..:S...P...I...D...E...R...B...I...T...E...S:..

Sunday, July 30, 2006

“It should be awhile before I see Dr. Death,
but it would sure be nice if I could catch my breath...”
-"Like the 309" - Johnny Cash

“Candy and Ronnie have you seen them yet?
- “Benny and the Jets” - Elton John



NONFICTION:



DIRGE



>i wanted to get on the road by midnight, but i'm stuck at work way later than i intended.

>for my new job, all night i’m typing captions for Discovery channel shows. they look a lot like this actually.

>3:00 a.m. and i’m on the turnpike near Cleveland, listening to Johnny Cash's new cd "A Hundred Highways."

>as i drive, i'm thinking to myself after every bleak song on that album, "wow, how appropriate that i'm going to Toledo."

>i stop to eat at one of those UFO-looking food stations. there's a row of five fast-food counters with no dividers behind the beams that separate them.

>when the employees move around back there, it's like the movies when the camera follows people through a bunch of rooms and the camera goes through the walls right next to them.

>whoa! what's the KFC kid doing walking right through the set where they're filming the "Burger King" movie?! madness!

>the kids should at least switch hats and put on fake beards when they do that. but after a closer look, i see there’s no need for that because they all have three logos on their cap. that’s even freakier.

>back on the road, i pay the turnpike guy and want to ask him what someone does if they don't have money at the booth.

>i forget to ask and vow to myself to find the answer on the way back to Pittsburgh. i've always wondered about that.

>i'm going to call my dad to say when i'll be there, but my cell phone dies for the fifth time.

>back in college when i used to take road trips to Cleveland, on the way back to Toledo there was a rest stop that had a fence behind it where you could creep out with your car, take a dirt road up through some farmer's field, and then you wouldn't have to stop at the last tollbooth to exit.

>it got to where i wouldn't even factor in that five bucks coming back. i'd count on that fence never being locked, driving back with a quarter to my name, and never once back then did it cross my mind i might have to stop at that tollbooth without any money.

>pulling into my dad's house at 5:45. the road in front of the house that seemed so huge when i was growing up looks as small as a sidewalk now. i'm about 3 hours later than he thought i'd be.

>i'd sneak in with the claw end of a hammer like we used to in high school, but that garage door has been fixed for years.

>in fact, everything's different. no stones in the driveway and three security lights pop on like i'm scaling a fence at Alcatraz as soon as i pull in. i ring the bell expecting him to by annoyed but he opens the door in a dazed stupor and goes back to bed.

>i stand in a kitchen that looks totally different and drink some water. i see he's got a fish tank now. sweet. i sit in front of it and watch the tiny snails on the glass. i'm not tired, but i have to try to sleep because the funeral's in like three hours.

>i go into my old bedroom, which has now been converted to a spare room. i seem to be making slightly less noise that a guy wearing a suit of armor doing jumping jacks. there's no carpet on any of the floors any more. wood everywhere and every
movement is loud as hell.

>i lie down on a bed that's way too small and smack the pillow over my face when i realize i forgot my headphones. i can't sleep without music.

>i'm thinking about sleeping in the car and listening to the radio but it's getting light outside and it's too hot. and the noise i would make trying to get out of the house would be deafening.

>i discover that the 1940s-looking radio in this spare bedroom is not just for show! it's actually got a cd player in it. i stick in a calming Nick Drake mix, thinking about what songs were played at Nick Drake’s funeral and finally just start to fall asleep when....

>suddenly it's time to go to the funeral. my dad's in the doorway. i let him say my name one more time than he needs to. i'm totally swimming in nostalgia thinking about him trying to wake me up so i won't miss the bus.

>stumbling to the shower i ask my stepmom where the toothpaste is. she says, "it's in the shower!" like that's completely normal and why did i even ask. she adds ominously, "that's so you can go ahead and spit as much as you want!"

>i try to brush my teeth in the shower, but toothpaste foam running down my groin seems odd to me, so i creep out and brush my teeth in their new perfectly polished sink. when i spit, i find that i can do it completely silent. "when will i ever use this newly-discovered skill again," i wonder.

>i sit over by the fish tank and wait for them to finish getting ready. i tell my stepmom i like the cool little snails.

>i start to tell her how i was reading about “snails not being able to form hard enough shells because of the acid in the ocean from all the factories and how that could screw up a food chain involving more than half of the creatures in the sea and...” she just starts freaking out that there's snails in there.

>"i never put any snails in that tank!" she declares. i say, "don't worry, you might have the last ones if the acid in the oceans gets worse." this fact doesn't make her want to keep those snails.

>she calls my dad over to ask how the snails got in there. we debate it a while. we decide they rode on one of the plants. i tell them that they just eat algae and won't be a problem.

>i have no idea if that's true and picture the fish tank six months later boiling over with snails.

>there's a huge brass snail sculpture the size of a bowling bowl on the floor in the same room as the fish tank. i point and say "hey, look! what are the chances! it looks like you love snails!" she just stares at me.

>on the way to the funeral, i don't even have time to think about my uncle Ron dying because it turns out the funeral home is only two blocks from my dad's house. i forgot how small Millbury was.

