Me and Mr. Jones

I never understood what this title meant, but the show was interesting eye-candy. Today it serves me better as a reminder of where I came from. I just returned from a walk outside with no particular destination in mind. The wind and sunshine underlined my experience of joy. Aimless walking. And music from the buds in my ears. Folk music. Lyrical. This is where I came from; an excuse to keep on going. I cannot explain why it is that I like to step to a mix of sweet harmony and heartbreak. A longing for the men I’ve lost and a constant reminder of the one I’ve now found. Truth is in the fire you touch before it moves away. Six-string guitars. Voices filled with soul.

“…in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature. Acts of exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism…are plentiful.”

Recently, Tony has begun seeing a therapist. This is not in and of itself a bad thing. However, when you are using an assumed name and/or stolen identity it creates a few ethical dilemmas. Especially when you like to use the therapy sessions to test out material that you hope to deliver someday at cocktail parties. Overly-wrought memoir intended to shock people; or perhaps to gain their sympathy.

Tony thrives on ethical dilemmas. This is what he told me about today’s session:

“It’s so funny because she has to appear so interested in what I say while she tries to find the thematic elements that connect my stories. If only she realized that so much of it has to do with the fact that I just really like talking about myself and it is just easy to talk about sex.

So, like I was saying earlier she was really hung up on trying to deconstruct my need to always dress up. If I had a dollar for every time I heard her say, ‘So I see you wore your tuxedo again. Interesting…’ Today’s theory was about how I craved attention and validation from the world. That I’m trying to compensate for some ego-slip or insecurity. And somehow compliments and sexual gratification from others help me feel more at ease with myself. I threw her a curve, though, and told her about all of the self-gratification in my life.”

At this point in the conversation Tony could have cared less whether or not I was paying attention and did not pause for any comment or remark that I might make. In fact, he walked out of the room, drowning in the delirium of memory and talking out loud.

“I still remember how obsessed I was with touching myself. It was actually easier than dealing with others because I was horribly insecure about my body and prowess. So my fantasy life just exploded. That and my reading of medical texts and books about puberty to learn more techniques.

My favorite was the pillow. I actually learned about this from some boys at camp who were making fun of another fellow for ‘humping’ his bed. I couldn’t figure out what they meant so I just tried many variations until I came up with my own that seemed to work. Now, I suppose in the beginning I thought of this as practice for when I was finally old enough to be with another man. But all of my joy from this lonely play eventually eclipsed my desire to incorporate anyone else.

I wonder if it would have been different if I had actually engaged in the normal exploratory group-play that was described in these books I was reading. Apparently boys spend a lot of time doing this sort of thing to each other. But alas, I lived alone in Lonesome Town and I never learned to forget.

So this all culminated in a late-night walk on my parent’s farm. Well, I guess late-night walk makes it sound innocent, and it wasn’t at all. I had been in my room reading something spicy and became overwhelmed with the need to procreate. Or, another way of putting it would be to say that I was tired of the pillow. So out into the night I fled.

It had rained all day so the ground was moist. Muddy. Pliant enough for me to muck out a hole in the earth. It was out by the barn where we used to build fires. I dug my hole and in it I lay. Lay with my own mother. Mother earth that is.

This sloppy event would have simply been another example of me spending too much time alone if I hadn’t gone back up to my room and described it in detail in my journal. And writing about it in my journal could have simply been an excuse for some bad metaphors and an embarassing future read if I had left it at that. Instead I ripped out those intimate pages and mailed them to my friend in England. Why? Not sure. It was an impulse and a strong one that I couldn’t deny.

The end result was akin to a wet dream. My friend wrote me back and told me that all of the confessions and revelations I had written and sent had had a profound effect on her and that I had a great gift for weaving words. She thanked me again and again for allowing her ‘to read such important things.’

From then on I’ve had an insatiable desire to tell my stories. I also started wearing this tuxedo, you know, to complete the image. Not that it is related in the slightest so don’t get any ideas!”

And here’s the proof:

“You remember too much,
my mother said to me recently.
Why hold on to all that? And I said,
Where can I put it down?”

“Perhaps the hardest thing about losing a lover is
to watch the year repeat its days.
It is as if I could dip my hand down
into time and scoop up
blue and green lozenges of April heat
a year ago in another country.
I can feel that other day running underneath this one
like an old videotape…”

“Everything I know about love and its necesseties
I learned in that one moment
when I found myself
thrusting my little burning red backside like a baboon
at a man who no longer cherished me.
There was no area of my mind
not appalled by this action, no part of my body
that could have done otherwise.
But to talk of mind and body begs the question.
Soul is the place,
stretched like a surface of millstone grit between body and mind,
where such necessity grinds itself out.”

The point is to quickly tell you what you need to know. It is like good poetry; it distils meaning into the smallest possible number of words.

Tony will help you put me in the proper place on the shelf.

Trying to decide who Tony would be, reading blogs, and drinking coffee. I found this at onepotmeal.com and decided there was nothing more to say:

“If fiction and memoir got in a fight, memoir would land a few shocking blows, but then it would stop to explain them, and fiction would blast memoir with a raygun so powerful no one ever imagined it could exist. Memoir would be down, but not out, bouncing back with a stunning description of being blasted by an unimaginable raygun. What will fiction do next? Tune in next week to find out.”

Today I had to produce.

From the moment I awoke, time (from a crawl to a run) was after me. And so I just wrote. And I showered. And I wrote some more. In five hours I had to complete the paper that had taken me 5 days to write.

Now that I’m done, and I am done, I don’t know how I feel.

You see, now that I’ve finished one thing, there are many more to do. Produce produce produce.

