Beyond the Clouds

I had forgotten how nice life can be.

Last night, I turned off all of my phones and computers (all except the one I was using as a movie screen), and watched an entire feature length film. I turned the couch sideways so that I could recline and watch and eat popcorn.

Beyond the Clouds by Michelangelo Antonioni (then finished by Wim Wenders). It wasn't very good. I watched it off of a Handbrake rip, but the cinematic quality is not what killed this film. It just wasn't one of his best. I napped through some of it. I should have drank wine, but I didn't.

Perhaps what I did enjoy most about it, though, was that it had been so long since I felt contemplative, at all. Few things in my life invite contemplation, and I don't demand it enough for and of myself, not even here on this site. When it happens, it feels nice. There is the requirement of external stimuli for me to magically realize that I don't have to do anything. I don't have to interact with the screen in front of me. I've nearly forgotten how to be a passive recipient of a visual experience. 

The film itself was a boring disappointment. I had seen it before and remembered it being much better than it was. There are a handful of other Antonioni works that I love more; L'Avventura and The Passenger. 

The soundtrack was only part of what killed it. Bono and Van Morrison doing instrumental standards. Abysmal. I tried to ignore the music, hoping that it would somehow help, but it was impossible.

Antonioni had a stroke while making the film, which showed. It felt as if one would have to have endured a stroke to enjoy it fully, on the level that he made it. It was fragmented, split down the middle, twice. It seemed lost, though that did suit its subject well enough on the surface. The disillusionment of love. A theme that I was ready to embrace.

But no. No.

Four loosely intertwined vignettes, told from the perspective of a wandering director. The opening sequence showed some promise, though the dialogue seemed to almost be an SNL parody, particularly as it was overdubbed by John Malkovich (pronounced Mal-Kovv-itch, with the stressed syllable in the middle, at least for this film). He dawdled through the film, playing the part of a director, ruminating on the act of making films, which is what the film felt like also: somebody trying to determine how to make a film.

Not even the lovely, fully nude women could save it. Had it been made by a lesser-known, younger director then it would have been dismissed outright as being both pompous and puerile. It exploited the subject that it pretended to explore. It was a film about being a film.

As Peter Griffin said well enough, "It insists upon itself."


Well, I'm out of time now... That's my first-draft film review for Monday's show-and-tell. I'm going to bring in a handful of actual pubic hair from the 1970s, just like the fully grown growlers on display in this week's feature film....


Love all.


I'll probably watch the film again in another few years and have a complete reversal, claiming wildly that Bono is just the genius that he has always believed himself to be.

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Land Sushi

The government reverses its stance on cholesterol. What next? If we can't trust them with nutritional science then who knows, maybe they've made mistakes in other areas also. I have yet to see Citizenfour, the movie about Edward Snowden. I'd rather read articles.

I just don't know who we can trust any more. The government is spying on us, and then telling us that cholesterol is no longer a danger.... It seems like a trick. My whole life it is all that I've ever heard: cholesterol is the heart killer.

My barbecue grill has arrived. Well, it has arrived at the Home Depot in Napa. I was not able to confirm that it had been assembled yet. There is delivery to consider, too. Then, the purchase of a propane tank, or two, and a cable and lock to prevent it from being permanently borrowed by an anonymous borrower. I don't want to have to cable the thing up, but it's too expensive to risk a heartbreaking tragedy.

After all those precautions, I get to eat as much cholesterol as I choose. Well no, not really, high fat foods still represent a problem, of course.

To celebrate, I donated some money to a school fundraising effort and my reward for having done so was a tri-tip dinner for four. Rhys ate a few very small pieces and I have committed to the task of taking care of the rest.

This is what the thing looked like after I had eaten as much as was possible in a single sitting:

The good news now is that eggs will no longer make me feel guilty. I can eat more of them without feeling guilty. Eggs are a nearly perfect food. They are like land sushi.

The boy is asleep in the other room, and I have to question what I am doing awake in here posting pictures of the remains of my dinner. 

The good news is that the moral high ground upon which vegans have placed themselves has been brought into question by the proper authorities. It turns out that plants want to live, as well. So, sentience should prevent some from eating at all now, hopefully.

No, I kid. I have a few ongoing feuds out there in the world right now, veganism is just one of them. Defense spending is one of the others, though luckily not conducted with the same persons.

I only fall in love with vegetarians. It seems to be an unwritten policy in my heart.

As for the defense spending argument... I really should stay off of Facebook. I get engaged in protracted  military arguments with humorless people, and I clearly want to win, but then don't put in enough energy to do so. Not that ideological disagreements can be won anyway, but that's not the point. I just try to argue in the background while I'm doing other things, and that is not the best approach when you're facing the enemy's front line.

I want to crack open a bottle of wine right now, but that will mean that I definitely won't go back to sleep. At least not until I'm done with it. As I said, the boy is sleeping in the other room. I went through a rather sizable series of expenses and much time was consumed with providing the boy with his own bedroom, but he wants to sleep with me most of the time. I don't mind, but I don't sleep quite as well when being kicked in the face. He's a very active sleeper. I've always felt that the word somnambulist sounded like an advanced gymnast of sleep. Each time I wake up he's in a different position, in a completely different part of the bed. I'm convinced that he did a back-flip to get there. 

The good thing about the wine that I might open is that it is relatively low in alcohol. The wines that were gifted to me, many of them are of that nature, and I have found that I greatly prefer them to the excessively high alcohol content wines of California. When I have tried to go back and enjoy California wines they seem to assault with heavy forward flavors, to mask the levels of alcohol. 

Give me a few minutes and I'll have the rest of that steak out, and be cooking up some vegetables. Kale, etc.

No, I went and looked at the stack of bottles, nothing quite appealed to me. The hope of going back to sleep still hangs over me. 

Well, my investment genius turned out to be missing some crucial information. I didn't quite understand what stock options are. I have the "option" to buy them, but the only value that exists within them that is mine is the profit above what I have the option to buy them at. I hadn't quite grasped that. It means that I might not be getting my Nikon D4S any time soon. It affects the spending money I'll have for my upcoming trips also. 

I lost my sheikdom rather quickly. The market is particularly volatile for somebody who has no idea what they're doing.

