A Mind is a Terrible Thing

I remember the first time I read The Once and Future King, by T. H. White (if you haven't yet had the pleasure, you're in for a treat), and among his many keen insights into human nature, he observes that one character is less physically courageous than his brothers because he has a more vivid imagination - he can imagine painful and catastrophic outcomes more intensely, and this dampens his will to jump into the fight.

Well, ain't that a kick in the head, as Dino used to sing. Once again, everything has its price. You want to have the gift of imagination? Fine; sign here, please. You've just agreed to lay awake at four in the morning in a state of dread a certain number of nights throughout the course of your life, and the joke is that 1) most of what you are panicking about won't even take place, and 2) the pain of whichever calamities actually DO occur won't be lessened by your anticipatory agony. AT ALL.

It's interesting for me to look back on the days when I used to do hallucinogens, and there would often be someone with me on the trip who would start to flip out; since my psyche seemed to tolerate these kinds of chemicals better than some, I wound up being one of the people who helped talk them down. And of course, one of the most common strategies was to calmly point out, "don't panic - you're going to be okay; you took a drug a few hours ago, and the drug is going to wear off in a few more hours. In the meantime, we're all here with you and we'll help you keep it together."

So, what's the strategy for talking someone down who's freaking out on life? Is it, "you're going to be okay; you were born into a physical body a while back, but it'll wear out eventually and you'll be back on the spiritual plane"?

That COULD work, I guess.

If You'll Take My Hand

"If you'll take my hand,
we'll walk back down together
If you'll take my hand,
then you won't have to fall"
If I 'd had my way,
I'd have kept you safe forever
But on that day
I did not hear you call

What did the devil whisper
What did the devil whisper
What did the devil whisper
in your open ear?

Where were your angels hiding
Where were your angels hiding
Where were your angels hiding
all of these years?


"If you'll take my hand,

we'll walk back down together

If you'll take my hand,

then you won't have to fall"

If I 'd had my way, 

I'd have kept you safe forever

But on that day

I did not hear you call

Meditations on a Cracker, or, This I Believe?

My mother's people were Polish Jews, or, depending on the decade and who you asked, Russian Jews. She was actually a first-generation American, a fact I didn't grasp for a long time. This was partly due to the lack of curiosity most children have about their parent's history - which often transforms itself into an intense desire to know everything, that kicks in later - sometimes too late - but also because both my parents consciously and thoroughly distanced themselves from their working class New Jersey roots in order to become nearly prototypical post-war Manhattanites.

So to say that my mother was a non-observant Jew would be an understatement. My sister and I were always kind of amused that my father (the lapsed Irish Catholic) knew and spoke more Yiddish than my mother did (or admitted to).

However, she did two things that seemed to be hard-wired into her, despite her strenuous assimilation: she always read magazines back-to-front, as if they were Hebrew newspapers, and she would buy a box of Matzos every Passover.

I remember asking her about the Matzos - I was probably like seven or eight at the time - but I don't think I got much of an answer; for articulate, intellectual people, neither of my parents was ever very forthcoming when it came to sharing any sort of self-reflection.

One of Teri's clients gave her a box of Matzos - I guess she had extra? And many people assume that my wife is Jewish - another puzzle.....in any case, when I came home and looked at the box, the old mysteries rose up in my mind again. And still no answers.

One interesting thing about my new job

is the fact that, since it's a well-established business - at least by tech firm standards - some of the people have been there for years, and they've seen a lot of salespeople come and go.

So as more time passes, I can sense them start to be more willing to connect, since the longer I last, the more chance there is that I'll be there for while. KNOCK ON WOOD.

No one likes to make a bond - even a loose, light one - when they fear the other person is just passing through, right? Reminds me of the fact that when we first moved to this neighborhood - twenty-three years ago this month - there were neighbors who didn't make much effort to engage with us until we'd been here for a while. Say three years.

As I've said more than once, the number of times I've had to start new jobs over the past eleven years - and I will tell you that number: ten - is not a source of pride or comfort, and has taken a certain toll, even as I acknowledge that I made the best decisions I could at the time, and played the hands I was dealt as skillfully as I could.

But I have gotten to meet and work with a wonderful assortment of people, without a doubt. There have been a few assholes in the mix, sure, but that's all part of the adventure.

March 24, 1972

Figured Something Out

I've kept a journal - a written one, in a bound notebook - since I was fourteen. Since mid-1967, to put it in an ancient context.

