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June 25 Michael and a Song for Innocence at a Time of WarI was 19 at the time, and that would have made Michael something like 11 years old. He was still a member of "The Jackson Five" then, before he would become a solo act. His song at the time went like this, "You and I must make a pact; we must bring salvation back; where there is love, I'll be there." Yes, "I'll be There." I thought it a beautiful song and it resonated with me. Me, a white boy not long out of public housing in Southeastern Pennsylvania, where I was a minority in a largely African-American neighborhood, and where I was in love with the Rhythm and Blues of the day. And in that context, Michael and his brothers seemed like bubble-gummers. Compare the young Michael's voice and songs to Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman" and Otis Redding's "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay." Not even "in the Midnight Hour" with the wicked Wilson Pickett and a few beers was I going to easily acknowledge Michael and his brothers as accomplices in my soul-searching life. Please, I was a small arms expert marksman with an M-16, and here I was in the U.S. Air Force, freshly arrived in a theater of war, looking to make my bonafides as a man so I might return to my neighborhood with the credibility sought by most of my blue-collar friends: a veteran of war, someone deserving of the space and conversations I would occupy with my fellow veteran returnees. I would never return to the neighborhood, but plugging into the zeitgeist of the Vietnam War -- even if we would all suffer an exclusionary status with the world at large -- I found a lifeforce that took me to another place in life, to education and to the pursuit of story-telling -- for the sake of news and for the sake of moving people emotionally and politically, and sometimes legally, for the better good. I find those skills useful these days in helping people sort out their lives and live better lives.
But back to then, and to Michael, and to "I'll be There." I remember listening to the song as I cut my teeth on hard liquor and slot machines and a sense of adventure as I began my year in Southeast Asia. So much would transpire, and I would change greatly in that year. Death and grief. And an introduction to the vicissitudes of life, even in one year. I would never forget a sense of innocence and pure adventure at the beginning, and that would be captured in Michael Jackson singing, "I'll be There." As my life perspective changed that year -- from having a sense of nobility and adventure to viewing the world in hard, fragile but courageous reality -- I would think back to the beginning of my experience in Southeast Asia and to Michael singing "I'll be There." Today, on his death, that is the song I remember most by him, and it still comforts me. God, how life changes. And, yet, how so much of what we were in our innocence remains to the end. I remember Michael in his innocence, and I remember being better prepared to face evil by listening to a song in which his innocence resonated with mine. Thanks for seeing me through, Michael. May 25 In MemoryI feel as if I have to write something in memory of them. They inspire me, even if my writing seems uninspired this day. I give thanks to Gary Neiman, who I last saw in the days before we returned from our leaves in York, PA, to military duty. He was off to Vietnam; I was off to Maine. He was a few weeks from death. Vietnam, of course. 1969. I would go to the war, too, in less than a year. To Danang, then more permanently to Udorn, Thailand, and a tour with the Air Force Aeorspace Rescue and Recovery Service, devoted to the rescue of pilots shot down, usually in their missions to bomb the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Remember, too, Wendell "Puddy" Day, a year ahead of me in school. Unstoppable, it seemed, on the football field. A running back turned Marine sniper. Buried in Gettysburg National Cemetery. Also remember James Manor, my one-time roommate, KIA on 27 March 72. The helicopter, an HH53 Super Jolly Green, in which he was flight engineer exploded in the sky over Cambodia. Remains unrecovered. I wear a KIA/MIA bracelet on my right wrist in his memory. Young people, usually my psychotherapy clients, puzzle over it, although some, suprisingly, know what it is. "Isn't that...?" they usually begin. Yes, I say, encouraged that those yet to be born back then have some regard for the history and the culture of the time. I've written about these three on something called "The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund" virtual wall, a detailed online record of those who died, where and when. I have also lit candles for them in cathedrals. I am this Memorial Day also remembering a colleague of mine who died last week, suddenly, though she was sick with heart failure last autumn. She never looked better than the day before she died. She had returned to work earlier this year. She seemed happier than ever. She was more pleasant than ever. We shared interests in a few things that resonate strongly with me. Northern California, for one. She had grown up there, partially in Martinez, CA, birthplace of Joe DiMaggio, something she had not known until I told her. I'm not sure she was impressed. She would spend her vacations and holidays with family in Northern California, in San Rafael, Marin County, and another spot nearby. She would bring gifts back from her trips, usually the products of the rich growing fields and vineyards of Northern California. Let us live our lives most fully, in part by giving breath to the memories of those who we have known and valued so that they will not be forgotten. I hope I have said enough, but, then, I don't think enough could be said. If there is a place where the dead can be aware, please, just know that I remember and respect you all. April 12 Central Park, New York CityI've often said that I think Manhattan's Central Park is one of the most beautiful spots on the face of the Earth. I don't make the claim casually. I have seen many beautiful places in the world. Not that it takes touring the world to know beautiful ground. As a child, I recognized the beauty of the land around Gettysburg battlefield without having yet seen the world outside the borders of a few Pennsylvania counties. How horrible that such a peaceful setting of farm fields, woods, rock outcroppings and the Blue Mountains beyond should have once been defaced by killing spits of small arms and cannon fire, and smoke billowing over a slope of farmland littered with the dead and wounded. Poor Pickett. Why name the debacle for him; his superiors for whom the foolish bloodbath should be named were not his equal in courage. And yet they are honored in ways in which the young Pickett never has been. A place on a pedestal just might too often be more sentimental than meritorious. Pardon my digression.
