The Try-Works

The longer I lived in that city the stronger became my hatred for the promiscuous swarm of foreign peoples which had begun to batten on that old nursery ground of German culture.

Adolf Hitler, from Hitler: A Study in Tyranny by Alan Bullock

People who imagine themselves to be self-made seldom enjoy examining the process of manufacture in detail.

Richard Russo, Empire Falls

I know I’ve posted about this before, but it seems to be a seasonal thing with me. See, we’ve had a lengthy spell of good weather around here (which should in itself explain the recent downturn in posting). All the signs of spring are stacking up. The birds are singing, the grass is greening, small animals are chattering outside my door. And, when springtime approaches, my thoughts naturally turn away from the internet to the most natural of springly diversions.

Drinking and driving.

I’m a firm believer in the regenerative power of drinking and driving. Not driving drunk, mind. That’s a shorter, shallower, more brutal second cousin to what I mean. I’m talking about spending a full day and night — or two — with a Budweiser in your lap and a cooler by your side, listening to country & western music on an AM station and letting the backroads just kind of unfurl in front of you. It helps if you’re driving a $500 Ford LTD with a firearm in the glove compartment, but it ain’t necessary.

It’s the only sure way to unwind the winter knots. To shake the blues from the bonebreaking mundanity of the day-to-day hustle. Let me tell you, it wipes the shit off and puts a glint back on your blade.

I’ll grant you that the practice has fallen somewhat out of favor of late. Some heavy-handed gang of angry mothers seem particularly pissed off, for instance. But, hell, everything worth doing has been outlawed at one time or another.

Anyway, someday I’m putting together an anthology of the best writing on the subject. Obviously, that would include William Kittredge’s staggering essay, “Drinking and Driving” in Owning It All. And the following, my favorite poem from Raymond Carver. (Which, yeah, I know, I’ve already posted about six times.)

Drinking While Driving - Raymond Carver

It’s August and I have not
Read a book in six months
except something called The Retreat from Moscow
by Caulaincourt
Nevertheless, I am happy
Riding in a car with my brother
and drinking from a pint of Old Crow.
We do not have any place in mind to go,
we are just driving.
If I closed my eyes for a minute
I would be lost, yet
I could gladly lie down and sleep forever
beside this road
My brother nudges me.
Any minute now, something will happen.

And rent Factotum.  Do it now.

Just finished watching it and I haven’t laughed that hard since, well, Barfly.

And since we’re on the subject:

Something For The Touts, The Nuns, The Grocery Clerks, And You — Charles Bukowski

we have everything and we have nothing
and some men do it in churches
and some men do it by tearing butterflies
in half
and some men do it in Palm Springs
laying it into butterblondes
with Cadillac souls
Cadillacs and butterflies
nothing and everything,
the face melting down to the last puff
in a cellar in Corpus Christi.
there’s something for the touts, the nuns,
the grocery clerks and you . . .
something at 8 a.m., something in the library
something in the river,
everything and nothing.
in the slaughterhouse it comes running along
the ceiling on a hook, and you swing it –
one
two
three
and then you’ve got it, $200 worth of dead
meat, its bones against your bones
something and nothing.
it’s always early enough to die and
it’s always too late,
and the drill of blood in the basin white
it tells you nothing at all
and the gravediggers playing poker over
5 a.m. coffee, waiting for the grass
to dismiss the frost . . .
they tell you nothing at all.

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