>i'm completely unprepared to get out of the car yet. i had at least three songs i wanted to listen to first.

>inside i have about five mini-reunions in various doorways with the relatives that remember me. half ask if i'm a Steelers fan now. i don't have the time to express my true feelings about Steelers fans so i just sum it up with, "if you lived there, you'd be sick of that bullshit in zero point two seconds."

>i compare back surgery and injuries with my uncle Bob. i'm thinking i'm winning until he busts out, "the other day, they went through my leg with a wire to burn a piece of my heart off." i admit defeat.

>my sister finally gets there and i can tell she wants to talk about a lot of things. i sympathize but don't encourage her because few understand our sense of humor and i don't want to start laughing about anything "inappropriate."

>she notices the song "Cats in the Cradle" on the muzak and whispers "this song is completely inappropriate. doesn't anyone know the lyrics?" she's exactly right but i'm trying to think about Ron, and i don't remember too much about him.

>i sit with my dad and wait for my brother. i know he'll be as late as i'd hoped to be, and maybe i can sit with him in the back out of sight.

>i feel small around my dad's seven surviving brothers and my fifty or so cousins. i was so small growing up and they seemed huge, always telling epic fight stories, and i always felt so scrawny.

>i remember my cousin Mike telling me about beating up someone and during the story i looked down at my fist and it looked like a girl's fist to me. i looked at Mike’s fist and it so hairy i thought i’d just had a Sasquatch sighting. i don't see Mike anywhere at the funeral.

>then i do. i've got about 3 feet and 50 pounds on him now. i wonder if he still thinks of me as that skinny little kid frying ants with a magnifying glass while everyone else threw around the football.

>i have hair on my knuckles now. Between the top two knuckles, too, which i’m told only happens in 7% of the population. since a funeral is a good time for a confession, i’ll also say that i have two stray hairs on my left earlobe and other ever more bizarre places. i expect a hair to be growing out of my eye one morning.

>i'm angry at myself for thinking about stupid shit like that, so i go to look at pictures of my uncle Ron all around the casket. now i feel sad like i'm supposed to. Uncle Ron was always good to me.

>near the coffin, there's big board with snapshots all over it. there's a picture of Ron shirtless, next to a boat with a beer and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. he looks like Steve McQueen. no, strike that. he looks like he could kick Steve McQueen's ass.

>i call my sister up to take a picture of the picture with her camera. i see more pictures (those great old ones with the thick white border) of my dad and his brothers as kids. i wish everyone would come up to that board of pictures so we can talk about them. but Ron's family is crying five feet away, and i'm right next to his dead body. yep, there he is.

>there's my brother and his wife, finally. i go talk to him. he's so late he doesn't have anywhere to sit. i want to joke "you'd be late to your own funeral!" but i don't. i go back and sit with my dad and stepmom and watch them unfold some more chairs for more stragglers. then i see a bunch of relatives trying to figure out who the hell i am. i know them all.

>my grandma comes in with my two aunts and my cousin, Little Gary. "little" Gary ain't so little anymore. he's been working out. he looks big to me anyway. peeking out from under his shirt, i can see he's got the same ring of fire tattoo on his arm that my brother has. him and my brother were similar in a lot of ways. lots of sports. i’ve got no trophies or tattoos.

>grandma is 99 and her body doesn't work anymore but her brain is perfectly fine. i love talking to her and i want to go talk to her, but i hate to see her with her head bent down like that and crying. you know, everyone says that no one should outlive their children but my grandma might outlive everyone.

>she had this mean little Yorkie named "Mitsy" that, get this shit...lived to be 23 years old. just died last year. i'm not exaggerating. what's the math on that? something like 400 in dog years? this dog was blind, mean as can be, too. she wouldn't let anyone near my grandma. she'd just sit under her chair in that smoky kitchen and growl.

>and that dog would only eat what my grandma would eat. grandma's eating spaghetti? there's a bowl of noodles down there for that hateful little dog. my point is, that dog must have set some kind of record hanging on past five generations of dogs, but it couldn't outlive my grandma.

>they roll my grandma up to the coffin and stop. my aunt Debbie starts looking around the room. she locks eyes with me and says, "Dude! Come here!" i know it sounds weird that my aunt said "Dude," but she's not a surfer or anything. that's just my name on my dad's side of the family.

>my aunts re-name everyone. my cousin Gary? they call him "Toot." i'm completely serious. he's gonna hit 30 and he ain't "little" anymore and he's still "Toot." it was even on his varsity jacket. my brother Gene? he's "Bean." my mom was "Bird." the list goes on. anyway, i run up thinking she just wants me to say hi to my grandma. nope.

>i'm told that we are now going to lift my grandma's wheelchair so that she can see my Uncle Ron and kiss him goodbye. "holy shit," i'm thinking. Toot grabs one side, i grab another, Debbie's got a wheel, Uncle Chuck's got a wheel and up we go. she's much lighter that i thought.

