the rat and the ox

She's a Rat and I'm an Ox.

Let me tell you the story of the Rat and the Ox.

"According to legend, the Lord Buddha summoned all the animals to come to him before he departed from Earth. Only 12 animals came to bid him farewell. As a reward he named a year after each one in the order that they arrived. First came the Rat, then the Ox, the Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Boar. Thus we have twelve signs today."

-- excerpted from "Twilight Zone's Chinese Horoscope"

The Ox was leading the race across the river bank to reach the Lord Buddha's bed. Unbeknownst to him, the Rat was riding on his back. As the Ox neared the bank, the enterprising Rat jumped off the Ox's back and made it to the Buddha's bedside first.

Thus, the Rat became the first sign of the Chinese astrological table, with the Ox coming in second.

No mention is made of whether or not the Ox was upset about this. I'm sure, however, that if the Ox had gotten upset he would've squashed the Rat in an instant. This would have probably upset the dying Buddha and led to the immediate disqualification of both the Rat and the Ox from the Chinese horoscope.

I don't think the Ox minded at all. The Ox was used to being employed for hard work, carrying loads far heavier than the Rat on his strong back. He probably admired the Rat's ingenuity and craftiness, and maybe deep down inside he was content knowing that he did all the hard work while the Rat basked in the glory.

And if the Ox was in love with the Rat, then he wouldn't be mad in the slightest if the Rat found some sort of glory, even at the Ox's expense.

Rats are reviled and despised, even though they are highly intelligent creatures with exceptional survival instincts. Western civilization in particular has no love for the Rat, most likely due to the bubonic plague epidemic that wiped out a third of Europe's population in the Middle Ages.

But like pigeons in relation to doves, Rats are not too far removed from mice, their cuter and more cuddly cousins. The bias stems from misunderstanding the true natures of all creatures great and small.

I think the Rat knows deep down inside that she owes her cardinal place in the Chinese horoscope to the Ox. Whether or not she appreciates it or not is up to each individual to decide. And if someone is not fond of Rats, they will decide negatively.


*/*


We shared a cigarette and drank coffee and made up names for our own Chinese horoscope.

"How about the Year of the Platypus?" I asked.

"No, the Year of the Wombat," she giggled.

"Does the Wombat even exist?"

"I dunno... how about the Year of the Chinchilla?"

"I kind of like the Year of the Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker."

"They're endangered, you know..."

"Oh... well, then they definitely need to be included."

"What about the Year of the Mongoose?"

"I know, let's cross-breed the existing ones. You know, like the Horsepig, or the Ratdog, or the Oxrabbit..."

"I like that."

"You do?"

"Yes, I do."

We laughed. We smoked. She poured me another cup of coffee and didn't charge me. I left a tip anyway.

When it was time to count the money in the register, she thanked me for making an otherwise dead night somewhat tolerable. I thanked her for the free coffee and walked her to her car.

As I drove to work, I couldn't stop smiling.

I just hope she made it to the Buddha's bedside.

terrifying

I played my solo acoustic set last Tuesday.

It was terrifying.

I was so nervous. I've never been that nervous.

Ever.

I think that's what's been missing from my life in recent years.

I play shows with bands, and I'm not scared. I think this is a good thing, but I am beginning to see that sometimes you need to be afraid-- it reminds you that you are still alive.

Being unafraid is brave and noble, especially if trying to help others feel relaxed and less edgy... but when I was up on that stage, all by myself, with no one to fall back on, there was an exhilaration running through me that I haven't felt in ages.

I want that edginess back in my life. I've become too complacent. Without risking it all, anything I do on stage is an empty and wasted gesture.

And it translates to other mediums as well: after my show on Tuesday, I went to work and finished off what was left of the first half of my novel. I was still running off of the momentum of that nervous energy, and it propelled me forward with unparalleled vigor.

And throughout all of this, I was dead sober.

I've been born again hard, and this time I'm going to make full use of this new found power. I'm going to get things done and take care of business.

