This Modern Age

The poet Derek J. Rhodes called me from a pay-phone in Roswell, New Mexico, last night.

"You're leaving soon, aren't you?"

"I fly out to Maryland bright and early Tuesday morning," I replied.

"Good. It's about time you get to work. You remember our agreement?" Rhodes referred to a pact to do what we could to make people feel less lonely, made at a strip club in Duluth.

"Yeah," I said. "I'll try my best."

Rhodes cursed. "Do or do not. There is no try."

I paused while I tried to figure out where I had heard that adage before. "Yoda from Star Wars said that, didn't he?"

Rhodes laughed. "I guess he did. If there's one thing I've learned from my time here in Roswell, it's that this modern age is desperate for wisdom. We've got to take our sages where ever we can find them."

"Think you'll be heading to the East Coast anytime soon?"

Rhodes hemmed and hawed. "Maybe. I'll let you know if I do."

"Fair enough," I said. "Until then."

"'Till then," Rhodes said and hung up.

Selections from "On Writing"

Below are selections from a piece I wrote a few months ago called "On Writing."

[...] I am not subtle in my motives. I come to this page with all the finesse of a tractor-trailer barreling through a red light and you, Dear Reader, are the unfortunate soul in the midst of a left-hand turn. I cannot promise to leave you un-dented.

[...]I write because I am a depraved and lonely human being. I crack jokes on paper because I want to smile. I say disconcerting things because I fear my own apathy. I write insufferable characters because I want to better love my fellow human beings. I do this for your entertainment. I am an exhausted vaudevillian looking for companionship in our small conspiracy.

[...]But I do need you, Dear Reader, though you may think I doth protest too much. I need you here, perched on my shoulder, like any self-respecting god or demon, to give shape to my days. I need you to remind me to write people as they are, not as how I wish them to be complete with romantic endings and snappy one-liners. I need you to scold me when I dare to think of dressing up Ideas, Themes, or Motifs in three-piece suites or hip-hugging jeans so they can strut around your imagination, pretending to be People You Know. I would be lost without you.

[...]Let me say something brilliant and I feel like I kissed the Homecoming Queen. Let me write something mediocre and I feel like I went home from the dance all alone, knowing I didn't have it in me to say anything worth saying. I'm at home on pieces of paper. Everywhere else just feels like a stage-set from a made-for-T.V. movie.

[...]I warned you before, Dear Reader, I am a liar of the worst sort. I am willing to say anything to set my soul right.

[...]I tried quitting, once. I tore up a half-dozen notebooks, tossed my pens in the garbage, and bought pencils so I wouldn't have to live with my mistakes. It was miserable. I would make it a week and then find myself hammering out lines on cocktail napkins, linen tablecloths, or bathroom stalls. It was a holy mess. They don't make a writer's patch. I've checked with my local pharmacist.

Silly Poem

I received another postcard from the poet Derek J. Rhodes recently. The postmark indicates he sent it from a town in Nevada, just twenty miles from California. I've been there and the town doesn't have much going for it except a hole-in-the-wall, called The Horny Toad Saloon, with a grandmother for a bartender who drinks shooters of Tabasco to keep herself regular.

On the reverse side of the photo of a sunset over the Sierra-Nevada Mountain, Rhodes scribbled the following poem:

Oh, witch's broom, take me higher
and burn brightest of all tinder
in the heretic's fire

Perkins off 169 North

I go to Perkins off 169 North late most nights to write and drink coffee. The staff knows me well enough to always seat me somewhere near the back and are kind enough to never hold me to three dollar minimum purchase and two hour maximum stay.

One night, near the end of her shift, a waitress bustles over to my table to drop off my ticket. She hesitates then says, "Hey, you want a donut? We've got some back in the kitchen."

I smile. "Sure. That'd be great."

A moment later, the waitress appears with a glazed donut on a small plate. I thank her and she says, "Don't mention it. We worry about you, you know. None of us have ever seen you eat. Just coffee and water."

I laugh and assure her I'm not it a bad way, or anything, and that I appreciate how she and the rest of the staff look out for me.

The waitress smiles. "Enjoy the donut. It's good."

Much later, I head up to the register, two dollars in hand for a ticket that always comes to $2.01, and panic when I see the penny dish is empty. I explain my plight to the young hostess, how I don't have the penny I need to settle up.

The young hostess smiles. "Don't worry about it," she says.

"Thanks," I say and, calling upon my best Tennessee Williams drawl, I continue with, "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers."

The young hostess laughs heartily. "You're welcome. Have a good night, now."

Nothing's Fast and Easy

I know we've all seen the credit card commercials that portray plastic as the fast, easy means of paying for things. The perfectly synchronized fast-food customers succeed one other in a flawlessly flowing line, each swiping their credit card and then getting on with their merry way. Well today I was in Noize Music buying cigarettes and sparked up a conversation with the clerk. He commented on how time-consuming it was for him to run credit cards, saying that one morning he spent half an hour simply selling cigarettes as a constant line snaked to the door, slowed down swiping cards and waiting for receipts to print.

Contributed by Louise.

Holy Ground

One of my favorite lines in American literature comes near the end of J. D. Salinger's Seymour: An Introduction. The narrator in the story, Buddy Glass, concludes his biographical sketch of his dead older brother, Seymour, by saying:

"Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next. Is he never wrong?"

Induced Labor

I met up with my friend, Dan, for a dinner of gyros at a small Turkish restaurant off Snelling Avenue. He is a pre-med student at North Michigan University. He gets riled up easily about over-prescribed and possibly unnecessary medical procedures.

"Something like a third of all labor is artificially induced in this country," Dan said. "And, who knows, most of them might be necessary. But odds are, some of them aren't. Like my brother. My mother's doctor induced her early so my brother would be born early enough so my parents could claim his as a tax deduction for the full year." Dan laughed. "I doubt that was necessary."