Writing

January 20: Weekday morning mass

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I started going to mass in the morning, first on Mondays. After a couple weeks I added Friday. It seemed like a good way to start and end my week. I had not been to mass since my mom and dad died, so way back in 2008 or earlier. Sunday mass didn’t interest me, they’re too crowded and too long. Thirty minutes feels about right. At first it was easy to go, but that was during the summer when so many more things come easily to me. Fall was Ok, too, but winter has seen me miss services a number of times over the last month or so.

Why?

I’m not sure. I have some thoughts but I’m not going to jump into them quite yet since they are so ill-formed. I know why I have enjoyed going. There are two reasons. The first is the more powerful. It’s because mass makes me feel closer to my mom and dad. There’s no explaining that, but it’s the truth. The second reason splits in two ways each engaged with the way the mass makes me think and what it makes me think about.

I don’t know what caused me to break the streak. There came a morning when another hour of sleep felt better than dragging myself out of bed and making my way towards mass. So, I’m trying to break the streak of not going tomorrow…Friday. My plan is to build some things around the service, kind of like a crutch. My plan is to have breakfast at around 7:30 at one of my favorite diners before heading to get the cheap gas at Costco before there’s a line. If I can make it to those two activities getting to the 8:30 mass should be the cherry on the sundae.

Whether my plan works or not I’ll do a little more thinking about both ends of the equation; what got me to go after all these years and what made me stop…again.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

January 20: Weekday morning mass

January 19: Shouting into the wind

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It occurs to me that I could be shouting into the wind with this journal. But, the more I think about it the more convinced I am that it doesn’t matter even if I am. Even though writing is for readers if the work doesn’t serve the needs of the writer, in some way, I cannot imagine it being worthwhile. Writers, at least this writer, are disinclined to think of the wants of others before they think of their own needs.

I’m kidding, but just barely.

Today I was thinking about my maternal grandmother, Mary, not my sister, Mary. She was an unusual woman. I think of her as hard rather than unloving. Perhaps she was an example of one who showed her love by action and not so much by word. When she spoke to me, or any of her grandchildren, she sounded as if she was talking to a gas station attendant; matter of fact trending toward blunt.

Still, I never heard of her being mean spirited to anyone and that surely counts for a lot.

Her actions, especially those that came before I was born, showed spirit and love. During the depression she was known to invite men who had found their way to the family’s door and knocked upon it, looking for food, into her kitchen to share their modest dinner. I can imagine my grandmother doing this in the very same matter-of-fact way she might have spoken to a gas station attendant or decades later, a grandchild. One time she even gave a pair of her husband’s work boots away to a man whose shoes had holes so large that the snow of the Iowa winter found its way easily to the man’s bare feet. I heard about this from my grandfather who recalled the time my grandmother gave away the very boots on his feet.

My grandmother corrected him immediately, telling everyone in the room not to believe my grandfather. He had another pair of work boots and he knew it, my grandmother said. He was lucky to have two pair of boots, neither of which had holes in their soles. When she spoke, it sounded like she was taking to a gas station attendant.

Even so, I wouldn’t say that I knew my grandmother Mary all that well, but then again maybe I did. Maybe the way she treated people and the way she spoke to them contained a lesson that’s easy to miss. Actions are hard while words can be easy. I cannot imagine knocking on a door, looking for food. Perhaps that is my own failing, my inability to conceive a world where I am the one in need. My grandmother knew she could have easily been the one knocking on the door, desperate to feed her children. And she knew that even though her own family barely had enough to eat, and lacked enough coal to stave off the cold, that others had even less.

She gave what she could, as we all should.

Tonight’s writing soundtrack is Headlights from Charlie Cunningham’s Flesh & Bone Studio Session (Live) from 2019. Covid caused us to miss a chance to see Cunningham near the end of last year at the Fonda in Hollywood but I hope we’ll get another chance to see and hear him during better times.

His music is elemental, elegant, deceptively simple, beautiful and more than a little haunting.

Thanks, as always, for reading. Shouting into the wind’s not so bad after all.

