Ode to Jackson, MI

Overture

The night is wrapped like a woolen blanket
About a pair of irritated feet.
Three a.m.
The women in doorways beckon to their men,
One hand behind the back
While shoving them through the door.
I have seen them all before
In some dimly lit, half-forgotten place.
I have heard the story
Of forgotten glory
And a newly remembered face,
But this is a book I couldn't complete
Before its return-by date
And a movie I couldn't finish
Because it was a school night
And I couldn't stay up that late.

More about the Citizen Patriot another day. I'm constantly bemused by their editorials. Yesterday's, for example: Congress wanted to pass a bill lining up successors to House members in case of a full-on attack on the Capitol. The editorial calls this "arcane" and says, "to date, last we checked, this hasn't happened." Sure. Like, on Sept. 10, the Pentagon hadn't been hit by a plane. Archaic. That's a hoot. I must shut up now, or I'll never run out of steam.

Dry Shakespeare

JACKSON, MI--Going to a play by the Bard cold. It's been a while.

Normally, before partaking of the culture that is the Michigan Shakespeare festival, I read the plays beforehand. That is, if I'm not familiar with them/teach them/seen movie versions of them/ bored others to death with my renditions of them. Once, I saw Pericles dry, and had no earthly clue what was going on. Ditto Cymbeline, to a point.

Last night, it was As You Like It. I think I did okay. (It's about two guys in love, right? ...Just kidding.)

The true treat of these plays is in their performance, sure enough. Unless it's something like Hamlet, which, I'm sorry, is impossible to enjoy for a casual theatergoer without an intimate familiarity. Otherwise, why would you care about a single word he says? You'd be shouting from the seats, "Kill the jerk already! My babysitter has to get home at nine!" A fair criticism, to be sure--the comedies, however, in my opinion, are tedious to read. You need a performance to liven things up, to interject feeling and timing into the humor, nuance, facial expressions, physical violence, pratfalls, the scatological, etc. And last night's crew did this to decided success.

The true test of the performance: Do I want to go back and read the play? I do. The Citizen Patriot had a point about the staging and early scenes and music, much though I hate to admit it. But I can forgive such techniques in the face of, off the top of my head, Rosalind's (Jennifer Drew) sheer strength of performance. Watching her snap, "Woo me!" in male guise to the bemused Orlando was worth the price of admission alone.

My Dumb Vacation

Click here if you missed Part One | Click here if you missed Part Two

Part Three: The heady froth of Midwestern Culture. Plus, infant expectorations.

There are fewer things more depressing than approaching the darker side of your mid-thirties wearing a Cult Rocks! t-shirt, cutoff jeans and sporting three days' worth of stubble, only to throw up on yourself.

Trust me on this one.

We'd made the Black Keys concert by 10:30 p.m. Had a few beers. Had dinner. Had a few more beers. Had a breath mint. Had another beer. And at this point, I was steady as Senator Kennedy during a floor vote. I could have piloted a B-52 stealth bomber while playing chess with a chimpanzee.

But then Dewey (without whom there can be no late-night trip to a Black Keys concert, I might add) suggests we should eat something.

"Why the hell should I," I slur confidently. "What I really need is another drink."

Dewey tries to explain the concept of solid food absorbing alcohol, thus acting as a catalyst for its entrance to the bloodstream and further enhancing the pleasures it has to provide. I wave away his suggestions as if they're a swarm of gnats, but finally give in when he offers to pay for my 35-cent cheeseburger if I pick up the next round of Jim Beam on the rocks. I eagerly agree. Sucker, I think to myself smugly.

An hour or two later, we're taking what I like to call the Drunken Royal Express: the Blue Line to Cumberland, where my car sits, waiting like the world's most patient wife after Last Call. The landscape outside the windows is suddenly swerving and dipping alarmingly. It's not the beer. It's not the lateness of the hour. It's not the Jonas Brothers currently playing on the speakers (probably). It's Mickey D's, angrily battling with my gut for domination. I forgot how lousy their food is once you're not an undergraduate any more.

I get up, grasp onto a nearby pole, and try to fix my eyes on a stationary point: the floor. Which also, as it turns out, dips and sways alarmingly. When the train stops at Montrose, several stops away from our final destination, I turn a pleading gaze on Dewey. He sighs, gets up, and we exit. I just barely manage to make it to the platform edge, my 35-cent cheeseburger charging like the Germans at the Battle of Stalingrad. I pause, fighting for control. I concentrate. I summon every ounce of willpower and self-control.

