Viki Babbles

Just testing. Don’t get all excited, thinking I’ve gone and updated my blog with something interesting.

What a ridiculous title. Pompous. Kinda misleading, because it might make one believe that I’m going to write about how I have a bunch of faith in God.

Not so.

At least, I don’t think so. I have faith in something. I suppose some of us call it “God.” Some of us call it “The Universe” (I’ve been known to, on occasion, and will many times, during this post). Some choose “Goddess” or “Allah” or “Jehovah.”

But I don’t really have a need to put a name to it. I’m not an atheist. I do believe there is something. No idea what it is. Not really a mono-theist, though I think that there is really just one force that we all choose to call by our own preferred names. So maybe I am a mono-theist.

I hate labels.

I have a couple stories that maybe might illustrate where I’m coming from better than I’m able to via my usual babbling.

FAITH

My youngest brother, Anthony, started playing football when he was eight. He was really good. I loved watching him as he grew as a player and as a person.

He always said, “I will play Big 10 ball.” We always laughed (not right in his face, we turned away before covering our mouths and chuckling uncontrollably). I mean, white kid from the suburbs? Big 10? I think not.

But he believed it. He wore this Michigan hat for years. By the end of its life (he probably still has it), it was held together by our family’s favorite fix-it tool: electrical tape. It was sweat-stained and nasty. He played both offense and defense in high school and set records and all that good-ole American-football high-school stuff.

When he was a senior, the Hinsdale Red Devils made it pretty far in the playoffs. We played Chicago Vocational down on the South Side (and I don’t mean Oak Lawn, people. I mean the South Side). We showed up and there were Chicago cops lining the sidewalks, steering the white people to one side and the black people to the other. It was fucking nuts, and a story for another day, but I made myself comfortable on the cold metal bleachers and looked out over the brightly-lit nighttime field and felt my gut sink.

We were clearly going to get our asses kicked. And we did.

So, Anthony, apparently, was just kinda sittin’ around waiting for some Big 10 team to come knocking on his door. I was busy with college and having fun and wasn’t paying too much attention, but as family lore goes, he hadn’t bothered to really apply anywhere. Was just waiting to be picked up.

Of course, we all thought he was absolutely insane (we still do, we’re still right).

Mind you, he’s the youngest of four, and the previous three kids (myself included), declined going to the University of Illinois, our parents’ alma mater. I didn’t bother to apply, as my 27 ACT and 3.8 GPA left me out of the running back in the late ’80’s (thank GOD-haha!). My other brothers went to UW-Madison and UI. I went to Kansas, and then really laid it on thick by transferring to Columbia College (Dad: “What’s the name of their sports teams?” Me: “They don’t have any.” Dad: “And how much does this place cost?” Me: “Um…”)

So, one day in the beginning of August, I was working for our family company, and I picked up the phone to hear a man say “May I speak to Ken Julian, please?”

It was my job to ensure that no annoying sales calls got through to my father, so of course, I asked, “My I ask who’s calling?”

“Ron Turner.”

Say whaaaa? Ron Turner? Head coach of the University of Illinois football team? I nearly pissed my pants while I stumbled into my father’s office to tell him Ron fucking Turner was on the phone.

Two seconds later (probably longer), my dad popped his head out and instructed me to go grab Anthony out of the plant.

Long story short, kid was red-shirted at U of I. Still can’t get the look on his face out of my head–a combination of “I told you so” and “I will maintain my favorite-child status for the rest of eternity, suckers.”

The real point of this story is, however, not that he believed he would play Big 10 ball and his faith rewarded him. It is that one of the first games I went to see him, he stood on the sidelines next to the kid who’d played quarterback for CVS at that playoff game a year before, and had been scholarship-ed in and Anthony was six inches shorter and six inches narrower than that kid and I just thought “Oh, he’s going to get his ass kicked.” Even though I was blown away by how big he’d gotten, he was tiny compared to a freakin’ college freshman QUARTERBACK.

And that he stayed on the team. He went to practice every day, he encouraged his fellow players, he stuck it out out of some kind of crazy love of the game and in the end was rewarded (despite only having played, for just a few minutes, if that, in a couple of games over a four and a half year period) with a last-semester scholarship, for his hard work and dedication.

