War

Had he survived the cancer that decimated his body and plucked him from this earth prematurely at age 36, Bob Marley would have turned 67 years old today.  He dedicated his short life to fighting to bring about the change he wished to see in his native Jamaica and ultimately the world.  His lyric and delivery is inescapable and haunting.   

The tragedy of Bob Marley is not only that his voice was silenced too soon, but moreover that he isn’t remembered for what he truly was – a revolutionary.  He chose music over violence as a vehicle to affect change and in a world devoid of the ability to see past the surface, the underlying theme of his life’s struggle is too often lost.  Years after Marley’s death, Dave Thompson, a writer more eloquent than I wrote: 

"The machine has utterly emasculated Marley. Gone from the public record is the ghetto kid who dreamed of Che Guevara and the Black Panthers; who believed in freedom; and the fighting which it necessitated; whose heroes were James Brown and Muhammad Ali; whose God was Ras Tafari and whose sacrament was marijuana. Instead, Bob Marley today is smiling benevolence, a shining sun, a waving palm tree, and a string of hits which tumble out of polite radio like candy from a gumball machine. Bob Marley was worth far more." 

I’m not religious and certainly don’t pretend to fully grasp the tenets of Rastafarianism but if those beliefs produce the level of understanding of the human condition that Marley possessed then maybe we should all convert.  So he got high.  Who cares?  I’ll expound on my theory on why all drugs should be legalized sometime later but if all you think of when you hear his music is smoking a fat bowl you’re missing the point.  The fact that he smoked should be no more an indictment of his character than the fact that I like a good steak should be an indictment of mine – neither says a damn thing about the person.

I don’t have the frame of reference to understand the hardship of growing up in Nine Mile, Jamaica but Them Belly Full is still in heavy rotation on my iPod.  It resonated with me, a white kid who grew up in Mississippi, and still does.   That was / is the power of his music and message.   It’s as impacting now as it was the first time I heard it and it’s still relevant.  Though this is an overused statement made about far too many musicians, his music truly transcends the passage of time.

On the way to work this morning I listened to what I’ve always thought to be his seminal work, War.  The song is perceived to be about actual bleeding and killing war and it is, but there is a deeper metaphor to be found within.  The war that I see and hear in this song isn’t one that is waged on a battlefield; it’s the war within ourselves that we sometimes knowingly but more often unknowingly engage in everyday.  The war that Marley writes about is what we feel.  What leaves a deeper scar on a society than the battle is the idea that killing one’s enemy in the name of an ideology will solve the problem, whatever we perceive the problem to be.  What murders the soul of our humanity is our collective inability to contemplate any other alternative for fear of being labeled unpatriotic.  It’s our collective lack of understanding that ensures that war will always exist.   

I’m not naïve enough to believe or even allow myself to hope that war will ever end completely and yes in some scenarios it’s not only unavoidable but necessary.  But if I say that Afghanistan isn’t one of those scenarios, does that mean I don’t want the US to kick their ass?  If I say this is the wrong war, does that mean that I’m for the other side?  If I say bring our troops home as soon as possible, does that mean I don’t fully support every single soldier that is on the ground right now?  The answer is a resounding no to all of these questions.  Then why do I feel somehow guilty for saying it out loud?  One answer is because I’ve known at least one, and sometimes several dudes who have been in harm’s way in one war or another it seems constantly since the early 1990’s.  Another answer is that I don’t want my friends who have strapped up to think I don’t support their success, respect their sacrifice and hope for their safe return.  And yet another answer would be that maybe I too have been sucked in by the propaganda vacuum that exists in this country as a defense against the chaos that would ensue by upsetting the herd.  It could be that the same machine has made me doubt my own convictions – has made me question my deeply held, life-long anti-war position. 

I readily acknowledge the pipe dream nature of these convictions but I stand behind my belief that war only creates more war – and it never brings about any lasting peace.   Rather than get bogged down in the futility of that idea, I choose to hear the significance of the message that Marley delivers.  I choose to attempt to be a part of the vision that he had for this world.  I choose to believe in true equality, in true freedom and true justice – not just the stylized, clichéd catch phrases that these principles have become.  I choose to not be a part of the problem by allowing myself to fall into the trap of racial or cultural superiority.  I hold no illusion that these choices will appreciably alter the collision course this world is on with itself, but if we all made those choices and honestly committed to them, it might.  I think that is what he was trying to say all along and why I think this world would be a better place if Bob Marley was still in it.      

