More Anti-Happenings Around Town

To the Flaneur's wizened resignation time and entropy march on.

It was the beginning of May I was managing  a busy first-of-the-month day. My itinerary included a stop at the cannabis drive-in in order to restock my home supply of one of God's great gifts to mankind.
It operated out of a mirror-windowed building that curved and sloped over a parking lot giving away its origins as a fast-food place.
The advantage to the place in addition to being walking distance from my home was that it offered a room where one could prepare and consume one's purchases. Fine coffee was provided by the house, an idea I always found to be a prudent one--everyone had a coffee and woke up a bit after the magic indica dust made them a little sleepy.
But today low and behold and without prior notice even though I had been there a week or so earlier, the gate was locked on the business at noon. Their landlord it seems had been intimidated by the federal district attorney, a  woman aptly named Haag, and given them the boot. A few familiar employees manned a table to get the hapless customers like myself to sign up for home delivery. Chagrin falls on the local scene.
As for myself an hour later I was at the old place on telegraph where I had gone for years and was very happy with the buds I found.

Alongside the quaint and mildly pleasing news that Harold way which runs between Kittridge and Alston near the Library and Post Office would be changing its name to Dharma Way. A large Tibetan Buddhist school and book and tanka shop had acquired all properties on the short street and moved the wheels of the City it seems. Jack Kerouac wrote The Dharma Bums about Berkeley when he lived here for in the mid-fifties. It foretold of a wave of "rucksack revolutionaries" to follow in the sixties, some of which marches on in the post-apocalyptic new century.

But the big whammy arrived with the news in the Daily Cal yesterday the the great funky old building on the National Historic Register that has been the Berkeley main Post Office for 97 years will abruptly be closed and sold off. Roll with it or blast off, baby.

Anti-happenings around Town

In which the Flaneur fesses-up to slacking off this year, a brief and incomplete round-up.

Someone called "hey, Raymantico" in my open window from the street. It was Ian my former house-mate who is active in Occupy. He came up and invited me with him to visit the latest encampment, "Occupy the Farm" in nearby Albany. A doctoral candidate in music his appearance had changed since we'd first met. From the clean-cut grad student (who nevertheless played in at least two bands, one Ethiopian-pop the other wooly dense stuff like Mahavishnu Orchestra on nitrous oxide or something) to the back-to-the-land-archist cat with beard as long and wild as his head-hair. He hurtled through back-streets and crowded boulevardes both at what is for me breakneck speed toward the agricultural tracts owned by the Yooniversity and occupied by a mostly young bunch of students and friends.

The place had a charming mood of the makeshift practicality, and good vibe gathering. A small kitchen wafted aromas of the evening meal on its way. Ian became engaged in several conversations so I pushed on for an unguided tour. In the near distance beyond the central mid-way as it were planting and watering took place in the extended evening light of spring. Closer to were a couple of information tables and other operations some adjourned for the day. The concourse culminated in a ring of hale bales above which folks were stringing light bulbs. Tonight was to be a jamboree and various folk guitar toting young minstrels bided time as a stage-area was wired for sound. I sat in an available canvas lounge chair and watched the long shadows across the ruled farm land.

Who would not sympathize with the quixotic idealism of some the stated goals of  this action? That is to make a statement about preserving some of the last viable farm land hereabouts versus the publicized plan to create a whole foods market and modest retirement housing there. But seriously considered it has less chance of prevailing in the courts of property than did the appeal to UC's better nature in the call to preserve the monumental oak grove.  That legacy was, as we know, eventually shredded for the uber-stadium plans the funding for which, what do you know?, have recently been exposed as a fraud-ridden part of the boom boom war and investment scandal years. As the last secretary of state once asked, "How could we have possibly known?"

At some later court proceeding against Occupy the Farm, a UC lawyer referred to this state-owned public property as "private property." In other  mad mad courthouse news the judge who had issued draconian stay-away orders for enrolled students arrested on campus at Occupy Cal, has since been indicted for elder abuse and grand larceny from an octogenarian trustee lady. Accept judgement from the moral high ground, ye must.

And as it inevitably shook down, platoons of police state overkill arrived and ejected Occupy the Farm a few weeks later. Some were arrested one brave soul allegedly urinated on a riot-clad cop from a tree. Shortly after ward both the city of Albany (trapped in a mutual support agreement with the gestapo-like UC police) and the UC police themselves both submitted a bill for police expenses to Occupy the Farm members. Albany asked for less than four-thousand dollars. UC's villainous mouth-piece Mogolof has demanded around four-hundred thousand and counting. People who are humble enough to sleep out with their crops are thereby damned to a huge financial liability for daring to protest UC officials for selling off public holdings to bankroll their own careers and gild their own parachutes.

