Dave Matthes's Blog - Posts Tagged "dave-matthes"

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast



I’m not really sure what to make of Hemingway anymore. His work, at least what I’ve come to swallow, is very hit or miss. Take most everyone’s favorite book to burn, The Old Man and the Sea. I wanted to fucking suicide myself when my English teacher, Mrs. Beans (don’t even get me started on the caliber of torture we put her through on the basis of her name alone) handed each of us a copy of this book. Really; I’d heard enough horror stories about it that by the time I was told part of my grade depended on sifting through the proverbial hogwash of a writer with more self-entitled literary endowment than myself, I was ready to take the risk of actually failing the class just to satisfy my then somewhat pubescent rebellious lust. Much later in life, however, I was able to read it again and marveled at its simplicity, yet very true complex study of more than just what the title offers.

However, I’ve yet to really truly find a reason to respect Hemingway’s work; it’s just not my flavor, and personally I don’t see what the big deal is about him. This might sound self-defeating, as I myself am flirting with a glass full of Jameson as I write this very sentence. And as all us writers know, a liquid-enhanced ego is not always as tasteful as we presume it to be.

The aforementioned quote, albeit a bit wordy and round-about, stung me just the right way. And while I absolutely loathe everything there is that exists Springtime-related, mainly due to my biased hatred of my allergies, these musings throttled my loins especially:

“…if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits.”

This does not apply to just springtime alone, or whatever it was Hemingway had been thinking about at the time of spewing this passage. People seem to limit themselves like clockwork; whether it be out of a falsified sense of security or by habit or by curse…people will forever be tormented by the unavoidable mental flytrap of thinking they have to stick by limiting themselves if they are to survive. The saddest part being most of those people acknowledge the presence of their limits, but have never actually considered the alternative lifestyle that bases itself quite poetically on the philosophy of limiting those limits. Having such a narrow mindset, they might as well kill themselves now and get it over with. We all die in the end anyway, so if you aren’t going to take advantage of life’s testicles, then why not?



I hate springtime; the allergies, the bees, the hornets, the pansies, the weeding, the neighborhood brats that seem to have a serious lack of parenting about their asses; hell, even the sky takes on a shade of blue I’d rather not be acquainted with. Easter; the celebration of Zombie Jesus. Baseball. The Philadelphia Sillies and their worse-than-dirt “fans”. The HEAT….oh the HEAT. I’m an Autumn Man, full of Fall, I even bask in the occasional snowfall in nothing but m’panties…but spring…NO. Just NO.

The only thing I can say about spring, to sheepishly tie everything together into one massive knot of bullshit for this episode of Dave Matthes’ Brain on Whiskey and Love, and other Drugs, is that springtime always seems to bring about a sense of renewal. Those tragedies we may or may not have had to endure during the dead of winter, making us feel weighed down to the earth and thus limiting our strength to go on…springtime, even the smell of the very air, seems to remind me that everything is going to be okay…

…assuming I can get through spring of course.

Ernest, whatever your drug of choice was during the nights you shat out the literary feast that became A Moveable Feast, forget about the seasons…focus on the sinister super glue keeping our limits attached to our hearts; but then again…



Write on, my literary lovelies, write on <3

Love, hope, and quasi-meaningful death,
-Dave Matthes

The following disquisition is best read while listening to a playlist consisting of sensually thematic tunes, preferably with a hint of oriental eroticism…if you cannot find anything with those flavors, anything by Enya will do. Trust me, the right music can make even the most lackluster of stimulation seem like a self-guided tour of Elizabeth Taylor’s formative years. A bottle or two of wine can’t hurt either.

There are some things better left unsaid, some dreams unrealized, some people untouched and unkissed. And every “once upon a setting sun”, a question deserves to remain unanswered, as if the very mystery itself were a romantical panty-peeler. But in the sporadically-profound words of the quasi-overrated Ernest Hemingway:

“……the sun also rises.”

When was the last time you woke up on any given morning, opened your eyes and through the soaking sunrise realized you were simply a figment simpatico with that of some grand universal scheme set into motion by a nameless dreamer searching for the one true definition of “love”? Absolution may be a rite of passage, but there is no certainty if there’s simply an inkling of an attraction based on curiosity, lust, and the unknown…otherwise known as the ugly stepsister of “Love”; I’ve found that it’s not only essential to know the difference, but it is imperative to have dipped neck-deep into both with the threat of a drowning death draped across one’s shoulders.

A kiss, widely seen as little more than a momentary pact made between lovers, is sometimes further short-sighted by the more materially-bound individual. Because a kiss does not always have to connect two pairs of lips, quivering and fate-bound as they may seem. No, a kiss, as gentle as a snowflake touching down after a long, knuckle-cracking descent, is quite possibly the beginning of love. Of course, if one is to understand the concept of love, the wise wanderer would dare not ignite one’s self with the incinerating burden of limitations. In the same manner as children have no knowledge of time, love has no relationship with limitation.

I’ve kissed many a woman, felt the warmth of pursed-lips innumerable. I’ve looked into the eyes of both the innocent and the damned, of the tired and the damaged. I’ve cradled the hands of those who might for all I’ve been convinced to believe, have no need for something as deep and fathomless an abyss as “love” or even, dare I say, forgiveness. These hands…things fingers…these lips; they’re merely tools to conceptualize and massage and form and carve out the makings of a perfect night lost in the embrace of the opposite sex. From an inlooker’s point of view, there may be a considerable amount of judgment to be inflicted against my cause; however, even I know physical pleasures are scalded by limitations when “Love” is on the horizon. Love is a journey, my dear friend; love is tragic and romantic, enlightening and frantic…and it does not come without trial and error, the occasional travesty, and sacrifice. And from what I’ve discovered through my own personal hiraeth, is that the eyes may be the windows to her all-but derelict soul, but the lips are the stronghold imprisoning that which aspires to be her heart; a kiss may very well free even the deepest surrenderer from that asylum which they’ve given birth to themselves.

In the face of all this, I do not mean to impose that a kiss itself is a symbol of love, but perhaps the scent of something more…the wind cascading between open mouths when coupled with two pairs of ocular chrysanthemums, a reminder that time does not govern the townships of the soul or for that matter, the loins; mayhaps that is a worthy representation of that crippling bridge. However, as aforementioned, love is a journey, more importantly a one-way journey; there will always be one more drop of blood to shed. With every morning I’ve been lucky enough to abhor, I can only hope for more to learn, even if the torrential winds responsible for Love be coexistent alongside currents of heartbreak; after all, there is a purpose for everything, and Time is merely a crutch.

And so, in the words of my most recent therapist, whose whereabouts remain unknown:

“…love is not a privilege, but an inheritance.”