Friends and Poets

I met a woman at a party once, and for some reason I told her that I wrote poems. I don’t usually tell people that I’m a poet, not from shame or embarrassment, but more from meeting other poets who were so self-consumed their work had to suffer for it.

“I’m the greatest poet of the twenty-first century,” a man said to me at a party once. “I’m the greatest poet of the twenty-first century,” another man said to me minutes later at the same party.

I thought, how could that be? I’m the greatest poet of the twenty-first century, and that’s why I don’t tell people I’m a poet.

But somehow it came out to this woman that I was one of those.

“That’s too bad,” she said to me.

I got to the bottom of her comment. I found out her father was a poet and she had had a hard life because of it.

Somehow she and I overcame the obstacle of poetry and spent that night together, and subsequent nights.

She confided that she was a writer herself, but we agreed not to read each other’s work.

On the few occasions that I did let her read my writing, she hammered so hard I never asked her again. She butchered my work with her refined English and perfect grammar.

She keeps a journal. I sometimes wonder what’s inside that journal of hers. I’ll see her writing in it, guarding it. She’ll write for hours. She’ll sit on the bed and write and write and write. It’s impressive. What can she possibly be writing about?

I’ve learned my lesson about reading other people’s journals. I did that once before to a girl and paid dearly for it. I don’t know what got into me. I lost my senses, I guess. The curiosity was too great and I broke down.

I hope I don’t lose my smarts this time. But I do think about that journal from time to time. For all I know, that journal is filled with beautiful words, words that make the wind blow and the sun shine, words that tell a good story.

It could have the solution to all the world’s problems and my friend could be the greatest writer from this century or the millions of centuries that preceded it.

The Song

I’ve been doing this and that. I spent months trying to figure out the e-book and how to go about creating one. I finally figured it out and sent it to New York, Brooklyn. It ended up in Brooklyn of all places. Not Manhattan but Brooklyn. Soon, The Nick Poems will be states side and hopefully people buy it and get a chuckle from it.

I’ve been futzing around tinkering with the song. Sometimes the song comes easily and other times it lingers. I prefer when they come out easily, when songs linger it worries me. I don’t like to force the issue when it comes to art, when I do it usually turns out bad. I’ve been nursing this song and I almost feel like scraping it, but I’m in admired with chord structure. It sounds pretty to me. But the words are hanging me up, and what I have now is not that interesting to me. I have a few good lines, but I’m not satisfied with it at all. There’s a balance to art. You can rush through things, or take to long. When it starts to feel funny inside, it’s time to take a step back. But if you wait to long you lose the beauty of spontaneity. This song is not spontaneous at all. That worries me. Not that everything has to be spontaneous, but I prefer things to be like jazz, and when it’s not, it feels unnatural. Creation takes time in most instances. Sometimes I wish it didn’t.

Bar Talk

I was drinking beer at a bar and playing a round of pool with a buddy, when the guy playing pool next to us started to talk. At first his conversation was about the music playing on the jukebox. He made a few comments that reflected his appreciation of a song that was playing, then he transitioned into personal stories about partying with Neil Young.

The man had a look to him that was both friendly and tough. He was the definition of polar opposites, and as he told his stories his life was a manifestation of those opposites.

He was partying at Neil Young’s son’s house with the young family. How he got there and who invited him I’ll never know. At a certain point in the evening Neil got up to play his guitar. Everybody was having a good time, Neil, played a few songs, when the man playing pool and telling the story yelled out Southern Man! The room went quite. The man’s friends looked at him like he was dick, and in a matter of minutes the man was asked to leave the party by Neil’s wife. She walked him to the front door and booted him out. He might as well had said squeal like a pig to Ned Beatty.

I did my best to console him. He was still baffled by it years later.

“I’m on you side,” I told him. Why he’d write the song if he ‘s not going to stand by it,” I said.

The man looked comforted by my words, so much so he embarked upon another story. This time he was in Orange County at the house of another famous musicians. I can’t remember the name of the band, some kind of reincarnation of Sublime. The night was wild, great party, so much so the man and his two buddies spent the night at the musicians house.

When they woke up in the morning the house was a mess. There was trash everywhere. My friend and his buddy found some trash bags and started to clean up the place. It seemed like a nice thing to do. He had no idea where his other friend was. He had been missing for some time.

When the trash was picked up, some kids came down from upstairs and said that they were hungry.

“Can you make us some pancakes,” one of the kids said.

“Sure, where the mix?’

The kids told him where the mix was, and the man started making the pancakes for the kids. The musician’s wife came down stairs some time later to find the kids sitting at the table eating their pancakes.