I don't know why I feel like I need to say this, but the five pillars of Islam do not interest me much. Maybe the pilgrimage, I do like to travel. Though Arabia is a place of great intolerance to alcohol, and I would feel silly circumambulating the great Rubik's Cube that fell from Allah's hand.

In Mecca, on the eastern corner of the Kaaba, there is a black stone placed there by Muhammad that muslims peacefully jostle to touch as they circle and re-circle the ancient building seven times chanting. It has been made smooth by the many millions who have touched it. They would rather do this than drink wine, which settles things once and for all, for me.

The stone is believed to go back to the time of Adam and Eve, though I have been trying to tell anybody that will listen that it might be even older than that. The House of God  flooded in the 17th century and some of the walls collapsed. It needed to be rebuilt, this holiest of holies. 

Okay, Fajr quickly approaches. I must prepare to prostrate myself towards Mecca, and to stone the devil in my heart while he sleeps.

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Conduct unbecoming of.....

My estrogen levels are off the charts. I fell asleep last night with the final factory scene from "An Officer and a Gentleman" looping with the volume set to hysterical weeping levels. 

Up Where We Belong, indeed. Tears of joy dripped from me, for her. I had knocked the box of tissues off of the bed and woke up all the cats. I curled up in my quilt and sobbed myself back to sleep where I dreamed of calorie-free ice cream.

I received a fair amount of criticism for my post yesterday from a small handful of friends that would prefer if I were simply tougher. Try to remember dear readers that I happen upon a subject, sometimes a subject that is quite personal, and I try explore it. In no way does it represent the totality of my thoughts or feelings. It is simply a brief meditation (hopefully) on the subject chosen.

And yes, I am saddened that my marriage has failed. I do worry about the effect that it will have on the boy, but I am reminded by every unpaid online advice specialist that children are quite resilient and that I should now raise my child this way, or that. All good advice. I am certain of it. None of which can protect the boy from whatever possible damage might be the result of all of this, the signs of which he is already showing. 

This reflection alone is not enough for Rachel and I to consider staying together. So be it. Some people do, and some people don't, for the same reasons and concerns. 

There are some who will read that last sentence and tell me what an awful idea it always is, and how it never works. There are others that will encourage you to work things out, just as they did, etc.

These same friends seem to miss the subtext here, that I am moving on with my life. I'm still allowed moments of reflective sadness, and even regret. Being honest is not a weakness, even when the honesty concerns an uncertainty of the heart. Emotional dogma and denial is not necessarily strength, though it can easily pass for it, with many.

Everybody wants you to be as certain as they are, and for your love to unfold itself in the way that theirs did. Because they are now okay, so there can only be one result from a similar circumstance.

It baffles the mind, a bit.

I try to agree past the point where it makes them comfortable, but that doesn't work either. I will draw every possible parallel between my circumstances and theirs. Because love is always identical to other love, and the condition that has been discussed in the last few minutes of conversation is the fulcrum point upon which all relationships bend or break.

Get it?

Perhaps counter-intuitively, it seems to be my old punk rock friends that have the best advice and generally see things as they are most clearly. Well, that is my perception of it, for whatever that's worth.

Who might have guessed that an old creeping legion of regurgitators would have learned anything by renouncing excess and doing it themselves.... what an unlikely ethos.

All the times when we were close, I'll remember these things the most...

Nursery Rhymes, when all else fails

(Saul Leiter)

Up late last night, again, looking through old pictures. Different times, happier times; or more youthful, anyway. Something in the eyes hasn't changed, though. It is odd, that. How you can see, and what you can see with experience, and what must be called knowledge. Time ravages, it happens all the time, then it happens all of a sudden. Though, the seed of self seems always present, the pattern that unfolds the patterns.

My first effort at Coq Au Vin... I'd give it a solid B. There were things I simply didn't do well enough. I rushed some of the preparation, didn't chop the garlic and bacon into fine enough pieces. It didn't result in nearly as much food as I thought it would. I have maybe two servings left after Rachel and Rhys came by for dinner last night. I suppose I should have made some couscous with it. Something.

We had bread, which for some reason Rhys was placed in charge of. He promptly bit out a few sides of the loaf, then tore it in two, then dropped the rest on the floor. Such is life. He seemed to enjoy having possession over something that I wanted.

The remainder of the food sits chilled in the refrigerator now. I will have no problem finishing it, soon, with a newly obtained baguette. 

Rachel and I will not be reconciling, in any way, or not any more than we have now, if what we have now can be at all considered a form of reconciliation. I knew this, but it still comes to the senses as a shock, a tearing of the fabric of memory from what was to what will be next. What we will now become lacks any tether of hope between us. We are tidying up the legality of it all. It is a purely legal matter at this point, one that will soon be swept up and made permanent. The word itself carries such weight, represents such an unbridgeable schism: divorce. It is a weighty word, somehow the purview of parents of the past.

What ultimate effect this will have, no one knows, though I struggle finding much good in it. It is what we both have wanted, or what we were willing to allow happen. When I mention the visible seed of self being present, I can see the failings far back through and past even the happiness together. We are all guests in another's life, arriving without reservations and checking out well after noon, always with a handful of charges waiting at the front desk. 

Last night a friend told me that I have it made: a son that I love, the freedom to do as I wish, a good job in the SF tech sector... charm, wit, warmth.... These are truths and partial truths rendered together so that some seem to bolster the others, to hold them up where they might have stumbled, or sat down to rest. I do love my son much, but love of this kind, fatherhood, and freedom to do as I wish.... well, they might as well be a super-hero and his nemesis. It is fun to watch the good guys always win. 

I have the freedom to eat as many chicken wings as I wish to, or to buy the cereal that I like. Freedom of this kind is mostly just milk instead of soy milk.

I am not unhappy. My words here must make that seem un-so at times, but it is true. I would have preferred a different unfolding of events, with perhaps a different result, but that would have relied on differences in others, also.

People don't change, they adjust.

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride

If turnips were bayonets, I'd wear one by my side.

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¿Hablas Español Solamente?

(Niños Vaqueros Locales)

Another weekend gone, just like that. 

I finally bought the ingredients to make Coq au Vin last night, but fell asleep having only just placed the bacon and chicken in the refrigerator. I do not mean that I fell asleep near the refrigerator, but it was not far off. The bag of other materials, all recently bought, sits on the dining room table now, waiting for me.

