Thank You, Mrs. Rhymer, by Rosicky Jones

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (better known by his stage name, Pablo Picasso) is very important to me.  I can speak intelligently about his blue period, my favorite Picasso epoch.  I can pontificate endlessly about his cubist dalliances.  I can build an origami replica of Picasso’s small intestine from memory – from memory I say. The whores and beggars he recreated with his dreary and austere color patterns elicit emotion from some strange center of nobility located between my pancreas and the quarter I swallowed in 5^th grade.  I recognize the majority of Picasso’s work and can rattle of some worthless details about him or the piece in question.  My favorite piece is The Old Guitarist.  I have a print of it at my place that has served me in more ways than simple visual stimulation.  I like staring at it and imagining what Pablo was feeling while creating it.  I casually walk female visitors past it, stopping to talk about it and illuminating my sensitivity pre-coitus.  And it works. Pablo is one of my most loyal and successful wingmen.  My affinity for the man and his work has grown since my 3^rd grade teacher, Mrs. Rhymer, introduced me to him and his place in the artistic pantheon.

My recent relocation and nearly 100 years of unbearable solitude have left me a substantial amount of time for introspection and self-analysis.  I come home from work, light up a cigarette, pour myself a vodka & water, and pack a bowl – this is my post-work routine, daily.  I lie on my floor, because as yet my place is couchless and televisionless.  I stare at my Picasso and ask myself why.  Why do I like this guy?  Why am I fascinated with this painting?  It has less to do with the contextual meaning of the work, because I sought context only after I realized I liked it.  I had no clue that it was an homage to a deceased friend of Picasso.  Context didn’t matter.  The pictorial syntax isn’t why I love it either, and neither is the transcendent skill Picasso had.  I don’t appropriately appreciate the spontaneous brushwork, the unity of the tragic and the sublime, or the simple prescience it takes to create in methods never before attempted.

It came to me validated.  And I blindly cosigned.

I sat up on my carpet and began questioning my individuality.  I loved this painting and Pablo because I felt it represented me.  I could appreciate it because I thought I was cultured and sophisticated enough to appreciate pure genius and not the Warhol-ian garbage that litters the walls and thoughts of others.  My appreciation helped erect another barrier between me and the clods that put up Scarface posters.  It differentiated me from the fucks that wore Che T-shirts yet couldn’t point out Argentina on a map.  I was different, better in some ways, but at the very least I was different.  I was a thinker and not a sheep that blindly followed.  I was an iconoclast, except I wasn’t; I was a shill that followed the icons of my icons.  I was numerous stages removed from having my own thoughts.  I am worse than the blind sheep that I make fun of, because I actually thought I was different.

Had my 3^rd grade teacher selected Dalí or Frida I may have wound up with a different painting on my wall.  I may not give two shits, or even one shit, about Picasso or The Old Guitarist.  My attempts at self-creation and opposition to the ideals, interests, and habits of the masses have left me fully entrenched in the ideals, interests, and habits of another population of masses.  I took down the painting.

As I approached the nadir of my drug-fueled self-loathing… or apex of my drug induced self-loathing, depending on which side your allegiance lies, I made a couple vows.  I decided that for one solid day I would ignore the teachings of my teachers and live life on my own terms.  I would talk to strangers, I would hang out with bad influences, I would park in handicapped spaces, I would ignore Palin’s malapropisms and appreciate her creative use of the English language, I would care about the oil more than I did about the wildlife, I would buy an iPad and burn my hard copies of Othello and On the Road, I would dance like no one was watching, I would…

I got up and hopped on my bicycle.  Why a bike, you ask?  Because that is the only form of physical activity that doesn’t destroy my ankle, and I have to get back on the grind due to my appearance inching closer to the guy that ate Adrian Grenier, instead of the cheap Grenier knock-off I usually resemble.  I always pass this crazy-looking guy on the bike trail; I think he lives in the woods Kaczynski-style.  I have never had the urge to speak to the freak, but that was due to my indoctrination at the hands of my Picasso-loving teacher and my overbearing parents.  So caution and my shoddy vaccination records were thrown to the wind as I engaged Flowery in a convo.  I called him Flowery because he was sketching a flower onto a Post-It note sized canvas as I slowly approached him.

“Hi!”

Then Flowery turned toward me, and stared into my heart with his piercing blue eyes.  I could tell he had been a handsome man in his younger years; I could also tell that the world failed him, and caused him more sadness than could fit on this page.  Flowery walked towards me, the wind calmed to a whisper, my stomach filled with nervous anticipation as he began singing to me in a sweet, almost innocent voice.  I raised a hand to my cheek and wiped away tears that I couldn’t believe I was crying until I saw glistening on my fingertips.

