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Evergreen Notebook:
Writing with Rain
By David Joseph
At 9:25pm Wednesday night the Amtrak bus arrived at the San Francisco Amtrak office in front of Sinbad's next to the Ferry
Building on the Embarcadero and took us across the Bay Bridge to the Emeryville Amtrak station. The station has four large
wall hangings in square multi-colors in its high ceiling. Around 10:30pm train #14 arrived and we boarded. Shortly after leaving
the station I went to sleep in the bed in my compartment made up beforehand by Camille my Sleeping Car Attendant.
As I woke up the train was running through a series of tunnels, and then in the morning light, we entered Oregon. Nearing
Klamath Falls we saw a dusting of snow that turned into piles of snow with more falling. The mountains are forest covered,
and the fir trees looked like Christmas trees all covered in snow along their branches. When we ran through another series
of tunnels we were heading downhill again, and instead of snow, it was wet and raining. Around Eugene-Springfield it was overcast
and dreary-looking with mountains giving way to a valley of farmlands and pasture lands full of cows and sheep.
It was hereabouts that a blue sky peeked through the clouds only to disappear again. And I saw something I'd never seen
before: a rainbow that arced across a big part of the sky of which I could see both ends, a double rainbow.
Just beyond Albany, Oregon the train jolted to a stop. It seems that we narrowly missed running into a woman on the tracks.
She was all right, and we continued. I always remember how my mother died being struck by a train, always sobering. But riding
the train is a positive experience.
Near Salem dusk began to fall, and we continued in the darkness arriving in Seattle at about 9:40pm.
Larry was in the King Station waiting for me, and we immediately took off in the car to Stanwood, Washington north of
Seattle.
Today is Larry's birthday, and for his birthday he had to renew his driver's license. For supper Larry prepared his specialty
rice and beans in tortillas. It was delicious.
This morning the snow line fell to sea level, and flakes fell for a full three minutes at least. Then this afternoon they
started again bigger and thicker so that by sundown the lawns were still green. In the streetlight we can see the flakes falling
now. Maybe by morning the lawns may have turned white...(to be continued)
Larry cooked chicken chow mein with cabbage for dinner tonight. Mmmm, good.
Larry's daughter Eva, 5, is with us now. That means time to watch SpongeBob Square Pants.
The frosty-covered lawns and vehicles piled up with snow have already dissipated by morning with a deluge of rain which
falls heavily for most of the day. By afternoon a strong wind has picked up, a day mostly housebound, a chance to start
combing through CD s and cassettes and some of my numerous notebooks. Let's see, what have we here?
After a dreary, rain-soaked and windy day, a break in the clouds shines sunlight on my computer.
I'm sending this message with a link to my website.
http://home.earthlink.net/~davidjoseph/
After one minute of sunshine, the break in the clouds seals up. It reminds me of England where if there was a break in
the clouds for one minute we said it had been a sunny day.
Larry has a busy day today taking Eva to the dentist and then back up the Skagit River to the foothills of the Cascades
to the town of Concrete where her mother is living, and taking Hana and a girlfriend to the mall in Sedro Wooley to buy a
new coat for Hana.
Larry lives across the driveway from where I used to live many years ago. My rent then was $25.
I've got the radio dial set on 89.9 FM, French language service from Canada, currently playing a great selection of jazz.
Dorothy, you're not in Kansas anymore. Right now workmen are slicing lines into the red brick road outside the window
prior to more road work. The red brick road on this block is one of the last remaining brick road surfaces in Stanwood.
On the radio right now: the CBC Radio One out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Yesterday Larry took me to the Farm just out of Arlington off Highway 9. The field on the front of the property of some
eighty acres supports a flock of sheep and a herd of horses. Larry takes his water bottles here to a spigot coming out of
the side of the hill connected to the properties well and fills them up quickly due to the high water pressure. Nearby is
a set of solar tubes for heating water that pours out hot water at a scalding temperature. A garden plot on the site is mostly
lying fallow during the winter.
The Farm is a property of a commune, which, if I've got this right, everyone has the last name of Israel. Larry is working
for them in the remodeling of the barn and is putting on cedar siding today. The barn is being remodeled to become a residence
with two floors and a loft. Double-paned windows are ready to set up on both ends of the barn with colored glass on the outside
to filter the light through. Walls and ceilings are being constructed out of recycled white doors.
As we walked about the site we negotiated deep mud from the rains and horse manure piles and sheep pellets. The mud sucks
on the soles of our shoes, some of it sticking on. It reminds me of the Rolling Stones' song with the line "got to kick
that shit right off your shoes."
