Going Missing

 

For a television season or two, during the late 00s, on Sunday evenings, CBS used to air the television shows Cold Case and Without a Trace back to back.  I will not go into the quality of these shows, or a breakdown of them in any fashion.  I had consistently watched both of them prior to their pairing.  I liked them both.  I liked the idea of Cold Case and how they would pair music from the time of the unsolved murder in the flashback scenes.  I always thought that would’ve been a fun job.  Wish I had thought of it.  Without A Trace was always intriguing to me, because I have always been incredibly fascinated by the idea of going missing without a trace.

Sundays have been important days for me since I was in High School.  Back then it was my music day.  I remember doing my school work mostly on that day, while listening to my most recent music discoveries and reading books about music.  Then in the evenings, I would listen to my favorite new music radio shows, before tuning in to MTVs 120 minutes for more music.  The main thread here, is that I would spend the day alone, focusing on enjoying my interests.  They were days where I would recharge.  Ever since, I have tried to keep that tradition alive.  I am slow to make plans for activities or social things on Sundays, because of this.  However, as a mostly Monday through Friday worker bot, over the years, Sundays became a day of dread.  Here I would be dedicated to languishing in my pursuits, all while trying to ignore the building dread in my gut about the idea of returning to work the next day.  One day, perhaps I will try to explore this mindset of not living in the moment, and focusing on only the negative side of things, but that time is not now.

For about a year, my Sunday evenings would end with a double TV shot of Cold Case followed by Without A Trace.  There was something satisfying about the two shows that quelled some of that work dread and always had me feeling all kinds of things about life.  I don’t know why, but I think it was the sheer sadness that came from both shows.  Both shows always centered around investigations where each victim’s life is uncovered and we get to learn about all of the horrible shit in their lives.  All of their bad relationships, hidden pain, and their dark secrets.  I guess I found it grounding to see that we’re all effed up in different ways.  It also taught me to truly realize that everyone has their issues and to be more understanding in general. 

A few years ago, I wrote about my strange fascination with a local missing person case (Jennifer, She Said), where I touched on how I identified with her case, and I still feel it in a way that makes me a little nervous.  I don’t think I have the courage or the whereabouts to go missing.  Without A Trace was a perfect show for me. It was generally tragic and sad, it contained all kinds of unresolved emotions, and it tugged at my odd desire to go missing.  Unfortunately, the missing I want to go, is one where I am also unaware of the details, so I can enjoy the mystery. Where there are people looking at clues from your life and finding importance in them, when literally no one else ever would.

 In a sense, I have gone missing before.  There were times, during my dialysis years, where I would be hospitalized for up to a week, and would not alert anyone, besides my workplace, and even then, not always.  You know what?  It was never a big deal.  My lack of communication was mostly a case of sheer laziness, and most of the time, no one noticed.  There was no FBI investigation.  There weren’t any panicked phone calls from family or friends wondering what happened to me, or even why my car hadn’t moved from a strip mall parking lot for five days and nights. 

Truly, I do not understand my interest in going missing.  During my last hospital stay, after a brain surgery, I struggled with hallucinations.  For a long time, I believed that I was under constant threat via kidnapping, which led to torture and likely death.  It was all incredibly real and clear that none of that stuff would be something to wish for.  None of that was real, and it was some of the scariest stuff I’ve ever experienced!  So no, I really don’t want to go missing against my will and I really don’t seem to be able to go missing on my own.  I remember one weekday morning about five or six years ago, I decided to drive to the ocean instead of going to work.  I left my phone at home, drove to a quiet, isolated beach, and sat in amongst some giant piles of driftwood with my head in my hands in an attempt to shut out the world.  It was cool and cloudy, and yet somehow, I still got a wicked sunburn, and when I returned to work the  next day, my manager asked me where I had disappeared to the day before, I told him that I needed a day away, and he was completely understanding and cool with it.  It really pissed me off! 

Maybe I want to go missing from my life as it is.  Perhaps it’s a desire to start over in some fashion – to rid myself of all of the responsibilities and obligations I feel each day.  Whenever I get asked what I would do, if I could do anything I want, I struggle to answer.  I’m not sure what I want, or I’m not sure I can allow myself to want things.  I know I want to escape from my health problems, and the constant obligation of checking up on the state of my poor health.  Instead, like so many of us, I wish for unattainable things, while trying to achieve some sort of record for denying myself any joy in life!  It’s clear that there is no reward for working those extra hours, or whatever.  No wonder I want to disappear! 

I vaguely remember an episode of Without A Trace where a woman went missing, and it turns out that she wanted to set up a fake kidnapping, so she could escape her life and start anew in some other country.  However, her fake kidnapper instead decided to really kidnap her, and it all went badly, until our TV heroes intervened just in time to save her from death.  That feels exactly right.

