Clutter In Clutter Out

I live in clutter in every room on every shelf over each inch of my household.  I am relentlessly attacked by toxic ataxia and the chaos it produces.  In fact there are four “masters of confusion” in my house.  All of us place objects that are significant in our world where we think are appropriate locations in the household.  The problem is a tripod leaning against a wall may be a place where another person walks and trips.  But when you're stepping over boxes and balancing a footstep upon stacks of paper it could be hard to know where someone might tread to traverse the living room.  We have wall to wall disorganization in our townhouse.

When entering the front door the dwelling is always unsettling.  There’s no sense of walls or structure – just rummage everywhere.  Luckily the kitchen is a focal point in our digs because there is a raised area in the middle of the floor amongst the disorder.  Beneath this bulge is our island.  From this reference point we can get a “fix” on the location of rooms in the rest of the house.  The island in our kitchen is a profound crap catcher.  Receipts pile up alongside school books and business plans.  Clothing and computer equipment balance precariously three feet above the floor.  Incense burners and 2 liter bottle caps occupy similar positions on this counter.

It's hard to believe that anything like this interior disaster could happen.  The floors are the final assault to the senses.  When shelves and counters were gorged the floor offered storage of last resort.  Overflow was shunted into boxes along side walls.  However, nothing on the carpet stays put for long.  Errant feet kick containers and pets snoot through them. Before long cartons are compromised and the innards spill over the walkways.  Somehow a pullulating debris field has displaced what was an adequate floor plan though lacking in square footage.

Include in the chaos two dogs that shed an immense amount of fur on wood floors, carpets and on top of all the mess.  Canine hair clogs the vacuum and produces a thick gunk that renders the carpet cleaner useless.   Thankfully we do not use either of these household appliances very often.  There's no time to shift the layers of stuff to make an open part of the floor available for cleaning. I might be more successful with a shovel and a wheelbarrow.

In our family unit space is limited but information is infinite and located inside envelopes or written on receipts. The U.S. Mail delivers every day with a fresh supply of shit I don't have time to look at.  I lose royalty checks and contracts and instructions because the last person to explore the interior of our mailbox threw its contents just about anywhere in the house.

Clutter has me in its clutches! There is no escape from all the piles of documents and stacks of periodicals and boxes of books.  After all I live in a small townhouse with far too many humans and critters.  There's just no place to put everything.  Elbowroom, like privacy, does not occur very often in our residence.

Maybe it all boils down to four humans with low self esteem and an inability to make a decision.  That’s what clutter gurus say, but what do they know?  Maybe not one member of the household respects the personal space of anyone else under this roof. Perhaps we are so confined that respect is a luxury we literally have no room for.

Regina Leeds (the Zen Organizer) says my home should be my sanctuary, a buffer against the world.  More often than not my home is a place to escape.  The world is my buffer against my residence.  There doesn't seem to be sanctuary anywhere.

Could there be some sociological epiphany to this interior of horrors?  Is there a light shining in all this dark domiciliary discombobulation?  It turns out that great art may be spawned in such despair.  We could be “expressing” ourselves in all this dishevelment.  Perhaps I am part of a family of virtuosos who work in wrinkled papers and worn magazines thrown on the floor like Jackson Pollock used to throw paint on a canvas. ShelterPop, a website about housing and lifestyle, says it just might be so.

Indeed the trained eye will know us for who we really are; insecure extroverts who avoid childhood memories of family confrontation.  And oh yes, we love kitchen gadgets.

Perhaps in the real world we are a family of slobs - overworked with no time to clean.  Elizabeth Robinson says guilt, grief and attachment can produce an obsessive disorder rendering a person immobile, unable to take action against what all this clutter represents to us.  In our case it is lack of time and energy.  Everyone in my house is trying to bring in money some how.  We’re just too tired.

The Last Ride

Hank Williams died New Years day 1953 in the back seat of his Cadillac.  On that day Williams stepped into history as a great elder of both Country Music and Rock and Roll.  From his imposing shadow people like Buddy Holly, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan (to name a few) stepped out and continued the rich tradition in popular music.

Hank's immense creative ability was often overwhelmed by his addictions, first to alcohol then to morphine.  Born with Spina bifida, a congenital disorder of the spine, Hank suffered chronic back pain which partly led to his substance abuse.  

