Another Death

Catherine B. died last night - undiagnosed leukemia (until the very end) . Brain dead - they said, and took her off the respirator. My best friend Bill has a malignant brain tumor and I can't see that turning out well and my cousin Diane died a couple of months ago - pernicious anemia. And I feel so sad. Almost punch drunk. This after a horrible recession during which I almost lost my business - just the daily grind of going in to preside over the dying of my business and realize that it has become harder and harder to connect with the American desire for more and more "stuff". Now it's electronics. I am old. I am old. I see foolishness all around me. Maybe that is the way it has always been.

Last night I dreamed about you. It's been ten years since I buried you in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Up a steep hill in the family mausoleum. Dead all these years, at least to me and last night I dreamed you. My dog and I were out walking in the strange, flat, bungalowed landscape of my childhood half a century ago. We had alleys then, and I was walking up one, the alley of my childhood running behind the house I grew up in. And there it was - the backyard of your house, a house that never was yours except in my dream. It was overgrown with high grasses, brown and laying to one side in the bright wind. I could hear you talking and laughing at the front of the house - a house that suddenly was on a lake. My dog Bebe ran to the front, to see you and then came back to me. Then I was afraid you would find me - spying, wanting to pull you back into life. I felt dishonorable. I ran. Calling the dog with me through the familiar streets of my childhood - you were chasing me then. And I was half hoping you would come back, catch me and bring me home.

Why me?

Oh whiney, whiney, whine-whine. Poor me. I'm employed, live in a beautiful house on San Francisco Bay, am surrounded by people who love me. Poor me. I'm feeling sad and miserable today. Things are going well and I am afraid. I'm afraid anyway. You see - I am a big coward - although most people don't know it, I am afraid everyday. I am afraid of success. I am afraid of failure. So that pretty much wraps my life up. Poor me. I don't really like me very much - and I have lost track of what I am doing this for. I'm sixty five years old (whiney, whiney, whine-whine) and I have completely lost sight of any purpose to my life. They say the "wheel-of-life"; I think its more the "ratwheel-of-life" wait a damn minute - 'where did all the joy go?" Whiney, whiney, whine-whine. Help. Really, I am alone and trapped in an aging hulk of a body, with misplaced, unrealized dreams. Shit, shit, whiney, poor me. shit. Hell, I'm feeling better already.



Yeats said it all years ago in:



Sailing to Byzantiam

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.


Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

REAL FOOD

I am thinking of eating only real food. So what I have to do first is decide what real food is. Or at least for me what it is. I want to cook my food - at least some of it. So to begin I can have a fairly broad definition of real food and maybe later I can hone in on it. I don't want to be a nut. So let's think about this. Minimal processing. Bread - whole grain, okay. What about dairy? Not low fat - that's processing, isn't it? And I am hearing more and more that you need the fats in milk to help you digest the lactose. Seems right. I dunno. This is an investigation. Not a manifesto.

I think of all the diet programs, the vitamins, the frozen diet dinners, energy bars, 100 calorie sizes - and we are all getting fatter and fatter. I can picture a meal of roasted chicken (hormone free, organic) with roasted root vegetables, whole grain rolls and for desert maybe some fruit and cheese.

Maybe I won't have to give up all processed stuff. Just most of it. Sort of ease out of it. Feel my way. Anyway - that's the plan. I will read more and look for more recipes on line.

Our Folksy Narcissist

You're dead on Sarah! You go girl!!!

Sarah Palin - what will you do next to keep us entertained? In these days of celebrity culture the biggest narcissist wins - so I expect big things from our brunette bombshell. I was surprised by her announcement on Friday that she was stepping down from the Governor's office - but on further reflection - I think it was a brilliant move. Does she want to be president? Maybe not. Governing is such a drag and the press is soooo mean to her. Boohoo. But she is right - dead on right that she will be able to have more influence just flapping her loose lips on FOX and writing a book with some grammatically correct ghost writer. Of course, nobody writes their own books today. Too much trouble. Too time consuming.

