in another time, with another person, perhaps i would have reached out to it, and she would have turned to me. but in this time, with this person, i could not, should not, did not.

the night ended. i left.

earlier in the day, i had washed the car in the rain, as my dog lay just under the car wash's roof, looking out at the birds in the light drizzle. i explained to her that with several weeks filled by constant rain, i hadn't had a chance to wash the car, and i figured that, as with her, clean and wet was better than dirty and wet.

but now it was dry. the air was not as heavy with moisture as before. a crispness was creeping in. air whispered past, not yet wind or breeze.

i dropped the top, drove away. out on the far horizon, across the hills to the northwest, the sky was illuminating, silently, distantly. but here, in the car, only music.

in my dreams, i was drowning in sorrows, but my sorrows, they learned to swim.

i needed a drink. it was 9:02. i drove to one after another. they were all dark. i drove down Ben White to Congress Avenue. the skies to my left were demanding more and more attention. i could make out streaks of light.

And I fight back in my mind. Never lets me be right.
I got memories. I got shit... so much it don't show.

Oh, I walked alive when you held me in that night.
Oh, I walked alive when you held my hand that night.

An empty shell seems so easy to crack.
Got all these questions, don't know who I could even ask.
So I'll just lie alone and wait for the dream. Where I'm not ugly and you're looking at me.

And I stay in bed. Oh, little I've seen there.
If just once I could feel love, oh, stare back at me.

But I walked alive when you held me in that night.
Oh, I walked alive when you held my hand that night.
Oh, I walked alive when you held me close that night.
I paid the price. Never held you in real life.
My lips are shaking...

i drove north, through the First Thursday revelers along South Congress, filling the sidewalks and bars, dashing my hopes of going to the bar with the fresh-squeezed grapefruit and vodka i'd come to love.

across the bridge. in the cool air, at speed, the smell of bats and their leavings left me alone with the lights of the city. only now do i realize how small it was when i was a kid, how small i was, how big hope was for me then.

the lights glistened, but they were all dull and yellow, or colored cheaply. i remembered the drop of water on her arm, a perfectly clear universe of light and coolness, everything, just... there.

The drunken politician leaps upon the street where mothers weep,
and the saviors who are fast asleep, they wait for you
And I wait for them to interrupt, me drinkin' from my broken cup, and ask for me,
Open up the gate for you.
I want you.

and then i knew. i turned west, drove hard to the expressway, turned north, and it was just speed, trying to get there before it was too late, to where the sky beckoned me, guiding me with strobing promises, mixed promises of fury and destruction, and of rain, of a deluge of drops like the one i'd seen, the air full of those universes, of, maybe, her. or maybe just of potential, of hope, a drenching torrent of it.

feeling alone
with you by my side
further and further away
funny how long
a moment can seem.
when you're trying to hold on

west on the ranch road, the twisting road through and down the hills, into a valley. motorcycles and boy racers push along this road every night. it's not hard, but it demands attention. shift, brake, accelerate through the curve, watch to see if the road is just fresh new asphalt, or dark road with a light, slick coat of rain.

here, no words mattered. it was just beat. the killers. peter gabriel.

the tempo of the flashes was building. down through the valley, both hands on the wheel, and finally, just for now, a destination in my heart, the engine howling, taking me to pierce the boundaries of the only beauty and violence that seemed to match what i've felt.

100 miles an hour up the big hill on ranch road 2222, like i was launching into the sky, my back to the earth, my eyes focused into the storm. drive. drive. drive.

the four lane highway ended into a two-lane road, twisting and writhing like a dragon fighting back. shift, brake, steer. the road would plunge away ahead of me, into a tight turn. take the number on the caution sign and double it. all the deer were in shelter by now. the sky was beginning to rip open ahead of me. the flashes were becoming blinding, like flashbulbs, and the questions pounded at me.

dark angels follow me,
over a Godless sea,
mountains of endless falling,
for all my days remaining.
what would be true?

and still, no rain.

i began to feel flashes of fear. the strikes were now to the left and right, ripping down in jagged gashes of ferocious brightness, like a tear in a dark curtain cloaking a white-hot star.

i blanked for a moment. i was caught, under the bright lights, in a room of metal and wood, by a single glimmer. light refracted through a tiny drop of water, clinging to her skin, a single shining diamond adorning her arm.

in another time, with another person, perhaps i would have reached out to it, and she would have turned to me. but in this time, with this person, i could not, should not, did not.

the night ended. i left.

earlier in the day, i had washed the car in the rain, as my dog lay just under the car wash's roof, looking out at the birds in the light drizzle. i explained to her that with several weeks filled by constant rain, i hadn't had a chance to wash the car, and i figured that, as with her, clean and wet was better than dirty and wet.

but now it was dry. the air was not as heavy with moisture as before. a crispness was creeping in. air whispered past, not yet wind or breeze.

i dropped the top, drove away. out on the far horizon, across the hills to the northwest, the sky was illuminating, silently, distantly. but here, in the car, only music.

in my dreams, i was drowning in sorrows, but my sorrows, they learned to swim.

i needed a drink. it was 9:02. i drove to one after another. they were all dark. i drove down Ben White to Congress Avenue. the skies to my left were demanding more and more attention. i could make out streaks of light.

And I fight back in my mind. Never lets me be right.
I got memories. I got shit... so much it don't show.

Oh, I walked alive when you held me in that night.
Oh, I walked alive when you held my hand that night.

An empty shell seems so easy to crack.
Got all these questions, don't know who I could even ask.
So I'll just lie alone and wait for the dream. Where I'm not ugly and you're looking at me.

And I stay in bed. Oh, little I've seen there.
If just once I could feel love, oh, stare back at me.

But I walked alive when you held me in that night.
Oh, I walked alive when you held my hand that night.
Oh, I walked alive when you held me close that night.
I paid the price. Never held you in real life.
My lips are shaking...

i drove north, through the First Thursday revelers along South Congress, filling the sidewalks and bars, dashing my hopes of going to the bar with the fresh-squeezed grapefruit and vodka i'd come to love.

across the bridge. in the cool air, at speed, the smell of bats and their leavings left me alone with the lights of the city. only now do i realize how small it was when i was a kid, how small i was, how big hope was for me then.

the lights glistened, but they were all dull and yellow, or colored cheaply. i remembered the drop of water on her arm, a perfectly clear universe of light and coolness, everything, just... there.

