Brendan

     I am not Jesus. If I were I would be ashamed. 2000 years ago he filled up people’s heads with a bunch of outrageous nonsense about paradise and eternity and drinking blood and eating flesh. He got really carried away there at the end and who could blame him? They were calling him the Messiah, for crying out loud. Any guy would start believing his own hype at that point. Of course, we all know how things worked out for him.
     The sad thing is that now people who are in trouble or desperate all cling to this idea of Jesus and what he can do for them. They find it comforting, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why. As far as I can tell Jesus has never done anything good for anybody that I’ve ever seen. I don’t ask him for anything and my life is a lot better than most of the people that pray to him everyday for just a little relief from the hell they are going through.
     Maybe everyone should let Jesus off the hook. We’ve all had friends that shot their mouth off and then couldn’t deliver what they promised. We rib them a little and say “Oh that’s Joe for you.” Then we let it go and realize not to torment the guy about some statement he made when he was drunk that he possibly couldn’t live up to.
     That’s what we should do for Jesus. Tell him we understand. He was talking out his ass and we’re not gonna hold him to it anymore. Think of how relieved he would be. People keep waiting for him to come back, but why would he? He must feel like a dick and the people who supposedly love him the most can’t just cut him some slack and tell him it’s okay. Try to do better next time.
     Then maybe Jesus would come back, start hanging out with his followers again. Maybe he could do little things here and there; house sit for somebody, pick someone up at the airport. Then people could appreciate him for the things he does to make life a little easier for them.
If he started getting a little nuts again with the rhetoric about salvation and eternal kingdoms one of us could pull him aside and remind him that’s what got him in trouble the last time because that’s what friends do. Apparently apostles don’t, but friends do. They watch out for the people they care about, and maybe that’s all Jesus needed in the first place.  We all need someone to watch out for us, and I’m just saying, maybe a guy you never met and only read about in a 2,000 year old book isn’t the best option.  
     Although I’m not sure how many people alive right now might be any better.
     So if I’m not Jesus, who am I? My name is Brendan and I’m twenty years old. I’ll get right to the important stuff. I’ve been drinking since I was 12, which was when my mom got remarried to some bastard who used to beat the shit out of her and me. He was a drunk and my mom became a drunk and it seemed like the only way to survive what was going on in that house.
I started sneaking sips from the liquor cabinet, and by liquor cabinet I mean the kitchen cabinet where they kept the booze, right next to the cereal. I got caught pretty quickly and after that beating I used to get my alcohol elsewhere. Some friend’s older sibling, paying some guy outside a bar, or just stealing it from the local store.
     Of course I soon started taking drugs. First smoking pot, then sniffing coke or crank. Now I’m 20 and I mostly smoke crack. It’s easier and fucks me up quicker. I can also function on it better if I have to. I’d much rather sit somewhere and relax and do it, but if need be I can go out in public, even drive somewhere if I have to.
       Don’t think I’m telling you this so you feel sorry for me. My life is not spiraling out of control, I’m not robbing stores and blowing guys for drug money. I’m an electrician and I make pretty good money. A friend of mine got me in the union when I was 18 and I turned out to be good at it. I’m a functioning part of society. I’ve put the abuse in the past where it belongs. At least I think I have. Of course, it that were true and I had truly put it behind me maybe I wouldn’t be smoking crack a couple nights a week.
     I keep it under control, though. I don’t stay up late if I happen to do it on a work night. Even on weekends I don’t stay up for days like some people I know. I know a lot of people who smoke crack. I know a lot of people who do all kinds of drugs, and they are people you know also. I know teachers, police officers, lawyers, bus drivers, construction workers, housewives…you name it.   They all do drugs. Real drugs, I’m not talking about coffee and cigarettes.
     A lot of the people who smoke crack are annoying. I can do it and sit around with my friends and talk and play video games or whatever. Most people tend to  get paranoid, or they freeze up. They will do a hit and get wide-eyed and stare around the room and swear they hear people in some other room that aren’t there. I never understood why people who get that way even do it. What’s the fun in that?
     I knew a girl that would do a hit and immediately stick the hot pipe down the back of her pants in her butt crack. She showed me one time how the top of her ass crack was scarred and blistered from years of doing it. Now if smoking crack meant sticking a hot pipe in my ass after every hit, I think I would find some other drug to do.
I don’t mean to come off like I’m better than other drug users. I’m sure I annoy some people because I tend to talk too much when I do it. It’s just a matter of finding the right people to do it with, which isn’t always so easy when drugs or involved. Sometimes you have to hang out with people that you normally wouldn’t simply because they are the only ones that can get the drugs that night, or they happen to be hanging around one of your friends, so you get stuck with them too.
     There is one person I like to party with more than anyone else. It’s kind of strange because he’s a lot older than me, but we get along and can really have some deep discussions when we party. His name is Eric and he’s 44.
     I first met him a couple of years ago when I went on a delivery with my friend Marcie. Marcie used to sell drugs and she hated driving around alone so she would always turn me on for free if I rode around with her. She’s in jail now, but I guess that’s what happens when you drive around at all hours of the night smoking crack while in possession of large quantities of drugs.
Anyways, Marcie stopped by Eric’s house one night and he and I got to talking. Apparently he didn’t like partying alone because he offered to share his stuff with me if I hung out for awhile. That’s a pretty common thing.  Alcoholics and drug addicts don’t want to party alone a lot of the time.  There’s always some sucker willing to foot the bill so they have an enabler around.  Marcie took off to make more deliveries and I spent the rest of the night, well, morning, talking to Eric about a lot of interesting stuff.
     When Marcie came back to pick me up hours later Eric gave me his number and told me that now I know where he lives I was welcome to come by and hang out if I’d like. He had one rule: call first, don’t just show up.
     I told him I would call and stop by sometime, but I really didn’t think I would. Drug talk is like that. You make plans but both of you know you’ll never keep them. I didn’t for a few weeks. I actually had a good time hanging out and talking to him, probably because he was one of the few people I ever partied with who liked to talk and could actually hold a conversation. There are other people who talk, but it’s all melodramatic garbage or clichés. Eric talked about interesting things, real things.
     I suppose he was also like a father figure to me. I told you my mom remarried but I didn’t tell you what happened to my father. I never told anyone, except Eric.
My father struggled with depression and when he was on his meds and acting normal he was a great dad, but when the depression took over it was really hard to deal with. He would say some horrible things to my mom and to me. We were the reason he was unhappy, we dragged him down and ruined his life. Not things that a small child wants to hear, let alone a wife. The only thing that made it tolerable was when he went back to being normal he would explain that it was the sickness, he didn’t really feel that way, and he loved my mother and me. At those times he told me I was the best thing that ever happened to him.
