Whispering Pines

We are having such crystal clear days here, cold and bright and wintry. We are getting rain, too, and earlier this evening there were reports of snow and hail in Malibu. I don't feel clear, though. I feel as if I'm moving around, doing stuff but only half-way, my mind divorced from my body, and I'm hard put to describe the dissociation. I've got the lines to the Band's "Whispering Pines" in my head, the if you find me in a gloom, or catch me in a dream, inside my lonely room, there is no in-between and whispering pines. Whispering. That's what it feels like. My mind and body, whispering. I had a dream the other night that I lay on a crowded city street with people crouched over me, around me. I was being administered some kind of intravenous fluids, yet I felt no pain nor panic but only this insistent loneliness exacerbated by the presence off-screen, off-dream, in one of those city towers of Carl's old girlfriend (!) who was somehow involved in the ministering to me. Yeah. I woke from this dream and felt it like a hangover for hours, the vague, unsettling head fatigue and nausea of it.

Whispering Pines is a song for old love, from an old love, long love, early love, lost love, gone love, forever love and lovers.




Loneliness.




Need, like an echo.




Echo.







An angel came today and did Reiki with Sophie.

Riding with Min After Baez Sang Dylan

Joan Baez, Royce Hall, UCLA
November 2018

I know that's a bad photo of Joan, but I had to take it quickly, when she first came out or risk the wrath of my fellow concert goers. I like that her head is blurred out in light because that's what listening to her sing did to my soul. Blurred it out into light. I went into the concert so heavy-hearted, the fires, the air, the animals, the earth, the dead and charred land, the piles of dead children, again. It's not too much, it's just so, so awful. Joan sang and sang, though, in what was supposed to be her last Los Angeles appearance. She sang her own stuff and Bob Dylan and Tom Waits and John Prine and Woody Guthrie and Stephen Foster and Pete Seeger, and when she sang Zoe Mulford's The President Sang Amazing Grace, I cried. Because, really, it seems like another life these days, doesn't it? I'd never heard Baez in real life, had sort of fallen in love with my first real love to her music and was amazed that while her voice had deepened, it was still strong if not capable of hitting the super high notes of old. To tell you the truth, I don't know if I ever really appreciated those super high notes, anyway. When she sang Diamonds and Rust, I was twenty years old again and all moony over anyone who had a love affair with Bob Dylan and wove that love and anguish and romance into such words. Oh, boy.

I took a Lyft home, and when I got into the car, my driver, Min, acted super flustered as he'd had a time getting through the after-concert crowds in the street. I reassured him that it was no big deal and then he asked me how to get out of the campus and then he asked me what kind of concert I'd been to. It was Joan Baez, I said. And he asked, Who's she? And I said, She's been around for a long time, was famous in the sixties and seventies as a protest singer. Min asked me to find a song of hers to play for him in the car, and while I tried to pull one up, he asked, So what kind of things did she protest? And I said, She protested against the war and for immigrants and everything when she was young and now she's pretty much doing the same thing because of Trump. Min said, Why does she protest Trump? I know it's not good to talk about politics, but I love Trump! I think he's doing a good job! And I stopped looking for a YouTube video for Min to hear and said I can't stand Trump. Min asked why? and I said because he's a piece of shit. Bless Min's heart. We talked a bit more. Min is Korean and lives in Koreatown. I learned that he loves Trump because he's sticking it to the Chinese. Min conceded that the POSPOTUS does say controversial things but insisted his attitude toward China made him a great president. I said anyone who is so deeply racist and misogynistic, as well as ill-tempered could never get my respect. Min asked What sort of racist things has he said? I told him a few things and then said Honestly, Min, do you think he cares that you're Korean? He probably despises you for being Korean. Min clung to the anti-Chinese stuff and I sat pissed in the back seat because that light emanating from Joan Baez was leaking out of the car. I thought about jumping out at a light and then thought better of it. Min had on a large checked button-down shirt, just the kind I dislike, and I didn't know what to make of him, to tell you the truth. When I got home, I told Oliver and Carl about him. Carl rolled his eyes and Oliver said, Min sounds like a dumbass.








Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin'
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner's face is always well-hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin'
But I'll know my song well before I start singin'
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall

An Anti-Apocalypse Mixtape

Play these songs while you're OUT THERE shaking things up and resisting.