Maximo Park "Going Missing"

Don't Give Up

As a kid, curvy roadways used to make me violently ill.  There’s something about the constant turning, causing the stomach to shift from side to side.  It seems like every time my family took out on a winding road trip, it would be either burning hot outside, or damp outside, so the car interior was always warm and muggy, so the nausea of the rocking back and forth - sliding a little along the vinyl back seat – unsecured by a seat belt, came along with uncomfortable sweats.  Recently, I drove through Newberg, a small town about 25 miles southwest of Portland.  I will always associate Newberg with car sickness.  When my family moved from Portland to the Oregon coast, we passed through and I asked if we could stop, because I thought that I was going to throw up.  The deep breathing my mom suggested was not working.  We stopped off at a donut shop.  It was a rainy and humid mid-morning.  A common rainy Oregon day: wet and gloomy and strangely warm and humid.  The kind where you need a jacket to keep your clothes dry, but you don’t really want to wear more layers.  The four of us sat inside the donut shop with a few plain round cake treats in the center of the table.  My dad seemed to have a thing about ordering the plainest donuts in the world.  If I think back on it, his decision was likely partially based on the fact that they were the cheapest option, but it’s just as likely that his decision was to not offend anyone’s tastes, which always had the opposite effect.  My brother and I each had a half pint carton of milk and my parents had styrofoam cups of coffee.  My stomach was mildly better, but my head was still spinning and I felt like I was burning from the inside, which I remember because my dad was getting impatient and wanted to get back on the road.  I chewed the same bite of that donut for what seemed like hours, until it became a viscous goo that wadded up in the crevices of my gums with no intention of going anywhere near my throat.  I felt like I would feel years later when I experienced my first tragic hangover and every one after that.  I stared at the milk.  I hate milk.  I always hated milk.  I was always being given milk and I could not figure out why.  My mom had opened it for me, so I was afraid I would get lectured about waste, but luckily my bother chugged it down with his strangely amplified swallowing noises.  Glug Glug Glug.  Welcome to Newberg.

Why was I passing through Newberg?  I’m not really sure.  I have made reasons that take me to or through Yamhill County four weekends in a row.  This most recent trip, I took a route I haven’t used in years, after having driven back and forth through there countless times as part of that two hour trek from Lincoln City to Portland and back.  Not far from where I remember that now long gone donut shop, I turned right onto a highway I don’t think I’ve ever noticed before.  It was a narrow two lane road that immediately began drifting back and forth needlessly.  Though I no longer seem to get car sick, I still don’t appreciate these types of roads.  I don’t have a particular affinity for driving, beyond the convenience it provides, so it all feels like too much work.  Yet, here I’ve been spending parts of my weekends driving through the countryside.  I suppose it’s a way to get out of the house responsibly during the Covid lockdown.  It’s also been a place I’ve imagined as an escape over the last several years.  I explained this a couple of years ago in the post Jennifer She Said.  The rustic Yamhill County has become a wine connoisseur hotspot since those days of plain donuts and car sickness, yet it has retained its quiet rural time capsule aesthetic.  It is still sprinkled with tiny towns with broken streets often slowed down by commuting tractors creeping past small local markets, dive bars, tiny schoolhouses, and now the occasional fancy tasting room for a nearby vineyard.  The escape daydreams started popping into my head with the image of living alone in some small house, working evenings at a small local pizza shop pouring pitchers of beer for parents after a local high school game, sharing odd philosophical notions or inventing on gossip to the locals.  I’d imagine I’d spend my days writing – believing that I actually had the talent and the will, and possibly hosting a local radio trade show, trying to sell or trade off Orville’s rusty back hoe or Thelma’s old claw foot bathtub that’s been sitting out back for the past 20 years and maybe spinning Shoegaze records for the farmers to enjoy.  Of course, these ideas hinge on some alternate reality where towns of less than a thousand people would have a radio station, the pizza place was still in business, and that I could survive on minimal wages, no healthcare coverage, or a nearby massive medical staff of specialists to manage my wonderful genetic syndrome.  The alternate vision?  That one involves going out to some random field at the edge of a forest to die in that peaceful setting.  I suppose it could be considered alarming that I keep finding myself returning there every week, but I have no plan.  No plan at all.

The day before, I was at the work office when a full on panic attack struck me.  I suddenly could not catch my breath, I became light-headed, and an overwhelming feeling of alarm surged through me like a lightning strike.  I do not blame my job directly, though I’m pretty sure it was triggered by a flash flood of the usual insane vague emails I so often receive, full of demands that I rarely have not been provided the proper tools to address.  These messages tapped into the incredible weight of anxiety that is already in place and has become intolerable.  A lot of us are dealing with anxiety, uncertainty, and isolation during these past few months of pandemic lockdown, and I have not been immune.  I honestly thought when this all began to disrupt our lives, that I would manage fairly well, since I have spent most of my life in a kind of self-imposed lockdown.  I could not have been more incorrect.  I have been battling depression for the past several years, made more acute after my 2015 Halloween hemorrhagic stroke, and these past few months have absolutely exacerbated all of my greatest fears.  I have been mostly cut off from my small group of loved ones who I rely on for support and therefore am spending way too much time dwelling on the emptiness that I feel.  Consciously and logically, I know that I can make decisions to choose to see the positive, but my brain will not allow these things.  Instead, I am left terrified, hopeless, and listless – powerless to affect change.  When any additional challenge passes my way, like the work emails, the bottom drops out and I feel like I’m free falling.  The only option that is to surrender and allow the inevitable crash to happen.  

