Reverb11: Author, Author.
Share with us the title and inside jacket cover of the book you would most like to write.
Now that I have the prompt done correctly, (I didn’t before,) I am still faced with a difficult task. Asking a writer what book he would most like to write is probably a bit like asking a baseball player which particular seat he would like his home run to land in. It’s swinging for the fence and scoring that is of the utmost. Plus, the book I “most” wanted to write recently is already in the process of being revised, so I am not sure that counts. So I’ll make a deal with you; I will answer the prompt with one of the ideas I have for the future. Just remember, there are several where this came from. I can’t put it on a pedestal above the others. But at any rate…
Interim-in-Chief
by Ty Unglebower
Chester Andrews, the popular and respected Vice-President of the United States has but one major public appearance remaining before leaving office after two terms-to deliver a speech to the party’s election year National Convention. Despite many pleas from all over the country, Andrews, 67, has no desire to seek the presidency. The speech, both a defacto endorsement of the party’s nominee, Senator Harris Gruber, as well as a first step in his own farewell to public life, is a rousing success with both convention delegates and the punditcracy.
Yet Vice-President Andrews barely has his shoes off in his bedroom after the short flight from Madison Square Garden in New York when he gets the unthinkable news; President Jacob Turner has suffered a massive heart attack. The fears of both Andrews and the nation are realized when three days later, the President is dead, and with a mere six months remaining in his tenure in office, Andrews is elevated to the presidency.
Now the job Andrews never sought is his for six months. And with war brewing in the Middle East, a recalcitrant Speaker of the House with his own Presidential aspirations, and a now hobbled party nominee that believes he can assert influence over affairs of state before winning the election, newly sworn in President Andrews may find those six months more of a trial than the seven and a half years of his immediate and beloved predecessor.
Reverb11: Music Is Powerful
Think of one song that you turn to time and again and describe why it’s important to you.
As with so many such prompts, the list of possible answers is considerable for me. For how does one choose between so many songs that one goes back to over and over? What is the metric? The most powerful lyrics? The most moving music? Or is it simply a matter of describing a song I listen to with a high degree of frequency?
So many inspiring songs in my collection. So many songs to which I have rocked out many times throughout life. So many beautiful lyrics or stunning arrangements. A few songs posses more than one of the above qualities. It will seem ridiculous to not have picked any number of songs when all is said and done, because I go back to so many of them so often.
I have opted in the end, however, to describe the song that has been a song I go back to for as long as I can remember. The song that seems to be in the background of my consciousness even if it has been a long while since I have listened to it. The song that in many ways, (as one of the first songs I ever knew, and loved) serves as the cornerstone of my entire musical aspect of my personality. Like a literal cornerstone, my eclectic musical tastes have been built up from and around this song for my entire life. It isn’t front and center, but it is always there deep within me doing its job.
I am referring to Country Roads by John Denver.
The song is no virtuoso accomplishment, from either a technical or artistic standpoint. I do believe John Denver was a good poet, by and large. An accomplished songwriter who obviously touched millions of people. Yet strictly speaking Country Roads isn’t even Denver’s own best song, in terms of compositional difficulty or lyrical potency. It was never ground breaking, but that is not why I select it.
And it isn’t that I have a huge esteem for West Virginia itself, despite having many friends there, and having lived no further than 15 minutes from its border at any time in life. (The song even inspired an essay of mine on this subject, entitled, “The Place I Almost Belong, West Virginia.) I don’t care for the politics, religion, or general feel of most of West Virginia. I am not a fan of the terrain when I have to drive in it to see certain friends.
Now in general, despite my objections to a lot of its culture, I bare no hatred for West Virginia. Yet I have no desire to move there.
So, why do I select for this post what some consider the unofficial state song of West Virginia? To begin with, personal history. I have no memory of not knowing this song. I was listening to it in infancy, thanks to Mom. This is the song I wanted my friends to like as a child, because it would mean that something important to me actually meant something to other people. Having my friends like this song would mean that I was not as alien and unlovable as I always felt. Kids of course did not love this song. Ever. They disliked me even more for ever daring to reveal I liked it. It was “lame”. It was “slow”. It was only for “old people”, or “retarded people”.
So I spent most of my childhood alone. (No surprise there.) And when alone, whether my mood be celebratory or anxious, whether I was preparing for bed, or trying to pretend I wasn’t afraid of what would happen to my oldest sister in the hospital when she needed emergency surgery to deliver my first two nieces, I would listen to the album with Country Roads on it. Along with other music, and other artists. Yet that song always seemed to be the front door into a musical session.
Years go by and tastes change, somewhat. While I don’t think a person can truly ever get away from the foods, areas and music with which they grew up, people do begin to expand their horizons. Venture further away from that which is familiar in hopes of understanding a broader swath of the human experience. We seek out other cultures, other genres of writing, other sources of music in pursuit of new feelings. Or fresh catalysts for the familiar ones. We fall in and out of love with new sounds, growing weary of some fads, while adding other songs to our permanent collections. Yet still, the seeds of what we experienced as our “firsts” almost always remain to some degree.