“Wow! You guys are great!” the wife said to the men.

The two men were talking to the wife in the kitchen and my friend offered to make her pancakes. The wife excepted and the three adults were having a good time first thing in the morning. The conversation shifted a bit and the wife was putting out flirtatious signals, at which point my friend’s buddy in a manner of speaking reached out and grabbed her ass. She went cold. The anger shot to her face. She turned and marched up stairs to summons her husband. The famous musician with his hair in a tangle said from the staircase.

“Split!”

And the men were shown to the door minus their friend who had disappeared.

The missing friend was found later that day past out in the wine cellar, having drank the finest and most expensive bottle of wine the musician had. He didn’t know any better he just reached for a bottle of wine and it happened to be the most expensive bottle on the rack.

Sweet Corn in Los Angeles

I’m a renegade parker. Worst yet, I got nabbed. I woke up early this morning and took a train downtown to take care of a parking ticket from a year ago. Red tape. I got off the train and walked over to the hearing office. I never wanted a hearing. All I wanted was leniency on the bail. Somehow I didn’t follow protocol and I received three letters from the city on the same day. The letters all said something different. One of the letters said there was a hearing scheduled for me. I went with that one. I made a point of showing up to avoid more trouble.

Everything was loosey-goosy at first. The woman administering the hearing and I were laughing about our glasses, and how we couldn’t see with them even though I had bifocals and she had trifocals. I liked the woman right off. But then we got down to business. It was very official. The proceedings were recorded on an old cassette tape machine. I don’t have anything against cassette tapes, but it did seem somewhat antiquated. She asked me a few questions. I answered them. I was guilty. I couldn’t talk my way out of it. I told my story and the woman instantly turned on me. The fun vanished in an instant. I tried to negotiate for a reduced bail. That didn’t work. The best I could do was to set up a payment plan. The woman walked me out of the office and her face was cold, as if somehow I offended her with my testimony. I was the victim of a moronic meter maid, but the lady didn’t see it that way.

I walked back toward Union Station to catch a train. I veered left and walked through Olvera Street. Very little had changed over the years. It was still colorful. Still Mexican. From there I walked into Union station and admired the giant wood beams that held up the ceiling. They did it right when they built that place. I walked to my train platform and waited a few minutes, before a train arrived. I boarded the train and sat down. There was a older heavy set Asian woman sitting across from me. She looked kind of crazy. She was holding a napkin to her nose, and was sniffing it. Then the lady put the napkin under her armpit. She wiped her armpit and smelled the napkin again. It was a hot day and I started to think about how the napkin smelled. I was hoping she would stop. She didn’t. She shoved the napkin down her blouse and wiped around her breast. She had big saggy breast. She sniffed the napkin again. That’s it! I got up and moved to another seat. I found a empty seat by a window. The train rolled by a park. The park had a plot of sweet corn growing, sweet corn in Los Angeles.

The Ghetto Hug

I needed to buy some software at a reasonable price. I found someday online on Craigslist. I emailed him and he emailed me, and after going back and forth a few times, we took the next step and I gave him my phone number. He called me. We talked. I told him what I needed. He said he had it, and that he could deliver it in an hour. I said great! Meet me at the corner of. He said he’d call me when he was in the neighborhood. An hour later true to his word he called me to say he was nearby. I could tell by his voice that he was a young black man in his late twenties, early thirties. Sure enough a black man in a brand new silver Jaguar pulled up. His girlfriend was asleep in the passenger seat. It looked like she had it rough, but she didn’t, she had it easy. She had her forearm over her eyes, and looked very unhappy.

He was friendly from the get go. He got out of his car and opened his trunk. Hey man I said. We were instant buddies, friends, pals. We shook each others hand and give a ghetto hug and preceded to business. He handed me a cracked copy of what I needed and gave me quick instructions on how to load it. Do you have music software? I asked, while handing him the money. Yeah I have bling bam boom. I said great. I can sell to for ten bucks. What else do you have? I have bang boom blah, and zing zang maa. Cool I said. We were in Hancock Park at the corner of with the trunk open talking about software, not weed, or crack like in the old days, but software. Technology. We gave each other another ghetto hug, shook each other’s hand and went our separate ways. I had the product and he drove away with the sleeping beauty with the headache.

The Mural

I was at a dinner party the other night and I got too talking with a woman. She seemed nice enough. She was the kind of woman I normally wouldn’t talk to unless I was at a dinner party.

During the course of our conversation she mentioned that she once lived in San Francisco.

“So did I,” I said, “where'd you live?”

