Sadness

Perhaps my father is right. Perhaps this is a bit of a sad blog. A pathetic attempt by a man to rediscover himself, reconnect with the world after cloistering himself in some two dimensional idea of marriage, ultimately cloistering himself from his own family, from his wife, his friends, and himself.

A few have noted that this blog goes from one extreme to another...from enthusiasm for life to depths of sadness, perhaps even anger.

The activities discussed do occur and are enjoyable; the issues are not forced...they are genuine events and issues which I am engaging to keep moving.

But sometimes I stop, sometimes I pause, and sometimes I think. In this blog, you will get both the excitement of writing a poem and getting good feedback on it; and you will also get quotes from Styron on loss and abandonment, along with linkages to my own situation.

I don't know how else to function.

There is an undercurrent of sadness which runs under everything I do, think, say, feel...it is there, and I cannot shake it. It has been with me for as long as I recall...at least back to my high school years...that's over 20 years.

I can stay active and stay moving and stay positive, and will try to keep the depression to myself...fake it to make it, I guess, but my countenance cannot always be glowy and shiny.

That's just the way it is.

McCain for the GOP, Obama for the Democrats!

This blog has not really delved too much into politics, because lately I have not been satisfied with the direction the nomination process has been going. Too much handicapping based on fundraising and national polls, too much interest in what the media talking heads think, and we are going to end up having to choose again between the cleanest of our dirtiest shirts.

If the media are to be believed, the front runners for their parties nomination would be Rudy Giuliani, the supposed hero of 9/11, and Hillary Clinton, whose husband's infidelities earned her a seat on the U.S. Senate. I find neither of these candidates acceptable to a country that needs to be unified and requires a leader who can rise above the politics of the moment to lead us out of the 9/11 mindset and into a progressive 9/12 mindset. We need a leader who half the country won't hate and the other half won't just defend out of blind loyalty to the party. Clinton v. Giuliani would simply be more of the same...a clash of the baby boomers...a divided country. As I once heard them described..."Nixon in a pant suit" and "a small man looking for a balcony."

So, I am going to pray and advocate to my Republican and Democratic friends that they vote and support the following candidates for their parties nomination: John McCain for the GOP, and Barack Obama for the Democratic Party.

A McCain-Obama face off would guarantee a few things: 1) we would not have a baby-boomer in the White House; 2) we would have a president who has proven he can work across party lines to get results and would have a better chance at unifying the country; and 3) we would have a president who would be able to restore this country's credibility in the world by undoing the current U.S. policies (secretly made and implemented) on the use of torture in the gathering of intelligence. And although McCain supported the war (with many caveats) and Obama opposed the war (but is not afraid to both engage our enemies or take the fight to them), the debate about the war would be vibrant and honest and would give Americans a real choice.

So, in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and the states that follow, let us pray the country gets what it deserves and has a contest between McCain and Obama, and no matter who wins, this country won't lose.

Norman Mailer: 1923 - 2007

I sadly learned this morning that writer, activist, provocateur, poet, director and journalist Norman Mailer died today at the age of 84.

I have read a number of his works, including "An American Dream," "Death to the Ladies and Other Poems," "Tough Guys Don't Dance," "The Deer Park," and one of my favorites, "Harlot's Ghost." And I mostly enjoyed his work.

So, I hope wherever he is, there is bourbon and boxing 24/7 and plenty of bars and dead writers with whom to pick his fights.

New Poem

Yesterday, I wrote a new poem for a new friend, who has been quite encouraging of the painting and writing. The poem is called "Blue Bar."

E-mailed it to this friend yesterday and woke up at 3 a.m. to find a wonderful response.

In December, I will be in NYC, and we will meet for a drink and talk writing and painting and southern kinky-gothic romance at...where else...the Blue Bar.

Receiving her e-mail in the early hours of the morning made my day. I can coast on the fumes of her message all day long.

Existential Funk?

It is Saturday a.m., around 11:20, but I still have not gotten out of bed. Just hanging out at my old home...my wife and daughter's home....upstairs, watching Spongebob Squarepants with my little girl, IM'ing with a new friend, thinking about the post I deleted.

Probably suffering a minor existential funk, one that will be relieved only with activity, reading, new poetry, painting tonight perhaps. I should probably get out of bed.

Why a existential funk? I thought I was doing well, combatting the depression, reaching out to new people, trying to make peace in my own heart with those whom I might have alienated (not intentionally, but alienated nonetheless). Coming to terms with my limitations, trying to be aware of my talents and strengths and build on them.

And sometimes I get in an e-mail conversation that puts me in this funk...and gets me thinking that I have not progressed as far as I thought. Am I deluding myself? Is the fellow conversant and I so far apart that we can't communicate anymore? I don't know. I value outside perspectives, because they can offer a view that someone who is too emotionally close can't objectively provide.

I've made my mistakes in friendships and relationships, and I have certainly contributed to the failure of my marriage...both in terms of my rigidity and in terms of not taking care of myself to the extent that I could not tend to the relationship.

I don't know. And therein lies the existential funk. I don't know.

Poetry Night - Baudelaire

Tonight again is poetry night. My friend read "Wine of the Lonely." I read "Crowds." No painting tonight, as I needed to step away from the canvas.

I have posted my fellow poet's below, and mine follows:

Charlie, Can You Hear Me?

Baudelaire's works all wax tragic
Themes of loss and grief and death
Permeate each page, while magic
Thoughts round out this poet's breadth

Images of dying faces,
Touched by a cadaverous hand
Gamblers, madames, vagabonds stand
In sephulchral urban mazes

Island orgies seen or dreamt of
Cannot soothe a life without love
Or fill the coffers of a once-rich poet

Charles, if you peer down from above
You see that your works are well-thought of
Though in your time, few would dare to show it

(c) hmh, 2007


The Half-Drunk Bourbon

In the grayness of the night, reflected in the blue-grayness of my art, there sits a solitary bourbon glass, and in it, about half the amount of bourbon usually consumed.

On my canvas, I have painted walls and floor and bed, and I have sipped some stout and written notes and sketched and occasionally looked over at the bourbon glass, which sits on the coffee table in front of the armchair, which is where you would be were you here.

I will not finish the bourbon, because what is left belongs to you. I poured religiously, almost unconsciously, the right amount for us to share and sip - drunk almost with the same rhythmic pace that we received our kisses from the dark lady that one warm September night.

But you are not here, and you won't be for a while. And your absence in my cloister, where I paint and where you once wrote, is painful, almost unmeasurable except by what remains in the neat glass of bourbon.

(c) fprm, 11-7-07

New Haven 2007

Next weekend, I will be at the Yale-Harvard Game, with a handful of friends. This will be the fourth trip this year to New Haven, and I am finding that this town has acquired real sentimental and spiritual meaning for me.

In February, I was here with Lisa, and we discussed the future and promise of our new and redefined relationship, dinner at the Playwright, an intended Last Hurrah that did not happen, due to both of us being so darned tired. And a nice drive back, with a stop at the Donut Dip.

In late April, I was there for some quality time alone and to do some reconnaissance on nightclubs and bars for the Yale-Harvard trip coming up. What happened is I ended up spending the whole evening at the Owl Cigar Shop and Lounge.

A drive, a dinner, drinks, cigars, and a nice time took place in New Haven on July 21...an enjoyable moment in a bittersweet...and short...affair.

And next week...football. My first Game attending as a bachelor, alone and unattached.