Spring Preview

It's still cold at night. Though I'm generally content with my solitary life, there is a time in the middle of the night, around 3 a.m., that I always wake up and wish I had a girlfriend next to me. Somehow in the past year I seem to have lost some body heat. It wasn't that long ago, just two winters back, that I used to warm up the left side of this bed, so when my partner came to bed, I could move over to the right and her side would be warm. I think I had an excess of heat back then.



This long, dreary winter has been cold, and at times, wet. Storms come and go, and some days there is enough heat that the blossoms are out on the fruit trees, and herbs are flowering in our garden. But then the sun goes down and the near-freeze revisits this city. The actual temperature may be 40 but given the lack of insulation or proper heat in these old buildings, it feels colder than that.



Or, maybe after 36+ years here, my blood has thinned. In any event, sleeping alone six of every seven nights, I cannot ever seem to get warm. Put on another blanket, you say! Wear a robe! Well, I do these things, but the inner chill remains.



Maybe it's part of the aging process? At the moment of death, we still are warm, but very rapidly the world sucks the last bits of heat out of our bodies until we lie there, stone-cold. I watched my parents die and felt the heat leaving their bodies. And I think I know why people often have the sense that a loved one's essence suddenly flies through the room as they die.



My grandmother, for example, on the night my grandfather died, was in a separate room in their house. My Uncle George was there, with other family members. As I remember the story, Grandma woke up and suddenly said, "Alex is here! Alex?" This happened just as he passed away.



My explanation, admittedly unreligious and therefore unsatisfying to most, is that the heat leaving the body of one who dies rises much like a mirage in the desert. The air becomes momentarily shaken as if it's plasma. Our beings evaporate before our witnesses' eyes.

Thus we leave this world.

So, perhaps, not being able to stay as warm as we once could is our body's signal to us that we, too, are not immune to death's steady advance. He who just yesterday was his girlfriend's furnace will tomorrow be still as an ice block.

***

Not to get too heavy here, or depressing, today was actually a very nice day for my small children and me. We had all of the usual distractions last night and today -- play dates, movies, pizzas, sports games, art projects, photographs, walks to the coffee shop, Progressive Grounds, music, dancing, Runescape, and the disruptions of a quasi-teenager in the house.

My 12-year-old disclosed his dilemma last night.” Dad, three girls all seem to like me and they all want me to go to the dance with them."

"What do you want?"

"I just want to be their friend, that's it, but two of them hate each other, so I'm caught in the middle of it."

Sure enough, this afternoon, all three girls, whose identities I will not reveal, called him, one after the other. The two that "hate" each other managed to take offense that he had spoken with both of them.

I heard him say "I don't know" in all three instances. Afterwards, he explained he said he was answering them about whom he was going to take to the dance.

"We're not even supposed to be taking people to the dances yet," he said, exasperated.

So, this is what it is like to be a 12-year-old boy in our over-sexualized, over stimulated society, circa 2007. I feel powerless. What I want to scream to these girls, and their parents, is "Leave my son alone!" He's way too young to have to navigate his way around female hysteria.

I hope this does not sound sexist to anyone, because I don't mean it to be. I just wish I could undo the damage TV, movies, advertising, and insecure parents have done to girls in our culture.

They all deserve to be children a lot longer! Twelve! Give me a break. At that age no one harassed me, and I was free to roam the cornfields with my dog and my shotgun, spinning my own fantasies, none of which yet involved females.

Everything's speeded up. It's not good and it's not fair. There will be many years of heat, before the cold sets in. Each child will be a better partner if they first figure out how to be alone.

-30-

Voice of a murderer

First of all, a mea culpa. Two posts back, I stated erroneously that I was the only descendant named David in my family, but I inadvertently overlooked my little grandnephew, David Stewart.

I'm sorry, little David! Truth is, I had a funny feeling I was wrong even as I wrote that, but I couldn't quite connect up the dots. Because I also said I was the only one to carry both of my grandfathers' names, i.e., David Alexander, I had to quickly inventory my memory of all my nieces and nephews and cousins and their kids.

Actually, I don't think I've ever known all the names of my various cousins' kids, let alone those of their kids' kids. But I do know young David Stewart, who is much closer to me, my niece Cara's youngest son, growing up in Michigan, not all that far from where my grandfather David Weir had his farm at London, Ontario. Shame on me!

***

One of the hardest tasks facing a memoir-writer is how to tell the truth. Or, how much of the truth to tell. This is not only due to the abstract difficulty of determining what the truth is, since there often are many truths, not just one. But memoir writers have to grapple with whether or how to reveal uncomfortable truths.

