The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing

The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing

Katie and I spent most of the day at Bill's. His friend (uber-engineer) Brian came over with his fabulous wife and two super-cool sons, and Katie got to play with a couple very cool little boys while the adults made vegeterian lunch items. My own speciality was made of two cans of beans with onions, black pepper, a Moroccan hot sauce of Bill's (which kicked ASS) and a bit of Hungarian hot paprika. I also threw some mushrooms into olive oil, safflower oil, and vinegar with black pepper. but I think I ate all that myself. It's nice to cook for others sometimes. I don't get to do it often anymore. Brian fried some eggplant with curry powder, which made my weenus hard. And he played me a bit of David Gilmour's new solo album. which also induced some serious woodness. I need to cook eggplant and crank up former Floyd members myself sometime. Yum.

Did the drive to Cincy on three hours sleep listening to You Are What You Is, easily one of my four or five favorite Zappa albums. It's a goddamn powerhouse motherfuck of a vocal extravaganza, probably the most totally sing-along--ish thing he ever did. The whole section from Society Pages to Conehead is one of my very favorite things in the universe. Killer vocals with killer lyrics, and goddamn if those bass grooves don't make me totally gay for Scott Thunes.

I sang along to the whole goddamn thing. Well, except for the few minutes I broke down crying wishing Frank was still here. That album sets off things in my neurocenters that makes me far more sentimental and mushy for Frank's memory than he'd ever approve of himself. but goddamn it, he literally changed my life and I owe a LOT to him and his music. It makes me happy in ways that almost nothing else can.

Sometimes I wonder what he'd have to say if he were still here today, seeing the SHIT that goes on in Bush's America. But I already know the answer, he wrote it over 25 years ago:

You can’t run a country by a book of religion
Not by a heap or a lump or a smidgeon
Of foolish rules of ancient date
Designed to make you all feel great
While you fold, spindle and mutilate
Those unbelievers from a neighboring state

His music still touches me in a very special place, a place almost unknown in a freeze-dried American Idol environment. Damn you Frank, you left us too soon.

I had to talk to Katie for a while today, to express my feelings on this one year anniversary of me leaving home. I tried to make it as short and uncomplicated as possible. Seeing as how she fell asleep about two minutes later, I suppose it worked. :) but I mostly told her how proud I am of her, how much she's grown up in the past year, how amazed I am by how smart and funny she is. I can't believe her, I can't begin to relate back all the things she said today that tore my head off and made me happy to be her daddy. Bill said at least four times, "How dare you have such a cool daughter." All I could say in reply was "Hey, me and Sheryl just set the ball rolling. Katie ran with it all on her own. I take very little responsibility for how cool she is. She did it herself."

I miss her already.

i'm tired, drunk, and needing a shower. I get up in six hours for work. Fuckin' shit. I wish I was with my little girl instead.

Love,
Dougie