The Blue Collar Jellyfish

　　Sitting in the living room, watching as the freaks wave their flags: two homeless crack heads are staggering up the street laughing uproariously at some joke that is clearly beyond me; come to think of it, my guess is it’s beyond them as well.  Haunting melodies of Dylan echo up from my phone:   　　 　　There’s an evening haze settling over town 　　Starlight by the edge of the creek 　　The buying power of the proletariat’s gone down 　　Money’s getting shallow and weak... 　　 I’ve loved this song for a long time, it’s a favorite mellow tune.  Funny that in all these years it’s never really meant that much to me on a professional level, until now that is.  Now it rings true.  This pandemic and the current economic climate have it echoing truth like Jesus and some of his disciples spreading the good news.

I hearken back, as I am wont to do from time to time these days, to the early days of my youth.  Those days stretched all the way into my 30’s, but they are long gone now.  The boy/man I see when I look back is a familiar sight: Bright eyed and bushy tailed, full of piss and vinegar and dumb as a fucking stump.  You see, that boy/man had been mislead for much of his life, and nobody thought to fill him in on the joke.  We’ll tell you what you want to hear, but at some point, the truth will uppercut you like Tyson hitting a little kid on the bus.

I guess we all get it to a certain degree, this cruel treatment, sometimes life sorts us out, maybe for some of us it never does.  I’m sure those crack heads clue into it at some point, when the buzz starts to wear off and they realize their pipe is empty.  I think at that point they clue in a little bit; I think at that point they start to feel a little mislead.  Their lie is a little more elaborate, ask them about it if you have some time.  Cool story bro.  

It’s the cruel trick...time for an aside: there was just a woman riding by on a bike wailing like a child, bawling out her discontent.  This neighborhood never disappoints...sorry for the interruption I just couldn’t let that moment pass.  Again, it’s the cruel trick we play on our children and our loved ones, a game we play with the best of intentions, that cruelest of games that can drive a person to meth, or booze, or any other manner of self destructive behavior, once the trick has been exposed: despite what our mothers and grandparents and every other loved one has said all our lives, through every stage of our upbringing, we’re not special, we’re not different and the universe was not created for our benefit.  In the end, we’re the same as every other clown in this farce, even if our makeup is much weaker and runny.  How do they get those sharp lines.  I’ll never know.

Nobody wants to realize this fact; nobody wants to let go of their uniqueness; nobody wants to believe they will cease to be and nobody wants that glaring flashlight to shine into our faces and illuminate what we truly are: just another blue-collar jellyfish floating on the currents of life, hoping for a windfall and patiently accepting the lack thereof.  I found the truth through cancer, not the best route, but it is a lesson worth learning, you will be far less prone to waiting for life to come to you.  Go out and sink your teeth in, that is what they are for.

There is a point to all this blather, I’m not just rambling on aimlessly, let’s get back to Bob Dylan:

　　Meet me at the bottom don’t lag behind 　　Bring me my boots and shoes 　　You can hang back or fight your best on the front lines 　　Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues. 　　 Of course, we all know Bob doesn’t know squat about workingman blues.  I don’t think he ever worked a day in his life, and if he has it was so far back in the past it’s just a time and drug distorted memory now.  Those observations aside, he hits it pretty square on this song.  Maybe Merle hit it better, maybe he was a little closer to it, but Bob just sings it so well.

The current climate of climate change action, war and pandemics has hit hard in Alberta.  I am sure it hard in other places as well, but here, man we had it good, what the hell is going on here?  It’s like all of Alberta has collectively awakened from a long ass pipe dream, and we don’t like the fact that we’re laying in a puddle of our own vomit and shit under a piece of wet carpet in a damp and dank ravine.  Sure, we’ve had a hell of a ride, and sure we all have quads and big trucks and sleds, but what the fuck?  I just had to sell my goddamned Harley!  This is most assuredly not fair.  Not even a little bit. Or has the teeter totter found equilibrium?  That is a question for smarter cats than this one.  Leave it to them.

