Too Beautiful: June 2002

Thursday, June 27, 2002

More on the death of Whalen

Here's the obit for Philip Whalen from today's S.F. Chronicle. They were on the ball.

Yesterday morning in the zendo is when I heard of this for the first time. The doshi announced Whalen's coma and immenent death after the sitting period began, asking us to "sit with his passing." That certainly got my mind off my back for once. And we finished with a couple of special chants and invocations.

Then this morning Whalen's picture was on the altar, along with his name and dates. His zen name was "zenshin," which I'm not sure what it means, but I'll find out sometime. It's probably in some book I have at home.

He has to be one of the last original Beat Generation figures. To change the subject slightly, Joey Bishop is the last surviving member of the Rat Pack -- Sinatra, Martin, Davis and Lawford all having died in the last fifteen years. For the last five years I've been writing a novel called Make Nice in which I make liberal fictionalized use of Bishop, renaming him and using him as a character in a book about the world in 1960. Now I find out someone is coming out this fall with a biography of Joey Bishop. Man, I wish I had finished that novel a couple of years ago. But I won't even finish the first draft until at least the end of this year -- and that's working on it every chance I get.

Death of a poet

Philip Whalen, poet and zen master, died yesterday at 78 years old in San Francisco.

Whalen was one of the poets who read at the legendary 1955 reading at the Six Gallery, the event that more or less started the fame of the whole Beat Generation. He was a friend of Gary Snyder and other famous "Dharma Bums," and like them pursued an interest in zen Buddhism, becoming a zen priest and abbot of SF's Hartford Street Zen Center.

Here are some good Whalen links:

a brief bio with some links at the Literary Kicks site, and another bio and other links at The Beat Page
a full bio at Jack Magazine
An excellent, highly recommended 1999 interview with Whalen, in San Francisco's venerable, indispensible Poetry Flash
A review of Whalen's collected poems, by Tom Clark, Beat Generation expert and biographer
Poets on the Peaks, a beautiful book about the firewatch service of Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac and Whalen in the mid-50s

Whalen had been ill for some time, spending his last years at San Francisco's Laguna Honda hospital. A memorial service will be held at the San Francisco Zen Center's Green Gulch Farm in a few weeks -- see their site for details.

Wednesday, June 26, 2002

Trying again

Well, that was messed up. Let me repeat that last paragraph.

I wrote about the 17 Reasons sign the other day. Today I was driving down Mason St. and saw that the Chez Paree has been closed and their great sign -- the upraised leg of a Can-Can dancer -- has been taken down. I wasn't surprised, since I'd seen the SF Chronicle's article about nearby Glide Church buying the property and planning to close it. The Chez Paree, which was a true clip joint -- $20 cover, plus you have to buy a high-priced, crappy drink -- was a dive of a strip bar. But I'll miss the sign. I'd love to know who got it.

You know it's summer

... when there is a total of three hours of sunshine, from 11:30 to 2:30, and thick overcast the rest of the day, but it's light from 5:00 a.m. to almost 9:00 pm. Cherries are in season. I can eat a pint every day, yum. Pride day is approaching. Film festivals are festivaling. The Giants are having their customary June swoon (though they won today).

I wrote about the 17 Reasons sign the other day. Today I was driving down Mason St. and saw that the Chez Paree has been closed and their great sign -- the upraised leg of a Can-Can dancer -- has been taken down. I'd love to know who got that. I wasn't surprised, since I'd seen the BlogThis!Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest

Thursday, June 20, 2002

Cheated death again!

An asteroid the size of Bloomingdale's barely missed the earth last week, and we didn't even know it until three days after it had passed. Only the sixth known asteroid to penetrate the moon's orbit, the hundred-meter-long rock came within 120,000 miles of hitting the eath with the force of an H-bomb. Now where did I put those Y2K rations?

