Six minutes
The street that I live on
Is at the top of a long steep hill, surrounded by redwoods and madrones, we live in a cul de sac with two other neighbor families, six dogs, a fig tree, some cats, blackberry and raspberry rows, my two brothers and another family of five and one of four. Yes, it’s a busy cul de sac especially when my parents entertain. They like to throw parties at the house on top of the hill, mom will make endless hors d’oevres while constantly sipping her stoli martini while dad stands on the deck, meaty hand wrapped around a rocks glass full of gin, telling stories and poking the coals of the BBQ. Sometimes cars would be lined out the driveway forcing people exit in reverse order in which they came, leaving hangers on like mr. McGill fumbling for his keys, three sheets to the wind but driving home in the days before MADD was a presence.
Three minutes
On the day I was born
It was raining cats and dogs. The electricity had gone out on Oak Knoll, the wind was screaming and branches were strewn across our empty road. Of course my dad was in an airplane flying from Palm Springs to San Francisco. Of course he quit sucking on his unfiltered camels today. Of course the little Cessna he was flying caught on fire. Of course Fresno would have to do. Of course there were no rental cars but a long distance trucker making his last stop before heading north. Of course my dad made it.
Fifteen minutes
Everyone knew him as
A tinkerer, a fiddler, a noodler, someone unable to keep his hands, feet or mind still. It’s chaotic controlled energy that possesses him and it’s the closest thing to electricity I have ever seen. Even asleep, which is only rumored, his eyelids flutter, his muscles twitch, and nonsense drifts from his mouth in incomplete sentences. He has a dog that is unlike him in every way, a big lazy st. Bernard named Benson that gets tired just watching the man. Some days are spent in the garage among the dozen or so half finished projects…the lawnmower/pruner hybrid, the three wheeled bike with built in GPS, the table with six legs. Its all part of the plan, he says. The garage is his sanctuary, the place to come and drink Pabst from the self made kegerator and smoke Marlboros while letting the wonder of his mind loose on the future. Picking up a wrench, dragging on his cig, and knocking out a beat on an empty 55 gallon barrel, the sound echoes around the shop without direction. He stops and goes to the table saw, looks at it disapprovingly and moves on. This is how the day goes, moving from one thing to another with no purpose and a complete lack of intensity. He picks up a guitar nestled in the middle of a stack of tires, plugs in the amp at his feet and rips off a few Jimmy Page power chords, feeling the sound reverberate through his body. Benson watches impassively. The cigarette gets snubbed out in a BigGulp, hissing violently before becoming history.
Seven minutes
At the red light
She shook with almost uncontrollable fury. Tears fought each other to be the first down her cheeks but the swipe of an angry hand erased any notion that he would get the satisfaction of seeing her cry. It was an ugly two minute fight, a Mike Tyson affair with a left cross followed by the right hook. He was sleeping with her and she caught them in her bed, with her sheets, and her pillows. He was on top of her when he said “ wait babe I can explain.” She had finally let herself go, let herself fall in love with him only to be trampled on once again. She thought about moving to Baghdad where the only thing that could hurt her was sniper fire and bombs.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Eleven minutes
Behind the cash register…
She sat timelessly, as worn out and tired as most of the items in this store that progress passed by. The shop sat on the edge of a two lane road one up from main street, which was only main because at one point a town existed here. With the railroad gone and tourists asking only for gas and directions, the dust in her shop never moved and the spiders in the corners were the most fascinating thing happening. She ate her sunflower seeds on a stool, with her feet in boots kicked up on the counter, and an open magazine in her lap. Rusty the dog was often taken for dead as little as he moved so she would spray his coat with the empty seeds she chewed. The sun was warm and reflected the webs in the windows and lit the filmy cans of spam on the first shelf. She had nothing to but get old and was making her sweet time. John Russell strolled in needing another tin, as regular as clockwork, John needed a new can every third day, making his way into town in a beat up Chevy always needing gas and belching out the back like a drunk redneck. He smiled, paid, tipped his ball cap and left. Two minutes of excitement and she had about worn herself out.
Fourteen minutes
It was a dark and stormy night…
When they finally had their shit together enough to pull out of the boat harbor. The sky had dropped over the mountains and settled onto the small town, closing down the lights and pushing everybody inside. It was supposed to be a fishing charter but Charley the cook knew better. He had tied down coolers, stuffed refrigerators, locked and stored the foc’s’le in preparation for a bumpy ride the next few hours. On board were friends, and friends of friends, some paying and some freebies, and the mood was light despite the foulness raising outside. Captain had his glasses up on his forehead, never a good sign, and was peeling out of his rain gear when the first wave came over the bow showering the wheelhouse in saltwater. Looks like a long night, he muttered, staring into the endless darkness. The lights in the salon were on and cards were already being dealt amidst beer bottles and rocks glasses, laughter echoing around the cozy windowed room. Peaceful inside, raging out, swells rocked the old boat port to starboard as we crossed one of the many fjords leading from this channel. We were heading to the southwest corner, near where the fleet had been a month or so ago, hoping to pick up where they left off and drag some fresh fish aboard to take home. Late September is late almost everywhere to be fishing, but the forecast promised better things to come as this low was pushing fast and hard and expected to pass by morning.
