content

The word "intellectual" is certainly passe, undescribed today. And content (what used to be called intellectual content) is simply not current in today's parlance. I have described earlier what was once an obligatory response mechanism which was expected as part of conversation and idea sharing. Now that there are seemingly no obligations one had better have little or no expectations in this regard.

As I referred to awhile back, my Father would say something to the affect "that the ball is in your court," and he damn sure expected you to bring that ball out. If you missed the ball your obligation was to find out what you missed, clear it up. Now silence rules or obfuscation. Why? From middle age onwards I found that my dear Father had given up on conversation pretty much, controversy was pretty much no where to be found.

Talk shows and NPR prattle take the place of this in our lives I guess. But I miss it, would like to see a resurgence of it before I pass along into whatever incarnation awaits me. I remember fondly the faculty senate debates at the University in Buffalo, and the heated conversation which followed those debates. I remember being invited by an English professor to an afternoon tea in Los Angeles, the expectation was that you would come with ideas and contraversy to mix it up with faculty and students. In graduate school we had a library symposium to take on subjects and opinions seemingly forbidden in the standard curriculum. Why not stir it up, keep the "brain cells" cooking a little?

Salamanca Stories

Salmanca is a post medieval walled city in the Northern, arid part of Spain, Don Quixote country. I spent one academic year there at the University, accompanied by my ex-wife, Jan. There was a active "foreign" community there that made things lively, mostly centered around a couple of University departments, a language institute run by an Irishman, Monohan, and his Spanish wife; plus a few watering holes frequented by the people who were so inclined. I would like to share a few stories that seem worth telling.

One of the English professors from Cambridge (GB) was a better than average story teller, sometimes seeming to embellish the truth, but always in a kind of improper raconteur style. One evening we talked of poetry and he told of the visit and reading of the Poet Laureate of England, at Cambridge. Well, the man started to read his poems and a few in a young man in the audience stood up in silence. The poet, Phillip Larkin, called upon him to explain himself, to which he said: "Sir, you are a great poet, but you can't read your own work." The poet had the sense to ask if he could read the poems any better and the young man said "yes." He was invited on stage, read the poems which were indicated by markers in the collected volume, and they received a standing ovation at the conclusion of the reading.

Monohan had served in India in the second world war, and had gained a liking for curry and gin. He held a yearly dinner which featured both, in part facilitated by his travels to Lisbon to acquire the proper ingredients. This legendary occasion was followed by his doctor assisted bed rest to deal with his ulcer. Everyone brought flowers and other tokens of appreciation, in a continuous toast his health with Bombay; and so he would gradually reenter the local society to take his helm with the intelligentsia and hangers on.

That year the visiting contingent of American would be "scholars" came from Yale. They were an active bunch in the bars, seemingly able to buy drinks and dinners at will, and didn't seem particularly keen about their studies. One of their haunts was a bar down on the Rio Tormes near where the Gypsies lived temporarily in wagons and tents, traded and sold horses and cattle (the women came to town be ask for donations on the street). The gypsies came to the bars to play and sing for drinks and meals. The Yalies decided to have a big party their last night there and invited the university community and hangers on to it. Everyone gathered and started to drink at their expense. The big problem was that the gypsies were paid to sing and play in advance, a big mistake, because they rode off into the sunset to be gone until the Yale men went to Madrid to fly back home. Most be a moral to the story someplace.

Asleep at the Wheel

This title is thought of primarily as the name of a country group originally from West Virginia, who's home has been Austin, TX for many years. I like the name better than their music, although their work in their genre is considered tops by many people. To the point, I have a fear of the existential condition related to this name, and also a deep dislike for those who assume authority way over their abilities, and insist on holding on "for dear life" in spite of their inadequacies.

My Father's bookkeeper, Max, rode a Harley-Davidson (45) up and down Central and Southern Calif. serving his clients. A be speckled, CPA type, he was known for an exploit which gives a different twist to the title of this piece. Having partied a little late, he had to make his way over the Ridge Route (Highway 99) after midnight in a attempt to reach a motel in Bakersfield so he could visit a client next morning. Half way down the grade or so it seems he went to sleep at the handlebars, crossed the double lines and exited on a smooth stretch of shoulder. A few hours later he woke up; having knocked himself out earlier, followed the trail of the scooter, got it on its' tires, and then made his way to the motel to get cleaned up and changed for his appointment.

My memory of a personal incident was in the sixties, returning to Venice from a three day family Love-in event in Marin County. Heavy partying and little sleep had not left me in the best of shape for the return VW bus trip with my friend, Tommy Morehead Sunday night. I decided to travel on a secondary road, two lane with very wide gravel shoulder, rather than risk it on the interstate. The VW had a tendency to pull to the center of the road, so in my semi-conscious state I ended up rolling along on the gravel. A stretch of washboard woke me and I decided to park it (call in with an excuse the next morning). Tommy never woke up and was a little surprised when I explained the existential predicament on the way in next morning.

Mavericks

I have always admired people who are willing to be different, who defy "authority" and the standards of living we are expected to live by. At the same time, I am a person who likes order, who is sometimes shocked or thrown off by behavior I am not ready for. I grew up in a Los Angeles neighborhood that had a wild diversity of people in it, and many of my early memories are of those people, of course.

