City Lights

I stopped in at City Lights bookstore, as I usually do on trips to San Francisco. City Lights fills me with wonderful feelings of literary history and pride in America's independent publishing houses. This is one great bookstore. The store itself has expanded a bit and remade itself over the years, but it is still essentially the same warehouse it was when in opened on Columbus Avenue in North Beach back in 1953. Founder, owner and renowned Beat generation poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti still works here, although, despite my many visits, I have never seen him. That is, until this time.

I was upstairs at City Lights. The upper floor is a loft of sorts with walled offices to the front that look over the main floor below and a small oddly shaped room to the rear filled with books of poetry. I had the room to myself on this visit. I picked up a copy of “City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology” and browsed through it. The air was warm and musty. The light dim, despite the incandescent lamps and a window that looked out on dead space in an alleyway.

The quiet of the moment was broken by a sharp ratcheting of a door latch opening and closing. I looked over and saw an old man, gray hair and beard, wrestle with the hook on one of those “store personnel only beyond this point” chains. The man was Lawrence Ferlinghetti. There are vintage photographs of Ferlinghetti everywhere in City Lights bookstore. No mistaking him.

Ferlinghetti walked right past as if he didn’t see me. In fairness, I purposely made myself small and stood out of the way. I briefly considered asking him to sign the anthology book I intended to purchase, but I am always wary of such invasions of privacy. They just seem wrong to me. Instead, I watched as Ferlinghetti shuffled slowly past. He is 88 years old now (I looked this up later) and impressively robust. Near the top of the steps, Ferlinghetti stopped and rearranged some postcards in the literary postcard rack. A few more steps and he stopped again to pick up a book that was lying backwards and upside down on the shelf. Did I do that? Before putting it back, Ferlinghetti, opened the book and read from its pages. It is amazing to me that this remarkable man, the last great Beat poet, former Poet Laureate of San Francisco, friend and publisher to Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, Bob Dylan, was also a simple store clerk. Business is business after all.

Satisfied that everything was in order, Ferlinghetti walked slowly down the stairs. I listened as his feet made contact with each creaky wooden step. At the bottom of the staircase he stopped. There was a click. To save electricity, he turned the lights off for the upper floor. He turned the lights out on me! Before that thought could fully register in my mind, there was another click and the lights came back on. Ahh, so he had seen me, and remembered that I was up there. For one brief moment, Lawrence Ferlinghetti thought of me – only me and my need for light. Pretty cool. After that, I suspect, his thoughts turned to lunch.

On Union Square

The view is spectacular
from my hotel room

33 floors up

in this city that

randomly

quakes


The bay at dawn

Alcatraz shrouded in fog

33 floors down

I am awake early

San Andreas

sleeps

Uppity uppers

These old shoelaces go too easily untied
Failing even my best double knots
Oh Lord, believe me I've tried
Every trick in the book we were issued as tots.
So see here lace-ups, give me a listen
I'll take no more insolence from you
Shape up this instant or I'm switchin'
To a steadfast and tasseled slip on shoe.

These dreams

Just so you know, I’m dreaming right now. That you’re reading this while I sleep has to do with my new dream-to-blog technology which allows me to transcribe my dreams real-time onto my blog. Pretty cool, huh? Oh, there are the electrodes to deal with. The fire wire. The cranial wifi router. It only hurts a little.

Bob Marley is here with me. He says that I'm stressing too much in my day life and it's affecting my sleep cycle. He can tell from all the tossing and turning I have been doing, the teeth grinding, the nearly indecipherable rambling on in my sleep about time lines and deliverables. Marley has pulled up a chair and is seated next to me. I am rubbing my eyes. Not to wipe away the sleep, but to clear out the smoke that has wafted over from his big fat cigar. He takes a hit and exhales. Funny, it doesn't smell like cigar smoke. Now he is singing to me. This is what he has to say:

Don't worry about a thing. Cause every little thing gonna be alright.

That’s really nice, Bob. Thanks for dropping by tonight.

Singin' don't worry about a thing. Cause every little thing gonna be alright.

I appreciate the concern, Bob. I'm going to work on reducing the stress. Hold on...what's this? There are three little birds on Marley's shoulder, swaying to the music. Cute little things. In unison they come in for the refrain of his song:

This is my message to you-ou-ou.

Such beautiful voices. Beautiful plumage, too. I applaud. Perhaps too vigorously because I’ve startled the birds. They've taken flight. One of them has crapped on my bedspread. But that’s okay. This is a dream. There’s nothing to clean up in a dream, right?