About six miles in to my journey along this recently discovered highway I turned onto, I had my window down, and I was trying to feel relaxed by the breeze whipping into my face.  The music of Russian trio акульи слёзы (Shark’s Tears:  https://sharkstears.bandcamp.com/music ) was loudly enveloping me like a mournful blanket of melancholy.  As I approached an actual fork in the road, I veered to the right and up a slope into a forested stretch – away from the open fields of the previous couple of miles.  It was there, along the roadside, at the end of a tiny gravel driveway, I spotted a plain white campaign style yard sign with block letters reading “Don’t Give Up.”  I began gasping for breath again.  Would I begin to hyperventilate like I had the day before?  I could feel blood rush into my sinuses pressing in like a punch to the nose.  The sign brought to mind memories of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood “Frankie Says” slogans that they so brilliantly used to promote their music back when I was first beginning to spend all of my money on records.  I’m not sure if this flashback was the cause of the sudden emotional reaction, or because the sign was so unexpected, like a cosmic message placed there along my unplanned path to put my mind at ease.  I began to think about the Peter Gabriel / Kate Bush "Don't Give Up" duet.  It was a song that I adored when So was first released.  It tugged at the heartstrings and shone like a beacon of hope.  As close as I possibly could, I identified as a young teen with the Peter Gabriel character of the song, and longed for the soothing, comforting voice of the Kate Bush character to guide me back from the proverbial ledge.  The older and more jaded I became, the less effective the song.  It was too contrived, almost to the point of pure cheese - but that bass-line is impeccable.  Sort of like Depeche Mode’s “Blasphemous Rumours,” which is so heavy handed that when the life support machine sound effects come in like Darth Vader having an asthmatic attack, I can’t help but laugh, despite concurring with the song’s message that there is no such thing as fair and that there is no spiritual grand plan.  There is no plan at all. 

Soon I was back onto a bigger and straighter highway heading back to where I live.  Knowing that I was going back, pushed my thoughts far from the hopeful encouragement of the "Don't Give Up" sign, or is it an unrealistic command?  The realization that nothing is changing for the better only began to fuel my urgent desperation for escape and the inability to know how.  I began to feel completely exhausted.  The lids of my eyes began to linger against each other when I blinked.  The image of driving off the road into the strange swampy field adjacent to the road passed through my thoughts, but instead I pulled onto the shoulder, got out and leaned against the car, and was again overcome by uncontrolled panic.  Erratic breathing, nausea and pressure built up from within so quickly that I thought I might burst.  This was a new kind of car sickness.  I stayed there for a long time, as I began to calm down.  I fought off the urge to lie down on the blacktop next to the fog line and drift off to sleep.  Instead I checked my phone.  No messages.  

Why has this time now been so difficult to deal with?  I have been through a lot of challenging times, I have always found a way to battle through.  When my life has been in the balance with a myriad of emergency health struggles, I have been a fighter.  I have refused to give in.  I have never worked harder, than I do when I have had to recover from devastating surgeries and debilitating medications.  During my three years of dialysis, I was defiant and challenged myself to continue to live life as if I was healthy and wasn’t spending 4-5 hours every other day being tortured.  I was not going to give up.  Perhaps, during those times, the struggle was tangible.  I had something in front of me to deal with directly.  I had timelines and goals.  Relearning what once were simple tasks, allowed me to take heart in seeing progress.  I feel none of that promise anymore and I do not know what to do.  This is like trying to fight my own shadow.  How do people turn this around?  It does not seem possible?

I want to thank the few folks out there who know that I am in a dark place and have reached out to offer support (I hope you know who you are).  It means more to me than I can ever express.  I also want to apologize for being a burden.  I would not have made it this far without you.  I do not wish to push my problems onto anyone and would rather be a positive part of your lives.  I’m just unsure of how to get there.  

Jennifer She Said

During the summer of 2014 there was a big local news story about a woman who went missing.  A late 30s wife and mother of two young kids.  The story was riveting as it unfolded.  She was last seen buying a few small items at a pharmacy and filling up her car’s gas tank.  If I remember correctly, there were some clues that she might’ve been spotted in the San Juan Islands area.  Every day, each local news channel had reporters on the various scenes with updates – treating this as a likely abduction.  Then, a couple of weeks later, she was found near her car on a secluded country road in Yamhill County not terribly far from where she went missing.  She had committed suicide.  Because of the personal nature of suicide and the media’s strange way of covering suicides, the coverage abruptly ended the day her body was discovered.  The media generally chooses not to cover suicides of everyday people to protect the rest of us from getting any untoward ideas and the privacy of the people involved, yet they don’t seem to have any problem sensationalizing celebrity suicide.  I’m not certain that I can be critical though, because it’s a tough and touchy subject. 

