Wrong Side of the Road

I mentioned Ed Ross in a post the other day.  After that, I went on a search for some of his images.  Travis has a limited edition book Ross put out.  I never got one.  I've chosen this image today because it was one of his early successes.  That is not him on the bike, but it is the bike, I think, he died on.  He was driving from San Fran to Yosemite, a trip I've made innumerable times, to make some pictures.  On one stretch of road, he gunned it to pass the cars ahead.  Just as he did, the car in front of him pulled out, too, and Ed was run off the road.  I don't know how fast he might have been going, but when he hit the tree, it was the sudden stop that killed him.  

Nice way to start the post, eh?  Yea.  But I am surrounded by death and dying, and Captain Outrageous has died, too.  They credit him with starting the 24 hour news cycle.  If you weren't around when CNN came into being, that is exactly what it was.  News anchors reported news from around the world.  You couldn't sit and watch it all day because it was fairly repetitive.  But it was news.  There are NO 'round the clock news stations now no matter what they say.  There are only channels with commentators who interview other people about what they think about a chosen thing.  

"Trump claims that the war is over.  Joining me today are a panel of experts. . . ."

Etc.  

CNN's first anchors, by the way, were a Black man and a woman.  That was groundbreaking.  

I liked Turner when he won The Americas Cup in a 4-0 sweep in 1977.  The CNN thing. . . yea.  I thought it odd when he married Hanoi Jane, but he sure made up for everything when he began giving his money away to charities trying to save the planet.  

For reasons I don't yet understand, he bought most of southern New Mexico.  It is the most godawful place I've ever been.  But he did.  Stay tuned.  

I checked on my old college roommate/b-ball partner/band member/colleague yesterday.  Not the best of news.  

Mom keeps ticking, but every night is madness now that must be quelled.  

T left for his new home this morning.  I didn't see him for days before his departure, so I called and left him a message.  Didn't hear back.  

The tenant leaves tomorrow.  At that point, no one will be checking on me to see if I am still around.  Bereft of companionship. . . . 

I've still got mom (to speak in the post-grammar vernacular).  

As I told my old roommate's wife, though, I can feel the Life Force drain from my body every day now.  It is like the faucet in my mother's bathroom I need to repair or replace.  The slow drip drip drip has accelerated.  The parts are just worn out.  

Maybe I should, as so many billionaires are doing, invest in some longevity therapy.  Red light, infrared, proper protein, anti-inflamatory, gut health, careful surgery, compression, hot and cold, dietician. . . yea.  

"Uh, I have to tell you son. . . that ain't living.  That's something else entirely."

From this morning's NYT:

It was just over three decades ago that the Hall of Fame third baseman Wade Boggs did something remarkable, possibly unmatched in baseball history. For much of his career, Boggs’s routine for bouncing back after games — his preferred postgame recovery modality, in the parlance of modern sports science — was pounding cans of Miller Lite. And according to Boggs, during one flight from Boston to Los Angeles in 1994 (or possibly 1992 or 1989; the dates are understandably fuzzy) he drank 73 beers.

Boggs was in his mid-30s at the time and still reliably batting well over .300, which would be exceptional even for a pro player in his late-20s physical prime, but he was also playing in a different era. Suffice it to say that in modern baseball — a power game predicated on tape-measure home runs and 100-mile-per-hour fastballs — there’s no way Boggs would bat above .300 at an advanced age with 73-beer hangovers. Pro athletes now, especially older ones, are more like round-the-clock recovery droids who occasionally play sports. They’re not guzzling Miller Lites on those cross-country flights; they’re drinking cherry juice for the melatonin to get ahead of the jet lag and wearing Normatec compression sleeves on both legs to stimulate lymphatic drainage and reduce inflammation.

Today, top athletes make about 30 times as much money as did Boggs, so they can afford to do what they do, but I ask myself--would I rather live like Boggs or Lebron James?  Who was it that pitched a perfect game on acid?  Oakland Athletics pitcher, I think.  Lunacy, I know, but sooooo much more intriguing.  

Captain Outrageous lived a bit of the Vida Loca.  Now we have Elon Musk, et.al.  

And Trump.  

What do I have for you today that might go with this post?  Well, as Clint Eastwood says as the John Huston character in "White Hunter, Black Heart":

"Sometimes you just have to do the wrong thing."

Sounds like Tom Petty, but it ain't.   

Breaking Routine, the Daily Report

What a day.  This will be a report.  

It began with my mother getting ready to go with the neighborhood girls to lunch at Olive Garden.  I think I must have complained about not having a life or something.  Sure.  So they got together and said they would take my mother to lunch.  I stuck around the house until ten.  They were picking her up at eleven, so I would just be back from my walk before she left.  

Then the gym.  I went to the "boom-boom room," to warm up with a total body workout before hitting the weights.  Tennessee was already there and I thought I would see him, but when I came out, he was gone.  

"He said he'd come back here before he left," the shock jock said.  

"The Talker is gone," said one of the ladies.  

Hmm. Maybe he got a call.  I don't know, but I had said something to him the day before about going to get an early Margarita for Cinco de Mayo.  He'd said yes with his lips, but his eyes weren't certain, so maybe he was ditching me.  It was OK with me.  He has one more day in town, and he has been busy for the past week packing everything up.  Maybe I'd hear from him later. 

When I got back to my house, I took a shower and sat at my new desk.  I wrote a note to T and his wife on my old stationary.  I've had it forever, but I didn't like it anymore.  I have rarely used it.  Then I thought to make some postcards.  My midwest friend sends me postcards from 'round the world, so I would get one to her first.  I printed up that picture of the salt marsh on one side of some 300gm cardstock and then flipped it over and printed the backside with postcard markings. 

I wrote a note, addressed it, and put an old stamp on it.  Cool.  Then I made another, more dangerous card, for Q.  I would have to put his in an envelope, though, so I went into my office desk drawers to get one.  Crazy, but none of my envelopes would hold a 4x6 postcard.  

I didn't want to sit in the house all day.  Indeed, I wanted to change my routines altogether, and I decided to go to a little French bakery just off the Boulevard for a late brunch.  The day was gorgeous and I was feeling pretty free.  

Halfway there, I remembered the postcards.  Selavy.  I'd have to mail them later.  

I grabbed a sidewalk table and ordered an egg, ham, and brie croissant.  It was after one.  The Boulevard was fairly busy, but it was quiet on the sidestreet.  Hardly anyone passed by.  

When I finished eating, I walked around the corner to a beautiful little Spanish courtyard that led to the Boulevard.  It had once housed four upstairs apartments, and at one point in life, I was thinking of trying to rent one, but the properties became too valuable and were turned into offices and shops.  The stationary store was there, up a beautiful little outdoor stone stairway.  The courtyard had once held a small fountain, but now it was all bricked.  

When I entered the shop, the owner was sitting at her desk.  

"Hello," she said.  "You look like you are on a mission."

"You've had this shop a long time," I said.  

"Thirty-six years."

The woman was an acquaintance of my old moneyed girlfriend's family, and indeed, I think she is the one who bought my last stationary.  But I mentioned none of this.  

The owner showed me some things in a book, different styles and paper tones and weights, and of course, the different fonts.  Then she said, "I do have one company who is having a fabulous sale.  The stationary is on 300 gm cardstock and is engraved, not simply printed.  It is at a 50% reduction until. . . oh. . . May 15.  They include the plate."

