This is it!

Not quite 5 months ago I had a daunting dream of Kali and her minions taking me apart and putting me back together. I wrote about it here.

I've been living with that dream and with that image ever since... Really... I've been living with Kali since I first met her in Calcutta as she was climbing through my bedroom window on a dark night of the soul in 1985.

It all comes down to one thing... As Joseph Campbell once put it rather succinctly, "There must be Destuction before there is Creation."

I've been destroying some or all of my life for the better part of the last 20 years.

The most pressing fact for me, with regard to the economic catastrophe that we are presently living in, is an awakening to the reality that often I have been consistently engaged in activities and enterprises that I not only don't find fulfilling, they also don't support me in the way I am hoping and expecting them to. Too often they have been activities and circumstances that have stolen the joy from my life, my time with my children and family, and any sense of heart I struggle to maintain despite the ugly, sad, frustrating mess that so often passes for every day life.

What I know now is that it absolutely must stop!

I keep trying to figure out how to save my present circumstances without undergoing the destruction that is of necessity that precursor of rebuilding.

Yesterday I applied for a job here in Petaluma that could possibly be the "job I was created for." I have another job that I've been waiting to hear about, a job that harkens back to my spiritual and political roots; both are the kind of thing that I would LOVE doing, but who knows whether those who make such decisions will see things in that way.

What Kali says is that it all must go into the fire. If I've learned anything in my life as a temporal lobe epileptic religious freak with desperate entrepeneurial socialistic tendencies, it's that Easter Sunday can't come until you suffer through Good Friday.

The last five years have been a very excellent example of a LONG Good Friday; a friday that I have exposed and expressed on these posts (along with no small amount of good times as well, I really must add).

In any case... it feels like it's time to move on. Move on to what is not as clear as I would like it to be at the moment, but moving on into the dark will have to be my present mode.

So this is the last post at Quicksilver Amusements... As for what I said yesterday, I can't decide if I'll keep up on the other blogs or not. The simple fact is that what comes up on the other side of the hill is anybody's guess. All I really know is that I will never find true baptism and rebirth if I don't stop treading water.

Time to kill things off.

Nothing to see here... please move along.

Looking For The Next Best Thing

I began blogging 4 years and eight months ago on July 29, 2005 just before I made the strange and fateful decision to move to New Orleans after nearly 30 years in the Bay Area, and three weeks before Katrina.

With my engagement with Katrina (and a few other storms) that blog, which was intended as a sort of exploration of my new life, became a two year long exploration of what it was like to live in the aftermath of catastrophe (physical, emotional, and relational) in the new world order of George Dubya Bush's Amerikkka. I also stated a couple of other sort of specialty blogs for the purpose of branching out with the things I had to say: Butting Heads for long form, usually contentious, rants. George Washington's Cousin for political and religious pontification.

After two years of writing at SpeakLo I closed out that blog and began Quicksilver Amusements (by the way... some of those first pieces at QA are really good, and you should go read them, or even read them again.

It's now been two and a half years since I started this blog and lately (as most of you have noticed and noted) I seem to have lost momentum. With SpeakLo I had a drive that developed of its own accord and gave me something to relate to. In the early days of QA, I had new life and love to write about and I was experiencing things with whole new vibrant eyes; a way of seeing that I had not experienced for quite some time. Now, I simply find it difficult to grab hold of something in the general sphere of things to snag my hand on and wrestle with til dawn. It seems that when I do find those things, I have reason to put them in other places, instead of putting them here. I've even re-started SpeakLo with some pieces on sound and music that interest me and that seem to be appropriately in residence at that location instead of here.

So I've decided to start again... again.

For the next few months I'll be winding down this blog and winding up on some other formats, with the intention of making a full out relaunch in some completely new format on the fifth anniversary of my original blog. I haven't exactly figured out how I'm going to do it, or what I'm going to focus on, but I expect it to have a certain level of continuity that these other blogs have not had for quite some time.

In particular, I'm going to be writing on "spiritual matters" at the Bleeding Daylight, political thoughts and pontfications at Washington's Cousin and business, aesthetic, and practical concerns back at the renewed SpeakLo. Between now and summertime, I hope to find a voice and a process that can bring a bit more cohesion to these ramblings, but considering the fact that I have spent the better part of 55 years trying to accomplish something along those lines would indicate that I may be reaching for something that is truly beyond my grasp... We'll see.

