Move Over, Mini Cooper, Plus So Much More

Preamble: There's a new champion parking car in town, the tiny Smart Car.

Time was you couldn't beat the Mini for fitting into some of our notoriously snug parking places in this city, but the Smart Car found a way.

I noticed these two nestled together the other day in the Mission. Cute.

Part One: Yesterday, for the first time in a while, I got to "teach" part of a journalism class, this time out at San Francisco State University. The 600 or so journalism majors there have to be one of the largest groups studying in one place in the world.

I know a few of the faculty members, of course, and in fact have taught out there myself three or four times for a semester at a time. The students in the class I visited (television writing) had lots of questions for me, mainly about the future of the profession they are training to enter.

I told them what I believe -- that this is the most exciting time imaginable to be a journalist, though naturally it may not be the safest.

But these are revolutionary times for journalists, as the old order collapses, and a new one has yet to emerge. What better time to join those of us unafraid of these transitions.

I came of age as a writer at a somewhat similar moment in history: The '60s. Old media were not dying at the time, but they had erected high walls against those in my generation who were all about challenging the status quo.

Shut out, as it were, partly by personal choice, we had no options but to start our own media. So that is what we did. My wife and I drove our old Chevy van, with Ft. Myers, Fla. stenciled on its side, all the way across the country, stuffed both with our few belongings and some of the critical production equipment for the soon-to-be launched SunDance magazine.

Part Two: Our office was at 1913 Fillmore Street in a storefront that exists in exactly the form it did then today. But it has long since transmogrified into a boutique. No magazines are produced in that part of town any longer.

Gone too are almost all of the bars and clubs, including Minnie's Can-Do, my all-time favorite, which through the magic of the web you can still "visit," 38 years later.

Cities are always changing, of course. In years past, in its earlier iterations, The New Yorker captured Manhattan's evolution in its upfront section called The Talk of the Town.

It still does, occasionally, but these days that space is reserved for brilliant essays about politics, the economy and other pressing topics by writers I enjoy like Hendrik Hertzberg and James Surowiecki.

Part Three: Around 4 a.m. tomorrow, my youngest son becomes a teenager. Of my six children, that leaves only one still in the child stage, as opposed to the young person stage.

She's declared herself a vegetarian, but tonight she offered to resume helping us create meatballs -- long one of her fun activities here at Dad's House. Her 12 and 364/365ths year old brother is unusual and special in a lot of ways. One is he still happily puts his arm around her as they walk down the street, scarcely aware and utterly uncaring whether his peers would consider that "cool" or not.

Trust me: he's cool. Way cool!

Happy Birthday-Eve, Dylan...

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Tiburon, Continued

When I posted these photos yesterday, I could not bear to also add the words that must accompany this mini-slide show.

Tonight, I can. These shots are of the charming little town, thus named, which graces an eastern-facing peninsula in lovely Marin County, which has become one of the richest enclaves on earth.



This place has history, beauty, and also deeply personal memories for me, from when my older kids used to live nearby, in Mill Valley. My first son and I used to come here to visit The Attic, which sadly closed its doors four months past.



Now, to me, it is a ghost town, a place reserved only for the very rich, almost all white, and apparently clueless about what is happening outside of their sheltered cove.

Don't get me wrong -- Tiburon is a wonderful place, somewhere that a writer, for example, would love to live. But we are living through an era when these places, where artists should in fact outnumber bankers, can no longer be the case.

Not now. Now, only those who have been involved in stealing the wealth of the working and middle classes can afford to reside here.

That makes me ineffably sad. And also, very, very angry.

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Character

This is a story about character. If you wish a glimpse at a true character, look at this little guy above. He is a true character, an original, a goof, brilliant, always on his own track, as sweet and rough and raw as a blinding ray of sunlight, often so bright that his message could well be the first-ever absorbed by a blind person, for example.

Everything he says has never been said before.

He's also a little brother, less than 1.5 years younger than his biggest hero, a guy who has a different set of skills. But he doesn't bother with sports, because medieval history is a much stronger draw...

