Came back to see what was being said about my friend Dys...and saw the remarks about Richard Brautigan. I never knew Dys liked his work, but my very best favorite poem is one of his. Called...
"It's Raining In Love."
I don't know what it is,
but I distrust myself
when I start to like a girl
a lot.
It makes me nervous.
I don't say the right things
or perhaps I start
to examine,
evaluate,
compute
what I am saying.
If I say, "Do you think it's going to rain?"
and she says, "I don't know,"
I start thinking : Does she really like me?
In other words
I get a little creepy.
A friend of mine once said,
"It's twenty times better to be friends
with someone
than it is to be in love with them."
I think he's right and besides,
it's raining somewhere, programming flowers
and keeping snails happy.
That's all taken care of.
BUT
if a girl likes me a lot
and starts getting real nervous
and suddenly begins asking me funny questions
and looks sad if I give the wrong answers
and she says things like,
"Do you think it's going to rain?"
and I say, "It beats me,"
and she says, "Oh,"
and looks a little sad
at the clear blue California sky,
I think : Thank God, it's you, baby, this time
instead of me.
Dys woulda got that one in a New York second!
@Frank Apisa,
Yeah, it's impossible to be cool when suffering the heat of infatuation.
Who said "Love is insanity", the Greeks? I don't think they had the idea of neurosis.
They knew. They just didn't call it that. Funny
@Bella Dea,
Thanks for posting that pic bella
I've looked for a long time but I still can't find those pix from Albuquerque 2003. But they're there, just where are they hiding? I know we posted them on that Western Gathering thread, but they're not there now. Where oh where........
@Bella Dea,
I never knew he had a flickr photostream. I wish I had. Thanks, Bella Dea, for linking to it. I like seeing photos of him out in the wilderness he loved so much.
@Lola,
I thought I reread the Western thread recently but I might have gotten distracted before I finished it. Re photos, depends on the source. For example, I've a photo of me I like pretty well that Mame took back in 2008, and I've used it as an avatar once in a while. But it rests, I think, on Mame not editing it out of whatever place she accumulates her photos. Part of the thing with film was that most of us got a batch of photos when it was developed. Saving those photos has probably plugged up a lot of angst in tidy minds.
But.. sometimes they're good to have.
@edgarblythe,
Oh Edgar, how you made me laugh. He did write from memory, including lyrics and he didn't always remember correctly, but he was so filled with beautiful poetry and music that that brain of his must have millions more creases and crevasses than ninety nine percent of the rest of us.
I will agree with Rockhead back many posts ago, that Bob wanted to be understood. That is my primary understanding of our conversations.
He had excruciating experience as a child and adolescent. He was raised, I take it, as more educated as a young kid than most of us, and then catapulted to the US where he was the dummy in class - language and culture barriers and it sounds like totally stupid teachers, in the way. He also had the father from hell. Those of us who know about all that agree.
Bob being needed to be listened to is a key experience for me as a friend.
I'll agree with Diane that Bob was not a saint, and sort of quiver at the taking of him as such. Bob was a questioner when he wasn't speaking to be heard. He could be tirelessly insistent. But he kept questioning.
His questioning was his glory.
@Diane,
I first was drawn to Bob on able2know by the original prose he used to post. It was a short jump from there to appreciating everything else that he did. I admit I did not understand every single word he wrote, but I got the gist of most of it.
@edgarblythe,
I wish that, in the construction of a virtual memorial to Dys that maybe , some of his posts and poetry and just flavorful observations could be resurrected.
I recall the post where he shared his feelings upon suffering his stroke. He was clinical and yet fascinatingly entertaining . I used his symptom list as a means to feed my own hypochondria .
@farmerman,
THe early posts I wrote of concerned historical topics.
http://able2know.org/topic/3848-1
Here is one of Bob's topics that had me taking notice.
@edgarblythe,
I wonder...did Dys or anyone save some of his Abuzz threads?
@Thomas,
I don't know how I missed this thread before....
I'm very sorry he's gone, even though I never liked him.
@Thomas,
dys on arrival at a2k (or fairly close to arrival)
http://able2know.org/topic/1618-3#post-27676
I recall some of his narratives from Abuzz. Good stuff. Both he and Set used to do more story-telling.
@Thomas,
People are remembering him there. I don't know.
@ehBeth,
Maybe we posted in different circles. Abuzz was as cliquish as a junior-high schoolyard.