On that idyllic night in May, Ian and I didn't hang long enough for the show to begin. The meal smelled great but the line was long and I was happy to leave the vittles for the others especially those hauling water to remote crops. Instead we decamped to an area where instruments were played and the smoking chalice was passed about. As we pushed on through Ian again held up in conversation I climbed a little tower like outdoor airport stairs and looked over at the small group enchanted by music and herb. Hope among the remnants of the natural world getting smaller as we were soon winging toward home.

scarified sacrifice (eclipse of the sun)

weird bird utters other

a strange glow manifest in the blood

waxy yellow light of solar eclipse

irreality in the temple grounds

voices from the himalayas in waves

wash on the occluded hillside

the enchanted sidewalk home

evening's intoxication overspills

the deepest finest red rose of twilight

Eclipse of the Sun

20 May 2012

Naive Poem

1.

flowers frieze into stylized design
duck and ducklings swim in a line
seen from a fantastic height
the quixotic pedestrian bridge

shoreline meadow alone
water in the creek
seven black-necked geese
large brown rabbits in a small herd

superabundant birdsong
birds unseen in the trees
the industrious bumble invades
an ultra-orange poppy

mocha hash chocolate
five pointed star in brilliant blue foil
in fennel-green borders of the reserve
red-winged blackbird rules the day

matings songs swell
into a vertiginous hurdy gurdy
incarnadine finches
fly ahead up the path

wind on the cove beneath me
mesh generation fifty seabirds
spaced apart on the grid
cormorants fish the boundaries

grass shelter on the last hillock
someone may have lain here first
below the insistent wind
food from home

mount tamalpais is dim
the bridge is evanescent
mild bay mist obscures the west
I want to live in the diamond sparkle

2.

the wind over me and down to the cove
gusts play on the water
the sunny surface becomes a kite

wind streams around me
down hundreds of yards to the water
the surface like a great kite

grass moves iridescent
the wind turns its red side
to its green side

12 May 2012

Baneful Bagatelles

with wisdom disillusionment

saw a guy with two lobes on one ear
wonder if he had a secret twin listening in


the winter wind
sweeps the old house
asking for my whereabouts

a curious lamp from long ago
flickers when the wind
blows shut my window

a haunted tin pot
rattles off somewhere
a dinner for ghosts consisting of air

leave me alone I desperately say
and just for the moment
the wind went away



the cathedral of meth
 is lit from within
by the sensory impressions
 of its strange denizens

a patch of nowhere forever


silence in the street today
was stunning
like another door closing on deafness

motionless sunlight on the hills
added to this effect
no one else in the world
for a moment


the death mask an actor wears is apt to become his face

two gloomy ravens
hung low in a winter tree
sky turned charcoal gray

the past is something we drag with us like a grand piano stuffed with viscous horses

heavy wind and rain
came down the street
like everything else

 I'm sick of all the squares on the sidewalk

a dream
on the night of the solstice
full lunar eclipse
a pattern of ants
on the wall

the stars' mockery

tule fog came
ushering in vagueness
trees appear as the heads
of old acquaintances
houses vanish behind
diffuse street lights
tail-lights red shift
exaggerated silence

memories are corridors
countless in number
leading in all directions
from the mirror ball
at the center of the mind

the past is not far away
it's not even the past anyway

I pull over for repair
the murderous world of traffic
plunges on without me


owsley stanley
gone into the convulsive australian 
with the other large early carnivores
with the devils with the zebra wolves
with the giant flightless parrots

open another room in a mansion in the sky
you floated all boats
my own bateau ivre in sixty-eight
has to be the hand of fate
how inscrutable and vast a reckoning


through the night time fog
a distant television
someone else up late

siren's soft finial
lashed to a lathe
rain parades
streets end at the water
supper clubs on the pier

momentary ireland
clouds land on green hills
thought of sheep

a dream
george zimmer in a business suit
walking on a financial district sidewalk
shooting up with a glass syringe


every time I look out the window
I see the same guy
standing in my backyard
looking in
with his eyes closed

it's my wife's ex-husband
old stage-door johnny
and two pastures away
there's another guy standing
her third husband a painter

way off on the hillside
I can still see her first husband
nonchalant as ever
somewhat weathered by the years
no one recalls his name anymore

Her second husband is out there too
he's hidden in a glade
down by the creek
I glimpse him through the trees
when the leaves are down on the old logging road

They're all dead of course
and in my own season
I'll join them out there one day
tough in winter flowers in spring
the long slow summer the gaudy falling leaves

 

torn clouds
squid maps
a twisted sky

the past is a bed of nails

the abominable snow lady

paroxysms of extinction

clive evil

catacombs honeycomb remembrance

the stars' mockery

Northern Skies

Under the somber skies of January, the Flaneur confesses his devotion to the mysterious Nick Drake.

