More »

I had some pretty good times with the ol’ Jewish youth group, a decent cross-section of moderately well-off kids in the San Fernando Valley in those carefree days just shortly before Moon Unit turned our ideosyncracies into iconographies.  We were an energetic and intelligent group of attractive teenagers with a little money in our pockets.  Religion was a tertiary or quaternary concern when we got together.  We were there, basically, to have fun. 

This particular event with the UCLA Lubavitchers, however, was indeed religious in nature.  It was the festival of Purim, after all.  On Purim, it is ordained that we read the Book of Esther (the only book in the bible that doesn’t mention god) and then celebrate till we can’t tell the good guy in the story from the bad guy.  Jews are supposed to get stupid drunk twice a year, and this is one of those times.  It’s basically Jewish Mardi Gras, without the inconvenience of Lent.

There were ten or fifteen of us high school kids among the raging throng of ultra-orthodox revellers packed into the generous room.  It was hot and crowded and people were dressed in costumes - a triangular fruit cookie, a king, a queen, a villian, a gorilla… The gorilla was up at the bima, or pulpit, exhorting us to celebrate with ever greater zeal and abandon.  He was reading to us out of the Book of Esther, one of the five books of the Jewish bible that comes on its scroll, wrapped around a single wooden wand.  A one-book scroll is called a “megilla.” The guy in the fuzzy suit telling us the story - he was, of course, the Megilla Gorilla.  As befitting the gravity of the event, he wore a skullcap and prayer shawl over his polyester fur. 

At one point I found myself near the frontof the crowd.  People were noisy, woozy, flushed with drink.  The gorilla shouted to the gathered congregation, barely audible over the din, “Who’s the good guy?!!” An inveterate teachers’ pet, I answered - and correctly, no less ("Mordechai").  It was an easy question and I felt only modest pride in my judaic sophistication.  That was short-lived, however, as the M.G. jumped down from the bima with a previously-concealed bottle of slivovitz in his hirsute palm.  “Keep drinking!,” he bellowed from inside his plastic mask, jamming the bottle in my mouth and tipping it prodigiously down my throat.  “Keep drinking!  You haven’t had enough yet!”

My recollections of the rest of the evening are somewhat jumbled.  And thus it was that the Megilla Gorilla assisted me in fulfilling the commandment that I drink myself stupid for Purim.  As it turns out, and I didn’t figure this out till many years later, I actually can’t drink myself stupid.  Sick, yes; boorish, unquestionably - but not stupid.  Sometimes you’re not supposed to take these things so literally. 

To prepare for today’s cookie-baking efforts, I boiled down three fillings last weekend: prune-raisin (with orange juice), bing cherry-nectarine (with shiraz wine and Lyle’s Golden Syrup to take the edge off the fruit), and apricot-mango (with brown sugar).  I’d also prepared two double batches of special super-delicious sugarcookie dough, which had rested in the fridge until they were firm and responsive to my ten pound stainless steel rolling pin.  I rolled out gorgous sheets of dough exactly one-quarter of an inch thick and produced 150 triangular delicacies, which I am more inclined to call “esthertashen” than “hamentashen,” out of an inveterate need to spurn common customs (the cookies are said to resemble the villian Haman’s hat, so we eat “hamen pockets” to celebrate his downfall; some say, rather, that the little fruit-filled triangles are supposed to remind us of the intimate charms of the beautiful queen Esther - which I like rather better.) I still have a full double batch of dough to work with tomorrow as well.  If anyone needs cookies, I can respond to the first five requests for tuppermail.  After that, you’ll be on your own.  And do keep in mind, experts agree - my tashen, objectively speaking, totally rock. 

Purim starts next saturday night.  Hamentashen eating is currently ongoing.

« Less

More »

Pollenation

Acacia flowers dust my life.
The elephantine tree outside the house
where I grew up three lives ago
would fill the thickened valley air
each springtime with its pale gold. 
The trees, I loved before I knew
a name to call them -
loved their gnarled climber’s bark
their tendency to make two trees
out of a single branch, with
leaves of lanceolate parallels
erupting next to delicate bipinnate cousins
cohabitating on the bough;
I loved their gracious canopy
the rustle of their leaves at night
the only thing I didn’t like
was sneezing when their pollen choked me.

Moving north changed lots of things
but still acacias shaded me
and shed their powdered seed upon
my streets and habits, ever more
profuse and rich with granulated sun.
Thus spring remained a time of pollen
covering the cars and sidewalks
making dense the vernal air
until the rains came thundering
and plastered down a yellow paste
in gutters, filling sidewalk cracks,
no longer propagating trees
nor tickling my nascent sneeze.

The ides of March that year rained buckets,
drenching earth and brick and leaf.
I’d spent too long inside, my legs
were aching for the burn of effort;
bicycle had gathered dust
and, in its underutilized condition,
mocked me as the rain poured down.
So when at last the water stopped,
despite persistent clouds that threatened
to deluge me any moment,
I strapped on my shoes and hauled
my trail bike down to the street.
Three blocks and I was in the park,
alone but for the slugs and puddles;
bedded roses waved me forward
down the shining strip of blacktop -
but something made me make a right
and I rode over to a path
unpaved, and shaded by acacias.

Sodden grass lay down behind me,
then the trail dipped a little,
dirt beneath my knobby tires
soon completely drowned away.
I saw before me standing water
wide and yawning, dark with promise,
overshot with stands of redwoods,
eucalypti, and, of course,
acacias all ablaze with flowers.

