Ten Minutes With My Soul

Sometimes I trip across small chunks of explosive joy that directly connect with my soul.

Things that happen to me that speak to exactly who I am.

Rare.

The world I inhabit does not connect in any way with my truth.

The ridiculous job, the boring middle class existence, the forced socially acceptable and benign behavior, the inability to express honest thoughts and opinions due to incomprehensibility on the part of the people I am forced to associate with, the sugar-coated, insincere words that spew out of my mouth to my own shocked and unbelieving horror.

As much as I read what interests me, as much as I seek out my kind of movie, my kind of bar, my kind of experience, my kind of people, my life throws up enormous roadblocks between me and the true expression of my dark and delicious soul.

I am cuckolded by my own life.

I am reading the latest issue of Rolling Stone last night and I come across two pages, three short articles, that just floored me with delight.

Three articles that peeked my interest and stirred my soul from the hideous slumber the day had brought upon it.

The first blurb was about Jonathan Shaw. Son of big-band jazz star Artie Shaw. Never heard about the man before last night.

Forty years ago he was a teenage heroin addict and part time hustler. He was also writing for an offshoot of the Los Angeles Free Press. A publication that also featured a column by Charles Bukowski.

They drank together, and Bukowski, as was his way, went off on Shaw one night telling him he had no life and therefore wrote nothing of interest. Then they fought.

Shaw was affected by Bukowski's words and ended up kicking heroin and hitchhiking to South America, where he spent ten years working as a deckhand and a tattoo artist.

He came back to the states and ended up on the Bowery, where in 1987 he opened Fun City, New York's first storefront tattoo parlor.

Customers and friends included Iggy Pop, Jim Jarmusch and Johnny Depp, with whom he still maintains a friendship. 

He wrote a book called Narcissa in 2008, about a man who is hooked on a beautiful, young crackhead.

This is the type of person I want to discover.

Article two - about James McMurtry. Son of Larry McMurtry. James is a songwriter known for his "deadpan, just the facts" singing voice and nonjudgmentally bleak world view. Never heard about the man before last night.

His new album, "Complicated Game", is (per Rolling Stone) "full of characters looking at the long haul and fending off despair. McMurtry says "I see them as enduring, not fading away. Standing against the current that wants to wash you away but can't yet."

This is the type of person I want to discover.

Third article - about Jimmy "Orion" Ellis. He was a talented singer in the 1970's who just happened to sound exactly like Elvis Presley. He linked up with Sun Records shortly after Elvis' death in 1977 and began recording uncredited songs. Never heard about the man before last night.

Elvis's fans bought these songs. Sun even released an album called "Reborn." Ellis played sold out shows throughout the south, wearing a mask to intensify the sense of mystery.

He was contractually obligated to wear the mask any time he appeared in public.

It got to be too much for him right at the height of his career. He said "They weren't clapping for me. They were clapping for a ghost."

This is the type of person I want to discover.

Ten minutes of reading. Three fascinating characters.

'Twas a good night last night.