Bobby Burns, Time Traveller
The ghost of Bobby Burns shambles along, flashing a sweet, missing-teeth, wasted grin, hollering across the street: ‘Yabba Zabba, Baby!' His signature hepcat greeting shouted with magnanimous wave and flourish, maybe a little mock jig, in loud plaid pants and shiny white shoes. Yeah, there were always vague rumors that he had been a session man on the drums for the likes of Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey—a time traveller from the black and white age of ballrooms and natty suits. The facts of his biography mattered less than how a whole crowd of kids a quarter of his age adopted him, drawn to his singular genius for life, a particular vintage alcoholic, swaggering enthusiasm.
He's a ghost now, and every year a few guys go drink whisky on his grave. Midtown is full of ghosts now—all the stuff that’s disappeared or left behind. The Sam’s Hofbrau sign just got pulled down this year. Odd to see that neon icon unceremoniously hauled away on a flatbed truck, the pudgy, pink cheeked man in a chef's hat still offering up a piping hot roasted ham; and that friendly little spot hidden in the concrete bowels of the downtown shopping mall, with it’s unlikely transportation backstory. In the dark subterranean catacomb of the Preflight Lounge the swingin 70s were archivally frozen in time. It was just razed to make way for a glass basketball arena that will resemble a spaceship. 
The list goes on: a secret lunch counter in the produce docks, the Beat Records, finally swamped over by the inevitable wave of digital music…now it's a suburban chain store. And the Monte Carlo, little corner tavern whose sign boasted ‘Open at 6 am.’ Where are the haunted winos who sat in those dive joints? Sunk deeper into dementia? Or finally reached the last call?
Our crowd of janky midtown punks, scenesters and art freaks rails against the new luxury lofts, high concept eateries and bro bars. But we are getting old and fat, clinging to our antiquated eccentric, late century, counterculture memories. History doesn’t give a shit about our finely honed vintage aesthetic. Time churns and swallows us up as we puzzle over why the things we treasure just don't matter to the newcomers. This is their time, and we have crossed over, the way Bobby Burns did, to some sort of far side from which things must have looked a little strange and unrecognizable. Say it now, with a knowing, wasted sort of enthusiasm: ‘Yabba Zabba Baby!’
Footage of the fabled Doo-Dah parade, circa 1993, in which Bobby and his drum kit are carried down Capital Avenue on a litter by a worshipful pagan troupe. Video by John Milne.
Picture of Sarah in a Garden
This is a photo of Sarah many years ago in a little garden in Bodega Bay, at Kelly and John’s wedding. They were so happy that day, Kelly who babysat our kids and worked for Megan’s sister. Kelly who found the man of her dreams after so many years playing an extra in other people’s dreams.
Megan captured this image of Sarah, from behind, the half silhouette of a little girl in her party dress, walking through a spot of sunlight, framed just so by bushes and evergreen branches and flowers, her right arm slightly extended in a wayfinding gesture. Photographers spend lifetimes waiting for a shot like this, this particular digital arrangement of pixels, proxy of the unexpressed universe. Sarah was maybe five or six, like Alice walking through the tangles of a monochrome wonderland. John left us way too early, just a few years after their marriage. He had a heart condition, and one day he just pulled over on the side of the road and died, their little daughter Vivian in the car with him. The last thing he did was roll up the windows and lock the doors so she would be safe. Now Kelly is raising Vivian. Sarah has grown into a beautiful young lady ready for high school. I wonder if that garden is still there? Megan captured this precious moment—some things happen exactly once. 
Halloween Ghosts & MagicOur youngest is in high school, the last kid in the nest. But tonight she is out with her friends, so Meg and I are sitting around the house like lonely old people waiting for the next ring of the doorbell.
On a night like this I can't help drifting back to those times we had, racing around the neighborhood at dusk, the kids in Target costumes clutching pillow cases, animating their carefully chosen alter egos. And my mom, “Mimi,” would make her annual appearance in that goofy outfit, some kind of a mis-mash craft store sorceress. As much as she looked forward to her star turn with the kids, they just couldn't wait to get through the preliminaries and race out the door. We hit the streets with the efficiency of a door-to-door sales operation, trying to maximize the candy haul. At the end of the night, the kids would dump their bags on the carpet in the front room and commence the serious task of sorting...and gorging themselves on high fructose corn syrup. Like any self-respecting dad, I’d beg for morsels and poach unguarded treats, rebuffed by Audrey’s withering stare. There is a primal magic about Halloween—the joy of the costume ritual, the flirtation with human terror in a kid’s heart, the departure from normal school night rules. But that magic was a bit obscured from me back then, because we were so caught up in the chaos of managing the whole thing. The house feels lonely now, but all evening I get a glimpse of that magic framed in the front door: all the runny nosed devils, the wide eyed princesses, trading in the currency of Baby Ruth bars and Starbursts, begging to stay up just a little bit later. Tonight, the ghosts are real. Memory fills in the missing pieces, and conjures up the things that had been obscured from view—but not until after those things are long gone. 
Vote for Crazy UncleCampaign speech to the family on Christmas Eve
Earlier this year, Uncle George suggested I might be a frontrunner for the role of Crazy Uncle in our family. Initially I was resistant, thinking, "how dare you suggest that! I am a normal guy, a low key guy. I'm not that guy." But the more I thought about it, the more the idea has grown on me. Crazy Uncle...it has a nice ring to it, and it might give me that sense of purpose in life that I've been seeking. So, I have come around on this question, and am now actively seeking this role. And to be clear, this isn't about me... I'm thinking about the kids, these precious children here, who need a crazy uncle. After all, imagine the thought of growing up without a crazy uncle. What a tragedy that would be. If you elect me Crazy Uncle, I make the following pledge to you: I will try to increase my alcohol consumption, and be visibly drunk more often; I will make more ill advised remarks, will blurt out more things; will downgrade my table manners; I will tell politically incorrect jokes, and recommend age-inappropriate content. I will make fun of serious things...and I will reserve the right to mock sincere, well meaning people. I will be that middle aged guy trying a little too hard to be hip and youthful; I will finally pull the trigger on matching track suits for Megan and me. If you kids seek my counsel, I will be there for you with questionable advice and get-rich-quick schemes. I will be there for you with apocryphal stories (I will use big words needlessly). I will recommend shallow solutions to complex problems...trust me on this. If you elect me to the position of Crazy Uncle, we will make this family crazy again! It's going to be tremendous, gonna be really fantastic. I guarantee it. Thank you and God Bless! 
Coach John Stone
Hey Sean, I just heard from Bill Rapp about the passing of your dad. I’ve been thinking about John all afternoon. I pulled out some of the team photos from when the three of us coached together, and that brought back great memories. He was a steady presence in the dugout and at practices. He gave a lot of his time to the boys...during a period when he was struggling through some health issues.
On the exterior, John was a hard-nosed ball coach. You and I used to chuckle when we heard him grumbling or launching into a rant about the umps. We gave each other a knowing look whenever we heard his ever present advice to the kids to ‘bring a jacket to practice’ so their arms didn’t get strained in the early season weather. But underneath the grumbling exterior he had a lot of love for those kids. I remember him pulling kids aside and asking about how school was going, and telling them that studies came first. And asking about their families. He had a genuinely warm, caring side. You and I were new to coaching—we were just trying to figure out how to be good coaches. He had coached for something like 30 years. But he didn’t try to pull rank. He let us run the show...making sure he always gave us his opinion (actually the three of us were mostly on the same page in terms of practice and game decisions). He had a real love of the game, and a sense of respect for the game. That’s one of the big lessons he taught me...respect for the game and the right way to do things on the diamond. I am looking at the team pic from the 2007 season. It seems like a long time ago. The kids are tiny. The grass is so green in the springtime when team photos are taken. And there’s John in the back row with a River Park Indians cap on. The more years that go by, the more I treasure that time period—when Evan and Jonathan were learning the game. There was a purity to those few years compared to the hyper-competitive sports leagues the boys are now in. People read a lot of things into the game of baseball. If it gave me a chance to coach with a man like John Stone, then it’s a helluva game for that reason alone. Peace and prayers to you, Johnny and your family. Your friend, Justin. 
