Last Memoir: First Kiss

Gods, I feel stupid writing this. I just do. It's not the subject itself (which has indeed provided major points of interest in the bulk of novels, songs, and movies for the last fifty years). It's probably my own insecurities on sharing the experience, coupled with the fact that girls run away after they get to know me ( I know, someday someone won't, but this is where I am right now).

Fine, lemme play it up....

Winter, 2003, a cold Northern Black Hills winter... frost soon turned to fire in the coming harbor of youth and uncertainty. A small university, disconnected from larger academia but still harboring the same problems... sprawling, creaking under Crow Peak and the rest of Hesapa.

Men and women (only yesterday boys and girls) seperated from each other's dorm by something as flimsy as a lobby, where a bigscreen TV sits in front of couches, jaws open. We sit, and wait alone for eternity under the cold bricks and waning moon, nothing on, no one else near.

She asks, "What do you want to do?"

"Not much to do, is there?" I ask. "This is nice, though."

"Here," she says, looking at me, "I'll show you where my roomate and I go to talk, sometimes, and look at the trees and the field."

We walk into a small anteroom used for storage, the storage of memories and other things unwanted.

"Nice place you have here," I say, trying to be cool.

She laughs and shuts the door. "The best part is, no one ever comes in."

And under the light from the window of the filtered winter moon, we hold each other in silence. The quiet and stillness of life and blood and thought, shared. And we stare into the universe of each other; the holy moment.

She moves up, I move down...

touch... touch... Touch. Feel. Lips softness pain purity whole uncoming prayer of the ravenous night and unfettered emotion breaking and melding, flowing around and through wasteland of youth, exploring... wait... exploring. I gasp...

Voice low and cunning, she asks, "Looks like I found a good spot, huh?" I unthinkingly riposte in the falling argent twilight, and she suddenly breathes heavier on me; that was her answer.

And the light fades quickly, oh, how quickly as we are pressed against the wall... and someone knocks. Someone knocks?

Go to hell, brother. Who gave you this location? This is ours; who else has the right. This is holy.

We pause; the moment is gone, retreated back to the unwanted and gathered up by the comforting mother's embrace of moonlight. Parting, looking into each other for the last time... she leaves first.

When the halls are clear, and the unholy infiltrators have left, I leave, closing the door to keep the sacred light trapped inside for the next acolytes. At the end of the hall, she blows a final kiss, I catch it and send it back... and she's gone to disconnect, to fall asleep and join the black sky.

My roommate’s still up when I stumble back to my room.

"Where've you been?" he asks, turning down the radio.

And cold silver trickles in the window as my eyes close for a moment, only a moment...

"Praying," I say.

There, happy now? Ok, fine, I needed the catharsis.

Last Freestyle Blog

A Fine Day for a Ride

It was a pretty nice day until my friend Luke told me I was riding the two year old. I was spending the week out at his place to help his family out, and goof around in general (e.g. 'become a man').

He decided that This Morning was the right time for a ride, and I asked why, and he said because it was This Morning. Fine. But instead of riding the older horse, who was solid muscle, I got his sister's two year old, who had muscles as well. They were, however, not solid, but jumpy, rather like a yorkie dog.

Apparently he needed some "experience".

I knew what that meant.

It meant get on and mentally beseech any and all deities you could think of. But, above all, and this is important around young horses, never SHOW YOUR FEAR. They could pick up on that, like a dog picks up the scent of... those biscuits they're always running ten miles home to eat in the commercials. So, I didn't SHOW MY FEAR. It was actually kind of easy. Kind of like trying to be extra sober. Things look clearer.

We'd made it a few miles from the house when the world exploded.

From our point of view, anyway. From the young horses' point of view, it must have been the

world chasing them. Too bad you can't get away from something that big.

To be honest, it was bandits.

To be really honest, we were riding past a shack that had hidden several other horses behind it. It waited until we were right beside it on the road, and then must’ve convinced the horses that racing to the west pasture was more fun than standing in the shade.

So, our horses took off too. Well, after the bucking and hopping stopped. I stayed on well enough, but Luke’s horse went into the ditch…

… and spilled Luke…

… into a barbed wire fence…

… whereupon he said something like, “Ouch.”

