Prologue – 05/28/2021
The Man had to return to the beginning to find his way but the reconstructions were getting more complicated and mentally fatiguing. This wrinkle sent him farther than he had planned and he was not sure if he could identify all of the anchors necessary for him to find his way back. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
He realized he had about four years to finish the project. He’s been there before. Four years is not a long time. It was not a long time when he sloughed through high school. It was even shorter when measuring college years. It was barely noticed when bouncing around the universe aimlessly after school. Yet he failed to recognize any kind of urgency. His travels were now controlled by other means. The guides, unaware of their influence, hoarded like precious secrets. Cases and cabinets overflow with treasured resources. Vague references to the games and stories appear in a difficult to define rotation. The experiment, unfortunately, is not always well documented. The theme varies as he resists the omnipotence of the words. He is not a poet or a clown though his notes slough off sententious posits he prefers to keep to himself.
The tangled webs come and go like the moon going from full to new to full in the course of a morning walk. Persistent, unreliable memories take friends away again.
The Man has stories told by dreams from that cold, sleepless night tending the small fire until dawn or by the confused conversations interrupted upon waking from a seven hour surgery with the dark edges of trees dominating the woods in the damp of a spring tortured by boisterous winds unable to dislodge the delicate petals of the prairie golden bean or by the fresh sap filling the small, boot nail wound in the pine bark transforming a radiant, concentrated shaft of sunlight into the beam of a sniper’s laser sight until the angles change or by visits from the feathered fraternities while he finds a proper repose, on the shady side of the house, for viewing the verdant glow of the still dewy grasses.
Proselytizing men in black dresses inadvertently taught The Man about those undreamed of philosophies with a penance assigned for an unremembered straying from the path, a report on the poet’s autobiography, leading to the enjoyment of Bartz playing to Langston’s rivers and a friend pointing to Lloyd and The Man skates away with Joni on one of those ancient, dusky flows.
Peace and Harmony
Road Signs – 10/13/2017
I was wondering about road signs in new developments as I walked past what was once Rocky Road. This was C’s favorite place to walk. It was really just an erosion trail through a large open space but it afforded us the opportunity to enjoy many aspects of nature. It is now a new development. Yesterday they put up road signs.
Many in the area fought this construction but the best we could get was the dreaded compromise. It will not be high density housing. It will be single family McMansions.
I think this is why I could never be a politician. Politics are all about compromise and it seems like we have compromised ourselves into a very mediocre and disappointing state of existence: OK, we’ll only destroy the poor parts of the planet with toxic waste. We’ll slow the destruction of the atmosphere, we’ll still destroy it, but a little slower. We’ll sell items with the only possible use being the taking of human life, but it will be slightly harder to get the ammunition.
But I digress, although I do wonder if the politicians promulgating evil in the name of religion will be doubly damned. Do they wake relieved every morning that they didn’t die overnight because, if they have even the slightest belief in their rhetoric, they would surely wakeup in hell. But wouldn’t it be even worse, hell squared, maybe Milton could describe it, or Joyce, he had a scary picture of hell in Portrait.
So, it seems the road signs should be more descriptive. I see Hidden Oak Ct. and Ponderosa Dr. but I am proposing these:
No Wild Turkeys Terrace
Chased Away Cougars Ct.
Once There Were Black Bears Cir.
Lost Predators Way
Too Many Deer Dr.
And having mentioned Milton I feel I must include Paradise Lost PL.
So, he tentatively began to share short musings on social media; playing games, experimenting.
Yukon Cornelius – 10/20/2017
We’ve had a lot of fog lately. To quote Yukon Cornelius, one of the great esoteric characters of twentieth century American literature, “The fog is as thick as peanut butter.”
Or,
Geese – 11/08/2017
After my evening walk I came to the conclusion that every Canada goose migrating along the Rocky Mountain Flyway arrived in our neighborhood between 4:30 and 5:00 PM. The skies were dense with down in gigantic arrow patterns of one hundred or more birds, a few groups completing gorgeous, graceful water landings in the small lake near our home. The gathering of American coots by the shore were not impressed.
Then, thirty seconds after the Big Bang, the words themselves began to collide in random explosions building their own final structure to this particular universe.
Hannah’s Story – 11/30/2017
Crepuscular. That is what he becomes this time of year. Most days we are home from our morning walk before sunrise and it is now dark by the time we return from the evening walk. This sometimes concerns me regarding his mental health. Should he be so content alone on the trails with so few people around? Is it wrong to partake in conversations with coyotes? He actually gets a little pissed off when crossing paths with other humans. And any flash of light from a vehicle passing in the distance or an offensively bright house light briefly exposed through the trees or by a dip in the terrain can send him over the edge (emotionally, not like walking off a cliff or anything). Just recently there has been a guy bicycling around, having unfortunately fallen victim to marketing professionals, with the latest balloon tires and obnoxiously bright, can be seen from outer space headlight. Truly annoying.
But he can see such light from a great distance and will change our course to avoid the unpleasant encounter. If they somehow catch him off guard we scurry into the underbrush like cockroaches. He seems to believe he is one of my coyote friends.
He tells me that these intrusions cause him to consider his Wilderness. That is what he calls his plan for ending his occupation of this particular reality earth consciousness. He will saunter off into a deep woods, make himself comfortable up against an old tree and, hopefully, die before anybody notices that he is missing. I thought it sounded better than a hypodermic behind the shoulder.
Between dawn and dusk he can be found in the office/storage room which is shared with the “extra” couch, an amalgam of household cleaning apparatus and whatever needs to be moved for holiday decorating. He sits at his desk plugged into his laptop, his back to the closet full of incomplete collections of encyclopedias, old camera equipment and undeveloped film. If he braves the midday sun you will find him under the junipers, protected by the dense foliage of their massive limbs, reinforcing the rabbit perimeter.
He is not obsessed.
Occasionally he will venture out for a sojourn to the natural grocers to obtain sustenance, but not until the sun is very low in the sky.
Peace and Harmony.
Lightning Bugs – 12/05/2017
It was four degrees on my morning walk yesterday. For some reason nobody was out on the trails.
But the really interesting day was earlier in the week. About 12o, perfectly clear and the moon barely waning from full the day before created a singular optical landscape. The limited humidity, transformed into crystals on the shorter native grasses and now leafless brush, shone in the stream of this silvery hue, quaking points of light painted across a predawn canvas. With the slightest movement or change in the tilt of my head oceans of crystals click on as equal numbers click off in this dance of refracted moonlight. It reminded me of lightning bugs in Missouri. The otherworldliness heightened by a great horned owl swooping by and sucking all sound from the air and the moon at my back casting Tim Burton shadows from the cotton woods. I was following a moon shadow, moon shadow. I could have been tripping, not that I know what that’s like.
I don’t know why I had never noticed this before. Could it be that it was the first time I was in the right place with the perfect combination of temperature, moisture, angle of moonlight, etc.? Whatever the reason, I count myself very fortunate to have seen this now.
I’ll explain the frozen booger on my glove some other time. Is there a word for that? Frooger?
Peace and harmony.
A Car Ride – 12/15/2017
Another froogery morning and all is well in my little egocentric world. My throat is recovering nicely from a recent trip to my congressman’s office to drop off documents and signatures. They are always so pleasant in person and then kick you in the ass when they think nobody is looking. But we keep trying.
So, it was a sparkling day as I was going for a ride in my car, car, just going for a ride in my car; when Queen came on the radio. I absolutely killed singing along with Freddie Mercury (at least in my little egocentric world) and thus the sore throat. I am much better now. And we ARE the champions.
Fly Faster – 12/22/2017
I always embark and debark the train at the last door of the car, just in case I need to hop off quickly when a transit cop hops on. This doesn’t happen very often but it has become my SOP. It is also a good spot for observing relativity or point of reference demonstrations put on by our small, winged friends. In the summer it is usually a yellowjacket but at this time of year it is just the occasional common housefly. The yellowjacket is much more interesting in scale and activity as its size alone makes it easier to study. It doesn’t fly faster to keep up with the speed of the train or change direction to hold position near the shoulder of the oblivious young lady with her head buried in her all-consuming electronic device. Although, the reaction by the human when becoming aware of the wasp is worth the fare in itself. I inevitably wonder when the insect eventually finds an open door and debarks, maybe ten miles down the track, if it registers any kind of disorientation. How the hell did I get here? Excuse me, Union Station? Is this Union Station?
Peace and Harmony
A Brief Encounter – 12/29/2017
My peripatetic habits often place me in the dreamlike surroundings of alternate, ephemeral realities. Large gatherings of geese along the shore create a somnolence of soft grumblings in conformation (I meant to type confirmation but this turns out to be a cool fit.) of their security in numbers, and my eyes grow heavy and my pace slows. I see Orion’s belt just above the horizon and lean back to view the stars and let my thoughts wander. I become dizzy looking for Betelgeuse. Perhaps her luminance drowns in the ever-present ambient light from our front range cities. A brief encounter with complete darkness and silent calm comes over me and I must concentrate to regain my equilibrium. I focus and locate the path. I am not sure how long I have been in this meditative state but I find that I have continued my little chant. This is good. This will keep me alive. And I continue my walk fully receptive to whatever my next little journey will present.
Peace and Harmony
Stride for Stride – 01/05/2018
“You’re not walking at 5:00 AM when it’s five degrees out and you have a cold.” Is what someone who cares about you says when you are too stupid to care for yourself. Any argument is met with The Look. I suppose that means she loves me blah, blah, blah.
So I found myself on an afternoon stroll bathed in some very pleasant sunshine. A perfect day actually, fairly cold with an intensely radiating winter sun warming me to my cockles, whatever that means. I don’t believe that is quite to the nether regions although the sun was doing a very thorough job. And sticking to the more pedestrian paths – part of my “take care of yourself” instructions, no steep climbs today – I, of course, encountered more pedestrians. Really just a few kind people and their dogs, Bruno was no doubt the friendliest. But I couldn’t help analyzing their gaits. One guy walked like an old coder I knew, very short but energetic steps. He always seemed in a hurry but never covered much ground. One guy precariously approached each step as if he could barely catch himself from falling forward. He was actually making pretty good time. Another guy reminded me of someone I met only once in Indiana. He walked exactly like a skateless hockey coach crossing the ice between periods.
Now my carriage, manly and athletic, virile and erect, is impeccable. Note that I refer to my stride and not the nether regions touched on earlier. And now I wrote “touched on”. Where is this headed?
Peas and Hominy.
Name that Tune – 01/12/2018
I’m being hounded by a melody in my head that is not quite complete. It presented itself to me several days ago on a morning walk, go figure, but it will not fully reveal the precise tune or lyric. The trail takes me around this old fence and I see what for a brief moment looks like a mother bear and two cubs. It is not. Having been down this path before I realize it’s just those bear shaped rocks I’ve encountered many times in this area. Just boulders in moonlight. That phrase, boulders in moonlight, triggers the melody: something and something, something and something, then rising in pitch to some chorrrr-ord. So this is in my head and I’m trying to nail it down and after a while I find myself singing Uncle John’s Band. A good song, but not my song. Sauntering down the road to The Dead isn’t helping any but as my mind wanders, still trying to identify the original mystery, I see Jack Sheldon singing with the Merv Griffin band. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! Then it’s like, yeah, it’s Jack Sheldon, but not doing his Schoolhouse Rock stuff. Still not quite getting it. Aarrrrrgh!
Now I’m to the lake. It has finally frozen over. I’m fascinated by the sounds emitted from the ice. Gets my mind off the Merv Griffin Show. As layers are forced together and tensions mount somewhere in the depths a sound spreads across the surface like the stretching of a rusty spring on an old wooden screen door. Air tries to escape mimicking the bubbles in an ancient office water cooler. And then, I swear, there was a sound I can only describe as uhny uftz, the sound Rob Petrie heard when, on the Dick Van Dyke show, he thought he saw a flying saucer. Wow.
Still don’t know the song. It will no doubt come to me next time I’m shoveling snow or some other menial task. Oh well, see you next week when I return to the twenty first century.
Peas and Hominy
Basic Math – 01/19/2018
I know the trail around the small lake near our home is a little more than one mile, about 1.1 miles, divided by pi equals approximately .35 miles or 1,848 feet or 616 yards. So, although the lake is far from a perfect circle, the mean diameter is probably close to this 616 yards. Don’t know why I decided to figure out the diameter of the lake this morning but a little basic math in my head probably helps keep my mind sharp, or not, we’ll see. With the warm weather, which felt nice but is a bit scary, my path headed for a watery route. After the lake we climb a steep but not too long hill in order to get into the watershed for Bayou Gulch. It’s a good feeling to get over this hill and head down to the bottom of the gulch. My trail meets up with the gulch trail, once I cross the stream, about a mile upstream from Cherry Creek. Now I don’t want to make this appear wetter than it is. Bayou Gulch is an intermittent stream at best and with the inconsistent weather it doesn’t even have ice in it at this time. But this confluence of trails is always cool. No matter the time of year the degrees are fewer. Nice in the summer.
Can this dry gulch be considered a tributary? I’m making it a tertiary tributary to Cherry Creek, which is secondary to the South Platte and, after joining with the North Platte, the Platte is a primary tributary to the Missouri. Or does each step need to drop back a level because nothing reaches an open sea until the Mississippi gets involved. Questionable sharpness of mind.
I enjoy this trail but I also know that hiking along a riverbed, no matter how dry, means going uphill for the next couple of miles. It is not steep, more undulating with the interpolated trend showing a steady increase. Kind of like climate change. And I am just reaching the climax of the trail when the sunrise explodes into a bright red. I hurry to the pinnacle, breathing heavy, trying to catch the best view. A great horned owl distracts me as he heads for another gho in the distance. Are they fighting? Ah, copulating, perhaps the romance of the sunrise. A few brief squeaks and the guy flies off. Typical. I am relieved to know I can last longer than an owl. This guy barely outlasted a Galapagos tortoise.
Peas and Hominy
Nobody Wants to See That – 01/25/2018
Nothing is coming to me today and when I get like this many of my thoughts and observations turn to the dark side. This is fine when working on a story angle but not the kind of thing I want to share with innocent bystanders. I see a large family of deer, maybe three or four generations, grazing in the woods and should comment on the number of yearlings and how their coats are so dense and fluffy this time of year. But instead I think Jesus Christ, how many fucking fawns survived this season? The fawn mortality rate must be about zero. That kicks the shit out of the US infant mortality rate. What are we about thirty-second in the world? The CIA puts us at fifty-eighth. I don’t know why the CIA has their own number. Are they going to use it to destabilize an innocent country for having a slightly different ideology? And as a country we don’t seem to care about this embarrassing rate. Instead of throwing money at it like everything else, we use our budget to keep the industrial/military/congressional complex afloat. And it is not just this year. The last POTUS tried to decrease the military budget but it was still a ridiculous percentage of our total discretionary spending. Congress fought the decrease every step of the way from both sides of the aisle. Seems our Colorado liberals, so called, were just fine with that. Don’t want to step on the toes of Lockheed Martin. So now we have a proposed 10% increase. And what do the military personnel who actually put their lives on the line get? A 2.1% increase. Gee whiz, we’re never going to get the children of the privileged few to join at this rate. Keep that backdoor open.
Where was I, oh yeah, so many fucking deer. It’s because the predators are leaving or gone. There are many reasons for this. A major contributor is the migration of predators north as warmer temperatures make these areas more hospitable for many of these animals. The red fox has been particularly susceptible to this trend. This also creates undue stress on the habitat of the arctic fox as the red fox is much more aggressive in their somewhat imperialistic pursuits.
Should I go into other things that are gone? One hit me the other day when I was starting a new book. I like to look at the reviews in the Praise For – insert title here – pages. Sometimes I’d see a blurb from our local paper. With this last book I realized that I will never see this again. The Denver Post no longer features local critics in their book reviews. They buy reviews from the Washington Post, or maybe the WP owns the DP now. I didn’t take the time to look into it. But it is sad.
I apologize now to anybody reading this far. This reminds me of what my aunt once hollered from the deck of a mountain cabin. My elderly uncle, not much older than I am now, was climbing, naked, from a hot tub nearby in what was otherwise a bucolic early morning setting. “J, NOBODY WANTS TO SEE THAT.”