BreadcrumbIn web design, a breadcrumb is that little string of text at the top of the page that shows where you are in the overall site navigation. It’s a listing of each previous page in the organizational hierarchy that you travelled across from the homepage to get where you are. Each page name is connected with a text character called a caret (>) to show directional flow.
The breadcrumb as a navigational reference dates to the early nineteenth century German fairy tale Hansel and Gretal. Like a lot of Brothers Grimm tales, this one follows an absolutely savage premise wherein two kids have been abandoned deep in the forest by their parents. Things go from bad to worse when brother and sister then encounter a cannibalistic witch who lives in a gingerbread house. But the protagonists are clever, and manage to outwit the witch and return home by following a trail of breadcrumbs they had dropped on the journey in. The concept of finding one’s way home is loaded with all kinds of deeper existential meaning, the purview of storytellers and crooners and deep thinkers across centuries and cultures. Going home is the mythical human journey, essential element of all story arcs—to make one’s way out and away from home, out into the wide world, to quest and seek and explore...after which the questing hero attempts to return back to the homeland, real or imagined. The catch is that the return home is a futile mission in psychic terms. The word “Hiraeth” is a Gaelic expression for this futility: Homesickness for a place that no longer exists. This most human of plot lines is found in so many literary examples, from Homer forward to Wolfe’s telegraphic title “You Can’t Go Home Again.” It is summed up with all necessary optimism in this little quatrain by the poet T.S. Eliot: We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. In the maudlin canon of all things concerning “returning home,” there is a more contemporary example from the pop song Fix You by Coldplay, the chorus of which suggests “Lights will guide you home.” But if they’ve forgotten to turn on the lights, here’s hoping you are clever enough to follow the breadcrumbs! 
Thru the Windows at Capitol & 21st
Our office windows look out at a bus stop shelter along 21st Street where yesterday morning there was a typewriter sitting there on the sidewalk. I puzzled over the abandoned obsolete machine for a while. Just one random thing in a menagerie out this window...the lost souls and crazy naked people, the hipsters and fashionistas, the purposeful walkers...all manner of relationship drama. “Young lady, forgive him. He didn’t mean it. Oh, he did what? Well Godspeed young lovers...” And the regular appearance of the brew bike people...loud enthusiasms, contrived celebratory madness. Party on Wayne!
For a while in the late afternoons there was this stylish older guy who sauntered along singing opera. He looked like the kind of maestro you might see on a great Italian stage, the gravitas, the mustachio, the silk cloth in his hand as he belted out soaring arias and made supplicant gestures to the heavens. Who is Opera Man, sent to entertain us mortals? There is this other guy who propels himself on a long skateboard via a tall staff, working this novel transport solution like a latter day gondolier. He is a singular figure gliding down the street with long hair, sneakers and mirror shades. Later in the day the typewriter was gone. I am amused and haunted by all the strange and beautiful scenery thru this urban portal. It fills the space between writing articles and proposals and the other mundane toilings of the information worker. Keep Midtown Janky indeed! 
We Were the HonkysOf my 664 Facebook friends, exactly two are Black. I’m a middle aged white guy who has watched the explosion of racial injustice from the comfort of an affluent neighborhood full of people unaware of the privileges that history has given them. It is not uncommon to hear from neighbors the whisperings of old law and order arguments that verge on blaming the victims of racism. We’ve all heard these before.
But it wasn’t always this way in my life. I grew up in a series of diverse neighborhoods in the city of Pittsburgh. We swam at public pools with lots of Black kids, kids from all over the city. We rode city buses with a wide cross section of people. We hung out at the East Liberty YMCA, where you would see dudes wearing African tribal shirts, called dashikis. The era of Black Power was in full effect. In 1973 my well-meaning parents signed up for a voluntary program where for two years I was bussed into the low income housing projects in the eastern part of the city. The progressive idea of that era was that this would speed the integration of society. We white kids were a tiny minority in an all black school. We were the honkys. We played kickball on the asphalt and had friends from the neighborhood. In the age of big afros and soul stylings we white kids carried hair picks in our pockets and wore platform shoes. You gotta fit in. It was a tough school, and we navigated the bullies just like at any tough school. A third grader doesn’t understand all the racial dynamics...he just wants to be a kid. After that, we moved to a different neighborhood and my brothers and I went to a different multi-racial school. Then in 5th grade, our mom moved us to an all white working class neighborhood along the river. We ran with this crowd of river rats, kids of the factory workers and tradesmen. It was a typical racist culture of that era and that region, with N-bombs dropped all the time. At that time, Pittsburgh was still very much a melting pot city where you didn’t want to get caught across the wrong neighborhood boundary. Although our family was more educated than that, I joined in on the racism at times to fit in. This gang of kids would venture into Black neighborhoods looking for fights. I am ashamed to say I joined in on one of these terrible missions. After college I moved to California, partly to get away from the old entrenched harshness of the industrial east coast. And Cali has proved to be more chill and progressive and sunny. And for the past decades my wife and I have raised our family in this white neighborhood and sent our kids to private catholic schools. In this culture, when race and political stuff comes up, I usually just shut my mouth. I know that’s probably not right, but it’s been important to me to live in harmony with my neighbors and allow my kids to fit into this culture. I just wanted to share my experience with race. These tragic murders of Black people at the hands of the authority structure go back to the Civil War and beyond. Real culture change won’t happen until bad cops are punished severely for violating the public trust (currently 99% are never charged). That won’t happen until we elect leaders with real moral courage. And that definitely won’t happen when the right to vote is being systematically taken away from Blacks and minorities all across the country. Black lives matter. June 2020 
SidewalkEvery so often I'll be driving down J Street, past the hospital, and catch a glimpse of the sidewalk along there. And I flash back to so many years ago when we would walk down that sidewalk to the coffee shop on Saturday mornings, a chaotic family unit of three small kids and two big dogs, sometimes with strollers or kids in backpacks. There was the sense of an outing, and dogs, kids and strollers would get tangled up periodically. At the time I probably wasn't thinking about the experience—I was just trying to keep our forward momentum.
I'm not so much for predetermination, but looking back, those were the times in my life, walking with Meg and the kids on that sidewalk, when I was right where I was supposed to be. This is one of the few things amid the vast absurdities of life that makes perfect sense to me. 
Pandemic Part 1
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This prompted me to read up on the 1922 Putsch Beer Hall Revolt, Hitler's first grab for power, launched from another nearby beer hall in central Munich (no longer standing), where he instigated armed thugs to march on the seat of government in a coup attempt against the Weimer government. In a shootout with local armed forces they were quickly defeated. Hilter did only 9 months' time in prison, and then regrouped and organized within the political system. It's odd that these places conduct business today with few markers of these events, people going about their lives trying to move on from the crimes of their ancestors, part of a fraught national self image.
Hitler was an authoritarian strong man who appealed to working people’s sense of grievance and nationalism, blaming jews and non-whites for their economic hardship under WWI reparations and the great depression. His expertly crafted, charismatic propaganda appeal found easy targets among the increasingly militant, violent supporters.
Although he was only supported by about 37% of the populace, he maneuvered into power as the conservative party establishment thought they could contain him—what we call 'guardrails' today. They tragically miscalculated. All through the 1930s the rising violence and extremism in Germany was well reported in America, but underestimated, ignored and even celebrated among considerable numbers of American nazi sympathizers and racist organizations. The German populace who opposed Hilter was passive as the violence and lawlessness mounted all around them, either too scared or polite to speak up. In a matter of only a few months he consolidated the presidency and chancellorship and eliminated democracy and rule of law. And then the nazi regime solidified a police state, invaded Eurpoe and committed systematic genocide.
This is a historical pattern: a charismatic leader skillfully sold a series of lies to his people. He understood the inherent suggestibility of the human mind, and he exploited it. Indeed, we now understand people often want to be led by an exciting leader. Those people were ripe to energetically accept these lies. So skillful and comprehensive were the fictions that a whole nation of people committed mass murder on behalf of the leader.
It gets more complicated when you consider Hitler modelled his Eurpoean genocide on American genocide against native Americans.
