Megalomania strikes at Circuit City!

What seemed another above-average day in our normal, yet above-average happy lives... became something quite different. There was a sloppy sky overhead terribly uncertain of itself. Am i sunny? Am i cloudy? It was clueless. Our bedcovers looked quite the same, disheveled and lost over the edges. We could've powered our home were my night's nocturnal revolutions harnessed. I like a good toss from time to time.

Everything began quite the same... crossword and coffee in bed, finally beat that fucking Washington Post which had been testing our crossword abilities as of late. I made a slow uncomplicated meal of bacon and potatoes and eggs and melon, plenty helpings of coffee. Finally struggled out of the house after noon. Then began the mad escapade of boxstore hopping, staring up at riddled walls of tele screens looming in lens like umptagonal bug eyes. And the white noise surround sound began its number, and our eyes shifting like tweekers, and the pockmarked faces of salesboys in overwashed hand-me-down staff shirts. Emeryville almost ate us!

The day ended in epic fashion with a three-hour Circuit City stint where i bore witness to the amazing shopping strength of Cathleen. Pen and pad in hand chronicling the pros and cons and picking the minds of multimedia zombies. I couldn't believe her stamina and articulate grace when asking about analog v. digital and tuner types and contrast ratios, meanwhile weighing consumer reports on her handy laptop popups. Fucking amazing!

And as the sun set on the city of Emeryville, which should NOT have its own zipcode, we rode away with a 37'' inch flatscreen and somehow shining guiltless of the grand venture.

as if to say... I really love those Seattle Mariners... wanna
make something of it?

Painting and the Art of Happiness

We took on a sum of white walls yesterday... the glowing morning light playing through the windows, music through the french doors and our brushes sticksticking with pastel paint. Blue tape borders and us between in our least favorite rags laying down paint on tiptoe and knee.

For past years i've been tied in thought, torn by the process of decision making, under the small weight of having little to go on. I've been happy yet uninspired, unmotivated, driven by nothing more than my personal want of feeling as such, making my own world and feigning any solid understanding of what exactly i'm doing in it. In part, due to some missteps but moreover simple advents of craziness that i wouldn't pin to any notion of fate or even coincidence. Some downright strange occurrences that i'd like to accept just as are.

It would be hard to claim any discontent, though there has been struggle. Somehow i've stayed up all along and still lingers a sense askance Would i have stayed on my feet much longer? Cos i found something and now with previous direction recoursed it's hard to compare anything, hard to remember what i was doing and to where i was going.

When i first met Cathleen and we were making a telephone plan to get together, i suggested some dumb logistical struggle that might impede our union... and she told me in a matter of words, that we are in control of most everything, and that's the bottom line. That thought really drew me, and i guess in retrospect how could it not? And yet there are times, many of them happy, when i stop and look around wondering, how can i possibly take credit for what my life holds? So many of these things have been beyond my ability and rather occurred of their own. And why would i assume my own control in things and, why would it matter if i weren't?

All i want is love and watermelon.... maybe some old new country on the radio. Montgomery Gentry....

I'm tired of spinning my wheels
I need to find a place where my heart can go to heal
I need to get there pretty quick
Hey mister what you got out on that lot you can sell me in a pinch

Maybe one of them souped up muscle cars
The kind that makes you think you're stronger than you are
Color don't matter no I don't need leather seats
All that really concerns me is

Speed
How fast will it go
Can it get me
Over her quickly
Zero to sixty
Can it outrun her memory
Yeah, what I really need
Is an open road
And a whole lot of speed

i love songs about heartbreak...

Pool party at your mom's house...

I'm lying back on a leather couch, the shades drawn tight to a 100 degree day beyond the glass. We just flipflopped across town sporting slight sunburns and sunglassed to a near limitless blue above. Fucking Turlock fucking California. A sight for sore eyes, a green gem amidst nothing but flatness and agri-lines of corn and vine. There was nothing to be done but step a few streets over from the backyard pool to the empty weekend grocery... in need of banana split supplies and a sixpack.

Its been a busy few days here reconvening with my partner's past, her loving hometown openarms wide and not yearning for detail. Docile and sleepy and hotter than most. Lounging in quiet AC wonderlands, cafe stoops beneath umbrellas and kicking about on airmattresses in delicious blue pools. But beating all aimlessness was last night's drive-in witness of Harry Potter: Order of the Pheonix. If it wasn't enough that Harry is the man and gets some kind action with a young sweet thing at Hogwarts... better yet was our perch from the back of a minivan, seats forward, hatch open and us couched out in blankets and pillows, barefeet in warm night air staring up at the drive-in screen. A balanced diet of queer tasting popcorn, chocolate, beer and dazzling privy to Harry Potter's mad skills in sorcery. And us dialing in the magic via FM radio.

There is a certain lethargy that goes along with this life beneath a baking sun, the Valley of California. No wonder now to the inviting concept of siesta... and better still these long stretching siestas that last the whole of the day. I didn't expect the lush greenery of sycamores and locusts spanning the neighborhood streets, all the lawns freshly mowed but no one around to sit upon them or lounge beneath umbrellas or giant sombreros. Nearly nothing higher than a story stretching out for fifty-thousand souls and their abodes. I think a normal reaction for myself would be that of distrust, perhaps worthy of a yawn or two... some underground disdain or lassitude for the whole grid. But somehow no... i've got love for Turlock.








The shark sequence...

Willy's Barbershop

This morning my baby took a left on Mission, heading for the station... train bound for East Bay. And i took a right toward my favorite barbershop, a small old-fashioned feel with straight edges and men waiting with magazines and tophats. Took a seat while a fellow got finished up on the chair, thumbing through the funnies and crossword. Then he called me up for a seat and wrapped a scarlet curtain around my neck. I started pointing at different pictures strung about the place saying "kinda like that... except shorter on the sides" and he's going "Uh-huh sure thing."

I sat back and watched myself through three mirrors and thought of the pleasant morning with a few birds singing on the apple tree in the yard. Lying stretched out with the bright morning light pouring beneath the raised blind and this new, yet familiar body beside me. A slow uncalculated morning with crossword and american breakfast of potatoes and eggs and toast and peach on the side. And i'm sitting back in this chair, my sleepy eyes perhaps looking upward to the "visual memory" we speak of in elementary school (i guess we must look up, maybe even open our mouths a bit, to contact memory).

Willy the barber finishes me up with shaving cream across my neck and sides with a blade and then this amazingly quick massage, my neck going pop pop pop and leaving me completely relaxed and meanwhile he's done the final style on my hair. All i could say was "woh" and "thanks kindly... it looks great!" Stepped back out into the morning light and took a slow beeline trip through the neighborhood. The sounds and smells of the Mission have grown on me... Something about feeling present and nostalgic in the same moment. And thinking a little of a fond farewell as we ready to move across the bay. To make a home together in the near bright lights of Oakland.

...Hula and the home rule on the 4th of July...

a sleepy morning with the pretty cactus blooming on my doorstep...

...taking a slow dance at the Class of 1997 Reunion with Lewis County looking on...

this is the ease of american life...

I'm on a coffee shop hop in and between the intermittent Seattle showers. My friend M. pedaled off grudgingly toward work after snoozing her alarm twice this a.m. fore finally slumbering upward and out. I tossed any number of things upon my back and set off into Mallard. Beelined for M.'s poor car, which we left last night on a no-name street near the video store. Took half an hour to find it again... sadly abandoned against the crumbling curb looking downhill toward the Ballard locks.

We'd spent an afternoon/evening scrambling some ivy trails at Careek Park on the Sound and had mused a movie night to follow. But returning to the little red sportscar, we found a likely soul given up. M. had miraculously been driving a dipstickless car for a few months, somehow shying a prior engine collapse. And now... the poor thing coughed and whirred, pistons likely locked and dry. Some darling leather-coated, pop-top Saab driver found us home in his shiny five-speed, flirting preciously with M. in the frontseat. I lay back in the body fitting backseat reminding me of a soft version of a police cruiser.

I found M.'s car in a similar state, sadly rooted to the street with mawkish purrs on ignition, clawing for a little life. And it being a Mercury, i thought of the ominous retrograde situation up in the heavens and wondered if any bearing were made on this little four-wheeled motor.

Pressing on i ducked inside a small cafe rocking Neil Diamond and later some delicious electronica full of beeps and flurries reminiscent of Aphex and Atari. And there i am perched still blinking my way through vocational postings and the more enticing chum network. Coffee kindly altering my senses and shining a little light despite the current gray beyond the glass.

... the acolytes happily pay eight dollars a beer...

A brief prayer.

I'm cracked out by exhaustion and severely need a beverage in my hand and a Mariner win this evening. First of all I'd like to thank the tickets that have been procured for this clear evening... seats well situated for such a momentous drinking occasion. The lights of Seattle, its gridwork silhouette skyline will stretch up... and below us our poor five-game skidding Mariners, G-D bless them, will take the field against the even poorer Pittsburgh Pirates. I'd also like to thank accompanying Andrew for his more recent conversion to the fanclub and subsequent recovery as a stalwart Bucs swain. Andrew it was wholly necessary... you are finally a true resident and worthy Olympian.

