W E Patterson's avatar

midnight at the Edsall Road Denny’s

. Uncategorized . , , , . Leave a comment

You,

dressed in your corporate finery

your laptop computer buried beneath

your legs

your sixteen hours at Labor

just another day

and my disaster

at Manassas

hidden in the bowels

of a locked hard drive

in the password protected

fucked totally

world of the Governmental

warlords

but:

together we push

our bodies toward each other

in the red faux leather booths

in the expression of final

Governmental Approval

all denied, then security

granted another day

amid the Beltway masses

half-assed coffee with creamers

pies with ice cream

scrambled eggs and

fries

on the side

workers from the night shift

poking their heads

around the corner

wondering if there is hope

in this  land

and we tell them

there’s not.

W E Patterson's avatar

Phil

. Poetry . . 4 Comments

Last weekend

he cleaned the garage

and sorted the recyclables

and he separated

the plastic bottles from the glass

the green glass from the brown

and he put them into their

appropriate containers

and he stacked the papers

into perfectly arranged sheaves

of old tired news

and bound them with twine

and lugged them to the curb

…and mid-yard…

he  paused to expunge

a delinquent dandelion from their

recently clipped and finely fertilized

Kentucky Bluegrass lawn

and to adjust an errant sprinkler head

so as to insure proper irrigation

of the geranium bed

and he inspected the marigolds

for spider mites

and the chrysanths

for mealybugs

and the vine tomatoes

for flea beetles

after which,

he left his gardening gloves

on the arm of the porch swing

and his rubber muck boots

on the mat

by the front door

and he left his house key in the

candy dish on the entryway bench

his pipe in the agate ashtray

and heated a kettle for tea

and drew water for a bath

and then he

laid on the sofa to rest

and so…

…it was just…

as his widow told me

his time.

W E Patterson's avatar

lost travelers all

. Poetry, Uncategorized . , . 2 Comments

“how did I get here?”

such words of desperation

are spoken so often

softly

in the first half-light of day

or harshly,

in the aftermath,

of a knockdown fight

sometimes spoken whimsically

but other times

uttered with grave reverence

to the dire consequences

and the inevitable

unpleasant results

5 words which are:

murmured by the infirm

mumbled by the forgotten

shouted by the incarcerated

slurred by the inebriated

cried tearfully by the lost

whispered by the humbled

you know…

those who:

were momentarily, and

with very little ceremony

given over to reckless

pursuits, in the dark of night

5 words spoken usually

as the color of the new day

pours across the rose colored sheets

of the Waycroft Motel

or lightens the sky above

the White Sands Motor Lodge

or heats the cheek-side desert sand

of the El Paso train yard

or tumbles into the alley behind

the Side Pocket Saloon

or causes the bars

of the Clark County Detention Center

to cast long parallel shadows

down Cell block B

or whitewashes the corridors

of Jackson Memorial

where it

brings the hope of new day

to the victim of

last night’s bike crash on I -95

“how did I get here?”

sobs the girl at the Paducah Greyhound station

Kleenex tissue in her right hand

ticket to Albert Lea in her left

W E Patterson's avatar

Seeking decadence and inspiration in Sin City and finding only a little bit of both

. Uncategorized . , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

vegas_stIn case you’ve noticed, this blog has been neglected for a short while. Not a long while, but maybe long enough for you to wonder if I’ve taken ill, or been arrested on some sort of trumped up charges, or perhaps abducted by vengeful Balkan gangsters and hustled off to Karakastan in a sea can, or maybe you think, he’s just gotten tired of  blogging. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The fact is, sometimes I need to get away. I need to shut off the computer, leave the laptop behind and fly away to somewhere.  If I don’t do that periodically, I won’t have anything to write about, and frankly if I am going to write anything worthwhile, I have to have just a little decadence in my life. Oh, not big sinful decadence, but the kind of decadence one finds in a place like Las Vegas, which is where I have been for the past few days.

Few people are ambivalent about Las Vegas. One friend who travels there for a convention once or twice a year hates the place. There is nothing there but wholesale drinking and gambling she says and I can do that here in Florida. I tell her that’s true, and you could do that in Dubuque or South Sioux City, or even Booneville, friggin’ Missouri for cryin’ out loud. But those places aren’t Vegas. The sinful gaming industry hasn’t been around in those towns for enough years to allow them to develop real decadent character. They boast smooth, clean, well ventilated, almost ‘family’ oriented casinos. They’re the kind of casinos that reside just a couple of notches south, on the decadence scale, below a trip to Disney. When you want a particular type of decadence you need an old place with a certain vibe and a hell of a lot of history, a place that’s seen more than its share of fun, glory and drunken misery, debauchery for debauchery’s sake, someplace that is soaked in the desert springs of the once quiet and nonchalant citadel in the desert:  Las Vegas — for me that joint is El Cortez Casino.

