Segue

It was quite windy today; I thought I was in a Clint Eastwood movie. Leaves took refuge, like dry skinned orphaned children, in front entrance niches of businesses in downtown. Shopkeepers could not shoo the leaves away; each customer brought in more leaves until small drifts formed on the carpeted and tiled floors. I brought in leaves as I entered a stationary shop in search of letterhead. It was not just any letterhead. It had to have some tooth to it. The letterhead had to announce, “By gad, I am serious about this writing business!”

The mistress of the shop, a discerning middle-aged Hispanic woman with dark brown hair and eyes, listened to my romantic drivel about the paper I was seeking. I was not the usual customer, yet the lack of a poncho and a cigar, or the attire of a conquistador, perplexed her. The tone of my voice was remarkably similar to Eastwood’s, I was surprised by the raspy tone, as if my regular voice had gone on sabbatical and Eastwood was doing a cameo. The mistress smiled when I finished my oratorio and said, “I think I have something to make your day, Mr. Eastwood. Right this way.”

I followed her down a side aisle packed on either side with reams of paper. We perused the reams she had in stock, and quickly determined she didn’t have what I wanted, but she said she could get it by the following day. Her dark eyes flashed as she said thirty-two pound paper was my Holy Grail. Thirty-two pound letterhead is not that common. It used to be used to build ramps for storming castles. It was common when cotton was king, and trees with circumferences of twenty feet were de rigueur. It made dandy picnic plates for Victorian couples. Bamboo is the new goddess from the east. Everything is made of bamboo. It is ten million times stronger than steel. I am smitten with her, but not for letterhead. But as towels, clothes, armored personnel carriers, or flooring, she easily wins the day. But I digress.

The mistress took my order. I said it had to be ivory colored, off-white, the kind of color Dukes and Earls would regularly press their signet rings to. The kind I could precisely fold and slide into Medici style envelopes. The kind that demanded the use of red sealing wax and my cheap brass letter ‘D’ stamp. The kind that implied I was a baron with title and land. Yes, landed gentry letterhead that announced my full intention to attend a gala affair in my 1940s Bentley. The kind of paper that would inspire me to write adlib pithy poems, or dystopian query letters, sent by horseback courier to literary agents, or snooty editors who guffawed at the improper use of apostrophes. I mean the make believe paper made for mystics with Pomeranians on their laps.

The shop mistress looked at me as if I had lost my marbles, and I had of course, writers lose their minds every day they draw breath. Her nubile apprentice, a fetching blonde of forty years, turned and smiled in pity, as if I’d just emerged from the Middle Ages, or thawed from a glacier high in the Alps. As if I were Sideshow Bob, recently released from a passing circus, or a troglodyte that had crawled from beneath a dark slab of prehistoric rock.

The paper arrived in an enchanted carriage, pulled by six white stallions, and steered by two faux rat footmen from the Cinderella story. The box weighed forty pounds, though it was only 250 sheets of paper. I lifted the lid of the gold leaf covered ream. There was the scent of sultry Santa Barbara nights of long ago, when flowering vines on the trellises of Spanish Colonial villas, perched high above the sunset hued harbor, released their seductive perfume to the night. I held a sheet and remembered the embrace of a woman I had tango danced with in lonely nights long ago, when all I lived for was the sound of milonga, and the taste of mangoes..

The paper was slightly cream colored, like the Warren Lustro Dull I once had a thing for in the heyday of my advertising career. Then I was a graphic guru, a pasha of printed works, of textures and treatments for esoteric papers with which to pad my portfolio. I was no stranger to foils, fancy die cuts, embossing, and finishes. Fonts were my fortissimo then, but not now. Impressing people wasn’t my raison d’etre any longer. Now I was enamored with film and the use of words to tell a story. I had thrown off the gregarious narcissism of advertising for the solitary confinement of the ivory tower. There was only the sound of one hand clapping, and it was my own.

Words are not like dry autumn leaves that find sanctuary in the doorways of shops on windy days. They are limber and green, subtle and sultry. They easily describe pale orange leaves that once were attached to young maples in our hometowns and in the forests outside Moscow. They tell tales of the leaves as being like garments that wrapped themselves around a young couple whose love was forbidden. Hidden there by the words whose leafy disguise made the couple's love possible, the couple kissed for the first time. Stars fell from their places; meteorites plummeted with the touch of the couple's lips.  Words of love poured like the runoff from the rock laden streams. Aspen and spruce trees bent by winter snows listened to the words. Words, like leaves whipped by errant winds, turned chameleon colors of flame and rust and took their rest upon my secret manuscripts. Like spirits, they haunted my observations and dreams. They assembled when I was cogent and rational, and they spread in disarray when ideas came fast and furious, late at night and in the wee hours of the morning when testosterone ran hot and heavy, and soul and flesh ached for love and passion.

And so I found my paper; my muse. My fingertips rested upon it in the night when words, like rain, tapped upon the windows of my soul and would not let me sleep. While the world settled into dreams, late when the wolves roamed and owls glided with silent wings, I was up writing queries to editors and agents. I knew my writing was flawed but it was mine. I consoled my doubts by reminding myself that all writers are flawed or they would not be writers. Best to keep a meat cleaver handy because no story is complete without endless hacking and rewrites. I knew editors make writers digestible, and would add sprigs of herbs to my works. Literary agents would one day reach with outstretched arms for my diamonds in the rough. I recalled an editor, who liked one of my novels, writing of my bad habits that were like the telltale clues left by a homicidal murderer. Mistakes that would hang me and identify me to an editor with a detective's eye, and a jury of my peers. My flaws, in my view, were endearing speech impediments or limps. I reasoned someone with a love of the archaic ways, a literary agent or editor with the sensibilities of a 32 pound paper, would show empathy for a leper-like writer in need of healing. Would I be marooned indefinitely on Molokai? Would my magic realism and film noir tales never see the light of day? My characters came to me in the night and begged for help but I could not console them.

People in the publishing industry tend to overlook impediments if the content is intriguing, and the author can make them lots of money, or the author is related to George Clooney. It is like a racing aficionado looking at the thigh muscle of a middle-aged horse and realizing the horse could still win the Triple Crown. It would be like a recruiter for Nike taking a look at my frame and having the epiphany that with six months of training I could win the Boston Marathon. But myopia is commonplace in the publishing world. Why do I inflict this pain upon myself? Have I forgotten that rejection is the Mother of All Sorrows? Have I forgotten Brautigan? A literary life can lead to an untimely demise. Would paper, regardless of its weight, its tooth - make any difference in a world of electronic rejection? What good were wax seals? I was Van Gogh with a loaded revolver ready to blow my brains out. If I could imagine flinging my characters off the Golden Gate Bridge then what other dark things lay within my soul? Dare I expect the world to marvel at my bravery to keep going when all my organs failed but my runner's heart? Who did I think I was with my melodramatic pauses and florid descriptions? Would the world want my ceviche when it could have a cheeseburger from Micky D's? I was cut of ancient cloth, out of step with the modern age. I was the unwilling jester of the Creator of the Universe.

When your true love comes for you in the night, leave your door ajar. Let her come softly into your chamber in her blue diaphanous gown, her breasts and hips moving like ripe fruit beneath the gown's silky folds. Study her limpid eyes and pouty mouth, wet as the Sea of Cortes in moonlight. Let her lie down with you in your bed and rise up in the morning when the words are fresh in your mind, spilling through the windows like California sunshine, demanding to be written. The words will be obtuse, mystical, magical, and strange. Exhibit A. I saw a van today that had the following words emblazoned in red paint on its side: Rice furniture and appliances. Now, I know next to nothing about either offering, but if they are made of rice I might hesitate in  my purchase. If your name was Rice, would you have used it in this way to advertise your business? I have heard of bean bag chairs, but, rice bag chairs? Really? The world is full of lampoons; you need only open your eyes to see the comedy unfold.

Yesterday I emailed three queries to the same agent in Canada. There is something kinder in Canada. Maybe they know something about the literary merits of dry leaves gathering in doorways. Perhaps they remember their humble roots. Or possibly the long winters have shown them something of the need to pull together and not tear asunder, as is the American way. They are in touch with their mortality and thus, in their despair and darkness have found comfort and communion with their maker. All hail Canada, the birthplace of John Candy, and Celine Dion! All hail this Canadian literary agent, to whom I have entrusted some of my works.

