translated from the written word:
I’m anxiously awaiting a bourbon and gingerale, feeling as though… (drink arrives)…well I had felt as though I couldn’t begin this dialogue without it… Guess the relevance of that elaboration amounted to a passing fancy of my self-indulgence. In my defense, I’m definitely the only soul in the joint secure and solitary enough to sit with a drink, a pen, and a couple sheets of notebook paper, as my only companions. If only I could invite a camel menthol light and quick flicker of flame to the table, it would be heaven.
I write this with the idea in mind to share it with a particular friend of mine. This very concept is actually one area where this particular friend amazes me, he writes to write…whereas I always write from the place that ponders how an audience will receive it. However, this current tense does offer the illusion not to be writing to anyone at all in particular.
(quick visit to the curb for a smoke)
Ironically, moments before my curbside intermission my friend, a different one, appeared out of the bar’s kitchen doorway, exchanged greetings, and requested to read the prior scribble. As I said, there is always an audience in my world, and rarely leaving my mind.
Yellow Submarine fades out on the speakers hidden in the shadows of the ceiling above me…next track, All the Lonely People. I think it would be most opportune to take this moment to absorb the figures around me that I’ve mostly ignored until now and observe… all the lonely people.
The Beatles are sheer genius.
Across the Universe was the kind of movie that almost makes me want to abandon my filmmaking dream for the mere fear that nothing I ever produce could ever be as enthralling. To channel The Beatles into a relevant narrative is a project so novel it could only be done once.
(smoke, talk, smoke, talk, talk, talk, talk, text, talk…)
Despite my prior claim of solitude, I always revel in human connection, the exchange. Thankfully, the the musician that has begun playing is a somber vocalist with an acoustic guitar, and female. Very coffeehouse-by-day-bar-by-night but totally preferable to the many alternatives I could presently be subjected to.
Just now noticing the table I’m sitting at is somewhat dirty. Soiled with others’ moments. Crumbs of eagerness to gratify. Moist with what remains of someone else’s pool of apparitions.
Its much louder in here now, people apparently heightened by the hour, in a race to beat the melting of ice. And yet a big round ornamental clock looms on the mostly barren wall directly ahead. It has no second-hand, no ticking, no indication of operation. No movement, motion, or memory of what has been. Just large black Roman numerals and a gaudy adornment of an overly yellowed gold paint.
I grow a little weary as the bourbon pervades. This pen and paper have been the best date I’ve had in sometime.
