Some Writing Online

So, I entered this writing competition that was looking for short nonfiction pieces about people's experiences with the Great Lakes. Click here to read the story, and check out the site for ways to take action in protecting the Great Lakes.

(Oh, and look at that, after all my talk/complaining of The Hold Steady being called a Brooklyn band, they go and put "David of Brooklyn." I swear I put both Brooklyn and St. Paul.)

The Night Angels Took Over The Trains

Looking down he saw the waters of the East River appearing still, but rushing toward the Atlantic Ocean, through tiny slits in the wood planks of the Brooklyn Bridge (planks he worried would give way under the extreme weight now upon them). He saw this, and everywhere white.

It was a celebration of liberation, or so he was told, when it was screamed in his face by one marauder, a young man with streaks of paint owning the places where wrinkles would someday lay claim, when this young man would look back on his life and shed tears for all those times he had. This young man would be happy in his old age. Or he would die before he got there. But today he was here, conquering the Brooklyn Bridge. And screaming Liberation! Revolution! into the face of someone who was worried the wood holding together the Brooklyn Bridge would succumb to this revolution.

He looked for peace among the whirling white. He found it in the very young and the very old. Everything between was restless. But there, near the back, a woman who seemed to know the true meaning of all of this, held her umbrella on her shoulder, open. She caught his eye as he gazed at her, trying to understand as she did. He dropped his gaze again at the seemingly static East River.

When he was able to again look up, when he scanned the crowd for peace, a small child, a girl of no more than seven, sat perched on a large beam high above the manic cars zooming toward Manhattan. There is no time for contemplation when you are racing toward Manhattan. They did not notice the girl. But he did, and no sooner than he had, she stood, six-foot stilts wrapped to her legs, and meandered as giants move toward the city, contemplating all the while. Years later he would remember the peace in her face as she sat above those cars gazing upon her destination. But today he was here. And she was traipsing through the mass. And he had lost everyone he knew.

And they began to move. Thousands of them. Moving. Maybe they were following the girl. To the city. To liberation. But they moved. Red flags flying above to mark the way. All, even as they moved as one, would have been lost without the red finding their way.

When they reached the end of the bridge, his feet once again upon solid ground, and the East River raging behind him, there were explosions, as they all took to the streets amid different cars than the ones that had not noticed the girl perched above them. These were racing just the same, but slowed by their unwanted transformation into gawkers, spectators, voyeurs. What was this? And a drum beat loudly. A horn blew. Fire swirled into the close sky. And the cars moved on, the drivers left to forever ponder, as the mass took to the courtyard of a government building.

Revolution! It was here somewhere; he did not know it.

He had found some of those he knew. And they moved together around fountains and dancers and light. The ones he knew were a spectrum from astonished, all slack-jawed and amazed, to eloquent, all confidence and energy. He lay near the former, and they all moved on.

They left the government building. It would whisper to other buildings later how soon after they all left it had felt the greatest loneliness anything had ever known. It would tell of how it thought of what the next days would bring and how none of those days would bring all of this back. Years later, the boy with the streaked face, if he made it to years later, would walk through that courtyard again, and the building and he would remember each other fondly, if unknowingly. The girl would be long gone. She was not meant for this place, and everyone, including the building, knew this. It had tried to bow when she moved past, and could not, and was disappointed. The building had not felt until they came. Now, in their wake, it lay shocked and empty, forever a feeling thing.

They moved underground. Every one of them went underground, disappeared from the streets. The trains came and they roared. They roared on the trains. The sprites among them sprinted when the trains stopped and the doors opened. They were raucous and they were, every one of them, trying to be free. Upon each train sat a winged creature watching over each. They knew they were safe. They wanted to be free.

In later accounts he would hear of a man who could not handle all of them. Who, in is newly surrounded state, wanted his version of freedom, which was not their version, swung his arms and screamed and went away in his mind, unable to grasp anything anymore. He would pray for this man later and hope he found something resembling freedom. He would wish this man would have been near a woman he was with, the one with feathers nested on her head. She had calmed the confusion of many who did not understand, had changed the physical features of their faces. For now, though, he moved with everyone else on trains lifted slightly from the tracks by the angels fluttering above each. They were flying. And he did not know where.

