get outside of berlin if you want to practice your deutsch
"Deine deutsch ist schleckt," an old man said to me when i tried to explain to him where i was going
goddamn i got a good laugh on that one...the old man looked at me, certain i was crazy.
i stopped to get an ice cream at a little cafe just off the Elbe bike trail, and to fill my water bottle up. it was early in the day but i'd already gotten in 70 klicks or so, and the old woman who owned the place with her husband asked me what i was doing in this part of germany. i told her i wanted to live in germany, that i loved it here. she was struck dumb, especially when she'd learned the different places i'd lived in america. "Wie so?" why germany? america is so beautiful. i asked her if she knew the story of the frog in the warm bath. she'd never heard of it, but that quite possibly was because meine deutsch ist sehr shleckt. "well," i said. "this frog was taking a warm bath. but what the frog didn't know was that the bath was actually a large pot of warm water placed on a stove at low heat. the frog never noticed that the heat was slowly being turned up and the frog eventually ended up cooked and used as a soup. well, that's what they're doing in america, cooking frogs."
we both laughed heartily at that one. i believe she understood me.
the campingplatzen in deutschland are spectacular. one day, after 80 klicks into a pretty good headwind, i pulled into one with an olympic sized pool, waterslides, a live band and bratwurst stands and beer and schnapps vendors. i set up camp, took a dip in the pool, grabbed a beer and a kirschwasser and listened to a trio performing Nirvana and Pearl Jam covers.
tractors used to scare me when i was a kid riding my bike on the rural roads of Valley City. they were big and you could hear them coming up behind you on your bike. i would get nervous as i heard them approach. i learned that it was best not to look behind you. on occasion i'd turn at the last minute as a big old tractor pulling a trailer piled high with straw and nearly topple my bike as it'd speed by me. well, the tractors in sweden and denmark are 5 times as big and look like transformers and fast. i felt that adrenaline.
when in sweden and denmark, with the sun setting on the golden fields, i was transported to the Valley City of my youth.
dusk calms the winds and cools the road, brings relief from headwinds and sunburn, the kind of relief only the shade of a maple tree can bring.
gliding into a town after humping uphill for 20 klicks.
port towns. Rostock, Germany; Trelleborg, Sweden; Hellsingborg, Sweden; Hellingsorg, Denmark; Lubeck, Germany.
when boarding a ferry on a bike, pay attention to the guys directing traffic and alles gut.
i have a kinship with truck drivers.
the northeastern coast of denmark looks a lot like new england.
the interior of southern sweden looks like ohio.
copenhagen is full of itself...you're not that cool copenhagen. and for that matter neither are you berlin. get a grip and recognize how lucky you are instead of trying to be hip.
berlin starts to reveal itself about 100 klicks before you actually get to the city limits.
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Sweden ain't not place for a dying king
I want to take bike trips like this as a family.
I'm getting familiar and comfortable with the bike trip. So far so good...fits.
Good to carry yer Waits with you.
If its happened to me, and to you, it should be recognized.
I wonder what nomenclature my son will decide upon for me. Should I be influential in directing him...is it possible to provide an environment sterile of influence...
What does Marcela want to be called by Oliver...
I'm going to call him son...
The rain is steady, but it's nothing compared to my first summer trip along Germany's north coast. That was miserable. I may be adjusting. I can't believe Swedes can't purchase beer over 3.5 unless arranged special.
Looks like the sun might burn off some rain clouds...get a round or two before the sunsets. It sets much later here in Eslöv than I'm accustomed to.
Arabs and Mexicans suffer the free world's venom. I wonder who the Chinese hate.
As you can see, they are not from here...subtle and yet, blatant and obvious.
Where's the speakeasy? Du weiss Wo ist die speakeasy?
You wanna be a drunkard here, you gotta do a little planning.
Met a Netherlander couple yesterday in Helsingborg. They were remarkable in their cohesion over their insistence to travel without GPS. It was maps or not at all. I don't know if they had a compass. I was embarrassed to admit how devoted I was to the GPS and realize it's as if I'm an avatar and the real me is busy making his way through space via the device.
I came across this little beauty and thought I would have to be a royal idiot to not have a seat.
Vigilance...resilience...v applies to ordenung. Keep a mental image of where everything is. R applies to mental awareness of breath and muscle activity. Careful of my behavior for the first time in terms of my age and physical condition. Like, no shit...you could die doing that...huh, glad I took 44 years to start worrying about all that shite.
Copenhagen is big.
Nørreport
Herfølge
I went for a walk in the woods near my campsite. I took my bike for the basket, I was taking along a couple beers and a camp chair. I found a quiet place to sit. I returned to camp and ate dinner and went for a walk, this time without my bike. Upon realizing I'd stumbled on the same location I'd been previously I decided to head back the way I'd gone earlier. I happened to look down and sitting there on the path was my wallet.
They put an ICE train on the ferry.
Two cows are sitting facing one another in a replicated scene from the matrix. The Neo cow is imagining he's a quick-mart clerk in worst part of Detroit. Guns are being fired in the distance and he's selling malt liquor and lucky strikes to a 15 year old kid.
The Morpheus cow is holding the classic blue and red pills in his hooves and he sees the reality of rows and rows of his brethren being sodomized by machines.
Obama at a party shortly after getting caught with the NSA/Snowden affair. He's reaching into a cookie jar in which all the cookies are labeled, "we're all doing it," and "you disgust us," written in icing.
Hilary, Bush two, Merkel, and Putin are all laughing and pointing at the obvious metaphor and Merkel is saying, "what a duschbag," and Putin's like, "C'mon you big gay retard, let's get you a shot."
Saturday, April 12, 2014
The Question of Coincidence
sometimes, when I read aloud to students I carry this southern dialect. I imagine I'm Bob Dylan, or Woodie Guthrie...maybe Charles Bukowski...I draw out my S's and L's and like William Burroughs I swagger down the sidewalk slinging axioms. I imagine old folk singers--and the whistle of an old train sings in the back-drop like a painting.
A long time ago, I found this old copy of Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell. I think of this book on occasion...much like Cold Dog Soup, and this other book that I can't recall the title of. The Orwell book is about a guy who makes his living in hotels and restaurants as a waiter. It's written a year before Miller's Tropic of Cancer, and if you like that book, you should definitely check out Down and Out.
