Take as Directed. No Refills.

I’ve had a birthday recently and at the same time I’ve acquired whooping cough (really, what is this, 1925?) and now I have a sinus infection. Terrific. I feel like I’ve got another week, tops, and then I’ll die. Don’t have much appetite so at least I’m not killing myself with food. Maybe the drugs (Percocet, codeine cough syrup, aspirin, blood pressure meds, fish oil supplements, a vitamin, probiotics, antibiotics and nasal spray) have something to do with my ennui and loss of appetite? Impossible. I’m not the most ambitious guy, but being housebound and uncomfortable for nearly two weeks is driving me nuts. Thank Christ for decent literature and good movies and TV.

For no other reason than that I’m bored crapless and haven’t written anything except the names drugs and their possible side-effects for the past ten days, I’m listing my sickbed diversions. I’ll never write another word if I don’t do this.

Reading:

Kafka Short Stories. Be careful, this stuff will drive you nuts. Great writing, but Kafka is exactly the reason they invented codeine cough syrup.

Bukowski. I’m done with him. Yes, I know; famous, great, gritty, but also self conscious, immature, drunk and sentimental.

Henry James. I never get tired of James’s long sentences, clauses that flow rhythmically for half a page and meaning doesn’t become clear until the last word. It’s a puzzle, a meditation, an exercise in concentration. He explored his characters’ complex psychology with careful observation and affection.

James Baldwin. Giovanni’s Room. Baldwin is a master stylist and can communicate rage and frustration better than any other writer I can bring to mind. Giovanni’s Room is a book about secrets and confusion, deadly codependence, poverty and pretense. Similar to Bukowski, there is an immature quality in the relationships, but Baldwin’s pursuit of excellence in writing is apparent and overcomes any criticism. Also, the story takes place in Paris in the mid-fifties; great city, great period.

The Essays of E. B. White. I know he was on the staff of the New Yorker for decades but we shouldn’t hold that against him. White was funny, smart, a magnificent spectator and he writes about America at a time when the country and culture were changing rapidly. He can be serene and furious, but the writing never gets away from him. Total control and at times deeply touching. (Once More to The Lake).

Saga is a science fiction comic series about two warring races that hate each other. A woman and a man from opposite armies fall in love, have a mixed-species child, (he’s got horns, she has wings), and are pursued by everyone. Lots of commentary about race without directly alluding to race. The dialogue is a touch millennial-snarky, but the monstrous villains, the violence and the shock, are out of sight and the sex is plentiful and wonderfully erotic. For a comic book. I still read comic books. In the bath.

I’m taking a Philosophy course at UNM and I’m working through my assigned reading even though I’m missing classes. Heidegger will break your fucking brain. Brilliant, the parts I can tease out and understand, but holy shit. Lines like: “Nothing is not nothing at all but, rather, does something.”  Fortunately, we’re also reading Sartre.

I’ve just started a book called The Power of The Dog, recommended by my friend, Armando Silva. I owe Armando bigtime for this one. The writer is Don Winslow and he really knows his shit about the DEA, the drug wars and cartels. Badassed writing; he never holds back. It’s fiction that reads like history. Like today. I’ve never come across anything so brutal and terrifying. There are also sections that made me laugh out loud. Try that, emerging writers.

TV Shows via Netflix or Amazon Prime:

Newsroom, Season 3. Well written and, if anyone cares about media and the direction it’s headed, it’s pretty depressing. A little too much snappy patter, but while Sorkin doesn’t quite hit the mark with people, he’s a master at analyzing institutions and showing the little bits of humanity that remain. He’s pissed and makes it very clear why. Episodes 2 and 3 have a subtext about the EPA and climate change that is staggering. As in, “It’s already over.”

The League and Archer. Comedies and neither require a lot of braintime. Both are completely inappropriate, harsh, and funny as hell. If you don’t like these shows you are either a snob or not as smart as you thought you were.

