Frank Black – "My Life Is in Storage" (2005)

My life is in storage

What life has become

Stored here for a sum

In the last 2 or 3 lines, I said that dying sooner rather than later isn’t my greatest fear – and I promised to tell you what my greatest fear is.  

My greatest fear isn’t dying – it’s dying and leaving behind a big mess for someone else (i.e., my children) to clean up.

There are actually two very different kinds of messes one can leave behind when one dies.  

First, one can leave behind a tangible mess in the form of physical possessions (e.g., clothes, furniture, dishes, documents, collectibles) or unresolved financial or legal issues.

Second, one can leave behind a mess in the form of unfinished emotional business with one’s loved ones – which results in feelings of regret if not anger among those who are left behind. 

The second of those is much more interesting, but also much more difficult to face up to and deal with.  I may address that second kind of mess in the future, or I may continue to keep kicking that particular can down the road until it is too late.

Today, I’m dealing strictly with the first kind of mess.

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A few days ago, I got an e-mail from Extra Space Storage informing me that the monthly cost of my five-foot-by-five-foot climate-controlled storage unit was going to increase from $33 to $60 at the beginning of 2025.

“UNACCEPTABLE!” I muttered to myself before embarking on a search for cheaper storage locations.

(By the way, the storage unit business is a really odd one.  Extra Space Storage operates 16 storage facilities in my home county, and the rents for a 5 x 5 unit in those different facilities vary wildly – depending on which one you choose, you will pay $37, $45, $50, $55, $59, $60, $61, $68, or $75 monthly.  The rate at any one location can go up or down significantly from month to month – the supply of and demand for storage units at any given time seems to be the primary determinant of that rate.)

Eventually I decided to simply stay where I was for the next six months.  I did negotiate a monthly rate that was somewhat less than the $60 they originally asked for, but somewhat more than the rate at any number of other locations that were equally convenient to my apartment.  

I chose to maintain the status quo because the prospect of emptying out all the crap in my storage, putting it in my car, and transferring it a less costly storage facility – a process that would require multiple trips unless I rented a van big enough to move everything in one fell swoop – was too much for me to bear.  (Especially since I would need to do that either just before or just after Christmas.)

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What exactly is in my storage unit?

I’m working mostly from memory here, because I haven’t set foot inside the unit in at least six months.  But I think this list covers most the contents of my space:

Several large plastic containers of clothing items – mostly polo shirts, sweaters, and winter coats – that I haven’t worn in at least ten years and will likely never wear again.

About half a dozen boxes filled with logo glasses from various craft breweries around the country that I’ve visited at one time or another.  (We’re talking well over 100 glasses – and that doesn’t include the several dozen currently on display in my apartment.)

Roughly 60,000 baseball cards (which reside in roughly 100 cardboard boxes that are resting on two metal shelving units).

Roughly a zillion photographs of my children taken by my mother (mostly when said children visited my parents’ home in Joplin, Missouri, in the summer and over Christmas breaks). 

Miscellaneous artifacts of my childhood – ranging from my bronzed baby shoes, to report cards, to programs from musical performances I participated in, to papers I wrote for various classes, to newspaper clippings that mentioned me.  (My mother never threw away anything that evidenced that most glorious creature that was her first-born child.)

*     *     *     *     *

I made some progress with the baseball cards last year, when I sold maybe 20% of my cards to a local dealer.  That leaves 80% – most of which are of very little value . . . which means I can either throw them out of keep them.  (Guess which option I’m currently leaning in favor of?)

It should be easy to get rid of half of my clothes.  After all, I haven’t worn most of them in years.  But they are in relatively good condition, and they look pretty damn good on me.  (If I could sell them, I would.  And if I could give them away and get a tax deduction, I would.  But the standard deduction was increased by a large amount a few years ago, so it’s hard to believe that I will ever be in a position to itemize deductions in the future.)

There may someone out there would welcome my collection of brewery glasses, but how do I find him?  (I say him because I’m pretty sure there’s no her who wants them.)

I can’t throw away my mother’s photographs without taking at least a cursory look at each one – those are my children in those pictures! – and that’s going to take forever.

And for the childhood artifacts, what would you have me do?  Throw away my report cards, or the programs of my public piano performances, or the copies of the school newspapers I wrote articles for?  ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?

A lot of people say we are not our possessions.  I say that a lot of people of full of sh*t!

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Click here to listen to “My Life Is in Storage,” from Frank Black’s 2005 Honeycomb album.  (Frank Black, who was born Charles Michael Kittredge Thompson IV, called himself Black Francis when he was a member of the Pixies.)  

Click here to buy it from Amazon.

Bob Dylan – "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" (1966)

Your therapist just knows what you need

But I know what you want

I’m old, and I think about dying from time to time.  But the fact that I’m going to die sooner rather than later isn’t the thing that worries me the most.