I didn’t feel like writing what he really said.

We then decided that he was too hurt (and bloody; the fence had ripped his shoulder open) to try and ride just yet. I said to make a poultice of prickly pear, and he asked why, and I said because it seemed like The Thing to Do. He didn’t do it.

So, I rode to the next house…

…almost.

There was still the matter of the bridge. Luke’s sister had said to be careful, because the two year old hadn’t “been near it yet”.

Anyway, we just kept going, and he ran over it fine. Like it wasn’t even there (wasn’t much of a stream to cross anyway, as I recall). So, I tell the person who comes out of the house to please call Luke’s house, and get his parents down here.

At this point I turned around and saw Luke riding up, embarrassing seven kinds of hell out of me for making it sound like his arm had been taken off by razor wire, put back on by Dr. Moreau, and taken off again by a mad gorilla with a chainsaw.

His mom drove up, but we ended up riding home anyway. It felt more natural.

By now it was evening, and the family called a local doctor who came and stitched Luke up. Luke still has three huge scars on his left shoulder today. But we’d had an Adventure, so we felt it was a pretty good day, all in all.

(Incidentally, this was how we e.g. became men).

Modeling Poem #3

Human Nativity

(based on Lee-Young Li’s poem “Nativity”)

We are products of melting,

sloughed from the purest ore,

dismissing what insults our own souls.

Tonight, as the dark shroud of heaven covers the earth,

a mother with child will kneel, asking, Why must I be your servant?

And a sister will say, You are blessed among women.

As a holy light seeks to pierce the black reaches,

the boy rises, and asks, Why must I fight?

And a father answers, No one else will.

As the lonely shadows grasp along the land,

the man asks, Why must we learn to die?

And another counters, What is God’s will?

Tomorrow, as the old one rises to greet the spilling gray dawn,

he asks, Why?

And is greeted with nothing but the rain.

We are products of melting;

if we knew, we would be God.

And as the Multiverse asks the question, it shudders under the weight.

Extra Credit Freestyle Blog 2: Opinion

The 80’s: Love it or… make fun of me.


Hey, crimestoppers. I have once again discovered the simple bliss of Back to the Future, Princess Bride, Ghostbusters, and..... VH1 Classic. Look in your channel program, you can probably add it. They play mostly 80's videos.

I'll sit back while you either jump up and down with uninhibited glee, or hurl your computer out the window in disgust. See, it's usually a 1/4 chance with my generation. They'll either say how great the 80's were, and you can discuss your favorite Tears for Fears song, or they'll laugh conceitedly at you. Of course, you realize, they're much too mature for 80's music. They have grown past the neon greatness, the flashy performances, the stellar producing, the mad guitar skills, and the big hair. Today's verrry mature, discerning 16-20-something needs real music, you idiot! Deep stuff like Dashboard Confessional, The Mars Volta, Good Charlotte (yay, down with establishment!), two-thirds of the bands on the Warped tour, or that new band Hawthorne Emery Halifax Fail Underoath. (They decided that since they all sounded so much alike, why not just form one big band? So many stars and musical innovators in one place! The possibilities would be endless!) Without putting yourself through the pain of listening to bands such as Underoath, it sounds like one vocalist breathing out a boy band upper-register tone, augmented by an angry guy screaming through his own vomit. This is accompanied on the guitar by half-assed arpeggios and fiddling around with power chords.

Duran Duran?
Ha!
Rush, Boston?
Crap!
Men at Work, Huey Lewis, Alan Parsons, Eurythmics, Depeche Mode?
Who? No, no thank you, the new Linkin Park just went on sale. New songs? Well...no. Remixes. But really good ones! And a new anime illustration on the front cover!

(Now here's a note before I pass on this next story: Nirvana was a great band. Dave Grohl may have been the best thing to come out of it, but a great band nonetheless.)

In the early 90's, Eddie Van Halen said he wanted to play guitar with Kurt Cobain. Kurt reportedly laughed at this proposition. From the outside, it appeared he was laughing at an old geezer, at an old 'established' music. It's safe to assume that since this would be a public event he was scared s***less to put up his chops against the 'old' legend. Cobain was an innovator, a voice for the youth of his day, but he was farther from Eddie's skill with the guitar than Alpha Centauri is from earth. He knew it, and he still laughed. Most of the time, this is the kind of attitude I get from people in college when I bring up the 80's.

