Gary Trudeau Has It Right

I, Claudius Revisited; I, Bushius

Hail Caesar,
Hail to the Chief,
Hail to Hella Dubya.

The world is going to hail in a hand basket. I can tell you what I see and to me it looks like the Fall of Rome. In the year 1976 Robert Graves wanted us to see 50 AD yet he shows us a metaphor for 2008 AD. I see things through the technology of the 20th Century (I’d say the 21st but nothing has come along that takes the place of the 20th) and I’ve read a lot about the 21st and how it’s gonna be. A.C. Clarke showed us 2001 on film, and many contemporary Sci-Fi authors have tuned up the predictions and as with William Gibson’s ‘Cyber-Punk’, even given it an attitude.

The actual damage to civilization that Dubya will render begins with his functional fixedness concerning the present and future– lack of a Space
Program; restrictions on medicine and science; a return to Dark Ages
religious fervor.

The name ‘George’ goes with a Father-of -Our-Country image and his dad handed it down along with his ‘First Citizen’ status.

Emperor, dictator, president—all shop-worn Roman words, follow the word Caesar. Augustus Caesar following his great-uncle Julius, was the autocrat of a regime known as ‘The Principate’ since Augustus (the princeps, or first citizen) was theoretically answerable to the other citizens. Dubya theoretically was the choice of the other citizens.

For a Latin title for Dubya, we just can’t go on calling him that, I suggest Nero Galago Bushius. Nero I will soon clarify while Galago is self-evident. The small Galagos have tiny chins, funny noses, close set eyes, and huge ears that they can fold over. They are commonly known as Bush Babies.

I just watched the thirty two years old Masterpiece Theater series “I, Claudius” whose author Robert Graves also assisted in directing. I have concluded two things: it is portentous of the Galago Bushius administration, and single handedly the guiding star of all TV.

If TV ever got any better than this I haven’t seen it, yet most of its stars go unrecognized by today audiences.

Derek Jacobi is still knocking out terrific TV with his PBS Mystery “Brother Cadfael” series and plays a senator in the hit movie based on the Roman Empire, “Gladiator”. He is the soul of this Robert Graves production making Claudius, the Emperor/ historian live for us fans of ancient history. What audience or production cast in the USA really understands ancient history anyway? This nearly all-British cast possibly really shines because they have lived in and seen a world of an older culture.

John Hurt had the Alien pop out of his chest about 3 years after he popped the baby out of his sister’s womb as Caligula. He’s still knocking out good movies. I enjoyed Hurt in “Contact”, a vastly underrated movie and additional evidence that the final decadence has set in. Audiences shunned “Contact”, a movie without a hundred rounds per minute shot off while daring to call itself science fiction. As it was written by the scientist/ futurist Carl Sagan, it exists like “I, Claudius” as food for thought, not fluff for viscera.

Patrick Stewart of course can’t shake his character Picard, a Captain he played as one of the few interesting futuristic personalities in a spin off of Star Trek. It was great to see Stewart in the role of Sejanus, Commander of the Roman Praetorian Guard. Sejanus gives the Picard sneer once too many times and the Roman Senate eviscerate him. Could it only have happened as well on deck of the Starship Enterprise.

The actresses often carried the show in “I, Claudius” but I couldn’t tell you their names. Obviously they played in Shakespearean or Greek theater before this.

“So what?” you may well respond. So the second millennium rolls around and we see a flashback of the first (or is it zero-eth?)! Now we have the WTO Senate of the Imperialist Roman Empire. George Bush Sr. is Caligula. Condolessa Rice is the great Roman General Macro.

Similarly to history, Hillary calls for a return to the Republic. She swings her 44 percent to determine the next Presidency (Caesar). But the Republic is naught because the Romans (Americans) are too spoiled on the Emperorship that gave them more wine and more circuses. I’d say ‘bread’ but the Empire is turning farmlands to strip-malls and vineyards.

Reagan set this stage. He is Tiberius, a senile overly mothered tyrant who has no vision but loves power. His war in the North (Russia =Germany) routs the Germans but leaves his country over-taxed. He dies and his mad nephew (going by the name given him as a young mascot to the Roman Legion, ‘Little Boots’) takes power.

Caligula (Bush Sr.) continues to war against the East and North even though the enemy is vanquished. He goes to war with Germany and returns with an all German Imperial Guard (Bush’s role against Iran during his Vice Presidency under Reagan that has him arm Iraq). Unlike the German Imperial Guard, Iraq becomes our enemy even as Iran is an uneasy ally.

When the despot Claudius comes to power, people think him a fool, thus he survives to become Governor of Arkansas and then President. He longs to restore the Republic, marries an overly ambitious woman who plots his ruin then becomes as much a Caesar as the others. He realizes as he tries to support the rightful heir to the throne, Britannicus (Obama), that Obama will not restore the Republic and that liberalism is seen as old fashioned and unnecessary by the plebeians. He secures sex from a wanton woman and then lies. This assures that Nero, not Hillary will come to power. Claudius sees that the way to restore the republic is “to nurture a viper close to the bosom of Rome”. His people’s cry for true democracy will arise from desperate circumstance. .

Nero Galago Bushius is too ignorant, too unimaginative, and more incestuously tainted than the original Nero to even hold the bow of a fiddle.

Maybe gas shortages, P.G.&E’s tripling their energy rates during the rolling blackouts, or the rumbling beneath the feet of Allen Greenspan’s successor, must give me pause to wonder, “Do I smell something burning?”

Richard Kaderli,

Is Paul McCartney Jesus?

Is Paul McCartney Jesus?

When John let leak to the press that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, was he actually ribbing his co-writer partner and band mate, Paul McCartney, about his secret identity as the Second Coming of Christ?