My Father was a mechanic and had a garage very close to where we lived. Often he brought customers home for dinner because they would be around until he got them on the road later that night. One of my favorites was a singular gentlemen who was a good story teller, who sold fruits and vegetables off a small truck like vehicle, and who was the first gypsy kind of person I was to meet. He entertained us as we ate, with anecdotes and yarns, and I can well remember my Father's responses.

Years later when my parents were making their way through middle age crisis and beyond they became very active in the Latter Day Saint Church (Mormons). Thus they were moving into a kind of closed society, one very different than the one we grew up in. Like a lot of LDS people they became interested in genealogy and thus made a kind pilgrimage to New Orleans to look at the city/county records there to see what the Roberts background was. Well, it didn't take long to find that at the Great Grandfather level (I think that was it) they found the word "mulatto" loud and clear. A firewall, they turned away. But for my siblings and myself we have become even more interested, and one of my sisters pursues the record to this day.

Shadow Walk

Shadows are so much more active at times; this evening, twilight, the wind was blowing, the light active and dark coming on fast. It felt like the thing to do, walk until I reached the oil wells, or just before, and as I did the untrimmed bushes took on a life or their own. I found myself nearly accosted by their imagery, at times it seemed as if they were speaking to me, telling me a story about myself that I didn't want to hear, one that I thought I'd forgotten.

Venice along the boardwalk, walking East and West and then South, it is like a labyrinth. I kept going, tired after a long day of work, but willing to experience what I hadn't done in a long time. Darkness was very close now and it was as if I could hear the immortal words of Sachel Paige saying "don't look back, something may be following you." As I got close to the wells I turned North on Pacific, a favorite bar was only blocks away. A Hindu mantra helped me along...

It felt comfortable to go through the door, even though there was too much noise, and the juke box was a little high in volume, there was one bar stool empty about a third of the way back.

The main attraction of this place for me was a combination of the long aquarium behind the bar, and the owner's custom fed juke box (Billie Holiday, Bix Beiderbeck, Thelonius Monk, etc.). And that evening there wasn't soul in there I knew, that was good at the moment.

"Bar bourbon and beer back?" Yes, that will do. I miss the place now, it is long gone, doesn't exist in another form, as far as I know. Memories of Venice has been stoked recently by a video made about the Venice poets and art world of the fifties. Highly recommended:

"Swinging in the Shadows" - "Venice West and the LA Scene" with an excellent sound track. www.beaters.org

Names

In Patti Smith's book about her and Robert Mapplethorpe ("Just Kids") I found an important comment about names, something to the affect that "Robert was not a Bob" ... but evidently people wanted him to accept the nickname (?). Early on I had a version of this with my Grandfather Roberts (who was never Grandpa, incidentally). His name was Alexander, not Al or Alex. To his close friends he was A.J., otherwise it was Mr. Roberts or Alexander. (His sons seemed to be comfortable with the usual monikers, shortened versions of their given names: Norm, Dick and Joe, no problem, guess).

Several years ago my sisters contested the nickname given my Mother in her youth because she was named for her Great Grandmother, Julia, and thus it was felt that she might be better called "Frankie." Well, it turns out she didn't like the name, went along with it for years, and toward the end of her life Julia was returned to her as her name. I'm sure that you could think of many examples of this type of naming yourself, and hopefully you might find some examples of people who have taken their real names back.

And there are people I've know in the last few years who have decided that their given names (perhaps their nicknames as well) were not suitable for them and have renamed themselves, even going to court to do that legally. I was chosen by a man who worked for me as a witness in such a case and it was intriguing to see this through with him.

Names are extremely important, and yet they are thrown around as it they are not. Very often monikers fit and are comfortable, no problem ... often they are questionable, border on the diminutive or cute; at worst are in the neighborhood of Oscar Wilde's statement (was it him?) "Familiarity breeds contempt." I remember when I was small people trying on the "Donnie" name with me. Never worked, I remember looking at them as if to wonder what their problem was.

Karma tricks

The so-called Third Foundational Thought of Buddhism is Karma, or "inevitable consequence." This very complicated word/concept goes in many directions, but what I want to take on is the aspect of attachment, eg. to "one's worldly circumstances, to one's level of consciousness. I find myself embroiled in what I call "contrary conditions;" perhaps in part brought on by myself, but also, seemingly by the state of the world, greatly (by homo sapiens) modified weather patterns, and the shifting politics of life.

How much am I attached to what I take to be contrary to myself (and others) and thus dependent upon that as a part of my modus operandi? Part of my circumstance has to do with growing things, and the weather has been really messing with that. Part of what I read says that this is the result of weather modification by man, a weatherman from Milwaukee said the other day on the radio that weather conditions are not that abnormal and that a word like "contrary" would hardly be accurate as description.

Positive, negative and neutral karma seem to be simplistic in terms of the complications and contradictions involved. If I am neutralized by conditions the result would be labelled negative, and I'm not sure I can accept that. Bill McGibbon and others have posited that due to the radically changed world we live in we will have to dare to take extremely radical measures to just survive as a species. Another visionary, Rebecca Solnit (in her landmark book, "A Paradise Built in Hell") has described the way communities, groups and individuals have come together to (as she puts it) "arise in disaster." It seems that these visionaries will be absolutely crucial to the future of managing karma tricks and contrary conditions.