glasshourse blues ...

New music time.  Ed has brought home a harmonica (or harp as we both make a point of calling it.  I have no idea who are impressing).  I like the idea of the harmonica.  It is soulful and portable.  The sound conjures up images of loneliness in a sad but not awful way.  Riding the rods, late nights in the hoosegow. Simpler times.

Hey, sidebar.  How come the old slang terms for jail -- hoosegow, calaboose, stoney lonesome, cooler -- seem so much nicer than the modern ones?  Was it a happier place, or were people in general kinder?

My own ability on the harmonica is limited.  I can sound like a train -- whuffa chugga whuffa chugga or something (you know, it is difficult to convey musical quality through text) -- and that's all.  Ed got farther than I ever did after only an hour on the internet, and he has spent the last few days getting better and better.  Now he can sound like Neil Young for most of one song.  Not bad, except that I have had to listen to that song more often than I really want to.  (It was on my iPod -- it isn't any more.  As I said, I like the idea of the harmonica.)   

That's another connection between harps and trains:  in the distance, at night, softened by nostalgia and a glass of wine, they produce warm feelings.  Ed leaning in the doorway with his hands up to his mouth and his eyes half shut and his heart of gold ... makes me smile.  Maybe it's the wine.

wisdom from a teen ...

All right, it's official, my boy makes more money than I do. It's a stage in growing up for both of us. Walter Gretzky went through it too, and Kirk Douglas, and Scott Young. My grampa went through it back in the 50s when my uncle left the family corner store and started doing well in the schmatta trade. Last Saturday my son Ed (with his snare, tambourine, ukelele and friend Frederico) went busking. They stood in front of our local liquor store for four hours and made over 100.00 each. When I went to hear them they were midway through a reggae version of "Uptown Girl." (You have to give them what they want, Frederico told me later. People like upbeat melodies, easy rhythms.) His light pure tenor floated over the crowd like whipped cream on a cafe Viennoise, Ed contributed masterful brush stylings and chorus harmonies, and their guitar case was overflowing with silver and paper.

I was impressed as hell. And at the same time aware of a certain sadness. Time's winged chariot and all. Seems like only last year Ed was asking me for allowance, and here he is in the financial big time. I told him this and he laughed and said I was a real kidder.
I assured him that I meant it.
You don't get the economics of children's writing,I said. You guys did way better than I did today.
This prompted a moment of seriousness. I could see Ed evaluating, pondering, coming to a conclusion.
You should change jobs, Dad, he said.
Maybe.
Or maybe I should give people what they want.

Hey, I remembered, and I think there's space. Here's my homework from a few weeks ago: the piece where I attempted to write like a Jarman story I didn't understand. Ready? Ahem ...

He had knuckles like Brazil nuts and chipped pink nails, and he held the knife with nervous familiarity, like an elementary school friend’s hand during a museum visit. (Buddy up, class.) Our end of the bar went silent except for Gladys singing, and he lunged across the counter, catching me in the throat before I could move. When I did jump back the knife came out and the blood after it, a thin urgent stream, pulsing like a sprinkler, splashing, spilling on the coasters and in the beer and on the polished wood. I turned to Denny and said Do you believe this guy? Except that no words came out and I tried again, I don’t even know his wife. Not bad for off the cuff but there was still no sound. Old Denny’s Eskimo pie eating face told me how bad it was, how bad I was, cause I didn’t feel a thing. I staggered away with my hand to my throat and the liquid trickling out from under my fingers, listening to Gladys on her midnight train to Georgia. Thinking, Me too. Thinking, After all those open mikes I’m really dying here. Thinking, how many changes can I ring on the one joke?

Talk about escalation, the tapster had tapped us and we’d tipped him and then I’d topped his joke about how large it was with a comment about his wife telling me something different heh heh and thirty seconds later I’m stumbling and splashing and people are getting out of the way and the room spins. Pain is a transforming force, a portal to the future, and I see myself in my black suit and t shirt in a dingy cavern grabbing the mike off the stand and saying, Hello Hades it’s great to be here; I just dropped in for the eternity and I’m thinking long-range investing. But the words won’t come out and I start to sweat and now I can see a face whirl away from me and boomerang. Is it the bartender or one of the Pips? His eyes are holes and his mouth is coral-lipped and wide open. Whoo whoo whoo.

