a letter to Jeff Tweedy

I think this will be a part of a series of letters I write to people I am intrigued with and have something to say to even though I

 have no idea if the letter will even reach them. this one has a doozy in it that I have only eluded to in the past.  

Dear Jeff Tweedy, 
It's pretty weird to be writing you a letter. Going over it last night as I was attempting to sleep did not account for thinking about you actually reading it. I have had this project in mind that involved sending postcards to "people of note" but hadn't tried to look up any addresses on the internet until last night. After reading about the new box set of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, I decided to look up your address on google and much to my surprise, a fairly reasonable address popped up for you. I haven't written a letter that wasn't electronically transmitted since the technology first came to be. 

This could DEFINITELY be considered a fan letter. I don't know how many of those you get but this is the first one I have written. Somewhere I have a signed  photograph of Susan from Sesame Street thanking me for the letter I wrote to her but I am sure my mom had something to do with that. Why Susan? I have no idea. I need to follow up on that with my mom. Why Jeff Tweedy? That question I can attempt to answer.  Like I said, I am a fan but I also consider myself a discerning fan. You did an amazing job with your memoir, and it was a wonderful treat to have you read it to me via Audible. Listening to you narrate your life as I meandered through mine was interesting and insightful . You have surreptitiously been a part of my life for some of the most fundamental parts of it thus far. I know you are not WILCO but I think we can both agree that you are a pretty big piece of that pie. We can argue about that later. I will now attempt to "get on with it". 

WILCO has put forth into the world some of the most important music of my life. I don't say or take this lightly as I am nothing without music. I need it. I use music like drugs and I have been known to really like drugs. It's more than drugs, it's feeling something so much that it hurts.

 
Luckily sound isn't necessarily dangerous but it certainly can be. I was a licensed mortician for about 10 years. 15 or so years of my life was dedicated to death care and all that surrounds it. Music as a ritual used in ceremonies is a powerful wand. Creating windows for those facing transitions that death so eloquently exposes. Absolutely BLASTING "1983...  (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)" at 3 o'clock in the morning with no sleep since the last 3 o'clock in the morning will fundamentally fuck you forever.  If you are listening anyway. 

I picked up 

A.M. 

(red vinyl, clear plastic sleeve, bed-room in an attic that

was definitely a code violation, Costco turntable/receiver/dual tape deck unit) a day or two after it had come out from my local record store. I knew you were a part of Uncle Tupelo, and I really liked Uncle Tupelo but I had some "musician" friends that REALLY liked Uncle Tupelo. One can only handle so many Olympia beer fueled campfire guitar renditions of "Moonshiner" before one questions the tastes of his peer group. They were also VERY into Soul Asylum at the time so do what you want with that. Forgoing the fan-boy pontifications involving the inaugural WILCO record, we will suffice to say that I'd quickly figured out what I liked about Uncle Tupelo. I need to note that I have been in arguments about Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy. I gave that up a few years ago realizing I didn't fucking care anymore and that Nels Cline could be the greatest guitar player in the world. 

When my friend Andy Capps, who happened to be the drummer on Built To Spill's 2nd record as well as one of the finest humans I have ever had the pleasure of knowing died of a methadone overdose, the soundtrack to my grief was 

A Ghost is Born. 

Wracking sobs, gnashing of teeth, tearing of cloth sadness. I don't think that record is particularly sad but it's not without melancholy or dissonance. 

When I was breaking my first marriage up into pieces of anger and guilt and freedom and beauty there was already another woman crashing into all of it. I am PRETTY SURE you and yours wrote "Either Way” specifically, just for me to hear. That last sentence sounds a little schizophrenic but that might be the only song I have every played over and over and over so I could just fucking cry and cry and cry. Well done, I needed that. I am listening to it right now and it worked again. 

Sky Blue Sky  

brings us Nels Cline right? I saw him play as a Minuteman with Mike Watt at 7th St. Entry in 1997. We hung out a bit backstage as my friends’ band Caustic Resin were touring with them. Brett was freshly out of rehab and fragile as fuck. Nels destroyed me in that room. When he joined WILCO I wondered if I was somehow psychically manifesting my personal supergroup.

 

Wilco (the Album) 

just plugs me in and blasts me off into memory. At this point in life I am losing it a bit (later on I will come to know I hadn't seen nothin' yet). "One Wing" "You and I" and "I'll Fight" are suffice to say, painfully beautiful soundtracks written just for my life. 

