sermonette

Better watch that first sentence, it's a doozy. Whoever said that the beginnings were easy to see, and that it was the endings that were difficult to decipher never had a case of blogger's block. Simply put, contrary to what they taught us in Journalism 301, it is the rare story that writes itself. Blogs, while shorter in form and residing in their own dusty, solitary box on the literary shelf are no different.
First there is the subject matter to consider. True, one can write on just about any topic under the sun, and by sun I do mean that intensely hot suppressive orb that has kept us in triple digits for almost two months straight without any rain, but that is a case for the meteorologists to sort out. Topics can range from fashion to travel to politics to well, writing. Just the other day I came across a lengthy piece expounding upon the direction of toilet paper, and whether the roll should pull over or under, and if so, was it correct etiquette to change the rotation or just wait until the roll had been used up. Heady topics, these.
Once this thematic hurdle has been jumped, there is always that elusive first sentence, one which every writer worth his sodium chloride has his own opinion about. Blame it on my advertising copywriting background, but I prefer a punchy statement that opens the door seeing that you have about three seconds to grab the buyer... er, reader's attention. This is just a personal preference, much like ketchup on eggs, but it works for me and seems to get people over the threshold, crossing into what could be considered your own cozy little blog cabin on the net.
So now here we are in the living room of the story; the part where the writer has his guests look around, see. If you have made it this far, it is a pretty safe bet that your company will allow you to take their coat and at least stay for awhile and perhaps have a refreshment or two. Myself, I like three, but then again, personal preference.
The story should now unfold with a clear direction of where you are headed and what you want the reader to leave with besides a small hangover the next morning. Make your points succinctly and prepare to tidy everything up in your closing and goodbyes.
Once again, I like a little punch in my final paragraph, as well as in my glass, something that ties-in with a point that was made earlier in the article; a Styrofoam cup for the road, so to speak.
While I have a certain feeling that I languish somewhere near the "mushy middle" in the pantheon of my contemporaries, I have malignant optimism in the writing skills of just about everyone with an email account. Once the blockages have been removed, distractions dissolved, focus regained, the disciplined writer should have no trouble at all constructing his house of syllables, vowels, and consonants, that's what it is after all.
The wrap up is neat and tidy and can only finish with the two words that bring elation and joy to the heart of every writer. Happy Hour.

let them eat steak

There are two sides to every nickel. This is both. You see, in a climate that is increasingly becoming more and more bolstered by the have-nots supporting the haves I find myself squarely in the middle, an observer and a participant, performer and spectator, Democrat and Republican. Oh... forget the latter analogy lest I get carried away in a straitjacket again.
Sit down kids and let Uncle Mame explain it all.
Recently while poring through some glossy magazine that mysteriously ended up in my mailbox I ran across an article touting a new breed of brohemian, a class of citizenry that is more familiar with descriptions of cashmere cardigans from the pages of a J. Crew catalog than it is quotations from the sermon on the mount, or the meaning of "Christ" in Christmas Sale 20% Off. I tell you, it is the societal equivalent of throwing the baby out with the Bathsheba; giving up the guise of the trappings of success by actually paying more for material goods that portray a, shall we say, shabbier cheek. In a quest for solidarity with the less fortunate a subculture has popped up of the plenties portraying the unplenties. A subculture that has understandably now been been forever deemed the Poorgeoisie.
Forget Generation "X." Forget Generation "Y." For all intents and purposes we have run out of letters, much like the early settlers who ran out of continent, or the National Weather Service who infrequently encounters more hurricanes than they have names for. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have now witnessed the birthing of a movement of young, unsettled recessionistas who pay huge sums of money to look the part of the dowager while brunching on Brie and Veuve Clicquot.
The populist outrage has effectively been anesthetized and neutered. Snipped at the quick.
Who could feel sorry for the evicted woman sitting on her front stoop in a pair of Tom Ford $950 jeans? Or the couple who live paycheck to paycheck but refuse fast food, instead opting only to eat $30 Ikura sake-marinated salmon roe at Uchi every weekend. Marie Antoinette's head rolled for far less, this much I tell you.
Most small business owners are clamoring to have the extra business and have come to call this new breed of young, under-the-table spendthrifts the Appreciatives. Roget calls them Disipators. I prefer to call them In Debt. Either way, this inconspicuous consumerism has become the heart of an economy on life support, and may indeed be a necessary evil. What else is one to do? Make less and spend more all the while pretending to have less than the next guy. Now that is a stimulus package we can all support even though we may look upon it later with eyeful of disdain.
And that, my friends, is the fine edge of the coin. A coin I'd like to have back when you're done looking at it, thank you.

