An open letter to Haggen’s Food & Pharmacy

An open letter to Haggen’s Food & Pharmacy:

We’ve been through a lot together, Haggen’s— but I’m leaving you. This time for good. Don’t try to follow me.

You still pretend to be a local store, but you’re really just Albertsons with a green logo now. I know the grocery business is cut-throat, but the noncompete nonsense keeping that Birchwood location dark is criminal. For-profit food deserts are not OK, especially now.

I’m changing my pharmacy to the no-name place run by friendly immigrants down the street. I’ll get my produce from the Co-op (real community), my meat from Carne (humane) and my Pop Tarts from WinCo (solid employment practices). You’re odd out.

Not that Albertson’s Inc. is going to fold because I’m not shopping with you anymore. But you might check my numbers. I’ve been buying wild in your stores for 20 years even though I knew it was wrong. Casual overpricing is one thing; exploitive neighborhood freeze-out is another.

Tell Joe Albertson that if he lifts his hex off Birchwood I’ll come back. Meanwhile, I gotta go break up with WECU now.

Farewell.

Jeff Braimes, Bellingham

Raid on the Sumacs

TODAY is one of my favorite days of the holiday season. It's a day that can't be scheduled with a calendar, or even by the weather. You never know when you get out of bed if it's going to be the day or not, and sometimes until as late as dusk it might seem like just another early December day. But when the birds start to get their drink on, you know it's that day.

It's as if every berry in the neighborhood has suddenly ripened in the exact same instant. Like one minute it's just a regular winter day and then the next minute it's the manic day the birds get drunk. The berries on the Sumacs out our dining room window are favorites for sure. But the birds are also ravaging the shade trees on the parking strip and beating the bushes across the street-- just bouncing from branch to branch kicking up a king hell racket, half-mad on high-proof fermented juice. If the birds were armed, they would shoot their guns in the air. They don't give a damn...

Late this morning we watched with delight as the Robins and Sparrows raided the last of the Sumacs. The Flicker danced atop the crown of the Habsnag, clearly out of his fool bird mind. The little green humming bird zipped here and there doing her usual speed freaky pattern and even the Red-Breasted Sap Sucker showed up to peck fiendishly into the upper reaches of the Douglas Fir as if to say 'there's got to be some more of that shit in here, man! Gimme that!'

The party raged into the afternoon, but eventually the still dried up and the birds crawled away to sleep it off. Tomorrow is New Year's Day for them-- a day to rise late and ice their tiny aching skulls. Tomorrow will be a day of reflection and of listening sheepishly to the stories of the crazy capers they hatched the day before, when they were blind drunk and free. Tomorrow we won't see much of the birds, as they slowly return to their regular bird routines-- just killing time till next year when the leaves have rid the trees and the berries are once again ripe for their fleeting pleasures.

Castro

Revolution is a fetching ideal for those who can afford it. But as uncomfortable as DJ Trump makes me, I am still probably a little too cozy to-- you know-- 'take up arms' or whatever you guys call it. Not as so in Cuba in the late 1950s.

Whether 50 years of Castronomics elevated the high of the average Cuban is, incredibly, still unclear on the Monday after his death was cheered in Miami and solemnly mourned in Havana. As confounding a figure as has ever pounded a podium, Castro made a career out of thumbing his great nose at the omnipresent hovering United States, brushing off assassination attempts like dandruff. He in turn treated his lesser adversaries to much more effective brands of merciless retribution. It was Fidel's way or the highway-- a highway often stocked with hammerhead sharks or lined with firing squads.

My mother's future husband Arthur Bender was a 20-year-old sophomore at Rutgers during the holiday break of 1959, and with a few more days to kill before returning to the books, he and 3 buddies piled into a car and drove down the eastern seaboard to some stockcar race in Sebring, Florida. Back then you could just do shit like that on a whim. One thing similarly led to another and before the boys knew it they'd taken a dare flight from Key West to Havana where they stood amongst the cheering throngs as Castro's freedom fighters rolled west into Havana atop the very tanks that had vanquished the forces of the previous badass dictator, Fulgencio Batista.

But even revolutionaries like a good photo gag, and a few of them paused to yuck it up with the young Americans on their way to the Havana Hilton. Stick em up, Yankee...

Americans can say what they want about Fidel Castro, but it is worth noting that we just elected Donald Trump to be our president. It's unlikely he will be 'in power' for 50 weeks let alone 50 years, but with comparable morals and only a pale fraction of the conviction, intelligence and personality of Fidel Castro, he could really leave a lasting mark.

Bob Simmons

The civilization lost an MVP this week. Bob Simmons has been my hero since the day I met him, and I know he's cast a similar spell on many of us. The man did everything well, but perhaps nothing was as lasting as when he'd clap you on the shoulder, look you deep in the eye and say "Gee, it's good to see ya." You always knew he meant it, because Bob weren't no bullshitter.

He was of my parents' generation, but he never seemed old to me. He had the curiosity of a child and the enthusiasm of a teenager; the knowledge of a grownup and the wisdom of an elder. I learned of his death on Father's Day-- ironic, as I felt a stronger connection to him than to any man in my blood family, my own son excepted.

It was an honor to serve as his & Dee's Realtor. Not because being someone's Realtor is so great, but because I got to spend so much time with them! For eight years we looked at houses in Bellingham. Sometimes not for six months at a time while Dee was trouncing cancer. Other times we'd see three houses a week. For eight years! The distinct & exclusive pleasure of driving the streets of Bellingham with Bob & Dee was mine. "We'd better see it, Jeffer," Bob would say. And we would...

The first one hundred + houses weren't right. But somewhere in the first third of that second hundred homes peeked the bashful but very earnest home on Toledo Hill where Bob left his things before going to the hospital and ultimately to hospice to die on the 62nd anniversary of the marriage to his very beloved Dee. His grandson was married bedside with Bob's only son officiating. You just can't draw it up any better than that...

As if Bob, Dee & I weren't spending enough time together in 2013, they graciously sat for a series of interviews to inform a two-part blog entry spotlighting them as my favorite clients of all times and nominating them for greatest love story of all times. DISCLAIMER: this first entry has more real estate detail in it. If you hate real estate, kindly skip to the second entry which is more about Bob & Dee. I re-post this only to demonstrate my affection for this grand couple and for Bob Simmons in the wake of his passing.

I'm sure he'll get some good sun in that great pea patch in the sky...

Mick

Hello family and very close friends. Some grim news from BraimesWorld. We wanted you to know without having to tell the whole internet that we've lost our stoney cat Mick Mars.

He'd been missing a few days and Patti I walked with some fliers only for a block in two directions Monday night. A neighbor from across the alley phoned yesterday to say he'd discovered the remains of a black cat in his yard on Friday morning.

There've been coyote sightings in the neighborhood and there are always racoons. We gave Mick as proper a burial as possible in the backyard. I think if you'd given Mick the choice between his freedom and his safety, he'd have taken the freedom.

Mick was preceded in death by his mother Scout and is survived by his sister Razzle of the family home in the 2600 block of Ellis Street, Sunnyland. He was one of the famed Sunnyland Cats-- a yawner and an ear-scratcher and if he'd worn socks (he didn't) he'd have worn them high because he didn't much give a damn about anything. He will be missed...

Razzle

Just a limited audience note to say that Patti and I had to let go of Razzle today. She lived a charmed life and realized a death to match-- with a sudden diagnosis, brief struggle and dignified passing in the arms of her deepest admirers.

All pets are special, but Razzle had a certain verve that made her a favorite of friends and strangers alike. Pedestrian commuters would veer many blocks out of their routes in order to drop by and pay their Razzle tax on summer days when she would lay lazily in-wait at the end of the concrete walk. Indeed, it seemed at times there was a waiting list to pet Razzle. She had a wide network of acquaintances that Patti and I knew nothing of-- a secret life!