I'll keep you posted here, on facebook and on Twitter and I hope you'll either contact me there, or leave comments here (and at the other blogs) to perhaps help guide my direction as I struggle to find the voice that speaks what I really want to communicate from my soul.

Meet Me In The Land Of Hope and Dreams

It's been almost a month since I promised to write more about my feelings regarding the Super Bowl win by the New Orleans Saints, as well as other things that might come to the forefront of my mind but for some reason this has not been a good time for me in the writing department.

That being said... Let's start with the topic du jour and go from there.

First of all... I do not consider myself a sports fan, though perhaps what I should really say is that I have never BEFORE considered myself a sports fan, or perhaps to get even more accurate, that BEFORE 2007 I never considerred myself a sports fan, but that's nopt really true either, because? I have had my moments:

1) When my daughter was playing soccer for Lincoln High School in San Francisco.

2) During the 1998 World Cup matches that I watched with my limey surfer friend at San Francisco's wonderful (and now defunct) Twenty Tank Brewpub on 11th Street South of Market.

3) One or two times during the 49ers 1980s dynasty era when it was impossible to live in San Francisco and NOT be a fan. If for no other reason than to take my daughter down to Market Street for the post-Super Bowl victory parade.

4) When I was a kid in Florida and the then Milwaukee Braves came to West Palm Beach for spring training and my Baptist church had a "father and son dinner" with the team (I even had a baseball signed by a dozen members of that team, including Hank Aaron but it has somehow vanished from my life).

5) A little over two years ago when I fell in love with a baseball fan and the baseball team she loves, in the very same amazing moment.

6) When I first moved to New Orleans before Katrina and discovered in the Saints, a different kind of team and a different kind fan; a centralized Cathedral to Sport in the Superdome where people who don't even have tickets to the game gather around on the city streets surrounding the giant flying saucer of a building and tailgate and celebrate like people only do in The Big Easy. A team that people of all social classes and undivided by race (for a change) rooted for despite a long history of failure... A history so long that there are ubiquitous jokes and legends about all the things people will do when the Saints finally win the Super Bowl (and back last month many of those legends were played out). My initial attraction to the Saints (and to american football in general ) took me by surprise as I was captured by the spirit of Da Saints the same way I was captured by the bayou air that sticks to your skin the instant you set foot in The Crescent.

What I have come to learn, through all of these experiences (though especially #5 and #6) is that sports - perhaps more than anything else (with the possible exception of music) - has an almost magical quality that can bring people together, give them a way to rise above other differences (political, cultural, racial), find a common joy and live, if only for a few moments, as if the differences that stand between them are unimportant, and even unnecessary.

This experience was reinforced AFTER The Thing (as NOLA columnist Chris Rose always refers to Katrina) when the rebirth of the football team (and their famously devastated stadium) began to come back, first in fits and starts and then roaring like The City of New Orleans itself.

New Orleans has long been known as a place (like California in the West, or even the U.S.A. - both the country and the concept - itself) where people could imagine, build, expand and create whatever their hearts and minds believed in. It's this image that captured my own imagination when I decided in 2005 to pull up nearly 30 years of stakes in California and move to The Land of Dreams. The effects of Katrina (and the abysmal federal failure, first of the infrastructure, and then of support and follow-through, both of which are better detailed elsewhere) have gone a long way to discourage that image (for myself as well as others), but there is an unrelenting comeback spirit that resides in the soul of New Orleanians; a spirit which, like the food and the music and the people in general, is magical and compelling.

It is that spirit that was so remarkably in evidence as the Saints steadily advanced their game through the season, into the playoffs, and ultimately to the Super Bowl. In the midst of it all, and even on the day of the game, there were (and are) plenty of naysayers, plenty of folks who just don't get it... Don't get any of it. People who still echo Dennis Hastert's idiotic remark about not rebuilding New Orleans. I had to listen to one of those boneheads spout off during the Super Bowl, but unlike time's past, I held myself in check. I've finally come to accept that those folks are going to be around and I will have to leave them to their benighted and unfortunate POV. Their perspective no longer matters to me, because there are a lot more people cheering for the city's comeback, just like they cheered for the Saints. There are far more people seeking ways to make that comeback happen than there are people who wander around with their heads permanently inserted into unfortunate orifices.

New Orleans has proven that it's coming back.

The Saints - with their crazy, funky game plan and unconventional style - showed how it's being done.

