This is a repost on the thought of staying in the Bay Area... circa 2007
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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...
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Daydream #9
Each morning the northbound train carries an icy wind that cuts through my jacket and creeps up my pant legs and, as it leaves the tunnel my train arrives heading south along the tracks toward the City. We all know each other in way, standing in our rows each morning awaiting the same car and seat that takes us to an office somewhere. This is our routine- safety in the familiar; days bleed together. We don't talk, sometimes there's a nod. Many have their hands on devices, heads bent to a small screen, scrolling documents, social networking, who knows. Others thumb through the morning paper, middle-aged women proudly hold novels with rippling bare-chested men on the covers, lavender-colored with flowers and horses and rapturous looks. Others nod off with sorrow straining the lines aside their mouths, over-worked and underpaid, and as they fall asleep their faces relax and for a while they look peaceful.
I hide my eyes with sunglasses, turning away from the florescent overheads, and bury myself in other people's stories. And sometimes when I'm especially drawn I warp forward ten stops and nearly miss my station, wondering where the time went, where my sense of presence went. I was told that it's a form of self-induced hypnosis, when we lose ourselves in essentially non-thought. I like it, it feels restful and calm and I always wish to have stayed longer there.
These days I want to be a cowboy in Wyoming with rough-calloused hands and simple desires. I imagine a stretch of land, a small garden, and a few modest buildings that all need occasional tending. A fence needing mending or perhaps an old line of fence that needs removing to clear the corridor for the winter elk coming down from the surrounding peaks. Maybe there'll be a train there too, not so far away calling in the distance, not carrying these businessmen and women or semi-professional like me, but instead wood or coal, machinery, food. Everyone loves the sound of a train... I think you could say that, except perhaps the wildlife probably scared shitless somewhere in a hole. And then maybe a rocky stream with deep pools for fish and swimming. Yeah, that'd be good. I wonder if I could be happy with just greens and golds and square-dance swinging cowgirls on Friday nights at the grange. Everything, domestic. I'd like to think so, but I have to get to work now.
I hide my eyes with sunglasses, turning away from the florescent overheads, and bury myself in other people's stories. And sometimes when I'm especially drawn I warp forward ten stops and nearly miss my station, wondering where the time went, where my sense of presence went. I was told that it's a form of self-induced hypnosis, when we lose ourselves in essentially non-thought. I like it, it feels restful and calm and I always wish to have stayed longer there.
These days I want to be a cowboy in Wyoming with rough-calloused hands and simple desires. I imagine a stretch of land, a small garden, and a few modest buildings that all need occasional tending. A fence needing mending or perhaps an old line of fence that needs removing to clear the corridor for the winter elk coming down from the surrounding peaks. Maybe there'll be a train there too, not so far away calling in the distance, not carrying these businessmen and women or semi-professional like me, but instead wood or coal, machinery, food. Everyone loves the sound of a train... I think you could say that, except perhaps the wildlife probably scared shitless somewhere in a hole. And then maybe a rocky stream with deep pools for fish and swimming. Yeah, that'd be good. I wonder if I could be happy with just greens and golds and square-dance swinging cowgirls on Friday nights at the grange. Everything, domestic. I'd like to think so, but I have to get to work now.
Friday, February 04, 2011
Dear M.
Dear M,
Four sets of seasons have passed and I’m still where I left you. I wanted to do the leaving and so I packed my things while you were out and left. I decided to stay here because there was really nowhere else for me to go. It also seemed to be the least predictable place to find me and I wanted to keep everyone guessing. It always came natural for me to run and I quickly set my sights on some mountains in the southwest where I’d never been before. It took all my strength to not go there.
I’ve been thinking about quantum physics and multiple universes lately, but the truth is I never took a physics class or read any credible writing on the subject and so I have a very limited understanding. I get that uni means one and multi means many. That was a big step. I understand that matter has some strict rules to follow and that its behavior is governed by outside forces. And, I also understand that math can have a mind of its own and imply answers to questions the mathematician never asked. That’s the part that most interests me.
The famous physicist Brian Greene was on the radio last month and then just yesterday I saw him on a talk-show. He recently wrote another quantum physics book that I’d never be able to get through but still sounds interesting. He thinks there are other us out there and pretty eloquently sold it.
I’ve been imagining that other mes just kept on going in those places where the me writing turned away and redirected. I was wondering if there’s a place way out by M83, millions of light years overhead on some planet that looks just like our's, where we went on together and still are. It doesn’t make any sense, yet then again what does? So many of our daily comings and goings are based on ridiculous assumptions of things impossible in nature. Like, why is your hair red? And what the hell is red anyway?
This isn’t to say I regret anything between us, because I do but that’s beside the point. I would prefer to strike the tenderness from my hand and dispassionately compare our situation to a simple cost benefit analysis or return on investment, which involves formulae and equations that probably added up to less than one. But I don’t understand economics or finances and so I wouldn’t know. I’m more into the natural sciences that touch on things like magnetism and repulsion and chemical weathering and survival.
So let’s just assume that there is in fact another M and she’s way out there by M83, having some discussion with an other me. Maybe she’s making two drinks at the kitchen counter and now she’s turning to bring them and the ice is clicking in the glasses as she moves. What’s different with her? She walks the short distance to a couch and coffee table with a few friends gathered around and hands the other me a drink, cold beads forming on the glass. And as she rejoins the conversation, I wonder, what is she going to say?
Four sets of seasons have passed and I’m still where I left you. I wanted to do the leaving and so I packed my things while you were out and left. I decided to stay here because there was really nowhere else for me to go. It also seemed to be the least predictable place to find me and I wanted to keep everyone guessing. It always came natural for me to run and I quickly set my sights on some mountains in the southwest where I’d never been before. It took all my strength to not go there.
I’ve been thinking about quantum physics and multiple universes lately, but the truth is I never took a physics class or read any credible writing on the subject and so I have a very limited understanding. I get that uni means one and multi means many. That was a big step. I understand that matter has some strict rules to follow and that its behavior is governed by outside forces. And, I also understand that math can have a mind of its own and imply answers to questions the mathematician never asked. That’s the part that most interests me.
The famous physicist Brian Greene was on the radio last month and then just yesterday I saw him on a talk-show. He recently wrote another quantum physics book that I’d never be able to get through but still sounds interesting. He thinks there are other us out there and pretty eloquently sold it.
I’ve been imagining that other mes just kept on going in those places where the me writing turned away and redirected. I was wondering if there’s a place way out by M83, millions of light years overhead on some planet that looks just like our's, where we went on together and still are. It doesn’t make any sense, yet then again what does? So many of our daily comings and goings are based on ridiculous assumptions of things impossible in nature. Like, why is your hair red? And what the hell is red anyway?
