Lyrics

Saxophone Neck, reeds and a New Yorker magazine. And some measuring tape.

Life, my dear, is a fickle friend
he's with you till the sidewalks ends
no doubt about it, that lying thief
always takes my trust and leaves me grief

-or-

Life is like my milk.
I love milk.
But if you buy too much at one time, then it expires.
So I buy only two gallons of milk. (I have a glass of milk with my cereal).
Oh, and I drink life from the carton.

On Tissues:

The best tissues are not Puff's Plus.
Nay - the best tissues are the two-ply proletariats of Kleenex, the workhouse comrades that uplift the whole of peoples to proper nose-blowing. The tissue should be grasped by placing the thumbs firmly on each side of the tissue, with the fingernail about a half-inch from the lining. A satisfying, wholesome nose-blow should be full of texture and volume, and delivered in a single, blasting manner right into the center of the tissue. After the excavation, the thumbs should retract and the main fingers of the hand should be used to draw the center of the tissue down and away from the nostrils, sweeping any stray object into its beautiful two-ply construction. Then the tissue should be examined for any unwanted subjects in the discharge (i.e. chocolate or other foodstuffs) and then discarded.
The problem with the Puff's tissues or any tissue that offers softness is their ability to draw the material from the nasal cavity. In using a soft tissue, these unwanted remain are left to dry and harden, becoming an object of attention for other patrons. Also, the use of a "Plus" tissue leaves the user with a feeling of regret and incompleteness, which I find can never be avoided.
Therefore, the whole of society should revert back to the use of the humble and appropriate two-ply Kleenex brand tissue. It's modesty is punctual and very much useful, more so than the idle, lazy Puffs brand.

Thank you,
a concerned consumer and connoisseur.

Go, Going, Gone

Deodorant, a towel, an upside-down tissue box and some Christmas CDs.

I want to go.
Far AWAY.
To places I have never known, and will never get to know.
I want to wake up every day and get lost, and then find my way. Only to get lost.
I want to struggle with language.
I need to go.
I need to go to Italy, to Europe, to somewhere without America. I want to see the past and the future collide, I don't want to live in the present. Forget tradition and being safe and sorry, I want to be smiling where it is sunny and the water is clear and people don't talk in a language that is easy to speak.
I wish.
I wish I knew what it was like to not be American. I want to be born in England, or Czechoslovakia. Maybe Denmark. Definitely Switzerland. or Belgium.
If only.
I could go.
Be going.
and be
gone.

I am in the bathroom.

Anniversary

An empty bowl of ice cream, parts of a saxophone, a highlighter, and a steel bottle filled up with water from my bathroom.

Hello, Internet.
If feels good to, once again, write on your vast walls, to scribble little memories and splatter stories on the cavernous alleyways that are your body.
I came for the truth, but the truth came for me.
I came for the lies, but the lies came for me.
I came for the love, but love can't set you free.
Just me.

The Anniversary is on this day. I remember it. It seems like a dream. It felt like a dream. In some ways, what happened 10-16 was a dream. A very badly written, teary, sadist-masochist dream. It happened here. In reality, but it doesn't feel that way. I want the past to rewrite itself, to re-right itself.
But it can't. Time is a fragile and broken, out-of-touch deity. It never does what you want it to. Even though it travels in a straight line, it still gets knots.
And you can't untie knots.
He took a fall.
He fractured his skull.
He had a concussion.
And then they said would be okay.
[...] (This is where the knot is)

