Trick or Treat!!

Another Halloween. If I buy the candy at the last minute, I can avoid eating it all and I have done that before. If there's a bag of Snickers lying on the kitchen table, it usually calls out my name, “Ron..just one...only one...there will be enough for the kids!”

A day later the empty bag is in the basket.

One Halloween, I ran out of candy as a line of little kids were lining up at my door. The worst thing to do would be to say, “Sorry, I'm out” and close the door and crush the innocent world of a little girl dressed up as the Ice Princess. So I got my junk bowl which was full of spare change and dumped some into her bag.

She shouts out:

“THANK YOU! HEY...THIS MAN'S GIVING OUT MONEY!”

The kids at the house next door came running when they overheard that.

So, I parceled out dimes, quarters, nickles and pennies just to be sure no one was disappointed. Once that gaggle of kids had moved on, I turned off the outside light, killed the living room light and hid.

Halloween Memories...Only about three which stick with me.

My first one I remember I was dressed as Casper the Ghost. The plastic face mask was great for holding in your breath's humidity and making your face sweat. The gown was good for tripping up on. Once I got home, the police, my Dad, went through the candy to make sure there weren't any razor blades, arsenic and such. While doing so, he deftly stole all the Necco Wafers he could find. I was OK with that as Necco wafers were disgusting. He could have all he wanted. That and the black licorice too.

My last time going out for Halloween was when I was 14. That was a tough one to pull off because I was about 5 foot 6 and weighing over 100bls. Most of the people's doors we rang questioned our group about our age.

“You're kinda big for a 12 year old huh?” they'd comment.

“Yeah, I get told that all the time in school.” I'd lie.

The funny thing is, these same 14 year olds will come to MY door on Halloween looking for free sweets. I look at them as robbers as this candy is for the little ones. Ah well, can I complain since I did it myself back then? No, but I now know what all those adults thought of us then when we did it.

The last memory was a pure teen one. Halloween meant partying and that's what we did. One of us had stolen from his parent's liquor cabinet a bottle of Jameson's Irish Whiskey. I had my own Jaquin's Peach Flavored Brandy which was good for a decent buzz. The rest of us had a sort of Pot Luck combination of beer, pot, wine...you get it.

While we were boozing it up on the corner of Hamlet and Legris by Perry's house (a cool guy about 10 years older than us. He never called the cops on us!), Mark M. finally demanded that the Irish whiskey be opened up. He then took a very brave teenagerish, looooong slug from the bottle. It looked like he was just drinking water. He then turned around and vomited it all up on the back of Jimmy's leather coat...which he was still wearing. The puke just ran down his coat onto the street. We were a bit amazed at the volume of it all

“Wow, that'a a lot! More than that dog pukes up that lives in McNulty's house!”

That was entertaining as none of us saw that coming.

In about 15 mins, Mark could barely walk. We watched him stumble the whole 20 yards to his front door and go in.

The next day, I was in my RIC classes, regretting I got home drunk around 3 AM.

So, that's it. All the memories that stuck with me. This doesn't include the adult nightclub/bar Halloweens were people try to dress up to win that prize and then puke in the parking lot after.

Lincoln Center or Trinity Rep, They're Both Valid

Apart from actually having magical powers like Samantha Stevens in “Bewitched,” the Internet is pretty witching too because of it's supernatural ability to find people. The other day I came across a girl I knew when I was a teen who was damned important to me (ie: we raped one another's virginity away) and Patricia Kennealy, the first female rock critic out of the '60's and pagan wife of Jim Morrison from The Doors.

Keneally is depicted in the movie “The Doors” as this pagan/witch/rock-groupie writer who was into Celtic rituals, blood drinking, general mayhem and finally a published author. I wasn't looking for her directly but tripped across her blog and thought, “Jesus...this is the closest I've ever came to Morrison!”

As I read it I sat here realizing my blog is pedestrian and boring as hell compared to hers.