January 19: Shouting into the wind

January 18: These days

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I ended up sleeping in today quite late. I must have been a bit more worn out by the drive home from Sacramento yesterday than I realized. Today was a little lonely but I managed to get a few things done. I got an email back from Alba telling me that she was working on a revised version of the cover for Cottonwood right about the time I was sending her a message through Instagram telling her that I was close to deciding to stick with her initial artwork. Then, I heard from my client, Yoshi, in Japan about an issue related to putter shafts.

Distractions, but nothing felt quite important enough to hold my attention.

I took an abbreviated walk so I could get my other chores done and still make it to the post office. Then I heard from my friend, Jess, and made plans to meet him for dinner. I’m glad I did this. Even though he can be a little frustrating and even vexing at times he reminds me of what someone said about the idea of nostalgia…that it’s a kind of homecoming.

These days, these days beyond the middle days of our lives, can find us looking ahead and behind at the same time. There’s something a little disconcerting about that. But, still there’s something about these days, these days of change and unexpected and often unwelcome change, that make this time feel special. So many years ago Jess and I would have seldom had the chance to share a relaxed dinner. But, these days it has almost become commonplace, even though we know it isn’t. It is an easier time to find a little time but there will never be enough time for everything we’d like to do, or to do what we would like as often as we might care to.

Yes, it’s confusing.

In economics these kinds of times might be called a scarce good, like clean air, pure water or an enduring friendship. None of these kinds of goods come without a cost whether we are able to identify it at the time we enjoy the good or not.

So, on this day and in this hour, I have a found a few moments to recall the times that have come before, may come tomorrow, as well as those that find me writing in my journal of the year 2022. I hope to tomorrow might bring a day of sharper focus but I can’t guarantee it. All I can do is put my head on the pillow with gratitude and a humble hope for what might come next.

As this day slides toward tomorrow I find myself listing to The Yellow Cake Review, Farewell to Stromness buy the L.A. Guitar Quartet from their 1998 record, L.A.G.Q. Sure, I wish they called themselves The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet but that’s another story. This is a lovely, gentle and articulate interpretation and arrangement of Peter Maxwell’s sublime piano composition of the same name.

If you never do anything I ask of you, go out and buy each piece music today. You will not be disappointed. Enthralled? Yes. But never disappointed. Thank you, as always, for reading.

January 18: These days

January 17: MLK Day was a kinda long one in 2022

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Things started out perfectly today with a couple more pancakes at Bernardos-Pavilions this morning around 10 but got a little more complicated shortly after we left Sacramento around noon.

Siri was trying to tell us something but we weren’t listening. She was trying to shepherd us down Interstate 5 but we ended up on the 99 until…

…until we realized there was a big ugly accident on the 99 just north of Bakersfield. The words “expect long delays” had us scrambling and we ended up making our escape SW from the 99 via the highway 198.

This was actually Ok for 50% of the passengers of the car, the one who found a new and unknown road amusing and a tiny bit of adventure in an otherwise bothersome delay.

We finally popped out onto the 5 at the garden spot of the Central Valley also known as Kettleman City. This reminded me of why I prefer the 99 over the 5.

Sure, Kettleman City is home to every fast food restaurant you’ve ever heard of (in addition to a Denny’s) but they’re all crammed on to one off ramp and the resulting crush of humanity we found at McD motivated us to scurry across the road in horror to the all but deserted Carl’s Jr.

It was the right move and then some. The Carl’s Jr. staff was great and their dining room was sparsely occupied. I downed my usual Western Bacon Cheeseburger and a free ice water before we were on our way again.

The rest of the ride was easy, again, for exactly 50% of the passengers. The weather was a tad wet off and on but mild. Even at the summit of the Grapevine it was still a warmish (for a January evening) temperature of 48 degrees.

I’m home now. A Russian WWII movie called On the Road to Berlin is on Prime Video (my bet is the Russians win) and I am trying to gracefully slide away from the challenges of the day that came before.

