DECEMBER 24, 2017
RING OUT, SOLSTICE BELLS
TIMES LIKE THESE WE LEARN TO LIVE AGAIN
So anyway. The longest day had arrived and it was Solstice time, the
time of running about in cold weather to visit old friends and family
and live the passing of dark days in these dark days of national foolishness
and inanity.
All across the Island lights were strung to hold back the darkness. To
bring joy during the longest nights of the year as the earth begins its
inexorable tilt back toward the light.
Jose, and the gang returned from their Xmas tree foray with some success.
They found a discarded tree which was being taken to the chipper and somehat
unobstrusively, while Tipitina hitched up the hem of her dress to inspect
some kind of problem with her garter, snagged the tree off of the truck
behind the back of the driver and trundled it back to the Household on
Otis, a triumphant trophy aboard the Household's Flexible Flyer wagon.
After they brought it in they set the base into a cinderblock nestled
in the official metal washtub that had once been employed variously as
a washbasin and a cement mixer. They faced the worse looking side to the
wall and removed enough of the dead branches so that it did not look so
horrible and then they had a party with 99 cent jug wine to festoon the
tree with all manner of geegaws found on the beach and in the trash: bottle
caps, broken glass, condoms still in their shiny wrappers, shredded speaker
wire for tinsel, aluminum foil, etc.
For lights, Martini wired together pieces of old circuit boards so that
the board LED indicators would glow and it all looked real pretty - with
the house lights down and if you squinted sideways. It may not have been
perfect, but it was a tree of Sincerity.
On the opposite side of Sincerity, Mr. Howitzer had Dodd set up the tree
he had delivered by the Depuglia Brothers ("Nutting is uglia than
a Depuglia"). The brothers dropped the fifteen-foot Douglas fir off
in the driveway and drove off as they had been pre-paid, so it was up
to Dodd to set up boards on the marble steps, load most of the tree on
the wheelbarrow and lever the monster over plastic tarp and up the steps
and into the Grand Ballroom where he used a rope and pully to haul the
tree upright into its stand with Eunice, the maid and Filbert, the cook.
"Just look at me uniform now!" Eunice said. "It's gotten
all tawdry!" Eunice always tried to talk as if she were English when
around Dodd, and like most Americans, never really got it quite right.
After the three of them had done most of the decorations, all culled
from the Howitzer collection of Russian and English glassware dating from
the 1800's, along with quite an assortment of ceramic miniatures and the
best of patriotic lights from Tiffany's, the tree wanted only its topmost
angel which had to be placed, according to the Family Howitzer Tradition,
by a pure, innocent virgin.
There were no more of that sort associated with the Howitzers, so Mrs.
Cribbage would have to do the honors perched on a step ladder, aided by
Mrs. Blather. Mrs. Cribbage claimed lineage from Old California and direct
descent from Mr. Savage who had killed a great number of people during
the conquest of Alta California and Mrs. Blather claimed DAR membership,
so it was quite all right in the eyes of Mr. Howitzer.
So the night of the Xmas eve party arrived and in the kitchen, Filbert
was kept incredibly busy with temporary sou-chefs, Jose and Javier, who
every holiday season sought out and obtained seasonal work like this in
addition to the elf gig they always got at Macy's Union Square. They did
not know much about cooking or about elves, but they were industrious
at just about anything that did not involve a shovel.
"Fetch me the greater whisk, pronto!" shouted Filbert, staring
down into a steaming cauldron and Jose brought him a spatula.
"O for Pete's sake you ninny!" Filbert shouted. "And you
over there, do something to warm that platter!"
As Filbert hustled for the whisk, ordering Jose to do an half dozen things
at once, Javier found the cord to a microwave and so plugged that fellow
into a wall socket near a big appliance that latter turned out to be an
electric rotisserie. He pressed a button and the rotisserie made a noise.
He pressed another button and the microwave kicked on. Jose turned something
on that clattered and Javier pressed another button when Filbert shouted
something at him and right then all the lights in the main room blew out
in sparks.
"Now you have done it," Javier said to Jose.
Because Dodd was kept busy fetching canapes and drinks for the guests
and taking coats and hats at the door he was not there when they picked
the stepladder with the broken rung brace and the short Mrs. Cribbage
climbed on up with her hands laden by the five pound, gilt Nike with outstretched
wings, which had once adorned a German memorial and which had been brought
to the US from that field of headstones as a sort of war trophy by a previous
Howitzer. Mrs. Blather, being made with more substantial foundation, steadied
the ladder below.
So up went Mrs. Cribbage as the lights went out in a most spectacular
way and there was a sort of cracking sound and Mrs. Cribbage reached out
blindly with one free hand, the other clutching the Nike figure and she
went down into the tree, pulling strands of patriotic lights with her
even as Mr. Mrs. Blather wrapped her arms around the base of the ladder
and Mr. Cribbage grabbed the struggling Mrs. Blather in a bear hug which
did not help as both of them went down to the floor in a heap with fragments
of the wooden ladder. The tree leaned to the side briefly then went down
on top of the Grimsbys, the Alcotts and the French Envoy, Mssr. Montagne,
with Mrs. Cribbage lost somewhere in the branches amid a smashing of centuries-old
glassware and porcelein.
"Alors!" said a voice. "Ma pince nez est total
desole!"
"Dodd!" said Mr. Howitzer. "Get the lights on and clean
this up. Everyone! The party shall retire now to the patio!"
In Washington Park, Toni and the Island coven gathered for their annual
Solstice ritual, which was not as wild as one might think, for witches
tend to be more pacific than the popular image. There was some singing
and some dancing however and much lighting of candles and prayers for
more peaceful times.
Things were a little calmer over at the Old Same Place bar where Padraic
and Dawn wore a Santa hats and Suzie wore a cute elf outfit -- chosen
by Padraic. So Suzie tried to stay mostly behind the bar, tugging down
the hem of her miniskirt.
It was warm and the place was filled with regulars. Eugene sat at the
rail and the Man from Minot sat at a table with Marvin of Marvin's Merkins
(Put a merkin in your firkin!") Latreena Brown was there as well
as Ms. Malice Green and even Wootie Kanootie had left his moose herd to
come and enjoy a Gaelic Coffee, so called because as Padraic would say,
no daycent lad of the old sod would sully the Water of Life with base
ingredients. Mr. Sanchez dropped in with Ms. Morales after attending a
show in Oaktown for a glass of wine. Their babysitter could not stay past
midnight so their time was limited.
Mr. and Mrs. Almeida showed up for a bump and a nod on a rare night out,
as even hardworking fishermen took a little time off around now for the
Solstice.
Even the Editor showed up for a quick bump and a jar of Fat Tire.
They were all talking about the terrible times and the things that had
happened this past year and Denby sat in the snug with his guitar and
played the Foo Fighters "Times Like These."
Padraic looked around at all the people he had come to know over the
past tweny years and a tear came to his eye. When Denby took a break,
Padraic proposed a toast on the House, a rare deed for one so parsimonious.
"To all of you and those we know who cannot be here; good friends
all these past two decades for that is how long this pub has stood here.
For auld acquaintance be forgot!"
Cries of "Here, here!" and "Auld acquaintance!"
Outside, in the dark, the shadow of the Angry Elf gnawed upon itself,
filled with hatred and bitterness. The gang was not like any of this with
no bonhommie, as the only joy they possessed was that in having power
over others and inflicting pain.
He slunk away to the red truck he used sometimes when posing as a workman.
Other times he used a red Miata. Often he used a white SUV owned by a
gang member.
But within the Old Same Place Bar there was cheerful clatter and and
chatter and warm light spilled from the window panes on the longest night
of the year.
The sound of the train horn far across the water keened across the estuary
from the Port of Oaktown and died between the Edwardian house-rows as
the locomotive click-clacked in front of the shadow-shuttered Jack London
Waterfront, trundling on the edge of town past the former Ohlone burial
mounds to an unknown destination.
That's the way it was on the Island. Have a great week.
DECEMBER 17, 2017
NUN, HAY, GIMEL, SHIN
This week's image is courtesy of the Season. Chanukah ends Wednesday
evening.
WHAT'S GOING ON
With the Country in freefall like a powerless airplane that has its right
ailerons jammed open, the Congress of Bums in full session to wreck the
tax code and reverse science, the environment and medicine back to the
1800's, and the Executive Branch of the Nation helmed by a ignorant maniac,
it seemed a good time as the days get shorter and the nights longer and
colder to take a break. We toddled over to Oaktown for the 32nd Annual
Xmas Revels at the Scottish Rite Theatre.
This year the Revels returned to the British\Gaelic isles for a Scottish
theme. And a word about that, because for over 400 years Xmas was not
celebrated in Scotland. That is why there are no Scottish carols. In 1640
the heads of the Protestant Reformation ruled that Xmas celebrations were
sacrilege and it was not until 1958 that the ban was lifted.
But the Scottish are not a people to cower in fear because of a few stern
Bishops. For 400 years the Scots commemorated and celebrated Hogmanay,
which is acknowledgment of the Solstice, with vigorous dancing, eating,
drinking and -- of course -- bagpipes.
No Scottish revel is complete without pipes and Saturday, Tesser Call
provided pipes enough to accompany five fiddle players and the brass ensemble.
Unlike in years past, there was no storyline to follow, although there
were several mini-stories, beginning with the annual Ploughmen's Bargain
with the Laird of the Manor.
Julian Lopez Morillas provided a sort of continuous thread as the man
front and center for many of the set pieces, offering just the right amount
of Scots brogue for narrative and poetry readings, including of course
Robert Burns' "A man's a man for all that."
With over 70 performers flowing on and off the stage it is difficult
to single out any one of them, but Susan Rode Morris definitely held the
show together with her powerful and lovely soprano voice.
If you have never attended the Revels, you and your little ones definitely
are missing out on a great Bay Area Tradition. Many Revelers continue
to attend year after year for an evening of enchantment, magic and the
best theatre found anywhere. Also there is audience participation in singing
and dancing. No matter the stuffy aisles of seats -- performers will come
and lead you out and down to the proscenium to pack the stage, young and
old alike. This year it was for The Lord of the Dance.
And Morillas divvied up the audience for a tasty roundel of Dona Nobis
Pacem.
Everything wound up with Susan Morris singing Auld Lang Syne and then
leading the entire audience for the entire version. It will be another
year before the Revels return to their home at the Scottish Rite Temple.
Five other cities around the country also host their own Revels, each
presenting a different theme driving by largely amateur performers who
practice for about 300 days before prancing before the footlights. The
Revels, in short, is always a triumphant joy.
Julian Lopez Morillas - read the poem "winter"
Susan Rode Morris - Soprano soloist
Fred Goff - song leader
Fiddles, Shira Kammen, Anne Goess
James Galileo - The Laird
Tesser Call - Pipes
Artistic Staff
Artistic & Stage Director - David Parr
Music Director - Shira Kammen
Associate Music Director - Anne Goess
Children’s Music Director - Aneesa Edraki
Choreographer - Jeri Reed
Brass West Liaison - Kurt Patzner
Morris Liaison - Bill Batty
Design Staff
Set Designer - Peter Crompton
Costume Designer -Callie Floor
Lighting Designer -Patrick Toebe
Props Designer -Lillian Myers
Makeup Designer -Chrysalis Rose
Sound Designers -Tod Nixon, Michael St. Claire
FARE THEE WELL MY HONEY
So anyway. This is the time when the earth spins slow, turning its face
from the sun. From somewhere an open window someone is playing his instrument.
Notes falling slow swirl and settle to collect in drifts. This ain't no
depression, just notes falling slow. Up in the high Sierra an early snow
and notes falling slow.
The Editor sits alone in his cube with the solitary desklamp for company.
All the staff have taken off early to do Xmas shopping and be with their
loved ones during the Holiday Time, leaving the Editor alone with his
thoughts.
In a few days, the Island-Life offices will commemorate their twentieth
year of supplying news and satire on the Island and the weight of history
felt heavy on the shoulders of the old Marine. For of course, those of
you who know, once a Marine always a Marine.
Quite a lot has happened in the past twenty years to mark the Nation's
history books with comments for the next 100 or so and Island-Life has
been along for the ride the entire distance with its weekly commentary
reflecting events on the national and international stage every step of
the way.
There comes a time in every artisan's life to say good-bye to a particular
motiv, a storyline, a style, an entire cycle of opuses. Sometimes this
means ending a life's work and an entire microcosm. What happened to that
unpronounceable county in the south conjured up by William Faulkner? And
as for Bloom County we know that Berk Breathed concocted a number of bizarre
endings for his fabulous land of penguins, the Bloom County Herald and
the Anti-SUV brigade with a nod to a particular typewriting cockroach
of a far earlier era. Remember Archie and Mehitabel?
Picasso's Blue Period came to an end when he obtained enough money for
more pigment. Any number of reasons will do for an artist's change of
pace. Sometimes an artist simply tires of doing the same old thing. A
famous jazz horn player gave up his appearances because he did not want
to become a museum of music he had done years before.
There always comes a time for an artist who truly values integrity, to
shift gears, to change keys, to revise the program. Sometimes the artist
has no choice and death or other circumstances intervene. Who now is left
to sweep the streets of that town north of Bear Lake Minnesota? Who is
going to dust the snow off of the statue of the Unknown Norwegian? Who
is left to unlock the doors of Tom's Pretty Good Grocery? Who is going
to pay Darlene her wages for pouring coffee at the Cafe? This is dreadful!
But death is dreadful and certainly expected after a time.
There is always the Other Side to which we travel, and unless you happen
to be Denby each unfortunate year, you do not get to come back.
And so the Editor stood there staring at the gift of an oar, part of
his Boat Assembly Plan, occasioned by his birthday. The oar hung there
on the wall, sturdy and promising, but without the necessary boat to propel.
A reminder of this maritime world of an Island dreamed and dreaming amid
the San Francisco Bay.
On the Editor's desk and in the corners, small reminders and keepsakes.
Over there was the silly elephant from Vietnam, which once had inundated
the markets greater than the porcelain puma.
On his desk, AK-47 casings. AR-15 shells. A brick of cheese from the
Reagan era, still solid and still supposedly edible. A paperweight from
the IEEE congress that established the 802.1 protocol. An old 8088 CPU
chip. A pet rock, still nestled in its homey lair. A tamogochi that had
died. A bullet with teeth marks on it. A photo of a light at the end of
a tunnel. All these remnants of history.
The kids today were all texting and sexting. They had apps and virtual
realities to beat the band. They did not need hours of arduous practice
to learn an instrument -- they punched in the codes and pulled out the
samples electronically and created symphonies in minutes. They did not
look at dial watches and clocks -- all the clocks were digital now. Life
had move on past the Editor and his kind.
Now, the Editor felt, it was time to move on. The rent increase lay heavy
and mournful on the desk, like a kind of death sentence. Outside, the
Angry Elf gang howled and ramped in their red pickup truck and their Miata
as they drove past, threatening disaster. As was clear from the Angry
Elf gang threats, it was move on or get killed in some kind of nasty "accident".
His people were of the gypsies, the wandering folk always made to move
on by the citizens who refused to let them in for some atavistic fear
of taint.
There are a thousand ways to say good-bye. What would be be best way
for the Editor of Island-Life? For change was coming, and Mr. Death was
near and would not be denied. What can any of us say if we had the chance?
Old King Lear said it best. "As flies to wanton boys are we to th'
gods. They kill us for their sport."
And yet he loved these Islanders, their simplicity and foolish ingenuity
and their crazy ways adapting to the new realities, just trying to keep
body and soul together amid trying times.
The clock continued to tick and Time, that spherical prison, advanced
with no exit and the Editor stood there wondering what could he save should
the massive firestorm he anticipated advance upon him now. What in this
personal space could he grab and throw into the truck and drive out of
that hell of fire when it came? For come it would. The incipient evil
of the Angry Elf would have it so.
The Editor felt a pain in his chest. How would this all end? In violence,
blood and fire? Would the Rental crisis and insatiable greed destroy everything
sweet? Please not so. This precious land, this jewel set within the clasp
of the aquamarine Bay, this seat of California kings, this o so dear Island
home to a brawling, lovely and irascible people is now leased out.
He continued to stand there, pondering, as the full moon arose through
the skies made murky by the new fires down south that even now as of this
moment ravaged and devoured thousands of memories, hundreds of homes.
In times of hardship, it is the little people who suffer and he felt powerless
to help them. He turned to look at the wall and saw there the oar that
the Staff had given him for his birthday. He took it down and imagined
that when the time came, he would use this to carry his bindlestiff to
the West so far that no one would know what it was for.
The night train far across the water keened across the estuary, crying
over the basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park, to die between the Edwardian
house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front of the shadow-shuttered
Jack London Waterfront, trundling on the edge of town past the former
Ohlone burial mounds to an unknown destination.
That's the way it was on the Island. Have a great week.
DECEMBER 11, 2017
THIS PLACE IS OLD - IT FEELS JUST LIKE A BEAT UP TRUCK
This week's headline is provided by Carol Taylor, an artist and long
time Island Lifer living in the Gold Coast area. It is a rendering of
a truck that belonged to the Balding family in 1946.
WHAT'S GOING ON
Looks like the annual Xmas Revels are taking place once again at the
Scottish Rite temple in Oaktown and this is the last weekend. This is
the 32nd iteration of this multiculti interactional feast of song and
dance and hijinks. Appropriately, the Revels this year return to their
roots with a fine Scottish theme. If you be not spakin' with a bit of
Gaelic lilt to your tongue after such an evening, we think ye might be
daft.
The Golden State gets no respite as the new bought of fires this fire
season continue to rage largely unchecked, although CalFire reports they
are starting to get a handle on the five fires in SoCal.
More than 9,000 firefighters assigned Sunday to blazes burning in SoCal.
Crews on Saturday managed to fully contain one of the fires that broke
out within the last week — the Liberty Fire in Murrieta — but
still face five major incidents: the Lilac Fire in San Diego County and
the Thomas, Creek, Rye and Skirballs fires in the greater Los Angeles,
Ventura and Santa Barbara areas.
"As of today, these fires have burned nearly 200,000 acres and destroyed
over 800 structures," CalFire said of the five current fires.
The largest of all the fires, the Thomas incident, has now scorched an
estimated 173,000 acres alone. It's only 15 percent contained and spurred
another round of new evacuations overnight.
CalFire said they expect strong winds to continue Sunday across most
of Southern California — with possible gusts up to 60 mph.
"Winds will begin to weaken tonight, but lighter offshore winds
will continue next week," officials said. "Northern California
continues to remain dry, with above average daytime temperatures and cold
nights."
An official, speaking to NPR reporters, said this Thomas fire is following
identical patterns seen in a wildfire that occurred in 1938 and he expect
similar perimeters to occur.
ALL THE LEAVES WERE BROWN, AND THE SKY WAS GRAY
So anyway, the annual Parade of Lighted Yachts was smaller this year.
Not a lot of people feel like celebrating in a grand way what with all
the losses that have happened recently. Nevertheless, the houses are being
draped with lighted garlands and the now traditional animatronic figures
glowing steadily in defiance against the increasing darkness.
Old Gaia sits there on the rickety porch of the world. Now is the time
when Gaia tilts her weathered face creased with valleys, arroyos, hills,
deserts, plains, mesas, continents and the liquid seas of her deep dark
eyes away from gazing at her son, Phoebus Apollo riding in his bright
chariot as she sits and rocks ever so slowly in the ticking wicker chair,
the folds of the quilted Universe draped across her lap, the rocking becoming
the dance of Shiva, the creaking rails marking the ever ceaseless count
of time's advance, ticking each second, each century, from the first moment
of creation until that rocking chair stops at the moment of that last,
terrible, motionless silence.
Some people confused by Astrological hoodoo believe in this day and age
the season cools as the earth spins further from the sun -- nothing could
be further from that deception, unless it be the foolish nonsense of Mercury
Retrograde, the classic illusion, for nothing moves with surer purpose
than the planets.
As Gaia turns her face away from the light, her ravined face gradually
cools with measured shadows covering the valleys of her eyes, all the
world chilling under the frost that puts all of Nature into a deep sleep,
and everything is precisely where it needs to be right at this moment
while Phoebus Apollo gallops in his low-rider at an angle to her repose,
harder to see in his daily journey, a sort of sideshow to beat all side
shows.
Now is when the Goddess walks the cold furrows, morning the temporary
loss of her daughter, gone to spend a pomegranate season with the Dark
Lord below, and the sere stalks crunch beneath her sandals.
The kids start out shortly after sunrise and the wheeze and clang of
the yellow school busses return as light fails once again to spill out
the little runners with bookbags and conical hats.
All around the Island the gentle folk, and those not so gentle, look
to bedeck their mansions and their hovels with such trappings as makes
Tradition, each to each. Mr. Howitzer arranges for Dodd to have a Douglas
Fir delivered and has the help do the ornaments. He has no time for that
rubbish but does have Dodd serve spiked eggnog in the parlor with the
fire going on a Spare the Air Day until Mrs. Cribbage falls into the ferns
because of too much brandy.
The Church of Our Lady of Incessant Complaint is once again hosting its
annual pageant with the help of some singers on loan from Pastor Nyquist
of the Lutheran Emmanuel Church. This arrangement is possible due to the
long friendship that has developed between Father Danyluk and the Pastor
and their mutual agreement to say nothing about it to their respective
bishops.
The Lutheran banquet is organized and well supplied with good wines and
liquors that appear to have come from the Rectory of Father Danyluk, so
everyone finds the arrangements convenient and comfortable.
Trees, of course are ensconced in bay windows for all to see, including
the Almeida family, the Sanchez family, and even Jason Arrabiata, CFSM,
who of course has topped his Fir with a metal colander. And even the Household
of Marlene and Andre is planning a sortie so as to obtain and bring back
a tree suitable for the washtub that has served as sturdy stand for many
a jolly year.
Of course no one in the Household can afford a tree, what with the rental
crisis being what it is, yet nevertheless, year after year a tree of some
sort of condition does appear even as a tree may disappear from some other
place. One year Mr. Howitzer came out to fetch his paper and stood there
puzzled, noting something amiss with the landscape but unable to place
his finger upon it. Only that an upturned wheelbarrow stood beside the
wall where there was a gap in the green privacy curtain.
"Dodd! I say, do you see anything amiss out there?"
Dodd pursed his lips. "Can't say so, sir. Unless the gardener left
some tools out there. The wheelbarrow, I see."
"Well have it put away," Mr. Howitzer said. "I am going
to have breakfast. Poached eggs benedict. The usual."
Later Dodd removed the wheelbarrow to reveal a newly shorn pine stump.
Which he covered up with mulch and a potted azalea.
It was yet too early this year to fetch a tree for the Household, which
still had to gather its resources, but plans were being made.
Plans also were being made by members of the Angry Elf gang who had in
mind several "educational" burnings in the next few weeks. They,
too, found a kind of joy in the Festival of Lights.
The local Homeland Security Offices held a joint clandestine get-together
with other agencies. Organizing the event proved to be a challenge as
some of the operatives were not officially funded, requiring high security
in communications which took place via encrypted emails, encrypted thumbdrives
passed around in scones and bagels from the Boogie Woogie Bagel Shop,
and encrypted passenger pigeons who were required to fly blindfolded.