Pawnticket: “Today I'll bore you with a rant about how I hate several past math teachers and sadly, to this day, how I carry a grudge. (These little entries I write let slip through aspects of my personality I should best perhaps leave hidden. You think I don't know that this happens?). That and I'll tell you how to make a pasta sauce.”

Keneally's Blog: “After a concert in San Francisco, Jim and I slipped down to Golden Gate park, sniffed some akyl nitrite and fucked like a couple of retarded gorillas. The next morning I interviewed Linda Ronstadt from the Stone Ponies...Oh, the check from Rolling Stone magazine finally came in.”

*Attaining that Kind of Glory*

The closest I came to any stardom was usually from the audience pit. There's a line that separates the fabulously famous from the wretched mob in the audience you know, it's called a riot fence. At book signings or autograph giveaways the dais and desk will separate you and it was at that kind of venue where I met Joan Jett, Warren Zevon and John Lennon's son, Julian. I met them for all of 40 seconds and had to move on as the line was pushing up from behind.

“Move along plebe! Your few seconds to genuflect in front of her Highness is OVER!”

What's amazing about this kind of success and stardom is always how it always has a lifespan. People meet, they jell well together, they produce something, hit it and ride the wave as long as the dynamics of the group are allowed to grow and mature. But there always comes a point when it must die. A Jumping the Shark moment will occur and trying to keep it on life support just becomes sad looking.

Jumping the Shark? That's an old Hollywood term for when a TV series has run it's course. A popular show that's riding high will have been said to “be over” when the writers really are grasping for straws to enliven the show and keep it going. The old show, “Happy Day's” had a scene where the Cunninghams and Fonzi go to Hollywood and Fonzi, jumps over a shark on water skis. What makes it even cheesier is that he's still wearing that leather jacket. In retrospect, this moment signaled the death knell of the show.

Anyway...

A scant few of us attain that kind of glory like in rock bands, movies or sports, where you are foisted to Godhood. But, if you think back on your own lives, there were some moments you were God, for a while at least.

I can point to several times when I did attain it. It was at the ages of 12, 14, 22, 23, 25, 33, 45ish. Those times in my life where when everything I managed to touch, turned to gold. Those times lasted anywhere from a few months to a year. But like everything else, time moves you along and trying to rest on those laurels won't do. You can't control nor corral it, you just let it happen and enjoy the ride for however long it's going to last.

Let's see, at 12 I can remember reaching that height in my sixth grade class career as being the best and it was proven out by a national test. I've written about that story before. At 14, I was wild and free w/o any parental supervision, growing up as fast as I could. In my early 20's, I was with a gang at RIC where due to all the differing personalities bouncing off one another, it managed to broaden our very own and mine. Later in life there were times where I had “made it” according to the Machiavellian definition of Life, as my Dad put it. So there were moments where I was King for a bit, even though it was a much smaller stage than the one Jimi Hendrix was on.

And that's OK, because I did manage to be a King for a while.

You too must've have moments in your life when all you could do was bat them out of the park without so much as even trying to.

OK, fine, this blog ain't Keneally's but she was struck by that rare lightning that put her on a larger stage. A stage is a stage and we all act on one.  

Making the Motion of Wiping Mud Off My Forearm...

Ever been in a conversation where the other was just itching for you to say something negative about them, so they can confirm that your opinion of them sucks? The questions I was asked, even the sentences when spoken, were at a metered pace. God is that a tip off! That and the fact they are desperately trying to lead me down a path that'll give them their verification. The problem is that I try to be polite, give replies that won't pin me down so I don't hurt their feelings. But after a while, I get annoyed with the pestering and if you want the truth, you're going to get it.

I once wrote about this a while back on this blog. This women kept hitting on me HARD, almost like swinging a brick into my face and I wasn't in the least bit interested. You'd think no eye contact or one word replies work. Nope. If the target of your affection won't reply, turn the volume up to “11” and that'll work...right?

So last night, after a few months, I meet her again. During our conversation she asks me an odd question. If she were a dog or I, which one would we be? For myself, all I could think of was a German Shepherd dog as that's all I've owned.

