Speak Your Mind

Talking to a million people is the loneliest thing. They sit you in a chair on an island, connected to the world by a rubber earpiece and a microphone. You sit there, for a long time, for forever, staring into a black hole and pretending that you’re good, you’re fine, that you’re ready to tell a million people a story as if you’re right there with them. There – sitting next to the harried businessman eating a sandwich at the airport terminal. Sitting at the kitchen table with the old lady who has the television on in the other room, just so she has some noise in the house and doesn’t feel so lonely. There – with the bored housewife, the unemployed guy lying on the couch, too beaten down to go through the classifieds one more stinking time.

You aren’t there, or so you tell yourself. You’re just sitting in that chair, on that island, and this is the easiest thing you will ever do. But then the lights begin to beat down on you like the sun, and your head starts to swim laps as the machine prepares to lift your image and your voice into the airwaves, shooting you across the nation and into the sky, bouncing it off satellites and delivering it to the bored housewife and the distracted businessman. The machine blurs the line between real life and a fake recreation that churns your image and intelligence into the endless torrent of noise.

You will die. But the machine will always be on. What’s real? You can touch the cheap chair, sitting in the middle of an island, the bright yellow smiley face mocking you from the front of the camera. Your friend smiles from the side and give you a thumb’s up. The tarted-up forty-something makeup girl tugs at your shirt and dabs your forehead, yells at the camera guy about a crease and those damn lights that are making you really sweat.

Then, suddenly, the crackle in your ear comes alive. It says hello, passes along a pleasantry, and drops THE BOMB: You’re on in ten. Are you ready? You don’t say no, not with ten seconds. Ten ticks and who you are will no longer be a secret. Ten seconds that feels like a day spent digging a ditch in a rubber suit.

Then it’s nine seconds, and your pulse begins to race. Your hand shakes when you pick up a cup of water to whet your parched lips.

Eight…you forgot everything you wanted to say, then seven comes and you no longer remember why you’re sitting in that chair, and would really like another sip of water.

Five, and your vision gets cloudy, your brain dives into the deep end, and everything you studied, all the angles, all the training and friendly advice swirls back down to the bottom of the cup, out of reach.

And then you are alone.

Alone — and in front of the world, a convict in an electronic cage. You are a clown, wearing a tie and looking like a dog on his last day at the pound. You take a deep breath as a man 3,000 miles away tells you that in five seconds, you are no longer going to be a secret and what you say will define you to a million people for at least the minute or so they spend thinking about what you have to say, just another speck of color in the torrent of noise that runs like a long and cold river. The crackle in the ear goes off. The lights get brighter, and you’re on.

Talking to a million people is the loneliest thing.

Impeach him. Please?

It is a finger snap. A bad relationship. I have lost more years to the fog of a cloudy memory; years of nothing connected by landmark moments in my life.

Life. It’s a wish in the wind carried on the petals of a daisy, and as such carries along and lasts just as long as there’s a breeze to lift and dance the moments of each day. If I only had but a short time left, that is where I would start – to find a breeze to make each day blend long and lovingly into the next. But there is always hope. And God, the two things that remain after you peel back the layers and reveal the simplicity of life.

That’s what I would do. I’d make things easy. I would stop driving to work in the morning. I would get up with my wife and daughter, and start the day with a smile.

I would still go to work each day.
But the work would not be the mundane toil that generates a paycheck; it would be the work of a legacy, soft and strong, a reminder of who I was and what I offered, and an investment into the future. I would write books. I know, just as I know how to say my name, that I have one, maybe more, inside my heart and mind. I would write one poem a day, about the grass. And the stars, the crooked smile on my daughter’s face, the cool touch of my wife’s hand. I would write about it all. I would write enough songs for an album, never to be sung except in the hearts of those I love. And I would pray, but not for salvation — except perhaps in weak moments when my will wavered and my sorrow rushed the void. I would try to pray for my family, and for peace and strength. And I would pray that God was listening, and that he cared.

Mostly, I would stop worrying about the future, because a finger snap has no future and no past — just the collision of thumb and finger, the punctuation of the present.

Five years, or fifty, perhaps that is something I ought to put more time into enjoying.

Snowball is out there, somewhere. Melting.
On the darkly steamed and swirling streets of the Old Orleans, he’s out there and whining, searching for a new master and a bite to eat. It’s not easy being a dog in a wet city. At least at the Superdome, Snowball had a chance because he was able to get handouts. Out on the street, there’s not much left save the thousands of bloated, poisoned bodies floating to Lake Pontchartrain.

It’s an amazing invention, really. Pork-chop-on-a-stick is about as American as burnt witches, tar pots, feather piles and hangman’s tree. It’s as American as Garrison Keillor is UNAmerican. Ugh. What a left-wing loon. Surely, the fabric of our society has been ripped to shreds when a radio personality – a radio “personality” can say “breast” on the air – and STILL keep his job. Roveites, Crawford Ranch Boys, please marshal up some righteous right-wing anger and cast this contemptuous comedian into the Caspian.

Maybe Keillor was confused. Perhaps he simply wanted to try chicken breast-on-a-stick, another American delicacy. But don’t get me started on chicken breast, perhaps the most patriotic of all stick foods. Moms and Dads, listen up: if you want your little girl to grow up right, feed her breast-on-a-stick. Apparently, the hormones we pump into our chickens are good for building big breasts – not just the chicken’s – that will undoubtedly make America strong again. Stick food, endowed chickens and a few dead witches. It’s what we need to beat back the horror of terror.

My day begins before the sun arrives. In the morning dark, that semi-friendly time of the day where you can just barely make out the traces of the night before, I sit up, shake my head and clear up my head.

Damn. My feet are hurting again. Better wear my nylons to bed tomorrow night. The dog is sleeping at my feet, the wife is snoring in our large Californian King, and the kid is asleep, sideways, on her bed, no doubt dreaming about monsters or dogs or princes. I forget my dreams, mostly. The ones I do remember are usually the result of medication, and sometimes a late night snack, peanut butter and jelly, chips and ESPN. Those are the dreams that make me feel funniest; usually they are of dark men and darker intent, sneaking around our stucco home. It butts up against the hills and we can hear the coyotes howl on cold nights when sound travels and food is scarce.

I look at my clock and think: one hour from the time I get up. I can be at work, best case scenario, in one hour.

Damn. Late again.

I yank the shower knob and step under the stream, searching for soap and a reason to open my eyes. Quick – think – what do you have to look forward to today? I was supposed to be a great man. But somewhere along the way I sold it for a comfortable couch and a remote control. Used to be that I could work for hours – 14, 15 a week, sleep for an hour and do it all over again. I can’t do that anymore, not even close, though my younger colleagues can and it puts me at a distinct disadvantage. Then I go home and play with my daughter, while the rest of them go home to their condos on the beach and sexy girl friends. They work late, usually, because there’s nothing good on tv most days and they have nothing better to do than build their careers. Most already have kids, all divorced or ignored.

I have to get my work done in 10 hours, something that is becoming more of a challenge everyday. Think it’s easy? Make the choice: get to know your wife and child or get to know your work. Can’t have both, not anymore, there are no more jobs out there that let a fella be a family man with a real career. So I go to work, knowing that I will not get everything done, and that if I don’t leave at a certain time, my one hour commute will turn mean and long, two hours of choked traffic, bumper to bumper for 30 miles or more.

I will get home after my kid goes to bed, get up and leave before she awakens. And the next thing you know, it’s been a week and I have yet to speak to my only child.

And the weeks turn so easily into years.