The Adventures of Bloggard

Been Around the Block. Got Some Stories. These are Them.

Six Seconds

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Mount Shasta, California, March 13, 2011: Today on the radio I listened to Arnold Schwartzenegger’s gubernatorial speech. The guy is a pretty good inspirational speaker; I liked it.

I’ve read two of his books, and there he says that if you can imagine it, you can do it. In his radio speech, he used similies from his weight-lifting career, and he said, “It’s always surprising to discover one thing: You’re always stronger than you know.”

Stronger than you know?

And this reminded me of a young woman in a weaver’s studio in San Francisco.

My friend Maggie Northcott introduced me to Susan the weaver, and we became close, and I met Susan’s friends. Most of them were weavers, too. In fact, a whole bunch of them shared a large studio space on Potrero Hill, and when I visited there one day, I was introduced to a most unusual young woman.

She was about 26, sturdy built and very pretty, with even features, clear eyes, and very frizzy dark blond hair. Susan told me that the woman had won an Olympic weight-lifting medal.

This was surprising. She didn’t look like what I imagined a weight-lifter must look like. I asked the woman it. She said yes, and named some hugely staggering amount of weight that she’d lifted.

“You’re not kidding me?” I asked.

She looked me in the eye. “No,” she said, “Of course not.”

“Then tell me, please,” I said. “I’d like to know. How in the world can you do that?”

She paused, looking down and perhaps inward. “It’s like this,” she said. “For this lift, you only have to lift it for six seconds, see?”

I nodded. She paused.

“And the way I see it,” she said, “Six seconds really isn’t very long at all. I figure I can do anything for six seconds.”

I suppose that’s how it’s done. Simple, isn’t it?

The Lord of the Wood

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A woodsy mountainside in California, Summer 1975: I subscribed to Green Egg, edited by Tim Zell. (Later known as Oberon Zell.) I think ‘Green Egg’ meant the planet earth.

It was a Wiccan publication, a half-size underground zine that came out eight times a year on the usual holidays — Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, Lughnasadh, Mabon, Samhain, and Yule — and there I read about a big gathering mid-summer, so that would be Litha on the Summer Solstice (June 21).

I rode my motorcycle down the freeway, always an buffeting excitement, and my tail was plenty numb by the time I parked outside a modest cottege in Silicon Valley. I heard singing inside, some Celtic thing, so I burst through the door and asked was this the revival meeting?

To general good vibes, I was introduced around, to Tim Zell, and his wife and goddess by the name of Morning Glory, and she was a glory to be sure. A caravan of vehicles was planned, but way too far for my moto.

So that was how I got invited to ride in the converted schoolbus with Morning Glory, and Tim Zell, and the python, and the boa constrictor.

Morning Glory explained that the snakes were not very intelligent, though they were quite empathetic. I kept very still and tried to be an empathetic kind of guy as the python undulated under the table, sliding smooth and slow as molasses, quick black tongue flickering. It seemed to like my motorcycle boots.

Luckily they are too big for a python to eat, so he didn’t try.

Behind me, on the back window of the bus was a flat piece of plastic with concentric lines. “It’s called a fresnel lens,” explained Tim over his shoulder as he drove the bus up the freeway. Although the plastic piece was flat, it acted like a lens so he could see if any fool was standing behind the bus, so as not to squash them.

Morning Glory was a statuesque honey blonde wearing barbarian’s clothing, emitting a kind of musky sensuality that made it difficult to sit still, her body and movement earthy, her breath a heady perfume. I liked her.

Some hours later, once free of the freeway, we wound through tiny roads up and up and up, through pine and red-barked manzanita and scrub, until a cattle guard and a dusty dirt road up the side of the mountain. The schoolbus was doubtful, but perseverence, care, and the grandma gearing paid off.

Atop the mountain, we found a vast meadow surrounded by the forest, tall trees older than we, and no sign of mankind if you don’t count the 200-300 pagans gathered there.

These wild people were picnicing, singing songs with guitar, and having a wild pagan softball game. I esconced with a dozen others beneath the trees, and soon was demonstrating the Hurley Tarot deck, feeling quite at home. There’s no group like the witches for being friendly like folks, has been my experience. You may feel differently, but they seem an odd-ball and loving group of people to me.

We ate somehow, and the darkness eventually drew near. I had no bedding nor place to sleep, and chatted up a pretty brunette wearing gypsy clothing and keys to a station wagon. I don’t remember how we spent the night, but it was in the station wagon. (I saw her for some weeks after my return home, but she was the recently-divorced ex of a policeman, and had a habit of claiming that “her feelings were hurt” every four or five minutes, so it didn’t last that long.)

The next day was the big ceremony. Being solstice and the longest day of the year, the appropriate time would be high noon, with the big sun right overhead.

