Vigorously contemplating everything at once

You probably think I spend more time with Doris' cat than I do this blog, but not after the cat shit in the corner of my bedroom last Saturday, wasn't that a day to remember.

Had a nice visit with the folks, who took me to the Grand Canyon last week. Dad drove and Mom let me ride shotgun. We got rained on, but seeing the canyon floating in the blue bursting clouds like some eternal sky fortress is a never-ending visual pleasure under any meteorological circumstances, I bet. Go there when its snowing, someone said. Okay!

There's pretty authentic looking skeletons on porches smoking corn-cob pipes and skeletons in front yards half-buried in fresh dirt. Neighbors taking Halloween so serious they're stealing last year's cadavers from the mausoleum.

I didn't subject my parents to music that would give them headaches like I did the time we drove New Zealand's South Island listening to Television's blow-up on scratchy cassette. Music fit right into the landscape this time: Look Blue Go Purple, lots of Mum Smokes and Dungen 4. We had a really good time together. I wish they'd visit more often and not just because they bought me groceries either.

Been eating Mom's tortellini soup recipe. Though I think I overcooked the sausage a little. I had it again last night, been alternating between that and salads. I whipped up some salmon spread too. I should go buy a thing of pickles.

Been listening to the Ancients 2 and White Woods on repeat all day. Thanks to Steve from Sensory Projects for sending them over.

Made commitments with three beers and then been cheating on the one beer with the other two and then rotating and repeating the pattern: Kiltlifter, Trout Stout and the Marzen that is Beaver St Brewery's Oktoberfest beer. I better get down there, there's only a few more days left of that tasty sucker.

Great stuff McGuane

INTERVIEWER

One of the legends that grew out of your work on The Missouri Breaks was that you wrote the script and then Marlon Brando showed up wanting to change everything. Supposedly you two holed up for a week in a motel to thrash things out. Any truth to that story?

McGUANE

None. The closest thing there was to that story is that Brando did have ways he wanted to do that film: he wanted to be an Indian and he had two pet wolves that he wanted to be in the movie; moreover, he wanted these wolves to kill the girl’s father, wanted them to jump up on the girl’s father’s horse and eat him. So I was told to go out to Los Angeles and see Brando and get the wolf stuff stopped. I went out there and Brando was at home and I spent a couple of days with him. I had a wonderful time but we never talked about the movie at all. We just talked about literature. You know, he’s a very erudite guy and really smart, a kind of crazy-connections smart. At the time he was reading a history of the Jesuits in Minnesota and a book about Louis Leakey’s skulls and the prehominids in Africa. He’d get up in the morning and dress, gather all of his books together, and then get back in bed with his clothes on and read all day. He’s on the verge of being downright scholarly. So that’s what we did there, and when he eventually went off and did the movie he wasn’t an Indian. I still don’t know what he was. He was this kind of tubby Irish killer. I know many people hated that goofy, wild humor he injected into the movie but I appreciated it.

read the whole interview here

I Love Fiction

Three chapters submitted, generally well-received, sometimes bemusedly, as in this example:

“While I really enjoyed your writing my main critique is that I didn't really know what was going on. I sort of feel like someone who goes to class and doesn't comprehend a word the professor is saying but then leaves and goes, “I like that teacher's voice! It sounds nice! Also, the teacher is wearing a nice sweater!”

Today I'm off to the computer lab to make sure undergrads don't steal anything. That's my job. I'll take along some Keats and make some comparisons to the band Deerhoof. After that I will attend a grad organization meeting and get some tips on how to get Thomas McGuane here to talk.

Later still I will go to Beaver St Brewery, order hummus and drink my fill of happy hour caramel-hinted Oktoberfest ltd. ed. My fill is two, as past experience has proven that three is me repugnantly going overboard.

Biscuits & Gravy

My only sister who is also my favorite one incidentally said “biscuits and gravy don't make much sense to me after yoga! Did it happen?” Yes I told her, it did happen, I am a man of my word. I had two big ones, they came right out of the oven and were put on a large plate. The bowl of gravy was separate and I had a side egg overeasy and a sausage patty and a link combo besides. These were all washed down with several cups of diner coffee. My belly ached by the time I had cleaned my plate. All in all a good diner (off Milton before you hit the underpass, next to the Antiques and Collectables where I found a first edition True Grit last week). I was doing my homework while eating so it's all a good thing. In other news, Jesse found a photo of me kneeling beside a pigpen in a Richard Meltzer book I gave him. What a guy.

