As usual, our lives have been a bit of a whirlwind. I was back home from Amsterdam and Holland for 1 week. Then to Boston for a week for work and then to San Francisco with Brittany for a week. Now I am back in West Virginia.
At our weekly poker game the other night, one of my former colleagues from Cleveland Clinic project reminisced on what was his personal favorite Rob Myres quote from work. Apparently I walked into a meeting and started by saying “Who’s the fucking limp dick who made this disastrous decision”. I don’t recollect that exactly, but it does generally fit my demeanor and vernacular in certain circumstances. I don’t like ambiguity in language.
We got in from the San Francisco trip around 11:00 last Saturday. Tired of course but also glad to be home. And missing Martini.
Leaving the hotel in San Francisco at 8:00am and getting home at midnight makes a long trip. But on the drive to Hocking Hills to pick up Marti, with the mist coming off the farm fields and the sun coming through the trees and fog, I was already thinking about my next movements. It’s a disease I guess–Rambling Fever. The only cure is the open road or the call to board or a couple of blasts from the ships whistle.
I cooked dinner for mom and dad and Terri the first night back. I mostly listen to music while cooking. Maybe keep a book or magazine open to read a bit here and there. That night I listened to a bunch of dead guys sing the kind of songs they just don’t write anymore. Townes Van Zane and Jerry Jeff, John Prine, and Jimmy Buffett to round out a quartet of great dead songwriters.
I made traditional bruschetta with farm tomatoes. The way god intended. Traditional because it is just tomatoes, fresh garlic, basil, olive oil, salt and pepper. My sister puts a truly insane amount of feta in her bruschetta. Which is fucking bullshit. She has no respect for tradition. Some dishes have long ago been perfected and tinkering is culinary heresy. We have this ongoing debate about bruschetta.
She also puts garlic in her guacamole, which I also find unsettling.
I slow cooked some cannelloni beans with shallots and cumin and fresh thyme. I brined some chicken thighs and grilled those. I was going to make risotto, but it was sunny and warm so I decided to extend summer dishes a bit longer.
San Francisco is going through a tough time for sure. I’d heard things were bad, and they are. I’ve never seen homelessness on this scale before. Not in any major US city. It was stark and surreal. Thousands of tents and make-shift lean-to’s on the streets. Human shit and urine and filthy people openly smoking meth and strung out on who knows what. Truly heartbreaking. Each of those people has a story to tell. A great many of them presumably lived very different lives at one point. It’s nearly overwhelming sadness for those poor suffering souls.
I am ignorant of the mechanics or details of city, state, county, and municipal governments and what mechanisms are available to help. Surely, in a city with millions of square feet of empty commercial space, and home to some of the richest individuals and corporations on the planet, something could be done to help. Not only help getting people into safer and more humane conditions but to address the underlying drug and mental health issues.
Brittany and I watched a rugby game last Saturday in an Irish Pub in Marina district. A local guy was in there. A talker. He said he ran a property management company and so was intimately aware of the problems the city is facing. I think he was more of a Mr. Roper scale property manager than Trump Properties, but whatever. His view, which he repeated many times, was that the city didn’t have a homeless problem—it had a drug problem. I didn’t want to encourage him to continue so I didn’t react. But it sure seems to me that the city definitely has a very large homeless problem. I get that drug addiction and mental health issues are underlying contributors, but these poor people definitely seemed to not have a place to to lay their heads at night. Perhaps they just like urban camping, but that seems unlikely.
I was only in town to network and try to get line of sight on a new contract as I near the end of this project. So I mostly avoided the conference sessions—just met with some recruiters and a few colleagues who can keep an eye out for someone who could use an aging, grey-haired, and somewhat cranky program manager. I’m still good at my job. Probably at top of my game to be honest. Something should materialize in the few months.
Brit and I had some good hikes and some good meals. As we do. I was up at 4:30 each morning to be on my calls and keep things at work moving. But I was able to disengage around 2:30 or 3:00 each day so we had time to wander. Our last night there we had dinner at Bix and then a smoke at CigarBar just around the corner. We got by City Lights to buy a few books and wander among the ghosts of Kesey and Kerouac and Ginsberg. No visit is complete without that stop for me.
When the wind don’t blow in amarillo
And the moon along the gunnison don’t rise
Shall I cast my dreams upon your love, babe
And lie beneath the laughter of your eyes
It’s snowin’ on raton
Come morning I’ll be through them hills and gone
Bid the years good-bye you cannot still them
You cannot turn the circles of the sun
You cannot count the miles until you feel them
And you cannot hold a lover that is gone
It’s snowin’ on raton
Come morning I’ll be through them hills and gone
Snowin on Raton — Townes van Zandt
I grew up very close in age to two cousins. Brothers Steve and Shawn. Steve is 1 year younger than me and Shawn is 2 years younger. Steve is a farmer and comes by the house every morning between 4:00 and 4:30 and has coffee with my sister. So when I’m here I get up and chat with them. It’s nice. We could not be more different in how we lived our lives, Steve and I, but at core we are family and it feels good to sit and chat and reminisce a bit.
I saw that Jann Wenner got kicked off the Board of Directors of the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame for saying some stupid shit. What’s wrong with these people? Why would a guy with a storied history and who has made such great contributions to journalism, just go off the rails like that. Maybe he’s always been an asshole and just good at hiding it. I’ve got his book in my library and it’s making its way up the list.
Many years ago, while at Idaho State, I started a little newspaper with another guy. We called it The Gadfly. We wrote a few articles, told a few jokes, and then had a buddy print up a few hundred copies at Kinko’s at night at the special discount rate of a case of beer.
I contacted Rolling Stone and got permission to re-print an article Jann had written advocating Jerry Brown for president. That’s how long ago.
I am now back in West Virginia. I briefly visited the Forest Festival in Elkins this morning but skipped the parade and headed to Snowshoe in time for a long hike.
A good friend and former rugby colleague is in hospice in Pocatello and not expected to live more than another day or two. So I will raise a glass to John tonight.
No other news of note.
Humbly submitted.
The Martini Tales 