“North Beach.”

“I lived there too.’

“I went to the art institute,” she said.

“The school with the Diego River mural?

“I don’t remember a mural.”

I had to check myself for a moment.

“The school on the hill, built in a Spanish style?” I asked her.

“That’s the one,” she said.

I was beginning to have my doubts about the lady. I thought everybody knew about the Diego Rivera mural that was in the main gallery. This woman must be absent I thought.

“It’s a famous mural, Diego’s on a scaffold with his buttocks sticking out.”

She was confused. I didn’t belabor the point, but I found it odd that she didn’t know about the mural.

Then the woman told me a story about how she use to man handle her dog when he was a poppy. She looked stone cold crazy while she told the story.

Sometime later the woman got up to leave the party. She looked at me with a scow as she walked out. She looked mean, as if she wanted to kill me. What did I do?

I waved to her and said bye, but I had a bad feeling about her.

On my way home it occurred to me that woman was lying about attending the art institute. She had to be lying. There is no way you can attend that school and not know about the Rivera painting. Why would she lie about something like that? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that she had.

The Jam

The best music jams are never heard. I witnessed one of the all time great jams the other night and when I turned around to see who was watching, or better yet, listening, there was three of us, and one guy was the soundman. The rest of the party had gone inside, or left altogether. The jam was a party killer.

Try to imagine four ugly guys, one not so ugly guy and one guy who was handsome, but well into his fifties jamming on Europa by Santana. Granted I had had a significant amount of booze by this time, but it didn’t matter, great musicianship is great musicianship despite the state of the intoxicated.

There were three guitar players, bass, drums and a harmonica and I didn’t hear one bad note from anybody. The complexity of the solos made musicians on late night talk shows look and feel sub par. The bass and drums didn’t miss a beat. The harmonica player played maracas when he wasn’t blowing. It was beautiful. It was the confluence of nature being transmitted through the hearts and minds and fingers of six men who never played together before. But none of that mattered. The language of music is the simplest of all forms of communication. A nod here, a look in the eyes there, a lifting of the hand, and it all comes together. Of course these musicians were seasoned. They had put in years and years of practice. They weren’t playing for money. They weren’t even playing for an audience. They were playing for the love of music, and the love of life.

Serge

My friend, lets call him Serge, was telling me a story about his experience with the blue pill.

Serge took in a younger woman, a roommate of sorts. She fell right into his lap. His boss approached him one day and asked if he'd be willing to take in the bookkeeper. The bookkeeper was new in town and she needed a place to stay. Serge agreed.

The bookkeeper was a in her forties and Serge in his sixties. Serge had it in mind to have sex with her one day, but he wasn’t holding his breath. Their relationship from the beginning was friendly and honest. The bookkeeper was to pay Serge rent each month and everything was to be on the up and up.

The end of the month came and went and the bookkeeper didn’t pay her rent. An old bookkeeping trick I presume. A week later she gave Serge half the rent and said she’d have to work off the rest, she said this with a wink and smile. Serge was no fool and he immediately understood what she was saying.

“I’ll be right back!” Serge said.

He went to the bathroom and reached into the medicine cabinet. There he found what he was looking for. The blue pill. He sliced it in half with a razor blade. He turned on the water to the bathroom sink, put half of the pill in his mouth, and swallowed it.

They went at it for the next hour and half. At first they were in the bedroom, then they were in the living room, then the kitchen, soon they were out of rooms altogether and Serge was still going strong, he was overtaken by the blue pill. He no longer had control of himself. He said he could feel his heart racing, pumping, but there was nothing he could do to slow himself down. The pill had worked miracles. It was a wonder he didn’t have himself a heart attack.

“Did your hips hurt in the morning?” I asked.

“Hell yeah.”

Hare Krishna

Where’ve all the Hare Krishna’s gone? When I was a kid they were everywhere, on street corners, at airports, at sporting events, at concerts. You couldn’t go anywhere without being harassed by a Hare Krishna. They’d dance and sing and bang on their drums in their loose fitting robes, their hair shaved to the skin with ponytails sticking out from the back of the heads. But today they’re gone. Vanished. I miss the spectacle. I miss their antiquated attire. Enrollment must have slipped. Maybe they won a big law suit and don’t need the money anymore. It’s strange, they’ve just plum disappeared.