     Then one day when I was 10 years old I walked into my parent’s bedroom to find him sitting on the edge of the bed holding a pistol. He looked right at me and told me “this is your fault” and put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
     Now I know somewhere inside me that it was the sickness talking, but he was gone after that and he could never show up again as normal dad and tell me he didn’t really mean it. I can tell myself he really loved me and didn’t blame me, but it’s not the same as hearing it from him, and I know I’ll never get the chance.
     I never even told my mother what my father had said to me. I told her I was outside the room and heard the shot. I don’t know if telling her would have made it better or worse. A year later she married Joe. He was good at first, almost tried too hard to be a great dad, but he couldn’t keep up the charade and soon he started berating me, then hitting me. He must’ve been hiding his drinking at first, but soon he gave up on that charade too. From that I learned to be cautious; if anything seems good, I assume it’s a lie.
     Eric explained to me once that people are controlled by fears and insecurities we can only guess at, so it’s hard to trust them because they can’t even trust themselves. Strangely enough, Eric always seemed to give people the benefit of the doubt. He always wanted to believe they could rise above whatever internal crap they had going on. Even when the people let him down he wouldn’t get mad at them for it.
     One time he explained to me how he felt about disappointment.
      “The worst thing you can ever say to someone is ‘I’m disappointed in you’” He told me. “Who the fuck are you to be disappointed in someone else? They feel worse about it than you do and they hurt themselves and punish themselves more than you ever could. There’s nothing good about that phrase. It’s only hurtful and spiteful and mean and anyone who says it to you is no friend of yours.”
     I have to admit, I think he’s right. I try to catch myself anytime I feel those words about to come out of my mouth and I think about how bad the person already feels with themselves.
The more I got to know Eric, the more I realized he was a mass of contradictions. He was cynical, but he was always very positive in his personal relationships. He would always pick out your good points and try to make you feel better about yourself even while telling you that the world was a cesspool and people were rotten. He hated religion and God, but he seemed kinder and more generous than most people I know who claim to be religious.
     The next time I went to see Eric was a few weeks after I first met him. I had been seeing a girl, and unfortunately when you hang out with drug addicts you end having to
choose from a dating pool of drug addicts. So I started seeing Laurie and at first it was good and we weren’t partying as much and it seemed like a whole new future could open up for both of us. Then the drugs won out and Laurie would start disappearing for days and lying about where she was and who she was with and what she had been doing.
     I felt bad and the only person I could think of that I wanted to talk to about it was Eric, so I called him. He seemed happy that I called and told me to come right over.
So as we sat there smoking crack and drinking, I told him all about Laurie and our dreams and how they turned out.
     “So as I see it” he replied “you’re upset because it turns out that your crack head girlfriend is a crack head. It seems like you should have seen that coming.”
     I laughed in spite of the heartache and felt bad for doing so.
     “If you’re any kind of decent human being you can’t be mad at her or hate her. You have to feel sorry for her because she has a problem and she can’t be happy that she is the way she is. She hates herself more than you ever could.”
     And he was right. That was the most frustrating thing about it. I did love her, but now there could be no future, there could be no closure. I couldn’t simply hate her and be done with it. She was ashamed to face me, so we couldn’t discuss it so I could feel a little better.
     “What you are is estranged.” Eric told me. “That’s a very horrible thing to be.”
     I had never really thought about that word estranged before, but now I realize how excruciating it is to be estranged. It kind of has that same unresolved aspect to it like I have with my father’s suicide.
     Talking to Eric made me feel better. He had a way of helping you realize that you weren’t nearly as horrible as you thought you were. Which, as I mentioned before was strange because he didn’t really like the human race much.
     Once we were talking about spirituality and he got very cynical and depressed.
      “Try to feel something, try to touch something out there.” He said “There’s nothing. No soul, no God, no love, no nothing.” In the distance we heard a train whistle and the low rumble of a long freight going by.
     “You hear that?” He asked, “There’s what’s out there. A manmade beast on man-made tracks. It can only travel one path. It’s loaded up with garbage, man-made crap that one man sells to another and none of it matters. It’s just the fleeting sound of one tiny piece of a network of futility that this huge blind organism known as mankind has created for itself.  It didn’t matter before you were here and it won’t matter after you’re gone.”
     He took another pull from his whiskey bottle.
     “You think you can find meaning or God in any of that. Well, good luck. If you try to fish something out of a toilet all you’re gonna find is shit.”
     But he did believe in something. As much as he hated it, he still had some form of hope.
Once he told me “I have to believe love makes a difference. I have to believe that somehow being good and decent will make a difference somehow. It probably hasn’t so far, at least not in my life, but it’s gotta count for something.”
     I didn’t tell him so, but it did make a difference. Eric actually made me feel better about myself, made me feel like there might be something better, something worth working for.  I did tell him about my dad, and he told me that it wasn’t my fault and I shouldn’t blame myself, it was just the sickness in my dad’s head. All the stuff I already knew deep inside, but even though he was becoming something of a father figure to me it didn’t really help to hear it from him. Like I said, there’s only one person I need to hear it from and he’s not around anymore.
     I realize that the guy you do drugs with is not the best guy to have as your father figure, and I would go back and forth constantly in my head about just what Eric meant to me.  He was definitely something though.  He was always encouraging, he always offered good, heartfelt advice.  I suppose he was just a friend, but he felt like more than that.  I would say he felt like family, but I honestly have to say I don’t really know what family is supposed to feel like. My own family had brought me nothing but pain and confusion.  Eric gave me more than they ever had.
      Eric and I hung out for about 6 months, but my visits got less and less frequent. I was getting tired of beating myself up for things that weren’t my fault and wasting so much time and money on drugs. Eric was actually happy for me, and he would tell me not to come around if I wanted to get away from partying.  It wasn’t like I was trying to stop something that I really wanted to do.  I didn’t really have much use for it anymore.  I felt bad that he seemed to have nothing else, and I would try to get him out of the house to do other things.
     He owned a printing business and he didn’t really have to do much with it, the employees ran it for the most part and he would just show up a couple days a week. He didn’t really have any family left, his parents were dead and the rest scattered about the country. The end result was that he didn’t have much of a life outside his house anymore so I could never get him to go do anything with me.
     So we drifted apart, but I knew I always wanted him to be a part of my life.
     Yesterday I got a call from the sheriff's department. Eric had hung himself and the only thing he left behind was a note for me with my name and phone number.
The note he left behind simply said “Brendan, this is in no way your fault at all.”
Somehow that still doesn’t make it any better.

