New Menu item!

Head Chef Oggy Bleacher of Cafe Bella has just added a new menu item. This is a fresh butter croissant sandwich with or without cheese and avocado. Fried or scrambled egg and sliced deli ham served with fruit salad (not pictured). All for the low price of $11.95. Summer only! Get it while it lasts.

Oatmeal

I think Hobo Joe in S.F. is taking the pictures that should go with the long captions I'm writing. If there's an illustrator who wants to take a crack at this description then have at it. I tried to take his advice and describe what the surroundings are but I got off track. It's so boring to talk about what things look like. How many times does Bukowski describe his apartment or car interior? Or this foggy Richmond (?) scene with the cypress trees and piss stained concrete. The NASCAR sleeping bag pulled out of one of those clothing donation boxes, the five gallon bucket for sitting and also bathing. See the baby carriage on the bottom for shorter trips to the aluminum depot? It takes military precision to survive like this.


The men and women are assembled underneath the plastic awning waiting for the oatmeal to arrive. This river of humanity is a western Ganges with the ashes still loose on bones not yet burned among lotus flowers, twisting between rotten 4x4 posts instead of concrete columns. The rats are hiding from the sunlight and the dogs are sniffing in the piles of wet clothing, snuffing into the feces and urine soaked cardboard near the fence line for the central nest of the rats. The dogs know the source is there in the ivy hidden with the roadside trash and dog shit and flat tires and car parts. The dogs can smell that hot nest of quivering rat flesh but they can’t get through the fence and into the ivy to eat the rats without catching a fat kick to the ass. So the dogs take their frustration out on each other in the muddy yard near the bodies wrapped in plastic, the ugly mouths chewing on chicken bones, cracking the femur of a chicken for the marrow and tearing at the fatty skin with their yellow teeth. There on the muddy field the dogs run until they hear their master call from the parking lot or sidewalk.
The traffic on Highway 1 rolls over the wet pavement in slick paths, old cars and new cars, intent on a destination, a purpose and destiny. The rain falls into the mud and the rats sleep soundly. The picnic tables are cleared of resting junkies and someone finds a week old newspaper with the comic section. Everyone has a favorite comic and the punchlines are exchanged and repeated.
“Garfield is a funny fucker,” says a bearded man. “Garfield makes me laugh,” he says without laughing. He hardly ever smiles because of his awareness of his missing teeth, teeth that were once white and straight and admired by women at the drive-in theater where he worked. He wasn’t always a crippled man hunched over comics on a dirty picnic table, awaiting oatmeal at a homeless shelter, but his past has been washed to the ocean and obliterated by time’s great hammer. He’s tired because he didn’t sleep enough, maybe two hours of sweating in his sleeping bag. He sold the majority of his pain medication so he can’t move without a spasm of pain in his back that radiates to his neck. The doctors say it’s a bulging disk and though the pain is almost unbearable he can’t stand the idea of hands on his spine trying to straighten him, to push the bulging disk back where it belongs. The physical therapists either look through him like a mechanic at a set of faulty brake calipers or else try to humanize him and miss the mark, reduce him to a bundle of nerves and stock footage memories, so he does not go to physical therapy. His hands throb. His legs sting like his veins are filled with battery acid. He scratches at the dry skin on his thigh but only enjoys moments of relief before the crawling sensation returns. He looks around to see that no one has heard him. He is invisible here among the destitute. On the downtown street, when he tries to walk to the post office to see if the general delivery has any messages from his son, he mostly ignores the young couples in their fashionable clothes who ignore him. He knows he is a dead person now and can never recover his status. There is no money for it and he has no desire. His self-destructive habits mortgaged his future and now the balance has to be paid. He is relieved when the pain in his back is so severe that he can’t think about anything else. The doctors say he is also diabetic, whatever that means. Good, he thinks. Good. He’ll die and that will be it, but in his heart he knows his death will come slowly and in expanding stages of grotesque helplessness like the men he’s seen at the veteran’s hospital. They have their game shows and funny papers and impotent flirtations with the nurses but they don’t die, they live until they die and there’s a big difference. Better not to think of it. Better to live in the sepia-toned football memories and after school pool games, back-seat passion, or what passed for it, bleachers in the winter, dugouts in the summer. He can’t quite picture her face but he’s close enough to the shadow lover in his past that the rat dung nearby doesn’t bother him.