What I Love

1. When Bob Dylan plays the harmonica, especially on the album Blood on the Tracks, particularly the end of the song You're a Big Girl Now
2. First two and last two lines of novels: "Yes, of course, if it's fine tomorrow," said Mrs. Ramsay. "But you'll have to be up with the lark," she added. / It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.
3. Cheese, baguette, olives, dark chocolate
4. The taste of bourbon the heat as it goes down
5. Your dark eyes, full-on then closed, kissing them on tiptoe
6. Lying awake in bed in the morning, just after dawn
7. Banter
8. My neighbors, particularly those that share antipathy toward the McMansion developers and send me funny texts
9. The opening scene of Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire and Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita
10. The perfection of both lyrics and melody of Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now

The 4004th Post

I think today is International Astronomy Day or something, and yesterday I went downtown with three friends to visit the Mirrored Infinity Room at the Broad. You could go in, only two at a time, for only 45 seconds. Gazillions of lights hung over water like stars.You stood on a platform and looked at your reflection in the many mirrors. It was cool, but we agreed that the pictures were actually better than the experience. There just wasn't enough time to really feel the magic. When I walked out, I remarked that it was what I imagined death to be -- some kind of immediate and quick merging with the stars. At least that's what I hope it'll be.

So, this is my 4004th post. How weird is that? I wish I had someone who would go through all of them and pull out the significant ones, if any. I know the key to the organization of my book is somewhere in there, but the task seems formidable. Anyone?

Anyone?

Sophie continues to recover from her oral surgery on Tuesday. She had minimal swelling and no ice was used. I think it was the CBD. It's a powerful anti-inflammatory. I'm feeling a bit drained from the experience, but it's not about me, is it? Speaking of, I got a dress-down from someone on Facebook. I had objected to her use of the word "retarded" in her rant against Elizabeth Warren detractors. While I agreed with her rant, I was bummed that she'd used the word "retarded" and said so. She defended it. I wrote her a private message explaining why it's so awful. She wrote me back and was very angry with me. She said a lot of things that I've been thinking about, some true and others just plain vituperative.

These things drain me, too, but once you're drained you're empty and can find things to fill you back up.

I can't get this poem by W.S. Merwin out of my head today:

I Live Up Here

I live up here

And a little bit to the left

And I go down only

For the accidents and then

Never a moment too soon

Just the same it's a life it's plenty

The stairs the petals she loves me

Every time

Nothing has changed

Oh down there down there

Every time

The glass knights lie by their gloves of blood

In the pans of the scales the helmets

Brim over with water

It's perfectly fair

The pavements are dealt out the dice

Every moment arrive somewhere

You can hear the hearses getting lost in lungs

Their bells stalling

And then silence comes with the plate and I

Give what I can

Feeling It's worth it

For I see

What my votes the mice are accomplishing

And I know I'm free

This is how I live

Up here and simply

Others do otherwise

Maybe

I've read it about ten times today and gotten something new out of it each time. 

Disney Hall, seen from The Broad

I can't stop listening to this old song:

4,004 posts. 

Art, poetry, music. 

This is how I live. Up here and simply. Just give me one thing that I can hold onto. Others do otherwise maybe.

My Conversion

I know some of you will be happy to hear that I saw the light last night. Note the labels that I used for this post: Bruce Springsteen, music and religion. Yes, indeedy. I worshipped for over 3 1/2 hours at the altar of Bruce Springsteen. I danced and sang at the top of my lungs, on my feet for nearly the entire time. It was joy in the form of thousands of people waving their snaky arms overhead, grown men hugging one another and little kids bewildered to see their parents acting so crazy. It was one more and then another and then another and then another, and we were all laughing and bouncing and jumping and doing one more. And then again. I only drank one beer, but I was in love with the universe. That's my whoop at the end of the clip when I was born again.

Naked As the Eyes of a Clown

It's the time of year of life that calls for the cliche, the trite. I'm still here, none the worse for the wear. What does that mean? I think that photo was taken in 1964 or 1965. Fifty some odd (another weird string of words) years ago. I looked pretty damn serious. Funny thing is that I never could stand Bugs Bunny.

I have nothing to report, to write. I went to hear Percival Everett speak and read yesterday afternoon at my favorite independent bookstore, Chevalier. I'm reading Everett's new collection of short stories -- Half an Inch of Water.  Ranching. Horses. Animals. Dogs. Old women who find portals to alternate vistas. They're extraordinary and seductive. How's that for adjectives? Adjectival. Every time I open the book, I start singing John Prine's song, and yesterday I asked Percival whether he'd thought of that song when he titled the book. He said, No, it was an expression my mother always used. Then he said the lyrics to the Prine song -- all of them. 

Here are a few:

I was sitting in the bathtub, counting my toes
When the radiator broke, the water all froze
I got stuck in the ice without my clothes
Naked as the eyes of a clown
I was crying ice cubes,
and hoping I'd croack
When the sun came through the window
the ice all broke
I stood up and laughed
I thought it was a joke
That's the way
that the world goes round

Extraordinary and seductive. Sweetness.

