No Passion in Denver
Headphones at the dinner table and a relationship without any orgasms.
Previous Post: Stained Wings
Can't stand up on my feet in the city
Got to get back to the real nitty-gritty
Yes, sir, no, sir
Don't come close to my
Home sweet home
I’m in the same Denver Airport as last year when I wrote what would turn out to be one of the more incoherent pieces on Souled Idea: Mountain Tears
Visited friends to stumble into Red Rocks, natural springs, high altitude debauchery. That was June 2022. Barely a year ago. A different city. Different loves. Different idea of who I am. I remember being on the phone talking to a friend about some of my worries. Things that I was biting my nails over - gripping at the edges of the seat because x and y and z.
I remember the face of the girl sitting beside of me on the flight last year while I was sweating out coffee and ambition and I wrote a short poem for her called Denver Girl because - before we even spoke - she looked like Denver in woman form. Straight dark hair. Corduroy. Canvas bag with patches. National Park Hoodie. Some girls look like the Earth. Not the air or wind or fire but the Earth. They wear earth hues, their heart rate is low and often they have freckles. She introduced herself and said, “I’m moving here from Carolina. Not yet. Just seeing some friends on this trip but in a few months.” I remember how I smiled. One side of the lips pulled up. I exhaled. A soft laugh. “Going from a great spot to a good one.” And I told her I was here for concerts and camping and that my friends were a wild time so we exchanged numbers and we never got together because life for Winston in strange cities is like Dean Moriarty across the U.S.
That’s when I was operating at a higher level of both creativity and solitude. That summer, leaking from spring, was a time that I was impossible to reach. I didn’t get home until 7 am every night. I started drinking more. I spend days and nights at punk and jazz bars. I turned into my role models and The Life swallowed me like a sweet treat but I never complained because I loved being digested in the stomach of the beast.
This time. Different. In the Denver Steakhouse. I’m also only passing through. You know this. Los Angelos destination. Lost Angels. I’m almost done designing and editing limited print of Season One physical. There’s inspiration here.
In the steakhouse and here’s what’s going on. I’m alone. My phone is almost dead so I pull out my computer to charge it. I try to edit some manuscript but Google Docs has denied me access. I don’t want to do it bad enough so I give up… so it goes… Now I’m looking at leather. There’s a guy in L.A. I’m visiting in regards to Leather and his last name rhymes with “yeee” - if you understand.
I soon find the leather website pointless because if I can’t touch it - I’m not buying it so I realize I’m not doing much except scrolling and I slide my computer away. Life now. Like the ancients.
I’ll elaborate one thing. It’s difficult to write about writing. It takes away all the magic that’s involved but many readers, messages, emails mention you wanting to write. Or something. [Do you really want this life?] There’s tequila in my orange juice and trouble in my head. The advice: shut off everything but your 5 senses. A master of this was Kerouac. Examine: On The Road or Dharma Bums for prime example of observatory writing.
You can write yourself as the main character but you must listen and pay attention to everyone else as if they are.
Everyone experiences. Simple. A fact. Except non cognizant NPCs. Most of us see - hear - feel the world around. The better you are about -grabbing- what you experience and -articulating- it in a unique way, the better of any type of artist you’ll be.
Enough of that. Do you see? Only a few sentences of explaining and I feel like a 4th grade math teacher who watches lesbian porn on Fridays for fun.
I’m in Denver! Paying Attention. There’s a Blue Moon in front of me with an orange peel that’s been mutilated past recognition. I’m waiting on a prime rib and ‘white cheddar mashed potatoes.’ Right beside of me is a couple. I assume. A man and woman. I haven’t made eye contact with the woman because she’s sitting exactly beside me. Thus, a hard look would be so obvious that I’d have to either fake a smile of introduction or turn away like a stone cold weirdo and the latter option would disrupt the natural flow of the experience. It would add too much volume. She may feel uncomfortable and want to move. This is a good approach when things are boring but tonight at dinner I see no needs to add gasoline.
The Man. 225 pounds. 50 ish. Forearms the size of my torso. A loose T shirt. Tommy Bahama, or Guy Harvey or something of this nature. Long khaki shorts and tan flip flops. Her. I don’t know much. I stop paying much attention. They’re beside of me and I know this. There’s no conversation. I see her arms outstretched across the small table holding her phone like a person from a few generations ago: Using her index fingers to scroll.
All of a sudden there’s a commotion. He bends backwards towards his bag. Brings it to his lap. Unzips with attitude. Sticks a determined arm in and pulls out a handful of stringing white headphones. Then a quick look up. I can’t see her but he seems to be making eye contact.
“What?” He says this with a lot of hostility.
“Really?” Her tone matches his.
“What do you mean?” He’s feigning stupid and I see through it and so does she.
“You know what I mean. Headphones really? We’re about to eat.” She’s blunt. Her voice does inflect up though. There’s some hold back. Love, maybe.
“You’ve been on your phone this whole time.” There’s a weird amount of silence as he fumbles around the port to plug his headphones in. “I’m not doing anything you aren’t doing.”
She doesn’t respond even though he looks at her longingly and I’m so tempted to look at her face but I catch myself, thinking, this is the worst time to do that. After her silence he puts in his headphones, turns his phone sideways and begins watching something that I can’t see. She stays on her phone. There’s no more conversation until the waitress comes back. He takes one earbud out, looks at his partner, decides on some sort of salad to split, orders it, goes back to his video.
There’s a salad that’s brought. Two forks go into it. Not at the same time. This isn’t hands-in-the-popcorn movie love. This is death of passion. The salads gone. His headphones aren’t. Her disappointment isn’t. My blue moon is gone. My face will be inflamed in 8 minutes. The white pill is that their life isn’t mine. It isn’t yours. And, above all else, they can revert back to Love as well. Turn your woman on, turn your man on. Excitement is yours to create. There’s always a dark haired young man sitting at the table next to you…watching to see if you’re being passionate enough and tonight, in Denver, he saw no passion outside his own eyelids.