Priests and Homilies
Entangled – 02/02/2018
Is it all about synchronicity? Several days before this all came together C was filling in a crossword puzzle. And that is pretty much all it is for her. It’s like she doesn’t even need to pause and think about it. Boom, left to right, top to bottom, done. It is amazing. Anyway, C asks me if I have ever read any Umberto Eco novels. He shows up in a lot of crosswords for the easy vowel matchup, like Ulee’s Gold: and then I told her no but I have always meant to, and then she says Foucault’s Pendulum looks like one I would enjoy, and then I order Foucault’s Pendulum using up a gift card I received over a year ago (It was for Barnes and Noble and I just don’t like supporting these monster/monstrous chains.), and then Z sent us her Word of the Day email with Synchronicity being the word, and then I email the girls telling them to be prepared to discuss the mathematical aspects of synchronicity theory at dinner as Z’s definitions were sadly lacking in this area, and then after dinner I am in bed reading and on page 496 of The Northern Clemency I read “and then straight off into some page of Foucault or other.”, and then I LOL because it was in 1665 that physicist Christiaan Huygens first coined the term synchronization related to his observation of two independent pendulum clocks, and then I catch about two minutes of a tv show where the FBI director of the special task force is telling an operative to have the “T” symbol on a suspect’s shirt sent to semiotics for analysis, and just try doing any research on Eco without seeing references to semiotics.
Why not. I mean, most of this is easily explained by probability theory and large numbers. Basically there are a crapload of people doing a crapload of things all over the world all of the time. But the next time I was walking this all somehow triggered thoughts about quantum entanglement, where two entangled but separated particles, each governed by the randomness of quantum mechanics, stay sufficiently in touch so that whatever one does, the other instantly does also. This implies some type of faster than light exchange of information, or data, between the two particles. This holds true no matter their spatial separation. (Thanks to Brian Greene for this.) So this always blows my mind and leads to researching quantum teleportation, which they have actually done with subatomic particles, and Higgs fields, and the whole black hole and all information stored on the event horizon thing, so everything we see is just a hologram projected from the horizon of the universe (Thanks to Hawking and Susskind for this.) and my day was pretty much shot.
But hey, how about that super, blue, blood moon lunar eclipse. What a coincidence.
Peas and Hominy
Missing Cows – 02/09/2018
We have to start this high in the sky, or high on caffeine as I feel a little buzzed from too many coffees, it was surprisingly warm this morning, 32 degrees, we had an inkling of this, before checking the thermometer, from the lack of furnace noises as we rose from nocturnal sojourns, this also told me it would be overcast for my morning walk, or more of a saunter on a Friday, and it was but the waning crescent moon managed to make itself seen while stars and planets were absent, and a few well-formed dark silhouettes of high clouds passed between me and my orbiting companion, giving me a sense of wavelike motion, but I only tripped a few times trying to watch the show and feel my way up the trail at the same time, then I’m up top and suddenly everything has changed, the front range has cleared and a dense roll of bright bright white white clouds has nestled low in the valleys between the foothills and the purple mountains majesty behind, a splendid sight in constant, roiling motion below the warm morning’s inversion, then low clouds or high fog comes racing from the north and west, and I mean racing, like John Carpenter’s The Fog or that mist in The Incredible Shrinking Man, soon the small elementary school is devoured like in C’s theory of the missing cows on the hillside after a storm, and thanks to my daughter sleestacks come to mind but all I remember from these aliens are curtains of flying arrows that look more like the special effects guy just threw a bunch of sticks onto the set so I research sleestacks and the first thing to come up is a sativa dominant hybrid strain of marijuana, but it is named after the characters in Land of the Lost as a kind of cannabis community insider joke, so it might fit with my fuzzy memory of such things due to my cannabis enhanced world view from that time and this once cozy morning having prompted the extra coffee consumption has me typing to Coltrane’s Ole at high volume with its soul pumping double bass line pulsing through me, but to be clear it is not just a rhythm played on a double bass, it is two guys playing double bass, Art Davis and Reggie Workman, it is driving and I am done.
Peas and Hominy
Fun – 02/16/2018
A fairly frosty Friday faced a fiercely flexing, farting fossil fueled furnace; fractious fumes found floating forth as our feeble federal felons foreclose on famous forests, feeding fracking follies. But a fantastic foggy foray featured fully frocked families of frozen Fraser firs.
Actually, Fraser firs are few and far between around here, but it seemed a fairly feasible fiction. We do have a preponderance of precious pines, primarily Ponderosas perched on precarious peaks.
Fridays full of fun to all,
Peas and Hominy
It Will Clear – 02/23/2018
Unexpected light snow Monday morning and intermittently through the day ushered in a real freeze overnight. Minus three degrees when we got up Tuesday and we stayed in bed longer than usual waiting for the sun to warm things. It did not cooperate. I pulled on long underwear and extra socks before donning my usual winter layers in preparation for a walk. Our thermometer hit minus two a short time after sunrise and I hit the trails. At least the temperature was going in the right direction, hopefully. This old engine is not producing quite the heat it used to.
Upon exiting the house the prescription lenses immediately fog over. The pupils are nearly blinded and struggle to see the path around this shroud created by icy foes and hot air.
What the hell, the right pupil reacts with a hint of fear in its voice.
I think we are ok, says the left pupil, this is normal. Nature will find its balance and the lenses will clear.
Son of a bitch, shouts RP, its fear turning to anger, some fucker is doing this to me.
No, it’s just a little colder than usual, it will clear.
It’s that scarf. He pulled it up from below, around his neck, where it’s warmer. That’s causing the problem.
The scarf has been there a long time. The data shows that it is not causing a problem. It’s actually helping.
Well it is something, it is not me. What about the nose in the middle there? It’s working pretty hard, steaming things up.
Dude, it’s winter in America, the nose has to work much harder just to keep the engine running at a normal temperature.
You’re starting to sound like a typical left pupil and My lens is icing up even more. The demagogues said they could fix this.
You shouldn’t listen to those nobodaddies in their castles made of sand. They do not have your back. Hey, my lens is clearing up but I think we got off the path.
Well Jesus, get us back on the path. I still can’t see and I fear those deep roots off the trail. Fuck it! I’m shooting the lens out.
What?!
I’m going to shoot the lens out.
NonoDon’t!
There.
Wow. The lens is gone?
Yeah. No fogged up lens blocking my vision.
But you don’t see well without it. Now, no matter how warm it gets you won’t see clearly.
Yeah well, like you said, it’s fucking winter in America.
And nobody knows what to say.
Good Books – 03/02/2018
I don’t want to get too far into the exegesis – Jesus has left the building? * – of music, lyrics and books but off I shall go on a wild and undisciplined rambling. I recently finished a very good novel, 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster. It was recommended by my sister and given to me by C. And it made me think that the greatest gift a friend can give is just a book and one from which to learn. The rhythm of this thought reminded me of the song Nature Boy and a lyric I’ve always appreciated. Are you getting it? The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. Nature Boy has long been a standard and has been recorded “like a million times” by everybody from Nat King Cole to John Coltrane, not very far alphabetically but at least a few parsecs musically. (Yes you Star Wars fans, a parsec is a distance, NOT a time, measurement.)
This reminds me of a few birthdays back when my daughter burned a cd for me with about twenty versions of Nature Boy. (Although this technology has become somewhat archaic, it was a step ahead of a mix tape.) My first thought, in a somewhat elated state: Oh my god, people actually listen to me! My second thought, in a somewhat terrified state: Oh my god, people actually listen to me? My third thought, just coming to me today: The wild range of approaches thoughtful musicians take to their music is amazing. Miles and Coltrane jumping on the modal approach espoused by George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization. (Whaaaat?) Then Coltrane moving on with people like Coleman, Sanders and Dolphy to an approach that was ALL ABOUT THE NOTES. I don’t think Mingus liked these much but he had no trouble muscling his way into the conversation with his gospel/blues/jazz fusion. I love them all. Then there’s Albert Ayler. I told C the other day that I think I am one of only two people in the world listening to Ayler to relax. Probably, she said, but who’s the other one? I don’t know, but there has to be someone.
So please enjoy and share art in whatever form it manifests itself to you.
* LMAO joke contributed by C. She is a funny lady.
Peas and Hominy
One Question – 03/09/2018
Time has gotten away from me today, but I hear a clamoring (Can two voices be considered a clamor?) for more words. Here’s something from my notes:
When he yells
Innocents sigh
Treasonous, racist unpleasantries, misogynist pandering,
Now or then
It never
Jives, always insulting lies?
Peas and Hominy
Where to Begin – 03/16/2018
Sometimes I’m walking in the dark, maybe most times, and my mind just takes off. There is a Buddhist chant I use to clear my head. I don’t know if it works. Today I’m thinking about something I’m writing that has me kind of stuck but that is not where things go.
We had rain overnight instead of snow, weird, so C and I were up earlier than usual anticipating ice for her commute. There was no ice but, as we were up, C was off to work and I was out walking way before sunrise, or even moonrise for that matter. It was nice on my trail and lonely in the best possible way. I could tell there’s a scattering of thin clouds by the way their silhouettes interrupt the patterns in the stars. A great blue heron glides overhead. The first I’ve seen this year. It seems too soon for me although most of the books on the subject indicate their migration brings them to Colorado in March. And a fog comes on little cat feet. It’s hard to tell in the dark. Maybe Sandburg can tell me.
So how did March come in? As we’re over halfway through is it on its way out? The words jumble in my head and I get the lion going in like March but coming out late, perhaps in May, like a lamb. But this sounds (Do I hear these things in my head? Is “sounds” the right word?) more like a Vietnam War metaphor and I don’t want to go there. But there I am and I try to remember better things about the presidents from that era. Johnson escalated and escalated but made some strides with the Civil Rights Act. Nixon illegally expanded into Cambodia, this kind of thing appears to be just fine now, but he did end the draft, at least from the front door, and opened up China. And didn’t it really start with Kennedy? How many voting machines ended up in Lake Michigan? The Domino Theory thrives to this day but maybe it should apply to American politics rather than the spread of communism as one code of ethics after another falls like a row of dominoes.
OK, enough of that, I want to go back to thinking about the great blue heron.
Returning to my pleasant outing I am reminded of my walks with Hannah in Washington Park. Hannah was a Dumb Friends rescue. Officially labeled a shepherd mix, we decided she was mostly Border Collie. And this is where the story begins.
Peas and Hominy
Chinooks – 03/23/2018
I empathize with early European bastards succumbing to the Prairie Madness caused at least in part by the ceaseless winds along the foothills. It appears that the well-established Human Beings in these areas had the strong social structure that helped prevent such mental breakdowns. As I am not a very social person I should beware.
The winds have been relentless lately and this morning the 52 degrees on our thermometer should have alerted me to the chinooks. This chilless breeze created an almost creepy ambiance. The currents are far more substantial than your average frolicking variations in air pressure. The trees roar in complaint and Mariah screams in your ears. I lean into the gusts. They can actually hold me up but I need to be prepared for a quick ebbing of the wall of pressure. This situation has led to embarrassing stumbles in the past. The wildlife, however, is seldom judgmental. They understand. We’ve seen deer trip over sprinkler heads.
The fauna do not like these conditions. They become tense and restless. Their senses are rendered useless. They’re as jumpy as I. The inability to accurately identify sounds and smells is disorienting. This leads to very close encounters with deer. We both leap upon the sudden realization that we are face to face. The deer leap quite a bit farther. My vertical is not what it once was. The rustling, creaking and banging in the woods prompts many double takes. I say out loud “Was’ at!” like Linus in The Great Pumpkin. I’m tempted to yell “Cecil Jacobs is a big fat hen!” addressing unidentified noises seeming to follow me down the trail.
But I make it home without the unfounded fear of being devoured by a mountain lion or bear coming to pass. I sit just outside our basement door under the deck. I am well shielded from the winds and there is a moment of calm as the sun rises. The birds begin to sing. There are finches, sparrows and wrens; robins and orioles; chickadees and nut hatches; a redwing blackbird. I don’t know which song goes with each bird.
Corner-Grocery-and-Bar – 09/25/1981 – 04/06/2018
When I stepped out for a walk this morning I slipped into a reverie of times gone by. Some writing I worked on yesterday reminded me of events in my life in the late 70’s or early 80’s, shortly after graduating. I was working as a surveyor at the time. Degrees in math and computer science and this is what I did. Not much trickling down. Although the main reason for this job choice was that I loved running over the rivers and through the woods with a tripod and transit slung over my shoulders. And our crew of three could occasionally enjoy a few beers after work, on the clock.
We found ourselves near Victor, in the Cripple Creek area, at least that was the closest town, in a very rugged part of Teller County. I was, as usual, oblivious to the purpose of our work. I never thought about who hired us or why. It was an intense area and we weren’t staking for new subdivision filings or some government driven eminent domain right-of-way bullshit so I felt good being out in the forest.
During the week, the company put us up in the cheapest rooms that could be found close to the survey area. This saved on daily travel pay. I didn’t know such a thing existed. It wasn’t like the guys in the field got paid for travel time, but the company charged for it. So anything more than an hour or so out of Denver and we ended up in a crappy motel, hopefully with a crappy bar nearby. What we found in Victor was a kind of corner-grocery-and-bar. I’m talking swinging doors, boardwalk, a muddy street; nothing gussied up for tourists. We walked in sweaty and dirty from a day of traversing the hills and found a place sparsely peopled with a couple of haggard cowboys and outlaws. At least that is what it looked like, something out of a John Ford western, with more black leather and sleeveless jean jackets. The real cowboys are cool and even friendly. The self-described outlaws are often confused racists full of hate and looking for somebody to blame and someplace to fit out. In a place like this it’s hard to tell just what kind of outlaws we are going to be dealing with until somebody starts giving us shit, or not. We’ve had grown men approach us like the town bullies, some kind of friendless high school pricks challenging our right to be in their town. Not on this night, but it has happened.
Our crew chief was well adapted to such environments. Which is a nice way of saying he is a bit of a good ol’ boy and closet racist. P and I were still a bit too urban looking, even pretty trashed out from a day in the woods, to escape some unfriendly glares. We just hoped the waitress, probably a girlfriend to one of the outlaws, didn’t get overly friendly in pursuit of a good tip. All of a sudden we were the desirable, forbidden outlaw types because we didn’t look like outlaws. Fortunately, no bar brawls broke out. No chairs broken over anybody’s back. By the second night we got a few friendly nods. We, nevertheless, kept our visits brief; a burger and a beer and back to the motel. We did not broach the subject of right-wing militias or the suspicious compound flying the confederate battle flag just outside of town. Probably needed the rest anyway.
We returned home for weekends. Home for me was most of the first floor of a makeshift Denver Square conversion. Three rooms, kitchen in one of those old sagging shed additions, bathroom in a closet. No actual closets. Some found furniture and a 12 inch black and white TV incongruously matched with my state of the art B&O stereo system. Seems like my homes are always poorly lit. The wiring is seldom up to code, always one room with no outlets at all. The placement of walls more concerned with the number of units that could be created with little investment of time or capital rather than convenient outlets, natural lighting or Feng Shui. But it was better than a year earlier when I lived off of 13th and fed on a carton of milk, bologna and cheese from the 7/11. One pack of each had to last a week. Now I could afford to split a pizza with friends at the Wazee Supper Club while getting about every other beer free from J the barkeep on Friday nights. It was also a good crowd for copping an invite to Saturday dinner or a party in a park; community sponsored keggers. Show up with some meat and you could eat and drink all afternoon and into the night.
So there, I finally got to the subject of my reverie; the Wazee Supper Club on Friday nights.
Peas and Hominy
The Dowager – 04/13/2018
After a week of unusual heat and drought, the wind again contributing to stage one fire conditions, we woke to an unexpected yet welcome spring snow shower. We had brush fires in the area yesterday. One was sparked by heavy machinery on a construction site. This had me ready to rant about the way ugly insinuates itself into or lives. It physically and socially creeps along in small increments. Then, what mistakenly seems all of a sudden, there is a flood of ugly and hate saturating our lives. And we adjust. Many anthropologists suggest that Homo sapiens’ strongest evolutionary trait is our ability to adjust. Sometimes I think we might be too good at this resigned acceptance.
But the crystal palace built of wind and snow changed my mood. The three deer butts lazily strolling across a nearby road sealed the deal. The small, intermittent stream beds were already flowing due to the barely freezing temperatures and high moisture content of the storm. One of the larger inlets to the lake was heavily populated with a flock of bufflehead drawn to the fresh waters. Spooked as I approached, they thundered off from the willows to safety at the center of the lake. The startling outburst of their flapping wings reminded me of flushing quail out on the plains. Our two Canada geese were not disturbed by my presence. This pair has set up permanent residence for the last few years, opting out of the mundane migrations of their peers. Down a small slope from the lake a large, solitary cottonwood stands naked in icy swirls, seductively stretching and bending in the wind, creaking like dry cartilage as she tries to pry herself from winter’s unrelenting hibernation. As if attempting to cover herself in a tattered robe, she becomes wrapped with tidings of magpies. Their long tails hanging from her neck and shoulders like a heavily adorned dowager or over-decorated, yet anemic, Christmas tree.
