Life is one long improvisation

Coming back to California after two and a half months in Mexico, i keep wondering what makes Americans so different! What makes me what i am? Compared to any other country the US has an enormous amount of variety in people. How can it all hold together despite eras of tremendous conflict? How can i not go completely nuts making so many changes, living in different cities, different countries. Yes, sometimes i do feel crazy.

I’m going to a history of American music. I realized in mexico our music is everywhere, either in its original form or transmuted through another language. It has a variety and sprightliness which keeps the whole world dancing to our tune. And out of that Jazz obviously our national music. Not because everybody everywhere listens to it. Pop music much more the call. However listening to a history of jazz and how it works, i see it reflects all our lives.

Basically, there’s a ground structure over which the tune is improvised. And it may be polyphonic, several tunes playing against each other. This is how we learn to live. Even the most stable of occupations demands it. New problems arise and we have to roll with the punches. We could say “life is an emergency room.” Everybody in a hospital faced with a crisis every day, some more intense than others. As a firelookout, i have to keep myself alert as the days roll on. Suddenly there’s a smoke and all hell breaks loose.

I keep wondering why college students required to take history courses, politics, and so on. There’s two years worth which they pay through the nose for. I mean, thousands of dollars to learn about the culture! Why not study a trade for much less and get on with it. No, the students must learn to improvise on a whole range of topics. And when they ultimately leave the classroom, they have to flounder for ten years, until they come up with a way to earn a living and pay back their loans, which may mean a job they hate.

Why do kids get thrown out of the house at twenty? Sink or swim, that’s the American way. It’s a free fall society. If the economy goes south, everybody’s in trouble. Many people end up sleeping under park benches and bridges. Here’s where the structure, the ground over which the tunes normally played disrupted and the players have to accommodate to the new conditions. Those who improvise the best come out eventually on top. Even though i change places a lot, i manage to keep my feet on the ground. In large part that’s a matter of luck. 

Ah, so that’s what i am, a Cheerleader

I’ve discovered it meeting travelers in hostels. Mostly young. Nicolas works in Mexico City, transferred from Columbia. In a year he’s made a lot of friends and improved at work,  a financial center. I congratulated him on taking a chance, leaving friends and family. And that’s the way i feel about most of the people I’ve met. Zack taught two years in Korea and about to return to japan to do the same. Alicia, from Brazil, loves to skin dive and her go-pro! Alberto working as a gardner in Australia but a business graduate from Chile, about to go see what all the demonstrations there are all about.

The list goes on. Allen a 74 year old linguist from Belgium who has rented a studio here in Guadalajara, 150 a month. Great find. I run into him for coffee. He’s taught in Greece and other countries. His objective to improve his Spanish and to live on a meager pension. He’s interesting as long as we stay away from religion and politics. He’s very, very conservative. For him Obama represented Satanism! For the first time i could understand how twisted a Christian could be. 

Others met briefly and in parting. That’s problem with travel. I meet people i like and then they’re gone. It’s making me homesick, to see the same people everyday, to walk the same streets and see the weather change. In  very practical way this is crazy. In chico it’s raining like crazy and cold as hell. Here in Guanajuato the nights are cold but the days sunny and warm. I have realized my ideal is A COLLEGE TOWN.  No wonder I’ve lived in same small city so long, where my life circles around the university: classes, concerts, demonstrations, lectures, visiting artists and public figures. I also encourage students to adventure. 

And I’m always posting things on facebook i think people will enjoy and or learn from. And my friends must be exhausted by all the stuff i send them to encourage them to grow, learn, be delighted by. I suppose i should have been a career counselor. If only i could suffer the constraints of a regular job lightly. The first psychic i went to.  Gloria, and subsequent advisors, reading my past lives said I’d had so much responsibility in the past, blowing up Atlantis for example, this life supposed to be dedicated to fun. Unfortunately as Baudelaire said, “Work is more fun than fun.” A lot of truth in that. I delight in all the jobs these travelers have. Next lifetime: a career!

Goodby, Guanajuato, Mexico

After a month and a half, I’m still enchanted by the historical center of the town and the views of the houses perched on each other as they climb the hills. The university sponsors all kind of event. I’ve been to a dozen foreign movies, for examples, with Spanish subtitles I barely understand! There always seems an excuse for parades and festivals. This week the anniversary of the Mexican revolution. This gives the place a definite vitality worth experiencing. 