(coming soon)

The Solstice Zone

The Flaneur looks back at the year of 2011 through the crystalline lens of December, starry oddities are detected.

Here it was December the first as I made my way to the outlet on San Pablo avenue for medical marijuana. I walk the back streets South of Dwight wending my way through the morning calm. I have to play hopscotch with street-repair crews through this area lately--no telling what infernal machine will be employed in spoiling my meditation if I allow myself to blunder onto the wrong block.
I dig little make-believe sidewalks as I approach the denouement of a ball field. In a moment's respite from all the enclosed streets the great sweeping clouds of a wide open sky. I close in on my objective--an always-bustling enterprise with it's own patrol here it was open on St Stephen's day. It's a Googie-style drive-in building with mirror windows that slope upward and outward surrounded by a serious javelin fence.
I have brought with me a letter from my recommending doctor in order to gain entrance. I don't spend the additional fee for the fast pass "patient ID card" although they do come in handy if one is ever persecuted by police. The cost of a letter has come down for me appreciably. After four or five years with a high-profile doctor, an early crusader, I now go to the cheapest offer in the newspaper. This is after all a racket to enrich opportunists who operate between the rights of man and the sacred plant, but a venal capitalist society must be negotiated after all ideologies are said and done.
Inside you provide your driver's license and they check you out again on their screen. Then you're free to move about. You pass a counter selling small cannabis plants. They are all so adorable I want to adopt one and take it home. But as with all pets, it's a lot of responsibility, adjustment, landlords, etc. This counter also sells the various accoutrements that facilitate cannabis use--the pipes, the papers, the vaporizer bags and the like. It is situated in the rotunda room where one is invited to sit at a window-side counter or at one of a few tables and consume one's new-bought herb. Complimentary coffee is supplied, water, and the little ovens that vaporize the herbal matter are available along the counter.
The innermost sanctum is the herb counter. Music plays and the custom is brisk. Generally I make my selections from the All Star group whose potency, flavor and charm is a fairly safe bet. A card allows one to accumulate kick-back points--slow as they may come, they can add up. Next it's out to the rotunda where I meticulously prepare my smoke. I bring small Fiskers scissors and chop the solid bud over a small tray adorned with Italianate designs relating to the renown Club brand cigarette papers. They feature Le Professeur a Victorian gentleman smoking at a cafe table while reading a copy of Revue Scientifique. This variety of cigarette paper which I prefer has no glue but adheres to itself quite admirably. I add a rolled up inch of card stock as a recess and carefully assemble my airplane, tucking, tamping, and trimming until it is as good as I can make it.
I usually have a coffee and a water at hand as I take my two or three expert inhalations. I hold the smoke for ten to fifteen seconds before exhaling in a series of four puff-outs interrupted by brief hold-ins. This works wonderfully and I gaze out at waving trees and passing clouds in a deep state of peace.
The oddity this day was that the only other patrons of this usually busy and somewhat young scene are senior citizens. I especially enjoy one elderly lady perched on her walker-seater deal and puffing a long luxurious spliff. Social Security payments came today.

Meanwhile Occupy Berkeley vacated the pocket site on bank of amerika plaza. Before that happened a wider occupation had sprung up in Provo park (aka Civic Center park). In October it began with a few tents quixotic in their idealism, lit-up at night. Food service followed as did more and more tents. By early December the entire park was filled with tents and their itinerant population. Political statement seemed to fade out--the only ostensible sign spelled 'occupy' incorrectly. It seemed little more than a homeless encampment with hard-luck characters forming a village with its own rough customs. The drinking fountain became funky with dish-washing and the central feeding station began to resemble a civil war bivouac with grouchy exhausted people feeding in ankle-deep mud.
Then as suddenly and as naturally as it had grown it was gone. The lawn of the park had been taken an enormous beating--tents had blocked sunlight and formed puddles, multitudes tramping the wet earth in between wigwams had finally put paid to the project. The city put up a temporary orange plastic fence and dozens of workers began rebuilding the turf. Disgruntled die-hards huddled near the high school watching for a day.
As I passed by yesterday I talked to one of the workers-- an easy-going cat with his dreadlocks tucked into a hat. "It wasn't political anymore it was just homeless people," he said. Yeah, if they want to be radical they should go camp out across the street on the policeman's front lawn , I replied.