Despite his limitations Hank produced eleven "number 1" hits and was elected to the Grand Ole Opry.  Ultimately the alcohol and the pain killers would be his undoing.  He was so debilitated that more often than not he was drunk and tardy or altogether absent from his concerts.   Promoters were afraid to trust him, but when Hank did perform frustrations and hard feelings made way for his loyal fans.  The people listening on the radio and in concert never deserted him no matter how badly he behaved.  Hank spoke to them with intimate and simple lyrics.

There is a new movie out about the final three days in the life of Hank Williams.  The Last Ride takes place in the back of a blue 1953 Cadillac convertible.  Hank's manager hired a young man to drive the song writer across the south on what turned out to be Williams' last concert tour.  

The idea for this movie originated from an old man who was the young boy that drove Hank on those last days.  Too ashamed to say anything until recently about his experience, he still prefers to remain anonymous.   After all Hank Williams died on this man’s "watch."  Apparently the driver (called Silas in the movie) didn't recognize nor understand who was occupying the back seat through the troubled final days of Hank Williams' life.  This is understandable, for in the middle part of the 20^th century there were not many TV's, no CNN and no DVDs.  People listened to the radio and it was easy not to know what a famous musician looked like on the Grand Ole Opry

In The Last Ride two strangers embark on a journey across the south that culminates in the death of a music legend.  The journey is star-crossed from the beginning with too much booze and too many unplanned stops along the way.   Whiskey and hypodermics of B-12 laced with morphine were snatching the already flickering life from Hank.  

Harry Thomason, producer of the popular early 90’s TV shows Evening Shade and Designing Women, acquired The Last Ride from writer Howard Klausner.  Producer and partner Tim Jackson liked the notion that The Last Ride is NOT a bio-pic like I Walk the Line about Johnny Cash.  There are no flashbacks and Henry Thomas (the kid who played Elliot in ET and plays Hank Williams) did no singing. “Lip-syncing would be too phony,” says Tim Jackson, “and what actor has the nerve to sing a Hank Williams song.”

Hank Williams was a charismatic musical genius.  There aren't many of those around at any given moment in world history.  It is easy to forget The Last Ride is a movie.  The final days of Hank Williams' life flash before you in a funny, awesome and sad way.  He leaves us with some good advice; 

           Ya know there was a time when I didn't dream 
           about nothin' but this (traveling and performing).  
           Be careful what you wish for . . . it might just fall
           on you.

In a couple months The Last Ride will be playing alternately in 600 theaters in the U.S.   If you are not near one of those showings pick it up on DVD in the near future. It's worth a look.

Isn't It a Pity

Change is inevitable, nothing is stagnant.  Even in geological time a million years can go by then suddenly a granite boulder will fall from its rocky pedestal.  The world has changed.  Life is the same but the perspective has shifted.  Dreams are shattered but the tools to build again are resolute.

There are no shattered boulders in my household but there is one less person.  I helped my oldest son move to Tucson.  Jeremiah is off to study cosmology at the University of Arizona.   In the last two years five humans, three large dogs, a cat and a cockatiel have lived in a 1500 square foot townhouse.  Jeremiah moved back home in 2009 after the economy hit the skids.  It was no longer possible to work, to go to school and support himself.

For twenty-four months all of our kids have been home bringing wonder and horror into the household.   My younger son and daughter didn’t get the chance to move out even though they are of age - economics were just too tough.  The swagger of Jeremiah, the one who has been on his own, didn’t set well with the other two. Resentment fomented but Joey’s and Abby’s attitudes weren’t pristine.  Sometimes I think their manner was meanness, pure-d.

Add to this a household financial situation that has been on the brink of collapse.  Absolutely, it has been a bloody struggle just to keep a roof over our heads.  My wife has retrained to better handle the vagaries of crazy politicians trying to destroy an already unconscious economy.  I feel like I'll be working nights for $10 and hour for the rest of my life. 

Jeremiah has moved away and I am very lonely and sad.  I wish we had more money to help him, but maybe the tense finances will cause him to focus on his goals.  The local credit union gave him a personal loan to make the move to Tucson and begin his adventure into the cosmos.  This kid has better credit than I do.  I was a little jealous at first, but then I realized his staying with us helped him keep his bills current.  It might as well be me to take the credit hits. My prosperity of earnings is already in the toilet.

A portion of the loan went to getting his car fixed and replacing a tire on our vehicle so we could load it up with his boxes.  He would save the cost of renting a moving van for the 180 miles to Tucson. All tolled, it might have been cheaper to rent the moving van. Perhaps he needed to feel our support in the start of his new life. Our little convoy pulled out at 9:30pm and we didn’t stop till we got to Tucson 12:30am.

