It's A Slippery Slope

Last night, before the latest cold front rolled in, I was feeling rather tired but instead of lying down I hopped on my bike and did a quick 10 mile ride in the park. It worked wonders, got me completely out of funk city.
     I'm going to miss it when the days become short in the Fall and I won't be able to use this therapy. Walking doesn't do it. I'm sure there's some advantage but it's not stressful enough to get the heart pumping and the endorphins going.
     Yesterday I bought a new helmet and a pair of bike gloves. The old ones I hadn't replaced in years and they were getting pretty funky. The gloves stunk to high heaven and my old helmet looked like something a street person in Chicago would wear. Today I'll work out with weights in the gym for an hour and then do another ride tonight.
     Had a close call this morning I was backing out of my drive-way when I suddenly remembered I needed gas, which caused me to stop for a split second. Just then a car whizzed past going at least 40 miles an hour. If I hadn't stopped I'd probably be a dead man. Moments like that make you think and come up with old cliches like "I guess it wasn't my time."
     Speaking of death I'm currently reading "It's a Slippery Slope." by the late monologist Spalding Gray. I picked the book up two years ago because of the title before I ever heard of Gray. I had a little intrigue with one of my muses on her front porch one night and she warned me "We are approaching a slippery slope!"
So, when I saw the title on the remainder table at Hawley Cooke I bought it to give her. Luckily I didn't so, two years later I discover it's by Spalding Gray, who I just learned of after his suicide earlier this year. Gray's mother committed suicide in her early 50s and he seems to have a morbid wish to join her. Early in the book he quotes from Becker's "Denial of Death."
     "The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation--but it is life itself that awakens this anxiety, and so we shrink from being fully alive."
     BIRDS DO IT, BEES DO IT, EVEN EDUCATED FLEAS TO DO IT. LET'S DO IT, LET'S BE ALIVE!
     Being fully alive is something you have to work on every day.
     I keep waking up about 3 a.m. every morning with mini-panic attacks. Not fully blown, I don't have to jump in the car and drive around town in the middle of the night like a maniac trying to out run my angst. I just turn the tv on and let its babble wash over me. I don't really watch it of course, too inane. But this morning I turned it on and there was Little Joe Cartwright with a full head of hair and Dean Martin on his old tv variety show. It was an advertisement for a DVD that featured Martin and his show from the 1960s. Later clips showed him with Ethel Merman, Frank Sinatra and all these other dead stars. They all looked so alive and healthy. Boy, if they'd only known what was waiting in the wings. luv, yardhog

SO, YOU WANT TO BE IN PICTURES!

A nice bike ride down to the river this morning. The air full of the scents of fresh mown grass and road kill. A bloody, fly blown raccoon smashed into an unrecognizable pulp save for it's tell-tale striped tail.
The mighty Ohio was much cleaner and drift wood free than last week, although there wasn't a pleasure boater to be seen. I hadn't paused a moment until the distant rumble of thunder and dark clouds on the Indiana side caused the Hog to head for home. Good thing, it has been storming all day. Severe weather has hit the state again.
Despite the weather L and I drove downtown to the Galt House for a casting call for extras in a Hollywood movie that is being shot here. I should of known better. The event had been announced all week both on TV and the newspaper so, it turned out to be a cattle call. Everybody including Betty Lou and Bob with their photos clutched tightly in their greedy, expectant hands were there waiting to be transformed into "movie stars." I told L how this phenomenon is fully explained in Walker Percy's novel "The MovieGoer." How an ennui laden day can be transformed by the mere presense of an "ACTOR." As Spaulding Gray so eloquently put it "America is a pagan land and all the Gods and Goddesses are movie stars."
When we arrived at the hotel we boarded a packed elevator to the third floor and when the doors opened, I panicked. Bodies as far as the eye could see lined the room in front of me and some Hollywood type was standing amid the hoard announcing "Alright we're going to take the first hundred people and if you all don't cooperate we're going to be here all day."
Visions of Dachau and people being loaded on-to box cars filled my head and I said to L "Let's get out of here!"
Gearing up for Mose Allsion tonight at the Jazz Factory. I'm looking forward to it. Unlike tuesdays Rick Jones concert I'm sure I'll be able to understand the lyrics. Funny thing, both Jones and Allison are musical poets with a lot say, but I swear to the heavens I couldn't make out a word that lady uttered during her show. I can't even make out the words on her latest cd and the liner notes don't provide song lyrics, So, I'm still in the dark.

LIVING IN THE NARATIVE

"You have to live a life in order to tell a life. It's better to tell it, because you are always in control. You're like God."

Spaulding Gray