Baboon in the Bluegrass, Part 3: Morehead, Kentucky

NO. It's not a sexual request.

It's a city... well, more like a town... a town that will, undoubtedly, be swallowed by the monolithic beast that is Morehead State University (Curse it's name!) and become a plaza shopping and living pavilion... with oodles and oodles of parking, of course. (They really did bulldoze a park once, and put in a parking lot. Well, it was more like a grassy knoll. Ok... more like an abandoned field by the side of the road. But it WAS green space.)

The nice thing about being gone for so long (George and Laura and I decided that my last visit to the area was maybe 8 years ago.) is that there's hardly anyone around who might remember me. At least, no one hanging around on the street or in the coffee shop. This is to my advantage; I wanted to walk around, see what changed, and take things in without people asking How I Am or What am I Up To. I could walk around, be perceived as slightly creepy, take pictures with my cell phone, and slip back out of town again without raising too many eyebrows.

But where to begin? 

One of the problems I have in coming back here -- other than a the fairly good chance of running into some ghost of my old self -- is that when I think about the place, image in my mental map of the place is a bit dated... circa 1995 or 96. When I think about Morehead, I think about driving into town on KY-32 and seeing the mountains on fire the year there wasn't much rain, black smoke blocking out the sun for what seemed like an entire summer. I think about the year there was too much rain and the whole North end of town flooded -- including a house of Melissa's Theater Department friends who were too stoned to realize they needed to leave. That happened when I was in graduate school, around 2001... but it's still part of the elemental 1995 map.

There are houses gone that I expect to be gone, and houses gone that I expect to be there. Every single structure I lived in with my daughter's mother, Anna, is gone. It is as if our marriage -- brief and ridiculously dramatic as it was -- has been erased from the landscape. To be honest, I find it oddly comforting. The number of people who have any memory of that botched disaster of a relationship is shrinking. Even my daughter -- the only good to come out of my first marriage -- has no memory of her mother and I ever being together. For this, I am eternally grateful. Anna's parents are dead. Her grandparents are dead. My mother isn't, thank god.

But she has the courtesy not to bring up my early marriage as one in a catalog of mistakes I made In Spite Of Her Telling Me So.

Morehead has more parking lots than I remember. The Fuzzy Duck Coffee Shop, once located in what was once the back store room of Coffee Tree Books, which was located in a nominally interesting shopping center, is not located -- along with Coffee Tree Books -- in the building that was once the movie theater downtown.

(This was replaced by a six screen multi-plex out on the by-pass. More screens for more lousy movies. And really expensive popcorn. But the bubble gum under the seats is more fresh, at least.)

 It's theoretically more space. The coffee shop takes up what was once the concessions and lobby. The problem is, that it still looks like a movie theater, only with no popcorn, Ike&Mike's, or stale Reese's Pieces and over priced watered down pop. They do the whole coffee, soup and sandwiches thing, along with all the usual coffee boutique items... coffee mugs (though not ByBee Pottery... a travesty, as far as I'm concerned.) froo-froo coffee contraptions, French coffee presses, ground and whole bean coffee, and a plethora of teas.

"Well, you told me I have a plethora. And I just would like to know if you know what a plethora is. I would not like to think that a person would tell someone he has a plethora, and then find out that that person has NO IDEA what it means to have a plethora."

But if ever there was a town that needed a bar... it would be THIS one.

The problem, however -- at least according to conventional wisdom -- is that no bar in downtown has ever succeeded for very long.

Scratch that. No downtown bar has ever been ALLOWED to succeed for very long.

At least, that's the assertion of an old friend, Clark. Back in the day, Clark was one of those Those Guys. He played guitar. Girls liked him. Generally people thought he was something of a pretentious ass... but he was still likable too. Clark has been living in Morehead almost exclusively for the past 20 years. One of the things we sat and talked about -- in the newish location of the Fuzzy Duck/Coffee Tree Books was how much town had changed since the last time I was here. The new Wal-Mart. The new Public Library, which, while it's not in the middle of town anymore ... which is decidedly inconvienent if you don't have a car... is a much nicer, much bigger space.

The old library is being adapted into the new home of the Kentucky Center for Traditional Music, which now occupies a Main Street storefront location.

The new space will have class rooms, recording studios, and will generally be a  nicer space. 

The other advantage of the new space is that it won't be owned by this guy... the biggest, sleaziest slum lord in town.