During the summer at Gettysburg, crickets and cicadas sing in hot, humid afternoons, and the thickly leaved trees and blue sky calm the spirits of those who go to Gettysburg to escape contemporary battles of their own. Cherries ripen in the trees and wheat and other crops grow in farm fields, laid out now as they were then. A farm house and barn are well kept. Life flourishes everywhere, overshadowing death. Peace rules the canvas even as artillery pieces -- the Napoleans -- reflect the sun off their polished metal. Monuments to the fallen cast black shadows, but shadows that carry the breeziness of shade rather than the gloom of death. If you focus on the valor of men of both sides, your spirit will be lifted at Gettysburg. You can talk about that over a Yuengling's as my brother-in-law and I did one recent but far-too-long-ago year by now. Oh, Yuengling's. Such good Pennsylvania brew. And you can, over one or two more frosted mugs, express disbelief that such beautiful and life-giving ground should have become a killing field.
All these many years removed from childhood, after seeing many other grandly beautiful pieces of ground, I find my childhood estimate of Gettysburg to be validated. Uniquely different in history, geography, topography and climate, many natural scenes compare to the grand beauty of Gettysburg. San Francisco Bay. The Mediterranean Coast. China Beach. The approach by helicopter to Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base at sunset, over rice paddies in the dry season, as rising smoke and ash from burning chafe blend with golden light to spice the scene like tendrils of flavor nuance a complex wine. Ahead, in Udorn, lay a city where the coming night could be intoxicating, where little was to be denied. You could find remove and peace from the war, if you wanted, or action of one degree or another. Wild West dis-inhibition, if you wanted. Or soothing Singha beer and nourishing Kobe beef by a pool, if you'd rather. Consider Wake Island on a moonlit night, escaping the noise of an airfield and the refueling of a plane, to visit the Marine memorial on the beach, the water silvery with moonlight, the waves crashing phosphorescent on the sand. Another setting where beauty mixes with death memorialized.
I say this in an attempt to prove my bonafides for knowing good ground. And Central Park is great ground. From the air, as seen from the window of an airliner twisting and turning over the Hudson in its holding pattern into JFK, Central Park lies crisp and rectangular as a postage stamp below. It is a stamp of common ground accessible to all amid real estate that excludes all but some of the world's wealthiest people. Those who are free to share the park could never afford the living space around it. One human being, Olmstead, and the many who paid him, had a brilliant idea, and it is one of the better examples of a visionary coming together with the mega-rich to develop a lasting common ground for all: the rich, the poor, those of any social or ethnic background.
My hotel is on Central Park South, just across from the park, flanked by The Plaza and the Ritz-Carlton up the street. As I push through the revolving door, I hear the blare of traffic as well as the clip-clop of hooves from the horse-drawn carriages that are a signature of New York City and Central Park. Across the street, these carriages line the sidewalk, waiting for the many who will enjoy the park from their high seats. The smell of horse manure isn't in the least offensive. Part of the ambience, if you please, the odor diluted this day by chill morning air and a slight wind. But better to go by foot, I believe. I cross the street and enter onto one of the many footpaths that wind through the park. At once, I am removed from the traffic that is relentless and insistent on having your attention. Ratso Rizzo aside (from the movie "Midnight Cowboy"), you don't want to mess with the flow of New York City traffic. It holds sway, and it reminds you of the true meaning of pedestrian. The park is a refuge from it, and I feel tension release the instant I enter it. I am in a woods now, and it is welcoming. Hilly and sloping lawns. Towering trees. Bare brown in March. Moss cloaking exposed roots and low trunks, a certain Fifth Avenue couture spun by the moist earth of the East. Huge dark mounds of rock push up through the ground like icebergs, providing a glimpse of the bedrock that is the island of Manhattan. Here and there children watched by a parent or a nanny conquer these heights. Squirrels nearing the size of small dogs scamper everywhere. Two of them seem to be posing for a class of grade school children as they surround them with cameras. And actual dogs? Dogs are everywhere. Big breeds. Small breeds. Exotic and regal breeds. Mutts. Fetching balls. Sniffing every inch of ground. Offleash and chaotically free. Onleash and prim. New York dogs. As diverse as the humans who bring them here. Most people in the park are meandering. Some running or speed-walking. Those with a purposeful stride are in the minority here, though, of course, they are here. This is Manhattan.
A chattering flock of crows catches my attention. They are obnoxious. They are moving erratically, zig-zagging. The reason becomes apparent as a more graceful fligher emerges from their dark cloud. It is a Red Tail Hawk, and they are harassing it. I'm reminded of something Churchill once said, "When the Eagles are silent, the Parrots will jabber." The hawk is clearly bothered but not losing its cool. It moves to avoid them, but with an effortless panache. This goes on for about five minutes. I lose sight of the hawk in a tree, the crows still chattering. Then against the golden light of the morning sun, I see the silhouette of outstretched wings glide speedily downward and low across an open lawn. The crows are left behind in the tree, crowing as fools are known to do.
I wonder if this hawk could possibly have been the world-famous Pale Male. He nests on a ledge of a posh Upper Eastside apartment building. A few years ago, some exorbitantly rich and uptight tenants, irritated by Pale Male's growing nest and what dropped from it, tore it down. A clash of human interests ensued. Somewhere, Mary Tyler Moore emerged as one of Pale Male's many advocates. Ultimately, the ledge was equipped with a fixture designed to entice Pale Male back and to hasten his rebuilding of a nest. Such is charm. The fools who opposed him were left to crow.
I know I am probably not substantiating such a grand statement; that is, Central Park is one of the most beautiful settings in the world. There is so much to be said about it. There are remarkable features and legends: the lake named for Jackie O. The Dairy and The Castle. You can read about them elsewhere, or maybe I will flesh out this blog and tell you about them myself. I hope my small slice of description gives you some idea of why I esteem this great natural setting on an island dense with urban development. As seen from the ariliner gliding down the Hudson, the towering apartment buildngs and hotels surrounding Central Park look like high walls hemming it in. Truth is, only people are hemmed in by those buildings. Like Pale Male, they take their escape in the park.