© David Ferraris 2016

O and K

You have heard people say it over and over again.  You have heard me say ad nauseam.

“Everything is going to be okay.”

Don’t worry, I’m not here to tell you that it won’t be.  It will definitely be okay.  There’s only one problem with that.  Okay is such a low goal. We've been beaten down and conditioned to believe "okay" is some sort of fucking prize.  “Okay” usually means we are just scraping by.  You can talk to any average middle class person and they will tell you things are okay, and you can talk to some homeless junkie who lost a foot to frostbite and they will tell you that things are okay.  How can both those things be okay?

We are constantly told that life is unfair, that no one guaranteed us anything, but why should that be?  Most people are willing to work for what they want, most people are decent and ready to do their share.  I don’t think we are getting a good return on our effort though.  We have been conditioned to be happy with scraps, and told that we’re lucky we got that.  I think there is a vague dissatisfaction running through the general population of the world, and we are all doing our best to ignore it because it would drive us nuts to actually acknowledge it.

Worse yet, we are being manipulated into channeling that dissatisfaction with our own lot into anger against other people that are in the same boat we are.  History is one long litany of blaming our woes on others rather than the people in charge.  Be it Jews, blacks, immigrants and Muslims, gays or whoever the scapegoat of the week is, our past is full of this kind of behavior.  People like to blame immigrants for a lot of our woes now, but it’s nothing new.  They blamed the Irish, the German, the Asian and Italian immigrants and refugees in the past, and now those immigrant’s descendants blame the Mexicans and refugees today.  All because we don’t demand better for ourselves, we just try to deny things to others so we feel better about the crummy shit we get stuck with.  It’s absolutely disgusting, but what do we care as long as we’re doing okay?

I don’t know, in my case I would just like to do better than okay.  Sadly, I might be one of those people that just expect more out of life.  I never went the normal path of marriage and kids, and a lot of that was because I expected something more.  Not that there is anything wrong with having a family, but it just seemed “okay” to me on a lot of levels.  Don’t get me wrong, I had some fun along the way.  Living outside the norm has been exciting and interesting at times, but now I’m not sure it was the answer.  I just always thought that things weren’t right, that they could be better.  That there must be some better way for all of us to be doing things.

It doesn’t matter anyway.  We are told to stop complaining, our problems are minimized when we are told about others that have it worse than us so we should stop griping.  There will always be someone worse off, so instead of the rest of us being made to feel like assholes for feeling like we are getting screwed, how about we all just get to complain? How about if our feelings are validated rather than laughed off?  How about someone gives us some answers instead of making us feel guilty for asking the questions?

Some of us have been greatly wronged, abused and beaten, terrorized and treated like dirt, but we are made to feel weak if it breaks us or the damage shows through.  When damaged people act out because they feel they have nowhere to go or anyone to turn too they are usually mocked and called derogatory names.  

We all matter.  We all deserve respect.  We all deserve to have amazing, wondrous, thrilling, full lives.  We all deserve to be heard and loved and protected and treated decently.  Very few of us are, and many of us are so damaged that we can’t accept it if someone tries to give it to us.  

We have been made to feel guilty, afraid and ridiculous, and we have been marginalized to the point where many of us feel we that we really don’t matter.

Life seems full of things we HAVE to do, and not so much full of things we WANT to do, and we have been told that it’s normal.  We have been raised in a society run by a few powerful people to feel like that is how it should be and we are bad to even think that it might not be right.  We often turn on people that are just trying to make the world a better place.  

We are not being treated well, by our leaders, by our employers, by people in the street, by many of the people in our lives that claim to love us.  Most importantly, we are not being treated well by ourselves.  

We punish ourselves for things we feel, we deride ourselves for what we think, we deny the truths that we know in our hearts because we feel like we don’t have the right simply to be who we are.  How can we live that way?  No wonder there are so many people that feel they are crazy.  Living everyday of your life the opposite way you think you should be will do that to a person.  

What if we’re not wrong?  What if the way we feel is the they way we should be feeling?  What if that simple thing that would make you happy is something you actually deserve to have?  What if the pie in the sky notion about how the world should be is actually how the world should be?

As children we are told that we can be anything we want, but then as adults we are told to get our head out of the clouds and be practical.  We are told to have love and compassion for our fellow man, but when we need it we are told to “man up” or “put our big girl panties on”.  We are told to commit and care for our loved ones, but when they need us most we are told to shake them off before they drag us down with them.  We are proud of our shitty behavior.

All these things are presented to us in a way that is supposed to make us feel empowered and strong, but in reality they make us feel like shit inside.  They are presented as noble and necessary, but in reality is just us being afraid and being given the easy way out, and we recognize it in our hearts.  Most of the things we are told to do, to toughen up and watch out for ourselves, goes against who people really are.  We want to help, we want to provide comfort, we want to be those better angels, but the world forces us to be the exact opposite most of the time. We know it, and it eats away at us like a cancer.  

We hold up Jesus, and heroes, and martyrs as role models, yet act nothing like them.  We are told to share and give, to put others needs before our own, yet we act like spoiled, greedy, petty children afraid that something might be taken away from us and given to someone else.  We are told to help our fellow man by the same people that cheat and rob us blind, so what are we to think?

We are frightened and stunted, with no idea where to turn and who to trust.  We commit or allow great atrocities and we try to find things to make us feel good about it.  We are terrified of the people that are supposed to be protecting us, so we are happy if they are brutalizing some other group of people and we cheer them on.  We live in a near constant state of panic and blindly strike out at those around us when we are startled or shaken.  We fear the future and live in an idealized past because it feels safer, whether or not it ever really existed that way at all.  

Most of all, we manage everyday to lie to ourselves and do our damndest to make ourselves believe it because the truth we bury inside is almost too much to bear.  We look away and find any distraction rather than look life in the eye and stare it down.  We do everything we can, expend every bit of energy we have to just to avoid doing the hard things we know we should be doing, the life we should be living.  It is as much our own fault as it is rest of the world’s.

And we know it.  Inside, we know what we are doing, to ourselves, to others, to the future, to our world, but we just can’t stop.  We have too much invested in all the cognitive dissonance we’ve immersed ourselves in and we can’t turn back now.  So we will get by, we will go on this way, and we will be unfulfilled and full of self loathing and fear and guilt and horrible secrets we all share but don’t dare talk about.  Alone in world full of people just like us, all hiding behind false images and words.  We are all in on the plan, all playing our parts and pretending that it is not really happening while everyday we die a little more inside.

And we call it “okay”.

© 2015 David Ferraris

Love is …

     Love is … people have finished that statement with a plethora of words meant to define it, but there is no magical word or phrase that sums it up.  It is much too big a concept for that.  It comes in so many different guises, and in this instance we’re only talking about romantic love.  There are a million kinds of love out there, and there have been billions of words written to try to explain them all, but most fall much too short, just as the words that follow here will.  

     But that won’t stop me from getting in line with all the others throughout time that have attempted it, so for no good reason, I am writing a little thing on love.  I don’t know why, but then again, I’m not sure why I write any of these weird little ruminations about anything.  Best not to question that while I question every other thing that has ever existed.  And don’t worry, while it may get bleak, I promise you I will not leave you in a bad place.  I never have, I have always found something redeeming in everything, on every little journey I take you on.  You just have to have faith, you’re in good hands.  Oh well, for better or for worse, here we go again ...

      Relationships with other people are at best frustrating.  The problem is, everyone sees life from a different perspective, so no one sees things the same.  You sometimes meet people and their viewpoint on a certain subject might just happen to intersect with yours, and you think you found a kindred spirit. Then ten minutes later they spew some ridiculous bullshit and you look at them like they're an idiot, if not on the surface, then inside your own head where you keep most of the looks that would get you in trouble if you showed them to the world.  Others have that same look when talking to you, you just don't see it most of the time because they keep it on the inside too.  We all slip once in a while, and that face leaks out, but most of the time the other person is too wrapped up in themselves to even notice your incredulous look of disgust.  