Hamsters were employed as well in ways that cannot be divulged or you
would simply have to be killed. Because that is the way.
Nevertheless the spooks and moles and para-militaries and other people
who had socialization problems while kids at school managed to gather
at the Native Sons of the Golden West Parlor Hall down by the Marina and
the place was decorated all festive with flags and red, white and blue
Xmas lights and balloons and it came around to the Secret Santa which
everyone really loved.
Mr. Steif got a black silencer that turned out to have come from Mr.
Spline, who got a nice set of crystal vials of cyanide and ricin, which
he thought was a very thoughtful gift from Mrs. Spikenard who got a set
of really neat-o flic-knives. Cmdr. Stiffstik got a lovely set of marches
by Sousa and Bagely along with a mounted set of boarding spikes.
They had all enjoyed a big much of the eggnog and wound up singing the
Battle Hymn of the Republic arm in arm. It was a a touching sight.
Then there was the game of Locate the Snitch in which anyone who had
taken pictures at the event was turned upside down and tossed on a rug
until they became quite sick and their cameras were smashed. At the end
of the day, a fine time was had by all.
Over at the Old Same Place Bar, all the talk was about the scandals that
had ensued at the Animal Shelter where it turned out many well-connected
political individuals on the non-profit Animal Shelter Executive Board
had been accused of sexually abusing some of the inmates there, including
a number of individuals one would have thought above reproach, such as
Roy Boor, a card-carrying member of the Rattlesnake Preacher Association.
Then there was producer Harvey Schmierstein, Bent Frank of Arizona, Blake
Parenttold of Texas, Frank Al of Minnesotta, John Icon, and even the Board
President Ronald Rump himself.
The list, consisting of 42 names, is so long, it does look like there
will be a complete turnover not only in leadership but also throughout
the Entertainment industry which some speculate is part of Rump's master
plan to bolster the economy by increasing the number of jobs while Spacey
gets therapy and Louis C.K. tries to find a way to make horrible behavior
funny.
It is not funny and never will be.
But it might be a good opportunity for well-qualified women to step in
and restore order as well as rectify a few imbalances.
Still, the footage of Board President Rump scampering around the kitten
pen with his pants down, grabbing at you-know-what does not speak well
for the probity of the Executive Branch.
Even Justice John Roberts was heard to comment, "This image makes
me want to retch."
Justice Clemons has remained notably silent.
The fact that President Rump has actually bragged about grabbing kitties
and making them purr has incensed genuine Conservatives everywhere. Rump
has, in response, vilified the Press for being so outrageous as to report
the truth on most occasions.
"That Anderson Cooper of Cyn-Cyn is gay! He is gay, gay, gay!"
"Of course I am gay," said Cooper tersely. "At least I
am not an incompetant bozo with a bad haircut."
Well, Cooper did not actually say that in public, but you know the Press.
And now Cooper is looking for a New Year's Eve partner now that Kathy
Gifford has stepped in the cesspool.
It just does not seem to end. Now Rachel Maddow has her head in her hands,
saying "I swear to god, I could not make any of this up!"
So a bare knuckles fight breaks out between the Man from Minot and Pandora
Thighripple when she misheard the guy talking about animal husbandry --
she thought he said "breasts" when he said "beasts".
Maybe he did deserve a punch in the mouth -- who knows. The fight escalated
into a brawl between Semi-Liberals and Neo-Cons and then descended into
s savage, atavistic melee of bottle and chair smashing and nails and teeth
and blood everywhere on the floor, with everyone who comments on Lauren
Do's Blog employing chains, knives and butterfly-belts along with acrimony,
insults and sarcasm, spilling out into the street until the sirens and
the tear gas and the dogs arrived.
John Knox White was thoroughly trampled as were all of his Planning documents.
So it goes on the Island with its continuous stream of scandals and gossip
in Divided America. Lots of backbiting and infighting and brass knuckle
politics as we enter the Season of Peace.
The night train far across the water wailed from the Port of Oaktown
and keened across the estuary, over the former airfield, over the the
Jean Sweeny Open Space Preserve, through the construction zone of what
used to be the old Cannery, crying over the basketball hoops of Littlejohn
Park, and died between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked
in front of the shadow-shuttered Jack London Waterfront, trundling on
the edge of town past the former Ohlone burial mounds to an unknown destination.
That's the way it was on the Island. Have a great week.
DECEMBER 3, 2017
CHAIRMEN OF THE BOARD
This week's headline comes the weekend after Thanksgiving and appears
to depict a number of survivors in serious confab as if they were CEO's
deciding the fate of a merger or the next marketing campaign. We cannot
tell you where the picture was taken -- we would have to kill you.
You might not remember the 1960's Motown band Chairmen of the Board ("Give
Me Just a Little More Time", "Patches", "You've Got
Me (Dangling on a String")), but they earned a gold record and a
Grammy (for "Patches") before breaking up in 1976.
All members are still alive and pursuing solo careers.
CH, CH, CH, CHANGES
As the 19th year of Island Life spins down its final month, we are preparing
for big organizational, geographic, and artistic shifts. Stay tuned for
some extraordinary developments, spurring in part by the depredations
and attacks of thuggish types with nasty dispositions and Mafia tendencies.
It has been quite a ride for 19 years on the Island, and we will always
retain connections there along with a fond place in the heart for that
sick little town that is now home to some 100,000 souls, many of whom
are heavily medicated or need to be, as witnessed by the dozen or so taken
to John George Pavilion each week. There remain quite a few quirky folks
who just slog through the business of life, struggling to keep body and
soul together by some kind of legal means without causing a ruckus, practicing
small acts of kindness from day to day while raising families and dogs
and miniature pigs and chickens. Those folks who mean no harm to anyone
we will always love dearly.
As for the others, a la Sam Beckett, we wish them all the fires and ices
of hell and in the execrable generations to come an honored name.
And, O! Rest assured during the changes there will be nothing like the
dreadful Floating Radio effect ever again.
ON AN ISLAND
Not much has been happening at Silly Council during this Holiday period.
The new firehouse down there where the Corporate Yard used to have a facility
across from the Island electrical utility has opened up. It is a nice
building and does not look at all like a whorehouse, which some stations
(in other districts) tend to resemble. We have visited a number of firehouses
and we think this one stands on a par with Station 1 in Sausalito.
Continuing a macabre tradition of sorts, Paul Douglas Scherer drove his
minivan off Derby Street into the Estuary where he drowned last Tuesday.
Over the last 12 years two other people lost their lives after driving
their vehicles into the Oakland Estuary, both from the Alameda side. Dr.
Zehra Attari died on Nov. 7, 2005, after driving her car into the estuary
at the foot of Grand Street. Authorities say Attari may have taken a wrong
turn after getting lost on her way to a medical conference and accidentally
drove down the boat ramp at the foot of Grand Street and into the estuary.
That particular night was especially foggy.
The Sun cites another incident that took place near Blanding in 2015,
but we do recall divers discovering a couple of men who had gone missing
some weeks previously. The two men were still in their sedan, drowned
for some time when divers attempting repair work on another matter came
across the vehicle in 2016.
High times have come to the Island. Seeking to cash in on what many feel
will be a significant bonanza the Silly Council approved regulations to
govern pot growing for commercial uses on the Island. Some financial wonks
estimate the boon to the Golden State will top two billion dollars.
CALLING THE MOON
So anyway, the Supermoon spiral danced around the earth, getting closer
and creating a general sense of anticipation. Not the sort of anticipation
you might feel like waiting for the peach cobbler, or the sort of anxiety
about test results, but a generalized tension in expectation of something
about to happen lasting all day and all night for days on end, some tension
expecting an appearance of some kind.
A dark figure wearing a trenchcoat and a fedora walked meditatively along
the Strand wall. It was the Angry Elf, not someone normally given to venturing
far from solid protection of high walls, vantage points and clear sightlines
of potential fire. Truth had it, the man was getting on in years. Here
he was, as old as the Godfather -- well maybe not that old but getting
there -- and unlike the Godfather, he had no empire, no Family. Yeah sure,
he had the Business, which consisted of some extortion, under the table
cash laundries, numbers, fenced ID info, and your basic smash and grab.
Certainly nothing big enough to raise concern with the Feds -- and he
had kept it intentionally that way, staying out of the murder for hire
thing in favor of setting a few fires and causing a few "accidents".
Yeah he had a loose rabble of twenty some flunkies, like the Jap and
Brian Gump, along with a few handy fronts, like the Tile business and
the Glassworks that presented itself as an artsy fartsy thing. But an
Empire? Here he was living up on the third floor with a good lookout in
both directions, and a brownstone back in the old 'hood to act as tax
shelter along with occasional income. But still. Was it enough? At his
age he should be retired, letting his lieutenants handle all the action,
even though they were all as dumb as bricks in an outhouse wall. He shook
his head. What was a humble thug from Brooklyn to do? At least he was
not from Jersey -- now that would be a hard one to live down. That would
be terrible. He oughta count his blessings.
Still he felt he oughta accomplish at least one big job before he stepped
out. He wanted to be remembered for something, like Bugsy Malone and Dillinger.
Or his idol, the marvelous Meyer Lansky. Now Lansky, that was a Jew who
made a name for himself.
What an example.
The Angry Elf heard tires screeching in the distance and so made quickly
for his truck. He hopped in and sped back to his castle where he jumped
out and, just like clockwork, left the engine running as he quickly undid
the garage lock, heaved open the door, drove in, and closed the door behind
him so that he could scamper out the back and around the house and out
the side gate to relock the garage before dashing up the stairs and into
the building.
He had been doing this same routine for some 22 years and had gotten
it down to where he could be up in his castle looking out within 45 seconds,
pistol in hand, waiting. Waiting for the day his old "friends"
would appear . . . .
The days have passed that momentary time when a body could warm itself
up in a patch of sun after a long, cool evening. Now the nights have gotten
nippy and the days provide no respite. So it is that the entire Household
of Marlene and Andre has gathered for the benefit of combined body heat,
which is necessary since the chimney was stopped up years ago, rendering
the fireplace useless, and the central heating unit worked only fitfully
for about ten years until it gave up entirely any semblance of appliance
utility, although the thermostat did register faithfully the interior
temperature each morning of around 55 degrees before people got stirring
from their sleeping bags and cots and sofa.
The rental economy in California went south a while ago, and normal people
do not pay the obscene rents demanded -- consortiums, collectives, and
unions do that. In the one bedroom cottage set to lease by Mr. Howitzer
for a princely sum, some fifteen souls plus non-homo sapiens inhabited
that bad abode in bunks, in closets, in the hallway, under the coffeetable
and in the fireplace.
Some of them actually held jobs. Others pushed brooms, did itinerant
occasional work, and generally got by with seasonal jobs. UPS was hiring
and Jose and Pahrump and Javier were there, Jack, standing in line with
about a couple thousand other Californios looking to sling boxes and work
the trucks as their second or third job, all while trying to make the
rent.
At the Household an old hot tub had stood rotting on its side until Martini
flopped it over and filled it with dirt to raise tomato plants -- the
new hot tub culture. Martini used a rusty tin bucket he filled at the
hose tapped into the well someone had drilled quite a while ago to get
somewhat free water. They had no more chemicals to make it potable, but
for gardening it was good enough. All over NorCal similar things were
happening in response to the Rental Crisis.
And every day, the bucket went to the well.
In the actual bedroom, Marlene sat hunched over the account books and
the computer keyboard with Andre, both trying to make two ends of a cut
slippery noodle of expenses meet the wriggling income part.
Snuffles appeared in the doorway.
"What is it, Snuffles?" Andre said.
"I gots ta show som-ink."
"Not now," Andre said. "We're kinda busy."
"Dis impo-tnt. Werry impo-tnt." Snuffles beckoned urgently,
and so the two of them looked at one another and followed the shambling
figure outside.
Out on the porch they saw it hovering amid torn clouds above the Bay
-- the only Supermoon of 2017.
In their garret with the child blessedly asleep, Mr. Sanchez put his
arms around Ms. Morales at the window. The light shifted, then it appeared,
streaming down upon the two teachers standing there and they were silvered
all over.
Every college has a green sward populated by students with books in Spring
and criss-crossed by same in Winter. The Island Community College has
just one, bordered by thick hedgerows tenanted by all sorts of Lifeforms.
Just outside the opening to his burrow, Don Senor Guadalupe Castillo
de Erizo sat gazing upward as was his wont during celestial events. There
he would ponder all sorts of things, or if the sky was clear enough, look
at the constellations and remember the old stories.
Madame Herisson poked her head out and queried, "Mssr., tu a faim?"
"No," said the Don simply.
"Tu es froid?" asked Madame.
"No," said the Don with his breath coming out in clouds.
"Tu voudrez quelque chose?" asked Madame.
The Don pondered this a moment. "La paz mundial," he said,
proving that although he might understand all human discourse, he seldom
spoke to humans for fear of mis-comprehension and that men and women constantly
talk to one another in different languages, but somehow get by with occasional
understanding.
Madame disappeared inside and returned with a serape which she draped
over the shoulders of the Don.
Out on the fishing lanes, his boat pounding toward the place that appeared
as a green blobby gift on sonar, Pedro came out of the wheelhouse to let
the salt spray wash away the flood of tears - he was sobbing. He gripped
the stanchion and the full, furious sobs erupted out of the hardened seaman,
wracking his frame as the radio stolidly announced its messages.
"Thank you for your support of The Lutheran Hour over the years.
We want to inform you that this is the final newsletter edition of The
Lutheran Hour, as the program is no longer distributed by American Public
Media.
American Public Media has posted a statement in regard to its decision
to end its contracts with Pastor Rotschue.
While we appreciate the contributions the Pastor has made to The Lutheran
Hour, we believe this decision is the right thing to do and is necessary
to continue to earn your trust and that of our employees and other supporters
so vital to our public service.
Thank you for your support."
He knew what it was all about. The recent "retirement" from
the main variety program had been enforced by political necessity and
health. People plotting and scheming the way they always do. But still
there were these side projects whereby he could keep in touch, in some
abstract way, with this man who had guided his boat through many stormy
seas. Quite literally. The man's sonorous voice and his wisdom had helped
him through the time of the Great White, the Time of the Shark. And there
had been the tremendous gale at sea when he had nearly lost the boat and
all back in the '90s.
And now here he was all alone on the ocean, a vast wheatfield waiting
to be plowed down for winter, seeded with mackerel, shad, albacore, harvested
in Spring, but now all alone. So the man had some faults, even if true.
Was Hemingway a saint? Was Faulkner? Do we genuflect before icons of Picasso
as a beacon of morality?
Of course not. What remains out of any man's life is the totality of
his work, what he has made. Children, novels and/or magnum opuses like
the Ninth Symphony. You do not even need to specify the key or the author's
name to know and recognize what is meant.
There was a lull and the clouds parted to reveal what was above. All
was bathed in that silver light out on the fishing lanes and even Ferryboat
looked up in wonder. Something had appeared.
Mad at work, each at his desk, the Catholic priest Father Danyluk scribbled
longhand in the rectory past midnight to compose the sermon for Advent,
which in Christian circles is a time of expectation towards the arrival
of a deity. The same went for Pastor Nyquist across the way, for surprisingly,
his flock also belonged to the Children of Abraham. Each looking for the
next Appearance of Christ.
In his cube, the Editor looked at the calendar, considered the days,
and looked through his seeing-glass at the countless lives on which he
had reported. It is falsely reported that of the Seeing Stones, the Palantir
crafted by the elves, of the survivors of the wars one lay at Orthanc,
one lay at Weathertop, one lay in the chambers of the Steward of Gondor,
one lay in Barad Dur under control of the Dark One. There were in fact
others. One at Amon Sul, lost in shipwreck. One at Osgiliath - lost in
the river. One at Annúminas on the shores of Lake Evendim, and
supposedly lost in shipwreck.
In fact, the Palantir supposedly lost at Osgiliath came into the Editor's
possession and it is with this seeing stone that the Editor tracks the
going's on of all that dwell on the Island, for the Editor dared not wrest
the scope of the stone from its limited course.
An Editor is something of a Wizard, one would have to agree. At least
the good ones are like wizards, so it is not surprising that one would
find something wizardly in our Editor.
The Editor gazed upon the simple lives of the Islanders on this early
December night. He saw their struggles and their despair and their hopes.
He saw the movements of the Angry Elf gang and knew that there would be
a war and all must fall. His people were a gentle folk and not given to
warlike endeavors. All must fall soon.
The Golden State is one country given to disaster and compulsory remaking.
What sort of Island would appear from this impending disaster? Of the
ruins, what could be made?
He went out onto the deck in back where the old boxelder hung huge and
hoary over the yard. Through the branches the full moon announced itself
with glory.
The moon shone down with beneficence. All was quiet on the Island. No
sirens rent the night and nobody got shot and nobody got stabbed.
The night train far across the water wailed from under the gantries of
the Port of Oaktown and keened across the estuary, over the former airfield
that was now sanctuary for the Least Tern, over the grassy Buena Vista
flats that was now the Jean Sweeny Open Space Preserve, through the construction
zone of what used to be the old Cannery and its detritus-strewn loading
dock, crying over the basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park, and died between
the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front of the
shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of shadows
on the edge of town past the former Ohlone burial mounds to an unknown
destination.
That's the way it was on the Island. Have a great week.
NOVEMBER 26, 2017
O CAMELLIA WON'T YOU TAKE ME AWAY
Normally this flower is associated with the Deep South, but here in California
we have growing seasons all year long. This image was captured in the
East End by Tammy who says this is the first bloom which probably was
helped along by the recent rains.
THIS ISLAND LIFE
Not much to report. A couple housefires, which tend to happen around
this time of year because of shoddy landlord maintenance of the electrical
stuff, Islanders getting killed over on the other side of the Estuary
and at least one floater IN the Estuary -- cause of death TBD. It is a
Holiday weekend, so enjoy returning to work Monday.
So without any more ado, lets get to the most popular issue of the year,
most popular now for 20 years running. God knows what people have against
small, yappy dogs, but there you have it.
THE 19TH ANNUAL POODLESHOOT AND BBQ
So anyway, the annual Island Tradition took place again, beginning with
the usual, traditional ceremonies.
As per Tradition, on the day of the 19th Annual Poodleshoot, rosy-fingered
Dawn arose from the horizon's dark bed and pushed back the shutters of
night to allow Phoebus to mount his golden chariot and so, preceding the
day, she trailed her gauzy banners across the firmament, traveling across
the yard from the battered old half-moon privy hard by the weeds to the
house back porch, leaving behind a sort of dew after her passage. Gently,
she flushed, and gently she tugged upon the coverlet, and gently she kissed
the eyelids of the sleeping Padraic, but he stirred not. Gently she nudged
the man, who only mumbled and snorted as he remained held fast in the
soft, wooly folds of Morpheus. Playfully, she noodged him once again,
but he remained walking in that shadow kingdom of the somnolent God.
Her fingers becoming rays of sunlight, turned the dial so as to allow
the sweet strains of muse Calliope to thrum the air as guided by the goddess
Rosalie Howarth of KFOG, but Padriac snored and stirred not.
Then Dawn reared back with her rosy fists upraised and brought them down
heavily to smite Padraic a mighty thwack, and that got him up all right,
for Dawn O'Reilly was not a woman to be trifled with at any time of the
day. And so Padraic bestirred himself to make ready for the Annual Island
Poodleshoot and BBQ.
So it was that Padraic rolled out the barrels of the Water of Life and
set up the Pit for this year's festivities under bright, chill skies,
which had cleared briefly from the storm clouds for the day, once again
down by the disputed Crab Cove where servants of the Dark Lord had once
plotted to seize the land so as to build yet another series of Dark Fortresses
not unlike Cirith Ungol.
The ceremonies began with the traditional playing of the Paraguay National
Anthem, as arranged by Terry Gilliam, and performed by the Island Hoophole
Orchestra accompanied by the Brickbat Targets chorale ensemble.
This was followed by the devilish meisterwerk composed by PDQ Bach entitled,
"Die Sieg der Satanische Landentwickler", an adaptable work
which allows insertion of alta-contemporary chorales at the whim of the
Conductor.
The ensemble group which has made something of a name for itself by inventing
entirely new parts for voice, consisted of Mayor Marie as Conductor and
Councilperson Izzy as soprano alla triste in the Misericordia segment
and former Councilperson Daysog as mezzo soprano mournful did a fair version
of Iago's treacherous soliloquy, with Councilperson Frank in his basso
triumphale reprising last year's performance in the esoteric work La Chambre
à l'arrière Enfumee Boogie.
Vice Mayor Malia Vella adoped the key of obsequious for her duet with
Roger Dent of Jamestown Properties in "It's a Shopping Mall by Any
Other Name."
Mayor Trish Spencer appeared en masque, performing the aria "The
Hapless Burgermeister" with Councilperson Jim Oddie following in
the role of Flip-Flop.
Frank Matarrese thoroughly nailed his role on Black Sabbath's "Land
Pigs", but disappointed in the Eroica segment which features the
"Young Man Taking a Stand" soliloquy.
Many reviewers have called this piece amazingly impossible to accomplish,
and quite a pastiche. The East Bay Express found "this game of smoky
backrooms is too much to believe." Karen D'Souza of the Contra Costa
Times has called it "devilishly complicated" and "hard
to believe it goes on. And on. And on still more," while Jim Harrington
has called this performance, "the most dreadful rubbish since the
last time I wrote a mixed review. I never fully approve of anything but
this gave badness a new name."
The Chronicle, always more reserved due to the heavy influence of conservative
ACT in the City, has commented, "It should be interesting to see
how well this thing floats in the future amid this stormy time for companies.
We almost were convinced Trish Spencer was really a City Mayor, a role
she continues to adopt despite the necessary qualifications required --
none of which she seems to possess. Is her portion supposed to be farce
or tragedy? We were confused the entire time and wish she simply would
go away as she makes the entire City Production look ludicrous."
Of course, their theatre/music review got mixed up for that issue with
the economic report and the mid-term elections special, so the meaning
of that is up to interpretation.
The East Bay Express got the dates wrong on its Calendar section, so
they had no review.
The Examiner, as usual, ignored Reality and talked about the batboy who
had been abducted by space aliens.
In any case, after spirits had been revived with a sloshing round from
the kegs, the Hoophole Orchestra launched the proceedings with spirited
instrumentals. The elaborate instrumental section performed Sousa marches
and works by Debussy in true Island tradition, and featured vocals as
well as strings, horns, thorns, woodwinds, and bloodhounds.
Performing on the Pushy Manager Organ were Carol Taylor and Rachel Linzer
of St. Charles.
Brian King and Toshie of Park Avenue performed upon the Mendacious Dieben
and Sneaky Pete while Little Nichtnutz executed the Shoplifter with Stolen
Keys until the Tac Squad entered with fanfare and removed them for questioning.
Neal of St. Charles noodled on the Meyer Lansky Kazoo and stamped his
tiny feet for percussion while The Henchmen crooned Barbershop Quartet
style behind bars. Neal followed up with a slam-bang sale on dime bags
of Crystal and Horse. When caught, Old Neal commenced to sing in several
keys at once. Quite a challenge and great drama.
