Dirty Feet and Saggy Diapers

It was the kind of summer where the heat was like someone took a hammer and layed it on a furnace for half an hour then handed it to you, not by the handle, saying, "here, hold this while I go and have a freezing Kool-Aid," and the heat was also so anxiously bad that it drew your eyes downward, to the ground, where little black ants lived in small cities and combed the edges of the trail for dropped food.

For the first time I wore my clothes to bed, to save time, and when I got up, the sun was already beating a path down the barely rested earth, and I knew if I hurried, I could get to A&B before the ground was too hot for my feet; so I grabbed my dollar from page 351 of my Guinness World Records book and ran out the door, but not before I felt a pain on my left foot which felt like someone threw my body into a hot tub full of porcupines and rubbing alcohol. I'd stepped on a nail, and before I knew it, was laying on my back with my foot elevated and dark brick colored lines of blood drying on my ankle. Earl found me in a panicked state on the front lawn and he ran, his diaper sagging low with a faint darkness inside, and returned with Francis, our neighbor, a giant Italian man.

Francis scooped me off the ground like I was a bundle of dried corn stalks and hauled me inside. Mom never hung up the phone, but directed Francis to lay me on the counter, the one we're never allowed to sit or climb on, which she made fudge on only last week, but today became an operating table. "I'll be twenty-nine, again, if you need to know. Chop off my leg and count the rings," she said, laughing, into the phone while running water over her hand and holding my ankle with the other. John woke up and joined Earl, watching. Mom washed, rinsed, flushed, irrigated, wrapped and kissed my wound, and I took off wearing sandals. The offending nail was clean enough, Francis said, so I wouldn't need shots.

On the corner was CameronPollock and some other bad kids. I crossed the street not looking at them, but keeping my face forward, like flint, and feeling their stares all the way. The corner couldn't have come quicker, and when I was out of their sight I ran. I ran to the beginning of the trail across the abandoned field, which was a residential zoned five-acre plot that was never bought by rich developers then, but is now adorned with the nicest condominiums in the valley. Back then it was just a field, with tall white grass and garbage, including a turned over shopping cart, and some cardboard, and from the head of the trail through the field you could barely see A&B over the top of the grass.

Halfway through the field, I heard bikes, gaining on me. I didn't look, but did nice and moved to let them pass, expecting some kind of token of their evil, such as spitting on me or bunny hopping a rear tire onto my foot. I thought they'd spit, like Rolling Johnson did from the roof of Madrone School. But they just rode by. Cameron Pollock was deep in conversation about himself and his new bike, which he probably stole over the weekend. My nerves were strained so that my body went into long term battle stations, which is where any ballasts are sent to be jettisoned. In other words, I needed to go number two, badly.

When I saw the evil boys one-at-a-time jumping their bikes over the hump toward the end of the field, it was safe to speed up my pace. I had to get somewhere fast, because I had something like a sock-full of marbles pressing on my butt. A&B had a smelly public restroom, probably because of a drainage or ventilation issue, but I had no choice. The store was cool and the floors were shiny, and the place smelled like Dolly Madison pastries and floorwax. The bathroom was through a door behind the butcher's counter so I briskly walked down the candy eisle to get there.

As I went through the door, it was cold except for a gust of smoke and hot wind, and I saw a door ajar to the alley, where people go for their breaks or where drivers come in to open the rollup door and empty their trucks, but this time, there was Cameron Pollock and his friends, smoking cigarettes with an A&B guy. I dropped behind a stack of boxes of lettuce and peered through the holes therein, hoping they wouldn't see me, but Cameron Pollock must have, because he looked right at me, and yet his business was much more important, because their friend, the A&B guy, handed him a case of Budweiser.

I waited for them to leave and let me go to the bathroom which was right by the door they were loitering behind, because they would never let me go in there, and I knew of no other bathroom I could get to in time without a long explanation why I needed to use it. So I waited, testing different poses to see how I could rest without exploding like a shook up Coke bottle.

The manager came through the meat department and saw me immitating the movements of a speed skater, staring intently out the door at Cameron Pollock and his friends, and so he asked me what I was doing there.