I read it and I was a waiter at the time. I knew this attorney from Texas when I was living in Portland. He was a smart guy and he lived in one of those tenement housing places where the hallway light is busted out and you can hear the cries of babies and domestic violence as you pass by doorways on your way to whichever dingy room you're going to. He didn't need to be there...I think he was doing it on purpose. He always seemed to me like a character in a Vonnegut book. Filled with irony and slapstick. I've been in many places like this. They are always depressing and you sit on milk crates and cast glances around at the cracked paint and it must be raining outside because the grey of the place permeates the senses. His room was partly underground so he only had half light from those cellar windows. But, it was comfy and clean...he had like 5 locks and a steel bracer on his door. It always reminded me of Down and Out.
I lived in a trailer outside of Hartington, Nebraska in the early '90's. It wasn't a trailer park, but a field of wild grass with a scattering of similar trailers as if someone tossed them out there like dice. No roadways or paths, just a grass field you drove up to and parked next to. I had this old blue stationwagon that when parked next to the old trailer must have looked like a redneck version of an Ed Hopper painting. The trailer had brown shag carpet and a kitchen that rivaled any meth lab. At night, under the dim lamplight and glow of the TV, it seemed almost cozy, but under the harsh light of day it was depressingly grey.
On Saturday mornings when me, Chad and Brad would clean the place from top to bottom we'd open both doors and all the windows and it was like that old skeleton ship the Mariner sails up from the South Pole on. We'd play something like Chili Peppers or Ministry and clean as the fresh air filtered the dinge from the place and we'd put out the lawn chairs and crack a beer and it seemed like life wasn't going to get better. This was surely the end, and we would talk and laugh. We all knew this couldn't be all there was. There had to be more and we racked our brains trying to figure a way off this forsaken desert.
In "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," the mariner stops a wedding guest, a close relative of the groom, and tells him the story of how he shot an albatross. I read this poem in high school, again years later as a graduate student and I've tried to teach it a few times. The first time was in Florida. I tried to have the kids draw pictures of certain particularly vivid images that fill the poem. Picture this....
A long time ago, I found this old copy of Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell. I think of this book on occasion...much like Cold Dog Soup, and this other book that I can't recall the title of. The Orwell book is about a guy who makes his living in hotels and restaurants as a waiter. It's written a year before Miller's Tropic of Cancer, and if you like that book, you should definitely check out Down and Out.
I read it and I was a waiter at the time. I knew this attorney from Texas when I was living in Portland. He was a smart guy and he lived in one of those tenement housing places where the hallway light is busted out and you can hear the cries of babies and domestic violence as you pass by doorways on your way to whichever dingy room you're going to. He didn't need to be there...I think he was doing it on purpose. He always seemed to me like a character in a Vonnegut book. Filled with irony and slapstick. I've been in many places like this. They are always depressing and you sit on milk crates and cast glances around at the cracked paint and it must be raining outside because the grey of the place permeates the senses. His room was partly underground so he only had half light from those cellar windows. But, it was comfy and clean...he had like 5 locks and a steel bracer on his door. It always reminded me of Down and Out.
I lived in a trailer outside of Hartington, Nebraska in the early '90's. It wasn't a trailer park, but a field of wild grass with a scattering of similar trailers as if someone tossed them out there like dice. No roadways or paths, just a grass field you drove up to and parked next to. I had this old blue stationwagon that when parked next to the old trailer must have looked like a redneck version of an Ed Hopper painting. The trailer had brown shag carpet and a kitchen that rivaled any meth lab. At night, under the dim lamplight and glow of the TV, it seemed almost cozy, but under the harsh light of day it was depressingly grey.
On Saturday mornings when me, Chad and Brad would clean the place from top to bottom we'd open both doors and all the windows and it was like that old skeleton ship the Mariner sails up from the South Pole on. We'd play something like Chili Peppers or Ministry and clean as the fresh air filtered the dinge from the place and we'd put out the lawn chairs and crack a beer and it seemed like life wasn't going to get better. This was surely the end, and we would talk and laugh. We all knew this couldn't be all there was. There had to be more and we racked our brains trying to figure a way off this forsaken desert.
In "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," the mariner stops a wedding guest, a close relative of the groom, and tells him the story of how he shot an albatross. I read this poem in high school, again years later as a graduate student and I've tried to teach it a few times. The first time was in Florida. I tried to have the kids draw pictures of certain particularly vivid images that fill the poem. Picture this....
'The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top.'
Now this one from Farewell to Manzanar.
'...and they were easing away from the wharf, joining the line of boats heading out past the lighthouse, into the harbor [...] from the wharf we waved goodbye [...] we watched until the boats became a row of tiny white gulls on the horizon. Our vigil would end when they slipped over the edge and disappeared.'
Is this coincidence?
I once came to a conclusion, regarding something metaphysical...or maybe it was existential...whatever the case, I'm still thinking about this thing...this conclusive understanding I came to. I was probably in my mid-to late thirties the first time the notion occurred to me. The idea that there are no accidents. That everything is cause and effect. Like Bob Dylan telling us the whole wide universe is watching the chimes of freedom flashing, we are all of us connected--a grand cascading of dominoes. But does this point of view include the idea that like no accidents, there are no coincidences?
Co-incident. At least two incidents simultaneously. Nothing within the semantic syntax implies that coincidence should be a surprise. Once when I was in high school I threw this party. We were sitting around the kitchen table playing drinking games with cards. It was early yet, and it was just good friends--still our group of pranksters. I was getting up to get a beer from the fridge and on a whim I peeled the top card from the deck sitting in the middle of the table and licked the back of it and simultaneously the number 10 flashed in my mind, and I slapped the card on my forehead and said, "10."
Everybody's jaws dropped and hooting and howling of the most appealing nature that I didn't even need to look at it and I took and slapped it back into place on top of the deck in the middle of the table, threw my hands up and walked out of the room. The place erupted. It was one of my finest moments...and I don't consider that flippantly. I'd consider it a coincidence tho. Not an accident. There seems to be no reason to believe my randomly saying the same number that I draw, is a result of a direct "cause and effect," relationship. And this is the test I apply to whether or not it's an accident or not.
