Melon Collie And The Infinite Sadness
I once had a friend of mine – we’ll call him Phil – tell me about this recurring dream he had about the Washington Senators. It was a weird dream on a couple of levels; one being Phil wasn’t really much of a baseball fan at all, so why would he be dreaming of the long-defunct Washington Senators, of all things?
It’s the last ride
Our little game is over
Actually, Phil said he had his dream from the point of view of a pigeon. That’s right. He was a pigeon in his dream, from Washington, D.C., and he liked to hang out at RFK Stadium when the Senators would play. He liked all the people, and the movement and color and action. And he liked all the food scraps they left behind.
He would wheel in and out among the rafters of the grandstand, and watch the game and the people and look for food. He said he was happy in his dream, as free as a bird. But then he began to notice the crowds at the games were getting smaller, and less friendly. There seemed to be an almost palpable sense of melancholy, even dread, in the air. He would fly around under the upper deck, and he could feel the sadness, wafting up. And then it turned out some a-hole bought the team, ran it into the ground, and then after the 1971 season moved it to some podunk town down in Texas.
It’s the last ride
It’s time to take you home
Phil’s dream ended at that point. He doesn’t know if he just died after that, or was reduced to begging bread crumbs in a square somewhere. He said he thought what happened was the pigeon in his dream died of sadness when the Senators moved, and its soul transmorgified into Phil, just as the latter was surfing down his mom’s birth canal on the way to his very first birthday. And Phil said that having a soul that was part pigeon was why he kept having that dream.
I think we might have been high when Phil told me about his pigeon dream. Back then I didn’t really question things very much. I just went with the flow. It certainly would’ve seemed silly, in the context of the telling, to call bullshit on him at the time. I think all I said was, “Wow. Pretty freaky, man.” And the conversation moved on.
And we can’t cry ‘cause we seen it coming
No use running, take it slower
As for Phil, he’s dead now. He was shot through the head, accidentally, by another friend of ours who was playing with a pistol he didn’t know was loaded at the time. The two of them had been sitting around Phil’s garage, getting stupid drunk. This was about 15 years ago. I had been married for awhile by then, had my first kid, and I was pretty much past that sort of everyday mindless craziness in my life; but Phil wasn’t, quite.
Anyway, he is probably the closest friend I ever had to get killed like that. I remember being messed up about it at the time. But not for long. We had always lived by such a devil-may-care, laissez-faire code back all those years we hung out together, it would have seemed hypocritical for me to go on too long about the senselessness of his death. Instead, I thought about stuff like his pigeon dreams. And somewhere in there, it occurred to me. . . Phil had said the pigeon’s soul transmorgified into him from RFK, in 1971 (the last year the Senators were in Washington), just as he was being born. Except Phil was born in, like, 1961 or something. So when that pigeon supposedly merged with his soul, he was already, like, ten years old.
Wow. Pretty freaky, man.
********
And the road rolls around
And turns through the town
I don't dwell much on stories of past loves, lost loves, etc. And rightly so. That kind of thing tends to be like self-flagellation, I guess you’d call it; plus, no one else is interested in hearing it, anyway. But. . . well. . . I’ve just this one. . .
This is from back when I was 15 or 16 years old. High school. This cute girl fell in love with me, and I with her, and it was the real thing. Back then I was still pretty new to the intricacies of romance and all that, and I must say I just loved her without any reservation. I loved her naívely. I knew bad stuff could happen, but I didn’t think at all that anything bad would happen, so I never held back. I just showered this girl with my love and affection (and she did me) for a long while.
The depression drips down
And glazes the ground
At that age, one tends to think the first love might be the last one, too. The only one. I think I believed that for a little while. I was in no way prepared for the day my girlfriend sat me down and let me know, in the gentlest terms she could come up with, that she felt like it was time for her to be moving on.
I wanted to be devastated about it. I felt like what had come before would not have meant as much if I wasn’t. So I was, a little bit. But not nearly as much as I would have expected. After a few weeks, a month maybe, I pretty much shook it off, and went on. There was a part of me I didn’t even know was there beforehand, telling me of course I was shocked by her wanting to break up, because I had chosen not to think about that possibility at all. I had loved her unequivocally; and sure, I was hurt and embarrassed for awhile after she dumped me, but that was nothing compared to a year-and-a-half of loving her all day, every day, joyfully, without any reservation. A small price to pay.
And I have always tried to love that same way, ever since.
Horizons east and skylines west
The moon, the sun, and all the rest
Funny, though. The only thing I really remember clearly from that day was what she said to me as she smiled at me, ruefully, while sticking the knife through my heart. She said, “It’s all over, baby. Just let it go. I’m gone.”
