Don't Tell Don't Tell

Tonight, I'll be going to the Motel Motel show at The Market Hotel (1142 Myrtle Ave. @ Broadway - Myrtle Willoughby JMZ stop). What a fitting venue for these two fine bed fellows: Motel and Hotel. I think personally I like a motel better. Sure hotels are great with their indoor pools and room service, mints on pillows, fine china, orangutangs running up and down air shafts a la Dunston Checks In (#9 on my top 1 million movies) and their Sealy's Certa Posturpedic Mattresses. However, no one can deny the ragged glory of a motel sign flapping in the breeze on the side of a highway next to The Best Dinosaur Exhibit in the Midwest. Heart shaped jacuzzis, vibrating beds, continental breakfasts with bad coffee, cheap room rates for two hour affairs and rattling chain linked fences around half filled swimming pools are what this country is made of.

Of course my roommate, Erik Gundel (see sideways smiling in the center), is in the band so I am biased in my lodging decision. However, these guys put out a great first record - soon to be re-released. I think I relate more to the dense rock that shows off a bit of Walkmen influence than the alt-country aspect, although I could see them sneaking in a few Little Feat swamp jams in the future. In any case, for their current sound, check out some of the videos on YouTube from SUNY Purchase, courtesy of hot shot beat reporter, sometime gum shoe, and public dick - Erik Lilleby.

Last one in the pool is a pool.

See below for the next installment of "From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt"

Coming soon: AN EPIC POEM

James

I’m lying in my old bed. Eve lies next to me. The walls are bare and blue. All of my trophies are gone. They’ve been gone for quite some time. Ever since I graduated from college and started at the firm. Who would’ve thought that I’d be an accountant when I was running on grass past the white lines on the lacrosse field? But I suppose I was always good at numbers I was never that great at lacrosse. I could run, somewhat, so they made me a midfielder. But all that is past now. All those faces are off somewhere. Maybe still around here. Cicero and Gertz. I know they’re still living close – Huntington I heard. I didn’t even invite them to my wedding. I knew what would happen if I did. I knew how they would act. I’m better off for it.

But Eve is still curled on the tan sheets, dreaming whatever dreams she’s dreaming. Can she feel the baby in her stomach? How long is that supposed to take before they know? I always thought it was instantaneous. A mother would know immediately when that little ball of life and electricity forms inside her. She didn’t, though. At least she hasn’t said anything to me. What if she does know? What if she has been waiting for me to tell her I lied, that I hid the positive test? Those things aren’t accurate anyway. She knows that too. Who was she telling me about? It was an actress I remember that. It was Halle Berry! Halle Berry took the test almost thirty times before they realized she was pregnant. She told the story on Oprah. If it could happen to Halle Berry, it could happen to anyone and so that means I can delay too.

I don’t know why I did it or why I’m continuing. There she is, her chest rising and falling underneath my white comforter. The white makes the tan of her skin and the black of her hair stand out even more. It compliments them so well – it makes them realer than real to me and I’ve known her for so many years now.

I can still see the image of the first time I saw her. There must be millions of husbands that can say that to their wives? She was wearing a blue t-shirt and the sleeves were short. I remember because I thought there was something strange about the way the color looked with her skin and her hair, and because the sleeves were short, I could make out the slight definition of her shoulder muscle. I’ve never been one to notice a detail like that either but I did, and that’s what meant everything. She talked to me first. The image of her head and neck leaning back to look up at me. But that was the first image, not the lasting one. The lasting one was from our first date. After we finished dinner – it was sushi, yes it was – we walked up the street together in the streetlight. She had a thin white scarf on. In the orange light, her coat looked maroon because I wasn’t paying attention and it was actually navy corduroy. Her hair was longer then and pulled up, the little strands stuck out around her neck. I was so nervous I’d barely eaten anything. I awkwardly put my arm around her and I realized I was in love. Who could make a movie about a moment like that or try to explain the feeling? For me it happened with a movement of my arm and nausea in my stomach. That’s what true love felt like then and now. That same woman is lying next to me. My wife is carrying my child in her stomach. What is it I am afraid of? Is it the baby itself or Eve with the baby inside her and what this will all mean for us? I’m not afraid. I shouldn’t be scared. Not me, not the one who holds the family together. But Eve is pregnant and something inside of me is screaming in fear.