Ten minutes
Drinking my tea…
Is a ritual. A ritual performed over two weeks twice a year, otherwise I drink coffee. Tea is reserved for when I am fasting, it becomes my meals, my home away from home, my comfort zone and I line up multiple boxes on the counter (up to six or seven varieties, all decaffeinated) and abuse the same mug over and over again. I’m not a tea drinker for a number of reasons, but I think the biggest is that it is false advertising. That vanilla ginger chai that smells divine? Tastes nothing like it smells. A weakly flavored hot water with that distinct leafy grass smell, but I drink it while fasting because plain water is boring, caffeine (ergo, coffee) is off limits, as is booze and soda. When my dad shunned coffee due to his blood pressure, he switched to having a cup of hot water with his toast and sports page in the morning. I’m preparing myself then for the inevitability of quitting coffee when I’m older and rueing the day already. Tea just doesn’t have the body, the strength, the robust character coffee has. Tea is like the ninth batter in an American league lineup, the weakest of hitters, but required because the rules say you have to have nine.
Eight minutes
The greyhound station in Provo…
Is strewn with the bodies of people looking for the exit. Out of Provo, out of Utah and away from the suffocating oppression of Mormonism. I had stalled here on my way to Colorado for a summer of hitchhiking around the west. Being dropped off after an all night push through the desert by a young Mormon rebel who had driven out of the state to buy dope and beer, I found myself on an early Sunday morning high as a cloud in the sky with a nice buzz tagging along for good measure. The next bus away from here wasn’t for another three hours and it was going to Cheyenne. I hadn’t thought about Wyoming, or anything else for that matter lately, but it seemed as good a place as any to check out. I bought my ticket from an old white guy behind a plate glass window with a speaker hole. I slid my money into the slot and received change and a stub that would permit me to leave.
Behind the cash register…
She sat timelessly, as worn out and tired as most of the items in this store that progress passed by. The shop sat on the edge of a two lane road one up from main street, which was only main because at one point a town existed here. With the railroad gone and tourists asking only for gas and directions, the dust in her shop never moved and the spiders in the corners were the most fascinating thing happening. She ate her sunflower seeds on a stool, with her feet in boots kicked up on the counter, and an open magazine in her lap. Rusty the dog was often taken for dead as little as he moved so she would spray his coat with the empty seeds she chewed. The sun was warm and reflected the webs in the windows and lit the filmy cans of spam on the first shelf. She had nothing to but get old and was making her sweet time. John Russell strolled in needing another tin, as regular as clockwork, John needed a new can every third day, making his way into town in a beat up Chevy always needing gas and belching out the back like a drunk redneck. He smiled, paid, tipped his ball cap and left. Two minutes of excitement and she had about worn herself out.
Fourteen minutes
It was a dark and stormy night…
When they finally had their shit together enough to pull out of the boat harbor. The sky had dropped over the mountains and settled onto the small town, closing down the lights and pushing everybody inside. It was supposed to be a fishing charter but Charley the cook knew better. He had tied down coolers, stuffed refrigerators, locked and stored the foc’s’le in preparation for a bumpy ride the next few hours. On board were friends, and friends of friends, some paying and some freebies, and the mood was light despite the foulness raising outside. Captain had his glasses up on his forehead, never a good sign, and was peeling out of his rain gear when the first wave came over the bow showering the wheelhouse in saltwater. Looks like a long night, he muttered, staring into the endless darkness. The lights in the salon were on and cards were already being dealt amidst beer bottles and rocks glasses, laughter echoing around the cozy windowed room. Peaceful inside, raging out, swells rocked the old boat port to starboard as we crossed one of the many fjords leading from this channel. We were heading to the southwest corner, near where the fleet had been a month or so ago, hoping to pick up where they left off and drag some fresh fish aboard to take home. Late September is late almost everywhere to be fishing, but the forecast promised better things to come as this low was pushing fast and hard and expected to pass by morning.
Ten minutes
Drinking my tea…
Is a ritual. A ritual performed over two weeks twice a year, otherwise I drink coffee. Tea is reserved for when I am fasting, it becomes my meals, my home away from home, my comfort zone and I line up multiple boxes on the counter (up to six or seven varieties, all decaffeinated) and abuse the same mug over and over again. I’m not a tea drinker for a number of reasons, but I think the biggest is that it is false advertising. That vanilla ginger chai that smells divine? Tastes nothing like it smells. A weakly flavored hot water with that distinct leafy grass smell, but I drink it while fasting because plain water is boring, caffeine (ergo, coffee) is off limits, as is booze and soda. When my dad shunned coffee due to his blood pressure, he switched to having a cup of hot water with his toast and sports page in the morning. I’m preparing myself then for the inevitability of quitting coffee when I’m older and rueing the day already. Tea just doesn’t have the body, the strength, the robust character coffee has. Tea is like the ninth batter in an American league lineup, the weakest of hitters, but required because the rules say you have to have nine.
Eight minutes
The greyhound station in Provo…
Is strewn with the bodies of people looking for the exit. Out of Provo, out of Utah and away from the suffocating oppression of Mormonism. I had stalled here on my way to Colorado for a summer of hitchhiking around the west. Being dropped off after an all night push through the desert by a young Mormon rebel who had driven out of the state to buy dope and beer, I found myself on an early Sunday morning high as a cloud in the sky with a nice buzz tagging along for good measure. The next bus away from here wasn’t for another three hours and it was going to Cheyenne. I hadn’t thought about Wyoming, or anything else for that matter lately, but it seemed as good a place as any to check out. I bought my ticket from an old white guy behind a plate glass window with a speaker hole. I slid my money into the slot and received change and a stub that would permit me to leave.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
seven minutes
In the morning...