Between the years of fourteen and twenty-one I was a student, and had to spend hours each weekday in a classroom; I was expected to take notes on the coursework, so finding time to make journal entries was no damn problem at all. And no instructor EVER asked to see my notes.

(Even so, a lot of my entries, both pre and post-high-school were sporadic, brief, and cryptic).

Cut to post-college - struggling lazy writer, slightly more successful and less lazy musician - journal-time became more precious, and some good stuff resulted. Still, sporadic.

Marriage. Parenthood. Plunging into the who-gives-a-fuck-about-your -art workplace. The journal suffers. But, hey. Does not die.

But now it's mostly summaries - children being born, parents dying, the tides of fortune or lack thereof. Some good shit in the mix, but again, intermittent. Seriously. A volume that took three months to fill at fourteen now takes three, four, five years.

Then: Dawn of social media. (Not a brilliant, rich coinage, re: description. Isn't ALL media social?)

Facebook: OK, a verbose multi-media ham like me says, HEY, this is GREAT. Especially well-suited for short, punchy status updates and links to favorite music. No complaints!

But after a year or more, I realized I needed to create a more formal, enduring presence, and started this blog in October 2010. While acknowledging that I was still just building sandcastles, they were at least indexed and had some editable layout elements.

Seven months in, and I'm overall pleased with what I've built. I can only hope my visitors are too.

But meanwhile my journal gathers dust. And while the blog is in many ways a fantastically liberating blend of writing, music, and images for someone like me to mess around with, there are limits to what I will include, knowing that it's designed to be read in close to real time. So anything too explicit, too dark, too alarming, gets clipped.

All by way of saying, I need to share some of this energy with the old journal. Which you may never see, or at any rate, not for a long time.

Where to start? Or should I say, to continue?

"Okay, I've had enough, what else can you show me?"

I've tried to make this space more about the personal than the ideological, but things are getting out of hand out there, and I feel the need to make some statements which I personally think are on the same level as "fire, hot" and "water, wet" but, well, are obviously - astonishingly - not.

• Donald Trump - whose pronouncements have been as loud and ever-present as car-alarms for more than fifteen years now - is an intellectual and moral embarrassment to not just the American people, but to the human race. The fact that there is even a remote chance that this man could actually be the Republican candidate for President next year mortifies me. It means decency and intelligence are not even serious contenders for the Top Ten Qualifications. Compared to The Donald, W looks humble and introspective. 
• I read "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" years ago. All the way through. No kidding. With enjoyment, even. I'm being totally honest here. (I was sixteen). But then I realized that these were meant as realistic depictions of history and of human character. And that the author and her followers believed that these stories were visionary depictions of a struggle for the soul and future of the human race. And that they had developed a whole philosophy around these books, called "Objectivism". Wow, that takes some big ones. Makes L. Ron Hubbard look shy. As I've said elsewhere, I thought that was laughable, and paid no mind for forty years. Now I hear that there are surging numbers of people who take this cult to heart. Who pore over these prose caricatures as if they were - well, Gospel. 

I beg of you all, read some real books. And not just my old lefty intellectual pals from the 20th century  - try Shakespeare. Jane Austen. Dickens. Or some history - ANY history. (Or essays. You could even read some Karl Marx. Might surprise you.)  But don't base your world-view on TV or the internet or just two poorly-written novels. There's a universe of expression out there - more than two millenniums' worth of content, most of which you can access as easily as you access YouTube or FaceBook.  

If I sound worked up, well, it's because I'm worked up.

How Do You Slow This Thing Down?

So John and Steph packed up, drove off to her Mom's in Walnut Creek, and will be flying back to Seattle tomorrow. We had a nice backyard send-off for them last night, with a blazing fire fueled by Christmas trees that John expertly chopped up with a new axe Teri had bought for the occasion. I realized it had been a while since we'd had a fire. Months.

I drank too much and I'm pretty sure I delivered a meandering and maudlin monologue to a couple of my longtime friends and neighbors about the pitiless speed of our passing lives and the losses we all endure. But I don't think I cried, and they didn't appear alarmed, so I must have made at least some sense. Here's hoping.

Then I slept, a long dark dreamless sleep, till nearly 10 AM. Which is the latest I've slept in at least ten years.

Later I sat in the warm sun, reading, drinking a lot of water, listening to the birds, watching my cats sleep, feeling tired and achy but somewhat contented. For no particular reason. Or should I say, I chose not to question it.

Dining Room, Oakland, 2011

A long and not necessarily poetic day at work. But my wife had worked up a feast for John and his friends. And I was swept up in it, gladly.