The Universe, God, whomever, paid him for his faith, and he paid it back.

That there is the key.

YOU WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF MONEY

I got that “fortune” on a Bazooka Joe comic many years ago. I’ve been damn close. I do silly things like leave dollars in random drawers just in case, but the fact is that I’ve never actually run out of money.

You can go ahead and accuse me of having it easier than others, but you’d be wrong. Because you can’t get a fortune like that on a Bazooka Joe comic and just expect to sit back and wait for the money train. You have to remain connected to reality. You still have to work your fucking ass off. However, when you get a fortune that says “You will never run out of money” on a Bazooka Joe comic, you get a little bit of freedom. But only if you have faith. Only if you believe (doesn’t that sound silly? Faith in a Bazooka Joe comic fortune? I know! I know!).

You get to choose what you do (mind you, people, you don’t REALLY need a Bazooka Joe comic fortune to have this choice–you already have it–you just have to choose it). So yeah. Choose what you do.  I have to remind myself about my ability to make this choice every single day. Sometimes I fail in a major way. Sometimes it’s a big win. Sometimes, it’s a long, slow-burning, angst-ridden, challenging win. Those are the best. (Hello, teachers.)

The Golden Rule

It’s the only thing I gleaned out of my Catholic upbringing (mostly comprised, at least towards the end, of sitting in a pew, feeling guilty whilst wishing that morning’s shower had successfully washed away my sins, waiting for Jesus to pop off that crucifix behind the altar and point at me and say “Sinner!”).

There’s a while Wikipedia page about the Golden Rule.

I like many of the versions from different faiths, but my own version is as follows:

Don’t be an asshole.

Well, there’s a little more to it than that.

I’m super fucking lucky in the friend department.

If you take a look at the Wikipedia page that I linked to above, a lot of it is really negative. Along the “don’t kill that fucker that killed your best friend” kind of stuff. I prefer to see it in a more positive light.

It’s more of an invitation, you know?

Confucius is close: ”Zi Gong asked, saying, “Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life?” The Master said, “Is not RECIPROCITY such a word?” – Confucius ^[18][19]

According to Wikipedia, the Qur’an says this: “That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind.”^[48]

I like that.

But really, Jesus, my favorite dirty hippy, went at the Golden Rule in the way that fits in best with my own beliefs, in a pro-active way.

Keep in mind that my perception of who Jesus was is fully and completely affected by Scorese’s Last Temptation of Christ, and Nikos Kazantzakis’ book. That of a man conflicted and exhausted and full of doubt and totally resistant but also, at the same time, full of faith.

It’s really about giving. Whatever I have that you need, I will give to you, whether you want it, or whether you know you need it, or whether you’re willing to accept it. And I expect nothing in return. Because the Universe, or God, or whatever it’s called, will somehow manage to provide for me whatever I want, or need or am either willing or unwilling to accept, in return.

That right there, I think, is it. I think that’s the point I’ve been trying to get at without knowing exactly what I was trying to say when I started.

I give so that I can receive. I receive, and am grateful for it, so that I can give.

That’s my religion. That’s what I have faith in. That’s what keeps me going.

Does any of this make sense? Probably not. I’d go back and read it and try to make it make sense, but that would be silly. I welcome your comments.

This afternoon, I went to pick up my son from school. I had my 5-year-old niece and 2-year-old nephew in tow. We hung out in front of the library, waiting for my son to emerge from his school across the street.

Once he had, we started walking down the sidewalk, surrounded by tweens hyped up with after-school, almost-spring-nice-day giddiness. But there was this weird moment. A gaggle of boys had slipped off the sidewalk onto the grass, all facing opposite of the direction I was headed. They were waiting for something, excited. It seems now, trying to put it all back together (so much happens in just a second!) that I heard/acknowledged the words “he’s gonna punch him” at the very same moment that I turned to see what they were looking at. Looking for.

I was holding a tiny hand in each of my own, when I turned my head around and saw that the crowd on the sidewalk had parted, and a boy stood, alone, his arms spread out to his sides, his mouth in a perfect O.

Then it became clear that blood was flowing. I handed the little ones off to my son and parked them to the side of the sidewalk and in an instant was at the boy’s side. By then, he’d made his way to the entrance of the library and had fallen to his knees, blood flowing, literally just flowing, from his nose.

