Month: October 2023

Cold Water Swimming

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thought about buying a wetsuit, but after research and experimentation i’ve come to learn that i can swim/tread water all winter in northern california without a wetsuit, my max so far is 20 minutes, i’m going to do at least that much into november, december, and beyond, after a full day of teaching, then helping my kids with homework, and cleaning dinner dishes, there is something cathartic about gazing at a full moon in the night sky, listening to an owl hooting, while gentle water undulates all around me, numbing my injured back, big breath in, big breath out, i feel my heart, alive, all of me.

My Modeling Career

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i have longish hair combed back, think don johnson in miami vice, 1994 and i’m living in santiago, chile, always walking the city streets, one afternoon he sees me strolling, hey guy, my name is max, please take my card, i think you can model, are you interested? i had heard about other americans who’d made thousands of dollars with their blue eyes and light skin color, sure, i say, good, good, go to this place tomorrow at 4pm, he scribbles the address on the back of his card, tell them max sent you, the next day i arrive, it’s a tv ad for a washing machine, i give max’s card to a woman, ok, she says, stand on the x, spin around and smile, i nod, i get the spinning part, but i can’t smile on demand, in my head i’m thinking, this is stupid, i do another spin, another failed smile, third time’s the charm, but no, thanks for coming, she says, i throw max’s card in the trash, adios modeling career.

I’m Writing To You

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are you checking up on me? i hope so, that means i’m competitive, no, we both know i’m losing, instagram always wins, or tiktok, or, for a few outliers, maybe even facebook, or whatever elon musk calls his platform now, anyway, thanks for visiting the written word, i don’t have much to offer today, just black and white, nothing like that woman who moved to the italian countryside, the one who dated ryan seacrest, you know her, the one with lots of followers, anyway, you can imagine her, living the beautiful dream life, that’s why you scroll through her photos and videos, to catch a glimpse of something better, right? anyway, maybe you are in australia, or the united kingdom, or ghana, or topeka, kansas (loretta lynn reference), and maybe you don’t own any expensive products or travel on a yacht, maybe you are asking, is my life really that great if i don’t look amazing on instagram or go anywhere exotic? you heard it here first, yes, your life is great, the invariable mark of wisdom is to find the miraculous in the common, i didn’t say that, emerson did, but i agree, wherever you are, have a wonderful day, and by the way, i’m not saying you are common, what i really mean is that i hope you are at peace, i wish that for you.

Writing To An Angel

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i can’t see you, but you can see me, i’ve heard about bells and wings and things, hollywood movie, it’s a wonderful life, yes, of course it is, but are we all alone here? we mortals, plodding through the daily grind, doubtful, that you don’t exist, you do, sometimes we see you, in dreams, in our mind’s eye, or, as one might call it, our third eye, perhaps this sounds like new age mumbo jumbo, such a strange expression, but i’m on a tangent, back to you, entity of the spirit, soul, subconscious force of good, surrounding us, escorting us after passing, where do you take us? you are so many things to so many people, how do we come to know you? through prayer? meditation? faith? or just belief? are you christian? or does all that specific religion stuff not matter? if you answer me, how does that work? i’ve seen you in children’s books, watching over the sick, guiding people to be better, are you light? or just love? can any of us be angels, if we care enough?

When Art Spoke

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draw like a child, wild, carefree, place fingers on clay, wet with water, let the wheel shape, smooth, soothe away pain, i hang in galleries, oil colors, old wooden frames, they want to touch me, own me, be me, hold me forever, like a sunset, a sunflower, stars, constellations, my world is an inner universe, they go mad for me, seek to possess beauty and truth, they stare at me, just stare, as if i’m their mirror, and i am, looking back at them, from the past they see me, i am goya, picasso, matisse, van gogh, kahlo, o’keeffe, joan mitchell, betty woodman, they have paid for meals with sketches of me, teach me in classrooms, with crayons and paper, portraits on refrigerators, i matter more than taxes, money is eventually forgotten, me, i live forever.

I Should Have Been Born In 1955

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what once was is all i think about, no, i don’t want world war 2 and the holocaust, and no, i don’t want to be drafted to vietnam, and the kennedys weren’t really that great, and jim crow was terrible, i don’t want polio, thank you jonas salk, there was no perfect time, what i’m talking about is technology and the speed of life, the environment, 24/7 internet television, tiktok addiction, the list is endless, the modern world is tough on someone who was born in the wrong year, i’m thinking it should have been 1955, not 1972, in 1955 tv was still new, american cars were still cool, food was less toxic, the planet wasn’t full on globally warming, and the dodgers and yankees had some epic baseball battles, the who could have been my first concert instead of the village people, as a kid i could still use a typewriter, and i could live for several decades with no email, no text messages, no cellphone, and i could have gotten lost more, remember when we used to get lost with real maps? i sound like an old curmudgeon, and i guess i’m getting there, but i look up and down san francisco streets and there are self-driving cars, motorized bikes speeding through red lights, people in tents, nothing seems to make sense, and shel silverstein isn’t alive anymore to help explain it to me, gosh bless his sarah cynthia sylvia stout, remember what happened? the whole pile of garbage just fell everywhere and destroyed everything, sometimes that feels like us right now, the 21st century collapsing into automation, artificially intelligent machine learning, humanity riding in the backseat, but tell them how you really feel dan, i still have hope, otherwise why teach? why be a parent? but something is off, it’s all just too fast, too digital, too many screens, can’t we just slow it down a little bit? take a deep breath, now one more, that’s a start.

The Life & Death of North Beach, San Francisco

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north beach has changed, the spontaneity is gone, we used to just go out, to shop at city lights bookstore, to eat, to have a drink, to be in the city together, listen to music, jazz, or whatever, the city used to be a community, no one really knew what might happen any given night, at vesuvio’s or caffe trieste, or on broadway, people being people, san francisco people, with their freedom and self-expression, the edifices remain, but the past is past, now they shop amazon online, order uber eats, reserve on opentable, scrutinize tripadvisor, calculate with gps, where to go and when, the city has had a partial death, and no one really cares, why go back to the old ways? we are now more and more, part of the machine, technology guides us, separates us from –lets just go out and be.

The Writing Process

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watch a video of a guy living off the grid, collecting rain water, chopping wood, young man, happy to have his own chickens, question the modern world, read chaun webster poem, think, think, about repetition, repetition, chaun uses that, by way of entry, his fragment title, poem of the day, another place to start the process, reading, of course, look up random facts about centipede, the video game, came out in 1980, trust the screen is right, always question the screen, i wasn’t in the factory that made the game, another website says june 1981, consider writing about rehobeth beach and getting my initials onto a centipede screen, let that go, try writing about rent, that was a long time ago, now it is mortgage, home ownership, boring, boring, boring, repetition, take a break, think of nothing, give up, something arrives, start typing, keep it, delete it, can’t eat it, just words.

Last Words Of Ambrose Bierce

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as to me, i leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination-ambrose bierce 1913, old writers never die, they just fade away, at least that’s how wikipedia says it happened, but what do we really know? stories replicate stories, screens duplicate screens, people pretend to know, and someone, somewhere, used to know something, bierce disappeared in mexico, that has been proven, but not by screens, rather, letters, paper, parchment, something that was held, not just screen seen, everyone has their secrets, even with all the camera phones, tracking cookies, and incessant internet, we all still get to have a little bit of bierce mystery, we all end up in an unknown destination, eventually.