You can tell a great deal from an image. Some Native Americans once believed photos stole a part of their souls. This is true. Photos are snapshots of our souls at a point in time. They show the state of our joy, or lack thereof. I settled upon the face of an agent whose face told me she was a genuine person. She hailed from England, the mother of America. She was eagerly seeking new talented writers. I suspect she is fond of the old sensibilities, the use of wax seals on quality 32 pound paper, the observations of details, and the beauty of the words. Rain still streaks my windows in the night, like the fingertips of lost children, as I lay sleeping and dreaming of better days. In the daytime the sky offers hues of gray, broken by pale blue gaps that fade towards the horizon. Clouds can change to many different colors in one day, so can fortunes. Wind drives the clouds across the sky in a never-ending dance. Words, driven by the wind like curled, pale orange leaves, find sanctuary in the doorway of your mind.

Time for everything under the sun.

My grandfather's pocket watch, still stuck in time.

Among my possessions is my grandfather's gold pocket watch. It is permanently stuck at three-fifty in the afternoon. I do not know the year it stopped working. It may have stopped the day my grandfather had a heart attack, in the winter of 1969. He had just trudged through two feet of snow to get the mail from the mailbox at the top of his long, steep driveway. When he came in the door he was holding his chest. He did not say a word to my grandmother, who was slicing her trademarked burnt crust bread. She said she knew he was dead before he hit the kitchen floor. She finished slicing bread before she phoned anyone. She was a rather cold and logical person. The bread needed sliced; grandfather's ticker had stopped, and there was nothing to be done but finish slicing the bread. So she sliced.

I had a similar experience when my ex-wife had a minor heart attack, as a result of her taking synthetic estrogen. She collapsed on the kitchen floor. I was not slicing bread at the time. I phoned 911. We should have sued the company, but a visit from six handsome paramedics was sufficient for my ex-wife's recovery. It was a reminder of the transitory nature of life. Each day is a work of art, unique, and transient. Each day passes by and it is never the same as the day before, or the day after it, or any day in our lifetimes. This day will be gone forever, from our point of view, and it will never pass this way again. Time waits for no one, and it won’t wait for (us). But don't we all wish this were not true? Don't we all wish for the film version of Groundhog Day, where we learn a lifetime of lessons, and knowledge, in the repetition of one day?

Time has been on the minds of human beings from the beginning. We marvel at those ancient peoples who built megalithic structures to measure, honor, and order it. We have created deities to oversee it. Long ago our forebears made stone calendars that predicted the future. We want to go Back to the Future. We have an insatiable appetite for knowing what was and what will be. Aficionados of the zodiac, and many other mystical practices and beliefs, are evidence of our insecurity with not knowing. Reincarnation is the hope that we will get more time to get life right.  But time, like sand through the hourglass, keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future.

Human beings do ridiculous things with the time we have been given. We waste time all the time, forgetting or ignoring that we do not get one second of it back. Some people are good time managers, and use their time well, to help people. But others, like comedians, lampoon it. Writers write novels and screenplays with time as the centerpiece. Beverly Hills surgeons derive good livings from their clients insatiable needs to look young forever. Millions attempt to thwart the effects of time on their bodies by the use of cosmetics, diets, and exercise routines. It didn’t work for Ponce de Leon; there is no Fountain of Youth. Why   is going the speed of light so worthy of a goal? The faster you go, the more you slow down time. Look up at the stars; many of them are no longer there. You are looking back millions of years in time. The only thing left of them might be the light they emitted long ago.

Time marches on, and marches to a different drummer. Philosophers analyzed it, mathematicians and physicists tried to quantify it. But the wisest of the wise still die. Escapists, who know life is finite, and being unhappy with their lives often turn to drugs, alcohol, and careers to numb life until it passes by like the evening train. To some, putting off thinking about what comes after this life, when our time runs out, is too scary. Will life end or will something new begin when we die? Will there be more time awaiting us on the other side? Spiritual teachers have made comfortable livings promising a blissful eternity, figuring no one will ever come back to prove them wrong. Those who have near death experiences tell tales of traveling in tunnels with a white light at the other end, and arriving in a place where there is love, and time enough for doing whatever we ever dreamt of doing.

One of the things I do with my time is speak to the Creator of the Universe. Some would call it praying. Lily Tomlin, the now ancient comedienne from yesteryears, once was quoted as saying, "When we talk to God, we're praying, but when God talks to us - we're schizophrenic." So true. When I do it I try to be sincere. Sometimes I rant a bit. I rarely joke around with God. It is enough that humanity is a joke. I do my God-talking in private: while walking with bags of groceries, while eating breakfast, as I bend to tie my shoe, while strumming my guitar, showering, writing, and driving. From the point of view of God, Earth emits a continual cacophony of prayers, like a sound of the air escaping from a balloon into the emptiness of space. I suspect atheists secretly pray. But why do we pray? To whom should we pray? We pray to fill up the void, because God often seems absent from our lives. Pascal once said we all have a vacuum inside ourselves that can only be filled with God. I suppose this also applies to vacuum cleaner salesmen. But God seems to be on a sabbatical when Africa is rotting away. Where does God go on vacation? Naples, Florida? We are stuck in time; while the Creator waltzes around the universe and beyond, with nothing but time and dark matter on its hands. And rather large flip-flops on its feet.

Being unstuck in time is a daily experience for me. I expect to see God on one of my mental  journeys. It will be hard to recognize God because God is a chameleon. God and his or her or its little helpers, (aka: angels), can take the form of anything and anyone. God is a shape shifter. God is permanently unstuck outside time. There, in the space where there is no space, the Creator watches and keeps the hands of time ticking right along. Life here is an illusion of light, color, sight, and sound. It is fraught without purpose or meaning, and beneath it all there is the ubiquitous ticking of Father Time's clock.

We are lonely beings without a Creator to remind us of what life is about and what we should be doing with it. I have decided that whenever God presents an opportunity to help someone, I will. I will drop everything and help; that is my calling. Some people would call this unusual, or heroic, or even stupid. Random acts of kindness do not fill our bank accounts. Yet they are what I called my “little opportunities” from God. The English would call me a 'loony.' My job, from my overly optimistic viewpoint, is to smile when God presents a situation where someone needs help. From my POV, it is as if God has custom designed this situation for me, as if God were saying, "Look here, what will you do with this?" Another one happened on a bus yesterday. God took the form of a homeless sixty-year-old Native American woman. She did not have the money to ride the bus, and the driver was telling her she had to take her two big backpacks and get off the bus. So I got up and paid her fare. She sat next to me and asked if I was the one who had paid her fare. I said I was. She handed me back one of the bus tokens I'd given her, but I should have refused it. She would be riding again, maybe not in the form of a Native American. The woman smiled at me and it was as if God were smiling at me behind her lined and weary face. A face that said, "I am tired of this; I do not want to go on with this charade." God had asked me: "Will you or won’t you participate? Will you make time for this act of kindness? Will you say yes when most refuse?" I did accept the opportunity, and it felt good. It felt like time stood still and the universe watched for a moment to see the outcome. God stopped and watched. Because one day I will come permanently unstuck in time. And so will you, and the only things that will matter will be what we have done for our fellow human beings, and for the other creatures with whom we share our little blue ball.

Billy Pilgrim (Michael Sacks), in the film version of Vonnegut's novel, Slaughterhouse Five, is becoming unstuck in time. Pilgrim is a gentle soul; naïve, kind, thoughtful, seemingly the polar opposite to Kurt Vonnegut, the novel's author. Everything in Pilgrim’s life has a sense of irony: he becomes a prisoner of war during World War II, and he and a large number of American soldiers are put on a train and transported to a former slaughterhouse in the city of Dresden, where they are made to manufacture a nutritional malt syrup. Pilgrim's German captors lampoon him and make him wear a woman's coat. Pilgrim does not object to anything that is going sideways in his life. This was when Pilgrim first begins randomly  jumping back and forth in time. He has no control over what part of his life he will experience. 

Billy and a small group of fellow prisoners survive the allies' firebombing of Dresden in an air-tight bunker. The war ends soon thereafter, and Russians overrun the city. Pilgrim goes home to America and continues his studies in optometry at the Illium School of Optometry, in Illium, New York. He marries Valencia Merble, the obese but attractive daughter of the school's founder, Valencia Merble. He uses a diamond he found, in the lining of the woman's coat the German's gave him, for Valencia's wedding ring. For a number of years afterwards, Pilgrim lives a life of quietude and financial success. As he grows older he becomes more unstuck in time. His time tripping attracts an alien race from the planet, Tralfalmador. The Tralfamadorians, who live in the fourth dimension,  have made a glass geodesic dome zoo for Pilgrim to live in with a former porn star named Montana Wildhack.  After Pilgrim survives an airplane crash, that takes the life of his father-in-law, his wife dies of carbon monoxide poisoning while driving pell-mell to the hospital. 