The Dixie Grill... one of the downtown townie restaurants knowns as much for the oderiferious air as the cheap food, is now a hair salon. Main Street Records is now a bakery. One of the bars where I used to go for dime drafts on Thirsty Thursdays is now a church children's youth center. (I blame the Bapists.)  The other bar -- the one with multiple names and multiple owners -- is now a Thursday night Karaoke /Dance Club. (Not sure if the Soot Scootin' Boogie or the Macarena is still in vogue.

When I told Clark that I didn't know how I felt about the coffee shop residing in the lobby of the old movie theater he nodded, but said "It grows on you."

As we continued our conversation, he admitted to a certain ambivalence regarding his life in town. "I don't know," he said," whether I'm really stuck here or whether I stay out of a sense of obligation."

The obligation he meant was his the obligation he felt to his children. He has a son, who is 13, and a younger daughter. Both of his children are with different mothers. Both mothers still live in the area, and he has to see them on a regular basis. But he also seems to understand that a parent is more than provider, protector, soundboard, bank, and bed and board landlord. He also knows that maybe the best function a parent serves is an object lesson.

Clark told me a story about taking his son, at the time 12, with him on a road trip to a city. Clark, who's early drinking experience was made up of house parties and music gigs (with him on stage); he admitted that to not really ever having a bar experience until the Buffalo Wings and Things, took his son around to different bars in the city they were in. Clark sipped on drinks while his son took in the general atmosphere.

This is BW3's. It's too bright, too plastic, and costs too much.
Oh yeah, and the bartender, who looked 10, didn't know how to make a proper Bloody Mary.

This sorority girl and others like her,. who will probably be praying  for forgiveness on Sunday when they go to church, is one of the things that makes BW3's entirely too loud to be a place worth drinking in.

"He was loving it," Clark said. "And that was the point. I told him..." he paused briefly, as if he were gathering the words, or maybe thinking about his own life for split second. "I told him if he ever wanted to DO anything, that he needed to get out of here."

That pesky left foot is always late.

Morehead is the kind of place people go, stay for a specific but undetermined period of time, and then leave. It's like most college towns in that way. For that matter, it has always been a suitcase campus -- students would pack up and go back home for the weekend, and I saw nothing that made me think that had changed. It's easy to think it's almost planned out... that the university Board of Regents, the Chamber of Commerce, and the town council all got together with the cops and decided to make the town as unappealing to college age people as possible without being too overt about it.

There are other, less subtle but nonetheless accepted forms of creeping fascism. Yes, I call it fascism. When the corporate institutions intermingle interests with the political and financial life a community, the prevailing system becomes something like a a slightly more benevolent form of fascism. It may not be too intrusive, and certainly not enough to upset the too young to be paranoid college age kids who, by their silence, accept the rule of the regime.

Don't even get me started on what's wrong with this... I would like to point out, however, that tobacco money built the fucking campus. It's the #1 legal cash crop of the state. I'd also like to point out that there's a Taco Bell in the student center.

This is the entrance to what used to be  the English  Dept. Building. Now  it's the College of Business, which is kind enough to allow the English Department to say. See the sign? English Majors are people too!

This is one of the places we used to stand and smoke... before the  fast food financed fascists took over.

And this, dear readers, is where all the money really goes.

The new and updated Adrian Doran University  Center (ADUC) Your tuition and tax dollars at work.

There are still a few remnants of my past here, though. And some aren't even all that depressing.

The front door to 122 W. Second Street. The house I shared with  Jared, Bobby, Dave,and  sometimes, Eric. My primary function was to screw over the landlord, who charged per student rather than a lump sum of rent.

Douchebag apartments next door. They weren't there when I was  a student. Merely  pointing out that they're a blight. And Douchey.

I did more drinking than I can remember here. Really.  Pictures would  be appreciated. Really. Or... you know, forget it.

When I started here as a Sophmore, these two urinals was  a single long narrow trough. Keep your eyes on your own winkie, dammit.! God is watching.

I just think this is cute. Like those poor dumb kids are really going to find JOBS.

Oh, and see that diminutive bell tower behind the signs? Once upon a time, there was a tall, healthy, beautiful pine tree there, that had stood for as long as anyone remembered. It was cut down because someone with money wanted to put up a bell tower with her name on it.

 Did I mention diminutive? It's more like a vibrator for a hollowed out porn star. It plays show tunes sometimes, too.