On sale, 50 cards and envelopes were $175.  I told her about the new desk that had inspired me, but I was kind of browsing, so. . . .  

"Well, the printed ones are always available and they are nice, too."

We chatted for awhile longer.  She is a nicely contained woman, and I was reminded of those years when I was "recognized" by Village Society.  Not part of it, but "known."  I had always loved the genteel surfaces, the honeyed tones, the elegance of the rooms. . . Gatsby-itis.  Whence I came, it was a true Wonderland.  

Now that old society has been replaced by something new.  There was always money.  Now there is more money.  It's not Palm Beach money, but it is inching closer now.  

When I walked back out on the Boulevard, I wondered what to do.  I was breaking routine, breaking habit, but I didn't want to waste the day, so I decided to go back to my house and finish working on some projects.  

I got a call.  It was my mother.  She was back from her lunch.  

"What are you doing?" she asked me.  "I've been home since one-thirty.  I'm bored."

"Good to know," I said.  "I'll call you when I get bored."

"What?"

"Nothing.  How was lunch?"

"I had soup and salad.  It wasn't any good.  The others had meals, but I didn't eat much."

Good old mom.  I told her I was doing "stuff" and that I would see her in a bit.  Somehow, though, the magic of the day seemed to have disappeared.  I made more postcards and then worked on old images in files I hadn't touched for a decade or more.  

NYC, 2012.  I walked around with a big assed Canon with a 24-105 telephoto lens taking pictures in the street.  Nobody paid any attention to that then. 

The images seem like miracles to me now.  

I hadn't heard from T, and it was getting time for me to head back to mother's.  I looked at the postcard with the forty-one cent stamp.  Wait.  How much to mail a postcard now?  I went to the computer to look it up.  Seventy-one cents, it said.  Jesus.  I'd mail everything tomorrow.  

The tenant came over to ask me if I wanted her to bring over some cookies that night.  She leaves on Friday for her own homestate to help her mother with her grandmother who turns 107 on Saturday.  Being sole caretaker for her grandmother, the tenant said, has ruined her mother mentally and physically, and she can't wait for her daughter to come relieve her.  

"Huh," is all I can ironically muster.  

I grabbed the makings for Margaritas, Cointreau and tequila.  I'd have to stop at the grocers to get limes.  

When I got back to my mother's house, she was sitting in her usual chair in the garage.  

"Do you want a Margarita?" 

"Sure." 

Cointreau and lime juice in equal parts, then tequila to equal the combined amounts.  The juice of one lime was perfect.  I took the glasses out. 

"Wait.  I need to make a picture."

I sent my lousy phone snap around to friends: "Mom, me, and Margaritas.  Happy Cinco."

As we drank, a fellow walked up the drive.  Salesman.  He wanted mom to replace her old aluminum windows.  

Nope.  

"We do roofs, too.  I see that you are about ready for one."

"Really?  She just got this one about four years ago.  I guess we'd better call the company and tell them."

He just grinned.  I kibitzed with him about putting on a roof that lasted 22 years.  I talked about the price of Pella windows.  Turned out, that is what he sold.  

Somehow the conversation turned.  He had been in the service.  Iraq.  When he got out, he went to engineering school, he said, but he realized he needed to be outside, so. . . .  He asked what I did.  Then he told me about what he was reading.  He'd just started reading Kafka.  

"Oh, man. . . I think the last story in the collection is "The Hunger Artist."  That's a great one."

I did a quick explication of the thing.  He told me about what else he had been reading, and that he had a love of Plato and Socrates.  We talked a long time.  His partner who was working the opposite side of the street had come back to the car, so he said he needed to go.  

My mother was not drinking her Margarita, so I said I would.  As I poured it into my glass, she said, "Leave me a little." 

Then the ex-soldier from the Iraq war, the salesman, the reader, came walking back up the sidewalk.  He wanted to tell me he had enjoyed talking with me and wondered if maybe we could talk more as he read.  It was a little awkward, of course, but I said sure and gave him my phone number.  

When he was gone, I told my mother, "See?  I'm a hippie.  I can get along with everyone." 

"You sure can talk," she said.  

The tenant came with the fresh baked cookies.  They were awful.  Vegan, gluten free, low sugar. . . they felt like sand in my mouth.  I ate half a cookie but no more.  They were truly nothing a cookie should be, sweet and fatty and full of flavor.  

I made two more margs. We all sat out until the bats were flying, then with the last light, we went inside.  

And that was it.  That's my tale.  

My morning starts with an HVAC fan that won't shut off, even when I turn it off at the thermostat.  I have to call the repairman.  

It's always something.  

Mark Kozelek didn't get "famous" until he was in his forties.  Imagine such a thing.  Red House Painters, then Sun Kil Moon.  Then solo, he blew his own career up.  He may have been a real asshole.  So some say.  Some of his music, though. . . .   It is the stuff I used to hypnotize "my subjects" in the studio. 

Oh, shit--addendum!  I left out an important part.  After the first marg and meeting my new boyfriend, I told my mother I wished there was a good Mexican restaurant nearby so we could have tacos.  She said there was a Taco Bell up the street. Really?  I hadn't had Taco Hell this century.  O.K. I'd get some.  

I got a lot of them.  We ate them all.  I have to tell you, though, there isn't a lot on a Taco Hell taco.  But at least this morning, I don't have Taco Belly.  

The Tale of the Drawers

Just one of the things I miss seeing in my restricted life, a brackish marsh on the coastline.  When I showed this to my mother, she said, "Did you take that today?" 

"How in the hell would I have taken this today?  I can't go anywhere."

"Neither can I."

And there it is.  That is how she feels.  O.K.  

I spent most of yesterday--which means my few hours at my own home--taking things out of the drawers of one desk and putting them into the other.  I had to go through things one by one.  Mostly.  One drawer held little wooden animals, another Hot Wheels cars.  I never go in these drawers, so there were some surprise memories.  One drawer held five eyeglass cases.  One had a pair of RayBan sunglasses I must have forgotten about long ago.  Another held an old prescription pair, and yet another reading glasses.  

I found postcards I had thrown into a drawer.  A whole stack were from my friend in the Midwest who does nothing but travel now, postcards from all over the world.  There was another stack from Q's old girlfriend, the one he took to NYC oh so long ago.  She was a real pip, smart for a twelve year old, and I envied him her.  All the postcards and letters were from the time she spent in India.  She was living the hippie Vida Loca, or should I say the Veda Loca, then.  She came to see me a couple of times when she was in my own home state, then nothing.  Q still stays in touch with her.  I think she lives in that den of inequity, Berlin.  

There were little notes on torn scraps of paper from Ili that broke my heart all over again, and there were reunion messages from Sky.  

And there were small, dangerous things from my own secret past, thrilling notes from girls in that period after my divorce.  

There were a few cards from Q when he was an infamous disc jockey in places far and wide.  

I found my old iPod and its accoutrements.  The thing felt lovely in my hand.  1990s stuff.  I hooked it up to its charger and plugged it in.  I'll see today if it still works.  I haven't turned it on in this century.  Can't wait to hear what is on it. 