Think about their similarities for a second:
Both attractive dark haired men; both poetically creative with verse; both promise eternal life; and both return from the dead.

To support these comparisons I’ll include some observations. The first two assertions are self-evident while the third needs a little clarification. Did Paul not write lyrics that tell us to “Live and Let Die”, referring to living spiritually forever while sluffing off this mortal coil? Or how about “Let It Be”, where he waxes religiously throughout telling us that “there will be an answer”. Wasn’t this self-referential?

Finally on his resurrection, he dies of grief and love when his wife succumbs to cancer, only to remarry years later to an amputee and put out a rebirth album, “Chaos and Creation in the Backyard”. This is a form of raising himself from the dead as he was personally and professionally lain to rest.

Ok, this was really a hook to get you to read my review of this album. But I knew it would take satirical prose on Easter to muster interest in the topic. Paul is really old now. He has about as much cool as Leonard Bernstein did in his day. Now as it happens, I admire them both, but look at the source. I have about as much cool as Hillary Clinton, and I would venture that Paul’s new album, “Chaos and Creation In the Backyard”, has just a tad more cool than her singing on stage in the 92 inaugural.

In short, the only cut I liked on this album was the instrumental synthesizer 7 minute piece that gets tacked onto the final song “Anyway” for absolutely no purpose other than to save this album from containing solely uninteresting music. There are no interesting metaphors, no catchy refrains, no evocative musical innovations (meaning nothing even in a rock, blues, or minor vein), and nothing at all as worthwhile as his collaboration on the two new songs on Beatles Anthology. I really liked his comeback with the other Beatles and even his short solo work at that point. For a worthwhile album see what he did with his dead wife on “MTV Unplugged”; here he explores his and rock’s early roots.

What did I like about the instrumental on “Anyway”? It reminds me of what he obviously ought to do, collaborate with Brian Eno. He sounded like Magical Mystery Tour in the contemporary digital techno- studio yet he never caves in for electronic drums. This is the other good thing I can say about Paul’s latest: it doesn’t have a single disco track on it.

So if you are actively Christian and this offended you, I’m sorry. If you just loved Paul’s new album and are seething with rebuke, save it—we don’t have similar tastes. Here is my (in order of magnitude) ten worst Beatles songs list (you may note Paul is the leading influence on most of them):
1. Let It Be
2. Hey Jude
3. The Long and Winding Road
4. Because
5. When I’m Sixty-four
6. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (the song, not the album)
7. Across The Universe
8. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
9. Yellow Submarine
10. Nowhere Man

These songs will come on the radio from time to time, and I will turn them off. If I were to compile a Beatles CD, they would not be on it.

The Road to Alamogordo

Here is an “On the Road”, a sort of ode to Jack Keroac by Dan Barth, a poet and writer living on the Russian River in Talmage.

The Road to Alamogordo

Fraught with perils and pitfalls.
Did you think it would be easy
to get to A-bomb city?

1. Calexico Blues

Whither goest thou Americans,
In your aggressive American cars?

It was on Interstate 8 outside of Calexico that Ben and Annie’s troubles started. Hitching from San Felipe to Mexicali and Calexico had been no problem.
“I love Mexicans,” said Annie.
“Yep,” said Ben. “If they’ve got a pickup truck we’ve got a ride.”
“No problemo,” said Annie.
“Si,” said Ben.
“So what now, senor? These Norte Americanos don’t seem to be stopping.”
“Let’s make a sign that says NEW MEXICO.”
“Good idea.”
Annie pulled her sketchpad and pens from her pack and began to make the sign. She did not see the cop car coming. Ben saw it in time to drop his thumb and adopt the usual look-the-other-way attitude. But the cop stopped. He was a California State Trooper, Highway Patrol, with Smokey the Bear hat and requisite mirror shades.
“Howdy,” said Ben.
“What are you two doing out here?”
“This is where we got dropped off.”
“You know it’s illegal to hitch up here on the highway.”
“No sir, we didn’t know that.”
“I’m gonna hafta give you a ticket.”
“We’ll go down the ramp,” said Annie.
“You sure will, after I write out your tickets. Let’s see some I.D.”
Ben took his driver’s license from his wallet. Annie dug in her pack for hers, hoping she wouldn’t come across any pot first.
The cop took their licenses and walked back to his car.
“Wait here,” he told them.
“Shit,” said Ben as soon as the cop was out of hearing.
“This sucks,” said Annie.
They waited. In a few minutes the cop came back with their I.D’s and tickets.
“Now get on down the ramp,” he said.
They grabbed their packs and guitar and did so.
“What a drag, ” said Ben. “Fucking asshole cop!”
“Now what?” asked Annie.
“I guess we hitch the ramp.”
Annie sat down and finished the NEW MEXICO sign. Ben hitched the few cars that were getting on the ramp. There was not much traffic. After two hours they decided to walk back to Calexico and try hitching Highway 98 to Yuma.
In Calexico, Ben went into a mini-mart and bought beer and peanuts. Annie was much happier once she had a beer in her hand. They sat in the shade drinking beer and eating peanuts. After awhile they walked out Highway 98 past the high school to the edge of town.
“Well,” said Ben, “we’re hardly closer to Alamogordo than we were four hours ago. But there’s more traffic out here. We’ll get a ride.”
Several hours went by. They didn’t get a ride. Eventually they gave up and decided to walk back to town and get something to eat. They ended up at Owens Drive-In Restaurant where the menu featured rice, beans, tamales, tacos, enchiladas, monster burgers and fried chicken. GOOD WATER proclaimed a sign over the counter. Ben ordered a taco. Annie went for French fries and a salad. They sat down and drank some of the good water. The clock on the wall read 7:05 PM.
On a sudden inspiration Annie called Greyhound to see how much a bus ride would cost. She reported back shortly. “$8.50 each to Yuma.”
“That’s about $4.50 each too much.”
The food came. They sat eating and talked over their options. Ben pulled out a pen and notebook and made a list:
Choice A — hitch out 98 toward Yuma
Choice B — out 111 to I-8
Choice C — to El Centro on I-8
Choice D — go back to Mexico
Choice E — surrender to the local authorities
Choice F — go to sleep in Owens Drive-In
Choice G — maybe Trailways is cheaper
They had finally noticed the Trailways bus station right across the street. Annie walked across to check. Ben ordered coffee. In about two minutes Annie came running back breathless. “Gulp your coffee and grab your pack. We’ve got a free ride to Indio!”
“What?”
“Come on. I talked to a bus driver. He’s just getting ready to drive an empty bus to Indio and he’ll give us a ride.”
“Indio’s only about two hundred miles out of our way.”
“I don’t care, at least we’ll be the fuck out of here.”
“Okay. Maybe he’ll drop us in El Centro.”