I don’t know what I could have done to make our life easier financially.  Perhaps my mistake was not becoming an investment banker.  A writer and a musician on average make a lot less than the typical banker.  Of course my decision to disdain the corporate elite was done out of integrity and a blind obsession to make art.   Making money would come with the development of my craft (I told myself).  However, I did not anticipate the lengthy illness that kept me on my back for years.  I didn’t consider the ignorant and destructive shift the world would make.  The planet is going to hell and it wants me to go with it.  I’d just as soon take a pass.

My younger son and daughter are much happier now that Jeremiah is out of the house.  Abby no longer shares a room with Joey.  She has repossessed the room that Jeremiah took.  Joey and Jeremiah couldn’t get along in the same ten foot square space; so Abby relinquished her room.  She has made good use of the surplus shelving in the garage.   Her room is transformed; better than it was when she first lived in it.  Joey has his room to himself and his Japanese studies can prosper even more than they have been.

The clutter that pervades the entire household may finally subside; probably gradually.   Less and less space is occupied by warm carbon units sucking air and billowing CO2.  Jeremiahs departure comes at the heals of the death of a beloved dog.  Wishbone was our fifteen year old Australian Shepherd.  He was strong, intelligent and the alpha dog.  He kept the boisterous golden Lab in check and was a friend to the Vizsla we rescued from the Wal Mart parking lot.

The house is much less noisy without Wishbone's constant barks at Lucky.  Now there is one less kid.   No barks no bickering, no arguments.  I live in a tomb.

Good heavens!   I’ve looked over this missive and realize that I’m sitting square on the dreaded “pity pot.”   I’ve never figured out what I should be doing on such a pot other than feeling sorry for myself.  Do I pee or poop in this pot?

The Stopwatch Gang

They spent their days playing poker with the sheriff and frequenting shops in Sedona. Friendly and generous, the boys supported local businesses and took flying lessons at the Sedona airport.  If people had paid attention they might have been suspicious of the amount of dollar bills in large denominations the boys were passing around town.  Friends knew them to be concert promoters.  Often gone “on tour” the boys returned with money and time to spend with local pals.  However, their lifestyle was far from show business; though their real occupation would be the stuff of an action thriller.

Paddy Mitchell, Lionel Wright and Stephen Reid were infamous bank robbers.  They were part of an elite group of criminals occupying the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.  Law men called them the Stopwatch Gang because Lionel wore a stopwatch around his neck.  Ninety seconds was just enough time to commit a robbery and evade authorities.  The gang planned their jobs carefully; in and out of banks quickly without firing a shot.  The movie “Point Break” was inspired by their style of shock and awe.  They were polite and always in disguise.  No one ever got hurt during their many robberies.

In the final year together Paddy, Lionel and Stephen had been hiding out in Oak Creek Canyon. It was a beautiful hole in the ground just north of Sedona, Arizona.  This is where the boys made their plans and where they disappeared into after executing the holdups.  

Ten years of meticulous planning went flawlessly but finally failed them.  The odds of something going wrong overwhelmed the preparation and the chutzpah.  Bad luck sabotaged their final heist.  A cop pulled up to the dumpster where the gang was waiting to stash disguises and bank bags from the holdup.  Lionel got anxious, even though the officer left without incident.  The truck that was supposed to empty the wastebin did not arrive.  Not wanting to wait any longer, Lionel threw the bags in the big trash can and took a plane to Arizona. 

Dumpster divers went foraging through that container.  Sacks were found filled with disguises, bank bags and a fake ID.  Unfortunately the gang's actual Oak Creek address was on that ID.  Authorities were able to lift fingerprints on some of the items.  It wasn't long before the FBI came to their door.

The Stopwatch Gang was the most successful robbers in North American history.  There are no reliable figures, but the gang might have committed as many as one hundred robberies.  The take for their efforts was between $5M and $10M.  That amount includes a $750,000 gold heist at the Ottawa Airport (Canada). They moved south of the border to plan and execute heists all over the United States.  In San Diego one robbery yielded $280,000 all in $20 bills.

FBI agents assigned to the gang remain friends with them to this day.  Paddy wrote a book and asked the lead agent on his case to critique it.  They would send cordial letters back and forth during his incarceration until Paddy died.

Genteel and gifted holdup artists, the Stopwatch Gang cared enough never to harm anyone.  Much of the money they stole was never recovered.  There are tall tales about where that money might have been stashed.

A movie about the Stopwatch Gang is in preproduction.  For information click on the following links.

http://alloftheaboveproductions.com/root/

and

http://indiegogo.com/stopwatchgang