In these days of people who are famous for just being famous, people like Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan - we can really use another somebody who knows just how to aggrandise herself and keep her face in front of the public. And if she has something to say, to push her conservative, anti-choice, "drill Baby drill" agenda so much the better. We may be laughing at her now - but I fear she will have the last laugh.

Another Day

So I am writing about this day because I think that just telling about the day is very important. So...today, I go to the dentist at 11:30. Tomorrow is a holiday, and Saturday is the fourth of July. I just got back from Dallas, where I really tried to keep it together. Hard, when you're 64 and you'd rather be doing anything else.

So, this is what my day looks like. I got up early and cleaned up the house for the cleaning people. I had a cup of green tea. I re wet and blew dry my hair. I am going to the dentist today and have to look decent. Then I drove to work at about 7:58 and opened up for the day. I blogged, and then went over to Dad's. He is having phone trouble, lots of static on the line and he doesn't have inside line insurance (of course) so he has been crawling around for half a day trying to find out what is wrong. He got a new phone for hard of hearing folks from the state and he hung it in his hallway instead of the regular place and kept bumping into it. He didn't hang it over his desk because he "didn't want it to look too much like an office". Of course the old phone hung there so I don't know what difference it would have made. I have actually learned to let go to some extent and not judge his actions and just let him spin them out to the fullest. He asked for my advice for the phone which would have been - "have inside line protection and hang your phone over the desk" but that's not what he was asking - he was asking how to fix his phone - and about that, I don't have a clue.

Anyway, back to my day... after one game of scrabble with Dad, I came back to the office and then I plan on leaving when Brooke comes and then going home an calling the Mclaren woman and emailing Margaret Lippman and then....going to the dentist. Coming back after lunch and coming down to the office and talking to Brooke about the direction the company is taking. Brooke has to go because she is really not functioning well at this time and I know she is unhappy working with me - and feels cheated. I think she has to go out and make her own way.

I do love her and want the best for her and I know that getting out on her own is best. Getting out of this town and moving on....I hope she decides this soon because it would be so much better if she did and I didn't have to originate the idea. I am working with Chris on it.

So, back to my day. After work I will work on the barbecue smoker a little. The Damper is frozen shut and if I can't loosen it, I will have to rig something else up.

Tomorrow is Janice Cook"s party and I will toodle over with Dad for a quick visit and then go on home. I have to shop for the stuff I need for the fourth. I will make a list and then maybe I'll g tonight.

Anyway, years later, maybe I'll read this and see what my life was like.....

Michael Jackson - A Castrato?

I swear to God that if Joe Jackson could take Michael's body on the road and charge admission - he would. Seeing him in the days that surrounded Michael's death, he spoke of Michael's greatness as a performer, his lasting legacy, never at his sadness at losing a son. For Joe Jackson, laughing and joking with Jessie Jackson. or bragging to the press - it is completely an ego thing, not even a money thing, and definately not a son thing.

Watching the circus that has surrounded the death of Michael Jackson, I am reminded of my earlier theory that Michael was surgically castrated at about the age of 12. Really? Think about it, it makes so much sense. Joe Jackson had finally made it big with his sons and The Jackson 5 and then he saw (maybe even heard) Michael's voice getting a harder edge... He had to hold on to his meal ticket. What could he do? This father who beat his son when he made a misstep in dancing or hit a wrong note, beat him with whatever was available, an electrical cord, a belt. So surgery was performed and prosthesis testicals were inserted. Michael was even told a convenient lie, like the doctor at removed a suspicious lump and he would be okay...

Take the theory and run with it - it makes so much sense. Michael was an androgenous man who never grew up and who's voice (both speaking and singing) never changed. Other falsetto singers have a normal speaking voice and a high singing voice - Michael kept the angelic voice of a child. Sure he could shout in a non-falsetto voice, so can a woman. He didn't speak normally.

In the days to come it will come out that he fathered no children, not in a bed, not with a turkey baster, not in a doctor's office. And why was that?

I feel looking at that poor, increidbly talented, dear Man/Boy never had a chance for a normal life. And hearing him speak with such hate about his father on Martin Bashir's Documentary last night I am brought back to my original, long held theroy that Michael was a Castrato and Joe J. was the culpret.