My thesis is only based on personal experience, but when I examine what seems to be an accident, I can trace it back to it's source. Thus the difference between accident and coincident lies in whether or not you can trace the thing to its source. I say source because it's a better term than "the beginning cause of the thing," because it's not a beginning. It's only the source of the most recent cause and effect thing that made that happen. I never go that far back...it gets wacky and I have other things I'd like to accomplish in life. I'm not some ga'dam Raskolnikov. Man talk about a head trip. I read Crime and Punishment over a summer. I drank the words. I became Raskolnikov.
So when I tried to get the kids to draw pictures of it was a disservice to the kids. I didn't know the poem well enough to be confident. I can pull this off now and the kids are with me. So anyway, I was talking about living in that old trailer, well my friend J.J. came out to see me and the first thing he says to me is, "Well man, here's to living like the Romans."
I had no idea what that meant. Never even heard the phrase and to me I imagined having marble baths, steam and a lot of grapes and palm fronds. Anyway, I know I've told this story on more than a few occasions. Most of the time, J.J.'s in the same room, but I've told people this story who have no idea who J.J. is--so, suffer me one more time, for the blog.
We decided to take the old station wagon to Lincoln. The ol' girl was a dirty mess of a heap. The attachment of the female gender to a car is not intended provocation, it's just what I did because I'd heard the same thing from other people around me. We never made it. We got stuck in the mud on a dirt road. Unbeknownst to me, dirt roads turn to mud in rain. I've driven dirt roads my entire life and never imagined it could turn to absolute slop. Like concrete when it's got just a bit too much water. That kind of muck in like 10 minutes it took from the time it started raining to the time we couldn't move. Luckily a farmer came by in the morning and pulled us out.
It's night time and we were drinking beers on the side of some dirt road listening to Art Bell on the radio. J.J. gets out to take a leak and I start the car.
"What're you doin' esterle?"
"Nothin' man, I don't want the battery to go dead."
He finishes and goes to get in the car and I toss his smokes out the door and he's gotta go get them and as soon as he turned his back I put he car in gear and started rolling forward.
"What the fuck esterle!"
"Don't worry man, I think that's a cop pulling up behind us." And he lunges to grab his smokes and reaches for the door and I tapped the gas and he had to walk alongside but he had a hold of the door. I sped up again and he had to jog.
"F'n' stop esterle you f'n asshole!" And I'm laughing like a crazy hyena and I slow down and he's running really fast so I slow gradually and he eventually is walking alongside the car cursing a bluestreak across my family's ancestry. But when he finally got in the car, I looked down and he wasn't wearing any shoes or socks. That blew my mind.
But that's not really a coincidence, or an accident...intent or intention should rule out any possible coincidence or accident. Coincidences exist. When they are good, dann alles klar!
Friday, March 21, 2014
Traveling thru the darkness...www.dig
Go into the dark and natural world willingly
quiet and still, and welcome the voices and faces
waiting for you.
Go there and greet your loneliness and fear,
sit with them and talk, drink a cup of coffee
and break bread with them.
Smoke a pipe and listen
while they teach you. Do like those prophets
who've recorded and transcribed.
Then like an oppressed slave
devour their art and wisdom and memorize
everything and make them sing your songs.
When you return and walk thru ruined architecture;
roll up your jeans; pay no mind to the wandering eye.
quiet and still, and welcome the voices and faces
waiting for you.
Go there and greet your loneliness and fear,
sit with them and talk, drink a cup of coffee
and break bread with them.
Smoke a pipe and listen
while they teach you. Do like those prophets
who've recorded and transcribed.
Then like an oppressed slave
devour their art and wisdom and memorize
everything and make them sing your songs.
When you return and walk thru ruined architecture;
roll up your jeans; pay no mind to the wandering eye.
Friday, February 28, 2014
cat abuse; or people are scum
I can count the number of times I've been "together" enough to be proactive. For instance, most of my life I never had car insurance--or health insurance. Once, during the mid-nineties, I had my shit together enough that when my younger brother tossed me a tip on some financial advice...an investment... I was able to capitalize on it. I met with this broker in the watering hole downstairs from the office builiding of Ditech, an up-and-coming mortgage house in Orange County. I bought into an IRA that folded into the 401K Ditech offered. It wasn't long before my ability to hold onto that "luxury" became negligible and I had to funnel funds toward more urgent matters. Nonetheless, it was during this time of never-before-seen-prosperity in which I decided to get a cat.
I've always been a cat person. Dogs require too much attention.
So, I had this sweet pad three blocks off the Belmont Heights beach between Long Beach and Belmont Shores. It was Southern California's sweet-spot...white people were moving into LBC in droves on the heals of Snoop and Sublime popularity and The Shores was already established aristocracy, and, upon my due-diligence, settled into one of the last bastions of "ghetto" left in the neighborhood.
I was working at Ditech doing the 405 hustle back and forth to work and my pad was a sweet one bedroom and a patio with enough dirt to have a small herb and tomato garden my mom'd helped me put in over one thanksgiving holiday. I found a cat shelter online and "mapquested" the address, drove over and knocked on the door.
The job I had was sweet. I was recently single, my pad was decorated minimalist. I was drawing and writing a lot. I walked into this two bedroom town-home up on Junipero--your stereotypical "crazy cat lady." I don't really know why I chose Walt--except that I wanted a cat who reflected my own personality and it wasn't until after we'd gone over the entire house and she shuttled me into the last room of the house that must have contained 15 cats all lounging around and only bothered enough to look up from whatever under-arm they happened to be licking to notice someone had entered the room, when I noticed a shy, under-sized black and white cat nervously peering out from behind a cat-trap--I knew this was the one.
"Can I see him?"
"He's a shy one."
"Hey buddy...what're you doing?"
He ducked behind the cat-trap simultaneously looking at me...a wondering look. As tenderly as possible I kneeled down and patted his soft head. He purred and let me pick him up.
"I like him. His name is Walt."
She wasn't happy about the name. I gave her a hundred dollars and she gave me paperwork. I put Walt in the cat-carrier and out to my truck. That was on a Wednesday, by Friday night, Walt wasn't eating or drinking and was huddled underneath my bed. By Monday I was worried and by the Wednesday after I'd gotten him, I was calling around to local vets offices.
The place was down off the PCH; a five minute drive from my apartment. I put Walt in his carrier. He was subdued of his own accord...he was sad and beaten. I talked to him all the way to the vet's.