“Why a shepherd?”

“I guess because of their silly loyalty, attachment and that amazing annoyance they feel if a stranger should come near their 'den.'”

“What about me?”

I can't think of a decent answer as I don't honestly know specifically every breed's cartoonish, stereotypical qualities. I tell her she isn't a poodle as she has none of that high maintenance issues with her.

She presses on to pick a dog and I then say, “I don't know! You tell me the qualities of an Alaskan husky? A Spaniel? A Schnauzer?” The point I was telling her that this wasn't the best way, for me anyway, to get me to describe her.

She tries a different tact. “You said a Shepherd...that hates strangers getting close to you.”

“Yep” I said.

“Why?”

I then tell her this great philosophy of life I have. “I detest and hate others who can't keep their messy, flea infested, smallpox infected lives away from mine. In short, I hate it when other people's lives, their drama gets splattered all over me. It's a huge violation of etiquette in a way, much like loudly farting at a dinner table you've been invited to. You're a pig.”

She thinks on that and says,”Well, everyone has issues...we all make mistakes.” I tell her that's true and yes, we all need to be flexible when it comes up, but then I ask her, “Is being a heroin addict for the past 7 years, a whoopsy kind of mistake? Is being a sloppy alcoholic a mistake? It's a long standing illness...not some mistake. You may want to help them but guess what nurses and doctors do when treating an Ebola patient? They wear environmental suits and keep a distance...they don't French kiss the patient to prove friendliness!” I repeat it again....”they keep distance!”

I ask her this. If her friend or close acquaintance borrows her car, and you know she's a boozer, and she wraps it around a pole later on that night, do you think...”Awww...people should get second chances?”

I answer that for her before she can reply, “NO! This jackoff just ruined your car because they're idiots. They just screwed up your month because you now have no car for work, for getting anything done and to top it off, I bet they have no money to repay you as well! Your friend is probably immature and selfish.”

“Do you kindly forgive them or do you kick yourself for being suckered into giving the car to being with? That's what I'm talking about, keeping fuck ups as far from me as possible.”

“Jesus...you're strident about that.” She says.

“Yep, I learned those lessons time and again throughout my childhood. As I got older, I'd occasionally make the silly mistake and slip and then I was suckered into some situation that predictably went splat.”

As I told this story, I could see the look on her face. It looked guilty which then displayed some annoyance with me. She then responds...

“You hold too high a bar for people to jump!” Now her tone of voice is bitchy pissed off. Guess why?

“Yep I do...and it drives away about 30% of the people I come across...safely puts a ton of distance between me and them.”

I end the conversation with this. “Look, I bar people from my life who are continual fuck ups. You know which people get really pissed at me for thinking this?” I ask.

“Who?”

“Only continual fuck ups take offense.”

**

Perhaps I'm showing my age. I was raised with an etiquette which demanded you NEVER besmirch other's lives, property or whatever. You respected their boundaries. If you vomit, try not to puke into their lap, the floor is good enough. If you have some personality quirk, then don't inflict onto others if you can help it. Above all, you had to be able to put yourself into the others shoes and see how your own behavior might effect them.

And that's the crux huh? Being able to see another's point of view. Those messy people I've come across in life are incapable of seeing anything but their own needs and wants and can be seen charging to whatever it is they want, stomping on everyone's feet to get it.

They're children still. Forever 12 years old in an adult's body. There are thousands of these people out there...do I have to tell you this? If you know they exist, then you aren't one of them.  

I Would Miss Electricity Though...

Click and See the Scene

I saw this movie a long time ago when either of the three major networks would shove in a flick to fill up a late Sunday afternoon. Jerimiah Johnson at first seemed corny as hell but as the movie went on, I became more interested. What struck me throughout most of it wasn't the dialog or action sequences, it was the dead quiet. All you hear are Jermiah's footsteps, the wind or barring those, nothing at all. For a few moments, you can experience what that silence is like if you've never been away from it all. That silence is enveloping. I've only known it for short periods and I mean short, hours at most. I have no idea what that would be like for months.

