Indonesian Polka

If you happen to see him on the street, please take a moment and drop a coin of pity in the amateur musicologist’s cap. You know who he is, maybe met him at a party where he spun his groovy platters. You might remember one of his college radio playlists, like the one that consisted entirely of thirty minute gong solos. Or perhaps you were there for his room-clearing “Get Your Gamelan” mix.

He’s always on the lookout for novelty, whether it’s vinyl treasure locked away behind glass cabinets in obscure record stores, or it’s water-warped cassette tapes in the bargain bin at the local Shop ‘n Save. You might think that his standards are rather weak, that he’s not at all picky. You might even agree with his father, and say that the boy’s not really interested in music, that he just wants to be different. But you’d only say that if you weren’t listening. You don’t hear the patterns that he hears, the beauty in the discordant caterwauls (from his favorite recording of Greek funeral music).

So what if everyone runs out the room when he says, “Listen to this.” He’s not here to impress you; he’s here to document the dying sounds of our sacred heritage, as well as the fading tunes of our profane species. He’s here to save the world – or, at least, the world that sings, however dissonantly. Play for him something by, say, Springsteen or even Ghostland Observatory, something that’s well-known, that you’re likely to hear in a coffee shop, or blasted from a car stereo, and he’ll say, “Yes, that’s nice, but you can hear that everywhere. It’s nice, but it’s nothing special. Now, you want to hear something really fucking great? Let me play for you this compilation of Indonesian polka. It’s two hours long, but I can guarantee that you’ve never heard anything like it. It’ll blow your freaking mind.” Unfortunately, the room is usually empty before the needle drops.

Lately, though, his hobby has taken on a manic quality, and it’s begun to alienate him from his friends, co-workers, casual acquaintances, random people on the street, and even his wife. No one knows exactly when it started, but it became really noticeable around the time that he lost his Folkways LP of a capella yodeling. “Adam, what have you done,” she screamed after coming home to a house upturned. Papers were everywhere, shelves were collapsed on the ground, pillows were emptied of feathers. And the whole scene was set to the ear-shattering volume of bagpipes. “It’ll be okay,” he said in a calm yet elevated tone, “I’ll find it, don’t worry.” “No, sweetheart, listen,” she tried to match his calmness, but found it futile with the Scottish Highlands in her head, and so shouted even louder, “Will you turn that shit down.” Luckily for both of them, the record came to a stop of its own volition.

“Sweetie, come her, we have to talk.”

“You see, I think the thing is that I must have hidden it in case of a burglary. It’s a very rare LP, and who doesn’t love a good yodel…”

“Adam, sit.”

“Yes, what is it dear?” He was chastened by her firmness. Clearly, she had something serious in mind. But what could take precedence over music?

“I love you dearly, Adam, but this thing, this obsession of yours, it’s starting to wear me down. I mean, in the beginning it was cute and quirky. The way you’d get all excited when you found a new collection of dulcimer music. Or the time we flew all the way to Hawaii just to pick up that rare album of volcano songs.”

“Ah, yes, the ‘Black Sands Opera.’ I think I still have that copy in storage.”

“And we didn’t even stay the night.”

“Well, there was the Cleveland Record Convention the next day.”

“And now I see that I should have put my foot down then. Or at least been more firm when you hocked my wedding dress to buy that box of Allan Sherman archival tapes.”

“It was Alan Lomax. But I got the dress back, didn’t I? I mean, when I saw how much it meant to you…” He looked genuinely ashamed, though perhaps he was feeling the effects of the wound she’d left that night in his shoulder.

“Adam, dear, I can’t stand it any longer. If I hear another klezmer coming on, I think I might become homicidal. Listen, I’ve been thinking about this for awhile, and I think—I mean, I feel I have to get away.”

“What are you saying, Sarah? I don’t understand. You’re just upset. Why don’t I put on some soothing Tibetan chants, and then we’ll…”

“No, Adam, no more chanting, or yodeling, or finger pickin’, or gonging, or scratchy warbling. It’s not cute anymore. And it’s not fun. There’s more to life than music, Adam.” She reached up and embraced him, kissing him on each ear. “And when you’re ready, maybe we can talk about those other things, and maybe for once you can listen to me, without bagpipes or dulcimers or bent fiddles. Goodbye, my love.”

She was gone the next day. Whether any of what she said got through to him, he nonetheless failed to find comfort in any of his 78s. Not even the discovery of his lost yodeling LP could cheer him up – though, the fact that he found it warped in the back of his trunk might have had something to do with that. Today, he is a bachelor; he’s lost—perhaps temporarily, but it’s hard to say—his listening companion. So if you see him sitting disconsolate on a park bench, take pity on him. Pull his headphones aside and tell him in a gentle voice, “There’s more to life than music, you know….but not much more.”