I will prepare enough of the delicious mush to feed eight soldiers, then eat it mainly by myself over the course of three or four days. Hopefully, this time I will keep my refrigerator on long enough for me to reduce the average cost of each plate to somewhere below $80.

Everything costs so much money. None of it does individually, but collectively it's an account killer. Just simple stuff that I do not have, and must buy each time I wish to make something; all-purpose bleach, garlic powder, thyme, brown sugar, apple-cider vinegar, white vinegar, extra pure virgin olive oil, chicken broth, and on and on and on.

Soon, I'll be prepared to make any of these dishes again, which I will almost be required to, based on initial investment alone, though that time still seems a long way off. I eagerly await the day when I glance at a recipe and think to myself, I have all that stuff at home, maybe I'll give it a try.

Wow. Speaking of... I just noticed two books had arrived, left in the location where Rachel would normally leave something that had arrived for me in the mail. Both were gifts from a friend. One is a cooking book, specifically, recipes for the grille.

So, I now own my first ever book of recipes. Since I know how to read, I feel an obligation to become an even better cook. Soon, I will be hosting dinner parties and holidays. Grandkids will speak of grandma's lovely cherry cobbler and famous Sunday roasts.

Yes, I am becoming a grandma; the grey skin, the soft and sagging flesh, the forgetfulness, the kindness that sometimes accompanies aging, the patient listlessness, the loss of choice in bodily function, the growing suspicion of all others in the neighborhood. The idea of sex is becoming repulsive to all others and a distant shameful secret even to me. My underwear hang on the clothes line like a sighting of Moby Dick, hideous and fearsome, flapping in the winds.

Well, not yet.... I don't really dry my clothes on a clothesline. In the machine dryer it looks more like a school of great white whales, all together caught in the vortex of a whirlpool, dodging harpoons. No less terrible and carnivalesque for the thousands of kids that live in my apartment complex. I am certain of it.

I do not exaggerate concerning the local population of enfant terribles. I estimate their numbers to be in the thousands. Because they are always moving it is impossible to get an accurate counting. I have invited all the members of my bird watching society over in the hopes of getting a better estimate.

My apartment complex is comprised almost exclusively of Mexican immigrants. I am the only tenant that attempts to speak English, or Spanish. What I mean is that they are effortless in their Spanish and show few signs of wanting to bridge the gap with me. All, except the kids, of course. They know more English than their parents and find me to be a novelty of some sort. A wobbly piñata. 

The first time they came to my door it was to sell me kitchen supplies, some fund-raiser meant to raise money for some trip. They dug into me for $50, but I told myself it was all stuff I actually needed, though we tell ourselves all sorts of things when we only wish to be nice. The young girl that was there, seemingly to help her brother move his wares, asked a series of questions about my young son and my "ex-girlfriend" who lives down the road.

Her brother openly scolded her for asking me personal questions when he was on a mission to fund his overnight trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but I told him that it was fine and not to worry about it, that's just how girls are.

They must think that I am an eccentric, wealthy gringo. Living alone in an apartment in which all others are populated by no less than 4-6 official and unofficial tenants, documented and undocumented.  I have considered moving in my baby grand piano. I suspect that monstrous indication of imaginary cultural wealth will seal my fate and cause insult to the cultural sensibilities of the neighborhood, even more than the lack of rich caramel color in my skin. I must seem like an albino tycoon here, wandering the ship of a cruise liner.

I should brush up on my Spanish. Perhaps do more than just brush up. I must learn some Spanish, not just some half-remembered phrases, mispronounced mainly in jest.

The kids think nothing of cupping their hands up to my front windows to peer in and see what my life is like. They sit outside my front door and play games and eat pizza, leaving the tell-tale trail of garbage that kids think so little of. I will hear their mothers and fathers scolding them in the barely foreign tongue, the next time I open my door it will mostly be all cleaned up.

Vaya con Dios, Pizza Unidos....

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Saudade

I wasn't going to write a post today, but a friend just sent an email about a picture of she and her father when she was a very young girl and it made me both sad and warm at once. It concerned the mystery of memory, and how her father longed to return to a time when, I'm sure, life was simpler and filled with fond memories. He dreamed of wandering out in the dark night where he lives near the Mediterranean and finding his daughters as they were then, when they were both young. The hope of an abandoned time and place to which he now could seemingly return by the will of his wish.

I would not call what her father wrote delusional, at all, but I have been coming to terms with my own delusions. The way that I had thought that things were. I have been forcing myself to look back and re-examine the series of choices that placed me where I am now. 

It is all an exercise in uselessness, of course, but it's still the only exercise I get.

I find it difficult to believe that Rhys will have no memory of all the things we currently share, our many inside jokes and the playful ways that we interact. In a few years he will develop sustainable memories. Of the past, he will only have planted memories of the pictures I take of him, the stories I tell to him about this time, or perhaps those that I have preserved here. The thought of him reading this blog is equally troubling and comforting; troubling if I'm alive, comforting at thoughts of otherwise, that there is evidence of my love for him.

I'm told that even though he will have no memories of his own through this time he will still develop a sense of love for me, and a deep sense of comfort for having a father that loves him. Each day I see the past recede and disappear as it moves away from us. The child that Rhys once was such a short time ago, is no more. He is now a happy three year old boy, figuring out things as he goes.

I was taking a bath with him and he was taking note of my boobies and then his boobies, and that mine were larger, though I tried to point out that they were also more solid. He asked me if I thought Mommy had big boobies. I carefully explained that she has "Mommy boobies."

He is fascinated with the idea that I was once a boy like him, and that when he gets older he'll have hair on his face. He told me that he wants hair on his legs one day, too.

I didn't want to forget that.

The woman, Carol, who runs the daycare that he has been a part of since very early childhood came by Rachel's house recently. There was something she wanted to drop off. Rhys became very excited and wanted to show her everything, giving her a tour of the house and especially of his room. The first thing that he showed to her there was a little ceramic piggy bank that she had given him as a present a few years ago. I'm sure that he only knows of this because Rachel has repeated it to him, but he wanted to impress upon her that it was his and he had been using it, saving coins.