The loving son, the faithful wife
The burnt out wreck of a poor man’s life
The father, son, and holy ghost
They all turned away love when they needed it most
It’s the last ride
Our little game is over
Actually, Phil said he had his dream from the point of view of a pigeon. That’s right. He was a pigeon in his dream, from Washington, D.C., and he liked to hang out at RFK Stadium when the Senators would play. He liked all the people, and the movement and color and action. And he liked all the food scraps they left behind.
He would wheel in and out among the rafters of the grandstand, and watch the game and the people and look for food. He said he was happy in his dream, as free as a bird. But then he began to notice the crowds at the games were getting smaller, and less friendly. There seemed to be an almost palpable sense of melancholy, even dread, in the air. He would fly around under the upper deck, and he could feel the sadness, wafting up. And then it turned out some a-hole bought the team, ran it into the ground, and then after the 1971 season moved it to some podunk town down in Texas.
It’s the last ride
It’s time to take you home
Phil’s dream ended at that point. He doesn’t know if he just died after that, or was reduced to begging bread crumbs in a square somewhere. He said he thought what happened was the pigeon in his dream died of sadness when the Senators moved, and its soul transmorgified into Phil, just as the latter was surfing down his mom’s birth canal on the way to his very first birthday. And Phil said that having a soul that was part pigeon was why he kept having that dream.
I think we might have been high when Phil told me about his pigeon dream. Back then I didn’t really question things very much. I just went with the flow. It certainly would’ve seemed silly, in the context of the telling, to call bullshit on him at the time. I think all I said was, “Wow. Pretty freaky, man.” And the conversation moved on.
And we can’t cry ‘cause we seen it coming
No use running, take it slower
As for Phil, he’s dead now. He was shot through the head, accidentally, by another friend of ours who was playing with a pistol he didn’t know was loaded at the time. The two of them had been sitting around Phil’s garage, getting stupid drunk. This was about 15 years ago. I had been married for awhile by then, had my first kid, and I was pretty much past that sort of everyday mindless craziness in my life; but Phil wasn’t, quite.
Anyway, he is probably the closest friend I ever had to get killed like that. I remember being messed up about it at the time. But not for long. We had always lived by such a devil-may-care, laissez-faire code back all those years we hung out together, it would have seemed hypocritical for me to go on too long about the senselessness of his death. Instead, I thought about stuff like his pigeon dreams. And somewhere in there, it occurred to me. . . Phil had said the pigeon’s soul transmorgified into him from RFK, in 1971 (the last year the Senators were in Washington), just as he was being born. Except Phil was born in, like, 1961 or something. So when that pigeon supposedly merged with his soul, he was already, like, ten years old.
Wow. Pretty freaky, man.
********
And the road rolls around
And turns through the town
I don't dwell much on stories of past loves, lost loves, etc. And rightly so. That kind of thing tends to be like self-flagellation, I guess you’d call it; plus, no one else is interested in hearing it, anyway. But. . . well. . . I’ve just this one. . .
This is from back when I was 15 or 16 years old. High school. This cute girl fell in love with me, and I with her, and it was the real thing. Back then I was still pretty new to the intricacies of romance and all that, and I must say I just loved her without any reservation. I loved her naívely. I knew bad stuff could happen, but I didn’t think at all that anything bad would happen, so I never held back. I just showered this girl with my love and affection (and she did me) for a long while.
The depression drips down
And glazes the ground
At that age, one tends to think the first love might be the last one, too. The only one. I think I believed that for a little while. I was in no way prepared for the day my girlfriend sat me down and let me know, in the gentlest terms she could come up with, that she felt like it was time for her to be moving on.
I wanted to be devastated about it. I felt like what had come before would not have meant as much if I wasn’t. So I was, a little bit. But not nearly as much as I would have expected. After a few weeks, a month maybe, I pretty much shook it off, and went on. There was a part of me I didn’t even know was there beforehand, telling me of course I was shocked by her wanting to break up, because I had chosen not to think about that possibility at all. I had loved her unequivocally; and sure, I was hurt and embarrassed for awhile after she dumped me, but that was nothing compared to a year-and-a-half of loving her all day, every day, joyfully, without any reservation. A small price to pay.
And I have always tried to love that same way, ever since.
Horizons east and skylines west
The moon, the sun, and all the rest
Funny, though. The only thing I really remember clearly from that day was what she said to me as she smiled at me, ruefully, while sticking the knife through my heart. She said, “It’s all over, baby. Just let it go. I’m gone.”
The loving son, the faithful wife
The burnt out wreck of a poor man’s life
The father, son, and holy ghost
They all turned away love when they needed it most
-- Todd Rundgren, The Last Ride
*****
1 comment:
I'm so glad you're posting more often. You're a great writer.
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