As my tire touched the blackness
of the deep impassive puddle,
I could see acacia pollen
scattered on the water’s surface,
gleaming pale from the gloom
in unimaginable patterns -
swirls and spheres and twists and serpents
spread out on those two dimensions,
backed in blackness like a million
nebulae in outer space -
it gave a sense of depth unending
as I slowly pedaled through it
twenty feet from side to side
and fifty feet till land resumed
and every inch of it inscribed
with irrepressible abandon -
glowing, shifting yellow patterns
breathlessly I floated over
miniature universes

eyes astounded, mind amazed,
unfathoming I glided forward, left a wake
of shattered magic on the water.
I would be the only one
to see those stunning newborn worlds
and, as I lost myself among them,
in the silence of the grove
the tires settled in the mud;
I found myself precariously
balanced, lacked the strength to turn
the pedals to which I was fastened,
stuck in fastness on the waters…

The bike began to list to port.
I put my foot down in the mud;
the water reached above my ankle,
soaking coldly to my skin
and sullied wonders filled my shoe.
I set my feet into the muddy bed;
I lifted up the bike, and waded forward -
shattering the pristine plane
with every clumsy step I took.
I splashed the crystal into splinters,
never got to see the further
half of those amazing patterns
formed by pollen in a puddle,

crushed them into muddy sludge
got on my bike and rode back home
on streets as straight and clear as rails.
I took a shower, rinsed my shoes
of all the mud I could remove
I never really got them clean -
a little earth and yellow seed
remained to stain their very fabric.
Some of that mud stuck to me
as well, and I too now am colored
by the memory of space
revealed on a shaded pool
in tendrils of acacia pollen.

« Less

More »

The back passenger window of the limo dropped and a beaming little face poked out of it.  The Dalai Lama, in orange and red robes and a smile from ear to ear, waved cheerfully at us.  He seemed to be bouncing on his seat, or maybe it was just the way he was bowing his head.  I couldn’t tell what it was, but he sure had something bouncy going on.  What’s more, I felt an actual emanence of joy and peace from him.  At this time I would have considered myself sympathetic, philosophically and certainly polticially, with him, but I didn’t consider him to be a particular personal icon.  I was there because I knew others who were going and I figured it would be cool.  Dude - the Shrine.  Plus, it was cheap.  But as I stood there in line and took in his magnanimous, all-encompassing smile from out the window of his limo, I understood what he was about a little bit better.  Excellence.  Eminence.  Grace. 

The limo drove on.  Behind it was a small white rental coupe, four doors but built for two.  In it rode about seven enrobed abbots or monks or physical trainers or whoever the Dalai Lama has in his retinue, trailing him at a respectful distance.  As they passed us in line, they too began waving, waving and nodding madly, all of them, rocking the overloaded little car with their saffron-gowned enthusiasm, and it was just like the clowns in the tiny car at the circus, and everybody laughed, including the abbots, or whoever they were. 

Once I got inside the Dalai Lama gave a good talk, as I recall, but the details have faded a good bit in the intervening lifetime.  But that drive-by he gave us - that stuck with me.  That guy really knows how to wave.

« Less

More »

She lacks patience.  She lacks restraint.  “You working!,” she tells me.  I realize it’s a question, and I am going to keep hearing it till I answer it.  My choices are to answer rudely or politely, and I ride that bus every day - I can’t be giving myself a reputation for being a jerk or it will come back to bite me.  So I answer, “Yes, I’m working.  This is work I’m trying to do.” “A report!” “No, it’s a contract.  A long, complicated contract.  I promised someone I’d read it.” “Ah!  It’s okay!” “I don’t know if it’s okay or not.  I haven’t read it yet.” “It’s okay!  It’s okay!” And Katrina falls silent.  I return my attention to the page, wondering how long the lull will last.

Not very damn long.  She’s only not talking because she’s fishing out a small clear ziplock bag, opening it, pulling out a crumpled fold-over plastic baggie inside of it, from which she removes a semi-recent photograph of a very young and rather homely girl, maybe 2 years old, with a strange headpiece like a floral version of an old-fashioned doctor’s head-mirror.  She’s thrusting it toward me, but I don’t take it.  Still, I am obliged to look at it.  So I look at the photo, and then back to Katrina.  She stretches her grin a bit further and blurts, “My sister!” There’s got to be 40 years between her and this kid, I’m thinking; I don’t believe that’s her sister at all, but I’m not going to tell her that.  It might be her sister’s kid.  I don’t really want to pursue it.  I just reply, “Very nice.” “Sacramento!” “Oh.  Nice town.”

She carefully replaces the photo in the baggie in the bag, and then shows me her Muni pass again.  “Yes,” I repeat. “Very nice.” I lift the contract from my lap closer to my face in the universal gesture of “I’m going to read this now,” but I know in my heart that the subtlety will be lost on her. 

“You go to Laguna!” She’s talking again and it’s obvious now that there will be no stopping her; my best bet is to minimize the aggravation by accepting my lot and submitting to her inquiries.  “No, I work downtown.” “Van Ness!” “No, all the way to the water.” “Oh, okay!”

“So you work this weekend!” “No, I got the weekend off.” “You are going away!” “No, I’ll stay at home. I’m going to paint a room in my apartment.” “Okay!” This is going pretty smoothly.  Something is going to go wrong at any moment, but it hasn’t happened yet.  But like a bus that’s a block away when I’m standing at the stop, I can feel it approaching.  I just don’t know what it will be. 