The drunken politician leaps upon the street where mothers weep,
and the saviors who are fast asleep, they wait for you
And I wait for them to interrupt, me drinkin' from my broken cup, and ask for me,
Open up the gate for you.
I want you.

and then i knew. i turned west, drove hard to the expressway, turned north, and it was just speed, trying to get there before it was too late, to where the sky beckoned me, guiding me with strobing promises, mixed promises of fury and destruction, and of rain, of a deluge of drops like the one i'd seen, the air full of those universes, of, maybe, her. or maybe just of potential, of hope, a drenching torrent of it.

feeling alone
with you by my side
further and further away
funny how long
a moment can seem.
when you're trying to hold on

west on the ranch road, the twisting road through and down the hills, into a valley. motorcycles and boy racers push along this road every night. it's not hard, but it demands attention. shift, brake, accelerate through the curve, watch to see if the road is just fresh new asphalt, or dark road with a light, slick coat of rain.

here, no words mattered. it was just beat. the killers. peter gabriel.

the tempo of the flashes was building. down through the valley, both hands on the wheel, and finally, just for now, a destination in my heart, the engine howling, taking me to pierce the boundaries of the only beauty and violence that seemed to match what i've felt.

100 miles an hour up the big hill on ranch road 2222, like i was launching into the sky, my back to the earth, my eyes focused into the storm. drive. drive. drive.

the four lane highway ended into a two-lane road, twisting and writhing like a dragon fighting back. shift, brake, steer. the road would plunge away ahead of me, into a tight turn. take the number on the caution sign and double it. all the deer were in shelter by now. the sky was beginning to rip open ahead of me. the flashes were becoming blinding, like flashbulbs, and the questions pounded at me.

that i would be good, even if i did nothing.
that i would be good, even if i got the thumbs down...
that i would be loved, even when i numb myself.
that i would be loved, even when i am overwhelmed.

and still, no rain. but now, it was the driving, it was the furious pressing into the night, the headlong rush into mayhem and power that i could not question or understand.

and finally, the fury was all over me, in the heavens, in some other life. the world had come undone around me. the skies were angry, lashing out at the earth, searing my eyes. the sound had suddenly erupted, as well, just seconds behind the lightning.

i was a little afraid. but i also thought that maybe this was right, that i had journeyed to the heart of a god saddened, tortured, angered by the pains that love and hope and despair make his children heir to. maybe a single bolt would find me, a rare, merciful intervention, maybe just a happenstance not averted, a disaster allowed. pavarotti sang over the edge's guitar:

Dici che il fiume
Trova la via al mare
E come il fiume
Giungerai a me
Oltre i confini
E le terre assetate
Dici che come il fiume
Come il fiume...
L'amore giungerà
L'amore...
E non so più pregare
E nell'amore non so più sperare
E quell'amore non so più aspettare

but for all of this, there was no rain on the windscreen, none on my face. i could see miles of earth lit by lightning, now bright enough to see color bright, distinct, vibrant. but the walls of grey, where the rains fell and hope soaked the earth, was still miles and miles away.

the country road met a four lane thoroughfare in a northern suburb. I had come over thirty miles, trying to catch the storm, and i had. but there was no cooling rain for me. that pouring heart of the storm was not here, not yet. it was still far off in the distance, farther than i could drive tonight, and the thunder was warning me away. she was not here. it was just me and God, telling me that it was not yet time, for love, or for an end.

i turned the car around and went home.

you say that the river
finds the way to the sea
and like the river
you will come to me
beyond the borders
and the dry lands
you say that like a river
like a river...
the love will come
the love...
and i don't know how to pray anymore
and in love i don't know how to hope anymore
and for that love i don't know how to wait anymore.

I can't break this. I can't reason with it. I can't lie to it anymore, run around it, from it. It's just spreading, and I'm at its center, waiting, closing my eyes against it, trying to smile through it. It's closing me out of this world. Maybe light will catch me less and less, maybe the speed of this shadow will outpace memory's light, and the moments and images of me in the minds of those who know me, love me, like me, hate me, will be like scenes from dreams barely remembered. Maybe it will all just go away quietly. No bang, no pain, no sorrow, no place where something used to be.

I was soaked. Knowing 60-70% of the moves was not enough, so I slid to the corner of the stage, and just stopped and looked up. He loomed above me, spinning, moving with reptilian quickness and precision, but with the sort of grace and presence that very, very occasionally makes us believe that humans are more than just flesh and bone.

It was enough to watch and remember what had been forgotten, but I still didn't understand, still wouldn't remember why it meant something to me.

The slightly weird way I heard the news should have started to clue me in. The kid that works in the management office at my apartment complex told me. He shares my name, except he's black, and young, and still believes. Young, but still, when he told me that Michael Jackson had died, his voice was heavy and low, but not with the eager bite of TMZ gossip, nor the simple, uncontemplated excitement of Something Big happening. It was with the kind of sadness that echoed a tiny loss of hope, because no matter what, some piece would be missing from his future.

I went into my place, and turned on the television. The big grey, plastic high-def Sony failed to remind me of the old wooden-cabinet Zenith that lit up a dark apartment when I was not quite three, spraying musical joy and light out of a corner -five kids in colorful clothing, the youngest almost ten years older than me, but still clearly a kid. For a child scared of the dark, my memory is only of warmth and understanding and happiness, of joyful music and a single amazing voice.  The sound, the dancing, the feel, are all still there in my memory. The thing is, that's all there is. I don't remember my mother or father being there. But I don't remember feeling alone.

Here in 2009, I went for CNN, but punched the numbers in wrong and got MSNBC. I watched, and listened, but my own foolish little battle distracted me, drowned out the cautious and not-so-cautious speculation and time-filling editorializing. Part of me felt distant from it, and I felt sad and guilty for that. Part of me wanted to cry, but felt that would be wrong. When Stevie Ray Vaughan died, I cried, because he belonged to this city, and it belonged to him. When Paul Newman died last year, I cried, remembering that smile that couldn't be acted, that he could not have faked, that old Luke smile. 

