SCAT1 -- see sarnatscat2.blogspot.com/ for post 8.6.6 posts

"Boola Boola"

"Flourish or die!"
cries great big James Eaglewing, the apparent bull
of a bronzed Native American media businessshark success story,
his dyed raven-black mousse-slick ponytail braid
hanging behind a fine turquoise and silver bolo tie.

"It's time to fish or cut bait!"
he orates a well-practiced well-turned well-received hunting metaphor
directed not especially to the mainly pale geriatric WASPy
New Haven bookstore attendees, but more at CSPAN2 viewers,
and even moreso trolling the crowd for gyrating nonjailbait groupies.

"Power to the Indians!"
our spellbinder aerates,
as the TV klieg lights begin to create
gross puddles of sweat on his richly decorated handmade leather jacket
just starting to stain from his back-West colorist's cheap hair products.

"But castrate the Asian kind!"
the self-promoting self-proclaimed redman says,
his non-PC white-hot vulgar eloquence
fueling a low vibrating tension among the liberal bluebloods
that deflates many among their fiftieth Yale reunion audience.

"And while we're at it, let's off our mongrel Jewish classmates!"
the now wobbly speaker whines, as the shopkeeper,
suspicious of intoxication, finds the unkind words losing many
of the previously glued, now vacillating hearts and eyes -- and more
disturbingly, the producer's berating cameramen to shut down fast.

"Aboriginal terrorists are gonna strike the US real soon!"
shouts the dubious onetime chieftain mutated to pathetic showman,
stoking the coals for the few remaining foolish souls not yet fled,
hate dripping off the cape of the bloody stage, as he urges
no one in particularly to join him at the Hitler Cafe afterwards.

As bloggers and newspaperwomen try to catch up with the raving,
the deceptive magnate ducks back into his mind's subway
and heads for home (whatever that means) ... just as
the university president puts out a press release stating quite clearly
Mr. Eaglewing's an impostor, no Native American matriculated in 1956.

8.21.06

"Lazy River Songs"

Ten years ago at age fifty, in the middle
of yet another round of hurtful and he thought unwarranted
board attacks on his staff, the CEO sitting at a no longer cozy table
spur of the moment slipped the bitchy chairlady to his left a sly smile
with a two word note, got up, left the chambers, took pleasure
imagining the egg on her face as she read, "I quit,"
laughed a little bit, and that was that, never looking back.

A decade later, mellower and less impetuous, in fact I do look back.

At my type A
seemingly happy
fastlane high pressured life
from birth
through school
through various careers
... through death?

Telling myself
each step of the way
how much I enjoy
every
single
competitive
minute.
(Would do it without a paycheck!)

Until the very second when I crashed,
a dragster out of gas running on fumes,
engine on fire, tires smelling of burning rubber.
(As a physician I had to ask, am I having a grand mal seizure?)

After a year or so withdrawal period,
hermetically sealed, not answering headhunter calls,
learning how to be with myself without doing,
I gradually reemerged into the world.

Put some seeds in the ground
of which a few grew
into worthwhile activities
to mix with mainly quiet.

Began to grasp Machado's,
"The poet doesn't look for the fundamental I, but the essential you."

Became more comfortable
with always-changing verbs
(I'd always preferred static person, place, thing nouns):
sitting zazen, not a Buddhist,
writing poems, not a poet.

Then it became clearer
that for me the poems wrote themselves.

I just supplied the head,
at best immersing an open heart,
until my fingers caught up with the feelings
(on a good day, it's not about meanings)
knocking from inside.

I began to understand
Thich Nhat Hanh's story
about the tie choosing the man
more than the shopper finding the cravat...or something like that.

Which brings us to today,
yearning to shed a forever summer virus
that exiles me til I'm not coughing and infectious,
so I will be taken back into the family fold down south,
reunited with my baby grandson Simon, the muse I miss so much.

8.20.06

"The Sisters of Mercy"

On one side of my house, a megalomaniacal entrepreneur who
after twenty years chilly silence (if you don't count her shooting
down venison and our golden retriever and almost the kids),
put up an Auschwitz type electrified barbed wire barrier between us,
then wrote me a note as if to mend it -- "Done to keep out
the deer, and anyway 'good fences make good neighbors'" --
clueless in our cool relationship that Frost meant the exact opposite.

On home's other side, the ex-White House powerlunch hotshot whiz who
came up with Reagan's Star Wars initiative-- under a gradually blackening
cloud, now cloutless since farmed out to Stanford's Hoover Institute --
suddenly one day with nary a word to us compatriots, machetes and poisons
all her abutting forest vegetation, turning a once rich green wonderland
into starkly depressing gray emptiness, a toxic waste dump and polluted
creek that within weeks exterminate our family's chocolate Labrador puppy.

8.19.06

"Reflections"

Hunched over inside, the hacking cough paroxysms, hocking up
green and black phlegm (no blood) just as the sun's first blush
of light makes it all right to finally climb out of bed again.

When Master Puer Eternis looks in the stainless steel mirror,
his blurry red eyes note not the boy he feels he's always been
but rather who he truly is, a sour bitterly sweaty Mister Dirty Old Man.

The once fine auburn beard and thick mustache now appear
only as mangy four day growth, more grubby salt than lovely copper
surrounding a truly drooly grayfaced fishmouthed tan thermometer.

Besieged by life's battle-scarred winter -- sinful bags, sags, tags; lumps
and bumps; wrinkles -- the spitting image wonders should he see another
doctor or just quit staring at the not-getting-any-younger-one in the glass?

What is it about summertime blues and fevers that make me whine so,
make August parainfluenza more of a bummer than in February when
you expect to get sick...with at least a flu vaccine's shot at salvation?

8.19.06

"Better Red Than Dead"

What a hero that Hugo, on furlough from Caracas,
showing up at hallowed Castro's Havana bedside, hoping
the hemisphere's great revolutionary leader can dodge a deathblow.
Fidel and Chavez -- the dynamic duo echoing the past and the future --
choose a touching tableau for their photo op tango: both donning
pinko hospital gowns, the pseudo-populists spoon in red jello
and milky yogurt, looking wholesome as motherhood-and-apple-pie;

while north of the border, a US Federal Court rules George ain't no king,
that America has a Bill of Rights, that warrantless wiretaps
aren't all that different from totalitarianism -- call it
communism or fascism or whatever you want.

8.18.06

"Marked Men"

John Mark Karr, murderer or nutcase,
in any case admitted he did the dirty deed, doing in
six-year-old Denver beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey a decade ago.

Watching him stand there surrounded in the sweltering Bangkok airport,
cool as a cucumber in his buttoned-up short-sleeved green Banlon shirt,
I wonder if he's a cold-blooded killer or just another schizoid wannabe?

Seeing Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul, head of the immigration police,
and his hordes of buttoned-down uniformed officers on TV, reminded me
of my own little scare in the very same place the very same decade ago.

Disembarking our plane from San Francisco
-- likely where Karr also started from his home in nearby Petaluma --
my oldest (a beauty queen in my eyes) and I were quickly surrounded.

A polite man with a severe face and a very long name
stepped out from a horde of other buttoned-down uniformed officers
to request our passports, that we please come with him.

My jetlagged daughter and I were barely conscious
and I had only enough paranoid juice left
to worry someone'd planted illegal drugs in our luggage -- or worse.

Ready to but not quit panicking yet,
when I asked the boss if there was a problem, expressionless
Colonel ___________ again responded, "Come with me."

The twenty or so cops led us past
the usual customs and baggage claim areas, where we
sat down alone in a bare hot room to sweat and sweat some more.

After an excruciating half hour or so
during which I contemplated beyond imaginable horrible fates,
an older decorated soldier type walked in.

He introduced himself as the General of the Thai Royal Police,
but more importantly, the father of my daughter's college friend
who'd invited us to Thailand to stay with them.

Extending a kind hand and smile, he gave back our stamped passports
and escorted us to an air-conditioned chauffeured limousine,
already packed with our bags.

Sirens screaming and lights whirring,
we three sat in the back, joking and laughing
and eating yummy mango sticky rice all the way to the family palace.

8.17.06

"Tombstone Blues"

Two blue stars rise, as sighing
we say our good-byes, wipe
ripe tears dry, disguise
redness under nightshades -- silent chastising eyes despising
the limo guy for standing by
in his full-gloried happy-as-a-lark black magpie
insolence -- wishing in all our shy innocence the roles could be revised,
denying their demise one last time,
seeking a final reprise,
that the truck'd struck us instead of the kids, now left behind
under the cold dirt as lonesome allies, last week's warm unstreetwise
toddlers crushed just like fireflies,
I can surmise no earthly clue as to why --
after all it was only a year ago this Sunday the twins were baptized
in the name of Jesus Christ.

8.16.06

"Cedars of Lebanons"

Returning to south Beirut
after a month of bombs

I couldn't wait for Mom
to greet me at our door

which she did, feet first
broken in her wheelchair

beneath piles of rubble
and beams of cedar

still holding an open
Koran in her hands

just like before I left for
the army of Hezbollah

which I'd served as a
doctor since finishing

my residency at a
good Jewish hospital

in Los Angeles known as
The Cedars of Lebanon.

In the morning we buried
Mom in a simple grave

marked by a large stone
between two olive trees

that somehow survived
in a charcoal field that

until thirty-one days ago
was a lovely cedar grove.

8.16.06

"Ain't No Leaves Of"

Grass under fire, what that boy been smoking,
beating on his tin drum with such a tin ear?

Why, everyone asks, at age seventy-eight does
Günter find this the right time to finally confess?

Yes, says the now ignoble moral authority since
World War II, I once been in Hitler's Waffen SS.

That from the dude who'd previously said he was drafted
in '44 as a flak helper and held as a prisoner of war until '46.

That from the man who after the war became
an outspoken pacifist and icon of the German left.

That from the guy who for decades has demanded
that Germans come to terms with their Nazi past.

That from the creator of "Tin Drum," the wonderfully weird tale of
eerie eels and an oddball midget, our eyes to fascism's terrible rise.

That from the man who's brilliant invention,
Oskar, decides at age three to stop growing.

Little O effectively shutting out the world,
only communicating by banging on his tin drum.

Maybe Oskar represented GG's wishful thinking
he might simply have skipped the whole SS thing.

That elite force of volunteers of course played a key role in
the Holocaust, operating death camps in which millions died.

Cynics say Grass did not reveal his past sooner
at the risk of not winning 1999's Nobel prize.

Critics see GG's belated mea culpa as more of a cash cow than
tin ear, preceding the September release of his autobiography.

The convenient admission, before "Peeling Onions" explains why he
joined Adolf's gang, leaves behind a bad taste of book promotion.

Bild am Sonntag says, "Grass ... cannot be castigated for being
a member of the SS ... But he can be for lying about it for 60 years."

That he was in the SS at seventeen is by itself a misdemeanor --
had Grass not thrown his smug weight around so much since then.

Grass told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Saturday,
the dark secret weighing on his mind, was why he wrote "Onions."

"My silence through all these years is one of the reasons
why I wrote this book," he said. "It had to come out finally."

Ralph Giordano, a leading German-Jewish writer, said
he would not condemn Grass -- and in fact praised him.

"It's good what Günter Grass has now done. What's worse
than making a mistake is not coming to terms with it.

His example also shows how seducible young people can be."
Me, I'm pleased fellow Jews forgive, leaving judgment to Germans.

Who am I living in my glass house, passively buying into
our American conduct, to be out there throwing stones?

8.15.06

"So Glad You Made It"

Have you
ever met
a mistake

toddling
down the
street?

Don't mean
a new blooper
a tiny blunder

maybe muddling
into a clear
little puddle

while not
paying enough
attention.

I mean the
big old dirty
kind of misstep

that reminds
both of
you of

the times
when each
just needed

some kindness
but didn't
find it

when no
matter how
fine the sex

spellbinding
streamlined
young bodies

the stars
weren't
aligned

to shine
bright trust
and compassion

when greed
and jealousy
combined

entwined
designed
to blind

deluded minds
from bliss' delights
and divine kisses

consigning our
grinding torsos
and broken hearts

to die unless
we resigned
to unwinding.

Was it
Christ
who opined,

"Love your
neighbor as
yourself...

but don't
forget he's
someone else"?

I know for
a fact that
Machado

penned,
"In my
solitude

I have
friends.
When I am

with them
how remote
they are."

Antonio
also wrote,
"I give advice,

an old man's
vice. Never
follow my advice."

8.14.06

"All of my friends come to see me last night
I was laying in my bed and dying...
See here how everything led up to this day,
And it's just like any other day that's ever been.
Sun going up and then the sun going down.
Come around, come around.
The people might know, but the people don't care,
That a man can be as poor as me..."

From "Black Peter" by Robert Hunter for the Grateful Dead

""Refuge"

Despite fifth grade grammar,
you and I are verbs, not nouns --
some of us just age slower than others.

I think it was high school nuclear physics
that taught me solids are fundamentally empty ...
or was that the Dalai Lama more recently?

Investigating the illusion of separate realities
awakens the knowing to step off Samsara's wheel,
awakens the shedding of craving, clinging, suffering.

Can we pry open the doors of our solitary hearts,
flow together into the pure white love of convergence,
that ever-changing oneness of fleeting yet enlightened being?

8.13.06

"Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May"

Sweet Jesus shuffles over to shake hands and hug, belly and feet
swollen from diabetes, eyes mostly blind from the sugar, lion's
mane and beard graywhite from all the years on the street. Wearing
his black T shirt and pants, rose-colored sunglasses and a great big
smile, he's the spitting image of a reincarnated Jerry Garcia.

Molly strolls by to thank me for delivering her, wondering
what we might arrange for the next baby she's carrying. Moll
suggests considering Stanford, although we both know she's eighty.

