Monthly Archives: July 2015

No Respect

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Bagpipes get no respect.

Q. What’s the definition of perfect pitch?
A: When you toss a banjo in the dumpster — swish, nothin’ but net — and it hits the bagpipes.

We went to a roots music concert last week, one in which I was the announcer. There was a piper but I was good. I didn’t tell a single bagpipe story and it about killed me not to.

I live in the middle of the Florida Keys on an island I can drive to. Three generations of my family has owned that house, so we have some history but we are newcomers compared to the real conchs.

Q: What’s the first thing a bagpiper says when he knocks on your door?
A: “Pizza!”

I wasn’t even born when the (pre-Global Warming) Labor Day hurricane destroyed the Florida East Coast Overseas Railroad or when Key West’s Mallory Square was the anchorage of pirates, the the center of the shipwrecking industry, or the assembly point of American forces for four wars.

I also missed the Mallory Square Sunset Celebrations of the 60s when the hippies and gypsies and freaks would watch Atlantis rise mythically out of the sunset clouds.

My first drive across the 7-Mile bridge was an eye opener. Florida DOT built the road on top of Henry Flagler’s historic “railroad that went to sea.” They poured two narrow lanes of concrete, then painted the old tracks white and used them as guardrails. The lanes were so narrow that two trucks would slap mirrors passing. Until 1982, when the adjoining new bridge opened, it was the only road cars could take to Key West.

My first memory of Mallory Square in Key West was a funky free-for-all with creosote piers and gravel and street vendors. The Cookie Lady was there as were artists and jugglers, jewelry crafters and a cat herder, and the southernmost bagpiper.

Alfred Hitchcock once said, “I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made object never equaled the purity of sound achieved by the pig.”

We’ve done the proper touristy stuff. We took selfies at mile marker 0 and at the Southernmost point. We have paraded with the pets at Fantasy Fest. And we have dangled our feet over the edge of the pier, waiting for sunset.

You can’t do that at Mallory Square any more. It is too clean, too concrete and the cruise ships have replaced the pirates.

Will Soto was setting up his high wire poles one evening when SWMBO and I were indeed sitting on the edge of the pier with our (bare) feet perhaps a yard or so above high tide.

“Tonight will be the best night of the year,” Mr. Soto said to us as he set one pole right behind us. He wandered away, pulling his wire with him and worked on the other pole.

Then he came back.

“Tonight will be the best night of the year,” he said again as he tightened the two guy wires. I figured this was just the normal hyperbole, drumming up trade. We were, of course, the trade. This combination of work and commentary continued for a couple more round trips.

He finally went back to the other pole to do the same and then returned.

“Tonight will be the best night of the year,” he said and I couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Why is that,” I asked.

“The bagpiper called in sick.”

 

66

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Wow. I turned 66 this year. I can smell my impending 50th high school reunion and I’ve long passed my 40th college. I founded an arts council 33 years ago. George Orwell and I started a business 31 years ago. It’s six years since I shaved my head. A year since I qualified for Medicare. A day since I reached “full retirement age.”

Today is Monday, July 20, the 201st day of 2015. On this day 46 years ago, astronaut Neil Armstrong took one small step …

I’ve had an epiphany. I don’t want to retire. Mostly.

My mom had a real problem when I turned forty. “How can a 39-year-old woman have a 40-year-old son,” she asked me. My own son mentioned that he’s just eight years from retirement.

Say what???

My mom was about my age now when she stepped out on Gay Street in West Chester and darned near got run over by a cab.

“The headline in the Daily Lack of News flashed before my eyes,” she told me: “‘Elderly woman smushed by hack’.”

Elderly?

I don’t like the idea that this is middle age, let alone geezerhood, this time when before a hard day of yard work my manly brain feels like 40 and after a hard day of yard work my manly body feels like 80. I suppose it’s justified.

Or maybe I just need some exercise. I almost put “more” there, but I am supposed to be a teller of truths.