Former legislator Anthony Wiener (R) of Washington DC did a standup job
upon the Howling Organ Stroker, while Barbara Boxer (D) wowed everyone
with the Swan Song Flammable Pedalpushing Accordion with broken boards.
This complemented Kristin SweetMarie McCoomber (ENG) and Jessica McGowan-Vanderbeck
(USA), both with Incendiary Bustier Spritzers. Nice pair, those gals.
Jessica was joined this year by her husband, Sean, who pounded vigorously
upon the Bald Curate's Pate and six-month old baby Dylan who applied himself
assiduously to the Bland Howler.
Antimacassars and doilies were supplied, as usual, by James Hargis, who
also performed the Effexor Waltz.
Once this essay at musical endeavor was done to everyone's great relief,
the Native Sons of the Golden West, Parlor 34 1/2, gathered in a circle
for their Invocation, led by Doyle McGowan of San Francisco, and chanted
in the language of E Clampus Vitus.
The men, wearing their ceremonial robes and colorful fezzes, moved in
a circle with their pinkies interlocked, first clockwise, then anti-clockwise,
before intoning, "Heep heep Hepzibah!" before all jumping into
the air simultaneously. They then sang their parlor charter song, "Die
Launische Forelle," After they had done this, they moved again in
a circle as before, concluding by bowing deeply, dropping their drawers
and thence emitting a sort of 21 gun salute.
After the ritual pouring of Wild Turkey libations, the Official bugles
were blown by Pat Kitson of Mountain View and Tally of Marin, upon which
the hunters moved out into the field. Soon the air was filled with the
gleeful holiday sounds of AK-47s, the cracks of freshly oiled Winchester
rifles, the occasional crump of percussion grenades, cries of "Poodle
there!", and the homey whoosh-bang of old-fashioned home-made bazookas
and modern RPG's. In short it was a jolly, fine beginning for a Poodleshoot
with overcast weather that soon turned quite rainy.
This year's emissary from Washington D.C. turned out to be President
Rump himself, along with the last people in the world whom he has not
insulted -- Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers. Then, of course, there
came with him those people generally considered Political Satellites plus
the Secret Service. Despite Rump's steadfast promotion of the Second Amendment
in staunch support of his Political Base (neo-nazis, KKK dragons, itinerant
yahoo rubes, radical fundamentalists, right-wing extremists, Deplorables,
ect.) the presence of so much weaponry in one place causes any number
of people who depend on the guy significant concern.
Of course the Shoot has seen many luminaries and VIPs appear without
incident in the past. Well, very few incidents.
So Rump was attended by that group known as The Odious Crew (TOC). A
right wing contingent from the Westboro Baptist Church called The Inane
Committee (TIC) joined with them.
Once the first volleys from AR-15s went off, the Tappet Brothers scampered
over to the Pit to discuss valve trains and timing belts and remain out
of harm's way.
A stubborn platoon of dogwalkers dug in on the edge of the sports field
at Wood Middle School near the shoreline as a murk of clouds gathered
above the battlefield and there was much travail and yapping of poodles
as hunters attempted to cross the vast expanse while being subject to
a whithering fire of missle weapons and canine WMD's (Weapons of Mass
Doo-doo).
Then came President Rump with his battalion of TOC and TIC cadres and
Rump let out a mighty blast of hot air at the dogwalkers who defended
themselves with parasols and impermeables that began to melt before the
mighty blast.
"NOBODY IS BETTER THAN ME! I OWN A HELICOPTER AND YOU ARE NOTHING!
MY VICTORY IS GONNA BE BIGLY! BIGLY, I TELL YOU! LOSERS!"
Thus spake the mighty Rump with great volume, as is his wont, and the
dogwalkers were beat by by the savage fury of the blast of hot air. But
such was the fury of the blast that the shingles came loose from the school
buildings and the goalposts became uprooted and the blast continued long
after the last poodle had fled yapping with the TIC contingent beating
them about the ears with bibles while spewing a miasma of hellfire and
brimstone invective.
One of the TOC squad let loose with his blunderbus next to President
Rump's ears and the unfortunate man was assailed on the spot with fury.
"WHO THE HECK ARE YOU? YOU ARE NOBODY! I AM PRESIDENT! I AM PRESIDENT
AND YOU ARE NOT! TRAITOROUS PRESS! YOU ARE FIRED!"
"ANYBODY WHO DISAGREES WITH ME IS FIRED! BUNCH OF LOSERS! AS FOR
THAT NORTH KOREAN GUY I USED TO LIKE HIM -- NOT ANY MORE; HE IS JUST A
KITTY CAT. AND AS FOR REPRESENTATIVE MOORE HE IS A HECK OF A GUY. WE GRAB
THEM BY THEIR KITTY CATS . . . ! SENATOR WARREN TOO! THAT POCOHONTAS.
I'LL GRAB HER BY HER KITTY CAT AND SHE'LL COME ALONG! I AM THE GREATEST
POODLEHUNTER OF ALL TIME! ALL THE REST OF YOU ARE LOSERS! LOOOOOOSERS!"
The hot air from Rump blew down the batting cage and bowled over the
other hunters on the field. All the palms lining 8th Street were stripped
of their fronds in the tremendous wind. The sky was dark and roiling already
and the hot rain went sideways across the desolate waste with everyone
taking shelter. Gust of hot air blew through the hunter's camp and the
Pit, sending dangerous coals flying up into the trees where they caught
fire in the branches.
The poodlewalkers seized this confusion to launch a counterattack on
many fronts. John Knox Ford was cast down among his planning documents,
the members of ARC who had fought valiantly on behalf of Renters on the
Island were scattered, and the decent hunters among them were dismayed
by the slaughter even as President Rump ignored the realities, continuing
to trumpet his pride amid the gathering storm made even more virulent
by Global Climate Change.
It seemed that all would be lost as the fires raged to the north, the
rising seas threatened to overwhelm the tender-hearted least terns, neo-nazis
rampaged down Church Row with cavorting poodles who did poop wantonly
upon the sacred grounds and incubi such as Moore who had long hidden repulsive
defilements beneath robes of sanctity marched with flaming crosses and
the treasury was all undone for Nixon had long since removed the Golden
Standard.
Jason Arrabiata, Rev. CFSM, called up to His Noodliness, begging for
supplication and so the First Night passed in wailing and lamentation.
The sun arose in a fearful murk, which let through only a single ray of
light that shone down as if from Heaven above, when Lo! a wagon from Marin
came bearing a great load of peaches and many more followed him from the
Valley and distant Mexico, called up and able to cross the Rio Grande
with their loads of precious fruit for there was not yet a massive wall
planned and likened unto the gates of Mordor, not yet fearsome trolls
manning the battlements.
And when the wagons reached the field of slaughter where Rump continued
to ramp his unreasoning cant, they let loose the buckboards and an avalanche
of sweet fruit advanced upon the Rump who was perforce sent backwards
to his black helicopter and so into retreat, for veritably, President
Rump had been impeached.
Then went up a great shout among the valiant and the stout-hearted who
rallied with the Amazonian warriors led by Elizabeth Warren and Barbara
Boxer arrived in the nick of time from distant Marin to support all that
is good and just and so united they drove back the enemy all yipping and
snapping like a mighty wind bends the grass and the blessed rain did fall
to extinguish the northern fires and although there was suffering and
great loss, and house and rick be totally destroyed, those things can
be rebuilt for life continues defiant against tyranny.
So it was that Padraic laid ahi upon the Barbee and there was feasting
and rejoycing upon this victory over Evil and terriers did romp and disport
upon the torn green with glad eyes for the enemy had been driven back
and the rain meant an end was put to the terrible drought that had so
plagued the Golden State.
Thus ended the Annual Poodleshoot and BBQ, 19th occurance of that tradition
on this Island and all I speak is the truth, so help me God.
As the blessed rain fell along with merciful night, the night train far
across the water wailed from under the gantries of the Port of Oaktown,
keening across the estuary, the former airfield that was now sanctuary
for the Least Tern, the grassy Buena Vista flats that was now the Jean
Sweeny Open Space Preserve, the construction zone of what used to be the
old Cannery and its detritus-strewn loading dock, crying over the basketball
hoops of Littlejohn Park, and dying between the Edwardian house-rows as
the locomotive click-clacked in front of the shuttered doors of the Jack
London Waterfront, trundling out of shadows on the edge of town past the
former Ohlone burial mounds to an unknown future.
That's the way it was on the Island for the 19th Annual Poodleshoot.
Have a great week.
NOVEMBER 19, 2017
ALL THE LEAVES WERE FALLING
This week's headline image comes from Carol in the Gold Coast district
who is something of an artist. Here she has put together a foto taken
from her window and some Fall colors for your enjoyment.
PRINT ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS
The year is spiriling down in damp and dank hours after a period of political,
social, human, and physical cataclysm. The most corrupt, swampy Executive
Branch administration seen since the Teapot Dome, dreadful mass murders
in concert halls, schools and churches, and latterly the horrific California
fires that have destroyed entire towns and substantial portions of towns
like Santa Rose, Napa and Sonoma all contribute to a sense of malaise
this Holiday Season.
This weekend, when we gather with families and loved ones, giving thanks
means thanking whatever in which you believe for your house, if you still
have it, your family, if you still have it, and for life and health, if
you still have both.
Locally, Mayor Trish nominated Sylvia Gibson to the Planning Board. As
Lauren Do has mentioned in her blog post, "she will largely represent
the Alameda Citizens Taskforce point of view," and in that, like
it or not, we tend to agree given the observed history of Trish and of
Gibson.
We are reminded that the Island Food Bank still needs donations for the
annual Turkey Drive -- last year we saw over 750 turkeys handed out along
with fixin's to needy families with persons durable enough to stand in
line for a couple of hours.
Around the Golden State it was scarcely a slow news week what with another
mass shooting in Tehama County, animal rescues, massive traffic backups
due to car and truck crashes that turned morning commutes into hours-long
endurance contests, threats of mudslides in the burned zones due to recent
wet weather, along with BART contretemps and SMART train deviances.
There is not a soul in Alta California who is not looking forward to
this brief vacation, even if it means dealing with family.
So have a happy Thanksgiving everybody and have a wonderful 19th Annual
Poodleshoot.
COLD RAIN AND SNOW
So anyway. The days open with skeins of cloud and fog hugging the vales
and creeping over the distant hills. The past couple of days we have seen
sunshine break through the chill for a while in most places, leaving the
ambient temperature a bit too cool for that oddly named period Indian
Summer. Whatever it is, we are headed to another season of it.
Up north, meaning the far White North, skims of ice have formed on Bear
Lake, by report and to the East we have reports of snow falling on Mammoth.
The blessed rain sifts down on the ashes of Glen Ellen, the California
town that is no more, and Kenwood and the destroyed neighborhoods of Fountaingrove.
For some, this will be a bleak Holiday. For many others one of gratitude.
In the Old Same Place Bar the regulars are talking about the upcoming
Poodleshoot, the 19th iteration of that charming, convivial, and ultra-violent
American Tradition. After all, what is more American than collecting vast
amounts of ammunition and firearms so as to excite the blood, preserve
the Second Amendment, and defend life and property from the Goverment,
which has the entire Marine Corps and several Apache attack helicopters
at its disposal. One can just imagine a handful of zealots armed with
a collection of AR-15 rifles, trying to fight off the US Marines backed
by battalions of tanks. Quite a recipe for success.
There is much speculation on just who will represent the Nation's Capitol
this year -- someone from the judiciary has been expected for several
years, but every since Bushie potted an attorney-friend one time, the
legal profession has tended to avoid the Shoot. There are any number of
possibilities in Congress who could use a bit of good press to ease their
bad reputations for habitual molestation so there is nothing to expect
save to expect the unusual.
In this time, it gets dark earlier and earlier as we propel towards the
longest, darkest night ever seen. Certainly the longest darkest night
of this year so fraught with troubles. Yellow schoolbuses let off kids
who scamper home as the light fails. Streetlights come on in the urban
areas, and in the countryside, the dark bulks of animals set to wandering
by the Sonoma and Napa fires glide through the trees and along the roads,
searching for shelter and food.
The red Miata of the Angry Elf pauses in the shadows as his red eyes
glare with hatred at the warm households from which he feels excluded.
One of these days, one of these days coming soon he would make them all
pay a dear price. He would make them all very, very sorry. With an angry
hitch he shifts into gear and roars off, causing Toto the terrier to set
up a vigorous barking of warning, alerting all the dogs in the neighborhood
as well, until Beatrice says, "Hush now!"
The streets of the Island are generally empty now as folks have been
driven indoors by the cold, and the Strand extends in both directions
with only the solitary sand walker here and there exploring private thoughts,
each to each, while the distant lights of Babylon sparkle across the flat
expanse of black water.
Councilperson Raymond Cribbage, Associate Rooster of the Island Kiwanis
lodge, stands there on the shore looking out, thinking of something unknown.
He was recently accused by several women of groping and molestation while
being plied with alcohol and strange pills and so he must have a great
deal about which to think in this time.
Jose came along after finishing up at the Island-life offices his general
duties and he greeted the Councilmember, noting his general funk.
Raymond Cribbage had a wife of some 25 years and three kids.
Raymond mentioned that he was concerned of late accusations about things
that -- allegedly -- happened many years ago.
Jose, who knew a few things, thought for a moment and then said, "Every
day the bucket goes to the well," and then walked off.
Indeed, left tacit the truth that one day, the bottom drops out.
Down where the Snoffish Valley Road joined up with the main road a couple
wandering turkeys pecked and gobbled near the entrance before bobbing
along as they do into the dark mist that emanated from that door. They
disappeared and were never seen again and so escaped the executioners
ax.
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the haunted waves of the
estuary, theexpanse of the former airfield that was now sanctuary for
the Least Tern, the grasses of the Buena Vista flats that was now the
Jean Sweeny Open Space Preserve, the construction zone of what used to
be the old Cannery and its detritus-strewn loading dock, crying over the
basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park, and dying between the Edwardian house-rows
as the locomotive click-clacked in front of the shuttered doors of the
Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of shadows on the edge of town past
the former Ohlone burial mounds to a mysterious, unknown future.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
NOVEMBER 14, 2017
DEER SONG
Leave it to deer to inspire the Bare Naked Ladies, System of a Down and
Mary Poppins. Here is one in someone's backyard.
]
Deer often swim across the Estuary to clomp around the Island until caught
and sent back to the East Bay or Marin, where such pests are considered
"en-deering".
This past week a mountain lion was darted by Animal Control over in Babylon,
where the Wild Life seems to have limits.
After the big wildland fires up north we are likely to see a lot more
of this sort of migration for a while.
NOVEMBER'S GOT HER NAILS DUG IN DEEP
So anyway. The year spins on its twisted axis to a close. Old Gaia sits
on her porch as the earth tilts away from her son, Phoebus Apollo. She
sits on the porch with her coverlet over her old knees and the last rays
caress her ravined face.
Now is the time when the air becomes sodden with mildew and sluice. Gouts
of water erupt from the old places and streams return in their prepared
beds. The light is soft through the dense gray atmosphere of morning and
then, the afternoons sparkle with dazzling rays that glow the changing
leaves of maples and other broad leaf trees going golden and scarlet in
this time.
In this time, people start to make connections, plans for family gatherings
and the restoration of Traditions. All the ghosts that crossed over during
Los Dias de los Muertos stand around, watching.
Soon the Island will resound to the 19th Annual Poodleshoot and BBQ.
Father Danyluk of the Church of Our Lady of Incessant Complaint will renew
his friendship with Pastor Nyquist of the Lutheran Immanuel Church as
in years and decades now past.
It was a rainy year when the Catholic priest, given to walking clockwise
about the block so as to meditate upon his sermons (he was a fond devotee
of St. Thomas Aquinas), took refuge under a bus stop shelter with Pastor
Nyquist who had taken to walking, as was his nature, anticlockwise around
the same block, and so came to discovering that both clergy experienced
difficulties with members of their respective flocks and yet had need
during the Holiday time of specific resources.
Pastor Nyquist had need of proper beverages of which the Catholic rectory
kept ample store. The Catholic had need of proper musicality which could
only be supplied by the Lutheran choir filled with talented voices.
Some might say it was a match made in heaven, which probably gives fig
all for Lutheran, Catholic, Jewish, or Islamic petty differences when
push comes to shove.
The weatherman forecast cold and rain and so the streets were largely
empty as the red truck and the white sedan carrying members of the Angry
Elf gang stopped on Santa Clara Avenue to set a car on fire before driving
away.
Denby, passing by, called in a report to IFD and wondered about the tenability
of remaining on the Island that now was home to 100,000 people.
The Editor considered Veterans Day and quickly rejected the notion. The
time for fond sentiments was 40 years ago when he and his brothers returns
from that Southeast Asian fiasco. Thanks for your service now, when it
had been all spits and hisses back then. Damage done and not repaired.
Some of his buddies went out for blowing of taps and all that at the
model airplane field on Harbor Bay Island, but he seldom had patience
for the pomp and ceremony -- old fogies living in the past and he had
a news room to run while under onslaught of the worst attack on the Press
since Heinrich Himmler. Sentiment be damned; he had a press organization
to run.
Over at the Household of Marlene and Andre it had gotten crowded again.
With the return of wet, cold weather, folks who had been keeping outside
were taking shelter in the Winter. Occasional Quentin was again sleeping
under the coffee-table while Jose folded himself up to use the hall linen
closet as a bedroom. Times, never very easy, had become harder once again
now that Brother Obama was gone and so the fifteen lost souls took humble
residence in the one bedroom cottage. The rents had skyrocketed to obscene
levels way past the ability of even normal people to pay to live, and
the savage greed was wrecking households and businesses all over the Bay
Area.
In this time the Angry Elf was finding employment as a Real Estate Management
Expert one month, and as a Security\Fire Safety Manager the next, all
the while using his position to scout out places that his gang could later
rob. He had "friends" in several businesses who diverted calls
from honest people checking his references and credentials. For the end
of the year he had a grand revenge planned on Islanders who had disagreed
with him on any number of real and imagined slights.
Out on the street Jason Arrabiata, Rev. CFSM, put his hand on the wet
pavement to feel it tremble from some deep tension. Some kind of tectonic
event was building up deep underground. Rebbe Mendelnusse felt it as well
at the house of worship on Harbor Bay. Something was about to happen,
another ugly Kristalnacht he was sure of it.
Meanwhile Suan and Rolf poured over Bay Area maps. They knew that the
attack from the Angry Elf gang was coming soon. Both of them knew enough
about survival and life that they had to have an exit plan. They knew
they did not have the resources to fight savage animals like these. They
knew they needed a fallback plan and in western Marin there was a possible
place of refuge for the Lost of the World.
And in this time, the Creator bent his heavy head to ponder what would
come next after fire and devastation. For fire is the only friend of the
Angry Elf and devastation his employment. Something was about to change.
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the haunted
waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the flat expanse of the
former airfield that was now sanctuary for the Least Tern, the grasses
of the Buena Vista flats that was now the Jean Sweeny Open Space Preserve,
the construction zone of the old Cannery and its detritus-strewn loading
dock, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park, and
dying between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked
in front of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling
out of shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to a
mysterious, unknown future.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
NOVEMBER 6, 2017
TURKEY IN THE STRAW
 ]
WHATS GOING ON
Merciful rain is forcast and all the fires are under control up north.
Two new accessible shuttle buses began operation on Oct. 31 to meet the
growing transportation needs of Alamedans. Riders need not wait more than
30 minutes for a shuttle at each designated stop. Both Alameda Loop Shuttles
(formerly called Alameda Paratransit Shuttles) are equipped with bike
racks and wheelchair lifts.
The two buses run three separate routes Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays
from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Parking, always a bone of contention in any urban area, got nasty for
Gold Coast residents as artinez-based MCK Services has been stowing its
heavy equipment on the block occupied by Mastic Senior Center during the
repaving of Lincoln Street. This is not the first time MCK Services has
taken flack for using up parking space, as this same firm occupied space
near the High School on Central a couple of years ago, raising the hackles
of neighbors in the East End.
Most of the open air events taking place on the Island have occupied
Park Street, but in recent years we have seen events occur at the Point
and now we have a Holiday shopping event pre-Black Friday on Harbor Bay
Isle.
Holiday Fest 2017, a Holiday shopping expo, has been set for Sunday,
Nov. 19, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free.
A huge variety of handcrafted and specially made items will be on sale
in one convenient place: Temple Israel and the Community Center
of Harbor Bay Isle at 3183 and 3195 Mecartney Road.
Plenty of free parking is available nearby at Bay Farm's Harbor Bay Landing.
Overflow parking is available at CVS and Safeway.
Support the local economy and get your Holiday shopping done without
suffering the surging masses on the day after Thanksgiving.
A Yoshis on the warmer side of the Bay, Dan Hicks will bring his swing
on the 21st to celebrate the Solstice. Goapele will bring his unique flavor
the entire week before and including NYE.
The 32nd Annual Christmas revels takes place at Oakland's Scottish Rite
Temple on two weekends this year: December 8th through 17th
Fridays 8:00 pm, Saturdays 1:00 and 5:00 pm, Sundays 1:00 and 5:00 pm.
The Christmas Revels celebrates the turning of the year in Scottish style.
Join the gang this December in the land of Robbie Burns as we pass the
shortest day in song, dance, and spirited folk tales. Be there for haggis
and Hogmanay, first-footing, wool-waulking, mouth music, and even Guising!
Of course the Lord of the Dance will welcome you, and the Abbots Bromley
Antler Dance will cast its mysterious spell.
Go to http://www.californiarevels.org/show/ for information.
At the renovated Fox in Oaktown, the exciting Tedeschi-Trucks band holds
forth for three days before Thanksgiving while Marin bad-boy Les Claypool
of Primus handles NYE, sailing on seas of cheese with the elephant no
doubt.
AND BURNED LIKE MOONBEAMS IN OUR EYES
So anyway. After Denby struggled back to his rented room upstairs in
the St. Charles Lunatic Asylum to recover from this year's Crossing during
the last night of Los Dias de Los Muertos, Eugene Gallipagus took down
the long box from the shelf and unpacked all the camo equipment and brushes
and oils and everything that evoked the scent and memory of autumn.
Yes, that special season has come upon us when the air turns brisk with
scents of apples and chimney smoke and thoughts turn to traditions and
season rituals. Dick and Jane go gaily scampering through the fallen leaves
with ruddy cheeks and panting breath hand in hand, leaping over babbling
brook and rain-damp fallen tree, each dreaming of popping a few rounds
into a Fifi, blasting the stuffing out of a silver-haired poo with their
brand new, polished thirty ought six.
God! It is such a magical time! It is glorious America in Fall!
Yep, that much anticipated Island event is nigh upon us once again, the
Annual Island-Life Poodleshoot and BBQ.
We will be posting the official rules presently in the sidebar. For now,
last year's rules are up there to give you an idea of what this dreadful
celebration is all about.
What is the Annual PS&BBQ? Well, everyone is invited. It is a solidly
American tradition and we love traditions around here.
In the Old Same Place Bar, there is a chatter and a clatter from within.
Every time Padraic passes the snug where he put the new lease with its
rent increase, he snarls, then sighs.