[I need to extend my thanks to Paul V. Christensen, Mike Frazier, Brian Parsons, and Dixie Parsons for some welcome donations. Thanks to you, I've bought my train ticket from Ashland and expect to be in Norfolk on THURSDAY FEBRUARY 9th.

If you like what you read here, you can help by:

1. Passing the link around.
2. Graciously donating to the cause using the button on the right hand side of the screen;
3. Contact Catherine Sellers at Greyhound, 415-331-6049. Tell them you are asking about a sponsorship when the operator picks up. I write about them enough. They should be helping me help them. Right??

Thanks for reading.]

A Baboon in the Bluegrass, Part 1: Lexington

[This is dedicated to the cute artsy girl in the purple plaid coat who smiled at me in the Starbucks this morning for no particular reason]

“My Life is a vast inconsequential epic with a thousand and a million characters...” -Jack Kerouac

Sitting in hole in the wall Mexican restaurant drinking Modelo Negro and eating enchiladas (she had tacos) with my college friend Stephanie, I was beginning to reassess my feelings about Lexington. Having lived here before – the next in a string of places I consider familiar – I sort of took certain things for granted:

1. That my mental map of the place would help me get around; and
2. That my initial sense memory of the place was the only memory of the place I needed.

But first thing I noticed about Lexington when the bus pulled into the Depot was that I had forgotten where the bus depot actually was. My memory had confused it (as I would later find out) with the main hub of the Lexington Transit Authority – the metro bus hub behind the downtown library.

Prior to deciding to take this trip... or rather, prior to the circumstances coming together in such a way that not only is the trip important, but also necessary... I had no reason to come back to Lexington for any length of time. And as I got off the bus and surveyed my surroundings, and after I realized that my memory had reorganized the entire city incorrectly, I realized something else.

I had managed to forget almost everything about Lexington.

I don't know if it was deliberate. I used to live here. For three years in the late 90's Lexington, Kentucky was my home. I thought I'd gotten to know the city pretty well. As city's go, Lexington isn't really large. It's more like a small town that got too big to fast and never really came to terms with it. It's a town that probably felt like it had to ACT big because the University of Kentucky main campus was there; and more importantly, the UK WILDCATS are there... and there's nothing in Kentucky more important than UK sports. Specifically, basketball. Particularly, Men's. So in a way, Lexington is, as a cities go, like a teenage girl who has to buy a new pair of shoes because her friend has a new purse.

Nearly every association I have with Lexington – mental, emotional – are bad associations. I think about the girlfriend I had who fucked all my friends; I think about working as an office slug at the University of Kentucky and hating myself just a little bit more every day; I think about one particularly psychotic husband who believed I was brainwashing his wife... when in fact, I was really just fucking her. I remember walking to work at Wal-Mart on Man O War Road and I remember also working at Target and Meijer. I remember working the counter at the Dairy Mart. I remember getting arrested for reckless operation of a vehicle because a Lexington City cop couldn't get me to blow into the breathalyzer enough for a DUI.

I remember first moving to Lexington from Cincinnati. To make the move happen in a more expedited fashion, I more or less pushed myself on a friend of mine from college, Phil. Phil is also a writer, and a respectable one at that. He's one of the mad poet varieties – probably because he's technically legally insane – but he's also a voracious reader, sometimes astute critic, and a good chess player to boot. He claims no political opinions, but he does have his thoughts on the matter of the human endeavor to rule over one another. Last I checked – and yes, it's been a while, but bear with me – he pretty much thought the whole thing was pointless, and probably doomed to failure. (He very well could have changed his mind by now... but given the state of things, I don't see how he could any way but vindicated.)

After I was able to find regular work and save money – I'm fairly sure that didn't happen nearly fast enough for Phil – I moved into my own place, off Versailles Road. Not long after that, I convinced another college friend, Jerry, to move down to Lexington, saying he could sleep on my couch until he got up on his feet. It didn't seem to matter to me at the time that Phil and Jerry had never gotten along; all I figured at the time was that it would be cool to have all of my college friends together in the same city... presumably to continue the same semi-dysfunctional but still comfortable social dynamic we had all been a part of in college. (Back then, I still believed it was possible to hold on to people, just as they had been when I first knew them. I hadn't yet realized that in order to keep friends, you have to accept that they, like everything else, have to go through necessary changes or else get dragged under.)

