And now four brief tales of my current sit-chee-a-shun:

PLC has been granted the antibiotics we have both been fervently pursuing. It's wonderful news. We're very happy with this even though the worst symptoms are still ocurring and we know from experience it will be a minimum of a couple of months until we can determine that this time the desired results are beginning to manifest.

PLC and I have had to learn how to administer saline, cephtriaxone, saline and heparin (an anti-clotting agent to keep the line and bloodstream clear) in that order twice a day through a "port". A port for those who don't know is a line that feeds directly to the blood going to the heart and is accessed by a special type of needle fixed into place and replaced by a nurse weekly into a roundish "port" surgically implanted under the skin into which medicine can be administered and blood can be withdrawn from as well for tests.

My partner is still in a real struggle and at times obvious misery but we are cautiously optimistic. There's still a lot of pain as well as sleeplessness along with the profound neurological horrors he has been experiencing these last few months but we've probably beaten the odds as well.

It will be our intention to beat those very odds to a pulp eventually so we can both run to the beach and celebrate life again in a style we're very overdue to become accustomed to.

I'll keep you and y'all posted.

*******

Along with the amazing relatively bloodless revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt there comes to the typical American news sites those typical comments from commenters who cannot seem to say anything that is even faintly promising about a largely impoverished people who shook a government to the core until it toppled. Yes the military is a concern. Though that military made a crucial judgement in deciding not to find out exactly how divided Egypt's armed forces might be when confronted with the choice of it's duty to the citizens it's there to defend versus the government fed by huge funding from "allies" that don't seem to be providing the kind of relief that "trickles down" to the common populace.

I think it's not an entirely subjective notion for me to say that just as my partner's current medicine should help his health so should an actual exercise of a people of their democratic longings be good for that body's health as well.

We've been coming through a rough spell. PLC's doctor retired at the end of September. We've been dealing with the threat of the end of appropriate and adequate treatment for my PLC's illness.

 Welcome to our world in which symptoms of some of the worst variety have returned and PLC hid them from me for several months till one night when we were uncharacteristically raising our voices at each other in frustration- he told me that he'd been alone with some of the most frightening experiences of this illness.

We're again in the position after several months of concerted efforts to get things on track again and hopeful that we've been through the worst of our struggles to get medical help that actually is help. But we are still a week or maybe a few away from what we hope will be the rescue of antibiotic therapy to keep these miserable and completely disruptive symptoms at bay. But in a best case scenario we will still be waiting to see if and when the next round of medicine will start to free us from sleeplessness, pain and anxiety that are hard to talk about with those who haven't been through them.

Anyway it seems that I keep trying to get back to a place of equilibrium only to find that I don't have the time to even consider the possiblility of "calm" let alone reap the benefits of it. PLC has even less opportunity to do this - by a factor of at least 10 to 1.

So yet another cycle comes round to a place where we must balance keeping as optimistic as we can while we are yet tired of the effort- again.

I am sleeping more - a lot more- than PLC but I am still feeling weary from day to day and dumbly worry as well about my aging blood family, the precariousness of my job and the sourness of dealing with a raft of unsympathetic people who control our medical situation, our housing and my ability to make a living. It's not morning in America- probably wasn't when that mentally damaged President used the expression as his catch phrase all those years ago. It's more like a cloudy, cold afternoon soon to fade to black. America's a mess. There really are "haters" and many of them seem to think they hold the keys to this country's survival and even destiny. It's a lie I think. It looks like an empire in decline that's deeply involved in scapegoating the least able to defend themselves in order to carve it's pound of flesh out to show a profit.

It's not all bad though. PLC and I still laugh and we are hopeful that better days are soon ahead. Not as soon as we would want but in some scheme of things we now at least feel it could be worse- and that's an improvement.

(not our trailer or our yacht club - our trailer's is a bit bigger and most of it isn't made with gingerbread)

Have a nice end of the year my friends.

I'll be back for something more/else before Auld Lang Syne makes its way to the stage for one last drunken rendition....

Here's one of many from PLC to warm you through the holidays.

GREETINGS FROM SANTA CRUZ

We'll make this short and simple.

Wikileaks is some type of political miracle.

It is turning over a rock that has hidden monsters posing as our (that is "American") interests.

Maybe the most remarkable thing about the confidential, secret, sainted diplomatic cables is that there's damn little to be surprised at in them.

Did someone think the Afghan guv'mint was a paragon of virtue?

Does anyone think diplomacy in today's world of "realpolitik" has much in the way of distance from espionage?

Decades ago I remember many in the public, no doubt denizens of that shadowy zone then known as the "Silent Majority", seemed stunned that Nixon and his crew would break into the opposition headquarters in such a ham-fisted manner and get caught doing it.

It was hard for me to take seriously folks talking about feeling "betrayed". What show were these folks watching?

Has the Rubicon been crossed? Has Wikileaks started something with "legs" that will have repercussions beyond getting its recognizable leadership in hot water, prison or worse?

I'm only climbing out onto a very short and clearly viewed limb to say that Julian Assange is being railroaded by the allegations made in Sweden. It's certainly hard not to think that in view of any cross-section of history involving folks who try to take on the powers that be. I can't help but believe the charges are "convenient" and possibly entirely trumped up after severe pressure or even blackmail was brought to bear on those at the eye of the charges.

Just a short list of the first four names that come to mind of organizations, that is, corporate entities, that have dropped funding channels that support Wikileaks like the hot potato it is is revealing:

Mastercard

Visa

Pay Pal

Amazon.

When Sweden, Sweden fer crissakes!, plays hardball in a manner that appears to be pandering to the fears and vengefulness of American influence- who is it who will withstand this type and degree of pressure?

Perhaps we are about to find out.

William S. Burroughs described the phrase "naked lunch" as "a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork".

Bon appetit?