Eugene is huddled with stalwart hunters trading stories of past Poodleshoots
and making plans for this 19th version of the famous event that draws
luminaries from all over the country. There is much speculation as to
whom the White House will send as representative this year.
At the Marlene and Andre's household, the place has been packed, all
the wanderers and lost having come home to roost as the night air turned
dank and chill with the rains and the return of the heat-sapping fog.
As the night eases along with a smooth stride, spinning its watchchain
in a loping stride, horns moan through the fog across the wide expanse
of water and the snores of sleepers drift up from cots and sleeping bags
and sofa and closet, every nook and cranny occupied of that bad abode.
The rustling in the big ginormous habitot run goes quiet as Festus and
his pals tuck in.
Out on the street a pickup truck carrying members of the Angry Elf gang
went whooping around the corner as the gang members planned more evil
mischief.
Soon, all was quiet in this darkening time of Daylight saving and Trumpism.
Beneath the floorboards of the Household the rats scampered around the
old decrepit furnace with its sparking wires, avoiding fried comrades
who had gotten too close to the machinery. Night fell early and a gentle
rain sussurated down and a quietude pervaded the Island. No sirens tore
the night air and a gentle peace ruled all the little Edwardian houses.
It was a quiet night on the Island and no one got shot and no one got
stabbed.
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the haunted
waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the flat expanse of the
former airfield that was now sanctuary for the Least Tern, the grasses
of the Buena Vista flats that was now the Jean Sweeny Open Space Preserve,
the construction zone of the old Cannery and its detritus-strewn loading
dock, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park, and
dying between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked
in front of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling
out of shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to a
mysterious, unknown future.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
OCTOBER 29, 2017
57 CHANNELS AND NOTHING ON
THIS ISLANDLIFE
Not much matters as the year decays like a rotting zombie. Wierdness
persists over the Firechief appointment. ARC continues to fight the good
fight against obscene rents and ridiculous housing. The Patch proudly
touts rotting mansions going for $800,000 in the form of buildings what
would scarce fetch $50,000 in Kentucky for all the dinkiness and electrical
and structural problems.
Svendsen’s Boat Works, another victim of Developers here, recently
announced that it will move to Richmond on Jan. 1, 2018. Svendsen’s
will join Bay Marine Boatworks at its Richmond facility, 310 Cutting Blvd.
Svendsen’s existing boatyard in Alameda will close next Friday,
Nov. 3, to facilitate the company’s relocation to Richmond and the
eventual redevelopment of the Alameda Marina. Svendsen’s products
divisions, including the wholesale distribution and chandlery, will continue
to operate at the Alameda Marina.
Meanwhile the Season continues. A home in Alameda’s Gold Coast neighborhood
recently set up a unique set of Halloween decorations under the banner
“A Very Very Trump Halloween.”
Nearly every figure playing a role in the new president’s administration
is represented by an undead statue outside the home. The satire extends
from the president himself dressed as the devil, to puppetmaster Vladimir
Putin riding a skeletal horse to a three-headed Cerberus of Ivanka, Eric
and Donald Trump, Jr. The elaborate display has received national attention
on blogs BoingBoing and The Daily Kos.
The Island has shifted in the past decade from predominantly Republican
during the Navy tenure here to 95% Democrat in demographics.
WAITING ON A TRAIN
So anyway. The dismal time of the Crossing, the time of El Dias de los
Muertos when the veil between the worlds is most thinnest had arrived.
Right on time the dense pogonip draped the hills with mysterious beauty.
Denby drove out to the place he had always parked for the past 19 years
and took out his cane and began to walk along the path that bordered Shoreline
and the Strand. The moon hung in a cresent, waxing but still not conquering.
The evening winds had kicked up, but without the accustomed force, and
fortunately so for those fighting the distant fires. The hope was that
this fog would dampen the fires destroying the lands further north. The
dense pogonip had begun to usurp the visual reality of this world. Strange
creatures began to appear in the mist with glowing eyes.
Denby had already entered that other realm beyond the veil as his cane
went "Stump! stump!"
Then he came to It. The gate in the stone wall, which did not exist at
any other time. He faced this thing as he had 19 times before, but paused.
A distant dog or set of dogs set up an infernal barking.
He used his cane to push open the gate and so step through a veil of
mist to the Other Side where a long reach of strand with bonfires extended
to north and south, broken only at this height by the extension of a stone
landing.
As in years past, as he approached the Portal, the Voice bellowed to
him from some echoing deep cavern.
"Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate!" and the words flamed
inside the skull as if poured in molten steel. Just as it had for the
past 19 years.
For pete's sake. As per Tradition, dammit.
A large owl, about two feet tall, perched on a piling and scolded him
with large owl eyes.
"Hoo! Hoo! Hoooooo!"
Okay, okay. Poor choice of words.
On the other side the ground sloped down as usual to the water for about
thirty yards, but he could not see the far lights of Babylon's port facilities
or the Coliseum. A dense, lightless fog hung a few yards offshore, making
it appear that the water extended out beyond to Infinity. The rain had
stopped but the sky above was filled with black cloud and boiling with
red flashes of lightening and fire.
All up and down the strand he could now see that countless bonfires had
been lit, as is customary among our people in this part of the world to
do during the colder winter months along the Strand, and towards one of
these he stumbled among drift and seawrack.
Sitting around that fire, he recognized many faces. And many more all
up and down that beach.
"si lunga tratta / di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto / che morte
tanta n'avesse disfatta"
Strange words in another language reverberated inside the skull: "si
lunga tratta / di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto / che morte tanta
n'avesse disfatta" echoing and echoing down long hallways of mirrors
into eternity
A small child, barefoot and wearing a nightdress ran past and disappeared
as quickly as she had come.
At the bonfire's edge a bright familiar voice greeted us, "Denby!
Back again so soon?"
A sort of pale glimmer drifted towards him over the dark sands, a woman
dressed in white with frizzy platinum blonde hair. She reached out with
her left arm. But her hand went right through his arm, leaving a clammy,
cold sensation.
"Hello Penny." Denby said.
Several little girls, all between the ages of six and nine ran barefoot
across the sands between them and vanished into the misty beyond.
"Well, here you are again," Penny said. "I see from recent
events you are approaching closer to the Final Crossing. How is your health?"
"O, I have had a few hitches and such. Seeing a doctor about things,"
he said.
Penny shaded her eyes as if seeing something inside something.
On the other side the ground sloped down as usual to the water for about
thirty yards, but he could not see the far lights of Babylon's port facilities
or the Coliseum. A dense, lightless fog hung a few yards offshore, making
it appear that the water extended out beyond to Infinity. The rain had
stopped.
"This is the 19th time you have crossed over," Penny said.
"And each time you look a little paler and more transparent. I think
the time is coming when you cross over and do not return to that other
place."
"19 years," Denby said. "And each time I ask about the
future only to get images of the Past. I think, soon, the world above
will change. It is changing already and I do not know how the Island can
last through it. Penny, if you have any insight, please, please let me
know now."
The dead soul looked at him and the wind blew and the children ran between
them, laughing in their games.
"How can you expect that we know what is going to happen when we
have no connection any more to the world. We are all waiting here for
transit to the Other Side. You among the living cannot know how much I
long for that ship to carry me across."
The plaint in her voice caused a lump to rise in his chest. "Penny,
I am sorry, but I was sent here to find out what is to be. And I do not
think I have much more time."
"O don't be so lugubrious!" Penny suddenly said brightly. "Come
along and meet some people!"
From far across the water came a glimmering that slowly revealed itself
to be two beacons held head high above a skiff poled by a dark figure.
Other figures began to move down the slope to a stone jetty that extended
out beyond the beach. It was a curious gaggle of people that advanced
towards the landing there. A tall, patrician man wearing a silk bathrobe
emblazoned with a familiar bunny logo strode along with two woman who
were naked save for small angel's wings sprouting from their shoulders
accompanied a stout man with bushy eyebrows and smoking a fat cigar. Another
man darted along the strand and pulled up on a motorcycle before hopping
off, leaving the machine to fall into the surf.
A black man with a moustache duckwalked along with an electric guitar
that seemed energized by the very air itself and this he sang:
Swing low chariot, come down easy
Taxi to the terminal zone
Cut your engines, cool your wings
And let me make it to the telephone
Los Angeles give me Norfolk Virginia
Tidewater four ten O nine
Tell the folks back home this is the promised land callin'
And the poor boy's on the line
A lanky man passed close by, also with an electric guitar.
"Bye bye Tom," Denby said.
The man with the guitar responded:
Well I don't know what I've been told
You never slow down, you never grow old
I'm tired of screwing up, I'm tired of goin' down
I'm tired of myself, I'm tired of this town
Oh my my, oh hell yes
Honey put on that party dress
Buy me a drink, sing me a song,
Take me as I come 'cause I can't stay long
Last dance with Mary Jane
One more time to kill the pain
I feel summer creepin' in and I'm
Tired of this town again
A lanky western-looking man ambled down the shore. "Hey Sam."
Denby said.
The man responded as follows before going down to the landing where the
skiff was now making its dock:
"I used to talk to you all the time, even though I was alone. I
walked around for months talking to you. Now I don't know what to say.
It was easier when I just imagined you. I even imagined you talking back
to me. We'd have long conversations, the two of us. It was almost like
you were there. I could hear you, I could see you, smell you. I could
hear your voice. Sometimes your voice would wake me up. It would wake
me up in the middle of the night, just like you were in the room with
me. Then... it slowly faded. I couldn't picture you anymore. I tried to
talk out loud to you like I used to, but there was nothing there. I couldn't
hear you. Then... I just gave it up. Everything stopped. You just... disappeared.
And now I'm working here. I hear your voice all the time. Every man has
your voice."
Down at the dock the ferryman was tossing his line and beginning to take
his toll of the obolus that each soul carried in its mouth.
"Do not stare too close at his eyes - they are wheels of fire,"
Penny said. "Remember what happened last time when you did that."
Indeed the excruciating, searing pain of looking into the eyes of the
infernal Charon had nearly wasted his own soul and body as he had fallen
wailing into the sedge along the shore.
But still he could not help but see how the two naked women with wings
were taken onto the skiff, now loaded with souls, and how the skiff was
poled away to leave the patrician man sitting there on the dock, quite
alone. Perhaps for the first time, ever, in his existence.
"How long do you think that man will wait?" Denby asked.
"No one knows what lies within the heart of any man," Penny
said. "But I suspect it will be quite a long time in his case."
The skiff became smaller as it poled away and the glimmer shrank to the
size of a distant star or a tiny comet heading to some unimaginable heavenly
destination.
"Some go quickly," Penny said. "Others, like me and some
of your friends, must wait until they learn patience for one or many years
of your time on earth."
A group of men wearing battle fatigues and jogging together passed below
them. A few of them called out to Denby, who waved. Old buddies. From
back then.
All along the strand the bonfires flickered, each surrounded by groups
of souls each having something in common with one another. A bevy of girls
wearing old fashioned pinafores ran past, shrieking with laughter. A girl
with big round eyes magnified by large eyeglasses ran right up to Denby
and shouted "Boo!" before darting away into the darkness.
"And what about these?" Denby said. "These innocents."
"You are right to call them Innocents. They are the souls of those
not born and never were and those perhaps to come. They are visible to
you because they have something to do with your own life," Penny
said. "Some are the possibilities of that which happened between
you and me. They are the Daughters of the Dust."
"This is not fair," Denby said. "This is not fair. We
have so little time." He made a guesture of futility. "There
is so little time."
An iron bell began to clang.
"The time is up; you are right. Now you must go." Penny said.
"Or the portal will close and you will have to waste away here a
year or more."
"I want to stay here with you Penny," Denby said.
"Foolish man! That would be self-murder and cost you a thousand
years or more! Go now!"
Reluctantly Denby turned and ascended the slope as the iron bell clanged
more insistently.
At the gate, he paused to turn back, a modern Orpheus, and Penny stared
at him. "You are concerned about the Island and what will come after.
Know this: the Island will continue long after you are gone. Life is a
vale of tears and suffering. There is some comfort in knowing that there
is an end to it and it does not go on forever. Remember the Sybil of Cumis.
I will be here waiting for you at the end. Go out there and live life
that remains. And Denby . . .".
"Yes?"
"Above all, practice your singing. You really should practice."
She bent forward and his lips felt a wetness.
With that, Denby stepped through the gate and the mist that hung all
around and his face was slapped by a salt spray so that his cheeks were
wet as he stumbled out onto the path along Shoreline Drive. When he looked
back, the portal had closed and all he saw was a black and empty beach
extending for miles in either direction and all trace of the stone jetty
had disappeared down below.
He stumped his way along until he came to the car where Jose sat smoking
a jay. Jose drove him silently to the Offices and let him out before driving
off without saying a word.
The Editor reached into the cabinet and brought out the the rare 19 year
old Scotch and poured each of them a drink.
"They happen to mention anything about WWIII and North Korea, ISIS
or our idiot President?" asked the Editor.
"Somehow the subjects never came up," Denby said.
"I do not know why I send you each year," the Editor said.
"I keep hoping for forecasts."
"I do not know either," Denby said. "This reminds me way
to much of things like Ap Bac.
"It is Tradition," said the Editor. "Get ready now for
year 20."
"Oy gevalt," said Denby. "Splash a little more of that
juice in this glass."
The Editor did so.
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the haunted
waves of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the flat expanse of the
former airfield that was now sanctuary for the Least Tern, the ghostly
grasses of the Buena Vista flats that was now the Jean Sweeny Open Space
Preserve, the construction zone of the old Cannery and its detritus-strewn
loading dock, crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn
Park, and dying between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked
in front of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling
out of shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to a
mysterious, spectral, unknown future.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
OCTOBER 22, 2017
WHEN IN TIMES OF TROUBLE MOTHER MARY SAYS TO ME
WHAT'S GOING ON
Up north, where we have friends and family and staffers who have been
on the front lines of the firefight, we are pleased to report containment
of the biggest fires, Tubbs, Atlas, and Nuns. Each of those fires developed
into multifire complexes and acquired new names to reflect those facts.
Tubbs and Nuns are 89% and 94% contained. The Pocket fire up around Cloverdale
is 84% contained. The Atlas fire is 92% contained. The fire that threatened
Oakdale joined with the Nuns fire. The fire that closed Highway 37 was
contained a few days ago. Every two hours the Sheriff's office has been
issuing conditional revocation of evacuation orders and road closures.
Calistoga was saved.
Entry into the Coffey Park and Fountaingrove neighborhoods of Santa Rosa
is by controlled checkpoint only. You MUST have a valid ID indicating
proof of residence.
41 people died - mostly individuals over 70 years of age with limited
mobility. 68 people missing in Sonoma County. There are more unaccounted
persons in Napa and other counties. The total devastation, including Redwood
Valley, is over 7,700 structures destroyed.
When you look at perimeter maps and stats, bear in mind that some fires
are out of the jurisdiction of CalFire -- those incidents are handled
by federal agencies.
Right now the LA Times is hosting a series of articles on these fires
and is probably the best general public source of information. For those
wanting to help, you should go to the Sonoma county website for vetted
information about donations and volunteering at
SONOMACOUNTY . Do NOT act on the report of a "friend" or
a mailer or someone sitting at a table in front of the grocery store.
Do NOT rely on social media.
More locally, we see the poison of Developer gold fever persists. Here
is a quote from the recent Sun:
"Some local residents were concerned this past weekend that a West-End
landmark may have seen its last days. Construction began on a new project
at the parking lot near Webster Street and Lincoln Avenue that once contained
a Southern Pacific Railroad station. The small ticket booth received a
reprieve from the wrecking ball when it was protected earlier this year
(“Quick Action Saves West End Railroad Landmark,” Feb. 2).
The former ticket booth has been relocated toward the rear of the property
which is expected to become a condominium complex. The property owner
is required to restore the protected structure to a prominent location
on the site."
That ticket booth is not just a remnant of a single spur-line. Not many
people recall that the transamerican railroad terminus was located there
for a time because the terminus in Oaktown had not yet been completed.
Condos, yes. That is just what we need; more expensive housing for rich
people.
There was a car show on Park this past weekend. A lot of really old cars
were on display. We have no notes on the bands or the music, so muff it.
The Angry Elf gang has some of its lower end trolls cruising the Fernside
district for crimes of opportunity. They have been stealing UPS deliveries,
looting open garages and unlocked cars and generally doing what the Angry
Elf gang does -- make life more difficult for decent folks. Be on the
lookout for cruisers at dusk.
THE CHOSEN
So anyway, the time had come for the annual, the awful, the terrible,
the terrifying Drawing of Straws in the Island-Life offices. For those
of you just now entering this World, each year the Editor has the Drawing
of Straws so as to determine who shall perforce be compelled to cross
over to the Other Side, that side from which no man returns, no man save
for maybe Orpheus and Achilles and Nicholas Cage and a handful of other
exceptions,
Like most meetings, nobody wants to be there, and like most important
meetings, attendance is compulsory. Else risk automatic Selection. It
is sort of like how the Draft descended to in the early 1970's. Everyone
is miserable and anxious. The process is extended and tortuous. No one
wants to be Selected. To be Selected is Doom.
So on the given night Rachel walks around with a hat held high -- she
is the tallest person in the office and is well suited for that task --
and each sad sack Islandlife staffer draws a straw with the shortest straw
becoming the loser.
People always try to get out of it. Even Festus is included.
"Boss! I am an hamster! What do I know about dead people and the
future?"
"Shut up and draw," says The Editor.
Indeed the annual visitation is all about learning about what comes next,
for it is assumed the Dead will somehow have an insider bit of information.
No one knows why this is, but that is just the way Tradition goes. And
Tradition. Well you do not mess with Tradition. Tradition is what we have
that keeps us together over the millennia of troubles that otherwise would
disperse our very existence into Nothingness.
So. The dreadful evening comes and Rachel walks around the desks of the
Offices where the staffers are sitting with their coffee or their Styrofoam
cups of bourbon mixed with coca cola to steel the nerves. Each draws his
or her straw and then heaves a massive sigh of relief. Their straws are
compared to the long one Rachel has drawn as the first of chance.
Finally, inevitably, always according to Tradition, the hat comes round
to Denby, who sits, dejected with his broken leg up on an upturned trashcan.
"Draw," says the Editor.
Denby sighs. Draws, as per Tradition 19 times now, once per year, the
shortest straw.
"Why always me?" Denby says.
"Because," says the Editor. "We love you."
The others all gather around him, clap him on the back with congratulations
for such a fine honor, and walk away, each to each, muttering, "Poor
sap! Glad it was not me!"
"What about this broken leg," Denby said. "You expect
me to hobble into the Infernal over a sand hill on a cane or with a walker?'
"Well, we could use a wheelchair and another drawing for someone
to shove you along . . . ", the Editor said.
"O no, no, no!" Jose said. "I did that once before. This
guy can gallop on a cane -- I seen him!" And with that Jose bolted
from the offices out the front door.
"Well that is that," the Editor said. "I guess you will
just have to bear up and keep the martial spirit. Keep America Great by
sacrificing for the More Important, just like Donald Trump wishes us to
do."
Denby emitted an expletive best omitted here.
The offices emptied of people, leaving Styrofoam cups and flickering
monitors behind.
The Editor rested his hand on Denby's shoulder. "Bear up man. I
will be here when you return." And the Editor retired to his glass
cube.
Denby took his cane arose heavily and stumped to the back where the porch
looked out into the darkness where the massive boxelder draped its branches
over the yard. Stars now appeared which had been hidden for days because
of the fire smoke from up north.
"Penny," he said. "What am I to do now? Most of my friends
are gone and my best friend is approaching your door even now. I nearly
entered the Portal myself a few weeks ago and the times are troubled."
But Penny, who remained on the Other Side, stayed silent as she awaited
the 19th coming of Denby in a few days, days that meant nothing to someone
now facing eternity.
On the street on the other side of the House, the raucous noise of an
Angry Elf convertible drove past, disturbing the neighborhood. Then all
was still and calm. And a peace descended upon that Island for one night
and no sirens rent the night air and no one got shot and no one got stabbed.
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the flat expanse of the former
airfield that was now sanctuary for the Least Tern, the grasses of the
Buena Vista flats that was now the Jean Sweeny Open Space Preserve, the
construction zone of the old Cannery and its detritus-strewn loading dock,
crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park, and dying
between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front
of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of
shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to a mysterious
unknown future.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
OCTOBER 15, 2017
SPIDERWEB
Things have been busy around the Island-life offices recently what with
people returning from the Annual Sabbatical in stitches, bandages and
leg immobilizers and the brough-haha going on in Sonoma with fire and
people losing their homes, we neglect the traditions of the Seasons. Here
is a front yard mockup of sanctified terror for the Season.
THIS ONE GOES OUT TO THE ONE I LOVE
Island-Life staffers work hand in hand with Marin and Sonoma Fire and
Police departments. During the recent firestorm Lifer staff went to Calistoga
to extract backups and servers during the evacuation there to preserve
city data and services.
Sequoia Equities is making it easier for people who have been displaced
to find an apartment.
Apartments available to fire victims in need.
PLEASE SHARE: If you know someone who has been displaced because of the
fires, please get in touch with me. Sequoia Equities has apartments in
Petaluma, Vacaville, Benicia and Martinez available immediately for people
in need.
Immediate move-in to any ready apartment
Waived application fees
Waived security deposit (or additional deposit for pets)
Credit will not play a factor in a person’s ability to reside
We will waive our 30-day move-out notice requirement
No maximum occupancy guidelines
No renters insurance requirement
Free/Reduced rental pricing
Pets: No breed restrictions, no number of pet restrictions
(925) 239-9453
WHAT'S GOING ON
Well, most outdoor events have been cancelled due to fire danger or air
quality issues. Various fundraisers are being held in lieu of scheduled
events. Down around the Island small groups banded together to try to
arrange delivery of care packages to beleagured Sonoma and Santa Rosa.
Meanwhile various people are concerned about the planned revamping of
Island access in the wings. And others have their panties in a twist about
"taking a knee" during the National Anthem. Well, it remains
a small Island with small concerns sometimes.
THIS 9 POUND HAMMER
So anyway. Dismal reports filter in across the transome. Up north the
sun hung like a blurry orange in a milk soup for days while a steady rain
of sad ash fell over everything. Sport fishing season is done in the freshwater
districts but crab season is upon us. Crab and oysters that love the cold
water which comes ever later it seems in these times.
Pedro motors out in the early hours as usual, but the waves feel strange
and at unease, his boat El Borracho Perdido, coursing along through the
aqua-green swell, not unlike an iHarvester pounding across the fields
and the furrowed ruts, each pilot ensconced in a dim cabin.
The eternal revolve of the seasons continues although disaster ropes
some of us into its insatiable maw of pain. Another season may pass and
no one will know what you went through, what you lost. That hillside where
your house once stood is now drenched with rain others call blessed.
On the slopes, the small shoots of green emerge. Life returns to the
barren land. All is new, but your memories remain. This bush. That cornerstone.
The place where the chair once stood. This photograph dusted to ashes
and left only in memory.
You reach for a wrench and the wrench is not there -- all the toolbox
is gone. You might go out and get another one, but the truth is, resources
are tight and that replacement has to be put on hold.