And pens.  Oh, my . . . I used to have a fetish.  Mont Blanc Meisterstuck pens, both roller ball and fountain. And there were ink cartridges.  I loaded one in, but the nib was dried.  I squeezed some ink through it and it wrote a bit, but I am going to need to soak and clean that nib before it is right.  Waterman fountain pens.  Two.  Some antique Parker pens, and two or three mechanical pencils.  

And about fifty other pens of different types.  And boxes of pencils, brand new #2s. 

Then the jewjaws and jibjabs, little Buddhas, a whale's tooth, a shark's tooth, and some carved faux-ivory things.  An elephant's hair bracelet.  An ostrich egg.  A carved and painted Arab slave.  Some tintypes I made at the turn of the century in Oakland with a fellow who also taught my tragic old friend, Ed Ross, the Apple Corporate attorney and photographer extraordinaire.  

There were tiny image transfers I had made and framed photos of my mother and I last century.  And there were photos from much of my old life.  

Then. . . oh, my. . . folders and folders of paperwork.  Tax forms and statements going back to forever.  Home insurance packets.  Car insurance packets.  Checks I apparently never cashed.  A photocopy of my birth record of some kind, some photostatic thing.  The title to my old Volvo in my ex-wife's name.  Did I ever own it?  Probably not.  The transfer of title of my old Jeep.  Stacks of medical records from my accident.  All the financial shit required when I retired from the factory.  Overwhelmed as always, I stuffed it all into a big wicker basket and closed the lid.  

Other things.  I whistle flute from Peru.  Old photos I bought from markets.  

It took a long time, but when I had put my hands on everything and had decided where they would go in the new desk, I sat down, turned on the lamp, and wrote some things.  It felt lovely.  Everything looked perfect, or at least interesting, so that now I want to go through every drawer and shelf in the house and make my home art again.  The aesthetic arrangement of elements.  I have always bought odd things that have caught my eye, but I have left them untouched for years.  Ili did not like my past and I was scared to do anything with them out of fear.  She threw away so much of my old stuff.  She wanted to erase my past.  

Who can blame her? 

If only I could spend nights at home working on pictures and writing letters, and, and, and. . . . 

I will go there today, though, and be productive again.  Not creatively yet, but in emptying drawers and determining.  

If I had my life to live over again. . . . 

And the music.  You know I have very eclectic tastes.  Last night, I saw a bunch of 1950's t.v. recordings of Billie Holiday, a wonder that they still exist.  The one here is remarkable for the music.  Her voice was an instrument, of course, the phrasing of notes, but this band assembled here. . . omg, as the kids used to say, they are the embodiment of excellence and restraint, leaving room for one another, not running through the scales but playing just what should be played.  This performance, and the others, were years before Miles Davis' iconic "Kind of Blue" which set the standard.  But listen and you will see what I mean.  

Aesthetic intelligence.  Oo-la-la.  

Museum Piece

Here's what T dropped off at my house over a week ago after I helped him empty one of his warehouse sized storage units.   He'd had it made 25 years ago, he said.  I'd said it was a nice piece, so he decided to give it to me.  I didn't know that, though, and when he brought it over, I wasn't home, so he got the tenant to let him in.  He dropped it off in the middle of the living room, two pieces, top and bottom.  And there it sat.  

"Are you going to keep it?" the tenant asked.  

"I don't know.  I'll have to see how it looks."

I already had a cabinet desk that I bought at Pottery Barn many, many years ago, probably about the time T had this one made.  But it was not sturdy, and over the years, the hardware has broken.  I'd always had some reservations about it.  

T and his wife came over yesterday to put the new desk together.  He'd been moving stuff for a week, he said, and he was over it.  He looked it.  They were going to come over on Saturday, but he texted that he and his wife were "out on the scooter."  As much as he's tried to deny the thing, reality is that he is moving.  He will be homeless here.  He and his wife raised their son in this town and have a long history here.  The fact that they are leaving all that behind is undeniably sinking in.  This weekend, they were doing their farewell tour.  

T looked a bit sadder than she. 

We moved the old desk and put the new one into place.  O.K.  It looked O.K.  We were all more than glad.  

T and his wife had brought other things, too.  They were emptying their freezer and pantry.  By the time they left, I had the old desk sitting in the middle of the living room and containers full of food sitting around the house.  

Just as they were leaving, the tenant came by to see the new desk.  She wants the old one, she said.  I understand.  It is nostalgic for her.  The drawers still held some of her son's old toys.  

She looked at the food.  

"You'd better get this stuff back in the freezer."  

Then she started looking through.  

"Do you want this?  It's date is December 2023."

Ha!  No, I didn't, and so we went through the food.  About half the frozen things went out to the garbage.  

Back to ma's where I put away all the foodstuff with her looking on.  First, though, I emptied her freezer of all the old things she had, too.  It took awhile.  I poured us the last of yesterday's champagne and I started preparing the beef stew, braising the beef, chopping the onion, potato, and. . . shit piss fuck. . . there were no carrots.  My mother went into the pantry and brought out a can of chopped carrots.  What the hell?  I put them in.  All the leftover wine went in.  Seasoning.  Italian stewed tomatoes.  I put on the brown jasmine rice.  We took our drinks to the garage/porch and sat for awhile.  

"You're going to miss your friend," my mother said.  

"Yes.  I don't really have any in town anymore."

I do but I don't.  My most intimate friends are all living elsewhere now.  There are people I see, like C.C., or Travis, but only on occasion, and the Factory Crew recede ever further into the past.  

"I'll get new friends," I laughed recalling Brando saying that whenever things looked like they were going south.  But I knew as long as I was a caregiver twenty hours a day, that was going to be impossible, and I felt strongly the restrictions of my current life.  Just that morning, as I took my long walk coming back along the Boulevard, I realized how much my life had changed.  I can no longer decide to have a late breakfast at the wonderful French croissant place, nor to skip breakfast and go to lunch somewhere for adventure.  I am a meal preparer and the times are sacrosanct.  No, I cannot act with any spontaneity.  My life is regimented.  It is routine.  I'd had an idea after T and his wife and the tenant had left before I loaded the car up with food to bring to my mother's that I would use the new desk to make postcards and write bon mots to my friends around the country.  I would use my inkwells and dipping pens.  I would make color photo transfers onto them.  It would all be poetry.  

But I won't be there.  The desk, like everything else in my own home, will sit as in a museum.  The realization made me. . . 

"I'd better check on the stew," I said.  

We sat down with dinner and the evening news.  As always.  Per usual.  

I forgot to explain yesterday's picture.  I'd seen a fellow make a cyanotype on the page of an old book.  Pretty neat, I thought, and it gave me an idea.  So, in the few marginal moments I had at home, I looked online for high rez images from old surf magazines, and lo and behold, I found them.  So I copied pieces thinking to overlay them on the old surf series, just to see.  I found the old Surf Spots map intriguing and decided to use that.  But I didn't really have time to experiment, so the map and the surfer girl do not quite gel.  I had other ideas but not more time, but being bereft of any other images, I used it for the blog.  

There are other ways to do it, though.  I'm thinking about trying to do it using photo transfer methods.  And I would, too, if. . . . 

Driving home yesterday, I played "Exile on Mainstreet" in the car.  For a moment, I was tempted just to keep on driving.  

And though it wasn't on that album. . . baby, baby, baby. . . please, please, please.

Tornado Saturday and the Incredible Finish

Wow!  What a tremendous Derby race.  If you didn't see it, you missed something amazing in real time.  