Habitually obsessively clean Aziz' just a mess, slouching
under the trees far from his buddies, slopping
ramen into his festered mouth, not having shaven or changed
for god knows how long. Very slowly I make my way there, stopping
to greet longtime friends, helping out whenever I can, learning
from a minder/informer whom I've treated for scabies and high
blood pressure that Ziz quit his AIDs RVTs when word got out
his nephew who'd left Karachi was arrested in London
as part of last week's foiled terrorist plot.

Raven (nicknamed for the straight flightpath his Canadian
Football League passes took back in much better days) raves
about the pain in his tired throwing shoulder, charms me for Percodan
which of course I don't give, each of us playing our parts
in the decade old game that always ends the same. When I hand
him a whole Costco bottle with almost five hundred Kirkland Advils
left in it (what the hell, after all, no one'll be here tomorrow
or the next day or week or month anyway), the huge black man grins
and bends down to plant a wet good-bye kiss on my forehead.

My schizophrenic alter-ego (we attended the same grade school
in Chicago) bikes in, a boombox blasting techno-trance hanging
from his handlebars. Wheels still turning, fingering a nose zit,
he accuses me of conspiring with all of California to kill him slowly
with squamous cell carcinomas -- then says "Just kidding! I've given
you such shit over the years, I wanted to thank you for the kindness,
I've really needed it ... but damn you, write me a Viagra script
before you leave me forever; my product doesn't work without it."

A new drop-in center arrival -- perhaps the last -- looks exactly
like the Star Wars Jedi Plo Koon, with fluorescent plastic blue tubes
looking like long skinny probes extending from her head's
cerebral lobes to her jaw and to vents on a nosepiece -- none
of which get in the way of her maniacally ingesting bag after bag
of microwaved popcorn. Her first and only words to me are, "The
Force is with you, brother, though Yoda you're not: if you're some
real healer, why are you caught in a crummy outside joint like this?"

Hector, hacking phlegm from a tubercular cough, takes
offense and sets her straight quick, "The Doc been here ten years
when no one else could care less." And for emphasis, H waved
the laminated green computer "T H E D O C T O R I S I N"
printout he so proudly made, two or three inches in front
of her exquisite glow-in-the-dark turquoise brained face.

About a quarter to twelve, the clients begin the last roundup,
pitching folding chairs and card tables into the storage bin,
emptying out the coffee urns. Jesse, once the cock of this roost, now
limping badly on a cane, uses hot water dregs to shave, gives me
a final glance with forlorn eyes, calls it quits, walks away.

Wade grabs the day-old bakery remains -- two donuts, one chocolate,
one pink sprinkled -- and the almost full jar of Tapatío Salsa Picante,
then heads out into the world with his grocery cart full of
recyclable soda cans and bottles. He makes it as far as the park
before temptation deep in the bushes near the creekbed beckons.

So apparently it ends, the era of our parking lot medical clinic.
The case workers tell me they've no idea when the new
Taj Mahal gig'll open, we'll just have to wait and see.

It's been an eerie quiet day. Even the usual black and whites
haven't cruise by to hassle folks, as if the cops knew it's a funeral.

As I pack my I S I N sign in my black bag and prepare to leave,
an older jogger running by taps my arm, "Mister, I've been watching
this operation for years, you've got a really a nice setup here, whatever
you volunteers been doing, keep it up. And by the way, is there
a nurse in the house 'cause I got a terrible ache in my heart."

8.13.06

"Homescoming Meditation"

Clambering from drawer to drawer
to rummage for spoon, knife, and fork,

wondering if here's where I pick garden mint
and plop pine nuts in steeping tea -- or there,

hitting 3-8 on the cable remote to negotiate
CNN but landing on ESPN Sports instead,

shifting the car into gear without recalling
if this is the Volvo that sticks -- or not,

scanning the FM knob to reliable old NPR at 88.5
but for some reason hearing static not chatter,

noting the traffic's too civil and slow and I'm
cold in my south country shorts and T shirt,

being very confused inside a Trader Joe's which
normally I know better than the back of my hand,

punching speed dial after speed dial in, having given up on
remembering all those 310 and 323 landline and cell numbers,

unsure when someone answers the phone if
we're within five hundred miles of each other...

I could go on and on with story upon
story of how disorienting it all really is --

after twenty-four years living in one home (what's
that?) to now basically be hovering among three,

the original house around San Francisco plus the
new duplex rental near our daughter's LA place,

never quite sure which side of bed is mine, if this
mattress' too hard, that pillow too soft, or the opposite --

though the itinerant issues feel quite mixed
in with memory's tricks beginning my sixties,

I just aim to go with the flow as best I can,
breathing in and out peaceably wherever I am.

8.12.06

"Great Full Dead"

Alone but not lonely
yet plainly the only
attendee older than
forty, fifty ... or sixty,

and aside from the
three pimply groupies
with rainbow rubber
banded braces in the

front row middle seats --
likely the sole being
with no lip, nose,
or eyebrow piercings;

or total body tattoos
showing everywhere
there'd been bare skin;
or big bad clodhoppers

or high-healed black boots --
I tried not to stand out
too much by standing
to clap in the SRO hip

bookstore, when the
crowd rose in unison
as if we were in a
stadium or concert hall

to cheer the speakers
who in reality were
rock 'n roll stars from
the bands Primus and

Guided by Voices, here
gone literary to pitch
their debut novels, which
judging by what was

read outloud batted fifty
percent, the first excellent
-- funny, interesting,
universally appealing --

except for too many
fart, piss, shit and zit
jokes and references
to all manner of drugs

entering the body by
every conceivable route
and cavity -- while the
second struck out, no

doubt, no way "Artificial
Light" would've ever
landed a publisher
if Z were not a

CD-selling celebrity
though in all honesty
I'd never heard of either
pop group before.

Both men (actually
one was just a boy)
dwelt obsessively
on death, which each

obviously felt was
both very cool
to write about and
very cool of Kurt

to have done, but
something that was
not on the near horizon
for themselves.

It was an extremely
hot night in Los Angeles
with the electric grid
gone out earlier that

afternoon at Greek lunch
in the chic Larchmont
District, so no one was
all that surprised

when halfway through
the questions and answer
session (by far the cutest
girl in the middle front row

breathlessly asked X
where he'd found such
a beautiful shirt and
what his necklace meant?)

the A/C went down and
it got awfully warm as
a Skylight clerk tried
to made light of it until

presto, the owner emerged
with candles that he
lit to make it less dark
and even a bit romantic,

imploring the audience
to take care since his
precious hardbacks were
extremely flammable.

Some of the less happy
campers decided to
pass on the rest of the
evening -- it's still not

certain exactly what
happened to the three
teeny boppers that
made them scream --

and rushed the exit,
which they soon
found was locked,
requiring the power

to go on before the door'd
open --or at least that's
what the management
claimed, although a

woman who said she
was a safety technician
shouted out that was
a pure ruse ("b*** s***")

used to assure that
nobody sneaked out
without paying for
merchandise, since

the normal security
system's invisible
eye device obviously
was on the Fritz.

To make a long story
short, after the riot (really
no big deal, just a few
muscle-shirted goateed

guys in fedoras throwing
chairs til the storefront
window broke), the folks
who stayed had the time

of our lives, all for
one and one for all,
swaying alongside
the sexy rockers who

by now'd pulled their
acoustic guitars from
the cases, preparing
to strum old favorites,

and we whooped out
almost a play list from
Bill Graham's Winterland
days, and I sang right along...

"Rat in a drain ditch,
caught on a limb, you
know better but I know
him. Like I told you,

what I said, steal your
face right off your
head" ...til the juice came
back on, and all the gang

remaining there hugged,
leaving at least one geezer
Deadhead and another
Jerry may he RIP, ecstatic.

8.11.06

"Day 29"

"Since it costs a lot to win, and even more to lose,
You and me bound to spend some time wondrin' what to choose.
Goes to show, you don't ever know,
Watch each card you play and play it slow,
Wait until that deal come round,
Don't you let that deal go down, no, no."

-- Robert Hunter for The Grateful Dead

'And Amos answered, and said to Amasias,
"I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet;
but I am a herdsman plucking wild figs..."'

So I sez to myself,
I' m no general, no politician, no son of slick generals or politicians;
but I am a world citizen tryin' to do the right thing...which got me thinkin'.

As I matured into a CEO, my job description shifted to plucking figs --
figuring out the right deals to go down -- from doing those deals right; in
short, to policy setting, resource allocation, and marketing -- not operations.

As a junior medical director, I'd managed to find all sides of failure: doing
good work on wrong priorities plucked from my inbox, bad jobs on right
projects assigned -- and sometimes both strategy and tactics were flawed.

Thus I learned quickly that three out of four possible outcomes
were unsatisfactory, that the one in four business successes -- be it
Kleenex or healthcare or war -- required doing the right thing right.

Looking backward further in my life, it's been 45 years since high school
Latin (wrong thing done right?) whose ROI never justified three years'
study, either in subsequent general knowledge or medicine specifically.

But (finally coming to the point) in this sixth battle in Israel's sixty year
war of independence, Latin's become a bit handy as part of an ethical
toolbox attempting to understand right from wrong in Lebanon:

The casus belli, jus ad bellum -- the justification to make war --
can exist without jus in bello -- without fighting the war justly, not abiding
by temperamenta belli --restrictions on warfare, rules of engagement.

And the four quadrant logic above offers three other permutations:
unjust war can be fought justly, unjust war can be fought unjustly, and
just war be fought justly -- if you make the huge assumption of just wars.

Coming down to it in plain English, I believe the Israelis were justified in
responding to Hezbollah that not only provoked the fighting, but declared
it sought the total destruction of a Jewish state and its very existence.

I also believe on the whole the IDF's fought the war justly: attempting
to avoid civilian targets (apologizing and self-correcting when mistakes
were made), justified in taking out resupply lines, roads and airstrips.

Israel's disporportionate responses are harder to measure -- or justify:
for example, destroying power and water stations that create civilian
chaos and suffering if not death, were less clearly handled ethically.

On the other hand, Hezbollah's justification for war is not defensible;
and it's explicit use of mosques, hospitals, schools and human shields
to hide launching sites, weapons and soldiers is absolutely deplorable.

Behind the scenes,
Iran seems to be the major culprit,
Syria simply a waystation, Hezbollah the proxy.

And while we're assigning responsibility, what about UNIFIL (and
Kofi Annan if he knew) which just sat on the border for years, watching
terrorists gear up, digging tunnels -- without doing or saying anything?

8.10.06

"Sabbath Prayers"

Two Semitic tribes, Muslims and Jews, celebrate their Sabbaths
on Friday and Saturday respectively -- if not always respectfully.

1.

Last week
the Guardian Council Secretary Ayatollah Jannati sermonized in Tehran

about Islamic history repeating itself today
with the battle between the descendants of Ali and the Jews:

"God is using one of Ali's descendants [Nasrallah] to confront
the spiritual and physical descendants of Marhab of Khaybar [the Jews].

God is reviving the memories of early Islam – the memories of the conflict
between Ali and the Jews of [the battles] of Khaybar and Khandaq.

On one side stood Ali with a small number of Muslims,
and on the other side stood the strong, rich, vain, and arrogant Jews.

Ultimately, the sword of Ali did what had to be done,
and he humiliated the people of Khaybar and the vain and arrogant Jews.

Today, this descendent of Ali stands in the same position, and so do
the descendants of Marhab of Khaybar, the Jews of Khaybar and Khandaq."

Crowd: "Allah Akbar.

"Allah Akbar.

"Allah Akbar.

"Khamenei is the leader.

"Death to those who oppose the rule of the jurisprudent.

"Death to America.

"Death to England.

"Death to the hypocrites [Mojahedin-e Khalq] and Saddam.

"Death to Israel."

"What Hizbullah does shows [is] that all the humiliation
endured by us and the Islamic world stems from our own impotence.

If [the Muslims] were men enough to enter the arena,
their spit and threats would be enough to put the others in their place."

2.

Last week
in synagogues around the world, congregants read that Shabbat's

Torah (Deuteronomy, 3:24-7:11 )
and Haftorah (Isaiah, Chapter 40) portions.

Afterwards, in Washington, D.C., Max Ticktin sermonized, developing
the point that a recurrent theme is one of "fear" in multiple forms

that many Diaspora Jews feel
in the context of the current Middle East conflict:

Fear of the objective reality of enemies committed
to destroying Israel and who have already inflicted grave damage.

Fear of the complacency that we in the Diaspora may experience
in not fully appreciating the very real dangers facing Israel, and

Fear of accepting, too casually, the wisdom of experts,
who have in the past led Israel (and the US) into military quagmires.

3.

I wonder and pray, what it'll take for a more equanimous ratio of swords
and ploughshares to speak for both peoples observing their next holy days?

8.9.06

"New Testament Genesis"

The earth
breathed softly
as if she were dead.

And it is said,
the world swayed in silence,
restless in her stillness.

Waters gathered slowly,
one single singing sea
laying there calmly.

Truly nothing was
that otherwise might've been,
except perpetual night's thunder and lightening.

The heavens, despite
their omniscience and omnipotence,
were lonely above this void.

No human or beast, fowl or fish,
crab or tree, stone or bush,
cast shadows yet.

Then the seventh angel
from a seventh sun trumpeted
a single star to fall from heaven to earth.

After which the primordial trance began, gnawing acid, sucking
leaches, everything becoming about light and brains, tears
and rage, voices and flying, as our sleeping sister and brother awoke.

Was it Eve who spoke to Adam, "Be a man, not a bloody lamb.
Winners don't shiver, and losers get eaten by cancer.
Eat this red apple...no one can do you like Jesus"?

8.8.06

"Little Miss Sunshine"

Little Miss Sunshine, it's time to get a life.
The honeymoon's almost over, sweety.