2. Another On-Ramp In California

El Centro,
Where the cops are assholes.

The bus driver was happy to oblige. He dropped Annie and Ben at an I-8 on-ramp in El Centro. Two hitchhikers were already there, a tall, long-haired guy in leather jacket, jeans and boots, and a smaller, short-haired guy in denim jacket, jeans and sneakers. The tall guy said he had just gotten a ticket for hitching on the highway. He introduced himself as Tony and said he was heading for Evansville, Indiana. The other guy, Paul, was headed for San Antonio, Texas with no bag or pack, just the clothes on his back and a harmonica in his pocket. After talking to these two guys Ben and Annie walked to a nearby Seven-Eleven store.
“I like pesos better than dollars,” said Annie.
“Why’s that?”
“They’re more colorful.”
“Well, why don’t you use one of those drab dollars and buy us some coffee?”
“Okay.”
They sat in front of the Seven-Eleven and drank the coffee, biding their time and hoping the other two hitchhikers would get a ride. When the friendlier Seven-Eleven customers said, “Howdy,” they said, “Hi, you’re not heading for Arizona, are you?” Nobody was.
Around 10 P.M. they walked back to the ramp. The other two hitchhikers were gone. “All right,” said Ben, “I guess they got a ride.”
They hitched with no success. A car pulled over, a dark-colored sedan. The driver was a sleazy looking fat man who wouldn’t say where he was going. “Just get in,” he said. They declined.
An hour went by. “What the hell,” said Ben. “Let’s try the highway.”
“Why not?” said Annie.
No sooner had they walked to the top of the ramp than a cop showed up and gave them another ticket. They walked back down the ramp, disgusted. The other two hitchhikers were there.
“We thought you got a ride,” said Annie.
“No such luck,” said Tony. “We’ve been to the liquor store. Would you like a beer or some schnapps?”
“Both,” said Annie.
“Hell yes,” said Ben.
They all sat down beside the ramp, smoked a joint and drank beer and schnapps. A cool wind had picked up out of the west.
“I came across from San Diego last night,” said Tony. “There was snow in the mountains.”
Around midnight they all decided to walk a mile or so to another on-ramp.
“Maybe we’ll have better luck there,” said Paul.
“Can’t be much worse,” said Ben.
They hoisted their gear and walked through the quiet El Centro suburbs to another on-ramp near another Seven-Eleven mecca. At the new ramp they took turns hitching but there wasn’t much traffic. They drank more beer and smoked more pot. No rides. Ben got out his guitar and Paul jammed with him on harmonica. No rides. Annie and Tony walked to the Seven-Eleven for more coffee. They came back. No rides. Finally around 3 A.M. they all crashed under a little Hawaiian pine in the cloverleaf.
In the morning Ben was up first. He walked to the Seven-Eleven and bought some apple juice. The clerk from the night before was just getting off work. He looked tired.
When Ben walked back, another hitchhiker was on the ramp.
“Where are you heading?” asked Ben.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” said the guy. “Florida’s a drag. California’s a bust.”
“Try New Orleans,” Ben advised.
The graffiti on back of the on-ramp sign was more cheerful than this guy. There were names, dates, hometowns and destinations, and a few longer comments like: “Beam me up Scotty, no sign of intelligent life here,” and “I’m hungry, thirsty and confused. Started walking east. — Amelia Earhart.” Ben pulled out his felt-tip pen and wrote:

Some people are born to be assholes.
This becomes more obvious to me every day.
Many of them are State Troopers in Southern California –
That’s how they make their pay.