There are more deer dashing through the snow. They become a bit lethargic with extended hot spells this time of year as they still wear their heavy winter coats. They can be found lazing in the shade of large trees, chewing their cud, staying cool. The mild temps have them sprinting through the woods with their stiff legged gait. They leap up steep embankments and execute jump cuts that would evoke jealousy among the very best NFL running backs. They seem to rejoice in the harmony of nature.
The fields in the area were busy with the just arriving western bluebirds. The colors these little guys display are not nearly as vivid as their eastern cousins. When perched on the common mullein stalks that survived the winter, which was not terribly difficult this year, they look like small robins. I’ve had a visiting relative from Missouri question my identification of this species. We avoided any minor contretemps, however, when, in unintentional imitation of the constant turning and nervous twitching of small birds, the focus of her attention had advanced several times before I could encourage her to just watch for a minute. When they take flight the dance of blue radiance is a treat for the eyes and my soul. Not ugly at all.
Peas and Hominy
The Pec – 04/18/2018
So I’m drifting into the East Colfax scene and jammin’ on Neal/Dean/Cody (Let’s go with Cody.). I can’t help it. I arrive by train, that seems to fit, and head east for music and books. Walking like a tourist, I stop at intersections and wait for the walk icon. What the fuck. Then not. I fall into the rhythms of the old avenue, expertly dodging trash and pedestrians, politicians and preachers peddling their passions, performers and pee. My stride falls into an allegro tempo synchronized with the traffic, only an occasional eighth rest required to negotiate a fender from a side street.
Colfax seems to be able to resist most of the gentrification of Denver and maintain its beat persona. Mixed in with the art and graffiti, graffiti and art, graffiti as art, graffiti on art are the stenciled portraits of Jack Kerouac that started showing up several years ago as part of a one man Jack was Here campaign. So, you know, it all fits. Man, it would be more crazy not to, I mean . . . you know, you have to get in their heads. Maybe leave reality for a while. I mean, like the stores are across the street from East High School . . . Cody’s school when he wasn’t in jail.
I have two destinations today as I pass weird minglings of trendy restaurants, dollar stores and strip clubs; Tattered Cover Book Store and Twist & Shout Records. I may have gotten a contact high from the many pot emporiums along the way but arrive smiling and relaxed. I have a mission at the bookstore so I go there first. I need Anne of Green Gables for a small gift project. They have it. They always have it, whatever it is. And they are not Amazon. I have no mission at the music store. This is the best way to shop for music. Just go with the vibe. I end up with some Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra. Cool vibe.
Headed back to the train we cross Park Avenue. (We? I guess they’re all in my head now.) Park Avenue comes in diagonally and is the driving influence on the geography of Five Points. We’re in a pool hall on Glenarm. “. . . somebody had the backdoor open simultaneously with the alley door of the Welton Street parlor so that you could see a solid city block of poolhall . . . ”* in Cody’s time. El Chapultepec was there and still is, right on the edge of Five Points. The Pec; they still have jam sessions but it has gotten a little formal, being scheduled regularly on Sundays. In the 70’s/80’s crossover period you didn’t show up until the Wazee was closing. That’s when the big names would drop by after their paying gigs and anybody was welcome, even the shy white kid.
Not everybody would play but it was a great way to unwind for some of these guys. The atmosphere was intoxicating; a tiny space, the archetypical smoke-filled dive, barely room for an upright piano, one row of booths and bar seating, we usually stood in the space between, kitchen access through a trapdoor behind the bar, we never ate there.
Maybe Jack and Cody were there years before with Cody recording everything because he “was so high he forgot the machine was running.” *
An obnoxious noise pulls me back from my time travels. Why is an alarm going off at the U.S. Mint? And who in their right mind would want delivery from Burger King?
Fear and Loathing from Colfax
*Visions of Cody: Jack Kerouac
A Real Fear – 04/27/2018
Saw a police video on Facebook the other day. Cops have a few kids pulled over. Don’t know why but nobody is being unduly harassed or beaten or anything like that. Then a middle-aged woman pulls over, jumps out of her car and confrontationally approaches the cops. Apparently one of the kids is her child, apparently she deserves special treatment because the mother is the commissioner of some port authority and knows the mayor, apparently kids in graduate school never do anything wrong, apparently being levelheaded and articulate is not a job requirement for the commissioner of the port authority. I couldn’t figure out why the mother was so aggressive and unhinged. Did she think the kids were being profiled; pulled over for DWP (Driving While Privileged), not recognizing their assumed entitlement, or are they above the law because they go to Yale or MIT (schools that have abandoned much of their academic integrity due to legacy pressures)? In the end the cops were very cool, much cooler than I would have been.
Then I’m walking this morning and something is needling at me. I push it out of my mind and pause to watch a small sorde of Lesser Scaup circle the lake several times before skimming across the water, barely breaking the surface and gracefully coming to rest. I continue on, still fighting disturbing images, and come to a field of blooming Prairie Golden Bean, the first I’ve seen this spring. Every year I am amazed at the delicacy of this tiny wildflower thriving in such a harsh environment. Later I’m scrubbing toilets and changing the vacuum cleaner bag while listening to Cecil Taylor, the louder the better with these chores, and I can no longer escape my thoughts.
What if that routine traffic stop had involved people of color? Maybe nothing would have been different. There are a hell of a lot of good cops in this country. But with our highest government officials pushing an agenda of hate and mistrust there is a fear spreading. There is the unjustified fear of anybody different than me. There is the real fear for these targeted people living with that little doubt in the back of their heads every day. This is a terrible realization. Nothing new, but I wish I hadn’t had it today.
Peace and Harmony
Romantic Warrior – 05/04/2018
I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. We have survived the Norman Invasion, although it looks like Cnut “be careful when you write that” the Great has lost control of England. The Normans were everywhere and the carnage was overwhelming. The initial onslaught developed just before dawn, following a night of torrential rains. They advanced from the cover of the tall grasses to slowly, I mean very slowly, gain control of the paths and roadways. You could not navigate your course without, often bloody, confrontations. As the morning progressed the Red Army, with banners bearing the Robin Coat of Arms, waving in the half-light of battle, engaged the enemy. This Medieval overture materialized as if a sorceress influenced both armies. Nobody could establish the upper hand. Then a romantic warrior arrived, asserting his prowess with a majestic dance, cloaked in his mighty armor feathered in radiant blacks and iridescent blues. He could take several Normans with one swipe of his weapon, truly the magician who could wrest victory from the sorceress. But know ye, this was not to be. The Red Army soon regrouped and turned on this bully. The spoils were theirs. Like a jester entertaining court, a solitary soldier faced the much larger tyrant. He bobbed and weaved, piling up body shots on the intruder. The duel ended with the piker fleeing this now gruesome arena. Oh, the humanity!
And the sun now sears the field of battle, revealing an earth gouged and blood stained. The scene rife with withered limbs, bodies eviscerated and exposed, the stench of rotting offal. And the Normans have held. Though many have fallen, they enjoy a simple superiority of numbers. But Cnut, having fought bravely and well, must return to Denmark. Forever? Perhaps. And yet conquests continue. Armies sway to and fro. And though much is lost, little is gained, karma will see to that. There is no new ground to be won.
This is how life unfolds before me when walking in the rain and I recall a similar rainy walk with C. The worms were emerging from their subterranean casts to populate the sidewalk. She called them “Normans”, for no particular reason. And, knowing they would dry up and die if stranded on the concrete, when the rain stopped, started placing the little Normans back in the grassy areas for safety. Earthworms have been Normans in our world ever since.
And these songs will play again, with Chick on keyboards.
Peas and Hominy
An Armada – 05/11/2018
The pelicans are back. There were many circumnavigating the lake, herding fish for breakfast. I tried to count them. I got twenty. Counted again and got twenty-two. One more try. Got twenty-one. Is it me? I’m going with twenty-one. I have researched the collective noun for pelicans and have found nothing. I have a book devoted to such things and pelicans are not mentioned. I have decided to use Armada. This seems to fit as I watch them cruise in formation, regal in size and carriage. These big bellied galleons sit high on the water, appearing motionless above the surface, invisibly propelled by churning legs bellow, seeming to advance before the wind like great sailing ships. The most feared navy on the seas. I hoped to see them take flight, a lovely sight they did not share today. They struggle lifting their considerable bulk from the water, impressive wings beating the surface several times before gaining their freedom. Then they soar. Their black flight feathers defining their incredible wingspan, sweeping out a path of over one hundred inches, slowly, with power and grace.
A dense mist was rising with the lake retaining the heat generated from the high eighties – the ambient temperature, not a reference to any altered consciousness in the 1980’s – yesterday having fallen off to about forty-two this morning. With the sky promising a dramatic sunrise I stood and watched for many minutes anticipating a tableau vivant peopled by the armada of pelicans in a resplendent setting. Although I enjoyed every minute, the promise was not fulfilled. The brilliant sunrise, as they often do, failed to really develop.
This reminded me of years ago when C and I would hike in to some pretty rugged backcountry with tons of camera equipment. I was using a Bronica medium format at the time and would have several film backs loaded so each could be pushed or pulled as a set for later processing. I carried two lenses, a 75 mm and a slightly longer 200, a couple filters, a spot meter and various small tools. The weight added up, but we were young. We spent a lot of time waiting for light, shadow, wind, etc. to come or go for just the right exposure. Many times never releasing the shutter. You had to save the film. Imagine that.
One day deep in a wilderness area in southern Colorado, in the half-light of gathering afternoon clouds, we came upon an ancient tricycle, rusty and abandoned. Ensconced at the edge of a grassy meadow, near a woodlot, the small back wheels, bits of hard rubber clinging to the oxidized steel hubs, were nearly buried in the silt of time. C, was this the day we saw the Marten down by the river in that narrow canyon? Anyway, the light was perfect but the wind was incessant. I could use a shorter exposure but I would lose the effect I was going for. The wind never stopped. I never pushed the button. When we got back to the equipment we left behind in pursuit of our never recorded tricycle image we saw a bright yellow and black movement near the camera bag. For the briefest moment I thought it was a large bumble bee. It was not. It was a very large Tarantula. It was beautiful with its black and yellow markings but if it wanted the camera equipment I was willing to give it up. The spider eventually moved on, as did we.
Never know where I’m going to go with this stuff. That’s a big lie. This is exactly the path mapped out in my notes.
Peas and Hominy
Polite Chitchat – 05/18/2018
We’ve been seeing more wild turkeys than we used to. We developed a theory to explain this. There was a large open space near us that managed to maintain a fairly wild aspect in these times of conspicuous development. We referred to the area as Rocky Road, far from being official, it just fell into the category of invented proper nouns that have insinuated themselves into our daily dialogue. There was an old, severely eroded rocky road running through it. That’s all I have to say about that.
It wasn’t what I would call beautiful but it had a rugged, scrubby aspect that wildlife seemed to enjoy. Lots of places to hide. The first place I saw wild turkeys around here. Over the last year it has been thoroughly scraped and scooped, a real dilation and curettage, in preparation for building great big ugly homes. As a result we believe the turkeys have adjusted their foraging range to include the open space and draw behind our house. A few days ago, while passing an open window, I noticed one of our toms strutting around a tree on the opposite hillside. Minding his own business, perhaps hoping for some solitude, I saw this was not to be. A young deer decided to investigate. The deer seemed quite interested but not aggressive. The turkey head-bobbed a few paces and the deer sort of skipped after him. Turkey looks around and moves a few more steps, pauses to inspect the food supply, the deer advances. At this point the turkey rolled his eyes and moved a few more steps, always circling the big tree. I thought one of these wild things would move on to other distractions but they did not. I watched them circle that tree for five minutes or more and then I needed to move on to other distractions. I don’t know how long the merry-go-round continued.
Well today I saw eleven of these galliformes crossing a road and they stopped to look at me. We stood and conversed, just polite chitchat. When I spoke they seemed to cock their heads and listen. I warned them to move along as it was not safe to stop in the middle of a road. They would take a few steps and so would I. But they froze when I moved, looking back as if expecting some words of wisdom. I wondered if they could not register my presence when I stood perfectly still. How dinosaurian of them. I paused with Buddha-esque stillness and pondered the rafter of turkeys, I told you about that collective noun book I have, and they moved on. They were safe. The rabbit amongst the forest of tarsometatarsi seemed confused.
Peas and Hominy
0.35 Ounces – 05/25/2018
Morning routine seized by elements of nature completely out of my realm of influence. C was up and already in the bathroom. I drift in and out, enjoying the concert of bird song wafting through the window. The magpies and jays freeform their way into the melody. Borges had a line when his man, the sorcerer, was “awakened by the inconsolable cry of a bird.” Still trying to figure out what he is saying in his writing. They seem to reestablish territory every morning. Somebody is robbing somebody’s nest. The powerful alarm sounded by the magpies is Redman all over. Dewey jumping in like it was the middle of a solo. It wasn’t. That’s not easy. Tried some freeform for Kevin R. back in the late 70’s. A performance piece he was doing for school. I did not jump in like Dewey. Hope the project turned out. I miss liner notes. Sitting around. Passing a bowl. Reading what the artist has to say. “On Sunday she said, ‘You can do what you want.’ That’s when the organization of my music began.” Cecil said. Thinking more about the punctuation. Should I just do what I want? Sometimes think about noise and civilization. The magpies have me rethinking this. So, up earlier than I wanted. In the woods I’m bummed because the golden prairie beans were wiped out by recent hailstorms. Nice crop of prairie rocket seems to have taken their place. Nature. Researching prairie rocket I query the data base for yellow foothills May wildflowers. Got a hit on forty-four or farty-four as some Irish Catholic relatives would say. One was Jim Hill Mustard. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! Later the house wrens keep me off the deck. They’re building a nest in the birdhouse. The male’s mating song must have worked. He tries to penetrate the opening with too long dried pine needles. He fails. His mass is about 0.35 ounces. With the incredible acceleration generated by his heroic thrusting he is still producing less than a newton of force. A newton is approximately the force generated by your average apple succumbing to the force of gravity. Hm. – If it is not a low gravity day resulting from misused Ice-nine. This of course would not apply to your giant GMO apple. – Not enough to bend or break a dried pine needle. The temperature is rising so I need to close up the rest of the house. Just the south and west sides are still open. The last and coolest room is my office with a west facing window. But below the window is a sleeping buck already sprouting antlers as thick as a shovel handle. Can’t disturb him. He seems ok with the music but closing the window would freak him out. As a curtesy I delay getting to work. The phone rudely rings. He stretches languidly and is gone before I identify the caller. Starting to get pretty warm anyway. The mouse died as I was firing things up, leading to a search for new batteries which leads to a search for a new bag for the dead batteries, having recently recycled our old bag of dead batteries. And then I begin.
Peas and Hominy.
Not Saturday Night Dogs – 06/08/2018
These are not Saturday night dogs. You know, like Rahsaan said, Saturday night is the only night they get out and they act like it. T, C and M (Just noticed how these initials go together, after all these years, I don’t think they are even into old movies.) recently lost a puppy due to complications while being spayed. Sad.
My little buddy owned the lake path, he looked with questioning disdain upon new visitors. Were they real walkers or the only-walk-on-holidays type? Fucking Saturday night dogs. He was an Australian terrier but he trotted around that path with a calm and confidence that defied his size. Our paths crossed periodically for the last ten years. He wasn’t gregarious. He’d give the nod of acknowledgment, “’ts-up?” He perceived his time to be too valuable to waste on idle chitchat. He had important duties to tend to. I saw his mom unaccompanied the other morning. They had to put him down. I anticipate violent turf wars. But dogs don’t act like that.
There may be a new boss in town. I met him and his parents recently. They were getting him acquainted with the lake, and perhaps me. He was an instant, enthusiastic friend. We met again coming around the lake but I was on the wrong side of a split rail fence. He squeezed under the bottom rail and rolled on his back, exposing his belly. Nothing like rubbing a little puppy belly to make your day.
In the afternoons I see Bruno, a massive and very cool Rottweiler. He lives just up the road.
Another very close friend is Ginger, an Airedale mix. Her mom is Jean, who for years, before I knew her name, I’m embarrassed to admit, I gave the careless epithet of The Stroke Lady. She’s out there with Ginger, pushing her walker, every day. She even carries one of those retractable extended reach grabber gadgets so she can pick up any trash she comes across. We always have nice visits.
Over on Bayou Gulch I see the four Malamutes. They’re fun. One day I’ll tell you about Running Dog, one of my biggest fans, and our long-distance relationship. And just recently I met Lucky, an old mutt that insists on waiting when he sees me coming, no matter how far back I am. He doesn’t run back to me but he waits, forcing his parents to wait also, until I catch up.
There are others but I’m running out of time. I feel lucky to know them all.