"I know what it's like buddy." "Lotta people'll tell you they understand Walt, but they don't." "Everything's gonna work out little buddy, ain't no other way for it."
"So, I got this cat from some crazy cat lady off Junipero a week ago. I don't know what's wrong with it, but I don't have a lot of money to fork out for this so if you could just figure out if there's anything that can be done..."
"Ok sir, slow down...." and then fill in the rest with first-time-visit-rhetoric and about fifteen minutes later I was carrying Walt into a patient room.
Walt was disagreeable. Several "doctors" came in rotation, then together, then separate again, then assistants all asking questions about the cat--and me--and my relationship to the cat--and would you mind stepping out into the waiting room please sir....sir, please, just step out into the waiting room. It wasn't until after that I realized they were trying to figure out if I was an abusive owner. Which doesn't make any sense. I kept trying to explain to them that Walt is not the friendliest cat and that when you try to hold him down like that he was sure to rebel in the only way a cat knows how. The fact that I'd only known the cat for a week and understood this about him and could actually handle him in his distressed situation gave me pause only to recognize the veterinarians' incompetences...that they were secretly casting aspersions regarding my treatment of Walt was an incredulous notion. Had I recognized this, I surely would not have a cat. I would have demonstrated the typical behaviors of an abusive parent and declared that the entire lot of them wasn't worth the paper their degrees were printed upon. They would have declared me unfit because of the way I was getting "defensive."
I never understood why our society demands reservation. A friend of mine told me once that it's a wonder people aren't just walking around the planet screaming their heads off at the outrageousness and absurdity happening all around us. It's a hilarious image and one I often visualize. Sitting on the bahn in Berlin is particularly fitting to this hallucination.
You see this quality of behavior demanded of us in many places. Work, bureaucratic offices, restaurants, in public and in broken relationships, all propagate civilized behavior, otherwise you're likely to be disregarded as hostile. Like when you're calling any corporate customer service, your cell company for instance, will quickly threaten to discontinue the conversation if you---say verbally assault them or swear spells reinforced on the souls of their cowardly ancestors.
The other day I was sitting on a bench at this little spielplatz. Mostly I see people walking little dogs, never have I seen any kids playing on the little spring-loaded toys or in the sandbox. It's a bank of six benches--two rows of three facing each other on opposite sides of a walkway and you can see a bus stop and a busy street corner. On this corner is one of the places I go to in Berlin that has micro-crafted ales---IPA's no less. It was after work and I was trying to grade essays, it was a beautiful spring-like day. This old German guy comes walking across the street and he's yelling--shouting at the world. I couldn't understand him. A big pink bedsheet was bundled up like a sack of trash and hung over his shoulder and he stumbled. I wish I could've understood what he was shouting. He was angry as hell. Many people walking or biking by would look at him...much the same way I was looking at him...and then glance around for anyone else paying mind to the crazy old guy. People's eyes met other eye-witness's eyes and eyebrows would raise, small smiles of appreciation exchanged. As if to say, "Thank god! Thank god someone's willing to say it."
Sometimes when I'm talking to people, I see the glaze forming over their eyes and I just stop talking in mid-sentence and walk away. Sometimes I feel my own glaze frosting my vision and I've come to recognize it and it forces me to awaken and consider my own developed-biases...I try to let them go.
I learned this a long time ago. I used to live in this house outside of Kent, Ohio with a bunch of friends. People came and went and we had a lot of parties, get togethers more aptly and our neighbor would be over all the time. It was one of the coolest places I've lived simultaneously one of the worst. But we had this one party that literally almost brought the house down. Someone ended up getting sued over it. I was doing a background check on myself a few years ago and in my searching found that I was named on the suit. Walls were stripped down to the frame and electrical work, antiques destroyed, flags burned and this old black and white TV I'd had since I was a ten year old boy was smashed against the fire-place. When that happened I really haven't held on to very much. Always kept it simple and when people would ask me why I don't have anything I'd say, "it makes it easy to move around when I want."
It's a good philosophy and acquiring Walt was flying in the face of it. I remember thinking what sort of burden I'd be putting on him. Would I be able to feed him, how would it go if and when I decided to move, was I ready to take care of another living creature...it meant always having in mind a place for him and the notion was a warming one.
The doctors gave me a saline bag, a needle and a long hose with a valve-like contraption attached to it, and some kind of pills I was to sneak into his food. They didn't know what was wrong with him but that he was dehydrated and since he wasn't drinking on his own, I had to get him water intravenously, which meant sticking him with this needle just beneath the skin at the back of his neck.
I recalled as a kid growing up in Ohio, we had several cats roaming around our little farm. The cats would give birth and as the kittens got big enough my sister and I would help my dad take care of them. I learned from watching him handle these cats. He'd grab a fist-full of fur at the back of their necks and maneuver them around like a street-grifter playing the shell-game. That's how I handled Walt when I'd slide the saline-fed needle under the nape of his neck-fur. A cat I hardly knew at all, I'd grab a fist-full of neck-fur and pull, sliding the needle as simply as a tooth-pick slips into room-temperature-butter and hold him in my lap as the bag slowly fed him the much needed drink. He was scared--more than I was and he'd somehow impress himself deeply into my lap and look up at me, his little soft head stuffed onto the little mounded hill of his body, eyes clearly hoping that I wasn't going to hurt him and we'd do this for the next four nights after I'd come home from work.
In reality, I barely thought about what I was doing, otherwise I probably couldn't have done it. I only knew he had to have water.
And he got better. He was flea infested when I got him too. If you'd pet along his back in the opposite direction your hand'd kick up a spattering, like lawn clippings behind a push-mower. Riddled with fleas. I gave him baths. Giving a cat a bath is like witnessing shame and fear of death at once. A cat's truly exposed during a bath, but it was for his own good. It was a losing battle because I didn't really know the extent of his flea problem for a couple weeks after he'd been living in my flat. The place was lousy with 'em. My girlfriend at the time was a saint. She must have been getting eaten alive whenever she spent the night--but she never complained. Well, not until we were breaking up four years later and on top of everything else I'd fucked up, she tacked on this little ditty on her way out the door...."And I hated that fuck'n cat too!" That hurt. What bothered me more was that I never picked up on it. I mean, I must have been blind. How could I never have felt that vibe from her.
