CHIN MUSIK

It’s just me, no BFD

Chin.Musik — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 04:32:06 +0000

Last week, I sat under a tree with Spanish moss draped between its limbs like gauze. I was outside a coffee shop, munching an apple bran muffin when a sparrow, hunting for crumbs, hopped under my table. Curious to see how bold she was, I sat perfectly still. She cocked her head, and scooted between my feet. I wondered: did her survival instinct outweigh her fear of my sized-12 shoe? I’m no ornithologist – I… more

The magic fairy endless dichotomy

Chin.Musik — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 10:56:07 +0000

Most nights, I crash around 11 and wake between 3 and 3:30. Eyes pink and itchy. Nose running profusely. As the coffee drips, I dress myself in the same wretched sweats, socks, and boots I wear 5 times a week. In my fog – or is it fugue? – state, I stuff an apple, some trail-mix and a seltzer in a backpack, crate Lucy, and am out the door by 4. In 2007, a Harvard… more

I keep coming back to personal responsibility

Chin.Musik — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:00:46 +0000

Lucy is chewing a stick on the Berber carpet. A straw-sized stick she snatched up from the parking lot of my apartment complex. A woman walking her Yorkie asked about Lucy’s breed. I told her I suspected my precious little mutt was half Jack Russell, maybe. The lady guessed Havanese. I said you mean like from Cuba? Cuba keeps coming up. A bespectacled contestant on Jeopardy last night went there as an undergrad. I’m at… more

Life coach cookies

Chin.Musik — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:35:33 +0000

As a part-time pre-loader for a major shipping company, I can pretty much eat what I want these days. Someday soon, I intend to drive to the grocery store, balance myself on the stern of a shopping cart, shield my eyes from the bright incandescent lights, point to the cookie aisle in a manner befitting a jubilant ship’s captain, and shout, CHIPS AHOY! I’ll do it with such fervor and alacrity as to transcend socially… more

Walking the belt with an abysmal Newt

Chin.Musik — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 09:47:11 +0000

Sometimes you walk into the wrong truck. You stand at a conveyor belt, pondering what brown is actually doing for you. You hoist a package, read a number on a label that tells you which truck to load it in. Only, it’s 3 a.m. and you’re dazed. This is the antithesis of working smart, you think, a fact proven by your paycheck. But sometimes you walk into the right truck. You register for a literary… more

God, work and Scarlett

Chin.Musik — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:45:08 +0000

With a dirty windshield, I drive to work around two in the morning. I tell myself I’m not completely cut off from giving this faith business a chance. Still, I can’t help cringing at the sermon-ending refrain of God can do wonderful things if you let him into your world to the tinkling of piano keys on a.m. radio. But one night Charles Colson says something to the effect that ethics are rooted in an… more

Waiting for my leg to vibrate

Chin.Musik — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:22:58 +0000

I’m miles from words. In my absence from Chin Musik, I’ve migrated from the couch (a.k.a. “The Great Humbler”) to an air mattress in the garage. At Thanksgiving dinner, Paul said he thought it was his job to save me. We speak daily of spiritual matters. One day, he turned me on to Apostle Paul’s definition of love in First Corinthians, the one that begins “Love is patient, love is kind…” We agreed that it… more

Five days in Redington

Chin.Musik — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:38:39 +0000

On Wednesday, I drive to Redington Beach. Crossing 66th Street in Pinellas Park, I think about the factory where I used to work, incense and rat-infested potpourri. I meet my friend Scarlet at the condo, where the La-Z-Boy affords a southerly view of the beach. Beach-goers, simple or complicated people (in love or lonely) hang in suspended animation, drawn to the vast expanse of the sea, with no terminal point on the horizon. The sun turns the… more

Nora, there was no sin

Chin.Musik — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:44:55 +0000

I want to dwell inside the minor key of Nora, and let the words split me open like a clam. I don’t know which parts, if any, are autobiographical. I spent four hours with the artist once: we discussed the volatility of Cuban-Americans, but I never got the lowdown on the song that’s as much a part of my musical constellation as Tempted and Richard Thompson’s Persuasion. I first heard it in 2001, or maybe… more

Lost and found and need and want

Chin.Musik — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 14:23:27 +0000

When I was 21, long before I read Siddhartha, I told my mother that someday I’d give up all my possessions and walk the Earth in search of stories. Naturally, she looked at me like I was a two-headed freak. At 41, I know that any double-talking blind prophet I’m liable to meet would just as soon sell me cans of effervescent sugar water with astrological factoids scrawled along the bottom. You are imaginative and… more