This isn’t to say I regret anything between us, because I do but that’s beside the point. I would prefer to strike the tenderness from my hand and dispassionately compare our situation to a simple cost benefit analysis or return on investment, which involves formulae and equations that probably added up to less than one. But I don’t understand economics or finances and so I wouldn’t know. I’m more into the natural sciences that touch on things like magnetism and repulsion and chemical weathering and survival.
So let’s just assume that there is in fact another M and she’s way out there by M83, having some discussion with an other me. Maybe she’s making two drinks at the kitchen counter and now she’s turning to bring them and the ice is clicking in the glasses as she moves. What’s different with her? She walks the short distance to a couch and coffee table with a few friends gathered around and hands the other me a drink, cold beads forming on the glass. And as she rejoins the conversation, I wonder, what is she going to say?
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
And precipitation is expected
My brother surprised me one time by raising a toast in my honor. I can't remember how he said it or what in fact he did say. I can't even recall the place or the occasion or the people around us. I do remember there was family and some kind of special occasion, perhaps a holiday altogether forgettable like the Chinese New Year or Easter.
He looked me in the eye, head half turned and bent with a mischievous spark and announced something like, I hope this year you don't hold any grudges. God, maybe it was the new year, Chinese or otherwise. Regardless, I thought, Wow! what the fuck did you just say? He was already laughing to himself, oh... that was a good one Benjamin. Because the truth was there, it was said, and it was dead on.
I hadn't really thought of it that way before. Goddamn, he was right! I'd always thought of my anger and rage as something dignified and gallant in its air of chivalry. Inconsiderate? then Fuck You! from here on out! Unfair, unsaid, unwanted? Well, there's the door. I have so much to learn.
I've been listening to some talks by this woman named Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun and teacher. She talks about the Shenpa, which is human attachment or the hook in all its strength. Shenpa is the tightness we feel stemming from negative reaction to the world around us. Pema observes that the majority of a person's actions directly relate to the fear of facing the void and the devising of a complex system of distractions and lockdowns to ensure it from happening. Shenpa represents that binding fear and she instructs us to face it, feel it, and revisit it, until it loses its power or dissolves. God I sound like such a cult member already! Still, I really relate to Pema, her voice and her way of understanding and explaining. I'm not typically interested in anything resembling religion or self-help or over the top new-agey. But, there's something about this Shenpa thing that gets me...
It's still early on a Thursday night, my Friday by product of four tens, and I find myself sipping a nightcap on the couch and feeling utterly enervated from the week. I've been mulling this idea of revisiting old wounds and wondering about the thin line between healthy recapitulation and straight indulgence. I have the Fear as Hunter Thompson would call it, with every part of my body repelling the inward pull. And so I sip this drink and distract myself. I write old friends and lovers unsolicited letters of greeting and recompense.
He looked me in the eye, head half turned and bent with a mischievous spark and announced something like, I hope this year you don't hold any grudges. God, maybe it was the new year, Chinese or otherwise. Regardless, I thought, Wow! what the fuck did you just say? He was already laughing to himself, oh... that was a good one Benjamin. Because the truth was there, it was said, and it was dead on.
I hadn't really thought of it that way before. Goddamn, he was right! I'd always thought of my anger and rage as something dignified and gallant in its air of chivalry. Inconsiderate? then Fuck You! from here on out! Unfair, unsaid, unwanted? Well, there's the door. I have so much to learn.
I've been listening to some talks by this woman named Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun and teacher. She talks about the Shenpa, which is human attachment or the hook in all its strength. Shenpa is the tightness we feel stemming from negative reaction to the world around us. Pema observes that the majority of a person's actions directly relate to the fear of facing the void and the devising of a complex system of distractions and lockdowns to ensure it from happening. Shenpa represents that binding fear and she instructs us to face it, feel it, and revisit it, until it loses its power or dissolves. God I sound like such a cult member already! Still, I really relate to Pema, her voice and her way of understanding and explaining. I'm not typically interested in anything resembling religion or self-help or over the top new-agey. But, there's something about this Shenpa thing that gets me...
It's still early on a Thursday night, my Friday by product of four tens, and I find myself sipping a nightcap on the couch and feeling utterly enervated from the week. I've been mulling this idea of revisiting old wounds and wondering about the thin line between healthy recapitulation and straight indulgence. I have the Fear as Hunter Thompson would call it, with every part of my body repelling the inward pull. And so I sip this drink and distract myself. I write old friends and lovers unsolicited letters of greeting and recompense.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Medicated, baby
I've been nursing a bottle of off-brand dayquil since 5am this morning. The stuff tastes absolutely terrible. Think liquid orange Jolly Ranchers with a menthol twist. It's horrific, the stuff of gag reflex and daymares. But, it leaves me with a sense of peace... not to mention a false sense of reality. I somehow made it through an entire work week thanks to self-medication. I heard on the radio last week that Americans spend over three billion each year on cold medicine alone, both over the counter and by prescription. I don't know for a fact, but that's gotta be in the ballpark of some nations' GDP.
A sum of years back I remember having the most horrible date. It really was. I actually had to kick her out of my house. She was drunk and it brought all of her crazy out, all 110 pounds of it and she was hollering about something and I just had to wrap a coat around her shoulders and usher her down the stairs past the midnight eyes of my neighbors. My embarrassment was raging and I felt perfectly murderous. I took her keys and drove her home across town on one of those brutal cold winter nights in the northeast. You could hear tree limbs cracking beneath the weight of ice and snow, that kind of cold. Anyway, I tossed her the keys at the doorstep and started the trek home. I managed to pick up some pneumonia on the way home, walking those two long miles across town, but I did catch some flickering of the aurora which may have made it worth it. Say, how do you catch pneumonia? I should look that up.
Anyway, the point of the story is I felt pretty awful the following morning but managed to work my three jobs for two weeks until I finally just couldn't take it anymore. At which point I took myself to the hospital for a brisk $500 billing and a few pills to cure me. Thinking back, somehow I'd managed to function on a steady combination of phenyl and pseudoephedrine, with copious amounts of acetaminophen and dextromethorphan to balance out the highs. We're a medicated people. The type of people that don't think about rest but think about lost wages. I'm guilty too. And, I'm sleeping in tomorrow.
A sum of years back I remember having the most horrible date. It really was. I actually had to kick her out of my house. She was drunk and it brought all of her crazy out, all 110 pounds of it and she was hollering about something and I just had to wrap a coat around her shoulders and usher her down the stairs past the midnight eyes of my neighbors. My embarrassment was raging and I felt perfectly murderous. I took her keys and drove her home across town on one of those brutal cold winter nights in the northeast. You could hear tree limbs cracking beneath the weight of ice and snow, that kind of cold. Anyway, I tossed her the keys at the doorstep and started the trek home. I managed to pick up some pneumonia on the way home, walking those two long miles across town, but I did catch some flickering of the aurora which may have made it worth it. Say, how do you catch pneumonia? I should look that up.