Pilgrim and his dog, Spot, go with the Tralfamadorians to live on Tralfalmador with Montana Wildhack, (Valerie Perrine). Billy and Montana fall in love and have a child, to the delight of the Tralfalmadorians. It is a strange reenactment of the Garden of Eden, where time no longer mattered.

Vonnegut sought to remind us of that irrefutable fact. Because, if you believe there is a God, then you also accept that God must live outside time, which means God is thinking of us and everything else all at once. There is no past, present, or future. God sees like a Tralfalmadorian. Human beings, seen from this viewpoint have an accordion shape. No one actually dies except at one point in their lives. Time is no longer our master.

While we are trapped in the present, we have the capacity to remember the past, and make plans for the future. The future is still unknown, except to our future selves. Thus, there is a point in the future where we know exactly what happened to us. And that future me remembers what I did, and what I might have done, just as the future you knows all about you. Since this is the case, shouldn’t we be praying to ourselves from time to time? Who could advise us better than ourselves? God, yes, certainly, if you believe in God. But even if you do believe in God, the sad fact is, God does not send emails or speak to us like in olden times. Mostly. I personally do believe in God. I have actually heard God speak to me, though I cannot prove that. It was either God or the Tralfamadorians. It was not an audible voice I recorded. It was a voice in my head. I am not schizophrenic. The experience affirmed to me that God does exist. I do not have a history of schizophrenia. I don’t think it had anything to do with my having more spiritual worthiness. It was random as snow in June. It was a Billy Pilgrim experience.

This is how it happened. I was stuck in traffic near the Beltline overpass in Eugene, Oregon, in April of 2005. There were at least fifty cars lined up, and most likely all of the people in the cars near me were looking straight ahead. For whatever reason, I saw movement to my left and turned in time to see three young people, two women and a man, crossing a Beltline Highway entrance ramp. I turned in time to see a heavyset woman step off a curb and a wallet fall from her back pocket onto the road. At that moment the light changed and the cars moved forward. I was unable to get out of my lane for a quarter of a mile, and by the time I turned around the threesome were gone. I drove to the freeway entrance and stopped to pick up the wallet. Because I was committed to entering the freeway, I then had to drive four miles round trip before I could return to where I’d been. I drove for another mile in the same direction I’d been going in, and since I didn’t see the threesome, I pulled into a mall to take a look at the wallet. The wallet belonged to a twenty-one year old woman named Melissa. It contained a five-dollar bill, a student I.D., driver’s license, social security card, and two credit cards. Losing the wallet would make Melissa’s life rather complicated.

So I said, aloud, to God, “God, you know where Melissa is. Will you help me find her?” Instantly, I heard a voice in my head say, ‘She’s in there.’ And ‘there’ was the store I was looking at, which was a Fred Meyer. I laughed, because I had never heard a voice before, and I realized it had to be God who was speaking to me. I said, “Okay, but it is a big store. She could be anywhere. You will have to give me a sign about where she is or I might not find her.” I heard no voice, but I had the feeling that this stipulation had been heard, so I got out of my car and I walked into Fred Meyer.

This store was laid out with the Electronics and Jewelry areas on the left, and the Ladies Clothing area on the right, for about a hundred-fifty feet, before the entrance hall opened into the very large open area that contained a number of departments. At the place where the two areas met was a row of twenty check-stands and a customer service area.

When I came to the end of the entrance hall, as soon as I caught sight of the registers, I saw Melissa. She had just dropped a bottle of beer and was staring at the puddle of beer and glass around her feet. I smiled. There could not have been a more perfect sign to find Melissa. I walked up to her, held out the wallet, and said, “Melissa, you dropped your wallet back at the Beltline Overpass.” Melissa straightened up, her eyes agog, and took the wallet. “How did you do that?” she asked.

“Heaven Knows,” I replied, and then I turned and walked away. It was a rather cryptic reply, but I didn’t feel like explaining how I had found her. Later, it occurred to me that this small thing could be a very big thing to Melissa. It might have even changed her life. Why I was chosen to be the tool of the Almighty I do not know. But I was.

In the future I will know the importance of that act. I will know the impact of my good deeds and my bad deeds. I hope the good outweighs the bad, if that is how it works, to get into Heaven, assuming Heaven does exist. Most people do not think what we do matters. We are here for a heartbeat and then we are gone. I don’t think that is true. For us it is true, but to God we have always been here, and we will always be here, and we are being born, dying, and living our lives forever and ever. All at the same time.

When God looks at us, and everything else in this universe and every other universe, it is always in the present. But we will always be stuck in time while we are here. Later on, we may not be. Physicists theorize that there are other versions of ourself in other dimensions. I hope this is not true. I don't want to know that my life is the bad version of myself. I always want to think of my life as having potential for improvements on all levels. In the future we may be able to move through time, and visit ourselves, or prevent our births, which is a contradiction of course. There may even be no more need for time, or the sensation of the passage of time. Time will no longer exist. We will be nothing more than particles of light. Photons with awareness.

I don’t think it is too far-fetched to imagine that we may even be in the same room with ourselves; hearing our own prayers; petitioning God on our own behalf. It is a strange thought, but it is a rational, logical deduction. However crazy the world is, underlying it is an enormous but simple mathematical equation. Should we pray to our future selves? They know more than we do. Maybe they can help us navigate time with good decisions.

Last night I dreamt about my father. My father and mother became unstuck in time in 2006. I have been dreaming of he and my mother since they died. I wonder sometimes if they are trying to speak to me, and if they are, what they are saying. My son needs to understand this mystical truth. In thirty years he will be fifty years old. He may be holding his great grandfather's gold pocket watch in his hand when I die. I will be looking down on him and my daughter, trying to advise them through the veil that lies between us. I hope they think about me too, while there is time.

Mother's Day Wishes.

Wishing all sons and daughters peace on Mother's Day.

I cut three iris blossoms this afternoon, in honor of my mother, whose name was Agnes. She had a fondness for flowers; her yards always had roses, violets, and irises in well-tended beds. When my parents died, in 2006, just weeks apart, I often found solace in long walks in the rose garden of what had been my hometown for over twenty years. You can meet all sorts of people in a rose garden. In the Owen Rose Garden in Eugene, Oregon, they have a variety of hybrid roses as well as old fashioned roses. The older roses, perhaps because they have not been muddled with, are more fragrant than the hybrids.

Last night, in preparation for today, Mother’s Day, I watched the commemorative DVD’s the funeral home made for my parents. The two DVD’s overlap in imagery, and this seems fitting because my parents were married for over 60 years. At that point they overlapped to the extent that when my father died my mother said she felt like half a person. Some people are simply meant to be together forever, and my parents were like that. They were polar opposites in some ways, and yet they made their marriage work.

I have two female friends who are mothers. Rebekah lives in California, and is single because of divorce, and Irene lives in Australia, and is a recent widow. Each have children; both were women I once dated. Rebekah has had a bad year; her first grandchild, Lily, died at six months of age, due to being premature. Rebekah sent an email two days ago to let me know her mother had just passed away. Rebekah's Mother’s Day was spent planning her mother’s funeral. Irene rarely writes, and this is because she is always busy with work, her home stay guests, and her two daughters. I don’t know how Irene's Mother’s Day went; most likely she spent it with her parents. I spent the day alone; some days are better spent alone, especially when one’s mother is no longer living.

Daddy Day Care was on TV this afternoon. It is a film about making choices about what is important in life. Eddie Murphy and his two friends have dropped out of the corporate world and its financial rewards, and found that running a day care is a better investment of their time. Seeing the children they watch over blossom outweighs anything the corporate world has to offer. This morning, a similar message was conveyed by Charles Stanley, a minister I once listened to as I drove to work in the late 1980s and 1990s.  Stanley’s message this morning had to do with inheritance. Normally, when we think of inheritance we think of monetary rewards, but Stanley said the spiritual and emotional things we impart to our children may last a lifetime, unlike riches which are often squandered. These unseen things can also be passed down to our children's children.

This past week I mailed my daughter, who lives in a suburb of Paris, an early birthday package. Among the things I sent was a Little Orphan Annie book, which was published in 1925. She loved it. This is the sort of thing that will stay with her. The book may be thrown away, but the thought will continue. I tuned into who she is. This past Easter I was en route to home when I realized I had a marvelous opportunity to make a strong memory for my son. So I took a detour and went into a Trader Joe’s and bought him Easter dinner supplies, which included a nice round of ham without preservatives. No amount of gold or cash would communicate as well as these gestures, to say “I love you.”