And I owe it all to Fear.

smudged impressions of last friday

After attending a gallery opening that left us befuddled and dinner in Chinatown with friends, she and I accompanied her roommate to a trendy Hollywood bar to play darts and get sauced.

In between horrific dart rounds, she and I would sneak out back to smoke cigarettes and talk.

I was getting progressively more drunk as she told me that she thought my karaoke last week was good, and that she knew she couldn't sing a lick but she liked doing it anyway, and that we must come back again and sing some more.

I told her that I knew she was singing from the heart, and that one of these days she and I would have to go on some road trip to get away from this big, bad city.

She told me about New York, and how her visit was not impeded by inclement weather and the shortness of her stay. She planned that we should both go out there soon. I agreed, telling her that I had planned to go last year but the plans fell through.

She asked me why. I started to explain but stopped, and said I would rather not talk about it. But she knew the reason why without my having to elaborate.

Eventually I was so plastered that when it was time to walk back to the car, I made the trip backwards while flinging a Chinese yo-yo I'd bought in Chinatown at passersby.

They drove me to my car at the Metro station, and then she drove my car to my apartment because I was too hammered to give it a go. Her roommate followed behind-- I'd promised him some weed back at my place.

Her roommate played with my cats as she dragged me to my bed and tried to tuck me in. I was almost gone but still alert enough to pull her down with me and wrap my arms around her.

She did not resist.

And the kisses were slow and sweet, and they were punctuated with small talk and wistful nothings, and she tasted wonderful and smelled like subtle perfume.

Sensing that her roommate was getting restless in the other room, she bid me farewell with three kisses on my face, as she tucked me in and made her way out my door.

I slept like a newborn baby, and when I woke up the next morning I could not help but smile.

I hadn't felt like that in a long time.

the song, the dance and the embrace

Damn, the blog-o-sphere is a barren wasteland these days.

There was a time when I'd get pissed off at the lack of comments on my blog and go into a rant or tirade about how everyone sucks and this and that and fuck you and the whole nine yards... but over the years and in the short time that I've been blogging I have accepted the virtual cyber-silence for what it is.

However, I'm not quite sure what it is I am accepting. There's no label for it, and yet I now know that it's nothing personal.

Once upon a time, this blog had lots of readers and they all had something to say, but reality sets in and people tend to their lives and their online pursuits get narrower as things progress. Even I have lessened my blog output, if only to re-channel my boundless writing energy into finishing my damn novel.

And when I do get a chance to blog, I am allowed to be more cryptic. I don't have to explain everything or detail every facet of my life like I used to, and within that limited boundary there is a wide, expansive freedom.

I guess you can say I have grown. Matured, perhaps.


*/*


The place was a dive, a typical hole in the wall.

Not a lot of people were at the bar when we entered but by the time we left it was packed. This is nothing significant, seeing as the place was smaller than my apartment, or so it seemed.

Her roommate said she looked like a sunflower in her bright yellow sleeveless dress, billowing and pleated and pretty with Sunday written all over it. She thought he was kidding her, but I recognized the heartfelt (if slightly cracked) compliment.

A strange and drunk fellow greeted us with leers as we hunkered down onto our stools, his face grimacing with outrage and fear. She knew him, he knew her, they had a connection once but he fouled it up and now here she was with two tough-looking hombres and his mind began to spin so fast that it was as visible on his mug as his eyeglasses or his neatly-trimmed pencil mustache.

He exchanged words with her. All I could hear was the last part of their exchange:

"You think you're pretty clever, don't you?"

"Fuck you."

"Fuck who?"

I turned my head and said loudly, "You."

Her roommate glared in the fellow's direction, not needing to say a word. The fellow got the hint and left, leaving his companions at the bar to nurse their own wounds without the benefit of his charming company.

We ordered our drinks and decided to play darts.


*/*


She insisted that I sing karaoke with her, but I needed no prodding or cajoling.

She picked the song and I agreed. It was a song I knew by heart, save for one vague lyric that I always interpreted in some weird, absurd manner. Fortunately for us, every self-respecting karaoke hostess has the proper lyrics on a TV monitor above the bar so that the singers won't lose face.

