Monday, Monday

A day the Mamas and the Papas said (sang?) they couldn't trust.  Why trust Monday, really?  It's the start of the work week, and you never know what fresh hell your employment will deliver within 15 minutes of you pouring your first cup of coffee.  It is the beginning of the long slog toward Friday.  And, if you celebrated Mother's Day with any panache, you probably are weary and have an aching head this morning.
But I trust Monday more than Friday.  I've noted that people are on their p's and q's on Monday, because they know they can't pull any misguided stunts that can't be cleaned up by Wednesday.  Monday is the beginning of your dreaming, Friday tends to be the day that drags on so drearily that you're too tired to do anything on Friday night.  Monday is full of possibility, Friday is full of regret.
So I do not dread Monday, though it doesn't make it any easier to get out of bed.  But hell, I have that problem all week long, including Saturday and Sunday.
So here I am on a Monday, back from court (and going back this afternoon) with a boat full of stuff to do and some good possibility for later this week.  I have a stack of things to my left which need to be addressed; I have a list of 20 things to try to get done by the end of the week.  I have four court appearances this week.  I have money in the bank and a pocket full of miracles in my pocket.  Okay, maybe not miracles, but something hopeful at least.
My son redeemed himself by calling his mother on Mother's Day and not making her call him.  He talked to her for 15 minutes, which is a long time for the boy, who's turned tacitrun since he's gone to college.  He talked to me for about 3 minutes, mostly giving one-word answers to questions his mother already asked him. 
He's not coming home for the summer, he said.  All the other people in his house have moved out, and he's the only one left.  But he has work to do in the Physics lab for the project he's working on with the Nobel Laureate; I'm sure said Laureate wouldn 't mind if the boy came home for a few weeks, but the Boy himself is going to live the life of a hermit in the city, and not come home to the 'Boldt.  We'll see how he feels around the 4th of July.
Other than that, Mother's Day for his mom and mine was okay.  My mom said all of her kids called her, a rare four-fecta in the Bruce Clan.  I sent her tulips for the second time this month (her birthday is May 5) so I insisted on telling her that since I'd sent tulips twice, I'd actually sent her "four-lips."  Yeah, yeah, I got it, she said wearily.
Well.  It's nearly 11 a.m. so I guess I'd best get back to work.  Working on my dreams, brother.  Workinig on my dreams.

Three Days In Gold Beach

It is a rare occasion when I can  spend a few days away from the 'Boldt and hie myself to a change of scenery good for my soul and for my mind.  Which is to say, it's been before 2006 when I last took myself on a solo vacation, since the practice has taken so much of my time and energy.  But last week I had two days open on the calendar, so I thought I'd take myself away for just a little while.  

I had heard Gold Beach, Oregon was a nice quiet place to hie to, so I hied and hied and in about two hours I arrived from all that hieing to a little resort hotel right on the beach.  The beach, as seen above, is nothing to write home about.  It's your basic generic Pacific Northwest beach with some bland vistas and water that is colder than the coldest day in Antartica.  I didn't even try to swim nor did I see anyone foolish enough to try it.

Still there were signs of life.  Such as this cozy cabin on the beach:

I suppose the room rate was double for this because it was right next to the water.  The electricity and heating probably sucked, and forget about an internet connection, but at least it was scenic--perfect for honeymooners.  Unfortunately, I am not even close to honeymooning, unless we're talking about romancing myself.  And I don't need to do that.  I've been loving myself for a long, long time.
The most popular tourist attraction in Gold Beach is a cemetary.  Namely, the Pioneer Cemetary rignt on the main drag, where people from the 1800s and early 1900s are buried.  They have the picturesque tombstones you would expect:

And the tombstones of husband and wife, bickering for all eternity:

 And, of course, the heartbreaking tombstones of children:

But the tombstone that fascinated me the most was this one:

It's the burial place of 14-year-old Elizabeth Graham, who was walking home from an errand for her parents right in broad daylight one day in the late 1800s, then vanished.  All of the locals, mostly miners at that point, tried to find her, save one.  He didn't say why he wasn't helping until someone looked on his property and found poor Elizabeth dead, arms and legs spread out.  Yes, the miner had killed the girl (with the help of another miner!) but the guidebook I had did not disclose the details.  Still, to find a young murdered girl in the middle of a Pioneer graveyard was someone unsettling and fascinating at the same time.