In town the oaks along Central have all gone brown and are dropping.
Up in the North Counties, the trees are finally going through a delayed
autumn because the temperature has been artificially high everywhere.
In San Anselmo, the alleys are only now starting to turn to the Fall colors,
weeks late.
On the Island, the Angry Elf Gang plans its next escapade of violence
and mayhem. The time was approaching for such things and they were eager
to cause pain.
Mrs. Almeida walked out and observed the striated colors of the sunset.
Soon the time when the veil between the worlds would become very thing
was approaching and the energy of the spheres was not good. It did not
forcast well what would happen this time. But the daily routines and the
seasons must continue and Mrs. Almeide spread the feed among the chickens
in their coop.
And all the while the Iranian spy submarine observed all these things
from its position in the estuary.
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the flat expanse of the former
airfield that was now sanctuary for the Least Tern, the grasses of the
Buena Vista flats that was now the Jean Sweeny Open Space Preserve, the
construction zone of the old Cannery and its detritus-strewn loading dock,
crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park, and dying
between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front
of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of
shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to a mysterious
unknown future.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
OCTOBER 8, 2017
ALL THE LEAVES WERE FALLING
This week we present a collage designed by long time Island-lifer Carol,
who is a talented artist living in the Gold Coast section of town. She
calls it "autumn colors".
WHAT'S THE BUZZ
Due to recovery from serious injuries we did not get out and about for
the past few weeks. HSBF replayed on the newly renamed Hellman Meadows
with the usual suspects of Steve Earle, Gillian welch and T. Bone Burnett
showing up and the odd Alternative\punk representation appearing here
and there to keep things alive. Very much alive, Hot Tuna Electric graduated
to the main banjo stage, so we are glad that Jorma and Company is now
seen as people of some musical significance after many years.
As usual Fleet Week took place about the same time, adding to the general
congestion in Babylon as well as the ambient noise level with airplanes
and other war machines screaming around all over the place.
Heard a piece of the new Primus album, which genuinely is an album in
that the boys are releasing a vinyl version of their latest impenetrable
opus about gnomes that drink the colors of the rainbow. Les Claypool,
who is the local Native Son responsible for Primus and its bass-inflected
assault upon Poodle-Rock oughta be performing in support of this new release.
We see that Victor Wooten, no stranger to the bass instrument himself
will be playing Yoshi's.
We cannot attend but hope many of you get over to the warmer side of the
Bay and Yoshi's East.
With themes that feel powerfully familiar, Clint Imboden's solo exhibition
"Broken" opened at Autobody upstairs on Park Street near the
bridge this weekend.
The "Dias de los Muertos" kick off at the Peralta Hacienda
in Oaktown with a kid-friendly event midweek. Look for other events leading
up to the big shindig on International Blvd.
WHAT'S GOING ON - SPECIAL HALT THE PRESSES
Around 11pm and extending to 5 pm people up in the North Counties of
Sonoma and Napa awoke variously to the smell of smoke and sometimes the
loud alerts of neighbors revving loud motorcycles in an effort to wake
people up.
Over the next several hours evacuation orders went out in Santa Rosa,
Napa, and the City of Sonoma as enormous wildfires raged out of control,
wiping out entire house blocks in minutes with some people escaping with
scant seconds to spare.
NorCal is on fire and people are scrambling to locate loved ones by phone
at a distance even as phone lines drop all over the place.
According to Cal Fire officials a combination of fires across eight counties
has burned over 65,000 acres of land, destroyed over 1,500 structures,
and is threatening countless others.
Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for fires, directing critical
resources to help residents and firefighters.
At least 10 people have died and many more injured. Local hospitals are
overwhelmed as some hospitals have been entirely destroyed, forcing patients
and staff to flee.
We at Island-Life have people with homes in Santa Rosa and amid the frantic
flurry of phone calls located people traveling out of state but failed
since 6:30 A.M. to locate evacuees from the path of the firestorm.
Regions including Novato on south to San Rafael are experiencing a steady
rain of burnt ash and the skies, forecast for sunny and clear, have been
overcast with a dense pall of smoke. Highways 101, 29, 29, 121 and 37
are among those entirely closed in the area. Work colleagues rushed to
rescue belongings as areas of Santa Rosa and even Blackpoint began to
experience smoke and flames for fires that as of this time have 0 containment
due to high winds that were forecast to die down only this evening.
An armada of police cars was witnessed heading north out of Oaktown this
morning to support the front lines of firefighters.
Our thoughts and prayers are insufficient. We can only hope the best
for the survivors of this thing.
KILLING THE BLUES
So anyway. The mornings begin in darkness. The days advance with muted
light slanting through the increasingly bare tree branches and openings
between buildings. People say the light of summer is soft but it is not.
The light of summer is newly in these days sharp and hard with nasty triple-digit
numbers. The light of Autumn is that of mild rays suffused with vermilion
and gold and rust. Everyone is getting ready for what comes next in the
form of white-cold blasts and chill.
Meanwhile this is the Season of Changes. Tiny monsters breed in the shadows
of doorways, spiders cross the walls, the veil between the worlds gets
thinner and murmurs start to bleed through the walls.
Angry whispers emerge from the old Strife house. Once again those strident
voices emerge to contend under the veiled moon about long ago slights
and insults. Vermin emerge from the woodwork; spiders, millipedes, scorpions.
For some reason the place seems thronged with moths, even though you have
sprayed and laid out cedar blocks. People lay out macabre displays of
bloody hands and howling heads, but those people never served in Southeast
Asia. A recent documentary series on the Vietnam conflict spooled out
over a couple weeks and ghosts begin to walk again.
It is the first week of October and the Editor is calling for the annual
Drawing of Straws, the fearsome and feared lottery that chooses which
poor living soul must descend to that bourne from which no man is allowed
to return -- unscathed, save for scathed Orpheus and our Elector of the
Dead.
Also on the Calendar is the Annual Island-Life Poodleshoot and BBQ, an
event anticipated and dreaded by many. Anticipated by vigorous, red-blooded,
outdoorsy, American boys and girls and feared by wimpy Poodle-walkers
scared of mayhem, destruction and physical damage to their beloved, cherished,
doted-upon Fifis. Wherever misplaced sentiment is larded upon inappropriate
objects of devotion, there we go. We go and destroy it, destroy it with
zest and innocent delight.
In other news, the Island High Stingrays garnered some unexpected press
when the entire team took a knee during the playing of the school fight
song before a game with the West End Jets. Turned out that Brawnie Blokh
bent to tie his shoelace, which was misunderstood by other members of
his team who all knelt as their astounded coach and audience looked on
from bleachers of Wally Mickelstein Stadium.
The 'Rays would have forfeited the game as the incensed Coach Wiekbladder
benched the entire first string, but the Jets, deciding they, too, had
a right to protest something all knelt during the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Mrs. Semiquaver, the Cappelmeister, had decided the national anthem had
become too controversial.
"I think this disrespect to the flag and the military is over the
top. The kids are acting like Marin hot-tubber hippies!" Mr. Blather
said.
"What does the military have to do with it? They don't own the flag
or the song!" shouted Mr. Larch, who was there with Pandora Thighripple
to watch her son play ball. "It is the People who own the Flag!"
"I am gonna really mess up your hair!" shouted Mr. Blather.
"The flag belongs to us loyal Conservatives and everybody knows Conservatives
are pro-military you commie pinko!
"You have no idea what a communist is," said Pandora, who had
actually visited Cuba with Michael Moore. "You never ever met one
you ignorant twot!"
That is when Mr. Blather punched Mr. Larch, shouting "Preserve the
martial spirit!"
Pandora grabbed Mrs. Blather and threw her down three rows of seats in
the bleachers and Mr. Cribbage punched a surprised Mr. Souvlaki who was
waving a small Catalan flag.
All the adult parents started throwing cups and hot dogs. Pretty soon
the whole affair descended into a melee and there was fists and bottles
thrown right and left as the melee descended into a mess of atavistic
savagery as the howl of the police sirens approached.
Officers Popinjay and O'Madhauen responded with typical restraint: they
tased and wacked with batons everybody they did not pepper spray, including
both teams who were just standing their watching their parents, and then
Officer Millicent let loose the attack dogs.
Much later, Luther had the opportunity to speak with Officer Millicent
in the Old Same Place Bar. "How come you hate us so much?" Luther
asked.
"We hate everybody pretty much," Officer Millicent said. "We
just happen to be in your neighborhood a lot."
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the flat expanse of the former
airfield that was now sanctuary for the Least Tern, the grasses of the
Buena Vista flats that was now the Jean Sweeny Open Space Preserve, the
construction zone of the old Cannery and its detritus-strewn loading dock,
crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park, and dying
between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front
of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of
shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to a mysterious
unknown future.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
OCTOBER 1, 2017
SPIDERS FROM MARS
This week's terrifying photo comes from Jessie in Babylon where she captured
this beast descending from above to devour what looks like the new Salesforcewest
building.
Seems appropriate for this month-long season of parties and fantasy that
make October one of the of the most delightful times in the Bay Area,
culminating in that sexy orgy of candy and hookers and masquerades called
in some places Halloween.
O the horror the horror.
O SAY CAN YOU SEE BY THE DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT
The Island hosted a few events this past week in recognition of what
is taking place on the national stage. All across the country and in every
chat room on social media, people have been buzzing with either outrage
or support or outraged support following former 49 quarterback Colin Kaepernick's
decision to kneel during the traditional performance of the national anthem
prior to football games.
In the interests of accuracy, Colin's particular decision to kneel was
conditioned after several meetings with former Green Beret veteran Nate
Boyer. Originally, Kaepernick had decided to sit out the anthem, but after
talking with the Army Vet, he and Boyer worked out a respectful compromise
that still acted as protest.
At Encinal, home of the Jets ("When you are a Jet, you're a Jet
all the way . . .") students gathered for a rendition of the National
Anthem in which all students took a knee to honor their support of the
Black Lives Matter movement.
The Island has experienced a flurry of minor racist activity that included
vandalization of Temple Beth Israel and someone hanging a noose in front
of a school, however the general public response has been one of unity
and support for diversity. Not to say we do not have a few intolerant
scalawags that have protested our Sanctuary City status with disinformation
and fear-mongering, but the majority of Islanders appear on the right
side of history going forward.
Things for East Bay students got pretty rocky this past week as concern
about an unsubstantiated thread of a planning shooting put Island authorities
on high alert, followed by a complete lock-down due to a bomb threat.
Similar events happened up in Marin in Larkspur which raises questions
about how school officials are supposed to respond in this time of new
realities when the cause may be some wag just wants to get a day off playing
hookey at everybody else's expense. Children and staff at Lincoln Elementary
School in Newark were frightened Wednesday when the school went on lockdown
because of an intruder on campus. Two staff members suffered minor injuries
in a fight with the suspect. The intruder was determined to have significant
mental stability issues.
Things fared worse on the Nimitz as CHP shut down the freeway going in
both directions near the Maze during a pursuit of a homicide suspect.
During the pursuit, nail strips were thrown down to disable the car. The
suspect elected to try to shoot it out and was killed by CHP. Police shut
down the freeway at 9:06 a.m. at the Powell Street exit following a high-speed
chase.
Officers negotiated with the suspect for an extended period of time until
officers received gun fire from the suspect,” the Fairfield, Richmond
and Emeryville Police Department later said in a joint statement. “Officers
on scene returned fire and the suspect was struck during the exchange.”
The freeway was at a complete standstill and traffic was backed up for
miles.
CHP reopened the freeway at 5 p.m, September 27.
To add to further roadway havoc, a tractor-trailor jackknifed and caused
traffic misery for hours the following day.
TROUBLE IN MIND
So anyway Martini found a French Horn at a garage sale and he brought
it back to the Household even though it had no mouthpiece. Friday everyone
was in the main room and Martini brought in his horn with a mouthpiece
he had made of wood.
"Martini," Suan said. "You have been good all week; don't
blow it."
"BLAAAAAT!" Martini went.
"O for Pete's sake," Suan said.
"Next year in Jerusalem," Martini said. "Happy new year!"
"Martini," Marlene said. "It is not the New Year - it
is the day of Remembrance. And besides, you are Catholic, not Jewish."
"Ah well, same diff," Martini said. "Catholics are just
Jews with a layer of brocade and the Pope. And I remember all kinds of
crap. BLAAAAAHHT!"
"For Pete's sake, what are you doing with that horn? Put it away,"
Marlene said.
"This be my Chauffeur."
"Chauffeur," Marlene said flatly
"Yeah. Ram's horn. Announcing my penitence and shit," Martini
said.
"Martini, you are Catholic and you are drunk -- which are two problems
in themselves. Give me that horn NOW!"
"Promise you forgive me," Martini said.
"I forgive you for being an idiot. But first give me the horn."
Also unclear on the concept was the Angry Elf who approached Denby as
he stood on the street with his crutches waiting for the bus. The Angry
Elf wanted forgiveness too.
"Wwwwhy," Denby asked reasonably, looking around for weapons.
"Cause you know people talk. An' I wanna feel comfortable."
"Comfortable," Denby said. "You want to feel comfortable."
"Yeah. It be the day of forgiveness and crap."
"Please go away and leave me alone," Denby said.
"But I want forgiveness," the Angry Elf said. It turned out
that some of the Elf's connections had found out he had been hassling
innocent people and he was getting flack about it. It was hurting business.
"Are you even aware of the crimes you committed," Denby said.
The bus was taking its own sweet time.
The Angry Elf shrugged. "I aint proud about some of it, but you
know business is business. Some deals you lose and that is just the way
it is. So we can make a new deal, right?"
"I do not think you get the forgiveness thing," Denby said.
"As a Jew you are a bad example. Eff off."
"You better not say that again," warned the Angry Elf just
as the bus arrived.
"Eff off you lousy example," Denby said as he climbed aboard
the bus.
"I am gonna make you sorry!" shouted the Angry Elf who stamped
his feet.
The Angry Elf returned to his rooms at the top floor of the Asylum for
Demented Managers and smashed glassware with a hammer in frustration before
arranging for the punishment of a wayward "mule" who had siphoned
off too much. Denby had moved out more than two years ago from the same
building when the Elf had first threatened him.
In the Household of Marlene and Andre, Little Adam was watching the news
on his laptop with Andre. Much of the news was about the devastation suffered
by Puerto Rico, an island that had once been overrun by 1950's gangsters
after Cuba fell to Fidel Castro.
In the public media Lin-Manuel Miranda -- the author of a popular stage
production -- said to the President of the United States that he was "going
straight to hell." Miranda added, "No long lines for you. Someone
will say, 'Right this way, sir.' They'll clear a path."
In the face of all that the President commands in terms of power, Miranda
is no more powerful than Denby facing a petty Mafioso who admires Meyer
Lansky. But people who abuse the tools handed to them by the People so
as to get the jobs done, people who abuse the trust placed in them, need
to be told to their face what they are. More people, not fewer, need to
kneel in protest against injustice and the white poisons that destroy
our neighborhoods.
The hour got late and Little Adam was put to bed. Others retired to their
niches and cots in the cottage while Andre looked out from the porch at
the Bay and the distant lights of Babylon across the water. Soon the traditional
celebrations of the Island would come to keep everybody busy, each looking
to occupy him or herself with the illusion that all would be well.
Also looking out into the darkness at that moment, the Editor stood on
the back porch of the Offices. Soon it would be time for the annual Dias
de Los Muertos, and the annual Crossover to the Other Side by Denby. The
old box elder tree hung its branches over the yard, still embedded with
anchor chains, anchors, shovels, belaying pins. Still the Editor did all
he did in fond hopes that somewhere out there beyond the curtains of darkness
gleamed a like mind. He turned and returned to the small pool of light
cast by the desk lamp.
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the flat expanse of the former
airfield that was now sanctuary for the Least Tern, the grasses of the
Buena Vista flats that was now the Jean Sweeny Open Space Preserve, the
construction zone of the old Cannery and its detritus-strewn loading dock,
crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying
between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front
of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of
shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to a mysterious
unknown future.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
SEPTEMBER 24, 2017
THEY AINT KILLED ME YET, BUT THEY DOING THE BEST THEY CAN
This week's headline is of our reporter Denby posing with rescuers after
being rescued from the mountain wilderness at 12,000 feet in the high
Sierra. Denby is recuperating from surgery and is expected to be able
to walk normally again by the turn of the year.
Brandon Hallam is the paramedic and Dan, the chopper pilot, took the
picture.
THIS ISLAND LIFE
During our absence it looks like it was not a "slow news"
week for a couple running. CHP nabbed a deer that decided to run on the
Bay Bridge to Babylon, perhaps in an effort to escape high rents; poor
deluded thing.
CHP acknowledged the event with an official social media post, "This
morning a couple of our officers stopped a doe for toll evasion, on the
Bay Bridge. She said she usually pays it, but today she was a buck short."
An Oakland grass fire prompted evacuations last week before it was brought
under control.
A mountain lion has been repeatedly spotted in the Berkeley Hills, prompting
officials to issue warnings to avoid the area during the sunup and sundown
hours and to avoid going through the area alone. For defense, officials
recommended carrying a stick.
A stick against a mountain lion? Just keep away from now and jog elsewhere.
Lauren Do commented with a notice of an Planning Board appointee making
some eyebrow-raising comments that would have done both Marie Antoinette
and Josef Stalin proud ("Papers, please", by Lauren Do, Blogging
Bayport, September 20, 2017)
The PB official, appointed by Mayor Trish Spencer, is not identified
by name by Ms. Do, but appears to be listed in the video transcript as
Sandy Sullivan -- known to be a staunch pro-homeowner advocate to the
nth degree. Sullivan, if that is her sitting with Council Members to left
of center in the video, was querying an unidentified Housing Authority
staffer about the makeup of residents in the Bayport project on Buena
Vista near Webster.
Turns out most of the residents are seniors and disabled.
Sullivan expressed concern about parking and how it impacts " the
neighborhood and the existing homeowners" and then goes on to ask,
“Do you identify these cars with stickers?”
The answer from the staffer is, of course, yes so that residents are
allowed to park on the project site which consists of private streets,
because the City did not want to pay for maintenance of them. The Housing
Authority staffer said "that naturally they don’t control the
public streets because the public streets are the public streets".
The Planning Board member (Sullivan) then says, “Yes, but you control
whether they use the public streets.”
We had to review that comment on the video three times to make sure we
did not mishear such an outrageous statement.
Ms. Do commented, "A Planning Board member is suggesting that members
of the public should not be able to use the public streets if they reside
in Housing Authority units."
Leaving aside the observation that when is parking in a densely populated
metropolitan area never an issue, we can see that the Spencer appointees
to the Planning Board have caused public concern about biases going back
to the fresh election of Spencer in 2014 when she eked out a narrow victory
against incumbent Marie Gilmore.
"Allowing Spencer to continue stacking the Planning Board with appointments
like her last two would be a terrible mistake that could set us back for
many years. More appointees like Ronald Curtis and Sandy Sullivan, well
established property owners whose comments and votes are often tantamount
to an “I got mine” vision for Alameda, do not reflect the diversity
of people and progressive views reflected in our Everybody Belongs Here
ethos. Let’s make sure the vision set by our planning board is one
the next generation can be proud of and afford to be a part of."
(East Bay Times, Letters to the Editor, July 18, 2017, Brian McGuire)
And earlier in 2015 the Times Standard had this to say:
"And while the council ended up approving the appointments of David
Mitchell and Sandy Sullivan on Sept. 1 (2015), Spencer's decision not
to recommend Dania Alvarez for a seat drew stinging criticism. Alvarez
had served on the Planning Board since 2013 and hoped to be reappointed.
Councilwoman Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft noted the nominations of Mitchell
and Sullivan followed Spencer routinely sitting in on meetings of city
boards and commissions.
"I have heard from a number of board and commission members that
the mayor told them she attends these meetings to see how they vote and
wants to appoint people who share her political position," Ashcraft
said. "This concerns me."
It has "a chilling effect," she said, because board members
will not act independently for fear of retaliation. Planning Board member
Lorre Zuppan said the appointment process was turning into "a process
of intimidation."
"It suppresses expression in all of the boards because you know
if you speak out of line with the mayor, who is appointing the members,
you won't be reappointed," Zuppan said. (Times Standard News, Alameda:
Planning Board nominations draw fire, by Peter Hegarty, 09/09/15)
After the international farce laden with spoken-vomit language that emits
from the mouth of the current U.S. President, perhaps we should no longer
be surprised by public enunciation of insensitive insolence and blathering
presumption that put phrases like "nattering nabobs of negativism"
into the realm of quaint anachronisms of history.
WAKE ME UP WHEN SEPTEMBER ENDS
So anyway. Everybody stumbled back from this year's Island-Life Mountain
Sabbatical in a foul mood. The thing had turned out to be a total fiasco,
what with the Veggie Burgers undercooked, the mosquitos more pestiferous
than a swarm of telemarketers, Festus getting lost on the glacier due
to snow blindness, and all the injuries from falling down cliffs and breaking
bones.
Everybody sat around in wheelchairs in a whirl of gauze and little icewater
machines pumping gelid fluid around damaged limbs. As for Festus, there
is nothing more pathetic than a puffy-eyed hamster who has to wear sunglasses
indoors like some rodent narcotrafficante. Sure was a hell of a vacation
that never happened.
"I told you never employ a used climbing rope somebody has stepped
on,"Pahrump shouted.
"I didn't step on it," Javier said from his headball of swaddling
gauze. "Jose did."
"Just blame me for everything," Jose said. "I didn't set
the chuck up in the crack or make it 'walk'."
"Well who set the chuck and who used the rope?" Rachel asked.
"It wash Javier boundink off the face duringk his rappel, pretending
to be a Green Beret," sniffled Beatrice. She had plunged into Darwin
Canyon Lake #2 and had crawled shivering out onto the snowbank. "Thag
yew very buhtch! AAAAH-CHEWWWWW!"
There was lots of acrimony and finger pointing all around and nobody
knew how it happened exactly but they all remembered looking up to see
the snaking curl of the rope flailing in the high gray sky where storm
clouds boiled just above the notch through which all of them had just
passed. Blame or whatever, down the mountainside they all went to splatter
among the boulders.
"Aieeeeya!" Javier said with an echoing voice; he had landed
upside down with his head stuffed into a hole between three boulders the
size of Caddilacs. "Estoy destruido!"
"Could be worse," Jose said as he lay there wedged among the
granite blocks. "Could be raining."
That is when the heavens opened up at 12,000 feet with an ice cold downpour.
After Beatrice set off the SARSAT beacon, the helicopters kept busy ferrying
people off of the mountainside all day to a line of waiting ambulances
that took them all to Mammoth Lakes Trauma Unit.
"It says here on the manifest that one of you weighs only 12 ounces,"
said paramedic Brandon Hallam to Pahrump. "That has to be some kind
of mistake."
"No, that has to be Festus," Pahrump said.
They found Festus in an ice crevasse by the sound of his high, reedy
voice. He was singing to himself.
Oh no not I, I will survive
Oh, as long as I know how to love, I know I'll stay alive
I've got all my life to live
And I've got all my love to give
And I'll survive
I will survive
Hey, hey . . . .
"O for Pete's sake," Brandon said. "Climb aboard the basket.
