Daily Blues & Views

In this world of rapid change, it's refreshing to find something that stays the same.  Almost. Once a year, for two weeks, the little Humbolt County Fair in the small town of Ferndale, California kicks off.  I've heard it's the longest continually running county fair, stretching back to the 1870s if I remember correctly. Let me set the context, because that's part of the appeal.  Ferndale is a tiny dairy community tucked into the mountains of very Northern California, not far from the costal city of Eureka.  This is beautiful country where redwoods meet the pounding sea.  I've been there a handful of times and now I'm thrilled to be able to watch the horse races at the fair from my TV or computer screen given the technology available now.  The fair is like most county fairs with fried everything and lots of animal exhibits and show competitions.  Against this beautiful backdrop sits a little 5/8 mile racetrack, as cute as it is dangerous.  Ti...

He knows there is something there, Something most of us can't see, So he darts out in the middle of the street to peck the unpeckable. That's what crows do, I see it and want it, but there are cars from both directions cars that can stop his vision in one spasm of the neck. Still he pecks, until the last second, then hops or flies or sometimes walks defiantly, leisurely, as if his life were not at stake. She has a family to feed, nothing can go to waste, Risks envelop everything, they hatch at all hours, so she darts, she flirts with the steel boxes that form the carnival ride of chance. Something I can digest is hiding from those that do not see. Still, she pecks until the sound descends, she flits aside at the last second, as if her life were not at stake.

Sometimes trying to simplify our lives can get complicated.  Cutting back and letting go of things need not be so difficult.  In fact, the two or three times I've made a concentrated effort to downsize were absolutely exhilarating.  Filling up a dumpster with material things that have stayed too long at the fair is a very visual measurement of how attached we get to the non-essential. I've begun to think about finding new homes for anything I still cling to that might be of some value.  In full disclosure, nothing I currently possess is of significant value that it couldn't be replaced if necessary.  Although, my little collection of historical books and primary source objects, while not really worth much, would be difficult to reproduce. Though my wife worries that some of my most interesting items would be difficult to "place" I constantly assure her that a museum or two would take some and a used record store right down the street would be the place to take...

With the passing of American playwright Sam Shepard, I was reminded of a most interesting experience that unfolded at the scene of what is arguably Shepard's most critically acclaimed play, "Buried Child." Here's what happened. I'd read some of the reviews of the play and wanted to see it.  So I asked a friend of mine to accompany me.  My friend, Ed Robbin had joined the cast of a modest production about the life of Woody Guthrie that I too was involved in at the time.  We're talking Bay Area circa early 1980s. Ed had directed plays in the 30s and aside from being the guy who first put Woody on the radio, has a few accomplished friends.  He'd drop names like Theodore Dreiser or mention projects he's worked on with frequency so I thought, naturally it would be useful and informative to watch this play with Ed.  Besides, Ed was in his late 70s at this time and was delighted to get the opportunity to attend a play in San Francisco without having to dri...

Most people ignored him.  Even though he smiled and could talk softly. He offered his wares.  "Want to buy a song for a dime?"  Ten cents...one thin dime...one tenth of a dollar was all it took for Widman Fischer to sing his original compositions to you.  Most often I heard him sing "Merry Go Round," but occasionally he'd belt out "Linda and Laurie."      Oh Linda!...Oh Laurie!      Oh Linda!...Oh Laurie! Sort of a lilting up and down voice collage much like the "Merry Go Round" refrain. A human calliope. He was a fixture on the streets of L.A. in the late 60s and a regular on the UCLA campus where I spent my junior and senior years of college. By the time I was ready to graduate, Widman Fischer, who we all knew was a paranoid schizophrenic, but harmless, had witnessed first hand many of the people and events of those politically flaming days.  Anti-war demonstrations, take overs of the Administration build...

She gave me a poem a bout wiper blades,              tucked it right up under my own on the driver's side a  too cute, if not subtle tale about how her wiper blades had             fallen in love with each other, But it wouldn't work because they would come together and then flee apart...perpetually when activated. What was she trying to tell me?        That love and relationships were like sisyphus...?             condemned to tempt with intimacy and then separate in an instant? Or did she have something else in mind, something that would take a lifetime to learn? Windshields crack, wiper blades do too, Relationships split but linger long after the parts wear out.

I wonder when it first happens?  My guess is that around age 50.  That's a perfect time to realize that it really is half over.  I'm referring to the realization that life will continue here in your town, your country, this world, long after you do. People must have some curiosity of what daily life will be like; what the future holds, because we get glimpses all the time.  Aside from picture phones and cars without drivers, we wonder about the small and simple things too. It does no good resisting any of his and wish to go backward, but how many of us would like to go back a couple of hundred years rather than go forward? The other day at the train station in Portland I saw an Amish family calmly waiting to board a passenger train.  Certainly not the first time I've seen a religious group in a public setting, but it is real Twilight Zone stuff. Compared to the other folks that surrounded them, with backpacks and tattoos, barefoot and wearing shorts, the o...