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
|
|
|
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
April 12, 2023
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.
|
|
© Copyright Confluence Studio. All rights reserved.
|