But at first, I had no tears for Michael Jackson. I felt it wasn't my right, because I didn't want to just jump on some bandwagon of mob emotion. But I also knew it then, I knew that I had left him behind, somewhere, that same somewhere that I left something of myself and my own dreams. And I suspect that I am not alone in that loss.

I watched until I realized they had nothing more to say. Incidentally, Keith Olberman has truly become a caricature of a journalist, and while I share his hatred of stupidity and therefore Bill O'Reilly, he just really needs to... stop.

After the night so many years ago that I saw the Jackson 5 on television, life happened. My parents worked hard, and we lived in the country, away from other kids and convenient babysitters, so I was alone a lot. The television remained my constant companion, but the memories of it in all the intervening time are so different. Cartoons. Reruns. Movies. Baseball. The big Zenith was always on through my single-digit years during the 1970's, because it was better than the silence, and better than being alone, but in retrospect, other than Star Trek reruns, my pre-cable television sucked for a long time. And, while it still took a little of loneliness' sting, at best it still left life just... dull.

In the early 1980's, thanks to my parents' fear of busing, my naiveté and lack of socialization would collide, with not merely junior high, but junior high in Westlake, where I went beyond not-fitting-in and straight to singularly iconic punching bag. I know, today, thinking back over it all, putting each life, his and mine, in the context of the other, that I was fortunate, because, after a good deal of his own relative silence, Michael roared back to the rescue with Thriller. At about the same time, my parents finally broke down and bought into the world of cable television, and between MTV (after he beat down their walls), radio, and a friend's copy on cassette tape, played on a Radio Shack tape recorder I carried around in a duffle bag all summer, I had a lifeline.

I know I was not the only kid in America, or the world, practicing his moves in front of his parents' full-length mirror. I was not the only kid that felt the raw joy of the music like a barrage of happy punches to the gut. I also know that I was not the only kid who could get it right, and believed it said something about him, that yeah, maybe he was special, because he could sing, he could dance, he could do some small measure of the things that the biggest star in the world could do. I also know that I was not the only kid who never pulled those moves, flashed that smile, sang out loud in the light of day.

Then, Michael's life, or our realization of it, changed, too, and in an undoubtedly sad and disturbing way, it continued to mean something to me.

As the Thriller supernova continued to expand, we all began to see the flipside, the concomitant crushing pressure in the supermassive star that was Michael Jackson. Because, of course, supernovae are the inevitable consequence for stars so bright and massive that they collapse.

This was before the "weirdness", before the allegations, before he bought the Elephant Man's bones, the Beatles' Holy Works, or chimpanzees. And the crush, the pressure, the mass, was not all his - it came from the millions of inescapable screaming fans and the unrelenting media. Where his ability and heart were the sources of his light and power, the outside world suddenly began piling on to a life that had been just as unnatural and unheard of as his soaring voice and infallible moves.

A few years later, after Bad came out, and after "The Last Emperor" came out in 1987, and the weirdness and faceshifting had begun in earnest, I came to a realization that has stuck with me ever since and been my continuing mantra when confronted with the more sordid details of his life - Michael Jackson had lived a childhood and young life that was unmatched in its weirdness, unnaturalness, and solitude by anyone other than a couple of child emperors.

But before that, in my teenage years, when poor self-esteem was otherwise reinforced, Michael provided me with a secret role model, and with a sort of hope for my life. For my itch, my need for me to sing and live music that my parents say was obvious from before I was three, for my need to be somebody, he was the first and the ultimate blueprint, and unlike other aloof role models, he made me believe in the possibilities. To this day, I can and want to sing higher than people expect. I want to move. When I dance, it may not be great, but it's in that very Michael mix of sharpness and fluidity. And, watching him the other night, I realized there was something else.

At times, certainly during my teenage years, like some smiling, moonwalking messiah, he did it all for me. His successes were possibilities for me, his failures and isolation allowed me to relate to him. I'm not calling him a god, not a real messiah. He was just this kid, right? But he was very much some amazing trinity: a creative power to move the heart; a human with an unusual power to accomplish good in the world; and just a human being, a kid, even. A kid that was put in a position where he almost had to choose to trade so much of his humanity to be those other two things, to be more than just a kid, just another light flickering on and off.

In the later years, he brought a lot on himself. I hate that, but it's true, and I don't want to overlook that, even if I doubt and flat-out rationally disbelieve some of the claims made against him. If he had abused a kid, nothing excuses it, absolves it. The questions he left make it all so much harder, so much more unclear. For now, I believe what I believe. Still, regardless, everyone has to concede that he had made choices for his life. But the world did, too. And he took the beatings, in a very public way.

In all those scandals and allegations, and in my own failures and straying from my own path, in the shifting and mutation of popular music, and in the arguable decline of his creative power, I left Michael Jackson, and what he'd meant to me, behind. 

I am 40 now. I never did electrify the crowd with my moves, the leg-whip, the spin into a pop-up onto the toes. I never grabbed a full breath and shoved back the shaking and fear and raised my voice to sing until these last couple of years. My own sort of megalomania, my belief in and hope for what I thought I should have been declined even as Michael's sales figures did. I feel so much now that I'm not doing anything but waiting through the days. Waiting for the next job, waiting for the next love, waiting for the next chance that I might let slip like I'd done others. More importantly, I wait to be... me. The everlasting kid that can sing, that can move, that could be somebody, that would try to save the world if he could get all the moves right, just get a clean shot.

But that's not the way it works. We're not in Neverland, and none of us are so magic that we don't make mistakes.

Friday night, soaked in sweat from an hour of dancing hidden in a crowd that had gathered to celebrate Michael Jackson's music, I looked up and saw another lonely kid, someone else who fell short, moving and singing with the passion of a man struggling too late to capture the childhood he'd never known; fighting to recapture one of the greatest successes the music world has ever known; fighting, like so many of us to make the others see who was really inside; and taking us all with him as far as he could.

