Better Living Through Chemistry; Or, how I stopped fearing the very much known and started to embrace my imbalance.

Before I started my career as a writer, my professional life was a disaster.  Writing has ruined that.  Now my life is a seemingly surreal series of events woven together by adorable, crafty little elves that work at once both deftly and without cigarette breaks.  My life is full of stories, potentially.  Given the right angle, everyone has a story.  And some have a story without an angle, more circular in narrative, I suppose.  There aren't any stories about ship captains, though.  That is where everyone gets it wrong.

Writing has helped me to value human life and even corporations if for nothing more than their potential for satirical send-up.

Another thing that helps me value human life is a prescription for, and the recommended daily ingestion of, a certain blue and green capsule that fights like the devil against the forces of anxiety and major depressive disorder that threaten to jab a million hate-spears into my brain.  Specifically, the parts of the brain that regulate mood and the sort of anxiety that accompanies being a shivering mass of human being.  Yes, this little botanical (maybe?) serves to block out the naturally dark chemicals and wave a red flag in front of the blessed ones, urging them toward their appropriate receptors like a neurological matador.  Either that, or it simply increases the amounts of the optimistic chemicals, I am honestly a little fuzzy on the science.  Nevertheless, I imagine from time to time that the blue portion of the pill sends a torrent of soothing water at the gloomy little soldiers of depression, washing them upon an island positively shamrocked with verdant low-lying vegetation (obviously, the green part of the pill) lightly swept now and again by careful breezes, lending it the eerily calming sensation of being alive, which it obviously is.  Everything is alive.  Even granite countertops.  Just not ship captains, they are positively dead.

The pill ingested, the veil lifts.  Not quickly.  Not even noticeably at first.  So in that respect, "the veil lifts" is an absolutely shitty metaphor.  Another equally shitty way I have heard it described is the "fog clears".  No.  I don't really know what the hell any of this would have to do with fog clearing.  Most people have no literal reference for that anyway.  Be honest, when was the last time you got to sit somewhere and witness clearing fog?  Maybe if you're from the Bay Area or something, or perhaps near the Puget Sound, but in Oklahoma we get fog like twice a year and usually I sleep through it.  Besides it sounds like some kind of shit a ship captain would say anyway.  Fuck him.

Anyway, so psycho-chemical-retreading is neither "lifty" fog nor its cousin, the equally, albeit more lacy, clearing veil.  It is more of a gradual, quiet loss of hatred.

Here's how it happens.  At first, you might notice something that would normally inspire all amounts of rage and/or hostility, like a poorly executed traffic circle or the prattling on of a self-aggrandizing pet food lobbyist.  Things that in the past would have never escaped an audible swipe.  But this time, nothing seems worth putting forth the effort to upsettedness.  Then, a really strange thing occurs.  Your brain realizes that it almost got worked up over the ingredients in a loaf of artisan bread, or how you never lettered in lacrosse because your high school only recognized it as a "club sport" or whatever (meanwhile the football team just couldn't have enough fucking different versions of their "road uniforms"), and it looks at itself, your brain, and kind of softly laughs.  That's exactly how it happens.  That's right, your present brain looks at the memory of your past brain and chuckles a bit, somewhat patronizingly, too.  Just a little.  It doesn't overdo it like some kind of pretentious ship captain or anything like that.  Just enough to let you know how smart you were to quit being on of the biggest pricks in the world and start to get help for your chemical imbalance.  It is a kind of knowing laugh.  The kind of laugh that you laugh now when you hear people who are younger than you complain about stuff like entrance exams, or how their crippling huffing addiction came about as a result of not being able to find enough activities in which to engage their free time.

So what the hell does any of this have to do writing?