All suicides are sad.  It is horrible that someone reaches a point where that becomes the only solution to what is ailing them.  There was something about this woman’s suicide that hit me in an especially profound way.  Her disappearance was sad and scary, but learning that she was the cause of her own disappearance filled me with a surprising empathy.  Almost a jealousy.  I’m not sure why her particular story resonated with me, nor do I know much beyond the superficial coverage that was provided via the local news outlets, but it hit me deeply at the time and continues to this day.  I mean, she seemed to be living the dream, right?  By all accounts, she came from a solid family, had a husband and two young kids and apparently were financially stable.  I will not speculate as to why this was not enough to keep her from taking her life.  I know from the results that it wasn’t.

There’s a part of me that feels a kinship with her.  Every few months I drive through the country roads of Yamhill County and though my childhood self would’ve never believed this, I find a certain solitude there as I pass through on my way to and from the coast.  Every so often, I take different roads to see different sights and explore the landscape.  Every so often, I pull off at one of those mom and pop highway mini marts that sells live fishing bait to see if they have three foot long pepperoni sticks, and fresh homemade jerky.  Sometimes I stop somewhere to get out and absorb the quiet solitude of the tall fields, the rolling hills, and the hum of the breeze blowing through them.  My mind drifts to thoughts of moving to a small house on a small lot in one of the small towns like Yamhill, Carlton, Dayton, or Sheridan and becoming some sort of writer by day (HaHa!  I know, right?  One can dream.) and maybe pouring pitchers of beer and soft drinks at the local pizza joint a few evenings a week.  I think the idea of running away from my daily reality is what makes this so appealing.  Sometimes the mental and physical pain reaches a point where the idea of lying down to sleep a deep never-ending sleep in one of those remote fields on a warm sunny day to never be found again feels like the only acceptable option.  There’s a peace in the idea that I struggle to find anywhere else.

The devastation to this woman’s family has to be overwhelming.  It is impossible to recover from such an intense and unexplainable loss.  Like so many out there, I have lost friends and acquaintances to suicide.  Suicide is characterized as a selfish act where the victims are the survivors.  In this case, one wonders how her husband and children have coped and continue to manage.  She had people in her life that rely on her every single day and she left them.  Perhaps from her perspective, she saw no better way.  Her internal pain may have overcome her need to fulfill her obligations.  I am not one to cast judgements about her decision.  I am familiar with a self-hatred so intense that you feel like a dark cloud in your loved ones lives.  That they are better off without you.  At least in my case my life has been lived so much in isolation, there is no one that relies on me.  At most, I am someone who is okay to hang out with on occasion.  Let’s grab a beer.  Let’s get some din-din.  Let’s go see a show.  Otherwise, I’m a bit of a burden with my history of health issues and the resultant help I need sometimes financially or day to day care taking, because I am incapable of managing on my own.

We’re all only here for a relatively short time whether we choose to end our lives at a particular point or not.  Why do so many of us live lives that make us unhappy?  Why are so many of us wired to be unhappy no matter what the circumstance?  I found out while typing this that today is World Suicide Prevention Day.  I realize that this is not a ringing endorsement for staying strong, but please, if you are not feeling like you can go on.  Believe me.  I understand.  There are lots of people who understand and are willing to listen.  Please reach out for help, instead of making a decision you cannot undo.  Let’s all try to figure out ways to make our lives better.

Arizona

Dear K*****,

I know it’s been forever and ever.  Not sure if this email address even works anymore, so I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough if this gets returned after hitting send.

Right now I’m listening to a recent album from the wonderful singer/songwriter Tracy Shedd titled Arizona.  I’ve always kind of taken her talent for granted since first learning of her through one of those cheap Teen Beat Records samplers I used to always buy around the turn of the century (do you remember “Circles” from that last mix tape I sent just before I went in for the kidney removal surgery?).  All five of her albums are excellent, and yet I’m pretty sure that I’m not listening to them enough and telling everyone I can about them loudly enough.  This new one though has really hit me at the right time.  Apparently, it is almost entirely acoustic guitars, aside from a from a few little added touches here or there, but I swear I listened this thing three or four times before I realized how stripped down and spare this actually is.  I have been so enraptured in her words and voice and the delicate and memorable melodies provided by the twin acoustic guitars that nothing has ever felt like it was missing.

Why has it been such a profound listen right now?  Well, 2013 was overall a pretty lackluster year.  It was filled with my usual health uncertainties, more heartbreak, and just a general distaste, as I noticed in retrospect that many of my old standby hobbies and habits have gone by the wayside.  Many of the old comforts don’t really do the trick anymore and I’m not sure why or what to do or where to turn next.  I simply know that it’s time to find a new direction and I’m starting to find some solace in that idea.