You are so off-key I should leave you."
The Editor stumped in to the Offices on crutches and ordered everyone
to get back to work, which they all did, grumbling.
One good thing -- everyone skipped out on the recent heat wave that slammed
the Bay Area on Labor Day weekend.
The light faded into a golden-hue saturated landscape. School had been
in session for a few weeks now and the school busses are all still painted
that same hue of noticeable yellow they have enjoyed for decades. Mrs.
Sanchez looked up after leaving the school where she had taught English
literature for the past twenty years and noticed that all the buckeyes
had already gone sere and withered, while the overarching oaks that sheltered
Central Avenue had shifted to browns and goldens. The days fluctuated
between breezy 70's and sudden 80's while the nights had settled to high
50's. Soon time to bring down the duvet, put away the short sleeves.
Bearing her load of essays on Emily Dickenson, Mrs. Sanchez, nee Morales,
looked up and down Central where nothing appeared to move other than Mr.
Peepers, who scampered across the road high above on a wire that ran from
one telephone pole to another on the opposite corner.
In the middle of the street, Mrs. Sanchez paused, eyeing a suspiciously
slippery looking patch of leaves. "I shall not be tricked by you
this time," she said to herself, stepping cautiously to the left.
On second thought, perhaps she should get to the Post Office to check
for a letter from Karen, her former pupil who now was entering graduate
school in far-off Chicago. Karen had been one of those kids who had seemed
destined to fall through the cracks and be forever lost, another troubled
teen whose parents had divorced, propelling her into a round of rebellion
and police pickups, self-cutting with razor blades and worse.
But Ms. Morales had not given up on her; she had seen the promise in
the girl's native intelligence and had gone herself to the police station
and signed the forms to take on responsibility when her father refused.
Those had been difficult years, but now look. Graduated with honors from
Seattle and now off to Chicago.
A red pickup truck came tearing around the corner to startle the woman
who now was known as Mrs. Sanchez -- she had gone through some changes
of her own over the past few years.
The truck, carrying members of the Angry Elf gang drove right at her
and she threw her hands up in the air and jumped aside as the truck tore
past with all the hard work essays ascending and descending like flakes
in a snow globe and the distinctive sound of The Cackler fading away and
the truck barreling down Center toward Park Street.
Bear, on his 1965 Panhead with his beloved Susan riding pillion came
to a halt and the three of them collected as many of the essays as they
could. When she got back to the house, Mr. Sanchez was still at work,
so Mrs. Sanchez plotzed in the recliner with a rare glass of sherry to
calm her nerves.
Eventually Mr. Sanchez came home and he held his wife in his arms as
the last light faded outside the window.
"La Pandilla de Duende Enojada son güeyes," he
said. "Bunch of Jerkoffs!"
Down by the Strand, the Household was enjoying the last few days of daytime
warmth and sunshine with a game of touch football Frisbee with rules made
up as they went along. This was made both interesting and complicated
as both Johnny Cash and Bonkers insisted on grabbing the Frisbee as well
to run away with it without regard to sides.
Finally Mancini grabbed the Frisbee in the failing light with the stars
coming out and the fog rolling in and as he knelt in the sands of the
Island, he placed it upon his head and with his arms spread out to either
side belted out an old song:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From the California to the New York island
From the Redwood Forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and meeeeeeeeeee.
The fog rolled in then and all that Household went up into the cottage
and there Marlene served out bread soup for the season of harvesting tomatoes
was about done and soon the fava beans would be ready for sowing in the
ironmongery garden.
Little Adam had finished his homework and was watching the beginning
of the streamed version of the Burns/Novak documentary on Vietnam. Something
there made Adam say, "Mom, how can people say they love America when
they be so mean?"
Andre answered him as follows, "There's many ways to love a country.
Some people love their country the way a child loves its mother, without
thinking, unconditionally, but with a certain blindness as if to say,
'Mommy is is never wrong. Mommy is always right', even when they see otherwise.
Other people love their country and see all its faults, but love it just
the same like you would an alcoholic uncle who needs some help to get
along. How can you not love a member of your own family? Other people
love their country enough to step up and do something because, you see,
you and me and all of us are the country, really -- America is not some
removed object sitting out there like a glass bowl on a shelf, some kind
of finished, set in bronze statue."
"I don't get it," Adam said.
"You will," Marlene said.
Adam turned to face the glow of the laptop screen. Outside the streets
were hushed and all the gang members were indoors. There were no sirens
and no screaming and peace ruled this corner of the world. On board the
Iranian spy submarine that frequented the estuary, the First Mate puzzled
over a paper the sub's robotic arm had found floating on the surface water.
"I thought I heard a fly buzz?" queried the First Mate. "What
is this Emily Dickenson she is so important? Is she a official or a commander?"
"I doubt that very much," said the Captain who clapped up the
handles of the periscope. "Let us dive." And so they did. And
the El Chadoor ran out through the Bay and under the Golden Gate, running
silent, running deep.
It was a quiet night on the Island and nobody got shot and nobody got
stabbed.
"Next year," Javier said to Jose. "We take vacation in
Vegas."
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista
flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed,
crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying
between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front
of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of
shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to mysterious
parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
AUGUST 27, 2017
LIKE A BIRD ON A WIRE
This week's headline image comes from the Summer Dam on
the Russian River where a heron fellow keeps a sharp eye on anything swimming
downstream.
WHAT'S THE BUZZ
Looks like a great Fall season is shaping up for the Fox and North Bay.
We see Susan Tedeschi teaming up with Derek Trucks at the renovated Fox
preceded by Jason Isbell , formerly of the Drive By Truckers. Warren Haynes
will be putting his Gov't Mule in harness there. The booking agent for
the Fox continues to overwhelm the lineup for both the Fillmore and the
Warfield, although the Fillmore will be hosting Dave Bromberg and his
scraggly blues group, which is always something worth standing for. A
number of old timers are coming out of the woodwork to cover places in
Napa and North Bay during this chaotic time of political turmoil.
On the Island, the political atmosphere continues to boil with the BigProp
folks trying to force through a fake resolution that effectively bans
no-fault evictions and exhaults the prerogatives of absentee landlords.
The bicycle coalitions battle the traffic people from day to day. BigProp
continues to levy for variances in height restrictions and density limits,
longing to turn parts of the Island into simulacrums of Harlem, NY where
the river has not been seen in decades.
THIS ISLAND-LIFE
There will be no next week as the Offices will be closed for the annual
Island-Life Mountain Sabbatical. Should sufficient Island-Life staff survive
with sufficient bodily functions intact, we will again resume activities
and reporting in mid September. Expect a two week hiatus for a long delayed
vacation.
In addition, the Internet service for the offices is down through the
weekend, so we are struggling to regain functionality at this point and
so the issue may be delayed.
WHEN THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER
So anyway. The major heavenly Event shifted forward on creaky wheels
making everybody scurry about with special glasses and homemade cardboard
viewers and whatnot. The shadow of the moon drifted in a stately fashion
across the sun and the view was all occluded by the seasonal fog. Folks
stepped outside from their office cubicles into a gray half-light that
was no more dismal than usual. The light faded somewhat and overhead the
leaden sky-cover darkened a bit, then got a bit lighter again.
Mr. Howitzer stepped out onto his verandah with a bloody Mary whipped
up by Dodd, looked around with disdain, went "Harumph!" and
then went back inside to pester the Help about cleaning the jalousie.
Tipitina looked out the glassed side of the Embarcadero One and went
up in the elevator with coworkers to the roof, where the clouds briefly
parted up high to reveal what was happening. People took pictures with
their cell phones while the team from floor 29 pointed binoculars at a
sheet of paper on the ground so as to avoid burning out their eyes. A
few others wore the special drugstore sunglasses and stood around looking
like members of Devo.
The shadow sort of edged partly across the sun, leaving a good quarter
visible intermittently through the high fog, and then it edged away again
and they all went down to their cubicles to return to work.
Beneath the hedges of the College Senor Don Guadalupe Fernando Gustav
Erizo peered up at the heavy sky and then returned to his burrow to continue
about his basic hedgehog business as usual.
Probably the only two individuals who had a clear view of the eclipse
were Pedro and Ferryboat as they returned from the fishing grounds out
at sea. The boat, El Borracho Perdido, thrummed along the furrows of the
waves after the sun had done what it does. As Pedro entered the back end
of the big fog bank that moves from sea to shore and back again on a daily
basis, the sky grew dark and the petrels and gulls began landing on the
water surface to tuck in for what they thought to be night and so the
sky emptied of bird calls. Surface feeding fish descended to take shelter
in the kelp beds and reefs below, but a school of sturgeon swam about
in confusion near the surface. . The sea took on a deeper aquamarine and
turned ebony as the light vanished. Then the boat entered the fog bank
where all was muffled and yet resonant with splash and clank of ship's
equipment as it was in the early pre-dawn when Pedro set out. Ferryboat
stayed quiet in the wheelhouse as the lights from the navigation equipment
and radio and Pedro missed his old radio friend, the Lutheran minister
who had guided his ship as sure as the stars for the past thirty years.
Pedro had heard the old guy was making nationwide tours, bringing a sort
of Lutheran version of a variety show to different cities but it did not
look like the man would be coming to sinful Babylon any time too soon.
He would have liked to have met the man and talked about fishing, but
the Lutheran was retired and Pedro was getting on in years himself and
probably the two would have had little to talk about as Pedro still retained
a small-town approach to things with his children all raised on the little
Island and going to the Church of Our Lady of Incessant Complaint and
still married to Mrs. Almeida, the same gal he had met forty-five years
ago in Sausalito and so little to add to the knowledge of a world traveler
and dignitary of American belles lettres. Mostly, like all quiet
men, Pedro liked to listen, for once you open your mouth, the ears seem
to forbid admittance, a lesson sometimes harshly learned.
Under leaden skies that had barely lightened after the eclipse Pedro
steamed in under the Golden Gate to the docks with the belly of his boat
laden with the late summer harvest, bluefin and yellowtail, with several
300 pounders and many destined for the fine sushi establishments in Babylon,
the East Bay, and Marin.
On the docks, he spied members of the Angry Elf gang, ranging about and
looking for things to steal or damage. Pedro laid his Mossberg 540 on
the transom and guided his boat into the mooring slot and the Angry Elf
gang stared with angry, shifty, deceitful eyes, scratching meth-induced
acne. From their midst he heard the distinctive sound of the one called
"the Cackler."
Blue night descended through the shrouded trees and rooftops of the Island
as Rolph and Suan returned from yet another excursion in search of better
lodgings than the crowded household of Marlene and Andre where 15 souls
had sought shelter from the Storm. It seemed the real estate disease that
had spread throughout the Bay Area and wrecked and ruined many old neighborhoods
all through the Five Counties area and there was little help to be found
anywhere. The land-greed and the voracious appetite of the absentee landlords
had destroyed one monument after another, broke apart neighborhoods and
evicted countless businesses.
Because of the money trap the Hospital had closed its neonatal unit and
its gynecology during its desperate effort to remain afloat and independent,
so it was no longer possible to be born on the Island. There soon would
no longer be native born Islanders.
All due to this land fever, scourging the land and decimating the honest
people.
In quiet voices Rolf and Suan and Andre and Marlene, who acted as the
responsible adults of the Household, discussed the future. They knew that
it was only a matter of time before Howitzer, who owned the building,
tossed all of them out onto the street and because of the laws -- or lack
thereof -- he needed no express reason to do so. And the denizens of that
bad abode were all people damaged by Life's vicissitudes, people who had
walked with Tiresias among the lowest of the low. These people were beyond
asking for handouts; they asked only for survival.
Denby sat out on the steps of the Native Sons of the Golden West Parlor
33&1/3 with Jose and Javier and Snuffles the Bum and Little Andre
was there with his school project made of fragile balsam wood, turning
the model here and there, and Jose wondered how it all would end.
"It will all end badly," Denby said, ever the optimist. "We
will grow old and fall apart and die wretchedly ignominious and in much
pain."
"It will end in fire and rain and great destruction," Pahrump
said. "Everything we know will be taken away; they can do this at
any time."
In the distance sirens announced the termination of yet another tragedy
over in Oaktown. The pop-pop of gunfire announced another episode somewhere
else.
"Dey smash yo teef in wit a brick and dat is dat," Snuffles
said, who knew what he was talking about.
The group stared out over the drooping shore and the stretch of water
out to Babylon with its glow. The radio inside the house chattered news
about the latest vitriolic exchange between the Baby President and the
North Korean Despot, each threatening fire and total annihilation.
"Maybe it's just we make something beautiful that gets remembered
no matter how bad it is. It will always be something bad, fo' shizzle.
Maybe we need to make something beautiful somehow," Little Andre
said. "Cause that is what gets remembered."
"I think you are right," Denby said. "It is what is remembered
that is important." He picked up his guitar and started to play "Walk
Me Out in the Morning Dew."
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista
flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed,
crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying
between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front
of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of
shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to mysterious
parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
AUGUST 20, 2017
HARVEST HOME
It is getting around to that time when the stalks bulge with all that
Spring and Summer had promised with their hot sunny days. This week we
present a sampling of this year's subsistence garden produce, featuring
delicata squash, orange crookneck squash, Kentucky beans, the usual tomatoes,
cilantro to stand in for all the herbs we have and more that would not
fit on the table.
Greg Brown has a song that went "You can taste a little of the summer,
My grandma's put it all in jars". And that is how it starts, those
stored up memories. Canned and jarred. Canned and jarred. Over and over,
for decades and and lifetimes and centuries. The memories.
THERE IS NO DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
So anyway. As all of America prepares for an eclipse, vast machinery
creaks into motion and celestial bodies procede along their age-old orbits.
What is it to the moon that now and then its shadow occludes sunlight
for a time on earth? The moon does not care and the sun certainly does
not, but a great number of humans get excited every time this event takes
place. It's a caution as an old friend used to say.
Pedro, standing in the wheelhouse of El Borracho Perdido set out to work
long before any sort of solar event and his wheelhouse was like the cabin
of any Iharvester throbbing along the ridges of plowed earth in the heartland
far from the coasts. Like any farmer Pedro awoke well before the dawn
and set out on his day by the light of stars and moon. And in his cabin
he felt the plunge and dip and shudder of the machine under his control
as he ploughed his fields, wind rippling the waves like wind layering
the crops and his solitude was the same solitude of the Norwegian bachelor
as he rode his iHarvester from one end of the field to the other until
the work was done.
Back home he was gifted on his birthday with the grand gift of an oar,
which happened to be the shipsmate of the oar that hung in the Editor's
office although neither principal knew the fact. And so it was that Pedro
hung that oar above the mantel and there it was, a sign for all to see.
This was a mariner's house. And Pedro resolved that when it came time,
he would take that oar and place it over his shoulder and walk until he
came to such a place that no one knew what it was and there he would plant
it into the earth.
Meanwhile the Angry Elf gang had found a house on Otis not far from Marlene
and Andre's Household, which had large understory storage and there the
gang began stocking many incendiary supplies, for as we know, fire is
the Devil's only friend.
The Summer Solstice had passed and it was already past the middle of
the year. The moon's shadow would soon eclipse the sun and nothing to
be done about it. Foolish men controlled the Country, yet no one could
do anything.
At Temple Beth Israel, Rebbi Mendelnusse swept up broken glass, sadly
shaking his head. The windows to the children's room which had been shattered
by someone tossing several rocks had been boarded up. "We revisit
bad times," he said to Luther who had stopped by, offering to help.
"Nie vergessen. Nie vergessen."
Night fell and the fogs rolling in announced the change of seasons. Midsummer
had long passed and all the poppies withered. The last remaining gladiolas
drooped heavily from their perches and the parents had all the backpacks
and lunches squared away for the coming week. Little Adam lay in his cot
and looked out at the shrouded sky of a changing America, wondering what
the first day of school would be like. Andre, his foster father also looked
out the same window and wondered what the coming lifetime would bring
for Adam and kids like him. North Korea resurrecting that old specter
of nuclear holocaust. Russia again bellicose. Shattered glass of the synogogue
on the ground. Demigogues shouting from pulpits. Of course he wondered,
like many other parents in this unruly land that once had been renowned
for things like Freedom and Justice.
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista
flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed,
crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying
between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front
of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of
shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to mysterious
parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
AUGUST 13, 2017
ALL UNDER THE BURNING SKY THERE WE WILL LIE
That singer probably had no idea that after the last episode of nuclear
anxiety we would once again revisit that terrible premonition of nuclear
holocaust. The Doomsday Clock has advanced 2.5 minutes in recent weeks.
Created by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in 1947 to convey the urgent
threat nuclear weapons pose -- other threats such as climate change are
now also taken into account -- the clock represents how close humankind
is to destroying our world. The stroke of midnight is the end of humanity.
Last year, the clock remained at 3 minutes. Today, it moves half a minute
closer -- the closest to midnight it’s been since 1953.
The Bulletin cited two troubling concerns in their decision: the growing
disregard for scientific expertise and the “cavalier and reckless
language” used around the globe, particularly during the U.S. presidential
election.
This week we capture a mimosa branch, a symbol of how ephemeral Life
can be, and yet so beautiful in the present moment.
EVERYBODY KNOWS
So anyway we are dispensing with the fluff. Everybody knows what's going
on. Everybody knows the good guys lost. ARC held a rally this past weekend,
so there is a sign of life in the Vox Popli yet.
The Sea has seasons, just like the Land. Now cherries are all out and
apples that can be found are those reserved in barrels to tide us over
until Fall returns. Now is the time of late ripening fruit that needs
the hot sun to speed things along. Right about now the gardens are swelling
with red tomatoes. The plums are all gone - devoured by voracious crows,
and families have been seen gathering the first of the late summer blackberries,
children and parents wandering with little plastic containers along the
roadsides and little bridges where the brambles grow wild.
Mrs. Almeida stands in the back area with the chicken pens and the vines
growing wild and feels the energy surging through the green fuse that
drives the flower that drives this green age. The yellow flutes of the
squash plants bellow as the purple bean flowers trill and Mrs. Almeida
sings a song of summer in Portuguese as she wanders up and down the mounded
beds erupting with fecund vegetation.
Pedro, pounding along the shiplanes to the fishing grounds observes the
changing stars, the fogbank behaviors, the flashing shift of minnows and
herring and mackerel during the time before crab. His ship, El Borracho
Perdido, follows a true path as guided by Pedro and his trusty shipmate
Ferryboat [Bark!].
He steps out of the wheelhouse and his hand passes along the scar left
on the gunwale near the starboard stanchion where Tugboat, his former
shipmate of many years, had died defending the Captain and the ship against
the Great White hauled aboard by mistake.
A crackling in the air brought the St. Elmo's Fire and a freight of memories
until the ocean was packed with a sea of ghosts, ships, men and dogs lost
over the years.
Pedro returned to the wheelhouse to guide his boat over the furrowed
sea with his plow and seines, another man farming the Big Sky Country
in his little glass house, coursing to the endless horizon on a tractor
amid waves of grain, bucking along with erratic intention, no different
from any Norwegian farmer from up north gathering the harvest, bringing
in the sheaves.
When he returns in the early hours, his wife was waiting for him and
they went out into the field and there made sure as in times of old that
the earth would remain fertile for the life that was possible in it. And
upon the naked bodies on the soaked earth the moon shone with dispassionate
light.
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista
flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed,
crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying
between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front
of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of
shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to mysterious
parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
AUGUST 6, 2017
OOH MY EYES
Spring has passed and we are into summer. Up in Marin these creatures
are thronging the roads and yards, trying to get into vegetable gardens
like possessed by demons. Satanic deer? You never know . . . .
THIS ISLAND LIFE
Saturday, Aug. 19, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Immanuel Lutheran Church will
host a Community Volunteer Street Fair and 125th Birthday Celebration
to recognize the many volunteer organizations who freely give their time
to the community.
Each volunteer organization will be provided with a table where they
will promote what their volunteer group does. The fair will also include
the celebration of Immanuel Lutheran Church’s 125 years of worship
in Alameda. Immanuel’s 1891 sanctuary will be open for tours.
The event is free to attend and will offer food, activities for children
and live music by The Sun Kings. The street fair will be held on Lafayette
Street between Central and Santa Clara avenues.
Mayor Trish Herrera Spencer and Library Director Jane Chisaki announce
that Gene Kahane and Cathy Dana have been named Poets Laureate, the third
and fourth poets in Alameda history to hold the title. The city’s
first Poet Laureate was Mary Rudge, who served from 2002 to 2014. She
was followed by Julia Park Tracey, who served from 2014 to 2017.
Gene Kahane has been teaching for more than 30 years, most of that time
in Alameda at Haight Elementary, Wood Middle and Encinal High schools.
He is also an actor, drama director and poet. He has written poetry to
commemorate events, honored colleagues and students for their milestones
in life and has encouraged people to find their voices and share their
talents.
Cathy Dana is the president of Alameda Island Poets, and regularly leads
two workshops at the Home of Truth. She facilitates “Storytelling
Swap” at Frank Bette Center for the Arts. She also teaches creative
writing at Alameda Community Learning Center, where she began the Mighty
Pens teen poetry group, as well as the first poet laureate program. Her
first published book of poetry, My Dad Believed in Love, was released
in early 2016.
A loud explosion startled many West Enders on Monday afternoon. According
to the Alameda Police Department (APD), about 2 p.m. dispatch received
a report that the crew working on the Cross Alameda Trail at Jean Sweeney
Open Space Park discovered an apparent explosive device.
APD evacuated the area and cordoned off a 150-foot perimeter around the
suspicious device. The Alameda Fire Department also responded to the call.
They reported the incident to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office
Explosive Ordinance Disposal Squad. Members of the squad determined that
the device, an old mortar, could be live and detonated it where it lay.
Reviewing the Police Blotter we see that only six people were put on
5150 three day holds at the psychiatric facility of John George this past
week. Got a couple of dog bites, a slew of thefts, one assault where someone
tried to run somebody down with a car, and the usual euphemistic "sidewalk
falls", which generally is doublespeak for robbery assault on a victim
from behind wherein the victim is pushed to the ground.
Last week the police did not use their special policeboat at all. Please
note: the IPD did not employ their special policeboat in any way. Nevertheless,
the boat sits at the ready to be used by well-trained and well-funded
personnel. Sgt. Moustaches keeps the vessel in tip-top shape and sparkeling
clean should anyone decide to walk into the water and drown over an extended
period of time.
CALLING THE MOON
So anyway. Everyone is breathing some relief after the end of the recent
heat wave. The Island remained relatively cool, as did other foggy locations
along the Bay, but just a mile inland saw the mercury busting out the
tops of the thermometer tubes.
The President of the Bums in Sacto has been stirring up the muddy delta
waters of politics in his inimitable blustering style. People had hoped
he would clean up the act for all the bums in the Golden State by putting
an end to loitering, sleeping in bus shelters, obnoxious panhandling,
public defecation, and the usual bums' noisy rowdiness, but after 100
days it looks pretty clear that, if not business as usual, it will be
business in a state of ineffectual chaos.
