JUNE 13, 2021
CALLING ON THE MOON
This shot is of a moonrise in Fairfax, which is a town down
the hill from Silvan Acres.
ANOTHER DAY OLDER AND DEEPER IN DEBT
So anyway it came around time for Javier's birthday again. Mindful of
the violence of years past, all the Bay Area trauma centers stocked up
on gauze, painkiller and sutures and assigned additional staffing to the
ERs. The EMT's prepped the ambulances and filled their bags with those
5-hour energy shots. All PTO for the local police departments was canceled
as everyone braced for the inevitable and probably explosive celebration
of Javier's 63rd birthday.
The gang gathered back on the Island at the Parlor 33 1/3 belonging to
the Native Sons of the Golden West since Javier's new whereabouts in Silvan
Acres had become public knowledge among his enemies and his paramours,
two groups that in his case sometimes became conflated.
At 63 one would think Javier had slowed down his rakish ways. Certainly
the much younger Jose implored him to do so, but the old man kept his
prescription for Viagra alive along with his dissolute reputation.
"Amigo," Javier would say. "You and all of your
friends are decent, hardworking, pious testaments to your several devout
abueltas. It remains for me to fulfill the stereotype of the passionate
Latino and exhalt the Machismo. I could fix you up with someone quite
exciting, Jose. Perhaps Carla. Or Roxanne."
"Roxanne of the double-headed broadax? No I think I would rather
keep my cojones safe and warm!"
"Eh, well I plan to use my purring engines of delight as long as
I can keep them. To be interesting you have to remain interested, as my
friend The Most Interesting Man in the World often said."
Ever watchful for trouble, Pahrump, Denby and Martini posted lookout
with walkie-talkies in rotation along the only approach to the Marina.
That way they would have a good advance warning should any of Javier's
ex-girlfriends show up. If the avenging Valkries closed off the exits,
they would escape via the water on Wally's boat. In addition, Martini
rigged up defensive IED's at strategic locations. There was also a well-placed
tiger-trap. To be used only if necessary.
Denby had invited Patrick and Fatou from work, feeling that perhaps the
presence of sensible people would result in a calmer celebration this
year. Fatou talked about what it was like to be from Africa to little
Adam and his eyes grew as large as saucers.
"Ah, madame, vouz et tray jolie adjourdui," Martini said to
Fatou who responded, "Are you trying to speak German to me?"
So it came to the late afternoon with the sun setting behind the towers
of distant Babylon across the Bay and the boys were having a fine roister
with Dos Equis in memory the the Most Interesting Man in the World and
tequila and there was a fine chatter and a clatter inside the Parlor of
the Native Sons of the Golden West and there was all sorts of Feliz Cumpleanos
and even a Pinata tied to the tree and someone had brought along a real
mule on loan from the Dickenson Ranch. They did not know what to do with
the mule exactly so they each took turns riding it around until it decided
that it had enough and so refused to take another step further.
Javier gave it some vodka which it seemed to like and its mood did seem
to improve according to some people who knew mules.
The mule's name was Tandoori.
Denby had just come in to be relieved by Pahrump on watch duty when he
commented, "What's that odd noise?"
Indeed there was a sort of thrumming in the air and a distant "fwoomp!
fwoomp! fwoomp!", getting louder.
"That sounds like a whirlybird," Patrick said.
They went outside and looked up to see an helicopter coming in fast.
"Oh no!" Jose said.
"Pahrump! Run for it!" Denby barked into his walkie-talkie.
"Now!"
"What is it?" Fatou said.
"Trouble," Denby said. "Run for your life!"
Just as the chopper arrived overhead and three women carrying swords
and other implements of destruction descended Special Forces style headfirst
on ropes, the water boiled and women emerged wearing scuba outfits and
carrying spearguns.
At the same time a speedboat tore into the marina to ram Mr. Howitzer's
replacement yacht, The Indomitable II as that vessel was slowly inching
into berth, blocking all possible escape from that direction as the big
ship took on water to settle its keel on the bottom. The women aboard
the speedboat swarmed the Indomitable, tying up the captain and taking
Mr. Howitzer hostage.
"But I hate these people!", Mr. Howitzer said. "They destroyed
my first yacht and they are lower income, despicable bottom feeders to
boot.
For answer, Angelica slapped him.
"I say!" said Mr. Howitzer. "I shall sue!"
Hiding under an overturned rowboat with Denby Fatou asked who these women
were.
Former girlfriends and associates, whispered Denby.
Somewhere something exploded. Then followed an awful lot of screaming.
"Why are they after him?"
"I think they are upset in not being invited to the party,"
Denby said. "And . . ., uh I think they have other reasons as well."
"This seems a rather extreme response to being snubbed," Fatou
said. "What else can they want?"
"They want to either kill him, emasculate him, or get him married,"
Denby said. Which is all the same thing to Javier."
"I think I can speak as a woman that this approach does not bode
well for matrimony." She paused for a moment. "You have very
odd friends."
After a few more explosions and screaming -- apparently someone fell
into the tiger trap -- the welcome sounds of sirens and police radio replaced
the sounds of chaos.
The rowboat shelter was abruptly snatched away and Officer O'Madhauen
glowered down upon the two.
"Why the hell are you hiding under a rowboat?"
The Indomitable wallowed in the Marina, rammed by a speedboat. Smoke
arose from fires at the Parlor and other places. People lay about groaning
with terrible wounds. Jose had been impaled with a spearfish barb. Ambulances
were arriving to tend to the wounded. Broken glass and blood lay everywhere.
"Cette lokal est tres romantique n'cest pas?" Denby
said.
"Are you trying to speak German to the cop," Fatou said. "Your
pronounciation is terrible!"
Later on, after the fires had been tamped down, the wounded removed for
treatment, the FBI brought in to examine Martini's tiger trap, most of
the wreckage removed and Javier once again having gotten clean away without
a scratch, the Editor chewed his cigar to consider the involvement of
innocent people like Patrick and Fatou. Both of whom returned home vowing
to avoid any celebrations that involved Denby ever again.
The Time of the Virus, the Age of COVID, was coming to an end. All the
Bay Area Counties were lifting restrictions next week and a terrible time
of illness and of self-denial, which some people feel was worse, will
terminate.
There will be other pandemics and other lockdowns coming up, for the
relentless drive for profit will combine with the desperate usage of things
like "bush meat" to release ever more virulent contagion's.
Looking down the rows of desks with their glowing computer screens in
an office about to reopen after the long lockdown, the Editor wondered
if we have learned anything, anything at all about the need for self-denial
on behalf of the greater good when it comes to it, about the realization
that the system for public health in country is broken or nonexistent
when it comes with the problem of a pandemic and also in other areas.
He returned to his glass cube, doing all for Company.
The train horn keened from Oaktown across the estuary to echo off of
the embankments of the Island and then ricochet its way through the redwoods
of Marin's well-matriculated hills and slide over the sleeping bulk of
Princess Tamalpais following the old, forgotten railheads that once led
along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to the coast, stirring the coyotes who
began to howl their evensong which carried forth on the winds over Fairfax
and White's Hill, ululating through Silvan Acres and the mist-shrouded
niches of the San Geronimo Valley, coursing with faint gray shapes along
the ridge-tops through the drifts of fog and dripping redwoods to an unknown
destination.
That's the way it is around the Bay. Have a great week.