She loved family, fire, and laps-- and would sit in one until the metaphoric cows came home. She never met a real cow (as far as we know!) but didn't seem to mind the deer. She did not have patience for mammals her own size, namely dogs and other cats-- with the exception of her late brother Mick. In her youth she would hunt and kill all manner of neighborhood rodents, birds and snakes. She ate them, too, sucking out the eyes and brains of her victims and bringing the tiny trophy skulls home for us to fuss over. She also enjoyed the occasional scrap of mild cheddar cheese.

Razzle was always an indoor/outdoor cat, and though she did not have free range these past 5 years (once the raccoons figured out how to use the cat door), she lounged and toileted outside until the very end. We were comforted that she wanted to be outside as much as she did these past 5 days, despite the foul weather. It seemed she was trying everything she could think of to sooth the aching in her kidneys. But in the end there was nothing she or we could do. That's just how it goes with pets sometimes. Eventually...

She was one rad cat. She is missed already

Infinite Jest

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled coverage of the collapse of civilization to bring you this unsolicited book report.

INFINITE JEST, DAVID FOSTER WALLACE-- 1996. BACK BAY BOOKS 1079 PAGES

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It’s not like I just go rushing to the dentist with every new tooth decay. But 29 had pretty much been reduced to rubble, so I scheduled the crown in an attempt to avoid a canal. I knew it would be a long appointment with built-in breaks, so I brought noise-cancelling headphones and a book the size and approximate density of a cinderblock. It doesn’t as much sit in your lap as on it…

“I see you’re reading Infinite Jest,” remarked my DDS, a skilled craftsman but not someone I consider a particularly agile small-talker. “Are you enjoying it?”

I said I didn’t think enjoying was the right word-- but that like it was powerful literature, sure.

“I haven’t read it,” he admitted, sitting to my right, already holding the syringe. “It’s kind of about dysfunction, isn’t it?”

The novocain shot is always the worst part. I looked from him to the needle, then back at him. The dental assistant was behind me, to my left. No one spoke or moved for what seemed like a very long moment, even considering how compressed time can feel in the dentist office. Eventually I rested my head back in the cradle of the chair and said ‘yes.’

“Alright Jeff,” he chirped buoyantly, the same as if I’d responded to a comment on the weather. “I’m gonna ask you to open up real wide for me...”

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The Boston Globe called Infinite Jest rabidly intelligent. The Atlantic Monthly proclaimed it a work of genius. Harper’s Bazaar said it was a sprawling piece of intellectual wizardry & social satire-- that it was at once serious, diagnostic, frightening, and lyrical and describing author David Foster Wallace’s imagination as limitless.

But those are dustcover reviews, probably commissioned. I’m writing a book report for free, because I’m out of episodes of Netflix or something. And book reports are supposed to like say what a book’s about.

I wish I knew...

My dentist hasn’t read it but even he knows it stars D. Function. And while there’s a lot more to it than that, he’s not incorrect-- neither is he the only one who hasn’t read it. Infinite Jest is among the most widely unfinished books of the last century. How many copies slouch on low shelves, sneering at lesser works-- a forgotten bookmark sticking out a third of the way through?

Most of my favorite books are short: Breakfast of Champions, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Crying of Lot 49. You can read them in a weekend or in three baths if you really want. I liked Jonathon Livingston Seagull. Infinite Jest is a thousand rigid pages, the last hundred of which is an appendix of 388 errata drawn from the body of the novel. Some are as brief as #349 which simply reads [sic]. Others are lengthy (#110 is 19 pages) often with multiple footnotes of their own, meaning you need two bookmarks and a string tied to your ankle to find your way out of the somehow even more densely-leaded forest of errata (9pt!). Many of these asides feature complex underplots and formulas, graphs, unredacted field interviews and supertechnical social schematic equations related to concepts that increasingly diverge from the original footnoted idea 748 pages prior that you forgot about altogether and are subsequently surprised to be reminded of once you do finally return to the original like jumping off place.

I’m a slow and very linear reader. I read every word without skipping discriminately ahead UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE I KNOW and I don’t employ ghostreaders. I did read every page of Infinite Jest, many of them more than once. My pace-- call it steady-- is not complicated by the squinting associated with decoding metaphor and symbolism. When a white horse vaults a split-rail fence at the climax of a passionate love scene, I just go ‘huh.’

All good and well-- but what is it about?

Even DF Wallace didn’t always appear to understand exactly what Infinite Jest was about. While he did say in 2003 that it’s fairly clear ‘what happens’, he also conceded a certain lack of resolve, (dis)claiming “the answers all exist… (but) out of the right frame of the picture.”

“The story can’t fully be made sense of,” he admitted. Then he committed suicide in 2008.

So I think in terms of conventional like book report gradings, this one should be a sliding scale even though I don’t expect full credit since I’m turning it in 20+ years late…

*************************************************************

Insomnia is not without its benefits. I’m not usually relaxed enough to enjoy fiction when anyone else in my household is awake-- so most of my reading is done in the very dark of night or the gathering dawn. Merely sayin’-- and also copping that I would never have read this fucking book without this past six months’ reliable sleeplessness. Still: even during the day I could feel it staring at me, and more than once had to get up and put it in another room or otherwise out of my sightline. It’s no pamphlet; if it’s in the room, you can see it.

Infinite Jest starts in the future and ends in the past. At times hyper-precise as if written with a slide rule and ton of cocaine, while other times rambling and tangential as if transcribed from a voicemail left from a moving vehicle, it often feels like the Sympathy for the Devil movie-- a ponderous panning of seemingly unrelated vignettes depicting abstract violence and torture, a macabre theater of uncooked spaghetti right up the ol’ urethra.

The characters are almost universally unlikable. I guess I kind of rooted for Gately, and Mario is at least happy even if it’s only because he doesn’t know any better. Pretty much everyone else is deeply flawed and/or irreparably damaged: criminally insane, grotesquely disfigured, racist, narcissistic and addicted. The antagonist and title entity is a movie made by one of the co-protagonists’ late father which is so mesmerizing that anyone who views is dies within days because of their immediate loss of interest in anything else other than watching the movie-- including food or water. Infinite Jest quite literally entertains people to death.

The governments of what was formerly known as the United States, Canada and Mexico are spying off on each other, trying to locate the master copy of the film in order to eliminate the maps of the other countries’ populations. No one really succeeds (at least within the boundaries of the rightmost frame).

Generations of adolescences are spoiled by performance anxiety at a prestigious tennis prep school in New England. The Enfield Tennis Academy is covered in snow in its last appearance in the book.

Chemical dependence is a leading character and often manifests itself as the ghost of Recovery, specifically Boston AA. But despite the longterm sobriety of many of the ‘crocodiles,’ there are no blue skies or renewed leases or any actual redemptions seemingly for anyone. Rather, it is the ragged-right, secondhand smoke LABOR of Recovery—the plodding, rote obedience to a dogma that no one seems to truly understand or really even Trust, entirely. It’s a cruel swirly, but the best chance any of them have to stay alive-- so they keep coming back…

All that stuff happens, but I don’t think it’s really what the book is about.

***************************************************************

I don’t know if Infinite Jest is as hard a read as Gravity’s Rainbow or the Holy Bible—I’ve never read either. But after 800 pages of menacing concave ceilings, obsessive turd-tallying and repeated uses of words that not only do we no longer use in literature today but in truth were already not using in 1996—a reader kind of feels invested and that he might as well like finish. This is a great time for main characters to abruptly and without explanation begin speaking in first person after being portrayed till now in the third. This is the perfect time to provide detailed physical characteristics of main characters who to this point have not been described and to whom-- naturally and by necessity-- a reader has already assigned their own physical images. This is the ONLY sensible time to descend into a 36-page fever dream, fully eight of which are one single uninterrupted paragraph. Multiple colons in many sentences, levitating above the paper towel dispenser-- top hats for all my friends!