A Wiccan ceremony generally goes roughly like this: The high priestess would ring a bell or call out while everybody stood in a huge circle, holding hands. The words go something like this:

“Let this be our circle!” cried Morning Glory. “What is in the circle is not of the world. What is not of the world is between the worlds. Let this be our circle!”

Often the Lady (for example, of the sky) would be invoked to bless the ceremony, and in this case, the Lord of the Wood was invoked to give us all courage and hope, for of course we were standing with forest all around us. The Lord of the Wood is usually portrayed as having antlers like a deer, and he is swift, subtle, and strong.

As we stood in the circle, which right then felt very much not of the world, as we gazed into the bonfire burning in the center of the circle, and as Morning Glory called upon the Lord of the Wood, suddenly in the meadow arose what back in Texas we called a “Dust Devil”, like a mini-tornado of spinning dust. The spinning column arose from nowhere, and spinning and reaching up into the bright summer sky, it floated through our circle.

The hair stood up on the back of my neck. The column of dust reached higher in the air, up toward the sun in the sky, and then it vanished.

I was happy that the Lord of the Wood was able to join us that day. I don’t recall much of the rest of the ceremony, but I’d reassure you that they don’t kill chickens or anything like that. I also don’t know where this place was, nor could I find it again. Later that day I rode home in the station wagon with the brunette, and eventually found my motorcycle.

I put on my helmet, and returned to San Francisco, so distant from the forest of the Lord of the Wood. But, you know, from time to time, I think I felt him, perhaps in Golden Gate Park, or on Mount Tam, or around a corner in Chinatown. Perhaps he was passing through. Perhaps not. But that’s a whole nother story.

And Heaven To Bite

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Van Ness and Geary, San Francisco, Halloween 1977: For sheer party extravagance, it’s hard to beat San Francisco’s gay streets, either Polk Street or Castro Street. It’s like Carnival.

The Castro is closed off, and the more raucous, but Lori and I didn’t drink much, so generally we’d meander in costume up and then down Polk, to see and be seen. She sported a fairy-godmother costume in purple with a tall, conical hat and scarf, and I used my standard demon costume — long black wig with two horns, face-paint, red military jacket with epaulets and sword, blue pants with red stripe, boots, and a long tail.

We fit right in. But this particular evening was before I met Lori.

THE DEMON RIDES

I’d been out on my motorcycle, in my demon costume, first to a dance event at Fort Mason, led by someone named Starhawk or Moondove or Planetbird, which was a kind of costumed conga-line to really loud music.

I got caught up with some lesbians who were going to a place South of Market, which turned out to be a very frustrating experience, and later I’d parked my moto on Van Ness near Geary, to grab a late burger at this all-night place built from a cable-car between two buildings.

ENTER DRACULA

I was walking back to my chained motorcycle on the sidewalk on Van Ness, and I stopped at the corner for a red light. As I stood on the sidewalk, to my immediate left, a convertible pulled up, waiting to turn, and so it was that, sitting in the seat next to where I stood, I discovered Dracula.

Dracula, in his red-lined cape, slicked-back dark hair, and yellow fangs, looked up from his seat at me.

I, in my wig and horns, sword, and military clobber, stood at the curb, looking down at Dracula. I held out my arms toward Dracula, and burst into loud song:

“Lovely to look at, delightful to hold …” I sang. And Dracula joined in, with harmony:

“… and Heaven to Bite!”

The song ended. The light changed. Dracula and I nodded to each other.

His driver turned the corner, and they disappeared up Geary Boulevard into the night.

The Apartment From Hell

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North Beach, San Francisco, 1974: I’d found this neato apartment and thought myself lucky. The I Ching had said “Supreme Success!”

Little did I know how much the Chinese Gods of Divination love a good joke.

It was a success, for there I found Rosie the Cat, and took her away and lived happily ever after. Other than that, it was a disaster so stupid you can’t help but laugh.

In North Beach, on the corner of Grant and Green, in the picture you see a bar, but back then it was a Hawaiian Bar, and just above that Hawaiian Bar, behind the large bay window you see on the right, along with mice and cockroaches and loud Hawaiian music on the jukebox of the bar downstairs, that’s where I lived.

Living Over a Hawaiian Bar

Strange and bizarre … all night long, loud lyrics like: “Hooka lakka shooka lakka, wikki wikky ogaloo!” Over and over again. The guys downstairs had the consolation of alcohol to take the edge off these songs; I had nothing.

However, I worked an odd shift at the Westbury Hotel at this time, from seven in the evening until three am. This saved me from several hours of Shooka Lakka Hooka Lakka, for which I was grateful.

Strange Chinese Vegetables!