We had been up all night in the celebration of a friend's wedding in Pokhara, western Nepal, and were down by the lake in the calm stillness of dawn. Light was barely coming into the sky as cows drifted aimlessly by, wandering nowhere. We smoked cigarettes in the silence. Her eyes were alive with the buzzing energy of a hive on fire. Walking up the dirt path, past the barber chair where I had gotten a shave less than 24 hours ago, past the deep cavern of a well, and onto a side street of pastry shops and bakeries, smells began to overwhelm and assault us. The sweet, the acrid, pungent, and stale all began to rise up from the sleeping village and I grabbed her hand, tossed the cigarette under my boot and stopped to face her, saying 'Can you SMELL that?'
twelve minutes
The feel of the rain...
Standing on the bow of our 200foot research vessel, we had been at sea for 50 days looking for a needle in a field of haystacks. It was early morning, before the heat of the day washed over the ocean, when a light spritz came over the bow, not sea spray but tiny droplets from the only cloud in the sky. We were less than a mile from an uninhabited atoll in the middle of the south Pacific, but this little land mass was actually causing a lone cloud to tear up and rain. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back to the light brush strokes of mist caressing my face. It was like a feather on my cheeks, sensual and ticklish, reassuring and comfortable. I couldn't get enough of it, like a drug, I wanted more, and then it stopped. As fast as it appeared it blew away and disintegrated. The cloud was gone, fully given of all of its moisture only to be carried by the prevailing westerlies. And now the boat came alive with activity, shaking my reverie like a child's rattle, before I knew it that fine mist had evaporated on my face and now all I had was a memory, but I still couldn't move. I was captured by the atoll, my own cloud now history and the onrushing thought that I'd be walking on the broken coral of a far out island in no time.
Being too deep to anchor, the captain launched a skiff to take us into the breakers and up onto the extended reef where we could wade ashore. The water was equator warm and upon making it to shore, I shuffled my feet in the detritus of age-old bleached white coral, hearing the rattling of calcium dentrified bones over the wind.
five minutes
Tomorrow I will...
Tomorrow I will open the door on a new town in a new world with a new attitude. I will look the day in the eye and tell it to stand aside as I have things to do and people to see. I will wear a clean shirt, brush my teeth, run a brush through my hair. I will have coffee, filling my cup with confidence as well as caffeine. I will stride down the street with purpose, shoulders back, spine straight and may even try to put a smile on my face. I will have hope. I will survive. I will join society in a productive way.
But that's tomorrow. and the day after tomorrow. and the week after the day after tomorrow.
In the morning...
We had been up all night in the celebration of a friend's wedding in Pokhara, western Nepal, and were down by the lake in the calm stillness of dawn. Light was barely coming into the sky as cows drifted aimlessly by, wandering nowhere. We smoked cigarettes in the silence. Her eyes were alive with the buzzing energy of a hive on fire. Walking up the dirt path, past the barber chair where I had gotten a shave less than 24 hours ago, past the deep cavern of a well, and onto a side street of pastry shops and bakeries, smells began to overwhelm and assault us. The sweet, the acrid, pungent, and stale all began to rise up from the sleeping village and I grabbed her hand, tossed the cigarette under my boot and stopped to face her, saying 'Can you SMELL that?'
twelve minutes
The feel of the rain...
Standing on the bow of our 200foot research vessel, we had been at sea for 50 days looking for a needle in a field of haystacks. It was early morning, before the heat of the day washed over the ocean, when a light spritz came over the bow, not sea spray but tiny droplets from the only cloud in the sky. We were less than a mile from an uninhabited atoll in the middle of the south Pacific, but this little land mass was actually causing a lone cloud to tear up and rain. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back to the light brush strokes of mist caressing my face. It was like a feather on my cheeks, sensual and ticklish, reassuring and comfortable. I couldn't get enough of it, like a drug, I wanted more, and then it stopped. As fast as it appeared it blew away and disintegrated. The cloud was gone, fully given of all of its moisture only to be carried by the prevailing westerlies. And now the boat came alive with activity, shaking my reverie like a child's rattle, before I knew it that fine mist had evaporated on my face and now all I had was a memory, but I still couldn't move. I was captured by the atoll, my own cloud now history and the onrushing thought that I'd be walking on the broken coral of a far out island in no time.
Being too deep to anchor, the captain launched a skiff to take us into the breakers and up onto the extended reef where we could wade ashore. The water was equator warm and upon making it to shore, I shuffled my feet in the detritus of age-old bleached white coral, hearing the rattling of calcium dentrified bones over the wind.
five minutes
Tomorrow I will...
Tomorrow I will open the door on a new town in a new world with a new attitude. I will look the day in the eye and tell it to stand aside as I have things to do and people to see. I will wear a clean shirt, brush my teeth, run a brush through my hair. I will have coffee, filling my cup with confidence as well as caffeine. I will stride down the street with purpose, shoulders back, spine straight and may even try to put a smile on my face. I will have hope. I will survive. I will join society in a productive way.
But that's tomorrow. and the day after tomorrow. and the week after the day after tomorrow.
Monday, January 18, 2010
January 18,2010
The four seasons of Portland are like no other I’ve experienced. I love the Alaska seasons of “winter” and “not winter”, but when you have distinct breaks in the calendar that correspond directly to a myriad of opportunities, jobs, and things to do, it’s tough to get excited about “fishing” season and “hunting” season.
