the jim dwire school of how to be a man

when i was eleven or twelve we came into town to visit my relatives on my stepmother's side.

we took the long haul here to dallas from colorado in a suburban, on the whole when your young this isn't a bad way to travel, there is plenty of space to stretch out in and sleep or sprawl your legs and read. which is mostly what i did.

the first night we spent the first night at my uncle jim's. this was a night that went a long way to help form who i am.

my aunt made garlic bread with little red and green spice sprinkles on it (she is sicilian, so naturally, it is of the highest quality) and we sat around talking about books and films and music. at some point, my uncle surged me forward into his den. the den was a mishmash room built on top of the old back patio where the previous owners had added it on. he had converted it into the largest office i had ever seen.

to say office is using the term loosley. when i say office, what i mean is that that is where he kept (on the wetbar) his stereo and his vast collection of music. his taste ran anywhere from classical to blues to rock and roll. zz top to van halen to mahler to muddy waters.

i have spent hours of my life laying on my back legs spread making a carpet snow angel and listening in awe to the sounds that sprang forth form those big black speakers. i remember listening to rocketman and relaizing just how much could be done with music, just how there were no limits to possibility. over time we had all stones days in which we listened exclusivley to the stones. what he called power rock (zepplin, the who, the clash) and i would listen to his long rants about how rock and roll came from the crotch, not the mind. about how rock and roll was sacred. about how the freedom it offered us could save humanity. about how it was the last true specimen of man's freedom. about how music was the key to all existence.

i remember him putting in joe's garage and being blistered by the sound. i remember him smiling his sly little smile and telling me i wasn't ready for it. this made me so upset, i knew i had to be ready for anything, but looking back, he was right.

i remember telling him how my parents only had ten or twelve cds. he said he couldn't fathom having cd technology and giving it so little due as to own only a few albums.

he told me the first albums he bought on cd were brothers in arms and diver down. the images of the coveres are bruned into my mind even still, without even closing my eyes i can pull them to the forefront of my life and see them vibrant colors on the back of my eyelids, on the sides of buildings anywhere i can feel things truley.

he also stored in that room his computer. He worked as a computer virus tech for american airlines, which basically means that if a virus hits the sytem he had fourteen minutes to get it off every computer in DFW airport or it's his ass. DFW is one of the two or three largest ariports in the world. but viruses weren't as rampant then. still i remember him telling me stories of the widget virus, whcich superimposed the word "widget" into whatever you were typing sporadically (i.e. if you were typing the name john smith, it might show up like this jwidgetohwidgetn smiwidgetth. get it? pretty damn creative if you ask me.)

he also designed web pages part time and was a writer in several oline communities which is odd to think of as the internet was in baby land at the time.

behind his computer was a shelf on whcih he kept his books. i remember standing there in awe of "tommy" by the who and wide eyed looking at him as he called me over to his shelf and looked at me, pointing in that way he did, tender , yet exact. "every man has got to have a shelf. a place that is all his, that no one can touch. it's how you know when you're home."

i remember wanting march right out into the living room and demand a shelf of my parents. i remember i did not too long afterward.

when i got to the shelf he reached two fingers up onto the shelf and folded a book forth from the shelf and handed it to me. it was "einstein's monsters" by martin amis. he told me that some of the stories int here would make me lay back and think "fuck... (in awe not in anger)" i took it from him as he leaned into the shelf to pull a few more out. he handed me a copy of "the dharma bums" by jack kerouac and then he began poulling out a copy of abook i couldn't see the title of just that there was a nude woman's body across the cover. he put it back. he told me my parents would flip out if they knew he gave me that. i told him it wasn't up to them to hide the world from me. he said i was right, but that a man who had conviction shad to stand by them in the face of any adversity, so if i was going to take a stand on an idea, i had to stand by it through torture and screaming. he meant that it was on me if they got mad, that he would admit to giving it to me and that he wknew they wouldn't like it, but that i had to admit that i had taken the moiral stand ont he issue. well, he did. and i did.

the book was "money" by martin amis, quickly followed by "success" and kipling.

i read einstein's monsters that night along with half of money. i stayed up all night and into the next day reading and brought them eargerly back to him at the end of the next day.

he handed me a copy of "on the road" and we sat back down out in the living room.

i remember him telling me that "the sum of a man is his convictions and his willingess to stand by them or cower in the face of adversity. a man who doesn't believe what he claims to the point of death for his ideas is no man at all."

i can stil hear it echoing in my head. and even now, i have done the best of my ability to do just that. and it has certainly given me many problems in life, but on the whole it has given me a comfort with myself i seldom see in others.

i remember my aunt walking in and asking what we were talkking about and seeing my uncle lean up and take her ahand in his and kiss it. he told her "i'm going to turn this guy on to kerouac." she looked at me and said "oh yeah, he's great...i'm going on a but run, does anyone need anything?"

"no," i said.

"no thanks," said my uncle.

then, as she left he looked at me and said, "have you ever read hunter s thomson?"

"no," i answered.

he got up and went into the den where deep purple was still playing and came back in with a copy of "fear and loathing in las vegas." he looked at me and said "you're old enough for this now."

"what's it about?" i asked.

"it's mostly about drugs....you done many drugs?"

i nodded. he nodded. "just remember, drugs are a lot of fun, but there are always consequences. and everytime you do a drug, remember that. it's a choice you make, everytime. you can learn a lot from them, and you can enjoy yourself a lot, but there will be ongoing consequences with any action you take in life, so expect it and understand what you're getting into."

i nodded understanding and he said he was about ready to go to bed, so i should head on back next door to my other aunts where i was sleeping on the fold out couch.

i told him goodnight, and once again didn't go to sleep until late due to the unabashed honest displayed in the dharma bums and fear and loathing. it was a good night.

2002-11-30 | 4:10 p.m.
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