Playing to the Gallery

57 Things She's Never Gonna Use

The story that goes with this song is long. And complicated.

But the song is short. And simple.

Given the choice... I'm going with the song.

Because the story never made sense back then.

And it certainly doesn't make any more sense now.

But the song's only gotten better.

And isn't that what everyone wants from a song?

By the Butcher's Shop with the Sawdust Strewn

Observe the Blood, the Rose Tattoo

There's an alley behind the apartment.

I waited there one evening.

And waited.

And the night grew colder. But I kept waiting.

She was supposed to come home. And talk to me.

But she didn't think of that. Or got busy. Or didn't care.

So I waited. And it started to snow.

I wasn't dressed for snow. Or to hang around all night.

I was dressed for the short walk. For her being home when she said she would.

And as the minutes turned to hours, I knew I should leave. I knew it was making things worse to hang around. I was getting angrier and had already long past the point where I wanted to talk to her anymore.

My friends told me to forget it. They wouldn't want me hanging around in the alley. By her apartment.

Watching the snow accumulate. Get higher. Not hearing the sound of her car.

And the hours kept accumulating like the snow.

Until I thought I heard something. It wasn't her. It was the trees moving.

As if whispering.

Asking me what I was doing in the dark. In the alley.

"Time to go," the trees said.

And I turned. And I left. And I didn't look back even when I heard a car driving up.

I should have left right away. I shouldn't have waited.

What would it matter to her? I thought. And the answer came from the trees: "Nothing."

And I knew the trees were right. It was time to go.

No There's Nothing

By Request

Frequent reader (and infrequent commenter) DK wanted more Roxy Music. "I don't even need a story about the music," he wrote.

My sarcastic side wants to send him off to YouTube to listen to everything he wants.

But my helpful side wants to be... you know, helpful.

So here's one more Roxy Music song:




And another:

With the Rhythm of Rhyming Guitars

I turn to the sounds in my car

More than 15 years ago, she said this to me: "If there's anyone who can capture the slow, steady ache of nostalgia and loss better than Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music, I don't know who it is."

And I remember the conversation.

I'm nostalgic for it.

And, once removed, for the nostalgia that prompted it.

A Moebius Strip of yearning.

With this as the perfect soundtrack:

And So Begins the Task

Cut My Hair and Shine My Shoes

She wanted the experience. The full artistic assault.

She got the experience. The full assault.

It was late. Later than it should have been.

The guys were drunk. Drunker than they knew.

And the road was steep. And winding.



The aesthetics brought her here.

Others came for the drugs and the surf. She wanted the aesthetics.

And the winding road was the price she paid for the view.

Which might ordinarily have been enough. But not that night. The night with the crash. And the cops.

And the ambulance. Which got there too late.




"What the hell are you on about?" she asked me.

I shrugged.

"Is this about a particular person?"

I nodded.

"But you're not going to tell me who it is?"

I shook my head. I wasn't going to talk.

Wasn't going to make it any more or less than it already was in the end.

Epistles. Just epistles.

From the hippie era.



(Thanks to Whiteray, for the nudge.)

How Does Your Light Shine

Wash Away My Troubles, Wash Away My Pain

I had a dream last night.

A strange dream.

I was on the top of an enormous vehicle, hundreds of feet tall. The base was just a few feet wide.

And the driver wasn't looking. Wasn't paying attention.

So we stopped short.

And the momentum at the bottom stopped the tires. But the momentum at the top kept me going. And I bounced off tall buildings trying to slow down, knowing the entire structure was about to tip over.

Then I was at a meeting. Or a performance. I'm not sure which.

Trying to get the attention of someone I needed to talk to. Someone I wasn't sure saw me.

And the feeling was just as intense as the momentum tipping over the vehicle hundreds of feet tall.

Certain risk. Uncertain reward.

Thus is the way of dreams.

Missive from the Edge of the Water

Here in Status Symbol Land...

There's something about self-important, self-absorbed people with an inflated sense of entitlement that makes you want to belch Shakespearean sonnets in their faces.

Or is it just me?