Power and emotion and need streamed from him like electrons from a Zenith cathode ray tube in a dark room in 1972, and finally, tears came. I closed my eyes, treasuring the pressure of wet warmth against my eyelids. I felt myself at the front of the stage, my sneakers somehow gliding smoothly on the plywood. I kicked a leg out, whipped it left to right, screamed "WHOOOO!", and danced, not alone, not unseen.

I didn't get it. I could already send and receive texts, the beauty of which was that, barring drunkenness, I could be very specific about who I sent information/drunken proclamations of love to, and who I was likely to receive the same things from. My friends couldn't fathom my resistance, especially coming from a techy geek like me. It was, to them, sort of like the fact that I'm a vegetarian that doesn't particularly care for fruits or vegetables.

I finally, with much intervention, including that of my friend Allison, whose brother was one of the originators of Blogger, and then one of the originators of Twitter, twice simultaneously unleashing brilliant usefulness and poxes upon the Earth.

I felt obligated to try it, and then, months later, to actually understand it. My eventual understanding of it was that you could type into your computer or mobile device your location, intentions, or momentary hopes and dreams, and people who virtually "followed" you would get your entries as texts on their mobile devices. Sort of like a very passive form of stalking, with consent. Also, I thought, extremely pointless. This is what email and, again, text messaging, were for, as far as I could tell, and all Twitter was doing was inserting another step in the process, and inviting everyone to know my business. It was creepy, and clearly for the narcissistic, people who needed to feel unique and special in a world flooded with data and words and little real contact.

But I persevered, venturing further into the Tweeting world, convinced that either everyone knew and saw something I didn't, or I would get immense joy when they realized they were all idiots.

I would clearly be lying if I didn't find some of it amusing, and I'd be like one of those people who claim TV is garbage that is somehow beneath them.

Some of my friends really are funny. There's that. Mostly... not.

That young, hip librils have embraced it is a non-story, but I love that conservatives have picked it up. It's become the battlefield for the Republicans mouthpieces who are all trying to tell each other and their followers that they're not REAL Republicans, failing to see that underneath it all, they (the Limbaughs, Cheneys, Steeles, and McCains) are really the same  - self-interested blowhards, which kind of makes Twitter a natural medium for them.

Some of the people I know that use Twitter are almost certainly Twittering about their paranoid delusions, sometimes referred to as Libertarianism, and including rants about the government and the UN tracking their every move, interspersed between Tweets about their drug use and political activities, like painting "Ron Paul" on playground equipment. I do not follow them, though, because I'd like to be surprised when they finally decide to launch their "reLoveution". Hilarity will ensue.

My phone will beep and rattle at 4:25am on the tv tray that serves as a nightstand, with a Tweet waking me to tell me someone is having trouble sleeping, and I wonder if there's a chain of causality she's failing to recognize.

Another friend Tweets that she's excited because she's on her way to spend some quality time with an old friend. Later, she will take time out from having a great time to Tweet that she is having a great time, which reminds me, if not her, of the proper definition of irony.

For one week, I decided to Twitter exclusively about my bowel movements. I thought people would relate to it, given the popularity of the book that insists that everybody poops. If people felt it necessary to inform me of what kind of cereal they ate that morning, with no editorializing about the enjoyability of it or the deep-rooted doubts it stirred in them, then surely people should care if things were going well in my lower intestine. It also helped them understand my particular, like-clockwork schedule, not only of my ablutions, but of avoiding work for up to 15 minutes:

11:01am - Typically, this is my time to eliminate (pardon pun) a good 1/4 hour of my morn. Will repeat in the PM, my way of stickin' it to the man.

10:27am (a different day - I do have some work ethic) - "Tweeting live from luxurious Mike Bloomberg Bathroom Facility. They've used some kind of floral fragrance. Feel woozy. Things going well."

11:06am (you see the pattern. the afternoon session was usually just for Sudoku) - Guy two doors down really trying too hard. I'm trying not to laugh. Relax, dude, and drink more water.

I thought this might start something. Or at least get people to stop following me. It was a protest, a raging against the dying of the word, against, pardon the predicatability, the machine.

But, no... I found myself looking at the phone, expectantly. Waiting for a text message, someone I knew, or didn't know, Tweeting, "OMG. Rob is f-ing hilarious. Everyone should follow him. Everyone should tell him he's special."

I don't know that I relate to any one of the characters completely. Like a lot of theatre, several different characters probably make a composite of the viewer. But I do like House, of course. As I grow increasingly cynical of people's motives and truthfulness, the things he says resonate. And lately, I've become aware that perhaps a certain amount of unhappiness, loneliness, and hopelessness have become part of the comforting familiarity of my own character. That bothers me a bit. I want to embrace it. I want to drink and throw back pills and stop struggling. Except, I don't think I've struggled, not properly, not effectively. I've struggled in my head, but not in my life.

The other night, House told a patient who wanted to change his life to make it more meaningful:

You're afraid to change. You either imagine that you can escape, instead of actually trying, because if you fail then you've got nothing. You give up the chance of something real so that you can hold on to hope. The thing is? Hope is for sissies.

The problem is, I think resignation and thoughtless acceptance of lives that aren't true are also for sissies. The only other options are not wanting, or struggle, actually making change. And that brings it all back to the question of will. It's more important than whether I have the means to change my life. Will. Do I have it, or don't I?

From what I've seen, the pranks have not been at anyone's expense (though the nametag "Jose Cuervo" was disappointingly unclever, and that just hurts all of us). Telling these persons (or unpersons), to stop will probably only make their activities more intriguing and outrageous, like cutting the heads off of parking meters. However, I would caution them to make sure it won't be anything that our client would frown on. Think things through, then doublethink them. Like my big brother used to say, "Don't give them rope to hang ya with." Maybe instead of an outer party, make it an inner party.

The only trash I've seen has been the overflowing boxes of paper to be recycled. I took several of those boxes out yesterday. I know one person wads his waste paper and shoots for the box. Despite his commendable shooting percentage, I'd ask to make sure he picks up his own rebounds. Recycling isn't on our client's priority list, but I think it's something worthwhile for us to do. We'll try to make it prettier.