I believe people. I need someone to tell me if they're bothered, or reveal themselves in an deliberate manner in order to see them. I'm an English teacher and a colleague once told me, "Our jobs are looking beneath the surface. How can you not notice what people's motives and issues might be." I've considered this observation. Of course it took a virtual stranger to point this out to me. It says something about people and relationships that someone close to me doesn't have the courage or the inclination even to say something. Maybe I'm thinking about it for the first time and people have tried to tell me. I used to have this conversation with my friend Dave. I would try my best to avoid making an impact on others lives. Be transparent...you be you. Don't let anything I say or think sway your actions or thought process...I'm over here existing, you exist too, and let me know if you want to talk.
Everyone's sat on a park bench and played that game where you make back-stories up regarding people walking by. This guy Patrick, I've known him for about twenty years I suppose. I would say he's on my short list of friends, even though I haven't seen or talked to him in over three years. He could figure people out. When I met him he was just walking down the street. I was over JJ's place in Kent and we were standing on the sidewalk in front of his place talking to Scott who lived across town and this guy comes walking down the street toward us. Scott knew him from a philosophy class and Pat joined our conversation as if we'd all been friends for years. It was so seamless and fluid I didn't believe Scott or JJ when they told me they hardly knew him. That night Pat showed up and we got drunk and in the course of all the talk, I kept thinking how amazingly accurate his assessments of us all were. He knew people better than anyone I'd ever come across.
Patrick was an artist then--and one of the best most original artist I'd ever known personally. And that's saying a lot. I knew at least three other artists whose art was unparalleled. The subjective nature of appreciating art dilutes such a claim, but I have studied art, art history, critical theory of art and I have my own tastes that gravitate now, toward the real...the art I liked as a young man, before I knew anything about art, was more abstract. Over the years I've come to appreciate the realistic nature of art, with an eye toward surrealism, abstraction, and impressionism. When I met Pat, I knew Dave and Conrad and loved their works. Their art made me want to know the person who could make this...to talk to them and listen to them. I wished I could make what they'd made. Pat's work had the same effect. In my life, I've had dreams about each of these three artists' paintings.
I don't really talk to any of those guys any more, but I'm sure if we met it would be warm and more than pleasant. I did meet up with Pat years later in Portland a few times. He was in a jam with a girl he'd fallen in love with. I remember sitting and having coffee with him and Scott and JJ on a bright sunny Portland morning. We drank coffee and smoked cigarettes into the early evening. He'd concocted this crazy notion that the FBI was watching him. I wanted to believe him...he was forthcoming on every front...an honest man before me. So few people have this quality. It had taken away his confidence...his chi or center. His experiences and intelligence were still intact--he was still Pat, but he questioned himself--more precisely I think he questioned his reality.
He'd gone away from art and went to law school and passed the bar in Washington and was scraping together a living, he'd explained, from basically meeting people randomly. He was substitute teaching at inner-city schools in Seattle and hatching jobs, seemingly from thin air whenever opportunity presented itself. I looked at him and thought, this person should be a giant, not what he was presenting me. He should be 10 feet tall and striding down the street, not staring back at himself and doubting.
At my apartment later that night in Portland with Pat, Scott, and JJ:
"Oh...hey. So this is Walt," Pat went right up and pet Walt on the head. Walt flopped onto his back and Pat rubbed his belly.
"Otter," Scott said. "Show Pat your coffee table." I'd made this coffee table with a flip top. It was rustic and raw but pretty sweet for a hand saw and a few carving tools.
"It's a work in progress," I said and went on to this little braggadocios spiel where I take on this high-falutent persona and explain the finer points of hand-crafted furniture making.
"Otto man," Pat said while getting his hand clawed by Walt. "This cat's crazy man. He's just like you."
And I told him the story of when I first got Walt. Feeding him intravenously and how it was touch and go and the nurses all thought I was an a cat abuser.
"Yeah, me and Walt's been through a lot..."
I got Walt in the autumn of '99 and in that same year I met the woman of my dreams, decided to go to college and leave LA for Portland. My girl found a job with habitat for humanity and I enrolled in community college. At the time California and Oregon had this reciprocity agreement that said you could forego the residency qualifications and pay in-state rates in either state. I hopped on the Oregon Health Plan and started getting food stamps for the first time in my life. I also bought a '94 Ford Ranger extended cab for six grand, cash money out the door during this time.
I packed up the Ford with the entire cab left free I figured Walt would have plenty of space and make the trip fine. I wasn't even out of LA and had to pull over for Walt. He puked.
"Hey Walt man, you gotta chill man," I told him. He looked at me confused and a little angry.
"Look, don't give me this right now," I reasoned. "We're movin' up buddy. We're gettin' out of this race riot man. LA's been nothin' but trouble man. We been lucky lately. Sure things have been good, but that was a dead end man. We're lucky Walt. We got a woman that loves us, friends to count on, and I'm startin' school with health insurance and food stamps."
He didn't seem convinced. I put him in his carrier and he was happier. I stopped every hour or so. The Ford was loaded down and I welcomed the stops. Rest areas along the five were nice and Walt liked getting out and walking around.
We drank coffee, listened to Dylan's "Time out of Mind," the whole way up. I smoked weed and kept the speed at a steady 65 the whole way. We stopped at every rest area which worked out to about once an hour. Once we pushed thru San Francisco Walt fell asleep and it was dark and I pushed the Ford to 70 and didn't stop till Mount Shasta.
I remember how hopeful I was. I'd made a few such trips. The landscape always seems to welcome me in these moments. I often think that these images...the times when I packed up and got on the road to a new place...these images will be what I remember on my death-bed.
I've done it six times. Chicago to Yankton, South Dakota: Hartington, Nebraska to Medina, Ohio; Kent, Ohio to Los Angeles; LA to Portland; and Portland to Florida via Chicago; and the last time was Florida to Berlin. That was a little different but I still remember driving thru the South Florida Glades and watching the sun coming up over the horizon and having that same surreal feeling of wide open possibilities.
Me and Walt lived in several places starting in southern California where I had to feed him intravenously. Then we stayed with JJ and his wife and new born baby Ezra. That was trying everyone's patience and I was glad to find a place with my girl at the time off Stark street in SE Portland. Then I got my own little studio on PSU's campus and I had a little garden plot where I could take him outside and he helped me garden and brew home brews.