No one else has to “get” this trip of mine. I have failed to meet anyone who understands WILCO the way I do. That might be an indication of how distinct each record has been. My opinion is that WILCO records need to be seen as a suite of sorts. A flowing unfinished tapestry. I am still trying to figure out Ode To Joy. To me, that record is proving to be the most elusive. What might be so special or even magical about music is how much the individual listening to it interprets and transforms it. A song doesn't have a choice. It's placed in time and space and lives and breathes based on the will and spirit of the listener. How long does the song belong to the creator? Does it ever? 

Of course reading (listening to) your book changed the way I hear you and yours.  Now I wonder if it would have had as much of an impact if I had actually read it to myself...I wonder if I would even be writing this if I hadn't heard your voice tell me parts of your story and explain WILCO to me from your perspective. I better sum this up. I have rambled on and on, now it's time for me to go..

You and I had very different upbringings and I could go on about that but it doesn't really matter either way. We both "raised?'' ( I believe our children teach us way more than we will ever teach them)  two boys (mine are 21 and 19 and amazing and I am lucky). We both love music beyond most people care to think about it, I think...I am just taking that from your book. You and I both enjoy a slightly more "wry" if not deceptive sort of humor, again conjecture. Also both of us were addicted to opiates for longer than we wanted to be. I stole mine from the county coroner's office I worked for. My duties included performing autopsies under the supervision of a forensic pathologist. I was in charge and oversaw toxicological testing, photography and evidence collection (which also included destroying DRUG evidence). I was lucky and when I was fired after a dirty drug test I didn't have the courage nor means to score from the other obvious avenues. No one ever even knew I was a junkie. After I was fired I just happened to have the flu for a month. Did that in cold terror, shaking away to nothing in the basement. My entire world was never the wiser until it was recently old enough to handle it.  I guess I wanted to let you know that about me. Not many people know that about me. I have an idea about how THAT feels.

I don't know why I am writing this now. At this point I have revised it a few times and honestly it's a bit embarrassing.  Luckily for me, embarrassment is not a crippling issue. If someone sent me a note of this nature, I would be at least intrigued and probably fairly amused. It would be great if you got back out to play in Boise again. I thought for a minute I would attempt one of those Iceland shows but time and money were not in the way. I spent a few days in Iceland a thousand years ago and have been trying to get back there since. Hopefully you do read this letter. I'm hoping that it isn’t a nusance and possibly elicits a smile.

Yours sincerely, 

Barton Loyd Kline

barton.kline@gmail.com

https://alwaysweargloves.blogspot.com/

JUST CHECKING IN

NOW THAT i AM A FULL TIME GROCERY STORE EMPLOYEE, IV'E BEEN GIVEN PAUSE TO THINK ABOUT GREAT and historical GROCERY FIGURES, COUNTER CULTURE IF YOU WILL. i HAVE KNOWN THROUGHOUT LIFE. iT'S AN ARTFORM, YOU KNOW? 

first though, i decided to start delivering for door-dash on my scooter. I think it could be the way to game the system they have in place. I can use the scooter and not worry about silly miles on the van and i get about 100 mpg with the motorcycle vs. 17 in the van. that seems helpful? Well, fucked up the first time I dashed and drove needlessly out of my way for not very much $ per hour but i won't get fooled again. it was hilarious and dangerous and frivolous and pretty fun. 

that being said, door dashing does not involve management or much customer service. it's an evil way to make money with an evil system. I need to figure out how to sell weed while I do it to offset my karma. shouldn't be too hard to figure out. 

there was a grocery checker in the 1990's named Perry. he was made of static electricity encased in a human suit. he flecked about more than actually moved. communication was achieved through short burst-like nods. flinching and ticking he processed the purchases across the red laser eye  of knowing. he rarely missed. i'm learning his art, I have only memory to draw from his ways.   

you only have about 10 seconds draw the customer into your web. the most important aspect of this interaction is the greeting. If you engage the greeting it absolutely has to be genuine. this is a sale. you can greet someone without utilizing the greeting, and that greeting is literally an example of polite society. it's decried because it's false and un-funded, it doesn't have any value but it does serve the purpose of moving the polite narrative along. the greeting is not used FOR FRIVOLTY. IT IS GENUINE. IT IS REAL. ASKING A CUSTOMER, "HOW ARE YOU TODAY?"  MEANS YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW HOW THEY ARE DOING !  this might not be easy. if the greeting works you have to be willing to accept the information bestowed upon you. 

