turmoil

 

 

now playing: marty higgins, “california”

 

dylan spent the night last night – he’s getting bogged down with homework, and i’m starting to feel ill-equipped to help him deal with it all. i feel as though i should be able to provide him with a certain amount of guidance, but i find myself having to make assumptions about his instructions, and second-guessing myself with regards to the help i’m giving him. last night, he was pretty lethargic and ended up going to bed early – although he was still awake an hour and a half later. (i had to enforce a lights-out to get him to finally go to sleep.)

the guidance counselor at his school has been operating on the assumption that he’d be out for two weeks – the initial word from the doctor was that he’d probably only be out for a week…it’s starting to look like mr. hoover had it about right. his mom wants him to go back mid-week this week, but i don’t know how this is all going to play out yet. right now, he seems to have his good days and his bad days.

i need to call blake and check in…he went through something of a work crisis recently, a bit of an “agree to disagree” moment with one of the customers he’s responsible for. i don’t know how he does what he does – i mean, i can see where the job fits into his life, in terms of allowing for other things…but i’m not sure how he manages to deal with some of the people he has to deal with. (this spoken from a person who has to deal sporadically with raving lunatics as part of his routine) at any rate, his conflict was apparently refereed by someone higher up in his company – and he seems to be ok with the way things panned out, judging from his outlook when i last spoke to him…but he’s rounding the last turn with his record, and i’m hoping that his decision-making apparatus is intact and that he’s able to fully concentrate on the task at hand.

i have a few opinions about making a record in the midst of personal turmoil…although while i might advise against it, certainly history has proven that some great art comes from said turmoil. i can’t help but imagine that plenty of absolute horseshit has come from the same turmoil…but horseshit generally goes unnoticed by the world at large, so it’s hard to say.

an example of horseshit that hasn’t gone unnoticed would be practically every song written in the aftermath of 9/11… i’ve yet to hear one that hasn’t been a trite collection of rhyming cliches. it’s a subject that really defies the act of committing it to verse, i think. certainly, it defies being committed to verse by anyone whos’ trying at the moment. i wonder if even dylan at his most relevant could’ve done it in a way that didn’t seem blatantly opportunistic…certainly alan jackson never had a shot.  the closest anyone was able to come was springsteen’s my city in ruins.

says a lot about the state of creativity in our times.

and i’m not even gonna get into the whole ashley simpson thing again.

(except to say that i hope her band walks the hell out on her and she has to tour with mannequins – that is, to say, if she even bothers to tour, save for the occasional tv show.)