Read his words.  Let them marinate.  Allow yourself to hear what he was saying.

 

War 

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior 
   and another 
       inferior
Is finally 
   and permanently 
      discredited 
         and abandoned –
Everywhere is war – me say war.

That until there are no longer 
first class and second class citizens of any nation. 

Until the colour of a man's skin
is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes –
Me say war.

That until the basic human rights 
are equally guaranteed to all, 
Without regard to race – 
Dis a war.

That until that day
the dream of lasting peace, 
World citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain but a fleeting illusion to be
   pursued – 
            but never attained –
Now everywhere is war.

Robert Nesta Marley

6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981

The Lowe's Epiphany

Saturday morning at or around 7:30 AM, I was standing in Lowe's dissecting the benefits of using ¾” copper pipe fittings over ½” copper pipe fittings.  There was a long list of pros and cons for each but the internal debate stretched way past the ordinary, even for me.  As I was approaching the (10) minute mark of this deliberation I lost track of my own argument in support of my inclination to select the ¾” fittings.  For what do I need copper fittings, I’m sure you’re asking yourself at this point, right?  That’s the kicker – I have absolutely no reason to purchase or for that matter internally contest the merits of copper pipe fittings!  Yes, there was a blurred memory of a copper side-table I designed once bouncing around the walls of my skull, but it certainly wasn’t in the queue for construction Saturday or any time in the near future.  Whatever.  I got sidetracked.  Back to the list.

A short time later, as I mulled the financial implications of laying flagstone on the patio against the cheaper, but much less durable and aesthetically pleasing simple concrete staining option, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a guy I thought I recognized.   I could tell that he thought he knew me as well.  Having no desire to navigate that “What’s your name again?” awkwardness this early on a Saturday I quickly closed my cerebral proceedings and hurried on to the paint aisle.  Where’s that list again?

This is where it starts to get interesting.  I was standing there among the multi-colored array of spray paint caps thinking how pointless spray paint is.  Who uses this?  I have and I can never get a proper finish on whatever it is I am painting.  What a waist of space in this store and on this earth.  I was near livid thinking about the futility of attempting to achieve an acceptable level of quality using spray paint. On to the hardware aisle – that’s what I need.  There are all manner of screws and bolts and threaded rods and hinges and brace plates and stainless washers and metal things over there.  

That’s when it hit me:  H-O-L-Y SHIT!  I’ve completely skated past middle-age and hopped the express train straight in to OLD MAN town!!  I don’t even have a list!  I don’t need any of this crap!  What the hell am I even doing here?

As I rushed out of the store I realized where I knew the guy from the flooring department from – it was from right there!  Last weekend he was in the garden section though, I’m almost sure of it.  I’ve apparently been going to Lowe's on Saturday (or Sunday) morning for so long now that I recognize the other lunatics who do the same thing.  I found an odd comfort in knowing that I wasn’t the only man with this compulsion but the big question still remained.  Why? 

Have you ever watched the movie Conspiracy Theory?  It’s not that good: I don’t recommend it but that’s not the point.  Jerry, Mel Gibson’s character, is a paranoid crazy person who entertains all sorts of delusions about government cover-ups, aliens, political assassination plots etc, etc.  Every time he finds himself in a book store he is compelled to buy a copy of Catcher in the Rye.  The act itself makes him feel normal he explains when asked.  He can’t ascertain why exactly but I get it. I understand that I’m drawing a comparison between myself and a paranoid schizophrenic but on this point, I’m okay with it.

Years ago, a lifetime it seems at this point, I was a carpenter – I was a craftsman. I built houses, I built furniture – I built stuff: I did things with my two bare hands that were incredible. I’m actually sitting in a chair at a table that I designed and built as I write these words now.  In fact, most of the furniture in my house, I designed and constructed. At the end of those days on a job site or in a workshop I was physically and mentally spent, completely exhausted.  It was awesomely rewarding though to look back and be able to see what I had done, what these two hands had created.  I felt an incredible sense of pride in transforming a modest stack of raw lumber into a house, a home for a family to make a life in, to make memories in.  That’s what we did and what my family still does – what we’ve always done.  I’m proud of that. I’m proud of that heritage from which I came.  There was a sense of accomplishment that I felt when the sun went down on those days that I don’t always feel during these. 