To top it all off, on the day before the big victory, in an unprecedented election, 66% of New Orleans voters elected Mitch Landrieu (the candidate I campaigned for in the election immediately after Katrina) mayor, ushering in a whole new era of hopeful cooperation in a post-storm era. Mitch's campaign slogan for this election was one team, one fight, one voice, one city and it is that spirit of unity and triumph that keeps me hoping and cheering for this city that I came to love as my own.

There are still HUGE problems. There is still MUCH lack. It's possible to be in New Orleans and completely miss the fact that the city was almost completely destroyed. It's also possible to be in New Orleans and have no clue that anything has come back... But it has, and it is. With the Saints pointing the way, and its musical/celebrational culture kicking out the jams, The City of New Orleans is rumbling down the track again... into a new Land of HOPE... and Dreams.

I'm going out and buying myself a ticket for the ride! Wanna come along?

Who Dat!?!?

Super Saints!

Happy New Year!

Okay... I'm a little late with that, but it's taken me the better part of the month back to get my brain around the rest and relaxation I experienced from yet another one of KLL's suggestions that we get the hell outta Dodge for a while.

Zebras - or more specifically, a burro (or burra) made to look like a zebra - figured prominently in the first day of a trip we took to Baja as a way to put the year behind and hopefully set the year off right, by planting our feet on the beach. We stopped in Tijuana for lunch on the next to the last day of the year and felt compelled to take the obligatory Tijuana tourist shot. My favorite part of this experience occurred just after we had our picture taken and we were waiting to get the print. A guy came up to the zebra proprietor and asked "¿Burro o burra?" The proprieter snapped back instantly, "¡Zebra!" It was like one of those old sayings from my childhood... "Go away kid... ya bother me!"

I found my way... more or less... through the chaos of downtown Tijuana and out onto a beautiful beachfront highway that runs the half hour ride from Tijuana to Rosarito Beach and beyond, and our time over the last day and a half of 2009 was taken up with walks on the beach, newly discovered friendships, good beer and great tequila, the BEST fish tacos on earth and a family style New Year's celebration that was the perfect way to roll into 2010. This was followed, on the first morning of the new year, by a horseback ride on the beach. Though "riding" would be stretching the point as we had no idea what we were doing and the horses themselves were more aptly described as plodding... but it was still 20 degrees warmer than the Bay Area, the sun was shining and we were surveying the beautiful Pacific from the backs of horses. Do I really need to say more?

Saturday brought a series of great finds in the form of a road trip to Baja wine country. Tres Valles (where we met our new friends on the left) was a delightful place with rustic art fabrications of giant insects, a beautifully designed winery and tasting room, and the winemaker/owner and his son pouring some fabulous wines (Grenache, Petite Sirah, and Merlot/Cab specifically), and we almost missed it. Situated at the end of a rocky dead end that makes the roads of New Orleans and Petaluma seem positively smooth by comparison, the winery was only open for tasting beginning that very day. We spent a good hour there talking about wine making in Mexico, and wine importing to the U.S. and trading a few jokes here and there with the owner's amusing and engaging kid.

Admittedly, this is not the kind of trip to Baja most people make, but it suited us just fine. When we ended the day at the tiny Tres Mujeres winery (so named because it is owned and operated by three women winemakers... something I haven't even seen in California), tasting in a tiny little rock covered tasting room/storage area filled with ceramics and wine, it simply added to the feeling of comfort and hominess that had characterized the entire trip.

Concluding the day with venison and lobster in a cozy restaurant surrounded by cactus and mesquite and beautiful fireplaces, entertained by a roving collection of musicians and partying with some of our newfound Rosarito friends at their wine shop and art gallery afterward was the perfect ending of a perfect time. Of course, coming home was the typical day of confusion. From an abysmal attempt to locate a "fast track" across the border in Tijuana, to nearly losing half our rare and wonderful wine purchases due to our complete lack of attention to TSA regulative details (we were RELAXED... what else can I say?), Sunday was an experiment in maintaining South of the Border equilibrium upon reentry into the land of hustle and bustle. But we pulled it off with only a small stumble here and there; a tribute to how restful our year end holiday had really been.

Until we get back there, which I truly hope will be soon, I plan on exploring the possibilities that the trip opened up to me. This area of Baja is definitely a place where I want to spend more time: learning the area, meeting the people, and expanding my extremely limited ability to communicate en espanol... and next time... actually getting into the surf!

