beautiful, funny, sad & true

I’m with BoringFish, and she and I and her long-haired black cat have been traveling from somewhere in eastern Washington state. We drive through Yakima to see my mom and stepdad, but when we arrive at their house, no one’s home.

We walk around to the back yard, and let ourselves into the house through the sliding glass door. I sit on the sofa and play with her cat, while she goes and looks around the rest of the house.

Finally, everyone arrives, and by everyone, I mean everyone. My mom and stepdad, my brother and his wife, and even my dad and stepmom. They all come home and it’s instant chaos. We’re supposed to eat dinner, even though it’s the middle of the afternoon. Everyone is frantically trying to bring in these giant pre-made plates of food. Everything on the plates is muted in color–an unappetizing shade of gray–and it all looks the same. Scrambled eggs, potato cakes, mysterious tuna/chicken/crab mush, and sausage, and everything is covered over in white biscuit gravy. Finally everyone gets their own plate, and we sit down to have dinner together. BoringFish isn’t there. She seems to have left the house for some reason. I call her name, but there’s no response. I ask at the table if anyone’s seen her, but they all are ignoring me, and wrapped up in conversation with each other. I’m the only one who seems to think that it’s weird that this combination of people is sitting here eating together as if it’s completely normal, and I’m also repulsed by the huge plate of weird, grayish food.

Everyone is talking, and devouring their dinner. I sorta pick at mine and ask, “What is this? Tuna? Chicken? Crab?” My dad says, a little too loudly, “It’s Ecktote.” [That’s not really what he said, but it was some sort of food substitute.] I push it around on my plate and take a bite of the eggs instead. Suddenly everyone else is getting up to leave. I ask what’s going on, and everyone answers in different ways at the same time. They’re going to a dinner party–another one!–and again, they’re all going together. I decline, saying that I didn’t know anything about it, and I’m not hungry anyway. My dad glares at me, and says, “Well, all right, but we’ll be back in a little while to go to the next event, and you’d better be ready to go.” Everyone leaves. It’s only been like five minutes since we all sat down; it’s very strange.

I stand there in the hallway, wondering what to make of all this. I walk through the rest of the house to look for BoringFish, but I don’t find her. When I walk into my old bedroom, it’s full of Christmas decorations, with puffy cotton on the ceiling to look like snow, with little white Christmas lights poking out every few inches. I think it’s odd that there’s snow on the ceiling. I also think it’s odd that there are two women in there, dressed in green, wrapping presents and making little trinkets. They’re talking animatedly to each other when I walk in, and my arrival just means that they include me in the non-stop flow of conversation. One of them grabs a can of sticky stuff that they’re using like glue, to wrap the presents. She holds it up to show me, and says, “I got it at Erthler’s.” Another nonsensical, generic name, but this time it’s a store. I kinda laugh and say, “What’s ‘Erthler’s’? I’m from Portland. We don’t have one there.” I walk back out of the room, and as I do, I hit the light switch out of habit.

I poke my head back in and say to the women, “Oops, sorry about that.” and hit the switch to turn the light back on. The Christmas lights start to flicker, and they won’t come back on. I flick the switch on and off, and wiggle it around, and they eventually come back on, so I leave.

Just then, everyone comes bursting in the door. Again, it’s only been a few minutes since they left, but my dad sees me and says, “Okay, are you ready to go?” “No,” I say. “I’m not going.” I’m still wearing the T-shirt, boxers and beanie hat that I’ve been wearing the whole time. He starts to yell at me, saying how he can’t believe that he bought me this ticket and that I’m wasting all this money, not to mention that this dinner is for charity and all the food’s going to go to waste. I say, “I didn’t even know about it until now, and I don’t feel too great. I’m not gonna go.”
He continues yelling, and my stepmom is there too, saying to him, “Well, maybe he didn’t get the message after all? We should hear his side of the story.” I gesture to her and say, exasperatedly, “Thank you. I promise you that this is the first I’ve heard of it.” My dad is silent. I notice that he’s shaved his beard and grown his mustache out long, into a scruffy handlebar style. He also has what I thought was a wart next to his nose, but after I look at it for a second, I see that it’s actually a small screw from some sort of surgery.