I can hear you now.  You're saying, "Kudos to you, friend.  It sounds like your propensity for being a gigantic ass has been at least partially masked by employing the use of psycho-pharmacological mood-altering super-mind-fucking pills which at best will work for the time being, but must bring along to the impromptu daily chemistry experiment that is now taking place in your skull-hole a host of concerning side effects that if not at any time physically debilitating, than almost certainly sexually embarrassing. Great.  Good for you.  But this enlightenment of ennui is manufactured, it is not the byproduct of an artistic mind.  What's wrong with you, besides the established?"

To which I say, "That's just like you to shit all over this, ship captain!"

The overarching truth is that without writing, I may never have acquiesced to the science fair that is now being conducted daily in my wrinkly-pinkly brain.  And without writing, I wouldn't be able to accurately explain this brave new world to others with the obvious efficiency and precision of a laser-guided laser.   Writing has demanded that I expose the parts of myself that are vulnerable, squishy and otherwise ludicrous.  It is truly the only way I know to convey information of interest.  Nobody wants to read about how great you feel all the time and that you just don't know why, but things just kinda-sorta naturally work out for you.  People want guts strewn about and feelings ricocheting off of every possible surface (I am speaking somewhat figuratively, but it has not escaped my attention that a lot of people, "Gamers", I think they call themselves, actually like the literal spreading of guts, at least from what I can gather from the television commercials that ran during the most recent Super Bowl).

"Yes," you say, "people do seem to respond to emotion and the exposure of certain basic human qualities.  They long for a witness.  A translator who might illustrate that in one manner or another, we are all flawed, all scared to our wits and yet, all capable of a sort of redemption, a modicum of peace if not outright transcendence.  So, seeing how you have achieved this by simply taking a time-released capsule, why should we listen to anything you have to say?"

"Oh, you nautical hobgoblin - I swear." (fist shaking).

Why should anyone listen to me?  They shouldn't.  I shudder to imagine what state the world should find itself in if I have become required reading.  But here is what I have a need to confess.  If others find it useful, I am glad.  If they find it impotent and laughable, I would suggest that they keep their damn mouths shut on the matter.

What I must confess is that once I found my passion (which, incidentally, I had known for my entire life but was simply too fearful to name it), I had barely the strength left to pursue it.  Once I had been given the chance to pursue my dream, I nearly sabotaged it for lack of mental health.  But for some reason, I chose to ask for help.  And for some other reasons, I continue to choose to ask for help.  The pills help.  For now (which is really all there ever is), they help.  And I only need them to help for now.  I am not looking for a lifetime guarantee.  I don't need to conquer Everest, I just needed to quit carrying it around for a bit.  Writing about it helps.  The pills help.

Perhaps the toughest thing I have done is to try and learn to surrender.  I am still miserable at it, but I am trying.  I had to surrender to the fact that I couldn't manage my mental health on my own at this time in order to manage my mental health on my own at this time.  That's the trick.  It was either that, or purchase a boat, hire a crew and become the captain of a ship.

Awww Screw It, I'll Write About Football!

I have been holding off on writing about football on this blog because it's not really what this blog is about.  If you haven't guessed, this blog is about family, jobs, parenting, love, loss - in short, it's about life.  But the truth of the matter is that sometimes my life is about football.  So, although their are people that do a much better job of writing about football than myself, (Katie Hull Rathkey, in particular) I'm wound up, so I am gonna say my piece.

First of all, I am pissed off that my beloved 'Pokes lost to Iowa State and I will accept no excuse for it.

(For anyone in the dark, I am referencing Oklahoma State University, the OSU, not to be confused with the school that occasionally cheats it's way to the top of the Great Lakes League, you know, the one who always looks like it is playing in super slow-mo?  Don't adjust your set, it's just the Big Ten.)

But back to my rage:  "Why, Pokes, why?!"

Let's run down the list of excuses:

It was a classic trap game.
How was this a trap?  We won the previous game before halftime in a contest that was as even-sided as a Iron Chef match featuring Anthony Bourdain going spatula-to-whisk with The Cake Boss, Secret Ingredient:  Bone Marrow!  (Jeez, a Food Network reference?  No wonder I don't write about football very often.)  And as for the looking ahead distraction?  We have the week off!  What were we being distracted by?  Oyster dressing?