Now... it's on to finding my way through this new year, or at least the first months. I'm still not quit up to major forward planning, resolutions, goal setting, etc. but I'm workin' on it.

Thanks to everyone one who has supported, helped, chastised, and laughed with me this last year. Old friends - and no small number of new friends - are what I most appreciate about what was otherwise a rather difficult year (to say the least) in 2009. Despite all the difficulties we have all experienced, it's been a good time and I'm grateful for your presence. Here's to better days ahead.

WHODAT!?

It is not healthy to sustain the kind of animosity for another person (no matter how horrible that person's words and actions might be) that I expressed in a previous post. Sooner or later, one must get on with life, get on with love and get on with the party!

I was assisted in this over the weekend by the NFC Championship game (and I am by no means your standard - or even your rainy day - football fan) on Sunday when the only team I have ever seriously rooted for came Marching out of the SuperDome, victors in a difficult game and headed to the Super Bowl for the first time in history.

This link came in from my favorite NOLA website Humid Beings this morning... It's a terrific little video look at the way New Orleans takes on a Championship, even before the game.

My favorite parts are the adoption of the Mardi Gras Indian chant, "Let's Go Get Em!" and the Saints Superfan shaking hands with the Vikings fan in the Quarter. The spirit that I have always known New Orleans to have, that spirit that existed before "The Thing," but which seemed to get lost in a morass of chaos and depression, is being revived by this year's incredible Saints season. It's hard for someone who doesn't know and love New Orleans to even comprehend this struggle and this shift but another video that came down the interwebs the other day expresses a small part of why this is.

Right now... and for the next 10 days... all I've really got to say is WHO DAT!?!?

The Mountain and The Mole Hill

I had a rough day yesterday. Several things that I had been counting on simply slipped through my fingers and I was left about mid-afternoon with a feeling of failure and frustration that I have not felt in quite some time.

All the regular questions came to the front of mind, clamoring for attention, begging to be given favor, looking to be nursed and coddled and fed in that way we all feed the sad, frustrating, stupid things that make feeling sad and depressed at least somewhat tolerable and relatively comforting.

Fortunately, I found the wherewithal to lift myself out of this perilous funk (something that I didn't used to be particularly good at) and move into the evening (with a rehearsal for our final performance of A Christmas Memory). I got to bed relatively early and I got the first really good night's sleep I'd had in weeks.

I woke up with a head that was full of new ideas (and old ideas with new clothes on them) and Billy Idol on the iTunes to set me dancing around the room.

For some reason I got this Bible story in my head and couldn't let it go (that's the trouble with Bible stories doncha know?)

It comes from Matthew 17 and takes place right after the disciples had received a vision of Jesus standing on the mountain and chatting with Moses and Elijah. Peter had wanted to build some buildings and stay up[ on that mountain forever, but God had others ideas, basically telling Peter to chill out, shut up and open his ears. "This is my beloved Son... Listen to him!"

So... a bit later, as they were coing back down to earth, they were confronted by a man who had a problem with his son. The disciples tried to help, but couldn't so the man - like any father would do - said, "Okay hold it... let me talk to the boss."

Matthew 17:

14 When they came to the crowd, a man came up to Jesus, falling on his knees before Him and saying,

15"Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a (N)lunatic and is very ill; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.

16"I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him."

17And Jesus answered and said, "You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me."

18And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured at once.

19Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not drive it out?"

20And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

I think that the reason this story came to mind this morning is because it holds for me a bit of information about how to look on days when things don't go right, and periods when nothing seems to work out.

For the longest time I struggled with what these miracles (things like moving a mountain) might mean for an ordinary person like myself. Then it hit me that it's possible to accept what Jesus says here, absolutely at face value. The simple fact of life is that you really can do anything if you believe. Jesus doesn't say if you believe A LOT... he says if you believe like a mustard seed. Can you envision what it is you want? Can you see who you are at the end of the road? Can you hold your task, whether it's taking care of a sick child or moving a mountain (as they are presently doing right now down the road from me in order to build a subdivision), with such clarity of vision that it can't help but come true?

That's what I believe Jesus was talking about (at least that's what I believe this morning).

Believe what you want is possible... is in fact already here... then get to work bringing it to fruition.

Actually seems pretty simple when you think about it, doesn't it?

What A Night!