As I walked past a house on Allston recently, a couple were out front loading things into a car and bickering over insignificant details. I'd noticed the place before: it stood out with its various items of Judaica and posters for the Jewish film fest. It was in fact Jewish trade-show items that they were loading-out. Then, startlingly, the tenor of their argument escalated by a leap. The man could only make a inchoate shouting sound, like an old dog that had barked too long-- it was hard to understand what he was saying. The woman had it all over him. She could scream in a intelligible manor--rather like opera-singing only hella harsh-sounding. They continued as I turned onto Roosevelt and were audible for quite a distance. A guy working in his garage came out to see what mayhem could be causing this disturbance. It's a married couple, I told him, in that house on the corner. He seemed to get it but he kept looking down the street with concern. It did sound borderline homicidal.
She was like George's mother on Seinfeld. Times ten.

I found myself invited to an unusual outing. Events started to domino on December 3 when I invited a friend to a authentic baroque performance of Handel's Messiah by the estimable Philharmonia Baroque . I was an old afficionado having attended a number of performances by them between 2000 and 2004 when I was working in the classical CD biz and their label supplied me with season tickets. I learned early on that my acquaintances were generally blase about accompanying me to concerts they found rather sleep-inducing. Selling or even giving away an extra ticket the night of the show was a very long-shot with the well-heeled, silver-haired crowd that turned-out.
Oddly, I had won the tickets by phoning-in to a jazz program on KPFA. I was glad my friend was jazzed to go with me and delighted to discover the seats were up front. Distance from the stage mattered tremendously for this performance which was completely without microphones. They are better suited by their standard Berkeley venue the much smaller First Congregational church than by this gig at cavernous Zellerbach auditorium.
Disregarding the fact that I regard Handel's Messiah, with its lamentations--"He was rejected, He was despised," as an Easter Oratorio not the Christmas standard it has become, the concert was enthralling. It was great to see elven director Nicholas McGegan again and I found the countertenor Daniel Taylor particularly moving. In the men's room on the way out, a sour old professor type in a tweed jacket was repeating his view that it was "a nice polite version" but not what the Messiah should be. I heard him say it again to his wife by the drinking fountain as if his critique was so important that it needed a town-crier.

In reciprocation my friend invited me to a gala Christmas concert complete with a meal and Yuletide gift to boot. It was on December 1oth we met with another friend bright and early at Ashby BART station to begin our expedition.
At a church center in Oakland we made rendezvous with a vintage deco bus that would transport us to the Neighborhood Church in Castro Valley. Lovely wan sunlight on the wintry hills flanked our passage East. The "neighborhood" aspect of our destination was somewhat lost on me as we arrived at a hilltop complex quite remote from any of the surrounding homes. A non- denominational catch-all it is comprised of at least three large buildings distinguished by its erection of three gigantic white crosses grouped together in a tight circle. The girder-like crosses looked like something that survived the collapse of the World Trade towers.
After a detour in the parking lot to peep some sheep in their open trailer who were awaiting their stage cue for the manger scene, we entered the complex. A very square meal followed, actually a robust and enjoyable turkey dinner, copious servings and leftovers packaged up for those interested in some. Decadent cheesecake and mocha mousse pie followed on before some semi-absurd prayer. The guy leading it seemed mainly intent on making announcements to the assembly--"and we'll use the left exit as we leave, Lord."
Yet everyone was kind and considerate as we were ushered into a large auditorium for the spectacular Christmas show. Happy to be a little stoned as the elaborate lighting and changing stage sets, costumes and singers, sustained a winter wonderland of the mind. I loved an effect achieved by hanging lights over us that continued into the stage's firmament of stars. The large orchestra seemed to style itself on the Tonight show band, plenty of swing and lots of punch. The highlight was , yes, the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah. With a Buddy Rich-wannabe on drums, it went "King of Kings, boom bam boom, and Lord of Lords, batta bip bang boom." The old sourpuss from the Zellerbach show would have loved it.

At my own chapel during Christmas week, nine Dominicans in white cassocks with red stoles stood before a small sea of red poinsettia for the Transubstantion. After receiving the sacraments of bread and wine, I felt a strong current of renewal as I walked out and began my long way home in the early darkness of the Solstice-time.