The description that Rachel gave of his enthusiasm to share the many things of his room with Carol was very touching. 

We don't change very much, but enough. Ever eager to show others the components of our lives, to have them make sense, to be of interest.

Those emotions of his will, of course, give way to their replacement. On and on, until one day he is a young man, making his own decisions. I will naturally recede in importance to him. It seems impossible, yet also unstoppable. Already, I wish to return to previous days, afternoons, to when I would swaddle him to put him down for his nap. I would stand there above his crib with my hand on his wrapped abdomen, watching him watch me until his eyes would begin to dip closed, to calm him by the light pressure of my hand on him until he was asleep. The sound of his miniature breathing being the only thing in the world.

All of it now falling into a recent past that is remote, untouchable.

I didn't want to forget that, too.

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Slip Slidin' Away

I hear the boy coughing upstairs. I sit downstairs at Rachel's house, waiting for him, them to wake up.

The pressures of separation are starting to show. The other night he was crying at my house, wanting to "go home." It was because Rachel was there. I am certain of it. He is fine when it is just he and I. It must be very confusing for him. We try to explain a parental thing that neither of us quite understands.

He asks from time to time why we don't all live together. These are moments that are rich in opportunity, but the many things that I could say that might be entertaining to me would very likely only confuse him further. He looks to me for truth, certainty, consistency... if you can imagine that. Fatherhood requires a gentility of mind and presence that I somehow never quite had for myself. It is better to develop it late in life than not at all, I suppose.

The triangle that would be our family is missing a part, seemingly never to return, comprised of three points and two edges; three vertices, two lines. One pencil mark has nearly been erased. It is an imaginary mystery, wrapped in the incomplete logic of failed love. It flunks the geometric litmus test, somehow too acid and without a base.

The toughest part is yet to come.

So many twigs for such a small nest.

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away

I know a man
He came from my home town
He wore his passion for his woman
Like a thorny crown
He said, Delores
I live in fear
My love for you's so overpowering
I'm afraid that I will disappear

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away

I know a woman
Became a wife
These are the very words she uses
To describe her life
She said a good day
Ain't got no rain
She said a bad day's when I lie in bed
And think of things that might have been

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away

And I know a fa-ther
Who had a son
He longed to tell him all the reasons
For the things he'd done
He came a long way
Just to explain
He kissed his boy as he lay sleeping
Then he turned around and headed home again

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away

God only knows
God makes his plan
The information's unavailable
To the mortal man
We work our jobs
Collect our pay
Believe we're gliding down the highway
When in fact we're slip slidin' away

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away

Mmm...

- Paul Simon

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The many murky dangers of anti-semitism (my struggle)

No, I'm not really in the mood to be a contrarian today. The title was just click-bait. 

Last night, however, I got into a mild debate with a fellow who told me that "free speaking" is not guaranteed by any country, and that anything that might provoke anti-semtitism is illegal.

I found him a used copy of Mein Kampf on Amazon for under $10, though he did not verify if he purchased it or not. I suspect not. I reminded him that the New Testament has provoked far more anti-semitism than ol' Fraulein Kampf could ever hope for.

I find some people frightening. In their efforts to eradicate perceived bigotry and intolerance they seem to have no problem with the many failed policies of censorship. He was on the verge of accusing me of a hate crime last night, just for suggesting that freedom of speech trumps most perceived verbal or written offenses. If you want Mein Kampf to be rendered meaningless then the answer is simple, let all those who care to read it do so.

I don't mean that the book deserves to be ignored or revered as a work, but instead it deserves scrutiny commensurate with its effect. It's a screed of poorly-written, half-baked political philosophy. Littered with anti-semitism, yes, but that's only a portion of what makes it hackneyed. Just pick the book up and read ten pages. If you're intrigued and wish to go on then keep that fact hidden, because you have the mind of a water rat.

Censorship does not do adequate battle with the ideas contained therein.

The book is still readily available in many countries of the West. Yet Hitler's ideas still pose an imminent threat, we are reminded to believe. It is all perhaps true, if only because there are those whose minds become excited by banal ideas come to monstrous life. Heidegger would lull those same readers to sleep, but few clamor for his expulsion from the library of life.

I hadn't even meant to write that much on the subject. It was concerning Hitler, online, etc. 

My adversary could not separate my belief in the freedom of press with anti-semitism. He seemed intent on citing a supreme court case that did far more to support my side of the argument than his, but what can one do in such instances? If you're not pro then you're anti. The shortest possible leap of conceptual logic, that. 

Few know that even Hitler distanced himself from the book after it was written.

In the marketplace of ideas each product should be given its chance to fly out the doors or to rot on the shelf. Keeping tracts or manifestos hidden in the back of the shop is a nearly guaranteed way to give them more credence than they deserve. 

All hail the suppression of poorly formed ideas!

Everybody is all for democracy, though they scarcely seem to understand what it is.

As long as there's somebody out there being wrong on the internet then I'm assured a place of contention in this wild world.

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Shakin' the Rafters

Going through old pictures. I start out with the intention of cleaning up my photo library, but it is useless. I find something to like about most all of them. Blurry and out of focus, not flattering but also not to be shared. I sit and giggle along with the past, far and near.

I was in an odd, happy mood last night. I did a Google search for "Tom Waits' favorite albums" and found several lists, mostly populated with stuff that you would expect: old blues, rock, and jazz. Among the selections were some albums by artists that I knew but might not have had the album mentioned, or artists whose names I had recognized but owned nothing, or artists to which I was wholly unfamiliar.

So, I entered into a downloading frenzy.

Now, I sit and listen to the oddest, obscure spirituals and forgotten jazz albums. Late for me, into last night, I sat here and smiled into my computer screen, feeling as if I was on the verge of discovering new worlds, or old ones. Out of the computer comes the most inviting weirdnesses.

I have been transported from the deep inside of Abyssinian Baptist churches to the Bohemian polka of Texas-Czech. Ironically, one of the most salient qualities of the digital age is in its power to preserve and disseminate the past. One need not even search through dusty stacks any more. It is all there for the listening.