I met John Prine a few times when I lived in Nashville. He was a nice guy with a crinkly smile. He seemed up to no good in the best of ways. Cliche. He'd play out in the country at these things called Harvest Moon concerts -- lots of people playing music under the stars, famous and obscure (both the stars and the people). It was the way the world went round.

Extraordinary and seductive. Sweetness.

It's National Let Elvis Costello Say It Day

La Dolce Vita

(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding

As I walk through

This wicked world

Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity.

I ask myself

Is all hope lost?

Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?

And each time I feel like this inside,

There's one thing I wanna know:

What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh

What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

And as I walked on

Through troubled times

My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes

So where are the strong

And who are the trusted?

And where is the harmony?

Sweet harmony.

'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry.

What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh

What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

So where are the strong?

And who are the trusted?

And where is the harmony?

Sweet harmony.

'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry.

What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh

What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh

What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

The Day After International Peace Day Contains Profanity

It's the day after International Peace Day, so let's rant.

I get at least three emails every single morning from various marketers, peddling products and services as diverse as stand-up urinals for women and books catering to those who believe in manifesting your destiny even as you're swept away in a flash flood in a keyhole cavern. Today's email, though, got my proverbial panties in a wad (I hate the words "panties" and "wad," but some self-flagellation is in order for my upcoming rudeness). This email was promoting a singer named The Reverend Promise Dixon, the 10th of 14 children from Oklahoma. He has a new song, Killers, that addresses the recent Planned Parenthood conspiracy, and the marketer hopes I'll listen to and tell ya'll about it. Normally, I'd delete this kind of thing immediately after seeing that it's evangelical Christian (how in Buddha's name do these people get my email?), but I kept reading until I reached the final paragraph where I promptly burst out laughing (as opposed to combusting which I'm sure the Revered Dixon would have preferred). Here's the last paragraph of the email:

When people talk about Planned Parenthood, it is most often discussed from the perspective of a woman.  Rev. Dixon says that his song sheds light on a different perspective; “This is a unique story, because you always hear about the woman's perspective, but never from the perspective of a man, who actually paid for the abortions.”  It is Rev. Dixon’s hope that through his song, people will be awakened out of complacency and into action.

Here's the action I'm awakened into, Rev. Dixon. Go f*#k yourself.


Anywho.


Speaking of music, Oliver was walking around the house this morning humming bars of "Ebony and Ivory," although he was using different words. I made the mistake of correcting and telling him that the singers were Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney and that it was about racial harmony. Oliver rolled his eyes and said in his most incredulous fourteen-year-old tone, Have you ever even heard of that song, Mom?

Happy Easter!

In lieu of a post, listen to this snippet of beauty on my Tumblr.

Click here.

Boy Talk, Part 468: On Inspiration

Quick, take a picture of that! I said to Oliver when we pulled up to a stoplight before entering the Target parking garage.

Why, Mom? he replied, Why do you need a photo of a homeless guy's stuff?

Well, to tell you the truth, I am inspired by the things that I see and then the photos that I take, I replied, I'll often take a photo and then look at it later and write off of it. 

I waxed inspirational, then, the kind of blather that I'm sure my boys tolerate only by the skin of their teeth. I think I mentioned the video of the homeless man that I'd watched last night, like tens of millions of other people -- the one where a homeless man on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles is shot dead while being "subdued" by six LAPD. I can't tell you, Reader, how frenzied I felt while watching that video last night. My heart was literally pounding, and while the boys watched over my shoulder, I might have even screamed how much I hated guns and cops and this whole country. I went on and on, basically freaking out about the fact that thousands of people, many of them mentally ill, live in squalor on the streets even as people drive past in cars that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, blather, blather, blather. I might have cried, openly, I was so upset. But that was last night, and when I saw crap strewn all over the street outside of Target, I immediately thought of the video and knew that I wanted to write about it, somehow, if only to struggle with my own ineffectual place in all of this. Because, really, who am I to hate this situation and have no real power and even, sometimes, inclination, to actually do something about it. To tell you the truth, I feel like an asshole for complaining without a means to really help.

Today, I didn't say any of that -- I just made the comment about inspiration and writing and creativity when Oliver asked me why I wanted a photo.

You're a creative person, I said, what gives you ideas and inspires you? He thought for a moment, and then turned the dial of the radio up nearly all the way as we drove underground into the parking garage. All the Single Ladies was blaring out of the speakers in my sexy white Mazda, and I instinctively turned it down as low as it had been turned up. Let's face it, Reader, I'm not a Beyonce fan.