Hurry Quickly

We must hurry quickly to where we’re going. We run, my mother and I, my mother’s hand in mine. She is dressed well today; her hair is done nicely, not a follicle out of place. And I, just a boy, outfitted in my schoolboy’s uniform, my head pressed against my mother’s wrist. It’s wonderful to be young and by your mother’s side. Such a comfort it is to be so near that aura of warmth, fringed with a redolence that can only be called motherhood. Once close to it and nothing is amiss.

We are rushing hurriedly, running through a train station. There are people everywhere around us, some running as we are, others walking as slow as turtles, still others sitting with heads lolling about as if ready to fall forward or backward in slumber. Mama pays them no mind, looking neither left nor right as I am, but straight ahead. She knows where she wants to go, and is intent on getting there as soon as possible. I have years to go before I grow into that sort of impatience. I could sit here in the middle of the station, with only crackers and peanut butter for company, and stare at all the rushing people, and laugh at their intensity. All day long I’d mock the greasy old man with the limp and the eye patch, and join in with the fat lady shouting “Henry! Henry!” I’d have a good old time. I smile at Mama, but she doesn’t look down, just pulls me along. Today, I am her pet, her little puppy; that’s what she told me earlier, and now I guess I should play the part.

We reach the outside where all the trains pass, only there aren’t any trains just now. Just announcements of imminent arrivals, of delays, of missing children and lost luggage. People stand around and mutter to each other, check their watches, study schedules. It otherwise seems strangely quiet, almost grimly silent.

Mama asks someone for the time, and when they tell it to her she looks angry, as if time itself was the cause of her pain. She tells me again to hurry and we take off in the direction of the tracks. I feel the excitement radiate from her, and I feel the maternal serenity run all through my veins. I suddenly feel happy, as happy as I’ve ever been. I look up at Mama and smile, but she doesn’t see me, only looks in the direction of the station on the other side of the tracks.

She never told me who we were going to meet, but it’s probably not anyone nice, not with all the crying and cursing she’s done all morning. I can’t ever say anything to her when she’s like this, because when I try to comfort her she just cries more, and sometimes she hugs me so tight I feel like I’m going to pop out of my skin.

We cross the first tracks. Mama steps up to the second track, and I her faithful pup do the same. I feel the tracks shake. Something loud is coming nearer and nearer, and quickly too. Mama screams and jumps back, my hand still in hers, and suddenly my eyes go black, my body goes numb. A terrific cold spreads all over me. And then the station goes quiet again.

Listening to ‘Metal Heart’ Over and Over

He had such trouble speaking his desires. To say aloud, for example, that he wanted to fuck Cat Power took a lot out of him. He had to look around the room first to make sure no one was listening in; assured that the coast was clear, he’d lean in close and whisper, “I so want to…”, then a pause while he made a final check, “…do her…and I mean bad…in every way possible.” He’d sit back in his chair and sigh heavily, as if he’d just dropped a big load, or perhaps confessed something that had been nagging him for a long time.

If you were watching from afar you might think he’d uttered something pretty goddamn heavy, like a confession that he murdered his mother and buried her body under the floorboards. If, however, you knew him, you’d know that sex burdened him far more than homicide. The man nursed so many unacted desires that it’s a wonder he’d ever gotten laid, and even more amazing that he managed to father two fairly normal children. Oh, the sons, so unlike their father, and so much the better for it.

The Demonic Dumpling

A child hanging over a balcony. He seems mesmerized by something down below. He probably doesn’t realize how close he is to the edge. Any closer and he’s liable to end up as an omelet for the squirrels down in the bushes.

I see his feet start to leave the ground, and for a moment my better angel seizes my conscience, and it tells me to rush over there and pull him to safety. But, then, as he’s leaning farther over the railing, I catch a glimpse of his face, and I see who it is that I’m about to save, and then my better angel takes a hike. It is that irritating little brat who used to live next door. Oh, the nights I couldn’t get to sleep because of him. Always with the screaming, and the banging on the walls, and the foul language that he picked up from his father. And when it wasn’t him it was his parents going at it, the two of them always in a bloody, cacophonous campaign of an ongoing war. Amazing that they weren’t evicted, especially after one of them kicked a hole through the front door.

And there he is, my former tormentor, the bastard spawn of Antichrist parents. Probably come back to visit his deadbeat dad. “Oh, gee, hi, remember me? Used to live next door?” I barely recognize Mama Antichrist. She looks ten years younger than the last time I saw her. You’d hardly believe that this woman—the very picture of a healthy lifestyle, and smelling of peppermint and aloe—used to leave pyramids of cigarette butts around her door; I’d walk in to work with white ash up to my knees.

“Jesus, this weather. Fucking gorgeous all week.” She said this as she scooped up her little hell-beast, and then proceeded to tell me everything that’s happened to her over the past year; the splitting up with her husband, the moving out, the moving in to a new place, and all the rest. “Oh, and the best news of all.” So began her conclusion, the gist of which is that she’s reconciled with Papa Satan, and that she and their demonic dumpling are moving back in. “All thanks to Jesus. Jesus is love. Oh, it’s so good to see you again. It’s so good to be back. We’ll have a party when we’re all together, and you have to come. You be good. C’mon, sweetie, we’ve got a lot of packing.”