What it's like (formerly What I do)

A coyote crossed my path the other day. A big one with tall pointy ears and a mouth that dripped a lot of tongue. I braked and watched it run over the hill into deepest wilderness. As a relative of the wild dog, I never felt the fears that could get an ordinary mortal horribly ravaged. I like to ride the urban trail. Once I found myself inside a military compound where they take archery practice. My writing teacher had a knife thrown at her by the writer that I brought into class as an example of good writing. I practice yoga twice a week and I study hard at home. I watched part of Mad Max II on the tube tonight but otherwise I listen to music. Tonight it was The Chills, Ariel Pink, Ashtray Boy, Songs for Nao. Normally me and my housemate Udo (I say this because he's a dead ringer for the fab German actor Kier) listen to the Velvet Underground, Kath Bloom and the Grateful Dead. In my room, I play the Vivian Girls Everything goes wrong. The weather has been ill-conducive for reading, but I do it anyway. Tomorrow's forecast is more sunny weather.

My new best friend

Jane Dust - Summertime from Carbie Warbie on Vimeo.

What's your take on Norwood?

I'm a little deprived of Portis here. I find that deadpan style so fetching. What are you gonna name your daughter? Not Norwood I hope.

H: Norwood was fine. A quick diversion. I just think that Portis is McGuane lite. He's not laugh out loud funny and the pathos is missing. I never feel like anything bad is going to happen to his characters. I don't think I will read True Grit. On a Pitchforkian scale I give Portis a 7.2.

Saturday

I rode my bike out to Buffalo Park, in what's become a regular circuit. It's a faux-training facility, which means there are lot of people there looking silly in loud expensive nylon. They choose a number of different tracks depending on what kind of workout they want. I usually just turn around once I'm there. Sometimes I don't have a choice. Last week there was a race on and the time before that I stripped my crank arm and my pedal fell off.

Instead of going home I acted like I was going to the Grand Canyon (74 mi) and hit the museum a few miles down. I'm now at a family-run corner eatery eating a jalapeno burger, staring at Humphrey's Peak. I thought if I moved outside there'd be fewer flies and I was right. I'm glad the proggy classic rock that I heard indoors is still thumping and wailing away out here from some wire and speaker deal. I'm writing with an Eraser Mate. Fuck don't buy an eraser mate. They can't write with a darn and they cost a pretty penny.

This is a really good burger. The girl serving me sure is glum. I wonder if she's always like that or if something terrible happened to make her act that way. The other possibility is that it's Saturday and she's inside on a beautiful day serving half pound burgers and she's vegetarian and her chihauhau just got taken by a hawk. The call came through just before I showed up. I was feeling glum too until I went through the Ed Mell show at the museum of northern Arizona. That perked me up. Ed Mell does these cubist clouds and rocks capturing the impossibly weird depth perception of these one-of-a-kind landscapes. His cloudburst visions are heavenly. This infernal one is called Surrounding storm and it's a beaut. I wish Mia was here with me to see it

Maynard Dixon's a big influence on Mell. Funnily I was just reading about Dixon yesterday. Thomas McGuane had this to say:

"To me, no painter has ever quite understood the light, the distances, the aboriginal ghostliness of the American West as well as Maynard Dixon. The great mood of his work is solitude, the effect of land and space on people. While his work stands perfectly well on its claims to beauty, it offers a spiritual view of the West indispensable to anyone who would understand it."