It’s still winter here although the so-called ‘cold snap’ ended a few weeks ago and we sit comfortably in the mid 40’s to mid 50’s. I’m still raking dead leaves, now turned nearly to mulch as the wind has blown so hard that the fences around town act as wind stops. Leaves are a funny thing here, not something I paid much attention to at home because when the leaves fell they were, in good time, buried by old man winter. Then come spring, they were a muddy mess along with the rest of the state.
Portland has a leaf problem. I’ll say it right now. No one cares about the leaves, and their problems getting to where they need to go. It is a green city in more ways than one with the abundance of trees littering the streets and the proliferation of live local bumper stickers now in vogue. I am finding that yard maintenance is not just gardening and watching things grow, but also seeing things die (and hopefully come back) and become hardened to the coming season. It’s also about keeping it free from the falling cherries in the summer, the broken cottonwood branches in the fall, the empty walnut husks and the pesky critters (ya you, raccoons and jays and squirrels!) who are constantly out looking to cause trouble.
We planted strawberries, radishes, kale, spinach, lettuce, garlic, chives as well as decorative bulbs and a whole new native grass lawn. Sunflowers, bamboo, a curly willow, a huckleberry or two also went in. Can you see any life now? Of course not, as death has overtaken the garden, but with another edition of raking today, I did see some new green shoots coming out of the previously leaf covered ground.
The leaves though seem to come out of nowhere, as just when I thought the last ones had fallen, more suddenly appeared while we were away and I cursed the damn trees for shedding AGAIN. They make the roads slick for bicycle tires, they clog drains, they make unruly mulch piles, they de nude the trees, and now the amorous squirrels high in the cherry tree have no cover for their lovemaking.
Yard work and leaf raking is like a second job for most (my only job) and I wondered about Alaska’s leaf population and knew that no one in their right mind has time for raking in the fall. Then the snow flies and the point is moot anyway.
I have loved the seasons so far but it is hard to keep up even if you are unemployed. I have seen firsthand on a near daily basis the transformation of our favorite park a few blocks away from this vivid imaginarium of color to the sodden worn down brown it now wears. I still like walking there because it is different every day and sometimes Abby plays good ball and other times she is distracted and out of sorts so I end up playing toss and fetch by myself. Rain or shine, cold or warm, I am rarely the only one there and with today’s break between lows coming in from the coast, there were kids playing basketball, guys tossing a Frisbee, and dogs with happy owners galore.
Just another day in the park.
The four seasons of Portland are like no other I’ve experienced. I love the Alaska seasons of “winter” and “not winter”, but when you have distinct breaks in the calendar that correspond directly to a myriad of opportunities, jobs, and things to do, it’s tough to get excited about “fishing” season and “hunting” season.
It’s still winter here although the so-called ‘cold snap’ ended a few weeks ago and we sit comfortably in the mid 40’s to mid 50’s. I’m still raking dead leaves, now turned nearly to mulch as the wind has blown so hard that the fences around town act as wind stops. Leaves are a funny thing here, not something I paid much attention to at home because when the leaves fell they were, in good time, buried by old man winter. Then come spring, they were a muddy mess along with the rest of the state.
Portland has a leaf problem. I’ll say it right now. No one cares about the leaves, and their problems getting to where they need to go. It is a green city in more ways than one with the abundance of trees littering the streets and the proliferation of live local bumper stickers now in vogue. I am finding that yard maintenance is not just gardening and watching things grow, but also seeing things die (and hopefully come back) and become hardened to the coming season. It’s also about keeping it free from the falling cherries in the summer, the broken cottonwood branches in the fall, the empty walnut husks and the pesky critters (ya you, raccoons and jays and squirrels!) who are constantly out looking to cause trouble.
We planted strawberries, radishes, kale, spinach, lettuce, garlic, chives as well as decorative bulbs and a whole new native grass lawn. Sunflowers, bamboo, a curly willow, a huckleberry or two also went in. Can you see any life now? Of course not, as death has overtaken the garden, but with another edition of raking today, I did see some new green shoots coming out of the previously leaf covered ground.
The leaves though seem to come out of nowhere, as just when I thought the last ones had fallen, more suddenly appeared while we were away and I cursed the damn trees for shedding AGAIN. They make the roads slick for bicycle tires, they clog drains, they make unruly mulch piles, they de nude the trees, and now the amorous squirrels high in the cherry tree have no cover for their lovemaking.
Yard work and leaf raking is like a second job for most (my only job) and I wondered about Alaska’s leaf population and knew that no one in their right mind has time for raking in the fall. Then the snow flies and the point is moot anyway.
I have loved the seasons so far but it is hard to keep up even if you are unemployed. I have seen firsthand on a near daily basis the transformation of our favorite park a few blocks away from this vivid imaginarium of color to the sodden worn down brown it now wears. I still like walking there because it is different every day and sometimes Abby plays good ball and other times she is distracted and out of sorts so I end up playing toss and fetch by myself. Rain or shine, cold or warm, I am rarely the only one there and with today’s break between lows coming in from the coast, there were kids playing basketball, guys tossing a Frisbee, and dogs with happy owners galore.
Just another day in the park.
Sunday mornings are made for guys like me. It's a leisurely morning spent in bed watching the rain mist down and catch on the bare branches outside. It's starting the coffee process by turning on the espresso machine (for sam) and cleaning yesterday's bialetti (for me). It's feeding the antsy hungry dog because it's past nine and her stomach alarm is ringing. It's turning the heat up and NOT stoking and/or building a fire. It's turning NPR on (hopefully before cartalk at 11). But most of all, it's our day to slow it all down and indulge in the laziness of being a couple without kids (for now :)) and only one job.