I have little patience for serious talk of Jesus yet rarely tire of hearing his praises sung wildly by black southern baptists. I recognize my implicit racism here, but white people embrace Jesus the wrong way. I'm sure of it. They are not to be trusted with these matters. All of that mayonnaise can not seem to adequately oil the vocal chords, nor the soul. Okay, this is not implicit racism any longer, it is active. I am being a shameful bigot here. Though... one must collect and sustain a few hypocritical complexities along the way to be of much spiritual worth.


I look forward to working today in something other than my usual silence. I must be careful though, music is pleasant enough that it can change the sensation of time's passing. Each new note becomes invited, sought for such that time slows to nearly a stop. I emerge much happier, but perhaps only a single hour has passed, or less.

In silence, work occupies the clock alone, distracts it so that the thing that makes me "me" can make an easy escape. When you are in love with music... in that moment, you can be more present, aware of time's passing, which somehow distorts the internal lens through which it is felt and gauged. It is also ironical, counter-intuitive.

I used to believe that it was the exact opposite, and maybe it was, then. Things change, so why not time.

With music as with wine, whiskey and love, one need not feel alone.

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Along the Barbary Coast

Why do I wait?

The day has come to a full trot without me. I started to write a piece last night, a meditation on the difficulties of love, but trashed it as useless nonsense this morning. And it was.


I look forward to getting in the car and driving home, fast.

On the drive in to the city this morning there was just a hint of orange sunrise over the dark, jagged line of horizon, of distant mountain range. It is really something, the view from the Golden Gate Bridge. For the minute that it takes to cross one can almost pretend that they are high up in the crow's nest, perched near the peak of a pirate mast.

But, it requires an imagination that practices such things, like escaping justice by your wits, a heart filled with lost treasure maps, secret codes and handshakes, one wooden leg, an eye patch from the missteps of past pillage, and of course... the jolly roger flapping high up in and against the winds.

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Ridgewood St.

Yesterday, I got a text from one of my life-long friends. His father had also passed away, found dead on the floor of his home, only a couple months after the passing of his wife. We are at the age of loss. The onset of it, anyway. Basic math teaches us that there will be more and more of it in the future, ever near and nearer our lives will become crowded with loss until there is only one thing left to go.

We have no DNA left upstream. It is all downstream now, or waiting here in the calm pool around us, just below the falls. The past has become a Niagra.

I have very fond memories of his mother and father, both now gone. I spent a fair portion of my childhood being a nuisance in and around their home. Their home, to me, always seemed a great place of adventure and enrichment. Their swimming pool was always more fun than ours, populated with kids, family. My buddy had several aviaries in which he kept finches, budgies, and a few others. We spent hours in the summer and winter maintaining these wooden structures, caring for the birds.

I learned a lot.

In the living room there was a sound system that ended in Bose 901s from which the rock of the time would often loudly emanate; Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, Boston. As my buddy got older he would even experiment with some rock that was not domestic, Dire Straits and then even Brian Ferry.

In that same living room was a hammered dulcimer, or perhaps two of them. To this day I have a fascination with the sound of those and similar instruments. The only musical devices that ever entered my home were the ones that I brought there, first an electric guitar, a cheap Stratocaster knockoff, then an Epiphone acoustic, then a 12-string acoustic that had little birds inlaid in the pick guard. It was on these that I first learned to ape my way through some Led Zeppelin tunes, fudging the opening riffs before plodding through some of the chords. I picked up an old guitar for the first time in months yesterday, also.

He and I would canoe up and down the Wekiva River, from up-river to Rock Springs to downstream where the river would nearly meet the St. Johns. Looking for chicks at the springs with a homemade jambox constructed of a Sony Walkman, some small but durable monitor speakers and a motorcycle battery. The thing sounded far better than any jambox that came near it, though it did not offer the same conveniences in transportability. It was a sort of component system, with wires dangling everywhere, to and fro from each piece. 

But, More than a Feeling never sounded so righteous before or since, at least on that river.

Once, when we were being picked up by a sibling (or maybe his mom) with their station wagon, smoke started coming out from underneath the dash. Within a minute we were all standing on the side of the road near some palm tress watching the thing burn to the ground. We had just enough time to get the canoe off of the roof before retreating to a safe distance to watch this automobile come to its own demise. The smell of burning plastic was overpowering.

The fire inspector that showed up saw the remains of a portable ham-radio relay under the dash and without further inspection announced this as the cause, a fact that came into immediate dispute by my buddy's father, a contention in which he emerged victorious, at least in the eyes of the insurance company.

We once saved a man's life there, also. He was drowning near the Wekiva Marina, which later burned to the ground, in echo of the car, though the source of this pyre seemed to be a greasy, uncleaned kitchen.

My buddy met his wife of a thousand years on that river. Three girls canoeing two different directions. They had drifted to the shore and we were just the boys to save them.

I can still see it all, as if it was yesterday.

I once remember his father asking me if I had read The Aeneid, by Virgil. We were chatting about "the classics..." I told him that I had. He had too, though he had read it in Latin. In truth, I had a copy and had only read portions of it; the flight from Troy and the suicide of Queen Dido. He was still quite impressed, and I was too naive to question whether he had really read the poem in its original Latin or not. I gathered enough to develop a vague understanding of Carthage's relationship, and threat, to Rome. It is a place that the enemy must not occupy. It was Rome's Cuba.

My buddy believed his father to be too stern and selfish and he very likely was, though that changes nothing in terms of the sense of loss. It is a significant passing. 

His father was able to send us scattering with a single terse sentence or fragment sent from the driveway of the house.

What are you boys doing? Never said in meanness, nor even sternness, just the voice of a dad. Off we would run, giggling with the glandular twitches and discharges of puberty.

We were kids, so we were often enough exploring ways to destroy something of his without intended malice. There were lots of things to destroy, all arranged on hooks in the garage, all in their right place. Electronics and tools of all kinds that we would borrow freely and then effortlessly fail to put back in their place. The struggle was not a lack of intention, but a paucity of the specifics of recollection. Life was always moving far too fast in one direction.

His father. I once sat in his ham-radio room with him and he briefly showed me how, from his cubby desk, the different pieces worked in concert to find and hold a signal. Through relays he could communicate with others around the world on a specified band. We would listen in on English speaking broadcasts from the Muslim world in which they would denounce the evil Ronald Reagan and his policies of colonialism. Each string of political invectives would end with, "Praise be to Allah!"