Because it does take six months to read. At least it did for me. To be fair, I did put it down between Thanksgiving and New Year’s as a Christmas present to myself. But it’s not like I felt any more or less hip after my winter break. It was still just as greasy a fistful of stories of Disease, abuse, disconnection, generational abandonment and unhealthy relationships between adults and minors—all running more-or-less parallel, sharing the same unfiltered tank asking what’s water. The apple (or pear, plum or peach) does not rot far from the tree...

Oh, it’s SUPER funny—don’t misunderstand me on that. DFW is a master of catch-and-release humor that elicits lolling about even the least-conventionally hilarious topics. As flung as this book seems at times, one does get the feeling eventually that there is not a single word out of place. What might be casually read or excerpted from the greater work could come off as random, but I don’t think there are any accidents in Infinite Jest. It is much more than the sum of its riddles, but I for one am going to have to read it again to understand exactly how much more.

Just probably not right now. Maybe a little Raymond Carver while I rest.

Riddle In Ruby

Unsolicited quarantine book report #11. A RIDDLE IN RUBY BOOK 1 by KENT DAVIS, 2015. GREENWILLOW BOOKS, 425 PAGES.

I'm not what you'd call a 'regular' in the Young Adult genre. After vanquishing the postmodern turnbuckle of Infinite Jest, I read Kurt Vonnegut's personal favorite of his own works, The Sirens of Titan in a weekend. It wasn't MY favorite of his numerous masterpieces, though it did feature the familiar themes of prophesied arrivals of half-wit chosen ones (Happy Easter!), space & time travel, and farmed sex in space.

Richard Bach's timeless Jonathon Livingston Seagull is only 10,000 words and is easily read in an evening. Should be, incidentally. If you haven't read JLS since college, give it a quick flip. Solid pandemic messaging right there.

Montana-based Davis has forged a heroine for the Now in his Riddle trilogy. Ruby Teach is part pirate, part alchemist, and all dreamer-- a reluctant, lock-picking, shape-shifting teenaged messiah (Happy Easter!) bent on the Right Things, no matter the costs. Set in 18th Century Colonial America, the novel finds the protagonist hastily cast with a small crew of similarly green bravehearts, on the run from Tinkers and Her Majesty's Royal Navy alike. Clowns to the left of her, jokers to the right. Seemingly everyone the scrappy young fugitives encounter has been expecting them. Ruby knows or has or is something that everyone is keen to commandeer. It would be simpler for her if she herself knew exactly what it was. But she's just learning, too...

From Peter Antonsson's swashbuckling cover art through to the last twist, A Riddle in Ruby is thrilling adventure story packed carefully with plenty of modern day relevance. Gender identity, social equity and a seemingly endless series of moral gutchecks lurk in every darkened iron doorway and up every winding stone staircase. A great read for young seekers or old geezers alike. Can't wait to get started on Book II. YAAF!

Bellingham Herald

Call me old-fashioned (or worse) but I have trouble starting my day without a newspaper. It's not so much for the actual NEWS-- most of that has already been published electronically-- rather I guess I just like the PAPER part of it. Coffee just doesn't taste the same absent the smell of ink and pulp.

But not for $3.14 per day.

Unless I'm reading this statement wrong, that's what McClatchy thinks I'll pay for the privilege of proofreading the Herald. I've said it before, that publishing a daily newspaper looks harder every day in our realtime information culture. Dailies are folding at a startling rate and it's impossible to build an argument disputing the trend. The morning paper has lost its relevance and will soon be something only your parents remember with melancholy-- like ashtrays or rotary phones.

But it's still a drag.

I have to eyeball my computer enough for my job; I don't want to do any more recreational screening than I have to (he said on Facebook). But every minute I have to spend reading Gallagher or the local obituaries on-line is one more minute spent sitting on my ass at my desk or slumping into my phone. And neither of those things go well with breakfast.

But I can't continue to justify a thousand bucks a year for what the Herald has become. Sometimes I think maybe I'm the last subscriber-- that they're just hiking my rate up to get me to not renew so they can stop printing one copy a day and driving it to my house, flinging it onto my parking strip on the way to their real job.

It used to arrive on the porch.

The Cascadia News is great, but only weekly in 3 dimensions. The Seattle Times is a real newspaper, but I can get that news elsewhere. It's the local stuff I'll miss. Still, I just don't think I can afford it anymore. So long, Herry. You've been grand…

Metal Gateway

Super stoked for my good friend Brian Sibley and his new podcast Metal Gateway. Each week Brian interviews a different used-up rivethead about how they first got into heavy metal. Lots of interesting historical discussions ensue.

Episode III lands today featuring a particularly chafed piece of spent metal trash.

Pass it on!

Listen to METAL GATEWAY here.

Read (& Buy) My Novella

I know we’re not supposed to write novellas. My friend Jeff G has some tips on how to keep a short story from turning into one. I should have paid closer attention.

“This,” he said of ignoring his advice, “is how novellas happen.”

To be fair, I wasn’t in my right mind. I had Covid 19 in the spring of 2022 and was confined to the attic where there’s also a bath and my writing desk. I had a pretty good fever going on day 2 and didn’t want to waste it, because I think unusual art can be wrestled from fever if you’re lucky and don’t expect too much. I started writing a story that had been on my mind for years. It was actually a true story, as told by a friend. I didn’t know many of the details, so I used what I did know and began to apply some shading around the edges to fill in the rest.

By the time my fever broke, I had 20,000 words-- almost none of them true. It had turned fairly unexpectedly to fiction and it kind of wrote itself. I was really only reacting, and was as surprised and offended as anyone by the developments.

The central event of the story, revealed in the first chapter, is truthy. The rest of it is recklessly embellished and in fact outright made up. Likeness to any person living or dead is coincidental. For the most part. You know who you are…

Like a Nepenthe is not really a mystery, though there is some intrigue. It’s definitely not a love story, though there is some affection and also even some actual sex. Amid the despair that permeates most of the story, there is hope—and in the end perhaps even some genuine redemption.

Several of the characters are young adults and as a result it sometimes reads like YA. But there’s also more cursing and bong hits, drunk driving and littering than in conventional YA, so I’m claiming my own genre. I am planting my flag in YFA!

In addition to the unsafe modeling, there’s also some spare use of vocabulary that we no longer use today but which was common in 1977 when the story is set. That’s just how people talked back then. They smoked indoors, too! I should know: I Was There. And though I wasn’t driving with a beer between my knees or smoking in the dentist waiting room when I was 12, I was there-- taking notes. I’m a Boomer after all. By three months. I was born this day in 1964.

If we were together I’d let you pick up lunch. If we’d already eaten, I’d suggest you buy me a drink instead. Not gifts so much as courtesies, issued on one’s birthday.

But we’re not together. So all there is left for you to do for me is read my stupid novella.

Not today though! I wouldn’t ask that. You can read the first chapter today, however. On my birthday, as a courtesy to me.

Register for my SubStack. That’s how I’m going to publish this story. I’m going to post it on SubStack, one chapter at a time. So you don’t have to read it today even though today is my birthday. You can read it tomorrow or the next day if you want.