Anyway, the point of the story is I felt pretty awful the following morning but managed to work my three jobs for two weeks until I finally just couldn't take it anymore. At which point I took myself to the hospital for a brisk $500 billing and a few pills to cure me. Thinking back, somehow I'd managed to function on a steady combination of phenyl and pseudoephedrine, with copious amounts of acetaminophen and dextromethorphan to balance out the highs. We're a medicated people. The type of people that don't think about rest but think about lost wages. I'm guilty too. And, I'm sleeping in tomorrow.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
A new year.
I have a friend who deletes his Facebook account every few months. A week or two will pass and you can find him again re-upped to the network. It's interesting being a primate and seeing how a social animal reacts to the strange anonymity carried by technology and our expanding metropolis. It's cold out there. And, sometimes the greatest sense of loneliness comes in the company of others.
He’s been out in the world for some time now, going crazy in different rooms in different cities and states. It makes me think there's some needless shame in our modes of being, in knowing what brings us joy and a sense of ever-important connection, and the avenues of communication and distraction we choose. I think we all deserve the easier breath of a lowered bar and a little absolution for the high price of sanity.
It’s a new year and I have a good feeling about this whole 2011 thing. There's a song...
And all the bridges are burnin' that we might've crossed
But I feel so close to everything that we lost
We'll never, we'll never have to lose it again
I like that. I like that way of thinking. And that was 2010. Everything burned and my deepest loves and strongest supports to the structure crumbled around me.
I've been thinking about the concept of falling apart to come back together and coming back together better than before. I'm hoping it's a somewhat elegant process of restructuring and, perhaps rearranging of pieces to better suited spaces.
Here we go...
He’s been out in the world for some time now, going crazy in different rooms in different cities and states. It makes me think there's some needless shame in our modes of being, in knowing what brings us joy and a sense of ever-important connection, and the avenues of communication and distraction we choose. I think we all deserve the easier breath of a lowered bar and a little absolution for the high price of sanity.
It’s a new year and I have a good feeling about this whole 2011 thing. There's a song...
And all the bridges are burnin' that we might've crossed
But I feel so close to everything that we lost
We'll never, we'll never have to lose it again
I like that. I like that way of thinking. And that was 2010. Everything burned and my deepest loves and strongest supports to the structure crumbled around me.
I've been thinking about the concept of falling apart to come back together and coming back together better than before. I'm hoping it's a somewhat elegant process of restructuring and, perhaps rearranging of pieces to better suited spaces.
Here we go...
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Save something, man
I was rummaging in my garage when I saw a guy with a clipboard across the street. I quickly looked away after momentarily locking eyes and pretended to continue a serious search for something in the closest box. I wasn't finding anything but kept looking hoping he would spare me.
I heard his footfalls across the street and an all too expected hello from the garage door. Here we go, game on. Berkeley people are trying to save the world; they're trying to do good, and they're often good people. They want my money. That's the part that always gets me. The first sign is the clipboard, complete with a few laminated papers with lots of pictures, perhaps a diagram or two. What they really wanna know is~ are you a good person? It reminds me of recent times at the checkout line. Seems whenever I hit Safeway these days the cashier asks me if I'd like to donate to blah-di-blah fund today. Um, no ma'am I'm a heartless person. I'll pass. It's such a tactic.
Anyway, like I said, this guy was a nice person and I didn't have the heart to just brush him off completely. Instead I wasted his time, so that we could at least share something together. After all it was his first day on the job, recently finishing a gig for the DNC doing the exact same thing. Good god what an existence. Did I mention that I detest canvassing?
It reminded me of myself on the streets of Orlando doing the very same thing. Essentially selling a product that I didn't understand very well. A good question for this scenario is: What's better? a lot of poor representation or a little solid representation? I'd go with quality over quantity myself. It also reminded me of a recent story on the radio about the dangers of voter machines. An aspect I'd never considered is that maintenance has to be handled by specialists from private companies. Whereas before poll workers could handle the fine-tunings of the archaic puncher. With so many poll stations on election days, makers and technicians of the voter machine find themselves spread thin. So what do they do? They hire a bunch of techs the day before and hope they hit the ground running the day of. One can imagine the results. It's like seasonal positions gift-wrapping at the mall except these positions are crucial to our system of election.
I heard his footfalls across the street and an all too expected hello from the garage door. Here we go, game on. Berkeley people are trying to save the world; they're trying to do good, and they're often good people. They want my money. That's the part that always gets me. The first sign is the clipboard, complete with a few laminated papers with lots of pictures, perhaps a diagram or two. What they really wanna know is~ are you a good person? It reminds me of recent times at the checkout line. Seems whenever I hit Safeway these days the cashier asks me if I'd like to donate to blah-di-blah fund today. Um, no ma'am I'm a heartless person. I'll pass. It's such a tactic.
Anyway, like I said, this guy was a nice person and I didn't have the heart to just brush him off completely. Instead I wasted his time, so that we could at least share something together. After all it was his first day on the job, recently finishing a gig for the DNC doing the exact same thing. Good god what an existence. Did I mention that I detest canvassing?
It reminded me of myself on the streets of Orlando doing the very same thing. Essentially selling a product that I didn't understand very well. A good question for this scenario is: What's better? a lot of poor representation or a little solid representation? I'd go with quality over quantity myself. It also reminded me of a recent story on the radio about the dangers of voter machines. An aspect I'd never considered is that maintenance has to be handled by specialists from private companies. Whereas before poll workers could handle the fine-tunings of the archaic puncher. With so many poll stations on election days, makers and technicians of the voter machine find themselves spread thin. So what do they do? They hire a bunch of techs the day before and hope they hit the ground running the day of. One can imagine the results. It's like seasonal positions gift-wrapping at the mall except these positions are crucial to our system of election.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
It feels at times that I'm out on sojourn for good running parallel to nothing, and everything keeps moving, including me, but goes nowhere. I'm forever temporary, moving. And it so happens that my track runs along many and we merge, almost all by choosing. These are the things that pass my time, waste my time- these near fictions that I keep my mind busy with.
All the nothing sports that take my time and beat my heart to their rhythm. The nothing jobs and nothing fancies in nothing towns. The something people, I don't know what, but something. Like a dream with meaning and you don't know why, you just know that it meant more than just a phantom, fantasy. It's got to, it's all we got.
I forget them too when they pass. The something people. Isn't that sad, I've forgotten everyone but one... and she too is almost gone. I pretend the rest. What does that say about me, what does that say about us? Am I heartless, feckless, cooling? Am I any representative for something more, or does my track run somewhere astray? Not unique, reckless and runaway.
It's the passage of time. Maddening if you pay attention. The where, what, and especially the why that wrecks the brick that builds. I get drugs. That makes sense. I don't get people that don't get drugs. And more, I don't get those that don't get people that get drugs. Where did they come from? Happy on this narrow plane called life and living, this sliver called love, and this one called communication. Good God what are we doing? Scraping inch by inch for even the scantest gain.