I'd also like to thank the morning for being over. Its been five days on the rooftop laboring slave-like and i ache such as an ailing gerry might... grumbling, groaning and the like. Roofing is a bear and a bitch quite frankly. My gratitude to Lali Puna (*link through blog title) for rousing some energy and groove this morning, combatting prodigious doubts and motivation. I was not happy about life and needed something in my veins other than blood. It was either music to uplift or some Lewis County product derived from lithium, which i lacked.

Also a thanks to Cat for similar encouragement on the scale of élan... some sweet thing to come. And to Erin Kramer who will likely try my levels of consumption, no surprise there. To M. Holtrop for gracious invitations and a pacific voice for the radio. And of course a big one for the Almighty, who despite my stead disbelief still manages great things.

Contrails. You left one too...

Above the patchwork of hued farmland and stricken cuts along the hillsides, veins scratched from logs dollied upwards. Metal jaws clamping and cinches loosed, the waiting trucks along the yellow-clay roadways. And my lorax northwest analogies... looking downward.

So far below and San Francisco a mile per second further behind. I'm leaving home and going home all the same, the same time. And poor Frank who i left nights back at that social/networking/drinking scene downtown amongst the lofts and industrial hangouts. I think of him and our philosophical discussion, bordering metaphysics and that whole pitfall of sugarcoatedness (which we miraculously sidestepped); his selfless confidence ringing. I always heard the confident tone; it sounds louder on my ears, i always could listen harder. You seem like somebody concerned with the idea of home, he said. I'd known him for only a few minutes. I was on a second glass of overpriced sauvignon blanc, my thirty-sixth hour of wakefulness, thirtieth hour of over-stimulation, fifteenth hour of pollyannaist ga-ga for the world and its inhabitants. The comfort of strangers... a few to mention.

Nearing Seattle, the lowering hum of engines aside me and the left wing stretching out toward the Pacific. I can see the mighty Columbia reaching the coast, its flat slow waters tamed with a shot of soma and hydroelectricity. Let's not save the world, I'm thinking. I'm done with anything even feigning that resolution. Maybe saving yourself... unlikely by abstraction alone, but feasible i guess... and at least acceptable.

Let's not worry that timing is everything. I still wanna hope that it was the right time, you know i do. And despite any leaning theory of governance and guidance, i don't wanna resign myself but rather push it in the direction of my hoped outcome. I'm not worried anymore if I'm lost or found. I'd like to be found, but it's out of my hands. And oh those Olympic Mountains... still white and starked with dark rocks and shadow. Enough to make me forget wholly any point i may have had. The only thing resounding is a sweet contentment...

I'll get funny again...

I like the damp streets in the morning and my feet trying to find a new way through the city grid. A plus: that tired eyes can still see so well; the cup of bittersweet coffee in my hand; a goodbye kiss for the day. Makes me think that to question how we spend our time beyond the sense of feeling alright, is just a waste of time. I've done that far too much.

I like this new record playing in my ears, playing every moment i have the time to unwind and rewind. To have music inside your ears (or head) that no one else can hear is a guiltless pleasure. It's rhythm and motion and perhaps that is everything. There's this song by The National...

We expected something, something better than before. We expected something more
Do you really think you can just put it in a safe behind a painting, lock it up and leave
Walk away now and you're gonna start a war
Whatever went away I'll get it over now. I'll get money, I'll get funny again
Whatever went away I'll get it over now. I'll get money, I'll get funny again
Walk away now and you're gonna start a war

I'm still working on one it means exactly. The feeling is there, and it seems to fit the feeling i have for this ragged job search, the monies run up chutes and down ladders, whether it's worth it. My balancing act always seems to involve songs and stories listened.

A dear friend's father is coming up on retirement and he ponders this coming time, its bountiful aptitude following a life of due diligence to vocation. He thinks of model airplanes and books to be read. I wonder about that aim and its nearing freedoms, and wonder if it ever really leaves us to begin with. I have those plans too and can only hope that a free spirit is lasting in a world of labor and dollars. I'd like to capture my freedom all along the way and never lose sight despite the early mornings that pull me from a warm bed, and inside a glowing caffeine office. Most of all i want to be good and no matter the blocks, i think that can be done.

*there's a link to that song up on the title...

You really got a hold on me

I decided to stay a while longer in the Bay... my current plans unraveling. The man was saying sign here, here and here... and oh so barely did i escape. Some love for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.

I'd like to send this shoutout to improbability, because without it... life wouldn't impress me nearly as much. I want to take you back in time to the year 2005 and the microcosmo of my life at that pivotal moment. On Fridays we drove into town, either to McCall via the Lick Creek Summit Road which was a veritable nightmare and graveyard for vehicle undercarriages; or, to Cascade via a neverending serpentine road begging the driver or passenger at some point to not become an astronaut.

On this much anticipated Friday venture provisions would be bought in the denominations of half-racks and cases, often in can form. On return, refrigerators would be stocked, lawnchairs assembled and the evening commenced with a cylinder of Red Seal and maybe a rock-throwing contest down toward the South Fork(*link above on the title).

Sunday Shootout

Compliments of Gerry...

Andrew's power layup...

Today in my eyes.

I put my feet up on the furnace and watched the kids playing in the schoolyard. My lunchbreak looking out on a cool, gray day... the quick drift above Twin Peaks bringing a welcome hood upon Noe Valley. Still working on a ginormous cup of coffee from the early morning and awaiting some state of wakefulness that never comes. I'm taking notes on child behavior and thinking about my own. Studying the dark circles beneath my eyes and the tired smile i've been wearing all morning. I couldn't be happier... and with it some confidence resounding. And the kids don't fuck with me when i'm like this. I give them this look, like Hey, don't waste my fucking time okay? It seems to work really well, and then we can sit down and do our work. This peace as i find my own. There is some art in not trying too hard, wouldn't you say?

Down in the Mission the kids are trying too hard. I see them already cool at seven a.m. talking into cellphones at their chins, like walkie-talkies. They're leaning against the wall waiting for the Laidlaw to take em away. It's seven in the bloody morning, does anybody without a job or meth problem talk at this time? Me? Don't call me at seven and certainly don't put me on speaker phone at the corner of 24th and Capp. I'm not having it.

Further on a homeless mans been run down. Two enormous black women are looking down at his snow-angel form near the corner drain. His Safeway cart is a few feet away; he starts to lift his head. An LA Looks-gelled up Latino cop talks into his shoulder, spitting out codes instead of just saying poor bastard down. He's gonna be fine... his feet are moving. Maybe a concussion and a two-month looming hangover fought off but destined for him and his hospital bed. The smell of fresh conchas from the Mexican bakery and the fried tomatos on the corner, these things don't wait.

And as the hour grows later, little ones emerge in rows like ducklings on the sidewalk. The rabbit reproduction of the American immigrant, shocking... like the giant billboard of Savage Nation overlooking the Castro. Or the ad right next to it~ Want hot sex without crystal? Hell Yes!!! And a bunch of flaming pecs and abs in a row supporting the statement. Reminding me of the recent film 300, just gayer (if that's possible).

I like San Francisco most when i'm on my feet. I walk a lot and my gait follows me through, choosing the less traveled streets of my own memory toward the day's destinations. It feels good to walk by and watch the life living here; these close quarters allowing anonymity or palaver in the same breath.


Fabulous Castro sailor boys compliments of Julia
from the passenger seat at 15mph...

The moment that brought me here.

You were there seated in a field trampled with many feet. The red plastic cup in your hands, legs criss cross, eyes watching me. I was on a stage in those days and i performed quietly for you. There was forever a private joke playing between our eyes and it was this humor that i loved most. That was outside Helena, Montana... we were talking about how to spend your grandmother's money. The money she'd left for you in her exit. It was a piece of land we wished to buy, loose knit pine turning to field and the Dearborn River below.

A few weeks before, you'd said 'i love you' in a Santa Fe city park. Cicadas were rattling overhead in odd ornamentals and my fingers began to shake as i rolled a cigarette. I'd told you many times before never expecting you to answer me. It's difficult to put so much forward without the expectation of reciprocity. I wonder sometimes if i could ever attain that level again.

This first ballast of communcation haunted and delighted me. To feel myself and another simultaneous in thought and step, i never truly believed a possibility. And it sent me somewhere beyond the granted love of a good childhood. In some regards it was another beginning. There was my birth, and language; there was memory, and coming upright to stand on two feet. Beginnings like these... And then, there was this new thing forming inside me and further, moving beyond my body.

However one's belief could place me on this planet, whether a product of supernal hand, or fated otherwise... whatever the case. To be here and have an innate nature of doing and living, is a motherfucker in itself. And in the moments i realize the power of understanding certain things, carried by trembing hands or hairs raised above the skin... i can feel what it is, most important to me. And it seems to all stem from this first shudder of vulnerability.