Brap. My Cult t-shirt has definitely looked better.

Dewey stands ready behind me with an ace up his sleeve: a Black Keys Rock! t-shirt, newly purchased at the Metro a scant few hours beforehand.

"You're true blue, pal," I say, drawing a hand across my mouth.

Dewey shrugs modestly. "The day I don't help a pal," he says, "is the day I can't remember where he parked. And you're not sleeping on my couch tonight, so don't even ask."

Is there any substitute in this world for a good friend? You tell me.

-----

The last I left you, Dear Reader, I was standing in my aunt and uncle's front driveway, teetering from exhaustion, ready to embark on a two-day binge of theater and Michigan culture. Which I did. I saw Julius Caesar with my family, fighting the urge to drop off for the first two acts, then watching wide-eyed as the remaining players in the tragedy ran themselves on their swords. My favorite scene: Brutus tells Lucius to hold his weapon, leaps upon it, and yells, "Sweet, merciful crap! I said the sword with the black handle, dumbass!" The blood spouting from his gut looked like Buckingham Fountain during the Taste of Chicago--how in hell they get such great special effects is beyond me. I also liked how Lucius managed to turn pale--how did they do that? with trick lighting or something?--and retch visibly as he was hauled away. I don't remember that line, though. Probably they cribbed it from a Baz Luhmann unused script or something.

That night, while my aunt and uncle stayed home and went through my bags for their New York gifts, I went back for All's Well that Ends Well. I got to see them rehearse a bit beforehand due to a special Discount Rate that I purchased without even knowing it. When Helena comes out to do her repartee with the Count, it got pretty entertaining:

HELEN: You have some stain of soldier in you: let me
ask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him?

PAROLLES: Keep him...uh, wait a minute, I know this line. Keep him...out! That's it!

HELEN: But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance.

PAROLLES: There is, uh, none: man, sitting down before you, will...uh, do something nasty.

HELENA: Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up! Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men?

PAROLLES: Uh, forsooth...thou...Hah! I get it now! "Blow up men," that's good!

HELENA: Jesus Christ, Franklin, learn your lines already, will you?

Ah, Franklin. You put Sir John Gielgud to shame.

The next day's visit to some high school to watch Fame! The Musical is a bit muddled in my memory. I don't remember any soliloquoys. Or dramatic monologues, or iambic pentameters. I do remember my uncle grumbling, "Somebody better run themself on a sword, or I'm outta here." And oh yeah, there was something about a Performing Arts high school. I gots to get me one o' them j-o-b's. Looks like all you have to do is periodically break into song. "These are my children...please take them away." I can see the rave reviews as I close my eyes.

And then it was time to take a train ride home. For four hours. Only to sleep for four more hours, and hit the Black Keys concert. And then sleep for four more hours. And then a drive to a wedding. A six-hour drive. To Saint Louis. Through...the Midwest.



Oh dear God. Not this again.

I hadn't been to a wedding in years where I had absolutely nothing to do but show up well-dressed (check), bring a gift (...hocked it) and dance with Kim and/or assorted female relatives (hey, it's not my fault every time a good song came up I had to go to the bathroom).

But the real scene-stealer, of course, was my nephew James.

James is the first newborn into my family since my brother was born three-plus decades ago, so of course he commands a lot of attention. He's already outperformed both my brother and myself at his age: he can say "da," he can clap, he can roll his finger across his lips and make a burbling sound, he can balance a checkbook, and he can even sort of dance, provided someone else does the motions and movement for him. At his age, my brother could roll onto his back. At my age now, I can barely avoid discharging fast food onto cheap concert t-shirts.

So it was no surprise when he managed to upstage practically every setting he appeared in. But the little guy got sick, probably due to the overpowering 100-degree heat (why the hell aren't August weddings outlawed already, anyway?) and so he wasn't too happy to put in an appearance at the church.

When the sitter and Kim arrived from the hotel with him in tow, I volunteered to get him from the car. My brother, who was standing at the wedding and was currently ushering, looked grateful. His wife didn't object. The sitter, whose last nerve was quickly unraveling, readily acquiesced. The only one who wasn't apparently grateful was James, who was howling lustily from the confines of his car seat.