There were real mountain men back then, around the 1840's. From what a history professor told me, those guys never did stay long up in he high country. They trapped what they could, came back down and traded it. The career usually lasted three years for most. If you weren't killed by the Indians, eaten by bears or busted through thin ice, became wet then froze to death, you plain just became worn out from having to deal with the elements when your so exposed like that. You can't build permanent shelter when you are running trap lines all the time, so you camp out and move alot...even through those bitch winters in the Rockies.

The movie's climax is that scene in the clip above. It's kind of spooky really. Jeremiah's been gone so long into the woods he's forgotten most of his past, civilization and even the particular days in a calender. He's gone from someone who's been juggling 140 variables a day in his civilized life to being pretty much numb. It's what he wanted when he set out and got it in spades.

**

PBS occasionally has decent programs on, mostly when they in their donation drives. We accidentally came across “Alone in the Wilderness,” that was shot in the late '60s. In it, you see a real life Richard Proenneke who at 51, builds his own cabin w/o powertools in a remote part of Alaska. He so enjoyed his first stay there that he retired to the cabin till he was in his 80's. As we watched it, us guys seemed to be transfixed by his wood working skills and silly strength. You see him working all day sawing trees, chopping trees, finishing logs and then carrying them around. When was the last time you used a hand saw to cut anything? I haven't in a few years and cutting through a six inch bough of dried tree limb took me over 15 minutes. It would take Proenneke three. They guy had the stamina of a 16 year old kid.

Tough ol' bird.

Perhaps it's a guy thing, but as we watched it, most of us were in awe. We just kept commenting on this guy's ability to hack out of the woods all that he needed. Spoons to eat with? He carved them. Bear proof door locks? He carved those out of wood too. He fashioned his log cabin to such tight tolerances that no filler was needed to plug up any gaps where the draft might blow in. The only time we called “foul!” was when we saw him carry a roll of tar paper to be used on his roof. I guess you can't fashion that out of the Alaskan wilderness. He had to purchase that in Anchorage. He had enough to eat as his homemade fishing pole and troll lines would yank in fish after fish. Red meat? He had an old WW1 Springfield army rifle, w/o a scope, which good enough to take down an elk at 200 yards. You try shooting at a 4 inch circle with open sights at that range, you need the eyes of a hawk! One elk was enough to keep him fed through an entire winter.

When he became too old in his 80's to maintain that cabin life, others convinced him to come back to the “Lower 48.” He regretted it immensely but realized that at his age, he'd probably die trying to survive another Alaskan winter. I sometimes suspect he wouldn't have minded that at all.

I just finished reading his book and it's a decent read if you want to hear about how he did it. A good part of the book is about his wanting to find “quiet.” There's one passage where he steps out onto the frozen lake by his cabin, on some god awful bone chilling Alaskan night, just to watch the aurora flicker around. It was so quiet he swore he could hear it.

Here's the last paragraph in his book.

“I have no doubt that to others I am an oddball in many ways. The Lord waited a little too long to put me on one of his worlds. I don't like the look of progress, if that's what it's called. I would have liked the beginnings better. That is why this place has taken hold of me. It's still in those early stages and man hasn't left too many marks on the land. Surely have been to places up and down these mountains where other men have never been. How long before all this will change as the other places have changed?

I've seen alot of sights from this old spruce chunk, and have thought alot of thoughts. The more I think about it, the better off I am. The crime rate here is close to zero. I forget what it is like to be sick or have a cold. I don't have bills coming in every month to pay for things I don't really need. My legs and canoe provide transportation. They take me as far as I care to go.

To see game you must move little and look alot. What at first appears to be a branch turns into that big caribou bull up there on the benches--I wonder what he thinks about? Is his brain just a blank as he lies there blinking in the sun chewing his cud? I wonder if he feels as I do, that this small part of the world is more than enough to think about?”