...and then i found out Erin Kramer was getting married? that is correct: Erin Puffy Kramer. that's like the pot telling the kettle to shut the fuck up...

I have been traipsing... once again living my life as if it weren't real. If each one of us has a unique gift mine would be moving with consideration and carelessness simultaneous. Pretty neat trick man.



this is me making a cup of tea at 1658 feet (a bay area mountain)

Sojourn in Ixtlan...

I awoke the other night from a dream and found myself in yet another one, this time more real. For a moment my already binary existence became even more confusing. In the first dream i was gazing toward the wall lying on my side, my living room around me. And before my eyes, with all the willpower i could summon, formed the shape of an old friend. I studied her face in the light, she turned from side to side and cast shadows from the tip of her nose. I could make out the slightest freckles on her cheek and the sleepiness about her eyes.

I was amazed that i could recreate such an image, a virtual photograph now nearly interactive in its mechanics. I was proud that i had remembered her so well; perhaps her image now was even realer than her original form, i thought. I believe i stole that idea from a book i read in the past few years. That our eye is a camera, both still and moving.

And then she faded and i awoke into the second dream. I fumbled for a pen and lay as still as i could. I didn't want to wake fully cos i could feel these thoughts gently slipping and knew that only between realities would i remember and transcribe. So i wrote a sum of lines about her image, but i couldn't keep it cos i awoke yet again. And so i lay in bed, really this time and pulled my legs up toward me.

I felt a simple sadness of nearly attaining as the greyhound always stretching for the rabbit. It is strange how even as we sleep we stretch ourselves out and attempt to merge with something. And by the taste left in my mouth and nerves on edge, i can only wonder where my heart really lies.


an onerous sign on today's point reyes roadside...

a thousand words...

Kick that !@%$#% ball!

In preparation for Sunday's hopeful kickball game at Dolores Park... i took some practice on the schoolyard. It was second lunch on a terribly bright day, my eyes recoiling from the incandescent celestial ceiling overhead. A spring day in San Francisco.

I was making my recess rounds twirling a whistle around my fingertip and taking a minute to yak with various kids about how to beat the final stage in Super Mario Kart and why Mexico's World Cup team is dangerous to make large bets on. This is my normal day. After lunch i scrounge up a few balls and set up a kickball game in one corner and a soccer game in the other. Sometimes the girls join the games, but for the most part they like to talk in gaggles, giggling all the while. In fifth grade it unnerved me to no end... the burst of laughter from such a flock and my silent sweetheart among them. Was she telling them about my sweaty palms when we held hands? Did they catch me picking my nose?

I was wandering back and forth, i played goalie for a while and screamed and shouted encouraging everyone to do headers from towering kicks. Kids were rubbing their sore heads and smiling; it did kind of hurt. And then looking toward the kickball game i took my leave, electing a new goalie as i walked away. The kickball field was a mess: kids scattered haphazard, bunched on homeplate fighting for position, clueless bewildered outfielders clumped in centerfield unaware of left and right. Not to mention a terrible discrepancy common to schoolyard kickball~ all the cool big 5th grade kids on one team and the shrimpy scraps of 4th grade nerddom comprising its foe.

It was like fetch at the dogpark, big kids walloping balls into gaps and corners and the little kids running to retrieve. Makes my heart kinda skip a beat seeing all this. Reminded me of my poor Mariners facing the Yankees throughout the 90's; a rout, in other words. And me at the ballpark, scraping my chocolate malt with that little wooden spoon, feeling kinda mad at the pinstripes. And to boot, the big kids were cheating, claiming they were safe in shameless out fashion. Like that time Alex Rodriguez slapped the ball out of Arroyo's mitt in Game 6 with the Red Sox. Just shameless...

I couldn't take it anymore. I stepped in, "Terrence, you're out. Gimme a break!" A murderous 5th grade look crossed his face a second before he assented, loping back toward the bench. I helped the kids get the final two outs. They'd been on the field nearly fifteen minutes shagging balls for the big kids. They quickly lined up in nervous anticipation of finally kicking, but sadly their teammates kicked dribblers up the first base line. Two outs. It looked like a one-two-three inning for the underdogs. But then, out of nowhere, Mr. Jesse stepped up to the plate. I turned back and readied the kids for a team run, a special rule applied when all the kids get to run around the bases, like a walk-off grandslam. It usually really infuriates the other team, so i decided this would be a great time. My left foot got every bit of rubber and the ball bounded long and far, twisting by the flag pole. We screamed, we hollered, we taunted... and as we gathered at home plate, the lunchbell rang.

Postscript. Sunday's game is on! Bring your own beer and dignity!

Ode to a friend... and our livers.

The whole of last week was spent with a mediocre person at best. Though she is a dear friend, the fact remains... she is an enabler, a horrible influence. And if i ever have children, a restraining order may be necessary. May G-D bless her cold cold heart.

Yonder by the Truckee lives a lady
young and pretty (she once was)
years of smokin' and drinkin' behind her
and many more years ahead to come...

The Truth Is Out There: A Shoutout To Mulder

It started when i was kid, maybe seven or eight. I was to listening to P.M. Dawn and Belbiv Devoe, loved Kraft dinner and could occupy hours in the presence of Legos. It began: a recurring nightmare that I became a ship, a rocketship, blasting off from this Earthen surface toward the cratered Moon. I would burn through the atmosphere and watch the hue turn blue to black, stars appear like oncoming twilight, and up ahead our lunar companion slowly growing closer. About this time, always the same in each dream, i would realize my trajectory was amiss and that i would pass by the Moon. The overwhelming notion of Newton's Law on my young brain... (and countless sci-fi films like 2001 and Alien and later, X Files) i would float away forever~ same speed, same direction. If the Little Prince had been American...

I would awake heavy each morning following these dreams. The images and feelings summoned by the notion of eternal drifting left me shaken and only by early afternoon would i shrug it. These dreams faded after a sum of years and i happily returned to the innocent filth of youthful fantasy, dreaming of those girls in homeroom in strange places and positions. Then just reaching teen, i awoke one night to find myself curled in a ball and suspended ten feet from my bed (the high ceilings of my room allowing). Fully awake now but unable to render escape, i realized that i was hanging such as the Moon and... that i was the Moon. How lonesome it is, to be the Moon! I began crying out for help until my brother's girlfriend came and saved me. Her flashlight illuminating my room found me lying face down on my bed, eyes wide. We chainsmoked on the porch until i calmed down enough to go back to bed.

This is all to say, my fascination with the cosmos has always been acute and beckoning. I read of the methane seas on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. The splintered icy surface of Europa and the thick ocean below it, steadily orbiting Jupiter. The strange hexagon shape at Jupiter's northern pole; the solid geometry holding constant despite heavy storms about it. Water-eroded canals of Mars, its daytime temperatures between 50-60ºF; the erupting volcanoes of Io sending magma into space; or the acid-rain on Venus. And us, the blue planet, a pinprick in the cosmos.

Sometimes when i'm feeling cynical i think about our quiet steady evolution, our false notion of progress. All that we've learned and then relearned cos we'd forgotten. Our population and technology running like seismic waves over a span of countless time. I think about our accepted ideologies and religions, barely matured in a few thousand years. And that only a few centuries ago people believed the world to be flat... (of course, a few thousands years before that... they knew it was round), natural resources infinite, wigs and coursets fashionable. And look how far we've come.

Whenever i'm in a pinch i like to imagine the future, looking backward at a certain moment: a job interview, a breakup, a date, or a bender. It allows me to watch from afar and find the humor in an otherwise awkward, bumbling moment. I imagine the future now and see the obvious discovery of other lifeforms in the systems and galaxies beyond, which will fundamentally crumble our religion, false knowledge and virture. Without our God, our foundations for science and government, where will we be? And that's the humor of it; we'll be in exactly the same place without any difference except the knowledge that certainly... we are not alone.


The volcanoes of Jupiter's Io

Take me 270º

I should have been a cowboy, or maybe even a gunslinger. Simplify everything. Narrow my choices: there's steak and potatoes; there's whiskey and beer. There's no studying every knob on draft... just, give me a beer. None of that insolent top-shelf/bottom shelf debating and consequent swilling and sniffing, people sticking their whole nose in a snifter. No, just some whiskey in a shooter, and then it's gone. Nothing fancy.

And have you ever wanted somebody to just shut the fuck up? Well, cowboys can knock em out with one punch. It's amazing, seen it all the time on the tele. And what more, some people like Chuck Norris can do roundhouse kicks in Wranglers, a miracle in itself. I'd like to try out being a loose cannon... simplify my emotions a little bit. Be the quiet type, not brooding, just apt to take long looks on pretty scenery while a kind gal fawns on me. Tell people to back off with my eyes and carry myself real agile like a panther or something. Ready to spring at any moment.

Always liked to nap with a hat over my head, sleeping under an open sky, making a pillow of a bag or coat. All the sounds of night playing quick to your ears and a gentle breeze brushing your clasped hands or the hair about your neck. Always liked the hell out of dogs... wasn't one to talk my head off at them. I like their silence, dig their energy and howling nature. I'd have me a birddog or something and just take life one step lower.

