The Beat Goes On III, or: I Think I Get It Now.

What’s there to live for?
Who needs the peace corps?
Think I’ll just DROP OUT

I’m sitting in a coffee shop in San Francisco.  Progressive Grounds.  I had two mugs of black tea when I woke up this morning; I don’t need this giant cup of coffee.  This stuff is SERIOUS.  I’ve been nursing it for nearly an hour and I haven’t even finished 1/4 of the thing. With every little baby sip my heart starts racing like I just broke bread with George Jung.

I’ve been away from home for 11 days.  (Wait, Holy Cow, really?  I’ll have to celebrate…)  I’ve been in Santa Cruz, Menlo Park, Alameda, and, now, San Francisco.

Santa Cruz was a lot of  fabulous silliness that was briefly interrupted by an afternoon of dismal introspection catapulted by the misunderstanding that the bastards who stole my iPod from my car also stole my most prized nostalgic possession.  After Santa Cruz came a brief, much-needed low-key interlude in La Selva beach, where I got to spend two nights in an actual bed.  I also spent a lovely afternoon in Monterey taking pictures of headstones and crying underneath cemetery trees.  (Did anyone else just think of this song?)  Menlo Park was a brilliant afternoon and evening of Chinese Food and Catch Up.  I was back on the couch, but the couch was a comfy one.

When I got to Alameda I was ready to get silly again.  I stayed with a friend I hadn’t seen since July of 2010.  She studies Molecular Biology and she loves Judas Priest and Bridget Jones’s Diary.  She took me out for bratwurst and sauerkraut and I stole a drink coaster.  After lunch we bummed around downtown for awhile and eventually walked into a psychic shop.  We asked how much it would cost to have our palms read.  The cost was super cheap.  I went first.

The woman took me into a little room and sat me down.  She asked me my full name and date of birth, and then she looked at my hands.

“You have a long, full life ahead of you,” she said.

I was unimpressed.

“I don’t see any death or tragedy in your family.”

Cool.  Still, I was unimpressed.

The woman paused for a moment, and then her voice took on a more serious tone as she said, “I will say this: you’re procrastinating.”

I looked at her.  She was younger and prettier than I usually imagine psychics to be.  She had all her teeth and her skin was perfect and there wasn’t a single gray hair on her head.

“You’re creative,” she said.  “Every thought that comes into your head is creative.  But you’re procrastinating when it comes to work and school.  I don’t think you’re done with school.  But what you need to be doing now is focusing on your writing.“

I stopped breathing.

“I definitely see a book in your future,” she continued.  “You already have it completely planned in your head — you just need to get to work writing it down.

I took a breath.  I whispered, “I know.”  My eyes welled up with tears.  I apologized for being emotional and laughed at the contrived profundity I seem to encounter everywhere I go.

To give me a break from the heaviness she was layin’ on me, she talked about my love life.  She didn’t have anything monumental to say — she basically confirmed my suspicion that I’m actually completely fine with the fact that I’m single.  Once that was out of the way, she went back to the main issue.  She said, “Take a creative writing class.”

I held my breath again as I remembered an email I received a few days before my trip.  An author I met in December wrote to me and said she would love for me to participate in a creative writing class she was going to be starting.  I didn’t respond to her.  Why?  Apparently I’m a procrastinator.

The psychic asked me if I had any questions.  I asked about my location, and she said, “I’d like you to be closer to the water.”  Totally not weird.  Because, ya know, I never EVER fantasize about moving to Santa Cruz or San Francisco or Seattle…

She ended her reading by saying, “Write your book.”  I ended by saying, “How the HELL did you know all that?”

She only asked me for my full name and date of birth.  I didn’t show her my ID, tell her where I was from, tell her that I do, in fact, want to write a book and that I do, in fact, spend less time working on my writing than I should and that I do, in fact, want to live near water.

I don’t think I can continue to distract myself from doing what I really want to do.  Why it took a psychic to convince me that it’s time to get serious and declare myself a fucking writer is something I will never understand.  We’re all different, I guess.

Intermission.

That night my friend and I got in trouble at a Tikki Bar for causing a ruckus.  We were mainly disturbing the bartender, Jared.  At first we both thought he was a total babe, but at some point in the night when we asked him for more drinks, he told us he’d have to ask his manager first.  “Why can’t we have another drink?” asked my friend.  Jared gave us a list of things “polite customers” — customers who deserve their handcrafted Tikki cocktails! — don’t do.  He said that polite customers “don’t steal.”  My friend and I fell silent.  You see, I’d been sneaking pieces of pineapple when no one was looking, and I also had a purse full of Tikki God cocktail stirrers.  Jared then added that polite customers, “don’t say ‘The F-Word.’”  We fell even more silent.  You see, my friend had been saying “The F-Word” quite loudly, and quite a lot.  When the lecture was over, she said, “Fuck you, Jared.”  I took another stirrer.

We still got our drinks, and we still stole shit and swore.  It was all in good fun, and no one else at the bar seemed to be annoyed by our shenanigans.

