Sunday, October 25, 2009

If-let's say- I wanted to make a movie, I might want to make a flick like this:

Which might have a theme such as why- if you were wondering- you should not complain...

To the tune of:
Music..
as performed by The Beatles

They say that everyone wants someone
So how come no one wants me?
Then, they say that everyone needs someone
So how come no one needs me?

Well, if you wonder who the loneliest
Creatures IN the world can be
Well, there's the Ugly Duckling
The Little Black Sheep, and me (UH-HUH)

They say that everyone LOVES someone
So how come no one LOVES me?

Well, if you wonder who the loneliest
Creatures IN the world can be
Well, there's the Ugly Duckling
The Little Black Sheep, and me (UH-HUH)

They say that everyone LOVES someone
So how come no one LOVES me?
So how come no one LOVES me?


Action:

A shitty character sneaks around sticking a knife in the back of a noble bloke. Ark! Says the noble bloke, I've been stuck in the back! And he has been. Sure enough, a knife is stuck in the back of him. Ouch, he yells. Damn me if I ain't stuck in the back!

He don't ask why, he don't say anything at all, he just takes the blade like a man. He assumes a gent has stuck him in the back, a gent who needn't explain nothing at all, a gent who probably has his reasons.

Ouch, he yells. That fuckin hurts, it does, he says, under his breath. He decides not to look around, decides to let it go, because as he well knows, a fair number of things have no causes and can't be explained.

Meanwhile, another gent- who happens to be a local ladyboy- less than a metre away has been feeling annoyed by the vagaries of amour and has decided to stick a blade in the rearmost aspect of a bystander. Right, you'll do, he thinks out loud, matching his action to his thoughts. He plunges his knife into the rump of a guy who happens to be nearby. Are the results predictable? (author shrugs) The guy who now has a knife stuck in his ass yelps and leaps and spins around.

Shit, he says, not unkindly. What the hell you wanna do that for? That's me arse, and I never asked for a knife in it!

The stabber shrugs and grins meekly. It's not your fault, she says soothingly, it's just one of those things.

One of those things, the stabbed one shouts, it's almost unbearable! It's downright inconvenient! It's damned inconsiderate- what were you thinking?

Oh, says the stabber, it's love.

Love! Love?!? If that's love, I'd just as soon be a virgin, thank you, says the stabbed one, nearly shouting. Why don't you take it out out on someone who gives a damn, eh?

The stabber smirks. I don't suppose you'd like to pop around to my place for a bit of slap and tickle?

The stabbed one looks stunned. Well, he says, I just might...


(Caution: Entire sketch brazenly lifted from Monty Python's Flying Circus- except there's no police officer involved, and no wallet, and the weather is better, and thirty years have passed... and the whole thing has been rewritten.)

Psychoporn

There's a shit-head in our soul, a bitchy little critic whose least useful mimicry echoes loudest, snuffing out the guttering wick of our better nature. Who said that?* Well, you. And me. We should shut the hell up.

However many dentists (or other doctors) out of how many other recommend it, our propensity-inclination-predisposition-proclivity... for/towards screeching needs to be decreased. Is that English? Don't care! I don't.

People- that's you and of course I- don't matter. Our opinions are trash. Our thoughts are dubious at best, and possibly (probably) much worse. Do I doubt the utility/validity of my thoughts? Nope- I don't. They're crap, as the prattling class would say.

To you and to me I holler- shut up! Shut the fuck up! Stop yelling. Quit whining. Don't keep on complaining. Why won't you (I) just be quiet?

Honestly, you people are wearing out my tolerance. If you can't say something nice (useful/helpful) why don't you (I) say nothing at all?

Do I believe you need to hear this, or that you might learn from hearing it? Nope. I sure as fiddlesticks don't believe any such thing. But I believe I'll go nuts if I don't tell you.