I don’t want this to be about me, except to say that I have serious self-doubt about contacting you again after all of this time and so absolutely out of the blue.  But I’m worried about you.  Rumor has it that you have not been in a good place of late and I wish to offer you my distant support.  And I think Tracy Shedd offers up a notion, in her song “Broken Arrows”: “You can die trying, or you can die with a broken heart,” where I’m not totally sure these are the only options available (besides the dying part), but I’m taking her thought as a kick in the butt for 2014.  I’m tired of not trying things I want to achieve for fear of whatever, so to hell with it!

“Walking down memory lane

You took me by surprise

I was homesick and blue

Thinking about what to do”

                                                           -from “Sweet Talking”

Tracy Shedd does a fantastic cover of the old Magnetic Fields song “Candy” that I put on the first mix tape I ever sent you back in ‘93.  Do you remember when we last parted?  We were listening to the Magnetic Fields’ “100,000 Fireflies” on your turntable, when you gave me a hug and placed a simple rubber band on my wrist to tell me that I should wear one as a reminder that there will always be ‘someone’ out there who cares.  Well, that always meant the world to me and sometimes I find myself wearing five or six rubber bands at a time – during those most distressing moments.  I don’t think I can ever repay you for that show of support, but my offers of heartfelt music have always been my return gift.  Shedd also closes the album with a cover of Sonic Youth’s now legendary “Teenage Riot,” which you never liked, because it was ‘worthless noise,’ while I always argued that the song was ‘artful dissonance.’  I think you’d really like this version though, because she turns the onrush of the original into something slow-paced and clear, putting a focus on its thoughtful distillation of our times - besides Howie Gelb from Giant Sand, who you always liked, sings the song along with Tracy.

“Oh, if I’m gonna sit down

And listen to this

Oh, I’ll need a stiff drink

To get me through

Oh, nothing is certain

And no one is perfect

Oh, and you’re no fool

You’re just a little lost”

                                                     -from “You’re No Fool”

It’s the bulk of this album though that feels like it should be the metaphorical rubber band as my gift to you – hell, I’ll mail order a copy for you!  Tracy Shedd’s words are so perfectly straightforward and free of useless complications.  She is direct and lets the power of her phrasing and her beautiful voice and melodies to hammer home whatever emotions she sets out to evoke.  She is clearly singing from the point of view of having someone in her life deal with some serious shit - someone who is on the brink, as she boldly sings on the song “Control”: “don’t end it all tonight / you have a life to live.”  It is a simple message but her soaring voice drives her worried plea home overwhelmingly.

I can only hope that you are not at such a terrible point.  Life is often painful, frustrating and extremely difficult to deal with, but it’s something that we all have to do our best to persevere in order to reach those moments of sheer joy and inspiration that make it all feel like we each have value and that are lives are meaningful.  It’s music like this album that always remind me that we all go through tragic times and that it’s okay to take comfort in the poetic words of great artists such as Tracy - it's life-affirming.  You have always been a spark and the first person to help your family, friends and anyone you come in contact with.  It is time to focus your amazing healing powers inward and help yourself for once and to realize that you will always have someone out there supporting you in spirit. 

                                                                                                                                                       Warmest Wishes,

                                                                                                                                                                      Chris.

Tracy Shedd

Arizona

(New Granada 2013)

 http://tracyshedd.wordpress.com/

 http://newgranada.bigcartel.com/

 http://tracyshedd.bandcamp.com/album/arizona

Letter to Hope

I have referenced it several times over these many posts over the years, either via journal style entries or through short stories, but the early 90s was a terrible time for me. Besides dealing with my own fairly serious health crises, I lost my mom to cancer, lost two friends to suicide, and frittered away what may have been my best shot at love. It didn’t help that this all went down during the emotionally charged age of the early twenties, when pretty much everything that happens in life seems way more epic and significant than it really is due to a lack of experience crossed with heavy doses of uncertainty while trying to find a direction with life. These are things that we all experience.


The main way I have always chosen to deal with personal crisis is to turn to music. It has always been my sanctuary. I rise with it when I am on a high, maintain with it when things are running along routinely, and wallow with it when times turn rough. Writing about Jawbreaker with the previous post (Ache), a lot of those powerful and dark memories that coincided with that band’s existence have returned to the forefront of my thoughts. So too has much of the music that I discovered during my efforts to track down every single song that Jawbreaker released. Not only did that great band release four amazing albums, but they routinely put some of their best songs onto different punk compilations from around the country, so I had to track those down too. It was through these that I ran into the frighteningly prolific and always thought provoking J Church (from the legendary 17 Reasons Mission District 7” boxed set), the tumultuous buzz saw shred of Radon, the politically fueled Strawman, among many others. However, it was hearing the early Husker Du - like magic of Spoke’s “Descant,” (from the 1993 Allied Records’ amazing compilation: Music for the Proletariat) that inspired me to check out more from them and would lead me to find great solace, comfort, and joy in their words and sounds (little did I know then, that I already had this song on a spilt 7” that came sleeved in a comic book from a year or so prior).

