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.

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Aren't they wet all the time anyway?

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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”.

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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.

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!”

"A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, 

self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. 

This is too much of a temptation for the editor.”

Ring Lardner

            Many of us write. Some of us, at best, are mediocre, turning out prose with all the zip and bounce of a bowl of gruel. Others of us are able to rise above that, writing stories and essays that are at least acceptable, occasionally rising to the level of very good. A few  (and I no longer say “of us”) rise to great heights, writing in ways that make the rest of us (there it is!) shake our heads in envy, frustration and admiration. This kind of writing is a gift, but it’s a gift that these writers have worked at  cultivating, usually for many years. Pinpointing precisely what it is that makes these writers so very good is impossible. For one thing, their talents are uniquely different, one from another. For another, there are so many ways in which writing can rise to the level of greatness.

             Some years ago I read Adam Bede by George Eliot, followed by Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Dust Tracks on a Road. In these three novels I found at least one element that helps boos a writer from the merely “good” category to “great,” and that’s spice.

As an example, a good cook regularly turns out tasty, appetizing dishes; occasionally she’ll put a little something different in her stew or casserole, something unexpected that makes the diner sit up and say, “This is great!” Great writers do the same thing. Here are some “spices” served up by Eliot and Hurston. Enjoy:

From Adam Bede:

• Adam’s father has drowned in the creek and his mother is saying, “But if thy feyther had lived, he’d ne’er ha’ wanted me to go to make room for another, for he could no more ha’ done wi’out me nor one side o’ the scissors can do wi’out th’ other.”

            • From Mrs. Poyser, the wife of a tenant farmer: “Ay, it’s ill livin’ in a hen-roost for them as doesn’t like fleas.”

            • Mrs. Poyser, talking about the fuss made over someone after they’ve died: “It ‘ud be better if folks ‘ud make much on us beforehand, I’stid o’ beginnin’ when we’re gone. It’s but little good you’ll do a-watering last year’s crop.”

            • Mr. Poyser has just come into the house to find the old Squire, his landlord, talking with Mrs. Poyser. “As he stood, red, rotund and radiant, before the small wiry, cool old gentleman, he looked like a prize apple beside a withered crab.”

            • Mr. Poyser entered “ . . . warm and coatless, with the two black-eyed boys behind him, looking as much like him as two small elephants are like a large one.”

            • Lisbeth, Adam’s mother, telling a young woman (Dinah) why she’d be better off marrying Adam instead of his brother, Seth, who is much like her: “The runnin’ brook isna athirst for th’ rain.”

            • And finally: “Mr. Craig was not above talking politics occasionally, though he piqued himself rather on a wise insight than on specific information. He saw so far beyond the mere facts of a case that really it was superfluous to know them.”

Zora Neal Hurston – from Their Eyes Were Watching God

She throwed de door wide open and stood dere, lookin’ outa her eyes and her face. Look lak she been livin’ through a hundred years in January without one day of Spring.

You, behind a plow!? You ain’t got no mo’ business wid uh plow than uh hog is got with uh holiday!

You cannot have no town without some land to build it on. Y’all ain’t got enough here to cuss a cat on without getting yo mouf full of fur.

An her with her hair jus’ as close to her head as ninety-nine is to a hundred.

You don’t know dat woman uh mine. She got ninety-nine rows of jaw teeth and git her good and mad, she’ll wade through solid rock up to her hip pockets.

From Dust Tracks on a Road

Like snowflakes, they get that same look from being so plentiful and falling so close together.

I felt as timid as an egg without a shell.

A few posts back I lamented my inability to draw (or, at least, to draw something on purpose). I have, however, come up with dozens of ideas for great cartoons. Here are a couple of more.

Cartoon #18: Smokey the Bear is sitting on a couch in his living room. Across from him sits his wife who’s saying, “Smokey, I want you to stop fighting fires with your bear hands!”

Cartoon #22: A dog being walked by its owner is commenting to another dog on the other side of a fence, “Yep, I’ve got a new leash on life.”

This must be why we don't keep cows
as indoor pets.

In my first post I mentioned that it was my hope to provoke you into thinking and responding. Here's the first attempt to do so. My Mom always said never talk about sex, religion or politics with people you don't know. Sorry, Mom, this one's about religion. So, whether you agree or disagree with what follows, please let me know. If your comments are short, use the comments box (I think I've got it fixed). If they're longer, you can use the comment box or email me directly and I'll include your thoughts in my next post: davgg@comcast.net. 