Ben woke Annie. They rolled up their sleeping bags and walked to Hobo Joe’s Restaurant where they ordered tea and used the restrooms to wash up before hitting the road. Once again they hitched the ramp without success. A hitchhiker heading west stopped to talk.
“Where you headin’?” he asked.
“Yuma,” said Ben.
“I just came from Yuma. The big news there is that four people were killed by a hitchhiker yesterday.”
“Great,” said Ben. “No wonder no one wants to give us a ride.”
They decided to walk back down to the Seven-Eleven and ask for rides. Ben walked up to a car with Arizona plates. “Are you driving to Arizona?” he asked the driver, a pleasant looking man in his thirties.
“No, not today, but could you use some money?”
This took Ben by surprise. “Well, I gotta admit we’re a little low.”
“How does ten sound?”
“It sounds great!”
The man pulled a ten-dollar bill from his pocket and handed it to Ben.
“Thanks a lot!”
“Do you know the Lord?” the man asked.
“Sure,” said Ben. “Thanks again.”
“Praise God!” said the man.
“Amen,” said Ben.
By this time Tony and Paul had awakened and were on their way in to Seven-Eleven for coffee.
“How’s it going?” asked Tony.
“Great,” said Ben. “A guy just gave me ten dollars.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Tony. “And I’m waiting here for my limo.”
“No, really. Look. Coffee’s on me.”
“Wow,” said Paul. “What a trip. That’s almost as good as Tony’s story.”
“What’s that?”
“He says he walked in his sleep last night all the way to the other on-ramp.”
“Are you serious?” Ben asked Tony.
“Yeah. I woke up in the other Seven-Eleven and had to walk all the way back here.”
“You sure you weren’t dreaming?”
“No, I swear. It really happened.”
“That’s wild. And you don’t believe a guy gave me ten dollars?”
“I guess anything’s possible in this crazy place. Now if we could all just get rides, that would be truly amazing.”
They all drank coffee and sat around talking outside the Seven-Eleven. Annie and Ben finally decided to walk to the edge of town and hitch to Indio. They felt rather foolish since they could have had a ride to Indio with the Trailways driver the night before, and it was still 200 miles out of their way, but at this point they were willing to try anything to get out of El Centro.
A car pulled over with two young women up front and three small children in the back. Annie and Ben climbed in back and talked to the kids while getting a ride about ten miles out of town.

3. Indio
How about a date?

One more good ride took them to Indio. The driver was with a very articulate dark-skinned man named Sherman. Sherman had retired to Southern California after a career in law enforcement in Missouri. He told them he was from New Orleans originally—of French, Creole and Amerindian blood. Annie was amazed by his eyes. They had dark brown irises with dark blue around the edge of the brown. He drove a very nicely equipped Dodge van. It had a fold-out bed and a built-in refrigerator. It even had some kind of computer drive mechanism.
Sherman was going fishing near Indio but gave them a ride into town first. He dropped them on Highway 86 where they could see a big sign that said INDIO—DATE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, and another smaller one at a fruit stand: Date Milkshakes, 95 Cents.
“Hey baby, how about a date . . . milkshake?” asked Ben.
“Okay, big boy. You buying?”
“Yes ma’am.”
They got their date milkshakes and were walking out to the Interstate 10 on-ramp in a swirling wind when they met a hitchhiker walking the other way.
“Howdy,” said Ben. “What’s the word?”
“Aw man, this place sucks. I been on that ramp all day tryna hitch a ride to Arizona. Now I give up. I’m gonna hitch south to El Centro and then east on 8.”
“Don’t do that!” Ben and Annie both shouted. They explained why.
“Well shit,” said the guy. “That ramp’s no good. There’s already a bunch of people up there not gettin’ rides.”
At an impasse, they all sat down together and Annie made a general purpose sign saying EAST. One car stopped, but only to offer them a ride to the ramp. Ben noticed a copy of The Grapes Of Wrath on the front seat. The wind was blowing hard and dust was billowing all around.
They declined the ride and hitched some more. The other hitchhiker gave up and walked into town.
Near sundown Annie and Ben had an argument. She wanted to walk to the nearest truck stop and ask for rides. He wanted to walk to the ramp and up the ramp to hitch the highway. Ben won on a coin toss and they started walking. The wind had died down and darkness was coming on.
When they hit the highway Annie sat on the packs pouting and Ben hitched energetically. He felt like he was rolling dice, like he had to get lucky before another cop came along to give them another ticket—come on, come on, come on, please . . . Yes! Yes! A big rig geared down and pulled over. They ran up and happily climbed in. The driver was a young, bearded guy heading to Blythe to load lettuce for Salt Lake City. His name was Van and he was from Provo, Utah. He was a very friendly, deep-voiced, talkative guy. He had a little tv in the sleeper. They plugged it in to the cigarette lighter and fooled with it awhile. All they could get was one Mexican station and two stations with Buddy Hackett hosting “You Bet Your Life.” The reception was poor so they soon gave it up, put the tv away, and played the radio the rest of the way to Blythe, about 100 miles.
Van dropped Annie and Ben at a ramp and went to get in line to get loaded at a nearby produce warehouse. They tried hitching for an hour or so with no luck. Giving it up, they walked to some trees near a wash behind the produce warehouse, rolled out their sleeping bags and crashed in some soft grass.
By morning a heavy dew had turned to light frost. Up early, they rolled their bags, hoisted packs, walked to McDonald’s for coffee, and by 7 A.M. were on the road again.

4. The Further Adventures Of Bad Art

It was then I knew that Ben was flirting
with death, or worse, for this was Bad Art.
Eric Crockett,
“The Story of Bad Art and the Wood Screws”

