Sunday, May 01, 2005
reborn
I awake to the sound of my sneezing. My head throbs and my body aches. My nose is running away from eyes on fire. I am dry, very dry.
It is time to pay The Piper for yesterday's festivities.
Ow. Ooh, the ibuprofen bottle is empty. Damn! What to do, what to do?
Well sir, I am a patient of Dr. Feelgood. My doctor has a minor reputation as an easy and regular distributor of the good stuff. It's true. He does not want his patients to experience pain, for any reason, no matter how small. I grab a small bottle previously prescribed for an eariler ailment.
One hour, a few large glasses of water, a vicodin, a couple of actifeds and about three cups of coffee later I am again feeling right as rain. Better living through chemicals indeed.
The Boy sits snuggly in my lap bright-eyed and smiling. The Wife still slumbers on a Sunday monring. The television is on, presumably on the same channel it was on when The Boy and I fell into a sound sleep on the couch the night before. It's an infomercial now: The Joy Mangano Fitness Disc. Awesomely bad television, amazingly so. They should attach a swiffer to the bottom and market it as a way to exercise yourself into a clean home.
There is a sense of a return to normalcy. Or more accurately, finally settling down and discovering what it is and how it feels. What a fucking year it's been. After all the drama surrounding the arrival and adoption of The Boy, after the dark months of Curtis then Chris, there is a feeling of a new beginning in every morning breeze.
_______________
Flashback.
Señor Suavé and I seek shelter from the rain beneath the boughs of an old oak tree. It is about fifty degrees. In places the sky is dark with a threatening rumble. The tree's leaves deflect the steady rain into a slowly drenching mist. We stand next to a tall and aging hippie, made taller by his fuzzy neon rainbow striped hat. He talks about protecting his drum from the rain. The hippie reaches into his pocket, pulls out a pipe, loads a bowl, and lights up. He makes a glancing offer that I politely decline, "No thanks man, it's kinda early for me."
It is kinda early for me. Yet here I am, milling around in the rain on a Saturday morning with a dozen or so other guys awaiting instruction as to how to prepare the park for the party that's to come.
The party? Hell yeah a party! Eeyore's Birthday Party! An annual tradition and a celebration of the Rites of Spring.
What began in 1963 as an excuse by a small group of University English majors to skip class and go drink beer in the park has grown into our fair city's largest and most festive recurring celebration of heathens and hedonism. Thousands gather in a modern version of ancient rituals worshipping long-forgotten goddesses far older than any god remembered and revered today.
Through trial and error, through periods when nobody knows what the hell is going on, and through periods of not enough indians we gradually transform a flatbed trailer piled high with pipes into a hundreds yards long row of scaffolding. From this scaffolding booths will soon be fashioned. While we toil others unload and set up kegs of beer by the dozens.
And dozens and dozens.
The beer will be dispensed from the booths we craft. It is a constant happy reminder of the impending reward for our labors. It is the reason for my being there, out in the cold rain in a city park early on a Saturday morning. Those who volunteer to help with the party are rewarded with a nearly unlimited supply of the best beer in the world: FREE BEER.
For many years past my friends have volunteered and have hooked me up for the party. Today I am looking forward to having the opportunity to give something back by making sure that a friend's plastic cup will not run empty on my watch.
A little before noon the booths are complete and the beer begins to flow.
The ancient Dieties of Nature we gather to celebrate and appease, whether consciously or not, bless us with Their Favor. The rain stops, the clouds vanish, and the sun shines brightly in a clear blue sky.
By mid-afternoon the park fills with thousands of people: the freaks (tattooed, pierced, and painted in interesting ways and interesting places), the geeks (Dungeons and Dragons warriors doing battle in real time with foam swords), hippies (at heart if not in appearance) both young and old. It is a family event for the progressive and open-minded. Children of all ages scamper about in costumes equally colorful if not quite as revealing as those worn by their adult counterparts.
Let's not forget about the beer.
The Beer is the Blood of our Springtime Communion.
And we commune, I'll tell you what boy, we commune. We commune and consume by the plastic pint glass after plastic pint glass. By mid-afternoon the lines for beer are rivaled only by those for the porta-toilets.
The beer is the blood, and the Drum Circle is the proudly beating heart that pumps it, pumps it, pumps it with its pulsing pounding omni-present ever-progressing rhythms.
Slightly off-centered under a small grove of trees in the middle of the park scores of people are assembled in an amoebic circle. They bang bang bang on drums of all shapes and sizes or any other object that you can beat out a sound. Hundreds more surround them, drawn by the hypnotic beat and the nubile gyrations of scantily clad young women. The earthy aromas of patchouli, pot, and perspiration hang in the air.
Near this perimeter in the shade of an ancient tree we stake our vantage point to take in the mass of humanity that surrounds us. The Wife and The Boy have arrived. My world is complete. I cheerfully engage friends young and old, old and new. Conversations flows like the beer, punctuated with hugs, handshakes and high-fives.
I discuss with Coffee's Child, an old friend and Sprawl survivor, how some people still could use a good cock punching, and how some books can never be returned. We raise a memorial toast and then move on concluding thusly:
Renewal?