Her voice was dreadful, toneless and flat. It didn't bother me at all-- in fact it made me like her even more. Of course I was on key, but you wouldn't be able to discern it by the way our voices entangled themselves through the poorly-equalized sound system and the low-rent microphones.

The line in question appeared above me and I smiled as I read it:

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue.

"Aha," I thought, "That's what it is... I always thought it was about green seagulls... Why have I never bothered to check online or inside the liner notes? Oh well..."

People clapped when we were done. I don't know if they were clapping out of respect or out of relief.


*/*


There were others there singing karaoke that night who made us seem like Sonny & Cher in comparison.

As one such performance went on, she asked me to dance with her.

"But I don't know how."

"Neither do I."

She grabbed my hands and I tried to lead as best as I could. It was a spastic imitation of swing dancing. She flailed and stepped on my boots and (at one point) hit her elbow on the wall next to us. Bystanders laughed and pointed at us, drinks in hand. Her roommate was somewhat embarrassed but also not in the least bit surprised. I spun her around and caught her hands awkwardly, trying not to fall to the ground due to my inebriated motor skills.

The only thing we did right was the dip. I anticipated it, she fell into it, and I did not let her fall.

Then we danced close and slow. It felt natural, fluid, uncontrived.


*/*


Three more drinks and another near-bar brawl later, her roommate decided to walk home and we drove to a liquor store to purchase cigarettes. Then we arrived back at their place, where they engaged in a petty fight over something inexplicable. She stormed off to her room and I followed suit, shrugging my shoulders at him and shaking my head.

She and I chatted at length about everything and nothing, as we are wont to do when we get together and talk. Then I realized the lateness of the hour and plus she was waking up early to catch a flight and I should've been at work hours ago, so I stood up to say farewell.

We embraced. I kept my arms around her and did not let go. She did not try to pry herself from me. We just kept looking at each other, making small talk and shooting curious glances into each other's bloodshot eyes. Every time the urge to plant a soft kiss on her lips swelled up in me, I deflected its power by burying my face into her shoulder and squeezing my arms tighter, and she would reciprocate in kind.

Not yet.

Not just yet.

Sometimes the moment needs to breathe. I act too swiftly, I often move in for the kill with no relenting. No, this was about as far as it could go at the moment, especially considering how foolish it would be for the both of us to shirk our respective responsibilities when we can wait until the next occasion, when there's more privacy, when there's more time, when there's less to risk.

We bandied compliments about and made funny faces. Then I created an out for the both of us by remembering the CD I promised to burn for her.

After I made copies for the both of them, I said my goodbyes and let myself out. I drove back into the suburbs with quick ease, because of the time of night and the absence of traffic.


*/*


I have been filling my time well, but every now and then I think about three things: the song, the dance and the embrace. I think about how they made me feel and what it all means and what there is to be done about it.

It reminds me of scenes from some short stories I wrote years ago, and I wonder if these were manifestations of my fiction or actual events that transpired. I realize, though, that it doesn't make any difference: We all remember things in different ways, from different perspectives and angles.

What is important is not the details, but what actually occurred. And that's why of all the things that happened that night, it is the song, the dance and the embrace that stand out for me.

and so on

"When I think about my own death, I don't console myself with the idea that my descendants and my books and all that will live on. Anybody with any sense knows that the whole solar system will go up like a celluloid collar by-and-by. I honestly believe, though, that we are wrong to think that moments go away, never to be seen again. This moment and every moment lasts forever."

--from the book Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons, "Reflections On My Own Death", 1972


*/*


Listen:

Kurt Vonnegut is dead.

His book Breakfast Of Champions saved my life. I was ready to kill myself before I read it. I'd already tried once before to commit suicide, and I was set on doing it again when I read the book at age 16.

After reading it and laughing hysterically through tears, I made up my mind to never try and take my own life again.