It's masturbation, sheer finger-fucking! A waste of time and essence. You stand a better chance of making a difference in how the world evolves- or doesn't- by stuffing your head in a wet sack full of oatmeal and shouting “Ave Maria” than you do by howling at me. I don't care one stinking little bit whether this world ends with a thump or a sniffle**, for one thing, and I don't give a star-spangled hoot whether/how much YOU care. Get it? Get it! I got it- you oughta get it too.

Your (our) fascinated grasp of “current events” reflects nothing more than a puke-crusted bleary hang-over memory of what coulda-shoulda-woulda-mighta been. So, please, don't mention it. If you're enlightened, good for you! If you're not, even better. If you can't be bothered saying anything at all- best yet!

Why am I so bitterly disenchanted? I'm not. But I thought you might need a bit of reverse psychology to buck you up. Have a *^&%$#*^&% day. That's Esperanto for “acceptably pleasant”.***

* Says who? Not me... maybe YOUR negative thoughts are intruding...
**Thump'n'Sniffle..... T.S. Eliot spoke of- prize-winningly(?)- a Bang and/or a Whimper.
*** No, that's not Esperanto for anything. But have a pleasantly acceptable day anyway.

Sunday, October 18, 2009



Rule number one: Don't take an unscheduled nap while cooking!!! Rule number two: Don't whine about what happens when you violate rule number one. This is very important- whining is counter-productive, and if you take your personal-societal growth seriously, counter-revolutionary, which is a capital (means you may/should/will lose your head) offense. I feel kind of offended by what I "cooked", but I don't dare whine about it openly, which is why I feel free to blog about it. I mean our constitution protects my right to talk about things if I don't whine, right? I ain't whining, I'm just saying, eh?

So, uh, anyway..

Preheat oven to BROIL HI

Place potato wedges on broiler pan rack- season to taste

Place hamburger, egg(s), frozen spinach, frozen vegetables (carrots, corn, green beans, lima beans), relatively fresh green leaf lettuce important- do NOT use iceberg lettuce, ever, anywhere, for anything.. period.) in broiler pan

Place boiler pan (top rack and bottom pan) in oven

Take a nap- DO NOT SCHEDULE!!! Pay attention to timing- be sure you sleep through the smoke alarms, phone calls, wailing sirens...

Don't whine, but please DO blog about it!

Friday, October 16, 2009

I had a very strange dream last night. I wasn't in the dream at all, except as the subject of it. Strange to see myself like that- I mean, I'm usually in my dreams of course, but I'm not usually the subject. Well, of course, yes I am.. it's hard to explain. It was a dream about me, and I didn't seem to be the one having the dream. It was like watching a documentary about me- there was even a narrator who sounded like Leonard Nimoy. He talked about my work as a bell-maker, how I cast them in bronze, and how I went to a bell academy in Singapore and studied there for twenty years, supporting myself by drawing erotic comic books that were banned by the UN because they depicted bestiality and genocide. There were a lot of still photos shown,both of me and my work- none real, but all very believable. There were images of me in all the stages of my life, from memory I guess, except for the later ones, which showed me looking more distinguished than I probably will. There were frequent snippets of people- both famous and totally unknown- talking about me. Some of the famous people were Bob Dylan, Werner Herzog, and Ernest Hemingway. Dylan said I was a big influence on him, and that I played harpsichord better than anyone he ever heard. Later he told a story about me turning Joan Baez down for a date, and how that made him so mad he tried to punch me in the eye but I wouldn't fight and ran away laughing. Herzog said I taught him how to photograph the wind and took him sailing underwater. Later he remembered me making tea and sandwiches for him and his daughter in my hotel room in Switzerland, using a candle to boil the water, and I burned the curtains and got wax on the carpet. He said that when his daughter died, I mailed him a diaper to use for his tears, asking him to send it back without washing it. Hemingway said he always considered me a big phony politically, and thought I had a terrible sense of color, but he liked my taste in furniture. Later he claimed I stole one of his wives, but he seemed not believe his own story and his voice trailed off into uncomfortable silence, while the camera stayed on him until he blinked and lowered his gaze. Later yet he said there was no question I was influential, but that deep down I was a crook. He said I once threatened to slash his face with a giant shark tooth unless he signed over the rights to his non-fiction books, but that he refused and I backed down, and that another time I urinated in his convertible and left a stolen mailbox on his front porch.