Shia Laboof

I had fun watching Disturbia, a taut rewrite of Rear Window set in Disturbia, the disturbing burbs. Shia Laboof plays a disturbed teenager who throttles his Spanish teacher because he's angry about this whole bereavement thing (the least convincing part of the entire production), and gets a bracelet strapped to his ankle that will beep if he crosses the property threshold and he don't want that particularly with the Spanish teacher's cuisine working the case. He's an ass and will rough him up, if necessary, and does because there's events that force Shia to leave the house like the kids who light dog doogie on fire and leave it on his doorstep. Shia finds out too late what it is; he's already stomped the flame. Setting off down the street after them he gets to flaunt his running form and that should be a integral competent of any Laboof cinematic characterization. The housebound voyeur turns super-sleuth because it's exciting and he has nothing else to do since he Mom disconnected his gameboy and canceled his iTunes (it would have been a different movie if he had his iTues). If he calls the police, they might just solve the case and then he'd be bored again, plus he doesn't like cops for what they put on his leg. Furthermore we wouldn't have this movie. In a supporting role, David Morse owes something to Terry O' Quinn's Stepfather but really it's a great individual performance and he is very convincing. An uptown girl moves next door, who is Laboof's age and she adequately update's Grace's role.



Shila's Mom looks just like Royal Chord's Eliza Hiscox, always a good thing when Mom's look like those girls, I reckon.

Laboof underplays the whole thing rather well.

We Have a Skunk

I'm listening to Prairie Home Companion on the radio and eating a Red Baron Supreme with a Riesling from Washington State. The frozen pizza was left behind by recently departed housemate. I have practically eaten the whole goddamn thing. The wine is mine, I opened it four days ago.

Yesterday morning after yoga I sat at a window seat at Rendezvous cafe facing Mountain Sports formerly Mission Ice Cream (See view from Mountain Sports formerly MIssion Ice Cream).

Yoga was tough, newcomers like me get to do it for free, breathing was tough too, high altitude and whatnot, I was hyperventilating like a frightened rabbit. The neat thing about going to Rendezvous Cafe afterwards was that I was fantasizing about going there during some grueling routines and now there I was there!!! Chair was hard on my tush, but the coffee was nice and they were playing some attention-grabbing drone rock I just had to ask the lady who it was.

Soon after there came a yell from across the bar, "Smashing Pumpkins!" Looking back I think I'll stop asking waitresses what music they're playing because every time it's something embarrassing that I end up regretting. I should have yelled back "never heard of them!" and hunched over my bagel like a creepy weird guy. It was Cheers compared to the joint I went to after my English Department orientation. Got treated by a second-class citizen by the bartender even though the place was empty. Arrogant bastard. Tellingly, that's what I had ordered, an arrogant bastard ale and thankfully it was delicious.

Eng Dept orientation went well. All my professors are mad about Australia and my Aussie accent, curiously enough. I've decided to go full Aussie like Kirk in Tropic Thunder goes full retard. Said goodbye to one of my professors, a doctor, whilst I discussed Ivy Compton-Burnett with a Brit Lit major and then I lost my train of thought talking to the Lit major wondering whether that was a cross look the professor gave me for calling her by her first name.

I stepped in what I'm pretty sure is skunk guano earlier today. There was a big mess of it in the driveway. You probably think it smells worse than any other kind out there on account of it being from le skunky pew. I'm here to tell you that it is not that bad (closer to tar seemingly), but even so, you don't want to be dragging it into your room like I did.

The skunk nearly opened its odious glands on Doris' cat Laurie last Saturday night. Out on the balcony, I saw its fluffy white plumage sprouting amongst the bushweeds. Knowing Laurie was out there, I panicked a little. Doris was in Tucson. What if the cat showed up at the back door covered in awful goo, barfing. I would have to call Doris and tell her that I had disowned the revolting creature. She's an inquisitive cat. A confrontation was inevitable. The skunk waddled over to a small pine tree, Laurie launched herself at the white and black stink machine and the skunk hissed back, the cat sauntered off. That was one discrete deployer of its own stink. If I was a skunk I'd stain the suburb in rancid funk for simply something to du.

Moods of Flagstaff

I'm presently deprived of a certain level of urbanity that Susan (Hepburn's character) brings to Bringing Up Baby. Puts me in a funny mood. I like it. It's on TV.

Today third day in Flagstaff and attacked by more mood swings. Sent the department a terse email about desperately needing financial help, probably not the most tactful, but I was getting weirded out about getting severely in the hole. Read Knut Hamsun's Mysteries as a distraction. Brilliant.