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love what I do and I don’t think I would trade my life with anyone.  I design buildings and buildings are built.  Where once was nothing, now there is something.  It’s similar, but not the same.  I can only watch these structures come out of the ground now where once I brought them out.

The Lowe's Epiphany is not that I’ve turned into an old man, or that I've lost my mind (though a measure of both are probably true) it’s simply that I need to get my ass back in the workshop.  That’s where I've always found my center and that’s exactly where I need to be.  The bottom line is that I miss getting my hands dirty on the regular.

So now if you happen to see me in the power tools section gently caressing a table saw with a lovesick look in my eyes you’ll know why.   

It’s passed time I bring it all back.

Crossing the Alleghenies

There is nothing quite as slow and immense as airport time.

I finished my work early Tuesday and was really excited to possibly be getting home sooner than usual for a change.  Of course all earlier flights were booked and I began the death march that is waiting for a flight on a sunny afternoon.  As per the norm, I passed the hours with Sophia at M+E’s, extending the tentative friendship we’ve come to know.  Thus ended (2) uneventful days in DC and Phase I of the project that has occupied too much of my time over the past several months.  I shouldn’t have to return for at least several weeks and I’m strangely looking forward to being back in my office for a while – it seems like forever since I spent a full week there.  I can finally catch up on my TPS reports or whatever it is that I do.

Back in the office, I slept-walked through Wednesday, my mind occupied by a 1:00 meeting for a new project in Altoona, PA Thursday afternoon.  We landed in Baltimore at 9 AM staring down a (3) hour drive up to Altoona.  Why Baltimore?  This is what happens when you let a GC arrange your travel.  Though it certainly wasn’t an efficient use of my time I didn’t complain as I had never driven that part of the country. 

Northwest Maryland is non-descript, forgettable even but the landscape starts to come alive as you cross the Mason-Dixon Line into Pennsylvania.  Speaking of, what the hell is the Mason-Dixon Line doing so far north?  I’m sure this is information I possessed at some point in my life but I’m still confused by it.  I always thought this was the demark between the “north” and the “south”, right?  My travel companion was from Michigan and she thought the same thing.  Having grown up in Mississippi, I can assure you that those southerners do not consider Maryland part of the south.  I’m sure there is some other historical significance to the Mason-Dixon Line but I’m not sure what it is – I think it might have something to do with slavery but I’m not sure.  Either way, I was surprised to discover it this far north.  I guess I had assumed it to be in North Carolina or somewhere like that.  And I call myself a history buff? 

It was a miserable day to be driving; cold, rainy, gross.  The higher into the mountains we climbed the foggier it became.  Later at the meeting, the client joked that the fog had settled in as usual and would lift by at least May.  (I think / hope he was joking.)  Through the occasional break in the fog you could see these misty little idyllic mountain valley towns.  They had names like Claysburg, Roaring Spring and even Pleasantville.  As I’m oft inclined to do I let my mind wander.  What’s it like to live in Roaring Spring, PA?  My guess is that it’s not nearly as perfect as it seems from the freeway along the ridge but I suspended that disbelief, allowing my imagination to picture myself living in such a place.  How could I not with the steeples of white washed churches pushing through the clouds?  I could almost convince myself that I heard a babbling brook meandering through the village square and the laughter of children playing along its banks. I remembered a vague aspiration to hike the AT and wandered if it was near there.  I thought about The Last of the Mohicans and even caught glimpses of Hawkeye and Magua running among the fallen trees on the rocky slopes.  I don’t think my geography is right with that but the landscape was reminiscent.  Though I’m not sure exactly what the history of the area is I sensed that I was surrounded by it.  It was deafening actually and it lit a mental fire inside of me to seek that history out.  When I return, I’d like to know more about that through which I travel.

I typically make these trips alone so it was a welcome change to have a friend from the office along for the ride.  The downside is that there was someone there to hear my random crazy.  I can only assume that I always ramble on like that but there is usually no one there to hear so it doesn’t matter – like the tree that falls in the woods when no one is around or whatever.  Surely, when I’m alone these thoughts at least remain unverbalized but I can’t be sure.  I just might be the guy talking to himself everywhere he goes.  If that’s true, I might have slipped farther than I’d realized.  Oh well.