>a hundred relatives are looking at us wide-eyed. i'm kind of proud actually. i feel big, like i was chosen over all these cousins because of my now-obvious physical strength and solid leadership in a crisis. i have fantasies of defending my grandma from some rival funeral next door that wants to take all our folding chairs.

>the coffin starts wobbling alarmingly on its stand. we're leaning the wheelchair over too far, and i have to keep one arm on the coffin to keep it steady. "this is going to be a disaster," i'm thinking. but to be honest, i like that were doing it. grandma wants to see Uncle Ron's face, and God damn it, we're going to make that happen.

>everyone's straining and the coffin's shaking and the wheelchair's creaking and we've got her in there close, but i hear grandma keep saying "i can't see him." no matter how hard we strain, the angle just ain't working. her face won't get line up with his face. the coffin slides away from all of us leaning into it. "this things gonna crash," i think. i look at him. yep, there he is.

>i'm getting ready to suggest that we pick up Ron's hand or something for grandma to touch instead when suddenly she says "okay, put me down." i guess we're done. did she kiss him like she wanted? i must have missed it. i was too busy keeping the coffin steady. i turn to Little Gary (i mean, "Toot,") and say, "i can't believe that worked." he smiles and shakes his head. he still lives close to all of them and he's seen it all.

>i sit back down, sweat on the end of my nose, and the preacher is up there pretending like he knew Uncle Ron, but he's not doing a very good job. later i find out he was a half-hour late and only looked at the papers handed to him for about 30 seconds.

>i want to tell Ron's son and daughters that i put an "Uncle Ron" in the western script i'm writing, and i want to tell them that this Uncle Ron in the western has a tornado door in his field and all the relatives hide in there because i will always associate tornadoes with my uncle Ron.

>when we were all little, whenever there was a tornado warning, we'd end up at Uncle Ron's house because he was the only one with a basement. the adults would play cards while us kids watched the windows scared shitless. but it was still kind of fun, and the memory is still strong as hell.

>i wish that i was around everyone enough that i would be able to go up there and remind them about the tornado warnings. but i moved away and don’t say much around them these days. so i sit and listen to vague stuff about Ron from a stranger and sign when i hear some prayers that run together and don't sound like much of anything.

>the preacher reads something from Ron's wife, my aunt, Candy (yes, that’s her name. true story) and what he reads is heartfelt and strong, and i feel like an asshole for wanting to read my stuff that only means anything to me. then they play the song Ron wanted his wife to hear. i’m half-expecting “Bennie and the Jets” because of their names, but it’s not. talk about a critic-proof moment. no one would dare think a critical thought about any song played in this circumstance. not even if the song is "Only You." Which it is.

>we head to the grave site. my sister wants to ride with me. i'm the only one parked facing the wrong way, so i have to back out and turn around to get in the procession. my sister is trying to figure out a way to keep the magnetic flag they stick to the car.

>on the way to the grave, we pass a field of migrant workers who are all leaning on their shovels with their hats off while we drive by. i'm so impressed by this show of respect from strangers that i momentarily have faith in the human race again. i tell my sister to take a picture of those workers, but she's slow on the draw and gets a blurry picture right as her battery dies.

>at the grave site, my brother walks up with these huge sunglasses on and i ask him if he's "one of the X-men or what?" he's confused. you see, he played sports while i read comics books. then we’re standing at the grave, listening as they read a sentence from each of the seven brothers talking about Ron. it's exactly the kind of thing i wanted to hear more of at the funeral home. my dad has the best one. his line is about how, when they were kids, Ron took the parts off his bike so that my dad would have a bike to ride. in the middle of the sermon my brother whispers, "oh, the X-men. i get it." later my sister says exactly what i was thinking earlier, "dad's sentence was the best one."

>i go over to my dad sitting on his car. he's upset and he talks about how Ron used to give him and all his younger brothers whatever money he had in his pocket so he could go get stuff. he tells us how Ron would throw him his keys and let him use his car, even though Ron needed it for work because he said my dad was "a good kid."

>my dad's upset and that's tough to see. and my sister's crying because she can't stand to see my dad like that. dad tells another story about how they had a bench-clearing brawl at a baseball game and how Ron had someone by the neck up against the back stop and was punching him in the face. my dad says Ron was the strongest person he knew. he says, in awe, "that kid that Ron was punching and holding with one arm? his feet weren't even touching the ground." i ask my dad why he didn't submit that story for the preacher to read instead of the thing about the bike. we all laugh at that and my dad's not so upset anymore.

>my sister wants to see my grandpa's grave, which is in the same cemetery, so i point it out. my aunt's is next to Ron's, but my grandpa's is off to the side. it's in a strange spot, right next to the garage where all the tractors and stuff are. that always bothered me because, when you go to a grave, you need that wide open space to think about stuff and feel all dramatic. a gravestone right next to a garage full of tractors and bulldozers screws the scene all up. i see other people coming to see grandpa's grave and i think "there's going to be hundreds of Keatons buried out here some day." then i think, “my brother wouldn't know shit about the X-men if they hadn't made movies about 'em.” does he have another tattoo on his arm?

