Monday, August 18, 2008

Starved


In the middle of downtown stands an old church.

It was built in 1912, surrounded then by a scattering of tidy Victorian homes, and an inn still under construction. It must have made an impressive sight then, with its cross-topped steeple, plain and tall, rising high above the orange groves and dusty avenues.

Today it huddles in the shadows of nearby office towers. Homeless men buried under filthy blankets try to catch a moment’s rest on the front doorsteps, while fire engines from the next-door station blast air horns as they pass the old church.

Inside, it’s really nothing like the plush megachurches that have sprouted like weeds in the nearby upscale suburban neighborhoods. Inside here, the pews are hard, the carpeting is worn, and the amenities few. Still, the stained-glass windows—dating back to 1916—are breathtakingly beautiful.

From the back alley, a flight of concrete steps leads down to a basement door. Inside is a kitchen and large dining room, where every Wednesday night, a bunch of volunteers—mostly elderly and teens—make dinner for the 250 or more homeless and low-income folks who crowd the front door at 5:30 each week.

I make my way down these stairs every Wednesday that I can.

This afternoon, when I paused to open the door, there was a stench. I looked down. Someone had defecated beside the basement door.

I didn’t spend a lot of time wondering who or why. For someone living on the streets, there’s not a lot of privacy—someplace to be alone for a few minutes. And this stairwell is certainly out of the way.

But it had to be cleaned up. More volunteers would be arriving soon, and while the teens (I assumed) would pretend not to see it, the sweet old ladies would be disheartened.

I’ll leave out all the details, except to say that I finished the job by scrubbing the concrete down with a bleach solution. And soon the landing at the bottom of the stairs was once again being stacked up with empty boxes and cartons, just as it is most weeks.

During dinner service, as the kitchen staff piled plates with hot food to be served to our guests in the dinning room, someone pointed outside the basement door. There—where not more than an hour earlier I had been cleaning shit off the doorstep—slept a raggedy man, huddled among the flattened cardboard cartons and bags of trash.

The next minute I was standing over him, my silhouette blotting out the late afternoon sun and casting a shadow over him, as he slowly opened his bleary eyes.

(To be continued...)








Thursday, August 14, 2008

VHL-stock, late breaking news

We just got word that my brother Gary's son Joe will be flying in to attend "VHL-stock." Joe is an amazing piano player and we hope to coax him up on stage for a couple of tunes. That would make two generations of Cieslaks on stage at one time: D-Rave & his son Calvin; Gary's son Joe; and me.
Here's an old picture of Joe-Joe and his dad...See you all at the show! (P.S. we're gonna rock the place!)

VHL-Stock
An evening of dessert, wine, and music
featuring Calvin Cieslak
Saturday, August 16th 7:00 p.m.
23515 Hatteras St. Woodland Hills
An event to benefit the
VHL Family Alliance Cancer Research Fund

Monday, August 11, 2008

VHL-stock: Count down

Calvin and the band get ready for the "VHL-stock" concert this Saturday. Practicing in the game room:

Calvin belts it out...



Nick keeps us on track...


D-Rave still has the chops...


Wes was kind enough to sit in... literally


The essayist of Orange Crest works it out


VHL-Stock

An evening of dessert, wine, and music, by Calvin Cieslak

Saturday, August 16th 7:00 p.m.

23515 Hatteras St. Woodland Hills

An event to benefit the

VHL Family Alliance Cancer Research Fund

http://www.vhl.org/

Sunday, August 10, 2008

VHL-stock

Keep it together…

Got to keep it together…

Driving across the desert at 5:00 a.m. every morning, you got nothing but time to think. Sand and time. Replaying each crisis: a brother who’s terminally ill, dad with cancer. Haven’t even allowed yourself to think about the other thing, yet:

Your seventeen year-old nephew—the one who everyone says is so much like you—is also up against it. A rare disease you’ve never even heard of: Von Hippel-Lindau. Some rare genetic condition that leaves him vulnerable to tumors on his eyes, or spinal cord, or adrenal glands. He’s already had three delicate surgeries to remove growths—one on his retina and another on his adrenal gland. Why him, God? Can’t you find some other family to mess with?