The term Nazi and Facist have become sort of all purpose slurs in political arguements and as such those labels are less meaningful. But knowing the German history and what is happening in America today you cannot miss the obvious parallels between Hilter's rise and Trump's rise: the macho appeal of the authoritarian personality, the coup attempt and increasing violence, the Big Lie and the complete assault on our democratic system, the installation of extreme partisan loyalists across the local election system, the lawless criminal behavior across so many fronts, the disinformation appeals to grievance, the targeting of minorities. As a sign of how far down the road of authoritarianism we’ve already come, librarians, healthcare workers and election workers are under attack right now by right wing extremists. In America? Who would have thought?
In the Republican Party there are many people who know the Jan. 6 coup attack and the Big Lie are wrong and treasonous, people who go along for strategic advantage or who are willfully ignorant of the blatant disinformation. A lot this amounts to tacit approval of the dismantling of a stable 250-year-old democracy. I don't think this will end well.
Ok, this spun out from a travelog to facist history then and now. What was that quote about history? It doesn’t repeat but it rhymes. The beer halls were fun, tipsy…and strangely informative. Stay safe in the next armed civil war or electoral takeover. Sorry for the politics, not sorry.
Ken Burns, The Holocaust and Authoritarianism Today
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/the-holocaust-and-authoritarianism-today
A discussion based on his new documentary, the U.S. and the Holocaust:
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/
The Nazi beer halls in Munich
How Hitler's Enablers Undid Democracy in Germany
Wildlands of January
Brute Nature on the American River
The new year brought weeks of heavy storms to northern California, what’s now being called an “Atmospheric River.” Are the meteorologists just making up new terms at this point? There were a couple nights where the wind blew so hard we could feel our old bungalow shaking on its brick foundation. Big oaks and redwoods crashed down on homes and crushed parked cars. It was a pretty epic span of weeks that saw people hunker down inside for a prolonged time.
To fight off the cabin fever I ended up taking several bike rides in these rainstorms, including one with Adam Bear through a pretty wicked full blown deluge. Things eventually let up and the flooded waterlogged ground began to dry. The storms had flooded the lower American River areas and so the bike trail has been closed for some weeks. Yesterday I figured the trail might still be flooded, but it was finally a brisk, clear day so I headed downriver on the trail anyway, in what turned out to be a pretty adventurous ride from Sac State to Discovery Park.
Crossing the J Street Bridge, I tracked a Great Blue Heron gliding just maybe ten feet off the water until it disappeared under the bridge. From above, the flight path of this sublime creature seemed aeronautical, a precise vector running parallel to the surface of the river. At the north end of the bridge I followed the detour up onto the gravel levee, skirting past earthmovers that have been rebuilding the riverbank for flood protection.
Along the levee top strong winds hit me head on, bringing forward progress to a slow grind on the pedals like going up a steep hill. The levee route passed alongside Cal Expo with views down into the amusement park, the tilt-a-whirl and multi-colored water slide frozen in winter gloom, and the miniature farm town abandoned for the season—not a farmer or carnie in sight. The route passed the empty soccer stadium and then dropped down off the levee and back onto the trail, out of the wind.
Pretty soon the trail turned all to muck and lakes of knee deep water. At intervals big cottonwood trees were crashed across the path. The dead gray landscape had the feel of a bayou swamp. This was more than I bargained for, but not wanting to retrace my route I elected to try to make it through, shouldering my ten speed around the wreckage, whacking through jagger thickets, pedaling carefully in the water, anticipating the smack of some submerged obstacle. I nearly skidded into the drink a few times if not for a wobbly balancing act.
Near the 12th Street overpass there was this ominous silhouette ahead, wandering the abandoned urban wildlands. Was this the Grim Reaper himself, self styled in a black cape of rags? I sped past him, the Ramones pounding in my ears…Sheena is…a punk rocker…Sheena is…!
The trail was strewn with trash from the storms, hobo camp debris, upended shopping carts, plastic jugs, clothing and other sad personal items arrayed in the muck. At one point, not far from Discovery, I was portaging over a partially submerged downed tree, when a few scraggly little deer popped out from the brush up ahead. They froze when they spotted me, and we had an intense momentary glance at each other. Some kind of primordial understanding seemed to pass between us. The encounter, far from an idyllic nature moment, got me spooked with the feeling of being a tourist interloper in their everyday creature survival.
“Just make it to Discovery Park,” my mind was racing, “get the fuck out of this hellscape, you trespasser! Hurry on back to your central heat and WIFI and family love!”
Why does a damn fool indoor creature elect to go the hard way? What kind of fun can this be? I have no answer except to share a few words from the original townie tourist, Henry Thoreau. Nearly two centuries ago he advised this type of voluntary adversity: "Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary."
January 23, 2023
Heinz
We got Heinz and Emmy, brother and sister, from the pound in 2011. They are indoor cats and have integrated into our household over the years with a nice low key spirit…after having big dogs for fifteen years prior. The girl, Emmy, is social and friendly to all, but Heinz is skittish and aloof, and has only bonded with Sarah, spending much of her time in her room. Heinz has never much cared to spend any time with me, and has a long history of being scared of me for no apparent reason other than he is a scaredy cat.
When Meg and I got back from the hospital after her stem cell transplant for multiple myeloma cancer I moved into Sarah’s room to give Meg space in our room. To quote Meg, so I wouldn’t be breathing on her and farting as she is trying to recover. Text to Sarah, our youngest daughter who is in Italy:
Sar,
I am laying in your bed and Heinz is laying on top of me. We are listening to Taylor Swift. I'm pretending he understands as I'm talking to him...isn't that what cats are for anyway. I told him that you would be back, that you are in Florence studying abroad. That was fully over his head although I did show him your picture in hopes he might understand. Heinz is a gentle spirit, your great friend from way back. I told him Christopher Robin is not leaving the Hundred Acre Wood just yet. Well Sar me and Heinz miss you and hope you're having some great adventures over there!
Love,
Dad
Where ever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing. -- A.A. Milne
April 12, 2023
Where ever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing. A.A. Milne
Gargoyle!
Going a Few Rounds with the Winged Beast
My old pal Stanley Spencer used to have a little thing he would say in the midst of a nite of drinking, which was our go-to recreational activity. He would fix me with a look and loudly exclaim "Gargoyle!" Although dude is not given to metaphorical expression, somehow we both knew exactly what this battle cry meant. And at this point the idea of the Gargoyle has become a necessary construct.
There he is, standing guard in my little Hideaway bar—a fake stone version, cartoonish simulacrum of a winged dog chained at the neck and scowling from the depths of his own servitude. Look at that, he has taken an interest in you: do you fancy going a few rounds with the Gargoyle?
Be advised, if you are spoiling for a tussle, you’ll be going a few rounds with your own dark likeness. Indeed, you and the Gargoyle can be understood as one and the same. This foul chimera from antiquity can be an uncompromising beast, unconcerned with modern visions of atonement, truth telling, lifestyle vanities, the endless conceits, all the one trick ponies and conspiracy delusions. This unruly dog grapples with all comers. And be sure to leave your better angels upstairs when you visit his subterranean realm. Judgment, politeness, moderation are quaint notions when the wicked dog breaks out of his chains.
Look there! The Gargoyle has climbed down from his sentinel perch in the architecture, deserted his post, gone rogue as he does—lumbering down dead end corridors of the mind, chains rattling, casting a severe gaze at nothing in particular. In the distances of oblivion you hear a sneering utterance that lays bare the human folly of your own imagination. Says the Gargoyle: "Look at that foolish little man with a pet nickname for his own demons...Huzzah!”
August 2023
There he is, standing guard in my little Hideaway bar—a fake stone version, cartoonish simulacrum of a winged dog chained at the neck and scowling from the depths of his own servitude. Look at that, he has taken an interest in you: do you fancy going a few rounds with the Gargoyle?
Be advised, if you are spoiling for a tussle, you’ll be going a few rounds with your own dark likeness. Indeed, you and the Gargoyle can be understood as one and the same. This foul chimera from antiquity can be an uncompromising beast, unconcerned with modern visions of atonement, truth telling, lifestyle vanities, the endless conceits, all the one trick ponies and conspiracy delusions. This unruly dog grapples with all comers. And be sure to leave your better angels upstairs when you visit his subterranean realm. Judgment, politeness, moderation are quaint notions when the wicked dog breaks out of his chains.