Bob Marley looks like he is getting ready to sing again. Here it comes:

Ooh, yeah! All right! We're jammin': I wanna jam it wid you

Yeah, mon. And I want to jam it wid you, too, Bob. Really I do! What exactly does that mean?

Bob Marley laughs. Apparently, I am amusing him. He reaches over and pats me on the shoulder. He tamps out what remains of his funny-smelling cigar on the nightstand. In reality that's going to leave a burn mark, but not in a dream! Marley is looking around for his three birds. They have perched on top of a book shelf. “We gonna go,” he says to them.

On his command, the birds are in the air again, flying low and fast circles across my bedroom, singing:

We're jammin', we're jammin', we're jammin', we're jammin...hope you like jammin' too.

Then they fly right through the wall and are gone. Bob Marley vanishes with them.

And just like that I am alone again in my dreams. Not for long, though. Someone's coming. Is that… Yes, it is. It’s Groucho Marx. Groucho Marx has come to visit me in my dreams.

Come in, Groucho. Have a seat.

Groucho? What is this? Some kind of joke? I am Dr. Abbott your freshman calculus teacher. This is your final exam. Why are you naked?

Oh dear God.

uphill both ways

you need to have grown up in the mountains
the poor mountains of Appalachia
on a steep street, a crumbly street,
a place where stone walls didn't stand up long
where dinner plates slid off the table
all by themselves, unless you held on tightly –
when I say steep, I mean steep!

the school was up at the top of the hill, of course
crane your neck from the porch and you could see it
if the snow piles weren't too high
(fact: it doesn't snow like that any more)
back then the schools didn't close for any reason
you were expected to get your bare feet
into the classroom and on time, or else –
nuns with rulers, need I say more?

dad was insane, understandable for the times,
all that coal dust, the lucky strikes and bathtub gin
door hinges didn't grow on trees, he would say
imploring us to use the front door and back door
alternately, so as to wear the hinges evenly
and don't slam either door, or so help me god!

mornings we used the front door on our way to school
all twelve of us, the tall ones up front to serve as beacons
for the little ones whose heads were barely above the snow
it was straight up and steep, you already know that,
but it was a long way, too, requiring that we embark
before dawn, short on sleep, our pancake breakfast
a distant memory from the weekend

after school we were to come home through the back door
on the rickety downhill side of the house
there was only one way to get there
from school, that meant a detour around the open pit mine
across the railroad yard and down to the tough part of town
so low and narrow that the sun didn't touch those streets all winter
giving those who lived there a tinge of blue in their skin
and an irritability that frightened even the junkyard dogs

then it was uphill again with the help of the rope pull
that Mr. Stanowitz installed when his ninety year old mother could no
longer make it home along the path from church six days a week
beyond there we had only to cross the frigid but wadable creek
and then sneak through the PCB factory grounds
(our little shortcut)

finally, we'd sprint up, up, up the two hundred forty step wooden staircase –
two hundred sixty-eight if you counted the rotten ones you couldn't
walk on or you'd fall right through – before reaching our gate (phew!)
frozen, rusted; no matter, we had to climb it

there mother stood waiting, her trademark upside down smile,
ready to greet us with fresh-baked cookies
assuming they didn't slide off the flimsy paper plate
onto the rocky outcrop that was the back yard
in which case the goat got them

Now showing on GOLTV

I have a pet peeve about my son's disposition to talk with his mouth full. I have corrected him nearly a million times already in his twelve years of existence and, sadly, I suspect it will take about a million more.

Today when I got home from work, Conor was watching some soccer on television. "Who's playing?" I asked. Unfortunately he had just taken a big bite of a carrot.

What came out in response was "leverkusenversusfcbayernfromthebundesliga."

"Could you repeat that?" I asked, "after you have finished chewing?"

Conor held up a finger indicating I should wait while he swallowed what was left in his mouth. Then he very clearly enunciated the following: "Leverkusen versus FC Bayern from the Bundesliga."

"What?" I asked again.

My son smiled. "It didn't matter that my mouth was full," he said. "you were never going to understand that."

I have to admit that he had me there. He gets a pass this time. Not so, the next time he tells me about his day with a mouthful of chewed up spaghetti.

Humor's wide stance

The cover of this week's New Yorker is brilliantly funny. But you don't want to explain it to your children. Nope. Nope. Nope.

The cardboard box

"We were evicted from our hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!"

"You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road."

"Cardboard box?"

"Aye."

"You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank..."

