11/15/2008
I was lucky enough to have a feature on my free-handing compositional interests (writing in a journal as much as possible) in the new issue of Stylus magazine. I was slightly chagrined to see how many $3,000 pens they lovingly photograph in there, since I basically write with a supermarket G2 plastic pen! But I did mention I had a jones for the old Rotring Core monster pen. But I was way out of my fancy-pen league. As a side note: you can snicker at the ghastly author picture. Not that it's a bad photo--it's not. My photographer is skilled and wonderful. It's...me. I look like somebody's hard-drinking degenerate swinger grandma. I keep telling myself I look like, oh, Bullitt, or maybe, you know, Jack White or somebody. But, no. More like the demented Mrs. Paddlegate, the nude escapee from the Bluebonnet Rest Home.
But my heart is pure and I'm a good kisser.
See ya,
L
Kobayashi Matsuo Urrea: The Tour Haiku, Vol. III
But my heart is pure and I'm a good kisser.
See ya,
L
11/12/2008
this burning moment
I resolve to inhabit
until the next one
#
first thought, best thought
the masters have often said
oh! I have no thought
#
friendly notebook--
when all the world's against me
you open your arms.
#
en el espejo
espero ver la cara
de mi difunta
#
Critics know nothin'--
when I need to love writing
I ask ol' Beat Jack.
#
expressway in rain
fighting the clock to O'Hare
one last autumn flight.
#
abandoned airport--
automatice walkway runs,
bearing only ghosts
#
I don't find poems
in neon tubes, empty chairs--
wait, maybe I do.
#
old man at counter
ordering ticketing crew
to change the weather
#
"I'm not freaking out:
woman on cell phone tonight--
"I'm just saying this."
#
aspens face winter--
before snow, bare white tree trunks--
why do I see God?
#
three Mexican maids
bring me more hotel coffee
Spanish is our summer
#
wish my handwriting
were handsomer than it is--
hell, I can't read this!
#
Onitsura laughs--
Kerouac pours Basho's tea--
Buson paints a crow.
#
walking up the muntain--
in Basho's sunlit river
trout stalk fishermen.
#
the writers gather
before rows of microphones
lonely for silence
#
the gift bags contain
chocolate and vino--
I take an apple
#
wild turkey in yard
was never deeply impressed
the provost called me
#
Dear Academics--
I confess I thought of elk
all through your meeting.
#
slant ontogenies:
memes of gnomic poetics--
please someone kill me.
#
must have gone insane--
told a workshop of strangers
I loved all of them
#
Tender young writer
you face savage storms alone--
will you bend or break?
***
Home now. Family's playing Wii. I'm drinking coffee. Trying to finish the semester. Will probably venture one final round of tour haiku.
Every time I am in the frozen sky, I am thinking of you.
XXX, L
Detraction Distraction: No Traction for that Faction
I resolve to inhabit
until the next one
#
first thought, best thought
the masters have often said
oh! I have no thought
#
friendly notebook--
when all the world's against me
you open your arms.
#
en el espejo
espero ver la cara
de mi difunta
#
Critics know nothin'--
when I need to love writing
I ask ol' Beat Jack.
#
expressway in rain
fighting the clock to O'Hare
one last autumn flight.
#
abandoned airport--
automatice walkway runs,
bearing only ghosts
#
I don't find poems
in neon tubes, empty chairs--
wait, maybe I do.
#
old man at counter
ordering ticketing crew
to change the weather
#
"I'm not freaking out:
woman on cell phone tonight--
"I'm just saying this."
#
aspens face winter--
before snow, bare white tree trunks--
why do I see God?
#
three Mexican maids
bring me more hotel coffee
Spanish is our summer
#
wish my handwriting
were handsomer than it is--
hell, I can't read this!
#
Onitsura laughs--
Kerouac pours Basho's tea--
Buson paints a crow.
#
walking up the muntain--
in Basho's sunlit river
trout stalk fishermen.
#
the writers gather
before rows of microphones
lonely for silence
#
the gift bags contain
chocolate and vino--
I take an apple
#
wild turkey in yard
was never deeply impressed
the provost called me
#
Dear Academics--
I confess I thought of elk
all through your meeting.
#
slant ontogenies:
memes of gnomic poetics--
please someone kill me.
#
must have gone insane--
told a workshop of strangers
I loved all of them
#
Tender young writer
you face savage storms alone--
will you bend or break?
***
Home now. Family's playing Wii. I'm drinking coffee. Trying to finish the semester. Will probably venture one final round of tour haiku.
Every time I am in the frozen sky, I am thinking of you.
XXX, L
11/10/2008
Just got back from Bend, Oregon. I attended the Nature of Words writing festival. I taught two workshops there, did a reading, and attended events. Faithful readers of this blog know already that if I mention famous writers, some helpful sort will tell me I am a star-whore. (I kinda dug, in a weird way, the last guy who said I was a degenerate like "Fat Elvis." Uh....YES!) But these are the people I work with when I'm not alone in a room with the writing machine. Other writers. So be advised, there were famous peeps there, my homies. Don't freak out!
One last event left on the grueling (at times) 2008 Endless Tour. Phoenix. In December. And I am done and vanish from sight until February. Hiding out!
The galleys came in for Into the Beautiful North while I was in Bend. It is quite beautiful--Geoff Shandler and the Little,Brown army have once again made a pretty package for my words. I feel like Pink Floyd must have felt, with amazing graphics making my own work seem better. I stayed up till 3:00 in the morning, re-reading it all in one go (no, Fat Elvis--it wasn't a self-ego-stroke). It was my last chance to make sure I hadn't perpetrated something on you readers that I wasn't proud of, and I am glad to say I was proud of it. It's my small quality control policy--if I can't stand it, I won't ask you to put up with it, either. We'll post the cover here soon, and you can expect the book itself in April. Then on to Hummingbird II, if I can muster the super-human strength for that little party.