Look there! The Gargoyle has climbed down from his sentinel perch in the architecture, deserted his post, gone rogue as he does—lumbering down dead end corridors of the mind, chains rattling, casting a severe gaze at nothing in particular. In the distances of oblivion you hear a sneering utterance that lays bare the human folly of your own imagination. Says the Gargoyle: "Look at that foolish little man with a pet nickname for his own demons...Huzzah!”
August 2023
Hey Lebowski!
Going Native in Venice Beach, Summer 2023
The family is down here in Venice Beach on a little summer getaway, enjoying this funky oasis in the middle of concrete plastic LA—home to surf punks, skate rats, hipsters, wannabe musicians, cholo boys, all the boardwalk scenesters and grifters. Like everything else in these upscale times, this grunge town is now in some state of gentrification. Fussy little boutiques and cafes have sprung up along Abbot Kinney and Main Street, and now Teslas circle for parking and couples in designer gear stroll the boulevards with kids and dogs in tow.
There are a handful of notable historical stories that signal the freethinking spirit of Venice. It was conceived as a resort town in the early twentieth century, complete with a network of canals harkening to its Italian namesake. A few decades later, the town fell into disrepair, and became known as “The Slum By the Sea.”
In the late 1940s creative power couple Ray and Charles Eames moved their studio to Washington Boulevard on the southern end of town. The massive warehouse space, called the Eames Office, housed a menagerie of their heady design work, including furniture, architecture, toys, exhibits, and research. From this home base they made major contributions to American design across many disciplines, from niche projects to groundbreaking work for the largest Fortune 500 corporations.
In the mid 60s Jim Morrision bailed out of UCLA and haunted the seedy streets and beaches here, writing poetry and conceiving his “Lizard King” persona, aided by large quantities of mescaline. The seedy apartments where he crashed and first collaborated with his Doors bandmates remain destinations for uber fans.
There are a handful of notable historical stories that signal the freethinking spirit of Venice. It was conceived as a resort town in the early twentieth century, complete with a network of canals harkening to its Italian namesake. A few decades later, the town fell into disrepair, and became known as “The Slum By the Sea.”
In the late 1940s creative power couple Ray and Charles Eames moved their studio to Washington Boulevard on the southern end of town. The massive warehouse space, called the Eames Office, housed a menagerie of their heady design work, including furniture, architecture, toys, exhibits, and research. From this home base they made major contributions to American design across many disciplines, from niche projects to groundbreaking work for the largest Fortune 500 corporations.
In the mid 60s Jim Morrision bailed out of UCLA and haunted the seedy streets and beaches here, writing poetry and conceiving his “Lizard King” persona, aided by large quantities of mescaline. The seedy apartments where he crashed and first collaborated with his Doors bandmates remain destinations for uber fans.
In the early 1970s amid rundown, boarded up storefronts, local surfers began calling it "Dogtown,” and a bunch of these delinquent kids started hopping fences to skateboard in empty swimming pools. That group of misfits became famous as innovators in the burgeoning sport of modern skateboarding—and “Dogtown” became a shorthand reference for their mythical origin story.
And so here I am in this countercultural mecca, just a pretend cool-daddy from Cowtown jumping into the slipstream of hipster flâneurs—catch a buzz, post up in some little joint and take in the bohemian pageant. There’s this one archetype I keep noticing, the guy of a certain age, like myself, with graying beard, and he’s sporting a ponytail and baggy board shorts, ratty tshirt…and he’s cruising through this melange in the self contained bubble of his own casual vibe. He is possessed of a certain dude-ness. And I go down this rabbit hole, considering a theoretical metric of dude-ness constructed for the purpose of my own stupid musings…a spectrum of Dude-ness, perhaps a Lebowski Spectrum.
Way back at the turn of the century, the movie character Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski captured the LA slacker vibe as an avid bowler unwittingly caught up in an absurdist crime story that turned on a case of mistaken identity. This middle aged character dwelled here in Venice and was possessed of a certain casual wisdom, refreshingly comfortable in his own non-aspirational life.
The Dude: Let me explain something to you. Um, I am not "Mr. Lebowski". You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
The movie was a totally original mashup of subgenres that has lived on as a masterpiece of the weird, and at the same time it has a sort of sweetness as the self proclaimed “Dude” finds an unlikely family with his misfit bowling pals. Lebowski now exists in the culture as the kind of cult persona who turns up in memes, on t-shirts and references dropped by the cool kids.
So I’m sitting here in Venice pondering the weighty question of a theoretical Lebowski Spectrum, and whether I am even on said spectrum. And the answer is a resounding Hell No! At best this corporate communications nerd defines the uncool far end of the spectrum—family man with an everyday office job, retirement account, a gray beard that is well trimmed. In my defense, aspirations toward slackerdom do make a strange sort of sense in the context of boring responsibility—but I’ve got no bathrobe, no nonchalant zen aura, and I’m not given to day drinking "Caucasians" in dive bars.
The Stranger: Take it easy, Dude.
The Dude: Oh, yeah!
The Stranger: I know that you will.
The Dude: Yeah, well - the Dude abides.
[Exits with beers in hand]
The Stranger: [to the camera] The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners.
I order another espresso in a little cafe on Main and all of a sudden a throng of Hari Krishnas appears out of nowhere, parading down Main Street, chanting and shaking tambourines, riding big elephant floats. Amid this intense stimulus I begin to lose the thread of my Lebowski ponderings, concluding that such questions are fair game in an age when identity is costume store transactional. To those who might disparage this whole absurd topic, I fall back on The Dude himself for the last word: “Hey man, that’s like only your opinion, man.”
The Big Lebowski: Are you employed, sir?
The Dude: Employed?
The Big Lebowski: You don't go out looking for a job dressed like that? On a weekday?
The Dude: Is this a... what day is this?
The Big Lebowski: Well, I do work sir, so if you don't mind...
The Dude: I do mind, the Dude minds. This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man.
Junk Drawer
In the age of Pottery Barn and Martha Stewart it becomes difficult to find a part of the household that conveys an authentic, unscripted sense of its dwellers. I want to believe the Junk Drawer remains untouched by such upscale decorating and placemaking. Here we encounter life’s most utilitarian, most intimate receptacle, the resting place of household miscellany, one of the great equalizers—like death and taxes—everyone’s got random objects with no other home.
Show me your Junk Drawer, show me your soul, show me the things that don’t fit anywhere else, the small things, the abandoned, misfit items.
Professors might study culture from such an honest vantage point. Economists might draw far-ranging conclusions about ourselves as a people, about consumerism, age, class, income, race and geography? Anthropologists could identify and analyze contents relative to tendencies and tribal patterns.
Preceding any intellectual subtext, though, the Junk Drawer remains a unique sensory curiosity: A perfectly random, wonderfully textural assortment of objects and colors, an entry point to the truly personal, a mirror image of its disorderly owners, hidden cleverly in such close proximity to the domestic epicenter. Celebrate the Junk Drawer, I say! Regard the small and the obscure, indulge in the oddball pieces of this manicured life.
Show me your Junk Drawer, show me your soul, show me the things that don’t fit anywhere else, the small things, the abandoned, misfit items.
Show me your Junk Drawer, show me your soul, show me the things that don’t fit anywhere else, the small things, the abandoned, misfit items.
Professors might study culture from such an honest vantage point. Economists might draw far-ranging conclusions about ourselves as a people, about consumerism, age, class, income, race and geography? Anthropologists could identify and analyze contents relative to tendencies and tribal patterns.
Preceding any intellectual subtext, though, the Junk Drawer remains a unique sensory curiosity: A perfectly random, wonderfully textural assortment of objects and colors, an entry point to the truly personal, a mirror image of its disorderly owners, hidden cleverly in such close proximity to the domestic epicenter. Celebrate the Junk Drawer, I say! Regard the small and the obscure, indulge in the oddball pieces of this manicured life.
Show me your Junk Drawer, show me your soul, show me the things that don’t fit anywhere else, the small things, the abandoned, misfit items.
Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow
Weeping Willow is a maudeline old saw of a tune where a spurned lover contemplates their own demise. There is a version recorded in 1965 when Maybelle Carter was an old lady playing for the folk festival kids. It's devastatingly emotional, the rugged and enduring quality of this old woman singing, giving voice to the dread of the story.