As for "slack behavior", we've seen no decrease in productivity, which I think in part is due not to "slack" but some relative de-stressing over the past several weeks, some of which, in turn, I attribute to a little levity. I will ask that you use your inside voices when chatting with each other, though. Some of our neighbors are very loud, and we don't want to be like them.

Still, we don't want anyone reporting it again to our agency representative and making her have to deal with it, Or, well, to the client. I will say that I was disappointed to find that it was someone on my team, and disappointed that the person didn't think they could come talk to me about it. If anyone has an issue with the work environment, I encourage them to, old employee or new, speak to me about it.

Thanks for your attention and cooperation.

So, here in our Concentrated Worker Production Facility, under the authoritarian glorious heel of our unnamed New York client giant financial information company, a small underground of harmless tricksters have been having some fun at absolutely no one's expense. Names on empty cubes had been changed to things like "Ricky Bobby", "Nancy Grace", "Kimbo Slice", "Tyler Durden", and, sadly, "Jose Cuervo" which I thought showed a truly disappointing lack of imagination that only hurts all of us.

When one contractor was mostly not probably wrongly accused of having a hand what could only be called domestic terrorism, the name on his cube mysteriously transmogrified into "Dr. Richard Kimball", and an OJ-like search was launched for the one-armed, two small-glove-wearing man who was truly to blame.

Since the beginning of the project, I'd used one of our unusable cubes as a home for our sign-in sheet, since we are, in fact, children, and time clocks and steam whistles would have actually cost money. After the first round of unexplained, unforeseeable layoffs, a day after team leads were assured that people would have a chance to remedy any shortcomings, the cube became known as the ******** Memorial Sign-In Sheet Cube and Penalty Box, in honor of our team's own fallen comrade.

Recently, following another layoff of 24 people that came a week after an angry assurance that rumors of an impending mass layoff were untrue, the names of our fallen were tacked up in the now-less-specifically-named Memorial Sign-In Sheet Cube and Penalty Box, along with the photo of the unknown fallen soldier seen in Battlestar Galactica (the reimagined series, since no one ever really died in the Lorne Greene version. Well, Starbuck did, but he came back as some sort of temp angel in a white flight suit to join the A-Team or something).

Clearly, this was the work of some probably nerdy fan of that show, which I have neither seen, nor purchased several seasons of on DVD. This morning, the very nice representative from our employment agency, who actually has a sense of humor, passed this along, having received it from one of the attorneys working here:

Since client's staff have been off-site, I have noticed an increase in pranks, trash being left around and other slack behavior. I thought I would bring this to your attention because I would hate to see negative consequences for everyone at this stage in the project.

I mean, really... what the frak? Clearly, this deserves a measured response, which I shall take the time to construct as part of my team lead duties.

See, I bought a couple of tickets to the U2 show in... Norman, Okrahoma the other day. Yeah, I know. But I'll be in Chicago the weekend they're in Dallas, with frikkin' MUSE. Instead, I see them with the Black Eyed Peas, who I used to like, before they got Fergie and just started making butt dancing music.

But I digress.

So, I messed up, as you'll see. The fix should have been easy, but given it was Ticketbastard I was dealing with, and given that I was probably being punished for going to Norman, Okrahoma... well, you'll see.

Customer (Rob Hill)04/17/2009 11:40 AM EDT

Hi,

After my first purchase attempt returned an error message, I got in a rush to get my order entered, and didn't notice it had my old address in my profile.

I am now in #221, NOT #335 (I just changed my profile). My tickets will be delivered US Mail - can you please confirm they'll be sent to the proper address?

Thanks

* Subject* After my first purchase attempt returned an error message, I got in a rush to... * Discussion Thread* * (Alejandro_ZYS797)* 04/18/2009
09:43 PM EDT

Dear Rob,

Thank you for contacting us regarding order number 9-24547/DAL. We regret any inconvenience you have experienced. Our goal is to have tickets in the home of our customers within two weeks of an order being placed. However, all delivery times are approximate and sometimes delivery may be delayed. If earlier delivery is desired, we do offer the options of UPS shipping to the credit card billing address, as well as TicketFast delivery to your e-mail address for most events. An additional fee is assessed for both of these
delivery methods.

If you do not receive your tickets within 48 hours of the event, please contact us, and we will make arrangements to have replacement tickets held for you at the box office Will Call window on the day of the event.

You may confirm the status of your order (as well as your seat locations, venue, performance date, fulfillment status, total charges, etc.) by visiting My Ticketmaster on Ticketmaster.com. Simply sign in by clicking the My Ticketmaster link located near the top right side of the page to view your Order History.

Thank you for using Ticketmaster, where we continually strive to provide World Class Service to every customer, every day! We really appreciate your business, and hope we were able to resolve any problems or answer any questions you had. Please reply to this email if we may be of further assistance.

Sincerely,
Alejandro_ZYS797

Customer (Rob Hill)04/22/2009 03:25 PM EDT
Incident created due to reply to expired incident 090417-000728.

Thanks, but this didn't really respond to my issue - I simply need to know if these are being sent to the correct address - 2121 Dickson Dr. #221, rather than #335. I know that if I don't get them, I can contact you and have them held, etc., but I'd rather not go through all that, or risk driving from Austin, Texas and having some issue.

Thanks,

Rob Hill

(Roxanna_ZYS792)04/22/2009 03:45 PM EDT

Dear Rob,

Thank you for contacting us regarding order number 9-24547/DAL. The mailing address provided at the time of purchase and that paired up with the billing address of the credit card used for purchase is as follows:

ROB HILL
2121 DICKSON DR
APT 335\
AUSTIN, TX
78704-4791

Since the incorrect apartment number is set on the order, your tickets may not arrive in a timely manner or may be sent back to us for non-delivery. If such is the case, we will be able to place your tickets at will call to be picked up the day of the event.

