This is a simple law of nature, but one which is very handy:

The One True Luxury in Life is Time.

That’s it.

Assuming that you have talent, apply yourself, and have reasonable luck, you can build a business, create a monument, do something wonderful.

In this endeavor, you may require money, people, knowledge, natural resources. Assuming you have talent, apply yourself, and have reasonable luck, there is no particular shortage of any of these things in the universe. For all practical purposes, from your point of view these things are unlimited. That is, if you have talent, apply yourself, and have reasonable luck, you can obtain pretty much any amount of these things. So you can build a business, create a monument, do something wonderful.

But, for practical purposes, there is one thing in the Universe which is absolutely limited: Your time.

We don’t know how much you’ve got, but we do know that when you’ve used it up, there is no more. Therefore this is the most precious thing in your Universe. More precious than gold, more precious than fame, more precious than water.

If you’ve got lots of time, you must be rich.

But what if you spend all your time on … stuff? What if you spend all your time moving toward something, but hardly any of your time being here? What if your time is not enjoyed? What if you’re spending time doing stuff you don’t like?

You are spending the most precious thing in your Universe. Is this wise?

Spend wisely: Planning with care, live the life you have. The one true luxury is time.

Knowing this important secret of the universe, go forth and prosper.

Sausalito, May 1991: Years ago I’d decided to change my name, from Richard French to Arthur Cronos. My then wife Lori didn’t like the idea, and as it turned out, I should have listened to her.

However, I had thought deeply, but not deeply enough, and I was headstrong, so I made up a whimsical name to scare her with, so that she would accept the name I’d originally chosen.

You might think that was clever, but actually I’d got the idea from a Little Lulu comic book, many years before …

It was in the approximate days of the Sleuth Hound Club, when I lived with my mother in the green house out by the graveyard. At that time I read prodigeously, of Science Fiction, of the Hardy Boys, and of C.S. Lewis’s stories of Narnia. But, I still liked comic books.

Little Lulu, as you may recall, was a sharp little cookie who often had to match wits with a gang of boys that lived in the neighborhood. The boys had a treehouse marked ‘Boys Club’ and ‘Girls Keep Out’, for example.

In this case, Iggy, one of the smaller boys, had come grumbing along the sidewalk. Little Lulu asked Iggy what was wrong.

“It’s Tubby,” Iggy said. “He’s decided to change his name to Lancelot.”

Little Lulu asked, “So what?”

Iggy said that it was hard to remember. The boys kept getting it wrong, calling Tubby, for example, “Lumpalot” and “Lunchalot”. You will recall that Tubby was kind of fat, so this caused dissention.

Little Lulu said she’d help out.

Walking along the sidewalk, Little Lulu spied Tubby, standing vacantly outside the candy store, gazing out toward the street, but clearly with his mind elsewhere. Little Lulu reached into her purse and pulled out a penny.

She walked up to Tubby, thrust the penny into his mouth, and gave his ear a sharp twist. Tubby jumped.

“Ow!” he said. “Ow! Ow! Ow! Why did you do that?”

Little Lulu acted startled. “Oh!” she said, “Tubby! I didn’t realize it was you. I thought you were a bubble-gum machine. Did you know that your head is the exact same shape as a bubble-gum machine? I didn’t realize it was you.”

Tubby stared goggle-eyed.

Little Lulu went on. “In fact,” she said, “I’m going to call you ‘bubble-gum-machine-head’ from now on, OK?”

“What??!!” yelled the outraged Tubby.

“Yes, bubble-gum-machine-head?” said Little Lulu. “Is that OK?”

“No, no!” cried Tubby. “Tubby’s my name. Call me Tubby.”

And that was the end of the trouble with Lancelot.

Now, back around 1984 when I wanted to change my name from Richard French to Arthur Cronos, I’d told Lori and she said she didn’t like the name Arthur Cronos, I remembered my Little Lulu comic book.

I made up a name so atrocious that she was sure to like it less than Arthur Cronos.

