am i changing into my opposite?

             in my time the presidio little theater where i started my illustrious                             career. upstairs typing up a script when kennedy shot.


two days ago i had the unimaginable urge to run off and join the air force. no wonder tolstoy died in a train-station, escaping his family at eighty. i realized, of course, i yearned to have an unquestionable security. the military is the severest form of socialism. i know that for a fact, having grown up on army bases. with the post exchange, gas fifteen cents a gallon, cigarettes five cents a pack. housing, moving, everything paid for, including all medical expenses. as a young woman recruit said years ago, all you have to do is give up your freedom and you get all this stuff. 


what's crazy in my case: i loved being a dependent, roaming the wide free spaces of old ww2 training grounds, listening to machine-gun fire coming the practice fields, a general pattern of change within sameness. okay, that makes sense. yet forced to make a choice in 1963 by the draft, i joined the coast guard reserve. i have to tell you, boot-camp like the marines and i hated the itchy uniforms, non-coms yelling in my face, rising at five in the morning to do calisthenics. usually i rate this time as the worst in my life, and at the same time i landed a soft office job on board ship and enjoyed the trip up the inland passage to alaska. 


as always, everything's a mixed-bag for me. i've experienced paris as a charming, colorful, romantic place, and also as a grey terrain of doom, very like baudelaire. imagine my surprise when i even had pleasurable thoughts of my green bunk in the barracks, the quiet delight of reading thomas mann's joseph trilogy in the base library. in fact, those book shelves had been my refuge since the third grade. i'm like a nation after a civil war, all i want is calm and quiet, a cup of tea and my computer. this is really disgusting.


yes, for a little while the world seemed crazy and disordered, people wandering around without a purpose, the way it felt during my first day off after five weeks in camp. i'd become completely acclimatized to the routine. at a party i had to go into the bedroom and lie down, freedom too much for me. ultimately, i did escape the ships and chevrons, returning to the lookout a free man and not a slave. 


all i can say in my defense is the moment of desiring prison passed. this morning i'm happy to put up with the turbulent winds and passing clouds. winston churchill said, a young person who's not a liberal has no heart, and older folks not conservatives have no brains. well, i'm definitely on the left side of the line, all the while knowing the ironies of the position, that i would deny others what i already have, using a certain sophistry to justify it. 

                                                              my father's chapel


i've taken a few more pictures of the presidio off the web: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/presidio

why did the academy awards make me want to kill myself?

in the wake of the academy awards i wanted a beer, always a bad sign. and then i wanted to die and never grow old. how does hollywood do that to one? as an avid movie fan, i've always lived in fantasy. yes, i got restless at the pageant theater, even with all the folks dressed up and the champagne. i took a walk to the local used bookstore and bought a book on japanese netsuke, using the last of my cash. downtown deserted on a sunday evening and eerie, i must say. 


back at the pageant, i grew increasingly bored, yet i knew if i deserted  the enterprise early, going home alone, i'd feel abandoned. persistent to the end, i left more or less satisfied a silent movie had won the biggest prize. of course, i felt like nora desmond in sunset boulevard, abandoned by the tide of time. i'm ready for my close-up, mr demille. as host billy crystal said, 'watching multi-millionaires give each other gold statues,' put me in a strange state. after the glitter and glamour, snuggling up to beautiful movie stars, i found my little room confining and rather bleak. all i could do was go to sleep for a couple of hours.  


to quote ts eliot, i'm not sure how much reality humanity can stand. you're surprised, films the real reality? certainly, look at those readers, mostly women young and old, reading the fan magazines in the bookstore cafe. as a i guy, i sit there wondering, what the hell do they get out of it? i'm not against a fantasy life, having led my own version, however that's the answer: i've created my own dream world. at seventeen i decided you either watched television or did something else. i'm not sure i made the right choice. other people have a communal history i don't.