Thank you for using Ticketmaster, where we continually strive to provide World Class Service to every customer, every day! We really appreciate your business, and hope we were able to resolve any problems or answer any questions you had. Please reply to this email if we may be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Roxanna_ZYS792

Rob Hill  4/22  3:15PM

Thanks. Nothing personal to you customer service reps, but I can't help but wonder what a $8.10 "convenience fee" per ticket is for when a small change could have been made when I brought it to your attention shortly after the transaction, which would have avoided all this.
 
I guess when you have control of the shows I want to see, this is just the way it is...

If you can pass this along to someone, I'd appreciate it. I certainly hope there won't be an issue - I'm coming a long way for this show.
 
Thanks,
 
Rob Hill

(Isaiah_ZYS686)04/22/2009 04:21 PM EDT

Dear Rob,

Thank you for your e-mail. The convenience charge covers costs that allow Ticketmaster to provide the widest range of available tickets while giving you multiple ways to purchase. Tickets are available in many neighborhoods via local ticket outlet locations, our local charge-by-phone network and online at Ticketmaster.com. Tickets can be purchased through at least one distribution channel virtually 24 hours a day. The convenience charge varies by event and is determined by negotiations with arena operators, promoters and others based on costs for each event.

Also, the convenience charge will vary depending upon where you purchase the tickets. There is typically no convenience charge when you drive to a box office to purchase tickets. A convenience charge is applied when you purchase from the Internet, phone or ticket outlet (e.g., at your local department store) and this charge may vary depending upon Ticketmaster's local agreements with the venues, promoters and outlet partners.

Thank you for using Ticketmaster, where we continually strive to provide World Class Service to every customer, every day! We really appreciate your business, and hope we were able to resolve any problems or answer any questions you had. Please reply to this email if we may be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Isaiah_ZYS686

Rob Hill  4/22  4:22PM

Oh, please spare me the boilerplate. The majority of businesses don't charge for "convenience fees" - they're subsumed into the overhead, which, given ticket prices, Ticketmaster should be substantially covering, particularly given the monopoly they seek to expand with their LiveNation merger.
 
Furthermore, customers don't have the option to avoid the convenience fees as your email suggests - as your own website says, "All Retail Outlet sales are subject to geographic restrictions." Can I buy a ticket to U2 in Norman, Oklahoma at an Austin retail outlet, and what would the fee be?
 
Of course, you offer the ticket auctioning option, just like you did for the Springsteen show.
 
As a musician, a fan of music, and an attorney, I hope for the good of everyone that not only does your proposed merger fail, but that it leads to further action against your company, that we've been pawns to for too long. I won't be purchasing any more tickets from Ticketmaster - if I have to miss the shows I really want to see, it will be worth saving the cost to my pocketbook, and my soul.
 
No thanks,
 
Rob Hill

Last night, as I got home and closed the roof on the car, I got a Tweet asking viewers to send in their photos of the meteor shower.

I pictured people around Austin, living in the glare of their condo's colored lights or a big box store, rushing outside with tiny cellphones held up above them, ready to catch fleeting, momentary trails of fire, in skies where they could barely see the stars. So many of the things we want have taken the stars from us.

As a child, I spent most of my years with the well-defined and carefully-planned goal of being an astronaut. From an early age, I read outdated books by Gamov on the lives and deaths of stars. We lived in the country, with just our barbed-wire fence and tall grass between us and the city limits. Even with the lights of the highway, and the football stadium visible in the distance, over a mile away, the stars were out there to see.

I would look at star charts in Boy Scout books, and the little wheels showing the constellations and their positions in the sky at different times of the year and the night, but I couldn't make out the lines between them. I didn't see hunters and scorpions and mythical beasts. I couldn't even really see the big dipper. I saw a vast sea of potential and adventure pulling my eyes and heart upward, but not the patterns.

The other night, I drove back from a wedding two hours away, on a ranch deep in the country. My friend and I moved away from the house and tents and the lights of the dance floor, and despite the need to negotiate the rocky path beneath us, we gasped at the suddeness of the sky above, the stars bright enough to know they were other suns, burning with their own lives.

Despite the chill, we put the top down, drove fast and free on country roads. My friend was filled with simple joy, her hair buffeting around a smile constant even as she sang at the top of her lungs.

At this point in my life, I see the patterns, understand the familiarity and comfort humans have always felt in seeing familiar shapes up there. Some part of me is sad to know that the promise of the sky has been reduced to distant symbols. But on some nights, with a friend and music and the top down, I don't see a ceiling of darkness and points of light, but light years and lights years of heaven.

a run with Neko. i went out too fast, and she got tired.

a shower, and a bath for Neko, then dinner with a friend.

then, down to Tiniest Bar, where Paul was playing covers and letting people sing with him. my voice has been hoarse and deep for weeks, but my low expectations were a good thing. "Faith", "Sweet Caroline" by request, accompanying Susie on "Major Tom", an attempt to coordinate four people singing "Sledgehammer", inspired by the giant sledgehammer sitting on the stage, and "Desire". i hadn't sang in a while, and needed that, too.

i started to turn in towards home, but the night was so cool and clear, and the top was down, so i headed to the highway, Dido, bursting up from the car to the full moon.

but i promise you you'll see the sun again

quick down the access road, tight through the turnaround. i feel the computer stability control question my choices, temper the wheelspin and sliding with subtle braking and throttle control. i turn the computer off.

hard, hard, hard, down the straight, the right turn behind Barton Creek Mall ahead, pull it down to third, not in a rush, plenty of time, but i think about swinging too wide through the turn, throwing an expeinsive alloy wheel into a curb. easy, easy, swing smoothly into the turn, power through, manage the tail coming out, and then i'm into it, the right turn sweeping smoothly through into a dip, the bottom just drops out beneath me, the chassis reaffirming itself with the road and gravity's certainty a split second before the road bends hard left.

the car settles, point it left, and it presses into the road, roars up the hill, third to fourth, and i'm aimed like a rocket into the sky up ahead. over the crest of the hill, pour the power on, maybe the tires won't stay with the road, and I'll be up there with the stars.

no. over the crest, the median narrows, the turnaround ahead. i see a man trudging along in a heavy jacket to my right, on the sidewalk, he hasn't turned yet in response to the banshees screaming up behind him, but as the full aural assault comes over the top of the hill, he does.

