{BUZZZZZZZZZZZ!}

WRONG!

That’s the buzzer that went off on “Family Feud” when a family member gave an answer that was not one of the popular ones.

THERE’S A BAND IN SAN FRANCISCO

They’re high-stepping in this town
It’s a rainbow full of sound
It’s fireworks, calliopes and clowns

Sun went down in honey
And the moon came up in wine
You know stars were spinning dizzy
Lord the band kept us so busy
We forgot about the time

They’re a band beyond description
Like Jehovah’s favorite choir
People joining hand in hand
While the music plays the band
Lord they’re setting us on fire

Keep on dancing through to daylight
Greet the morning air with song
No one’s noticed but the band’s all packed and gone
Was it ever here at all?

“The Music Never Stopped,” lyrics by John Barlow

AS WE KNOW,

there are five elements essential to life on this planet: earth, air, fire, water, and music. You can’t mess with that harmonic convergence or the earth starts to shift off its axis, causing random gusts of gale-force wind, sudden sinkholes, spontaneous combustion, a great wave off the coast of Kanagawa, and a nasty case of dissonance. Me no likee.

I’M NOT FOX NEWS

They don’t have to be fair and balanced and neither do I. The San Francisco Symphony is on strike. That’s yesterday’s news, and I’m not here to ply you with the latest who how what where and when. As I write, an east coast tour was cancelled and the strike’s in its third week. Bummer. I’m not writing this as a journalist, a gonzo journalist, or even a writer–but as a music lover, plain and simple, who depends on this orchestra to feed my soul. They are my lifeline to that which I love most and cannot give myself, the overwhelming joy and power of a live symphony orchestra. That’s what I’m doing at Davies Hall. It’s all about the music. How it s’posed to be, anyway.

IF THE ORCHESTRA IS UNHAPPY,

I’m unhappy. If they feel they’re being dissed, I feel they’re being dissed. If they are being dissed, I am being dissed. However anyone feels about their pay scale and relative place in the scheme of things, we need to be damned proud to have them here. They’re one of the biggest reasons San Francisco gets to call itself “world class.”

You’re welcome!

AN ORCHESTRA IS A FAMILY

and a city is like a family, and our fair city is the most dysfunctional of all. Colorfully so, gotta give it that, but our families are being threatened by the outflux of quality souls who aren’t getting what they need here. Most of them don’t want to leave, but the tribes formed in the city and forged in fire of Burning Man are being dispersed around the Bay and beyond.

When you’re amongst family, you feel at home, you feel protected in your safe haven, and I’m sure many of us consider Davies a second home. Home as in “all’s right with the world,” as in greeting the sun with a violin, not a picket sign. My orchestra decided to strike, and that’s all I need to know. I stand behind family; I stand behind them.

The attorney for the plaintiffs in this action, the musicians of the San Francisco Symphony, is:
The Honorable Alexandra Jones
Mayor, Goof City

HEY, MAN.

Whachoo got against me, man? Whaddid I ever do to you, man? You don’t even know me. Why you tryin’ to run me outta town? Man? You know, the man. He of the purple satin purse of golden coins. If he throws any your way, it is with a contemptuous sniff, at your feet, so he can watch you scramble for farthings amongst the sewer rats. (Isn’t that Mitt Romney over there?)

Because, Mr. Man, if you ran David Herbert, Principal Timpanist and 19-year veteran of the orchestra out of town, all the way to Chicago, what chance do the likes of me stand? A self-employed writer and seamstress trying to make it in the gig economy in San Francisco? Great big Hollywood HAH!

All I want is to live, sanely, decently, to listen to Bach…and to be able to pay my rent. There’s the rub.
[The author is quoting her twenty-year-old self, except she left off the “and to love one man, the man who doesn’t love me” part because it’s now irrelevant. She prefers Bach. -Ed.]

For the purposes of this discussion, The Man will be referred to as Mr. Beale.

WHAT MAKES AN ORCHESTRA GREAT?

It’s the musicians, stupid! The musicians and the Music Director–this symbiotic team of alchemists together create an alternate space where you can leave the linked-in world behind (the rest of it is noise) for a blessed time. Turn your cell phone off? Leave it home! And don’t look at the trumpeters, it only encourages them. I love our Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas, but I’d like to see him up on the podium waving his arms around a stage of empty chairs and see how much music comes out of that room. And isn’t the music the point? S’posed to be. The man needs his orchestra back. We all do.

This orchestra, our opera, our museums, culture and art thrive here because we want to live in a society that offers a diversity of activities, lifestyles, and opportunities that attract the attention of the entire world. Do I give a spit about sports? No. Just as some of you don’t know there’s a world of classical music out there, sports barely enters my radar. Do I begrudge the Giants their salaries? No, they’re a tremendous money-making draw, bringing joy, beer, puking and fistfights to lots of folks because people like to play games with balls, and like to watch other people playing with balls, that’s all there is to it. They like to witness a dramatic conflict that ends in win and loss and cheer or moan about it. A little lifetime in two hours. Human nature. Are sports “worth” more than classical music? In a thriving city there has to be room for both, and it we’re blessed to have more than our share of champions here.

WE LIVE IN AN OVERPOPULATED WORLD

where the lowest common denominator disguised as talent will assuredly be inordinately successful. Justin Beiber, bland as a butter bean, and who once pronounced “the Sistine Chapel” as “the 16th Chapel,” has a net worth of $110,000,000. $110. Million. Dollars. Justin Bieber has done this because an army of screaming ‘tweens would rather spend their parents’ money on pink bubble gum than filet mignon. It’s a pacifier. Keeps them occupied. Obviously, the people who draw the biggest crowds–i.e., those who make most money for other people–are the ones to be paid the most money. So if anyone needs to complain about people richer than themselves, there are far more worthy targets than the civilized symphony members who give this city so much value.

PERHAPS

our, or any, orchestra is irrelevant to the average San Francisco resident, like shot-put or the Bible are to me. But if we had no orchestra, much less this one, our street value would go way down. We would be far less rich a city. The Friscotown Musicians are an assemblage of cultured, brilliant, educated superstars, in my world, and I am honored to have them walk among us. And they’re a tourist draw. I am one who would travel to a city just to hear its orchestra. And when I have means, I will do just that, all around the world.

So granted that an orchestra may not be that important to many, perhaps most, people here in San Francisco, but if an orchestra is important to anyone at all, for the love of God, it should be to the orchestra itself! Davies Hall is their home, and home is for the protection of your loved ones, where you take care of them. Home is where you go when you’re troubled and need support. Home is where you stand behind family. If the head of the household, Mr. Beale, won’t do what needs to be done to keep the family happy, without that bond, folks start leaving home. They’re already out on the street.

MANAGEMENT’S ROLE

should be to foster, nourish, and facilitate the orchestra, not indulge in power plays by being “unwilling to offer…an agreement that reflect[s] the success and health of the organization,” as the musicians put it in an open letter to east coast concert-goers, after their scheduled tour was cancelled. Like the President’s Chief of Staff makes his job easier, it should be the symphony organization’s business to make it easy for the players to concentrate on creating great music.

HEAVEN IS A PLACE MUCH LIKE SAN FRANCISCO…

undulant landscape over which the threat of seismic catastrophe hangs: more beautiful because imperiled. Potent yet dormant: the fault lines of creation!” said Tony Kushner in Angels in America,.
[Author-edited for weird punctuation and unnecessary capitalization. -Ed.]

EXACTLY! THE FAULT LINES OF CREATION!

That is why we cannot introduce dissonance into our elemental structure: the earth will crack open and swallow us! When the big one hits, that will truly level the playing field, and family will mean everything. Only Uncle David won’t be there. He moved to Chicago…

No one is surprised that basketball players make more than teachers. You know how the world works. You have a skill, you offer a product or service, you are paid money. “They call it earning a living,” as Robert Mitchum once said. The scarcer your skill, the more it is valued, and the more money you are paid, because you’re the only one who knows how to set a tab stop in Word. You don’t have to be told that, and yet some of you are incensed that a musician makes so much more than you–and it’s still not enough!

BILL CLINTON

gave a talk to Ericsson telcom in Sweden, and was paid $750,000. Three quarters of a million dollars for an evening’s appearance. He got $700,000 from a newspaper in Lagos, Nigeria, and $550,000 from a business forum in Shanghai. Half a mil is the low end for his presence at the podium. But out of seven billion people, only five can say “I was the leader of the free world.” NOW SHOW ME THE MONEY! If he gets laryngitis it costs him 5 mil. In 2011 he made $13.4 million. That would pay about 90 people’s $150,000 salaries for an entire year of work. Yet Justin Bieber is worth 3.5 times that. And look at him!

Duh-huh! I’m Justin Bieber. I could feed Eurasia.

AND YET

some begrudge these eminently trained, conscientious (and tastefully dressed) players, they who are at the top of their profession, an appropriate San Francisco living wage. Go rail on Clinton or Tom Brady, they could probably pay off the national debt while you scrounge for change amongst the lint in your hoodie pockets. Why should SFS members, whose rental market is twice as expensive as the national average, be making less than LA Philharmonic players, who can find on craigslist a 1-BR “with old Spanish charm,” in Beverly Hills, for $600 a month? Hell, I’ll take it! And they get to run their hands through Gustavo Dudamel’s hair. [Not true - Ed.] There is no such option here.

MY FEELING,

specifically about this strike, is that if you have a Bay Area mortgage, college-bound children, have worked for a company perhaps a decade or more, have a highly specialized skill that draws people from around the world, and serve as an ambassador for your city which has the highest cost of living in all the land, $141,000 starts to sound paltry. All things being equal, which they ain’t and never will be, I would double everybody’s salary effective immediately. In the rarified world of orchestral music, if you’re not being paid what the market will bear, chances are you’ll soon be packing your bags. Because you’re worth it, and someone else will surely validate that.

[The Mayor suggests that when you might say “He’s got too much baggage,” or “He comes with too much baggage,” to instead say “He comes with too much luggage.” It’s goofier. - Ed.]

If you’re not in their earning bracket and resent it (”why should they…”), it’s not because they are not worth what they’re paid, but because you haven’t done anything to earn being there yourself, according to this world’s values. Robert Mnookin, Director of the Harvard Negotiation Research Project and Steering Committee Chair, Program on Negotiation, says the players “are not getting rich by San Francisco standards,” but have a “decent” salary and compensation package.

DOUG WHINER

called into KQED, having to agree with management, with a cogent argument against the strike:

“IT SEEMS THAT THE BASE SALARY OF $141,000 FOR THE MUSICIANS IS MORE THAN WHAT AN AVERAGE SAN FRANCISCO RESIDENT MAKES.”

As compelling as that argument is, this conflict between employer and employees is about the distribution of existing funds within the SFS organization, and nothing at all to do with average San Franciscans. Because guess why?

{BOING!}

We’re average! Most humans are ordinary people. The defendants in this action are the Gold Medal Olympians of the classical music world. It’s not about us!

Let them compete on the open market, said another caller–hire former section players from other orchestras. “Plenty of musicians would take that job for far less.”

{SPIT-TAKE!}

There’s always someone who will do your job for less! So common there’s even a name for it: China. The China Syndrome is where you can’t ask for what you’re worth, or you’ll have to move to Chicago to make way for your grateful replacement. Inversely, there’s always someone who will pay more for that perfect apartment you have zero chance of getting. (As long as we’re at it call a rent strike too!)

So the orchestra should not expect increases because they make $165,000 and incredulous bystander Debbie Whiner says “most of us would be happy with $60,000″? But how do you think an orchestra attracts star talent? There is no more effective, respectful (and appreciated) way to show appreciation for someone’s artistry than to pay them to produce it.

There’s some Rough Brahms going on out there.