I shipped boxes and flew Alaska, which is quicker than driving. Boxes arrived before I did, which makes sense when you learn I left five days after the boxes did. Opened the box that my stereo was in and it was crushed, not the box, but the stereo. Complained to Greyhound, who expressed no sympathy, they faxed the form to the claims manager who is yet to get in touch.

House is roomy and quiet when I'm not playing tunes. Housemate Doris knows Swedish interprets Dungen lyrics and enjoyed the Chills' Kaleidoscope World when I played it earlier. Other housemate works at a bank and drinks Muscle Milk. Drives a Pontiac sports car, a contemporary Fiero, I presume. He said he'll take me for a spin when he gets back from Palm Springs next week. He had nothing to do with me moving in.

The open-plan living area is kind of angular, ceilings vaulted with pueblo-like curved render and a fancy corner fireplace that will be a treat in winter when there's snow up to our eyelashes. The neighborhood and surrounding village are alarmingly suburban, but perhaps useful for perverse prose ideas. Technically two miles from campus, but there's a raw psychological distance that's presently unnerving, but won't be for long once bike is operational.

Still acquiring home essentials: bought and assembled a bed today, bought and tapped a half gallon of dry gin ($14.97), picked up a reading lamp, two white storage cubes from Target, 500 q-tips, a scroll of bog-standard dental floss, a butterscotch plastic crate, one quart of tonic water. Bike arrived in its box today from HIllsboro (appears undamaged) and I put that together too (tire needs air and the chain is still off).

Some of you will be pleased to know I have expanded my diet beyond zucchini bread and hardboiled eggs. A local salmonella outbreak has people literally walking on eggshells made of scrambled tofu. Me and the Pontiac-driving housemate bbq'd some sirloin last night. He ragged on the jalapeno relish I bought and deservedly so, as it was a tad underwhelming. After a few beers, he read out a ten page paper he wrote on gender bias in the workplace.

Animal Magnetism

I left the house on foot which is an interesting story in itself because mostly I take my bike. But due to complications for the life of me I am unable to articulate at this time, I walked down sunny Airport Road (named that because if you keep going you'll get the next flight to Des Moines). Thought to myself, it's good to get out of the house every once in a while.

Immediately came in contact with a squirrel who asked for whatever snacks I was carrying. When I said I didn't carry any snacks, he dashed. Moving on, I wondered why my parents never moved to the country. Dad needs his golf and I understand the country has plenty of those, but he also needs a more diverse social network, of which we all know the beach (where they spend most weekends) only has one and its transient and full of bums. Country likely to drive them equally insane. Meanwhile Mom, she shops till she drops. Impulsively too. She sprang up and bolted for Home Depot at quarter to nine last night. Dad had no idea where she went. She came home later and boasted of six rolls of packing tape for twelve bucks. Rocking the suburbs.

I myself like the excellent reserve located opposite Costco where I consider it good luck if I spot a red-winged blackbird or a great blue heron. Lately I've been bickering to myself about the dearth of lucky sightings, only had one this summer. With this occupying my mind, I saw a deer coming out of Costco and entering the glade on the right.

I sat cross-legged under the canopy of a big pine tree and observed the youngster. The deer, perhaps a teen, with velvet knobs protruding from its head, was relaxed enough to munch on some weeds, while I sat astonished that the venison backstrap I had eaten over at Dirk's the night before didn't morally outrage my tum-tum and cause me to quiver. Curious, the deer started towards me. It came within fifteen feet. I made a note. “I can't tell you how immensely curious this creature is. Can't say it's operating with a full deck. It's just so damned inquisitive, a characteristic I didn't think deers could afford to have. Fans from an industrial plant whir in the forefront.” The doe ran back to Costco when I tried to feed her some blackberries I had picked especially for her. Hungry for another cheese and wienie sampler, I presumed. A bit breathless I sat down at a park bench inside the reserve, while a vulture and a helicopter competed for airspace above. I thought a lot about my animal magnetism after this deer almost jumped me.

