On Cargo Shorts And Other Dangerous Weapons

The blue Paul Smith ‘Byard’ suit haunts me. The auction will not end for two more days, but the bids have already inched up within spitting distance of my personal limit on what should be spent for a beautiful-yet-unnecessary suit. I could torture myself a bit, check the bidding history, theorize about who will and who won’t be willing to go to the mat in the final seconds. I could attempt to chill with a quick trip to my closet to examine and admire the 13 suits that already hang there, several of which have been worn no more than three times. But I remain in a dream state, buoyed by a promise of faux aristocracy, of fine fabric draping my shoulders like a coronation cape.

Dream on, Levon; the day is young. Lest this all seem like an exercise in frivolity, I should mention that I buy my suits exclusively off of Ebay. I have a price ceiling of $175.00 that I generally adhere to, busting my budget only when a truly exceptional piece comes up on the block. That said, I have never paid more than $250.00 for a suit. In spite of the fact that the retail value of my current collection is somewhere in the $13,000 range, I, through careful channeling of my mother’s bargain hunting acumen, have amassed it for little more than a tenth of that figure.

But to what end? Needless to say, my wardrobe does not suit my natural habitat. Men in Nashville generally dress for comfort until held at sartorial gunpoint by the occasions of certain religious holidays, funerals or appointments with loan officers. Even at my recent nuptials, the sheer volume of open collars and denim was remarkable. The man arriving at a Nashville event in (what appears to be) an expensive suit is generally regarded with suspicion and a certain amount of contempt, as if he is attempting to upstage everyone else or is simply too consumed with his own vanity to get with the damn program and put on a pair of cargo shorts.

I own a pair of cargo shorts. They are incredibly comfortable. I wear them around the house and for work in the yard. When I walk Stan in the morning, I do it in cargo shorts. And occasionally, when the heat index has pushed all Nashvillians beyond powers of reason, I venture out to public establishments in cargo shorts. When working in Key West, I can usually be found in little else besides the cargo shorts. I am pro-cargo shorts. I advocate the ownership and proper use of cargo shorts. When worn in the appropriate context, they are a useful thing.

This does not diminish their inherent danger, however. Cargo shorts don’t destroy lives; people who use cargo shorts improperly destroy lives. Let’s make a corollary examination of a particular clothing chain called ‘Life Is Good.’ I have never actually set foot in one of their stores but, by the lay of their window displays, I gather that they specialize in every item of clothing ever designed for total comfort and minimal upkeep: faded t-shirts sporting goofy slogans and cartoons, several varieties of flip-flops, sun visors, baseball caps, mu-mu’s, rhesus monkey pelts and, of course, cargo shorts. I find ‘Life Is Good’ to be a bizarre moniker for such a place. Perhaps ‘I Give Up’ would be more appropriate.

To frame the discussion in a more suburban context, let me expound for a moment about a particular neighbor. This fellow… I’ll call him Dick, to protect his long-lost innocence… thudded onto my shit list a couple of years ago after making a particularly snide comment regarding the length of the grass in my front yard, alluding to the fact that, in case I hadn’t noticed, ‘Other people have to look at that.’

Fair enough, I reasoned; I had been out of town for two weeks and had indeed allowed the grass to flourish well beyond the length considered to be ‘Belmont Appropriate.’ But as I watched him waddle back to his property, a large sweat stain inching down the center of his ample posterior, I reflected on the multiple times I had seen him leaving his house clad in an old t-shirt, crappy flip-flops and some variety of baggy, shapeless short pants that sagged well below his donut knees. I imagined a brief admonition that might be considered less than Belmont Appropriate:

“At least put on some pants, a belt and a button-down shirt, you fat fuck. Other people have to look at that.”

Attention to wardrobe is not an exercise in vanity; it is a condition of mutual respect. If we cannot get our sartorial shit together, it not only reflects badly on us but also on our ability to take those around us into consideration. Yes, I realize it is your right to wear whatever you want, whenever you want. Now, stop picking your nose, go stand in the corner for five minutes and don’t come back until you’ve learned to play nice the other children. And work on that attitude, kid. Remember, Life Is Good.

Meanwhile, the bidding on the blue Paul Smith ‘Byard’ suit has spiraled upward and out of my reach, $272.00 and climbing. I shall humbly delete it from my watch list, make another cup of tea and head out to the back deck for a smoke and a quick examination of the hosta blooms. The late morning is burning hot, steaming up yesterday’s rain from the ground, a hot breath bathing my lily-white ankles. In the alley, Spady and his demon terrier are passing by. He cracks the gate and sticks his head in.

