Fatale Abstraction

Today is gloriously rainy and glum. My favorite weather. Exceedingly rare are my headaches, and only then the day after drink, but I haven't had a thimble full in over a week and today I feel like a pig shat in my head. No matter--there is no keeping me indoors when the firmament bursts forth so. I hopped in my pickup truck and wended onto a rain-slicked freeway by downtown and northward on errands, the very tallest buildings on my left swallowed up in mists. I flipped on my radio and nothing could have been more perfect to hear than Time from Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. That sound is mournfully lovely, like the forced slow cadence of marching leaden feet through treacle... I am thinking of Spalding Gray, and how he was reported missing by his wife on Saturday. At 21 I saw Swimming to Cambodia, and I marveled at his raw and bristling honesty. So very much of what is served up as entertainment is contrived and weakly conceived, that when someone reaches deep within themselves and says "here it is: this is me and this is why I'm fucked up and although it's tragic, isn't some of it hilarious?," well I just find that deeply stirring and it makes me feel less alone. Life has no easy answers, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't question. Here's to you, Spalding.