Courtesy of MLusk, Weather Records

While we conceive of ourselves as liberty-loving freedom fighters, we really aspire to be the ruling class.

Courtesy of MLusk, Weather Records

One problem with the American political culture, the American culture in general, is that we still buy into that Wild West, Manifest Destiny, Frank 'n Beans in Every Cupboard, Made in the USA mentality.  We think that's still valid, still happening.  There are those who are so good at tapping into that ideal, equating personal freedom with owning guns, shooting bears and keeping the taxes off Jesus, that the reality hasn't set in:  that we live in an increasingly top down disenfranchised corporate society thanks to our inability to make our public wealth work in the hands of the majority.  Of course, the majority isn't there.  The majority apparently buys into an idea that one need not vote; that the powerful will use their power wisely to guarantee some bizarrely idealized, outmoded sense of unhinged entitlement; that there is still a chance that you, yes you too, can be one of the winners, through your own power and hard work.
We have long been the children of Western Europe and have drafted behind their obsolescence to manufacture our success.  And in the same sense, as Western Europe realized the pitfalls of the corruptible top-tier wealth conglomeration thanks to a long history of feudal, aristocratic and de facto aristocratic regimes, they corrected earlier to establish a public consciousness that allowed the freedoms of a more socialist society. As they over-corrected, unable to sustain such an openly liberal net of safe-guards without due taxation and management, America can again learn as little brother.  There will be a moment when we realize we have our own entrenched ruling class. We can look to the missteps of Europe's previous attempts ensure liberty to guide us in how to fix the problem.  Namely in the forms of education and health-care, due taxation used to maximize freedom, while keeping a progressive eye towards the necessary liberties and restrictions of an actually freeing free-market economy.
But until we realize that freedom comes from truly owning governance, of taking part, not from some archaic sense of disembodied atomic freedoms, the necessary steps to guaranteeing liberty is out of reach.

Inspired by MLusk of Weather Records

I have to stop reading on the pot.
I know this now. Two nights ago I drew myself an Epsom salt bath, which I do sometimes, and as I laid in the bath I read. And then I put the book down and tried to not think. Some people call that meditation, which was actually what I was thinking about. Huh, I said to myself, this is meditation. I think I once told someone one of my talents was the ability to let my mind go blank. I remember this statement, but I don't know to whom I said it to or when. As far as I can tell, recall, or anything, it is and was a total lie. I realized, sitting there in the salts unable to not think, that I shouldn't be reading on the pot. In the morning I take a bit of newspaper, or my book or even sometimes the laptop into the bathroom with me to read while I do the morning thing on the pot. This usually has the effect of unnaturally prolonging my stay in the bathroom while simultaneously robbing me of some very valuable alone-time. I used to think having something to read while on the pot was a sort of relaxing diversion that eased the flow of things, so to speak. But not anymore. I need to value my alone-time more. I need to learn how to not think. I wonder aloud in my brain if there was ever a time I can remember when I really could meditate; empty my head of thoughts. I keep my mouth shut in my brain, thinking very quietly to myself so myself wouldn't hear me "no, I don't think there was."

Inspired by MLusk of Weather Records

We take politics too seriously in this country. We have a system that works in the very least attempting to provide basic needs and services to as many people as it can. This is, of course, a heretical position to assume in some corners, foolhardy in others and blatantly racist in more than a few. And while injustice and mismanagement is certainly something to fight against, fighting for real democracy and transparency, it seems wrong-headed to imbue a quotidian, continually evolving political process with eschatological fervor at every turn.

Inspired by MLusk of Weather Records

He turns around right away.  He had picked up the tray with his double wrap bean taco and the soft shell beef taco, turned to walk to his table near the door, and now he's spun back around.  I catch the whole act out of the corner of my eye.
"Do you want some sauce?"
"Um, yeah."
He says it with a little accent over the yeah, to intone, I surmise, that I should have put the sauce on the tray in the first place; as if who would eat a taco without sauce?
I fill up the little plastic cup with the sauce in the squeezy container and put it on the outstretched tray.
A minute later the owner walks up from the rear dining room where he'd been watching the Giants on the flat screen.
"Toddy."
"Yeah."
"Come on, I've asked you before, just call it hot sauce."
"Oh, right, yeah, I forget.  It's just more like ketchup. I forget."
"You don't forget. You know.  And it makes me feel stupid to have to bring it up all the time.  But it makes a difference.  You don't come into a Mexican restaurant to eat some generic sauce.  People want hot sauce."
He says all this pretty fast.  Pretty low-tone, if you know what I mean.  He hasn't looked over his shoulder to see what's going on in the game. Eli Manning just threw an interception.  I calculate this fact, calculating the bad mood the owner will be in because he had to remind me to call the ketchup hot sauce again and now the Giants might lose.  The significance of this transaction is not lost on me. But still.
"If people come into a Mexican food place for the sauce, the hot sauce, then why don't we just put it on their tray right off the bat, so they don't have to ask for it?  Then I don't even have to say a thing."
"Toddy."
Toddy is the name I give people when I meet them. Todd just sounds so, you know, formal.
"Yeah?"
"You're fired."

