Woodpecker
March 21, 2005
Getting the message from a misguided woodpecker. Loud and clear. After a month of spending creative energy elsewhere I decided to write about the woodpecker. The woodpecker has returned this spring. This time I am not confused. Last year I was scrambling in the dark corners of my house trying to find the noise. It was coming from the hot water tank. A joy buzzer intermittent burst. Were there relays inside a hot water tank that could make that sound? After a week of procrastination I resolved to call a hot water tank guy the next day. That’s what procrastinators do. They resolve to do things tomorrow. That afternoon I went out to the studio to work and emerged at dusk to walk back across the yard to the house. Another cup of coffee called. Empty mug and mind bent around some half-formed idea like an oyster’s foot and mantle. Mild irritant becomes pearl. I heard the hot water tank noise in 3D. It had been released from inside and had escaped to the roof. There was a dark blur of motion up on top of the shiny aluminum Guggenheim pod that caps one of the roof venting stacks. I counted off that same number of seconds between joy buzzer rattles. I did this and then realized I had measured this interval without conscious effort. It must be the same instinct that turns the rhythm of the car’s turn signal ticking into songs. After the interval the bird on top of the vent stack hammered its head into the aluminum cap again. Why did the woodpecker want to drill into this warm metal disc? No bugs. No food. No shelter. I didn’t have to call the hot water tank guy. I watched for a while and then went down to the hot water tank, listened and laughed.
A few days ago I was hanging up my hockey gear down by the secret closet that hides the water tank. That sound. I ran up and out and looked to the roof. There she was. It was then I realized that procrastination in my household duties was helping with evolution in the natural world. If I had disturbed my friend by having someone climb in around all my ducts and pipes she may never have kept at it. Maybe she’s aiming to be the first woodpecker to drill through metal. Raising the bar. When all our trees are wrapped in metal to protect them from the orange chemical winds there will be a hardy breed of woodpecker that will survive. Not if I had meddled. That squeak in the dryer may be flying squirrels practicing anti-gravity maneuvers. The howl in your dashboard may be a spotted owl practicing mobile nesting for a world beyond the thunderdome. I got the message on year two with the woodpecker. I will not interfere.
Sidebar. Why can nobody replicate what Chuck Berry did? I mean …people come close in spirit and execution. Insert great rockers names here. I was listening to a bunch of Chuck tonight and freaking out. Those grooves are so fucking exciting and improbable. “Sweet Little Rock n’ Roller”, “Little Queenie”. Jesus H. Christ. It just kills me. Johnny Johnson inspired so many imitators but none of them have the full bag of tricks. It’s how those guys listened. It’s how they felt things. It must be impossible to get to exactly where they were in space and time. Everyone tried and ended up inventing new things instead. Its so far away in time now but the quest to get to the heart of that music is as valid a quest as it has ever been. It’s a joyful and dangerous physical sensation that is essential to survival. We need it. There are idiots who will tell you that this music is simple to learn and easy to dissect. There are children’s entertainers who put on Ray Ban Wayfarers and a leather jacket and sing their “rock song”. They put their hat on backwards and “rap”. This music is as complex as the DNA that makes up every person that performs it properly. Its inside you and comes out and cannot be described or articulated in any other form or in any other manner. This anti-science provides a reason to live. It proves the existence of magic.