Boho guide

While looking for links to citations and pix of the "17 Reasons" sign (see previous entry, i.e. the one after this), I found this very nice site about San Francisco. Really good pix, nice layout, excellent cynical atttitude.

Death of 17 Reasons

A dark day in San Francisco Mission District culture: The "17 Reasons" sign is coming down.

High atop a four-story former department store located at 17th and Mission Streets in the heart of the "New Bohemian" Mission, the large, enigmatic sign has been a landmark for several generations of San Franciscan bohemians. When I first moved to S.F. in 1979, the sign read "17 Reasons Why" and advertised a brand of Scotch whiskey. Sometime in the late 80s, the "Why" was removed and replaced by a sign advertising space in the building. Now the whole thing is being torn down, according to the S.F. Chronicle's Lauren Wellman, because it's finally gotten too dangerous.

There's no telling exactly why, but the sign is much-beloved by Mission District residents -- for example, here's a story titled "17 Reasons Why" that has a character saying "I love that sign," this short film is also presumably named after it, and there's a rock band of the same name. Another local landmark, the gigantic Thrift Town store, takes up the bottom two floors of the building and people sometimes call the store "17 Reasons" because of the sign on the top of the building.

Tuesday, June 18, 2002

Archetypes in 'Fight Club'

This fascinating essay by an unsigned author suggests that the characters in the film 'Fight Club' are actually avatars of the characters from the comic strip 'Calvin and Hobbes' twenty-five years later. There's lots more at metaphilm.com too, including an examination of sexual archetypes in "Spider-Man." Wow, this is the kind of stuff I would have written if I were still a film critic!

Who put the funk

Listening to The J.B.'s on erika.net (go to their Listen page for a list of software that can play their streaming music -- basically anything that plays mp3s, such as the free Real Player). Funk, funk, funk. So great, and it goes on and on -- almost like an ambient track.

I'm leaving Massachusetts today -- it's the end of my third trip here. The manager I was filling in for came back yesterday, and she seems inclined to resume managing. So that's probably the end of my regular trips out here for some time.

I was joking today in email with a friend about all the historical stuff around here (this office building is smack dab between Lexington and Concord, for example, and a few miles from Walden Pond), and I brought up the phrase Revolutionary War. Ha, that's right, we had a revolution a couple hundred years ago! And now Henry Kissinger is in charge. It makes you wonder. That's about as far as I go, though. As I told Christine, my big confrontation today was at the hotel's front desk, when I realized they overcharged me. Woo hoo, up the revolution! Now I'm a Hilton Honors gold member!

Last night, a lovely thunderstorm passed over as I was sitting in the darkened hotel room and flipping between Goldfinger -- definitely the best of the Connery Bond movies -- a very dull baseball game, and a weird new game show hosted by some gigantic ex-stripper in a dog collar. I abhor shit like this, but it was just too weird not to watch a few minutes of. It's the kind of utterly weird shit that used to be shown only on Japanese TV. (The Simpsons-go-to-Japan episode satirized these shows by showing the family being tormented by various trials in order to win air tickets home. That was only a few years ago. Now these kinds of shows are on American TV.) Something is really wrong with this country! Let's have a revolutionary war against TV!

Bumper sticker seen a few years ago: KILL YOUR BROWSER.

Monday, June 17, 2002

There's a whole exhibition worth of great Henri Cartier-Bresson photos at this Brazilian site. Once again we see the master's compassionate humanism, tempered with humor and irony, saving it from sentimentality.

On another note: if you like reading blogs, or you just like web interface, see New York Bloggers, a really cool design for a directory.

Sunday, June 16, 2002

'Honey, guess who had a hole in one?'

Several people were arrested in Los Angeles Saturday, 15 June, when county sherrif's deputies raided a golf tournament whose sponsors had hired prostitutes for golfers. My favorite quote:

"Lots of tournaments set up tents where drinks and prizes are handed out," Cox said. "Of course, not prizes like this."