I like to take abby on a morning stroll to get the fat ad laden newspaper so that I can curl up on our broken "womb" chair, drink my baileys and coffee and peruse box scores, death, travel, comics, books and the opinion section. Some days I go just a few blocks to get the paper, and others, like today, I go seven or eight blocks through our sleepy neighborhood to Fremont Place. Whole Foods lives here, as does Daddy Mojo's bar, Blockbuster, Starbucks, Cafe Destino, the library, a pet store and a few other odds and ends.
I go this far for the measly newspaper to satisfy my curiosity, because there are two competing coffee houses virtually next door to one another and I like to see who is frequenting either and how crowded they are. Inevitably Starbucks is the more populated, though the Cafe Destino holds its own, and in a more creative assertive way. They were there long before the giant moved in next door, and might last the economic downturn, but who knows here in coffee heaven. Local art hangs from their walls, baristas dont wear name tags, music from across the spectrum plays, tables are mismatched with chairs and the menu is in chalk. It has character. It has charm. It has good coffee for god's sake.
Starbucks has name recognition. That's it as far as I can tell. It's a chain with zero personality and a universally recognized unaccomodating menu. It's green aprons and a UN of employees. It's a venti macchiatto in Portland, Brussels, London, Barcelona, Santiago, and Sydney. It's the sameness that appeals to the masses and repels me. I'm forced into Starbucks at certain airports and I curse the lines, the cattle mentality, and the overpriced crap that comes in my cup, because the one thing that I really don't like about Starbucks is the coffee. They make a terrible cup of mass produced stale coffee. It appeals to the same general populace that frequents Burger King, Carl's JR, and Jack in the Box. It's fast food for the caffeine crowd, but you know what? IT'S NOT CHEAP! Cheap coffee,yes, cheap financially, no.
As I walk by the Starbucks on Fremont, I see young people and old, hippies, yippies, yuppies and professionals all with one thing in common. Hypocracy. Because here in Portland I can almost guarantee each and everyone one of them will say that they are in favor of small business and against the corporate giants of the world, yet they continue to order their grande non fat soy vanilla lattes guilt free.
Portland has almost as many varieties of coffee roasters and houses as it does breweries, but in the name of competition, it's akin to baseball and the New York Yankees. They put an efficient bland corporate team on the field built to win The rest of the league is filled with misfits, cast offs and also rans, yet they all have personality, desire, and the motivation to win. I don't buy Starbucks coffee because I don't believe in it, but mostly because I think their coffee sucks. I don't like the Yankees because they are a well oiled corporate machine intent on winning at all costs and abusing the sanctity of the game. Starbucks is also an abuser of the caffeine addicted nation, preying on the weak minded and easily influenced. I will watch the Yankees in the World Series because I'm a baseball fan, and have no choice. I won't buy Starbucks on the street because I have a choice, and choose otherwise, but at the airports I have no choice and regret it every time.
I like to take abby on a morning stroll to get the fat ad laden newspaper so that I can curl up on our broken "womb" chair, drink my baileys and coffee and peruse box scores, death, travel, comics, books and the opinion section. Some days I go just a few blocks to get the paper, and others, like today, I go seven or eight blocks through our sleepy neighborhood to Fremont Place. Whole Foods lives here, as does Daddy Mojo's bar, Blockbuster, Starbucks, Cafe Destino, the library, a pet store and a few other odds and ends.
I go this far for the measly newspaper to satisfy my curiosity, because there are two competing coffee houses virtually next door to one another and I like to see who is frequenting either and how crowded they are. Inevitably Starbucks is the more populated, though the Cafe Destino holds its own, and in a more creative assertive way. They were there long before the giant moved in next door, and might last the economic downturn, but who knows here in coffee heaven. Local art hangs from their walls, baristas dont wear name tags, music from across the spectrum plays, tables are mismatched with chairs and the menu is in chalk. It has character. It has charm. It has good coffee for god's sake.
Starbucks has name recognition. That's it as far as I can tell. It's a chain with zero personality and a universally recognized unaccomodating menu. It's green aprons and a UN of employees. It's a venti macchiatto in Portland, Brussels, London, Barcelona, Santiago, and Sydney. It's the sameness that appeals to the masses and repels me. I'm forced into Starbucks at certain airports and I curse the lines, the cattle mentality, and the overpriced crap that comes in my cup, because the one thing that I really don't like about Starbucks is the coffee. They make a terrible cup of mass produced stale coffee. It appeals to the same general populace that frequents Burger King, Carl's JR, and Jack in the Box. It's fast food for the caffeine crowd, but you know what? IT'S NOT CHEAP! Cheap coffee,yes, cheap financially, no.
As I walk by the Starbucks on Fremont, I see young people and old, hippies, yippies, yuppies and professionals all with one thing in common. Hypocracy. Because here in Portland I can almost guarantee each and everyone one of them will say that they are in favor of small business and against the corporate giants of the world, yet they continue to order their grande non fat soy vanilla lattes guilt free.