i don't have time to see his face - look at the turn, down, hard, into second, calipers pressing on giant drilled brakes, and i get it right, just right, just enough to circle the turnaround, the rear tires at the limit, then back on the power, so quickly back to 40, 50, 70, 80, on this narrow bit of road.

see the sun again

my throat, my voice are open to the sky, my eyes on the road, my heart somewhere in the stars, and I'm singing, and feeling the road rushing up through the car into my hands, the soles of my feet, through the seat into my legs. push, pull, as easily as if i were dancing, leading the car here through my right palm, as i'm following the momentum through with my left arm around her waist.

and now i'm crying a little, at the wonder of the music, at the freedom, at my body charged with the feel of speed and force, that sacred mix of control and abandon.

is this too much to ask? is this too much to want? it's too little, for either cause. everyone that knows their heart deserves these moments, these tiny moments of breaking free from the envelope, feeling the tenuousness of our grip on this road, feeling the power ready to be called forth, knowing how little we can truly apply without forcing our lives to break free of the surfaces we live on.

home again. the top comes up. marvin singing the national anthem, all that pain and joy. i step up and out of the car, kneel beside it, heat and the scent of rubber rising up from beneath it like some great beast returned to the stable. it settles, it's heart still hot like mine, cooling, dissipating its passion into the night that's become another day.

I said for years that I didn't think I could, or should, make it to this next Monday, not feeling like I did, not being who I was, who I am, over and over again, despite a lifetime of trying to be everything else for everyone else, and failing all of them and myself. I can try, I have tried. I've had my moments. But it always comes right back to zero, right back to this place where I sit now, anger and despair, wanting to scream in the middle of the cubicle farm like a tortured pig, wanting to put my fist through the monitor and set fire to all the paper covered in bullshit case law and rules that mean nothing in and of themselves, but that bind us all.

So I'm waiting for things to get better, whether I make them so or not. And then, I'll wait for them to fall apart, because that's the way of entropy, and that's so obviously the way of me, proven relentlessly, tirelessly, tiresomely, over 40 fucking years.

I'll wait to feel that way again, and then to say those things to someone again, every time the words bitingly familiar, sounding more and more like a hollow echo, all vibrating air, gone soon.

I'll wait to run, to work hard to be better, faster, lose weight, just to see the fat kid in the mirror over and over again.

I'll talk to my parents, thinking things are better, that after four decades, they've come to know, accept, appreciate that I am not the person they wanted, and never will be. And again, I'll throw the phone and open a beer and sit in the dark, tired of fighting and denying their grip on me.

Nothing changes. People don't change. It's the way of the universe, but it's not its fault. Too much of the blame is mine, I know that. I know for a fact that I've tried more than most, changed for the better more than most, all just to be here, worn out every time I try, beaten a little more every time I fail, heartened a little less every time I succeed, less willing every time to try. So now, I just want to wait. I want to close my eyes, like I did that time, trapped under the low bridge on the river, when I realized it was wrong to struggle against the rushing water, that no matter how strong I was, nature was stronger. I closed my eyes and turned with the water, and let it take me where it would, waiting to either surface on the other side, or not.

do the work

i have this job

the tank's always full

the calls from machines and polite Indians have stopped

i have this dog, she sits, she trots along behind me

i stood before 14,000 and sang

i was late for the show by decades

then i got down and ran my marathon

but this time no tears

like the night she said we needed to stop

earlier i pressed the keys,

black and white,

and nice noises came out

i play purple rain, just now

twenty years after i first loved it

the cat is curled up, he feels safe,

just a wary eye barely ajar to watch the dog

now snoring on my foot

tony banks pressed the keys in 1974,

the noises come out now,

remastered, mastered again,

filling 2009 living room with Rael's tale

in DTS surround sound

my friends are there, out there

all somewhere

not here not now

and i feel it all moving

fraying

the 40th year fritters away

each minute falling from my hands

carrying with it pieces of futures lost

completed tales of love

Polaroid memories dried,

safe to touch,

starting to turn yellow

there can be 40 more

or just tonight

and what would it be?

i'm thankful

happy for the dog

the cat

the leather couch cool against skin

peter gabriel's voice

that i could run in the morning

if i saw the point

bank accounts

and stomach

and time

not being empty

i am not ungrateful

i've learned to accept the past

it's being here now that's hard

can 40 ahead bring more peace than the 40 behind?

the water drips

the towel dries

the strawberries grow deeper red by the second

and i'm on my couch

and i just feel... tired.

I should have written my phone number more clearly.

Just before my midterm exams in my first year at law school, during, I believe, my Civil Procedure class, I was reclined on one of my favorite couches on the fifth floor of the UT law library. The fifth floor of the law library was, in fact, on the opposite end of the school from my Civil Procedure class, but on that day, as on many days, I determined that diligent self-study would benefit me more than class. As I began to fall asleep, I looked out across the treetops and saw the top of St. David's hospital, where I had been born almost 23 years earlier. I thought of exams, and the academic and personal apocalypse they would bring, and found it strangely comforting that the sites of my birth and apparent, rapidly-approaching death would only be a few blocks apart.

It's with a mixed sense of pride, accomplishment, and embarrassment that I admit to being one of the three or so non-institutionalized people in Austin that were actually born here, and who have never lived elsewhere. Most people react with the same sort of shock reserved for, say, walking up on a healthy Californian condor buying lottery tickets and a Schlitz at 7-11. There are those people, though, the type that would more likely frown on the fact that the condor plays the lottery, that apparently feel I'm an incomplete and intractably dull human being for having stayed here all my life.

Fortunately, I don't really hang out with people like that, and they don't hang with me. In 34 years, Austin has yet to exhaust itself as a character in my life. I feel I've lived multiple lifetimes here. Scenery and people tend to repeat and recycle themselves. And, because of my mother's experiences, I've always had the sense of being fortunate to even be here.

My mother had come to the United States from Korea in 1967, armed only with a 3-pound bag of peanut M&M's, that she purchased in Hawaii, clutching it and metering out the security it held as she soared over the Pacific. In Seattle, she disembarked, then realized she had left the bag on board. Her frantic efforts to re-board the plane were thwarted by burly stewardesses. She had, like so many, reached America, and was now completely alone.