>i pass another uncle and find out that he's got a grandson named after him now. i wonder whether this was because he wanted a son but had three daughters instead, and i wonder how the daughters feel about this. my brother has two daughters, and, the most recent, a son that looks and acts just like him. i see that more and more, where the youngest child is always a boy. it seems like some people stop having kids when they finally get a boy. i think having boys means too much to people.

>on the way home, i think about that scene in the book "Tom Sawyer" where Tom fulfills his dream of sneaking in to listen to people at his own funeral and how he hears his friends and family cry and talk about him thinking he's dead, and how he gets off on it. i used to think that would be great, but now i think i haven't accomplished much of anything, and i would be embarrassed of any vague, harmless things that would be said at my funeral to cover up the fact that i haven't done jack shit.

>i start thinking about cremation as an option. then i start to think "detonation" would be even better. then we're back at my dad's, watching TV, and i tell my sister to go rent us a movie at the corner grocery store. she says she doesn't have any money. i think about how dad said Ron used to give all the younger brothers money all the time and i give my sister seven bucks to rent the movie. i promise her another five bucks if she can get "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" for us to watch. i kept telling my dad to watch that movie whenever he calls, but he never rents what i tell him too.

>i didn't think that little grocery store would have it, but she comes back with that movie and a free bag of popcorn. i would have given her the extra money anyway, even if she had brought back "Capote," the movie she really wanted to watch. actually, that's not true. she really wanted me to watch it. but i told her i didn't feel like sitting through it right now. but i can respect wanting someone to watch something with you that they've already seen.

>i'm all excited for them to watch the movie, because if anyone knows me at all, they know, like i just hinted at up there, that this is one of my favorite things: watching movies i've already seen with people who ain't seen them yet. but 10 minutes into "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and both my dad and sister are snoring on their couches. i turn off the TV and fall asleep, too. an hour later, my stepmom comes crashing into the house with groceries and loudly asks why everyone’s asleep. at least that's what my sister said happened. i slept through it all.

>when i wake up my dad says my sister walked down to my grandma’s and i'm supposed to meet her there. i change clothes and head over to my grandma's house. i see from the cars in the yard that there's a couple uncles and cousins there, too. i walk in and sit down on the floor of the kitchen next to the fridge like i’m five years old. i can't begin to explain how comfortable it is to sit there.

>i used to sit there for approximately the first third of my life. right there on the floor in that smoky kitchen while the adults stepped over me or affectionately rubbed my head and told some hilariously vulgar story about someone they wronged or wronged them. the only thing missing from that big kitchen table in front of me is my grandma. she sits in a more comfortable chair in the living room now. in a chair that's more like a bed. the smoky kitchen seems weird without her.

>after a while, everyone gathers in the living room and i get them talking about the documentary "Grizzly Man." weeks ago, i called to tell my aunt to tell my grandma to watch it when i saw it was going to be on the Discovery channel. i'm surprised to find that they did watch it. we make fun of that crazy fucker getting eaten and imitate him talking to his bears.

>my grandma falls asleep in her chair, and as soon as everyone sees this, they immediately start talking about how grandma told them that she couldn't see Uncle Ron in the coffin until he turned his head to look at her. what?! they say that grandma said that she "felt so much better once he turned his head so that she could see him" and that's why she stopped crying and told us to put her down. i don't believe in anything remotely supernatural, but i find myself trying to remember which way Ron's head was turned when i was wrestling with that wheelchair and steadying the coffin.

>Little Gary (i mean "Toot") says "that cemetery’s gonna be full of Keatons one day" and i tell him that i was thinking the exact same thing. then someone makes a comment about the "Mexicans in the field staring at the cars all weird" and thankfully someone defends them saying "no, they were just showing their respects." "oh," the other cousin says, still doubtful.

>back at my dad's house, i force my stepmom to get off the computer and my dad to put down the newspaper so that we can all finish watching "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" damn it. and, of course, they enjoy it. don't they know me yet? would i ever steer someone wrong with a movie? my sister finally shows up during the last 20 minutes and rattles her bags during some important dialogue but that's okay. she always does that. my dad and stepmom go to bed and me and my sister kind of get the giggles because we know we're supposed to be quiet.

>me and my sister proceed to snicker and eat every goddamn thing in their kitchen. cereal, old pizza, some cheese popper things in a carry-out box, some spare ribs, strawberries, some nasty cookies with walnuts in them. it's a leftover feast of biblical proportions. my dad comes out to tell us to keep it down.

>she talks about that magnetic funeral flag she wanted, and i tell her that i tried to keep one of those magnetic funeral flags when my aunt died years ago. on the way to her grave site, i realized i was almost out of gas, and i had to sneak out of the line of cars when they turned so that i could go to the gas station. when i went to meet up with everyone after they left the cemetery, i realized i still had that flag, and didn't want anyone to see it and know i didn't go to the grave site. so i stopped my car, took off the magnetic flag, and stuck it down out of sight on the side of a small metal bridge. i try to remember where that bridge is so that me and my sister can see if it's still there.