 A tourist destination for Mexican people as well as foreigners, it must have a hundred hotels and dozens of hostels. I stayed  at Casa de Dante for a month. A wonderful breakfast included, beautifully illustrated inside, clean, comfortable, fresh bedding. The staff very helpful. The only drawback: 175 steps up from the street! This old guy did it every day and  I a sure I’m in better shape for it. The city extremely hilly, which gives it it’s beauty. 

Americans views of Mexico completely off base. The country more prosperous and sophisticated than it was 35 to 60 years ago on my previous visits. The country safe, as long as you stay away from narco traffic. Here’s video which goes into some detail:

                              https://youtu.be/kULFS6tsRPI 

What I worry about most is tripping and falling. The sidewalks often a landline. Rough stones, broken tiles. As video says, building codes not as strict, I did fall getting off a bus on my first day. After being hit in a chico crosswalk a few years ago, I don’t really trust anybody.  In Guanajuato the drivers generally conscious of you, but the streets very narrow the walkways almost non-existent. That said, you just have to be careful. 

Sorry I  to leave. I hope México City turns out to be as much fun as it was last year. Okay, later. 

CAL FIRE, PG&E, AND THE BELIEF IN MAGIC

  

Yes, it’s one big black hole. 





I am amazed when I scroll through the engines and airplanes cal-fire has acquired while the fires in California keep getting bigger and more deadly. What is all this expensive stuff doing for us? Huge airplanes that can fly only during the day on flat land and rolling ridges. In 2003 they closed 77 lookouts, saying they were too expensive. Three years later they rented their first DC10 for three million dollars, 5,500 dollars an hour to run. One plane vs. five lookout seasons. Crazy, no? How are they getting away with it?

It’s our belief in technological magic. For some reason we think bigger bombers, helicopters with fancy names (black hawk, etc.) can save us from conflagrations in front of 80 mile an hour winds. Forget it. And again, none of them can fly at night or in powerful updrafts of smoke. And the bigger the aircraft the less useful it is. But they play well on TV and when they fly overhead, everybody goes OOOOOH!  Basically, it’s a pr stunt to buy them more magical toys.

God, their budget has gone through the roof. And what real good has it done?Cameras can’t beat lookouts, this has been proven over and over again. As for warning people by telephone, what about those with phones dead because of PG&E blackouts? Not to mention those with wells whose wells won’t pump and they’ve no water to put out the sparks on their roofs. Yes, PG&E does have a grip on the real magic ELECTRICITY. Our whole world runs on it.

Why aren’t these two mega corporations focused on real answers EARLY DETECTION AND BURYING POWER LINES? PGE is merely punishing people for suing them. They’re saying, “We have the real power. See how much you need us” isn’t it really nasty? And as for cal - fire, they won’t install air-raid sirens all over the state. That’s too easy, not technological enough, like telephone calls thousands won’t get. Both organizations trading in magic in their different ways. And we remain   Gullible. 

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-11-06/california-lookouts-fire-watchers

A knife in the heart of the Forest Service

My first boss 1962 shipped beer to guys on a fire! That would never happen today, alas. The forest service has become a dehumanized bureaucracy living off faint memories of what it once was. And what was that in the old days and why did it change? 

There are three basic reasons: First the cuts in the budget by Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s. Services once provided by the outfit like road crews, nurseries, people in the field who gathered seeds, the patrols once making sure fires didn’t get started. In other words, all the field people vanished.  Gradually there were simply desk generals supervising seasonal ‘employees.’ If the forests degraded over a period of forty years, this is what happened.

And secondly, small districts combined into mega-units. This meant the small family feeling of people living together at ranger stations disappeared. Those who were intimate with each other and with the lands within their charge no longer were. A large separation appeared between supervisors and the supervised. It became much more like an army fighting fire. Or perhaps like a monastery. Sure, comraderie still exists, but it’s that of soldiers in the field, not a family in a home. 

And the final blow came from sending all administrative personal into exile in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This meant mainly the women who ran the district offices, who organized all gatherings for birthdays, who gave sympathy and help to the home crew. Now celebrations are few and far between, meant to boost the hierarchy of the church, highly organized and essentially impersonal. 

