Truesday: The Big Rug - For Sweeping, Pulling
*The views expressed in Truesday are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole. Thank heavens.* -The Editors
So I’ve been off the drunk for a couple of weeks now, trying to get some remodeling done. On my face. No, on my crib. And in the process of helping the caterpillar that is my crib bust out of its cacoon and become the beautiful dirt moth it’s always meant to become, I’ve acquired quite a bit of debris. Loads.
Literally.
Loads.
I suppose that’s what happens when one makes efforts to improve things. Skins get shed. Extra baggage gets the boot. Old and ill-fitting shells get dropped off at the curb. And lots of garbage is produced in the process.
And in my current case, that means one thing: the city/county dump.
Landfills are strange places, pseudo-philosophically speaking. It’s where good ideas go to finally become bad (or methane). It’s the final rejection. It’s the moment where the owner finally says to the broken toaster that’s been wasting away on the workbench for two years: look toaster, you’re really just a piece of shit that I’ve been keeping around because I think I can actually mend, repair, or cure something in my life. But it’s simply not true, and you’re never going to work again. Not as a toaster, anyway. But once you’re in that landfill you’ll have the chance to leech harmful chemicals into my drinking water and maybe satisfy your need to avenge my laziness.
It’s a big hole wherein to retire products long bereft of use. Where did Eight Tracks, Beta, and Pauly Shore’s career go? The landfill. Kickin’ it with seagulls and mountains of filthy baby diapers.
We should be made able to deliver more than just objects to a landfill, with the same abandoning intent. Like felonious mistakes and cringing memories.
I’ll tell you what I’d like to get rid of. It’s a relatively short list, considering the length of coattails worn by the never-unemployed specter of regret.
PREFERRED LANDFILL MOMENT ONE
One time my fourth grade class went outside into the Houston spring heat to read about Ichabod Crane and his Sleepy Hollow adventures. I don’t know why my teacher wanted us to be outside with loads of distractions to read that story, and it wasn’t even close to Halloween. But the moment I’d like to trash was when an apparently voluminous bird shat down from the heavens onto my head, shoulder, and mouth. That’s right, the mouth.
Tasted like vinegar.
Actually, that was pretty awesome. But for the sake of my super-embarrassed fourth-grade self, I’d like to go ahead and dump that whole scenario.
PREFERRED LANDFILL MOMENT TWO
A few years back I was in some make-shift art gallery on Congress (no longer there) during an evening-shift show for local artists. The joint was full of fascinating oil works and hand-made sculpture.
And some photography that was more shift than make.
I’m setting aside the photography because, well, I wasn’t particularly impressed with it. And I’ll admit that with photography, I rarely am. I’m a dick when it comes to merely capturing random or fleeting images, I guess. Not that I don’t believe some people “have the eye”, because some do, so that’s not my issue. My issue is: so what? Picking shit isn’t art. It’s a craft. Like framing. Or ranching. Or throwing darts.
Moving on.
So there I was, admiring the actual-art and mentally pissing all over the snapshots that were brazenly tacked up next to it. Luckily, there was free Lone Star to drown my lack of artistic sensibility. When I went over to partake in said refreshment, this was the gist of the conversation I had with the pony-tailed guy with oval reading glasses who was doing the serving.
Me: “Hey there, two Lone Stars please.”
Bespeckled Ponytail Man: “Both for you?”
Me: “I’m hoping.”
BPM: “Sure. Enjoying the art?”
Me: “Yeah, actually. That one ocean scene over there, the hurricane one with the boat tossing in the throes of explosive nature, the lightening flash, the blowing breaks of the waves. I really like that one.”
BPM: “Yeah? I like that one too. Pretty deep. What about the rest of it?”
Me: “Well, since you’re asking, what the fuck is up with the photography at the beginning of the set? It’s just pictures of trees. And I know those trees. One’s off Duval and two others are on the UT campus. Somebody just took pictures of shit, blew up the print, and framed it at Hobby Lobby like ‘welcome to my art’. Obnoxious.”
BPM: “Seriously?”
Me: “Seriously. They’ve got some balls to put that Romper Room shit up next to that hyper-emotional, churning seas painting.”
BPM: “That was me.”
Me: “The boat painting? That was you?”
BPM: “No. The trees.”
Me: …
BPM: “You still want to voice your opinion? I’m not stopping you. It’s your right.”
Me: “You did that? Snap shots of trees that you didn’t plant in places you don’t own?”
BPM: “Yes.”
Me: …
BPM: [finally placing two tall boys on table, growing line behind me grumbles audibly]
Me: [quickly snagging both tall boys] “What the fuck were you thinking?”
Dude then went off on some broken tirade about ‘inverted composition’, ‘crossed color palettes’ and a whole slew of other ‘breaking the paradigm of the rule of threes’ or something equally over-my-head but still bankrupt-sounding. I stopped listening after the second time he readjusted his ponytail. Fucking trees.
To the landfill.
I wish I could take back that moment, say nothing to the guy about his precious arbor photos, and just not tip.
PREFERRED LANDFILL MOMENT THREE
About ten years back, I was ordering a scoop of Sweet Cream ice cream with strawberries mashed within, at the Amy’s Ice Cream in the Arboretum with my ex-girlfriend. She was a feisty bird who LOVED to squabble in public. You know the type. “Why you always gotta get strawberries, huh? What are you, gay? Plus you know I’m allergic, you dick.”
There’s a photo booth in just about every Amy’s, and this one was steady busy with teens cramming five people in there on laps, showing off their braces and whatnot. So, with cone in hand, my lady and I got in line, got in the booth, and proceeded to have the most awesome fist fight ever recorded on four stills. I don’t remember the cause, I only remember the aftermath:
She had to have a piece of her left knee used in the reconstruction of her nose.
I’m like a Thai boxer in tight spaces.
And just before I completely blacked out from severe blunt force trauma (her hams against my head), Sweet Cream and strawberries all over everything, I noticed that my torn left ear had fallen into my lap.
That’s right. She beat my face until my goddamn ear fell off.
We were so in love.
Yes, I just made that last moment up. It just rolled right out of my imagination like that. But if it had happened, I would seriously want to drop that memory off in a landfill somewhere. But I’d keep the photos. You know, for posterity.