What folks want in Alberta is just what Merle sings about in his Working Man Blues, and Bob hints at in his redux: work hard all week, a couple beer tonight and then back to work in the morning, fair pay a fat family and a spot at the lake.  You must give the blue-collar beasts some credit there: they work hard.  Give your average desk jockey the kinds of hours they work, and their heads would pop.  That is a verifiable fact.  Many have seen said heads a poppin’.  But we all have our strengths and weaknesses.  My weakness is now an inability to do much of anything.  

It seems that work is no longer in my future, which is a weird thing to think about.  Sometimes I feel too healthy to not be working, reality has a tendency to smack that thought right out of my head.  I forget that I don’t have much strength.  Same goes for this upcoming holiday, I keep thinking about all the cool things I am going to get up to and keep forgetting that my body has about a 3 hour battery these days.  That will not translate well to hikes over lava rock that go on all day.  Marine iguanas or not.

My cruel weapons have been put on the shelf Come sit down on my knee You are dearer to me than myself As you yourself can see…

It has been a couple days, I have been focusing on other outlets of late.  I have been drawing a lot and spending a bunch of time with company.  I spent some time at the Slipknot show and had a great time.  We were gifted 12 tickets and rounded up some good friends for the show.  Had a great time.  A couple folks got to see their first metal concert and one large venue first concert as well.  I appreciate being a part of those people getting a taste of the old metal punch bowl experience.  Slipknot were great, they are a top notch high energy live band and nobody was bored.

At some point after the show, we got to talking about some pretty heavy stuff and some of the terrible things that have happened in the past.  It led to a rough sleep due to thinking about what a cruel person I have been at times.  I think that has been a pretty common theme in these blog posts, and I think it makes sense at the end of life to reflect on how you have treated others.  Either you care or you don’t, I’m not sure if there are any shades of grey there, you don’t care or you suffer.  

Forgiveness is an interesting and complicated thing: it is easy to forgive, but forgetting can be hard.  We often say the words, but I’m not sure how often we fully mean them.  We should be better at it, considering how flawed we are as a species; we should be forgiving folks daily, considering our ability to make mistakes.

That flawed nature sits on my shoulders a lot lately.  Others I forgive, because I know we are all a bit flawed, but that is not a blanket reality, there are some people who don’t deserve it and, as I have said before, it is best to forget about them and move on.  Most I forgive though, considering the scope of my own flaws I have to.  People in glass houses and all that.  Forgiving myself is harder.

How do you feel about good folks who do really bad things though?  I mean, it happens, too much booze can often lead a perfectly normal person having a particularly bad day, to do or say some grade A terrible shit.  I think I am usually okay forgiving those folks, as previous behavior is always in the equation.  Nothing can really be taken out of context.  You got to give those that deserve it the benefit of the doubt.  It is hard though, I know that.  

We are so hard on ourselves I find.  That is what got this whole conversation going, someone feeling bad about something they did not do in the past.  I echoed that person’s guilt that night, thinking about those I mistreated, thinking about those I failed to protect, for hours while trying to sleep.  We are often harder on ourselves than others I find, and more critical of our own offenses…usually anyway.

There are big ones and small, and sometimes you stew on something for years, then bring it up to the person who was supposed to have been offended and they have completely forgotten the offense.  Pretty weird.  Other times people mention things to you, that you did, and it has slipped the old guilt net completely.  I feel the worst about those, not only did I hurt that person, but I cared so little about doing it that I forgot it afterward as well.  Real asshole stuff there.  Hard on the heart.

As I am older now and live a different lifestyle, I wish I was better at separating myself from younger Todd.  He was a real pinhead, and not the same guy I am now.  We should all be more cognizant of that, in ourselves and in others.  People do change, it happens slowly, but it happens, and it is real.  Present Todd would hate past Todd, there is no doubt in my mind.  That kid was cocky, brash, annoying and self centered.  Today Todd is just self centered.  Much better now.

