I have been processing everything in my own way of late, along with the world. I am taking notes, literally and mentally, to write about my thoughts on everything but it is a subject hard to write about, mainly because it is going on right now, and really to get a sense of vetting it is only healthy to write about it, to vent, to appeal for reason and solidarity amidst the pure fucking madness going on right now. Also, as a diabetic? Frankly, I have to watch my heart rate!
As I have mentioned, art has saved me, over and over and especially now, and I did a little photo essay on my scars called, 'Scar Maps and Stories' that I present to you here, it grew out of some scar maps I did for a friend.
Scars tell a story, as Mr. McCarthy's quote implies. They are a memory map, written over time, on our bodies; tattoos given to us by the Universe that will go with us to the grave. In this light, they are beautiful, in the same way Japanese people value something even more if it is broken or imperfect. We all have value and we don't deserve to die, least of all from incompetence.
Here we are, scars and all, and here are the stories of some of my scars, so I don't have to think too much about what is coming in our world ~ But I will, once my heart heals a little ~
RIP John Lewis, thank you for your fierce compassion and hard work. We are a better people for having you as our conscience. Be well in the other place - one last bridge, Sir, to a peaceful end ~
Photo retrieved from CNN Website
All photos (following unless otherwise noted) and writing by Wayne R. Flower
A Wayne Flower walks into a bar...
It was the year of my 29th birthday (1995) and my then girlfriend, as a present, gave me money to go see Sister Double Happiness play at the Off Ramp club in our home of Seattle, Washington. I was stoked. I had been a fan of a couple of the members' previous band The Dicks, Texas hardcore fronted by an in your face gay man named Gary Floyd, with a voice like gravel and molasses and great lyrics (check out The Dicks last LP, These People). I mention his sexuality as that was a huge part of who he was, boldly, on stage in Texas in the '80s! That took guts.
Promptly after arriving at the Off Ramp, I drank one Long Island Iced Tea after another. I was there with a friend but I don't remember who (anyone?). The Off Ramp was a notorious bar at the bottom of the steep incline of Denny Way that shoots straight up to Capitol Hill, the most popular area to live and where I lived then and for many years. It was called the Off Ramp for the obvious reason, at the bottom of Denny Way was the entrance and off-ramp to and from Interstate 5. There was a strange energy in that spot, I don't know if the energy continued when it became other venues, I played a show with a band in the split off half of the bar (in the same space as a different bar) as it was in 2015 or so, but it was so different and I there so short a time, I don't have a sense of this). But I had seen a number of bizarre incidents there, including a stabbing. This all said, I also saw and played some of the best shows there (including the only Nirvana show I saw where they were actually tight - a rarity sometimes depending, in the early days - before I saw them when playing a gig with with them in '91, when they had gotten super tight) and an amazing show a Seattle band I played bass in, Violent Green, played with Caustic Resin from Boise and The Cows from Portland (right around the time of this Sister Double Happiness show, actually).
Sister Double Happiness (SDH) hit the stage (don't remember who opened, was anyone there?) and ripped it - I was drunk, swaying my head, in heaven. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!! The Long Island Iced Teas made me piss every 5 minutes. I headed to the men's room and peed in the urinal (probably a little on my shoes, too, I was lit). Out of nowhere, the stall door for the sit-down toilet swung out, hard, and the corner edge of the metal door caught me on the eyebrow and forehead, sending me to the floor, bewildered.
I heard a gruff voice and a hand gently touched my shoulder, "Oh no!" said the voice, "I know you, man, you're my friend! I'm sorry man, you're my friend!"
I stood up, swaying a little, touching my forehead gingerly, walking over to the sink to survey the damage. I saw that the person who had hit me, accidentally, it seemed, was a guy named Bruce, he was in a roughian street skater gang called The Jacks, who distinguished themselves by wearing denim jackets plastered with patches for bands, skateboard brands and other punk shit, usually the sleeves of the jackets were cut off. They also sometimes competed in skateboarding contests, and played 'hockey' with empty Fosters beer cans in a funeral home parking lot on skateboards (something me and my friends did as teens, too, but in 4 or 5 story parking garages).
I was in a band in the '90s that played a lot of shows with bands different than our style, crusty punk and skate-punk bands - The Jacks were all in with these crews, so I knew some of these guys, they were always really nice to me (a continuation from my childhood of getting in tight with roughians). Bruce was much older than the other members of The Jacks. He was a short white man, with a rough looking, acne and fight-scarred face and bleached blond hair with bangs. I estimate his age, factoring in the very likely possibility that he had a hard life and looked older than he was, to be around 40-45 in 1995. Most other Jacks were in their 20s or 30s. But Bruce was one of the most badass Jacks, and, one of the nicest if you weren't on his bad side.