MAY 16, 2021
FOXY LADY
This photo was taken by a neighbor using a digital SLR with
telephoto lens. It is Spring and all the animal kingdom is awash with
animal babies, providing loads of opportunity around here to capture fawns,
fox kits, bobcats, coyotes and the occasional skunk. Many of these new
families are taking up lodgings in backyards, under porch steps and sometimes
on top of the patio table. The neighbors down the Hill were entertained
by one solitary bear that took up residence in a tree until animal control
and police got him to come down and scamper off.
MAMA SAID
So anyway. Now that the Bay Area has moved tentatively to the Orange
Tier in many places eateries like Mama's Royal Cafe have started up again.
Mama's always had a form of outdoor service, albeit with recognition that
patrons experience the gritty ambiance of urban Broadway rather than the
foo foo ferns of Mill Valley, but true Best Bay Beast Bay denizens do
not care. Life involves a touch of City soot with your haut cuisine and
that is a fact.
Mother's Day took place at Mama's with the surviving Household members
in attendance along with friends from the Island.
Everyone who came to Mamas had either been sick with COVID19 or been
vaccinated. Marlene was there with little Adam, Ms. Morales, Susan with
little Sprocket in a pram, Mrs. Bliss with Mercy from Mill Valley, Marsha
Barrows, Mr. and Mrs. Almeida, Pedro the fisherman with his wife, Suan
and Sarah were there to commemorate their mothers who had passed away,
and so it was quite a jovial group of folks who had known each other for
20 years and who were gathering together after the long season of the
COVID lockdowns. Lionel, unable to chase after Jacqueline on account of
the salon being closed for COVID, showed up with his mother.
"Is the Pampered Pup closed today?" asked Marlene.
"We closed for about a week and then opened right up -- hot-dogs
being the quintessential take-out for sure. Arthur is minding the shop
today," Lionel said.
"You still chasing that hairdresser, Lionel?" Mrs. Poole said.
Lionel groaned.
"You see her much in church?" Mrs. Poole pursued.
"I do not think Jackie spends much time in church," Lionel
said by mistake.
"O lord save us! Back in Baton Rouge a man was best to meet ladies
while hearing the Gospel; that way he was sure to get a good 'un. You
best not go around jukin'. You not going to find no fine ladies in a bar
joint."
"That's the first I heard you speak against dancing," Lionel
said. "I know for sure you and daddy went out to barrelhouse to Little
Walter and Pinetop. Don't pretend to be a saint. Mother . . .".
"Now now. It's okay if you gots a partner already. That way there
be no gambling or funny stuff."
"O mom!"
"Now looka here. There be a fine sister sitting right acrost from
you right now. Why don't you . . .".
"Mom I gotta tell you something about Suan. Later."
Listening to this exchange Suan had to cover the lower half of her face.
She was about to bust a gizzard trying to keep from laughing.
"Well what is it son? What can't you say right out . . .".
Lionel leaned over and whispered in his mother's ear. "Men don't
have what she wants."
"Wha . . ? Ohhhhhh!"
Suan and Marsha redirected conversations by gurgling over the babies
in attendance and Mrs. Poole offered the best of Louisiana swamp advice
with the understanding that although California in the year 2021 was a
vastly different place than the Baton Rouge of Earl K. Long babies remain
the same everywhere.
After the babies got properly ooh-ed and aah-ed, and parenting tips got
handed around people talked about what they did to get through the lockdown
and who died or nearly died. Most of the Household, living in cramped
squalor at the old farmhouse in Silvan Acres got terribly sick such that
Martini and Pahrump with Denby's help built quarantine sheds out back
along with an outhouse and a lime pit to toss the contents of the upchuck
buckets.
Piedro and Jesus both had to go to Marin General ICU as they got in a
bad way.
"That old Jesus almost didn't rise again," Mrs. Bliss.
"Now we are all vaccinated," Marlene said. Even Adam. Pahrump
drove him over on his scooter to get his shots."
"You get sick," Mrs. Almeida asked.
"Nope!" Adam said.
"Adam." Marlene said.
"Well, a little," Adam admitted.
And so it was after the long, hard year, old friends met again glad to
see each other's faces at the resumed tradition at Mama's Royal Cafe in
Oaktown.
Others, like Mr. Howitzer, preserved their own traditions such as driving
out to Colma with a Mossberg 352 to blast the crows Mr. Howitzer felt
desecrated the old family plot that contained the remains of his mother.
So the day settled down as each went to their respective destinations.
As Lionel and Mrs. Poole walked to his car and his mother commented, "That
Suan is such a fine looking girl." She shook her head. "Such
a waste."
"Mother! She is a good friend."
"You need to stop making friends and start makin' me some grandchildren,"
said Mrs. Poole.
At the Offices, the Editor took out a program that displayed a sepia-toned
photograph of a woman with curly hair. "Celebrating the Life of Helen
Ann X, March 1, 1923 - October 27, 2019.
Jose came in to drop off the mail from the PO Box and saw the program.
"She was quite an attractive woman in her day," said the Editor.
"My condolences," Jose said.
"It has been said," commented the Editor who put the program
in his desk drawer. "Lets get back to work."
The train horn keened from Oaktown across the estuary to echo off of
the embankments of the Island and then ricochet its way through the redwoods
of Marin's well-matriculated hills and slide over the sleeping bulk of
Princess Tamalpais following the old, forgotten railheads that once led
along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to the coast, stirring the coyotes who
began to howl their evensong which carried forth on the winds over Fairfax
and White's Hill, ululating through Silvan Acres and the mist-shrouded
niches of the San Geronimo Valley, coursing with faint gray shapes along
the ridge-tops through the drifts of fog and dripping redwoods to an unknown
destination.
That's the way it is around the Bay. Have a great week.
MAY 2, 2021
ZIGGY STARDUST
We promised a friend we would post this video of the Martian helicopter
doing a 360. Here it is.
WHAT'S GOIN' ON
Due to the COVID emergency we have all been pretty busy working through
the weekends to get people vaccinated and tested, so that is the reason
we have not been keeping up with your usual Island-Life requirements.
All of the health-care workers are burning the candles at both ends and
it is not unusual to field emails at 10:30pm on Saturday. The current
raft of disinformation that remains after the outgoing Administration
of Lies and Deception does not help as we struggle to preserve life and
health in the face of the worst health crisis since 1918.
In addition to these problematic issues we have the ugly resurgence of
racist ideologues and the swelling of xenophobia in our communities.
Staffers of Island-Life have been working night and day around the clock,
seven days a week in battle against this terrible pandemic. Recently we
have word that Lifer Chris Benjamin of Austin has been released from ICU
after three weeks on a ventilator. Chris is some 40 pounds lighter but
happy to be recieved back into the arms of his devoted family.
MAY, MAY, THE LUSTY MONTH OF MAY
So anyway.
The Island has been handling the COVID lockdowns with its usual stoic
perseverance. The buckeyes have been erupting with green spikes and everything
is burgeoning into the usual riot of Spring, that most dangerous season
even as the dark clouds that lowered upon our house In the deep bosom
of the ocean buried.
May begins the Most Dangerous Season. Yes, Spring is the most dangerous
season. Maybe it is different in other places, but here, wise men remain
indoors and order pizza for dinner, hunker down by the TV to watch endless
reruns of Monster Truck Destruction and Terminator I, II, III and IV.
It's safer cuddled there in the dark lit only by the blackout curtain
blocked TV set glow.