They had a new quarterback we were not familiar with.
Yeah, and he plays for Iowa State!  That's like saying the Marlins have a new ace on the mound.  Who cares?  The rest of the team is still Iowa State.  And last time I checked, OSU has a decent media facility, we should have been able to break down some game film.  Hell, we could have started working on it at halftime in Lubbock!

They had nothing to lose.
Yeah, and we had everything to gain.  So what?  When you are a championship caliber team you handle your business.  You were playing a team with an atrocious defense.  One of the worst in the Big 12.  This game should have been out-of-hand quickly, which would have forced the Cyclones to throw their game plan out the window and play catch-up.  That's how we win ball games against inferior squads.

We lost two coaches in a plane crash the day before.

I will not try in any way to diminish the loss of two very special people in our tight-knit Cowboy family.  This event, no doubt weighed heavily on the hearts and minds of every coach and player that evening.  Additionally, it was a real class move from the folks in Ames to assign a moment of silence in honor of our fallen comrades before the game began.  But the truth of the matter is, the only way that a plane crash should have kept us from beating Iowa State is if our starting offense would have been on it.

We blew it.

Chances like this don't come around often for Oklahoma A&M in the realm of real-deal championship football.  In fact, I have been alive for 38 years, and we have never had a legitimate title shot - not once.  We are the Andy Roddick of college football - we may not deserve to be in the hunt, but sometimes a perfect storm occurs and there we are.  Texas is down, aTm is out and the Sooners are short 3 studs and somehow have a defensive backfield that is full of holes rivaling the ones in Wal-Mart's Black Friday Preparedness Strategy.

We had to come from behind in College Station and needed the help of a earthquake to stop the Wildcats from upsetting us at home.  Rarely is a championship season built without some close calls.

But the debacle in Ames has turned is into spectators.  Now our hopes are pinned to the former A&M of Alabama to see if they can pull the upset in Jordan-Hare.  Take it from one who knows, Auburn may be the only other team in the country as unfortunate as the Pokes to live just up the street from such a storied and historically rich big brother of a football program.  The difference is that when the Gods smile on Auburn, they take advantage and win championships.  They are relevant.

In the end it doesn't matter that much what happens in the Auburn/Alabama game this afternoon if we don't focus on the only thing under our control:  Bedlam.

The Cowboys have had the singular goal of winning an outright Big 12 Championship for several years now.  Hell, one year we even had little bracelets made so that we wouldn't forget.  The Sooners could get caught up in a Cyclone today in a rainy contest at Memorial Stadium, which would hand us the title without even having to play for it, but I wouldn't count on it.  And I don't want it that way.

We need a Bedlam win and an outright Big 12 Championship.  That's our next step.  Forget Ames, don't worry about the SEC West and all the maybes and could-have-beens.  Just win your game against your in-state rivals and let the healing begin.

It's been said often this year that, "these are not your father's Cowboys".  Until last week, that was correct.  But on a Friday night we played like a high school squad and we looked just like my dad's Cowboys.

The players on this team are too young to remember Bedlam collapses having to do with walk-on kickers, unscripted onside kicks and Sooner Magic.  They don't even know the name Brent Parker.  But they need to win this one for all of us who lived through their father's Cowboys.  A Big 12 Championship, Bedlam win and a BCS bowl game are steps forward for Oklahoma State.

On campus in Auburn, Alabama today about 80,000 people will be rooting for a two teams that have so much football history that they often stumble over it.  They also have serious confusion regarding their mascots.  Alabama apparently is some kind of wave of blood or something to do with a pachyderm.  Auburn, like 15 other southern teams claims the official (and wildly imaginative) moniker, Tigers.  But what the fans will be chanting at the Iron Bowl (don't get me started) is "War Eagle".  Another sketchy reference to some wonderful event that happened pre-printing press at a game between Auburn and the University of Georgia.