I was never out to hurt anybody, I feel good about that, but that never stopped me from hurting folks a lot.  Again, mostly I just did dumb things when I had too much to drink, but not exclusively.  I was arrogant and selfish, and it shows a lot in my memories of those times.  Too bad.  I am no longer that guy though, and I am sure I would not repeat a lot of my past mistakes in this form I am in now.  That is how you know that you have learned, that you have grown as a human being.  

Just finished reading a chapter in my book. It is called Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. I am about a third of the way through, so far it is pretty good. In one scene a young girl has a birthday where she transfers to adulthood. This girl is on a spaceship headed to a new earth, but is not going to survive long enough to see the new planet. Now relax, it sounds more sci fi and nerdy than it is, there are also scenes in the 1400s and present day, so don’t write it off if you don’t like sci fi. Dude won the Pulitzer you judgmental bastard.

Anyway, The old earth is dying, I think from climate change. Seems to me anyway, but that is not the point (well, I think it is the point of the book: books, libraries, space ships and planet earth, you get the connections). Part of becoming an adult on this ship is learning that you are a transitional human, which is disturbing for the girl (she finds out in a giant virtual library, reminds me of Borges, read him if you have not), but what is it for us? We are transitional as well, but to what end? Ours is not defined, we are a link in a long chain, but where does that chain lead? To a cart full of hopes and dreams or a giant dense turd that has been dropped to sink into the sea. I guess that is not for us to know. She is transitional in that the people on the ship are there to make sure the ship gets to where it is going. I would love that. We have a ship ourselves, currently we are not doing a great job with the maintenance on this ship. We need to do better. Back to the meaning of life, because that is what it is.

That is a hard part of dying. It is tough to find meaning in what you have done, in what you are doing. I have no biological kids, so my genetic link breaks here, but I have all of you, each reader of this blog, my Wife, my step Daughter, Ma, and Sis, my Nephew, all my Friends and Family, work Pals and all that. What will I impart to you? Hopefully something of value in the end. Not just fear and despair, but hope and positivity is my goal. My hope is that we can all feel a little better about the link we are in the chain. I hope that something I say makes each of you do something kind or something good at some point, something that trickles down the way those things do. Like the Tim Horton’s Pay it Forward, that someone just pockets and fucks off with at some point, usually when the next meal is a big one. Hard to blame them, but people can be shit, let’s not sugar coat it…But sometimes…most times…

I have done some terrible things in my life. If I did them to you I am truly sorry. Many have done some terrible things to me. Some I forgave, some I forgot. What can you do? Get over it, you’ll be glad you did. All in all, the positives outweigh the bad though. Many people have done many great things for me, especially when the chips were down and shit got hard. A lot of people rise up in that situation. I can’t even find the words. People have been great. Wanting to help out and just helping out, without fanfare or reward. People can be good, usually are, the fact that that is the case is why we always remember the garbage folks do, because it is the exception, not the rule. Remember, the people who are the best are that way because they went through some shit, and most of the people who don’t show up just don’t know what to say. They want to say something, they just don’t know how. Cut them some slack. It is hard to know what to do all the time. Nobody does.

I have had some great friends in my life. I have been so lucky. People have helped me so many times. I have lived such a great life many times I find myself feeling guilty for not being better. I wish you all the best, all of you. Find the positives in life, focus on them and make them the things you mark. Don’t worry about the garbage that people do. If you can, forgive, if the people doing the garbage are going to keep doing garbage, punt them and forget them. That is the worst they deserve. There is nothing worse. Being forgotten is the end of life as we know it. As I wrote this someone just randomly said a bunch of great stuff to me, man I really appreciate that, people are by and large pretty good. Cut them some slack. And know that you matter and what you do can make someone’s day. Our invisible arms are long as hell. You will be amazed, often, when you find out how far your reach can go.

