Heavy Lifting

So the one fund-raiser I did before the 200 stuffed mushroom one was a music, food, silent auction at the school which I pretty much did myself with not a whole lot of help. I recruited and solicited donations to the auction, stood out front of every parent meeting to try to get the parents to donate. Sent out a mailing. Recruited The Harmony Club, a group of retired studio jazz musicians, two different parents and the school Jazz Band to perform- all for free. Talked the Music parents into doing food and selling it. Got party tables donated. Got the cooking class to donate pies. Tried my damnedist to get people to attend. No one from the school staff actually attended. They handed the keys off to me. I had to hire a Security Guard which was the only expense of the entire evening. I had to smooze with the school custodian to get a piano outside and then back again inside at the end of the evening. Ran the Silent Auction pretty much by myself, except for my dear wife and a few other hardy souls. Luckily there was an unauthorized basketball clinic going on in the gym, so I picked up some business from the passerbys for the auction items and the food. Had some kids to help. The cooking teacher came to check me out, mostly so she could report back to the older parent group that didn't like me cause I talked back and didn't fit in. The reason I had the Friends of LACES blessing, was because a good friend had become President and she told everyone to let me do my thing. I would have preferred some help. It didn't look like a great turnout- the space was large, but I guess we did all right. At the end of the evening, as I was stacking the tables up to be picked up, I was told it looked like we did 10k. We did.

  

Emmylou Harris Last Night at The Greek Theater

Scored two tickets to the Greek Theater to watch her sing and play. Patty Griffith opened for her. She sang this, but its a Gillian Welch tune.

Well, They all came back the next night

Adventures in band. The first night, Sunday evening, the new guitarist, the two new ladies (Lost & Found) and  the fiddle player from San Fran and me and Craig started over basically. There was a set list for the gig on Saturday morning coming. We went through the songs. We were crazed. Trying to go through 10 songs with a group of people who haven't played much together, is like pulling teeth. We worked however. It was decided by all we'd come back the next night for one more try. The next night was very cool. We fooled around. They were all going to leave at 9:30. We got up to leave about 10 and then spend the next hour outside my studio door in the dark on the sidewalk showing each other yoga poses and holistic stretches. Craig can balance on one foot and point forward. The guitarist was demonstrating how to bend over and rise slowly to loosen the back up.
I showed them this:

which I've been able to do since I was 22. I worked as a printer's devil on a big two color printing press in New Orleans and you had to get into this position to clean the bottom set of rollers. The guitarist and one of the ladies hit it off and they are going off to some holistic healing thing in Santa Barbara.


Here are the two ladies. I filmed them and put them up on You Tube. Hope there will more
So far, this band has now lost 6 members along the way.

What Just Happened?

We just spent 3 and 1/2 hours rehearsing for the Saturday morning thing. I am so out of my depth. But I sing and I get gigs.

The Very Last Fundraiser

A success story

 

There was one fundraiser I did before this last one, but I've never ever done anything in order. The two older bears were graduated from the high school. The youngest one when off to France her sophomore year -and she was in the LACES school which is a Magnet School and you can't really leave a Magnet School and come back after a year and get back in easily. However, they liked her and we were active, so they kept her on the roll for the year she went off to France. I felt like I should do something to show my appreciation and benefit the school, so I volunteered to do the food at the Silent Auction thingee. One of my bear's friend's mother and I partnered up. We got the cooking students to make lasagna for hundreds, we got donations for salads and asked parents to bring desserts and whatever. Got the grocery store to cough up script that we used for supplies - and I made 200 stuffed mushrooms. We worked our tails off all evening with heating and refilling the lasagna and salads and we had students serving things up and carrying out the mushrooms. I was also good friends with the bartender, who kept supplying me with rum and cokes all evening, that I think to this day that kept getting stronger as the evening went on. At the end I was flying higher than a kite in a hurricane. My wife dragged me out before I fell over. It was all great fun. 

The Truth

You realize, of course, that I am writing my midnight thoughts to you, Lamont, Rex, ROSALIENe, Jan, and the two of children that read this, and of course a certain woman that gave me a hug at the keyboard and those others of you that may be out there.

Performance Anxiety

Performing: When I started I had to practice playing by myself for fifteen minutes before I could play with two other people at lunchtime in an isolated room in our place of work. I couldn't finish a song for my Alzheimer's mother over the phone without screwing up. This is what I wanted. So you start out in the back, afraid of getting too close to the microphone, then you slowly move forward. I went to a new group of folks last night, totally screwed up the first song, did a little better on the second and a little better on the third. However, now I can sit with a band and play for two hours in front of fifty people coming and going and get applause and hear it and enjoy it.  Most of the folks I've met all have the same problem- it has nothing to do with talent, or ability or exuberance, it has to do with level of comfort. There are folks that will never leave their garage or porch. There are people that will never leave their jam with 10 or 20 people. There are people who have enough ego to stand up in front of 50 people and perform, but don't feel important enough to stay there. The real advantage I've got, I think, is that deep down inside, I don't give a fuck. I don't really care what most of everybody thinks. I want that little one pair of hands clapping back there somewhere in the crowd. That is more important than everything else.
What I want to hear. Ellen, a odd little lady that hosts a open mike in Venice, came out from the dining room in this house last night, sat down beside me and and said she had heard me from the dining room, and thought the song was wonderful.  My dead baby song. It invokes a response. I played it at a jam in Orange county and a sweet guy, Doug, came and said I had a lot of guts to sing it. I said, well that's the idea. I enjoyed that night in particular, because my best buddy, Wayne, who hates all my original stuff, was shaken, noticing the reaction in room. This is a dead baby song. If I can get it out there, it will be noticed. That's the frigging idea.