Caesar crossing the Rubicon

Crossing the management with fife drum and banner

 Crossing the River Styx

Crossing Abbey Road

...and again

and yet again

Crossing the dance floor to do the Eagle Rock

***************************

A Giant in Spirit and Deed

The Lady and her supporters

I woke up this morning and saw some good news  .

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, "The Lady" of democracy in Myanmar (formerly Burma), was released from 7 and a half years of house arrest. Make no mistake that this house arrest was still a prison and watched more closely by the military junta running that country than most maximum security cells are in the US- where prisons appear to be one of the few examples of a "boom" economy- at least until states can no longer afford the overhead.

There's not a lot of point in detailing this story- it is readily available with a simple search and I'm sure many of you already know it.

But at least for the moment there is a ray of hope for one of the people who embodies what people can do even against tremendous odds and brutal oppression.

Here are some pictures within the last few hours from European journalists. The last picture is a protest from 2007 over Aung San Suu Kyi's detention/arrest by the Buddhist Monks of Myanmar. If there's a more worthy spiritual tradition from any major religious group regarding freedom in today's world I'm not sure what it is. It's especially impressive when compared with many of the American religious groups' agendas which seem in such lockstep with ignorance, fear and self-deluding notions of what salvation of the soul really entails.

Buddhist Monks in protest, Myanmar 2007

Those Other Giants

The San Francisco Giants had a parade to celebrate their Woild Series Championship on November 3rd, 2010 a Wednesday around 11am. The parade was on Market Street in the heart of SF downtown and traced the same route the ballclub took when they first moved to SF in 1958.

I have to say that as a lifelong SF 49er football fan I suppose I figured there could never be another celebration like the one after the 49ers' first Super Bowl win in 1982. People were ecstatic- the city was mobbed and the cable cars with the players inside were hailed, cheered and covered with confetti like they'd just been victorious over invaders from Mars who'd threatened to wipe out the human species if they prevailed.

Evidently, Jupiter's army was bigger. And badder.

These Giants- a uniquely young core of, as they say, "home grown" pitching talents and a great find in a rookie catcher just up from the farm team (minor leagues) and a smattering of veteran players Giant's management cadged together as the year went on - received what I thought was maybe an even bigger reception.

As way of an explanation to set my personal mein in the face of all this a number of circumstances in my own life among those I love has been weaving a web to form a grim backdrop most of this year's days.

It's been a year of uncharacteristic bad health and crises for three of my closest female cousins all of whom became gravely ill and were verging on becoming worse, the resultant stress on their immediate families and upon my siblings and especially my Mom has been tough to hear about and largely feel guilty about- not that there's much I could do.

My uncle Steve of whom I have already told you something about died suddenly as my cousins all recovered enough to stay out of immediate danger.

My own PLC has had his doctor retire and we have found ourselves scrambling to find a replacement and been met with hostility and indifference in our efforts all the while PLC has been battling against the anxiety of starting from scratch with the available physicians in our area, being without any medications- especially pain and while he's been suffering a very long lasting bout of insomnia for the last several months. This has been only the latest in several months long periods of insomnia he's had for the last few years. Stress is a huge reality PLC has had to live through and along with insomnia these compound the body's inability to properly repair itself. We remain fully engaged in fighting this particular set of battles again after repeated situations of a like nature within the last ten years.

As I try to put these words together PLC is still trying to grab a few moments outside of the worried, waking world as noon has come now and gone. This has become a typical Saturday morning for us these days.

Talking to my mother on the phone I have had to fight back impatience as she has had a hard time not sobbing on the other end from her own despairs about those younger than her and her own situation with my father and her grandson. I think my impatience isn't with her but with my own limitations in feeling free to offer help on a moment's notice.

Even my job- which is a blessing in that I still have one and could be gainfully employed for at least a year more is a limitation in its own way. To put it bluntly I simply do not do the type of work one picks up a paper and finds similar positions available elsewhere in. If I did PLC and I would probably be looking at moving to the SF peninsula where there appear to be some doctors closer to those who might be more helpful. But this would entail my finding work and a place to live that would allow PLC to use the one break in housing California does allow for disabled people.

We'd miss Santa Cruz because of being next to the ocean and some of its other amenities but if it meant a protracted period of restored PLC health it'd be "no contest" as the saying goes.

And, of course there is the latest election. That is frustrating in itself because you have the party I have supported- and did once again - versus the seemingly nihilistic idiots running the other group. But the fact is that the Democrats have given fuel to the fire that their actions have been meager and inadequate to the task at hand which appeared in 2008 to be a revamping of several national priorities about healthcare, housing, war and peace itself, gainful employment and even the very nature of where and how that employment should be targeted. While I'm pleased that Cali has once again passed the political litmus test to stay blue it still faces grim prospects in a shrinking national consciousness about what is even possible to accomplish given our miring in the current political/economic orthodoxies of our day.

So with this as the on-droning chorus in my life I have been finding the last month or two a tonic in the occasional excursion into escaping the situation at hand.

Even PLC has watched several Giant's playoff games with me and said he enjoyed it- and I think he has if only to watch my mood brighten as the drama has unfolded into a story with a fairytale ending.

The last several years have involved a cloud of scandal over San Francisco's last great hitter, Barry Bonds. This has come while the sitting U.S. President was from Texas and used to own the very same Texas baseball franchise (as opposed to the actual team) the Giants defeated this last week to become Kings of the Woild. I often thought it was suspicious that Barry Bonds was the poster boy for steroids as well as he was also the best regarded athlete from the city that never has- and probably never will- vote for anyone within the Bush bloodlines. That coupled with the fact that Texas energy companies- many of which since have revealed their shady and shoddy bookkeeping and insider trading sins - led the charge to raise California utility rates shortly after Bush was the Supreme Court-appointed Chief Executive. That in turn led to the special "recall" election that ousted former Jerry Brown aide and ally Gray Davis to install the Guvernator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, supposedly over Davis' inability to control what now appears to be a stacked deck of political cards that allowed firms like Enron and Bushie's very own Harken Energy to fleece their customers and common folk stockholders over such things as energy costs and then their own bankruptcies which conveniently allowed several at the top to parachute safely in gold till the political heat became so obvious that some heads had to roll as the symbolic sacrifices.