I directed a kid to run inside the library for paper towels. A man walked by me and said “Does he need a doctor?” I replied, phone in hand, that I was going to call the bleeding boy’s mother.

Next thing I know, the kid on the paper-towel errand was emerging from the doors, no towels, but with the news that someone had called 9-1-1.

Really? 9-1-1? For a punch in the face and a bloody nose? Well, that’s neither here nor there. I guess.

By then, I was dialing the bleeding boy’s home phone and leaving a message. Then getting his mother’s cell phone number from him and dialing that. She was just down the block, waiting for him in her car.

Kids were swarming all over us. I yelled at the swarmers to keep moving. I rubbed the kid’s back and told him his mom was on her way. His nose was enormous and I kinda felt instinctively that pinching it would really fucking hurt him, so I didn’t do much but watch the blood flow, say stupid “comforting” stuff and rub his back. He probably wanted to kill me. But within a minute, a librarian came out with a box of kleenex, and someone else handed me a roll of paper towels, and I could hear the sirens coming from the Fire and Police Departments, just down the street.

And this poor kid was just hollering. “I’m okay! I’m okay!”

His mother came running down the sidewalk. I relinquished my spot. I vaguely remember asking the kid who had punched him, but once his mother and the police arrived (3 officers–really? necessary? no.), I slipped back, waved more kids along. Then walked down towards my son and niece and nephew.

I don’t know what happened, beyond a kid got punched in the face right after school. I don’t know if this was a bullying situation that moved to physical violence. I don’t know if this was the result of two kids who didn’t get along. I just don’t know.

I heard the gossipy talk on the way down the block towards my car. The kid who had punched him was in 7th grade, was supposed to be a freshman in high school. Some kids were claiming he’d been in military school. No idea if any of it was true.

My son, an eighth grader, was unusually silent.

Until we got into the car.

And then he said, as we drove down the block, “I want to go find that kid.” Meaning, the kid who did the punching.

Now here’s where I, as a MOM, stops to think.

I have long encouraged my children, as has their father, to stick up for anyone who is in trouble. I’ll be perfectly honest with you–I will stand behind my children if they end up getting in trouble for doing something that might be against school rules or even against the law, actually, if they were coming to the defense of someone who needed defending.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s our job as human beings. This, of course, from a 41-year-old woman who still harbors some guilt over having, most definitely, treated others badly during her growing-up years. But I learned from my mistakes (I hope), and I hope to pass that learnin’ on to my kids.

I want to talk about bullying, but I don’t know that this story I’ve recounted is the right jumping-off point.

Bullying is too huge. There are too many ways to bully.

When I was little–5 years old–I lived on a lovely, tree-lined street. My best friend Shara lived down the block, and between us lived (yes, literally) a mean-ass little red-haired kid. He’d see me, sometimes with my little brother, walking down the sidewalk to Shara’s house, and he’d come racing out of his house and down the front walk (it was tree-free right there–Dutch Elm disease had hit hard, and his front yard was a burning-hot wasteland of burning sunshine), with a 70’s bow-and-arrow “toy” in hand, and threaten to kill me/us if we continued down on “his” sidewalk.

That, as far as I knew for a long time, was a “bully.”

I don’t remember that kid’s name, but I’d love to hunt him down on facebook and extract guilt. At least an apology.

But for what, really?

I mean, here’s the thing. Here’s the real truth of the matter.

When my son, with his little cousins, the children of one of my three brothers, said “I want to go find that kid,” I, with my total inability to think before I speak (usually), said “You and me both.”

I don’t know if it’s because I was the oldest of four and the only girl. Many parts of me think like a boy. But mostly I just want to kick the asses of those who kick asses.

So, as I’m writing this, my daughter came home from her evening out. My son and I started to tell her the story of the bloody nose kid, and she’d heard about it. She’s a sophomore in high school.

And then this super-amazing thing happened.

My daughter hops on Facebook, and searches it out. She hunts down some messages being left about the situation, she gets concerned about what some kids are saying about how the bloody-nosed kid is posting. She reaches out. She wants to let this kid know it’s all gonna be okay.

And then I realized, right at that moment, that my kids know so much more than I know, and that they’re going to handle themselves in a way that will make me proud, and probably in a better way than I ever handled myself.