As you might expect, the whole lousy sit-com... because what else could it turn out to be... ended in disaster. Now I'm not really friends with either Phil or Jerry. I lost my friendship with Jerry because of a girl... see, how the sit-com becomes bad melodrama...and I lost my friendship with Phil because I was a raging, arrogant ass.

And then there's Lynnie. Lynnie, who was the reason I rode a Greyhound in the first place. But that's probably another story for another time.

As I was sitting with Stephanie, talking the way we have always talked... topics ranging from politics to literature to teaching to life, spirituality... I found myself having to re-evaluate my thoughts about Lexington. Not that I think I'd ever want to live here – there are other places I am much more comfortable and where I would feel more welcomed overall – but it's not such a bad place.

The thing about Lexington is that it's impossible to get around it's inflated opinion of itself; this isn't a town that wants people to look too scruffy or too poor or too downtrodden. When I lived here before and worked downtown (I was a file clerk, briefly, for Bank One... which was eventually bought out by Chase Bank.) it struck me odd that nearly everyone, regardless of where they worked, sort of dressed the same. Khaki pants and a green shirt. Jerry and I used to laugh about it. Lexington is, regardless of whatever else it is, an entire city with a Wal-Mart employee attitude.

One of the other things I've noticed... there's not many cops, but a lot of “security guards.” For example, when I was at the downtown library yesterday, I saw at least five private security guards. Five. Now, while on one hand I think it's a step in the right direction that they take their library so seriously, I do wonder about the purpose of a private, taser wielding brigade of black polo shirt wearing bullies in what should be an open, public, and non-threatening place. (Stephanie explained that after the current mayor was sworn into office, the first thing he did was slash the police and fire department budgets. This, as you might imagine, makes him popular with the libertarian horde and the underlying criminal element. Don't worry, though. The increase in crime is only really happening where the poor and the blacks live. And no one here gives a damn about them, anyway. One look at someone scruffy... say, like moi … people here feel compelled to run and check their credit rating to ensure that their hubris is justified.

When I was killing time at the library yesterday, I noticed I wasn't the only one. One of the ironies of Lexington is that it has such an inflates sense of itself, but it has – and did, even when I lived here – a steady homeless population. And one of the places they go to get out of the elements... whichever element happens to be seasonal... is the downtown library.

At one point, I was sitting at a reading table on the second floor, next to one of the large windows facing Main Street, on the far side of the fiction shelves. Other than needing someplace to chill until I could meet up with Stephanie, I also needed a place where I could charge my cell phone and tie into some free wifi.

(Yes, yes. The problems that face a techno-hobo. It could be worse.)

Of course, a library security guard walked by every 10 minutes or so. Always a different guard. One guy, at the table in front of me … that had been occupied by a cute blonde girl who looked too sad to be anything but a runaway. The dirty old letch who found her and complained that he'd been looking for her all day sort of completed the picture.) seemed to be used to the patrol pattern. He unpacked his sack, tried to air out his clothes,and packed it all back in less than five minutes. Two tables up, a couple of the older guys were talking. One was mentioning a place he might spend the night... some guy who lets him in to take a shower. From the conversation, I gathered there was some give and take that I probably didn't want to know about.

One of two of them eyed me suspiciously. Generally they paid me no mind.

But none of them asked me for a cigarette or spare change, either.

Guess they knew better. An easy mark in Lexington isn't difficult to find. They all wear khakis. And green shirts.

The thing is, even in a place like this... and while I feel less antipathy towards the city, I do, nonetheless find that I can't forgive the overall lack of humanity... it's encouraging to know there are good people with good hearts and good souls and solid heads on their shoulders. Stephanie is one of those people; because even though I haven't seen her in probably ten years, she still opened her home to me. Her little house in Nicholasville reminded some of the house in Mount Carroll... except that it was in much better shape, and probably only dated back to the 1940's, not the 1910's. It has older house issues, which she's working through. But she's also not willing to go into debt. She's a planner and a doer. She dreams of maybe selling the house and moving to New York. She thinks maybe she might just stay where she is. But there's always been this thing about Stephanie... this thing I've always's liked. She doesn't compromise on her vision. She's not afraid to take risks (including home ownership... more of a risk than those vulture-like realtors would have you believe). 

And that's really, as far as I can tell, the only way to walk through the world. Without compromise and in the face of enormous risk.