ISN’T IT CURIOUS

how the Mr. Beales of the world, when cuts are called for, can always find funds for their own raises or bonuses? Of course the Music Director makes more money than the players–Michael Tilson Thomas is the worldwide ambassador of the Symphony, and it is in our interest to keep a well established, award-winning conductor that brings kudos to our city on the podium. But at close to $2.5 million, compared to the senior player’s salary of $165,000, MTT is paid $2,300,000 more, 15x more, than is being paid to some of the world’s greatest musicians, who in conjunction with MTT, make this the Grammy-winning band it is. Seems a bit koyaanisqatsi to me.

Sure, orchestras don’t have the draw of the Superbowl to rake in funds for salaries, but the priorities demonstrated by the allocation of resources weighs heavily toward management and star power. It is not because Tilson Thomas, in the grand scheme of the orchestral world, is overpaid. He is not. If Buster Posey is worth it, he is worth it. His compensation is no doubt commensurate with the upper echelon of the conducting elite, and the only reason a baseball player might make more money is that ball games bring in more money for the owners. It’s the same old story–the disparity in pay scale for workers compared to management, does not compute.

AND WHY HAVE A STAR CONDUCTOR

if not to maintain, challenge and elevate the excellence of our orchestra? So we stand out as a member of the Big Five of the USA. So San Francisco can say, “This is the home of the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas, Music Director. We couldn’t be prouder.” A local hero, our beloved MTT–such a passionate, enthusiastic, learned and gentle man–I first saw him years ago on TV playing a prepared piano, having no idea he would become one of the most important people in my life–my orchestra’s music director. Why are you interrupting his harmony with discord? Are you trying to lose him too?

Orchestras acknowledge the competition for staff and music directors and pay these salaries, because they lose their principal timpanist when they don’t. It comes down to, do you or don’t you want to live in a city that takes care of its own? Do you or do you not want to live in a city that prioritizes excellence? A city that supports artists and artisans, Chicken John’s City of Art and Innovation, or one that green-lights projects that price working stiffs right out of it? Only problem, when all the worker bees are gone, who’s going to service the Queen? And how will she maintain the hive?

In their open letter to the east coast-tour venues that had shows cancelled, the musicians explained, “We sincerely believe that the cause we are fighting for now will positively impact the level of orchestral music making in America,” saying that fair contracts are important “to attract the best and brightest willing to dedicate their lives to making and sharing beautiful music.”

MUSIC BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER,

and you, Mr. Beale, have driven them apart. A life of music is a happy thing, like God’s own birdsong on the sill, a positive life force that builds community. This could be the greatest time of your life, your stint serving the San Francisco Symphony. You’re running an orchestra, a famous cultural institution, not a car wash. These people deserve your highest respect. Instead, like websites who ask for your free content in exchange for exposure, when their website would not even exist without the free content, I wonder if you understand that you’re in the music business and the musicians are the ones who produce the music. Those wooden and brass things you see them carrying, plucking, bowing, blowing into, those are m-u-s-i-c-a-l i-n-s-t-r-u-m-e-n-t-s. Without the people who play them so expertly, there is no orchestra, no show, no box office, and no you. But you have disrupted my orchestra and messed with the natural order of things. Not acceptable.

I HAD JUST COME

from the picket line and got to talking with a fellow at the trolley stop. He admired my outfit and told me, “You give the city a flair.” “Then take my picture!” And we chatted about how hard it is for those with bohemian flair to survive in this hostile economic climate, how many have left over the years. “Tourists come to San Francisco expecting flair, and there won’t be any left!” he lamented. Tourists also come here expecting a world-class, Grammy-winning orchestra. How long before we lose that too? Now Adobe Books joins the lore of the way things used to be, a showroom of fancy men’s purple satin purses to take their place.

AGAIN I ASK YOU:

Whose San Francisco do you want to live in?

This guy’s?

In this November 2011 file photo, Mayor Ed Lee adjusts
his Transition lenses. (Photo: Getty Images)

Or this crazy bitch’s?

Mayor Jones waits for the trolley while supporting SFS musicians.

Because there is already a goofy contingent of San Franciscans who hold dual citizenship in Goof City. We can all move to our own corner, if you like. Isn’t there a toxic waste dump that’s not yet ready for development?

MR. BEALE, I WANT TO SMACK YOU

upside the haid! Nobody forks with my orchestra! I strenuously object to your epic failure to meet Mr. Herbert’s terms and my settlement offer is this: The symphony members give up nothing. They get everything they want and a 2% raise, today. You, Mr. Beale, are out. The management team is summarily fired (we’ll call in Donald Trump to do it) and replaced by music lovers who don’t operate in a cloud of “cultural disconnect,” as Herbert put it, but whose privilege and honor it is to contribute to the success of the outstanding cultural asset that is the San Francisco Symphony.

FOR WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO OFFER,

Mr. Beale, you yourself, that’s recognized around the planet, that will live after you die? Perhaps you’re blowing the opportunity for it right now. Perhaps it is your highly desirable job that so many would gladly do for far less, to husband and shepherd this great entity and make their working lives run smooth as a California kale-cucumber-avocado-spinach smoothie so they can share their brilliance with the rest of us, not to create conflict and watch them walk away. They need to come on stage proud, with a clear head and relaxed breath and play their hearts out for an adoring public. That is their job. Yours is to facilitate that. You exist because they exist. When was the last time you got a standing ovation in China?

YOU SPEND YOUR DAY

surrounded by people who are among the world’s best at what they do, who high-stepped into this town on horses breathing the fire of passion, devoting their lives to the pursuit of beauty. I had no idea there was backstage strife going on at the symphony–because I always just arrive, if lucky to get it, at my favored front orchestra seat of B103, where “the happy smiling face of the San Francisco Symphony,” Associate Principal Cellist Peter Wyrick (”Me?!” said he), floats above me, frequently sharing some secret amusement with Principal Michael Grebanier.

I just show up, prepared to be wowed by the brilliance of this ensemble and the lives of music they have come to share with us, their audience. It was a match made in heaven, and they have never failed me. They come dressed in formal wear for us, though some of us are in the front row wearing running shoes, because some of us were raised by wolves, and there was no sign of internal conflict because they are consummate professionals; every damn time they sit on down and take me into some sublime realm, as Hesse put it in Steppenwolf.

There were now and then, though rarely, the hours that brought the welcome shock, pulled down the walls and brought me back again from my wanderings to the living heart of the world…It was at a concert of lovely old music. After two or three notes of the piano the door was opened of a sudden to the other world. I sped through heaven and saw God at work. I suffered holy pains. I dropped all my defenses and was afraid of nothing in the world. I accepted all things and to all things gave my heart. It did not last very long, a quarter of an hour perhaps; but it returned to me in a dream at night, and since, through all the barren days, I caught a glimpse of it now and then. Sometimes for a minute or two I saw it clearly, threading my life like a divine and golden track. But nearly always it was blurred in dust and dirt. Then again it gleamed out in golden sparks as though never to be lost again and yet was soon quite lost once more. Once it happened…that I suddenly spoke in verses…so beautiful and strange…in the morning they vanished; and yet they lay hidden within me like the hard kernel within an old brittle husk. Once it came to me while reading a poet…again it shone out and drove its gold track far in the sky…Ah, but it is hard to find this track of the divine in the midst of this life we lead, in this besotted humdrum age of spiritual blindness, with its architecture, its business, its politics, its men!

That, Mr. Beale, is what is going on up on that stage. That’s what your employees are doing, carrying us away on the golden track of the divine. It’s what their work and lives are about. Every individual among them is sharing a skill, for our listening pleasure, requiring a lifetime of training and dedication. They are part of a company that is one the “Big Five” in their field. They travel the world being cheered for what they do, and have picked up their industry’s highest accolade–15 times! Fifteen Grammy awards (including this year) and eight on their own SFS label. ’snot like they’re not doing their job! Are you doing yours, Mr. Beale, because for me, it was to keep David Herbert here.

BUT YOU BLEW IT, MR. BEALE

We lost him. He’s gone. He’s off to join that spitfire Muti in Chicagoland. And he didn’t even want to go. That is the sad state of affairs today. As I write on 3/30, talks have resumed and perhaps you’re all shaking hands even now. But settling the strike does not settle the issues it raises. It is a touchstone for how this city treats its artists–even the top tier among them. If Mr. Beale doesn’t care if David Herbert calls San Francisco home, it’s a bleak outlook for the rest of us. So this is your wake-up call that we are in danger of losing our best and brightest, because they will receive more respect and recognition elsewhere. I suggest you value and hold on to what you have.

Because recognition for professional services is indeed a salary appropriate to your standing, in the community and the world, your cost of living, and comparable to and competitive with those in your field. Would you rather see our players head south to LA? If not, then give them what they need to stay: respect in the form of pay parity with peer orchestras.

Your own orchestra website acknowledges:

When it comes to making music, talent is just the beginning. Add these essentials: The physical endurance of a marathon runner. The emotional stamina to handle applause one moment and critical darts the next. A certain amount of genius. And pure love of music. Everyone who walks onto the stage of Davies Symphony Hall shares these qualities. All have chosen to devote themselves to music. It is not an easy life. But for them, it is the only life, full of unbelievable challenges and overwhelming joys. The music makers are a special breed.

And you let David Herbert, one of our Most Valuable Players, our Buster Posey, hit the bricks. That lays like lead in my heart. You done broke it, Mr. Beale. It’s like losing a smart brother-in-law or favorite uncle. One of the key, most loyal members of your organization, “tried for seven months to work out a deal with the management,” he said. “My intention was to stay. But the more I went through the process, the clearer it became that I just would not have the same opportunities here–either artistically or financially–that I would in Chicago.”

Your response: Don’t let the door hit your backside.

{BUZZZZZZZZZZZ!}

WRONG!

That was not a popular answer with this family member.

YOU KNOW WHO YOU REMIND ME OF,

Mr. Beale? One time I was at the laundry, and there was this foul-mouthed old virago badgering a young woman. They didn’t appear to be related as the wicked witch was white and the young one Asian, but she wailed on her the whole hour they were there. Who knows what their relationship was, but the young lady never responded to her and never put up a fight. It was a disgusting display and as they passed me in leaving I told the shrew, “You better start paying this young woman some respect or she’s not going to come to your funeral, y’ole bat!”

Her. You remind me of her. And you better start paying your orchestra some respect, or they won’t play at your funeral!

[Disclaimer: Nota bene–the author has no idea who comprises the management team at the San Francisco Symphony, their names or faces, positions or powers, or any inkling of their daily lives as fellow travelers on the planet earth; all she knows is this: that David Herbert had cause to say to them: “As an artist and an employee I want to be in a workplace where I am valued and supported by management, and where I am considered an asset rather than an inconvenience.” Shame on you, Mr. Beale.]

That is the state of things as they are today!

Don’t get the hatter mad again, Mr. Beale! She’s got her
crazy eye fixed on you! Is she as demented as she looks? Yes!

SAN FRANCISCO,

get off your freakin’ high horse! Come down to our level. We the people. These are sad times for Regular Joes and a hostile environment for flair. But we’re having so much more fun than you!

Goofery: I recommend it.

IN OTHER NEWS

8 Washington? Two words: Fuck you!
America’s Cup? Three: Fuck Larry Ellison!
SF Housing? Rent strike! Home-buying moratorium! Across the board, refuse to pay these prices! We’re mad as hell and you know the rest.

The author celebrates 10(1) years of SFS musicians
WITHOUT WHOM THERE IS NO ORCHESTRA!

TWO MORE: INDIAN SUMMER

Three more: Giants. World Series.

Just won it. I’m no sports fan, but I love San Francisco, a deeply divided city, and when everyone in it is happy at the same time for the same reason, it’s a big whoop. We be the champions, folks, and the haves and the have-nots, the progs and the power brokers, have one thing in common: civic pride, dressed in orange and black.

