Vespa Guy, please park however you want

Post Date: Dear Mr. Vespa Guy

Post Date: March 9, 2015

Dear Vespa Guy that lives on my block:

I haven’t met you, but I think you have a cool ride. You generally park in a conservative fashion. I’ve seen you sometimes — you have natty shoes and a long-hours job. Sometimes you squeeze your Vespa in a bit too close to my driveway, but that’s alright.I did you a favor today. You parked parallel to the curb last night, perhaps taking up five feet, and this morning your ride was littered with post-its and taped-on messages. Let’s review:

“Way to be a dk. Stop taking up whole spots, you plebian. — Everyone Ever”

“I have diabetes you cis-hetero bastard”

“Way to take up my spot. Eat sh*t and die 4 eva. You R A poophead.”

“You’re a joke. F*k off, Shtbrains.”

“Gargle my goulash Butthole! Signed, Everybody”

“Dear Douche, People like you make a blight on society. Who cares about ISIS: this really gets me hot in the pants. Fk you —signed Everyone.”

“If not for you, I would’ve beaten my wife. Thank you for giving me something retarded to get mad about.”

“Great parking job” — No One Ever

“You park like an asshole and you (probably) smell like one too. Way to suck. — the Universe.”

“Hey Fkface, Why don’t you marry a fat chick so you can park your business in a wide space instead of FKING with our parking spot. — Fk off.”

Dear Vespa Guy: I tore off every single message this morning so you wouldn’t have to be greeted with that kind of vitriol next time you had to go to work. Hey — you may even actually be a jerk. I dunno. But I know a bigger jerk left the first message on your scooter. And since I’m fond of saying the Golden Rule can often be bankrupt, I know an even bigger jerk left a second message, an even bigger one the third or fifteenth. I’m also very turned off when people resort to “retarded” or “fat-chick” as means of insult; in which case, Vespa Guy, please park however the fuck you want.

Post Title: Sun Will Set

Post Date: March 2, 2015

I listened to Zoe Keating last night, purposefully. I like Keating; she plays cello, but has at her disposal a confusion of technology — pedals, mixers, the digital gamut — which elevates her into a virtual one-woman orchestra. Amazingly, she has only one bow to rosin.

I listened to Zoe Keating because I know that three weeks and five days ago, her husband died, having had 24 new tumors discovered in his brain. I know this because that’s what Oren reported last week. Oren has since died, and in similar fashion to Zoe’s husband. Metastatic sickness.

“I’ll be dead soon,” Oren wrote. That’s a weighty sentence to read when you otherwise have an expectation of deferred mortality. Forty-something shouldn’t be a viable, die-able age, until suddenly it is. Oren wrote the most existentially heavy sentence he perhaps could’ve written just five days before he passed. “I’ll be dead soon.” He was right. We’re generally not predictors of this.

I once saw Zoe Keating at a community college. She’d play a measure, reach to her left and switch a dial, else tap a pedal. She created layers of sound with just one instrument.

Everything about the cello suggests warmth. The rosewood, the rotund base. Drawing a bow past the strings is in itself a poetic gesture. Zoe played until she stopped. “Excuse me,” she said. Her bank of computers had momentarily failed and her orchestra was reduced to one player. In attempting to begin again, she sawed the chorus for “Sun Will Set” a few times over while pressing at buttons.

In interviews, Zoe says that “Sun Will Set” is embarrassingly simple. It’s beautiful nonetheless, and I liked the interruption of simplicity when her set faltered. It was gorgeous.

The internet is stupid and all. I know that Oren liked Zoe Keating. I read it on his Facebook page. How we know these things about each other without knowing each other at all. He said, ‘”Heaven is on earth,” and I think of Zoe frustratedly playing a very few and exact notes and it being perfect.

Title: Daddy, medium-well | Address: daddymediumwell.wordpress.co

Author: Thom Hofman | From: North Park | Blogging since: March 2013