But we'll get to that.  I had a bad day.  A real bad day.  My gut was shitty from the get-go.  When I took my long walk from home, around the lake shore, across the campus of Country Club College, down the avenue of mansions to the golf course, cutting through the grounds of the historic home, and back down the Boulevard, I could barely move.  Knees, hips, back.  Slow.  Very, very slow.  

It was early, though, so the Boulevard was not yet crowded, and rather than walking down the park side of the street as I usually do, I walked past the shops.  I haven't been paying much attention, I guess, but the Boulevard is changing.  Has changed, really.  At one time in the '80s, the rent per square foot was higher than rents on Rodeo Drive in L.A.  It had all the fabulous stores then.  But times changed, I guess, and what was once hip and fun retail. . .well. . . the stores just left.  Now, I expect to see all the high end stores come back.  

So my pace was slow as I crawled along looking into shop windows, every other one a women's apparel shop of some kind.  Or jewelry.  Then, restaurants.  Lots of restaurants and bars.  And somewhere just off the Boulevard, a block away, a new men's store selling suits and sports coats.  People in my own hometown like to dress, eat, and drink, it seems.  

The hoi-polloi come in on the weekends and bring food to the park where their kids run around like banshees.  

I stopped at the bookstore.  A quick look.  I saw this.  

I opened the cover and read the inside jacket.  Here's what struck me.

[The protagonist] stops at a café and has a chance encounter with a pretty young local girl in a turquoise minidress. What seems to him a chance meeting like so many we all experience daily will come to upend his life and morph into a fatal obsession.

For Bethany, a receptionist at the local hospital, who, like many twenty-somethings, is trying to sort out her options in life while haunting the local bars and clubs, this chance encounter is anything but trivial. Down on her luck after breaking up with her boyfriend and surreptitiously living out of her storage unit, she finds Terrence attractive on a number of counts, not least of which is his status as a doctor and, by default, a homeowner.

Really?  Can a man write such a thing now?  I mean . . . if Bethany was the doctor and homeowner or turned out to be trans or if she was a he or something, but. . . I mean. . . . 

 So, I'll probably buy it.  I haven't read Boyle for years, but when he was new, the editor of the most popular intro to lit book used in colleges across the country, X.J. Kennedy, a poet of some repute, included several of Boyle's stories, themed often around the contrast between nature and human nature which was always weird and corrupt. One, "The Descent of Man," tells of a love triangle between a primatologist, a chimp, and the woman's dim-witted boyfriend.  In a follow up, "The Ape Lady in Retirement,". . . well, it's complicated.  But Boyle was on a roll.  

I did a search for the stories online, but they are not available, so if you are interested, you're on your own.  

I should add, Kennedy also included stories by Alice Munro such as "Wild Swans," "The Found Boat," and other stories that some found too tittiling for inclusion.  Dana Gioia, also a poet, took over the editing chores, and the publication was tamed.  Gioia and I had drinks one night after a reading, and we got along well.  For some time, we corresponded.  He was actually trying to help me find a publisher for my dissertation, but in the end, like most great opportunities in my life. . . . 

Now, of course, Munro has been #Fuckyou'd for revelations her daughter made after her death.  As I've said, artists don't make good parents.  

But I love Munro's work.  

Now, the Derby.  Just wow.  Down the stretch, from last to first.  There has never been anything like it.  But what made it even more spectacular was that the jockey, Jose Ortiz, went neck to neck with his own brother to win by half a length, and as they crossed the finish line, they rode side by side holding hands.  It was beautiful.  Later, when they interviewed him, he cried the entire time.  I mean, it pulled at the old heartstrings.  

Earlier, Susan Miller, known as the first female jockey to ride in the Kentucky Derby, interviewed trainer Cherie DeVaux as they walked to the stables before the race.  DeVaux won my heart then as a most generous and graceful human.  Let me see if I can find it. 

Unbelievably, no.  I can find a hundred interviews with DeVaux, but not the most beautiful one with Miller.  Drats.  But if you saw the interview after the race in the winner's circle, you got a taste of what a gracious person she seems to be.  

What a story!  

I was feeling lousy before the race, as I say, and the day got weird.  The skies went strangely gray and clouds swirled and bouts of rain would fall.  My tenant wanted to go to a celebration of a hipster brewery's 21st birthday over by the Cafe Strange and kept calling me, but each time, tornado weather would begin again.  The wind came from all directions.  I lay down and fell asleep, but around 3:30 she talked me into driving up.  

The "celebration" was nothing.  The weather was looking scary.  

When I was walking on the Boulevard, I passed a pretty woman drinking a breakfast glass of champagne.  That was what I really wanted to do, so I stopped at the liquor store and got a nice $60 bottle.  Back at my mother's, I uncorked it.  I had gotten a good pizza on the way back, and so we sat at five drinking champagne and eating pizza while the t.v played the lesser races before The Run for the Roses.  

Later, I fell asleep in the lounger.  

"You sure are tired."

"Yea.  I haven't felt well all day."

But now, somehow, the champagne and the pizza had revived me.  No kidding.  I was feeling better.  The Kentucky Derby sponsor was a big bourbon company, and their ads were not bad, but I hate mint juleps and am no fan of bourbon, so before the horses were put into the starting gates, I poured myself a scotch.  

"And they're off!"

The entire affair had set me right, I guess, and I left the t.v. on to see the 76ers beat the Celtics in a crucial game 7.  All with mom.  

I've watched all the Derby's since I was a kid, and I've seen them at some pretty spectacular places.  I've told you more than once the story of my own failed trip to the Derby when my buddy had a friend with a horse in the race.  We were going to be at all the insider parties with the likes of Bo Derek.  

But we never made it and ended up watching the race from a strip club in Atlanta.  

Selavy.  

Travis reminded me that he was at the Derby when Secretariat won and went on to win the Triple Crown.  I just sent him YouTube videos of all three races.  

It is Sunday, Buddha's birthday.  So they say.  I don't know if I have it in me to go to the celebration. It's up in the air.  

But for a shitty day, yesterday turned out all right.  

The Daily

Luke.  Biblical name, but not one I hear anymore.  People look up trendy names for their soon to be born babies now.  Or they make them up out of sounds they've heard.  But no more Lukes.  Or Sams.  Now it is either Mason or Shazeem.  

Later they can change it.

Finding a rapper name involves brainstorming unique, personal, or ironic words that reflect your style, using techniques like modifying your real name, using nicknames, or combining two contrasting words(e.g., grit and luxury). Ensure the name is short, memorable, and searchable on social media/streaming platforms
Here are specific methods to find your rap name:
Manipulate Your Real Name: Use your initials, a middle name, or a twist on your government name (e.g., Eminem from M&M, J. Cole).
Use a Nickname: Utilize a childhood nickname or a name given to you by peers (e.g., Blueface, Gunna).Generate Combinations: Use a rap name generator for ideas by inputting your hometown, favorite clothing, or a childhood nickname.
Word Contrast Method: Pair two words that create contrast or a specific mood, such as luxury plus grit or calm plus chaos.
Identify Your Persona: Select a noun, adjective, or concept that represents your style or persona (e.g., 50 Cent, Common).
Check Availability: Ensure the name is not already taken by searching for it on social media platforms, Google, and streaming services to ensure you can claim the domain and handles.

 Boom!  