Fiction presents an easier road to truth telling, under the guise of invented characters living imagined plots. What we think of as "real life" is the stuff of memoir; thus when writing one we have to be attentive to which details of our past stories can be independently verified, and try to stick to those.

Like most people who like story telling, I have not always let the facts get in my way. Sometimes, a detail here or there creates just the flourish I am looking for. But I would never dream of creating a memory out of whole cloth, and BTW, what the hell is whole cloth? I think there is a type of quilt called wholecloth but I don't think that is what the cliché is based on. If anybody can enlighten me, I'd be appreciative.

A more subtle but pervasive aspect of memoirs is what the authors choose not to say. There are so many memories we are ashamed of, or too timid still to reveal, or that might harm to others or ourselves. Many people also carry around secrets that if they revealed them now, even many years later, might expose them to legal consequences.

Recently, I've been reading the memoir of an man who purports to be telling the truth about his criminal past, and to a certain extent I'm sure he is, but I'm more interested in what he doesn't choose to reveal.

He admits trying to kill somebody, and he refers to having participated in many violent episodes. In several places in his book, he says he had no qualms about "blowing away" someone perceived to be an enemy of his gang. But he is careful not to reveal any actual murders he committed, because he is smart and knows the statute never runs out on murder.

The trouble is there is plenty of circumstantial that he indeed did commit murders that to this day remain unsolved. So, he has written a book, for which certain people are willing to honor him and invite him to campuses and other venues to speak about his past, and in this way he is profiting from what he did to others decades ago.

This man has eyes that are dead: the telltale sign of a killer. He may have cleaned up his life, finished his education, and gotten a respectable job. He may be a pillar of his community. He may have published a book, and the book may receive favorable reviews.

All of this, and more, can happen, but he has not told the truth. Had he revealed some of the heinous crimes he committed, his book would not be so well received, except in law enforcement circles, which might welcome the chance to close some old cold cases. His dilemma, as a writer obviously struggling to present his life in a favorable light, is that he shows no remorse or compassion for those he harmed during his violent years.

When confronted by the daughter of a woman killed during that era, under circumstances that suggest he may well have been involved, he avoided answering any questions about that case. Later, after the bookstore reading where this confrontation occurred, he averted his eyes when he saw the woman walking nearby.

None of this body language is that of an innocent man. It fascinated me to witness this whole scene that day. He may not admit his part in this crime, but there is nothing preventing others or me from exposing the evidence we have of his involvement.

Sure, he could sue for libel, but then he would be open to discovery. And a man with the kind of bloody secrets he carries around would be well advised to avoid the discovery process. So, the point of all this is memoir writing can be a dangerous game of hide-and-seek. If there are things you are afraid to reveal even in the supposed true story of your life, then what you do write is a lie.

And lies tend to out. He can try to hide from the consequences of killing people, but their ghosts will haunt him, one way or another. Many Native Americans believe that the bodies of murder victims do not rest peacefully until their killers are revealed. Memoir writing is dangerous -- it is a channel for truth to emerge. And the brain works in strange ways, once you start to dredge up old memories.

Just ask O.J. Simpson, author of the ludicrous faux-memoir of what would have happened had he been the killer of his estranged wife and a man at her house. From excerpts I read, his pretense of fiction fell away easily into a confession, barely disguised as make-believe.

Killers may think they have gotten away with murder, but the ghosts of those they killed will haunt them until they finally wise up, come clean, and accept the consequences. Without this, they can never know peace.

I will have more to say about this man and his book once I've finished reading it.

-30-

Michigan Mafia, R.I.P.

You have to go back to 1978 to understand the story of the Michigan Mafia. A group of us Midwestern migrants started to feel comfortable enough in our adopted Bay Area to bring a bit of our culture into the local scene. Some journalist colleagues and I issued a challenge to the other media institutions in San Francisco to play us in softball.

Early responders included the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, Mother Jones magazine, Media Alliance, and a number of other local media outlets. In the very first game of what eventually became known as the Bay Area Media Softball League (BAMSL) our team, the Michigan Mafia, beat Media Alliance, 3-2.

Over the next 29 years, many teams came and went, partially due to the ever-changing media landscape here. Wired had a team. Some of the TV stations did also. KQED had a team.

Given my own peripatetic career, I often found myself having to play against my employer's team, because I never betrayed the Michigan Mafia. We were always a competitive team, but never a champion. The closest we came was in 1994, when we advanced to the league championship game, only to lose, 32-5. My only consolation that year was that I was the Mafia's batting champion (one of four times) and in that championship game I went 3 for 3.