This morning at 4:30 am I was awakened by a terrifying visitation by an old familiar friend. A new manifestation of Kali crawled into my head and took me to task. This is not a new experience for me, but it has been a while since it last occurred.

This morning I find myself thrust, as if by rocket ship, into a slightly terrified pursuit of what the visit means. What I know for sure is that when Kali shouts, I'm supposed to pay attention.

40 Days to Christmas

After 6 months of spending my time twittering, facebooking, and generally plugging into the internets on a daily basis for the purpose of work, it's been an interesting experience to stay out of the daily cybernetic spasm. What I find at such times of retreat (for lack of a better description at the moment) is a refreshing release from all the noise (or at least a good portion of it). However, I've received a lot of comments of late about the dearth of blogging on this and my other sites, so I've decided to take up the challenge and once more use this forum as a place to play out my life in public. So, here we go... Once more into the daily breach... Among a few other things that I hope to do between now and Christmas, I am renewing my dedication to daily writing, and something - at least close to - daily posting.

I've also restarted one final crack at my 40 Day regimen... I'll be holding forth on the progress of that one last time over at 40 Days To Life.

All in all... I'm really seriously burned out on all the raging cyber-realities and after almost 15 years of almost daily virtual living, I'm getting pretty damn close to heading after a less virtual and more real encounter with the universe and my co-residents.

Don't know where that's going but I'm damned determined to find out.

Instant Karma's Gonna Getchoo!

The classic set of Washington Mutual commercials that came out in 2008, just as the bank - and the rest of the economy with it - was tanking, were about as perfect a social barometer as there has been in my lifetime. While the bankers, and their Wall Street co-conspirators were trading up and getting out on the real-time roller coaster of fiscal disaster, my bank - Washington Mutual - was running a really fun collection of consumer messages with theme Whoo Hoo!!!

I'm guessing that not too many people are finding it difficult to grasp my point here. One might find it amusing to watch the game show bankers speaking cluelessly except for the fact that it was a little too close to reality to accept with proper social aplomb.

Come the meltdown, CHASE bank bought up Washington Mutual and promptly launched a whole set of new CHASE ads for banking in California, using the lovely chorus line "We all shine on..." like California is the Sunshine State (which is actually Florida, and we WON'T go there at the moment). What the bankers at CHASE and/or the creative types at their ad agency don't seem to have grasped is that this lovely little light hearted chorus comes from John Lennon's absolutely brilliant song Instant Karma which - it seems to me - is exactly what these greedy funny men (and their greedy pocket politicians) are courting with every new move of their greedy little pens.

I'm Walkin' Here

This new feeling of unexpected freedom continues today with a unexpected set of communications and the discovery of a surprising sermon, seemingly launched by the Spirit into the internets and onto my computer.

I explain the situation, and a little of the strange circumstances over at Bleeding Daylight.

Goodbye and Good Luck

As most folks who have read my blogs for any time are aware, I moved to New Orleans at the beginning of August 2005, just three weeks before Katrina.

For two years thereafter I lived a peripatetic life moving from place to place, part time in New Orleans, part time in San Francisco, a brief time in North Carolina, always semi-docked in Petaluma and anchored in New Orleans. Then, just over two years ago (almost exactly two years after The Thing), I gave up the basic struggle of bouncing back and forth between the Gulf Coast and The West Coast and came back to California. At the time, I made the assumption that at some point in the relatively near future I would regroup, fix the problems that I was still juggling like so many oddly sized balls, and find my way back to The Crescent.

What happened instead was that I found new love, and new life, right here in the place from which I had spent many previous years running. As I explained in several posts (including the one immediately prior to this one) I found myself surprisingly at home in the very place I thought I could never be at home.

But this didn't change one thing about my previous abbreviated grounding in New Orleans. I have for the past two years, despite living my life out in Petaluma, lived on the feeling - and the longing - that I would some day soon make it back home to NOLA.

For the last six months I've been building those old hopes on the enjoyable, and financially fortuitous, surprise job of Twittering (and blogging and facebooking) for The Hotel Monteleone and Carousel Bar on Royal Street in The French Quarter. There were significant frustrations in this process because the whole time I was doing it, I was sitting here in my little apartment 2500 miles away, sometimes pretending to be in The Quarter, sometimes pretending to be at Jazz Fest; always placing myself in those places that I know so well, and literally imagining myself into those locations.