Bees dive-bombing the clover, hummingbirds bayoneting the jasmine that
keeps throwing out punches this way and that while sending wafts of chemical
weapons of mass disruption. Army ants on the march in great phalanxes
and squirrels conducting reconnaissance forays add to the mayhem, while
raccoons begin nightly raids. The daisy bush bursts with yellow ack-ack
blooms while the poppies erupt with tiny explosions across the fields.
Squadrons of swallows swooping and diving, ducks performing sorties, Canadian
geese streaking overhead in formation and then, worst of all, there are
the girls in their summer dresses.
Meanwhile, somewhere overhead, flying in stealth mode -- that naked,
blindfolded, fat boy keeps firing off at random his erring arrows of wanton
mishap, those IEDs (Improvised Erotic Designs), wreaking chaos in a wide
swath more terrifying than Sherman's March to the Sea. Squadrons of women
and girls swelling with fatal charms stroll on patrol, their smooth lithe
legs flashing beneath their uniforms: thin summer dresses, haltertops,
daisy-dukes, and god knows what else underneath that armor. If anything.
It's all agitprop left to the imagination.
Save us all from Spring's violent terrors.
Observe Johnnie, happy and carefree as a lark, striding with ruddy cheeks
and full confidence down San Pablo Avenue. But after him comes Jane, armed
with those sharpshooter eyes, that flippy short skirt, and strappy high
heels. Now Johnnie is down! His face wan and his appetite poor, his breath
coming out in ragged gasps as Jane cradles his head among the wildly blooming,
victorious daisies. Right in the heart, poor lad. A goner for sure.
Yes, Spring is the most dangerous Season. And now Denby was captivated
by the nurse Mariah with her tatoos and everything besides. Her beautiful
eyes glowing in that dark pit. His daydreams featured images of Mariah
riding on top of him with her luxurious rope of chestnut hair flying about
like a cowgirl riding a rumpus. In short, he was hopelessly smitten and
tottally lost. Ah the poor sod.
As usual the Editor has been stocking up on Michelimas' One dish meals
so as to remain safely indoors as the errant arrows of Eros go darting
about, injuring the innocent and causing mishchief and mayhem everywhere.The
Editor was disinclined to suffer misadventures of the heart at 72 and
so approached the Season with the discipline of an ex-Marine. As the saying
goes, once a Marine always a Marine.
The train horn keened from Oaktown across the estuary to echo off of
the embankments of the Island and then ricochet its way through the redwoods
of Marin's well-matriculated hills and slide over the sleeping bulk of
Princess Tamalpais following the old, forgotten railheads that once led
along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to the coast, stirring the coyotes who
began to howl their evensong which carried forth on the winds over Fairfax
and White's Hill, ululating through Silvan Acres and the mist-shrouded
niches of the San Geronimo Valley, coursing with faint gray shapes along
the ridge-tops through the drifts of fog and dripping redwoods to an unknown
destination.
That's the way it is around the Bay. Have a great week.
MARCH 21, 2021
SPRING
This image was taken of a new-born fawn a few hours after
coming into this world. Mother was nowhere to be seen. It is typical for
new deer moms to go search for food and abstract their scent from the
area; new fawns have no scent and so cannot be easily detected by predators.
Usually the mom will move the fawn from place to place, typically choosing
locations that appear "safe", which might include your own front
or back porch. Just take it as a gift and leave the critters alone.
NO MATTER WHAT
So anyway.
Last week, the local Non Compos Mentis chapter of the Loud Boyz met with
local chapter of the Flat Earth Society at the rented Native Sons of the
Golden West parlor down by the marina. Wally finds both groups quite repellent,
but anybody can rent the place and these two groups are among the few
inane enough that gathering a number of people inside an enclosed space
during a Pandemic does not seem something to avoid. Who else are you going
to get to pay good money for meeting hall during times like these?
Bernard Stacheldraht and members of the Loud Boyz have been lately been
trumping the story that Baby Booby's dog Twaddles has not died, or if
so shall rise again to lead the Nation in trimphant Booby-ism. This story
is cited as originating from P-Anon, a cult group that has many things
to say about the Deep State and the idea that the world is, in fact, not
round but flat and cornered by metaphysical stakepost locations in all
cities named Springfield.
Everyone brought their semiautomatic weapons, of course, to demonstrate
their rights in this here White America, except Bill Dullerd took some
flack for bringing an AK-47 which some of the Boyz found to be unpatriotic.
Advance a week or two and we all saw the Counties clawing up out of the
purple tier into the Red and then marching steadily to Orange as the COVID
cases continued to decline and the ICU's cleared out. Those who were going
to die did so and those who did not stepped out of the isolation wards
blinking in the bright sunlight of the new Spring, welcomed back by families
and friends to a changed world.
Padraic and Dawn threw open the doors to the Old Same Place and opened
out the back where Padraic and members of the Household had prepared a
socially distancing open-air patio and so it was that just in time for
St. Patrick's Day the Old Same Place bar began slinging Gaelic coffees
after an entire year of being closed up tight. As per tradition Suzie
was made to wear an embarrassing green miniskirt as she hustled back and
forth between the bar and the outside tables. There was even a 20 foot
long slab of redwood with a brass rail and stools and officially certified
lines feeding back to the inside so as to bring the Guinness to outdoor
taps and it was like old times again with a cheerful chatter and a clatter
from within and from without.
Except Padriac kept going to the front to look up and down the street
with an anxious air of expecting someone. The night advanced and the outdoor
lights came on and the heat towers created by Mancini warmed the people
there as the nights remained chilly with frost even as the days advanced
past recent rain storms into sunny skies. Then it was members of the Angry
Elf gang appeared. Kring and Narita and the Cackler and others besides
- Tarpey and Lyons and Gregory and Humphrey Chimpden Evermore, the four
of them and roar of them, and none of them wearing masks as per house
rules.
O do tell me all! Tell me, tell me, tell me all.
O I will tell you how it was that night that terrible night. You will
die when you hear. When the old Narita farted and then you know.
Yes, yes I know. Go on. Hike up your sleeves and loosen up your talktapes
and don't be dabbling.
Alright then. Padraic confronted the awful old crew of reppes, saying
"No mask no service!"
"We are not here for service! We are not servants," said the
leader of the day, Kring, and O he was sinistrous. And the cut of him!
And the strut of him! How he held his head up as high as Tamalpais with
a hump of grandeur on him like a walking weasel rat. And it was not revealed
all their sinistrous plans until later that eventful evening.
Tarpey yanked on the hem of Suzie's miniskirt, causing it to go askew
and some of the drinks on her tray spilled.
"Hey!"
The Cackler did what he does to terrorize people.
The Angry Elf gang is so named because its ringleader, living in the
Gold Coast, is diminutive of stature and endowed with a furious temper
that expresses itself in large acts of destruction at times. His group
practices extortion, blackmail, credit card fraud, and basic strong-arm
threats along with selective arson that often features car and dumpster
fires.
Padraic demanded the crew leave. And in response, the various members
lounged about as if they were waiting for something.
"We are wantin' nay trouble here".
The Cackler laughed his distinctive laugh and all else were silent.
Padraic turned away and was facing the back where the lines came in when
Dawn said to him urgently, "He is here again!"
"Och, begorrah!, " Padraic said as he turned.
And there he was. As small as Life standing all of three feet tall in
his boots, the Wee man in his tall hat, his green waistcoat, and his buckled
shoes and his merry beard.
