Shipping Out to Boston: The Beantown Massacre (Verses 1 and 2)

And Alice... Remember Alice? The song's about Alice. -Arlo Guthrie

I'm tired of being civilized. Look for me Butte. -Utah Phillips

Verse 1

I'm leaving Boston by train. 20 minutes or so in and moving along more or less on schedule. Although my stay here was brief, and I saw hardly any of the sites people are supposed to see when they go someplace as historic as Boston – my friend and host, Eric (heretofore after known as Neil The Protestant Saint) did point in the direction of the bridge where The Actual Tea Party happened.

[My use of capital letters was intentional. With the Koch Brothers financing the cadre of yahoos known as The Tea Party – which consists primarily... though not ENTIRELY... of lower class whites disenfranchised by the power mongers and money changers (in the Biblical sense... think about it.)and older white folks who probably consider themselves middle or upper middle class... primarily because they still have the hope of retirement, Snow-birding in Florida or Arizona, and a cool, comfy grave... who are alternately afraid that some great brown or black horde is out to destroy their way of life and also afraid they might have to start paying legal wages to get their landscaping done. Of course, on a FUNDAMENTAL level, there's probably not a lot of difference between this current batch of crackers who don't want to pay taxes and the historical bunch of crackers who didn't want to pay taxes. Except the pantaloons and the tri-fold hats.]

I had such ambitions for my visit. I knew it was going to be brief. I knew I would be heading back to the Midwest – as I am right now – to take care of some remaining details regarding my current and ending marriage and to make plans for the future. I don't know if you've noticed a particular pattern over the last 31 posts; but if you have, one of them might possibly be a certain desire to avoid conflict and put off thinking about What I'm Going To Do Next.

[NOTE: THIS WILL BE THE TITLE OF MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY... ONLY BECAUSE AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT IS ALREADY TAKEN... IF I EVER FIND A GHOSTWRITER WITH A DREAM AND AN INDEPENDENT INCOME STREAM.]

The truth is, I normally find it challenging enough to live in the present without having to worry about the future. But this trip – and the ones that will follow – are, underneath the bad varnish and veneer of my procrastination, all about The Future.

And of all my friends, probably the one who most interested in The Future is my friend Neil. Like my brother, he is tech-savvy and probably too smart for his own good. And, knowing my situation, and because he and I have always enjoyed what I like to think of as a certain meeting of the minds – we both had a predilection to wander into trouble when we were younger and we both wanted to be writers and we both liked our bourbon (Life long friendships have been forged over far less important things.) – he has been quick to not only offer his friendship and moral support, but some much appreciated assistance in the monetary vein when it was most needed. He also arranged for my transport from New York to Boston via Bolt Bus, allowed me to meet his wife, Laura, and their gold retriever, Clementine.

[I was supposed to meet Laura a few years back, when they were married in a picturesque chapel outside of Bloomington, Indiana. I was teaching at Arizona State and Melissa and I were, as always, in some cycle of living paycheck to paycheck; and even though I had almost a year to try and figure out how to get to Bloomington, the same thing happened that has always seemed to happen... a bunch or random events, seemingly unrelated, but still oddly conspiratorial in their result. And so, I wasn't able to make the trip. But Neil did show me pictures from the wedding. It was very nice. I (still) felt appropriately guilty for missing it.]

Neil works in the IT Department at Harvard, though they are looking hard at trying to move in the next few years. Laura is in the process of building up a business out of their apartment in the suburbs– Pansy Maiden Handmade Purses. Neil told me, based on the progress she's making that he expects she will be the primary bread winner by the time he's 40.

Like many of my friends, Neil and Laura are trying to be healthier and more conscious of what they eat. As a result, they're now full-fledged vegans. Now, let me say that even though I still occasionally want a hamburger or a well prepared steak (there's really no point to any other kind and anything else is an insult to the cow and to the person eating it), and even though I like chicken and I like fish when it's properly prepared (for the similar reasons as listed above), I am not opposed to a mostly vegetarian diet. I like the food; and when it's done right, it doesn't have to be expensive. I don't know that I could give up eggs and cheese on a regular basis; but I understand the impulse. The drive behind it has to with striving to live as close to a healthy and pure life as possible. And while some folks take this to an almost obsessive extreme, Neil and his wife, like my friends Susan and Steve in New York, are thoughtful and rational about the whole process. In some ways, Neil's desire to pay attention to the nutrients he takes in reminds me a little of Arc in Washington, D.C. (Though Arc is far more obsessed in his approach; maybe it's some derivative impact of being an IT person of a particular generation, not of my brother's... though he is, in his own way, extremely particular.) And I must confess that both meals I had under Neil and Laura's roof – a vegan Sloppy Joe and baked brussel sprouts (the best way to eat sprouts, I now believe) and a vegan Shepherd's Pie that was also really very good with a little sea salt and pepper) – were both wonderful.

[People who cook confirm for me what I learned during the process of learning how to cook over the past decade: when you know how to cook, and when you're willing to play with your food in healthy ways, you don't have to spend a lot and you don't have to go hungry, and you don't have to eat garbage. Me, I'm a big fan in rice and beans. Learn it. Live it. Love it.]

Neil met me at Boston's South Station – a huge mass/public transit depot for Amtrak, commuter rail, and bus (Greyhound, Bolt Bus, Lucky Star, Peter Pan). Of the stations I've been in, South Station is one of the better conceived and better kept up. It has all the ambition of Union Station in D.C, but it's not in a state of perpetual construction; it has all the goods and services and kiosks that you expect in an urban transit center, but it's still laid out in a logical way. Boston may be a back water in comparison a place like New York; (even Neil admitted this was the case... and considering where he's from in Kentucky, he knows quite a bit about the nature, scope, and definition of back water. So I am inclined to trust his opinion... except maybe on his newly acquired interest in the Red Sox. At least they're not the fucking Yankees, damn their eyes.) however, at least they know how to build and maintain a train station.

