Category Archives: microprose

Looking for trouble… I’m already in trouble

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The rusty little Bug was leaking rain in from the windows and they had to keep their feet forward to keep them out of the murky water that would slosh back and forth from back seat to the front, washing across the shifter linkage hump like the North Sea over a broken dike.

But they were stopped now, with the heater off and the windows streaked through fog, and she was crying long silvery tears that streamed down her cheeks amd fell to the damp wool of her overcoat. Her slim shoulders moved forward convulsively with her sobs and he sat in the driver’s seat, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his own overcoat.

Looking for Trouble

He alternated between trying to ignore her and stifling the compulsion to reach out and try to comfort her, an urge that cried from so far down in his wintry soul that it seemed like the shade of a feeling from some forgotten movie… some world he’d lived in, once, so long ago that it was spring there.

He tried to burrow down to find that feeling somewhere, lost in a snowdrift at the bottom of his emptiness.

But all he found were his fists balled in his coat pockets and a girl sobbing beside him.

previous versions
Monday, September 26, 2005
Friday, March 03, 2006
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006

lyrics
Looking for Trouble

Some people say
Love is a game
but I’m telling you now that I wasn’t playing
when I fell in love with you

Here I go again
Looking for reasons where there aren’t any reasons
Here I go again
looking for trouble… I’m already in trouble

That day in my car
don’t say you don’t know
You held me so close
begging me to let go
I told myself you were just confused

Here I go again . . .
You always said
that it was fate
I’m telling you now
that I was framed
when I fell in love with you

Here I go again . . .

A dog barks
the wind howls through the night
I whisper your name and
stare in the fire
I can’ keep myself from calling out to you

Here I go again
Looking for reasons where there aren’t any reasons
Here I go again
looking for trouble… I’m already in trouble

Copyright 1981
T.K. Major

(C)2008, TK Major

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"He wrote some good little songs…"

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Forget About the Moon

Gotchya.

No… not dead yet.

Although regular readers may be forgiven for expecting that the next writing filling this space after some weeks of my absence might well be a tearful eulogy from a grieving friend or loved one who’d somehow managed to crack my passwords.

But… nah.

I’m still breathing and walking around.

In fact, while I was otherwise occupied I did something I hadn’t done in nearly three decades: I let someone else record me in their studio. I was, as they say, dumb talent.

previous versions
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Friday, August 31, 2007

And it was fun.

My buddy, Reggie Ashley, himself a working musician, has a nice little studio, nothing crazy, but, with a recording booth large enough for drums, I felt pretty special… certainly a far cry from the corner of my living room I’ve dedicated to recording. (Of course, before I moved down here to the beach, I had my own, somewhat more elaborate recording space; but it still wasn’t quite as slick as Reggie’s nicely appointed little studio.)

Reg has some nice mics and some good gear but the real difference between a session working under him and doing my own recording was discipline.

As long time readers may suspect, discipline is something I’ve long eschewed in my own creative efforts. That’s for pros, eh?

But when in Rome… and Reggie is clearly a pro, so I tried to go with the flow. And, by and large, I think it worked out.

The best part of this, though, I think, is the very cool triangle and tambourine thing Reggie came up with that underlies the song. He got this little afro-beat thing going on the triangle, and just a tap on the tambo to end the triangle phrase. It’s pretty cool… He also did a tasty little mandolin part, a Nashville-tuned guitar part in the refrains, and supplied a bass drum punctuating the whole business.

All I had to do was play a little guitar, do a little singing, and sit in the booth and look pretty.

previous versions
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Friday, August 31, 2007

lyrics
Forget About the Moon

(C)2008, TK Major

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Suns explode and worlds collide…

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Trainwreck Life

Stuff happens.

No matter how meticulously you plan, how many contingencies you try to cover, how much you practice and drill, unforeseen events upend the best laid plans — or the gods of unforseen consequences lay a hand on an outcome and before you know it, everything is upside down, inside out, and your goose is on its way to well-done — but you won’t be sharing the bounty.

previous versions
Sunday, October 28, 2007

But hey — in this veil of toil and sin, you’d be lucky to get out alive. If you could, but you can’t. So best to buck up, stiffen the old upper lip, buckle down, grab your bootstraps, and give the ol’ heave ho to yesterday’s cares and concerns — because there’s a fresh batch due for delivery as early as tomorrow.

previous versions
Sunday, October 28, 2007

lyrics
Trainwreck Life

It’s just one trainwreck after another
it’s just one disaster followin’ the t’other
It’s a wonder I can get back on my feet
to fall again

Some catastrophe
Some calamity
more adversity
more insanity
it’s the way it goes in the world
of mice and men

Cataclysm and devastation
tragedy and desolation
yet I know it’s the way it goes
my friend

double debacles and treble trouble
cauldron of misfortune set to boil and bubble
I’ve seen the future it’s
more of the same to the end

Waterloo was just a hiccup
Little Big Horn just all a big mixup
When everything is ashes
maybe we can all be friends

Suns explode and worlds collide
all us little specks along for the ride
the fabric of time and space
someday willl mend

Cataclysm and devastation…

Suns explode and worlds collide
all us little specks along for the ride
in the end it all — comes down to the end

2007-10-28
(C)2008, TK Major

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Doll-eyed again…

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She’s Got Eyes Just Like a China Doll

“Never trust a junkie.” She’d told him that a million times… when she wasn’t using or jonesing. Just about every junkie he’d ever known more than 15 minutes had said it at one point or another.

But he wasn’t good at tough love, only the stupid, hopeless kind.

And that’s how he loved her. And that’s how it was. Hopeless. Stupid.

And that was how he felt one day — one day after she’d been so good for so long — when he came home and found his computer and his only good guitar gone, along with a couple of small suitcases and some of her clothes. Most of her stuff was still there. The box of stuff she’d dragged around since high school — somehow — was still there. Her favorite winter clothes were there — and why not, it was the first hot spell of the summer.

But the only two things of his in the entire world that could bring over $20 in a pawn shop — or net anything at the local trade-and-barter heroin and crack dealer, for that matter — were gone.

But her prized possessions, for the most part, were still there.

It was like she thought she could come home again.

And the sad thing was, he thought as he sat on the couch looking at the corner of the living room where his computer had been and his guitar had leaned up against the desk in its case, the sad thing was… she probably could,

previous [acoustic] versions
Just Like a China Doll
She’s got eyes
just like a china doll
They look painted on
and yet they’ve seen it allAll around Long Beach
and all the way to LA
the shattered lives are scattered
the hearts are spiked up on staves
— From the ocean to the mountains
from the birthplace to the grave
Once you behold her
nothing will ever be the sameShe’s got eyes
just like a china doll
They look painted on
and yet they’ve seen it allEverywhere you go
everythings about the same
they wander around dazed
just barely whispering her name
— They walk in front of buses
they throw themselves under trains
but the sick smile on their faces
show those sorry saps are still glad she came[bridge]
well I looked into her eyes
and I saw my life flash by
Now I wake up screaming
every time I see a doll’s eyes I looked into the void
and I saw myself fall in
i see it every time
i see it in her eyes
t’s always beenHere I stand the last man to fall
under her spell
a moment close to heaven
an ice age on the cold side of hell
and how can I face  
the other lost souls I find
When I laughed at all of them and then now
here am I the last in line

She’s got eyes
just like a china doll
They look painted on
and yet they’ve seen it all

(C)1997, TK Major

 

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