"We have some troubles here," Padraic said.
"So I see," said the Wee Man. "Here is a drinking establishment
and quite a few have no cruiskeen luin before them. And they seem to have
forgotten this is a masked ball. Well then!
The Wee man clapped his hands and as the lights blinked out then on,
a tall glass appeared before each of the gang members. Along with a golden
mask that sat there on the table.
"Since you believe wearing a mask is a matter of personal choice
I place one before each one of you to make your decision according to
selfishness or to communal safety." Said the Wee Man.
"I aint gonna fall for that and we are glad you fell into our trap.
You done embarrassed the Angry Elf in the past and we cannot let these
actions go unpunished. Go for it guys!"
Then their trap was revealed. They had come to the bar not to enjoy Life
and celebrate the ending of the long quarantine, but to exact revenge.
Tarpey placed what looked like a golden coin on a spot upon the floor.
"Gold!" said the Wee Man and he made a motion to go for this
coin.
"No!", said Eugene Gallipagus, who had often been plagued during
high school on account of his name. "Let me bring it to you; I think
this is a trap!"
And as Eugene roughly shoved the Wee man aside, stepped over to the coin
and a trapdoor opened and he fell through, screaming.
Next, Tarpey, Lyons and Gregory attempted to wrestle a substantial iron
cage through the front door but were foiled when the Wee Man caused the
door entrance to shrink so that the device could not fit through.
Finally, the evil crew revealed iron pokers they had brought underneath
their coats and Kring brought out a 1911 style pistol, all of them surrounding
the Wee Man.
"Lead bullets do nothing to me," said the Wee Man.
"Iron, the most common thing, slays leprechauns," said Kring.
And the Cackler laughed. "These bullets are tipped with iron; the
only substance that can kill leprechauns."
"And so you would commit murder here in this place when your master
has stated year after year he would try as he might to avoid killing anyone."
"I am not the master," said Kring. "So I can do what I
want. And you are not a person; you are a myth, so this is not murder."
"There are people all around us. Your iron bullets can go far and
hurt innocent people."
"No one is innocent in my world," said Kring. "I do not
care about these people," he said as Eugene screamed from the pit
where he had been impaled on iron spikes. "But that is why we first
are going to go at you with these iron staves.
Seeing the crew about to move on the Wee Man, Suzie flung herself upon
Kring to bring down his pistol as Padraic brought out his shillelagh and
started laying about in earnest while Dawn battered Narita with a pan.
The pistol discharged into the floor. Lynette and Susan, seeing their
favorite LGBTQ watering hole threatened had learned a thing or two since
Stonewall and Lynette tased Tarpey while Susan maced the face of Lyons
as the Wee Man dived down to crawl amid the scrambling legs of others.
The Man from Minot tackled Gregory and the two went down like a ton of
bricks. Others took part in the brawl that degenerated into a savage atavistic
orgy of violent chair smashing and table jumping until the Wee Man leapt
up onto a stool to raise his hands.
The flashing lights of Officer O'Madhauen's cruiser appeared outside
as the Wee Man commanded all the members of the evil crew imbibe their
beverages before going. Which magically they did and they all filed out
the front door and fell down and were all booked on public drunken and
disorderly.
"My friends," said the Wee Man. "I have scant time for
farewells. May each of you be spending at least an half hour in heaven
before the Devil knows you are dead!" And herewith he clapped his
hands and the lights went out even as Officers O'Madhauen and Popinjay
entered the door.
When the lights came one each and everyone was grasping at their waistbands
and some staring down into the space between their belts and their bellies.
"Christ on a bicycle, the sodding pervert had done it again!"
Padraic said. "He's turned me knickers into golden threads!"
Suzie ran off to the restroom to change into something she knew from
previous years needed to be provisioned.
"Where's the riot?" Officer Popinjay said. "What the hell
happened to my boxers?"
That was St. Patrick's day this year.
At the Island-Life Offices things were considerably more grim. As the
Editor closed up shop for the night and the night clicked over to the
next day of the new Spring he had news over the transom that in these
final days of COVID, just as hope arose above the horizon like a teletubby
sun, a dear friend had been put on ventilator and was fighting for his
life.
It is 1968 all over again and our buddies are dying because of government
stupidity and the complicity of idiots.
The train horn keened from Oaktown across the estuary to echo off of
the embankments of the Island and then ricochet its way through the redwoods
of Marin's well-matriculated hills and slide over the sleeping bulk of
Princess Tamalpais following the old, forgotten railheads that once led
along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to the coast, stirring the coyotes who
began to howl their evensong which carried forth on the winds over Fairfax
and White's Hill, ululating through Silvan Acres and the mist-shrouded
niches of the San Geronimo Valley, coursing with faint gray shapes along
the ridge-tops through the drifts of fog and dripping redwoods to an unknown
destination.
That's the way it is around the Bay. Have a great week.
MARCH 01, 2021
PUT ME ON THAT WIND HE RIDES
This image of a kestrel was taken by a neighbor near Lucas Valley. Because
of our duties serving healthcare in this time we do not have time to go
out and get images for island-life as we used to. So we are grateful for
any submitted photos of the Bay Area.
Leave it to John Hiatt to have the best lines featuring a hawk. Google
"Before I Go" and crank up the bass. I like my bass loudy. I
mean loud-ee. Louder . . . .
PSA: COVID-19 DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGNS
There is an extraordinary amount of disinformation out there about COVID-19.
One fact-checker found over 781 outright lies and myths about this disease
and the response to it.
Recently someone posted an anti-vaxxer video that purports to come from
the UK asking 25 questions the narrator believes need to be answered.
The video is cleverly done and the viewer has no idea the mission is to
debunk the validity of vaccination until the end. When I protested that
this video was loaded with disinformation and the sort of thing that propels
people to abandon their senses and do stupid things, the poster insisted
the questions need to be asked although it seemed to me the phrasing of
the questions were meant to answer themselves with untruths, starting
with the myth that there is no COVID pandemic.
All right everyone has the right to ask any question they want. And informed
people have the right to provide reasonable answers. Since I work in healthcare
the answers are pretty available. Each question begins with the rhetorical
"If there is a pandemic." I have summarized most questions because
I am a lousy typist
COVID QUESTIONS
1. IF THERE IS A PANDEMIC why don't we hear ambulance sirens . . .
Because most hospital cases are self-admitted or personally transported
and many cases are told to stay home due to overcrowding in the ICUs
2. ... why are all the undertakers saying that business is normal with
no uptick . . .
In fact it is not. A person just retrieved ashes of a relative saying
the coroners and undertakers are swamped. And this answer also relates
to five more questions that make false assumptions about what COVID does.
Most people do not die, but that does not mean they get off scott free.
Many people suffer long term adverse affects or die much later due to
organ damage and sepsis caused by the virus which by then has left the
system.
3. .. why don't we see lines of people burying their loved ones?
The answer here also relates to the sparse wedding ceremonies; you do
not see a lot of those right now either. COVID distance protocols mandate
no crowds. It also is the start of an overemphasis upon the mortality
index over the debilitating nature of the disease.
4. ... why do all the statistics state the death rate was within normal
parameters last year?
Misleading question. See answer to #2. Also note no statistics are quoted.
Also due to quarantine, deaths from other causes, including influenza
and car crashes are way down.
5. . . . then why have almost all the normal influenza deaths disappeared.
