Artists at Work

Gary aka Half-Banana recently decided to re-open The Outlet for five hours each Sunday, a chance for me to re-live the time when I previously worked alone at the location from 2009-2011. He typically enforces a five-CDs-on-shuffle policy with our Sony, but when I’m in the catbird seat, I choose one disc at a time and play it straight through. Today’s opening selection was a Heart compilation, which shifted to being a provider of pleasant background noise after former employee, regular customer, and evergreen man of pleasantness, Bruce, walked to the opening between our plexiglass fortress to strike up a conversation.

Bruce is retired and sleeps twice per day in two-hour blocs, a fact that would give him an excuse to be a malcontent, except he’s always in a mood that suggests he’s been mainlining unicorns, rainbows, and ice cream. He left to browse for a bit—giddily rubbing his beard against the recently released Let It Be set he’s waiting to receive from his son, Ben, for Christmas—after a woman named Karen arrived in search of a Joe Bonamassa disc. He eventually returned to talk about his obsession with Robin Hood, having viewed a recent version of it last night.

“Have you ever seen the Disney cartoon?” I asked him.

“No,” he told me in a tone suggesting it was anathema prior to recalling the ‘30s version with Errol Flynn, Robin and Marian starring Sean Connery, and an ‘80s edition whose marquee names we never did confirm.

“Roger Miller wrote some songs for it!” I raved. “Ask Ben to borrow his copy.”

“I’ll check it out,” he told me in an I-won’t-check-it-out tone.

Cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh…

Track seven of the Heart disc began skipping and I told Karen it was my remix. I inserted Beck’s Odelay and Bruce found a Roger Miller compilation soon thereafter, us agreeing that as timeless tunes go, “King of the Road” is at the top of the heap.

Bruce has begun painting in retirement, sending emails of his work to both Half-Banana and me, and often uses images he finds online to replicate nature still lifes. I’ve viewed his wonderful renditions of birch trees, owls, and a tiny depiction of a vibrant vase full of flowers he gifted me, which sits atop my DVD shelf. He described attending an exhibition at the Granby library, not far from where he lives, and how staggering he found the photorealism. After informing him that Sue and I were visiting the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston on Wednesday, he inquired about what museums I’d inspected during my semester in Europe.

“I went to the Tate Modern a couple times,” I told him. “My favorite was the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. If nobody wanted to do anything, I’d go alone. That place was the best. The Louvre was great too, but it’s so large it’s overwhelming.”

“Sure,” Bruce said, his one-word answers reflective of his estimable listening skills and mindfulness.

“Have you ever seen Bande à part?” I asked, thrilled to use a French title, and he said no. “There’s a scene where Godard,” I said while attempting to roll the R, “filmed Anna Karina running through the museum.”

“I’ve read that,” he said, setting fire to my judgment about his listening skills.

“No, Anna Karina, not Karenina. She’s one of the most beautiful women who ever lived. She’s dead, but…”

The phone rang and my hanging conjunction made me consider if Bruce thought I might be a necrophiliac. We watched the scene in question, looked at The Death of Socrates, and discussed taking a trip to the Wadsworth until he mentioned the New Britain Museum of American Art, a better choice since it also teased the idea of eating local Polish cuisine. As he opened the door to depart, he told me to flash the Banana Signal in the sky if I needed help.

“When we go to the museum,” he emailed an hour later, “I will film you running through the Wordsworth. Deal?” 

“What about if I go running through the Coleridge?”

“How bout running thru Music Outlet wearing a banana outfit?”

Now there is a scene worthy of Godarrrrrd.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

As Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks played an hour or so later, another regular named Chris parked his truck while I ate an apple with the door open, the cordless phone in my back pocket, and enjoyed the view of orange-and-yellow leaves sashaying in the breeze above the medical facilities across the street.

Following some minor chatter, The State of the World arose as a topic, Chris eager to dig in. He pushed up his buttoned shirtsleeves like I’d served him a meal, not bothered when they slid down seconds later. Traversing through the Covid minefield and sharing many views along the way, Chris became a super deluxe regular, the best kind.

“We need more artists with something to say,” he bemoaned about the corporatism of rock ‘n’ roll. “We’re not gonna get another Clash, just more Lady Gagas.”

“You’re chasing truth to power. The best place for that is stand-up comedy.”

“Yeah, man! But it’s the same with comics. Where’s the next Eddie Murphy? We need another Bill Hicks, someone who unites us against the powers that be, so we stop fighting with one another.”

“Check this guy out,” I said and wrote Anthony Jeselnik’s name on a piece of lined paper and tore it out of my pocket notebook. “He’s the guy who tweets during tragedies and mocks the concept of ‘thoughts and prayers.’ You’ll dig him,” I said as Chris was already beaming.

Onward and downward, we cycled through the profane (Cardi B’s obsession with her fat, wet pussy) as a means of arriving at the sacred. 

“It’s a dark time,” Chris said.

“And yet I’m so tired of the media narrative that everything sucks. Covid let me re-evaluate how much I cared about certain things…”

“Me too!” I could tell Chris was eager to unload, turning to my Inner Bruce and listening. “Ya know, I stopped watching sports. I have a Celtics tattoo and can’t watch anymore. But I did begin creating my own music. I don’t care if anyone likes it; I like it and that’s what matters.”

“That’s how I felt writing this,” I said while pointing to my book. Then a typical Sunday caller—they’re always calling about violin strings or music stands, clueless that the only instrument we’ve sold in thirty-seven years is drumsticks—dialed us, once again stealing a precious minute from my conversation with a man brimming with insights.

“Do you still date her?” Chris asked about Sue after reading the back cover of my book.

I nodded.

“I gotta tell you that part of the reason I loved coming here in eighth grade was because she worked here. She was the metal chick. I had such a crush on her. Please tell her I said that. Is she still metal?” 

“Of course,” I said before qualifying, “although she recently discovered her favorite band: Twenty One Pilots. We’re going to see them for the ninth and tenth times this week.”

“No shit?!”

Admitting he was high on the thrill of brick-and-mortar stores home to employees free to discuss what’s on their minds, I asked if Chris had a copy of his music on hand. He returned from his truck and tried to apologize that it was lo-fi, as if I gave a damn, and grabbed one of my business cards to check out my website. I didn’t know it then, but he and Bruce were the bookends to the most joyous day alone at the store since Sundays got resuscitated.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

I removed the newest James McMurtry album from my CD player for the first time in a month or so, inserting Chris’s disc, the lyrics of the first couple songs reflecting the existential concerns he’d shared with me for an hour. No surprise: the lo-fi element added charm rather than distracted. Arriving at ShopRite in search of baby bella mushrooms, I found discounted croissants then did some hand-wringing and teeth-sucking while debating between the choice of a caramelized apple walnut pie or a praline peach pie, settling on the latter, excited to smother a slice in whipped cream after dinner.

It occurred to me that I’d never been happier to hear how another man once wanted to have sex with my girlfriend, texting her about the disclosure per Chris’s wishes after I arrived home. How could I be upset? Not only was I six at the time Chris had his crush, but last night I’d texted Sue about the white pizza I was about to eat: “Sometimes I just wish, and don’t take this the wrong way, that I could fuck the smell of basil!” 

The State of the World may still be a question mark, but as long as we keep painting, making music, writing, and having open and honest conversations, my friends will be certain that I only want to ejaculate on living herbs, not inside deceased women. That counts for something, but don’t ask me to talk about it.