Mom! Oliver cried out and turned the knob back up. You don't turn DOWN Beyonce, you turn her UP. THAT'S what inspires me! He started dancing and bobbing in the seat next to me, doing his moves, and I was inspired, Reader, to actually join him.

Dispatch from the Revolution: Cannabis Update and Contortions

New York City, 1996

to Christy

When Sophie got home from school today, I noticed that she'd once again not drunk much of anything. I gave her the afternoon dose of Charlotte's Web and then lay down next to her with one leg draped over her legs, my strong peasant left arm holding her left arm gently down and my strong peasant right arm wielding her sippee cup. I placed it on her mouth and spoke gently but firmly about her need for liquid and dripped a few drops in. She swallowed and then pursed her lips and sucked on the cup. I did this over and over for the next twenty minutes, all while listening to Oliver who was sitting in the beanbag chair in the window chatter about Teslas and the video of a brother and sister singing one of the theme songs to the movie Boyhood. At one point, my position became torturous when Oliver leaned into and over me to show me a video, and because I'm that mother who is aware of the needs of the siblings of the special needs kid, I simultaneously forced the Special Needs Kid to drink and craned my neck into an awkward position so I could respond appropriately to The Sibling. I might have even remarked on the absurdity of it all, and Oliver agreed.

Anyhoo.

I kind of want to back up here, because this post is supposed to partly be an update on cannabis. Sophie has now been taking the Charlotte's Web Hemp Oil at the higher ratio for a bit more than a month. We've also tinkered with the dosage and found something that is working for now. We're still not in the incredible spot we were last year at this time when Sophie's seizures disappeared for weeks at a time, but we might be close. The stuff works for her. We're also continuing the Onfi wean, and just as everyone who's ever visited here knows, the benzo wean is an ugly, ugly process. Today, I had a lovely and very informative conversation with my friend Christy who writes from Maine about her own struggles with her son Calvin's refractory epilepsy at Calvin's Story. As I walked the aisles of Trader Joe's, Christy suggested that the drinking and eating difficulties could very possibly be a result of the benzo wean, that forgetting how to swallow and drooling is a side effect of the drug and can increase when the drug is weaned. I think in that moment I got so excited and distracted that I threw in the chocolate babka and the chocolate cookies and the cinnamon bread, all of which this family does not need. So, later, when I got into my contortionist pose and coaxed Sophie to drink, I felt infinitely more patient with her and far less insane. My mind wandered to the time when Sophie was on another benzodiazepine, the hideous Klonopin and how it caused anorexia. My mind drifted to my helplessness then, how I watched her lose about 20% of her body weight and brought her to an interminable number of specialists who had literally nothing to say or suggest except for the eminent gastroenterologist at a prominent hospital who threatened a feeding tube. To make a long story short, I weaned her from the Klonopin, her appetite came back, she got into tip-top shape with the help of a naturopath and -- well -- here we are.

What's the point of all this? You do what you have to do. Light comes in through the cracks, even from as far away as Maine. I'm going back into Sophie's room to help her learn to swallow by coaxing a bit more liquid into her. Then I'm cutting a big old piece of chocolate Babka and listening to this:

A different Charlie

I learned today from Ms. Moon's blog that today is the 51st anniversary of Charlie Watts' first drumming gig with the Rolling Stones. She also included the following video which was made last year for Charlie's birthday. Although my Holy Trinity of music is Bob Dylan - Van Morrison - Joni Mitchell, Charlie Watts is definitely up there as well. Since today was rather a dry Monday, and I have no words of wisdom or observations or tidbits or angst to impart, I'll leave you with this fine music:

Rearview Reach

Maybe it was the thought of Joe Cocker's writhing limbs and his raspy voice silenced, or maybe it was the blue sky, the eighty degree day, and the flying down the 101. Maybe it was Sophie playing with the colored beads that hang from my head-rest, playing with them as if on automatic pilot (what, exactly does that mean?), their rustle, how damn long she can do it -- reach for the beads, rustle them together, let them fall through her fingers, reach for the beads, rustle them together, let them fall through her fingers, her pale face, wondering what she'd look like old. She's nineteen years old, got ways like a baby child, sang Muddy Waters.  A lover gave me a cassette thirty-two years ago, a love letter on tape. I remember the songs on the cassette, the tiny writing on the slip of paper slid into hard plastic. I don't remember where it went. The tape, the love. I wonder where it is.

Will I be driving her like this when I'm old? Will she be playng with the beads, like this, when she's old? But, here we are, and it's now.