Anyway, Bend: beuatiful place. I was lucky enough to go on a good brisk hike along the Fall River, into the hills, to the subterranean source of its headwaters. Walking through snow, walking along the clearest water I have seen in a long time, watching as the bed of the river wobbled and changed colors in the fall sunlight. (Some of you will recall that this is one of my personal writing rules, from Basho--writing that is as clear as the bed of a shallow river seen through clear water. Well, there it was!) Famous Writer Alert: Craig Childs, one of my pals, was at Nature of Words, and when I told him about the hike, he said, "Did you want to take off your clothes and jump in the water?" And I realized that was exactly what I wanted to do--something I am not prone to, especially if there are witnesses present. But Craig knew exactly how drunk the water and the sun and the snow and the silence and the fallen logs that had sprouted slim long gardens down their lengths made me feel.
Among the writers there were the great poet, Judith Barrington, the eternally brilliant Chuck Bowden, Pam Houston who hates fancy dinners as much as I do, poet/slam-poet Patricia Smith (we sang "Ebony and Ivory" to the crowd). The brilliant young Mexican poet, Ekiwah. Many great souls and talents. But of them all, none is greater than my beloved Ursula K. Le Guin.
Ursula is the one who found me, as a boy. She came to UCSD as a visiting writer in my senior year. She accepted the story I had written about my father's death for an anthology. (Edges, Pocket Books--if you ever find one, let me know!) She lifted me from despair and dread and launched me on this...career. Oddly, right before I left for Bend, I was rummaging through my stuff (uh, I guess a library would call it an archive). I found the actual mimeograph master I had written that story on back in college. Man, that's old. Might as well have scratched it on a slate with charcoal. But there it was, all blurry, but with the writing workshop professorial corrections still scrawled on it.
I sprung it on her at my reading, and I read the story in her honor--for the last time ever. I retired it that night forever. (If you're keeping score, it's in Six Kinds of Sky.) A fitting tribute, I thought, to the great Ursula. Like burning your guitar--what else can you offer?
Well, I guess I'll hear about this. Really, it's okay--pro or con, it's okay. I do what I do, and I have my reasons. Sometimes my reasons are as simple as a crow's--that object is shiny and I'm gonna pick it up...or it looks darned tasty and I'm gonna eat it. It has been my folly to try to share the writer's life with you over the years--good or bad, silly or profound, in success and, in the much greater in abundance, failure.
I am changing this blog for 2009, just because the world around me has changed. But I will continue being exactly who I am. I am way, way too old to change now. I have my paths through the woods, and I have my favorite places, and I go there and drop antlers every season. And then , in the not too distant furutre, I will lay my bones down there too. I am so happy that you go with me--and that I have gone with others, like Le Guin. It's a good thing. I am not going to stop.
Writing is stronger than badness.
Writing is stronger than silence.
I am stronger than dirt.
See you in Phoenix, sports fans.
L
Kobayashi Urrea's Tour Haiku, Vol. 2
One last event left on the grueling (at times) 2008 Endless Tour. Phoenix. In December. And I am done and vanish from sight until February. Hiding out!
The galleys came in for Into the Beautiful North while I was in Bend. It is quite beautiful--Geoff Shandler and the Little,Brown army have once again made a pretty package for my words. I feel like Pink Floyd must have felt, with amazing graphics making my own work seem better. I stayed up till 3:00 in the morning, re-reading it all in one go (no, Fat Elvis--it wasn't a self-ego-stroke). It was my last chance to make sure I hadn't perpetrated something on you readers that I wasn't proud of, and I am glad to say I was proud of it. It's my small quality control policy--if I can't stand it, I won't ask you to put up with it, either. We'll post the cover here soon, and you can expect the book itself in April. Then on to Hummingbird II, if I can muster the super-human strength for that little party.
Anyway, Bend: beuatiful place. I was lucky enough to go on a good brisk hike along the Fall River, into the hills, to the subterranean source of its headwaters. Walking through snow, walking along the clearest water I have seen in a long time, watching as the bed of the river wobbled and changed colors in the fall sunlight. (Some of you will recall that this is one of my personal writing rules, from Basho--writing that is as clear as the bed of a shallow river seen through clear water. Well, there it was!) Famous Writer Alert: Craig Childs, one of my pals, was at Nature of Words, and when I told him about the hike, he said, "Did you want to take off your clothes and jump in the water?" And I realized that was exactly what I wanted to do--something I am not prone to, especially if there are witnesses present. But Craig knew exactly how drunk the water and the sun and the snow and the silence and the fallen logs that had sprouted slim long gardens down their lengths made me feel.
Among the writers there were the great poet, Judith Barrington, the eternally brilliant Chuck Bowden, Pam Houston who hates fancy dinners as much as I do, poet/slam-poet Patricia Smith (we sang "Ebony and Ivory" to the crowd). The brilliant young Mexican poet, Ekiwah. Many great souls and talents. But of them all, none is greater than my beloved Ursula K. Le Guin.
Ursula is the one who found me, as a boy. She came to UCSD as a visiting writer in my senior year. She accepted the story I had written about my father's death for an anthology. (Edges, Pocket Books--if you ever find one, let me know!) She lifted me from despair and dread and launched me on this...career. Oddly, right before I left for Bend, I was rummaging through my stuff (uh, I guess a library would call it an archive). I found the actual mimeograph master I had written that story on back in college. Man, that's old. Might as well have scratched it on a slate with charcoal. But there it was, all blurry, but with the writing workshop professorial corrections still scrawled on it.