Fourteen year old Robin was the first lipstick wearer in our class. She would look over her shoulder at me and lower her eyelashes before climbing onto the school bus. I fell so far in love I thought I would never climb out. I walked home incapable of speech. I dreamed about her shadowed eyes and calves and pointy chin, her hand raised in Geography, the flash of brassiere I sometimes saw between the buttons of her blouses. When she approached my bank of lockers the day before the Halloween dance, and slipped her hand into Denny’s (he had the locker next to mine) I thought I might as well die. They walked away, no backwards look, and I could feel joy gurgling from me like bathwater, leaving a ring of dirt and cold. My locker was open and I turned to the picture of Sly Stone I’d taped to the inside of the door and said Do you believe that girl?

Cool Cute

Ed has bought a ukelele. He thinks it is the cutest instrument in the world. And it kind of is. Plinka plinka plinka, like a little girl in tap shoes and a big smile. Funny the way the uke has come back. It's cool again, like the banjo and accordion. Remember Weezer with the Muppets? Remember Ryan Gosling serenading what's her name in Blue Valentine?

Let's consider cool-cute for a moment. Where does it come from?

What does it mean? And where does the ukelele come in? I think

cool-cute is about caring and laughing at yourself at the same time.

Tiny Tim played a mean ukelele but it is hard to think of him as cool. Cute maybe (and maybe not), but there

really isn't enough care in him to be anything more. Now Jimi Hendrix was cool -- maybe the coolest rock star

ever. But he was not much for laughing at himself. Can you imagine him playing a ukelele? Didn't think so.

Ditto Jagger, Plant, Dylan, Young. For all the talent and drive and care and sense of personal integrity, not a lot

of self mockery in these guys. Young's song about his old car actually ends up sounding moving and kinda

deep, where Bohemian Rhapsody, say, makes fun of murder. Can you see Freddie Mercury with a ukelele?

Course you can. (Here's the pic of Ryan Gosling with ... is it Michelle Williams? Cool-cute or what?)

This is not a value judgement. Artists have to take their work seriously. But I am impressed at the way some artists can do this and laugh at themselves at the same time. It makes them seem more like people you would have a good time with at dinner. The ukelele as a litmus test .... think about it. Oh, the dreamy guy in the picture at the top is Rudy Vallee, a ukelele crooner of the 30s, who was at his self-mocking best in The Palm Beach Story, one of my favorite movies EVER.

Darn it darn it, I still haven't got to my take on the Jarman story. Next time. If you want to read the original, it is called, "Burn Man On A Texas Porch" and it is weird and cool but not cute at all -- no ukeleles in it.

things

Before getting to this week's homework assignment, I must say a word about things. Which sounds vague -- let me explain. I was glancing at an article about one of the dragons -- you know, the rich investor guys on TV. ( I think that's him in the picture.) And he was talking about the things in his life that he really really likes. There is something charming about enthusiasm, so I was smiling as I read about his genuine (I think) love for his sports car and designer suits and I don't know what else. But I realized that my feeling about material things is diametrically opposite from his. I am pleased at all the material things I do not have in my life.

Speaking of suits, for instance, my dad recently gave me a bunch of his old ones, since he doesn't wear them any more and we're about the same size. I kept one, in case a wedding or bar mitzvah leaps out at me, but I gave the rest away. I got antsy thinking about them hanging up in my closet. Even a drawer of pants makes me feel uneasy. Who needs more than a couple pairs of jeans? There is too much weight there, dragging me away from my ideal which would be to live out of a suitcase.

This all sounds pretty stupid coming from a guy with four kids -- nothing ties you down like family responsibilities. A Mercedes is cheaper and less trouble to run than a college student. True. But it's not trouble or expense that bothers me. It's physical weight, and things are heavy.