     Then there’s the people you meet that have several things in common, and you think you've found your soulmate. You're in love and all seems right with the world.  You see each other and go on about those few things and the sex is great and life feels like a fairytale.

    What follows is usually a slow decline, in the coming weeks and months you find more and more things you disagree on.  You overlook them at first, after all there are so many important things you have in common, what are a few minor differences?  Soon though, all those small differences pile up and they eventually outweigh the good and everything turns to shit.  You find reasons to break plans, and you start daydreaming about an imaginary someone out there that's better suited for you.  

    Sounds pretty bleak, huh?  That's life though.  Every single person lives life on their own terms, and most of the time those terms don't match up with anyone else's.  That's why relationships are hard.  No two people see things exactly the same, and most people think that their viewpoint is the right one.  It's not so bad if you're talking about a casual friendship, where you see the other person once in a while, usually when you are participating in a shared interest.  When it's a romantic relationship, where you see the other person day in and day out, and most of your experiences are shared, it can be suffocating and excruciating.  You can choose to ignore it, but it will build up over time and eventually you're going to erupt, and that won't end well.

    Most times though, relationships just peter out, not with a bang but with a whimper.  Then it's on to the next one to play the game out all over again.  

    Don’t forget that everyone comes with their own personal baggage.  A lot of people have been burned before, and they have walls up and defenses set, expecting it to happen again.  It’s hard to enjoy the present when you’re constantly reliving the past.  Those are just the people that have had some minor upset.  There are millions more out there that have had serious shit done to them, horrible abuse that you can’t even conceive of. Those people need a lot of extra love and attention, and if they haven’t worked through any of it on their own you are probably not going to be able to fix them.  Most likely though, you will try, if there are enough things you like about them and the sex is good.

    You are going to put in a lot more than you get out though.  That is true of most relationships.  One person always seems to be doing a lot more than the other.  Ideally you want everything 50/50, but that will never happen.  Some people are givers, and some are takers, and there is a sliding scale between every pair of people in the world, and it is never in the exact middle.  That’s okay, like life nothing in love is ever perfect, and it will settle into a rhythm if both people are fine with it.  If you find yourself keeping track of it, you’re relationship is doomed, I’m sorry to say.

     There are so many things that breed discontent in a relationship.  Things you don’t even notice until long after they happen sometimes.  Most of the arguments you have with people aren’t even about the thing you think that you’re arguing about.  The brain is amazing, but a lot of the amazing shit it does is not exactly beneficial to you or your lovelife.  It can store some little perceived hurt for a long time, letting it fester and then have it come out at the worst possible time.  Your brain seems to be sabotaging you all the time, especially when it comes to love.  Just one more thing to battle on your way to happiness.

    What's my point?  I have none, really.  Just that life is a series of relationships between people that in reality agree on very little no matter what they tell each other or themselves. When you factor in that we all have vastly different life experiences, different values and viewpoints and cultures that have conditioned us since birth, different joys and different traumas, so many fears small and large looming over us, and the fact that half of us are a different gender than the other, it's a wonder that any two of us can get along at all.  

    Maybe that's the thing that binds us all though.  Maybe we are all different, and that means that we are all alone, living in our heads and feeling like there is no connection out there to be made, and that terrifies us more than anything.  We don’t want to believe that.  We can’t.  Human beings are social animals, we need each other.  We hate isolation, maybe not for awhile, but soon it gets to us and we need others.  So we try again, and again and again, until we get it right or we become so damaged by it all that we just give up forever.  We soon realize that to have that love, that togetherness, that connection, we have to compromise on what we feel is right.  We have to ignore that impulse to show the look on our face that says we can’t believe what just came out of the other person’s mouth.  We have to learn to lie to them and ourselves.  

    They are small lies, and we can live with them.  We have to if we want companionship, there’s no way around it.  That’s why even the best relationships carry a little bit of resentment, because we all know that we have to sacrifice a little bit of who we are and what we know to be true, a little bit of control.  It is a fine and delicate balance to achieve, and even harder to maintain, and we often punish ourselves when we can’t pull off this near impossible feat.  

    Sure, you can have bad relationships that go on for years, based on one person’s guilt and insecurities and the other person’s selfish and manipulative nature.  Those are going on all around us, and some of us are probably in one of those relationships right now and don’t even realize it.  These relationships are usually doomed and have lasting repercussions for at least one of the participants.  I think you can guess which one.

    Most people have an idealized vision of love, and they will rail against you if you disagree with it at all.  They label themselves hopeless romantics, as if they are proud to lie to themselves and repeat the same mistakes over and over.  I probably fall into this category as well.  As much as you hate hearing it, for most of us that’s what love is after all.  An illusion that we can’t bring ourselves to admit is a losing game.  In reality, if you want a truly long lasting and solid relationship, be prepared to bite your lip and spend most of it being annoyed.  Love is like everything else in life, a lot of aggravation and boredom interspersed with a little joy here and there.  We are conditioned more and more these days to expect life to be entertaining and full of instant gratification, but that’s not reality.  We are going to have to get it through our heads that we should cherish the small parts of life that are fulfilling and joyous and just slog through the rest the best we can.  

     That’s actually a pretty good deal when you think about it.  To have someone that you can count on, to give you unconditional love, to share in your triumphs and catch you when you fall, to tell your secrets and fears to, to stand beside you when life is hard and to fuck your brains out when times are good … and all you have to do is accept that there will be some dull spots, that sometimes you will disagree on something as silly as a movie or music or something on the news that doesn’t even affect your lives.  

     Don’t get me wrong, there will also be times when that other person lets you down in a big way.  You will let them down too, don’t kid yourself.  We are all human, and we all make bad decisions.  Sometimes we make really horrible decisions, but that’s why you have unconditional love.  It doesn’t mean that you’re a doormat, it means that you are willing to forgive someone you care about, even if it’s something that really hurts you.  That’s why love is so hard, because no love, no matter how perfect, will ever be without these moments.  It is so much easier to just run from that hurt, to blow it all up and start over.  We throw love away everyday, just because we don’t want to face it, to stare our fear and hurt down and move past it, or to put our pride aside for the sake of another.  We let it dictate our happiness all the time.  

    If you want real love, you can’t be afraid of pain, or disappointment, or the fear of losing control over some little(or big) part of your life.  That’s not just true of love, it’s true of everything in life you encounter.  Every single thing.  For some reason though, we let it affect our relationships more than most other things in our lives.  Perhaps because we are so afraid of losing that love, of being alone, because we have attached so many of our hopes and dreams on it. Unfortunately, like most things, the thing we fear becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.  Once we let fear take over, we often drive the other person away, or run away from them ourselves.  

     Part of the problem with love is that we have all these conditions put on it before we even experience it.  We have all these rules and preconceived notions and we adhere to them.  You get them from everything around you, your parents, your friends, books, movies, songs, a million things telling us what love should be and all of them leaving out the important parts.  It sabotages us before we even start.  If you have a vision of the perfect mate in your head, no one you meet is ever going to live up to it.  You are doomed before you begin.  