The eventual client meeting was a bust thanks in no small part once again to GC error.  (I sometimes think the “design-build” form of delivery is more trouble than it’s worth but that is a wholly separate story that I won’t bore you with.)  I did however, prior to the meeting enjoy a fantastic lunch of gravy suffocated roast beef and mashed potatoes in Bedford, 30 minutes south of Altoona.  There wasn’t music playing when we walked into the Bedford Diner but it certainly would have screeched to a halt had there been.  The old guys at the lunch counter stopped and cast an inquisitive if not accusatory glance our way as the bells on the front door jangled, announcing our arrival.  This was perhaps my first clue that life in the Allegheny Mountains might not be as idyllic as I’d imagined.  But I was not yet convinced and allowed myself continued contemplation of residence in said mountains.  The Bedford had a filthy quaintness that I enjoyed and it was straight local.  Complete with handwritten inserts of the daily specials inside of the yellowed ‘70’s menus. 

That night, in a decided effort to immerse myself in the local Altoona culture I ventured into a strange establishment with my (2) contractor buddies and one of the clients.  I think it’s important to see the local animals in their natural habitat when starting a new project.  (That’s at least how I justify my presence in the places that I find myself from time to time.)  Pellegrine’s was a complete slap in the face.  As it turns out, this guy’s ex-wife’s family owned the joint and her (4) sisters were all there when we walked in – and many of their kids as well.  Yup, it was a children-at-the-bar kind of place.  I’ve heard of neighborhood bars and thought that I had been to a few before I happened upon this one Thursday night.  It is actually in the middle of a residential neighborhood and there are no other bars or restaurants or anything else except houses around it.  The clientele was either 20-something or 50+. Mostly 50+ actually and the house band A.X.E. was incredibly adept at ‘90’s cover songs.  It was fascinating to see dudes older than my father with hair longer than mine swigging Genesee beer singing along to Nirvana tunes.

The Genesee reminded me of that Rome, NY project I had way back when.  There was a similar bar there.  I don’t remember the name but it was underneath a tire store and had the same gritty you’ll-never-get-out-of-here-alive feel to it.  The locals will eventually know who we are and at least one cross-eyed patron will be convinced I can get him a job at the new facility. When he finally understands that there is no way I can help him with that he will become belligerent – it almost always happens.   It’s only a matter of time before this scene is repeated at Pellegrine’s so I sat back Thursday night and soaked it all in safely cloaked in my perfect (if fleeting) anonymity.   

The troubling part is that I know that if I were ever to find myself in these circumstances, living in this neighborhood I would be bellied up to that bar with the rest of these derelicts talking about the Steelers or whatever latest business had just left town.  There were some jovial souls in that room but it was clearly a product of the liquid happy being poured by the locally attractive / mildly incompetent bartender.  One look into all of their eyes told the story of a hard life – young and old alike, they all bore the troubled countenance of a beaten dog.  It’s the same look that I saw in the patrons of that underground cluster in Rome.   It’s heartbreaking really what small towns can do to people.

Everything about Pellegrine’s and most everything I saw about Altoona reminded me of The Deer Hunter.  That’s not a happy story – even before they go to the Nam.   Maybe having seen that movie colored my perception of what central PA was going to be like.  Perhaps, art imitates life more than it should, or at least more than we wished it would.  Everything I just said notwithstanding, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to live there and if that life is better than this.  That’s a crazy thought, right?  After seeing firsthand the depth of struggle and unspoken despair these fine folk endure I still questioned where I’m better suited? 

Driving down into Baltimore early Friday morning I wished I had some Gillian Welch to pass my time.  I didn’t have the chord to plug my iPod into the rental so I just continued my lunatic ramble from the previous day.  Those beautiful vistas would have been even more emphatic with her soul pouring over them.  Instead we suffered through my disjointed commentary and the (2) radio stations available – one played country the other played everything else all mixed up with no reason. 

At the gate waiting for another plane I was reminded again of the expanse of airport time. Tick.  Tick.  Tick… As I waited, it occurred to me that in some respects I have been crossing the Alleghenies my entire life.  Always contemplative and inquisitive but never quite sure of where I was or where I was going or even where I’d been.  Never quite able to commit to whatever it was that I should commit to – not quite able to leave behind that which should be forgotten.  Loving where I was but forever wondering if there was something better around the corner.  I guess that is something I should deal with at some point, huh?  For the most part I have but I'm sure I will continue to ask the questions I've always asked in my own way on my own time.  That time keeps marching and though it clearly left an impression, I’m fairly certain the answers I seek are not to be found in the Allegheny Mountains.

