beam fit for The Kings

when the basketball team The Sacramento Kings do well on home games it is now customary to light up the purple beam sitting on top of The Golden 1 Center.  lo!  this evening around 7:45 pm nick & i walked out our front door to go do a little grocery shopping we could see The Beam in all its purple majesty.  i'm not the biggest basketball fan.  but they do represent my beloved city & it's about fucking time they win a few games!

[nick took this photo using his iphone standing on our front porch]

saturday drive up the mountain

 

we wanted to get out of the house for a few hours.  anna reminded me that we are in the last half, or third, or quarter - we don't know! - of our lives & so we need to get the hell out sometimes & do some things.  today me, anna & nick piled into the family truckster, headed up on hwy 80. to the gold country.  specifically, the little hamlet of nevada city.

nevada city is a small kinda hippiesh town.  it is located in deep red self-proclaimed state of jefferson, a rural section of california where the more libertarian brand of political ideologies would like to secede from the state of california.  you see those gadsen flags, trump 2024 flags, & all kinds of things displayed.  & yet, nevada city is home to lots of artists & writers & bohemians.  indeed, poet gary snyder lives nearby.  i'm not claiming one can't be a card carrying member of the state of jefferson & not be a bohemian.  but historically those two camps often clash politically.  

& yet, ain't that the human condition?  to be in direct conflict with our very desires whether they be artistic, political, economic, social etc etc.  

nevertheless, we live in a pretty wierd time not only socially & politically but weather wise too.  this week the west is suffering from record cold temperatures & blizzard conditions while the east is experiencing heatwaves.  & as you can see from the photo above of downtown nevada city snow dumped on the burg with a ton more expected tonight.  

i'm not a snow person.  sacramento can count the days it's received snow on one hand.  but the beauty of it was mesmerizing.  nevada city is such a pretty little town nestled in country that can take your breath away.  situated over 2000 ft above sea level snow in nevada city at this time of year is not uncommon but the amount we've witnessed might be.  hell, we are such CA folk we don't have heavy jackets or parkas.  the sidewalks were packed with snow & ice.  & i have holes in my shoes!  fuck me!

we had a late breakfast at a small greasy spoon.  i say that with great affection.  the restaurant was fucking fantastic.  small.  intimate.  a little grungy.  & the food was un-fancy but delicious.  my mood sure as fuck picked up as we were eating.  my city boy jacket did the job even if my socks were getting wet.  we all had our phones out sharing photos of our cats.  that's not weird!  we love our kitties!

after our meal we gingerly set off down the main st. to see what we can find.  we found a little shop that sold candles, books, cards etc etc.  i bought a small collection of essays by a local poet, molly fisk.  anna purchased a few cards to give out as birthday gifts.  that's it.  many of the shops were closed.  some buildings were vacant.  one young tourist family was unfamiliar with our parking meters & asked us for guidance as we passed.  

but it is never the destination that is the cause.  it is the journey.  we got back into our truckster, pointed it down the mountain, stopped in to see nearby grass valley, another scenic city, & then we quickly found ourselves driving out of the snow & toward home.  oh man, was it a fun day.  usually i hate snow but today i found it enchanting.  as the philosopher said, the world is always just the case & today that case brought us outside of our beloved home town to a place where it seems sometimes the gold rush is still on.  we made one last stop at a large antique mall in roseville where nick found a book about cars to his liking.  & then that was it.  traffic was heavy.  when is it not.  for we live in california. 

it's friday nite & you wanna hear a magnificent grumpy old poet complain about the horrors of the mid 20th C

william faulkner's list of writing requirements

'paper 

tobacco 

food & 

a little whisky'

i remember

when my friend e. & i were wandering around Old Sac.  it was the early 1980s.  the buildings dated from the mid-1880s.  i mean, sure, Old Sac by this time was a tourist mecca.  indeed, it's claim to fame back then was an annual dixieland jazz festival that brought our town national & international renown.  but the building infrastructure was still from the 19th C. & as teens we would explore the back alleys & the wooden stairways attached to the outside of the buildings.  imagine fire escapes.  but instead of metal scaffolding it was made of wooden stairs.  e. & i were fucking around on these stairs going from building to building as we were wont to cuz we were bored out of our minds teenagers.  when, out of nowhere, a smartly dressed man, in a business suit & tie, slightly rumpled, appeared before us.  his face was beat in.  his eyes were purple & swollen.  his nose was bleeding.  he appeared.  right in front of us.  an apparition from another world.  he climbed those same wooden stairs as us.  & met us.  as if our fate was the same as his.  & in a clear voice asked, 'do you know where i can get a drink here.'  stunned we stammered the names of a couple of tourist restaurants.  he thanked us & disappeared to, we assumed, was the ground floor.  who the fuck was he.  what had happened to him before we found him on those old stairs in the back alleys of the tourist trap of Old Sac.  it was like a neo-noir movie where the protagonists find a mystery that leads them to the place they've always known.  

sometimes

when you have a little brie cheese & a tortilla you make a brie burrito

movie magic - valentine's day

this scene is a lodestar romantic moment of my life - perhaps of my generation's life.  who knows.  the plimsouls are onstage  the singer peter case has one of the great voices of power-pop, the val-chick & the punk dude have hard chemistry.  & i like to think that julie & randy are together today, a blended punk & val family, with punk rock & valley dude & dudette grandkids.  

r.i.p. trugoy the dove - peace & love

fundraiser for the poet douglas 'dug' rothschild

late last nite a poet friend sent me an email informing me that one of my favorite poets, douglas rothschild, suffered a life-threatening medical emergency that required open heart surgery.  dug will need months of physical therapy on the long road to recovery.  

fucking broke my heart.  douglas & i have shared emails since i invited him to contribute poems to our end of the world double anthology.  he lives in albany.  i live here in sac.  we've never met but like i've said time in memorial i think all poets are brothers & sisters in this floating world.

i can't remember when i started reading duglas.  but i do remember when i learned that a friend was trying to put funds together to publish rothschild's first book i contacted this friend who was happy to email me a pdf of this book.  i was thrilled.  what a kind thing to do for another poet who was a stranger to him.  anyway, do yourself a favor & if you haven't already, for this book was published in '09, hie thee to this link https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9781930068407/theogony.aspx & get thee a copy of Theogony [subpress; 2009].  you'll make hesiod proud.

we here in the u.s. live in a fucked up state re healthcare.  it's fucking expensive.  people go bankrupt because of medical bills.  even if you have insurance oft-times your insurance provider will fight tooth & nail with you about paying out claims.  luckily douglas' friends organized a gofundme to help with what surely will be massive medical debts as well to help pay for the costs of living expenses.

go here for douglas rothschild's gofundme page Fundraiser for Douglas Rothschild by Linda Trimbath : Support for Douglas Rothschild’s Medical Recovery (gofundme.com).

i wish the poet a speedy journey on the road back to health.  douglas' poems have given me so much pleasure thru these years.  his methods of composition.  his conversational style of writing, his playful forms, his idiosyncratic ways that he sometimes even spells his name inspire me.  

dig dug reading his 'raw poetic material' in 2012 by clicking here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjPEF-KQ35o.  

godspeed douglas rothschild