An oldie but a goodie… at least to me…
Posted on | June 10, 2008 |
Here’s one of my favorite pieces I ever wrote. most of this was jotted down in nearly illegible notes on an airsickness bag on a flight from SF to Atlanta the morning after my ten year High School reunion. That was 8 years ago, when the country was in limbo as to who the next preznit would be, Gore or Bush and the Florida “chad” debacle was going on. If nothing else, this piece at least shows I was quite prescient about the looming disaster the country faced under another Bush presidency… Here it is:
Written November of 2000.
So now I’m goin’ on back again,
I got to get to her somehow.
All the people we used to know
They’re an illusion to me now.
Some are mathematicians
Some are truck driver’s wives.
Don’t know how it all got started,
I don’t know what they’re doin’ with their lives.
But me, I’m still on the road
Headin’ for another joint
We always did feel the same,
We just saw it from a different point of view,
Tangled up in blue.
-Bob Dylan
Thomas Wolfe was the first to put it so simply and succinctly: “You can never go home again.†My recent participation in the ritualistic torture known as the ten year high school reunion proved Wolfe was indeed right. It is a savage and cruel revisiting of all the angst and neurosis of the teenage life with the addition of neck ties and large quantities of alcohol. But the booze was a necessity. One cannot be expected to handle the emotional kaleidoscope of such an event without significant amounts of the stuff. Being one who quit drinking before high school even started but has since started again, it would prove to be a different experience for me this night, interacting with these folks with some juice in me. Apparently, all it would have taken for me to be able to talk to these people ten years ago was a blood alcohol level in the high teens. Amazing what a little, or a lot, of whiskey will do for you.
The posturing of those seeking alpha-male status started early, but was thankfully subtle. While the abhorrent term “dot-com†was heard more than once, it came up less than expected. For the most part I witnessed very little strutting of feathers. However, my good friend, and my current attorney, informed me that he had been struck in the face by a savage monster who took a perfectly harmless joke just a wee bit too seriously. As he bled profusely into a napkin, I wondered if perhaps it might be time to attempt to revive the eugenics movement in this country. Eugenics brought us what will forever remain as my all time favorite quote from a supreme court justice, “Three generations of imbeciles is enough. Sterilize that woman.†Sadly though, the movement never gained enough support to achieve the one goal that might have made a real difference in this country; that is, forcing the removal of the uterus of whatever monster delivered Bush Sr. into this world. As the good Doctor Gonzo recently said; “The entire Bush family should be burned in poison oil.†I would think just burning them in regular oil would be sufficient, but it is probably safest to follow the doctor’s orders exactly. But I digress…
The food looked good. But at my rising level of intoxication, I was still cognizant enough to realize that vomiting sliced ham and shrimp on the dance floor wouldn’t improve my odds with any of the old high school crushes a brute like me focuses on at an affair like this. Maybe ten years of longing can be quelled with a reunion romp in the hotel bed sheets, but anyone caught refunding their hors d’oeuvres would surely never know. And I would never know either, but we’ll get to that.
Early on I found myself feeling a lot like Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles finding out everyone’s gone to get married, and being, quite honestly, not too happy about it:
Jake Ryan: Married?!
Long Duck Dong: Yes! Mawwied! Sheesh!
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
Well Bob, it don’t feel too good. Thomas Wolfe was right, indeed. You can never go home again. Nevertheless, I’m already looking forward to the twenty year get together. Maybe they’ll play some Bob. Somehow, I doubt it. Cue the harmonica, I’m gone.
Christ, the 20 year reunion is not far off. Getting old sucks.
Comments
2 Responses to “An oldie but a goodie… at least to me…”
June 10th, 2008 @ 10:56 pm
The WayBack Machine.
Nice.
I always told you that shit was good!
June 12th, 2008 @ 6:11 pm
You have courage, going back; I never could. Right now, I’m anxious to go forward (about seven months and a week, when Mr. Bush walks out of the White House for the last time, and not a moment too soon).