>i sneak back into their office (my sister's old room, of course now sporting a loud wooden floor, too) so that i can check my email. then i type half the shit you're reading right now. it feels like i'm captioning. my sister comes in and tries to get me to watch some British cross-dressing comedian whose head is as big as his torso. we have to turn it down so low for fear of waking Floyd (yes, my dad’s name is “Floyd,” and my older brother is “Floyd Jr.” that’s what’s known as “dodging a bullet”), all i really do is watch him mince around the stage like a mime. she falls asleep 15 minutes later anyway. while she’s sleeping, she forgets to cover the tattoos that she always hides from my Floyd. they're drawings of tiny little Elton John records scrawled across her lower back. they remind me of the absent-minded doodles you make when you're on the phone.

>i designed a tattoo for myself once, a long time ago, when my college roommate Gary took me with him to get one in Bowling Green. the one i drew was going to be this feather quill with an eagle's claw on the end making a fist. it was supposed to represent writing, but i think it would have been mistaken for patriotism. not getting that tattoo was the second smartest move of my youth. not drinking the homemade beer that me and my friends made in the woods when we were in 6th grade was the smartest. my friend Jeff puked like a human fire hose, and also got stung in the head by a yellow jacket an hour later. bursting into flames was the only thing that didn't happen to that poor bastard that day.

>back in the old bedroom. i think about my roommate Gary some more. i’ve got three friends, two uncles and one cousin named “Gary.” as a kid, I’d write that name as “Gray” instead, which is much more interesting, i try to stretch out on the bed and accidentally knock over something. then i go to get it and knock over something else. it's like trying to curl up in the middle of a fucking domino tournament. it's like i'm simply not meant to sleep in that room anymore.

>i turn on the light and look around. it's so small and at one time me AND my brother were living in there together? unbelievable. i see my stepmom's stack of easy listening/country cassette tapes in a pile in the corner and i sort them all by quality, artist, and year. in that order. then i make a little Stonehenge out of the Elton John cassettes. i know this will drive her nuts. i’m thinking about how Elton John’s old stuff would be decent funeral songs, except for “Benny and the Jets,” but i must have fallen asleep because it's the next morning and apparently my dad needs to start some sort of heavy machinery right next to my (old) bedroom window. i get up and stumble outside, knocking over Stonehenge on the way out. i imagine the real Stonehedge crashing down at exactly the same moment.

>my dad finally stops roto-tilling or building a robot out of aluminum cans or whatever noisy shit he’s doing and walks over to the porch where i’m drinking my orange juice. he mentions that the mix cds i've been mailing him are skipping in his cars. because i'm obsessive about skipage at all times, i whip out one of three cd cleaners i happen to have in my bag for just such an emergency. i clean the cd players in both his car and his truck. my dad gets out the Neil Diamond "12 Songs" cd i sent him last year. he says that he wanted Ron's wife to play "Hell Yeah" at the funeral, but he says he didn't get it to her in time. i say that the fact it has "hell" in the title might not have gone over well with that preacher.

>i look around at all the renovations on the outside of the house and think about how my grandpa had that construction business with all that heavy equipment parked around his house too. i start thinking that maybe grandpa's grave makes sense where it is next to that garage full of tractors. thinking about one grandpa makes me remember the other one, so i pack up to go see my grandpa on my mom's side. that grandma just died last week but they didn't have a ceremony. she was cremated. also my Uncle Dave on that side of the family just died too. he was also cremated. i figure i should pay my respects to that grandpa. it’s been a long time since i’ve seen him anyway.

>at my grandpa's, i see that he has a little Yorkie, too. what are the chances? but his dog's all happy and hyper. i ask grandpa where all grandma’s frogs are now that she died (i suddenly remembered that she collected frogs) so grandpa takes me to the garden and insists that i take this giant blue concrete frog and find it a home. i put it in the trunk. his little dog tries to follow us and my grandpa says, "his name's Hemi! he's a Dodge fan!" while the dog is going ape shit, grandpa shows me a peanut he's glued to a small piece of wood. there's splash of red paint on the end of it that looks like blood. "guess what this is!" he says all smiling. i give up. he declares: "it's an assaulted peanut!" and gives it to me.

>i put batteries back in grandpa's TV remote to turn on the closed-captions and show him what i'm doing at work these days. he tells me that the cable guy took the batteries out so that he wouldn't get his remotes confused. i tell him how we caption everything in capital letters, so when i try to type normal anywhere else, nothing ever gets capitalized. then i tell him how the screen can only hold about three lines at a time, and after 6 months of staring at those three lines on the bottom of the screen, i’m convinced that i’m starting to squeeze my thoughts into thought bubbles that would comfortably fit on the bottom of a television.

>i ask him to tell me one more time why the cable guy took the batteries out of his remote control. i feel the urge to call the cable guy and explain that my grandpa isn't one of those stupid customers that need their shit disabled like that. then i find a documentary on Discovery and say "see that! i typed those words!" he seems interested and has me leave the captions on. not always on, just when he hits the mute button. then he takes the batteries out again. i tell him how my captioning always seems to have an extra words hanging down into the next line. sometimes two words. sometimes three. i tell him that, at work, i dream of my captions slowly covering the screen from top to bottom, filling the glass with a pile of words fighting each other for room to be seen.

