Kansas City Clues

Coming back around the bend to the subject of my April blog post titled "Past and Future Self," I am in what you could call Kansas City Mode.

Excerpts from that post:


"There are so many memories I have from living in Kansas City, and it was a complicated blend of good and bad, of frustrations and hopes. In particular, I always felt like being laid off in December 2007 ruined me in a lot of ways, and not just financially. I was frustrated over a lot of things, my place in the world, and I had just begun a course down a path that got blocked off. I will always wonder what would have happened had I not had the rug pulled out from under me at the worst possible time..."

"...Dean and I had schemes, ambitions. Asset development. Brad and I had ideas, aspirations. In terms both abstract and specific, I began analyzing how to transpose those motifs to my current life. The things we were going to build for ourselves in Kansas City... things I never really gave up on..."

"And so I continued to ponder lost goals from 2007. I hoped that Future Me had more answers than I did. Intangible solutions remained just beyond my grasp..."

"I still haven't found the answers I was looking for. But I am holding on to those intangible 2007 goals, unfulfilled as they were, vague as they still are. We were building something back then. This is a revival. Glory awaits us."



This past week marked the passing of yet another earnest attempt to visit Kansas City. For quite some time now, I had all but announced that I was going to visit this month for the release of Jason Bourne. But, based on the numerous other failures in the past, I learned not to get my hopes up, and not to get others' hopes up as well. Basically, it's too hard for all the prerequisite pieces to fall into place for me to make it happen. Something always comes up, or I'm not ready, whatever.

I had also said in my most recent post, in terms of a Plan B consolation prize, that I was going to "make an event" out of the new movie. But that didn't really happen, either. So, mainly I am blogging to follow-up on that, if for no other reason than to retract my statements of inevitable awesomeness.

And then I want to come back to talking about those lost ambitions, as one facet of my 2016 introspective pilgrimage of sorts, of reconciling and redeeming all my past chapters--or at least gaining a small measure of success towards those ends.

I was working a gig Saturday night. Afterwards, unexpectedly, I was freed up from having to pick up the kid, so I suddenly had a bit of free time. I pounced. Jason Bourne had just come out, and I had every intention on watching it on my day off, Wednesday, but I knew it would be wiser to just go see it, even though I hadn't primed myself, and I was still waiting for the pre-ordered soundtrack to arrive in the mail--a key component to my movie-going ritual, and my anticipation.

By the way, I only finally just received the CD yesterday. Yesterday. What is the point of pre-ordering something if you don't get it the day it becomes available to the whole world anyway?! The point is to pay far in advance, so you have the peace of mind knowing that you will be the first to own it without having to hunt around stores for it in person. This is unacceptable, and it actually messed up my plans. And it's not like I'm going to buy a second copy at Barnes & Noble just to have it in time. So I just wait by the mailbox like Calvin hoping for his propeller beanie to arrive. I am not happy about this transaction, Amazon. You failed. I will never pre-order anything again. There's no point.

Okay, so that was that. Just an impromptu movie alone, then go home, without so much as the film music to absorb as I drive.

Wednesday came, and I went ahead with my plan anyway. No soundtrack, and I already saw the movie, but I stuck to it.

I went to Cuppa Austin, simply because it is the place that took up the empty husk that was Scooters Coffeehouse before they closed. I couldn't get Scooters' flavored grounds, but at least the ambiance was mostly intact, and that place always took me back to KC. So, I went to Cuppa, bringing with me The Bourne Ultimatum to watch on my laptop as I flipped back and forth between it, an email to the people I had originally intended to see the new movie with, and poring over Google Maps while searching for those lost ambitions from 2007.

Something important happened to me in 2007. I was derailed, and all the good things I was building vanished, never to return since. And I can't put my finger on what it was, but all these years I have been struggling to regain my place on that path. That was the purpose of Wednesday's plan, the ritualized nostalgic indulgence, and even the point of what I did next...

Having primed myself with all that, I drove to Tinseltown USA in Pflugerville, and went to see Jason Bourne a second time. By myself. Because my friends are unavailable, and I can't rely on people anymore to have my own fun. I have to take control. That's right: While having a kid often makes it hard for me to catch a movie in theaters at all, like how I missed X-Men Apocalypse altogether, I managed to see Jason Bourne twice in a week.

Except, this time, I smuggled in some Sailor Jerry to mix with my Coke. That was maybe the most brilliant idea I've had all year. The rum aided my mindset and my spirit quest quite successfully, but it was shortlived. I walked away not feeling particularly successful, nor any closer to this elusive epiphany.

