Welcoming back my (other) daily bread…

The proof is in the pudding. Reputations are built, and built well, because we’re more than buildings and venues. We’re more than just one of 50 listings on a Saturday night. Even with other bars, bands and performers, there’s only one thing happening when it’s time for us to do what we do.

There’s a reason so many fall in love with our brick and mortar river city.

We’re true.

We’re together, and only growing stronger. There’s a love and respect you don’t get too many places when you are on our stage. It’s a feeling that comes easy when close to a thousand people are behind what you’re doing—when all you have to worry about is doing what you do best.

Show-Me weekend is now behind us, and as the memories, inside jokes and pictures flood our Facebook feeds, and some return home while others of us to our daily bread, a strange sense of loss, longing and depression inevitably starts to set in.

I see it all around me.

It’s not unlike Christmas; you spend months thinking about it, planning for it, getting into the spirit.

And then it’s over.

Though it never really is. Some will return to perform again soon, others will return, only to find themselves calling this town home. We’ll keep writing and planning our Beggar’s Carnivales, it will continue to evolve with the cast, the venue, the music—the production. Because we believe in it. Because we’re more than performers. We’re family. We have one another’s back, we’re here to inspire, give courage, to critique, collaborate and even hug it out when the artist in us takes over. We’re in this together. We’re inclusive, but good judges of character. We’re  dedicated to the craft above the hype.

We will continue to be a premier city for burlesque and variety, a gateway to the West, East, North and South and the perfect place to find your name. A place where you won’t get lost, unless that’s how you arrive, but even then, if you try hard enough, you can always find yourself. Amongst friends.

I’m not feeling the post-show-me blues this year. I’m happy to return to my daily life, as I prepare for  TV production and some great new opportunities to think deeply about the human psyche and what drives us to make our choices.

I’m happy to roll up my sleeves and dive back into the challenge of my career.

I’m happy to relax and pet my dogs, hold my woman tightly as our legs twist together like silk ribbons.

I’m happy to put on my tie and live up to my name, day in and day out, because I know there’s more. Plenty more.

There always is. The music, the shows, the passion and love. The drinking and banging and swearing and dancing. The respect. The memories to be made, the bridges to burn, the demons to cast out to make room for more uplifting spirits…

 

Tomorrow, two days after the flying pasties and twirling tassles were packed away, two days after the open bars and open arms closed…Two days after the gorgeous and talented ones kissed my cheek, called me daahhhhling and said goodbye, as I continue to find false eyelashes in the bathroom, sequined fabric in-between sofa cushions and somehow, glitter in the strangest of body cavities, I will still be in this world of sparkle and the talented.

Two days later, as I finalize our filming schedule, cook dinner for my lady and sit on the back porch exploring the economics of thought with a cocktail and smoke, I will still be the Dapper King Libertine.

I will close my eyes and still hear the sounds of the crowd cheering and hooting and hollering and applauding, and begin thinking about what we’ll do next.

I have a few ideas.

 

 

 

It’s good to be the king.

 

 

Fondly: Because I could…

I stood at the edge and looked out at the sun; hot, orange and far, far away—slowing sinking behind the city skyline. It wasn’t as congested and “majestic” as her city, but I loved it all the same. The silhouette of the Arch, rising up amid the old brick buildings. I never got tired of it.

Jazz was born over those bricks. Hearts were broken over those old buildings.

I stood on the roof and took a drink. Top shelf scotch. I swirled it around, re-mixing the sugar sitting at the bottom of the glass with the melting ice and took a deep breath.

It was all about enjoying the view and not drinking too much, while I waited.

It wasn’t my turn just yet. They were still a little too sober.

Business is one thing, ideas are another. One keeps the accountant happy, one proves we’re different than the others. Better.

I lit a cigarette and leaned on the rail.

I felt good. Damned good. My suit was tailored, my drinks were free and the setting allowed me to wear sunglasses, protecting my worse tell—my eyes.

I also smiled when I lied.

In my mind, I had already gotten away with it, before I even finished saying it. I never got away with it. So I quit lying. I didn’t need to.

I just had to be who I never knew I was before I met her.

 

It was somehow easier when she wasn’t around, so long as I didn’t think about the fact that someone else was probably inside her while I drank and schmoozed and patted myself on the back for my life.

But I didn’t know. I never did with her, until I did.

She only told the truth after I’d caught her in a lie. And right now, she was many state lines away most likely acting her age.

I looked across the rooftop bar, and watched our clients. I listened to their conversations, and watched for their ticks. Their tells. The uncomfortable shift when a subject was brought up that shouldn’t be. The half smiles that came with each new cocktail. The flicker of the eyes when something clicked. By the time it was my turn, I’d know what to say, and what to keep to myself.

It was not unlike the game we play for love.

