Sactogator's Open Salon Blog

Leaving Seattle With No Excuses

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:08:20 -0400

A long week for me, missing my wife and daughter, and I finally reach my last day in Seattle. It’s a little cooler this a.m. so I throw on my running shoes, grab my iPod shuffle and listen to Seattle’s own and one of my favorite bands, Alice in Chains, and I’m out the door for a long run.

I run past the Experience Museum, a tribute by one of the other founders ofMicrosoft, Paul Allen, to his musical hero, Jimi Hendrix. It’s a funky building that from the east side looks like a number of overlapping silver waves, punctuated at street level by the occasional oddly-shaped window. Heading around the south side down Broad Street and the main entrance, it becomes a mish-mash of a bad cartoonist’s imagining of an acid trip, a little too cliché and obvious, but typical coming from a man with an intellect likely unburdened by illicit drugs and who, during his formative years, remain locked in a room with nothing more than a slide rule and a strong desire to get one over on the jocks that made those formative years a living hell. S’cuse me while I kiss the sky…

Next up is the Space Needle, the throng of tourists thick, all waiting to pay a fairly exorbitant sum to ride an elevator into the clouds and peer Chevy Chase-like over the Sound as the container ships slice north through the chilly water toward distant, exotic destinations.

After the tourist spots Broad Street takes a steep dive down toward Alaska Way and the waterfront. At the bottom of the street I take a right hand turn away from the restaurants and tourists sites and enter Elliott Bay Park, a beautiful verdant shoreline park for runners, walkers, bikers, and folks just plain relaxin’ on the rolling mounds of city-planned green grass and enjoying the panoramic views across Puget Sound. I love it down here. The path follows the shoreline in lazy arcs as I run north toward the interbay access. The bay is still glassy at this early hour. The shore is lined with coffin-sized driftwood trunks, beautifully weathered white-grey, and the water is surprisingly clear, revealing thick, algae-covered rocks just beneath the surface. It is far more rugged than the aquarium-like warm waters of my home state of Florida, and the vastness of the Sound only emphasizes how small we are in the grander scheme.

The trail makes a hard right turn to the east at the interbay access, a couple of large canals with rail spurs for all sorts of large industrial ships and cruiseliners. Across the canal I see several large ships, including the Endeavor, the Katie Ann, and the Ocean Rover. When I hit the turnaround at the corner of Gater and 16^thAvenues West, I stop and check my chronograph (25 minutes on the nose) and perform some half-hearted leg stretches. I begin the return trip and when I reach the shoreline at the end of the access, I look up and out over the bay I see a huge jetliner flanked by a couple of small jets. Images of 9/11 flash through my brain, but the jetliner is heading south, directly in line with the runways over at Boeing, and I figure they’re testing a new jet. Still, it is an odd sight.

When I am back near Broad Street I cut up through Olympic Sculpture Park, a huge greenspace above Elliott Avenue where public art is displayed. It’s a beautiful park, lots of grass and packed stone trails, all seemingly built to match the contours of the surrounding area, blending well with Elliott Bay Park and the urban landscape to the east.

Layne Staley is in my head as I leave Olympic Park. Good thing, too, I need the company as I focus on putting one foot in front of the other whilst I climb back up Broad Street, my calves fairly screaming as I pass the Space Needle and the throngs of tourists, back across busy city streets and once again running past the Experience Museum.

I’m immersed in all things Seattle as Layne’s voice bounces around my noggin singing No Excuses,and as I finish my run I become a little sad. Jerry Cantrell wrote the song about his dysfunctional relationship with Layne because of Layne’s addictions, which he eventually succumbed to, but more than that I think in the end it’s a song about unconditional friendship, which is a beautiful thing.

You my friend

I will defend

And if we change, well I

Love you anyway*

I'll miss Seattle, and I miss Layne.

