Stan Vandale And Me

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This is a tale of simultaneous stories.  It’s a tale of a single night, isolated in time and space, that’s merely one fold in an unfolded old map – weathered, creased and torn.  It’s a tale of mystics and spirits as ordinary as a couple of boys full of adolescent adventures.  It’s a tale that’s true.  It’s a tale that’s unbelievable.  It’s a tale of two kids with an indelible bond who grew up, grew apart and remain friends and strangers.  It’s a complicated tale, but this is the simplest way I can tell it.

When I lived in Arizona, one rare long weekend, I drove deep into the desert over relentless miles of further horizons, seeking a place where the city feared to go.  North from Payson, north from Winslow, north into the Navajo nation — as if I were an eager pilgrim gathering miles like holy relics.  But I ended up just being a tourist, cameraed and sandaled, sitting on a wooden bench, watching drumbeat dancers in the dying afternoon…

One time, in the long ago, Stan had a raft, and he and I and his little brother Dan decided (no, we didn’t decide – Stan convinced us) to Huck Finn ourselves down to the Pitt River, or out to the ocean or all the way to Hawaii if we got the chance.  We didn’t; the ship went down with all hands before we got 50 metres, and 1,000 years from now, archeologists are going to find my wallet buried in the mud and wonder how a foolish boy didn’t drown that day…

In the long shadows, the drums stopped and everyone clapped and snapped maybe just one more flash photo, and then it was time to exit through the gift shop, please.  But, I didn’t exit; I couldn’t exit.  One of the wordless dancers (for no reason I’ll ever understand) came and led me away — away from the crowd and the cars and the buzzing noisy neon — into the desert and the creeping night.  And there — with the first stars — I sat on a woven blanket with the women and the kids who spoke to me in guttural syllables and exaggerated gestures.  And I wondered … what?  And then I heard the drums again…

One time, in a teenage hot summer day, when the adults were full of picnic, Stan and I and his little brother and sister found a cliff face and we decided (no, we didn’t decide – Stan convinced us) to climb it — just to see what we could see.  And we climbed into the scared and the sky, crawling on the vertical rock, our minds and muscles shivering with gravity.  And I stopped once to steady Melody’s elbow and once to capture more courage and once just to curse the madness.  Then we popped over the top — a surprise of dirty children, frightening the tourists…

These were the old dances, now — the grandfather dances.  And the darkness chanted with fire — its flames touching the paint on the dancers’ faces, its light in the winking eyes of the snakes they carried, and its tongue flicking and licking sparks into the sky.  And the drums were the night’s heart, beating and breathing with the murmured rhythm of tall moccasins.  And in the night and light, the dancers slowly dusted away, swallowing themselves in the shadows — until only their spirits remained.  And time and earth and sky disappeared, and there was only now.  And for hours or minutes or days, the spirits saw me and we travelled together.  And that’s what happened.
Later, sometime, in the morning I think, the wordless dancer found me again and said, “You remember this thing.  You’re gonna need those guys.”

I don’t see Stan much anymore – weddings and funerals — but I still count him as more than a friend.  As a boy, I learned how the world works, and Stan was part of that experience.  He certainly had a confidence that didn’t rub off, and he was always fun to be around.  A couple of weeks ago, I heard that Stan was sick – really sick — and I thought about that night in Arizona.  It’s odd how that came to mind after all these years, but it made me think: maybe those spirits weren’t for me at all; maybe I was just keeping them for a friend.

So, for what it’s worth, Stan, I know this is a difficult journey, but if you want, you can walk with the spirits I found one star-dark night in Arizona for a while.  I’m absolutely certain they’ll show you the way.

Let’s Kill “Awesome!”

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It’s time to shoot “awesome” in the head, drag the corpse into the street and fling it into the gutter.  I’m not opposed to hyperbole, but in the 21st century, we’ve tossing around “awesome” as if it were confetti at a high school graduation.  And the problem is people are beginning to believe that everything they do is a titanic effort of will that deserves congratulations. Here’s the deal.  I don’t care what your friends say; you’re not “awesome” when you’re doing stuff that doesn’t take any effort.  Let me demonstrate.

I don’t eat fast food – If, indeed, you are the one person on this planet who has never French kissed a Big Mac™ – so what?  There is no moral advantage to eating food that’s good for you.  After all, rabbits, giraffes and gophers do it every day.  All you did was walk past Pizza Hut, Burger King and KFC.  And hey, lady: that’s what you’re supposed to do! 

