seething dreams

elvis3 Comments

I woke up, gasping, my heart pounding. I could hear my own voice as some sort of wordless snarl trailed away; raw, white-hot rage gripped me, brutal, violent, killing rage. I sat up, breathing hard, sweating, my fists clenching. Needing to hurt the objects of my rage, already out of reach on the other side […]

I woke up, gasping, my heart pounding. I could hear my own voice as some sort of wordless snarl trailed away; raw, white-hot rage gripped me, brutal, violent, killing rage.

I sat up, breathing hard, sweating, my fists clenching. Needing to hurt the objects of my rage, already out of reach on the other side of the filmy curtain of dream.

even now, I can feel my teeth grind; rage will not dissipate more quickly, more easily, for it’s source being imaginary. Not when that source lives in dreams, real as waking day for only those few moments it has life.

The details of the dream are not important; my sub-conscious mind assembling people and scenarios out of the past, building something rough and new out of them, as with stones from a crumbling castle turned into crude, temporary dwellings.

Small, old hurts and frustrations, angers almost forgotten, dredged up in the dark of night and used to assemble daylight-sharp ‘memories’ of things that never happened.

I can still feel the skin on my knuckles split; I can feel my throat raw from screaming in raw, murderous fury. I can feel my opponent’s nose crack under my fist.

Now, in mid-day sun, what stands clear are the minor, sensory details, not whatever baroque tale my sub-conscious concocted. And I cannot, quite, release the targetless rage with which I woke, sweating and seething.

There is nothing to hit, in the dark, when the dream flees. No target for that impotent rage. Nothing at all.

I lay a while, staring into the glow of my digital clock, trying to let go, or to understand whatever it was that trigged such a dream. I do not know, now, if I got anywhere, but at least, I re-found sleep.

When I woke, hours later, it was to my daughter’s voice – Daddy, I made you coffee.

Some things are better than others at sweeping away night’s cobwebs, That, certainly, was one such.

newoldnew

elvis2 Comments

I’m fiddling about with my blog template, seeing if I can get a new feel without too much effort. I liked that drop-in I had last week but I *hate* fixed column widths; fixing that one was more effort since I actually *know* this template. So there you have it. If something’s fucked up, ignore […]

I’m fiddling about with my blog template, seeing if I can get a new feel without too much effort. I liked that drop-in I had last week but I *hate* fixed column widths; fixing that one was more effort since I actually *know* this template.

So there you have it.

If something’s fucked up, ignore it, this is real-time engineering.

I’ll tell you in earnest, I’m a dangerous man

elvis6 Comments

For some reason, all these years I’ve never seen Richard Thompson. Finally – thanks to ticket-pusher Chris (also know as Papa Christo), I saw him last night. I told Chris he’s GOT to keep buying tickets; I never go out to live shows anymore unless someone else plans it. Some of my friends have seen […]

For some reason, all these years I’ve never seen Richard Thompson.

Finally – thanks to ticket-pusher Chris (also know as Papa Christo), I saw him last night. I told Chris he’s GOT to keep buying tickets; I never go out to live shows anymore unless someone else plans it.

Some of my friends have seen him dozens of times. I figured, there must be a reason. But you know, some of the same people saw The Dead literally hundreds of times; so who the hell knows.

Turns out – which is not a really big surprise – that they were right about Thompson. He’s fuckin’ brilliant. It’s hard to say for sure, but he may be the best guitarist I’ve ever seen actually playing live (I’d have to go way, way back in my memory to be sure, but he’s close anyway); but more importantly, he’s the kind of performer who makes you feel like you’re seeing something brand new every night. I just bought my tickets to see him play again in december, and I have the feeling it won’t be the last time.

Here then is what just might be the greatest motorcycle song ever, and certainly the only love song I can thing of about a boy and a girl and a motorcycle – 1952 Vincent Black Lightning.

This is pretty much exactly how it sounded last night, outside in the open air at the Mountain Winery.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxKTzwaEa2o]

Lyrics after the break, below.

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Gone Black

elvis7 Comments

Something was broken in my template (I must have made some minor tweak I don’t recall), so I decided to temporarily dump the purple-n-piracy. I really need a new layout but given my lack of time to write I can’t quite see finding time to work on templates. Someday. Maybe. Anyway, if anything looks completely […]

Something was broken in my template (I must have made some minor tweak I don’t recall), so I decided to temporarily dump the purple-n-piracy.

I really need a new layout but given my lack of time to write I can’t quite see finding time to work on templates.

Someday. Maybe.

Anyway, if anything looks completely fucked up around here (aside from yours truly), I’ll fix it as soon as I’m able.

Mister Peet

elvis9 Comments

RIP, Alfred Peet

 

If you love coffee, this man should be one of your culinary heros. He’s one of mine.

Ever wonder where the funders of starbucks got the idea? From Alfred Peet, that’s where. The guy who founded Peet’s Coffee – the guy who pretty much started america’s current love affair with quality coffee. Odds are, if you’re not from the Bay Area, you’ve never heard of Peet’s; but next time your drink your extra-hot-no-whip-de-caf-fat-free-soy-milk-uber-grande-complicato, thank Alfred. Cause he started it all.

I won’t buy any beans but Peets, and their short-pull espresso has spoiled me for anyone else’s. No one else does it right.

Thanks, Alfred.