The name I made up was ‘Traktor Topaz.’

When I told her, sure enough, the Little Lulu factor came into play, and she decided that Arthur Cronos would be just fine. It’s not exactly the same as the Little Lulu story, but the same principle, don’t you see?

So, first, that is how I became Arthur Cronos; I changed my name legally. You don’t have to go before a judge, but I did, because I wanted a paper to show to my business accounts. The judge said OK, and hit the gavel and my name became Arthur Cronos.

Now, some years later, when I was living with Adrienne in Sausalito, in a lovely apartment overlooking the San Francisco bay, I decided that I was going to practice up, and then start playing music in restaurants, on the Chapman Stick. It’s my nature to like smoke and mirrors, and different names, so I wanted a stage name. I thought of ‘Arthur Angel’, but that seemed altogether too nice.

And then I remembered Traktor Topaz.

On my Traktor Topaz website, you can read more about my adventures at that time, and hear some samples of my music.

Now the funny thing is that, as Traktor Topaz, I began buying and selling used Stick instruments, and that lead to my creating a newsletter with free two-handed tapping lessons. And that led to a really stupid lawsuit. And what with one thing and another, there are now more people around the world who know me as Traktor than as Arthur.

So let this be a lesson to you.

I’m not sure exactly what lesson, but it seems like it ought to be a lesson about something, for God’s sake!

Somewhere I’ve read about an old Chinese view about how a man’s life should unfold:

As a child, one plays.
As a youth, one studies.
As a young man, you join the army.
As a grown man, you engage in commerce.
As an established man, you marry.
As a married man, you raise children.
As an older man, you retire and engage in community service.

This seems like a pretty good plan to me.

Every part of a person is represented in this scheme. For example, in the army you learn important basics of operating your body, being orderly, operating in teams, focusing on tasks, and keeping your head when all about you …

Just about everything you’d like to do in your life is represented in this scheme: Study, adventure, romance, family life, and let us not forget loafing and playing.

If this scheme were widespread, the culture would at any one time have plenty of play, study, adventure, business, romance, family life, and wisdom. Because there would be citizens in every one of these categories.

A culture can become unbalanced. North Korea has way too much army, and so they suffer the financial drain. They could use their army to provide other functions, but then they wouldn’t really be army, would they?

Our own culture probably has far too little army. I never served. At the time, our nation was sending us off to be killed in Viet Nam. This did not seem the path of wisdom to me at the time.

However, it means I missed a special part of life. And I think our culture shows the general lack of the learning that comes from the army. Sure, we can laugh about some of the clumsy ways the army can operate. But in college, I noticed that my student friends who were ex-army, ex-navy, ex-marine were some of the most focussed students. Their heads were on straight. More than I could say for myself and lotso my friends.

What do you think. Is the Chinese Ages of Man concept a good one?

(No cussing, please.)

Mount Shasta: We’ve been seeing neighbors up and down the hill preparing vasty stacks of firewood. In the early AM, still dark, we see boats towed by pickups containing duck-hunters in camo suits and rifles. Sundown comes earlier and the dawn is tardy. The air has a chill. Winter is coming.

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!

— Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

Paris: British rock singer Robert Palmer died today of heart attack. Known for his hits “Work to make it Work”, “Addicted to Love”, and “Simply Irresistable”, Palmer was 54.

His first hit album and single hit the charts thirty years ago (“Sneakin’ Sally through the Alley”), and more recently, his “Addicted to Love” video, with miniskirted models strumming guitars, was an all-time favorite MTV clip, drawing mucho grumbing from the feminists.

Of late a resident of Switzerland, in recent weeks Palmer had been working on a video in Britain. Always appearing in stylish suits, Palmer showed a sense of class remarkably absent from the dirty-boy image cultivated by lotso musicians who never rocked half as hard. Palmer was named ‘Best Dressed Male Artist’ in 1990 by Rolling Stone magazine.