I’ll reveal what does worry me the most in the next 2 or 3 lines.  But today I’m going to tell you about a really strange dream I had recently.

I’m not going to describe my dream in detail.  Suffice it to say that it involved a water leak in an apartment or hotel or dormitory room – whatever it was, I don’t think I lived there – and in trying to find someone to fix the leak, I ended up locking myself out of the place without my cell phone.  

There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the building, so I ran outside in hopes of finding someone who could help me solve my predicament – and that’s when I woke up. 

Did I mention that I was naked when all of this was happening?  (That’s probably pretty significant.)

*     *     *     *     *

That night, I told one of the people who I play trivia with about my dream – she’s a psychotherapist, and I thought she might be able to interpret it for me.

“The details of the dream aren't important, although I find it interesting that you were trying to address a problem that wasn’t really your responsibility – because you didn't live there,” she told me.  “What matters is how you felt during the dream.  I assume that being locked out of the room with no phone and no clothes made you feel very vulnerable.”

“You can say that again,” I said.

“So what’s the thing in your life that’s hanging over your head and making you feel so anxious?  And if it’s not really your problem but someone else’s problem, why do you feel responsible for fixing it?” she continued.  “And here’s one other question for you – when you left the building, were you trying to find someone who could help you stop the leak, or were you just running away from the situation?”

I didn’t want to address her questions, so I tried to change the subject.  But she knew enough about me and my living situation to make some pretty good guesses about what might be bothering me.

I couldn’t wait for trivia to end so I could get the hell away from her and her questions.  

*     *     *     *     *

I thought about the dream and what the therapist had to say about it when I was driving home that night, and decided that I should have just kept my mouth shut.  I would have forgotten about the dream in a day or two if I had kept it to myself.  But after I shared it with her, she stirred up enough sh*t to give me bad dreams for a month.

Obviously, it’s much easier to ignore bad dreams than it is to face up to the issues that generated those dreams.  That’s been my strategy for most of my life.

I would advise you to do the same.  You may feel the need to get your bad dreams off your chest, but sharing them with a therapist is a big mistake.  They’re going to want to figure out why you’re having the dreams, and they know the right questions to ask to get to the bottom of things.  

That’s going to be an uncomfortable conversation.  A therapist might tell you that you need to have that conversation, but trust me – you don’t want to have it.  

Capisce?

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The lines that open this post paraphrase these lines from the penultimate verse of Bob Dylan’s “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”:

Your debutante just knows what you need

But I know what you want

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I think Dylan got it backward.  

Click here to listen to “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again.”

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

   

Chicago – "Fancy Colours" (1970)

We do things

So very fine

In the dew

I have a bit of problem with the lyrics to “Fancy Colours,” which opens the third of Chicago’s eponymous non-debut album – if you ask me, they don’t make a lot of sense.

But I have a bigger problem with the British spelling of the song’s title.  Why “Fancy Colours” instead of “Fancy Colors”?

After all, Robert Lamm – who wrote the song – grew up in Brooklyn.  And the album’s producer, James William Guercio, grew up in Chicago.  So why the British spelling?

By the way, that spelling was no accident because there’s another track on the album titled “Colour My World.”

Wazzup with that?

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That’s pretty much all I’ve got for you today.  Except for these photos from a recent bike ride.  (Truth be told, my phone deserves more credit for them than I do.)

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Click here to listen to “Fancy Colours.”

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys – "New San Antonio Rose" (1940)

Deep within my heart lies a melody

A song of old San Antone

One of the highlights of my recent trip to San Antonio to visit my sister were the breakfast tacos at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant in her neighborhood.

I overheard one of the friendly waitresses and a customer she addressed as “Mr. Jim” talking about the various jobs they had held while I was eating there one morning.  (Most of the customers must have been regulars because the waitresses called almost everyone who came in by name.) 

(Listen to Sean Bean!)

“I’ve been working in restaurants since I was 22,” the waitress told Mr. Joe.  

“Is that so?” he said.  “You know, I used to deliver Domino’s pizzas.”

“What do you do now?” she asked.

“I’m a realtor,” he replied.  “When I was getting started in real estate, I used to stick one of my business cards in each of the pizzas I delivered.  I got quite a few clients that way.”  

Really?  If you were looking for someone to help you sell your house, would you hire a guy who had to deliver pizzas to make ends meet?

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In 1938, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys had a #1 hit with a recording of a Western swing instrumental titled “San Antonio Rose.”

Shortly thereafter, Wills and his band added lyrics to the song and released it as “New San Antonio Rose.”  That recording also made it to #1.

Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys

If you don’t know the music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, you are missing out.  “That’s What I Like ‘Bout the South,” “Ida Red,” “Roly Poly” and especially “Take Me Back to Tulsa” are just a few of their many great records.

Click here to listen to “New San Antonio Rose.”

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.