Sometimes, near enough to the summer solstice that the days acquire a certain heft and the temperature and pressure of the evenings permits an easy flow of sensory information, certain sounds and aromas transport me through space and time to places thought forgotten amid people long departed. A snatch of Billy Joel on the wind. Oregano and garlic wafting in on pizza-oven thermals. Tinkling ice and carbonation's hiss, tumblers rattling on plastic racks, sandalwood and Juicy Fruit… Sal's Pizzeria. The warped screen door shrieks and bangs just like it did back in 1976. The heat inside is oppressive, the air redolent of bubbling mozzarella and simmering tomatoes. Teenagers occupy the maroon leatherette booths and scarred oak tables, talking, laughing, flirting, sipping from textured amber plastic. A silent TV in the corner near the ceiling broadcasts Hal Linden mouthing another snippet of American history as Peter Frampton provides the soundtrack from the jukebox. Sal himself is visible through the pass-through, spinning great wheels of dough amid clouds of flour and barking orders to his helpers.
She is here, seated at one of the small tables along the south wall with her friend Marlene. Her back is to me, but I'd know those shoulders anywhere, the pale blue gingham straps of her sundress, the chestnut ponytail in a lavender ribbon tossing merrily with every animated agreement and giggle. When she bends to sip her Mountain Dew through a fat red straw her ponytail falls forward and exposes a fine silver chain. I recall how it felt like cool liquid in my palm, and the heat of her neck as I fastened it, moving aside fine tendrils of hair with my pinky finger.
I remember— Okay, just hold it right there.
Are you really buying this? Because it's a complete load of crap. Nothing in my experience manifests as soft-focus bittersweet memories. Truth be told, I don't remember anything before 1995. Any artistic representation of my youth would not be painted by Norman Rockwell. Hogarth or Munch, more like, Egon Schiele. Certain of Bosch's more depraved panels. I can't stand Billy Joel and I don't like pizza. The smells that would most clearly and strongly evoke my lost adolescence are airplane glue and Mad Dog 20/20. I don't even know what color lavender is. Now that I mention it, I don't think it's quite fair that lavender gets to be a plant, an herb, a tea, a scent, a color, and a sexual orientation. That's too many things.
Anyway, despite the fact that the people and events that shaped my life are more Nightmare Alley than Main Street, USA, I still qualify as a nice guy in that, in the main, I do not wish my fellow humans harm and I try hard not to wish anyone dead. When I find myself “hating” someone and become of the mind that they're undeserving of life and someone should take it from them, I remind myself that someone out there does love them, and that people have surely felt similarly about me and my own status as a living, breathing entity. People who I feel sure would rescind their death wishes if they only got to know me.
And yet, I felt a pleasantly righteous sense of satisfaction on reading that Jamai Gayle did not survive the injuries sustained in a car accident some weeks ago. [Ed note: Early reports of Gayle’s death were incorrect; he survived and returned to the Mendocino Coast.] It's bad enough when these filthy dreadlocked layabouts swarm in with the harvest like a patchouli-scented plague, but when they start knocking off pretty girls — or anyone, really — it's hard not to feel that Instant Karma is just picking up the slack of a disinterested or recalcitrant district attorney. It seems obvious to me that Ms. Kreimer met with foul play and that Gayle was the foul player who dispatched her. I am sorry for whoever's grieving the bastard but otherwise I'll say well done, universe. Way to restore the balance.
"Well done" also to that dashing airman who offered single combat to Big Grape and won. I found the frost fan controversy quite compelling as it unfolded and more than once wished I could've been out there with a snootful of the ol' rickety-tick and a bag of tools, with which I would've not only rendered the noisemakers inoperable but repurposed their motors to perform quieter and more noble tasks. Big Business and the courts they buy have always erred rather broadly in their estimations of acceptable collateral damage as they do their digging or chopping or raping or whatever. Victories like these let them know that it's not okay to do whatever the hell you want in the pursuit of making money, despite the cherished and long-held American belief otherwise.
On the political front, congratulations and welcome to Maureen Mulheren, newly of the Ukiah City Council, and bravo to the AVA for pointing out her physical attractiveness, especially in contrast to the “undetected physiognomic political movement” of short creepy pudges oozing into local politics of late. Everything else being equal, why not elect the good-looking ones?
Think of the beauty spectrum as a bar magnet. One side (+, or pretty people) attracts, and the other (-, or the ogres) repulses. Politics is nothing more than people trying to bend other people to their will, and who has a better shot at that, the attractive or the repellent? All elected officials, regardless of their titles, are representatives — of their precinct, district, township, whatever, and as such are the face of that electorate to outside observers. If Ukiah continues to populate their council with squat little trolls, they will acquire a reputation — if they haven't already— of being a squatty and trollish little community. If, however, they elect stylish and comely ladies with radiant smiles to represent them, people will say, “You know, that Ukiah seems like a real happening burg. What say we hop in the Tesla and tool on up there for some sightseeing and money-spending? Oh, and they've got charging stations? Even better!”
And speaking of feminine pulchritude, how about that Julienne Waters? Wowzah! That is one classy dame, and I wish her the best of luck in any upcoming legal proceedings. She'll need it — the Arizonans are a barely civilized people, really just domesticated desert rats, and I fear their draconian laws and primitive system of justice will spell doom for this sexy, sassy, smuggler. How about we poll the Low Gap populace for miscreants holding Arizona passports and engineer a prisoner swap? It worked in Iran!
When I first read the vivid and trenchant Tolles/France courtroom exchange (Can This Marriage Be Saved Award), my natural instinct was to set it to music, which I did, to hilarious and powerful effect. As I performed it, with me taking Ashley's voice and my friend Chisme doing Michael, a brilliant idea occurred to me: an opera based on Mendocino County court transcripts! Actually, not just based on, but the actual verbatim exchanges set to music. There is (and will surely continue to be) a wealth of usable material that I feel will make for a compellingly whimsical program.
Regarding the fiendishly clever Hopland fiber-optic-cable-severing caper: OMG, and I'm not talking about the homeless wranglers. Not mentioned is the cost, either of repairing the cable or to interrupted commerce, but I'm sure it was substantial. Way, way out of proportion to the potential reward even if it had been a copper cable, which would have netted them something in the middle two figures. Metal scavenging always seemed to me more like work than crime, and dirty, difficult, dangerous, and low-paying work at that. And, in fact, a crime, with a seriously skewed risk/reward/damage balance. A copper-scrounging tweeker will think nothing of disabling or destroying a million-dollar piece of machinery for fifty dollars worth of salable metal, or laboring for hours and incurring substantial bodily damage for same. I don't think these guys quite get the hang of crime.
2015 was indeed a year that was, and good riddance to it. I hope the next two pass quickly, and wouldn't it be nice (for me) if years could be compressed like computer data, by eliminating redundancies? Not only would the year be incredibly short, but nothing would happen twice. And as we all know, it's not just one thing after another, it's the same damn thing over and over.
Oh, he’p me, cheeses, this Washburne person is Way Funny.