“You married!” Oh god, no.  Don’t get into this with me.  I’m not your type, lady.  Let’s be fair to each other.  “Yes.  I’m married.” I show her the ring that’s two feet from her face.  She laughs, covers her eyes with her thick fingers, peeking at me through them.  “I didn’t know!” Her laughter seems a bit forced.  “Me, no husband, no boyfriend...”

She pauses briefly and her emotions shift.  She’s crying now, silently, her palms pressed to her face.  “My baby, she died… she is gone… my husband - “ She pulls out the ziplock again, fishes out the baggie, removes another photo - a prognathic, scowling man, built like Richard Kiel, stalking through some sort of plaza; the photo is black and white, printed on thin stock with frayed edges as though it might have been taken from a magazine many years prior. 

She’s crying harder now: “He is dead, my husband, dead, and my baby….” At this point I’m having trouble following her story, the words are mumbled and jumbled; she’s growing increasingly emotional as she goes on.  “She went ... she died… he is dead… the car went - went - “ and here she loses all capacity for speech and begins to pantomime the event, using her hands on the backpack on her lap, showing two things coming together and then flying apart, her fingers each playing a different role, her eyes imploring me as she weeps openly on the bench next to me, showing the accident again and again.  She says “school.” “Was she hit by a car at school?” Katrina sobs and nods.  “And your husband, what happened to him?” Her sobs turn to wails.  “Did they die together?” She’s nodding hard now, gasping, choking back her emotions; I can smell onions on her breath.  I have to say something, so I say, “I’m sorry, that’s so sad.  When did it happen?” Her only answer is, “Dead, my baby, dead, I’m all alone now, all alone...”

We’re at Fillmore street now, one stop from Laguna.  She’s struggling to pull herself together, putting away the strange old photo of the heavy-jawed man, looking around and getting her bearings.  She is ready to get off this bus and I am ready to let her.  The bus is delayed, idling at the stop.  She starts yanking the cord to get moving again, keening impatiently, “too long, too long....” I remind her, “The cord means to stop, don’t pull it if you want to go,” but she keeps pulling at it and the bus eventually moves on anyway, crossing Fillmore and lumbering up the hill to Laguna.  As we near her stop she gets up and turns to me a final time, asking, “You work tomorrow!” “No, I get a vacation tomorrow.” “Okay!  Bye-bye!” She gives me a big broad gleaming golden smile and slips into her backpack, out the door, and down the sidewalk, jogging cheerfully as if nothing in the world was wrong. 

I immediately put the contract away in my messenger bag and pull out my writing book, start sketching notes on what had just happened.  The first words I write are, “I am such a ghoul.” I can’t get her teeth out of my brain.

« Less

More »

The first time I really noticed her was a Monday a couple of months ago.  Over the weekend, road crews had torn up part of the traffic islands in the middle of Geary Boulevard, which is a divided street in my neck of the woods.  The islands are about four feet wide and had, for years, jutted well into the west crosswalk at Park Presidio.  Pedestrians had grown used to being forced either to step up and over their high curbs or to skirt heavy traffic to circumnavigate the island - clearly, an unsafe condition for everyone, and positively hazardous for anyone with a handicap.  Then, that weekend, jackhammers had pulverized those outcroppings, opening up a clear path across the entire crosswalk. 

I stood looking over this crosswalk by my bus stop that fateful Monday morning, waiting dully in the damp for my musty bus, when I first saw Katrina.  She was standing on the other side of Geary, in an outfit I soon learned she wore habitually - jeans, a white and purple ski jacket, and a purple Power Puff Girls backpack.  But the costume wasn’t what caught my eye- it was the way she grinned so broadly as she saw the open crosswalk, her gold teeth shining out brighter than the dawn.  When she got to terra nova, where the old obstruction used to lie, she literally pranced over it, raising her knees high and stomping her feet with every step, pounding her identity into the new smooth blacktop, laughing gleefully. 

Once she got across to where I stood amid a good crowd of fellow mass transiters, she turned and shouted triumphantly but wordlessly into the street at the non-obstacle she’d just overcome.  I asked myself if she was mentally sound, and then answered myself: she’s stable, but low-functioning.  And it was then that I became utterly certain that I’d wind up on a short bus ride next to her someday.  Fate had shown me my future, and it wore a Power Puff Girls backpack. 

In the ensuing months I saw her occasionally, or maybe a bit more than that.  I began to doubt that we’d truly meet.  It seems that was just the lapse in my diligence that fate had awaited. 

A week ago I stood waiting again at my usual spot with one other patron of the majestic 38L when the Power Puff Girls backpack rematerialized.  She crossed Geary and came over to where we stood and introduced herself to the woman standing next to me, who engaged her in a brief, strained chat that I assiduously attempted to avoid without being rude to a total stranger.  Then she turned to me.  “Hello!,” she insisted with a Russian accent and a cheerful smile.  “How are you!” “I’m fine, thanks, how are you?,” I automatically replied, instantly ruing my inability to be rude to total strangers.  “I’m fine, fine, fine!,” she replied, nodding vigorously, inching closer to me as the other woman slipped a bit further away, casting a relieved glance at me caught in the snare she’d had the good sense to escape.  The woman with the gold teeth and the juvenile backpack showed me a card that she wore on a chain around her neck - a Muni pass, but an unusual permanent one, made of stiff plastic and emblazoned with a markedly unflattering photograph of her.  She held it up to my face, nodding seriously and then breaking back into broad smiles.  “Katrina! I’m Katrina!  Who are you!,” she demanded of me.  “I’m Dan.” A pause.  “Dan.” “Hello, Dan!  Good morning!” I felt cornered, anxious, irritated, guilty, ashamed.  I struggled for something to say or do to extricate me or relieve my discomfiture, and I wasn’t particular which or what. 