The Death of Emil

I just finished reading O Pioneers by Willa Cather, which I enjoyed immensely. The third person was refreshing. I’m reading The Plague by Albert Camus now. The Plague started off slowly. I almost gave up on it. The first chapter was driving me nuts. Then Camus’ writing style changed suddenly and his writing became clearer, and less pretentious. O Pioneers was will written, but at times kind of girlie. I knew what was going to happen before it happened, except for the death of Emil. That took me by surprise. It was well written and entertaining, so the fact that I knew what was going to happen didn’t bother me as much. I also started the first chapter of Moby Dick. That started off with a thud too. I’m going hang in there with The Plague and Moby and hope for the best.

There is so much to read. I tend to break down good writing to its simplest form. The book of fiction is in my view for the purpose of entertainment. Why else do we sit down to read. We read to be entertained. Many writers lose sight of this, and academics are in another world all together when comes to the qualities of good writing. They tend to think command of the language and plot is more important. Henry Miller more then any other writer I’ve read had command of the English language, but he was a bad story-teller. He was more interested in the word than the story, and as a result he tended to meander. His brilliant mind for words sacrificed the essence of the story. His genius was lost in micro content. He basked in his own mind and lost track of the purpose of writing, which is to entertain. You can disagree with me if you like, that’s all well and good, but if a book is not entertaining chances are it won’t be read.

Leaf Blowers

On windy days like today, leaf blowers are rendered useless.

Four Trees

I built my cabin under four trees. It butts up against them. One pine, one ash, one lemon, and one tree I don’t have a name for. The tree I don’t have a name for is the biggest, and this morning there were two doves hooting on it. The sound of doves reminds me of my grandmother, she saved a dove once when I was a boy. She put it in a paper sack and we rode home with it on the bus. I was three or four when she did this, but it was an event that stayed with me all these years. When the dove was healed up my grandmother let it go. I watched her do it. She took the birdcage outside and opened the hatch, and the bird flew out. Ever since I’ve had a soft spot for doves. Except for on one occasion when I was a teenager, I shot a dove dead with a pallet gun. It was sitting on a wire and I stood under it and shot it. I climbed over a fence to see where it fell. I saw it covered in blood dead on the dirt. It broke my heart. I never shot anything again after that. The gun belonged to a friend, and I made up my mind then, that guns were made to use, so I’ve stayed away from them for that reason.

The doves back as I write this. I’m not sure what it means, but it means something I guess. It just flew to the tree with no name and then flew away again.

I hope everything is okay out there in the land that doesn’t read my blog. Maybe I should tell people about it. Maybe not.

The Suits

My aunt gave me four of my uncles suits the other day. They’re real nice Christian Dior, Perry Ellis, name brand suits, one of the suits was made from one-hundred percent Lama hair. Fina Lama. That suit has a vest, which I like quite a bit.

When I put the suits on I’m reminded of my uncle and what he stood for. He was a highly successful man, who had many material possessions. He did things with class. The suits still have the scent of his cologne on them. He had nice taste in clothes and cars, but for some reason his taste in real estate feel short of my expectations. He was satisfied with tract homes. This part of his personality struck me as odd. He’d drive a brand new Ferrari, while wearing a nice suit and a Rolex watch, his shoes were shined perfectly, but he lived in a tract home. I didn’t get it. It wasn’t consistent in anyway. I always saw him owning a nice Spanish style home built in the twenties, something dignified. But no, he bought tract homes in middle class neighborhoods, not impressive at all.

I have some of his suits and I’m thankful. I’ve already worn two of them and received many compliments during the course of the night while wearing them. In today’s world, in my social circle, suits are over the top, which is a shame. Kids today just don’t know how to dress, or don’t have the self-esteem to put on a nice suit. I noticed this the other night. I had my suit on a double breasted blue suit, and was surrounded by kids in blue jeans and sneakers. Maybe I should be cavorting with the Wall Street crowd or rich rappers, or the French. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. In my day even the men and women being hosed down with a water canon had suits on. The poor of the poor wore suits. They couldn’t eat with the white people, but they had a suit on.

Harmless Transactions

Today has been a slow mover. I spent the early part of the day running errands. I sent a copy of The Nick Poems to James’ mother in Florida. She might get a kick out of them. Her son was a great storyteller. After the post office I had to do some banking. Harmless transactions.

It’s weed-whacking season. The hills are drying out and every year come April the city mandates that the weeds are abated from properties. There are two or three guys with their gas powered weed-whackers toughing it out in the sun. They have their work cut out for them. It’s a sizable hill. Steep. It looks dusty, and I can hear the whackers jam up once in while. It’s suppose to rain again sometime this week. It would be a shame if the weeds came back after the rain.