We listened to the American invasion of Granada, in which all of the major news networks were also getting their information of the invasion, from a single ham-operator. Then, we would listen to the perversion of that reporting as it ended up on the nightly news. It was an early and thorough lesson in cynicism. A lost art, perhaps.

I purchased a cheap, amateur receiver unit and ran an antenna by climbing up the tree that grew outside my bedroom window, the tree that my mother and I had planted. I would sit in my room, dialing in through static to a signal from far away.

Radio Free Europe, from a private bounce relay.

Sometimes, I could only get one side of the conversation, the other being returned on a different, unknown frequency. I would sit and pretend to respond, speaking my words into a handset whose cable was strung around the side of the unit. I would sit and await in the dark for the response to float back to me from across the great curve of the earth.

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Too like the lightning

Mainly uneventful days; sojourns into the city that hardly qualify, hardly satisfy the term; the briefest of days; a children's park, a carousel, ice cream as we walk around a lake; ducks, boats, people; a chill in the shade of the trees, within the breeze; tears, always tears; a potato chip that was bitten vertically; the sudden and unexpected pains.

Last night, I stood on the pavement of a parking lot and contemplated the crescent moon, its impossible distance, hostile cold and heat, both visible.

... swear not by the moon, I thought... the inconstant moon.

I lie here now, flat on my back, looking up at the crescentless ceiling, wondering on the non-metaphysical qualities of life, of pain. The difficulty appears to be in the framing of the questions. 

Last night as I slept, I dreamed of a town so small that it was just a stop sign that people gathered around at Christmas.

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The Greek Gadfly

Ah, sweet budding flower of weekend. This morning we have a few people coming over for breakfast, a buddy and his boy. Then, Rhys and I might venture into the city. We'll have to see how he feels. He has stopped napping in the afternoons, which can make life increasingly difficult in the evenings. His temperament strays from the sweet towards the wicked.

One of Rachel's relatives recently said to me, Spare the rod, spoil the child. When they uttered it I heard it in a way that I had never quite heard it before, as two separated clauses, like seen above. Truly, spare the rod, and also spoil the child. 

Why not? Kids should be humored. Rachel and I don't administer corporal punishment. We are both against it. The science is out there, and has been. It speaks a stark truth. Children that are spanked are far more likely to exhibit signs of depression and aggression later in life. 

The "I turned out okay" argument has never worked for me, because nobody seems okay. Anybody that would invite scrutiny by making the anecdotal claim as a rebuff to overarching scientific study deserves to be spanked, more. Some much more than others.

They're the first ones to explain someone else's behavioral inconsistencies with, Well, you know they had a rough childhood, abusive parents, etc. 

You don't hear many saying, I leaped from the back of a pickup truck, but landed on the grass. I turned out okay.

I would love to see a series of video clips from prisoners behind bars, all of them just peering through the bars and saying, "I turned out okay." That's the problem with people, or part of it. They never consider that everybody in prison is okay, also. The suicides are all doing fine.

Okay, that's two mentions of suicide in two days now. I should stop, people will think I'm being spanked. I do not wish to die, or suffer.

My readers don't seem to like it when I discuss my ongoing efforts to obtain pentobarbital. Phenobarbital would work also. I am not necessarily a glutton for the stuff, not like other things. I just have a healthy interest in obtaining the stuff, which can be done in Mexico quite easily. You just bring a farmer to the pharmacy and he'll explain he has a sick horse that he loves. It is, apparently, more common than we know.

Anyway... humans are the only animal that can call putting a dog to sleep a humane act, but insist on letting humans suffer through abject misery. It is one of the few luxuries of cognitive dissonance. If I had cancer then people would likely rally behind my right to die. They would offer to fly me to Oregon. But it would take stage four cancer for that to happen.

Why?

Well, perhaps my attempts to argue for the right to die can be all too easily misunderstood, so I'll stop. It's just that suicide is not considered a crime in most states, but to assist in it is. What's equally perplexing is that suicide is only treated as a "common law crime" if you are shown to have had "sound mind" when making the decision to attempt it.

How fucked up is that? If you are clear of conscience and you choose to end your own life, then they will treat it is a crime, but only if you seem okay. If you are of unsound mind, well, then you clearly need help. The presumption being that nobody of sound mind would choose to take their own life.

That would be Socratic.

Speaking of, he was found guilty of impiety and sentenced to commit suicide (as an alternative to a worse fate). Impiety is a form of not adequately appeasing the gods of the state. It is like treason, but without a specific treasonous act to be convicted of. His crime was to exhibit that he was aware of his own ignorance, satisfying the oracle at Delphi's claim that he was the wisest man in Athens, which shamed those who likewise believed themselves to be wise.

A real thorn in the side of the Athenian intelligentsia. 

... reclining from a dose a impiety; the aromatic hemlock flower, clustered in umbals, trembling in the weekend wind.

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"Asleep in Jesus"

Quick post today. There is a deadline at work. I have committed to completing a minor creative act by end of day today.

Pressure, pushing down on me, pressing down on you...

Not that much pressure, in truth. Not the terror of knowing what this world is about...

Okay, must get that infernal song out of my head. Some of the worst lyrics ever written, even by Bowie standards.

I was asked about my father yesterday. I found myself unsurprised to be relaying that the grieving process has not been as difficult as I thought it would be. I suppose there are a few factors that have contributed to that; He died peacefully in his sleep, it wasn't entirely unexpected, and I had come to terms with my relationship with him and we had made peace many years ago, he was able to see his grandson just a few short months ago, etc. All things considered, I hope to go just like him, if possible. It is, perhaps, the only time that I have openly wished to imitate him.

To wit, I demanded some pentobarbital from some friends of mine that work at a veterinarian's office. I carefully explained that they would never forgive themselves if I offed myself violently, that they would greatly prefer for me to just peacefully fall asleep into the waiting, loving arms of Jesus. One of them is Jewish, though I strongly suspect he has some pretty heavy Muslim leanings. It's the beard he wears, and the way he wears it. I am certain of it. 

He is the Lindsay Lohan of the Old Testament. has trouble around heretics, deadly when left alone. A real pipe bomber. I have tried to bring him a little moonlight work, putting stray dogs down, but he cringes at the suggestion. I ask him far too often what it's like to be in the puppycide room. Does he ever try to look right into a failing dog's eyes when he goes down the big nap. He refuses to answer, just looks at me in horror. He's a sensitive sort, like Ms. Lohan.

