I Singe The Body Electric

The local utility company — who shall remain nameless, lest by calling out their name I remove some portion of the hex/evil eye/blackcatbone/curse I’ve called down on their heads — has seen fit to disconnect me from the world of electrons for a portion of the day. This missive might disappear without notice when halfway complete; if you’re not reading this, now you know why.

I went out into the street, and followed the trail of folderol to the fellow on the pole, who I discovered somewhat less ebullient than the fellow in the picture. He grunted about the dark and bloody secrets of unannounced transformer replacement scheduling. In my mind’s eye, he was involved in terrible sort of PCB basting mishap; but of course he’s just doin’ his job. It’s me that’s not doing mine. I’m surprised he didn’t scold me for being idle, while he was laboring so steadily, and on a Saturday, yet. Something in my expression counseled the wisdom of taciturnity to him, and the efficacy of remaining in a bucket well overhead, perhaps.

You– you got what I need. In the name of all that’s right and holy, turn it back…

Ah there it is. Everything’s beeping now. Me too.

Warm Love Friday

Hey everybody. It’s raining, and thinking about snowing, here in Southcoast Massachusetts.

I saw one of my neighbors, a carpenter, working outside yesterday. He’s tougher’n me. Buildng construction, which is my background, used to have a more seasonal framework to it. Tools, equipment, transportation and communication have improved, and guys just blaze away all year round at almost everything now. I’m glad to be in out of the weather now, the silky baulks of Tiger Maple gliding through my fingers across the blades, my feet warm and dry.

Winter used to have a more interior feel to it. The roads weren’t as safe after a snow or rain, more places were closed due to inclement weather, more people shut themselves in for months to wait for the first crocus to pop out of the receding snow. Now we all go everywhere and do everything all the time.

You used to be able to visit the local pub, the glass sweating with shared respiration, laughter and conversation banging like a tropical cyclone against the rimed windowpanes, the trusty barkeep genially pulling the tap over the fabulous golden or brown pints like a priest over a host, coats strewn on every surface, and spilled beer whipped to a foam on the grimy hardwood floor by the dancers. Sunday is for church. Saturday is for chores. Friday night is for fun.

Get your pubstyle Irish R and B frenzy here.

Not Lonely. Alone.

I delivered some millwork I fabricated to a nearby jobsite. It’s a marvelous shingle style rehab of an older house in the town I live in. A friend of mine owns it, and is his own architect. Another of my dearest friends is the general contractor. I dropped off the final piece of a railing I’d made, and the only person at the job was the general contractor’s brother, a finish carpenter. And he shouldn’t be alone.

Not because he doesn’t work when he’s alone. Not because he needs help, either. He’s managing fine. He shouldn’t be alone because it doesn’t suit him.

He’s the gregarious sort. He’s got a sunny, chatty disposition. And he’s rattling around in there by himself.

I don’t know what happened to laconism. It used to be very common in the building trades. I met dozens of men who communicated, as Calvin Coolidge’s biographer once described the president’s conversational ability, by the “ugh ugh of the Indian.” Real quiet like would be the Okie version of that. Anyway, they were not prone to running their mouths. I think they’re all dead now. I bet the undertaker pinched them all before screwing the lids down, too, just to make sure they weren’t just being real quiet like.

Most contractors used to be Henry Fonda. Now they’re all Eldon the Painter. I’m not sure what happened.

I work alone most of the time. I am, as they say, a yammering Mick. And being half Sicilian in the bargain, I’m a yammering Mick that talks with his hands. Terrifying to behold.

Anyway, as I said, I work alone a lot, and it suits me somehow. I think it has to do with the nature of your employment.

The clock and the calendar hang on the wall, glaring at me the whole time. Every day is too short, and every week is shorted a few days. There literally never be enough time for me to accomplish what I’m trying to do. I can never make a to-do list that makes any sense; each tick mark suggests ten others.

When you work for wages, your attitude changes. You have surrendered a sort of autonomy, and gained another kind. The clock and the calendar are Newtonian, not Quantum based measurements of time. And so the day is never too short, no matter how fine an employee you make. When it’s over, it’s over. The boss signed up to worry at 2 am on Sunday. You didn’t. You just worry every once in a while if you picked the right boss.

My friend, the lonely carpenter, picked the right boss. His brother is a hardworking and determined fellow, and worries a great deal so his brother does not have to. But he’s overlooked one aspect of the equation. Loneliness.

I’m not lonely, when I’m alone. The frantic never are.

It’s Not Easy Being____________

I’m too old for Sesame Street. I was eleven before it showed up. To be eleven is to be at the end of your childhood. I didn’t need the letters to get up and dance any more.

But who’s too old for that?

Joe Raposo is the fellow who wrote it. He was born right down the street from here, in Fall River, Massachusetts. He’s been dead a while now.

He was part of a little clique while he attended Harvard, and fell into music work, if not notoriety, exactly. He was never as snide as his friend, Tom Lehrer, but in his way, he was more sophisticated.

I’ve seen all sorts of people that performed music on Sesame Street, much of it delightful. Stevie Wonder, Van Morrison, Herbie Hancock, well… you probably know the list better than I. It’s a captivating scene to make, and everybody wants to make it. It is a testament to its original kind intent.

Joe Raposo and Dr Suess. I conflate them in my mind, but I don’t know that they ever had anything to do with one another. When I read my little son the thrilling, trilling words of Theodore Geisel, I’m never bored. Those men understood children, which means they understood people. A children’s book has devolved over time to mean: I can’t write properly — I’ll write a children’s book. It was not always the way. It’s much harder to write a child’s story, I think. Properly, anyway. Doubly hard to set it to music. Suess kept up by drawing.

My son sat in my lap in rapt attention as the little frog —fwog— ruminated wistfully on the nature of being mundane and wonderful. Joe Raposo could sing to a little one and his father at the same time, and lose neither of our interest.

I used to sing and play the guitar for my boys when I put them to bed. It was peaceful, and there was a poignant moment when the gentle sigh of the sleeping boy would overtake the gut string sound. The big one don’t want it any more. All I’ve got is the toddler now.

I can’t watch the football game with my eleven year old. Every time the action stops, there is a commercial that shows one eviscerated corpse after another; one abducted child after another. They’re displayed as a fun sort of puzzle for the entertainment of people inured to what’s tantamount to the lionization of monsters. No one is green on television anymore–easy or no– only harvested or picked over to taste.

But I can watch Kermit sing Joe Raposo’s little tin pan triumph with my three year old. I want for him to know the same things I’d like to know. We search for them together.

Happy MLK Monday

I was very small, but I remember the man fairly clearly. I recall that his message seemed universal. Many try to claim his legacy to beat their foes over the head with it. I’m not interested.

It is useful to reflect where that man came from, and what was the driving force that informed his crusade. And while he succumbed to the temptations that notoriety brings, such things are extraneous details. He was just a man, after all. It was his message that was divine.

Don’t bother yourselves with those who try to pull such a man like taffy, trying to fashion a coat of his skin to hide their predations. Listen to the man. I did, and was convinced.