as the buddhists say 

even when you get everything you want 

you will not get more time

quote unquote

being a human being

not to be complicit 

not to accept everyone else is silent it must be alright 

not to keep one's mouth shut to hold onto one's job 

not to accept public language as cover and decoy 

not to put friends and family before the rest of the world 

not to say I am wrong when you know the government is wrong 

not to be just a bought behaviour pattern 

to accept the moment and fact of choice 

I am a human being 

and I exist 

a human being 

and a citizen of the world 

responsible to that world 

—and responsible for that world

--tom leonard [1944-2018]

anna sent me a link to watch local movie buff/historian matias bombal's 2018 documentary of the history & loss of the alhambra theater.  it was a one-day-only kind of event replete with a secret password to watch the docu on vimeo.  & i watched it.  with pleasure.

because i am a geek for all things about movies & cinema, & i am a nerd about my home town, i am always thrilled to learn about their histories.  the alhambra theater was fashioned in moorish design located on alhambra blvd [renamed for the theater] that opened in 1927.  it was a grand, beautiful movie palace that was common for its time.  the grounds were lush with garden walks & reflecting pools & plaques on the walls with quotes of poetry by omar khayyam & others.  one of those plaques was spared & stands in proud triumph against the ravages of neglect & time along with a wall with a water feature.  i see this wall & fountain & plaque all the time in the parking lot of the safeway supermarket.

my family, like most families, were regular movie-goers.  i was born in the late 1960s.  i grew up with television.  i fell in love with horror movies by watching the local tv horror host bob wilkins'  creature features.  & because wilkins was a glasses wearing stogie chomping square-looking nerd i confused him with woody allen for the longest time!  but it was going to the movies, the hard tops & the drive-ins wear i truly fell in love with movies.  we went to nearly all the theaters & drive-ins in our town.  except for the alhambra.  i don't remember that theater at all.

probably because it was closed & torn down in 1972 to make way for the safeway supermarket.  i was just five years old.  even if my parents took me to the alhambra i wouldn't have a memory of it.  still, watching bombas' documentary makes me regret what we have lost.  those grand movie palaces, & they were palaces with all the trimmings, are of another epoch.  they will never be built again.  as one person in this documentary said we live in a technological driven era.  today our media diets are predicated by our devices & streaming platforms.  

& yet, i think perhaps the alhambra could've been saved.  certainly it would have gone thru decades of neglect.  still, as i was watching this history the alhambra i kept thinking of the fox theater in oakland.  it too was built around the same time.  the fox was also of like moorish fashion & suffered from long time neglect.  but it was lovingly restored in 2009 & is now a top venue for live music.  the alhambra also could've been so brought back to life.  i love live music.  anna & i have been to the fox theater many times since its grand reopening.  the alhambra is just two streets away from me.  walking to a music venue from my house would have been priceless.  besides, the restaurants & music venues of midtown are just a few streets further away.  all within 10-15 minutes walking distance. 

and but anyway, that's all fantastical daydreaming.  their are vestiges of the grand alhambra theater such as the name of the streets & the moorish designs of nearby surviving buildings.  that wall with the water feature with the plaque of a omar khayyam poem remains.  besides, i love having a grocery supermarket at a five minute walk from my house.  even if we are moving toward online ordering & home delivery i like the privilege of the supermarket so close by.  

i couldn't not register the changes in how we consume media.  nearly a hundred years ago the alhambra wowed audiences by showing a short with sound.  the theater was built for sound.  then the theater progressed to showing films in color, 70 mm etc etc, until finally in the 2021 i am watching a documentary about the long gone alhambra theater on a streaming platform with my 15 inch laptop monitor & headphones.  even george jetson couldn't have imagined such a progression.  i kept thinking that as we gain in technology & power we lose some things too.  such as the slower pleasures of a double feature at a movie palace designed to look like a moorish castle in spain.  don't ask me to choose which era is better.  that's a fool's errand.  the past is never as good as we think it is & the future is rarely as scary as it seems.  just different times is all.  as for the future i am still waiting for my promised jet pack.  

from the notebooks [notes app on the iPhone]

the sentient being, the poet, in this present time does not despair at the seeming meaningless of things.  rather the sentient being, the poet, finds everything turbo charged with significance.

quote unquote

yesterday it all seemed normal, today everything seemed the same but it wasn't.