My salvation came in the form of an impassive bus that at that moment pulled up and graciously let us board, and let me off the conversational hook.  The act of boarding the bus seemed to take a lot of Katrina’s concentration; she hummed a strange Jerry Lewis-like song and furrowed her brow, hoisting her substantial bulk up the stairs and past the driver, to whom she offered an effusive “Hello Hello Good Morning!” She took a seat near the front, in the seats reserved for the elderly and handicapped.  I smiled my farewell to her as I walked past, moving smoothly to the back of the bus, avoiding her, ending our nascent relationship.  Or so I thought. 

The next morning she got on the bus with me again, but in a big crowd in which we were not obliged to share any pleasantries.  I saw her get off at Laguna, a minor stop on a major line, in front of the Chinese Consulate.  Every day several Chinese people from my ‘hood get off at Laguna, walking purposefully, speaking softly, attending to serious geopolitical business.  And there was Katrina, jogging along the sidewalk among them, smiling happily, singing a wordless, tuneless song through her nose.  I could hear her over the roar of the bus as it accelerated uphill.  I sensed then that she wasn’t finished with me yet.  More was to come.

The next day was Wednesday.  She was waiting for the bus when I got to the stop and immediately noticed me, came over with a friendly smile.  “Hello!  Hello!” she effused.  I smiled and nodded, intent on minimizing my exposure to her.  We didn’t talk any more at the bus stop, but once the bus came I wound up right behind her in the disorganized mass of riders crowding the door, and I had to engage in some low-level acknowledgment behavior as I funneled myself past her while she negotiated her way into a forward seat.  I strode manfully to the rear of the bus, got a nice seat facing in, and pulled out a draft contract I had to review.  The seat next to me was empty, for which I was momentarily and thoughtlessly grateful.  But within seconds I felt a presence - she was standing before me, smiling her golden smile.  She’d abandoned her seat up front and come back to sit next to me, twisting herself on the bench to face me.  I smiled sourly and nodded to her, knowing that a conversation was inevitable but hoping to stave it off for a few minutes.  I failed. 

Part two tomorrow: Katrina loses it.
footnote: I posted this last night and realized in a dream that I’d gotten a fact wrong, so I updated this morning - I was honestly reading a contract, not writing a poem.  I was writing a poem yesterday morning, and a damn good one too.  That’s for later.  For the nonce, Katrina will not be ignored.

« Less

More »

Last year I vented quite a rant about Valentine’s Day.  I’m not going back there again - in fact, I’m so not going back there that I’m not even going to talk about why, except to say that the power of Eros is alive and potent and I’m more deeply aware and appreciative of it than I have probably ever been in my life.  You want details?  Of course you do.  But instead of details, I’ll just limn a few aspects of this year’s Valentine’s Day weekend as a way to let you know that it’s no picnic being Chuckles - but sometimes it’s worth the effort:

Dude, we are so the droids you’re looking for!

Let us begin with the recognition that cupid was assisted this year by some dead presidents, the one who never lied and the honest one, two paragons of executive virtue so extraordinary that they got their own holidays.  In fact, I got Lincoln’s Birthday AND President’s day off, resulting in several days in a row when I didn’t have to go to work, and instead was able to celebrate a multi-day national love holiday.  I took full advantage of it. 

Choose ignorance.

Painting: We basically finished the study, which is now a sunny provencal blue and yellow instead of a ghastly moribund off-grey.  It will be a good place to do computer work (as I am doing even now, on the desk we finally finished building now that the room has been painted), to hold household planning meetings (which we actually need to have every week), a place where guests can crash overnight, and where we can do yoga if, for some reason, we don’t want to stretch out in the emptyness of the green studio.  Painting the study has been a pending major agenda item for years.  We picked a color scheme together, selected paints together, got supplies, prepped and painted and cleaned up - all as a team, and with hardly any misunderstandings or miscommunications. We have now repossessed the room from the ghosts of former tenants and roommates. By working together with Kel on this project on National Cuddles Day, we reaffirmed a commitment to common plans and shared dreams.  It was a pleasure to do the work, and it’s a joy to be done with it.  But even if it represented a lesser change in our domestic environment - if we’d done something with a smaller impact - the important part was working on it with Kel.  Thanks, hon, for putting up with me - even when I was daubing myself with paint and muttering about the Da Vinci Code and volatile esters.

I put the “pathetic” in “apathetic."

Our VD supper was at a locals-only bistro down in the fancyass Marina District.  The BSB was as cozy as ever; we got a prized corner table; and the prix fixe menu was well-rounded and, as always, delicious.  We had kir royales with our stuffed date salads, and I moved on to a Cote du Rhone to accompany my fillet mignon (Kel went with a rioja and the duck breast); port complimented the desserts: a deadly trio of brandied cherries in a chocolate cup, a dollop of raspberry sorbet, and coeur fondant au chocolat - a tart shaped like a heart, made of two layers of chocolate cake sandwiching some staggeringly tasty cream filling, all dipped in chocolate.  It was like the best Suzy-Q ever made.  And even with all that gluttony and gazing into each others’ eyes we were still home by 7:30 on a Saturday night.  Was that too early?  Yes and no.  Mostly no.  Moving on....

He considered himself the epitome of refinement, debonnaireatude and suaveaciousness.  No one had the heart to tell him that the netted elastic strap was not a hat.