Seasons 4 and 5 of The Walking Dead. I was surprised that I’d missed season 4, which has been up on Netflix for a year, so when season 5 debuted I discovered, to my delight, that I had 32 episodes to watch. In a row. In three days. And I did. Decomposing corpses, dismemberment, massive violence, tubs of blood and gore but the developers have desensitized me and I thank them for that. Best writing and photography, music, acting. Breaking Bad and The Sopranos quality. It’s supposed to be about zombies and crap, but that’s not true. Take the zombies out of it and it would still work at a genius level. It’s a training film for the near future. (See Newsroom, Season 3, Episodes 2 and 3 for background).

Movies:

Back into French New Wave. Started, again, with Breathless. This is one of the greatest films I’ve ever seen and I can talk about it for days and still can’t figure out why it’s so goddamn good. Probably the same reason that Kerouac is good. Honesty, heart, no bullshit, anti-Hollywood, flawed, human. From there I watched a lot of Agnes Varda’s work; she’s one of the only women directors of New Wave films. She’s still alive (87) and has the most beautiful way of framing a shot that I’ve seen. La Pointe Courte actually pre-dates Breathless (1960) by five years and, in some ways, marks the beginning of the movement.

Claude Chabrol’s Le Beau Serge is a tragedy about two friends who meet after many years and one of them, Serge, has become a miserable alcoholic. It’s a study of cultures, life choices and how difficult it is for a person with urban sensibilities to understand and communicate with his rural counterpart. There is a voyeuristic feel to the film.

Elevator to The Gallows. Louis Malle. This movie is similar to Breathless: Young couple with few prospects goes on the run, kill, get caught. A parallel story about a business executive who has also committed murder and spends most of the film trapped in an elevator. Jean Moreau wanders the streets in the rain looking frantic, trapped and wet. The flick is notable for the score composed and performed by Miles Davis and commissioned by Malle. Worth it.

Pitfall is a typical American Film Noir starring Dick Powell and Lizbeth Scott. He’s a deadpan insurance guy, she’s a damaged woman with a boyfriend on parole and everyone gets into big trouble. A classic of the form, simple, short, straightforward, efficient. It’s easy to see how American films of this genre greatly influenced the French New Wave.

Music:

Don Cherry, Complete Communion

Bill Evans, Conversations with Myself

Grant Green, Idle Moments

Hayden String Quartets

Vivaldi, The Four Seasons

Arvo Part, Tabula Rasa

John Coltrane, The Complete Impulse! Studio Recordings

Wadada Leo Smith, The Great Lakes Suite

Henry Threadgill, Air Mail

The Clash, London Calling

The Who, Live at Leeds

Black Sabbath, The Ozzy Osbourne Years, Disc 3

There’s more. There has to be. Doesn’t there?

Just when I’m at the point in my life where I think I’m running out of time, birthday anxiety, and the end is near, and the doctors are telling me that if I don’t ABC then I’m for sure going to XYZ and I’ve decided that I’ve got to be more active, jeez, buy a bicycle, a skateboard, learn to swordfight, Kung Fu, active shit, man, moving, running in the mountains, climbing cliffs and trudging through snow, getting in touch with the external, the natural world, closer to trees and perhaps be friendlier, talk to people I don’t know, be nice to strangers, be nice to friends, call family more often, buy presents for kids, give money to the homeless, donate my time to those less fortunate, stop being so selfish and self-critical and so critical of others and get a haircut, buy some new clothes, answer the phone; just at the time I decide to change my life I get this crappy, enervating cough that turns into a raging, painful sinus infection and headaches and I coughed so much I fucked up my back, my neck, and all I can really do is to go back inside myself and read more books, hear more music, watch more films, write stories and poems and essays about my life and what I do, what I care about; reflect, remember, regret.

Take the meds, rest, amuse myself.

Who am I to argue?

But, really, take the meds.

A Solution to Gun Violence

Another school shooting. Second or third this week. Lost count. We care. People like us, the victims, the targets, the irrelevant; we care. Shoppers, students, working people, families. We care because we may be next. We’re the people who get shot. It’s a terrible thing, right?