An hour later they were considering a trek back to McDonald’s for a McMuffin when a guy in a van pulled over to offer a ride.
Ben looked in. “Where ya headin’?”
“Just across the border into Arizona, about twenty-five miles.”
“Great.”
They opened the van’s side door, threw in their gear and climbed aboard.
“My name’s Charley,” said the driver. “I was just about to light this joint.”
“Super,” said Annie.
They passed the joint as they rolled along. Charley was on his way home after working a graveyard shift at the produce warehouse. A half hour later they arrived stoned at a little trailer park on the Arizona side of the border where Charley lived with his wife and kid. Ben and Annie couldn’t believe how good it felt to finally be out of California. Everything seemed calm and peaceful and friendly and hopeful in Arizona.
“You guys hungry?” asked Charley.
“Munch, munch,” said Annie.
“Come on in,” said Charley.
Charley’s wife, Sally, was up with their baby watching Saturday morning cartoons on the tube. Breakfast was yogurt, fruit and granola, which they all wolfed down. Then Charley asked Sally to make his new friends sandwiches for the road.
“How long have you lived here?” asked Annie.
“About six months,” said Sally. We moved here from Skamania County, Washington.”
“Hey, I used to live there,” said Ben. “I worked for the Forest Service near Carson.”
“Wow! Do you know Ron Himes? He worked for the Forest Service there.”
“No.”
“What about a big, tall redhead named Art Homestead.”
“Whoah,” said Ben. “That sounds like Bad Art.”
“What?”
“A friend of mine wrote a story about him.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. How is old Art?”
“Well, he got hurt pretty bad in a logging accident. His foot got crushed.”
“Whoah.”
“Yeah, but he sued the company and eventually got a settlement of twenty thousand dollars. Then do you know what he did? He spent about ten thousand on guitars, mikes, speakers, amps–all kinds of band equipment. Crazy. He had never played a lick in his life. Then for the Fourth of July he threw a big party and invited a whole bunch of people to come and play. We were there. It was wild. Now he’s starting his own company, Homestead Mountain Jam, Incorporated. What do you think of that?”
“I think it’s great.”
Annie and Ben thanked Sally for everything. Charley had fallen asleep on the couch. They walked back to the highway and hitched happily on.
In no time at all a semi with no trailer pulled over. They stowed their gear in the sleeper and settled in. The driver was Don, a fat, friendly guy in his early thirties, headed to Dallas to pick up nitrogen for offshore oil use in California. They bounced along in the unloaded rig. Near Casa Grande, Don stopped and bought a pizza and a 12-pack of beer. Then it was right back on the road. They partied along past Tucson to the Triple T Truck Stop where Don called it a day. Annie and Ben thanked him, and after using the restrooms went looking for their next ride.
In the truck stop parking lot a driver said, “Hi. Where ya headin’?”
“Alamogordo,” said Annie.
“Want a ride?”
“You bet,” said Ben.
“Well, I can get you most of the way there. I’m headin’ for San Antonio. I can drop you in Las Cruces or El Paso.”
“Great.”
They put their gear in the cab and waited while the driver got his thermos filled with coffee. “Man there’s a lot of people out hitchin’,” he said when he returned. “Must be Reagan refugees.”
Ben laughed and agreed.
The driver’s name was Doc. He looked pretty straight but to their surprise he produced a joint.
“I started in the Army,” he said. “Vietnam was one stoned gig.”
It was a good ride—couple of joints, couple of pit stops—and at 1 A.M. Doc dropped them near Las Cruces, New Mexico at the intersection of Interstate 10 and Interstate 25.

5. Organ?

A few final pitfalls and pratfalls.
Really, did you think it would be easy?

Doc had told them that Highway 70 to Alamogordo was two or three miles up 25. There wasn’t much traffic so they started walking.
It was closer to three miles than two, but they arrived at Highway 70 in about 45 minutes, tired. They were just about to call it a night and crash, when a car pulled over. The driver appeared to be pretty drunk.
“Howdy,” said Ben. “Where ya headin’?”
“Oregon.”
“Oregon?”
“Yeah. Hop in.”
“Whaddaya think?” Ben asked Annie.
“It’s a ride.”
“Okay.”
They climbed in and the driver started talking as he weaved along. “Uhh. . . let’s see. . . uhh. . . yes. . . uhh. . . like I say. . . uhh. . . you know what I. . . mean. I’m just an old hitchhikin’. . . hobo. . . myself.”
He acted like he was very drunk, very stoned, or had just gotten out of a mental hospital. Maybe all three. It turned out he wasn’t heading for Oregon but for Organ, a little town about 45 miles up the road toward Alamogordo. He managed to keep his car between the ditches, sometimes just barely, and they hit Organ about 3 A.M.
“Uhh. . . you can. . . uhh. . . you know. . . uhh. . . crash at my place,” he told them.
His “place” turned out to be an old Kenworth up on blocks in a vacant lot. Tired, Ben and Annie thanked him, thanked their lucky stars they had survived the ride, and rolled out their bags in some tall grass. A rooster crowed as they coldly found some sleep.
In the morning a chain saw woke them at nine o’clock. There was no cafe in Organ, so they combed their hair and brushed their teeth at a faucet. A warm sun cheered them as they resumed the hitch. A car pulled over, two Mexican guys in a station wagon on their way to Roswell.
“Buenos dias. Muchos gracias,” said Ben.
“De nada. De nada.”
The friendly Mexicans said they would drop them in Alamogordo. But near White Sands National Monument there was a Border Patrol roadblock. The station wagon was waved aside and everybody had to answer questions and show papers. Then the two Mexicans were asked inside the little guardhouse for further discussion. After about half an hour Ben and Annie were advised that they had best seek other transportation. “These boys won’t be goin’ no further.”
“Shit,” said Ben.
“Can we use your phone?” asked Annie.
“Yeah, if it’s a local call.”
Annie called her sister, Linda, in Alamogordo, who said she would come and get them. They wished the Mexicans “buena suerte” and walked over to the tourist shop at White Sands to have coffee and wait. Fifteen minutes later Linda showed up. They said hello and hugged her, then were chauffeured back to her suburban home. By that night, after showers, naps, and a spaghetti supper, on couches in the living room with Annie’s mom, sister, brother-in-law, nephew and dog, watching “Wild Kingdom” on tv, it all seemed like just a dream. The road to Alamogordo had been traveled, suffered and finally loved.

db
revised March 1, 2007

Flaming Rummy Punch

Flaming Rummy Punch

Not a story to make beer connoisseurs salivate, this took place in ’77 before I was aware of microbrews. San Francisco’s Anchor Steam was the best locally, and Indio or Noche Buena were the best Mexican imports. My bent was 16 Oz Shlitz beer in bottle, or at times, Malt Duck, an acquired taste that I picked up from listening to a radio ad. This rare instance of an ad got me to try and appreciate malt liquor mixed with fortified wine in a 8 Oz bottle.

