Hilarity Does Not Ensue

Dr. Blogger's Folksy Tea House and Reading Room
11:24 AM

Made myself not wake up until like 09:30, which was more difficult than it probably sounds. Flossed, brushed, washed my face, engaged the rest of my morning routine, ate at the Gato, then came here.

I neglected to say yesterday that I had a good conversation with one of the baristas here, Leslie. She's a student at my University, though she's not a Music Schooligan. I don't know her all that well, but she's bright and very pleasant to talk to. And she's going to Iceland next semester for study abroad.

What's a little awkward is that back in February I made a bet with someone that Leslie (though I didn't know her name back then) would die in a terrible plane crash. Is this wrong of me? The bet arose as a natural conversational consequence of my tremendous and admittedly irrational fear of flying. To my memory the terms of the bet were never set, so I don't know what I would win (or lose) should Leslie ever die (or not) in a fiery, horrific plane wreck.

But still, I'm sure the stakes, should they ever be finally agreed upon, would be high. In fact I would have to insist that they be, given there's a human life hanging in the balance. So it's weird to be having a conversation with a very pleasant person while at the same time, in the back of my mind, I'm aware that it would be a sweet sweet windfall for me if she were to perish in an unspeakably tragic air-traffic accident. (I guess this Iceland trip could be my winning lottery ticket. Sweet!)

On the other hand, anyone who's worked at the Greatest Music School on the Whole of God's Green Earth for any amount of time knows what it's like to have a pleasant conversation with someone while at the same time secretly wishing them fiery death, so maybe it's really not so weird after all. But that's another story.

In other news, I've got a new roommate: a largish clan of moths. They don't pay rent, but they do fly around your face and alight on the monitor of your laptop, so I guess like any relationship it's a compromise. We have an understanding. We co-habitate. And they mostly hang out in the kitchen. I've had worse roommates.

That said, I'm probably going to kill them today. They're boring and don't hold up their end of our conversations, so.

And, should you find yourself in need of one, here's a simple argument in favor of eliminating a pesky or unwanted roommate:

1) They're stupid.
2) Therefore, they should die.
3) If they can't follow the airtight logical connection between 1) and 2) above, then they're stupid (repeat until problem goes away).

Fragment (consider revising)

9:23 AM
Dr. Brimstone's House of Hot Jazz and Dark Liquids

There's a smoky haze over the city this morning, from the fire that's been burning southeast of here for almost six weeks now. The fire started when a tree hit a power line back on April 16th, and the severe drought we're under has allowed things to devolve largely unabated. Between this one here and the fire in Florida (in the Okefenokee), I read that over 550,000 acres of land have been burned.

The haze carries with it the smell of burning trees which, if I could separate it in my mind from all the devastation it's necessarily connected to, is in itself not unpleasant to me, but it does affect my breathing. The pollen and the humidity here alone are sometimes hard to bear, but the smoke inhalation is worse. And so much destruction...

Someone said to me the other day that all this destruction is in the natural course of things. That, you know, fires have to happen, that the forest-as-system requires them, and that they serve a necessary purpose. But I don't know. While this is surely true in many cases, don't power lines exist outside the system of self-maintenance through periodic self-destruction?

~~~~~~~

Woke up early again today, maybe 06:45. Flossed, brushed, and abluted, then drove to Carroll Street, only to learn that the café wasn't open yet, so I drove back to my neighborhood, only to find that Dr. Brimstone's was also not open yet. And neither was Gato Bizco. Dag! So I ate at the Flying Biscuit, which I’m not a real big fan of, not these days anyway, not for the last year or so.

I saw a woman I used to know there, P, and we spoke for a few minutes. I had the sweet potato(e) pancakes, a half-order, and only managed to eat about half of that. My appetite is not itself these days, plus I sometimes tend to refer to fare at the Biscuit as ‘food for giants’, because of the ridiculously large portion sizes.


~~~~~~~

8:11 PM
The Nunnery

Talked to Rashid today on the phone for, God, almost two hours. About lots of things, so many things, not least of which was the sad sad event which occurred recently.

Oh, and I can't stop listening to Alison Krauss & Union Station's live version of Baby, Now That I've Found You. Sappy, maybe; but it's playing now and complementing my mood effortlessly, so, whatever.

Snakes, lots of them and dangerous

Dr. Bombay's Magickal Cafe & Emporium
9:17 AM

There's a guy here who's on a study-date with some girl. He clearly wants to be studying less and interacting with her more, but he's being pretty goofy about it, telegraphing his every intention. Homeboy's got no game.

Woke up early, about 05:45. Tried to sleep again and finally set my feet on the floor at 06:45. Did my thing, got some breakfast, and came here.

I had several dreams last night. One, a variation on an old recurring dream-theme involving a house with an uncountable number of rooms. In the past this dream house has always been the same house, and highly recognizable as such (a crucial part of its design is based on the beautiful, quiet and exciting house I spent my childhood in), but this time it was a brand new house.

In another dream there were snakes, lots of them and dangerous. One, at least, was likely a coral, and another I could hear was a rattler. There was someone with me, someone I loved, whom I was trying to protect from getting bitten. Looking back, now that I'm awake, I see that I was actually in quite a bit more danger than she was, though it didn't feel that way at the time.

Now playing on the in-house system: a pretty standard jazz band playing a pretty standard jazz tune. I don't recognize the song, nor any of the musicians playing it, at least not by ear.

Can i just take a minute to say that the practice in jazz music of 'trading fours' is a little silly? It's rare that I hear a musician say anything worthwhile in this contrived format. In complex instrumental music, ideas need to be given time to develop; what we recognize as meaning and authenticity in improvised music comes from responding well to what has come before, continually 'neutralizing' the ongoing repercussions of previous notes. Trading fours always feels so artificial to my ears. Show-offy and 'exciting' I guess, but ultimately dull.

And now playing: Use Me by the incomparable Bill Withers. My God, how I love this song. The first time I heard it was on the radio of my (parents') god-ugly orange Subaru hatchback, driving down Ralph Talbot Street in 1985. Good times.

Low

What's up. Everybody good? Things're going well here. Work is quiet for a fucking change, which is nice. All the shiny little music schooligans have flown away north for the season, navigating their majestic migratory arcs and leaving us here, alone together again, in the Twilight of our Idols, wondering where the time goes... or, you know, whateverthefuck.

Anyway, I'm here at the Nunnery at the moment and I'm listening to Low's Drums and Guns, which just so you know is rocking my feet right to the goddamn floor, in that quiet, urgent way that Low have about them. A dark aesthetic of restraint mixed with convincing husband-wife harmonies and sweet-bitter lyrics, all wrapped up in an attractive hard-rock coating! Fun for the whole family!