you got two again

     Dad says, "all these jars...what the hell. Goddamn it Curt, clean out the fridge."
     Alright, I've got some stuff going on in there. But you gotta eat! The point of a fridge, and a kitchen, is not to be clean and bacteria free! Ask Sandor Katz! Ask Alexander Fleming!
    Alas, I can pretend, but this is not my kitchen. I am a guest, and one who has overstayed his welcome. My pickled beets and green beans, my SCOBYs and sourdough starters no longer have a place to live. They will return to the land from whence they came.

    Dad doesn't want to talk about anything but this.

Could it be?

Is this Curt? Could it be? Am I checking in? Did I feel static yesterday? Do I feel that today I have to go, go, go? Does today feel like a hurry? Am I hurrying? Am I late? Did I ride the bus this morning? What if I told you that someone said something to me on the bus? What if this someone said, "Excuse me"? And what it after excuse me, this someone said, "You look familiar. Did you go to ________ High School? And what if you were in my shoes and didn't go to ________ High School, but said that you did? What if you were in my shoes and saw this someone light up? Would you have said you didn't go to ________ High School if you were in my shoes? Would you have said "No"? Did I say "No"? What if I told you I didn't say "No"? Would you think differently about me? What if when I got off the bus, I felt that I had done something wrong? Could it be that I did something wrong? Did I tell a lie or a white lie? Would you continue on with your day without giving it another thought? If you were in my shoes? Would you?

Happy Birthday!

I wanted to wish you a happy birthday! (If it is not your birthday, that's OK! Just bookmark this post and go to it when it is actually your birthday.) I wanted to do something special for you, so I picked out some songs that I thought you would enjoy. Hopefully one of them feels extra special and fits you like a glove! Have a great day!

Here is a song for if you have to ride the bus today:


Here is one for if you are trying to cure a seven year ache:


Here is one for if you are a child and your parents fight a lot, and you lose yourself in play:


Here's one in case you are worried about end times:


Here's one about the love you feel for your son:


Here is one for if you are married and have a chance to "get with" someone else who is also married:


Here's the first song I listened to when I got out of prison:


And my theme song from when I was in prison, from the same album:


Maybe these aren't good birthday songs. That's OK. I love them, and I want you to have them.

Have a great day!

Love,
CGJ
:

I wrote this today/ with a rhythm in my heart/ just for you, ok?

I am kind of feeling inspired today. Once, I owned a coffee mug that inspired me to write a haiku. I wonder if I could be a haiku master. I just had that thought just now. Literally like a second ago. If I write a haiku everyday for 10 years, will I be a master? What does it mean to be a master of anything? I wonder: if I speak only in haikus, would anyone notice? Probably not. But this afternoon I tried to do just this. I said to Dad:

"This winter is hard
because it has snowed, snowed, snowed--
No snow is a dream."

He said, "Yes, son. Snow, it sucks the life out of you."

I ordered a coffee at the coffee shop and said:

"I'll have a coffee
no room for milk pretty please.
For here, not to go. "

And, I waited for the mailman to say:

"Hello, thank you sir.
You brought me some mail I see.
Goody, goody, thanks!"

The mailman seemed suspicious. And I was suspicious of the mailman.

There was nothing exciting in the mail, but before I could think of another haiku, the mailman had moved on to the next house. 

This post wasn't really a post, but it was. It was a post, just for you, ok?

nobody owed anybody anything

     There is something broken in the house now, and when you wake up in the middle of the night--thirsty, or needing to relieve yourself--it keeps you awake, a quiet rumble. It is the refrigerator, you think. Or the furnace, a little louder than it used to be. It is not the guilt that once upon a time used to throb and pulse like the Tell-tale Heart. Or if it is that, it no longer presents itself to you that way. It is something different. It isn't anything. It just keeps you awake.

   Do you remember what it was like when you could sleep through anything? When 5 hours was enough, and you would take 6 when you could get it, and 9 when you didn't have to work and there was nothing else to wake up for? Do you remember? Do you remember reading about Charles Whitman and reading his letter and wondering if the same thing was happening to you? Do you remember how you did something, but it didn't end then, and everything kept going, and you had to come to terms with the world, and hope that the world would ultimately come to terms with you? Do you remember asking the Mother for forgiveness and understanding that it would never come? That that wasn't the thing that was unfair?

     Homes once told you that nobody owed anybody anything. It was hard for you to reconcile your admiration of Homes with the fact that he was in the exact same place as you were. And he pushed you to talk while he sat on his own silence. You might have lashed out at him once or twice. You were angry, and bitter, yes. But you still talked. And you were glad that you did.

     You once did something big, but now your being is announced only with small gestures. You write. You work. You are polite, and you tip well. You hold the door for old ladies. You try to be a beacon of decency. But when you were a young man, you shouted at the top of your lungs, and the echoes still drown out everything subsequent. And you lie awake at night, wishing silence and unicorns weren't equally fantastic.
 
   

Bring Me Up To Speed

Whew, yesterday's adventure left me bushed!


This post is a recap, a sort of bringing us back up to speed, a revving up, a gearing up:


The infamous nuisance.
The quietest mourning.
How I sometimes always feel before I post.
The appearance and disappearance of Clyde.
Curt's curtness.
Breaking the 4th wall.
The curious Ronny.
How to pronounce Guy.
The Ghost...terminates.
Holy Fok.
Super Bowl.

And For What?

Years ago, someone told me I needed to go see this. Today, I went. I got on a bus, I worked my way through a couple of these on the drive so I didn't get bad bus-thoughts, and I went and saw The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly. I recommend it! You should go!

It is great, of course. I am curious about whether there was anything exceptional about the artist, other than his determination and persistence. Is that the thing that sets some people apart? If I can get back on the blogging bus, and keep this up for thirty years, will people look back and say, "that crazy guy, he was crazy, but he really did something! His blog was stupid, but he believed in it!"

If there had been an internet for James Hampton, would he have turned his solitude into something so beautiful? Would he have had a blog? Would we think he was less crazy, or more crazy? 

Other people have obsessions, of course. This fellow has written 14,000 songs! He wrote this song, which is great!!! 

I was talking to this girl at the museum, and I told her how much I like folk art. I like Grandma Moses, and I like Edward Hicks. She asked why I thought this stuff was so great, it could of been made by a 6th grader, and I said I don't necessarily think it's great, I just like it. I think that's a reasonable distinction. Everything in a museum is not put there for the same reasons. And if somebody worked in their garage for 40 years, making amateur paintings, pretty soon they would have an impressive body of work, like James Hampton. And maybe 50 years from now, somebody will be reading this, and they will say, "Curt! What a wild guy! He just kept going!" 

Maybe that's where I'm headed. Like boats against the current. Tending to my garden. A Cathedral of the mind. Vanity of Vanities.

Fear not!