I need to plan for my mid-life crisis.

I’m getting stale in my job and in the arts council. When I ran for the Legislature, I campaigned for term limits. Staleness was one of the reasons I gave.

So I’m making lists. Lists of the things I want to do, lists of the things I don’t, and lists of the things that would be fun but I won’t. It’s interesting (to me) that the lists seem to have stuff that belongs on a resume, rather than stuff that belongs on a tombstone. I don’t know what’s up with that. One interesting exercise is over here in the form of a “did ya do it” list.

The BIG chunk of my life that I spent goofing off in school, hanging around noisy greasy places like race tracks, and pursuing wanton women–usually shamelessly and usually unrequitedly–was only a single decade.

WANTs
A long time ago I discovered that my ideal job was to be paid (handsomely) to sit around being a Very Smart Person. People in my company (and even others) could seek me out and pose questions. After appropriate rumination, I would — in Carnac-brilliance — provide answers. A Fortune 500 company is the best place to have that happen. Big companies or even divisions of same have the necessary support staffs to keep a smart person looking smart.

I do sit around now being a Very Smart Person. People do seek me out and pose questions. And after rumination, I do provide answers with appropriate fanfare. I guess the down side, and the reason this job is not satisfying enough, is that I am also the support staff required to keep this smart person looking smart. Google has become a lifeline.

Although that is still my ideal, I haven’t found a Fortune 500 willing to provide the desk. Of course, the search might go faster if I actually, well, looked.

It’s still up there on my list.

~

FUN BUT I WON’Ts
Race cars. Probably not even vintage. BTDT. Have the Nomex long johns. They still fit. If I stretch them a little.

Get a pilot’s license. Can’t afford it.

Race boats. That’s like racing cars in three dimensions.

~

DON’T WANTs
Plenty of examples but really just one category. I went south last fall and discovered I needed to repair my roof. I came north this spring and discovered I needed to replace the water heater and fix the lawnmower.

The category? Home repairs. BTDT. I’d like to retire from that.

~

DON’T WON’T NOT EVERs
Twenty-mumble years ago, I ran for the state legislature. I still like the idea of telling people what to do, but the gamesmanship has gotten worse and it just doesn’t interest me today.

Work at Walmart.

Work in a factory. Been there, done that, have the scars.

~

WOT TO DO, WOT TO DO
It’s time for a little shift. I’ve been putting more emphasis on the commercial side of my photography so I have an online gallery and everything, but you can still buy a photo from me direct. And I’ll keep on telling stories. And solving universal questions like why can’t we teach kids to do math.

My big epiphany is pretty simple. Like most folks, I’ve found that the things I don’t want to do keep getting in the way of the things I do. I need a support staff so here’s your chance.

HELP WANTED: Support staffer able to raise enough business to keep me in the guru seat and the rest of the staff employed.

Easy peasy!

The Proust Questionnaire
I believe Marcel Proust answered these questions every five years:
• what do you consider your greatest achievement?
• what is your idea of perfect happiness?
• what is your current state of mind?
• what is your favorite occupation?
• what is your most treasured possession?
• what or who is the greatest love of your life?
• what is your favorite journey?
• what is your most marked characteristic?
• when and where were you the most happiest?
• what is it that you most dislike?
• what is your greatest fear?
• what is your greatest extravagence?
• which living person do you most despise?
• what is your greatest regret?
• which talent would you most like to have?
• where would you like to live?
• what do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
• what is the quality you most like in a man?
• what is the quality you most like in a woman?
• what is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
• what is the trait you most deplore in others?
• what do you most value in your friends?
• who is your favorite hero of fiction?
• who are your heroes in real life?
• which living person do you most admire?
• what do you consider the most overrated virtue?
• on what occasions do you lie?
• which words or phrases do you most overuse?
• if you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
• what are your favorite names?
• how would you like to die?
• if you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
• what is your motto?