My mother did not ever know me well, and my father knew me even less well. This sort of thing happens in a big family. They did the best they could. They could have done more, and the things they could have done had nothing to do with money. As a parent, I need to remind myself of this fact. I have to be at peace with the emotional shortcomings of my mother and father. I can’t blame anyone for who I am but me. Where I am at now, emotionally and financially are a result of a lot of big and little choices over a period of years. The year will soon be half over. Father’s Day will soon be here. My children often forget Father’s Day. They often do not send birthday cards. But today I am at peace with just being a father. And whatever issues I still have with their mother, are not relevant. For their sakes I have to let that go.

I don’t know that I like iris better than roses. I prefer the scent of certain lilies to roses. I don’t know why the lotus blossom is a symbol of peace to most of Asia. But I do understand peace, and what it means to be at peace with oneself. Some things you cannot change, and so you must resign yourself to changing what you can, and the thing that I need to change is me, and when I do get there the world will seem a much better place only because I will be seeing it with new eyes.

Apogee and Perigee of Bengal Tigers.

Here is my petite femme, my Bengal tiger, making tiger prints in Paris.

We are all on journeys, but sometimes we forget where we are going, and often we fear we do not have control over where and how our journeys will end. Enjoying the ride of life is a worthy goal. Ideally, if we grow old gracefully, wisdom envelopes us with the attributes of being at peace with ourselves, despite our failures in life.  From that vantage point we better understand the artifices society has invented, and the rituals we have incorporated into our lives to help us assuage our fears, and to shed light on the mystical path we are walking towards fullness of being. And likewise, this learned wisdom, will show in our joie de vivre. The light of our raison d'être will inevitably inspire others to find their way. Esprit de corps is contagious. When we emulate others, we ourselves become lights to those who follow after us. We become mentors, and leave footprints for others to follow, or paw prints, as it were, of Bengal Tigers.

The moon will be at perigee tomorrow, the closest it will come in 2012, in its irregular orbit around Mother Earth. In the jungles of India, tigers will gaze with yellow eyes at the huge full moon and think thoughts about their lives and where they are going as they prowl in the night. In cities around the world, human beings, who are often Bengal Tigers in need of epiphanies, will look with weary but noble eyes at the moon and wish for greater things for themselves. The huge moon will certainly facilitate a more festive Cinco de Mayo. There are no Bengal Tigers in Mexico, though I am sure that had there been, Montezuma would have had one or two in his zoo. But both Montezuma and Cortes were Bengal Tigers, in their zest for life, and indomitable personalities. They were the dangerous types of tigers that do exist in the world, from whom we must we wary.

I knew the state of the moon because I am a moon child. I know about the lunar cycles by experience. I do not need to glance out my window to know if the moon is full. I feel it. The tides are high inside me, and I know a new beach will be revealed soon.

On this beach there will be time to walk, and perhaps find new things have washed up in the night and early morning hours, when the tide was low. There may be paw prints of a Bengal Tiger there. And perhaps when I turn I will see the prints are mine own. For we all can have the spirit of the tiger inside us, and often we must have it in order to excel.

Today, on Burnside Street in Portland, I stood near a homeless older man, his stringy white hair and beard framing a face that has seen many struggles. He had a dirty yellow blanket wrapped around himself, his oversized glasses were stained and hung low over his weathered nose. His material possessions were contained within a shopping cart, that was topped with two small umbrellas. It was raining in Portland, and this man was hunkered down in a bus stop, until the rain subsided. As I often do with strangers, I struck up a conversation with the man. I commented on his need for two umbrella's, and that segued into the man espousing his life view that we are all the same, and the fabric that binds us is our common need to survive. He did not say it in an eloquent way, but there was gritty truth to his words. We cannot know the impact we have on those we meet. One kind word may be enough to help them get through one more day. One full, oversized moon may be enough to inspire them to the fact that despite all the hurt and hopelessness in the world, there is also great beauty, that walk together like strange companions.

One of things that occur to me today, on this, my strange journey, this moon dance, this beach, is that job interviews are not unlike the knowledge that when we enter a room to be interviewed there is a certain apprehension about whether there will be a Bengal Tiger waiting for us inside, or a friendly farm dog or cat, the former seeking to eat us alive, and the latter to make us feel at home. We step into the unknown, the night, our feet seeking to land on solid ground. We are apprehensive of our interviewer's will accept us or reject us. We go hoping we will find a new home.

But where is home, exactly? I am not sure where my home is anymore. I have made my home in many places, and yet the thought keeps returning to me that I must return, like a spawning salmon, to the countryside, where my head and heart will be at peace, and my hands will till the earth and in the quiet evenings there will be only the sound of crickets and the musical scrapes of wind bowed wild grasses caressing one other in the night. You can take a man out of the country, but you cannot take the country out of the man. Rural life has deep roots in me, and like a tree's roots that sense water in the earth, so mine do as well when I see a wild tract of land where my future house might stand.

My daughter lives in a suburb of Paris. She is an urbanite, a brave soul, small in stature but hugely resolute in her belief that in the madness of life she can find her way as an artist. I have taken this same journey, and as her father I have offered layers of advice and gentle encouragement. A father should be required to carry pompoms and know a certain number of basic cheers to encourage his children. And not only his children, but everyone who he meets in random and planned places. My daughter attends École des Beaux-Arts, where the archaic art forms and methodologies still thrive. She emails photos of her artful life, and shares her fears and hopes. She took a leap of faith in going with her French boyfriend to Paris, after her graduation from a good east coast college. It was a leap of love, which is often the best motivation for action. When we leap, we extend our feet and hearts in expectation of a solid landing on a new place where all we have worked for will come to fruition. We leap into the unknown, like tigers. We leap because we must leap, or see our dreams diminish.

What have I worked for? I thought to myself as I readied my portfolio for my interview. We are all still a bit lost, but some of us have good maps that we hold in our trembling hands. The trembling is due to two things: our fear of failure, and our fear that all our altruistic hopes for ourselves will come true. I am holding that map in my hands now. I often get it out to examine it and think, no, visualize that new me, in that new land.

We each have within us, the enormous capacity for goodness. Some, more than others. In the night, when I sit up in my bed and play my guitar, or write, I have a sensation of warmth that wells up from deep inside my heart. The heart is a much wiser organ than the brain. The heart believes things the brain resists believing. It is a sense of knowing that fills me now, as I prepare to enter a room where a Bengal tiger may be waiting. But one can be at peace even when stared at by a Bengal tiger. For even tigers can sense a person's self-confidence, and courage.

I mailed my daughter two CD's of my original music a week ago. In the package I also enclosed a 1925 edition of Little Orphan Annie. The comic, created by Harold Gray, has a number of endearing qualities. I read the comic while in an antique store in Hillsboro, Oregon. Mr. Gray knew something about life.  He understood the difference between genuine and disingenuous people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Orphan_Annie
We could all learn something from that cartoon. We have all been Little Orphan Annie's in our aloneness.

I am sitting in a cafe called The Side Door, in southeast Portland, writing this blog. A young man was in the parking area of the cafe, dumpster diving. As I sit here I think of the old man wrapped in a filthy yellow blanket. I think of the old man Phil Connors (Bill Murray) helps in the film, Groundhog Day. There are many lessons to be learned from that comic film. Given enough time, even the worse of us can become better people.

As I sit here in this old but revamped cafe, admiring the high bare brick walls, watching the friendly barrister interact with customers, the Indie music on the stereo, the comfortable and well used seating whose crinkled faux leather fabrics testify to meals shared, I remember that we are all the same. It is possible that Bengal Tigers can become friendly farm cats and dogs if we present ourselves in a non-threatening manner. This is Portland, the land of Portlandia, where Bengal Tigers await their transformation into loving and successful human beings while lingering over well-made soups in cafes, or hunkered down in bus stops on a rainy day, mulling over their homelessness and how they will resurrect their dreams.

My daughter works in a children's shoe store to augment her bank account while she attends school. Paris is not unlike Portland in many ways. Bigger, of course, but it is raining there too, and though they speak French, and have ways of doing things that seem far different than the way things are done in Oregon, we are kindred spirits. We live at the same latitude, we cultivate similar wines. We love our families and offer words of encouragement to homeless strangers in bus stops, in much the same manner, and for the same reasons. We interview for jobs we need and leave jobs we do not need.  We aspire to be better people, to reach our goals, and mentor others along the way. I am going to Paris this year to see my daughter, and her boyfriend, Gregoire, who is a cinematographer on his own artistic journey. I have no proof of this, but I feel it, as I feel the appearance of a full moon.