o yes, i watched the planes hit the towers, jfk assassinated, and oj simpson chased down the freeway, all the high points. i seemed to be in the right place at the right time to see the kids mowed down at kent state and caesar cross the rubicon. headlines, like trailers for movies, pretty much tell you the whole story. better to browse than flounder. upstairs above my tiny domicile in santa cruz, california, many years ago, gunshots rang out constantly as the little lady watched rawhide and flipped cockroaches off the arm of her chair. no wonder she lived like a badly traumatized pilot of vietnam, hiding in the bushes, once back home.


still, i love to sit in the back seat of the pageant and laugh my head off at midnight in paris, a send-up of everything i've lived and hold dear. 


these days i derive the most satisfaction from doodling on my ipad. no wonder i'd like to get drunk and imagine a harem all my own. http://www.pbase.com/wwp/evo

                                                     eden abondoned

why did the academy awards make me want to kill myself?

in the wake of the academy awards i wanted a beer, always a bad sign. and then i wanted to die and never grow old. how does hollywood do that to one? as an avid movie fan, i've always lived in fantasy. yes, i got restless at the pageant theater, even with all the folks dressed up and the champagne. i took a walk to the local used bookstore and bought a book on japanese netsuke, using the last of my cash. downtown deserted on a sunday evening and eerie, i must say. 


back at the pageant, i grew increasingly bored, yet i knew if i deserted  the enterprise early, going home alone, i'd feel abandoned. persistent to the end, i left more or less satisfied a silent movie had won the biggest prize. of course, i felt like nora desmond in sunset boulevard, abandoned by the tide of time. i'm ready for my close-up, mr demille. as host billy crystal said, 'watching multi-millionaires give each other gold statues,' put me in a strange state. after the glitter and glamour, snuggling up to beautiful movie stars, i found my little room confining and rather bleak. all i could do was go to sleep for a couple of hours.  


to quote ts eliot, i'm not sure how much reality humanity can stand. you're surprised, films the real reality? certainly, look at those readers, mostly women young and old, reading the fan magazines in the bookstore cafe. as a i guy, i sit there wondering, what the hell do they get out of it? i'm not against a fantasy life, having led my own version, however that's the answer: i've created my own dream world. at seventeen i decided you either watched television or did something else. i'm not sure i made the right choice. other people have a communal history i don't.


o yes, i watched the planes hit the towers, jfk assassinated, and oj simpson chased down the freeway, all the high points. i seemed to be in the right place at the right time to see the kids mowed down at kent state and caesar cross the rubicon. headlines, like trailers for movies, pretty much tell you the whole story. better to browse than flounder. upstairs above my tiny domicile in santa cruz, california, many years ago, gunshots rang out constantly as the little lady watched rawhide and flipped cockroaches off the arm of her chair. no wonder she lived like a badly traumatized pilot of vietnam, hiding in the bushes, once back home.


still, i love to sit in the back seat of the pageant and laugh my head off at midnight in paris, a send-up of everything i've lived and hold dear. 


these days i derive the most satisfaction from doodling on my ipad. no wonder i'd like to get drunk and imagine a harem all my own. http://www.pbase.com/wwp/evo

                                                     moses found in the bulrushes

"i go with my strengths and forget my weaknesses" (willy mays, baseball icon)

at this point i'm driving myself crazy. my lower back stiffens and i'm sure i'm finished. i yawn too wide with a tight jaw and the bones crack every time i chew (400 lbs of pressure). every body in the house tells me a loud, high whine coming out of the stove fan and i can't hear it. deafness around the corner. the problem is: i could live to be a hundred like my grandfather. do i desire such a fate as a crippled clown?


okay, i can come to terms with all this. by evening my body's straightened out, but what about my desire to further human evolution? have i done my little bit? i'm convinced we accomplish  the most when we do what we do best. yet...i'm always concerned with my flaws and trying to fill in the cracks. not only that, i love doing all kinds of creative activities and i have no idea which might count. so, i've asked two of my oldest friends, laurie and marilyn, what do i do best? both surprised me. laurie feels i'm happiest directing plays. that may very well be, since i spent forty years learning how to do it and it draws on all my knowledge of language, visual art, music and sound, people. 


