Abandon everything, again. Hit the road.

Very nice essay about/interview with Townes Van Zandt, the songwriter-singer who inspired a generation of Texas songwriters -- including me -- in the LA Review of Books:

On songwriting and inspiration:

Well, sometimes they come from the top — from the roof. Sometimes they come from the floor. Sometimes they come from the window and sometimes the heart. Occasionally from the mind.

On the artist's calling:

But this land is covered with brilliant young and old musicians. What it takes is perseverance, and you have to be lazy. You have to be too lazy to work. When you start, at least, it helps not to have a family, because I started before I had a family. Young men come up to me and say, "I'd really like to do what you do, how shall I go about it?" I say, well you get a guitar or a piano (I prefer a guitar because it's a lot easier to carry than a piano), then you've got to blow off security, money, your family, your loved ones, your home, blow it all off and stay with your guitar somewhere under a bridge and learn how to play it. That's how it goes. That's what I did.

And that discourages a lot of them, 'cause some of them are like, "I have two kids and I work in a gas station. I'm going to save my money and go to Nashville for a week." But that ain't it. And girls, young ladies, occasionally ask me. I say, well first off, you've got to cut all your fingernails on your left hand off. And that stops most of them.

But it ain't easy. I mean, it's not hard; it ain't easy. It's killing me, I know that.

(Yes, I was a guitar player/songwriter when I was a college student in Texas at the same time, the mid 1970s, that TVZ was becoming famous, at least among Texas singer-songwriters. And I did cover some Townes Van Zandt songs -- but everyone did.)

(Post title comes from the English translation of the Visceral Realist manifesto by Roberto Bolaño.)

Film: Lou Harrison - A World of Music

Harrison House in Joshua Tree, Calif.

In September and October 2010 I spent five weeks in Joshua Tree, Calif. to research a novel. I rented a house owned by a performer and filmmaker, Eva Soltes, who also owns and administers a landmark house which happened to be across the street: a straw-bale house designed and built by American composer Lou Harrison. The house today is used by composers and other artists in residence to work on projects.

Soltes's film about Harrison, Lou Harrison: A World of Music, which includes footage on the design and construction of the desert retreat, is playing at the Roxie theater in San Francisco for a week beginning this Friday.

Why do news organizations continue to broadcast idiotic man-on-the-street opinions?

An L.A. Times story that ran today, "In the rural religious South, Mitt Romney just doesn't connect," features man-on-the-street opinions about President Obama and the GOP frontrunner that do little to demonstrate anything other than ignorance -- or, of you want to see it another way, the failure of the American educational system, or the success of Fox News and the Republican party in poisoning the minds of ordinary people, or just simple prejudice and ignorance. Oh, wait, I said ignorance.

"I got no use for Obama, and it's not because of the color of his skin," said Leldon Thomas, a retired truck repairman chewing tobacco outside the Wal-Mart that locals blame for siphoning business from the long-established stores along Oneonta's ramshackle main street. "It's his socialist government and all the money he's throwing away."

Around here, Obama, who is Christian, is seen by many as Muslim, and not everyone believes he was born in Hawaii. "It's not that he's black," said Don Tielking, who has been cutting hair at the local barber shop for more than 40 years. "It's that he's not an American citizen."

For Tielking, who took a seat in his barber's chair to chat during a lull between customers, the problem with Romney is his Mormon faith, although he would gladly overlook it if he had to pick between him and Obama.

"Christ is the head of my church, and his was some Smith guy who claimed to be a latter-day prophet," said Tielking, referring to Joseph Smith Jr., the 19th century founder of the Latter-day Saints movement. "I'm not prejudiced against a Mormon. It's just some of their beliefs that I'm against."

Now let's assume that the reporter couldn't find anyone to interview who was more informed or educated than those two crackers. What purpose is served by a national newspaper running these quotations? What are we supposed to do with that mind-aching stupidity? The only possible reaction is: "Oh, hey -- looks like Romney has quite a job for himself in the coming weeks! Of course they hate Obama, but look, they're just as stupid about Romney. Now I see why Santorum is getting votes. God almighty."

But my favorite is this lady:

Sara Holloway, who recently retired as business manager at a nursing home, likes Santorum but might vote for Romney in Alabama's primary. "I like the fact that he was a businessman," she said as she left a hair salon in Oneonta. "That's what government is. It's a business, and he's been very successful."

