The Belmont Street Octet are playing
and I actually am in the bar in the evening—actually I came here
last Sunday night—they play every Sunday. I've heard them from the
porch, but in the bar they're really excellent—and the most motley
bunch you'll ever see. Actually, if you were to see a more motley
bunch anywhere, it would be here. You could call this place the
Motley Hurst, or something. Maybe I will. It just struck me, it's
kind of like what Black Sparrow is to book publishing. They seem like
a real good comparison in some weird way. (Though I can't really say
what Black Sparrow is up to these days.)
In John Cassavetes' movie Love
Streams, Gena Rowlands says something about love, that she thinks
love is in a continuous stream. I don't remember it exactly, but I'm
kind of interested in thinking about that concept, so I should go and
re-watch the movie and try to make something out of it. Anyway, until
I do, I'll have to take the risk of muddling it all up and just say
that comes close to how I've been feeling lately. I mean, just the
expression itself—“Love is one continuous stream”—even if I'm
misquoting, is fairly intriguing as a concept. And it comes close to
how I've been feeling lately. It's a similar concept as in my song,
“Open Your Heart”—and now I'm quoting myself, so I'm much more
comfortable about it. The basic idea is, open your heart and people
come right in—everyone comes right in. So it's a bit of a
warning—that you have to be careful when you open your heart to
anyone, because then it becomes vulnerable to everyone and
everything. That can be, and hopefully is, a good thing, but it's
also dangerous. It's living dangerously, on an emotionally heightened
level, and that's what Cassavetes is all about. It's also to some
extent what Heather's movie is about. It's called “What You Wish
For,” and it's interesting, when I wrote an intro to “Open Your
Heart” it had the line, “Be careful what you wish for,” which I
wrote before she named the movie, but was not aware of it. It's an
old saying, and old concept, but the most notable use of it as a
quote I can recall is in Willy Wonka—memorable because it's
said by Gene Wilder, but hell, now I can't remember the
context!
Moving along, this brings me to the
very subject of being in love with two people at the same time, which
seems to have been a theme in my life up to this point; every time
I've fallen in love with someone, there's been another kind of
mirror-image falling in love. No, that's not it. There's another
“crush” to deal with, even though I don't use that word anymore.
I mean, it's just probably a neurotic thing—kind of about the fear
of really falling in love with someone. It's kind of really not fair
to the people who I'm seemingly just using—though, you know, they
don't know I'm in love with them. Well, they might. But anyway, it's
neurotic, sure, but also, it's maybe a product of opening my heart to
someone else, and it's inevitable, unavoidable, at least with me.
Right now I'm sitting at the bar almost
right next to the girl at the bar, who I will soon think of a name
for, and I am close enough to reach over and touch her. It's between
sets, and they're playing recorded music. It's Elton John singing
“Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting,” one of the really sexy
songs from my childhood, a song that really makes me feel like I
could just spontaneously kiss someone. It's really an intense moment
right here as I listen to this. What the hell am I doing? Just a few
hours earlier, I was laying on a prop bed with a lot of prop clothes
and mess, a few inches from Jordy, close enough that I could roll
over and put my arm around her. Of course I never would, never could,
never will, but just laying there, in maybe what there is no more of
an intense and romantic setting, well, it's just the best really good
I've felt in about the last few months at least. All this love and
film and art makes me feel all the more still in love with Heather,
which is my way of having a broken heart, which I do, but that's not
the reason my heart is open. It's open because I let it be, but it
helps that it is helped open by Heather's friendship and love, and
Jordy's intense luminosity, and the smile of this girl at the bar,
who sits like a... I don't know what... _______ (fill in later)—night
after night, over here at the bar, making my life rich and warm in
the present, with no future. But what the hell.
No comments:
Post a Comment