Dogs Raining (reigning) in My Mind 9

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What’s with the phrase, in the doghouse? I’ve never understood it. I suppose it means a human is consigned to an outdoor doghouse, removed from the warmth of the parlor and cigars and cognac, and doesn’t get to enter into corporate decision-making that ruins the world. I’ll take that doghouse any day of the week over a playpen where someone barely human human (with his non-sidekick dog at his side) writes code for programs and apps that enrich corporations and deepen our collective dehumanization.

The 2008 film Wendy and Lucy is indisputably the saddest dog movie of all time where the dog doesn’t die. In the film, a homeless woman, Wendy, loses her dog, Lucy, and Lucy is eventually picked up by animal services and taken to a shelter, where she is adopted. Wendy eventually tracks Lucy down at her new owner’s wonderful home, and decides to leave Lucy there because she’ll have a better life. Interestingly enough, a woman, Kelly Reichardt, directed this film, which makes perfect sense, because certainly no man could with the level of emotional skill that Reichardt did. I want her to direct the film of this book.

Years ago, a woman wrote a harrowing account in the New Yorker of adopting a vicious dog from an animal shelter. Basically, the dog ruined her life. A short time after the adoption, her female partner moved out of their New York City apartment, she couldn’t have anyone over because the dog would try to maul anyone who did, she struggled with the leash when she took it for a walk, her career went down the drain, and she verged on a total nervous breakdown. Her partner, friends and family begged her to have the dog euthanized because all attempts at training and loving the dog had failed. She refused. She was certain she could heal the dog. She would not give up on a dog that had suffered extreme torture at the hands of human beings. I no longer recall how the story ended, but it felt like the woman made it more about her than the dog. She had transformed herself into a tortured human being (probably dredging up some horribly latent personal trauma) but was in fact sententiously torturing the dog with her human doggedness to act with kindness to save a sentient being. The ultimate act of kindness she could have administered was putting the dog down so it could rest in peace at long last. The dog’s last breath would have finally brought her the compassion every sentient being deserves. To euthanize in this case was to save a sentient being.

I once was waiting naked in bed waiting for a woman with green fingernails and green eye shadow to join me. It was to be our first time having sex. She was changing into something playfully pulled from her closet. I imagined it as something sexy, perhaps even green-colored to match the rest of her aesthetic. She came out wearing the maroon jersey of Michael Vick, the professional football player who ran a dog fighting operation and killed his dogs with pistol shots to the head. I got up, got dressed, and walked out. I can’t recall if I said anything. Perhaps I barked. Raymond Carver wrote a poem called “Your Dog Dies” that really isn’t about a dog dying. It’s about a poet writing a poem about writing a poem about a dog dying. The poet is writing and then hears the hectoring scream of a woman but keeps writing and the poem ends with him wondering how long can this go on. Carver’s poem is a pithy masterpiece of the, “I’m-writing-about-dogs-but-it’s-really-about-how-menacing-humans-are” school of dog writing. I like to believe my book about Bonnie and Clyde does not belong to that school. A curious thing about me: I don’t have a tattoo of a dog on my body. I do have one of a cougar and geese. Strange.

I am writing this in the Year of the Dog, my year of the dog. This is no accident.

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Dogs Raining (reigning) in My Mind 8

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“Man drowns trying to save his dog,” read the headline. “A 72-year-old Lake Oswego man died Sunday morning after he was swept out into the ocean while trying to rescue his dog off a Lincoln City-area beach.” The dog survived. Many such tragic episodes have unfolded and continue to unfold across the world. (I collect the articles.) A man (it’s typically a man, usually older) drowns in a river, lake, pond, creek, irrigation ditch, and of course, the ocean, while trying to rescue his dog from drowning. It’s a whole fascinating, but largely overlooked dog story genre made all the more fascinating because in almost every human drowning, the dog survives! I sort of like that and like the effort expended on behalf of the dog. It was not wasted. Those articles imbue something wonderful in the people who read them. I would dive into a surly ocean to save my dog, or a complete stranger’s dog. I know I would not die. I would perhaps not dive into a surly ocean to save a human being, not even a child. I know I would die. Does this make me a terrible human being? Maybe it’s all a big metaphor for our failed humanity that I am constantly trying to correct.

In John Berger’s book, About Looking, he writes:

The pet (dog) completes him, offering responses to aspects of his character which would otherwise be unconfirmed. He can be to his pet what he is not to anybody or anything else. Furthermore, the pet can be conditioned to react as though it too, recognizes this. The pet offers its owner a mirror to a part that is otherwise never reflected.

Bonnie and Clyde held up a mirror to me (actually it was their furry faces) and I saw something that was never reflected in me before and now I am writing this dog book to hold up as a mirror for others, a mirror I’ve carried along a high road, which is something Stendhal said an effective novel must do, even though some will blame the mirror and not reflect on its reflection. That will indeed happen with this book.