Mornings with Gillian

A good friend of mine introduced me to Gillian Welch when I was in college and I was completely blown away at the time though I might not have known why.  This is the same girl that had re-acquainted me with Steve Earle who I had turned my back on in an effort to disassociate myself from my “redneck” past. She also turned me on to Yonder Mountain and String Cheese – she was a bit of a hippie.  Oddly, I never held that against her.  Lucia had incredible musical tastes (especially for a white girl from DeSoto County!) and I’m forever grateful for the conversations we had about music.  As life sometimes unfortunately goes, I lost touch with her and completely forgot about Gillian Welch as well.  Recently, someone’s random facebook post reminded me of her music and I’ve been rediscovering it since.

Saturday mornings are sometimes a struggle for me.  On Friday afternoons I shut it down mentally at 5:00 and have a few Beer Friday drinks with my coworkers.  It’s a long standing tradition in the firm and one that I have embraced since the beginning.  There is always that one thing (or a hundred) I didn’t get done during the week though.  I don’t think about it again until Saturday morning when I usually sit straight up in bed at or around 6:00 AM panicked about what ball I might have let drop.  Sunday mornings are worse as I see Monday’s ugly mug peering around the corner and I know I will have to deal with whatever it was that I didn’t last week.

Until recently, there was no antidote for this madness – and it is madness that I’m obsessing about work on a weekend morning.  I’ve often wondered if my career is indeed pressure-filled as I perceive it to be or if I intentionally (unintentionally) fill it with pressure, not that I would change it if one or the other were true.  Either way, I’ve stumbled into the perfect cure in the form of Gillian Welch for the past several weekends. 

Everything that I’m obsessed with is wiped away; every mistake I’ve made is righted when I hear her sing The Way it Goes or even Look at Miss Ohio.  These are the harmonies I heard growing up in church man.  My every sin is forgiven and tears are dried when she performs possibly the best cover ever of The Band classic The Weight.  That song has always hit me but not like it does when I see Gillian perform it. 

She was born and abandoned by her birth mother in NYC, adopted by a comedian / musician couple and grew up in Santa Monica.  She has to have roots elsewhere – the soul that she displays in her music is not indigenous to Southern California. 

I have always leaned on music.  It’s been the one constant in my life.  There is a quietness that Gillian conveys through her music and performance though that is different.  What she is, doesn’t usually suit my mood.  More often, the Clash or Social Distortion are appropriate – but not in the morning; and certainly not on a morning like yesterday with the howling wind and rain and hail beating on my window pane.  There is something so very comforting in her sound.  As dark and mournful as much of her work is, I find that it's soothing, almost therapeutic to me – I find light in that darkness.  As a bonus, her voice is the only sound that chills my dogs during a thunderstorm.  I think Belle’s favorite is Hard Times. 

Her music isn’t bluegrass, or even newgrass, or folk, or punk or country or Americana but it’s the best bit of all of those genres distilled into a new / old pure art - stripped down to the very essence of the thing.  Each song exists in its own galaxy on its own terms and doesn’t have to feel like or sound like or be like the one before.  That is an awesome feat for a musician to accomplish and she does it seemingly effortlessly.

I’ve said before that “my favorite song” changes on the daily if not on the hour or minute.  My favorite this morning is Annabelle. 

It reminds me of my mother and my grandmother – not the story so much as the setting.  Mom was born and raised in the foothills of the Cumberlands in a little town called Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee.  She might tell you it was Celina, but I’ve always thought of where she grew up as Red Boiling Springs probably because of the time we visited my great aunt Nina there when I was a teenager.  I’ve also always referred to this little part of the world as “Crowder Mountain” and have had many a conversation with my brother about this single afternoon trip we took a hundred years ago and what it means to have roots in Appalachia.  I remember coming down the mountain in his red RX-7 listening to The Smithereens and silently thinking about the obvious dichotomy.  It seems weird that I remember that now.  I remember sitting on Nina’s porch swing with cousins I might not have seen since.  That’s a shitty deal right there.  Nate’s a grown ass man now with a family and all that but what I will always remember about that kid is him telling me that I was “a big retarded hernia…just walking around”.