I’ve built myself a nice writing cabin. I’ve been tending to my chili peppers and making my Japanese rice rolled in seaweed. I’ll toss an occasional cucumber in there and some Wasabi. Life is good here on earth. Life is real good.

I’m going to make a conscious effort to post more often. My friend Patrick inspired me. He writes everyday, and he’s a painter. He kind of makes me look bad. He’s been doing it for years. He has a discipline about him that makes him legitimate. He’s practiced, and that makes the artist. It makes anybody who has a commitment to anything. Practice.

Genetic Transduction

Careful Kyle and I went out for Sunday drinks. There’s a little bar that has a free pool table and two-dollar Pabst Blue Ribbon that we go to. We were having a good time when a guy named Lorcan started to mouth off to careful Kyle. It was unprovoked. Lorcan just didn’t like him for some reason. Maybe it had something to do with the turquoise sweat shirt Kyle was wearing. It made him out to be a dork. Lorcan wouldn’t shut up and he looked much like a dork himself.

I vouch for Kyle I told Lorcan. He’s a good guy. A crowd gathered around. There were four men now trying to defuse the situation. Lorcan keep at it. He was a new arrival from Ireland. I guess they have a different way of doing things in Ireland, more direct. Kyle wanted to leave, but I persuaded him to stay. This Lorcan guy was nuts. He wasn’t making any sense. He didn’t like Kyle and he didn’t even know him. He didn’t know that Kyle had hidden talents for making beer and that he was a good guy who was lost like the rest of us. I finally convinced Lorcan that Kyle was worthy of his respect and everything calmed down.

Come to find out that Lorcan means troublemaker in Irish. And Lorcan was Lorcan the sixth. He came from a proud family of Lorcan’s. It all made sense then. He was the joker from a long line of troublemakers.

We have royalty here! I said. We got back to drinking.

Press On

I’m woefully inconsistent for this blog thing. There are events happening in my life but I don’t feel like writing about them.

I woke up in the middle of the night and heard an owl hooting. I liked it. I thought of him sitting there patrolling for rats and mice. It was comforting to hear.

I’m reading O Pioneers, by Willa Cather, finally a book written by a woman I can appreciate. There was that other book about bee’s written by Kid something. She’s a good writer. I didn’t finish the book. I’ve been meaning to get back to it.

I’ve been working on the short story, re-working some stuff. That’s the process re-work until it feels right. They almost never feel right. I could spend my whole life re-working my stuff. Good ideas turn sour the longer you let them sit. But it’s the process. It’s almost as if you get more intelligent by letting it sit for a while. It’s interesting how one day you think your writing is good and the next you see it’s limitations. Time brings insight. I wonder why that happens, or how it happens. One day you’re smart, the next you’re a dull average being. I’m glad I can see the difference, sometimes intelligence is no-more then knowing your limitations, but even then you have to press on.

The Book

I sold another book. It surprises me when that happens A perfect stranger walked into a bookstore and picked up my book of poems, and bought it. What are the chances of that? I want to know who these people are, and thank them personally. They make me happy.

I’ve been trying keep busy. I’ve been working on short stories, and practicing my guitar. I’m still building my cabin, still trying to get the siding up. The cabin is built on a slope and the slope is getting in the way of productivity. I dug a trench to lay some pipe to put in a sink. The gray water will run out under the cabin to what will be a vegetable garden. I’ll have to fence the garden in they’re a lot of varmints in the area, squirrels and possums, skunks, things that like a free meal.

I’d like to take a trip somewhere, Harbin hot springs, or Milwaukee, Denver sounds nice. I need to go somewhere, anywhere. I need to meet new people. I need to drink in a new environment. Los Angeles is getting me down. It’s stagnant right now. At least for me it is, of course it’s not. There is so much to do it’s hard to keep up. I don’t keep up most times.

Time to stain my floor. Good-bye.

Pictures

It’s occurred to me that photographs have made the transition from nostalgic to narcissistic. I suppose they’ve always been narcissistic to some degree, which makes me think that history contains a sense of narcissism. But if narcissism is present in the attempt to preserve history, why that just might be the best use of narcissism ever.

The Black Uniform

The other night I was driving in the rain. I was on my way to a lady friend’s house to share some comforts. I was almost at her house when I slowed to make a right turn. The rain was coming down at a sprinkle, but the conditions were enough to bring a fog to my windshield and for some reason the streets seemed darker than usual.