March 15 The Virgin and the Western Sky It is that time of year when the view from my back yard brings a Spring bounty of beauty and reminders. The beauty is in the sky and its presentation this time of year. It is baby blue with whispy clouds so gossamer that, in the warming temperatures, they struggle against evaporation, shifting forms as the high wind and rising heat shape them one way, then another, searching for the perfect artistic presentation. Like an artist sculpting metal, nature's hammer is forceful while, from where I sit in the greening grass, receding snow and rising crocuses, it seems to work so gently. My back yard scene reminds me of similar scenes along the Virgin River in Southern Utah this time of year. Why the name Virgin? Well, the Mormons who named it might have a more precise explanation for that title. It is not a wide river, and if you are from the East or the Pacific Coast, or Alaska, you would see its width and volume as that of a creek, not a river. But the Virgin is fierce. It gorges with snowmelt this time of year and thrusts like silver needle and thread through the soft red rock of Southern Utah just north of the Arizona border and about 150 miles or so northeast of Las Vegas. Why I think of that scene here in my back yard, along the urban belt of Salt Lake City, is explained by the sky and the warming temperatures around me. The sky is much like that above Zion Canyon, the now-national park of towering red rock monoliths cut so ruggedly yet magnificently by the Virgin and its constant force and Spring-time thrusts of swollen snowmelt.
Viewed from my backyard, the sky, the clouds and the black veins of naked tree branches revive memory of days spent in Spring nearly 25 years ago, sitting on a rock in Zion, above the cresting Virgin, reading a book by Wallace Stegner, the great writer who shaped so many other writers -- Larry McMurtry, Ken Kesey, Robert Stone -- and yet was so dismissed by Eastern reviewers, despite his one-time acknowledgement by that establishment with the awarding of a Pultizer Prize for fiction. The memory of that time 25-plus years ago is made more vivid by this dismal economy we are experiencing. Back then, I found Zion and went to it because I was searching for solace at a time when I had been laid off by the dying United Press International wire service and had found work at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It meant a considerable paycut, it meant I would not transfer as offered to the San Francisco desk to edit national and international stories, and I thought it meant an irreversible setback in my career as a journalist. What I discovered in Las Vegas was a wealth of dynamic people, riveting stories, the freedom to write as I wanted, and, a few hours drive through the deseret away, Zion and the Virgin River. And Wallace Stegner. His words in the the book, "One Way to Spell Man," which grew largely out of his letters to a young writer who wasn't being published, spoke to me of more important considerations in life than being a Congressional or political correspondent for a wire service or a newspaper. Stegner spoke of experiences much deeper than those I aspired to in journalism, and everything he said was shaped by his love for scenes like those I would view from a rock above the Virgin in Zion.
Today, as I sit in my back yard, viewing the Western sky in all its enormity and complexity, I am reading another book that carries great advice and solace. It is Thomas Moore's "A Life at Work: The Joy of Discovering what You Were Born to Do." Moore, a former monk, university professor, and forever a writer and psychotherapist, writes, like Stegner did, of the deeper meanings and greater rewards to be found in a life of examination and purpose, if not one of fame and fortune. Those of you who read this, I would wager, have not heard of the Virgin River. Yet I am confident in saying that it is a force that has deepened and sculpted a landscape in ways equal to or greater in beauty than those vast landscapes shaped by the Mississippi, the Columbia, the Susquehanna or the Delaware. And there is as much meaning to be taken from the Virgin as there is the Tiber, the Rhone, the Seine, the Thames or the Yangtze. And each year, round about this time, I take that much meaning and more from the Western sky as viewed from my back yard. March 08 Nice, FranceDateline: June 24, 1995. Nice, France, On the beach below the Promenade des Anglais
It is morning, just after 6 a.m. I have walked to the beach, passing brasseries full of hungover teens and twenty-somethings who had partied hard along the promenade. It appears humans and the weather have happily worn themselves out during the night. On the pebbled beach, the waves are gentle now. Last night, they still roared, the remnants of an afternoon storm that had blown for hours, then moved on from this curving bay along the Mediterranean. They would rise from the royal blue sea and turn azure as they foamed toward land. Now, they stroke the shoreline, one not of sand but smooth, rounded black pebbles. As the waves recede, the thousands of pebbles they've lifted in their surge settle and roll, making a soothing rattling sound, like the rain sticks sold by The Nature Company, or the changing arrival and departure boards of European airports and train stations. A baby's rattle to a man contemplating the next chapter at midlife. The sky looks scrubbed, as if the friction of the wind had drawn color from just below its skin. The real source of pastel pink and blue is the sun, still weak on the horizon. Up high in the scene, swirls of clouds take the pastels, while billowing clouds out on the water's horizon stand out in shades of light and dark gray, in bas relief against a slate sky. Turning back toward the city, and the towering palms and old casinos lining the boulevard, I see the hills above the city, a luminescent olive in this early light. A band of clouds just above the city keeps the sun from shining full. Shafts of light like flashlight beams squeeze out briefly and ignite like a match head on the far side of the bay. A terrace of white housing on a point of land curving out to sea glows golden. The piercing reflection of sun off windows suggests every one of these houses is on fire from within. A plane lifts off from the airport near these houses and climbs onto the canvas. On the opposite side of the bay, a large sailboat is at full sail but not covering much distance. Near me, two figures huddled beneath a blanket at water's edge stir from sleep and throw pebbles to scatter pigeons overrunning them in their search to eat what last night's party crowd dropped or what the sea has washed up. I turn the collar of my knit Polo shirt up. It is cold, and the blue blazer keeps me barely warm. March 02 TouchstonesIn the past couple of days, I have had the great fortune to hear from two people who shine like suns in my life. On Saturday, I had my hair cut by a young woman who I have known for years. She had cut my hair for more than 10 years, beginning in the early '90s. She began cutting it back when I was a television reporter, then continued to cut it when I left that publicly visible job for one of the most confidential and private settings imaginable, the sitting room of a talk therapist. Circumstances and responsibilities change, and I was reminded by her that it had been four and a half years since she had last cut my hair. She has had two more children since then. I saw those two beautiful girls and her third and oldest child, a son, for the first time when she invited me to her home, where now she cuts a few clients' hair while she raises these three gorgeous children. She herself is one of the most vibrant people I've ever known. Born and bred Utahn, she grew up a skier and general outdoors lover. I remember our discussions of how she would go to the family cabin and fish in the nearby lakes in summer. And how she would boldly ski difficult ski runs in winter. She told me about her most recent skiing adventure, just last week, and how she shepherded her son, her oldest child, down that challenging slope. She smiled and laughed as she told me of this. And I thought of her as the classic Rocky Mountain native, fearless and full of life, knowing that life isn't lived from the safety of a reclining chair in front of a TV. As she cut my hair and we talked, I was reminded of my relationship with her in the days when I was traveling the region and making extended trips to Eastern Europe to report news relevant to a city that I honestly believed was a hell of a lot more sophisticated then than it is now.
