The Cloak of Everlasting Truth
You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
- Ray Bradbury
Writing memoir ought to be honest. Yet let’s be honest about that honesty. I mean, it’s easier said than done, right? Memory -in and of itself- is fluid, murky. Tainted by nostalgia as well as a schooner full of shaky convictions, our memories are designed to slip us forward unharmed in the wake of every horrible or shameful experience we’ve already lived through. Put bluntly, memory is both inspiring and undependable. And no one who disagrees with that should be allowed to remember a goddamn thing from here on out.
Yes, recollection is precious gold. Yes, considering one’s own ups and downs across a lifetime is honorable work if attempted honestly. But how the hell can we write honestly about ourselves if we don’t begin by admitting that we, as living breathing human beings, are biased and echo deaf. Our own individual story is paramount to all others because it’s the only one we’ve ever known. That’s a ton of bias for you right there. Plus, our individual past- what we strain to hear reverberating back to us from our incessant forward traveling: it must ramble back into our arms across endless foggy miles and landscapes.
The older I get the more I think that everyone’s memories lie somewhere between pretty damn inaccurate and grossly warped. Still, I’m not so sure it even matters at this point. After all, I think we can all agree that it’s a bit late in the written word game to rectify anything. Man’s urgent desire to recall and record has left us with a lot of written accounts and we are all better off for it. But faced with the notion that much of it (half of it? More than half!!??) is remembered all wrong and therefore, by definition, untrue, well, where might that leave us?
It’s not as if we might start erasing history and feel good about it, right? Because that IS NOT what I am getting at here. What I am getting at is this: as the writer of this weekly Substack, which purports to be an honest retelling of my own life’s story, I attempt, rather happily, to re-emerge my mind, time and time again, into gushing currents, pools, and eddies that have been rolling hard and fast all my life. Sweeping memories downstream long before that moment I first dunked my head in, they’ve been either running hard or drying up ever since. It just depends on the nature of things.
In that regard I have come to understand that my written response to my own peculiar world that has played out in front of me, all round me, and now- more and more-behind me, it doesn’t need to be perfectly true. And it shouldn’t be sold as such either. What I do is meditate. What I do is Ouija board. What I do is write songs about a boy. About a kid. About a young man. About him growing older. The details are important to me because I love the details when others write their own memories down. I’d often rather know what people ate for breakfast long ago than who they voted for or what baseball team they rooted for.
The team doesn’t matter to me.
Not at all.
What matters is how the summer afternoon tasted on the tip of your tongue when the ball was sailing, sailing, sailing towards the heavens and then the upper deck.
What matters to me, and what has always mattered to me, is all that sunlight on your root beer teeth, as you begged for distance, as you promised to trade your whole heart for just a single drop of all that joy teetering there on a high ledge way, way up in the sky.
If you can remember that, then I’ll believe your story.
Hell, I’ll even wrap it around me.
The Cloak of Everlasting Truth.
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This week here marks 4 years of Thunder Pie on Substack. That’s insane! At least for me it is. I am so proud of this whole writing project. I am so proud that I went out on a limb to try and touch some kind of greatness. Did I succeed at that? Meh. I suppose that much like when I was in a band and people had immeasurably varying views on what it meant to ‘make it’ in music, there are many who could say that having 168 paid subscribers and 559 free subscribers (for a grand total of 727 total subscribers) isn’t exactly setting the world on fire. And they’re not wrong, I guess.
But they’re also not me.
When I began this weekly version of Thunder Pie I was in the throes of depression and anxiety, both of which were crippling me in ways I’d never understood. Like many of you, I’d been around the block a few times in life. I’d struggled and conquered. I’d succeeded and failed. And the paradigm was always my own/ the way I saw myself was slammed by outside influences/ from the time I was a kid back in Conshy, PA I was often sure I wasn’t anywhere near as good as other people when it came to love or money or accomplishments or looks or any of it. But then there were these other times when I’d be lost in my own thoughts, absorbed by something artful or creative that made me so happy, made me feel so inspired and alive that- for a spell at least- none of that other stuff mattered at all.
I’ll tell you one thing I’ve learned if nothing else. Swept up by the winds of imagination, any kid anywhere can look down and see their world way differently. The heights are dizzying/ scary even, but if you trust in the process they can reveal a magnitude of breathtaking beauty any of us rarely ever see when we’re down there in the mix. Closing my eyes to a song or stopping mid-sentence in a novel, my jaw dropping in awe, I was a young boy inside his own mind. And inside my own mind I stood tall and strong and handsome as fuck, man.
