Those of you who have read my other blog about my teen years growing up in 1950s Mexico will recognize the essay that follows, although it's in a slightly different form here. If you've not read it, I invite you to do so: www.dbl-exposure.blogspot.com.

Spider Webs

When you’re sixteen, parents don’t always make sense under the best of circumstances. This was incomprehensible. I turn slowly, looking at our newly redone living room. Yesterday it was pristine with its polished granite fireplace, new furniture, rugs, drapes, and newly tiled floor. The freshly painted pale yellow walls had added warmth and cheer to the room. Now, there are sloppy swirls of black paint on the walls and black streaks where the paint has run and there’s black paint all over the floor. A large paint brush sits in a can of black paint. I know who did this: Mom. But why?

As I stared at each wall in turn, I saw what Mom was trying to do: paint cobwebs on them. Her mother, who had died when Mom was nine, had been very artistic, a poet, a painter, and a writer. Mom may have been inspired by this memory, may have visualized lacy, delicate, symmetrical black strands gracefully adorning the walls. But the only

brush she could find was a painter’s three-inch brush. And she was drunk. Again.

She had gone on a drinking binge late the day before. My nine-year-old sister Valerie, and I had long since learned to make ourselves scarce when Mom started drinking heavily, which was most of the time now. So when she started her binge, we retreated to our bedrooms. She continued drinking all evening and I could hear her crying at times and at others, singing along with records and music that she and Antonio, the lover who had jilted her, used to dance to. Sometimes she would sing a song she made up, “Pass Around Girl.” I’m sure Val heard all this also but neither of us ventured out of our rooms all evening, not even for something to eat.  

Only those who have been through it, children who have watched a parent do this to themselves, can understand what it’s like. I experienced fierce, conflicting emotions, and Valerie must have, also. For years we had been targets of Mom’s harsh and unrelenting criticisms, her verbal and emotional abuse, the occasional physical abuse. But in spite of this, I still loved her. Somewhere inside of me I recognized that she was struggling against all the pain in her life: the loss of Antonio; her perceived failure as a parent; her isolation; the recent loss of Felice, our cat who had accompanied us four years before on our move from LA to Guadalajara, where we now lived; and a future that was bleak and discouraging.

Loathing was also present. I couldn’t stand what Mom had become. In my harsh, all-knowing, unforgiving teenage certainty, I hated her for being weak. Why didn’t she just put Antonio behind her and get on with her life? Why did she have to drink so heavily? And take so many pills? And stay in bed until eleven, twelve, one o’clock in the afternoon? Why couldn’t she just be like other kids’ moms?

I felt embarrassed whenever Mom, drunk, tried to talk to me about these things, or anything for that matter. I felt embarrassed when she yelled or cried or I heard things crashing. I felt embarrassed when she started singing or when I would find her dancing clumsily as I tried to make my way to the kitchen without being seen.

Fear was always present, fear of what Mom might do to herself, either intentionally or because of the drinking. Could you die from drinking too much? What if she decided to drive somewhere when she was drunk? What if she just decided to end it all and take all her sleeping pills at once, the sleeping pills she regularly asked me to purchase for her? As I look back, though, I think suicide was closed to Mom. Dad had already put us through that five years before and she couldn’t subject Valerie and me to that again. What would happen to us if she did? How would we get back to the States? Who would take us in? And now I wonder if the fact that that door was closed to her simply added to her misery; the pain in her life was unbearable and increasing daily but there was no way out.

There was also the uncertainty of what would happen to me. I was sixteen, on the verge of adulthood, but I was also a school drop-out with insufficient education and no skills, social or otherwise. I was locked in daily battles with Mom, battles that took a terrible toll on both of us.

Out of this particular binge, though, from the terrible black paint mess on the walls, came a revelation and hope, something that did much to begin changing the way I thought about myself.

* * *

 I don’t know what Valerie did that evening. I stayed in my room and eventually read myself to sleep. When I got up the next morning it was clear just how drunk Mom had become. Sometime during the night she got the idea that these spider webs were just what was needed, the finishing touch to the living room. Anywhere there was enough space on a wall, Mom had painted a web. On one large area she painted two floor-to-ceiling webs. Other webs were scaled down to fit the available space. She was intent on her task and oblivious to the black streaks running down the walls from the overloaded brush, oblivious to the paint dripping on the floor, oblivious to the mess she was creating.

While I stood in the front room the next morning, turning slowly, taking it all in and trying to understand how anyone could be so drunk, I heard Valerie come out of her room and turned to see her reaction. It mirrored mine. She turned completely around, staring incomprehensively at the disaster.