I've always been a cat person. Dogs require too much attention.
So, I had this sweet pad three blocks off the Belmont Heights beach between Long Beach and Belmont Shores. It was Southern California's sweet-spot...white people were moving into LBC in droves on the heals of Snoop and Sublime popularity and The Shores was already established aristocracy, and, upon my due-diligence, settled into one of the last bastions of "ghetto" left in the neighborhood.
I was working at Ditech doing the 405 hustle back and forth to work and my pad was a sweet one bedroom and a patio with enough dirt to have a small herb and tomato garden my mom'd helped me put in over one thanksgiving holiday. I found a cat shelter online and "mapquested" the address, drove over and knocked on the door.
The job I had was sweet. I was recently single, my pad was decorated minimalist. I was drawing and writing a lot. I walked into this two bedroom town-home up on Junipero--your stereotypical "crazy cat lady." I don't really know why I chose Walt--except that I wanted a cat who reflected my own personality and it wasn't until after we'd gone over the entire house and she shuttled me into the last room of the house that must have contained 15 cats all lounging around and only bothered enough to look up from whatever under-arm they happened to be licking to notice someone had entered the room, when I noticed a shy, under-sized black and white cat nervously peering out from behind a cat-trap--I knew this was the one.
"Can I see him?"
"He's a shy one."
"Hey buddy...what're you doing?"
He ducked behind the cat-trap simultaneously looking at me...a wondering look. As tenderly as possible I kneeled down and patted his soft head. He purred and let me pick him up.
"I like him. His name is Walt."
She wasn't happy about the name. I gave her a hundred dollars and she gave me paperwork. I put Walt in the cat-carrier and out to my truck. That was on a Wednesday, by Friday night, Walt wasn't eating or drinking and was huddled underneath my bed. By Monday I was worried and by the Wednesday after I'd gotten him, I was calling around to local vets offices.
The place was down off the PCH; a five minute drive from my apartment. I put Walt in his carrier. He was subdued of his own accord...he was sad and beaten. I talked to him all the way to the vet's.
"I know what it's like buddy." "Lotta people'll tell you they understand Walt, but they don't." "Everything's gonna work out little buddy, ain't no other way for it."
"So, I got this cat from some crazy cat lady off Junipero a week ago. I don't know what's wrong with it, but I don't have a lot of money to fork out for this so if you could just figure out if there's anything that can be done..."
"Ok sir, slow down...." and then fill in the rest with first-time-visit-rhetoric and about fifteen minutes later I was carrying Walt into a patient room.
Walt was disagreeable. Several "doctors" came in rotation, then together, then separate again, then assistants all asking questions about the cat--and me--and my relationship to the cat--and would you mind stepping out into the waiting room please sir....sir, please, just step out into the waiting room. It wasn't until after that I realized they were trying to figure out if I was an abusive owner. Which doesn't make any sense. I kept trying to explain to them that Walt is not the friendliest cat and that when you try to hold him down like that he was sure to rebel in the only way a cat knows how. The fact that I'd only known the cat for a week and understood this about him and could actually handle him in his distressed situation gave me pause only to recognize the veterinarians' incompetences...that they were secretly casting aspersions regarding my treatment of Walt was an incredulous notion. Had I recognized this, I surely would not have a cat. I would have demonstrated the typical behaviors of an abusive parent and declared that the entire lot of them wasn't worth the paper their degrees were printed upon. They would have declared me unfit because of the way I was getting "defensive."
I never understood why our society demands reservation. A friend of mine told me once that it's a wonder people aren't just walking around the planet screaming their heads off at the outrageousness and absurdity happening all around us. It's a hilarious image and one I often visualize. Sitting on the bahn in Berlin is particularly fitting to this hallucination.
You see this quality of behavior demanded of us in many places. Work, bureaucratic offices, restaurants, in public and in broken relationships, all propagate civilized behavior, otherwise you're likely to be disregarded as hostile. Like when you're calling any corporate customer service, your cell company for instance, will quickly threaten to discontinue the conversation if you---say verbally assault them or swear spells reinforced on the souls of their cowardly ancestors.
The other day I was sitting on a bench at this little spielplatz. Mostly I see people walking little dogs, never have I seen any kids playing on the little spring-loaded toys or in the sandbox. It's a bank of six benches--two rows of three facing each other on opposite sides of a walkway and you can see a bus stop and a busy street corner. On this corner is one of the places I go to in Berlin that has micro-crafted ales---IPA's no less. It was after work and I was trying to grade essays, it was a beautiful spring-like day. This old German guy comes walking across the street and he's yelling--shouting at the world. I couldn't understand him. A big pink bedsheet was bundled up like a sack of trash and hung over his shoulder and he stumbled. I wish I could've understood what he was shouting. He was angry as hell. Many people walking or biking by would look at him...much the same way I was looking at him...and then glance around for anyone else paying mind to the crazy old guy. People's eyes met other eye-witness's eyes and eyebrows would raise, small smiles of appreciation exchanged. As if to say, "Thank god! Thank god someone's willing to say it."
Sometimes when I'm talking to people, I see the glaze forming over their eyes and I just stop talking in mid-sentence and walk away. Sometimes I feel my own glaze frosting my vision and I've come to recognize it and it forces me to awaken and consider my own developed-biases...I try to let them go.
I learned this a long time ago. I used to live in this house outside of Kent, Ohio with a bunch of friends. People came and went and we had a lot of parties, get togethers more aptly and our neighbor would be over all the time. It was one of the coolest places I've lived simultaneously one of the worst. But we had this one party that literally almost brought the house down. Someone ended up getting sued over it. I was doing a background check on myself a few years ago and in my searching found that I was named on the suit. Walls were stripped down to the frame and electrical work, antiques destroyed, flags burned and this old black and white TV I'd had since I was a ten year old boy was smashed against the fire-place. When that happened I really haven't held on to very much. Always kept it simple and when people would ask me why I don't have anything I'd say, "it makes it easy to move around when I want."
It's a good philosophy and acquiring Walt was flying in the face of it. I remember thinking what sort of burden I'd be putting on him. Would I be able to feed him, how would it go if and when I decided to move, was I ready to take care of another living creature...it meant always having in mind a place for him and the notion was a warming one.