After she left, I could hear the heavy, pounding footsteps of my better angel as he journeyed home to his deep, cavernous abode somewhere in my inner abyss.

The Rat in the Attic

At first it was a notice posted on my door which read, “A RAT IS IN THE ATTIC.” Well, of course, living without an attic, I took it for a riddle – perhaps a jab at God by some clever atheist, or maybe a political comment on the state of the higher orders of authority. Then, the question became, Why on my door; I represent neither position, being without faith in, well, much of anything.

It next occurred to me that maybe someone was trying to recruit me for some sort of secret society – with cryptic messages nailed to doors being their calling card. I felt honored that the Illuminati had picked me out of all the possible candidates to join their esteemed organization. Or if was the Bilderbergers I felt equally honored. Of course, if it was something like Opus Dei – well, I might have to decline; I’ll have nothing to do with religious partisanship.

I didn’t have long to ponder this, for the next day I came across another notice, this one written on folded yellow stationary and slipped under my door. This time it was less vague, but still, in its simplicity, cryptic and seemingly meaningless. It read, “YOU ARE IN TIME BUT TIME IS WAITING.” Fortune cookie philosophy you might call it. A statement of purely pretentious nonsense. And the worst part is that the cookie tastes goddamn awful.

The Erudite Faker

See how little you know. It’s easy to be smug when you carry a sack of facts slung over your shoulder. Anyone questions you and you swing away, warding them off as if it were your own personal intellectual censer. But when you unpack them you don’t know the order in which they should be arranged, because you could never understand them. Your relationship to knowledge was the same as your relationship to books — just something decorative to bring the room together, but god forbid you should crack one open.

You recite trivia like a walking reel-to-reel, occasionally dazzling a naif with your imitation erudition. After awhile, though, that scheme loses its effectiveness, and it’s back to your old routine of mindless inebriation. No complicated thoughts, no multisyllabic words, no fake insights; just good old drunken sloth, the rightful state of any proper gentleman. You wonder why you ever bothered with the world of words, and then you count the numbers on your royalty check, and by Monday the cycle starts all over again.

The Magic Ox

Perhaps it’s time to listen to the Cambodians. They could teach us a thing or two about solving our health care problem. You see, I read somewhere that they have this magic ox. And when this enchanted beast takes a shit, someone is there to gather it into a pile. The sick folks come around and rub the poop all over their lame bodies, and they’re cured of whatever’s ailing them. And when it pisses, they gather the stream in vessels and drink it down and feel their pocked skin grow smooth to the touch.

Meanwhile, we’re still stuck in a twentieth century frame of mind, thinking that every problem must have a rational, logical, scientifically-sound solution. If we’re ever going to get anything done we’re going to have to get beyond the mind; we’re going to have to start sucking that magic ox, in essence, if not in fact. Let us build this movement on the slogan, “Poop: It’s Cheap.” And let us say to the people in power, “Piss Panels – Not Death Panels.”

We must get started soon, before the argument degenerates any further. We’ll need sound research if we’re ever to be taken seriously – a holiday in Cambodia for starters. This is not the moment for complacency. It’s time to taste what you most fear. It’s time to go where people get things done. Open your mouth; the magic ox awaits.

Slay or Love

Strike another one from the list. The quest continues.

Oh, brave knight, don’t give up hope. But ask yourself just what it is that you seek — the dragon to slay or the maiden to woo. If you were to accomplish one but fail on the other would you still be justified in saying, “Gott mit uns?”

Mush-Mouth

He sees her and his tongue turns to porridge. She greets him cheerfully and he stumbles in the narrow hall. A crash as his leg strikes the comics rack. She turns around, concern written in every corner of her face, and asks if he’s okay. With perfectly good cheer he responds, “Oh, I’m fine, just fine. Nothing that a little amputation couldn’t fix.”

Dead Reeds

The reeds didn’t stand a chance – not in this wind. It barged in last night, and stuck around throughout the day, only deciding to finally leave late in the afternoon. Such a mess it left behind. The city had to fly in an industrial-sized net to remove the drowned squirrels from the public pool. I overheard someone in the grocery store say that a dog had been found wedged head-first in a tree, as if it were a meat arrow shot from a canine-fitted bow.

If a dog could not escape the fury of the wind then what chance did the lovely, delicate reeds have? Alas, not much. Last night, as I was coming home, I looked around the corner and saw them standing proud and silent in the still night, not a worry to be seen from stalk to tip. I looked again this morning, and it was what I didn’t see that broke my heart. The mound where the two reeds once lived had been replaced by a crater with two small dimples. I was so devastated, my soul so crushed, that I wanted to wring my heart out on that ground, hoping that my blood would fertilize the soil and bring back to life the departed reeds. Luckily I was still possessed of my pragmatic mind, and so I ruled that out as impractical. It was only weeks later, as I was on my way to pay the fine for public urination, that I realized I should have used tears instead.