The second bright light in recent days shone in the return message I received from a doctor I worked with for nearly six years. Her credentials are stellar. A wall of her office is covered top to bottom with degrees and certificates from some of the best schools in the country. She is a native Californian who grew up and spent most of her life in New York City. She was educated at a high school that is more difficult to get into than Stanford or Harvard. She is intellectually rigorous. If you say something, damn it, you'd better be able to back it up with evidence and logic. Along her way to a medical degree and the credentials that would, in one case, earn her a speaking fee in the high five digits and an all expense-paid trip to Europe, she studied modern dance. She knows the opulence and bright lights of Manhattan entertainment. And she also knows the damage done in so many ways by life on the mean streets of the Bronx.
She also knows the nastiness and potentially reputation-destroying nature of institutional politics. Once, boldly, she testified on behalf of a villified and wrongly accused doctor who, benefiting from her testimony in his appeal trial, was acquitted. Guts, integrity and intellect: It doesn't come easy. And yet she has fought fiercely to preserve all of these things, in one case, her own case, against odds that would crush most people. Together, we treated and comforted cancer patients as they survived or too often died. We did this for nearly six years together. It is going on three years since I left the institution where she works, initially to engage in private practice exclusively, then to wade into a bureaucratic swamp of a bloated mental health system where the quicksand of forced mediocrity threatens to pull under the best of clinicians. I phoned her today, hoping to recapture something, maybe to see if I could, if nothing else, do some volunteer work with her, wanting desperately to be in proximity to courage, integrity, caring and intellectual rigor. And, as always with her, I heard back as soon as she could free herself. I will page her tomorrow, and we will talk, as we always do, of the good fight.
Given what I see on a daily basis, I can't celebrate these women enough. They are reminders of what I have not lost but greatly need to dust off and polish and thrust forward. February 23 The Cruelest CutI hesitate to write this. Not only because it requires a foray into the murkiness of my field and of psychology in general. But because I am afraid I cannot make it understandable and, hence, pertinent, to anyone who would read here what I have to say. I think, though, that many might recognize what I think is the cruelest cut of all in life. It is a wound delivered like a downward saber blow to the sense of self-worth and value which we all ought to feel and embrace, Given the right circumstances, we can be permanently severed from our natural sense of worth, value and loveability. The "right" circumstances usually come early in life, at a time when we are without any ability to reason as to what is true and what is false, especially when it comes to our value. and our sense of loveability We are unable to say, for example, to a parent who diminishes us that, "You know, what you say is bullshit. I am so much more than what you say I am. You should take a breath, mother or father, and think about what you are saying to me." We can't say that -- or know that -- when we are young. We swallow things whole, unable to truly digest them and spit them out if they are bitter. No, instead we accept what we are told. We come to believe we deserve the abuse we are dealt. It takes hold. It influences the way we think of ourselves, and the way we think the world thinks of us. We perceive anything that seems negative to us to be justification of the self-damnation we carry around with us. We mistrust and distrust any statement or experience that runs counter to the self-damnation we have learned to accept. How is it possible, a person might ask themselves -- and from my experience, they do ask themselves -- that someone might actually mean the positive things they say to me? How could they possibly value or love me? There must be some catch. This person doesn't mean what he or she is saying.
Because a person so conditioned doesn't believe in his or her worth, values and strengths, they come to doubt the truth that could lead them out of this self-punishing prison. They doubt the reflection of their positives by others -- those things they would love to believe about themselves but can't. Those who tell them of their worth and loveability must be suspect. What they say sounds good, but inside does not feel good because it is alien to the false beliefs they hold. In the extreme, a person so conditioned might say, This person who speaks well of me, who speaks their love to me, is dangerous to me. What they say is not consistent with what I believe myself to be, and what I believe is that I am very negative and undeserving. I want what they say to be true, but I cannot trust it. And, therefore, I will look for any reason not to trust them. I will challenge them aggressively. I'd like them to prove me wrong in my doubt, but I must challlenge and challenge them, until perhaps they can make me believe that I am worth what they say I am.
But, of course, there is never enough proof. A person so conditioned in this philosophy of self-damnation would rather be hurt in ways they know than to risk believing what they hear from these people who see and express to them their worth. To believe these positive expressions, they conclude, might carry them to a higher place from which to fall. Better that they should stay in the depression of hurt and regret than to risk the heights of trust and love, a rocky overlook from which they fear they might fall harder than they have ever fallen before. It is the cruelest cut of all, this early indoctrination into self-damnation. It is diabolical in its power to keep such people in the dark, away from any positive truth that they just might begin to believe. February 18 Losing SomeoneI learned today that I will be losing someone I like and respect, and care about. And someone who made a corner of my life much brighter than she can imagine, though I have tried to let her know that in various ways. She is a teammate of mine -- a "subordinate" who competed with me for the job I have. She did not get the job. I did, and so became her supervisor. I don't think she was at all comfortable with that. She needed her job -- single mother that she was at the time -- and couldn't easily walk away from the scenario. I more than sensed the resentment at first; she went out of her way to make it clear. The minutiae of all that might bore you, even though you might have a taste for the pettiness of everyday soap operas.