I was hanging out late at night in the Marina District of SF on Octavia St. near the corner of Lombard after picking up my choice beverage at the liquor store at Franklin. This liquor store served cabbies, GIs from the Presidio, and commuters headed out the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin. As a high spot of urban culture it would have been a really stupid place to uncap the bottle in my brown bag as cops checked here every 20 minutes for underage drinkers. I was 22 but why ask for getting arrested? Not feeling like heading into my Cow Hollow Apartment, I never-the-less walked back toward it while carousing the inhabitants of the area. I picked the secluded spot under a willow in front of an old carriage house on Octavia as it had a view of the parking lot of a Jack In The Box.

Convenience store chains and fast food outlets were uncommon in San Francisco at this time. Diane Feinstein had yet to sell the city’s culture to the highest bidders yet Lombard had always catered to the motorized crowd due to its egress to the Golden Gate Bridge. As you’d expect, the girls at Jack In The Box were a giggly conservative lot and I had the pleasure of feeling superior in my artist long hair guise as I swilled my alcohol and saw them stuff their faces with empty calories.

With a slight buzz on I left the shadows and walked over to the garbage can in the parking lot to do the considerate thing by tossing my garbage. I was startled to be addressed by a scruffy guy who hurried over from the direction of the dumpster by the store. He was asking me something in a guttural voice I couldn’t make out. I figured he was there to spare change the customers and I wasn’t interested.

“I haven’t got any money,” I lied.

“Can you help me! I ain’t got no hands an I …,” I didn’t make this out and told him he’d better ask somebody in a car.

“No, no, why don’t you listen. I wanna’ drink like you,” he indicated my bag in the trash and then stuck his stumps out at me, “Just listen to me and take a minute. I need yer’ help.”

I could make out about 60% of what he hissed through his missing teeth in that maw in his ugly dwarfish face. I pointed to the bag and told him he was out of luck ‘cause that bottle was empty.

“I don’t need yer’ money, I get S.S.I. for these. Here, here in my pocket get it out.”

I reached in his pocket, and pulling out a fresh pint of Royal Gate vodka I broke the seal unscrewing the cap.

“Yeah, here, give it here,” he ordered but as I was about to tell him I couldn’t hand it to a guy with two stumps, he pinched the bottle out of my hand with his stump and elbow, hoisted it to his mouth and dribbled down his chin as he chugged the entire bottle. Burping loudly he chucked the flask into the trash. I was impressed that he could hold a bottle like that and drink and let it show when I asked him, “ Don’t you worry the cops might see you drinking in public? You got quite a thirst there.”

“They won’t serve no Injuns in bars. What am I gonna’ do? Cops don’t bother me. They call MAP on me is all and I already been there this week or last week or something, I forget.”

Now he looked like a short Mexican or Latino in a trench coat to me, but maybe he had Native American blood too. I demonstrated my wealth of street knowledge I had gained from working at the Haight Ashbury Switchboard and dropped the address of Mobile Assistance Patrol as over on Harrison Street.

“They always trin’ steal my check,” he scowled, “Hey, can you help me get a smoke, be a nice feller, eh?” he indicated his breast pocket with his gray stubbled chin. I was hoping he was talking tobacco and not pot as I had the feeling of being watched already by the Jack employees. I got his pack of Luckys out of his coat and lit one up sticking it between his lips. He puffed away with the same relish he demonstrated downing the vodka. He squinted at me through red rheumy eyes irritated by the smoke and then grunted to let me know to pull out the cig. He spat and let the butt burn a bit.

“Name’s Pete, Injun’ Pete,” he cracked a slight smile.

“I’m Paris and I gotta’ go. You want the rest of this?”

He clenched the cigarette between his teeth and tried to talk but I couldn’t make it out. It sounded like he was calling me a fairy for having long hair. I exited across Lombard and heard him angrily hollering something.

The seasons changed, I got a job that had me travel about SF on flex-time, and having just finished such a day I was waiting to catch the 33 Ashbury back to the Haight from 18th St. and Mission. I was leaning against the wall of The Town Pump Saloon and could hear the fights inside. A very drunk man with a torn shirt that exposed his tattoos on his brown muscled arms, stumbled out of the bar, pushed through the crowd at the bus stop and headed up a flight of stairs to an apartment three of four doors away. Ten minutes later he came out looking even drunker holding a knife and swearing in Spanish. His knife was shockingly violent looking. It was a chrome-plated pair of brass knuckles with a six inch blade sticking out the side. The Latino was trying to fold the blade in but either he was too drunk or the knife was for a lefty because all he did was gash his hand on the blade and leave a bright crimson trail behind him. He looked at me quizzically and then swore at his hand and rushed back into the bar. That was my cue to skip across the street and get a requisite bottle of Shlitz. I knew the cops would show up but would be too busy for a misdemeanor and I had time since it wasn’t uncommon for the 33 to take a half hour to an hour to show up. After 3 minutes I’m back from the Mom and Pop grocery waiting again when who do I see running across 18th St. toward me looking very worried, but Injun Pete. The crowd of mostly older Latinas have walked up 18th St. since the knife guy passed by, so I was alone with Pete. He was flapping his stumps on his corduroy jacket like a bird and yelling in panic. I couldn’t make out what he yelled and I doubted he recognized me, but he directed my attention to a bad smell coming from him—the smell of burning cloth. Sure enough I could see smoke billowing out of his coat and he started dancing in a circle. I found smoke coming out of a corner of his coat and poured some of my beer on it. Then I realized the fire was inside his pocket and poured more of my beer in there. I reached in and pulled out some smoldering stuffing and a charred cigarette butt.