    How will we even stand a chance?  How can we possibly manage to balance all of these things, to keep all these plates spinning at the same time?  I have no idea.  Obviously I haven’t managed it either.  We are all doomed to failure, over and over, until we simply give up or die.  To wallow in futility and torture ourselves and the people we claim to love.  That seems to be our only course, right?

    Only it’s not right.  There are couples all around us that have stood the test of time.  Oddly enough, we often look at those relationships and scoff and wonder how they can even be together, why they would want to live like that.  We think those couples are ridiculous simply because, once again, their union doesn’t match up with what we think love should be.  

    I know of quite a few couples that are in very successful, very long term and happy relationships.  I too sometimes think to myself that some of those relationships seem like a nightmare.  I don’t know why I think that.  Do you know what those relationships all have in common?  At times they don’t resemble in any way what I think a good relationship should look like.  My preconceived notions projected onto others again.  Every successful relationship I know of seemed at one point or another to be so far out there, so bizarre, that I couldn’t even imagine it lasting a week.  

    But they do work, and they keep on working despite what I think.  So maybe I should stop thinking I know what makes a good relationship.  Perhaps I should stop presuming I know exactly what love looks like.  How can I find it if I’m looking for the wrong thing?

      Let’s go with what I do know about it.  I know it’s hard work, but everything worthwhile in life is hard work.  I know it’s elusive, but isn’t happiness on any level kind of elusive?  I know it requires patience, and caring, and sacrifice, but I see people demonstrating those qualities on a daily basis in a million different scenarios, so I know we are capable of it. I know it is full of twists and turns and the unexpected, but that’s all of life, and sometimes that’s the very thing that makes us feel most alive.  I know it is full of shared moments and secrets and intimacy, full of smiles meant only for you, and holding hands and locking eyes and feeling like you are the only two people in the world.  I have felt those things, I have breathed those moments in and let them fill me until I thought I would burst.  I know it is about trust and depending and being there when someone needs you most, catching someone when they fall and picking them back up if you miss.  I know it is about just seeing that one person from across the room and thinking that they are the coolest motherfucker that has ever lived and that they feel the same way about you.  I have experienced all these things.

     That’s the amazing, curative, magical wonder of love, and there is nothing else like it in the entire world.

      It all comes back to the other thing I know though.  It’s not all there is to it.  There’s the pain, there’s the disappointment, there’s the long stretches of day to day life that can drag you down.  You need so much patience in an increasingly impatient world.  I don’t know how to balance those two things.  I don’t have a clue.  That’s what you and I are going to have to figure out.  And when you figure it out, you have to hope the person you love has it figured out too.  

     I’m not going to lie, the odds are not in your favor.  

     All the good stuff is worth all the bad stuff though.  It has to be, because we have no choice.  We are never going to stop wanting it, because life is not worth living without it.  Plus, we know we can do it.  It’s been done before, over and over throughout history.  There’s a reason why there are just as many love songs as there are songs about failed relationships.  Same holds true about books and movies and any other art we create.  They are two sides of the same coin, and it is spinning for eternity, never landing, never being one thing or the other.  You can’t trap it, you can’t control it, you can’t dictate how it will behave.  You can just try as best you can and accept that you may win or you may lose, it’s not only up to you.  Love will push and pull us, lift us up and break our hearts, tear us apart and put us back together again, but it will always be vital and alive, and so will we as long as we keep trying.

© David Ferraris 2015

Some Things I’ve Figured Out About Women

      Before we start, if you’re one of these people that think feminists are ruining the country, or you think any criticism of men is “man bashing” take your whiny ass to some Kid Rock post about how wonderful ‘Murica is and leave me alone.  This isn’t for you and it will just upset and confuse you and fill you with nervous rage. 

      First off, the main thing I’ve figured out about women is that there are many reasons why it sucks to be a woman.  Women have to deal with shit men never have to and wouldn’t put up with for a second.  I’m not talking about the internal plumbing and childbirth, but men wouldn’t be able to deal with any of that for one second.  I’m talking about having to live in a man’s world.

      Women are condescended to by men (and even other women) on a daily basis.  They are viewed as second-class citizens in our society in many regards.  For instance, they get paid less than men for doing the same job, and apparently society is fine with this.  Men in congress routinely vote down any measure to level the playing field.  Think about that, it is legal to pay women less than men to perform the same job, and if a woman wants a career, she just has to accept that.  Women have to prove themselves capable over and over in a way men never have to.

     Women are treated like morons, they are ignored or marginalized by salesmen, mechanics, contractors, or by anyone that assumes that they are silly girls that don’t know anything about manly things like turning wrenches or hanging drywall.  Men are dismissive about women’s intelligence or feelings, and they think this way because everything in our culture reinforces it.  Nearly every TV show or movie portrays women as crazy, irrational or victims, be it comedy, drama or fantasy. 

     When a man wants to insult another man, it is usually by referring to them as a woman or feminine.  Men view female attributes as bad and use them to insult other men.  Take the term ‘Chickflick”  It’s a derogatory term for movies that have thoughtful plots that deal with emotions or mental conflict or relationships.  Those just happen to be the types of movies that are critically lauded and win awards, but that doesn’t seem to enter into it.  Men’s movies, on the other hand, seem to involve lots of explosions and glorify violence, but no one sees that as a problem.        

      Speaking of pop culture, women have to live with the burden of trying to live up to some unattainable, unnatural image of what they should be.  It was bad enough that for years the expectation was that they should somehow look like a tiny percentage of genetic freaks that formed our idea of what beauty is supposed to be, but now Photoshop is running rampant and the image of perfection isn’t even humanly attainable.  Imagine living with the feeling that you are inferior looking and always will be, no matter what you do.  There are millions of women living with that everyday, millions of little girls growing up with that belief. 

     Men are fine with this, though.  For the most part, men are much more insecure than women and like that women are beaten down at every turn.  They are afraid of women, and they realize that women hold all the cards, and they do what men do: try to control them and make them feel bad about who they are. 

      Men have been messing up women’s lives since time began.  I’m going to try to explain this as best I can, so if you are a man reading this and you don’t already know it, pay attention.  It’s very important.

     As a man, you are almost always physically bigger and stronger than women.  This is intimidating, and you have to be conscious of it.  You have to realize that there are many situations and a lot of your actions that can be perceived as threatening.  That perception is there because many of you have done horrible, violent, unspeakable things to women.  I know this.  I have had many women friends over the years, and I go out of my way to make them comfortable and not be creepy, and as such they tell me a lot of things that they don’t tell other guys.  You should try it and you will learn some invaluable lessons.

      It breaks my heart knowing some of the things that have happened to some of the women I know.  It is sickening and appalling, and it has to end.  The stories about rape and violence, the physical, verbal and mental abuse, even the shitty condescension and dismissive attitude I mentioned earlier, all take their toll.  So many things people do to each other can make them feel like objects or less than human, and no one even realizes that they are doing it most of the time.  Most of these things are done by men to women, constantly.  Trust me, if you ever heard the shit your girlfriend or wife, or sister or mother has gone through at one point or another it would fill you with rage and disgust.  Well, it would if you were in touch with your feelings and gave a shit about anyone else.  Most men don’t fit that criteria. 