As helicopters circle, cars honk, fans whoop, and Zazu groggily raises her head and finds nothing of interest to compete with sleep, I discover the celebration footage I thought I took at 16th and Albion was never recorded because I neglected to push the video button on my phone. Anyway, here’s the broom we swept the series with:

I HOPE YOU HAVEN’T

actually stayed tuned, as I suggested in my last Ax File of 2011, to see what happens to me in 2012, because if you had, you’d have seen a lot of this:

That’s just for us old folks, who remember when TV used to go “off the air.” Before anyone ever heard the expression “24/7.” Apart from the tale of that pesky vampire blood, I still haven’t gotten back into the habit of writing down every damn thing that passes through my head. And I’ve been largely OK with it. Writing isn’t the be-all and end-all of existence. Not mine, anyway. Because much to my own surprise, I’ve discovered over these past several years, that I don’t care all that much about it. Writing, that is. Whether I do it or not. It’s just something I’m good at. More on that later though. Sometime when I feel like writing about it. I just stopped by to congratulate the Giants.

EVERYBODY GOES HOME IN OCTOBER

said Jack Kerouac, presciently so, as he himself died October 21.

Third and Townsend sure ain’t what it used to be (a lovely Mission-style Southern Pacific Depot).

Kerouac had some elaborate fantasy baseball thing going on, an aspect of his life I find not at all fascinating, but if he hadn’t hemorrhaged in a chair while watching The Galloping Gourmet, he’d be one happy bloated old drunk tonight, for sure, perhaps falling off a stool at Vesuvio.

The special edition black suede baseball the author got at
the New York Public Library Kerouac exhibit “Beatific Soul”

I AM SCANNING THE LABEL

of my Gonzo stain remover, featuring a turbaned bearded fellow bearing a magic lamp, smoke curling out of its spout. Will the genie get my vampire blood out?

Possibly. Gonzo is tough on baby formula, ballpoint ink, beverages, blood!, coffee, grass, grease, milk, perspiration, pet stains, tea, urine, vomit and more. (Isn’t that a cocktail at the Jim Rose circus?) Rubie’s Vampire Blood (or Sang de Vampire) does not list its ingredients, but does include a caution that it may stain some fabrics. I push the blood through the wool fibers as best I can with a scrub sponge and dish soap, blotting it onto paper towels, but it keeps on coming. Ultimately I throw it in the washer, come what may. For your info, “some fabrics” includes your (my) ethno-hipster Pottery Barn area rug. There is a vaguely pink reminder of my folly, as well there should be.

YOU MAY ASK,

why is there a tube of vampire blood on my living room floor? It’s hardly Halloween, and no more a holiday than the onset of Daylight Savings Time slouching towards St. Patrick’s Day. In San Fransassy, I could be going to any number of costume events, so makeup reserves are certainly in order, but as to why this tube of red paint is, specifically today, on my floor–that I cannot tell you. It simply is.

DARIN STRAUS IS AN ACCOMPLISHED WRITER

who pulled off the impressive feat of a first novel chronicling the lives of the original Siamese twins Chang and Eng (who between them fathered 21 children leading to 1500+ descendants).

(Another novel of his, More Than It Hurts You, was the only book I had with me on the Trans-Siberian Express in July of 2010. It was a more “regular” sort of story than his dazzling debut, a study in Münchausen-by-Proxy Syndrome, but made a bizarre companion on a cross-continental train trip. Inside the head of some psycho mom who hurts her kids to glorify herself is not where I want to be while taking a slow-mo tour of the Gobi Desert. I left it behind in my hotel room in Moscow.)

Straus paints a vivid picture of the infant twins mushing around barefoot, stepping on worms and “raspberry-red snail-egg pods” in their native Siam, and in asking myself, what is this squishy marshmallowy thing I’m stepping on, I thought of little Chang-Eng and the mud oozing between their toes. When I raised my foot I found a wet red circle on it from the plastic tube I’d drawn blood from, and the same brilliant circle on my earth-toned rug.

IT’S NOT UNUSUAL

for miscellaneous items from the whole timeline of my life to mysteriously turn up in my contemporary context. I am always moving, sorting, thinning things out, picking them up and leaving them elsewhere, forgetting and misplacing them, putting them in piles and tripping over them, trying to piece my life together into some kind of coherent whole.

I INVENTORY THE CONTENTS

of a single drawer, into which random stuff has been randomly stuffed to clean up for a friend’s visit. A deck of Italian playing cards missing the Queen of Hearts, which I gave to the person who is the Queen of my Heart. A copy of The Glass Menagerie, which I haven’t looked at since college I am sure. The set of four wheels which came with my bulk cat food container. A framed greeting card with one of my favorite quotes, from Pascal, “Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas” (the heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of) but with the glass and card and frame and backing in a pile instead of actually framed. (I pause to put it together while in the neighborhood.) A box of wooden alphabet tiles. An Eagle Creek travel pack. A scratchboard kit. The video Beau leant me, “How to Draw a Bunny,” about “art-world prankster” Ray Johnson, and a 56-year-old baby picture of me. A jumble of miscellany, like my brain.

THEY SAY

acknowledging you have a problem is the first step towards solving it. (They have probably followed a 12-step program at some point in their lives.) I admit I’m an addict, and my drug of choice is chaos. Avoidance is something that builds on itself. The more you avoid, the more there is to avoid. It’s easier overall to be overwhelmed in general, conveniently absolving myself from dealing with specific issues. While writhing in anxiety I am temporarily exonerated from figuring out the rest of my life. I can just collapse in exhaustion and “lose myself in the comforting slopes of my bed” and leave it for mañana (whatever it might be, it hardly matters), because as H. Caldwell Turner put it, “The fastest way to tomorrow is by giving up on today!”

I’M IMPROVING.

I own the Darin Strauss book. But I took it out of the library to find that quote to spare myself finding it in my own apartment. It’s probably in a box under the bed. Yet I am taking baby–yea, prenatal–steps towards getting my life in order, even enlisting help when I need it (most unlike me). Maybe someday it’ll all make sense! Or not.

FUCK!

I stepped on it again!

Demo of Sang de Vampire staining some fabric.

NAH, NO I WON’T.

That was back in May. And anyway worrying’s not my thing. Full-bore balls-out depression is more my style. Why fart around with “what ifs” when you can just curl yourself into a glazed doughnut and lie around eating yourself up? Worrying leads to burying! You can quote me on that and better not pretend it’s yours.

I’LL WORRY ABOUT IT

when I get back from New York. But I didn’t. That was in September. This column has been live-streaming in my brain since April and I am posting this if it is…and it is in fact about to be…the last thing I do in 2011.

“I HAVE THIS THEORY

that money always works itself out,” someone said in a movie.

“Yeah! There’s relativity and there’s that one!”

(Actually it was on “Felicity.” I was just too embarrassed to admit it.)

“Their Feature”
Sign on 24th St., San Francisco

I captioned this photo on flickr, “I guess tomorrow will take care of itself,” and a contact of mine commented, “Doesn’t it always?” “I certainly hope so!” was my response, “and I hope my rent pays itself as well.”

Business plan, stock, research, supplies and equipment, accounting, marketing…that’ll all work itself out. It has to, because I have three cats and a landlord to support. I’m not going to worry about it. I have thirty-six pillows forms in the closet.

I HAVE A FRIEND

who was once laid off from his job as a checker at some fancy supermarket in Lake Oswego, Oregon. It turns out he got his job back several months later—but those in-between were filled with anxiety and uncertainty. Had he known it was a temporary thing, he could have simply enjoyed his time off. Things worked out. That’s my philosophy. I’m not going to squander ectoplasm with worrying—things will work out. I bet you a dollar. That’s how confident I am.

I SHOULDN’T BE SPENDING

my dwindling funds like this, on trips to Cancun and New York. Where did that voice come from? Because that voice is wrong. It’s exactly how I should and must be and cannot not be spending my money. I have a lot of stuff, for sure, but most of my money evaporates into air in the form of experiences–traveling and live performances.

A what-the-hell 56th birthday extravaganza trip to the Yucatan is just what the doctor ordered, the doctor being Dr. Jones, the person who knows best what ails me and what cures me. Sitting around is what ails me, living in the world is what cures me. So when an appealing trip comes up and I have the Virgin credit card air miles to get me there, I figure the rest is merely cost of living, anyway.

Happy birthday to the author, on the beach in Cancun. Photo by Donna Berka.
What the hell happened to those 50¢ sunglasses from Out of the Closet?

ANYWAY I AM A CULTURAL ADVENTURER

as afar.com describes me after taking their what-kind-of-traveler-are-you? quiz.

“I ENJOY TRAVELING,” I am told

because it helps me understand the culture of a place: its history, food, art, music, etc. When I visit someplace new, I might wander through museums, go to a traditional music concert, tour architectural landmarks, or take a cooking class in preparing the local dish.

I’m always up for adventure and often visit a place before most of my friends do. I avoid the tourist haunts and don’t mind roughing it a little when I travel.

Usually, I
• Am curious about new places
• Enjoy local customs and habits
• Make decisions quickly

Sometimes, I
• Spend money on travel
• Take long trips
• Act independently

THE IMPORTANCE OF SOMEWHERE ELSE

cannot be over-emphasized for healthy balance and perspective, hence my motto When in doubt, go out, also expressed as “Leave the house.” “The house” can be a soul-sucking device to hang on to the status quo, the I’m-fine-as-I-am, the I-don’t-want-anything-for-myself, a frozen space-time continuum in which you can’t move back or forward.

I recall Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood had a lesson once on the concept of “somewhere else,” which I recall thinking was hella progressive and right-on-the-money real-world information to pass on to kids.

SOMEONE TOLD ME

he has a friend cleaning up writing for VISA. “I’d rather clean toilets,” said I. And I would. And I will, if it comes to that. It’s the only job I can think of with nothing attached to it other than getting it done. So I’m going to open up a couple of Etsy shops to peddle my wares. I’ll have to work hard, but at least it will be creating lovely things to support myself and my feline family. I hate working all day to advance someone else’s career. The birds—that’s for them.

I’M NOT LOOKING

at my bank balance anymore. I’m just priming myself for the day when the ATM nears spitting out the bottom line: insufficient funds. That day will not come. But not much longer can I enjoy the luxurious option of “I don’t feel like it.” So if scrubbing porcelain becomes the order of the day, so be it. All work is honorable, if the worker and the employer honor each other.

HEY AND YOU KNOW WHAT?

I had the opportunity to go to Cancun on the cheap and was able to do it. Did I want to do it? Yes. Because it’s just the sort of thing I do. This is what money is for. To live life with. Not to live it later with. Or die with. These are all choices. My choices. I’d rather live in the world than in the four-bedroom house, the two-bedroom cottage, the fourplex apartment building, the two-bedroom flat, all of which I sold to seat myself at this table in Punta Sum, Quintana Roo, Mexico.

The author arrived hours early for ferry departure to Isle Mujeres
and had her favorite Mexican meal of fresh ceviche before touring the
pier and taking 200 photos of rusty marine equipment and salt-encrusted
tangled ropes.

I HAD NO WRITING PARAPHERNALIA

with me save the Levenger mini-pen that clips to my wallet, so I wrote something clever and salient on a table napkin, which napkin stayed underfoot for weeks back at my place, except for when I wanted to transcribe it and toss it. God knows where it is now that it is most relevant.

I AM A FUCKING INSPIRATION

the lovely Ms. Moon (killer name with killer lunar cycle tattoos to match!) gushed to me on Facebook: “I love how deeply you live your life.” I had posted this picture of the view from Room 253 of the Hacienda Morelos, when I awoke and sat up in bed.