We also took some time this weekend to get some documents executed and some photos taken relative to a plan we’ve been working on for almost exactly one year, according to my rigorously-indexed Franklin planner.  What plans, you ask?  Quiet your inquisitiveness, o my friends.  All in good time.  Suffice it to say, we moved the process along quite significantly - and we had fun doing it.  Okay, in my photo I look like the doctor who’s trying not to giggle as he gives you bad news, like, “I’m sorry Mr. Treadle but your winkie has… (snrk) excuse me.... your winkie has been compromised...” But really, I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.  I play one at racquetball and I kick his ass.  But my photo still looks a bit creepy, in a smirking paternalistic way.  Whatever. 

I read in yesterday’s paper that David Palmer is now Dee Palmer.  I started listening to David Palmer’s music in 8th grade when I “discovered” Jethro Tull, for whom he played keyboards at my first rock-n-roll concert - he’d been their keyboardist from 1976 to 1980, making him a key component to some of my favorite Tull tunes.  I admit freely that I hadn’t followed Palmer’s career much lately - I barely even listen to Tull anymore - but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for her.  Yes, her - the trans-gender process has been concluded and “DP" is now a she.  It doesn’t affect my appreciation of any of the music I’ve loved for so many years, but it does raise troubling questions about all those tights and codpieces.  Luckily, although it struck some of my close friends and even a family member, I’m relieved to say I avoided RenFaire Fever.  I’m not saying that running around on stage in tights and a codpiece will induce transsexualism - but it can’t help.

All this, while I spent the official weekend of presidency and romance bleeding profusely from my lip (cut it shaving), my ear (cut it trimming my hair and godDAMN those puppies can bleed, I barely nicked it and it took most of the day to heal over at all), and various knees, elbows and cuticles, as is my wont.  I also went running, put in 20 brutal minutes on a stationary bike and another 20 on a rowing machine, and got in some superb power yoga.  It was a rich and fulfilling extended weekend, and now I think I’m ready for whatever comes next.  Such as it is. 

Well that was almost painless, wasn’t it?  Tell ya what - y’all are such a great crowd, I’m gonna come back tomorrow with part 1 of a transit tale featuring the second-strangest person I’ve ever had to deal with on the 38L.  Sorry, guys, that’s as sexy as it’s gonna get.  But to make up for it, I’ll type it naked.  At work.  Okay, now you’re paying attention!

« Less

More »

that whole ceiling is eight feet off the ground and upside-down.  It’s not like it’s a grueling physical challenge to paint it, but ceilings are inconvenient.  We had to edge by hand, and of course the entire room had to be tarped.  I do not blush to admit that I broke a decent sweat while rolling on that second coat.  So ceiling-painting is a noteworthy accomplishment from a purely mechanical standpoint. 

And then there’s the color.  Yes, I said it was white before and it’s white now, but that’s really not enough information.  As any state-certified pigmentologist will tell you, there are more than 70 billion different shades of white.  The one with which we started is the color of corpse teeth.  On the original bucket of paint that we dug out of the landlady’s garage, it even says, “Corpse-Tooth White.” Okay, I don’t recall what the bucket actually says, but this much is true: when we started our incremental repaint-the-apartment-before-hell-freezes-over program, we did go and find a bucket of the orginal paint used all over this apartment and then went to a paint store to compare a sample of that paint against a mind-numbing profusion of other almost identical white chips.  And sure, my mind is easily numbed (aah, there it goes), but our original white, compared to the other chips of paint on display, really was distinctive.  It looked dirty, like dustbunnies and cobwebs had been stirred into the mix.  The white of a public restroom that will never truly be clean again.  The white of bread fed yesterday to pigeons.  It was depressing.  And then, also, it hadn’t been repainted for at least fifteen years - not since before we moved in.  We know because the last tenants had a kid who put glowing star stickers on her ceiling and we only recently took them down (they’d stopped working).  So it was old, ugly paint we had on all the walls and the ceiling of this room.  But now the ceiling is a different white, a slightly ruddier color, more like a clotted cream or a lightly blushing aioli, a warm color, rich, thickly applied.  Now that it’s dry I can see the old color on the walls, wan and feeble, leeching the life out of every other color and object on which it casts its pall.  The new ceiling color is already making a huge difference.  It may not be an obvious change, but it’s a significant one - and that’s the kind of change it’s the most fun to make. 

And of course, a ceiling is never really “just” a ceiling anyway.  It’s the roof over your head, the safety of the abode.  When the storms rage and the winds blow (as they are doing now), you can look up to your ceiling and take solace in dry, warm, comfortable security.  It’s your protector, your shelterer.  Walls keep out the world but ceilings keep out the heavens.  They make the room a retreat, a sanctum.  Even moderninsts who use glass or open space to explode our traditional notions of the wall, almost never take such liberties with ceilings.  We need ceilings, more than we think.  Without them, freedom would be too terrible and overwhelming.  Our frailties would be exposed and exploited.  This is the attraction of porches and gazebos - even without walls around us, we feel safe under a ceiling or roof.  Walls without a roof feel confining, cloistered, hidden and isolated; but a roof without walls gives us power in public, a sheltered social strength.  Ceilings are important.  Ceilings are good.  Painting one, even just painting it white, is an act fraught with symbolism, purifying our built environment, further distinguishing human space from the untamed wilderness, the secular from the sacred, the shelter from the storm.  So my newly painted ceiling is a good bit more meaningful than it might seem to be at a cursory glance.  It may not look too impressive to you, but truly, it is a reiteration of mankind’s wresting of safe haven from the violent elements by dint of synthetic action - an act of promethian significance.  Plus, the work was a bit physically taxing, and the new color makes a much bigger difference than you might think. 