I sprung it on her at my reading, and I read the story in her honor--for the last time ever. I retired it that night forever. (If you're keeping score, it's in Six Kinds of Sky.) A fitting tribute, I thought, to the great Ursula. Like burning your guitar--what else can you offer?
Well, I guess I'll hear about this. Really, it's okay--pro or con, it's okay. I do what I do, and I have my reasons. Sometimes my reasons are as simple as a crow's--that object is shiny and I'm gonna pick it up...or it looks darned tasty and I'm gonna eat it. It has been my folly to try to share the writer's life with you over the years--good or bad, silly or profound, in success and, in the much greater in abundance, failure.
I am changing this blog for 2009, just because the world around me has changed. But I will continue being exactly who I am. I am way, way too old to change now. I have my paths through the woods, and I have my favorite places, and I go there and drop antlers every season. And then , in the not too distant furutre, I will lay my bones down there too. I am so happy that you go with me--and that I have gone with others, like Le Guin. It's a good thing. I am not going to stop.
Writing is stronger than badness.
Writing is stronger than silence.
I am stronger than dirt.
See you in Phoenix, sports fans.
L
10/31/2008
pale flight attendant--
brutal weather for flying--
airplane smells like pee
#
six dollar snack box,
Kevin Costner comedy--
below, sleeping land
#
we share small tables,
students in the afternoon--
thank God for coffee
#
Hummingbird's Daughter
has never abandoned me
on Devil's Highway
#
there are miracles:
seventeen small syllables--
room for a lifetime
#
100 plane flights
and all year disappointed--
still no UFOs
#
Mexican-hater
puts immigration sign down--
can't be late for church
#
91 year old
buys my book on border death,
says "I can take it"
#
Republican group
ascertains I'm not illegal--
hugs at the country club
#
until enemies
say my kind should drop and die
love is everywhere
#
revolutionists
keep coming to my readings
to save me from God
#
If I can get home,
Cinderella will warm me
as wind strips the trees.
Adios, Amigos!
Kobayashi Matsuo Urrea
Selected Book Tour Haiku by Kobayashi Urrea
brutal weather for flying--
airplane smells like pee
#
six dollar snack box,
Kevin Costner comedy--
below, sleeping land
#
we share small tables,
students in the afternoon--
thank God for coffee
#
Hummingbird's Daughter
has never abandoned me
on Devil's Highway
#
there are miracles:
seventeen small syllables--
room for a lifetime
#
100 plane flights
and all year disappointed--
still no UFOs
#
Mexican-hater
puts immigration sign down--
can't be late for church
#
91 year old
buys my book on border death,
says "I can take it"
#
Republican group
ascertains I'm not illegal--
hugs at the country club
#
until enemies
say my kind should drop and die
love is everywhere
#
revolutionists
keep coming to my readings
to save me from God
#
If I can get home,
Cinderella will warm me
as wind strips the trees.
Adios, Amigos!
Kobayashi Matsuo Urrea
10/30/2008
Not fortune, not fame--
to silence desperation
I took up the pen
#
expect four hundred--
twenty-five people come in--
outside, early snow
#
hotel room again,
the traveler leaves no trace--
sheets on crumpled bed
#
once upon a time
I wrote it all for Prudence--
fans come: can't reach her
#
famous writers there--
if you put it on your blog
people call you pig
#
Pennsylvania sky--
can't go home till Denver's done--
airplane never comes
#
immigration talk--
expecting angry shouting--
1,000 new friends
#
must not have got laid--
last year brought lover to boast,
this year denounced me
#
miracles abound
strangers come up to hug me
my name in their books
#
flying to Denver--
last week was Indiana--
leaves already red
#
wounded vet lifts pants--
wait-listed grannies inspect--
"At least you can walk."
#
"I hate haiku, man!"
Until I met Issa's ghost,
I hated it, too.
#
I worked the toilets
of public bathrooms scrubbing--
all gratitude now
#
Bill Clinton's coming
after Sarah Palin leaves--
I miss the whole thing
#
copy-editing
in this midnight hotel room--
Letterman and I
#
I can't wake up, I
can't wake up, I can't wake up,
I cannot wake up.
#
Tijuana to here
is a good long walking road--
a hard road, red road.
I'll post more in a few days. Let me sleep first. Thank you, Seattle, Penn State, and the kind Republican audience in Denver. And thanks to my long-suffering UIC students who forgave me for all these journeys. Almost done--just Oregon and Arizona to go...
Kobayashi!
Smoke on the Water
to silence desperation
I took up the pen
#
expect four hundred--
twenty-five people come in--
outside, early snow
#
hotel room again,
the traveler leaves no trace--
sheets on crumpled bed
#
once upon a time
I wrote it all for Prudence--
fans come: can't reach her
#
famous writers there--
if you put it on your blog
people call you pig
#
Pennsylvania sky--
can't go home till Denver's done--
airplane never comes
#
immigration talk--
expecting angry shouting--
1,000 new friends
#
must not have got laid--
last year brought lover to boast,
this year denounced me
#
miracles abound
strangers come up to hug me
my name in their books
#
flying to Denver--
last week was Indiana--
leaves already red
#
wounded vet lifts pants--
wait-listed grannies inspect--
"At least you can walk."
#
"I hate haiku, man!"
Until I met Issa's ghost,
I hated it, too.