WHERE ARE YOU?!

she exclaimed. Send me a postcard! I will attempt to, my dear, but not only is there no post office in Puerto Morelos, Not-Sophie of Sophie’s Dress Shop (Sophie is Not-Sophie’s god-daughter) tells me, mail doesn’t go out even from Cancun unless it’s priority. Cancun? World-famous resort? Are the correo boxes trash cans? Well, it may get there, someday, eventually, but don’t bet on it. I was told the same thing in the late 80’s of Yelapa, on the west coast by Puerto Vallarta. My friend was writing post cards but giving them to friends to mail from the states. To me, however, the exotic postmark is the main point of post cards. So here’s hoping, friends!

IT TURNS OUT

I tarried too long at the tattoo parlor. Kukulkan Tattoo in Cancun, where my arm and leg were annotated with reminders from Kerouac (”The road is life”)…

and Shakespeare (”Let it come down”).

Too long to make it to the post office on time to mail my postcards. ’twas closed when I got there, and I was to leave the next day so I entrusted the cards to my tattoo artist, Romeo, to mail, and if you didn’t get yours, either Cancun truly has no reliable postal system, or Romeo spent my 500 pesos on beer.

Artist at Work, Romeo Beats
Kukulkan Tattoo Studio, Cancun

ZOOMING BACKWARDS IN THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM

I am now magically in my hotel room in Puerto Morelos, and even though it is 2:06 a.m. by my iPhone and MacBook and 4:06 Yucatan time, I can’t sleep for excitement of going to Cobá tomorrow, even though that was over half a year ago. And it’s a good thing I couldn’t because I now realize I set my alarm for 5:30 PDT, which would have awakened me at 7:30 Yucatan, in plenty of time to miss my 6:28 bus from the highway. Anyway, waking up in the middle of the night is fun here, because you get to go out on the patio and gaze at the ghostly white boats bobbing on the Caribbean.

FOR MY 55TH BIRTHDAY

(the BIG one in my book—born in ‘55) I climbed the Great Wall of China; I had planned for my 56th to climb Chichen Itza (hell, even Frieda Kahlo managed to do it, in the movie–I don’t believe it happened myself I mean hello she broke her spine and wore a brace) but—silly me—my friend Donna, the Earth Mother of Mother Earth, who accompanied me as far as Cancun on this trip, bothered to research it on the web (I’m too fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants) and it was closed to climbing in 2006. I was glad when I got there because I couldn’t quite manage to wake up that day. I still bought a bunch of stuff of course. It was no longer my birthday but it was a Wednesday, so, hey, celebrate good times, c’mon.

DONNA WAS IN SEARCH

of a brief snorkeling trip because she was flying home later that day, and came up with Diving Dogs in Puerto Morelos. The owner of the company, a waist-length pony-tailed leatherette case [a term the author and her sister devised to indicate high-as-you-can-go on the tanning scale; Level 0 was “milchy vicht,” or “milky white.” – Ed.], looked at me like I was beyond mentally challenged when she discovered I can’t swim. From her point of view, it is insane, but, I explained to another gal who actually said to me “What’s wrong with your mother?” my family was too busy escaping from their country to care about such things. Anyway, I had to pay a $10 fee to just ride on the boat, because the reef is a National Park. I wrote (this column) and rocked on the turquoise Caribbean. Not too shabby, eh?

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

Downtown Cancun, where we decided to stay for local flavor instead of the Hotel Zone, is not an attractive city; it’s as broken and bruised as St. Petersburg, Russia, but I developed an affection for it, perhaps because of Dr. Simi the dancing pharmacist. That’s me cackling and asking him for “un otro beso” (another kiss) and then…talk to the hand!

Truly, the author is having too much fun, no? ¡Si!

I ASKED A LOCAL BUS DRIVER

in the town square how early he goes to the highway bus terminal to catch my seis y media bus to Cobá; he said they leave every five minutes or so. Can you imagine that in San Francisco? Ha! “You da man!” I told him. “Tu es el hombre!” He laughed, in spite of himself, it seemed.

MY NEXT-DOOR HOTEL MATE ANNE,

here from Boston with her daughter, told me Cobá, as of next year, will also be closed to climbing. On the spot, I said, I’ve got to go! I’m climbing a goddamned ruin if it kills me! Which it could. “Someone fell and died,” Donna had said of Chichen Itza. “Oh, someone fell!” I laughed. “I guess they’ll be banning sidewalks next.” Of course there are no goddamn guardrails on Mayan temples. Of course you climb them at your own risk. There’s even a sign that says, “Mexico is not responsible for your damn-fool insistence upon climbing an ancient pyramid while you rain dollars upon our lovely country.” Here it is:

Note the bonus ancient Mexican ruin trash cans.

Climbing at their own risk

I AM NOW SOMEONE

who has climbed the Great Wall of China and the pyramid at Cobá.

View from the top.
So that happened!

COMO SE DICE

“c’mon motherfuck” in Spanish? I had two hours to spare before my return trip to Puerto Morelos at 15:15, but the proprietor at La Fuera where I stopped with my boyfriend Emiliano for a yummy quesadilla told me there was a bus leaving any minute.

That meant two hours more on the Caribbean beach instead of a bus stop. I paid up and ran towards the bus where someone was talking to the driver, but then the bus started to move. I yelled Hold that bus please would you hold that bus but it was just parking. Other travelers waiting for the bus tell me it’s a while yet.

I EXPLAIN TO THE TICKET SELLER

that my ticket is for the 15:15 (ADO) bus and was that okay, he said sure, just tell the driver. In the meantime I position myself at this cinder block wall to survey the scene. When I place my hands on the top of it, a bizarre rattling sound like perhaps a dry faucet opening and gurgling to life comes out of it. I think there must be some kind of irrigation pipe in there, but I look inside the blocks and see this:

Angry, scaly, creepy creature

THAT LITTLE LIZARD

has it in for me. He is not pleased with my intrusion and my curiosity and my picture taking, not at all. He continues emitting a curdling growling objection to my presence—a lizard!—and every time I check he’s staring up and positioned to leap at me if need be. I show the picture to one of the waiting travelers, all of whom are too exhausted to be conversational. “ ‘How’d that bitch find me in here?’ it’s saying. ‘Tourists! Can’t get away from them, can’t kill them.’ ”

PEOPLE LINE UP FOR THE BUS

and I point to the time on my ticket and ask “Bueno?” He growls just like the lizard and turns me away. No. No doing. This is the 13:30 bus. I KNOW it’s the 13:30 bus. It’s still an ADO bus and I still paid for my ticket. No. This is the 13:30 bus. Your ticket is for the 15:15 bus. I KNOW this is the 13:30 bus. It’s still a paid ticket for an ADO bus going to Playa del Carmen and that’s where I’m going. No. Your ticket is for 15:15. I KNOW—then I offer to the “facilitator” to buy another ticket for this bus and it seems he doesn’t even want to let me do that. I’m boiling mad. He wants me to sit in a plastic chair by the roadside while his air-conditioned bus drives off into the horizon? “DOS HORAS AQUI?!” I spout. “NAH! NO! UH-UH! NO!” Finally El Jerko gets off his power trip, grudgingly tears my ticket and lets me ride on his precious bus, which, when I board, I find is three-quarters empty. There are at least thirty seats free.

COMO SE DICE

“mean people suck” in Spanish?

WHEN I GOT BACK FROM CANCUN

I wondered if it was indeed time to worry about it. But that was back in May and I still haven’t worried about it. It? How to pay for the rest of my life. I trust myself to figure it out. And then I got an unexpected tax rebate from money my Page St. TIC partners and I put in escrow lest the building be reassessed and we’d owe more taxes, but guess what? I bought in 2003 and sold in 2008 and hah! They still hadn’t gotten around to reassessing it, so the statute of limitations ran out and we got all our money back, three years in a row.

SO I DECIDE TO WORRY ABOUT IT

when I get back from New York.

I CANNOT WAIT

to shoot on the streets of New York! I just hope I don’t get shot on the streets of New York! I usually go back east at Christmas, but the weather sucks too bad to want to go anywhere and the holiday pressure sucks my soul dry. So I’ll get it over with in September and get down to business upon my return. Because this is what money is for, to do the things you want to do. Until it runs out. Then what?

STAY TUNED IN 2012

to find out!

The author has a bit of new year advice for you: Let it come down.

EVERY DAY, EVERY NIGHT OF YOUR LIFE

you’ll be missing something. How can you not? No one can live life to the fullest, whatever the hell that means anyway. It’s something that’s subject to everyone’s own definition. I’m just saying, you can’t do it all. You can strive to, but you’ll fail. You can’t have children and not have had children in the same lifetime. Can’t be done. So it’s a choice. You pursue certain things, not others. In this vein, you’ll miss a lot of stuff, and it’s not a tragedy, it just is the way it is. When I think of “living life to the fullest,” I think, “with as little compromise as possible.”

MY GREATEST NEED IN LIFE,

one which I have doggedly pursued, seems to be solitude. So I have opted out of marriage and children. Yet I need companions to care for, like most humans do, so my compromise is cats. And it’s one that works. I have to bring intermediaries in to administer their belly rubs when I’m out of town–that cramps my style a bit, but in a way I can tolerate. A compromise I cannot tolerate is spending the majority of my time doing things I don’t want to do, like working full-time for someone else’s gain. In honor of that realization I sold, one after the other, my two-bedroom cottage in Berkeley, the adjacent fourplex income property, my four-bedroom bungalow in Portland, Oregon, and my two-bedroom renovated Victorian flat in the Lower Haight of San Francisco.

YOU MIGHT HAVE THOUGHT,

she’s set! She’s got her niche in the Bay Area marketplace! And I did think that, at one point. Some coworkers and I were driving by Dwight Way and someone pointed my property out and another asked, “Are you some kind of real estate magnate?” I remember lying on my couch in Berkeley watching “The Sopranos” and congratulating myself for staking my claim in the Bay Area. I was way under the wire at the time. I had my own little house and an apartment building bringing in money, and picked it all up in 1997 for $250,000. Not a typo. I’d refinanced my Portland house to acquire the Berkeley property, then I sold the Berkeley property to acquire my San Francisco flat, then I sold my Portland house to quit my San Francisco job, then I sold my San Francisco flat to continue to live with as little compromise as possible.

I WAS JUST NO LONGER WILLING TO DO

what I had to do to pay Bay Area mortgages. Work full-time, in other words. Take roommates. Be in debt. Compromise. Now I’m still lying on my couch, with few assets and fewer prospects. Soon I’ll start selling stuff off. If you’ve been to my place, and like my stuff, maybe you’ll buy some of it. I’m developing an online yard sale. Stay tuned.

BUT THAT’S ALL BESIDE THE POINT.

The point is that I’m lazy and always have been, but am so much lazier than I used to be. I used to be willing to work full-time to own a house. Not now. Holds zero appeal. I’m lazy and I live in a one-bedroom third-floor walk-up apartment, and if I get down to the street and realize I’ve forgotten my camera (iPhone or Lumix), I’m unlikely to go back and get it (depending on how far I’m going). And the last time I found myself in this position (on the street in front of my building without a camera) I said to myself,

WHAT IF IF MISS SOMETHING?

And I answered myself, well, you will bitch. Every day and every night of your life, you will miss something, despite being a writer and a photographer, that you failed to pin in place by freeze-framing the decisive moment or spelling it out in words. It’s the nature of things. Of course there will be abandoned shoes, graffiti, furniture in the wild, street life, all that stuff you have, as of 5:45 a.m., December 31, 2011 PDT, posted 16,951 pictures of on flickr. You just posted a picture of a trash can on 34th St., New York. Because taking a photograph, as you told your flickr pal Christina, aka Mercury 17, is the same thing as saying, “This is worth looking at.”

“the portland co” © Christina Napoli

WHAT’S WORTH LOOKING AT ABOUT A TRASH CAN?