Four in the Morning

This is a pretty good performance and recording of this song. Not flawless - never been in a band that did "flawless"; not sure I would even want that.

I threw in some visuals; realized they're heavy on me. But I am the singer on this song, so, eh, shoot me.

I wrote this song pretty fast - it's a blues, how long can it take to write? - but I realize now that whether I knew it or not, this is an homage to Leonard Cohen. By way of Howlin' Wolf.

Howlin' Cohen. All right.

Too windy to read in the sun after lunch today,

so I drove up in the hills above where I work, kind of aimlessly, just enjoying being away from computer screens and the inherently crowdedness of offices.

Once again, I'm happy to find ways to not think too deeply for a while, to skim across the surfaces. Deep means dark these days, I'm finding. Gotta stay in the light as much as I can.

The past is dangerous these days.

Not being fatalistic here; just trying to state facts. Maybe you've done just swell this whole time, by any human measure. But at least some of what could have been is never going to be.

And no matter how healthy and good-looking you may be right now (and I hope you are - no kidding around), you were almost definitely better-looking and healthier at 24.

And then there's those who are gone. Who you want back so badly.

So - looking back is tricky damn business. For me, anyway - let's leave it at that, since I said I wanted to stick to facts.

That's why this whole picture-taking thing has meant so much to me lately. No past, no future, just the light right now.

Did It Matter? Does It Now? (continued)

I've been a salesman for the last, oh, nearly thirty years of my life. Was that part of my life-plan? <insert dark laugh here> ...Life-plan? What plan?

No, I went from vague visions of literary fame - which evaporated like piss on a hot rock when I realized that writing requires not just verbal facility and imagination (check and check), but solitude and discipline...  (eh, not so much) - to slightly more concrete dreams of musical fortune. The music dream suited my temperament much better - physical, collaborative, and best of all, instant feedback from the audience (should there be one).

But once again, talent was only one check box out of many. And then there was the harsh reality of our band disintegrating, and then the subsequent bands and their members calling it quits or moving hundreds or thousands of miles away. 

Still, to my credit - and to the credit of my beloved collaborator G. Gould - I persisted, even after the Shattering. Started to write my own tunes (after relying upon my brilliant mates for material up till then), and with G's help, formed a band, and even recorded some fine sessions.

But fame? Fortune? Not even sure we gigged enough to cover our recording budget. Well, no, I know we didn't.

And 'round this time my son was born. I was managing a tiny furniture store on College Avenue in North Oakland, and I thought I was doing pretty cool - I got a regular paycheck which along with Teri's pay from waitressing and tending bar in Sausalito covered our bills OK. We even had health insurance!

But motherhood and bar-work don't mix real well, so soon we were thinking about what Teri could do next. Challenges: 1) She had no other marketable skills - she was a stellar waitress and bartender, but had never done anything else (besides a year at School of Visual Arts in Manhattan); and 2) We had no money to invest in any kind of business.

Somehow - and this will require mighty backfill at some later date - one or two moms who knew us through the pre-school that John went to asked if Teri could do some after-school pick-up and then take care of their little ones till dropping them back home later in the day.

My wife went for it, then discovered that she had a real knack for caring for- for communicating with - young children. Soon, word got out, and the wave built, till she had a full roster of after-pre-school and summer kids. Which she then continued, with some variation, until my daughter was out of kindergarten. Well - maybe even beyond.

Point is, 1) She was as close as you can be to a stay-at-home parent for our kids, while still bringing in cash for the family (which I will just flat-out say was not trivial); and 2) She showed all the kids under her care real love. She was not just a custodian (though in truth, keeping children physically safe and free from fear is no small accomplishment).       

Eventually, after getting accredited as a Nursery School teacher while Jackie was at Griffin School, Teri realized she had max'ed out on what she could give as a childcare provider. What next?

Gardens. Designing them,  installing them, maintaining them. After years of caring for her own home gardens - first in the Berkeley flatlands, in the sun-blasted 4 ' x 8 ' dead zone in front of the concrete slab four-plex where we lived when Johnny was an infant, then in the more spacious/gracious front and back yards around the Rockridge house we've lived in since 1987 - Teri acquired an intimate awareness of the light, heat, shade, and moisture that each plant, bush, vine, and tree required to thrive.

I'm not ashamed of what I do for money. I'm ethical, I've always represented companies that provide good products and services for fair prices, and I've always strived to make my customers feel like we're all human beings looking to treat each other with respect.

But after all is said and done, what makes my work matter is that it has made my wife's work possible. What she has done is to make the world a better place. And I helped.