For the cassette player in the car some of the tapes I've found: David Joseph "Moving Walkway," based on Rhapsody
in Blue by George Gershwin, and Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris, and Porgy and Bess by Gershwin, Fiddler on the Roof
Original Motion Picture Soundtrack; some dance tapes, including Treaty Dance 1992 Tribal Voices and Others including Dead
Can Dance, Yothu Yindi, Midnight Oil, Genesis, Mekons, Romeo Void, and Sonic Youth; Radio David Joseph, including Sting with
the Chieftains, the Raspberries, Mekons, Uncle Tupelo, Sinnead O'Connor with Shane MacGowan and the Popes, the Pogues with
Kirsty MacColl, Love, and the Beatles; Dance Tapes I and II, including Communards, Peter Gabriel, Wham!, Tears for Fears,
Style Council, Bruce Springsteen, Talking Heads, and Those Fine Young Cannibals, Simply Red, Simple Minds, UB40, Jackson Browne,
and Mancotal; selections from Me, and I Heart Mekons, Franz Schubert's Octet, and Symphony #8 (Unfinished), Boubacar's dance
tape from Africa, I am Kurious Oranj by the Fall, excerpts from Electric Ladyland by Jimi Hendrix, The Best of Nina Simone,
Heart Beats and Triggers by Translator, Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares Volume Two, Once Upon a Time by Simple Minds, Songs from
the Big Chair by Tears for Fears, The Day, the Night, the Dawn, the Dusk by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Yesterday I purchased an adapter from Radio Shack that fits in the car's cigarette lighter to transform the power from
the twelve-volt so that I can play CD s on my computer while on the road. It also has a cigarette lighter port so that I can
plug in my cooler or my wireless phone as needed. The young man in the store was very helpful.
So some of the CD s I found to play on the road: Ska mix, The Clash, and Rockers Galore by the Clash, Billy Bragg &
Wilco's Mermaid Avenue, Billy Bragg and Michelle Shocked at the Dominion Theatre, London -- Winter 1988, Billy Bragg's ...at
the last night of the proms -- The Very Best of Billy Bragg, William Bloke, Reaching to the Converted, Workers Playtime, England,
Half English, Help Save the Youth of America, Back to Basics, Uncle Tupelo's No Depression, Gorecki's String Quartets Nos.
1 and 2, Betty A. Siu Junn Wong's In Xinjiang Time, and CPR Orchestrea's Chicano Power Revival
Some more CD s: Kiran Ahluwalia, The Best of Bruce Cockburn -- Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere, Peace Love & Music --
Starbucks 25th Anniversary Anthology, The Beserkley Years -- The Best of Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, National
Geographic Society Library of Natural Sounds Guide to Bird Sounds of North America two-CD set, Robert Wyatt, the Mekons Rock
N Roll, Bartok Mikrokosmos (Selection), It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing -- The Best of the Big Bands, the
Stanley Brothers -- Angel Band: The Classic Mercury Recordings, Cab Calloway The Jumpin' Jive, Sinead O'Connor I do not want
what I haven't got, a folk mix, Brian Wilson Smile, The Hives, Etc., Tell Us the Truth Chicago #1 & #2, Victoria Williams,
the Chameleons Live at Rockworld Manchester, UK, Chameleons Why Call It Anything? and This Never Ending Now, The Beautiful
South Quench, Paul Kelly Dumb Things So Much Water So Close to Home, Them featuring Van Morrison, Anita Sullivan Full Bloom,
the Kills Keep on your Mean Side, my song mix for Leah's birthday, Bruce Cockburn Breakfast in New Orleans, Robb Johnson The
Big Wheel, Punk Rock Jubilee, Chansons & Shepherd's Bush, Detroit Cobras Love, Life & Leaving, Electric Six-Fire,
Paul Kelly Nothing But a Dream, Billy Bragg Live Music Hate Racism, A Bingalls Christmas
Also some of Carol's compilations: Rock Dialectics Take This Job, I Love New York, NY City, Take 5 + A Few More, Rock
Dialectics Vol. 1
Right now on the radio: CBC Radio One programme: Q. Q: a hypothetical book of the bible based in part on scrolls found
in the Qumran caves of the Dead Sea. I'm still working on reading The Dead Sea Scrolls. Larry is reading the Bhaghavad Gita.
Some DVD s: Dockers Parts 1 & 2, The Making of Dockers, Billy Bragg Live on WFUV +% + Little Walter, Raining Stones
Parts 1 & 2, Diario de un Motociclista (The Motorcycle Diaries), Costa-Gavras' Z
Yesterday Larry had to bleed the fuel line to get rid of the water in the system to fix a tractor and get it running again.
