practice

By the time I kissed someone I liked, I was good at it. Pillows, posters of Peter Frampton, record albums with David Cassidy on their covers don’t kiss back, but you can press your lips against them with force or gentleness. You can make your mouth a powerhouse. Kiss your forearm, though, and you can imagine the give of another’s lips. Practice that. Kissing feels as good as being kissed. This is both.

This week, Rob Brezsny’s spiritual advice to those born under the sign of ADD (Libra, if you didn’t know) is to embrace quality over quantity. Sometimes—with the exception of having babies and infections—quality emerges from quantity.

Practice.

Practice isn’t a devil. It’s what separates the good from the great. I don’t need to prove anything, don't write about studies and such, but if I did, I would point to a particular book about what separates world-class performers from everybody else.

To become a better musician—whether you have natural talent or not—you work at it, and that means finding the time to practice. And practicing means doing. You play. You repeat the same song over and over until your wife or daughter or mother or dog wants to strangle you with your guitar strap or whack you on the head with the microphone.

If you’re a photographer, you take more pictures. You pose your dog, your daughter. You fidget with the lighting, her hair, his one floppy ear, the backdrop. You take the same picture 47 times until it’s exactly the picture you saw before you began.

Why do doctors practice medicine? Why do lawyers practice law?

If you’re a writer like I am, you write more: a story, a letter, a poem, sentences. You edit the words. You massage them. You fuck with them until they are sore and tired and smoking beside you on the bed.

On April 1st, because it was the start of National Poetry Month, I started practicing poetry again. It’s been a long time since I’ve thought like a poet for any length of time. I write nonfiction and advertising—in both my day work and my freelance life. The first can be poetic, but it doesn’t teach economy. The second is economical, but it’s rarely poetic.

Poems are not stories with random or even planned line breaks. They aren’t born like babies (though they are sometimes emotionally painful)—all perfect, if a little wet and icky. They would need more than to be cleaned up: chiseled, sculpted, molded, rearranged, cut, dissected, tortured. Even my happiest poems need to ache a little.

For the last ten days, I’ve written about a poem a day. I share them on Facebook but not publicly, in case there’s a chance I can torture them into a publishing opportunity. But it’s not, as some have surmised, about quantity. It’s about practice and discipline and the hard work of thinking in precise, power-packed words. They’re like astronaut food. They’re like the little sponges before they take on water and become bathtub dinosaurs.

The words I use in poems need to combine to form a drug. You need to blister a little while you read it. The last line should give you some euphoria. Or some despair. I want you to wonder when the next one will arrive. No, to crave it.

We don’t need to be the best at what we do. But we should always want to be better at doing it.

I never did kiss the real Peter Frampton or the real David Cassidy. I’m still practicing, but I think I’m ready.



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("Kissback Bob" CD manipulation by Steve Parke)

drug of voice

Long ago, when I was crazy and couldn't sleep, my shrink, knowing of my life before baby, told me I needed to start writing poetry again or join a band. He believed insomnia to be a symptom of art withdrawal.

He was right. I had chosen the poetry, and my sleep was restored. I'd have started a band, too, except that I have crippling stage fright.

Back when I fronted Question 47 in the early eighties, we played out once or twice a week. I eased my fears with a gin and tonic or two, and I was usually comfortable by the third song. But I know alcohol only makes you think you sing great. Still, I pine for that unrequited love. I would rather sing and play guitar than do much else, even though I probably have no business doing it at all.

So here's what happens to me when I get on stage—even to read poetry or give a lecture: My arms get heavy and numb, and they sting, as though the blood in my veins were plaster of Paris mixed with rubbing alcohol; my legs stiffen and cramp; my heart pounds out of my chest, and you can see it through my shirt like some kind of alien spawn; my voice shakes and quavers, and I can't stay in pitch.

Because of my fear and lack of confidence, with the exception of one brief embarrassing moment at my daughter's bat mitzvah last year, I've not sung in public since my old band days. Until Friday.

After a story on 60 Minutes awhile ago, I wondered about using Propranolol (Inderol), a beta blocker, to ease my stage fright. I mentioned it recently, and my best friend, a speech pathologist, admitted that she takes it when she has to give presentations. So I called my doctor. He gave me five tiny pills and the instruction to take half a pill one or two hours before my performance. Our school's coffee house was 6-9; I took half a pill at 5.

At 8:15, my friend's band announced that they were taking a break and asked if I wanted to play. I'd pretty much given up on that idea. But when Dave asked me again, I was up like a shot. If I was nervous for a moment, it's a moment I don't remember.