This was then. Traffic's Empty Pages, Arlo Guthrie's Heavenly Shoes, The Byrds' Ballad of an Easy Rider, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, John Lennon's Oh, Yoko, Roxy Music Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Muddy Waters' She's Nineteen Years Old.

Reach for the beads, rustle them together, let them fall through your fingers.

Gross Mom

Cesaria Evora

I think there are a bunch of blogs with titles like Gross Mom. I've seen Ugly Mommy, Vodka Mommy, Bad Mommy -- the list goes on, and they always sort of irritate me. I can't stand the word mommy unless it's used by a child toward his (or her) mother. I don't like to be called by any word that stands for mother by anyone, really, than my own children. That would include nurses and doctors and particularly young men or grown men when they use the word mama for me. You know who you are. Humor my little pet peeve, won't you? And I actually love being called baby by the right person. You know who you are, too. None of this sounds very pleasant when I read over it, and I really only wanted to tell you a funny little story that happened yesterday when Oliver and I were in the car driving about the city as we do. Given the fact that I'm sort of a Loser Mom, I had hooked up Pandora (evidently only losers listen to Pandora) and was listening happily to my Cesaria Evora station which included not only her magnificent music but other Latin American songs and instrumentation. What IS this? Oliver asked in his most annoyed thirteen year old voice. No matter that he is prone to fits of embarrassing air guitar to the excruciating sounds of Journey and Boston. I said, It's Cesaria Evora in a pleasant and indifferent tone. Do you even know what she's saying, Mom? Oliver asked. Not really, I answered, but it doesn't matter because she is amazing. Oliver probably rolled his eyes, although I wouldn't know because I was driving and I'm also a Loser Mom Driver. Why do you even like her? he asked. I love this music, I said. It's sexy. You can only imagine the reaction. Gross, Mom! That's just gross! he shouted.

I turned the music up and said, There's nothing wrong with that, baby!

Saturday Three-Line Movie Review

Get On Up

Before last night, I knew nothing about James Brown other than that he was an entertaining entertainer who screamed a lot, did splits on the stage in outrageous funky outfits, was a bit of a lunatic, had gone on a wild car chase from the cops sometime in 1988 when I was living in Nashville, TN and married to a musicologist (me, not him) and was called The Godfather of Soul. Now I know from the wonderful, rollicking biopic that he was an incredibly complex man whose mother abandoned him to an abusive father who then abandoned him to an aunt who was the kind madam of a whorehouse, where he became greatly influenced by gospel music and morphed into the James Brown that we think we know. It's hard not to smile throughout this movie while you're nodding your head, wiggling your hips and tapping your feet, thankful that a man with so much talent can emerge from so much hardship and sorrow and make his complex mark, for better or worse, on a world that essentially remained oblivious to how he got there.












More 3-Line Movie Reviews

Begin Again
Chef
The Immigrant
Cesar Chavez
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Gloria
Labor Day 
Philomena

August: Osage County

Her

American Hustle

Saturday Soundtrack

This morning when I tried to put on an earring, it was as if the hole in my earlobe had closed up overnight. I kept poking and pushing the thin band of gold wire to no avail so I finally gave it a rest. Later, I tried again and it slipped right through. It made me think of holes in the heart and resistance and mystery and age and surrender.

Someone posted this on Facebook today, and I can't get it out of my head.


Nina Simone: I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl by ninasimonemusic

Peonies and Peeps

So the heat wave in Los Angeles has broken, and the breeze rustling the palms is decidedly cooler. It's glorious outside, which is a good thing because I'm off to yet another baseball game. After I dropped Oliver off for his pre-game practice, I lowered the windows in my sexy Mazda and cranked up my song du jour, the Byrd's Here Without You, those harmonies, the memories it stirs up, what ties us to another.

It's all a big, fat mystery. We're mules with burdens and impossibly free.







P.S. My peeps: I changed my comment form to a pop-up window. Please let me know if that helps the situation.

Pour me a drink, Theresa

in one of those glasses you dust off. 
And I'll watch the bones in your back
like the stations of the Cross.

This song. I can drive in bumper to bumper traffic up the 101, be deliriously happy even, with this song blaring.

Lordy Lordy.

Voulez-vous couchez avec moi ce soir?

My old friend Allison sent me this photo today, and I honestly would love to dive into this bed. Think of the possibilities for read-aloud intimacy! I was also at once reminded of the Patti LaBelle song whose famous line I used as the title of this post. Do ya'll remember that song? You can listen to it here. Then I started thinking about my high school boyfriend and the crazy concerts that we went to, one of which was Patti LaBelle. Dang, that was a good concert and that song is just -- well -- dang good. And no, there was no couchez avec moi in those days.

Am I dating myself?

Gitchi Gitchi ya ya da da!