Through many dangers toils and snares I have listened to music. Not always John Denver, but he is often one of my considerations when flipping through the collections of music to choose a mood. Because the song seems to transcend any given mood. The lyrical longing fits in with a melancholy. The harmonies work well to soothe in jittery times. Yet the tempo is just upbeat enough to provide a toe tap when needed as a pick me up. And of course, despite being about a state, it is in the end a love song, so I turned to it many a time when I found myself in what I foolishly at the time determined to be love. A song for all seasons indeed.
I have often felt that if a song plays in the light tunnel through which many believe we pass after death on the way to the next world, mine would be Country Roads. So deeply ingrained into every aspect of my consciousness has that song been, for such a long period of time, I can think of no more appropriate human tune to transition me forever away from the things of being human at the end of my time on the earth. The song I would listen to most in life to get me quickly back into shape when feeling out of sorts. To make me feel well when I got sick.
Sometimes I go months without listening to it. Yet I have owned Country Roads in some form my entire life. The record my mother played for me in my crib was eventually sat on and broken in two during a family party. (It was the only record I was allowed to handle as a child. I’d play it all the time at Christmas, as a celebration of the season, and to this day it even reminds me of Christmas a bit.) I was about six when it got broken. It was as though a friend moved away. Worse. It was as though an imaginary friend had moved away. So much so Mom purchased the same album, this time on the far more durable cassette format, a mere few weeks later. A cassette I had with me into young adulthood, playing to thinness.
The CD was located for me in time for Christmas one year, and I have had the CD to this day. (Transferring the song on a regular basis onto an MP3 player for walks and such.) I don’t know what the next music format will be in the future. But I do know that whatever form it takes, one of the first purchases of it I will make will be of Country Roads.
Reverb11: Memorable Gifts
What is the most memorable gift you have ever received?
How appropriate and yet open-ended a prompt for Christmas Day. So many answers, depending on the criteria used. Even just within the boundaries of “memorable” lie all kinds of definitions, yielding any number of possible answers.
Some years you get exactly something you had on your list. Sometimes it is a total, wonderful surprise you had not even thought of yourself. And it need not be a large or expensive gift, either. One year the best gift I got was one simple Greatest Hits CD filled with songs I loved.
I am going to go, though, with a gift that required the most thought, and hence is the most memorable in that regard. It is a ball point pen.
Not just any ball point pen, though. It is a ball point pen fashioned out of an antler. An antler from the final deer my father ever hunted. My father died when I was seven years old.
Mom had it done. While my father was not obsessed with hunting, he did enjoy it. I do not hunt, but always think of my father when I think of hunting. So a connection with that aspect of my father’s recreational life, for which I was far too young when he died, represents a nice connection with my father.
It was especially thoughtful because it was a pen. It could have been a figurine, or a lamp or something, and would have retained its sentimental value in my eyes. Yet Mom in her wisdom chose to make it a pen. Practical, because I am often looking for a nice pen with which to do certain things. And symbolic, because being a writer, I make frequent use of a pen. Not to write drafts, but certainly to write notes, and outlines and the occasional letter. The pen is too special to carry with me all the time, as I fear I would lose it. Yet I don’t want it to be an icon, and hence too precious to be used. So I use it for writing I do within the safe confines of my room. Outlines. Letters. Some miscellaneous planning and listing. The exciting and the mundane. The point being to make regular use of something that in some tangential way connects me to my father and his leisure.
It had been out of ink for a while, and mom replaced the cartridge for Christmas this year, and gave it to me early so I could use the pen again. It’s nice to have it back, and since it is a gift from my mother, it will in some ways always connect me to both of my parents.
Merry Christmas to everyone.
Reverb11: Somebody Has To Say It
Somebody has to say it…
The prompt for today came with the suggestion that it be just one sentence. So, here is mine, which I find appropriate for Christmas Eve:
Some of the most Christ-like people , now and throughout history, have not been Christians.
Enjoy your visions of sugar plums tonight, my friends.
Reverb11: Travel
Did you visit anywhere new this year? Any plans to travel next year?
In May I traveled to Jersey City, New Jersey to attend a friend’s birthday party. (In that case though, “party” doesn’t begin to cover it. Birthday Bash, perhaps.)
I have been to New Jersey before, but not that part of it. I didn’t know much about Jersey City, and Hoboken, and all of those places, though of course I had heard of them. If there is such a thing as “small town big city” life, I think the places I visited while in New Jersey would qualify. I remember shopping at one point, and this street we were walking down had all kinds of store keepers selling things on the sidewalks outside of their store. Fruit and vegetable stands, and that sort of thing. I admit to not thinking much about it before that time, but part of me sort of assumed that you couldn’t really find city streets like that in this country anymore. Not that there is never an odd fruit stand here and there, but the idea of blocks-long lines of eclectic local merchandise being sold by an even more eclectic mosaic of people from all over the world, (literally) I figured was just about gone in 2011. It was encouraging to see it was not. At least not in Jersey City.
