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Joey Martin

Lately, Iʻve been preoccupied with death. Not in any particularly morbid way, and certainly not about my own except to wish that it wasnʻt inevitable. I think itʻs all of these end-of-the-year lists reminding us who died in 2015, and the depressing death watch of country singer Joey Martin, as she has gone from diagnosis to hospice, by her husband Rory on his blog and my Facebook news feed. Iʻm not sure why, because Iʻm not a fan. I assume since the metadata collection that Facebook uses to push the absolutely relevant ads and news stories I currently see when I log in has also been successful at diagnosing my recent preoccupation.

We all have to die, and pretty much nothing else has to happen. I hate that idea. But, the alternative is probably worse.

Oh, Merry Christmas, everyone.

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Could it be magic?

Riding home today and the song, seemingly chosen at random, completed a perfect storm of factors: it is the day before Christmas and I am far removed from the one I might choose to spend it with, yet somehow feel as close to her as I ever have. I’ve had two hours of sleep and fifteen cups of coffee and only a day-old bran muffin to stem the caffeine’s tide. I’ve been spoiled with the unexpected mid-day lilt of her voice, longer than usual because she has locked her keys in the car and needs to remain onsite to wait for the locksmith and Barry Manilow.

I know something in my life has changed when I hit repeat on Spotify because I want to glean some insight into the ways of life and love from a pop song first made popular in the middle years of my childhood.

I literally caught myself texting the lyrics to her when, in a rare moment of restraint, I grabbed me by the imaginary lapels, smacked myself upside the face and head, and with a stern rebuke gave the order to, “Get a hold of yourself, man. Put on the Cro-Mags or 7 Seconds, for god’s sake.” But I would have none of it. I made a compromise. I erased the text message. But I played “Could It Be Magic” on repeat until I removed the headphones from my ears upon entering my apartment.

I’ve always had a weakness for syrup and a melody.

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“I didn’t say you’re not smart, I said you’re not an intellectual.”

 

This is why you don’t talk when you’re even slightly annoyed. It’s never correct to say, “That’s because you are not an intellectual.”

English isn’t her first language, so that kind of nuance is misplaced. This is how it started: she said she looked fat in her new bikini. For the record, the correct reply to that assertion is, “No you don’t. You look like a wet seal if it had to wear a two-piece.” What you don’t say is, “I feel fat, too.”

Later, when she says, “You just called me stupid,” even though what you actually said was, “You’re not an intellectual,” don’t respond with, “What I meant was, you’re more corporeal than cerebral.” And when she says, “What?” you definitely don’t double down and try to explain.

That’s not when you remind her that she’s from Europe. You don’t say, “You grew up behind the Iron Curtain,” or, “Romania is a second-world country.” It’s really not the best idea. It’s not even a good idea.

I thought it was funny in real time. She didn’t think so.

 

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Tommy Leeʻs dick

Everyone thinks drumming is easy. Tap your fingers to your favorite song. You can’t handle the backbeat but think you’re Neil Peart because you can hit your knees in time to Tom Sawyer. Now, make your left hand hit at 3/4 time and your right at 3/8 to make that delayed sound. Now make sure you’re right foot never meets the bass while your left foot hits metronomic time. Cymbals. But not too much. Your left foot is too fast. Now all four limbs. Now. Oh, and sing in harmony. You imbecile. Drummers are hidden behind drums. But they do things you will never do. And this includes fucking Pamela Anderson with an impossibly large drummer dick.

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A complicated mess

There’s a certain beauty to being alone. A comfort. I wake up with me. I went to bed with me. Whatever I was missing is the same at 4:30 am as it was at 1. It’s quieter now. The kids went to school a little earlier and were yelling. Kids are weird. They’re perfect or atrocious. I like the way life feels right now. I like the way kids sound. I like the motion of the moon across the sky. I like the birds that aren’t endemic. I like you.

Things change though. Love becomes hate. People don’t change, really. So what changed? Perception, most likely. If I could give anything, I would go back in time to the place that was gentle. The place where you found easiness. This fucking complicated mess is a complicated mess. I still love you. I still love everything, And it’s a complicated mess.

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Steep, calamitous, and quick

I’m not sure if the correct term is meta, or post-modern, or post-whatever. But this is definitely aware of itself. I’m not sure why I torture myself. Thinking about you, about us, is like playing with a sore in your mouth or a loose tooth that hasn’t yet given way. I like to be aware that it’s there.