While the world loves an ingenue,
you do turn sixty-one this autumn.

Whaddya think, we parents'll bail out
your juvenile identity crises forever?

It's way past due for you to grow up; don't
count on us tolerating all the acting out.

Precious, you know it yourself: tough
love's no fun, but it's just what you need.

And you'll admit, it's not as if you haven't
been around this block before, my darling.

Afterall, you've survived in the Big Apple's
rough and tumble crucible since birth.

And remember, folks like us are your best friends:
righteous enemies far to the right brand me as naive.

I wouldn't go so far as some Bush league nuts
and Boltons who accuse you of gross negligence.

But, sugar, what fool would continue supporting
such Condi-coated self-serving avoidant behavior?

So before they blow your house down, dear,
what about you yourself bring some order to it?

Don't be lulled by wolves in sheep clothing.
Be straightforward calling a spade a spade.

Flush the sinecures, third world or not.
Don't be bullied by the only superpower.

Deal with the formal states you were conceived for,
but don't ignore their shadowy borderless agents.

Please take care of our earth...for example, don't believe for
a New York second that Middle East hokum you've recently spun.

What warring neighbor in their right mind'd turn the keys to the
Cedars of south Lebanon over to a Hezbollah-disguised army?

What could be more important than enhancing your role
as the only possible honest broker in truly uniting nations?

8.8.06

"Herculaneum 2.0"

Unjustly less famous than big brother Pompeii,
Herculaneum 1.0 was gobbled up by ground-hugging lava,
an avalanche of hotly spewed ash, pumice, and rock fragments.

Volcanic gas gurgled down Mt. Vesuvius at sixty-five miles an hour,
the temperature reaching maybe 930° F. within the pyroclastic flow,
the force of darkness said to exceed five or six modern atomic bombs.

Earlier in that explosive decade, in 70 AD, further east on the Mediterranean
then overland, the second Hebrew temple was destroyed in Jerusalem
a few generations after that Jewish-boy Jesus' breakaway crucifixion there.

Was it Christ or Satan, Oppenheimer or Leonard Cohen,
who prophesied,
"The gates of paradise will open to everybody who is born dead"?

Flash forward two millennia, envision some perfectly irresistible
heavenly tropical island's 40,000 citizens charred to a cinder
by the worst volcanic disaster of the twenty-first century.

Imagine the science fiction scene before the fireworks begin:
sows and piglets starving to death (no garbage left) as all humans aim
to flee impending doom by highways inevitably leading into powderkegs.

Dogs and cats and chickens and sheep and goats
sit on sofas and chairs in front of flatscreen TVs
in eerily still air-conditioned abandoned homes.

Restless donkeys roam silent streets, ride trams
and occupy the capital city's opera house,
scavenging and tense, sensing catastrophe.

Although the pier's devoid of ships
the nearby sea is full of floating cattle horns and dead snakes
that've crawled down from the mountain and promptly drowned.

As the crater's edge blows, opening deep fissures,
searing flames and toxic sulfur clouds descend in milliseconds
to shroud all sentient beings in anonymous neglect and oblivion.

Suspended in midsentence, slicing a loaf of bread turned to coal,
spooning spaghetti that burnt circles into plates, families wait for rebirth,
suspended like Emperor Qin Shihuan's terracotta soldiers 2000 years ago.

As in savvy sc-fi sequels, this one too ends with a paradox:
the only survivor is the baddest man, alive because he was isolated
underground in solitary confinement awaiting his sentence of death.

And listening to him -- "I accept God's command. No one can tell
when death will come. Where could I go anyway? I am ready, at peace," --
can you really say who's a circus sinner, who's the serene saint?

8.7.06

"Hearts of Green and Gold"

1.

Back in the day, making my way
to the far edges of the inhabited world

praying I could convince the boss and his board
to hold not to sell

the whole USA's only Medicaid poverty plan
embedded in a federally-qualified commercial HMO

I flew to Nashville
from Berkeley, of course the usual unique radical chic suspect

the place you could find professors eager to share lobby space
waiting next to down-and-out addicts to get their healthcare.

My burden was severe:
I was a young rookie CEO

and worse, a known bleeding heart from San Francisco, no less an MD,
needing to interest a clan of hardheaded older Southern businessmen

-- who'd as soon be dealing Kleenex
if it yielded more profit --

in the allotted no-more-than five minutes
pitching them with clear numbers and compelling logic

that'd keep the door open
to a longer discussion

of why they should grant me the time
to roll out my strategy's tactics

because at worst
the now hopeless enterprise'd be worth more to them at sale

and at best'd
earn them a ton of money.

As it turned out, the night before our get-together
while I was on board the redeye from points west

after his Sunday supper, the board chair
had what he thought was just a little gas

that his worried wife
didn't buy for a New York second

and rushed him to the hospital
(one of many he owned with the current Senate Majority Leader's family)

where his indigestion
was diagnosed as a myocardial infarction

thus putting the kibosh on our meeting, and maybe his life
...or so it seemed.

Well, not one to be deterred
by a challenging situation

I rallied my most physician-y attitude
and barged through into the Cardiac ICU

talking to his nurses and doctors
perusing his chart

then sat down next to him while he slept
and was right there when he woke up.

Well, he was so shocked by my concern
and relieved by what I told him about his likely full recovery

and impressed by my chutzpah
-- or whatever they called it in Tennessean --

that he heard me out briefly
and later told his colleagues to trust him and me.

In the end it worked out fine for everyone;
my chief's now the Governor.

2.

But what I remember most
about that Nashville trip was celebrating afterwards

no longer a mind of steel, just a leaf on a river
picked up by buddies in a vintage '55 Chevy

throwing back a few brews
at Second Fiddle and Tooties and Beyond Tonkin'

before taking in the Grand Ole Opry
where legends leave their tracks in the golden sound

the state of the soul, not the nation
unfolding in that church, the house of American music.

The morning after which
-- having caught some breaks --

they piled me into an airplane
to fly home with the license

to pursue resurrecting a dream
of rich and poor receiving good medical care together.

8.7.06

"Reflections of a Monkey Muffin"

The all powerful and good Miss Mobile
beams down on me lying buck naked.

I smile and kick back at her green, blue and yellow
face with the red clothy nose and big fat grin.

I listen to something spinning called Johnny
sing my very favorite song, Walk The Line.

Maybe it's my round friend above but the
sound seems to come from elsewhere.

And my icon looks more like mama
while the voice sounds like papa's.

Mommy puts my mouth
around her milk factory.

Later as I'm making caca I hear
my grandpa Coach approach.

After a quick dirty diaper change
we decide to play Jolly Jumper.

Now as a four month-old
I'm not really fit to stand.

Still my auntie holds me
so I can do lots of flying.

When I'm up, a sliver of sun shines
through the open bedroom window.

Another little boy's shadow seems
to bounce right in time with my body.

I coo to him and am
sad he doesn't too.

He won't take Rainbow Worm
I offer him from my hand.

I begin
to cry.

Then Bubbe pulls on the shade and
puts me to sleep in my own cradle.

As she does that my
new buddy disappears.

That's all I remember
about my nice Sunday.

8.6.06

--SEE sarnatscat2.blogspot.com/ FOR POST 8.6.6 POSTS--

"Quality Parts"

Between Los Feliz and the zoo,
the Griffith Park merry-go-round
has been an LA family favorite
for well over five generations.

Built in 1926 and brought
into the park late in 1937,
everyone of the circle game's
68 horses is a confirmed jumper.

Each is an original, hand carved
with jewel-encrusted bridles, finely
detailed draped blankets, lions'
heads, yellow and black sunflowers.

A military band carousel organ,
reputedly the largest in the West,
plays over 1500 selections of
rousing marches and waltz music.

This is all nice, to be checked out alongside
bike and hiking paths, a miniature railroad,
the equestrian center, live steamers, and
swings among the fab things to entertain baby.

Well, maybe Simon's a bit too
little to giddyup a horsey yet
or appreciate the observatory,
but soon he'll be full of wonder.

But what I notice now gives
great grandfatherly pause:
two young men with their sons
cause me more sadness than joy.

One sits on a red and blue painted pony
next to his boy's, enjoying a wild ride
as if he were five, arms waving, eyes
wide open and smiling brightly at his kid.

The other parent sits somberly on the
rotating platform with a similar aged lad
on a not up-and-down bench, spending the
four minute jaunt dully reading his email.

The second's son doesn't even once
glance at his dad (who totally misses that
something's wrong), but instead just
stares ahead at the blissful opposite pair.

Whereas the former child is having
a gas, squealing and grabbing his father;
the latter's embarrassed, absolutely alone
next to the random man who brought him.

8.6.06

"A Rags to Riches Story"

Night train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou,
she looks out the window and asks
"Where do the poor get so many clothes to hang outside?"

Not knowing the answer, I inquire of our minder
who tells us that most folks who live along the railroad
work sixteen hour shifts daily and rent a third of a room's time.

"You mean three different people
share one little space and never see each other
since two of them are always in the factories?"

"Yes, exactly, dear. By the way,
do you think that's really so different from back in the States
when you're just waking up as Mommy and I are going to sleep?"

8.5.06

"Hollywood Hallelujahs"

1.

Four and a half months into baby
after maybe a dozen trips to the Hollywood Mecca
(the term lactating mothers use to refer
to the world-class breastfeeding consultants,
support groups and videos at the Pump Station ©),

it feels like a state of grace,
the way the maternal-industrial complex ladies
have begun to take me more seriously as a committed grandfather --
incompetent as I am, nevertheless a seemingly well-intended old geezer
here to do the best he can for his daughter and Simon.

And for my part, I suspect the women
are now a bit more comfortable with me
since I began taking their advice seriously
instead of simply using the rote list
I was given by my wife and firstborn,

ignoring professional guidance, just on my own finding the perfect-sized
and color (lilac) Maternelle nursing bra, nipple cream, Binkies, Medela
breastpump plus nifty accessories, Miracle Blanket, white-noise machine,
sling, baby carrier and Bliss Gripe water -- and today a larger cooler
with blue ice that five five-piece eight-ounce bottles fit nicely inside.

But this morning the stuff I was sent for
ended up not being what I brought home
because once Shirley and Marla and Jackie and Gwen
got a good hold of me, understanding the mother’s real needs,
they turned me on to products they believed suited her and him better,

keeping precious breast milk cold longer with more certainty,
less expense and hassle … I was so proud that after my expedition,
to be taken aside before I left, offered a sign
of my rite of passage, the right to wear my very own epaulet:
a genuine Pump Station © violet and white ballpoint pen.

2.

To celebrate my apparent grandparently victory,
I rang my wife and youngest daughter to invite them
to join me around the corner at the ArcLight Theater's
first showing of the newest summer kids' movie,
even though ours is actually already twenty-one years old.

Which they did, and we saw "Barnyard," charming enough
but also quite annoying in the way its animation
represented bulls having udders, obviously absurd; but worse because
what could have been marvelously alive mammalian protuberances
looked more like fake plastic baseball catcher mitts than bovine teats.

I mean, what's the deal, Hollywood, portraying no difference
between male and female cows other than facial expressions and voices?
That's frankly grotesque -- I'd even say "bull."
Come on, you can do better ... but if you need help,
next week come with me to the Pump Station ©.

8.5.06

"The Last of the Just?"

One very un-Buddhisty religion's myth has it that for each generation
its god chooses 36 `just men' to bear the burden of human suffering.

Although indistinguishable from us simple mortals,
God has granted them the privilege of martyrdom.

Some number of `unknown just' see the world differently
remaining inconsolable to earthly anguish and misery.

When one of these dies his soul is so cold that God must warm him
in his fingers for 1000 years before he can open up to paradise.

So from time to time, this Creator sets the
clock of last judgment forward one minute.

Sadly, this adventure story's heroes are all male...
thus belonging on the same shelf as other bibles.

If you thought the next device would be virgins -- that I
was talking Allah and Islam -- you've got me totally wrong.

Schwartz-Bart's 1959 epic "The Last of the Just," which won the Prix
Goncourt, the French Booker, traces a millennium of Jewish life in Europe.

(André, born in Metz, France, the son of poor Polish Jews
murdered by the Nazis, joined the resistance movement.)

...A member of each generation is one of the 36 just men
that Jewish tradition claimed feel the pain of all the living.

And without whom the world could not go on: since the Jewish word
for 36 is lamed vov, these men were often called Lamed Vovniks.

This strange singular honor was first attributed to the Levys in 1085
following a massacre attempt by the Bishop William of Nordhouse.

To save his people, the Jewish citizens of York, Rabbi Yom Tov Levy
led them to an abandoned tower where they withheld a six day siege.

Rather than succumb to their captor's indignities, the Jews decided
to take their own lives as was done in Masada 1000 years earlier.

The Rabbi takes on the role of blessing and killing his community,
then taking his own life: a few, including his son Solomon, survive.

Solomon has a vision from God: because of his father's noble act,
each generation of his family will contain one of the Lamed Vovniks.

The tales of Jewish accommodations to subsist as a European minority
marked for extermination by the Christian majority conclude predictably.

The definitive insanity of course was the Holocaust, the Shoah,
the ultimate mission for all people of compassion and wisdom.

But what lessons has history -- forever replete with one tribe butchering
another, entries of men of all colors from all continents -- taught us?

It appears
not much.

May all beings
be at peace.

8.4.06

"Did You Hear?"

The king walks in circles,
talking his graveyard cough.

"The trick's between my thighs, not in the brain,"
he exclaims insanely to no sycophant in particular.

It's strange how terrible times uplift human spirit: inflation, unemployment,
attempted coupes, mass Jew trials, and bank rushes did it for Hitler's fans.

And today's odysseys -- screwing the poor and running amok in Iran and Iraq,
Korea and Lebanon -- hit the spot for praise-the-Lord hardcore Bushies.