“Trash Can, 34th St.”
Manhattan, New York

On this one, it’s the graphic “34” motif specific to 34th St., Manhattan. Near Penn Station, I believe. Don’t know how many of them there are. Think there might be a BID that installed them. If you don’t give a shit about graphic or industrial design, or the number 34, or Trash Cans ‘round the World, or whatever else inspires me to document these things, then it’s not worth looking at. Sorry I wasted your time! But everyone has to decide for him and herself what living life to the fullest is, and for myself, it is traveling around the world taking pictures of trash cans, rather than paying the garbage bill for houses I have to work full-time to maintain. And as Christina says, “I appreciate other people who also appreciate the beauty and comedy and the little (and sometimes big) stories in the every day world around us - so easily overlooked.”

“Trash Can, Stockholm Stad,” with royal insignia
Why don’t we have presidential silhouettes on our trash cans?

“Made in China”
Ashtray/Trash Can, Beijing Society of Traditional Medicine
Beijing, China

“Playa Limpia Mar con Vida”
Trash can with wicked dog-pooping sticker
Puerto Morelos on the Caribbean, Maya Riviera, Mexico

“Get Hot”
Bloomingdale’s Bag in Trash Can
Green-wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York

“Litter Only”
Trash Can, 4th & Union, Brooklyn, NY

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE

from the streets of San Francisco…

“Jesus is Lord”
Chair with trash bin, Embarcadero BART

“Cig Butts Only”
(with perhaps a random dog snout)

“Turn Heads”
Not turning too many heads from the trash now, are you?
OK, maybe the Onion King’s

“Sorry Dude”
You been trashed.

“Basura”
Martin de Porres House of Hospitality, Potrero Ave.

“Trash Can in the Rain”
Cell Space, Bryant St.

TIME TO TRASH THIS

I have tired of my trash. If you have not, visit my Trash/Trashed set on flickr.

SO ANYWAY, I DIDN’T GO BACK FOR THE CAMERA!

And of course I missed stuff. At least a dozen shots I would have taken on my pilgrimage to Divisidero St. and back. So what! No one knows but me, what those pictures would have been. It’s not like they’re actually missing from the world! No one’s crying. But as soon as I rounded the corner of my own street, there it was. A dirty floral rocking chair sitting on the curb. Damn! What a great entry for “League of the Empty Chair”! But I did not relent. I had a mission to accomplish and I was on my way. But more importantly, too lazy to go back upstairs.

QUITE OFTEN I DON’T DO THINGS

I might otherwise do if I lived on the ground floor–for instance, my laundry. I’d do a lot more laundry runs if it didn’t involve running the three flights down and back up (six trips for one load). Often I don’t go out because I have nothing specific to do in the outside world and am content where I am, in Big Sky Country (not Montana, my apartment). My place is full of sky, six bay windows full of it, featuring my own personal slice of the San Francisco pie including Sutro Tower, the other charming buildings on my street, the godawful yoogly (U-gly is uglier than ugly) seniors’ complex that blocks my view of Mission Dolores, and whatever heavenly objects might be visible between the fog blankets descending from Twin Peaks.

“Twilight Moon”
From my living room

“21:00 Hours, July”
From my bedroom

“Go Forth”
Market St. billboard from my living room

“Cloudy with a Chance of Blood”
Mind’s-eye view from my bedroom

“Owl with Sutro Sunset”
From my roof above my bedroom

“AIDS Ribbon on Twin Peaks”
From my bedroom

“My Bedroom”

“Bay Bridge Sunset”
View from my bathroom, taken from the roof

“Crow on Roofline with the Three Palms of Dolores”
From my living room

I’ve thought about leaving San Francisco to make life cheaper to live, but life here is not just more expensive, it’s richer. It’s Granola town–the city of fruits, flakes and nuts. I’ve thought about going back to Portland where I spent 15 years–best friends galore, best pie in the world at the Bipartisan Cafe, but the weather sucks and it’s too provincial–too much Granola, not enough fruits and flakes. (To cement this decision I watched all six episodes of IFC’s “Portlandia.” That is simply not the place for me. 37th & Hawthorne cannot be the center of my universe.)

I CAN’T LEAVE MY SKY

my orchestra, my ‘hood…

“View from My Couch”

but I did leave my apartment, again, with my iPhone this time, after returning from my photoless errand, to take out my garbage and pick up some milk at the Spot Lite.

“My Corner Store”
where pleasure can be had for as little as $5.71

“Spot Lite, Saturday Night”

As I was heading towards the floral rocker, iPhone in hand and at the ready, I saw a white van pulling away and thought, Damn, missed it again! But the van had not absconded with the rocker, and so now neither I, nor you, have missed it…..

“The Chair I Almost Missed”
but went back and captured. It would have been sad had only
I witnessed the chair sitting alone and forlorn in its rejection, but
now it’s here on the web for all the world to appreciate that it once
was abandoned on 15th St., San Francisco, ready for a new home.

OH AND BY THE WAY

“Hombre in Happy New Year Hat”
going through the trash at ADO bus station
Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
from The Ax Files…

YOU MIGHT FIND IT HERE

or here.

If you’re searching on the ‘net, that is, you may be led to my Flickr shot of a hollow, fallen tree at Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevada,

(Yer lookin’ a little green around the gills,
gal, might want to get a shot)

which I captioned “World’s Largest Vagina,” or, to my Ax File “Have you met Miss Jones?” my account of the trip on which I took the picture. (When you upload a picture to WordPress it asks if you want thumbnail or full size, and, considering the tree, I did hesitate before importing a full-size vagina into my column, but you can handle it, cantcha?)

SOMEONE IS ALWAYS SEARCHING

for the world’s largest vagina, or “vigina” or whatever variant search terms combine world, world’s, worlds, largest, biggest vagina or vigina and my favorite “most biggest vagina in the world.” During my long absence from The Ax Files, My Year of Not Writing Dangerously, I may have posted only twice, but the search for the largest vagina went on, every day, relentlessly, into an infinite regression of endlessly spiraling plush velvet caverns which itself became the world’s largest vagina.

TO DATE, THE VAGINA TREE

(no, Virginia, vaginas do not grow on trees and no, you can’t “date” the vagina tree) has received 1,113 views on Flickr–that’s 1,113 instances of disappointment that it is a tree, not a vagina–more than Porno Mania of St. Petersburg, Russia (892),

and my orange rubber cowboy boots (730).

But all these pictures are eclipsed by the mysterious Chinatown drug truck, just a random “this-is-a picture-of” shot of a graffitied delivery van which to date has racked up 1,688 views–at one point hundreds a day–and then dropped to none, just like that. Go figure.

THIS GYNECOLOGICAL VAGINA MODEL

picture I recently added has generated a mere 35 views so far.

[The author thought there might be a font called “Vaginal” to use here, but no such luck, so she had to choose between “Burst my Bubble,” “Joyful Juliana,” “Just Me Again Down Here,” “Love Ya Like A…,” and “Tuna and Hot Dogs,” finally settling on “You Are Loved,” because that the whole point, isn’t it? -Ed.]

I POST THIS AS A PUBLIC SERVICE

educational tool for those who are confused about the intricacies of the female anatomy, to clarify the misperception of “vagina” as female sex organs in general. Because according to Summer’s Eve®, 70% of women themselves, much less men, can’t identify their own parts. Want to know if you can? Take the quiz! And “do your friends a favor and share this totally vaginal experience with them!” You’re about to take a trip to down under, and no they don’t mean Australia!

YOU CAN EVEN GET YOUR CAT

in on the action! Yes, even your furry friend asks, is there “something, anything, in nature that surpasses the wonder, the sheer primal awesomeness of vaginas?”

SO TO REVIEW, THE VAGINA’S ON THE INSIDE,

people. You can’t look up a Catholic school girl’s skirt and see one (especially through white cotton). Britney Spears can’t flash hers getting out of a cab. Poor Brad Chase, a lawyer on “Boston Legal” was terrorized by a date who kept telling him she wanted to take him home and “show [him] [her] vagina.” But I’m not sure one can see a vagina at all without a speculum and a flashlight or outright putting your head in the oven. (A good time to remind you that Dr. Oz cautions against douching. “The vagina is a self-cleaning oven,” says he.)

HOW STUFF WORKS, a website “looking under the hood of everything under the sun” describes the vagina as a “smooth-muscle-walled tube.” In fact you basically have to look under the “hood,” if I may (the external sex organs or vulva), to see a vagina, at least its opening. I’m not terrorizing you, am I?

BECAUSE THE AUTHOR LOVES VAGINA!

What’s not to love? After all, as a certain clever Rocky Horror gal I know puts it, “Vagina is for lovers.”

It’s the cradle of life. It’s the center of civilization. Over the ages, and throughout the world, men have fought for it, battled for it, even died for it. One might say, IT’S THE MOST POWERFUL THING ON EARTH!

HAIL TO THE V!

So says Summer’s Eve®, anyway, in a bizarre bid to sell their feminine hygiene products as a tool for empowerment. (What would masculine hygiene entail, I wonder. Manscaping? Weed whacking?) “The power of the poontang,” Mad Men called it. Take back the vadge! It’s payday for the vajayjay!

URBAN DICTIONARY CONCURS.

The vagina is “the center of the universe. Part of a female’s body located between her legs that is reason why all wars are ever fought. If you aren’t getting it you want it, and if you are, it’s never enough…let’s face it, often times us guys don’t care what’s all around the poontang as long as it is willing to provide us access to this magical land of wander [sic].”

Sample usage: “Let’s go get us some poontang!” Perhaps they should wander on over there.

THE NET HAS ALREADY RAGED

about the Summer’s Eve® ads, and I just find them, well–totally vaginal!–so google Hail to the V to read all about it, but this tidbit I had to share, in which Stephen Colbert asks for equal time for men and their “deeply troubling genitals.”

VAGINAL PUPPETEERING IS NOT NEW.

The character in this clip is also a talking hand. Two words: Señor Wences.

Now that was entertainment.

AS THEY SAY,

you learn something every day. And if you learned something here in this Ax Files, you don’t have to learn anything else today. Class dismissed.

On the third day of courting, my true love gave to me
The sexiest heart of canteloupe ever…

to review my life, perhaps the most pleasant recollection I will dwell on is the autumn afternoon, orange northern light slanting into the room, I was gently awakened from a nap on a couch in Delsbo, Sweden by a cascade of diamonds falling over me, aka Rachmaninoff’s Étude-Tableau Op. 39 No. 8 in D minor, as administered by my buddy my pal John Beck, now studying to be a church cantor just like his German alter ego Johann Bach (John = Johann, Beck = Bach; they both mean “stream,” as in the waterfall of beautiful melody John showered over me that day). Whatever else may have happened or not happened, I will be glad to have lived the life that included that day.

I INTRODUCED JOHN

to certain of the Études-Tableaux years—decades—ago, via an old LP of the lovely, late Ruth Laredo, one which includes this piece, but I got so used to listening to music on my laptop, I never dug it out of storage, so

I DIDN’T KNOW IT

as the Op. 39 D minor. We had come to call it “Number 20” because I’d ask him, in a piano-on-demand session, would you mind just playing that one twenty times in a row? So when I recently acquired the Brilliant Classics CD set of the complete works of Rachmaninoff, I wrote to John, who was internet-less in Greece at the time,

“I THINK YOU’RE IN GREECE

with no computer, I would think, but when you return, I need to know:

what is the real name of ‘Number 20’? My Rachmaninoff arrived but I don’t know what the piece is actually named, or is it an étude, etc.?

I’ll just play them all till I find it, but in the event that I haven’t…

WHAT IS IT?”