Here in Lexington, though, if you are a bit scruffy looking, remember:

It's probably best to avoid eye contact. And please: Do not feed the khaki-ed animals.

[I need to extend my thanks here to Tina Stretton, who found the correct number and name contact at Greyhound Bus Lines in order to convince them they ought to be letting me ride for free. In addition to some piece of my immortal soul... which admittedly, isn't worth much... I also owe Tina my eternal gratitude. Or an overall percentage, whichever is less. 

If you like what you read here, you can help by:

1. Passing the link around.
2. Graciously donating to the cause using the button on the right hand side of the screen;
3. Contact Catherine Sellers at Greyhound, 415-331-6049. Tell them you are asking about a sponsorship when the operator picks up. 

Thanks for reading.]

Porkopolis, Part 2: The Return of Creepy Louis

"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." - Albert Camus.


"You call that an argument?" - The Cincinnati Kid  (1965)

It took me three runs, but I FINALLY got us out of the storage locker. We (Melissa and I) have been paying the monthly rent on that space since 2005. Being out from under it feels like Sisyphus rolling the stone over the top of the hill.

There's something odd about sifting through the remains of a life; because that's ultimately what I've been struggling to do this week. Sift through and try to learn to let go.

And it's not easy. I can't help but remember that once upon a time, we were happy.

There's a point, though, when all that memory becomes either nostalgia or absurd. There's a point where you can either laugh about how ridiculous it all is or being dragged under weight of memory.

So I spent last night with friends -- finally catching up with Aaron K. He, his girlfriend, and once again with my friend Eric M, who was gracious enough to drive through a torrential rain to pick me up. We were, once again, down at the Cock and Bull... because not only was it Pint Night ($5 Peroni and you get to keep the glass), but because it was Aaron's birthday. He turned 38, which is one of those years that means nothing other than you're creeping perilously close to 40. And 40 is one of those ages that men tend to view as some sort of mile marker on the road of inevitable decline.

Aaron's been teaching at the University Cincinnati as a part-timer. That was after being a full time instructor and not having his annual contract renewed. I first met Aaron when I started teaching at UC's University College and he was the embedded tutor in my class. (In what can only be consider karmic fate, I ended up being the tutor in one of his classes at the CAT. He was, true to form, very gracious.) In talking to Aaron, I was once again struck by his dedication and his continued passion about teaching. And although I'm certain he's being screwed like a drunk co-ed on wet t-shirt night at the frat bar, he still goes in and gives it his best.

As a matter of fact, he told me the that the couple of weeks he wasn't teaching were awful. Talking to him about teaching was just one more indication to me that I did the right thing in walking away from it. If Aaron can maintain the passion to teach, in spite of the egregious treatment he receives at the hands of the weasels who run that place, then he is the kind of person who needs to be there. And I am the kind of person who needs to be somewhere else.

Sifting through all crap in the storage unit and deciding what to keep and what to throw away was in itself an absurd exercise. It made me think about leaving on the Greyhound Bus to go to Arizona... my big chance at a full time teaching gig. I left Melissa behind to take care of things... pack up and scoot out. She had some help moving things into storage... one of the guys I worked with at the CAT, someone I considered (and still do) a friend, Kyle D... helped move my boxes of books.

How's that saying go?

Friends will help you move;

Good Friends will help you move dead bodies;

Real Friends will lug your books for you.

In deciding to finally get the storage unit off our list of bills, Melissa and I decided that I would keep only what I was important. There were a few things she wanted... a box of files, her high school art. I kept my books... getting rid of the collection of textbooks... an old Royal typewriter... one what my brother would refer to (fondly) as "analog habits"... and one or two other knick knacky things.

(One of the books I saved)

Everything else -- gone. One less tie that binds.

Among the things that are gone is Creepy Louis:

(The batteries in this 2 foot tall toy are dead, but it's supposed sing and move.)

I've a been a fan of Louis Armstrong since high school because he played the trumpet. (I used to play the trumpet.) "What a Wonderful World" is probably one of my favorite songs. As time goes by, the song retains meaning for me, gains mythic resonance.... precisely because the world is NOT a wonderful place. At least, not all the time. There are moments when the world is a wonderful place. But those moments are fleeting. And we have to learn how to embrace them.

And we have to learn how to let them go.

