The Happies

When I lived in Taloqan, Afghanistan, it was an era when young Westerners traveled around the world seeking cheap dope and other travel highs. So, naturally, whenever the hippies showed up in our town, locals spread the news.

"The Happies are here."



Well, tonight, the Happies visited our house, to help celebrate our friend Alana's birthday. The local Happies are a somewhat odd group. The family (of eight) includes a party boy, a Commie, a couple flirts, and several loopy members, never quite certain where they are or why.



In other words, they are perfect neighbors here in San Francisco, the kind of friends always welcome at a party. Whatever else they may be feeling, their expressions never change...

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One Snail's Silver Trail

An odd weather forecast yesterday (thunderstorms) had me on edge and on the lookout. Thunderstorms are roughly as rare here as snow -- although both are known to occur, this ain't Michigan.

This morning, a strange sky greeted me as I went out my back door. Its beauty was stunning. We seldom get a cloud cover like this one; it took me back to my boyhood in Michigan, when I'd lie in a field and watch the clouds overhead.

Another strange thing -- the clouds today didn't seem to move. Normally here, whatever whiteness is in our sky moves fast -- like a sped-up time-lapse photo, almost comical to behold.

Not this day. The clouds overhead were static, as if they'd taken a wrong turn from the tropics somewhere. Pretty girls put on shorts and sundresses; boys took off their shirts. It was another unlikley day of summer here in the Bay Area.



As had been heavily advertised for many weeks, the Bay Bridge was shut down tonight. One of the busiest bridges in the world (@300,000 cars a day) is closed until next Tuesday morning. Workers are demolishing part of the old structure (which was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, an event I remember well); and somehow maneuvering into place a replacement section.

This sounds like one of those engineering feats so unimaginable, maybe it's best not to know more.

Caltrans, the state agency that maintains our infrastruture here in California, spent ~$1 million to warn the public of this impending closure. So, as the moment of closure approached (8 p.m. tonight) guess what?

Nobody was on the bridge! You could count the cars on the fingers of your hands. Such is the power of advertising in the modern age.

***

On my fence, overnight last night, a lone snail must have inched his way on a wave-like path up and down and back up and probably over into my neighbor's yard. As I sat out back this morning, contemplating the oddness of the sky, the snail's trail came to light, a ray of sun illuminating its silvery path.

Now, to be clear, I hate these snails. They are ugly, destructive creatures that every local gardener despises. We have many theories about how to keep them away (salt, beer, etc.) but they seem so well-adapted to this environment that they cannot really be excluded from our yards.

As much as I regard them with contempt, I had to admit this morning that this modest creature's path, left in silver on my fence, was inspiring.

The art of nature.

-30-

Wedged

Have you ever been caught between a rock and a hard place?



Everything I see around me is a symbol of something else.



There is an inherent beauty to the rhythm of life. We come, we grow, we reproduce, we fall, we pass away. Everything feeds into the future.



We leave behind whatever we can, and since we can't take anything with us, that's pretty much everything we are, or have been.



Here, in the waning summer days, in the wake of a lunar eclipse that caused everybody in my house to talk in their sleep and have weird dreams, we are anticipating a change of seasons.



It's fall, even if the calendar doesn't agree, because the kids start school next week.



This is a season of excitement, new beginnings and opportunities. Change is in the air.



Almost unnoticed, the fruits of spring and summer die and fall to earth, their bodies adding a sweet, fermented odor to the hot night air. They are going where their ancestors went, and where we all are meant to go -- into the soil beneath the feet of new life, new sprouts, fresh beauty, and the sexual drives that carry all of us into the future.

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American Salaryman

In Japan, the typical married man is known as a Salaryman. He works from early in the morning until late at night (9ish), probably at one of the big companies that dominate the Japanese economy. After work, he likely goes out drinking with his boss and/or colleagues. He staggers home drunk somewhere around midnight.

He barely knows his wife, really, or his children, if any.

***

In America, we go to our offices early enough but we try to come home at night before the dinner hour, often to wives/partners who will be pissed off if we are late, especially if there are children at home. We know our partners; often they are our best friends. We know our kids.



As an American Salaryman, albeit of the older variety, my version of the work-life balance has long been to take my kids to work with me when circumstances dictate. It's the end of summer now, after vacations and camps, with the start of school still a week away.



These photos are from yesterday, when my youngest daughter went to work with me.

-30-

On the cover of Rolling Stone!

