04.Oct.2003
as long as I know who's wearing the trousers
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these lyrics mean so much more to me now that I have no actual best friend
Depeche Mode "Never Let Me Down Again"
Who's wearing the trousers, now?
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I made a terrible admission to Jubal.
I made another terrible admission to Jubal.
I issued my third and final terrible admission to Jubal.
I went on an insecure tirade. His voice connects to me from 1,536.78 miles away via an archaic cell-phone and any number of models of phone he was using.
I kept speaking. I kept reiterating. I kept pretending.
Jubal said, "Stop."
That's all I need to hear.
I sprayed him with my very deep voice of all of my fears. I told him the way I am converting, with my issues and my exercise routines.
Jubal, the great love of my textual life, my favorite phantasm, said, "It sounds like you're giving up."
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If you have been reading my diary for the past two years, you will know that each time I encounter my brother and his inebriated veins, we reminisce to our pasts together. I always issue a semi-dramatic pep-talk to him. I always tell him he is worth more than he is.
Years later, I finally told him,
"David. You are probably the closest facsimile to a best friend I have right now. Why you decided to give up on music astounds me. I owe half of who I am as a musician to you. Pick up your fucking guitar and find it again."
He's almost thirty. He seems to think life ends at thirty. He, my youngest brother, thinks his life will veritably twist to the worst-case, Crispin Glover-inspired demise at thirty.
He left half an hour ago. He also left me with more beer than I could stomach. Shiner Bock? Yes. It will be mine before eight AM. Who am I if not your favorite, alcoholic sister of text? Good luck with your answers, class.
As he was leaving, I said, "Listen, Davey, do me a favor. Despite your history, and despite our histories, I want to see you on the other side of the red carpet one day. Make. Me. Fucking. Proud."
He said, "You first."
I said, "You're on."
And I closed the door behind him.
--
My mother is a tome of drama in and of herself. My stories of her are tainted with love and animosity. She's a diagnosed schizophrenic who disregarded acceptance into Julliard when she was twenty-three, so she could give birth to her children. She, my deteriorating mother, gave me her piano. She, a classically-trained pianist for twenty years, said, "You have more of a passion for it than I ever have."
I am honored.
My upbringing, with its British versus blue-collar Swedish influences, was always unconventional. My grandfather on my mother's side, who turned out to be my surrogate father, was my literary influence. He had an influence that could intimidate everyone. He knew everything about history we were raised to ignore.
On his last year, he told me, at my fourteenth birthday, "The way you combine Russian Classicalism and modern rock in your acoustic works sends shivers down my spine."
My grandmother, on my mother's side, with her upper-class British lineage, said, "Just suck in your belly and pluck your eyebrows, love. Just smile for the camera, and you will be famous."
I miss them, and I love them. Maybe you don't understand. My past is convoluted. We all come into this world with a past that trails every Psychologist's wet dream. We are all fucked up.
I have a life that means nothing to all of you. I have a life of ambivalence, because, I gave up when I was a teenager. I am younger than you all perceive. I have a gift from Julliard to my mother, a Victor Borge-meets-Bach gift, sitting in my living room.
My family history will not die being victims of mental abuse. My history will not die being local intellectualists. My history will not fucking die as long as I continue to move and breathe and come as an intellectual. My history will not go down into the coverlet-fucked horizons of maniacs and intellectuals who never surmounted humanity.
--
Who I am as a British-meets-Swedish-meets-Vaudevillian performer will not go out without a fury.
Ours is a tale worth finally hearing. The deterioration of an empire and the promise of a resurrection courses through my veins and the veins of my brother. I will not let us go out namelessly. He deserves being heard as I deserve being heard.
--
And, anyway, babies, where were you the first time you heard Depeche Mode's Music for the Masses?
--
I told Jubal he was my male Erato. I told him I was anticipating his moment of subtracting myself from his equations. I told him I was prepared for him to turn his collective, Japanese back on who I am. I told him to subtract now.
He said, "Shhh ..."
Our meeting still stands for 2004.
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--
I swear, at how complicated and convoluted life seems now, there is nothing save immutable prevalence which awaits us.
My heart aches for this.
And I don't give a damn about those who doubt.
When I do this, when I come out into the world, it will be for us all.
I promise.
Hold it against a young, twenty-something girl. If you, my deepest, word-fucked, Diaryland cronies, are not heard, you are all fully granted a life serving me nothing but blame.
The red carpet awaits us. Reach all of your skinny wrists toward me, and take my emotive hand.
I promise you nothing but glory remains.
--
time & machine