That night we went to a house party in Oakland to see a band.  They played “DARK FOLK.”  They also wore long, black cloaks, which looked a good deal like long, black Snuggies.  I kept screaming, “YOU LOOK LIKE NICK CAVE!” at one of them.  The sight of their guitars made me miss my ukulele and I cursed myself for not lugging it with me.  Lord knows I could have at least busted out a mediocre rendition of “Creep” and made a few nickels on Pacific…

The next day we went to Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley and bought CDs and ate Indian Food.  I also bought a Rolling Stones T-Shirt in a thrift shop (and I’ve been wearing it for the last two days).  That night we went downtown and drank dark beers and I stole another drink coaster.

The next day we drove to Oakland to check out Lake Merritt.  We rented a paddle boat and rode around in the lake chasing seagulls and fantasizing that the pieces of wood we saw floating around were actually sea monsters.  Every time we saw a piece of trash floating by, we vowed to one day return to the lake with a giant net.

After one last meal together my friend made it clear that it was time for her to face the fact that she had homework to do.  This meant it was time for me to hit the road.

I’ll go to Frisco
Buy a wig & sleep
On Owsley’s floor

I had bought a copy of Let Love In by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds while I was at Rasputin on Telegraph.  I was so amped while listening to “Loverman” that I drove right passed the toll booth when I crossed the Bay Bridge.

Can You Blame Me?

My first night here was spent watching Mad Men with my cousin and eating Chinese take out.  The next day, yesterday, I walked around Valencia and bought a coffee mug and a t-shirt and a note pad.  I grabbed a taxi to North Beach and got out on Columbus avenue.  I turned the corner to Chinatown and got some Dim Sum, which cost $1.30.  I was good and full, so I bought a book at City Lights and sat down inside Cafe Vesuvio to chill out.  Two guys sitting at the bar were singing “Ghost” and I felt completely at peace.  When they were done singing some freaking Decemberists song came on and Good God I will always be team Aeroplane.

Walked past the wig store
Danced at the Fillmore
I’m completely stoned

I was broke so I went across the street to The Beat Museum.  I asked the guy behind the counter if they were still doing the “Poet of the Month” contest, and when he said “No” I asked if there was any way I could check out the archives.  I said I was awarded Honorable Mention twice in 2007, and that I could only find one of the poems online.  He was really sweet and spent a long time searching for the May 2007 results, and when he found that the web page was corrupted (or corrupt?) he fixed it for me.  I felt bad for making him do all that work, so I bought some Allen Ginsberg poetry and was even more broke.

I tried searching for the poem earlier this afternoon.  I still can’t find it.

I’m hippy & I’m trippy
I’m a gypsy on my own
I’ll stay a week
& get the crabs
& Take a bus back home
I’m really just a phony
But forgive me
‘Cause I’m stoned

When I got back to my cousin’s place we went out for Vietnamese.  We ate garlic noodles and prawns with spicy green beans and more garlic.  Then we went back to her house and watched the last four episodes of the third season of Mad Men.  That show only gets better every time I watch it.  This time I enjoyed it all so much I was almost impressed with January Jones’s acting.

Still, it’s always been about this big hunk-o-gangsta.

I had a bizarre sex dream last night, and when I woke up this morning I kept my eyes closed so I could remember all the crazy details.  They’re still a bit fuzzy, but I do know that at one point in the dream I was very mad at the young man I had just spent the night with because he was ignoring me during a screening of Lawrence of Arabia in 3D.  This confused me, because he was more than willing to skip the screening of Cat People the night before just to be with me.  I think that the preposterousness of it all demonstrates a new all time high in Dorky Dreams.

When I got out of bed I thought I’d maybe go to Haight Street…

Every town must have a place
Where phony hippies meet

Buy another mug or three…

Psychedelic dungeons
Popping up every street

Instead I got up and went to a donut place near my cousin’s house, where I ate a maple bacon apple donut.  And It Was Good.

I never made it to Haight Street.  Instead I creeped inside a tiny coffee shop and did some writing.  And ya know what?  I had a great time.  It was fun and challenging and I feel like it’s time to take a walk.

I definitely see more writing in my future.  I also see Don Draper.  And an ice cream cone.

GO TO SAN FRANCISCO
How I love ya, How I love ya How I love ya, How I love ya Frisco!

Neutral Milk Tradition.

On Thanksgiving, when I was 17, my big brother changed my life when he handed me a brand new copy of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel.  At the time, I only listened to bands who had reached the height of their popularity in the late 1960′s or early [to mid -] 1970′s.  My favorite movie was The Rolling Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus.  I still felt buzzed from the David Bowie concert I had seen months earlier.  I had written my 11th grade research paper on the cultural influence of Punk Rock, for which I received — and didn’t care that I received! — a good ol’ mediocre 75%.  Why, dear God, did my brother hand me a copy of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea?  All he said was, “I think you’ll like it.”