I had no feelings about hearing any of these stories- or rather, I was fascinated and touched by hearing them, but not as myself, only as someone who didn't know me personally.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

That was when we lived in a volcano...

In the mid 1970s my father served on a US Navy ship cruising the Mediterranean Sea, which kept him away from home (at that time Norfolk, Virginia) for several years. Unwilling to be apart from him so long, our family twice spent several months camping in Europe, following the ship around.When the ship stayed out at sea for long stretches, my mother would take us (four kids under the age of ten) on very long trips far inland. We got to see a lot of Europe that way, and just as importantly our family was able to spend a lot of time together. The ship spent a fair amount of time near Naples, Italy, so we frequently stayed at a local resort called Solfatara, which was home to a dormant volcano. Most of the time we lived in our 1970 Volkswagen camper, but when Dad could come for a visit, we would move into one of the rental bungalows for a while. There were other Navy families in the campground too, doing exactly what we were doing, and we made friends with the other kids. When we were on the road, we looked forward to getting "home" to Solfatara, and seeing our friends again. The volcano was a wonderful playground- boiling mud, sulfurous fumes, hot rocks, caves. Great stuff for kids to play with! You can look at the place on Google Maps- the view below is a bit off-center, so just click on the link to bring up the webpage. There are some good pictures on the Maps page, under the Panoramio link.The white, bare area is the volcano, and the campground is in the trees just to the north-west.

View Larger Map

Saturday, October 10, 2009

And then...

I've been having the kind of day where things keep happening, and leading to other things, which lead to other things. I don't mean unconnected things, either- I'm talking about things causing other things. The kind of day that makes you think. And in my case, the kind of day that opens the soul a little wider with each new twist.

I woke up grumpy and sore from a bad night of little true sleep- I'd been plagued by strange and troubling dreams, my bladder and my sinuses and aching joints all pointing to the onset of a cold or flu episode- and the day seemed to promise only gritty-eyed torment. Feeling grim at best, I left the house on my Townie- the smooth-tired, load-bearing bicycle I use for doing things in and around town- to ride over to the library where an audiobook of Paul Theroux's Ghost Train To The Eastern Star was being held for me. Damnit, I grumbled to myself, I don't want to ride anywhere, especially not somewhere I've never ridden before. And I didn't want to. I never want to. I'm a lousy and lazy cyclist- poor technique and a crappy attitude get you nowhere when pedals are involved. Still, once I get going, I invariably start to feel better, which is the only reason I ever set out at all.

My route required a power merge onto an expressway (signal, go, signal again, go again) in which I had to trust strangers not to run me down when I knew darned well they were all on the phone or checking the kids' seatbelts or doing anything but looking out for me, which I dreaded. I'd been successfully avoiding this ride for months because of the scary merges, but now my closest local library branch was shut down until January for renovation, and I would have to make the ride if I wanted any books. As I came to the merge point, I chickened out because sure enough, the drivers were paying too little attention, as always. Two of them waited until the last possible moment to look up from their phones or whatever and panic-sprint their way right across the very piece of asphalt I would need to occupy, still not looking anywhere but straight ahead, and so close together there wasn't an inch of room for me, while yet another aborted the merge and came right back into the only bit of road I could use. This all happened extremely fast. It looked like those cockpit views of racetrack crashes, with cars going everywhere. The hair on the back of my neck is all that saved me.