That's what government is! It's a business! And corporations are people. Jesus Christ, is there any hope for this fucking country?

That's French for sociopath

Foodies are masochists, and this passage from an article in the Jan. 30, 2012 New Yorker gives a good example. The article is about a young-turk chef and restaurateur who opened a seafood restaurant in his hometown of Tijuana -- you're supposed to feel a frisson of danger -- where seafood is the local specialty. Specifically, salmon is the local specialty, and for that reason, young Javier Plascencia refuses to serve it.

But that's nothing compared to the scene depicted in the passage below, about a colleague of his. Pity the poor diner who simply wants something to eat:

At Manzanilla, the acclaimed restaurant in Ensenada that he owns with his wife, Solange Muris, [Benito Molina] has been known to leave patrons waiting for hours, only to emerge from the kitchen with a dish of fish jelly topped with barnacles and seaweed.

I think the only possible response would be that all-purpose line which is said to be applicable to the captions of almost all New Yorker cartoons: "Christ, what an asshole!"

41-year-old teacher snags teen; I don't know what to think

Last month a 41-year-old male high school teacher in Modesto, a depressed central California city, quit his job and left his family to move in with an 18-year-old girl who had been his student. The couple, pictured above, announced their relationship publicly this week with excruciating appearances on television.

For some reason I'm having a hard time getting my mind around this story. To give some context: I have been a high school teacher. I never was attracted to one of my students and never had any kind of inappropriate relationship with any of them, but I can relate at least to the extent of having been a high school teacher. Second thing: I've also been a pornographer. And situations like this are pretty much in the porn sweet spot.

So you might have thought I'd experience some kind of thrill when I saw this, but instead I reacted like any decent person would have: "Oh no. Oh you poor fools."

Then the second-guessing began. I thought: Well, okay, she's of age. No crime here; only stupidity. She'll probably recover from this mistake, especially if they don't have kids. He never will, but he's an adult and should be prepared to suffer the consequences of his actions.

But then I thought: But wait, isn't he simply doing what millions of men have fantasized doing? He's not unlike Roger Sterling on "Mad Men," who dumped his respectable middle-aged wife to marry his gorgeous 20-year-old secretary, despite his best friend telling him he was acting like a fool. This lumpish fellow has none of the suavité of Roger Sterling, and probably none of the money, but whatever he has he'll have less of it once his soon-to-be ex-wife gets through with him. And that's as it should be.

The point is: Isn't this monumental dope simply doing what the culture tells him to do, namely follow his dream, pursue his passion, and all the other self-actualization advice people have been force-fed for the last forty years? And especially in this case! He's only accepting the invitation, or mandate, he's bombarded with every hour of every day -- the one which goes Young nubile female sexuality is the greatest thing in the world, and possessing it should be your goal in life.

No, we turn around and mock and condemn him for actually achieving this goal. Because that's America. We use sex to sell everything, and then when someone actually takes these messages to their logical conclusion, they are deemed utter scum.

A tiny part of me -- a part which exists perhaps in others (perhaps more in some people) -- wanted to say "Dude, you go! You turned your life upside down for some American trim! Today you are the envy of every man who's ever fantasized about it, thought about it, tried disastrously and failed to do it. You actually did it. Rock on." But that part in me really is tiny. Mostly I just shake my head and feel a little sick.

But the second-guessing continues. What kind of non-conformist am I anyway? Shouldn't I stand with this man, perhaps not because he has managed to obtain every man's fantasy for an American teenager, but because by tearing apart his whole life for something he's passionate about, he has somehow struck a blow against conformity, in favor of Gauguin-like self-actualization and bohemia?

I guess it just doesn't read that way to me. It reads like the opening scene of Act II of a tragedy. By the end of Act II their relationship is over. In Act III he's alone, hounded by authorities, can't get another job and rebuild his life, and winds up either killing himself or, at best, in the gutter.

I hope it turns out better than that; I hope he loses 50 pounds and becomes the surfing champion he's always wanted to be, while the girl ("Jordan Powers," a name right out of a Young Adult novel) goes on to law school and a six-figure job. Somehow I have the feeling that's not in the cards.