Numbskull

I wake up in a fuzzy place ..my vision is blurry ..my hands are numb ..and halfway through preparing breakfast, I forget what I’m doing. It takes longer than usual before I can re-connect the water, splashing over strawberries in my hands, with a bowl of yogurt and cup of coffee sitting on the table. The newspaper looks like someone deposited little drops of ink in water ..the words drift apart before I can decipher what they mean. Somehow, something must have penetrated because I’m left with a lingering impression. Now I’ve lost the impression. I skim back over the article to see if I can retrieve it ..because it just seems so damned important. Now it re-appears in the form of a half-ass opinion. I grab hold of pencil and paper so I can jot it down quickly. Otherwise, I’ll forget and do the same thing all over again.

Reconstructing the past

Most of the time I manage to stay pretty focused on what I’m doing, whether it’s reading or working around the house. From time to time, however, my thoughts will step in and take over. When that happens, I’ve learned to set aside what I’m doing, back away from the keyboard ..put the newspaper down, whatever, and see what they’re trying to say. Usually, it’s something about what may lie ahead ..such as who I’m going to see ..or what the conditions at the beach may be. This morning, however, they’ve taken a decidedly different tact and have knocked me somewhere back in the past ..and they’re challenging me to reconstruct events that took place there. I think I know what the problem is. Yesterday I put some of my old college textbooks in a virtual online ‘library’ (visual bookshelf) where I have most of my more interesting books. This morning I’m sitting here going “where did these old textbooks come from”. So now, for each one, I feel compelled to answer: what class was I in, what year was I in it, and what possible reason could I have for hanging on to it for so long that I can’t remember anything about it. What I discovered is interesting. It’s not the subject of the book, or the year it was published that matters ..it’s the people I was hanging out with ..or the girls I was seeing, that help me locate the information I’m looking for.

Summertime

I’m buzzing with anticipation. Even though I live with a conventional ‘roof’ over my head ..it is the first day of summer and, somewhere in my bones, summer is still an endless cycle of sleeping outdoors on the beach ..riding waves at dawn ..crashing parties at night ..and either hooking-up, or crashing on the beach until dawn. Then we’d wake up with coffee and granola bars from 7-eleven ..ride waves till noon ..and argue about whether we should stay or move on. Unless there’s a compelling offshore wind ..the surf at Balboa gets blown out by late morning. So it would be time to roll up our packs ..catch the ferry to Coast Highway ..and hitch a ride to Laguna Beach where there are sheltered coves and clean breaks all day long. There were also hidden coves with sandy beaches for us to crash on ..unless we hooked-up with some ‘hippie-chicks’ at Taco Bell ..or trust-funders staying at daddy’s beach house while he’s back home in Chicago ..or a youth group spending the week crammed into a two-room summer rental. Sometimes we’d just go to the Hare Krishna temple for a free dinner ..then head back to the coves and crash. Further down the coast is San Clemente with aqua blue surf, campsites, bonfires, tents and kegs of beer. Charlie usually carried a large stash of hash, which was often our ticket in.

Solstice festival

I roll outta’ bed way too late ..search my cabinets for breakfast supplies ..plan the day over yogurt and coffee ..and get interrupted by a phone call from the parade route where Jim is hollering “where the fuck are you ..?” I say I’ll catch up with him ..but I may have to blow off the parade and go directly to the park, where the festival is taking place. It’s like walking into a bazaar. I pass tents selling Indian tapestries, halter-tops, hand-made jewelry and black T-shirts with white skulls and iron crosses. I stop inside a tent carrying supplies for the mediation hall and listen to a guy make this cool humming sound by running a puja stick around the outside of a bronze bowl. I run into Jim sitting with a group of people from NORML ..and go “Heyyy, there’s some normal people here.” One guy is telling a story about how he and his buds used to crash on John Wayne’s boat while it sat vacant in the harbor ..another guy asks me if I’m with the band and I go “what ..?” The girl sitting next to me says she likes the Eagles ..and another guy is trying to remember the name of the singer who does “..I’m bad to the bone.” I blurt out “George Thorogood” ..then turn to the girl and ask her how she knows music from a band that broke up way before she was born (I ask stupid questions like that). “I just love the song Desperado” she beams, and I go “..guess rock ‘n roll will never die” and somebody shouts “I know that one .. Neil Young.” Then someone else goes “No ..you’re thinking of rust will never die” and I go “sleeps..” and he goes “What ..?” and I say “..rust never sleeps” and he says “that doesn’t make sense” and I tell him that I stopped making sense a long time ago ..and start drifting off in the direction of the sound coming from the drum circle, where I will dance to the beat until I stop caring whether or not I make any sense.

Going lunar

Overhead, crows are shouting ..and drowning out the music on my deck. I look up and see them clustered in the trees and scenes from the Hitchcock movie ‘The Birds’ flash by and I feel a twinge of ‘can that happen here’. Something tells me no so I howl back at them. There’s a momentary pause as they lift off .. cluster in another group of trees ..and crank up the volume. Crows are not my bird of choice to take with me if I ever had to live on a deserted island. I start reading an article in the news about future space colonies on the moon ..and mistake the term ‘reconnaissance orbiter’ for ‘renaissance orbiter’. For some reason, I think the word renaissance is more fitting. Then a movie scene from early-childhood comes to mind (from before we walked on the moon) .. where one of the astronauts goes crazy ..breaks away from the pack ..crosses over to the ‘sunny side’ and immediately disintegrates and turns into a skeleton. I cringe when I think about packing the kids and the dog and moving there. Now I'm worried that everything I know comes from either the movies or television shows.

Fiasco

I order a bucket of chicken ..but I don’t have enough cash on me and KFC doesn’t take credit cards. I’m too tired to go to the bank ATM so I use the one in-store ..and bring it down, twice. I’ve never used one before and the only time I ever used my debit card was by accident. So, the manager suggests I use the ATM at the liquor store on the corner ..it’s more like the one at the bank. I get lost on a street that I thought I knew well. I’m exhausted from hiking all day and putting off dinner until way too late. My clothes are dirty and my hair slipped it’s knot hours ago .. it hangs over my shoulders like oily dreadlocks. In other words, I look like a bum. I decide to go back and drive to the bank when I walk by the liquor store (which is not on the corner ..but down a side street several blocks away). Now I’m staring at the ATM dumbfounded. It says it takes American Express, but insists that I give it a pin number. I cannot, for the life of me, remember a pin number ..so I try to cancel the transaction ..causing the machine to freeze. The liquor storeowner looks at me in disgust ..there’s a surly line of customers waiting behind me. I try to explain but it comes out garbled. He threatens to call the cops. I ask if he’ll take a check for a bottle of glenlivet plus $20 cash back ..he comes around the counter shouting, ordering me out. Back on the street I feel hungry, exhausted and confused ..there’s a bucket of chicken waiting for me at KFC ..but they’ll be closed by the time I get there. I look up at the building beside me and discover I’m standing next to the Alta Mare restaurant .. displaying logos for Visa, MasterCard and American Express. I duck inside and order a big bucket of calamari, the fish-taco platter and a tall pitcher of beer. The waitress asks if I’m expecting anyone else and I say no ..in fact, I tell her to just bring the pitcher and forget about the glasses.

Coastal poem

I hike up to a shady grove
and sit beside a wandering stream.
Watch water splash over polished stones
of silver, red and gold
then disappear through the ferns
and whatever else that grows
under a canopy of redwood trees
somewhere above the coastal zone.