I never got to my point, here, did I? And I don’t even really know what my point was to begin with.

I just know I’m all wrapped up in this tonight. I can’t quite get my thoughts in order. I’m sad for this kid who had to huddle on his knees, bleeding, while a gazillion kids walked by looking at him, who had to endure the police and the ambulance, and his mom, and this goofy stranger who knelt beside him stupidly rubbing his back and stupidly telling him everything was going to be okay.

Boys and bloody noses aren’t what they used to be, are they? Or, are they? I don’t know. And there’s no way we can look at something like this as being just being a part of growing up, though that’s the way it used to be seen. I don’t know. I wish we could. The world is so much bigger, and so much smaller, all at the same time. I want to gather in the children I love and lock the doors and keep them safe. But I also know that would be doing them a disservice.

I just don’t know. Silly, huh? To be so rocked by a kid who got punched in the nose?

Anybody who knows me knows I’m a big Wilco fan. I’ve either forced you to listen to Wilco or I’ve gushed about Wilco or called you nasty names because you’re not a fan or you’ve never heard of them, or I’ve blown you off to go to a concert. Before Wilco, there was Uncle Tupelo. And when Uncle Tupelo split into pieces, there was Wilco (and Son Volt, and I liked them too, but Wilco had Jeff Tweedy).

That’s the common denominator here–Jeff Tweedy. I’m not going to sit here and write some lame-ass fan-girl history of Jeff Tweedy. I’m just here to talk about last Saturday night.

When I found out that I was going to be able to see Jeff Tweedy in what’s called a Living Room Show, I threw up on myself. I’m not making that up. I literally threw up on myself. The Living Room Shows are fundraisers. A bunch of people get together, pool their cash, and bid on a LRS. Then weeks and months of wrangling and figuring and schedule checking and all kinds of other bullshit happen. And then you find out that on July 24th, 2010, you’re going to be sitting in someone’s house on a folding chair, just a few feet away from Tweedy, listening to him play.

Plus, you get to request a song.

It took me forever to figure it out. My top pick was an Uncle Tupelo song called Flatness, off of No Depression. When I listen to that song now, it makes me kind of wistful and teary-eyed because I recall my youth, which happened sometime in the sixteenth century.

Flatness, Uncle Tupelo, Jeff Tweedy

Beer makes you weary
But you need something to get along
You stare at the flatness
Beside the dark home
They’ll not hear you whisper
This isn’t where it ends
Your hand holds the bottle
That has become your last and only friend
I’ve lost all hope
There’s hope for you
If not just in the possibility
Of a better next day
If not just in the simple fact
There’s no other way
You lie on that couch
And try to dream once more
But your only goal is to sleep
Until the news is over
And outside the leaves are all changing
But you drink to forget
Someone you once met
Stands blocking the bright orange sunset
I’ve lost all hope
There’s hope for you
If not just in the possibility
Of a better next day
If not just in the simple fact
There’s no other way
So open up those curtains
And drink up the daylight
Just by the brightness
Open your doors wide
‘Cause things don’t get better
But some people do
There’s darkness in this life
But the brighter side we also may view
There’s darkness in this life
But the brighter side we also may view

Hmm. No wonder I got all verklempt while he was playing it. It has even more resonance for me now than it did when I was young. Cripes.

I need a drink.

I didn’t really expect him to play it. It was a shot in the dark, throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks, wishful thinking. Which he also played. But he did. And when he was done he looked at me and said something about it being much faster on the record than he played it (much faster) and that he hadn’t played it in 16 years, 20 years.

Thanks, Jeff. Way to make me feel really fucking old.

Anyway. So, he plays for a few hours. Some guy asks that his request be dedicated to his girlfriend, and when the song was over, he got down on one knee and proposed to her. What? Yep. Great memory for them, and my sister-and-law and I were all wiping tears and shit (the couple was sitting right in front of us) but once it was over, it was like it never happened. Very strange.

What did he play? I knew you were going to ask that. A huge variety. I’ll update with the playlist once I have it. But that’s not really the important thing here. I mean, no. Of course that’s important. But I’m really just trying to tell you all about the experience of it. Plus, I kinda like keeping that to myself.