#
I worked the toilets
of public bathrooms scrubbing--
all gratitude now
#
Bill Clinton's coming
after Sarah Palin leaves--
I miss the whole thing
#
copy-editing
in this midnight hotel room--
Letterman and I
#
I can't wake up, I
can't wake up, I can't wake up,
I cannot wake up.
#
Tijuana to here
is a good long walking road--
a hard road, red road.
I'll post more in a few days. Let me sleep first. Thank you, Seattle, Penn State, and the kind Republican audience in Denver. And thanks to my long-suffering UIC students who forgave me for all these journeys. Almost done--just Oregon and Arizona to go...
Kobayashi!
10/20/2008
I got this e-mail from someone called "Puff of Smoke." He or she assured me that you all love me, and you all love my work, but that I am doing things beneath me by "name-dropping those more famous" than me and talking about money. As per, I would guess, "Wastelander V." Bummer, dude! I wrote right away and asked the old Who question, "Who are you?" Long time readers of this blog will know there was no answer.
Sometimes you're on the peaks, and sometimes you're in the valleys. Lately, I have been on the wtin peaks of extended and painful oral surgery. I got Puff's message while drooling blood into wads of malodorous cotton batting, so I am grateful for the effort to cheer me up! (My dentist is more famous than I am in the town where I live, so I won't drop his name.) In between the surgeries (is there any worse thing you can hear when you're in the chair and the dentist has your mouth pried all the way open than: "Get me the scalpels"???), I had to do a panel in Chicago with...DOH! I almost dropped their names! They were famous guys! Then flew in the morning to Muncie, Indiana, for a lovely visit. Sadly for me, I had to get on the road at 4:45 a.m. to get back to Chi to teach my class. Then, back to the scalpels and the blood and Puff.
It's funny, because when the e-mail came, I read it to the house. My close personal friends, Johnny Depp and Will Farrell were over, helping me count money. Will was like, "Oh darn it, Puff of Smoke! I'm, like, so pissed right now! I was up to $730,000, and you made me lose count!" Fortunately, my former sweetheart--my prom date when I won Homecoming King--Oprah, was in the other room and didn't hear all the fuss. She hit me on the intercom and was like, "What do I do with these piles of tens and twenties?" I was like: "Toss 'em out! I make SO MUCH MONEY that I don't have time for chump-change!" All of a sudden, I got a call from my screening room. I recently converted seven rooms of my 38 bedroom manse to a home theatre. It was Shakira, down there with Emerson, Lake and Palmer. They were so peeved that Quentin Tarantino was late getting his new flick over. But I didn't mind--I was secretly holding off till my dawg, Pope Benedict, got over here in his hooptie.
Leaving tomorrow for Seattle. From there to Penn State. From there to a town hall meeting in Denver. I hope to do a good job, though I'm tired and achy and, well, guarded. It has been a strange year, I must admit. (Oh...NOOO...I can't stop myself--I MUST NAME-DROP!!! I once met Stephen King! I called him Steve!!!!) (I never met BOB DYLAN, but I saw his picture on his records!!!!!) (I never met COLONEL SANDERS, but I love me some crispy chicken!!!!!!!!!) Oh, hey--check it out. I just made $947.58 writing that.
Trying to get through my semester: that's really my main concern right now. You and the students. I leave you with a great stanza I just sent out to my writer pals:
What do we care
if life is a joke.
We'll give it a big kiss
and give it a poke.
Death wears a big hat
'cause he's a big bloke.
We're only living this instant.
--Elvis Costello
(I don't know him.)
The Wastelander V
Sometimes you're on the peaks, and sometimes you're in the valleys. Lately, I have been on the wtin peaks of extended and painful oral surgery. I got Puff's message while drooling blood into wads of malodorous cotton batting, so I am grateful for the effort to cheer me up! (My dentist is more famous than I am in the town where I live, so I won't drop his name.) In between the surgeries (is there any worse thing you can hear when you're in the chair and the dentist has your mouth pried all the way open than: "Get me the scalpels"???), I had to do a panel in Chicago with...DOH! I almost dropped their names! They were famous guys! Then flew in the morning to Muncie, Indiana, for a lovely visit. Sadly for me, I had to get on the road at 4:45 a.m. to get back to Chi to teach my class. Then, back to the scalpels and the blood and Puff.
It's funny, because when the e-mail came, I read it to the house. My close personal friends, Johnny Depp and Will Farrell were over, helping me count money. Will was like, "Oh darn it, Puff of Smoke! I'm, like, so pissed right now! I was up to $730,000, and you made me lose count!" Fortunately, my former sweetheart--my prom date when I won Homecoming King--Oprah, was in the other room and didn't hear all the fuss. She hit me on the intercom and was like, "What do I do with these piles of tens and twenties?" I was like: "Toss 'em out! I make SO MUCH MONEY that I don't have time for chump-change!" All of a sudden, I got a call from my screening room. I recently converted seven rooms of my 38 bedroom manse to a home theatre. It was Shakira, down there with Emerson, Lake and Palmer. They were so peeved that Quentin Tarantino was late getting his new flick over. But I didn't mind--I was secretly holding off till my dawg, Pope Benedict, got over here in his hooptie.
Leaving tomorrow for Seattle. From there to Penn State. From there to a town hall meeting in Denver. I hope to do a good job, though I'm tired and achy and, well, guarded. It has been a strange year, I must admit. (Oh...NOOO...I can't stop myself--I MUST NAME-DROP!!! I once met Stephen King! I called him Steve!!!!) (I never met BOB DYLAN, but I saw his picture on his records!!!!!) (I never met COLONEL SANDERS, but I love me some crispy chicken!!!!!!!!!) Oh, hey--check it out. I just made $947.58 writing that.
