ypsilanti's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- new yor's daye i don't know if i can find a way to keep all the secrets that you told me in your sleep and i'm amazed that you still find the space to dream in the shadows of a town made out of theives who would drown the sound of history repeating with the ambulances screaming up the street ******* my father, when he was my age or maybe a little bit younger, was an ambulance driver and paramedic in detroit, michigan. he said it was pretty rough, and he saw a lot of crazy crazy stuff, even got in a bunch of wrecks with the ambulance going so fast. before all that he was a soldier in vietnam, and then came home to lots of bitterness and not a lot of compassion or empathy from his old friends, many of whom were mad at the war and subseqently mad at him for fighting in it. i always thought, fuck, it wasn't HIS war, he just had to go. he had a lot of panic attacks over the next year or so, and due to some fragment of army training, never ever sat without his back pressed against the wall. he said it was so he could never be snuck up on or ambushed. right after i was born, which i believe was after he drove the ambulance, we all went to papua neu ginea, which i think is part of austraillia, and mom and dad were missonary assistants.. dad fixing up people who were hurt in the tribal wars and mom teaching a kintergarten aged class. i hung out in huts and with strange animals, and i am told i became pretty proficient in the language of the people, but my very first memory which i can truly believe is real is one of coming home on the plane from neu ginea, being afraid i would fall out into the sky, asking for chocolate milk. it's so hot around here. this morning i woke up and walked over to the music store, bought a harmonica in the key of G. i left and walked down the street, overhearing two bussinessmen arguing about when the Yardbirds broke up and when the first Led Zeppelin record came out. when one of them said it was in '66, i spoke up and told them the Yardbirds split in mid '67, and the first two Zeppelin albums were released in may and then december of 1969. i realized a few minutes later how amazingly ridiculous and surreal the whole scene was, two old dudes in suits walking down the street talking about zeppelin, and some random homeless boy interjecting with the accurate information.. oh fuck. i wish i had a mini-disc recorder. in less than two weeks, i'll have a new room, a room of one's own, if you will. a seperate peace. portrait of the artist as a young man. crime and punishment. for you with love and squalor. i can't wait to have a space to call home, or at least an area to get it together and call my own. there've been so many times when we just think nothing can go wrong, and everything will happen in a specific way, and then everything fucks up in unimaginable ways, and there's only wrong ways. enough of this can get you feeling like having any sort of expectations will only disappoint you. still, i can't help but feel really full of light and promise when i think about what's shortly ahead. like a new year. i recorded a song that is 16 seconds long. it says: "there is no new advice, just new ways to go wrong in the night." it's funny. thanks for all the beautiful times and new ways to go wrong and new ideas and new years and moments of stillness and clamor. ******* an ambulance can only go so fast. 12:05 p.m. - 7.17.01 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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