These days pass by...

It's Monday. A thin layer of clouds drifting overhead, dogging the slow breeze looking down upon Noe Valley and the Mission. It's me there in one of those tan buildings gazing out my office window. I lost myself for a few minutes; and now, i'm wondering exactly where i went to. I've been doing that more and more in these past days. The onset of gerry years upon me at such a young age.

It hasn't been an unpleasant thing, nothing to cause alarm. There was a time a few years back that i experienced a similar episode. It lasted a sum of months and one night slipped away as i slept. If one could marry contentment and indifference... I feel anonymous and at peace, with no exigent need to assert opinion or stand by for anything but humor. And yet, also very distant from my own self... like i'm just watching from afar~ all these actions and reactions in succession. It reminds me of sleep deprivation or the third day of a fast, when the quiet loopiness sets in.

Today one of my students skipped lunch. His father had ran short on time and wasn't able to bring him the usual sack lunch at the 11:30 dot. I came into his classroom after recess and found him in the early stages of meltdown. I made eyes with the teacher in silent explanation and gently nudged him out of class. I stole some crackers from the kitchen and we sat on a bench overlooking the playground. As he mumbled his crackers and slowly came to life i talked. I don't know where it came from, this little sermon in the schoolyard about human bodies and our more subtle mechanics.

This kid is obsessed with Legos. In some aspect he brings Legos into every school subject. In math we add and subtract Legos; in social studies we compare Legos technology to Native Americans' (i'm not kidding...); and, in english we write stories (beginning, middle, end) about, yes, Legos, leading astonishingly anthropomorphic lives. And so, i compared our human bodies to Legos, instead of machines, explaining that one must feed and water the body or it'll be unable to function. He dusted some crumbs off his lap and commented on the strange texture of this particular cracker. I continued: that unlike Legos, we all have feelings and that they can become jumbled when we don't eat or hydrate (hence his issue earlier with another student). Or, that kids' thoughts can wander aimless in the classroom, unable to focus when the teacher's talking. That's when he asked me about kool-aid and how he likes the purple kind. You mean grape? i asked. No... purple, he replied.

Going for a walk.

There's this saying that i've been fumbling with in the past few years: When it goes wrong, it really goes right. And there's been variations on the wording but always the same idea. I've used it to brace myself against the fair travesties of events like Jackson, Wyoming ... a haven for cloned melo-emotions and me smack in the middle. Or the night i walked home drunk through a Maine blizzard and got pneumonia, but kept working my three jobs all the same. I remember holding a cough and running into the kitchen, donned in my serving tuxedo monkey-suit, and nearly falling over as i convulsed in the pantry. Then there was a morning on the ferry, i was sitting atop my backpack on deck looking through the rails; watching a side of wake and the town beyond i was leaving: best friend, home, and job.

We all could use a hand and who better than ourselves to give it. So i devised this saying to explain the true efficacy of otherwise sole negative haps. My brother tells me that a Libran Sun and Leo Moon proves caustic to my goal of stability. That's kind of a bummer if it's true, though it would put some discourse to the whole of my life. Astrologically-challenged may be a future term if a polite and liberal society like San Francisco wins the masses.

The essence of my personal adage is: despite a turn toward the less-desired, hence it goes wrong... at least an answer has been reached. And as human beings, we have such ruthless faculty for cataloguing events as they pass into our own history. It's nearly alarming how we can remove our sentiments and file away any occurrence resolved, if we see so fit. More misgiving is the unanswered thing in my life; i don't know what to do with it. Tricks to bring peace of mind, maybe that's what this is about.

I have this new friend. She's this engaging canuck with a sunny dispostion, who allays the usual histrionics of conversation, inviting ease. I went to pick her up the other day for a trip out of town. Backpack full of food and water, thermos of coffee strapped to the side. My car made five blocks and then stalled on the corner of 22nd and Folsom. All i could do was laugh as i pushed my car three blocks toward a vacant spot, drawing eyes of passerby with my push through a major intersection. Out-of-state plates. The early morning light still throwing shadows over much of the neighborhood grid and down on the streets. I left her there near a crumbling curb, beneath a tree scattering brittle leaves.

My friend came and picked me up and we drove across the bridge into Marin, through the rainbow tunnel. And the smooth ascension northward, not looking back except to laugh. Loosing any achievement for a day or two and feeling glad to be sharing this space with a friend. The stupid luck of knowing something went right.

Kairos on the corner.

We're covering new ground here... the brave beyond that i've been cautiously awaiting. Stretching out the fingertips, and most especially~ the mind, toward this feeling of home that's coming over me, gently. Was pushing across the Mission with a case of beer atop one shoulder, connecting the dots for proper consumption. Pantlegs rolled above the ankle, shirt-sleeves, and looking forward to the sandals at home.

It was down on Folsom crossing into my laundromat district, watching the tumble dry from midway over the yellow hashes. And as i regained the sidewalk i noticed a few buds sprouting on a treebranch overhead. Yeah that's right you fucking nerd, terminal and apical meristems giving it up for another swing through the seasons.

This new green above me, whorled and alternate and opposite, on some tree or other.... and then the grand scheme, sort of similar to when you dial in a raindrop or a snowflake falling from the sky. Then WHAM! focusing in... you can see a million of them. But, you have to recognize that first one, like this here meristem i was refering to. So i craned my neck a while, i've been told i look like a bird before. Perhaps that prehistoric flightless fucking thing from New Zealand. Had scales instead of feathers and stood ten feet, or some crazy shit like that. Giant peckin' Big Bird. Remember Follow That Bird? Goddamn... what a movie. I'm gonna park my kids in front of that one. Might wait on the whole Labrynth thing, lest they wish conjecture on Bowie's pod.

Anyway, i was stopped on the corner sidewalk musing this line of no-name trees, cos my botany is pathetic in the California + Ornamental department... and it struck me that i felt a maddening affinity for this neighborhood. It was beginning to belong to me, or me to it... whatever the case; and, moreover, noticing a change upon it was endearing of all things. Kinda like your little cousin learning how to shamelessly flirt with girls and convincing them he's worth their time (... really hope you're reading this Sam, you're pivotal in all things progressive).

There's so many things that i don't know and those needn't be addressed (cos i surely haven't the time to list). But, for what i do know... i find they must be constantly reaffirmed or i lose the meaning, and more so, lose the feeling of what it means to know them: bodily knowledge. And for me, i can't think of a more heartening thing than feeling that i belong (which i know is fiction...), and for just a moment in a day to be present. For one instant only, i was content and philistine with something as simple, and yet crucial, as a coming season. Lowering the bar cos it must be done.

This quickening...

A dear friend of mine has termed this blog San Franciscan Ruminations and i feel that i've never truly delivered the product promised by those words. I wish to finally do so...

Narrowing the limitless options of self-definition: my person must represent either some aspect that we all carry in regard, or a certain personality confined to a body, absolute. And needing to choose so deliberately for this endeavor, i select the pollyannaist whose over-optimism is both easily dissuaded and shied by hindrance, as encouraged by ease and fluidity. This personality is seemingly vulnerable to subtle fluctuation, but spared many distresses self-inflicted. And this in tow with my particular upbringing creates a metropolitan anomaly, maybe.

I'm gaining and losing here in this city; it's mostly velvet as the gamblers say: i think i'm winning. This ability to be both anonymous and gregarious at whim, near simultaneously, is the heart of my heart in San Francisco. To satisfy both of these wants, and likely needs, is a momentary gift that i hold onto. I feel in some part, that i have a secret that distends my appreciation for this city life. All that i've ever lived, until now, has in some way been diametric to this paved grid littered with life. This tight mixture of sound and smell, the sweet and the fetor together, combine into something almost richer than the pure beauty i've often been surrounded by. There's something more believable about this unification, as it encompasses the human being too~ both gentle and fierce.

But, what i'm losing is my sensitivity and mild candor for all. As the world grows bigger, i grow smaller and for whatever reason, i feel less. It's survival in an overly-stimulating environment that begs for attention. We harbor more unconsciously and find safe doses for semblance and sentimentalism alike. I don't know if i really buy what i'm writing, but part of me knows that my skin is thickening. That what remains untouched is my deliberateness and calculation, but what narrows is my aptness for affection. Not absence, because it is my core, but quicker reluctance to showing it. And not just showing it; feeling it.

I remind myself not to hurry. All these things around me i've wanted at some time, and now they're here with me. Perhaps it's just an apprehensive time and all of us feel our steps are hurried, whether they are or not. Perhaps it's some American way of living. Either way, i trust it... that which threatens me and holds me strong, reassuring.

Rolling In Washington.

Once when I was ten years old I mistook the sun for the moon. It was a breathless winter day in Chehalis, a small town in southwestern Washington State. The cold seemed to absorb all sound, making it ring hollow. A high bank of altostratus clouds could be seen through the gaps of gray cottony, cumulous that hugged the land. The high clouds were smooth and taut, tan like the color of skin. The lower clouds were dark and ruffled; I swore I could touch them from a rooftop. The sun's play through the two banks created an illusion. At one point I looked up and cried, “There’s the moon! It’s full.”