When the angels finally put them down, all of them, except the man who went away, they put them down among lights. More than he had known. They put them among fires blazing across the night sky. They put them among music. And they put them down among contraptions that allowed the people to attempt to be like the angels, things that would bring them into the sky momentarily, place them flying briefly. This was all the people wanted: to fly momentarily. That is all they ever wanted, and that is why they did this. Some even wore wings, so going up, they could chance not coming back down. They always came back down. And when they did, the angels placed them among each other. Each new these lights and these angel-mimicking machines would not be here much longer. Even the building knew this.

But it was all here now, and once they all realized what the angels already knew, that they would always be together, some dove into the water at the edge of this world and swam for another. Others went back to the trains, freshly grounded.

He went to the trains. The girl on the stilts had, it was obvious now, joined the angels and was gone.





***This is an account of Bastille Day, celebrated on 7/14/07 in New York City when thousands of people gathered, dressed in white, and took over the Brooklyn Bridge, the streets of Manhattan, the courtyard of City Hall, the subways, and Coney Island.

How Did I Get Here?

Watching TV at a cabin or beach house (as I am now) is the last place this medium retains any of its novelty, some of the je ne sais quoi that it must have held in those early days. Sitting, as the night cools around you, the wind picking up off the ocean, through the trees, over the lake, and taking in a program—a baseball game in the summer, the news, a late night show—coming off the blue screen surrounded by old VHS tapes, you can once again feel like this thing is not a complete waste of time. You are transformed and set down into another time, when this was a way to spend a night outside of the city.

This place is nice. I'm on Fire Island in a home about six steps from the beach. After a rocky trip getting here--laying down upon a make-shift shelf to divide the back of a minivan for a touring musician does not agree with my ridiculous motion sickness--we hopped on the ferry and headed out across the Atlantic to this affluent beach community. After settling in to the home—small in comparison to some on the island; only three bedrooms and three bathrooms—and spending a moment sitting in the backyard where orchids stare at you as you take in the scene, we headed down to the beach and took a dip in the freezing, salty water. Coming from the Midwest the salt of the ocean always surprises momentarily, shocks fresh water fundamentalists briefly. After the swim, a nap on the beach seemed appropriate. I woke up alone (my companions having drifted in their own expeditions) and dazed, wondering just where I was on the planet, and once I located that in my clouded brain, wondering just how I had gotten to this place on the globe. The world is funny in that it decides to place us in locations where, taking a moment to notice, we are utterly confused as to how this all came to be. One of the first nights I was in New York I found myself on a rooftop patio with some people I had just met, one of which had flown in from Belfast, Ireland that evening. He looked out over our perfect view of the New York skyline and said, almost inaudibly and possibly to himself, "I can't believe I was in Ireland this morning and now I'm here." Add a pinch more confusion and a dash less amazement, and you have me waking up on the beach this afternoon, the Atlantic Ocean thundering as the waves moved over themselves from my left to my right. The sound is as loud as any outside my window in Brooklyn, but when natural, deafening can be beautiful indeed.

There are so many houses stacked so close to each other on this island, but somehow you feel all alone. It is because each home is surrounded by trees and flowers. Walking from the dock to the home, we passed bamboo growing twelve-feet high and a deer walking down a boardwalk towards the ocean. It is overgrown and it is lovely. And there is something so soothing about listening to the omnipresence of waves in the short distance, something that makes you calm, something that makes you understand. I have been lucky enough, at one point in my life, to experience this constant roll (off Lake Michigan) for any length of time and I have wished since to be able to return to that sound for greater lengths. This week it will be the Atlantic. And I will leave that sound all too soon and return to the screeching and clashing and cranking of Brooklyn. For now I will listen as well as I can. To this.

I find myself missing many people these days. I will listen and try to hear them. I will listen. For them.