At the end she adds a little commentary about how this was the first song they cut at their legendary audition in Bristol, Tennessee, describing what it was like listening to her own voice recording played back on the Victrola. What a moment, like a primitive human seeing their image in a mirror for the first time.
There is one little detail that is absolutely essential about this longshot audition story that is hard to imagine 2023. They drove all day out of the deep Virginia back country to get to Bristol, over rough hill roads and across creeks in a beat-up old jalopy that kept getting flats. When the three of them finally showed up at the brick hat factory building where the auditions were being held, they saw a crowd of city people in the entrance. And they were ashamed of their dirty old clothes, so they went up to the second floor by way of the fire escape in the back.
That deep country humility translated directly onto the acetate record they cut that August day 93 years ago, when two women who didn't even want to be there and a gangly haunted man stood up before the carbon microphone and let loose their high-register, plaintiff, harmonies. The two songs they sang that day changed the history of music in America.
At the end she adds a little commentary about how this was the first song they cut at their legendary audition in Bristol, Tennessee, describing what it was like listening to her own voice recording played back on the Victrola. What a moment, like a primitive human seeing their image in a mirror for the first time.
There is one little detail that is absolutely essential about this longshot audition story that is hard to imagine 2023. They drove all day out of the deep Virginia back country to get to Bristol, over rough hill roads and across creeks in a beat-up old jalopy that kept getting flats. When the three of them finally showed up at the brick hat factory building where the auditions were being held, they saw a crowd of city people in the entrance. And they were ashamed of their dirty old clothes, so they went up to the second floor by way of the fire escape in the back.
That deep country humility translated directly onto the acetate record they cut that August day 93 years ago, when two women who didn't even want to be there and a gangly haunted man stood up before the carbon microphone and let loose their high-register, plaintiff, harmonies. The two songs they sang that day changed the history of music in America.
I have been a homeowner for nearly 30 years now and in that time I have managed to find a few bits of wisdom in the experience, or more accurately have recognized things that had been staring me in the face all along, essential things not so much about real estate, but about houses and homes. What I can share in this regard is that I have come to understand every home needs three essential things, interrelated but distinct.
The first and most important of those is that a home must have love. Without love a home is just a house. The concept of love is a sort of self-evident thing, a word so widely used as to wear down its real meaning and power. A home has got to have love.
The second thing every home needs is maintenance because time wants to rip it down and churn all our precious things into ruins—and it is relentless in this destruction. Decay is always working, silently, invisibly, never resting, and doesn’t give a damn about our little vanities and conceits. Efforts at repair merely forestall the inevitable. A builder friend of mine used to point out that everybody wants to focus on new construction because it is sexy and interesting and new, but the real important part so often overlooked is maintenance.
The third thing, and this is the interesting part, is that every home needs a place where the ghosts can live, a place where you can go and be with the ghosts to help you stay on good terms with the spirits, and by extension stay on good terms with yourself. Back to item number one, love: if you have love you will have ghosts. It is said that “every love story is a ghost story” and that is true. In some ways, your ghosts are the most precious things in the whole equation, and so you have to make peace with them and provide a place for them to be. In our case, we dug a whiskey cellar under the house and fixed it up. Megan prefers “wine cellar.” So that's where we can go and be with the ghosts and talk with them and stay on good terms with them. The wine and whiskey, in the right amount, can facilitate these conversations, I have found.
Here’s to this Old High Water Bungalow
like a ship at sea, stout through storms and weather,
the 1918 brick foundation holding up all our cares and dreams,
lanterns lit on the porch—Lights will guide you home!
like a ship at sea, stout through storms and weather,
the 1918 brick foundation holding up all our cares and dreams,
lanterns lit on the porch—Lights will guide you home!
Sarah's Graduation: Life in the Flash of a Camera
I watched the video again last night, and when the dignitaries are leading the Boise State graduates out onto the floor of ExtraMile Arena and you hear the solemn notes of Pomp & Circumstance it is emotional even for non-emotional people.
That music gets you right there and you tear up because you are watching your sweet daughter in her royal blue and orange gown walk in holding her friend’s hand. They are waving and joyful, caught up and humbled by such a big moment. You are thinking about all the moments of her growing up, they all come back to you all at once. It is overwhelming. And you are thinking about how we all got here.
A flash of the camera freezes the scene in your mind and you see and understand the true beauty that the journey has been, all the years, even though you couldn't see or understand it much of the time. You know life is transient but you've got your camera anyway, and you're trying to capture that feeling so you can save it forever in your Google Photos.
Everyone who meets Sarah loves her, she is so big-hearted. I think about how she struggled a few years back with so much empathy and sensitivity, and although she has grown more self assured, that vulnerability is still inside her. She is an angel carrying forward the grace and actual deep kindness of Megan and Meg’s father Asa, and my mom Ramona. It is in the bloodlines.
I have been rooting for that kid for so long.
That music gets you right there and you tear up because you are watching your sweet daughter in her royal blue and orange gown walk in holding her friend’s hand. They are waving and joyful, caught up and humbled by such a big moment. You are thinking about all the moments of her growing up, they all come back to you all at once. It is overwhelming. And you are thinking about how we all got here.
A flash of the camera freezes the scene in your mind and you see and understand the true beauty that the journey has been, all the years, even though you couldn't see or understand it much of the time. You know life is transient but you've got your camera anyway, and you're trying to capture that feeling so you can save it forever in your Google Photos.
Everyone who meets Sarah loves her, she is so big-hearted. I think about how she struggled a few years back with so much empathy and sensitivity, and although she has grown more self assured, that vulnerability is still inside her. She is an angel carrying forward the grace and actual deep kindness of Megan and Meg’s father Asa, and my mom Ramona. It is in the bloodlines.
I have been rooting for that kid for so long.
SmackTalk from the Bride
When Your Sassy Wife Keeps You Honest
Meg is such a kind and considerate person—it is really her superpower. But there have been times when this sweet and caring woman has landed some devastatingly sick burns on yours truly. No matter how cool a husband thinks he is, a husband is ultimately a bumbling fool caught up in his own little self-mythologies. And there is none better than a wife to point out such foibles. The three instances herewith, courtesy of Megan, bear that out.
I. Fucking Cowboy
After we dropped Sarah in Boise for her freshman year we drove a big loop through Sun Valley, Jackson Hole, Yellowstone, Salt Lake, and Ely Nevada. I made a cowboy playlist for this epic road trip with a bunch of old Ennio Morricone Spaghetti Western tracks and Marty Robbins and other iconic dramatic western music, the kind where the horns kick in and you can imagine Clint Eastwood standing tall in a poncho and gunning down bad guys while smoking a stogie. We had a great time on the trip and even got to do a real deal trail ride just south of Jackson Hole through sage brush and open country chaparral, crossing several small rivers on the horses with water up reaching to the horses’ undercarriages.
Some weeks after our return I happened to be chilling at home listening to my western playlist. Meg walks in, sizes up the situation with a sideways glance and says, “You go on one trail ride and you think you’re a fucking cowboy.” We both started laughing…Smack!
I. Fucking Cowboy
After we dropped Sarah in Boise for her freshman year we drove a big loop through Sun Valley, Jackson Hole, Yellowstone, Salt Lake, and Ely Nevada. I made a cowboy playlist for this epic road trip with a bunch of old Ennio Morricone Spaghetti Western tracks and Marty Robbins and other iconic dramatic western music, the kind where the horns kick in and you can imagine Clint Eastwood standing tall in a poncho and gunning down bad guys while smoking a stogie. We had a great time on the trip and even got to do a real deal trail ride just south of Jackson Hole through sage brush and open country chaparral, crossing several small rivers on the horses with water up reaching to the horses’ undercarriages.
Some weeks after our return I happened to be chilling at home listening to my western playlist. Meg walks in, sizes up the situation with a sideways glance and says, “You go on one trail ride and you think you’re a fucking cowboy.” We both started laughing…Smack!
II. Skippy with the V-Neck
We drove up to Grass Valley after work a couple years ago to see Waxahatchee, an indie female singer, at the Center for the Arts. Before the show we thought we would grab a drink at a local dive bar called the Nevada Club right there on the main street. As we were approaching the bar, Meg fixed me with a look and, referencing my button down shirt and sweater combo, she said, “Skippy with the V-Neck is about to get his ass kicked.” Duly noted, madame. Smack!