I am a sucker for graveyards, by the way.  We have a pioneer graveyard in Eureka which the local teenagers are always vandalizing.  One of them, about two years ago, broke into the vault of a former District Attorney and played foosball with his skull.  He got a few weeks in jail for that.  We take our former DA's seriously around here, there being so many of them.

Anyway, after a nice stroll in the graveyard (the grass was long and wet when I visited, but the groundskeeper showed when I returned for pictures), I drove down to the famous concrete bridge, whose name I have completely forgotten.  Sorry.  But here's a picture.

and, close by, is the rotting hulk of the Mary Something or Other, a ship which sailed these rivers and the Arctic and several other cold places for more than 100 years.  The ship was skuttled and left in the harbor for reasons none of the plaques around her cared to explain.  Here she is, in her dishabille:

Not something anyone's going to take a river tour on real soon. 

All in all, the rain came down 50% of the time I was there.  The sun finally came out Friday afternoon, and was burning brightly saturday when I left.  Sigh.
But I did have one nice moment.  I was sitting in my room after walking for an hour on the bland beach.  I was sitting next to the open window and reading Rachel Maddow's excellent book, "Drift."  A temperate breeze drifted through the window and lightly kissed my neck.  And I suddenly relaxed and let the breeze lull me to take a little nap in the chair.  Aaaah. 

The drive back Saturday was quick and I was embroiled in the BS from the moment I came back to the 'Boldt--a client called my home Saturday night with a question.  And the SOB hadn't even paid my fee yet!

The Beautiful Day

The beautiful days are a matter of opinion up here.  The photo above, for instance, was taken during one of my forays into Trinity County along Highway 299, when I stopped and took a photo of what I thought was a gorgeous moment.  Most of the Trinity natives take a look at this photo and shrug.  It happens every day for them.

This weekend in the 'Boldt, the skies were blue and the weather was temperate, in the upper 60s and lower 70s.  Most natives walked around in t-shirt and shorts.  I kept to my long pants but did wander about in my "Cal Law" t-shirt.  No one was impressed.

Lovely days like this are more frequent than you would think, since I live in a redwood rain forest.  In fact, last year we had an excess of such beautiful days, which caused concern up here due to our redwood buddies, who need the fog and rain to thrive.  Fortunately, we were stung with three months of heavy rain, so we're hoping the ground is soggy enough for a few nice sunny days during which we can weed our yards and hire the dumb kid down the block to mow our lawns.

A full weekend for the kid.  On Friday night I went to watch my friend Mark S. (not sure how to spell his Japanese last name, so I won't attempt it) and Ian M. (a nice scottish name but I won't be uneven by giving one name and not the other.)  The poetry was very fine and entertaining.  I find as I grow older it is easier for me to listen to good poets read without the desire to get up and read myself.  Either I have lost all ambition in the performance poetry world, or I am just getting tired.

Last night I went to see Mike Burbaglia (I know I'm f'ing up his name), a comedian/one man show artist perform his latest, "My Girlfriend's Boyfriend."  A very funny and very poignant show in which he details his misadventures in the romantic battlefield.  The dude was funny without being caustic.  He told the truth.  He was great. 

A full house to hear ol' Mike, including a lot of  young women.  Wow.  If I knew young women were into hearing about how incompetent a flirter Mike was, I'd put together such a show myself and let them all in free.  Heaven knows, I have plenty of stories to tell about my misfired passes toward women.  All of them terribly embarassing, which seems to be the point.

("Women love that sensitive shit," my dad used to say.  He is a veritible Casanova when it comes to picking up the girls.  Never have quite figured out how.  I've watched him in action and he's clearly bullshitting but women seem to be entertained that he would make the effort.)

Earlier in the day I had taken a nice 45 minute stroll around the neighborhood in the daylight.  Usually my walk is taken at night.  Quite a different place when the sunlight is rolling through the streets:  one family was launching baseballs for their small children to try to catch. They used some kind of baseball catapult to do so.  Many dogs strolling about with their owners.  People with their garage doors open working on cars.  Okay, men working on cars.

Like, people actually live here.  And they say hello to you even if you're wearing your "Cal Law" t-shirt.  But they are not impressed.

Because of the Movies

In many ways we are betrayed by our love of the movies.  From the earliest moments of childhood in America, we are brought to that magical light show where things seem to be real but are, in fact, a highly idealized version of life and love and death.

So even as we grow older and we realize that the people on the screen are not actually going through those situations in their own lives, there's a small piece of us that wants to believe ever so badly that things will always "work out" like they do in film.  And they almost never do.