It turned out the reason he smashed the stall door was that he was in a moment of rage thinking of some wrong done to him by a friend, or a girlfriend, I don't remember. He felt terrible for hitting me with the door. "You should hit me, man. Come on, I won't stop you, you deserve a shot." (See? Nice to me ; ) I waved my hand at the offer. I have never been a fighter, really, but I am a big man, 6 ft 2 and about 210 (back then probably more like 195ish) and I was a hardcore punker for years, playing crazy thrash pits, keeping assholes starting fights in the thrash pit out for shows my band put on - Basically, if you mess with me or anyone I love or anyone who can't defend themselves, you will see the other side! I use my powers only for good - I grew up on Spider-Man, for cryin' out loud, and yeah you know what is coming next, but you have heard it said (and maybe even said your own self) but most likely, it was wrong. This is the actual quote from Peter Parker's dying Uncle Ben; "...With great power, there must also come great responsibility." The original is also the most grammatically correct. Sniff. [Adjusts taped-together glasses, cracks knuckles and keeps typing]
So I declined the kind offer to 'get even' with Bruce, but as I looked in the mirror to splash water on my face, I saw the deep red blood coming from the gash in my eyebrow and I saw red (in part, literally) and I swung at Bruce - But I didn't really want to land a punch square on his face, I liked the guy, this was an accident, after all. But rage took over my drunken mind, then edited mid swing so that I elbowed him in the mouth - A fair compromise, thought Drunk Wayne. I knocked him to the floor just as another Jack, the 7 foot (no exaggeration) white guy ironically nicknamed 'Hobbit', entered the bathroom, and all Hobbit saw was me punching his buddy Bruce to the ground, he had zero context, so the next thing I knew I was up in the air, level, and then my whole body was slammed to the sink and counter, hard. As I lay looking up at him, he drew back a fist nearly the size of my fucking head. Bruce to the rescue.
"No, no, no, Hobbit! He's my friend, I know him, I told him he could hit me cuz I accidentally hit him!" Hobbit had a confused look on his handsome, '70s cigarette ad looking face (handlebar mustache included). I stumbled out of the bathroom, bloody and confused and pissed as hell. By the time I got home to my girlfriend, I was bloody and crying and she held my drunk ass until I slept it off. Happy Birthday.
"You don't show up to a knife fight with a gall bladder."~ Friend Andrew Adolphsen, a comment in response to my Facebook post about my gall bladder surgery, which was 'I got into a knife fight with a surgeon.'
I call this particular group of scars on my stomach 'The Constellation of Scars'.
I opted to get my gall bladder removed as I had some pain due to a huge stone. A simple procedure, outpatient surgery. As they shaved my belly (a very strange experience for people not into that kind of thing) one of the physician's assistants was chatting with me, he was a tall, thin German man. I was already high on the meds they had given me. We were discussing my disability, a numb leg from getting hit by a car while walking in a crosswalk in 2009, and the general numbness on my left side, always assumed to be from my neural issues. This man was very kind, and I guess because I was high on surgery prep meds, I couldn't not see him as a Nazi doctor. I partially blame Hollywood for this stereotype locked in my head, and, he had the perfect Hollywood Nazi Doctor look; A white medical cap on a shaved-bald head, prominent cheek bones and sparkly blue eyes. I felt bad for thinking it, but anyway this not-a-Nazi-doctor-but-a-nice-German-man was positing that my numbness could have been from a mini-stroke. "Hmmm," I pondered, "A mini-stroke..." as they wheeled me into surgery...
What is fascinating about this particular surgery is that the scars are from openings used are not just made for the surgeon and his assistants to reach in and do cutting, but some holes are also for air hoses to blow up your stomach like a huge flesh balloon! They gave me a photo from the inside of my stomach while it was blown up, it was so cool! You could see everything in there - And I would love to post it here, it would be perfect of course, but...I dropped it on the wet cement in the rain and ruined the photo. Now, it looks like an abstract painting, and I do plan on using it for something at some time, as some art project component. I haven't missed my gall bladder since. If you don't think you can commit to a low fat diet, I don't recommend this procedure.
