Just a few non- Sabbath related observations

Just a few non- Sabbath related observations, starting with the drive to the show and the dusky hue over the highway west and the huge blanket of clouds that caressed the sun— surely a promise of a good night ahead…. Walking into Great Woods with some old friends and we pass by a tall pony-tailed scalper— “Got tickets. Who needs tickets? Got tickets.” Not twenty feet away from him and in plain view is another man, grey bearded and bald, eyes on the people passing him by— “I need tickets. Who has tickets? Need tickets.” Sean informs him and points toward the scalper and the man shrugs, his face recoils, as if Sean had just asked him about Boy George tickets…. I’m standing at the top of the steep ramp that connects the lawn to a lower level that leads to the t-shirt vendors and beer stands. I’m rocking out to War Pigs, staring intermittently at the crowd and down the ramp when a random thought pops into mind: the trek down that ramp is an accident waiting to happen. Right on cue, a guy falls to the ground, crashes into the chain-link fence and rolls over twice before climbing to his feet, laughing and stumbling away into the crowd…. Then there were the two dudes I met on the pavilion by the beer stand. One shared his last giant can of beer with me. Over the course of that giant can of beer he volunteered his opinion that Mushrooms were good for our brain synapse— that the chemicals in the drug filled in lost or broken passageways for our neurotransmitters to travel. And Sabbath was great.

my goal

get my electrical license just to get it over with-- then concentrate on writing some and maybe publishing... getting published through typical ways like finding an agent and nor vanity presses. But it's so hard. Anyway, those are my next goals. license. writing/publishing.

up is down; down is up... so, why am I still on my feet?

I wish that I could be less consumed with the past and more consumed with the future. The present, forget about it-- it all rolls back to the past. It all does. I've been like this since I can remember. Maybe this is what keeps me from becoming who I think I should become. I don't know.

first selfie since 2013... just because. bored. buzzed.

The Neighbor

 

The Neighbor

 

She stood by the window smoking a cigarette, spying on the lazy fat neighbor as he drank a beer by the pool. How could he be that fat? she wondered, pulling a loose thread from her blouse. His backyard was a lazy mess of overgrown grass, crusty old leaves from last fall and throughout the gutters, tall shrubs grew high and sloped when they turned heavy. The shingles on the roof curled and flaked. Though she had never met this man before, she decided that he was a pig. She tossed her cigarette into the toilet, flushed and wondered how on earth she could score a bag. Her unemployment was done and she had already traded her WIC

vouchers for cash. Maybe she would introduce herself and strike a deal.

I wrote this on Facebook one morning (back before it was huge). I used to generate my thoughts out loud there or unleash some measure of creativity as well. These Facebook times were the best-- I had an innocent devil-may-care-approach to it all.

July 7th, 2011 10:38 am.

Matt and me

If I pass my journeyman test this first time, I promise I will start writing again. If I fail, I will retake the test right away until I pass it. I miss writing. Strange dream last night... foggy now but apparently I was a celebrity of some sort, but I didn't know it. A movie was made of my life and in the movie there was a scene depicting me and my brother-- I was 8 and he was 6 and someone brought it to my attention that the scene in the movie was based on a family video, recreated for the movie and yet still I had no idea how I became famous and a celebrity. Weird scenes inside the gold mine....

Two notes of positive reenforcement

A card a got in the mail by one of Mathew's teammates: Dear Mr. Utley, thank you for making a video of the braves. I watch it everyday. From Aidan F.

An email I received from the father of one of our Rangers players after the season ended: "Hi Jim,

Sorry for just getting back to you. Been a little out of touch in California. We'd love a copy of that video! Ryan had a blast this year, so I'm sure he'd love to relive it often. You and the rest of the coaching staff really brought something out in him this year. He's always enjoyed playing, but by the end of the year it was with more confidence than ever before!"

Christopher and his Rangers season highlights

I was assistant coach, my first attempt at any coaching. Christopher was elated when I was asked to help out and even more when I doubtfully agreed. But it was fun-- watching the kids grow and get better. I actually think we over achieved with the talent we had but our coaches made it a fun environment where all the kids got to play and when we could, we let some of the lesser talented players take on bigger roles. We made it to the semi-finals-- one win away from world series. During the last game we fell behind in the last inning by three runs only to tie it up during our last at bat, eventually losing in extra innings. Anyway, this video was conceived from the beginning and ends at last game of season before the playoffs. I didn't think we would have the depth to win the whole thing so I just made a regular season video and formatted it to DVD to give to all the parents for a keepsake.