Oddly enough, I feel no sorrow for his passing. He should have been dead a long time ago, when he was hunkered down in an underground bunker enduring the above-ground bombing of Dresden in 1945. Instead, he survived, and began writing, and became famous for his unique point-of-view, and his books and their collective messages somehow fell into my hands, and few things in my life changed me like his prose.

Of all the authors I ever read who inspired me, Vonnegut was the most invigorating. I learned to laugh in self-defense, and treat the negative on an equal measure with the positive. I haven't always been successful at it, but it's an ongoing process that will know no end until I am buried.

One day, maybe I'll get it right.

In the meantime, his passing is yet another sign that I am most likely reading too much into but nevertheless accepting for what it is: a signal for me to finish my own novel, ten years in the making and largely influenced by Vonnegut's style. In a way, he has always been my literary model: he didn't get famous until his later years, and by then he'd accumulated a definite outlook and voice that no one could ever duplicate, despite their best efforts.

Vonnegut made me slow down my pace. He made it okay for me to not be in a hurry to achieve fame and accolades for writing. His life was an example for me of how to let life wash over you as you take notes. Every time I ever got depressed and thought I'd never amount to anything except a frustrated writer living in abject poverty, I always thought of Kilgore Trout, Vonnegut's alter ego and favorite protagonist. Trout took his time and was deemed crazy by his peers, but he never stopped writing. He just kept on doing it, and it was Vonnegut's way of saying that a writer should not only love what he/she does, but that practice makes perfect, and being prolific is not the same as being rich and famous and well-known.

I learned that a writer should amass experiences worth writing about before even contemplating putting them down on paper. Vonnegut's traumatic life was the template for his entire public persona, even as he insisted that things like Dresden or his mother's suicide or the indignities of mankind had nothing to do with his writing.

As a tribute, this weekend I'm going to re-read one of his novels. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of Champions on me-- that one got stolen or lost somewhere down the road years ago, like most great works of art.

Maybe I'll rent Champions from the library, but I also have Slaughterhouse Five and several other volumes of his work in my possession. But even if I don't read any of his books again in the near future, it's alright because I feel like every day I am re-reading his works in some way, shape or form.

Vonnegut's fiction (and later non-fiction) gave birth to me. It made me. It created me. It shaped me. It possessed me. It runs in my veins as surely and steadily as blood.

I owe him big. And if I ever meet him in the afterlife or on the astral plane or wherever it is that our souls go when we eventually perish, I'll be sure to let him know what he meant to me.

But for now, I think the best way to do that is to just finish the novel. Even though he's not around to appreciate it, by finishing the book I will have given back to him what he gave to me so long ago.

And what did he give me? Just for the record, he gave me back to me. Though we never met, he told me that it was okay to be me, and to like writing, and to pursue it no matter what happens or comes my way.

It won't be necessary to dedicate my first novel to him, because every word that I write is an implicit dedication to him already.

God bless your soul, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And thanks again for the laughter, the tears, and the inspiration.

love is sexy

It was a great disappointment considering all the hype that surrounded it.

First came the whispers: the next joint was going to be his return to grace, his unofficial comeback. No more Beatle-esque psychedelia or baroque orchestrations or French-infused jazz noodling, no more pat Top 40 pop designed to skyrocket to the top of the dance charts...

No, Prince's next album after Sign O' The Times was supposed to be the Death Blow to all the haters and naysayers out there who claimed he'd gone soft.

It was going to be released without a title or any cover or sleeve art. It was tentatively known as "The Black Album", perhaps a hyper-parody of the memorable gag from This Is Spinal Tap. Certainly, with all the interference Warner Bros. was creating in conjunction with his releases, Prince may have been making a sly joke, one that poked fun at the absurdity of the music industry in general.

Then, a few months before its slated release date, the word got out that Warner Bros. shelved the album and another one was slated to be put out in its stead. Fans were taken aback but not disdainful-- after all, this was Prince: a bona-fide musical genius with a proven track record for penning successful hits and selling millions of funky albums worldwide. They figured that if the album was getting 86'ed, there was probably a good reason.

We all awaited the coming of the next album. I was in the 8th grade and my parents were on the verge of splitting up. I needed this album.