[Special thanks to ERIC MAST for his generous donation to the re:visionary cause. And to you, faithful readers, please consider helping me in my ongoing attempt to convince Greyhound Bus Lines that they should bus me around the country, it has been suggested to me that instead of asking people to call the corporate headquarters and talk to CEO David Leach, I should direct inquires to the Marketing Department. This, based on the Executive Bios, seems to fall under the purview of Ted. F. Burk, Senior VP of Corporate Development. If you like what you read here, please do one or all of these:

1. Share the link with as many people as possible.
2. Click on the DONATE button to keep me going.
3. Call Greyhound (214-849-8000) and ask for Ted F.Burk. Tell him they need to bus me around. Tell them it's good PR. Tell the they need the help. Thanks!   

Porkopolis, Intermezzo 2:

"Sometimes solutions aren't so simple / Sometimes goodbye's the only way." - Linkin Park

(From the pub's website and virtual tour)

There wasn't as much of a crowd as I had hoped.

Sometimes it's easier to read when the room is full, especially when it's an unfamiliar one. I'd been getting used to reading in front of people at the open mic I helped start back in Mount Carroll; after six months of sometimes entertaining but most likely offending a fair number of religious folks and farmers I think I managed to get my stage legs, such as they are, back. (Not often the farmer's wives, though. I have found that, generally, farmers'wives are an unshakable lot; it's generally the husbands that get a nervous about colorful language around their womenfolk. But the wives have been dealing with blood and animal husbandry for years.)

I didn't know what to expect, other than to expect a bar -- which is a different crowd than a coffee house full of church goers. The Motr Pub in Over-The-Rhine... well, in the more gentrified section of Over-The-Rhine, along Main Street ... is a nice space that is destined to be replaced by some other bar with a slightly different decor. I couldn't remember what was there when I lived in Cincinnati; but according to friend and fellow writer Mark Flanigan, there was a bar named Coopers in that space in 2005. And before that, another bar. It's just one of the spaces, he told me, where bars move in, fail, move out, and another one moves in.

Because I've organized and hosted a number of open mics in a variety of spaces, I expected it to be a music heavy event. Other than that, I had no other expectations. It's better to walk into those kinds of situations expecting very little.

But before I was at the Motr Pub, trying to decide what I should read for whatever audience might show up, I was standing in front of a classroom for the first time in three years. Standing in front of a classroom is a different experience altogether than standing on a stage. It's true that there's some element of performance in being a teacher... at least if you aspire to be a good teacher... but teaching implies a certain power structure that's absent in most any other similar situation.

My friend Allen, who I met when we shared an office at the now non-existent University College -- which eventually became the now extinct Center for Access and Transition -- at the University of Cincinnati.(Which, in an attempt to put that final nail in writing... their PhD in Creative Writing wasn't enough... recently announced a new School of Journalism, which will matriculate thousands of "content providers" for the corporate owned news services.) Allen helped get me an adjunct teaching gig at Chatfield College -- a job I eventually quit over a well-founded and articulate disagreement over their choice of ENG 101 text. (It's my assertion that all textbooks... the writing ones, at any rate ... are a waste of time, a waste of paper, and cost too god damn much... and lately, written so that any schmuck who can read at the 5th grade level is somehow qualified to teach college composition.)

Allen asked if I could visit his class and talk about poetry... so they could meet "a real, live, working poet." I said yes, primarily because Allen asked me and he's my friend. I also said yes because poetry gets a bad wrap. All the time. And it doesn't get a bad wrap anywhere worse than in Freshman Writing classrooms. In fact, other than Hallmark greeting cards, the other thing that has tried to strangle poetry in this country is higher education.

What?


Yes.

But I thought colleges and universities produced poets and protected the memory of poetry for posterity.


Sure. In the same way that the Nuremberg Trials protected the memory of Adolf Hitler.

?


Don't get me started.

The class was fun. I was nervous because I hadn't been in that Teacher Space in what felt like forever. Three years ISN'T that long of a time. But it is, in some ways. Especially when it comes to something like teaching.

But the class was gracious and after I talked a little about poetry and got a sense of what they knew... and what they didn't know... and after I forgot, because I was so twitterpaited. the difference between alliteration and assonance... the class and I read through the poems I had brought along. It was interesting, listening to them read my work. Of course, they were far more interested in what inspired the poems... which is something I generally don't talk about. The poems should speak for themselves, and if I had wanted to write a story, I would have. But I also think it's important to be a bit more gracious with students than with other people.