Our righteous Prez' already forgiven Mel Gibson for what he says and does;
they're two odd peas for their collective pod wanting strongman leaders.

George gives his kinda folks what he thinks they want -- he's the seer,
the prophet, the clairvoyant who can see Putin's soul deep in his eyes.

Yet what he and the boys did (do?) at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib
and god knows where else extraordinarily-renditioned beggars the mind.

Freed of many of the old ways (we call them laws and Bill of Rights)
with no shame, he makes it up as he goes in the name of security.

King George's latest signing statement just arrived:
"WASHINGTON, August 3, 2006. President Bush,

citing his authority as Commander in Chief of the armed forces
and his inherent constitutional power over foreign affairs,

today ordered a postponement of the 2008 presidential election
in order "to protect the American people in our war on terror."

With plausible deniability, Rumsfeld kills detainees on a whim, if he
has indigestion, for target practice -- to him, they're all insects.

As ready-fire-aim Cheney exclaims,
"Practice makes perfect, we're getting bigger than the Beatles!"

8.3.06

"Alchemy"

Obsessed dreamers like Jesus are said to have made wine from water.
In everyday life, grapes become wine, wheat becomes bread.
We know from bioequations how sour green apples grow sweet and red.

Meanwhile shadowy lab geeks and charlatans pore over obscure formulae.
Misguided crackpots and stumbling magicians squeeze deluded strictures.
Occult crucibles' silver flames transform our paradise into fools' lead.

Look into the distance to the end of the world.
Time tumbles, and coppery cirrus clouds begin to race seriously.
The earth rises out of high blue waters, edges crumble, boil over.

Trees burn like matchsticks.
Snowcapped sierras molt tin towns below into glass.
Virgin bells toll, everything starts to collapse into white hell.

A gold bullioned calf is split open.
Divisions of red ants file along its flank.
Blackwidow spiders claw and digest its entrails.

Oxygen is sparse as mad-as-a-hatter beggars' soles.
Mercury lava freezes fleeing children in place.
Women are cast into mineral forests.

Cataracts of volcanic ash blind my millstoned eyes.
Day melts into night, vertigo seizes my heart into iron.
I sleepwalk this hangover that swallows your elemental diaphanous soul.

8.3.06

"A Summer Stroll"

Flaming in August LA
awaiting my broken-down old Volvo wagon's repair
ball cap and SPF 45 on, Machado's "Border of a Dream" under arm,

I stroll alone
east on Fountain Blvd. toward Western
passing a passel of deserted tequila-stinking turquoise taquerias,
nakedly gray thrift shops, an abandoned 98 cent discount store,
Sorley's Barbecue and Massage, Sal's Smokes/Liquor/Laundromat,
and a boarded-up 99 cent minimarket.

I stop in Cely's Productos Centro Americanos for a coconut popsicle.

Refreshed a bit
I proceed down the street
whose sidewalk blazed by heat day and night
is littered with trash and slashed mattresses and the innards of plastic toys.

A wild child pulls his mother toward the junk, screaming so loud
if a world war broke out right there, you wouldn't even notice.

Needing to sit
with Bangkok Cuisine's storefront whitewashed and locked
I crisscross to the other side where green umbrellas shading tables beckon.

Too hot outside
I enter an air-conditioned oasis, Vaco's Business Center/Internet Access,
where I parley the purchase of one Diet Coke I grab from the frig
and fifteen minutes of online time ($.75 plus $1.50)
into an hour's reclining on a torn but comfortable black leather couch
where I almost make the mistake of feeling so at home
that I bite into the lovely Delicious apple I crave, just laying there
until at the very last second
I notice red wax melting onto a nearby Oxford Dictionary.

Reading threadbare hulking reclusive Antonio M's ecstatic poems
about death and decay in every recess of his body and soul
my fever passes its crisis, lyses.

Lying back
I watch assorted forlorn hopefuls from Chicago and Seattle
approach 20X20 squares of golden PO boxes.

A pasty pedal-pusher and curlered white lady's smile
turns to gloom when nothing jumps out but junkmail and bills.

An Eastern European-accent behind me complains
to a stuttering factotum
that the classical CDs, Kirkland Trail Mix and multivitamins,
and Jolly Rancher Fruit Chew for sale are way too expensive.

Really getting into it now --
I turn around into a kind of voyeuristic bliss
like drinking in Brooklyn neighborhoods in a Spike Lee movie
or maybe Wayne Wang's mom 'n pop shop along side Harvey Keitel --
out of the corner of my eye I spy
a Vietnamese family lined up four Dells across
with mother and dad emailing (to what I imagine's Ho Chi Minh City)
and the kids joining them (presumably after school)
to play video games in the cool.

A long-haired Filipino man in blue shorts and green muscle shirt
built like a human manhole cover with tattoos all over
gets into a ferocious hassle about his account debit
with the 400 pound Hispanic owner, who tells him to leave pronto.

Like two dinosaurs wallowing in a swamp feast
the gents finally work it out.

My cell phone ring wakes me from my reverie.

Siebe says my car's ready...
except for the gearbox bulb he'll have to pickup in Glendale tomorrow.

Although I want to stay, I don't.

Hearing my first words since paying for the soda and computer
I bid adieu to the befuddled wispy mustached clerk
a true Larry Bird look alike who's trying to hit
on the prim tightly ponytailed blond Parcel Post pickup girl.

Without looking up, he hands me a "HOW TOXIC ARE YOU?"
questionnaire on pink paper (in Spanish on the back)
with a Sunset return address to the Hubbard Dianetics Foundation.

Opening the door into Fountain Blvd.'s Satan National Park
I'm immediately drenched in humidity like in New York City.

I limp back into my distant barbaric dream
where babies peel wallpaper from bombed out buildings
and their mommies boil off gluey nutrients for dinner.

Tempting fate that death doesn't want me today
I buy a mushroom and cocoa bean empanada
from a blind Guatemalan lady frying 'em up in a vat of oil
on a flimsy card table in front of the solid Western Ave. Baptist Church.

8.2.06

"The Landlord"

After owning my own home for decades
it's a new experience renting a duplex.

Not really new at in Never
more like new as in Again.

I must admit one of the stranger epiphenomena is
the opportunity to use the word Landlord once more.

I'm not the lord of my own manor
not the master of my own domain?

Somehow my mind finds its way
back to Bergman's medieval flicks.

You know Seventh Seal kinda movies with castles,
knights, indentured servants, serfs, and Grendels?

And Akira Kurasawa's Seven Samurai
with lots of filth and plague and death?

About a week after moving in
I finally met my building's Man.

He was unlike the Super I expected after learning bits
about him from the young tenant who subleased to me.

Not a tough savvy business guy
property-owner proprietor type.

Just a kid, a struggling artist, making a few measly
bucks tending to details the landholder told him to.

Ah so.
Amen.

8.2.06

"The Flinch"

Hollywood Bowl rock 'n roll pyrotechnics
where forty years ago I ushered at the original LA Beatles concert,
now Crosby Stills Nash and particularly Young
preach and prance like young kids not the sixty year-olds they are.

All but one fat still body and more importantly the music
seem fit as back in their sixties prime, in spite of everything --
all the water and other substances under their bridges, though who
am I too speak, aching as I do so bad where I used to play so good?

Yesterday I first read
the US is more divided over Iraq than it was over Viet Nam warwise,
and last night with friends and wife who back-in-the-day argued
for (or against) my burning my card and actively resisting draftwise

we stood and applauded (or sat on our hands)
for three wonderful hours of nutritious antiwar rhetoric and peace symbols.
Marinating there in the midst of the pervasive mist
of Los Angeles basin smog and boomer secondhand marijuana fog

slowly, very slowly came the slow-cooked realization
that for all my ranting and raving against Bush lies and fascism,
that after a lifetime of scorning Germans for allowing Adolf,
here I am not doing a damn thing about my own George.

And what if for some reason (like maybe
this week's massacre of fifty innocent Lebanese women and babies?)
Neil went off bigtime against Israel right here, how would I --
for all my walking the progressive Middle East talk -- really feel?

All of a sudden it comes to me,
the epiphany that as a Jew I'd be caught in the middle,
my heart going out to all victims, including Muslims, yet my mind
defending a duly-elected homeland -- like World War II's Berliners did.

I push my head a bit further: perhaps even if I didn't agree
with Jerusalem's decisions, or a Hitlerish demagogue
(Avigdor Lieberman?) rose to power, what would I do
if I saw the alternative to support as my people's destruction?

For just a guilty second I cringed inside, shivered,
understood others, forgave, asked more of myself...
before returning to celebrating, shouting and dancing to
There's Something's Happenin' Here/What It Is Ain't Exactly Clear.

8.1.06

"Hotspots"

Coursing east through The Strip,
free-associating generous aliquots of nostalgia and youthful indiscretion,
my Volvo passes the same Whisky a Go Go I snuck into as an underage kid
to catch early glimpses of The Doors and Janis Joplin.

The Hollywood's Screen Actors Guild now appears to live at 77 Sunset
where ducktailed finger-snapping, slang-talking cool
Kookie, Kookie (lend me your comb) valet-parked and preened on TV
in front of which I dusted my white bucks nearly fifty years ago.

The billboards have also adjusted somewhat
from what in retrospect were
the prim less sophisticated fifties and early sixties,
with new humungous male crotch shot layouts

revealing almost all in glossy high-tech ads
now exposing everything imaginable
up there in plain view
with seeming absolute passerby indifference.

Caught in commuter traffic thick as a parking lot
in front of LA's Rush Hour Jewelry Kiosk,
I have more than enough time to contemplate
whether the public relations gurus who invented the posters

proclaiming "The Family That Prays Together Stays Together" and
steering believers to worldatprayer.com had the slightest clue that
forty years ago "those who play together stay together" flyers declared
beret horn-rimmed Dizzy-of-the-huge-cheeks bebop trumpet was in town.

Waiting to get the car washed just past Vine,
I pound this out fast as I can on my laptop,
and after stumbling onto next door's Discount Tire Centers wi-fi hotspot,
post it to you.

7.31.06

"The Celebration"

For her sixtieth birthday, Miss Cassidy gathered only her closest friends.
She invited folks who like her were blind-deaf since birth or for decades.

To begin the festivities, Miss Cassidy signed an original poem,
which in its own way was a koan with it's own particular rhythm.

It worked itself around the round table from one palm and tip to another,
a tactile translation of dashes and dots, short and long, up and down.

A few stroked their neighbors' lips, but in any case, the guests
understood what she meant, adapting the see-hear world's alphabet.

She asked the puzzling paradoxical question, why we who
live in silent darkness feel the happiest smiles on each of our faces?

The man-companion seated at the place of honor to her right
tapped right back, "We're all so pleased to be here with you, Mona Lisa!"

A tittering made waves through their hands
as everyone took a turn rapping out his or her little joke or riddle.

A dapper gentleman who'd brought a recorder player put it on, and
everyone was reborn from loneliness, fingering Mozart's vinyl vibrations.

A man who'd tripped, mistakenly landing in a wimpled nun's lap,
made everyone laugh when he teased, "Let's stay in touch!"

After a while one of the more solemn participants, a pretty younger lady,
wondered if others listened to buzzing noises and saw gray and black colors?

The eldest in the room patted back that at times
in the distant past he could even see green and yellow in the garden.

The wife of the single married couple present laughed,
"My husband is glad that he can't hear well enough to be hen-pecked!"

In return hubby Herzog replied, "Not to be too serious, but when I go into
contemplation it's like she let go of me, as if I were a million miles gone.

Sometimes I settle into a dreamland where I'm normal, not condemned,
neglected like garbage in a rich society where only productivity counts.

I'm convinced that we who are last will later be first -- my afflictions
are my meditations, my means to gaining greater spiritual awakening.

My blindness is a black river flowing slowly
like a melody toward great falls.

On its banks trees and flowers and birds sing sweetly.
Another river coming from the other side is as clear as pure crystal.

This one also flows slowly but without any sound.
Deep down there is a lake very dark and deep where the two rivers meet.

Where they join, there are rocks making the water foam.
Afterwards they flow silently and slowly into a somber reservoir

which lies in a deadly calm only troubled
by an occasional ripple of deaf-blind struggle."

After a prolonged stiff stillness (and lunch), the hostess' girlfriend to her left,
on behalf of all attendees, gave her a cuddly trained golden retriever gift.

After tea the whole bunch took a field trip they'd been looking forward to:
driving to the city's annual floral show in a huge limousine.

The birthday girl was the first to touch the town car's purring hot motor,
and the first to touch the flower of her choice.

Miss Mona chose a cactus, smelling the blossoms, feeling the prickles,
peeling the fruit, sucking its sweetness.

On their way home, as long planned,
the limo stopped at the city's petting zoo.

The family -- self-made to fend against isolation -- still chitchats whether
the silver fox kit, lamb, baby goat or elephant or chimp was the cutest...

7.29.06

"Mexicali Motors, Universal Parts"

Last week after the left headlight blew, Drew sold me a fancy new one.
And when with the aid of Jose's brains (Pep Boys has a no-touch policy),
my unclever head and awkward hands couldn't install it under the hood,
they kindly referred me to a nearby Armenian auto electrician, Sarkis.

This week the old Volvo station wagon needed some ramped-up attention.
Old Sarkis sent me along to a young Viet Namese guy across the street,
who wildly gestured he didn't know jack about ignition locks that stick, and
pointed me to a repair shop on the other side of Normandie on Fountain.

Siebe's fiftyish, bald and dark and squat, smiling neatly in his gray uniform.
I assumed from his sign he was Mexican until we got to schmoozing, but
it turned out he's a quarter Ghanan and Salvadoran from his father, and
from his mother, Dutch Jewish and Filipino, which's where he was born.