Keep it together…

Then there’s this Saturday. He’s got this disease, right, but he goes and arranges a fund-raising event for it. Draw attention, raise awareness and donations for research. He’s calling it “VHL-stock,” ‘cause he’s put together a band of friends and family members to play the event.

VHL-stock…where'd he come up with that? They all say he's just like me. No he's not. He's so much better than I ever was...ever could be...

Keep it together…

Got to keep it together…

VHL-Stock
An evening of dessert, wine, and music, by Calvin Cieslak
Saturday, August 16th 7:00 p.m.
23515 Hatteras St. Woodland Hills
An event to benefit the
VHL Family Alliance Cancer Research Fund
http://www.vhl.org/

Friday, August 8, 2008

No Excuse

Woke up this morning and started strumming a few familiar chords on my beat-up old guitar. Words soon followed. An unsteady melody. All characters are fictional, and any resemblance to persons living or nearly dead are purely coincidental.

* * *

I meant to live a little harder
And die when I was young
Leave a trail of broken hearts
When all was said and done

But I woke up face down in a tract home
I’m entitled to a call
Send a lawyer, cash, & parachute
And meet me at the mall

There’s no excuse
For what I’ve done
No excuse
For who I’ve become
Even the corpse in the mirror
Is laughing at me, son
There’s no excuse
But I’ll try to think of one

Meant to be a rock star
When I was seventeen
Live like all my heroes,
then go out like Steve McQueen

But I even f*$@d up that one
I can’t do nothin’ right
At least that’s what my wife says
When I crawl in bed at night

There’s no excuse…

Daydreaming at the stoplight
Or was I blacking out?
I drank my way into this mess
Why can’t I drink my way back out?

Time for me to grow up
To kill off Peter Pan
Throw away those yesterdays
And take it like a man

There’s no excuse
For what I’ve done
No excuse
For who I’ve become
Even the corpse in the mirror
Is laughing at me, son
There’s no excuse
But I’ll try to think of one



Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Porn

I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but…since my wife already knows:

Every night, before I go to bed, I look at porn.

There, I said it. Feels good to get that off my chest.

No, wait. Not THAT kind of porn! I’m not talking ‘bout pictures of skin, or the Suicide Girls, or whatever…

I’m talking about GUITAR PORN!

By my bedside are stacks of guitar magazines, music gear catalogues, and—don’t tell a soul—“special offers” from Guitar Center. And just before the lights go off, I thumb through them, furtively…my longing gaze lingering on the rounded profile of a vintage 1950s Les Paul neck, or the sensual offset waist of a Fender Custom Shop Strat.

Ooooooooh. I know she wants me.

The latest object of my secret obsession? The new Gibson LP295.

This baby is a hybrid of the famed 50’s Gold Top and the highly sough-after rockabilly rod, the Epiphone ES295 with Bigsby tremolo. Just sneak a peak at that naughty Florentine cutaway, and the hand-painted, cream-colored pick guard with gold flowers. Whew!



My friend, the Wired Turtle says this guitar is an abomination, but she’s beautiful to me. No matter; at $2900, this high-priced floozy is well outta my price range. But it don’t cost nothin’ to look!

Sick, you say? “Perv!” you call me?

Well, I betcha you got your own brand of porno—something you covet when you think no one else is looking.

You sicko.

You disgust me.





Sunday, August 3, 2008

14 Days


This song, “Every Little Bit Counts” by James McMurtry, is what ‘s been playing through my head last day or two…

I'm no longer choking
on the hair of the dog
It's been a couple of weeks now
since I came out of the fog
The highs are slightly higher
And the lows are just as low
It’s a mild improvement
on theaverage even so

Every little bit counts
Every little bit counts

Though it may not count for much
Could be long forgotten
By the time you add 'em up
Could be too little, too late,
sorry...