      So a lot of women go on, living everyday with shit that would drive you or I crazy.  Women are strong.  There are a lot of women that have strength that dwarfs that of men, but they think nothing of it.  Again, men are fine with that.  Make them deal with all the shit and keep them thinking it’s normal, or worse yet, their fault.  There isn’t a lot of stuff out there making women feel good about themselves, and while the brave princess in a Disney cartoon is a good start, it doesn’t help that it’s a children’s cartoon and the real world is full of negative, disparaging garbage bombarding women everyday. 

     Unfortunately, I also know some women that are very broken by some of the truly horrendous shit men have done to them.  There are plenty of broken men too, I realize that it doesn’t apply to just women.  That’s another big part of the problem.  Men and women have a lot in common, but for some reason the same things that affect us both are perceived as very different.  They say women are emotional, but I’m a man and I can tell you that my male friends, as well as myself, are very emotional.  Women and men just have different ways of handling it.  Men tend to either ignore it or lash out at the things that they think are upsetting them.  Women sometimes internalize it.   Sometimes they blame themselves and saddle themselves with guilt, but that’s not so strange.  That what society tells them to do. 

      Women are made to feel bad about their feelings.  They are made to be ashamed of their sexual desires and even if they enjoy sex.  They are labeled whores or sluts if they sleep with someone or stranger yet, even if they turn someone down.  God forbid they become pregnant.  Women are sexual beings just like us, but again, men want to control that.  Men feel entitled, and if they are rebuffed they instantly turn petty and nasty.  Look at how women are treated online.  There are billions of examples of women being attacked verbally in forums and comment sections, usually with sexually violent language and imagery.  If men were threatened with rape(which is a very real and scary possibility for women) every time they expressed their opinion they would make laws and rules to get it stopped immediately.  

      Meanwhile, most rapes go unreported in this country.  I personally know of dozens of women in my life that have been raped and in none of the cases has the rapist every been punished.  Women are taught to feel ashamed, and while there are many that overcome this and don’t put up with it, there are so many more that never had that chance.  Sadly, these poor souls are further shamed for not putting the guy in jail, but it’s not their fault.  Forget about if they never received the tools and self worth to deal with it.  There are many instances where they tried and were rebuffed at every turn.  Dismissive cops, attorneys and judges, even parents or partners.  They are left with no recourse, and feeling shame and guilt for something that is not their fault. 

      Don’t even bring up the idea that some woman deserved it because of the way they were dressed or if they were drunk or in some certain situation.  Nothing justifies rape.  Nothing.  I can come upon a hundred scantily clad drunk or unconscious women and the thought of raping them would never cross my mind.  There is no situation that justifies it.  If you have any kind of upbringing you are taught not to force yourself on someone or take advantage of them if they are drunk.  If you do that you are taking something from someone that they may never get back, you are inflicting scars and pain on them that will last forever, and possibly ruining any chance they have of happiness. 

     But men continue to blunder through life oblivious. 

     One of the things I have figured out about women is that they don’t want you to solve their problems.  This is a pretty common thing, it is mentioned time and time again, but men still don’t get it.  I understand that men want to help, it is ingrained in them.  If a women tells you her problems, that’s all she wants.  If she wants you to help, she will ask you.  Men will try to help anyway, which usually consists of telling them what to do in a tone of voice that implies they are an idiot and that they are making it way too complicated.  As people, we usually have the perception that our way is right and everyone else is wrong, and that’s how are brains are wired by evolution, but it doesn’t mean we can’t overcome it. 

     If a man interrupted another man that was venting to tell them how to fix his problem, and did it in a tone that implied that they were an idiot, those two men would probably come to blows.  You wouldn’t put up with being disrespected like that and have your manhood questioned, so why do you think it’s okay to do it to women?  If a women tells a man they aren’t looking for a savior when they are getting lectured on how to fix their problem , chances are that their feelings will be dismissed as silly or in extreme cases might get a punch in the face. 

     Again, women are not afforded the same respect as a man in the same situation. 

     Women are currently fighting for respect, but they are demonized by the forces that want to keep them down.  It’s disgusting.  It’s also nothing new.  Throughout history, women have been kept down and their rights trampled on.  Not ancient history, either.

       Think about this.  The 19^th amendment ensuring women the right to vote was ratified in 1920.  That means that there is a good chance when your grandmother was born she was born in a country that didn’t guarantee her the right to vote when she grew up.

      The whole point is, even if you don’t somehow relate to women in general as equals, even if you can’t get it through your head that your wife or girlfriend is your equal and demands respect … you have a mother.  She is a women, and she has feelings and dreams and desires, she is sexual and she is her own person, with her own mind and her own needs.  It may make you uncomfortable to see your mother in those terms, but she is a person, not just your own personal caretaker.  She doesn’t live only to serve you, or exist in the sole capacity as your mom, forgoing who she is.  Also, you wouldn’t let anyone hurt her, or mistreat her, or make her feel like shit for just being who she is, so why do it to any women?

     I have learned most of these things the hard way, but I’m learning.  I have to undo a lot of things and unlearn a lot of ideas that are just wrong.  I know women aren’t perfect either, nor would I expect them to be.  There is a big difference, though.  The times I’ve been hurt by a woman have not come near to the damage that men inflict on women.  I have been hurt, but usually it’s by a woman that has been so damaged by what men have done to them.  They usually are hurting themselves more that they are hurting me.  They were broken, and punishing themselves for things that aren’t their fault and things that they may never be able to move past.  Their self worth is gone, they are at a point where they hate themselves and I feel so bad for them. 

     Nothing a woman has done to me has ever taken away who I am at my core.  Nothing a woman has done to me has shattered me forever, ruined my life and my ability to love or trust someone ever again.  I heard a comedian mention something to the effect  that men will tell a story about a woman they dated or met and it always starts with “You’re not gonna believe this crazy thing that happened” and women’s stories about men start with “I don’t know, should I call the police…?”

     It’s so simple.  If you think you love a woman, but you want to change her, then you don’t love her.  If the thing that first attracted you to her, the thing that made her exciting and special, now makes you feel insecure and like you want to smother it because you’re afraid it will attract someone else and you’ll lose her … well, let her go.  You’re the one that’s not ready for a real relationship, not her.  The minute you try to control someone you love, you have let your own insecurities overshadow that love.  You are in love with an image, and image that doesn’t even exist, and until men get past these insecurities and fears we are never going to see women as equals, as people.

     It is still a man’s world, and I don’t see that as something to be proud of.  I see that as an indictment.  

© David Ferraris 2015

My Rock And Roll Life

    I guess my rock and roll life truly started when I was about 6 years old.  Somehow my family had acquired a cheap acoustic guitar, and along the way and it ended up becoming mine.  I never paid it much attention, to tell the truth.  Then one summer the family took a trip to my Aunt and Uncle’s ranch in Arizona and my cousin Denise played and sang a song for us. “Stewball” by Peter, Paul and Mary.  I was amazed.  I had never seen a real live person, let alone someone I knew, play guitar and sing. Plus, I loved the story about Stewball, a racehorse that never drank water, he only drank wine.  It was only fitting that the song was about a horse because Denise ended up becoming a competitive rider and rodeo queen.  Meanwhile, I would go around singing the song after that, it was stuck in my head for a long time.  