When you think about how you become a fan of a particular band or musician, or a style of music, it’s not really something you can put words to. Well, maybe you can. But I can’t. It’s a feeling, a sense you get from the music that it feels right and it sounds good, and the lyrics resonate with you on some level–the music and the words combine and it’s like whoever wrote them and whoever is singing them and playing the music knows just exactly how you feel and they went ahead and made it into a song for you because you yourself didn’t know otherwise how to express it.

I read in an interview with Tweedy once that the song from A Ghost is Born called At Least That’s What You Said is hard for him to play because once the singing part is over, the rest of the song builds into this crazy crescendo that reminds him of a panic attack.

And that’s weird, because I feel the same way about that song. It makes me feel, internally, exactly the way I feel when a panic attack hits (or hit, because I don’t have them much anymore, thank goodness). The way it builds and builds and my mind gets more crowded and my heart starts pumping.

But I used that song as a way of training myself down out of a panic attack. Because it ends, and so do panic attacks (though it’s hard to remember that when you’re in the midst of one).

I wish I’d mentioned all that to him when I sat next to him and told him how I got the big vinyl poster of the cover of last July’s Spin that featured him on the cover. But I babbled about that and there were 30 other people who wanted a turn and he had this look on his face like “Get this crazy bitch off this couch!”

So, it’s not just that I get the music. It’s that the music gets me.

In the Spin interview that is behind the cover of which I have a 3′x4′ vinyl replica of, which now bears his signature, Tweedy says, about Wilco (the song) from last years Wilco (the album):

“I always think of the song as meaning not just Wilco,” Tweedy tells me [not ME, the guy writing the story] at the band’s rehearsal space, the Loft. “I always think that song is saying, ‘Your records will love you, baby.’ The overall message is to find consolation through music. I think it’s sincere, but at the same time, it’s meant to be a little bit funny.”

And yes, it’s funny. But yeah, my records love me. If they didn’t, I’d have to rely solely on books. Jesus. What a life that would be.

So thank you, Jeff Tweedy, for giving me and the other people in that basement last Saturday an amazing experience, and for sharing your time and energy with us. And for signing my poster and for listening to me babble about whatever it was I babbled about and for taking a picture with me.

You know those stick figure family stickers that people stick on the back of their cars? They’re stupid.

So a friend and I started a website: Your Stickers Are Stupid. We make post pictures of the stupid stickers we see and we make fun of them. We’re just getting started. Visit us and help us poke fun.

just testing. nothing to see here. except maybe a pic of a kitty cat.

At least I hope so. At least one post per week until I can get up and running with this again. Not that anyone cares. I’m sure I lost all my regular readers with my disappearing act.

Looks like I’m going to have to do a little cleaning up around here. Lots of dead links in the sidebar, lots of new stuff to add. Good thing it’s way too damn hot to go outside. Like, dangerous hot. Like, get to a cooling center if your air conditioning is broken hot. Like, the dogs don’t even want to go outside hot.

And I haven’t even looked at it except to approve some comments in a year. And before that, it had been six months.

I’m quite sure the only people who land here have either searched for the phrase “The Best Nachos Ever” or “Hey Everybody I’m Looking at Gay Porn,” but just in case…

My last year or two have been absolutely insane. I’ve moved into a new house, I’m teaching fiction writing at Columbia College, I write a column for my local paper, and I’m slugging through being a poor artist (I DO NOT LIKE IT) trying to finish my thesis/novel.

Right at this very moment, I’m listening to the radio and killing time until I have to take my 1 1/2 year old Border Collie to his Agility class, and also waiting for a promised gigantic, dangerous and horrible blizzard. We were warned to stock up on supplies. I bought a couple of pot pies, a box of hair dye, and a bottle of vodka.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ll resurrect this puppy. I’ve been swearing to myself that I’d set up my website (victoriagonia.com, don’t bother, there’s nothing there right now) and blog on a regular basis. I’ve also been swearing to myself that I’d clean out my closet, but I still have jeans in there from the mid 90’s, so don’t hold your breath.

Yes, I know it has been nearly six months since I’ve posted to my blog. I am sorry. And this isn’t even so much a post as a test of a blogging app on my iPhone. If it works, you may well be hearing from me more often in the future.