I didn’t bother to put my blinkers on. I eased into the turn nice and slow. When shockingly I noticed a man standing three feet from the curb on the street. He was an old man. Dressed in black. He was wearing a black hat. And had a long white beard. The only thing I could see was his face. I slammed on the breaks and compensated the steering wheel to avoid hitting him. He shuffled back onto the curb to avoid being hit. The man was a Hasidic Jew coming back from synagogue. I nearly killed him. The black uniform at night was a down right danger for all parties concerned. The man could’ve used some blinking lights, or reflecting armbands, anything to keep the uniform.

The Tree Trimmers

It was just after seven thirty in the morning when I heard the faint sound of a man talking in Spanish. Shortly after that I heard the high pitch humming sound of a chain saw. A few seconds after that another chain saw started up. I tried to sleep it off, but I gave up and made some coffee instead. It’s the lord’s day for gods sake. I thought about calling the police, but that seemed like a lot trouble, and chances are they wouldn’t even show up. By the time I figured out what number to call the tree trimmers would be packed up and gone. I guess that's the price you pay for living in the city.

I read the paper on line with the sound of chain saws in the back round. The paper was disappointing the same mumble jumble bombings from religious factions, and what not. When holy people go to war, it looks bad on religion. I grabbed my guitar and battled the chain saws with a song from the Kinks, Sunny Afternoon. Great song excellent craftsmanship, a real bitch to sing though.

The Harmonica

I found my harmonicas. Last night I drove the hills of Los Angeles with the moon peeking through the clouds, blowing a blues harp in C. It has to be one of the loneliest sounds god has ever created, but there’s something soothing about it as well. It requires the breath and when I’m thinking about the breath I know I’m living. There’s a simplicity to the instrument, anyone can play one. All you need to be is living to play. Just blow right into it and move it around your lips. I was playing at red lights and noticed pedestrians looking at me while they stood on the corner waiting for the light to change. At first I was kind of shy about playing in front of them, but what’s the shame in creating music. It brought a smile to one woman who was the unlikeliest of sorts. I recommend the harmonica for most applications. It travels well and it’s rare that someone will become irritated by it. It’s not like a guitar. A guitar is trickier to present. If you whip out a guitar you better know what your doing. You can’t be bashful with a guitar, but you can with a harmonica, you can sit there and blow it softly, or get crazy with it and blow it hard. It has a circus quality to it that makes sense in most situations. It’s the instant Leaprecon that you can carry in your pocket. Give it a try.

Tu Fu

I’ve been reading poems for a Chinese poet by the name of Tu Fu, from the Tang Dynasty (713-770). I’m enjoying them. The poems are lucid and easy to read, not too heady and clever. I tend to like poems that don’t require me to think too much, but after reading a good poem I’m thinking a lot.

When I was young man writing a poem was a chance to demonstrate my poetic abilities, my voice was formal and my ideas were not as clear. I was more romantic in my word choice, only to realize years later that a good poem in my view is a good story communicated as simply as possible. Intelligence is pointing out the obvious. Pointing out the things that are right before your eyes that you see every day and wonder about, but for some reason you can’t put it into words. That’s what makes for good comedy. A comedian who can point out the obvious is generally funny. And that’s what makes for good science as well. Intelligence is just a stones throw away from stupidity. The genius of E=MC squared is it’s simplicity. Great writing on the other hand can be many things to some, but to me, it is simply entertaining.

My Invisible Audience

I spent yesterday avoiding people. Lou wanted me to meet him at a bar in Pasadena, it was some kind of benefit jam. I couldn’t do it. I’ve been to that bar a thousand times and a thousand times I’ve gotten depressed. I needed to be alone. It’s not uncommon for me to feel that way. I can get impatient with people when I feel that way, no matter what the conversation, it well strike me as dumb.

Usually, when I feel like I need to be alone I’ll think of the past, and how it relates to the future. I’m pretty hard on myself at times. I’ll think of my mistakes and feel real bad about them, and when I ponder the future I feel empty inside. It speaks volumes for staying in the moment. The truth is, unless I’m working on something artistic I feel a drift, confused. The problem is I can’t create everyday. I need to rest from time to time, and it is on these days that I feel, empty purposeless. It’s a new revelation. It has never been so clear. I always thought that it was the path I had chosen for myself that had brought upon those feelings, my failure in art. But now I understand that it’s the lack of activity that makes me feel bad. When I’m not writing, I’m not praying and when I’m not playing music my soul welts just a little bit.

I’ve built this cabin. I’ll post pictures at some point. Drop me a note sometime, my invisible audience.