And while this was going on, my other son's team, The Braves, a level below AAA had a mediocre season that culminated in them getting red hot as the play offs began and they began surgically taking apart the top teams. In the playoffs, they beat the top seeded team, then the second seeded team and then swept the third seeded team to win the whole thing. As far as his video, I only started out just filming him and with no intentions to make a team video but as the team got better, old habits kicked up and found myself filming and photographing them. Anyway, proud of my boys. Love them to death and damn they are pretty good athletes too.

Mathew's Braves 2016 AA Champions

Taking photos, filming and uploading them to the computer... those are the easy parts. Running out of battery power half way thru a game and not having back ups... missing a great play because I'm swept up in the moment... missing a shot because my camera won't adjust to the light within shot and thus won't take the shot until the moment has passed... hitting the record button but its accidentally been on the last 2 minutes... life of the parent photographer.

Making the videos, editing... that's the fun part. Choosing the songs that best represent the videos is generally the tougher task. Ideally, I try and keep the soundtrack current. Sometimes, like Metallica's For Whom the Bell Tolls, that song just was made for sports clips. I actually used it on Christopher's hockey tournament video in March and again on his Rangers video. I used The Atari's cover of Boys of Summer on Chris and Mathew's baseball video. I'm pretty good at not repeating tunes unless I believe the repeat song has no other choice but to be on my video.

I want to do it, but I just can't. Been dragged too much. Nope. Not worth it anymore.

Old post from FB from May 31 2012.

She told me once, it was white light in her heart. What I didn't say to her was that I was colored blind-- that I felt the same way. Emanating from the white light, a soft romantic tune and the sound of seashells and very warm.

*

Old post from Facebook from May 31 2012-- part of their share your memories shtick. I wrote it about a girl I knew once.

No words. No thoughts. No memories. Just death. And a casket.

I place more importance on completing goals than I do in the rewards achieved for said goals. Always have and always will. To me, it's not about the financial reward, its more about personal achievement and pride in a task well done. Everything else is just gravy.

Acid

Acid. I’ve written about it before— that I had taken my fair share of it over the years. I took my first hit of mescaline “mesc” when I was about 15. I was also smoking pot and sometimes stealing cups of booze from my dad’s bottles behind the bar (and replacing it with water— man, was I smart. Duh). I was in High School. I’ve also written about the complexity of my psyche, its fragility, in those years after I moved from Watertown to Randolph. Anyway, now sometimes I look at older pictures of my brother— older pictures of us in general— me, friends and family and I remember certain things at certain moments. Lately I’ve been thinking about acid. Acid trip moments—the mind altering madness and surreality; the slowing down of time and the uncontrollable laughter from the smallest trivial occurrence. If it was a good trip, you didn’t want it to end; if it was bad it would never end. There was no escape.