“Thank you! Whoa! I fell asleep over by that place back there and next thing I’m waking up on fire! I ain’t got no hands to put it out you see,” Pete was much less cocky and very appreciative as he held up his stumps.

“Don’t thank me, thank the beer I didn’t get to drink that saved you. How did you lose your hands anyway?”

“It was a long time ago an I was shiften’ around riding rails. I tried to catch a freighter and tripped and the train run over my hands. I been on S.S.I. ever since.”

“Damn Pete, that is a sad story. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a limb, let alone both hands run over by a train! Opps, speaking of jumping on a ride, here comes the bus finally. See you.”

“Hey, how do you know my name? I thought I’d buy you a drink. I owe you one.”

But I left Pete standing there with his stumps and stories and soggy jacket and rode off on Muni into the Frisco night never to see him again.

Buck Naked And The Bare Bottom Boys

I wrote this many years after the murder of the lead singer of the above mentioned band. Sometime in the early hours of the morning he was shot in Panhandle Park. This is not an accurate story as Buck was walking his dog in the park but the speculative fiction comes under the mindset of the lead characters.

Richard Kaderli

Incident In Panhandle Park

The fog choked the cypress and eucalyptus into letting their perfumes blend with mud and dogshit. It kept the temperature just above fifty and meant no windchill factor there in the shotgun gap to the Pacific that always bent to the ocean breeze. “Panhandle” seemed like yet another satirical jibe at Pappy Raingauge Greenwater’s struggle for peace and survival. Was no money to be made panhandling here. Never had been with all the people just walking their dogs; mostly Yuppies running or jogging.

“Wish my damn hands would hold still while I try to roll a cigarette,” thought Pappy. “Demons, let go of my fingers!”

Since Pappy had his tobacco out on the park bench it was only a matter of minutes before a fellow misbegotten came toadying up to him , schlepping a bedroll and black garbage bag with recyclables. He didn’t say anything to Pappy, he just had a hangdog look and motioned like a cerebral palsy victim for Pappy to scoot over and let him roll, seeing how Pappy wasn’t getting the job done. With alacrity born of addiction the bearded scraggly-haired gray man rolled two cigarettes. As he finished these his request for a third for later was rebuffed. The matches glowed brightly as the daylight barely illuminated the fog between the trees. The two bums puffed without words, the hum of traffic on Fell and Oak filled the scene with the occasional car horn punctuation, and before long they heard a voice cursing and growling.

“Fucking bastards. Dogshit, all this crap!”

A shopping-cart-pushing wastrel appeared at the edge of the fog and a loud crash followed as a steel park garbage barrel was dumped to the ground. He scattered the contents of wrappers and plastic on the ground until he spotted a few beer cans which he picked up by fingers poking through tattered knit gloves. “How am I supposed to get to the recyclables when people cover ‘em with these bags of dogshit? I’d like to kill them goddamn Yuppie dog lovers!”

“Isis take it easy with that dog crap. You’re getting it all over the foot path and the grass ‘cause its coming out of the bags. You are really making a lot of fucking litter for everybody. Bad karma bro.” The ragged recycler had slung on his bed roll and continued off, schlepping his clattering bag after reprimanding the intruding homeless man.

“Fuck you. Hey fuck you. I’m gonna’ slice up some mutt right in front of a jogger pretty soon ‘cause I have crap all over my hands and I’m gonna’ spread that shit on their dead dog. You’re wrong about karma, man. Those suits and joggers are gonna get what comes around.”

With this outburst Pappy had risen from the bench and stepped a few feet toward the offender. He pulled a pistol out from under his shawl that covered the front of his distinctly drab army coat.

“Now let’s hear about you stabbing a dog. I hear that you hurt an animal in my park and I will use this next time. Isis, you are shit to begin with. The Buddha tells me that people gotta’ go or the animals will suffer. I am their redeemer made person. You just get down that trail with your cart.” And with this threat he let out a grizzly roar.

“Pappy, I didn’t hurt no pooch. I ain’t even got a knife, just this poker. I don’t care what you fucking say. This is the People’s Park. I saw Janis sing here, man. I got more right than you to go through this garbage can if I want. You better not show that gun to me again or I will have my ol’ lady tell the pigs you’re totin’ that.”

Pappy in fact didn’t want to shoot because he only had a few bullets. He’d gotten the gun from Maurice who then on the run, had to hitch north out Park Presidio Blvd. to dodge the SFPD. Maurice told him it would just be a couple weeks before he’d come back through on his way heading south. He’d never said it’d still have to have bullets. It had seemed like Providence which Pappy Raingauge Greenwater ‘s waking dreams had told him finally would come. For he was “The One”; he had a mighty destiny. He would use the piece to scare away these Napa refugees but he would never waste a bullet on one–especially that asshole, Isis.

“You been ‘Fifty-One Fiftied’ your last time if I catch you or hear of you cutting a dog or any of friends of St. Francis of Assisi. Naper, the jail, no place will save you, ‘cause I can go there too and kill you. Your old lady, yeah you probably straighten her out, heh, heh, stick her,” Pappy jested and thought of the Old English 800 pint she had swiped from him last month and of the two fresh cans waiting for him across Fell Street.

Isis turned away shaking his head and heaved his steel shopping cart toward Baker St. He made a point of not looking back at Pappy as though he was an already forgotten nuisance rather than a hair-trigger death threat.