Later, at the reading, the thing I noticed was that not only was there not a lot of people, but that no one else was a reader. A handful of musicians... some pretty talented ones, I have to admit... had come to play and showcase their original pieces. There was, of course, only one problem.

Every song they sang was, for the most part, fucking depressing.

"Don't people write happy songs?" I asked Mark, who had come out to hear me read.

"When's the last time you listened to a happy song?"

I had to think about it. It had been a while. That didn't make me wrong, though. I knew for a fact there were happy songs. Somewhere. Big Rock Candy Mountain? "But still..."

"Shit," Mark said. "What was the last time you wrote a happy poem?"

He had me there.

When I stood up to read, the only person who clapped was Mark... because he's a good sport and because he's always been supportive of my writing and because, according to him, it had been 7 years since he heard me read. I had trouble believing it had been that long. But it had.

Reading in a bar... even one that isn't all that crowded... means belting it out over the noise. Because there's always noise. And when I was finished, Mark and a few other people clapped. Mark because he's supportive. The others... maybe because I was finished.

Later Mark stood up to read... if you've never seen Flanigan perform, you're missing out and you should be ashamed of yourself... and he was well received. I was told after, however, by the host, a musician named Lucas who sometimes sounded like John Mayer and sometimes a watered down Chris Daugherty, informed me that my friend Mark wanted me to get up and read again,

And so I did. I belted it out with a glass of beer in my hand. And while I'm still sure no one was listening, it was good to know that I could still do it. It was also good to feel like I could read somewhere other than the open mic I helped start. And it was good to know that sometimes, you have to read it like a junk yard dog to be heard.

  

[In my ongoing attempt to convince Greyhound Bus Lines that they should bus me around the country, it has been suggested to me that instead of asking people to call the corporate headquarters and talk to CEO David Leach, I should direct inquires to the Marketing Department. This, based on the Executive Bios, seems to fall under the purview of Ted. F. Burk, Senior VP of Corporate Development. If you like what you read here, please do one or all of these:

1. Share the link with as many people as possible.
2. Click on the DONATE button to keep me going.
3. Call Greyhound (214-849-8000) and ask for Ted F.Burk. Tell him they need to bus me around. Tell them it's good PR. Tell the they need the help. Thanks!   

I'm leaving Cincinnati tomorrow morning and heading for Lexington. Look for my final Porkopolis chapter SOON]

Porkopolis In the Ice and Rain: Part 1

"The shit that used to work won't work now..." -Warren Zevon, "My Shit's Fucked Up"


Cincinnati, Ohio --


1.

Whenever I'm in Cincinnati, I always know exactly where I am. For all it's faults -- and it has more than a few -- Cincinnati has always felt like home to me.

I don't know how many times I've been in and out of the downtown Greyhound bus depot; when I think about it, the weight of them seem to amount to more than the actual number, leaves me feeling like I've been through the bus depot here more than anyplace else. Actually, my first long bus trip was on a Greyhound from New Orleans to Lexington, Kentucky. I don't think I left from the Cincinnati station until the move out to Arizona... and that was a three day bus trip.

But I digress... it's so easy to do when you fall out of time except for when you're catching a Greyhound bus.

Once we got east of Chicago and a little more south, the weather cleared up; and except for some traffic delay trying to get through traffic in downtown Indianapolis, the trip ran on time and I made it to Cincinnati without shitting myself or dying of thirst.

And allow me to shamelessly plug (in the hopes that perhaps, upon reading my well crafted words that Greyhound Bus Lines will see it to their advantage to let me ride for free and extol the virtues of seeing America via bus. Of course, if Amtrak gave me a the same deal, I'd just as quickly extol the virtues of seeing America by rail.

(Is that whoring? Maybe. But I'm trying to see visit my daughter, see America, and do it without going bankrupt. And while I do have what could be termed a "hitcher's thumb," I'm certain that I'm not pretty enough to be picked up by anyone except a serial killer who prefers chubby Irish German wayfarers.)

Not my thumb.

I can't tell you enough, faithful readers, just how much EASIER Greyhound Express Routes are. The buses are newer, have free wifi, and more leg room. Moreover, on this particular trip, the bus didn't have more than 10 people on it. So it wasn't a sardine can and I was able to stretch out in relative comfort.

(If this seems like solid schmoozing to you, please contact David Leach, President and CEO of Greyhound Bus Lines and remind him that they need all the good press they can get.)