*Alice In Chains, from No Excuses, lyrics by Jerry Cantrell

Reunion Finale

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:08:10 -0400

Didn’t wake up at the crack of dawn as I had planned. The reunion party at the wine cellar went later than I anticipated. I did squeeze in a ride though, up and down and up and down the Key, the old haunts flying by. Afterward I hit a new place for breakfast, run by and old British couple, and the omelet is fantastic. And today is finally a bright and sunny Sarasota day, the kind I’m used to, so later in the afternoon I decide to get a run in on the beach. Each morning on my bike ride I see people running out on the road and I’m thinking what the hell, you got a gorgeous beach about 500 feet west and you’re running on the road? Not me brother, give me that powder sand, crystal water, and a blazing sun.

After my run I head over to the daiquiri bar for another steak fajita to get me through ‘til dinner. I look inside and since it’s Saturday afternoon the place is packed with scantily dressed twenty-somethings, male and female, and the vibe is too spring break for my tastes consarnit! so I just head next door to the 7-11, yes, 7-11, and score some fruit and water to tide me over.

Seven o’clock soon rolls around and it’s time for the second go-around at the reunion, a combo cocktail hour, dinner, and then dancing if enough alcohol has been consumed. For some reason I’m less nervous tonight. The digs consist of a ballroom at the same restaurant, couple of bars and about fifteen round dinner tables, like a wedding. I walk in and head immediately to the bar so I can have a drink to keep my hands busy as a meander around trying to find a group to infiltrate. I see my old neighbor Rob and his wife. Rob lived in my neighborhood, and I remember sneaking out of the house one night senior year to go to a party over at his house, and when I came back and tried the front door, it was locked, meaning the old man knew I was gone, meaning I knew I was a goner. I hang out and b.s. with Rob and some other folks for awhile, and then I see Tara and Cindy come in. I tap Tara on the shoulder and playfully remind her that she promised I could sit at her table so as not to be a pariah and total capital “L” loser. She laughs and she and I and Cindy talk for awhile as other people come in and the place starts filling up.

I run into other folks I haven’t seen for years and am not even sure they recognize me, but they do. Cameras come out and flashes start to pop around the hall as everyone tries to memorialize the evening. Before we know it dinner is being served and we haven’t even grabbed a table, but Tara and Cindy and I find one and I find myself sitting at a table with some of the prettiest and more popular women at school. I figure it’s the cosmos telling me that Yes Paul, you have lived a good life. I tell the cosmos Yes cosmos, thank you, but if I may be so bold as to ask where were you thirty years ago? Water under the bridge I figure. And everything happens for a reason, right? To lead you down a path to a certain place and person, right Jen?

Still, I think there are few stranger things in life than sitting next to not one but two female members of the homecoming court at your reunion and learning that one has two children over twenty years of age and the other one has six children and six grandchildren. That is life literally laughing at you, and you saying to life WTF? And then you show them the photos of your beautiful three year-old daughter and they oooo and aaahhh and tell you how adorable she is and at that moment there is less WTF and more understanding about life and its complexities and its occasional awesomeness.

I find myself having a really good time. Everyone is laughing and talking and gesturing and eating and drinking and the vibe is perfect. For me all the b.s. of high school—the insecurities, the pettiness—have vanished, taken over by a maturity and self-confidence and ease made possible only by the passage of time. I’m comfortable.

Marsha, who put together most of the reunion, takes the microphone and makes some announcements. She gives out some tee-shirts and other little gifts for things like the longest marriage (Cindy, 29 years, wow!) and most places lived (Bob, a former baseball player, 34 places). She also names everyone who served in the military, and when she calls my name everyone at our table cheers, and I’m slightly embarrassed. Then Scott gets the microphone and he has been charged with telling some anecdotes and doing a little roasting, the best being about a classmate who is now a police detective, but who, according to Scott, couldn’t find his ass with both hands back in high school.