Amazingly he came within a fraction of an inch of kosher designation.
(Does a quarter from his mom's side do the trick?) As I learned over
coffee, he's lots more religious than 100% J-gened me: I see a Star
of David peek out, and hear talk about attending synagogue regularly.

Making his way from Manila to Los Angeles had been anything but easy.
Now since his career's going real good -- just bought out the body shop
next door -- and his family of six is thriving, Siebe's very determined not
to ignore folks in need, those suffering, all beings that're less fortunate.

Although he puts it in the 500 year-old Kabbalist terms of "tikkun olam,"
or repair the world, his social action while we sip -- gently dropper-feeding
infant formula from rubber-gloved hands to tiny bat babies, so dehydrated
and weakened by the heatwave that they've fallen -- strikes me as Buddhist.

7.28.06

"Ooops"

Fresh from his civic book lessons
Georgie Bush pushes democracy
to lessen world evil, to cure all our problems -- whoosh, just do it.

Which ain't a bad idea, but in practice
as Hamas' and Hezbollah's populist social service arms
have cultivated support in Palestine and Lebanon

with the help of their patrons in Iran and Syria,
if you give a man a vote (or a Katusha),
he'll use it.

Now add to the mix a June Pew poll showing
that a large majority of Turks, Jordanians, Egyptians, and Indonesians
-- and British Muslims -- don't believe that Arabs carried out 911.

And that Germans and Spanish and Russians and Brits
feel there's a conflict between being a devout Muslim
and living in modern society.

Here in America, Dubya's bedrock constituency
of Christian evangelicals quote the Old Testament's
"bless those who bless you" and "curse those who curse you."

POTUS' turbocharged fellow Texan telepreacher buddy and leader
of apocalyptic Zionists, wrapped himself in the Star of David last week,
proclaiming,"God's foreign-policy statement" in a "war of good versus evil."

"The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching...
Rejoice and he exceedingly glad --
the best is yet to be."

Melding realpolitik and religion,
the President sent a message of encouragement.
A Congressman chimed in, Israel's enemies "do the work of Satan."

Add to the mix that if Saudi Arabian and Pakistani men
could exercise their will (of course excluding unfranchised women),
they'd thrown out the pro-West crown prince and military dictator.

Which isn't to say
extending the ballot
to a billion-plus Muslims is wrong.

But we richer-than-God Americans haven't thought through what's next,
a way to share prosperity, create harmony not frustration and war
and generation upon generation of Islamist fundamentalist terrorists.

That's leaving aside
US-inspired internecine struggles in Iraq,
Africa's one-man-one-vote-one-time,

South America's thriving anti-imperialism, North Korea's
nuke-protected hell realm, Eastern Europe's kleptocracies, etc. --
but those're nightmares for another time...

7.27.06

"Rooster in the Night"

My ears are ringing;
my departed love's imagining me.

I sing these forty-nine days,
first sitting by her crumbling body,

then weeping heaven's stars
into her urn's ashen pasty sky.

While I contemplate white shadows,
disorderly life alone,

gloomy fingers
fumbling shabby beads;

her soul's still at loggerheads,
scuffling to take its earthly leave,

a gray cocooned silkworm,
tethered,

struggling to soar black and yellow
past sour wisdom,

funnel death's melee,
channel through tainted mirages,

hurtle on bardo wings
into morning's...

7.27.06

"Nimbly N.I.M.B.Y."

1.

The sign that really gave away the ad hoc Neighbors League desperation
was the black grease-penciled handwritten "ABANDONED" scribbling
covering the LA Metro Transport Authority Route #26 red and blue logo
at a Hollywood bus stop in front of Franklin and Beachwood's Shell station.

Then a buddy mentioned Los Angeles politicians had finally bit the bullet to put one of the city's new homeless centers further down on Gower around the corner between Sunset and Santa Monica - though naturally it was almost as controversial as nuclear waste dump placement in Nevada.

As it happens, at the same time the same concerned citizens on nearby
richer Larchmont Blvd. lobbied for favored zoning for more pet specialty stores, "bark mitzvahs," "barking lots," "animal companion bistros" serving "succulent primecut beef" "Viet Nam pig yoga," yada yada to be allowed.

Now maybe I'm crazy, but pet cancer, hip replacement, and pacemaker
hospitals covered by high-end concierge insurance, plus air-conditioned boutiques hosting their own annual fashion shows that bring made-to-order canine couture to the doggy-digs' catwalks seem awfully absurd to me.

I understand we all need someone to love, but I have tons of trouble with a bazillion dollar for-profit pet-pampering industry pushing hamster bakeries and lizard-friendly menus while dehydrated Homo sapiens die on sweltering pavement, no one providing them the time of day - no less food or housing.

2.

Alas, yesterday's Science Times rode to the rescue, possibly solving this particular existential dilemma: fifty years of Siberian research explored what makes animals nice to be around, qualities selected by the Neolithic farmers who developed most major farm species ten thousand years ago.

The project's hypothesis was that all domesticated species had one criterion in common - tameness - which dragged along with it most of the other features - droopy ears, patches of white in the fur, changes in skull shape, rolled tails - that distinguish them from their less clean, endearing, and quiet wild forebears.

After only eight generations, using their tolerance for human contact as the sole criterion for choosing which to breed, silver foxes routinely made excellent house pets, the kits picking up cues from people, seeing them as social partners not as predators as reliably as puppies who'd "lost" wolves' fear and aggression.

3.

So, in the end I've a modest proposal, No Homeless Left Behind: Bush's DHHS'll breed these uncuddly rejects like river otters and mink, selecting out individuality and filth, selecting in Judeo-Christian guilt and faith, until lo and behold in a hundred years we've self-domesticated the apes, made pets -- or eaten 'em.

7.26.06

"Doing Shakespearean Time"

Geld me.
Compel me to lie down in lime.
Mail me to Dachau in a boxcar.

But don't make this prison with no hope of parole my life's home
one bird in a thousand caged in a Big House built for two hundred
where ravens on concertina wire above laugh, "Fool, you got it bad."

I wish I could be an angel
soaring out of here on purple and green polka dot wings
to return to the neighborhood where I was born and raised.

I came in as an infant,an orphan, then reparented, first trying it out
as a do-good inmate but quickly restructuring to convict, to con
inside like out on the streets that don't seem all that mean now.

With two life sentences minimum in this maximum security hell
why not just fuck up some more: what's the worst they can do, take
away my dollar a-day job, Yard and TV privileges, put me in the Hole?

Hard time feels harder than death;there's no light at tunnel's end.
This'll be the first thing I've ever finished in my life.
That is, unless I kill a guard or two or commit suicide.

The dregs of the storm will never pass.
Truth is I did heinous crimes, moves without purpose as a stupid kid.
And whenever I wake from my dreams, I'll still in a nightmare.

Reveries, rethinking the past are better alternatives
than existing in the present, just going through the motions
always embraced by the starving tiger.

But I'm in to the end with the rest of my unHenry-Vish band
of brothers, we unhappy unfew who were abused when little
neglected if lucky enough to have somebody not too drugged.

Macbeth said, "Blood will have blood."
I've his unconquerable haunting guilt but black,identify with Othello.
There is no happy Hamlet role for me.

Instead I'll rot away on this island, at best Prospero confined to a
tempest,practicing virtue of forgiveness over vengeance, mentored by a a
couple airy Ariels among Caliban savages & villainous Antonio bros.

But these ain't no theater games, I ain't spouting to end Will's play,
"As you from crimes would pardoned be,
let your indulgence set me free."

The ones who need mercy the most
are the ones who deserve it the least.
Poetry's not a job, it's a verdict: Redeem me.

7.25.06

"News Doodling"

Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle...
when Georgie Porgy meets Iraq's prime minister
in the Oval Office in about an half hour
our president will tell him to jump over the moon.

Nouri-Al-Malki clashes sharply with The Shrub's son's boys
advocating nasty Israel quit its Lebanon hostilities quick
demanding way more autonomy from the US for his military forces, and
along with other top Shiite leaders, wanting to maintain strong ties to Iran.

Rumsfeld and Cheney laugh to see such sport
giggling they hadn't yet given poor Dubya a civic book chapter two lesson
that POTUS didn't know the difference between democracy and fascism...
which is good for Halliburton, etc., who spoil to run away with all the oil.

7.25.06

"Why"

all
of

a
sudden

am
I

happier
with

the
more

conservative
Fox's

charm
since

CNN
cable

basically
ignores

Darfur
and

even
Iraq

attacks
etc

which
kill

far
more

than
in

Israel --
Lebanon

while
Iran

plus
NKorea

advance
their

oh
so

very
merry

nuclear
ways?

7.24.06

"Blogging Leonard Cohen"

Lapses of modest poetry
on the e-virtual lamb

meek temples of refuge
each subtlety anonymous

aimed to sublimate ego
wolf togged in snail self

awake in a state of grace
surfing not resolving chaos

heartily nourishing amidst
bloodroot crowded solitude

so easy to be steamrolled
into dry-cleaned blurdom.

7.24.06

"Oh Well"

With one hand
we grant Israel
bunker busters
to turn Beirut
into Mid East hell.

With the other
later this week
Condi'll convene
a donors' conference near Rome
to rebuild Lebanon how swell.

7.23.06

"The Great Liberation (adapted from the Tibetan Book of the Dead)"

We submit to delusion's dance, ignoring the reality of death.
Anything with shape will break, will crumble away.
Everything in a flock will disband.

We're all like bees
alone in this world
buzzing and searching with no place to rest.

Illusions are as many
as reflections of the moon on the rippling sea;
beings are so easily caught in their own nets of confused pain.

May I develop compassion as boundless as the sky
that all may rest
in the clear light of awareness.

At death we lose everything we thought was real:
unless we can unleash what we cherish
we're terrified.

If I can't stop holding onto my old life
fear will drag me
into yet another awful reality.

Where do we go at death?
The body collapses -- earth into water into air into fire --
while consciousness dissolves.

Now
without daily life's patter and screams
the mind can be seen directly.

Dear friends and relatives, don't cry.
Your tears confuse the dying
who is trying to release life's force.

Dying man, do not be afraid
of crushing weighty mountains
tossing black waves, scorching hell flames.

Don't resist.
This is the time to pay great attention
to recognize your true nature.

Compassion is infinite:
rest in the vast emptiness
the piercing luminosity of your constituent elements.

There is no darkness, separation, direction.
Free yourself
from the shadows of birth and death.

Don't get lost
don't go missing
in the swamp of dreamless sleep.

Engulf yourself
into the Oneness
alongside the awakened.

That is all that is necessary
as death passes over
and you don't know whether you're alive or not.

You can still
see your sobbing family
but they can't hear your replies.

You can look down
on the bed where you slept
which instead holds a corpse.

Go forward.
Though the world seemed stable and solid
nothing is permanent.

Like the water, the snow, the ice, the Christ
all life shifts
in ever changing forms.

Our fate is always in the hands of death
the risk of endless wandering
naked in purgatory's realms.

But when you glimpse your essential self
recognition and liberation are simultaneous:
penetrating blue radiance becomes wisdom's mirror.

Be reassured, all humans feel flickers of anger
sparks of greed, twinges of jealousy
which remain small seeds unless we incubate and nourish them.

Become a white lotus
sharp in her own clarity
suspended above the earth.

Strip off the masks
you forgot you were wearing
running from others like dead leaves on a gale.

See your beasts, Lord Death's mashing teeth and glassy eyes
and armies of demons: shed final glow on your dark caves
of desperate thoughts driven on the winds of hope and terror.

Breathe.
Be at peace.
Let go.

7.23.06

"Umbilicals (A Fiction?)"

Not the summer she originally imagined --
twenty-one and single in Los Angeles
interning for an upscale glam magazine
... as reality occurred, our daughter's
roomies turned out to be none other than
her own vacationing (dear) mother and father.

Not that it wasn't lots of fun for her
being offered popcorn and fashion tips
on the way out to clubbing about ten
at night and then coming back alone
(or not) around four in the morning
into the room immediately next to us.

It started out a little rocky, but as
they say, necessity is the mom of
invention; our ties are tight, and
with give-and-take on every side,
we eventually got jazzed to make it
work out absolutely as well as possible.

What that means is still evolving:
we offered our youngest baby the only
garage parking space and the primo
suite, the one with the DVD/TV, Internet,
air-conditioner and landline phone cords
(no cell reception here in Hollywood's hills).

On her part, she doesn't treat us to anything
resembling a hard time, instead seems
gracious and friendly like yesterday when
the three of us went to see the "bargain"
matinee (can you believe $11 a ticket?)
of "The Devil Wears Prada" on her day off.

And on my way to the apartment from
visiting friends, I located the nearest Trader
Joe's to buy her the all-natural mango mochi
and big cartons of blueberries that she desires,
stocking the frig with as many of the foods
I can remember that she loved as a little girl.

Growing closer and closer, without many words
we establish implicit cooperation whereby
all of us assume some basic daily tasks --
alternating emptying wastebaskets, bringing
fresh supplies in, cooking, doing the dishes,
washing clothes, cleaning up -- just like home.

Back in the subleased duplex today, I notice
one surprising new thing, that her room's short
gray computer cable has been replaced by a
flexible spiral twisted blue ethernet tube
reaching into the hall so I can get online
when she's asleep and/or the door's closed.

In return, downstairs I install a thin black
electric line connecting the CD player to a
headset on my just-purchased Craig's List
$100 spinner cycle so (looking a bit like a
wimpy astronaut or scuba diver) I don't wake
my daughter while piping in exercise music.

On a roll generating a tit-for-tat positive family
rhythm, keeping up the momentum, my babe
who once was a fetus attached through her navel to
my wife's placenta, leaves her desert hydration pack
on my bike to supply old Dad essential fluids to suck on
teatlike through a hollow plastic hose in the July heat.