And so tomorrow it begins again. No time for playing games or worrying about the naming of things.

Shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and Kings.

At least that is what she says. I don’t know if I’ll let her get away with such humility, but we’ll see.

“What about the cats?” Tony interjects.

“Well, you have to put them in perspective with everything else like the hair bun and the goldfish.”

“I think you should just talk about the cats. It is both sweet and crazy. Living alone with her ‘family’ of kitties, over-running the house. A living, breathing stereotype.”

“Since you put it that way,” I rebut, “I will not discuss them. I love her and do not wish to have people draw the wrong conclusion. Her cats are a necessary part of her nature, her kindness. Giving shelter to the weak. Finding love and fulfillment from the world’s strays. Mother Teresa had her orphans. Cindy has her cats.”

Tony turns to leave, waving the tails of his suit coat has he exits. I’m glad he’s gone because he is incapable of appreciating her. (Appreciating anything but himself, really.) I, on the other hand, find it impossible not to.

So, to begin at the beginning. Her late husband coached some academic teams at my school. He had developed an aura of being cool. A head thick with gray hair. Handsome and funny. I decided we should be friends. He agreed to direct me in my performance of a Dorothy Parker piece. One afternoon he brought along Cindy so she could offer her advice. It was then that I realized that it was she that I should know.

Shortly after that first meeting we were confessing our lives to one another at a little cafe in New York City. We had run away together (or so her husband and my mother assumed). We had no intention of returning.

When Cindy was a young girl she was accosted by a man who called her over to his car and showed her his genitals. This was not uncommon because Cindy was gorgeous and most men are pigs. She had long, sandy hair. A sweet, doe-eyed face. And (most importantly) large, well-endowed breasts. She was also a member of MENSA, but men didn’t seem to care about that. They just wanted to get in her pants.

I told Cindy about my love of men. She was sympathetic, enthusiastic, and only became obsessed as time progressed. But that is a different story. For now it will suffice to say that as a girl she attracted all of the straight men, but when she got older she seemed to entice all those who weren’t.

There is a lot to tell about my history with this remarkable woman. For now I simply need you to understand this one image. I believe once I explain it you will understand her beauty. Cindy has the power to sustain lives. She did it for her husband, she did it for Luke, and she did it for me. The only problem is that sometimes the world likes to play hell with your good intentions. Whenever this happened to Cindy she felt guilty because she didn’t have the power of a god. She thought this meant she was lacking. Which is exactly the reason she told me to say that “she meant well.”

You see, her husband was ill, and Luke was out of his mind. (And lately he’s proved himself to be a self-absorbed, immature asshole who doesn’t deserve any more mention in this tale. Consider him ex-communicated.) She sustained them, helped them flourish, but like I said, they got away. Sort of like her businesses she built from scratch which her parents took over and destroyed. But all of this requires too much for you to really understand. That’s why I want you to focus on the fish.

Cindy inherited a goldfish from a raffle. It was still bite-sized and living in a plastic bag when she received it. 10 years later it had become a great, white monster. Moby Dick in a tank. An impossible event.

This tank was an algae-filled anathema to her “friends.” They could not see the miracle of the fish. One day they tried to clean it, and oops: poison. The fish was dead. An accident got rid of her finest achievement.

And yet, Cindy endures. And so may we all.

That may be all I need.
Early dawning,
all pleasures and all pains, remembering.

It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.
It’s just a restless feeling by my side,
come and rest your bones with me.

Clouds are shrouding us in moments unforgettable,
it’s just the wasted years so close behind.
The day is like wide water, without sound.

The need of some imperishable bliss,
and I’m falling,
and I never want to leave.

As April’s green endures; or will endure,
there’s always someone around you who will call.
You twist to fit the mold that I am in.

Watch out the world’s behind you.
Steal some covers share some skin
until our blood, commingling, virginal…

Sunday morning,
fingers trace your every outline,
things to be cherished like the thought of heaven.

I’m playing chess against the computer and losing.

The Pope died this afternoon, much to the joy of the media.
If it happened yesterday I would have felt relieved;
today it is simply a headline.

The laundry is being washed without my help.
The dishes were cleaned.
I’ve been sitting here four hours and have accomplished nothing.

I wish I were a cardinal in a secret selection ceremony.
Then I wouldn’t have homework to finish.
And sex would never be an issue.

I know that the computer is simply following programmed patterns
when it moves the pieces.
But I still can’t help but feel that it’s laughing at me.

Perhaps this is all a conspiracy.
Maybe it is all my fault.
Someone should check the Pope’s gums.

Pastiche:

1. A dramatic, literary, or musical piece openly imitating the previous works of other artists.
2. A pasticcio of incongruous parts; a hodgepodge.

Literary allusions, academic quotes, and musical sampling are all accepted practices. Pastiche is nothing more than remixing, recombining, and speaking new meaning through the words of others. Context has a very transformative power.

The process may vary, but the technique remains the same. When I am composing pastiche I select disparate lines from previously published works and allow them to mingle with one another until a new story emerges, until my tale is told.

These poems are now the identical twins of mixtapes. (Oh the stories I would weave by creating these collections of music!) Piecing together songs, the poetical lines of an album, for the narrative purpose of compliment and contrast. An intimate gift of identity.

Examples of my pastiche include: https://germanjones.wordpress.com/category/pastiche/

Salvation army clothing, fictional inspirations from life (my own and others), and the recycling of myths to form religions are additional examples of the practice of pastiche.

Although it does not account for all, this can be read as an introduction to the writing. A skeleton key. A doorman.

Tony is both my literary agent and muse. My lover is my love. And my memory, at least for now, is a reason.