This one goes out to my poor T-cells. Poor bastards did nothing but kick ass and take names for year after year, and now, suddenly, without warning, they are faced with one tough ass group of cancer cells. Like heading into battle with a whole army of special forces. I feel for them, but I am afraid I need them to learn fast and win. That is our only true option.

I am thinking that I just need to turn all these poems into black metal songs and I will be set. Too bad I have no skills, instruments or musical knowledge. But I do have friends… One in particular has a ton of time, excellent skills and, I believe, and assortment of instruments.

The Walking Dead

Like mists forming on a river bank, Rows of soldiers start to rise. Stretching limbs and cracking necks, They start to feel alive. They are heading down to Pancrea, Where they know they'll probably die.

Bred for war they have known no peace; They are forming into rows. Roll calls yelled and marching plans, Are given out in droves. March, good soldiers, to your fated doom; Soon your flesh will feed the crows.

Rise, rise, the walking dead. Rise, rise, For war you’re bred. Rise, rise, the walking dead. Rise, rise, to war you’re led.

Warriors rise ten thousand fold, And they turn toward their goal: A fight determined by cruel fate, Is all they'll ever know. No sunny beaches or seas becalmed, Will be shown their weary souls.

Their biggest fear is friendly fire, Aimed squarely at their backs. Head down the beach, to your end, Follow in your brother's tracks. It's all we have, the disposable, The only heroes causing cracks.

Rise, rise, the walking dead. Rise, rise, For war you’re bred. Rise, rise, the walking dead. Rise, rise, to war you’re led.

A thousand wars and millions dead, Yet never have we won; But on we march into the fight, To the beat of the woeful drum. And on we fight forever more, Or until our time is done.

The picture is in France, down by Aix en Provence. I forget the name of the fortress, but I remember it was carved out of a mountain, cool as anything I have ever seen and windy as hell. Oh yeah, and Lindsay, my wife, did what she often does in these places, namely tried to get us kicked out by riding the battering ram.

I miss candy sometimes. I was a bit of a sugar freak back in the day. When I smoked every time I bought a pack, I would also buy one of those tubs of kiddie crack. It would sit in my cup holder and I would crush candy every time I drove somewhere. I still keep a little candy in the pantry in case I need to sugar up. It is a nice treat when the need arises. As long as I am not doing it on purpose self consciously. Who knows.

I am still waiting for CT scan results. I thought they would be available online by now, but it appears my doctor has blocked that until she has had a chance to go over the results with me. Probably for the best I suppose. The pain I am feeling is much stronger than it has been for a while and that is disheartening, but I am not going to get too excited until I see the results. Fingers are still crossed.

I don’t say it enough, but I wrote a poem thanking Lindsay. She works so hard to take care of me and that job is shitty and thankless. I appreciate her efforts and love. If the true tale of a relationship is the hard times, I’d say I’ve been pretty lucky.

Gross Smells and Toilet Rings

I got a ticket out of town,

But it looks like you can’t come.

I know you’d prefer to be with me,

But there is only room for one.

Still I know you’ll take care of me,

Through the highlights and the low.

As we try so hard to navigate

This miserable shit show.

I know it’s often hard on you,

Helping me when I am sick

And I appreciate your hard work

Though I do not often say it.

Thank you for not giving up

When your burden has grown so large

I know the job is gross and thankless

With no time left to recharge.

Thank you for your endless efforts

And for taking care of things,

When often all I’m giving to you

The Fountain of Youth

What was Ponce De Leon’s great folly? Searching for a fountain of quenchless water? Like a kid lit up on Molly, As rambunctious as an otter; But The proof is in the pie; Just let the puppy lie, No matter how you try, Once at the end you’ll die.