Berger also claims Man’s first metaphor was an animal, probably a dog, because dogs were Man’s first companions, and this bond developed long before Man acquired language. Berger also writes: “The animal (dog) has secrets which, unlike the secrets of caves, mountains, seas, are specifically addressed to man.” Oh, very, very true. Moreover, does anyone ever lie to their dog? I never did, only to other human beings. The Coyote figures prominently in many Native American myths and legends, particularly in the Pacific Northwest where I live. These stories, where Coyote serves as trickster and provider to Indians, are certainly more interesting than most of the didactic, wrathful and humorless ones I grew up reading in the Old Testament (Jonah and the whale excepted). I think my favorite one is when Coyote creates a large waterfall on a river well upstream from a village. The waterfall blocks precious salmon from reaching the village and Coyote created it as punishment to the villagers because they wouldn’t let him marry one of their females. Isn’t that far more interesting than the story of a trickster God ordering a man to kill his only son with a knife and then burn the son’s body on an altar to prove loyalty to the trickster God?

Sonny the husky was the Coyote trickster in my life. She also provided. She also provided for others by serving as a foil in my storytelling about human beings and their answering to their higher angels, as James Madison memorably described it in one of his essays in The Federalist Papers. It’s not funny how the Founding Fathers often treated their dogs with more humanity than their slaves. That gross contradiction still festers within our body politic in the form of one third the members of the US Senate. You know where they hail from. If only Reconstruction had been allowed to continue for 50 more years. You wouldn’t recognize this country. There wouldn’t be a need for animal shelters.

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Maps and Journeys Writing Workshop in Astoria March 24

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Writers:

Almost everyone past a certain age has a paper map story of discovery or frustration. Are you a map person? What is the metaphorical map to a person’s past or future? What were the unforgettable journeys in our lives? What are the ones we hope to take in the future?

Maps and cartography hold a special place in human imagination and history. Writers write about journeys all the time. In fact, stories and poems about journeys are some of the oldest writing known to humankind. Just think The Odyssey and Moses wandering in the wilderness.

Join author, editor and writing instructor Matt Love, Saturday, March 24, for a “Maps and Journeys” writing and creative thinking workshop in Astoria. In the workshop, Love will guide participants through a series of writing prompts, cartography exercises and discussions that employ the realities and metaphors of taking journeys and consulting/making maps. Writers of prose, poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, songs and scripts will each find unique inspiration for their work as they delve into the investigations of maps and journeys.

The workshop runs from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in Astoria in a private home. The class costs $65 and will cap at 15 participants. Participants will pay at the beginning of the workshop. Scholarships are also available. To register, email Love or contact him through this blog.

Yet again, a Short Story From the City

Fiction, NSP Meditations , , , , , , ,

Rain falls. Sun shines. Hail collides.

I stocked two free street libraries with my books. It’s pretty much the only way I distribute these days. But when I return, the books are always gone. I can’t say that about bookstores. Free is good. Free books find their way to the most interesting of unforeseen readers. I’ve heard from a few in recent years.

I was in this coffee shop 23 years ago on the day it opened. A few minutes ago, I met the man that opened it and he still owns it—remarkable. We talked about the time he installed the red tile floor and the gentrifying changes in the neighborhood. He told me wanted out, out of Oregon, perhaps to Tennessee to start a commune of sorts on cheap land. I’ve been hearing similar stories of real or potential exodus from many long-tern Oregonians. Something has dramatically shifted and they are highly irritated. The owner then began talking about the late Republican Governor Tom McCall’s bold governing initiatives. I produced a reproduction of McCall’s 1970 campaign bumper sticker from my back pack and presented it to him. He nearly fell out of his chair. He thanked me and got up and affixed the bumper sticker to the front window. He came back over and sat down. “McCall was something else,” he said. “Have you ever heard about that rock festival he put on? Vortex?”

“I’ve heard of it,” I said.

We talked of Vortex for a few minutes and then he drifted away. I went back to writing a love letter to someone who loves me but doesn’t want to love.

An elderly woman wearing a red smock dragging on the floor reads a newspaper.

An elderly man reads a novel and mouths the words silently as he reads. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that.

Ryan Adams plays softly. Drunk Ryan Adams, not the boring, later sober Ryan Adams.

I have not seen a phone in use. Places like this still exist in the city but they border on museum exhibit. Maybe I’ve become a walking Oregon museum exhibit. Dig it.

My mind floats to an old girlfriend I used meet near here—The Ship—a classic OTA dive bar. It’s still diving, thank god. I wonder what happened to her. I wish I knew where she was. Great first name—Tina. She kind of looked like Mary Tyler Moore but without the huge smile.

Another older man just entered carrying a huge three-ring binder. They are rare in public these days. Once, the nuclear codes were stored in three-ring binders. I think we might have been safer then.

Two older women take a window seat. They start talking in whispers. Secrets!

