Journal: Long Hot Summer

14 July 2002, Bastille Day, Santa Rosa CA

"Hi, whaddya do?"
"I'm moving."
"O, y'mean y'drive a Mayflower van or something? Y'look kinda old for that."
"No, I'm changing where I live. It's a full-time job."
"Rad!"

Yeah, this has been a fulltime occupation for over a year now, and more. Yeah, there've been many breaks, holidays, long weekends, mini-vacations. But the central principal around which my time and efforts have been organized is: move us and our stuff from here to there to there. Throw out or sell the extraneous; pack up and transport whatever we're not using at the moment; fill up our storage spaces with whatever will fit. Repeat until exhausted.

And the previous version of this was: get the old house ready to sell, and sell it. That involved more screening, weeding-ot, manicuring & detailing, packing, WorkWorkWork. 13 months of this so far, and another 1.5 months (at least) to go, and then there's the unloading & unpacking & decorating... Oy.

Here & There, Now & Then

Monday, 15th of July 2002, Santa Rosa.

The house dealer assures me that the house WILL be installed tomorrow. I'll drive up one more load early tomorrow morning, hopefully get there before they blockade the place.

And then we have six weeks, and we have much to do in those six weeks. [Chore list deleted] [Desired-hardware list deleted] We'll need to go back to Sacramento some weekend soon, to measure the measure the floor-model again and work on where-to-put-everything plans.

So, other things, I can start at ANY time, but they're long-term: studying Italian, and Spanish. Yah, budget some time to actually sit down with the computer and the language CDs and the dictionaries -- hmm, all the Spanish dictionaries are packed up, well, work on the Italian for a bit until we move and unpack. But I have a bunch of language tapes and CDs now, so I really should avail myself of them. There IS more to life than just scanning email and tweaking my webpages. THERE IS?? WHAT?? WHAT??

As it happens, when I'm awake, and not loading or driving or unloading or recovering from all the above, what I'm mostly interested in doing are reading or writing, some of the writing being songwriting. Some of it being webpage writing. Reading is somewhat problematic because I don't have a good comfortable reading position. My leather chair is comfortable; the Maureen is rebuilding will probably be comfortable. But too often where we are now, when I want to sit around and read, Maureen is up in bed watching TV with the door open and the sound impeding my concentration. Which leads me to spend time at a computer either in the office, having to be very quiet so as not to disturb Maureen's work if she is there; or in bed, but working the computer while in be is not that comfortable.

So! I foresee that after we move I'll be spending 'way too much time doing the furniture setup and allocation of books. But when we've moved and I have exhausted myself on the physical stuff, I'll *try* to budget time for working with music and computer graphics, and some activities that might involve the music part, actually making sounds. And I'll be in another part of the house so as not to disturb Maureen's work. Or if she is entertaining herself, she will not be disturbing *my* conventration. Ah, so much to look forward to!

Of course my creativity and enrichment time will also be impinged upon by certain landscaping chores, I'm sure. Things won't get easy and comfortable for quite a while. And I will need to devote time to putting the equipment assortment together for our RV travels. Personal electronics, etc. And dealing with Maureen's idea for replacing the couch with a table and chairs. [more chore lists deleted]

Monday evening, Santa Rosa:

It's the evening before D-day. Tomorrow's supposedly when they start installing the house, and our estimated time of occupation is six weeks after that. So we're officially in our last six weeks. It's much more difficult dealing with moving now than, oh back in the old days.

New York, East Village, summer 1968:

Yes,I remember back in the East Village, 1968, shifting apartments painfully over a long hot summer. There was still a lot of stuff to haul because I accumulated books and crap even back then, but that was a matter of throwing as much as ya could into a stolen shopping cart, throwing a mattress on top, and a chair on top of that, and *pushing* it down the road, block after block after block, 'til ya got to the new place.

Yeah, I remember the bad times at 620 East 11th, and I remember the hot times on Cooper Square, and I remember some bad times somewhere, I forget where that was, something involving a fiddle. And then moving on to the Broadway Central Hotel, and all the dramas that occurred there: grave-robbing bikers and screaming holocaust survivors and extraordinary wasteoids. The place that later, some years after I'd moved out, collapsed all by itself.