After seeing a movie like that, what I am supposed to do is go with the same group of friends to a bar or two, to talk about the movie, feel vibrant and glorious, and go over our own ideas on how to make our current lives (continue to) be awesome. But, none of that this time. Just me, alone, thinking about what I missed out on... and about trying to grasp the intangible and the abstract, those lost and unfulfilled ambitions from when I tried--tried so hard--to make a life for myself in Kansas City, the city whose name I am honestly getting sick of typing.

Let me try to lay it out for you. Rather, for myself.

A lot of it comes down to the context of the time. I was a free man, more or less fresh out of grad school, and all the horrors of the BGSU music program. So, I had a chip on my shoulder, but I also had an overwhelming landscape of possibilities before me. Freedom defined my time in KC, but again, there were so many problems of that chapter as well, and I remember well enough that you don't have to admonish me for looking back through rose-colored glasses or whatever. No, I've said already, I have no illusions about that.

A guy in his mid-20s, single, and with total control over his free time. I was focused on composing all these different projects, training at the South KC Shotokan dojo, exploring other hobbies that I had been previously studying too hard to have time for, and just all-around "building something," as I had intended on living there indefinitely and was meeting as many people as I could, to make the most out of it. I was even attending a church and going to a Lifegroup of some amazing human beings. I had talked to a local coffee shop owner about putting on humble little recitals of New Music for the public. I was having fun. I was playing board games and video games. I was working out. I was hardcore about a martial arts lifestyle.

So, now, married with a kid, with multiple self-employment ventures, permanently fixed in Austtin, the Present Day context is very different, and I don't exactly think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

So, the context ensured that I had a positive outlook on the place. Yeah, obviously. But what of these lost goals and ambitions I keep mentioning?

It's about the things I talked about when describing it to Dean or Brad back then, in person, when I was still building that life. Before I got screwed.

Obviously, the musical projects can be accomplished anywhere. I have lists and outlines of all kinds of ambitious projects that will probably never all be completed. And, just as obviously, loyalty to South KC Shotokan is the opposite: it's entirely region-dependent... however unforgettable. And, as for Lifegroup... even while I was there, I started to realize that it wasn't ever going to feel like I quite belonged.

Professional development and asset-hunting, that's part of it. But I have far more skill sets now than I did back then, which was part of my problem: being left high and dry by my own resume after coming out of grad school into a harsh work climate on the cusp of a massive economic collapse pretty much meant I was doomed from the start. But that's neither here nor there. It just makes me feel like that much more of an underdog who needs to return to that town as the victor for catharsis, if nothing else.

So, then, what is it I'm missing? What the hell would make me feel like I finally conquered Kansas City?

I don't know, but I believe it's going to take a visit to remember.

First, I need to finish a few composition projects. I need to be fit, in fighting shape for a martial arts return tour, both training with the official dojo and doing some unofficial sparring with Dean and his assets. I need nice threads. I already have a bottle of Dean's favorite Scotch that I'm saving for the trip. But I need new sparring equipment so I don't have to be the mooch again.

But then I think of that bittersweet scene in Ocean's Thirteen, when Brad Pitt and George Clooney are standing in front of the casino, talking about how the town has changed since they began their careers. For me, KC is almost a ghost town. Brad has moved to Wisconsin. My pastor moved to California and has since rejected my Facebook friend requests (I'm probably too coarse for his tastes anyway). Hell, even that coffee shop where I was invited to a VIP party, where I was going to get my music performed, went out of business. As did a few other hotspots. It's sad somehow, even though it doesn't really matter.

There's something I'm missing, but I know where it was. It was in the meaning between the words, when I would try to articulate my goals, when Dean and I were meeting up on the weekends, being young and fashionable as we went out for drinks. It was in the twinkle in both our eyes as we went over our ambitions for how to make Kansas City more awesome, talking about "assets" like we were spies, but using the term to refer to networking contacts who could enrich our list of options.

I still can't put my finger on what it was about. But that's where I can find it. At the bottom of a cup of Scooters' coffee, or a tumbler of well-aged, single malt Scotch, with the right conditions surrounding me.

The problem, I think, once again, comes down to depending on other people. There are only so many elements I can control. Luck has never been on my side.

As I keep saying, I am on a quest this year. Kansas City is only about one sixth of the total picture, but a significant part of this impossible-to-articulate search for redemption. It matters to me.

This has been frustratingly vague for both of us, dear reader. And personal enough that it feels like a confession, but I'm going to have to go with what I have written here. Regrets and all.

I wish I had more of a glorious, glamorous tale to tell you about this week. But I'm just sitting in the dark, on my laptop, thinking.

Searching. Grasping at air.