Peas and Hominy
Nothing to be Concerned About – 06/13/2018 – 06/22/2018
I’ve heard it three times now. This doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened before. Many things have occurred many times without me noticing. I’m not always completely present. The trees have been ticking. Twice it has been the Ponderosa pines, once some Scrub oak. In large numbers it sounds like a roomful of mechanical clocks. (On my reread I thought I’d better add ‘mechanical’ here. Most clocks don’t tick these days, it’s just a barely audible hum. How many barely audible hums saturating our daily lives does it take to make us all crazy? I haven’t counted them but I think we have reached critical mass.) I contacted the county to report this and try to get some information. Now I’m on an email chain with Douglas County Forestry.
Cheryl, the director, emailed Jackie and cc’d me. Jackie had a good story about pinecones opening after a period of high humidity. I liked this story but it just didn’t seem to fit. And we haven’t had a period of high humidity. Michael, a ranger, got involved. He sent us along to Meg of the State Forest Service. Meg informed us that the ticking is the noise produced by the rubbing wings of a migrating insect of the cicada family. Supposedly nothing to be concerned about.
Perhaps it’s my natural mistrust of government officials, but I just thought the ticking forest was kind of cool until I saw the phrase ‘nothing to be concerned about’. Apparently they are not even sure these insects are migrating through. They may be harmless but why are they showing up now? Is it indicative of other forest issues? I think about pine beetles. They have been here as long as the Rocky Mountains have had pine trees but now they are wiping out forests. Not that this has anything to do with climate change. That’s nothing to worry about. The foxes started looking all mangy with furless tails and then they disappeared and we’re infested with rabbits. Not that this has anything to do with climate change. That’s nothing to worry about. Today I was pruning dead branches from a spruce tree. We lost one a few years ago. After thriving for more than eighty years they are stressed out due to more severe droughts and milder and milder winters. I have a daily debate with myself; do I let the spruce die or waste water trying to save them in times of uncommon drought? Not that this has anything to do with climate change. That’s nothing to worry about.
The trees are ticking.
Old and Small – 06/29/2018
Fires consume forests and grasslands. Smoke fills the air miles away. The sun is red in the middle of the day and my eyes burn and anybody not stuck in the middle of the furnace is oblivious. Conspicuous consumption has no consequences. The must have designer purchase defining our worth has seeped into every aspect of society; from our pets to our homes to our unnecessary and seldom used toys. And our libertine dictators couldn’t be happier.
Many years ago we were surrounded by farms and ranches that have ceased to be financially viable and are slowly converting to thousands of little boxes made of ticky-tacky. But they are not always little. Some are ridiculously voluminous structures, but still made of ticky-tacky. When we were more rural I would see weather hardened agri-workers in old, rusting pickups, dust caked to the side panels, rattling down the road. Now we have become a part of ubersprawl. I see gigantic, shining pickups taller than anyone I have ever known. They have never seen a day of hard labor. Their pilots are good people in aggressive pursuit of unhappiness wearing neckties or fine jewelry.
And I happily realize that everything I have is old and small.
Schrödinger’s Walk – 07/06/2018
It’s hard to work with the World Cup Quarterfinals dancing on the periphery of my awareness, but I carry on. It has to do with the actual, physical existence of anyone or anything. On a quantum level, which would translate to any level, a definable state does not exist until it is observed and that observation itself will impact that state. And I wonder while I’m walking if the lake exists on mornings when I take a different route. Or if the people and dogs I see cease to exist once I’ve passed them by. And what if I am in the box and I only exist when a fellow walker sees me. Am I dead or alive when they have not opened the box? For that matter, do any of us actually exist if we are not observed? Even with all of the government sponsored surveillance and illegal data harvesting there would be some moment when nothing is being watched. Does everything that seems to make up our world stop at that moment? Would we even be aware of this? These thoughts bounced around my head for quite some time on my morning sojourn, which I have dubbed Schrödinger’s walk.
Peas and Hominy
In God We Rust – 07/13/2018
And I find myself, consciously or subconsciously, imitating the styles of favorite authors. I retrieve the phrase post war modernism and wonder if we will see post war creativity again as wars never seem to end in this century. And a bad movie before bed fills my mind with exotic new facts David Foster Wallace shared from spending time in a substance-recovery halfway facility: “That certain persons will not like you no matter what you do. Then that most nonaddicted adult civilians have already absorbed and accepted this fact, often rather early on.” And as I drift off into my nightly adventures I wonder if this is a good trailhead.
The night noises cross my trail while I struggle in a half-sleep at about 2:00 AM and tell me a wanderfall story. Entered Avirgimarry explosing a killer arsonher from vea to shining vea with arching missiles stretching in vexual extrasea. A hamsome stud coyly guards the shallow well mestled in the soft flatlands metween the entricingly dry and smooth hint of tributaries gently falling to aft’ formidden regions. Avirgimarry’s piercing glare mesmerizes the unwary traveler, daring his advance into the taboo shrouded oasis below, megging to be missed.
Missed it shall be, relented the traveler. “Give us your hired, your hoor and your Henry.” begged our amerrycan. “Enough!” Cried the basses. “Lemmon east lake and wheel drive hour Greep Jam Parakeets.”
“In god we rust,” sighed the traveler. “Only the lonely follow the golden fool.”
“Thou shallots fill.” the fool resisted as he was chased by the reassigned scary man from the land of paltry-hate-ism.
And massive icecubes fill the veas like a whocksy riskey as the pork chester bleats.
After that I had to get up for an early walk.
Peas and Hominy
Mathin’ with Parabolas – 07/20/2018
The debris flow resulting from another hailstorm made for a day of interesting yardwork. Coming in with torrential rains, as they do, the volume of water and ice cascading down the roof soon proved too much for our gutters and downspouts. No itsy-bitsy spider was going to make it up these waterspouts. I would guess that any spider in the general area is now miles downstream. Rivers of flotsam and jetsam seek their own path around our home, flaunting the designs of my “in tune with nature” landscaping.
Cleanup and repair the following day is not so bad. Maybe my design is not that out of tune. A couple of rakes and a shovel are the only tools I’ll need. Some topsoil and mulches have been redistributed but it looks pretty good where it settles, just need to even things out a bit. The cobble edging on the west side of the house – which serves no purpose, just a design aspect, had to do something with the rocks I have come across over the years – needs to be rebuilt. A good project as it keeps me in the shade all morning. As I dig and rake around these rocks I uncover more rocks. I pry a few out with my fingers, might as well add them to the edging, but then realize that it goes deeper. I dash to the garage and return with a crowbar and hammer. Perhaps I’ve come across some old stone wall. As I dig it becomes obvious that this is not an accidental placement of stones. I go deeper and find more stones. They follow the serpentine pattern of my edging, which has always followed the natural contour of the terrain. I begin to wonder how old this formation might be. Is this a significant anthropological find? Who built rock walls in prehistoric North America? What’s that? I hit something foreign… a beer bottle. Crap, how old is Budweiser? Just some previous resident’s landscaping. The dirt under my nails is not from ancient Mesopotamia. Just nature messing with people’s heads.
So, peas and hominy and don’t be mathin’ with parabolas.
Clickety Clack - 07/27/2018
Joe Bonner, El Chapultepec, Five Points, Sitting In. Fires dump smoke on us for weeks. Smoke like sitting in late night down in Five Points years ago. I would pretend. Images of when Jack was here long before. Now I sit here listening to Pharoah and thinking about Kerouac.
Nice version of Coltrane’s classic, the beautiful ballad, according to Rahsaan, After the Rain. Joe on piano. Made Denver his home in his later years. Had a great sense of the modal approach to music but struggled with the disease most of his life. Said he had to quiet the voices. Made over 40 recordings but we’d hear his best stuff in small venues around town. Blew us away one night at the art museum. He was late. People grumbled then ignored. Huge, complicated sounds flowing from the grand piano. A rare treat. The grand piano. Too much music for one man.
Tom Tilton tells a story: “When Joe was spending summers in Harlem in his late teens, he went to The Village Vanguard to see Thelonious Monk, who was from the same town in North Carolina as Joe. It was cold out and Joe was wearing this wool-plaid sport coat that his mother had sent to him. He was invited backstage to say hello to Monk. And Monk was wearing the same, wool-plaid sport coat as Joe.
‘Where did you get that coat?’ Joe asked.
‘My mother sent it to me,’ Monk said.”
Good and bad days.
When Joe died the coroner reported he died in his sleep from heart disease, a common conclusion for alcoholics. It’s been reported that chronic alcoholics’ hearts are swollen to twice the size they should be, and they never again return to normal size. I don’t know if this is true. I know the common conclusion is.
Clickety clack, clickety clack, won’t someone bring the spirit back?
Let’s Pretend – 08/03/2018
I hear neighing in the distance as I saunter into the pocket of cool air near the bottom of Bayou Gulch. The trees seem to filter the advancing smoke of the western state fires, making it easier to breathe. I picture wild mustangs charging over the ridge, though I know better. A few strides up the trail I pass the last power pole. A powerline actually ends right there. I imagine it as the final and most extended reach of civilization, though I know better, the trail is concrete through this stretch.
We pretend in this country. This blanket of smoke is a perfect microcosm of climate change. It is preventing the area from cooling overnight, contributing to violent storms, giving me a headache. I can meditate the headache away. We pretend the science is wrong. We pretend the planet is not in danger. We pretend this will not have devastating consequences for our grandchildren.
There is a country rich in oil and baseball talent that was thriving and beautiful. In the most honorable of capitalistic values they decided to sell their oil to countries other than ours. With global financial pressures we have destabilized their economy and caused devastating poverty and ruin. They were mean to us. We pretend to support capitalism. We pretend that we don’t understand what happened to this once vibrant country. We pretend to care.
An enormous woman exits the gigantic grocery store with five children and a cart with twenty plastic shopping bags packed full of heavily processed imitation food. A snapshot of a staggering number of social issues. They head for their Chevy Suburban or similar monstrosity to race off to the next community organized, status defining activity. They pretend they practice worthwhile, Christian values. I pretend writing letters and making phone calls will make a difference.
We pretend that we care about children being gunned down at school. What ever happened to those bills being pushed through congress? Politicians pretend that rhetoric about rhetoric will distract until sensory overload pushes the masses on to the next tragedy we can pretend to care about.
We pretend we cannot afford to provide basic healthcare, but it is actually that we will not. We pretend we cannot afford to educate our children, but it is actually that we will not. I guess we are not doing a very good job of pretending we are the wealthiest country on the planet.
And I pretend I see wild mustangs and have finally walked beyond the last power pole.
Peas and Hominy
Old Fridays – 08/10/2018
From 05/13/2005 Notes. I was working in IT for an insurance company at the time:
Happy Friday everybody.
I must beg forgiveness for my long and unexcused absence. My time has been spent on the wrong priorities and I should be flogged for letting the trivial dreams of the mindless corporate machine occupy so much of my time over the last few months. The muses are not amused.
My days have been cluttered with sports metaphor laden motivational presentations by self-serving demagogues whose verisimilitude can only be matched by George Dub (Insert any 2018 politician who comes to mind.) and the gang. And the workers flock to serve the masters. Welcome to America; the land where thinking is optional and society is dominated by bored, unimaginative children who have had creativity washed from their dirty little minds by a generation of frightened parents learning childcare from television commercials.
This isn’t anything like Mahavishnu Orchestra, which might be the saddest thing I have ever written. There was a time in my youth, or whenever time might take us, when everything became crystal clear, an epiphany. The perfect moment can be created and enjoyed when the elements come together, as they often do, and inclination conquers convention. An enticing afternoon, a warm winter or a cool summer day, an overcast solstice in Denver or a sunny equinox in St. Louis, (Is my life too dependent on the weather?) a toke or two on something fresh and an outdoor audience with Mahavishnu’s Open Country Joy; this is all one needs.
Many years later I have the means, the wherewithal and the inclination to live such a simple life as this. Unfortunately I don’t have the time. (I actually do have the time now.) No time for a sunny day. Maybe Gil Scott-Heron is right and it is winter in America and nobody’s fighting because nobody knows what to say.
But do not be concerned by my ranting. I am quite content. Like Maya, I know why the caged bird sings and it is not for the type of freedom being sold by politicians. I can listen to the ancient, dusky rivers of Langston Hughes and drift away as needed. Take a deep breath. Contemplate a blade of grass. Why does math work?
Now I am going to enjoy a cabernet with C. Of course there’s time for a sunny day.
Until next time, this is the Lone Loon signing off from solitary confinement at the Thunderbird compound.
Peace and Harmony
Follow the Bats – 08/17/2018
Ramanujan and infinite series and how that relates to beer cans and a juvenile hawk or even the numerous bats as we orbit into darker angles of exposure and the owls join in and the stars wear a smoky veil obscuring the opportunity presented by midday lunar travels. I think of the darker hours of the day catching up to my morning walks, but this is backwards. Nature does not set the watch back. Nature does not wear a watch.
I have asked why math works. Ramanujan didn’t ask why. He just saw the pattern and despite the efforts of the white men writing his biographies, his theorems were correct without the input of stuffy Cambridge professors. If anything, these professors stifled his creativity by slowing his process while forcing their narrow concept of proofs on his results. In the first decades of the 1900’s one of the thousands of theorems he developed was the Ramanujan Theta Function:
And today “… each of the 24 modes in the Ramanujan function corresponds to a physical vibration of a string. Whenever the string executes its complex motions in space-time by splitting and recombining, a large number of highly sophisticated mathematical identities must be satisfied. These are precisely the mathematical identities discovered by Ramanujan.” (Michio Kaku)
There was no string theory when he came up with this function. So I wonder about the infinite supply of recently emptied Miller Lite cans along Lieutenant Dan Rd. Where do they come from? I don’t have the mind for this. And I share my confusion with the young Red-tailed Hawk standing by my path this morning and he cannot help me, though he seems sympathetic, and the owls simply question in the most Socratic tradition and the bats ignore me in their feeding frenzy and I remember a guy I worked with as a surveyor who followed the bats when getting in some early morning fishing before getting to work, and all is right with the world.
Peas and Hominy
Defining Color – 08/24/2018
Do the protagonists in Russian literature always go insane? I like that. I often contemplate the who, how, why of it all. Sanity is such a fragile state that I’m surprised more of us don’t cross to the other side. It’s not that far away. How often do we all visit and which side are we visiting? You don’t need a passport or work visa. The borders are not monitored. There is no illegal migration. It’s very difficult for outsiders to know if someone has crossed or which direction they are going. It is possible that people function in our society with very different realities, and nobody ever knows.
What is reality? It’s like defining color. We learn to call a color by name but that means nothing.
Reality is gazing out a window and letting your thoughts drift with every passing bird; the easily gliding vultures, busy this time of year, or the darting and chaotic finches and wrens, the clever crows, magpies and starlings beginning to mass while the majestic raptors patrol their territories. And as your thoughts ride with these passing creatures of the air, or you notice the recently arrived black squirrel and follow its tasseled ears bounding among the ponderosa limbs, you begin to relax and allow nature to take over and soon you have no disturbing thoughts and you are calm but can no longer write because it is only in this emptiness that you can find reality and maybe it shouldn’t be shared but . . .
Chandler Dialogue – 08/31/2018
The night winds started in August. He doesn’t know why. It is calm now. The man in the moon is wearing a porkpie hat and writing Chandler dialogue, a notorious hunter’s belt suspended nearby. And the keyboard has been dreaming and the music is so loud he’s beating me to a Latin rhythm. The young bushes don’t wear gloves like they used to, eliminating a part of the dance, “Tall, aren’t you?” slithered off her tongue. “I didn’t mean to be.” Quipped the ponderosa. A squeaking bird asks the same question every eight seconds and the owl gives the answer, in a slight reversal. And he stands exposed in the woods wearing nothing but hiking shoes, his feet soft compared to past St. Louis summers, listening to the conversation while cars and trucks doppler by on the distant highway. The Buddha, under slight duress, is still suffering. “Da res’” are ten miles from Rialto with the beaded curtain swinging. And the keyboard has been thinking. And he’s namu myoing away the Greek light chains and the city lights look like lava, always spreading, occasionally interrupted by brighter lights. And the forests have been smoking, lighting one after another. The coyote comes at 5:15 looking for his brother and the waiter just forgot us and we’re running low on drinks. And the media was fooling and the raccoon has retired, though he tried to be honest in a world where it’s going out of style. And the keyboard has been dreaming. The magpies strip the carcass till the bones are claimed by something larger. The beetles will finish the job. The deer are eating apples found by the old tree and the rodent snapped its neck and its eyes are empty sockets. And the somnolent satellite knits his yarn, pretty close to the truth. And the keyboard has been dreaming, not me.
Peas and Hominy
Titled #6 – 09/07/2018
I’m looking forward to a moonless Sunday morning and considering a predawn stroll. The comforting embrace of my weekend bedclothes will determine the overall success of this mission.