I had falafel for the first time while I was there. From a shop in the city with just two tables inside. I enjoyed the meal quite a bit, and hope to have some of it again someday. I learned that the tiny shop, (the name of which I cannot remember) has some kind of rivalry going on with another tiny falafel shop on the other side of the city. (Or it may have been in a nearby city, I also cannot remember that exact fact either.) But that amused me for some reason.
Then there was Hoboken. We weren’t in Hoboken much. I wish time would have allowed a longer stay there. For some reason I think I would have enjoyed hanging around Hoboken the most out of the places in New Jersey I went to. That’s no disrespect to Jersey City, but Hoboken, or at least the parts I saw, spoke to me a bit more, if you will. Downtown at least had a certain presence that appealed to me specifically. I’d love to be able to elaborate on that, but I can’t. Again, maybe if I had been able to absorb more of it. The best I can say is that there seemed to be an almost equal mix of past and present that you don’t always see in cities of comparable size. Even other cities in New Jersey.
One thing I did get to experience in Hoboken probably had nothing to do with it being Hoboken, per se, though it was without a doubt an Urban New Jersey experience. It took place when we went to get the beer for the party at this huge beer warehouse. It was literally a warehouse you drove into. Cases of beer everywhere. While I waited I counted no less that 25 varieties of brew just within my eyesight. A crew of maybe five guys in overalls and hand trucks moved the beer hither and yon. They were my favorite part of my brief stay at the warehouse. They should have their own reality show on television.
Not that I watch those kind of shows in general, but this group of guys was, (at least from my outsider’s perspective) sort of like New Jersey personified. Not like those Jersey Shore assholes, but true, working class, sarcastic and blunt Jersey. Though you aren’t supposed to stereotype people, they did say many things and did so with accents that one associates with the area. Most of what I heard from this colorful crew came from the guy I assume was the floor supervisor. “Hey, why is case of Milla still sitting ova heeya?” He didn’t appear to be happy as he asked this question. The Miller was not there much longer, though the yelling and snappy repartee between the workers remained.
I did spend a few hours in New York City itself, which of course is nearby. As always I enjoy getting to see Manhattan. Yet we were in areas I had never been to before. Far from the usual tourist infested areas. On our way to and back from dinner and the short film festival we attended, I saw many sites that were also in the “small town big city” category. New York City is of course immense, but when you get as deep into Manhattan as we were, (we had gone on for so long I thought for sure we were in a different borough) it was like a different city. It’s own neighborhood. (And again, my apologies, I don’t know which part of Manhattan we were in.)
Local basketball tournaments under the evening lights in a park. Old buildings from a bygone era with their ornate architecture housing things like Starbucks and Apple outlets. Art. Bars and taverns. All lit by street lamps, not by the glaring, ever present fluorescence of Times Square and Broadway. I love Times Square and Broadway, but I got a lot out of my time spent in the deeper parts of the borough, where the garish, manufactured, though intoxicating enormity of the famous hot spots faded away to reveal a slightly foreign (to me) but nonetheless more relatable and accessible humanity. The “everyday” of New York City, if that makes any sense.
Sometimes you can “learn” something you already knew. A concept can begin to dawn on you when you experience it first hand in a way it never could when it was just a concept of which you were aware intellectually. I of course knew there was more to New York City that the swarming, glitzy, warp speed mass of neon illuminated homo-sapiens that is Lower Manhattan. Yet that hasd been the only part of New York I had ever been to. This trip in May reminded me that even that city is made up of millions upon millions of regular people living lives not that unlike my own in scope, even if they differ greatly in culture and attitude.
If I do travel in 2012, (and I would like to, but money is an issue), I’d like a chance to experience some more of that everyday neighborhood flavor. Both in this country, and in other countries. (The United Kingdom in particular.) Where people are not quite as anonymous. Where it’s clear that the neighborhood is an extension of the citizens within, as opposed to the masses of people crashing like so many ocean waves to be broken on the rocky coast of a nebulous downtown megatropolis.
Please do not misunderstand me. There are many big cities I long to see for the first time, (Boston, New Orleans, London), and some I want to see again (Seattle, Chicago, and yes, New York City.) I love the hugeness of a major city. The lights. The sound of traffic. The adventure and the site seeing. I’d never want to be denied that kind of experience. Yet in the meantime, (or perhaps, with the right guide, while I am in those big cities), I want to make sure I see more neighborhoods like the ones I saw back in May.
Do you live in one? Perhaps I will visit you next. If your town has falafel.
Ty Unglebower 