But, much more than our winning percentage over the years, what held the Mafia together was a shared sense of community. Relatively few of the long-term members were media people, ultimately, given the changes in our industry. We ended up as a collection of lawyers, legal investigators, and random others, with just a few aging journalists sprinkled into the mix.

Tonight, our venerable coach, Joel Kirshenbaum, announced his retirement, which presumably signals the end of the Michigan Mafia.

"Only the mediocre are always at their best." That was our motto. Some years, however, we came tantalizingly close to being better than mediocre. We played some great games, and had some great parties as well.

Although I feel sad tonight, very sad, at the passing of one of my main social institutions over the years here in San Francisco, I feel like toasting my many colleagues, hundreds of them, who helped make the Mafia if not the best team, certainly the funniest team of our era.

As for me, I played every year during our 29 year run. But last year, in limited at bats, I did not get a single hit. You have to know when it is time to step down, and even if the Mafia had gone forward, I was figuring I should retire. I never did make it to my goal of a career batting average of .600, but I came close enough to feel like my hitting had helped the Mafia win lots of games.

On the other hand, my fielding was suspect, as was my base running, and my (ugh) relief pitching. I never was a pretty player, but I always gave it all I had, as did lots of us, as we played out our version of the American Dream.

Good-bye, Michigan Mafia. R.I.P.

-30-

Fuck, Shit, Piss, etc.

So, you may well ask, what the hell is that headline about, David? There is an answer, and here it is. Back in 1995, a bit before I joined his corporate empire, Wired magazine's founder Louis Rossetto wrote an editorial with the above title (except the "etc.") If memory serves, he was protesting efforts by would-be government censors to limit freedom of speech on the Internet.

Step back, take a deep breath, and think about it. We Americans cherish our right to say whatever the fuck we want to say whenever the fuck we want to say it. Shit, there is no motherfucking reason that we can't talk about blowjobs, cocksucking, tits, ass, cuntsucking, penises, vaginas, breasts, or any other body parts or functions, right?

This is one of our most sacred rights.

When you take this into images, we also insist on the right to post and view almost any kind of pornography that we wish -- except that that can be shown to exploit children. The Internet has been the best thing for pornography since peepshows, which should give all of us pause.

My point tonight is simply this -- we are inhabiting a virtual space where none of the old rules really apply. Out here, on the Wild West web, you can do pretty much whatever you want to do. Go ahead, and create a false identity, if you wish, and explore whatever fantasies you haven't been able to pursue in the physical world.

It's all okay, in fact it is fine.

But, just to be clear about what this blog is about, I only post under my real name. I do not wish to meet anybody under false pretenses. It is special when someone contacts me and says what I post resonates with her/his experiences.

Please do not misread me. I do not judge those who escape their "real" identities to explore different selves online, far from it. I encourage it!

It's just not me. The sum and the total for me is this blog: David A. Weir. The "A", BTW is for Alexander, which was my maternal grandfather's name. My first name was my paternal grandfather's name. Thus, I am the current representative of those two men's dreams.

So far, I don't think there are any David's or Alex's in the generations that have followed us. So I carry this burden alone. CORECTION: I OVERLOOKED MY GRAND-NEPHEW DAVID STEWART! my bad, sorry little david...

-30-

Happy Birthday, Baby... plus Baseball 2.0

Tonight, I am thinking about a certain someone who left me at what feels like a long time ago, now. Tomorrow is her birthday.

A very special woman turns 44 tomorrow in Biloxi, Mississippi. She is a lovely, sexy, smart, sweet, nutty, and very special human being.

***

Yesterday, speeding north along I-5, I played a number of CDs that usually do not get much airtime in my car. One was a Mamas & Papas album. The best singer by far in that group was, of course, Mama Cass, who was also the first one to die, way too young. As I listened to her songs I realized that who she really was was Wayne Newton with balls.

***

In case you have not been following the news, it is time to say "shame on you" to the San Francisco Chronicle, for their aggressive though ultimately unsuccessful series of articles on BALCO, i.e., the steroids scandal that has as its core the objective to discredit the accomplishments of Barry Bonds.

Look, I too have been an investigative reporter, and I too have been given access to secret grand jury testimony, and I also made the choice to take it all public. So, I know why they did it. But, the revelation that their source was a lawyer with a direct interest in distracting coverage from his client by deflecting bad publicity onto the athletes casts a deeep shadow over the veracity of the excerpted leaks. After all, we don't know enough about the context.

