Having read the assertions of marine biologist Alister Hardy and anthropologist Elaine Morgan that humans might've evolved from a strain of water-borne primates (noting our hairlessness, salty tears, layer of subcutaneous fat, streamlined body, salt water blood, and voluntary breath control) in Diane Ackerman's An Alchemy of Mind, I have up and gone fishing down in Texas, dousing myself in brine and scarfing down shrimp and crab legs in the process. Come a sunset of azure and hyacinth, the fish start jumping and biting. We pull up mud cats, redfish, and speckled trout. Of course, as the fish bite, so too do the mosquitoes.
Returning home gives me a curious opportunity to go through storage, unearthing such things as the backing cards for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures as well as those of C.O.P.S., some weird cock diesel law enforcers. I turn up my old yearbook, revealing a portrait of my young afro balanced atop a pinhead and clenched smile, and a page in the back that my best friends and I bought, espying the culture clash that was my teen frame: flannel shirt, Jesus Lizard tee, Birkenstocks. We quote Minor Threat andthen run a laundry list of obscure in-jokes, no doubt all pertaining to dope-smoking. Due to such origins, I cannot recall what any of them meant.
I have a shit ton of records here still, but decide that --having not spun them in nearly a decade-- I can continue to exist without such titles as Spiderland, Songs of the Humpback Whale, the Easy Rider soundtrack, Mulligan Meets Monk, the Unwound discography, Squarepusher's Big Loada EP, and a dished copy of Blackboard Jungle Dub in my life. However, Pink Floyd gatefolds, Pharoah Sanders, and Beastie Boys singles must continue to remain in my clutches.
Going through boxes of old books from high school and college, I am glad that I developed the curious habit of sticking stray paper in as bookmarks. Some items that shake free from the leafs:
-a picture of John Wayne Gacy as a clown
-a newspaper clipping of an enormous woman dancing in a wedding gown
-notebook paper with Chinese characters and the word "matrices" written five times
-directions to a kegger
-a work schedule from when I flipped burgers
-a photo of a drawing on someone's arm, their head superimposed with an ocean scene (this falls out of Jung's Synchronicity)
-a flier I made for a party at my house using a Buckminster Fuller diagram, featuring eight bands and the understatement that: "$2 for bands would be hella nice"
Going fishing for the second straight day, I am told the adage: "It's called fishing, not catching." Regardless, I now delight myself in the ephemera of what remains in my net.