No, reborn.
|
It is time to pay The Piper for yesterday's festivities.
Ow. Ooh, the ibuprofen bottle is empty. Damn! What to do, what to do?
Well sir, I am a patient of Dr. Feelgood. My doctor has a minor reputation as an easy and regular distributor of the good stuff. It's true. He does not want his patients to experience pain, for any reason, no matter how small. I grab a small bottle previously prescribed for an eariler ailment.
One hour, a few large glasses of water, a vicodin, a couple of actifeds and about three cups of coffee later I am again feeling right as rain. Better living through chemicals indeed.
The Boy sits snuggly in my lap bright-eyed and smiling. The Wife still slumbers on a Sunday monring. The television is on, presumably on the same channel it was on when The Boy and I fell into a sound sleep on the couch the night before. It's an infomercial now: The Joy Mangano Fitness Disc. Awesomely bad television, amazingly so. They should attach a swiffer to the bottom and market it as a way to exercise yourself into a clean home.
There is a sense of a return to normalcy. Or more accurately, finally settling down and discovering what it is and how it feels. What a fucking year it's been. After all the drama surrounding the arrival and adoption of The Boy, after the dark months of Curtis then Chris, there is a feeling of a new beginning in every morning breeze.
_______________
Flashback.
Señor Suavé and I seek shelter from the rain beneath the boughs of an old oak tree. It is about fifty degrees. In places the sky is dark with a threatening rumble. The tree's leaves deflect the steady rain into a slowly drenching mist. We stand next to a tall and aging hippie, made taller by his fuzzy neon rainbow striped hat. He talks about protecting his drum from the rain. The hippie reaches into his pocket, pulls out a pipe, loads a bowl, and lights up. He makes a glancing offer that I politely decline, "No thanks man, it's kinda early for me."
It is kinda early for me. Yet here I am, milling around in the rain on a Saturday morning with a dozen or so other guys awaiting instruction as to how to prepare the park for the party that's to come.
The party? Hell yeah a party! Eeyore's Birthday Party! An annual tradition and a celebration of the Rites of Spring.
What began in 1963 as an excuse by a small group of University English majors to skip class and go drink beer in the park has grown into our fair city's largest and most festive recurring celebration of heathens and hedonism. Thousands gather in a modern version of ancient rituals worshipping long-forgotten goddesses far older than any god remembered and revered today.
Through trial and error, through periods when nobody knows what the hell is going on, and through periods of not enough indians we gradually transform a flatbed trailer piled high with pipes into a hundreds yards long row of scaffolding. From this scaffolding booths will soon be fashioned. While we toil others unload and set up kegs of beer by the dozens.
And dozens and dozens.
The beer will be dispensed from the booths we craft. It is a constant happy reminder of the impending reward for our labors. It is the reason for my being there, out in the cold rain in a city park early on a Saturday morning. Those who volunteer to help with the party are rewarded with a nearly unlimited supply of the best beer in the world: FREE BEER.
For many years past my friends have volunteered and have hooked me up for the party. Today I am looking forward to having the opportunity to give something back by making sure that a friend's plastic cup will not run empty on my watch.
A little before noon the booths are complete and the beer begins to flow.
The ancient Dieties of Nature we gather to celebrate and appease, whether consciously or not, bless us with Their Favor. The rain stops, the clouds vanish, and the sun shines brightly in a clear blue sky.
By mid-afternoon the park fills with thousands of people: the freaks (tattooed, pierced, and painted in interesting ways and interesting places), the geeks (Dungeons and Dragons warriors doing battle in real time with foam swords), hippies (at heart if not in appearance) both young and old. It is a family event for the progressive and open-minded. Children of all ages scamper about in costumes equally colorful if not quite as revealing as those worn by their adult counterparts.
Let's not forget about the beer.
The Beer is the Blood of our Springtime Communion.
And we commune, I'll tell you what boy, we commune. We commune and consume by the plastic pint glass after plastic pint glass. By mid-afternoon the lines for beer are rivaled only by those for the porta-toilets.
The beer is the blood, and the Drum Circle is the proudly beating heart that pumps it, pumps it, pumps it with its pulsing pounding omni-present ever-progressing rhythms.
Slightly off-centered under a small grove of trees in the middle of the park scores of people are assembled in an amoebic circle. They bang bang bang on drums of all shapes and sizes or any other object that you can beat out a sound. Hundreds more surround them, drawn by the hypnotic beat and the nubile gyrations of scantily clad young women. The earthy aromas of patchouli, pot, and perspiration hang in the air.
Near this perimeter in the shade of an ancient tree we stake our vantage point to take in the mass of humanity that surrounds us. The Wife and The Boy have arrived. My world is complete. I cheerfully engage friends young and old, old and new. Conversations flows like the beer, punctuated with hugs, handshakes and high-fives.
I discuss with Coffee's Child, an old friend and Sprawl survivor, how some people still could use a good cock punching, and how some books can never be returned. We raise a memorial toast and then move on concluding thusly:
"Life is good."It is, as Bono might be heard to proclaim, a beautiful day.
"Life is very good."
"Yes, life is very good."
Renewal?
No, reborn.
|
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