California got gouged, cheated and blamed in a series of politically inspired vendettas so typical of the Bushevik GOP era- one that amazingly still is ongoing at least partly because Carl Rove isn't in jail- or worse- as a traitor for revealing a covert intelligence agent among his many other indiscretions.

Examples of grimy Bushie Residues

A conspicuous parallel development while baseball fans have had to agonize over the legitimacy of current home run records is the large suspicion that this same sport looked the other way when the guys throwing those pitches being cranked out of the parks at a record rate were also on the juice (steroids). The key example of this might be one Roger Clemens who played for the Houston Astros among other teams and is a regular contributor to the Republican party and considers Texas his adopted home (he was born in Ohio). Both Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens face trials for obstruction of justice and perjury before Congress next year.

So amidst the end of the crashing and burning of baseball's allegedly "Juiced" era comes this year's Giants.

The funny thing is- and I have been hearing a hint of this from a few others here and there- I wondered at the beginning of this baseball season last Spring if this might be a different kind of year for these,"our", San Francisco Giants.

SF got an ace pitcher from their cross-bay Oakland A's rivals. But they got him after paying one of the highest salaries ever in a professional sport at which point the pitcher- one Barry Zito- proceeded to underperform in an alarming manner. It seemed that the Giants got Zito just as his skills were very rapidly declining. He was one of the key starting pitchers for a Giants team that had very little in the way of hitting but had finally- much in the manner of the Giant's most important and "hated" rival (we don't really want to use the term "hate" about a bunch of guys playing a game but...)- the Los Angeles Dodgers looked like they had gotten serious about hanging onto the young pitchers they had scouted and were developing.

About those "hated" rivals: those Dodgers were also a transplanted team from New York City who moved to California's golden climes the same 1958 year as the Giants. Their intracity rivalry continued into their California digs as a contest between the perpetual Yin and Yan of Cali: SF's iconoclastic cultural liberals and radicals and the hazy City of Angel's image-creating Mecca for mainstream fantasies. San Fran has always been the oldest of the "great" cities of the American West a city partaking of some of the charms of European sophistication along with an uncompromising and eccentric local-bred particularity all set within one of the most sublime urban geographies of any major city along with New Orleans in the entire United States. LA on the other hand is traditionally the very epitome of the expanding town center that spreads out radially like a tipped can of paint spilling slowly out onto it's deserty basin to form the nation's best known megasuburb. The joke to San Francisco types is that it's a suburb of itself.

Those G'ints of yore- notably the great teams with Mays, McCovey, Cepeda, Marichal and Gaylord Perry in the 60s won more total games but yet never got past those Dodgers of the same era with Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and Maury Wills who went 2-1 in World Series to the Giants 1 World Series loss to show for that whole decade's efforts. One of baseball's oldest sayings is that "good pitching beats good hitting". As a fan of the teams of my home town I'm sure I felt SF ended up being overshadowed by our southland competitors because they always had pitching first and hitting as an afterthought whereas the Giants seemed to be front-loaded on hitters and were lucky after the 60s when they could hang onto a starting pitcher who didn't implode after one or two good years or go on to play for another team and thereby achieve success there .

But these latest Giants had hints here and there over the last couple of years that they were becoming a nurturing ground for pitchers who would be a force to be reckoned with.

And at the very start of the year the same Barry Zito who had so disappointed at such an expensive price tag for failure started winning and winning it seemed everytime he took the mound. Not to be outdone the young star of the new pitchers, longhaired Washington state native Tim Lincecum, looked like a hippie Bambi and pitched like a rocket launcher with finesse. It became a guessing game as to which of these guys- the handsome veteran and the whippet thin but muscular fresh-faced new kid on the block- would be the first to lose a game. They weren't getting many hits to support them but they were getting just enough to get a fantastic start. The lack of hitting was the storyline for the couple of years after Barry Bonds was let go. In that time, the brightest of the newcomers, Lincecum had won back-to-back Cy Young awards - the highest award in major league baseball given to the pitcher who was the preeminent one for his year in each the National and American Leagues. I certainly couldn't remember the last time a Giant pitcher had gotten one let alone two and certainly not in his second and third years in baseball. Turns out only one other Giant won it, 1967s Mike McCormick.

This year's Giants were in the thick of things with San Diego's Padres in first place most of the year. The other young pitchers were having some great games- but here again especially for young Matt Cain the runs just weren't being delivered and he was losing games he might be winning easily with a bit of that "old" Giant hitting talent.

So far so good- I was paying attention because the Giants seemed to be holding their own in their division and came close to the top a couple of times but by August Tim Lincecum - and the other starters- were hitting a string of losing efforts and that old sinking feeling was becoming a familiar temptation to yield to for me and I imagined a lot of the more traditional fans as well. And then almost simultaneously Lincecum and company started to play well again as the San Diego team started to lose a series of games that was going to bring everything down to a wild finish and maybe, just maybe the Giants would survive to play in the baseball playoffs as a wild card or even a division winner.

Instead of merely that our fondest dreams came true as well.

And now onto "bulging prospects" and other horny sports details

At another site I'm in bed with a couple of Texans. No I'm not that lucky I just mean I do go to a site created by a denizen and native of the Lone Star state who leads an interesting life and writes about his life and thinking with an interestingly direct, very well-spoken and vivid sensibility. Along with Master Bigglesworth it suddenly seems this state is a serious threat to fully recover from the second to latest President extruded from its rebellious bowels. I can only surmise this must involve a superior healthcare system as the emissions of Nixons and Reagans have left the Golden State pallid and despondent as the decades have minced onward.

