discipline & unsung stories

- updike would rise early each a.m., head to his upstairs, & dutifully write for 3 hrs. kerouac supposedly wrote on the rd by feeding a 120-ft roll of paper into his typewriter & letting fly. somewhere between's people like me (neither disciplined nor dope-driven, most of us toil in obscurity, which is just fine w/me). as a kid, i loved nothing but the piano more than my portable olivetti, & i'd clack away daily at it: imitation chandler & hammett, detective stories, marx bros script, feverish tales of my cousin, sister & i meeting the beegees (i was a KID after all!). never finished a one, & my niece is now the same, tho she writes her feverish tales by hand & they revolve around androgynous j-rockers.
- as much as music, people, exercise, & finding shiny objects on the ground, i just love to write, & besides a behemoth of a masters thesis & yrs in jr reportage, i do it for self-expression -- tho i spose there's always a bit of social agenda there, since i AM a teacher from a family of teachers &, tho yes a little smudged by a kinda sordid but mostly garden-variety-drunk past, basically am a goody two-shoes... i like to be good, & i like people who read what i write to feel good, & i keep that in mind while writing. yes, nihilism, marker of my youth, is gone, & therefore, i guess, so are my tender yrs, & good riddance, i say!
- haven't written for many days, so it's time, is the idea. things’ve been up & down: lots of headaches/sore throats probably due to our poisonous air; much time w/family & friends; enjoying crisp-autumnal clime; did 1/2 marathon the other day & am still somewhat crippled by the bout (time was 2:19, not bad for a non-athlete like me)...
- see, i've always been in this place & tho for a while chronicled my mostly-drunken escapades in a comic (look to link @ right for true tales of glumglum), @ times i glaringly know i just don’t have much that’s exciting to write of.. however, i DO know people who’ve had fascinating lives, & i trumpet here & hope they read & are inspired to finally get some of their stories down!
- here, for instance, is my dear friend donna's nativity scene: step-dad is coming home off the rd; he's stand-in for hank snow when hank's too drunk to get on stage & sing. he walks in & donna's dear mom's laying across the kitchen table w/the other kids standing worriedly around, mom’s yelling, "i'm having the baby!!!", step-dad runs across the rm, slashes down the venetian blind cord & uses it to tie off & cut baby donna's umbilical cord.
- what a frigging entrance!! donna's hilarious & weird story "the worm" is at that link at right, & she has tons & tons more. what an amazing life, & she’s gotta lot more to live!
- and aunty rita? she lived all over the u.s. as well as in el salvador when uncle henry worked shutdown on nuke plants & she just bursts w/stories: armed guards escorting her to the mall in salvador; carjacked at gunpt in miami beach & then the thief got on the fwy & got stuck in a traffic jam & the cops got him; dancing w/merle haggard & all the honky-tonk hunks when she was the knockout-life of the party in the 50s-60s; living on buttermilk & cigarettes a smitten cowboy’d bring her every single morning to nurse her hangovers when she worked at the bank; coming to in the bushes & knocking on the window, but her sister wouldn't let her in the house… (well, ok, i DID live that particular story…) my long-time friend, big gruff dm, tells of partying at his friend chief’s pad while dm was a hollywood high student, putting down the bong to espy a stretch limo outside, & next thing he knows, in walks elvis! yes, none of these stories’ve been written down… til now… so you read it here 1st! :)
- i should be more like dad, local historian, who gets wind of others’ fascinating lives & patiently but doggedly pursues til they spill. dad, the quiet but politely subversive gentleman w/matinee looks who always has lived w/in 10 miles of his birth, is someone who thrills @ others’ narratives (b rode sidecar as a motorcycle ice racer in colorado; uncle henry went out on the nuclear sub, where they couldn’t shower for the 1st month cause the stalls were filled w/smokes & booze; steve strelich stood in for movie stars, did marathon swims & dances, & met a dictator before starting up a wrestling arena that still stands here in bakersfield). yes, dad really listens & truly loves interviewing & getting down on paper the adventures of others. he honors others, in so doing! please click here to read some of dad’s work: www.gilbertgia.com
- well, aside from getting marmalade at the bent ‘n’ dent for my students (who’ve never heard of or tasted it) & some terrific books @ the goodwill, "my" tale for tonight’s been told, so if you’ve got a story that needs telling, post it, post it, cause why the heck not??! life’s too short to sit back & wait for someone else to sing your story, & even if you’ve not traveled far, as folks  mentioned here have, i believe that a tale well-told can take place right in your kitchen, bathroom, backyard, or noggin...