I’m going to need another drink pretty soon to ensure I’m ready for bed.

Thanks for reading.

January 17: MLK Day was a kinda long one in 2022

January 16: Sunday in Sacramento

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Like I said, this has been a quick trip. Maybe too quick when you think about the numbers of miles to & fro but you know what they say about beggars.

Our Sunday started out slowly with breakfast at Cafe Bernardo’s-Pavillions. There are a couple others Bernardo’s in the chain but this location is my favorite, especially when it comes to their fantastic pancakes. Today’s were sublime; tender, good buttermilk flavor, not over or undercooked and the perfect thickness. I got by with one cake but I would have been able to devour four if self-preservation hadn’t gotten the better of me.

Later, we took a ride out to the Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Carmichael, in the same park as the Ancil Hoffman golf course I mentioned yesterday.

The nature center has a number of trails that meander along and around the American River. As on the golf course there are deer everywhere as well as wild turkeys. The air was just crisp enough to keep a jacket on even with the sun out.

Afterwards, I noticed a brewery in nearby Rancho Cordova that I wanted to check out called Fort Rock. Everything was just a little disappointing. It was too loud (the 49ers were playing Dallas), the tap list was a little blah as was the strip mall ish location. I tried the Lights Out IPA. It was Ok but far from soul-stirring. Maybe I was expecting too much or maybe the relentless din from the TVs and the football fans tweaked my tastebuds. I hate to scratch a brewery off the list after trying only one beer but I may have to in this case.

Ah, but dinner! Dinner was at Obo. Now why the hell can’t I have an Obo in Los Angeles? It’s Italian and it’s fantastic. I went all in with spaghetti & meat balls and it was good as it was last summer, the winter before that and so on. They also have a full bar, a small but well-curated tap list, and a $10 rye old fashioned.

Are you kidding me?

We were celebrating a birthday (not mine) so I had two old fashioneds and the three of us split a slice of cheesecake, chocolate mousse and a chocolate-dipped cupcake that took a ride home with the lucky birthday boy.

It’s HGTV again tonight as we wind down but least it’s Home Town and not the drivel I subjected myself to last night. Nope, I didn’t come up with any ideas for my next book. Maybe tomorrow. I’m not even any more relaxed than when we left Los Angeles but at least we had us some fun and were blessed with good company and a wonderful host.

Tomorrow will be 388 easy miles and a return to reality. I can’t say I’m looking forward to either but I’m glad we made the trip.

Thanks for reading.

January 16: Sunday in Sacramento

January 15: Sacramento

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Thank goodness for the MLK holiday. It gave us a little time to make our way to Sacramento for a very quick getaway and a opportunity to dodge Omicron outside of Los Angeles County. I like this place. It’s not perfect but then again, neither am I. It’s not hard for me to confess the two big things that help me like it here.

The first is the welcome availability of quality golf that’s not crazy expensive. The 27 hole complex at Haggin Oaks was one of the best municipal facilities I had ever played until I was lucky enough to play Ancil Hoffman in nearby Carmichael. This last summer found me sitting on the patio at Ancil Hoffman drinking the biggest $8 Captain & Diet Coke you’ve ever seen. It is a beautiful layout that was in fantastic shape for the middle of summer, or any time of year for that matter.

Of course, that was summer and this is winter. It’s colder here than it is in SoCal. Worse, even though there’s no rain in the forecast the air is incredibly heavy, making tonight’s 43 degrees at 10pm feel quite a bit colder.

So, it’s cold, the days are short, what’s to do? There are great indoors are here aplenty. THat brings me to the second thing I love about Sacramento; the scores of great restaurants and bars. There are also tons of micro breweries around here though I must admit the pale ale I had from Berryessa Brewing this evening was not very good, but those are the breaks.

However, the cheddar burger at Hook & Ladder Manufacturing was superb. Stupid name for a place that is supposed to have an educational vibe (teacher’s desk inside the front door and school auditorium seats for use while waiting for a table).

