PART ONE – https://cansafis.substack.com/p/hungry-like-the-wolf
PART TWO – https://cansafis.substack.com/p/bad-paradise
PART THREE – https://cansafis.substack.com/p/alien-love-forms
PART FOUR – https://cansafis.substack.com/p/and-she-was
PART FIVE – https://cansafis.substack.com/p/home-is-where-the-art-is
PART SIX – https://cansafis.substack.com/p/minnesota
PART SIX PART TWO – https://cansafis.substack.com/p/sidney
PART SEVEN – https://cansafis.substack.com/p/fully-engaged
PART EIGHT – https://cansafis.substack.com/p/rabbit-rabbit
PART NINE – https://cansafis.substack.com/p/sings-we-have-song
“I intend to live forever, or die trying.”
-Groucho Marx-
Around the year 2006 I had committed about an hour of each day to drawing or painting anything. A pile of sticks with faces. A pile of faces with sticks. A faceless sticky pile of piled piles, piled upon the page until nothing I drew or painted fit the page pile anymore. It was a mess. A marvelous, maybe meaningless mess.
I was living like a competent hobo, $115 a month on rent in a six story warehouse filled with thirteen roommates, half of whom were so junked out and lazy they defiantly decided not to even pay rent. One was a viking being hunted by hell's angels. Another, a suitcase collector. Everyone was mischief and possibly misguided. If nothing else we misused our moments.
We ate groceries from the bottom of garbage cans while blasting an unending din of rotating garage bands on our living room stage. We were delinquent dorks daydreaming in a serene chaos. We were trashy when we weren’t trashed, making memories of art instead of actual art.
At the time I was really into making up words and sounds and images. At this time I am still really into making up words and sounds and images. My brain doesn’t like sitting empty. It, like that warehouse, is a din-filled recycled-pallet-formed garbage-dinner-space. I let bands play inside of me 24-7. I am a garage. I rock.
This reflective deprecation is important because it shows me how I got here, thinking quietly out loud to myself while my wife sleeps cuddled between two dogs on a medium soft mattress. Art, music and mayhem made me meet my wife. Or maybe it made me, and then I met my wife? Who knows where I began so that we could we? (*editor’s note - I do, but I will never tell)
I was invited to her 30th birthday after only a date or two. I was living with my bandmate, a man known for dressing in tight pajamas and gyrating to terribly played skunk sax while wearing boas and bird masks. He and I grabbed a bushel of raw oysters and hit the road with a shucker, a tent and his dog. We had anticipation that something special was brewing, if only a belly full of oysters and beer.
I had no end in sight with Sarina, only our beginning. And so I gave her a painting for her birthday. Sploochy melted neon pinks and green and yellow and red acrylic to outline a flying dragon named Forevenorr. Or maybe it is Forevornor? Or Forevernor? I can’t even spell my own dragon’s name right.
I met her cousin, sister and friends. We swam under the moon. We spent the night howling like coyotes as furry fog lifted us into unnamed heaven. This birthday, our third date, would eventually become our anniversary, and then our three hundredth date (and eventually three thousand and so forth forevermore). I don’t know why I gave Sarina a dragon. I mean dragons are cool. Flying neon dragons are super cool. At the time it seemed as honest as it was random and pure.
“Here you go, woman I like. Have my dragon please.”
-me mentally dressed as a caveman-
I think I figured that if nothing else, if we never hung out beyond that birthday, that a small portion of me might look nice on her wall someday. Fast forward to today’s someday, and her wall is our wall and that wall is to the left of the bed staring down at us while I write and she sleeps. My painted dragon became a birthday, a wedding, two dogs and a lady.
Who knows how what we make might make us eventually?
My nephews made another dragon for us to help protect Forevernorr. We hang that on the wall as well. We hang a lot of art on the walls. It is great entertainment to get lost in the ideas of others as they surround you. To sleep surrounded by creativity. To dream in a room filled with other dreams.
The Ballad of Footeastman is the first memoir I have ever written. My original intention was to write it out in just one piece as a wedding, anniversary and birthday present for my wife. But as I sat down to tell our story I realized that the story is really stories. It is hard to sum up our love and togetherness in just one tale (tail). This is a year late, but it is right on time.
As it stands I got about 1% of what I wanted to say into the ballad. The other 99% will find itself into the world as time goes on. Or it won’t. Some stories aren’t meant to be told. I recorded audio versions of each chapter and attached them to each article. I have also compiled the entire story with a couple musical interludes throughout. Here is an embed of the entirety.
FOREVENOR - THE BALLAD OF FOOTEASTMAN
[audio embed of the full read of all 9 chapters with shortened musical interludes]
One of the greatest gifts is to give gifts. It makes me feel memorable. Who's to say if I end up here if I had never given my dragon away? Or if I never painted piles of piles? It took me nine chapters to try and say what I wanted to say. It took me over nine thousand words. I might do this ninety-nine more times as we grow to nine hundred and ninety years old.
The best songs are the ones we all sing along to. Songs that are memorable enough to be covered and resang. I called this story a ballad because Sarina is a song to me. I hope to keep making music with her. If you emoted to any of this, know that I am appreciative of your chorus.
It was hard to sum up our love in just one song, but I can do it in just one word.
Forevenorr.
Awww, I love a love story
“One of the greatest gifts is to give gifts. It makes me feel memorable. Who's to say if I end up here if I had never given my dragon away? “
So strange, Fis. A week ago I bought a dragon at an art show, a green handmade doll dragon. I didn’t need or want a dragon; I bought it because it a young artist made it and needed a sale. Today, I gave it away, a gift to a stranger, who said: “You just made my day.” And then today, I read this piece.