It’s always a little discouraging when you get all excited to listen to a new CD from a newly discovered band and the credits in the little booklet state this about the band: “Spoke was Chuck Horne, Scot Hagel, and Jonathan Resh.” Sadly, by the time Spoke’s first CD Done, a 1994 collection of their three 7” singles and a couple of compilation offerings, the band had split. This is a massive shame, because these early recordings from this Florida trio show a huge amount of promise. All three members sing and write songs and this versatility is what seems to drive my love of punk rock trios (which would be a list way too long to bother to provide). Done, as a whole is, not surprisingly, a little scattershot, considering that it’s a compilation of their earliest songs. The metal tinged opener “Anithistamine,” which makes using an inhaler for an asthma attack sound like breathing in napalm on a battlefield (“clenched fists grind down abraded eyes”) before relief finally comes (“I cannot prove how my misery’s removed”). Similarly, “Harsher Winds Fall” and “Crushed” come along later in the proceedings with a striking metallic influence, which isn’t really my thing, but they are decent songs. “Harsher Winds Fall” addresses the sad fact that racism continues to be an issue in these times over some tight riffage, while “Crushed” is a short burner with abstract words that effectively convey the feeling of being trampled by someone you hold dear. Other than these small examples of a metal side, Spoke seem to have brought to the table more of a punk rock aesthetic. Their heartfelt and sometimes roughly played songs remind me of the early Lemonheads as fronted by Ben Deily (Spoke was also recorded by Tom Hamilton, who recorded those first three Lemonheads releases) and when Jonathan Resh takes over the lead, he has a gruff, yet spot on vocal style that reminds of Bob Mould during his Husker Du years (check out the chorus of “Prey” or the aforementioned “Descant”). What really made these guys always stand out for me amongst the rolling drums fills, buzzing guitars and mid range exploratory bass lines they provide are their powerful lyrics. Having said that, there are two instrumentals, “Mareado” and “You & Joy” that are downright harrowing and exhilarating. They tackle politics (“Descant”), racism (“Harsher Winds Fall”), religion (“Prey”), prostitution (“Dark City Sister”), and of course many matters of the heart. Just try to get the repeated refrain from the wistful love song “Just a Thought” out of your head (“she’s a rose in a pond of water”).

Luckily, Spoke left us with an actual debut album All We Need of Hell (the title fittingly taken from the Emily Dickinson poem “Parting”) that was also released posthumously in 1994. The liner notes provide that two of the songs included were written in memory of two different people lost and that loss is reflected all over this massive 19 song album. It is those two heart wrenching songs that provided the understanding comfort I needed to help with my losses. “Letter to Hope” instantly became one of the most powerful songs in my collection with its poetic imagery, swiftly shuffling music, and Resh’s mournful, angry and lost vocals. Just hearing the song now makes tears well up in my eyes (“and though I still stand unresolved / and though her world came to an end / and though she can’t be seen again / the ink bleeds forth from the pen of what once was / I’ll soon send my letter to hope”). Likewise, “Lil,” the other tribute, uses sparse lyrics to create a powerful scene of uncomfortable uncertainty (“close the light / but I don’t want to go to sleep / pace in circles / talk to myself”) over nervous and naked guitars before exploding in a cascade of frustrated noise after the narrator decides to self medicate to ease the pain (“behold the scythe / it tears a patched quilt of life / let’s spill the medicine and drink down good night”). The musically similar “80 Percent” (a song that provides an imaginary soundtrack opening for a short story I wrote: Kim the Waitress) powerfully addresses regret over a failed relationship with some serious self realization (“but I know an assurance of perpetual love was quite impossible / when only 80 percent of what she wants can I fulfill”). I’m not sure what it is, but I seem to be drawn to emotionally devastating songs, but their impact on me often is increased in a punk rock framework. Maybe it helps to swallow the rough message when it’s combined with some sense of release. The busy “My Eyes” arches and races through it’s tempo, but still smacks you across the face with a scene of inner turmoil for the narrator as he encounters someone who has used him, but he still yearns for their love (“my soul’s been yours to lose / my feelings fall to you / so what will you do? / I want to see you all the time”), while the wistful and dreamy “Crazy” finds joy with the early stages of a relationship (“I have lost all control of my heart of which you stole”). The powerful short story inside of the “Celebrated Summer”-like “Porch” seems to introduce us to some lifelong friends who are ready to embark on their life’s travels (“and the world spins on axis with little assurance for us all / but the steps between our home and the cold world bridge each day in time”), while the hard charging “Ruptured Seam” allows some real catharsis within its ranting toward breakdown in two minutes. This album is not all deadly serious. The opening instrumental “Sculpture” eases us into the odd “Gordon Johnson.” I’m not sure who he is, but according to the song “he blows.” Also, “Inga” opens with hysterical psychotic sounding laughter before merging into an atmospheric instrumental roll with haunting vocals expressing a longing for an inflatable doll. There are also two fine covers of two influential bands: Wire’s comeback song “Ahead” (1987) and a drastic reworking of Minor Threat’s “Salad Days” (1985). I could go on and on, but I will take a breath and relent. This is an amazing album that has been virtually unnoticed from its time of release and especially since, which is a tragedy. I am not doing it much justice here, but I urge you to give this short-lived band a try via their one time label No Idea Records. You can track down Done here and All We Need of Hell here.