It’s easy and free to register for by following the link below. I don’t think you’ll get tortured too much by SubStack, if you’re someone who worries about registering for stuff. It’s not the dark web or the deep state or the black sabbath or whatever the fuck it is you call it. It won’t ask for any sensitive information and it won’t ask you for money. It might offer the opportunity to give me money, but please don’t do that. If that option appears, just click on NOT NOW or CONTINUE AS GUEST or DEADBEAT CHICKENLICKER or whatever the opposite of PLEDGE is. You can buy me an ice cream sandwich or a lap dance next time we’re together. For now, I’d be super stoked if you just registered and read the first chapter. It’s 2000 words and should take you less than 10 minutes.

I’ll be in Canada if you need me for anything. With the exchange, I’m only like 52 up there.

--jb

(You can now purchase the whole novella in convenient PDF format, by clicking here.)

Oh, no. Not again…

Groundhog Day. Shit, I almost forgot about that.

As if every day isn’t already so impossibly like the last. As if pasty whites in ill-fitting clothes and bad hair don’t already have too much to say. As if we need another six weeks of this nonsense, let alone four years.

Groundhog Day. That’s all we need right now…

No one really understands Groundhog Day, and I don’t see any good reason to start now. Yes, of course everyone knows that on February 2, an anointed Groundhog somewhere on the east coast emerges from his or her den and if he/she sees its shadow, then there’s six more weeks of winter. This much we all ‘know’ the same way we ‘learned’ the Gettysburg Address and the Preamble.

But—you know—what does it mean?

First of all, what even is a groundhog? I doubt most people not from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania could tell one apart from a Prarie Dog, Hedgehog or a common rat’sass Gopher. And why Punxsutawney (pronounced Punxsutawney) anyway? How did it come to pass that a stillwater no-doc ‘town’ of 6,000 in the middle of Pennsylvania (read: nowhere) got to be in-charge of the weather? After all, spring is important! There’s a lot of fucking that goes on in spring that’s of genuinely high consequence. Delaying or accelerating its arrival could mess with the natural rhythm of the season and throw us into a chaos we haven’t seen since December 2000. I’m saying now that there’ll be heck to pay come June if there’s no kittens to euthanize or if the clematis doesn’t bloom by Father’s Day. Merely sayin’.

I’ve researched it and still don’t hardly understand it. Near as I can tell, the six-week swing was a compromise between the Germans and the Scots because they favored different equinoxes– the Vernal or the Imbolc. So someone suggested they let a rodent decide. It is no less simpleheaded than a cointoss, but more civilized than a bloody Dark Ages war, when you think about it. Plus we got a good movie out of it, so at least we got that goin’ for us. Gunga la Gunga…

The calendar. The seasons. The Court. What’s any of it matter? March. Put a candle in the window at 7pm. Leave a voicemail for your legislator. The monied Christians are going to do what they’ve always done– what they want. It’s the year 2017. Does that mean the world has only been alive for 2017 years? Of course not! It just means that the Christians set the clock like they set everything else. Everyone plays by this rule, even the majority of the world that doesn’t believe in Jesus. It’s 2017– it’s not worth disputing. Can’t hardly blame folks for picking a battle.

So we’ll see what Punxsutawney Phil says tomorrow. I’m told he’s a hell of a Groundhog. Tremendous Groundhog.

I Was There: Def Leppard

Our poker games are frequently put on pause when someone starts talking about music—everyone sitting there with a handful of cards blabbing on all drunk about the first Dio album or some Day on the Green. Inevitably, someone says “you were at that show?! I was there, too!”

One of these times, I suggested to the publisher of the local music paper sitting next to me that his rag should have a column called I Was There about shows of historical significance that (older) readers might relate to. Brent Cole agreed—and he reminded me of my idea on Monday morning with an assignment of 500-700 words on the historically significant show of my choosing. I’d forgotten the conversation, of course– but suddenly I was a columnist.

This review appeared in the WhatsUp Magazine in 2002. I’ll make it clear in this italicized introduction that there are few bands of any genre that I despise more than Def Leppard. I don’t imagine they are all that much worse than any number of others, but my disdain for them lies in the fact that they were once my favorite band. The importance of High ‘N’ Dry to my musical development cannot be overstated. And the first time I heard the follow-up Pyromania my heart was broken. They’ve only gotten shittier since then.

Still, 1981 was a very good year. I was there…

Halloween 1981 was a big night for me. I’d been to plenty of arena shows in the city, but usually in Greg Dumbshield’s mom’s station wagon. This night, I was drivin’ myself. In my ’71 Impala.   To a “theater” in Belltown, far away from the touristy comfort and landmarks of Seattle Center. Dressed as Angus Young.

I had been listening to High ‘N’ Dry all summer. Every day I listened to it and wondered how a record could be so perfect. From the springy opening riff of “Let it Go” to the last ringing chords of “No No No” Def Leppard’s second record was a masterpiece of lite metal.  Produced by Mutt Lange, it had all of the buzzy bluster of Highway to Hell, but also a sultry sense of dynamic seemingly beyond the chronological ages of its creators, none of them over 20– some allegedly as young as 16. How, I wondered to no one in particular, sitting in my room with headphones on as summer slouched away unnoticed, could any album be better than Highway to Hell?

And now they were coming. Inconcert, as they used to say. Steve Slaton was just starting to get hip, playing “Let it Go” and the title track on his MetalShop radio show, and at the last minute KISW pulled through with a Rising Star endorsement. I scoffed at the panicky marketing. “I was inta these dudes afore anybody,” I bragged to my parents before adding “bring my heel down on the toe and break the bone…”

Halloween was on a fucking Friday. I had such a stiffy as I pinned enameled AC/DC buttons all over the lapels of my navy blue suit coat and put it on over a white dress shirt, striped necktie and cut-off shorts. Horns and a tail finished the outfit, then I revved up the Impala and drove straight to Northgate, missing Belltown by six miles. Goddamnit. Not having yet matured into man, however, it was easy for me to stop and ask directions at the 76 station, and before I knew it I had actually parallel parked the Impala and was standing in line waiting to get into the Moore.

I immediately sensed something different in the crowd. They were dressed the same and used the same vulgar slang & poor grammar as the kids at the arena shows. But they seemed somehow more hip to the subtleties of the music and its implications. The Moore Theater held only 1200 people– these were the 1200 most informed and discriminating rivetheads in the Puget Sound region! These kids were students. They were my people…

The show itself was unbelievable, naturally. I had a third row seat, and jumped gleefully onto the armrests of it as soon as everyone else did, at the dimming of the houselights. The band clearly was experiencing that intoxicating and fleeting rush that floats an act in the midst of their break. They were young, playing the States for the first time to appreciative audiences. Reporters wanted to talk to them. Kids wearing their shirts were hanging around the alleys behind venues. And headlining bands (this night it was Blackfoot) were shunning them. They were on the way up.

There was something very sexual about Def Leppard in this period, before they turned into one of the lame, established bands they once frightened. And that sexuality was derived at least partially from their youth. The shirtless photos on the sleeve of High ‘N’ Dry– pasty white British skin and stringy hair (what’s wrong with being sexy?) bordered on child pornography. They were also all very fucking short. Pete Willis in particular was only about 18″ tall. He was great, though, playing this huge black Hamer Destroyer-style guitar that looked like it must have belonged to his uncle.

And the rest is history. Little Pete Willis wouldn’t see the next U.S. tour, because he drank too much. The other guitarist Steve Clark wouldn’t see the year 2000 because he drank too much. And the drummer Rick Allen couldn’t drink as much as he used to, because he lost one of his arms in a drunk driving accident. And everyone knows two fists are better than one when it comes to drinkin’.