This is, of course, not to say the 00's don't have good music. There's some unbelievably good music being made, if you know where to look. It'll be, for the most part, under "Alt”: Iron & Wine, The White Stripes, Modest Mouse's early stuff, Cake, Foo Fighters, Kasabian, Of Montreal. There's some downright unashamed crap being made as well: (see second paragraph, plus Modest Mouse's latest stuff).

Seriously, if you were to graph rock music from the 50's through the 00's, (the singing ability, musical talent, and real message) you'll get a huge spike in the early 60's-early 70's, a sharp one in the early 90's, and then a logarithm that goes to positive infinity but never reaches 0.

This could easily be taken as a subjective opinion, and... well, yes, I suppose it is. It reaches objectivity when you consider what makes good music, good Rock 'n' Roll: rockin', catchy, or psychedelic music, singing ability from (at least) 6 to 10, instrumental talent, and good production.

Now, production, contrary to what some are yelling at the screen, is the least important aspect. At a live concert, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam delivered the now infamous quote:

"Who knows? Without The Buzzcocks we might’ve sounded like Good Charlotte or..."

*Crowd boos*

"Oh, they're good. Its just they sound like... they sound... well, they taste like a popsicle that's been stuck up someone’s ass."

The fact that his crowd booed makes me wonder if security missed the fact that most of them were robots. But the point is that Vedder paid homage to the Buzzcocks. Bands like that, such as the Sex Pistols, used very minimal production. (Bands such as Good Charlotte, by contrast, use extensive production.) Sure, on the record, early punk sounds like fuzzy basement recordings. Initially. But for bands like those early punk acts, music was about... the music. Imagine that. Focusing on the message, and damn the torpedoes. Most of today's bands get all skittery at the idea, saying "Torpedoes? Won't that affect our earnings next quarter?" (By the way, cracking some joke about Vedder or Pearl Jam at this point won't help. They are one of the only bands to emerge from the grunge scene, change with the times, and maintain, and increase, a loyal fan base. In terms of rock evolution, they have been compared to the Grateful Dead.)

I guess the answer today is, 'stay objective.' Don't expect hordes and waves of good music to come gushing out of the studios anytime soon. It's not going to happen. When there's an abundance of good music, you can afford to be subjective, picking and choosing what you like from many, many current bands. Since this is not the case, try to experience some new tastes. It's what keeps me from listening to overproduced Usher or Nelly, and helps me stick to classics like N.W.A. It keeps me from fake political messages in nu-metal. It helps me avoid misleading images of Straylight Run in exchange for the genius of Kasabian.

It is extremely easy to listen to what's 'right'. It's much, much harder to listen to what's good, what truly speaks to you in the face of an easily tune-deluded generation. And, all in all, if stuff like Hawthorne Heights speaks to you, truly, then that's great. There is nothing wrong with being totally wrapped up in the music.

That's the reason music exists.

(P.S.: Seriously, I thought Straylight Run was a reference to one of my favorite books, the seminal cyber-punk novel Neuromancer. Nope. A couple catchy songs followed by cookie-cutter pseudo-emo crap. And trust me, 'pseudo-emo' is hard to pull off. Today's bands are becoming alarmingly good at it.)

Extra Credit Freestyle Blog 1: Humor

An Excerpt from a College Literature Text

-----Chapter 2, pg. 30 directions: Read selections thoroughly, answering questions as directed by your instructor.

The Yearning, by Xavier McFlintlock

“Wow,” said Jim’s friend.

“I know,” said Jim.

“You should get that looked at.”

“Yeah.”

On his way to the doctor’s office, Jim was hit by a banana truck harboring immigrant proboscis monkeys.

Questions:

1) Was Jim killed (through the case of proxy), by his friend, the truck, the illness, or his own imperialist hubris?

2) It is obvious that Jim’s friend secretly wishes he were a woman, although this subtext is cleverly omitted by the author. What experiences could have led him to hold such a desire? Discuss.