I arrived at four of five o'clock in the afternoon. It was sunny, that dark dismal dreary doldrum damned day. My uncle dropped me off by the emergency entrance of the hospital, and I began my ascent into the ICU grotto. My journey took through a back entrance. I walked like a ghost, or like a man going to a funeral, and like a man [period] I wore a ragged smile on my face, and I held anxiety in my twittering hands. I found the ICU waiting room - a small labyrinth of cubicle walls - and my mother. Needless to say, she was not completely sure of the situation. Other people sat through the walls around us, craddling their heads in SorrowFearAnger. No one could get cell reception. There was light, and a little of it, but not enough.
None of it was enough. Nothing a doctor could say could fix anything. Doctors are trained to give the worst case scenario so that all hope is crushed. And if they are wrong, then no one is hurt. No their fault really - they get crap for being the bearer's of bad news.
The system told us he was going into surgery. Complications. Blood in the brain. Swelling. Demons. Pressure. Brain, surgery.
We waited in the OperationRoom waiting cell. We met someone who had a brain injury. My mom read magazines. A friend of her's (an ER doctor) called all of Jim's family to tell them what had happened. I wrote down the Lord's Prayer. We felt the SorrowFearAnger.

Then Dr.F----- came and broke the tension. With a double sided sword. As I recall -
"IF he makes through the night, there is a SLIM TO NONE CHANCE that he will ever be the same." Dr.F was 6'5", grey haired, and big. Looking down. Those words dropped like a tree.

if a tree falls in a forest...

but we heard it. it was a gut wrenching noise - have you ever heard a tree fall? So many little things snapping and crackling, they come together in a guttural democracy of cacophony - each little snap is so silent, yet one thousand of them together is enough to deafen the ears of the mighty and destroy the minds of the weak.

some would say we were deafened.

but,
never -
defeated.

the ride home that night was
silence.

My uncle followed us home, and in case my mother had to steal back to the hellspital in the darkness of the night, he would be there to help my brother and I get ready for the day.

There was a phone call that night.

And just like, when you search hard enough to find light in an abyss, just like when you strive to hear mellifluous music in the melancholy melody of life, we felt hope that night.

Simply, a light in the shape of a hand - the four fingers curled peculiarly into the palm, the thumb stretched towards the heaven - a simple, kinetic, universal, godly, loving, symbol. Maybe that's all I needed. That night, my father, after suffering a skull fracture, a concussion, swelling in the brain, and perhaps irreversible damage to the brain stem and maybe even more things that we couldn't even yet comprehend, that father, simply said to us "yes."

I still don't know what it means.

I do not struggle with Adversity - Adversity struggles with me!

I do not bow down to Calamity - I show myself before and Calamity falls on its bloody, broken knees.

And while sometimes I feel that I do not deserve tragedy and strife;

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me."

Psalm 23:4

I hope I don't appear evangelical; I hope not to convert anyone.
I am just a boy walking. and walking. and walking.

Amen,
Sholom,
Sal am,
Peace,

Cameron

Desires (piano)

HN White Alto Sax, Vandoren V16 reed, rolled up Avetts Brother poster.

I want to learn to play lots of instruments. I already have a few under my belt - saxophone, piano, guitar, bass guitar, harmonica, and now I'm learning clarinet. Well, I should say that I know how to play them - I should say that I'm still studying them. I have a really long way to go before I can say I've mastered any one of them.

But I want to talk about piano. I love piano. I love all forms of piano, like saloon style or ragtime, or modern jazz or baroque. I started piano a couple years ago, under the instruction of a man who I knew only as Joel. He was about seventy years old, and he drove around in an old Camaro with his dog, smoking cigarettes and wearing faded blue jeans. He inspired me. Joel was a good teacher, and very disciplined. If he knew I could do something, he wouldn't stop teaching until I had done it. In short, Joel believed in me. He made he love piano, unlike some piano teachers, who just pound classical music and training till the cows come home. He showed me jazz piano, but he always made sure to ground me in classical music as well. In this way, I grew to love and appreciate classical music rather despise. Later, I found that Joel was a child prodigy - he had already played Carnegie Hall at age nine. He played and lived in New York City - he even met and studied with Dave Brubeck and Oscar Peterson. And then, after two or three years under Joel's instruction, he had to leave. Life is so fragile, so delicate. Sometimes I scorn the way that life has in-confidence, the way that it is afraid that it will crumple under the pressure of happiness and enlightenment. Ponder,

Shining Star.

I want that guitar from the antique store. Can't wait for Avetts!