Daydee once more

The new lawyer was a nice guy. He showed up on time to the appointment at the bank. The loan officer seemed ok. She outlined her plans to rent the apartments and to put the apartments up for sale and hoped the bank would help her do that. She made it clear she was firing Edward. That was in the letter, in writing. The bank guy acted surprised but didn’t say a word.  The new lawyer even offered to meet with Edward to make sure all the records were handed over properly and that he understood he was being dismissed. Daydee was happy not to have to confront him. He would have dismissed her. The loan guy at the bank told her that they would review the particulars and get back to her by the end of the week.  There wasn’t much else to do.

She went to shop for shotgun shells at the Walmart and went home.

She parked out front, but was worried that the tagger might come back. She wasn’t sure what she could do. She couldn’t stay up all night and watch. She might get hit any time. A week from now. She thought about trying to park the truck a few blocks away, but it was a small town and it was an old truck. Everyone knew it was hers.

She had bought a few other things at the store and was in her bathroom putting in a new shower curtain and rugs when the door bell rang and made her jump.  She came out. It was Susan, the minister’s wife.  She invited her in and immediately began picking up the living room. She was still sleeping on the couch and she hadn’t done dishes in a day or so. She apologized to the woman and offered her some lemonade. They sat down to visit. Why did she know this was  what was done?

“So, I thought I’d just come by to see how you were doing,” Susan told her.

“I’m doing ok. I’ve been running around like a chicken with its head cut off.  This estate thing is a mess.”

“How’s the morning sickness?”

“Getting worse,” Daydee laughed. “You would think that it would help you lose a couple of pounds, but I’m gaining.”

“Soda crackers and chamomile tea seems to work the best.”

“I have the crackers.”

“You have to just ignore Mrs. Burton, she’s Mrs. Prim and Proper around town.”

“Did she say something to you? I had just come to check on everything. I thought the service would be over.”

“She says something to everyone. The town knows to ignore her. If you aren’t sure about someone, give me ring. I can steer you the right direction.”

“Thanks, I’ll remember that.” Daydee wasn’t sure she wanted advice from this busybody.

“So, I know it’s none of business, but is the father-to-be in the picture?”

Daydee wanted to tell her it was none of her business. But this was all new ground. She needed everyone in town to think she was on the up and up. She also realized that by telling this woman, the entire town would know. Did she lie?

“Not right now. If you promise not to tell a soul, I’ll tell you what is going on.”

Susan nodded.

“Well, he’s in prison in Louisiana. He doesn’t know he’s a father to be.  He was a printer by profession, did fancy fine art prints. He and a couple of buddies decided they could make some extra money by robbing a bookie in the French Quarter. This is a man that never broke a law his whole life.” That wasn’t exactly true, but she knew to play the wronged woman. “Anyway, I was going to write him when I was sure. I guess I’m sure now. He’ll be out in a year and a half. It was his first offence ever.”

“You poor thing.”

Daydee shrugged at her.

“This is your first?”

“Yep,” Daydee said.

“Well, I’m here to help.”

“Thanks so much.” Daydee thought she’d go for broke. “Is there a tagger in town that folks are aware of?”

“A tagger?”

“Someone that goes around spray paints things at night. Like gang members or young punk types.”

“Not that I know of.”

Daydee proceeded to tell her the story, without mentioning the word that was written. 

“I’d call the sheriff right now and let him know.”

“The police in New Orleans don’t seem to care, unless they stumble across the guy in the act and then they would arrest him.”

“The sheriff might even know who it is.”

“All right, I’ll call.

She had one more thing on her mind.

“You know, everyone has noticed you don’t have a wedding ring.”

“ I took it off and threw it at him when they came to arrest him. I searched high and low and never found it. It stupid, I know. You can let everybody know I have a license to prove it. You want to see it?”

Susan laughed.

Daydee was sure she did want to see it, but now all she could do was shake her head. They were having fun. Susan now thought she had the inside scoop. The whole thing was a lie. She and John had never lived together and had never married.  It did happen that way to a working girl she knew in the quarter, though.

“Would you mind if a bunch of us throw you a baby shower? We haven’t had any new moms to play with in about a year. I’ll do it all. All you have to do is show up.”

Daydee told her ok, but she was nervous. What was she supposed to talk about with a party of other women?

“There will be games and things to do?” She suddenly felt like a little girl being invited to a birthday party. Nothing she ever got when she was little. They were white trash. They didn’t get invited into other people’s homes. And her parents were strange.

“It’s all very silly. But you get things you’ll need for the baby. And guidance.”