The Intelligence of Stupidity

You’ve heard of a polygamist, well I’m a pig-lygamist. It’s my own made up word that I haven’t defined yet, although it does seem self-explanatory to some degree. The word pig is a dead give away. I think it speaks more to the fact that marriage in my view is something to be avoided. Why anybody would agree to be a monogamist is beyond my understanding. I agreed to it once and I felt like a caged animal. I failed. It wasn’t my cup of tea. I’m speaking for myself. I’m not trying to convince anybody to my way of thinking. I’m not pretending to be intelligent.

I had a friend once, who was of the opinion that all people are stupid, and no matter how many books you’ve read, or how high your IQ, the underlying fact is that we humans are stupid. I tend to agree with this idea. To me it makes perfect sense. Our lives are spent proving our abilities. We regurgitate facts and figures, work on our memory, memorize the spelling of words, and then back down the driveway and slam into the mailbox that sits near the curb.

Even a genius can make a bad decision, which seems to negate the principles of genius. Intellect absent of stupidity, is stupidity defined. There are flaws in the intellect of man. Intellectualism is a flawed pursuit. Yet we try over and over to dispel stupidly, we conceal it constantly. The mere suggestion of being stupid is an insult. Lord, if I can’t be intelligent give me wisdom.

Magic the Music Box

I went over to Martin’s house and recorded a tune. I got it on the fifth take. I had a difficult time staying focused. On one hand I was trying to create beautiful music and on the other hand I was thinking about what I did the night before. It was almost as though I was dreaming. My mind was wondering and I had to repeatedly bring it back to the guitar and the next chord and the next line to be sung. I was being extraordinarily careful with the guitar. I was trying not to land on a wrong note and cause a buzz. The room was silent. I was tense, but trying to relax.

A song is a presentation. There are many factors that can alter one take from the next. I realized that every version I did was different in body and content. I added a line here took out a line there. It wasn’t my intention, but it was the result of wanting to survive the take. I was trying to get through the song with as few mistakes as possible. My changing the song as I went along was a masking agent for failure. I sometimes feel that’s what art is, the continuous process of hiding ones mistakes, altering, reconfiguring until your satisfied within yourself with your work.

Recording to me is synonymous to having a camera in my face for three minutes and for those three minutes I do my best to act like the camera is not there.

After my session I stopped at a hardware store to buy seven two by fours. I tossed them in my Honda four-door sedan. The back seat folds down and you’d be surprised how much wood you can fit in a Honda Accord. I’m building a landing for the entrance to my cabin.

The Honda has been good to me,. Yet, the other night I was ashamed of it. I was with a new friend, a person I didn’t know that well, and she dropped my off at my car. I’m not sure why I was ashamed. It’s a great car. It’s a 1993 white Honda Accord with one hundred and ninety-one thousand miles on it. It runs well. It has never left me stranded, not like my Mercedes, but there I was ashamed of it. I’m fine with it when I’m alone, but for some reason I was ashamed then. It was an odd feeling. It was a feeling of being exposed.

The Drink Offensive

I’ve come to terms with the blogging thing. I’m just going to use it as a journal. I haven’t told anyone about it. I don’t think anybody reads it. I’ll write away, and document myself in a digital manner.

I had noodles for lunch. My sister and I took the train to Little Tokyo and we had noodles. Noodles, is a word I like quite a bit. It just sounds funny to say aaahhh noodles. It’s second best to “what the cupcake.” What the cupcake is that? It so easy to say fuck’en. Fuck’en is not creative and down right offensive, but cupcake, now that’s a word I can stand behind. I’m one of those old school guys that likes to keep the language clean. I come from a good family and think it best to be classy if you can. These new kids don’t know anything about classy. It use to be that the culture was set up for it. That was the purpose in life to be classy. There were classy cars, classy hats, classy cologne, classy dresses, classy suits. Now it’s all mock classy. It’s the anti-class. I’m guilty of it. I don’t like to tuck my short in. I have a history of having long hair. From time to time I’ll let my beard grow. Dumb things like that can detract from classy. On occasion I’ll don a suit and come back to classy.

People don’t strive for classy anymore. It’s purposeless materialism that we possess in today’s America. It’s aimless. It’s more about the blue jeans then the black strapless dress. The farmers have taken over the world and their selling the rural community to the people of the metropolitan. Huh? I’m writing to my self. To who ever I pick up on the way. It doesn’t matter what I write about. It’s all an exercise.

The Lakers are on the tube tonight. I better hit the road before I lose sight of what’s important.

The Side Streets

I went out for a few bourbons last night and had a good time with Timmy and Marty. We went out to the "office,” and had some laughs. It’s good to laugh every once in a while. My favorite bartender was there and he treated me like I was his favorite customer. Big Jim the cowboy got up and sang a song, he flubbed it. I told him he sang great anyway.