The Key To a Good BBQ And Other Things I Learned About Life This 4th of July. An Essay

Standing on the deck of a Brooklyn apartment owned by the bass player of a very famous musician—think Hibbing, Minnesota—with two young musician types (not the kind of guys who had spent a lot of time hovering over a grill) I imparted some grill advice on the troubadours: “The key to bbqing,” I stated as I took another pull of my Brooklyn lager, “is to not care too much if the hotdogs* are over done.”

Now I know this isn’t the advice of a grill master, someone who has plates of meat stacked high on the fold-up wood-slated table on the side of the grill, kebabs lathered in special seasoning all morning waiting on the island in the kitchen, and an arsenal of metal grilling tools with wooden handles and leather straps to hang properly in their place when not slinging meat. Still, these guys appreciated the advice, and after calling Liz out to show us how to start the grill, all ten of the packaged dogs were placed on the grill top and left there to cook in peace, without some self-ordained grill-god hovering over them, calling out every few minutes, “The dogs are almost perfect” and “Who’s gonna be ready for one of my famous Juicy Lucys*?”

The thing about a guy like this is he can never relax at an outdoor gathering where a grill is present (and most likely other places as well). Upon seeing the outdoor stove, his machismo flares up as though the grill pinched his girlfriend’s tush, drank all his beer, winked at him and, with a head nod, said, “Hey boss,” like the offenses hadn’t occurred, or, if they did, what was “boss” going to do about it anyway. These are the guys who take gatherings like these as opportunities to spout off all the useless information—or information to which they believe they are the only ones privy—that their girlfriends have gotten sick of hearing at home and pretty much tune them out so successfully that the guy stops spouting off at home. So, a bbq is his time to once again get behind his pulpit (the grill): “People think the Yankees just go out and buy their team, but the Yankees actually have a good farm system…” “I used to have one of these electric grills, but f that, charcoal, baby, that’s the only way to go.” “No, no, the greatest movie of all time, that would be Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Hands down.” These guys will forever judge you if you prefer to just sit at a bbq and enjoy the company of those around you. That’s what pussies do.

But that’s what events like these should be about. And that is why I imparted the well-done sagacity on these distressed would-be hot dog cooks.

I realized shortly there after that this advice is not only pertinent at the coal-driven events that pepper the summer months, but in all avenues of life. Obviously the statement needs to be tweaked a bit, but the sentiment remains true: the key to pleasure is accepting less-important things may be less than perfect if it means giving your attention more fully to the things that really matter. I would much rather spend my afternoon talking with friends and loved ones than making sure a burger is exactly medium (or a veggie burger is not too crisp along the edges). I prefer to hear the inspiring story of a woman I just met who is about to publish her first novel, which she wrote right after having her first daughter (It was the year of a million divorces, her and her husband agree with a laugh), than being chained to a piece of metal with another blow-hard comparing notes on the most appropriate positions on the grill to move the brat as it cooks—to, you know, keep all the juices in, but still cook it all the way. And in life I prefer the interesting people to those who expound on subjects they should accept they don’t know anything about. Are you really sure that’s how much sled dogs eat over the course of the Iditarod? Have you ever seen a sled dog?

All I’m saying is this: we have limited time. And we have an even smaller amount of time when it comes to events where people we like and love gather together in one place. We don’t have that many 4th of Julys left. When you get the chance to sit with all these people, enjoy them. You'll enjoy throwing the Frisbee with your friends so much that you'll forget about the grill for a while. You’ll be so fascinated by your cousin’s story of visiting Tibet that you won’t even notice that the hot dog is a bit on the well-done side. Everything will taste good, including life.




* These guys happened to be cooking hotdogs, but the advice holds true for any bbq-able items: burgers, brats, portabella mushrooms, et al.

* If you ever find yourself at a bbq where a deranged lunatic claims he can make a Juicy Lucy, politely decline—this will not be easy; he will try to force it on you—ask for a regular burger and move away from the grill. This “Juicy Lucy” will be nothing more than three pieces of cheddar rolled into a ball and shoved in between two patties, and you’ll end up scalding your face when, after two bites sans cheese, you reach the molten center and pull off a mouth full of cheddar with specs of burger clinging to it.