Nothing but the wheel

To spawn Amazon Wheel WM sound clip
A friend of mine out here had a Falcon. And the Falcon came to me in a dream last night. Once P. and I went looking through junk yards for doors for this car. Early on a cold Saturday morning, on cliffs strewn with Buicks and Fords, around in the area south of Boston where John Adams once got up, the ground seeping now oil and antifreeze.

P. needed to replace his doors which were banged up in a Storrow Dr crash. He fell 'asleep at the wheel.' The wheel on his car was unique; it had a knob for good leverage on turns, the kind the bus drivers' wheels in Racine sported. His eventual exit from terra firma was what they call 'suddenly.' During his time here he certainly touched me.

I can tell pretty much why the Falcon came in a dream. My door is dented on my car, and it needs replacing, what with C's graduation upcoming, and week before last I called a lot of junk yards looking for a replacement. P. had found the doors he needed in the dense junk yard [now full of condos], strapped them cleverly on his car roof, and gone away.

***
The greatest dream of ever for me: The Johnson Wax Building. Linoleum, brass, plateaus, shepherds, clouds - heaven stuff came to me.

At Johnson's there was the Johnson's tower. White smocked chemists there. Fluorescent light at night through Pyrex glass tubes. These electrons emitting general messages.

Wright said he wanted to build a cathedral of work. If that is what the Johnson's building is, then the tower is where the high priests would study, and what they would study is chemistry. The goal to kill mosquitoes, to freshen bathroom odors, to protect linoleum; to conquer chaos.

Electronics has eclipsed chemistry. And maybe biology or biochemistry will eclipse electronics. Those monkish smock fellows at work on transformation got my attention in that town. I am still running down this line.

***
Just got in from Texas baby which looks more like California every year. Covered Microsoft's doings. It is the root of American power again, with former governor now in white house. This doesn't seem to buy a whole lot of bravado for the populace, though there are at least one or two cats in SUV's smug and having the time of their lives, and, as far away as was the Cowboy's football rains, the saga continues.

Texas is an excuse; the brewing new Washington doctrine seems to owe as much, to read the so called thoughtful pages of the papers, to the U of Chi and long-dead 'warrior philosophers' like Bloom and Strauss. Didn't get out much or see much there; had hoped to get to the theoretical place in Dallas where Robert Johnson recorded, but not this time.

Cable TV was what I saw. There was the history channel with a one hour special on the life of Joseph Goebbel's wife. PBS with a several hour telethon special on the Gospel Elvis. And the New Jersey Nets and the San Antonio spurs in the NBA finals.

On Delta reading The Education of Henry Adams' bloodliner to John Adams which I have discovered later in my journey is a very strange precursor of Mailer. Weird but good weird, like the flowers in June.

And on the way home: Holding on to nothing but the wheel. A song by Peter Wolf that seems to be out of another time of mine. Lonesome guitars. Pedal steels, pianos and slides. Gram Parsons skulking about. Traces of Albert Lee. Tucson to Tucumcari. A road. Still Exile on Main Street.[Sound]

"I've been flying past the houses farms and fields
Holding onto nothing but the wheel

41 goes on and on
and the lights go winding in the dawn
and the sky's the color of polished steel
and the only thing I know for sure

is you dont love me anymore
and I am holding on to nothing but the wheel"

I am usually holding on to the wheel these days between some genetic engagements. So the ring on this resonates like hell as plane starts coming down back in Boston. Nothing but clouds til the Kennedy Library appears from mist a mile from Logan.

***

Get behind me devil! Life is like that! Don't tell ma! Things are getting worse more slowly. Go for the weird but good weird. Keep on watching the sky!

Last update: 8/12/2004; 10:14:21 AM.