It was also interesting, leaving work at three in the morning. The busses run infrequently that late, and taxis were expensive, so I’d walk through the Stockton Street tunnel and through a deserted Chinatown at three. All the shop’s trashcans pungent with strange chinese vegetables and worse, but these barricades didn’t stop me.

Home at Last, at 3 a.m.

At home at last. But two doors up at Wumpers Bar, they had after-hours entertainment with Perry and the Pumpers. I’ll give the Pumpers one thing: they were plenty energetic. So, to the strains of pumping rock and roll, it was time to hit the hay.

The bars and shops on Grant have lots of garbage, and trashcans filled with empty bottles. So much that the trash companies come every night, sometimes three times during the night. The growling trucks and the crashing din of the bottles leant an exotic ambiance to the late hours on North Beach.

Luckily, the mornings are pretty quiet

Except one day, I’m awakened by a loud, repeating banging. A voice is chanting “Goddamned Phonebooth! Goddamned Phonebooth! Goddamned Phonebooth!”

Rising to peer blearily from my window at the sunny morning, below my window, a stringy unkempt fellow is kicking the back wall of the phonebooth below. A burly fellow across the street calls out “Hey!”, meaning Stop, or maybe What the hell are you doing?

Stringy guy sticks his head outside the phonebooth door, and screams, “It took my dime!” The guy across the street, a big guy, makes a fist and yells to knock it off. Stringy guy, glaring, makes off down the street.

I go back to bed.

And then …

I’m awakened by a loud, repeated banging. A voice is chanting. I rise and peer from the window. Stringy is back.

Now, the mailbox has been tipped over and lies flat on the sidewalk. Stringy guy is kicking the mailbox over and over again.

“Goddamned Mailbox!” he screams, “Goddamned Mailbox! Goddamned Mailbox! Goddamned Mailbox!”

Ah, life in North Beach.

 

How to Save Time with Abbreviations

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hourglassHere’s a handy tip that can yield big savings:

Use abbreviations. For example, when I operated Network Answering Service in San Francisco, we quickly learned to develop standard abbreviations for common things people say. For example, OOT for “out of town”, or WCB for “will call back”.

Other handy abbreviations include PLSC for “please call”, NA for “not applicable”, DBA for “doing business as”, DA for “doesn’t answer”, and OCS for “onward christian soldiers”.

But why limit this to written notes? For example, suppose you want to thank somebody for something, but it’s just a little thing. You want to thank them a little but not a lot. To communicate this precisely, and to save time at the same time, just abbreviate “Thank you” or “Thanks”.

Say: “Thank.”

See, that’s less than “Thanks.”

But wait, there’s more!

You can abbreviate more complex ideas, as well. For example, perhaps you were thinking just now that these are the moments of your life, and this is how you are spending them. Well, in this case, you could save some thinking time by using an abbreviation of “moments”.

For example, you could say “momo”. That would be like one little moment. Or the plural form “momos”, as in “These are the momos of our lives.”

Often the practice of abbreviation yields surprising insights. For example, thinking about how these are the momos of our lives, you might just naturally think about death. And then of course there would be “no more” momos, and you could abbreviate the “no more” as “nomo”.

So you can see, you could speak, or think, very succinctly. You could think about the momos of our lives, and how, when we die, we got nomo momos nomo.

You see how that can save you time?

It can Really Add Up!

Now if you just save a few seconds every couple of hours, then you’ll accumulate several minutes every single week. By the end of the year you’ll have an extra thirty or forty minutes. Over a lifetime you might have hours, or even days, saved up!

And that ain’t bad.

The UFO

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Henrietta, Texas, 1949: Because my mother worked as a nurse for my Uncle Doc, I spent the day at Mrs. Miller’s house, along with her boys Rex and Mike.

As I recall, that day we’d hadSomething Startles the King a lunch of Chef Boy-Ar-Dee, or it might have been balony sandwiches, and we’d looked at an old copy of Life magazine, which contained pictures from a movie called King Kong. It was about a really big gorilla, and we boys were pretty impressed.

We’d run around all day and were quiet now, at perhaps 2 in the afternoon, when we heard the neighbor lady call out.

The Neighbor Lady Called Out!

Mrs. Miller seemed alarmed, and we followed her outside. We stood in amazement beside the fence, looking up. There was a jet-trail streaking across the sky, high, high, high in the clear blue.

As it happened, the iceman was just passing by, perhaps the last person in our town who used a horse to draw his wagon. The wagon was essentially a large box on tall wheels, unpainted wood, with the single, faded word ‘ICE’ on the side.

The wagon was stopped in the street, the horse resting with drooping head, in grazing position with nothing to graze on the pavement. The iceman gawked at the sky. The contrail turned into a new direction. We gasped.

Everyone Was Astounded

Up and down the street, people were standing and staring. The iceman and the neighbor lady were talking.