"What are you doing here?"

"Looking for the restroom."

"Right there," he said. He had long, important sideburns, and the voice of a man who went to war and then smoked for twenty years. He saw the open door where Cameron and the employee stood, and by then Cameron was gone, and the coast was clear, and besides I had to do obey the manager and quit standing there for no reason, so I went to the smelly bathroom and came out feeling light, like I took off a heavy backpack and my shoes and pants and jumped into a cold quarry, naked.

Now I was an empty void and walked right through the candy eisle and picked out a dollar's worth, down to the penny, of Hershey's and M&Ms and Reeses, and took them to the cashier, and waited while old jazz music played, weakly, in benediction over me. I bought my candy, and by then, Cameron Pollock and my pierced foot were old memories, and even older when I opened the M&Ms.

I headed down the trail toward home.

Skullcap Manna

Here are some recipes you can count on when your single, broke, alone and or searching for yourself somewhere on the West Coast, and can only rely on that which is found cheaply in those parts.

Skullcap Manna: Boil down for three hours the shells of various mollusks; that of mussels, a pound, and of clams and crab, not oysters, but conch if you can get it, and one goeduck. Reduce and add paprika, zests of lime and mandarin, ground walnut and minced garlic, both a pound, and sea salt. Simmer with a can of anchovies, oil and all. Serves 6-8.

Rucky Chucky’s Chubby Daughter: Add banana and cream to a blender, then shots of exprexo, chocolate and ice, blend until smooth. Top with whipped cream and syrup. Enjoy with a whole chicken.

Mango Chili Stew: Chop 3 ample mangos and sear, skinless in peanut oil. Then steep in mango ceylon tea for twelve minutes. Add zest of mandarin, anchovy paste, each a pound, and a pound of sea salt, one cup of port and Marsala, a pound of cubed lamb and of peppercorns, a tablespoon. Pressure cook for 2 hours. Garnish with green figs before serving.

Sour Wheat Pain Au Levane! Pinch wet yeast into 2 cups of 71 degree water and the same of 20 percent germ bran flour, stirring vigorously, and store in a cool place in an air tight container, like a stone mason jar with a rubber gasket under the lid. Nourish every week by scooping out a cup and adding equal parts of flour and water. In 2-3 months, take a cup or two and combine with 4 cups of flour and knead. Raise twice and bake loaves at 425 degrees F.

Cowpoke Douche: This is an all purpose wash for extreme outdoor excursions of weeks without showering. Add ammonia to a can of comet, roll into bits of cakey clay with powdered soap and pack tightly into Alumaseal containers for travel. Use: unpack and lave in palm with water, applying to armpits, asshole, and feet. Rinse or wipe with a towel or cloth. Works for washing clothes or repelling ferrel animals.

Ukrainian Angler: Dry and pack tightly twelve fresh trout in virgin olive oil with oyster sauce (a cup) and rosemary. Keep for a winter thus, then spread over fire on a 15 inch frying pan with peppercorns and anchovies, mace, allspice, cloves and bay leaves. Sear on both sides, then hydrate with Chardonnay and whole, skinned peaches. Add yogurt, cottage cheese, and butter and broil for twenty minutes, then serve with the remaining wine.

Rucka Chucky Beef: Grind in a grinder the following: annato seeds, rosemary, peppercorn, whole cumin, parsely, allspice and dill. Dump into a blender with a fine Merlot and an equally fine Port and some water, blend. Chop five pounds of London round into large cubes and place in a container with sald and the blended marinade. Refrigerate overnight. Prepare a poultice of white flour, olive oil and sea salt and toss beef. Brown in a frying pan, then return beef to the marinade and dump the whole quantity into a large ceramic or stone baking pot, lined with banana leaves. Wrap contents tightly and cover, and bake for four hours. Serve with conch fritters, garlic bangers or yams in chip oil.