Now, I’ve been visiting Vegas fairly regularly since the early 70’s — since before Fremont Street was an experience — since before they lopped off ‘Vegas Vic’s’ hat so he would fit under the Fremont Street canopy. So I know what I’m saying. When I go to Sin City, I rarely gamble on the Strip. It’s far too slick and expensive for me. Give me Glitter Gulch. No matter how you dress it up (and believe me they’ve tried), it stays the same — “cheap booze” reads a sign over one establishment, “5 dollar blackjack all day” reads another — my kind of places.

Vegas Vic

Vegas Vic

So back to El Cortez. This place has been around for so long, and it is so poorly ventilated, that I’m sure that the smoke from Lee Marvin’s Pall Malls still lingers in the stuffy casino air. Sitting slightly apart from the casinos on the main downtown drag, the El Cortez on 6th and Fremont, has been around since 1941 and has the distinction of being the only casino in town to have never changed its signage or facade. Once partly owned by Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, the El Cortez was originally thought to be too far from the action downtown to ever turn a profit, but time has proven otherwise, and I have recently learned that the somewhat dicey area east of the Fremont Street Experience now has its own gentrified area identifier: ‘Fremont East’ — come on, did they have to do that…can Starbucks be far behind??

Walking into the El Cortez last Saturday evening, I found everything pretty much the way I’d left it 18 months prior. I ordered my usual – a house wine in a water glass (stemware doesn’t fit well in gaming table drink holders). Before heading off for the roulette wheel, I scanned the joint for decadence — a guy on the run maybe, or a down and out gambler who owes some serious dough to ‘some people’ and is looking to recoup his (or her) losses. I struck up a conversation with the bar’s only video poker player, a guy who looked like he’d been there since Thursday, but it turned out he was just an accountant from Dallas in town for the weekend.

Disappointed, I grunted and sauntered away to the $3 roulette wheel, exchanging a 100 dollar bill for 200 fifty cent chips. It was a lively crowd, and I squeezed into a seat beside a couple probably in their mid-30s, she: blonde and betting every number on the board. Him: hoodie and dark sunglasses, betting cautiously, sipping a Corona beer and whispering something to her periodically. Could be a dangerous couple I thought.

The blonde was reckless, slapping down chips on almost every number on the table, playing it straight up on the inside and black on the outside. She was hitting just enough to stay in the game. Soon I noticed that she was inching ahead. After watching her play for awhile, I noticed that the last number she played won regularly. Still wondering if these two were on the up and up, I followed her last bet and put a chip on top of hers, on number 5 and hit it. I played the next bet the same way. I continued that way for a some time, making all of my own bets first, and then piggybacking on the last number she played, number 13 hitting three times in a row. Chance??? I thought not. I followed her lead for the next three spins, hitting two out of three, and the chips were coming my way. Then the guy in the hoodie and dark glasses whispered something to her in her ear again and stalked away, leaving the blonde on her own.From the Neon Museum

After that, the wheel went cold. She covered the board and I held to my plan, plunking down chip after chip on her last bet. It was no use. Nothing is as unforgiving as a cold roulette wheel. In desperation, I followed her onto the black outside bet that everyone runs to when the chips are literally down, and made the worst mistake of a roulette players life – I forgot zero coverage…damn…when those double zeros rolled up and I lost my stack on that back outside bet, I could have kicked myself.

“It was a good run while we had it,” I said to her, draining the last of my water glass wine and thinking about my missing Benjamin.

“Yeah,” she said. “I thought it was going to turn out differently too.”

“Hey,” I said. “It seemed like the karma left when that guy disappeared. Who was he?’

She laughed. “He’s my husband Carl. He’s a high school math teacher.”

“But he was whispering in your ear when you were winning,” I said. “Does he know something?”

“He was telling me never to play this game,” she said.

When I left El Cortez, the accountant from Denver was still ensconced at the video poker machine, the blonde was preparing to play another hundred and Carl, the math teacher was shooting craps.