I decided to take the long way home to avoid unwanted encounters with the Los Angeles police department. I was nearly two in the morning, and it seemed there was nobody on the streets.

I was sneaking around on side streets when it occurred to me that over the years in an attempt to provide a service of some kind, the city had erected a stop sign at every corner. They’ve done away with the slow sign altogether. It’s all on the shoulders of the stop sign now. I was thinking the city could save a lot of money if the stopped erecting stop signs. They could make a lot of money if they took down the useless signs they had and sold them on the black market. I’d like to mention right about here that the city could save a ton of money if the eliminated the speed bumps that people plow through as well. The asphalt alone is worth millions. It use to be easier to travel in Los Angeles. It was smooth. Not now. It’s all about the break now. Stop and go has an entirely different meaning then it use to,

In my inebriated state I decided that the stop signs were a hindrance to my drive, so I blew through them, cautiously of coarse.

The Kern

I took a drive past Bakersfield into the Kern valley. I hadn’t been up that way before and I wasn’t sure what to expect. We left early in the morning Lou and I, we thought we’d get some fishing in at lake Isabella. I’m not much of a fisherman. The thought of killing fish doesn’t excite me. I was there more for the ride then anything else.

We drove up the grapevine and then came down into the San Joaquin valley and there was a blanket of fog awaiting us. From above it looked like we might have a tough time driving through it. The fog looked thick and dangerous. It wasn’t as bad as looked once we were inside it.

We drove through a bleak section of town. It seemed people were hoarding junk. Their lawns were filled we things that didn’t work, cars, refrigerators, boats. The poor had more than the rich and it was in their backyards.

We stopped to have breakfast in a small town called Bodfish. I’m sure there was a meaning behind the name, but upon walking into the diner it fell silent, so I couldn’t ask without spooking someone. It was a bad energy hush that came upon the room. The kind of hush you see in westerns. I looked around the diner, nothing but old people.

Bodfish was dying. But the food was good. It was expensive for what it was, and in a small town like Bodfish you’d think it would be cheaper. There’s something about suspicious people that makes me suspicious. It seems to me suspicious people are protecting something. It had to be more of an idea, a concept then something tangible. The town was poor and the people who occupied it didn’t look all that smart. I suppose once you got to know them, they were all right.

We found out that the dam that holds Lake Isabella back was suffering from seepage. The water was low because of it. Lou and I found ourselves driving around looking for something to do after that. The idea of fishing went out the door when we saw the lake. It looked sad. It looked more like a pond than a lake. It was so low.

We stopped in Kernville and found a heritage museum. There were two ladies sitting behind the desk. One of the ladies liked us and she gave us a tour of the place. As it turned out she was an interesting lady. Her husband was Bob Powers a fifth generation cowboy who grew up in The Kern valley. He wrote nine books on the area and had a mountain peek named after him. He was a real interesting fellow.

Merge was the woman’s name. She told us a story about Johnny Powers who was an one legged sheriff. Johnny formed a posse to find and kill an Indian but the Indian killed him instead. Poor Johnny. He didn’t live but twenty-seven years.

I met my friend Lou at the Roost last night. It was free popcorn night. We ordered two beers and a shot of whiskey each for starters. The place was filled with the regular clientele, mostly older men who looked down on their luck. It occurred to me after my second beer that everybody in the place looked similar. They were all about the same weight. Nobody was overly good looking. Most were out of shape. I figured they felt comfortable around each other and that’s why they were regulars.

The jukebox was playing good music and Lou and I were having a good time. We went outside to smoke one in the parking lot. We were standing in between two cars when out comes a drunk. He stopped dead in his tracks and kind of hunched over like a cat whose trying to catch a bird. But this guy was far from being nimble. He had a pot- belly and was old. He looked like he could pass out just from rapidly waving his arms. I guess he thought we were trying to break into his car. He had an old Chrysler that looked to be in fair condition and in his mind we were standing to close to it. The manner in which he was staring at us gave Lou and I the impression that he was working for the bar, but he wasn’t. He was just some old coot trying to act tuff, because deep down he was afraid we were going to rough him up. We were just smoking and minding our own business. We assured him the best we could that we were harmless.

We went back in the bar and finished off our beers and on the way out Lou walked into what was at one time the telephone booth. I saw him do it. He thought it was the door. I heard him push at something and then he turned around and tried to play it off. I was already laughing. He said something ridicules, something to the effect of, “are you ready to go.” I opened the door and we laughed real hard. It was a good laugh, one of those hold your knees laughs. God it felt good.