But wait, am I so simple that burgers, booze and decent golf is enough to get me to relocate to Sacramento? Who knows, but I wouldn’t rule it out. Tomorrow I am hoping to write down some ideas for my next book. I hope you’ll be here to read them.

Sorry, no writing soundtrack tonight. Some idiotic home improvement show on HGTV is filling in, and doing a lousy job of it, I might add.

January 15: Sacramento

January 13: My friend & favorite watercolorist

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My favorite watercolorist is also my friend, Alba Escayo. She and I go way back. I think we found each other on Elance which is now Upwork. Yup, a classic internet mogul move; change a good name to a lousy one. Alba lives and works in Spain. She created the cover on my first novel and I wanted her to create the cover on Cottonwood as well. I’m always grateful she’s younger than I am because it means she’ll be around to create the cover artwork for every book I write, if she’s willing and I am able.

I had an idea that involved a Cottonwood tree and a figure carrying a golf bag and walking away from the viewer. From underneath the tree, the figure reaches up and touches the low-hanging leaves. The idea of the walking away is that the figure is walking into the future, like all of us. The figure is faceless. It could be anyone. It could be one of the characters in the book but then again maybe not. No matter who it is, he reaches up to touch the tree, to touch a growing life.

I sent Alba an example of my idea but I did a bad job of explaining my vision to her. Probably I was in a hurry or maybe I thought we had discussed it more completely last time we emailed about it, over a year ago. She sent me this a couple days ago:

Now I have a problem, not a bad problem mind you, more like a decision. This is not at all what I had in mind, but I love it. It’s not a golf book so I had no intention of having an image of someone swinging a golf club on the cover, but there it is. And, now that it’s there, it has me doubting my concept. I’ve been reminding myself of some of my best non-advice advice:

It doesn’t really matter.

Of course it does, but maybe not. I wanted Alba to create the cover because I love her work, and this is her work. Now I find myself hesitant to continue to foist my vision on her, especially after she’s blessed me with this beautiful creation. My concept is not the idea of a visual artist but rather of a lowly writer. Part of me is screaming at myself to leave the artwork to the artist, and that is definitely Alba and definitely not me.

But we are talking about me. So, in the end I couldn’t help myself and I emailed Alba with my thoughts. As I said, I love the cover she’s done, and I want it, and I’ll pay her for it gladly. It will hang proudly over my desk and I will smile each time I see it. It may not end up being the artwork I use on the cover and then again it might be.

The decisions made in writing a book, especially a self-published book, go on and on. I’m very happy that no matter what decision I make about the cover art, the work will be Alba’s and it will be fantastic because it is hers.

Today’s writing soundtrack is an elegant 1974 record by Bills Evans called, Symbiosis. It is some of the best of jazz and classical (read: orchestral) music I have ever heard. It is melodically and rhythmically evocative of both times and places I’d like to be. I know a pianist who doesn’t think much of Bill Evans’ work from this era, but I think it is wonderful. Maybe you will, too, so take a listen.

Thanks for dropping by.

January 13: My friend & favorite watercolorist

January 11: HBO’s Luck

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I cannot tell you why I found myself thinking about HBO’s doomed series, Luck, while I was out on my morning hike. Wait a minute, I do remember why. I was listening to a song that was used in the last episode. For some reason, Luck must have been cursed from the outset. Much of it was filmed at nearby Santa Anita Park. And, sadly, the horrible race horse deaths that plagued production of the series have continued in the years since. I don’t believe anyone knows precisely why. It was not a perfect series, but it had some very interesting elements, all of which were coalescing as the series reached its untimely end.

As I was making my way down the hill, listening to the song, I thought about writing a letter to Dustin Hoffman. I mean, what the hell is he so busy doing lately? I thought he might be interested in doing a movie version of Luck (that I, of course, would write), since I believe he was one of the main producers of the series. He’s likely had a lot riding on its success. I thought that pretty much everyone involved with the series were still alive and working. But, then I thought of the character of Gus Demitriou who was played beautifully by Dennis Farina and I remembered he died way back in 2013 at the age of 69.