I can’t wait to see what kind of crap I come up with when I paint the walls.  I’ll be breathing even more fumes then, so I should be pretty unintelligible. 

Coda: The room is finished.  I’ll have a weekend recap shortly with the lurid details.  So, what I guess I’m saying is, I’ve got nothing interesting to say but that never stopped me before - especially not when I have such a nicely painted room in which to say it.  Chuckles out.

« Less

More »

Team Flakes: I’m as surprised as you are that this tops my list - I couldn’t even find a link for this delicacy.  It was a real standby, though, with a sturdy crunch and positive message in the name.  Team Flakes, the cereal that plays along with you!  There are no eyes in Team! (- Which would have made for a really gross breakfast, but one I probably would have wanted to try once just for shock value.) Well, there was pretty much nothing in Team but cereal - and that was good enough for me.  In my heart I’m really a simple man.  Four species of grain is enough variety for my breakfast cereal.  Anything else is overkill. 

Then again, overkill has its place.  Thus:

Apple Jacks: for some reason, in my home, I wasn’t allowed to have sugared cereal - but I sometimes got Apple Jacks.  They were the one species of forbidden fruit that was accessible to me.  They turned the milk a great pink color and the little flavor chunks were zesty and flavorful.  Good toys, too. 

Life: I didn’t care what Mikey had to say about it, I liked Life cereal all on my own.  Cinnamon Life was also good.  I didn’t care for the name, however, as it made my foray into sugary (mom didn’t know) carb-pillows seem healthy and appropriate.  It wasn’t.  Calling that stuff “Life” was like calling McD’s “Health.” But it was still good cereal and it still is good cereal.  Gets mushy fast, but it’s a good mush…

Lucky Charms: I only got these at other kids’ houses, or sometimes at camp or some such place.  Mom didn’t cotton to cereals with marshmallows in ‘em.  I liked the multiplicity of shapes and colors, and the soft shatter of the marshallow bits as I crunched them.  The milk turned amazing colors, too, especially when you poured the dust that remained after the whole pieces were all consumed into a little milk and made a glucose slurry.  Mmmm, slurry....

Sugar Pops: Later, these became “Corn Pops.” Running dog lackeys of nutritionalist pigs, they’re made of sugar, with corn added - that tough cowboy on the box wasn’t going to mess around with grains first thing in the morning.  He’s got branding and lassoing and active ranchy things to attend to - he needs the sudden desparate burst of energy that only mostly sugar can bring.  Also, this cereal came in box with a foil wrapper, not just a wax paper wrapper.  That amped the coolness ratio significantly right there all by itself.  While the foil presumably improved freshness, it also kept the aliens from reading the Sugar Pops’ thoughts.  I usually got this cereal at summer camp.

Booberry: and, to a lesser extent, Frankenberry.  These were fun flavorful cereals, rife with the savor of artifical fruit, without which no young child’s breakfast can every be truly said to be complete.  Again, good toys and fun boxes, with the promise of a powerful blue or pink slurry.  It occurs to me that, had I ever a chance to mix those two together, I’d have gotten purple milk and possibly a permanent braincramp.  These came out so rarely that I could usually lobby mom for a pity box once a year.  I didn’t even know about Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy till a few years ago. 

And it’s worth noting here that I’ve left out Count Chocula and all the other chocolate cereals because I’m not a big fan of the chocolate cereals.  Neither Puffs nor Krispies - the only time I liked chocolate in my cereal was when I was camping and we mixed chocolate milk powder into the milk we had with our plain cereal every morning.  That was just decadent and therefore started the day on the right foot.  But I never liked the flavor of chocolate cereal itself.  Maybe I’m just a purist - I like my artifical fruits unsullied by organic cocoa flavors.  I’m funny that way. 

Frosted Flakes: These were not actually “great,” as the tiger insisted to me that they were, but they were perfectly fine and kept their crunch for a long time in milk.  While they didn’t turn the milk any interesting colors, they did make it a thick sugar gravy.  There’s a place for that in my life.  I got to eat these at other kids’ houses. 

Froot Loops: These took the cake for sheer synthetic complexity.  Each flavor was so distinct and so artificial, and the cereals were tough enough not only to keep a crunch after a long milk bath, but even to shred the palate of my mouth as I ate them.  I never got enough of these, because my friends didn’t keep them in the house.  Toucan Sam scared me but the cereal seemed to be the total package, whether measured by weight or volume.  Hell, the volume on those loops went up to 11. 

Kaboom: I didn’t get these too often and my appreciation was mainly related to how bizarre they were.  Decomposing clown faces in weird washed out colors, the milk seeping up through their empty eyeholes and gaping mouths… that’s a sight that lasts a lot longer than breakfast itself.  I can see them staring at me still.  And yet the cereal was tasty and fun to eat.  Go figure. 

Skinner’s Raisin Bran: I discovered this one late.  It’s not sugared - till you fix it up, I mean - and the flakes are small and tough.  The raisins are big and soft though, and this cereal makes me feel like I’m waking up and getting in shape as I eat it.  What kind of shape, remains to be seen - but it’s a damn tasty raisin bran and since I have a hell of a time finding it these days I get it whenever I can.  It’s what makes this country great, or at least what keeps this country regular.  But I eat it for the flavor.  Honestly. 

Malt-o-Meal: this is good hot cereal, and I like to make it with diced dried fruit and cinnamon and lots of butter and maybe a bit of sugar thrown on top for good measure.  Or maple syrup.  On a cold morning when my head is stuffy, this will either make me feel like going forward with life, or will convince me that I have to crawl back into bed.  It must be utterly lumpless.  As am I. 