It occurs to me now that my daughter, when faced with a Bengal Tiger in a room, became a tiger, and any fear she had: that she could not become fluent in French in two months; that she could not become a skilled artist; that she could not make her love affair with Gregoire last; that she would starve for lack of money; were conquered, and now she is realizing she can do anything. I am waving my pompoms for her. 

The future of advertising in an economy running on fumes.

Behold, a New World where truth reigns. Maybe.

Are you as tired of television advertising as I am? Surely I am not the only one who reaches for the mute button on the remote when a commercial for a tampon applicator that comes in fun new colors, a triple decker hamburger that has more carcinogens than a Standard Oil refinery, a tablet that can connect you to a billion of your friends in one nanosecond, or an automobile manufacturer who is trying to sell a vehicle based not on its ability to get remarkable mileage, but rather on its amenities such as its moon roof, GPS, heated leather seats, stereo system, or its back up camera to keep drivers from running over their dogs or pedestrians, while being distracted by amenities. Stop the roller coaster, I want to get off.

I find it annoying because I am not a superficial consumer. I have a background in advertising, and I am trying to wash my hands of it with organic soap. But advertising is everywhere, and this ubiquitous presence is still trying to sell us a bunch of lies. And I don't know about you, but I grew tired of lies a long time ago. Do you read food labels? I do. I read food ingredients labels to see what poisons manufacturers want me to ingest to keep the healthcare business alive. But I love my liver; I care about the environment; I recycle. The problem with American consumers is most do not read labels or believe that American industry is all about money not about health. Which means most products should contain, in bold type, the disclaimer, to be read in a cheerful 1960s television voice: WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU OR THE EARTH. WE DON'T CARE HOW LONG YOU LIVE, OR THE QUALITY OF YOUR LIFE WHILE YOU'RE ALIVE. BUY THIS PRODUCT BECAUSE YOU ARE TOO LAZY TO THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU OR YOUR FAMILY PUTS IN YOUR BODIES. PLEASE USE MORE FLUORIDE TO POISON YOURSELVES, DO NOT QUESTION ANYTHING YOU READ OR HEAR.  THE AMERICAN DENTAL INDUSTRY, THE AMA, THE USDA, BIG OIL, THE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY, AND THE RICH, WHO CONTROL THE AFOREMENTIONED, ARE YOUR FRIENDS. HELP US CONTINUE TO PROSPER, THANK YOU, AND GOD BLESS AMERICA.

There is an out of sight, out of mind mentality in regards to people's awareness of the products they buy, and the food they consume. And the real state of the world's economy. Now we are being told that the world's oil reserves are going to last indefinitely. The U.S. economy is bankrupt? Bah-humbug! What does this mean? Do we have fifty years left? A hundred years? Ten years? Until next Tuesday? Who controls this flow of honest communication? Satan? And, really, is there any gold left in Fort Knox? Are we are all playing with funny money?

What the majority, if not all of the products in stores and on television have in common is petroleum. Without petroleum there will be no plastic for a myriad of products. We are surrounded by plastic and forms of plastic that will go away without petroleum. Imagine a grocery without plastic packaging. Your voice would echo for seconds in such a place. To a large extent your car is made of plastic. Your life is shrink-wrapped in plastic. You only lack a barcode.

Plastic will last for thousands of years. Rafts of it float in the oceans of the world. Plastic will become more valuable than gold if the supply of petroleum is turned off. Imagine clothing without petroleum based materials. Goodbye, sports equipment. No elastic for bra's, hose, underwear, toothbrushes, the svelte Nike running wear you love so much, the battery or electrically powered devices you depend upon, no rubber for your shoes, no dyes for fabrics and their logos, no thread to hold it all together. No stylish sunglasses, or designer frames. No printer inks for your HP printer, no books, no CDs, no DVDs. Without petroleum, the world will also be a less colorful place. Goodbye makeup counters, goodbye acrylic, lacquer, and enamel paints that make our civilized world so pretty - that allow a lot of people to make a living, (and die of work related cancers). Goodbye pesticides, goodbye GMO's, goodbye bullets, and weapons of mass destruction. We will be living in The Stone Age. And it might not take an apocalyptic event to get us there. The clock will simply run out for The Oil Age. Goodbye modern society.

Petroleum is the lubricant that runs the machines that make everything you wear or drive, the transportation industry on land, air, or sea, packaging your food comes in, the newspaper your read, your computer, your lipstick and makeup, the plethora of personal care products that you count on to look good, materials and machinery to the build dams, office buildings, and homes. Without petroleum the world will come grinding to a halt. Nothing will get done very fast, if at all. And if it is metal, it will rust.

In the future, when the world realizes the salad days are gone, there will be plastic collectors who will recycle plastic with the power of water mills. There will be water, food, fuel, and seed wars. But long before the Earth is stripped bare of natural resources, wars and  plagues will wipe out billions. Darwin's 'Survival of the Fittest' will take over. This will be an age of everybody for themselves. It will be a time where a person with knowledge about technology or medicines will be called a wizard. We will be living in Middle Earth in The New Dark Ages, this new Stone Age. A person who can read the crumbling ancient books will be revered as sages and scholars. Comedians will flourish; there will be an unheard of need for people who can make people laugh. There will not be a whole lot to live for without jesters to lighten the mood. Comedians will make life in The Stone Age bearable.

In the future, the future without petroleum and its many byproducts, there will be dirty little villages on the fringes of decaying cities. There will be the clickety clack of wood wheeled bicycles on the weed choked streets and sidewalks. The cities will long have been stripped of metal and plastic and mostly be the domain of criminals and wildlife. Metal, plastic, and wood barons will stockpile their treasures in vast stone fortresses. People will kill for a crust of bread and fresh water. Plants will turn New York and Los Angeles into urban jungles. People will avoid going into the cities for fear of being killed by animals and criminals. Only cannibals will live in the cities. Gold and gems will be the cash of the future.

Comedians during this time will wear festive clothing they have obtained from black market sources. The drably dressed populace will recognize comedians by their elaborate comic wagons that will roll into their villages once a month. Crowds will gather around these wagons and the comedian will stand atop his wagon and do his or her routine and be paid with produce and bread. Bread will be extremely valuable in the future. Bakers will be among the nobility of this era. People will make bread from just about everything. Potato bread will be the most common form, and contain a mixture of wild grains gathered by hand during the bleak rainy summers, by lowly serfs with no educations.

About five hundred years into this malaise, this New Dark Age, there will be a technological breakthrough. A brilliant person, probably employed by one of the many lords, or kings of the land, will find a way to make hydrogen powered engines, and civilization will enter into a new renaissance. Petroleum will be forgotten. Knowledge will again be given to the masses. Governments will arise, and justice will again be found. Houses of worship will be built and reclaimed. The cities will slowly be resettled, there will be merriment. A slew of festivals will mark the beginning of the New Dawn of Mankind.

The jesters who once roamed the land as vagabonds will become advertising men. But the ads on the new high definition sets will not be like the old ads. No. The new ads will tell the truth about the products. Everything plastic will be gathered and recycled, or reduced into oil that will be used to make solar panels. The Earth will be cleaned up. Scientists will find a way to make things without petroleum. A strange plant in the ocean will ignite a storm of technology. Metal gears will lubricate themselves.

The political structure of this New Age of Enlightenment will not be democratic, communist, or totalitarian. It will be a monarchy, and the advertising people will no longer be on top, and the messages they will be telling will be the truth.  Hopefully.

My descendants, if they survive this troubling time, will have titles like Ecological Engineer, and World Renewer. Television, and the movies will be wholesome and people will live like in the movie Pleasantville, but in color and with bright, happy, wholesome, and organic thoughts.

At that time in human history, will have supplanted plastic with an organic form that replicates itself. Self-repairing materials will be the norm. Even human beings will be able to regenerate their missing limbs and organs. Plastic and petroleum will become the stuff of legend, from a time of darkness that was long ago and far away. Amen.

My Theatrical Legerdemain and Other Hyperbole.

Actors at the Jewel Box Theatre in Seattle adore me.

Artists and writers are among the most insecure of people. It always helps when people besides ourselves believe in our talents. And if not in our talents, then in what we have produced. Exhibit A.) The universe has for some unknown reason decided my scripts are worthy of being performed to rave reviews in Seattle. So, I pause now to reflect on this small success. I forget to celebrate my small victories, but now I will try.