I love my kids – What’s the alternative?  Locking them in the basement?  Parents, you don’t get extra points for actually loving those obnoxious little buggers – it’s your job!  And quite frankly, if more parents spent more time doing that job instead of constantly yipping about it, we’d all be better off.

I do yoga – So do three billion other people.

I’m a feminist – To be brutally honest, being a feminist west of the Vistula is a pretty easy gig.  If you’re so truly committed to the fight for women’s rights, show up in Tehran and lead a troop of bikini girls through the streets, doing the Lambada.  Then you can brag about it.  Here in the West, being in favour of equal rights isn’t “awesome;” it’s ordinary.

I just take things one day at a time. – This doesn’t mean you’re a free spirit or a child of wonder or any of the other New Age clichés.  Why?  Because everybody takes things one day at a time – that’s the way they come.

But my favourite is still:

I’m not on Facebook anymore — Yeah, I know: you mentioned it — on Twitter.

 

Dog Shit Without Tears (2018)

I was prowling around the archives, looking for stuff to put in a book I’m going to publish next autumn – WD Fyfe: Collected and Bound.  Anyway, some stuff is good, some stuff is bad, some stuff is extraordinary (good and bad!)  However, a couple of things stood out because they clearly demonstrate the reason I write a blog in the first place.  Here’s one of them from the summer of 2015.  (gently edited)

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Dog Shit, Without Tears!

On occasion, everybody steps in dog shit, literally or metaphorically.  It’s inevitable — like puberty or menopause.  It’s how we handle it that’s important.  Recently, I witnessed a dog shit incident and — Wow! — did I ever get a look into life in the 21st century.

I was standing outside an office building, having a coffee and sneaking an early evening cigarette (it’s an occasional vice) when a well-dressed woman (not a child, nor even a girl) came stumble-running around the corner.  She was clearly in distress.  She looked at me in shock, lurched forward, grabbed at the construction fence as her only means of support, and hung there, gasping and weeping as if she’d just seen an axe murder.  I hit the adrenaline button, dropped everything and stride, stride, stride, went to help.

“Are you alright?  What happened?  Are you okay?”
She turned to me, and in a voice overwhelmed with crisis, said, “I stepped in dog poo!”
I tilted my head like an inquiring beagle, but before I could register a WTF reaction, her support group came wheeling around the corner.  A mixed-gender bag of 30-somethings, they brushed me out of the way as if I’d been mansplaining their friend and surrounded her in a two-deep comfort zone.  I stepped back to my spilled coffee to give them room, and for the next 10, 15 (I gave up at some point) or even 20 minutes, I watched as they conducted an impromptu crisis intervention.

Okay, so what have we learned?

Despite the contemporary habit of sprinkling obscenities through every conversation, curiously enough, at unguarded moments, 21st century adults use words like “poo.”

Remember, our girl came around the corner first, so at some point, overcome by the trauma (drama?) she must have panicked and fled headlong into the night.  Think about that!

There were plenty of kind words, a lot of hugs, and tissues for the eyes, but nobody actually dealt with the offending shoe.  To be fair, one Sir Walter Raleigh did take his jacket off, but I never saw what he did with it.  (Only his drycleaner could tell us that.)

The group, all dressed up with obviously some place to go, actually stopped the evening’s activities cold to deal with this emotional emergency — at some length.

And finally, no one in the group gave any indication that this was the least bit odd.  There wasn’t one dissident voice.  For example, nobody said, “For God sake, Madison!  Scrape it off, and let’s go!”

The thing that blows me away about this little ad hoc soiree is these were ordinary people.  I didn’t accidently run into a drama queen convention.  Nor was it their first emotional rodeo.  They’d been there before — lots! — and, despite their lack of dog shit removal skills, they knew exactly what they were doing.

My point is, emotionally fragile has become a way of life in the 21st century.  We are easily angered, eagerly offended and regularly resort to “the meltdown” to prove our emotional stake in the game.  It’s our way of demonstrating our humanity, sensitivity and depth of character.  The problem is it works.  People take this stuff seriously!

Me, I’m from a different time and, call me old-fashioned, but I prefer dog shit without tears.