Trying to get through my semester: that's really my main concern right now. You and the students. I leave you with a great stanza I just sent out to my writer pals:
What do we care
if life is a joke.
We'll give it a big kiss
and give it a poke.
Death wears a big hat
'cause he's a big bloke.
We're only living this instant.
--Elvis Costello
(I don't know him.)
10/16/2008
California Dreaming
[The Wastelanders are a form of prose-sketching I invented on the road. You can find all the sections of this sequence in the blog archives from this summer. Others are scattered in the deeper archives from last year and before.]
Last night I dropped my chains
and walked away.
My eyes were almost blind,
and yet I saw
against eternity’s blue slope
a shadow like myself,
pilgrim of blood and gold.
--John Haines
Sunday June 22
All the leaves are brown,
And the sky is gray….
#
Going to beloved Barney’s Beanery
on the tattered tail-end of Route 66,
unholy Santa Monica Blvd.
surrounded by the ghosts of insane David Thomson/Rick Elias 20 yr old
Hollywood living—nights of The Whiskey & The Rainbow---all night prowling
talking to street people, watching Gregg Allman nod off in midnight diner,
talking to hookers on corners about going to London some day,
pulling practical jokes in the street
& being rousted by cops at three a.m., tussling w/ punks
on Sunset strip.
Now, here
to eat brunch w/ our hero, Mike Cendejas—engineer
of my new movie career.
Auspicious e-mail today: Luis Mandoki
is going to Aspen for a week
to do Hummingbird prep work
w/ Antonio Banderas.
I said, “Gee—I was in Aspen a couple of time this year.
He didn’t come see me!” Ha ha.
Tony—call Luigi.
The girls wanna talk to you.
#
Barney’s, my favorite breakfast omelette.
Rock stars present—allegedly, that dude over there
is from Bowling For Soup. MTV in da house!
Megan’s stoked—Cendejas could care less.
We talk good stuff and laugh a lot and gossip.
We can’t believe that we got the van
into that parking space
and neither can the valet
who is mad we got there before he did
and aren’t paying him big Sunday tips.
#
We proceed to La Brea Tar Pits and groove on the blurp
brubb blapth of the oozing tar bubbles.
Black bones & a sweet madwoman
who follows me around babbling, “Gosh! I don’t know where
all this sketching talent came from! You take a class
& suddenly it’s just sketch and sketch and sketch! And
this place is so arty! So interesting, don’t you think?
All this amazing extinct wildlife right here in Los Angeles! Elephants!
Camels! Dire wolves! Why, I could just go on all day! Is that your child?
In fact, to tell you the truth,
just this morning
I was thinking.…”
I engage my Buddha Nature and exude love and compassion and joy
& beat it the hell out of there.
#
Million hour drive
to idyllic Santa Barbara—
ridgelines designed by Dali
covered in vast white propellers.
To the Fess Parker DoubleTree Resort.
A $750 room
that smells like a dirty diaper.
Out for a wild
beach ramble—Chayo in the waves
like a porpoise. C walking, smiling.
E shirtless, trying to get a hot drumline tan.
M snapping pix like a machine. And me, up to my ass
(sorry upright Texas lady) in ice water
catching all those crazy little sand crabs
--coquinas?—that body surf
up the beach.
#
When Cinderella and I walk into the lobby to see
what’s up w/ the Book Festival, several people
do an Oh-My-God-That’s-Him double-take.
It spooks me: I think someone famous is behind me, then I think
my zipper must be open.
I hide behind C at the Starbuck’s and avoid eye contact.
I thought I was invisible. I used to be invisible. What happened?
In the bookstore, I see I’m on the cover of the program.
I’m featured in the new issue of THE WRITER magazine.
All my books are stacked on the tables. Oh, OK.
Success happened.
All over the hotel, people stare at us as we walk by.
Smile, Dear.
It’s The Public.
#
We walk past a suite on the ground floor after supper
& there’s a crowded cocktail party in there
& the whole party stops and the folks inside
watch us through the window.
“Keep walking,” I tell her.
#
I feel like a giant ground sloth recently climbed out
of the tar pits.
#
When I went to dinner, I missed Joseph Wambaugh.
The waitress didn’t know what food they were serving.
She had to read the menu to figure out what we were ordering.
We waited an hour and forty-five minutes
for our food to come.
WWFPD?
What Would Fess Parker Do?
#
Still, the resort is physically lovely.
Intoxicating us w/ flowers & vines & palms
& beach across the street.
It aint
my day job.
#
Monday, June 23
Waves on the shore.
George Carlin died last night.
Tim Russert died at the start of the trip.
How can it be the perfect
seaside morning? All sun, all
cool ocean breeze?
A genius dies—the world
doesn’t stop.
It’s the same for a reviled paisano
broiling to death on the border.
Millionaire. Artiste.
Child. Soldier. Political pariah.
Sun comes up.
Surfers surf.
All equal, all concerned
w/ lunch, w/ bowel movements,
cheap gas, beer prices.
everybody in church
hoping to come out, at least,
even.
The tide
doesn’t care.
#
Call from our house-sitter: he came home
to find our bathroom remodeling crew
on the couch w/ the big screen going,
watching Polish TV on the satellite.
We coulnd’t stop laughing.
There is something so
pure
about that!
#
JUST MY LUCK DEPT. # 712:
Eric & I take Chayo on a beach walk of epic
sand-crab, pelican-chasing, body-surfing scope
for a mile down to the pier and a mile back.