I have tried over the past two-plus years to convey my respect for her and her skills. I think for a while she even resented that. She didn't need me telling her how good she was. She knew. My attempt to convey that to her, I believe, came across as condescending. Not that I was. It's just that she wanted to show that she could handle everything by herself. And, oh, yes, how she could. She handled some of the toughest cases under the roof of an inner-city mental health clinic that has more than its share of challenging cases. She dealt with one eating-disordered client who was so hell-bent on killing herself that no one knew what she would try next. I remember a meeting this teammate of mine conducted at at time when she still had not made peace with my being her supervisor. I remember how impressively she handled herself. I remember how a colleague who I am closest to and who I admire greatly commented afterward on how impressed she was with this teammate of mine.
In an institution where so many are born and bred in a narrow culture, and cannot appreciate a broader understanding of the world, this "teammate" of mine was a reminder to me of an outside perspective. She is from California, the Bay Area, and she eventually married the father of her child, a product of the Eastern Seaboard, like me. She has spent the past couple of years spending time with him, back and forth with families between California and the New York City area. Eventually, we would confide comfortably with each other as to what we found wrong with where we work -- its xenophobia and insularity -- and find common ground and strength in that. A few months ago -- about to finish her third master's degree -- she let me know she was looking for work in a position related to what we both now do, but with a bit of a difference -- a difference we both understand.
Today, she announced that she had been hired to fill a position she'd been seeking. I must say, I will miss her -- for many reasons. I tried to let her know that this morning, when she announced she was leaving. I will miss her intelligence, her clinical skills and her perspective on life, which comes from being bred in The Bay Area of Northern California and from falling in love and marrying someone from the New York City area. She has the perspective of two places that are closest to my heart and to my philosophy of life. I will miss her. I think I will buy her a magnum of champagne and a card, and hope that whatever I have been to her has sent the message of Respect, Respect and Respect. She deserves it, and I hope she has come to know it. February 17 A Door UnhingedI seldom remember dreams, and I don't know why I remember this one. It came last night, and I find it disconcertingly metaphorical, given something so very important to me, something that took place yesterday. In the dream, I am in a dark room, a sitting room or living room, I suppose, and light begins to seep in along a vertical line. I realize that a door to the room, separating it from the light of day outside, has come ajar. I try to push the door closed again, but in doing so discover that the spring-loaded latch won't seat in the lock, no matter how hard I push the door or jiggle the door knob. Strange, that a door so tightly closed just a moment before has come open. I push some more, jiggle some more, and the latch takes seat. But then light seeps in along a horizontal line above the door. The seal to this dark room has now been broken there. The top of the door tilts in, as if it will fall over on me. The light is piercing now, and I cringe and scowl in reaction. I want this door closed, and now. The inanimate has become animate. What the hell? I shove the door upward and into the jam, but to no avail. Light seeps in along another vertical line, this time from the space to the right, where the hinge has come apart. There seems to be something beyond my power at work here.
February 16 Italian Food and The Stinking RoseI had a conversation online today with a friend about a pasta dish. Now, there was much more important things said in the conversation. But, you know, when it comes to food -- especially Italian food -- you can find yourself weighing one important life issue against another. And Itialian food is right up there, out in front in the competition of what matters most in life -- no, not replacing those important, even grave, issues of life -- but complementing them. Italian food grabs you by the arm -- or palate -- and says, "Tuck in, Mr. or Ms. eater, your soul is important; you need me to survive, whether you are sad or happy, whether you are celebrating or mourning." Italian food seems to say, I am a force greater than the vicissitudes of life; I was here long before you were born, and I will be here long after you are gone. I am a food for the ages, and I have been here to make all of those ages more alive and fulfilling.
This conversation with my friend, who seemed to be putting together an Italian dish that was consistent with Califorina Cuisine (don't get me started on that wonderful phenomenon; I'll never stop) reminded me of a few of the things and restaurants I like best when it comes to Italian cuisine. First, let me say how much I love the marriage of Basil and fresh tomatoes and olive oil. Blend these three things together and you will find a holy trinity. Spoon them onto slices of baguette crisped up in a frying pan and olive oil, and you have something all too common and yet other-worldly. The sensation that results is still illegal in some states. And, no, I don't think it's the crisp, white varietal wine that's talking here. But pour me another glass anyway, will you?
Now, my places to find the best Italian food range wide geographically, from one coast to another, East and West. I am a bicoastal opportunist when it comes to Italian food. Growing up, I had access to some of the finest Italian food imaginable. There was Vito's and there was Pantano's, both "pizzerias' in the finest tradition of pizzerias. My taste for pizza still runs to traditional pizzerias and Italian restaurants. In New York, there is Angelo's on West 57th and Patsy's, at several locations around town. I love pizza made in a coal-fired oven -- yes, there is a different taste to it, and it reminds me more than wood-fired pizza of my Eastern Seaboard roots. You can take the boy out of the...well, you know what I'm saying.
Now, I can safely say, there is nothing like Italian food produced in the Northeast. There is no other "gravy" to match that produced there. not even in North Beach San Francisco, whose status, tragically, is threatened as a true Italian neighborhood. If you know what "gravy" is, then enough said. And, if you want me to recommend Italian high cuisine in North Beach, let me know, but I am more interested in those restaurants and pizzerias that speak to the main of our lives, that grove -- not groove -- where we live.