By the time it was my turn, I would already know how to convince them my great idea was theirs, stepping over the other creatives to ensure it was my strategy they wanted to put into place. They were better strategies. It wasn’t manipulative, it was being smart. It was protecting the client.

Or so I told myself.

It wasn’t lying. That was out of the question. It was merely consideration.

Calculated strategies are far easier to stomach than selfish manipulation.

 

The bar was open, and I had no plans of going home at the end of the night.

Below the bar, about 10 floors down was a room, paid for by my company. I had no intentions of going any lower than that after the schmoozing ended. No intentions at all…

…Unless you count the fact that the room was for one of our clients, and she had already made it clear, I was welcome.

I didn’t even want to. I just wanted to know I could.

In the end, I never did. In the end, I always took the long elevator down at the end of the night, a happy client settling in, buzzing with booze and a refreshed confidence in what we do, wishing I had stayed, though thankful I had left, most likely thinking about what I would have done to her, had I stayed.

In the end, I just wanted to know I could.

Even though we are…

We are but delicate flowers made of candy, subject to the temperament and circumstance of that which we cannot begin to understand through notion.

Through our personal commotion.

We are slaves not only to ourselves—to our personal demons, but the winged creatures that circle the head of everyone around us. We are not special.

Even though we are.

 

Just a simple truth

I can’t really write at the moment. It happens. Brain herpes. But I did have a kind and true thought within a discourse with a friend:

Love doesn’t take anything into consideration, aside from the agony of being apart, when it’s true.

That is all. See you when the roller coaster screeches to a halt.

Fondly: Until he didn’t.

He usually felt fine.

 

Until he didn’t.

 

It never came for a good reason…usually it was just a matter of too much at once. He’d hit a wall.

 

It was rarely spawned from something tragic, or nefarious, just too much to do, with nowhere near enough time. The more he had to do, the closer he came to shutting down completely, incapable of even the most simple of tasks.

 

He’d begin to feel like a failure. Which lead him to think about past failures, reviewing the tape, as it were, like a quarterback on Monday. Trying to figure out what he was doing wrong.

 

Then, he would spiral.

 

The past would continue biting him in the ass as the future loomed heavy, just another, larger deadline he was going to have to meet eventually.

 

Then he would give up.

 

And accept responsibility for all the wrongs in the world, which he somehow felt were his fault.

 

Suddenly, he was worthless, useless, wrong on every level. Answering the phone or mail brought about an unnatural anxiety, and eye contact was impossible, even with his own pale reflection in the mirror.

 

All he wanted to do was sleep, but he never could.

 

Then, all he would feel was emptiness.

 

Until he didn’t.

Because…bar.

I have a beautiful bar in my home.

 

So why wouldn’t I host my friends, my darling woman at my side, shaking cocktails and sharing laughs?

 

Exactly.

 

I do live the life I love and love the life I live.

 

 

Fondly: I blame Oprah

“I want a baby”, my wife said, laying on her side in one of two queen sized motel beds.

We were on vacation, if you can call a ten-hour road trip with her parents, my in-laws, to visit some random extended family members I barely knew, a vacation.  If you can call a trip to Nowhere, Kansas, a holiday.

We’d had this conversation before. Many, many times before. Ten years of marriage and I was still trying to put off the inevitable act of procreating, and to this day, I have no idea why. It wasn’t a money issue, I had a good enough job;. I had a good salary,  had a job that allowed me a little creative ego, was able to buy a nice 2 car garage, and still put a little away each month for college tuition should we ever have a kid. I was at least pretending to care about the future.

“You know, the older I get, the more dangerous it is to have one.”  She rolled over, her back staring me in the eye.

We always slept in separate beds on vacations. After our second year of marriage, the term “spoon” went back to the kitchen utensil used to stir the coffee.

“My mom didn’t have me until she was in her forties, honey,” I replied as I slid open the bedside drawer and pulled out the Gideon bible.

Every hotel I’ve ever stayed at has that bible, usually bound in blue or brown pleather, with gold, embossed letters. I thumbed through the good book every time, but I can’t say I ever actually read a word of it.

I gave up on god in college.

My wife had been bringing up the subject of children since year three of our marriage. I’m not sure if she wanted one because of some inherent maternal instinct most women tend to have, or because all of our friends had one.

We were among the first of our circle to get married. We didn’t see the point of putting off the inevitable registered picnic basket from pottery barn and open bar.

We were the very last to pop one out.

Yes, if all of our friends jumped off a bridge, we probably would too.

We all took turns getting married, then one by one my friends all fled the city to buy houses in the county, surrendering to the corporate grind and the American Dream.

Like dominoes our circle of friends traded in the young and aggressive life of the postgraduate for mini-vans and mortgages. They started listening to NPR instead of community radio and settled into a land filled with nothing but subdivisions and strip malls made of ticky-tacky.