I indeed find it on CD20, the Études-Tableaux Op. 33 and 39, and get caught in a regular rainstorm of Rachmaninoff. I set my Bose on “repeat track” and listen to it for something like two hours, while editing photos. I write again to John,

“NO. 20

is now No. 200, on its way to becoming No. 2000. I feel like you’re in the room with me! Oh does this piece bring it all back, Sweden and the Baltics, and one of the loveliest moments of my life, waking from a nap on your living room couch by this étude falling over me like a shower of diamonds. Thank you!

love.”

AND JOHN WROTE

“thank you back my darling, for coming over and allowing yourself to be showered with musical diamonds! What a beautiful image. It was indeed a wonderful time! Love to you också, J”

A BEAUTIFUL IMAGE, INDEED,

because the Études-Tableaux are “ ‘picture studies,’ essentially ‘musical evocations of external visual stimulae.’ Rachmaninoff did not disclose what inspired each piece, stating, ‘I don’t believe in the artist that discloses too much of his images. Let them paint for themselves what it most suggests.’ “ [Geoffrey Norris, Rachmaninoff, via Wikipedia]

When I hear the Dm, I see light, lightness, the unbearable lightness of music, as diamonds falling through the air.

“Rachmaninoff found the writing of the Études-Tableaux very difficult after composing several large-scale masterpieces including the Third Piano Concerto and the Second Symphony,” wrote Norris [Wow! – Ed.]. “He stated, ‘(they) presented many more problems than a symphony or a concerto . . . after all, to say what you have to say and say it briefly, lucidly, and without circumlocution is still the most difficult problem facing the creative artist.”

Well put, Rachy. I wonder, will I ever say anything briefly?

RACHMANINOFF’S SYMPHONY NO. 2

is the most poignant, pathetic (as in pathos/suffering) symphonic piece I know of, and coming from someone I think of as “The Man in the Iron Suit” (he just looks so severe!) it makes me wonder (really, for the first time ever) what he was like in bed. But only for a moment.

EVERY TIME I HEAR IT I GO TO PIECES

I won’t re-hash my love for the Second, nor my falling-apart crying jag at Davies Hall while listening to same (the whole string section was staring at me), ending with a percussive rasp to the stranger seated next to me, “Why does life have to be so fffffucking heartbreaking?” my voice cracking on the f like a firebomb.

BUT I WILL

quote here a letter I wrote to Maestro Eugene Ormandy on October 30, 1981, from my N.W. Irving St. apartment, shortly after I left Philadelphia for Portland, Oregon. For someone who can’t find anything when she needs it, I’m surprised I was able to hone in on this one sheet of paper in the large black binder containing carbon copies of my Collected Letters before the age of word processing. It is preceded by a letter to Felice Orlansky written on one of those wide-ruled Big Chief tablets, the buff color of which transferred onto Ormandy’s letter, so you can see how yellowed with age both the letter and I am. It has not seen the light of day for thirty years this month.

The author’s big fat binder of Collected Letters from the days when letters were actually written on paper–even by hand, quite often.

DEAR MAESTRO ORMANDY

As a native Philadelphian (of 26 years’ habitation) who has recently been transplanted to Portland, I am confident that while I miss my friends and city, a new life will develop in their stead—but what can fill the void formerly occupied by you and your wonderful orchestra? In the two months I have been making a home for myself my constant companion has been your exquisite, incomparable recording of the Rachmaninoff 2nd Symphony. It’s hard to imagine a nobler, grander, more fearless piece of music, and I doubt that anyone could embrace it with the warmth and fullness you alone achieve.

The author reads her letter to Ormandy to Beau Caughlin, who took these pictures.

The 2nd is very meaningful to me. I first heard you conduct it at a 1977 Dell West concert, where I and my love shared a single umbrella while the misty blue night descended and your strings soared over Fairmount Park like my own triumphant heart. I am a writer of fiction and my only hope is that I one day compose a sentence that can fly straight into the heart like the motto of the E minor.

After I decided to leave Philadelphia (and my great love) in the summer of 1981, I went to see, one last time, Eugene Ormandy conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Dell, and what was on the program but, of course, the Rachmaninoff 2. As I do not know when I will ever return, it was for all I know, the last time I will have heard you together, and so I felt impelled to pay my respects and to thank you for the beauty and splendor you have given the world like a gift of magic. I happened to see you walking on Locust St. the opening day of the ’78-’79 season; I said good morning and you raised your hat and said, “How do you do?” I must confess I have been in love with you ever since!

In gratitude and admiration, very respectfully yours.

Ormandy tribute, Avenue of the Arts, Philadelphia, and plaque commemorating “the Grand Old Lady of Locust St.,” the Academy of Music, where the author got her musical education, along with the Curtis Institute and every church in Center City.

I MUST ADMIT, THOUGH,

that I was one of many who could not wait for Ormandy to retire and Riccardo Muti to take over. Ormandy was out of steam and Muti full of fire, but I had to leave him behind as well. My fifteen years in Portland were a symphonic wasteland wandering in the desert of James De Priest and the Oregon Symphony (I am NOT rehashing the Pathétique Symphony disaster!).

Two essentials from the author’s Desert Island Collection. Back in the day, Sam Goody in Philadelphia would slice of a corner of the plastic wrap off the album and write the price on the jacket. The author paid $2.99 for the Tchaikovsky, the other, whatever the (illegible) price, has paid for itself a million-fold.

I was once brought to tears in my living room rocking chair listening to a Philly recording of Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance,” so badly did I miss my orchestra. As Rachy himself put it, “When I think of composing, my thoughts turn to you [the Philadelphia Orchestra], the greatest orchestra in the world.”

I WAS CHATTING WITH A FRIEND

that some of Rachmaninoff’s most beautiful melodies have been made into the sappiest-ever love songs, notably my sacrosanct Symphony No. 2 morphing into the hideous “Never Gonna Fall in Love Again” perpetrated by Eric Carmen. Awful, awful, awful, awful, awful. You’ll have to search that monstrosity out yourself. He should have been jailed. Whatever accidental appeal it may have is due solely to the Rachmaninoff shining through, though in this case it is through the worst kind of smog.

My friend sent me a link (created by “The Dungeness Crab”) to Frank Sinatra singing “Full Moon and Empty Arms,” from the Piano Concerto No. 2–a not altogether distasteful rendition, but I find it odd that an arrangement based on a piano piece would have no piano in it. Who made that choice? I have no problem at all with this classic classy Class-A use of it:

BUT THIS COLUMN IS NOT ABOUT RACHMANINOFF.

It is about the freedom to surround myself with Rachmaninoff, as much as I want, any time I want. Twenty, two hundred, two thousand loops of No. 20 and no one can say a damn thing about it.

How’s that for circumlocution and burying the lede?

THE SINGLE GREATEST THING ABOUT LIVING ALONE

is no backtalk. Every time I visit any two or more people who live together, there invariably comes the uncomfortable moment when one is on the offensive and the other on the defensive, usually about nothing of any consequence, just plain old friction of colliding energies.

I’ll give a fictional example so as not to embarrass anyone, from “Breaking Bad,” one of television history’s best-written TV shows, of the sort of conversation that never takes place in my house.

HUSBAND WALT,

covering up for something far more heinous, lies to his wife that he has been buying marijuana from a certain someone.

Skyler (casually): Who is Jesse Pinkman?…
Walt: Nobody…
Sky: Who is he to you? What is this big secret you seem to be discussing with some druggie burnout…who is this Jesse Pinkman to you?
Walt (reluctantly): He sells me pot.
Sky: He sells you…pot.
Walt: Marijuana. Yeah. Not a lot! I mean, I kinda like it.
Sky: Are you OUT of your mind? What are you, 16 years old? Your brother-in-law is a D. E. A. agent. What is wrong with you?
Walt: I just haven’t been myself lately, but I love you, nothing about that has changed, nothing ever will…so right now…what I need…is for you to climb down out of my ass. Can you do that? Will you do that for me, honey? Will you please, just once, get off my ass? I’d appreciate it. I really would.

Then the ball-buster goes over to Jesse’s house and warns him: “Do not. Sell marijuana to my husband. I mean it. Don’t call our house again. You stay away from him! Or you will be one sorry individual.”

LET THE MAN SMOKE SOME POT IF HE WANTS TO! HE’S 50 YEARS OLD!

No one ever says things like that to me at my place. Because that place—it’s mine. Other things no one ever says to me at my place:

Aren’t you ever going to get up?
Would you turn that damn thing off already?
What, you’re still on the couch where I left you?
I cannot hear that fugue one more time.
Are you really going to lie around all day?
Can you clean up your clothes/your papers/your dishes/your cat vomit?
Aren’t you ever going to get a job?
Why didn’t you whatever? Why did you whatever?
When will you whatever? When will you stop whatever?

I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW,

I’m missing out on all the good shit too. But my life is full of good shit. My life IS good shit. I love tapping on this keyboard, or flying around the globe snapping pictures, or watching a movie and stroking a cat, or walking to Davies Hall to see Joshua Bell in rehearsal. This morning features a book (Augustin Burroughs’ Dry), a croissant, hot chocolate, Zazu snoring beside me. Don’t need much more that. As Maslow’s hierachy of needs goes, I’m able to contemplate the sort of philosophical micro-categorizing that goes on at St. Andrews [an in-joke between the author and friend Beau, though neither of them know the punchline – Ed.]. I’m happy the sky is a soft pearlescent Portland-style gray. It’s easy on the eyes.

I THOUGHT OF RACHMANINOFF

because I put on No. 20 after coming home from The Pizza Zone ‘n’ Grill on lower Valencia the other day, where two guys, one after the other, tried to pick me up with virtually the same litany of impersonal personal questions, no introductory small talk, that always turns me right off, so I keep it short and snappy, if I respond politely at all.

HE: I LIKE YOUR HAT.

(A classic bowler, purchased minutes before at Aunt Bill’s Stuff next door, along with a squarish zero.)

The Unbearable Lightness of Rachmaninoff.
The bowler, a spic-and-span sz. 7 by Cavanaugh Hats New York, sold by Bullock & Jones Co., San Francisco, owned once upon a time by one J J B, has the Latin motto on the satin lining, “A posse ad esse,” “From possibility to reality.” WOW! The author is never taking that hat off her head, except to wear the fabulous Pork Pie she got at Fiat Lux, plopping it on her head, saying, “If you can’t be Tom Waits, wear his hat.”

She (me): Thanks. I just bought it next door.

He: Married? Kids?

Me: No, that stuff’s not for me. (What business is it of yours?)

He: Boyfriend?

Me: No, that’s not for me. (What business is it of yours?)

He: Girlfriend?

Me: Not for me. (What business is it of yours?)

He: But you still like to go clubbing, right?

Me: No.

He: Why not?

Me: Been there, done that. (What business is it of yours?) Not interested.

He: What about wild sex? (AS IF!)

Me: I’m 56. I’m too busy having hot flashes to give it much thought.

56! he exclaims. I don’t look a day over 40. Whatever. Is that a line too?

HE LEFT,

shortly thereafter, figuring he didn’t want to go clubbing with a dried-up old skank like me anyway. And minutes later, another candidate tries his luck with same schtick.

SO I JUST LET OUT MY RANT.

Look I don’t want to compromise don’t want to consult anyone want to eat when I want and what I want sleep when I want get up when I want sit at the movies where I want to not have to wait till someone calls me back before I make a plan, I want to quit a job and affect no one but myself, I want to leave the country tomorrow if I want to, et cetera! Which by the way I feel impelled to tell you was pronounced “kettera” not “settera” in Latin, as was “Ave KAY-zar,” (as in “Kaiser”) not CEE-zer. A remnant from my high school Latin studies. You’re welcome.

I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST LOVING

a man. I would, if it happened to happen. But I’ve never loved a man I wanted as a mate, and who wanted me as his. If you have and are now living happily ever after with him (or her), kudos and blessings upon you. The one time I lived with a guy, for about six months on Whidbey Island, Washington, ended in jail for him and blessed “never again” relief for me.