It is all just a big joke, of course. Life, I mean. We get only one chance with each reincarnation.

Well, I booked two flights on my shiny new Visa card this morning. NYC and Bellingham will greet me soon. There is still the consideration of yet a third trip in that same time period, a sizable investment. It involves using a passport and booking a hotel, probably buying some new clothes, losing weight, all of that. A wedding, on the beach. 

Not mine, but a friend's. 

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Buy the Ticket

I received my shiny new Home Depot card yesterday. I checked the contract, realized that it's interest free for the first six months, then 27.99% APR after that. So, I dutifully went online and tried to buy some things that Rhys and I need; an area rug for the living room, a Martha Stewart clothes/toy/book organizer for Rhys' room, an $800 Weber barbecue grill.

All combined it was over $1200. 

Something was wrong, though. I tried again and again, there appeared to be something unacceptable with my mailing address. The same address to which they had just shipped the card. I started an online chat with a support representative. No luck. I kept her on the chat while I called the help line. Still, no luck. I instructed the guy on the phone as to what steps should be taken next. Everybody was working in chorus to get this card functioning for me. Finally.... we had the card services people on the line. They had blocked the use of the card without updating anybody as to why. They flipped a switch deep inside the imaginary machine and voila... The gears of industry began to turn towards me.

I have some debt, finally. Between Visa, Target, and Home Depot my soon to be arrears must be close to $1500.

An email came in late last night, the Weber grill had been shipped. It's on its way to the store where it will be assembled. There is some swarthy gypsy that arrives on camelback once a week and does all of their assembling for them. Then, they will deliver it shiny and new to my apartment, where I will be waiting, sitting out on the porch sipping a lemonade with ice shavings.

I am eager to start using my other credit cards also. I have been told that it is good, and right, and healthy, that it will greatly improve my standing among those that assess people for such things. Being debt free is nearly meaningless when it comes to one's credit. To use credit often is what matters most. It seems absurd to me, but if they think it's best that I buy an unnecessarily expensive grill then who am I to challenge their fiscal wisdom. I will be the envy of many of my friends.

There are some issues to modern life that are better left unquestioned. I suppose there were camera lenses that I needed more than a barbecue grill, but one can not only purchase the necessities. 

Moving on. Having a carpet in the living room will be good. Rhys will have somewhere to spill ice cream. Tile is far too easily cleaned. In truth, it is not the best living room for him. Tile floor and a three year old boy combine to result in tears.

We're having an informal father/son breakfast this Saturday. Jordan (Rhys' buddy) and his father, Matt (my buddy), will come over early and we will make pancakes and eggs and bacon and orange juice, bagels with butter and cream cheese, fruit salad. Who knows. We'll be four buddies and we will teach the kids how to live life, by example. Some adventure somewhere awaits us.

Ah, the marvel and bliss of domestic life.


I remember long ago, before Rachel and I had moved from New York, wondering openly what this site would be like after the move. I joked that it would become a review site for Black and Decker hand tools and that one day soon I would have a nice garage. I predicted that all of the weirdness would be programmatically removed from my life after making the great leap.


I wasn't far off. The train is right on schedule.

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Shark!

The day has chased me from the skies.

One of life's great unresolvable cruelties: 

white shirts make you look younger, 

black shirts make you look thinner.

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Watching the Wheels

Rachel and Rhys went to the beach today. I had opted to work this holiday. So be it, though now that the day is nearly done whatever longing I had for the beach has passed, mostly.

Since living here we have yet to sit on the beach and watch the sun sink into the Pacific together. Us, the boy, and the dog. Eating oysters and feeling the moment come to its natural close. A thing I imagined would become regular practice when I attempted to peer into the future from my perch atop the past. 

Once, we went to Monterey and walked out onto a pier towards the end of the day after dinner, then heading back to the hotel before the setting to put the boy down to sleep, to make the room as dark as possible. To calm the excited mind of a child.

This morning, I made myself steak and eggs. I am getting marginally better at cooking. Yesterday, there was a dish of my own invention; chicken, mushroom, green beans, soy sauce and onions. I was so proud of myself that I sent a picture to a friend.

I have become a forty-six year old latchkey kid.

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Selfielessness

(Debtor)

I'm an idiot.

Or, I shouldn't say that. We know not to say such things about ourselves now. We have learned so much about the fragile psyche since the television began watching us closely.

I do idiotic things. 

That is the way to say it. I do idiotic things, and then I suffer because of them. If I were to do noble things, and suffer as a result, then I might be considered heroic in the Greek sense, but eating at In N' Out after recovering from a stomach illness can not fairly be called noble, even when done heroically. 

Yesterday, it seemed as if I was pulling out from under the muck of infirmity. I felt well enough to have two beers at the local pub around lunchtime. The problem, though, with California beers is that they are all trying to out-do each other, these high alcohol IPAs and Double IPAs. So, two of those beers is closer to three normal beers, even three good beers, like a German or Belgium.

I'm not sure why these beers are so popular here, other than their high alcohol content, but I have become accustomed to them and even like several of them. Pliny the Elder, for example. The decision to have a third Pliny is a departure decision. The police begin to take an interest in your affairs and expeditions after that, etc. Your peregrinations are meant to entirely cease after four.

So, I was fine, not even having had two beers that were as strong as Pliny. Racer 5 was what I had, and I understand how the name of that beer does not support my story, but it's true, it is weaker than Pliny, and useful as such.

Rachel had agreed to go to Napa with me, so that we could involve the boy in the purchasing of some things for his new room at my house. We first went to Home Depot, where they had none of the things in store that they had online that I was interested in. I finally found a lamp for my bedroom, or possibly the living room, and decided to put it on my new Home Depot credit card charge account. I didn't have the card yet, but the helpful voice over the phone assured me that would be no problem, just start shopping as soon as possible.

Which I did.

I brought the lamp to the Customer Service desk. They were confused in a way that the staff of any customer service desk should never reveal to the public, yet they seemed to have no shame whatsoever in their confusion and inability to help nor to process this transaction.

