"...violin"

I was forced to take piano lessons as a kid. I loved the music, but I rather listen that be banging away at the keys.

Now the violin that's different. My Dad played violin. However as I say I was stuck with the piano. Each of us in the family had to learn a different instrument. So I was stuck.

Years later I had many dreams about the violin. 
So many that I felt that it was my Father trying to tell me from Paradise I should just go, and play!

I went over to a shop here in Manhattan just off Times Square. Music Row it's called. Anyway I went in there, and told the guy about my dreams my family, and all that stuff.
He listened thoughtfully then called his assistant over, and told him to go down in to the basement, and get a certain violin for me. 

My god it was beautiful! Sounded like heaven too.

He told me this wasn't a beginners instrument. It was special. He had found it at an estate auction. He re-made it. It was in a way a favorite of his. He played several pieces on it for me. As I say it was heavenly.

He said I was meant to have it. 
I said I couldn't possibly afford such an instrument,...he insisted it was mine. He gave me a very affordable price, and home it went with me.

A very good man, and wonderful violin.

"Uncle Sydney vs the Boy Scouts",...the nice part.

This is a portion of my long ago post about my boyhood war with the racist Segregated Boy Scouts. This is the happy fantasy part.

Let me tell you of my innocent boyish scouting visions,...
I saw me, and my new scout pal's out in the wilds of New Jersey,...tracking down mountain lions, digging up "Spanish Gold!", building tree house's, and sighting UFO's.

We'd also be hot on the trail of "Atomic Spies", rescuing cats, exploring mysterious caves, and making friends with da Indians.

We'd be tying all sorts of knots, and painting ourselves up like "Sioux Warriors". We would eat wild berries, shit in the woods, wipe our butts with leaves. The lot of us would go running on all fours, and howl at the moon like wolves!

To relax we'd go skinny dipping, have kissing contests, circle jerks, blow things up, and build model airplanes!

At night under the stars we'd sing do-wop songs, cook foot long kosher hot dogs over a roaring camp fire, and tell scary stories about deranged communist robots from Venus invading Nebraska.

At bed time we'd set up surplus air force parachutes, and use them as our communal tents. We'd all recite our prayers, kiss each other good night, cuddle up like puppies, and slip into the gentle arms of Elysium. 

Perhaps some few might stay awake to chase fireflies or sing songs to each other.

Oh, such a sweet, and innocent vision.
Unfortunately 'none' of this swell shit went down. What did happen was...

My Mom: "What did you say?!"
Scoutmaster: "Eh,...I'm sorry Mrs. Smith, but it's just policy". "There's nothing I can do about it"
"This troop doesn't admit Coloreds". 

Alas,...So ended my chance to tie knots, and take part in circle jerks.

"Tea for Two"

I'm sleeping too much albeit in small installments. Times of stress are like that. In the old daze when I was a part time drug addict,...well okay maybe not addict.

When I got to know 'real' addictive comrades I found out what a total amateur I was.

These heroic pharmaceutical maniacs sucked down quantities of chemicals during a weekend binge that would have taken me two years to score, and do!

One pal described a gleeful cocaine angel dust speed whiskey cocktail that would have killed a dozen Cossacks, and the draft horses they rode in on.  ...and then went back for seconds.

Where was I?

Right dreaming of dust buster parties past. I recall back in the fading 1980's doing what we called "Biggles". Named after someone in a Monty Python skit.

A Biggle is basically a quarter gram or more cocaine line. Eh back in the day the recording, film video, and general broadcast industry ran on speed, and coke. Hey it was another era different values gimme a break.

Anyway to prove your insanity one would snort down the whole thing in one quick zap! This to the demented applause of your pals. If you didn't 'die' you were rewarded with a vodka martini..extra dry.

Ah I gleefully recall the summer of '83. What me, and my old pals calls the "Martini Summer". 

One of our TV/radio host comrades whom you've heard of, but for legal reasons goes somewhat nameless here was once a bartender in a Madrid dive. He remembered his skills well!

Anyway this suicidal "Biggles" thing was the custom among the engineers back then. Yeah I had a terrible drug problem,...I was always running out of the stuff, and it was terrible.

Flash forward near 30/40 years, and all the survivors are basically teetotalers. 

So like I sez now instead of snorting up Peru I attempt chemical-free sleep. I even succeed somewhat. 

Nutty dreams too. 

"HEIRLOOMS"

I'm getting on 70 now. Given all this I've been thinking things over. I've been wondering, where is everybody? Where is my family, my old friends, my school, my dog, my bike?

Where is that world that seemed so big, and complicated, and important. That lost world of dinners, homework, chores, math tests. That time, and place where I got in, and out of all sorts of trouble.

All those birthdays, trips to aunts, and uncles houses. The Christmas's, Thanksgiving's, July 4th bar-b-ques. Was all that a dream? Can whole worlds vanish without trace? The Universe blunders on as if we never were. That world I knew, and lived in has become as smoke in the wind. Curling, drifting, vanishing.

Maybe that's why heirlooms are so important to people. Those little scraps from a family's past. Old snap shots, a battered doll, a music box that doesn't work. These simple tattered things that speak for our past. Speak for all those now gone.

They say to Eternity, these little gems, they say,..."We lived, we were here! We loved, worked, suffered, laughed, learned, taught and died."