alas, at this moment in time i don't simply want more satisfying experiences, nothing to show for it after. theater feels this way. what's left: photographs! no wonder i've focused on taking pictures of other people's shows. and i weep when one of mine ends, the family scattered to the wind. truly, i should promote productions of my own plays. trouble there, they exist in my imagination and on paper, already tangible. i no longer have the urge to tell their stories, even as i flagellate myself, attempting to reach a reliable level of motivation.


marilyn surprised me even more, though she quoted the thoughts of her friend elaine. he likes to wander around, gathering bits of information and passing them on .wow, i had to believe her, since i'd had just such an urge at the bookstore cafe. a mother and teen-age daughter read two tables away. the girl looked miserable, as though she'd lost her vampire lover. i decided the problem was her nose, a nice shape except for the bulb on the end. kind of cute, and not what would make any women happy. i remembered a french movie from years ago. the heroine had just such a nose, a dormouse, then she had it fixed, pared down by a plastic surgeon. suddenly gorgeous she now had new and better problems.


boy, how could i tell the mother to get her child's physiognomy repaired? should i slip the daughter a note? just before they left, they separated as mom tossed out the trash. this my golden opportunity, and i couldn't take the chance on be jailed as a weirdo. the point is, elaine right. i like passing on the strangest stuff. i did tell another young woman reading about amanda knox in the italian prison, the victim herself had just signed a contract to write her version. we'd a delightful and enthusiastic exchange. not quite like telling her, get thee to a hairdresser, you look like hell!


there, i have an idea of what i do. however, who's to say what is best? having taking on the furthering of the species, i'm doomed to failure. i will say i am captivated by all forms of art. here's the last example: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/ob

15 minutes of fame is more than enough

for example, does the young woman married today really want to be known as the 14 year old kidnapped at gunpoint and sexually abused? or the 13 year-old object of roman polanski's lust appreciate a case that never ends? notoriety not quite the same as justified adulation! yet confusion reigns in my mind. people famous for being famous, only in our virtual reality could such a mismatch occur. only postumous honor can be endured graciously.


at least i know my limits, that's what i tell myself. last night i attended (briefly) my boss's retirement party. i sought out fellow workers among the humongous crowd, my nerves humming like electric lines in a tornado. whew, got through that and in the men's room relieving myself, i realized i didn't have the stamina to stay, plus i had to drive home eighty treacherous miles in the tortuous feather river canyon, something i avoid doing at night. too many people have ended up in the river. some attendees did recognize me by my voice. and just before i left, the retiree introduced me to a friend as a 'legend.' 


flattered and alarmed, i jumped in my truck and listened to dylan thomas reading a child's christmas in wales. what a fantastic voice! alas, he died of darkness and drink. out, out, brief candle. what would it take to be a leonard  cohen, singing into his late seventies? a good reason can be seen in the early documentary about him, Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen where he makes fun of himself, and of course, he did try a long rehabilitation at a zen monastery in california, in the end deciding he'd have to go on being nasty. it was more fun. 


this last week a famous singer bit the dust from drugs, a familiar cautionary tale for parents to tell their kids. get a job, you'll live longer. and as i go down the list of '11 things you need to do to live to a hundred,' i wonder if it's worth it. never retire, eat the same hearty food every day, keep to a routine, and so on. most of us would rather hitch our wagon to a shooting star. 


and though most don't know the name hank williams, everybody's heard the songs. he expired in the back seat of his cadillac at age 26. see the pictures here of the local show LOST HIGHWAY: 

http://www.pbase.com/wwp/lost  and  http://www.pbase.com/wwp/hank  

can you create the perfect lover?

