The Trouble With Jimbo

The following post was originally intended to be published on my Birthday last week. I was hungover that day though, and wasn’t feeling it; so I wrote something else instead. I copped out on the real real. Took a dip into fantasy land. Poesy, as Papa would call it. Refuge, as it has become for me. My writing has become a pill I can swallow with cold mint mate in the once ever-crowned hateful afternoon. I can tie my pain to anchors and set sail. Aho I have rivalled the blues and outlived the old myth. Oh I’ll just let the 38 year-old me tell you all about it.

The Trouble With Jimbo
March 5, 2014, 6:42 PM

well I hope you don’t see me
in my ragged company
well you know I could never be alone
-Keith Richards

The truth about Jimbo is that I could never relax. Tonight’s a good example. It’s windy and warm. “Tits weather”, as my Yellow Lark would say. But she’s not here now. It’s just me and these fucking swarms of grackle, crowning the dusk and yelling at the sky. I’m drinking a Michelada cuz I’m bored and I’m bored cuz I can’t relax. It’s got me quoting the Rolling Stones for cry eye!
I mean, seriously? On the roof of the Last Confederate Governor of the U.S.’ old place, in the Live Music Captial of the World, heading out on the road in late Spring, one book in the can and another on the way-but crunching down ruefully on another triple 5 cuz I can’t relax?
I’ve known the blues, Brothers&Sisters. And I’ve known trouble. Believe me. But blues and trouble would be a fucking carnival compared to this ease and this comfort, this feeling my power fully and resting in it, my Truth.

The final and lasting danger is this contentment.

What kind of life have I lived if, even after all my dreams have come true, I rue the small moments and hate the “area of pause” and and basically not enjoy this exquisite boredom that would have been celebrated all those lean and gnarly, starving years before?

No solution, no problem.
-Melvis Lara

It ain’t easy takin’ it easy. Especially when I consider the scope of this vision and the weight of this dream I’m dreaming now. Welly well well. What do we have here but a rare and reflective moment of honesty from the writer?

Indeed as I buckle under this boredom and life has suddenly become too good for me it is this vulnerability, now revealed, that has made me feel brave enough to share this truth with you:

All those years, when you saw me sidelining it with a smoke and hater blockers on, when I was looking so cool and young and angry, way out on the far reaches of the roiling crowd? When I couldn’t tolerate phoniness and I thought it my foolish duty to shut it down always and in all ways? I was just coping, Brothers&Sisters. Walking sideways and seeking refuge from the fucking barrage of sights and sounds and yes, it was mostly pain. I couldn’t bare to see you suffer Brother. So I looked away. I tell you true in this rare moment of honesty-I am sorry. So sorry. Sorry I had to turn away from your pain and for foolishly thinking that it was any different from my own. Life was what I missed when I turned away, adolescently, in the hateful dusk, streaked in sweat and lust. And in the painful mornings, when I mistakingly confused life with a sentence and-while I’m being honest-death could not come fast enough.

What a fool I have been. So selfish and misguided and young. So unnecessarily sensitive. Even as I sit here this evening, with the blue dusk all around and the grackle suddenly silent, I know. I know what I’ve been sent here for. And it is at once so supremely selfish but not selfish at all. I’m here to celebrate and I mean that in the most authentic and all-encompassing way. I am here to celebrate your hunger and your pain. Your triumph and your victory. Your mourning-yes, we know this. I have sat in vigil but forgot who lit the candle. I want to remember and I want to remember that it was you. Yes you. As much as you’ve read I’ve rued you. Hated you. Felt held but never coveted by you. And as much as I’ve suffered hearing how intense I am, how I’m so deeply emotional (as if that could ever be anything to be ashamed of). I’m here to tell you that I could never handle my own intensity. But all that’s about to change. I’ve spent decades putting out fires foolishly thinking that the flame would ever go out. And foraging and ferreting my light as if I could ever run out of fuel.

The truth about Jimbo is I’ve been trying to change for awhile now and perhaps it high time to give a little credit where credit is due, do like the Yogis do, and start where I am, but also-walk through the fucking door.

There isn’t much time to be bored, tell you the truth. The world needs saving now and in this regard, my Irish/Italian-American Karma is about as useful as a pack a day habit. It really is that simple, People. I’m tired of living a lie but also I know what is true.
Beat down, fucked and fucking and any and all alcoholic writers whose life&work I will always cherish, all that ain’t me. I’m basically speaking through you (thanks) and trying to convince myself, in writing first (where else?), that what’s ahead could never be any worse than what I have already endured. Twenty years on the outside is long enough. I want you to have my heart. I know it’s in here somewhere. Enough the demolition and enough the clearing out. Enough the War Time. This has been Grim Jim’s Last Ride.
There is a great and grave suffering in the world. But all is as it should be. And can we avoid catastrophe? Can we stop hoarding all our love, and step out bravely from in between the memory of pain and pleasure and truly reveal our heart to the world? I don’t know. But here’s to trying and another 40 years.

You have my heart. Don’t waste it. Don’t be like Jimbo. Go forth. Love each other. Don’t be bored. Read my blog.

Nights now fallen. I’ve voiced my regrets. And that’s all I can do. I’ll make my ablutions and lay down to sleep. And I will rise into that Great Eastern Sun with this vow redbouled. I will give my heart to you.