“What are you going to do, David?” Her voice was barely audible.

“We have to get the living room repainted. And we have to do it before she gets up.” I didn’t want a confrontation with Mom over something that obviously needed to be done. And I think maybe I was trying to spare her the embarrassment of seeing the botched mess she had made while drunk.

Two things worked in our favor. First, I knew Mom wouldn’t be up any time soon, probably not before mid-afternoon at the earliest. Second, the painter had said he would return this morning to be paid. We’d prevail on him to help us.

He arrived a little later, stepped into the living room and silently surveyed the scene, doing just as Val and I had done: turning slowly, taking it all in, trying to understand how anyone could be so drunk. He said nothing but his face wore a look of pained bewilderment that was eloquent in its silence.

“I need some help,” I told him, rather pointlessly.

“I can see that,” was his laconic reply. “Let’s get started.”

It took several hours to restore the living room walls. The painter gave Valerie a paint scraper and told her to start scraping the black paint off the floor. Then he and I sanded away as much of the black paint on the walls as we could. After we had vacuumed and cleaned the walls, I wanted to start painting, right away.

“Don’t you want to prime first?”

“No, there’s no time. We have to get this all done before my Mom gets up. If it doesn’t cover completely, I’ll put on another coat tomorrow.” I was surprising myself with an unknown ability to take charge, make decisions, act responsibly.

Four hours later we finally finished, cleaned up, and inspected our work. My sister had worked hard at her task and the floors were free of any traces of black paint. The painter left, saying he’d return tomorrow for his money. The living room looked pretty good.

Eventually, the moment I’d been dreading arrived. Mom woke up and came out to the living room. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot. An old gray scarf covered her hair and her wrinkled lavender bathrobe was tied at the waist with the belt from her green robe. There were still yesterday’s Frownies in the space between her eyebrows, little adhesive triangles that were supposed to prevent wrinkles, something Mom had used for years.

My first hope was that she wouldn’t remember what she had done, that if she was drunk enough to do it, then maybe she had been too drunk to remember doing it. And if she did remember, I was braced for the worst, prepared once again to be her verbal, maybe physical, punching bag. But all she did was stand and look around her, much as the painter had done, and with much the same look on her face.

“Did you see what I painted?”

“Yes, I did, Mom.”

“You didn’t like it?”

 “No, Mom, there was paint all over everything and it dripped down the walls. It didn’t look good. “

“Did you repaint it?”

“Well, the painter and Val and I did. He came back to be paid and I asked him to stay and help me repaint. He’ll be back tomorrow for his money.”

There was disappointment reflected in her face. I know she felt that her artistic efforts were just the touch the room needed. She had emulated her mother.

I was relieved when she didn’t say anything more.

There are events in our lives where our self image comes into a much sharper focus than ever before. There’s a new clarity in how we see, understand, and appreciate ourselves. For me, the spider web episode was one such event. Like a light being turned on, one that should already have been burning brightly but wasn’t, I realized that what I had done was an act of responsibility, undertaken on my own. All the accusations Mom had hurled at me over the years, accusations that sapped my spirit while they poisoned my psyche, were proved false. Mom was wrong; she had been wrong all along. I drank deeply of this new revelation, savoring a new image of a strong, worthwhile me.

________________________________________________________________

Aren't they wet all the time anyway?

__________________________________________________________________________________

IF ONLY I COULD DRAW!

Cartoon #43: A father cabbage is having a talk with his son: “Remember, son, you have to work hard to get a head.”

Cartoon #50: Aerial view of two stores across the street from each other. The far one has a big sign advertising its name: “99¢ Store”. The one across the street has an equally big sign advertising its name: “98¢ Store”.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Finally, I invite you to take a listen to my new online program, Vintage Rock, rock 'n roll from the 50s and 60s. It's on kbcs.fm. Click on "streaming audio", scroll down to Vintage Rock, select my name, it enter and then listen. If you have a request or a dedication, email me at davesvintagerock@gmail.com.

I'm a writer, but not a poet. Poetry remains a mystery to me, tho there are many, many poems I've enjoyed, that have touched me in unexpected ways. I have tried my hand at writing poetry on occasion, a couple of which I've posted previously. This one is from 1982, during a hard time in my life.  And, following this, another episode from "Trite, of the Squad!"

The Blues aren't really mine. I just borrow them.

I call and they respond.

I use them  and they work.

I wear them. They fit.