Not that a few small units in the service don’t have a residue of humanity. I’m often touched by facebook posts by dispatchers who managed to create an intimate group despite the extreme tensions of working under fire and in confined spaces. This doesn’t often happen, as I know from my own experience,    But the potential Is there. Otherwise, it’s mostly small units boosted by action under fire the way soldiers are. 

There’s no returning to the past. The whole country has gone this way. My own family used to have large reunions. They kept contact with family letters. This was a chain-mail togetherness. A letter was sent from one family member to the next, pictures added, news traded. This very personal connection can’t really be replaced by facebook. The news travels too fast and intangible, a complete lack of smells and fingerprints. Yes, it’s sad to be a survivor of a past almost no one knows. 

LOOKOUT! ending the fire season

wow, nothing like a fifty-mile an hour, freezing east wind to make the end of the season welcome. the pipes froze (again) and finally i had to throw my clothes over my feet despite two heaters running. my dreams rather sad accounts of suffering people, which i should have expected. my fingertips freezing on the keys even with another heater going by my chair. and i had been feeling melancholy about closing up two weeks earlier than in past years.

i wonder how other lookouts feel about closing. i look at their faces on facebook and they don't seem really happy. life on the flatland much more confusing, certainly more noisy. i get so used to the silence and the wind in trees, i feel rather desperate  when i hit the pavement to live among so many other people.  usually, though they give us laughter and company, other folks add a lot of confusion to my life. too many thoughts circle around pleasing and being pleased.

it's not like i have complete solitude, not with three telephones and two radios. tourists do visit to check out the view. when fires happen, the radios crackle and hundreds jump into action. then i am part of a team, plenty of company there. and i do have days off. alas, on those days i feel mostly stunned, moving like a zombie, only livening up when i return to the tower. up here, i can avoid biziness for it's own sake. a visit to movie can slow me down. being part of an audience does something for me even the tower doesn't.

even up here everything i own demands an obligation. computers want to be work, books to be read, musical instruments to be played. if i don't put them to use i feel guilty. i suspect other people feel overwhelmed by their possessions. a garage full of stuff, a storage space, drawers and closets to be cleaned. whatever we own gives us a sense of identity, and at the same time we have to make sure that identity clean and tidy, acceptable to ourselves and our neighbors. i keep trying to get rid of stuff, yet little things like books keep creeping back. everything gets heavy.

once again, i've bought a ticket to mexico. this lightens my load to two small carry-ons and that's a relief. i've reserved simple places to stay. if i don't have a plan, the end of the season can be disastrous. one year i simply wanted to jump off the cliff below the lookout. that was rather scary. i do need someplace to go, something to look forward to. one 83 year old lookout goes to a small town in western australia to stay with  a friend. another hooks up her little trailer to head south. others hibernate in their houses, waiting patiently (or not), for next year. nothing, i think, can really can replace your glass cabin on top of a mountain.

good luck to all you arranging your visage to live in the world. and welcome back when next season arrives!

The Forest Service has a public relations goldmine in firelookouts

this is so obvious it makes me crazy no one at the national office realizes it. if you work on a lookout, you experience it every day. people astounded lookouts still exist and they are fired up by the romance of them. the views take their breath away and they can't believe people still looking out for them. i get all kinds of questions about the forest, how it's taken care of (or not). lookouts remain the best advocates the forest service has. 

here's a quote from Poets On The Peaks by John Suiter:

                                      click to read

 the poets gary snyder and jack kerouac established the romance of lookouts in literary history. kerouac wrote of his experience three time in Lonesome Traveler, Darma Bums, and Desolation Angels. these books remain in print. and gary snyder is always asked to read the one lookout poem he wrote:

he also included his lookout journals in Earth House  Hold. 

another lookout who came a little later and actually had even more success: edward abby. he experienced every lookout's fantasy when he worked on the north rim of the grand canyon. a young woman walked out of the woods and they had a torrid romance. she suddenly disappeared and his heart broken. he wrote of the experience in a novel Black Sun. he finished his most famous book Desert Solitaire while staffing Harness Peak on lassen national forest. 

fortunately, the park service does realize the value of what they have and this lookout undergoing a very complete restoration. 

i can't resist including this fun audio of edward abby reading:

both symbol and myth, lookouts do more than merely spot fires. they represent america at its best. i would like to see more lookouts renovated and opened. the state of Pennsylvania has re-established  25 lookouts and built two more. i wish the forest service and the state of california would open their eyes.