Meanwhile, the newspaper played a major role in wrecking the reputation of one of the greatest hitters of all time. Not that he makes himself warm and fuzzy by his own actions, mind you, it's just that I think this thing has been blown way out of proportion.

Baseball season is upon us. A pretty old player by the name of Barry Bonds is once again going to wear number 25 and play left field for the San Francisco Giants. He's going to bat cleanup.

And, I am going to here make a prediction. Bonds will not only equal Henry Aarons all-time HR record, but he'll do so by mid-season. Then he'll go on to hit 35 or 40 for the year.

Hey, I am not one to make excuses for cheaters, but when it comes to the steroids scandal, we'd all best step back a step and consider the long, sordid history of America's national pastime. Like everything else about this culture, the true history is ugly, exploitive, and filled with examples of "cheating," or attempts to gain an unfair advantage.

I do not have a vote, but if I did, when Barry Bonds comes up for the Hall of Fame vote, I would give him a thumbs up. If you live in the Bay Area or visit this year, please try to make it out to the baseball park on the Bay. We might as well witness and celebrate what this guy does, because history will (trust me.) After all, many athletes in this era was on steroids, but in baseball, one player soared above all the rest.

However, unless this year's edition of the Giants can make it to the World Series and win it, nothing Bonds or anyone else can do individually will actually matter to those of us who are the real baseball fans in this town.

We are tired of excuses. We want a trophy. It's not only how you play the game when it is your profession that matters. You gotta win...

-30-

Make Love with a Robot 2.0

Anticipating a difficult and long drive home today, I tried to improve my chances of not having to explode by buying each of the kids a toy at a general store. Thus, we acquired a small stuffed animal which appeared to be an impossible mutant of several incompatible species; another bag of war-ready soldiers; and last but not least, this supposed replica of an Old West pistol (with an "authentic walnut grip").

Right.



After a long business call, during which my three little road warriors were relatively cooperative, I discovered that two of them had invented a game I remember from my youth. "Fort."



By the time we hit the road south, the ice had melted off of my windshield, and the sky opened up in all of its glory. Thus, we started glimpsing mightly Mount Shasta, 14000+ feet tall, for the first time on any of our drives up and down this coast.


When it finally came into focus, we all stared in awe.

***

Alas, even the best three little kids on the planet have to get into fights, it seems, when confined to the backseat of a small metal box speeding along a freeway. So, today was very difficult for all of us. Seven long hours along I-5 and I-505 and I-80 before we finally sped across the Bay Bridge into sweet San Francisco, the end of the line, this time around.

***

Back here, I discover that some of our brightest scientists are in the process of perfecting robots to perform tasks like driving our cars safely (yes!), but also providing "robot companionship [that] could one day go, as teens once said, all the way, for geek bachelors who can't get a girlfriend."

Okay, guys. This technology thing has gotten out of control, I'm sorry. Even the geekiest of all geeks, Bill Gates, met Melinda, and see what happened? He found some meaning for his life (and wealth.) He became a philanthropist.

Let that be a lesson to all of us. Real sex, real connecting, is much more powerful than any machine substitute can or ever will be able to supply.

On the otherhand, maybe you could have a nice robot on the side? :-)


-30-

Found & Lost

Trundling along the Interstate, chomping baby carrots, dried cranberries, tangerines, crackers, salami slices, pistachios, raw string beans, and whatever other vaguely healthy snacks this Dad could find at Fred Meyer; after another huge breakfast at Golden Touch, and one last visit this trip holding baby James; with a random set of music competing with the movie, Six Days, Seven Nights playing on the computer; our rather silly little group of four (one senior, three kids) took our act south tonight.

We are a strange crew, for sure, this selection of Weirs. When I add up the ages of my travel mates, I find they are almost precisely half my biological age, collectively. Why is it that some parental commands are so blithely ignored? Here is my current top ten:

* Brush your teeth.
* Don't hit.
* Quiet down, please.
* Don't jump on the bed.
* Look both ways first.
* It's time for dinner.
* Did you finish your homework?
* Time to stop playing Runescape.
* Turn off the TV. It's bedtime.
* Please clean up this mess now.

I'll spare you my expanded list of 50 others...

On the other hand, this youthful crew can be useful in numerous ways. They have a fabulous memory to remember details, whereas I can barely remember where I parked the car. Thus, as we exited I-5, our driving done for this leg of the journey, one pointed out the route for me to follow; another had memorized my license plate number (required at sign-in at the hotel they guided me back to); the third remembered (and requested) that we again get room #310.