Guidance seemed to be the scary part.

The Sheriff did drive over after she called. He was what she had expected somehow. Short, in his fifties, balding, overweight with a belly hanging over his belt. Rumpled shirt. He looked at the traces of the paint across her front door and examined the side of her truck. Wrote down her information. He had probably been Sheriff there for twenty years. This was something she would have never done in New Orleans. They were the enemy. You had to lay it out for them to get off. The worst were the young bible cops that thought they were helping society by getting you off the street. This guy was harmless and not very bright really.

“Can’t say when we had this kind of problem here. Usually it’s just the boys from the high school just before graduation.”

“What should I be doing?”

“Well, just keep at look out. Try to get a license number. I’ll have the night car pass by here a bit. That will probably scare them off.”

“Thanks,” she shook his hand and he held it for a moment too long.

“So, you back for good?”

“Looks like it,” she said.

“Jack says you visited the church. You like it?”

“It was nice.”

 “Don’t know that we ever had a McIntire come to services.”

“Well, there’s always a first time.”

“That there is. Nice to meet you.”

Andy Griffith was still alive, she thought as she waved at him as he left.

So she went back early in the morning two days later. She purposely dressed in jeans and the flannel shirt she now loved . She was ready for anything. Even bought herself a pair of tennis shoes for walking around in the high grass.  She had heard stories about dealings with crazy people. She left her jewelry at home. Getting the spray paint off her truck that night had cracked a couple of her nails so she had to trim those back. Her hair was under a bandana. She didn’t want anything for him to be able to grab. Not that he ever had grabbed her, if it was really her father. She half-expected to get there and find no trace and then realize that she had just dreamed it. She had probably just dreamed his aged face on to an old bum’s and then scared herself. She parked by the office and walked over slowly. She didn’t want to scare him off if he was there. She wanted time for a reality check.

It was an overcast day, with thick clouds that looked like they might rain later. The grass was high and wet back here, away from the cemetery’s golf course lawn. Jack did take good care of it. Maybe she should confront him about that conversation behind the diner?  Somehow, she knew he would just lie. She came back to the spot by the trees where he had been. There was a crumpled down spot all right. Someone had been camping out here. There was no trace of the shopping cart. There was a an empty potato chip bag. Nothing else. She stooped to pick it up and folded it and stuck it in her hip pocket to throw away later.

  There was a trail that led off in the grass. She followed it. It was wide and wandered down across a meadow and toward a fence and another grove of trees. This seemed a little impossible to push a shopping cart all this way. Especially for a little old man. The fence had been torn down in one spot ahead and there stood the cart. She didn’t see its owner. She walked up slowly. No sign of him. She looked all around. Should she wait for him? He might be gone for hours or days. The cart did look like it was left here for safekeeping. You couldn’t see it unless you were almost on top of it.

“Sos, youse come explorating?” a voice asked.

She didn’t see him.

“Where are you?”

“That’s for youse to know.”

He was sitting in a tree branch above her. It was dark up there. She couldn’t see him well enough to decide anything.

“You hungry?” she asked.

“You have poison,” he told her.

“Not me. I was going to bring you lunch. You want to come down and have lunch with me?”

“You can have it. Right there.”

“I have to go get it. You be here when I come back?”

“No.”

“You like McDonald’s?”

“He had a cow.”

“And hamburgers.”

“No.”

“You can come up to the office and meet me there when I come back.”

“No.”

“You used to like strawberry milkshakes, you still do?”

“No.”

She headed back across the field, trying to remember if she saw a McDonald’s some place. There had to be one. She went back to her truck. The walk seemed longer now and uphill. This was stupid. He was obviously crazy. And she felt like she was kidding herself. Her father was in the ground. She drove toward the main highway, figuring there had to be one out at the edge of town, maybe next to the Wal-Mart somewhere. She found it and drove through. How long had it been since she ate this stuff? No one in the French Quarter ever bothered. There was so much cheap food to be had everywhere that was better than this. She wished that she was sitting in Ruby Red’s right now, with her heels in the peanut shells on the floor and a real hamburger that you have to take home the half you couldn’t eat. That world was much saner than this one. All that was expected there was a smile and a nod to some poor snook’s sad life.

When she got back, he was sitting on the front step of the office. God. It was her father. He was looking past the truck somewhere. He couldn’t look at her when she climbed out of the truck.

“He was such a porcupine that he was porcupining all the time and they had to give a haircut, snip snip snip.”

She started over to bring him his bag, and he jumped up. So she stopped. She held out the bag and inched a little closer and sat it down on walkway between them and then she backed off. She didn’t want to scare him off. He ran and grabbed it and took it back to the front step and pulled everything out and began stuffing his mouth. He dropped fries on the step and quickly grabbed them to stuff in his mouth.  The lid and straw were discarded and he drank it up, with some dribbling down his chin. Tears were running down his cheeks. Daydee sat down on the walkway and pulled out her hamburger.

“So,” she said. “How you been?”

He was nodding his head to the tree. It looked like he would have to finish eating before he could talk.

“I was in New Orleans all these years,” she told him. “Mama died. That was the reason I came back.”