Which is why I’ve always gravitated towards art. Towards rock/roll. And then towards writing. I need it because that is where I find myself. I adore it because that is where I feel heard. I long for it because that is where I’m far away from all of the things that mean so much to so many other people but don’t mean jack shit to me. I never wanted a nice car and I’ve never had one either.
I wanted to create things with my own hands and my own mind that made other people feel curious. Or seen. Or familiar with me even if they had never ever met me before. I wanted someone to say I am a voice worth hearing. And I still want that.
So bad.
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My blog, my writing, Thunder Pie, this thing of ours: it has always been about love. For me as a writer, I am most intrigued by love and how it moves us and kills us and then lures us again. Only love separates humanity from all of the other species. It is love that has proven to be the reigning spark for everything artistic under the sun. From poetry to painting/ from crayons to the grave/ nothing has guided our collective journey across time and space like love has.
Love is so many things. So much, so much, so much. Love is pain and love is passion. Love is lust and love is decay. Within each subterranean layer of love, we uncover yet another strata. Bliss leads to boredom. Boredom leads to broken. But then there are the invested highs! The fantastical days when our hearts sing out loud and we praise love from dead ends and park benches and bar stools all over the world/ basking in our moment/ who would have ever thought we’d fall like this?! / so in love!/ to be so loved!/ how can we renounce every sadness we have ever cursed before?!
I found love in everything. Van rides with my band. Bike rides when I was a kid. Far from home, love will guide you. Down your street, love calls your name. Love affairs prove disastrous. Or senseless. Or cruel. But then some loan you such strength you never understand until many years later. What do we say about that love? How do we reckon with the love that nearly destroyed us now that we are more than that?
Babies born unleashed true love across every horizon I would subsequently know. Raising kids proved love is real and genuine and true. But it also challenged the purist love with harder sorts, with versions of love that stand less in the light/ more in the dark. I wanted to write about those loves. Not by design: I didn’t even know they existed until I sat down one day and began to allow myself total liberation from candor. From fear.
Holding on to Arle in the night I have tossed, turned, farted, and cried. Night terrors, a term I recently discovered, have had me screaming out loud in the midst of sleep for a long time now. Not every night, but on enough nights that Arle has found herself lying there awakened by the sudden shrill cursing and desperate shouting of her man in the middle of some kind of something fucked up.
Love then. Her fingers on my temple. Gently, gingerly. My face covered in sweat and each of us covered in darkness and moonbeams, my wife reaches out and wraps me in her arms and I might wake up or I might not, she never can know for sure. She might never even know if I did or didn’t, but as long as I settle down, then her love has beaten back the beasts that drag me around at night.
How many ways have we recognized love?
How many stains on the carpet from drinks that were spilt?
How many Christmas tree needles lay alone under the couch in the living room?
Once we laughed and opened presents, the carols on the radio, the coffee in our cups.
Once when you went to the fridge for a beer I imagined my world without you and I nearly bit my bottom lip off.
Once I heard you coming down the hall, but there was no one there.
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The plain state of being human is dramatic enough for anyone; you don't need to be a heroin addict or a performance poet to experience extremity. You just have to love someone.
- Nick Hornby
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Up one street and down the next one, you can travel forever in the same span of a couple of blocks or a couple of miles and never see all there is to see. The way the evening sun scatters across the back of a flock of chickens in a field. The way the bar neon lays on the hood of a rainy car, as if it’s bleeding out, as if the whole world is written there in the risky promise of a night unfolding. I tend to immortalize tiny things over big ones. No big accomplishment there, lots of people think that way. But I still like to remind myself at least once a day that while I may be a poor man when it comes to money, I’ve gathered a lot of jewels nonetheless.
That’s the intersection where my writing hangs. Thunder Pie was born up out of a moment when I found myself lost. My past was mostly drifting away. My future/ like everyone’s/ was anyone’s guess. I was a dad, a stepdad, a husband madly in love with his wife, all true, but I was also struggling viciously with the undertow of modern life. Always trying to explain to myself how I had ended up without a college degree or much usable work experience grew exhausting. Then on one particular afternoon during the winter of 2021, as the pandemic lurked up the ridges above town, staring down at us like kaiju, I caught a rare glimpse of me believing in myself.
Substack was in the news, all sorts of writers were making it work. Some were huge hits right off the bat while others were devoted to growing their audience with hard work, commitment, and fingers crossed. Falling into the latter category, I got lucky straight out of the shoot. My years in the band had given me a wide range of friends from all over the place, many who were excited for my prospects as a writer. As soon as I announced on Facebook and Instagram that I would be starting a weekly writing project, so many people responded. Way more than I had ever allowed myself to imagine.