This state had- up till this year- a young athlete on the Texas University Longhorns football team who played at the quarterback position and who featured one of the more reknowned derrieres in recent sport history.

This young man also won more football games than any other quarterback in the history of college football- but let's face it- nobody really gives a crap about that outside of that houseproud territory whose lasting icon is a church where a famous losing battle was fought that didn't have a convenient back door when it was most needed.

The Alamo as it appears in the local newspaper of Texas Heaven- I think it has it's own section or something. Perhaps this is the true origin that inspired the Rolling Stones' song "(Hey You) Get Off My Cloud".

What Texas lacks in battle tactics it evidently makes up in the hineys of it's young menfolk.

Wait- that didn't sound quite right.

But no matter.

Anyway this young athlete was and remains named Colt McCoy. One of his competitors who played quarterback at LSU was famously quoted as admiring Colt's many attributes but misspoke in a Freudian slip heard round the football globe.

And speaking of globes take a gander at these:

And you just know that these silly Texans just love to brag about how everything is bigger in Texas and so would likely turn both of their other cheeks in order to be facing forward since the front is the traditional zone for young men to exaggerate the humongousness of their God-given attributes. But now we all know better don't we gentlemen?

I've always been a fan of Cali teams and this year I extend my fandumbness to the Oregon Ducks who are playing faboo football along with those guys from Stanford who are also so smart they could "whistle crossword puzzles at each other" as Dick Cavett used to say.

But I'd be lying if I said I couldn't really get behind Colt McCoy.

Apparently even though he's both recently married and looking like he may be a top flight NFL qb to boot(y) I'll have to take a number.

Peace y'all

(This is very slightly adapted from another site where I post about sports more than I do here.)

I'd be lying if I told you we all thought the San Francisco Giants were going to score 20 runs in the first two games of the five played at the World Series this year- but like that other SF team that was the first to a championship after a very long wait- they had guys who could work magic with a ball in their hands and they had a skipper who was probably the very best at what he did that year- putting his players in the best position to win. The guys around them caught on and became inspired by what they were a part of. If you can keep that going that may be the best team. And the two greatest champions of San Francisco- in the pros anyway- are these Giants and those 49ers.

My nephew Evan took a few of his Dad's ashes- my uncle Steve's- and wanted to put some of them on the field where the Giants played. He ended up sneaking some of those ashes into a bottle of beer- since Steve had Hep C he wasn't drinking beer and was on the liver transplant list- but to no avail- but that's what his son could think of to do because when Steve was healthy he loved beer. Seriously, I'm pretty sure if you like people who know how to make others feel welcome and absolutely at ease you would've loved Steve too. Anyway Evan went onto the field at AT&T Park and baptised home plate with a toast to his Dad who loved the Giants and 49ers. I don't know what game this was during these playoffs but it's damn hard to argue with success.

Every team has folks who love them for the enjoyment they bring and every team has a lot of those very same folks who are fans in memory only now (hey tell it to a few generations of Cubs fans- 102 years since their last World Series victory). The people who loved them always invoke the spirit of the departed as a bargaining chip in the raw deal of life that they hope will be a proper memorial. Well for a few moments tonight our loss at someone we wished could've seen this thing happen right with us is vying with that powerful sense that maybe, just maybe, our Steve helped loft that ball over the fences and pushed those winning runs across the plate.

Maybe, together, we all were a hell of a "team" this year.  

Hobbits and a Giant

Some people make you feel as though there's no way you shouldn't be here.

Right HERE.

And they are happy to see you- not in some way that's strained or officious or is a matter of being polite- but in a way that's just their way. Where ever they learned it, how ever they learned it or even if they know they've learned it- and that last may be the most important part because it means these guys (and by that I mean these women and men- we don't say "y'all" up here you know) do these things with what some people can only hope to attain...a humility and an unselfconsciousness that ought to be the goal of any people who remember that we're all just human and want to laugh but not at someone's expense at least not without empathy and love.

Who are these people? Saints? Well, I doubt if I can make a blanket claim but I'm thinking of my father's side of our family. Both of my parents seem to come from stock where pretentiousness just isn't allowed but my Mom's side has a touch of Italianate passion and my Dad's has a touch of Celtic mournfulness within those respective smiles. My Dad is witty, spontaneous and makes people laugh and my Mom loves to laugh and has more than a bit of goofiness and a ton of vivacity. Unfortunately the effects of age and habit- some of them ingrained past the point of frustration and tears hasn't helped this be so apparent in the years lately.

The biggest gathering of my Dad's clan was some years ago probably more than 20. What I remember is being in a sea of young men and women and boys and girls with gold and copper highlighted locks and a stunning array of brown, hazel and green eyes. Both sides of my fam are of shorter stature. It was a little like being at a giggling dinner of Hobbits. Sweet maybe even innocent the warmth was palpable. And it was a warmth punctuated by my aunt and uncle and some of the other family elders who possessed wry, self-deprecating senses of humor that never veered into self-pity.

It was fun seeing my aunt and my father and their kid brother- only three years older than me- share the kind of jokes that I knew and then knew exactly where that had all come from.

My aunt died a couple of years ago. The mother of a very large family- especially by today's standards- she'd been deserted by her husband at one point a few years after their second oldest- a daughter- had died tragically in a car accident as a very young teenager. That daughter may have been the epitome of that family's sweet nature I think - she was the kind of person whose loss makes many of us question if there could actually be any thing like fairness or balance in this world after all. More recently, a few years ago, her oldest son died of cancer- an unusual cancer that everyone suspected except the doctors who missed it. We won't go "there" as that has become too familiar a story to me as my life goes on. My late male cousin, my Dad's kid brother and I were all within a few years of the same age. My cousin's more recent death weighed heavily on my uncle who regarded him like his own younger brother as they all lived in fairly close proximity in Northern California north of the classic "wine" country of this region and in the heart of the old redwood forests and the legendary "pot" crops California may be the most famous locale for in the country and probably the western hemisphere - and I state that without any exaggeration. One of the amusing features of the banks up there- as far as I can tell - is that whereas most bank ATMs only distribute cash in denominations of $20.00 bills- the counties up there distribute the money in $10.00 bills. More exact change for the varied amounts of purchases? It's a region in which the decline of logging had led people to find other means of support to sustain communities and Miss Mary Jane appears to have a hand in much of the civic improvements and maintenance of what would otherwise be an even more depressed economy.

