.]

We have always had some say in how we define our public selves, but our accessibility is so much broader these days — a phenomenon that gives us both more and less control over our own message (to use the language of marketing and politics). And in our present star-fucking culture, our default is to strive to be the focus of at least our own small pond.

After all, what is blogging, if not just that?

[BK pauses, self-referentially.]

But what and when to edit ourselves when life in front of so many new lenses has become the norm? I'm not sure, but thank god I'm already happily married, middle-aged, and mature enough for even momentary reflection, because if not, I'd surely have committed social suicide dozens of times by now.

Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube alone might constitute half of all web use among many teenagers, but I imagine they also offer today's yutes the constant threat of painful infamy. [BK is perhaps projecting here.] Because the flipside of saying "Look at me, look at me!" has forever been that, well, folks might actually look.

And then what?

Hmm... "BK is pulling a substantial quantity of lint from his belly button" maybe; or "should be able to turn the channel during a Man v. Food marathon"; or "worries he has become That Guy Who Picks His Nose at Traffic Lights"; or "should not have trusted that last fart."

State of the Meat Address

Madame Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, faithful readers, fellow citizens, and the First Lady of the United States:

I’ve like to address the distinguished men and women in this great blogosphere (a series of tubes, actually), and to speak frankly.

I know that for many of you reading right now, the state of our Weakly Weekly Meat is a concern that rises above all others. And rightly so. If you haven’t been personally affected by this blog, you probably know someone who has — a friend, a neighbor, a member of your family. The impact of this blog is real, and it is everywhere.

But while our writing may be temporarily weakened and our confidence shaken, I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and The Weekly Meat will emerge stronger than before.

The weight of the present crisis will not determine the destiny of this blog. The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this community to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that for too long, we have not always met these responsibilities — as a blog or as a people. The fact is, our work did not decline overnight. Too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next posting, the post after that, or even the post after that one. A surplus became an excuse to sit back and count our number of hits, our Facebook fans, our hyper-inflated profits. And all the while, critical discourse was put off for some other time on some other day.

Well that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.

Now is the time to act boldly and wisely — to not only revive this blog, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. Now is the time to jump-start job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like ice hockey, art, leisure, food and drink that will grow our audience, even as we make hard choices to bring down our debt. That is what my agenda is designed to do.

None of this will come without cost, nor will it be easy. But this is The Internets. We don’t do what’s truthful. We do what is necessary to move this blog forward.

I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard work. But work we must.

As we stand at this crossroads of history, the eyes of all people in all nations are once again upon us, waiting for us to lead. It is a tremendous burden, but also a great privilege — for in our fingertips lies the ability to shape our world for good or ill. I know that it is easy to lose sight of this truth — to become cynical and doubtful; consumed with the petty and the trivial.

But I have also learned that hope is found in unlikely places; that inspiration often comes not from those with the most power or celebrity, but from the dreams and aspirations of Americans who are anything but ordinary.

I think about Gertrude Hoofenmouth, the girl from a school I visited in Bibleton, Kansas — a town that was completely destroyed by a tornado, but is being rebuilt by its residents as a global example of how good will, clean energy, and Christ can power an entire community — how it can bring jobs and businesses to a place where piles of bricks and rubble once lay. And let me tell you something. That young lady said this: “We've got spirit, yes we do. We've got spirit, how 'bout you?”

Indeed, people. Young Gertrude's resolve must be our inspiration; your own concerns must be our cause. And vice versa. Ipso facto lorem ipsum. And we must prove that we are equal to the task before us.

I know that we haven’t agreed on every issue thus far, and there are surely times in the future when we will part ways. But I also know that every casual reader or Google search stumbler loves this blog and wants it to succeed. That must be the starting point for every piece we post in the coming months, and where we return after those posts are done. That is the foundation on which the global community expects us to build common ground.

And if we do — if we come together and lift this blog from the depths of this present crisis; if we put people back to work and restart the engine of our prosperity; if we confront without fear the challenges of our time and summon that enduring spirit of an Internets that does not quit, then someday years from now our children can tell their children that this was the time when we wrote something worthy of being satirized.

Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless America The Weekly Meat.

Vaya con carne, mis amigos!