There's a letter in this month's Vanity Fair responding to an article by Christopher Hitchen's entitled Martin, Margaret and Me. The Martin of course is Mr. Amis. Yet to investigate who this Margaret is; at a guess I'd say Mitchell who authored Gone with the Wind. Not actually sure if the reader read the article because all she mentioned was the photo spread, Amis' gaze, his animal magnetism. His gaze is just like Byron's, she writes, as if she went to school with Byron or something. I once remarked at a party with a cat on my lap that lately cat's have been curiously drawn to me. I said this with utmost sincerity, of course, and of course one of Sean's friends dismissed it as a sly pick-up line because I'm a sensitive guy.

Normally I take my iPOD on these critter-watching expeditions; a half-arsed foray if there ever was one. Imagine Jim Harrison, whose brilliant memoir Off to the Side I just finished, taking his iPOD with him on a hunt. It'd never happen. Harrison loves the sound of the wild and so do I, to a certain degree, but sooner or later, I'd want to pump Pavement through the Sequoias at full volume. I suppose this fact makes me a city boy. I must say I rather liked visiting the reserve without my iPOD. I had it in my pocket but never played it.

In addition to the blackbirds and heron, I'm also fond of an ugly white carp with a peachy face who feeds on the pond's bottom. I rarely see it; been tracking the ole boy for weeks now, the time I did see it, he followed me around the pond magnetically.

After the deer run-in, I walked to the pond and came down to a sunny opening between the reeds and looked to my left, and lo and behold, the magnificent black splotches and white silvery scales of the elusive carp! What a vision! At the same time rather chilling too. Did Melville have this palate in mind? I watched it for twenty minutes slithering through the mossy caverns, disappearing and then its silver body would become visible through the dirty brown weeds once again. It followed me around the pond, probably not enough for me to say I was truly magnetic, but there was something pretty special going on there between us for at least ten feet or so.

Letter to the Editor

Thanks to Seaside police

A public thank you to the Seaside Police Department. I was digging clams on the beach when I lost my hearing aid. I thought that was the end of that and would have to replace it.

We returned home Wednesday and my wife received a call from the Seaside Police Department and was told a gentleman found it on the beach and turned it in. Dispatcher Andrea Toombs went out of her way to contact the manufacturer of the aid, learned my identity through the serial number, contacted the retailer to find my address and mailed the hearing aid to me!

I received it today and it works fine. Andrea is truly a credit to the Seaside Police Department and a fine reflection of the community of seaside.

Richard D
Lake Oswego, Ore.

Hanging w Dirk

My brother Dirk likes it when we're hanging out and I start diligently scribbling away in my notepad. He's always striving to do something worthy of record. I was over at his place the other morning making notes – something about Thomas Berger, who on one hand is an awesome genius, yet on the other, is his syrupy slapstick too addictive in large doses? (No). For all his finesse there's also a latent maleness that overwhelms (everything about his style is too much, even the nuances). So anyway I'm transcribing these ordinary thoughts just moments after Dirk had stumbled into the room and overturned a cup of coffee on his tank top and shorts and all over the carpet. He handed me a couple rashers of perfectly cooked bacon he kept in his spare hand and went to the kitchen to get a rag.

When he came back into the room he saw me munching on the bacon and scribbling away and immediately thought I was documenting his blunders. He acknowledged me as one does an asshole.“You writing about this?” I told him I wasn't but he seemed far from reassured. My brother thinks I will do anything to discredit his person.

Dirk recommended Year One and it was a good Mel Brooks-style comedy full of all kinds of good performances. I'd happily sit through that again. I'd also sit through Blue Oyster Cult again and I would probably have to because I almost got my ass kicked for standing.

We were at their show on Friday night at Chinook winds, a casino retreat on the coast and stood up when they busted out a blazing Burnin' for You. I was bopping along there when something hit me What felt like ice. It happens again and I see a gray-haired doofus, quite tall, in a tie-dye t-shirt straighten up and yell at my face for blocking the view. I yell back at him for not being polite about it and then I call him a human embarrassment. Security came over and after several heated exchanges, we get away.

For some ungodly reason Foghat headlined and they royally sucked. Best thing about Foghat was their well-stocked merch desk. Dirk was less than impressed. “Hats should just say Fog. They're already a HAT!” He was right of course.