The Blues is a fellow-traveler who knows the way far better

than I and is more than willing to be my accompanist on

long, dark journeys.

One's lonely. Two's company.

No, the Blues aren't mine. I'm just borrowin' 'em for a while.

The Blues, they know me and they listen and they nod their

blue note heads in sympathetic unison, soothing with sevenths . . .

They visit and are welcomed.

They don't belong to me, but I sure do appreciate the loan!

I met a man once who claimed never to have had the Blues, though

he looked kinda sad when he said it. No, thanks. Not for me the

"I-Can't-Get-the-Blues" Blues. I gotta have somewhere to

store sorrows, some place to hang up the pain that drops in,

sometimes often, sometimes not, and seldom calling ahead.

But the Blues, man!

Mine? Nah. They're just stayin' a spell.

The Blues is a wee-hours friend sharing dark space under an indigo

umbrella. The Blues is a friend indeed, with storage for my sorrows,

hooks for my pains. The Blues is a milk run and there are no seats on

the Blues. But everybody gets a strap.

The Blues aren't mine. Everybody belongs to the Blues.

This was in the Times some years ago. I've no idea what it's about
and I never called. It's much more fun to imagine.

THE TURN OF THE PHRASE – II

     "Whoa, big fella!" Trite gently reined in his horse. "I see smoke and where there's smoke, there's fire."  Realizing that time was of the essence, Trite had pushed on through the night after leaving Inspector Bromide. Even though it was darker than the inside of a tar-papered coal bin at midnight, he had spared neither himself nor his horse. Now he was ready to spring the trap.

     Trite dismounted and began to move forward. His years of experience had taught him that    silence was golden and he proceeded as though walking on eggs. Pushing aside a last bit of foliage Trite stepped into a clearing. There, no more than a stone's throw away, lay the man he had been pursuing so relentlessly these many months: Black Bart!

     "He's catching 40 winks, I see," Trite remarked softly to himself. "May the arms of Morpheus embrace him just a while longer, knock on wood."

     Slowly but surely he closed the distance between them. Soon, he was but a few feet from Black Bart. Taking the bull by the horns, Trite called out, "Rise and shine, Black Bart! As always, the early bird gets the worm. You're under arrest!" (To be continued.)

H A P P Y   N E W   Y E A R!!

The New Year traditionally brings with it a flurry of prophesies, predictions and forecasts and I'm not about to mess with tradition. Well, maybe a little. What follows is a trip back to the future (and please excuse the cliche—it happens to be true this time). Read on . . .

In February of 1966 Time magazine printed an essay: “The Futurists: Looking Toward A.D. 2000”. They surveyed physical scientists, economists, sociologists, engineers and others to get a view of the future. Overall, the predictions were optimistic, foreseeing an era of “limitless change”  with man (they always use “man”) “not only in total control of his environment but of his own brain and his own  evolution.” Pretty heady stuff.

A surprising number of their predictions were spot on. By 2000 we would have “instant communications”. Marshall McLuhan predicted many people would work from home “…doing their work via countrywide telecommunications.” He just described the Internet and the world-wide web.

Others were wildly off the mark. McLuhan, again, and others predicted that “…both the wheel and the highway will be obsolete, giving way to hovercraft that ride on air…The new thing will be transport by ballistic rocket, capable of reaching any place on earth in 40 minutes.” Maybe they figured all we needed to do was replace the nuclear warheads of our ICBMs with passengers?

Here’s sampling of other predictions. First, the misses (they’re so much more

Interesting):

            • A permanent lunar base will have been established well before 2000

            • Men will have flown past Venus and landed on Mars

            • Huge fields of kelp will be tended by undersea “farmers”—frogmen who

               will live in submerged bunkhouses (I can imagine it: Every morning they

               saddle up their sea horses and head out, rounding up stray kelp,

               singing, “Oh, give me a home, where the great blue whales roam…")

            • By changing the information in DNA,  man will  become the only animal  

that can direct his own evolution. (Actually, come to think of it, this one

may not be so far off .  . . )      

            • The kitchen of the future will be entirely automated.  The housewife

               (at least they don’t call her “the little woman”) will prepare the menu, “put

               the necessary food into the proper storage spaces, and feed her pro-

               gram to a small computer.” Mechanical arms will then take out the food,

               cooking and serving it.

            • Finally, and the prize for the worst prediction: By 2000, machines will be

               producing so much that everyone in the US will be independently

               wealthy. It was estimated that only 10% of the population will be

               working. (With the economy and unemployment the way they are, 
               that last figure may not be off, either.)