                                                          valentine's day 2012


o my, how i've tried! in the first grade we made a zillion valentine cards and sent them to whomever we could. in the fourth grade i began getting crushes, sneaking into the coat-room and putting anonymous presents in the pockets of the girl i loved. where the devil did this romantic impulse come from? religion, politics, and self-deception dominate american culture. the movies, is that the source of the virus? 


the irony, whenever a girl demonstrated a passion for me, i desired someone else, usually a plain jane. maybe that made it easier to project my fantasies. i've always liked tennyson's the lady of shallot, the story of a woman who loves the images in her mirror. alas, the shining knight, sir lancelot, rides by the house and catches her eye through the window. inflamed, her heart wishes for the 'real' man. and when she runs out the front door and pursues him, she falls into a river and drowns.  the poor lady couldn't cope with visions turned to flesh, any more than most of us can, now living in virtual reality.


yes, a man ahead of my time, i wrote valentine's to ladies i never dared approach, much less touch. this had enormous benefits for self-preservation. i couldn't be disappointed or disillusioned, worshiping perfection from afar, falling for actresses and dancers, artists and illusionists. european women, especially, seem to know how to project a constantly changing face, very much in the tradition of cleopatra. two german girls led me a merry chase, both proving to be mentally unstable. i constantly tried to rescue young maidens in distress!


st. george, superman, the shadow, they fattened my fantasies. and here i am, on the far side of valentine's day, facing myself on the screen. taking wellbutrin, the extra dopamine stimulates my searching. in the end i'll be satisfied with zombies, love beyond the grave. 

take a look as the androids search for enlightenment:          http://www.pbase.com/wwp/enli      those boxes of letters in old ladies' attics will certainly come back to haunt me. 

adventures in disillusionment

perhaps i should have titled this you are never too old to be disillusioned. years ago, my friend jeff said, 'you always overrate people.' at the time i rather took it as a compliment. after all, i'd been giving people the benefit of the doubt. alas, when it came to love affairs, this a disaster. once i loved an actress and idealized her for a century before i slept with her and encountered the real body. having not learned my lesson, i idolized a blond dancer for a millennium, not aware until her last visit how manipulative she was. 


or to use examples not my own, before the election of our last president, a friend said, 'he will bring us peace.' in reality he reveled in creating two wars and plunging the world economy into the toilet. her husband said, 'he won't raise taxes.' this is called a one-issue voter, or 'me, me, me.' in reality the national debt sky-rocketed during the eight years and the rich got richer and the poor poorer. and maybe this the answer to the blight of tunnel vision.


yes, i tend to pick one aspect of a talented person i like, a politician, a teacher, and i ignore everything else, perhaps to learn more from them. when we worship a guru, we listen a lot more closely, we copy their movements, we put them on a pedestal as we did our parents, then reaching a certain intellectual puberty which can happen at any age, we smash the statue. this can be a painful process, losing our guiding light, our mentor, our beatrice pulling us up from hell. 


so, last night i found out the larger truth about someone i honored, his really terrible faults (from my perspective) and it plunged me into intense self-doubt, about my judgements, my maturity, my ability to distinguish between true and false. again, the end of a love-affair. luckily, for a little while this morning i could laugh at myself. it didn't last. at the moment i feel chagrined. life will humble us, especially through love. 


a few more holograms, or 'believing is seeing,' the title of a recent book on photography: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/hol

adventures in disillusionment

perhaps i should have titled this you are never too old to be disillusioned. years ago, my friend jeff said, 'you always overrate people.' at the time i rather took it as a compliment. after all, i'd been giving people the benefit of the doubt. alas, when it came to love affairs, this a disaster. once i loved an actress and idealized her for a century before i slept with her and encountered the real body. having not learned my lesson, i idolized a blond dancer for a millennium, not aware until her last visit how manipulative she was. 


or to use examples not my own, before the election of our last president, a friend said, 'he will bring us peace.' in reality he reveled in creating two wars and plunging the world economy into the toilet. her husband said, 'he won't raise taxes.' this is called a one-issue voter, or 'me, me, me.' in reality the national debt sky-rocked during the eight years and the rich got richer and the poor poorer. and maybe this the answer to the blight of tunnel vision.