If you want your own--(link).  

You can be whoever you want. 

C.C. and I ate at Lukes for lunch.  We caught up on all the bad news and the worse.  Sometime into it all, my phone rang.  It was my mother.  I hadn't put out her two o'clock pills before I left.  I told her I would come over and put them out.  

That's the way it goes.  

I had a big beer with lunch.  The day was a scorcher, 92 degrees, and when I got into the car, I couldn't put my hands on the black steering wheel.  I think that is when the beer hit me.  I was sleepy driving to my mother's.  When I got there, some of "the girls" were sitting in the garage with her.  They wanted to chat, but I just wanted to go home and take a nap.  I don't think they liked that much.  

I barely made it into the house.  I lay down at 2:30 and didn't get up for two hours.  When I did, there was a knock at the door.  The tenant was bringing over the rent check.  I was in a fog.  She came in and talked as I tried unsuccessfully to wake.  I feel exhausted most of the time now.  But I had to rally.  Time to get back to mom.  Dinner.  T.V.  Oy.  

I forgot to mention yesterday that last night was the Full Flower Moon.  May has two full moons this year, a Blue Moon on the 31st.  Expect the song.  

And of course, today is the Kentucky Derby.  I have watched it every year that I can remember, and often in some of the most spectacular places.  The horses will be led to their gates just before 7:00 p.m.  I will watch the race from my mother's couch.  

I only watch it out of habit now anyway, I guess.  I really don't even like horses.  But these beasts are real athletes and it is something to see them fight at the finish with their very last once of energy and breath.  Is it cruel?  As are all sports today, I think.  

We sat at the bar, of course, C.C. and I.  We had the daily special, their prix fix.  They are usually good, but yesterday, mine sucked.  It looks good in the photo, though.  I won't even mention what the "special" cost.  Prices have gone up everywhere.  

I think I'll take a walk today.  Just a long walk.  I'll need to do it early, though, before the afternoon rain comes in from the north and west.  

I guess I'll hang up now, as they used to say when people actually talked on telephones.  

"I guess I'll let you go."

May Day! May Day!

See?  Color scheme.  Just saying.

May Day, May Day.

The commies are out.  Tonight--is six o'clock considered "night"?--the big "No Billionaires" rally is being held/staged in Gotham.  I would like to go with a camera, but I don't think I can leave my mother alone then.  Drats.  You know there will be costumes.  That's what "those people" do now.  It is theater.  

But who knows--maybe ICE will be there to break it up.  

A Time Magazine article from the era noted that the number of U.S. millionaires had swelled from 40,000 in 1958 to nearly 100,000 by the early 1960s, driven by business opportunities and stock market growth. These figures generally refer to individuals with a net worth (including assets like homes) of at least $1 million, which is equivalent to over $10.7 million in 2026 dollars. While 100,000 people may have had a $1 million net worth, a much smaller number had an annual income exceeding $1 million. IRS statistics from 1960 showed only 306 Americans had an adjusted gross income of more than $1 million.

The number of millionaires has grown dramatically since, with over 20 million millionaire households in the U.S. today.

I had to look it up.  

As of early 2026, there are approximately 900 to 990 billionaires in the United States, which has the highest number of billionaires in the world. Their collective wealth is estimated between $5.7 trillion and over $8 trillion.

I don't have it in me to look up what kind of prizes people won on game shows in the early 1960s compared to today.  

If you have owned your own house for a number of years, you are likely to be one of the 20 million millionaires today.  Do you feel like one of the wealthy?  

Q owns two.  He might be a billionaire.

Yea, I'd like to go to the rally today/tonight. 

It is also Maypole Day.

Maypole Day is traditionally celebrated on May 1st (May Day) to welcome spring, fertility, and the return of life.

It also marks the halfway point between the spring equinox and summer solstice.  Can you feel your creek start to flow and your sap start to rise?  If you have a partner, I'd suggest you swing him/her/they 'round and 'round.  

I have no partner and I woke up with a cough.  I was around someone who had a cold yesterday, so I am a bit worried this morning.  At some point in life, all illnesses become serious.  

But I have a luncheon date with C.C. today, so I will need to rally.  And May 3, I hear, is Buddha's Birthday.  I went to a celebration of that at a Buddhist temple with C.C. once long, long ago.  It would be fun to share the pictures from that day, but unfortunately, I am not at home with my things.  Selavy.  

So there you go, your Weekend Calendar of Events.  

"And now," as Paul Harvey used to say, "for the rest of the story."

(link) 

I know, I know. . . you'll have to look Paul Harvey up for yourself.  

"Mayday" is the international radiotelephone distress signal used by ships and aircraft in grave, imminent danger (e.g., sinking, fire) to request immediate assistance. Derived from the French phrase "m'aider" (help me), it was adopted in 1927 because it is clear, distinct, and easily understood over radio static, even across language barriers.

Holy Smokes!!! Update.  Update.  I forgot to mention The Kentucky Derby on Saturday.  That would have been unforgivable.  

I'm betting on Old Glue Pot to show.  

Confession

Confession: I am having anxiety about writing on the blog.  It has begun to stress me out.  I don't really have anything to say or show, though if you look at the last few blog pictures, you might notice a color theme.  I took all the photos on a little walk on Sunday and decided on that.  But they are not photos that you will remember in the morning.  I'm certain that no one has even noticed.  As far as having nothing to say, of course I mean currently.  My life is routinized depression and worry, the description of which I deleted yesterday.  I wake in the night in a terrible state.  

Most of the time, anyway.  Once in awhile I have the sort of dreams which would be unsavory to describe here.  Not unsavory.  That is not the right word.  They would be too savory, perhaps, and too revealing.  

I've thought maybe of writing about the past, telling stories I haven't told before, but I have resisted that as the territory of old men; however, that may be the direction in which we are headed, stories of small victories and terrible losses.  I'm trying to be honest with myself about my life right now and not blow too much smoke up my own ass.  I've overperformed and underachieved and vice-versa.  I've soared to mediocre heights above the heads of the hoi-polloi below.  Considering what most people "achieve" in life, that is easy.  What they accomplished, I eschewed.  

And in the end, here I am. . . and there they are. . . and the gulf is wide and deep.  

One version of "The Chinese Curse":

May you get what you desire.

Of course, there is the Faulknerian bromide, too:

Most people don't know what they want.

C.C. says most people only know what they don't want.  

When we do, on occasion, want something, we are not committed enough or willing to sacrifice what is needed to garner it.  Maybe that is not a bad thing.  The CEO of the company I worked for was, I always felt, a great example of that.  She KNEW she wanted to be a CEO, and so everything she did in her waking and sleeping hours was done to attain that goal.  She was not a person people wanted to be, however, at least not the people I liked.  She achieved, but the sacrifice seemed far too great.  

It was Trumpian.  Trump is probably the best example I could give today.  

Ambition is not all that pretty.  Case in point?  Name a great artist you would want for a parent.  Sacrifices must be made.  

And so we muddle on in quiet desperation.  

I have come to a greater appreciation of the old man piddling in his garage, however.  Contentment may be more attractive than greatness.  

Acceptance, maybe.  I don't know.  

But I've certainly laid out some thematic bones here to inform my tales of adventure and daring.  Don't start the journey until you've envisioned the endgame or you'll end up like that Trump shooter.  

WTF was he thinking?  