I say again that I’m not going, and my stepmom says, “Well, I guess we’ll pay for in calories what we paid for in money” or something weird like that, to fill the awkward silence. They go outside and drive away.

That’s when I woke up, not at all rested. Boy, I wonder what that dream means.

I’m late for work, dang it.

Today is the one-year anniversary of BFS&T. Actually, to be more accurate, it’s the one-year anniversary of this incarnation of it, because I’ve had a MySpace blog of the same name for two and a half years longer than that. I still use it for a few things, but this one has definitely taken over and become the main one.

Lots has happened in the last year. I learned how to take much better pictures, for one thing. This year’s ‘best pictures of the year’ entry will be quite a step up from last year’s.

This year’s musical accomplishments have been a step up, too. The Young Immortals–whose CD I produced and played on–have had a song picked up by WorldFamousCoffeeCompany, and radio play all over the country. There are even some radio stations in France and Ireland who love and play TYI. There are teenage girls who make videos of themselves singing TYI songs and posting them on WebSiteThat’sLikeTV. This past spring, summer and fall, I made enough money at music-related endeavors that I could have quite easily lived without my day job. Too bad about the whole winter season, though. There’s always a huge drop-off then, and I’m still trying to figure out how to make things happen in that time.

Cello-ness has been steadily improving as well. This year has seen the cello become one of the primary instruments I’ve been called to play, both live and on various recordings. That has caused a certain amount of anxiety for me, since some of my friends are among the best cellists in this town, but I’m also not stupid enough to turn down great opportunities that come my way, either. If it’s something I can play, I play it, and I appreciate every gradual step up.

Romantic relationships continue to be a bit troublesome for me. The one this past year was one of the ones that really changed both of our lives, though, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much. As one of my friends likes to say, “You’re just making room for the one that’s the right one.”

Overall, I’d say that things are going really well. Goals? Yes, I have a few. Keep improving myself as a person and as a musician, take more ‘chances’ in my life, TRAVEL MORE, reach out more and be a better friend, take my music career to the next level (and figure out what I want that next level to be), and also to take better care of myself.

Oh yes. . .and of course, to keep blogging steadily. I expect you to help keep me accountable in these endeavors.

Here’s to the next year!

My friend and I were talking the other day, and during that conversation I was reminded of a joke that was making the rounds when I was in third grade–St. Joseph’s Catholic school–that has stuck with me, even these thirty years later. (Dang, I’m old!) Only one other person I’ve told it to has ever heard of the joke, and she also grew up in Washington state. Therefore, I have no choice but to assume that it must be a Washington thing.

So here goes.

Oh wait. . .a couple of disclaimers before I share it. It mentions the existence of homosexuality. If I felt it was derogatory, though, I wouldn’t post it. For the record, the gay friends I’ve told it to have all found it hilarious.

I suppose you should also know that it contains a few slightly bad words for both the female and the male anatomy, but they’re not that bad, and they’re nothing you haven’t heard a million times before on network TV. If you don’t like any bad words at all–or if you’re at work or something–then you may want to stop reading now, or else read it when you get home.

Still with me? Okay. The joke starts now.

* * * * *
Kid A: Are you a ‘fag’ or a ‘mag’?

Kid B: I’m a mag!

Kid A: Do you know what that is?

Kid B: No, but I’m no fag.

Kid A: Okay, so you’re a mag?

Kid B: Yeah.

Kid A: MaleAssGrabber? Gross!

Kid B: OH. No no, I’m a fag! I’m a fag!

Kid A: (turns toward full playground) Hey, everybody, he just told me he’s a fag!

Kid B: (angrily) What? Yeah, I’m a FemaleAssGrabber!
* * * * *

Anyway.

There’s also the alternative version of the joke, which adds a couple of letters to the synonyms involved:

* * * *
Kid A: Are you a ‘fagit’ or a ‘magit’?
(Yeah, that’s how they’re spelled; you’ll see why.)

Kid B: I’m a magit!

Kid A: Yeah, well, I’m a fagit.

Kid B: You’re a fagit??

Kid A: Yeah. . .FemaleAssGrabberIncludingTits.

Kid B: What’s a magit then?

Kid A: MaleAssGrabberIncludingTesticles.