It worked too! There were many times when the fact that I was communicating about and for New Orleans really placed me mentally right there. It was as if I was dreaming at my computer as I wrote to, and related with, people in the place I so longed to be. It was a great imaginary exploration.. and it was a lot of fun. At the same time, I worked to build up additional connections and relationships and I kept hanging on to the connections that still remained from that time when I first moved to the city, four years ago in another world... another life... another reality.

Not any more.

Earlier this week I was replaced in my Twitter job by the local PR firm and the in-house promo people at The Hotel Monteleone. As a friend of mine says, "without so much as a boo... hey... or kiss my ass" I was told in an email to stop immediately. I was then promptly locked out of the accounts that I created and that I had been dedicatedly relating from within. I had placed myself - however virtually - into the person I created (a sort of amalgamation of my every day self, but more my "New Orleans self" than "my California self") to represent the hotel and to relate both personally and professionally to folks with whom I interacted. Since being let go... the replacements at Hotel Monteleone have turned the interaction into an infrequent and impersonal interaction purely based on self-promotion, and in my opinion completely wrong for Twitter... but hey... that's another story.

What I'm trying to communicate right now is the combined sense of loss, grief, homesickness and new life that I am experiencing as a result of this interaction and outcome.

The simple fact is that I feel released.. I feel found... I feel free!

Four years ago next week I returned to New Orleans as people gradually began to move back into the ghost town laid bare by Katrina. I was determined to make life work. I was determined to go "home." I was determined to stay. This last six months has been the way out of the lock that my meteorologically aborted migration to The Big Easy has held me in for the past four years. I've gone round and round, back and forth only to find - like Dorothy returning from The Land of Oz - that home was right here with me all along.

There will be many days, and many moments when I still miss New Orleans. I hope to return there from time to time for rest, or work, or play, but it is not my home any more... maybe it never really was.

I live in Petaluma... in California... on the Western edge of the Continent and I am happy here.

Settling Into Place

For the last two years I have been moving through a process of settling in to the ground of being that seems to be home for me here in Northern California in general and Petaluma in particular.

In August of 2007, after two years of attempting to live in New Orleans (where I moved three very short weeks before Katrina), I gave up my peripatetic struggle to move back and forth between my two worlds and decided to re-settle in NoCal instead of NOLA.

Almost immediately, my life changed (and I've written on and on about that in this blog) profoundly. I began to find a depth of love and friendship that I had not experienced in a long time. It was as if as soon as I stopped trying so damn hard to figure my life out (who I was, who I was supposed to be, where I was supposed to be, and why I am), my life rose up to meet me. People and things (sweetheart, friends, work, and a place to live) became real in my life in ways that I had come to believe were not any longer possible for me.

Basically... for the first time in a long time, I had come home.

When I moved into a new (and pretty much perfect) little apartment, my sweety and my friends threw me a great party.

And for the past two years these experiences have continued... mounting on top of one another the pleasures and joys of friends, and family, and home and place.

I never thought I'd feel like this... but I have become a Petaluman.

So... to further solidify this geographic relationship, I registered this summer for the Petaluma Leadership Class, a year long collection of meetings, classes and activities that are designed to give a greater sense of place to those who want to be more planted (and more active) in this community. The picture at the top of this blog is from the "History Day" class which happened last week. My friend Trish snapped it of me coming out from checking on upcoming shows at Petaluma's wonderful Mystic Theater.

The day was great, with an introduction to the Petaluma History Museum, and guided tours from past notables in P-town history, and drop in at the Petaluma Adobe State Park where Mariano Vallejo raised cattle before California was a state. And since any good town history involves a solid drinking past and Prohibition story, we ended the day at Volpi's Speakeasy.

I've covered much of this material myself in the Petaluma Audio Tours that I created last spring, but to get a full day of information, entertainment and engagement with and from people who know and love the community was particularly special.

The fact remains that I still have one foot (or at least my big toe) stuck in the swamp water of New Orleans, and I don't expect I will ever be free of the hold that San Francisco has on my heart, but the people, places and things of this little chicken town have definitely captured me in a way that I have never before been captured and, frankly (and surprisingly), I like it.

This Has Gone On Long Enough!

Okay... I've had it with this lack of blogging.

I posted a new piece (and a request for input, and story contributions) at http://generationvet.blogspot.com where I am hoping to begin development on a play that I have wanted to work on for quite some time.