Fields of Green

Groves of Red

Sometime within the last couple of visits- which, sadly, have been precipitated by the latest family loss we found out that my Dad's kid brother, my Uncle Steve, had a deteriorating liver as a consequence of having Hepatitis C. Hepatitis C ended up being the culprit in my dear friend Dennis' death in 2006.

And a couple of weeks ago my sister called me prefacing the call with the words "I'm afraid I have bad news, Bob." My uncle Steve had died. While it wasn't totally unexpected it happened very quickly. His wife and soul mate- an intelligent, generous, delightful woman originally from New England is, of course, devastated.

Steve was a hell of a spirit and had a personality that lived large in many ways. A great sense of humor he was like the "Boomer" extension of my Dad's humorous and amusing side. A very generous man in his concern for those around him too. It's really a terrible loss.

Steve's wife and son were going to go to the Giant's playoff game against the Philadelphia Phillies at AT&T park with his Giants cap- his son went with his son instead. It was too much for his wife to do. Sadly, they didn't see the Giants win that night though I imagine they watched them win and thereby go to the World Series a couple of days later on Saturday evening.

When I was talking to my sister she said she'd had an odd experience at work when an older gentleman came in and she could've sworn he looked just like our Grandpa on my Dad's side. He died a number of years back so she knew it couldn't be him of course but she couldn't help but look at him in a momentary type of amazement. The next day Steve died. I told y sister that PLC's mom had told him that she'd seen her stepdad- whom she loved- the day or two before she died also. Of course she was on some pain meds too- but the story of parents who seem to show up as guides is a not uncommon theme I've heard here or there through the years.

The morning I'd gotten up that ended up being the day PLC's mom died I'd opened the door of my room to go outside and drive to work . As I was closing the door and then looked to the street a big black crow alighted on the telephone pole in the direct line of sight to the gate I always went through to go anywhere. He cawed and I had a bad feeling. I didn't want to see this bird there so I picked up a bunch of rocks and started throwing them at the crow- but I couldn't reach him and some came close but the crow remained there perched on the pole. I finally gave up and once I did that and started to walk to my car he spread his wings and then flew off. But I was shaken by the image and what my imagination was telling me in terms of an omen.

There will be memorial for Steve in early December and I feel I must go but I'm dreading it. On the other hand it's not as though I've ever had anything but good feelings about this side of my family and while it will be tough it will also be gracious and welcoming if the past is any indication of the future.

Saturday, the 23rd of October, 2010 was a very arduous day that ended about as well for me as a day can these days.

I had committed to go to Neil Young's Bridge School benefit concert with my partner and so I ended up tuning into a transistor radio as the San Francisco Giants playing to win the national League Pennant (the winner of the American and National league's respective two-team playoff one half of the so-called "World Series" championship event in the US of A and some of Canada too) in the odd moment- but among those moments was the one containing the story of the last three Philly batters versus Mr. Dyed Black Beard. There was one die-hard Phillie fan right behind me in his red coat and with wife (dressed in black and completely silent) and every time any news was announced about the Giants-Phillies a cheer or groan would rise up from the crowd. Every time any good Phillie news was announced- like the early 2-0 lead- this guy- a 50-something big, silver-haired guy about 6'3" or more would really yell- "Yeah- Beat Those Giants!" or something like that- I'm sure some of his phrases were toned down in deference to the perceived brie-eating and Chardonay-sipping sensibilities of us misguided locals and due to the fact that we were at a concert to support children with severe disabilities. And.. I have to offer that the "Bridge" concert is one of the most awesome assemblages of rock and pop music offered anywhere for a 6 to 8 hour show in the Bay Area and, I suspect, the country. It's not like you're trying to go somewheres that's a waste of time.

But as action-packed and stimulating as all that sounds is was a drizzly, rainy day and I knew it was 'spozed to be when I got up and the task of organizing ourselves to go anywhere meant negotiating through a gauntlet of medicines and now even medical contraptions that makes driving any distance from home like organizing a landing party at the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. The fear is always that we'll find ourselves somewhere having forgotten something essential that means we'll have to turn back and miss the event and eat the costs of the concert and the hotel room. That's something that's happened a few times before and now is just a fact of life but we've done pretty good with that this year. Nonetheless my gut feeling upon awakening was that I wished I had pretended I forgot about the show till it was over and made phony, after-the-fact apologies to my partner, Paul. I also wished I had known this was the crucial date for the Giants to probably do or die to go to a World Series. The fact is I wanted nothing so much as to lounge around the dump and wait for the hour when I would once again subject my partner to a sports broadcast that he had no particular interest in (though he usually claims he does so I don't have to feel guilty about it).

Well, we managed to do it and it's as though we hit all the green lights against my best rational estimates of how late we would be and how frustrated I would be as well.

The show was awesome- just as an example of some of the anxiety producing scenarios generally involved with any social engagement I bought a hotel room and tickets last year and my partner couldn't answer the bell so we couldn't go.