Could I do it? Probably not. I'm the same age as Proenneke was when he set out and I can't swing an axe for 30 minutes straight. Add to that, I'm a klutz, I'd swing the axe into my calf eventually. Also, the isolation...real isolation...hmmm...unsure about that too.

I may enjoy the quiet, the peace, but alone with your own thoughts for months? Would I go batshit crazy or would it be healing in nature? Probably I'll lean to crazy. Cabin fever back then was real and the cure for it was to get out of the damn cabin, go for a walk, see the trees and wildlife and experience something different than those four walls, even if it's -30 degrees out there. Shit! There were times here in Pawtucket where I wouldn't want to go get a pizza if it were 5 degrees because it “was too damn cold” and the car wouldn't heat up until I got to the pizza joint. So I'm going to leave a warm cabin to romp around in subzero weather? Nope. I'd probably be found next spring, naked, with twigs stuck up my nose and a suicide note written in squirrel blood that makes no sense when read.

Richard in his home made cabin, happy as a pig in shit with the isolation. 

Beautiful People

Up along Oregon's coastal highway, 101, there's an artists community called Canon Beach. I was there once, on a tourist's romp along the Pacific Ocean doing a ride from Tillamook, Astoria to Portland. We had stopped at Canon to check it out, poke around and see what we could see as I was curious. Walking around I wanted to step inside one of those galleries to see just what these artists were doing. Simple enough. Inside the gallery were paintings of seals on the beach, seals on rocks, seals in the water, seals on docks, seals back-lit by sunsets...all selling for $5,000+ each. One painting was for $30,000.

“Paintings of seals...numerous ones...all for sale...for the price of a car.” I thought to myself. I'd thought the subject matter might have been varied some what more. There is more to the Oregon coast besides seals. I guess seals sell.

In order to enter the gallery, I had walked along a pathway that led to an earthy grotto overgrown with ivy. On a stone bench, sat two people, but not just any two people. I had to stare as any tourist would stare. It's rude but there are times when you see something in real life and you have to take it all in. On this bench were a couple. They both had each hair in place, were wearing the latest clothing out of LA and sported RayBans nicely hanging from their shirt collars. One was holding a glass of Pinot Noir haphazardly, nearly spilling onto the gravel. Both were impeccably tanned. Their attitudes said, “I'm so rich and bored and I still don't care.” I instinctively knew w/o having to be told these two were California Beautiful People. I had read, seen on TV and heard about this breed, but never in my life had I witnessed it.

Those two were that perfect. It's like seeing a model or an advertisement and realizing for a bit, none of it was airbrushed at all. There are people who do look like this w/o any effort from Adobe Photoshop.

**

There are Beautiful People everywhere really, in every town, state or county. Perhaps not as tweezed as well as one from LA that I saw but they are “good enough.” Tonight I got to watch a couple of local types blow their image in a proper, quiet way so as not to draw attention. Too late, I saw it.

The guy is an acquaintance, she a distant one. The look like they belong together. They both had that Prom Queen/Quarterback look to them. That these two were together was ordained when time began. Not only that, but their lives seemed a bit like Camelot. He an up an coming young exec at a biotech firm and she, a model who's getting more and more attention from the NYC modeling agencies. She's stunning. She was naturally anorexic, exotic and had that skin that only 14 year girls olds have. Their lives seemed that there was nowhere to go but up.

Right looks, right jobs, right cars and right everything else. It made some around me jealous as I heard some comments. They weren't regulars at Chardonnay's in Seekonk but they were there enough to have made an impression. They were there enough. The girls hated the Golden Girl's looks and the guys were jealous of the Golden Boy's silly career advancement as he was promoted two ranks above his position in what seemed a short time.

Nothing changes, does it? High school never ends.

Anyway, while outside in the parking lot as a few others I know are talking, I tune into another conversation a few feet away from me. I am so bad at that, other's private lives are MY business! I hear Golden Girl lament to another the fact that her Golden Boy had kissed another at a party not too long ago at Capriccios. She brushed it off as politically correct as she could have, not wanting to seem like the distrusting type, but the fact she kept talking about it for so long was suspect. It did bother her. What was also telling was that I noticed she had spent the better part of night alone, leaning against a wall or at an empty table, texting away. Golden Boy was bouncing from group to group, chatting it up and the girls he palled around with did their best to engage him.