Another misleading question which actually is answered by the answer
to #4. If you use your head you will realize #5 answers #4. Staying indoors
away from people and wearing a mask protected people from getting the
flu.
6, . . . if the 1st lockdown worked, then why are we doing it again?
Because so many people did not believe COVID exists and that lockdown
measures do work and so they actively worked to defeat the basic common
sense actions that prevent spread of disease. Don't know about the UK
but certainly here the simple act of wearing a mask got shunted from common
sense health measure to political stunt. Disliking the lockdown and not
believing in its efficacy resulted in political pressure to open up too
soon and relax measures. So we got alarming spikes in hospitalizations
resulting in new lockdowns. Our testing pavilions went from 4% positivity
to 30% average positivity rates per day. Some cohorts, especially teens,
spiked to 60% positivity rates. Also note that the numbers occur in stages.
We see a spike in positivity rates a couple weeks after super-spreader
events and certain holidays, then a week after that higher hospitalization
rates, followed after another week before death rates rise. Also note
most hospitals file MMI reports on a monthly basis per set schedules.
7. ... if the lockdowns did not work why are we doing it again?
See above. Another self-serving question. They did work.
8. ... why does the government listen only to a small ... group of its
own experts and not the .... world-wide bodies . . .
Sounds like a UK-specific issue, but I can say that "the government"
here was Trump who derided practically ALL experts in epidemiology and
disease control including the WHO and his own Dr. Fauci. The questioner
also does not list any factual basis or source for his statements.
9. . . . scenes of pandemonium in hospitals on TV
I dont watch TV. I can say the medical institutions in which I work
people work professionally, calmly, and efficiently so as not to disturb
patients. This does not mean they are not stressed to the max. And infection
control wards are offlimits to TV cameras. ICU areas are secluded for
a reason, and these are specialized areas with specialized staff operating
highly sensitive equipment. Come barging in there like that asshole in
the video busting into a hospital waiting room shouting like a maniac
and Code silver will have a dogpile of security guards on top of you.
10. . . . why are there thousands of nurses out of work?
Another unattributed statistic. We are hiring up the wazoo like crazy.
Of course you do have to be willing to risk your life every day. Because
there is a pandemic. Not all nurses want to subject themselves to a disease.
11. . . . if the pandemic started in 2019, then how did all the governments
order COVID 19 test kits the year before.
I have no idea from where this "information" comes. I could
find nothing online stating this, although i did not exhaustively comb
through "781 myths and outright lies about COVID". No one has
reported this to Snopes or any other fact-checking agency.
12. . . . if used and discarded masks could be highly contagious, then
why do we see thousands of them littering the streets and countryside?
Because people are stupid, careless, and just "going through the
motions" and so toss them on the ground with disdain. Hospital waste
is handled by special procedures.
13. . . . . why do rules and regulations differ from city to city and
country to country?
Best argument for unified single-payer health care I have seen. Standards
vary not only city to city but health district to health district. My
agency spans four of them all with different rules for distancing, for
openings, for testing, for vaccination and for responses to the multi-tier
criticality status and it is driving our corporate leadership bonkers.
14. . . . if COVID19 does not affect children then why are the schools
. . .
STOP! JUST STOP! It does affect children. They can be carriers and they
can die of it.
15. . . . if masks work then why have we not been using them every year
. . .
The masks do work in preventing virus spread. I read a peer-reviewed
article in JAMA recently that looked at 90 studies going back to the Civil
War. All of them indicated the high efficacy of masks. Why do we not use
them? See answer to #12. People prefer complacency over safety.
And to answer in advance a few later questions: At my workplace the situation
is as follows: All staff facing patients wear multiple masks, plus plastic
face shields, plus gowns, nitrile gloves and booties. The distancing recommendations
are 6 feet for momentary contact of no more than two minutes. No eating
or drinking inside any building. No more than two people per room. Masks
to be worn at all times by everyone, including non-patient facing staff.
If you are in a room alone with the door closed and remove your mask,
no one allowed in that room for four hours.
16. Why have we not seen people keeling over and dying in the streets?
Silly question. The disease is a progressively wasting one. The question
focusses like many of the others on the mortality index instead of the
debilitating nature of the sickness.
17. ... if crowds of people are to be avoided, then why are supermarkets
that can hold hundreds of people open and the corner shop . . . shut?
Might be a UK think. All businesses in NorCal that remained open had
to have body counters restricting the numbers of people who are allowed
to enter at any one time. The numbers are figured as a percentage of occupancy.
Here again we have rules imposed as a form of compromise of convenience
against safety. I personally avoided the markets.
18. Why is the government calling positive PCR tests "cases"
and not just "a positive result".
This gets into epedemiology and the multiple stats that are tracked.
I assure you that you do not want to read the kinds of detail analyses
I read each week, but prefer the summary stat of cases as compared against
hospitalizations which is divided itself into ICU and critical care. A
positive test indicates a potential carrier and therefore a potential
spreader. It is a point in time indicator.
19. Why has the BBC and all reliable outlets failed to tell you that
the WHO has published an update (12/20/20) saying that the PCR tests are
unreliable and should not be used.
Tricky one. The screen shot implies false positives are the problem with
PCR tests (there are several kinds at present), however the Harvard Review
says false Negatives are the real issue in the swab tests while the blood
test is inconclusive because some people who get COVID do not produce
detectable antibodies. The truth is NO test is 100% accurate all the time.
We use what we have and we go by the numbers. The test is accurate enough
that in the thousands (we have tested over 18,000 people since last April)
we have a good idea what is out there.
20. If a cough or sneeze droplet can carry over 30 feet then why are
we socially distancing only six feet?
This is the first really good question. But it is answered partly in
#15. Because if we really did what we are supposed to do, and by we I
mean everybody without exception (including all the Loud Boys), the streets
would be empty, there would be no traffic, there would be zero contact
and all stores without exception would be closed a far more draconian
situation than we are comfortable with. Heck people riot because of the
minor inconveniences we do suffer. The 6 foot rule was meant for momentary
contact; you are not supposed to sit in lounge chairs for hours with your
friends for pete's sake.
21. why are you okay with rubbing poison into your skin 10 times a day?
This is about hand sanitizer. The type we use and endorse contains only
denatured alcohol and a supportive gel. There used to be a type, which
might still be available in the UK, that contained a Triclor chemical
known to cause all kinds of nasty stuff. It was only recently banned.
22. Why do we need an experimental DNA-changing vaccine for a disease
with a 99.9% recovery rate?
O Lord. Every phrase is disinformation here.
One: The mRNA meds have been researched for years, and they have always
shown great promise to cure a lot of things besides COVID style virus
diseases; they have never been implemented because the usual process for
vetting via research and then the FDA takes many years
Two: None of the mRNA vaccines alter DNA in your cells
Three: The US FDA has authorized the vaccines to be used as an emergency
response against a disease that has killed over 20,000,000 people and
debilitated a great many more.
Four: From where does this 99.9% recovery rate statistic come?
Five: What do you mean by "recovery"? Is a subsequent BP reading
of 210\119 a recovery?
23. If the vaccine works, then why do you still catch and transmit the
disease after you get the vaccine?
This is true for a lot of vaccines. You can be a carrier of the virus
but the virus cannot hurt you as badly as if you had not a body response
developed by the VAX which disables the virus spike protein from allowing
invasion of your cells.