Spoke "Letter to Hope"

Curtains!

Breathing was difficult due to the fact that his face was pressed firmly into the side of the bathtub, while scalding hot water rushed through his lips and into his nose before trickling into the drain underneath his right ear. He was dizzy and felt paralyzed as his legs lay lifeless and crumpled underneath his body. He slowly moved his head to one side, because the flowing water coming down from the shower head high above was overwhelming his every attempted breath. His eyes clenched tight as he began to try and determine his whereabouts. That’s the moment when he felt the sharp stinging in both of his wrists. He carefully reached up to turn off the water using the old soap-stained faucet above his head. He realized that he had passed out after laying carefully down into the small white tub. Now he found himself fighting to open his eyes. The tub around him was stained red with blood, as was his chest. There on his back, with small drops of water taunting his eyes, he held his left hand up in the air. It hurt horribly. He examined the damage done. About an inch below the wrist were several small blackened marks with a circumference of red circles surrounding each scratch. Blood was still seeping out because of the water around him, but the coagulation had mostly closed the wounds. He laughed as he let the water and bloody mess drip onto his chest from his shaking arm before it dropped back down to his side. His arm felt too heavy to hold up. He once again closed his eyes. His face felt warm and tingling. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the loss of blood or from those pills he took before he had climbed into the shower. He smiled and was giddy from being lightheaded and the flushed feeling in his cheeks and he tried to go back to the warmth of the sleep he had just awoken from. His mind wandered to that evening a couple of weeks earlier when he had put a small cut in his throat in the shower. He watched his reflection bleed in the tiny circular shower mirror suctioned to the linoleum and found solace in the taste of his own blood. It was a small cut that only bled momentarily, but he enjoyed the sensation.

+++++

She couldn’t believe what she was doing. The car was burning hot from the defroster and heater blowing full bore for the entire trip – because of the cold and damp autumn evening. She was in a rattling and nearly broken down car loaded with her friends on her way to meet the guy she had been in touch with for almost two years through social media, email, and even good old fashioned letters, but whom she’d never met. She had always wondered if they would meet, but until recently they didn’t live in the same city. He had finally moved to the other side of town and she couldn’t put him out of her mind. He always seemed like a nice guy and she loved his writing style and the website he wrote for and encouraged others to write for. She always felt like he understood her feelings in a way she never could.

“I think this it!” Cindy shouted as she veered the car in the darkness toward a small apartment complex.

This snapped her out of her thoughts and intensified the pit that had been slowly growing in her gut since the moment this idea was forced upon her. Sometimes she hated it when her friends pushed her into action, instead of letting her be all talk and safe in her little womb. He would probably think she was a crazy stalker for dropping by unannounced like this.

“What was the number?” Cindy asked over her shoulder as she swung into an empty parking spot and slammed onto the brakes. The car whined and clanked when the front end scraped over the top of the small yellow cement block that protected the walkway.

She mumbled the apartment number to Cindy and announced that they really didn’t need to go through with this silly plan.

“Nonsense,” Rebecca responded with disgust. “We’ve come this far, you’re not backing out now”

The four of them sprinted through the heavy rainfall as they scanned the area for the correct place. Before she knew it, they were climbing three flights of stairs and Cindy was knocking on the door. All of them began giggling nervously and were shaking from the chill in the air.

“I can’t believe we’re really doing this!” Cindy blurted, suddenly losing her ambition.

There was no answer after 30 seconds or so. She took a deep breath to try and stave off some intense shivers that had her entire body rippling.

“I hear something in there, and it looks like a light is on in that window,” Mary smiled and pointed to their left. “Knock again!”

Cindy pounded on the door harder and several times.

The silence overwhelmed her, as they all held their collective breaths and listened closely for any sound from the other side of the door. A fog gathered above them in the stairwell as they all stood facing each other with curious looks on their faces. Time stood still. Finally, she croaked out that no one was going to answer and felt relief spread through her shoulders and down her back.

“Leave him a note,” Mary commanded.

“Yeah, let’s all leave him a note,” Cindy agreed. “I have some paper in my purse.”