I was with my mother and father. It was an early Saturday morning; we were driving into town. I was in a league bowling tournament and every Saturday we went to the alley. My parents laughed until I understood my mistake. I turned red alone in the backseat. That made them laugh harder.

They dropped me off at the front door and went to find parking. I was late. I ran inside and quickly slipped my bowling shoes on. I found my teammates right before the first game started. We called ourselves The Scorpions. We thought it sounded tough and intimidating. Our first game was against The Alley Cats. We all had a good laugh at that, as if team names would determine the winner.

Most of the kids were my age, but a few had reached the glory of teen. We looked up to those ones, admiring their developing muscles and sprouts of hair beneath their arms. Although we didn’t share the same age, we all held one thing in common: our parents were alcoholics. Even at nine in the morning, already many of them were on a second or even third drink. Cans of Miller High Life and Rainier lined the countertops, cigarettes burning in the ashtrays. Most kids only had a mother or father watching, but not the two together. In that way, I was different. My parents were seated together in the second row. I could see them already rummaging for the wine they’d brought along.

Bowling was never a popular sport in our town, as it likely wasn’t in many towns. It was more of a weekend activity, or a place for highschoolers to bring their sweethearts. We played it as a sport though. We rolled the ball with intensity and determination. We calculated our spin and aimed for the third hash mark. Adrenaline pulsed our veins as the ball drove into the center pin. It was a poor kid’s sport and it made sense, because we were all poor. Our team uniforms were homemade. We’d drawn scorpions on the front of three red t-shirts and wore black pants. Seattle was an hour away. Only an hour to find our heroes: the Butthole Surfers, the Posies, Black Flag, or Nirvana.

Maybe other kids saw us for what we were, poor goodwill shoppers with a permanent marker. But I don’t think so; we were all on the same train together.

We rolled a good game against The Alley Cats. We taunted them with weak meows on every strike or nine spare. We were ruthless and cruel and having a good time. The final decision was ours and we moved to the next round.

Our next opponent was The Kingpins. They held a town legend on their team, a scrawny redhead named Paul. He was seemingly harmless, but looks deceive, and man could that kid raise hell. His father was the leading alcoholic in the crowd. The man had more drinking experience and no-how than everyone combined. He liked to hit Paul a lot and many Saturdays Paul would show up with bruises about the face. Rumor had it that Paul would soon be a father to a fourteen year-old across town by the name of Lindsey Taylor. We were all in love with her; she was sweet and incredibly sexy. And now Paul had knocked her up. It’d also been said that Paul had once vandalized Sheriff Hamilton’s patrol car in the 7-eleven parking lot. Old Hamilton was likely filling his mug with coffee and talking some questionable material with Sue behind the counter. Little did he know, while he was trying to get laid, his car was in the hands of Paul. The car was a canvas, and Paul the artist held his tools: spray paint and a switchblade.

Paul was a fighter but he bowled like a lover. He would caress the ball before gently laying it down with such quiet force upon the lane. He had the most wicked spin; the ball would cut so hard at the last second, driving into the side of the kingpin. In that explosive instant, pins would leap in every direction. The invisible dust would settle on a lane lay barren of pins. Paul didn’t show emotion when it came to bowling. He would casually approach the scorecard and place an ‘x’ in the frame, before taking a seat.

We knew we needed a better game to beat The Kingpins. We played our hearts out, withholding our usual taunts and name calling for another team that didn’t have Paul on it. My teammates were Jared and Sarah. We were all in the sixth grade together. At school we were friendly and would pass greetings in the hall. But the true friendship lay at the alley. Sarah didn’t have the physical strength to drive, but her accuracy was astounding. That girl could draw a strike from the slowest roll. Jared, on the other hand, would throw the ball so hard he sometimes lost his balance, falling over the line and drawing a foul. I once saw Jared roll it so fast into the gutter that it ricocheted into a strike. Jared was strong and sloppy. He reminded me of Jose Canseco, either a homerun or a strikeout. There was never a medium. Jared either fit the gutters or blew the pins away.

The game was neck and neck. Sarah chipped away on spares, making a pair of incredible splits that drew a few “oohs,” “aahs” and scattered claps. Jared played his game and somehow managed more ‘x’s’ than ‘0’s.’ I rolled in between, grabbing a few strikes and a handful of spares. It was a tight game. The Kingpins held a small lead throughout the match. On Jared’s final frame he stunned everyone present with an incredible assault upon the pins. His ball became an amazing missile in his grip, detonating on impact sending ‘x’s’ across the board. It brought us to a ten-point lead. We were excited, but far from convinced as Paul stepped up to the lane. It was all up to Paul. A strike would send us to our knees; a spare would only extend our certain death with a third roll.

Paul was nervous, everyone could tell. He looked back toward his father, who bellowed, “Whatya waiting for kid? Roll the ball! Beat these little shits!” He was tanked. I saw my dad take a good long look in his direction. My dad wasn’t far behind, having just polished the bottle of pinot noir and currently moving well with the cabernet.

Paul returned his gaze to the alley. He shuffled four methodic steps to the line and let roll a spinning ball of fury. The Scorpions gasped, every last one of us. The pins exploded, but as they cleared, we saw the corner pin standing. It wobbled slightly and then stood strong.

“C’mon boy!” Paul’s father shouted. “Don’t wimp out now!”

Paul remained staring at the pin as it settled, rooted to the lane. He was fixed and deaf to everything around him. He held out his right hand to the air vent, collected his ball from the shoot, and took his position once more. He must have stood that way staring down the lane for thirty seconds. His eyeballs were drying out in that determined gaze. He stepped forward and let fly another spinning mass. Paul’s ball kissed that pin; I mean, it was that close. I’m sure they touched one another on the way to the rack. But, there the pin stood and The Scorpions were victorious. We politely shook hands and then wiped the sweat from our foreheads.

“Come here Paul!” I look up to see Paul’s father beckoning him with a strong hand. Paul walked toward him with his head slightly bent. That’s when a loud slap resounded in the alley. Paul’s father stood there with his hand still outstretched, frozen in place, as his face swelled red.

“Hey! Whatya think you’re doing?” I heard my dad shout.

“Mind your own business, why don’t ya!” Paul’s father shot back.

“I’ll be minding yours real good if you do that again.” That’s when he shoved Paul to the floor and pulled himself to his feet. Everyone was quiet and watching. Not a single ball fell to the lane, not a single beer was cracked open. All eyes were intently observing this scene unfurl.

I had never seen my dad this angry before. He was a simple and peaceful man. But on this day, I don’t think anyone bore witness to that. Within a split second my dad was on his feet and in front of Paul’s father. My dad’s fist slammed into his chin and Paul’s father fell back against the row of seats. His Pabst Blue Ribbon was knocked to the floor and made a puddle beneath him. My dad stood over him with his head cocked to the side, his right hand still hanging clenched to a fist. It reminded me of the famous photograph of Muhammad Ali standing over Joe Frazier daring him to just try and stand up.

We left early that day, the three of us nearly running out of the bowling alley. I don’t think my father was worried about getting in trouble, he just thought it was the right thing to do. No one liked the man who still lay sprawled across the seats. No one would help him to his feet.

I remember watching Paul as we left. His face was expressionless, his mouth a thin straight line, as he studied the crumpled body of his father.

The drive back home was silent. My mother was furious. But by the time we reached home we were all laughing. They congratulated me on the game, patting my back as we stepped inside.

Upon Waking.

The first thing i think upon waking: the light and how it passes through the fabric across my window. I wonder of the sky and if it holds clouds or lets fly the sun unhinged. This light, dull or bright and the short cold trees, leafless in the backyard. I'll reach for my clock and bring the tone, this hue faintly illuminating me upon a square of crumpled bedding... put it alongside the actual time of day, make sense of it. Then rising, go about my routines of boiling water and washing my face, grinding the beans and musing the shelf for breakfast.

Every single thing touched or turned over needs another thing, thought or remembered to somehow verify it. And especially in the morning, nothing stands alone as just itself. The coffee is the wakefulness and it needs a cup, the cream already poured and waiting. The oats, a pot and water rising to bubble and steam.

And as clarity comes on (whatever clarity is~ perhaps a raveling to this reality i've adjusted to), these physical items i hold in my hands become links to seemingly unrelated memories. The keys jingling in my pocket on my way to work... i think of our dog Dawson running ahead on the Alaskan trails, a bell about her neck signaling bears of our presence. Or all the classroom smells at my charter school: freshly washed heads, the sweet smell of paint in the artroom, sorry lunchroom memory of fishsticks past and disinfectant. Every smell conjuring something... and me standing there peeling a tangerine while the kids find their friends and tear into paper bags, lunchboxes, or the prepackaged solids a meal ticket receives. And the Japanese girl in my mind, years back telling me how to peel with the intention of gathering one rind, one strip of orange citrus skin... for good luck or some such thing.