24. If you have had the vaccine then why do you still have to wear a
mask and socially distance?
The guy has already answered this question with #23. You can still be
a carrier and so you wear a mask to protect other people, not yourself.
The idea is to reduce the spread until such time everyone, save for the
lunatic anti-vaxxers, is protected.
25. How many people do you personally know who have died from COVID and
then compare that to the people you personally know who have vaccine damaged
family members.
Three of COVID. Another question that places too much emphasis upon mortality
index over debilitating consequences.
0 vaccine damaged family members.
. . . It is much easier to fool someone than to convince someone they
have been fooled.
I agree.
. . . Turn off your television.
I agree.
ONE DIME BLUES
So anyway. Mr. Twaddle came up too close behind Mr. Blatt who failed
to notice this fact when he backed up in traffic on the Nimitz just as
Mr. Twaddle mistook his accelerator for his brake. There was a crunch
between the Mercedes and the BMW. The two got out of their cars and started
shouting at one another while the long line of people waited at the end
of a long day at the end of a long week as a long pandemic was winding
down as the two exchanged insults and threats of lawsuits.
Of course neither one wore a mask as the spittle flew through the less
than six feet of free air between them. These two were of the sort who
imagined mask-wearing to be an insipid assault upon their American Freedoms.
Of course also they stood in one of the free lanes blocking traffic there
and in an effort to get around the arguing pair, Ms. Grimoire, a school
teacher from Longfellow banged into the side of Tom Depuglia's truck and
so now all southbound lanes of the Nimitz were blocked. Because Ms. Grimoire
was a schoolteacher she could not afford to maintain her 1976 Volvo in
the best of condition, and so something blew under the hood, sending up
clouds of steam.
"What on earth happened?" Ms. Grimoire exclaimed.
"Looks like a head gasket I reckon," Mr. Depuglia said. And
right then, as his dog, a Labrador-poodle mix, jumped down to depress
the accelerator in neutral, sending the tach well into the red, there
was a small explosion and something burst through the bonnet of his truck
like some creature in a Ridley Scott movie.
"Vot de furk!" said DePuglia.
"You got a Ford and that is what they call a con-rod," said
Ms. Grimoire. "I seen that before. I think it is real bad. You oughta
get your dog outta there. The engine is still tryin' ta run."
Depuglia was enraged. If not for this old biddy he would be sitting down
to watch the CPAC Moments of Truth followed by the cage match between
Duran and McGregor with a stack of brewskis. He made the mistake of shoving
the sextuangenarian school teacher just as Bear came riding up on his
1949 Panhead, splitting lanes as many people are irritated to see.
Bear has remained unchanged over the years. Despite the elegant Syvia's
modest attempts to snip here and tuck there. He wears a leather vest over
an oil-stained plain white shirt covering to the best of its ability a
paunchy belly, torn levis, and one blue and one red sneaker with opposing
colored socks. His beard supports a variety of wildlife that has diminished
by liberal application of powdered insecticide by Silvia, a waifish woman
with a pale yellow Yellen-bob, clean white dress shirt and modest dark
slacks over sensible shoes who puts up with Bear parking his motorcycle
in the livingroom for whatever relationship benefits Bear might offer.
These are his physical characteristics as a member of the 1%'ers. Some
of you may know what this means in terms of Minority of Choice.
In terms of his moral character and general deportment let us report
as follows: He came up and saw a brute abusing an elderly woman and so
got off his motorcycle after splitting lanes (as many find irritating
to see) and he decked Depuglia with a roundhouse punch that latter proved
to have given him an hairline fracture of the mandible. He then assisted
Ms. Grimoire into her car, before declaring before the stopped multitude,
"What the hell is going on?"
Various people clued him in on what had happened and so his determination
was to clear the road and clear the situation. Clearing the road involved
grabbing the keys from the various individuals and bringing their cars
to the shoulder. Clearing the situation turned out to be more interesting.
Quite a number of large fellows joined Bear in dragging Depuglia, Twaddle
and Blatt to a shadowed place under the new overpass to High Street. "Okay,
" said Bear. "You three will resolve this among yourselves.
No time limit. No fishhooks. No eye-gouging. Go to it!"
The result was bloody, atavistic violence under the overpass, replete
with shouting and cheering bandsections, which we shall not deign to illuminate
here.
While the damaged vehicles awaited towtrucks on the shoulder, traffic
resumed and people in the know cheered as they passed.
Bear arranged for transport of Ms. Grimoire's Volvo and herself to her
apartment on the Island and gave her a few tips on secondhand replacements.
As always, Bear remained a tarnished gentleman.
The train horn keened from Oaktown across the estuary to echo off of
the embankments of the Island and then ricochet its way through the redwoods
of Marin's well-matriculated hills and slide over the sleeping bulk of
Princess Tamalpais following the old, forgotten railheads that once led
along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to the coast, stirring the coyotes who
began to howl their evensong which carried forth on the winds over Fairfax
and White's Hill, ululating through Silvan Acres and the mist-shrouded
niches of the San Geronimo Valley, coursing with faint gray shapes along
the ridge-tops through the drifts of fog and dripping redwoods to an unknown
destination.
That's the way it is around the Bay. Have a great week.
FEBRUARY 21, 2021
THE CHICKEN AND THE HAWK
This handsome fellow lives around Fairfax. A lot of people have taken
his picture.
SPEAK TO ME, SPEAK TO ME HEART
So anyway. This is the time of my sucky valentine. Live 105 had a weekend
of dismal downs regarding the heart. In the time of COVID those that were
single as of last March stayed that way with no chances. Those who had
been hitched at the time soon drove each other crazy in their Quarantin-o-pods
and seperated or else stayed married with hobbies until it was the kids
staying home from school that drove them all crazy.
Dodd would have liked to have quarantined away from Mr. Howitzer, who
continued to act like Mr. Howitzer, but only worse so. Dodd was ruled
an Essential Worker -- by the Greatly Orotund People faction of the Island
-- and so had to perform manservant duties at the Superspreader events
hosted by Mr. Howitzer in his mansion. Mr. Howitzer did not call his soirees
and Unmasked Balls Superspreader events but that is what they became as
one after another the hoity toity of the Island contracted the disease.
Mrs. Blather lost thirty pounds she definitely could afford to lose, however
the deflated skin hung down in flaps, making her look like a creature
from a Star Wars movie planet.
Mr. Cribbage hacked and upchucked and cursed the government along with
Mr. Burberry, Mr. and Mrs. Pescatore, Ms. Pandora Thighripple, and all
the partners of Dewy, Cheathem, and Howe. They had always cursed the government,
or the IRS when Conservatives were in power, but never so accompanied
with denigrations of liberal conspiracies that involved cooking babies
in big vats of boiling blood, and the near certain hope that the prophecies
of Q would realize themselves in a grand coup and roundup of all those
nasty Liberals cooking this myth about a virus and the need for wearing
masks. Even as each and every one filled their toilets with stuff more
nasty than Liberal agenda.
"Masie! My bucket behind!" shouted Mr. Blunt.
"Mind if i open the window, Mr. Blunt? It is rather fetid in here,"
Maisie said. "And it will clear out the viruses."
"There is no virus!" Mr. Blunt shouted as he rolfed and shat,
alternatively. "It is a Liberal agenda to take away our rights!"
"Mr. Blunt the Oximeter says your O2 saturation is dropping below
89%. I am going to have to take you over to the hospital to be intubated."