“Looking good back here. Hosta’s are really coming up.”

“Thanks. How’s the book coming?”

“31 chapters with a bullet. Almost there.” He gives a thumbs-up sign. The terrier growls and begins pulling violently towards the street, most likely in pursuit of a poor, defenseless animal. Spady demurs. “OK, better get moving. Have a good one, buddy.”

“You too.”

“Nice shorts.” Another thumbs up.

“Yeah,” I agree. “I thought you might like them.”

The Categorization of Days

Some days just don’t fit into a category or a to-do list or a goal-accomplishment metric. No, they don’t. Some days you just wake up and wonder, hmmm, what the fuck? Time’s a wasting here, what am I doing about it? I’m 37 years old, maybe halfway done, where’s the old carpe diem? Some days it takes so much strength to not dial up more Law and Order episodes on the Netflix that there is little gusto left to accomplish anything else except, possibly, throwing down some wandering language about that very fact.

This morning I passed Spady and his killer Scottish Terrier on the Belmont Blvd. dog walking circuit. He’s apparently 25 chapters into a novel. I wonder about Spady. He kind of reminds me of the Key West dudes, the tiny Hemingways who seem to have surrendered to the pointlessness of it all and are more than content to be carried along on the whims of existence. Experiencing his presence in Nashville is akin to witnessing a dried starfish washed up at the entrance of the Whole Foods Market. Anyway, Spady told me the plot of this book when I saw him out a month ago. Not much about it sticks with me except some allegory relating to numerology and a murder… it all gets hazy in the early-Summer humidity.

Doesn’t it, though? This document can stand as a testimony to the scatteredness of it all. Some days the Universe finds it goddamn funny to pour a vat of molasses straight into your skull and watch you stumble around the house in a sorghum daze, thinking one thing whilst doing something completely different, like trying to come up with a two-letter word that begins with ‘C’ as you take what will hopefully be the first of several dumps today. There is no two-letter word that begins with ‘C,’ you remind yourself, just as there is no particular dietary regimen that will guarantee more than one dump per day at the age of 37.

Men, I tell you. Let’s ponder the endless derogatory remarks made by women about men in certain comedic entertainments these days. If they could only peer into the gooey brains of the species itself… my goodness, the thoughts that men actually have about men. Like women, we are constantly comparing, and perhaps in not too different of a manner. Take Spady vs. Me. I don’t really have any particular desire to beat or one-up Spady in any specific area, but I can’t pass the motherfucker on the street on a perfectly good Wednesday morning without wondering whether or not my life is measuring up to his by some indeterminate scale of which I have little comprehension or mastery of. 25 chapters into a novel? Really? I have nothing to compare to that, in my mind, and here’s why: I feel completely unable to focus on anything that requires the dedication and commitment a novel demands. I have been focused on things that last for three-and-a-half minutes for quite awhile now, as well as the means by which to foist them upon the world, which are probably best suited to people who with even shorter attention spans than three-and-a-half minutes.

Meanwhile, I have male friends whose marriages are falling apart. The dark hours of abandonment and disappointment these folk are currently experiencing crush my piddling piddliness with an iron fist. They are being drawn towards real man-child moments, those seething encounters with the ego that find a dude waving a fist at life one moment and curling up in a corner like a baby the next. Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Ernest… just please make it go away and I promise to either beat it so far into submission or nurture it like a lost kitten, if only to prove a point.

Years ago I was motoring around Bristol, England with my radio promotions guy. We crested a hill in the city and were greeted with the site of hundreds of students sunning themselves on a lawn that sloped down towards the city center. A lawn, that glowing, illuminated green that only occurs when the sun comes out on certain days in England, setting the grass pulsing, aglow with all the stored-up chlorophyll generated by days and days of endless moisture.

Neil (the radio guy) and I had been riding around for days at this point, hopping from station to station, plying my new single. Neil was eternally sparky and blissful, always happy to be doing his job, to be cresting another hill in another city. I was depressed, completely absorbed in the slightly confusing process of attempting to gain acceptance at radio stations and with the British public in general. Had there been a forest, I would not have been able to see it for the crab apple trees. Truly, there was nothing but grass, centuries-old buildings everywhere and young, nubile people relaxing and enjoying themselves. The moment escaped me. I imagine I was wondering how long it would be until we could stop off for our afternoon pints.