- Monty Python, The Four Yorkshiremen sketch

* * * * *

How we happened to have a large collapsed cardboard box in our TV room is a story in itself. A few weeks back, I was watching a football game on ESPN while I waited for a soccer match to come on another station a bit later. The soccer match would be presented on tape delay, meaning that it was on-going as I watched the football game. Given that ESPN is forever scrolling the scores from other sporting events along the bottom of the screen, there was a very high likelihood that I would see the outcome of the game I wanted to watch later. That's how I came up with the idea of folding up a box to cover the bottom few inches of the TV screen where the scores were displayed. It needed to be a rather large box, as the TV is a 53" widescreen HDTV. Just so happens I had a box that would do the job. I watched the football game and then switched over to the soccer match never having heard the score.

As I mentioned above, that was a few weeks ago. The box has yet to be put away. The other night we settled in to watch the season premiere of The Office. I was the last one downstairs. By the time I arrive, not only are the sweet seats in the room taken, but the blankets too. Our basement gets kind of chilly with the air conditioning on. A light throw is pretty much a necessity to sit comfortably down there.

Without a spare blanket in sight, I scan the room for something to cover up with. That's when I spot the box standing up against the wall. Without a word, I walk across the room, pick up the box and carry it back to my chair. I position the box over my body. Cover myself in cardboard. The box reaches from my feet to my shoulders.

It is really quite comfortable, the box, and remarkably warm. I feel lucky to have it. My son takes notice and is quick to comment. "What are you doing, Dad?" He has a look of disbelief on his face. "Do you think you are too good to cover yourself with a box?" I ask him. "A cardboard box is all the shelter you will ever need." He rolls his eyes. Wifey knows where this is going and stays out of it.

We watch The Office for a while, my son and my wife under soft down blankets, me under a large cardboard box. Then:

"Dad, are you going to keep that box on top of you for the whole show?" my son asks. I answer affirmatively, repositioning the box gently across my torso. It makes a soft scratching sound where it rubs against my knees. I signal my satisfaction with a smile. My son shakes his head.

We turn our attention back to the television. Moments later:

"Okay, give me the box." My son reaches out with both hands grabbing at the box. "No way," I tell him. "You can't have the box. You were just dissing the box." But he is determined. "Come on. I want the box." I tell him he is not worthy of the box. "Please, let me have the box." Wifey pleads for quiet, telling us she can't hear the television. Finally I relent. "Fine," I tell my son sternly. "You can have the box. But only for a few minutes. After that you have to give it back. Deal?" He agrees.

I pass my son the cardboard box. He passes me his blanket. The box is huge on him. He can barely balance it on his body. "Pretty nice, huh?" My son smiles, his braces glimmering. He feels he has pulled a fast one on the old man. I position the down blanket across my lap and take a sip of wine from my glass before pushing back in my recliner.

Once again we are enjoying the program on TV. Until:

"Dad?"

No response.

"DAD?"

Nothing. Eyes straight ahead.

"Come on, Dad. Give me the blanket back."

Exact Title TBD

I always keep a fresh idiom in my back pocket in case I need one. Come to think of it, symbolically stowing anything in one's back pocket is in itself an idiom. Or maybe it's a metaphor. Who really knows the difference? No doubt about it, for those uncomfortable pauses in conversation that require a jump start or change in direction, the idiom is just the thing. Problem is, people are rarely prepared to step up to the plate and deliver the winning run, idiomatically speaking. Or metaphorically speaking. And even if they are able to come up with an idiom at a moment's notice, it's likely to be some hackneyed cliché that falls like a lead balloon. In fact, many people are fond of that very expression: "it fell like a lead balloon." Except, technically, that would be a simile. Or an aphorism. It's difficult to say.

Anyway, without further ado, here's one of my original idioms:

"Don't bake a potato unless you know there's butter in the dish."

Pretty good idiom, wouldn't you say? Or metaphor. Or maybe it's a colloquialism. Whatever. I like it. It's deep and meaningless at the same time. Everything that an idiom should be. Or a maxim. Either way, lay that on people at a party, tell them "don't bake a potato unless you know there's butter in the dish," and they're going to shake their heads and say, "Amen to that, brother." People appreciate a well-crafted idiom, especially one they haven't heard before, one that makes them think. Or maybe reflect.

I have quite a few other original idioms. You know, to cover a wide variety of situations. In fact, I'm working on a book of idioms. It's going to be called "Jack's pocket guide to original idioms or metaphors or _____." I'm going to let the editors work out the exact title. Every morning I go down into the writer's cave that I dug in my basement and work on a new idiom for the book. The cave is a wonderfully creative work space, albeit a bit damp.