We ate brekkie at Sambo's the next morning. Their portions are much too large for mere mortals. Exiting the restaurant, there's an amputee in a fluro vest directing cars but the cars aren't paying attention. The lot doesn't seem full enough to require it.. How was everything, he asked Dirk and Dirk screamed “what do they expect me to eat 4 pigs in a blanket!” and the amputee replied “hey you go to pig n pancake up the road, they don't give you enough!”

A discussion regarding the immensity of those servings continued on the way home. My view: “If Sambo started serving smaller portions there'd be protesters outside boycotting them until they reinstated the number of pigs in a blanket from three to four.”

Dirk took me to a pig roast/kegger later that day at his neighbor's house way up in the hills on this brilliant wilderness acreage with ponds and shifting elevations and dense foliage and giant trees. It was full of real woodsmen-like eccentrics. They regaled me with near-mythological tales of Northwest anti-heroes from the 70s. I hung on to their words riveted. Denis Johnson would have been tumescent.

The next morning we watched Touch of Evil. I had forgotten how devastating Quinlan's relationship to Pete Menzies' was and by the end of it I was in tears that I had to hide from Dirk or else he think his little bro a big pussy.

Lenny

Leonard Michaels could take his short stories anywhere he wanted and he did, and he never needed to buy them a chocolate finger afterwards although that probably would have been nice. The New Yorkers populating his stories observe hilarious pretensions, smoke cigars and wear nice jackets. I may do one of those things very well. They are self-loathing sartorialists, which is great because it's a phase I went through the other day momentarily when all of a sudden I found myself in the chinos section at Ross-Dress-for-Less and a pair of delectable CK slacks were opening their pantlegs for me (snagged the last pair too).

Michaels' characters go to orgiastic parties where ecstasy and death are interchangeable. I probably wouldn't go to a party where ecstasy and death was interchangeable, nor would that description pique my interest; in fact I would go so far as to say that is the most unflattering description I have ever heard, but having said all that and knowing what I now know, I would go to a party where ecstasy and death were interchangeable in order to read a book where ecstasy and death were interchangeable at parties.

Given the sophisticated milieu Michaels is mining, I find it refreshing the number of times people puke in his stories. Also the heart attacks are the most accurately described I've encountered in contemporary America. But to be honest, as besotted as I am with Mr. Michaels, I can't help but feel that I would be a little letdown if he was Al Pacino's size.

Me, Tim, Mac & Cheese, H & Matt and Malkmus at Ariel Pink

Nine dollar mac and cheese at Doug Fir Lounge with unlimited bread for $9.95. Beer cost barely anything but seeing that Tim had some in his Jeep down a side street we got in there and finished them. H joined us. I was meant to put Tim's sunglasses in there and I believe I did, but I couldn't find them the next day. We sat in there listening to a break-up song by Ween called I don't want it from the album Quebec featuring a spine-tingling psychedelic guitar solo from Dean. Tim then told me he's divorcing his wife. My phone rang, it was my future housemate in Flagstaff calling to tell me that the woman we were going to share a house with has reneged on the deal. This really threw me off center. I pounded the seat and cursed (two days later my future housemate would find his own place, stranding me like Brisbane did the Saints).

Back inside the Doug Fir, we found Matt Neff who was pissed we hadn't called him. I said we got our wires crossed and told him twice in the space of three minutes that I lost the Flagstaff house and then caught myself repeating myself. Frazzled. Popped outside. H came out and said, "Malkmus is in there with his wife sitting on the left!” I went in there to see if I could find them, but I was looking on the right.

Opening acts didn't move me one iota.

Ordered a whisky at the bar and saw Malkmus and his wife walking by, so I lunged and got his shoulder. I was so drunk probably didn't leave the best impression. Introduced him to Tim, who hi-fived him. Kept all of my charm on reserve until after they left. I kept asking him if Pavement were touring Arizona and refused to take no for an answer.

Pink's Haunted Graffiti electrified our ear canals with pleasure. I saw Malkmus smiling at the band next to H. He had a foodstain on his shoulder – I figured his kids must have did that.

