It's Not Hard, Not Far to Reach

I was, and still am struggling with this post. I think it's because I've been working on other things. That, and because I'm on vacation in the Outer Banks.

Typically, a vacation, for me, is a time to do nothing but catch up on reading books (I brought 20 because I didn't exactly know which ones I wanted to read), and writing my next-great-anything (to me at least. You can think that it sucks if you like).

For those that care, and I'm assuming that you might since you're reading these electronic brain farts of mine, I have begun writing a new play. I will not tell you what it is about. All I can say is that the last time I wrote one, it won a contest and I was able to see my mentor and friend act out the role that I had originally molded and wrote for him. It was one of the highlights of my writing career (NOTE: a career of mostly rejection letters and sprinkles of self loathing).

In other news....

In case you didn't know, Tommy Ramone died a few days ago. He was the last living--original--member of the fathers of punk music. I remember getting into the Ramones after Dee Dee Ramone died of a heroin overdose in 2002. Joey died the year before. Then before graduating high school, at the height of what the girl who sat behind me in homeroom called Mr. Ramones Rocker, all into the grunge scene, we lost Johnny Ramone; The drill sergeant of the group.

I wore a leather jacket and ripped jeans. My friends and I would listen to the Ramones religiously, and mourn for the revolutionaries that we would never see in concert. Tommy Ramone's death re-hatched a bit of sadness that I haven' felt since Joe Strummer died.

Here ya go, kids. The Ramones covering Tom Waits. Nothing better. And, nothing ever will be.

Also, because I'm feeling generous, here's a poem.
_________________________________________

Genesis

There was a simpler time,
but it didn’t last that long.
I didn’t choose to write poetry.
I could have been a carpenter.
I could have had a business.
I could have had money.
I didn’t choose to write poetry.
He awoke me one day
from a glorious sleep
with a violent shake
when I was much younger
and said,
“Hey man. I need to crash here for a while.”
I haven’t slept well since.
I’m always tired.
He keeps waking me up
in the middle of the night
with wild ideas,
and demands that I write them down
for him.
He likes the blues,
and cheap wine.
Walking outside during rainy night.
And stealing the lives of strangers

to turn into his next-great-anything.
I’m the only one who pays rent.
Even though he swears he'll be good for it
one day.

He never eats my food.
Even though he's always starving.
On his best days,
he devours typewriter ribbon
and downs Indian ink
first thing in the morning.

There was a time
that he took a vacation,
and disappeared,
for months.
So, I waited for him to come back.

I had almost given up hope
and settled for the typical
and mundane,
but then I saw him
rise from the dust on the bookshelves,
sit at the typewriter,
and begin again.
And he's still here,
for now.

We're taking bets
on who will die first.

Because it's the only thing
we don't know about each other.

_________________________________



Rock on.


~Torres