i don't know what to write i don't know what to write i don't know what to write i don't know what to

(no music news at all in this post.)
-> the title's what i've told my students to write when they are stuck. the idea is, it leads to something to write about.
-> ...on the horizon, ideas are galloping up like my texas pup, gonna knock me down in a big blustery !whomp!... here goes! it worked!
-> i have "fear of flying"... there's little i hate more than the acceleration & thrust of jet engines. (insert chicken clucking sound here.) worse than that is how airlines puff you for explosives, prod, poke, separate, strip, search you, filch your goods w/no apology. i know: terrorists. but it's hard to fly nowadays & keep much dignity. arms outstretched, mild-faced grandpas, white-haired grannies, schoolmarms, milquetoasts, depressed-looking teens, middle-aged twerps, golf guy, trophy wife, all are frisked, zapped, grilled by TSA muscle. everyone's made timid --we just wanna fly, for god's sake! --, looking like they just got pantsed & trashcanned by the school bully. there's only kick, no kiss - & once you're on the tin can, no food, no pillow, no movie, seats like cracker boxes, it's all rub. americans are so desperate to fly, time starved, stressed out, pulverized by the need to Own More Stuff, the gotta get to pt B AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, we endure it all.
-> as soon as we get bullet trains, i'm never flying again. NEVER. and once we get time machines, well, bar the doors, katie.
-> denver's criticized as "the LA of the rockies," but i love smellay, & i love denver, too, w/its sprawling brick buildings & ungentrified 50s-60s neon sign boroughs & old motels & bars & great restaurants like lucille's cajun/creole & big record stores w/real vinyl & even the uptown spots look good to me, tho i never spend time there, just drive thru & peep.
-> boulder's "the sta barbara of the rockies," & i'm less comfortable there, tho do love the university's creekside bikepath & wonderful shows (peking acrobats!), stately homes, yuppie mega grocery marts stocked w/plenty, & i love window-shopping the pearl st mall, like i love doing that in sta barbara, never buying one nickel's worth of nothing, happy i breathe the same air, see the same sites as the rich & it doesn't cost squat & no one can stop me because this is america.
-> it's hard to run in these places w/their extreme elevation, but it's worth it. lungs scream but heart glows at snow & sky & brick & sandstone & flagstone & aspen & foliage & deer, squirrels, raccoons, magpies, that awesome mountain view, rockies as far as you can see & every peak & valley has a name. i plod along for miles, freezing, happy, picturing south american ancestors, squat, strong, charging endlessly up alpine paths, powered by sturdy lung & leg.
-> every time i've been, the public johns on the pearl st mall are piping ray charles in some kinda weird coincidence or maybe even miracle... for me, the ghost of texas stacy is in boulder, & memory of blasters, moto trips, brother in law paul, so in the end, i guess i love boulder, too, even tho i feel part-mutant when surrounded by its long-limbed golden youth swathed in north face & casual ski apparel.
:) esquerita wouldn't fit in in boulder, either, tho. :)
-> dr derek sent me a funny "dusk devils" pic he created the other day & put on his metaphysics website (go tw the bottom): http://www.qm21.com/quote.html... met him decades ago when he was selling R&R memorabilia to help fund his (i think) ontology school. he looked like a sort of fey gerard depardieu (i love GD!) & sold the coolest stuff for cheap, like a wooden fab four stamp, rockabilly bootlegs, never-glued on holo-cover frm "her satanic majesty's..." worked under him at buck owens' yrs later & he & jack-mormon loren (r.i.p, dear guy, artist, anarchist, friendly oversized shlub in buddy holly glasses) scanned (a recent techn at the time) my drivers license & did obscene things to my tender visage. in the early oughts, dr derek wrote for my underground paper (r.i.p.) & now has a book coming out called "man is dead."
"man is dead." brilliant! read about it at www.qm21.com.
i read like crazy yesterday, about raymond carver's editor who pared RC's stories into their famously spare style, & about how bad soy really is for a person, as bad as corn syrup because it's in everything we eat, & today i got to take flowers to dear silvia who has endured so much, & to angie, & spend time w/my dear niece. we had a family pizza & told stories & my sore back feels less stoved up... & i guess i figured out what to write. :) buonanotte. :)