3) If Jim’s friend could say something after Jim is hit by the truck, what would it be? (Hint: I feel like chicken tonight, chicken tonight.)

4) In the story, the monkeys are “immigrants.” (McFlintlock, pg. 30) How do they represent the plight of immigrants throughout the world?

5) The banana truck apparently runs on diesel fuel; discuss what impact this might have on world oil reserves.

6) Compare and contrast the instance of the banana truck hitting Jim with the classic banana peel pratfall of situation comedy.

7) In an alternate ending, Jim dies of salmonella poisoning just before the truck hits him. What effect(s) could this pertinent timing have on the plot, and why do you think the author omitted it?

Memoir of a Family Member

I tend to think 99% of the Earth's population is "strange." Therefore, I can't really reminesce about strange experiences with strange family members. Guess I'm far too Taoist for that. Instead, you get an earlier memory of mine from a few summers ago, something I call...

After the Storm

We're back from high school rodeo state finals. Wow, have I got stories. Stories that will make you laugh, cry, pee, or any combination of those actions. Leave now if you have an aversion to any of those activities, or if you're sensitive about being from East River. I speak for every West River senior when I say I'm fed up with Huron, and glad to be rid of their incompetence. Finals should not be held at the corner of Bumblescrew and Youvegotaprettymouth. They said last year they'd spray for mosquitoes. Either they didn't, or they did a piss-poor job. I almost got carried away by swarms of the Minnesota state bird. There was no toilet paper in the restrooms. That's okay because I had plenty of Best Buy receipts in my truck. (Seriously, why do I need six feet of receipt for a CD purchase?) I don't know how others fared. And this is the best part: the barn that usually sells hay and bedding wasn't open Friday or Saturday. I don't know if they were selling when I left Sunday. I'll pause to let you bask in the implications of that while I make a PB+J. Say it with me: horses... need... food... and... shavings... you... morons. By Saturday, there was an abundance of crap and dirty sawdust in almost every barn. I imagine it wasn't that different from Larry Flynt's living room. Great job, Huron.

On to how my sister did. With her torn ligament, goat tying proved difficult. On a sidenote: at the second Southwest regionals, she didn't finish her first goat run because she was in so much pain. Not one, but four mothers went to the director and complained, trying to have Elizabeth disqualified. Their reasoning? Her goat hadn't been tied as many times as the other goats. Cry me a river, you petty soccer moms, and stop being jealous. But back to Huron. Elizabeth has trouble standing up to rope, so she didn't make it back to the short go in calf roping. Now team roping, there's a different story. Years ago, Elizabeth broke open the high school team roping scene on a major scale for women all over the state. Her heeling partner, Cooper Waln, fractured his neck in a car accident before regionals. Her only option was to start heeling herself, and take Kaylee Nelson as a heading partner. Their first run at state, they complete their run, face, and wait for the judge to flag... and wait... and wait some more. After about six nerve-strangling seconds, Elizabeth's rope pops off the back feet. He flags them out.

Jerk.

I'm wondering what his problem was. Was he a failure as a roper in his early years, or does the idea of two women ropers piss off his sexist, backward, whitebread, redneck mind? And why isn’t he judging Olympic figure skating? I say this with conviction: I don't care where the judges are from. I want them to at least be honest and fair. This problem exists within the regions as well.

The next day, they complete their run, face, and stretch the crap out of that steer. He still rides over and checks Kaylee's loop for any possible violation of the rules. I was so incensed. Ranting aside, I still enjoyed talking with old friends and watching the performance.

And as a last irrelevant segue: for anybody unfamiliar with rodeo, sunflower seeds are still a tradition at performances. Thousands of empty shells litter the grounds during rodeos. It looks like a sunflower seed Vietnam. If sunflower seeds were capable of sentient thought, they'd be forming a sunflower Monterey Festival, and Sunflower Dylan and Salty Seed Baez would be leading the crowd in “We Shall Overcome”. I've never been so full of sodium. I felt like I had just given blood. You ever wonder why so many rodeo people are hunters? After a rodeo, you might as well go deer hunting 'cause you're passing salt licks.