Feeling smug because Cindy and Megan are doing laundry.
& because Meg is sunburned bright plastic red.
Coquinas? Coquilles?
Chayo calls them “Cocaines.”
“Hey Dad!” she shouts over and over.
“You want some
cocaines?!?”
Passersby glance our way
w/ a certain curiosity.
So
C & M call.
“Guess who we just met.”
Who.
“John McCain!”
Liars!!!
we shout.
There they were, washing out the skivvies, and
McCain ambles by and says, “Hey,
how ya doin’?” on his way
to the elevator.
We beat it back to the resort to get in on
presidential politics—hummingbirds everywhere
in the red blossoms. Secret Service agents
are suddenly everywhere, too—even the “Mexican gardener”
has a wire going to his ear. The “handyman” in coveralls
has a wire in his ear and talks
into his jumpsuit. SPYWORLD!
They surround a swarthy fellow at the pool. One agent in a blue blazer
holds up a cell phone and snaps a picture of the sunbather.
“Say cheese,” he says. Then they roust the guy.
His blonde cutie sidekick stands there as if entreating the heavens
to give her some explanation. Spy-bots are all over the pool enclosure.
Suddenly,
the dark-skinned dude busts loose and runs away!
Secret Service agents scurry after him—running in neat
straight lines.
Holy moly!
It’some kind of terrorist event right next to the deep end!
#
McCain’s in room 331.
We’re in 254.
Cinderella wants to go over there
and give him my books.
#
CNN & MSNBC pool reporters
Slump around looking miserable & dragging bags.
Black SUVs line up.
Tourists are going, “Who’s that?
Is that somebody?”
We know,
but we won’t tell.
It’s a matter of National Security!
JOHN McCAIN DOES MY LAUNDRY.
#
We send the kids off to ride rented bikes
& attend the Book Festival cocktail party.
All kinds of nice people corner me & say all kinds
of awesomely nice & generous things about me & my
books, & none of them seem to care one bit
about McCain, but I can’t shake the sense
that real history is here with us now & it isn’t
me.
I am all AW SHUCKS when so many people tell me Hummingbird
is on their list of top 5 all-time favorite books, or top 10
or top 20, unless it’s a guy w/ a beer who says forget that
healer bidness—that Devil’s H book is the top-5 of all time!
What do you say?
Sip white wine & hang on to yr wife, wishing
the wine were Coke Zero, & you say, “Uh, well, thanx,
but did you see John McCain today?”
We leave our wine glasses on a table
& sneak away.
Tired & sun-fried.
Ten minutes of quiet time in the room—
no chance to strip naked as monkeys and ricochet off the walls—
when the kids come tumbling in loudly, in full-
argument mode.
“We want room service!” the young billionaires announce.
I watch George Carlin testimonials.
I don’t imagine he’d have swell things to share w/ McCain.
Napa fires. Big Sure fires. We started this trip
skirting floods, then we escaped tornadoes, now
we’ll drive thru massive conflagrations.
It’s the Armageddon Tour of the American West.
#
Out on the balcony.
Perfect Pacific wind
coming thru palms, carrying the smell of salt. Roses,
bougainvillea, honeysuckle, geraniums.
Succulents, my favorites,
grow as big as Christmas turkeys.
I have no shame, man. Buy me a $750 room. Get me an itty bitty
stucco cottage over by the water? I’ll register Republican,
vote the party ticket straight across
& to heck with it.
Let’s retire.
#
Invasion of the Bird-Men!
Evening.
On the walkways outside our room,
Secret Service guys
line up, one every 50 yards
all across the grounds.
They whistle to each other.
Whistles move down the line.
Then they start to walk, single-file
while a woman in a black dress
circles the pool looking for evil scuba divers.
Our kids risk imprisonment by rushing to the lobby
to spy on the spies.
Supper: fish.
Dirty Jobs on TV. Kids
doing the dirty job of spying on the candidate.
Cinderella on the laptop, doing the edits and cuts
Geoff, the Little, Brown editor-god has asked of my novel.
Talk about a dirty job.
I’m on the balcony.
iPod.
Thinking: nothing.
#
Late night: room still smells weird.
Eric says someone hid a dead body under the bed.
Cindy & Megan, the mature members of the crew,
sleep. But E, Chayo & I have a screaming gasping
insomniac laughing fit.
It begins when I say something apparently demented,
and E quips,
“Man, that’s a real smile
& shake your head moment.”
Then he says,
“OK, Dude—just promise me
you won’t get up and axe-murder us
in our sleep!”
Just when we pipe down, Chayo announces:
“I’m gonna call Senator McCain and say,
‘Mr. McCain, can you smell the poo?’”
#
Tuesday June 24
Cinderella and I, out early while the kids sleep in.
We take our morning constitutional for a couple of miles
along the sea.
On the sand, beside and below the pier,
an eloquent bit of—art? Protest? Scamming?
Faith? I don’t know what it was.
Homeless people had set up a sleeping bag, open, like a
table cloth. Red plaid part facing up. At one end, a cardboard box.
Up-ended. On the box, a paper plate, plastic fork, spoon, knife. Paper cup
holding wildflowers & weeds. Set up as though dinner were about
to be served.
Oh, and in the middle of the plate was a stone.
A sign on the blanket/sleeping bag:
SIMPLY HUNGRY.
#
Sitting at the near end of the sleeping bag,
there was a plastic bucket
w/ another sign:
TRY YOUR LUCK.
Three or four quarters
scattered in the sand around it.
As our London pals often say—Brilliant.