He was licking the inside of the cup and then looking through the bag for any crumb left. She got and offering her French fries approached him again. She felt this was like trying to get close to a squirrel or a wild bird. He reached out his hand and accepted the fries. He really smelled bad. She retreated back to her original spot and sat down again.

“You’re really very crazy, aren’t you?”

“They snipped snipped and his pants fell down!” He laughed.

“I wonder how long you’ve been here.”

“When hell freezes over!”

“I don’t suppose I could talk you into a bath and a bed?”

“Deedee knows lots of stuff. Lots of stuff. It came out of her bear!”

He jumped up and ran off back across the cemetery. 

Half A Life

I was given this last Christmas by a friend I respect and admire. I know it's supposed to express the angst of the mixed raced displaced people of the world and their wandering about without a real sense of home. And I know he won a Nobel Prize. This is the second one I've read. The problem mat be that I know too much about him and he has a rotten personality and hates women which is very apparent here. It is a good read read-sort of- it sucks you in, but then you wonder why you are continuing to read, other than its short and I hate to quit a book no matter how stupid. So what? Our hero escapes his culture, goes to England to study and follows a woman to Africa and leaves her at the end of the book "to find himself" He's a twerp. It's also got some real clunky transitions and no redeeming literary style. America has a long tradition of these kind of books. Boy leaves home and little town stilted culture, goes off to big city and finds himself and succeeds or fails and will kill someone (An American Tragedy) or bite off someones' ear (McTeague), reach a rich peoples haven and be adopted (Valley of The Moon), become friends with a gangster (The Great Gatsby) or fail and spend the next ten years writing endlessly about going back to his little stilted home (Of Time and The River and on and on) - Actually, now that I think of it, this book has a lot in common with Henderson the Rain King and The Dharma Bums or Beautiful Losers and on and on- all of the above books were better written.)

Did I mention I finished this? Hell of a lot more fun read. Not as good as Orlando and The Waves and To The Lighthouse. All very English of course. But one should, don't you know. Patterson is next ( William Carlos himself) - actually, I've already finished the first book- quite good in places - quite very very obscure in others, but they thought that generation was being brilliant when you couldn't understand them- sort of like Bob Dylan lyrics. 

Dead Letters

Well, the band is being rebuilt again. It's just as well. It was getting close to me quitting my own band. Pity the ones that don't realize that "it ain't never gonna be perfect." I've come up with a new catch phrase: Bottom-feeders. Those that join a new group and want you to change dates and locations and sing 5 minute songs. They also hate what you like and love that which threatens to make you gag. Or the ones who want you to do 5 of their songs when they know they are quitting. And won't help you do yours. 

Bath Tub War Games

Was I the only child to use toiletries as toy soldiers in the bath? In my childhood, they had names, ranks and a personal history. Some couldn't swim and they would drown. The Monitor and the Merrimack fought in the suds for the river. My mother would wonder why I spent so much time in the tub. I suppose it would of been easier to bring my real toy soldiers in the bath, but where's the imagination in that. I also recall scaring myself by imaging faces hidden in the knotty pine of the bathroom door. That was earlier. It got painted later, which made it a whole lot easier to go in there.

Robert Louis Stevenson took his to Samoa with him and had them set up in a special little barn where he could act out famous European battles.

Kinda looks like it would be more fun. One of the things I was gonna do when I grew up was build a miniature replica of Cape Canaveral in my back yard with real working model rockets and one of those huge rolling launch pads (in miniature, of course) that would roll out the Saturn 5 out of its bunker for launching the Apollo missions. We had a Museum of Miniatures here in LA when the kids were little. It was an impressive collection, but they couldn't keep their doors open.
Ah well:

More Daydee Again

Daydee spent most of the next day recoating the red letters until finally you had to know where they had been to find any trace of them. In between coats, she showed the apartments and signed one more tenant up. She got a referral from Mark for another lawyer and called and hired him. She made an appointment with the bank to talk about the mortgage and then called the new lawyer back to have him come with her tomorrow to the bank. She finally sat down about four in the afternoon to work on writing the letter she was supposed to be writing that fired Edward and hired the new guy and was supposed to be sent to the guy at the bank as well as the probate judge that had her mother’s estate.

This was the hard part. She had never finished high school. She didn’t know any of the rules.  She found a letter from one of her mother’s credit card companies and decided to use it as a model. She would have to write it out in long hand and then drive to cemetery to type it up there, since the only typewriter was there. This would take a while. She didn’t know how to type either. She was certain that she was going to make a mistake that would make her sound dumb. She was tempted to call Sarah, but already felt obliged to her and she certainly didn’t want to appear stupid in front of the closest thing to a female friend she had ever had.

Why hadn’t she taken night classes or something? Did she really think her looks were going to last forever?  A part of her had thought that maybe there might be some rich old guy that might come along and take a fancy to her.  Well, there had been one guy, but his spindly legs and little pot belly was too off putting. He might have been worth something had she encouraged him. He was some kind of professor as well. He’d write her a letter. She thought of Mark, but it was too late in the afternoon now. He’d be going home soon. The first draft sounded like she was copying the credit card letter. So she started over just trying to write what she wanted to say. That was a little easier.  An hour later, she had a couple of paragraphs that she thought sounded ok. She grabbed her keys and purse and head out to the cemetery.