The Crowders were Welsh immigrants and had been minstrels in their native country.  I’m not sure if that last part is true or if that is something I’ve always told myself to justify my love of and interest in Appalachian history and music. Regardless, this song takes me back to that time in the mountains that I never knew.  I never had occasion to break bread with Pappy Fox, I never met my great uncle Gay or saw the hand-made fiddles he was famous for crafting, but I’ve always felt a strong connection to the “mountain” music and heritage they helped create.  I do remember once hearing Grandma speak about the hell of being married to a sharecropper – of course she would have never used that sort of language.   Shamefully, my primary education on this subject has been public television.  So how can a girl who grew up in So Cal, channel the spirit of Appalachia as clearly and perfectly as she does?  It’s astounding.

It could be that Gillian Welch reminds me of a segment of my familial history that I should be more aware of.  It could be guilt that draws me to her: the guilt of having not taken advantage of the wealth of knowledge my elders had to offer when they were alive.  If that is true, I don’t see how it should give me comfort.  I think it is that her music is a surrogate for the conversations I should have had with my Grandma but never did because I was a dumb kid.  At least I’m having them now even if in my own weird way.  Her music feels like home to me for whatever that might mean this morning.

Outside of whatever historical connection I might attach to this music, in particular this song there is a pure truth in the defining lyric that I find inescapable…

“…we can not have all things to please us,
No matter how we try.
Until we've all gone to Jesus,
We can only wonder why…”

           Call me what you will, but I wouldn’t trade my mornings with Gillian for anything.

Darla, Mohammed and a Girl From Kansas

Last Wednesday I had a wicked crappy flight.  I’d expected (and dreaded) it having seen the weather forecast and that probably made it worse.  My safety restraint fastened low and (not so) tight around my waist kept me from bouncing into the cabin ceiling – but not always in my seat.  I am admittedly (somewhat) decidedly prone to hyperbole, but my ass actually cleared the seat a time or two!  Perhaps I’m naïve in this regard, but I believe aviation should be at an advanced enough stage at this point in time to aptly identify a bit of turbulence and fly around that shit.  Fishtailing and pogoing simultaneously at 30,000 feet in a sick tube does not a happy Wednesday make.

Landed.  Frazzled.  Mentally chain-smoking. 

As I was conjuring the will to step off the Avis shuttle into a pouring wintry mix I said to myself, I could use a drink.  It wasn’t quite 9:00 in the AM (I know, right?) and this is starting to feel a lot like a Monday. 

I guess I was too focused on my own private pity party to see that waiting to greet me was my old friend Darla.  I’ve seen her every couple of weeks for the last year or so for 30 seconds at a time.  She’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever known.  My car is almost always a free upgrade from what my office manager reserved.  She always calls me Mr. John. Her crooked Appalachian smile never falls.  She’s from West By God Virginia and the constant twinkle in her eye is infectious.  With no apparent expectation of personal gain, she was standing in this awful weather with an umbrella to walk me to my car.  There was nothing on the lot to upgrade me so I would have to make do with this old Impala.  I’ve had the engine running for a while and I turned your seat heater on so it should be nice and toasty just like you like it. 

Really?  Wow.

As a rule, I find the service industry near intolerably devoid of service.  There are exceptions and when I stumble across one it absolutely makes my day bright, and in some small way restores my faith in humanity.  Darla is certainly an exception and last night I emailed customer service to let them know how much I appreciate her.  I’d like to think that Avis will bestow upon her a major award or at least a day off or something, but I don’t expect it – and she wouldn’t accept it if they did.  Darla is who she is just because she is.  Much to my surprise, some people are simply inherently kind and want only to be exactly that.  That’s a strongly powerful thing, no?  I’m sure that I do nothing to deserve her special treatment and I’m not sure it’s all that special actually – I imagine she’s treated all her customers with that level of attention for the (20) or so years she has worked there.  There’s a lesson here that we all could learn from Darla.

The rest of that day was, to be extremely polite, uneventful if not watching-paint-dry boring.  The project is on auto-pilot at this point so I spend my days wandering around the site snapping pics of whatever randomly entertains me.  I’m contractually obligated to be there plus it was built into the fee, so no worries.  The client seems okay with this – perhaps I hide my disinterest better than I realize. In fact, the level of service that we’ve shown them has actually won my firm another deal with these guys that ensures my presence in Northern Virginia not less than monthly through Spring 2013.  (Speaking of needing a drink!)