Rump campaigned on simple promised lies, which is pretty much what politicians
always do, so don't get your panties in a twist. He promised to have the
fen over there by the American River drained entirely, but just how a
bum who had never done a lick's worth of work other than preside over
a Motel that rented rooms by the hour would drain a swamp is anyone's
guess. He also promised to build a wall completely encircling Sacto and
this wall would keep out Daesh poodles, which we understand to be a dangerous
breed of canine that is born ludicrously insane.
No one knows why poodles persist despite the best efforts to obliterate
the species, but like the SUV Eradication Project, progress never seems
to go anywhere, probably because there are crazy people who love poodles
and foolish people who love SUVs so go figure. People do love their pets,
often more than other human beings, and people who own pets are the champions
of self-deception in the entire world. Same goes for people and cars even
though the pernicious things kill more Americans each year than have all
the armies of radical Islam combined. That is just the way it is and there
is nothing anyone can ever do about it and Rump's plan to have the Wall
paid for by dog license fees seems about as likely to lift off the ground
as a concrete balloon.
This seems unlikely to be recalled by the Rumpers, people who enthusiastically
endorse President Rump despite all common sense. Rump is always causing
a new scandal to occupy the tabloids, whom he dearly loves for all their
foibles.
Just the other day Rump fired chief advisor Scaramouche for mentioning
that Rump's toupee was on backwards. Scaramouche was only trying to help,
but nevermind.
"MOOCHY, YOU'RE FIRED!"
"But boss you only hired me ten minutes ago!"
"YOU GOT NOTHING TO SAY! YOU'RE A LOSER, MOOCHY! LOSER! GET OUTTA
HERE LOSER!"
Which is a fine thing to say after the Bum Health Plan that promised
a gallon of Tokay in every squat tanked big time.
This is not to say that Rump still does not harbor big plans. He still
wants to replace medical clinics with Koban kiosks outfitted with beds
and run by convicted prostitutes wearing cute nurses uniforms. People
with real medical problems are supposed to have money -- this is America
after all -- so they can just go to one of the remaining hospitals and
pay for whatever with vouchers tied to income. The more a person makes,
the bigger the voucher. The people with lower income will simply die away.
"TAKE THE LADIES OFF THE STREETS AND PUT THEM ON THEIR BACKS WHERE
THEY BELONG!" Rump said, despite more than a little criticism. "I
DON'T CARE WHAT THE NASTY MEDIA SAYS! THIS IS GOING TO BE BIGLY!"
One thing is for sure; Rump has been the greatest boon to comedians since
Richard Nixon. Comedians just love the Rump. In fact most people know
that a lot of clowns voted for the Rump in the general election. It was
not the Russians that turned things around -- it was the three Stooges.
"GOD I LOOOOOVE THE PRESS!" Said Rump. "THEY ARE SO GULLIBLE
AND STUPID! HEY GUYS!" Rump said, turning to his remaining advisors.
"LETS GO POOP IN THE GOVERNOR'S POND SO THEY HAVE SOMETHING TO WRITE
ABOUT AND FORGET THE ECONOMIC REPORT!"
And off went the Administration, doing the business in the People's reserve.
Closer to home, life on the Island continues as always or at least as
we are accustomed to these new Realities. Marsha and Martini and Suan
all had to work fore and aft of Independence day, which kiboshed long
weekend ideas and resulted in the one day off being a day to get chores
done, meaning that nobody had any vacation since Memorial Day and there
would be the yawning gulf of workdays until Labor Day, which had snuggled
up against the weekend to make it worth something at least.
Nevertheless Summer does have consequences. This was the day Martini
was fated to fall in love against his will. Martini stumbled into the
Slut Hut Javahouse on Park Street in search of something strong to remove
the effects of the 99 cent jug wine he had enjoyed at the time with Pahrump
and Snuffles on the Strand Friday evening.
"What'll ya have? Coffee, tea or me?" asked Slut Barista #2
tiredly.
"You always say that," Martini said.
"I have to," said the Barista #2, whose real name was Susan.
"It's the Slut Hut script. Now waddyoo want?"
"I'll have the mocha java espresso latte Enormee," said Martini.
"Skip the fig garnish and make it a double Grandee."
"Coming right up faster than a blowjob," Susan said.
While waiting for his beverage Martini looked around at the various clients,
each immersed in some form of electronics save for a woman with bright
red hair cut close to frame an angular face supporting the thickest hornrim
spectacles Martini had ever seen. Her eyes looked enlarged behind the
cokebottle lenses and she had a newspaper on the table in front of her.
"Whaddya lookin' at?"
Martini flinched. Her eyes were like two giant blue planets and her voice
was reminiscent of #80 grit sandpaper.
"Uh, sorry. Just waiting for my drink."
"Yeah sure. Just waiting."
"And you are the only person in the room without a computer or iPhone
of some sort."
"I HATE computers!" the woman said vehemently.
"Okay," said Martini. "You a librarian or something?"
"Christ on a bike, everybody assumes all this crap because I am
a girl."
"Don't take offence; you just said you hate computers. So what do
you do?"
"I work for an MSP called TechnoDweebs. I am an engineer."
"Ah, doesn't that involve computers a little bit? I mean you gotta
be smart or something like that."
"Of course I am smart. Can't a girl be smart as a guy? I was a math
major for chrissakes. I just get no relief in this sodding world."
"I can see you are smart, but why are you working with computers
if you don't like them? Do they pay you well?"
"Of course not. I work for an MSP; they are all cheap as shit. The
owners make the money and we get paid crapola; that is the system in America
today. In addition I am a girl-person and that lowers the payrate automatically.
So are you raking in the big bucks to pay your highfalutin mortgage?"
"No. I work as a sawboy in a factory. And I live in a squat with
fifteen other losers like myself," Martini said honestly. "My
name is Martini."
"Hey Sawboy, here's your Mocha Enormee. That'll be nine dollars."
"Christ in a kayak, you sprinkle gold dust on it or something,"
Martini said. He paid for his drink arduously with crumpled dollars pulled
from his dirty cutoff jean pockets. He held his cup and stood by her table.
"Mind if I sit here?"
"If you have to and there is nowhere else," said the redhaired
girl with the glasses.
"Well dude," Martini said. "Sorry about your job and your
feelings about it. It's not like being a sawboy is a career position."
"My name is Tandy. What is a sawboy?" asked the girl.
Martini explained about how the long alloy ingots arrived by truck and
had to be cut by hand into blocks that got made into valves that in turn
got inserted into robotic systems that made IC chips which found themselves
soldered onto boards that became Tandy's hated computers.
"So you cut metal logs all day long?"
"Sometimes I am a dipper. I put on a PVC suit and dip baskets into
hot sulphuric acid to clean off impurities from the cut alloy blocks."
They were silent for a while. Then Martini said, "We should do something
together."
"I find you physically repulsive," Tandy said.
Martini did not pause a single heartbeat. "That is generally how
long relationships end up."
Susan, the Barista #2, watched through the big windows as Lionel strode
past clutching a bouquet of brillian gladiolas, a gift for his decades-long
unrequited love Jackie at Jaqueline's Salon.
"There must be something in the air what with the upcoming solar
eclipse and the moon," #2 said to Barista #6.
Tandy paused a long time, looking at Martini with cokebottle eyes. "You
are right. It has always been like that. Let's go see a movie. And afterwards
exchange bodily fluids."
"Ok," Martini said.
The two went out and Baristas #2 and #6 stared at them as they went.
"It is the moon. Definitely it is the moon," Barista #6 said.
After a while the sun finished its slow descent beyond the Golden Gate,
allowing the stars to emerge from the fog that advanced across the Bay.
Soldiers in the Angry Elf gang ignited cars here and there on the Island
as part of their terror campaign and the fires blazed in the dark night
beneath the complacent moon looking down with equanimity.
Where the Snoffish Valley Road met the Shoreline Drive, a few hestitant
deer appeared out of the belching mist, their eyes glowing wierdly in
the half light. Something made a sound and the deer turned and bolted
back into the darkness of that stygian mouth.
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista
flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed,
crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying
between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front
of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of
shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to mysterious
parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
July 30, 2017
HE'S JUST A DOG
Marin is a weird place, no question about that. Vying for center of oddity
is Sonoma which features the town of Petaluma, a place made famous by
Charles Schulz for its annual wrist wrestling championship as portrayed
in Peanuts.
Ever eager to find a way to make Press, sort of a Trump-style self promotion
energy before there ever was the Carrot-Topped One, Petaluma also holds
the Annual Ugliest Dog in the World Contest. Pictured above is the 2017
winner named Martha, who certainly possesses a certain hideous charm.
Here was 2016's winning entry, Sweetpea.
You might say dogs feature large on the Island and so also in Island-Life.
That is just the way it is on the Island. And Petaluma, another small
California town that imagines it is really located somewhere in the Midwest.
WHAT'S THE BUZZ
It has been three or four times recently now that residents have been
issued "Shelter in place" orders from the IPD and the latest
happened last week when report of a possible shooter on Pearl Street caused
a ruckus of concern.
Now we understand these times, rendered unstable by over 35 years of
unbridled NeoCon"reform" and a number of international concerns
developing, require some sharp attention. But four shelter in place orders
in a few months? And each incident ending in "no shooter or weapon
found" makes us wonder if someone may not be pushing someone's jolly
buttons to get a rise without considering the consequences.
There never was an automotive or any sort of motor vehicle repair business
the Council has liked. This has been a consistent pattern going back decades.
We noticed the Council snarling upon businesses setting up out in the
Point that featured reasonable autorepair, but the Council was hoping
that the land there would be magically monetized for "better"
uses.
Now we have Big O tires trying to expand their lucrative boutique tire
change outfit. To cut through the smoke and fluff, Big O tires has operated
an automotive service on the southeast end of Park Street for years. They
have served the "Captive Market" segment by providing fast service
to people willing to pay more for immediate, high end treatment because
those people have no time to go scouting for the best deal in tires.
Big O is now newly owned by a conglomerate enterprise called Discount
Tires Pro., which has arranged for a new location at 1835 Oak street.
It appears that Discount Tires wants to run two operations, one at 1290
Park Street to serve the high end market, and another at 1835 oak Street,
to serve the rest of us hoi polloi. That is okay. What causes problems
are the NIMBYs who, living cheek by jowl with a downtown, do not want
traffic overflow into their neighborhoods due to business activity.
Of course there used to be auto repair places out at the Point, but the
Council did not like those businesses getting a difficult to dislodge
foothold when they were set to "monetize" the land.
Bunch of outdoor festivals went on this past weekend, including the annual
Park Street Art and Wine shindig with its usual suspects of tchotchkes
booths and commemorative glasses. Weather held to a moderate sunny to
bring out the crowds.
STILL PLAYIN'
So anyway they held a birthday party for the Editor, although nobody
knew how old he was and his birthdate was guestimated based on an old
presskit somebody found in the files a while ago.
The Editor has always kept personal details close to the vest and most
sane men in the Bay Area shuffle the birthday thing aside in favor of
getting work done, but the Bay Area is nuts for birthdays, especially
Islanders, as everyone is overworked, underpaid, and generally rendered
powerless and there are far too few holidays to take off, so some folks
lash onto birthdays like drowning sailors will grab onto any old sort
of flotsam to prop themselves up above waterline. There is always someone
in the Office who takes it upon themselves to get a card and stick it
in a manila envelope with a checklist so that everyone can see who has
signed the card and who has not.
This applies to everyone indiscriminately save for Jehovah's Witnesses,
who abjure things like birthdays, which may be a very fine advantage to
being a member of that august Assembly of Saints.
Some folks around here glom onto birthdays as a way to exercise power
they otherwise do not have and so for a birthday they get to order everyone
around with great zeal. This is especially valid for those birthdays that
happen to belong to someone other than themselves.
So everyone got together and there was tossing of confetti and "Surprise!"
when the Editor came in and Festus pulled the string that popped the cork
that made a great noise and a tremendous confusion of flashbulbs and whatnot
and a cake arrived without hardly any damage to it at all. And there was
all sorts of happy jumping up and down and the Team gave the Editor the
start of a boat builders kit, for none of them could afford any sort of
boat as a gift, not even a kayak, so what the Editor got for his birthday
gift was an oar with a ribbon on it.
"This here is the start of your boat," Festus said on behalf
of the Team. "We don't have enough money to get you an entire boat,
but . . . well, one could consider this a start. Y'know, start adding
parts here and there."
"Well," said the Editor. "This is a find beginning for
something that leads to god knows what. But it is a fine oar and well
packaged and so I thank you. Now everyone get back to work right now!"
So all the underlings scampered and the Administrative Assistants took
up their shackles and whips and memoranda and soon the Island-life agency
was humming again and the oar went up on the wall above the Editor's desk.
While parts of the Bay Area continued to bake under a heat wave, the
Island enjoyed moderate temps due to our prevailing ocean breezes.
Offshore the colorful parasails of wind surfers danced above the sparkling
smooth water. Families gathered for bar-b-que parties.
Pimenta Strife dropped into the Lucky 13 to see if she could grab a pair
of pants or pull a train this evening for it was High Summer and she felt
sultry. Pimenta pretty much always felt sultry.
Minnie Peering walked back and forth on Regent Street in the late afternoon
to see if she could look past the curtains of the Rochester house. The
Rochesters had been holding parties at their place with all kinds of curious
people, many of whom wore feathers and Minnie was certain there would
be something to talk about at Jacqueline's Salon if she could just get
a glimpse. Minnie's great love in life was to find information all about
her neighbors and then talk about it. If there was nothing to talk about
-- and goodness when was there ever a time when there was nothing about
which to talk! -- then she made things happen. For Minnie all of life
was made significant at the manicure tables of Jackie's.
Jackie herself, a veteran of many gossip wars, couldn't be bothered any
more to pass on the juicy stuff. Not that she was not adverse to keeping
her ears open. After all, the scuttlebutt could involve her business.
A disastrous international incident was averted beneath the surface of
the Bay when the Iranian spy submarine was nearly sunk by the Eugenie
Oneigin, the Russian spy submarine which came barreling along with all
its electronics dark like some blind aquabear of a beast. The Captain
of the El Chadoor began cussing at Captain Piotr Yevgeny for being such
an incompetent unseaworthy skipper, proving a torrent of Russian expletives
over the radio, which caused the eavesdropping Coast Guard much amusement,
for they imagined they were hearing two excursion boat skippers duke it
out.
"This is US Coast Guard. Is anyone in need of assistance?"
"Yes!" Shouted the Chadoor's captain. "This Boris or Ivan
guy needs a brain with a fishing license!"
"Moego Ad' you Raskolniki!" Piotr shouted. "Go
find an ocean for your tin can to swim in. We have water coming in now!
Nyeta spassibo to you!"
"You go join your carrot-top toupee friend in White House!"
And so on.
Eventually the Chadoor's captain clapped up the periscope handles and
ordered the ship to depart and so it was the Chadoor traveled back under
the Golden Gate, running silent, running deep.
It is true that when people invite foreign powers to interfere, the field
of spies can get crowded. Up on Grizzley Peak, Mr. Terse still waits for
an opportunity to pop a cap in the head of the whistleblower named Joshua.
Joshua alerted the press as to the clandestine bugging of the municipal
council chambers chamberpots some years ago. Now that the Russians have
gotten involved, Joshua has been spied through the windows of the Russian
orthodox church miles from the Greek Orthodox church up there beside the
Mormon Temple, which has gotten Mr. Terse to thinking about secret tunnels.
Of course there is a labyrinth of tunnels all linking the Mormon church
and various sanctuaries, built long ago when the separation of Church
and State meant something enough for people to get murderous about the
Latter Day Saints. The Saints and others like Joshua have traversed these
tunnels honeycombing Oaktown for hundreds of years without too much trouble
other than the occasional encounter with the fearsome Taetzelwurm, a nasty
Ripley Scott sort of slavering creature encountered fortunately only seldom
in the pages of certain densely packed adventure-tale authors and beneath
Oaktown's innocent streets.
For the Taetzelwurm, Joshua carries Wally's 50 cal pistol, which is just
about enough to dispatch one of these critters, given sufficient warning,
enough distance between, a steady hand while a thousand razor claws slash
at you, and about five or six well-placed shots.
Life on the Island, seen by many has bucolic and peaceful, does carry
along with it some moments of excitement. Most mothers ushering children
at the playground here pack nothing less than a 1911 style .45 caliber
pistol while demurely observing the Innocents idly swinging on the bars.
Ravenous poodles let loose by insane owners will roam in packs and these
need to be dispatched or penned in for the next Thanksgiving BBQ event.
And of course there are the members of the Angry Elf gang, wandering around
in open top sportscars, causing mayhem and destruction as they go, clearing
the way so that more realtors can come to build yet another gated community
with high-priced homes and pricier rents.
As the sun sets on another bucolic day, the horizon flames horizontally
in striations of gold, vermilion, and azure. Cool breezes ease the heat.
The splendid crescent moon rises and the fogs advance in a solid front
through the Golden Gate and over the hills. Stars appear overhead and
Mr. Sanchez taking a walk with Ms. Morales and their child in a pram pause
to comment on the cold pile of carbon that was a house at one time.
"Was that not the Cribbage mansion?" Ms. Morales asked.
"Yes." said Mr. Sanchez. "Something happened last fourth
of July and it burned down."
"O dear! I hope no one was hurt."
"The Cribbages," Mr. Sanchez said, "Have never been very
neighborly." He left much unsaid.
Soon, all was still along the Strand, save for Pahrump and Jose and Snuffles
and Javier sharing a jug of 99 cent wine while Javier signaled UFO's with
his lighter.
It was a quiet, peaceful summer night with no Taetzelwurms running amok
and no sirens tearing up the music of the wind and no one got shot and
no one got stabbed.
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista
flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed,
crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying
between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front
of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of
shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to mysterious
parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
JULY 23, 2017
IN A GADDA DA VIDA, BABY
This week's image comes from far off Chicago, where FB friend Carolyn
Masters divides her time equally between breaking cinderblocks with her
toes, composing music and photographing rare bits of nature in the Chicagoland
area.
This fellow formed a chrysalis not long after this photo was taken and
so we are all waiting to see what he becomes after such an extraordinary
first appearance.
NEW TIMES NEW TIMES NEW NEW NEW TIMES!
Another heat wave smacked the Bay Area upside the head, causing all kinds
of dizzy spells and whatnot. Local fire companies rushed out to help Mariposa
deal with its hot problems, leaving the town ghostlike, steaming under
the merciless pounding of the sun in this new Globally Warmed Post-Truth
reality.
What is this Post-Truth America? Well, everyone knew that the invasion
of Iraq was based on trumped-up nonsense about WMDs. But knowing that
truth did not matter. Everyone knows Bush was not elected by the majority
of the American People and that the entire election was fraught with voter
suppression, intimidation, and chicanery -- but knowing this does not
matter. The scumbag still got appointed by his daddy's friends.
Everyone knows that Donald Trump is an execrable scumbag who enlisted
the aid of a foreign power to get appointed President and even with that
did not get the majority vote of Americans -- but the truth does not matter.
The sad fact is that the Press did do its job, despite the absurd distortions
from Fox, but nevertheless, knowing the truth did not matter. People preferred
to hold onto Faith and Belief and Arrogant Assertion.
Science has made any number of assertions about things going on, from
the nastiness of fracking to global warming, and the facts are known,
but in this era, science ceases to matter. Absolute nonsense such as Creationism
is taken seriously and we all know that this belief system is full of
hokum, but that does not matter.
Everyone knows the rental crisis is destroying our little town, but nobody
does anything about it; they just wring their hands while money interest
rape the civic treasury. Our Mayor is an imbecile and everyone knows it,
yet nobody does anything about it.
We live now in the Post-Truth Era. Truth does not matter.
LEAD ME ON, LEAD ME ON
So anyway. Denby was trying to play some Kelly Joe Phelps over the computer
but the Internet would not cooperate so he threw the headphones aside
and went to play his own music and some covers like Hard Time Killing
Floor Blues because the Post Truth era demanded something authentic for
people to feel inside themselves or go dead.
Everyone is coping with the heat wave that slammed the Bay Area. The President
of the Bums, Ronald Rump, has been suffering some heat as well due to
widespread allegations that he secured his position as Indolent Commander
of the Layabouts in Sacto by means of chicanery and collusion with the
infamous Russian Deli Cartel. President Rump's Press spokesperson, Ivan
Turganev insists there is absolutely no connection to anything Russian
and the President. Chief Advisors Igor Raskolniki and Piotr Alexandra
Schiksa have been fiercely protective of their boss.
In other news, the President has appointed the fourteenth Central Indolence
Associate, Bogdan Dimitrikovitch as well as Chief Magistrate Fyodor Borat,
who replaces Marat Mordani as Special Prosecutor investigating the Russian
allegations. After Rump's meeting last week with Vladimir Puta, the CEO
of Blinis are Us, the embattled President insisted there is no Russian
at all in the house and he does not even enjoy Russian Dressing on his
salad.
Da, said Vladimir Puta. He is so innocent this President, so much like
a baby behind he is so innocent.
Mr. Howitzer and the Blathers have gotten together a group that calls
itself The Group for Imposed and Maligned Property Owners (GIMPO) with
the express purpose of easing the troubles of wealthy landowners. Their
first objective is to restore the ancient Droit du Signeur as well as
other feudal rights and landed tenure assumptions that the group feels
have fallen sadly out of fashion. They held a meeting at a house party
in the Howitzer mansion and drafted resolutions to put before the City
Council, resolutions that grant complete supernumerary powers to the householders
in such a way that supersedes any and all State Constitutions. This group
wants not only the right to evict anyone at any time for no given reason,
but also the right to force anyone walking in public to serve as a Renter
or Lessor at any time for any length of time bound by contract. The landlords
do not want to go through the embarrassing process of interviews and public
advertising - they want to be able to just grab anyone anywhere and make
them pay money, ideally without the individual taking possession of any
physical premises. This concept of the Virtual Lease has great appeal,
for the lessor pays rent, but lives elsewhere.
In this way, the premises stay neat and clean as a pin and improvements
can be made without any fuss.
There are some who might object that such ideas are counter to the the
spirit of a democracy.
"This is not a democracy!" Mr. Howitzer thumps his cane on
the floor. "This is a Republic!"
Which some imagine explains everything.
The blistering sun withdrew behind the flaming Western curtains, letting
cool breezes soothe the battered land and the Sanchez's lay upon the top
of their blankets, wearing only nightshirts while the sultry air stirred
sluggishly.
At Marlene and Andre's the denizens sprawled over the porch and in the
backyard, looking for cool relief as they slept. A siren wended its way
from distant Oaktown and an angry pop, pop, pop sounded, but no one got
hit, leaving the night in the keeping of the ones who are sweeping up
the ghosts of past gunbattles and fastfood memories with equal measure.
A cat slunk along the top of the Old Fence and a family of raccoons padded
down the street towards their own business.
After a time all was silent and it became a quiet night on the Island
with no sirens and no one got shot and no one got stabbed.
In the Lunatic Asylum of St. Charles all the residents save one slept
quietly even the security guard Sgt.Rumsbo within whose shaven head crowded
dreams of marching in solo formation to a stirring martial air with flags
flying and cheers.
In the deep reaches of the night up in his garret, Denby found his groove
on the National Steel knockoff from Japan he had found at a yard sale
and the soft keen and pound filled the air.
