Stupido

            I made a left turn onto the boulevard from the gas station when I noticed a car driving with its lights off. The car passed me as I merged onto the boulevard. What a moron I said to myself. I was behind the car when it slowed to look for curbside parking. I wheeled around him. I peeked in my rear view mirror. The guy had changed his mind and was driving in a confused manner behind me. Big dummy!
                I came to a red light. The car still had his lights off. I was in my convertible. I stuck my arm in the air and waved at the guy to get his attention. I was trying to be helpful. He didn't see me, or couldn't understand what I was trying to say. Stupido. I gave up. I drove up a half a block and stopped to make a right turn at the signal. A car heading in the opposite direction and making a left turn flashed his lights. I figured it was for Stupido behind me. I looked in my mirror to see if Stupido got the message, but Stupido wasn't there. Weird. Just then, I happened to look down to check my gas gauge, but my console was dark. Oh crap! I quickly switched my lights on. I sunk into myself. Man, I'm Stupido.

The Art Walk

            I hung out with my people on Saturday. There was an art walk in the neighborhood. The Moryork gallery was open which isn't always the case. I had a chance to go inside and see Clare Graham's work for the first time. I was stunned and amazed like most people who see his work. My favorite piece was a cabinet he made from Scrabble letters.
            While walking down the street I noticed a nondescript sign on a fence post. It read, "singing bowls Sunday 9 p.m." I'm a sucker for singing bowls, so I showed up last night. The place was essentially a big yard with a fire pit. There were a couple of couches and a mess of chairs around the pit. I found myself a chair and acted like I belonged. I didn't see any singing bowls. I just sat there and waited. There was a kid teaching a lady how to play the guitar and a few other people milling about. Three men showed up with drums. I figured the singing bowls were not far behind.
            The singing bowls never showed up. Instead, I found myself playing a djembe in a drum circle. And I met an old hippy woman who sells cookies at the Rose Bowl swap meet and lives in an RV. She was impressed, nearly envious, when I told her I built my own cabin under four trees.
            

Autumn

            I was working on my car when I sensed autumn for the first time this year. I felt a cool breeze and a scared, lonely feeling overcame me. I tend to equate autumn with the passage of time and that always puts the fright in me. I think about death and unfulfilled goals and how I'd like to fulfill them before it's all said and done. When I felt the breeze and the fear I knew it was autumn.
            I turn into a super hermit in autumn. I tend to take inventory. I try extra hard to listen to life's subtle cues. I like autumn, but it pulls on me harder than other seasons. The short days. The long nights. The dead leaves scattered on the ground. It's sad and beautiful. It makes me want to read and sleep.
              

The Blue Man Group

            I saw a big blue bald head while flipping through a magazine and thought, ugh, Blue Man Group! I'm sick of these guys! Decapitation came to mind. Not a realistic option, but I'd pay good money to see the skit.
            Sword wielding Blue Men swinging at each other wildly, maliciously, with the intent of decapitation. Blue heads rolling to the ground one after another. When all the heads were severed, the headless men would shrug their shoulders in that adorable Blue Man Group style. Then they'd pick up the severed heads and began to juggle with them. Of course somebody would eventually drop a head and it would roll toward the audience. One of the blue men would run to retrieve it. He'd stop it with his foot just shy of the orchestra pit, then bend over and pick it up and run back to his friends to begin juggling again.
            A big breasted blond bombshell, a Jayne Mansfield impersonator, would drive onto the stage in a 1966 Buick Electra convertible and wave to the crowd.

Cutie and the Boxer

            I saw the movie Cutie and the Boxer. It was good to see committed artists at their craft. I'm not sure if people understand the sacrifices artists make to be artists. They may not even care. But the movie inspired me. To see an eighty year old man still trying. And his wife trying for the first time on her own. It was beautiful and liberating to me. In my estimation that's what art is, beauty and freedom, mixed in with as few bills as humanly possible.
            I'll let you in on a little secret. It's much easier to be an artist when you're young. When you're young there's still time for you to conform. There's hope that you'll snap out of it and land a good paying job with benefits. People will look at you funny when you tell them you're an artist, but they'll let you slide because you're young. When you're older and still dreaming that's when people start talking about the crazy gene. "Oh, he has the crazy gene, he got it from his father's side of the family."
            But to me it's not madness at all. It makes perfect sense. When you're eighty and doing it, well, you're just about nobility as far as I'm concerned. You licked them all, and were true to yourself. Being true to yourself is life's purpose defined. 

The Heckler

            I went to an open mic Thursday night. I'm trying out my new songs in front of an audience. 
            A comedian got up to tell some jokes, or rather, tell some stories. He was an Asian kid and his jokes were from the Asian perspective. It was stereotypical material that was long winded and not funny. What made it worse was he thought he was funny, but nobody was laughing. It got to the point of being uncomfortable. The kid asked the MC how much time he had left. The MC said one minute. I was relieved. The kid went on for another four minutes, and then asked, "do I have more time?" 
            I surprised myself and yelled out "No!" 
            I didn't intend to say it out loud, but it was excruciating, and the words had a will of their own. The guy next to me said "you're brutal." I felt bad. I was the heckler. I had never been the heckler before. I didn't enjoy it much. I took it real hard. I wanted to apologize to anyone who'd listen. People seemed to turn on me. He's the heckler. The heckler is no place to be. It's a solitary life I can assure you. 
            The poor kid was no good. He could have used a few driving jokes. 

The Tennis Shoes

Bill the Spooky Guy gave me a pair of tennis shoes. He said he wore them once to an art opening, but they were uncomfortable to his feet. I didn’t want the shoes, but he was insistent that I have them. The shoes were funny looking, white, with strange stitching. They looked cheap.

I wore them once on a short jog and afterwards I heard a clicking sound coming from the heel. I took the shoes off and discovered the soles had pulled away from the body. I tried to fix them with epoxy and a brick, but it didn’t take. A part of me felt obligated to keep the shoes, as they were a gift. I eventually tossed them in the trash. Months had passed before I mentioned it to Bill.

“Hey Bill, you know those tennis shoes you gave me?”

“Yeah.”

“I wore them on a jog and they split in two.”

Bill buckled with laughter.

“They weren’t running shoes. They were walk around the house shoes.”

“You mean they were like slippers?”

                “Yeah, like slippers.”