Last Night I Had A Dream

Obama had made some announcement or proclamation that wasn’t all that extreme or radical, but the Tea Party types (older, white people) went ballistic, declaring it the last straw. Fighting broke out all across the land—fist fights, not guns. I remember witnessing a brawl among customers in a fast food place—some chain. While passing through a school cafeteria, I saw a cook, an older white woman, weeping and packing up her pots and pans. She could no longer do her job under this president. A little later I was in a big gymnasium-type building and there were fights happening all across the floor. High up on the walls near the roof was a long row of windows with heavy maroon curtains. A man I recognized as the leader of a national taxpayers association (a dream character, not someone identifiable in reality) was throwing flaming objects up at the curtains, trying to ignite them. I was outraged because he was always trying to pass himself off in the media as a responsible man, an adult among children, a true patriot, and so on. I thought, “What a fraud!” I became so angry that I knocked him to the ground where I started pummeling his face, trying to shatter his cheekbones (completely out of character; I’ve never been in a fight in my life). As I was beating him I kept telling him what a fraud and a phony he was. He laughed and replied, “Yes! But I’m having such a fun time!”

Progress Report #78

I started Chapter 31 with the feeling that it was too long. But I couldn’t see in advance where to break it up. Today I found the point. It’s more than a little surprising that I didn’t see it. A murder and a bad election, all at once. It’s strange how the news got delivered to me. It was as if the universe was waving this big flag, trying to get my attention. “Over here! Over here!” I apologize for speaking in code. Someday it should all make sense.

Tomorrow I’ll start another pass through 31—clean it up some—and then it’s on to Chapter 32: a murder, a bad election, and being discovered asleep in my hiding place.

Suelo

Late one afternoon a couple of weeks ago I went for a casual bike ride along the San Francisco waterfront. During the ride I started thinking how I’d like to get back to this blog. I thought about different subjects I might write about and decided to do something on the economy. I’d already started a post called “Economics 98.6,” which was supposed to mean “economics as though humans mattered.” But someone told me it sounded like the title for a piece on health care. So I thought, “change the title and finish it.”

On my way  home I stopped at the Ferry Building and went into a bookstore, where I spotted a sign advertising a reading by the author of a new book The Man Who Quit Money. The subject of the book, Daniel Suelo, was going to speak as well. I first learned about Suelo (as he’s usually called) through a reader of this blog who thought I might be interested in what he’s doing. Suelo’s story is that he became so fed up with the materialism of this country that he decided to stop using money entirely, to see if it was possible. Twelve years later, he’s still doing it. He doesn’t even barter. He accepts only that which is offerred freely—food and goods, but no cash. Mostly he scavenges. His main residence is a cave hidden in the wilderness outside Moab, Utah, although he also house sits for friends in town. I’d read his web site and his blog (which he works on in the public library) and had found both of them interesting enough to bookmark. I wasn’t really in the mood to hang around for a book reading; but I’ve seen that there are people who do good things for flaky reasons, and I wanted to know whether Suelo was the real thing. So I stayed.

When I arrived, the bookstore had set out around 15 chairs, which I thought was optimistic considering the subject matter and how few people read nowadays. But over the next half-hour so many people came in that the store had to keep bringing out more chairs. By the time the reading began, there were at least 75 people in the audience, which, I know from experience, is remarkable. The presentation began with the author, Mark Sundeen, reading from the book and taking questions. Then Suelo joined him.

Suelo is a thin, graying man in his early fifties. He’s quite gentle and clearly intelligent. There’s nothing goofy about him. I doubt there were any questions he hadn’t heard many times before. His answers were immediate and strong. He’s thought a great deal about what he’s doing and he cuts some fine lines. Standing there listening, I felt as though I completely understood what he’s doing. It’s similar to the path that I took nearly forty years ago, the one I’m writing about in my book Street Song. It’s a spiritual path and all spiritual paths contain the same essential features. I often found myself hoping that he’d make a particular point when he was asked certain questions. Most of the points I was eager for him to make, he did end up making.