Where you end up will never be certain, of course.  Even a great captain can get lost at sea.  But that doesn't mean you should throw the charts overboard.  Do what you can to get where you're going, kids.  

"Dude. . . get a grip.  We're going wherever the winds will take us."

Let me know how that turns out.  

Delete

I had to delete the entire post.  I once had a faculty member who would complain about her life every day to her students.  Her students came to me.  I had to do something, so I called her in.  

"You can't do that," I said.  "There is nothing they can do to help you except feel badly.  You should not be there for that." 

You are not a captive audience, and of course you can simply leave.  You have options.  There was no art in my complaint, so. . . 

Delete.  Delete.  Delete.  

I am not a good Buddhist.  I must try harder.  

Vicious Little Liars

I turned on the news last night.  There was Karoline Leavitt saying that there is no place in America for violence in politics.  Then Kash Patel.  Then Todd Blanche.  

Really?  WTF!  Is everybody stupid???  

Maybe.  If they keep saying that January 6 never happened, people will believe it.  The president surrounds himself with violence and spews violent rhetoric, and he counted on the manosphere to get him where he is, Dana White, and all his push up/pull up cabinet members. . . . 

It is totally unbelievable to me that every news outlet has not pointed out this hypocrisy.  Maybe there is a reason Trump is so often a target. 

I am truly flabbergasted.  I am living in a country I never imagined.  So much for American Exceptionalism.  I realize that I have always unconsciously believed in the machine it had built.  

However. . . look at the sign in that photo I took on Sunday.  There is part of the political problem.  "Abolish Billionaires" is tied to "No ICE."  But it is not.  Those are two separate questions.  You reduce the market when you put them together.  They will throw in a few other causes, too.  You are either on the bus or off the bus.  

I haven't said that right, haven't really made my argument.  I am trying to say you can agree with one thing and not the other.  I've been part of this stuff all my life, but my relationship has often been strained.  Bumper stickers and clever bromides breed shallow thinking. . . I think.  Terrible writing there.  

Rather, I saw a poster announcing the celebration of Buddha's birthday on May 3 at one of the Buddhist Temples in town, but I don't know which one or where.  I think I want to go to a festival, though, and even take my camera.  I am still drawn to what I consider exotica, the "other," etc.  Old throwback man.  The sort of guy who didn't know he held to the idea of American Exceptionalism.  Not just America.  I believed in the whole Western World/Civilization.  

Oh, you know, I was steeped in the anti-colonial rhetoric of my time.  Africa was only violent because Europeans had colonized it.  India would have been better if England had never given birth to Rudyard Kipling.  All that.  And of course, Said and "Orientalism." He deconstructed western thought and privileged the East.  Trouble was, deconstruction isn't supposed to work that way.  You are never supposed to stop reversing hierarchies, so someone else deconstructed the Eastern idea of the West.  Yea.  Turns out they weren't so kind, either.  It seems you can't live without privileging something.  

Mom, dad, the gods. . . whatever.  

One of "the gals" at the gym yesterday had a young girl woman with her.  Turned out to be her granddaughter.  Some of the boys men were gawking talking about her.  As I was finishing my workout, grandma introduced me.  

"I hear you're a good photographer," said the granddaughter.  

"I am," I said with faux-confidence.  

This led to a little discussion about artistic tastes.  The granddaughter had just graduated with a degree in philosophy/political science and was headed to law school in the fall.  We talked for a very long time.  

"Look out for him," the shock jock said in passing.  Alain seconded the notion.  I looked at the girl woman and grandmother and said, "I'm the only one who has worked around college kids his whole life. That's all I know."

I had just about finished up and said, "I think it's time for me to skip abs."

"Stay.  I can teach you yoga."  

I sat on a bench where I usually skip abs (ha) and she and her grandmother lay their mats on the floor beside me.  We talked for a very long time.  It was fun.  

"Since I've retired, I've lost my connection to language evolution.  I don't know how kids talk anymore."

"You've lost the lingo?"

"Yea."

"I can teach you some stuff."

"Like what.  Give me an example."

"Gooner."

"What's a gooner."

Turns out, that is what we used to call a "wanker." 

"Most of the guys in my philosophy classes were gooners."

"Probably.  But that's pretty much the norm now, isn't it?  I live by Country Club College, and I can't help notice that you hardly ever see couples walking together.  There are groups of girls and there are groups of boys, but hardly ever a couple.  Covid and online everything kind of messed them up, I think."

Grandma was perplexed.  

"This generation doesn't have a lot of interpersonal interaction.  They have much less sex than your generation did."

Grandma looked at her grandchild.

"There is a lot of insecurity, that's for sure.  We weren't meant to look at ourselves so much, but that is all we do.  We see ourselves on our phones and compare ourselves to everything we see on social media."

"Do you have insecurities?  Intelligence, looks, spiritual?"

"I think I'm insecure about my intelligence sometimes." 

"Really?  Don't you know how dumb everyone else is?  You don't think you can kick there asses?"

Insecure smile.  

As I say, this was really fun for me, but I was falling in too deep.  I excused myself with a "really nice to meet you--this was fun" and headed for the car.  

I miss that so very much.  I want to understand the vicious little progressives and how they think.  I don't get that anymore.  It was what kept me "young."

Yes, yes. . . I've always been a youth vampire.  Part of my whole "Pepsi Generation" upbringing and having never left the college campus, I guess.  

But now my mother is rising and I have a call to duty.  It's just another day in Trump World. 

Tinkering vs Piddling

Maybe yesterday I should have written "tinkering" rather than "piddling," but I am a much better piddler than tinkerer.  And this is the image I should have led off with. . . or something like it.  

Retiring in the north doesn't have the same appeal to me though it may be more familiar to some of you.  

I had to rely on these because I just don't have any fresh images to show.  I did manage to go for a walk with my camera for a bit yesterday in the Little Vietnam section of the city, but I haven't been able to download them yet and I am pretty sure I have nothing worthwhile.  You need to know what you are doing, and I did not.  I sort of made up something as I went along, but when I was back to the car, I thought, "Boy. . . you need a project."

Remember when I was shooting the jr. league sports in my own hometown, wrestling and roller derby?  I was just getting started when my life became caregiving.  That was fun.  I need to find something in the few hours I am away from my mother everyday.  

That's going to be very difficult.  

I sure do like the idea of a piddling retirement, though, a garage, some music.  Maybe I'll set up a workshop in my mother's garage for making prints.  First, though, I need to go through my billions of images and organize them and decide what is worth printing and which printing method I should use.  

It is daunting.  

Maybe I'll just play cards with the neighbors.  

It's just a matter of "giving in," I think.  Giving in or giving up.  

But I don't have a gin rummy partner, do I?  Nope.  It will have to be piddling alone like a sad widower biding his time, I guess.  

I've decided not to struggle with narratives here anymore unless something comes to me.  I've been stressing myself out trying to write through my mundane existence.  It doesn't matter, really.  The blog is suffering the fate of every living being.  

But, you know. . . we can always make it a little racy. 

That one is for the kids. 

"Ewwww!"

Maybe I shoulda led with that one.  

Don't worry, it's alright, it'll happen to you
We were children once, playing with toys
And the sound that you're hearing is only the sound
Of the low spark of high-heeled boys

Piddling

When will insurance companies start to talk about climate change and it's causes?  It is unbelievable that they remain mute.  Rather, they either quit insuring people's homes altogether as they have in my own home state or raise premiums sky high.  

