HueyBot 5: Insomnia: Its What's For 3 a.m. Brunch

Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 05:33:31 GMT

I've always been a night critter, sitting up late, awash in music. The
sun assaults and shows all the grit & peeled paint. The night is
interesting, unfettered, filled with odd promise and might even hurt
you. I often write like mad in the few hours before bed when I'm halfway
into a delta state anyway and for some odd reason, first thing in
whatever I have that passes for a morning. Barring external fuzz, I'll
hit the pillow at 3, wake up at 6 with the big-eye, write until 9 and
crash until noon. Its shameless & Bohemian, I know. I sometimes feel as
if I'm flailing around, attacking the Nautilus and Ned is trying to poke
me in the eye with a harpoon.

I prefer instrumentals; I like the input while writing. Songs are
often too intrusive. There'd have been no Dickens if Wormwood had played
the gentle metal stylings of Whitesnake every time he hefted a pen.
Discs of night breezes sell for a reason.

I've always had more fun at night and not just because I have a taste
for a few genteel evils. I used to discomfit the living hell out of Maw
& Paw. I'd sleep overnight in my high school stage loft so I could play
the Baldwin baby grand for 6 rich hours in the evening, flowing
undistracted. Removing the vice-principal, parents & geeks from the
equation was crucial, the only way I could come to love it. That's how I
came to be Director of Human Services here in Atlantis.

The night has quirks. Sound carries better minus the greater noise of
the day. Cussing has quite a reach after dark. But it has its own pitch
& rhythms, just as 4 p.m. has a more clangorous traffic flow and the
thrum of transformers shifting under the day load. At night, things go
by and leave a Doppler trail you can follow for several blocks. There's
a resonant hum of delivery trucks in the wee hours, trees fanning the
wind along, outbursts of dog, trains sighing through in bass. I can hear
the gentler whatever-it-is that replaces the relentless photons of noon.
Night levels the playing field. At night, you climb off the wheel, make
hot tea and sit on the porch staring up at a UPS jet heading towards
Missouri, crossing a full moon. I harbor strange amusements.

I've mostly worked night jobs, often semi-isolated spots. I've handled
customer service fairly well, but I happen to prefer MY little world. I
find it easier to hunker down minus the evil eye. Night work allows
that. If I screw up, okay, give me a whack to the head, but don't perch
on my back watching every move, its not THAT kind of symbiosis. I
require dinner and a movie first. Not fast food & Adam Sandler, either.

Lately, I've been made most keenly aware of how alone one can be in a
group and how populous is a world filled with just yourself and music.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who sometimes leaves the cursed TV on as
audio wallpaper, just to be kept mindful that someone, somewhere, is
alive and kicking, that the world hasn't come to a halt
Twilight-Zone-style, leaving only you to tell The Tale. Music transcends
even its own corrupt sales machinery. It speaks without yelling. Used
car salesmen can't.

So I prefer the night. Its more real. America has a poor relationship
with rhythm of all kinds and flies in the face of the order of things as
a hobby. I sometimes wonder what really moves the worlds of those who
know nothing of Cannonball Adderly, Mojo Nixon, sax quartets by
Glazunov, Bach multitracked with harmonica, maybe a little of the
classier world techno. Surely there's some similar little nugget at
their core that makes it worth braving the evil sun and even moreso, the
evil, inefficient strictures of high noon. Sure, I'd like to be a more
"solid" citizen, but I don't want to take too big a step back when I've
worked so hard at becoming less White. I may have a black belt in
imperfection, but I think a 3 a.m. soaking in one of the few things that
justifies our oxygen seems like a meaningful reparation for the jihad of
the day.

HellPope Huey.,
The H.P. Lovecraft of Humorists
hellpopehuey@subgenius.com

"Great zombie Jesus, that's HUGE!"
- 'Futurama'

"..with a family, we feel affection.
We don't merely imitate affection."
- Roger Rosenblatt, "The Man In The Water"

There once was a HellPope mired in the South
whose teeth wore the scars of the storms from his mouth
Those who get twitchy when they feel such a breeze
Must surely write poems just as rotten as these
LOOK A BOT THAT CRAPS IN YER SHOE WHAT WONT THEY THINK OF
NEXT????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
???????????

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Original file name: HueyBot 5 Insomnia Its What's - converted on Friday, 29 June 2001, 22:32