Back at the hotel bar watching a news story about Willard Romney winning the New Hampshire primary I began to feel ill.  I will spare you the political rant that has been brewing in my head for several weeks now and instead tell you about the bartender.

His name is Mohammed but you call me Mo you will.  He’s from Hanuman Junction, Andhra Pradesh, India.   He’s lived in the states for (5) years but his wife and (3) kids live in India.  They’re (by his account at least) still happily married but I can’t imagine that.  He’s just started the process of becoming a naturalized citizen and he freaking loves America.  Not Obama so much – his favorite is George Harry Bush.  I’m not sure which Bush he’s referring to because he gets so excited talking about what a bad ass man he was that he drops back into his native tongue.  I assume Bush II. Whatever.

Mashed potatoes you like?  Grilled asparagus you like?  You get (2) with these crab cakes – piss your pants man.  You like Apple?  Steve Jobs is a – Hey, did you know he died? – genius man. In India, everyone has iPhone.  We have no car – poverty man bad but we have Steve Job.  Michael Jackson could dance but he lost his way.  He’s crazy man.  I work (3) jobs so I can’t vote for Obama again.  Did you see? You see?  You want crab cakes man?

Holy shit, Mo.   I’m all for an engaging bartender but more often than not I would prefer they shut the hell up and let me brood.  Though I appreciated his enthusiasm, his energy level was a bit high for a Wednesday evening.   So I ordered the crab cakes and let him rave on about everything from Elvis to Tom Cruise to the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Did I mention he loves America?

Seeking the silent company of strangers I walked next door to another hotel with a cooler, darker bar.  As I strolled out, I heard Mo through the infernal din of the piped-in muzak of the lobby, Hey John! George Harry Bush man!  I flashed a peace sign over my shoulder and shouted back, see ya next time.

Aloft has a slick, neon, downtown feel that doesn’t belong in the suburbs anymore than I do.  It's still not somewhere I would ever frequent in the real world but it beats the hell out of the alternative.  Plus Jeff is the perfect bartender – he doesn’t insinuate himself into the conversation, he simply observes.  He overheard the meaningless sports discussion I was having with a carpet salesman from Charlotte and the next time I looked up he had tuned the Hawks game in for me on one of the TVs.  That, my friends is service.  

I quickly tired of the other guy’s tales of carpet sale wonderment and N.C. State basketball and was about to call it a night when I absently noticed someone sit down between me and the guy at the end of the bar.  She ordered a Yuengling and a Maker’s neat.  I didn’t see that one coming – my hasty assessment had assumed a Chardonnay, at best a vodka tonic.  Her name was Kelsey, she was from Kansas and she had an Aubrey Plaza hotness that I found intoxicating.

Though it might seem otherwise, my intentions (if I had any) were purely conversational.   My heart is rarely capable of even that these days and a lot less more often.  That said I didn’t feel I should miss a chance to talk to a girl who orders a beer with a whiskey back, right?

As it turns out she was a producer for Biggest Loser and was in town filming a where are they now segment.  I’d never heard of this program (you know how I feel about reality television) but apparently it is quite successful as these things go. She lives in LA for her work obviously but spoke fondly of her dreams of moving to the valley with her fiancé and becoming a stay-at-home mom. 

It’s odd what one is willing to share with a perfect stranger isn’t it?  I think there is a freedom there that most of us don’t know on the daily.  The freedom of anonymity is an empowering phenomenon and I love the random banter I have with people that I meet along the way.  These are brief random encounters, moments in time that I would most likely forget if I didn’t write them down.  The random was thick with the moment and some days the moment is enough.  This was one of those days.  For this moment, I was 500 miles from home having an intelligent conversation with an odd, beautiful, interesting person that I will never see again.  In some ways I find that nearly a perfect moment.  In a different time, in a different world I would have had a helluva lot more to say.  Kelsey was cool.  I’m glad our paths crossed.

I got home late Thursday night, didn’t feel like unpacking and left my bag on the floor at the foot of the bed.  When I got home from work Friday, my sweet Maynard was curled up asleep inside of the open suitcase.  It was the cutest thing I had I ever seen the little fella do so I ran to the studio to get my camera.  When I got back, he had awakened and was vigorously relieving himself right there in the suitcase!  Maynard!

It seems Maynard felt the need to add his own commentary to my little story.   

Now I know how he really feels about me traveling!