For now I am grooving to Gary Bartz and his Ntu Troop recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1973 and thinking “Wow, I’m still alive.” Got it cranked loud enough to drown out the noise; be it the neighbor’s lawnmower or the neurotically incessant internet racket. They ripped through an uninterrupted eighty-minute set driven by a young drummer named Howard King. He was seventeen years old at the time. So was I. What ever happened to the peace and love, the protest and rage, the people who gave a damn? The realization that it was just a fad was a shock to my naiveté.
And it is Friday afternoon so the clouds are moving in, the natural light by which I work fading. This has been a consistent occurrence throughout the summer: raining at 2:00 (Dinner at 8:00?). The gods are not happy with my instrumentation.
Peace and Love
Hungry Insects – 09/14/2018
Apparently our calibrachoa and vinca vines have become comestibles for previously unidentified marauders. The tips of the vines, greebly and smeared, develop a rough and scaly appearance, a closer inspection revealing aphids. The calibrachoa have been munched, it might be mites. Though mid-unrelated-project, I immediately went for my trusty Dr. Bronner’s 18-in-1 Hemp Lavender Pure-Castle Soap and mixed a water diluted solution for my spray bottle. The battle was on and a defensive strategy set. Parts of the vincas had to be captured and removed, forcibly detained due to heavy losses. The calibrachoa fell victim to saturation bombing from hovering spray bottle including attacks from below for maximum coverage. The tide was shifting until the wind itself shifted and my glasses succumbed to friendly fire. Taking my shirttail to the splattered area I discover that Dr. Bronner’s 18-in-1 Hemp Lavender Pure-Castle Soap is the best lens cleaner I have ever used. Only time and the writers of history will be able to determine the victors upon surveying this gruesome field of battle.
Peas and Hominy
Spirit Guides? – 09/21/2018
Welcome back my friends. Will this show ever end? You’ve already been inside and seen more than desired. Returning from my morning’s journey among the neighborhood’s acclivated and declivated terrain I find myself gazing at a treely silhouette against the now autumnal sky. I have no trope or toponymic topoi equal to its satanic image. It is distinct yet seems neither avian nor mammalian, an ever shifting cliché of a menacing deity rising from the depths of Khazad-dûm. I stretch in child’s pose facing east, cuz like that’s the way our bedroom window faces, prostrate before this godly shadow the size of, say, a mature ponderosa pine. Though forbidden, I lift my eyes to gaze upon the terrifying master only to see a kangaroo browsing on eucalyptus. Startled from my meditation, I bang my nose. There are no Rushdian drops of blood transformed into three rubies on the yoga-mat nor devilish calcium mutations. The efforts of certain deformities, however, are felt as I move out of my pose and sit on my heels. The figure turns away, a malevolent invitation proffered over its shoulder. I consider my queries for the now stereotypical coyote spirit guide as I see my spine shaping the bone encased cage rather than the cage shaping the spine. I attempt to engage my guide but am met only with ambiguities as it takes a third form, resembling Henery, Leghorn’s chicken hawk. With time our interplay evolves into a kind of antiphonal discourse. I propose a solipsistic interpretation of this parousia and it nods in confirmation as a breeze drifts through the window. With this in hand I shall go forth and proselytize the unsuspecting until they gather in angry mobs and beat me with sticks for using words they didn’t understand.
And now for something completely different: Go forth and enjoy this day of great perpendicularity.
Priests and Homilies
Go Back to the Beginning – 09/28/2018
Moonlight turned my world into an Edward Weston print. Rolls of clouds creep over the mountains defined in grades of silver by our proximate neighbor. The woods take on an eerie detail of contrasting shadows. Though much brighter than a moonless dawn, I find myself stumbling off the path. Wandering. Thin clouds now drift past the moon like lace curtains softly billowing on a distant window, the solitary light in an otherwise dark façade. I gaze voyeuristically, losing my way, pausing. I look back and realize I must return to the beginning. Vizzini said to go back to the beginning.
Peas and Hominy
Cool, dark, quiet. No heating apparatus. No fans. No outside noises. Over the quiet a coyote barks. Epistles from around the protruding bank up the draw.
10/05/2018 (From 09/28/2018)
And the beginning comes closer. We’re hoofing it, the beginning and I, up a long hill, concentrating on our breathing, slow and steady but working towards a crescendo. We notice that we’re breathing to The Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers from the Charles Mingus Let My Children Hear Music album. It’s not the first part of the piece but further on, after about the fourth or fifth nice change, it builds in a three chord progression then doubles up on the tempo. If we time it right we reach the top where Selly Rd. comes in just as the large group rendition in our head resolves into more of a dirty swing for a downhill romp. Then we’re going through the gates on Center and headed to the U. City Library, riding along in the funhouse that is St. Louis summers in the early 70’s. We had just learned that we could checkout albums from the library. We were teaching ourselves about Jazz, not just the beginning and me but there were a couple of Jimmies, a Glenn and maybe a few others. We hit the used record bin at Streetside Records on Delmar, sneak into music festivals, find a stack of old vinyl in a cabin in the Ozarks and make use of any other resource available that would expand our knowledge of the medium, even TV. So I check the library and see this Mingus LP. ‘Nough said; composition, improv, tight. And the song titles definitely caught the eye of a young man who might end up writing some shit that people could want to read.
Peace and Harmony
And so it Goes – 10/12/2018
Vicissitudes, with a “c”, – this doesn’t mean anything, it’s just that I’m a terrible speller and this helps me remember – in nature and memory get mixed up and randomly highlighted. I cling to certain images from the past as they subconsciously coalesce over time, forming my own truth. And what is truth but what we remember. M. Proust wrote like 5,000 freaking pages on this. I’ll try to write with more of a sense of brevity.
Too often we are confronted with changes that are not caused by a natural process. I visited our little lake this week. I hadn’t passed this way since the spring. This area gets a little overrun in the summer, often by very careless people, so I avoid the frustration. Expecting a bucolic landscape, I was disappointed when assaulted with the county’s dirty work. They had mowed basically every surface on which they could operate their machines. The native grasses and fall wildflowers were leveled. Many of the Gambel oak, mountain mahogany, buckbrush and skunkbrush stands were attacked. The yucca may have been too tough but it looked like attempts at removal were made. These scrubby bushes are fruit-bearing and essential to the winter diet of the local fauna. I don’t know if this was the result of overzealous workers or a misguided government enforcement of wildfire mitigation. The mangled remains are simply ugly. I saw no people, so I had my solitude, but, though the tractors had left, I could see their tracks rutted into the meadows and smell their noxious fumes, the damage had been done. I am hoping for a quick, natural recovery before the runoff from the melting of early snows causes undue erosion of the unprotected topsoil. If this happens the CCC will move in. That’s the County Concrete Cartel, not the conservation program from our depression years. They unceasingly promote the paving over of nature, which leads to more erosion and more paving. It is never ending. They are relentless.
So I return to my small woodland trails and choose to remember more pleasing apparitions from fleeting associations. And I am unable to identify from what place or time, or book or dream, they come. I notice the dog feces on the trail and think about somebody I knew, or read about, who believed that picking up after your dog was unnatural, although she worked for the forest service trying to eliminate invasive species, like R.O.U.S.’s, from isolated ecosystems. Is this good or bad? I still encounter an abandoned beer bottle, the ongoing battle with Miller Lite cans and fast-food containers. But I am in the woods and happy and can carry out the litter.
And I find myself singing about empty old beer cans and breakfast burritos to the tune of Karma Chameleon.
And so it goes.
The Beginning – 10/19/2018
The morning sky has been lively with stars, a treat after a thick winter blanket of clouds was pulled up from the horizon for ten consecutive days of obtrusive slumber. So thoughts of time travel insinuate themselves upon my wanderings. Though they appear laid out on a flat canvas, the unaided eye sees stars from about nine lightyears away to about 2,000 lightyears. With Sirius I am seeing nine years into the past. With Deneb I’m looking back 2,000 years. Big old bodacious Betelgeuse shows herself from about 600 years ago, not unlike some of the FB profile pictures you see out there. And I can’t go here without thinking of Einstein and the assumptions he had to make to develop his theories. He committed to the postulate that the speed of light is constant. This is not a commonsense conclusion. It is not something derived from a “natural instinct for science”. And time slows down as speed increases: not natural instinct. I wonder where the art of physics would be today if we just depended on natural instinct. There would be no genius moves.
And I’m thinking about my notes at home indicating the beginning is in the park in the fall of 2003, which does not reflect a linear concept of that fourth dimension, but that is where it starts despite references to earlier times: The park was inspiring today as the trees stroll seductively toward their winter slumber. The willows and cottonwoods, stripped nearly bare, enticingly embrace a few threads of leaves in translucent concealment of their most alluring anatomical regions, not wanting to give it all up too easily before the season’s climax, while a few prudish oaks and shy lindens stubbornly cling to their tattered cloaks. Across the gentle sway of a diminutive lawn, gracefully rising from the small of the vale’s back, the blue spruce hug the firm rump of Evergreen Hill, their branches winter hardened, their needles stiffened, lustfully observing the wanton changes being performed by their deciduous cousins across the valley, secret desires to take part quashed by their predetermined genetics.
The clash of antlers pulls me back. I was a long way away. Lightyears. My senses heighten trying to locate the bucks in the dark, depending on audio detectors. The rattle from the struggle of bare bone entangled in a bid for supremacy indicates large animals off to my right. I proceed with caution knowing their gladiator arena can expand quickly. It’s not like they would attack me, but when in this state, competing for sexual dominance, they are oblivious to the puny human and in the throes of battle could easily remove him from the gallery, unnoticed, insignificant. In creating a safer distance I notice calming of a slight adrenaline surge. An invigorating morning.
Peas and Harmony
Be Seeing You – 10/26/18
I just scared the crap out of a FedEx delivery guy. We have removed the slapdash barricade from our front porch. It was there to protect our flowers from the deer. They come right up onto the porch and browse. As the growing season is long past, we have opened the produce section to our wild cohabitants. We are OK with them eating the leftovers but if they hang around too long they can damage wooden surfaces and railings. As the season lingers and the deer gorge themselves in preparation for winter and gestation we have reached the point of property damage. So we, kind of haphazardly, stand guard. If we notice clopping hooves or shadows against the blinds we make ourselves known and chase off the intruders. Nothing very aggressive, just open the door and impart an “excuse me” or “do you mind”. This works.
So I’m walking from the kitchen to my office and hear a clop on the porch. I fling open the door and lunge toward the grazing area. I nearly collide with a terrified FedEx guy. He’s on the top step, looking down at his handheld device, recording his delivery. The screen door records a near miss. All is over in an instant. I explain that I wasn’t really worried about receiving a pipe bomb. This may have been a “too soon” situation. We parted. Nothing to see here.
As Number Six used to say in The Prisoner, “Be seeing you”.
Green Cat – 11/09/2018
The old cottonwood across the road is casting its long November shadows, branches bare and cold reaching into the dulcet sky. The pines whisper, not so softly. We have been here for fifteen years of its silent sentinel, just a spec in its long history. We do not complain about its umbrage blocking the small solar collector charging the driveway lantern. We are the newcomers.
The clouds in that sky remind me of Green Cat, a portrait my brother gave me a few years ago. It hangs in my office, another sentinel. I often gaze and wonder about the mind that created this work of art. To me it is genius but very few people know about it. Maybe if more people knew about it he would still be with us. Some said he didn’t work hard enough to be accepted as an artist. I don’t know what that means. My thoughts often wander to Green Cat when I’m walking and I hear Nobody Knows the ‘Colors’ I’ve Seen in the voice of Paul Robeson. It makes me smile. The Artist made a quick charcoal sketch of me years ago. It hangs above my bedroom dresser. I look at it in the morning as if it is a mirror. I have not aged since 1989. Kind of a reverse Dorian Gray thing.
To take out my frustrations I use our monstrous junipers, attacking with great wrath, plunging into their midst, wielding pruning shears, often swallowed up or sent tumbling down the slope they call home. I end up scratched and exhausted, covered with bits of bush. I never win. But I’m doing much better now and the junipers have never looked better.
And I wonder if this shrubbery can be my Wilderness. Hidden in a Pantheon of sticks and stones, I could recline quite comfortably against the natural incline. They would assume I wandered off in a haze by the time they noticed that I was missing.
So we all cope and hope the shadows don’t get too long and the lantern will not fade completely.
Peas and Hominy
Just Write – 11/16/2018
Sometimes I sit here and stare at the, seldom blank, screen and tell myself “Just write.” and I look at my notes and see “Minerva as greybeard – Proust – Gandalf” with no explanatory comments and wonder how the hell I was planning to connect Greek mythology, An old French novel and The Hobbit and there is the passage where Proust imagines himself as Minerva taking on the form of the old greybeard to insinuate himself into Mme Swann’s drawing-room so, you know, as a SLUH student in the 70’s how can you think of greybeards and changing form without thinking of Gandalf, required reading and everything, though I didn’t until later, which came to mind as I was building a tree in the living room for Christmas and a few weeks ago I built a man for the front porch for Halloween and I consider how godlike of me and I crank my Christmas music, Weather Report’s 8:30 album, to vacuum volume, though I am not vacuuming, but I often am, so often in fact that when C texts our daughter about what daddy is doing it auto fills “vacuuming”, but now I just want to hide my blasphemous thoughts from whatever deities are listening and this somehow leads me back to the lone howl in the woods at 5:00 AM, this mournful creature received no response though he reached out every few minutes, there was no moon but perhaps he was complaining about the heavy cloudbank consuming the stars as dawn made itself known.
Peas and Hominy
Sufficient Depth – 11/30/2018
A few tenacious leaves refuse to fall from the cottonwoods. Their membranes dry, stiff and brittle; but they will last through the winter. They twist in the breeze coming across the lake, defying the tenuous connection, tapping against the seasonally hardened branches like Elvin Jones on the high tom. This was on the far side of the lake, an area I had not visited for some time. A squall was building over the mountains, high and concave facing east over the foothills. This is what I wanted to see in the changing light as dusk approached and conditions suggested privacy on the lake trail. And the wind quickened and the drumbeat became more complicated.
The light does change as I head home, gaps in the wall clouds allowing sharply defined shadows as we lose the sun behind the mountains. And nature’s art show shifts with the roiling sky. A figure, as tall as a very tall man, stands against a dense grove of gamble oak. I am briefly startled by my own projection. As I approach the house, a distant lamp combined with the now dominant moonlight turns my green field jacket white. Back in my bedroom, changing out of my walking clothes, a red pullover and yellow t-shirt, as the house grows dark and the only light is coming from the LED readout on the alarm clock, that blue glow, the red pullover turns purple and the yellow t-shirt green. I wonder how somebody like Van Gough saw color.
I remember a recent post on Facebook. It was posted by a few friends, overlapping in their thoughtful approach to art, so hard to define. It addressed Captain Beefheart and the Trout Mask Replica album, some weird shit. And I just happened to be reading, I will paraphrase here:
It is essential that the work should create its own posterity. For if the work were held in reserve, were revealed only to posterity, that audience, for that particular work, would be not posterity but a group of contemporaries who were merely living half a century later in time. And so it is essential that the artist, if he wishes his work to be free to follow its own course, should launch it, there where there is sufficient depth, boldly into the distant future. *
I cannot attest to the Captain’s “sufficient depth”, although I do enjoy a nice overlapping rhythm, but this fictional critique was written sometime before 1919. And so it goes.
So I walk in the dark, in the wind and the cold, and pause. It is quiet. A train whistle drifts in from a great distance. I might hear the clacking of the wheels over the rails. You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles, a hundred miles. And this song puts me back in my basement darkroom with its polyethylene walls. It was a big project and I found myself singing this line over and over. I may have been in the fumes too long. I believe C saved me. It was a long time ago.
And the lake hike rewards me with a polyrhythmic symphony of tree trunk percussion.
*Proust
More DFW – 12/07/2018
In my basement room with a needle and a spoon . . . no, that’s from Dead Flowers. I am in the basement for a few days. It’s nice. It was set up as a kind of mother-in-law’s apartment, but she is dead. There is good natural light and my old stereo, complete with turntable, is down here. I forget how good my big box speakers sound.
We were expecting to have our roof replaced but cold weather has delayed the job. We are hoping for warmer weather next week. This pissed me off. Nobody called. I had to track down the contractor. You make arrangements and then no show and no word. As DFW said, I had to choose to turn off my default setting. I can choose to let this ruin my day or I could try to understand a different reality. It would really suck to be working on a roof when it is nineteen degrees out. It probably needs to be warmer to meet the specs of the shingle manufacturer. The contractor has our wellbeing in mind. It is actually within my power to experience this situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars — compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: The only thing that's capital-T True is that I get to decide how I’m going to try to see it. I get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. I get to decide what to
worship . . . Thank you DFW.