    I also started to play around with the acoustic guitar after that.  I would sit on my bed and figure out simple melody lines to songs on the radio, but I knew nothing about actually playing a guitar.  I didn’t even know how to tune it and it was frustrating when I would learn a song and the strings would detune further and I would have to relearn it again.  The first song I kind of figured out how to play was “Love Is Blue”, not exactly a rocker, but you have to start someplace.  Pathetically, if a string broke, that was it.  Apparently my parents didn’t know where to get strings or even care, for that matter.

            A year or so later, with only four out of tune strings left on my guitar, I strode into the living room to play my first original composition.  It was a autobiographical blues song about my family, which included our dog, a black lab named Max.  It went something like this:

“My mother’s a honky

My father’s a honky

My brother’s a honky

But my dog is a negro”

            Only I didn’t say “negro”.

            Now, I am not going to try to defend my use of racial slurs past the fact that I was only 6 or 7 and I had heard those words but really didn’t understand their full meaning.  I thought I was going to receive applause and compliments, but my parents burst out laughing, then quickly composed themselves and lectured me about using bad and hurtful words.  It was official:  I was a bad boy rock and roller.

            Well, not exactly.  In fact, like most kids that young I listened mainly to what my parents listened to.  I grew up on early 70’s schlock AM radio hits like the rest of my generation.   There was only one other thing I ever loved musically from the early seventies, and boy did I love it.

            My brother was 6 years older than me, and we weren’t that close.  We didn’t hang around together, or share a whole lot of interests when I was young.  That still didn’t deter me from trying to be like him, or copy his tastes in music, tv or movies.  That’s what little brothers do.  My brother liked Jesus Christ Superstar, so of course I liked it.  Well, that’s an understatement.

            I was obsessed with it.  I would listen to it day and night, sing along with the entire record, while acting it out.  It must have been disturbing for my mother if she ever saw me acting out the 39 lashes part while jumping around my bed.  To this day I can sing the entire album and if you’re unlucky enough to be near me when I have a few drinks in me and the party is lagging you might just hear me sing it.

            Jesus Christ Superstar also made me acutely aware of electric guitars.  Now my pathetic acoustic would never do.

            My father used to have an accordion when I was young.  He never had lessons or anything, but he liked to pick out songs by ear.  We used to joke that the only song he could really play on it was “Lady Of Spain.”  For some reason, fathers used to get picked on a lot back in the day, and they probably still do.  He enjoyed playing it though, and that’s all that mattered.

            One day he presented me with an electric guitar!  It was a cheap, no-name Japanese copy of a Fender Stratocaster, but I knew nothing of that.  I just knew it was an electric guitar!  It was awhile until I got a small Gibson amp that my cousin John no longer used and I got to play it like an electric guitar was supposed to be played.  Well, by that I mean amplified.  It was the same playing I did on the acoustic, out of tune, single note melody lines.  Apparently the same problem of getting strings for the acoustic existed for electric guitar strings, that being that I never got a new set.  The e and the b string broke, so I had a four string guitar after that.

            The reason I brought up my fathers accordion in the first place was that unbeknownst to me he had traded it to some guy from work for the guitar!  Looking back, it was such a wonderful and selfless act to give up his accordion that brought him pleasure to get his son an electric guitar.  My father is a very good man and a great father, he was always sacrificing and doing whatever he had to if it meant giving his family a better life.

            Unfortunately I soon lost interest in the guitar.  It was frustrating, having no idea what I was doing, not even having enough strings.  I ended up having more fun taking the guitar apart to see how it worked, repairing it and reassembling it again.  By the age of eleven or twelve I wasn’t even doing that.

     I really progressed backwards from rock and roll too.  I played clarinet in the grade school band for a couple of years, but that really didn’t do it for me.

     I didn’t really have an interest in it again until high school.  I started really getting into rock and roll in high school.  I got more interested in music and learning about how to play it.  I got a better acoustic guitar at that point, and started actually learning how to play.  I had some friends that played other instruments, and soon I got an electric guitar, a real one.  It was a ’72 Gibson SG, and I still have it to this day.  Some friends and I started playing, and while we didn’t have a drummer yet, we were enjoying ourselves. I still have a tape of the first time we played and it’s funny to hear us playing songs from The Monkees and Black Sabbath in the same session!  It’s also funny because one of my friends was playing the drum parts on his knees!  The next time we practiced he upgraded to an upside down wash basket and some cardboard boxes. 

     Probably the best thing about it for me was that my girlfriend from high school was singing for us and she was good.  She also helped me figure out a lot of the guitar stuff.  There is nothing better than making music with your friends.  It was a lot of fun and even if we sounded ridiculous, it didn’t matter.

     Then I met an older guy, Dan.  He was a kind of crazy Vietnam vet, and he lived in a big house in the middle of the woods that he had inherited.  He was also a drummer!  He was actually a really good drummer, and my friends Wade and Bryan and I would go up there a couple times a week and practice.  We were officially a band.  Wade played keyboards and bass, and he was classically trained and very talented.  He helped me immensely and we all got better. Bryan sang.  Plus, being out in the middle of nowhere we could be as loud as we wanted.  We played in the living room, which was empty except for our gear and a couch.  It had a big cathedral ceiling and it sounded great in there.

     Sadly things started to drift apart for me and the band thing.  Wade went off to college, Dan started getting a little too crazy and Bryan and I discovered going out and trying to pick up girls.  I only got served in a bar once in my life before I turned 21, but it had a profound effect.  It was a bar called Chubby’s, and it was a real shit hole.  We went up to the bar and ordered two six packs and they put them on the bar and we paid them.  I couldn’t believe it actually worked!  We were so nervous we hadn’t even been paying attention to our surroundings and we turned and made our way towards the door to get out of there as fast as we could. 

     Halfway to the door though, we stopped and suddenly noticed the band that had been playing the whole time.  It was a band called TT Quick, and they were playing the ACDC song “Whole Lotta Rosie”.  It was like a religious experience.  We just stood dumbfounded, the whole spectacle washing over us, the energy they were putting out and the crowd was giving back.  At that exact moment I knew that I wanted.  I wanted to be out in a bar, listening to a live band play rock and roll.

      It was odd, thinking about it now, that I didn’t aspire to being the band on stage, but to be someone in the crowd.  I have always had a problem thinking of myself as a real musician.  I never had confidence in myself. I saw myself as a barely talented guy hanging out with real musicians that tolerated me because they were my friends.  I guess there was some of that, but looking back I couldn’t have been that bad.  I was kind of the band leader and they were more than willing to treat me like an equal, so I think it was all in my head.

      Part of my problem, and it still is, is that I am lazy.  I do not want to practice all day, I don’t want to work for hours on technique and learning every solo note for note.  I want to just do what I feel and fake my way through what I don’t know. 