That really slammed the door on my idea because I felt Gus was the heart and soul of the series. I actually met Dennis Farina once on the golf course. Man, that was a long time ago. I was playing golf with my brother John and my father, that shows that it was at least 14 years ago and obviously more. We were playing at a now defunct golf course out in west Simi Valley called, holy shit, I can’t remember the name! Well, I guess it doesn’t matter but in a way the make up of the course influences the story. Oh, I remember! The name of the course was Lost Canyons. A better name might have been Lost Ball Canyons. I would guess the average player, across handicaps, lost between 6-10 balls over an honest 18 holes. It was bad enough if the air was calm and if it was windy, forget it. We were playing the 18th hole and getting close to the green when suddenly a golf ball bounced up and smacked into my golf bag which was standing on the fringe between the fairway and the rough. I looked back up the fairway to see a man riding in the golf cart alone, waving at me.

“Man, I am so sorry,” said the man as he came to a halt. “Are you Ok? This is my first time here and this place kicked my ass. I’ve lost a ton of balls today. I had to buy a fuckin’ dozen at the turn.”

“No problem,” I said. “Your ball didn’t even come close to me. Anyway, I have you beat on lost ball stories.”

“What do you mean,” asked Farina.

I shook my head and said, “You know that par-3 17th? Well, I lost my birdie putt on that hole.”

Clearly incredulous, Farina said, “What the hell do you mean you lost your birdie putt? How the hell do you lose a putt?

“Easy,” I said. “I had a 20 footer up the hill, should have broken about two feet left. But I got all excited about it being for birdie and I smashed it right off the back of the green down into the canyon. Never saw it again. Unless you want to climb down after it I say it’s lost.”

Farina gave me a good belly laugh and said, “Damn, I wish I had caught up with you guys earlier!”

He seemed like a genuinely good guy and I really enjoyed him in that role.

Even I could magically convince David Milch, Dustin Hoffman and the gods at HBO to make the movie, I wouldn’t want to see it without Gus. I would say don’t bother, boys.

By the way, the song I was listening to was Otis Taylor’s Nasty Letter from his 2003 record, Truth Is Not Fiction.

Just buy it, it’s fantastic.

January 11: HBO’s Luck

January 9: Booing the tenor

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I read an interview of Pavarotti many years ago. In it, he told stories of his youth in Modena. One of the best was about the joy he got from sitting in the back row of the opera house just for the opportunity to boo the tenor. He said it didn’t matter whether the tenor was any good or not he and his friends simply liked booing him.

It’s a little strange but not all that unexpected. The tenor is the hero of every opera so how could a budding star like Pavarotti resist the urge to take the guy down a notch? Apparently, he couldn’t. Me? I try to resist the temptation to take anyone down just for the warped joy of doing it. I keep the words of one of my own heroes taped to the side of my monitor.

Teddy Roosevelt said, “It’s not the critic who counts…”

So, I do try to refrain from criticism for the sake of criticism. When I do criticize I hope I do it in the process of learning from what I regard as the mistakes of another. The Power of the Dog was an interesting movie to watch so I admit to a discomfiture at what is fundamentally a western being directed by a Kiwi. Worse, while the story was set in Montana the movie didn’t appear to be shot there. If it was, the director made it appear that it was shot somewhere else.

Hmmm.

What got me about the movie, and even later when I read the book by Thomas Savage, was how I was left feeling a little bit empty. There is simply too little of the malevolent brother Phil Burbank for the audience (and the reader) to chew on. You sat there hoping, yearning almost, to learn why he was the way he was but you never have the chance to find out.