I know you think about our things. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t. I’m also pretty sure you have come to some very different conclusions than I have.

Yours and my fall was steep, calamitous, and quick.

I was your best friend on August 1. We slept together for the last time on September 5. But by October, we were arms-length robots. My knowing exact dates shouldn’t surprise you. I’m not obsessed anymore than I normally would be. I just have one of those memories that you loved me for, and then hated me just as strongly for.

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Ewa Beach

My memory of here is that the place was hot and humid, and it is. Perhaps my ten-year-old sense of reality had not experienced enough data points to make a sound declaration. Ewa Beach was hot. Kailua was not.

It’s calm outside and the state of mind I find myself in is more tolerant of the heat; Hawaii is never really hot. Texas is much hotter. And unlike Phoenix or Las Vegas, it’s not a dry heat. And no year gives respite. There is no such thing as “the year without a summer” as there was in New England. Every summer in Texas is hot. Every Spring you have by then forgotten just how hot 21 days over 100 degrees is. And then you get weird anomalies, like pins pushing through the cardboard protection of seasons. I’ve sweat my days through three digits in January, and one digit in April. I watched incredulously as the National Weather Service in Fort Worth issued a winter storm warning when it was 86 degrees outside, then watched it drop to below twenty before the sun was fully gone.

I love watching the weather. I prefer inclement weather. Weather is a convenient and easy metaphor. But that’s not why I like it. Here’s a stretch. I love the weather for the same reason I love baseball. Everything can be measured, everything is measured, and every measurement is subject to immediate recall with the correct resources and effort; every measurement, even at the quantum level, matters.

I can tell you records in both, and you won’t care, but they exist independently of you or me. Esoteric and beautiful, they act as a beautiful gateway to codifying understanding.

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Cocaine Buddha

Money. If that’s what it’s all about? It seems such a waste of time. What does money give you? One minute not worrying about needing more. It’s like happiness. The fleeting moment that leaves you, at best not happy, at worst? Unhappy. Happiness felt by money is fleeting. It is the emotional equivalent of cocaine. You always know how much you have left, then it’s gone. And that dopamine-fueled search for more. The Buddha was right. Don’t want it and you won’t need it. Absence causes suffering. And for the record, I’m not confirming or denying my first-hand knowledge of cocaine.

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Apophenia

That is the human tendency toward connection of unrelated phenomena where none exists, toward creating patterns, even when none exists. Trying to bring order to chaos, is what separates us from being an animal. I suppose there are other things, but other primates don’t seem much concerned with the correlation versus causation debate. Bonobos will go down on each other, and chimpanzees will rip your face off, but neither group seems too concerned with voting districts or feminism.

The rate of divorce in Maine correlates almost perfectly with the rate of consumption of margarine in the rest of the country. And that’s not even the strangest example of almost perfect correlation. The number of letters in the winning word of the national spelling bee and people killed by venomous spiders. Almost perfectly the same. The point of talking about this? Many people find a cause and effect here. Don’t eat margarine or your cousin in Maine gets a divorce? Her marriage is doomed. Don’t spell long words, or you might kill someone with a spider bite.

These examples are ridiculous. Life is ridiculous. And the same impetus that suggests to a certain element that mass killings or 9/11 or Kennedy assassinations happened for a larger purpose, will also suggest this ridiculousness. It’s part of the human condition. These patterns that exist or don’t, that are recognized or not, that are true or false. To anyone that believes them, they are as real as God, or as oxygen in the air, or as subatomic truth or infrared light. The argument, of course, is just because it cannot be sensed, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. A negative proof shifts the burden, right or wrong, to the skeptic. And a lack of evidence becomes a virtue, not a deficit.

I think we all know better. I do.

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The secret

If it were possible would it matter? One of my favorite books is “Strange Life of Ivan Osokin.” In it, he begs a magician for another chance to live his life. And then proceeds to make every single mistake he made the first time until he finds himself with the magician again. He has an epiphany. He is on a wheel, that keeps spinning and returns him to the same place.

It’s by P.D. Ouspensky. If you haven’t heard of him, it’s not a big deal, hardly anyone has. But he writes about the secret. Not the bullshit prosperity gospel that brings you everything you think you want just because you believe it will. But the one that recognizes how people act. Realistically and metaphorically we live on a wheel. And it is the rare individual who even recognizes that. The few that can see the wheel and render its truths are defied, like Jesus or Siddhartha. It just doesn’t happen that often. And when it does, you know.