Octoberfaust or German Schpitzda – a roulade of beef: Butterfly two pounds of London broil and beat flat with a mallot until you’ve covered a large area. Chop a mix of the following: onions, garlic, celery and carrots, into small bits, until you filled a two quart bowl. Season appropriately. Add pounds of ground beef, lamb and chicken and two eggs to the mix, stir, and spread over the broil. Roll tightly, adding sliced Fuji apples at the end, and tie with string. Brown in olive oil, then douche with Port and Marsala and simmer for twenty minutes. Add new potatoes, onions and repeat. Serve with Jewish rye toast, beaters, and a North Coast cab.

The Press

Let me take the time to tell you about the greatest people on the planet, the Press girls. The Press is my other office, where I can write, or stop and stare out the window at snow falling and minimal traffic, or strike up a conversation with the employees.

Amy's the manager. When you go in, she smiles at you like you were friends, because you are. And she always has a homeopathic solution for your ailes, not knowing her face already healed you. Her sister, Carrie, has the same quality. I hope they both bear children and populate this dreary planet with their goodness. When you're with them, you feel like thorns are being lifted out of your flesh.

Sometimes, when they're not in school, Shelby and Erica work the Press.

Erica's a rarity, actually, but when you find her, it's like finding a four-leafed clover. She speaks with high energy, proudly proclaiming her "nerdy" qualities, but makes you believe in nerds like they're the saviors of the world. She'll surely save the world from something, someday.

Shelby - Shelbzers - my little sister, is a small and spunky spright with a mop of fierce brown hair she waves like a pompom, mainly when she's expounding on the topic of boys. And it's hard not to get brotherly. I supply her with bag lunches full of advice, daily, knowing she's not obliged to hear me, but saying it makes me feel safe. Her innate nurturing qualities are pushing through, if only we can suppress them until after college!

Then there's Jordan. What can I say about Jordan. First of all, he's not one of the Press "girls." He and Shelby keep me furnished with laughter and feeling young, and sometimes they listen to me.

They're all decent, good people, all of whom I'd consider taking if I was assigned to a quarantined safety bubble to undertake saving the human race for future generations because a mass virus broke out all over the world. I'd be chaplain/humorist, naturally.

(More later...)

Aprilia Caponord

Paid a visit to Black and Read today. Criminy. Take Barnes & Noble, have an earthquake, and add 20 years. It's so messy fun! They have two main rooms; vinyl, skirted by porn, pipes and rock vid's; and books. I found lot's of Brautigan, Keruoac, Hem, and everything else, but they're not used-bookstore-cheap. They're "cool" cheap, which isn't really cheap. I got a handfull of books I'd been looking for, like this one. They also had killer games, like the Bard's Game, a Shakespeare thing where you put on a play and compete for good reviews, or something. The employees were colorful and talkative, like Bard's themselves, loudly expressing opionons on stuff. Maybe it is what City Lights was.

Then, went to my doctor's, then here for lunch.

This....

...is my dream bike, case you were wondering. Aprilia "Capo" - sounds like an Italian piece of shit, don't it? Probably is, but it rolls off the tongue, like Lamborghini, or Linguine.

No diabetes! Whew, that's out of the way - I need a frappucino. The blood sugar thing was just that. A blood sugar thing.

Amazing: I got comments on my blog today! I can't believe it. Keep 'em coming - and don't be too gentle. It's about the writing, and you can find some if you look hard.

"Amsterdam's a cespool of humanity. With some nice museums." - Black and Read guy.

Hemingway's in hell...

...and so is Hunter S. Thompson, that's why you can't be like them. You can't stomp through life wringing every experience for all it's got, you can't drink two bottles of wine with lunch, you can't screw or shoot anything that moves, send dead rats to Jack Nicholson's daughter, invent gonzo journalism, challenge authority, write about the Hell's Angels, light things on fire, shoot things in your own house, write mean letters to the president, go to jail, blow things up, vote democrat, marry more than once, or drink absinthe.

Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005)
You must obey the rules, bathe, and wear coulattes. There has to be this high Plexiglass wall between you and anything evil, even in your own life, and all characters must get saved in the last chapter. Okay, maybe this is too Pink-Floyd-song.