I had a mentor named David lee. he was a presbyterian. less of a checker but definitely taught me a lot about compassion. he was my superior at the university of Minnesota where i was employed as a technician (and later) manager of their anatomy bequest program. it was the entity that if your body satisfied certain requirements, at the time of your death you could donate it to "science". Science in this case predominately meant first year medical students first. these, cadavers (defined as such as they were used in a medical situation) would also be utilized for other study but for once this is not story about dead human bodies.  david lee lived the greeting unabashed honesty . He had no other way. a work morning with David would start with a "walk and talk". this was his extremely efficient method of meeting with me  to outline the days needs as well as travel from one building to another as his tasks would dictate. these meetings would travel by foot directly into public restrooms where david would ego-lessly step into a stall and proceed to take an enormous shit as he continued to prattle on about the days needs of various laboratories and classrooms splattering blasts of feces with no pardon nor care towards my presence was given. when finished, hands were washed and the tour continued on until ways were parted and the day carried on. 

when my young friend tom died of heroin overdose, I HAD TO GET BACK TO BOISE AS SOON AS I COULD TO BE WITH MY FAMILY. I TOLD DAVID WHAT I KNEW OF THE STORY. HE SAID TO ME, "I AM SO SORRY BART, i HAVE NO IDEA HOW THAT WOULD FEEL". THE WEIGHT OF HIS IGNORANCE STRUCK ME SO SUCCINCTLY. THE HONESTY IN THOSE WORDS, BROUGHT AS MUCH CONFUSION AS IT DID COMFORT. OF COURSE HE DIDN'T HAVE ANY IDEA HOW THAT WOULD FEEL. i KNEW THE PAIN THAT I WAS FEELING WAS SO IMMENSE THAT I COULD NOT CONTAIN IT. HIS WORDS RECOGNIZED MY PAIN IN IT'S magnanimity. i never forgot his presence with that statement and i never pretended to understand what someone may be going through ever again. 

a convenience store clerk named stu once gave my ex-wife a doily after she performed, on accordion,  "kiss me deadly" by lita ford. it was magnificent. stu was one of the greats and left us too soon.  

gary TURNER owned roosevelt market across the street from roosevelt elementary school. i ALWAYS THOUGHT HE WAS AN OK FELLA. not like the roosevelt the school was named after. gary SOLD US CANDY CIGARETTES, SLUSH PUPPIEs, the giant pixie sticks we made blow guns with and shot darts into mrs. boeslunds old demented ass. and THAT LITTLE SHOP WENT DOWN ON HIS WATCH AND FROM WHAT I KNEW IT WAS A SIMPLE CASE OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND GONE BAD. THE NEIGHBORHOOD WAS CHANGING AND THAT LITTLE PLACE COULD NOT FIGURE ITSELF OUT in time. it's back now and and will be subject to an entire post probably. oN A PARTICULARLY STRANGE CHARTERED EXCURSION TO SEE THE FLAMING LIPS OUR BUS-DRIVER HAPPENED TO BE MR. GARY TURNER. I WAS ELATED! AFTER ASSERTAINING THIS INFORMATION AND HAVING A LOVELY CHAT WITH SAID GARY i LEFT THE BUS TO TELL MY YOUNGER BROTHER ABOUT THIS GOOD NEWS. MY BROTHER WAS 4 CLASSES BELOW ME IN THE SYSTEM.  WHEN HE HEARD THAT THE PILOT OF OUR SHIP WAS INFACT THE CANDY MAN FROM THE PAST, HE BLISTERED AND WRITHED. HE SCREAMED OUT WITH FURIOUS ANGER AND DISGUST. HIS FRIEND, FROM THE SAME CLASS, HEARD THE NEWS AND IMMEDIATELY BURST INTO FLAMES OF SADNESS AND DISMAY. THEY HATED GARY TURNER. IN THE FEW YEARS BETWEEN US MR. TURNER HAD APPARENTLY FALLEN APART. ALL THE YEARS OF SUGAR AND SHOPLIFTING HAD BROKEN POOR GARY TURNER. HIS PLACE IN COUNTER CULTURE WOULD FOREVER BE MARKED WITH A question mark.  

