rock & roll day of the dead

It has been a long-ass week.  With temperatures over 100 , the hours melted into each other.  June's last squares morphed into limp tongues hanging from the bottom of the calendar, and today I'm still chipping off the crust of last Monday like silica from a meteor impact.  Or milk jug plastic from a trash fire.

Maybe it started Monday when I came home to my lifeless cat lying just inside the door like she was waiting for me.  Poor Petey ran to her and licked her head and then jumped on me, as if to say, "Come on, man--use those super powers!"  Alas, I don't have access to a Lazarus Pit.  All I could do was hold her, tell her I was sorry & thank her for her company.  I knew when I took her in that the end might not be pretty.  But the vet told me that if a cat tests positive for leukemia at the shelter, they put it down right away.  So I know I at least gave her two good years--to wrestle with the dog, sleep on my head, scratch up the furniture, sit in the window.  Still, I can't help feeling like I've failed her somehow.  Death has visited my house three times since I've been here.  I hope it was the Neil Gaiman version in every case.  As I dug her grave, sweat turned dirt to mud, my palms blistered, my smartass ipod played Bauhaus.  But I also uncovered some bulbs I thought the squirrels had eaten.  Hopefully, next Spring Squeak will have some flowers sprouting at her tail.

If I'm honest, though, it probably started the previous Thursday.  Flaming Lips played two shows in Lawrence to mark the 100 year anniversary of Liberty Hall.  I was at both of them even though I had to work early the next mornings.  The day tickets went on sale I was in line with the other greying Peter Pans, sitting on the sidewalk with my Bruno Schulz book and iced Alexander from La Prima Tazza.  How pretentious does that sound?  Well, screw it, both the book & the coffee were excellent.  The guy next to me was speaking English to the girl next to him and Portuguese to his phone.  There was a guy ahead of me that I used to work with at W*lM*rt.  He was talking about Glenn Frey, and how his own wife was just young enough to not catch any of his cultural references.

Anyway, J & I had seen the Flaming Lips at Uptown Theater in Kansas City in 2007 and it was one of the funnest shows we'd ever been to.  The music seemed secondary to the vibe and spectacle, Wayne repeatedly interrupting songs to interact with the crowd.  With the confetti cannons, giant balloons, choirs of dancing Santas & aliens flanking the stage, and all the homemade accessories that seemed moments away from falling apart, I would rather call it a Happening than a concert.  They had passed out laser pointers to all of us before the show, and later Wayne held a large round mirror above his head and had us all point our lights at it, red rays refracting out all over the venue.  It was such a scrappy, genius, beautiful moment.  Until the batteries ran out, I used to get Petey and Jasmine to chase those lights around the house.

You might say the Flaming Lips have the market cornered on the whole "life & death skip through the world hand in hand so you need to laugh and love while you can" theme.  At least the zany, psychedelic version of it.  Thursday night, a giant golden woman was projected at the back of the stage, naked & dancing, with a strobing vagina.  Eventually, she sat down and some of the band emerged from a door that opened between her legs.  They managed to pack all their tricks into our small theater.  The hamster ball, the bull horn, a pair of oversized hands shooting colored lasers onto a disco ball (replacing the laser pointers).  I noticed that a streamer had caught on to a balloon and was zigging through the air like a campy cartoon spermatazoa.  At this point, I don't know if I'm still looking for catharsis.  If so, I didn't find it.  I guess grief takes it's own sweet time.  I know that both nights felt like celebrations, acknowledging joy & tragedy as life's ingredients, a wake & a party rolled into one big metaphorical doobie.  I felt like it was my duty to be there for my ghosty pals who don't have the option.  Or maybe they do.  I hope they do.