A single dropped from out of the sky: "Alphabet St". Catchy, yes, and it went on to be a hit... but it seemed like a bad omen. Soon the fans were wondering if maybe shelving "The Black Album" was such a good idea.

I bought a copy of Lovesexy when it came out. I still own the vinyl, with its garish cover art portraying Prince in the airbrushed nude sitting on a flower, posing demurely. It was embarrassing to look at-- I would've felt more comfortable carrying home an S.O.D. album or a Skrewdriver cassette than Lovesexy.

I gave it a listen. It was good, but it wasn't "The Black Album"... it wasn't even Around The World In A Day.

It became my least favorite Prince album, and also the least listened-to album of his in my collection. With the sole exception of one song, "When 2 R In Love" (the lone holdover from the aborted "Black Album" sessions) there was very little for me to gush over, even as I went out and bought all the accompanying singles on 45 (I was hoping the B-sides would be better, and they were).

My verdict: Lovesexy was a dud. Oh well, maybe he'll come to his senses and release "The Black Album" after all. Perhaps the next album will be better.

I was 14 years old at the time.


*/*


I'm 33 now.

In the time between Lovesexy's release and today, much has happened to me, the rest of the world, and Prince in particular. Contract disputes, name changes, ups and downs, and even Super Bowl appearances have overshadowed the substance of his music. Still, the man has undergone a genuine revival, heralded as a pop icon, a living legend and an accomplished musician in his own right.

The Black Album eventually saw the light of day, if only to help Prince get out of his seven-album contract with Warner Bros., and even then it was released as a limited edition CD... not that any self-respecting fan didn't already own a bootleg copy of their own.

When I finally heard The Black Album (around the time that he was doing the soundtrack for the first Tim Burton-directed Batman movie) I thought it was spectacular. "How could he release Lovesexy in lieu of this?" I asked myself. Granted, The Black Album didn't quite live up to its storied hype itself, but it was definitely funkier and harder than Lovesexy.

And speaking of stories, there were several to speak of that haunted Prince's reputation: Warner Bros. thought The Black Album was too risque; Prince was the one who pulled The Black Album because he had a vision from God; Prince was hooked on drugs and Lovesexy was his rehab effort...

The only way I could ever really listen to Lovesexy was to dub it onto one side of a blank cassette with The Black Album on the other side; this way, it served as an exotic double-concept album.

As the years passed by, Metallica released their own Black Album, thereby imploding the Spinal Tap joke on itself. Life was now imitating art twice over, and by the time Jay-Z released his own Black Album I'd had enough of the whole notion.

Meanwhile, Prince was free from the WB and became a Jehovah's Witness, and began to retool his public persona. He went from appearing as an out-of-touch rich recluse to a pop visionary who had been so far ahead of his time that only now were people beginning to catch up.

His music got better. It sounded more soulful, more passionate. He seemed at peace with his dual nature, that impulse torn between God and Satan, a theme that has permeated nearly all of his work.

And with that, I began to look back on the classic albums and reevaluate them. Some of them needed no reappraisal (1999, Parade) and some of them were surprisingly revealing when I revisited them (Purple Rain, Dirty Mind, Controversy).

And in the latter category, Lovesexy stands alone.


*/*


Looking for cover tunes for my upcoming solo acoustic show, I thought about "When 2 R In Love" and sought it out. Unfortunately, my older brother has all of the Prince vinyl in his possession. Luckily, I still had that dubbed cassette of Lovesexy/The Black Album in my archives.

Since both albums contained the song in question, it didn't matter which one I'd put on first. However, the tape was wound somewhere in the middle. I put the Black Album side in first and found that it would take considerable winding before I could cue up the track; when I flipped the cassette onto the Lovesexy side, lo and behold "When 2 R In Love" was playing.

So I listened, and I learned the song, and a chill came over me, and I cried.

I'd forgotten how beautiful a love song it was, and I replayed it over and over until I got it down.

