grit.
I couldn't sleep last night. I laid awake in bed - my mind swimming with discontentment. I longed for Austin. I longed for the tide that swept me up and tossed me along like a rag doll. The richness of experience there. How effortlessly it is to BE there. Like the air has vitamins in it. Nutrients. Sustenance.For weeks I opened the Metroland (Albany's analog to the Chronicle), postponing disbelief that this area is dead to live music. Last week I didn't open it. Resigned, I didn't. This week I did. To see that ten days ago I had missed Dale Watson perform in Troy. The city where I grew up. Troy. And Dale being the condensed essense of Austin. Dale, the swaggardly, Merle Haggardly, shot-in-the-arm infusion of Austin. The vitamin missing from my bloodstream.
There are good people here, like there are good people in Austin. Like there are good people everywhere, I am certain. The effort to draw air into my lungs, is what I question. With admitted contempt. Need it be this effortful?
Faith is a nut-scraping gut-dragging thing to have sometimes. The undercurrent of universal human nature shines though though. Shines through always. Between the universal suffering, the universal disappointment, the universal bliss that puffs us up as full as we've ever felt, the universal anger, the universal loneliness, the universal distraction, the universal confusion, the universal pomp and confidence. We're all the same underneath. This levels the game, geographically. It doesn't matter too much which city I'm in. Some just require more digging. I've got my shovel.
On a lighter note, I played the most righteous game of pool tonight. I ran into my buddy Brian at bombers. He struck up a game of pool with me. The game quickly became a mess - with balls locked up with each other and with the rails. Brian and I used to shoot back in the day before I ever left New York. Brian shot with finesse, and I shot dirty, fucking him with defense at every chance. Like two WWI soldiers digging into each other in a wet trench. Tooth and nail. The balls fell one by one, until finally it came down to one of his and one of mine. Mine was locked in a death embrace with the 8-ball deep within the left corner pocket. I cut it softly and at the only possible angle to squeak it off the side of the pocket, past the 8, and in. After that, the 8 was a dead duck.
Some situations require more of that fighting spirit than others. Albany and the pool game are much the same. I need to remember to stay in it, and keep digging - never stop fightin'.
Also, I love Long Island Iced Teas. Continue Reading…
Posted by Administrator on Jun 28, 2004