"some people never go crazy. what truly horrible lives they must lead." - bukowski

just concluded school wkend #2 in shaky town, the city by the bay, just can't call it san fran-sicko, that just ain't right... the 152 over pacheco pass is the way to go, i think, past the reservoir & casa de fruta, then on 101 where i stopped off in burlingame & caught the bukowski pic "factotum"... i am not shiteing you when i say i've dreamed many times of this movie house, from the windy staircases & terraced seating & partitions in the pie-shaped theatre to the mirror-backed tree growing in the foyer. it should've been creepy to finally see it, but it was downright cool & wasn't weird a bit! fri night a lovely & gracious 1st grade/art teacher put me up in her bernal hts home & i went walking in the cool eve & had the greatest malted at this little hamburger joint full of winking lights & flowers & chromed surfaces.
sat's classes dazzled me. after near-15 yrs in elementary ed, i'm so grateful to receive education (& to know i still can learn!)... my favorite teacher is neeli, who was drinking buddies with bukowski & has formidable credentials in beat poetry, street & school, life & learning: he's in line to be poet laureate of san francisco right now. he's this beautiful, broken-toothed, brilliant, big-hearted soul who spins wildly fascinating, rambling lectures. when the profs get going, & neeli especially, my heart pounds like it's love or music... it's too thrilling to learn learn learn, & i feel grateful, humbled, invigorated. Man has specific manifestations, but Man is one: i love it. i'm a bit of a slouch in the group, mebbe, having majored in english tho i should've majored in "pub" & learned little formally, but i feel worthy of my seat. i may not have big school breeding, comparative classics muscle, or polyglotism, but i've got life & i've got willingness &, doing the new college program, i'm getting my heart & soul back. (bukowski said, "if you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose.") a little more on neeli:
http://www.newcollege.edu/profiles/profiledetails.cfm?profileID=15 ...he & gary tombleson, the program's keen & regal director, took a road trip to smellay for the donation of bukowski's writings to the huntington. the info is here: http://www.huntington.org/Information/bukowski.html ... tho it doesn't feel as funky-safe as austin or as rambling-romantic as LA, sf's mission's diversity & rhythm invigorate me: stopping in for a burrito-blimp that lulls the maw all day, rummaging thru free books on a sidewalk, hanging out at a corner to listen to mexican or jazz music coming from bars while watching yuppies walk dogs & realizing that HERE, i look like a square, L7, a dork... cool! no one cares how much makeup i have on or what i'm wearing; no one stares, like happens at times in bako. it's like when i was a kid & wished to have powers of invisibility, but it's real & i can reappear at will, by smiling at or greeting a passer-by... due to brain drain, i forwent more movies at the corner roxie theatre ( www.roxie.com ) & hit the road, on the way home cheered to realize, tho my nocturnal vision's getting awful dim, if i can be a chase car & have music, i can drive all night: chicago soul, old crow medicine show on prairie home companion, classic country & western, reprises of creepy, wild wolfman jack shows: the songs kept the truck rolling & i was home before 10, greeted by spouse & menagerie.