Elizabeth won the barrel racing saddle and came in second in the cutting, so she's going to nationals in those events. She was four points away from the reserve all-around championship. It took a torn ligament and a roping team retooling to move her down that far. And the kids that comprise the homeschool competitors won more points than the Sturgis team, and Sturgis still won the hi-point trophy. Oh well. I eagerly await National Finals in Gillette. I'm bringing plenty of sunflower seeds.

Modeling Poem #2

News

The boldface paper resting

on the ashen Formica table says, “News,”

which is misleading,

since what people want, most of all, is “Olds.”

I was told to please go outside and play, but I find

the old paintings in this wide hallway

too silver cinematic to pass by.

One’s of an acropolis in a craggy desert-

here, I’ll add Heston

coming down the side

with two guns carved from stone,

to interrupt the Jews camped at the base,

eating lox and bagels.

He swings and swings with God’s holy wrath,

spraying blood and capers everywhere,

until they scatter,

forced to wander the desert ‘til Christmas Eve,

when the Christians stay home.

This one’s a classic painting-

an empty sylvan trail opening into a field,

with a cottage beside a stream in the distance.

No one’s in it because

the Communists are coming,

and the stream is infested with cryptosporidium.

Then, a fleet of golden gondolas assaults

from the opposite wall-

Venetian scenes are normally fancy and quite calming,

but these are war gondolas;

full of unhappy taxpayers raising torches and pitchforks,

on their way to the castle to slay Mussolini,

and his monster Fascistein.

Further down the hall,

a Sicilian panorama drifts in browns-

vines clamber up an adobe mission;

clay pots in plenty a sign of bounty.

A solitary woman in mute blue and red carries one of them

along the foreground.

There’s no one else in the scene,

since the men are inside watching the game.

I think if she doesn’t hurry,

the vines will crack the ground beneath her feet,

and ensconce her as well;

earthenware

lifted to God under the bronzing sun for eternity.

On the way back I open a casement and look down

at Shakespeare, trapped in his personal prison garden

of perennials and succulents and iron bars.

It’s the most efficient way

of holding someone indefinitely-

they cut off his arms and legs,

stuck him on a pedestal,

and froze him like Han Solo.

He notices me,

and shouts up,

“Hey! Think you can get me out of here, man? Please?”

but the cafeteria flashes its porchlight.

“Sorry, Bill!

I'll bring you a newspaper tomorrow."

Memoir: Away From Home

I would never run away from home. Not voluntarily. You probably won’t understand this thinking if you don’t have a love of the Black Hills. As a poet and as a human, the Hills are my magic and my life. They are timeless, unwavering, comforting, a channel to the sacred.

Now that that’s out of the way, I can properly explain my first experience away from home. It was in the spring of 2004. Even writing that year makes me realize how much younger and naïve toward the world I was. But, journeys like these can fill you and make you grow. Or, they can break you and make you grow back in other ways. This was a little of both. I had been accepted to Pepperdine University. Since I was currently at a local university, this forced me to choose between a new path at an exclusive college, and my home, family, and someone who was very special to me. Fortunately, my head was still filled with dreams of screenwriting and directing, my family encouraged me, and the girl never returned my feelings.

Thus, like many people who migrate to Southern California, I had a sob story and a dream to fuel my journey. To mangle a quote from Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day, “Everything that’s not properly nailed down slid toward Los Angeles.” So, like my ancestors, traversing the plains to settle the Badlands, I accepted and went to Malibu. I quickly grew to hate L.A. with every fiber of my being.

But at the same time, I grew to love Malibu. I could see the Santa Monica Pier from my room. I practiced as part of the fencing team in a rotunda that is, like most of the campus, right next to PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) and the ocean. I became friends with a band that, one day, will be very, very famous (Manixview). I hung out and browsed shops that, when walking through them, I realized had been movie sets at one point (I still belong to the Blockbuster that Arnold Schwarzenegger visits in Last Action Hero). One of my friends was on Saved by the Bell: The New Class (am I even allowed to brag about that one? Just kidding; he was awesome). I roomed with two great guys who I’m still friends with. One’s a film and television producer who’s developing his own show, which the Travel Channel was buying, last I heard. The other is a self-made millionaire investor and real estate agent. We used to drink at Moonshadows, the bar Mel Gibson left before he got arrested (we never made that mistake... drinking and driving OR being racist). And our other roommate, who I’ve since lost touch with, was a great friend as well. We used to catch movies at Universal City. This was before we chose to eat at a burger chain that we, soon after entering, learned it was some kind of gang hideout (that’s another example of why I came back).