In The Lost Daughter we are again left to bathe in tepid waters of ambiguity. Why is Leda such a bad mother? What is the foundation of her self-professed selfishness? Why, in the end, does she make the ostensibly bad family seem not so bad especially compared to her? What drove her to become who she was? Of course, some might thinks that ambiguity is a kind of freedom that’s bestowed on a thoughtful and imaginative audience, but I’m not so sure. If I have the time I may be moved to read the novel by Elena Ferrante. It’s hard to imagine writing such a potentially interesting character in a way that ends up blanching away the intrigue the character could bring to an audience. That’s why I want to read the book. Quite simply, novelists have time to make their case at their leisure. That’s a luxury few directors enjoy. Still, I’m left with the feeling Maggie Gyllenhaal could have gone on shooting and cutting forever and still never gotten to the essence of the story or its characters. If she failed where the author of the book succeeded another director should have been entrusted to the task of bringing the book to the screen. Too bad you can only watch the movies they made rather than the ones they didn’t.

It is, again, 11:48 and I still suck at getting my journal done during the day.

You’re forgiven for having never heard of tonight’s writing soundtrack. It’s Tim Curry’s 1978 Read My Lips. I gave up on finding a decent replacement LP since I tend to recall it was a lousy pressing anyway. The record finally got remastered and reissued and Amazon has it (like they have everything else). Let’s just say that it’s stylistically diverse and that Curry has a very interesting way with a song. I liked it in 1978 and I still like it today. I believe it was the last LP I ever bought from the long-gone but not forgotten Adam’s Apple in downtown Van Nuys.

January 9: Booing the tenor

January 8: A profound optimism.

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I know I’ve mentioned this before but I want to get into it again, at least briefly. The purpose of this journal is to keep my writing brain sharp while this eventful year makes it way toward the next. Behind this is a belief, really a profound optimism. It is the optimism that says that I have more books to write, better books at that. I suppose there’s no reason to believe it. After all, most writers are winding down by the time they’re 60. There are exceptions of course, but as is always the case the exceptions involve the work of exceptional writers and that ain’t me.

Still, the optimism persists. I can’t identify its source but I can feel it.

So this journal, even though it costs me a few hundred words a day worth of time and effort, is intended to help be stimulate my tiny writer’s brain toward finding what’s next for me. For the most part, the journal is for me. It’s about what I’m thinking or imagining or worrying about. Today was a typical Saturday. A weekend day of awakening late and listening to the oral arguments in the Supreme Courts cases involving the federal vaccine mandates, especially Biden v. Missouri. Eventually, I did drag myself out of bed and started my day but it was quite late. I looked ahead to a Zoom meeting I had with one of my clients in Japan, the maker of a high end putter. The meeting was scheduled for 4pm my time so I kind of set my whole day up so I could deal with the meeting and the fifteen minutes that I estimated it would take.

Wrong. It took nearly an hour and left me contemplating an explanatory email to make all of my verbal meanderings more comprehensible to my client. Sure, his English is about a million times better than my Japanese but my ongoing estimate of the instances wherein what I say is wholly understood by him seldom exceeds 30%, and I am not being unduly pessimistic.

See? My optimism extends beyond my creative writing and into my day job. What can you say about someone who thinks as I do?

Tomorrow I will meet the morning with breakfast followed by the crafting of my email to my client, who is meeting with his investor on Tuesday morning, which of course means Monday to me also meaning I cannot put it on ice over the weekend. But, even though winter get’s me sleeping more I feel good about my overall energy level. Things seem possible, if challenging, and everything seems designed to push me forward to destinations unknown and I certainly like that.

By the way, I know I have already blown my promise to myself from yesterday. Rather than finishing today’s post before the sun went down I started this right before 11pm…again. Well, there’s always tomorrow. But I will tell you this; there’s nothing like the last night flow when it comes to writing, at least mine.

Speaking of flow, today’s writing soundtrack flows from last night’s. It’s Bill Evans Interplay Sessions from 1962. Come on; it’s Bill Evans at his peak. Plus, it includes some of the only playing from Freddie Hubbard I actually enjoy. If you like jazz but have never heard it, buy in now. If you’ve never really listened to jazz but want to try it to see if you like it, this is some of the best you’ll ever hear and it’s as accessible as it gets. It’s just beautiful stuff from the first track until the end. Is it better than Evan’s 1976 Quintessence? We can argue about that another time.

In the meantime thanks for reading…again.

January 8: A profound optimism.