Please check it out, pass it on, and add you fity cents.

In the mean time... Stay tuned here because there's gonna be more blogging coming immediately (well, at least this weekend).

Hazel Stage Web Design :: Web Marketing Strategies with Audio

Hazel Stage Web Design :: Web Marketing Strategies with Audio

Posted using ShareThis

This was actually an experiment using one of the tools we will be demonstrating in the above mentioned (click the link) seminar this coming Thursday. Not exactly sexy, but useful in its way.

I suppose this also reflects the fact that after nearly two months away from blogging (except for the blogs I get paid to write at http://hotelmonteleoneblog.com and http://carouselbarblog.com ) I am on the verge of a sparkling return!

My 55th birthday is Tuesday... That kind of says it all.

Today's The Day!

Starting today Quicksilver Amusements gets even more mercurial and mellifluous.

More info to come on that... Just wanted to write it down.

Remember!

There have been some difficult days of late. Things continue to look like they will get more difficult before they get easier.

I keep hearing, and seeing, people make stupid, pointless, mind-numbingly inane statments like, "This isn't change you can believe in..." as if any change comes this fast (it did after all take Dubya eight years to screw things up this badly!).

The forces of darkness - whether they come from a gun fired at a man standing in a church doorway, angry hypocritical attacks made by ugly political hacks , or the blathering mediocrity of the nation's most inane broadcast personality - are arrayed against the President, a progressive political direction, and basic human openess and decency. As a remedy for the depressed reaction that tries to raise it's ugly head as a response to that, I've taken to listening to this song more and more (and viewing the video in my head even when I'm not watching it on a screen).

It helps to, as the song says, remember, the place we've come from and the people we've come with.

And I've really only got two things to say about that:

1) Nobody said this was gonna be easy.

2) Like the sign on a deli wall in post-Katrina New Orleans proclaims...

I love the smell of bike tires in the morning!

Last Thursday morning, with my eyes still closed softly in sleep, a smile on my face, and visions of sugar plums dancing in my head... I had the dubious privilege of being rousted out of my nice comfy bed to trudge down to the corner of Petaluma Boulevard and D Street (Petaluma California's Walnut Park). Upon arrival I was commandeered to hand out coffee, apples, croissants, muffins, water and bicycle bags of souvenirs and information to 143 intrepid peddlers as they passed through downtown for their participation in Bike To Work Day 2009. I was joined by other hardy souls - a representative of Whole Foods who showed up with the victuals, a public affairs person from Kaiser Permanente who brought bike reflectors and bags, a student from a nearby massage school who enthusiastically provided hands on support, and a bike mechanic who came fully prepared (with his seeing eye dog in tow) to load bikes on his rack, give them a diagnostic spin and tweak them into performance perfection.

Most of the time I work from home, and have done so for the better part of twenty five years. I still have to travel to visit clients, or to research stories and interview subjects, but most of my time is spent in front of my computer in the same place where I eat, sleep and dream. I live in a section of my little town that allows me to walk to just about everywhere - the grocery store, my favorite pub, the bookstore and even the bus station. When it comes to transportation, I keep a pretty low carbon footprint, simply because I can. So for me, this morning was kind of a revelation. People were excited. They were enjoying themselves. Some of the folks I met ride their bikes to work every day, others were trying it for the first time. "I do this every day," said one smiling woman, "but today's the only day you get the booty!" I handed her a bag and a muffin and she rode on laughing. Kids rolled in and out on their way to school, and regular bikers talked about how encouraging it was to see other folks on the road. "So much of the time, you don't see anyone else," said another happy rider as she sipped her coffee and grinned. "This is fantastic!"

Every single one of the 143 folks I laughed with, handed schwag to, and waved at as they rode away were clearly juiced with the engagement of doing something to make a difference. As for me... I'm going out to the garage and pulling out my bike! They say misery loves company, but from what I saw this morning, so does happy peddling.

Happy Mother's Day Mom

One of my favorite songs, by one of my favorite (albeit perhaps guilty pleasure) groups is "Yes We Can" performed by the Pointer Sisters and written by quintessential New Orleanian, Allen Toussaint. In the song, when talking about all the things we can do if we try, he uses the wonderful phrasing, almost as an afterthought... but not quite. "And do respect the women of the world, remember you all had mothers."

