When I was in Greece, I saw a street performer. Another one of the thousand millions in that country, and with nothing particularly special, except for a certain "view of the entire beauty of the universe" experience. Using on the best in 3rd hand street equipment, he was playing a clarinet, backed-up by a CD playing a shitty robo-drum beat, pumped through an amplifier small enough to smuggle into prison. He had his stack of self-produced ridiculously meager albums stacked in his jacket, and a hat full of the greasy pity-coins he had gathered throughout the day.
He was playing Ave Maria.
Quite literally the closest the human race has ever gotten to auditory paradise. A song that could literally reduce me to tears in blatant public if I'm not careful. I certainly don't know or care what the words are, and believe that's probably for the best, since it would most likely push me over the brink if I did. It doesn't matter what language, musical ensemble, or venue, I quite literally will stop in my tracks running out of a burning building if I hear this tune.
The screaming high mark that is this song has been on my mind lately, in relation to everything else I've been thinking about recently. If you think of birth as getting booted of the top of a shear cliff, and death the inescapable impact waiting for you up ahead, the crash and smoldering burn is coming up. If you want to curl in the fetal position because you're scared of falling, that's your prerogative. But the other option – the ONLY other option – is to spread your arms out and catch as many clouds, birds, bird shit, and overall atmospheric flotsam that you might get a hand on on your way down. And it is so dirty sometimes. So, so dirty. The hate and squeals and squeaks and overall squishyness, and the sunlight and the fine white noise of the rushing air past your ears, the beautiful view of horizon to horizon that you're only going to be taking in this one time certainly doesn't make the inevitably blunt upcoming landing go away, but the murder spree known as The Big Dirt Dent at the end of this all – that's just the ground taking you down out of pure jealousy and spite. It eats us up to take our power, but it is always gone and slips from its grasp.
For those of you looking to avoid a journal post of me talking about my life and my thoughts, ohmygawdtheyresoimportant, you can check out now cause the rest of this is going to be along those lines, and I thought it only fair that I give you fair warning. That there's going to be what basically amounts to "An Internet Blog Post" for a while. I find them aggravating too, so if you just wanted to take that spectacular metaphorical appetizer I just blessed the world with and head out here, I certainly won't fault you.
I think sometimes that I'm certainly very lucky that I've never wanted to Do Something with my life, because I think most of the things I like doing and talking about certainly exclude me from particular Respectable Vocations. I used to be a Church Counselor, as an adorable enough "for instance". One night staying up late talking with 8th graders who happened to be rolling some fairly Considerable Questions around in their head – about Death, Suicide, Atheism, and overall Meaning in Life – put a quick stop to that and had me shifted to behind-the-curtain Work Crew status for the next 3 years. Best he not tempt the youngin's with deviant thoughts, padre.
What they obviously missed – being the type of folk who simply didn't have those kinds of thoughts – was that these kids were already deviant, and I'm fairly certain – being the fine Connoisseur of Doubt that I am – that not giving deviant thoughts and questions an outlet actually makes them worse. Much worse. You understand, I certainly didn't want them to turn into me, for good delicious' sake: Only finding out around their mid-20s that it matters about as much as a platypus' ingrown dude (literal term for "butt hair") what other people think of your thoughts. That – with enough of a headstart I was trying to give them with The Lesson – their unique thoughts and views could lead them to become unique people doing unique work to make the world a better place, and not a technically homeless 26 year old yelling on the internet.
But I am not actually mad. I simply wanted to make clear that I thank The Abyss everyday that my guts aren't telling me to go into politics or midwifery, CEOing or Public Relations. Cause then I'd feel like the things my heart gets so much joy out of would have to be hidden, squirreled away: walk down the dark alley and turn left at the junkie in the pink sweatpants, son. No one wants to hear those dead baby jokes around here.
I get more big-headed pride in myself out of the fact that I know jokes of such a violent and disgusting manner that a gaggle of nuns would turn and run, heaving holy water to cover their escape from me, and then I can compact my little 150 pound frame on a table talking about the very existence of god, and explain my personal source for my daily necessary touch with the divine, and mean every word of it. I count myself as a defender of some of the most depraved and useless motherfuckers on the planet earth – imagine a KKK member that felt like pissing on a picture of Mohammed, that sounds like someone I'd actually like to meet – and then I can put on a suit and tie and do the wedding service to marry a homosexual couple in Massachusetts (I've got the paperwork), because no matter what form it takes, love is good. And every second of everything I do is the very truth. I do everything with deadly seriousness. I count the fact that I feel like I haven't done enough illegal drugs as a goal, an area I can work towards self-improvement, and I find it borderline impossible to pass a homeless person on a sidewalk if I have a $1 bill in my wallet.
The Message, kids. These aren't contradictions. The only very one contradiction ever is if someone admires The Landing. If someone streamlines and puts their arms at their sides cause then maybe this'll all be over sooner. And don't give me the euthanasia bullshit, either, like you think you caught me. You know exactly what I'm talking about: The Skill to take The Boot Off The Cliff that started this all for each and everyone of us and turn it from a curse to a bad-ass lucky break. If you don't do that, you're not using the best part of your brain. The best part that makes human beings The Best: The ability to take a tragedy and make it an Awesome, simply because you said so.
I doubt anyone had told those kids that part. That Kansas City Shuffle. That dodge that you need the quick step for, to Not Give a Fuck when someone tries to make you think that The Little Voice is just the sign of a busted motor. "Get the Instruction Booklet, Jim. We've got to get this little tyke back to the shop. His mouth is spouting the most ridiculous bullshit you've ever heard. Ahyuck."
So if someone like my brother – fully grown man, who pays his taxes, with children, a wife, the manager of a very strong fanchise, and man with a functional, respectable life – feels like he has to do everything short of a fake-mustache and trench coat just to walk into a comic book store, I'm fairly certain that just running for dog-catcher would be an exercise in futility and a scandal-source of quite a considerable nature. If I was running for something actually Respectable? This article alone would probably give every muck-raker in all 50 States of the Union a 13-inch raging hard-on. Lucky for me, I don't want any of that. I just want jokes like that one up there, the Ave Maria, and all points in between.
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