Even though it was just a few years ago, remember: this was a time before the powerful algorithms of today. In the ‘good old days’ a person could reach a lot of their social media friends simply by posting something. These days I reach the same 20 or 30 people when I put something out there. If they all like it or comment, I might reach a few more. But for the most part, I can’t put my writing in front of new faces anymore. It sucks. Still, it is what it is. If I had started Thunder Pie today, I think I would have way less people who even know about it.
I’m so grateful it happened when it did.
I really fucking am.
I have maintained a pretty steady rate of subscribers since my first post, Ponyboy, on February 19th, 2021. That has been such a source of confidence and inspiration for me. Having regular readers, hearing from people who have reached out as readers, knowing that what I was writing every Monday or Tuesday at my desk in my bedroom would actually have a few readers to read it soon… I don’t know how to say this other than to just say it.
I think it saved my life.
I believe that writing Thunder Pie saved me from the kind of blues you maybe don’t escape.
If that sounds hokey or like bullshit to you, I don’t mind. These are weird times. Trusting people on the internet shouldn’t come easy at all. But I’ve thought about this an awful lot these past four years and I swear to you that feel it in my heart. In my bones. Money comes in from this gig and it helps me out so very, very much. But I also get paid in a lot of other ways too.
That young kid from Conshy, PA who once wondered what on Earth would ever become of him? He is here right now. He is smiling his big buck tooth shit-eating grin. And he is raising a grown-up glass of state store Rioja in your direction at this very moment. I know I don’t have much in the eyes of many, but I am sure I have everything in the eyes of a few. And I guess those are my people.
So, thank you. Thank you for reading me. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for giving me your hard-earned loot. And thank you for helping me to feel like I matter.
I hope my writing pays you back for that somehow, in some small way.
Thunder Pie is edited by Arle Bielanko
Subscribe to Arle’s Substack here: Letter to You
All Photos: Serge Bielanko
Things I Liked This Week.
I started reading Hampton Side’s 2011 book, Hellhound on His Trail: The Electrifying Account of the Largest Manhunt in American History. I love it so far. For those of you not familiar with it, it’s a critically-acclaimed sweeping account of the days and weeks following the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King and the intense search for the man who killed him. I’ve had the book for ages now but never felt too compelled to pick it up. And then out of nowhere I’m suddenly completely absorbed with the idea of reading it. Weird, huh? It happens a lot with me though. Oh well. I guess that’s why I have so many books around that I’ve yet to read. You just never ever know when the urge will strike.
Arle and I are watching Season 2 of the Netflix comedy, Mo and we both think it’s pretty excellent. Focusing on Mo, a 30-something Palestinian refugee living is Houston with his mom and his brother, I loved the first season, but this second season is truly freaking me out with just how timely it is at this exact moment in history.
Mark Maron’s exceptional WTF podcast recently featured two intriguing guests. One was one of my favorite film directors ever, the Englishman Mike Leigh. The other episode was a long talk with, Ariana Grande, someone I knew next to nothing about but came away digging her vibe. Maron remains one of the best interviewers out there… on my radar, at least.
The Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl last Sunday and it was cause for celebration at our place. I’m not a big sports fan anymore (I’m way more of a YouTube native brook trout fishing fan) but when a Philly baseball or football team makes it to the playoffs, well… there I am. I strap on my bandwagon shit and ride out the distance with them. Hell, I earned it, man. I grew up rooting myself hoarse and insane for the Phillies and the Birds; I have lifelong fan tenure. This was my Super Bowl too. And I’d like to dedicate it to my Pop-Pop, the late great Caldwell ‘Murph’ ‘Sonny’ McClure from Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. He bled Eagles green/ he cursed them with his Sunday beer breath like no man had ever done before. They were his reason to believe and they were his albatross. He would have smiled so big seeing me and Henry and Arle pounding down all the wings and quesadillas, screaming and hollering for this team that brought it all home.
This past week I made this art box for a client in Ohio who asked me to do something featuring The Band. I knew that the fellow was a big time hiker who was doing the entire Appalachian Trail and I’d also seen that he finished Ohio’s Buckeye Trail not long ago. So I decided to incorporate an iconic painted barn that stands along that trail into the piece. I’m crazy proud of how it turned out. I worked my ass off getting it to where I was able to sign off on it! And I enjoyed every second of the ride!
Please, if you are digging my visual art work, contact me to commission something handmade and special. Hand-crafted by me/ in my house/ using my fingers and my glue gun and some kind of cool wooden box and my scroll saw and my printer and my Xacto knife and my spray paint cans and my ADHD rat brain… I don’t fuck around. I’m very serious about these pieces. I create every single one of them with all my heart and soul.
So let make something for you?!?
So, SO proud of you.
Been looking forward to 9am Friday for years now.....keep 'em coming