But, you know, Oklahoma is not that populated, and though the network news hypes it, in the larger picture, it wasn't really all that many homes.  

Right?

The news this morning?  What was that guy thinking?  Did he really believe he would run through all the security with a shotgun and blast the president?  

It is a strange and terrible world.  I've been watching a YouTube travel show by a New Zealander who travels to the slums of Mumbai and Bangladesh to show you how a big part of the world's population lives (link) (link).   I don't think I'll watch any more, though.  I need to watch happy things.  

Are there happy things?  

When I was a kid, at least it seems so in memory, older men would sit in the garage with the transistor radio on listening to baseball games.  They "piddled."  Maybe I'll become a "piddler."  Was life really less hurried then?  I don't remember my mother and father rushing to do much of anything.  Maybe there was less to do.   

My mother's bathroom faucet is leaking.  Just a drip. . . drip. . . .  I've let it go for awhile because it has been so slow, but now it is speeding up a bit.  I looked at YouTube videos on how to fix it.  I used to be able to fix leaky faucets.  Hard to believe, but I have.  They all worked in basically the same way, and you unscrewed the handle and replaced the plumber's tape, I think it was called, some stuff that looked like dental floss.  Same kind of thing with the guts of toilets.  They were all pretty simple. My father had a book that showed you how to do all sorts of home repairs.  I have always called it the Handy Andy Guide, but I'm no longer sure what it is called nor where it is.  It is a relic now, useless.  Now you have to go to YouTube to figure out how to do home repairs.  

The YouTube video I watched about repairing the leaky faucet gave me pause.  The guy making the video ran into trouble and had to work really hard to get the thing that needed replacing, a cylinder of sorts, out.  

I think I am just going to have someone replace the entire faucet.  It looks easier, but I don't think I want to do it.  

Cha-ching. 

The last time I fixed a thing at my mother's house, I successfully changed the guts out of the toilet but I broke the toilet lid.  I DID, however, save my mother money by fixing her dryer.  She laughed when I said I would try.  It had to be the belt.  I ordered one and spent a half day wrestling with the thing, but that was years ago and it still works.  

But it was an old dryer, and I don't think the new ones work like that anymore.  What craps out now are the computer chips.  

Hell, I used to fix my own car.  Tune ups, oil changes, starters, water pumps.  

What happened?  Oh, I know.  

"Greed is good."

But, by and large, I think in my childhood men were fixing things all the time.  Pretty much how they spent their weekends.  Saturdays, at least.  

People either mowed their own lawns or hired a neighborhood kid to do it.  Milkmen brought milk to the house and picked up the empties.  There were diaper services.  Doctors even made house calls.  

Is it true?  Was any of that real? 

Hell, I can barely remember life without computers.  

Not really.  I hitchhiked around the United States with nothing but a map.  

Didn't plan on this riff.  It just came out, a contrast to those slumdog videos.  I've been lucky.  I could have been born in Mumbai.  

Time to fix breakfast for mom.  I've piddled enough here this morning.  

Day Slave

"I need you to help me get a couple boxes out of the storage unit," he said.  

That was bullshit.  

I spent the afternoon helping Tennessee empty a giant storage unit.  We filled up a rental box truck with his stuff.  WTF?  Why would you ask a crippled old man to do such a thing?  Indeed, I could do it and did it, but. . . where's your thinking?  

I need to act more my age, I think, and quit trying to pass myself off as a teen. 

He did give me a present afterwards, though.  I'll show you in a few days when I get it set up.  

While we were loading the truck, he said, "Have you seen Miami's pictures from Prada?"

I hadn't heard from her for awhile, but both T and I see her IG account.  She's doing well.  The company she is managing the social media account for is sending her to a lot of nice places, and being a kid, she is posting it all on social media.  

I checked my phone.  

"You won't believe this, but I just got a text from Miami."

It was hardly anything.  She sent me a Polaroid headshot.  

Maybe I won't quit trying to pass myself off as a teen.  

I had taken a walk in the morning before I went to the gym which was just before helping T move his stuff.  When I got back to my mother's, I was pooped.  Thought I would sleep like the dead.  Nope.  Fitful night. There are some places you can't pass yourself off as anything but what you are.  

My college roommate's wife texted me.  She said he is delirious now and things are getting worse.  It is strange to me for while I was there he was as lucid as ever.  I don't know that I will see him again.  He will be going to a "facility" after the hospital.  Don't know if he will ever be going home again.  

It's better to be a new college graduate with a cool job and a bright future eating meals at the Versace mansion and attending Prada events for work.  

Hemingway hated growing old.  He fell in love with the teenaged Adrianna when he was in his late fifties.  "Across the River and into the Trees."  

Getting old killed him.  Well. . . he wasn't that old.  

It is going to be a lovely day here.  I'm getting out.  Going to do some shopping.  I have to hit the Home Depot for my mother.  After that, I will go to the "health food" store.  Then I'm off to REI.  And maybe, somewhere in there, lunch.  

And again, that is all I have, or as we like to say ungrammatically, "all I got."  We just use the word "got" terribly, but the MLA has caught up and now calls it "common usage."  

Let's conjugate--get, got, have gotten.  

Let's not even delve into subjunctives.  The old "If I was you," drives me nuts.  But as Q always says, "Grammar is a failed science."  

Indeed.  

Sometimes music is pretty and fun to listen to and sometimes it is interesting but challenging.  Here's a song that is both.  The melody is sweet, but it goes off into some pretty funky scales.  Miles Davis said that there are no wrong notes.  Keep that in mind.  

The Performer

I pulled into the hospital parking garage.  The gate was down.  The man in the booth asked me if I was visiting.  

"Clergy," I said. 

"Clergy?"

"More like a life coach."

He stared at me.  

"O.K.  You got me.  I just came for the food."

Old schtick.  Been here too many times before.  

When I walked into my college roommate's room, he was alone.  He didn't look bad at all for someone who has so many medical issues.  They had just put a steel plate in his neck to shore up a cervical vertebra that was broken.  We hadn't talked for about a year or more.  No problem.  Things went along swimmingly.  

In about half an hour, his wife came in and the dynamic changed.  There were health care people and rehab facility people and I heard more about his health than I am sure he was comfortable with.  When that was all over and it was just the three of us in the room, I did what I realize I do.  I performed.  

"Oh, my. . . this is good.  We haven't laughed in forever."

Yea.  I am. I am a performer.  You would think I led a happy existence.  The reality is much different.  It occured to me that I've been putting up a front my entire life.  

Alone, I've always been melancholy.  Lately, I would cherish melancholy.  But I'll say no more. 

When I got back to my mother's house, her 91 year old neighbor rode up the driveway on her three wheeler with her phone playing "The William Tell Overture" and her little dog in a basket on the front handlebars.  She has macular degenerative disease and can't see shit, but man, it doesn't stop her.  

Mom's neighbors like it when I am there.  I make them laugh.  I perform.  

"You're good with people," my mother says.  

Yea, yea, yea.  

"It's what I did for a living," I say.  "My job was to make people happy.  Now it is just an automatic response." 