There's no special reason to remember those times in New York now, other than the way they shaped me. Which is what? Drinking too much, working too hard, collapsing too much, stomping around, seeing as much as possible. Wasted days in Tompkins Square and at the ESSO store, UAW/MF! just off Tompkins Square. And stomping around the East Village and the West Village and Cooper Union and Stuyvesant Square, on over to Washington Square Park. taking subways all over, often to and from those temporary jobs that I had that paid me minimum wage and kept us alive. There was plenty of dope out there but it was expensive. There were a few friends; and always hanging overhead, the legal proceedings. G'z, it took months and months to get away from that.

The work was day labor for Minuteman, a Manpower clone. Go to the E. Houston St. office every morning possible, get sent out to arduous jobs, come back to pick up a minimum-wage daily paycheck that had to be cashed at the bar next door. The jobs: with a haulage firm, guys with dump trucks who parked in front of office buildings, tore out the interior walls, shoveled the debris up into big carts, haul the carts downstairs, dump the debris out on the sidewalk, shovel it up into the truck. Guess who did the shoveling? Or go out to a paint factory in Brooklyn and fill cans with paint and lacquer. Or work in the garment district, carrying 150-pound rolls of fabric around in 150-degree heat. Or whatever other tedious grunt-work needed to be done, cheap. After a day of such work, sobriety was not an option.

What are some memories there? Running into General WasteMoreLand, the poet and activist who wore funny Army clothes, I remember him talking about how he'd had his car broken into, all his poetry and writings had been stolen. WHO bothers to steal from a poet? And going up to Central Park for some concerts -- heard Phil Ochs with Jim & Jean. Had a friend then named Che who always claimed that he knew Phil Ochs. And from backstage I yelled at Phil Ochs, "Hey! D'ya know Che?" and he thought I meant the other one. And I heard Judy Collins sing there. And then there was the Sunday, it wasn't one of the old ice rink (Shaeffer Beer Festival) concerts in the summer, it was out on the meadow, and San Francisco bands were there. The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Santana! And I remember an older black woman in nurse's garb, grooving to the music, and she turned around and said to me, "Hey, those boys sound like PROFESSIONALS!" And I said, "Yeah. Yeah I think they are."

What else back then? Riding on the subways to the end of the line, subway fare was a quarter then, pay one quarter, well buy a token for a quarter, or use some cutout slug that approximated a token -- jump on the train, or sometimes just jump over the turnstiles. Jump on the train, and ride ride ride... And now me sister Barbi has been a cop on that system for, how many years? Since about 1990? At least that long. I'm sure her experiences there have been a little different. Yeah, well, fock New York. For many many years after I lived there I felt that it was a very traumatic experience. Better to have been someplace else. Better to be out in the country. Better to away from so many people. That's just too intensive.

And that's the end of what I'm going to say on this Monday night, the 15th of July, 2002. Santa Rosa, California. Good night.

UPDATE: See the recently recovered REVOLUTIONARY NOTES

Here & There, Now & Then

Tuesday after Labor Day 2002: rolling early.

Meanwhile, I was just listening to a piece on OverScheduled Kids, and it makes me reflect that my own life has been very UNDER-scheduled. And, possibly / probably, after we have finished the immediate move -- the unpacking, building-of-shelves, placing-of-shelves, placing-of-stuff-upon-shelves, placing-of-stuff here and there and everywhere -- once I get all that together, maybe I should work up a time plan. Not exactly a daily schedule, because I want to go free-floating in terms of when I get up and when I get down, no longer depending on alcohol to go to sleep, just let my natural cycles re-establish themselves.

