Suedehead at Pre-Op

Why do you come here

When you know it makes things hard for me ?

When you know, oh

Why do you come ?

Why do you telephone ? (Hmm...)

And why send me silly notes ?

I'm so sorry

They say you never get over your first love--but in all honesty, you don't get over any of them. Joni Mitchell may have claimed me first, but Morrissey and The Smiths were there and ready for me when I went to college.

Today I had the prospect of an hour's drive to Indianapolis for a pre-operative appointment with no one else around--Yes! I drove myself, I had no need to balance my talking Ipad on my knees, all I had to do was listen to music. So sweet.

So I took a Morrissey's greatest hits CD, one I'd bought as an import in one of those record shops that no longer exist, I'm sure, in Greenwich Village. I used to catch the 2,3 out of Clark Street Brooklyn and ride express to 14th and then wander down 7th or 8th into Gayville. Sheridan Square, Ground Zero for my youthful ambitions. By the time I hit NYC, Chelsea was being called Gaymanistan--but that didn't matter to me. For people of my age, the Village was home away from home.

A hour silent of everything but Morrissey isn't, I know, everyone's cup of tea--but it was certainly mine. I loved his earlier solo work right up to Vauxhall and I, where I fell off the wagon of music in general and Morrissey in particular. It took me awhile to get over the 5th major format change of my lifetime in retail music--from singles to LPs to 8 tracks to cassettes to CDs to Digital--JESUS, how many times do I have to buy the same freaking album?--and my move back to Indiana from NYC was mournful enough without my dulcet toned manic depressive friend.

But today, as South Central Indiana passed by the windows, all browns and greys, stripped of snow at the moment, nothing would work but Morrissey, and nothing made me want to sing quite like "Suedehead." Now, is that a song I understand? not really. Do I like Jimmy Dean enough to idolize him and see the song as a homoerotic ellipsis? Nope, don't care--just simply like the song, and in early days, when I was voiced, I'd have lustily sung along with it.

Not that I can sing, mind you, just that I would--when alone.

Pre-operative meetings are like monitors into one's history--it's 45 minutes of what drugs you're taking, what procedures you've had, when you can eat and can't prior to surgery, an EKG, vitals check, risk assessment, and then 7500 other questions, some of which seem to come from left field during a completely random game. A nurse checks you, a doctor questions you, another nurse checks you out and rechecks you--then they send you off or onward--for me, to a chest xray and bloodwork. 

Have I mentioned how little I like any doctor's visits now? There's always so much set up and so little denouement. The plot is built and built and then, boom, plot goes shit and event is over. Everything in medicine seems set up to wrest the joy out of encounter and to take the encounter out of meeting. 

So, while all this was happening at University Hospital, I was mulling the lyrics to Suedehead, and what they mean. Honestly, I don't know. There's good argument to be made for the homoerotic angle, but what does that matter? I was imagining Suedehead while I was texting with people--some of whom it seemed were listening to it too, but they may not have known it.

I'm so tired of apologizing for myself, and for my circumstances--where and how I live, why I do so, why some event brings me joy--and today I decided that there'd be no more of that. I'm tired of that bullshit. You don't like what I'm trying to do for myself, don't respect how I'm trying to do it--ok, your perogative--but not your right to shit it out all over me like a blanket of blame. Go ahead, deal with it on your own time, and your own terms.

Suedehead is about to have his mouth worked on, and everything will be better for it not psychologically, but functionally, I hope to see pain lessen and discomfort ease up. The loss of the bone that was transplanted is sad, and I'm angry that radiation killed it, but there's not much I can do about it. I have mouth cancer so of course radiation had to be targeted to my mouth and neck--why, though why why why did it have to destroy so much? Why do you come here?  when you know it makes things hard for me, when you know, oh, why do you come?

Also on this import CD, is another great favorite, that I'll be listening to as I leave University Hospital with an emptier mouth--its advice is nothing profound, but a good reminder: Think of me next Friday, and play this youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFIanJS6fks&feature=kp

Sing your life
Any fool can think up words that rhyme
Many others do
Why don't you?
Do you want to?
Sing your life
Walk right up to the microphone
And name
All the things you love
All the things that you loathe
Oh sing your life
The things that you love
And the things you loathe
Oh sing your life
Oh sing your life

La la la la
Sing your life

Others sang your life
But now's your chance to shine
And have the pleasure of saying what you mean
Have the pleasure of meaning what you sing
Oh make no mistake my friend
All of this will end
So sing it now
All the things you love
All the things you loathe
Oh sing your life
The things that you love
And the things you loathe
Oh sing your
Oh sing your

La la la la
Sing your life

Don't leave it all unsaid
Somewhere in the wasteland of your head
And make no mistake, my friend
Your pointless life will end
But before you go
Can you look at the truth?
You have a lovely singing voice
A lovely singing voice
And all of those
Who sing on key
They stole the notion
From you and me
So sing your life