HERE’S MY IDEAL SITUATION,

as related in I Love You, Let’s Meet, by Virginia Vitzthum, “The writer Patricia Highsmith, who had lots of affairs but always lived alone, told an interviewer once that she was more creative when she didn’t have to make conversation at home.”

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-men, men!

BLOWING KISSES AT MY CATS

is all the communication I require on a given day. Not opening my mouth—love it. Maybe that’s why I don’t shut up on paper.

Which, now, I will.

SOMEONE ON FACEBOOK

referred to some things she’d accomplished for a project “60 B4 60,” which I interpreted as a bucket list, assuming you kick it at age 60.

“Starting my 60 B4 60 list. So far, I’ve got the ping pong table, the fire pit, the vegetable garden, the grey nail polish, and the tea party thing going on. I’ve got my gravel for the landscaping and started spreading it.”

I’ve got four years to develop and enact my own list, but my sister better get in gear; she’s got only 28 days to go. Big 6-0 coming up for Cruella in June. Lookin’ good, sis! I guess one could use such a list as a motivator, or as inspiration, or a clarifier of priorities, or a challenge or goal-setter. But if I die before I wake, I’ll have died happy. I don’t think I need one.

I TOOK THESE PICTURES OF MYSELF

with my Yucatan tan in the bathroom mirror so I could look back on them from my 90’s and think, “How young I was!” at only 56.

I LIKE MY LIFE.

I like its pace. Despite my human portion of suffering, drama, unrequited love, hard times and bad luck, I like it more than I ever have. I feel no need to squeeze in stuff I haven’t done because I’ll never get to do everything I want to anyway; mortality knocks, and sooner or later I’ll run out of time, so I just make sure my entire life is something I can live with, Monday through Sunday.

WELCOME TO MY LIFE

I invited my sister-in-law in Philadelphia, who lived in San Diego and loved it, to come out to San Francisco for a visit and fly down to SD with me to see the Streetwise exhibit at the Museum of Photographic Arts. I wrote her an email, subject line: I did the typing for you.

Dear Alexandra,

You’re absolutely right. I could use and do need a refreshing change of pace. I’ll fly to San Francisco and we’ll go down to San Diego together–perhaps on the train, if you like. We’ll get to spend time together and enjoy some California sunshine and ocean breezes and good photography. Hell, we’ll take thousands of pix!

I’ll show you MY San Diego, you’ll show me YOUR San Francisco. And we’ll get to spend holiday stress-free time just hanging out, for the first time since the Dali exhibit at the PMA! Fish tacos at Daly’s Dive, clam chowder at Woodhouse, strolls through the Castro.

OK, you talked me into it. A week sounds good. It’s a damn shame Cruella can’t join us, but the MOPA exhibit closes 5/15 and life happens now. Carpe diem!

Love, Xena

Just hit “forward” and let me know what flight is convenient for you, sister-in-law!

Cheers!
-ax

p.s. Welcome to my life.

THAT IS HOW I LIVE.

I get it into my head I want to do something, figure out a way to do it, make it happen, and move on. I came back from Cancun late on a Thursday night, then flew to San Diego the next Sunday, last day of the exhibit, on my remaining Virgin points. I wanted to spend the day making the rounds of the Balboa Park museums. I left at 10:00 a.m. for an 11:40 flight, only it turned out my flight from San Francisco was delayed three hours, so I arrived at MOPA at 4:00 p.m., in time to catch the very last hour of the show, take some pictures in the park, turn right around and fly back to San Francisco. I was home by 9:00. Fun day. Check out the Streetwise flickr site and you’ll see lots of my street stuff, me and my buddy Rowan Hunn, among others.

That’s my life. But my sister-in-law is tearing out her hedge and putting in a fence and that is her life. I eliminated such necessities by selling my hedges and fences. It’s not for everyone.

YOU MUST BE PRESENT TO WIN

My guiding light is to be where I am. Friend Marc told me prior to my trip to Cancun that some surrounding cities, like Merida, are worth visiting, and I told him, “If I have a camera around my neck, I don’t care where I am, including a garbage dump.” There is always something to see, observe, learn, experience, and if you’re like me, document. So if you can’t have fresh-from-the-sea ceviche on a Caribbean beach, savor clam chowder in a cold rainy city. Warm your face with the steam, gnaw off some crusty bread and let the butter linger on your tongue. Savor a book in a stuffed chair—say, The Eyre Affair, if you dare. If you’re involved with someone, cherish the boons of companionship. If you have no loved one, enjoy your own company and freedom from compromise.

I LIVE WITHOUT A CAR

because I don’t have to be there, wherever that is. If I can’t get there, I just enjoy here. So instead of thinking ahead, I’ve decided to reflect upon, in no particular order,

SIXTY THINGS I’VE ALREADY DONE BEFORE SIXTY,

because there’s nowhere I’d rather be than propped up in my comfy-as-a-cloud bed surrounded by snoring cats with a MacBook warming my lap, while outside the bay windows, dusk finally darkens into night. The usual lights are on in the apartment building on 14th St. What’s going on in all those yellow squares?

1. CLIMBED THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA AT BADALING

2. Heard an a cappella quartet sing at St. Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square, Moscow
3. Traveled overland from Beijing to Helsinki, Finland
4. Got jiggy at Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro
5. Continents I’ve been on: North America, South America, Europe, Asia

6. ATTENDED A YOGA RETREAT IN INCH, COUNTY KERRY, IRELAND

7. Stayed at a castle in Tuscany with a bunch of tarot enthusiasts
8. Visited the house in Kaunas, Lithuania my mother lived in before the war
9. Climbed to the top of The Münster of Bern, tallest cathedral in Switzerland
10. Mexican ruins I’ve visited: Cobá, Tulum, Chichen Itza, Tenochtitlan, Monte Alban

11. RODE THE ORIENT EXPRESS FROM VIENNA TO PARIS

12. Rode the Trans-Siberian Express from Beijing through Mongolia to Moscow
13. Saw a Franco-Russian Picasso exhibit at the Hermitage, St. Petersburg
14. Crossed the Caribbean from Cancun to Isle Mujeres
15. Took a train up, up, up to Zermatt to see the Matterhorn

16. HAD SEX ON THE BEACH WITH THE TOWN DISGRACE IN YELAPA, MEXICO

17. Seen three Mexican Maria de Guadalupe festivals in San Blas, Guadalajara and Oaxaca
18. Had the best French fries in the world at Murphy’s Pub, Helsinki
19. Ate paté on a baguette on Lake Geneva
20. Been to Burning Man a bunch of times

21. GOT TATTOOED WITH THE FAMILY SEAL OF JS BACH IN VILNIUS, LITHUANIA

22. Got tattooed with my motto, Kerouac’s “The road is life,” in Cancun
23. Got tattooed with my philosophy of life, “Let it come down,” from Macbeth, also in Cancun, on the same day:

BANQUO: It will be rain to-night.
First Murderer: Let it come down.

24. Graduated cum laude with a degree in English from Temple University
25. Saw Kerouac’s On the Road scroll in Las Vegas, San Francisco, New York and Lowell, Massachusetts

26. THREW THREE COINS IN TREVI FOUNTAIN, ROME

27. Been to the Hermitage, the Louvre, Jeu de Paume, the Rijksmuseum, New York MOMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, SFMOMA, de Young, Legion of Fine Arts, Chicago Art Institute, Gulag Museum in Moscow, many others
28. Took the obligatory shot of a gargoyle from the top of Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris
29. Crossed the English Channel from Calais, France to Dover, England, throwing up much of the way
30: Been to Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada (3 times), China, England (twice), (then) East Germany, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany (twice), Iceland (pit stop on Icelandic airlines), Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico (6 times), Mongolia, the Netherlands, Asian and European Russia, Sweden, Switzerland (twice)…am I forgetting anything?

31. KISSED THE GRAVES OF JS BACH (Leipzig, [East] Germany) & JACK KEROUAC (Lowell, Mass.)

32. Owned a four-bedroom house in Portland, OR, a fourplex apartment building and two-bedroom cottage in Berkeley, CA and a two-bedroom restored Victorian flat in San Francisco—and sold them all.
33. Went to the same elementary school, General David B. Birnie, Philadelphia, as Chubbie Checker
34. Airports (I recall) flying into or out of: ATL Atlanta, LUX Luxembourg, SAN San Diego, LAX Los Angeles, DEN Denver, DET Detroit, ORD Chicago O’Hare, MDW Chicago Midway, JFK New York, GIG Rio de Janeiro, PHL Philadelphia, LHR London, DUB Dublin, FRA Frankfurt, KEF Rejkyavik, PVR Puerto Vallarta, HMO Hermosillo, GDL Guadalajara, CUN Cancun, CZM Cozumel, MEX Mexico City, OAX Oaxaca, RIX Riga (Latvia), ARL Stockholm, PEK (Peking) Beijing; ZFZ Buffalo, SEA-TAC Seatlle/Tacoma, PDX Portland, MSY New Orleans, DFW Dallas/Fort Worth, IAD Washington Dulles Intl., AMS Amsterdam–there must be more
35. Been paid for writing and photography

36. EARNED A LIVING AT VARIOUS JOBS

37. Was engaged to an ex-con sociopath who died in Arkansas State Penitentiary
38. US Train stations I’ve embarked on journeys from: Union Station, Portland, OR; King St. Station, Seattle, WA; Union Station, Chicago, IL; Amtrak Station, Emeryville, CA; Penn Station, New York, NY; 30th St. Station, Philadelphia, PA; Union Station, New Orleans, LA; Amtrak Station, Jacksonville, FL; Essex Junction, VT; Syracuse, NY
39. Saw a total eclipse of the moon from a rat-infested parking lot in Mexico City
40. Places I’ve lived: hometown, Philadelphia, PA: 26 years; Portland, Oregon: 15 years; Whidbey Island, Washington: six months; Berkeley, California: six years; San Francisco, CA: eight years

41. LOVED VARIOUS MEN, NONE OF IT STUCK

42. Taken innumerable American cross-country train trips between Portland, OR or SF (Emeryville) CA and Philadelphia, PA or New York, NY, and back, including the Empire Builder, (Chicago to Seattle), the [now defunct] Pioneer (Portland to Chicago), the Pacific Surfliner (LA to SD), the Southwest Chief (Chicago to LA), the City of New Orleans (Chicago to New Orleans) the Sunset Limited (Los Angeles to Jacksonvllle, FL [now inoperative] and New Orleans to LA), the Coast Starlight (between LA and SF or Portland), the San Joaquin (Central Valley, CA), the Cascades (from Vancouver BC or Seattle to Portland or SF) the Vermonter (from Philadelphia to Burlington, VT) the Crescent (New Orleans to Philly) also many from Philadelphia or NY to Chicago–the Northeast Regional, the Capitol Limited, the Lake Shore Limited, the Keystone, the Pennsylvanian, the Cardinal, the Empire Service, the Maple Leaf. I think that’s it. My favorite: the now defunct Pioneer. Current: California Zephyr or Empire Builder.
43. And also one Canadian train trip from Vancouver, BC to Toronto to Niagara Falls, Ontario to Buffalo, NY.
44. Boat trips I recall: Lake Champlaign, Burlington, VT; San Juan Islands & Vancouver Island, Washington State/Canada; Lake Geneva, Switzerland; Cancun to Isle Mujeres, Yucatan, Mexico; snorkeling boat on the Caribbean in Puerto Morelos, Mexico; English Channel crossing, ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estonia, Staten Island Ferry, ferries from Seattle to Bainbridge Island & Whidbey Island, Washington state; whale watching to the Farallon Islands on San Francisco Bay/Pacific Ocean; various sailboats/motor boats in Deception Pass, Washington, somewhere in Maryland, somewhere in Oregon, from Puerta Vallarta to Yelapa, Mexico; Lake Tahoe; San Francisco Bay ferries

45. FLIRTED WITH A FINNISH BORDER CROSSING GUARD

46. Cared for beautiful cats now on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge: Skagit (acquired in Anacortes, Skagit County, Washington), Judah (acquired while shopping for goldfish in Portland), Dan (unsolicited gift); Taxi (stray who left in a huff when I adopted Jackson) Betty (disappeared), Jackson (my soul cat)
47. Now have a feline family of three: Zzyzzy, Zahra and Zazu (creature on earth I am most bonded with)
48. Two dogs only, Manchester terrier, Boy, as a child, and Mountain, husky, on Whidbey Island, WA (hit by car while I was out of town)
49. Once made myself a Trench coat and my boyfriend a Harris tweed suit

50. SCREAMED MY LUNGS OUT ON THE HURRICANE DECK AT NIAGARA FALLS

51. Taken showers at George’s house in Laurel Canyon, with water pressure not unlike the Hurricane Deck at Niagara Falls
52. Once drove a stick-shift from Portland to Seattle, but have not driven any vehicle since 1982, when I abandoned my ‘49 Chevy pick-up truck on Whidbey Island, WA
53. Have scars from minor lipectomies, a moped crash in Cozumel, Zzyzzy escaping from eye medicine
54. Have traveled around the world despite having no sense of direction

55. CAN SPEAK HALTING CONVERSATIONAL LITHUANIAN

55. Can write in French with difficulty
56. Have over 15,000 photos on flickr, most not visible to the public, and more than 120,000 views
58. Can recite the opening of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales in Middle English
59. Once slapped and spit at a guy for his abominable treatment of me and another friend
60. Have written this column since 2005

And that’s it for this one.