To be meta-ironic about this, there's the last scene in Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" where you see the main character, Woody by another name, who is directing a play.  The scene he directs is almost word for word the break-up scene he and Annie have just gone through, except in the play the couple reunite.  In the "real life" of Annie Hall, they did not.  It's the closest to reality we ever get in the movies.  The Woody character looks at the camera, shrugs, and says that when he controls the outcome, the outcome is different.

When I was a child, I actually believed that the people I saw in the movies had been filmed while they were undergoing their trials and tribulations.  I can't remember what I thought of cartoons, other than that they were awesome, but I distinctly remember wondering how it is the cameras were able to go everywhere with these people.  (This, of course, lead to the classic paranoia that my own life was being played for cameras which I could not see, and the the rest of my world had been fabricated to see how I would react.  What really disturbs me today about this childish fantasy is that others have it, too.  Ergo:  The Truman Show.)

But the thing about the movies is, we seem to learn all our life lessons these days from what we see on the screen.  Love will win in the end.  The Good Guys always find a way to accomplish the mission.  Bad people will get their comeuppance.  America will always stumble its way to the just result.  Believe and you will triumph.  You will meet your life mate in a "meet cute" way.  Etc Etc Etc.

I would like to believe that these foolish thoughts are mine and mine alone, but I know that everyone I meet--and I mean everyone-- seems to be in thrall to these lies.

Lies?  Too harsh.  Let's say, children's tales.

What makes it galling is that, sometimes the movie ending really happens.  Two lonely but beautiful people really do meet, fall in love, marry, have children, and live together all their lives.  In today's world it's a rare story but it happens.  And when it does, you keep asking yourself, "what about ME?"

For instance, for some years now, I have been alone.  Oh, I've had the occasional girlfriend--and the occasional fiancee--but it never seems to work out.  Either I do something wrong or she does something wrong or we both come to our senses and realize that I am a real son of a bitch and who the hell wants to live with me?  I'm living alone these days and I'm not even sure I'm enjoying the company.

In a movie, now, the curmudgeon would meet cute with some perky, slightly younger girl and she would take me on an exhilarating and frightening thrill ride through the underbelly of the city in which I would experience life and compassion and probably pick up a stray dog to care for, making me much more human.  See, "As Good As It Gets," with Jack Nicholson and whats-her-name, that cute actress that used to be on TV. 

In real life I go home and watch TV.  Lately, I've been watching The History Channel, which at least has the charm of being someone else's version of things that actually happened.

But I am poisoned by the movies.  I keep thinking things will be okay in the end.  I keep thinking, this drudgery and misery is only the set up for the big plot twist coming up.  I keep hoping that the good guys always win and I am a good guy, and so I will eventually win.

Our flinty-eyed ancestors did not have movies and therefore had a firmer grip on reality.  Life was hard and every little joy was to be treasured and savored because no one was entitled to any damned thing in this world.

The movies have convinced me that I am entitled to a happy ending.  But I'm getting older now.  I've almost outrun my happy ending age.  Soon I'll be the bitter old man character who never seemed to find love.

Maybe it's time to get a dog.

Paul Bunyan Says Hello

On the drive to Crescent City there is this place called "Trees of Mystery" which is a redwoods tourist trap with various trees which have grown in peculiar ways.  Nothing much different than if you were to walk through a regular redwood forest but what the hell.  It gives the tourists a safe place to experience the trees.

Out in front of Trees of Mystery are the wooden sculptures at the left, Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.  Why they decided to place these two Northern Woods icons at a Pacific Woods location is anyone's guess.  I suppose there's no equivalent lumberjack icon for the West Coast, unless you count Bigfoot.  And Willow Creek already has him.

These are the dog days, my friends, the April-May days until the Summer finally lazes around here.  Right now it's a bit dark outside and my 4:00 client has decided not to show up, without the courtesy of a call to let me know he's changed his mind.  Oh well.  Let him navigate the court system himself.

Anyway, I have bigger fish to fry.  Actually, I don't, as many of my "big" cases have disappeared.  I have one major appointment case left, a 20-year-old murder case set to go in July.  Of course, I can't really talk about that in this blog--confidentiality and all that--but let's just say I'll be surprised if that thing ever really goes to trial.

I was supposed to be in trial this morning, but the local DA's office found itself short of lawyers and I was able to convince the DA to dismiss the matter, as, in truth, it should have been anyway.  I was truly convinced the client was not good for this case, and he's already looking at a conviction on a whole 'nother case which will send him to prison.