Portland has almost as many varieties of coffee roasters and houses as it does breweries, but in the name of competition, it's akin to baseball and the New York Yankees. They put an efficient bland corporate team on the field built to win The rest of the league is filled with misfits, cast offs and also rans, yet they all have personality, desire, and the motivation to win. I don't buy Starbucks coffee because I don't believe in it, but mostly because I think their coffee sucks. I don't like the Yankees because they are a well oiled corporate machine intent on winning at all costs and abusing the sanctity of the game. Starbucks is also an abuser of the caffeine addicted nation, preying on the weak minded and easily influenced. I will watch the Yankees in the World Series because I'm a baseball fan, and have no choice. I won't buy Starbucks on the street because I have a choice, and choose otherwise, but at the airports I have no choice and regret it every time.
Friday, January 15, 2010
hello
hello
hello
is there anybody out there?
The prescient words of Pink Floyd echoed through my head today as i contemplated my head first dive into the practices and wierdness of chinese medicine years ago with my brother's partner. She began going to school for acupuncture, and chinese medicine thus relegating me and my brother (and most of her friends) to voluntary pincushions to which she could practice that ancient art of needles. She loved me as i was a walking contradiction to everything chinese medicine stands for, and hence, a perfect study group all by myself because I had ailments that could keep her busy forever. But because I always lived far away (alaska to oregon to hawaii), she never had much of a chance against my twenty year pains.
One thing I have learned about ancient medicines and practices is that they are based on repetition, routine, and diligence. And one thing my life has never had is those three things, but having moved to Portland six months ago, I have had a schedule, a routine and the diligence to see a practitioner regularly enough to develop not only a working relationship, but a degree of familiarity with the laundry list of herbs and teas I daily injest.
And so, today I went again for my monthly $100 acupuncture. Having been pricked and tweaked for nearly six months now, I have definitely curbed my fear of needles while also increasing my confidence in the healing benefits of chinese medicine. I, like most doubters of anything new and different, harbored large misgivings about these practices actually working. I have always relied on the western version of a medical band-aid, that ubiquitous small orange vial with the white screw/flip top lid, but I am now seeing the very bright light at the end of the long tunnel of pain I have been suffering through for much of the last few years.
Today I sat at Golden Needle, breathing deeply and concentrating on steadying my pulse. Tongue reading, pulse taking (not that pulse,but the under pulses of the various meridians traveling through my wrists), questions about diet, bowels, mucus, snot and various other bodily functions we generally only like to share with good friends and spouses, are all part of the process. I laid down and prepared myself for the the inevitable. Dr. Xin is a small chinese man who takes great pleasure in tweaking these nerves so much so that i involuntarily twitch and gasp, then he apologizes with a sly grin and dials back the 'amperage'. After getting two needles in my feet, two on my calves, two in my knees, four in my hands, two in my forearms as well as two more in my elbow, I was ready to 'relax', as he calls it.
Sometimes I can feel the points connect, like a dot to dot representation of my energy meridians, and other times I only feel a slight electric impulse throbbing in specific areas. Today it all came together and I closed my eyes to focus on this amazing circuitry as Dr. Xin left the room to leave me to listen to some guy in a monastery pick at a zither. Not very comforting, I can tell you right now.
The warmth of the heat lamp sent me sliding down the banks of tiredness and before long I was only holding onto consciousness by a thread. But that is the best thing about acupuncture when it is done right, it pushes the outside world far away and the body rushes forward front and center. "My hand felt just like two balloons", both leaden and airy, resting on my hips with needles twitching above. My feet had warmth coursing through my toes while moving just the slightest bit caused a gasping as the energy became re-focused somewhere else. It's a complete body experience, akin to getting a therapeutic massage in that it's both incredibly beneficial and relaxing at the same time.
The good doctor returns every fifteen minutes or so to tweak, smile, and check to see if I've lost consciousness yet. And then, just like that it's over and he sends me out the door with a buzz and a plastic container full of ancient remedy that I'm to drink twice a day for the next month.
There is a reason chinese medicine has been around for centuries and that's
because it is not an overnight cure but a long road to recovery, which is also part of the reason it is having a hard time gaining a foothold in this fixmefeedmetextmeinformme NOW world of insta-gratification. It doesn't come in a tidy little package or prescribed with dreary ordinariness because every person is different and every treatment is therefore different.
Good things come to those who wait...probably confucious with a back problem.
hello
hello
is there anybody out there?
The prescient words of Pink Floyd echoed through my head today as i contemplated my head first dive into the practices and wierdness of chinese medicine years ago with my brother's partner. She began going to school for acupuncture, and chinese medicine thus relegating me and my brother (and most of her friends) to voluntary pincushions to which she could practice that ancient art of needles. She loved me as i was a walking contradiction to everything chinese medicine stands for, and hence, a perfect study group all by myself because I had ailments that could keep her busy forever. But because I always lived far away (alaska to oregon to hawaii), she never had much of a chance against my twenty year pains.
One thing I have learned about ancient medicines and practices is that they are based on repetition, routine, and diligence. And one thing my life has never had is those three things, but having moved to Portland six months ago, I have had a schedule, a routine and the diligence to see a practitioner regularly enough to develop not only a working relationship, but a degree of familiarity with the laundry list of herbs and teas I daily injest.
And so, today I went again for my monthly $100 acupuncture. Having been pricked and tweaked for nearly six months now, I have definitely curbed my fear of needles while also increasing my confidence in the healing benefits of chinese medicine. I, like most doubters of anything new and different, harbored large misgivings about these practices actually working. I have always relied on the western version of a medical band-aid, that ubiquitous small orange vial with the white screw/flip top lid, but I am now seeing the very bright light at the end of the long tunnel of pain I have been suffering through for much of the last few years.