W E Patterson's avatar

ode to the mundane, or 47th day of unemployment

. Poetry, Uncategorized . , . 7 Comments

how wonderful the mundane

is true bliss tedium uninterrupted?

a place where there is…

no office to attend

no bank to offend

no Coffee Club to fund

no inane

water cooler banter to deflect

and certainly…

no evil Apple laptop computer

glaring at you

in whitewashed contempt

daring you to inundate

the Corporate Elite

with an intrusive

tho’ artfully crafted

Electronic Mail epistle

that defines our corporate role

as global environmental stewards

as ecological shepherds:

defenders of the rainforest

and the Great Redwoods

and the Canyonlands

and the endangered Panthers

and the damned owls…

You think of that early in the morning

on the forty seventh day

of your unemployed citizen

status

as you walk outside

in the Florida Everglades heat

an hour before sunup

you think of it still

as you feed the cats their mix

of Purina and powdered milk

out by the edge of the garage

behind the Subaru

before you totter to the end of the drive

in your abysmal brown bathrobe

the day’s outgoing mail in hand

all set

to feed the next Visa payment

into the hungry box

to stave off delinquency

to save the judgments

and phone calls from

the heavy-handed collectors

for another day

“thieving bastards” you say out loud

to the lady who walks her Chihuahua

by your place every morning

at six AM

she glares at you —

then rushes past

and you go on to retrieve

the Pennysaver

from a puddle in the street

W E Patterson's avatar

Happy Birthday Wolfgang

. Uncategorized . , , , . 13 Comments

On this date in history, January 27th, my favorite composer of all time was born in Salzburg, Austria. If he were alive today, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would be 258 years old. Mozart, who began playing musical instruments when he was just 6 years old, is said to have composed his first symphony at age 8. From then onward, until his death from a mysterious fever at age 35, the Great One churned out more than 600 musical compositions. By my calculation, that averages out to roughly 22 compositions per year, or 2 per month for each month of his life — prolific composing to say the least.

That said,  in addition to recognizing the birthday of Johannes Chrisostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart (the name on Mozart’s certificate of birth), I think that this is as good of a time as any to mention the firestorm of controversy that has erupted in the blogosphere, in the wake of free-lance writer, Mark Vanhoenacker’s piece in Slate magazine announcing the death of classical music.  (Click here to read.)  To quote Mr. Vanhoenacker:

“When it comes to classical music and American culture, the fat lady hasn’t just sung. Brunnhilde has packed her bags and moved to Boca Raton.”

 While I can say that so far, I have not spotted Brunnhilde on the streets here in Boca Raton, Vahhoenacker does present some interesting data regarding the current state of, and the future of, classical music. For those of you who do not like to click links, one very telling example he cites is that “Symphony Hall”, one of the only two remaining Classical channels offered by Sirius XM radio, has 3500 Facebook likes, while the All-Pearl-Jam channel has 11000.  He also points to the fact that in 1937, the average age of Los Angeles orchestra concert attendees was a baby faced, 28. Suffice to say that the average age of today’s concert going audience is significantly older. He goes on to present further evidence of classical music’s death, which I shall not detail here. Simply stated, however, the reasons for classical music’s demise are many and varied, ranging from its becoming lost amid the plethora of popular music available to today’s youth who find it boorish and uninteresting, as well the lack of government funding for the arts in general, and perhaps an all around perception that classical music is the province of the overly educated elite, or formally schooled musicians, and without a degree from Julliard one has little chance of understanding its complicated compositions.

In any case, the reaction to Mr. Vanhoenacker’s piece has been especially heated, with classical music lovers going on the attack. In response to his detractors, Vanhoenacker granted an interview, which was published on New York’s classical station WQXR’s website. (Click here to read.) In this interview, Vanhoenacker defends himself by saying that much of the vitriol sent his way by angered classical music lovers is misdirected, and that he is, in fact, a classical music fan. He goes on to explain that the title of the article “Classical music in America is dead” was composed not by him, but by an editor. So in a sense, Mr. Vanhoenacker seems to be saying that he’s only the messenger, so please don’t shoot.

Personally, I enjoy classical music for the simple reason I can work to it. When I am writing, I can’t work in total silence, but I can’t work to the right-wing talkers that dominate the airwaves either,  or to rock, country, R&B, hip-hop, bluegrass, or jazz. I found out years ago that playing classical music when I work improves my focus and helps me to ignore background distractions. And understand that I have little in the way of  musical education, so I am far from being an elitist music snob. I simply find the strains of Mozart, Brahms and Haydn uplifting, and when I find myself in need of inspiration I turn to some of the selections I keep on my iPod, or I stream one of the (few) classical radio stations that remain on the air.

In the end, I imagine that Vanhoenacker’s dire predictions shall prove true, as few radio stations, even public radio stations, can afford to play classical. Government support of any substance is unlikely to rescue them from their fate, and their once hardcore benefactors are aging and fading from the scene.