So I’m in my basement room with a needle and my vinyl collection all day. I had been listening to a CD remaster of A Meeting of the Times by Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Al Hibbler. It also included some Ornette Coleman. It’s a great collection but when it was put together Something ‘Bout Believing was left off. It is one of the best tracks. I hate when they do that. So I dig out my vinyl version and listen to that about twenty times, getting up and moving the tonearm each time, no wireless track selection on this setup. The liner notes called these guys “two master surrealists”, a great description. There is even a piece called Dream. I think it’s about Coltrane or Fats or Duke, I don’t really know. It’s so surreal.
I ended the day with a walk that threw in a show of two pairs of Red-tailed Hawks performing their courting rituals, soaring in high circles with shrill cries. These cries always remind me of the first line from Gravity’s Rainbow: “A screaming comes across the sky.” (I love it. I get chills every time.) One pair had an established nest we have observed for years. The other, I am assuming younger, pair ventured, or was somewhat forced, off to the north; alighting upon the pinnacle of the tallest tree in their new territory. They seem to be able to rest comfortably on nothing more than a few pine needles at the tip of the newest branch reaching out from the oldest tree, having no concerns about a roof.
Peas and Hominy
Another Solstice – 12/21/2018
The woods are dry and the nights are long. The grasses reach out to deposit their seeds in the fur of a bear, the coat of a deer, the sock of a human. Travel is essential to the survival of these early success stories in the roadmap of evolution. The taller species brush against my knuckles and rustle in the breeze. The short grasses, more adapted to this region, huddle in the rocky soil waiting for a passing animal. They attack the ankles. I think about wearing a higher boot but experience tells me this makes little difference. Seed heads hitch a short ride but decide to get off at the next corner. You hardly notice.
These past weeks I’ve been enjoying the company of comet 46P/Wirtanen. Although its elliptical path pushes it past earth at about 10 km/sec, it seems to drift slowly through the silent diorama of space. It does not scream across the sky like a ravenous raptor, a buzz bomb over London, or a demigod seething with great vengeance and furious anger. It will, however, outgas a tail at the perihelion of its orbit while in proximity to Uranus in the eastern firmament. Despite these distractions I begin to feel a slight irritant near my ankle, really no more than a tickle. I pause and reach down to inspect my right sock for evidence of an intruder but find nothing. The little pinhead of a seed has burrowed into its new home and begins its work.
You’re going to just keep walking aren’t you, trying to ignore me. Soon I will become a sharp piercing just above your shoe and the fear will begin to grow. How bad will it get? Can I draw blood? Do you think I can draw blood? I’m insignificant. You know that. But you feel me more and more. You keep swiping at me but I’m in here good. There is no way to brush me off now.
I continue walking, approaching the lake, the geese chatter in the distance but it grows like the seed of fear under my skin. It’s now like crowd noises in a concert hall, like Zawinul’s intro to the live version of Black Market. Must be warnings of canines in the area. I don’t see them but I’m sure they see me.
The wind comes up, a strong wind, and gets the lake dancing, waves crashing against the meager ice fields along its edges. Sheets of ice lift and fall against the water, breaking into tiny icebergs. Undulations beneath the surface begin a rumble that soon develops into a sustained roar. There is no attempt at language or communication, just the spread of irrational fear.
Your fear is turning to hate isn’t it. All of nature has turned against you. It’s not your fault. I have created a nice little dent in the epidermis. The pain should be getting worse.
The owl stops me with a question. What’s the burr under your saddle boy? Sit your butt on the ground, take off your sock, and remove the obstruction. You jackass.
It takes a few minutes but I find that little prick deep in the fibers. It did draw a miniscule droplet of blood. I’m much better now.
SupercalifragilisticexpialiSolstice Everybody
The Alarm – 12/28/2018
I had a silly little dream last night, I really did. And when I woke up I found in my head I had this crazy sound. It moved me, said to me now don’t be afraid just go your own way and start today. They won’t believe it till they hear you say* . . . And that giant round face from The Wizard of Oz filled the dreamscape, huffing and puffing in its feeble attempts to induce fear. From the safety of its ill-deserved podium it whines “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” Suddenly I am not alone. A crowd forms, magically growing in exponential increments. The puffy face likes this. Cheers rise from the gathering mass of humanity but the tone is based more on hate and confusion than on enthusiasm for the ambiguous message. A calm and persistent chant rises from various points in the now massive audience, spreading but not yet clear to my ears. I begin to get it, like hearing Long Tall Dexter quoting nursery rhymes mid solo in a smoke filled room. Trumpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Trumpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the prick’s horses and all the prick’s men couldn’t put Trumpty together again. The alarm sounds and I stir, still half asleep in frog pajamas, I wonder who else hears the alarm.
*Paraphrased from RRK.
A Ripple in Still Water – 01/08/2019
Dimen just heard about his dear cousin D. Rest in peace brother, you’re a good soul. So sad. He was a beacon of hope and kindness in an often unfriendly world. Dimen had not seen D since they were all children, no matter how old they thought they were as teenagers. They know each other better now, through facebook, than they really did back then. Dimen always enjoyed D’s kind comments, thoughtful posts and love of live music; a ripple in still water.
Titled #3 (Someplace Warm) – 01/18/2019
It was snowing last Friday too. It was one of those big snows. I go out periodically, shoveling thin blankets to avoid one huge job at the end. There seems to be about three inches of accumulation between sojourns. We were expecting a foot or more by the time it stopped. I enjoyed getting out in the elements. We had been caged up for a while, at least it seemed that way.
C has pneumonia. (For the first time in my life I spelled pneumonia correctly on the initial attempt.) We were hospitalized 01/04/2019 after sitting at home suffering for two days due to a bad diagnosis sloughed off by an urgent care McHospital throwing us through the assembly line at high speed in order to pump up the volume. We were sent to this den of deficiency because we couldn’t get into our regular clinic on short notice. I should have driven to emergency at that time. (Sorry Babe. With your lungs barely processing oxygen I should have made the decision. You were not all there.) We earned parole after serving a four day sentence. Now C could actually sleep through the night. She is doing well. She is strong and willful. A condition for our early release included a commitment to an O2 concentrator. The green cannula snakes through the house, twisting and writhing in an effort to keep up with C as she reclaims every room of her home turf. She revels in her regained freedom having cast off the shackles of various medical devices protruding from hospital walls.
I am outside where I belong. Despite my well-intended efforts at snow management I get behind. Another six inches fall overnight and our world is beautiful. The deer dig in, out back under the trees, close to the earth for warmth. I’m up early to start the last big dig and see ears and antlers sticking out of ungulate supported snow mounds. A big buck rises from a mound and shakes himself free of his crystalline blanket. They graze from the low hanging branches, laden with snow. They seem to crave the moisture. I watch for many minutes then the snow seems to let up. I get into these big digs, never using a snow blower, too much noise and pollution. I missed the big dig in 2011 so I appreciate them even more now. I love the peace, the rhythm of the shovel. I obsess over a perfect edge along the driveway. I rest often and turn my face to the sky, see a break in the clouds, the trees begin to glow. If I have a religion, this is it. I think about much of my family going someplace warm as I finish up and head into the garage. I have seen Belize, St. Thomas, Martinique, Rome, Florence, Florida and Texas. I am happy to be where I am. New shadows follow me into the house and I turn to see snow beginning to cover the area I just cleared. This happens, the last gasp of the storm, sunshine will win this final battle. The green snake has been cast from our garden and C is home and all is right with the world.
Just in Time – 01/25/2019
The moon hangs from Venus like Poe’s pendulum. Frost blinds me as my lenses capture the warm air escaping from my scarf. Labored breathing, the trail challenging the hike with snow on snow on snow. Recent blizzard conditions create edges like canyon walls. Ripples and shelves in the windblown snow seem more geological than nature’s simple overnight shenanigans. My mind considers that stubbornly persistent illusion of time. We have been here before. Holding my glasses in a heavily mittened hand I imagine I look like Ralphie retrieving his broken frames from the snow. Icicles have been known to kill people. I walk for some time without my optical aides until these invigorating elements arrive at a balance and the small windows clear. A bald eagle perched in an isolated cottonwood by the lake comes into focus. Just in time.
The Shadows are Wrong – 02/01/2019
The shadows are wrong. There shouldn’t be shadows but maybe the starlight is enough, somehow reflecting off the snow. It doesn’t seem right. Jupiter and Venus work hard to pull the moon above the horizon but it has not yet arrived, it’s a dark morning. The snow is still deep but has smoothed to gentle undulations with a few days of high temps above freezing. I wander into the woods, struggle a bit with the snowpack, sink to my knees then step up where the crust holds. Gravity; changing mass at the center of the earth. Expending energy and sweat. Thighs burn but we adjust. The shadows are wrong. Large pines casting to the east, should be to the west. Polaris doesn’t seem bright enough. We come upon a windswept slope and expect easy hiking but we’ve been in the deep shit too long. Our legs are too light, feet lifting too easily and too high, the ground too far away, like practicing with a medicine ball then returning to a regulation soccer ball, walking in space, weebles wobble but we don’t fall down. I need to change out the Sun Ra cd, I think it’s getting to me. One of his recordings indicates it is the Saturn version, crazy fuck. But through the week I’ve cranked it louder and louder. It seemed fitting. The shadows are wrong. Back into the deep stuff but I can’t find my own shadow, not even on the pristine snow. I lean back, well anchored in the snow, to examine the sky for a foreign light source. Maybe I lean too far, a slight give beneath the snow, I begin to fall. It’s one of those slow-motion falls. I know I’m going down and there is nothing I can do. After a millennium, my butt hits then my shoulders, my head; softly cushioned in the white powder, pretty damned comfortable. I stay there for some time, gazing at the sky, imagining some unseen wildlife laughing at me. But the shadows are still wrong. Even in the darkest forest there seems to be a deeper shadow creeping up from below. I’d better watch out, the shadows are wrong.
Peas and Hominy
Observed Through the Gaps – 02/08/2019
11:25 AM and I haven’t written a word. In a Facebook world fraught with monsters and would be gods I resist the urge to crawl under the junipers and hide. A rabbit suns itself on the edge of these massive evergreens while still protected from the maniac throwing pine cones. Are there any predators left, not residing on Capitol Hill? My world’s observed through the gaps in louvered blinds as time performs a herky-jerky hopscotch past the landing windows. I sit on the steps watching the deer. There are eleven then eighteen, perhaps five generations of a single matrilineal group, several, seeing their first winter, are round with their seasonal coats. Enjoy your youth when everything you try is easy. My mind wanders for uncounted minutes before I notice the deer have moved on. I turn to an old muse and scrub the toilets, a muse nearly as constant as vacuuming, and listen to some Coltrane from the Impulse years. Then Alabama comes on; a spiritual piece written by JC in response to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham in 1963. Four young girls were killed. We tend to forget such things and seem to have become desensitized to all too common, similar events today. And I want to crawl under the junipers. The monsters and would be gods, wrapped in the cloaks of fear mongering propaganda and false patriotism, no longer feel the need to conceal themselves under white sheets.
The Lone Loon
Trying to keep the faith
Skipping Out – 02/15/2019
Parallax views through the screen key optical confusion, his mind willingly going along on an unplanned journey. The fourth dimension surrenders to the blur of memory and dissolves into a meditative state similar to that moment before sleep arrives, when he becomes the immediate subject of the story he is reading and the plot begins to follow a complicated melding of the book’s intent and his own writing from earlier in the day. Dreams form as the moment passes but he can never remember the structure, his dreams do not unfold like that, they never tell a relatable story. He peers through the screen and embraces this brief change in perception caused by a slight wrinkle in ocular mechanics. Instead of snapping back to his point of origin he extends the visit to this alternate realm. He encounters misplaced friends but is unable to speak, remembers a surgeon stealing his voice, why is there an old potato sitting by the phone? Politics try to creep in but images of Pigs in Space dominate the picture, maybe they’re related. Darkness spreads, the stars are gone, city lights fade, fear insinuates itself but the man finds comfort in his quiet understanding of ancient mythologies. He knows he has to retrieve certain memories to find his way back but the reconstructions are getting more complicated and mentally fatiguing. Time is not a constant and memories exist in isolated snapshots. He could recall partaking in only five meals while attending college. Onto what singularity have those other meals been projected? Is he the one periodically skipping out on his own history? He’s gone farther than he’d planned and wasn’t sure he could identify all of the anchors that were necessary in order for him to return, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. There’s a loud ringing. He answers the potato. There’s nobody there.
Peas and Hominy
The Lone Loon
Extra Dimensions – 02/22/2019
Today is Friday. I write it down. Just in case. And the obsequious toadies continue to fear the mad man, the Major Tetley of the lynch mob in washington. (The software tries to force capitalization here, but I resist, respect is waning.) The orange-haired major, costumed with his unearned rank, wears the face of a depraved and murderous beast. Only two things ever mean anything to him: power and cruelty. He can't feel pity. He can't feel guilt. He preys on the innocent, he is crazy to see them hanged. I read The Oxbow Incident for a high school class, wondering at the time why we were reading a cowboy novel for a class about the world’s religions. It became clear. The times they are not a-changin’. But I do not want to linger in this realm so I return to the woods and a morning posting double digit degrees for the first time this week. Boisterous coyotes populate an eerie mist. Many reflective crystals, barely suspended in the heavy air, turn the ambient light from town into an enchanting glow over the retreating snowpack. The coyotes roam freely through all realities, easily crossing the widely accepted four dimensions and even those tiny extra dimensions wrapped around the gluons and muons. I expect to hear them in all of my wanderings. The howls tempt me to join in and perhaps I do, I’m not sure. But it is not the usual running conversation and chatter. There are long gaps between comments. Maybe some creature did not make it through the cold spell and my canine conspirators are too engrossed by the feast to pause for discussion. And who will be the prey in the human realm today as congress plays The Price is Right with our freedoms? Come on down. What are my bids for the senator from Colorado? That’s right contestant, 23 billion for Lockheed Martin and you advance to the Showcase Showdown where there will be no mention of healthcare or education. Thanks for watching, and remember folks to spay or neuter your politicians.
Foggy – 03/01/2019
C calls up from the kitchen at 4:45 – It’s foggy. It is. It carries an odor, gamy, the beasts deciding why don’t we do it in the road. It is heaved upon the ground, undulating with the terrain, heavy. Listen. Feel the path with your feet. Channeling Whitman, I sing the body electric, nature’s embrace, another body. I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. This is courage. But there is no summer grass. The cloud. The black water. Howling, another poet. I am the observed specimen. The scent of gods. A single lap by the shore, unseen. Pores absorb the moisture. A ragged beard softens. Quiet. A path is chosen.
Time and Repetition – 03/22/2019
Yesterweek gives way to vernal breezes and sun. A brief hiatus ends. Advancing years continue to shorten the time it takes to erode my stamina. A few days without a walk and the hills turn to mountains and thighs soften like spoiled fruit. Outings gradually expand in distance and elevation along with imagined tales fed by a jumbled cocktail of memories and invented visions becoming real with time and repetition. The lunar lightshow of the equinox finds me at the top of a favorite trail. I snort like Escher’s reptiles upon reaching the acme of their journey, snot slaps the asphalt, the hillside contorts into the artist’s geometry folding in on itself as years of fresh air and meditation make my mind receptive to the effects of over-the-counter cold medications.
Chiaroscuro, this word coming to me from some ancient art history course, highlights now influence the morning as the earth falls away beneath my gaze. On an aging canvas the ink runs across her once soft and innocent cheek, a thumbprint smudge of mascara spoils the rich blue of her brilliant, smiling eyes, only slightly marring the look that made us love her, and time and abuse turn ashen her once vibrant complexion. Now she sits at the end of a long counter or bar, the lone patron in a forgotten dive, no longer attracting any curious looks. And we spin and rotate through time and I tell myself there is true love and enough understanding to save her as I partake in my spring ritual and turn my big box speakers toward the open windows and listen to Forest Flower by Charles Lloyd.
Imitation Chocolate – 03/29/2019
Merry chronicles stretch into the past as Antares anchors Scorpius, its tail curling away above the ridge, just wide of the moon’s diminishing halo. Flashbacks from the seventies, like karma, can be a bitch.