“Christ, even them.” I thought. Regular life intrudes into this storybook and fucks it up. Regular ol' human nature can't seem to reach the myth of Camelot.

By the end of the night, Golden Boy was playing with the boys around a video game and ignoring the over zealous girls that were orbiting him and Golden girl? I saw her leave, by herself, to her car and then drove off towards Rehoboth.

Beautiful people...even them. I have to wonder about all the effort that's put into maintaining that image when, in the end, regular,boring human nature seems to slam shut that Storybook.

Cannon Beach, with Haystack rock. 

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

I never read the above mentioned book. However, I couldn't escape it if I watched PBS during one of their fund-raising campaigns in the early 90's. This book was another in a long line of self help books that sprung from the Human Potential Movement that came out of California in the late 60's and especially during the '70's. Think of Esalen  again, which I spoke of in the past. In it, the author Robert Fulghum tries to recapture and apply the simplicity of a child and use those early memories and lessons to his current life. Whether it works or not is up to debate, what was surprising were the book sales. Hell, any self-help book in the 70's was a best seller. Why? Because many people are unhappy with life and were searching.

That says something...

If you read this blog, you'll find it dripping with sarcasm and cynicism. It's my defense against a world of bullshit and danger. It's too bad that those words have such a negative connotation. To be cynical implies you've lost that innocence and belief that people, that life in general is good. Yeah, well, if you take a black and white attitude about these things, cynicism can be a stance that can be taken much too far. Then again, taking a Happy Horseshit, 100% everything's perfect view on the world is just as silly. You apply either view in doses, as needed. There was a guy, Timothy Treadwell, who was an environmentalist, bear lover and naturalist who set out in deep woods Alaska to become a friend of the bears, to protect them and understand their nature. Well, the bears didn't give a shit about his political leanings or motivations and ate him for supper eventually. That's an example of taking it a bit too far, the reality of the world won't support your view.

What did I learn in kindergarten? Ahhh...not all those lessons were Disney-ish. If fact, kindergarten was a bit of a shocker to me. Here's what I also learned besides fingerprinting, cutting construction paper and making a new best friend in Johnny Burnash, who liked to color his shirts with crayons.

People lie...a a lot. People steal...a lot. Teachers were full of shit...a a lot. Teachers pick and chose their favorites and openly disliked others...a lot. Kids, even at five years of age, form a social hierarchy and you find out just where you're pigeonholed. God forbid you try to move from your particular position on that ladder of popularity as everyone else there will made damn sure you stay put. I also came to the conclusion girls were evil.

Since I never had any sisters and there were few girls in our neighborhood to being with, I found out just how socially adept girls are by the time they reach kindergarten. Hell, we boys were always behind on that score. I had little experience with girls so they have the advantage on me. The evil power girls had I found was their ability to lie like rugs and get away with it.

I won't name her so let's call her Anna H. which is damn close.

As five year old boys, we were rambunctious, whether it be in backyards or the classrooms. Johnny Burnash and I found that if you threw a Superball really hard against the wall of the classroom, it would bounce around the room like a sub-atomic particle in an atomic collider. This is funny as hell to young boys. Of course, you do this when the teacher is out of the room.

Anna H was one of those goody-good girls who wore dresses, a blond ponytail and was a professional teacher's pet. She also owned the Head Cheerleader Alpha Female spot amongst the girls (God, how they start early!). Think of Nelly Olson from Little House on the Prairie. Cute, perky and full of venom.

John and I were carried away by the fun of whipping that ball around the classroom when the teacher comes back, catching us. Amazingly on cue, Anna H. then starts to cry out, holding her eye claiming that I, whipped the ball right at her face. Of course, Anna being a girl, the teacher took her word as gospel truth. However, I swear on a stack of Bibles that I never did it.