>grandpa proceeds to tell me a horrible story about that little dog attacking a mole that got caught above ground when they went camping. he tells me how that dog was shaking the shit out of the mole to the enjoyment of the other elderly campers and i pretend to laugh along with him, hoping for a happy ending for the mole. no such luck. to change the subject, i tell him how when you caption a change of speaker on the screen, you have to identify this with tiny little arrow. i tell him that, with the exception of my lines running over and filling the screen, forgetting to identify new speaker or identifying the same dude over and over is my most common mistake. i tell him that my impulse is to use those arrow whenever the thought changes instead of the voice. i’m pretty sure he’s not hearing anything i’m saying about my job at this point. then grandpa gives his little dog a leather glove and the dog shakes the shit out of it. grandpa yells gleefully, "get that mole!" i can't help but crack up. i love my grandpa in spite of (because of?) his old fashioned sadistic tendencies. i would have rescued the mole had i been there, however. then i leave realizing that i never said the words "sorry about grandma, sorry about Uncle Dave." i never remember to say those things and hope that spending time there makes up for it.

>i drive around a while, then suddenly remember that i saw Captain Beefheart's "Ice Cream for Crow" at a used record store the last time i was in Toledo. i didn't have any money then, but i have a little now, so i drive there to buy it. it would be the worst funeral music of all time. right up there with the soundtrack to “Grease.” inside the store, i see three (?!) copies of that hard-to-find cd and spend a little time swapping around the insides so that i get the best case and booklet with the best disc. i'm starting to feel normal again. the guy at the counter is all excited about Captain Beefheart and tells me a bunch of shit i already know. i let him prattle on as i can appreciate his enthusiasm. i only correct him once out of the five things he gets wrong. however, he does tell me one thing i didn't already know. he tells me Captain Beefheart has a cameo in the movie "8-Mile." i'm immediately depressed as i realize i now have to watch "8-Mile" again when i get home. he'd better be in there.

>the open spaces around Toledo that i once found so empty are oddly comforting. in Pittsburgh i thought i liked all the green and hills when i first arrived, but now i realize that i'm a product of Toledo's dead farms and factories, and to see this far across the horizon feels good for the first time. i drive a lot longer than i was planning to, so i stop to see my friend Mark at Barnes 'N Noble. inside, i witness some customer ask if they have anything by the Beatles. Mark stares at the man for at least 20 seconds before some young employee intercepts the question. i’m tempted to announce that, statistically, Beatles songs are played at 50% more funerals than any other band. maybe that's because there's only 50% of them left. to hide from customers, Mark goes back to his stack of cds and fighting with his "Personal Data Transmitter." the noise of it reminds me of when i worked for B&N in Pittsburgh. Mark tells me he's been watching lot of the TV show "The Incredible Hulk" lately. they're selling the box set there, along with several other shows from my youth. Mark crosses his arms and proceeds to make a very good point about that show: why does Dr. Banner never hulk-out, run over, and discover that it's a false alarm? why doesn’t that ever happen? you know, a girl screams, but she and her boyfriend were just joking around. and then the Hulk's all confused and has nothing to do but scratch his green head and wander off? that should happen at least once, right? he's right, of course. i tell Mark that the opening credits where Bill Bixby's eyes are turning green and he's hulking-out when his tire-iron slipped made me wary as a kid of having to change a tire. would it really hurt that bad if it slipped off the lug nuts? then i see a "Little House on the Prairie" box set right next to it and laugh. the best episode of that show (and i remember this like it was yesterday) was when a tornado destroyed their crops and "Pa" finally lost faith in God. i thought he was going to go on a rampage or something, but, sadly, he started to believe again in spite of his blind kids, rabid dogs, and failure to give birth to a son. they had a tornado door in that episode. i stole that shit for my western script.

>i drive around for an hour looking at people's houses that i knew. i listen to that Johnny Cash cd again. Did i mention that my friend Holly sent me that cd the next day (!) after reading on my web site that i wanted it? how about that? i type the words, and it shows up outside my door that fast!? okay, let's try typing these words instead: "i sure would like some girl to bring me a bowl of cereal and sit on my face right now..." okay, now let me check the front door...nope, nothing. Holly used to live in Toledo, too. she also comes home for funerals. while i’m thinking about it, i put in the soundtrack i made for my western script, trying to figure out where i want to put that Uncle Ron tornado door scene. i think of too many other things i want to change in the script and take out the cd. i listen to "Hell Yeah" and silently agree with my dad that it's a perfect funeral song.