7.22.06

"Shiva Sitting Shiva"

We are born with death's weight on our shoulders.
Birth inevitably leads to sickness, old age, and death.
Which are real and cannot be escaped.

Basic awareness is beyond born or dying.
Each who suffers is challenged to find his true nature.
Unchanging wakefulness is at the heart of everything.

Free yourself from confusion and fear, abandon terror.
Never auction the body to wrathful hungry ghosts.
Nourish the blessed ones up the mountain with sweet barley and butter.

Let go the blood-drinking mind games on Samsara's wheel.
Cease ruthless projections of your own creation.
May bardos release our souls from endless prostrations and wanderings.

Take refuge in abiding peace.
Bathe in love's radiant pure white light.
Breathe with me, breathe.

7.21.06

"Intelligent Design"

What does it give me?
Nothing.

Helplessly reaching for suns made of wilted sunflowers
moons pieced together from slivers of rotten wood.

Born alone in the world
skin crawling with tingly golden bug stars.

But he fingers and smiles and listens to death
seduces and plunders and plies my heart with love.

I'd give heaven for him, laying his head on mine.
Why?

For billions of years since creation
gazillions of ants have plopped out, copied perfectly.

DNA coils oiled and ready to roll
cogs in some incredible humungous collective machine.

But our flash-in-the-pan species
of nouveau riche Homo sapiens is different.

Each's original sin is vulnerability
not even able to lift a too huge brain.

An individual
dependent again and again on the good will of strangers.

I can truly grock
how tree-primate ancestors got useful grasp reflexes from science.

But pray tell how we evolved our beautiful grins and winning ways
that keep others so attached, desperately afraid for our survival?

7.21.06

"Charm School"

Our befuddled POTUS witlessly imitated Elmer Fudd in front
of a disgruntled NAACP convention in his DC backyard this morning.

The President's just Looney Tunes in the deluded conceit that
a sincere appearance will compensate for folks witnessing his deceits.

Not a soul in the audience thought it worth a hill of beans
that he brought a canned black photo opportunity of Condoleezza Rice.

Trying to impersonate a leader of all the people of these United States
he shucked 'n jived despite a six and a half year record ignoring the poor.

What can you say about a man who supports boondoggles for the rich
who elected him, repealing estate taxes while eviscerating Medicaid?

What do you feel about his credibility, claiming to be against torture
though - with plausible deniability - his mouth's other corner blesses it?

(Hey, don't trust lefty me: do your own research, including the piece
on Cheney's Cheney, David Addington, in the July 17 or so New Yorker.)

Thank god we've got only another year-plus of this cartoon character
before the nation'll move on...hopefully to a worthier feature film.

7.20.06

"Autopsy Prayer"

Topsy-turvy, nature is over.

The world grows dim, dissolves like a spider's web, is yet isn't.

Modernity needs answers by dissection.

We run through creation like a razor.

But since my life was blind and deaf, it could not be misled.

There was no hunted look to my stride.

Man is an abyss you get dizzy looking in.

Playing my magic flute, I got itchy from enlightened gringo-breath.

If poor darkies get to heaven, bright angels'll make 'em work the thunder.

You wonder?

Amen.

7.19.06

"Manchildren"

1.

I consider myself more imaginer than fantasist - a stripper, not a flasher.
A borrower, not a plagiarist (Roth loaned above, Buchner and Herzog below)...

Did you hear that horrible green shrieking
engrossed in zones of gray twilight most stylish men call silence?

Do you let freshly dropped red apples rot
if they're tired and just want to rest, not sleep here forever?

Coming into the world was a terribly hard fall.
Why can't the work of living sweetly be as easy as breathing?

Some people are wolves to me - echoes and weasels,
society a dungeon, every man for himself, god against all.

Maybe I'd prefer the solitude of prison darkly, uncouth, stinking,
putrid grub shoved under the door, berserk, a marginalized freak.

At least to so-called civilization's sledgehammers in the stomach,
trial by fire and sword, word and garb, alone in this brightly lit world.

Even dwarfs start small
before crying themselves to gigantic deaths.

If truth be known, my mortal coils feel unexpectedly old today.
But with honeybee music strong in my heart, this is what dreamed:

2.

Heading west on the Sunset Strip, I see a cop car in the rearview mirror.
Soon the snooty yellow and brown "Entering Beverly Hills" sign pops up.

On the left side of the road, orange bulbs flash, "LAW STRICTLY ENFORCED,"
below which "N O I S E A N D S P E E D" in big pale letters grab my eye.

In between mine and the lane moving east, a refined troupe of uniformed
squat brown square-headed men ride powermowers on lawny central divides.

Growing up in these rarefied parts of 40,000 square foot homes
I always assumed the police were tailing me - and often was exactly right.

Cruising along, not watching squat except girls, acting silly, burning rubber,
blasting KFWB, perhaps open brews -- we proved perfect targets.

Then for many middle age decades
I lost my black and whites paranoia.

Only recently, as dexterity, vision and judgment maneuvering autos
have receded along with my gums; I've become aware of them again.

Turning left on Rexford, braking for speed bumps to spare my wife's neck,
I slow down to a crawl as I spy the ritzy town's gold cupola-ed City Hall.

As we approach Santa Monica Boulevard's Sheriff's Department
I regress to a teenager behind the wheel, worried I'll get a ticket.

When we park in front of my mother-in-law's house
my sudden relapse from age sixty to sixteen or so is almost complete.

But something interesting, different from what I expect, happens inside.
Now my kids' grandma seems more like her own great-grandson.

Both are about ninety-eight - whether years or days is a quibble.
Each one thrives - dribbling the same spoon-fed rice cereal.

Bloodcurdling screams, spitting up everything, cute in tiny pink or blue
taffeta, and relying totally on others for survival are it for these two.

Later on in Westwood, picking up my parents to take them
for an early deli lunch, in this crowd once more I feel like a normal adult.

Until crossing the street, I offer Mom my arm, which she happily takes.
Smiling, we giggle as I remind her of walking me to kindergarten.

"Look both ways!"
comes out of our mouths at the same time.

We laugh and laugh with Dad over Doctor Brown's Cream Soda, dill
pickles, bowls of matzo ball soup, and corned beef on rye sandwiches.

7.19.06

"Theories of Relativity"

Trudging back to our apartment in the dark after a prolonged day,
failing to placate one screaming achy grandson
who'd just got his first shots, hearing some other
family's baby cry meekly all night is non-relative paradise.

Waking in the morning, watching a covertly filmed TV documentary,
to starving abused spied upon North Koreans,
the grass looks greener, freedom relatively grand
on the Chinese totalitarian side of the Yalu River.

7.18.06

"Apocalypse Approaching"

The earth's burning up.

Flames ate San Bernardino this week.

In early July, not waiting for nature's usual September infernos.

Strange summer rains threaten death-by-mudslide in crispy Los Angeles.

But searing weather kills way beyond here in Southern California.

Heatwaves devour babes and aged from Shanghai to South Bend.

While the Middle East cannibalizes itself.

Haifa is (was) one of Israel's few proud religious mixed cities.

At the moment, Katushas exterminate Muslim next to Jew there.

What might Jesus-of preach about Arabs bombing Arabs in Nazareth?

And why would a Chosen People choose to make a mountain out of a molehill?

That's not to say my Star of David hasn't been provoked -- and badly.

Surely the IDF was wronged with its soldiers kidnapped.

But hostage-taking's been common currency in this unholy land for millennia.

Why give a foe match and gasoline to light your fire?

I do get Olmert's restraint only taking out bridges and airports.

At first.

And still -- at least until I turn on the news.

I worry, how long can Jerusalem's self-discipline last in this smoldering?

As renegade nation-states cozy closer to borderless terrorists.

Iran and Syria come out of the closet in Lebanon...again.

Beirut's Christian suburbs refuse shelter to fleeing Allah-believers.

Another civil war's rumored in the wind.

Meanwhile Hezbollah and Hamas, Shiites and Sunnis pretend to make nice.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend...for now.

Play-it-both-ways Saudi Wahabi oil money funds guns behind-the-scenes.

In the south, explosions break open the gates between Egypt and Gaza:

Jamaat al-Islamiyya and Islamic Jihad join Al-Queda pretty near Tel Aviv.

If Palestinian squalor spirals downhill much further, it'll hit Somalian chaos.

Maybe Israel's hawks and doves are birds of the same feather.

Both warned against leaving...unilaterally or otherwise.

The world watches and condemns.

The UN's toothless.

The US has squandered its leverage, isn't trusted.

Uncurious George's Religious Right takes it with a grain of salt.

Evangelicals don't invest in Gore's inconvenient truth of global-warming.

Afterall, what's the point, come the Messiah, the unveiling of God?

'Cause we're outa here.

Who cares if the center doesn't hold?

Don't need no more globe.

Jews done their work rendering us off this planet.

When the End of Days arrives, the first will be first.

Burn, baby, burn.

7.17.06

"Diagnostic Dice™"

A Portola Valley auto mechanic buddy
who hunts wild boar on Catalina with bow and arrow
crows about two half-ton trophy heads slopped on his pickup's flatbed.

In return I show him my grandson Simon's photo
after which Tom tells me the story of presents to his nephew
and his sister's predictable (exact word "piss-ass") rejoinders.

It began at birth with a pair of dice
then quickly escalated to video games with lots of noise and violence
and fire crackers and a beebee gun.

Which annoyed the doctor-mother so much
that she put her younger brother
on a special "do not accept from uncle" gift-list.

I was told this tale in strictest confidence
-- knowing full well I too am a local physician --
because Tom believes me to be sympathetic (which I am).

Although no doubt in ways I'm also similar to his sib
Tom seemingly sees me more
as his bad-boy Marlon Brando soulmate.

Whereas most people perceive
I'm Woody Allenish, likely to give a kid existential books, classical CDs,
red wagons or hobby horses rather than knives and pistols.

Which is really no dilemma
since I'm completely jazzed
for once imagined as a man's man.

7.17.06

"Friday Night Fever"

A sleep-deprived
obsessive-compulsive
meth-high
redneck-addict
reconnoiters rural neighbors' mailboxes for red flags up
signifying poor families' monthly water and electricity checks inside.

Once the identity theft's done
and cashed in or bartered
there's enough stuff in hand
for one more --
or at least one last --
run before crashing.

7.16.06

"Melting Pot Highs"

A sweltering LA day
slouching on a leather couch
in the air-conditioned lobby of Los Feliz district's Palermo's Ristorante
next to a wine cellar chocked full of Marilyn Merlot bottles
her breasts at their best in a low-cut blue sequin dress
passing the time for three pizzas to go
I down a Heineken, watch ESPN, skim a NEJM, and compose
on a stenographer's pad offered up by a really nice Italian man, Luigi
who -- presumably pitying my scribbling this on paper napkins --
hands me the notebook with a cold beer.

Okay, so I confess, more than likely
inebriation plays a little role in this perception of ecstasy
after a not-looked-forward-to afternoon that began as a big hassle.

But without encountering such inspiring human beings on the way
I wouldn't feel half this fine simply because of an imported brew.

My adventure starts after landing at the torrid Burbank Airport
when a delightful Armenian surgeon entertains me
playing Dvorak and Mahler all the way to Hollywood
while toward the end we chatted more seriously
about our people's respective Holocausts
and what can be done to prevent others in the future
in his clean cool cab. (I tip Kaspar liberally when I see
from the $23 bottom-line that his meter isn't rigged.)

Getting back home
I quickly notice that my parked car's headlight was smashed
and that neither it nor my laptop's wireless (again) work.

Instead of spending the rest of the day
playing with my grandson as I planned
I bite the bullet, tackle the two tasks at hand
plus grocery shopping and figuring out dinner for six
which is harder to accomplish here down south
than up in Palo Alto where everything's familiar, slower, smaller, easier.

Hoping my warranty hasn't quite expired
from the first time my Airport Card got unseated from its thingamajig
I first rush to Melrose Mac on Highland
where a generous Ethiopian, Sentayehu Hilassie,
working full-time to put himself through engineering school,
said although I am four days beyond the ninety day service guarantee,
"No problem, given your commute from San Francisco, we'll cover it."

With that fabulous news
I proceed to Pep Boys at Hollywood and Vine
to have a new bulb installed
only to be told, "Company policy, we don't do Volvos,"
but after a little cajoling -- and Jose figuring out I was clueless --
the sweet buzz-cutted Parts Manager agrees, although he's very busy
to step outside and supervise (at no charge)
my replacing the broken part with a good one...
which is a great idea that for some reason doesn't work
so he goes beyond the call of duty, referring me to a nearby electrician.

Upto my elbows in grease
looking up from under the hood
I'm surprised to see my son-in-law staring down:
he needs to leave his family's Beetle to have a battery put in
so decides to comes on the rest of my journey
before we head home together.

Ten minutes later at Fountain and Normandie
the unshaved mustachioed owner of Sarkis' Greek Auto Shop -- Cash Only
shrugs his shoulders, fiddles with a volt meter, twists a few wires
while serving us cups of mint tea with filthy fingers, and lo and behold
twenty dollars later, the low beam's on
and I'm in business.

We cruise over to Gower and Sunset's strip mall
where we can't convince ourselves
that the gang'll like cheap Chinese takeout
even though the $6.21 chicken chow mein, smoked tea duck
and fried shrimp triple combo (with a can of Diet Coke thrown in)
has become a favorite of mine when alone
particularly when prepared and served up
by one of the most likable local merchants
an old lady who speaks almost no English but smiles and cooks beautifully.

Moving on to Vermont
after passing on ordering dinner
from Electric Lotus' earnest Indian hippy couple
who try to please us but their food's too hot for tonight
we agree on Palermo's pleasant peasant faire as just right
and while I wait and write, my grandson's dad does the shopping.

