(See what I am saying?)

The Farmer's Market, Santa Barbara CA.

The Reality Show

She came to my work today. I had to poke her to see if she was real or a ghost. She stood in the parking lot in the midday sun like a mirage. She stood there and i couldn't understand why i was looking at her, looking at me, beautiful and sad and full of words that fell on me like rain that wouldn't dry up as i drove home.

I felt like a statue. I felt like skin and bones with nothing else in between. I felt too young to be so worn out and spent up like a dollar bill rejected from a vending machine.

I was too afraid to listen the radio. I didn't want to ruin another song with the association of a memory i won't be able to forget as i drove home along the ocean. The windows were open. Outside on the ocean the sky was empty and it floated on the water. There was no taste in my mouth. No sound in my ears. The beach was empty. The sky was empty. And the sun shone straight down on the freeway.

I walked in the door. Prada was there with a sock in her mouth. I walked into the living room.

There was a blond girl in a bikini. She was crying. There was music playing. She was talking to a guy about how much she loved him. He was apologizing for how much he didn't.

It cut to a commercial. Zach turned off the T.V.

"We should start a reality show about Ventura County." he said. he was smiling and sprawling across the couch. It was 4:30 in the afternoon.

"They can just film us here" as said as he raised his hand in the air and swung his finger around the room. The door was open. There was vomit drying in the sun on the back porch. The keg in the yard was floating in a trash can in the yard. The curtains were torn and blowing in the breeze like the pirate's sails on open seas. The coffee table was full plastic cups and empty baggies blew like tumble weed across floor between mismatched shoes and an empty bottle of instant carpet spot remover.

I sat there in my skin and bones, trying to feel something in between. I sat there trying in vain like waiting for change from a broken vending machine.

"There are some realities i would rather forget." i said.

The Essential Johnny Cash: Disc 2, Track #9

*Listen. (iTunes)

I hear Loudon clear

On heavy rotation: One Man Guy.

Listen. (iTunes)

Bank Deposit

3 Declarative Sentences

I went to see Sound Tribe Sector 9. Their drummer blew my mind. He actually makes those sounds for real and never stops.

Listen. (iTunes.)

The Last Day of Summer

"I would like to believe you." she said.

The waves lapped at the stones along the edge of the lake behind us. In the dark i could see her put her head in her hands. Across the lake the last of the fireworks were like screaming in the dark like a party guest that wouldn't go home. The fire was almost out. the air was cold and it hung in the dark like a vampire over the water, it's teeth sucking the summer out of the lake.

We would all like to believe something. But we all seem to have to know it is true before we can ever do such a thing. And that almost always ruins everything, every time. The sky was big and black, reminding me how little i know and how even less there is to believe. Right there, the only thing i knew was that me and my words didn't stand a chance, and that it was late, and like so many times before, i was leaving early in the morning.

There are street corners in small towns tucked in valleys between hills far away where things live that i want to believe in, but that i may never know. but even there, the cruelness of this world has hit like stones through glass. even there, trust has been broken like windows, and they have been boarded up before i could ever look in them.

When one person is mean to another, everyone else has to pay the price, i suddenly realized. when someone's trust is betrayed, it's the rest of the world that has to walk on the broken glass. it's the rest of us that are shut out. It's the rest of us who sit beside a lake on the last day of summer.

I leaned back and looked at the stars. The sky was as big and black as it has ever been.

"If i ever have children," i think i said out loud, "I am afraid i will never be able to explain to them how to be true. I'm afraid everyone by then will be broken and there will be no trust anymore."

I felt like i arrived too late. I felt like I have always been too late. Like my words will never again mean anything to anyone. Like my actions will never again amount to anything. like every mile, every highway sign, and every dawn and every doorway i have been through has all only amounted to a pat on the head and a pinch on the cheek, and then a goodbye. like every window to every world in every town in every house and in every person has been broken and boarded up. Like we are all just throwing stones and walking on glass.

She looked up at the fire. her tears reflected quietly off her face.

And once again, the scoreboard in the stars added a mark for reason over ardor.

And once again, i was left with the aching feeling that every thought that makes every word that comes out of my little heart and even smaller mind, are always better left unsaid.

And once again, summer gave way to autumn, and the fire grew dim. The fireworks had their finale. And the summer houses in the small town around the lake began to close shutters over their windows for another year.

Thumbs up

The headlights rose above the hill behind us, stretching our shadows as thin as our blood on the asphalt of 54A in front of us.

Woody was a few wobbly paces in front of me. Without a word, we both held our arms out into the light, with our thumbs up in the air.

A white mini van slowed to stop beside us like Cinderella's coach with a sliding door.

"I saw you guys at the bar tonight, where you headed." the driver asked with a smile in his voice.

"That way." Woody said with whisky in his.

It all started a month ago. When Woody noticed the bartender in Maloney's Bar sporting his employer's product head to toe. And, being of sound negotiating skills and observant enough to recognize the potential for opportunistic situations of mutual benefit, Woody made a deal to return with a trade: he would trade to Nick the bartender a new wardrobe, which is easily accessible for Woody, for what Nick had readily available at his disposal- George Dickel Whiskey.

So tonight, one month and several thousand miles later, both held true to their respective ends of the bargain. Nick will go back to college well dressed, and we staggered out of town towards home down the middle of rt. 54A on the east side of Keuka Lake in the middle of the night.

"I think my hands are all bruised." Woody said.

"I thought your head would be after the window fell shut on you when you stuck it back in the bar to thank the band." i said.

"I saw you playing those congas." the driver said to Woody.

"Yeah....." Woody said. "Where are you from?"

"Summit County Colorado." the driver replied.

That's all the information Woody needed.

He began to work a Woody on our chauffeur with whiskey slurs about the specific road names and ski shops around Lake Dillon, and I stared out the window of the mini van into the darkness like a verse of a Kenny Rogers song, as we rode out of Hammondsport on 54A into the middle of the night.