Damned fools, I grumbled. I circled the block for another try, passing a gas station where I once worked years ago. The combination of workplace nostalgia and near-miss adrenalin was making me feel pretty good, all of a sudden, to my surprise. Just past the gas station driveway, I noticed a pretty nice looking cell-phone with a slide-out keyboard bouncing around in the road after being run over by a car. I considered stopping to see if there might be any salvageable bits, but pressed on. Back at the merge point, virtually the same thing happened again. People just don't know how to drive anymore, and they either brake or turn whenever anything scares them. I managed to avoid being killed, again, and decided I'd go around one more time, hoping for a break.

As I came up to where I'd seen the bouncing cell-phone on my last lap, I heard screeching tires back at the merge point. Really, I thought, this is just too much! I pulled over and dismounted. I wanted to wait until all these heedless drivers cleared the area. The pitiful cell-phone was bouncing around again, the battery was out by now. Yet another car ran over it. Well, I thought, that's three times now. I had the time, so waited for a break in traffic, and picked up the pieces of the phone. To my great surprise, it looked all right, so I slipped the battery in and held it with my thumb while I pressed the start-up button, not bothering to try the battery cover. I figured something somewhere would keep the thing from working, but it came to life instantly, so I tried the battery cover. It fit right in. I opened up the phone book and dialed the first number. Two rings later, I was talking to someone who promised to e-mail the owner immediately if I would leave the phone at the gas station. I hung up and wheeled my bike over to the front of the gas station and went in. A lady and the clerk were poring over a map, both obviously stumped and she looking very frazzled. I handed the phone to the clerk, told him the name of the person who would coming to ask for it- his eyes lit up. I know her, he cried, delighted. She's a customer. This is her phone! Yes, I said, good, smiling. I like it when things work out. I got ready to go on my way. The map lady looked at me and asked if there was any chance I knew how to find … and she named my street, a cul-de-sac with only nine houses on it. I told her I lived there, and led her straight to the house she wanted. I didn't have a working cyclo-computer today (pinched wire, think), so I don't know how fast I rode, but it felt like a record speed for me- I didn't want to cause a traffic jam.

Back home again, I drank some milk and ate a few grapes, thankfully, for I had neglected to eat before leaving the first time. Feeling positively wonderful by now, I set out again, and zoomed through the merge of death and onto the expressway; I surprised myself by arriving at the library in only about as long as I had spent since leaving home the first time- about fifteen minutes.

What's the point? I started out feeling terrible, and not very happy. When I calmly refused to force the situation (the tough merge complicated by criminally dangerous driving) I found a phone and saved it for its owner. Then I got to lead a family to a birthday party on my home street- sort of a hometown parade. Then I mastered the dread merge and had a nice ride. That's enough of a point for me!

Thursday, October 8, 2009


Backyardology


Reduce, reuse, recycle

If a tree falls in your forest and you are not home to hear it, you will know what happened because it will be lying on top of your garden shed... and reaching out as far as the deep end of your OOL.

Our OOL

Long before we moved out to California ourselves and got a pool of our own, we had enjoyed a humorous sign at our uncle's home in Novato. It looked just like the one we eventually hung at our place. “Welcome To Our OOL Notice there is no P in it. Please keep it that way.” I'm pretty sure we and our many guests honored the letter of this law most of the time. As for the rest of the time... Better Living Through Chemistry, anyone?

We had an Atlas Cedar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Cedar in our yard for many years, which I am sure all my siblings remember, some of them perhaps fondly. Although it was structurally ideal for climbing and tree-house hosting thanks to its dual (or triple- I am no longer sure which) trunks and numerous low branches, like almost any other tree it was also far from ideal for these purposes due to the great quantity of sticky, aromatic sap it exuded. I don't recall that we were much deterred by the sap, though I believe our mother noted its presence in her laundry pile with something less than complete delight. This tree, because of its somewhat spongy wood, was not very strong for its size, and suffered wind damage accordingly through the years; more than once, this wind damage rippled outward- a shed roof, a phone line. Something had to give, and we were tired of it always being that dear old tree, so bit by bit the once full and proud 70 footer was whittled down to about thirty rather ragged feet of snaggle-topped trunk with scarcely enough foliage to keep it alive, and then eventually was cut down to a forlorn stump of a few feet.