He drives to the closeby Mayfair Market on Franklin
that's a rip-off in any estimation --
everything wildly expensive
the produce often moldy, the meat and fish going bad --
but location location location allows them to charge what they want
with the grinning arrogance they're actually doing you a favor --
exactly the opposite of the can-do-take-nothing-for-granted
happy-to-be-here-to-earn-a-living-and-have-a-chance-to-make-it
attitude of the wave of hardworking honest lovely immigrants
like my grandparents and aunt and uncle were generations ago
that I had the chance to meet today.

7.15.06

"Even-ing"

Long July day coming to an end
Simon fed, head sideways in the crib
we listen to a slow comforting CD
of low-frequency heart beats
like four months before in mom's womb.

When he falls asleep
I stay nearby
to hear his breathing.

Sitting on the floor in tripod position
from the left comes the pulse and
from the right my grandson's breath.

For sixty minutes
I go inside but
not so deep
my meditation
isn't conscious
that stereophonic
cardiorespiratory
sounds ground me.

As the CD finishes
and silence begins
through almost
closed eyelids
I can sense the
redballed sunset.

In a few minutes
darkness descends.

Crickets start up.

Finishing my contemplation
I see the earliest evening stars
come out behind the leaves
outside my baby's window.

Myself now rested and calm
I leave our darling infant
to his refreshing slumber.

7.14.06

"Blood-Curdling Raspberries"

The maybe someday
United States of Europe
came within ten minutes
of a global sports trifecta.

After weeks of dealing
with cycle-doping and
soccer-fixing scandals,
the authorities cleared
the headlines just in time
for Wimbledon and the
World Cup to culminate
last Sunday with only
Europeans left in the
tennis finals and the
football final four with
the Tour de France
not really far behind.

Breakfast at Wimbledon
(so billed on US television)
demonstrated the best
in tennis, with Federer
from Switzerland and
Nadal hailing from Spain
carrying themselves with
a combination of grace
and skill that viewers
seemed to embrace in
a way so very unlike
the spoiled brattish
crude bad-boy ranting
and raving of previous
decades' Ugly Americans
McEnroe and Conners
(whom I must admit the
adolescent boy in me still
likes -- and in fact Jimmy
looked a bit like Roger
though he could not
have acted much
more differently).

The three time defending
champion came out
in his creamy white
custom-made blazer,
and as the crowd
settled into feasting on
traditional strawberries
and cream, Rog rose
to the occasion and
conquered Raf, the
only opponent he's
lost to this year -- every
time they've played.

Both men exemplify
the best in celebrity,
Nadal living with his
brother and sisters
and parents and
uncles and aunts
in a single building
on the little island
of Majorca; and
Federer well-liked
by his peers who
could easily simply
be envious of his
genius, fame and
fortune, but instead
appreciate him as
their game's truly
great ambassador.

Though equally
compelling, the
World Cup story --
taking place at
Berlin's Olympic
Stadium where
Hitler insulted
Jesse Owens, the
black American
who won four
gold medals --
unfortunately did
not have a sweet
fairy tale ending.

Zinedine Zidane,
the captain of the
1998 French winner
returning to the
pitch for his final
game before retiring,
with only ten minutes
left in overtime, head
butted an Italian player
and was disqualified
probably costing his
team the victory -- and
though still receiving the
Gold Ball as the Cup's best
may have tarnished his
place in soccer history.

Subsequently he revealed
that an Italian had taunted
him again and again about
his mother and sister -- which
though too bad, seems to me
to be a part of big-time sport
that a seasoned veteran would
take with a grain of salt and
not be baited into over-reacting,
thereby costing his nation.

Less clear (this part being
denied by the perpetrator)
is whether Zidane -- whose
family was Algerian and who
symbolized alienated Muslims
populating France's under-class
-- was called a terrorist, or even
worse in some circles, his family
were branded as informants
during the civil war against
Mother France; which wouldn't
justify his response but might
better explain why he didn't
take it without severe reprisal.

In any case, today Zinedine's
a mythic hero to some, mainly
Muslims, for defending his people
(e.g., an upbeat song, "Coup de
Boule," or The Head Butt" has been
released); yet to others, he's hated,
deserving only a Bronx cheer, an
undisciplined thug who lost the
single most important success
in the world to his countrymen.

There it is once again, possible
racism raising its head, with
people hypersensitive universally
and everything complicated by a
growing Islamic Christian divide.

I'll be interested to see
over the next weeks
if Lebanese Christians --
who don't support
Hezbollah but nevertheless
get bombed by Israel right
along with the nation's
fifty percent Muslims
who on the whole do
back Syria and Iran's
surrogate --get pissed
enough to start their
own little civil war.

7.13.06

"Entrepreneurs"

So the King asks the Queen,
"Looking back at your success, when did it all begin for you?"

And Number Two replies to the stud,
"About age six back in 1934 when I resold Cokes for a nickel more than I paid."

Then Number One Bill says to Warren (who now owns a chunk of Coca Cola),
"Similar for me; I think when you start's more predictive than business school."

To which the World's Second Richest Man Buffetts at Gates,
"Of course you'd say that -- since you're just a college drop-out...but I agree!"

With twinkles in their eyes, almost in unison they wonder out-loud 'bout the Jack,
"Should we bring Number Three, the Sultan of Brunei into our little colloquy?"

I thought about fifty-five years ago when I was five in inner city Chicago, selling
old newspapers and soda bottles to the junk man's horse and wagon in the alley...

I remembered these stories this morning, watching
a homeless man gather sellable recyclables from garbage cans in my neighborhood.

7.13.06

"Feed Your Head"

Over a mixed seafood grill
of finless scaleless prawns and fried calamari treif
in a Tel Aviv neighborhood hole-in-the-wall
the pale and black, tall and short, blond and dark
blue and brown-eyed miscellany of Jewish women --
so different from the garden-variety uniformity
of white squat dark brown-eyed Ashkenazi girls
who once upon a time juiced us in high school --
turns me on even more than the pack back home.

My new Israeli friend says
he considers himself a citizen of the world:
his parents and theirs and theirs from all over the Diaspora --
Europe, Asia, Africa as well as eight generations here in Palestine --
and his wife's from everywhere too.

Therefore it logically follows
their family's cool existing in many countries
and that they likely plan to move again, soon and often.

Although on paper
our genes appear to've pretty much
been around the same blocks
our heads definitely seem in very different spaces.

Not that I'd consider my wife, children, and me monotonous
(after all that adventuresome backpacking in Cambodia, Bolivia, etc?)
but we've always lived in one spot and in the US except
for the kids' spending student years in Fiji, New Guinea, and Ecuador.

What is it that makes my buddy feel at ease anywhere anytime
and me barely able to reside simultaneously in Palo Alto and Hollywood?

Why the big deal
subsiding in nearby California towns
basically peas in the same coastal pod speaking the same language?

What's the fuss
keeping clothes in two places
bringing bills and check books and cars up and back
forwarding mail, suspending papers and garbage indefinitely -- or not
food rotting and plants wilting and clothes dirty twice
not sure which of four phones I can be reached at
if we should continue this and that insurance
where Netflix should be sent
when I'll see which enemies again
whether it's a good idea to carry my special tea
and homegrown succulent mint leaves
and favorite meditation cushion
and best mechanical pencil
and one pair of pet sandals
along each time in both directions...

poses such a luscious mindgame
for one fundamentally monolingual Chicago-born compulsive American
that he's resolved to explore, if not solve, sitting on his pillow.

7.11.06

"Not Your Man"

Craving a great-grandmother/mother-in-law break
for a timeout, I whisk my grandson
up the urban flatlands square block to where I attended grade school.

The clever baby's most intrigued by the alley, where a grinning ponytailed
Captain Hook with red bandana and granny glasses pulls his black garbage
truck's levers to lift and empty green, yellow and orange plastic cans in.

Looking both ways before crossing Rexford from the west to east side
north of Santa Monica, a "Neighborhood Watch: Top Block 1993" sign --
totally inconceivable during my Pollyanna childhood -- hits me in the eye.

A white and blue Livonia Glatt Kosher delivery van
almost collides with a silver Bentley, as a blond babe contesting
the right of way, shakes her gold fists at a terrified Hispanic guy.

Back in the fifties before kids did freebase drugs instead of Boy Scouts
during free time, Troop 17 met just below Hawthorne in a scuzzy log
cabin soon to be developed into yet another showy Beverly Hills home.

Now an infrequent visitor to these elite parts, I return to old school
haunts for the first time since scrambling over the chainlink fence to
play ball on the playground when each my now grown-up kids was little.

At three and a half months, Simon's way too young to climb, so we
content ourselves watching two snarky boys ignore us, skateboarding on
broken rubber hills labeled "HAWTHORNE VIKINGS" in gold and royal blue.

Even though it's been forty-seven years since matriculating,
I'm shocked at both notions, that either I didn't know our bland school had
a nickname or that a student body 90% Jewish could be so inaptly labeled.

Suddenly feeling very elderly and pale, invisible with a ghostly cold sweat
I hold the world's still perfect future, cooing and nodding at every plant
he wants to shove into his mouth, tightly cradled in my wrinkling arms.

For good reason (having just seen the great bleak Leonard Cohen movie)
I realize I'm no longer the hero of my own drama, life isn't always paradise
or winnable, that time has come and passed to abandon the masterpiece.

As the aging Montreal zenmaster-poet puts it whispering his sweetly-sad
klezmer-minor off-key raspy-can't-carry-a-tune straight-from-god songs,
tonight will be fine (for a while) turning tricks, getting fixed on Boogie St.

Cohen's voice pitches me into memories of owls and lutes, cherries and
fools' gold; last Fourth of July when my fingers burned on Liberty crackers
while red Indians and blacks were thrown to the dogs by hanging auctioneers.

You and I chew Snickers and throw back Buds kicked from vending machines
watching NFL steroided-oafs suffer heart attacks on prime-time reality TV
until gray flannel-suited bankers repo your prefab RV and my color Sylvania.

It's a hell of a country we got here south of Canada, us citizens thinking
big about success and conquest, money grows on trees, truckers parking
where bears run free, and grease monkeys can strive to do the right thing.

7.10.06

"Rainbow Gathering"

Just your usual Los Angeles daydream
summer Saturday, hot and dry
catch your breath, maybe get the car washed.

Whites and yellows and even blacks
all of us colors pull up to the Hollywood Car Wash
where only browns in blue shirts and tan hats do labor.

The thermometer beneath the awning reads 93
but judging from the workers' sweat
it's a good ten degrees hotter out in the midday sun.

While the gold Mercedes, green BMW, etc., move along the line
we owners sit on benches in the shade
sipping free lemonade, eating free popcorn, and reading the free papers.

Some who aren't satisfied just watching the parade go by
zip across the strip mall parking lot
to Rite Aid and Starbucks.

Next door's Out Of The Closet thrift shop
makes all signs bilingual so the Salvadorans and Mexicans
can buy used clothes and appliances during their breaks.

Such is the scene in a world where it seems everybody knows
the poor stay poor and the rich get rich, that those on-top
seize every little edge to their advantage over those toiling under them.

Somehow for a measly $6.99 (more for SUVs, vans, and trucks)
the possessors determine they can play I-Make-Them-Jump
plantation masters entitled to anything they can wish or imagine.

So one guy asks -- rather orders -- his "man"
to remove an I-Make-Them-Jump car battery charger
from the tirewell and clean it up good and quick.

Another requires that his "dryer"
grip a brown buddy polishing another car
to help lift his surfboard out of his trunk so it can be cleaned.

A third oversees the lifting
of his fancy mountain bike out of the back seat
barking "don't mess up the leather" as if he's talking to a dog.

When grease inevitably runs
he screams, "I'm gonna clock this guy!" loudly
and demands to confront the manager to receive reimbursement.

Meanwhile lady patrons drink mint juleps and talk on cell phones -- making
employees waving red-we're-done-flags wait and wait and wait and wait --
then say demurely "You missed that...get this spot...Christ, it's all wet."

What is it about us north of the border Americans
treating our southern neighbors like slaves
seeking every means to get more and more for a measly seven bucks?

I'm feeling so guilty about the old man
standing by my old Volvo for 30 minutes or so in the blazing heat
that I mean to stop him before he Amorals the tires -- and just leave.

Of course when grabbing a rag myself, I succeed only in making him jittery
no doubt worried that he'll become the center of his boss's attention
and that he'll get fired for not keeping up at his age.

Anyway you cut it, I make a mess...
since the silver Bentley in front of me isn't moving anywhere soon
its driver nowhere to be found.

Making the best of a bad deal, I sit down behind my wheel
imagining how Republican members of Congress
must have hallucinated such a stupid immigration policy.

Given the loopy logistics -- no less loony ethical nightmare -- how well
off would the each-man-for-himself US of A be after deporting 12 million
presently breaking their backs for you and me for wages we wouldn't take?

7.9.06

"Puppetry"

I was Edgar Bergen to his Charlie McCarthy.

Or better yet, Paul Winchell -- born Paul Wichin
in a lower East Side Jewish ghetto, the son of Sol and Clara --
to his little boy mannequin Jerry Mahoney.

When I carry my three and a half month-old grandson
upright in the crook of my arm -- me no ventriloquist and he no dummy --
I do feel a bit like Simon's filled with canvas tube stuffing
as his body's still incompletely myelinated nervous system
struggles to figure out how to use its neck, hands and feet.

Each day he seems to make great progress,
his neck strong like the figurehead on the bow of a schooner ship
but organically straining this way and that in the wind
scanning the environment up and down from left to right
inhaling every bulldog or bougainvillea in our path as we walk
with him facing out in his momma's frontpack.

In fact the way he wiggles his fingers and toes
and learns to corral them in his mouth (or his nose)
reminds me most of my favorite of these 1950s TV shows,
the way my hero, the redheaded kid Howdy Doody
moved less than smoothly to the tune of rods, wires, and strings...
although you can be sure
that this strongwilled grandchild of mine
is absolutely nobody's puppet.