III. Hemingway the “Writer”
The week of July 4th this year in Sacramento was 110 degrees for like eight days straight. For a town used to heat this was unprecedented. People were posting screen grabs of the frightening 10-day forecast. I wanted to book a getaway to Half Moon Bay for a few days, but Meg forgot to tell me she had agreed to dog-sit our neighbors’ puppy over the holiday weekend. I decided to go on the trip solo, as I really needed to get out of town. We rarely, if ever, have not vacationed together.
She asked me what I planned to do and I said I was going to do some writing, that I had four stories to complete. Although I write regularly, I have never previously carved out specific writing time like this. Later that day she said, I’m going to call you Hemingway. “Hey Hemingway, can you take out the trash when you are finished with your ‘Writing?’” She said “Writing” with special emphasis and air quotes. Since then we have both begun to reference my “Writing” and my new nom de plume. Smack!
CAKE 30 Years Later
A Sacramento Townie Remembers - July 2024
A guy I knew from around midtown came into our shop one day with this ant design that he had xeroxed together on a piece of paper, and we printed a bunch of T-shirts for his band. He would hustle around town stapling show flyers onto telephone poles and we'd all go see them play at Old Ironsides and in backyards and at a bunch of other little joints.
That was 30 years ago, before the band got big and played all over the world and on TV and movies. The wry lyrics, the funky, driving melodies, the melancholy trumpet solos...it's a soundtrack woven through memory and time:"if you want to have cities you've got to build roads...Mr. Mastodon Farm cuts swatches out of all material...when the seaweed sinks and the sun gets low, when the waves retire to the darkness below...sad songs and waltzes aren't selling this year...."
We townies are aging and gray now, but we will be out in Murphys this Saturday to see our hometown guys and teleport back to 1995 when we were young and foolish and didn't want to grow up.
That was 30 years ago, before the band got big and played all over the world and on TV and movies. The wry lyrics, the funky, driving melodies, the melancholy trumpet solos...it's a soundtrack woven through memory and time:"if you want to have cities you've got to build roads...Mr. Mastodon Farm cuts swatches out of all material...when the seaweed sinks and the sun gets low, when the waves retire to the darkness below...sad songs and waltzes aren't selling this year...."
We townies are aging and gray now, but we will be out in Murphys this Saturday to see our hometown guys and teleport back to 1995 when we were young and foolish and didn't want to grow up.
Arkadelphia
“Hey Google, play that song again.” And out of the speaker the hypnotic melody starts over. I’m deep in the vortex of Arkadelphia, set in a town down in Arkansas, by a band called Waxahachie. The last few days I’ve been living inside the song, transfixed by its downbeat southern gothic vibe, “I lose my grip, I drive out far, Past fireworks at the old trailer park, And folding chairs, American flags, Selling tomatoes at five bucks a bag.” The narrator is resigned to her fate, meandering through a kind of a wistful reckoning of memory and struggle.
It's right up there in the realm of haunted story songs with Bruce Springsteen, Lana del Ray, and Lucinda—Stolen Car, Highway Patrolman, Racing in the Streets, Venice Bitch, Mariners Apartment Complex, Lake Charles. “Hey Google, play it again.” The machine obeys and I contemplate what kind of person lives inside a song? I’d better be careful or the algorithm is gonna think I'm a 30-something woman from the south with real problems. “If I burn out like a light bulb They'll say ‘She wasn't meant for that life’, They'll put it all in a capsule and save it for a dark night….”
https://open.spotify.com/track/46y3drWalmzYt3FCn0AeY0?si=9islDNhWQg2J2pnYHMhKAg
It's right up there in the realm of haunted story songs with Bruce Springsteen, Lana del Ray, and Lucinda—Stolen Car, Highway Patrolman, Racing in the Streets, Venice Bitch, Mariners Apartment Complex, Lake Charles. “Hey Google, play it again.” The machine obeys and I contemplate what kind of person lives inside a song? I’d better be careful or the algorithm is gonna think I'm a 30-something woman from the south with real problems. “If I burn out like a light bulb They'll say ‘She wasn't meant for that life’, They'll put it all in a capsule and save it for a dark night….”
https://open.spotify.com/track/46y3drWalmzYt3FCn0AeY0?si=9islDNhWQg2J2pnYHMhKAg
Playing the Bad Guy is a Damn Lonely Gig
Early on life we come to understand that every story, every movie, every drama needs a bad guy. At first these are simple cartoonish characters—the cowboy wearing a black hat, the wicked witch, the diabolical super villain in a tropical island lair, the Grinch, Ebanizer Scrooge—a rogue's gallery of misanthropes. Having watched and read so many hundreds of stories, we are intimately familiar with the workings of the plot device inside the mythology, that it is the villain whom the hero, embarked upon a hero's journey, must kill, vanquish, destroy.
Eventually, these cartoonish stories evolve into ones where it may be hard to tell who is the good guy and who is the bad guy, and maybe even a single character who is both. Subtlety! In literature classes, where the business is to dissect stories, we learned a more sophisticated set of terms: the antagonist, the villain-protagonist, the Byronic hero, and of course the antihero, who is flawed, complex and often dealing with personal struggles and moral ambiguity.
Little did I think I myself would end up playing the villain, but that is what has happened, as my eldest daughter has cast me in the role of bad guy in her story. Is this a deserved fate? An overreaction to heavy-handed fathering? A man out of touch with the younger generation? A fiercely independent young woman too similar to her old man? Generational strife that's common to parents and children? With no blatant tragedy here, a lot depends on the interpretation of nuances. Still, let me tell you, playing the bad guy is a damn lonely gig, especially since I was once the famous leading man, the magnanimous youthful dad hero, full of adventure and seat-of-the-pants fun…but now outcast from that land of dreams. Oh such a sorry tale!
I comfort myself, however, with the hope that this story, like the really great ones, may feature a redemption, an unforeseen plot twist that resets the landscape. All the world's a stage indeed! The Bard himself understood just how much of a bitch drama can be. And like all dramas, the story continues to unfold imperceptibly, day by day, with some expectancy off in the distance of how it might resolve. Here is the cliffhanger: What fate awaits the man in the black hat? Will the wholesome family find its way out of the dark, treacherous woods? Or is all of this just in my own head? Stay tuned, intrepid adventurers, for the thrilling conclusion!
Eventually, these cartoonish stories evolve into ones where it may be hard to tell who is the good guy and who is the bad guy, and maybe even a single character who is both. Subtlety! In literature classes, where the business is to dissect stories, we learned a more sophisticated set of terms: the antagonist, the villain-protagonist, the Byronic hero, and of course the antihero, who is flawed, complex and often dealing with personal struggles and moral ambiguity.
Little did I think I myself would end up playing the villain, but that is what has happened, as my eldest daughter has cast me in the role of bad guy in her story. Is this a deserved fate? An overreaction to heavy-handed fathering? A man out of touch with the younger generation? A fiercely independent young woman too similar to her old man? Generational strife that's common to parents and children? With no blatant tragedy here, a lot depends on the interpretation of nuances. Still, let me tell you, playing the bad guy is a damn lonely gig, especially since I was once the famous leading man, the magnanimous youthful dad hero, full of adventure and seat-of-the-pants fun…but now outcast from that land of dreams. Oh such a sorry tale!
I comfort myself, however, with the hope that this story, like the really great ones, may feature a redemption, an unforeseen plot twist that resets the landscape. All the world's a stage indeed! The Bard himself understood just how much of a bitch drama can be. And like all dramas, the story continues to unfold imperceptibly, day by day, with some expectancy off in the distance of how it might resolve. Here is the cliffhanger: What fate awaits the man in the black hat? Will the wholesome family find its way out of the dark, treacherous woods? Or is all of this just in my own head? Stay tuned, intrepid adventurers, for the thrilling conclusion!
Luck Ranch May be a State of Mind
But I Could Swear It’s a Real Place
Justin Panson
Luck Ranch was the destination of my pilgrimage to Texas, to see the band Waxahatchee fronted by Katie Curtchfield, with the great Lucinda Williams opening for her. The Uber dropped me at the front gate and I had to walk along a little dirt road a quarter mile to the actual event center, thru low hills of scraggly cedar trees and chaparral and then past a fenced section where a lonely brown horse stood silently with nobody around. Hello little pony!