I've been looking for a home
I've been looking for a home
But I can't find one
Looking for a home but I can't find one
[Chorus]
Lead me on
Lead me on
Lead me on
I've been drifting here and there
I need a guide to show my way
I've been drifting here and there
But I need a guide to show my way
I've been drifting here and there
I need a guide to show my way
Lead me on
Lead me on
Better lead me on
One of these nights sing you a song
Make you weep and moan
One of these nights I'll sing you a song
Make you weep and moan
Lord lord lord
Lead me on
If my heart don't stop aching
I won't live to see the sun
If my heart don't stop aching
I won't live to see the sun
[Chorus]
I've got a picture in my mind
Of my home so far away
I've got me a picture
Of my home so far away
Carry my burden down to the end
Over the mountain and down to the sea
Take my burden over the mountain
Down to the sea
Carry it back over the mountain down to the sea
Still looking for a home
I've been looking for a home
Yeah I've been looking for a home
Lead me on
Lead me on
Lead me on
A lone coyote emerged from the smoky mouth of the Snoffish Valley Road,
looked around and then headed back into that mysterious darkness.
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista
flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed,
crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying
between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front
of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of
shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to mysterious
parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
JULY 16, 2017
SOME FOLKS LIVES ROLL EASY
Many of you just may take off for a summer vacation, rambling fancy,
footloose and free. Things will go well. Other folks, well. . . . This
week's image comes from Anna Hagemann and is of a minor vehicular contretemps
on 395 not far from Lee Vining.
Yes, it was hot.
WHAT'S THE BUZZ
Some of you may have noticed it has gotten really warm recently. Like
105 degrees in some parts of the Bay Area, although the coolish Island
held to the high nineties.
Hotter still have been the wildfires talking place to the East and south
of here. Battalion Chiefs have been busy filing their IQS forms for the
placards to have and hold while sending trucks and staff out to assist
in places like benighted Oroville, the same place that suffered the near
dam collapse this past winter. Now Oroville is frying on a griddle as
the town is threatened by the massive Wall fire.
Here are the stats for the Wall fire that started 07/07/17: 41 residences
destroyed and 3 damaged; 57 other structures destroyed or damaged. As
of seven hours ago, Firefighters continue to hold and improve fire lines
and mop up hot spots. All evacuation orders, warnings, and road closures
have been lifted. Butte County has opened a Local Assistance Center at
the Oroville Municipal Auditorium. (Information from CalFire at fire.ca.gov)
There are other fires in which the total acreage exceeds 10,000 acres
throughout the state from Mendocino to Santa Barbara. The Garza fire in
Kings County near Avenal road has charred over 48,000 acres but is now
80% contained.
To the bay area crews under Battalion Chief Matt Barnes and Michael St.
Johns of SMFD we wish them all the best in their efforts to assist other
districts. Stay safe.
Returning to more local concerns it seems the ongoing battle over development,
the way in which Council acts like a culled and hand-picked hutch of Development
rabbits, and traffic issues remains fully within everyone's minds in a
way guaranteed to make sure nothing ever happens save by accident.
Some people wring their hands and bemoan the length of time it has taken
to develop the former Base property, but looking at just about every proposal
save for the columbium -- whose permanent residents will be unlikely ever
to contribute to traffic -- all of them varied on a spectrum from wildly
hideous to moderately objectionable, so perhaps the delay is just a function
of the People's will -- go slow on development and dollars be damned.
There has been no great catastrophe and no riding of the Apocalypse Horsemen
over slow development, only chafing from people who stand to make money
from get rich quick schemes that wind up stymied.
Maybe it is just as well that the place becomes a sanctuary for the least
tern, the snowy plover, and the harbor seals -- nothing proposed is going
to fix the rental crisis that is imploding communities all over the Bay
Area. How about this: allow the maniacs to do what they want -- build
forty story high apartment towers that will collapse come the first earthquake
or the first big flood and then the maniac builders can build it right
up again on the landfill to make even more money from the rubble. The
collapse will kill thousands of inhabitants and that will both clear the
island of dense population as well as the bridges and tunnels. For a time
until it all falls down again. Then we just start all over.
This modest proposal is a sure win-win for everybody. Maybe not the kids
orphaned by the collapse, but hey. Are there no workhouses? Are there
no orphanages?
BTW, just what is WRONG with solar power on Mount Trashmore? It is not
like the property can be used for construction. The word today is "monetize".
We just gotta monetize that sucker. Make the eyes of the ghouls glow with
avid anticipation. Monetize monetize monetize. Put solar on that pile
of garbage and make AMP honest. Or at least as honest as they ever will
be.
Incidentally, that satire about 40 story high rises is only partially
tongue-in-cheek. We talked with a landowner along the estuary who pretty
much wishes he could do just that. Right there on the estuary. But that
would never fly past THOSE people you know. Yes, yes, we said. If it were
not for people, you could build build build all you wanted.
There is an even better idea: scrap that troublesome Measure A entirely.
Yes, just get rid of it. Instead, for Measure A' (A Prime), we make the
height limit one story. That's it - just one story. Tear down anything
above 30 feet high and as a sop for developer animals let them build as
deep as they want. Three, five, ten stories underground. Pretty soon the
Island will look just like Fairfax. Make it all waterproof down there
-- this is after all an Island -- and connect the buildings with tunnels
so you don't have traffic. There you go. Is not life so simple?! No more
Measure A and no more high-rises that fall down. Just issue life preservers
and scuba outfits to every new tenant and that'll do ya. People could
swim to work instead of driving or taking the BART. Developers like Farahd
and Cowan will love it too; dig deep enough and they can start to monetize
China. Monetize monetize monetize.
MAGNOLIA YOU SWEET THING
So anyway. Once again the Island got speared by another heat wave. These
things used to happen end of August, but times have changed. As Denby
recovered from his narrow escape via the Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum,
which was not so spiritedly high tech that it did not involve trains and
a bus depot, Jose got his bandages and stitches removed from Javier's
last birthday celebration.
Javier's birthday is a known quantity, an established threat with definitive
dates in June, but nevertheless, some poor sucker always winds up in the
hospital as another winds up in jail. All the Trauma staff at Highland
have Javier's birthday marked out on their calendars. Those desiring peace
and quiet always take the day and the evening off. Those adrenaline junkies
who love excitement always sign up. Many police postpone family vacations
until after Javier's birthday has passed, for that red letter day usually
means lots of easy overtime and maybe a chance to use their firearms.
Maybe even bring in the K-9 unit as they did one year.
It is not like Javier is a bad person; he is just a boy from Mexico City
who has a flair for controversy. He was not his mama's only boy, but her
favorite -- or so it seems. She began to cry when he said good-bye, and
sank into his dreams . Well, that is the way the story goes. At least
as Townes van Zandt used to tell it. . . .
In any case Javier spent the hot days lolling in the Piedmont air conditioned
rooms and swimming pool of Miranda Escobar, one of the brightest and most
beautify stars out of Columbia which nevertheless desired neither her
nor any of her family to return, for her family had been allegedly involved
with kidnapping most of the Nation's Supreme Court at one time, in an
escapade which had ended as badly as it had been sanguine.
"Javier, you must stop being such a bad boy," Miranda said
from a poolchair. "There is no profit in it for you."
"If I were something else, I would not be enjoying both your lovely
pool and your lovely culo," Javier said.
A bodyguard stepped out from the shadows. "Should I shoot him now
or cut him up with a corvo," said the man.
"Santiago, you Chileans are so impetuous. Please do not cut up Javier
as it would spoil the pool water."
"Why do you tolerate this malo hombre?" said Santiago.
"Well . . . I like the way he does the cha-cha."
Yes, Javier did like to court dangerous women.
Jose, it must be said was quite a different sort of man altogether. Honest,
faithful to a fault, devout, dedicated to the honor of his abuelita, he
strove in every way to be a decent citizen and an excellent ambassador
from Sonora, for he felt that every man represents the place from which
he comes. He worked hard, saved his money, sent some of it home, and otherwise
remained an upstanding member of the community. It was not his fault that
he got tangled up in Javier's escapades, but often he found himself powerless
in the face of overwhelming foolishness.
While there is a nasty canker, a criminal rot that infects the Island,
by and large, Islanders are decent, good people, crazy in some good ways
and sometimes inane, sometimes cruel, but unlike other parts of the Bay
Area, never can be accused of being without a clue.
Latterly, because of the heat and because of rumors passing over the
transom, the Editor has been taking walks down by the Strand. After all,
1967 was a banner year for many people, with the current anniversary being
celebrated by all sorts of idiots who do not have the faintest idea of
what it was like.
Maybe he should write a book about it, about how it really was back then.
A book for average, everyday people -- not hippies or squares or media
wonks or celebrities -- but decent people caught up in events of the time,
living the best way they knew how while the world changed all around them.
Everyone had a choice in how to live their lives going forward -- pretend
nothing had changed or flow with the flow.
Which, come to think of it, is just like what it is today. The world
was now in an uproar. A nonsense baby had taken the reins of power and
without the majority having anything to do with it. Wars were being fought
for no reason and wars were being fought for very good reasons. Police
were being arrested for killing people -- imagine that! All the old order
was being swept away.
Back in the Offices the Editor had a meeting with Jose about the upcoming
Holiday CD. "Time for another Flyabout," said the Editor. "We
need someone to spin the prop again for the Machine."
"Does this prop spin very fast," Jose asked. "Just like
the last time."
"Yes, of course."
"Is it dangerous?" Jose asked reasonably.
"Of course."
"I broke both legs last time," Jose said.
"That is a small price to pay," said his boss.
"Can you not get someone else to do it?" Jose asked. "Perhaps
Festus."
"That is ridiculous. Festus stands six inches tall at his utmost
and weighs barely ten ounces. He is an hamster. The prop is five feet
above the earth at its lowest declination and weighs hundreds of pounds
-- I do not know exactly but it is something like that."
""Boss, maybe Denby can do it."
"Denby has to play the music," said the Editor, a bit impatiently.
"Offer it up to the Virgin. Yes do that. Offer it up to the Virgin."
"Okay boss," Jose said reluctantly. "If mi padre
allows it."
"That is good. I know the man; he is in my pocket. Fourth and Fifth
Estates and all that. Very good."
"Oy," Jose said. "Weh iss mir. . .".
"You have many months to prepare a parachute. I suggest you get
cracking now."
In a dark warehouse, the members of the Angry Elf gang were stacking
boxes. Nitro. Gunpowder. C4. All kinds of good stuff to use later on in
the year. The gang had great plans. Many of the old Escobar gang were
among them and they had brought with them a kind of delicious savagery
which had been lacking. These Islanders; they were soon to wake up.
Over at the Household of Marlene and Andre the simple souls who had taken
refuge there collected after the Bay breeze had dispelled the heat. Beneath
the floorboards of the old house, the lower denizens scampered around
the carcass of the old furnace with its sparking wires even as one door
down the Angry Elf gang ferried in box after box of highly incendiary
explosives intended for enforcing any number of extortion schemes.
The fog advanced across the Bay and soon all was enveloped. Somewhere
a siren wailed. Somewhere someone got stabbed. Somewhere else someone
got shot. It was a fitful, and unrestful night on the Island as the full
moon waned.
Up in their rented garret off Santa Clara Avenue, Ms. Morales lay on
the bed wearing her thin shift next to Mr. Sanchez while the baby dozed
in the crib, blessedly silent for now. The open window admitted a cool
breeze.
"Please God," whispered Ms. Morales. "Keep my baby safe
in these times."
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista
flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed,
crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying
between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front
of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of
shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to mysterious
parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
JULY 9, 2017
THE LIZARD KING
This image of a survivor was taken in Woodacre California, where apparently
the mean streets of the animal kingdom can cost you a tail.
WHAT'S THE BUZZ
It is Summer and the days consist of slow-news stories, like who did
Rump insult today and what new outrage is out there to cause us consternation.
Furthermore, the forecast is for hot. Hot, hot, hot, and more of the
same.
The annual Mayors Parade happened, but we had to work so we missed it
as well as all the fireworks. From all accounts it was the Biggest Little
Smalltown Parade in America; and no one disputes that assertion.
AIN'T NO CURE FOR THE SUMMERTIME BLUES
So anyway. When Denby finally made his way back to the Island, everyone
wondered where he had gone, but he did not have a good explanation himself.
Sometimes life throws you a curve ball or a strange deck of cards and
you have to deal with it. As he paused in his long limp over the Park
Street Bridge he looked at the sleeping town he had come to know over
the course of twenty years. Far down to the right the ramparts of the
new construction already topped the little houseroofs bordering Littlejohn
Park. Closer to where he stood, new expensive homes, an entire development,
occupied the land where the old Boatworks repair facilty used to be. But
beyond to the south extended the quiet streets where kids still played
stickball in the late summer afternoons and the bench that bore the legend
since 1929 "To All My Dumb Friends" had been repaired, despite
intense opposition from Police Chief Grumpus O'Leary, who felt the bench
would shelter unsavory elements.
The teenagers did not bother with the bench - they smoked dope and drank
gin in the more comfortable gazebo in the same park.
The Island, home to a stiff-necked, irritating, poodle-walking collection
of misfits who also could be kind (up to a point), generous (within reason),
and always full of opinions. A people you just had to love because they
were both daft and obnoxious, a mixture of all kinds of Californian things.
Islanders are Californians, first and foremost and that was the truth,
gifted with foibles and blessed, redemptive lunacy.
A bland full moon looked down on the bridge where Denby stood, offering
no comment but beauty.
When he got to Javarama he sat down to let Irene pour him a cup of java
with only an half mile left to walk. Jason Arrabiata, minister of the
CFSM sat there finishing up his Sausage-Rotini Special and he greeted
Denby who told him all about how he had been fleeing the Angry Elf gang
when he apparently had stumbled into some kind of warp in place and time
at the entrance to the Snoffish Valley Road, which had transported him
via spirit train to San Rafael.
"That must have been a Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum," Jason
said while prodding his gums with a toothpick. "Haven't heard about
one of those since the late 1960's.
"Why me of all people," Denby asked.
"You know, as a man of the Cloth I often get asked that question,"
Jason said. "I can only say you were Saved by his Noodliness and
that musicians have special Dispensation around here."
And with that the Reverend Arrabiata offered Denby a ride back to the
St. Charles Home for Demented Managers where Denby rented a room in the
attic. There, Denby plotzed on his bunk as the moon shone through the
window onto the D-9 in the corner so that the strings glowed. The air
still felt heavy from the intense heat of the day. He felt like a lizard
without a tail; survival has its costs.
"Why do these things happen to me," Denby prayed.
"Because," said The Creator. "You make me laugh!"
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista
flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed,
crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying
between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front
of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of
shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to mysterious
parts unknown.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
JULY 2, 2017
ONE DOOR OPENS, ANOTHER SHUTS BEHIND
We have wanted to publish this archive foto for some time. It was taken
by Jessica Vanderbeck while traveling in Guatemala many moons ago with
the man who later became her husband. She is now the proud mother of a
bouncing baby named Dylan, aged 3 months.
WHAT'S THE BUZZ
We will be experiencing some clouds and high fog this July 4th, so pick
your fireworks spot well, as the usual distant seats will likely be obscured
for the Babylon display over the Bay. Also the recent wet weather will
likely present more foliage obstruction. We got a report from the Santa
Cruz mountains they are still digging out from the slides that occurred
this past rainy season.
Of course the annual Island Mayor's Parade will take place as usual.
The Alameda 4th of July Parade is one of the largest and longest Independence
Day parades in the nation. With over 160 floats and 2,500 participants
who travel a three mile route, the parade has become the central activity
of the Bay Area's Fourth of July weekend. Starting early this year around
9:00 am on Park Street, the event typically lasts until 3:00 PM for all
official floats to pass before the judging seats on Webster.
The parade route is longer than three miles, allowing the city to claim
it as the longest parade procession ever, which no one bothers to challenge.
There are references to the parade going back to 1909.
Other regional cities have their own parades, with Novato, Fairfax and
even tiny Woodacre holding their own parades, exhibiting civic pride,
a bit of politics and lots of local flavor.
Up on the Russian River, all the little towns there hold fireworks displays,
and so as to avoid conflict, arrange to have their individual displays
over the course of the entire week on separate days. Guerneville held
theirs on July 1st.
What is interesting is that even though this is supposedly the most important
national holiday in the calendar, many companies in this area insisted
on kiboshing an extended weekend for the 4th, forcing workers to truncate
weekend plans to the dismay of family members so that the workers would
return to the office to do whatever can be done when 2/3rds of the rest
of the country is out.
AINT NO CURE FOR THE SUMMERTIME BLUES
So, anyway. Summer heat slammed the Bay Area and then stood off only
a little bit while the engines steamed between heats all along Snoffish
Valley Road.
Summertime had officially arrived. Girls were out in their thin summer
dresses and the low riders cruised by. The scent of BBQ wafted on the
tangy air. The recent heat wave had mellowed out to soft breezes over
the golden hills. All was perfect.
Mr. Cribbage came back from his trip to San Diego with a box of Mexican
fireworks. He flew down there and rented a car to drive north with the
entire trunk packed with explosives.
For many the weekend was an extended holiday, but since the Great Recession
and the triumphs of the NeoCon Far Right, many employers kiboshed the
long weekend such that people like Tipitina had to haul into the City
for Monday and Dodd was retained by Mr. Howitzer.
"This country was founded for wealthy people to be free doing what
they do best -- making more money," Mr. Howitzer said. "So it
is only fitting that inferior people like yourself serve us as you do."
Mr. Howitzer had a way with words.
As night fell and firecrackers went off all along the Estuary, Denby
was out taking a stroll under the three-quarter moon, taking count of
the stars and communing silently with the UFO's when the red Miata belonging
to the Angry Elf gang drove past and the thugs saw him there. Denby ducked
between the houses as the thugs unloaded from the car, armed with batons
and knives.
The Angry Elf had never forgiven Denby for saying "Eff you dog!"
to him, not once, but twice. So the Angry Elf, who had gathered his gang
under the promise never to kill anyone had no scruples about anyone else
doing the job. Indeed much of the Angry Elf's work involving extortion,
theft, numbers, arson, stolen credit cards, fenced bank account numbers,
had a lot to do with someone else always doing the dirty work and carrying
all the load of risk while he, the ringleader, took no cash but payment
only in the form of "favors".
In any case the gang members shambled after Denby who sprinted between
the yards and vaulted fences until he found himself at the old Beltline
where an improbable donkey engine sat with a single boxcar, into which
car Denby leaped just as the little engine chugged into life and pulled
away, heading Northeast, leaving the gang flabbergasted as the Beltline
had ceased operation some ten years previously and many of the rails heading
west had been pulled up.
From the open door of the car Denby watched as the municipal fireworks
and the highly illegal fireworks shot off along the estuary.
The little train trundled along the long unused tracks past the Nob Hill
grocery and turned to parallel the magical Snoffish Valley Road. He heard
a strange music going dee dee DEE DEE dee dee DEE DEE and a voice saying,
"Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission.
If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish
to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal.
We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter.
We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity.
For the next hour sit quietly and we will control all that you see and
hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your imaging apparatus. You
are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience
the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... ".
Denby fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke he found himself sitting
slumped in a cushioned chair inside a clean car. He got up and stepped
off the train which then pulled away, leaving him on an open concrete
platform with a vaulted roof. An elevated freeway made some noise off
to the right. Signs high up indicated destinations of strange towns with
names he barely knew. Mill Valley. San Anselmo. Larkspur. San Francisco
Downtown.
"Where the heck am I?" Denby said aloud.
"You be in San Rafael Main Depot," said a tramp. "Spare
change?"
"How the heck do I get home?"
"If you lived here," the tramp said solemnly, "You would
be home by now. Spare change for something to eat?"
On the Island the Angry Elf gang found somebody's dog running loose and
tied firecrackers to its tail for fun and to let off steam. In the Island-Life
Offices the Editor looked up after a rumble and a distant roar shook the
building, thinking it was an earthquake. A fireball arose over the trees
from the direction of the Cribbage place and the Editor guessed that things
had not gone well with the Mexican fireworks. No fault of the Mexicans;
he was sure of that. Damned gabachos.
He put his head in his hands with some despair as the wail of the fire
engines drifted over the trees after the fireball. It seems today that
all of America has taken a Stupid Pill. He bent grimly and halfheartedly
to work.
Most of the staff had been let go early, which meant the issue would
be late, but still it was better for the staff to be with families on
this birthday celebration, commemorating a day a few hundred years ago
when a group of idealists cobbled together a new idea that would be an
experiment in Democracy. Call it a Republic if you will, as if calling
something by a name makes some perverse reality that is not real closer
to being true when everybody knows the real truth of things. Language
had in America become spoken vomit, a repulsive ejection that carried
no meaning or use as each atomized individual drifted further apart from
understanding the neighbor in a land where communication of any type has
become devalued and rendered inane.
The truth is, America is what it is and has always been, a compendium
of acts over some four hundred years, including some gracious, some magnanimous,
some heinous, some noble, some courageous, some churlish, some stupid
beyond belief and some quite in advance of the times.
Inanity seemed to rule the times. Blank-faced foolishness and extremism
thrust its gob in front of common sense everywhere and the most ridiculous
of ideas and acts have become commonplace while Truth is derided. Blather
and spoken vomit have replaced candor with terms like "extraordinary
rendition" supplanting the words "torture" and "concentration
camp." The Editor put his head in his hands again, feeling a great
despair.
The Country, made up of some 380 million souls, cannot be summarized
so easily. As The Editor dozed over his desk, phantoms came to pay a visit,
for it was hard on the Solstice and the Strawberry Moon and magic was
in the air in a time when the veil between the worlds becomes porous.
Bewigged, stockinged, frockcoated, they entered the cubicle from the
Other Side. Thomas Jefferson laid a hand upon the Editor's shoulder. Sam
Adams and others stood behind.
"We wrote the Federalist Papers to explain what we were doing,"
someone said. "This then taken as authority ratified the Fourth Estate
which we knew was necessary to check the powers of the other branches
of government."
"Now is the time," said Thomas Carlyle. "“Burke said
there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery
yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. A
Fourth Estate, of Able Editors, springs up, increases and multiplies;
irrepressible, incalculable.”
"We had better hang together or we surely will all hang separately,"
Patrick said. "It is as true as it always was; give me liberty or
give me death."
A light breeze stirred the curtains and the phantasms silently walked
out of the offices, leaving the Editor with his desk-lamp and its pool
of light while all around hung the curtains of darkness.
The moon rode high in the sky and the Nation was in trouble. Time to
work.
From from far across the water, the night train wailed from beneath the
light-studded gantries of the Port of Oaktown, keening across the waves
of the estuary, the riprap embankments, the grasses of the Buena Vista
flats through the cracked brick of the Cannery and its weedy railbed,
crying over the dripping basketball hoops of Littlejohn Park and dying
between the Edwardian house-rows as the locomotive click-clacked in front
of the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, trundling out of
shadows on the edge of town past the Ohlone burial mounds to mysterious
parts unknown even as a weary and footsore Denby made his way back to
the Island.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.
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