Rumors of My Death Are Greatly Exaggerated--Lrod Update

[Lightning Rod]

Open letter to my dear friends on Studio Eight:

I hate form letters. They are time-saving devices like toasters and telephones. Time is currency better spent than saved. But this is a form letter to update my adventures.

Don't castrate your dreams, they are the seeds of tomorrow. The only direction is forward, at least that's what my compass tells me. My compass is a quirky instrument but I err when I ignore it. Yes, it operates on magnetism like all compasses do, but it also senses other vibrations--the body language of the universe, the distinct inflection of the music of the spheres, the odor of liars and thieves. Yes, the compass is hard to read, baffling in fact. Forward at the top, Forward at the bottom, Forward on the left, Forward on the right, but I dare not lose it.

Rejection doesn't hurt unless it comes from one you love or respect. Thus, I am largely immune to it. But not always. My lover thinks I rejected her and I think she rejected me. All points on the compass point Forward.

Back to the narrative:

I caught a plane from Virginia to Tennessee. It was a bumpy ride over the mountains and strip mines of W. Virginia. My face was in the bag most of the way. It was a small plane because I don't dare get on a big one. My foul affair with the Dept. of Homeland Superstition.

I thought I was receiving asylum in Nashville. House in the hills with hot tub and swimming pool and recording studio and 88 key piano, deer running in the yard, a bamboo grove. I thought I had landed in heaven. But 'asylum' can quickly become 'insane-asylum.'

But the work must go on. I departed Nashville for Dallas, from where I write. I rode with a crazy soldier that I met on Craig's List. He was driving from Boston to Arizona to report for active duty. When he picked me up in Nashville, he had been awake for 36 hours. He said he was trained for this sort of thing. At dawn in Texarkana he began hallucinating flocks of crows in the sky.

I reminded him that crows don't come in flocks, they come in murders. Every now and then his head would slump and we would be going 35 mph on the interstate with the big trucks whistling by. I was using every device to keep him awake, jokes, music, sudden moves. By the time we got to Dallas delirium had set in and we were concocting new businesses like using road-kill rabbit skins to make ball warmers, you know, scrotum sacks. We were going to call them Global Warmers and sell them on the internet.

Luckily I arrived safely in Dallas. Word got out and I began getting calls from old friends.

Dallas is my home. I can't escape it. You can hear it in my speech. Coming home is a nostalgic thing. Some landmarks are the same, some have changed. You have mixed feelings. I told you there was no Back on my compass, only Forwards. It's hard to observe change when you see it in gradual increments day by day. But when you look away for six years, it's easier to notice the changes. People are older, buildings are newer. My feelings are mixed.

It took me a few days to get hooked up to the World Wide Web. AT&T came and hooked me up. Doreen sent me my old computer. It was like being reunited with an old friend. All my files and software were just where I left them. It took me three years to learn to play this computer. It's like a well worn guitar. I know all it's quirks.

I have spent the past couple of months camping out on other people's computers to check my email etc. Using someone else's computer is a more intimate relationship than sleeping on their couch or even using their toothbrush. I'm never quite comfortable with it. Everybody sets their machine up to suit themselves. This is as it should be. But how people choose to organize their files and machines is very instructive about their personalities. These are things that I probably don't want to know.

I don't have a piano yet. I didn't realize how attached I had become to that instrument. I wake up in the middle of the night and my fingers are shaped like an A minor.

Otherwise, everything is everything and I am safe. Ever Onward Soldier Smokers.

Mainly, I just wanted to tell you all (wait, I'm in Texas now) Ya'll, that I will be more present here on Studio Eight now that I am reconnected.

Lrod

[judih]

very relieved to hear that you survived that soldier ride.
and have found a zone of comfort.
hope life moves with a sense of humour and offers good things, bumps and coincidences and resolutions.

a sense of home is one of the most glorious experiences in life.

[Doreen Peri]

Wherever you go, there you are!

Get in touch with Rene and organize a Cabaradio show and I'll fly out to Dallas with my red Chaplin derby hat to do the gig.

Glad the G-4 got there safely. And you too.

A bic keyboard only costs like $100.

Y'all take care now, y'hear?
It's quiet around here. Talk to you soon.

