You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June 2008.
Blue.
Kind of Blue.
I
I, eye,
aye-aye.
Blue Miles blue.
Blue Coltrane blue.
Blue skies…smiling at me, nothing but
Blue suede…
Blue Jean,
I just met a girl named…
Solo (eight bars).
I just met…
(She’s always been here.)
No you didn’t.
Blue Cab.
Calloway.
I say blue you say what.
Blue-what
blue-what.
Blue moon,
You saw me standing alone…
No I didn’t.
No you didn’t.
Pint o’ Blue Moon
on the double.
Solo (eight bars).
Secondhand blues.
Blue Monk.
…behind blue eyes,
blue suede
songs sung blue.
Flim.
Blue Velvet.
Blue Bird.
Blue Christmas.
Flam.
Blue train.
Blue (da be dee).
Old Blue.
Scootin’ scam.
Cab again, heidi-ho.
And again.
Solo (eight bars).
Back in black,
And blue.
Blues Explosion,
Blue funk.
Funky blue.
Krupa kind of blue.
Blakey kind ‘a blue.
Rich, Roach, Cozy Cole ‘a blue.
Old blue, Blue Heat, Chasing Blue Skies,
California Blue, Mamie Blue,
Kind and blue.
Blue ‘Trane.
Train in vain
Does not clash with blue.
Cerulean.
Solo (four bars).
Coda.
Outro.
Three more bars
Of blue
under the blue moon of Kentucky.
Watch it now
here it come,
watch it…
End.
If you’re an eco-minded, concerned individual, you might want to check out this blog. This site has been tweaked and worked on for the last few weeks, and it’s finally ready for prime time. There is a list of helpful, updated resources included—the crown jewel of which is an environmental tech company providing software for reusable materials exchanges (think the friendlier, customizable and measurable alternative to Freecycle or Craigslist), which is now reaching down into the lower 48 from Canada (iWasteNot Systems). The great state of Washington already boasts several of these local exchanges, but then that’s understandable. Washington has long been at the forefront of eco-awareness, mandating environment-friendly legislation even as recently as June 19th, when senator Patty Murray included $90 million in funding for the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund (PCSRF) for salmon restoration projects throughout the Pacific Coast region. Check out the free “browser for eco-minded people” on the left hand side of the home page. We’ve been using it for several weeks. The hope of my other half is to update the blog weekly, however it is all dependent on whether or not she can drag herself away from this new gig at iWasteNot Systems.
No thanks.
She says:
–I can’t drink anything like this. I mean, I can do like the chocotini or the appletini but this, with gin and…
No thanks. I don’t take anything in it. Not even olives. Not a dirty one. Not a vodka one. Oh God, definitely not mixed with that. No thanks.
– …like, I just wouldn’t be able to do it.
She places it just below my nose, on a foam coaster with a drawing of a blue hog. I am alone. There is a match on the giant high-def behind me, but we’re at the half. My team is losing. I am alone in this pub at two-thirty in the afternoon on a Tuesday. Two servers constantly walk by and ask if I’m all right.
No. But there’s no time to get into it. And no interest.
–Yes, thank you.
Yes, thank you.
And again.
Another server walks in. She asks for a glass of red wine. She leafs through the Independent, text messaging on her mobile with the left hand. She looks across the bar at me. She lights a cigarette. And then another. She dials a number. She talks loudly. I am saving the stool next to me for…
–Everything OK?
–Thank you, yes.
–Would you like another?
–Thank you, yes.
The stuff hits me like shards. Little bits of sharp glass burrowing into the skin from the feet up. The girl at the other end of the bar, the off-duty server, receives her order in a Styrofoam container. She talks loudly to the barkeep. She dials a number on the mobile. She waits. There is nothing. She lights another. The shadows move from the library, behind me, and bleed onto the corner of the bar. They creep up slowly. The barkeep shift changes. It’s now an older woman with a heavy Irish accent. She looks like Brenda Blethyn. I think they get these people out of Central Casting. Why would any Irishwoman want to be here? Now. In this part of the country? Serving at a pub? I don’t trust anything or anyone anymore. It’s all sent from Central Casting. It’s all manufactured for our pleasure. She asks in her Irish accent what’s mine. I tell her.
–Twist of lemon peel?
I say no.
–Olive? Onion?
I don’t want a salad. Just a martini.
–Thank you, nothing.
The off-duty server gathers her things and leaves. She walks by and shoots a look and smiles. I smile back. She’s followed by another young woman in black uniform. In transit:
–Everything OK here?
Shards. Absurdity. Contradiction between the desire of human reason and the unreasonable world.
–Peachy keen.
I don’t know why I say that. It’s smug. I’m not usually like that.
The contradiction must be lived; reason and its limits must be acknowledged, without hope. However, the absurd can never be accepted: it requires constant confrontation, constant revolt.
Peachy keen.
Dandy.
What in hell?
The sun moves. The second half begins. There is just me again. The barkeep has tucked her Irish self away somewhere and I’m left staring at the upside down bottles.
Bushmills. Johnnie Red. Black. Cutty. Chivas. Grouse.
And then some fancy stuff: Macallan. Glenmorangie. Abelour. Balvenie. Lowland, highland…I don’t know any of this stuff.
I am alone. Men in orange are fighting men in yellow on the high-def behind me. The volume to the match is down. The pub is blasting Phil Collins on the speakers. Then Bonnie Tyler. Then Wham. It’s a horrible time warp. The door opens and outside light floods the bar momentarily. It’s an old, decrepit woman with blue hair pushing a walker. The back legs have been shoved into cut-out tennis balls, in order for the walker to slide smoothly. She labours past me. She smiles. I smile back. She disappears somewhere. I don’t see her again.
–Another, sir?
–Thank you.
–Twist of lemon peel with that?
–No, no twist. Thanks.
(S)wine