I hope that I am wrong.

Happy Birthday Wolfgang.

W E Patterson's avatar

Cold night in South Florida

. Current events . , , . 6 Comments

I had only been up for about an hour today when I heard the news. I was sitting on my couch at about half past five, lights low, laptop humming on the coffee table, our golden retriever Bailey resting his head on my knee. I had both hands wrapped around my first mug of coffee, trying to steel myself for a day that would not see temperatures climb out of the  high 60s.  I had just turned the TV on to NBC 6 Miami, and I was waiting anxiously for local weather guy, Ryan Phillips,  to give me the ‘down low’ on the Polar Vortex. I always trust Ryan. He’s a native Midwesterner (Ohio) and he did three years as a weatherman in Nebraska. Those qualifications are enough for me.  If anybody can tell me when the Polar Vortex is going shift north of the Georgia border, it’s Ryan. (And to all of you reading in frigid northern climates, I know what you want to say to me. You want to tell me that it is 49 degrees below zero outside your house in Ice Slide Minnesota, and we whimpering Florida pansies don’t know what real cold is!!  Ha… to you I say, you don’t live in houses with heating systems that consist of two Yankee Candles and a wool scarf.)

So there I was…Bailey and I in front of the tube…when I heard that Justin Bieber had been arrested in Miami. The nineteen year old Biebs was arrested at about 4:09 AM (roughly the time I get up), drag racing down Pine Tree Drive in a yellow Lamborghini (great color choice when you’re trying to stay low key). By now it is old news that the inebriated Bieber was on an all day bender, smoking weed, drinking, taking prescription meds, and it is a testament to his age that he was still functioning at that late  hour, as I doubt that I should be in any condition to drag race at 4AM after a day like that, but that’s another matter.

Bieber has been cruising for trouble since he arrived in Florida. His controversial unauthorized escort from Opa-loka airport after his plane landed their earlier this week is being investigated, with local law enforcement officers likely to face disciplinary action. Then he shows up at a local strip joint, tossing around (allegedly) 75 grand in cash. Partying all night in South Beach clubs. Then, finally blocking off the streets for a drag race.

“What the f*** did I do? Why did you stop me?” he asked the first officer on the scene.

The profanity continues, no doubt exacerbated by the alcohol and drugs that the young man consumed in the hours leading up to his arrest. Alcohol and drugs do that to you. And you will be seeing more of Justin Bieber as time goes on. Already, local television has preempted late morning shows to provide live coverage of his arrival at the county courthouse. A mugshot of a smiling Bieber was released to the press and has certainly made its way around the world a dozen times by now. Not to be fooled by smiling celeb mugshots. Most of them are aware that their photos are going to live in infamy so they often make an extra attempt to look nonchalant, even happy. It is often not a sign of raw, finger in the air, arrogance.  In Justin Bieber’s case, however, it may actually be raw, finger in the air, arrogance.

But it will go on ad nauseum.  The tabloids are undoubtedly scandalizing the story further with possibly “Biebs Miami Meltdown” headlines to soon appear.  The requisite analysis, interviews, speculation and condemnation will begin.

Bieber’s bond has already been set at $2500. He should have little trouble raising it (the Lamborghini rented for about $1800/day), and already fabled super-lawyer Roy Black is on the case. Black, who has defended William Kennedy Smith, Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Rodman, Marv Alpert and Carmen Electra, to  name only a few, is a legal magician extraordinaire, so I am guessing that Bieber’s Dade County charges are well on the way to the legal dustbin — after all, what can they do to him? He’s unlikely to receive jail time, any financial implications are paltry to say the most, and even though he will likely face suspension of his driving privileges, it’s not like he’s going to lose his job at Radio Shack or WalMart because they aren’t on the bus line.

Still…this isn’t L.A. The mighty have come here and gone, some never to return. Britney and Lindsey and Paris partied here, and the list of celebrity DUIs, car crashes and arrests would fill a phone directory (if anyone remembers what one of those is).  And don’t forget that The Juice came here – and left. And now sits in a Nevada prison waiting for the end. Justice can be slow coming, and it comes much slower for the powerful than for the rest of us. Yet it does come.

Tonight though, Justin Bieber is scheduled to attend the Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat game at American Airlines Arena.