The night was old and the moon was hidden and the leaves came tumblin’ down as Chuck Fenster, (his stage name) rolled out of the van. “Chuck Fenster and his Plumbers’ Hellers” read the logo on the rear panel of the van. A pipe wrench across a plunger, like crossed swords, was the design inside the logo. Had he known Max was going to need the van to drive back to Moira’s (his girlfriend) flat, he’d have dropped by home first for some blow and head. All the other girlfriends staying at the house were their groupies. Chuck wore a green backpack over his leather flight jacket, a purple bandanna over his hair and Doc Martin’s on his feet. Nobody would recognize him, even if there was anybody up at 5:45 AM, which there wasn’t. They’d think he was any other x-gener rather than his rock god self (or godhead toward which he ascended).

Aw well, he had a joint of top-end sens in his pocket and he’d toked a little rock after the Hotel Utah gig. He’d kicked ass at that show but it sure as hell didn’t pay the bills that were piling up for the new Graphic Equalizer and studio time. The band’s expenses were shared so he was always down to his last Ben Franklin every week, hence his goal to promote C.F.P.H. by postering so early in the morning. Helps if you don’t crash the night before too. Well, Max was going to have to go over the route again tonight with the other hundred flyers. And once they had the money from the Covered Wagon and DNA Lounge gigs, the band wouldn’t be hanging their own posters anymore.

“This is why this time is the right time!” Chuck grinned as he swung north to cover the poles in front of The Vis and crisscrossed the street to tape the poles all the way down to Fell St. Not having to dodge cars made it easy, and the poles’ over-stuffed Philly Blunt condition looked so defenseless at dawn. They were the prisoners waiting to be shot.

“The Nightbreak shit is getting covered! Look at those graphics—suck man. These flyers musta gone up last night. Whadda buncha assholes and weirdos.” Nightbreak featured Goth Rock and other cliché groups whom long ago Chuck had decided took themselves too seriously.

The traffic was moving on Fell but he was still able to get four corners at Broderick, at Oak too. He walked Fell’s south side all the way to Stanyan and then came down Oak’s north side to Masonic. The monotony of stapling telephone poles had used up the final vestiges of a buzz from his earlier crack high. In the center of the park he leaned against a cypress and refilled his Arrow T-50 staple gun with half inch leg staples. Taking the joint from his jacket pocket, he lit it, inhaling the smoke in long draws. Catching the buzz, he definitely did not feel like heading uphill to Haight Street, so he wandered east through the middle of the Panhandle watching the gray light begin to play on the trees, and sang out the words to his biggest hit the night before.
“I want you to love me. Oh yeah. I want you to kiss me. Oh yeah. Whoa baby, I’m so glad you’re mine.”

He ended this rendition with a wet smack like he always did while holding the plunger that covered his genitals and leaning over the stage like he was offering it to be pulled off. Only he was glad it didn’t come off as it was all he was dressed in besides his plumbers hat. The Plumbers’ Hellers all got to wear unzipped overalls but it was Chuck that drew the crowds with his naked antics and raunchy lyrics. You couldn’t say he was derivative or took himself overly serious. But they were gathering more fans and garnering more media exposure. He’d be a big star soon and then drop the nudist image.

He noticed some street people arguing and dragging their bags like they always did. He sat down on a green wooden park bench and checked his backpack with an air of diffidence to ward off any requests for spare change. Noticing some pigeons that were early risers going for the contents of a spilled garbage can, he lifted his staple gun like he was hunting and yelled “Bang!” The white plumed bird rose, then landed a bit farther to his left. Laughing he stood on the park bench and shot the staple gun at the flock of birds as fast as he could while imagining squeezing off a clip of an Uzi. They reacted individually by running out of range after a staple bounced off their folded wing. The remaining few were ravenous and unaware of Chuck’s threat. So enwrapped in his fantasy was he that the old homeless man walk up to him unnoticed.

“That’s enough!” shouted the grizzled bearded old coot.

The weed sharpened Chuck’s sense of smell so that he was doubly offended by the wino’s piss-sour smell as well as his affront. Immediately he noticed that the guy had his hand in his army coat. That didn’t make sense unless he was packing and Chuck’s pot-addled reasoning told him the hour was too early for violent urban dangers more characteristic of after-dark.

“Who do you think you are? You know who I am? Get the fuck away from me unless you’re gonna pull something?” Chuck shouted menacingly raising a boot to aim at Pappy’s head, an easy target from up on the bench.

“I am Shiva Incarnate and Protector of the Park’s People. You hurt my birds,” and with that Pappy brought out the pistol firing twice at near point blank range. The first shot went straight into Chuck’s groin which hit him like a ballbusting kick and he counter balanced by falling forward. Pappy’s second shot went into his left eye exiting out the back of his skull taking off the bandanna as well. He clanked to the asphalt path with his staple gun. He didn’t even groan but just lay quietly still.

Pappy picked up the green poster bag, checking it for money. The twenties in the front pocket nearly flew up like frightened pigeons from his shaking hands as he looked and rezipped it. Yanking out the forty lavender fliers, he spilled them over Chuck’s body, and then stuffed in the Glock 9 mm among the packs of staples and masking tape. He fled from the scene of Chuck covered in papers announcing his name, The Covered Wagon, and Dollar Beer Night.

It was sixteen ounce Old English beer that figured at the center of Pappy’s mental focus. He thought, “After I pick up those cans from under the stairs across Fell I’ll keep on heading toward Market. Crazy Mike will split a twenty for me to stay in his room at the Civic Center Hotel over the weekend. I gotta move fast or the pigs will catch me. Out of the Haight they won’t notice me. It’s a week before the end of the month so Crazy Mike will need the cash.

Buddha, is that you? Are you the devil?”

Pappy’s heart nearly stopped until he recognized that the eyes belonged to a brown cat sitting on top of a stack of recycling bins next to his stairs. This was another sign, a shriving from Saint Francis for shooting that punk. The beer was his sacred reward and he spilled a tiny libation, making an offering when he recovered it.