Today, Pokes fans will be watching OU take on Iowa State.  Some rooting for the Sooners, the embittered and less informed rooting against them (it's not right, it's just in our nature).  But no matter what happens in that contest, many will be tuning in to watch southern smash-mouth football.  Teams with history, pageantry - teams with defenses.

Remember Pokes fans:  If all the storytelling, all of the gaped-mouth announcing, all of stroking of the SEC's ego starts to get disorienting (and it will), just root against the team in crimson.

"War Damn Eagle!"

The Luck Stops Here.

I wonder if it is easier to forgive a parent or a child.

In most cases, I'd say it would be easier to forgive a child because by definition, they should never be as old or learned as a parent.  Then again, I can see where forgiving a parent could be easier at certain times due to the more flexible thought processing of the youth.  Maybe it depends on the infraction.

Call me naive, but I can't see much use in holding a grudge these days.  Maybe it's because I have found that withholding forgiveness affects me much more negatively than it seems to affect the person I may grace with such an act.  Maybe it's because nothing that bad has ever happened to me.

I recently forgave my father, whom I had not had any contact with in almost 10 years, for failing to be the father I was supposed to have had.  If that's not the silliest sentence I've ever written.  Anyway, it wasn't easy.  Took me nearly ten years to come around to the idea.  We missed a lot of each other in that time - some of it needed to be missed, but probably not that amount.  Because of my lack of willingness to forgive, my father and his wife missed the birth and almost all of the first two years of their (only) grandson's life.  Hardly seems like a fair trade for not living up to my lofty expectations.  I am sorry it took me so long to learn to forgive, but oddly enough, I had to have a child teach me about it.  You see, once I had a child and became a father was the first time I could see how painful life might become if we couldn't find a way to forgiveness.

At first I thought, "Well, my father had a bad father, and I had a bad father, but my son has a great father.  My son and I are gonna break this chain." There's only one flaw in that thinking.  It assumes that I will either be a perfect father for the rest of my days, or that my son will need to learn how to forgive me at some point.  Well, how was I gonna teach him to do that?  Bingo.

I'm not the only one in my family with these issues.  My father-in-law, Mike, recently made peace with his mother after several years of estrangement.  What their issues were I don't really know,  I'm not entirely sure if I ever knew.  Actually, it doesn't matter.  What matters is that they found a way back to one another and to a place where they didn't have to hold on so tightly and expend so much energy on proving a point.  The point being, that somebody had let somebody down.

The downside of my father-in-law's story is that he and his mother were joined in this reconciliation by serious illness.  Mike's mother became terminally ill and recently passed away.  I am very proud of him for letting go of the anger and resentment he was carrying around before she was physically absolved of the material world.

I am not certain any of us did enough to say we were sorry to Mike when his mother died.  We sent messages and such, and I know that he knows we care, but I for one, am terrible at grieving the dead.  Always have been.  I cried more when my cat had to be put down than I did when my grandfather passed away.  I'll cry at a movie, a moving poem from The Writer's Almanac, even a particularly poignant episode of Parenthood, but death of a human, meh.  I don't know what it is, I'm just not good at it.

But, fortunately for Mike, his grandchildren are fantastic at cutting through the ephemera and useless emotions that tend to accompany such an event.  A few days after Mike lost his mother, he got letters from Sadie Bea (8 years) and Simon (6 years) - they call their grandfather, "Poppy":

Dear Poppy,


I am sorry to hear about your mom (drawing of sad face at the end of this sentence).  I know that you are sad, but it was time.  


Love you a lot,


Sadie Bea (with a little cartoon heart dotting the i)

Simon's offering of condolence was less nuanced, but quite frankly receives high marks for not dancing around the subject matter as much as his sister had.

(This written in the absurdly large and wobbly script of a person who is just now learning to write.)

Dear Poppy,


I am sorry that your mom died, but luckily she was ready to die.