polaroids from the edge

Back in the days before Maude, before digital photography, microwave ovens, ATM's and other forms of instant gratification, we had to wait for things.
You can place the blame squarely on the TV dinner.
Ever since the advent of Swanson's frozen salisbury steaks, we have demanded our convenience neatly packaged and available on demand, ready to eat in half an hour or less at 350 degrees.
We have become a nation of leisure seekers, enjoying the fruits without the labor, the gain without the pain.
This congenital impatience has been inherited and passed down freely into our daily lives as an acute inability to bide time. I want my MTV, and I want it yesterday.
Video killed the radio star, perhaps. But it is also the cause of the decline of true talent; the ability to hold a note without the aid of AutoTune. (I dare not single out a single recording artist, a term I use lightly with say, Lady GaGa, but there you have it.) Telegenics have spawned the worst case of vocal genocide since I don't know when.
But back to my point.
With all of this lack of patience, other things must surely suffer.
People expect expediency from their laptops, cellphones, and even their online hookups. Where did people meet before e-Harmony? Okay, bad example. Let's call it a fast-mood mentality that has spawned the drive-through relationship that allows the patron to order exactly what traits they desire in a potential spouse. All bread and meat, hold the vegetables. (That may be a bit of editorializing, but you get the picture.)
Basically, we get what we ask for in a neat little bleached paper bag, otherwise we complain or take it back. No hassles. No fuss. No dishes to wash.
But what is lost when we don't take the time to get to know a potential partner, when we place an inordinate amount of time on the "rush" factor and not enough getting to know the individual? Do we find ourselves going back around to the pickup window?
Love is a tricky enough proposition in itself and should not be forced or hurried.
It should be relished and savoured, especially when you get it right.
It may come at 20. or 45. Or 60. But it will come. It is gratification delayed, but gratification nonetheless.
Frozen dinners be damned.

grunches in bunches

From the start of all time, before even clocks,
the Gaggle would gather to mimic and mock,
poohpoohing the clothes and the joy of a few,
in their humpity bumpity hullaballoo.

With cocktails in hand, they mumbled and grunched,
about latest fads, and the gym, and a brunch
that didn't quite do as it does when it dunt,
the profiles all lied, the ones on Manhunt.

Sinning and grinning, and grinning in sin,
Tsk Tsking and flailing like fish without fin,
The subjects they ranged from A through U,
they were the blackiest creatures you ever could view.

Now the Grinch had no use for this useless chatter,
and the Cat, well he had too much ham on his platter,
and the Whos wondered why and the Nots wondered Who,
and Horton dismissed every consonant too.

On the edge of the circle, outside looking in,
stood one Finneas Fabreze who had heard all the din,
all the talk of the bars, and the drinks, and the frocks,
and comparison of shape and the size of their socks.

"Enough, enough" he exclaimed as he left,
ridiculed even more, he walked away deft,
"Enough with the names and the fake little games,
a place free of grunching and Gaggles my aim."

Time passed, a day, a week, a year
Then clocks were invented, the calendar near.
Other patents would follow, too many to choose,
but how about tea, and coffee, and news?

Finneas learned from the paper a curious thing,
of the town he had run from that previous Spring,
in an article framed way high on the shelf,
was a story of the Gaggle that had eaten itself.

notes from 16E

The captain turns on the Fasten Seat Belts sign, and the aluminum carton lumbers down the runway. We are about to be tossed in the air again, all of the eggs securely strapped in. But if this thing goes down, we all crack.
To my immediate right, 16F pulls down the shade and says a quick prayer under her breath while clutching a copy of Harper's Bazaar.
The guy in a t-shirt across the way in 16A still has his iPod headphones in, nodding his head in time to some nameless beat. I wonder if he forgot to turn off his mechanical device, and the plane's navigation system will malfunction causing us to fly to the Azores instead of the Midwest. Of all times to forget to pack a bathing suit.
Sitting in 14A is a young mother with a colicky baby on her lap. I quickly wonder if I packed an extra valium or a pistol in the carry-on at my feet, for emergencies such as this.
The stewardess glides down the aisle and sums up the passengers, checking our laps, careful not to stare at our crotches. Now that's discipline.
In front of me, a sign that reminds me that the seat can be used as a flotation device. My mind replays all of the footage of airline disasters that have occurred over water, and I don't remember seeing any floating cushions.
13A is reading a copy of Ann Coulter's latest piece of trash, "Treason." I begin thinking that I hope that guy has a defective seat cushion in the unlikely event of an accident.