The doctors gave me a saline bag, a needle and a long hose with a valve-like contraption attached to it, and some kind of pills I was to sneak into his food. They didn't know what was wrong with him but that he was dehydrated and since he wasn't drinking on his own, I had to get him water intravenously, which meant sticking him with this needle just beneath the skin at the back of his neck.
I recalled as a kid growing up in Ohio, we had several cats roaming around our little farm. The cats would give birth and as the kittens got big enough my sister and I would help my dad take care of them. I learned from watching him handle these cats. He'd grab a fist-full of fur at the back of their necks and maneuver them around like a street-grifter playing the shell-game. That's how I handled Walt when I'd slide the saline-fed needle under the nape of his neck-fur. A cat I hardly knew at all, I'd grab a fist-full of neck-fur and pull, sliding the needle as simply as a tooth-pick slips into room-temperature-butter and hold him in my lap as the bag slowly fed him the much needed drink. He was scared--more than I was and he'd somehow impress himself deeply into my lap and look up at me, his little soft head stuffed onto the little mounded hill of his body, eyes clearly hoping that I wasn't going to hurt him and we'd do this for the next four nights after I'd come home from work.
In reality, I barely thought about what I was doing, otherwise I probably couldn't have done it. I only knew he had to have water.
And he got better. He was flea infested when I got him too. If you'd pet along his back in the opposite direction your hand'd kick up a spattering, like lawn clippings behind a push-mower. Riddled with fleas. I gave him baths. Giving a cat a bath is like witnessing shame and fear of death at once. A cat's truly exposed during a bath, but it was for his own good. It was a losing battle because I didn't really know the extent of his flea problem for a couple weeks after he'd been living in my flat. The place was lousy with 'em. My girlfriend at the time was a saint. She must have been getting eaten alive whenever she spent the night--but she never complained. Well, not until we were breaking up four years later and on top of everything else I'd fucked up, she tacked on this little ditty on her way out the door...."And I hated that fuck'n cat too!" That hurt. What bothered me more was that I never picked up on it. I mean, I must have been blind. How could I never have felt that vibe from her.
I believe people. I need someone to tell me if they're bothered, or reveal themselves in an deliberate manner in order to see them. I'm an English teacher and a colleague once told me, "Our jobs are looking beneath the surface. How can you not notice what people's motives and issues might be." I've considered this observation. Of course it took a virtual stranger to point this out to me. It says something about people and relationships that someone close to me doesn't have the courage or the inclination even to say something. Maybe I'm thinking about it for the first time and people have tried to tell me. I used to have this conversation with my friend Dave. I would try my best to avoid making an impact on others lives. Be transparent...you be you. Don't let anything I say or think sway your actions or thought process...I'm over here existing, you exist too, and let me know if you want to talk.
Everyone's sat on a park bench and played that game where you make back-stories up regarding people walking by. This guy Patrick, I've known him for about twenty years I suppose. I would say he's on my short list of friends, even though I haven't seen or talked to him in over three years. He could figure people out. When I met him he was just walking down the street. I was over JJ's place in Kent and we were standing on the sidewalk in front of his place talking to Scott who lived across town and this guy comes walking down the street toward us. Scott knew him from a philosophy class and Pat joined our conversation as if we'd all been friends for years. It was so seamless and fluid I didn't believe Scott or JJ when they told me they hardly knew him. That night Pat showed up and we got drunk and in the course of all the talk, I kept thinking how amazingly accurate his assessments of us all were. He knew people better than anyone I'd ever come across.
Patrick was an artist then--and one of the best most original artist I'd ever known personally. And that's saying a lot. I knew at least three other artists whose art was unparalleled. The subjective nature of appreciating art dilutes such a claim, but I have studied art, art history, critical theory of art and I have my own tastes that gravitate now, toward the real...the art I liked as a young man, before I knew anything about art, was more abstract. Over the years I've come to appreciate the realistic nature of art, with an eye toward surrealism, abstraction, and impressionism. When I met Pat, I knew Dave and Conrad and loved their works. Their art made me want to know the person who could make this...to talk to them and listen to them. I wished I could make what they'd made. Pat's work had the same effect. In my life, I've had dreams about each of these three artists' paintings.
I don't really talk to any of those guys any more, but I'm sure if we met it would be warm and more than pleasant. I did meet up with Pat years later in Portland a few times. He was in a jam with a girl he'd fallen in love with. I remember sitting and having coffee with him and Scott and JJ on a bright sunny Portland morning. We drank coffee and smoked cigarettes into the early evening. He'd concocted this crazy notion that the FBI was watching him. I wanted to believe him...he was forthcoming on every front...an honest man before me. So few people have this quality. It had taken away his confidence...his chi or center. His experiences and intelligence were still intact--he was still Pat, but he questioned himself--more precisely I think he questioned his reality.
He'd gone away from art and went to law school and passed the bar in Washington and was scraping together a living, he'd explained, from basically meeting people randomly. He was substitute teaching at inner-city schools in Seattle and hatching jobs, seemingly from thin air whenever opportunity presented itself. I looked at him and thought, this person should be a giant, not what he was presenting me. He should be 10 feet tall and striding down the street, not staring back at himself and doubting.
At my apartment later that night in Portland with Pat, Scott, and JJ:
"Oh...hey. So this is Walt," Pat went right up and pet Walt on the head. Walt flopped onto his back and Pat rubbed his belly.
"Otter," Scott said. "Show Pat your coffee table." I'd made this coffee table with a flip top. It was rustic and raw but pretty sweet for a hand saw and a few carving tools.
"It's a work in progress," I said and went on to this little braggadocios spiel where I take on this high-falutent persona and explain the finer points of hand-crafted furniture making.
"Otto man," Pat said while getting his hand clawed by Walt. "This cat's crazy man. He's just like you."
And I told him the story of when I first got Walt. Feeding him intravenously and how it was touch and go and the nurses all thought I was an a cat abuser.
"Yeah, me and Walt's been through a lot..."
