Happy Weekend from Superior

Telegraph Rd. -- Motor City

grew up across the river from this place -- one of the cogs in Henry Ford's Motor City Auto Machine

Spending the night with Dire Straits fifteen minute long "Telegraph Road" on repeat. I bought beer from a shady liquor store on Telegraph Road in high school! How have I never heard this? From Henry Ford to factories shutting down to wild nights racing the streetlights with a bottle of booze in the console, this song sounds like the backdrop of my childhood in the Motor City:

A long time ago came a man on a track

Walking thirty miles with a sack on his back

And he put down his load where he thought it was best

He made a home in the wilderness

He built a cabin and a winter store 

And he plowed up the ground by the cold lake shore

And the other travelers came walking down the track

And they never went further, no, they never went back

Then came the churches, then came the schools

Then came the lawyers, and then came the rules

Then came the trains and the trucks with their loads

And the dirty old track was the Telegraph Road

Then came the mines, then came the ore

Then was the hard times, then there was a war

Telegraph sang a song about the world outside

Telegraph Road got so deep and so wide

Like a rolling river

And my radio says tonight it's gonna freeze

People driving home from the factories

There's six lanes of traffic

Three lanes moving slow

I used to like to go to work, but they shut it down

I've got a right to work, but there's no work to be found

Yes, and they say we're gonna have to pay what's owed

We're gonna have to reap from some seed that's been sowed

And the birds up on the wires and the telegraph poles

They can always fly away from this rain and this cold

You can hear them singing out their telegraph code

All the way down the Telegraph Road

You know, I'd sooner forget, but I remember those nights

When life was just a bet on a race between the lights

You had your head on my shoulder, you had your hand in my hair

Now you act a little colder, like you don't seem to care

But believe in me, baby, and I'll take you away

From out of this darkness and into the day

From these rivers of headlights, these rivers of rain

From the anger that lives on the streets with these names

Cause I've run every red light on memory lane

I've seen desperation explode into flames

And I don't want to see it again

From all of these signs saying, "sorry, but we're closed"

All the way

Down the Telegraph Road

Dire Straits, "Telegraph Road"

Wed. January 25, 2017

In today's edition of the starving artist, I emptied my coat pockets of pennies into a change collector at Walmart, fought a long (ongoing) battle with the shitty washing machine in my apartment complex, and was asked by a stranger outside the building, "Hey man I just got out of jail, can I bum a cigarette?" as I puffed on a ninety-nine cent pineapple-flavored cigar against the brick wall. Wet snow beginning to fall over Marquette -- weatherman says a cold front coming. They say it's one of the mildest winters in years up here.

Great North Woods Daydream

I had a job in the great north woods

Working as a cook for a spell

But I never did like it all that much

And one day the axe just fell

So I drifted down to New Orleans

Where I happened to be employed

Workin' for a while on a fishin' boat

Right outside of Delacroix

But all the while I was alone

The past was close behind

I seen a lot of women

But she never escaped my mind, and I just grew

Tangled up in blue

- Dylan, "Tangled Up in Blue"

Dad

A synopsis of my novel, in a screenshot:

A Real Bad Boy

[1989]

"[Zevon girlfriend] Annette Aguilar Ramos: Warren didn't preach twelve steps, but held the principles in the highest integrity. So, when he found out that his sponsor was shooting heroin, it was a major devastation. When he confronted him, his sponsor admitted using, and that really disillusioned Warren. The idea that the principles are divine, but people are fallible, was the lesson, but it created a distrust in him for people. Then, when it turned out that his manager was doing drugs as well, it was too much. He stopped going to AA meetings right after we broke up. After that, our little bad boy became a real bad boy. I kept trying to regain what we had had in the beginning our relationship -- that monogamous, committed relationship. But, Warren had tasted the other side and liked it."

Crystal Zevon, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon, Ecco 2007.

Camping 2016

"Washington Cabin" on Green Bay, outside of Escanaba, MI -- May/June medical leave

"Teepee Camp" -- Cheboygan, MI

June

"Lake Superior Cabin", Porcupine Mountains

June 

Lake of the Clouds, Porcupine Mountains

Little Carp River, Porcupine Mountains

]

Split Rock Lighthouse State Park, Minnesota

Travelling N along the famed Highway 41 on my pilgrimage to Dylan's hometown of Hibbing, MN

July?

Highland Recreation Area, SE MI

Weekend off from psych day program

July

"Horseshoe Harbor" -- Copper Harbor, MI

Camping w/ Adam, November

My Writing Studio

(currently reading a Van Gogh bio)

Friday Night in a Northern Town

one book on Zevon open and another on Van Gogh, because the wind chill is -13 and football season's over too, late news: high school hockey, house fire, more lake effect snow.

Well I soon fell in with thugs and thieves

and gamblers from the beach

And the devil himself sugggested an all-night game

But the night winds came along

Like some dark-eyed senorita's song

And blew my straight flush out across the waves

I've got a million dollar bill

And they can't change it

They won't let me leave until my tab is paid

So I might as well settle down yes

And buy the house another round

Send my mail to the Rosarita Beach Cafe

- WZ, "Rosarita Beach Cave"