3:11

That's the amount of time the average visitor to the blog stays. I am not being realistic if I write something that takes longer than 3 minutes to read. Maybe I should say I'm not being realistic if I expect anyone to read more than 3 minutes worth of material. The urge to serialize my life comes and goes. Lately, the meetings with the placement services have been straight out of a movie where they lay their hands out in front of them and say, "There's nothing I can do for you. We'll keep you resume on file if something comes up." and their tone is like they've given me a terminal cancer report.

I've been falling asleep in my clothes with the radio and lights on lately. The Nat King Cole bio is good but it just reminds me of my lack of piano. He played every day for 6-10 hours and still had to struggle and play for $5 a gig. Then I'll try to get through Plan B and am only up to the shrinking polar ice caps. In 2007 researchers estimated there were 7 years before the climate change would gain more momentum than we could stop. It'll be hard to say if it is our fault. It's 40 degrees in mid May. Vermont just got a bunch of snow. The mid west always had flood problems. Is it because of coal burning energy plants? Maybe. Does it matter? Kind of. We won't know if we'll burn to death or create another ice age until it's too late. Half of the survivors will say it would've happened without 4 stroke engines, and the other half will say we caused it.

Also reading a book of testimonies about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. It's remote and seldom visited. I had my chance but didn't take a trip there with my roommate. I was crippled at the time and the disabled do not survive a winter in the Arctic Circle. The polar bears hibernate there and the exploration teams wake them up. Is it worth it? Am I a druid who would place the hibernation of a bear, a bit of biodiversity, over the comfort of man. Not every bit of energy goes into video games and McDonalds. Some goes to research cancer cures and develop other forms of energy. So, the bear may become collateral damage but eventually the oil will run out and we'll leave the arctic alone. Maybe we'll set some zoo raised bears loose. Reintroduce them like wolves to Yellowstone. It can happen. Is it specious to argue in favor of preserving ANWR? Do big white bears have priority simply because we read Winnie The Pooh books as kids? That seems fallacious and emotional. We need the oil, obviously, and it's not like we're harvesting it from the bear's liver. They'll just have to find another place to sleep. We can build them some caves and airlift them to an isolated area...and still get the oil. Or we can let them wake up and run away from their blind and helpless cubs. Their being blind and helpless doesn't diminish our need for the oil. And of the Indians living up there, we're not killing them, we're just temporarily altering their livelihoods. We'll airlift them food. Eventually, the caribou will return...just like the bison.

Ok, I'm out of time. My three minutes are up.

Fort Stark renovations continued today. We cut some Chokeberry bushes to reveal some native columbine flowers on the seaside hill. It was cold and windy but we were in good spirits staging rocks for a stone wall and dragging brush. They all want me to find work but mostly they are retired so it's not like they can help. Since there is no budget for dump runs we have found sink holes and throw everything in them. All of New Castle is a land fill so it's traditional.

The American Academy teaching job in Kuwait is only for women so I'm thinking of changing my name to Oggylina Bleacher and wearing a wig at the interview. No, I'm not desperate.

Red Belt

David Mamet wrote and directed a fantasy about a modern Samurai in the land of stars, Hollywood. Ever been there? Ever stood on top of Judy Garland's star or paid a buck to get a picture taken with a guy in Superman costume? Ever ride the La Brea bus up the hill? Well, the only Samurai on Hollywood Blvd. are paid actors, and Mamet knows this, abhors the Me culture of whiskey wisdom and crank courage. Mamet might see himself as a Samurai but I'm pretty sure he knows that if it smells like a hooker and looks like a hooker and charges by the hour...then it's a hooker. Mamet's one of those hookers who looks down on other hookers, or mocks the hooker trade, or worse, believes she isn't a hooker if she says she loves you. He's become more bitter in his years and when I saw him in Westwood he looked like he wanted to punch someone in the face.

Let me tell you about getting punched in the face. A "producer" wanted me to invent a love interest for Henry David Thoreau, my hero, my chaste samurai and the subject of the screenplay I'd worked on for two years. I gagged when I thought of this. Thoreau sleeping with someone...so there's romance in a movie...so kids will see it and there'll be a part for a cute actress...who is sleeping with the producer's brother, who once slept with someone related to someone even more famour...etc. uhhh. It's a joke because it was like a porn couch casting where you fuck for free to earn the privilege of fucking for money. The Thoreau movie would never get made but she wanted to know how far I would bend to please her...just on the prospect of getting paid. Like a game to abuse me. That's the joke. Anyone would fold if you showed them the money, but most people will fold at the promise of money. I was offered a total long shot and asked to slander my subject, and I could not do it. Yes, it was against my principles. And it was not long after that everything fell apart and I was out of the loop. The producer did not look at me as a noble person. Certainly, she was already looking for a way to nullify our contract, take the script and pawn it off as her own with more romance in it. It might even evolve from a study of nature into a period piece romance.