Courtesy of MLusk, Weather Records

For my part, I watch the movies on the computer where I can keep an eye on the headway, where I can watch the little line tell me how much is left, how much is gone. 
In the old days, and still in parts of the old world, people would play in town orchestras, town brass bands.  They'd do this at night, practice on the weekdays, on the weekends. 
Me, I play the tuba!  I play the trombone!  Triangle!
This, amid the grime and expulsion, would give equal parts meaning to their lives. Equal to nothing, and anything else.  Some people would write letters.  Others would watch a game on the television or better, go to the stadium. We'd all drink beer or wine, or tea or coffee. 
Times are not so different. 
I don't know anyone who does not go as quickly as they come. 

Courtesy of MLusk, Weather Records

And there I weren't.

Courtesy of MLusk, Weather Records

Sometimes right before getting into bed, right after maybe I take a hot shower or soak in the Epsom salts, and after I rub the outer inside of my ear with a swab, and look at my face and put on my glasses and maybe while I'm brushing my teeth I wonder to myself why I was not nicer to my son during the day.  Why I feel the need sometimes to be hard on him so that he won't be spoiled, so that he will know discipline.  And all I want to do is go into his bed and sweep him up in my arms and kiss his perfect face.

Courtesy of MLusk, Weather Records

Older Grumpy Wine Store Guy Petting Big Black Shaggy Dog: "What a sweet dog. Great disposition.  But he's shivering... I can't believe he's cold with that coat of his."
Young Hip Billburg Couple, Owners of Big Black Shaggy Dog: "Oh, yeah, he's great... Oh is he? That means it's going to rain.  Every time he shivers it rains within a few hours.  Never fails."

It didn't rain.

Courtesy of MLusk, Weather Records

I went to a wedding reception last night near the Gowanus Canal where the father of the bride led everyone in a traditional Japanese Bonzai toast then pulled out a ukulele to lead a classical quartet accompanied by a country guitarist and a female vocalist in a beautiful and baroque rendition of the Hawaiian Wedding Song.  A moment later a Julliard-trained Irish fiddler stomped through a gently rendered medley that brought half the room to tears while later on Mark Morris himself got up and lead a spirited square dance. My son had the time of his life wolfing down pieces of cake and fizzy cranberry juice, my wife had an equally good time sashaying down the line to the sounds coming out of the trio of jug-band musicians huddled around the upright piano.  Ah, New York.

Inspired by MLusk of Weather Records

These days, one bad piece of news can throw me off the scent.  Things seem to have so much weight.  This tells me my perspective has shifted from that of a young person to that of someone in middle age.  I don't think this is inescapable.  Nor do I think one can go back.  There is a sense that one must go from the youthful mantra of try, try, try until you get it to something more nuanced, something more appreciative:  try, keep trying, when trying doesn't work, stop trying. This can be a very positive and confident adjustment.

Courtesy of MLusk, Weather Records

No one can do everything, take part in every trivial joy.
Remember that when you look at old pictures of people having fun, being fit, being young or successful. 
If they seemed to have actually taken part in everything, every trivial joy, they most likely became famous.
You are not famous.  And if you are, you must know what a pain in the ass that is.

Courtesy of MLusk, Weather Records

It would be nice to see my life flash before my eyes.
If only to see where I am.
Instead, today I saw Timothy Hutton.

Inspired by MLusk of Weather Records

I'm neither here
Nor am I there
Just everywhere, everywhere, everywhere

Courtesy of BLentini, Similar to MLusk of Weather Records

My wife has a sly way of arguing.  Some kind of gas-lighting technique that sews me up every time.  It goes like this, I mean, a typical conversation might sound like this:  "You never take care of our child. I do all the work around here."  "What  No way! I take care of him as much as you do.  I make his lunch, take him to school and rush home every night to put him to read him a story and play.  And I hang out with him all day Saturday while you're working and half Sunday when you go take exercise class."  "Oh, well, I'm sorry he's such a burden on you." If I call her on this, and she isn't really, really mad, she gets kind of a sly smile.
My son sometimes plays a joke on me.  It goes like this: "Papa."  "Yes."  "Papa, can I have some hmfrabrhmmm?" "What?" "Some hmfrubrbbrhmmm."  I look at him with my lip tuned slightly up.  He gets a kind of sly smile and looks away.