As to "The Stinking Rose" in the title of this entry, let me say, it has gone somewhat downhill since I first ate there, sometime in the mid to late '90s. But I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it as one of those marvelous Italian restaurants that are rich in both taste and atmosphere, enough to lift a life into a euthymia that we should all share. Sorry for the "shrink" jargon there, friends. But let me tell you, if you were to eat nothing but an appetizer I recommend at The Stinking Rose, there on Columbus Avenue, the heart of North Beach, your life would be fuller. The appetizer I'm thinking of is a small plate of garlic cloves and olive oil, kept warm at your table over the flames of "canned heat." It comes with biscuits that are crisp outside but soft inside. Use a spoon to ladle the cloves and oil on to your biscuit, and enjoy the bustling conversation of those about you in this dark, candle-lit coming together of celebrants. And, yes, I think it's fair to say the people there are celebrants. I could point you to more sophisticated -- and pricier -- restaurants in North Beach -- and to wonderful places like "Mustards" and "The French Laundry" in wine country to the north, but I have never enjoyed myself as much as I have in The Stinking Rose and comparable settings in San Francisco and the Northeast.
I must reiterate here, though, if you are leaving fresh and crisp Basil out of your recipe, you might want to reconsider.
February 01 I want my drill instructorA few years ago I was in New York doing some training at the Albert Ellis Institute for psychotherapy. One night during that trip, I was walking on West 57th Street and passing the Brooklyn Diner when I looked up the steps to the entrance of that fine, star-frequented diner and saw a familiar figure. He had a cell phone pressed to his ear, and above both ears was his famous head scarf, worn, as they used to say, like a "do rag." I did a double take. It was Steven Van Zandt of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band fame -- and at that time also famous for his role in the Soprano's, the HBO series about a New Jersey mob family.
I thought back to that encounter today as I read a piece in The New York Times about Bruce Springsteen's scheduled performance at the Super Bowl on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009. "The Boss," as he is known, has become an icon of American striving and sensibilities. Like Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, Springsteen and his music are emblematic of America, I think. We are a nation of strivers, some of us having started out, as Springsteen himself, deep in the hole of socioeconomic standing. Springsteen is, as the great Irish/Celtic singer Van Morrison says in one of his songs, a poetic champion.
I was somewhat amused, then, to read a comment on Facebook by a baby boomer saying she was glad Springsteen had not suffered a stroke during his Super Bowl performance. I took that as mockery. There are baby boomers and there are baby boomers, and that comment was reflective, I think, of the baby boomers who bought into the thinking of their parents' generation. I guess the commentator thought that Springsteen and his band were going to look like a bunch of "old fogies" refusing to take to their rockers as they reach "a certain age." Marx said something to the effect that religion is the opiate of the masses. A retiring nature, I think, was the opiate of our parents' generation. Take a gold (plated) watch, travel in the Airstream, be afraid of change and vote for those who promise the status quo, which is a fiction and which never favored anyone but the rich.
Springsteen sings, "Rise Up." Maybe that's a call for a bunch of baby boomers to take a second breath and do more than give in to an outdated social construct of age and to do something with their remaining years. As I read the comment about Springsteen and a stroke, I didn't want my mama. I wanted my military drill instructor. Sir, yes, sir. Thanks for kicking my ass and not leading me to believe that life is easy and ends at a "certain age."
Back there in New York, I only wish that I had climbed the steps and told Mr. Van Zandt how much I admired his performances, as a rocker and an actor. It's not like me to be intimidated, and I thank the E-Street band and that baby boomer for reminding me that I have not been myself lately. Time, I think, to get off my ass. January 19 Afternoon GoldIt's a little after 3 p.m. Mountain Standard Time as I write this. The sun can be said, too, to be at the 3 o'clock position on the horizon. Its gold light, so piercing in the hours before, is beginning to soften. Only a few hours of daylight left now. In the sun's gentler glow, the evergreen trees and the bare-branched trees wrapped in Ivy come into sharper relief. They are back at center stage now, equal in strength and expression to the sun, now that the edge is off its glare. The light is green-gold now. Inside my south window, it falls sofly on a sage green couch and the Southwest/Native American patterns of my living room carpet and the pillows of red, green and yellow that pile up on either end of the couch. My red-smoothie Dachshund, Max, blends in with the scene. He commands the back of the green couch, sprawled on the mustard throw that stretches the length of three long pillows. His red coat is at home with the other colors. He snores softly. This is where he goes for the sun each day. On those days when I am home (today for Martin Luther King's holiday) or am able to drop in for a few minutes, he knows how to get my attention and get me to adjust the blinds so that he can bask in the full light of the afternoon sun. He softens me, lets me know what's important in the world.
These golden few hours of the day have always been enriching. 3:10 p.m. was when school let out, if I recall. From grade school through high school, it marked the hour of emancipation. Time to break free of the Mrs. Grimms (yes, I had a teacher by that name) and head back to the playing fields, the ball courts and gridirons, or later in school life to the coffee houses or drugstore soda fountains, someplace where an adult would look the other way when you lit a cigarette or danced too closely with the classmate who was awakening your sexuality. This time of day in summers, there would often be the lengthening of shadows across a wide and shallow river about to empty into the Chesapeake. Time to towel off, sit until sunset with the beers you were too young to drink, and talk about coming back in the morning, with any luck, to the soothing flow of current and silt against your body. Still later in life, it would be a time to fly back to base and store and service the aircraft for the night. Still later, it would be a time to write news stories against deadline or to cull "sound bites" from video tape, write stories, put on a necktie and some pancake and go live on-set, under the glare of studio lights to broadcast the TV news of the day. Even these days, when these green-gold hours mean there are still more clients to come in the evening, there is something about these hours that speaks, if not of a soft climax to the day, then at least to a time of subsiding anxiety and reflection, to a notion that another day has been spent and hopefully mastered, and that all which brings peace to angst can now begin to gather. What do you think, Max? What? Yes, a game. A game of fetch. Back to the fields of play. Yes, Max, it is an appropriate time of the day for just that. Enough of this soft-headedness. We are both men of action. January 02 Go UtesI am celebrating the University of Utah Utes' decisive win over Alabama. The commentators are probably right when they say that, despite the Utes' dominance of Alabama and their undefeated season, they will not be named national champions. That title will go to one of the good ol' boy teams, probably Oklahoma or Florida. But I must tell you, any team that is given the national title over Utah will stand on deck a bit like George W. Bush did when he announced "mission accomplished." If the Utes don't receive the vote for national champions this year, the victory for any so-named team will leave college football looking just as foolish as George on deck. The Emperor, ladies and gentlemen, has no clothes. Well.....maybe a fighter pilot's jump suit.