Luck Ranch was the destination of my pilgrimage to Texas, to see the band Waxahatchee fronted by Katie Curtchfield, with the great Lucinda Williams opening for her. The Uber dropped me at the front gate and I had to walk along a little dirt road a quarter mile to the actual event center, thru low hills of scraggly cedar trees and chaparral and then past a fenced section where a lonely brown horse stood silently with nobody around. Hello little pony!
You could see this was once a working ranch with utility out-buildings and equipment around, but the main part has been ginned up with a carnival of western elements and stages, including a barn/saloon with a stage inside where I got to see Katie duet with her partner, the indie musician Kevin Morby. I went in there just to get out of the heat and found myself right in the front chatting with a nice couple from Austin, Cameron & Meredith, also big Waxa fans. It was a really intimate experience, seeing this couple perform together, catching looks with each other.
Thanks to the good people at Willie's Remedy beverage brand for the two complimentary THC drinks, 5mg each, which kicked in nicely midafternoon when everybody was hunting shade in the 95-degree March heat. I had brought some of my own weed and when I asked the security gal at the saloon where the designated weed smoking area was, without missing a beat she said "everywhere." I have found my people in this deep red state.
Among the throngs of country music true believers there was some high-quality people watching, a kaleidoscope of western wear outfits, so many permutations of cowboys and cowgirls, the trucker hats and clever tshirts, and some crusty old ranch locals. There were a few SXSW crossovers mixed in, young hip urban types, and one group who looked like refugees from a Wes Anderson movie with bright plaid patterns, vintage sweaters, statement shades, and tiny cute handbags.
Lucinda, even in her advanced age, was still an OG badass blues woman, working through a set that included Rock n Roll Heart, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road and Blaze Foley's Drunken Angel. She covered George Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Neil Young's Rockin in the Free World, the Bush era protest anthem.
Waxahatchee was epic! I don't know what it is about Katie Curchfield that gets under my skin—the deep songwriting, the raw emotion that sneaks up on you, the distinctive lilt of her singing, the humble prairie girl vibe? After seeing her in this unique venue I am a bigger fan boy than ever. The title track from the new album, Tigers Blood, was slow and hypnotic, with a chorus that touched on the idea of luck: “And I held it like a penny I found, It might bring me something, it might weigh me down.” She also played a ballad off the new record that I love, Lone Star Lake.
Luck Ranch may be a state of mind, but I could swear it’s a real place…up along Bee Creek Road that winds through the hill country west of Austin, past a bunch of new McMansion communities, and into Spicewood, nearly in the middle of central Texas, land of cattle and pickup trucks, guns and God, home of country music and the legendary Willie Nelson.
March 14, 2025
Thanks to the good people at Willie's Remedy beverage brand for the two complimentary THC drinks, 5mg each, which kicked in nicely midafternoon when everybody was hunting shade in the 95-degree March heat. I had brought some of my own weed and when I asked the security gal at the saloon where the designated weed smoking area was, without missing a beat she said "everywhere." I have found my people in this deep red state.
Among the throngs of country music true believers there was some high-quality people watching, a kaleidoscope of western wear outfits, so many permutations of cowboys and cowgirls, the trucker hats and clever tshirts, and some crusty old ranch locals. There were a few SXSW crossovers mixed in, young hip urban types, and one group who looked like refugees from a Wes Anderson movie with bright plaid patterns, vintage sweaters, statement shades, and tiny cute handbags.
Lucinda, even in her advanced age, was still an OG badass blues woman, working through a set that included Rock n Roll Heart, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road and Blaze Foley's Drunken Angel. She covered George Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Neil Young's Rockin in the Free World, the Bush era protest anthem.
Waxahatchee was epic! I don't know what it is about Katie Curchfield that gets under my skin—the deep songwriting, the raw emotion that sneaks up on you, the distinctive lilt of her singing, the humble prairie girl vibe? After seeing her in this unique venue I am a bigger fan boy than ever. The title track from the new album, Tigers Blood, was slow and hypnotic, with a chorus that touched on the idea of luck: “And I held it like a penny I found, It might bring me something, it might weigh me down.” She also played a ballad off the new record that I love, Lone Star Lake.
Luck Ranch may be a state of mind, but I could swear it’s a real place…up along Bee Creek Road that winds through the hill country west of Austin, past a bunch of new McMansion communities, and into Spicewood, nearly in the middle of central Texas, land of cattle and pickup trucks, guns and God, home of country music and the legendary Willie Nelson.
March 14, 2025
Lana Del Ray’s Soundtrack for the Apocalypse
Six years ago Lana Del Ray stopped in Sacramento on her Norman Fucking Rockwell tour. The show sold out in like 10 minutes, and Sarah, my high school-aged daughter, got a ticket and I did not. She teased me about that a little. When the day of the show came, she texted and offered to sell her ticket to me. She was trying to really focus on her grades that semester and had a big physics test the next day. In a role reversal for a parent I called her and was trying to convince her to go to the show. To her credit she knew she had to handle her business and so I went in her place.
Yup, I was the creepy old guy at Memorial Auditorium with all the teenaged girls. What I remember most about that night is that Lana did the full 15-minute Venice Bitch, the statement song off Norman Fucking Rockwell, and she waded out into the crowd of screaming girls, singing that hypnotic song that contains the line, “Fresh out of fucks forever," and the gem of a line, “I dream in jeans and leather.” This English major also appreciates the Robert Frost line in the song. It was an epic moment.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/7MT1BvFsUZ4eeeRG8
I love the idea that my daughter and I, at radically different points in life, could both be captivated by this singer. When Sarah did finally get to see her a few years later at Outside Lands, her friend told me she was crying. People relate to Lana Del Ray on a very deep level, especially young women for whom she is a model of empowerment, vulnerability and cool.
The song that really gets under my skin is Did You Know There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard? Like many others of her’s, it is a melodic, forlorn ballad that builds on its own dark momentum into a big, orchestral sound. In the song, a walled off part of an old tunnel prompts a deeper meditation on time, antiquity and being forgotten, with the haunting refrain echoing right into your soul, "When’s it gonna be my turn? Don't forget me."
Lana del Ray is a made up character who is somehow completely real, a femme fatale persona who stepped out of the imagination of one Elizabeth Grant, and into these dark worlds of doomed relationships, danger, violent boyfriends and bad girls. One of the really great relationship songs in her catalog is Mariners Apartment Complex, where she is breaking things down for her dude, “I'm the board, the lightning, the thunder, Kind of girl who's gonna make you wonder, Who you are and who you've been…” She’s in his head and she knows it, but there’s a lot more going on than just a power trip. Like many of her stories, this one details the complexities of a love affair in a down and dirty beach town, presumably Venice.
Brooklyn Baby is another cool relationship song and also a wry commentary on the current hipster moment: “Well, my boyfriend's in a band, He plays guitar while I sing Lou Reed, I've got feathers in my hair, I get down to Beat poetry.” In this one there is tension and competition between lovers, and artists, “Yeah, my boyfriend's pretty cool, But he's not as cool as me, 'Cause I'm a Brooklyn baby….”
Girlboss, vulnerability, violent men, a tone of resignation that lies beyond sadness, hypnotic melodies—so many contradictory things going on all at once. I asked GPT to sum it up, and it said: “nostalgic aesthetic exploring themes of love, loss, Americana, self-destruction, doomed romance, longing, self-destruction, beauty, sadness.” The robot is on the money, and really, that’s a helluva combination of things.
For artists like Lana who are unique, we say they are singular, a category of one. But then we music fans can’t help ourselves and we start comparing one performer to another, doing the inevitable work of categories and genres. So when I think about the similars, two femme fatales come to mind, Amy Winehouse and all the way back to Billie Holliday. Throw in Cat Power singing Lived in Bars too. Deep pathos of the tragic glamorous figure. That’s pretty good company. I have to mention Springsteen’s darkest work, off Nebraska and Darkness on the Edge of Town, similar stories of doomed characters and an unflinching look at low-down life.