He also took a trailer full of junk to the local landfill in Arlington. The previous owners stashed a lot of things on the
property that now must be hauled away.
The other day when we went to and from the Farm, we crossed the Stillaguamish River, and it was up to the top of its banks
but not overflowing its dikes.
But Larry's brother Elton in Centralia hasn't been so lucky. The basement of his house flooded with eight feet of water.
All their vehicles are totaled. All their chickens drowned. All their cattle had to tread water for twenty-four hours. Much
of their personal possessions are ruined.
Today six workmen are working on the red brick street in front of Larry's place.
Temperatures here are expected to drop below freezing beginning today.
Now some eight or so workmen are at work outside my window. Now the Caterpillar with a claw takes bites out of the concrete
and bricks and loads them up in the waiting truck. Now the truck is full and takes off. Now they do the hard work of shoveling
and making the ground even. Now the Cat is rumbling through the driveway, and I'm relieved that he missed my car by a long
shot. The driveway forms a U behind the house and comes out on the other side back onto the road again. Now one man is using
a compactor to tamp down the soil. The compactor looks like a lawn mower, and he has to move it around just like a lawn mower
or a vacuum cleaner. Now another truck backs up into place and unloads piles of steaming asphalt. Now they're shoveling it
into place to make it even where the entrance across the road and the sidewalk they put in yesterday meet. Now the man uses
the compactor to tamp down the asphalt. Now the truck dumps more asphalt this time on the dirt in the street. Now they bring
in the steam roller to weight the asphalt into place. The new asphalt steams. The compactor still has to come back in to finish
the job up followed by more steam rolling. Hopefully when they're done the street will be as good as new or better. It certainly
looks like it. But I'll miss the bricks on this part of the street. But most of the brick road on the block remains untouched.
Now hear my cry for help. I'm finding the task of adding new content to my web home page difficult to impossible. Currently
I'm unable to add new content. If there are any brilliant minds out there who can rescue me from this conundrum, please feel
free to help and I'll be eternally grateful.
This just in: Katia writes to tell me that her Uncle Fred passed away Sunday. To this sad news let me just say that our
hearts and our thoughts and prayers are with you in this troubled time.
Today, December 8, 2007, is the anniversary of the assassination of John Lennon twenty-seven years ago now, a date that
shall live in infamy. He would have been sixty-seven.
From the western facing windows here one can see the big picture laid out horizontally in a magnificent panorama. The
road down the hill diagonally and into the town of one and two-story buildings, the bay into which the south fork of the Skagit
River flows, Camano Island, and beyond the Olympic Mountains. Today, the first real clear day since I got here, and the clouds
were receding. I said to Larry, those clouds look like mountains, and Larry said something to the effect that those aren't
clouds, they are the Olympic Mountains. And today one can see them majestically rising from the Olympic peninsula and snow
covered to the west of us, a short way away as the crow flies, but quite a hop to get to by road.
Today was a day for going to the Food Co-Op for good organic vegetables, meeting up with Karla to pick up Eva, 5, for
the weekend, then sojourning to the Stanwood public library. Eva is playing next door with her friend Serena. Hana, 14, and
in eight grade, is in Everett for the weekend with some girlfriends.
Forty-nine degrees currently in San Francisco. Forty-two in New York City. I don't know what the temperature here is,
but it is c-c-c-cold. And our Canadian friends are looking forward to temperatures of as high as three or four degrees celsius
in the coming days. But to cap it all off it was a magnificent sunset tonight. We'll take it as a good omen: red sky at night,
sailor's delight.
Apologies for the double postings. I found a missing link in the evolutionary process.
This morning most of the snow that fell yesterday was already gone. If soldiers only had snow balls to fight with, with
global warming ongoing, peace would be liable to break out.
This morning was a foggy, foggy morning, much like the morning froggy went a-courting. It turned into a foggy day all
day, and it was cold outside like it is inside your refrigerator.
Some of my recent reading: from spirit to matter: new and selected poems, 1969--1996 by carol lee sanchez (message bringer
woman), Taurean Horn Press, San Francisco, 269 pages. An ample amount of carol lee sanchez's thoughtful, meditative work.
Some may recall when we worked with carol lee in the seventies in the Coffee Gallery poetry reading series and also in the
Poets Coalition. The poems in Spanglish have an immediacy and access ability flipping between Spanish and English and back
again.
Dinner is Served! A menu of Afro-Flesh and other entertainments by Garrett Murphy. Biting political satire in verse with
a cast of characters including Cynthia McKinney, John Conyers, Nancy Pelosi, Ralph Nader, Star Jones, and many more, funny,
but with a sharp edge.