As for myself, I sped the Impala back to the burbs and drank too much at Scott Fisher’s Halloween party with my regular friends. But my heart was back at the Moore with all of my new friends, the ones that I hadn’t actually met yet.  Handfulls of Halloween candy disagreed with kegcups of beer, and I barfed near the 10th hole of the golf course, still wearing my tail, though I’d lost my horns by that time. Trick or treat—Let it Go…

Do Peeves make good Pets?

How many peeves are we allowed to keep as pets before they’re just peeves? And what’s the difference, anyway? Do Pet Peeves get to sleep on the bed with us while the general population shivers outside or in the garage? Are some peeves domesticated and others feral?

Pets of any variety are comforting. They love us unconditionally and are generally free of the bullshit hang-ups that render the relationships with our upright companions so frequently intolerable. Whether we keep dogs or cats or snakes or goats, many of us are more invested in our pets than we are in the seemingly more primary relationships in our lives including the ones we flog with our spouses, children and parents.

But where is the line? How much is too much—how many too many?

Every neighborhood has a “crazy cat lady.” No one visits her because her furniture & cutlery is coated in a film of silky dander and the whole place smells hard of piss. Cat lady’s house is usually too warm inside. The mewing is unnerving.

Robert Stroud was known as the Birdman of Alcatraz, despite the fact that he was not allowed to keep birds on The Rock. And although he did raise hundreds of canaries and author several well-respected books on Orthonology during a prior sentence at Leavenworth, the dude was evil & insane.  A poor model.

Plenty of dog owners not only dress their best friends in garish sweaters & hats, but often don complimentary or even matching outfits themselves. This is not OK. Not OK. 

So who is to say how many peeves I can reasonably keep as pets? Is the peeve police going to come to my door? Are my neighbors going to turn me in? Should I be more careful about the kind of loose assertions I make on social media?

I don’t much give a damn. We’ve all got our hangups, and sometimes it feels good to vent. So whether I have room in the kennel for all these peeves or not, I’m not sure. But here are a few of my favorite peeves, otherwise known as the kind of shit that just drives me crazy.

• stuff all over the floor. Not too many things that aren’t always on the floor belong there. Furniture and rugs go on the floor, and shoes can too. Towels, coats, pencils, guitar picks, cereal bowls, cellular telephones and eyeglasses do not

• motorists yielding to jaywalkers. Stopping your car in traffic and encouraging someone to step off a curb is not the responsible or compassionate thing to do. It is the stupid-head thing to do. It puts you both in danger

• when people don’t talk good. Our language is deteriorating before our very ears. While the low expectations of the internet are certainly contributing to this regrettable trend, mis-use of words like irony & literally has been going on for years as well as any use of conversate, supposably or irregardless 

• plus when people write bad. There/their/they’re; too/to/two; your/you’re; then/than; could have/could of; alot/a lot; than/then etc etc etc

• “everything happens for a reason.” This heavyweight challenger of all copouts is second in its numbing lameness only to the milky-eyed reference to “God’s will.” It’s true that things happen for reasons. But those reasons are that someone drove drunk, got cancer, or didn’t pay their taxes– not that a divine entity threw a lightening bolt like a javelin in order to facilitate hard personal growth or otherwise “test” someone to whom an unthinkable tragedy has occurred. Shit happens by cause-and-effect and raw chance, not because we have lessons to learn. We may learn them– but that’s not why shit happens in the first place

• cat turds in the houseplants

• LOL

• broken bottle of Michelob

That’s about it. Pretty much everything else is fine with me.

Playing Cards

I collect stuff, always have. I come from a long line of lovers of stuff: pottery, cufflinks, Foo Dogs, Fiestaware—if it’s collectable, an ancestor of mine probably hoarded it. I most certainly have what Bob Ridgley & Terri Krantz referred to in their 2008 documentary American Collectors as “the collector’s gene”—an uncontrollable (or at least uncontrolled) urge to gather quantities of the same thing up in piles. Some collections are made to stack, like records or plates. Others—like tractors or cadavers—aren’t as easy.

Patti thinks I have a problem. Matchbooks, inkwells, KISS memorabilia and brass bug silent butlers are bad enough. But when I realized I was actually clipping the corrections out of the daily paper and putting them into an envelope labeled CORRECTION COLLECTION, I realized that maybe it was time I got some help.

The dark danger with most collections is that they’re open-ended: they can never be completed. You just keep on adding and adding– presumably until you die– at which point your kids have to come in and agonize over what to do with Dad’s prized collection autographed 8×10 black & white promotional photos of bald celebrities.

But I do have one collection that doesn’t take up much space, is easy to stack, and which has a definite end. Part of me hopes I never complete it…

I found the Nine of Diamonds today. I found it around the corner from my house, in the gutter– face up. I was on my way to catch the bus to work, and I jolted spastically in my path like I always do when I see a playing card on the ground. I bent swiftly to pick it up, as if someone else were also vying for it– like it was a dollar. It was weathered— muddy and mottled by gravel. Probably the most trashed card I have other than my Jack of Spades. That card, in addition to being mottled and faded and bubbled by moisture, is torn mostly in half. And burnt. It’s a card that someone clearly tortured for sport before tossing it out their car window, speeding away into the night, laughing and cussing.

I’ve often thought that by the time my lost & found deck is complete, I’ll be about ready to play a goodamned game of cards with it. But I don’t really enjoy solitaire, and doubt I’ll find an opponent for any face-down games. Most of the cards in my deck are marked in some incidental way or another.

Jack of Spades: drowned, burned, torn in half. Three of Diamonds: Lassie

I started building this deck several years ago, in the late 1980s. I’d been having a stupid conversation with a smart girl– my roommate Mark Sterne’s sister Susan. Just smarter than snot she was– still whenever she visited and Mark was at work, she & I would descend into just the stupidest conversations. I never knew if she was doing experiments on me or what. The idea of collecting a deck of cards entirely from cards found on the street (or in a bush, in the bowling alley, or at the dentist—basically just found) came up after I mentioned I’d found this Jack of Clubs on the sidewalk earlier that afternoon. I took it out of my shirt pocket and offered it to her. She made absolutely no move whatsoever to take the card or even touch it. She looked at it with her eyes but otherwise didn’t move a muscle in her entire body, and instead just said without hesitation why don’t you start your own deck? She might just as well have said why don’t you suck your own dick or even why won’t you just kill yourself right now– either of which would have seemed no more absurd than suggesting I build a deck of found playing cards. I think she was kind of bored with doing her mind-control research experiments on me by that time.

Susan lived in the Mission District of San Francisco where the frequency of finding cards on the street might have been higher than where I lived in Seattle. But she seemed to think that if one simply put one’s mind to it and kept one’s eyes open, one could complete a deck within months. I couldn’t remember ever having seen a playing card on the street, and thought to myself that I’d actually have a better chance of sucking my own dick– something I’d of course already been trying for most of my life. But I’d never thought about collecting stray playing cards.

I figured I’d have to live in Reno or outside the Hoyle factory to collect an entire deck of cards, but I’ll be damned if once I’d committed to the project if I didn’t start finding cards! My old sociology professor Ted Smith used to call this an “axis of the earth” where you would create your own reality based on your perception. There are plenty of theories that basically say this same thing– theories of consciousness and manifestation. I got off putting this theory to the action test, keeping my eyes literally in the gutter.

The problem with this exercise, of course, is doubles. If you need the Seven of Spades to complete your deck, how many Ten of Spades and Seven of Hearts do you think you’ll find first? It’s like when we collected the KISS bubble gum cards in the late ‘70s. There were 100 in the series, and each pack of eight cards was 50 cents. The cards were numbered and came with a rectangular tile of that chalky punk bubble gum that you needed ten pieces of to even work up one modest bubble. Each card featured a rad picture of a band member in action, usually live shots from the ’77-’78 tours. The reverse of the cards made up a huge KISS puzzle, of course, and you had to collect every card in the series to complete the puzzle. I must have spent a hundred thousand dollars on KISS cards in 1979 alone, fifty cents at a time. And I never did get card #87.