But no one else actually gives a shit, not the lawmakers, congress, senators, the Supreme Court, gun owners (lots and lots), cops. No one who can actually do anything about crazy assholes with firearms cares about gun deaths until they get maimed, their kids get killed, or their favorite lobbyist is shot and shuts off the cashflow. Nope. Every time one of these public massacres happens we still have to listen to the same old dumbassed give-and-take dialogue about gun control.

Take them away from everyone

Register the shit out of them, like cars

Screen all potential owners for mental issues

Arm everyone

Self defense

Criminals

Bad guys with guns, good guys with guns

NRA evil

Cecil the lion.

On the pro-gun side, the argument usually boils down to that old chestnut:

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”

Right? That is so specious and small-minded. Screwballs shout that line, “Guns don’t kill, people do,” whenever they get a chance, and now it’s become a kind of right wing dickless stupid-guy joke. If a kid dies in a car wreck, you can bet your ass that a boring, dropout, stay-at-home porn-addict will comment, “Well perhaps we should outlaw all cars because someone died in one. Huh? Huh?”

Fuck you.

The whole, “Guns don’t kill people because they are inanimate objects like a hammer and need a person to operate them,” is so thoughtless and old and worn out that anyone who uses that argument should automatically be prohibited from owning anything more dangerous than a donut because they are way too stupid to own a weapon.

I have an idea.

Since we’re on the way to decriminalizing/legalizing weed (really, trust me, it’s coming soon everywhere) I expect there will be a lot more empty prison cells. Once we stop arresting and prosecuting citizens for non-violent drug possession we can free up entire cellblocks.

But wait, won’t this be a threat to America’s giant prison industry? Staff will be redundant and laid off, budgets reduced, and then what? Should out of work prison employees, many who are armed, just lay back in their recliners and smoke weed? How do we keep them employed and productive?

We retrain the DEA and all law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and prison personnel to shift their failed “War on Drugs” programs to a brand new, helpful, functional “War on Guns”.

We’ll never get rid of all guns, too much money and whored-out congressmen for that, but if an individual is apprehended with an illegal firearm, if he or she has a gun that is not properly registered, if they use a gun in the commission of a crime, if they threaten with, brag about, brandish or wave a gun, if they have a firearm in a place where it can be found by a kid, if a gun owner is drunk, high, has a domestic abuse record or has been in trouble for road rage or has used a cell phone in a movie theater, then we arrest them and put them in jail with the same sentence that would have been given to a marijuana user fifty years ago. Life in prison in some Texas jurisdictions. And god help any fool who is caught with a stolen weapon. Sounds fair. A lot of slammers could be re-stocked with dorks who have stepped over the line and misplaced or misused their precious and the incarceration business could retain its employees, offering benefits and uniforms and security and Christmas parties and company picnics and finally doing something to promote safety in the community while prison workers will still be able support their families, buy big trucks and eat at Taco Bell.

I know, I know, the NRA and the Washington money will never allow it. It’s a dream; but if they oppose this idea, an idea that could get stupid-assed gun owners off the streets, if the NRA or their Congressional puppies protest with typical shit-for-brains arguments, we shoot them in the face.

Trip Report with Dangerous Video: California 2015

Driving. Driving. What do you do after hours of driving, thinking, worrying, planning, listening to the radio and trying to stay awake? I whipped out the camera and made little movies, completely unfocused on my driving, on other cars and upcoming hazards. Holding still and editing on the run, I had to spin the wheel a few times, correct my trajectory in order to stay in one piece while on a 12 day trip through Northern California to see old friends and family. I was in the world that raised me and it was all familiar and sometimes a little sad. Things change. We're supposed to be happy about that, adjust to change, be flexible. I am, for the most part, fine with change, I've experienced the best of it,  but memory is a tricky bastard and can really fuck you up. I felt as if I was being crushed by memory a few times and other times I was wallowing in it, overjoyed and outloud.