Today I have a yard that is in desperate need of cutting and flower beds that could be weeded but should probably just be completely dug up and begun again. I have what feels like an endless list of administrative tasks to do, most of which seem daunting and mindless. I am writing from the confines of the nicest house I have ever lived in, one that needs some attention here and there but is remarkably perfect. Yes, something is telling me that I am, once again, missing a great moment here, but I feel incapable of reaching out and grabbing. Recent experience has taught me that taking small steps towards the goal is the best way to proceed. I suppose that this little missive is the first one of these. However, I am still thinking of Law and Order: SVU and wondering how they will solve the next hideous crime they are faced with. I would still very much like to get through at least one computer Scrabble match. Neither of these tasks would involve engagement with the world on any level and would, I fear, only draw me a little further into a particular hole.

And thinking back on what seems to have been written so far here I am taken with how completely self-absorbed it all is, how I will never care to read it again and how it probably serves no purpose whatsoever. About how Social Media, the most tempting outlet for these labors, would actually accept this load of hooey with open arms as something worth sharing, having contemplated and commented upon. I just can’t get with the ide of airing these thoughts for consumption. We really have to rise above the idea that this crap is worthy of sharing with each other. That is the problem with art today, I believe; we have become utterly convinced that these type of musings constitute a relationship with an audience, an interaction when, in fact, these kind of musings are exactly the shit that we should keep to ourselves, the grist that will (hopefully) propel us to creating something higher, something infinitely more useful, for our compatriots in existence to chew on and to share.

Did someone mention breakfast? Since moving in with Liz three years ago, I have become infinitely more attuned to the needs and goings-on of my body. I know that part of the issue with getting this day going is merely the fact that I have given myself nothing to work with on a cellular level besides caffeine and nicotine. I need protein mixed with just the right amount of carbohydrate to achieve a roper balance that might assist in seeing things in just the right light. That solidity that sets in after a couple of eggs or even a fat dose of almond butter. Meat is a possibility but some days you just don’t feel like thinking through the reality of the death, the slaughter of innocents, the very real possibility that you could just as easily be eating the dog you were so tenderly walking only hours ago. Goddamn meat. Why are you so tasty and wrong.

Our friend Emily Leonard is a startlingly good artist. She gave us a gorgeous print for our wedding, a gorgeous print that I have yet to have framed. A plane of happiness that currently sits furled up on a bookshelf, its joys hidden from me. It is a painting of a forest, oddly enough, one rendered impressionistically enough so that there is not really a hard option of actually seeing individual trees so well. It’s like the perfect existential rendering of woodlands. Just merge with it, don’t let the small stuff get you down. Asshole.

One of my favorite avoidance pastimes is reading The New Yorker. I don’t recall at what point in my life this magazine took hold of me, but goddamn it, it did. Its promise of weekly sophistication and high-mindedness has driven me toward of number of unrealized ambitions, such as being an eminently cool musician, a well-regarded writer, a long-time resident of New York City. All things I have touched upon at various junctures in life, none of which I would say that I have ever really achieved. But the New Yorker still comes every week, still promises and idealized frame of mind that seems achievable somehow. I don’t know why, anymore. I have finally reached a stage in life where I feel comfortable not reading every goddamn word of it; yes, I am now capable of skipping ahead after reading a few paragraphs of the 15,000 word piece on Ugandan sheep hymens without feeling as if I am cheating myself out of some seriously necessary life knowledge… or merely not getting my money’s worth. It’s a step.

I am beginning to question my newfound allegiance to the IPhone. I waited ages until my Verizon contract was up last October to jump on board but, once I did, I was shocked by how it immediately influenced my life. Everything seemed to get infinitely more organized and categorical: blobs of unintelligible ambition aligning themselves into brightly-colored squares on my ICal, legions of unforeseen needs suddenly met by the acquisition of another smartly-programmed app, badly-written emails from other IPhones instantly replied to with my own badly-written email.

But in recent weeks I have begun to wonder if all it has, ultimately, been for naught. If all these perfectly-scheduled new events (with reminders) are actually getting me anywhere or merely serving to fill up all of that undefined white space on my calendar. If these apps that get used maybe once a month are really just filler to camouflage the Scrabble and FIFA 11 games that get most of the action. If those badly-written emails are just going out into the universe attracting more half-baked thoughts and ideas.