Having to so brutally earn not having the sonofabitch named John McCain as our president. There's an example from hell. Every small gain so dearly fought to quickly slip with too high expectations, the facts, and a pat on the back as oil drops below $70 a barrel and life returns to normal. Nowhere. That's where we're going. A massive delusion. And so I watch baseball, football, shit whatever damn sporting event is on, unless it be hockey (though I tried) or that stomach-turning ultimate animal fighting of men and women in great big cages. What is that? Give me a gun, put them down.
Beyond all the memory of this and that, those beautiful landscapes out there... God there's so many of them. And the faces with me there, they're nice too. Beyond all that, I miss me. I always wanted to keep myself right. Right in the head, whatever. Right in the spirit, in the heart. It's hard isn't it? With all the lying. Keeping it straight, face-forward, hands and arms, and heart beating right.
All the nothing sports that take my time and beat my heart to their rhythm. The nothing jobs and nothing fancies in nothing towns. The something people, I don't know what, but something. Like a dream with meaning and you don't know why, you just know that it meant more than just a phantom, fantasy. It's got to, it's all we got.
I forget them too when they pass. The something people. Isn't that sad, I've forgotten everyone but one... and she too is almost gone. I pretend the rest. What does that say about me, what does that say about us? Am I heartless, feckless, cooling? Am I any representative for something more, or does my track run somewhere astray? Not unique, reckless and runaway.
It's the passage of time. Maddening if you pay attention. The where, what, and especially the why that wrecks the brick that builds. I get drugs. That makes sense. I don't get people that don't get drugs. And more, I don't get those that don't get people that get drugs. Where did they come from? Happy on this narrow plane called life and living, this sliver called love, and this one called communication. Good God what are we doing? Scraping inch by inch for even the scantest gain.
Having to so brutally earn not having the sonofabitch named John McCain as our president. There's an example from hell. Every small gain so dearly fought to quickly slip with too high expectations, the facts, and a pat on the back as oil drops below $70 a barrel and life returns to normal. Nowhere. That's where we're going. A massive delusion. And so I watch baseball, football, shit whatever damn sporting event is on, unless it be hockey (though I tried) or that stomach-turning ultimate animal fighting of men and women in great big cages. What is that? Give me a gun, put them down.
Beyond all the memory of this and that, those beautiful landscapes out there... God there's so many of them. And the faces with me there, they're nice too. Beyond all that, I miss me. I always wanted to keep myself right. Right in the head, whatever. Right in the spirit, in the heart. It's hard isn't it? With all the lying. Keeping it straight, face-forward, hands and arms, and heart beating right.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
The End of the Innocence
There's only so much talk of the economy that one person can take and so I flipped the dial to the wholly uncreative realm of modern disc-jockeydom to catch Don Henley's billionth royalty roll of End of the Innocence. I've always liked the song (it's kind of shameful), but I do. I get those goosebumps sometimes along the back of my neck and upper arms. Such a sad song.
What's funny is its been the feeling and not the lyrics, which are terribly dreary as well, that effects me most. I never caught the politics of Reagan and the USSR, inner/outer turmoil, and youth awakening and wanting to go back and find that one place where they can't touch. I'd put my own meaning behind the words, meanings more convenient for me. I do this with much of the music I listen to and I'm sure it bleeds out into other facets of life, redirecting many people's actions and intentions to fit something more palpable for me (Sorry everyone about that bummer). Perhaps it's an effort to remain sane. To think of all the things I intentionally miss... sheesh.
Innocence. A recurring theme in every coming of age story or discussion. My kind of talk. I began to think the other day of what it means and toss the notion it has anything to do with virginity. Fuck that. I think it has to do with hope and optimism and feeling oneself to be unique. When those things begin to go, when it cracks ever so slightly and the light gets in, or the dark gets in... now we're talking. It's a kind of losing. Losing a bit of yourself each time and becoming less innocent for it. Knowing too much, that guilty hunger for that which brings you grief.
I lost something abroad a long way from home. I was nineteen and on a bus and some loud pan flute music was bumping this Blue Bird crawling up the switchbacks of a mountainside. Clouds formed from the breath of cordillera trees generating a peculiar microclimate in the dripping canopies. As we came to the pass in this rich jungle the road dropped away and the clouds parted and I saw a great swath of destruction below me stretching for hundreds of miles. Biblical shit. Slash and burn, cattle farming, tightly packed banana plantations, and the shanties. I could never not see it again and it was everywhere, it followed me. The garbage, the poverty, the ugliness, the lack of stewardship and responsibility and all those big words and ideas of the haves. The essential knowledge that racism is not nearly as important as the civil unrest between the caste systems. The glaring distrust and hatred between the haves and the have-nots, and the haves welcoming the bickering between lower classes as fodder for distraction from what's actually occurring: subjugation of the poor's labor and land. Bummer.
It didn't tick right for a while and never again ticked the same way. And there was home and relationships and the bitch which is high school. I watched my friends and acquaintances become cruel before my eyes, for nothing. I couldn't figure why some newly developed muscles and a patch of new hair between the legs could be reason enough for being a dickhead. And yet, there it was.
Growing up is never easy and some of us are still doing it, or at least trying. What's funny is the place I always felt purest and most hopeful was the place I was taught (and thank G-D I wasn't raised Catholic, can you imagine?) could bring the reckoning and an end to innocence~ in someone else's arms. Innocence is some hokey shit anyhow and its pursuit and attainment is as likely as individual predestination, Calvin-style. Talk about setting yourself up to get pummeled.
What's funny is its been the feeling and not the lyrics, which are terribly dreary as well, that effects me most. I never caught the politics of Reagan and the USSR, inner/outer turmoil, and youth awakening and wanting to go back and find that one place where they can't touch. I'd put my own meaning behind the words, meanings more convenient for me. I do this with much of the music I listen to and I'm sure it bleeds out into other facets of life, redirecting many people's actions and intentions to fit something more palpable for me (Sorry everyone about that bummer). Perhaps it's an effort to remain sane. To think of all the things I intentionally miss... sheesh.
Innocence. A recurring theme in every coming of age story or discussion. My kind of talk. I began to think the other day of what it means and toss the notion it has anything to do with virginity. Fuck that. I think it has to do with hope and optimism and feeling oneself to be unique. When those things begin to go, when it cracks ever so slightly and the light gets in, or the dark gets in... now we're talking. It's a kind of losing. Losing a bit of yourself each time and becoming less innocent for it. Knowing too much, that guilty hunger for that which brings you grief.