The infamous Rhode Island night with Dano— I actually posted that journal here before— but basically we got lost and picked up a hitch-hiking prostitute by mistake. There were the times tripping at the fort— myself, Rich, Dave and whoever else may have been with us— Kevin and Glen maybe or Dano but, all of us sitting by a campfire at night in a park frequented by cops, as our laughter shot across the quiet summer night. Once, camping in The Blue Hills tripping all through the night, hiking and following a red light on the horizon because we had no idea where we were going or where we were and afraid that we were going to get jumped by angry raccoons. There was that time when me, Rich, Dano, Dave, Wabrek and Slabs dropped mescaline at the Dylan and Dead show at Sullivan Stadium— myself standing in a sea of Deadheads as they danced and floated along to long Dead jams and I’m just observing in amazement, struck by the unification of it all— like everyone had drank the same cool aid; then I realize I’m probably just like them floating around in my own strange orbit. That time tripping at my parents, twice actually— once when my parents were out— a Saturday night and me and Rich are “tripping our socks off” and we had put on The Wall video cassette to watch it on my parent’s big TV and we get so fucked up, we drift off in different directions—I made my way upstairs into my room and laid down and all the while I can hear Pink Floyd playing on the TV and I’m seeing the most surreal images in my head— dancing women who bend over and piss in my eye, like holograms in my head, all kinds of shapes and colors and the music pulses through my body and it’s dark in my room and I have no idea where anyone is and I close my eyes and watch the fireworks of acid pop off in the darkness of my mind. Another time with Dave and Rich, huddled in Dave’s small room as we played Atari on the small TV, in particular Joust and listened to George Carlin records and at one point the record got stuck and kept playing, “the cock crowed 3 times” over and over;  none us could get up to fix it— it just kept playing and we laughed at it until suddenly we heard my mother’s voice calling us from down stairs and her voice became part of the record and it was an insane symphony that gripped our minds. There was that time at Rich’s mom’s house in Holbrook—me, Rich and Dave— outside watching the sky— they are both tripping, having dropped before me and mine hasn’t kicked in; as they stand there looking at the sky they keep asking, “Did you see that? look its moving! Its following us. Ssh… it’s a ship or something”— I’m looking and telling them, “guys you are just tripping, there’s nothing there” and I’m laughing at them; but suddenly mine kicks in and by golly they are right— there is a light that follows us as we walk through the Grove and it’s all so weird and funny. And my last trip, around 1999 I guess when me and Dano and Doug went hiking for the weekend, climbing Mt Greylock and on the second night we dropped acid; right afterwards, a couple of hikers pass by our tents and warn us to keep an eye out for a bear and her two cubs they saw just down the road— oh great… and when my trip kicks in, it’s a night of paranoia and confusion so great that I can’t hang out and talk with anyone—Dano, Doug and a couple of fellow hikers we met; but I crawl into the safety of my tent and spend the rest of the night listening to them talk and often laughing at loud at some of their jokes (this was when I decided my days of tripping were over— I had given up pot years before as well due to paranoia as well) and I can only imagine the jokes at my expense as they heard my laughter coming out of the tent and knowing I was on a bad trip.

Anyway, I just wanted to get these memories off my chest.

When I die

When I die, you might as well cremate me seeing that I’m already going to Hell.

… ahh, all alone. The wind tears a leaf from the Oak and it flutters across the yard, like a Monarch butterfly and the leaf falls back into the earth, from which it came. (2010)

 

Vangie

So my sister texted me last night: “I just found Vangie on Facebook.” Of course that’s a name from the past all right. Vangie from South Berwick Maine. My sister then sent me a screen shot picture of her with her two sisters. She looked good, they all did. Of course it sent me deep into my memory of South Berwick— Grammy’s house, the hammocks, the field, the bridge. They lived just down the road from Grammy’s house. I remember the first time I ever saw them, slowly walking up the road, passing the house, they started calling me names and I started calling them names but I was no match for the Wheeler girls. True. That’s how we met. Name calling insults. I was 10 or 12. 

In the ensuing years, I developed a huge crush… or was it puppy love, I don’t know, on Vangie. We dated for a little bit. It was awkward. I was awkward. She was so beautiful. But a spitfire too. A troublemaker. I loved that. We got older. Once me and Gary Trull had taken a bus to stay at Gram’s house for the weekend. This was probably 1984. We drank and smoked weed with Vangie most of the time, sneaking out at night. She was in her best flirt mode, seemingly connecting with Gary quite a bit, making me very jealous.  This was the last time I saw her in South Berwick.

Then in 1988 she got in touch with me. I forget how. But she was living in a trailer— or a small house, I forget that specific as well— living with her new baby, boyfriend and his brother. She invited me for a visit. So me and Slabs (Dave Babineau) took a drive. It was October. I remember the boyfriend being a little standoffish at first but as the beers were drunk he began to see me as friend rather than an enemy and we got along well— we all did. They loved Slabs and his racist humor. As it got late and everyone passed out, me and Vangie decided to thumb to Boston. We walked down the dark road, waiting for any vehicle. We were drunk. It was cold. After about an hour we called it a night and walked back to her place. That was it, the last time.

In 1992, when I was on the road in the US, I had heard she was a stripper in Las Vegas. I tried to find her. I went to a few strip clubs looking for her. I tried looking her up in the phone directory and calling her but… I never got in touch with her again. It’s funny. I based one of my characters in Fat Habits on her. So now of course, leave it to good old Facebook. I don’t know. Maybe, when I go back on Facebook I’ll look her up. Talk about how our lives have turned out, our adventures. Or maybe not. Prior to social media the past remained the past and usually for good reason. Enter MySpace and Facebook: and the past came hurtling through time like a drunken guest, flip flopping into the present. Anyway, time will tell.