I listen to this input, these constant overlaps of life. They bring me closer to feeling connected; sometimes they threaten to drive me mad. But mostly i welcome them. It's an exercise to draw lines between the lives we've lived, whether young or old. An invisible connect-the-dots, like the nightsky overhead upon which we strain our necks upward- trying to make out the horse in Pegasus, Orion's bow, a high-flying Delphian kite. And none of it really there; it never was. Yet it's sweet to imagine... to believe in this chronology that our lives continue on, with one person leading the way. That one person, you or me. In brief attempts i try, but quickly lose track of which person that was that said those things, that did those things. Who was that whom i've always held close and called me?

St. Patrick's Day

Perhaps my favorite holiday, minus the likely ecological disaster of dyeing waterways green (even though i kinda dig it, yet Christo is still no friend of mine...). Every ounce of blood: German, Indian, Gentile, and Irish omitted bow to the sensibilities of intemperance.

Saint Patrick's Day a few years back... in all its glory. Portland, Maine with the sun yet to rise, a few dozen gather in the frigid twenty-something air to ceremoniously plunge into the Atlantic. Everyone thinking What have i got myself into? and Can i back out now? A pub down the street celebrates our actions with house Guiness and Baileys, and by six a.m. we're drunk and chronologically confused. Bums wander in from the streets with an eye for free drink...

And it was. At 1737 meters.

Near the Ecuadorian border in southwestern Colombia lies the mile-high town of Popayán. It's a drunken stumble from certain hidden coca plantations, as well as the woodlands that harbor many carrying, uniformed FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), whom if are unkown to you... could probably be figured out pretty fast. Popayán is also so goddamned bright (called the "White City") with its whitewashed colonial buildings, that even in pure sobriety one would swear the morning light had aroused them from a drunken stupor. Blinding.

I was taking respite in this pleasant town before the push across the border; a straight run recommended by locals, lest the paramilitary decide to pull you from a "random" passport check. I was traveling with one Villalobos, a Colombian woman i'd met in the north. I took her to a German film at the cinema; a film that we never watched. So this was my companion now.

One day she headed into the nearby park, Puracé National Park, which is famous in the area for its absurd amount of waterfalls and hotsprings. My own sightseeing took me to the museum (... and i'd like to mention that this was one, if not the only museum i ever visited in these particular travels. I, for the most part, would rather drink a pint or two at the local watering hole than visit a town's museum). This museum was special though for its abundance of stuffed birds and i had to see it. I gave the guy a dollar or two and walked in. Two stories of taxidermy... i marvelled at claw, beak, and feather while two sorry museum workers followed me around, eyeing me nearly equal to me upon the birds. Leaving, i was pretty certain that my visit had been one of very few... ever.

Meanwhile, Ms. Villalobos was discussing the beauty of "Nature" with a FARC commando on some discrete trail in the national park... praying that she didn't pee herself. Act casual, she kept telling herself, quelling the stories every Colombian knows of their brutality, second-hand or first-hand. But how exactly does a civilian act casual, when discussing nothing with a steel-toed, AK-47 toting, ransoming rapist? Fortunately, Ms. Villalobos was in the company of an intellectual para, who expressed his deepest sympathies for the grand misunderstanding that had ensued between commoners and the FARC. His sentiments were wounded, he informed her, that anyone could see them in such a bad light. He wished her well; prayed she would shed a fairer light to friends and family on the predicament.

Later that evening i lost my key to our hotel and no one would answer the bell. Night had fallen heavily, the midnight hour near and the quiet town of Popayán somehow grew quieter. I took a walk back toward the town square and found a group passing a bottle. A young woman shouted to me to have a seat, have a drink... and what the fuck, was i an American?... and yes, i could tell her the truth. I had a seat and smiled at everyone, took a pull on the aguardiente (translation= burning water, a fine anise liquor for the tight-fisted). I told her i was French and to get tossed. All thought that was pretty funny, until the woman spoke French to me. Damn! I said, okay, I'm German and you're a miserable drunk! It flew... and so we drank the bottle and another one from someone's pack. She kissed me before i stumbled back to my hotel; in slow, bending Spanish wished me a good night, and let it be known she knew i was American.

I found my companion at the hotel and she had a key; had managed quite a stupor herself in some other part of town. We made beautiful sloppy love in our square of a room... and then she told me her story.

Secret. Parietal. Discord.

I've been talking for days. Looking across rooms, over tables, reaching eyes... and forward for my drink, to continue. There's been some indulgence and much enjoyment. I'm waiting for someone to tell me to take a break... and for me to listen... and we'd all be still for a little while.

There's words on a page and then words in my head. But the words in the air... well, those i have less control of. Removing my filter and transfiguring feelings to words, becoming my own live translator. It brings on an objective state rivaling a psychotropic sentience; in other words, not always a comfortable place to be with eyes upon my person. As if in the company of one, there's actually three, as i step aside and watch. Sometimes i feel as much the listener to myself as the friend i speak with. Depending on present state, can be arresting or otherwise very fucking disconcerting. Bringing on the neurotic question, "If we leave our body, can we always come back?"



This is me trying to look thoughtful when i'm actually just really tired...

A word on tutoring today's youth and why they're already cooler than you'll ever be...

It's becoming more difficult to register surprise on our up-and-coming adults. With only two weeks i've come to realize i'm encountering a realm of consciousness that was never touched upon when i attended elementary and middle school. And of course every generation has witnessed this natural phenomenon. Not evolutional nor progressive, just different. But i'm sensing now a much grander scale of tempering than recent history provides. American children have often been the world's latest fledged, most coddled, ill-prepared and stumbling toward maturation... I wonder if that still holds true.

With the advent of formula-nursing, hormone-induced pubescence, and internet access to everything and everyone- a new generation reports. Many of these kids are riding the city buses alone from rude a.m. hours, catching transfers, sitting next to drunkards and freaks in the morning commute. They arrive at school with a Mighty Morphin lunchbox and Sonic trapper-keeper, belying a much deeper understanding of societal kinetics.

I'm well-received for my efforts, though daily tested for my grasp on pop-culture. My energy and ease has bought me precious time to relate on these cultural levels for which i'm clueless. And even the way i'm writing this is... so, not cool! Shit, i said "totally" in class today and i got laughed at. One kid raised his hand and said, "Mister Jesse, can you say 'totally' again?" I thought, what the hell and did. For a few moments i was a stand-up comic towering over a sea of fourth-graders.

Ode to Idaho

A portrait of useless philosophy and domestic (canned) drunkenness.

Seeking cadence within the confines of attention defecit disorder.

I've been waiting for that rapt attention to steal me back and bring clarity to this existence. Like a sail awaiting wind, or artist biding time for inspiration, or lonesome old fool praying for a good piece of mail in the post. It has been some time and i believe i'll wait longer...

This city lulls me in a comforting din, sooths my assent to being without escort. Days have tripped by in a growing haze, content yet aloof to something greater than myself. I had a few days to spare and so drove southward into the Mojave Desert, hoping to cozen an epiphany or perhaps elude my growing reticence for a spell.

The skies were limitless and draped a shimmering web of stars overhead. I skipped my poor sedan through empty washes, planing on washboard, dipping into sandy culverts. And with the coming night joshua trees turned to silhouette astride spiny saltbush, creosote, and brittle bush. I drove into the empty desert dusk. It was reckless and i knew it, but it felt like life and so i welcomed it.

The first night i laid aside a tuft of desert aster and felt the days heat radiate from the coarse ground. The wind sailed above me but settled with the final waning light to the west. I only awoke once to the assault of nearby coyotes giving unified cry a few tens of yards away. I talked myself back into my bag and fell asleep until morning.

The following day found me hiking into the canyon and up unnamed slopes and peaks. The silence deafening, welcome sounds of a train in the distance or falling rocks as i scrambled a loose ravine. I don't know where i lost it, but somewhere it caught up to me. I don't want this; this is too much, too big, too open... i need a translator! So midday i drove into town over the dusty washboard again. Thought about my day with a goblet of margarita in my hand at a dusty mexican joint on the roadside. I felt sense coming back, no matter my failure or the absurdity...

Bought a six-pack on the way out of town and returned to the Mojave. Watched the sun set over the Clark Mountains, leading toward the logistical hell of Los Angeles. I started humming a song that seemed appropriate to the occasion. Leonard Cohen said it, "I fought against the bottle... but i had to do it drunk. Took my diamond to the pawnshop... but that don't make it junk." I sat back against the hollow refuse of a downed joshua tree with a bottle of red ale in my hand. And only then could i let everything in... the immensity of space.

Thoughts from a year to date...

I was born a few years after Mt. St. Helens erupted on the exhausted holiday commemorating Christopher Columbus. For this reason, and perhaps also due in part by my Libran nature, i've been forced to solve the riddle of decision-making. Columbus was not so savvy in discovering much of anything and his accounts show stretches of the truth and, at other times, flat-out lies of reaching the New World. Instead, Columbus' alleged route took him directy into the tropical doldrums where he and his crew awaited near death by dehydration, while they scrawled pretty delusions such as, "What i thought was the land was but a cloud."