You are either a samurai or you are not a samurai. Red Belt's thinly veiled round house kicks at the Hollywood culture don't disguise Mamet's contempt for his meal ticket. Of course it's easy for me to turn away, giving up only the promise of wealth and fame. Mamet would actually have to give up wealth and fame. He described conversations with his agent, "They asked me to do what? No. Tell them to fuck off. Tell them to go to hell." Then he described how the agent would calm him down and get him to see the big picture. Yes, and so we have episodes of The Shield. Would I rather die than see Thoreau taking a woman's shirt off and french kissing her? Yes. But that wasn't the choice I had. It was more like, "write a romantic scene with Thoreau, a scene that will never be produced, or we can't do business, which means the promise of money will be revoked." You're asking me to sell out, but not even get paid to sell out? No. If that's the first test of a screenwriter then I failed. Thoreau will probably get naked in the biopic that will be produced, but it won't be my fault.

That's the message of Red Belt. You can not fit a square peg in a round hole. If you want to be a samurai then do it. Be a samurai. But your wife had better want to be a samurai's wife. Parts of the movie were trite, "If we pay cash then we can't pay the rent. What are we going to do?" and other parts were like Mamet was trying to write like his old self, "Let the wheel turn...sometimes you ...honey...you have to...are you listening...you have to let the wheel turn...let it...right...ok...if you...honey...let the wheel...I mean...if you....let it...turn...let the wheel turn...ok?"

But it came down to code vs practicality. They aren't compatible. Eventually, you have to choose and if you try to...for instance...bring authenticity to films...then you are in trouble. Do you assimilate or do you stand up for your beliefs? Will you stand alone? Who will fight you? Who will stand in your way? The movie's job is to make the complexity into bite sized snacks. Oh, he fights for the honor of fighting. I understand. In Raging Bull, LaMotta has to throw a fight to have a chance at the title. It hurts to lose on purpose. But in Red Belt (spoiler) the lead is going to be allowed to win because the handicap will go to the other fighters. But what does that mean? He'll win what? It's not fair. And if it isn't fair then the whole sport is tarnished...

I will say that Mamet got one part right: The stakes. The main character risked something in the end and the audience understood what he was risking. He could not win it all. He would lose something but the cost was worth it.

Honor: honesty, fairness, or integrity in one's beliefs and actions:

Honor is as elusive as the water where the ocean meets the river. You can't pursue honor in and of itself. There is no such destination. But it can pervade everything you do and dictate every decision. The Marines use the word honor in addition to courage and commitment as their three core values. Honor. Integrity in one's beliefs and actions.

The most touching part of the movie for me was when everything was coming together for the main couple, they were getting money opportunities but it meant that the lead character would be unable to teach the beginner class of Jujitsu at his studio. What would he do? "I can't cancel it. What kind of message would that send?" he says to himself. That's the part of the movie where he's getting sucked in and away from his core values. He finds excuses. His wife gives him excuses. There's always an excuse to be dishonorable. And it doesn't mean you have brought dishonor to your family. No, that's not part of the definition. Honor is all about you. Your honesty. Your fairness. Your belief and your actions. If you are loyal to the Samurai's code and also a master of your martial art, then maybe you will earn a red belt. You don't win that belt.

DRAM

"Dynamic random access memory (DRAM) is a type of random access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit."

A little research for a job interview. It may be back to Cyberdyne for Oggy Bleacher even though according to sources close to Oggy he is a "Pathetic loser who wants to fail." The source added, "You're just a disgusting excuse for a person."

The ship is sinking and there is no time to be searching for a more comfortable seat on the lifeboat. Any port in a storm, remember. The goal is the piano. And it'll be an excuse to watch the birds on Plum Island with all the other bachelors. Just picture two men in leather coats meeting on the windy beach every Thrusday.

"How are you?"

"Ah, you know."

"Yep."

"Still above ground."

"Uh huh."

"Might get the kids next week."

"Is that right?"

"If the court order comes through."

"Ah. There's always something."

"Well, gotta go."

"Alright. You take good care of yourself."

"You too. Hey, how's that thing with that girl you met?"

"Eh?"

"That one you were talking about last week?"

"She thinks I have too much baggage."

"Don't we all. Hey, hang in there. You'll find someone."

"Yeah, I guess. Alright."

"There's a dead puffer fish washed up back there."

"Oh."

"Check it out."

"Yeah."

"See you around."

"Ok. See you."

If that doesn't make you cling to your flawed lover then nothing will.