It was dinner time, so not a soul was out. She parked by the office and noticing the new mound of earth over the new grave, she reminded herself that she still had to order the marker for the grave. She unlocked the office and went in. The typewriter was electric at least and after playing around with discovered it could backspace and erase her mistake. What a wonderful thing. It was still time consuming. Her spelling had never been good, now trying to hunt and peck for the letters on the keyboard and at the same time remember how to spell the word correctly was too much. She had to stop and check the dictionary in the desk a couple of times as well.  She wasn’t able to find any carbon paper, so she was stuck retyping the same letter four times.

It was dark outside by the time she finished the last copy. The cemetery had no outside lighting except for a porch light over the office door, so the windows that had provided such a great view were now all mirrors, reflecting her at work. The dark glass didn’t show any age or wrinkles. Nice, she told herself, as she stretched when she finally got out of the chair. Not bad for an old broad.  She found a folder for the letters and some envelopes to take with and sat down again to look through the family’s file for what kind of marker to order.

A car door slammed loudly outside. She jumped. An engine gunned and skidded out the gravel drive. She hadn’t heard anyone drive up. This was scary. She went to the closet for something to use if she had to protect herself. There was an old rake. And a shotgun. Shit! She grabbed it. She knew nothing about guns.  She had no idea of how to look to see if it was loaded. She ran and flicked the lights off inside and out, and after a moment went out. It was dark and she couldn’t see a thing. Reaching in, she turned the porch light back on. There was no sign of the car she had just heard. She walked out to look around the corner of the building. There were taillights about a block away. What was that all about? She turned toward her truck. There on the side was those letters she had just painted over on her front door. ‘Whore’ in red spray paint again. God damn them! There was a hose coiled in front of a spigot by the office door. She put down the shotgun and turned the water on and dragged the hose over to the truck. She sprayed the hell out of it. The paint was still wet and a lot of it washed off. She scratched at the remainder with her fingernails.   You couldn’t tell what had been written there, thank god. She went around to the shed for a rag or towel to rub it some more and found some dish soap as well and went back to work on it some more. Most of it was coming off.

At this point, she was as wet and soapy as the side of the truck. She checked the other side. They had been quick and not thorough. She worked some more to make sure there was no trace left.

“And it wasn’t over there, it was over here,” someone said behind her.

She turned. There was an old man, in rags, and as dirty as sin, sitting on the front step with the shotgun in his hands. He seemed to be looking at it. He didn’t seem too interested in her or what she was doing.

“Hello,”  she said.

 “It wasn’t much to lookee see,” he was saying to himself.

“That’s my gun.”

He cocked his head as if listening for something. He gently put it down on the stoop and stood up slowly. It was an effort to get to his feet. He looked very old and rickety. He wouldn’t look at her.

“Here is over there,” he said to the night and shambled across the drive and started off toward the back of the cemetery

“Did you see who tagged my truck?” she yelled after him.

He turned but not all the way. He was talking to the mound of earth nearby.

“Just a lookee see, little dede, just a lookee see. No harm no runs no hits.”

He disappeared into the darkness. She picked up the shotgun. She got it open to find it had two shells in it. But they were probably real old. How long had it sat in that closet. She removed them, with the idea of buying new shells. She would need them to figure out what to buy. Were there lessons on how to shoot a gun?  She was sure any one of these guys around here would be willing to show her. Frank, the sharecropper would love it, so he could demonstrate his superiority. She took it back in and replaced it in the closet. There weren’t any other ammunition for it. She threw the shells in her purse and gathered up her paperwork and the folders on the marker. She’s figure it out at home. It was too spooky out here by herself. She found a flashlight in the desk.  She was afraid of turning on the lights again and making herself a sitting duck. She locked up and put walked out with the dim light. It needed new batteries. She put everything in the truck and climbed up.

Something struck her as she was about to start the engine. She pulled the key out. The old man had called her little dede.  She climbed back out and started off across the cemetery on foot, following the direction that the old man had gone in. This is real stupid, she told herself. She found him about fifty yards beyond the back boundary of the grounds. The was a little grove of trees and bushes that was never mowed and the weeds were high. He was sitting on the ground next to a shopping cart full of junk, cardboard and plastic bags filled with god knew what. He had an old smelly blanket on the ground and another wrapped over his shoulders. The flashlight was barely working now. He really reeked. He smelled like roofing tar.

She put the light on his face. He looked away and hid under a hand.

“Just a lookee see, for god’s sake!”

She didn’t know what to say. She was afraid to be wrong or right. She was afraid to say it.

“Father?”

“Oh nooo, No god here, no over there, no god here. Oh nooo.”

She watched him. He hid under the blanket and she moved the light away from where his face had been. She needed to get out of here and think this over. The flashlight would die and she would trip and stumble in getting out of here.

“I’ll come back,” she said and turned to flee.

She wasn’t sure at all. If this was her father then who was buried in the ground with the marker? She hurried back to the truck and left as quick as she could. Part of her was afraid he might follow her back out.  God, she hoped no one tagged the apartment again while she was away. Shit!