I’m positive the only reason I listened to the album was because my big brother told me to.  We weren’t little kids anymore, but that didn’t matter; handing me that album incited the same sense of urgency and fear I felt when I was seven-years-old and he handed me a copy of Soundgarden’s Superunknown.  I was given a task, and if I followed through that would mean I was Cool.  I took my copy of Raw Power out of my CD player, and replaced it with the CD my brother had just given me.  What I heard was all at once everything I loved about my classic stuff, as well as unlike anything I’d ever heard before.  It was dark in a Jim Morrison way, but not at all Bohemian.  Could Bob Dylan have written this?  Leonard Cohen?  Patti Smith?  Maybe, yeah, in another world…but that’s not how things panned out, was it?

Somehow, the rest of my family got turned on to that album.  Perhaps it was because my big brother also gave a copy to my little brother — or was it me who did that? — and then it was eventually played for my parents.  Regardless of the real explanation, it eventually got to the point where all five of us were singing, “What a beautiful face I have found in this place…”.

(My family’s love for this song gives my love for this cover a bit of extra umph).

A few weeks later, when my big brother was home for Christmas, he handed me a copy of On Avery Island.  Similar to the Aeroplane phenomenon, the remaining family members fell in love.  I distinctly remember listening to “3 Peaches” as a family on our way back home from a car trip somewhere.  Was it Vegas?  How…appropriate?

As I became a bigger fan, I learned that the band was formed in the 1990′s and that the lead singer’s name was Jeff Mangum.  When I learned about the band’s indefinite hiatus, I really, truly felt sad.  Bowie Buzz be damned, I wanted to hear “Oh Comely” live!

My prayers were answered, in a way, a year later.  I was a freshman in college, and my mom came to Santa Cruz to drive me home for Thanksgiving.  To keep us entertained during the six-hour-long trip, she brought a copy of Live at Jittery Joe’s.  She was especially excited for me to hear, “I Love How You Love Me” because it was “nothing like the original version!”  She also loved how the crying baby in the background punctuated Mangum’s performance.  “Isn’t it just so good and weird?” she said.

As a result of all this, Thanksgiving makes me think of Neutral Milk Hotel.  When Halloween is over and it finally starts to get a little bit cold (here in Southern California, that is) and people start thinking about ordering turkeys and learning how the Hell to make cranberry sauce, all I can think about is trumpets and Anne Frank.  Every morning, afternoon and night, regardless of where I am, I am either listening to, or thinking about In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.

***

On Thursday night, after all of our esteemed guests had left the building, the five of us sat down in the family room to decompress and digest.  I was on the couch between my dad and my big brother.  My Big Brother.  My Big Brother who wanted me to stop listening to my Ren & Stimpy CD and start listening to grunge.  My Big Brother who changed my life when he handed me a brand new copy of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea…

I turned to him and said, “Thanksgiving makes me think of Neutral Milk Hotel.”  “Oh yeah?” he said.  I then told him that he had given me that album on Thanksgiving years before, and what an impression that album had made on me.  He said, “I loved that band so much in college and I was so upset that I would never be able to see them live.  I once had a dream I did.  It was very…emotional.” As someone who knows all about emotional concerts and emotional dreams, I felt very close to My Big Brother in that moment.  “Brother see, we are one in the same…”.

My dad and I mentioned that Jeff Mangum played at Occupy Wall Street.  “No way!” My Big Brother said.  “He did a show?”  He wanted to know when, where, and how we knew.  We explained that we had seen a segment on Democracy Now! where Amy Goodman talked about Occupy, and that during the segment she showed a few seconds of Jeff Mangum singing “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” for a crowd of people.  This really blew My Big Brother’s mind.  He didn’t seem to believe what we were telling him.  “I’m sure it’s on YouTube,” I said.

My Big Brother found a forty minute and fifty-nine-second long video of Jeff Mangum’s Occupy Wall Street set, and, as a family, we listened to all of it.  We sang along to every song: “Holland 1945,” “Song Against Sex,” “Two Headed Boy Part 2,” “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” “King of Carrot Flowers Part 1,” and “Oh Comely.”  During “Two Headed Boy Part 2,” when all of us took a break from singing to just listen, my younger brother — who is awesome — couldn’t help but repeat after Jeff Mangum when he sang, “God is a place where some holy spectacle lies.”  “Wow,” my little brother said.  “God is a PLACE.”  At the risk of sounding like a sentimental nut, I have to agree; and maybe, just maybe, it’s a place I’ve been to.  All I know is that I spent the night of Thanksgiving sitting on my couch singing about “how strange it is to be anything at all” with the two people who brought me into this world and the two people who I will always be inextricably linked to.  Does it get much better?  You tell me.

It is now the evening of Sunday, November 27th.  Thanksgiving of 2011 has come and gone.  While I’ve had a great time eating mashed potatoes and pie and stuffing for the last three days (curse you, delicious leftovers!), I’m looking forward to tomorrow, when I plan on ingesting some green vegetables and going to the gym.  The food binge may have reached its end, but the feeling of thankfulness will continue.  For as long as I have my Neutral Milk Hotel CDs, what ISN’T there to be thankful for?

Thanks mom and dad, for the obvious.  Thanks, little brother, for the awesomeness.  Thanks, Big Brother for more than you know…

And thanks, YouTube, for the sweet covers.