I was pitted against a shrewd adversary in Gene Simmons, of course. I’m sure he never printed #87, knowing 13-year-old fatheads like me would just keep buying pack after pack after pack of cards, desperately trying to suck our own dicks.

At least I’m not paying for these playing cards…

1991

Happy Father’s Day, Mom

I used to send my mother a Father’s Day card when I was in my 20s. I was between fathers at the time. And though the notion that Mama Tried implies that Mama failed– a greeting card seemed appropriate. It was.

Mom didn’t fail to be as good a father to me as she could. But she was pretty busy also being my mother, so it couldn’t have been easy. Single-parenting in the 1960s, can you imagine? There were no apps for that kind of thing.

What mom failed at historically was picking husbands. Some of those men were perfectly fathery figures to me, and in fact one of them was my actual father. But their primary roles should have been being mom’s husband, and in these roles they fell short of the household expectations. Huh.

My father father was not ‘cut out’ for the domestic life, something that might have been obvious to anyone other than a glamour-blind girl in her early 20s discovering the intoxicating nocturnal playground of North Beach in the late 1950s. Danny Braimes was ten years her senior, and one hell of a bartender in a golden age of pouring. They both wore white in their wedding at the Presidio, then drove to Ensenada back when you could still just do stuff like that. I was born 18 months later. By the time my sister arrived two years after that Daddy was well out of there.

To be fair, he came back one weekend a month to pick us up and take us to the zoo or museum or to the Sizzler. I don’t remember if it was every month, but mom never bitched about him being a deadbeat or anything. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t one, it’s just that mom didn’t want us to suspect as much, which is the highest possible road available to any single parent.

I didn’t know him well. I was just a kid and he was one of those strong mid-century men who probably didn’t know what to say to kids. We went fishing. And although we never went hunting, we did go shooting. Once on an overnight at Lake Berryessa I hit a couple of tin cans in a row with the Ruger Mark II, and Daddy said if hit one more I could have the gun. Like a lot of things, he probably hadn’t really thought this through, and he must have been pretty relieved when I missed the next can, because dropping me off on Sunday night with a handgun wouldn’t have set well with mom and I don’t think he’d have bothered welching on his deal with me. I can still smell the sweet underbrush & olive trees of the Napa woods, the acrid garnish of gunpowder floating on top. In the modern era, of course, the boy would have been given an open-ended series of second chances sufficient to knock the can off the stump and claim the prize. But this was the early 1970s, and instead my father just shrugged and zipped the pistol back in its holster, lighting a Marlboro.

I called him Daddy and still refer to him as such. Little kids often call their fathers Daddy, and if the relationship doesn’t mature, neither does the tag. I don’t know what his other offspring referred to him as. There were others after and maybe before me, but I believe my relationship with him was more developed than any of the others, such as it was. Just lucky I guess! I was in college when he died, sick & alone at a group home for the sick & alone outside Santa Rosa. By that time I already had a second ex-father.

Mom met Bill Murray (not that one) in 1975 and, after a year’s vetting, married him at the Mormon church on Ludeman Lane in San Bruno. I wore a green tuxedo like the rest of the males in the wedding party and I gave mom away. There was a reception in Aunt Susie’s backyard on Linden Avenue afterward with foamy champagne punch. From this vantage, Bill looked like a good fit– father and husband-wise. But springtime perspectives can be deceiving. After uprooting and migrating to someplace called Federal Way, Washington, it was learned that Bill and mom were not all that compatible after all. They divorced in 1983 after a couple of painful separations. Bill wasn’t great with money.

He was a very good “father” however. He coached my sports teams. He took me to see Maynard Ferguson. He told me he loved me. He did love me, and I loved him, too! Though there was never any talk of legal “adoption,” I did eventually begin to call him Dad. Not Daddy, just Dad. Bill was 6’4” and probably ran 230lbs in those days. He was terribly handsome with a flap of skin that drooped over the outside corner of his left eye which made him look like he was always listening to you very intently. After the divorce, I didn’t see him much, and when I did I called him Bill. I left for college.

Bill gave me my sex talk in August 1977, when I was still calling him Dad. He used the tits on my Farrah Fawcett poster to make his point(s) that to be interested in TV stars’ tits was perfectly natural. I didn’t really learn much about sex during the conversation, but did come away with a vague sense of relief that the furious masturbating I was doing in the direction of that poster was a dance every boy on the block was doing and that it was OK with Dad (Bill) and my Mom.

Bill liked big band jazz and would have a scotch & water with mom when he got home from work, but I don’t think usually more than one or a short two. He usually had a Kent between the massive fingers of his left hand, though—he was the first left-handed person I ever knew, or at least the first left-handed person I ever knew was left-handed. The last time I ever saw him was at my wedding, which was kind of weird because my next “father” was there, too.

Mom met Art Bender in the early 90s at a piano bar on Brown’s Point. He’d recently separated from his wife– the mother of his two biological and three adopted children– and was taking what seems in retrospect like a well-deserved breather. What he was doing in a piano bar in Northeast Tacoma I’ll never know. He couldn’t hear or sing a lick, even then. But there he was…

Mom introduced us not long after. By a cruel twist of scheduling fate it happened to be Father’s Day weekend, which was awkward for everyone since no one present was the father of anyone else present. I might actually have realized sooner than Art that I would soon be referring to him as my mother’s husband (not really my father). In any event, he divorced his wife soon after and married my mother on Independence Day 1992 in Aunt Susie’s backyard, this time in Reno. I sang “The Rose” at the bridal party’s request and then we all went downtown to play cards and get wasted.

Unlike Mom’s first two husbands, Art liked to drink. He could drink a bathtub full of bourbon and often did. I never observed it affecting him, and I don’t think it bothered Mom at first either. Eventually, however, pretty much everything Art did bothered Mom. They drove to Arkansas after the wedding and stayed there for about five years before Art was offered a transfer back to Federal Way. He took it so they could both be nearer their grown children (ahem) and they bought the house on Steel Lake in 1996. They proceeded to wait patiently for grandchildren which arrived presently in the form of mine and my sister’s kids. Mom died in the house on the lake 15 years later, married but not what you’d call happily.

That morning Art stood crying in the hallway outside the bedroom as the undertaker and his assistant zipped my Mother’s body into a black vinyl bag. Art wasn’t much of a cryer or a revealer of much any emotion, which was one of the things that had driven my Mom crazy while she was still alive. I’d only ever seen him cry once before, on the night of his adopted daughter’s death. It was as if he saved up all his emotion in between these momentous events and all the accumulated tears sprayed out like in a cartoon.

Art is an old widower now, living quite contentedly with hundreds of channels. We see him regularly, the only grandfather my kids have ever known, though he is not my father. I call him Art, always have. My sister used to sometimes call him “Pops” but I think that was mostly for Mom’s benefit. Now she mostly just calls him Art also. He’s a very good person. He was always good to Mom and he’s always been good to me and my family. Like a father you might say.

My mother was like a father to me, too, for much of my life. She always tried to do what was best for everyone, not just for herself. Whether being more selfish would have worked out better for everyone is hard to say from here. She tried, though—and in the end that’s all anyone can ask.

Happy Father’s Day, Mom…

July 4, 1976

July 4, 1976. Our nation’s bicentennial. On the shoulder of I5, signing a speeding ticket. This is my first memory of living in Washington State.

My stepfather was in a hurry to get to Federal Way before dark and was pressing a bit outside Centralia. This was the first moment of the 2nd stage of my life.