I lost something abroad a long way from home. I was nineteen and on a bus and some loud pan flute music was bumping this Blue Bird crawling up the switchbacks of a mountainside. Clouds formed from the breath of cordillera trees generating a peculiar microclimate in the dripping canopies. As we came to the pass in this rich jungle the road dropped away and the clouds parted and I saw a great swath of destruction below me stretching for hundreds of miles. Biblical shit. Slash and burn, cattle farming, tightly packed banana plantations, and the shanties. I could never not see it again and it was everywhere, it followed me. The garbage, the poverty, the ugliness, the lack of stewardship and responsibility and all those big words and ideas of the haves. The essential knowledge that racism is not nearly as important as the civil unrest between the caste systems. The glaring distrust and hatred between the haves and the have-nots, and the haves welcoming the bickering between lower classes as fodder for distraction from what's actually occurring: subjugation of the poor's labor and land. Bummer.
It didn't tick right for a while and never again ticked the same way. And there was home and relationships and the bitch which is high school. I watched my friends and acquaintances become cruel before my eyes, for nothing. I couldn't figure why some newly developed muscles and a patch of new hair between the legs could be reason enough for being a dickhead. And yet, there it was.
Growing up is never easy and some of us are still doing it, or at least trying. What's funny is the place I always felt purest and most hopeful was the place I was taught (and thank G-D I wasn't raised Catholic, can you imagine?) could bring the reckoning and an end to innocence~ in someone else's arms. Innocence is some hokey shit anyhow and its pursuit and attainment is as likely as individual predestination, Calvin-style. Talk about setting yourself up to get pummeled.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Rent-a-Relic
Cubby, our little Toyota Echo, is trying to get into other people's lanes. The front right shock is dust and with every bump the nose drags starboard. I quickly straighten out and prepare for the next bump. There's always something wrong with our car and this is just the latest.
I have the best mechanic ever. I mean ever. You know how the disembodied television voice recommends you talk to your doctor before considering anything? Well, I never got that, I've never had a doctor. I had a dentist once and then he retired. Now I got Johnny and he's smarter than most doctors I've met.
I finagled my way out of work today and drove the car in this morning to the auto shop. Cubby's gonna have to spend a few days away from home so I had to rent a car. Luckily Johnny had one out front belonging to a rental agency up in Berkeley. He gave the guy a call and I drove the rig over. The car rental shop is called Rent-a-Relic specializing in old crappy Ford sedans with no pretensions in a wide range of hideous colors. I instantly loved the place.
The latest line of Ford buggies.
The one I got isn't in the picture, it's around back. An old Escort beater with loose brakes and a hot pedal, painted a green that doesn't exist in nature. I love it. All the stations on both FMs are tuned to Mexican circus music and AM is of course drivel on all dials anyhow. I tell the guy I love this car. He challenges me to try to lose it in a parking lot. With that color it's impossible, he says. He's right. It's the color of 80's leggings, Teenage Mutant Ninja-style shag carpet. This guy's great. He's wearing what looks like an Indian Nation hat with mixed up dreamcatcher peace sign and the word Oakland below it. I get a few stories, nice ones... about how he met his wife and what it's like pushing customer service all day. I give him a few stories of my own and a handshake.
I drive out of there with the windows down into the Berkeley land mine of speed bumps. It can be pretty overwhelming turning down a street and seeing twenty speed bumps ahead of you. I think of all the pimped out Buicks and Cadillacs, butt end dragging with hydraulics pumped to the hood. It makes me feel better. I hope the homeys drag their fenders off every time.
Oh and get this, the best part, I'm paying forty bucks for three days. Nostalgia for the days I never saw.
I have the best mechanic ever. I mean ever. You know how the disembodied television voice recommends you talk to your doctor before considering anything? Well, I never got that, I've never had a doctor. I had a dentist once and then he retired. Now I got Johnny and he's smarter than most doctors I've met.
I finagled my way out of work today and drove the car in this morning to the auto shop. Cubby's gonna have to spend a few days away from home so I had to rent a car. Luckily Johnny had one out front belonging to a rental agency up in Berkeley. He gave the guy a call and I drove the rig over. The car rental shop is called Rent-a-Relic specializing in old crappy Ford sedans with no pretensions in a wide range of hideous colors. I instantly loved the place.
The latest line of Ford buggies.
The one I got isn't in the picture, it's around back. An old Escort beater with loose brakes and a hot pedal, painted a green that doesn't exist in nature. I love it. All the stations on both FMs are tuned to Mexican circus music and AM is of course drivel on all dials anyhow. I tell the guy I love this car. He challenges me to try to lose it in a parking lot. With that color it's impossible, he says. He's right. It's the color of 80's leggings, Teenage Mutant Ninja-style shag carpet. This guy's great. He's wearing what looks like an Indian Nation hat with mixed up dreamcatcher peace sign and the word Oakland below it. I get a few stories, nice ones... about how he met his wife and what it's like pushing customer service all day. I give him a few stories of my own and a handshake.
I drive out of there with the windows down into the Berkeley land mine of speed bumps. It can be pretty overwhelming turning down a street and seeing twenty speed bumps ahead of you. I think of all the pimped out Buicks and Cadillacs, butt end dragging with hydraulics pumped to the hood. It makes me feel better. I hope the homeys drag their fenders off every time.
Oh and get this, the best part, I'm paying forty bucks for three days. Nostalgia for the days I never saw.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Monday, September 08, 2008
Giants V. Diamondbacks
We went to see the boy from Bellevue, the next Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum, do his thing against the Arizona Diamondbacks. After tonight he's 16-3 with a 2.49 ERA with 225 strikeouts. Amazing. twenty-four years old. A lot of fun to watch. I'll try not to think about Mariner scouting now.
...borrowed from tonight's photographers
...borrowed from tonight's photographers
Dear Seahawks,
It's been seven months since I last saw you. There were times when I profoundly missed you and others when I felt like I finally had a life. But, you're back again now and I find it's hard to see you with others. It's strange, you aren't the bully you use to be... you're almost gentle the way you let other people push you around.
I know, I know. You had to get up at five in the morning and it was raining. Buffalo can be a very cold place and it was kind of creepy with the thousands of ponchoed voyeurists watching. They were enjoying the spectacle. It didn't feel right the way you didn't protect yourself and couldn't break free on short slants or upfield. It was shameful the way you fell down on the slippery grass and watched them run by you. It wasn't age or experience, no... it was cos you suck. I could name names, but I want to love you again and feel the way it use to feel.
Next week I want you to stand up for yourself. Remember last year when we hurt people? Yeah, that was good. Flex your muscles, be yourself. It's okay to be a bully. Sometimes it's necessary. I know your mascot is imaginary but there's something real about you. You're not like the others, they're so hard to love. Let's hurt the others, cos they aren't beautiful like us.
It's funny, one day you're the best there is and the next you suck. But look on each side of you. It feels good doesn't it? Those others closest to you suck even more than you do. Take heart in that... and punish them.
Yours forever,
Jesse
It's been seven months since I last saw you. There were times when I profoundly missed you and others when I felt like I finally had a life. But, you're back again now and I find it's hard to see you with others. It's strange, you aren't the bully you use to be... you're almost gentle the way you let other people push you around.