And now for the  hits (all three of them):

            • Artificial organs will be commonly available and there will be widespread

               transplanting of organs.

            • Control of personality will be widely accepted through the use of drugs.

               (Hello Prozac and all your cousins).

            • Robots will vacuum rugs, cut the grass.

You decide if this next one is a hit or a miss: We will be a pleasure-oriented

society full of “wholesome degeneracy”.  We are indeed pleasure-oriented and

there’s certainly enough degeneracy to go around. I just don’t know that I’d call it “wholesome”.


After I posted this AM, got this great 1954 photo from someone who mysteriously calls himself Multi-Niker. Fits right in with the theme, thanx!

And, last for this week, a drawing (sketch? whatsit?) I did some years ago while sitting thru a boring board meeting of the Seattle Education Association. The year is embedded—see if yo can find it. (Hint: It's not hard.)

             

I believe it's The Washington Post that once a year runs a contest asking readers to take a word, make some small change to it and then redefine it. There's also a recently published book with hundreds of these "new" words (can't really call them neologisms, I suppose, maybe "newlogisms"?), but I don't remember the title. Anyway, I tried my hand at it a while back and came up with around four dozen, some of which I'm posting today, others at another time. And, better yet, send me yours! I'd love to post them. Also this week, an Edward Lear nonsense poem (did he ever write anything but nonsense?), including a link to a great EL site plus a New Yorker clipping.

MY LIST

sincentive: encouragement to break any of the ten commandments

liebrary: repository for politicians' speeches

obitchuary: death notice for a female dog

Pulletzer Prize: for the best book written by a chicken

pretaliation: hitting back first

liquorice: the perfect combo of candy's dandy but liquor's quicker (Thanx, Ogden!)

younique: yes! you are special!

urinade: a poor substitute for Gatorade

sinvitation: a request to be adulterous

toylet: what Barbie uses

Mrs. Sissippi: a married state

copulite: foreplay only

pastorize: baptism in boiling water

origummi: how to make cranes from gummi bears

cattlelac: a luxury cow

Genesisn't: the rebuttal

procrastina - never mind, I'll finish it later


This Edward Lear poem is from his nonsense story "The History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-Popple".

Here's a link to it and lots more of his wonderful whimsy:

http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/pp.html • Saturday

 

Lettuce! O Lettuce!

Let us, O let us,

O lettuce leaves.

O let us leave this tree

And eat lettuce,

O let us, lettuce leaves!


Finally, here's a clipping from a New Yorker magazine of many years ago:

A Christmasy piece of flash fiction this week, a doodle, some whimsy and some humor. And, yes, I keep trying out new templates for the blog. Bear with me—sooner or later I'll settle on one. For a while, anyway.


I wrote this flash fiction piece as part of a writing exercise. The idea was to write several stories with the theme of "Where were you last night?" I'll probably share some of the others down the road.

“Where were you last night?” Her voice slurred the words, ran them together,mangled them so they came out "Wawuryousnight?" He felt torn. He hated her for the drinking, for the lack of self control. He hated to be around her when she was like this. He glanced at the bottle of sloe gin on the table, noted it was almost empty. But he also understood, even though he didn’t want to because it was in good measure due to him and his job that she drank. He knew she hated the forced isolation, the extreme weather (it was always freezing here and she was born and raised in Miami, for Chrissake!)  There were no other women around, just the male workers and she had nothing in common with them.

“It was December 24^th, dear, remember? I was delivering toys.” Santa sighed.

*      *       *       *       *

"If Only I Could Draw!"

Cartoon #31: Setting: produce section of a supermarket. Scene: display of lettuce with sign that says “Iceberg Lettuce”. Disappearing stern-first among the heads of iceberg lettuce is a small model of a passenger liner with “Titanic” on the bow.

Cartoon #42: A sailor has climbed the rigging up to the crow’s nest on a three-masted sailing ship. He looks in and yells down to the captain, watching from below, “There’s a bunch of crows in here!”

THE WORLD SHOULD LAST TILL THE BEER IS GONE

Okay, right up front, I'll say it: I'm a beer snob. First, I don't drink pseudo-beers (you know the ones I mean—Bud, Miller, Coors, etc.) or the faux-lite cousins (Bud Lite, Miller Lite, Coors Lite, etc. lite). Give me a good import or, even better, a good US micro-brew, any time. Any brewery that goes for quality over quantity is going to brew not just drinkable beers and ales, pilsners and lagers, but very good ones.