When the first of our group had a precious-as-fuck daughter, I got a little worried. By the time couple number four had their little ankle biter, I knew I was officially screwed. Kids slowly replaced all other conversation.

I still wanted to be young and dynamic, The wife, well she wanted to become her parents.

As each old friend made their happy little announcement, things became more tense between us. Every baby shower we attended meant another long conversation filled with fun little facts about the dangers of having a baby in the twilight of our years. The older we got, the more likely our child would be born autistic or otherwise challenged, according to the wife’s research.

If we waited until our forties, the likelihood of a one-eyed retarded midget with webbed feet increased with each tick of the clock.

I haven’t the foggiest notion where she was getting this information, but I somehow found myself blaming Oprah.

I spent the next forty-seven and a half minutes staring blankly at a random page in a random chapter towards the back of the bible. I was really just waiting for the wife to fall asleep, so our discussion of breeding could officially cease and desist.

About twelve minutes into a failing attempt to kill time, my eyes fell out of focus and I began looking for a vision in the blurred text, finding the same thing I would have found had I actually bothered to read it; nothing.

It was only slightly less disappointing then watching Geraldo find an empty safe so many years ago.

Google it.

Regardless of the outcome, time was officially killed.

It seems like most of my days were filled with space-fillers and time-killers. I was pretty much always just waiting for my bedtime.

The next morning we packed up and drove back home to our all-too-normal lives, pleasant as daisies, avoiding the prior night’s vicious cycle of debate. Evade and ignore; one of my fortes, and my only strategy when the wife starts in on the baby train. I’ve always been a big fan of avoiding conflict.

Nocturnal Admissions: 2:AM

I really wanted to write earlier.

There are lists of subjects I want to write about filling every random page of my moles. Things I want to explore. Things I want to expand upon, expound upon. I’ll get to them all and then some eventually.

But.

Earlier, I just couldn’t find it. It’s been a long, busy week full of wonderful moments, hard work and dedicated thought on and off the clock.

I just simply didn’t have it in me.

It happens, now and/or again. I’ve made peace with this fact.

Now, this might seem like a mild digression. Bear with me. It’s late.

I don’t sleep that well. Never have.

My mind swirls, my dreams are heavy. I have a hard time calling it a night, and a tough time staying asleep.

This is pretty much how it has always been, for as long as I can remember.

I hated it as a child.

Laying in my bed, restless—thinking. Listening to my parents brush their teeth, take their turns in the bathroom. I’d hear the TV turn off, and watch the reassuring, soft reflection of lights on my bedroom’s hardwood floor slowly fading under the crack of my door until it was dark and quiet.

I was awake. Alone. Left in my bed, complete with a guardrail to keep me from falling out, something I still do from time to time.

I wanted to get up. Walk around. Draw something. Anything. But I couldn’t. So I’d lay there, watching the lights of cars race across my walls, listen to the sounds—the hum of the refrigerator, the sound of someone turning over in their sleep…the cars wooshing past, a dog barking, wind chimes…until I heard nothing at all.

Other nights, I’d fall asleep just fine. Quickly. My mom would come in and scratch my back and sing Hush Little Baby as she did every night when I was young, and I’d drift off feeling warm and safe.

Until about 2:AM.

Fucking 2:AM. It’s a magic number, more or less.

More to wit, an infamous time that I see far too often.

Even back when I was three and four, I would wake up in the dead of the night. And there I’d lay. Staring at the ceiling, my eyes adjusted enough to see a few details of the room.

You know, an evil clown waiting to eat me, a giant spider hiding in the corner, waiting to attack. Strange shadows I knew better than to trust.

Details of the room.

Back then, nights were a marathon. I just needed to make it through until the morning. My mind and body so active, but unable to move about.

When I was married, I still woke up around 2:AM, nearly every night.

But.

I learned very early on not to get up, move about.

She would hear it then, and I would hear about it the next day.

So once again, I’d lay there; mind racing. Trapped staring at demons in shadows in the corner of the room.

Or perhaps the corners of my mind.

I still wake up. Every goddamned night. I probably always will.

But now, it’s a little different. I can get up. Walk around.

I really wanted to write earlier, but I just didn’t have it in me. So I went to bed early.

Of course, I woke up, same bat time, same bat channel tonight, just as I always do. I can’t remember what I was dreaming, but I was relieved to have woken up.

I walked out to the living room and sat with the puppies for a bit, scratched them as they leaned in, still asleep but aware. Then I stood up, lit a cigarette and stepped out onto the back porch, wet from the never ending rain that had been dragging on since my commute home.