There were fires unlike anything anyone has ever seen in the foothills of the Sierras, near Yosemite, Clear Lake and in the Trinity Alps. Catastrophic. A few mornings I awoke to a smoky landscape and nervous homeowners. Friends were evacuated and didn't know if they'd have a home when they returned. California is bone dry, desiccated and unwatered by rain or snow for several years. Rivers that have crashed through the famed gold country for centuries are now simply large rocks resting in a few puddles. A fire can wipe out an entire community in a half hour. There are those who believe in climate change, global warming, drought, and there are those who deny that these are problems and they dismiss the science. None of that matters when the fire starts. Everyone's home burns.

I knew I was going to be on the road for a long time and I knew that I'd be driving 6, 7, 8 hours a day through crazy mountains, long stretches of nothing doing, along the coast and deep in city traffic, so I rented a brand new, big assed, black, comfortable American car with V8 engine and top of the line tech. The frigging seat could be both heated and cooled for driving comfort. It was 109 degrees in Cloverdale, California and I hit the wrong button and was warming myself to an uncomfortable degree. There can be drawbacks to too much tech, but once I got the hang of the controls, the badassed Satellite radio and all the stupid sensors that report every bump and insect, I had a damn fine time.

Highway 5, straight up the spine of California, infinite nothingness, flat, hot, dry and dull with the odd rest stop that was usually closed for repairs. Fortunately I had thought ahead and rented a big American car, Buick Lacrosse, fully loaded for a long drive, comfortable except for the goddamn moon roof that lowered the ceiling by a few inches and made sitting upright difficult. Still, it was fast and the AC more than fulfilled expectations. The best part? Satellite Radio. Good Jazz, Blues, Soul.

More of goddamn Highway 5, long and boring and after a few hours of motoring though the ennui I like to take some risks and see what I can get away with. How long can I drive at 75 mph with my eyes closed? How long can I keep my hands off of the wheel and how far will I drift? Let's pass some trucks. Those guys are loaded on several drugs, sleep deprived and boozed, I'm exhausted, feeling morbid and edgy. Coltrane has just popped up on the Sat Radio station. Go for it.

Possibly Freddy Hubbard wailing as I leave Arcata, California. There was a blazing heatwave and much of the mid-state was pushing well above 100 degrees, and a lot of the places I traveled to were soon to be on fire and experiencing the nervousness that comes with impending doom, but driving through the northern forests and nearing the coast it was cool, pleasant and empty. Pretty sweet places: Arcata, Eureka, McKinleyville, Trinidad. Coffee shops, artists, music, good restaurants, the ocean. Hung with my friend Ernie. We met when we were 15, started a band and we still play our songs, sing and have fifty years worth of fun. Laughed our asses off, remembered, regretted, renewed. Lots to think about for a few hours on the road from McKinleyville to Leggett, where I look forward to Highway 1 along the coast. These places were my backyard for most of my life.

First view of the coast from Westport, above Fort Bragg, after a long drive through hazardous mountains, followed closely by aggressive logging trucks while I was thinking a little too much about the past and digging the Chi-lites. An almost perfect formula for dreaded sentiment and unreliable memory.

Fog; good, clean, mysterious Pacific fog north of Mendocino. Fog is perfect for concealing the future and confusing the present. I didn't really need to be drawn much more into myself, but a dense fog, a decent road and no appointments are rare pleasures and encourage wild thinking. A hypnotic component overtakes the driver who is wheeling though memories and vague landscapes, wondering when, or if, he will ever return. Dazed and foggy from hours on the road, staring into the cloud.

In the Anderson Valley, in the Sierras near Placerville, along the coast, there used to be grocery stores, bait shops, car repair and towing services, diners and bars. Those businesses are still around, but most of the towns are now becoming over-built with wineries and tasting rooms and galleries that are part of a new culture industry, where the illusion of sophistication and refinement are for sale to daytrippers from cities. There are plenty of places where a traveler can find lovely eggs Florentine and a pastel landscape. The problem is, once you've tasted the wine and browsed the gallery it's time to go and why would you come back? More landscapes? The locals who are my friends are confused and a bit resentful.