No sound but sea birds
and waves.
#
My talk tonight at the Book Fest:
home run. Sold out all their books.
Signed books for so long
I got kicked out of the room.
Totally owned it.
Even though a woman asked me
if I was Megan’s grand-father,
I go to bed spent
& high.
[The Wastelanders are a form of prose-sketching I invented on the road. You can find all the sections of this sequence in the blog archives from this summer. Others are scattered in the deeper archives from last year and before.]
Last night I dropped my chains
and walked away.
My eyes were almost blind,
and yet I saw
against eternity’s blue slope
a shadow like myself,
pilgrim of blood and gold.
--John Haines
Sunday June 22
All the leaves are brown,
And the sky is gray….
#
Going to beloved Barney’s Beanery
on the tattered tail-end of Route 66,
unholy Santa Monica Blvd.
surrounded by the ghosts of insane David Thomson/Rick Elias 20 yr old
Hollywood living—nights of The Whiskey & The Rainbow---all night prowling
talking to street people, watching Gregg Allman nod off in midnight diner,
talking to hookers on corners about going to London some day,
pulling practical jokes in the street
& being rousted by cops at three a.m., tussling w/ punks
on Sunset strip.
Now, here
to eat brunch w/ our hero, Mike Cendejas—engineer
of my new movie career.
Auspicious e-mail today: Luis Mandoki
is going to Aspen for a week
to do Hummingbird prep work
w/ Antonio Banderas.
I said, “Gee—I was in Aspen a couple of time this year.
He didn’t come see me!” Ha ha.
Tony—call Luigi.
The girls wanna talk to you.
#
Barney’s, my favorite breakfast omelette.
Rock stars present—allegedly, that dude over there
is from Bowling For Soup. MTV in da house!
Megan’s stoked—Cendejas could care less.
We talk good stuff and laugh a lot and gossip.
We can’t believe that we got the van
into that parking space
and neither can the valet
who is mad we got there before he did
and aren’t paying him big Sunday tips.
#
We proceed to La Brea Tar Pits and groove on the blurp
brubb blapth of the oozing tar bubbles.
Black bones & a sweet madwoman
who follows me around babbling, “Gosh! I don’t know where
all this sketching talent came from! You take a class
& suddenly it’s just sketch and sketch and sketch! And
this place is so arty! So interesting, don’t you think?
All this amazing extinct wildlife right here in Los Angeles! Elephants!
Camels! Dire wolves! Why, I could just go on all day! Is that your child?
In fact, to tell you the truth,
just this morning
I was thinking.…”
I engage my Buddha Nature and exude love and compassion and joy
& beat it the hell out of there.
#
Million hour drive
to idyllic Santa Barbara—
ridgelines designed by Dali
covered in vast white propellers.
To the Fess Parker DoubleTree Resort.
A $750 room
that smells like a dirty diaper.
Out for a wild
beach ramble—Chayo in the waves
like a porpoise. C walking, smiling.
E shirtless, trying to get a hot drumline tan.
M snapping pix like a machine. And me, up to my ass
(sorry upright Texas lady) in ice water
catching all those crazy little sand crabs
--coquinas?—that body surf
up the beach.
#
When Cinderella and I walk into the lobby to see
what’s up w/ the Book Festival, several people
do an Oh-My-God-That’s-Him double-take.
It spooks me: I think someone famous is behind me, then I think
my zipper must be open.
I hide behind C at the Starbuck’s and avoid eye contact.
I thought I was invisible. I used to be invisible. What happened?
In the bookstore, I see I’m on the cover of the program.
I’m featured in the new issue of THE WRITER magazine.
All my books are stacked on the tables. Oh, OK.
Success happened.
All over the hotel, people stare at us as we walk by.
Smile, Dear.
It’s The Public.
#
We walk past a suite on the ground floor after supper
& there’s a crowded cocktail party in there
& the whole party stops and the folks inside
watch us through the window.
“Keep walking,” I tell her.
#
I feel like a giant ground sloth recently climbed out
of the tar pits.
#
When I went to dinner, I missed Joseph Wambaugh.
The waitress didn’t know what food they were serving.
She had to read the menu to figure out what we were ordering.
We waited an hour and forty-five minutes
for our food to come.
WWFPD?
What Would Fess Parker Do?
#
Still, the resort is physically lovely.
Intoxicating us w/ flowers & vines & palms
& beach across the street.
It aint
my day job.
#
Monday, June 23
Waves on the shore.
George Carlin died last night.
Tim Russert died at the start of the trip.
How can it be the perfect
seaside morning? All sun, all
cool ocean breeze?
A genius dies—the world
doesn’t stop.
It’s the same for a reviled paisano
broiling to death on the border.
Millionaire. Artiste.
Child. Soldier. Political pariah.
Sun comes up.
Surfers surf.
All equal, all concerned
w/ lunch, w/ bowel movements,
cheap gas, beer prices.
everybody in church
hoping to come out, at least,
even.
The tide
doesn’t care.
#
Call from our house-sitter: he came home
to find our bathroom remodeling crew
on the couch w/ the big screen going,
watching Polish TV on the satellite.
We coulnd’t stop laughing.
There is something so
pure
about that!
#
JUST MY LUCK DEPT. # 712:
Eric & I take Chayo on a beach walk of epic
sand-crab, pelican-chasing, body-surfing scope
for a mile down to the pier and a mile back.
Feeling smug because Cindy and Megan are doing laundry.
& because Meg is sunburned bright plastic red.
Coquinas? Coquilles?
Chayo calls them “Cocaines.”
“Hey Dad!” she shouts over and over.