In 2014, it was raining in Portland, Oregon, slightly, enough to inspire the usage of windshield wipers. I was driving to my drum rehearsal room to bang on some skins as I do, waiting to turn left from Sandy Boulevard to NE 28th St., my old neighborhood, near what is called the Hollywood District in NE Portland. To my left, I saw the owner of a tattoo parlor right there on the corner, across from the dive bar/greasy spoon, Katy O'Brien's, where I met him one night at the bar and we struck up a 'bar friendship' - good guy. Anyhow I saw him and a couple friends at the crosswalk to my left (again I was turning left), and they had the light. I had been hit by the car 4 blocks down Sandy, around the corner from where I lived then, 5 years prior to this. So, having been hit by someone not paying attention before, I am hyper-conscious of people in crosswalks. I waited to see if they were going to cross (they were hesitating). As I was waiting and looking left at them, I had very slightly edged forward a bit. The car coming toward me (a two way boulevard, Sandy) smashed into the hood of my 1990 Volvo 240, spinning the whole car completely around.
The air bag hit me, and let me tell you, it isn't a balloon-like thing, not by a fucking long shot. It is like a Hulkfist punch to the gut, a canvas bag forced full of air at less than the blink of an eye. It bruised all my ribs and made a gash that left this middle scar labeled above. It saved my life, face and neck for sure, but man. That shit HURTS. This has all been settled in court, by the way. Technically my fault, but they were sure as hell going 45 or so on Sandy, way over the speed limit - I had no way of proving that.
I never spoke to the cat that owns the tattoo parlor after the incident. It must have been pretty wild from his point of view! The SUV that hit me veered toward he and his friends, and just missed them on the sidewalk. I am sure it was terrifying. The Volvo, named Mingus, after one of my favorite bass players and composers, Charles Mingus, saved my life. These things have roll cages built in to the cab, and the older cars like this were made of good, solid materials. Thank you, Mingus, RIP!
Sandy is a
busy, weird boulevard, as it is at an angle to the grid of the other
streets. There are many accidents and deaths on Sandy Boulevard, most
are probably people dying on bikes hit by cars would be my guess, based
on the high volume of ghost bikes you see all up and down the many, many miles of Sandy Boulevard. Sad and fucked up.
I saw this the morning after the accident, I caught the bus to the wrecking yard, and I was blown away - It was then I realized how close I came to dying, or being paralyzed for life.
To read more about this and other near death experiences, check out the entry in this very blog, "He not busy being born is busy dying..."
"It'll be fine, I don't need to go see a doctor..." Famous last words of many a stupid man
Note: I misspelled the surgery in the picture - it is spelled 'microdiscectomy'
I had sciatica for a few years. The sciatic nerve is the biggest nerve in your body, it stretches from your hip to your ankle. In sciatica, the particular affliction is caused by bad posture habits over time leading to a spine that bends, and your vertebrae, the 'ladder' rungs of bone in your spine, pinch the discs, which are the pads between the vertebrae (basically little shock absorbers, sort of rubber like) causing them to impinge on the nerve. My probem was in the area most common for back issues, Lumbar 5, at the base of the spine. I ignored the pleas of my then girlfriend and my brother to see a doctor for a few years, then my L5 disc blew out - When later I saw the scan of it, it looked like someone took a gun to it. It was a no-brainer to get the surgery. I couldn't lift myself with my left foot, at all.
The procedure itself is, even more than the aforementioned bladder surgery procedure, fascinating. They take a liposuction tube (for sucking the fat out of people) with snips at the end of it into your spine, navigating with sonar imagery. They suck out what they call 'free floating fragments' (a name I can appreciate that gets right to it, and, is super fun to say!) and they snip and suck them out! Then they close the 2 inch incision and normally send you home but I had it done late in the day so I stayed over night.
I am glad I did it, it helped me tremendously and influenced me to hit the gym (never been a 'gym person' and in Portland there isn't such a jock stigma on gyms, or gym culture, as much as other cities, I have found, said the self-conscious ex-punker indie guy) to keep my core strong, and for most of the years since, I have remained in good shape, so I don't have to go under the knife again. I lucked out, as I see it.
When I was 18 or so years old, my mom gave me this awesome sky blue Panasonic brand ten speed bicycle for my birthday. Yeah, they make, or at least made, bicycles, in addition to stereos and stereo related equipment. I loved it because it was an extra tall bike, and I was tall and lanky, mostly legs. I was flying down Warm Springs Avenue, digging it, man! Then my right foot slipped off the pedal, and the thin flesh of my shin met with the sharp pedal teeth of the bicycle pedal. I looked down at the source of the excruciating pain and hit a parked car, front tire smashing its bumper and jackknifing the long bike into the air, finally crashing it to the road, totaling it and mangling the back rim (amazingly, the front rim that took the hit was fine). There was a grotesque flap of skin on my shin, gruesome pearly white bone showing through glossy crimson meat that was me. Mother was bummed for me (It's ok, she ended up giving me her old Datsun car for graduation!).
My bike looked similar to this, but lighter blue.
These are my Scar Maps and Stories
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