I know, I know. You had to get up at five in the morning and it was raining. Buffalo can be a very cold place and it was kind of creepy with the thousands of ponchoed voyeurists watching. They were enjoying the spectacle. It didn't feel right the way you didn't protect yourself and couldn't break free on short slants or upfield. It was shameful the way you fell down on the slippery grass and watched them run by you. It wasn't age or experience, no... it was cos you suck. I could name names, but I want to love you again and feel the way it use to feel.
Next week I want you to stand up for yourself. Remember last year when we hurt people? Yeah, that was good. Flex your muscles, be yourself. It's okay to be a bully. Sometimes it's necessary. I know your mascot is imaginary but there's something real about you. You're not like the others, they're so hard to love. Let's hurt the others, cos they aren't beautiful like us.
It's funny, one day you're the best there is and the next you suck. But look on each side of you. It feels good doesn't it? Those others closest to you suck even more than you do. Take heart in that... and punish them.
Yours forever,
Jesse
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Slowdown
I haven't had a thing to write in weeks. Do you ever have a spell where everything seems done? Every thought you have and every idea you try to put down? As if someone else had done it, or maybe even you years back. I think the feeling is called unoriginality, or at least it should be. Utterly normal, average. That's me.
A very anonymous thing. Like walking in the woods and hiking up to some nice overlook above the treeline, so there's a goal, and then all the beauty along the way. In this environment for some reason it's an easy feat to drop all the self-conscious blather and walk natural and think better, meaning less. Obliteration to the unique, destruction to comparing everything to things actually unalike (doing that human thing where you spin it closer, as if things shared a shred of common ground). Lowering the goddamn bar, for everything.
Hey Andrew! Alterum ictum faciam. Which is to say, I'm going to take a mulligan. And why not?
A very anonymous thing. Like walking in the woods and hiking up to some nice overlook above the treeline, so there's a goal, and then all the beauty along the way. In this environment for some reason it's an easy feat to drop all the self-conscious blather and walk natural and think better, meaning less. Obliteration to the unique, destruction to comparing everything to things actually unalike (doing that human thing where you spin it closer, as if things shared a shred of common ground). Lowering the goddamn bar, for everything.
Hey Andrew! Alterum ictum faciam. Which is to say, I'm going to take a mulligan. And why not?
Monday, August 04, 2008
In this episode Cubby manages to lock his own doors and consequently me out of the car
I was on my way to work the other day, heading up to a new site along the ridge looking down toward the Pacific south of the city. We just put in twenty traps near a tree farm recently bought by the Open Space Trust. They do nice things like that, buy up land and make it public. Sometimes they take everything out and restore it with native vegetation, which can be pretty intensive. I like it when they let it just go wild, let it go. I'm hands-off in most scenarios. Abbeyian ideals of just closing off the road, let the treeroots break concrete, bridges chip and crumble, let the invasives go... I think they'll eventually lose.
This tree farm is up on Skyline, a beautiful winding road leading the length of the San Francisco Peninsula. It's a long way from home and with a few cups of coffee in me I was struck with a desperate need to pee along the way. I found a side road, turned off, and quickly parked against a wall of willows. Leaving the music a little loud and car running I broke into the willows. Returning to the car I found all the doors locked and my cellphone inside, brilliant. One of those moments where you just know memories will be made. My coworker was expecting me up at the worksite and I couldn't reach him without the phone, not knowing his number nor having the means. What I did have was my hoodie and after a little searching I found a big slab of concrete that the road no longer needed. Wrapping the chunk tightly in my sweatshirt, I wound up and gently kissed the backdoor's small window practicing my aim, then slammed the chunk into glass. A hollow thud resounded and back my concrete chunk was bounced. I did this four more times giving more hmpff with each blow and each time rejected by the mighty glass.
A car on the road now. I flagged down the quintessential elderly affluent caucasian in generous luxury automobile, returning from a friendly tennis match I learn. He cautiously looks me over and listens to my story, his dentures gleaming in the sun. The running car beside me helps my case. He decides to take me up to the mcmansion, but won't let me in. Instead brings me a phone book and a sterilized (thank-god) bottle of european aquifer water. He's alright though, just has to keep an eye out for all his shit now that he has it. Gotta protect the casa, you know the story. I work it out with my insurance company and beat my chest once for the big guy (not really) and that extra ten bucks I paid for roadside assistance.
The towtruck guy finds me and has a laugh at my story. Apparently I tried to break out the second most expensive window in the car. You wanna break in he asks? Just kick this one in here, he smiles pointing to the passenger side. I didn't tell him I hadn't planned on paying for it, I imagine he assumed so much. He deftly inserts a sheet between my doors and pumps it up, creating a good inch of space into the car. Checking the blood pressure, he grins. I wonder how many times he's said this. I have to say though, this guy is good. He then chooses from a variety of rods that he's rolled out on the hood, exactly like a chef's knives. A true artist of the trade; he inserts one and opens the door.
This tree farm is up on Skyline, a beautiful winding road leading the length of the San Francisco Peninsula. It's a long way from home and with a few cups of coffee in me I was struck with a desperate need to pee along the way. I found a side road, turned off, and quickly parked against a wall of willows. Leaving the music a little loud and car running I broke into the willows. Returning to the car I found all the doors locked and my cellphone inside, brilliant. One of those moments where you just know memories will be made. My coworker was expecting me up at the worksite and I couldn't reach him without the phone, not knowing his number nor having the means. What I did have was my hoodie and after a little searching I found a big slab of concrete that the road no longer needed. Wrapping the chunk tightly in my sweatshirt, I wound up and gently kissed the backdoor's small window practicing my aim, then slammed the chunk into glass. A hollow thud resounded and back my concrete chunk was bounced. I did this four more times giving more hmpff with each blow and each time rejected by the mighty glass.
A car on the road now. I flagged down the quintessential elderly affluent caucasian in generous luxury automobile, returning from a friendly tennis match I learn. He cautiously looks me over and listens to my story, his dentures gleaming in the sun. The running car beside me helps my case. He decides to take me up to the mcmansion, but won't let me in. Instead brings me a phone book and a sterilized (thank-god) bottle of european aquifer water. He's alright though, just has to keep an eye out for all his shit now that he has it. Gotta protect the casa, you know the story. I work it out with my insurance company and beat my chest once for the big guy (not really) and that extra ten bucks I paid for roadside assistance.
The towtruck guy finds me and has a laugh at my story. Apparently I tried to break out the second most expensive window in the car. You wanna break in he asks? Just kick this one in here, he smiles pointing to the passenger side. I didn't tell him I hadn't planned on paying for it, I imagine he assumed so much. He deftly inserts a sheet between my doors and pumps it up, creating a good inch of space into the car. Checking the blood pressure, he grins. I wonder how many times he's said this. I have to say though, this guy is good. He then chooses from a variety of rods that he's rolled out on the hood, exactly like a chef's knives. A true artist of the trade; he inserts one and opens the door.