Are they in hell? I don't know. Will you go to hell for being like them? I doubt it. Should we all write the truth? Always. Did they? I don't know - Hunter said if he told all the truth he knew, he and about 600 others would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle.

"Call on God, but row away from the rocks." - HST

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." - HST

"All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time." - EH

"My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way. " - EH

"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. " - EH

"It was a pleasant cafe, warm and clean and friendly, and I hung up my old water-proof on the coat rack to dry and put my worn and weathered felt hat on the rack above the bench and ordered a cafe au lait. The waiter brought it and I took out a notebook from the pocket of the coat and a pencil and started to write. " - EH

Anne Lamott and Donald Miller Book Reviews

What can I say? She's great. She's Anne Lamott. You're gonna get Anne Lamott. She's creative, self-concious, and runs her space. She's like the writer you read about when you read about writers. They're lonely, but eventually they created their own lonliness. You may not want to hang out with Anne Lamott because she seems annoyed by people; but when she does like somebody, they're the greatest human being on earth. She hates George Bush, and refers to God as a she, and always mentions her female pastor's name, Veronica, like she invented them, and none of this bothers me.

What bothers me is this new writing style: You jot down journal entries, hilight the good-ones, and make a book out of them every three years. It's a machine, and your name's the brand. It's also a giant wall and no one, by doing this same thing, gets can scale it.

To be fair, I love this book. I want to send my copy right to my mother, hoping the "she's" and "Veronica's" and the "I hate George Bush's" will lure her closer to Jesus. Or maybe she'll be drawn by the chapter on losing her mother. My mom has two boxes of cremated humanity in her house, my grandma, and this old lady my mom befriended. She has other boxes of ash in her soul that she needs to bury as well, and Lamott's metaphor was not wasted on me. Read it, but be female first, and live a few years, too.


Miller, who may or may not be reading my story right now, has a similar style and love's (I hear) Anne. The book I just finished reading by him has it's share of journal entry-like entries, some stretched to fill chapters; and the big one is saved for last, the Romeo and Juliet/Church comparison, which I loved. It was actually a great book, because he maintained his theme and paid it off. It's a step further, theologically, than his first book, and you can tell he's been taking some classes. I like a raw look at God, unincumbered by establishment theology and Church paradigm.

Okay, if I seem pissed right now, it's because I already wrote this long article and lost it, because blogger crashed, and if it crashes again, I'll be doubly pissed, and will write worse reviews of both authors! (Sorry about that)

Anyways. Both books are great, but I need to pick up some Hem very soon, and get back to the real thing. Of course, Hem's in Hell, probably, and that will be a good title of my next entry.

Here it is...

Anne Lamott's a great writer, but I wouldn't want to hang out with her, and that won't be a problem, because she seems annoyed by people anyway. Expecially numb nuts like me, who are over-juiced on testosterone and opinion, and exercise both regularly. If I said I didn't laugh out loud, or underline many things in her book, I'd be lying. She's good, but she's no Hem, and I admire writers who can make something up, you know?

At the gym there was this divorced dude yammering about his lifestyle to this young hotty. He was like, "Basically, here's how I answer that question..." or "You know, I've given a lot of thought to that, and, basically, do I want my children? No. Not now, but I would later. I'm this big traveller, and..." I reached down to feel around for a self-destruct button on my Life Cycle, but there was none, and the volume on my headphones wasn't working. I was stuck. "I've been to Europe seven times, so, I really like to travel, and aaaahhh, my son's eleven, and at that age, they really don't like to travel like that..." He checked for a reaction when he said "seven times." The worst thing was, she was half his age, so I hope he was only expecting rejection. He should have followed rule #863, according to Metro-Joe: never talk to girls at the gym.

Today is an off day, because my weekend was spent at motorcycle safety school (required to get a license in Colorado). I can't say much about it, except that it was long and arduous, and there was this little guy teaching. He looked like George Costanza with a full body of hair, and took his job very seriously, longing for the little moments of "cool" that teachers seem to experience; limited authority, telling bad jokes that oblidge laughter, stories. I did learn a lot about riding.

