The Brothers Waffle

I got a bug bit on my right arm, recently. It was exactly on top of an old scar that I have there from a cigarette burn I got when I was in high school. Oddly enough, a friend burned me with a cigarette to give me that scar, and even more odd is the fact that I let him do it. Hell, I wanted him to do it.

When I think of that night, so many sensory memories come to mind, as is usual when I reminisce about home and the things we used to do to keep ourselves occupied in such a small town. The silence of the parking lot that is so quiet it's almost loud. The yellow light of a towering sign that reads "AFFLE HOUSE," in flickering letters. The feel of hot coffee that moves down your throat and into your stomach. Cigarette smoke. Laughter.

After multiple pots of coffee, maybe a pack of cigarettes, and 10 or 11 cycles of "Folsom Prison Blues," "Walk The Line," and the live version of "Freebird," on the jukebox, the night was over for us. Of the many life changing decisions that we had made that night at the Waffle House (because all conversation at the Waffle House is inherently life changing) we had decided that our spoken friendship wasn't enough. It needed to be symbolized by something physical, something people could see, something we could feel.

Upon vote, we decided that the most logical and mature thing to do would be to burn each other with tobacco products (as if they weren't hurtful enough) in order to show the world how strong our ties together were.

I can still hear our yelps of pain echoing through the parking lot, followed by screamed curses, relieved laughter. And laughter of delight as well. But sure enough, every man held his own, and the lit cigarettes went around the circle, from one arm to the next.

I regretted my decision as early as the next morning. I remember realizing that my burn was too far down my arm, and couldn't be covered by a T-shirt sleeve. Being as vain as I am, I was self conscious about the burn, a perfect white circle of dead flesh, surrounded by a thin red ring that no doubt signaled infection.

But soon enough, the wound faded, leaving a scar just a little darker than my skin. Most times when I think about that night, I laugh at how immature and sappy we all were then, thinking that the idea of "blood brothers" still held true at the age of eighteen. But every time I notice the perfect little circle there, I can't help but smile, not in awe of how dumb we all acted, but at how glad I am that we did act that way. And then I think of the Waffle House, our home away from home, our sanctuary on Midwestern nights that offered nothing more than cornfields and stars.

And the bug bite, it made it look as if the scar was new, as if I had just burned that Marlboro into my arm yesterday. Though I was a little upset that it covered my most adored battle wound of post-pubescent adolescence, I have to admit that I liked seeing it like that again.

Full Moon

While swearing to myself that I'd be in bed tonight before 5 AM, then immediately drowning my hot Irish tea in a blanket of powdery, contradictory sugar, I decided to revert to the Ole' Standby of late-night insomniacs: YouTube.  

Interests in YouTube can change from videos of men fighting in an alley to sports bloopers to song covers to live performances and back to fighting in less than the time it takes to finish a cigarette.  Tonight, my video of choice, or chance perhaps, was a drum solo by Keith Moon.

I'd always been fascinated by Moon "The Loon," his sheer ferocity and passion for music, for life.  He was a man that lived fast, a man that lived by his own rules.  Of course, money was no issue for the drummer of The Who, and he ultimately did enough painkillers to kill a small horse, but that's not the point.  

The point is, that while watching him through the glow of my computer screen, wondering off handedly when sleep would come, I felt envy toward his sheer musical talent, a rush of pride in watching a young musician in the prime of his life succeed, but 

mainly, a sense of deeply rooted shame.  

While watching him shake the core of the stage with the power of his rhythm or the stunning complexity of his drum fills, I realized that Moon, even then, was more than a budding musical legend.  He was a dedicated craftsman, enjoying and practicing the craft that he'd devoted himself to for the rest of his life.

He wasn't paralyzed with fear while on that stage, as I usually am when in front of the typewriter.  He didn't fear making a mistake.  When he dropped a beat, (as Moon sometimes did when considering the ridiculous amount of alcohol that was in his blood while he was playing), he didn't care--The Loon had no fear of faults.  He was exploring, experimenting, finding himself in his craft, and at the same time finding his way to a certain kind of truth.  No matter how foolish or drunk or inexperienced he looked while playing a show, the next performance, though it may not have been better, was always steadfast, confidant, and relaxed, despite it all.

Call me sappy, but I'll always believe this is the reason why bands or writers or craftsmen of any type ultimately succeed.  It's not who you know or where you're at or how talented you are--it's the fact that even though you work hard, you never really stop playing.  

Cheers, Moon.  

Flight 92

I came here for the same reasons everyone does, I suppose.

I came for the beer, of course, Guinness in particular.  I came here for the food, most of it fried.  I came for the music, for the song.  I came here for the green landscapes you see on postcards or during Discovery Channel specials.  I came for the castles and the towers and the crosses.  I came for the cathedrals and for change.  I came to runaway, to discover--to find everything I needed.

My personal list of needs is far too long to write, and to be quite honest, too vague and unknown for even me to understand.  While I know that what we need and what we want are usually two very different things, I came here hoping that somehow, they'd become the same.  

After boarding the plane in Chicago, the Irish gentleman sitting next to me told me one thing I needed in particular: gum.

"I'm sorry?" I asked.  

"Gum," he said.  "So your ears won't pop when we take off."  

After taking him up on the offer, we talked very plainly about where we were from, what we did, where we had been before, and why we were going to Ireland.  Eoghan, as he was called, was going home, to Cork, Ireland, after interning in Washington D.C. for his last year of medical school.  For some reason, I remembered a professor saying that two of the greatest stories ever told, The Iliad and The Odyssey, were still fresh and relevant to this day because each deals with the most timeless theme ever--the longing for home.  

Eoghan seemed pretty desensitized to endless treks across the globe.  While it was my first time traveling overseas, Eoghan had been doing it for years.  Although I was staring out the window, waiting for the plane to take off with the same anticipation that a pre-teen waits for a girl to take off her shirt, Eoghan was busy getting comfortable, trying to remember exactly what airport he was in.  I realized that my trip, no matter how grand in scale to me, must seem pretty insignificant to most people.  And yet for seven straight hours, while coasting above Chicago, Michigan, Canada, the Atlantic Ocean, and then finally, Ireland, I was nothing but smiles.  

Eoghan mentioned that he had had a birthday recently, his 25th.  He asked how old I was, and I told him I'd just turned 21 a few months ago.  He started laughing right away.  When I asked him what was funny, he said, "Oh nothing.  You're just going to have one hell of a time in Dublin."  

I smiled and stared out the window some more, though I could see nothing but the blackness of the sky mixing with the blackness of the Atlantic below.  The only light in all that darkness, a white one at the end of the wing outside my window.  I looked at it, hoped that Eoghan was more right than he knew, and slid the window shut.