Pulling into the Cincinnati Depot then, was only fairly anti-climactic... I disembarked, rushed in, and found the cleanest possible bus station toilet to take what can only be described as a near mystic shit.

(BTW: this is a random chart describing how hitcher's thumbs, a recessive trait, are passed on.  Non sequitur? Yes. Ask if I care. Go ahead. I wanted to find a picture of a nasty public toilet. This is better, no?)

Since my bus was a day earlier than I had told anyone, I was -- as you might recall, my few and far between faithful readers -- I was a bit stuck for a ride. My first attempt to get a ride had fallen through anyway, having been in touch with Alex the Feminist Super Warrior, a friend and former student who, for reasons still unclear, seems to enjoy hearing from me from time to time. Alas, she was scheduled to go to Columbus to some rally or meeting or Tits Only kind of gathering. And I knew better than to expect her risk pissing off feminists... because this is something that should only be done when ABSOLUTELY necessary.*

My second attempt was also a failure. I checked with my older brother. But he was in Atlanta on business.**

Considering the possibility that I would end up taking a taxi or... if  had no other choice, a Cincinnati Metro Bus, I put in a call to another old friend, Eric M. I met Eric when we were both teaching at Northern Kentucky University, and he later became my boss at the now defunct Center for Access and Transition at the University of Cincinnati.*** 

Luckily, Eric M. was home and nothing better to do -- or so he led me to believe and I allowed myself to think -- and he agreed to pick me up. 

It's always good to see old friends. Of course, I was famished, and thirsty, so Eric drove across the creek (aka, The Ohio River) to  Covington to The Cock and Bull. The Cock and Bull is located in the part of Covington referred to as The Mainstrasse. It's worth checking out. Not only does The Cock and Bull have enough beer for even the most casual beer aficionado^, but the menu prices are (city) reasonable.

This is only SOME of the on tap beer at the Cock and Bull. I would've posted a picture of the burger, but it didn't last long enough. It was delicious. Medium Rare, baby!)

 After a few beers and some much needed conversation, Eric M. drove me out to Anderson, one of the burbier places in the Greater Cincinnati Area. My Mom lives in Anderson, in a condo she bought a few years after my dad died. Eric M. has had a hell of year, and I've had what can be described as an interesting year... especially the last month or so... and we traded war stories and showed one another our scars. Eric M. is one of the majority of people who have, in one way or another, been screwed over by the economy. And because of the sheer number of Institutions of Higher Stupidity within the Greater Cincinnati Area, it's hard to make a decent wage as a college teacher. He's not married, which is probably one of the couple of things that's saving his ass from destitution. But he does have mortgage, a cat that's been old and sick for as long as I can remember, and very nearly Zen Garden -- pretty impressive for an Italian Catholic -- he spends a lot of time and money on when it's gardening season. He's also a good writer... when he actually writes. 

He's also had to deal with finding a the body of a dear friend and fellow tutor after he didn't show up for work. Adam, the friend ... though not a friend of mine ... committed suicide. I've sat with people when they died, and I've found people in conditions that could have led to their deaths. But I've been fortunate thus far, not to have to find a friend who killed himself. FORTUNATE.

Eric isn't the kind of person to call himself a victim of the times... he's too old fashioned and manly to do something like that... but I found it telling when a man whose ability as a teacher and a tutor impressed me early says to me 

"I don't know. I think I might be close to selling out."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"To the highest bidder," he said. 

[More later in the week, faithful few. I need to thank Eric Collins for his generous contribution to the re:visionary fund. If you like what you're reading at all, please think about donating to keep me on the road so I can keep writing about the America that everyone sees and no one talks about. Also: the phone number for the Greyhound Bus Lines Corporate Offices is: 214-849-8000]

*I know this from experience, dear readers. Oh yes. I know.

**My brother is one of those guys who gets Frequent Flyer Points and classifies the Hampton Inn as an "alright" hotel.

***This program was geared for students whose reading, writing, and math skills weren't sufficient to get into Freshmen General Ed classes. The program was eventually canned because UC cares more about looking good than education. If you are so inclined, email Greg Hand, VP of Media Relations, and tell him UC is proof of the decline of American Education.

^I define a beer aficionado as anyone who knows that Budweiser, while it's cheap and will get you drunk, really isn't beer. It's the chilled and homogenized piss of bourgeois beer makers who drink real beer and laugh at middle American schlulbs who don't know the difference.)