The Button

As we said goodbye I lost a button. I’d been fiddling with it, a loose tooth. It just came off in my hand.

I can’t be sure it was completely accidental. But once in my fingers I decided you should have it. I pressed it to your palm and you held it, smiled, put it in your shirt pocket. “By my heart,” you said. Then you kissed me and left.

But what does it mean?

A button for your heart; an incomplete shirt. Will I find a new button? or see the same again? And if I do, will it be you who hands it to me? The question of the button. It gets me. I mean, is there such a thing in life as the “accidental” button? Or can these things simply happen. Or did I in fact alter our moment by pulling the button subconsciously? And if I did, should that not count for something?

Is the button the crucial metaphor I think it to be? If so, for what exactly?

Do you understand my anxiety here? Do you have the same?

I wonder: can I learn to be satisfied with an unbuttoned shirt? Or am I missing the point entirely?

Did your heart need to be buttoned?

Family

George Burns said, "Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city." And indeed, this describes both my and AKL's family.

I write this because we will be on vacation next week with my family. My whole family. Not just me, AKL, and the girls, but my brother and sister too, with their spouses and kids. And my parents. All told, we'll be 14 people. Relaxing? Maybe. Insane? Maybe.

Here, I need to stop and say that in my life, I have taken exactly three women to my parents' house for Thanksgiving with my family. All three have cried at some point during the trip.

Now, mind you, I never really went in much for criers. All three are with-it, smart, together women. So how is it that the Great Festivus of Turkey and Excess can bring otherwise rational women to weep inconsolably? The promise of tryptophan? Perhaps. My family? Perhaps. Me?

Whether the cause was me, or them, or my family, or the stress brought on by the prospect of the three coming together, who knows. I know this: The last time my family went on vacation together was a dozen years ago. There were only six of us then, all adults, in a foreign country, and we did well to stay out of each other's hair. But now we're twice as many — with six kids younger than four years old — and we'll all be under one roof. We'll be able to avoid each other only so much. Either we'll get along, or we won't. And either we'll deal well with that fact, or we won't.

Now, before you start thinking my family (most of whom will read this) veers into Long Day's Journey into Night territory, I should clarify our situation a bit. Sure, we're fully capable of putting the "fun" in dysfunction, but what family can't, in their own way? My siblings and I had a pretty easy, happy childhood. Occasionally a bit disaffected and Ice Storm-y in parts, but it was suburbia in the '70s, and that couldn't be avoided. My parents are married 40+ years, and bless us all if we can manage the same.

Because, as Preznit Bush likes to say about his day job, "It's hard work." And even when ruled by iron-fisted matriarchs from Gentile genteel places like Kennebunk, families can be, well, difficult.

We all tend to act differently around our family. Like the cast of a play or nearly any team of people, we fall into familiar roles among them — the black sheep, the overachiever, the scapegoat, the people pleaser, the entertainer, etc. — and my kin are no different.

Typecasting is problematic and difficult (especially when you're not being paid SAG minimum for the "acting"). You can get bored with it, try to inject something new into the role, begin to resent the staleness.

I'm still not exactly sure how to classify myself — though I know it when I've fallen into a role. And sometimes I'm fine with that. Other times, it annoys the hell out of me.

Back in the day, one of the Thanksgiving criers had a family dog that would actually play fetch by itself. Her folks had a lake house, and the dog would get a stick, then excitedly run out to the end of the dock with it and drop it off the dock and into the water, at which point it would run back to the beginning of the dock, then turn right around and hustle back once again to the end of the dock and jump straight into the water. It would then retrieve the stick, swim back to the shore, shake itself off, and start again.

I thought the scene spoke volumes about her family dynamics at work. What I realize now is that my judgment about my then-girlfriend's family was only partly valid. The rest was merely a reflection of my own family dynamics.

But that was then, and while having kids stirs up whatever feelings we had toward our own parents — just as they experienced the same — it also forces on you (OK, on me at least) a certain level of maturity.

So, with George Burnsian distance and maybe even some basic emotional growth, our roles can change as we age. Without it, of course, they stagnate. Either way, side effects may include headaches, nausea, vomiting, and horrible vacations.

Wish us luck.