-brrooke adams [invasion of the body snatchers (1978)] 

it's friday nite, another scorcher, as the olympics open in tokyo, portions of our world in fires & floods, covid-19 still raging, & the camera points at you say & asks how much more you can give you tell them 'it ain't me'

this morning i had the strangest adventure.  on the way to work i crossed the street at 29th & j.  on the south side of j st is an ampm gas station/convenience store.  on the north side - my walking route - is a building that is home to several medical services, including nick's former pediatric dentist.  beside this building is a rt bus station.  i spied three guys at the bus station.  a street person sitting on a brick planter adjacent to the building, a dude sitting on a junky bmx bike wearing a baseball cap & backpack & another dude standing across from the bmx guy wearing a maroon t-shirt.  these two guys look to me to be in their late teens/early twenties.  i'm in a hurry to get to the office.  i know how long my walk takes to get there.  45 minutes.  i've seen & heard & experienced all kinds of situations & peoples in my walking journeys in my beloved city but this was a first for me.  as i crossed the street i was trying to figure out how to navigate around or thru them.  curtesy usually means the person taking the most room of the sidewalk steps aside for the person who is passing thru.  no go for these dudes.  but there was enough room for me to walk between them.  maroon t-shirt guy sees me.  he starts addressing me in this low, aggro monotone, way to provoke a response from me, 'hey motherfucker smile.  why don't you smile.  i'm only trying to help you.'  i keep walking.  i am between them.  bmx guy has something in his hands. it falls at my feet.  i look down at my feet.  a handgun.  my mind is trying to comprehend the thing i am looking at.  a gun?  is that a real gun?  i give the pair the benefit of the doubt.  it's a gun.  for a split split second i thought to kick it down the street if maroon t-shirt guy amplifies his aggro.  but no.  maroon t-shirt mr. mumbles & bmx bike butterfingers shut the fuck up.  i stepped over the weapon & continued my walk to i st where i made a left toward downtown.  believe me when i say i was calm as fuck.  i did not feel threatened from maroon t-shirt mr. mumbles or bmx bike butterfingers.  i have no idea why he had the gun in his hands as i approached.  but when the gun dropped both were like OOPS!  & OH FUCK!  i did think for a moment that i could get shot in the back as i walked away from the pair.  but i felt safe.  & these two doofuses did not threaten me directly with their weapon.  they dropped it, by accident, at my feet.  twenty minutes later, halfway to work, did the weight of the situation hit me with all its force.  two dorks were packing heat in broad daylight a few blocks from my home.  the adrenaline rush shook me hard.  i texted anna, i texted a few friends, i told my coworkers.  anna posted my adventure on a social media site that went viral for the day.  i got lots of advice, get a concealed carry permit & a gun, notify rt bus service, report the incident to the police etc etc.  finally, i can't say these two committed a crime.  perhaps for possession of an unregistered gun?  but to play devil's advocate, ain't this america?  doesn't every citizen have a right to bear arms?  i posed that question to a gun-loving friend.  he replied, not those two!  okay, then who.  become a good guy with a gun?  this ain't the wild west.  guns scare the shit out of me.  they are made for one purpose.  to kill.  i will not own a weapon.  i am a poet.  the poet's job - if you want to call it an occupation - is, in the words of omar perez, to have fun & observe & comment on what you are observing.  that's what i'm going to do.  that's what i told anna, i am not getting a gun myself or a concealed carry permit, or tell rt bus service.  but i am sure as hell gonna write about my adventure.  & put my experience in language in a kind of order & create in a world that oftentimes lacks coherence & clarity.  this is my first attempt.  