Love,


Simon

Reportedly, Mike and his wife Rita were in tears at the reading of these letters.  Mike could not stop laughing at the wording the kids used.  "How lucky was that?" he would say to his wife.  "She was ready to die," and then they would burst out laughing.

When I was in high school a woman called our house one afternoon and my stepmother answered the phone.  After several minutes, she hung up and told me that the person who had called was related to my grandfather and they were calling to let my father know that his father was in a hospital (in Illinois, maybe) and he was going to die soon.  They wanted to let my dad know so that he could go see him, so that he could make peace with him.  My father declined.  In fact, when my stepmother told him about the call, my dad used some choice words to describe his old man and the variety of reasons for which he would not be booking an airline ticket any time soon.  Even at his funeral, my father was angry about the proceedings, the cost, etc...

I have visited my grandfather's grave several times - it is near my other grandparents' graves, so I kinda figure, you know, while I'm in the neighborhood.  I don't know why my dad and his brother couldn't bring themselves to forgive their father, we've never talked about it that much.  I do know that I have never heard anyone in our family tell one good story about my grandfather.  His epitaph reads something along the lines of, "Loving Husband, Devoted Father".  It would be as accurate to say, "Cured Polio, Walked on Moon".  

I am sure it stung to have to pay for that headstone as my father and his brother surely did.  I'm fairly certain that it must be rough to be told you've got a shot at burying the hatchet with your old man, only to leave him to die without you.  And I hope I never know what it's like to be on my deathbed and place the call only to have no one respond.

Of course by then, luckily I'll be ready to die.

Possible Alternative Names for the Brady Arts District (In response to Lee Roy Chapman's insightful article on one of our city's founding fathers in This Land Press)

1)  Hatey District
2)  Uncle Tate's Klantastic Family Fun Zone
3)  Ku Klux Kreative
4)  Hate-Ashbury
5)  Konfederate Korner
6)  Klavern on the Green
7)  Greenwood

Thoughts on Tom Riley (1945-2011)

(Author's Note:  I have not been directed, petitioned, or otherwise received permission to write anything that would serve or substitute as a eulogy for Thomas F. Riley.  I simply record these memories because they are important to me and because in such a small amount of time, Tom made an enormous positive impression.)


I met Tom Riley sometime around 1986.  I was best friends with his youngest boy, Tim, and as such was a frequent stowaway at Tim's mother's duplex.  Tom was there most weekends as well.  Even though he and Tim's mother were divorced, they got along well and you could tell he enjoyed being near his boys.  It occurs to me now, that this was Tom's insurance policy.  He stayed close to remain in his son's lives and protect their shared relationships.  He didn't let the break-up of a marriage impede him from the duty of parenting, and perhaps more impressively, he didn't use it as an excuse.  He continued to teach his boys how to become men.  And when the time came, he acknowledged their arrival.

It should be noted for those that did not know him, Tom Riley was a big man.  Often, a person is described as big, figuratively - a "big" philanthropist, a "big" businessman.  While these labels may have also applied, what I mean to say here is that his size was impressive.  He had a shock of thick hair that at the time was more silver than black, always neatly cut and fixed.  He carried a scent of masculine cologne with a undertone of cigarette smoke.  I noticed even back then that he had the build and hands of an athlete, although it would be in his obituary that I would discover he had been a scholarship member of the football squad at the University of Tulsa.  He had a deep voice and a relaxed laugh.  He was handsome and strong, but never showy.

Whenever I was in Tom's presence, his focus was exclusively on his children and their friends.  He doted on his boys.  He hugged them and kissed them and called them "baby" and "honey" which initially struck my ear as effeminate, or at the very least, emasculating.  What I would come to understand is that in the Riley's shared language these terms were not used in relation to gender but rather, spoke to level of affection.  He loved his boys deeply and without shame.