Ask the sun as it burns down it’s fuel, Ask the black hole at the galaxy center, The truth, our mistress, is cruel There’s no paradise to enter. God can take you there The mystics do declare. All you have to do is bear Faith’s blank, and spaced out stare.

The Bruce Springsteen choice got me thinking about what album I would choose for him, then my thoughts drifted to some other 70s rock that would make a good candidate for Album of the Day and David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust came to mind.  That album is damn near perfect, so I thought that I would give it a spin.  Of course I don’t have the album, we have no Turntable, wish I did, along with a top notch speaker and amp system.  Alas, no such luck, but I do have good head phones and some Music apps.  Got caught up right out of the gate.  I have not listened to Five Years since my Diagnosis, it hit me like a brick.  Straight up shot to the guts.  What a song, I have always loved it, man it had me almost in tears this time.  Very close indeed.

Pushing through the market square So many mothers sighing News had just come over We had five years left to cry in News guy wept and told us Earth was really dying Cried so much his face was wet Then I knew he was not lying.  

Man this opening stanza has always had power.  The thought of actually absorbing this about the world is intense, actually absorbing it about yourself is tough as well.  Five years sounds good to me, that would be a good start.  Hell any firm date would work for me.  It's the not knowing that really makes it tough.  I'm sure time would run out, no matter how much I had, but it would be nice to have a little more clarity.  Right now my hope is that the due date is too far out to calculate now.  Let's go with that.

I heard telephones, opera house, favorite melodies I saw boys, toys, electric irons and TVs My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare I had to cram so many things to store everything in there And all the fat, skinny people And all the tall, short people And all the nobody people And all the somebody people I never thought I’d need so many people.

Holy Shit, I feel you David, man that warehouse can be a dangerous one to walk through.  It is all stacked so precariously I worry that whole banks of boxes might fall on me at any time.  What a line; What a stanza; What a song writer.   Why does the warehouse of one’s mind have to always be so fucking plugged up.

A girl my age went off her head Hit some tiny children If the Black hadn’t have pulled her off I think she would have killed them A soldier with a broken arm Fixed his stare to the wheels of a Cadillac A cop knelt and kissed the feet of a priest And a queer threw up at the sight of that I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlor Drinking milk shakes cold and long Smiling and waving and looking so fine Don’t think you knew you were in this song And it was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor And I thought of ma and I wanted to get back there Your face, your race, the way that you talk I kiss you, you’re beautiful I want you to walk.

Whoever the song is addressed to is my hero: “I think I saw you…Don’t think you knew you were in this song.”  I love that image of the happy and alive person dancing away and drinking milk shakes.  Good for you, that is the right response to being in this song, but damn it is a hard role to play.  But you hero, you fucking magical hero, you go on dancing and drinking, I’m just going to stand over here in the shadows, I might have something in my eye.  Once I get it out I am going to work on the strength it takes to face the end with joy like that.  That is a super power.

We’ve got five years, stuck on my eyes Five Years, What a surprise We’ve got five years, my brain hurts a lot Five years, that’s all we’ve got.  

“Like one that on a lonely road

Doth walk in fear and dread,

And having once turned round walks on

And turns no more his head,

Because he knows a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread.”

This is a quote from the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. I was reading it today, as I finally found my book on the Romantics on our bookshelf and got excited about rereading some of my favorites.

This stanza stood out to me today because of the situation I currently find myself in. It probably should not (if the goal is to be optimistic) have hit me so hard, but it did.

I am waiting for results from my CT scan and those results are very important to my future and, as my doctor has repeatedly reminded me, the results I need are not necessarily the results I should expect to get.

In the end, I feel as though I am walking down a foggy Victorian street with the premonition that a demon or fiend is close on my heals. Part of me does not want to look for fear of What I may find there. The feeling is a gross one, but that is where I am at. This feeling of dread is compounded by the fact that I have had a rough couple of days digestion wise and my tumor pain has been much more prominent this week than normal. Is this real? Or is this just fear manifesting itself. I guess we will have a better idea when the results come in. Fingers crossed.