Dead

This is the one I'm learning right now.

Helpful hints you'll find no where else

More and more and more

The next morning, after throwing up her breakfast, she made herself drive down to the hardware store where the guy had been nice and bought paint to cover over that word. She thought of buying soda crackers. That was supposed to help, wasn’t it? The diner where Winston had taken her for breakfast was on the way to the grocery store, so she decided to stop for some soup and see if their crackers would help. It was almost lunch time, if you were up early. There weren’t very many cars in the lot. She figured this was a safe haven. It wasn’t the sort of place where the women of the town hung out.  She got out of the truck and immediately heard Winston’s voice from behind the building. He was angry.

“I won’t do it, goddamn it!”

She walked over to take a peek . He was standing back there with Jack and Edward. They all had cigarettes lit and were puffing at each other.

“You don’t have any choice in this!” Edward told him.

“I quit! You two can go hang yourself!”

Edward grabbed him by the shirt collar.

“You shut up and listen! You have liabilities. You want to see your missus in a lot of pain?”

Winston shoved him off.

“You son of a bitch!”

Jack got between them.

“Listen, both of you!  Calm down. We are clever guys. We can figure out ways to get her to leave. Think, you’ve both been with her. Is there anything we can use?”

Winston stopped himself from saying something.

“Out with it,” Jack said.

“Let me think about it,” Winston told him.

“I can get the bank to foreclose on the apartment building,“ her lawyer said.

“That’s a start. Let’s talk tomorrow. You two need to keep calm,” Jack told them. He started out toward her. Daydee hopped back into her truck and hid from him. He walked right by her without even seeing the truck that he knew well. There was a huge scowl on his face. What the hell was this? Edward came out next and got into his car and left. She got out again when he turned out of the lot. She went back to where Winston was standing by himself. He looked at her frightened.

“What the hell was that?” she demanded.

“I don’t know. You need to leave Paris!”

He rushed by her and ran for his car. He drove away without looking back. 

Daydee went back home without her soup. They had been arguing about her- that was obvious. But why? Was she sitting on something she didn’t know she had? They wanted her out of the way for some reason.  She tried to imagine what. The only thing she hadn’t seen was what was in the locked garage at her great-grandmother’s house.  There didn’t seem to be any mysterious paperwork or deeds or bank accounts. Maybe there was oil under one of the properties she had inherited and they wanted her out of town so they could drill without her knowing about it. Or maybe there was something buried out at the cemetery they didn’t want her to find.  Those were two places she would have to root around in . She’d break into the garage and take a close look through the cemetery office. She got out the paint and began to cover the lettering across her front door. It was going to take more than one coat. This got her angry. This had to be one of them. If it was Winston, she would kill him. And she had invited him to dinner and had gone to church with him. Of all the goddamn nerve.  What was worst, she had been conned. She hadn’t believed that there was a man in the world that could pull one over on her.

Sarah pulled up out front with a couple in the car with her. Daydee quickly opened the front door of her apartment so that the middle of the red word couldn’t be seen. She moved the ladder she had up with her can of paint on it to hide one side of the door jam. They got out of the car and came up the walk. The couple were young and probably newlyweds or at least boyfriend and girlfriend.

Sarah introduced them as Mark and Amy.

“They are interested in an apartment. I told them about the first month free promotion you had going.”

“Sure. Let me get the keys.”

She came back and showed them the first one that was next to hers. They wanted to move in tomorrow.  The rent was agreed upon. They would come back tomorrow with their belongings and sign a lease and take possession. It was like falling off a log. They wanted to look around the apartment some more and take some measurements. Daydee wondered if they were going to go buy furniture that afternoon. 

“The kids were concerned that you might care if they were married or not,” Sarah told her. “I told them you could care less.”

“That’s right,” Daydee told them.  “Just back over when you are done. I need to talk to Sarah for a minute.”

They left them there.

Daydee had never ever gone to another woman for help in her life. She might elbow a fellow hooker and share a look or a joke, but she had never relied on any of them. There were quite a few that she saw almost daily in the Quarter. They knew not to ask her for favors because she never asked. But now she was at wit’s end and this was the only soul she knew that might know enough to help.

“Sarah, I appreciate you helping me out with finding me renters.”

“You’ll get my commission invoice.”

 “Sarah, there is a favor I need to ask you. I barely know you. Your ex is going to get the bank to foreclose on me. I don’t honestly know why, other than he’s just a bastard and he doesn’t like me.”

“What makes you think that?”

She told her what she had overheard at the restaurant, but left out the argument part. She wasn’t sure why, other than she still felt a little loyalty to Winston.

Sarah looked thoughtful.

“There are some things he didn’t like about your mother, but that doesn’t seem like much of a reason to sabotage you.”

“You think I should talk to the bank myself?”

“That wouldn’t hurt. You know, you should write Edward a letter to fire him, send a copy to the bank president and then go in with another lawyer to pay them a call. I’ll call you later to give you the names at the bank. You want another lawyer’s name too?”

“Sure.”