I'd make a lousy dragon.

Oh, shoot. I forgot I was going to give you another example of my homework. We were looking at a story by Mark Anthony Jarman last week. I don't understand it at all, but I tried to write like him. I'll post next time.

homework -- wow!

News! I was going to say good news but maybe not. I am going to be a little more regular in my blogging. Not that the world needs to hear more from me but I am finding myself with a little more material on hand these days. Maybe that is good news and maybe it's just news.

We have to do writing exercises for school, and some of mine are turning out ok. So I thought -- why leave it mouldering in the hard drive when I can show the world (well, you guys) what you are missing not being in class with me?

Yes this is my homework. And if reading someone else's homework doesn't sound like fun, think of it as peeping through the window into the forbidden world of the MFA. Oh it's a freaky private place, the mid-level graduate Arts degree -- like being backstage at the Roman Coliseum , or in a Turkish harem, or at a Jedi training camp. For a couple of hours every week we sit and chat, all of us knowing WE are the chosen and yet struggling for precedence even amongst our talented selves, stressing the buttons of our souls to find literary insight, fawning at the teacher's smile and whimpering at his frown. Luke never had it so tough.

Our exercise last week was based on a very weird story where the narrator actually spends more time talking about another character. We had to write a scene working that way.

"Like Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson?" said Laredo, who sits across from me.

"Perceptive comment!" purred the teacher. And Laredo looked cooly down at his paper, and we all nodded like we thought it was perceptive too, even though inside we all wanted to kill Laredo.

OK, so here is my attempt. Hope you like it. But hey, if this idea is not working for you -- if you don't want to read my homework -- that is totally cool. You can stop here. I'll be back next week to introduce another scene in a different style, and you don't have to read that either.

When we got to the ID ward they made us take off all our clothes – every last seam and stitch. We put on hospital gowns that dont do up the right way, only we were so small that the gowns trailed on the floor around us like we were wearing our moms’ dresses. Moishe started to laugh. Not just at the gowns but at the way they all looked at us through the glass – the row of faces pursed up and worried. They must have been worried before but we hadn’t seen that because they’d been wearing masks.

We had to put our old clothes into a plastic bag and seal the bag and then put the bag into a special metal container and then seal the container. A tough gramma type told us how to do it step by step. Her voice boomed and crackled through the loudspeakers, filling the small bare room. She was real patient. That’s good Barry, she told me. Now find Moishe’s sock. It’s over there by the chair. See it? See it? Good boy.

Because I had the fingers and attention span of a five year old the operation seemed to take about a week. I had to dispose of Moishe’s clothes as well as my own; Moishe skidded and spun around the room. He was singing the song we learnt that morning in kindergarten – Row row row your boat. When I told him to come over and help he said Nah and kept singing.

The big blue doctor asked questions. Which of us saw the bodies first? Which of us touched one of them first? Where were the bodies? Where on the playground? Where? Where exactly? I started to cry. I couldn’t understand what he was getting at. Tears ran into the corners of my open mouth. The doctor told me to stop crying and be a man. The gramma nurse said Come on now Barry please help us.

Moishe came over to ask me what the hell was wrong with me – he said the word hell which stopped my crying like a sudden mouthful of ice cream sandwich. I told him I couldn’t answer the doctor’s questions. I couldn’t remember anything about the bodies. He shrugged. So what? he said.

He asked where our parents were. The old nurse turned her head away. The blue doctor coughed and said all four parents were on their way to the hospital. Moishe called him a liar. The doctor didn’t reply. Moishe spun around so he was facing away from the wall of windows. Then he bent over and lifted the back of his gown up, exposing his bare bottom. The blue doctor said to put down his gown and turn around. Moishe told him to go to hell, and started to sing in a loud voice. Row row row your hell he sang. Gently down the hell. Merrily merrily merrily merrily hell is but a hell.