Long story short: I had some contacts for my writing, and a paid offer on the table to work as photo editor for The Graphic (Pepperdine’s newspaper). Why did I come back? I don’t really know… not completely. Most likely, it was the fake, oppressive Los Angeles air that surrounds everything one does when he/she lives in there. This also accurately describes the physical air; not just the way people act. There were also some family issues that prompted me to live closer to home.

So, now I’m in Vermillion during the school year. Do I miss Malibu? Who wouldn’t miss Malibu? Maybe I’ll buy a timeshare there someday. I do have some good news, though. The hobnobbing skills and movie jargon I picked up during my time in SoCal has paid off- I’m the executive producer of an independent film here in Vermillion. No, it probably won’t debut at Cannes, but whatever path it is that drug me through Malibu and back again, I’m glad to be on.

Adrian C. Louis Presentation response

There are several reasons why I chose Adrian C. Louis’ Vortex of Indian Fevers for my presentation. His poetry is a timeless representation of the modern Lakota. He has a heartfelt view of the natural world, as well as the human condition. In addition, he is well-traveled and educated, and he exploits the synthesis of his background with startling results.

Although I cannot claim the Lakota lineage, my best friend since high school is Lakota. I grew up spending as much time at his house as I did with any other family. I also grew up with the rodeo crowd from the Rapid City area. Thus, my background takes me out of the typical ‘observer’ area usually filled by the white American. (By the way, I think at least every South Dakotan, and ideally every American, should be required to read Vine Deloria, Jr.’s Custer Died for Your Sins and John G. Neihardt’s Black Elk Speaks. Both speak volumes about Native culture, and are from authentic, non-researcher standpoints).

Louis’ visions are poignant, candid, saddening, and often humorous. I usually look for a well-rounded author when I choose to read something on my own time, and I was not in any regard disappointed by Vortex. Much of the poetry I write is ‘prophetic’, drawing on visions and dreams I’ve had since childhood. It was not until later, when my family moved to South Dakota, and I began to absorb some authentic Lakota culture, that I was able to comprehend them. Even though I am (to the best of my knowledge) a full Irish-German, Louis’ writing speaks directly to me, comforts me, and confirms much of what I have believed since childhood. The only subject matter I cannot relate directly to is reservation life, but Louis presents it in such an honest, first-hand way, that any outsider will likely regard his message with the solemnity it deserves.

Louis’ work is a modern epic of a shattered people trying desperately, despite the ‘help’ of the government and popular culture, to reassemble and preserve what was taken. His story is one of pain and acceptance, of pleasure and dreams. He is a visionary and a storyteller. He is wakan: a holy man. He is the last channel of the Beats. Adrian C. Louis’ Vortex of Indian Fevers is one of the true American classics. And the call he gives is not particular to race: bliya hici ayo (make yourself resilient).

Memoir: Melodious Memory (the alliteration was too great to pass up... sorry)

The Memory of Music



Is there a piece of music that reminds you of a particular time and place in your life?

I can think of a song tied to a memory right away. The song?

"Let's Dance," by Chris Rea.

Some might think me sappy or philistine to pick a little-known eighties rock song. Or now you think of me that way because you know it's an eighties rock song. Trust me, I could've easily picked "So What," by Miles Davis. I'll get to you in a minute.

The song fills me with a sense of comfort, joy, and love. This is for two reasons. (Believe it or not, I usually don't wax this Reader's Digest when I write a memoir. That tells you how good Chris Rea is. The man literally exudes thick, lively, sensual coolness out of his guitar and his voice.)

The reasons, or more aptly, incidents occurred roughly 15 years apart. When I was younger, we lived in Seattle, home of Bill Nye the Science Guy, The Space Needle, rain, The Mariners, The Pacific Science Center, coffee, and rain. By younger, I mean my sister and I were driven everywhere by our mother. This lead to many great bonding experiences as we took trips to museums and parks, as well as daily school rides accompanied by tapes of Chris Rea, one of my mom's favorite artists. (the media the music was recorded on should tell you how long ago this was).

