well that was fun (what?)...

the pre-fair entry including the Ode to Sidney?

the invitation to fantasy baseball?

the actual day at the fair?

yes

but since I already had fun paying tribute and inviting, I'll ramble on a bit about the fair in this entry, since that is all that's left to ramble on about at the moment... yes, the fair... it was a fair fair, it was, a fine fair full of fattening food and free fools frolicking about having fun... a fair fine fattening frolicking fair... $7 to enter, fried bread (funnel cakes) $4, saugage $5, sausage $7, corn $2.50, sausage $5, eclair $5, two rides $6, running elbows with thousands of overexcited people $priceless... I didn't mention the $5 soft drinks, did I?... Helena doesn't like crowds and it was getting quite crowded on the midway and she said it'll be the last time she goes, but rather than wondering why she wwanted to go to a place known to attract major crowds, I just nodded and said ok... after three hours she had enough and wanted to take her tired feet home... Precious had to stay within her dad's budget and would have probably been running around with friends her own age (which she can do next year, since we didn't plan this far enough in advance to have her invite a friend this year), but had fun anyway cuz she's a sweetheart... they did not want to go on any of the rides, except two, because apparently they don't like wild high extreme rides and even small roller coasters (like Splash Mountain at Disney) are too much... once's feeling too old, one's feeling to afraid, and Rasputin stayed home cuz he works too much and has a sore back and leg and needed sleep... we found him nodding off on the couch in front of the TV when we got home...

meanwhile, there's me, the oldest chronologically of the lot, and I'm bouncing around with the energy of a five year old (that poor five year old must be missing a lot of energy) wishing I had people with more energy to bounce around with... and who'd forgive me for ending a sentence with with... twice... what's a misplaced preposition between five year olds, anyway...

hours later, I'm drinking nothing but water because I don't want sugar or caffeine because I've already got more energy than I need sitting here by myself... the world closes down, everybody goes to sleep, and there's nothing on the TV, so I wandered over to Yahoo and created a couple of fantasy baseball leagues in the hopes that I'll find some friends that way... and I clicked the channel selector around the cycle because the Sci-Fi channel had one of the worst movies I've ever seen on about some strange tropical ants that somehow find their way to Alaska to feed on the populace... finally, I find Eddie Izzard in full make up and some sort of komono rambling on in French to an English speaking American audience and they are laughing because he told them if they knew French they'd be laughing because, and I quote him, "it is fucking funny"...

what could we possibly be thinking?...

I may have forgotten how to relax... to just kick back and enjoy life without thinking about who what where when why how and time going by... and my social circle consists of a few people who are in three very different places and none of those places is actually my home or comfort zone or whatever... and I've been totally unmotivated to expand that circle in spite of my wanting to (but not wanting another person pulling me in another direction that is not closer to my core)...

there are very few people in this world who understand the experience of singing from the singer's perspective and I've lost contact with the few I've known, which is even more of a loss that the lack of musical contacts... the creative connections are flailing in the winds... and the words are desperate stabs in the dark, for they can not express what is missing and still hope to convince someone who understands... before it's too late...

and maybe that's past due already...

how does it go?... I've got more energy than anybody I know and I'm still feeling so lethargic I can not reach my own comfort zone energy level so how could anyone find me when I am not there?...

yeah, right, you?

we get into habits over time... there were years of extremes in this life and now, nobody knows what's it's like to be (me?... a bad man?... behind blue eyes?... lost in a lost world?)... and when I am fifty, will you still be turned on?... will you still want to know who I am?... will you still believe there is such power within?... would you believe it now?... would you care?... these days I have the albatross habit, this self-pathetic self-doubt pretense that fools even me and how can I respect that and if I don't respect myself how can anyone respect me and therein is the rubbiest of all rubs, the self-fulfilling prophesy and undermining, the cross off the list, the loss before the game begins... and I don't change it because I don't want to change it because I don't want to be found because I want the one person who can find me in spite of my foolish games and stupid disguises and self-destructive habits to find me... but isn't that what everybody says to their darkest mirror just before falling into the drunken stupor that keeps them down?...

and the people were running around trying to be so cool, acting like they just don't care what anyone thought as they posed with practiced nonchalance... and when you looked for their eyes they were not there, looking away with a fierceness that cursed any interest and raged against any real concern... what the fuck'er you looking at?... while inside we are crying for love, hungry for nurturing, and dying for understanding...

he couldn't be real, not really... he's just creating characters, paragraphs to paragraphs, making it up as he goes along... she just wants to shock us, or rock us, or sock it to us the way Rowan and Martin once did way back in the Television archives somewhere on 52nd Street without skipping a beat victory in defeat that compels all the swells buy and sells on the wall take the call and drop the ball before you fall... and who could spend the next twelve hours playing some video game as if nothing else mattered because the world can get on without us tonight... close your eyes, close your eyes and forget all about us tonight...

I'd like to tell you about the passion I found out there, the romance and sexual fire and amazing charisma and profound sharing that radiated between us and made us aware... I'd like to tell you we found ways to care and share like never before as a singer throws a whole self into a voice and song and the artist pours purely from the orafice... but what the hell is he talking about?... to be so focused that every breath we take, every move we make, every smallest of smallest particle of energy and matter is flowing in one direction toward one goal...

no wonder people are cutting themselves, to bleed just to know they're alive... no wonder people are equating physical pain with pleasure... the agony of the unshared moment, the emptiness of the wanting hand, the loneliness of the hungry heart is pumping so much desire, so much hope, so much wanting until it explodes and bleeds and survival demands desensitizing, numbing, reducing life to apathetic pretense and emotionless motion... desperation, no doubt...

power?... ask Jewel, Mariah, Bjork, Alanis Morrisette, Christina Aguilera, Whitney, Streisand, what?... you want a list?... Steven Tyler, Pavarotti, Freddie Mercury, Bono, Elvis, even this list is too broad, and way way too short, simultaneously reducing the meaning to a capsule that can be swallowed and therein obscuring it so it loses it's power... there is power of voice, power of presense, power of life and wrapped up in what we call charisma, and the intangible attraction... people who have it often don't even know how to use it, or where it comes from, or what to do with it... people are controlled by it without caring that they don't even known how it works... people follow as if it's the right thing to do... some call it adoration... some call it salvation... some call it religion...

you don't have to understand, but it sure would be sweet if somebody did... you can watch it... then you can read it... then you can make a movie about it... then you can write a song about it... then you can listen... then you can watch... then you can go in circles again and never know it... and some destroy, and some pray, and some sleep, and some scream, and some drug, and some dream, and some sing... what you do, and even more, what you do not do, defines you... but who really knows...

so I had a fun day at the fair, how about you?

. o O ( NOTES ARE THE NEW HAPPY PILL ) O o .
(just let me know you were here)