"We Know Why You Fly," as the recently successful airline ad campaign goes. I think about the reason behind this trip knowing that it won't be an easy five days, but I will make it through and will find myself on the exact same flight heading in the opposite direction towards home come Sunday. Life is funny that way. Arrivals and departures, sometimes early, oftentimes late. But definite.
Reservations guaranteed.

next stop, Kalamazoo

The world certainly looks different from the window of a 737 than it does from down here at “see level.” Before you groan and start gathering your stones and torches, “travel at see level” was a tagline I coined years ago back in college for a Greyhound advertising campaign. This was the same client for whom I designed an ad with the graphic of a yellow BUMP sign in front of a picturesque mountain vista that read, “At 30,000 feet it's called turbulence.” Blame it on the late nights and Schaefer Light.
Just days ago I found myself flying over this very same terrain -- a patchwork of ruddy brown and green peppered with red thatched roofs, above ground pools, and bisecting lines of asphalt leading to somewhere else.
Now I find myself on the Amtrak Wolverine heading west towards Chicago, ironically traversing the very ground I happened to survey from the air a couple of days back. I recalled the beautiful sights from above, with boundaries clearly drawn and definitive borders giving a sense of order where none really exists except in city halls and dusty land plats. It was an earthen quilt peeking through clouds splayed like lobster tails, full of possibility and wonderment, beauty and grandeur.
Down here below though it's a different story.
Mattresses under overpasses, boarded up windows, discarded refrigerators along the tracks, and a hollow look in the eyes... the invisible people clad in gingham and pilled flannel who walk these city streets that quickly flash by the double paned glass of this single level coach. There is a duality that is readily apparent to someone like me who grew up in this area and had the fortune to move away before everything went to shit. The people still smile through the haze; through sour economic times and a shared poor sense of proper daytime attire.
A mile down the tracks, the Kelloggs plant with its smokestacks spewing Corn Flakes ash while a fiberglass Tony the Tiger happily waves unaware from the front lawn. Also whistling by like an apparition, the Jiffy company... “cornbread since 1932.” and MacMillan and Wife Hand Car Wash, around the corner from the Elite Barber Shop -- manufacturing and small business monuments to the people who wake up every morning at 5am, wipe the sleep from their eyes, brush their teeth, and drive to the factories and shops in order to keep food on the table, pay their mortgage and keep America moving forward. What other option is there really?
(So these are the people that make up that elusive and intangible “Main Street” Obama keeps talking about.)
The Joan Didion book on my lap is a welcome counterpoint to the novel I just finished, H.G. Adler's “The Journey,” with it's harrowing account of transporting Jews via rail to concentration camps during World War II. Perhaps, I was meant to take this rail expedition now, my own personal journey through the heartland to a destination that cannot be printed on any ticket. It is a trip, an exploration that doesn't allow itself to be purchased or fully articulated in a blog. Interestingly enough, this blog was meant to be an amusing travelogue detailing my date with a cocktail in Chicago and a review of the fabulously inspiring music flooding my ears from my iPod. But, you know what they say about the best laid plans.
(I wonder what Dorothy Parker would have to say about plans being laid end-to-end?)
Regardless, this is a journey we should all take at some point that doesn't require physical passage necessarily. The destination is already there if you take a moment to look closely enough. I am now reminded that much like the unnamed towns passing by at 70 miles per hour I have been here before and I will return to this spot a million times in my ahead with the gained insight that comes from being an accidental tourist, and the knowledge of a better stop just around the bend.

back porch haiku

bamboo muhly sways
in time with spring's metronome
as summer tunes-up.

the wind in the leaves
passing secrets from Brazil
and Greece and Kansas.

water tithes the rock
flint shoals gleaming in sunlight
offerings to the Gulf.