Poor kid. He looked like an angel. A sweaty, full-throated, red-faced, two billion-decibel-loud seraphim.

I felt my heart fill to the brim with love for my nephew as I beheld him at his neediest. No fear, dear one. Your uncle is here.

I managed to unbuckle him, draw him out, hold him close. "I know, little guy," I crooned. "You just need a little understanding and love, and that's exactly why I'm..."

Brap. The little jerk threw up all over me.

"Well of all the..." Splutter splutter. "Somebody get this kid off me before I..." Splutter splutter. "Nobody ever told me babies vomit..." Splutter splutter.

My dignity thus discarded for the time being, I tucked him under my arm, sprinted to the church and lateraled him to my brother. As I grabbed the nearest box of wipes to rescue my good suit from baking in baby vomit, James shot a smug look in my direction. And as the bridal party descended on him to ooh and aah, clucking sympathetically over his soiled clothes, James leered appreciatively at his ready good luck, and my crappy situation.

Nephew: one. Uncle: zero.

I returned to my church pew sweaty, smelling a trifle vomitus and looking like I'd just ran a 10-K. My beloved, the Woman who Holds the Bottle Opener to the Beer that Is My Heart, cast a critical eye at the puke on my lapel. "Wow, twice in twenty-four hours?" she asked sardonically. "What are you, going for a record?"

Damn it. Got to stop telling her the stuff that embarasses me.

The ceremony ran longer than expected, so once we got assorted family and friends back to the hotel, it was time for a little drinky-poo. One turned into several, which turned into dinner, which then turned into a full-blown dance floor at the reception cum open bar. Charlie and the Nostalgia Number did live music, and it was right in the middle of a passable rendition of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" that James made his triumphant return: cleaned up, bathed and in a new set of clothes. I, on the other hand, was wearing the same befouled suit, rumpled hair and harried manner I'd had before, relying, in the absence of soap and water, solely on vodka and tonic to disinfect myself.

"He is so cute, gushed a nearby bridesmaid.

I stood up straight, puffing out my chest in pride. "I'm his uncle, you know."

"You've got vomit on your lapel," she said without even looking in my direction. James, apparently overhearing, sneered at me.

A half hour later, I borrowed my nephew and stuck a finger in his direction. "Kid, you're lucky you're so damn cute," I growled. "Or you'd be swimming with the fishes right now."

He acknowledged my riposte by grabbing my outstretched finger and dribbling on my shoulder. Nephew, two; Uncle, zilch. My heart melted.

"All right, you get away with it this time. But when you grow up, you're taking me to a Black Keys concert. I'll explain why later."

Epilogue:

Setting: New Year's Eve, 2069. Kim and I are sitting in the living room, poring over old photo albums. We've just celebrated our first twenty-four hours of wedded bliss. Yes, late bloomers are we, but you can't put a label on love, and now, as the fire on the TV screen crackles cheerily while the pollution and depleted ozone layer decimates the landscape outside, we exchange memories of Days Gone By, occasionally clasping hands and downing shots of Jack Daniels.

Me:"Look at this one. This was what's-his-name's and whosit's wedding that one summer in that city with the arch-thing, remember that place? You were so lovely."

Kim: "And you were a hunk stud. Oh, and look at James. Who'd have thought the future President of the United States would do so much upchucking on someone not working for the UN?

Superficial, worldly-wise laughter ensues here. Maybe some geriatric groping on the side.

Kim:"And here you are, warning him not to throw up on you again. Just so cute!"

Me:"And here he is, dancing with a bridesmaid."

Kim:"Is that the bridesmaid you were flirting with?"

Me:"Flirting? Me? Hell no. I bragged about being his uncle."

Kim:"Sure, to a hot bridesmaid. What about all the old ladies hovering around him?"

Me: "Listen, woman, know your place! The Marriage Santification Act, passed by President George W. Bush hours before he left office (HR 2172-2 Section Seven Paragraph 2), makes it a crime for me to be spoken to like that in my own home!"

Kim: "Your home? You damn mooch! When are you going to start pulling your weight, get a job and pay me some rent?"

Me: "I told you, I'm in a transition period!"