Mind you, the last night we stayed here was around two months ago, and we've all traveled to a bunch of places in the intervening weeks.

In fact, the last night we stayed here, and ate dinner at the spaghetti place (which they guided me back to again tonight), as well as the cafe where we will no doubt have breakfast tomorrow, was the same wintry night that James Kim and his family disappeared here in the mountains of Oregon.

Their ordeal could not be far from my mind tonight as I retraced the main route they, and we, took that stormy night. As I read through the official law enforcement report
excerpted here , again today, I again became curious how this extremely intelligent couple made such a terrible decision that night late last November.

Kati Kim had gone to college in Eugene, and she knew the area. The couple had chosen a cool resort on the coast to visit that night as the break in the long drive south to home, which is the same as our home, San Francisco.

How did they miss the brightly lit turnoff for Highway 42, which was open that night to the coast and the best route to where they wanted to go? On a clear night, such as tonight, it is so lit up and obvious as to be almost comical. There is a huge red "Love's" sign at the turnoff that almost forces your eyes to consider going for it.

Even supposing you missed this exit, the route soon begins to ascend into a far less benign environment. As you make your way skyward toward Grant's Pass and the Rogue River region, it is absolutely clear that you have entered an extremely serious wilderness area.

Warning signs that this is "snow country" are everywhere. The trucks go slow going up and have emergency "runaway" gravel pits on the down slopes. Few lights twinkle in the surrounding peaks, the road winds and twists its way over a landscape that seems tethered to a giant serpent's slippery back.

I am not a particularly fearful guy, having grown up in the woods, partially, and always having loved camping, hiking, and seeking out secret wild places, but I would never have risked driving off into this part of Oregon that particular night.

But, of course, the Kims were not fools. They were blinded, as was I, that night, by the road conditions. When it wasn't raining it was snowing. Visibility never seemed greater than ten feet or so. James Kim, like me, probably never lifted his eyes from the red tail lights in front of him, because that was the only way we could be sure we were still on the road, and this is I-5 I am talking about, the main artery in this region.

I'm quite sure the Kims never saw the Route 42 turnoff signs, or the Love's sign, because I know I didn't.

And they could not have known how forbidding the landscape was at the point where they did turn off, for the same reason -- low visibility.

I'll have more to say about this case in the future.

***

I've been reading the memoir of a killer, though he does not admit his crimes. Oh, he admits doing many nasty things and he admits his intent to murder, but he deftly sidesteps what many of us know he did, 32 years and two months ago (not to mention on other occasions as well.)

He's quite the star these days, speaking here and there, and being honored by those who would forgive unspeakable crimes in the name of a cause, albeit a romantic, politically correct cause.

But this man has revealed too much in his book. As I read it, I shudder with the knowledge that these are the words of the man who very probably murdered my friend's mother. And he no doubts think he has gotten clean away with it.

But he's not in the clear. There is no statute on murder, my friend. You were a fugitive once, and in your book you describe how awful that experience was for you. That is a pity, because the forces are gathering to force you underground once again. Have you been watching your back?

Maybe it's time to do so.

***

Two have coughs and sore throats; one has ringworm, or a good imitation. One is so unselfconscious that he could wear my extra-large Michigan sweatshirt into the restaurant tonight without a care how he appeared to others. Of course, he is also one with a Russian Red Army Cossack Hat over his bright red curls. The checkout clerks and waitresses always struggle as they look, first at him, then me. "Ah, Harry Potter, right?"

Another struts like the macho athlete he in fact is, but he has an angelic face, too sweet to be tough, and his tenderness will always win out over toughness.

The littlest one is tough as nails, and a bit of a daredevil, too. "I'm a risky person," she explains, "but I like to be safe."

That old guy in the mix would be me, but I don't honestly know how I got to be this age. Inside, I'm still a young guy, checking out the women, dreaming my own fantasies, strutting my own aging stuff.

If our true age is what we think we are, I'm what -- eleven?

Yep, we are a cluster of strangelings on the road out here. But we fit together pretty well, like a gang. As the second oldest among us blurted out in a moment of weakness today, "You know, if I have to be stuck in a car for hours with any three other people, I have to say I'm glad it's you three guys."

For a moment (and only a moment, because a fight soon broke out in the backseat), I felt maybe I was for once in my life at exactly the right place with the right people at the right time.

Enough. Whichever one of them turns out to be the writer will tell this entire story much better than I can, many years from now. After all, I may have twice the years past on them, but they more than ten times the years future on me (do the math). So, I am not the main storyteller here, but rather a character, probably a minor one, in the stories to come.

-30-