The great majority of people in the room were supportive of Suelo. But there were a few who nitpicked and looked for contradictions. One of the best points of the evening was made by the author, Mark Sundeen. He said that people often say that since not everybody could live like Suelo, it somehow invalidates what he’s doing. But, as Sundeen says, not everybody can live the way the average American does either. The planet wouldn’t be able to handle it. I was delighted that Sundeen pointed this out. I’ve long believed our standard of living is much too high and that eventually we’re going to have to lower it. That doesn’t mean living in abject poverty. But it does mean a simpler lifestyle. To the people who complain about what Suelo’s doing, I would say that when you have a system as extreme in it’s materialism as this one, you’re bound to get people like him. The system creates him as a reaction or, you might say, an antidote to something that is clearly a disease.

The book is a good one. You can find Suelo’s web page here and his blog here.

(Lack of) Progress Report

For the nearly six years I’ve been working on Street Song it has been, generally, clear sailing. Day after day I’ve been able to get up and go to work. You need that when writing a book. It’s the only way. The last few weeks have been an exception. Obligation and obstruction have been the rule—the last week in particular when I got only one sentence written. Among other issues, the house has  reeked of polyurethane. I’m in the clear now, though. One of the things I had to do was help get Judy ready for a two-week excursion to Baja where she’s going to film several pelican nesting colonies. She left yesterday, and seeing her off was my last outside task.

This morning I resumed work on the book. When I sat down at the computer I felt a lot of resistance within myself. It took me at least an hour to get into it and to remember exactly where I left off. I knew the position on the page and what came next and all that; but when you work on a book you’re juggling a lot of different ideas. If you have to drop those ideas for awhile it takes an effort to get them all back.

Long story short: I’m writing again. I intend to put some work into this blog as well.

A Visit from the Flock

Parker and three birds from the flock.

As most of you who read this blog regularly know, Judy and I are taking care of two birds from the flock who have injuries and cannot be released. They’re both eleven years old now. Big Bird was brought to us just a few weeks after leaving the nest. She’d smashed into a plexiglass windbreak, knocking herself out and messing up the vision in one eye. Parker was a year old when he fell out of the sky with a nervous system disorder. Parker knows a lot more about being a wild parrot than Big Bird and is more attentive to the flock whenever it flies by the house. A few days ago, we had an unusual event when a few of the wild parrots noticed Parker sitting in the window sill and came down for a visit. It ended up lasting around an hour. Parker was quite calm about their presence, but I have to assume he was pleased with it. He has never become truly tame. He’s still essentially a wild bird.

Levon Helm

I was one of those people whose life was immediately changed by the Beatles’ appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. I was one way before I saw them and another way after. For the next ten years I completely immersed myself in rock and folk. The songs were my literature and, in a way, my religion. The musicians were my heroes. Over the years I gradually became disillusioned. There are very few left that I have much enthusiasm for. A week ago, one of the few I still respected died: Levon Helm.

I liked Levon because it was always the music that mattered to him. He wasn’t into show business or being a star. He was into being a player. And he did what musicians are supposed to do (but rarely do anymore): He listened to the other players. You could see him listening. Nothing escaped his attention. There’s a lot on the Internet about Levon right now, and I don’t really have much to add. Just this story and a link:

I used to sing a song called “China Girl,” which was on one of his solo albums after The Band broke up. I no longer have the album, and it’s out of print. Every now and then I want to play it on the guitar, but I’ve forgotten most of the lyrics and a chord or two. On the day Levon died I thought to check whether anybody had ever posted the song on YouTube. Someone had—a live version taken from a television show—and what I heard floored me. To me, it’s a real find. It’s so much better than the album version, and I’ve been playing it over and over and over. It’s not that it’s such a great song. As a song, you could say it’s kind of mediocre. (He didn’t write it.) But Levon gives the song something that makes it great. His performance has joy and it has triumph. It’s how I want to remember him. You can watch it here if you like.