Steel-cut oatmeal: This doesn’t need fancy additives like malt-o-meal - its the breakfast cereal version of Guinness, thick and hearty and very filling.  It’s good with butter and of course sugar, white or brown.  Takes half an hour to make it though, so if it’s a cold morning, you’ll be cold for a while.  But it’s so worth it…

Weetabix: this is a British cereal that’s more like a starch mush.  The cereal comes in biscuits that you crumble up in the bowl, but then once milk hits them they completely disintegrate.  Then you dump sugar back in till it becomes solid again, and then you can eat it.  This is why there will always be an England, and why it will continue to go through regular cyclical periods of hyperactivity followed by lethargy. 

Kix: (okay joke’s over here it is, “high puff” and all) This was a simple unsugared cereal, and I appreciated that.  After getting my jaw jolted with fake fruits and weird shapes and sugared occult symbols and little candy-coated oat-flour menageries, it was nice to have plain corn spheres that gave a soft, surrendering crunch when consumed.  They also could absorb a lot of sugar.  If you like that sort of thing, I mean.

These days my usual breakfast is a slice of whole-wheat toast with cottage cheese on it.  But sometimes I pick up a special box of “dessert cereal” for a treat on those late nights when I stumble home giggly and peckish.  And I do keep my eye on the burgeoning cereal shelves, tracking market trends and watching for rare opportunities to present themselves.  After all these years, I still feel as if I have so much to learn.

« Less

More »

First, as my russian barber - who was clownishly attired in maroon slacks, a deep blue plaid business shirt and a wide white necktie - began trimming my impertinent fringe, a heavyset woman walked in to the tiny cluttered shop and started speaking in spanish with one of the other barbers.  The woman was in her 20s, with thick black hair and dark downcast eyes, a cheap exercise suit and dark purple bruises across her face.  She mumbled back and forth with the other barber for a few minutes, occasionally smiling and shrugging her shoulders helplessly, apologetically.  I could barely hear her voice, though she stood only five feet from me.  From the bruises it looked like something had struck the outside of her left eye, blackening it thoroughly; another blow had caught the front of her mouth, leaving her lips swollen and discolored.  Those were the only bruises I could see. 

After she shuffled out and on her way, eyes to the sidewalk, the other barber confirmed that she’d been beaten by her husband.  That upset me - but not so much as how he then started talking about it.  “Yes, that’s how we do it at home, that’s how to keep them in line...” he grunted jocularly in his thick accent, on the verge of mirthless laughter.  My own barber sensed my distaste and disavowed his colleague’s opinions; I just commented “that isn’t right.” I didn’t want to get into it in the middle of my haircut at such a questionable establishment.  That’s a very vulnerable position, so I tried to hold my tongue.

Soon another patron showed up.  He was porcine - overweight, bushy-haired, with a broad chin and a short flat nose; when he pulled off his anorak it raised his black t-shirt up over a broad and pendulous gut.... as my barber was wrapping up my trim, this other guy somehow heard I worked for the State Bar and got interested in me: he was an attorney, wanted to know if his dues would rise.  He hoped they wouldn’t - he thinks it’s a ripoff, he gets nothing for his membership.  He’d rather see state regulation (paid for equally by all taxpayers) than to answer to an independent dues-based oversight organization.  I told him I could respect that opinion, and if he felt strongly about it he could advocate for it and perhaps effect a change. 

And what kind of law, might I inquire, does he practice?  He represents the National Rifle Association.  He likes it okay, they take pretty good care of him… and on he went about how much he likes his working conditions and compensation.  So here’s this human pig who makes his living trying to minimize state regulation of deadly weapons that exact an unimaginable toll in human life and misery.  But when it’s worth $390 to him in annual fees - which he probably earns in two hours at his desk, bills to his employer, and writes off on his taxes - he embraces state regulation with an enthusism born of pure greed. 

It’s not enough that his overall political and moral philosophy is inimical to mine, even reprehensible to me - the glory of a free society is the marketplace of ideas, after all… but his hypocracy in selectively abjuring or endorsing government involvement in matters of public concern, based on nothing more than on his own perceived short-term financial interests - this mercenary immorality revolted me.  I excused myself, paid my barber for the last time, and left the bizarre little shop feeling sad and angry.  That’s a lousy way to feel after a haircut.  I guess I need to find a new cheap barber downtown.  I won’t be going back to UN Mafia again.

« Less

More »

This clearcut, straight-forward plan, like so many others before it, soon foundered on the cruel shoals of reality.  I went on-line to my service provider, who advertises like 40 billion available ringtones, and I started to scroll through them.  Every imaginable annoying, inappropriate tune for your phone to play was available, from “Duh-duh-duh Duh-da-duh CHARGE” to a medly of Celine Dion’s most moving execrations - but I didn’t see “ring” or “chirp” or “(sound of phone)”.  I must have scanned 500 choices under the categories of “misc”, “other”, and “themes.” (I also tried at one point to look for a ringtone featuring music by the Grateful Dead, but the site search feature came up saying “Sorry, haven’t heard of him.” My blood ran cold.) I could get more latino hits than I could shake a mojito at, along with folk favorites of the confederacy and Korean pop hits and creepy minor-keyed nursery rhymes - but I could not find a tone that would just alert me that I had a call without attracting the whole world’s attention to my grating, attention-sucking 21st-century hurdy-gurdy of a telephone. 