“I loved the music,” Palmer reported, “but the excesses of rock ‘n’ roll never really appealed to me at all. I couldn’t see the point of getting up in front of a lot of people when you weren’t in control of your wits.”

Palmer wrote some great songs. Often these hit the charts more forcefully when recorded by other artists, such as Rod Stewart, but Palmer’s records rock you unmercifully. Other than being a fan, I know little about him, except perhaps what kind of girl he finds ‘Simply Irresistable’. In the video, a slender girl in a black dress dances to the music with a completely deadpan expression. In this video, she’s been multiplied to look like many, many swaying mannekins.

I’ll miss Robert Palmer. I wish he’d stayed. And now I will never find out the answer to my question. In ‘Simply Irresistable’, he sings:

“She’s so fine; there’s no telling where the money went.”

What the hell does that mean?

Mount Shasta: Adrienne’s daughter Layla came visiting this last weekend. Layla is a pretty young woman, early 30’s, an avid athlete, who climbs a mountain every morning when she’s not biking for miles and miles.

As it happens, Layla, though a good driver, has never driven more than a few miles. So last week Adrienne, ever the doting mother, drove down to Marin County to pick Layla up, and yesterday Adrienne drove Layla back home.

And after her two trips to the Bay Area, Adrienne has returned today, tired, saddened, and weeping.

Suddenly, she realizes — for the first time — that she has left Marin. “I’ve been looking forward to Layla visiting,” she sobs, “Now what will I look forward to?“

Everywhere she looks, she sees sadness. She’s closed her business; she’s left the dogs she walked; some of them she’s known for years. She’s received phone calls from many of the dog owners; she thinks of these phone calls now.

“Jazzie still waits by the front door every day,” she sobs. “I just can’t bear it.” The tears subside, then return.

“I didn’t know it would be so hard,” she cries. “I miss my daughters. I want to be near them. Lots of families live near each other.” She pauses. The tears come again.

“I’m a mother!” she cries. “I miss my daughters.”

I hold her, and let the tears flow. And I remember a time.

I lived at home when I started college, but after a semester wanted to move to another school, further away, where I’d not be living at home. Any young man wants that.

And I moved to the further school, and lived with roommates and had adventures, and then moved into an apartment of my own. I met girls and bought a fancy sportscar. And then one weekend I visited at home, until the Sunday.

As I drove away from our house, my little brother Paul, who was perhaps nine, ran on the sidewalk behind me, waving and calling goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

I watched him in the round mirror.

Although he was running toward me, in the round mirror he grew smaller and smaller, calling goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. My little brother grew smaller and further away, and I realized that, for the first time, I was driving away, because I was going home.

Canyonlands National Park, Utah: Returning from a camping trip, on her way home to Marin county (north of San Francisco), Dixie Goldsby discovered a stowaway.

In the back of the Honda, Chipmonk #1344 was contentedly feasting on a low-carb protein bar.

When Dixie arrived, she contacted WildCare, a wildlife rehabilitation center based in San Rafael. WildCare investigation determined that Chipmonk #1344 was male, healthy, chowing down in preparation for hibernation, and needed to get home … somehow.

Enter pilot Ray Romano.

Ray offered to fly Chipmonk #1344 back to Utah, accompanied by WildCare board member Jan Wild — that girl is just wild! — and off they soared in Ray’s light aircraft. High winds and Utah turbulence tossed the aircraft, creating a sense of excitement and adventure, and blew them into Arizona, where Ray and Jan and Chipmonk #1344 spent the night; and the next day the aircraft touched down near Canyonlands National Park.

By this time, a media circus had assembled. There, amid flashbulbs adequate to document the voyages of Mick Jagger, Chipmonk #1344 was picked up by a chauffer from the National Park Service.

Chipmonk #1344 found his 1400-trip quite fun, and he especially liked the protein bar. But now he’s returned to his burrow in his own tree, and sends his warmest regards to all his new friends and acquaintences.

But after all, winter is a-coming. Time to settle down.