I several years back passed on to my oldest niece my Great Grandmothers music box. It's a simple pewter bowl. The top is a powder puff box, and the bottom is a music box. It's cover was the best part. It's beautifully engraved in the "art nouveau" style with a painted cameo of a lovely young girl in the center.

I used to play it all the time when I was little. Till I broke it, and my Mom had to send it to a jewelers to be fixed. You see before air conditioning people used to powder themselves lightly to stay cool, and prevent rash. I recall being powdered by my grandma, and ma in all my seen, and unseen places from that box.

I felt the time had come to pass this particular gem on. So when Kimberly came out east for a visit I gave it to her. I told her that it had been in our family for a hundred years. My Great Grandmother, her Great Great Grandmother got it as a birthday present from her father in 1915.

Great Grandmother whom we remember as "Grannie" gave it to my Grandmother, Violet, in the 1930's. Grandma Violet gave it to my mother Carmen when she was married in 1948. My Mom gave it to me shortly before she passed away in 1988. In time I gave it to my dear niece Kimberly in 2008, and told her to keep it in the family for another hundred years.

I suggested she only pass it down to the female line of the family as they are generally more sensible, and are less likely to sell it on "eBay" or it's successor business.

"Another hundred years", that's what I told her, and that's what's going to happen. I gave her the music box, and all the stories that surround it for her to pass on into this not so new century.

"Time Goes By"

"Time Goes By"

This very well may be me in one of my brief earlier lives. I say "brief" because I don't think I lived into old age in any of the others. This may be the first time for that.

Which is why everything now is such a surprise.

Well here I am at the very start of this time around. I recall so well how so much seemed familiar. I was so sure I'd seen certain things before. This I suppose because in the early 1950's so much of 19th century even traces of 18th century New York was still apparent.

Life after life.

This can't be proven scientifically. It's all so subjective. I hope it stays that way. We need the mysterious. Things that are not quite there yet there.

Like touching an Angel's wings.

It's said that they are just this side of solid. Like running your hands through warm air. There, but not quite.

As it should be.

"Psalm of the Hungry Child"

"Psalm of the Hungry Child"

The "City Dept. of Old Farts" thinks I'm nuts so sent me to a Shrink. This while deciding which Geriatric Gulag to deport me to. The doc' is a thirty-something with turquoise hair, and 1980's jewelry.

She asks how I feel.

"Swell" sez I.

" I haven't foamed at the mouth or shit my self in weeks now."

"Although I just had a dream where I was being chased down the street by my bed springs."

She takes notes nodding calmly.

Ms. Turquoise wanted to know what sort of meds I'm on, and if they're effective.

"A bunch, and more or less." 

"I mean it stops me from jumping out of windows or slashing my wrists,...again."

She lifts an eyebrow,..."Again?"

"Yeah."

I show junior my scars from various boyhood attempts. What a mess. I never got it right. Sure I learned how later, but won't tell you as a public service. 

It was about this time them floating Naked Angel Boys clutching teddy bears showed up again. They came through the wall above the shrink.

I decided not to mention them.

I'm asked if I've ever had "urges of violence?"

The Angels start jerking off over me.

"Violence..sure. I mostly dream of kicking the bloody crap out'a bullies Tea Party hacks the IRS homophobes, and them butt-holes that make that disgusting sound with their teeth, and tongue."

I warm to the subject by going into medieval detail. Vats of acid piano wire wood chippers heavy objects dropped from great height. That whole "Wile-e-Coyote" routine. 

It starts raining Angel jizz. 

I think I scared her with all this because her eyes began darting to the door which them Angels were departing through.

...if she saw them she didn't let on.

Anyway I asks if she could do me a solid, and slip me some medical dope or a few hits of morphine.

Love's that Morphine!

She changes the subject wanting to know if I was abused as a kid. Gimme a break what kind'a question is that.

"You kidding who wasn't?"

"It was like the worse parts of the Bible. You want details watch "Jerry Springer."

I mentions how I could use a pastrami hero about now. She looks up from her notes, and sez, "...you associate your memories of abuse with food?"

I tell her I was hungry all the time as a kid, and not just for food. It was a childhood Apocalypse. I mean what with getting beat up terrorized robbed, and humiliated everywhere all the time. 

I decided to turn the tables,...I do this to shrinks.

"What's the worse thing that's ever happened to 'you'?"

A pause then she sez,...

"I was raped"


Silence.......


Christ on a blind pony. 

'This' is the worse thing that can happen to a human being. I mean other than waking up an Orthodox Jew in Dachau in the winter of 1943. 

I got "done" too. Gang raped. Three big kids at day camp held me down, and took turns fucking me up my 10 year old ass. 

I screamed. 

They said I could "scream all I liked". "Nobody" would come. Nobody did. Nobody ever came. 

Just like prison.

Like them floating Angels I kept this to myself.

After a bit my doctor tells me I'm not crazy.

She says, "...I can't get you any dope, but I'll up your med dosage, and throw in some Valium."

"Thanks" I say.

She closes her note book.

"I think we're through for today."

We shake hands, and part,...till next week.

Stay Tuned. 


(Like all my stories this is part fantasy part history. The major bits happened though maybe not in the order presented. Like I say think of these as docudrama's.  This format makes these things easier to live with for me.)