Hungry afterwards, Tim and I went to Galaxy for karaoke and delicious Chinese appetizers presented in a three-tiered platter. We waited an hour to sing Spandau Ballett, then left. Woke up on the floor of his place. He got up and said what's that smell? I said I smell it too, it's really disgusting. He went to the kitchen and came back. “I've been slow-roasting hot dogs all night!” One had jumped from the pan and made it halfway up the carpeted stairs, before petering out. We both sat there trying to figure out what this lone sausage's ultimate objective was.





Actual performance discussed here

Hillsboro market

Went with my parents to the Hillsboro market after riding my bike to Freddy's through a heatwave for the new New Yorker - the one with the twenty best fictioners under 40 inside. Freddy's didn't have it, but I did notice that if you go on-line you can read grueling stuff about each of them on how they got to be where they are today. Lots of uncertainty and mental anguish. Personally I'll be surprised if one or two make it to 40.

Market was cool on hot pavement. I kind of regret not buying the dolmados the charmless Mediterranean dude was hocking, but as I said he lacked charm. Had two razeberry beers. They were good, but would not have wanted a third. Watched my mother try a newfangled health concoction and then shrug grimly like she was Alan Partridge. The vendor's perma-grin chagrined which has been a problem with toothy vendors ever since the Hillsboro market started up again.

Standing next to cousin Kenny's bbq stall was the husband of my sister-in-law's bride's maid, Liz. Bill played in the Fender benders who played at my college graduation. Bill recommended Kenny's, particularly the brisket burrito. “He's Liz's ex,” he added. I was staggered. “What, Liz once married her cousin!”

Beer and burrito made up for the disappoint of the old book shop being taken over by new owners. I had to ask where the literature section was and the girl says these here are the classics. I said so what these are all the old dead guys and she says John Steinbeck's still alive and I said Steinbeck's been dead for thirty years!

Ran into Norm and Dorothy outside. Norm has the distinction of being my high school counselor and marrying my Mom's sister Dolores. Together they had two children, Shari and Jody. When Dolores left Norm, she married Derald. Norm married Dorothy and they had a Jody themselves giving Norm two Jody's. Norm and Dorothy's Jody wasn't there that day, as opposed to the last Hillsboro Market when she was. Norm and dolores' Jody on the other hand I have never seen there, which doesn't mean she doesn't attend just that my Hillsboro Market appearances have been infrequent. Norm and Dorothy also had a son named Mark who suggested me and him get a place together around the time Jody married a hunter in their parent's backyard. That never eventuated. Derald and Dolores didn't have any kids, but Derald once caddied for Glen Campbell in Palm Springs.

Sandy and Kenny (not cousin kenny, but Kenny who ran a local tire shop for a number of years in Hillsboro before letting the son who looks just like him take over ) were also there with their antique cars and standard poodles. A haggard looking lady licking cotton candy rather extremely let the big poodle lick the extraneous bits off her face. I brought this to my Mom's attention before we went to the car because Dad was feeling grumpy.

Serious time for an interesting man

Walker Percy's Mentalist Prose

“Not in a thousand years could I explain it to Uncle Jules, but it is no small thing for me to make a trip, travel hundreds of miles across the country by night to a strange place and come out where there is a different smell in the air and people have a different way of sticking themselves into the world. It is a small thing to him, but not me...

“Me, it is my fortune and misfortune to know how the spirit presence of a strange place can enrich a man or rob a man, but never leave him alone, how if a man travels lightly to a hundred strange cities and cares nothing for the risks he takes, he may find himself No one and Nowhere.”

- The Moviegoer (1961)

title of this post borrowed from The Cannanes's utterly undetestable Beautiful Name (words D. Nichols)

Sock it to me

8pm yesterday met Matt Neff at Rom Toms for pilsner. I needed the one they call Bayern to vacate the space in my head that was occupied with school hassle: measles vaccinations, tuition fees, classes being dropped and then reinstated, international money transfers; these all had to be dealt with handily and overcome. Hell I even went to my parents' bank and urgently opened a couple of accounts. The bank manager, an energetic Latino, probably thought I was gay.

I'm listening to the Bob Quine VU Tapes. It's 75 degrees Fahrenheit and I'm outside as per the silver Jews' song. I'm of the opinion that presently there's nothing else that matters musically than these shitty sounding Quine tapes, particularly these savory sister Rays that are easily the length of a wildlife documentary and considerably more animalistic.