But then, have maybe a checklist for, if not for each day, then for the week, first of things to accomplish, like repairing bicycles and building networks and websites. Have one-hour or two-hour blocks of time, for things such as studying Italian, studying Spanish, studying guitar, ACTUALLY studying guitar -- pull out specific instruction books and go thru them page by page. Take this approach with a number of subjects so that I'll know that during the day, at a certain time it's time to stop what I'm doing, then wash dishes or make a meal, and then have an hour or two to try to accomplish something. Something specific. And then another hour for doing something else specific. Kind of like structuring school studies, or classes on various subjects.

I don't know if an hour-by-hour model of daily structure is the best way to learn things. I don know that the schooling I had generally did not encompass day-long blocks of intensive study of one thing. Hmmm, maybe the longest single sessions were back at Western College of Electronics -- how long did the classes there last? I'll to think about that...

But of course one way to enhance that structure is for every block where I'm studying something, I also have another period where I'm evaluating what I've studied, what I've done. Gee, TESTING -- what a concept!

Now, one feature of that proposed lifestyle I want to retain is, listening to the radio! Like listening to a couple hours of NPR every morning, a couple more hours every afternoon. But, what to do while just listening to it? I can't just drive around, just sit there. Of course I can always go walking or biking, depending on radio reception. So with the impending connexion to DSL service, I can see about the possibility of downloading those broadcasts onto minidisc or MP3 player and listening to those while trucking-around during the day. Hoofing-around during the day, I should say...

Another possibility for activity whilst listening is, doing something with my hands... I used to build those car kits. No need for that anymore, but maybe I can find something I could build... knit? Naw, I don't wanna take up knitting, tatting, any of that stuff. But see about what mindless but useful activities there are... Of course there's always painting. Sit out on the back porch listening to the radio and paint the view... well, no, 'cause there's not much of a view there. Ummm... I don't know, go someplace and sketch things while listening to radio? I'll to think about that.

Or instead of sketching from life, try sketching from art books. Hmmm, there's an idea, try copying famous paintings or at least infamous cartoons. Oh yeah, dig out the Dan O'Neill BIG YELLOW COMICS BOOK and practice being a cartoonist, right... Build furniture? Decorate furniture? Build or decorate other stuff? I dunno...

Past sunrise, still rolling: what to do?

Well, since it's going to be very important to maintain physical activity to get this weary old body back into shape, I should consider that periods of radio listening should ALWAYS accompany being out, walking or biking. Weather permitting. So I need to find someplace within walking-biking distance of Buckhorn Ridge that has big vistas, a good view -- I don't wanna be just walking along in tunnels of trees, seeing nothing but the immediate trunks and houses.

So, just what are my priorities here, besides getting back in shape and doing exciting, interesting stuff? Probably, considering that we may or may not want to take trips to Spanish-speaking countries before we go elsewhere in the world, I should probably do Spanish lessons. Studying guitar would be fun, but when travelling it'll be more convenient to carry a mandolin, so mandolin study is indicated. Oh, the Spanish study would include listening to Spanish-language radio, of course.

My immediate GOALS are to get networks running, and necessary landscaping. And converting the storage-shipping container into an outside workshop. But beyond that, those aren't programs for study. So what to do?

ART study -- pull out the teach-yourself books on sketching, right-brain left-brain whatever stuff, and spend blocks of time [electronic noise] on exercises in those areas. Sketch sketch sketch. Draw draw draw. [electronic noise] Oh yes, and regular blocks of time for Ebay-ing, selling the stuff we want to auction-off.

Another goal of course is to set up a recording studio, which would then lead to blocks of time spent memorizing and recording all the songs I've written, or at least the ones that are worth memorizing. So, that's time-blocks for music production, and instrumental composition -- bring up the AdLib Composer software and other composition software, and do melodic stuff... Go aroud looking for music synthesis gear -- bass machines, drum machines, and the like -- allocate time for doing modern music production. And then DO IT!

Oh yes, and maybe I'll finally get around to doing some of those projects with the cartographic software, that I've been putting off for all these years. Yeah, maybe I'll do that... Correction: I WILL do that! And another project: get all the Harry Oliver stuff together.

More things to do: Look for a charity to make contributions to, something equivalent to Canine Companions for Independence, see if there's anything on that order up in Amador County. I doubt it, but check around, see what the charity options are.