It was dark by the time we got to our new house, but I still knew our new neighborhood was different than the one we’d left day before yesterday. Though I could not see it, I knew it was different. It sounded different. It smelled different. It was only 800 miles geographically removed, but it felt like a different world altogether.

It was different. We were rich!

What other explanation was there? On July 2nd, we’d left the only neighborhood we’d ever known – a narrow grid of greasy streets literally on the wrong side of the BNSF tracks, sandwiched between the Bayshore Freeway and San Francisco International. The view from my 2nd floor bedroom of the 2+ bedroom 1-bath postwar bungalow I shared with my mother & sister was of the UNITED AIRLINES sign at SFO. The jets roared up and down the terminal night and day as did the trains on the tracks and the cars on the freeway. All night and day.

And then (almost) literally overnight, we were reborn. There was no fence in the new yard—only a giant hedge ( Stepfather proudly told us it was called Rhodonendron ) and a cropped green lawn stretching as far as the eye could see. Like the streets, the yards twisted in impossible angles with wide sidewalks and curbs baring such ridiculous addresses as 33519 327th Court SW. This was our address, after coming from 527 4th Avenue. How the fuck were were supposed to find our way around? There were no telephone poles…

My sister and I didn’t know what was going on. Our previous neighborhood was 70% Mexican, but everyone on our new street was white. Still, they all played soccer. No one in our old neighborhood played soccer! All the houses had garages, so there were no cars parked on the street. There were airplanes, but they seemed far up in the sky. We didn’t know where the closest store was.

We understood the bicentennial was a big deal. We’d heard about it on TV and they’d made a special 25-cent piece for it at the mint. There was a lot of flag waving at a time when flag waving wasn’t an every-day passtime, not like today. These days you have to wave a flag so people don’t think you’re a socialist. This was the mid-1970s…

Soozy Bridges vs. Seal Rock

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

I had a dream last night that starred my friend Soozy. We were sitting at a round table, outside. Patti & Evan were there, which made sense. Even George’s wife Sue wasn’t completely out-of-place. But the fact that Diana was there was a clear sign from my subconscious that this was indeed a dream and not a half-memory or some pre-sleep notion. Weird how our subconscious minds play those little practical jokes on us…

I don’t remember anything else about the dream except that we were all in real-time (our current ages) except for Soozy who was represented as a younger version of herself—the version I first came to know in the very early 1990s.

We met in Seattle. I was the singer in a heavy metal band and she was freelancing variously in management & booking, freshly graduated from the Art Institute. Soozy is a highly-intuitive person, and has always had a very keen ear for talent—talent that isn’t always apparent to everyone else. As a result, she would often take on projects. Considering the nature of the inventory, many of these projects were tortured & unreliable at best. Deeply talented, sure– there may even have been a bonafide genius or two in the flock. At their worst, however, they were startlingly self-destructive. Some of us made it through. Others didn’t.

Trashed again, NYC 1991

Soozy was fifteen years older than us back then. To be clear, she’s still fifteen years older than we are. At the time, though, in our mid-20s, the fifteen years seemed more significant than now. Among Soozy’s favorite roles was that of spiritual mentor. Some of us were more skilled than others at absorbing the less-linear elements of her coaching– but in the end much of what she was doing was herding cats. We actually were quite a bit like kittens or puppies in those days– clumsy & playful: mischievous yet adorable. We often fell down in big piles, rolling around on the floor panting and drooling, unable to get up. Soozy might have wished we weren’t such a complete collective mess all the time, but she loved us anyway and saw in each of us a superpower that in many instances we ourselves had no inkling we possessed. I often said Soozy was like a rock and roll den mother. She liked to party at night, but perhaps her greatest gift was recovery. I’m not talking about longterm recovery; but rather the daily kind.

“Take these,” she’d say, “and drink two beers as fast as you can.” And though a beer might not have been exactly what you’d had in-mind right then, I’ll be damned if by the middle of the second one you weren’t feeling pretty much better and actually considering a third.

I still didn’t know Soozy that well when we found ourselves in California in the summer of 1993 trying to promote Panic’s largely unpromotable second record. We had squandered a better previous record deal and a much more muscular previous management deal, and Soozy was doing what she could to keep the band afloat. But it was getting late and it was clear that the ship was taking on water. I remember getting on a plane the morning after the last show of that shameful California tour– while the rest of the band was still asleep in heaps on the floor at the Phoenix Hotel in the Tenderloin– knowing in my heart that the bitchin’ disaster we’d been humping furiously for most of the previous ten years was winding down.

My Mom picked me up at the airport in Little Rock and drove me back to her & her husband’s house in Hot Springs where I fell asleep on the couch watching the Allstar Game. In the morning, I got to work picking the weeds out of the cracks in the driveway with a screwdriver. It was 102 degrees and 97% humidity, but this job had to be done because the house was going on the market the following week. I finished the driveway and a few other tasks in-time for my mom to take me back to the airport to catch a short flight to Norfolk where I served as Best Man in a high school friend’s wedding (jumping into the fountain in a rented tuxedo w/ the marriage certificate in back pocket). My only other friend from high school (coincidentally not friends with the newlywed friend) picked me up the next day and we drove to Washington DC where we saw the last song of the Sister Double Happiness set at the Bayou in Georgetown. We didn’t even know they’d be playing—we were just hanging out at the Bayou! We then stole a half-night’s sleep at the Ramada before catching a train into Manhattan where we walked around the Village rationing what little money we had left. We caught a late train back to DC, got in the car, and drove without sleeping to friend’s house in Eastern Tennessee where we did sleep. After a few days, Andy put me on a midnight Greyhound across Tennessee and Arkansas, back to Hot Springs where by this time Mom & Art had moved into their new house. This house had a beautiful, cylindrical copper fireplace in the middle of the living room, like a Lyon’s Restaurant. It also had a smooth, modern driveway. So instead of soul-smashing driveway torture labor, we tooled around Lake Hamilton in their party barge drinking bourbon and pretending to fish for bass. After a few days, Mom took me back to the Little Rock airport. I flew back to Seattle and we broke up the band.

The afternoon before fleeing California, though, was a beautiful summer San Franciscan day. I’d had something else to do that afternoon, and the plan was for me to meet the band at soundcheck. I arrived in a red minivan, rented to the band (probably on Soozy’s credit card). We were playing at the historic I-Beam on Haight Street. It wasn’t called the I-Beam at the time, but it was the same room. I knew immediately upon walking in the door that something was not right. The club wasn’t open yet, and there was no house music playing. The only noise came from the sound crew setting up mic stands and the bar staff filling the ice bins in preparation for the evening. Normally, I’d walk into a setting like this to find the band & crew crowded in a booth laughing and smoking and killing a pitcher. But today, everyone was scattered in different corners of the club. George was slumped in a corner booth, his back to the stage. Jack was upstairs losing a game of pool to himself. Pinky was curled up in the fetal position on a roadcase backstage. And Marty was tucked up onto a high shelf above a coatrack in a service corridor between the kitchen and bar, sound asleep. I found Soozy.

“Um,” I said, tentatively. “What’s going on?”

“Shhhh!” she hissed, looking around as if someone were listening. “They’re on the cookie!