The author’s tattoo is in her own hand, as replicated by Romeo Beats, Kukulkan Tattoo Studio, Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico

BECAUSE IT PAVES THE WAY

for the darling buds of May. Before you know it June will be busting out all over. I’m housesitting a mass of hair concealing a cat named Oliver, overjoyed to escape the leaning tower of chaos that is my own place as I sort my voluminous belongings into piles of thises, thats and others in packing for Cancun, my birthday gift to me. It’s my tradition to get myself whatever I damn please for my birthday. How that differs from every other is that every other day is not my birthday. Sometimes it’s on a random Tuesday that I get myself whatever I want.

I’M WEARING BRASS

“55″ earrings in the remaining two days of my 55-ness to commemorate the best year of my life. I was born in ‘55 and have loved being 55 but I expect those years still to come to surpass it, because the fullness of time has come. Things will fall into place in the fullness of time, I always say. Or was that Doc Emerson? That is how I live my life. If things are not as you might want at this time, they are taking the time they need to blossom, evolving and flowing into miraculous realms of possibility…

THERE IS ONLY ONE THING TO DO WITH THIS LIFE–

Live it. The alternative is forfeiting your shot at greatness, the greatness being having enjoyed your own life. The biggest success in life is to get to the end of it and be glad to have lived it. Perhaps you’d enjoy more of it; surely there were things you didn’t get to do, but you’re at peace bidding farewell having lived the life you wanted.

DO YOU PREFER MISERY?

Why? Easier than taking charge of whatever you need to do to make yourself happy? What have you got to lose? Ay, there’s the rub. Many people do, many have lots to lose. I, however, do not. I already gave up most of what I had to lose. So, easy for me to talk. But I’d be surprised if this doesn’t apply to you in any way whatsoever, because the biggest thing you have to lose is not a house, a car, a fortune, perhaps not even a husband, but the dream of the life you never gave yourself.

I JUST ALMOST PICKED UP A FRENCH GUY

on the streets of San Francisco. I was on my way to a poetry reading by friend Candace at Caffé Roma, and he was waiting with me at the corner to cross, carrying a camera with a great big ol’ nozzle of a lens on it.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING TONIGHT?”

I bald-faced ask him. “I’m meeting a friend and we’re going to go out shooting for an hour or so in the wilds of North Beach. Wanna join us?”

He was clearly bemused, then amused, but he was on his way to a photography class. I tell Earl about it at the café.

“Ya gotta open your mouth or nothing happens.”

Right? Ya can never tell. Next thing you know, you’re sipping cafe au lait athis guy’s apartment in Paris. Oui?

IN ANY EVENT

I have to pack. I have a plane to catch. I won’t be able to call Mom on Mother’s Day so I sent her package early—a print reading “You Are My Sunshine,” the song she most likes to sing to me in her tone-deaf but endearing way. I can’t hear that song in my head unless it’s “off.” And an email: “I hope you will have a very wonderful Mother’s Day, because mamyte, I am very grateful you gave me life. I love it. It’s a beautiful world and I love living in it. Thanks to you!”

Oliver says, this is a beautiful bag and I love hiding in it.

YOU KNOW—NAMES, FACES, PANTS.”

But the $10 “How Could I Forget Kit,” from a company incomprehensibly called Yes to Carrots, available on board Virgin American Flight 744 San Francisco to Seattle, can provide you with “everything you need to look and smell fabulous.” But when the top story tonight is Japan’s devastating earthquakes and tsunamis, you are more apt to be conscious of everything you need to be alive and safe.

”I’M NOT WORRIED

about being sued,” says a man behind me waiting to board. “I’ve been a honorable person…”

“Phew,” I whisper to the fellow ahead of me. “I’m glad I’m not having that conversation.” We chuckle in common relief at our relative luck and freedom from litigation, our good fortune at being someone other than the honorable guy behind us, or anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time in ravaged Japan.

ALL FORTUNE, PERHAPS, IS RELATIVE.

I live in San Francisco, an odds-on favorite for impending doom. A frequently used forecast for the likelihood of California quakes, both Northern and Southern, is “not if but when.” According to the USGS,

…scientists have determined that the chance of having one or more magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquakes in the California area over the next 30 years is greater than 99%. Such quakes can be deadly, as shown by the 1989 magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta and the 1994 magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquakes. The likelihood of at least one even more powerful quake of magnitude 7.5 or greater in the next 30 years is 46%—such a quake is most likely to occur in the southern half of the State. Building codes, earthquake insurance, and emergency planning will be affected by these new results, which highlight the urgency to prepare now for the powerful quakes that are inevitable in California’s future.

OFTEN, IN MOMENTS OF QUIET CONTENT,

perhaps with Brahms on the Bose, a book in one hand, the other stroking the purring cat on my chest, I announce to myself, “I’m the happiest person on earth.” This happens in my third-floor garret, which several times a month is subject to subtle tremblors my fellow tenants claim not to have felt. The bed shakes as if a cat is busy scratching itself; however, every loose or hanging object in the vicinity is also quivering—plants, lampshades, the rustic bell I bought in Tuscany, its bracket attached to old plaster by a loose nail—the event lasting ten seconds or less. A CNN reporter noted that quakes of 5.0 or less are hardly even considered newsworthy.

THE REALITY OF LIFE

on this volatile planet with its compromised ecologies and economies is that whatever external circumstance—a comfortable home, a loving family, a seemingly secure job—brings you happiness, can be gone with little-to-no notice. An earthquake, a car crash, a stock market crash, and it’s start-all-over-again. There have been, today alone, March 31st as I write, for instance, over three dozen quakes in the CA-NV region, ranging from 1.0 to 4.4. Whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.

AND IN THE MEANTIME

whole lotta life keeps goin’ on. Though she can no longer afford or, rather, justify the indulgent, extravagant trips of last year, Auntie Alexandra has flown to Seattle courtesy of Virgin VISA card-accumulated air miles, for $5 in taxes, to meet her new nephew, adopted rather suddenly (as these things sometimes play out) by friends last December. A two-year waiting process becomes a “here comes your son” reality. Between him and his five-year-old sister, these two attention-seeking, energy-abundant young beings present a challenge for their aunt so used to holing up and not speaking for days. In this case, it’s a refreshing change, a taste of happy (though sometimes frazzled) family life.

CHILDREN REQUIRE, PERHAPS TEACH YOU,

to be absolutely present, responsive and patient—a combination of happy traits I most consistently demonstrate in the presence of cats, not so much people. It’s a quiet, rainy Seattle weekend, perfect for creature comforts—lounging, slow food, movies. The weather, we deem, is too soggy for our casually planned pilgrimage to the graves of Bruce and Brandon Lee, but we are granted a couple of dry spells sufficient for brunch, shopping, strolling, photo snapping.

“DO YOU LIKE OUR BULLDOG?”

asks our waitress at King’s Hardware in Ballard, who spotted me taking a picture of their logo on the door.

Hell, the author IS a bulldog.

I tell her about this website, the “sf,” I explain, standing for San Francisco. A variety of t-shirts and hoodies display their motto…

Actually, the author doesn’t WANT to…

But there is too great a preponderance of Bulldog paraphernalia for this formerly compulsive collector to tackle; I acquire a black Bulldog beanie for h brown and call it a day. Bill has the hot wings and I, the pineapple-teriyaki Kahuna burger with sweet potato fries, an obsession of mine since I had some New Orleans-style, sprinkled with cinnamon, at Poor House Bistro in San Jose. I explain to the waitress, whose name neither Bill nor I remember but whom I herewith christen Esmerelda Villa-Lobos because of the Pulp Fiction/Kahuna association (she was Bruce Willis’s cab driver after he didn’t throw the fight he was supposed to throw and, as added bonus, killed his opponent in the ring).

“This picture I just took,” I tell Esmerelda, asking the age-old question,

“will appear in my next column.” Esmerelda can’t answer the question, as she is unfamiliar with Atlas Shrugged, and I wonder if her curiosity might be sparked by this iconic character whose name appears on her workplace wall. Ayn Rand can be a life-changer. Not for me, but for some folks. Or a life-validator, perhaps. I don’t abhor her like some do; I find her an interesting read. She wrote, “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” I, for one, will not allow the answer to be “myself.”

WE HEAD OUT

onto the streets of Ballard to explore. I paid only $5 for my round-trip flight, but the “souvenir phase” of the trip could be killer. I pray I don’t lose control and overdo it, as is my nature.

DON’T KNOW HOW I COULD FORGET MINE,

so I am on the lookout for second-hand boots because There Will be Mud, and Bill turns me on to this neon-orange pair with groovy black accents, which will brighten up any dreary Pacific Northwest or Bay Area day. I must say, they are pretty damn cool “slush” boots, as I called bad-weather boots in my Philly days, and I rip off the $30 price tag and declare them “Mine!” I then discover, posting this picture, which has garnered more than 450 views in its brief tenure on flickr, that rubber boots are a hot commodity among rubber and/or boot-loving photo-sharing communities. I’ve shuffled through a good sampling of them not yet seen a pair I’d rather wear. I congratulate myself on keeping my feet stylin’ dry and berate myself for same when across the globe people are without food, water, housing. I go so far as to now own two pairs of orange boots (one rubber, one leather) without finding myself overly ridiculous.

An embarrassment of orange boots

I’M NOT MOTHER TERESA

said Oprah Winfrey, a terrifically generous woman (perhaps psychotically so), of her limitations. She’s not able to devote her life to the suffering of the world. But she sure does spread the wealth. Not many of us are Mother Teresa or Oprah Winfrey, and plenty of us have more than we need and still complain about what we don’t have. A panhandler asked me, “Can you help me, without hurting yourself?” Plenty of us could do a lot more helping without hurting ourselves. But Japan reminds me, much of what I “have” right now is on loan, I myself am on borrowed time. So I remind you, as Warren Zevon did, to “enjoy every sandwich.” And if I die before I wake, do me a favor. Bury me in my rubber orange boots. And then put on the other pair, and dance on my grave in them.

Rubber Boot Showdown on the Granola Streets of Frisco.
Argyle Wellies vs. orange cowboy boots?
The author wins!