I should mention that the house our family lived in in the middle of the town with horse grazing fields on three sides
after my mother's death no longer exists. The house and the fields have been turned into a giant QFC and parking lots. "Pave
paradise, put up a parking lot" to quote Joni Mitchell. Although, of course, it never was paradise, and, of course, you
never can go back. To take a phrase from Dylan, "No way home." For those of you in the United Kingdom QFC is a big
supermarket chain like Tesco I suppose, and a parking lot is a car park.
Those Olympic mountains are awesome today. Awesome is an overused word, but this time it fits.
I've completed manuscripts of two of Carol's books, first, her Collected Poems entitled "Fire or What Makes Us Human,"
and, second, "Letter from an English Prison," short stories. Now I'm beginning the manuscript of her book of short
stories called Charity's No Substitute For Love. It's keeping me busy all day. In fact, I need to get back to work on it about
now.
On the eighth day of Hanukkah I'm lighting all nine of my invisible candles on my invisible menorah. They're beautiful,
and they're safe. I can't start any fires with them. Like John Lennon said, "Eight days a week, I love you."
Larry has already picked out his invisible Christmas tree and put on his invisible decorations and filled the floor with
his invisible gifts. They're beautiful, and they're economical too. His Christmas this year is going to be less materialistic
and more imaginative. He'll be singing the Twelve Invisible Days of Christmas too.
I like the gift giving part of the holidays myself. I just don't think anyone should break the bank for me or anyone else.
It is the thought that counts, and it is possible to be thoughtful without running one’s debt up into the stratosphere.
The holidays can be stressful. All the family problems seem to come to the forefront at this time of the year. Who's going
to see whom and when? This year let's take a step back, take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Let's enjoy ourselves and one
another. It doesn't have to be stressful.
Trains and Rains.
Rains today.
There must be easily two dozen or more trains passing by here in either direction north and south every day both passengers
and freights about every few minutes day and night with whistle blasts at regular intervals and rail guards going down and
back up and blinking red lights backing up traffic.
None stop here. There used to be a railroad station here, but that was a long time ago. The nearest stations are in Everett
and Mt. Vernon.
There is a grainery which may sideline some cars, but if so, I've never seen it. I think trucks are the main delivery
and pick up vehicles there.
Today it's been dropping rain on the trains.
Happy Birthday to Jack Hirschman
My Network Places
December 13,
and this one
as well as any
other, it might
as well be
for you, Jack
so Happy Birthday
big fellah
Agneta's fetas
are to get I betcha
down on a sea dock
Carol's writings
Derek's Docs
and my Mocs
while Jack's fax
waxes ecstatic
(and Katiaana Thomskaya
Kant be a Thom son
because she is a Thom daughter
therefore she is
thee Katiaana Thomskaya
Kazaaing down
through Kaaatown
Thank you)
--David
Another rainy day in Washington state
Some of the things they carried: concrete, rocks, gravel, sand, glass, bricks, cement, logs, lumber, bales of hay, gas,
diesel, natural gas, horses, chickens, ice cream, milk, groceries, merchandise...
Vote to impeach Bush:
http://www.impeachbush.org/
Today we drove around locating the places where friends and classmates once lived and where one or two are now. Some are
living, and some are dead. Some we know their whereabouts, and some we've lost track of.
We went to Warm Beach (no public access) and saw the new McMansions with the beach access. You need an elevator or tram
to get down to the beach behind your property.
We saw flocks of geese and swans and hunters setting decoys out and sitting in blinds or in their vehicles waiting for
the prey to kill. We saw where the hunters had launched their boats to go duck hunting. We even saw a bald eagle. It's illegal
to kill that, fortunately.
We visited the Camano Island Thrift Store where Larry found a likeness of the King Dome, the football and baseball stadium
which no longer exists.
We visited Jack Gunter's new art gallery in Stanwood at the Village Cinema. Jack Gunter was there and showed us a science
textbook he wrote in which the students go inside the vice- principal's stomach to find their science projects. He did the
inside murals that portray a turn of the last century Stanwood in great detail. I'd never seen anything like it. He produces
copies of his originals on paper and canvas using a technique in which the pigments are specially ground up for application.
For dinner we had the rice and beans burritos we enjoy so much.
On Turner Classic Movie channel we watched The Charge of the Light Brigade starring Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havoland,
a ridiculous film glorifying the empire. So many horses were harmed in the making of it that it caused new laws to be enacted
barring filmmakers from harming the animals in their pictures.
Comedy Central had the antidote: Lil Bush, starring Lil Bush, Lil Cheney, Lil Rummy and Lil Condy spoofing all the recent
atrocities. It was a riot.