I've recently discovered that doldrums are not only confined to 0-30 degrees latitude, but seem to wreak the same havoc at... let's say 45 degrees, in the domain of the prevailing westerlies. I feel akin to each, since i'm certainly prevailing here in the west, though at times i feel like a recyclable plastic bag blowing in the breeze, or at other times just lying in the road waiting to be swept up by artificial vehicular wind.

In recent days i've been cast about on a sea of snow and ice wondering to whence i came and to where i go. And to more neoteric times, i've returned to a splendid summer mantra that kept my engine upon the rails for the warm months: "Lower the bar. Be Philistine." Which upon utterance, quelled feelings of alarm and anticipation, anxiety mind you. With the return of these passing nuances, adjustments have been made and this calming sutra has been reinstated.

It seems that we are all at the mercy of our own scrutiny and introversion. I, for one, would greatly appreciate the absence of deep thoughts for a spell and more profoundy contemplate the complexities of NFL football in its final weeks. Wouldn't that be a more worthwhile ponderance than continuing to wrack my brain upon a future that will never come, for the present is ever-residing?

I've been intently considering the metamorphosis to a Himalayan blue sheep, or Bharal, which is hypothetically an evolutional divergence between goat and sheep. Bharal especially enjoy crashing their heads and horns together in a way of solving dispute (rather than sitting astute and solving nothing by way of thought).

"For most creatures, such an encounter would be fatal, but bharal are equipped with some two inches of parietal bone between the horns, together with a cushion of air space in the sinuses, thick woolly head hair, and strong necks to absorb the shock, and the horns themselves, on the impact side, are very thick and heavy. Why nature should devote so many centuries- thousands, probably- to the natural selection of these characters that favor head-on collisions over brains is a good question, although speaking for myself in these searching days, less brains and a good head-on collision might be just the answer." ~Peter Mathieson, The Snow Leopard

Pause.

This morning i tossed all of my clothes and towel into my hiking pack and walked to the corner laundromat. This neighborhood, in the Mission, should be renamed for its many laundry options. It seems every other corner has a laundry; i've never seen anything like it. Further down toward Bernal Heights and Potrero, the corner laundromats are replaced by corner day-workers. Three to four Mexicans per corner, sitting on the curb, leaning against convenience store windows. Yesterday walking from the library, i counted twelve of them dispersed to each of the four corners at an intersection. They speak excitedly amongst themselves, smiling, and frenetically gesture at slow-moving vehicles. I walk by and nod...

I brought my book this morning, occasionally glancing up to watch the tumble cycle or to doodle on the steamed window pane. Besides the clothes on my back, every single sock and skibby and shirt was tumbling in that dryer. This simple existence i was thinking, and still i have no idea what i'm doing. For the past two weeks i've been signing my name, printing it, filling in the boxes, checking yes and no. Potential employers, strangers, and friends... they've been asking me, what do i want to do? And i've been answering them in complete sentences, begging decent grammar and syntax. I've been pretending that i know just what it is that i want. Do any of us truly have a clue?

Day to day i fill my time with trips to the park, grocery, library. I pore over books, read them and give them away, i search for good music and then attempt to turn others on to the same. Every now and again i stop, and looking around i wonder what i live for. Do i live for these activities i fill my day with? Am i waiting for something? Do our ambitions and motivations drive and sustain themselves, or must we only use our imagination...

Cardinal Crumbs...

Have you ever loved someone that you barely even liked? Oh... what a royal pain in the ass! I was burning some home-made tortillas in a skillet and had music on the shuffle. And somehow a song managed to make it to the play... and a feeling got me from nowhere. It was a song that once brought me thought of her. An old face, a young face... and how i loved her. But she was mad! She was a selfish brat! I thought about it, looking down from a second story toward the corner of Haight and Scott. A quick-stepped bald man hurrying about the corner barber shop turning out lights, readying for home. And the evening cold pushing down the street over our many-bodied hills.

Nursing a bottle of Wild Turkey and feeling better about it. Not really a sore thought in my body tonight, only the thought of why and how i could love such a person so fiercely. Those tremorous thoughts come once in a while, and sometimes i'll receive them. And it struck me that maybe, yeah maybe... it had nothing to do with her. What a thought! "Baby, i love you, but..." A real mother.

Since technically everything is in your head, maybe i should elaborate. Love is not something one could simply conjure at will, and that's a fact (i've tried to... i really have). But, every now and again it sneaks into the strangest episodes and nothing will fit for reasoning. It makes me fantasize of the door opening. That familiar face looking toward me. I'm on the couch with my sixth drink smiling... "I really love you. I don't know why. It has nothing to do with you. You are beautiful, but that's not it. I think if you completely changed it'd work out... Still, for what it's worth, regardless... i love you." Yeah. That's about the extent of it... the Devolution.

On Tour in America...

I was never much for new year recap and resolution, but it does have a certain charm about it. And my good friend, i hope you don't mind if i borrow a page. For this past year was quite interesting and it will never be again...

A sigh for the innocence lost, that adolescent associative that neither existed in time nor place. It couldn't be helped... and now it's time to move onward. I wonder at which point i lost this undefinable, imaginary precept. Was it as i came of age, clueing into the melding wheels of academia and vocation? Maybe earlier, as i swirled my cap'n crunch berries in a sea of purple milk? Or later, holding a straw to the broken bulb? The three beds in a week that i slumbered?

The year began a veritable mess. Key components: a brain of booze, packed car, six thousand feet elevation, hour of midnight, and a blizzard, and the going-away gift of drinking water thrown in my face. Salud! Young Werther! Yet hey, when you start low, the inevitable climb awaits.

I climbed into the Sierras from the upper-plains of Nevada. A dear friend awaited with Mt. Gay Rum and Jameson and some similar turmoils. We mulled our thoughts together in the old-fashioned way, on the rocks. Then to the lights of Reno and the banks of the Truckee River for a spell, onward to the Bay for a spot of regathering my wits. Seven lanes of traffic brought me in and those same seven took me away. But the city was glorious with its music and food. Reconvening old friends and lovers; absurd situations that turned the dial and forced an objectivity to my life, just when i needed it.

I worked a few months for my parents in Washington, found the calluses in my hands and dirt beneath the fingernails. Caught a flight to Florida to visit an old friend. A week of smoking and margarita stupors that found us shouting prose at the alligators, joining a pool tournament in some Buffet bar, and pushing the mangrove coast to Willie Nelson on repeat.

Flew back to the West and repacked my car, pushed it across the flats of Eastern Oregon beneath the double-arch of the most amazing rainbow i have ever seen, and then up into the high valleys of central Idaho. Andrew and I scoured the hillsides for woodpeckers and bluebirds. We did this project on behalf of humanity, funded by hard sought taxpayer money. We marvelled at the scenery and our growing collection of bottles and cans.

Then it was the Inside Passage beneath the wing, flying over the southeast panhandle toward Baranof Island where recreational drinking compliments and strikes awe to the scenery. I haphazardly fished, visited the cultural saloon centers in my slippers, and became a familiar face to every librarian and grocery store clerk.

My year ended restless again without much learned or gained except that the wings of whim can be soft and gentle. If you're driven then do it, because we can only let ourselves down, and i can see now... there's really no need.

The New Reebs Revolution.

I am the human sneaker wave. I'm the guy you kissed at that party years ago; what's his name? I'm the quiet freak in the last row of the classroom, disproportionate to his desk. The one who never took his eyes off the pool felt at the bar. Remember that guy who held your hair back while you threw up? That was me. Or that guy in traffic holding a conversation with himself? Yep. I bagged your groceries once. I didn't ask; I knew you wanted plastic...

I was an unhappy janitor, paralegal assistant, diligent gardener, nursery hand, introverted biologist, chatty barista, warehouse clown, promiscuous server, afterschool human jungle gym, church donation dude, sexy-ass delivery guy, professional birdwatcher. I got the data, then i analyzed it. I crossed the t's, dotted the i's. I signed on the line, i served, i filed... but never, was it hand-to-mouth.

The New Reebs Revolution is a 1-step program. It's a theory i've developed for explaining a thoroughly baseless existence, rooted in the depths of underachievement. It recently struck me that i'm not existing and doing with a sense of contribution or purpose. Often times there's no reason; not even my dear desire to do it (though i usually enjoy and appreciate my present state of being). Rather, i am guided by whim and ethereal command.

Since i have rarely found myself in a financial fix, or otherwise jonesed the carpet for dislocated rocks... i've developed a new expedient for the mundane world of business and its employment: the hand-to-mind existence. Wouldn't it be terribly depressing if one only worked for the money? Work should be even more than the experience itself. It's the combination of absurdity, sure effort, and accomplishment; beginning the task and the satisfaction of being part to true chronology in completion. It's the act of taking the ridiculous (my life) and alchemically making gold of it.

In Response To Everyone...