Then, I let the rest of the album play. Since it was technically Side Two of the album (the vinyl version anyway) I figured there would only be two more songs before it got to the end; then I could pop the cassette out and put on the other side.

By the end of Lovesexy, though, I realized that I hadn't heard this album in a long time. Moreover, I realized that I never really gave it a chance either.

Chalk it up to being (much) older and (not much) wiser, but I am listening to the album right now as I blog this, and let me tell you: Lovesexy is severely underrated. It's better than the majority of Prince's work after 1988. In fact, it may be the last great Prince album of his classic era (I always felt that Sign O' The Times was the end of that line, but I have since reassessed this opinion).

First of all, never has the God/Satan dichotomy been more transparent and obvious than with Lovesexy. Prince went so far as to divide his soul up into two different personas on this album: Camille (the feminine, positive side) and Spooky Electric (the masculine, negative side). With Gemini as his astrological Sun sign, Prince has always explored the duality of mankind (vice and virtue, good and evil, love and hate) but never in such a manner as in this collection of songs.

Then, there's the recent light shed upon the whole album release controversy, provided by longtime friend and collaborator Matt Fink, aka "Dr. Fink" (you know, the keyboard player who wore doctor's scrubs in the videos):


[I]n 2001, his long time keyboard player Dr. Fink told then-Internet radio host Ernest L Sewell IV of The Ernest Experience Radio Show that Prince said he saw the devil. He was paranoid due to drugs, and instead of the popular story of him seeing God, he in fact had thought he saw Satan. He told his bodyguard Gilbert Davison this, and Gilbert in turn related it to Fink and possibly other band members. It was this hallucination that had Prince running scared and decided to ditch releasing the album. He even asked for the cassettes of the album back from the band members that are routinely given to them to learn the songs by ear. Fink had later expressed discontent in that he wished he hadn't given it back, or at least made a copy of it for his own personal use.


Whether it's a true story or merely apocryphal, it fits in with the sincere nuttiness that hovers mysteriously around Prince, that of the sensitive artist who teeters on the brink of genius and madness. Others merely come off as completely wacko due to their peccadilloes, but Prince always manages to emerge unscathed mostly because he doesn't do anything to hide his eccentricity. If anything, he plays with it. Unlike R. Kelly or Michael Jackson, whose alleged perversions are held separate from their work, Prince's perversions and passions (which are tame in comparison to the likes of Kelly and Jacko) are intrinsically tied in with his lyrics and music.

I doubt R. Kelly would ever write a song about his scandal other than rebuking those who accused him, and likewise with MJ; Prince, however, aired his dirty laundry from the get-go, and just kept pushing the envelope as time elapsed. Every Prince album from Dirty Mind on contained at least one line or song that made me blush, causing me and my brother to adjust the volume so that my mother would not get angry. And yet, as embarrassing and inappropriate as those naughty sentiments were to me then, they are nothing if not honest, and the true fans always appreciated that... even if, like me, they sometimes didn't get it until much later on in life.

I think Lovesexy was the album where the once-adoring masses first started to resent Prince, and the backlash that nearly derailed his credibility in the music world began to rear its head. But I think now, almost two decades later, the album should be listened to again. You'd be surprised at how well it holds up. What sounded weird and unusual now sounds relevant and contemporary (all those strange electro-blips and synth-squiggles are commonplace in music today, especially in the work of Pharrell Williams and The Neptunes), and the lyrics are spiritual on an almost Gospel-like level.

And of course, there's "When 2 R In Love", an amazing ballad that captures the torrid passion of romance and the animalistic undercurrent of that very same eroticism, balancing both extremes precariously as a gorgeous backdrop of musical swells and crescendos undulates behind it. It gets my vote for the best love song of all time, because you can listen to it with a lover as well as fuck to it.

Maybe that's why it ended up on both Lovesexy and The Black Album. Maybe Prince recognized that he'd written the perfect slow jam, a Gemini of a track that could do double duty as both lascivious mood music and exhortation to true love.

As His Royal Badness sang in that very tune: Nothing's forbidden/ nothing's taboo...

I think that's the way it should be, don't you?