And it's the only thing I don't remember. The pill gave me some kind of super memory! I didn't forget the chords or the words, even though we were playing a new song. And when someone asked us to play another, I did an original.

I'm not saying I was great; I wasn't. But I didn't suck, either, and that was enough to delight me. Maybe after a few of these little shows, my confidence can return.

I have enough pills for nine more gigs. And I plan to use them all.

the poet

On Sunday, I had breakfast with a poet. A real poet. He didn't have breakfast with me because he'd had some "Irish soda bread" at home on his horse farm before our late morning meeting.

Real poets have Irish soda bread on their kitchen counters on their horse farms.

Last time I met the poet in this place, I helped him set up a Facebook page. Now, his canonical status updates read like a taunt.

In this order: Up at five but it felt like four. Iced hooves. Thought about meditation. Thought better. Remembered Ackerman (Come to Bed Jack), her eyes. Listened to Mundy, Garbage, R. Head. Reread Paul Hostovsky's "A Little in Love a Lot" for the twentieth time. Found something I'd missed.

My update: Beer is fucking delicious. Beer is like crack. Fucking crack.

Nearly every poem he writes punches me in the gut. Across the table, the poet tosses me three pages. On the first is a poem about shooting a raccoon and putting up Christmas decorations. It is so perfect that I need to find a quiet place to both punish and forgive myself.

Sometimes I punch back. And sometimes, the poet flinches. Last week, I sent him two new pieces—one the lushest, most violent, aching, throbbing poem. He sent them back from South Bumfuck. In an envelope. With stamps. Like only poets and poetry-loving husbands do. I ran to the mailbox each day like a puppy, and when I couldn’t take it anymore, I begged him to send his comments by email so I could set my poem free.

That day, the longhand-edited pieced arrived—with an entirely different critique. He told me on the better page: "This one is a great poem." It’s covered in cursive and printing, three different colors and weights of ink: a fine-point black pen; a medium-point black pen; and a cyan marker, which is his commentary.

In one week, the poet will turn 50. He'll go out to dinner with his wife. They'll talk about horses and poetry and wine. When it's my turn, six months from now, I will scratch 50 until it bleeds. And I will drink the delicious crack of Resurrection. I will wake up the next day and be exactly the same, but I will pretend that it made all the difference in the world.

The list of things to do between now and the next rotation around the sun grows: publish another book of poems (the first one's due out in May), form a band that plays originals and wholly original covers, travel somewhere by myself, go to Barcelona to see the mosaics.

The poet has lived in Barcelona and describes standing in Picasso’s house like only a poet can describe it.

And because I, too, am a poet, I am, in that moment, there.

sweet harmony

Yesterday, I got to spend some quality, albeit brief, time with an old friend and his wife. We met at Nick's in Cross Street at noon and engaged in some laugh making, picture taking, Facebook posting, and two-fisted beer drinking. Despite the frenetic activity, not a drop of the 32-ounce trough of Flying Dog Pale Ale went anywhere but to my head.

We met when I was fourteen, some thirty-[inaudible mumbling] years ago. My best friend had just won 92 albums from WLPL (92 FM, of course), and I was the lucky bum who got to tag along. She and I were already cutting-edge ninth graders. We read Creem and Rock Scene and Circus. (We read Hit Parade, too, so we knew the lyrics to all the Aerosmith songs.)

We brought a shopping list. My girlfriend and I had seen pictures of the bands that made us swoon—The Sex Pistols, Richard Hell, the Damned, Television, the Stranglers—bands we couldn't hear on the radio. So we went to Harmony Hut to get schooled. Ira Kessler was the teacher.

From that moment on, I was home, even if home sometimes meant my dark closet with Patti Smith's Babel, a thesaurus, a notebook, and a pen.

I can't give Ira all the credit; I'd have found my way eventually. But that hour or so in Harmony Hut was a defining moment in my life.

Ira never left behind his career in music, even though he left behind Baltimore for Connecticut and, finally, New York. But in the early eighties, he and I were both in bands at the same time (his, Boy Meets Girl, and mine, Question 47, played many shows together). He's worked in the recording industry since his stint at Harmony Hut in Security Square Mall, and it was his first record company's reunion that brought him back to town after a couple years away.

One afternoon with his wife, Lori, proves that Ira's taste is still impeccable.

With maybe one exception: thirty-two ounces of Yuengling? Maybe it's a nostalgia thing. But he must now attend FuquinALE!, my seminar. And he might have to stay after class to exorcise those lager demons.

collective voices

In the mornings at Baltimore School for the Arts, all the music students (150? 200?) gather in one of the recital rooms and sing. When my daughter shadowed there, this morning exercise was the standout part of the day. Though the word is overused, awesome describes the power of so many voices, whether in unison or in delicious harmony.