Thomas Brophy, the director/actor of the Seattle Readers, a theater group with  a cast of ever changing proportions,  wrote a month ago to tell me my play, "The Accordion," was the 'hit of the night!" The group, which performs works at the Jewel Box Theatre (Rendezvous Theatre) in the 'Bell-town' area north of downtown Seattle, is always on the lookout for new material. They accepted three excerpts from my comedy screenplays: The Accordion, How To Shear A Sheep, and Forget You?! http://www.theatrereaders.com/

The Accordion has to do with a young man (Manuel Landau Lopez) who is separated from his parents during the French invasion of Mexico, and the end of a curse that has affected the Landau family for over two thousand years. Manuel, separated from his parents at age six, and raised by coyotes, is not used to the ways of human beings. Since his childhood he has worn a locket with the image of a carriage and a Star of David incised upon it, which is a clue to his name and heritage. Unbeknownst to Manuel, his parents, after he was separated from them during their escape from French cavalry (they were gun runners), have become pirates. His mother, an imposing woman named Francesca, has become the captain of a pirate ship she has renamed 'The Chutzpah.'  Manuel's father, a small man named Emilio who has a lexicon-like vocabulary, is Francesca's second in command. Francesca, owing to her small vocabulary, often snaps her fingers to have Emilio provide her with the most fitting word to express herself.

Manuel leaves his adoptive coyote parents when he is a teenager, and shortly thereafter he falls in love with Lucretia, a beautiful Gypsy girl, entranced by her wonderful accordion song. Her accordion has been passed down for a number of years, and the song  she plays is the one she learned from her parents and they before them, all the way back to Germany, when an ancestor of Manuel seduced his housekeeper and got her pregnant. Because of that ancestor's rejection of Lucretia's ancestor, and the death of the child, there is a curse upon the Landau family that can only be righted by a marriage of the two families. Otherwise, the curse goes on forever, and like Manuel's ancient family member - King David, the first born child will die. Manuel and Lucretia, directed by a fortune teller in Mexico, go to the coast and are kidnapped by Manuel's parents. They are forced to scrub the decks despite Lucretia being two months pregnant with Manuel's child. Francesca decides to sell "Manny" and Lucretia to Pirate Bruce, but after they are sold she sees the locket Emilio has taken from Manuel. Francesca, Emilio, and the crew of the Chutzpah pursue Pirate Bruce to rescue Manuel and Lucretia. On an island where Pirate Bruce and his crew are trying to locate Red Beard's treasure, Manuel and his parents are reunited.

How To Shear A Sheep is the story of Willis Sweets, Laura Lee Boggs, and Charlie Settler's journey west from Key West, Florida, to return a peridot engagement ring to Lester McDougal (Curly), the largest sheep rancher in the state of Wyoming. The ring was given to Willis's aunt, Ginnie, by the rancher when she was young. On her deathbed Ginnie makes Willis swear he will return the ring. Willis, after her death receives an inheritance Ginnie has kept from him that once belonged to his father: a sheep shear, a cowboy hat, and a useless antique Colt pistol. Willis is informed by the lawyer he is being evicted from his aunt's trailer, and his cash inheritance after back taxes, lawyer fees, his aunt's funeral expenses, and late trailer rental fees - amounts to less than fifty dollars.

Willis and Laura Lee are fired from a Walmart store due to their ongoing trysts while they are supposed to be working. Willis, seeing his management trainee career is gone, and having no recourse, decides he must rob a bank to stay afloat. He talks Laura Lee into giving him a ride to the bank, without telling her of his plan. Escaping in Laura Lee's Nova, they fishtail into an alley to elude a police car. Laura Lee, wracked with guilt and horror at being a fugitive, tosses the bulk of the stolen money out the window. It lands in the lap of Charlie Settler, a homeless Harvard educated Native American. Charlie, thinking his prayers have been answered, heads to a bar to celebrate.

Willis and Laura Lee find Charlie in the bar and the threesome strike a deal to head west to Wyoming. The following day, Willis trades in the Nova for a used Jeep Wagoneer. They begin a hilarious trip across America, with opposing and poignant comments from Willis and Charlie, mechanical breakdowns, robberies, and Laura Lee serving as the peace maker.  They stop at a bar and Willis and Charlie are offered jobs on a seismograph crew. The news elates Laura Lee, but Willis isn't sold on the idea of taking the job. As they argue about it while driving in downtown Farson, Wyoming Willis is distracted and runs down the town drunk. When the police show up, Laura Lee takes the blame. The drunk is none other than Lester McDougal, Willis's aunt's former beau, the richest sheep rancher in Wyoming. Due to his being so inebriated, Lester only sustains a broken leg, and when Laura Lee takes the blame for running Lester down, he does not press charges and insists she come to help him recover and live at his ranch. Seeing Laura Lee's good fortune, Willis suggests she extort cash from Lester, but she is uncooperative. Willis and Charlie accept the seismograph crew jobs, and begin blasting with dynamite to find oil and gas deposits. They fail in this job within a few days, and come to Lester's ranch to beg for jobs shearing sheep. Because of Laura Lee, Lester allows them to learn the trade from a ranch hand.

During the time Laura Lee works as Lester's nurse, Lester notices the peridot ring she is wearing. She tells him she is Aunt Ginnie's niece, and that Ginny has died in Key West, Florida. Lester refuses to take the peridot ring back, confesses his love for her, and asks her to marry him. Laura Lee agrees, and tells Willis, who is livid about the development when he learns she means to go through with it. He is also angry about his ineptness at shearing sheep, and he enlists Charlie's help in kidnapping Laura Lee on the eve of her wedding. They take her to the Killpecker Dunes, and hide out until Lester brings the money. During the night, Laura Lee tries to escape, and she blows up the Wagoneer with dynamite.

On the agreed day, Lester has his men camouflage themselves with sagebrush, and lets Willis and Charlie know he has the three million dollar ransom money. Willis and Charlie arrive and are captured by Lester and his ranch hands, but before Lester and his men can hang them, the truth comes out that Willis is Aunt Ginnie's nephew, not Laura Lee. Lester says it doesn't matter, and that the wedding is still on. Willis and Charlie are released, on the condition they agree to clean up the metal shards of the Wagoneer that litters Lester's property. Willis finds a bundle of dynamite from their first job in Wyoming, and blows a hole looking for water. He and Charlie find themselves in a shower of oil, and, thinking they are rich, they dance in celebration. But they have simply ruptured an oil pipeline, and they must hightail it back to Florida to avoid the law.

Forget You?! is the story of David Honeyman reconciling with Jack, his Alzheimer's diseased father during a long Easter weekend. David, a neurotic sports writer, is sure his father hates him, and yet he realizes this is his last chance to make the emotional connection he's never had. When David, and his wife, Lisa, and their young daughter, Kristin, arrive at David's parent's house, David learns that his father's truck needs a battery. He decides this is a perfect opportunity to make the emotional segue, and he takes Jack to an auto parts store. Jack has to pee, and despite David trying to prevent his father from peeing in the aisle of the store, Jack pees in an empty gas can. David buys the gas can, and the battery, and Jack insists on driving home, though it is David's car. They narrowly avoid getting in an accident, but they eventually arrive back at Jack and Barbara Honeyman's home.

David' mother, Barbara, takes Lisa and Kristin shopping. Barbara buys Kristin a kitten. Later that night, David puts the kitten's cage by a back door. Barbara trips over the cage and cuts her head. They take Barbara to a hospital and she spends the night. Lisa insists that David sleep with Jack to keep him company. Wigged out by this experience, David decides he will tough it out despite Jack's illness. Encouraged by the progress he is making with his father, David decides to take a few days off. During this time they all go to a mall; Lisa, Barbara, and Kristen go shopping, while David and Jack go to a movie.

While at the movie theater, David goes to the concession stand, and leaves Jack alone in the theater. When he returns, Jack has wandered away, hoping to find his girlfriend, (Barbara). Jack boards a bus and the driver drops him off at the hospital. Jack wanders into a room that has recently been occupied, and goes to sleep. The staff mistakes Jack for another  patient and prepares him for surgery. When David, Lisa, and Kristen go the hospital, hoping to find Jack and pick up Barbara, they find Jack being wheeled down an hallway en route to the surgery.

 As David and his family prepare to leave the following day, Jack tells David he loves him.

I'm apparently Bruce Willis's cousin.

The lab tests confirm I will be a survivor of the end of the world. 