You might guess that Utah is my alma mater.
Happy New Year, everyone. You, too Bama. December 21 Merry Christmas and Happy HolidaysI'd like to wish everyone a happy holidays, and, no, by using the word "Christmas," I don't mean to exclude anyone. My "happy holidays" is meant to encompass everyone who finds warmth, renewal and celebration of any kind at this time of year. I find it interesting that, intended or not, so many diverse cultures celebrate something life-giving at a time of year that coincides with the Winter Solstice and the point it marks between maximum darkness and the lengthening of days and rebirth of light that follow it. I think we should not only celebrate the lifting out of darkness that this natural positioning of Sun and Earth implies, but rather the soul-searching that we find as we descend into the ambient darkness that is the Sun's physical estrangement from the Northern Hemisphere this time of year.
For many of us, the Winter Solstice promises that we wil descend no more deeply into darkness. Others see only an abyss. I sometimes see this time of year as a time when we all, as human beings, both frail and strong, head ever-forward in a shifting sea. We can see a horizon as we approach the dark days of the Solstice, but as the Earth tilts, we see not very far. We see only a wall of sea before us, as we crest the wave of Autumn and descend into a darkening Winter scene. Eventually, the Earth will tilt again and we will begin an upward, crestward journey toward a horizon where the sun increasingly lights the Earth's northern reaches. We will again see a long view of water and the Spring before us. But some of us don't see beyond Winter's descent; we can't see the promise of greater light and longer days ahead. There is only the trough.
In my field we have a disorder called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which is a condition that causes or aggravates depression at this time of year. The bio-psychologists, who make their living from prescribing medication, would tell us that the condition is caused by organic changes in the brain brought about by a reduction of sunlight. I do not question them; I want to ensure that my clients are given the best-evidentiary treatment available. If more antidepressants help, then, please, Mr. and Ms. psychiatrist, give my clients some greater dosage of an antidepressant. I have no doubt that for the majority of clients who suffer from SAD, the psychiatrists are right. But what about the multitude of people who sink into the depresseive trough between waves at this time of year. And what about those who find cheer and celebration and not darkness? Is there not a psychological or even spiritual explanation for this? Is it that the celebrants do not suffer the same organic disorder of the others who find their deepest misery at this time of year?
I don't think differences in organic brain chemistry offer a full answer for those who do not suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. I do think there are views of life this time of year that divide many people. Some take the perspective that it is a time of introspection, of deep searching, while others see nothing more than a seawall of misery before them. No doubt there is an organic and inescapable cause of Seasonal Affective Disorder this time of year. But to many others, who are not biologically stricken, there are differences in psychological and social wellbeing. In their case, it is not chemistry and a lack of sunlight that depresesses them and might even turn them toward suicide. Rather, it is a sad incapacity to permit the darkness to enable them -- like the warmth of covering blankets -- to look inward, to beat back the darkness and find inner light, to defy the pitching sea of winter darkness and turn on an inner light and find warmth rather than despair. To you who are able to light up this winter season, Happy Holidays. Please, remember and help those who can't light a torch. And thanks to those of you who help illuminate mine. December 07 The Economy
December 04 SOSHello, friends. I am making this post on the run. No, Ann, I cannot get a message to Sheila of Hurricane Lane. Even my attempts to reply to her recent e-mail to me were greeted with the computerized message that her connections would not permit me to respond. That was before MSN made its unannounced change from driving on the right side of the road to driving on the left. I'm sure many of you have been injured in the resulting collisions. But what the hell, George Bush didn't care about putting us in harm's way, so why should MSN? I have driven on the left side of the road, in Thailand and in England, so I am doing my best here. Whoa! Look out for that round-about, blokes. Anyway, Ann, I am, like you, using a flashlight and a map to find my way through the fog. Better us than MSN, because those folks, as evidenced by the change and the manner in which they made it, can't seem to find their asses with both hands, a flashlight and a map. Dear Watson, hand me that riding crop and let's see if we can't give what for to these cretins at MSN. November 26 Giving ThanksI post infrequently these days, and I was warmed by hearing from some old friends in response to my most recent post. I apologize for not being as interactive as I used to be. You all post stimulating entries. And I read and take joy from them. Things change here as they do everywhere, and, in one instance, I could not respond to a gracious comment because the commentator has gone "semi-private" and restricted access since I last wrote her. What a world? We connect, then disconnect. I could give many examples of that here. Maybe you could, too. Cyberspace offers permanent connection for those who want. Distance and time are not barriers. I could go on and on about that, but I want only to thank all of you for what you offer here, which is wonderful. And to wish you a good Thanksgiving holiday.