Kid B: Oh, then I’m a fagit too. (By now he knows he’s been had.)

Kid A: Hey, everybody. . .etc.
* * * *

Out of the mouths of babes, eh? Man, when I first heard someone tell that–remember, I was eight years old–I thought it was the funniest thing ever, which actually reminds me of another joke from third grade. Or maybe it was fourth; I can’t quite remember. Anyway, it’s not an actual joke, it’s more of a response to one, and it can be used after any joke in the history of jokes. You’ll see what I mean. Oh, and there are no bad words or anything, so you’re safe.

* * * * *
Kid A: [just finishes telling a joke]

Kid B: Ha ha ha ha. That’s really funny. I first heard it from my great-great-great-great FiveThousandGreats grandfather–and he invented the dinosaur. When he first heard that joke, he laughed so hard that he fell off his pet dinosaur and broke his wooden underwear, and that’s what led to the dumbest invention ever; the inflatable dart board.
* * * * *

Yeah. You’re not the only one not laughing. You’re not really supposed to be, though, because it’s not meant to be funny. It’s supposed to be a joke killer, to be used when another kid thinks that he’s FamouslyHilariousComedian. As soon as he finishes telling some lame joke, instead of laughter, this bizarre monologue comes flying back at him. It’s guaranteed to kill any other joke, but be careful. If you use this non-joke yourself, you may very well end up looking like a supreme weirdo at the same time.

I think this might be one of the strangest blog entries I’ve ever written.

This dream starts at my mom’s house, which this time is my childhood house on 55th Avenue in Yakima. I’m in the dining room, looking through a bunch of old boxes, and I find a box of Christmas cakes and pastries and breads from the year before. They aren’t wrapped or anything. I yell to my mom, who’s in the kitchen, “Hey, mom, is it okay if I throw this stuff away? It’s old food, that’s been sitting here for a year. Obviously you guys aren’t going to eat it.” She hems and haws, so I decide to leave the stuff for her to go through on her own.

I go outside and start working on my Honda, fixing the windows because someone tried to break into the car, and now they won’t roll up correctly. [This is the case in real life, too, incidentally.] I walk inside to get something, and my mom walks toward me with a screwdriver pointed at me. I get startled and confused, and I step back from her. She says, “No no. . .you’re misunderstanding me,” and she puts a few of those small alcohol-soaked medical cleaning cloths on the end of the screwdriver and then starts to clean a place on the front of my neck. I think it’s ridiculous for her to be doing that, but when she’s done, I thank her and then go back outside to finish working on the car. I finish one window, but the other is cracked and broken on the bottom. I think to myself, ‘Great; no window at all on this side of the car. What am I gonna do when it rains?’ I get mad, throw down the tools, and storm off down the street.

While I’m out, I run into Jake [Jacob Ray from the Young Immortals]. I tell him I’m just out for a walk, but he’s welcome to join me. I have a pretty heavy backpack on my back for some reason, with a bunch of my stuff in it, including a change of clothes, a whole bunch of CD’s, and a couple of microphones. We start walking and talking, and this scruffy red-haired street kid in his mid-twenties starts hassling me. He’s wearing a jacket with patches strategically placed all over it. He’s talking to someone else, but every time I move to walk away, he blocks me. I try walking away from him, and he walks over to stop me again. I tell him seriously, “Dude. . .I’m leaving now.” Jake is nowhere to be seen, so I turn and walk away. StreetGuy ends his conversation with the other person and starts to follow me. I step off the sidewalk and start to walk in front of a huge yellow four-wheel-drive pickup truck that a fiftyish woman and her adult daughter just got into. They start it and pull out, and I almost get run over, but I jump up and grab onto the hood. My feet are about a foot off the ground, and I’m holding myself up with just my arms.

I yell for the driver to “Stop, dammit!” She speeds up and says loudly, “I’ll have to anyway, right up here.” I realize that it’s a good way for me to put some distance between myself and the street guy, so I wait until she comes to the stop light, and then I jump down and run off. I’m next to the light-rail train tracks. I can see the guy about two blocks away, running toward me, so I run along the fence, on the opposite side of the tracks from the passenger platform. I’m having a hard time running because there are metal wires everywhere, holding up the roof of the platform, and because I’m wearing the huge backpack. StreetGuy continues to gain ground on me, so I climb over the fence and jump into the canal. The current moves me along nicely for a while, and when I get to the main part of town, I swim over to the edge and scramble out.