The Department of Veteran’s Affairs lab report has arrived. I opened their thin letter with a good deal of trepidation. When you are over fifty, and your grandfather died of a heart attack it is normal to expect the worst. The nurse at the veteran’s clinic was efficient; she drew and labeled four test tubes of blood in two minutes. She does this all the time. I am not a blood donor but I should be. I have Type O Positive, a universal donor blood type that is valuable as gold when it comes to transfusions. The blood tests were divided into forty-two categories, with neat columns showing the results, including the Normal Reference Range on the far right column. I was supposed to fast before the tests, but I forgot and ate a sesame butter sandwich. That probably explains the slightly elevated cholesterol. But they had no column that read “Traces of organic bread and sesame butter.” The bread, "Dave's Killer Bread," is chock full of sunflower and sesame seeds. You could live to be 200 if you ate Dave's 'Robust Raisin' bread every day. So I do. I'll be so old I'll have wrinkles on my wrinkles. On the back of the two sided report, after the results lists, was a short note from the doctor I’d seen. It read, “Your lab work looks great Mr. Mortenson, please call if you have any questions.” What questions would I have? Like, "Hey Doc, did you see how my stomach bulges on that one side? Do you suppose I have a toy embedded there from my childhood?" Or, "Couldn't you at least slice me open to take a look around?" The last VA doctor told me I should be in a display case.  I expected a terse note stapled to the lab report to the effect of: "P.S. It’s guys like you that will put the VA out of business! I have a mortgage, mister!”

My last big visit to the VA was for a colonoscopy. It was the most fun I’ve ever had in a hospital. I have only been in a hospital three times in my life. Once was to see my ex wife. The second time was to take my father to the urgent care wing. (He had injured his left arm while trying to fell one of my trees with his chain saw. The tree won.) I wrote a blog about my third experience, which was not unlike a Vonnegut novel. Or maybe it was a modern day rendition of Alice In Wonderland. I did, after all, see a floating head appear several times on a curtain, and both the floating head and I spoke nonsensical things.

A visit to a Veteran’s clinic or hospital is an effective remedy for the over fifty-years-old blues. The likelihood of catching a disease or virus while walking the labyrinth of Seattle’s VA hospital was high but I did it. But it is nice to know there are lots of skilled people in the VA’s hospitals. They get really good at treating wounds. Probably much better than the average staff. So if I ever get shot, I know where I’ll go for treatment. In Seattle’s VA hospital you’ll get a cardiovascular workout walking from one department to the next, even if you take the elevators, which I did. It seems bigger than the one in Atlanta, where I went to see about getting a job, not for treatment of anything. But I suppose I could claim PTSD from applying to jobs the last three years, or carpal tunnel from reworking cover letters and resumes to fit particular jobs.

Not that it makes much difference now that I am apparently the bionic man. I haven’t been really sick for twenty years, and I was only sick then because my ex put something in my cereal. Probably. How else does a person get E-Coli? I mean, extra E-Coli? Okay, maybe it was all the c***, er, I mean - the shenanigans - I was dealing with at the time. Bad marriages kill people all the time. But not me, so I must be Bruce Willis, as in the film, “Unbreakable.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_f1uCWKZQs  But I have broken one bone in my life, so maybe that isn't it either. Maybe I'm just too stubborn to get sick. A person has to have goals, and mine is to live to 101. I am already decrepit; imagine me in another fifty-years. I am depending on medical science to make some major breakthroughs by 2015, at the latest. I feel bad about the blog I wrote about December 21, 2012 being the end of life as we know it. There will probably be survivors, and I intend to be one of them. I am made to live in the Stone Age.

Type O Positive people can digest bicycles. It is a scientific fact. Or so I read somewhere. The reason is they have more robust stomach acid than average human beings. They are cave people. I know this because I also have my tonsils, appendix, and wisdom teeth. My arms are longer than most people’s arms. I am not saying I am a knuckle dragger, but if I had a sloping forehead I could be in a proto-human exhibit at a museum, aiming a spear at a wooly mammoth, while my cave woman cooked a leg of something on a fake fire, and my dirty little man-child, the one with the strange long hair smiled like a bad manikin in Macy’s, showing his big pointed canine teeth.

I am glad I am not sick. No cancer, yet. But you just wait. Yeah. I tried my best to convince the doctor, when he first met me at the clinic, that I was certain I was dying. I did my best Woody Allen impression. I acted neurotic. As neurotic as men with Danish ancestry can act, which is admittedly about as calm as any human being could look. But inside I was nervous. Yes. Finally, in desperation, I said I had a feeling my moles were misbehaving. I insisted on taking off my shirt to show the doctor. He reluctantly agreed to look. After thirty seconds he pronounced all my moles and freckles were not only benign but rather attractive and artistically arrayed. I told him to look again, and he did, but then he looked at his watch and said he had a golf date. So I gave him permission to leave. Because I had harassed him, he agreed that I should have a lab test to be sure I was Bruce Willis’s cousin. It turns out I am. Now if Bruce can just introduce me to M. Night Shyamalan. I have way too many screenplays sitting in boxes. They’re all Type O Positive scripts. ‘O’ stands for 'outstanding.'

Pomplamoose: The quirky success story of one couple's social media.

Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte of Pomplamoose.

You wouldn't think that naming your group after a grapefruit, (French: pamplemousse), would lead to anything, but apparently grapefruit has powerful properties that go beyond thoughts of breakfast. I first learned of Pomplamoose in 2010, by which time they had already had over 100,000 songs downloaded online. Now they have 3 million views per month on YouTube, and make a good living via iTunes. Though when Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn (Natalie Dawn Knutsen) hooked up in the summer of 2008, their goals were much smaller, and their equipment and recording spaces were a lot less tech, and of lesser quality than they are today. They had no inkling they would one day be on a lot of people's minds; they simply wanted to share their love of music online, and make enough money to keep doing music for a living. Here's their take on how they do what they do: http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/17/keen-on-pomplamoose-how-nataly-and-jack-are-reinventing-the-music-business-tctv/

Pomplamoose first made a big splash in the musical pond with their Hyundai holiday TV spots. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g947151eKQo Hyundai remodeled the couple's garage into a recording studio to shoot the spots. Today, corporate sponsorships and contracts have added a hefty chunk to Pomplamoose's income.

Their choreography and video edits are similar in style to the old Monkey's videos, (who weren't in Pomplamoose's league as musicians),  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfuBREMXxts  and this is right in line with their style of music, which is Pop with a capital 'P.' But not the usual pop. (I would not be surprised if they redo "Valerie," "Pleasant Valley Sunday," and "I'm a Believer" in the near future). This kind of fresh off the grill type of musical entertainment has been seen before, but not in this way. They aren't Sonny and Cher, but they are as entertaining. Pomplamoose adds the special ingredient of love and romance to doing music. A phrase to describe Pomplamoose? A loving and humorous spontaneity, and inventive musical chemistry. Their musical and romantic chemistry are fresh and genuine, as romantic as when Adam Sandler sang to Drew Barrymore, in "The Wedding Singer," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPsW2FYprfI It is this love connection, and love of music, that make Pomplamoose work as a band, and as a couple, and why millions of fans love them. They're the real deal, even though some have been put off by Dawn's eye shifting antics. It's just part of style of the musical act. Dawn's delivery of deadpan lines is simply an expression of her quirky personality. She's young, give her time.

Pomplamoose http://www.youtube.com/user/PomplamooseMusic  has made a perfect marriage of the old music, that of the pre-Depression era, the 1960s, and the offbeat Indie songs of the 21st Century, however, Conte and Dawn describe their work as falling into the pop genre. Dawn's sweet retro voice, though, is right out of the 1920s and 1930s, and Conte's manic and joyful instrumentals and goofy expressions are uniquely his own. Together, they make world class entertainment, in an industry where Lady Gaga, Madonna, and rock band theatrics - with light shows and "smoke and mirrors" are the norm. Their musical approach falls somewhere in the honest realm of watching a group of bluegrass musicians in someone's living room, and hanging out with Joni Mitchell and Graham Nash one sunny afternoon in the 1960s.

Their work is split between cover songs and originals. Nataly has her own channel on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/natalydawn where you can hear covers such as "Superman's Song." Pomplamoose has done fabulous covers of "Mr. Sandman," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xMCNmUaGko Beyonce's "Single Ladies, (Put A Ring On It)," and many others. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIr8-f2OWhs&feature=player_embedded But cover songs aren't Pomplanoose's most memorable music. Their originals are as lyrically good as any folk songs, which is no small feat. They are not as sappy or saccharine as the Pee Wee Herman era band named Aqua, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyhrYis509A yet they have the same fun attitude without the electronica or the "Let's make fun of Southern California" style lyrics. No, with Pomplamoose its all natural talent. They don't dress up, it's a come as you are Pomplamoose party. Sweatshirts and jeans are the norm.