It’s kind of stupid for me to even try to articulate in this little essay what remains an elusive sense of mystery. But I will say this: When the apocalypse is bearing down on us, as it surely will, I want to be listening to Lana Del Ray real loud because her songs capture an end of the world sense of finality, planetary and moody, reaching deep into fate and desire. "When's it gonna be my turn? Don't forget me….”
March 20, 2025
Yup, I was the creepy old guy at Memorial Auditorium with all the teenaged girls. What I remember most about that night is that Lana did the full 15-minute Venice Bitch, the statement song off Norman Fucking Rockwell, and she waded out into the crowd of screaming girls, singing that hypnotic song that contains the line, “Fresh out of fucks forever," and the gem of a line, “I dream in jeans and leather.” This English major also appreciates the Robert Frost line in the song. It was an epic moment.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/7MT1BvFsUZ4eeeRG8
I love the idea that my daughter and I, at radically different points in life, could both be captivated by this singer. When Sarah did finally get to see her a few years later at Outside Lands, her friend told me she was crying. People relate to Lana Del Ray on a very deep level, especially young women for whom she is a model of empowerment, vulnerability and cool.
The song that really gets under my skin is Did You Know There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard? Like many others of her’s, it is a melodic, forlorn ballad that builds on its own dark momentum into a big, orchestral sound. In the song, a walled off part of an old tunnel prompts a deeper meditation on time, antiquity and being forgotten, with the haunting refrain echoing right into your soul, "When’s it gonna be my turn? Don't forget me."
Lana del Ray is a made up character who is somehow completely real, a femme fatale persona who stepped out of the imagination of one Elizabeth Grant, and into these dark worlds of doomed relationships, danger, violent boyfriends and bad girls. One of the really great relationship songs in her catalog is Mariners Apartment Complex, where she is breaking things down for her dude, “I'm the board, the lightning, the thunder, Kind of girl who's gonna make you wonder, Who you are and who you've been…” She’s in his head and she knows it, but there’s a lot more going on than just a power trip. Like many of her stories, this one details the complexities of a love affair in a down and dirty beach town, presumably Venice.
Brooklyn Baby is another cool relationship song and also a wry commentary on the current hipster moment: “Well, my boyfriend's in a band, He plays guitar while I sing Lou Reed, I've got feathers in my hair, I get down to Beat poetry.” In this one there is tension and competition between lovers, and artists, “Yeah, my boyfriend's pretty cool, But he's not as cool as me, 'Cause I'm a Brooklyn baby….”
Girlboss, vulnerability, violent men, a tone of resignation that lies beyond sadness, hypnotic melodies—so many contradictory things going on all at once. I asked GPT to sum it up, and it said: “nostalgic aesthetic exploring themes of love, loss, Americana, self-destruction, doomed romance, longing, self-destruction, beauty, sadness.” The robot is on the money, and really, that’s a helluva combination of things.
For artists like Lana who are unique, we say they are singular, a category of one. But then we music fans can’t help ourselves and we start comparing one performer to another, doing the inevitable work of categories and genres. So when I think about the similars, two femme fatales come to mind, Amy Winehouse and all the way back to Billie Holliday. Throw in Cat Power singing Lived in Bars too. Deep pathos of the tragic glamorous figure. That’s pretty good company. I have to mention Springsteen’s darkest work, off Nebraska and Darkness on the Edge of Town, similar stories of doomed characters and an unflinching look at low-down life.
It’s kind of stupid for me to even try to articulate in this little essay what remains an elusive sense of mystery. But I will say this: When the apocalypse is bearing down on us, as it surely will, I want to be listening to Lana Del Ray real loud because her songs capture an end of the world sense of finality, planetary and moody, reaching deep into fate and desire. "When's it gonna be my turn? Don't forget me….”
March 20, 2025
A Pack of Americans in the City of Light, Paris 2018
For some reason, memories of a trip we took eight years ago have come back to me now. We were a pack of Americans in the City of Light: yours truly, Tourist Mister, my wife, our three kids, my wife’s sister’s family, and a couple of the kids’ friends. We were eleven in all, an ungainly mess of travellers on what in hindsight was a really great trip. The group vibe was fun and the kids were at a good age, in high school and college, and hell we were in Paris in springtime!
The most memorable parts of that trip for me weren’t the marquee destinations, but just our group sitting in sidewalk cafes or walking through the neighborhoods. We were Flâneurs, the French word we had learned for one who strolls through the city, connoisseurs of street life. We had picnics in parks and ate falafels and crepes in the little alleys of the Marais—consider the genius of the street crepe, folded and rolled into cones that you can eat as you walk.
We took a boat ride down the Seine on a Saturday evening that took us past all the families and couples having picnics on the banks…just spreading out a blanket at the river's edge. For Americans used to considerable leisure time apparatus this was striking in its simplicity. One evening, the kids vogued for a snapshot in front of the graffitied Serge Gainsbourgh house in Saint-Germain. He was the notorious mid-century French pop musician and provocateur. This is one of my favorite photos.
We took a boat ride down the Seine on a Saturday evening that took us past all the families and couples having picnics on the banks…just spreading out a blanket at the river's edge. For Americans used to considerable leisure time apparatus this was striking in its simplicity. One evening, the kids vogued for a snapshot in front of the graffitied Serge Gainsbourgh house in Saint-Germain. He was the notorious mid-century French pop musician and provocateur. This is one of my favorite photos.
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My daughter Audrey and I broke away from the group one morning and rode the Metro across town to see Jim Morrison’s grave at the famous Pere Lachaise cemetery. The only other people at the grave site were this rocker Polish couple in leather jackets. She was weeping and they were taking pulls off a pint of Jack Daniels. They shared some with us and she started singing in a heavy Polish accent, “Won’t you show me the way to the next whiskey bar, oh don’t ask why…”
And the museums. We saw the impressionists at Musée d'Orsay and learned how these now-famous artists were once the punk-ass insurgents who threatened the established salon culture in the late 1800s. We battled the crush of selfie-takers to see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. She really was the original fame whore, way before the Kardashians, famous for being famous. We saw Rodnin’s The Gates of Hell, and also the massive Wings of Victory statue, which remains a strangely emotional relic through which the ancients expressed their heavenly aspirations.
Apart from the tourist mainstays, a couple of things about this trip have stayed with me. When we got to the hotel the first day, I had gone down to the lobby and was sitting at a sidewalk table out front, waiting for the rest of the group to start exploring. It was late afternoon and people were coming home from work, an evening parade of commuters, motorbikes, scooters, and bicycles of all kinds. I flashed back on how my mom would say the French people have a style that is unique to them, how they carry themselves, not an affectation, but the real thing. Sitting there, I noted the cool outfits, scarves and hats and mixture of fashion elements, but there was an unmistakable independence and confidence and style, so what she had told me all made sense in that moment.
Maybe the most lasting takeaway from the Paris trip for me is something that happened on the cab ride coming in from the airport, and it’s taken me this long to understand it. As today’s tourism can be a transactional consumer experience, this is a good lesson.
We were all sort of in a daze from the transatlantic flight and staggered through the airport to where we were met by a kindly taxi driver with longish white hair. He guided us through the chaotic ground transport gangway and loaded us into his minivan. While we were idling in traffic he nonchalantly asked, “Can we talk about Paris?" This type of spiel is usually angling for a tip, so I was a bit wary. As he drove he spun out an understated narrative in his halting English, which was eloquent in an unintentional way.
He said, “You just say bonjour and people will be nice to you. There are millions of people in Paris...if you don’t talk to anybody, nobody will talk to you. If you smile, Paris will smile back at you.” And in an unassuming way the dude’s casual banter hit on something universal about tourism and life and people, and his advice has stayed with me. Thanks mister anonymous taxi driver, Merci chauffeur de taxi, Merci La Ville-Lumière!
May 28, 2025
The tourist is a deferential character. He outsources the vindication of his experiences to the ethnologist, to postcards, to conventional wisdom about what you are or are not supposed to do in a place. This deference, this “openness to experience,” is exactly what renders the tourist incapable of experience. Emerson confessed, “I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated.” He speaks for every tourist who has stood before a monument, or a painting, or a falcon, and demanded herself to feel something. —Agnes Callard
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