#204 king of stuff, perhaps limbs

Adventures with Jackie:





Afternoon. Almost evening. A good time (whenever I've written the word "good" this week, I think of Hemingway and how I think "good" was his favorite word: It was a good cafe where I could sit and write all morning and then George would bring a bottle of white wine. She had good strong legs for skiing. It was good beer/wine/whiskey. We went to the races... it was a good day. And so on. Also the word "nice," often applied to legs. Female legs.)

This is a good time for me to

- finish drinking a latte (double-shot) prepared for me by Lovely L. We've got ordering down to completely non-verbal all-action explosion: she raises one hand, thumb out, pointer finger up, forming a cup (not a loser sign...we discussed this), and I raise two fingers (behind the backs of people in line in front of me), signaling a double-shot and we're off sprinting. Result: I have my coffee by the time I make it through the line. It's good to be local... Lovely L and her crew lead very professional service-oriented coffee lives, catering to one and all, but some places in this town, you only get things promptly and with a smile because the bartender, etc knows you. It makes one feel quite smug sometimes.

- give the new Radiohead album a good listen. This is difficult for me. I hate new things because they're uncomfortable (like new jeans, new shoes, new people) and I fear change as if change is something with claws and anger-management issues. Yet I love Radiohead ever so passionately. So I'm just going to let it play on repeat for a couple of days before I start even thinking about how it makes me feel. Gonna let it ooze its way in, became a new normal.

- write a bit. Got some ideas I want to kick around.

- prepare to meet C. at a restaurant in Cannon Beach I've been resisting going to all week. Now I get to go. So excited. And so hungry.

Cleaned the apartment earlier while "It Might Get Loud" played on Netflix in the background. Kind of a rad documentary-type thing and I enjoyed it more than just putting on some music. The Edge, James Page and JACK WHITE would play music and sometimes they would talk and so it wasn't like I was alone in my apartment being...alone... listening to music from the CD player.

Best part: Jack White, being driven to the artsy fartsy abandoned warehouse in a black car, glances out the window and sees a guy walking by talking on a cellphone.

"That looks like an accident between a suit and a cell phone," he says to the camera. "He's probably in the middle of saying the words 'totally organic.'"

common colds for cures

Sun, fresh air and avoidance of anything newspaper-related didn't work. So here we have come to The Sick Day which, while wise and mature and self-loving in all the best ways, just makes me feel like a pathetic, weak-willed sloven-type person who would get kicked out of the tribe for failing to hold up my end of our survival. I'm laying in bed coughing and reading and drinking coffee with all the shades drawn because it's ugly outside and I don't feel like seeing the Smoking Man out on his porch. If I ever disappear without warning, check the Smoking Man's apartment first. I'll be the body that's shoved up into the air vent.

I suppose I should be drinking something herbal and more like tea but tea makes me think of grass which makes me think of horses. I am not a horse. Coffee, meanwhile, makes me think of edgy intellectuals sitting around being Communists and writing Russian novels and caring about things passionately and with great ignorance a couple years before falling into corrupt bureaucracy and killing everyone they shouldn't and creating rulers out of those they should kill. It also makes me think of "Coffee and Cigarettes" which makes me remember how much I love divey breakfast diners and Jack White.



But man, Jack White. I have written of him previously. How can you not adore/idolize/sinfully erect pagan alters to him? You're welcome:

fan mail

The day I found out that Jack White was the last rock star, I was sitting at my parents' kitchen table, a pot of English breakfast tea in a white and blue tea pot and buttered toast on a plate. Revolutions often begin in a field and revelations hang around at doorways waiting for someone to trip over the propped up feet. I imagine trains were moving especially slow back in Eugene. People waited while coffee cooled. In Portland, we were a long morning with nothing going on except a piano to play and a bathroom to clean, and the newspaper said:

He (Jack White) was bigger than the room, and gave every impression of always being bigger than every room. Because Jack White is a rock star, and not just a rock star, but possibly the last rock star.

Rock star, according to this article, means: strut-strut-strutting like you own the place and once impregnated the landlord's daughter, charmed his wife with a smile, and left town on your own terms, everyone shaking their heads a little but loving you the whole time. Furthermore, you have replaced Metallica. It is implied that this is something you are to be proud of. You are a finite resource, like fossil fuels. In a world of oil, you are the rumor of a new field in sub-Saharan Africa.

As the last rock star, your duties include (here the article is vague) being Jack White, whatever Jack White happens to be. Nowhere and everywhere mostly.

The burden of being the last rock star is heavy. Un-sleeping are the eyes that wear the crown; the grave diggers are on duty from 12 am to 12 am. Once you are the last, you are doomed to die be you gold fish, child, dog or Mohican. As long as we pretend and flirt behind closed hands, death is a poem and most poetry is printed on paper. Paper doesn't do much except biodegrade. It is when poetry is spoken with throat, breath, spit, and teeth that you need to worry. So perhaps Jack White should be worried. Shovels clank. The diggers don't realize. They're marking time with marks in the dirt, milling and humming, telling dirty jokes. As the last rock star, you face a horde of over-educated, yet incredibly dumb indie kids on the one side and on the other side are the haters of the human spine who want to thrash and throw themselves around like dog toys. In the empty spaces live everyone else. In a crowd, everyone becomes a single face and personal taste is like specialty organic tea in an over-mountain town: unheard of and unnecessary.

As the last rock star, there are expectations of extraordinary living. There are rules and shoes, both dictating an interest in night and cocaine when night becomes tedious. Five women or a controversial wife. You must live in a perpetual state of breakdown without actual full-out insanity. If you get tired, crash a motorcycle. It worked for Bob Dylan.

The day I found that Jack White was the last rock star was the happiest day of my life. The waiting is over. The time is come. Prepare the torches, the pitchforks and the black flag. Run those colors. No doubt the feeling is similar to Jerusalem's Jews upon meeting the Messiah. However, they were doomed to disappointment. God came to die and rock stars "sell out." But like perfection, selling out is primarily a matter of perspective. I think when people say "Sell out" what they really mean is that they are bored or confused, two human emotions already prevalent in every other aspect of our lives and life is too short. So I will stand in different corners and sometimes the middle of the room.

It is with great relief that I pass on this information to you, reveal to you, remind you, petition, bribe, and imply: Jack White is the last rock star.

Unless, of course, Meg White is.