Just so you know we saw:

This is not my usual thing to mention here but when I picked up this morning's paper there was an article about a 16-year-old boy who'd been been murdered, stabbed 16 times, by gang members laying in wait. He hadn't done anything to merit their attention but one of the four young men, friends of the young man's, he'd been sitting in a car with had apparently had a run in with one of the gang members over that friend's girlfriend. Today, October 16, is the one year anniversary of the young man's death. I'd heard about this when it had happened and it was awful to think and feel about. As I read today's article with photos on the front page of the young man's devastated parents and the young man himself I became teary at the look of pain on his parents' faces and the sweet, open smile of the dead boy. He had been a victim of that circumstance and there is no one who can think about his passing who hasn't commented about his disposition of kindness and the care he had for his friends. It sounds like a typical reaction one often hears at times like these but inside the paper there is another different picture and the same qualities as described by his parents and his friends shines through this picture as well. It's a look that if you had no idea who he was or the story surrounding the remembrance of him today you would take to be representative of someone precisely as others remember him today. I can't imagine a more tragic loss for anyone or any parent.

The boy was deaf in one ear and there was speculation that he tripped or was tripped a year ago in part because he got a slower start in fleeing the scene and so was the one caught by the gang members rather than the object of their attention.

Within seven months of this death there was the shooting death of one of this young man's best friends- it also was evidently gang-related. Neither boy was a gang member and so there is an additional sense of alarm and outrage about these deaths and the threat it conveys to the westside Santa Cruz neighborhood both murders occurred in. Three of the five suspects in the first boy's death have been apprehended- none of the second boy's have been though.

About 15 years ago I had been doing one of my daily walks for exercise wearing my red 49er sweatpants and shirt. I walked from the Seabright neighborhood place I lived, next door to PLC, and down to the street next to the Santa Cruz boardwalk and then up a ways to West Cliff Drive, Santa Cruz's best known public walking, biking, casual strolling sidewalk in this area. It's right next to the sea on a short cliff above that sea.

Opposite the Boardwalk with its classic wooden roller coaster, mad mouse, fun house, laser tag and various hyped-up rides de jour as well as its myriad concession stands is a neighborhood commonly referred to as Beach Flats. Beach Flats has been populated by low-income Mexican families and workers and folks out of work for a couple of generations at least. It was at the time of my walk notorious for prostitution- women of "the street" being plainly visibly here as night descends and often in the sunlight hours as well- as well as the most famous series of streets for local drug traffic. Needless to say it was a poor community economically that featured increasingly shabby looking motels the closer you came to the beach. It's certainly not the first time I've been somewhere in which the poorest residents have a next-door view of the biggest economic tourist draw in their community- and hence the biggest revenue earner. A lot of towns are like this. I marveled almost 35 years ago at my one trip back east when I was walking through Washington D.C. that it looked like, as I liked to characterize it, a "spruced up Disneyland for government bureaucracy surrounded by a ghetto" with the racial lines of demarcation apparent to all.

Well after a year or two of doing my not-a-power-walk-more-of-a-lamely-determined-walk thing one day just as I was directly across the street on the "border" of said fabled Boardwalk and Beach Flats up walked a group of Mexican guys with an evidently older "spokesperson" and this "spokesperson" guy walks close enough to me to almost kiss me and mutters "red" as a type of inquiry and accusation. These guys are clearly going to block my path so I stop not able to think what would be wise right then and the same guy stares at me and asks me why I'm wearing red. Though I can no longer remember my answer it must've been along the lines of, "well it's just the team I'm a fan of and I really don't have anything else I'd wear to sweat in." I also don't remember what anyone in this group's response was but I gave it a beat and hoped that I'd played it dumb enough to have hit somewhere in the target of "hey I'm obviously a 40-something white guy in a not very new looking sweatsuit- clearly I'm not in a gang or making a statement" in the psychic airwaves of that moment. These guys made no motion except when their "spokesperson" made a subtle move that seemed to signal they weren't going to pursue the matter and I tentatively began to take a modest step in the direction of moving on my way. Thankfully that's what happened and I left the scene as the group sauntered in the other direction satisfied, I figured, that they had made their point about my being in "their" territory and to "watch it" or some other teenage terror bully sentiment. I breathed a sigh of relief that must've cooled the flop sweat I'd pooled in only a few moments from the incident while I made a mental note to start thinking about a new walking route to take.

As I walked further on I also felt resentment for obvious reasons but also for the fact that there seemed to be enough cops in town to be taking a bit more observant role in what must be becoming a more visible problem in town and figured that I'd probably just been lucky that I hadn't encountered a situation like this- or worse- before. I also started thinking about whether I should get a grey or a green sweatsuit as a psychological or physical assault from a group of disgruntled Batman or Green Hornet fans seemed to be an infinitely safer risk to take.

But to have to worry about what color you wear inasmuch as some folks felt "ownership" of two of the three primary colors was also a notion to foster resentment as well. What else would my pansy-ass be willing to give up to get by in life?

For those not initiated into the studies of Gang Color 1-A, the color red is associated with the "Nortenos"(Northerners) who are generally Mexicans who have been in the US for some time and feel a sense of it being their territory and the color blue is the "Surenos" (Southerners) who are generally recent arrivals. Recent or "old school" these gangs both lay claim to territories in US communities. I was aware when I was approached of the significance of red in this color scheme of gang identity but I suppose I simply had felt that it would be obvious I wasn't taking sides in a dispute which did not involve me personally or ethnically. Of course like most people who hear any news outside of their own four walls I had also heard of people being attacked and even killed who would clearly seem to be equally as clueless about how they had unwittingly set themselves up to be objects of unwanted attention, mistaken identity and violence.

People often refer to the poor first-generation Irish, Chinese and Italians- or rather especially Sicilians- as evidence of immigrant groups that established a foothold in influence and economics through gangs during the last century especially. The recently "capitalist" Russians seem to be famous for it in more recent times. There's no denying this but the peculiarly long term problem with a population culled from our actual physical next-door neighbors probably poses some problems not on a par with those other groups.