MAKING THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE

I am being trained at the market for some "manager" duties. this is a giant mistake on their part. it's my fault that they have embarked on this mission but that doesn't make the decision to do so any wiser on their part. 

what happened was that I got involved with a possible second job delivering bread for an amazing local bakery. I had about 72 hours of decision making crashing around in my head last weekend. i worked a shadow shift with the bread folx. before we even got in the truck the owner had offered me a position with the company that i really had TO ponder. it was better money, better people and definitely reflected my worth in the eyes of the bread company. they are friends and know the recent past as far as the restaurant/pub was concerned so it was a nice stroke to the bartego to feel wanted for reasons of reputation. more on that later i guess. 

the big issue, among a few minor issues, was that i would have to quit the market job to do the delivery job. conundrum ensues. quit stupid job that i've just wrapped my brain around to accept smart job that i don't have a handle on at all. dollar more pay, benefits, quick and dirty hours. new horizons for the company that they wanted my help with. my caretaker ethos were properly triggered. hemming and hawing I chose to stick with stupid job. I am so happy i did. I realized a lot about my needs with those 72 hours. I really do need to be able to express my weird customer service guy. the market exposes this to me so well. i need to be a weirdo. it will more than likely get me fired but i knew that going in. 

i am not working for the market anyway, the market works for me. 

it is incredibly important to believe that you have something to offer the world. you shape the world around you as much as it shapes you. 

so i decided to use the bakery job against the market. not in a malicious way, just a simple "you need me more than i need you" way. i had planted the seeds with the market that i was going to be taking another job on the weekends but the hours would not conflict with my current schedule. dropping this nugget on management was not without impact. suffice to say that when the market powers understood that i had worth beyond the scope of their current mindset, they did a bit of a dance for me. that being said..

my assistant training began with the overlooked assistant manager that evening. I need to paint a picture of the overlooked.  i'll be brief...gordon (not his real name) has been working at the market for at least 100 years. watching him explain how to count a till out for the market was like watching magician explain a card trick. expertly his hands moved in motions he'd performed so many times that his hands were no longer attached to his body. his mouth muttered incantations, blessing the paper and coin and cheque and stamp to their place. not here anymore, now here, and with this move knowledge was accrued and set in motion for the day to come next when it would happen again. histories were given of magi before that graced the notes of profit. how the old ones had done it before and how the new ones tread in dark waters of change with the change. it was fascinating. a simple task taken to levels that not even gordon really understands. make the tills two-hundred whispered the ancients. 

all this because I wanted more money for my time. 

time is our most precious commodity. it's priceless really. mine is constantly fucked with. i am wrestling the universe for control of it again. I don't think i have ever had a great grasp of it but then again i've never known it's real weight until now. 

a little less than 24 hours has passed since I started this post and
already my plan to gain better access to slack has been run awry. i have to go deal with that now and i'm perplexed by it. i shouldn't be, but i am. 

this thing is quickly becoming a book about management AND ALL OF THE IMAGES ABOVE WERE MADE BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PROGRAMS. 

BUILDING YOUR BRAND

FUCK REALTORS

WE'VE ALL BEEN WORKING ON OUR IDENTITIES OUR entire lives right? some more than others. I have certainly been creating a persona over the last 10 years. I had a somewhat different one before that, I guess. How much does what we "do" end up being what we "are" is a difficult question, for me anyway...I have been involved in using my "personality" as my career in many ways for many years now. It's only been in the last few that I have genuinely realized and accepted that. I am good at making people feel good. really good actually. that gets me in trouble in relationships beyond the counter. I sell well. I show well. the fucky part is that it's easy for others to place what they need for themselves upon me. i translate those needs back to people and it makes them feel like they are cared for, listened to and in the end, understood. I think this is true anyway.  

what do i get from this. well, i feel good about making others feel good. I get off on it. a lot really. especially if it's entirely in my hands...i'm ruined  for working for the "man" now because  I refuse to play that game anymore. it's not real. there is no man. only people working towards a common goal and many times that is simply a time line. a start and a finish together. in between that time we hopefully have a "good" time and we enjoy it's spent-ness. it can be more and loftier ideals can be attached but in the end, bosses are just people that got involved earlier, paid into the system in some way, and really the only defining factor is that they fucking buy into that they are above everyone else. hopefully that just means that they have the keys to the place. they might get paid more but generally that means that they are saddled with the responsibility of someone else fucking up . I don't want to get into "bad bosses" right now. that's a whole chapter, shit, maybe that's the book. an entire book based on how bad you could do it. the nuances of shitty management are infinite. 