In fact, now that I think about it, Seattle was a great place to grow up. Why the hell did we move?

Oh, now I remember.

Grunge.

Thanks, Eddie Vedder. Pearl Jam may be my favorite band of all time, but you guys also made us move to Minnesota. By the way, I still haven't bought your latest album. I heard it's great, though.

Anyway, one poignant memory I have, in particular, is listening to the song "Let's Dance" while riding in the car through the Seattle area in the late eighties. I think it struck me because it was my first real introduction to what a carefully crafted rock song sounded like, recognizable even to my young ears.

Every few years, the memory would surface, as I had none of the original music to listen to: the rain streaming, or the clouds gathering in the mossy districts of the Northwest, riding to school or a museum or park, hearing the crunch and flow of Chris' Fender swirl in the air.

As time passed, I forgot the name of the artist (sorry, Mr. Rea), but I never forgot the name of the song. With the advent of iTunes, I had an opportunity to indulge my 15-year conundrum, but one search for "Let's Dance" gave me more hits than Naomi Campbell. If I were hired as her new assistant. I'm going to be honest: that joke pretty much tripped and fell on its face. Also, needless to say, I had better things to do than wade through a thousand songs with the same title. Seriously... does someone write songs about subjects other than dancing? Can you send me their CD? I think I'd have to hear it to believe it.

Here's where the second incident comes into play. We take a yearly vacation to Snug Harbor, in the Ft. Meyers Beach, Florida area. It's easy to associate this laid-back, palm populated, perfectly peopled Gulf area with Chris Rea's style of music. At least, for me. The day after my arrival, on our most recent trip, I noticed a new CD in the rental car: "The Best of Chris Rea." The next few minutes transpired as such:

Mom: puts CD in player

Me: This is good stuff.

Mom: Yeah, it is.

a few songs pass

Me: OH MY GOD! That's that song! The song! That one song! The "Let's Dance Song!" That one we listened to when we lived in Seattle!

Mom: Yeah... yeah. You remember that?

Me: Yyyeah... of course. When did you get this?

Mom: Yesterday.

Me: Wow.

So, I ended up reuniting with a long-lost childhood friend. He wasn't rich; he didn't have a pool, or money to lend me without interest. It was something better: the magic of a song and an artist I had discovered 15 years earlier. I ended up adding ten of his songs to my iPod when I returned home. And I have to be honest; this has restored my faith in mankind a little. Just a little. Good music'll do that to you. Chris Rea's music remains fresh and vital even today.

When all's said and done, we did end up settling in the Black Hills of South Dakota, though, so I really can't blame Mr. Vedder at all. I love it here. Maybe I'll go buy that new Pearl Jam album tomorrow.

Oh, and another Chris Rea album.

(Addendum: to gain a fuller appreciation for the fine body of work performed by Chris Rea, listen to the songs "The Road to Hell, pt. 1 and 2", "Stainsby Girls", "Looking for the Summer", "I Can Hear Your Heart Beat", "On the Beach", "Julia", and, of course, "Let's Dance".)

Response to "No Room in the Booth"

I am going to be less formal with this piece, as it struck a particularly out-of-tune chord with me.

From Kathleen Osip's "No Room in the Booth: An Appreciation of Confessional Poetry":

"It is important that the formal rigor of the confessional poets take its rightful place beside their absorbing narratives because they sometimes seem to have opened the floodgates of self-indulgence in American poetry. They may be seen as using the pram containing the infant Contemporary American Poetry down the slippery slope leading to what Harold Bloom scornfully calls the School of Resentment, whose denizens elevate a content of victimization and social protest above a poetics of the sublime that will move and enlighten and individual reader."

I could not agree more, and to be honest I was literally overwhelmed with gratitude at having the privilege to read these wise words. The floodgates have yet to be closed, but rather they are being dismantled, the waters fed, by none other than my own generation. If the post-Confessionals laid the groundwork for this self-indulgent attitude towards the natural art, then my generation has certainly secured rights to the rest of the territory. I would even go so far as to say they have zoned the area residentially, and are in Phase Three of its development.