Today I sat at Golden Needle, breathing deeply and concentrating on steadying my pulse. Tongue reading, pulse taking (not that pulse,but the under pulses of the various meridians traveling through my wrists), questions about diet, bowels, mucus, snot and various other bodily functions we generally only like to share with good friends and spouses, are all part of the process. I laid down and prepared myself for the the inevitable. Dr. Xin is a small chinese man who takes great pleasure in tweaking these nerves so much so that i involuntarily twitch and gasp, then he apologizes with a sly grin and dials back the 'amperage'. After getting two needles in my feet, two on my calves, two in my knees, four in my hands, two in my forearms as well as two more in my elbow, I was ready to 'relax', as he calls it.
Sometimes I can feel the points connect, like a dot to dot representation of my energy meridians, and other times I only feel a slight electric impulse throbbing in specific areas. Today it all came together and I closed my eyes to focus on this amazing circuitry as Dr. Xin left the room to leave me to listen to some guy in a monastery pick at a zither. Not very comforting, I can tell you right now.
The warmth of the heat lamp sent me sliding down the banks of tiredness and before long I was only holding onto consciousness by a thread. But that is the best thing about acupuncture when it is done right, it pushes the outside world far away and the body rushes forward front and center. "My hand felt just like two balloons", both leaden and airy, resting on my hips with needles twitching above. My feet had warmth coursing through my toes while moving just the slightest bit caused a gasping as the energy became re-focused somewhere else. It's a complete body experience, akin to getting a therapeutic massage in that it's both incredibly beneficial and relaxing at the same time.
The good doctor returns every fifteen minutes or so to tweak, smile, and check to see if I've lost consciousness yet. And then, just like that it's over and he sends me out the door with a buzz and a plastic container full of ancient remedy that I'm to drink twice a day for the next month.
There is a reason chinese medicine has been around for centuries and that's
because it is not an overnight cure but a long road to recovery, which is also part of the reason it is having a hard time gaining a foothold in this fixmefeedmetextmeinformme NOW world of insta-gratification. It doesn't come in a tidy little package or prescribed with dreary ordinariness because every person is different and every treatment is therefore different.
Good things come to those who wait...probably confucious with a back problem.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Seven minutes
Lying on the floor…
The overhead fan whirred lopsidedly, pushing the dense heat around the broken room. I was on my back, sweat pouring off my face and dripping down my armpits, my nakedness a result of being ambushed by her husband. My head felt two sizes too big for my shoulders, my legs were trees just felled and my eyes were almost swollen shut. Not a good way to start a vacation I thought. But who has ever been accuse of thinking smartly at three a.m. with a half gallon of tequila swimming around in one’s belly. She took me to her place, again a bad idea, whispering in my ear that sweet sugary Mexican breath running shivers down my sweaty neck. I had no choice but to get in the cab, I had no idea where I was (bad idea number two) who I was with (number three), or where I was going (number four). So, here I am bloodied, broken, alone, naked, and probably poorer for the occasion, but damn, was that fun.
Eleven minutes
On the bridge…
Over the river, moving north, was a stream of red lights, like salmon swimming upstream, cars barely moved, being bottlenecked at the off ramp into two lanes. And like salmon, there was much jostling and jockeying for better position, the occasional bump to bumper and the irrepressible and constant bleating of the horn. Mr. Dunleavy sat in his Camry five days a week, every week making this migration to his home an hour away where he would greet his wife and two kids, sit down to dinner, watch the news and sportscenter, and then turn in. Monday through Friday fifty two weeks a year this was his role, the hand he had been dealt. To combat the boredom and monotony of his routine he had his pills (valium, oxycontin, percocet, xanax) and his booze. Knowing the length of commute (one and a half hours) and the speed (negligible at best), he was ble to compute how much ice he would need to keep his vodka chilled all the way home. About a third of the way, on the bridge usually, he would pop a pill so that by the time he was kissing Mrs. Dunleavy in the kitchen, the edge would be worn smooth and he would be able to slide easily into his loving father doting husband role. Another two or three drinks, nothing substantial mind you, he would be floating on air and ready to melt into the nearest easy chair. Reading to the kids was as meditative to him as it was to them and he often fell asleep with his back against the wall, glasses atilt on his face, book open in his lap, and the kids warning mom that she had better come rescue dad.
Nine minutes
Valentine’s day in Juarez…
Is a cultural mixed blessing as gringos mingle with chiquitas and vaqueros carouse with American teenagers that spill across the border. There are roses, candy, champagne, flowers and all the fluff of America but in this border town there are also pimps, pinups, drug dealers and the side winders of the underground where anything goes and often does. Happy couples stroll the plaza while beefed up boys in wife beaters and bling rattling their hairless chests thump low riders in the streets. Junkies in the alleys fleece strangers venturing too deep and up on the second floor of the hotel a white man proposes to his Spanish chica over white wine and room service. Fireworks go off somewhere illuminating the square and focusing attention on the dark sky above. It is a celebration of sorts but the pimp in the dressed down Cadillac wishes it would all be over so he could get back to running his profitable business as Saint Valentine has never been particularly good to him.