{Nearing the podium the house lights raise to meet my eyes. A massive arch of light framed above the stage glints downward. The crowd has become silhouette, anonymous shadows seated beyond the stage. I can hear their tenebrous shuffles and murmers. My fingertips find the microphone before me and lightly tap a digital heartbeat. My fingers then reach toward the breast pocket of my shirt. They unfold a piece of paper neatly scrawled with a farewell speech.}

I guess i'm dead. And despite my steadfast belief that our spirit follows its corporeal form above and below ground... here i am.

Jesse: [Clears throat] Um, hello everyone [the four people that read this shit]. Thank you for coming. I would like all of you to feel free, at any time, to question or comment on anything i've said, or am about to say. To begin, i'd like to answer a few questions posed before my stylish exit from the secular life i was leading. Yes, Margie in the front row.

Margie: Were you really epically falling in and out of love at 17?

Jesse: Notwithstanding an enormous influx of viable drugs previously, yes... i believe i was. We led a healthy life together and meticulously studied food labels. Wholesome and whole-grain have a similar ring, don't they?
---
Andrew: Is there really any reason to get bombed out of your gourd by yourself?

Jesse: From time to time, yes. But one needs to get bombed on only the finest. This forces moderation by sheer inability to afford frequent debauchery, as well as solves the problem of poor taste and wicked hangovers from cheap liquor.
---
Manita: Do you ever plan to not make any plans in an attempt to be present?

Jesse: Yes, but it rarely works in the Western World. The way i feel, there's plenty of time for everything, including fruitless planning. What ever happened to that gig for being a Seahawks massage therapist? You'd get to meet the Seattle SeaGals...
---
Dustin: Why do the Seahawks suck so bad this year? And do you feel in any way attached to their failure?

Jesse: They suck because they struggle with putting points on the board, and also find it difficult to stop opponents from doing the same. And yes, their failure resonates deeply with me. We are bound like Pepsi and diabetes.
---
Benjamin: Remember when i toasted you on the Chinese New Year in San Francisco, that you may not hold any more grudges? How's that working out for you?

Jesse: Well, it's going pretty well. I only have one now and i'm working real hard on it...
---
Anne: Do you love Jesus?

Jesse: I had to answer that question for at least a decade. Next question please... Yes, the old man in the back row.
---
Peter: Did you see the light?

Jesse: No, not until ten in the morning. And then it set at half past two. Alaskan winters...

TO BE CONTINUED...

The Impossible Dissolution of Love.

I had a vivid dream this morning sometime nearing the five o'clock hour. It was haunting and bittersweet and packed more punch than Hawaii, more spike than a game of beach volley, and more genuine pain than a real heartache. How about contemplating that between crunches of 5 a.m. raisin bran and a wicked strong cup of coffee. What the hell brought it on?

About seven years ago i fell in love with a woman and i said some things that commited me to a cause, intended an eternity between us. We swore up and down and everything we mused, except the words near the end, didn't come to pass. It took a long time to heal but as sure as a Manhatten martini costs ten bucks, the day came.

Seems that certain promises have a residual, lasting effect. I imagine it has a lot to do with actually meaning it or not. And i'm guilty of bona fide sincerity in this case; i meant every goddamned word. Perhaps for this reason it haunts me still. Does every one of us have a certain ghost that visits us without warning? At one point my ghost visited every night for three months running. She has the face of an angel and brings me to my knees. She dissolves hope and tears at my insides. And i awake embittered, embattled to panic, and that's it... I hadn't seen her in half a year, until this morning.

There were those books we were reading. The ones with Carlos and his Yaqui teacher Juan. The story goes: the teacher and pupil were seated near twilight on the back porch looking out toward the stretching Sonoran desert. The pupil was getting tore up on a bottle of tequila but failed to mention that in his book. Around this time the teacher revealed the presence of a certain being never identified by science: the 'mud shadow.' It could be viewed best at dusk, a breathless silhouette leaping on the eye's periphery. What does this being do? asked the young pupil. Well, answered the teacher, it preys on us. "We are food for them, and they squeeze us mercilessly because we are their sustenance." At this point the teacher laughed and laughed, while the student grew uneasy (and strangely infuriated) by this information. The teacher further explained that it would be ridiculous, and arrogant, to posit human beings atop the food chain. That, in fact, we ourselves have a predator that rear us as "chickens in chicken coops." And, that daily we are consumed in our places of work, school, or church. And nightly, in our very beds, in our homes, in our dreams.

I have always had a difficult time explaining my ghost in terms of a self-projected phantom, something i create in dream and exploit myself with. That just doesn't work for me. This other theory works better, but also falls short by its sheer scope of science fiction. Perhaps that's also why i kind of dig it. I know some jerkoff psychiatrist could have a hayday on this stuff.

Whatever the case, it forces me to realize that words hold physical strength. That they create and form that which we cannot see. And, the syntax of sentence and phrase, its due meaning, and reciprocation thereof can liberate or bind the speaker. Unspoken word: thought, can bring the same result. Hence, the promise even now i cannot break...


Sonora near the border...

"Do you like to gamble, Eddie? Gamble money on pool games?"
-Minnesota Fats, The Hustler

In from the bath...

In the past weeks i've taken to the bath with an increasing urgency. I have begun daydreaming of it at work... the nearing moment when i can draw hot water, shed my clothes, and grab a book. I don't remember such a feverish desire for submersion since i was young, pushing yellow ducks across the surface or watching as technicolor sponges wax into dinosaur shapes (remember those? fucking amazing shit...).

It's the release of breath as i inch my body beneath the surface. The water drawn to redden the skin, almost burn. And then feet up and hearing that hollow ring of surrounding tile and lately the faint murmur of Dvořák's piano trios from the other room (my chosen bathing music~ highly recommended).

In the bath i realize so many things about myself. For one, i'm incredibly tall... how far away my feet are! And skin still tanned from a season or two ago, in the tall ponderosa pines of Idaho. The smooth hairless patches above my knees where my pants have worn the skin, from legs pumping like pistons aboard my bike. That my voice can do amazing things in this private studio of watery reverbration and human echolocation. Or how easy it is to turn everything off, i mean every goddamned voice that jaws throughout the day... they have no place in the bath.

And then i've had enough silence and i let the voices in... thinking of Gary Snyder's The Bath, and discarding that i hum the very best bath song ever written, perhaps ever sung. Bilbo Baggin's Bath Song:

Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
that washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!

O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain,
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams,
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.

O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat, and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack
and Water Hot poured down the back.

O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!

Amen brother... i feel ya.

Other places, other rooms...

A storm was coming on, the air had cooled and a sharp breeze cut the streets. Up ahead a vacancy sign blinked haphazardly. We'd been walking around Missoula for hours looking for a place to stay. I'd lost track of how many lobbies we'd entered, prices i'd negotiated, and rooms surveyed then dismissed. My girlfriend seemed intent on finding something that Missoula would not offer.

The lady at the front desk gave us the key to a room. We went up a flight of stairs and looked down toward the courtyard. The swimming pool was drained and heavily cracked, collecting paint flecks and maple leaves in its basin. We pushed open the heavy door of our room and stepped inside. It reminded me of an enlarged janitor's closet. An oversized water pipe was fastened along the wall above the bed. The no-smoking sign had been ignored hundred of times, perhaps thousands. I sat down and divided the blinds with my fingertips and looked out at the courtyard again. The place was deserted. A rundown job with a tacky name like The Oasis or Hotel Paradise. I remember a palm tree on the sign and a shabby room that we didn't take.

An argument had started during lunch. We were the only table at this small joint and the undertasked waiter kept checking on us. His boyish good-looks and 90210 spiked hair were enough to make me sick. I was worn thin now realizing we were at the end. In a little while we would return the key and leave another lobby behind. The lady at the front desk would make a slighted comment about questionable elapsed time. I would smile and tell her to get tossed. Part of me would remain in that room, a single meaningful thought preserving in memory four walls and one door.

My whole life has passed thus far in rooms. And each one returns with a thought, an event, a face.
There was the final night on the campaign when John Kerry lost. i went home with a fellow canvaser and we rung some passion from our sad, weary bodies in a fascimile apartment room. The hardlined creations typical of Orlando outskirts; conspecific condos with only numbers to differ one from the next. Dusty popcorn ceiling above us and a hard white light from the street lamp. It cast a barred rectangle of light over our bodies; three a.m.

My first night as a gringo backpacker. Checked in at the Hotel Imperial in San Jose. The cardboard door, blankets washed down to a paper thinness... late night shadows beneath the door, squeaking bedsprings. The realization that i've been alone all my life, but had to check into this hotel to finally realize it.

There was the night in Montreal when Rebekah and i told stories from our bunkbeds. Our small room was painted light blue and i nearly expected a mobile to dangle above my bed. I was up above looking out toward the city while she brushed her hair on the bottom bunk. Low clouds were engulfing the skyscrapers of downtown. The sight reminded me of Batman's Gotham, the clouds eery glow from within, the mosaic of lit rectangles on the building faces.

I'm a sentimental young fool. I can only wonder at what my gerry years will bring. I wonder if my grandkids will listen to this drivel...