You know perfectly well that there are a few things about
yourself that you don’t want to discuss. Dark corners. Sex stuff, certainly,
but also, personal habits, fears, and socially unacceptable every-day life
behind the curtain.
Maybe a dinner out went South too quickly one night years ago when you wound up shitting in the bushes on someone’s lawn. OK, it was me who did that. But the thing that I feel guilty about, is that I don’t feel guilty. I mean, aside from the explosive relief, my memory reminds me of what a soothing and mandatory pause that was. I really heard the pulsing of the tree frogs, so frantic and unrelenting, that I usually blocked out. I remember thinking that it seemed like so much work, there must be an easier way for a tree frog to get laid.
A light wind swirled a snifter of fresh Cedar under my nose.
The broken branch above me, still attached by twisted bark, swinging like a
scarred red metronome. I had entered the area quickly, desperately pulling at
my belt and breaking shit on the way in, well, and on the ground there too. But
after brief seconds of explosive ecstasy, the experience turned into a
wonderfully mellow moment. The breeze blew at my face, carrying a nasty message
of human scat out behind me and into a neighborhood crowded with immaculate
Victorian Tutors like a line of jagged foothills with slate roofs, pressed up
by tectonic plates that ran parallel on both sides of the street.
It was intoxicating for me, but then, I was intoxicated before I got there. Not so great for the homeowner out walking their unflappably curious dog when Princess Anne broke free the next morning. That turned out to be a horror show. But my point is, I probably should feel guilty but I don’t. It was a life high. You should have seen the moonlight reflecting soft prisms of color back from a fresh rain puddle on the sidewalk. You probably had to be squatting in just the right spot to get the full effect though.
Sometimes it’s just the way it is. In a local comedy club, a
stand-up guy did a bit about flossing his teeth. He mimed a string of floss and
used it to pluck tiny pieces of food out onto the imaginary tight-rope held
high between his two hands. Looking at them like a father beaming at newborn
triplet sons, he greedily, licked those babies back off the string and down the
gullet. I was grossed out about it, comedy or not. Too close to the bone, or at
least the bits of meat on it. But really, it’s just food coming out of the
mouth and, after being acknowledged, going back in. Hey, we all want others to
really see us, right?
It’s not just gross stuff that we protect from the judgment
of the crowd though. Last Thursday afternoon while Carla was sleeping off her
night shift, I sat in my truck, in my driveway, and wolfed down four miniatures
and a Sierra Nevada Imperial IPA. I try to not drink too much,
especially when Carla is out working or in a sleep coma, and I’m home alone.
I’ve appointed myself to be my own governor. Everything in moderation, right?
Including moderation. So I say that my doctor points out that I can have two
drinks a day. I just save them up and have 14 on Saturday. But in an effort
limit my constant justification for bad behavior, I go alcohol free, one month
every quarter. I’ve done that for a few years now. But like all diets, when you
tell yourself that you can’t have something, that’s when you obsess about it.
Tell me I can’t have a chocolate éclair and I’ll think about it until I make a
dedicated run to Publix, buy a four pack, and eat two in the parking lot. I
don’t even like chocolate eclairs, but you shouldn’t have told me not to have
any. It’s the same when I tell myself “no” as well. That’s why the hiatus of
every third month evolved into “no drinking in the house” So now I can only
have a drink when we go out somewhere.
I think to myself, well, I did my time on the elliptical,
vacuumed two rugs, paid bills, walked the dogs, wrote a little bit, made
spaghetti sauce, (containerized, labeled, and put into the freezer) and took a
long shower. Then I think that I should say hi to Donna, Connie, or Greg,
whichever one is working at The Shores package store. I can never keep their
schedules straight. They know what I want though, a pint of Tito’s and a cold
Dogfish Head. I wish I could bottle the smell of that store as it hits me when I’m
ten feet in. the place is so packed with alcohol that the whole store smells
fresh and antiseptic, with a twist of lime. I guess I’m an alcoholic because it
makes me salivate. I would love to wear it in a spray on.
But I had to drink in my truck, in my driveway, while
listening to a “Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris” CD. Not exactly hard duty.
But after a “no drinking in the house” rule, I had no choice, right? The thing
is, I don’t feel guilty about sitting there, sun shade blocking the windshield,
safe, celebratory, not hurting anyone, and most definitely not feeling guilty,
unless I’m pleading guilty to loving life.
And speaking of love, and some of the passions we think it
best to keep to ourselves, I’ve always been fascinated by TV preachers, shilling
for God’s love. They take the fun out of my “spot the alien” game though. They
pretty much can’t hide it. But often the music for me, is one is of my secret
pleasures that I don’t talk about much. It may be thought of as corny in its
sometimes forced effervescence, with the focus on god’s love, but I’m there for
the music, not the message. How can someone not like Gospel music and great
four part harmonies, even if you think the whole shtick is not from anywhere
you know of near your little piece of planet earth? Like the Coneheads, maybe
all these people are from France! They’re strange…because they’re from France!
I watch some of the Bill Gather shows, the Country Family Reunion, The Oak
Ridge Boys and other gospel groups, because I’m passionate about the harmonies.
All shapes and sizes and permutations of harmonic interplay, but especially
four part.
Check out this performance by Jake Hess and Hovie Lister
with The Statesmen. They were a gospel quartet that, along with The Blackwood
Brothers, dominated Southern Gospel Music throughout the fifties and sixties. I
love watching them with their alien ways and messages, spot on harmonies and an
exuberant showmanship that was part Barber Shop and part Carnival Barker mixed
in the blood of Jesus. Elvis loved them too but didn’t talk about it until
later in his career.
I pull the shades and watch these guys and it gives me a lot
of joy to do it. But I don’t admit it openly.
Oh, another thing that I don’t want the finger of proper
society wagging at me about: I don’t clean the burners on my gas stove. They
just get dirty again with incinerated food spillovers, so I don’t fight it.
Each burner reaches up from a bed of micro-coals. These days one large piece of
Rotini glows bright red like a second pilot light under the front-right burner
when I cook.
Are you judging me? I didn’t think so. Not if you do a mental inventory of your own little passion play. What personal stuff do you not talk about? Did you secretly look through your spouse’s phone messages just to see wazzzzzzzzzsupppp? Drop a cooked meal on the floor and still serve it? Are you a Richard Simmons or Vin Diesel fan? I understand your reluctance to talk about that one. Do you sniff your lady's underwear if you find it lying there obviously begging for it when she’s out and you just wanted to reminisce? There are about 10,000 things you keep close when you think about the glass house thing and all…
So here is a guilty pleasure of mine, (but I don’t feel any
guilt), I love Gospel music, but don’t let that get around. It’s just between
us.
Check out this performance with the eternally beaming Jake
Hess and the snake oil salesman look of the late, great Hovie Lister on the
piano.
But please don’t tell anyone I listen to these guys, shit on people’s lawns, drink in the driveway, or love The Statesmen Gospel Quartet. They’re all among those things I don’t want to discuss other than with the closest and most understanding of friends.
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