Fifteen minutes
On standby to Paris…
I wandered the concourse of JFK, not knowing anything about this airport and getting ready to idle away two hours until my potential plane left for de Gaulle. I figured the best place to start was an overpriced bar where I could acclimate myself to the absurd prices I would encounter overseas. It was like slowly ascending a high mountain, the oxygen deprivation effects not as sever the longer it takes you to get to the summit. I had come from the northwest, via Chicago and now New York and in three airports cocktail prices had risen accordingly and I wasn’t in shock anymore. Next to me was a woman knee deep in the Sunday Times puzzle, frazzled hair drifting every which way including her eyes, while her vodka martini sweated its way onto a napkin. I ordered a Bombay martini, dry, and found the price so severe I only chuckled as the bartender handed me a few ones and some paltry change in return for a twenty. Get used to it, I thought, wondering if I had enough money to last the month I had planned. If it wasn’t, then I could always quit drinking…or sleep outside the Louvre. The eyes of patrons in airports are drawn to one of three places; their reading material, the sports on TV, of to the people coming and going just outside the door. It’s like peering at a busy sidewalk from a barber’s chair, an impartial observer watching the comings and goings of a society on the move. I liked watching people from this vantage with only a distant time frame tethering me to the ground. Couples, businessmen, mothers with kids, kids on leashes, mothers without kids, teenagers with pillows and headphones, they all walked by returning to someone or leaving somebody else.
Lying on the floor…
The overhead fan whirred lopsidedly, pushing the dense heat around the broken room. I was on my back, sweat pouring off my face and dripping down my armpits, my nakedness a result of being ambushed by her husband. My head felt two sizes too big for my shoulders, my legs were trees just felled and my eyes were almost swollen shut. Not a good way to start a vacation I thought. But who has ever been accuse of thinking smartly at three a.m. with a half gallon of tequila swimming around in one’s belly. She took me to her place, again a bad idea, whispering in my ear that sweet sugary Mexican breath running shivers down my sweaty neck. I had no choice but to get in the cab, I had no idea where I was (bad idea number two) who I was with (number three), or where I was going (number four). So, here I am bloodied, broken, alone, naked, and probably poorer for the occasion, but damn, was that fun.
Eleven minutes
On the bridge…
Over the river, moving north, was a stream of red lights, like salmon swimming upstream, cars barely moved, being bottlenecked at the off ramp into two lanes. And like salmon, there was much jostling and jockeying for better position, the occasional bump to bumper and the irrepressible and constant bleating of the horn. Mr. Dunleavy sat in his Camry five days a week, every week making this migration to his home an hour away where he would greet his wife and two kids, sit down to dinner, watch the news and sportscenter, and then turn in. Monday through Friday fifty two weeks a year this was his role, the hand he had been dealt. To combat the boredom and monotony of his routine he had his pills (valium, oxycontin, percocet, xanax) and his booze. Knowing the length of commute (one and a half hours) and the speed (negligible at best), he was ble to compute how much ice he would need to keep his vodka chilled all the way home. About a third of the way, on the bridge usually, he would pop a pill so that by the time he was kissing Mrs. Dunleavy in the kitchen, the edge would be worn smooth and he would be able to slide easily into his loving father doting husband role. Another two or three drinks, nothing substantial mind you, he would be floating on air and ready to melt into the nearest easy chair. Reading to the kids was as meditative to him as it was to them and he often fell asleep with his back against the wall, glasses atilt on his face, book open in his lap, and the kids warning mom that she had better come rescue dad.
Nine minutes
Valentine’s day in Juarez…
Is a cultural mixed blessing as gringos mingle with chiquitas and vaqueros carouse with American teenagers that spill across the border. There are roses, candy, champagne, flowers and all the fluff of America but in this border town there are also pimps, pinups, drug dealers and the side winders of the underground where anything goes and often does. Happy couples stroll the plaza while beefed up boys in wife beaters and bling rattling their hairless chests thump low riders in the streets. Junkies in the alleys fleece strangers venturing too deep and up on the second floor of the hotel a white man proposes to his Spanish chica over white wine and room service. Fireworks go off somewhere illuminating the square and focusing attention on the dark sky above. It is a celebration of sorts but the pimp in the dressed down Cadillac wishes it would all be over so he could get back to running his profitable business as Saint Valentine has never been particularly good to him.
Fifteen minutes
On standby to Paris…
I wandered the concourse of JFK, not knowing anything about this airport and getting ready to idle away two hours until my potential plane left for de Gaulle. I figured the best place to start was an overpriced bar where I could acclimate myself to the absurd prices I would encounter overseas. It was like slowly ascending a high mountain, the oxygen deprivation effects not as sever the longer it takes you to get to the summit. I had come from the northwest, via Chicago and now New York and in three airports cocktail prices had risen accordingly and I wasn’t in shock anymore. Next to me was a woman knee deep in the Sunday Times puzzle, frazzled hair drifting every which way including her eyes, while her vodka martini sweated its way onto a napkin. I ordered a Bombay martini, dry, and found the price so severe I only chuckled as the bartender handed me a few ones and some paltry change in return for a twenty. Get used to it, I thought, wondering if I had enough money to last the month I had planned. If it wasn’t, then I could always quit drinking…or sleep outside the Louvre. The eyes of patrons in airports are drawn to one of three places; their reading material, the sports on TV, of to the people coming and going just outside the door. It’s like peering at a busy sidewalk from a barber’s chair, an impartial observer watching the comings and goings of a society on the move. I liked watching people from this vantage with only a distant time frame tethering me to the ground. Couples, businessmen, mothers with kids, kids on leashes, mothers without kids, teenagers with pillows and headphones, they all walked by returning to someone or leaving somebody else.
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