I’m still wearing the backpack, which now weighs twice as much as it did when it was dry. I take it off, unzip it, and rummage around to find my phone and call Jake, but the phone is freaking out because it’s been in the water. I turn it off and on again, but it’s still not working right, so I start to walk in the direction of the town’s main square. Jake is there, and he sees me and says, “Ohhh, buddy, I was really worried! Glad you’re okay.” We walk across the square and go toward a smallish basement bar. I tell Jake, “I want to leave as soon as possible. I can’t stay very long; that guy’s still after me.” He agrees. Waiting in the short line of people are the pickup driver and her daughter. The daughter recognizes me and says, “Hey, you’re the guy wh–” but Jake and I push past them, walk past the door guy at the bottom of the stairs–who is so intent on the people in the line that he doesn’t even look over at us–and walk into the dark bar. The lighting is very subdued and cool, with white Christmas lights around the edge of the ceiling and candles throughout the room.

Somehow we get separated instantly. Jake disappears to talk to a woman friend he sees, and I walk through the dark bar into the big, bright adjoining room, which has fluorescent lights in the ceiling. The seats are arranged in rows, like the waiting room at a hair salon, except every other row is facing the opposite direction so that people can socialize. In between the rows of chairs is a row of low wooden tables, covered with magazines of all types. There are a bunch of people in there, sitting and chatting and having drinks. I see my old roommate Rob [from Yakima], who I haven’t seen since I left there. He’s dressed very strangely, in a navy blue mesh shirt and black jeans, and he’s a bit thinner than he used to be, but other than that, he seems the same. He introduces me to a girl that he just met. She’s Asian, and she’s pretending that she hardly speaks any English because she’s not interested in Rob. I find this to be hilarious, and when he introduces me to her, we shake hands and share a knowing smile. I tell her it’s great to meet her, and tell Rob that it’s been good to see him, but that I have to go because “there’s this guy who keeps following me and stuff.”

After that, there was another long section which I can’t quite recall, and then I woke up.

Oh my gosh. . .I got up at 6:30, and it’s now 7:30. It took an hour to write all this down!

I woke up to find some very nasty–and anonymous–comments on a couple of my blog entries. Not my favorite way to start the day, but it’s dealt with now, and I’m over it.

The good news is that I just got back from having breakfast with my friend Jack, who I haven’t seen in fifteen years. He lives in Spokane now, and I obviously live here, but we both used to live in Yakima. He’s in town for the week, visiting a friend, so he called this morning to see if I wanted to meet for breakfast. I was just waking up, but I jumped at the chance to see him. We went to Milo’s, which is one of my favorite restaurants in town, and also happens to be right down the street from my place.
(Incidentally, today they had a special eggs benedict at Milo’s, with shrimp instead of ham–or smoked salmon, which is my favorite breakfast–and with Thai curry mixed into the hollendaise sauce. Jack and I both ordered it, and it was mind-blowingly good.)

Oh, right. . .Jack.

Here he was, back then:

and here he is now:

It was fun reminiscing about some of those old times. Former bands we were in, and what everybody’s doing now, all that kind of stuff. Seems that a lot of the musicians we knew have had difficult or tragic lives since then. One in particular has had quite a hard go of it. Many are still in Yakima. One of them–who I’ve actually been talking to also–is now in Seattle, making a decent living as a Professional Musician With A Day Job, like me. (Hi, Brandon!)

After we finished at Milo’s we walked back here and talked for another hour or so. We played each other some music we’ve worked on, and I gave him a Crystin Byrd CD. Jack’s a very intelligent, hilarious and genuinely good person, and I’m really glad he was able to make some free time and get together. It certainly won’t be another fifteen years, I’m sure of that.

Tonight is another gig. I’ll be playing cello, I think. I say ‘I think’ because one of the tuning pegs on my cello is slipping again, when it’s in a warm room. It doesn’t happen all the time, but often enough to be really annoying. I’ll take it into the shop this week. Luckily it’s a really cheap and easy fix.

Anyway, yeah. Should be a really good day and night.