Claustrophobic - first draft

Well, in case the hurricane claims me (or shuts down power for a while), here's one more song.

Inspired by a late night on the F train, where it felt like a bullet train.

Song - cover of the Fleetwoods "Mr. Blue"

Hey.

I turn 33 this August 31st.  Nothing really special about that year or my birthday nowadays. 
But when I was younger, I was a die-hard romantic (I still am, I just hide it better).  From the age of six, I harbored this seven year crush on Lori Walker.  Short, dark brown curls and two distinctive dimples framed her cheeks.  Brown, luscious eyes which rendered me helpless.

And every birthday, there was a part of me that wanted that one ineffable gift: to be loved.  To find that girl who saw past all my flaws who would share their company with me.

And when I was nine, I remember hearing this song on a collection of 50's music tapes my parents stuck in the car when we traveled on vacations to Idaho or Oregon.  From the moment I heard it, I don't know why, but I really, really became enamored with it.  It's such a clean, gentle, sad, wistful song.  Self-pitying and pathetic and yet, the chords make it ear candy.

For years, my mom would play the song on tape for me on my birthday.  And I'd just feel oddly hopeful.  Maybe this birthday would bring me love.  And if not, may it give me the attention and spirit and talent to write what I feel so it's half as good as this song.

Here's a cover of me singing it.  I'm playing a homeless busker for a show, and none of the stuff on these pages is period enough.  Enjoy!

Anthem Part Two - updated version of song

Hi.

Here's the newest version of my my new york city anthem.

The longer I'm here, the more I've become aware how I've been scraping by for so damn long. 

Living on limited means, limited self-care, limited affection.  I'm tired and lonely and I don't know how to break through towards vitality in anything.  Healthier emotional life.  New and deeper relationships. An artistic career in something, anything.

So I sing to myself.  I write little songs in an effort to keep this will alive.  I'm working on a production of MACBETH which opens the 21st of July, and it's gonna be a wonderful show.  It's really kicking my ass.
I don't know if I'll ever be meant for human consumption again, relationship-wise.  But that's ok.  There's plenty of work to be done...

The Pirate Song

So, every so often you come across a larger-than-life individual.  Someone you admire for their unflagging enthusiasm and spirit. Someone who's had their share of scrapes and obstacles in their time, but who always summons the courage for one more joke, one more smile.

And that's Christopher Kueberth.  My friend.

I wrote this song when we were roommates.  I had begged and begged him to audition for a production of Twelfth Night.  Because he's a fabulous fucking actor who never does any theatre anymore.  Finally, he relented, and went on to do some pretty amazing work.  

I discovered they were looking for musicians who could sing, and wanted them to come in playing something, Chris already had a song I had written about him, but it's a very gloomy one, dealing with his love life and such drama.   "Damn it, Jones", he said, "write me another song".

And the idea came from there.  In two days before auditions, I wrote what you hear below, and played it.  Got the part of Feste, and had a ball.

You'll notice some actual quality in the video. Somebody discovered Windows Movie Maker.....

Letter to Simon

Dear Simon,

This is going to sound creepy.  I used to write letters to you in my journal.  With no intention to send them.

Like this one.

But I also used to write letters to e.e. cummings the same way , too. To Leo Buscaglia and Leonardo Da Vinci.    A way to get stuff off my chest and lock it away.  Write someone whom you admire and ask them for help.

I've been sitting on this letter for about a month now.  Because I wish to hell my first thought when I heard the news wasn't this:

Not again.  Damn it.  Damn it to fucking hell.

I'm 32.  And I've known too many suicides, buried too many suicides or called the paramedics at the last fucking second too many times in order to save people from taking their life. Watched them helpless and fragile in the emergency room, hour after hour.  Watched them hold it together in the observation ward during a 72 hour stay.  Packed their bags.  Walked home and saw those goddamn plastic sensors left by the EMT all over the ground.  Cleaned the house.  Try to do normal people things, like eat at a restaurant.  But everything takes too long.  Four hours in a restaurant, sobbing and eating barbeque.

And I'm nowhere as strong as I thought those people were. As I thought you were.

And each time someone I know kills themselves, I ask myself:  When is it gonna be me.  When is the reality of my incompetence and weakness, my pursuit of a ideal nowhere in sight, my complete and utter isolation going to sink inside my heart.

Someday I feel the only I'm still alive because my debts.  I owe too much to kill myself.

 - credit cards
- student loans

There's no way I'm going to let anyone deal with those messes before I go.

And even beyond money, I owe my parents.  I owe them the hair on my head and the blood in my veins and the teeth in my mouth. I owe the music in my throat and the poetry in my bones.   My life isn't enough to make up how much I owe them for how much they've lost to have me.  And then, to have a defective, sickly child who gave them hell for years, who made them scared and frightened and convinced I was an autistic, unstable beast.

Look, I don't blame you for doing what you did, Simon.  I just miss you.  I never really knew you - you went  out of your way to create the ineffable persona that was Simon.  Your real name isn't even Simon.   You were a fantastic actor, and I loved working with you in Scotland.   I remember the flight home, the horrible timing of the break up between you and and the other actress in Edinburgh Airport.  We'd been up all night reveling at the Three Sisters bar, and between me patching up someone's glass-ridden leg, and just having worked our asses off two months for theatre , we were all pretty frayed.  But, even as your ex was screaming at you at the check-in counter, you put on your sunglasses, and you smiled.  This odd, distant smile that put you a million ways away.

I hope you're happier there, brother.  I hope you're at peace.

Song - I Don't Know What Love Is

This song, like your life, is a glorious mess.

Wrote the first half in December 2000.  Young, ignorant of love and responsibility.

Wrote the last part in December 2010.  One eye looking towards New York and the future.  A decade of experience with the small and unceasing lessons love gives.

You say you don't know what love is now because love, by its nature, is a mystery.  How it emerges from nothingness, how it is nurtured.  How one-sided and crouched and clandestine the darker parts of it can be.

One lesson that sticks:  Love is saying you love someone and for them to know just exactly what level of significance that word espouses. 

Jumping the Shark - song

Here's a song you wrote late last year.  Played it at your going away show of songs, poetry, and stories.


Called "Jumping the Shark".