I'm having wierd reactions to my 2,000 calorie a day thing. Smiling Amy says it's because I'm not eating as much fat as before, but it seems like I'm totally allergic to sugar, and if I have anything with a concentration of carbs in it, I have this wierd attack. I feel nervous and irritable, shaky, weak, like I want to pass out. If I have something with tons of protein in it, or roughage, like lettuce or egg whites, I'm fine. Whatever.

More on places to write...

The Verb cafe in Williamsburg, Brooklyn was one. It personified the purest form of coffee house. Hardwood floors, dark, with dark little cubby holes and booths, a hand-written menu, gourmet triple-decker PBJ's on black bread, ridiculously nuclear punk metal thrash playing, a bulliten board covered floor to ceiling in papers and eleventy-billion staples, eight wifi nodes popping up on your laptop, dogs on leashes, chicks in their sundresses, smoking, shitty old bikes, bums, $8,000 Mac laptops, and the ubiquitous smell of two or three superb coffees in the air. I was there for five weeks, but never talked to anyone. I think I remember conversations, but they were only ones I imagined while I was there, or overheard, and projected myself into their shoes. New York is hard on you if you go there alone. Seattle's better, and I think better things are coming from Seattle than from Brooklyn. If you go downtown to that swilly Pike market, where the moj-merchant fish tossers sell their over-priced salmon, if you go way in the back where lay people aren't supposed to go, you'll find a tiny old chowder bar called Ivar's. Take the red, duct-taped booth on the wall, the only one with the funny crank out window, and crank it out. You'll have good chowder, decent free wifi, and an amazingly secret panoramic view of Puget Sound.

Phylogeny Recapitulates Ontogeny

My little brother was about a two-by-squirt when he cut out a paper heart and gave it to our babysitter. She kissed him on the cheek and he went back and cut out thirty-two more.

I envy him for learning so young how you can't recreate a first experience, no matter what your construction paper cutting skills are, or how good a writer you think you are.

Never believe your own press, especially small-town accolades, like what someone tells you in a small town. There are people out there,"serial encouragers," who say you're good, but forget to say everything, so you end up cutting out hearts, forever, in a cutting-out-hearts nervous hospital on the planet Mars, incarcerated in dillusion. Never once did they say how hard it was, or that you would have to improve each piece from the last, because the fickle reader was like a heroin addict, always trying to achieve their first high, or first paper heart, always wanting to see something different, something better, some other organ, like the spleen. So, the cutter-outer wears a path from his art table, between the dirty clothes, down the hall, to her door, where the first heart is taped for all to see, hoping he has the next great piece of art that she will hang, and reward him with another kiss, juicier and sloppier than the first.

Art

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

In "Three Uses of the Knife," David Mamet makes some points that rhyme with the above Picasso statement. People need some form of story or art to tie up life's loose ends. They have a bellyfull of incomplete dramas each day, and the small hour-long ones on TV help sow things up. Or they find comfort in the misfortune of TV characters. In writing for sitcoms, they say leave all characters the same. If someone wins the lottery, he must lose it. If someone is about to move, her plans must fall through. And these things by their own folly.

We nurse off these stories daily, microwaved versions of the wholesome prepared meals people ate 100 years ago, when they read long, thick novels which took weeks to resolve. The dust wasn't cleaned up everyday, but a gradual progression toward a higher place in life brought a different satisfaction.

Mamet describes true drama as not giving the child the lollipop he cries for, i.e., not resolving. True drama leaves things untidy and makes you think and ponder yourself, your life, your journey. Fine. True drama depicts life, and the tragedy works life out from the bad end. But both ends need working, and a higher place is just as true.

If so, then art is a form counseling, and therefore a calling. If you, by art or writing, can bring a source of resolution to somebody, then you have helped him. Art brings everything together, familiar elements and situations, incomplete dramas of the day, and ties them together nicely, giving some kind of satisfaction - even if it's false. But in that false satisfaction, someone is likely to see a solution, and tomorrow tie up today's loose ends.

"We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth." (Pablo Picasso)