I got Walt in the autumn of '99 and in that same year I met the woman of my dreams, decided to go to college and leave LA for Portland. My girl found a job with habitat for humanity and I enrolled in community college. At the time California and Oregon had this reciprocity agreement that said you could forego the residency qualifications and pay in-state rates in either state. I hopped on the Oregon Health Plan and started getting food stamps for the first time in my life. I also bought a '94 Ford Ranger extended cab for six grand, cash money out the door during this time.
I packed up the Ford with the entire cab left free I figured Walt would have plenty of space and make the trip fine. I wasn't even out of LA and had to pull over for Walt. He puked.
"Hey Walt man, you gotta chill man," I told him. He looked at me confused and a little angry.
"Look, don't give me this right now," I reasoned. "We're movin' up buddy. We're gettin' out of this race riot man. LA's been nothin' but trouble man. We been lucky lately. Sure things have been good, but that was a dead end man. We're lucky Walt. We got a woman that loves us, friends to count on, and I'm startin' school with health insurance and food stamps."
He didn't seem convinced. I put him in his carrier and he was happier. I stopped every hour or so. The Ford was loaded down and I welcomed the stops. Rest areas along the five were nice and Walt liked getting out and walking around.
We drank coffee, listened to Dylan's "Time out of Mind," the whole way up. I smoked weed and kept the speed at a steady 65 the whole way. We stopped at every rest area which worked out to about once an hour. Once we pushed thru San Francisco Walt fell asleep and it was dark and I pushed the Ford to 70 and didn't stop till Mount Shasta.
I remember how hopeful I was. I'd made a few such trips. The landscape always seems to welcome me in these moments. I often think that these images...the times when I packed up and got on the road to a new place...these images will be what I remember on my death-bed.
I've done it six times. Chicago to Yankton, South Dakota: Hartington, Nebraska to Medina, Ohio; Kent, Ohio to Los Angeles; LA to Portland; and Portland to Florida via Chicago; and the last time was Florida to Berlin. That was a little different but I still remember driving thru the South Florida Glades and watching the sun coming up over the horizon and having that same surreal feeling of wide open possibilities.
Me and Walt lived in several places starting in southern California where I had to feed him intravenously. Then we stayed with JJ and his wife and new born baby Ezra. That was trying everyone's patience and I was glad to find a place with my girl at the time off Stark street in SE Portland. Then I got my own little studio on PSU's campus and I had a little garden plot where I could take him outside and he helped me garden and brew home brews.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
i don't know how you write a good research paper kid,
if you don't have a good idea,
you might as well plagiarize.
what are you supposed to write about?
write about what you want to learn
what you want to learn depends
upon the white wheelbarrow...
the guy at the tabak shop on my street
looks like a guy i knew in florida,
but he doesn't act like him.
there's a woman where i work,
she's respected and wears her credentials
like a hooker wears fishnet stockings.
I'm more interested in the hooker.
A friend of mine stole my shoes.
I was telling him the story
about how I'd discovered my shoes gone.
His sympathy seemed so genuine
I decided the shoes weren't worth the trouble.
I had a girlfriend who understood
how unreliable her initial instincts were
concerning friendships she'd forge.
Inevitably the fast friendships soured.
Teachers who've only ever been teachers
are among the most piteous creatures
roaming the earth. None of them recognize
the caricatures they've written themselves into.
I read an article debunking the grammar rules
that say not to end a sentence with a preposition, or begin one with a conjunction.
Students at my school are required
to make index card note cards. I must
do my best to change this policy.
if you don't have a good idea,
you might as well plagiarize.
what are you supposed to write about?
write about what you want to learn
what you want to learn depends
upon the white wheelbarrow...
the guy at the tabak shop on my street
looks like a guy i knew in florida,
but he doesn't act like him.
there's a woman where i work,
she's respected and wears her credentials
like a hooker wears fishnet stockings.
I'm more interested in the hooker.
A friend of mine stole my shoes.
I was telling him the story
about how I'd discovered my shoes gone.
His sympathy seemed so genuine
I decided the shoes weren't worth the trouble.
I had a girlfriend who understood
how unreliable her initial instincts were
concerning friendships she'd forge.
Inevitably the fast friendships soured.
Teachers who've only ever been teachers
are among the most piteous creatures
roaming the earth. None of them recognize
the caricatures they've written themselves into.
I read an article debunking the grammar rules
that say not to end a sentence with a preposition, or begin one with a conjunction.
Students at my school are required
to make index card note cards. I must
do my best to change this policy.
Friday, January 10, 2014
...as if
"The budget isn't inexhaustible."
as if all
of the
human race
depended on it...
would the late fees really matter then...
can I please get my passport
stamped "EU"
The invading race won't
have a clue
now's the time,
let's take advantage while
the gettin's good,
now's the time,
get in on this quick,
might as well
it's all going to hell
anyway.
Should we fight it out,
even when it's all on the line,
when we're facing extinction,
are we going to get a reverse mortgage for these good people Janie.
"The budget John, it just wouldn't allow for it."
as if it was talking
"For holy sake John
we created it...I think it would allow for it."
The invasion is always there,
man, why should we pretend otherwise
a dying man doesn't pay late fees...fuckers!
There's just not room in the budget this year....
as if...
there were citizens of "imminent doom"
waiting in line at the courthouse....
a fool waits in line drawing his last breath....fuckers!
If there were an invasion,
can you imagine...
"That's two dollars and fifty cents sir. You've only got two twenty-five."
As if it's real.
As if you wouldn't throw everything at it to stay alive.
as if all
of the
human race
depended on it...
would the late fees really matter then...
can I please get my passport
stamped "EU"
The invading race won't
have a clue
now's the time,
let's take advantage while
the gettin's good,
now's the time,
get in on this quick,
might as well
it's all going to hell
anyway.
Should we fight it out,
even when it's all on the line,
when we're facing extinction,
are we going to get a reverse mortgage for these good people Janie.
"The budget John, it just wouldn't allow for it."
as if it was talking
"For holy sake John
we created it...I think it would allow for it."
The invasion is always there,
man, why should we pretend otherwise
a dying man doesn't pay late fees...fuckers!
There's just not room in the budget this year....
as if...
there were citizens of "imminent doom"
waiting in line at the courthouse....
a fool waits in line drawing his last breath....fuckers!
If there were an invasion,
can you imagine...
"That's two dollars and fifty cents sir. You've only got two twenty-five."
As if it's real.
As if you wouldn't throw everything at it to stay alive.
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