The first time Tom addressed me in such a way was mat-side after a wrestling match I had lost.  I was disappointed in my effort, and I was not a gracious loser.  He wrapped his arms around me and said, "Honey, shake it off.  You're a star.  You'll get 'em next time."  He cupped the retreating side of my sweaty head in his oversized hand and pulled it into his chest, mashing my face into his sweater.  After that, I didn't care what he called me.  I kind of just hoped he'd always be there when I lost.

As the years passed and we made our way to college, Tim and I found new sets of friends and interests.  Our circles overlapped on occasion but with less frequency than in our teenage years.  Understandably, I saw Tom less as well.  I was too preoccupied at the time to know how much I missed him, but looking back on it now, it was evident.

The last time I saw Tom Riley was at Tim's wedding, it must be more than 15 years ago now.  He was happy.  He had so many people crowded around him, celebrating with him, that I was reluctant to approach.  But he caught me in mid-slink and carved his way towards me.  "I am so proud of all you boys, you all have really grown up to be fine young men" he said, absolutely beaming.

I didn't have the guts to tell him I was failing most of my classes, or that I didn't really know what the hell I was doing with my life.  I couldn't have expressed how lost or scared I was that I would never know what or who I was supposed to be, even as we were celebrating the union of two people who were defining a significant part of their new identities - husband, wife.  All I could really do was smile sheepishly and accept his misplaced praise.

Sometimes you can find yourself so physically removed from a person you admired earlier in life, that the time you spent together seems fictional.  I don't know if my recollections of Tom - the way he looked, the way he talked, the way he acted - are true, or if they were constructed in decades of absence to fit the narrative of my life.  I feel certain that I can see him in a v-neck sweater with a starched, button-up shirt underneath.  I am fairly confident that I can recall the smell of leather and cigarette smoke belonging to the interior of his car (some kind of Ford - a Thunderbird, or maybe a Taurus?).  My memories are slippery and I am often suspicious of them.

One thing I am sure of is that I enjoyed being around Tom.  He never talked down to me or treated me like a kid.  He cared for me because I was his son's friend.  He cared for me whether I won or lost, whether I was right or wrong.  For whatever reason most of my friends grew up in households affected by divorce, their fathers absent physically or emotionally or both.  Tom was a father in a world that needed more fathers.

It's has taken a long time for the lessons I learned from being around Tom Riley to take hold.  I guess I had to have a child before they could fully manifest.  Legacies have a peculiar way of appearing at the right time.

Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I love my boy publicly, without shame - and that I call him "baby", "honey" and "darling" without a moments thought to how that might sound to any other person.  I know the day will likely come when my son will be embarrassed of my affection and attention.  I am prepared for that.  When he questions my motivation for such behavior, I will be proud to blame it on Tom.

The Golden Driller: France's Most Generous Gift

The following piece was originally written for the local publication, This Land Press, but was rejected at deadline for "missing the mark".  This rejection not only came as a surprise, but very nearly disintegrated what was left of my questionable self-confidence.  However, after much reflection and the absorption of several self-help pamphlets gleaned from the waiting room of a local therapist, I have decided to press on and publish the piece myself.  It is my sincere hope that you enjoy the fruits of my (now) very public failure.  

In a warehouse in Toulon, France, a young artist pulls an enormous canvas sheet pieced together from discarded sail material over a bronze statue in repose.  The year is 1952 and Guy Montparnasse has completed his masterpiece.  A golem outfitted with work boots, gloves, a safety helmet, pants and a belt with a buckle that reads, Tulsa.  He takes one last look at the giant’s expressionless face before giving a hearty tug at the canvas and concealing the sculpture completely, a move borrowed from a mortician.    

In the next several weeks, Le Petrolier Braves (The Brave Oilman), will occupy the lion’s share of a cargo ship headed toward the United States.  Along the way there is a  scheduled stop at the Port of New Orleans to unload several pallets of beignet mix and afford the crew a well deserved night on the town.  Next, the statue will wind its way up the Mississippi, divert course at the Arkansas and deliver what will eventually become known as The Golden Driller to the Port of Catoosa in time for the International Petroleum Exhibition of 1953.  