It became our anthem at the orphanage. Whenever life got beyond us – curfew or the cops or the big Mexican coming after us for stealing his weed – Moishe and I would start singing the hell song. With a lung missing he didn’t have a very powerful voice, but his eyes shone with anger and a curious kind of purity that didn’t fade, and I was glad to be his friend even when things went badly for us.

unworthy cause

Last week I attended what my daughter Thea would call the silliest fund raiser ever. If I had had any doubt that we are living in a pretty privileged society, that event in a small Ontario town (which I shall not name because I don't want them to feel bad, but it rhymes with Sweden Hills) laid those doubts to rest.

I do not have a ton of experience with fund raisers. I don't seek them out. (Does anyone?) I am quick-tongued and teflon-conscienced, so the average police benefit or alumni building society finds me unmoved or away from my phone. And the people looking for major sponsors for hospital wings know better than to approach a children's author ordinaire.

This one I fell into. It was a concert, and the music was stuff I liked from a guy I know. I was not aware of a larger cause until I saw the programme. Then I realized that my friend was donating his time and we were donating our money to help ... are you ready? ... PARKING LOT RESTORATION. That's right: our ticket dollars were going to help Sweden Hills resurface and beautify the lot where our car was sitting at that moment.

I nearly plotzed. Sweden Hills has a very small tax base, and the lot was a little bumpy, but I could not restrain a hoot of laughter. Or maybe two. And when the emcee arrived onstage in his corduroy jacket and beard and single malt voice, and thanked us for our generosity and our concern for a cause that was dear to the hearts of the community, I had to hoot some more. I was speculating to my neighbour (a fellow hooter) on the amount of restoration required to turn the current parking lot into a thing of serious beauty. There were several hundred of us paying 20.00 each. Where would the money go? Would the town want some architectural work? Perhaps a pergola? (Not that I knew what a pergola was until I googled it just now. That's one in the picture. Nice, eh?) Electronic monitoring? Deer? We got so loud and giggly that a lady in the row ahead of us turned round with a stern expression.
"Do you mind?" she said. "I'd like to hear what he has to say."

I bit off my reply. I wish I could have told her what I thought. But I'm a polite guy, and yelling or laughing at her would have offended her to no useful purpose, and I'd have felt bad for acting like a smart ass. So I shut up and tried (unsuccessfully) to compose my face. The lady turned back with a sniff of disdain. The emcee rolled richly along. And then the concert happened, and the music was great.

Still ... a freaking parking lot?

spanking and the state

Yikes, feeling guilty at not blogging more. But life will take over your virtual reality if you let it. Your kids, parents, friends, job and love life will just eat away at your time -- to say nothing of your parents' friends whose kids have love and job problems ... Anyway, my month-after-new-years resolution is to be more responsible towards my online self.

One last Addis thought to share. My hotel was in the middle of extensive gardens, with a swimming area and tree-lined walks. Security was an issue. The gardens were walled, and uniformed guards were stationed at the three or four entrances. The hotel itself had an airport customs-style metal detector set up just inside the front doors. It was all somewhat disconcerting at first, but after a few days I got a truer sense of things.

The guards had uniforms but no weapons or phones. They spent all their time sitting down. Never saw one on his feet. Generally they'd be in a cafeteria style chair, tipped back to lean against a wall, sun shining down on them. (Except that the dozing guy seems to be Asian rather than African, this pic is spot on.) I'd walk by and they'd nod. I thought I might be getting an easy ride because I was a visible minority so I watched, but no. The next guy through would also get a nod, and so would the family after him ... Same story with the metal detector. I'd walk through it and it would go off, and I'd stop, and one of the hotel guys would smile and wave me into the lobby anyway. The couple behind me would go through the detector, and it would go off for each of them, and they too would be smiled at and waved in. The detector went off every single time anyone came into the hotel and no one ever did anything about it.

I'm puzzled. There is the potential for oppression. You are aware of a security presence. You get the feeling that an oppressive act could happen at any time. But it doesn't. And it doesn't. And it keeps on not happening. So is this actually oppression? I don't know. And I don't know what it does to a society. A dad who threatens to spank you all the time but never gets up from the couch is certainly better than a dad who is always spanking. But it's odd parenting.