Crowded House

elvis5 Comments

Crowded House, last night, Mountain Winer above Saratoga, CA. The air was smokey from the massive grass file in the Cupertino hills, but it didn’t stop the band from playing a fantastic set. I wish I had tickets to a second night – and when we realized how good our seats were, we really, rally […]

Crowded House, last night, Mountain Winer above Saratoga, CA.

The air was smokey from the massive grass file in the Cupertino hills, but it didn’t stop the band from playing a fantastic set. I wish I had tickets to a second night – and when we realized how good our seats were, we really, rally wished we’d brought more than phone cams. This is how close to me, I didn’t enlarge or crop this pic.

These guys a great live. They made a fan out of me.

Crowded House

LOLburn

elvis1 Comment

Damn. This is hysterical. At least if you’ve read about this. (Thanks to Scott Beale at Laughing Squid)

Damn. This is hysterical. At least if you’ve read about this.


1263860421 290Bfe6D42

(Thanks to Scott Beale at Laughing Squid)

Arm? Back? Leg?

elvis12 Comments

You want to know how bad I am? This is how bad I am. No, not THAT. Sure, that, but I’m talking about tattoos. Filthy fucking minds, the lot of you. Anyway, here’s how bad I am. I’m now in the worst part of the healing – you know what I’m saying, those of you […]

You want to know how bad I am? This is how bad I am.

No, not THAT. Sure, that, but I’m talking about tattoos. Filthy fucking minds, the lot of you.

Anyway, here’s how bad I am. I’m now in the worst part of the healing – you know what I’m saying, those of you with a lot of tattoos. The itching.

This part – I’m not kidding – is far worse than the pain. The itch-but-can’t-scratch of a healing tattoo. It’s maddening. Even worse when it’s under my boots.

But here’s the bad part; I can’t stop thinking about the one I’d getting next.

Arm? Back? Leg? Arm? Back? Leg? Arm? Back? Leg? Ad-in-fucking-nitum.

A couple days ago I was wondering why I do it – but I never mean that for more than a few minutes. Now?

Which shop to call, is the only choice.

My damned feet aren’t even healed yet. What am I thinkin?

missed by …that… much

elvis2 Comments

Here’s a good pic of the house I was staying in last week, on Hanalei bay, Kauai; view from the edge of the bay. I post this as a visual reference. Between the house and the vantage point from which this was taken lies the main road that runs through Hanalei and on up to […]

Here’s a good pic of the house I was staying in last week, on Hanalei bay, Kauai; view from the edge of the bay.

Hanalei Plntn-1

I post this as a visual reference. Between the house and the vantage point from which this was taken lies the main road that runs through Hanalei and on up to the very far northern drivable point.

Saturday, I want to a borthday bbq for a friend; a friend from a big gang I used to hang out with a lot, but have faded out of lately for various reasons. Old San Jose music scene people, bands with names like frontier wives, sugarbombs, exploding cadillacs, sioux nation, and a bunch of others only san jose scene people would remember.

One of these people was my pal lex.

I post this because I found out saturday, he and his lovely wife Kelly were – literally – less than a mile away from my on Hanalei Bay the entire time were were there. They drove by our house every day on that road (nearly pictured, above), ate in the same restaurants, grocery shopped in the same store. And neither of us ever knew it.

We spent satrday’s party alternately comparing recent tattoos, and lamenting the fact that fate got us that close in a place that stunning, and never crossed our paths.

Fuckin’ fate, man.

We also talked about getting our backs tattooed, something Lex and I have been talking about since we both turned fourty, *cough* years ago. Neither of us have yet started; it’s almost a race at this point though I’d ahead, since I actually have a design picked out.

In other news – there is no other news. I am hit hard with that post-vacation malaise, the lack of any interest in work or the details of real life. Back to work, back to bill-paying and errand-running and housework. Back to school for my kids (when the fuck did school switch to ending and starting in the middle of summer? When I was a kid, early june we got out, mid-september we went back. When did this stupid before-labor-day thing get started?)

I can’t really even work up energy to send email, and I’m only managing to read because I have this awesome
short story collection by Dennis LeHane; I can’t get unough focus for anything longer.

Plus there’s the Harry Potter hangover. We recently finished a marathon out-loud reading of Deathly Hallows, and how can one not feel spent after that book?

All in all, I just want to be sandy and salty and not have to come the fuck back.

The tattoos on my feet are (as expected with foot tattoos) healing slowly; these things are as irritating to heal as they are to get. I’ll post pic in a week or so when they start to look healed and are no longer flaking off like a sunburned comics page.

Monday. I think I’ll go back to bed.

pig and chicken

elvis18 Comments

The sailor’s legend goes that pigs and chickens don’t swim; they would thus be very very anxious to get out of the water if dropped in. This makes them a powerful charm against drowning, the animals desire to be out of the water helping one avoid a watery grave. Sailors, the story goes, tattooed these […]

The sailor’s legend goes that pigs and chickens don’t swim; they would thus be very very anxious to get out of the water if dropped in.

This makes them a powerful charm against drowning, the animals desire to be out of the water helping one avoid a watery grave.

Sailors, the story goes, tattooed these animals on their feet as a charm against drowning. Sailors were and are a superstitious lot, and in an era when most people could not swim, drowning was always a great fear.

I am not particularly superstitious, and I’m not afraid of the water; I swim reasonably well. Yet, given the amount of time I spend in and on the sea, the old sailor superstitions have endless appeal.

Thus – Pig and Chicken, by Uncle Tim at Blue Kauai Tattoo in Hanalei:

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