I’m wearing a 50-year old plaid Pendleton shirt that was originally given to my father by my grandmother. After I die, I want it to go to the right person. I’ll mention this in my will. I know the person. She might even wear it without irony.

Why do I write these stories from the city? They aren’t even stories. Nothing happens. I suppose that’s a kind of story, a slow-motion story of nothing.

The man opens his binder and I notice notebook paper with notes and diagrams. I think he’s studying for a test.

Time to roll out onto the streets. I wouldn’t mind feeling hail. Hail hurts, but I like the sting on my face.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

On Watching Perry Mason with My Dad

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Over the course of the past year or so, I have watched about 40 episodes of Perry Mason with my dad and I have found the experience one of the more pleasurable things we’ve ever done together. We always hold a running commentary during the show where we surmise, gesticulate, laugh, critique, reference history and rate the episode.

He’s seen every one of the 271 episodes at least a dozen times. He hasn’t forgotten the outcome of any case. He will never reveal to me who committed the murder until Perry’s cross examination reveals the true culprit. I keep waiting for the one case Perry lost or those rare color episodes.

The suits, the sweaters, the cars, the cocktails, the cigarettes, the home décor, the dresses, the hairdos. Paul, Della, Burger, Tragg, Perry’s prodigious girth that grows with every season, the black and white broadcasts, the blackmailers, the greed, the embittered dowagers, the gigolo freeloaders, the hack LA actors, the bit players who later became stars. What’s not to love?

Perry Mason was a Portland cultural institution for decades. Noon. KPTV. It was on in bars and reception lobbies and jails and lunch rooms. Then that tradition got swept away along with a lot of other quirky great Portland traditions. The time of Perry Mason in Portland at noon was over, never to return.

But not in my dad’s house! Or at least at 9:30 in the morning.

What draws Dad to the show is 1) the unique procedural aspect to it. There are no jury trials. All the courtroom drama unfolds in preliminary hearings to determine if there is enough evidence to proceed with the charges. We are spared histrionics and pandering to a jury; 2) Excellent English. The language, the diction of the performers, the use of words like “testamentary,” and the proper conjugation of the verbs “lay” and “lie.” (which I’ve never quite mastered!). He claims contemporary television shows butcher the conjugation of lay and lie all the time and he keeps a little library of them in his head. Eighty-seven years old and he’s teaching his writer son ( a former English teacher) English through Perry Mason! There ought to be a show about us watching this show! He’d teach the rest of us how to conjugate the trickiest verb in English.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

Probation Poem February 5

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A man in a black suit

skateboards across

the parking lot

of the probation office.

He sports a blue and gold striped tie.

He’s wearing orange knee pads

and red, white and blue sweatbands.

He’s wearing one orange sneaker and one black one.

He’s carrying a black briefcase in one hand

and a cigarette in the other.

He takes a drag off the cigarette.

His hair is long and streaked with gray.

He’s older than I am.

 

It’s raining.

 

The American flag looks spent.

The sweatbands have more spirit.

The weather machine atop the office

records the salient data of weather.

No such machine for humanity.

I am that machine.

Walt built me into it.

I am reading Walt Whitman

in the car.

 

I’ve got my supplies for the Walt

writing workshop with me.

I may spring it on the men

today.

I want to be the only person

in the history of probation

in America

who conducts a five-minute

writing workshop inside

a probation office.

We’ll write with

golf pencils

on the back of

William Blake postcards.

We may sing.

No one will hear us.

 

Who will show or not show today?

Of course, one might show

but not truly appear.

I’ve seen that.

 

Walt wrote:

I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold.

 

I read that line again.

Everything around me here

rallies to defeat my announcement.

I feel I’m losing belief in Walt.

I’m losing faith

in my ability to care.

I hadn’t wavered until now.

Something in the sweatbands did it.

It’s not funny anymore.

It’s not poetry.

 

The machine in me stops.

 

Five minutes later.

I sit in the lobby.

A man is unraveling next to me.

Another man strops himself

yet only becomes duller.

Sweatband man

washes the windows

with toilet paper

and announces his

labor is barter

for court costs

he will never pay.

I notice a Rosa Parks

sticker on his briefcase.

He encrusted plastic jewels around it.

They sparkle,

the windows, too.

 

Sweatband man

talks to another man,

the one living under

the bakery.

He’s telling him about

skating with a piece

of stolen plywood,

and discoveries

in his new Bob Dylan (his words) basement:

three keyboards, three guitars, a drum machine.

He wants to get a band together,

a rock and roll band!

He doesn’t know how

to play an instrument.

The other man doesn’t either,

but he wants to be in the band.

This is how the Go-Gos started.

This is how Walt started.

 

I laugh to myself.

The machine hums to life.

I thought rock was dead!

Not with these men.

I might even join the band,

Walt, too!

We’ll cover Bob Seger

and the Go Gos,

but there will be some originals, too.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

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