>it's getting real late and i'm not sure whether to stay another night or head back. i call my friend Glen who's in Pittsburgh for the weekend. we had plans, but i don't think i'll get back in time for it to pan out. Glen calls me back an hour later with a trivia question about who sang on some Pink Floyd song. i say to call our other friend Steve, and Glen says that Steve, most likely, isn't aimlessly driving around all night like i am. good point. i remember Steve telling me once that he wants "Comfortably Numb" played at his funeral. i think i told him that the first one to die gets to do that since it's only fair. Glen puts his brother-in-law on the phone. apparently there's $100 riding on the Pink Floyd question. i take the opportunity to tell his brother-in-law embarrassing stuff about Glen instead. i tell him that, in High School, Glen had a car that had a door that fell off whenever you went over railroad tracks. i tell him that Glen's feet smelled worse than any feet i've encountered before or since. i tell him how we couldn't pay attention to the movie "Evil Dead" back in 9th grade because Glen's feet were too distracting. i can't think of anything else about Glen so i tell this guy how i'd smooch on Glen's stepsister at parties when she got real drunk (she was very hot and at least six years older than us. that's right, high-five!) the brother-in-law seems to appreciate the dirt on Glen, but still insists Robert Palmer sang on the Pink Floyd song in question. "impossible," i say. Glen and Steve have kids now. to destroy my credibility with what i said earlier, i will now confess that i want a son that is exactly like me.

>i get hungry and look for some fast food. in line, the girl in front of me has a tattoo that says "juicy" on her arm. i'm thinking about this stupid tattoo so much that i'm not ready to order my greasy breakfast food when it's my turn. i want to ask her, "so, i'm thinking that the only thing that tattoo could refer to is your twat, right?" and she could get all insulted like she doesn't have a sign on her body drawing attention to the state of her crotch. i want to explain to her that i'm going to get a tattoo that says, "hey, everybody, my dick has these weird hairs that grow all the way to the end of it, how freaky is that shit? ask me about it!" okay, that would be a long tattoo. but it would be in that cool old-English script like Tupac's "Thug Life." or maybe i could do it in Chinese so that whole paragraph would just be on like one tiny hieroglyphic. "you silly, silly bitch" i think as i eat two breakfast muffin things and go back for a third. 2:00 am is a hungry time.

>i turn the car too sharply and the concrete frog in the trunk falls over. scares the shit out of me and for a second i think i’ve gotten a flat tire. i imagine my eyes turning green when the tire iron slips off the lug nuts. after 30 more miles, my back hurts from sitting in this car so long and it's hard to catch my breath. i wonder if i should have gone to see my sister like she wanted. or my brother. or anyone else. my cell phone dies for the tenth time. it won't even charge unless you hold it just right and unless the car's running but not moving. i throw it under the seat in disgust. i see a turnpike sign and i decide to head back to Pittsburgh right then. Four more hours and then i’m home. i start to think about songs to play at my funeral. i think the idea of such a captive audience would make it impossible to choose anything except a song that would be funny or confusing. like maybe the Canadian National Anthem as heard through my Atari Lynx hand-held videogame during the opening of the game "Mutant League Hockey." somewhere around Cleveland, i get my phone to charge a little and i talk to my sister again. i tell her that grandpa gave me an "assaulted peanut." she's very disappointed and tells me, "all i got was a ‘quarter pounder’ and a 'cartridge in a pear tree.'" i'm thinking that last one must be a bullet stuck in some fruit or something. One more hour and i'm home. is the sun coming up? check out the color of that sky. for the second time in 2 days, i wish my name was “Gray.” An hour later, when i stop at the last turnpike booth, i remember to ask the guy what happens if the you don't have enough money for the toll.

-he looks surprised, laughs and says, "you fill out a form and pay it later. it just happened, actually."


© 2006 david james keaton

::: david - 11:23 PM [+] :::
...

"Did you say the man in black?"
"No, I said the man in back."
- Pigiron


what up. not much going on around here. had a nail in my tire. closing in on the completed first draft of my western script. mixed thoughts right now about the direction it's heading. as usual, a side character has kind of taken over the story. i think this is a direct result of my appreciation for supporting supporting actors. not the ones that get the awards, but the ones that are one level below that, the ones with too few lines for anyone to say "he/she stole that movie!" of course, a "he/she" would steal any movie it was in, but you get my point. an example, in the movie "Crimson Tide" there's a weasely little dude named "Zimmer" who's only mentioned like twice. he only has three lines or so (one of them the perfect meathead war analogy, "you don't put on a rubber unless you're going to fuck!") and he doesn't do much at all really. but at one point the main character played by Denzel Washington says, almost as an afterthought when he's ordering his 2nd or 3rd mutiny, "hey, get Zimmer's sidearm." and right there, in my mind Zimmer gets mythic status. you never see anyone get his gun, you never see this guy even fire a gun, but apparantly the square-jawed hero is worried enough about Zimmer to order him disarmed??? whatever scenes that might have set Zimmer up as some sort of badass simply don't exist to justify that line. so it's either bad writing...or...a chance to use your imagination! in the world of this movie, exists a moment where, possibly, Denzel Washington was walking to his lunch table and Zimmer threw a skinny shoulder into him and knocked his fruit cup all over the mess hall. then Zimmer probably ran away. this is why this supporting, supporting role stands out in my mind.

what was the point of all that? oh yeah, the western i'm writing has too many Zimmers.