The statue (third largest in the United States) garners much attention and slack-jawed amazement of all who attend the exhibition.  But what most casual oil slobs will never appreciate is the story behind its creator.

In the spring of 1946, Guy Montparnasse had nearly deserted his dreams of becoming an artist.  Subsisting on a diet of absinthe, barbiturates and literary erotica, his life was not so much spinning out of control as it was ambling in the path of a steamroller.  His application to the Sorbonne had been rejected for the third time, and in their latest correspondence, the institution had expressed their doubts not only his ability to become a significant artist, but in a manner that could only be described as unusually cruel, questioned whether or not Montparnasse was “fit to be walking freely amongst the rest of the French population”.  It was true that Montparnasse was given to the more violent ebbs of manic depression and ritualistic self abuse via chronic masturbation, but as his friends had pointed out, these tendencies would seem to solidify one’s acceptance to such an institution.

Broke, jobless and without much hope, Montparnasse decided to give up his artistic delusions.  He took a job as a dockworker but was excused after his foreman caught him in the act of defacing the side of a shipping container.  In a bipolar fit, he had painted the words le sperme de singe (monkey semen) on the broadside of a cask of champagne bound for London.  His next position was that of fishmonger, a job granted to him through the father of a mutual friend.  But again, Montparnasse’s maladies betrayed his employability as he was fired for what his co-workers deemed excessive time spent in the salle de bain and for hurling fish guts at passing tourists on the boardwalk adjacent to the market counter.

Humiliated and cast aside by his friends and family, Montparnasse began making plans to end his own life, but his contradictory aversion to pain and painkillers conspired to leave him among the living.  One day, while thumbing through the classified section of a homoerotic magazine in a church courtyard near the Place de la Liberte, he noticed an advertisement inviting european artists study in the United States.  The Art Instruction School, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota was making a push for international accreditation and as such was willing to relax its normally stringent acceptance standards, which up to that point had required the drawings of a tortoise in profile, a cartoon bear replete with top hat and bow tie, and a mildly despicable rendering of a pirate.  Within a week, Montparnasse had been notified of his acceptance to the AIS based on the strength of his portfolio comprised of drawings of suicidal rodents and a series he had titled “Amputated Dreams” which seemed to be abstract expressionistic works featuring photos of the Sorbonne’s admission board members smeared in a foul-smelling, tawny source material.

Montparnasse flourished in Minneapolis. Its arctic winters and the round, nearly featureless faces of its inhabitants seemed to inspire him.  Even his turbulent bouts of auto-erotic flailing were coming on less frequently now.  In the United States, Montparnasse had been given freedom - freedom to call himself an artist.  The school sponsored quarterly gallery exhibitions and Montparnasse was quickly becoming a star.  His employment of neckerchiefs, striped sailor shirts and his european accent lent instant credibility to his work.  

In a chance meeting, Montparnasse was introduced to William “Bill” Skelly, an oilman from Tulsa, Oklahoma.  The two got along famously and Skelly commissioned Montparnasse to create a massive sculpture to adorn his International Petroleum Exhibition.  By this time Skelly was in his dotage and had made several questionable investments including a football stadium for the University of Tulsa.  

Since its initial unveiling, the Golden Driller has created its own history.  In 1966, it became a permanent feature at the Tulsa Fairgrounds, its brutish right arm resting on a retired oil derrick from a depleted field in Seminole.  In 1979, the Golden Driller was adopted by the Oklahoma Legislature as the state monument.  And in 2006, as part of an online promotional contest, the Golden Driller was named the grand prize as a top ten "quirkiest destination" in the United States, winning its nominator a $90,000 international vacation for two.  Although its once bronze coating has been stained to a mustard gold by airborne contaminates, the result of westerly breezes carrying petrochemicals from the refineries across the river, the Driller remains one of Tulsa’s most beloved icons.