Thanks,
Vaughn November 22 AutumnI love how the senses trigger memories. Two days ago, Thursday, I opened a door in Utah and walked out into a scene of the Northeast United States. Overnight, the wind had picked up and, by dawn, leaves were still raining down from the trees, mostly yellow in these parts of the high desert, though some were crimson. The sky was overcast but not enough to prevent a gauzy brightness. Perfect lighting to put a sheen on streets covered lightly with moisture. As I drove down South Temple Street (Yes, ladies and gentleman, I live in the state founded by Mormons, and this street runs south of the Mormons' first Utah temple) I warmed to the sight of leaves falling from that wide street's big and overarching trees, tumbling down vertically, then whipped up into a double-barreled whirl on either side of the car in front of me. My senses were alive. And I thought of the East, of irregularly shaped farm fields yellow with dying cornstalks and green with rising winter wheat. I thought of mossy stone walls marking the boundaries of land ownership. I thought of shotguns, smelled cordite and saw ring-neck pheasants in flight. These days, I would root for the pheasants, not us. We could have fired into the air and still experienced the reverie that was most soul-fulfilling about those days in the fields at harvest time. I thought of bock beer and stove-top chicken pot-pie, and how I miss turnips in the thick broth of homemade noodles, potatoes (Maine not Idaho) onions, carrots and chicken. This is Bot Boi, as the Pennsylvania Germans would put it. I had on my Woolrich jacket of the same color as my Woolrich game jacket of my teens, though these days the Woolrich, PA, company outsources the work to foreign countries. There is no game pocket in this coat, and it is probably a good thing not to wear something marked by blood spatters in this increasingly urban setting of the High Desert. There was a chill to the air; the same temperature at which a good white wine should be drunk. And the people on the street looked happy and were rosy-cheeked. Some were heading to work in the downtown buildings largely occupied by law and life insurance offices. Others were on their way to baptize the dead (Yes, as I said, this is Utah and Mormons baptize the dead). As I said in the beginning, I love how senses trigger memories. Sense and memory -- they are what make for a moveable feast, as Hemingway said. Two days after Thursday, on a Saturday, I am still at the table, glutton that I am.
October 31 Remembering Tony HillermanAuthor Tony Hillerman died last Sunday at the age of 83. For those who don't know, he was the author of wonderful novels whose protagonists, Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn, solved complex murder mysteries for the Navajo Tribal Police. Hillerman loved the Navajo culture and the mystical landscape of the Four Corners area, where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet in a blaze of sand, sagebrush, towering red rock monuments and big blue sky. In a New York Times online blog called "Paper Cuts," those who were touched somehow by Hillerman, either by personal contact or just by reading his books, paid tribute with their comments. Here is my entry: In the late ’80s, as a print reporter who had just turned television reporter, I was sent to Monument Valley to cover the murders of two Navajo Tribal Police officers. I had never heard of Tony Hillerman. A few days after wrapping up coverage and returning to the city, I was in a bookstore when the picture on a book cover caught my eye. The picture was of a small plane, nose down in sage brush in a setting like that of Monument Valley. One of the early theories of the killings was that the Navajo police officers had come across drug smugglers, who were known to land their small planes by moonlight on the remote roads of the Navajo Reservation. The theory was quickly disproven. Nonetheless, it was through my true-life experience with a Navajo Tribal Police mystery that I came to pick this book from the shelf and learn of Tony Hillerman. What fortune it was. I have since read all his novels. Of equal fortune was my experience a few weeks later, when, checking information for Albuquerque, I found his phone number publicly listed, dialed it and was greeted after a few rings by Hillerman himself. We talked about the Monument Valley murders and his own coverage of a somewhat similar double-murder as a reporter many years before. He was warm and encouraging. Thereafter, as I read his books, I would hear his voice with the words. Anyone who has listened to him read his books on tape will know what a treasure that is. August 31 By the BayI am convinced I will never be able to manage picture presentation and layout on this blog. Still, I wanted to share some thoughts and pictures from the U.S. city I love best, even more than New York City. San Francisco has been a source of emotional warmth and renewal since I was 19. It is the closest city of true sophistication to my high desert home, and a touchstone that never fails to hearten me when my political-social-intellectual soul cries out for relief from insular Utah. In the foreground of the picture above is the Ferry Building. In the far ground is Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower, the crown of North Beach, the old Italian neighborhood and West Coast epicenter of the 1950s' Beat Culture. City Lights, the bookstore begun by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and a hang out for Ginsberg, Kerouac and others, is still there. It is one of the best-stocked book stores in the world, so far as a discerning selection is concerned, and I never miss a chance to visit and take a good book home with me. I also never miss a chance to eat at one of the Italian restaurants that still survive, or to take in a band at The Saloon, a rough-at-the-edges bar just off Columbus Avenue where I was once mocked for asking for a glass of Chardonnay, then cheered when I refused a lime wedge with my Corona. Surely, the bartender did not know my roots. But, given my roots, I understood his sensibilities.
From the Ferry Building, boats like the one above whisk workers between San Francisco and Larkspur and Tiburon and other residential venues. I've no doubt that they carry more tourists than workers between San Francisco and Sausalito, which is always a mob scene of tourists who discover little of interest once they are there. It is hard to imagine that, along the front of the Ferry Building, ran a double-decker freeway until the earthquake of 1989 brought it pancaking down. Since then, the area, The Embarcadero, has been reclaimed. The Ferry Building is now home to boutique stores offering rather exotic food goods: fine wine, cheese, caviar, high-dollar mushrooms, rich chocolates and, of course, seafood. Or, if you'd like, just a burger and fries. My favorite is Hog Island Oysters, named for the island where they are harvested, to the North in Tamales Bay. You can eat clam or oyster stew worth the fighting for, complemented by delicious bread and incomparable California greens, and watch the ferries churn out into the bay. On the other side of the bay, at the end of the Bay Bridge, is Treasure Island, a former Navy base that is a setting I associate with my trips between Southeast Asia and home when I was 19 and 20.
Back to Coit Tower and Telegraph Hill above: I can imagine no better neighborhood on Earth, not on the Mediterranean, not in Paris, not along Lake Geneva. Been to all of them, yet I have never enjoyed the psychological stimulation, physical feelings and just absolute peace that I have experienced on top of that hill. The view is unequaled: The Golden Gate Bridge, its spires often protruding from gray fingers of fog that contrast sharply with its glowing red paint and the deep blue of the bay water and the green and brown hills around it. The wind that brings the fog is constant on Telegraph Hill, and the trees you see in this picture bend with it, the tower, of course, always unbending. The scene comes to me in dreams sometimes, and I can recall it whenever I choose, using it often in a psychological intervention known as "guided imagery." I am of that place, even though I am not in it. At least not in it as much as I'd like.
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