Maisie was an experienced RN.
"What in the name of Richard Nixon does that mean?"
"It means you are going to have tubes shoved up your nose and you
will be heavily sedated and in addition, you shall not talk so much,"
Maisie said.
"I say! I say! Q was right! It is all a Liberal Conspiracy! Silence
me? Not so much!"
In the meantime, Maisie called for transport of Mr. Blunt, who, although
being an asshole, was nevertheless a life under her charge. "Mr.
Blunt, you are going now. They are here to take you away."
So anyway some more. Denby imagined he was home free this year from the
curse of My Sucky Valentine. All the movie theatres and bars were closed.
The Quirkyalones were holding meetings via Zoom. Wierd online cam sites
were holding virtual sex sessions between consenting adults -- for a fee,
always for a fee -- and there was always the risky bet of San Pablo Avenue
where the world's oldest trade continues unabated in the slightest despite
this plague. If your life is that desperate and without rules, then your
life shall continue so.
So what does Denby do but go out, secure in the assurance that nothing
can happen. He gathers his fishing gear and goes out to Bon Tempe lake
to fish for bass, having secured a supply of bloodworms. Unfortunately,
this is still a time of drought and the lake is far receded with no flowing
inlets. The shores are swampy and many areas choked with algae. Not much
action was happening close to shore and all the intakes were near dry.
Denby waded out and his Wellies got stuck in what turned out to be quicksand.
Quicksand is one of those problems that does not let go of you easily,
and you do not come out of that situation bright and sparkling. After
some hours Denby dragged himself on shore without his pants or his boots
but he did manage to retain his fly rod. For a while he lay gasping on
the mucky shore before getting up to stumble back to the parkinglot without
his pants or shoes. Another Valentines Day demolished into smithereens.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the Bay Area folks were celebrating Valentine's
Day with various degrees of frustration and contentment. On a park bench
a disconsolate, naked, fat boy with drooping wings sat with his martial
weapons as Melisandre, Marin's one and only live unicorn tried to console
him with nuzzles. What was Eros supposed to DO with this quarantine lockdown
business? All the Quirkyalones were jubilating in their solitude and their
zoom chats. There remained only the large numbers of the Maskless and
the Witless who were as deserving of Love as a collection of hyenas on
the savannah chasing the ephemeral flag of Q-Anon outside the gates of
Dante's Dis.
In the Hospital where Denby worked, there was a corridor with rooms and
doorways off to the left. To the right the big meeting rooms yawned in
their COVID abandonment. Out of the doorway of one room a blue light spilled,
flickering and shimmering with an ultraviolet hum. As Denby passed he
would look in to see nurse Maria sitting there with her dog and all the
lights turned off, her face illuminated by the computer screen. A little
further down a reddish light coated the hall with warmth. There sat Shavia
with her dreadlocks and her brown eyes. Turn a corner and a white glow
emerged from a room where Amanda sat in silence, no lamp causing this
strange effect but simply the purity of the heart of a nurse.
This, thought the Editor as he drew the curtain, is the real fount of
Love.
"Look mommy! That man has no pants!" said a child in the parkinglot
of Bon Tempe Lake.
A park ranger collared Denby. "Nice hat," said the ranger.
"Come along now." Love would have nothing to do with the likes
of Denby on this day.
The train horn keened from Oaktown across the estuary to echo off of
the embankments of the Island and then ricochet its way through the redwoods
of Marin's well-matriculated hills and slide over the sleeping bulk of
Princess Tamalpais following the old, forgotten railheads that once led
along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to the coast, stirring the coyotes who
began to howl their evensong which carried forth on the winds over Fairfax
and White's Hill, ululating through Silvan Acres and the mist-shrouded
niches of the San Geronimo Valley, coursing with faint gray shapes along
the ridge-tops through the drifts of fog and dripping redwoods to an unknown
destination.
That's the way it is around the Bay. Have a great week.
JANUARY 31, 2021
TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT
The Grand Lake Theater, designed as a single auditorium theater by Architects
Reid Brothers for local businessmen Abraham C. Karski and Louis Kaliski,
held its grand opening on March 6, 1926. On August 1, 1929, Abraham C.
Karski and Louis Kaliski leased the theater to West Coast Theatres, Inc.
for a period of 94 years, 4 months until November 30, 2023. The sign mounted
on top of the Grand Lake Theatre is the largest rotary contact sign west
of the Mississippi River. It measures 52 feet (15.85m) high by 72 feet
(21.95m) wide and consists of 2,800 colored bulbs and was designed by
Theodore Wetteland and furnished by Brumfield Electric Sign Co., Inc.
Renaissance Rialto, Inc. in 1980, purchased the theatre after nearly
9 decades of ownership by descendants of the original owners. Renaissance
Rialto is owned by Island resident Allen Michaan.
Current owner Michaan is known to use his liberal politics as a guide
in managing the Grand Lake. In 2004, he publicly announced that the theater
would not enforce the R rating of the political documentary Fahrenheit
9/11. The Grand Lake has also received widespread recognition for Michaan's
use of the marquee as a political message board. In outrage at the 2000
presidential election, he posted this message on the high-traffic side
of the marquee: "This Is America Every Vote Should Be Counted"
Since then, and with much support from the local community, Michaan has
regularly used one side of the theater's marquee to display a timely political
message.
The theatre is one of three Grand Dame 1920's theatres in Oakland worth
visiting (post COVID) simply to ogle the fantastic interiors, the others
being the Fox and the Paramount, both fairly recently (by virtue of their
age) restored to extraordinary glory.
COLD FEELINGS
So anyway. The pogonip came in to sock the Bay Area with dense fogbanks
to announce the change in seasons, but then we got an atmospheric river
pouring in and a few thunderstorms to accompany this event.
The Island Council Officially voted voted 4-1 with Councilman Tony Daysog
dissenting to rename the former Jackson Park to Chochenyo Park after the
language spoken by the island's original inhabitants, the Ohlone tribe.
The language is being revived by surviving members of the tribe.
There has been a lot of this statue removal and renaming going on around
the country, starting a good while back after the murder of George Floyd,
Breonna Taylor, and others by law enforcement.
Located at 2430 Encinal Ave., the park was initially named Alameda Park
by English immigrant Alfred A. Cohen, who developed part of the tract
into the Alameda Park Hotel and the Alameda Park housing subdivision.
The hotel's garden area was later transformed into the city's first public
park. It was renamed after the seventh U.S. president in 1909.
The former Jackson Park was one of four in Alameda named after U.S. presidents,
with others named for George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and WIlliam
McKinley. Jackson was president from 1829 to 1837 and owned about 300
slaves, according to the city report.
He also signed the 1830 Indian Removal Act, which caused the killing
and forced relocation of Native Americans, commonly termed "the Trail
of Tears". City leaders said they want to disassociate from the name
and build relations with the Lisjan people.
The State orders for lockdown eased for some areas on the 4th of January
and so folks have been thronging like mad idiots to the outdoor eateries
which have opened up despite the Bay Area remaining in the Purple level
for risk. Marin County opened some gyms for limited use as did the Island.
People should be heartened to know that Good Vibrations in Oakland has
remained open all the while as it is deemed an Essential Business. It
has boarded up windows on account of protest realities and its location
in the heart of Oaktown, but it is certainly open for ... uh ... business.
Gotta love them sex-positive people. We give them some serious props.