Kim: "And I told you, I was only allowing five decades for you to find a job singing in a musical. I don't care how senile you are now!"

Me: "Why you...you...you..." Brap.

I forgot. Nonagenarians shouldn't drink after only poached eggs and Soylent Green for dinner.

Geriatric bickering ensues. By New Year's Day, 2070, we're filing for divorce, and I'm sleeping on Dewey's couch. Guess we should have seen that one coming.

My Dumb Vacation

Click here if you missed Part One | Click here to go ahead to Part Three

Part Two: The glory of the open road...with no rest stops...

Rental car agents are retarded. Why would I need insurance? I have insurance, not to mention a license, two working eyes and a swank set of wheels just waiting for me.

"I just don't think it's a good idea to drive a convertible cross country," she was telling me for like the fiftieth time. "They're not fuel efficient, and there will be lots of wind resistance."

"What there won't be any of will be babe resistance," I said nonchalantly. "Can you just picture me behind the wheel of that Mazaratti? I'll have to beat them off with a stick."

Unfortunately, the Mazz was taken, so I was stuck with a Ford monstrosity. No matter. It's late July, there's a Michigan Shakespeare festival starting in fourteen hours, and the open road is beckoning me. As the Bard himself might paraphrase, The weight of this sad time I must obey/ Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say:

What I feel: "I am going to tear this road apart!"
What I ought to say: "Screw the festival. How about a hotel and ten hours' uninterrupted sleep? In a, what do you call it, a bed?"

Heresy. Sheer heresy. I've been going to the Michigan Shakespeare festival for nigh on four years now, and each time I go, I remain undissapointed. Oh sure, those high-ended cake eaters in the Big City can have their Shakespeare in the Park, their bi-yearly trips to England's Globe Theater, their BBC subscriptions, blah blah blah. Give me Jackson Community College any day. They know how to do it: Merchant of Venice in a 1920s motif, Henry V circa World War I style, Hamlet as a bitchy college dropout. I'm addicted, I tell ya.

Of course, no small part is feeling like a bigshot whenever my aunt or uncle leans over, nudges me, and whispers, "Who's that guy again?" If I didn't know better, I'd swear they were playing the innocent in an effort to puff my deflated ego. Ha. Not likely.

So there's no way I'm about to miss this cultural phenomenon just because a mere 800 miles or so separates me from my loved ones and the Bard. Which is why I'm renting a car to drive the distance in a marathon ten or twelve hours' time.



The car rental place is dubious about whether or not I can make it. I've got three days' worth of Manhattan living weighing me down; I hate driving; I can't remember which states border Michigan; and my hand is visibly shaking as I sign the rental contract. "We've got road maps available, you know," the agent tries again. "We can even tack them onto the cost of the rental. You won't be out anything extra."

"Look, honey, this isn't rocket science. As long as I drive towards the setting sun, I know I'm going west, right? Nuts to thou."

Outside, the sun is glaring into my eyes, and a parkway looms before me. Oh crap, I thought to myself, which way is it to the turnpike? No, can't show weakness in front of these schmoes. Got to hit the road with confidence.

Getting out of New York City, as it turns out, is a lot less complicated if you avoid the city altogether. For me, this meant a leisurely detour northwards on 678, past Yonkers, losing the freeway in Connecticut (Highway 15), reconnecting with 80 way up north, and recontinuing westwards a mere three hours after I left the airport, all the while passing deformed banjo players grinning at me and pointing towards river tour trip signs. What, me worry?

I managed to keep a more or less consistent log of the journey in hour form. Of course, they tell you writing anything while zipping along at upwards of 80 mph is dangerous, but I think the record speaks for itself in proving this a bunch of crap:

Hour One Feeling good. The sun is out. The grass is green. Never traveled cross-country solo before. Only on those Florida road trips with Tso and Todd and all them. Hmm. Wonder what those guys are up to? I should call them. Anyway, I'm off to see America!



See? Isn't it grand?

Hour Two: Hmm. Sun being out not such a great thing when it's right in your eyes. No matter. I'll play the radio to distract myself.

Hour Two point Five: God, radio sucks out here. Didn't Debbie Gibson retire her career a decade ago?

Hour Three: What the hell are they talking about, no Starbucks drive-ups? This is the East coast, right? It's not? I'm in rural country? Then why is Debbie motherfucking Gibson still playing so much?