Gangs are a merry-go-round from prison to the streets and back to prison and back to the streets that has inculcated a tradition that plays into a weakness now becoming much more exposed in recent decades in the United States. Thanks to NAFTA the economic woes on both sides of the border have lead, predictably, to a desperateness which stems from native businesses in Mexico, the US and the western hemisphere in general being absorbed and or outsourced into more distant locales and becoming more profitable for ever shrinking and more concentrated ownership. There's plenty of work that needs to be done on both the infrastructure of both countries as well as services to and for many of us as well. But there is a shrinking supply of funds and people willing to invest in what it will take to get those concerns addressed.

When times are hard economically people will go where they can and must and others will find scapegoats for these same conditions. That's a combination in which people will feel their identities challenged and humans whose identities are challenged at some point almost always finds an outlet in violence. I really hate to say it but I think it's truer than we as a people would be able to prevent even starting here and now.

None of this is to excuse the murders in the story I related here. Either our lives matter or they are superfluous. But some problems can be helped and even solved and some can never be. There is no excuse for "never".

I'm sure some of you have read with horror the outright anarchy of the Mexican border towns that have had hundreds of innocent people killed in the crossfire of gangs and cartels. In Santa Cruz county and city there have been 14 murders so far this year that are considered to be gang-related including two very young Mexican teenagers of whom I do not know their affiliations if any but who also leave a trail of mourning in their wakes as deep as any for those who loved these children.

************

On a personal note PLC has lost his primary care doctor. She was a wonderful doctor and while not a Lyme expert had been willing to give PLC IV antibiotic treatment at the recommendation of a Lyme specialist we have to pay out of pocket to see. We are both convinced he may need more antibiotic therapy along with other medicines and methods that will help him become more resistant to pain and an ongoing case of insomnia that had him break down in tears to me yesterday saying that he felt "so alone". I knew what he meant even though I am not going through his experience I am going with him through his as an "outsider" who loves him. I only say outsider because it's impossible to tell someone you "know how they feel" when that person has become adept at understanding that he can't really believe that even though it would be a huge comfort to. What I can do is try to listen and accept. I am trying but it's hard for me obviously too. A lot of my world is tied up in this guy and I can't really have acceptance of his pain and misery have any place in it. I can only try to live with my unease and try to ward off despair as PLC tries to continue to live with his disease and ward off his.

PLC knows I love him in case you are concerned by that last paragraphs selection of phrases- that's not an issue of course.

The latest doctor who PLC was set up to see and takes Medi-Cal is a real pill and was both hostile to continuing PLC's pain meds- which do not resolve the pain but do offer some help in taking the edge off and occasionally keep it at bay especially if he has some distraction- and even more hostile to agreeing to follow an antibiotic therapy if PLC's Lyme doctors recommend it. Her story is that she would have to run that by an infectious disease doctor who's part of a medical group she is in. The infectious disease doctor she will consult is none other than the same doctor who said he could not be PLC's primary care doctor because "his case was too hard". This was after six months of being PLC's primary care doctor, ordering tests, not sharing the results with PLC or me and who would leaf through PLC's chart at office visits without landing on a page or a coherent rationale for his actions or lack thereof. He is also one of a newer breed of physicians who views pain meds with distaste. I see these people as New Age Puritans- favorites of the insurance companies who favor as little pain medication as they can get away with. If that worked I would be all in favor of it- but it clearly doesn't. This same doctor was told of PLC's insomnia 5 years ago and simply looked at us with a smile and said, "Well, no one ever died from a lack of sleep." When he said that I felt like strangling him as I said, "well did anyone ever die from a lack of oxygen you miserable misanthropic quack!!?" Just in case you didn't know this sleep deprivation is actually used as a torture technique -so this doctor's assessment in even making such a statement appears like all his other actions- as actionable malpractice with a sadistic emphasis.

His attitude about Lyme is that antibiotic therapy seems to help and then the person stops taking them and then they get sick again. So he doesn't see that as an effective treatment. Try telling that to an AIDs patient- I guess as soon as we stop taking our "cocktails" we'll just get sick again so what's the use?

Since PLC's insomnia has been on the rise and is making everyday miserable during the last number of months this is a doubly depressing thing to hear from the new primary care candidate along with the realization that her go-to consultant is an poor excuse for a human being let alone for a physician.

A greater underlying reality about all of this is that doctors either fall into the category of many of the infectious disease specialists who feel doubtful to hostile about ongoing antibiotic treatment for Lyme patients - whom many of doubt even still have Lyme but may be suffering with what they are calling "post-Lyme syndrome"- and doctors who have a wider experience with patients with Lyme who see antibiotic therapy for long time sufferers as essential.

There are peer-reviewed studies over more than twenty years that show that the spirochete that is the active agent of Lyme is resistant even after extensive antibiotics being administered because it can transform its form and "hide" in the body when antibiotics are administered. There is also thinking that these bugs mutate. There are, in addition to the Lyme spirochete, co-infections usually borne by the same tick(s) responsible for the original infection. These have their own insidious rhythms and debilitating effects and along with Lyme act on the brain, central nervous system, hormonal system, urinary tract among other areas and systems in the body. The recent discovery that HIV "hides" in bone marrow even during multiple drug "cocktail" therapy is an analogous fact.

PLC has just gotten up- it's late in the day and he's missed his regular time for meds but I'm hard-pressed to wake him when it seems that any amount of sleep is too welcome to interrupt. Despite what a moronic physician may say without rest many diseases do not improve as quickly as they should and with Lyme- especially if it's resurgent- it's virtually impossible for the body to heal without the aid of rest. We recently met another Lyme patient- a wonderfully talented woman who makes musical instruments- violins in fact. She has terrible insomnia and knows the price for this is no idle matter. It's hard to understand what a terrible toll something like this can exact from a life. There are so many things you are simply not functional to do or even free to enjoy in a passive manner.