I closed my eyes and listened to the neighborhood—my neighborhood. I listened as the hum of streetlights and the occasional siren faded away, leaving only the sound of the wind rushing through the trees, and the soft drops of rain tapping the leaves.

I just stood there, and listened to the gentle lull of nature and thought about all those sleepless nights. Unable to move about, unable to do anything but think.

Then I thought about this one. And many more like it in the recent years.

Sometimes in the summer, I stand out on the porch, staring down 2:AM, with closed eyes. Listening to those same sounds—dogs barking, wind chimes dancing, cars, sirens and sleeping birds. And just like tonight, I listen until they fall away leaving only the sound of the warm summer breeze. With my eyes closed, it sounds like the ocean. With my eyes closed, I’m there.

I still find my mind swirling through uninitiated thought; thinking retrospectively, nostalgically, and critically is, quite frankly, an inevitability. There’s no plan or agenda. No effort to figure anything out. Just the frank and random thoughts of a mad man sitting between two worlds, neither asleep nor awake.

These are the most honest thoughts I find. The ones I don’t go looking for.

But I’m not trapped. There are no monsters in the shadows, just puppies, wind chimes and the ocean.

I wanted to write earlier, but I just didn’t have it in me. I didn’t even really feel like it.

But then, 2:AM.

You don’t deserve a damned thing.

So…you’re in your 20’s and you have no clue about your life.

Congratulations. You are normal.

I remember it well. Working a shitty job, or even a decent job, but thoroughly unfulfilled. You wake up every day and think sadly, defeated, “Is this it?”

Yes. But only if you let it.

I spent a large portion of my 20’s scared shitless, because I simply had no idea what to do. I had grand dreams, sure. We all wanted to be an astronaut or fireman at some point in our lives.

We all make grand declarations about who we want to be, but the real challenge is following through and making it happen.

And this puts a lot of post nuke kids in an awkward position.

Raised with a mind set of entitlement, they want the world and they want it now. But they want it handed to them. They want their job handed to them. Their dreams. Hell, some people even expect their apartments, furniture, and overall life to just be provided without all that pesky work. Without all those inevitable failures we must face along the way.

There is no timeline. You aren’t competing with the world, or racing against your peers.

Nor are you helpless.

Posting what you want on FB won’t make it manifest itself.

Figure out what you want. Figure out the steps. Then work for it. Don’t expect it. Get it.

And don’t expect it to happen overnight.

So you don’t know what you want to be when you grow up.

Boo fucking hoo.

Few people do. Life is about growing, evolving, and finding yourself.

It’s about finding a path and staying on it.

You want to be a dancer? Great. You’d better be prepared to change your diet, rehearse relentlessly and train daily. Because someone else is, and they will beat you. You also better prepare for when you aren’t in your 20’s and dance isn’t going to pay your bills.

You want to be a writer? Super. Then write. Every goddamned day. Study the field, and build your reputation. Understand the business. Writing a book won’t guarantee fame or residuals for the rest of your life. But then, if that’s why you’re doing it, you’ve already failed.

You want to be a musician? Fine. Practice your instrument. Build your following. Work your ass off. And most importantly, FUND YOUR OWN GODDAMNED ALBUM. Nirvana didn’t have a kickstarter. Neither did the Beatles. Do it yourself.

You want to work in advertising? Good luck.

 

It doesn’t really matter what you want to be or what you want to do. It won’t happen if you sit around trying to will it. You have to get off your increasingly large asses and make it happen. A grand declaration won’t get you there. Neither will wishing for it.

Expecting it is the surest way to fail.

At your chosen path, at life in general.

Trust me. The climb is supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to take time. But once you reach the top of that mountain, the view is wonderful.

but.

You only deserve what you earn.

The economics of thought

I’ve been studying thought a lot lately.

 

Not the abstract idea, the literal exercise of thinking.

 

More to wit, how to think more efficiently to produce the work I want, with the results I need.

 

I know how to think; we all do to a certain point. It’s an innate mechanism of being a human.

 

But there’s a difference between the average moment of decision, and a deeper exploration of the challenges at hand to find a better solution.

 

Everything I learn garners three more things I need to research.

 

I’m still formulating my ideas of how thought is both useful, and used within my profession. There’s a lot more to learn.

Ultimately, I’m just trying to find the best pattern of thought to produce the best work possible. Work that satisfies the soul, the psyche and even the statistics I do my best to ignore in the early stages of a concept.

 

Most recently, my research has lead to me to behavioral economics, which is normally used to predict the market. There are a lot of aspects of this I believe can be used to dictate the market, rather than react to it.

So many people look for the easy solution, the fast payoff. We live in a world of immediacy, and far too often this causes rash, poorly planned strategies.

 

Those that step back and think; they are the ones that create trends, rather than follow them blindly.

 

I will always be a student in the school of thought. But now, I choose the curriculum.