Their covers and originals have wit, charm, and inventiveness. Even the old Moody Blues members should take note of Conte's and Nataly's multi-instrumental virtuosity. Anything that can be used to make music is used, and used well. Nataly spent a good deal of her early life in France and Belgium, so the French have a particular fondness for her. So look for a European tour at some point. Here is an early French song of hers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJuKoPaSpOU&feature=relmfu  In 2011, Pomplamoose toured with another YouTube friendly band, OK GO http://okgo.net/ whose zany videos are even more like the Monkey's than Pomplamoose.

Pomplamoose are not the first, nor will they be the last to use social media as an effective detour around the old school way to get from Point A to Point B in the music business. At this moment there are probably a lot of music producers talking about them in the boardrooms of the major music labels. I suspect those high rollers of the music business are speaking with voices that are a bit shaky, because Pomplamoose's way is the way of the future, and a large proportion of future musical artists are going to follow in their footsteps.

Fans of Pomplamoose can reach them via:

Pomplamoose
PO Box 1323
Rohnert Park, CA 94927
pomplamoosemusic@gmail.com 

Creating latte art is a swirl of new expression in my coffee.

I am learning to make hearts in my lattes. You haven't lived until you try it. 

My parents were big fans of coffee. My father drank a cup of Joe every morning before he went to work, though the coffee brands he and my mother drank were thin and cheap generic store brands that pale in comparison to the coffees now available in stores, and the plethora of drive through coffee stands that have become commonplace in every city in America, if not the world.

My parents liked freeze dried Sanka. It was perfect for camping trips. No camping trips were complete without the adults holding cups of coffee in their hands as they sat around the camp fires. Every one of my parent's friends were coffee drinkers. And many were smokers. I always equated smoking with drinking coffee, which is why, until fifteen years ago, I hadn't had much interest in coffee. When I was a kid, coffee ads were regularly aired on the TV. The first one I recall was shown on the Lucille Ball show. Desi and Lucy were gaga for Sanka, and money was greasing the track of their endorsement. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOSIcmk27rM&NR=1&feature=endscreen


Freeze drying was the hip thing in the 1960s. This was when Tang, the powdered orange drink, was in everybody's kitchens, right next to the box of Wheaties. If it was good enough for the astronauts, it was good enough for me! At that time, Tang was mostly sugar and fake orange flavor. In 2007, Kraft Foods replaced half the sugar with really awful sugar replacements, like sucralose, acesulfame potassium, and neotame. They used to use some truly horrible things to decaffeinate coffee beans, such as benzene, chloroform, and trichloroethylene (TCE).Dichloromethane, and CH₂Cl_{2, most of which of have been shown to be carcinogenic. Which means that Sanka and Maxwell House and other "decaffeinated" coffees had some pretty nasty stuff in them. Coffee is predominantly decaffeinated with more benign things now, like hot water, and the fluid version of CO2. In the future there may be no need for decaffeinated coffee. In 2003 the caffeine "switch" was found in tea and coffee plants, so now it is a matter of simply turning off the switch so the plants don't make caffeine. Can you spell GMO, people? One day they will turn off or turn on the switches in you or your children to make them office workers or to grow bigger boobs or other enhancements. I hope the caffeine has killed me by then.}


There have been many lawsuits against cigarette companies, but there should have been a few against coffee companies, and other food companies, who knew darn well the ingredients and the solvents they were using were toxic to human beings.  The American public still thought corporations cared about them back them, thanks to advertising which used trusted spokespeople to sell products. Even the Andy of Mayberry show had endorsements for Sanka that were precursors to infomercials. Did Sheriff Andy Taylor know he was selling cancerous coffee crystals? No. Neither did Opie, or Aunt Bee, who were so wholesome they could sell radioactive waste as if it were a natural part of a nutritious breakfast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxbcQ6lV00s&feature=related  Even Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble advertised Winston cigarettes. The viewing audiences were naive, and the products were lousy and cheap. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYvOgnabABU 

Coffee companies quickly used TV advertising successfully, just as cigarette, liquor, and a lot of other companies had for many years. When I think of the 1960s I cannot get the slogans out of my head. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is! Ad men at this time in history were enjoying the golden era of writing pithy sales copy for everything. The coffee brands had memorable slogans, and many had distinctive music tracks to support their brands. The brands aligned themselves with TV shows and personalities, such as Danny Thomas and Dick Van Dyke. Maxwell House had a memorable perky music track that sounded like coffee being brewed. The music alone could have sold their coffee. In the 1980s, Maxwell House hired Ricardo Montalban to endorse it, and Montalban went on to sell a half dozen other products, including rich Corinthian leather. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxbcQ6lV00s&feature=related

I had never tasted more than a half cup of coffee before I turned eighteen, though my siblings and I occasionally mixed coffee with on our vanilla ice cream. We didn't know this was like a latte. I had my first cup of coffee in Europe in 1973. I was hitch hiking in Italy after my high school graduation, when a man in a small red Italian car gave me a lift. In the back seat of the car there was a green parrot in a tall wooden cage. The cage jostled back and forth as the driver, a fifty-something year old man who sported a pencil thin mustache and an odd hat, steered the tiny car through the curvy streets of Bologna. He spoke little English, and I spoke no Italian, but he said we had to stop for an espresso. It was early afternoon, and easily ninety degrees that day. I had heard of espresso, but I'd never tried it. We stopped at a small cafe and he bought me an espresso that came in a tiny white china cup, which sat on an equally tiny saucer. The espresso was thick, greasy, and sweet. It was nice, and a great introduction to freshly brewed quality coffee. And I was wired for hours.

My father drank coffee every morning for as long as I can remember, and mom filled his metal thermos with coffee to wash down his bologna sandwiches and chips. He was perked up most of the day, which was what an auto body repair shop owner needed to get the work done. Drinking coffee was a tradition that my parents practiced into old age. Naturally, with this indoctrination, I married a woman who was enamored with coffee. She had an flame red  espresso machine that made truly terrifying sounds as it got going. She was skilled in the workings of the machine's knobs and buttons, and assured me it would not explode and embed shrapnel into the walls and our bodies. I did not know coffee's health benefits at that time, for if I had I would have been on the cutting edge in the 1990s when a lot of forward thinking entrepreneurs got into the coffee drive through business in the little college town where we lived.

I am dating a woman who owns three coffee stands. So when I think of coffee, I think of relationships. Nothing gets people in a talkative, sociable mood like a good cup of coffee. I'm not immune to its caffeine, and I'm not good at measuring how many scoops to put in my French press. I was jittery for most of yesterday morning due to bad measuring. I never cared for the generic coffees, but I'm a big fan of organic coffees. My prostate is too. I'm drinking several cups of coffee per week to help that old organ. I like my coffee thick and creamy, like the espresso I had in Italy years ago. I've even begun dabbling in making designs in my lattes. I'm not sure I'll drink my creations, but I'll certainly photograph them.

The health benefits of coffee have been confirmed by modern science. I like the idea of a drink that can save me from getting prostate cancer.  I want to live to be 100, and coffee seems to be the ticket. But it also raises blood pressure, so it may be the drink that ultimately kills me. They will find me slumped over a keyboard, a latte on the table beside me.  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43065205/ns/health-cancer/t/swilling-coffee-may-protect-men-against-prostate-cancer/#.T0pOl2WbWHI  


Too much caffeine isn't so great for pregnant women either. Researchers from California's Kaiser Permanente Division of Research report that women who consumed 200 mg or more of caffeine per day (about two cups of coffee), doubled their miscarriage risk. But on the other hand, it helps the cognitive powers of women over 65 , eases constipation, stops eye spasms, and makes you sexier. Well, I made up that last one. Too much of anything is not good, and coffee is no exception. Too much of it can decrease bone density. So if you're a woman your brain will be firing on all cylinders from the caffeine in the coffee, but you'll have bones as brittle as a sparrow's. Your teeth, or your dentures, will turn the color of yellowed wallpaper, but you'll be a stellar Scrabble player.

So drink up you old men, save your prostate . My brew is ready now. Mmm, and it's good to the last drop. I'll have a second cup! Here are some video links about how to make swirly art with your coffee, darling. Make mine with lots of milk and sugar, baby. If I'm gonna go, I want to go with a smile on my face.

How to make a heart in your coffee:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY2nncqKGjQ&feature=related

How to make many shapes with chocolate syrup:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDZs__m5iAI

How to pour the milk like a pro.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si-wsNVh7qI&feature=related