Dock of the Bay

Musée Mécanique

Sal

Dock of the Bay

Got a craving for In-N-Out Burger this morning. I decided that I was
likely to spend another weekend hardly stepping out of my apartment
and maybe I should something about that. So I picked myself up and
caught a cable car down to the wharf. I'm out on the pier next to
Forbes Island staring right at Alcatraz. The whole bay is fogged in.
It's cool but not cold. I'm in a light sweater doing fine. This
weather may cool the flesh but it warms my heart. The seals are
barking up a storm at pier 39. I've seen a couple pass in front of me
heading back into the bay.

The Museé Mécanique had moved from its traditional location at the
Cliff House a few years ago before they tore it down and rebuilt it. I
remember they were having trouble finding a place for it. It is here
at Fisherman's Wharf. Pier 45 actually. I took a wander through it
just to be reminded of all the wild old machines. Laughing Sal still
greets you when you walk in. I'll start home soon, go home and do some
housework but I'm starting to remember how to relax. How to simply be.

BTW the soundtrack for today's reading is "Two Headed Boy" and "The
Fool" by Neutral Milk Hotel.

Dreams, poetry, an iPhone and a boy made of gold paper

A little while ago I woke directly from a dream. Since getting my
iPhone I have been grabbing it and using it to record whatever I could
remember from the dream as fast as I could, before I started the
forgetting.

Like all dreams this has some back story. (right now I'm trying to
resist the memory of Debra Winger in Sheltering Sky complaining about
how boring it is to listen to people talk about their dreams)

I have been on a musical discovery kick lately. I've been exposing
myself to a large catalog of music from the last ten years that I had
been ignorant. If you would like to follow along just tap on my lastFM
box and go through my charts for the last couple of months. Jenny
Lewis, Doves, Decemberists, Neutral Milk Hotel, and I Am Kloot are all
artists that I think will be audial companions for years to come. They
were all unknown/ignored by me until very recently.

And what does this have to do with the price of boys made out of gold
paper you might ask? I have been thinking about how poetry and music
so often comes from the young mind. I was thinking about how long its
been since I truly loved anything new from three of the musicians
whose early works all rank among my all time favorates: Paul
McCartney, Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen. I have not bought or
even taken the time to download a new album from any of them in ten
years. That led me to thinking about my own work. I doubt I have
written ten poems in the last decade. And while I have never really
liked anything I have written I am utterly convinced of the
worthlessness of those alleged ten poems. My poetry all seemed to come
out in a short burst in my late teens and early twenties. If anything
my life should be more attuned to all my favored themes. I still long
for old friends and lovers. In fact now I have more of them and they
are farther away in time, space and emotional availabilty than they
ever were when I was young. I would have thought living in the land
beyond redemption would be conducive to writing the kind of poems I
used to. But no, that has not been my experience.

Work is having one of those meetings where the company pretends it
cares that you have other cares besides its profitability. It is going
to be followed the very next day by a meeting reminding all of us
about how the only thing that matters is their profitability. I don't
really mind the hipocracy so much anymore I just wonder if it has to
be so blatant. The touchy-freely meeting has us all bringing a shoebox
filled with momentos and possessions that define ourselves. I am not
all that keen in this particular exercise. For the most part my peers
are good people who I like, respect, and trust. Ditto for my boss. But
like any group there are those few who are duplicitous, selfish, and
mean liars. If there is one thing I have learned in my life it is not
to give away anything of myself to people like that. The other thing I
have learned is that even if your boss has nothing like those
qualities his job description requires them from time to time. The
best you can hope for in a boss is that he takes no pleasure from
their application.

That whole tirade was simply about the fact that I have been thinking
about my poetry lately because the book I self-published 18 years ago
happens to fit in a shoebox. (I put the current odds of me actually
taking it to work at a hundred to one.)

So about this dream of mine. (I could never be a journalist with my
habit of burying the lead in the sixth paragraph) It took place in a
middle school and I was a student. It wasn't one of my junior high
schools, in fact I'm pretty sure I wasn't me. It was more like I was
in a television show about middle school. I'm pretty sure that all of
the people I met in my dream were played by tv actors. Or maybe the
cast of Adventures in Babysitting. I don't know. Except for the Boy
Made of Gold Paper. Him I've never seen before.

It was a dream about adolescence. About sexual confusion, feeling
powerless, and trying to define yourself. It climaxed with me being
interrogated by an assistant principal (is there any title besides
maybe Führer that inspires such revulsion) and having to cold read a
poem that was written on a piece of the Boy Made of Gold Paper. It was
a good reading and the poem wasn't bad. Not at all. I don't remember
it of course but it had a good cadence to it. It read easily and I
felt satisified when I was done. I awoke realizing that I had dreamed
the poem. That it was something completly new. That I has actually
written a poem I liked, albeit in a dream and now totally lost. So I
grabbed my phone and began to take notes. What surprised me was the
form the notes took. Usually my dream notes are very literal and
filled with as much detail as I cab remember. This morning was
different. This mornings notes came out in what I would guess passes
for verse from me. I make no claim to liking it but am simply
surprised to find myself publishing a new poem this morning.

What does this half to do with the iPhone? Only that I am still lying
in bed and never would have written any of this longhand or on my
laptop. But now I have to get up and go to work.

The Boy Made of Torn Gold Paper

I dreamt of a boy made of torn gold paper. And the boy that he loved.
Or maybe the boy that loved him. And a girl. That maybe I loved. Of
friendship. Of betrayal. Of the cruelty and ignorance of authority. I
dreamt of poetry and the absolutness of adolescence. I was once a
poet. I was once a great sight reader. This morning before I awoke I
was both again.

Back to Work

Well I'm back to working at Union Street again. Today was my first
commute in the rain in a long time. You know what that means. Yup,
Cable Cars and Sinatra. The only way to get to work.

My Adopted Bench

Filling In Some of the Blanks

Tomorrow is my last day in Kansas and I guess I should catch you up on
what I've been up to. I think I left off with spending the day at a
café called Mokas. I have in fact just come from there. I'm presently
sitting at a picnic table I discovered in a grove of trees in Burke
Park. I spent most of my afternoons last week here or a hundred feet
or so up the river lying in the grass lisenting to music and writing
in my journal. (Both activities facilitated by my iPhone)

I may not have kept up with the blog but I am happy to report that
I've managed to journal like I was locked in a prison with nothing but
pad and paper. The distance from my daily cares, a little fresh air
and a new toy have done me wonders. I needed this badly. I wonder how
many people who live in heavy tourist areas vacation in the most
mundane places they can find. This world of Wal-Mart, Long John
Silver's, lawn space and being the only pedestrian is such a novelty
to me. I've already vowed to expand my vistas when I get home. I
haven't even bought a monthly bus pass in a year. If I couldn't walk
there, there needed to be a pretty darn good reason why. I wasn't
leaving much of a carbon footprint it's true. I wasn't leaving any
kind of mark at all. I won't go so far as to say that I've recovered
my voice but I might say that I'm starting to remember who I am.