Nothing about parenting is easy. Today, our family's time started off with a monumental battle between these two young men, both still slightly shorter than me, but not for much longer.

As men develop, the world becomes a strange place, mainly due to the responses of women. Moms of friends who used to think you were cute suddenly shrink away as you approach.

Somehow, you've become a threat. You are big, tall, and scary.

They used to pamper you, now they avoid looking at you directly in your eyes.

For the first time ever, you realize that females are afraid of you, even if you feel so utterly powerless and scared and lonely and certain that you could never hurt a flea, let alone another human being...

Nevertheless, you also sense a power in your maleness, not necessarily something you would have sought but something biology has presented you with.

(All remaining photos were shot by Julia.)


My two youngest sons resolved their hurtful fight today. How? We went to Big 5, a man's store. All 3 of us knew what we had to do and we did it. After that, no conflicts remained. As the day went on, and their little sister, a toughie if there ever was one, joined us, we all prepared ourselves for this day's main event -- the soccer game.



We have among us a warrior.



Not everything he does is something I can brag about. Like any kid, he has his flaws, though they are far fewer than mine.



There is one consistent characteristic of his that makes me proud beyond what any words express. He cares about his teammates. Now this, to a non-athlete, may sound silly. But if you play a team sport, your main loyalty has to be to your team.



My guy? Nobody from the opposition ever messes with one of his teammates. He is already an imposing young man. Very tall, wiry, and faster than anyone who faces him, he plays a mean game of soccer. So today a pivotal moment occurred when one of his teammates raced toward the goal and was about to shoot when another kid, from the other team, committed a blatant foul, knocking Aidan's teammate to the ground.

This meant a yellow card for the offender (who to his credit did prevent a goal), and a gift shot for his teammate, but none of this mattered to my boy. Winning or losing didn't matter, for that matter, either. This was about loyalty, a virtue too long overlooked in many parts of our culture.

What Aidan did was to go up the kid who fouled his teammates, jaw to jaw, and said, "You know what you are? You are a fucker."

The kid turned away, averted his eyes, and never could look my boy in the face again the rest of the afternoon.

You know, of course, that I am proud of my son. He did the right thing at the right time for the right reason.

And none of what I've written here is about sports, and it also is not about my son. The game and his actions are nothing but metaphors, for I am nothing but a writer. My concern tonight is what any of us might do to instill character in our young ones. Like any other parent reading this post, I struggle every day. What is the right thing and what is not?

I could well be wrong, and more often than not in this world I am, but tonight, I am a proud father, if only because my sweet son took a stand and defended his teammate and told another young man, who probably is a perfectly good person in his own right, to his face, exactly what needed to be said: "You are a fucker."

The gift in that would be if the recipient truly listened. There are many ways we learn. One of the best is when someone else cares enough to tell us directly when we have screwed up does so. Sometimes the language has to be crude, even threatening. Sometimes, character-building happens when you know if you don't shape up, somebody else will take you down.

For the rest of today's game, that kid did not commit any other fouls. What he and I both know that if he had, a certain 6-foot-tall red-headed meteor would have laid him flat, and at this point who the fuck cares about yellow cards?

Spring Breaks

We're on spring break around here; well, not me exactly, but when you've got three kids aged 10-14, whatever their reality is rather closely defines yours. Today, I welcomed a gluttony of pubescent male energy into my abode -- three 14-year-old boys and one (he who shares my initials) who turns 13 in a mere five days.

All of their voices are in various stages of changing, more or less like submarines descending down a watery musical scale well south of the Three Tenors already yet not yet bottoming out among the baritones, or wherever they are to land.

Possibly experiencing a cathartic fit of ecstasy at being freed from school for (count 'em) nine-and-a-half straight days, just as our weather has blossomed into a fever that could cause even an old man to fall in love again, should the opportunity present itself, they pulled out our huge, plastic arsenal of weapons and waged some sort of terrorist attack in my basement that got so loud at one point, that the quietest person I've ever known ran down the stairs, held up her hands, and exclaimed: "Boys! You can't do that! Quiet down! Someone might call the police!"

It worked.

