Names I considered for this blog and how I think I ended up here. Or, lies I have chosen to believe in. (part one)

Naming stuff -drawings, paintings, stories, house pets – is something I avoid as much as possible. It was hard enough before the internets, but now, in the rare chance that you have actually come up with something that feels not only right but also “original”, all it takes is a quick Google search to destroy your illusions. I tend to agonize over this sort of thing, even though I've read my Foucault and lectured countless students on the pointlessness of the quest for originality. The title I finally settled on is currently being used by at least two other websites.

“Ragwater, bitters, and blue ruin” is something I kept coming back to. Its a line from a Tom Waits song - 9th and Hennepin from Rain Dogs, the first Waits record I ever really listened to after encountering a few of its treasures on the soundtrack to Down by Law. I had come across Waits before on the Letterman show at a sleepover when I was a kid, but I honestly thought he was a Chris Elliot character (maybe one day he will reveal he is) – no one really sings like that we kids agreed nodding over our X-men comic books. Anyway, I think I misunderstood the line in my naïve and tortured teenage years – bitters having something to do with bitterness and blue ruin being some deeper kind of, well, ruin. You can see what kind of kid I was right there I guess. I loved its rhythm (especially in Wait's growl) and it struck a chord when most of the things I was seeing and reading and doing seemed to lack any harmony at all. I was almost disappointed when I found out bitters and blue ruin were just alcoholic drinks and not some kind of condition of the teenaged soul.

“God's Lonely Man” – Thomas Wolfe, of course, though I learned it from Taxi Driver – a line in the script that is often criticized for being a “writer's line” that doesn't belong in the mouth of a working class Vietnam vet. I don't know, I like to think of Travis Bickle in his teenage years, already obsessing over some icy blonde, already starting to drown in some of the uglier waters of his brain, but surfacing for a moment in English class when the teacher dishes out a little Wolfe. And then holding on to that scrap of wisdom through the jungles of Vietnam and Manhattan. I've met all some sorts of people who have surprised me with the things they've managed to hold on to – I remember, for example, a friend, not really much of a reader, who was well on his way to some pretty heavy addictions that kept a typed fragment from Catcher in the Rye taped up in his bathroom.

“Muddy Puddles” or maybe “Lovely Puddles” - see below.

“Growing Geraniums in Hotel Rooms by Candlelight” – the title of an imaginary book in Richard Brautigan's The Abortion. Seems pretty clunky and I'm almost certain I have it wrong but I refuse to travel the five feet to my bookshelf to look it up. Because, yes, I can be lazy, but also because there's something important in the way the mind holds and reshapes the things it remembers and I guess one of the things I wanted to write about here was the idea of those very “misunderstandings”, how they can become somehow more vital. Or as John Ford said, “Print the legend” (another title I considered.) Besides, I like the lonesome magic of the candles and the hotel, the nurturing of something desperate or impossible in tranquility, that's something I can understand. I guess we're getting close to a point here.

“Deathstar Anxiety” - Because all the other titles were starting to feel heavy. And it sums up something of my tendencies for cultish nerdy referencing and just feels right – I could tell you more about this one now but we've got time.

“Saran wrap all you can” - Scott Walker. Also kind of falls in that same cultish category but more hipstery than nerdy as if there was any difference. I really like this one though.

Truth be told, my favorite line from 9th and Hennipen comes right after the blue ruin - “and you'll spill over the side to anyone that will listen.” As good of a definition as any of what I might hope to do here, or in the studio, or the classroom - anywhere but a barstool,where I did most of my spilling in my 20's. In the end that's all I've got really, just some muddy puddles that hopefully look something like art when its last call and the lights come on.