so we build our brand. fucking up harms the brand, people don't trust shoes that fall apart right? WRONG bad example and a good point. fucking up big time harms the brand. you can't be known for being the guy that never shuts up in a conversation and expect people to want you at parties. I regularly hide from people in public that i don't want to engage with. I have plenty of project people that come to my house to suck me dry. i find that creative, witty, compassionate people intrigue me the most and i want to surround myself with people like that. I certainly know that i've lived a varied and intriguing life to some people and this is certainly where my identity and my "careers" OVERLAP. i am thinking it might seem to some that working in a grocery store is light years from being a mortician or running a restaurant but really, I am not doing anything different at all. in the end, it's just us being us doing a thing. the real and hopefully different aspect is that we have learned and grown over the years to be better and better at being ourselves, and therefor better at the Jobs we have to do. REALLY HOPEFULLY we learn so much about ourselves we get to a point that there is no "work"...literally maybe but mostly metaphysically. I am getting closer to attaining this i think. i've been very privileged to start seeing this notion. (realtors will never understand this idea because they are broken souls sent to earth from hell only to be surprised that when they die they will awaken in hell to be realtors selling property to other realtors in hell.) I think i first tasted the sauce of "anti-work" (i don't have a good name for it yet, I used to think it was zen but i don't care for that word any longer i guess) i was a dishwasher at a fancy italian restaurant. fuck, that's a whole post really, i learned a lot from that job. I realized that if the dishes were steady and i could concentrate only on each dish as it came through me and not focus on anything else but that dish...i could manipulate time. music from a

cassette on the boombox and weed helped but in the end even those things had to be pushed out of focus in order to make time move faster. It could very easily go slower. anything going on outside of the shift could easily stretch an hour into many more...having your mind right for any endeavor is definitely a key to success. bad attitudes kill the mind and are contagious infections. time is our most precious commodity. wasting it on negativity just compounds the negativity or sadness. 

another thing about realtors...not really, but kind of. it needs to be pointed out that life isn't fair and people are stupid. many times people are stupid because they are flawed from trauma they are not dealing with adequately. that's another post but we can touch on it here. some people continually fuck up their brand and get away with it. there are assholes out there that continually shit on people and people keep coming back for more. this can be as little as being annoying and getting a pass or all the way to being a fucking cosby. somehow, some folks can keep their brand shiny despite being a very terrible product. we had a fucking president pull this shit off. now, it's important to understand who keeps coming back to keep the brand legitimate. i think that it's mostly people who are too scared to look at the damage a flawed product gives to them, it's easier to trudge on and keep the blinders on than it is to see things for what they truly are. change is hard man, it's also the only thing we have in life that is pretty consistent. fear of change fuels bad brands. people stick with what they want/know sometimes even though they haven't been getting what they want/know for a long time. needs are met but needs are valueless. who wants a red delicious apple when you can get a pink lady? life is as fair as you believe in the concept. i think fair is where you see the pig races or maybe what you pay a bus driver. 

the real trip then might be to be as comfortable as you can, in any moment. not wishing for anything to be nearer, or farther, or better. or worse? I just know that i'm trying to learn how to be better at not being shitty to myself about it all. 

I refuse to "work" these days. I go to a job but I am working for myself. I am building a brand that says:  

1. this guy probably won't put up with shit that isn't real 

2. he actually seems to care about me based on a very short interaction that by all practical purposes may have been the most genuine moment I have had all day with my fellow humans. 

3. becaUSE I TRUST HIM for some reason? BECAUSE HE LOOKS ME IN THE EYE! 

4. HE COULD BE THE DEVIL. MAYBE i LIKE THE DEVIL MORE THAN I THOUGHT? and I am the devil! if i chose to be evil i'd be damn good at it. i don't think the devil has anything to do with being evil. manipulating people for personal gain doesn't have to hurt the other person and its a natural process for growth and development. fucking someone over to best them or swindle them or emotionally damage them is evil. i don't want your soul (i don't think we have them but...) i want you to be happy! 

5. I HOPE HE ISN'T LIKE THESE VANS SHOES I BOUGHT LAST MONTH...I TRUSTED VANS, THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO HOLD UP. WHAT HAPPENED TO VANS? 

vans might be a bad example they have some very quality lines out right now. let's not shit on vans. the only examples i can come up with right now are local restaurants and beers and i don't consume either of those things currently. Star wars? starwars used to be cool...oh fuck, the simpsons is probably a good example. they should have shot that horse a long time ago. that also reminds me that the new rick and morty should be up today. now that's a great brand!