Second, I want my beer in a glass. Not a bottle. Not a can. (Putting beer in a can is like putting a Rolls Royce in a demolition derby.) Pouring a beer down the side of a glass releases aroma and flavor, making the beer still more enjoyable.

Third, I want my beer at the correct temperature. "Ice cold" beer leaves me cold. Cold subdues the flavor. A beer served at around 57º, give or take a few, has more flavor than the same beer served straight from the fridge. That means I have two choices to get my beer to the correct temperature. One is to remove it from the fridge half an hour or so ahead of when I want to drink it (not always possible) or (brace yourself, this will probably come as a shock), I can microwave it. Yes, microwave it. Pour the beer into a glass, nuke it at full power for 10-15 seconds, and presto! it's at the right temperature. Doesn't affect the flavor, there's no foaming, no loss of carbonation.  

The following bits of beer info are from http://hubpages.com/hub/beertriv.

    • Beer is the second most popular beverage in the world, coming in behind tea.

     • Pabst Beer is now called Pabst Blue Ribbon beer because it was the first beer to win a  

       blue ribbon at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.

    • To get rid of the foam at the top of beer (the head), stick your fingers in it. (But do it to your glass only!)

    • Monks brewing beer in the Middle Ages were allowed to drink five quarts of beer a day. (I would have been a monk.)

    • Bavaria still defines beer as a staple food.

    • Tossing salted peanuts in a glass of beer makes the peanuts dance

    • Samuel Adams Triple Bock is the strongest beer in the world with 17% alcohol by volume.                 

    • In Japan, beer is sold in vending machines, by street vendors and in the train stations.

    • To keep your beer glass or mug from sticking to your bar napkin, sprinkle a little salt on the      napkin before you set your glass down.

    • The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock because of beer. They had planned to sail further south to a warm climate, but had run out of beer on the journey. (Smart, those pilgrims!)

         We attempt to find truth through Art, but Art is a guidepost, not a destination. When Art genuinely touches us, we know we're on the right path. Truth lies, if not ahead, then at least somewhere along the path we currently tread and therein lie the beauty and power of Art. Art helps us to discover and know ourselves and because "ourselves" is a collective term, expressing universality, we tap into the collective love and goodness of all of us who are "ourselves". A life without Art is a life without life.

*    *    *    *    *

 In a moment Truth would come flouncing through, throwing open wide the hinged saloon-style doors (you know the ones, they always hit you in the ass because you forget to move through them quickly – it’s so embarrassing) and come sashaying over to one of the round tables, probably the one with a leg just a tad bit shorter than the others so that people were constantly taking their napkin or a a matchbook or a business card or once even a five  dollar bill, folding it and putting it under the short leg to rebalance the table. One time a man representing everything good and wholesome in the little town had put a matchbook under the wrong leg and drinks went sliding downhill. It made the morning paper next morning.

Yes. Truth. Truth liked flouncing almost as much as Truth liked sashaying. Truth had once tried to flounce and sahsay at the same time but decided people wouldn’t understand. It was too much like mixing  Crest and Baco-Bits.

Anyway, truth flounced through the hinged saloon–style doors (but we’ve been through all that), sashayed to the table and whoomphed into a chair. There was only silence as the piano rinky-tinked away in the corner, kind of like little Jesus away in a manger or the dog in the manger maybe. Truth had something to announce, something important, and all who were there that day knew it, expected it, waited for it, savored the moments leading up to it, fondly recalled it in the remaining days of their lives. It was not the kind of announcement that would change a man’s life, change the town, or even cause anyone to change their mind. It was, however, a nice change.

“I have an announcement,” pontificated Truth (Truth did so admire the Pope!) and I want you to hear it. Otherwise, why would I make it?” Truth waited  to see if anyone would laugh. No one did. “Mange!” was the first word out of Truth’s mouth, followed by “Manger!” and finally, “Mangere!” Silence while the import of these three words sank in. Mange. Manger. Mangere. Two in English, one in Italian, the latter, perhaps,  no, almost certainly spoken at one time by the Pope himself.

Clearly, the connection between Mange and Manger was crystal clear. But no one had ever made the next obvious connective leap to Mangere, Italian for “eat.” Now there were three. Now it was complete.

Truth stood. Truth turned. Truth waved. Truth was finished. Truth moseyed this time, moseyed to the hinged saloon-style doors, flung them open and strutted into the street, embarrassed when the saloon-style doors hit Truth in the ass. The piano continued to rinky-tink and silence continued golden.

Truth was happy. And that’s the Truth.