Ryan McCarthy

bbcoutlooksucks@gmail.com

Education:

* More time and indulgence for idiosyncratic interests than you previously thought possible. 

Experience: 

* My subtle hints over the years—the dogeared copy of Dubliners, the selection of Altman for movie night, Chekov’s Peasants, others—had done nothing. In fact, if she actually did read the books, or understand the intent of the movies, or articles, or conversations, or reactions, she would have been forced to accept the ridiculousness of her present claim that she was just > a JCPenny gal in a country club world. > That’s insane. > No it’s not. > Jesus. | And onward we dive into the deep-end of trying to situate our lives in some kind of understandable bubble. It was an extension of the previous evening’s conversation about her not being cool. She most certainly wasn’t, but the word itself was too cheap and wasn’t getting the point across. Hip became the next attempted qualifier. Also not very effective—probably because of some holdover taste from the sixties. Hip meant something dark—literally and figuratively. So that conversation was left to marinate and we slept without conclusion. 

The next evening I attempted to use examples of different jazz compositions to illustrate what and how free-jazz worked and how timbre is an essential character in the emotional landscape of the compositional world. I played one particular example of a Swede creating the image of crying through a series of reed-bites and melodic runs—bobbing in and out of coherency; a man having uncontrollable fits. She understood the idea, in a way. At least could agree it sounded like crying. She doesn’t like to be too confronted with the difficult. At least, nothing too sad and truthful. It’s too much for her to bear. But I used this idea to move the scale one step further: cool -> hip -> sophisticated. That seemed to hit the mark. And to be fair, I couldn’t have popped out that word until now. Until the conversations had marinated. Until she had been forced in the black of bed and near sleep that, perhaps, she wasn’t who she thought she was. Acceptance. It wasn’t going to change the way she felt, or approached anything, but it may change her idea of why I do things that I do. And that’s all I’m really trying to get across. I’d like to say that I want her to be a better person. My kind of better. But really I just want her to understand that I’m the better person. That I’m the sophisticated one. Poor and sophisticated. Something, I think, she thinks is contradictory. I’ve often heard her cross-pollinate a judgement with class as a catch-all for style, sophistication, wealth, and status. As in > you know, they just have a certain—class. > I certainly understand what you’re saying, but I’m not sure the word is being used how you’re intending. > What do you mean? > Well, when I hear the word “class,” I think of divisions between people based only on money. There are other words for sophistication, style, and status. > But there’s a certain class to people. > Sure. But what I’m trying to tell you is that certain class is just wealth. > Well fine, but you know what I mean. > I do, but that’s because I know you. And semantics mean a lot to me. I think they define the vagaries of our collective dialectic. They are the root of generalizations and stereotypes. 

My eyes were getting tired. Or had been tired. Is this coffee decaf? I have a headache. These stupid fucking nicotine lozenges are terrible. And unsatisfying. They were at church and I was waiting in the kitchen, with my computer plugged into a tabletop stereo placed (by me) on the kitchen table. I faced the back yard. A stone patio extending ten feet to the brick skirt wall, and forward into tasteful landscaping. Rows of little round bushes interspersed with bald reddish trees that appeared to have been striped. The yard continued up at a steep incline, the grass brown, dormant, peppered with trees (elms?) and up up up to a line of larger bushes marking the end of the property. It could have been fun to be a young boy here. Maybe. At night, climbing the hill on your belly. A a a a a a an adventurer, a discoverer inching toward the top of the hill to what splendor on the other side! Perhaps a great valley, deep as the south rim of the great canyon, a river flowing far below the sight line. Or, a great pasture of golden wheat, swaying in the late afternoon sun, or, if feeling particularly inventive, the edge of space. The edge of the world—which you always believed to be flat anyway. On your belly, chin resting on knuckles, and gazing into the ever-reaching blackness. God, what’s out there. You reach your hand out and and and infinity embraces you. Maybe the indulgence would turn comic. Most likely it would—an appropriation of nostalgic video games and books. Maybe a restaurant, or a diner/spaceport. Is that why I always liked diners? Like some exotic cyber cafe where you could charter a ship, or get into a scuffle with a pig-nosed nightmare, or simply have a drink, translucent and glowing, but traditional in some way. Like whiskey straight, but here, in the never-ending ether, a bright neon blue is normal. That’s when you have to make a choice. Am I going to create more structures and designs in space? or crawl back down the hill and into reality. Let’s have that drink first. Like a patron of any kind. Waiting. Waiting out time, or thoughts—waiting for a friend to show up—waiting on a random lover—waiting for action; for entertainment; for distraction. 

The door to the cafe swings open with a flourish. Bang. The room looks. The music, of course, stops for a moment. Like an old joke of a western. Except the bang was an accident. The poor fool who entered so violently had actually just stumbled on his way through the swinging entrance and the attempt to correct his balance had resulted in the flinging of the door against the wall. The music had cut out because the bartender had had enough of that particular atonal composition and had pressed skip on the remote panel coincidentally at the same time. So now we were looking at this poor little guy. His skin bursting into crimson as he met pair after pair of eyes of all kinds. Irritated. Pitying. Warm. And then the next track would come on and everyone would realize they didn’t know the guy and would focus back on their drinks and hopes for more distractions. He sits near me. Naturally. Because I’m telling this story and he’s just made an entrance. We think he’s bumbling. And that’s a natural response. And he might be, but he’s nervous. Not just because of the poor entrance. He seems a twinge scared. Intriguing. Or maybe not. Maybe he’s just the callow type that can’t process the accidental spot-light. His entire week might be ruined now. But that’s not all of it. It’s in his eyes. A deep-set fear. A vibration—near crying. He orders a simple beverage. Something resembling an adjunct domestic grain fermentation. And looks around nervously. We make eye-contact and I give him a wry I feel bad for you smile. He looks away without changing that same scared expression. The bartender turns to me after serving our nervous man his beverage. > What are you up to, tonight? > You’re looking at it. | A nod to say yeah, life is a pile of shit. > Can I get a couple shots for me and my friend here? | I chin at our nervous man. > Oh, no thanks. > You can just let it sit there then. > I wouldn’t want it to go to waste. > It’s all poison man, it’s all a waste. | The bartender pours three. Him and I raise, clink, knick the bar, and pour down our respective throats. Nervous guy watches us both. Then quickly grabs the glass and pours it down. On the spectrum of probability, he chokes and coughs and we laugh. But not a hearty laugh—just a guttural response to someone choking. > What’s your name? > Me? > Yeah. | He looks over my shoulder, then back to my eyes. > Iz. > James. Good to meet you. > Yeah. | Iz. Poor guy. What’s he waiting for? I catch myself before asking because it strikes me as a particularly stupid thing to ask. What the fuck am I waiting for? Caspar was probably dead. And Her, she was probably dead too. Caspar. That piece of shit. > How late is this place open? > Forever. | We both look back at our drinks. The screen embedded in the surface of the bar was broadcasting images of a great mobilization of people somewhere. An entire planet evacuating. A ticker across the bottom explained that they would most likely emigrate to a nearby sphere who’s PM was declaring that they did not have the resources and infrastructure to support such a large number of people. He was calling on regional planets to provide assistance. > Good luck. > What’s going on? > Everyone from that planet needs to go somewhere else. > Why? > Because they fucked everything up and now the place is uninhabitable. > Why? > Because they’ve poisoned everything. > Oh. | The bartender hit the skip button on the console again.

Miscellaneous: 

* Proficient in gaming, speaking of esoteric Modern European literature, working while legally ‘impaired’, cuddling. 

references available upon creation of flattering personas