Hey, I'm no rock star, and never have been. The tiny image above is my press pass in my years as a reporter for the coolest magazine of the era. I have deliberately kept this image small, because in the context of that time, my contributions were relatively minor, although I do believe the series of articles Howard Kohn and I wrote under the initial title of "The Inside Story," which detailed the saga of Patty Hearst and the self-styled "Symbionese Liberation Army" did contribute not only to Jann Wenner's magazine's financial success, but to our progressive culture's ultimate success in discerning between our truly revolutionary impulses and the foolish thuggery of the misguided.



Our three-part series of articles, which probably ran to some 60,000 words, captured in real time the tragic-comic end of an era where idealism drove an entire generation to challenge the authority of the societal structures we encountered as we came of age.

We fought against this "system," which in psychological terms might be described as our parents' world, and we eventually won. But what, exactly did we achieve?

Next month, here in San Francisco, my former colleagues and I will gather to celebrate the first ten years of Rolling Stone, when it was our magazine in this fine city, before Jann took it to New York, denouncing this town as a "backwater," as he became a billionaire.

I harbor no resentment toward Jann; the truth is I admire him as an entrepreneur. Had he cooperated with me, I would have published his biography by now.

But he did not, so I haven't. And since the only writing left inside me has to be emotionally honest, the nuanced story I might have told about him will perhaps never become a book.

A month from now, when the big Rolling Stone reunion occurs, I may have a different perspective. Who knows?

Tonight, it just seems a long time ago and a place oh so far away, even though it is not, in physical terms. After all, 625 Third Street sits barely ten minutes from my flat.

-30-

In the hands of the angel (artists)

Sometimes, your life story seems as if it might be told in the lyrics of a song; or maybe one special moment of your life can be captured in that way.



For me, the purpose (collectively) of our lives is to stimulate art.



How can any of us, in our modesty, create art?



Children often seem as if they are our only hope.



But I do not believe that.



As we work with kids, urging them to be creative, we also are talking about ourselves, our needs to express our truths, our desire to tell our stories.

Spend all your time waiting for that second chance
For the break that will make it OK
There's always some reason to feel not good enough
And it's hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction or a beautiful release
Memories seep from my veins
Let me be empty and weightless and maybe
I'll find some peace tonight

In the arms of the Angel far away from here
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of the Angel; may you find some comfort here

So tired of the straight line, and everywhere you turn
There's vultures and thieves at your back
The storm keeps on twisting, you keep on building the lies
That you make up for all that you lack
It don't make no difference, escaping one last time
It's easier to believe
In this sweet madness, oh this glorious sadness
That brings me to my knees

In the arms of the Angel far away from here
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie
In the arms of the Angel; may you find some comfort here

You're in the arms of the Angel; may you find some comfort here

--Sarah McLachlan

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Homecomings

It's a Sunday evening, and ever since I can remember this is the day for a roast. So, today, as my little kids returned from a week on a horse ranch in Montana, I served a pork roast, garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, corn on the cob, Persian cucumbers, baby carrots, plus a leftover mix of hot sausage, white potato, stir-dry peppers, spices and tomato sauce.

Dessert is fresh raspberries, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate chip cookies.



I disclose these mundane facts in an attempt to set the scene. I am my parents' son. Much of what I do dates from what they did for me.



Since I became a single Dad four years ago, I've felt a new urgency to share my cultural background with my children. It's important to me that I share some of the experiences I remember from my childhood many decades ago in Michigan.



Sundays were special, as family days, but also scary, as the end of the weekend, which felt safe, and the kickoff of a new week out in the world, which promised uncertainty, including unpleasantness.



In those days, quite distant now, I had to know how to fight in order to defend myself from bullies. My Dad warned me that I would need a variety of tools, including enough wrestling ability to get on top of a bigger, stronger boy and let my (inevitable) nosebleed (presumably from his punches) coat him in my bright red life fluid, thereby ending the fight.

Or, how to throw a wicked right punch, which became a weapon that broke more than one nose.

What he didn't really teach me but what I learned on my own was to avoid fighting altogether, since I found it distasteful, by bonding with bigger, tougher allies. Thus, in my teens, I went around with some guys who would soon drop out of school, engage in criminal activities, and end up in prison.



Under their protection, I survived until such time as I could locate other oddballs like myself, outsiders so strangely wired that none of us fit into any known category in that ingrown, cruel backwater known as (ugh) Bay City, Michigan.



God, how I hated the place.



But, here in the Mission District of San Francisco, surrounded by a diversity of cultures, languages, sensibilities and orientations unimaginable in gross old Bay City, I'm much more comfortable.



Here, all is right in my world. My children are back. My special friend has redesigned the space in a way that excites us all.



Our home seems brighter now, fresher, and more open. The sweet odor of a moist roast hangs in the air; thus my own personal family traditions live on here on a distant coast.

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