On the Proper Use of Trail Mix and the Nature of Skin(response to a letter from a friend)
The whole real/unreal thing always throws me for a loop. I don’t really get it. For something to be real, does it have to be permanent? If that’s the case, then nothing is real. Love can’t last longer than a heart, and hearts give out. Unless, of course, you believe in the long embrace of the afterlife. I mean, according to some folks, we’d be too busy to hold hands anyway, hot dogging it over brimstone or singing praises in, I don’t know, 36-part harmony? Cool idea, the singing. Walking fearless through the shadowed valley into the glorious light of the Lord, eating a trail mix of joy and bliss and berries on our way. This all feels like crap.
The answer isn’t in a classroom either. Science and philosophy regularly fumble some of the big stuff, because they are too often based on a narrowing of vision at the expense of the periphery. And not just that. Take evolution. Plenty of facts in the ground for that one. Though some of the dots may be missing, there are more than enough on the page to connect and get the picture. But to suggest evolution supports a hierarchical understanding of life, or that it justifies the endless assault of social Darwinism on our better instincts, is just mind-numbing. That isn’t extrapolation; it’s imposition. Blinkered eye out, dead eye in. But you know what they say about the one-eyed man in the land of the blind, so crap is king.
You have to see in and out at the same time. You have to look. The yearning to understand has to be stronger than the yearning to prove. And so much of understanding is in our skin.
Consider the practice of philosophy. Reading is a significant part of it. So is rumination to build synaptic “muscle.” But if you want to have something to say about the world, you have to be in it, absorb it, and be wholly absorbed by it. Not through conferences or speaking invitations or a neatly fenced program of “study abroad.” These things are fine, but limited, controlled, protected. You need to be alone and loose on the streets, in villages and jungles and deserts and cities. Starting with no direction, so you discover who you are in that place as you build the story of it with every step you take. You have to go where you’re afraid to go. That’s part of how you know you have to go there. And is it corny to say you have to be in the moment? You do. You can’t take yourself out of the equation. You can’t understand a thing without you.
Of course, not every journey is geographic. Anais Nin wrote about cities of the interior. There are worlds on both sides of our skin. Some of the best trips go both ways. Maybe love happens when we yearn for those worlds and they yearn for us and one another all at once. What trembly bliss might then ripple on the surface of our skin and under it?
But I don’t know. All that yap about dream and reality eludes me. I generally can’t tell the difference between the two. If you think you’re in love, you’re in love. The rest is just finding out what that means. You have to go there. If you’ve got a one-way ticket in your hand, it’s because that’s the only way. All that “planning” for a future you won’t get hurt in is just what you tell yourself to convince yourself it’s a good idea to get on the bus. Just get on while the door’s open.
Look, you can only get hurt to the extent it matters. And if it matters that much, what are you going to do? Sit around and think about it? Maybe pack the trail mix. I don’t know what kind.
90 in the Shade
One of the people I met when I first slid down to Jacksonville was Rob Thomas. Rob hosted “90 in the Shade,” a radio magazine on WJCT, Jacksonville’s public radio station. I’d heard the program a couple times and liked it a lot, so I was glad to find out I’d been booked to interview with him.
Rob was great. I’d been traveling and touring about, but working with him wasn’t just another gig. It was more of a good sit down with a new pal. Despite all the techy things around, I felt at home in that little Studio A. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It was all about him, really. His manner. His voice. A terrific voice. Natural. Unforced. Warm. Given to laughter. With a bit of a break in it that somehow made it comfortable to be around. You can hear it on the EP, “Live at 90 in the Shade .” You’ll see what I’m talking about.
Over a few years, Rob had me on the program more times than I can count. Sometimes planned; sometimes spur of the moment. I made sure to always have something new for him. Prose to read or a song to sing. Something to try out. “Out of the Blue” was like that. I’d just come back from the MacDowell Colony where I’d written a bunch of songs, and I kind of liked that one. Rob’s show was a chance for me to hear what it sounded like when I played it for people I didn’t know.
On occasion he had me scurrying. There’d be a sudden cancellation, and Rob would ask me to fill in. In the hour or two before air time, I’d write a song. “El Dorado” was one of those. My dreidel song, too. I’d be halfway through the show and start in on whatever new thing I had, wondering if I’d remember the words. I usually did, more or less. Or I made new ones up as I went. It was fun.
Now and again, I’d play an old tune simply because it came up in conversation. Even if I’d never played it before. Like “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime.” You know, faking it. But not really. Just being in the moment. A nice place to be.
I’m talking about these things like they are in the past, like those peculiar times are gone. But about everything we think we know of time is bullshit. We imagine if we can’t put a finger on a thing, it’s not there, so we’re just a bunch of folks poking around in the dark, looking for something we can’t recall what it is. Fuck a duck. The trick is to make it up as you go along. You get better at it.
“Live at 90 in the Shade” has a few of the performances I did on Rob’s program. I don’t have many of them. Rob says he thinks he has bunch hidden away in Georgia. I hope he gets around to digging them out. I’d like to hear them again. But he doesn’t need to find them to have my thanks. He’s got that.
Go to Live at 90 in the Shade.