Friday, August 01, 2008
August and Everything After
It was good, don't deny it just because its ridiculous now (perhaps Adam Duritz was a little whiny). Always is easy looking back on things like Hungry Man (people still eat that!) and 80's hair (Mexicans still wear that) and making a final opinion on it, forgetting the initial hysteria. That makes up many of the chapters of my life, somewhere with someone and me making an ass of myself, that's how I remember it now.
It's August now. What does that mean? Well, I guess it corresponds with the coming NFL football season, which for some reason is very exciting. That's me right there, by the way... me, being true to myself. So be gentle. What else? Where does time lead? Seems like us Americans tell time by stretches between vacuous holidays. Bummer when you despise each one of them. I use to be partial to a few, Halloween and Thanksgiving or some such thing. I'm moving on that. I like good times, give me that... skip the holiday, whatever. The Holiday: as if to say, oh I almost forgot... I love you or I care. Remember love forget the rest.
Here's something to look forward to: clouds, rain, weather patterns. Give me autumn, I'll look forward to that. Color and contour and shading. Steep hills with moist soil that gives to the boot and knees. Wetlands and reservoirs filling up (maybe even the aquifers too, for those suckers who believe in such things). Good things to come.
It's August now. What does that mean? Well, I guess it corresponds with the coming NFL football season, which for some reason is very exciting. That's me right there, by the way... me, being true to myself. So be gentle. What else? Where does time lead? Seems like us Americans tell time by stretches between vacuous holidays. Bummer when you despise each one of them. I use to be partial to a few, Halloween and Thanksgiving or some such thing. I'm moving on that. I like good times, give me that... skip the holiday, whatever. The Holiday: as if to say, oh I almost forgot... I love you or I care. Remember love forget the rest.
Here's something to look forward to: clouds, rain, weather patterns. Give me autumn, I'll look forward to that. Color and contour and shading. Steep hills with moist soil that gives to the boot and knees. Wetlands and reservoirs filling up (maybe even the aquifers too, for those suckers who believe in such things). Good things to come.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Another letter to M.
Dear old friend M,
It's been two Christmases since I wrote you, not counting the note I didn't leave when I slipped out and down the old creaky steps to the street. Two holiday seasons now without word and only this water between us and a bank of smog across this vast coastal empire. You were at school, art school, the worst kind, probably continuing our previous night's conversation about Christo and how he's an environmental artist, please. That was a lousy conversation and it proved to be our last.
I was excited about you. All the books you sent me that winter made trips to the post more frequent. They kept me up at night, those god-awful long Alaskan winters with no reason for anything. You kept me good for a while and then brought me home, and I guess I owe you a thank you.
I work for a herpetology consulting group now. We drive around and look at things and then write them down in yellow notebooks. I really like it and think it's going to last longer than most things do. I still think of you from time to time, but not often. I know my friendship was tinged with an urge to get in your pants and I'm sorry about that. All in all, I just wanted to be your friend. You were so witty and full of what old people call spunk. It drew me to you and sometimes I wonder now if I read you right. Or if all along it was just my energy driving the two of us. That can be tricky. It's unfortunate remembering you in such a light.
Today I thought of you and all the books I'd tell you to read. And you're the type that would actually read them. Do you know how unique and hard to find that is these days? I wonder what you're reading now, probably something lighter than the shit I've been dabbling in. You were always the pithy urbanite author reader, the McSweeney's novel type. And me, god I don't know. Maybe I always read what I thought would get my heart closer. What I thought would help me understand that which I want to become.
Still M, I am a sheep among lambs. Someone spiked the grass, it doesn't chew right. The shepherd's not here and sometimes I wonder if there even is one. I'm leaning toward no. So I continue to do what I do.
In another field,
J
It's been two Christmases since I wrote you, not counting the note I didn't leave when I slipped out and down the old creaky steps to the street. Two holiday seasons now without word and only this water between us and a bank of smog across this vast coastal empire. You were at school, art school, the worst kind, probably continuing our previous night's conversation about Christo and how he's an environmental artist, please. That was a lousy conversation and it proved to be our last.
I was excited about you. All the books you sent me that winter made trips to the post more frequent. They kept me up at night, those god-awful long Alaskan winters with no reason for anything. You kept me good for a while and then brought me home, and I guess I owe you a thank you.
I work for a herpetology consulting group now. We drive around and look at things and then write them down in yellow notebooks. I really like it and think it's going to last longer than most things do. I still think of you from time to time, but not often. I know my friendship was tinged with an urge to get in your pants and I'm sorry about that. All in all, I just wanted to be your friend. You were so witty and full of what old people call spunk. It drew me to you and sometimes I wonder now if I read you right. Or if all along it was just my energy driving the two of us. That can be tricky. It's unfortunate remembering you in such a light.
Today I thought of you and all the books I'd tell you to read. And you're the type that would actually read them. Do you know how unique and hard to find that is these days? I wonder what you're reading now, probably something lighter than the shit I've been dabbling in. You were always the pithy urbanite author reader, the McSweeney's novel type. And me, god I don't know. Maybe I always read what I thought would get my heart closer. What I thought would help me understand that which I want to become.
Still M, I am a sheep among lambs. Someone spiked the grass, it doesn't chew right. The shepherd's not here and sometimes I wonder if there even is one. I'm leaning toward no. So I continue to do what I do.
In another field,
J
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Ante meridiem
Cool morning fog. Dark sky and soft gray clouds slowly crawling from the Pacific. They made it this time over the Santa Cruz Mountains, often dissipating on the eastern descent. Hiking up there on those days, looking skyward and seeing the thick wisps disappear into the atmosphere. It's eerie and unnatural, like a wave that never breaks.
This is my favorite time. I made the coffee just right today. I couldn't sleep and disabled the alarm clock hours before the set. I don't think in overwhelming thoughts at this hour. Everything is manageable. I sit back in my chair and picture myself in the day's activities. I walk myself through each one, little pictures along the way that show me where I am. And then I try to time it and make sure there's no overlap, no feeling of being rushed. I can't be rushed. It kills me in restaurants especially, or sometimes in the right space at the grocery where shoppers demand that you edge forward with every available inch toward the register, everyone's personal bubble already popped from years of city, unaware and okay. Me in the middle, screaming inside. I plan the day on my terms. I'd rather wait an hour than be late and rushing across the city powerless to the whim of traffic. I say, bring a book.
I dreamed that streets were shiny with fresh water running down to pool in the flats and further on it filled the thirsty arroyos of the impossible Southwest. I imagined the plumes of dust and ash rising with the pattering of droplets on the burnt paths of the California fires. Half-awake I knew it was the fan that likely sounded of rain, but I let myself drift back to a better thought and watched the water clean this city and fill our empty reservoirs and water our vegetable garden.