Courtesy of MLusk, Weather Records

The question is always about value outside the system.  To be successful inside the system, one must bring a value from outside the system in such a way that one's existence inside the system is then perceived through the lens of perceived value held outside the system.  Of course, one can become valuable inside the system by being useful to the system, by learning the system so well, being so steeped in the knowledge of the system that application within the system is at the highest efficiency.  Yes, this is one way to be functional inside the system.  But to be successful inside the system, in the way we perceive success, one must pull value from outside the system.  One can be primed for success for any number of reasons, but really, only one:  the fortunate appearance as culmination.  To be seen as this apotheosis however limited, for whatever length of time, even to a small number outside the system, can sufficiently guarantee success within the system.  By the same token, one who knows why a light bulb works and can explain it to you but cannot actually recreate a light bulb by using the methods explained, doesn't know shit.  And even so, if said person could explain to you why the light bulb works because they read it in a book or someone explained it to them, and they actually could manufacture a light bulb using those principles, they still doesn't know shit.

Courtesy of MLusk, Weather Records

A head full of nickles, ham fisted and pessimistic.  Coughing and picking and refusing the glass of water.  "No, no, I'm fine." You'd pat his back but you know he knows that does no good.  Besides, you'd rather not touch him. Or his back.
I forgot today's date three times today.  Had to ask someone what day it was.  That's pure psychology there.  This morning in the shower I wondered if I'm not neurotic.  And I am.  I think I'm neurotic.  At the school the lady looked at my son's paperwork, reading out loud "Hispanic." She looked at my eyes, not for very long at all, "You're not Hispanic." No, my wife is.  The smile that opens up her face is so sincere it makes me uncomfortable.  The lady likes that I have a Hispanic wife. 
I blew my nose for about ten minutes today and still didn't get the muck out.
This year, for a short time, I was half my father's age.  I will reckon that if everyone lives long enough, and things happened at a relatively average time,  one usually finds oneself half one's parent's age.  I had not thought about this until today.  I was half my mother's age two years ago.  It seems relatively likely that a smart mathematics/statistician/probability type would be able, by that information alone, to estimate my age.
Being sick of oneself is equal parts gratitude (appreciation for how great everyone else is), hubris (belief that one has the capability be so much better) and smelling one's own breath.
My wife complained to me that our refrigerator is acting funny.  That it's leaking water inside.  This on the heels of the revelation that our oven is on the fritz.  This circumstance of large appliance breakdown and the pressing need to actually fix them is a sure sign to me that I've gotten too old.
The Roma squad of 2007/2008 played something akin to a 4-6-0.  On Saturday I watched Rory Delap launch rockets instead of throw-ins, touching the ball in live play only a half handful of times.  I also saw Francesco Totti take a penalty after touching the ball only a handful of times, losing them foolishly on nearly every occasion.  The next day I saw Zlatan Ibrahimovic mope around the outside of the eighteen yard box for the whole second half of a game.  I'd take Totti and Delap over Ibra any day of the week, as useless as they are.
Sometimes I think the only thing I have in common with my brothers is an outsized and highly ineffectual anger at the idea of injustice.  I say outsized, ineffectual and idea of simply to point out how ridiculous my brothers seem to me and how ridiculous I imagine I must seem to other people.
Today I saw a picture of Steffi Graf in a bikini from a bygone era.  Boy was she one foxy, manly big-nosed german girl. 
My son is not quite a leader.  He does not desire to lead.  He wants to have a good time and will just as soon follow someone else around as long as they provide it.  On the other hand, he already has a highly developed sense of pride.  He knows what he wants and he takes great offense when he feels wronged.  He has a sense of justice, in other words.  I love him for this.
I feel older.  My back feels unreasonable, my hamstrings are tight, I get a crick in my neck if I sleep on the wrong pillow.  For the first time in my life, I can imagine what it might feel like to be constipated.  I worry about butter intake.  The cookies in the jar at my office make me irritable.  Luckily, I can still conjure up a good feeling of missing something, of romanticizing a memory enough to long for it in that hopeless sort of way that somehow feels rewarding simply by dint of mnemonic existence.  This is a good sign.

Inspired by MLusk of Weather Records

Yesterday I saw Ryan Kitson on the train.  The other train on the other tracks.  I saw him through the window as my train was stalled for some reason, his train similarly waiting to take off.  He was seated, alone, on the Brooklyn bound track intently typing with his left thumb into his phone. He was wearing blue jeans and a grey cardigan over a white t-shirt with his right hand resting on a greenish looking denim sort of jacket flopped over the seat of a white ten-speed bicycle.  Through his shirt, most likely due to his seated position but possibly a result of a less arduous tennis schedule, I could just make out the subtle growing of a paunch.

Courtesy, MLusk of Weather Records

 

 

We are lucky if someone believes in us.  Unlucky when they don't.

Courtesy, MLusk of Weather Records

I stare at the keyboard then I stare at the screen.  I stare at the screen longer that at the keyboard, but it is the keyboard I fear more.