Here's another of my idioms for you before I go:

"If you notice that your socks don't match your pants, you probably spend too much time looking down."

Or maybe that's a non sequitur. Also, I may have read it in a Chinese fortune cookie.

Please buy my book when it comes out. In addition to the paper copy, there will be digital versions for your iPod and car's navigation system. Now, back to the cave...

thump thump thump

"What is that noise?" I asked my twelve year old son.

I was sitting quietly, enjoying a morning cup of coffee and thinking about nothing in particular.

"Oh, that's me," my son answered. "I'm trying to see if it's possible to jump without bending my knees."

You can always count on a twelve year old to both interrupt a quiet moment and give you something to think about.

I defy you to put the hypothesis of jumping without bending out of your head without at least visualizing the process or even standing up and giving it a go yourself. Just be prepared for questions from anyone within earshot trying to enjoy a quiet moment.

Patina

The installer said our new patio doors should be stained or painted within the first six weeks to protect the wood. That deadline slipped. Then Bill Clinton left office making room for George Bush, 9/11 and war with Iraq. Obviously, I was in no mood for staining wood. I gave up my gym membership somewhere along the line. Stopped running, too. Got out of shape. Some nasty accusations about secret torture camps made the news, complete with nasty photographs. The furnace broke on the coldest day of the year. Then I started running again, but fell. It hurt. I vowed never to run again. Another election. Domestic spying. The air conditioner broke on the hottest day of the year. Melting ice sheets. Sea level up to here. Still the patio doors remained untreated. Lately, though, things have been okay. There's talk of bringing home the troops. I've returned to the gym. Run a few times without falling. My football team has a winning record. There are fewer Hummers on the road and more hybrids. There’s money in the bank. The mortgage is solvent. I am feeling, well, hopeful. So, last weekend I went to the hardware store and bought a pint of wood stain, some sandpaper, masking tape, a drop cloth and a new paint brush. I came home and got busy. First there was the sanding. The patio doors had taken on a patina over the years consisting mostly of human exhaust, skin oil and kitchen smoke. It took a lot of sandpaper to remove this grime. But it came off eventually and the replenished wood soaked in the stain with a pent up thirst. A second coat deepened the luster and filled in the spots I had missed. The doors look nice. Clean. Transformed. Red oak now instead of yellow pine. Next weekend I'll add two coats of polyurethane to lock in the stain and they'll be done. It’s hard for me to imagine. The patio doors are ready. Ready for what? That's the question.

Equal footing

Be thankful for the symmetry of toes.
Left foot equals right, only opposite.
It's a blessing, really.
Last thing any of us needs
is one toe standing out from the rest.
Next thing you know there's cliquish behavior
on the part of the other toes,
exclusion of the unpopular toes,
idolatry, gossip, flirting, practical jokes,
teasing, name calling and, quite possibly,
falling over.

Spin cycle

Our new washing machine and dryer were delivered last week. The washer is one of those high efficiency front-loading machines that uses about a thimbleful of water to clean a load of clothes. The Energy Guide Statement claims that running this machine for a year will cost $9 in electricity. That's less than I spent at Starbucks in the last three days!

I wouldn't normally get excited about laundry. I haven't actually washed a single article of clothing in many years. Wifey handles that. Okay, now, before you get all uppity about how my domestic behavior perpetuates sexist roles and responsibilities, allow me to state in my defense that I do most of the cooking in our house. And a good deal of the grocery shopping, too. And in my spare time I sew little sweaters for the short-haired dogs locked up at the local shelter so they don't shiver at night. I, uhm, well, I cook and I shop - let's just leave it at that.

Anyway, the new washer is pretty cool. Except that it really vibrates during the spin cycle. In fact, the whole laundry room seems to vibrate. The first time I saw this happening, I was a bit concerned. "Don't worry," Wifey told me. "This is normal." She went on to explain, "this machine spins so fast that clothes come out barely moist, which of course cuts down on the time they spend in the dryer." I haven't seen the energy rating for our dryer yet, but I'm guessing it is pretty efficient on an annual basis as well. Maybe the equivalent of five or six Starbucks cappuccinos.

Sensing that I wasn't sold on her normalcy claim regarding this vibration business, Wifey pointed to a sticker on the washing machine. "Read for yourself," she said. "I can't," I replied. And I couldn't. The washer was spinning so hard, the words on the sticker were a blur. Just then, the spin cycle ended and the big box of a washer came to a halt. The sticker that my wife wanted me to see came into clear view. It read:

"Your new high efficiency washer spins almost twice as fast as conventional top load washers. You will notice different sounds and slight vibration. This is normal."