As usual, the cold weather was also there to greet me, and we made our way through an entirely too brisk wind for such a mild winter to a restaurant where I ate a respectable mission burrito (rice, tomatoes, black beans and some guacamole. A nearly perfect meal.) and a cup of coffee. He then wanted to stop a bar, promising me beer with 10% alcohol (Budweiser has about 5%, by way of a loose … very loose … comparison.); but the bar was crowded. So we went on back to his and Laura's place in the burbs, the idea being we could drink there just as easily and far cheaper.

Verse 2

[A Brief Primer on Drinking and the Creative Process:

While it's true that I do and that I have spent many happy hours sitting in bars or in a friend's home drinking, it's not something I consider a real problem. Others may disagree. They are entitled. Since leaving Kentucky I've stayed – much to my surprise and sometimes to my dismay – amazingly sober. It's expensive to drink on road. And believe it or not, I have friends who don't drink. No. Really. Sober people occasionally enjoy spending time with me. Granted they may be laughing at me behind my back; but I'm usually too drunk to pay attention.]

When people have asked me what I studied in graduate school, I very rarely give a straight answer. This is due, no doubt, to a certain puckishness on my part; I'm just as apt to answer Mechanized Finger Painting as I am Professional Underwater Leg Shaver. Sometimes I tell people I majored in loafing as an undergraduate and went on to study the fine art of sloth and indolence in graduate school.

None of these – except Mechanized Finger Painting and Professional Underwater Leg Shaver (I have trouble holding my breath) – is really all that inaccurate. After all, I was (in truth) an English major. And what was worse, I was one of those who aspired to write.

[Now, all you English Majors out there, writers or not, who are screaming at your laptop about just how WRONG my characterization is, please do consider this: if you declared English as a major (May Gawd Have Mercy On Your Eternally Damned Soul) chances are, you like to read. I mean, at least slightly better than half. Say 51% chance. Right? (Nod in agreement.) Ok. So you have to read a lot of stuff you probably wouldn't have and you maybe don't give a good god damn about Dickens or Matthew Arnold or Alexander Pope or whether Sir Francis Bacon was the talent behind Shakespeare or whether it was really his sister Anne, or what. To be honest, I didn't give a damn, Except for the erotic literature (which probably isn't period and certainly isn't canonical), I LOATHE most of the Victorian Era … including Dickens, in spite of his massive social conscience. That he was paid per word, and published his works serially... I don't really object to. Dostoyevsky was paid by the word too, and wrote copiously... but at least he was doing something noble and trying to pay off gambling debts. The point is, essentially, you get to read. You have to learn how to write about what you read and become, in fact, BETTER readers. And if you don't like Return of the Native(which I like, having read it years later) or The Old Curiosity Shop(which I like in spite of Dickens. Hard Times, too. So Suck it.) you don't have to. You just have to be able to explain in precise and bloody terms WHY.]

One of the other things I often tell people is that I majored in GTA (That's GRAND THEFT AUTO, the video game) and beer. (When I was teaching, students especially enjoyed that particular description.) The reason I have told people that is that my entire last semester, other than teach, and work on my creative thesis (Buckeye Gumbo), I was half-assing my way through my one lit class, drinking a lot of beer, and playing video games. I lived in a house with a bunch of other guys who engaged in the same noble pursuit.

And it was nothing short of glorious. As a man, you never really understand yourself as a man until you admit that, even in your early 30's you need to drink beer, eat pizza, and play video games. Or do something else that is maladjusted and anti-social and potentially embarrassing for for friends, lovers, and family to have to explain to others (only when asked and usually with great trepidation.)

Neil was one of the guys who, even though he didn't officially live there – neither did I, for that matter – who was always there and engaged in what can only be described as the contemporary version of the scrotum scratching tribal drum circle that Robert Bly made himself famous for. For my part, I haven't picked up a game controller since we pawned the PS2 in Phoenix to help pay for the move. (Then again, I have moved on to other, more disreputable pursuits... journalism and gambling among them. It's also important to keep your sins down to a reasonable number... say, drinking plus 3. Plus 4 if it's a holiday.) Neil has a gamer's dream: 52 inch plasma screen (LCD isn't THX certified), a PS3 and and an Xbox. (It's important to have everything covered.) He's also got that set up where You Become The Controller.

So he made us drinks and we played darts. Virtual darts. Which I sucked at. But then again, they weren't real, so it didn't matter anyway....

The drinks were Rum and Ginger Ale. I don't normally drink rum, primarily because it doesn't always sit well in my system. Too much sugar maybe. But The only thing bourbon related he had was a partial pint of Jim Beam... which, when I mentioned it, I thought maybe he was ashamed. Maybe.

We spent the night catching up and talking about mutual friends, which is always nice. I had some updates since I've had the opportunity to visit old friends on this particular jaunt. Neil, who is much taller than I actually remember him being, spent a lot time talking about not only how he's happy with the direction of his life, and how happy he is with Laura, but also telling me that even though I'm going through something with the ending of my marriage to Melissa, that I also have a chance to make something good out of it.

“You can write yourself out of this,” he said.

It made me feel good... one, that he's been reading. And two, that he still knows me... even though we actually hadn't seen one another in person since I left Morehead in 2002.

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.]