This poem, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, along with Prometheus by Lord Byron and Ozymandias by Shelley are my Romantic favorites. Prometheus I love because of the sense of doing the right thing, even if you know the consequences will be bad.

Prometheus means forward thinking in Greek. The idea is that he could see the future. He chose to give man fire out of a sympathy for his plight as a mortal, and for that gift was gifted, himself, eternal life and punishment, chained to a rock where a bird came to eat his liver daily and at night it would grow back. He knew what his punishment would be, but did what he did anyway. Because it was the compassionate thing to do.

“The wretched gift eternity

Was thine—and thou hast borne it well.

all that the thunderer wrung from thee

Was but the menace which flung back

On him the torments of thy rack;”

I love this stanza. Zeus (the Thunderer) wanted Prometheus to share the future with him and as his reward he would be freed from the stone. Rather than do that Prometheus held his secret and suffered silently his torment. I love that, so did the Romantics. Shelley, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley all wrote works about Prometheus. Frankenstein is about Prometheus. It is easy to see why, when you take the time to think about it.

Shelley’s Ozymandias is a different animal. It is about a shattered statue of Ramses II standing alone in a swath of desert with a placard bragging about the immortality of his works. The irony should be obvious:

“…

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Pure solemn, somber beauty.

We scream,

We screen,

We flirt with the obscene. 

We yell,

We dwell,

We frolic while in hell. 

We holler,

in squalor,

We strain for every dollar.

While I scream in a dream

And I am finally feeling seen,

Then I smile and I laugh,

At the level of my craft

Here I am, visible,

Here I am a criminal. 

We cry,

We try, 

And in the end we die. 

We mourn,

We are born,

And into this world we're torn. 

We quiver,

We shiver,

In the flow of the mighty river. 

Then I scream in a dream

That I can not be seen,

And I smile and I laugh,

At the poet's greatest gaffe

Here I am, my internals,

An Ode to Vanity

I think I'll miss me when I'm gone, When the jig is up, And the pieces fall Where the pieces fall And the end is done; And it's all wrapped up When the story's complete, And we've drained the cup I think I'll miss me when I'm gone.

I think I'll miss me when I'm gone, For the cleverness Or the lack thereof, Always on display. And the wit was fast And the lines were quick, When the words go silent; Disappearing trick I think I'll miss me when I'm gone.

I think I'll miss me when I'm gone When the time has come, And the clock ticks down. In the dark mid-night, When the sun explodes, In a deep space cold. A frozen planetary mish mash Enters the fold. I think I'll miss me when I'm gone.

I think I'll miss me when I'm gone, When the sun has set On that long dark road, On the edge of town. And the sky is dark, And the stars are out. When the universal heat death, Has removed all doubt. I think I'll miss me when I'm gone.

There is an echo Of the harmony of the spheres That can be heard in earnest In our deepest, darkest fears.

There is a shadow, Of the universal chorus That sings in the heavens, And hums lullabies to madness.

All that is goodness In the heavenly sky above Is mirrored by a darkness Resident in the river's bluff.

There is a darkness That corresponds to brightest light That is so deep and hollow It out shadows the deepest night.

It is in that dark, In the depths of its embrace, Where I find tranquility, And comfort from my disgrace.

A new post up on my #blog. Just a short #poem titled #Expectations:

Sometimes it is shocking when I look into a mirror, Expectations and reality don’t always align, I fear. Who is this cadaver staring back at me? And what sort of man does my reflection see?

Nice to believe the illusion that everything is fine, Even when it lasts for this miniscule amount of time. Nice to think of hiking up a mountain side, Even if those days may have up and died.

It’s strange that you can forget just how thin and weak you are, Then you stand up, a dizzy spell won’t let you get too far. Sit back down, take it as easy as you need, There’s some flexibility in the life you lead.