When, some years later, this stump had to be removed to make way for a brick patio I gathered some of the stump grindings and further ground them using an old coffee grinder which I had long used for reducing eucalyptus seed pods to powder. Don't ask me why I did either of these two grinding operation- or go ahead and ask me. I don't mind, it's just that I don't have any really interesting reasons. In both cases, I enjoyed the aromatic qualities of the material, which were enhanced by grinding; in the case of the Atlas Cedar, there were also sentimantal motivations- our old tree was finally gone, and I wanted to keep something around to remind me of it. I'm a physical, as well as psychical, collector. I'm a memory monger, and memory can have form. This coffee grinder, made by Girmi of Italy, bore a curiously Fascistic sticker declaring that the appliance had been approved by the City of Los Angeles Department of Building & Safety. You know a local government has gone far wrong when it can find the time to evaluate foreign consumer grade kitchen tools.

What once was lost now is found

Anytime you move something as big as a tree you're going to find things. In the case of a tree that was long used by children, some of those things will be toys. Remember Playmobil? If you do remember the blockily graceful little swing-arm people with removable hair, chances are you also remember some of the wonderful things they brought with them when they colonized our world, such as this dog, who was not born with a bobbed tail, and the accompanying marvelously detailed stave-side pail which is better designed, in my opinion, than 85% of all Playmobil accessories.

You may also remember little green army men- these crippled veterans are about the best preserved, and least destroyed of the hundreds who served and died in that part of our backyard. More fortunate than many, these guys did not fall to fire, airguns, or even the dread shovel-bomb. From their injuries, which include broken backs, missing feet, and one decapitation, I'd say these men were done in by brick artillery, and probably only one or two barrages, at that. Nonetheless when they were called to go forth, they answered the call. The orange-brown box trying to creep in at the right side of the picture is another Playmobil artifact, a non-descript handled crate. I do not consider it notable, and took pains to exclude it, with only about as much success as such pettiness deserves..


The Clown Who Came To Dinner

Things come and things go, staying as long in the backyard as they are needed, or unheeded. Then there are the things that are just passing through. When I first started bike buying about this time last year, I ran across this Miyata “clown bike”, a very goofy eccentric-hubbed machine designed to give an up-and-down ride, sort of a swoopy-bumpy gait. It was of no use to me, but I had been in correspondence with a bike-collecting gentleman in Baltimore who was interested, so I bought it and boxed it and put it on an Amtrak train. Total time on premises- a memorable 72 hours.

Blonde On Blonde

This guitar, which I bought about ten or fifteen years ago was the first of what has since become three mid 70s to early 80s Ibanez Concords, all with maple fretboards. At first, I enjoyed the guitar more for its effortless playability and its balanced sound output than for its stunningly beautiful wood. I didn't think the maple was such a big deal, even visually, though it was kind of nice. Soon, however, I was in love. The visual magic caught hold of my mind, yes, and strongly so, but it was the feel that really got me. After a month of playing this guitar, the regular old guitars with rosewood fretboards I picked up felt a lot less fluid, even downright cranky and resistant. It was the smoothness of the fretboard that made the difference. In fairness, I can't say that the maple is what makes the fretboard smooth, because I believe there is some applied finish -and fairly thick finish at that- involved, but the combination of feel and yellowy goodness proved almost irresistible, and I bought a couple more from this line, as chances came up. This one is a Model 671, and I still like it better than any of the others, though I do appreciate them all very much. I don't know why I never name guitars- it's certainly not that I object to the practice, far from it- but I don't, so I just refer to this one by model number or as the blonde beauty, but if I ever do start naming instruments, I think Ol' Yeller would be about right.