Time and Space
Thanks for being so patient.
Ever wonder why we're here, why we all seem to run in such shrinking circles?
I used to do that a lot. I spend a lot of time at The Space ( http://www.thespace.tk ) lately, and it's the closest thing I have to a church. The same core group is there every Tuesday night (open mic night; I told them a wet t-shirt night would pack the place, but they have yet to listen.) The only real common bond is the love of music and the desire to see others get their stuff out to the public. This crowd will even clap when your open mic performance is, shall we say, less than polished and far from adequate. Soon, I shall establish myself as a singer-songwriter, just like Keanu Reeves did with Dogstar. Can rock stardom be far behind? Don't bother answering that; I've seen what passes for rock stars these days, and other than the money, I wouldn't trade a bucket of used Gatorade for most of them. Kid Rock is, of course, an exception; he's a single parent, he hires his friends as much as possible, he still lives in the Detroit area...he's as real as you can get while still being Kid Rock. I think I could handle being Kid Rock, compared to, say, Frank Sinatra.
My father was a Sinatra type; he grew up surrounded by Italians, and he always wanted to be just like them. He swore, he fought, he drank, he hung out with guys whose freezers were full of smoke-flavored ice cubes. Those freezers were invariably located in a rec room. I grew up in rec rooms across New Haven County, listening to grown men chittering around their clubhouses like Mouseketeers on p-dope. Dad was a sharp dresser, too, if you thought Herb Tarlick from WKRP was that generation's Jude Law...white patent wingtips and all. My father, fashion sense and all, was a Big Name in sportswriting in the Seventies, and a Bigger Name in the smalltown I grew up in (if it can be said that I grew up at all), and for most of my life I tried to get the hell out of his shadow. We even had the same first name, so some of his wetter-brained pals still call me "Billy." I don't correct them; I used to try, and then I realized that not all shadows are cold, dark places. Sometimes, there's a residual warmth from the object casting the shade your way. My father and I parted company with a lot of unresolved issues (my girlfriend of the time, who would grow up to be my ex-wife, was about five months pregnant with my oldest, and did I mention the unwed college dropout part yet? No? Well, I just did.) As you can imagine, times were tense. Sometimes I miss my father, but the most important lessons he left for me were written in ash. He knew he was going, knew I'd have to step up, and until my firstborn arrived, I completely lacked the lunchmeat to do so.
Prior to that, I was just another bitter little monkey; just as millions of others do, I wanted attention from the one guy who just could not provide it, assuming that to be the same as his love (which, in retrospect, I had...which means I've always been kinda dull-witted, despite the snappy patter). Freudian? Oedipal? No. Normal. Moving past the couch-time spectacle, one thing I inherited (one of many, to be sure) was the desire to be Known. That's what initially attracted a lot of my high school posse, and that's what tends to draw in a lot of my current friends. Sometimes they know this, other times it's just part of my considerable charm. My dad was Known, at least in his milieu, in his time. This blog, all the bands, all the exhibitionist demolition drinking in my late adolescence...it was all a bid to be Known. I used to want to be famous more than I wanted to be rich; that's certainly changed, but both wishes are still extant.
I'm not so sure as it's a bad thing, but it's definitely a thing. Do you know me?
If you're reading this, you do now .
May this humble entry meet your daily recommended allowance of self-absorbed rambling...the next one will have sharper teeth and keener eyes, I promise.
Good night from Bwanaville, kids.