Remember to vote.
http://www.impeachbush.org/
A Haiku
Her finger rippled
water on the rose petals
in the porcelain bowl
Larry collects vinyl, what we used to call and still do call LPs--long players, two-sided disks of music. Larry's library
takes up two rooms of his house and includes collectable copies of Bob Dylan's works. Larry sells albums on-line to people
as far afield as France and Slovakia this week for example.
I've been so busy typing the manuscript of Carol's book Charity's No Substitute For Love that I've been going without
doing my daily crossword puzzles, but I've been able to work on one of them today.
Your vote and your friends and relatives votes are important:
http://www.impeachbush.org
Last night I discovered the Nat Geo, the National Geographic Channel with a program on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and since
I'm reading them, I found it very interesting seeing the compound of Qumran and the various caves where the scrolls were found.
I like the channel's historic and scientific approach, instead of a religious one.
Today Larry was in the process of putting more of his records for bid on the web. It's labor intensive. First he must
take digital photographs of the front and back of the sleeves and both sides of the record as well as anything else that comes
in the package such as posters. Then he must download the pictures to his computer and then to the web. He needs to type up
detailed descriptions of the condition and specifications of the disks and sleeves. It takes all day to put a large group
of records for bid on the internet, and in about a week or so, people will bid for his records. The highest bidders will use
Pay Pal to pay Larry, and Larry will send the records to them, another multi-step process.
Today I finished typing up the manuscript of Carol's book of short stories called Charity's No Substitute For Love. I
hope to print up a first copy, and reread and correct it early in the New Year.
One last day and one last night here in Stanwood for me. I packed my little car up to the gills with stuff that has been
sitting here for one nigh on two years now. I only left a few things, mostly clothes that don't fit me because they're medium
sized, only worn a few times, still as good as new. They can go to the thrift shop. For most shirt sizes I am and always
was size large, or at least a size seventeen dress shirt. I've got a lot of shirts and pants too, waist 34, inseam 30, in
case I ever have to buy any again. I even have an extra pair of brand new shoes I didn't know I had!
So the little car is packed up and ready to go, except for a part for the gas cap door to make it open automatically when
the lever is pulled up. So I'll either get that today, or else I won't. Larry is out picking it up now or not as the case
may be. Regardless, with or without the part I'll be shoving off tomorrow morning.
I could say that all I want for Christmas is the cap on my two front teeth; it has fallen out after all these years, originally
broken when my girlfriend accidentally hit it with her knee.
What I really want for Christmas is to be with my family in San Francisco. Oh, and something else I want for Christmas:
Dick friggin' Cheney to be impeached, sign Congressman Wexler's petition, now past 106,000 and going to 125,000 or more already
now maybe:
http://wexler.house.gov
PS: Happy Birthday, Billy!
Happy Birthday to Billy Bragg! He is fifty years young now.
One last cup of coffee and one more coffee for the road. Like always when I leave a place I feel that I'm going to miss
this place. But I've got to get back to my (other) life. I may return in May if I'm able. It all depends of course. But what
I will miss most are Larry and Hana and their great hospitality. Thank you so much to you both.
A new two-story building is going up on the Stanwood sky line, the manhattanization of Stanwood. Development continues
to develop. Even the rain doesn't deter them. And it's freezing cold out there. I feel for anyone who has to work outside
in this weather.
Yesterday, hail in Arlington and rain clouds here. And Larry found the part that springloads the gas cap door and installed
it in about thirty seconds maximum.
Last night, a fantastic sunset and CBC Radio Two briefly, and Nat Geo, now back to the Canadian French language service.
For dinner: eggs and potatoes.
Now one more hand shake and one more hug. And don't forget to impeach Cheney and Bush:
http://wexler.house.gov
http://www.impeachbush.org
My first day out from Stanwood I drove down I-5 to Portland, and from one end of the state to the other it never thinned
out, always wall to wall people in their cars. In Portland I took the highway 30 to Astoria, where I connected with highway
101 and made it to Seaside for the first night. The second day I made it to just after the Sixes in Oregon. The third day
I stayed on the road at the junction of highway 1 in the forest above the ocean. The fourth day I finally made it in to San
Francisco for Christmas eve and Christmas day. Unfortunately I felt ill and went in to see the doctor, who, if I've got this
right, thought that my problem was that I have high blood pressure. Evidently I have high blood pressure. Today I've been
feeling much better. I had some chores to do. I had to get the car smog certified so I could reregister it and also got an
oil change. And I need to take care of some high finances today, or, in other words, it's time to pay some bills.
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