“HOW DARE YOU HIT A GIRL” I was admonished by the teacher.

“But, but, but, but...” I stammered.

“He hit me! He hit me!” Anna continues to cry out in the background.

I stood there, completely flabbergasted. I never had come across such lying, such accusations in my five years of life. I was knocked off my “game” and my failure to come up with a decent defense made me look guilty as hell. I was just plain shocked.

The teacher confiscates Johnny's ball and condemns us to opposite corners of the room to stand, facing in. I kept turning around, looking at Anna, in amazement. “How could you lie like that? What did I ever do to you?” “What the hell just happened?” I thought.

“Let me see dear, let me look at your eye...Oh...you'll be alright...There's no marks...no swelling.” the teacher says to Anna. Of course there's no marks. No ball had ever hit it.

Lesson # 543.b. Watch out for chameleon type girls.

I learned a lot about life in those short nine months in kindergarten, most of it political. There was a Who's Who and I learned quick on how that game was played, which was mostly ugly. What strikes me, now that I have perspective, was that the teachers themselves clearly were playing it as well. Ah well, that's another lesson.

I'm guessing that's the birthplace of my cynicism, kindergarten.

**

There's another self help book out there, but most haven't heard of it as it isn't about any Happy Place. It's called, “The Positive Power of Negative Thinking” by Julie Norem. She makes the same statement I've made to people for years when it comes to cynicism. Before you go off on a new venture, you first must locate all the potholes, barbed wire and land mines that life loves to throw in your way. If you can stay clear of those while you pursue your goal, your chances at a happier success increase.

I was never in the Boy scouts but I guess I found my own version of, “Be Prepared.”

I've seen this a million times, in other's lives, who charge headlong after some happy goal only to tear right over a cliff. And afterwards, they wonder why their life suddenly sucks now. I really wondered how they could never see why? I guess they get overly excited at some new endeavor and, giddy with happiness and free abandon, they stampede to that goal...till you hear that loud smack of them hitting a brick wall.

“Shit...they did it again.” I've thought.

To be fair, I've seen people whose lives were so full of crap that any good luck that came near them, they ran toward it, lest it get away. How much crap was of their own creation I can't say, but a good amount of bad luck seems to follow. Then one day a nice fat piece of fortune appears and they blindly fly towards it, only to trip and fall. It's like they are on the carousel and lean too far out to grab that ring, only to be beaned by a supporting I-beam they didn't see coming.

I tread carefully in life, mostly with new, major things I've never tried. I know my learning curve and initially, it's loaded with mistakes. Why make lethal ones if you can avoid it? I start out in the shallow end of the pool precisely because I know that some things in live can upend you damn fast. Once I get some experience in me, then it's time to try the deep end. That's how I learned to swim in the ocean, at five, starting out in waist deep water.

You learn a lot at five..don't you?

Brown Rice

“Fundamentally, there's just one reason why I left that commune.”

“Which was?” I ask.

“I got sick of eating brown rice every.goddamn.day.”

My friend, for a lark, decided to live in a Berkeley commune in the early 70's when the were popular. He had been ousted from his professor's job in San Diego and decided to drift up north to see what could be had there. He found a small commune and joined it. What he didn't know was that the commune next door, the Peking Man House, was occupied by the Symbionese Liberation Army, the same people who kidnapped Patty Hearst and gave the cops a surprise when they were finally busted with a huge shoot out. The SLA had used automatic weapons for that one. The LAPD, up until then, had never come up against anything like it. My friend had split the whole commune scene before the SLA got that active, though he did become friends with Mizmoon Soltysik, a waif-like and diaphanous hippy chick who also was apparently good with M2 carbines. She sold baubles and the such near the University of California, Berkeley to make a living. In the end, she was shooting up the LAPD from a barricade and died eventually after the police burned the house to the ground.

“It's too bad, she was probably the nicest one of the bunch, if you can call revolutionaries 'nice.'” he adds.

