I forgot to put the garbage out yesterday afternoon, so I ran it out first thig this morning. Here’s where I have to admit that I don’t often get outside so early, and I forgot how beautiful mornings are. There was the lingering smell of burnt paper in the air, as though someone had just started a fire in the woodstove, but the logs that were in there when I came back inside were far beyond a first burn. Maybe the neighbor started their pellet stove?
Musings on Joe Pera
I have been listening to some of the material on Joe Pera the last couple of days, since his appearance on Townsends. His timbre is slow, and his voice quite soothing. Topics are everyday things that are relatable to the average person, and often overlooked by them, as they are so mundane. Though I had never heard of him before, I found that he has visited the likes of Stephen Colbert, and Seth Meyers.
I learned the secret to happiness a long time ago from a blonde and her Beetle. It was a shiny red car, from the late 60’s or early 70’s. The year was 1990, and she was a waitress that had just come in for her shift at the restaurant my grandfather and I were sat in for breakfast. Grandpa was in his blue plaid shirt, the blonde’s hair was curly, and tied up at the back of her head. She began her banter with her manager the moment she opened the door. He said her car looked so clean. She smiled and laughed, looked out at it through the large windows and said “isn’t it? I just washed it! It looks great!” I could not remember ever seeing anyone so bubbly over a clean old car. She and her manager went back and forth a bit about it before she took over as our server. Her bubbles continued.
It was not like someone had just given her the car! What struck me was that I had always considered car washing as a chore, drudgery in action. And here she was, exuberant over the mundane!
My writing in my blogs has tried to carry the element of happiness about the simple, all these years later. She is still echoing in my head! But lately I have not been writing it down, indulging in the inspiration of everyday simplicity. I need to come back to it.
In comes Joe. His topics ramble from why the ice age contribute to his standing on the shores of the Great Lakes enjoying the day, to ritualizing the disposal of his Halloween Jack O’ Lantern in a river. Tie the topics to his soothing tone, and slow and thoughtful pace, and you have something different to the everyday comic who bashes out firebrand social commentary at such a pace and with such force that it feels inevitable that if one were to meet with them as friends, it may not be long before they turn on you, and begin to attack you, or worse, put you into their stage routine. Not Joe. He is a soothing cup of hot chocolate wrapped in an warm blanket, in front of a fire, with a trusted old friend who cares about you. It all adds up to something relatable and familiar.
Bastard! Joe carried off my favorite prose better than me! But I tip my hat off to him, and retract the ‘Bastard!’ at the beginning of this paragraph with my sincere apologies. Joe may be a friend to all who wish to slow it down and take a breath, and still be social and enjoying hometown friendliness. (Unless your hometown is New York City, or Los Angeles, or some other big place with a fast pace and no time to slow down a moment to notice you just took your first breath.) Thanks Joe, for reminding me a person can run slow, and still be running.