The return. A couple thousand miles on the road, stopping to visit, to record and recall, seeing familiar places, some altered, others the same, enjoying family and friends and back into The City from the north, from where I grew up, grew old, became despondent and eventually bounced into contentment. All places are good if I'm OK. A bittersweet trip, but what a great way to end. In the past I drove across this bridge to see great music at the Filmore Auditorium, The Carousel Ballroom, the Avalon, drink at the Bit o' Paradise, the M&M, the Lucky 7,  and have many of the experiences that I can call up today, experiences that I either enjoy remembering or fail at forgetting. San Francisco has been criticized heavily for the homeless problems, the filth, expensive and impossible housing, the entitled populace, crime and a failed government. I'm from here; while a lot of that is true, you can also have Burmese and Chinese food all the time, buy books at Green Apple and City Lights, see the Turner exhibit at the De Young, get tickets for Wayne Shorter and Merle Haggard. Everyone I met was friendly, pleasant and accommodating. City living is more than I want to manage these days, but San Francisco and Northern California are part of my DNA. That Buick was pretty sweet, too.

Rehearsing for The End of the World

     
     I've just spent a couple of days in Arnold, California with Armando Silva and Roland Langlois. We've been the best of friends for almost 40 years and the stories that we've generated are epic. There are no words with which to truly define the depth of our relationships. Primarily, we laugh. A lot. There have been times when we had to lie on the floor and curl into fetal positions and beg the others to stop laughing so that we could breathe. We are still able to do that and I couldn't be more delighted. We have listened to music, watched baseball, gone camping, lost friends, been married and divorced,  drunk and sober, worked, retired, become ill and recovered. There are children and wives and houses and all of the stuff that life is composed of but mostly, every time we see each other, we laugh like madmen. These men are immensely smart and funny but the level of humor varies widely. We are crude occasionally, and also sad and stupid and silly but there have been astonishing romantic episodes, deep heartbreak and innumerable late night conversations that border on the profound, the philosophical and, often, the seriously insane. We tried to duplicate the above photo that Armando pulled out of a drawer. None of us (not one of us) can remember where and when it was made. We calculate it was taken between 25 and thirty years ago. We analyzed haircuts, eyeglasses, dentition, but we were completely at a loss. In those days alcohol and drugs were generally a part of every gathering and the only thing we can conclude is that we may have been loaded. Or not. Forgetting is part of getting old. I'm completely happy that we are lifelong friends. Fuck age, fuck sickness and death and forgetting. Just Fuck It. We laugh at death. We laugh at everything. We should be more adult, I guess, but that bell has been rung, that ship has sailed, the horse has left the barn. I'm sure I can think of other metaphors to indicate that I no longer give a crap, or have time for guilt, fear, the feelings of other people.
     I'll post more as this road trip unrolls and I slip into the past, drive around California, confront the present and run from the future. By the way, isn't the quality of the picture from the unremembered photo booth  a lot better than the one taken with the iPad? 

Gun Violence: Get Real

Here’s the common post on today’s social media, news organizations, and tweets:

“How many more people have to die of senseless gun violence for this country to enact commonsense gun reform?”

The answer? Lots. Way lots more. Hundreds of thousands. Where the hell do you think we live? France? Japan? We live in America where bacon is considered a dietary staple, where the old testament god is worshiped and we love our death penalty, where ignorant dogbrains interpret the constitution so that it suits their own uneducated, heavily armed agendas and where all you have to do to become monstrously wealthy is to have a big ass. Do you think we live in a magical place where politicians and representatives aren’t human toilets? Some mythical island where women are treated equally and with respect by everyone, including fratboys, rap and rock stars? An alternate universe where human life is valuable and everyone has the same rights regardless of race, sex, sexual preference, wealth? Please. Get a clue. This is what we own. It’s fucked up, but we still have Netflix, Google and our fine-assed new phones. Moms Demand Action, Stop the NRA, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. Those organizations really exist. Which of them am I supporting? Uhm…. none. At least no one’s killed a lion this week. If I sound discouraged, I am.