Hour Four: God, my back is killing me. Must keep driving, though. Got to escape...Debbie Gibson.

Hour Four point five: Am I even on the right road? Bah, what am I, a sissy? Men blazed trails out here without any maps! Of course, a lot of them wound up eating each other to survive...

Hour Five: I should probably stop over and eat something. Bah, no time. Running out of time before the first show starts. Maybe I can rehydrate with the windshield wiper fluid. Got to stay sharp. Revel in the glory that is the open road:



Hmm. Seems sort of monotonous. Hope I'm not lost.

Hour Six: That bastard Tso. "Oh, you should go out East." "Oh, you should go to New York." Now I'm driving this ridiculous trip. It's his fault. Everything is his fault. I'm going to kick his ass when I see him next. And what does he mean, the news is left-leaning? I'll lean on your left, asshole.

Hour Six point five: If I had to, I could eat Tso to survive out here. Better not tell him that.

Hours Seven: God, the Midwest is so boring. Can't believe there isn't a landmark or a theme park or something.

Hour Seven point two: Wait a minute...what's that in the distance?



Hallelujiah! Something to actually say I saw while seeing America!

Hour Seven point two two: Almost there...



Erm. That can't be right. Maybe I need sleep.

Brief interlude for sleep in Youngstown, Ohio, where my mother and uncle were raised. I haven't been to the town for about fifteen years. The last time I was out here, I was a whiny teenager with a face full of acne. Now I am approaching my mid-thirties with a back built like a child's tower of blocks. While I should be sleeping, I examine my hairline to see if the drive is making it recede. As near as I can tell, it is.

Hour Eight: Going on three hours' sleep. Fueled by coffee. Drink it in lieu of food. Go go go.

Hour Eight point two: Damn. Need to pee.

Hour Eight point three: Gah. Too much coffee.

Hour Nine: Oh Christ, how much longer? And how much longer until I can get some more coffee? This sucks.

Hour Nine point one:



I hate this place.

Hour Ten: "Hello, Tso? When I eat you? I'm starting with your eyeballs, fignuts." Click. Showed him.

Hour Ten point five: Standing in aunt and uncle's driveway. Seeing double. Need to pee. Need to eat. Need to sleep. Five years taken off my life. But I made it. Victory is mine.

Aunt: "Nice to see you. Now shake a leg. Your uncle's car isn't going to wash itself."
Uncle: "You drove all that way for a lousy play? What a rollicking social life you must have."

Okay. All right. Vengeance will be mine.

Next: Part Three! The exciting world of Jackson Shakespeare! A beach bar with no beach! A Broadway musical in a high school auditorium! And I suck out Tso's eyeballs and eat them with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

JACKSON, MI--So I'm about 400 pages into Gone With the Wind, and if anyone had ever told me I'd be this hooked on a Southern Romance/epic, I'd have laughed. It's tough to get past the way Mitchell describes the blacks (with all the "capering" and "gleaming teeth smiling in pleasure" I just about want to retch), but overall I can't put it down. Every time my aunt and uncle come into a room, I'm reading this damned book. Last night, for dinner, they fed me meatloaf made with sawdust, to see if I'd notice, and all I said was, "Can you believe Rhett ran off to join the army? What a turd."

Of course, while not reading or socializing, I'm doing work for the upcoming school year. And, as always, my mind keeps pushing it away, like a kid pushing away a plate of vegetables. So as I read this book, it occurs to me, What would the same story be like if told from the blacks' perspective? I could do what John Gardner did to Beowulf with his novel, Grendel. I could win the Pulitzer! I could be famous! Let me get right on it.

Scratch that. Already done: The Wind Done Gone was published in 2001. Back to work I go.

JACKSON, MI--Stand-alone condos are da bomb. My aunt and uncle took me on a driving tour of several of the structures--imagine having a house with three bedrooms, a cellar, glass panels on the garage door, ample garage and parking space and a lush green lawn...without having to do any lawnmowing, exterior maintenance, interior maintenance, painting, repairs or anything else encompassing work beyond a minimal screwdriver-twist. There's the stand-alone condo. No wall-to-wall neighbors. No shared common property. Your own mailbox at the driveway end.

The catch? About half a million, give or take.

Off to Jackson's hosting of Midsummer Night's Dream.