“I know the wives of two of the bank execs. Let me see if I can grease the wheels a little. You, of course, will need to sign over your first child to me.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Daydee said smiling. She found herself touching her belly. Stupid.

“We’ll work something out. I’ll keep you posted.”

The young couple was walking back. 

Another Summer Gone

Every year the Boy Scout Troop ends the summer with a Monday night bonfire at the beach here. And almost every year, I don't want to go but I do. And I stay and talk and enjoy it. Saw a Dad I worked with over on USC campus before I changed jobs. Saw the wife of the band member that died. Saw good ole Joe and his wife. And Palmer, one of my hiking buddies and Richard who's son is now 25. And the new Dads I've gotten to know. It's been a good summer- we had two graduations to start things off- a trip to the Grand Canyon and to Yosemite, music gigs and our first real Square Dances. and a birthday jam. And kids all leaving again.

So what was promised? A Merit Badge here. A bike ride there. A video and a book to a friend. A get together to jam a little over original songs.

What is there to add? May the autumn be as blessed.

Me Singing

I put up six of the band's songs on Myspace -You can even download them for a buck a song

Find more Rhubarb Meringue Pie songs at Myspace Music

Find more Rhubarb Meringue Pie songs at Myspace Music

The Saga of Toxic Wars

We have hornets / bees that want to live in our house. It used to be crickets when we first moved in- once a year the crickets would sing to us from the attic and the air ducts, but some time ago they left and didn't come back. I don't know why. The first family of bees to come tried to set up housekeeping in a crack in the stucco above our back deck. I bought some foam spray installation and sealed them in forever. The second family arrived about a year later and set up housekeeping in a bird house hanging off the back eve of the house. That one was easy, I rolled the trash can under it, and cut it down.

This last time they have found another eve at roof level and moved in big time. I tried the foam installation spray a couple of times, but they keep finding new entrances. It turns out that there is a secret interior door to their home that lets them into my studio, where they fly against the glass of my windows and butt their heads until they die. There were about 50 of them there dead when I first tried sealing them up outside. Then when they found another way out of the roof to the outside directly, they quit coming in. Except for the one or two that come to buzz at my lamp late at night when I am trying to practice banjo.

I also tried spraying poison sprays into the holes in the shingles on the roof -about 10 cans so far. And spraying the whole area down with the hose, but that only managed to leak in and water stain my ceiling tiles inside.

I've been stung about three times in this endevour.

So, I had the idea of soaking rags with the spray poison and draping them over them atop the shingles and weighing them down with bricks. I tried to do this early in the morning and they attacked me, got in my loose hair and stung my scalp about 3-4 times and got me behind the ear and on the arm. (On the arm where it rubs the edge of my banjo drum as I play)   I ran in and took a shower and left a couple of them on the shower floor. So I tried again late at night. So far none are coming inside the studio. I now have three rags soaked in poison spray up on the shingles and I don't see very many of them. I've been re-wetting the rags every night. Will let you know if this has worked or they are just hiding out waiting for me to come look again. Anyway, I think I've created a Super Fund Toxic site and will probably be unable to sire healthy children again ever. 

I'll tell you about the bees another night

This has been a drama in itself over the last few weeks, but I'll write about it later. There is a little phrase from Swan's Way (Proust) that says that when he dies, he will wrap himself up in his dreams and carry those dreams into oblivion with him (to keep him warm on oblivion's cold nights) That made Swan's Way worthwhile. I've still not read the other four. There is a song I've discovered- I've discovered a whole live of music and songs in the last four years that I missed. I've posted it here before and will probably post it again at the end of this. The phase "and I will sing a song of my own" makes it the same touchstone for me and brings the same meaning to the confrontation of death. (Which everyone agrees that I've been creating against since day one.) There are secrets that one can never tell, out of love, out of respect, out of realization that the moment the secret was created it was yours, it was the other person's and it belongs there forever in the emotional fiber of one's existence. What was said when my children were conceived. What was said in a moment of confession to my children. What was said in the destruction of marriage. Or on a deathbed watch. Or on a walk on the beach with a friend. There is a urge to find the secrets, to expose them, to tell the world what the real truth is. But it is what fiction was designed for: to expose them in the settings of their creation. The nuance of words spoken between two people that have a connection can only be expressed in a setting of emotional history and physical textual settings that conveys what it meant at the time. So to blurt them out does them no justice at all. Remembering words can invoke a devotion that can last a thousand years. So we create the lie of fiction to make those confessions we can make no other way. And I will wrap myself in them when the last "ding dong" of history takes me home. (Ding dong was in Faulkner's Nobel Prize acception speech)

Well, I been helpin' the poor and needy (and myself)

No pictures today.

I have spent the last two days- The Monday holiday, mind you, doing the band's business. I had a hour and a half of video from our playing at the Swap Meet in August. (I have a cool little phone looking video camera that cost a whole $125.00 that will work for a couple of hours and will auto load to Facebook and You Tube- though rather slowly) The problem was I had video and the only faces you can see are Wayne & I. Everyone else is hiding behind their music stand. So, I decided I would just steal the audio off the recording and make a CD to give away at our next performance on Sept 18th. The software for the little device is pretty cluncky for a super long  recording so I looked elsewhere. Well, Quicktime Player has a neat little Audio or music cutter that will slice your stuff up and I found a little freebee thing off the net that will convert video to audio or whatever.
So anyway, I made a CD of the band from the live stuff and all of its imperfections.

