When Monkeys Get Diarrhea They Have To Dip Madelines in Chamomile Tea

I’ll run out of ideas – have noting left to write about. I’m tired of this style and will never paint another picture – never pen another word. Every crisis of indecision and each dead-end is a mini depression – just enough to dip your Madeline in (of if you must, your little toe). And I was thinking as I was driving over here this morning something will write itself down (you must sing not only for your supper but also to get out of the dumps) – and if it don’t happen when I get there (where ever there may be this day), it will happen later – the thing one really needs to worry about is a diarrhea of verbiage (some say I’m already there) – a writing that cannot be stopped – page upon page – day upon day and even in the night – year after year until your dead – life occasionally presents you with a passion that it is incapable of containing.

What happens to the blue world / with its necklace of lights and arteries / and ever, throbbing through air / so ill – intentional and other-directed? – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994

The atomic bomb blew
The modern world away
It fried the belief of a
Possibility for a new age
It was unthinkable to do
        Anything else
Than to hold the line


The atomic bomb
Was not dropped
         On Japan
It was dropped
On any hope
For a future

It is intolerable that men who, with their minds, have invented machines…., and in their policies made themselves the half-slaves of these machines, should not be able to unthink what is a product of their intellects – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p286

Outside the world’s

         All business – it was snowing
Inside there is no
          Peace of mind – there’s a blizzard
         Occuring
These two worlds
          Are distinct
But interdependent – and I'm snowbound

The tragedy of the 1930’s was the blindness of the many; the tragedy of the 1940’s was the ineffectiveness of the few – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p291

It’s amazing how many knew
          That is was Mark Twain
          And that it was a unit of
                        Measurement

Everyone looks forward
          To the daily quiz
Some even call in ahead
So they can look up the answer
          On the Internet
Except for the questions relating
           To sports and celebrities
I do pretty good and always
Donate my winnings to
            The tip jar
I’m among the elite
And don’t have to cheat

‘You have to be beaten and broken by things before you can write about them.’ To hold strong views and feel deeply about what, however significant and important, was outside the range of one’s experience, was not enough – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 (quoted of Virginia Woolf) p158-59


The Breakfast Project - I’m at the Civic Center Muni Station I will take the first train outbound. A two car M is approaching. At the first stop where I see a chance to get breakfast I will get off. This is my new project. I call it my breakfast project. I will make up the rest of the rules as I go along. Making up rules is fun. We did it a lot when young but are taught its not what an adults does – such is or lot in life. I get off at Balboa Station. Then I took the J inbound. There is a place called the Geneva St Café but it is closed. I headed towards SFMOMA to meet Michael at 11:55. I notice the California poppies blooming along the track. I spot what might be a good breakfast place at Church and 30th - Hungary Joe’s. My appointment is near so I note to come back some other time

Risk in real life is driven more elementally by the fear of failing to act. In a dynamic society, passive people wither.

I go to the Thirsty Bear for a Winter Bock after seeing the Arbus show at SFMOMA with Michael. I watched Ant Farm’s “Burn” for the second time. I laughed. Michael was amused by the re-enactment of the ‘Dog Day Afternoon” bank robbery by the original perpetrators but had to get back to the office and finish a project. He said Arbus reminded him of me with all of her scribbling in notebooks. Walter thinks that I am the real author of “All Over Coffee” but he also thinks that I am channeling Bokowski – more about that later.

Those in a position to grab everything, usually do

I take my fist sip of the my bock - ah, that is good. What are you doing this afternoon Michael had asked? “One thing that I am not doing this afternoon” I told him “was going to 101 California.”

“Overweening conceit which the greater part of men have of their abilities…the chance of gain is by every man more or less overvalued” - Adam Smith

A blond with a white Irish knit sweater faces me (not literally - she is facing in my direction). She is over there, over in the corner – can you see her. She talks with her mouth fully open. It a good thing that she has manners, I wouldn’t have wanted to see her chewing her food. She fiddles with her hair while she talks – see here curling that blond lock around her index finger. She keeps opening and closing the fist of her left hand a she talks nonstop to her girl friend who sits across the table from her. A baby prom is beside her friend. An infant’s little feet stick up in the air. She momma pick up baby and sit it in her lap. She will not allow it to interrupt her monologue. Both of the friends have quited down. No, she just stopped making her wild hand gestures..

Not to gamble is to accept oneself in advance as a failure - the rabbit’s eyes dwell on the fox’s paw

Six pitchers filled with Sangria are at the ready behind the bar. The counter is staked with glasses (I count them - eleven different types). They are waiting - washed, gleaming, and stacked - for TGIF after work crowd.

The baby is sucking on its bottle of milk. Mother is fiddling again with her hair, still displaying those pearly teeth as she talks. Her talk is interrupted but only moomentarly as she sucks on the straw in her drink. I wonder, “How many more of these luncheons will she have with old girlfriends before the last of her youth fades and motherhood consumes all of her time.” The novelty of motherhood is still evident in her school girl face.

As moss fills the stone with longing no hands can tear away – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p209