W E Patterson's avatar

Lisa paints

. Poetry, Uncategorized, Writing . , . 6 Comments

Lisa paints

like I want to write

passionately

colorfully

in imaginative detail

with soul bearing confidence

with bittersweet honesty

and when she stands

before the canvas

with Haydn playing

in the background

it is then you know

that there’s no turning back

she takes no prisoners

or so I think, as I watch her

on this particular day

when it is raining outside

and we are stuck

in that tiny apartment in Miami

the one we rented out of desperation

after the foreclosure

and she’s wearing the smock

that I bought for her at Target

for Christmas

the powder blue one

with the four big pockets

for her artist stuff

but it is smattered now

with misplaced paint:

Titanium White

Burt Rose

Radiant Violet

Tree Sap Green

Bee sting Yellow

“don’t move” she says coldly

as she adjusts the blinds

I’m drinking bourbon in the nude

tired and tortured in an ugly little room

in a miserable part of town

Prussian Green

Cobalt Tourquoise

Winsor Emerald

Vandyke Brown

she snaps on a light

I soak in its radiance

I’m grateful for the heat

the minutes crawl by

while

Lisa paints.

W E Patterson's avatar

Working night security

. Poetry, Uncategorized . , . 2 Comments

the foot soldiers of the packing plant

march with heads bowed

destined for the graveyard shift

and I watch them file by

through the west gate

of the plant in South St. Paul

as I sit accompanied by my badge

and other accouterments of my position

dressed in my finely pressed

ShurFire Security uniform

wearing my best black patent leather

Red Wing steel toed shoes

and I watch them carefully

all of them

the reluctant executioners

some carrying vegetarian fare

in coal black lunch pails

as they crush out

half smoked cigarettes

in the sand buckets that stand

outside of the guard shack

directly beneath the sign that reads

ABSOLUTELY NO SMOKING BEYOND THIS POINT

and in some cases they aggressively

but seldom carelessly

punch time cards into

the unforgiving grey metal clock

11:58PM … clackity clack it goes one time

11:59PM … clackity clack it  goes another

a girl in a denim jacket

blue jeans and knee high gum-rubber boots

pushes her black horned rim glasses

higher on her nose and looks straight ahead

looking frail and out of place

in the pale green light

doomed time card in hand

12:01AM … clackity clack

she’s docked in what could have been

a simple twist of fate

brought on perhaps by

a crying baby – unsavory husband

overheated car

an unforgiving day

“Hey,” yells the foreman

“you playin’ with yourself out there?”

tardy girl shuffles in like

she didn’t hear it

W E Patterson's avatar

So you call yourself a writer

. Uncategorized, Writing . , , . 2 Comments

“The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing.”

—Pico Iyer

In thumbing through my writer’s notebook, I came across the above quote by the British essayist and novelist of Indian descent, Pico Iyer. The quote has been hanging out in the coffee stained margins of my writer’s notebook for months now. Then as now, I am not sure what to make of it. At first the quote did not resonate with me. Were these words the overindulgent musings of a man who is already a successful writer? Or was it perhaps some form of backhanded condescension to the obscure and struggling writers of the world (of whom I count myself a member).   After all, what would a writer be if not a writer?  Would he or she be a plumber – a dietician – NSA analyst?

“What did you do all day dear?” asks my wife.

“Well sweetheart, I completed the final chapter of that novel I have labored over for the past fourteen months.”

“That’s wonderful,” she says.

“No biggie,” I reply. “That’s what a good electrician does – write novels.”

Of course I am being facetious here, but I have to ask myself if I could work on a piece of fiction, non-fiction, poem, or even a technical document and not think of myself as a writer? In fact such thinking flies in the face of everything that I’ve heard about how we should view ourselves in order to achieve success. Remember the “so you think, so you shall be” philosophy, popularized in self-help books, tapes, DVDs and infomercials? Whatever happened to visualization? We all remember that, right? Close your eyes and imagine yourself wealthy, a non-smoker, twenty pounds slimmer, a confident speaker, the life of the party. Whatever you want to be, just make it happen by believing it so much it happens.

A number of months ago, I attended a lecture by a moderately successful writer, not a writer in Mr. Iyer’s league, but certainly a writer who has achieved a modicum of literary success. This writer suggested that to achieve success we should begin to think of ourselves as ‘writers’. He suggested that writer wannabes have business cards printed, websites published, and at all times think of themselves as ‘writers’ no matter what their profession. He said that writers not writing but are working at non-writing jobs, are simply miscast, and like starving actors waiting tables, they are simply waiting for the world to realize their talent.

And so, Mr. Iyer’s words rang hollow with me and I did push them aside for awhile, until I happened across them again recently. Then it occurred to me that perhaps Iyer is referring to the writer’s ego, and not the actual writing profession. Perhaps by putting aside the ego, a writer can more fully concentrate upon the writing. In any case, that is where I am with this now…if you have any thoughts, please feel free to comment here.