The last sentence was underlined. You can imagine the people at the washing machine factory answering all the phone calls from concerned customers claiming that their washing machine is shaking as though it's poised to take flight.

"We have to tell people that this is normal," the shop manager must have screamed to his customer service staff in frustration.

"But we have, boss – look, it says right here on the sticker: 'This is Normal.'"

"Well, it's not enough," the shop manager surely fired back. "Underline it, damn it, underline it!"

I'm still getting used to our hyper-active washer. It sits on the main floor of our house, so during spin cycles you can feel the vibrations from a good distance away. Mind you, it's not a problem. The rumbling just catches me off guard sometimes.

Last night, in the upstairs bathroom, I was getting ready to snip a few nose hairs with a pair of those really sharp curved scissors designed for this purpose, when I felt a slight vibration between the metal blades and my left nostril. Near the sink, some toothbrushes rattled softly in the ceramic dish holder. For a moment, I didn't make the connection. Were we having an earthquake? Then I remembered the washer. "Oh yeah..." I went ahead and snipped the nose hairs. What the heck. The clothes need washing and the nose hairs need trimming. This is normal now.

Labor Day Weekend Merriment

Body surfing in La Jolla
People watching at a Zurich cafe
Hiking above 10,000 feet in Colorado
Installing a new floor in the laundry room
Scuba diving in Belize
Dinner and a show in NYC
Fly fishing in Yellowstone National Park

Which of these do you think I'm doing this weekend?

Shaken, stirred, or whatever

I have never had a martini in my life. Never even tasted one. But last night I had a dream in which I drank a martini in a classic martini glass, and it was the most delicious drink that ever passed my lips. It was one of those five second dreams that comes out of nowhere without even a trace of relevance. The glass may have been handed to me, although I don't remember there being other people in the dream. For all I know, it may have been floating around in the air for me to grab. I drank the martini down in one gulp and was strangely overcome with the savoriness of the cocktail. That seemed to be the entire focus of the dream, as if this was some important moment of erudition in my life – the recognition and acceptance of what I have been missing all these years. At the bottom of the glass was a single green olive. At this moment in the dream, as the olive rolled into my mouth from the upturned glass, my attention switched from the surprise of loving this unfamiliar concoction of vodka and vermouth to the anticipation of the familiar briny taste to follow. But just before I could bite down on the olive, the dream ended and I woke up. Shortly thereafter, I sat down to a bowl of Cheerios and milk that tasted, well, just plain strange.

More than just Pooh

At the bookstore I spotted a book by A. A. Milne called "The Sunny Side." Milne, of course, is best known for his Winnie-the-Pooh stories. But before he wrote Pooh, he wrote humorous stories and poems for the British magazine Punch. First published in 1921, "The Sunny Side" is a compilation of Milne's favorite writings from Punch, or at least those that he thought an American audience would appreciate. What first caught my eye with this book was the subtitle on the dustcover, which reads "Short Stories and Poems for Proper Grown-ups." Now there's a grin! I opened the book and read the blurb on the inner sleeve. Then I read the opening lines from several of the stories in the book. The more I learned about A. A. Milne's humorous side, the more I liked his style, and the more I saw similarities between this book and the book I would like to compile of my own stories and poems. Putting aside debate as to whether or not I qualify as a proper grown-up, I purchased "The Sunny Side" and took it home. I'm about half way through. The stories are a bit dated, but quaint and creative. I suppose this is the best you can hope for with a book of humor pushing 90 years old. "Well, isn't that quaint." I wonder if that was what Milne was getting at when he mentions in the introduction that "The Sunny Side" will be the last of this sort of book. The reason, he says, is that "this sort of writing depends largely on the irresponsibility and high spirits of youth for its success, and I want to stop before...the high spirits become mechanical and the irresponsibility a trick." Really?! Let's see, in 1921 when Milne wrote those words, he would have been 39 years old. Too old to write humor? But just the right stage of life to start writing children stories about a bear named Winnie-the-Pooh? Go figure.

Welcome to the new Peeling Wallpaper

I used to write Peeling Wallpaper here, but starting today it will reside here at Blogger. Same name. Different look. A bit simpler. I'm thinking of not having any images - just my thoughts, my words. We'll see how long that lasts. With luck I'll blog a bit more than I have in recent months. I've been busy as hell. That hasn't changed, but my resolve to get back to writing has. Here's a short poem of mine that sums it up nicely, I think.

I lost my way.
Then I found it.
Then I lost it again.
Only to find it once more.
Then I had lunch.
Then I lost it.
Bad tuna fish.