After Rom Toms, I put my crumpler in Matt's bimmer and we walked to East End, a punk club on a street corner a few blocks east of the waterfront where all kinds of industrial shit goes down. Matt handed me a two dollar German lager in a tall boy can, the Wipers came on the jukebox and we went and sat down at the table where Mikey and Danny Young of Eddy Current suppression Ring were sitting. Mikey said “you look familiar did we see you in Seattle last night?” I repeated to Mikey and Danny the same thing I said to Matt. Last time I saw you (at Billboard in December), I threw my back out. Visits to the masseuse, the physio and finally the osteopath over the next three months cost me a lot. Mikey bought me a beer, I bought their CD, had the band sign it and after a real good set from local punks, Blood Beach, they tore the roof off the place. Back at Matt's place we had a real good cry to side one of derek and the dominos.

Hey twenty six minutes into this twenty eight minute Sister Ray and I'm getting a little bored with it. Wait it just picked up again. Oh yeahhh. Sock it to me Lou!

4.30am, via Jacana

Sans deodorant for the duration of my intercontinental air transit (20+ hours). Ended up stinking rather badly.

Started in Jacana when I asked my usually accommodating driver if he could spare some roll-on and he said I could if i would but i don't so I won't. He wasn't carrying; he's not a user and it's not an issue because he smells fine, in fact I would go so far as to say he is mostly unscented.

5.45am. In the throes of final boarding for a flight to Brisbane, Sheryl Crow comes on the PA singing that song my mate Clarkey says makes her wanna hurl. I secretly adored this track up until the moment when its sentiment "If it makes you happy, why do you have to be so sad" became so goddamn appropriate it made me wanna hurl too.

On the plane sleep-deprived and deliriously Sheryl Crowed, I read Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King and am suddenly overcome by inspiration. I have a novel idea and it's a novel one and spend the next hour attempting to bottle it. In hindsight, the idea relies rather heavily on Henderson's considerable hiney, but it's a start. I'm besotted with Henderson's voice. I like this description of an ostrich: "How ostriches could bear to run so hard in this heat I never succeeded in understanding. I got close enough to see how round his eyes were and then he beat the earth with his feet and took off with a hot wind in his feathers, a rusty white foam behind."
Now I'm a fan of the on-demand set-up of in-flight entertainment I just wasn't impressed with the selections being offered. I watched The Ghostwriter by Roman Polanski first and got bored so fast I skipped ahead to the good parts of which there were none.

Watched a smug John Cusack in the Actor's Studio. Stopped watching it once his career dried up (circa being John Malkovich)

On Jesse's advice, I ordered cognac. The steward flew upstairs to get me it and came back exclaiming oh yummy I was smelling it the whole way! Sat down to watch Extreme Fishing in preparation for my brother's humorous tales of fishing the local waterways. The show stars a failed British actor named Gregson Robb (that's not his real name and did he fail in porn were thoughts that occurred simultaneously).

Ordered a red wine and watched a jolly good episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm with catherine O' Hara as Funkhauser's deranged sister fresh from the nuthouse.

After this I put on a disgustingly-poor doco about that Austrian guy who kept his daughter in the basement. Managed about ten minutes of that before it became intolerable.

In LA, I laid down a wad of cash just so I could arrive in Portland eight hours earlier than I was supposed to. The United bird suggested I repack one of my bags in order to make weight or cough up a $100 for checking in a bag that's overweight. I went to the side counter, got down on my knees, sore from drunken dancing, and rummaged through the contents teeming with delicates, hip-hugging undies and French auteur box sets (not mutually exclusive), stuff getting agitated as I sweated to get my suitcase ten pounds less heavy in front of a crowd of interested onlookers.

After changing my flight I phoned Mom to update her. Thankfully she was home and she hit me with a lot of impertinent questions, which I could barely hear because this cleaning lady behind me insisted on running her vacuum at the back of my heels. I told her the call was costly and the cleaning lady said okay, alright like the new estate song and then Mom said I'm bringing the kids (she's a bigwig local babysitter) and I said just warn them I stink okay.