[jimboloco]

i heard a rumor that you was alive an well

seen any yellow roses lately?

there's one in ft worth
her name is kim
she likes to hang out at the kimball museum
under a picasso painting of don quixote and his swayback
ready to charge windmills

maybe will never go on the road again
so when somebody trips
i get trippy
i was watching for your rebound
and know that you will find some good mexican food
for sustenance
ya'll take care, amigo

[Arcadia]

My face was in the bag most of the way oh... sad to listen that!! This summer I discovered that I inmune to dizziness, ear problems, nauseas and vomits even in small planes in the middle of big storms

nice to see you around the place again!!!

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dear Clay:

I'm not writing much on S8 these days, as everyone has no doubt noticed-- or not noticed-- as Korzybsky said: Can you hear me in the back of the room?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski

I left you a personal message. Read it and answer if you like.

--Z

[Artguy]

I knew that was you hiding behind that grassy knoll....

[hester_prynne]

Hey LRod, nice to hear about your travels....I hadn't heard of your "death", glad I didn't. It would have made me very sad.
Will look forward to hearing more from you
H

[izeveryboyin]

Lrod I am immensely pleased to hear that you are faring well. IT is hard to find a place to just lie and and live. To be and let be. I am certain I need not even mention this to someone as well traveled as yourself. You have no doubt seen many doors. I have recently come to find myself wanting in the area of home sweet home. My lover and I rejected each other too. Now we are with my mother and I am left wondering where the time went... what the key is to find proper healing. It is a process. I am hungry... and tired. And my eyes are so heavy. I hope that you are finding the world much better than I am.

--k

[Lightning Rod]

thank you all

I arrived in Dallas with two changes of clothes and a copy of On The Road

I can't decide if I'm Neal or Sal


stay tuned

[Doreen Peri]

Well my dear, that is simply not true,

If you are trying to tell the people of the world that you left my house with only one change of clothes, you are lying.

I packed a VERY large box of clothing for you. In the box there were also CDs, books, your checkbook, and other various items it's not necessary to list here.

I paid money to ship that box to you in Nashville and I know for a fact that you took it with you for your ride from Nashville to Dallas. In addition, I shipped you a computer and other belongings afterwards.

So, please don't write lies because it's not becoming. It makes you appear to be a liar. You don't want that, do you? People to think you're a liar?

I mean, what the hell? You lived with me for five years and you want people to believe that you left here after WORKING for FIVE years with only ONE change of clothes?

That would make you appear to the public eye and to your friends and my friends as a BUM.

I suggest you tell the truth. It's much more becoming.

[Lightning Rod]

hyperbole is perhaps not the truth
but it indicates the truth
it's a literary device

I'm not interested in what is becoming
I'm too busy becoming

[Doreen Peri]

hyperbole is perhaps not the truth
but it indicates the truth

What is indicative of the truth in your statement that you arrived with only one change of clothes? There's absolutely NO truth in it and it indicates no truth whatsoever.

It's a ridiculous lie. And for what? Because you think people will think more highly of you if they imagine you are a bum? Why, in heaven's name, would you think something like that? You're a 59 year old man. No 59 year old man would want to be thought of as a bum.

Even if you were a YOUNG man, you certainly wouldn't think being a bum would be something to be proud of.

it's a literary device

This is a Discussion Forum. I suggest you save your fiction for the Creative Writing forum. Just my opinion, of course.

You can do whatever you want to do. But when you are writing fiction and posting it as if it were truth and it is connected to ME in any way, I will speak to it.

Good night.

[Lightning Rod]

Doreen,
I have learned to let you have the last word

[stilltrucking]

It don't matter whose in Austin, Lady Bird is still the queen
"The Wild Flower State", she wanted that on the liscense plates
but it was not macho enough for the schmucks in Austin
Miles and miles of blue bonnetts
Texas will never be my home
I will always be from some place else
People have "Native Texan" bumper stickers
It is a lot like California now
Everybody is from some place else
But Texas music is a world unto its own
Yes I love Texas, it is just Texans I can't stand.


I can not remember how many nights I spent in Dallas sleeping in my truck, parked in a freight yard off Northwest Hwy. A twenty four hour Whataburger across the street I had everything I needed. I never saw the good side of Dallas, just the rail yards and wharehouses.




I came into Dallas with a dollar and a dime



___________________

Speaking of last words

"The first time I'd seen him smile in years" I always liked that song.

I saw george jones at the Parthenon in Nashville posing for some publicity still shots. The camera man had to wait while he tuned his guitar.

There will be no rumors of my death
just silence.

"global ball warmers" good story Clay, thanks
"He is a walking contradiction
Partly truth and partly fiction" Kris Kristoffersen.

You are a good woman Doreen. I know that, everyone here knows that.