phone call from the prison around my heart

“man, today, man. today.

i’ve been on the verge of tears all day today, y’know? like, i went to see my grandfather in the hospital. he thinks my uncle is on the way in from NYC. he’s not doing real good, man. y’know? like he’s… he’s just confused, and forgetting things… he can’t figure out the simplest things. like just yesterday he was pushing on the volume dial of his hospital remote thing. pushing on it! pushing in on it! he can never get the hang of all the gizmos in his life anymore. and most of it, it’s like, y’know, no more complicated than the Army radio sets he used to use. fuck, wait! fuck that – he used to be a fucking navigator, for fuck’s sake, man! he used to fuckin’ fly airplanes and shit! i mean, big freakin’ military planes, with all the dials and instruments and, y’know, all that crazy shit, right? and now he can’t figure out how to turn up the god damn volume on this white plastic thing that only has two other buttons on it.

the Tower of Power. that’s what he used to be for me. man… y’know? like this big towering mass of stability and certainness. and now he’s all jumbled…. jumbled up and haywired and… ya know, he’s just so messed up all over on his insides.

he’s still got it up here, though, man. i’m pointing to my head right now. i mean, he gets confused and all that, right? but he can still crack a joke. even at himself. he can still talk shit with people. he’s just… i don’t know. all fucked up or something, y’know?

and then, right? like, i come home and i’m all alone because my girlfriend is up in Indiana somewhere doing stuff with her family and stuff. and i come home, and i put on the TV and pop in these DVDs that she got me for Valentine’s Day – hey! do you remember that History of Rock miniseries they had on PBS several years ago? like interviews with people now, and film clips from all these, y’know, vastly legendary performances, and interviews from the past and all that, like? yeah! she got me that. and all i got her was a couple of lousy old books. geez.

anyway, so i come home, and i’m watchin’ this one about, like, basically, the Sixties and the hippies and the whole thing with all that stuff, right? and you know, how it all went to shit in the end, because some people couldn’t handle the responsibility and just wanted to fuckin’ party all the fuckin’ time. you know. i mean, that’s just me, though, saying that, although they did kinda sort of touch on that whole thing. at the end, ya know.

and that’s just it, man. the end. the End, man. THE End. that’s all i’ve been able to think about for months now, all i’ve been able to think about, like it just consumes my every waking thought, practically. right? i mean, i’m just fucking obsessed with this thing.

i mean, i can feel it. right? i mean, i can feel it. happening. or starting to happen. or something. i dunno, all i know is that it’s coming. it’s on its way, and all i can think about is how fucked up every thing is, and about how we fucked up. we fucked up! like, we ALL fucked up! the ball is rolling, and now we can’t stop it.

so there’s now this whole goddamn human interconnective emotional thing that’s just welling up inside of me, this terrible sadness, the awful chaotic eruption inside of me, of all the thoughts… all the… i dunno… it’s all the suffering we all have now, all the suffering that every human being has always had to go through all throughout history. and it’s just this sort of snowball sort of thing where i feel it all coming down on me, like it’s all of the suffering combined, y’know? and it’s like, i mean it’s almost like it’s just all right there, for me to feel. the Human Condition, like my friend Melissa used to go on about, i mean this sweet, wonderful person who really emoted about this thing, and i’ve always been very aware of it, and… i mean, but now it’s all coming to an end, and what was it all for? what is going to be the end result of all our pain and suffering and humiliation and grief? i mean, will there even be ink on the page still? jesus. even if there is, if that’s all that qualifies the existence of the entirety of the whole human race, then, i mean… jesus. shit. it’s just too much. it’s all just so… too much.

um… look, i gotta go. i mean, ok? alright… see ya ’round.”