Somehow, for reasons I now realize I've never adequately explored, she came to Austin, which hardly seems like it would have been the shining city on the hill beckoning to people abroad in 1967. At any rate, she started over, without money or any safety net within several thousand miles. She went to school, worked at Burger King, worked at the old Texas theatre on the Drag, which has since metamorphosed into an Eckerd's, like a caterpillar changing into something far less interesting. She worked as a janitor, bookkeeper, whatever would keep me fed, all while maintaining a 4.0 at the University of Texas. In 1975, she applied for a job as a file clerk for a state agency, offering to work for free to prove herself.

She got the job. She worked hard, as did my dad. She moved up and on. She made enough money to eventually become a Republican with strong views on limiting immigration. Last year, Mom was able to slap down cash for a Hummer H2, having seen one on a magazine cover. I'm at once proud of her, and fearful for everyone else. If you see a Hummer bearing down on you, with just a straw hat and huge, Miami retiree sunglasses barely glinting over the steering wheel, remain calm, pull onto the shoulder, and let her pass.

I know that my mother was so driven all these years largely because she remembers the pain of not being able to give me more. I remember walking with her in the long-gone KMart off of Anderson Lane. It was Christmastime, somewhere back in the very early Seventies, back when the blue-light special meant something, and Martha Stewart was knee-high to Michael Milken. I remember the Icee sign, the feeling of safety, amazed at the wonder of the tall shelves of food and things. And I remember Whoppers.

I know mom fears I remember hunger and hopelessness and wanting. She fears I knew she couldn't afford to give me much that Christmas. But all I remember is her reaching for and handing me a cardboard carton of Whoppers. I remember walking back across the street to our apartment, the cool feel of the chocolate giving way slowly to the malted milk center melting on my tongue, and the sure feel of her hand around mine.

A decade later, the Kim Family exodus continued. Korean aunts, uncles, and grandparents who had never seen Austin on a map moved here, no doubt encouraged by my mother's growing success and the sophisticated and dignified Texan culture as seen on "Dallas" in the early 80's.

Watching the city change has been both exciting and painful. As a child, I remember riding down 360, looking at the small patch of light to the East. I asked my Dad every time if Austin would ever get bigger. Clearly, it would be one of the dumbest questions I ever asked. Over the years, I saw the light begin to creep outward, saw little fuzzy patches of it pop up to the north and south. Then, about 10 to 15 years ago, it's like the earth just belched forth halogen lamps and mercury-vapor streetlights. Buildings erupted upward like shoots in the cool time-lapse movies they showed in elementary school to try to interest us in science.

My life changed in pace with the city. From 1975 through 1981, I lived on 52 acres my family leased from a friend of my dad's for some ridiculously small pittance. I had a barn, an endless flow of stray dogs, and exposure to people who were the templates for characters on "King of the Hill". One day, I will successfully steal from my mother's photo albums and destroy a picture of me at about 10 years old. I'm in blue gym shorts, an orange shirt with Bevo's caricatured buttocks on the front, and cowboy boots, holding a .22 rifle in one hand and the unfortunate grackle that flew within its range in the other.

In the last decade or so, Barnes and Nobles, Chili'ses, Bed Baths and Beyonds, Best Buys, and other stores were cloned in secret corporate labs in Montana, airlifted in by flying saucers, and dropped like cluster bombs, cratering the Austin landscape. Cars multiplied. Bold new road expansions were begun, their completion carefully timed to coincide with the points at which the traffic growth made them inadequate.

Today, I eye the Target Greatland at Mopac and Southwest Parkway warily. Late one night in the 1990's, it was quietly airlifted in and unceremoniously dumped precisely on top of my childhood country home. I've stopped there and tried to find the tremendous oaks I used to clamber around in and chase my dog around. I enjoy stomping through the lingerie department, glaring at the customers and asking them to get out of my room.

Later, I would move to Westlake, where I went from learning to avoid rattlesnakes to learning about Polo shirts, Porsche's, and white flight. For the sake of brevity and taste, that period of time will not be discussed.

I went to UT for undergrad and law school, considering no other schools. Actually, I had my SAT scores sent to UT and the University of Tel Aviv, but I never got an admissions catalogue or letter of invitation from the latter. I thought my scores were pretty good, but I guess they're picky.

I've worked a number of jobs in the years since I got my law degree. A year with an entertainment lawyer that was one of the founders of the Armadillo World Headquarters. A year with the Commission on Human Rights. Today, I work as a hearing officer in a state agency, in a division that amounts to a penal colony for lawyers.

Only a couple of my friends actually hail from Austin. By and large, the people that infuse and shape my life and who I am today came from Beaumont, Dallas, Houston, El Paso, Corpus Christi. As many came from oddball places like New York, Wisconsin, Long Beach, and Buffalo. Many came, only intending to go to school here or work here awhile, and most have stayed.

Like my own mother, enough of the rest of the world seems to have found reasons to flow through Austin, and therefore my life. Clearly, there's a diverse world out there with a lot to teach me. But the world has been kind enough and intrigued enough by this town to come to me, to give me the lessons and materials to grow, to learn, to figure out who I am and what my best destiny is. A dead guy named Emerson said, "He who travels to be amused or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself... He carries ruins to ruins." The sense of this home, of being a part of this home, is what I carry with me when I travel, through the world, and through life.

And if none of this logically or emotionally justifies being an Austinite for life, I can always say, "Hey, at least it's not Waco."

music always brings it back, and it did again, tonight. the longing, the will and the need to sing and be in some greater measure free, it pulls at me. everything else is rote, the automation of a life, resulting in something that makes no real sense, that has lost the dream, that means very little.

what is it going to take? there's been one break. some called it a breakdown. it was big, but it wasn't enough. just enough to break free, temporarily, from the poorly executed version of the life that was expected of me. not enough to be me, to be the person that is encoded in my very genes, in the dreams of my childhood, in my image of the universe and my place in it.

it's not enough, it's not enough.