7.7.06
"Love Potion Number Four"

If I knew how to brew, I'd bottle it.

You know that thing infants do that's
way beyond newborn reflexive smiles
and grasps that makes EVERYONE
in their presence who's at all clued
in to babyness, ridiculously happy?

I'd pretty much forgotten the ecstasy
of this simple experience since our three
were little, the white magic having lapsed
til my own flesh and blood had her first child.

So I guess maybe my head wasn't all
that clued in during the thirtysome years
between mine and my babies' babies.

That's not to say I didn't like teeny ones
because I did -- and if anything had a rep
as a pretty babe-oriented dad and man.

But something extra seemed to kick
into my ego when the tyke happened
to possess at least a few of my genes.

That's just a fact.

I'm not proud, but that's how it is.

And it's not just me.

Yesterday Simon's mom and her
parents drove him to visit his
three surviving greatgrandparents.

All over ninety and more or less
on inward and downward slopes,
nevertheless within minutes the
tiny guy'd seduced each out for a
bit of human contact and pleasure
that was truly unusual in their lives.

Just lying there on his blanket on
the floor in the middle of us all,
his cooing and eye contact and
tracking our movements brought
a joy that joined us all together
uniquely, warmly and meaningfully.

Although it took a while, the two
"younger" matriarch and patriarchs
eventually held the babe-in-arms;
the eldest, almost a hundred, couldn't
quite muster the energy for touch
but hung in there amazingly well
and unbelievably long anyway.

Not anticipating the magnitude
of our encounter, I hadn't thought
to bring a real camera to capture what
possibly could be the last such chance.

But making do with what we had,
I caught the gist of the spirit on
my cell, which if not ideal quality,
at least I can appreciate and share.

When we returned to our daughter's
home, my dad -- by far the most
with-it of the greatgrandparents --
had already left blissful messages
on my phone and on my email which
I'll keep always alongside the photos:
"We enjoyed the visit yesterday very much.
Most gratifying. Simon is quite the guy.
Thoroughly loveable.
Thanks to all of you for the effort."

What is it about newborn babes
that bring us such contentment,
that serve as deus ex machina to
bind us together, resolving complex
family plots that exist underneath?

Beginning when sitting down to
Fourth of July barbecue with our
recently drawn together ingathering
of daughters and son-in-law, we've
begun a modest probably shortterm
tradition of Simon joining us for dinner.

Parked there on top of the dining room
table in his little chair, smiling and cooing
and making eye contact and tracking every
movement; we bask in the pure happiness
of his still uncorrupted perfect innocence,
knowing full well that it won't last forever...
in fact, usually after a few minutes (which
for all the world feel like an eternity), Simon
grows hungry, fussy and demanding again amen.

7.7.06

"5766 and Counting?"

1.

This begins being pissed
when my early-rising wife
still jetlagged from Israel
wakes me before the 5:47 sun this morning.

"Come watch this!"
she chortles, exhorting
that I forego anger and
tea to watch TV with her.

Exhausted from July 4 family
barbecuing and staying up
really early devouring Philip Roth's
autobiographical Tel Aviv fiction

thinking to myself
this's just ridiculous
but since I can't get back
to bed anyway, I say, "OK."

However, what I then see justifies
(as usual) my spouse's inscrutably
rousing me: nothing less than a fascinating
University of Santa Barbara lecture

by France's latest greatest
rockstar-philosopher Bernard
Henri Lévy about "The Resurgence
of Anti-Semitism in Europe."

2.

In our cute modest duplex rental
we revisit the erotico-intellectual
buzz we felt 33 years ago in front
of the tube every 6 AM catching

the Sams Ervin & Dash Watergate
hearings live EST while pregnant
with a baby who's now the mother
and the reason we're down here

though instead of playing grownup
in the Pt. Reyes National Seashore PST
as firsttime hippy parents, now we're
merely a dreary grandma-pa pair in LA.

Admittedly I hadn't been a Lévy fan
until hearing his shtick (which you too
can watch at http://uctv.tv/ondemand/)
surprisingly onpoint, stimulating, scary

philosophizing about the millenia-old
anti-Semitic clouds now blowing back
over Europe as their newest
post Holocaust-passé souvenir.

Often referred to simply as BHL
since breaking in as a young Turk
Bernie made part of his rep dissing PC French
communists and socialists as knee-jerk anti-Israeli pro-Palestinian.

He counsels that fellow Jews (metaphorically?)
sleep with guns under their pillows one eye open,
keep gold rings in home safes, and be ready to run
when the US Christian evangelicals (read "Bush" in Part 3 below)

sour on befriending Holy Land Hebrews
grown tired of these strange bedfellows
after the short-term apocalyptic fun's done
and like Abraham's goat sacrificed in Isaac's stead

Jews're are scaped again,
if not for past history --
the old jellyroll blues
killing (or creating) Christ, racial and plutocratic reasons;

then for newfangled theories
knit from fulsome cloth by Holocaust deniers,
blaming Zionists as crooks competing for prime-time victimhood,
daring to declare they're still Chosen Ones in Judea and Samaria, etc.

3.

Yesterday's Ha'aretz ran an interesting piece
"America's Weakness" by my buddy fellow progressive Yossi Beilin
which contends, "September 11 and its aftermath,
the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq,

and the Iraqi quagmire have resulted in a US nearly entirely absent
from any involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
President Bush has not visited Israel since he was governor of Texas.
...envoys he dispatched...have failed to make the slightest impact.

The administration will grant its blessing
to any Israeli withdrawal on the condition that it
will not commit it to anything,
including any sort of financial expense.

...The United States is cut off from a number of Muslim countries,
doesn't have any form of dialogue with Iran or Syria,
it boycotts the Hamas government,
and all that is left for Rice to do is call Israel, Egypt and Jordan...

When the latest conflict broke out....The United States was not
even mentioned as an option. The White House spokesman on duty did
take the time to inform the world that it was Israel's right to defend itself,
but said it should do so carefully.

Thanks a lot. Really.
A different administration, in a different situation,
would have sent a special envoy... who would shuttle between Syria, Gaza
and Jerusalem, trying to calm things down, threatening, promising, fuming...

The worsening violent conflict in the Middle East
is a blatant reflection of the weakness of the American partner.
At the moment of truth, when Israel needs a powerful third party
capable of moving things in the area,

it turns out
that little beyond the repetitive recitation
of Bush's vision and of the dust-covered road map can be expected,
which neither side intends to actually implement."

7.6.06

"Gravity's Rainbow in a Pynch"

Although my conceit is
that we've always been
a particularly close family

the reality of our two daughters,
one a mother with her baby
and husband, plus the parents

living together again after
so many years, picking watermelons,
what and how to cook, barbecuing

and cleaning toilets, deciding
who does which when, squabbling
and pitching in or not and

all the little forces that
can push atoms apart
or defying kinetic laws

pull us closer to form
a tighter-knit molecule
as we warm up more

I inevitably want it all
feeling a bit sad and
incomplete without

my son and his woman
who're on their way to
backpack in Yosemite.

Still I'm a glass-half-full guy
happy my son-in-law's
becoming a true son to me...

but it's way past time to stop
this whiny self-congratulatory
tedious Hallmark cardish rhyme.

7.5.06

"Independence Day"

1.

The turnkey operation mostly done, finally moved from the motel
into a cute Hollywoodland duplex subleased from a friend of a friend,
filled full of Buddhas and good books and familiar Jewish objects
with lots of leafy trees and birds chirping happily outside,

we're just a ten minute beautiful neighborly walk
from our daughter's family's house up the hill
while the apartment's owner spends his badboy summer away
having Fire Island fun on the other coast.

When I first open the door
(declining to carry my bride of thirty-seven years over the threshold),
a hotter-than-hell blast whacks us back like a two-by-four board
with air built up over weeks behind closed windows and undrawn drapes.

Settling in for the night,
tired and ready for bed,
we find the sheets stripped and pillowcases a bit stinky
presumably residual from relatives crashing here in June.

Which in the big picture's really OK (a quick wash and dry tomorrow)
since sleeping in the buff without covers
seems right tonight anyway
whether we're here or in our homier home (thank goodness for the fan).

Figuring out remedies to the annoying little details
-- the weird smells behind the frig (rat?) and in the air vents (fungus?),
the busted shades, fuzzy TV, broken Internet, and god knows what else --
will have to wait for morning when we've got way more energy to cope.

Waking before daylight, still jetlagged from Israel,
as the sun rises, the rug looks scruffier than I remember
and someone's tracked mud all the way from the entry
into the kitchen and upstairs into the bed and bathrooms.

But magically the Adelphia highspeed modem works again,
all four balls coming up solid yellow like a slot machine jackpot,
so I'm digitally with it (sheepishly admitting to using AOL dial-up
fail-safe in a pinch), and needn't spend July 4 expecting the cable guy.

My better half impatiently splits, leaving the rest to me:
after picking up the watermelon, corn, chicken to barbecue, etc.
I walk the path
to visit with my grandson, son-in-law, wife and two daughters.

Becoming sensitive to renter's life in the big city of Los Angeles,
it's full of surprises I'm just beginning to pick up on:
I've never seen such compulsive paranoia, what with padlocks
on the black and blue and even recyclable green plastic garbage bins.

And since I was a kid here, riding mass transportation
to the beach and jazz clubs before I had a drivers license,
I've noticed the old-time mortuary commercials pitching
a dignified expensive death on every bus stop bench

have been replaced by attractive ads featuring energetic smiling
senior citizens acting forty, that're designed to catch those obsessed
with healthy living into buying costy medical procedures, some good
ideas (colon "c-answer" screening) and some less so --mesotheliomas?!

2.

230 years ago, it may have been more complicated in many ways
than the history (always written by the winners) we learned in school:
an underdog civil war breaking from the world's most powerful country
versus remaining a generally prosperous and faraway independent colony.

African slaves and American Indians often felt they'd get a better shake
from the Brits than the Patriots; passive Loyalists -- whether from belief
or self-interest (their jobs depended on the English) or family ties or
inertia -- were often persecuted and tarred and feathered as seditionists.

75,000 or so fled to Canada or to the West Indies or home to avoid being
ostracized as traitors -- or worse; if Washington (or a lesser man) had
accepted the tempting offer of becoming the first US King George,
possibly the country'd be in a bigger mess than the one it'd been in.

As an upper-class flack wary of uneducated rabble running a democracy,
of the inmates controlling the asylum, said,
" I'd rather have one ruler three thousand miles away,
than three thousand rulers one mile away. "

But, as usual, most folks just ducked their heads down
(some who spoke up had them chopped off and their bodies quartered)
just sticking around to see the winners,
who fortunately came up with the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Sadly today we're drifting fascistic under George II's Unitary Presidency:
Chaney and Rumsfeld're still traumatized by post Watergate executive
restraint, not caring that Alex Hamilton's Federalist Papers vision
lost out to Madison's prevailing balance of powers a long time ago.

7.4.06

"Simon Eyes"

Not having laid eyes on Simon for two whole weeks,
a gigantic piece of his three-plus sweet months out of the womb,
I'm a bit apprehensive he won't still cotton to me now
and worried I'll be cowed if I can't comfort his crying.

I'm concerned he won't shine when we see each other again, that I
won't be smooth and confident when he really needs it, that I'll lose
the polish to soothe him when fussy, somehow that I'm no longer upto
the task of being a good granddad -- in fact that I'll be waxed, Simonized.

7.3.06

"Once Upon Two Times"

Just yesterday twenty years ago
a brash young fop with long mod hair and prettyboy outfits
made the scene, traveling around the land searching for four masters
he felt he must battle to achieve true greatness.

Out of Las Vegas
he followed a brutal path, striving to slay a new dragon
every fourteen days, trying to make it to the Sunday showdown
as the baddest fastest dude around.

During the narcissistic first half of his career he lost his humanity,
but the second half brought it back, as he befriended former enemies,
got the girl of his dreams (a bigger winner) who made him a family man,
and spent time and energy bestowing his bounty on those less fortunate.

Of course, I'm talking about no other than Andre Agassi,
one of the few on the worldwide tennis circuit to win all four grand slams,
who married all-time champion Steffi Graf, and set up
a school foundation to educate kids less fortunate than his own.

Yesterday, he played his final Wimbledon, losing in straight sets
to the new heartthrob on the block, Raph Nadal with his dark good looks
and gigantic bicep guns; but Agassi seems wiser, more ready
than most celebrities for a mature fulfilling post-sports existence.

I'm struck by Andre's reallife similarity to a fictional surreal gunslinger
who also began hairy and bearded and leather-clad: both are Americans,
one from Nevada, the other from Chile; like in a religious allegory,
each shaved off his ego with his hair to see the light of selflessness.

The Chilean is Alejandro Jodorowsky, the Russian-Jewish born filmmaker
and star in a wildly electric Fellini-ish psychedelic 1971 western, "El Topo,"
the mole, who begins as a lonely weirdo gunfighter looking like an old-time
Hassidic rabbi who reinvents himself -- reborn shorn -- through humility.

The heroes labored in the fields of manual labor -- Andre with racquet,
Alejandro with shovel, the mole who in strikingly bizarre tableaus
digs cripples and freaks representing neglected second-class citizens
out of their black nightmare in a broad indictment of Western capitalism.

"El Topo" became a massive word of mouth success, a midnight cult
phenom when it opened -- that is, until the Beatles manager bought rights
to the film, refusing to release it in any form...although surely bootleg
videos or pirated laser discs won't be hard for Andre to find in his retirement.

7.2.06

SCAT1 -- see sarnatscat2.blogspot.com/ for post 8.6.6 posts

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Re: Hi from Gerry

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Simonized

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