I didn’t know the stars crossing that fantastic ocean the night of fold-top sandwich bags three fingers deep with chocolate mescaline. We meet up with The Captain and the other Ozoners at the carriage house, rented cheap for rendered services, the dentist was never home and the wife was lonely – symbiotic like magpies riding mule deer. Trash bags full of ditch weed line the walls, the floor covered with overlapping imitation oriental rugs. Kilo bricks of Jamaican sit on one of the randomly placed mattresses. An unidentified figure with resin coated fingers hunches over a solitary table producing joints with assembly line efficiency. Resin-fingers tosses out some doobs and we light up and pop a few beers, at seventeen it’s easier to get pot than beer. Deals were made in advance so everything flows freely. Sandwich bags join the circulating pot. I lick my finger and take a few dips. It tastes nothing like chocolate. I enjoy thoughts of Castaneda as flashbulb images influence the rest of the night. We split up. Some of us pile into somebody’s father’s station wagon and head over the river and through the woods to southern Illinois for the Beach Boys concert. Somehow The Captain, me as the younger sibling, and everybody meet again on the campus hillside among the throng of partying humanity. No plans were made to meet up again but we were all there. Weird things like this always happen when you’re trippin’, some kind of quantum entanglement. The Captain has added some spritely young girls to his entourage, though they’re older than me. They all seem ethereal goddesses as they drift by, buoyed on the seas of this ephemeral setting. I find myself caught in the gaze of one particular goddess. The moment passes. She is gone. I am left alone and unaware of any verbal communications having been attempted. Yet I’m haunted by those consuming eyes. (Or were they just dilated from our mutual partaking of mind-expanding powders cut with a chocolaty treat?) We settle in on the lawn outside the tent. Under the tent was for older people, not that many years but a different generation, probably in on the front end of the Vietnam War. As it grows dark, the stage becomes a vast sailing ship, orange slices are passed around, vitamin c, a lesson learned from the Pranksters, joints are ubiquitous, the Nestlé’s Quick baggies reappear. Some paranoia sets in as I think about all those licked fingers jabbed into the chocolate mesc. I withdraw, pass on any more dosing, simple actions become amplified and disturbing; the striking of a match, folding of a bag, grasses crushed under the footsteps of giants. I believe my hands are holding my head when I notice a gentle caress across my back. I do nothing for some time. The caress continues, calming and sensual. Eventually I reach around and cradle a small foot in my hand, a foot attached to an enchantress. It’s that girl from before, we commence a rapprochement. Another entanglement. There is a time gap but somewhere in there I see myself dawdling in the nearly abandoned amphitheater, grassy slopes littered with the casual debris of the fading celebration. There is a deep mechanical rumble as large dormers open around the rim of the venue. Motors engage and powerful vacuums roar to life.
Then I’m in the parking lot, there is a gap. I sit leaning against some kind of post. Nearby, Mary and Tommy discuss the relative merits of ingesting psychedelics. I am exhibit A and B. They assume I’m too out of it to follow the conversation. I enjoy the anonymity, like a fly on the wall, tripped all night on that scenario once before. Soon, or not, we are in the station wagon and on our way. There is an uncommon amount of noise. We pick up a hitchhiker. “Do you have a marijuana cigarette?” he asks. J-Mac, extraordinarily pissed off, tries to push the hitchhiker out of the moving car. We stop. The hitchhiker unceremoniously disembarks. J-Mac yells something about the fucking Eskimo. ???
As I saunter down the other side of the hill the small Ursa guides me home. I must be headed north.
Peas and Hominy
Fucking Idiots – 04/05/2019
I’ve got to be better. Had to drive twice this week and it will be thrice by the end of the day. All of a sudden my entire conversational vocabulary consists of “fucking idiots”. I don’t yell out the window, or anything like that. Just a slight shake of the head and a soft “fucking idiots”. But it is not a good mindset. It’s probably a good thing that I don’t drive to an office anymore. Drive ten miles out of my way to get my lawnmower blade sharpened. My old John Deere shop has converted half their inventory to assault weapons, fucking idiots. So I go to this new place. Traverse crappy washboard dirt roads. Pass militia like compounds displaying their shrines of hate, fucking idiots. Maybe this was a bad idea, fucking idiot. They’re not open Tuesday mornings, fucking idiots. Why didn’t they mention that on the website? Fucking idiots. So I have to go to the old tractor place and try to avoid the department of mass destruction, fucking idiots. They’re actually nice people but I still leave there saying fucking idiots. When I get home I see my neighbor raking up the organic material left on her lawn from the winter. This stuff is nothing but good for the grass but she’ll replace it with some chemical fertilizer, fucking idiot. Then she stuffs it all into these gigantic plastic bags, fucking idiot.
Next day I try to work out my angst by pruning our soon to be world dominating junipers. They just keep growing. On the downhill side I lean a ladder against this mass of greenery to help me reach the most out of control areas. Hoping to not have to reposition the ladder I drape myself over the top rungs and extend the shears as far as possible to reach the last clump of unruly growth. At that moment a leg of the ladder gives on the hillside and everything begins to go, in a kind of slow motion. I roll off the ladder and land softly in a pillow of cushiony branches. Unfortunately I am about eight feet off the ground but am able to wiggle down through several limbs and get a foothold on terra firma. Embedded in this monstrous system of vegetation I am now crawling through a tunnel of the ancient woody foundation of this mini ecosystem to retrieve the pruning shears. I find myself in a strange state of euphoria. Hidden. Cozy. Secret. Laughing. Fucking idiot. It’s disorienting, this world seen from the underbelly of junipers. A flash of blue catches my eye through the scaly shoots. What is that? It looks to be fiberglass, like a porta potty. Is the county starting another gratuitous road project? Poor more concrete you fucking idiots. As I forage out of the tangle of branches I see my blue, fiberglass ladder suspended, dangling in some branches. Another laugh. Fucking idiot.
A day later I go to pick up my lawnmower blade. Way too busy at the gun counter. A couple of enormous, slack jawed yokels play with an automatic rifle, scary fucking idiots. A guy on oxygen waddles up to the same weapons. I try to tell myself that there is something that would justify this activity. Nope. Fucking idiots listening to fucking idiots spreading the propaganda of hate and fear. I head from there to the hardware store. (Not really, it’s a fucking Lowe’s, there are no hardware stores anymore.) Walking in, I am accosted by a toxic stench emanating from the wall of Roundup containers, selling like hotcakes, fucking idiots. How many people are leaving with carts full of plastic bags? Are they not paying attention or do they just not care? Fucking idiots. On my way home I’m nearly run off the road by a monster truck pulling one of those huge flatbed landscaping trailers. Trying to be better I tell myself that he just didn’t realize how big his trailer was. I see his window is covered with Trump, NRA, Something about bombs, and various hate based patriotic stickers. Fucking idiot. I notice he has several crates of milk in his trailer along with what appears to be other groceries. So he uses his Super Duty, F-Whatever the Fuck, Big-Ass Waste vehicle to shop? Well, maybe he is shopping for a homeless shelter or halfway house. Probably not. Just a fucking idiot. Car manufacturers sell these ridiculous vehicles because trucks don’t have to conform to private passenger auto emission or mileage standards. They can actually build them cheaper than a sedan or coupe, market them with buffed out construction workers and farmers hauling tons of virtual industry detritus and sell the majority of them, for twice as much, to inadequate husbands compensating for poor life choices while driving their disappointing children to school. Fucking idiots. Not being better, I hope all of that milk spoils in the sun before he gets home. Not very fucking nice.
On my third trip I’m on a lazy back road, taking my time, watching the antelopes. Lately, there is more traffic, trucks going too fast, never seeing the antelopes. Fucking idiots. Chores completed, I’m headed home on that same lazy back road. It is more calm now. Windows are down and the radio is off. I’m thinking about the Keith Jarrett I’ve been listening to for the past week or so. I always end up here after Charles Lloyd, it’s the natural progression, Jarrett’s beautiful, improvised melodies. After a while I give the radio a try and am greeted with John Lennon’s Imagine. This is fucking nice.
I’ve got to be better.
Much Better Now – 04/12/2019
My midday chores chase the day away. I see myself tripping and spinning through the woods the day before the snows returned. Wildflowers were peeking through the hard dry earth. I was trying not to step on them. They’ll survive the snow. Ants were seen clearing out their tunnels making way for the new ants. They no doubt enjoy my new dance around the hints of spring. Chores completed, I’m headed home on that lazy back road. It’s calm. Windows are down and the radio is off. I continue to listen to Keith Jarrett and his beautiful, improvised melodies that started weeks ago with Charles Lloyd. It’s the natural progression. And the nude ants sway to the new dance. After a while I give the radio a try and am greeted with Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage. I learn that it’s his birthday. This is nice.
I’m much better now.
Peas and Hominy
No Words – 04/26/2019
The wind blew. A pine cone bounced by my right foot. Not even Saturn and Jupiter, my winter companions, managed to penetrate the dense layer of morning clouds. As twilight catches up to my schedule black capped chickadees and spotted towhees clamor in the brush. Time in the woods lengthen my walks, though the distance remains the same. An owl and I communicate on some level as its enormous wings silently lift it from a branch just above the path. How different is time for all creatures that are not human. Projected from a house in the distance is the unmistakable glow of a television. An unfortunate spring incident is attended by surprisingly large turkey vultures. Balance.
I sit here in my atelier, attempting to describe a beautiful world, and realize I fail in describing the physical nature of the true loves in my life. I wonder if I will recognize such a person, though there have been few in my ever-lengthening life span, when spending even a short time absent from their purview. Many years ago, having already been with C for many years, I was asked if I knew the color of her eyes. After hesitating in search of the answer my thoughts went to Lucy Van Pelt’s tirade, “You didn't answer me right away. You had to think about it first, didn't you? If you really had thought I was beautiful, you would've spoken right up. I know when I've been insulted. I KNOW WHEN I'VE BEEN INSULTED.” I was spared such a reaction, but there was a fear. The fact is that the connection is more of a deep, internal understanding than a definable, visual beauty. It is far from superficial. It is easy to describe every other person in my life or even strangers on the street, but I may never be able to describe C with the inadequate tools of human languages. Though I may have 152 insights into her soul.
And that small patch of hyacinth is in full bloom. The deer will have a feast.
Peas and Hominy
8:30 – 05/03/2019
He attacks today’s writing with reckless abandon, like Frankie’s approach to painting. He’s not a member of the press so he still has some freedom. The weather report is all-consuming and the time is 8:30, AM or PM. It doesn’t matter. "You're travelling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Twilight Zone!" He’s no Ramanujan but he believes in infinity. It is a town inhabited exclusively by teens and ancient gods, governed by slang but controlled by a remark you made, sometime, somewhere. It also doesn’t matter. Access is obtained on the black market. Talk to the Scarlet Woman. She often accompanies The Orphan on Brown Street, not a place for sightseeing. The woman and child communicate in a silent way. Most can’t understand, any more than we can understand birds, in the woods or on the stage at Birdland, too much history, too many songs. They don’t talk about the sad parts, it’s a kind of boogie woogie waltz around the facts. He deciphers the clues, though it is possible none were given, and arrives in the folds of the extra dimensions, the origami of space and time. Short narratives fill the lacuna of this strange landscape told in the brief, serial style of a Dickensian novel. Upon waking he pauses in meditation, expressing thanks for the memories.
We gotta have peace and love
Marvelous Distractions – 05/08/2019
Something large flew past the window, throwing my pistachios into shadow. By the time I focus on the window screen all I see is a large housefly. Not to get too Schrodinger, but what was it before I looked? And moving from quantum to relativity, we have observed that twenty-eight degrees on the tenth of May feels about the same as negative four degrees in January. Marvelous distractions.
Deer have been enjoying the young sprouts along the paths and roads. We have startled each other in the morning twilight many times this week. Prairie Golden Bean (Thermopsis rhombifolia – from the internet) is everywhere, presenting strokes of distracting yellow on the usually dry and brown high plains. Reversing water patterns stain the roads and fields while the clouds come and go. The light snow falls, barely succumbing to gravity. It could not penetrate the trees, leaving circles of dry earth beneath their branches, their matte boundaries defined by the darker, glossy soils, vegetation and asphalt moistened by this solemnly delivered gift from nature. And now the sun dries the open spaces and the snow melts and drips through the pine canopy, creating a negative of the just described scene.
I sit facing east by the open bedroom door and drift into a morning meditation, trying to capture that moment when sleep arrives without falling in, and turkeys gobble. Marvelous distractions.
Pretty Damn Cool – 05/17/2019
The lunar cycle throws our small satellite into hormonal flux as the planet itself seems bloated and irritable. The early sunrise brings a temporary end to my star gazing and I see nothing but Saturn on my morning walk. I have a personal weather pattern develop about me as sweat rains from my brow. If we could only capture this moisture and use it for good. So the mowing is done and I shower and get back to work. Miles’ Jack Johnson blasts from the digital speakers and I realize I’m listening to early McLaughlin. “Who’s the guitar on Herbie Mann’s Memphis Underground?” infiltrates my thoughts. I check that out and play Herbie next. It’s Larry Coryell, not McLaughlin but it takes me to the Spaces album. Then it’s the early 70’s and I’m riding my bike out Kingsbury to oldest brother’s and first sister-in-law’s new apartment. It seemed like it was miles out into the suburbs when I was a teen but it was only about ten minutes away in bicycle time. Hours were spent getting high and listening to music with albums being swapped out every time a sound or topic formed a seemingly logical connection. If we had tried, I doubt if we could have retrieved our starting point or have traced our vinyl breadcrumbs down the path we had just created. Then I’m in an attic bedroom in one of the best old houses on one of the coolest streets in St. Louis. Brother was teaching me the flute line from Memphis Underground. Jimmy was on Fender bass, the neck held together with a toggle bolt. He just worked around those frets. My flute wasn’t in any better shape. Roseanne sold it to me for the price of a bag of pot. I didn’t know if she knew how fucked up it was and I didn’t care. I didn’t know enough to realize that the pads were worn out and some of the key mechanisms were permanently loose. That night Brother taught me Memphis Underground and we were making music. Pretty damn cool.
Peas and Harmony
Kinda Sexy – 05/24/2019
At times it feels like I live my life as a character at the mercy of some unidentified author hung up on the stream of consciousness technique. (And this has nothing to do with twelve inches of snow earlier in the week and mowing the lawn today.) Somewhere in this timeline I am in the late 70’s and running into Gene Amole. It was a meaningless encounter. We didn’t even speak. He was a columnist for the Rocky Mountain News. I enjoyed his writing.
Several of us were at a bar in downtown Denver when Molly Nutt, a name has never fit a person better, pointed out Gene. She was quite excited. I was listening to jazz. The venue was one of those nice old hotel bars with marble everywhere and massive columns disappearing into the dark above the chandeliers before you could see them join the ceiling. I wouldn’t say it was the kind of place I would expect to see newspaper people hanging out, but I did experience an impromptu evening with Uncle Jake, a columnist for the Post and other St. Louis papers for many years, there one night. So I could be wrong.
The evening we saw Gene was a little different than the evening we saw Jake. My friends and I had decided, and I don’t remember if it was on a bet or just a drunken whim, to go out on the town dressed as women. And we weren’t going to just throw on cheap Halloween costumes. We were going to do it up right. With the help of some female friends and a few nips of whatever was passing around the room that night, after about two hours of preparation, I even shaved my beard, we were properly tarted up and ready to hit the bars.
We were having a great time at some of our regular hangouts, and I must say that all night I felt “kinda 7399”, but we wanted to hit some other places before closing time. There weren’t many clubs in Denver then, people didn’t go clubbing like they do now. There was a late-night dance club that was a gay hangout and we had had a lot of fun there before. But that got voted down. Maybe it was because we looked too damn good. I hope it wasn’t for any more nefarious reasons. (You paranoid straights better watch out, someday you’re going to be mistaken for one of those bull machos from a Reinaldo Arenas novel.) We opted for the elegance of the Oxford Hotel bar, live jazz and a brief encounter with Gene Amole.
I wonder if Gene realized that one of his biggest fans met him while wearing a dress. I gave nothing away. You know, sometimes I look back and ask myself: did I enjoy that evening just a little too much?
Peas and Hominy
Sinister Root – 05/31/2019
Today’s one percent sit in their pantomime castles like the faded French royalty of the early 1900’s promoting their self-worth in afternoon salons. They privately laugh at petitions and demonstrations pointed at a better world while publicly spewing meaningless supportive rhetoric encouraging the masses to find comfort in intentional ignorance. Tears form as I try to work out my frustrations with intense physical labor. The sinuous root will not submit to my spade. I grab a file to sharpen the blade and go at it again. I cannot cut into its core. Though it has thrived for ages it has just recently surfaced, breaking the once harmonious landscape. I dig around the fibrous rhizome attempting to approach the problem from a better angle only to find a thicker and uglier support system. I try other tools; an axe, a steel clawed hammer, but nothing will persuade the supporters of the hideous monster on top. I start rotating tools, digging until those muscles need a rest, then hacking away with the axe, then the hammer claw. Taking one last, wild swing I chip away a small notch. I might have shaken my cage loose and rattled its shell. The work is not done. We’re killing children.