      Once I turned 21 though, that wasn’t a problem.  I quickly found that it was much easier to hang out with bands and dress like I was a rock and roller.  I could pull the same girls, have the same notoriety, but none of the actual work.  Heavy Metal, and hair bands ruled the scene at that point, and I would always go out with my long hair teased up to crazy heights, dressed in spandex, scarves, bandanas, boots, every ridiculous thing you could imagine.

            I got a slot on a local college radio station for a time.  I called my show “Them Damn Longhairs” and I played mostly classic rock and newer heavy metal.  I was constantly berated by the station manager and some of the college kids because I wasn’t “alternative” enough, so I would just go out of my way to piss them off.  My station manager would call in during the show and complain that I wasn’t being alternative enough again, so I would then do something like announce the alternative time which was elventy-four- o’six, or something as stupid.  I only lasted the summer.  I didn’t go to college, so students coming back to class in the fall took over my slot.  I was kind of burned out on it by then anyway.

      I was also working midnight shift during the week, and in a record store on the weekends.  I would work until 8:00 on a Friday, then go home, get ready and be on the air at the radio station from 10:00 to 1:00 or 2:00, then be at the record store by 4:00 til 10:00.  I would then go out until whenever, get up and open the shop at 10:00 and work all day Saturday, then repeat for Sunday.  I’m not sure how I did all that in my youth.

     I then lost my regular job, they wanted to get rid of me because they thought I was making too much and they could replace me with a minimum wage worker.  So I just collected unemployment for a few weeks.  Then they called me and asked me to come by and talk about coming back to work for them.  Well, it so happened that the day they wanted me to come in was the same day that I worked at the record store and my boss dared me to come to work in full spandex hair metal regalia.  I got dressed and stopped at my old work place.   There was no better feeling than the looks on their faces when they had to kiss my ass and offer me more money and benefits to come back to work for them while dressed like a Poison album cover exploded on me.  The last thing they asked after I accepted their offer was “Um, you’re not going to come to work dressed like this, are you?”  I laughed and assured them I wouldn’t.

       Once in the late 80’s Bryan and I were eating dinner at Chi-Chi’s Mexican restaurant.  I had my long hair, my bandana as a headband, my wannabe rock star look.  The waitress had been awfully attentive, and I caught other waitresses checking me out.  With all this attention, I thought to myself that I must be looking really good tonight, and my ego grew.  In other words, I was eating it up!

            Towards the end of the meal, my friend pointed to the kitchen door and the group of waitresses in the doorway looking over and pointing at me.  They were talking to a busboy and then pushed him towards us.

            He came over to our table, and sheepishly managed to ask me “Excuse me, but you’re that guy from Cinderella, aren’t you?”

            “No,” I admitted, taken aback, “I’m not him.”

            The busboy turned to the girls and yelled across the room, somewhat disillusioned “It’s not him!”

            The waitresses groaned in disgust and went back to their jobs and no one gave me a second glance.  Now instead of feeling cool and desirable I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb, dressed like a moron in a restaurant full of families and other normal people.  Our waitress seemed annoyed with me for the rest of the meal, and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough and get to the club where everyone else dressed like an idiot too.

     I loved the clubs.  I was really in my element there.  I was fun to finally be popular and part of the scene.  I had been a misfit my whole life before that, in school and society in general.  Music, like a lot of art, has always provided companionship and a place to fit in for people that don’t have it in their everyday life.  I think that’s why it is so powerful and means so much to us.  I would not be here today if it weren’t for music and books and movies that let me know that I wasn’t the only one in the world that felt like I did. 

     I still played my guitar, and I would on rare occasions get up on stage with a band or two and play or sing a song.  I never took it too seriously or tried too hard, maybe because I was afraid to fail, or maybe just because I was having too much fun with all the other stuff going on. 

     I was actually starting to get an ego, something I was never in danger of developing before.  I thought I was looking good and could have anything I wanted, but of course that was not reality.  I got reminded of it one night while out with my friend Eric.

      We were heading to club in Philly called The Cellblock to see a band.  On the way down we stopped at some strip club because he knew the waitress.  It was depressing, as most strip clubs are, the few customers where some old men and a few rednecks and white trash.  The dancers made their way to us, cooing over us and asking what band we were in and how cool we looked.  Of course Eric and I swelled with pride, there girls knew we were cool and wanted us, just like any girl would.  We must have looked so much better than any of these losers.  What hot girl wouldn’t want to be with two good looking, cool rock and rollers?

     We left after a bit and got to the club.  We were standing at the bar later when we saw the two strippers come in.  Well, we thought to ourselves, this is it.  They obviously knew we were coming here and wanted to get with us.  They walked over to the bar, so I casually asked them if they would like a drink.  They both turned and looked at us with disgust and contempt in their eyes.  They didn’t even respond. I’m not sure they even recognized us. 

     A moment later two muscle bound jocks came in and met up with them and they were together the rest of the night.  It goes without saying that Eric and I were pretty deflated.

      I don’t regret my long hair, spandex wearing phase.  I had a lot of fun with it.  My long hair got me some grief from normal people over the years, but people were generally tolerable about it.  I do have to laugh when I look back at things like wedding pictures when I’m wearing a tux with my long crazy hair.

     After a lot of years doing that I slowly tired of it.  I wasn’t going out as much as I used to.  I hadn’t really grown up or anything, I had just gotten bored with it.  Times were changing, music and fashion were morphing into something I didn’t find appealing anymore, and I just started finding other things to do.  The scene also involved a lot of dangerous things like drugs, booze, violence, and other things that you get more wary of as you get older.  I still loved music, but I didn’t feel the need to go out all night and be part of a scene.  The scene was over anyway.

     I still played guitar, and I was still pretty rock and roll.  I was still hanging out with musician friends and we would play together.  I started getting serious about playing and trying to relearn the right way.  I was making some decent progress too.  My friend Paul is an amazing musician, and he was giving me some pointers and actually pleased with my progress.  I was even learning to play some Beethoven!  Then the pinky on my left hand was eaten by a bear(there’s that again. If you don’t know the story, you can find it Here )  and that set me back.  I had to relearn a lot of stuff, and I started playing with some open tunings to work around some things I couldn’t do anymore.

       About two years ago I started going to my friends studio every Friday and singing with their band.  They just get together once a week and jam, never actually playing any real “songs”.  When things work, they do, when they don’t they don’t, but it is what it is.  They never really had a singer, so I just stepped in.  Now I’m a band member and I couldn’t be happier about that.  It has helped a lot, not just with my music but with my life in general.  I had started seeing a girl at that same time and she was very supportive and encouraging and that helped a lot too.  We have had our rough spots, but she has really improved my life in many ways and I’m thankful for that.  I’ve started writing my own songs, and the way she looks at me when I play or sing makes me finally feel like I have something special, and that I have something to offer. 

      My friends in the band too.  They accept me and encourage me, and once again I am reminded that making music with my friends is one of the greatest feelings on this planet.  Friday night is the highlight of my week, and while I may not be a crazy rock and roll maniac anymore, I am at a point where I finally think of myself as a real musician and am happy with myself.  I owe a lot of that to the people that love me and support me, and I owe a lot of it to my rock and roll life.

© David Ferraris 2015