That's kind of the way we are in the world... And it's kind of the way I've been for too much of my life as an individual. Remembering our mothers... remembering MY mother... is often NOT at the forefront of my mind. I think that's why Mother's Day is such a big day for the flower, card, and dining establishment; it's the one day a year when we REMEMBER our moms and all the other days of the year that we've taken them for granted.

My mother is amazing. She always has been, and the older I get the more and more and more I see of her in me. So much of who I am and what I want comes from this woman whom I have basically taken for granted for nearly 55 years. She was born in Philadelphia, raised in Manhattan and on Long Island, and then later in Miami. As a teenager she was the first female "copy boy" at The Miami Herald (there was even a columnist at the paper who wrote about his amazement at this confounded new development). She started a radio show with my dad (Time for Betty & Tom), she was a model back in New York, and the host of a cooking show in Cincinnati (no doubt the origin of my own fanatical obsession with food and things foodie). After I was born and my family returned to South Florida, my mom worked the late show movie on local TV (where I got to perform as Santa Claus one year) and as a freelance camera person for a TV station on Florida's West Coast. One of my most vivid memories from childhood is of standing on the tarmac at Palm Beach Airport as Air Force One was arriving with President Kennedy and my mom was dashing toward the plane, Bolex in hand, shouting to my dad "What's the F-stop Tom!?"

Later, when we moved to Arizona, she learned how to paint and she spent hours working in oils on scenes that brought the desert to life on our walls. My favorite of these (from a time in my life that was definitely not my favorite, but then what teenager ever likes their life!?) is still hanging on the wall in my little apartment in Petaluma. I have lugged it around with me to every place I have lived as an adult and it is always one of the first things I put up to know that I am home.

Through all of my life, my mom has been my champion and supporter. Five years ago when Jennifer graduated from college the day before I ran the Dipsea for the first time, mom and dad came out from Florida to be there for both. I still get an enormous amount of joy from remembering the way mom looked at me after the race, a combination of astonishment and pride, mixed with just a little bit (well, maybe a lot) of concern for the health - both mental and physical - of her first born.

Throughout my life, I have certainly not been what she might have dreamed for me to be. I remember one time during that hellashish high school period when I wrote her a song called "I'm Sorry." I still feel that way a lot of the time. I'm sorry mom for the ways I haven't been appreciative, the ways I haven't "lived up to my potential" and the ways I've gone astray. I'm also thankful for the things you gave me that have led me (and still lead me) to do right, to be loyal, to try hard, and to live fully.

Thank you for borning me, raising me, loving me, and still... over and over and over again... supporting me in so many ways.

Happy Mother's Day Mom. I Love You.

-------

And to the mother of my daughter...

As a post script on this Mother's Day, I also want to salute the mom of my daughter. Jean and I have been through 34 years together; some of them wonderful and fun, and some of the hard as hell. Though only 8 of those years were as husband and wife, she has been a great friend and a steady support for all the rest of the time as well. She gave birth to and mothered a grand and glorious girl/woman of our own, and I am grateful and proud of them both. Happy Mother's Day Jean!

Vicariously NOLA

Today is the beginning of the second weekend of the greatest music festival held anywhere, The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival at the Fairgrounds Racetrack in New Orleans. It's been looking a little cloudy and even a little rainy on the webcams, but for most of the day tht will probably meant that the weather is just a little cooler and the dust is just a little more tamped down.

As for me, I am sitting (as I have done too many times in recent years) back in California listening to every minute as it plays out on WWOZ and thinking about my plans for next year. At the same time, I'm actually working on a project that gives me the opportunity and excuse to listen to Fest and imagine myself there. It's a small comfort, but it IS a comfort and I enjoy it.

On Monday night I took the evening, made myself a wonderful dinner, opened up a bottle of wine, and pulled up a chair next to the computer where I rocked out all evening long listening to WWOZ's Piano Night celebration from the House of Blues.

The event was a celebration of the life of Eddie Bo, who died recently. The last time I got to be at Piano Night, Eddie Bo was the honored guest and it is one of my great memories of my life to see Eddie on one piano directly across from Marcia Ball on another piano with Joe Krown on another piano at the back of the stage, John Cleary on Hammond B, and Dr. John on guitar (they had run out of pianos!!!)

Piano Night (always the Monday after the first weekend of Jazz Fest) and the whole reality of Jazz Fest is a celebration that manifests the amazing heart of New Orleans, that in fact is the heart of America.

What a Wonderful World!