Then I had to make a presentable cover for the jewel case, which took another evening.

Then I've recruited these two women to join the band, and to work with me to work up my original songs separately from the band, because the band won't help me with the ten songs I've written now. (because absolutely none of them practice- so how could they possibly learn something they did not know.)  

I'm putting their performance at a local dive up to You Tube, so they will work with me on my own sings. All I'm trying to do is get the songs up somewhere for someone to notice, but I am not musically skilled enough to do it on my own yet.

Anyway, its an adventure. I've never been the manager of a band before.

Skills will get you places -I just have more skills to flatter folks egos than what I really need.

None of them read this, or I would probably be in deep shit.

Does This Make Any Sense To Anyone?

I had submitted the Query letter on March 18th, 2011. I heard from them today. They can't throw this email message into the other mailbox?

Thank you very much for your submission to Black Lawrence Press. The press now accepts submissions via Submishmash. If you are still interested in having Black Lawrence Press consider your manuscript, please resubmit here: http://blacklawrencepress.submishmash.com/submit.

If you do not resubmit via Submishmash, we will assume that you have placed your manuscript elsewhere or are no longer interested in working with Black Lawrence Press.

We thank you kindly for your assistance and apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused.

Best Regards,

Diane Goettel

On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 7:42 AM, Dan McNay <mcnay@mosis.com> wrote:

Query for "The Truth About Treasure Island" a novel by Dan McNay

(a real letter)

“Dear Mr. Carruthers,

            Re Strong

            I must confess that I am entirely sick of this business, and so much so that this is not only my last offer but my last communication on this matter black or white. If I do not receive an answer (per bearer who waits) accepting this amended offer, Mr. Strong must stay in Samoa or leave Samoa and henceforth live at his own charges. My desire to act handsomely is great; my willingness to have my time wasted and my temper tried has now reached its limit.

            I offer then, to pay a steerage fare for him to Sydney, a second cabin fare for him from Sydney to Japan, to give him twenty-one pounds sterling either here or in Sydney, or part here part there, and to give one pound sterling a week from the day of his arrival in Japan for the space of one year.

            If this is refused, I have no more dealings with him or his account, unless he should prefer to return to the original offer in my last to you; but this also must be settled out of hand and per bearer. I am,

Yours very sincerely         

Robert Louis Stevenson”

“This is Stevenson trying to buy me off and get me to leave the island, even with my young son still living at his house. I had to sneak around to see him. I had found the love of my life on Samoa and I had finally followed my heart. Belle was a good woman, I meant her no harm, but our marriage had dried up. She had become Stevenson’s secretary and second wife for all practical purposes.

Fa’apio was one of the sexiest native dancers on the island. She danced for the king. She was gorgeous and she wanted me.

Stevenson finally shipped my boy off to California without my permission. He was in a safe place when the war broke out, but I wanted to murder the man, and I almost did. I made up for it later by saving his life when I was on my way to try to save Fa’apio.” -Joe Strong

This is the tragedy of both men and their lusts and their limitations as men. It follows their struggle from 1891 to 1894 until Stevenson died suddenly.  The novel is about 70,000 words and is illustrated by sketches from Joe’s diary. He was an artist and an early photographer. A great deal of the book is based on actual events.  

            The first fifty pages are available at www.thetruthabouttreasureisland.com

My previously published novel is available on Google books: “It Knows You By No Other Name” by Dan McNay. I am also the author of “A Man Came Up From Town” an Lifetime optioned screenplay about Robert Louis and Fanny Stevenson’s love affair and marriage, a small theater piece: “Virginia Woolf, The Waves,” a play in three voices; and another novel “Come To The Edge of Them” (out-of-print). 

Thank you for your time.

Dan McNay

mcnay@usc.edu

310-337-7229

--
Black Lawrence Press

blacklawrence.com

One More- This is great fun and you can download it!

Find more artists like Rhubarb Meringue Pie at Myspace Music

This one is about Cynthia, which I think a couple of you met. It was a poem that never quite worked , but became a nice song. You should have hear. seen the reaction the first time I sang it at a jam. I annoubce it as the first song I ever wrote. They were expected something simple and love-songish.

This Is What I've Been Doing All Day

Find more artists like Rhubarb Meringue Pie at Myspace Music

I converted an hour and a half of video into music files so I could post up to my space (or My Face, as I been calling it) and burn a CD to give away ay our performances. Every tells me I do this good. It took my three hours this morning to figure out how to do do this. It turned out real simple, buy a function from Apple.

A Song Of My Own

I'm in love with this song and am trying to learn it in my very simple banjo way. Its a step up. Every song seems a step up. Went tonight to film my two new ladies in the band. Will post it here this weekend. The one that writes songs is scared of me. It's ok. We will see where it goes. I have no or very limited musical ability except that I can write. I'm hoping the added musically of these two will help me get the songs up and running. If not, then someone else.