A Life of Reading Words
Of course I will have to write something a bit more about this (how could I not?), but for now here’s this:
For now, I am stunned into silence. More later.
xoxox
We debate the alcohol thing. We go back and forth, forth and back again on what makes one the “ic” of the word. Al-co-hol-ic. Obsessed with the bottle. In love with the devil inside. Is it a drink a day without fail, failing to quit? or is it the excess? Can’t stop until can’t stand up? I wish I knew. I know both kinds.
There’s this woman. She has a drink a night. Like clockwork she opens the bottle. Tells anyone who will listen just how much she “deserves” it after a day like the one she’s had. Let her tell you. She’ll go on and on about the day she’s had. Suggest a night without a drink and she’ll accuse you of not hearing her. Didn’t she just tell you what kind of day she just had? Didn’t she just say she deserved it?
There’s this guy. He drinks once or twice a month. Unlike the steady drinker of just one a night he makes up for lost time and downs doubles until he can’t see straight. Can’t walk a fine line. Can’t remember his own name. Passes out while knocking on a stranger’s door. Six packs become thirty packs which in turn become the icebreaker for 151 and SoCo cold. Wakes up with blood bruised knuckles face down in his own vomit on an unfamiliar street. Doesn’t happen all the time. Just whenever he drinks.
I’ve been listening to Natalie quite a bit and one song that has been tearing me up is “The Living.” I don’t know how to describe it other than it’s about alcoholism – that relationship with the bottle. She took inspiration from knowing someone who had it all, someone who didn’t need anything until the drink came into his life. Then, the drink became his life. As Natalie says, “the bottle’s been to me my closest friend and my worst enemy.” She makes no secret that this person was someone great until he threw it all away for the devil inside.
We debate this thing. Back and forth. What puts the “ic” in alcoholic? When is enough enough?
I was researching a poem for April’s poetry month when I came across one I can recite by heart, thanks to Natalie. She sang it during the Hiro shows as one of those ad libs, patter moments: Thought I would share because it’s so darn cute. Imagine a yawn at the end…
The Sleepy Giant
My age is three hundred and seveny-two,
And I think, with the deepest regret.
How I used to pick up and voraciously shew
The dear little boys whom I met.
I’ve eaten them raw, in their holiday suits;
I’ve eaten them curried with rice;
I’ve eaten them baked, in their jackets and boots,
And found them exceedingly nice.
But now that my jaws are too weak for such fare,
I think it exceedingly rude
To do such a thing, when I’m quite well aware
Little boys do not like being chewed. *insert giggle here*
[Little boys do not like being chewed.]
And so I contentedly live upon eels,
And tryto do nothing amiss,
And I pass all the time I can spare from my meals
In innocent slumber – like this.
[In innocent slumber like this…]
Carryl, Charles E. “The Sleepy Giant.” The New Oxford Book of Children’s Verse. Ed. Neil Philip. Oxford UP, 1996. 95-96.
I go through phases. Musically obsessed, I will listen to one artist over and over again until something takes me off course. I am not exactly sure what dictates this audio gorging, but I’ve always been this way. Ask my mother and she’ll tell you about an ABBA cassette I wore out in the 7th grade. Get me hooked on something and I don’t give it up. Won’t give it up. Ever since kisa was able to get bootlegs of BubbleGum I have been in his audience for months now. Sometimes I’m the back, absently humming along. Other times I’m right up in the front row, screaming my heart out. Daily doses of BubbleGum. Two nights ago I watched Any Given Thursday back to back with a New York show from earlier this year, trying to reconcile 2002 with 2007. I still can’t believe it’s the same guy! Just last night kisa found a secret show, something recorded at 1am. Intriguing.
Recently though, thanks again to kisa, I’m back to my Natalie obsession. Almost like coming full circle. It started in 1998 and most recently came around again when my knight put a gigantic, humungous pair of headphones on my head and said something about Noise Blocking Technology. The latest. I couldn’t hear him. Not one word. “Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re saying.” His mistake was pushing play and letting the cd spin. I couldn’t hear him, didn’t want to hear him… for Natalie had begun to sing.
I admit it. I have missed this voice. I have missed the anger, the passion that always bubbles up from somewhere secret when her lyrics hit me. Tonight I relived Live in Concert (1999). Natalie has always conquered the tough subjects in her songs. I could sense the rage simmering as Natalie sang, “there’s a world outside this room and when you meet it promise me you won’t meet it with your gun taking aim” (Gun Shy, 1987). She was talking to her baby brother about joining the military but all I could think about was Cho Seung-Hui. What made him meet his world with a gun taking aim – just days before the anniversary of Columbine? Would this tragedy get to Natalie as much as 4/20/1999 did? Would she write about Seung-Hui as she had about Harris and Klebold? Tell me. What makes someone’s hatred so untouchable, his alienation so absolute? When does taking aim become the only answer to desperation? I’m hoping Natalie explores the unexplicable because it’s time to hear her voice again, to hear her ask the tough questions.
~*LunaSea*~ 