More from Osip:

"In circles that assume (emphasis added) a love of and knowledge of and respect for the art of poetry, the adjective 'confessional' is quite likely to be an automatic pejorative; shorthand for poems written out of self-pity with little or no concern for language, form, or aesthetic felicity."

Let us therefore make a careful distinction: the original Confessionals did something unprecedented. They synthesized the cult of personality with the original American poetic styles, and did so at the most opportune time.

It is up to the later generations to either venerate or tear down this ideal.

Discussion of My Confessional Poem

In "The Wyrding Way," I have tried to present an imitation of Sylvia Plath's contemplative, sometimes mystic, style. In poems such as "The Disquieting Muses," "The Colossus," and "The Moon and the Yew Tree," Plath channels startling wisdom, using mythology and mysticism.

Yet she does not warp these into the abstract, as so many do. She brings them into concreteness with her own imagery and interpretation. She cannot accept loss in her life, and this theme runs true through much of her work. Her grief at such events as the loss of her father manifests itself as anger, which she then channels into her creative element. T.S. Eliot would have been a fast admirer.

Throughout her work, Plath channels this elemental, almost primeval knowledge of ancient thought that resides in the collective unconscious. And she could never, it seems, make up her mind what to do with this knowledge.

For instance, her likening of the tree in "The Moon and the Yew Tree" to a gothic structure is accurate. To the Druids, the yew symbolized the life/death cycle, as well as immortality. After the Romans gained control of Britain, and thus after Christianity had rooted in the Isles, gothic structures (particularly the arch) were some of the few reminders of the lost Druidic religions that thrived prior to mainland influence.

For her part, she does not, at least outright, make the next connection to the holy symbol of the tree. The themes of death and hopeful resurrection are present, but she never draws any direct, specific line to the ancient traditions. Plath was a lightning rod for the dark and slumbering unconscious of man, trapped in modern commercial life. She claims, in her writing, that she stopped believing in “magic” at age nine. Thus, her conscious was in conflict with her unconscious.

In this and other poems, I have tried to channel more aptly this unconscious drive within humanity to explain things as miracles, to seek the divine (or to question it), to wonder at the power of nature and the resiliency and creativity of evolution. I have also endeavored to follow, at times, a closer interpretation and imitation of the Confessional poets, in that I try to not only expose my subconscious, but exploit it.

The free verse poem is often set against themes or modes of darkness and disorder, in order to complement the intentionally skewed rhythm. The roots of this fact stretch back many years, but the use of surprise as a tool of poetic communication seems directly connected to the idea of Confessionalism. I have tried to utilize this in my emulation.

This immediate disarming of the conscious is a crucial component of my work, one that is inherent to Confessionalism, and Plath in particular. It is a state that is vital to the understanding of the inner workings of the mind, and one that must be slipped into, in order to attempt to grasp the construct and the outcome of a Confessional poem.

Confessional Poem

The Wyrding Way

Near the dead of the lake,

in the night of the woods,

the witching hour becomes thick and heavy,

where the divine will not pass.

The ones who Borrow are hiding in the trees,

in the minds of the forest,

in the cracks of the earth,

in the deep mire of the evening.

Here the moon comforts the sun,

who whimpers in frustration where he cannot reach-

a tangle-copse of raven burdens.

The town turns out quilts

of every glorious color and heavenly design,

and I am a stiff black thread for the silver needle-

threaded perfectly, and useless for sewing.

She knows when the Witching will happen,

but in her prison I cannot reach her,

and the light of my power is stopped in a dam.

Strike for her and I am struck dead.

Under the oak,

Under the holly,

Under the yew,

They gather.

The argent circle hung from my neck

is a signet of sacred light to stay the snake,

and a sigil to draw the venom.

Bones of a horse jaw I clasp, ward of the evil eye.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

Pray for a sinner, now and at the hour of my death.

When they dropped the ashes of my ancestors,

I remember a spirit rising from the shards,

wailing and chained to the ground under the half moon.

My opponent raises an effigy of straw.

It will raise a horror of bones from my still warm body,

and I will become a golem for the rest of my days.

The inkwell is broken, shattering black over the parchment.

I was held by the heart when baptized in the water of Styx.