I’m stuck again, trying to find something worth
writing about. I know the news is filled with stories that are interesting for
one reason or another, most of which have to do with our POTUS, but lately I
feel too lazy to work that hard for a blog. So, instead, I went back through my
journals from 1993 to mine a few chunks of either gold or just fool’s gold. And
here they are, loosely linked by that year when I’d finally retired at an age
that was way too young. I’d really planned to, wanted to, retire in my
mid-seventies, but student apathy became just too depressing to stay at it that
long. Here are the nuggets from that year:
My kids are really starting to get to me, my
students, that is. Or is it really my
non-students? They don’t seem to care
about anything anymore, only the games they play. They’re so arrogant, rude, self-centered, and
ignorant. And they’re so smug about
their ignorance. I kicked two boys out
of my first period class today. One, a
bright but lazy as hell black (chocolate tan really), gave a two-handed finger
when I told him to do something. Out he
went. Five minutes later, discussing a
quiz I’d given them, I heard a not-so-quiet response to a comment of mine, “Who
gives a fuck?” Out he went. That pretty well sums up their attitudes
about me and school and life in general: the “who gives a fuck” generation.
*
* *
If
it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
If
you can’t fix it, don’t break it.
If
you don’t break it, use it.
If
you can’t use it, lose it.
If
you can’t lose it, fake it.
If
you can’t fake it, fuck it.
If
you can’t fuck it, break it.
But
if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
For
some weird reason, I dreamed most of the above.
I was teaching a class and it seemed important to get the words right,
and they were coming out right. When I
woke up they were still there, so I wrote them down pretty much as they are
here. I’m pretty sure the expression “If
it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is current and someone somewhere said it or sang
it, but I don’t remember ever having heard it.
And what follows that first line is original with me (I think).
* * *
I’d
really like to get all the books in the Matt Scudder series by Lawrence Block
and then read them in order. I’m trying
to figure out why they’re so appealing to me.
Nothing much happens in most of them, nothing violent, that is. It’s just Matt going from door to door prying
out what seems like useless information.
But the characters are very good, and he doesn’t stint on anyone, no
matter how minor the character. He uses
the first person point of view throughout, which is sort of unusual, and even
in the pace and cadence of the words the reader gets this feeling of despair
that lies at the heart of Matt Scudder.
*
* *
I started a new Matt Scudder yesterday, When the Sacred Ginmill Closes, all
about the problems of Matt’s drinking buddies who all hire him to solve
them. Now if I could just find them all
at the same time so I could read them in order.
I finished Sacred
Ginmill this afternoon. The title’s
from a song called “Last Call” by Dave Van Ronk. Talk about a boozer’s lullaby.
And so
we’ve had another night And
so we’ll drink the final drink
Of poetry
and poses That
cuts the brain in sections
And each
man knows he’ll be alone Where
answers do not signify
When the
sacred ginmill closes. And
there aren’t any questions
And so
we’ll drink the final glass I
broke my heart the other day.
Each of
his joy and sorrow It
will mend again tomorrow.
And hope
the numbing drink will last If I’d
been drunk when I was born
Till
opening tomorrow. I’d
be ignorant of sorrow.
And when
we stumble back again And so
we’ll drink the final toast
Like
paralytic dancers That
never can be spoken:
Each
knows the question he must ask Here’s
to the heart that is wise enough
And each
man knows the answer. To
know when it’s better off broken.
Whoa! Is that depressing or what? But I’ll bet it hits it right on the nose for
the dedicated drunks all over the world.
* * *
My
brother-in-law Paul had this to say about one of the women who live near them:
“He got a wife’d scare a cat off a gut pile.” I just had to write it down so I
could someday claim it for my own.