Peace and Harmony
And Flying Things – 06/07/2019
Compact track loaders skid steer their way through the woods grinding up the latest county sponsored tree removal. Is there more damage from the tree removal or from the loaders ripping apart the topsoil? They call it mitigation, either against fires or pine beetles, both issues exacerbated by climate change. They will spend millions thinning and pruning forests. They spend just as much supporting the industries feeding the problem. I deal with Miller moths (the adult stage of the army cutworm migrating from the plains to the mountains) and rabbits while being criticized by malapert magpies. I believe I am experiencing circadian dysrhythmia though I have not circumnavigated even a small circumferential angular segment (arc?) of our planet, not able to escape the surly bonds of the weak force of gravitons seeping from the earth’s heavy inner core. Now Monk and Trane, 1957, I’m not yet two years old, with mourning doves, great blue heron and turkey vultures. Black river at dawn, 1974, river otters, quail, turtles, crawdads, tadpoles and bobcats. Dilated eyes make the swamp turkey think I’m tripping. Resting in the last bit of shade on the front porch after completing some yardwork I wonder about all of the flying critters: butterflies, bees, all kinds of tiny insects, small birds darting in and out of the yucca. A screaming comes across the sky, just before closing the last window, as Hank makes a midday feeding excursion. A flicker timidly complains. The finch, in its perpetual state of confusion, appears comfortably numb.
Soft Pastels – 06/14/2019
Big billowing bundles of barometric bantering lie upon the lingering snows of the highest summits, churning vapors rising over the western horizon as they evolve with the meteorological influences of the great divide, pushing east. Peaks and clouds capture and reflect the brilliant colors of dawn in softer pastels, this reverse sunrise adding extra dimensions to the show. I stumble around the lake with my attention drawn away from the path. In spite of my wandering gaze I spot a kingfisher, advancing to the next available perch every time I draw near. I explain that I mean him no harm yet he continues with his short escape flights. I apologize for the intrusions. A great blue heron freezes in momentary confusion as I pass much closer than he usually tolerates. He too, perhaps, losing focus.
On my way home a midlife crisis guy drives by in his expensive roadster with the top down, another victim of Madison Avenue’s campaign to sell sex appeal. There better be some powerful pheromones emitted from that car. He looks like a less interesting Chris Elliott.
Closer to home legless deer float through the tall grasses, claiming their bedding sites in preparation for imminent deliveries. With calm seas, ears are seen above the greenly walled fortresses scanning the area like radar. Relaxing on the porch, I do this quite a bit, more pastels color the morning as several small butterflies bounce around the yard. The experts place them in the whites family but they are seldom white. We get a powder blue, a light emerald, a pale yellow. After seeing a western tiger swallowtail I head inside.
In the bedroom there will be a few moths. They seem to come in groups of three. I try to herd them to the back door, allowing them to move on to cooler climes. But one resists. The third moth (to the theme music of a solo zither) escapes and becomes a mystery. Is it more sinister? And what dark tunnels does it navigate to elude my dragnet? It is thought to be dead and buried but reports of clandestine sightings creep into the plot. If it hides too long it will be found dead in a lost crevice, never having reached its lofty goal.
And our windowpanes, now tinted from a massive pine pollen microburst, have me looking at the world through dandelion colored glasses.
Balance in the Dark – 06/21/2019
Many years ago I asked if balance is more difficult in the dark. Words like vestibular, proprioceptor and peripheral were offered up in explanation. This didn’t make my vrikshasana routine in the park any better. But the trees were forgiving.
Now I see many dark things and become concerned. A jingoistic populace behind another trumped up Middle Eastern distraction while pretending a good person can be driven by blind hatred has me avoiding the news from all devices. But I do not want to be in the dark. I see people using whatever religion they glom onto to justify the abandonment of their fellow man and I close my eyes. But I do not want to be in the dark. I see people claiming to be free and equal while supporting a regime bent on destroying freedom and equality. Black lives don’t matter. Woman don’t count. I want to scream with rage and block out the world. But I do not want to be in the dark. Rahsaan Roland Kirk said “Clickety clack, clickety clack, won’t someone bring the spirit back? Who will it be? Who will it be? It certainly won’t be someone who says that they’re free. Clickety clack, clickety clack.” And justice is getting harder to find as deals are made in vaulted rooms and the dangerous clown draws our attention away with his childish antics.
A spirit is missing and the world is peopled with wandering tokens of a joyless pride. We are in the dark and losing our balance.
Big City Jazz – 06/28/2019
I walk through the doors and it hits me – this is not big city jazz. I’m catching the early morning show. There are gaps in the wood floor and few seats available, many still occupied by bungie cords and flowerpots. I have not entered the Blue Note, though Boulder had one they did not have New York, I have left the kitchen. We are live at the Thunderbird Compound. The musicians are warming up, still hidden backstage, scales muffled by thin pine walls. Needles hum but find no purchase, delivering a kinder message in the breeze. With the spinning of the planet, light spills onto the stage like neon. The amphitheater is eager to be filled with sounds. A Latin rhythm builds with a feral bass line from the draw, still hidden in relentless shadows. Stanley Squirrel brightens the bottom with steady rim shots as he chases his muse around ragged trunks. We have Robbin Towhee on trumpet, Jay on a scratchy sax and Finch on flute. The repetitive, chant-like percussion of these mambo kings is carried by Tito Flicker on timbales, Mongo Nuthatch on congas and Ignacio Woodpecker on drums. There is no piano. We all double on various percussion. I sip my hot morning drug from a porcelain mug and contemplate the reflection, barely detected through a fluctuating portal of syncopating branches, from a distant window. The image is rotated ninety degrees. This is not how mirrors work. Is it a response from nature now that we live longer than trees? I feel like I came to the potluck without a dish.
Peas and Hominy
Small Sounds – 07/12/2019
Morning beckons as the smallest of sounds emanate from the bathroom; ninja lady trying not to disturb though I will rise in a few minutes. There’s a rattle of a hanger on the back of the door, a vanity drawer opens and closes, water runs briefly as dreams morph into a different reality. Yet unmoved, a screaming fills the blackened sky, perhaps a great horned owl. As I rise the pines whisper in an eerily warm morning breeze and the treely silhouette nods in recognition of our previously established, somewhat tentative, accord as ideas and emotions evolve. Bats dart after unseen insects in acrobatic display as the grip of night weakens; these small sounds withheld from my detection.
But the day brings other small sounds: The creak of the planks of the front porch when I rest on the steps and then the clicking of rocks as the gravel slope across the road gives a little under the weight of a big doe and then the rustle of the bark kicked up by a towhee foraging by the junipers and then the harrumph of a young but large buck as he settles into a bed under the spruce trees, perplexed by the bony growth of velvety antlers from his forehead, he’ll spend the day in silent repose and then the roofers’ nail guns sounding like gunshots in the distance and then the slap and peel of footsteps on fresh blacktop in the heat of the afternoon and then the soothing hiss of bicycle tires on that same road and then the plunk of grass hoppers crashing onto the trail, the worst landers of all the flying insects and then on an errand the familiar squeaks of the old car, she turns 32 in October and then the radio comes in and two notes tell me I’m listening to Herbie’s solo on Red Clay before my brain even registers recognition, we played a nice version of this in the small jazz band we had in college, we were just imitators then and then an echo in my head as sweat drips into my ear, the old car has no air conditioning, 32 years ago you didn’t need air conditioning in Colorado.
And I’m running into the big cabin in the Ozarks with all the kids jostling for space in front of the one window air conditioning unit, some parent warning us we will get pneumonia if we stand too close. The adults are gathered on the long, screened in porch, always cooler there, but still sweating. I wouldn’t mind one of Bob’s banana daiquiris.
And then the instantly identified small sound of a moth pinging off of the blade of our ceiling fan as we turn in for the night.
Peas and Hominy
Tea on My Tuba – 07/19/2019
Here at the Thunderbird Compound we walk in the early morning without checking the weather. In other parts of the world people are aware of the ozone alert. It has been designated Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups.
Here at the Thunderbird Compound we believe we are healthy and sensitive. In other parts of the world we may be considered neither.
Here at the Thunderbird Compound it is perfectly normal to emerge from the woods singing the Kookaburra song. In other parts of the world it may be considered slightly demented to allow your thoughts to wander to grade school music classes.
Here at the Thunderbird Compound Jack Benny’s Bistro becomes part of our vernacular. In other parts of the world the sign reads Japanese Bistro.
Here at the Thunderbird Compound we say, “tea on my tuba”. In other parts of the world the acronym is TMI. This came about recently while relaxing on the deck; enjoying a mild evening, a summer breeze, a few glasses of wine, a nice conversation. Z doesn’t drink but she felt like sharing certain postpartum details. Go figure. TMI or Tea on My Tuba.
Here at the Thunderbird Compound “tea on my tuba” has evolved into a kind of “don’t rain on my parade” colloquialism. In other parts of the world pseudo sophisticates snicker and pretend to understand, trying to appear hip to the latest lingo the kids are using.
Here at the Thunderbird Compound, that now celebrated night on the deck, we talked about seasons disappearing. In other parts of the world they talk about the same thing. This really teas on my tuba.
Here at the Thunderbird Compound we alphabetize our music but group our literature based loosely on some transient underlying concept. In other parts of the world studies have shown that the stringent organization of massive amounts of stored data can limit the creativity keyed by random access to, seemingly unrelated, ideas. That teas on my tuba.
Here at the Thunderbird Compound it is self-defeating and cruel to give much thought to ancestors. In other parts of the world, I’m sorry to say, a person’s ancestors are always under suspicion*. Man, don’t be teain’ on my freakin’ tuba.
*Paraphrased from John Irving’s The Cider House Rules. I’ve never read Great Expectations or David Copperfield, but I have read most of John Irving. Tea on my tuba?
Peas and Hominy
I Had a Sandwich – 07/26/2019
My mind struggles with the sleeping self. Subconsciously tuned in to the midnight rain I’m told to get up and check the windows. Sleep is reluctant to surrender its hold, dreams persist. A disembodied voice slithers into my audio sensors, “Is that good? I ordered the same thing.” I struggle to turn and find a creepy old woman creeping towards the table next to mine. “I’m not here to make friends.” is my first thought but I relent with “It’s not bad.” She is soon joined by an equally creepy old man. They eat their breakfast, not saying a word. After a very short period of time, they get up and leave, never having broken their vow of silence. A brief examination of their abandoned table reveals that the lady had a quiche. I had a sandwich.
A spray of rain interrupts my reverie and I find my head full of brain boogers, and not the good kind. They come in many flavors, you know. Some are quite savory like Relativity and Evolution while others are spoiled and putrescent like genocide and internment camps. Mine are merely clogging the flow. Exactly what type of entrenching tool would one use to pick at a nuisance brain booger? I’m in a kind of fog, but it did not come on little cat feet. It attacked like a cheetah tearing across the Serengeti. I’m trying to grasp something ephemeral, like a land lease executive in the artificially sustained fossil fuel market. How do you profit from a product that is about as relevant as whale oil? But I digress and I believe the rain has stopped and the bedclothes have not stirred.
And now I am left with a remnant of conversation with my brother, years ago. Bobby offered, “Marcel Marceau said ‘Sometimes it's best just to shut up.’ I think this is great advice and I also think it is hysterical that a mime actually has a quote.”
Peas and Hominy
Jungles and Coffee – 08/02/2019
They call him a luftmensch, living his life in tiny suburban jungles and ancient coffee houses. Stella’s put in a new floor but you still couldn’t balance an egg on the far from perpendicular substructure. He enjoys the cockeyed tables and the mining for level purchase of chair legs when initially nesting near the long brick wall while groping for penetration of the questionably wired wall socket. He decides to remain unplugged and make notes to be transcribed later. It is early and quiet as he sips his coffee, waits for the jibber-jabber of morning patrons to rise like the waking of his tiny suburban jungle and ignores his notebook, sitting forlorn on the table in front of him. Soon, the tables become widely occupied and the decibels build to a confusing hum. There seem to be several caucuses of the recently graduated and more experienced unemployed girding their loins for the front lines of complex networking inherent to the job market these days. Many dedicated individuals ferociously bang away on their tablets. Passionate exchanges on art and politics fill the air. A brief calm causes him to, almost imperceptibly, lift his head from the work. He sees many faces turned in concert towards the door, mimicking the heliotropic sunflower, growing from a pot on the deck like an unexplained gift from nature; an uncomfortable Jack sprouting from a box too confining for his limbs. A couple, far too soigne for the room, steps cautiously into the seating area, touching chair backs with fingertips extended to maximum, though apparently not nearly adequate, length. The woman raises a hand to the back of her head, protecting her elegantly pinned chignon. The picture complete to Seurat’s satisfaction, the quiet poet returns to his work. But the notebook does not cooperate. The leaves do not turn like they do in his tiny suburban jungle. In his tiny suburban jungle he partakes in lengthy discourse with the brilliant dragonfly as he reaches again into the dense vegetation in a struggle to control the thistle. The rains have his normally dry system tropically moist and alive. Seed heads swipe his eyebrow and his clothing becomes damp while picking his way up the expertly camouflaged riverbed. Wild, musky odors cling to the heavy air as mysterious creatures rustle and slither through the grass. He almost steps on a wooly caterpillar that has managed to find a dry rock. A large, ugly spider hitches a ride on his shoulder. “Did you see that?” he asks the dragonfly, breathlessly. “You seemed a bit startled.” the dragonfly observes, dryly.
The phone vibrates. The car is ready. And he leaves the ancient coffee house, the notebook unfulfilled.
Silhouettes – 08/09/2019
The days of silhouettes return. A young owl screeches for its breakfast from a nest in the tall pines, a silhouette against a two-dimensional sky. A fading Orion makes a brief appearance before a dark silhouette slides across the flat celestial canvas and a soft rain cools the scene. Morning walks move me into the realm of the large grazing animals, silhouettes against the ragged brush. The silhouettes of three gorging bucks in pastoral commune defies the image of their hormonal hostilities coming soon with the abandonment of this thin façade of peace. Then we are both startled by a surprise encounter along the path. We each observe the other’s body language as the earliest twilight reveals form but not intent. Her head is raised and she continues to chew but there is a rigid flex of her muscles. Her hooves dig in. The spring-loaded power of those skinny legs creates tight waves of energy rippling through the grass, traversing the short distance between us. As it is predawn, she questions my presence on the trail. The constant whir of one thousand chirping crickets pauses for a moment in anticipation of the coming confrontation. I move slowly, averting my eyes, gesturing calmly in a nonverbal attempt to express a lack of hostility. She does not move. She is not ready to surrender her position. She holds the good ground. I speak softly, explaining that I need to go up the trail. She is not happy with me disturbing her daily constitutional, insisting that she regularly browses in this spot, at this time. I counter that I often walk this trail around 5:00 AM and have not had a problem in the past. She scoffs at my mechanical understanding of time. “Earliest twilight,” she uses against me, is not a time on a clock. She argues that her time is not governed by quantum vibrations of digital devices counting the artificial divisions of arbitrary units invented to advance commerce. When I concede to her logic I detect a coy smile, like a pretty bartender angling for a big tip. She is willing to give me the road.
Peas and Hominy
Old Friends – 08/16/2019
And it seemed to The Man that people stopped going out altogether. It was not agoraphobia. It was a completely rational fear of the American proletariat using guns as a means of expression. Despite this, The Man felt safe, cloaked in night’s cool embrace, as a solitary visitor in the wilderness. But it wasn’t a wilderness at all. It was the stressed out remains of an abused forest. More often than not he stumbled from these ragged woods with a bag full of trash.
He finds his way, using more of his tactile than visual senses, to his favorite stump and sits, hoping no boring insect crawls up his ass, not so much to rest, though his once powerful legs are not what they once were, as to enjoy the calm and pretend an unspoiled land. The stars are blocked by trees but it doesn’t matter. Soon the sun will show itself in an angry blaze, pissed that darkness has begun to bogart the morning hours. He recalls The Young Russian and their uncanny ability to communicate despite his meager knowledge of the language. He remembered a few phrases, could ask a few questions, explain that he doesn’t understand and tell people to fuck off. Apparently he sounded like a native when expressing the latter. He never said “I love you.” Perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered.
The Young Russian, like many people in that part of the world, had a knowing appreciation for avant-garde jazz. She particularly enjoyed Lester Bowie and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The Man always went to Albert Ayler for truly free expression. “I’ve got to hand it to you,” whispered The Young Russian. “This is quite exciting.” “Shhh,” said The Man.
Having initiated their studies long ago with monthly meetings, over the years The Man and The Young Russian had met with less frequency. In the way of these things, the two friends began meeting quarterly, then semiannually, then suddenly they weren’t meeting at all. This happens. Suffice it to say that the two shared a fondness for each other and despite their best intentions, life intervened. And The Young Russian disappeared. Or did The Man?
The Man sighs, rising from his stump to head home. Once gaining an open view from the road he notes the fading images of the brightest stars as dawn encroaches on the sky. “My old friends, you always return. This is not the day to join the solitude of his Wilderness.”
(Part of the concept for The Young Russian stolen from A Gentleman in Moscow.)