Also, find where the nearest public radio-TV stations are -- I'd like to see if there are any classes on radio production, how to produce radio stories, something I'd like to know about. And if I can't find any in-house classes on that, see if there's a book on producing radio journalism, especially with a minimum of equipment -- how do you produce a story with just two pocket tape recorders? Something like that. So I guess, look thru new and used bookstores, especially around colleges, for radio journalism-production coursework materials. For that matter, see if there are any modern books on how to set up a music studio in a garage or bedroom, synthesizer-based, etc.

I'd also like to find classes in kayaking, and find where the trails are up around Volcano, the hiking trails, if any. And dig out the plant- and tree-finders, and learn about the vegetation in that zone. That shouldn't be too hard.

Some things to while listening to radio and NOT walking around (nor knitting): WEAVING. Try weaving little pot-rugs from my stash of colored yarns, yes. And build, not car kits, but ROBOT kits, maybe... Look around for kits of electronic and electromechanical devices, inexpensive ones. And hopefully not totally useless ones... And get a book on small-scale woodcarving -- I keep saying, "Sure I believe in gods, I carve a couple every day!" Well, now's my chance to start carving gods, ha ha.

And of course it would be fun to be a potter, work with clay -- I'll never be an Indian potter, but I wonder if our soil up there, which is supposed to turn rock-hard after it dries out, I wonder if that's suitable as a pottery clay? I'll have to test that... Spend some time making musical instruments, experimenting with them...

Still rolling along: what NOT to do?

Oh yeah, I can go back to shortwave listening, rig some antennas, see if I can pick up the world. Also see about logging airport beacons and other low-frequency stations. Which will mean, accumulating more aeronautical charts and, hmmm, I wonder if there are online lists of air beacons and other utes. Have to check on that...

And why would I want to do that? Maybe to make an audio tapestry of various utes. [electronic noise] Keep the high-compression minidisc recorder attached to the shortwave radio, so that when scanning around for odd shortwave signals, if I find anything interesting I'll always have it there on disc to be captured -- and signals not worth keeping can just be deleted! No problem. Or maybe even just record them to this voice recorder and then dump the worthwhile portions to minidisc.

Actually the real goal of shortwave listening isn't so much just tuning-in on SW stations around the world, even if they're online listings to guide me to them -- hmm, I wonder how many stations now directly feed onto the Web? What I'm REALLY interested in are the exotic musics of the world -- Asian, indigenous American, African, et cetera. Finding sources of those on the Net could be more interesting, maybe. That's really my goal. I think back on that Chinese station I heard years and years ago, wonderful stuff wafting in on radio waves so early in the morning, California time. I'd like to find something like that again.

So maybe I'll just keep the minidisc recorder connected to the computer after it's got its DSL connexion, and as I go zipping around listening to WebRadio / WebMusic collections and MP3s, as I find good stuff just record it to minidisc, build up a collection of very different sounds. [electronic noise]

So, are there other things to collect? Sounds and images of the West. Navajo music, other Native American music, see if KTNN has a web presence, if they stream onto the web. See if any other stations in the SouthWest are broadcasting Indian music. See if there are such stations in Central and South America, webcasting Indian music. [electronic noise]

Well, maybe what I'll want to do about pottery, maybe I *do* want to make pottery, maybe the soil we have around our place *is* good clay for making pottery. I should see if there are any classes up there, see if there's an instructor who knows anything preparing the raw dirt as clay - not raw dirt, our good clay soil - preparing that for molding and potting and all that.

And I could go weaving pot-rugs, I'll want to use a hand-loom, so I should review the books I have for info on hand-looming, and see if there are any other materials I can get on hand-looming... OK, where was I? Hand-loom, with stiff wires for the vertical edges, so when I wseave something it doesn't come out with that wasp-waist shape that I'm familiar with from my youthful efforts at that. Or maybe the body of the verticals should be fairly stiff twine or something. Well, I'll see what the recommendations are in hand-looming books.

And pots - what kind of pots do I want to make? I don't know...

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