He said here's how the commune worked. The costs there were to be shared equally and the idea was that since the costs were spread out, everyone could use their copious free time to engage in what they wanted. Some spent time on their artwork, others, like Miss Lucy, spent her time making more money by being an underaged whore to wealthy Marin county businessmen. She may have been 16 while living at the commune. Marybeth, who was from Massachusetts as well as B. spent her time trying every latest fad in psychotherapy in order to fix herself. “Marybeth's day could be completely ruined if she broke her shoelace.” He tells me. “But on the whole, she was a decent person, just trying to fix whatever it was that broke her when she was a little girl.” He also tells me there was a guy who lived in the front parlor who had finger cymbals and clanged them while chanting “Ommmmm” for hours on end.

Since few of the hippy members worked enough to gain enough money, most had welfare checks to supplement their income. The whole commune would then pool their cash and send one of them off to buy food for the week. The cheapest staple they could purchase was, brown rice.

“I'll never eat another grain of fuckin' brown rice again” B tells me. It was the daily staple in the commune and he tried, again and again, to get them to add anything, something, to the rice in order to change up it's flavor. As the cooking duties rotated among the members, he occasionally would be in charge and try to make an Italian style rissoto with it, to the joy of the whole house. For once, rice wasn't boring. “Oh, that and goddamn lentils...I hate lentils now.” he adds.

He had had his fill after a while at the commune and returned to Massachusetts to start another job teaching. Not too long later, the SLA in the house next door was shooting people and kidnapping. He said on his way back, he stopped at Urbana/Champaign to teach and join another commune there, as his way back to Massachusetts was of the “long and circuitous route.” But that's when it started to all change he tells me.

The Flower Children of the 60's were harmless. Their goals were lofty and generally easy to get along with, but as this whole thing matured and morphed, it attracted an ugly element he tells me. The drugs the hippies and such enjoyed weren't the type to make you violent nor attract those who were. Also, the black market that provided it wasn't filled with bastards. That changed when heroin showed up.

“While at Urbana/Champaign, that's when I started seeing heroin...and the criminal types who then started to hang around or join these communes. I'd get some very ugly vibes off of some of the people there...I knew it was time to move on. When I started seeing thefts and weapons...that was it.”

**

Up until a few years ago, I had no idea that there were communes much, much earlier than the 60's. I had learned about Utopian towns that were tried in the US, in response to the shit mill towns the Industrialists created for their factory systems. These utopioan towns seemed more attuned to improving the lives of labor. The idea that a commune (back then) was for giving you tons of free time to chase after whatever it was that floated your boat was new to me. Then I found out about Brook Farm in Wext Roxbury, MA which was started in 1840.

Brook Farm was just that. If you could spread the work around equally, pay everyone equally, then the free time created could be spent on better things besides having to grovel to put a roof over your head. The first tenants engaged in lofty arts, literature and the sciences. The women there were treated with equality and they too could engage in whatever it was they wanted too. For a little while, it worked.

The problem was that there was no organization, no real division of labor and the farm went to hell pretty rapidly. You have to plow, plant, weed and harvest crops and that takes a ton of labor and time. When you don't organize it, guess what happens? No crops bearing anything worth selling in the marketplace.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was one time member. He blew it off when he realized Brook Farm would provide no real money to start his life with his new wife. The idea of sweating or freezing your ass off in the fields for crap pay was abhorrent to him.

“...Hawthorne, not only tired of the high minded talk among the residents, he had found also labor on the farm, milking cows, chopping hay, shoveling manure, hoeing vegetables, nearly unbearable. After five months of it, he had fled back to a rooming house in Boston, losing his initial investment in the escape. In his notes about Brook Farm he said: 'It is my opinion that a man's soul may be buried and perish under a dung heap or in a furrow of the field just as well under a pile of money. Even my custom house experience was not such a thralldom and weariness, my mind and my heart were free. Oh, labor is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it without becoming proportionally brutified.'”

Perhaps he was sick of brown rice as well?