All of them scrawled out quick silly notes in their bubbly scrawl, while she paused and watched them as all of the clumsy butterflies returned. What should she write? He would now know what they did. Whatever the case, she drew strength from the camaraderie of her friends and contemplated some words that she thought he might think were funny. She didn’t want to scare him away, because she had some genuine hopes for this guy, despite her terror at the thought of actually meeting him just moments prior. Again, she asked herself why she didn’t stay home instead of telling her friends about him. Then she wouldn’t be here now. What could she say on a piece of scrap paper that would convey her feelings to him in a way that he would completely understand where she was coming from? She shivered again and realized that she didn’t know what she wanted. Cindy gathered all of their messages and stuffed them into the jam a foot or so above the doorknob.

+++++

“Yo! Sup?” Jim shouted as he banged the door open and tripped over the decayed floor mat just inside. “Looks like you got some love letters out here.”

Jim’s ruckus at the front door startled him from a deep slumber. He was wrapped tightly under a blanket and curled in the fetal position on the couch with the TV showing the closing credits of the old B-movie Monster A Go-Go! which he had tuned to during the opening credits - at least his third unsuccessful attempt at watching this movie. He had been dreaming of warmth and sunshine. The kind of sunlight that he only had ever imagined could exist – a kind of warmth and glow that could burn away the darkness that was always enveloping him. In his dream, long shadows from several giant shade trees stretched across a bright green grass field as he strolled comfortably through the shadow lattice toward a bright blue ocean in place of the freezing grey water he grew up next to. He was groggy, but made an effort to lift himself up over the back of the old couch to see Jim and figure out what he was talking about. He could feel dried blood pulling at the skin and hair on his chest underneath his loose fitting concert T-shirt and squinted as Jim had turned all the lights on that he had turned off after his shower earlier.

Jim dropped a few softened sheets of torn scrap paper on top of him as he passed by on his way to his bedroom. He could see that the handwriting varied, yet all contained the recognizably bubbly handwriting of nearly all girls born after 1970.

“Shouldn’t you be out? It’s Friday night. I’m thinking of going to grab some brews with some dudes from work, you wanna join?” Jim asked as he ducked into his room.

He collected the notes together as he responded to Jim with uncertainty, but knowing Jim would not take no for an answer.

The Book of Love

Yesterday, I made a half-hearted attempt at trying to sort through the stacks and stacks of stuff I have allowed to pile up in my place. By sorting, I really mean purging. The goal is to get rid of it all. This will not ever happen, but I like to believe that it will. After dumping a bunch of useless paperwork, I tried tackling a box of my old writing. As I’ve mentioned before, I have random notebooks and loose sheets of paper piled in drawers and boxes, crammed with handwritten writing efforts. This is when I discovered a little yellow sheet of paper crumpled up and smashed into the corner of the box I was going through. It was not titled. Since I have been unable to get myself to write at all in recent times, I thought I’d share this scattered thought from my past, which may have been a rough draft as an intro for an old issue of the “This Wreckage” ‘zine. I know I did not use it. Clearly, I came to my senses.

“I’m only pulling pieces
From the pages of my former life
Stiff and wrinkled paper
Written in a different time
Are you gonna cross the line?”
- Corin Tucker, 2010

Being careful. No, you did not want to hurt her. You left no traps. Only an open door. Biting your tongue and smiling through the pain. Everything is perfect in here. Everyone is smiling. Everyone is happy.
Being too careful. Being someone different, because what you are is not enough. Nothing will last from this. Everything built on a foundation of lies.
Nothing works. Relationships are always doomed to fail. Fear, lies, miscommunication, misunderstanding and then, finally, truth. Inevitably, truth is the end. It’s really sad too. The simple delusions we put ourselves and others through.
Nothing works. Failure can appear from nowhere. All feels fine. All feels good. All feels right. No. Let’s screw it up. Let’s walk away.
Sometimes I wish I knew someone who believes in things spiritual. I don’t believe and I can’t (this person would disregard this). I wish I could be convinced that there is a plan, because I do not like what I see. I do not like what I feel.
Sometimes I get so anxious that a big ball wells up in my throat making it difficult to breathe. My lungs quicken, my hands clench into fists and my heart pounds erratically. This feeling arises far too frequently these days and at times as disparate as being pulled over in my car by a cop to seeing what I think may be a cute girl wandering around a half mile away. But this feeling is strongest when I’m alone and wishing a girl who used to like me would pretend to again. It’s during these times when the feeling of regret becomes so overwhelming that I cannot fathom why I made such rash and harsh decisions without care for how this could affect anyone, especially me.
Last year, was easily the worst year of my life. Half of it was bad, due to my own stupidity. The other half: I had no control over. It scared the shit out of me. Three down and I was nearly the fourth. Things may have turned out better if I had. Maybe I should’ve gone. If only the nurses hadn’t acted so quickly. Maybe if a doctor had not been available. I never did like to make decisions for myself. It’s too hard.
Full circle now. I’m left feeling nothing these days. Not a damn thing. Empty. Hollow. Yes, that’s right, kind of like a relationship where one or both people has lost interest, yet they keep it going. Why keep it going? It’s going to fail anyway.
- May 7, 1992