Wow I’m writing less than 24 hours after my last post. I haven’t done that in a long time. Writing is good for me so when the muse strikes I’ll write. Can you tell I had therapy today? It was a bit frustrating. Our sessions have been cut to 30 minutes from 45. If you’ve spoken with me you know that I always have more than 30 minutes of material. I speak very fast, but I have even more to say. My mouth is the firehose and my brain a high-pressure hydrant. After about 20 minutes, I referred to the story of my first paralysis from anxiety. Turns out I never told her that story. I had assumed that I had. I had told my last two therapists. She of course wanted to delve into it, but we didn’t have time. Now we have to remember to start our next session there. I hope I don’t have a rough time this week, so I won’t have new issues to discuss.
Yesterday’s highlight was speaking to Coco for the first time since the lockdown. She’d been ill and I waited till she was feeling better to call. I know when I’m sick I don’t want to talk to anyone. I want to be a lump that drifts in and out of sleep. There is a lot to be said for living in the land of the lotus eaters when you’re ill. I’m not implying that she or I took drugs. If you’ve had an energy draining fever you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you get one don’t fight it. Just lay there and cycle between sleep and drowsy. Your body will thank you for it. I called to check up on Coco, but the result was that I feel better. Despite being tired she was still very Coco and that’s a good thing. It was an infusion of light and positivity. I can’t wait for the post-COVID-19 party and the post-COVID-19 hugs.
Today’s phone call was with New York Carey aka bad Carey. It had to be cut short as he was on a bus and I lost him in the Midtown Tunnel. How come the Midtown Tunnel hasn’t been renamed to honor someone. So many of the other crossings have, there’s the Hugh Carey Tunnel, Ed Koch Bridge, and RFK bridge, formerly the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, Queensborough Bridge aka 59th Street Bridge, and Triborough Bridge, respectively. We talked about historical inaccuracy in Disney’s The Little Mermaid. It was something that would only bother me; Eric’s ship is a square-rigger, those went out in the late 16th century, yet there was an 18th century pocket watch. Yes, I know that’s a ridiculous quibble. It also bothered me that Sebastian describes humans as fish-eaters, like that’s a bad thing. What do people think fish eat? For the most part they eat other fish and marine invertebrates. Most plant base of the marine food net is mainly microscopic algae. Anything you can see most likely eats something else you can see until you get to the level of things you can only see with difficulty. That’s all for thinking way too much about a Disney cartoon.
I have to write about Oliver Steck Presents the Squirrel Show. Ollie is a musician that I met as Slaid Cleaves’ sideman. He played the usual folk sideman instruments, guitar, accordion, and trumpet. Good Carey and I decided that he was the coolest person on earth and became Oliver’s Army. We even made t-shirts. We went to see him and Slaid at Baldwin Station in Sykesville Maryland. Rod Picott opened. It was our first time meeting Rod. Rod said to Slaid, “You’ve really made it, even your sideman has groupies.” So, what makes Ollie the coolest person on earth? The guitar, accordion, trumpet combination is the most standard issue thing about him. The Squirrel Show is pure Dada. He streams it from his garage. He wears a pink bunny suit. Yes, it’s the squirrel not bunny show. Get that linear thinking out of your head. He plays the accordion in the shows as that the most Dada instrument though I heard a kazoo before the show started and we were looking at the title page. It is one hour of Ollie vamping and playing weird songs, with one serious song. He writes some of them on the spot. He responds to the comment and uses them as material to riff off of. If Andy Kaufman and Uncle Floyd collaborated on a show and turned the weirdness up to 11 it would be the Squirrel show. There’s a thin like between genius and insanity and Ollie erases it. There are interviews with puppets. There are neighbors standing 6-feet apart in his driveway. There’s a show and tell of things on the shelves of his garage. At my end there is laughing out loud. You can watch the show at Oliver’s personal profile on Facebook, Oliver Steck. Gary saw me post a link to the show with the description, “And now a man in a pink bunny suit playing accordion.” In a comment he told how he met Oliver; “I was at Kerrville when he started the Great Tomato War between Camp Stupid and Camp Cuisine back in the mid-90s.” That should be enough that you should want to watch with me next week. The next one is on April 30th at 7:30 CDT. As David Susskind once said when announcing a really weird segment, “I dare you to turn off the TV.” I didn’t turn off Susskind and you should turn into The Squirrel Show on Thursday.
Wise Madness 