I love to look at the IPhone. It brings me pleasure. I won’t be getting rid of it anytime soon; the transition would be way too much of a pain in the ass. Nothing is really that big of a deal, anyway. This I should know by now. All things get done eventually, just don’t get too stupid about it. Right now babies are being born, children are starving, divorce papers are being served. Life is coming to a series of very hard and immediate conclusions, whether I am paying attention or not. You can’t get an app for that shit, no way.

Library Thing

And so it is Christmas Eve, a day generally adrift in melancholy for myself and a surprisingly large number of Americans. Nashville has presented itself in dull grays and muted ochres for the occasion, seemingly as non-plussed about the situation as I am. Rejoice! And, in a funny way, I do. Stan and I are supine in the living room, fresh back from a walk around the neighborhood that was fairly uneventful except for a completely chance run-in with Peter Collins, the producer of my first album, and his dog, Dave. This, of course, is what the holidays are supposed to be about, old friends and good cheer.

I checked in with a long-lost cyber portal of mine last night to find that I had all but been erased from its memory. Library Thing is a web site that has been in its beta version for over two years now. I stumbled onto it in 2006. It allows you to catalogue all of the books in your library online. Or all of the books you have ever read, if you like. Whatever you want to do, as usual.

Upon first finding the site, I hastily set about adding all of the books physically in my library as well as every one I could remember ever reading. This process was long but very satisfying. My books are the only material possessions that have remained with me from my adolescence. As much as I strive towards complete unattachment to things, I cannot let them go.

I hang onto my books because they are my history. The wonderful thing about my scrappy little library is that I can pick up any volume in it, read a few pages, and suddenly remember when I was first read it, where I was and what my general mood was at the time. This experience is unique to books, surprisingly; I usually lose most memory of similar circumstances surrounding a creative act within a few months of its occurrence.

Sometimes I wonder if this strange literary sensation is some sort of compensatory sub-conscious balance for my lack of powerful olfactory functions; I have read that smells are one of the most powerful agents of recall, but never really experienced the sensation myself. I liked to blow my nose a lot when I was a kid... perhaps I did some permanent nerve damage, I'm not sure.

So last night I checked in with my Library Thing page and realized that, somehow or another, all but ten of my previously added books had been deleted from my collection. I was shocked for two seconds, aggrieved for one, then pleasantly elated at the prospect of adding all the books again. Because the adding, the accumulation of books is the most enjoyable thing about the site. It allows the cataloguer to relive the experience of reading all of these wonderful and shitty books again at warp speed. The total number piles up in front of your eyes, the covers are all displayed in front of you, the rich melancholy of all that information stewing somewhere in the recesses of your addled psyche washes over you like a warm vat of honey. This is mine, you think. This is me.

But, as with nearly everything online (this blog included), Library Thing tempts with the short term gratification found in the further display of oneself for the perusal of others. 'Look at me, I've read this, and I liked it so much I read six more by the same author.' And, like nearly everything online, it also offers the opportunity for complete and utter fabrication. Which is where things get tricky.

For example, before I began writing this I was adding all of the Norman Mailer tomes I could remember reading in the past 35 years. An American Dream, cool. The Executioner's Song, yeah. Harlot's Ghost, sweet! Marilyn, of course. Tough Guys Don't Dance... loved it! Wait a minute... Marilyn? Mmmmm... I cross-reference a few other Monroe biographies and realize that Mailer's was not the one I read at all. Well, shit. There's an entire week of my life misplaced, in the literary sense. I confused Mailer with some crappy thing I probably picked up in an airport on a long layover! What does it all mean?

It's survival, bitch. I have a supremely annoying tendency to canonize all aspects of my life, the triumphant, the mediocre, and the downright shitty, into capsules of grandeur. It's only natural that the legacy preparation assistant in me would inject the tawdry knuck-a-knuck of an airport paperback into the form of Mailer, for the sake of preservation for future generations. What can I say? I like the night life, I love to boogie.

But it does raise a slightly disturbing possibility: How much of my life have I modified to fit into the hardcover limited edition autobiography that will, surely, any day now, be published to great acclaim and interest?

I will never, ever know. I release it all into the goddamn cosmos. To swirl around my head like so much dirty water in a high-school toilet bowl and then evacuated to the long, grey sea.