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Showing posts from December, 2016

Best for Humanity

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Back in the 16 year old days of my life I went for a walk on Christmas eve.  It was an uncommonly cold winter for Southern California, and while there was no hope of snow, there was thick fog and the breath we blew turning to mist and leading the way.  In my new found freedom as a 16-year-old, I went on a little excursion around my neighborhood.  Announcing that I'd be back in a few minutes, I walked the length of my street noticing the frosty windows, the lit Christmas trees or an occasional blue and white Hanukkah arrangement. It was a transcendent moment. I realized too, that every house on my block, both sides, was lit up.  There was no agreement among neighbors to do anything, it just turned out that everyone was on board that year. As I turned to walk back up the street, I stopped and made a vow.  Squinting my eyes to make the colors melt and sear them into my memory, I vowed to remember that moment always. I can still see the golden reds and bluish purples against a blue-bla

Some For Later

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I've been reading Patti Smith's autobiography entitled Just Kids.   This is not going to be a review of said book or even a critical account in any way.  Rather, it will be what resonates for me because give or take a few months, Smith and I are nearly the same age and definitely from the same generation. Yes, Patti is an unabashed name dropper, but when you spent a good chunk of your life running around with the likes of  artist Robert Mapplethorpe and poet Gregory Corso, that's t be expected.   Sharing Andy Warhol's table or a chance meeting with Allen Ginsberg can create such opportunities. I'm fine with that. What resonates most for me is the honesty and self assessment that Smith consistently employs in her narration.  That is, she shares her misgivings about drug use, queer identity and some of the biggest rock stars of the era, like Jim Morrison.  In some ways I hear a voice chiming:"You had to be there." There was a time, you see, when our cul

Silent Day

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People in this town are still friendlier than most places.  They acknowledge your presence, they smile occasionally, they even speak.  Once in a while there is a dismissive look, but usually from someone who associates me with a parent or authority figure, or a walking stereotype. Yet, the general malaise persists.  This post-election new normal is slithering down our throats like cod liver oil or that cough medicine we never could stomach.  But we continue on.  In some ways it's that quiet shock that accompanies us daily. Other signs are present.  A bookstore displays Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here, and suggests the parallels are uncanny.  I open a copy and read at random.  Could be.  Could be it is happening here.  But, I question myself, maybe it's been happening since the 1903s when that novel was written.  Fascism oozes slowly, sometimes over decades. This year the holiday spirit seems caught in a snare.  The snow helps the visual landscape, the warm bever

Poem for a Middle School Memory

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               Junior High Seventh grade fears are                                 carved in soap, Gymnastics with an Olympic medalist,                                 the idiot who pees on your books in the                                    lavatory where no body laves, Each day after shifting gears by the volleyball nets,         dodging balls and anti Semitic jokes and jive (they used to throw pennies at us) I come home to Ray Charles who never disappoints. I play the album repeatedly,  a candle in the dark valley.                        "What'd I say,"                                                is my favorite.                      

Before Then

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I know a few young people that seem very disappointed with the speed of change.  Aside from the recent election, they feel as if nothing changes at all, or if it does it's at a snail's pace.  It often seems that way, but social change does happen, and it's very subtle, if not sneaky. In mulling over some short story ideas, I've been thinking lately about all the things my parents never did, saw, used, or experienced.  Since I'm a classic Baby Boomer, it's safe to say that what I'm about to elaborate on considers about the last 70 years. This thought started when recalling a memory from the 9 year old days of my life.  On my first trip to Disneyland, in Anaheim, California, my family went with my aunt and uncle.  This was Disneyland's first decade and some of the things it's known for weren't even in existence then. I was sitting next to my Aunt Dorothy on the seat of a horse drawn streetcar that went up Main St, and it occurred to me that m