Ironically my own doctor is another infectious disease specialist. I personally like his intelligence, his gentleness and his service to those in this community who he has helped through their HIV infections but he is resistant to all but the most conventional views of the other infectious disease groups who as a set of doctors have become a road block to more effective understanding and therefore treatment of Lyme which increasingly seems to be the poor, redheaded step child of HIV. Together they are a powerful one-two punch in the realm of illnesses that render a normal immune system insufficient to cope with the threats they each distinctively represent. Even the Center For Disease Control acknowledges that Lyme disease and its other tick-borne hitchhikers may be underreported by 90% or more.

As a telling anecdote I have to say that PLC came in to see "my" doctor- who neither of us knew at the time in 1993- with a rash PLC thought might be ringworm. "My" doctor concluded that it was not ringworm but never thought it might be Lyme. It has now been established that the famous "bulls-eye" rash associated with Lyme disease can be in many more forms than the bulls-eye. PLC and I have depressingly thought that my doctor may well have missed the first sign of an outward Lyme infection in which case PLC would've been sick for close to 15 years before an effective antibiotic was ever administered to begin to deal with it. That's 15 years too late. The other salient fact is that blood test for antibodies are famously unreliable as an indicator of Lyme and a couple of the other tick-bornes, in fact, the longer one has been exposed the less of an antibody reaction will show in blood work making a diagnosis, once it's missed initially, that much more difficult.

*****

Okay, okay enough with the grim shit!

It's my/our life but we do try to pepper it from time to time with much needed distractions.

I haven't had a chance to mention that as PLC loves live music as a way to focus on things other than his situation we went to see the "Jenny and Johnny Show" at the Rio Theater in Santa Cruz. That would be Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice who are both song writers, musicians, singers and in love.

We had seen them last year at the same venue and loved them right back.

They were very good this time too though I was able to make a bit more of the previous "Acid Tongue" show which had several songs roll out I could hang my hat on and enjoy.

They came with two very interesting opening acts, the first being Farmer Dave Scher. Farmer Dave is a singer and musician with a very non-sequitury patter before and between songs which was puzzling as well as amusing. The music had a sort of psychedelic punk hillbilly lilt and took awhile to get "there" but by the last two songs I was paying pretty good attention to the quirkily atmospheric sounds which became sublime. The group sounded from the intros to be musicians from Mr. Scher and Jenny Lewis' LA end of the state along with San Francisco and other Bay Area talents and definitely painted an eclectic picture on stage and aurally.

The second group was called the Ganglians and are apparently famous in their native Sacramento performing realm for an equally adventurous psychedelic hybrid sound. The lead singer must've sound checked the instruments and sound system before they actually played a song enough times to make several in the audience besides me suspicious that they'd just been pressed into duty outside the theater 15 minutes before the show. However with a lead singer who was so thin and had such a long, lank waterfall of blond hair he made the classic Johnny Winter of early 70s fame look like a bareheaded Marine by comparison and a shortish really rather cutish bass player who kept reminding me of a Hobbit they thrashed through their repertoire with enough authority and decisiveness and musical hooks that I'm pretty sure I'd see them again if they were appearing in another show. These guys really rocked. That lead singer though looked speed-freaky thin- a body like a series of determined pipe cleaners hanging together with sheer will power. He may be as mild as May in personal reality but he conveyed the weirdest sort of Alpha male vibe that was nonetheless still admirable.

Jenny and Johnny were very good again. And there were a couple of interesting moments. One was when a female in the audience shouted at her partner, Johnny, "I love you!" and she seemed to do a puzzled double take. I thought maybe it was kinda rude to shout that but I might have thought it should be expected. In Santa Cruz it is just as likely that a lot of the females in the audience were at least as interested in seeing Jenny and maybe even shouting a few "I love yous" to her as well. She is clearly loved here as well as most places she strums a guitar and sings for folks I'm sure. Jenny is very sharp but very down home and "everywoman" modest in the best senses all the while retaining an undeniable star quality. I've heard her described by one blogger/critic as the "queen" of this decades alternate/indy music scene.

At another point in the show they dedicated the show to "the people of Los Angeles" which I have no problem with except that they were here in Santa Cruz. I kept thinking that we missed some sudden news about a freak flash flood in Hollywood or Silverlake in getting to the show- but I found no disasters in the noos when I got home and warmed up the 'puter box.

In any event I found out later that the Santa Cruz gig was their first of their current tour and so felt we had been honored when I also read that the last show we'd seen with them had also been that tour's kickoff.

So I could only conclude they loved us Santa Cruz types too and in fact used us as their first live sounding board both times.

At the end of their set- which was the superb aforementioned song in an earlier blog- called "Big Wave" about the wiped out state of Cali these days they received loud applause and many of us tried to persuade them to come back for an encore but to no avail. I wondered a bit that maybe the crowd wasn't quite electric enough to justify their return to sing a couple more but I think it more likely they just needed to call it a night for reasons we wouldn't be privy to. And as Stuart Smalley would say, "and that's okay." We liked what we got.

Next weekend- for those reading later than the chronological that will be, or was, October 23rd, Saturday- PLC and I are planning to go to the Neil Young's Bridge Concert in Mountain View on Saturday night. We'd tried to get tickets to Sunday's show to catch Elton John and Leon Russell as well as Neko Case but they sold out fast- especially because I wasted my time trying to get tickets at Ticketmaster which may be the last time I bother with them. PLC found tickets for Saturday at another web venue (Stub Hub I think) and we get to see:

And that's a pretty outrageous line up- I'm looking forward to it, we both are. Wish us luck my dear friends. I'll issue a full report when I can get my little ole self togetha to do it afterwards.

NOTE: I actually wrote this in response to a thread on the only other site I post at and was told it was about 1 1/2 times the allowable size so I thought, "screw it I'll post it at Xanga". I only mention this because I noticed belatedly that I have a reference or two that doesn't make a lot of sense otherwise- not that you guys have ever mentioned it before when I prolly also didn't make any sense.