Countless burritos, pizza slices, video games, pickups and drop-offs later, complete with more angst and drama than nursing home residents experience in an entire year, here I sit, at almost 9 pm at night, alone in silence. Oh blessed silence! My friend paid me a great compliment last night after she offered to accompany me to the school's annual spring concert, and I avowed that it really didn't matter one way or the other. I'd like the company, of course, but I was also happy just to attend alone.

"It's really true," she said. "You are totally fine being alone. I was under the impression you couldn't be happy in that state, at that kind of event, even one year ago. But now, you can."

I thanked her. And it is true. Some of my favorite moments in life now are when I am alone, able to think, to read, write, and reflect over the past half dozen decades, trying to make sense of it all.

Don't read me wrong. I still love company, particularly of the female variety. No woman friend is too young or too old to light up my day or my night. (And I love my fewer male friends just as much, though we normally have somewhat less to talk about.)

Meanwhile, there is some breaking news here at Hotweir Central. I've written a song, or rather the lyrics to a song. It's not the first song I've ever written, only the first one in about 40 years. I think it is a good song, and I've given it to a musician friend to consider recording. It fits into a kind of whimsical, country-blues-folk-rock genre, updated for the Internet era.

I'll keep those of you who are my most loyal readers, those lovely habitues of this queerly inconsistent blog, informed as to my progress in this relatively new (yet also very old) career twist. How would you like me to become a popular songwriter?

Stranger things happen every day. Grandma Moses did her thing late in the third act of her remarkable life.

Why not me? Much more importantly, why not you?

Think about it: After all, I can't write anything, let alone a song, for myself. I write for you.

What is it, as you age, that you really would like to do for the others out there who no doubt wish you would finally follow your own passion, enriching us all in the process?

Think about it. Then dare to act.

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What Moves Me

In our culture, you could search far and wide before you would ever discover a gem like this:

Marion Williams singing our greatest gospel song, in a way, that to my ears, has never been equaled before or since. This performance was in my mind's eye as I held onto my singer daughter at my father's memorial service in the summer of the last year of the last century. We sang Amazing Grace with friends and family as we placed a portion of his ashes into the roots of that tree I wrote about a few nights ago.

The thing about this video clip that amazes me, and I have listened to it three straight times now, is how it embodies the blues, gospel, faith, and rock n roll so seamlessly that you are swept along as if by a powerful river.

Maybe that, in the end, is what faith is -- a powerful river where you can only surrender, to God.

I think I get it, and even if I can never get there with you all, I honor the feeling, understand the joy, and most of all, appreciate the music!

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I've Glimpsed the Future (and I like what I see)

Why the long face? I know it's virtually heretical to not bemoan all the lost jobs, frozen credit, stalled building projects, corporate bankruptcies, and the like, but I'm feeling quite bullish about everything that is happening, actually.

It's exciting to live through a revolution, especially, given my love of data and words, an information revolution! You won't catch me crying if GM goes bankrupt or if AIG is finally allowed to fail. Frankly, I hope housing prices continue to fall -- steeply -- especially in the places where I'd like to live.

And I don't really think losing a "job" is all that much of a disaster, if you're willing to be innovative, persistent, and creative. First of all, it's probably your former employer's "loss," not yours. Human talent is what makes any company thrive; squander it, let it walk away, and most companies' days are numbered.

Secondly, many if not most jobs become routinized over time. People care out a niche, stop listening to one another, and spend more energy protecting their turf than growing the company.

I'm all about growing the company. What attracts me is the early-stage, can-do spirit that built this country, and that continues to energize little groups of entrepreneurs who believe they may have the key to the Next Big Thing.

Besides, there's nothing in life quite as good as having control of your own time, that most precious of all assets. These days, I am discovering many more passions -- foods, music, books, ideas, people, companies -- than I will ever be able to indulge. That's okay, as the economy slows a bit, even though we're still just spinning in space, maybe I can slow down my piece of earth just enough to take on more company (mainly of the intellectual kind) before resuming hyper-speed.

Let the old fall away so the new can emerge. I'm loving it.

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