Following my comments on God are a couple of pix I took in Mexico at various times and a couple of word cartoons. I'd love to be able to draw but it's an art that escapes me. Nonetheless, I've got a collection of some 90 cartoons I've visualized over the years which I've written down. You'll have to supply the visuals. Here we go -

“So, do you believe in God?” This seems a simple enough question on the face of it, requiring only a “Yes, I do,” “No, I don’t” or “I don’t know” response. But there’s another question that never gets asked, one that has to precede the question of belief for any meaningful answer to be given. That question is, “What do you mean by God?” For unless we establish common ground, or at  least arrive at a mutual understanding of what each of us understands by “God”, the belief question is meaningless. This is probably less true for two people who are both steeped in the Judeo-Christian tradition: they share much in common already as to the who or what of God. But even in this case, much is to be gained by asking “What do you mean by God?” And for two people who do not share a common tradition this question is essential. I can’t answer your question until I know what you understand by the term “God”, nor can you answer mine. And I’m sure our conceptions will be vastly different, particularly if you are a Christian or a Jew.

What do most Jews and Christians mean by “God”? God is an iconic figure for most people; God’s assigned characteristics represent the reality for Christians and Jews. What are these characteristics? And why do I call them “assigned” characteristics?

Second question first. “God” is too important a concept to leave in the realm of the abstract. Humans want and need something we can relate to, something concrete and identifiable. Accordingly, over the millennia men (for men, not women, have been  instrumental in defining and describing God) have developed a God who looks like us and, in large measure, behaves as we do, only with allegedly superior morals. Thus we have a God whose characteristics have been ascribed to him by mortals.

What are these assigned characteristics? First, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, God is an entity, a being separate and apart from all of humankind, both before and after death. And, because God is omnipotent and omniscient, he is superior to everyone else. This means that heaven must have a hierarchy, just as corporations do here on earth. To borrow some mundane terms, God is the President and CEO, Jesus the Chief Operating Officer and the Holy Ghost is the Chairman of the Board, which is made up of the twelve apostles with a multitude of televangelists hoping the board will expand to include them. (For Jews, of course, God alone fills all three functions and probably has a different board). With this assigned characteristic of separation, we might join God but we will never be of God; we will be with God but never in God.

The second iconic characteristic of God is that he is a male. This has been so for thousands of years, ever since the evolution of the belief that there is only one God. There are, of course, a few who will refer to God as “she”, but that’s usually done humorously, not seriously. In the Bible, religious treatises, philosophical works, even when mentioned in passing, God is male. And, to add to the proof,  when God is depicted, he’s a male. Always.

Next, God is white. With the exception of some black churches, Christ is always depicted as a white man and, being the son of God, God, too, must be white. And, again, depictions of God always show him to be a white male.

God is old. He’s been around since at least the time of Moses. That alone is enough to qualify him as old. Going back to depictions of God, he is always shown as an old man with wrinkled face, long white beard and long, flowing white hair. This is an interesting concept. Old implies aging. Is God getting older? Will he become infinitely old? If he looks old now, what’s he going to look like in a hundred thousand years? Or a million? And if God is aging, he must have been younger. He must have been a young adult. He must have been a toddler. And, taking it to its logical conclusion, he must have been born! That’s as far as I’m willing to take this one.

God is perfect. This is perhaps the most intriguing characteristic of all. To be perfect means never making mistakes, never being wrong, but we’re going to paint God into a corner with this one. To begin to question God’s perfection, we could start by looking at all the wars throughout history and ask why God would let those occur. But those wars, it can be argued, are the result of humankind’s free will, our ability to choose one path over another, regardless of the consequences. But many of life’s miseries are inflicted on us through no choice of our own. The Spanish Influenza epidemic of  1917-1918 that killed millions. The Black  Death of Europe. AIDS. People born with defective genes that produce Down’s Syndrome, dwarfism, gigantism, deformities and hundreds of other afflictions. Leprosy, malaria, cholera, polio. We don’t choose these miseries; they are given to us, and, apparently, given to us by God. So there are two ways to look at this. If God is perfect, never makes mistakes, then these misfortunes are purposeful and God is cruel. (Can there be any possible reason for doing this to babies? To children? To anyone?) Or, if we refuse to believe that God is cruel, then we have to admit that God makes mistakes. Cruel or mistake-prone? Either way, God cannot be perfect.

So, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, we are told that God is an old white man who sits apart from all the rest of us, purposely creating or helplessly watching untold miseries inflicted on humans. Is this what people want from their God? Is this what they’re willing to put up with?

For me, the truth lies elsewhere.

PUERTO VALLARTA
BOTANICAL GARDENS

PUERTO VALLARTA

"MUTUAL-HELP FOR NEUROTICS"

Cartoon #10: A prisoner is in his cell, gripping the bars with his hands, looking pleadingly at the guard. The guard is saying, “For the last time, no! You can’t have a cell phone!”

Cartoon #13: A woman is standing in her bathroom. On the counter is a bottle of aspirin. Next to the woman is a large, mean-looking seal. The seal is wearing a badge, a guard’s cap and a large caliber pistol strapped around its middle. The woman’s husband, from outside the bathroom, is saying, “Don’t worry about anyone tampering with the aspirin, dear. It has a security seal.”