Addendum: An hour later: Jesus Christ, I just sent a small donation to one of the above groups because I can’t stand myself when I blather away without doing anything. I don’t care about the upcoming shitshow that will be the second half of the 21st century because I’ll be gone, but I’d like to reduce and assuage my guilt while I’m still here. I know: Lame.

Life Coaching - Part 3 (Chapter 2)

I don’t see  as well at night as I used to. Bummer. My (many) old injuries are lighting up several times a week. I take pills for dumb stuff like pain, blood pressure, cholesterol, thyroid. I feel pretty good (seriously), I'm still in the game, but every once in a while some aging, raging busybody who is facing another hard-earned birthday shouts out, “But sixty is the new forty, sixty is the new forty. And seventy is the new fifty and…”. Please. Shut up.

It may be true that sixty is the new forty unless:

We’ve ever smoked cigarettes  (guilty) or

Used illegal drugs for a significant period of our history (guilty)

If we currently now or ever have drink, drank, drunk to excess (guilty)

Have Hep C or STDs from stupid life choices when we were twenty, (...)

If we

Breathe the shitty air in most cities (yep) and

Drink chem-laced water (probably) and

Have had lots and lots of x-rays (dentist) or

Eat foods loaded with preservatives and additives (I guess), if we

Are overweight (goddamnit) and depressed sometimes (like the rest of us) or

Are angry (at the government, your ex, other drivers) or misguidedly

Trust that god, prayer and good works will keep anyone healthy/alive (nope), if

We read the news or

Watch more than two hours of TV every day, (sometimes) and

Are worried about not getting enough (or too much) sleep, (yeah, I admit)

Or we are anxious about global warming, cancer and trouble in the Mideast (sure).

And mainly, if I think that because I'm Me and I'm still amazing (or ever have been)  even though I'm getting older, that life is full of possibilities and I can do whatever I want and I can live like I did when I was forty and old people matter and I'm relevant and as vital as ever and I'm  an “active senior” (or have ever used the words “active” or “senior” in reference to myself), or if I think I'm  still desirable to people under forty (male or female) or if I have cataracts, vertigo, joint pain, headaches, thinning hair?

Then sixty is not the new forty.

It’s the new eighty.

Sorry, tough shit, but most of us (old) only have another ten, twenty, slim-chance thirty, max-crazy forty years. Only .0173% of us will live to be 100. Ha. So, nope, sixty is not the new fucking forty. You are _____ years of age. Are you currently alive? (I’ll wait while you check). Isn’t that enough? I for one am going to face reality and have fun and stop bitching and moaning and fantasizing about age, life, health and longevity.

And take it easy driving for Chrissakes. You’re pissing me off.

Life Coaching - Part 3

In my career as one of America’s most influential and respected Life Coaches I get messages every day from clients and friends, seekers and strivers, urging:

Live for today, forget about the past

Be here now, live life in the moment

You only live once

Today is the first day of the rest of your life

Live today as if you’ll die tomorrow

Life is precious and each moment is a blessing

I take offense because these “writers” know perfectly well where I am when I read this sage advice, this helpful encouragement to live fully, create, do things and go into the world and experience nature and love everyone so that I have no regrets. They know goddamn well that I’m seeing it on the frigging Internet, sitting in front of my computer where I spend hours every day. They are trying to make me feel guilty. Bastards.

Here are some of my own AFFIRMATIONS for a happy life:

Cancel your next appointment and stay home

Read a book and don’t answer the phone

Check out the news, read the comments

Watch a little pornography

Have a sandwich, take a nap

You only have one life to waste; waste it well

Guilt is for suckers

You are welcome.

J. De Patta, SCLC (Self Certified Life Coach)