* * *
My
latest Matt Scudder, A Dance at the
Slaughterhouse, is the one where he first meets the street kid TJ. It was very good, but depressingly violent,
with two really nasty German types who like to play sex games with young boys
and then kill them . . . on tape, something called a “snuff” film. And Matt joins his friend Mick Ballou to rob
and kill them when he realizes the police aren’t going to be able to do a damn
thing about them.
*
* *
Friday,
April 30, 1993
The
last day of April. I think I’ll be glad
to get done with April. Elliot said,
“April is the cruelest month.” I agree,
although in western New York we get a whole lot of cruel months, months that
just break your heart because you assume they’ll be nicer than they really are,
just like a woman that promises with her eyes and then doesn’t come through,
sort of a climatic prick-tease.
*
* *
Saturday,
May 1, 1993
May
Basket Day in the old days, but I don’t think anyone celebrates the day as we
did when I was a young boy. Or maybe
nobody even knows about this May Day ritual we had back in South Dakota. As I remember it, boys and girls (very young boys and girls) would venture out
to the front door of a potential sweetheart, place on the doorstep a basket of
cookies and sweets, knock on the door, and then run like hell to avoid the
pursuit from the young person who lived there, a pursuit which, if successful,
resulted in a big kiss on the lips of the deliverer of the basket. Wow, did it really happen that way? How innocent, how prehistoric, how . . .
South Dakota.
* * *
I bought a Sting tape a few months ago and I never
really listened to it until one of the songs got popular enough to be played
with some regularity on the radio—“Fields of Gold”—and I fell in love with
it. So today I listened to the whole
album looking at the lyrics. Oh, my, were
they ever good. It’s called Ten Summoner’s Tales and all the songs
seem to be related in that they tell stories of people set in some kind of
magical Middle Ages. Great music and
vocals, but excellent lyrics. I not only
want to be able to sing them like he does, I wish I’d written them. For example, here are the lyrics to “Fields
of Gold”:
You’ll remember me when the west wind moves,
Upon the fields of barley.
You’ll forget the sun in his jealous
sky,
As we walk in fields of gold.
So she took her love, for to gaze
awhile,
Upon the fields of barley.
In his arms she fell as her hair
came down,
Among the fields of gold.
Will you stay with me, will you be
my love.
Among the fields of barley?
We’ll forget the sun in his jealous
sky,
As we lie in fields of gold.
See the west wind move like a lover
so,
Upon the fields of barley.
Feel her body rise, when you kiss
her mouth,
Among the fields of gold.
I never made promises
lightly,
And there have been some
that I’ve broken,
But I swear in the days
still left,
We’ll walk in fields of
gold,
We’ll walk in fields of
gold.
Many years have passed since those
summer days,
Among the fields of barley.
See the children run as the sun goes
down,
Among the fields of gold.
You’ll remember me when the west
wind moves
Upon the fields of barley.
You can tell the sun in his jealous
sky,
When we walked in fields of gold,
When we walked in fields of gold,
When we walked in fields of gold.
Isn’t
that something? It’s all about romantic
love and the passage of time, and how that love gets lost, or just grows old,
whatever. I’m such a sucker for romantic
love. I’m not at all sure that that
isn’t the one thing that makes life worthwhile—romantic love, and even the nostalgic
feeling of lost or unrequited love. It’s
better than sex, sex is so short-term, but romantic love makes life worthwhile
while most of life isn’t worth all that much, not nearly as much as the gold in
those fields as the sun goes down.
*
* *
This
is a recent find and not from 1993, but it says so much about Donald Trump I
just have to put it in here: “These intelligence officials say Trump displays
what one called ‘willful ignorance’ when presented by America’s $81
billion-a-year intelligence services. The officials, who include analysts who
prepare Trump’s briefs and the briefers themselves, describe futile attempts to
keep his attention by using visual aids, confining some briefing points to two
or three sentences and repeating his name and title as frequently as possible.”
(Time, Feb. 18-25, 20)
* * *
There, have
I found gold bullion or just a lot of bull? I leave it to you to decide.
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