One golfer also complained that this would make it even harder for him to convince his wife to let him shoot a round: "Now what am I supposed to say?" asked one golfer at Hidden Valley Golf Club, who asked not to be identified. " 'Hey honey, I'm going to the prostitution club.' Give me a break!" (L.A. Times)

Don't just come. Criticize.

The 18 Jun 02 Village Voice has an excellent Richard Goldstein column on Eminem and why it's essential for people not just to tolerate and forget about porn, but to read and acknowledge its messages of satire and social criticism. It's not enough to say, "Oh, pornography has socially redeeming content, I guess, if you look hard enough;" that content is not just legally redemptive but socially relevant, and should be examined. Such an examination doesn't stop you from enjoying Eminem, "Basic Instinct," or the works of the Marquis De Sade or William S. Burroughs, if any of those are up your alley -- I can only endure the latter two, and only De Sade actually gets me off, but I completely agree with Goldstein that even the most misogynistic, homophobic shit should be paid attention, if only to debunk it.

Thursday, June 13, 2002

The peaceful east

That title is hereby meant ironically. But when I typed it, I didn't mean it that way.

I'm in Massachusetts again. Last night after eating dinner I took a drive in the drizzly twilight and purely by accident found Walden Pond. I parked at a boat ramp and got out and stood by the shore. The sky was a perfect pearl grey and the trees a monochromatic grey-green. There were several swimmers in the water making their way across the water. Some German tourists drove up and, less reverent than I, marched up to the water's edge and poked their fingers in the water.

Altogether, a very peaceful scene, minus the Germans. I got back in the car and proceeded to get very lost, but I didn't mind because I had nowhere to go except back to my hotel.

Of course, the idea that this area is "peaceful" is ridiculous. Just off the top of my head, we think of the completely eliminated aboriginal population, the starving immigrants from Europe, the heads busted in countless union battles, right down to the famous "Civil Action" case in nearby Woburn. And, as I'm sure everyone notes, the noise pollution from the busy road near Walden Pond. There ain't no more pure places, and perhaps the east coast of the U.S. is the worst places to look for them.

Nevertheless, to someone from California, the treesy landscape, the departure of industry, and the quiet woods speak peace.

Le Tigre remix redux

Last month I wrote about how obsessed I was over the song "Deceptacon RFA RMX," a dance remix of a Le Tigre record, and how sad I was that it was available only on vinyl. But now I'm HAPPY because the Le Tigre Remixes EP is now out on CD. So of course I'm playing it all the time. The "Deceptacon RFA RMX" cut is totally infectuous.

It makes me want to write songs. Yesterday I was IMing with Jenny, who was my friend before I hired her at this company I work for, talking about another tech writer. "She's totally hip to the scene," Jenny said of Sarah, and I immediately said "Oh let's write a song about Sarah that has the words 'She's totally hip to the scene' as the chorus." Jenny wrote back agreeing immediately. Jenny and I performed together several years ago... A momentous occasion because it was the last time I ever performed my songs. It was way back in 1995. Seven years ago, Jesus!

Friday, June 07, 2002

Information superhighway robbery no. 1

I had a pager for several years, one of those little belt pagers with a one-line screen. Finally I lost it, and since I had started using my cell phone more often, I just decided to forget about it. Finally today I got another bill for the service and that reminded me to cancel my account.

The original company was Pacific Bell's Air Touch, but they sold their pager business along the way and Verizon now owned my account. So after going through a really long series of voice mail menus, I finally reached a human being.

Me: I'd like to cancel my account.

Service guy (reading a script): What is the reason for cancelling your account?

Me: I lost my pager and decided I didn't want to get a new one.

Service guy (still reading): Well, Mr. Pritchard, we at Verizon hate to lose your business. Would you like to continue your account at a vastly reduced rate?

Long pause. I thought, what the fuck, if a vastly reduced rate was available, why haven't you told me about it already?!

Me: No.

Too Beautiful