In case you're wondering,the Arts Alive! gig went just fine.  The women in the salon were very appreciative of my singing and I got a re-booking from the owner.  I didn't exactly attract the crowds I did 18 months ago in front of Habitat but I did make a 17-year-old girl cry.  In a good way--she was affected by "Fathers In the Park," my love song to my son.  I wrote it when he was 2.  Now he's 19 and barely has enough time for me on the phone, so busy is he at the UC.  I'd feel more like I was in "Cat's in the Cradle," except, dammit, I always made a lot of time for that little brat when he was growing up.

Oh well.  I guess I should calm myself and accept what fate has dealt me.  Which is, a brilliant and diligent son who takes his school work so seriously that he barely has time to call either of his parents.

Back to Paul and Babe...well, maybe this weekend I will travel north to Crescent City and visit them again, walk among the peculiar trees, maybe commune with nature's sense of humor.  More and more, I'm feeling that I'm the butt of a joke that no one thinks is funny anymore.

Don't mind me.  I'm just waiting for the summer.  I'll feel much better then.

Already Lagging

The days are playing tag with the rain. Some days--yesterday, for instance--it is clear enough that I can go on my hour-long walk and enjoy the clean Humboldt air. Other days--today, for instance--the inevitable rain shows up and I am forced to sit in my house and watch television. Or in my office and make calls. What's that you say? I could go to the gym? Let's not be hasty here...

It's April, the cruelest month according to T.S. Eliott, and National Poetry Month according to the Academy of American Poets. Or the American Academy of Poets. Or some such nonsense. Anyway, they have laid down a challenge to all American Poets, Acadamied or otherwise, to write thirty poems in thirty days. 30-in-30, as it is so charmingly called. I have written exactly three, none of which are any good. (you can see them, if you are even remotely inclined, at blogspot.com.occasionalwords) which means, of course, that I am fatally behind in the project. But if I wrote three poems a day for the next three days, I'd be caught up.

I suppose someone somewhere had this charming vision of a poet awakening to the brilliant April morning, stretching, brushing teeth, doing yoga, then brewing some coffee and sitting down in front of the computer and inputting some lovely, deathless verse, then sharing it with the world.

More likely more poets are like me: We do it in spurts. No, don't be thinking like that--usually I like your dirty mind but that's just sick. I mean we sprint to complete three mediocre poems at a time. Then we get distracted. Then--oh, look, three more poems. Then more distraction.

So after I finish posting this letter to myself (and Pearl. Nice to see you remember the old dog.) I will get on Occasional Words and get a few more medicocre things out. Really, I'm pretty empty of poems right now. So don't take the next three poems seriously. Don't hold them against me. Let's just look at them as one would homework--necessary but not earth shaking.

In the meantime the cold wet Humboldt April continues.

The Man In White Returns...

Not that he ever left your hearts, I know. Yes, this Saturday night, the Man in White begins the music season of farmer's Markets and Arts Alive! appearances with a special appearance on second street somewhere around the former Old Town Bar & Grill. I'm playing at a small salon, and I'm embarrassed to tell you that I can't remember the name, except the place is small and the lady who runs it is a very nice person. She knows my son's mother--actually works on her hair.

So if it's raining, I'll be inside playing without amplification. You know me. I have a big voice and bang on the guitar like I have a grudge against it. No sense in making it any louder, especially in a small room. Don't want to send the folks screaming into the night.

But if the weather improves--it's Tuesday and it's raining so there's no way to tell right now--if the weather improves, I say, then I'll be outside trying out my new $29 microphone recently purchased from Mantova's Two Street Music. The guys in Mantova's always happy to see me coming--I never walk out without buying at least a little something. In fact, recently I bought another guitar--a white Yamaha. White, because it matches my beautiful white suit. Plus, it plays nicely.

I know, I know. I need another guitar like I need another appendix. But this one is rather keen. I've been playing it in anticipation of the gig and I really like the feel of it. I've been playing the LAG guitar, as you might remember, which is a good guitar but there's something in its feel which isn't quite right to me. A bit stiff. This funky $300 Yamaha has a feel to it which seems to be right. We'll see how it stands up to a three hour gig.

(All together now, "A three hour gig..." Sung to the tune of Gilligan's Island...)

I'm rather impatient to get out. As you know, I was to play for Plaza Design in March but they closed down Feb 29 and I didn't get to stretch my chops. It's been since November that I last played (other than church, which is a different deal altogether) and I'm getting a bit antsy to break out the White suit and party.

Anything, really, to break out of this dull office-court-office routine. Hope to see you there. If you can find me with those glorious instructions.