This is my favorite time. I made the coffee just right today. I couldn't sleep and disabled the alarm clock hours before the set. I don't think in overwhelming thoughts at this hour. Everything is manageable. I sit back in my chair and picture myself in the day's activities. I walk myself through each one, little pictures along the way that show me where I am. And then I try to time it and make sure there's no overlap, no feeling of being rushed. I can't be rushed. It kills me in restaurants especially, or sometimes in the right space at the grocery where shoppers demand that you edge forward with every available inch toward the register, everyone's personal bubble already popped from years of city, unaware and okay. Me in the middle, screaming inside. I plan the day on my terms. I'd rather wait an hour than be late and rushing across the city powerless to the whim of traffic. I say, bring a book.
I dreamed that streets were shiny with fresh water running down to pool in the flats and further on it filled the thirsty arroyos of the impossible Southwest. I imagined the plumes of dust and ash rising with the pattering of droplets on the burnt paths of the California fires. Half-awake I knew it was the fan that likely sounded of rain, but I let myself drift back to a better thought and watched the water clean this city and fill our empty reservoirs and water our vegetable garden.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Still life with car and traffic.
Driving home today over the San Mateo Bridge, with the wind catching our light car and shoving me into the other lane, I was hit by a wave of contentment for the work I'm doing and for the home I'm heading to. There's always something with me; never a moment that I'm not agonizing over a thought. A thought which pushes me toward some drastic solution that I fantasize about, often revolving around a plan of escape. It's been the school, the job, the town, the person, you name it. I took a moment to enjoy this feeling and then lost it.
Everything gets muddled doesn't it? Who thinks straight any more? I watch the politicos on the tele and wonder how they manage to deliver on such concise terms, although often saying absolutely nothing. How do we stay on track? Where did focus go? I'm thinking this when a little flimsy Ford Focus flies by me (always on the right in California). Oh, the transparencies in the domain of motor vehicles! Give me your Excursion, Explorer, Land Cruiser/Rover, Escape! As if to say, Let's get the fuck out of here! Or for the impotent ashtanga-spiritual deskjockeys the Insight, Focus, Breeze, Elantra (sounds like elan, elation!). And on a side note I'd like to mention that new Dodge models have the most powerhungry homoerotic names possible: Magnum, Nitro, Caliber, Avenger. Like petnames for military toys.
I'm thinking this and checking out the new billboards. I have them all memorized now along the great Bay Area loop from the Bay Bridge to the San Mateo. I, along with other drivers, enjoy the respite of new media and relish the experience of new eye candy. Carrie Underwood smiling with her beautiful symmetrical face and breasts at the Bay Bridge merge, I was sorry to see her go, but it never made me want Vitamin Water. Let me tell you, we all are very much over the Apple billboards with silhouetted dancers kicking and shaking. Currently a 30X20 smiling face of Kevin Costner looms over 101-80 interchange, goddamn is that unsettling, especially since it explains nothing about his coming movie. He's happy? Is that it? I bet, he's filthy rich and a self-proclaimed director/actor extraodinaire. Dances with Wolves was good, I'll give him that.
I turn on NPR and try to drown out the stop and go. Cathleen was telling me the other day that an international news mediasaur haunts the airwaves on behalf of the United States, informing the world on our national affairs. There were two things that interested me the most about this. First, apparently it's illegal to broadcast this media source within the nation, a perfect framework for unchecked misinformation. The other is that the broadcast conveys everything using 1500 words, a strategically whittled down vocabulary for communication purposes. I'd really like to hear one of those programs. For now I roll down the window and turn up Talk of the Nation.
There's a giant dispassionate looking dude leaning back in utterly useless pearl clothing with a giraffe chilling behind him on the plains. Abercrombie & Fitch. Grisly technique those fuckers have. I'd take the elite trophy whores of Bebe over them any day. It's okay though cos this billboard lets me know I'm close to home.
Everything gets muddled doesn't it? Who thinks straight any more? I watch the politicos on the tele and wonder how they manage to deliver on such concise terms, although often saying absolutely nothing. How do we stay on track? Where did focus go? I'm thinking this when a little flimsy Ford Focus flies by me (always on the right in California). Oh, the transparencies in the domain of motor vehicles! Give me your Excursion, Explorer, Land Cruiser/Rover, Escape! As if to say, Let's get the fuck out of here! Or for the impotent ashtanga-spiritual deskjockeys the Insight, Focus, Breeze, Elantra (sounds like elan, elation!). And on a side note I'd like to mention that new Dodge models have the most powerhungry homoerotic names possible: Magnum, Nitro, Caliber, Avenger. Like petnames for military toys.
I'm thinking this and checking out the new billboards. I have them all memorized now along the great Bay Area loop from the Bay Bridge to the San Mateo. I, along with other drivers, enjoy the respite of new media and relish the experience of new eye candy. Carrie Underwood smiling with her beautiful symmetrical face and breasts at the Bay Bridge merge, I was sorry to see her go, but it never made me want Vitamin Water. Let me tell you, we all are very much over the Apple billboards with silhouetted dancers kicking and shaking. Currently a 30X20 smiling face of Kevin Costner looms over 101-80 interchange, goddamn is that unsettling, especially since it explains nothing about his coming movie. He's happy? Is that it? I bet, he's filthy rich and a self-proclaimed director/actor extraodinaire. Dances with Wolves was good, I'll give him that.
I turn on NPR and try to drown out the stop and go. Cathleen was telling me the other day that an international news mediasaur haunts the airwaves on behalf of the United States, informing the world on our national affairs. There were two things that interested me the most about this. First, apparently it's illegal to broadcast this media source within the nation, a perfect framework for unchecked misinformation. The other is that the broadcast conveys everything using 1500 words, a strategically whittled down vocabulary for communication purposes. I'd really like to hear one of those programs. For now I roll down the window and turn up Talk of the Nation.
There's a giant dispassionate looking dude leaning back in utterly useless pearl clothing with a giraffe chilling behind him on the plains. Abercrombie & Fitch. Grisly technique those fuckers have. I'd take the elite trophy whores of Bebe over them any day. It's okay though cos this billboard lets me know I'm close to home.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Looking back i've always liked what i was doing, at least for a little while. Mostly for the experience, more often for the preposterous unexpectedness of it, for example: slinging dishes in Portland, delivering soda and other junk food in Sitka, accepting donations in the frigid Jackson winter, picking up litter on the interstate. Less often it was the love going on: watching birds in Idaho and Alaska, getting my eye and loupe to the ground in good old Washington State. I'd like to welcome myself back to a good job. This week's highlights:
coast garter snake
santa cruz garter snake
juvey rubber boa
psychotic killer alligator lizard
coast garter snake
santa cruz garter snake
juvey rubber boa
psychotic killer alligator lizard
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