just when you think the world & all it holds is for shit you find yourself in the middle of this...

turned the tv on for a few minutes & watched for the umpteenth time big trouble in little china [1986] directed by john carpenter & stars kurt russell as a devil-may-care truck driver, victor wong [a longtime denizen of my hometown], kim cattrall, dennis dun & james hong et al.  black magic kinda shit goes down in chinatown, san francisco.  a girl is kidnapped by an evil entity.  russell & crew go to her rescue & fight black magic with good sorcery.  i fucking love this movie.  tho i understand this is the flick that broke the bank for carpenter.  after the movie flopped the venerable filmmaker said fuck you to hollywood & returned to indie filmmaking.  but i loved this movie at first boo.  but what struck me tonight at the start of this movie when russell drives his rig into a wet market in chinatown, unloads his cargo, finds dinner from a stall that sells steamed buns, then settles in to the rainy night to gamble with the locals.  russell wins big.  he's among friends.  he's the only white dude at the table.  in the morning everyone packs up their shit & goes home.  russell is still raring to go.  his long time friend, wang chi, played by dennis dun, is pissed off that he lost all his money to russell.  his anger gets the better of him.  russell looks at dun with a worrying expression.  oh shit, says russell.  is this gonna get ugly cuz i thought what we were here, racial differences notwithstanding, is a couple of old friends, both of us californians, russell opined.  say what you want about that dialogue.  it is clear in the script & the film that russell is a gringo but a man who is comfortable amongst all peoples.  that is how i interpret 'both of us californians'.  for my beloved california is a state of a great many peoples & cultures.  in any urban area you find yourself in california you will see many different peoples & hear a great variety of languages.  there are places in my own stamp of earth that the primary spoken language is spanish.  every californian knows a little spanglish.  it's part of the land & air.  we are a hybrid state.  i am proud to be such a hybrid.  i am part native american [just found that out by a dna analysis], norwegian mix named lopez.  i am an international citizen of the republic of poetry.  i am californian, a citizen of the world.  i am, just like you, a human being.  but back to this flick.  it may not be your cup of tea.  you may not like russell being the hero in a narrative with predominantly chinese-americans.  you may not dig how carpenter goes all out bat-shit crazy regarding the plot.  still, all that considered, i dig how the scriptwriters brought both of the protagonists, one gringo american, one chinese-american, & called them both californians.  which underscores my own way of thinking about myself.  i am a racial & cultural hybrid.  california is a place of so many varieties of peoples.  it's not the only place in the u.s. or the world to find so many wonderful peoples but it is my place.  my home.  my own california.  a place where you will find all the world's various beauty.      

it's so hot

the boxed-in air of the car

that took my breath away

the gauge read 117 f

i cranked the AC all the way down

& waited a minute or two 

dizzy, i witnessed, i swear it, 

a housefly buzz by

& burst into a little ball of flame

it's friday nite, 9:30 pm, 90 f [32.2 c], still shaken from a 6.0 earthquake yesterday, & you wanna hear a song that expresses yr summertime mood

california dreaming

even in california

smokestack air     sub/urban sprawl

i dream of california

 

visiting an old friend

like you i have a shitload of books stacked everywhere in my house, at my desk at work, in cupboards etc etc.  i love each one.  call me a fetishist.  call me obsessed.  call me addicted to books.  i am all of these.  i  keep scraps of old fashioned correspondence, receipts, printed out articles & poems, in a great many of these books.  so that when i take one down i'll find a 20 year old letter from an older poet whom i've not heard from in so many years.  

such is the surprise & delight of the physical object.  yes, i have converted a great deal of reading & writing on the interwebs.  i wouldn't want or need to give up the breadth, reach & yes depth of online poetics.  i am amazed that i can find audio/visual of favorite poets as well as their social media platforms.  we can connect as in the way e.m. forster asked us to ONLY CONNECT.  

