Never Getting Over Not Having RK Tix at Exit/In Last Time

If Ever I Cease to Love

Today is Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

This was always one of my favorite poems about Mardi Gras day. Today that poem took on new meaning as I needed to get a work-related thing from someone in New Orleans, but I couldn’t get it because their office was closed.

Captains of Industry
The world is doing business:
Wall Street’s selling stocks,
Hollywood’s making movies,
And Yale is forging locks.

For them today’s just Tuesday.
Just another working day,
And I’m so glad that I ain’t them
I don’t know what to say.

Now don’t get smug and criticize.
Don’t say us folks are lazy.
It takes a lot of work
To make an industry of crazy.

The book this poem came from is out of print, but there are a few used books listed for resale at Amazon. For more about the authors, see their websites—Brad Bagert and Charlie Smith.

Poetry Reading in East Nashville

“I Got a Gig” – Hayes Carll

I’m going to be reading poetry tonight at Ugly Mugs, a coffee shop in East Nashville. Not just any poetry mind you, but poetry I wrote. I guess you could say it’s an “poets in the round” performance, except that the six or seven of us who’ll be reading won’t be in the round as much as we’ll be in line taking turns reading all of our stuff for like 10 minutes and then sitting down.

I will dedicate my performance tonight to Billy Collins, without whom I would have no real interest in poetry whatsoever. Billy Collins may not be interested in the dedication, but I offer it anyway, like a cat presenting a dead mouse to its owner.

After the reading, I’m hoping to head over to the 3 Crow for a big after party with my entourage, which means that Wife, Brother-in-Law and BIL’s Wife will go eat pizza. That after-party idea may get nixed, though, because Wife seems to have early stage bronchitis or something else that involves a lot of coughing, and might not be up for a smoky bar. As long as we don’t wind up at a Panera Bread in Franklin, I’ll be okay.

“Hey there pretty boy, go back to Franklin.” – Elmo Buzz and the East Nashville Bulldogs

Most Folks Opt Out for Dignity... (Today is My Birthday)

Today is my birthday.

I don’t care much for birthdays. There is so much pressure for the day to be good, and life often gets in the way. Also, in my line of work, February 14 falls into my absolute busiest time of the year. In fact, I’m going into the office today and there is a really good chance that something bad will happen that will not only screw up my day but will take the next several days with it.

But before work I’m having breakfast with Wife and the Boy at the Henpeck Market (the Girl is away at a church thing), and after work I’m having dinner at Stoney River with the Wife, where I hope to enjoy a couple of rocks glasses full of good bourbon over ice followed by that thing they have with the mozzarella cheese and the beefsteak tomatoes, and then a cowboy ribeye. In between Wife and Boy are bringing birthday cake up to the office to feed me, my coworkers and the army of auditors that are at our offices, in hopes that anyone who eats my birthday cake will feel too guilty to ruin my day.

And at 3:20, if all goes well, I’ll walk outside in to the sun and take a relaxing smoke break and think “so far so good; just another hour or so to go.”

If I Should Fall Behind

The Boy and I went on a quick overnight campout last weekend to Cumberland Caverns in McMinnville, TN. Here are the opening lines to the entry I wrote in my journal as I collapsed into sleep:

1/31/09—I started my day off driving to work while smoking a cigarette, drinking a cup of coffee and eating a honey bun while listening to George Jones sing ‘now I’m living and dying with the choices I’ve made’.

I conclude my day sleeping in a cave on an air mattress, feeling pain in places I haven’t felt pain in years, if ever. My boy is asleep next to me—he’s been asleep for a couple of hours now.

We completed the Wild Tour tonight in Cumberland Caverns. For weeks I have stressed about whether I would fit through this box they make you fit through before they let you go on the Wild Tour. But much like parenting, I had focused on a specific event, rather than what followed the event. With children, the aftermath of the birth event is actually the caretaking and rearing of the child. With the Wild Tour it was making it through the cave, rather than just through the box. I almost didn’t make it.

“I worry often, I live in terror
of what life may have in store.
I have a vision, working at Mapco
making change when I’m 64.”—Tommy Womack

The Wild Tour is more of physical obstacle course than it is a tour, as you go through cracks, crevaces, dips, and tight turns for about 90 minutes. In some places, I had to crawl on hands and knees; other places required snaking along on my back or belly, and still others required lying down and wriggling through on my side. At one point, one of the parents in front of me said to duck walk for the next 10 feet, and I thought “duck walk—man, I haven’t duck walked since 7th grade PE.” As I told some of the guys later, “My body is conditioned for sitting on a bar stool ordering more drinks, not crawling through a cave.” I was pretty exhausted half-way through, and when we stopped beneath Higgenbotham’s Entrance I was able to catch my breath. But in Bubblegum Alley, where the ground is damp and sticky, I thought there was a real possibility I might not make it. Here was where my inner coach came in and said, “Boy, you suck. But lots of other people have made it through this thing, and I may be wrong, but I’m guess that at least one of them was as miserable an excuse for a man as you are, so you are going to make it through this thing, too.” (My inner coach doesn’t give very good speeches, and generally his themes are centered around the notion that I suck, but that I’m only average, so I can do most things that other people can do.) Then the dad in front of me told me that I should go through on my left side, rather than my right side, and that’s what I did, and I was able to make it through.

At varying points in the Tour, I would call to my son, who was in front of me, and ask him to look back to me so I could make sure I was going in the right direction. Near the end, I had to call to that other dad for advice on how to approach the next section.

In the night, the Boy got up to go to the restroom. (The commercial area has a snack bar, lots of picnic tables, and a restroom.) He woke me looking for his flashlight, so I knew where he was going. Another dad and son in our pack were going to the restroom at the same time and they said the Boy could follow them. On this campout, we sleep in a roomy tunnel coming off from the Ten Acre Room. There are no tents, and its just rows and rows of sleeping scouts, siblings and parents, and there aren’t really a lot of distinguishing characteristics in the dark, so it’s easy to lose bearings. I was watching for the Boy, knowing that, particularly if he didn’t come back with the other boy and his dad, that he might not know where I was. Sure enough, shortly the others came back, and the dad whispered “He’s still back around the corner. I think he’s a little disoriented, and he didn’t want to follow us. He’s just standing there.” Somewhat alarmed, I hurried up to go retrieve him. As I walked to the restrooms, my alarm increased, because I didn’t see the Boy standing “around the corner” and feared he may have traveled back the other way. But I turned into the restroom and there he was, calmly waiting.

“I couldn’t find where we were, so I decided to wait here,” he said. “I knew you’d come looking for me.”

Yeah. You shine the light back for me. I’ll come looking for you. We’ll help each other make it through.