“You want some
cocaines?!?”
Passersby glance our way
w/ a certain curiosity.
So
C & M call.
“Guess who we just met.”
Who.
“John McCain!”
Liars!!!
we shout.
There they were, washing out the skivvies, and
McCain ambles by and says, “Hey,
how ya doin’?” on his way
to the elevator.
We beat it back to the resort to get in on
presidential politics—hummingbirds everywhere
in the red blossoms. Secret Service agents
are suddenly everywhere, too—even the “Mexican gardener”
has a wire going to his ear. The “handyman” in coveralls
has a wire in his ear and talks
into his jumpsuit. SPYWORLD!
They surround a swarthy fellow at the pool. One agent in a blue blazer
holds up a cell phone and snaps a picture of the sunbather.
“Say cheese,” he says. Then they roust the guy.
His blonde cutie sidekick stands there as if entreating the heavens
to give her some explanation. Spy-bots are all over the pool enclosure.
Suddenly,
the dark-skinned dude busts loose and runs away!
Secret Service agents scurry after him—running in neat
straight lines.
Holy moly!
It’some kind of terrorist event right next to the deep end!
#
McCain’s in room 331.
We’re in 254.
Cinderella wants to go over there
and give him my books.
#
CNN & MSNBC pool reporters
Slump around looking miserable & dragging bags.
Black SUVs line up.
Tourists are going, “Who’s that?
Is that somebody?”
We know,
but we won’t tell.
It’s a matter of National Security!
JOHN McCAIN DOES MY LAUNDRY.
#
We send the kids off to ride rented bikes
& attend the Book Festival cocktail party.
All kinds of nice people corner me & say all kinds
of awesomely nice & generous things about me & my
books, & none of them seem to care one bit
about McCain, but I can’t shake the sense
that real history is here with us now & it isn’t
me.
I am all AW SHUCKS when so many people tell me Hummingbird
is on their list of top 5 all-time favorite books, or top 10
or top 20, unless it’s a guy w/ a beer who says forget that
healer bidness—that Devil’s H book is the top-5 of all time!
What do you say?
Sip white wine & hang on to yr wife, wishing
the wine were Coke Zero, & you say, “Uh, well, thanx,
but did you see John McCain today?”
We leave our wine glasses on a table
& sneak away.
Tired & sun-fried.
Ten minutes of quiet time in the room—
no chance to strip naked as monkeys and ricochet off the walls—
when the kids come tumbling in loudly, in full-
argument mode.
“We want room service!” the young billionaires announce.
I watch George Carlin testimonials.
I don’t imagine he’d have swell things to share w/ McCain.
Napa fires. Big Sure fires. We started this trip
skirting floods, then we escaped tornadoes, now
we’ll drive thru massive conflagrations.
It’s the Armageddon Tour of the American West.
#
Out on the balcony.
Perfect Pacific wind
coming thru palms, carrying the smell of salt. Roses,
bougainvillea, honeysuckle, geraniums.
Succulents, my favorites,
grow as big as Christmas turkeys.
I have no shame, man. Buy me a $750 room. Get me an itty bitty
stucco cottage over by the water? I’ll register Republican,
vote the party ticket straight across
& to heck with it.
Let’s retire.
#
Invasion of the Bird-Men!
Evening.
On the walkways outside our room,
Secret Service guys
line up, one every 50 yards
all across the grounds.
They whistle to each other.
Whistles move down the line.
Then they start to walk, single-file
while a woman in a black dress
circles the pool looking for evil scuba divers.
Our kids risk imprisonment by rushing to the lobby
to spy on the spies.
Supper: fish.
Dirty Jobs on TV. Kids
doing the dirty job of spying on the candidate.
Cinderella on the laptop, doing the edits and cuts
Geoff, the Little, Brown editor-god has asked of my novel.
Talk about a dirty job.
I’m on the balcony.
iPod.
Thinking: nothing.
#
Late night: room still smells weird.
Eric says someone hid a dead body under the bed.
Cindy & Megan, the mature members of the crew,
sleep. But E, Chayo & I have a screaming gasping
insomniac laughing fit.
It begins when I say something apparently demented,
and E quips,
“Man, that’s a real smile
& shake your head moment.”
Then he says,
“OK, Dude—just promise me
you won’t get up and axe-murder us
in our sleep!”
Just when we pipe down, Chayo announces:
“I’m gonna call Senator McCain and say,
‘Mr. McCain, can you smell the poo?’”
#
Tuesday June 24
Cinderella and I, out early while the kids sleep in.
We take our morning constitutional for a couple of miles
along the sea.
On the sand, beside and below the pier,
an eloquent bit of—art? Protest? Scamming?
Faith? I don’t know what it was.
Homeless people had set up a sleeping bag, open, like a
table cloth. Red plaid part facing up. At one end, a cardboard box.
Up-ended. On the box, a paper plate, plastic fork, spoon, knife. Paper cup
holding wildflowers & weeds. Set up as though dinner were about
to be served.
Oh, and in the middle of the plate was a stone.
A sign on the blanket/sleeping bag:
SIMPLY HUNGRY.
#
Sitting at the near end of the sleeping bag,
there was a plastic bucket
w/ another sign:
TRY YOUR LUCK.
Three or four quarters
scattered in the sand around it.
As our London pals often say—Brilliant.
No sound but sea birds
and waves.
#
My talk tonight at the Book Fest:
home run. Sold out all their books.
Signed books for so long
I got kicked out of the room.
Totally owned it.
Even though a woman asked me
if I was Megan’s grand-father,
I go to bed spent
& high.
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