Particular favorite bad choices included themes from Shaft, Mission Impossible and Battlestar Galactica (all of which were rendered spineless and quivering by being transposed for my polyphonic telephone ringer), the Sanford and Son theme (a Quincy Jones classic, but flat and soulless as transposed), the Columbo/NBC Mystery Movie theme, the $6M Man theme (these ones made the transition from boob tube to squawk box quite well actually but that doesn’t mean I want to hear them every time my phone goes off), and - my personal least-hated - the theme from the Avengers.  It’s cool, classy, taut and sexy, even on my cellphone’s crippled harmonics.  It was a meaty piece of music. 

But in the end, that was its downfall.  Having succeeded in reproducing a tune so that it still retained some vestige of the composer’s creative mission, the result was a ringtone that was too exciting and interesting to be used.  Bystanders would want me not to answer so they could hear their favorite part.  And that low-key way the song starts, with a snare drum like a hearbeat, just reeks of espionage and would make me self-conscious as I thrashed around trying to find my little phone in my many prolific pockets, so I could respond to my “secret message” before the music hit a crescendo and my cover was blown.  Too much drama for my pedestrian phone calls.  I’ll stick with the irritating pre-loaded ring.  Anyway, it’s probably not a good idea to have a ringtone that makes me want to pull a sword out of my umbrella every time I get a call.  My fellow bus riders would surely object - or at least the ones I haven’t decapitated.

« Less

More »

That’s the exact expression she had as I hauled myself through the front door, sweating heavily from my run.  When I’d left half an hour before, the house had been empty.  I hadn’t noticed Bette’s bike, hadn’t expected her, so I had already pulled my sweatshirt over my head and was fumbling with the drawstring to my shorts when she coughed demurely from the sofa. 

“Well hel-LO there, I hope I didn’t startle you,” she gushed, standing up in the tv room.  “I didn’t think that anyone would be home and I had a little laundry emergency - so I just popped in for a quickie!” She gave me an exaggerated wink, slowly; her lips glistened in the low light of the murky room.  She was only 8 years older than me and I suddenly realized that we’d never been alone together since she’d moved back to town. 

“Umm… your bike’s not outside...” I mumbled, too distracted by her unexpected presence to remember that I was half-naked already.

“I pulled it around back so I could just scoot right into the laundry room.  I was riding near here and a goddamn bird crapped on me - it landed right between my jacket and my shirt.  I couldn’t go around with a big stain on my chest, so I came here to rinse it out and toss it in the dryer.” It wasn’t till then that I noticed that she was wearing her leather jacket, zipped up all the way to her throat.

“So, your shirt’s in the dryer.”

“Yup.”

“So, what’s under the jacket?”

“Darling, you know better than to ask me a question like that,” she said, walking toward me with a smile.  “Unless you really want to find out the answer.” She placed the palm of one of her hands on my chest; with her other hand she took my hand and placed it on the zipper that glinted gold just below her throat.  My pulse was like a cannon in my ears.  I saw she was speaking but I couldn’t hear her, so I shook the awe from my eyes and tried to concentrate for a moment. 

“...your dad is here,” she was saying, a wide grin on her impossibly lovely face.  I could hear him now, on the path and nearly to the front door, where he’d surely see me in circumstances from which I would rather shield him.  I ran down the hall toward my bedroom.  Behind me, Bette’s laughter was like silver bubbles that shattered in the air.

« Less

More »

1) You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own.

2) You have to believe that the US should get out of the UN, and that our highest national priority is enforcing UN resolutions against Iraq.

3) You have to believe that government should stay out of people’s lives but it needs to punish anyone caught having private sex with the “wrong” gender.

4) You have to believe in prayer in schools, as long as you don’t pray to Allah or Buddha.

5) “Standing Tall for America” means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.

6) You have to believe that a woman cannot be trusted with decisions about her own body, but that large multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind with no regulation whatsoever.

7) You have to believe that you love Jesus and Jesus loves you, and that Jesus shares your hatred of AIDS victims, homosexuals, and Hillary Clinton.

8) You have to believe that the best way to encourage military morale is to praise the troops overseas while cutting their VA benefits.

9) You have to believe it is wise to keep condoms out of schools, because we all know if teenagers don’t have condoms they won’t have sex.

10) You have to believe that the best way to fight terrorism is to alienate our allies and then demand their cooperation and money.

11) You have to believe that providing health care to all Iraqis is sound government policy but providing health care to all Americans is socialism personified.

12) You believe that global warming and tobacco’s link to cancer are “junk science”, but Creationism should be taught in schools.

13) You have to believe that waging war with no exit strategy was wrong in Vietnam but right in Iraq.

14) You have to believe that Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush’s daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney was doing business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a “we can’t find Bin Laden” diversion.

15) You believe that government should restrict itself to just the powers named in the Constitution, which includes banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

16) You have to believe that the public has a right to know about the adulterous affairs of Democrats, while those of Republicans are a “private matter”.

17) You support state rights, which means Ashcroft telling states what locally passed voter initiatives he will allow them to have.

18) You have to believe that what Clinton did in the 1960’s is of vital national interest but what Bush did decades later is “stale news” and “irrelevant”.

19) You have to believe that trade with Cuba is wrong because it is communist, but trading with China and Vietnam is just dandy.

20) You have to believe that the use of alcohol and tobacco are safe enough to be legally protected but the use of marijuana is so dangerous as to be unsuitable even for serious medical study. 

I think conservatives should be people who boil down fruit into a pectin-rich jelly.  Buttered toast with fresh conserves, direct from the conservatory where the conservatives toil… mind wandering… more work to read… desk yawning… rant winding down… so tired… so very tired…

« Less