Ave Maria
Gratia plena
Maria, gratia plena
Maria, gratia plena

I got off my bike and I hugged Flowery, and he kept on singing.

Ave, ave dominus
Dominus tecum
Benedicta tu in mulieribus
Et benedictus

I was sobbing into this man’s chest.  Sobbing because had I continued following the masses I may have never had the chance to hear the voice God herself penned Ave Maria for.  Sobbing because this man’s pain, this man’s failings belong not to him – but to all of us.  His life is one of many black eyes on our society; and we have gone blind as a result.

Ummm…

Sorry, I got confused between reality and hopes.  I really hoped that the aforementioned would have occurred.  I really wanted to find a wayward soul, who I could reveal the wayward to.  But Flowery was more Nell than José Carreras.

Side Note: I decided to go with the lesser known member of the Three Tenors.  Yeah, we all know Domingo and Pavarotti, but José is often ignored.  Not here at Flip, though; here he will be honored.

Flowery stared at me, speechless, so I decided to make a peace offering.  I extended my power bar to Flowery.  He grabbed it, and then he shook his head in disgust as he threw the power bar back at me and scurried into the forest, never to be smelled again.  I couldn’t blame the guy; banana is the shittiest flavor.  Why does anyone make banana-flavored anything?  I mean, someone has to enjoy them; otherwise there would be no reason to produce them.  Banana-flavored treats are like Nickelback albums. No one admits to buying them, yet sales continue to accumulate, pushing good bands like Hanson to the back burners.

Side Note:  Try and not like this song.  Go on, try.  I always thought Hanson was one major drug addiction away from magnificence.  They have skill; they have an attractive sexually ambiguous lead singer, they have a cool band name. Why didn’t a record exec slip them some coke or even a bit of salvia? Jeez.

My first attempt at bucking the status quo proved to be an epic fail, so I decided to do something that my parents and teachers constantly preached against.  I decided to hang out with a bad influence.  I am a bad influence and most of my friends are bad influences, so someone that I identify as such a bad influence is the pits.  This person would be none other than Stokes.  Stokes is a scumbag.  I had a party a while back and he stole all my CDs.  He returned them, because he forgot he was at my house.  Stokes has sex with fat girls, and likes it.  Stokes has dreadlocks, not by design, but as a by-product of his poor hygiene.  He’s a drug addict, but not the good kind.  He isn’t a hilarious Lothario/addict like Pinky.  He isn’t a girl-addict like Loosey.  He isn’t a genius addict like me… or Dr. House or Kekule.  He is a waste of flesh, welfare-wasting, ride-bumming addict.  But maybe I was prejudiced against him because of Mrs. Rhymer and not because of my own free will.  So off to Stokes I went.  I tried calling him, but his phone is permanently shut off.  He is single-handedly keeping the payphone business in operation.

I drove onto his gravel driveway and was immediately bombarded with the barking of his two malnourished dogs.  I threw the banana Powerbar at them, but even they were having none of it.  I walked in through the screen door and Stokes was pasted to the couch and looking at me as if he had been expecting me.  He asked me for a cigarette and we walked out to the porch and smoked and talked.  I explained my problem to him and why I thought I may have ignored some meaningful life experiences because I was not a free thinker.  I had to rewind and explain Picasso to him.  I tried to keep his focus, but he became very disinterested when I told him I didn’t have any pot on me.  As we smoked and chatted his son walked past us and into the house from his summer school class.  We followed him back inside and sat on the couch.  His son threw his backpack on the ground and joined us for the never-ending unemployment special Law and Order marathon.  I asked Stokes junior about school and his favorite subjects – and he was having none of it.  He told me he hated school, and Stokes Sr. supported his son.  Little Stokes was not receptive to a fuckin’ thing I was saying.  He despised even talking about school.  The kid had a worse vocab than his dad, which was amazing since his dad sounded like he was chewing on his tongue the majority of the time.  He was failing miserably and was being failed by his parents and the system.  He had zero interest in anything academic – which blew my mind since that was his meal ticket.  He was chubby, so athletics were out of the picture, and he wasn’t adorable – a pedophile would drive right by this kid – and with all those odds against him, he still disregarded school, along with his dad.  I grabbed my things, and ignored the fact that my wallet was somehow 10 bucks lighter and left.  They didn’t notice.  I think they think I’m still there, transfixed by the cold mac and cheese dinner and Law and Order merry-go-round.

I drove home and parked as far away from a handicapped parking spot as possible.  I walked back into my house and hung Picasso back up.  I was suddenly okay with the fact that I was molded by others.  Because the others that molded me weren’t half bad.  I was lucky.  I should probably thank Mrs. Rhymer, fuck it, here goes – Thank you Mrs. Rhymer for being the greatest teacher I have ever had.

I’m ok with the loss of my free will; because I lost mine to people who actually gave a shit.