Progress Report #77

I just finished Chapter 29 of my second draft of Street Song. I have three fairly brief story-chapters and then one summing-up-type chapter left to go. Then I take a much needed break before starting the final—the final—draft. I’ve been looking forward to it for years. It’s where all the real fun begins.

I’ve been trying to get to this blog to write about “what’s happenin’,” but the situation in the house is still making it difficult. Judy and I are “camped in the back.” I have gotten a bit of a start on an essay that I call “Economics 98.6.” But I may take my time with that one and post on some other topics first. I hope to get back to this soon.

Progress Report #76 and the Doors of Deception

Since resuming work on the second draft, I’ve finished Chapter 28 and I’m about a third of the way through Chapter 29. Both chapters deal with the first four-year stint I spent living on the roof of an SRO hotel here in San Francisco. Up to this point, each chapter has dealt with much briefer time periods. But I’m into an extended denouement now, a gradual winding down of the story, where events began to happen at a much slower rate. But there’s no point in torturing the reader with all the details. I spent much of those four years simply pondering the previous twelve months, which had been extraordinarily difficult. I’d spent four of those months living right on the streets of Panic City.

From homeless to home owner.

The sheet rockers are gone now and the painter has begun work. Then the floors will either be sanded and refinished or totally replaced, depending on the condition of the fir boards under the current layer of decaying cork. It’s going to be another month or so before peace is restored around here. There was one strange discovery during the sheet rocking phase. Our house is shaped something like a barrack and was originally divided into a series of “stalls”—that is, small, individual rooms. At some point, a previous owner tore out the walls to make one big room. The wall behind our bed was made of old, cheap fiberboard, and when the sheet rockers pulled it off they discovered that it was a false wall thrown up over the original outside wall to the building. The wall contained two doors, both of which had been entrances to separate rooms. Before putting up the false wall, the previous owner wallpapered over one of the doors, but left the other as is. The curtain was still on the door. (Today, behind the wall is another room.)  A lot of the older places here on Telegraph Hill were built like this. Completely improvised. They are funky, but they do have soul—something that you can’t buy, as the floor guy reminded me.

A Brief Hiatus

Judy and I live in a very old house. We’re not sure of its age. All we know is that it came into existence at some point before 1885. Originally built as a flophouse for dockworkers and fisherman, over the years various owners have added and subtracted to the building, usually in a haphazard fashion and without permits. One of the previous owners called the method “bootleg architecture.” People used whatever materials were at hand. Several times over the eleven years we’ve lived here, we’ve had to let construction and repair crews interrupt our lives. (When we moved in the house had no real foundation, the roof leaked, termites had gutted one wall, and so on.) Tomorrow morning they’re coming to rip out the inside walls of the living room. After they’re replaced, we have to paint. Practically speaking, this is probably going to make it difficult for me to get online. (Not such a bad thing, to my mind.) Unless I find a handy solution, there won’t be any posts here for a while—maybe two weeks. In the meantime, I’ll be working on the book.

My best wishes to you all.

Mark

Progress Report #75

For reasons that I’ve explained in other posts, I took a year off from the manuscript to create a detailed outline. When I work on an outline, my objective is to lay out in sequence all the various strands that I think will go in the book. Story blocks. I’m back working on the narrative now and having to reconnect with a different method of doing things. The writing sounds horribly wooden if I simply stick to the order I’ve made of the individual strands. Life doesn’t happen that way, of course. Everything happens all at once. So the task has become one of weaving the various strands together. It takes thought and work, which is largely just feeling my through, going over it until it sounds right. I’d forgotten about this, and I was feeling dissatisfied until I realized that I had to relearn how to knit. I’m back in the swing now, Daddy-o.