yes, i tend to pick one aspect of a talented person i like, a politician, a teacher, and i ignore everything else, perhaps to learn more from them. when we worship a guru, we listen a lot more closely, we copy their movements, we put them on a pedestal as we did our parents, then reaching a certain intellectual puberty which can happen at any age, we smash the statue. this can be a painful process, losing our guiding light, our mentor, our beatrice pulling us up from hell. 


so, last night i found out the larger truth about someone i honored, his really terrible faults (from my perspective) and it plunged me into intense self-doubt, about my judgements, my maturity, my ability to distinguish between true and false. again, the end of a love-affair. luckily, for a little while this morning i could laugh at myself. it didn't last. at the moment i feel chagrined. life will humble us, especially through love. 


a few more holograms, or 'believing is seeing,' the title of a recent book on photography: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/hol

mother loves a vampire

i'm boggled by all the blood-drinking novels. what's this fascination with vampires? i mean, it does go back to dracula and nosferatu. those films, emphasized terror. in the latter film, the monster drinks the pale lady's blood until she's dead. then he evaporates in the light of the morning sun, having overstayed his welcome. would their modern cousins have fit into the bookshelves of 1880?


i have come up with a theory, though its slightly different for the teen reads than the older consumers. for the elders, the emphasis seems on violent, masculine possession, vampires a minor sideline. lady chatterley's lover the model for them, the gamekeeper/cowboy/lower class lout doesn't give a damn for her ideas and creativity. all he wants is her body and orgiastic rites. this reminds me, the women in sweden tired of their men when they became too considerate and nice. any guy will tell you, in high school all the jerks got all the girls. i'm here to confirm this lasts quite a long time.

the younger readers do prefer the bloodsuckers, to put it graphically. and i've come up with a possible theory. could it be the adolescent generation wishes for boyfriends who love blood, not only tolerate it, during menstruation? i know this is a bridge all human-beings have to cross, opinions divided. many men must be ambivalent, not to say repulsed. vampires would be an exception, thus making all the cramps and bad-moods worth it. they'd love a woman at what she might consider her worst. don't shoot me for my idea, it's only a wild lunge in the dark.


i did spend time in the bookstore, photographing covers. the romance section pretty graphic, the teen section watered down, and the magazine section a whole other reality: weddings, food, babies, kids.

covers at see covers at http://www.pbase.com/wwp/vamp

nature doesn't love a straight line

no, i'm by no means the first to have this insight. living it is another matter. three days ago, walking downtown, i noticed all the cracks in the sidewalk, the straight telephone poles and corners of buildings. transfixed by the matrix, i felt my heart stop. the prison of our existence closed in on me. luckily, common sense prevailed, and i continued on my way.


why the alarm? the straight line invented our modern civilization and keeps it going, nothing natural about it. and in fact mountains and seas can't hold it back, you can see the defeat in the clear-cuts and suburban sprawl. the round eyes of planets and stars, they've been blinded by our arrow. alas, this does have side-effects. we feel our lives should go in a straight line to the goal, and all our wandering this way and that can't help but feel like a defeat, for we are animals, not a straight line in our bodies. 


that's not so say, the clear demarcations not needed. i remember reading about a refugee camp in nigeria. their saviours immediately laid a grid across the rough and tumble circumstances. this made sanitation and food-delivery possible, bacteria and rats put on notice. and it's easy to feel agony in the organic, as the hero does at the end of sartre's novel nausea, staring at the roots of a tree as though they were serpents crawling across his corpse, or spirochete eating his brain. a cube of one's own can hold the cacophony of the world at bay. 


still, pre-modern times lived by the circle. in mexico field-hands sit in a circle for lunch. american workers scatter this way and that, solitary or in split groupings. an english class sitting in the round creates a democracy, in rows addressed by the professor the students slaves to grades and her goodwill. i don't know what it would feel like to live in a handmade world. i do relax on the beach walking among the sea-lions, the waves curling and crashing. 


these night flight drawings a perfect example. we can't escape the earth without many straight lines creating our spaceships: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/nf