Around the corner in the same district the LGBTQ Community Center is
expanding it clinical offerings to the community with a medical clinic
focussed initially upon STD testing, but soon to include full clinical
services in the building that features the T-mobile store.
On the Island Ms. Sanchez continues to offer zoomed teaching on Emily
Dickenson, but has been laboring night and day for vaccinations for herself
and her students at Longfellow. The Depuglia Brothers have managed some
kind of essential business designation and so they have continued to sow
discord and disarray everywhere they go as they bolt and weld with great
incompetence at all sites that will later have to rip out their monkeyshines.
Mancini has returned to Veriflo because in Richmond, a factory town,
all factory work is essential. What is essential and what is not certainly
varies from place to place and without up to recently any federal guidelines
every single individual place had the right to enforce its own rules.At
times it seems whimsy is the determiner.
Meanwhile the rest of us hunker down in our isolation pods, reading all
the books we had put off for years and seeing all the movies on Netflix
while trying to keep the children from going feral.
Far off in Washington DC is just now trying to repair some of the damage
wrote by a deviant baba lacking all qualities save self-absorption.
Leaden skies yield to darkness and the screams of children kept inside
too long yield to the howls and yips of the coyotes. The Editor strolls
down the aisles, which have been sparsely populated of late, to his glass
cube, where he sits before the pool of light cast by the desklamp. He
has had the first injection for the Moderna Vax, and was scheduled for
the second next week. One of these days soon we shall get back to something
like normal..Yes we will.
The train horn keened from Oaktown across the estuary to echo off of
the embankments of the Island and then ricochet its way through the redwoods
of Marin's well-matriculated hills and slide over the sleeping bulk of
Princess Tamalpais following the old, forgotten railheads that once led
along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to the coast, stirring the coyotes who
began to howl their evensong which carried forth on the winds over Fairfax
and White's Hill, ululating through Silvan Acres and the mist-shrouded
niches of the San Geronimo Valley, coursing with faint gray shapes along
the ridge-tops through the drifts of fog and dripping redwoods to an unknown
destination.
That's the way it is around the Bay. Have a great week.
JANUARY 17, 2021
INTO THE MYSTIC
This Chagall-like image taken by a Nextdoor neighbor of a recent sunset.
ONE, IN THE NAME OF LOVE
So anyway. Years ago, nearly half a lifetime, Eric sat down beneath the
bleachers of the Jefferson High School basketbal court to introduce to
Denby two competing ideologies that dealt with the most critical problem
set in America. On the one hand you had MLK's idea of an all-accepting
society to be arrived at via the process of Love and non-violent insistence
on what what right.
On the other hand you had the idea that the White race was the Devil.
All change must necessarily include violence and that the way to resolve
the inhumane relationship of the Master and Slave was for the slave to
shoot the master, for then in the place of a Master and a Slave you would
then have one free man.
Denby said why are you telling me this? Why did you pick me?
I picked you at random, Eric said, fifty years ago. Because if one single
White man can be redeemed, then that would mean there is a chance for
all the rest, that there is hope for the entire race.
The years have passed in a white blur. The ideas of Franz Fanon only
now are being considered best practice in psychiatry while his other,
more political ideas remain simmering on backburners in black belt basements
and cinderblock tenements.
Eric, like many of Denby's early associates, was murdered in Washington
DC while Denby was travelling abroad. Now Denby walks the sandy beaches
on the western edge of the Country, entirely alone, while his Country
goes through a period of several crises featuring health and deep self-evaluation.
Many of Denby's former lovers, friends, family are now dead and he walks
now as the seasons change with the annual onset of the Pogonip steaming
up from the sands to face the West, his back to his Country.
He works each day to help people trying to ameliorate the consequences
of 400 years of systemic racism and can only hope the next generations
will do something better. He knows he cannot single-handedly eradicate
the poison of racism, but he does what he can to reverse the effects.
There will always be racists, but there can also be law to govern what
they do. And as one kind of Evil departs, the nation and the world waits
to see what will become of this experiment in government begun a few hundred
years ago.
What next, America? What next?
No more words tonight.
The train horn keened from Oaktown across the estuary to echo off of
the embankments of the Island and then ricochet its way through the redwoods
of Marin's well-matriculated hills and slide over the sleeping bulk of
Princess Tamalpais following the old, forgotten railheads that once led
along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to the coast, stirring the coyotes who
began to howl their evensong which carried forth on the winds over Fairfax
and White's Hill, ululating through Silvan Acres and the mist-shrouded
niches of the San Geronimo Valley, coursing with faint gray shapes along
the ridge-tops through the drifts of fog and dripping redwoods to an unknown
destination.
That's the way it is around the Bay. Have a great week.
JANUARY 10, 2021
NEW YEAR
This is the church that sits on the edge of Nicasio.
CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY
So anyway, wow. Wow! What an introduction to the new year we had. Hard
on the heels of the Russian attacks via Solarwinds and the attacks on
healthcare facilities, we had our own local attack that shut down access
to our retired EHR systems for the East Bay CHCN heathcare consortium.
Then. Then an insurrection happens in the Nation's Capitol leaving dozens
wounded, several dead and our Democracy in question around the world.
It is difficult to devise fiction, or even parody that can compete with
events like these.
Nevertheless the old year spun down and collapsed in an exhausted heap
as healthcare workers battled a terrible pandemic disease amid a great
deal of indifference and ignorance and mis-information and the remains
of our government struggled to keep itself afloat amid an ocean of lies
and Consensus Reality, which operates by the supposition that if you continue
to repeat the same lie over and over again, enough people will come to
believe it to make it a defacto Truth. Such was the case with the elections
and such has been the case with issues surrounding ourselves.
Time and the Historians will tell what to make of this fiasco, this insult
to America created by the projectile vomit of a defeated bully and his
hideous allies. Time wlll tell what to make of the end of this Pandemic.
As per Tradition Father Danyluk invited Pastor Nyquist over to the Catholic
rectory to discuss matters of theology, social ills, troubles keeping
the Flock in order, and to see in the new year while sitting in plush
chairs before a roaring fireplace.
They talked about the current and past Popes and various differences,
but in the end clinked their glasses together to mark the hidden unity
of those who believe certain things in common. The rest is just baroque
filligreee. Crosses with adornments and colorful pictorials or not.
In the rectory of Our Lady of Incessant Complaint, Sister Perspicacious
came into the room where the fire was become embers and laid blankets
upon the snoozing forms of Pastor Nyquist and Father Danyluk, as in years
past and so turned out the light as the old year fled into the shadows
as the New Year ticked steadily towards the long distant dawn and the
two old friends, supposed ideological enemies, snoring within a few feet
of one another.
The train horn keened from Oaktown across the estuary to echo off of
the embankments of the Island and then ricochet its way through the redwoods
of Marin's well-matriculated hills and slide over the sleeping bulk of
Princess Tamalpais following the old, forgotten railheads that once led
along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to the coast, stirring the coyotes who
began to howl their evensong which carried forth on the winds over Fairfax
and White's Hill, ululating through Silvan Acres and the mist-shrouded
niches of the San Geronimo Valley, coursing with faint gray shapes along
the ridge-tops through the drifts of fog and dripping redwoods to an unknown
destination.
That's the way it is around the Bay. Have a great week.
JANUARY xx, 2021
WELCOME BACK MY FRIENDS TO THE SHOW THAT NEVER ENDS
.
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