The monument’s creator, however, enjoyed no such fortune.  He had planned to return to the United States in 1966 for the unveiling of the Golden Driller at the fairgrounds, but  his agent argued against it, claiming that his attendance “could only jeopardize his reputation as a serious artist and confuse, if not horrify the people of Oklahoma, which are a kind and Godly people.”  

Mentally and physically ill, Montparnasse died on Bastille day later that same year.  While cycling home after night of rampant debauchery, his scarf became entangled in the spokes of his bicycle, and as he was traveling at a decent rate of speed, proceeded to snap his neck.  The coroner’s report, however, claimed that the artist had died from erotic asphyxiation.  When pressed for an explanation of this additional humiliating information, the coroner noted that although the subsequent winding of the scarf had likely broken the artist’s neck, one couldn’t help but notice that the subject’s left hand was in his trousers at the time of death.

I'm Sorry I Didn't Help You Move.

Here's the thing.  I saw your Facebook post asking if any of your friends might be available to help you move on fairly short notice and I feel really bad about not replying.  I am currently in self-imposed exile from capitalism and I have a fair amount of time on my hands. I certainly could have at least pitched in and helped you with the heavy stuff or maybe even with some packing, but I didn't.

Perhaps it is for the best.

For one thing, I barely even know you.  Maybe you would have thought it strange that I offered to help, certainly your real friends would have.  I mean, I am your friend, but you know, not your friend friend.  I am your Facebook friend, and that hardly warrants potential back injury.  I know that we were once real friends (maybe?), but previous recreational drug use combined with the passage of some years have left my memory as blank and scratchy as a garage sale etch-a-sketch.  Truth be told, I didn't even help my best friend move last time I had the opportunity.  And the last time I moved, I hired some guys to do it for me, which means I didn't even help myself move.

But what has really started to gnaw at my soul is not my absence at your moving party (which as I understand included pizza and cheap beer), but why I can't figure out how we know each other.  Forget about the fact that I didn't help you lug your crap from one apartment to another, how do I know you?

I have compiled a list of things I have been able to piece together from mutual friends, my damaged memory, and your Facebook profile:

• You work as a bartender at several establishments in the downtown area.  This much I know.  When I used to have the kind of time and disposable income required to drink in public, you were there sometimes.  We would acknowledge that we knew each other, but I never could put my finger on the origin of our aquaintance.

• You have 454 Facebook friends!  Impressive.

• You wear glasses.  Apparently, not just for reading.

• I have the feeling that the way we know each other has something to do with church, but then I recall that I didn't ever attend a church service at the time I was supposed to know you.

• You have curly-ish hair.

• We attended the same High School.

• Sometimes we talk about bicycles because we both seem to enjoy riding them.

I remember that I like you, doesn't that count for something?  I have a generally "good" feeling when I see you at your job.  Of course, since you are a bartender, I am drinking when I see you at your job, but I still have some memory of liking you more than most other near strangers.

The truth is... I just can't figure out how I know you.  Why does it matter?  Because you seem like a person that I would like to know.  Because I am too afraid to be honest and explain that I have forgotten how we know each other for fear of seeming obtuse or inconsiderate.  Because I need people to like me. I need to be one of the people who you showcase as your "talented friend" - I need to feel just a little bit more special than most people, not for the purpose of grandstanding, but so that I might humbly accept praise in a self-deprecating manner that would make me all the more attractive as a human being.  I need to be thought of as clever and cute and witty and wise and all of the things that I am not when I am full of doubt, worry, and regret.

This isn't about you.  It's about me - it always is.  If it were about you, I would have answered your post and you would have had a much needed helper on moving day.  Maybe then we would be friends, we would have eaten some pizza, drank some beer, and realized that we both weren't sure about the circumstances surrounding our initial meeting, but we were going to have a helluva good time trying to figure it out and piece it all back together.

Like I said, really sorry I didn't help you move...

Beau