some books, okay, a lot of my books i've forgotten where i got them from.  some surprise me by their age.  i remember buying some books, putting them on the shelves, & think to myself i'll read it soon.  next time i take a particular tome off the shelf i'll find the receipt of purchase tucked like a bookmark in the leaves & find with bemused horror that i bought that book 15 years ago.  time has no meaning anymore!  perhaps that is when we discover that we've gotten old.  years pass by with the speed of days to us.  

but then so some books i remember quite well when i took these old friends home.  this morning i pulled from my shelf an early collection of poetry by the canadian poet rob mclennan, The Richard Brautigan AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH [talonbooks; 1999].  that is some title which caught my eye in i think 2000 as i perused the poetry section of the late great Tower Books.  it was a delightful habit of mine to haunt Tower Books/Records/Video before the interwebs.  i'd do that at least twice/thrice a month.  i'd see all kinds of freaks & characters in these places.  i could write my own book about these characters!

Tower Books was also a store for serendipitous discoveries.  such as The Richard Brautigan AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.  yes, the title caught my eye.  i thumbed thru it & read a few poems written by a fellow gen x'r.  a young person whose poems were about sex, friendship, smoking, poetry, popular music.  this book was a collection of previously published chapbooks with series titles like 'good town for a bad dancer', 'these trains', 'last leaves', 'work(ing)s', & 'confectionary airs'.  these are poems about the ecstatic struggle of being young & alive in the late 20th C.  i liked what i read & put the book back on the shelf. 

i don't recall what else i did that day at Tower.  surely i went to the magazine section.  a nearly inexhaustible collection of periodicals.  you can go to school at Tower.  it had a wide selection of lit journals, movie mags, music zines, porn [yes, a great variety of porn], etc etc.  i probably scooted off to see the art/photo books too.  & film criticism as well.  what i do remember is getting back to my car without buying a single book or periodical.  

i don't remember seeing any characters at the store either.  it was daytime anyway.  most of the freaks on the dance floor would come out at night for Tower was famous/infamous for staying open to midnight every day including the holidays.  when i got home my mind kept returning to mclennan's book of poetry titled after a famous bay area poet/novelist.  certainly it was the poems.  but also that title with a long AHHHHHHHHHHHHH after the name of the late bay area poet.  also, too, it was the names of many canadian poets mclennan dedicated his poems too.  i've not heard of any of them.  but a poet so dedicated a friend to his fellow brothers & sisters in the art is a poet after my own heart.

that was that.  i got back into my car, pointed my vehicle back to Tower Books on watt ave [long since converted to...damn!  it changed so many times i don't know what that building is now] took The Richard Brautigan AHHHHHHHHHHHHH off the shelf & bought it.  

this book has been in my collection of books for about 21 years.  there are a great number of books i'd wish i bought when i had the chance.  a thick selection of poems & letters by umberto saba i found at City Lights was one of those books i wish i got but didn't.  another collection by the british poet nick drake [not the late singer/songwriter] also found at Tower Books is another a missed opportunity.  mclennan's book is the only one that i purposefully returned to the store to buy.  there might be other books but this was the only collection of poetry i can remember doing so.

so when i was looking for a book to read this morning i took The Richard Brautigan AHHHHHHHHHHH off the shelf & reacquainted myself with poems such as 'raspberry beret' [written after, i think, the song by the late great prince], 'the unavoidable sexiness of smoking' [argue the subject to your heart's content], & 'laundry & gin, tom waits, delaware avenue'  that begins with these lines: 'hang down your head/drinking/gin & tonics until even the cars/stop beneath a william/burroughs print'.  each poem written in specific stanzaic patterns, all lower case, even the prose poems exhibit the felicity of a younger poet with a good ear & eye.  i greeted this book this morning as i would an old friend of whom i have not spoken to in a long time.  i remembered the beauty, mystery, & magic of poetry.  again.    

4th of july haiku

late night ordnance explodes