She thought it might be a UFO. We didn’t know what that meant, but it was something never seen before. What was it?

The iceman was excited. “Call Sheppard Air Force Base!” he cried out. The airbase was in Wichita Falls, 20 miles to the north. The neighborhood lady paused.

Look, Up in the Sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

“That’s long distance,” she said. Calling long-distance just wasn’t done. It was very, very expensive.

She dithered, finally going into her house to call the Sherrif.

High above, in the pale blue and beyond the slight haze of summer, the contrail soared, far above sight.

What was it?

Nobody knew.

We didn’t realize that we were gazing not into the sky, but into the future.

The Abandoned Road

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Dallas, Texas, 1966: On this particular day, my girlfriend and I decided to take the psilocybin before heading out. Driving the Morgan from Dallas to Shady Shores was an odd adventure. It was about thirty miles, and seemingly many days driving.

I knew of this place from years earlier. College roommates and I had lived nearby, and some scouting trip discovered an abandoned roadway that had once run atop a dam built across Lake Dallas. In a concrete building halfway out, remnants of the dam’s machinery remained, huge wheels and vast pipes, going nowhere.

Whoever these mysterious builders were, they were fickle, for after building the dam across the lake, they’d cut a hole through it, so it was no dam any longer. Just a finger of elevated land reaching toward, but not touching, a finger of land from the other side. On the elevated crest, earth and stone and even trees, and the once roadway ran, and stopped at the cut.

Just the spot for our picnic.

I recalled a time from college when the gang of us, plus the girl gang too, hiked beyond the road’s blockade, and spent an afternoon with beer and burnt hotdogs and more beer, on the crescent moon beach that formed at the end, beside the cut.

Now, above the Morgan, the day was turning overcast, the air keen and wild. I parked beneath the trees, and we hiked. It was a strange journey. Past the old spillway’s jumbled boulders, and there among the mesquite trees, we stumbled across a horrible and alarming black and orange snake, which proved to be a fragment of nylon rope.

The ground was heaving, and the trees whispered. The sky darkened, and a breeze began to blow. As we sat beside the abandoned roadway, to the west the sun peeked out, low across the lake.

The water between sparkled with flashes of God and the unseen heavens beyond this Earth. Bright flashes, as bright as the sun, and the water’s chop swirled them round and round in a pattern we could sense, and could almost see clearly.

And then clouds came in from the northwest, and the sun was covered, and the clouds drifted, a million miles above the earth, and slowly across the lake. The breeze returned, lifting the grasses around us, whispering. Then, from the clouds, rain.

Falling in parallel streaks like a Hiroshige print, going on eternally, and the lake turned its face up to receive the gentle rain.

I’m sure we returned to our homes later; unless, of course, we are still there.

Buddha Next Door

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495 Third Avenue #8, San Francisco, 1975: Reading a lot of metaphysical books, I studied astral projection and conscious dreaming. Success was limited, but on this particular night the dream-like experience was clear.

I was lying down and deeply relaxing, in the evening, and mentally I left my body. I rose and floated outside, finding myself now walking the sidewalk. In this vision, it was daytime, and in crossing the street, I found myself wading through a heaving mass of alligators.

When I made it across the street, there was something odd about the door of the house on the corner.

This door was now painted red, and upon it a paper notice fluttered. I climbed their stair to read it, but once there, the door was open, and I stepped into the dim hallway. A dark stair led to the floor above, and to the left an open door revealed a lighted room, with rows of folding chairs, like a classroom.

I took a seat, and perhaps others were there. A monk in a brown robe entered, and at the blackboard he drew a large circle, with a hub and spokes, using many-colored chalk.

As I watched, this diagram began to spin, growing larger in my vision until it became a vast wheel, spinning in space, blurring at incredible speed, and yet ponderous, revolving as slowly as the aeons.

In this vision, I thought, “The Wheel of Dharma.”

At the time, I didn’t know what Dharma was. I still don’t know what Dharma is. But what happened the next week was real enough.

This corner house in my vision was a real house. It was just across the street. From my windows, it looked like any San Francisco flat, meaning no yard around, of two stories and touching the neighbor house to either side. Except, this was a corner house, and the long side faced my windows. Painted white like others on the street. Nothing notable.

That is, until the moving van began unloading the strange crates.

Some of these were huge, and all were labelled with symbols in a foreign alphabet. Please note, I’m speaking not of any vision, but of what occurred outside my second-floor apartment the following week. Huge wooden crates with strange symbols in some foreign language.

Somehow I was not surprised when, the next day, thin monks in brown robes began to come and go around that house, and a few days later, towards the evening, when lights went on inside, I discovered that my window looked down and directly into a long room in that house.

There, at the end of the room, a huge statue of the seated Buddha, pale white, in the bliss of contemplation.

 
 

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