Now, I am not kidding here. Their advice to me: just go get in line at one of the regular registers, they should be able to help you.

Truly counter-intuitive help.

So, I got in line. When I got to the register, I carefully explained the situation to this hapless dolt.

Nope. Not a chance.

It was only when I went back and again said that I had been approved for a Home Depot credit card did something click, some distant glimmer of hope. She leaned in close and whispered, Would you be willing to tell me your socials security number?

I offered to trade numbers with her if it would help the situation.

I was out the door a few seconds later, though without having used the credit account. It occurred to me that I very much did want to buy that barbecue grill that I have mentioned here, and a first-time discount could be applied, so it made sense to use the charge account with a large ticket price item.

Math, etc.

Not to be dissuaded from exploring my credit options and newfound power, I put the lamp in the car where Rachel and Rhys were waiting. Rachel had suggested that I could find the things that I wanted more easily at Target than at Home Depot, and boy-oh-boy was she right. I filled a cart full of necessary things; a dinosaur lamp, a big stuffed Buzz Lightyear, Advil, toothpaste, a cooking sheet, a 4 qt. sauce pan to make soup or pasta in, some other domestic junk. I carted this up towards the registers, to the customer help counter. I asked if they did instant credit approval, and they said they sure did. Faster than anywhere so far. Within minutes I was being handed a register receipt that Sergio, the pre-teen that was managing the place, emphasized should not be lost. 

Treat it just like a credit card, he implored. 

I don't have any credit cards, yet, but I think I knew what he meant. I went and grabbed a few more things, whatever was closest to the registers that took my fancy, and threw them in the cart. There was something in there that was making a squeaking sound, a toy of some sort. That should satisfy the needs of the credit receipt, I thought.

I went to the register and Monica, somehow younger than Sergio, was all too happy to congratulate me on my decision to use Target credit, emphasizing that by doing so I had saved close to four dollars.

Perhaps I am not such an idiot.

The point of this story: I hadn't eaten since breakfast and had those two beers in the place of what should have been a lunch, and was now running on something like fumes, only moister. I made a very poor decision and recommended In N' Out as an adequate place to dine.

No sooner had I finished devouring a Double-Double (Animal Style), a shared french fries with the boy, and a shared vanilla milkshake had my indiscretion started to give evidence of its effects.

Rachel, who I mentioned already is smarter than me, ordered nothing at all. She might have had a french fry or two, or a sip of the milkshake, but nothing like Diarrheazilla sitting across from her. Then, there was the driving home from Napa, the begging to be left alone as soon as possible, the horror.

The moral of this story: credit causes indigestion.

I have three new accounts now, everyone is always so helpful and nice.

Is there no upward limit to the joy that credit can bring?

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Yes You Can!

I am slowly pulling away from the mire of infirmity. I don't think that I can quite leave the house yet, but maybe sometime soon. I need more fluids. I have all of these new wines here, sent from a friend as I mentioned before, but have been unable to try them, mostly. He believes me to be heroic in my intake of wine, but the truth is perhaps far less Roman, most of the time.

I find few people with whom I can honestly discuss alcohol. I have had people tell me that to discuss it openly, or question it at all, is the only indication needed of there being a problem, which gives you some insight into the hopelessness of the Western mind. People love to convince themselves of the impermanence of newly established categories. I know that I do. Dipsomania is a somewhat recently developed German idea. Nobody notices or cares. It is very real to them, like ADHD, if your kids are unlucky enough to have it.

CS, I can talk with, but only when we are both staunchly pro-alcohol. When either of us becomes "pure of heart," to purge the demons, then it's an all-out nun orgy, anything goes.

It's best to think of drinking as a sin rather than a sickness, like masturbation or gourmandism.  

Speaking of, I was able to cook myself dinner last night, and then even eat it. I am getting better at all of that, cooking stuff. It is an adjustment. When you buy food, you expect it to be good. You know where to go to get the food that you like to eat. When you prepare it yourself there are no such expectations. Everything that is actually good must be made in quantities that I can not eat. Lasagna, etc.

If I can make it to the market then I might try making Coq au Vin today/tonight, a dish named of course after my favorite restaurant in Orlando.

I am tempting the demons by drinking coffee with cream right now. I can tell. 

That which does not vacate you...

Hot coffee on top of intestinal weakness. Nine out of Ten doctors agree on curing disease. It's known as a pie chart. It is all so convincing. 

The thought just occurred to me to do some "chores" around the house today, clean the kitchen and do some laundry, wash the sheets. Why does this stuff make women so much happier than men? They'll deny it, but just look at the glow they have when it's all over. It's sexy. Women are different than men, I have noticed. You would think that age reduces the differences, but no... it only makes them less distinguishable for young people, who still have clearly recognizable sexual characteristics.  

Ignore that. That was just my testosterone levels dropping.

It has taken me since Christmas day, but I finally finished the fifty page general introduction to the Norton Anthology of World Religions. At this pace, I'll never be able to decide on a god, or gods. Best, maybe, to just dive in based on the geographic region from which I emerged. I was born at the United States Naval Academy, so I suppose Poseidon would be the best god to start worshiping. Though, that seems a bit Nancy. It would be like Aquaman being your favorite super-hero. It makes no sense. I do not wish to be ashamed of my god, particularly if I chose them. Though, guilt and shame do seem to play an important role in the process. 

I am undecided. I am going to go into the inevitable apocalypse as if I am waking up on SuperBowl Sunday without having yet picked a team.

In the massive first volume of religions, I have been skipping around a bit (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism) and haven't been able to yet settle on the appropriate deity that's just right for me, for this volume. 

I have a very sweet friend who has been praying, appealing to their Christian God on my behalf. I'm trying to let the other gods know about it, to find out if they are also jealous gods.

I do like it when women pray for me. I really do. I mean it. It makes me feel better.

Men, not as much. That is the nature of any true religion. I prefer for men to do my laundry, and I do not believe that is sexist, but instead is rather a strong stance against just that type of sexism. 

It is, at the very least, conceptually equal to the feminist argument. I am an advocate for equality in laundry, also.

What's wrong with being sexy? 

See? I am feeling better already.

Okay, this is all just dull life-update stuff. I only wanted to let everybody know that I am still alive, though perhaps a few meters closer to Keith Richards.

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