The collective voice is why I put it out there.

Not all of it, mind you. But I believe that you don’t get what you want by blowing a dandelion clock toward the heavens. (And you don’t get anything you’d be proud of by blowing someone behind the shed.)

So when I want—or need—something, I just say it. A lot. That covers anything from broken plates to words for a poem to collective prayers. And I believe a collective prayer is as tangible a thing as the broken dishes that compose my mosaics and the words that compose my poems. It’s why when my dad is in the hospital and not getting better, like now, I tell the universe.

My universe comprises, at least, 672 Facebook friends. It’s not a lot of people by any measure (a close friend of mine who is on top of every trend decades before anyone else has 3,406 friends). But I know almost all of them. And I make an effort to engage them in some kind of meaningful discussion or to puff up some small talk and make it personal; you won’t find a mere “happy birthday” from me on your special day.

It’s deliberate, but it’s not calculating. I engage people I like and respect, and my reward is another beautiful voice in the chorus of people pulling for me to get my book published, my dad to get well, my husband to keep playing guitar, my daughter to grow with poise and grace, and my best dogs to go in peace.

I don’t believe in a capital-g god, but I do believe in synchronicity (and most of the Police’s body of work—worth a listen if they’ve been long neglected by you). Sometimes you get messages from the darnedest places: your iPod on shuffle—in a Police song, in an email from a long lost friend, in a dream, in the sound the wind makes when you leave your window down a crack. I listen to these.

Maybe this is an apology to the people who think I over-share. If it’s a sign of strength and independence to ignore what others think, it’s a sign of stubbornness and arrogance, too. We should be respectful of others’ opinions, and our minds should be open enough that we can change them when we have new information. We should be changing every day. You never step in the same stream twice.

But there’s a solution to the annoying over-sharer that doesn’t include unfriending (or defacing, as some call it). Because I have already learned that asking for what I want brings favorable results most of the time. Putting it out there brings sandwiches to my dad in the hospital. It brings my family hot meals after my back surgery. It brings me poetry. And, best of all, it brings a chorus of hope and love and strength, and I can feel it—even without 100 likes and 58 comments.

Last week was the much-anticipated, sleepless high-school acceptance week. I wanted my daughter to be accepted to Baltimore School for the Arts. I know she will thrive there, because I know how driven and how focused she is. I remember being at Goucher and hearing the grad students in my program read. I thought: They are all so good! They can’t have made the one mistake with me! I want her to feel that kind of self-respect. So I share the things about my daughter that amaze me, and I say out loud every day that she is a prize. I tell any of the 672 friends on Facebook who are listening so they can charge the air.

Do I believe that all those voices had a part in my daughter’s acceptance (one of 125 out of 1,200+ applicants)? Her talent and brilliance clinched it. But yes! Those voices found a way to imbue her performance with a little bit of magic.

And when those judges drove home from work, they cracked their windows, and the wind said, “Serena.”

(there's no such thing as shameless) self-promotion

I can flirt with the best of them. I can make lewd comments, behave boldly, brashly, wear low-cut shirts, talk trash, cuss like a sailor, pinch a friend’s ass, and take seductive fat-girl photos. But I can’t toot—blow—my own horn.

Back when The Book was being published, people would ask me about it, and I’d do the pshaw wave. (It’s the opposite of the Queen of England’s wave; it says not hello or goodbye but getthefuckouttahere.)

I didn't know I was supposed to be promoting it; I thought that was the publisher’s job. For a month—and, to my surprise, only a month—they scheduled me to appear in magazines and newspapers and cool online sites. I spoke on radio—“A Chef’s Table” (syndicated NPR) and several Satellite radio stations. Nah, let’s talk about you, I wanted to say. What are you doing these days? That’s more interesting to me, even if it’s less funny.

Self-promotion skeeves me out. I don’t like to brag or boast unless it’s about my daughter, and then I can be relentless. But it’s unseemly to promote yourself. Tacky. Fugly.

I often sign up for those marketing-tip emails from fierce bloggers and self-promoters, thinking it’ll give me a kick in the pants about just doing what has to be done to survive as an artist, to reclaim my envied position at the desk in my dining room. But I hate those people. They sound smarmy and loud. I read their first two emails with the voice of Billy Mays or Aussie crocodile wrestler, Steve Irwin. (Ironic: they're both dead.) And I wind up deleting all the rest of them unread. I can’t bring myself to send the “remove me” message. It’s like quitting.