The author drinking in bed           with Sheila Rene, 1993

Soozy had been promising this experience the whole time we’d been in California, though it had largely fallen on ringing, deaf ears. Soozy was our mentor; and she in-turn had her own mentor—also the source of the mythical cookie. Sheila Rene was a publicist by trade, but definitely a fully-vested member of the Old Guard Bay Area Rock and Roll Aristocracy. She had a flat in Pacific Heights stacked with all manner of rock memorabilia, including a framed picture of herself with everyone from Duane Allman to Frank Zappa. Sheila always had a silver tobacco box on her coffee table stocked with what she liked to call ‘Left Wing Luckys’ and we smoked pot with Sheila any time we went calling there. We smoked pot with everyone in those days—all day every day, we smoked pot. It’s just what we did. Our tolerance was high and I sure as hell was not going to be intimidated by a 2” diameter home-made molasses cookie with a Hershey’s Kiss pressed in the middle, wrapped in wax paper—much less HALF of one. (Soozy claimed a whole cookie was too strong for any one person…)

I snatched our cookie from Soozy’s hand and ate my half in one bite. I handed hers back to her and said “let’s go for a walk.”

I don’t pretend to understand the physics of eating marijuana even now, in the golden age of cannabis. But back then– in the early 1990s– our experience with eating pot was probably limited to a Cheech & Chong routine or some other urban myth about brownies from an Afterschool Special. What me and my mates dug at that time was smoking pot and drinking whisky. We played in a heavy metal band. Eating pot cookies seemed like something our parents’ wilder friends might do, or else homosexuals. I rolled my eyes.

Of course it took about as long as a stroll from the I-Beam down to the intersection of Ashbury Street and back to understand just how powerful half a molasses marijuana cookie could be. By the time we got back to the I-Beam, I felt like this was the Haight of 1968—Stoney Baloney. Just higher than fuck, in a way that I wasn’t accustomed to being high. The last thing I wanted to do was go back into the club. The keys to the red van were still in my pocket, and I said “Soozy, there’s something I want to show you.”

We got into the van and I drove west on Haight, turning north on Stanyan before looping around the Panhandle and easing into Golden Gate Park. I was born in The City, and had spent a lot of time in the Park as a kid. I gleefully pointed out the landmarks of my childhood as we wound through the narrow lanes of the interior of Golden Gate Park, the afternoon light filtering down through the Eucalyptus trees. Soozy was singing, her head out the open window, just like Mr. Bear would later do.

The aerodynamic Mr. Bear

There’s the Bison range. That’s the archery meadow. Kezar Stadium. Oh, my god—the Aquarium!

Soozy was raised in Raymond, and she’d seen plenty of the Pacific Ocean. But when you break out of the woods at the western exit of Golden Gate Park, past the windmill and first catch glimpse of the majestic 10’ breakers of Ocean Beach—it’s always as if you’re seeing it for the first time. This day was no different, and in fact extra powerful. Duh. But it still wasn’t what I’d come out here to show Soozy.

I turned right onto the Great Highway and started the gentle ascent to the Cliffhouse, where I found a spot and parked.

“This is what I wanted to show you, babe,” I said, turning to grin at Soozy. “Seal Rock!”

Soozy gleefully jumped out of the van and ran across the sidewalk to the rail. I remained in the driver’s seat rolling a cigarette. She returned to the van and flung open the driver’s door.

“Dude!” she beamed, her eyes wild, the ocean wind blowing her hair. “It’s so fuckin’ beautiful! And it’s just covered with seals!”

I got out of the car and made the rail, beholding the monolith. It was indeed so beautiful— just as I remembered as a child, with the afternoon light shining on it and the surf curling around its base.

But there were no seals on it.

“Sooz,” I said, lighting the smoke, “That rock is covered with seagulls.”

She looked at the rock and then back at me and we both dissolved into hysterics and stood there laughing and smoking till the sun sank into the Pacific and to wherever it goes when it’s no longer visible from here. China, or wherever. In fairness, they might have been pelicans. But I learned later that the seals split Seal Rock for Pier 39 after the World Series earthquake of 1989. That was the end of an era of sorts. But that evening, standing at the rail in Land’s End was the beginning of a different era—the era of my friendship with Soozy Bridges.

Happy Birthday, Soozy. Get well soon. I love you…

Teatro Zinzanni, 2003?

Dear brother

Hey Sean,

Sorry it took me so long to get this in the mail. It has been more hectic here than usual lately, trying to squeeze a Christmas season into half the normal time…

I have some other stuff somewhere that I can’t put my hands on right now. I did a lot of shuffling of shit this past year when Julie’s and my Mom was dying. I rented some cold storage and cycled some of my own stuff out that I didn’t need every day so I could absorb half of Mom’s stuff to sort & settle. I know I have some files and albums of various pictures somewhere, and they must be in storage. Not a ton of stuff, but there is one particular stash that has some Marlin fishing photos from Mexico that are pretty rad. I’ll get to that stuff before we get together in 2014.

There are a few things in here, though. Some hilights:

• Keys, cuffs and tie tacks. I would give about anything to know what these keys went to. Keys are weird that way. These are cool—one has a lion on it and one has an eagle. They don’t make keys with animals on them anymore. A couple of cool pair of cufflinks and a brass tiebar with a seal I can’t quite make out—looks like ANA with a flying bird it. Some kind of bird-hunting thing, I’d guess

• Crest—I don’t know what this medal is from. It certainly aint a war medal

• Powerful Pete pocket screwdriver—for your Irish

• Silver Cross—for your Catholicism. I am stoked to have found this, it wasn’t with the rest of this stuff and I had to dig for it because I knew I wanted you to have it when you told me about your Christian faith. This was in a box of my stuff, because I used to wear this, on a chain around my wrist. Lost it several times—once at an Iron Maiden concert—and it came back to me every time. Blessings…

• Luger buckle—I remember this piece. I never saw Danny wear a cross, but I do remember him wearing this. I researched it and it looks like it’s only from the ‘70s or late ‘60s, but it’s bitchin’

• Ferrari patch—it’s a Ferrari patch

• Ticklish Boys—this is the original newspaper clipping of the dynamite incident. Again—it seems like this should be yours  J

• Silver spoon—I honestly don’t know if this was Danny’s or just Maggie’s. It belonged to one of them. Probably not old enough to be Maggie’s baby spoon, and I don’t think it was his baby spoon, either. But it’s old and it’s significant

• Giants pennant—for your box of SF sports memorabilia. This was mine and it has to be from the very early ‘70s if not the late ‘60s

• WATTS—this was my band later, after the metal band PANIC. Still pretty heavy and great guitar work on this. I don’t know if you have a turntable

Anyway, it’s been good getting to know you this year, Sean. I realize you have not only a tall mountain to climb, but a slippery summit to stay atop once you do get up there. I am pulling for you and am willing to help as I can. I’m grateful that you’ve been able to give me the space I need to get started on this relationship. As you know, I have overfilled my own life and struggle to stay balanced. I’m working on it.

Julie & I will get down to the Bay in the first half of 2014. Until then, stay clean and stay free. Have a good holiday season-- there is much to be thankful for, always.

Yours,

Jeff

Dear The Bellingham Herald

McClatchy

1601 Alhambra Blvd., Suite 100

Sacramento, CA 95816

                                                                                        Thursday June 9, 2022

To whom it may—

Publishing a daily newspaper looks hard these days. But I don’t think I can continue to pay a thousand dollars a year for the privilege of proofreading The Bellingham Herald.

Bellingham is a town of just fewer than 100,000 about 100 miles north of Seattle. You guys acquired the paper along with the other Knight-Ridder books in 2006. Fyi.

It’s never been a great paper, but it’s been our paper and that’s historically been worth the delivery price. Even when it didn’t show up for a few days and even when it began appearing on the parking strip and not the porch—there’s just something comforting about a morning paper where you may know someone in the obituary section.

But at $3.14 per issue, I cry uncle.

Maybe I’m reading this invoice incorrectly. I don’t feel like it was half this expensive last time I renewed. Maybe it was and I just didn’t notice because I was so rich at the time and now I’m so poor.

Either way, I think I’m out.

Regrets,

Jeff Braimes, Bellingham WA