The more I think about it now, it was probably a response to growing up around dangerous people.  You'd rather get along.  It is probably, too, why I don't have trouble being around people whose political beliefs are far different than mine.  I had to bob and weave growing up and hanging around the older guys who were only a few years away from prison.  I was never the toughest guy in the room.  

Rodney Dangerfield said, "When I was growing up, I told my father everybody hated me.  He said don't be stupid, you haven't met everybody yet." 

That joke just popped into my head.  Growing up, I guess.  It's o.k.  It broke the semi-narrative line.  

I don't think this story is going to have a happy ending.  

(link)

The Secret of the Sardine

You remember that I think I am a pretty good cook, right?  Not a chef.  I don't do reductions or make sauces.  I use basic ingredients to make tasty, healthy meals.  It is just a result of having to take care of myself for most of my life and the fact that only one woman I have ever lived with could cook.  O.K.  That being said. . . . 

Since college, I have eaten sardines.  I know that most people don't find them appealing, and really are repulsed by the idea of eating them.  They are not my favorite thing, either, but they are the superest of super foods, so, so good for you, so a couple times a week for lunch I'll open a can, put them on crackers, and eat them.  

Until yesterday. 

I used to go to the best deli in town right at the very end of the commercial Boulevard.  It was the place where a group of us would meet on Friday afternoons and drink pitchers of beer and swap lies until it was time for dinner.  Then usually we would all decide to go to some funky, cheaper place to eat--Greek, Cuban, Vietnamese. . . .  I also went to this place Saturday afternoons for lunch.  I always got the same thing, a turkey sandwich with mayo on rye with a side of sliced cukes.  The turkey breasts were cooked and sliced right there in the deli.  The cukes were always fresh and sweetened with just the right amount of vinegar and sugar.  

And a big Heineken.  

On the menu was a sardine sandwich.  I couldn't imagine.  It seemed the fish would fall off the bread.  Then one day I heard someone order one, and when they got it, there were no sardines.  What?  Ohhhh . . . . 

Yea, I'm an idiot.  After that, however, I kept eating my sardines on crackers.  Until yesterday.  

Long way to get to this "revelation."  I drained the sardines, smashed them up on a plate, and drizzled Sriracha sauce on top.  

HOLY SMOKES!  

My life is now changed forever.  I can't wait to have them again.  

Duh.  

Just saying.  Maybe you've never done this, either.  

I'm still melting down.  There is too much to do.  I'm losing my shit daily now.  Overwhelmed.  Falling apart mentally and physically.  All I've got for you is the story of the sardines.  

Today I am going to the hospital to look in on my old college roommate.  He had surgery for a broken cervical vertebra.  They sliced his neck open and shored it up with a metal plate.  I haven't seen him for about a year.  He's had a rough time.  Maybe I'll think I'm not doing so badly, but maybe I'll feel worse about the ravages of time.  I don't know.  That is the way it is with "maybe."  

There are a lot of things I don't know like why I think my first line will be important.  I keep working on it.  

"What up, homie?. .  broheme?. . . nig?"  

I have much to do today, so I had better get on with it.  Oh. . . my mother found her glasses.  Or rather, the cleaning lady did yesterday.  They were lying just under her bed.  

"Huh. . . I must have laid them on the bed when I was putting those clothes away."

She hadn't left them at the doctor's office after all.  They weren't in the laundry.  Neither was her phone.  Etc.  I'll pick up her new second pair of glasses that we just bought to replace the lost ones next week.  

What next?  

The tenant's grandmother is turning 107 next week.  Seriously.  Her mother has been sole caretaker for the past decade.  

I can see the future from here.  

The Breakdown

I lost "it" yesterday, to use the jargon of yesteryear.  Everything seemed to be going wrong, much of it my own fault.  O.K.  So it goes.  Given everything, however, I could only hope to make a new start.  My day was interrupted, of course, by my need to get back to my mother's.  I had to stop at the grocers for two things, a pack of chicken and a bottle of wine.  Wouldn't take long.  

Walking through the store, I heard faintly as I was about to leave, Tom Petty's "Learning to Fly."  I was in the mood.  Sometimes a song just hits a right chord.  So when I got into the car, I asked Siri to play it.  Though traffic was what it always is at that time, I was madly singing along, bopping like a crazy teen.  

When I pulled into my mother's garage, she was sitting in her usual chair looking pained and grim per usual.  I rolled down the window and turned the stereo up, and when I jumped out of the car, I started singing and dancing.  She just stared at me, but undeterred, I continued, laughing.  Oh. . . if the neighbors were walking by.  

When I turned the music off, I took the groceries into the house, made a Negroni and brought out a light beer for my mother.  We sat without talking much, and when the Negroni was gone, I went in to start dinner.  BUT, and this is odd for me at my mother's house, I hooked up the portable speaker to my phone and put on Petty's Greatest Hits.  I liked his music fine when it came out, but I don't listen to it now unless it comes into a mix on my iTunes.  I was struck by how much that band was centered around the drumming.  The drums drive every tune.  And as I cooked, I was singing and dancing.  

At six, I plated dinner and put on the news.  At quarter to seven, it was time for my mother's shower.  I made sure she was all set, then went back to the kitchen to clean up--once again, to Tom Petty.  Feeling pretty good.  

When my mother finished her shower--and I checked on her three times--she said there was a pile of things that needed to be washed, so I put all her laundry into the washer.  I took the speaker into the garage, pulled some cameras out of the car, and stayed out in the pleasant evening.  I don't do such things at my mother's house.  I sit.  I watch t.v.  I don't have a guitar here nor a ukalele nor a harmonica (the last two gifts from Q), nor anything else.  At home, bored, I may pick up any of my stuff and amuse myself, but bereft of anything my own at my mother's. . . . 

I felt the most alive I'd felt since coming back to take care of mom.  Mania, yes.  It was surely an episode of reactionary mania.  And then. . . . 

"What?" 

"I can't find my phone.  I think it might be in the washer."

What the fuck.  I stopped the washer and fished around in the water with my hand.  No phone.  

"It has to be there.  Drain out the water."

"It's not in there." 

It broke me.  Now she was bent over the washer with her crippled body fishing around with her hand forever, mumbling indecipherably as the music played.  I turned it up and walked into the yard.  I could see her now with a stick poking around.  I paced the sidewalk to get out of eyesight.  My nerves were shot through.  Not a moment.  Not a single moment.  

When I calmed myself and went back to the garage, she was inside.  I walked in.  She was on the house phone.  

"I don't know how to call my phone."

"Huh."

"You don't help me."

That was the last of it.  I picked up my phone and called hers.  It was lying on the couch.  

I won't record what happened next, the tirade, the litany of things I said to her.  Then I walked outside.  The music was still playing.  I saw that the neighbors were taking their garbage to the curb, so I did the same.  A couple from down the street walked by.  

"Nice night," I said.  

"Yes.  How are you?"

I bobbed my head, the put my finger gun to my temple.  

"I think I'll get a gun and shoot both of us tonight.  Got any dynamite?  I'll just blow the whole place up."

They smiled weakly with bigger eyes.

"Well, like you said, it's a nice night. . . and the music is good."

"Yup."

The phone rang.  It was the tenant.  

"How are you doing?"

I went through my litany.  

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Shoot me."

It was over.  I was spent.  I turned off the music, walked into the house, and sat on the couch like I do every night.   

I'm still thinking about shooting myself, though.  The worst is yet to come.