Self-promotion has been a sore spot with me where a friend is concerned. He does it; I don’t like it. I had another friend—used to shake your hand with a business card in it, like it was a plastic baggie full of crack. Butt crack is more like it.

I’m not saying I don’t want attention and admiration and overwhelming envy from you. I will flash you a poem or a song, usually with cleavage to make it more palatable, usually on a Saturday, when I think no one’s looking, and I will whack you over the head with a photograph or 20. But they’re usually not accompanied by: “And I am selling these photographs for money. Hit me up for deets!”

Sure, I post links to my blog from Facebook and Twitter and Flickr; those email marketers have taught me well (in their first two emails). But I usually follow them with a links to things more amazing, like Chuck Prophet's new CD, Temple Beautiful. (He was just on "Fresh Air"!)

Do I lack confidence? Am I shy? No way! I am fucking awesome. I’m just uncomfortable asking you to prove our friendship is important by shelling out some money for yet another thing I've made. I would rather give you some. That's why my next paragraph has me already hurting in the groin.

Please pre-order my book of poetry, BOYGIRLBOYGIRL, published by Finishing Line Press. It’s not that expensive, it has a pretty cover, and the more books I sell before March 5th, the more copies they print. (Imagine sticking the publisher with a thousand of these babies!)

I should mention this: each week, I get a recap of the sales. With names. So if you are my friend, and you don’t order, I’ll know about it. I'd rather not. Because it can't help but become this uncomfortable thing between us. Like an unvited hard-on.

Try before you buy. Then, please, buy.

Your Friend,

The Skanky Ho

u.n.c.l.e.

Today was a day like most other weekdays: long commute, long day writing mostly the same words in a slightly different order, work drama, some laughter coupled with paranoia and worry, a long commute, a beer, dinner, and the laptop and TV in bed.

On Thursdays, I go to shiatsu. I call it that, but Jim Hill doesn't really do pure shiatsu anymore. He's a "healer." He knows what hurts me by what hurts him, and he takes care of it with his own brand of acupressure. I call it poking.

Jim presses my flesh hard with his thumbs and fingers and palms and knees and feet. While I lie on my stomach, he puts the flat of his foot on my tailbone, picks up my legs, one in each hand, shakes them like he's spreading out a sheet on a bed, and pulls slowly. I am an inch taller, but it doesn't count.

When I'm on my side, he twists my arm behind my back in some sort of therapeutic wrestling hold. No holds barred. I say "uncle" in my head and whimper while U.N.K.L.E. plays on the utopia Internet radio station. I'm the only one of his clients who requests something other than the mind-numbing new age sounds. We go for trip-hop—Radiohead and Bjork and Zero7 and Thievery Corporation. My current favorite is Eel, but I don't like them much when I'm not lying on the floor.

Jim presses on my ribs. He grinds his knees into the backs of my thighs, his elbows into my butt, his fists into my shoulder blades. While I'm on my back, he pulls me from my neck, slowly, slowly, and I can feel my tailbone rising up, tucking inside my body, as if I'm turning inside-out.

Before I leave work on Thursdays, I take a half a hydrocodone. I pay $100 for two hours of tortuous poking. Some nights, the pain is just short of intense, and I can fall asleep for a few moments. Other nights, like tonight, It's too much. Jim stops working on my legs to poke a sore line that follows the underwire of my bra. These are lung points, he says, and asks if I've had trouble breathing—he means before now. I cough a little when I lie down, I say. I'll be sure to remember my inhaler. When he goes toward my left side, I worry that he'll touch the cancer. That it'll bust open and gush through my body like an ocean. Last night, I had a dream that I needed back surgery and chemotherapy at the same time.

When my treatment was over, I got dressed and raced home, cursing the slow drivers, blessing my heated seats. On Perring Parkway, I pulled over to let a slow-moving Emergency Medical Services vehicle get in front of me. Through the back window, I saw the EMT pumping someone's chest. He pumped and pumped and pumped. He stopped and looked at a machine and pumped again. He was frantic. I stared through the window, unblinking, hoping the tech would keep going because that would mean the patient was still alive. The ambulance was going too slowly. For two miles, from the beltway to Echodale, I was staring through the back window, thinking of that deer. The tech kept pumping, even as the truck turned right toward the hospital, so I did not cry.

I came home and drank a beer, ate dinner, and came upstairs, where I sit against a kind of pillow called a husband, The Mentalist on in the background, laptop engaged.

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