the last post down there is just a song list because i keep making cds to use theme music to read over the weather and advertisments at the radio station, but i lose the paper i write them down on. and i don't have a way to make a cool cd insert or something, so i'm frantically writing them down every time i get in there for the show. and with my new job ending at 11:00 pm, and the drive taking 40 minutes, and the show starting at midnight, i'm always running out of time and scaring the dj coming off her shift with all the cds flying around and the fast food sticking out of my mouth. so i thought, since there's a computer online right in the booth, right next to the mic, i could just pull up my website and click on that post, and there's the list of theme music and POW! ready to roll. i got the theme for Magnum P.I. ready to go whenever i read a weather report that's mostly sunny! or...i can play the last scene from Blade Runner (or any scene from that movie, really) when i'm reading a weather report that's mostly rain. this post should shave off about 10 minutes where i won't have to quickly listen to these mix cds to see what songs i want that night, time i desperately need with all this fucking nail-ridden construction in my path.

that Magnum P.I. theme was actually part of an aborted mix cd i was making where i combined music from that show with music from that Orbital techno stuff from the movie "PI." get it? Magnum PI? it sounded better on paper. just like my "Marilyn Hanson" mix. you know which one i still listen to? out of all those theme cds i made last year? the "(b)ryan adams" one. bryan and ryan adams songs actually flow very well together.

oh, here's some movie tips, if you like:
"Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" was quite hilarious. think of a poor-man's "Adaptation." made me laugh a lot. and "Syriana" bored the living shit out of me. Matt Damon kept popping up to make smug speeches that the writer couldn't believably force into anyone's mouth but his own, and the only effective scene was a complete THEFT from "Patriot Games," which isn't a classic by any means. anyone remember that scene in "Patriot Games" where they're watching the satellite view of the Indiana Jones-ordered siege on the terrorist's camp? and Jones feels all guilty because of the cold videogame killing that's going on, but all around him are armchair warriors and button-down types casually sipping their coffee and laughing at the little figures dropping on the screen ("now that's a kill." coffee slurp) that same shit's in "Syriania" when they bomb Clooney in that caravan at the end. plus the movie gets negative 100 points for having that stupid-ass moment when someone walks away from an explosion without flinching. i'm more sick of that in movies than someone saying, "you are without a doubt the most stubborn...blah blah blah." terrible. "Munich" was a bit disturbing through. i'm starting the think that Spielburg is kind of a sadist. he takes these "true stories" as an excuse to exorcise some horribly violent (and historically questionable) imagery because it's simply the nastiest stuff he can think of (especially when they shoot that girl) but he can't use those scenes in his fiction stuff. i find his true-life stuff to be a bit exploitative and irresponsible.

not much else to say here. i need some cereal. "Dazed and Confused" is on tv all edited. making me want to throw in the regular one over corn flakes but i ain't got that kind of time. party at the moon tower! oh, here's my new glasses, i got real bored and took some pictures of them for out-of-town friends who wanted to see 'em. like someone just told me though, new glasses do lose their novelty after about 72 hours. kind of like a new cd actually.

i want the new Johnny Cash: American Recordings V very badly.

so i thought i'd post before work today to force myself up earlier than usual but my brain's still in a fog and it's all muggy in here in spite of the three fans pointed at my crucified position on the floor.

::: david - 1:25 PM [+] :::
...

WYEP-RED

01-primal scream - kowalski
02-maxx - "damn..."
03-barry adamson - saturn in summertime
04-mike post - magnum pi theme
05-howard shore - scanners
06-blade runner - "give me a hard copy..."
07-badalamenti - pink room
08-morphine - car
09-ennio morricone - the thing
10-rza - oren ishi
11-badalamenti - twin peaks
12-donnie darko - cellar door
13-tom waits - what's he building?
14-peter gabriel - start
15-warriors - reawakening
16-doors - cars hiss by my window
17-marianne faithful - trouble in mind
18-morphine - my brain
19-badalamenti - red bats with teeth
20-blade runner - "i've seen things..."
21-howard shore - dead ringers
22-orbital - petrol
23-barry adamson - vibes ain't nothing but the vibes
24-fear and loathing - "this is bat country..."
25-fight club remix

WYEP-WHITE

01-tool & massive attack - stinkfist/teardrops
02-propellerheads - take california
03-big chief - sick to my pants
04-badalamenti - perdita
05-steve howe - sketches in the sun
06-barry adamason - the big bamboozle
07-warriors - gang car
08-blade runner - "is this an empathy test..."
09-rza- kill bill
10-shriekback - coelocanth
11-primus - dueling bass
12-barry adamson - mr. eddie's theme
13-toadies - mexican hairless
14-barry adamson - something wicked this way comes
15-built to spill - linus & lucy
16-nick cave - cocks 'n' asses
17-extreme - flight of the bumblebee
18-beastie boys - in 3's
19-pixies - cecilia ann
20-howard shore - crash
21-my vitriol - cor
22-faith no more - woodpecker from mars
23-warriors - awakening
24-badalamenti - dark spanish symphony
25-steven hackett - hackett to bits
26-morphine - sharks

::: david - 1:39 PM [+] :::
...