So it wouldn’t be an evening if there weren’t a glitch, and this one is so distasteful I will just rush through it. A person (I don’t even want to i.d. gender or name) I used to play a certain sport with (nope, won’t say the sport either, don’t want people deducing) came up and we had a pleasant conversation for awhile, until we were discussing something and this person managed to work in how those “filthy Mexicans” were taking over a certain area. Wow, did you just say that? Said person instantly went from mildly attractive to repulsive. Never spoke to them again. Alright, enough negativity, let’s just Cel—e—brate good times come on!

After dinner the d.j. starts to spin some of the music from back in the day, and unfortunately it’s not Aerosmith and other 70s rock I and a few others appreciate, but mostly the shit that can be danced to and rhymes with blisco. No matter, it gets people on the floor. I’ve had enough vino so that when Tara and some others grab my hand they don’t have to pull too hard to get me out on the dance floor where I proceed to get my funk on. Oh my.

After getting said funk on for several sets the evening is coming to an end. Tara is taking off and I tell her what a fantastic time I had and that it was beyond great seeing her. It’s a bittersweet goodbye because even though I tell her my wife and daughter and I will be back in a month down at the beach and she and her husband should drop by if they’re around, I know I’ll probably not see her again. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be, that despite facebook and classmates and all these other electronic marvels that let us connect with past versions of ourselves, perhaps life tells us that the past should be the past, the present the present, and though mingle they may, never shall the twain meet in the future. Except for designated Saturday evenings every decade or so.

Reunion, Round One, Ding-Ding

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 16:08:43 -0400

This afternoon I finally venture out to the beach under dark blue/black skies and a wind that blew loose sand over hard making the beach look like the set for Lawrence of Arabia. Still, I managed to get my run in to assuage my guilt for the debauchery sure to ensue tonight at the reunion.

After a quick shower I walk a half-block up to a daiquiri bar restaurant for a small lunch. Sitting next to me at the bar are two twenty-something guys hitting their first daiquiri of the day (it’s 2:00pm). The one next to me is kind of chatty and we bullshit while I wait for my steak fajita. Before their daiquiri glasses are dry they order what appear to be super-sized Long Island Ice Teas, and just so the Long Islands don’t get lonely on the bar they get a couple of drinks called Mind Erasers—I can only imagine. Before I’m finished with my fajita they’ve polished off the drinks and order a couple of beers. Chasers I guess. I comment to the one young man that they can sure put it away, and he says this is their second go around, that after they’re done at the daiquiri bar it’s off to the beach for awhile, then sleep til 7 or 8 and start again. I laugh and shake my head and say that if I tried that it would kill me. He laughs and says that’s just what his dad says. Ouch. I tell him I have to save my drinking for my high school reunion that evening and he says, and I quote, “Oh yeah, you gonna get mad-rockin’ drunk tonight, eh?” “Yes,” I lie, you know it, “Mad rockin’ drunk, absolutely!”

This is the first night of two-nights for the reunion, a cocktail reception in a local restaurant’s wine cellar. Tomorrow is more cocktails but with dinner thrown in. I arrive at the designated time and things are already pretty well underway. The guy in front of me in line was in my 6^thgrade homeroom at Phillippi Shores Elementary, and the surreal vibe sends me to the bar for the first of my two-drink quota (I’m driving, but it’s a long evening). Other people I haven’t seen for literally 30 years come by, we chat, more people come by, we chat. Soon everyone realizes that manners are out the door as far as trying to be nonchalant while looking at name tags which have our high school photos. After the liquor has been flowing for a little while you just walk up to people and practically grab their name tags. I know you! becomes the phrase of the night, along with the other, less desirable Nope, don’t remember you. Ouch.

Soon after I arrive I spot her across the room and she hasn’t changed at all. I’m amazed when she looks over, smiles wide, walks over and gives me a big hug. Her name is Tara, and no, she’s not an ex, just somebody I considered a good friend. We sat next to each other in Ms. Davis’ art class (my favorite class) senior year and had a really good time together. The thing about Tara was she was one of the most popular kids in school, everyone seemed to like her, and she was always ready with a smile that really brightened any room she was in, but she never looked down on me because I was a surfer and smoked dope and didn’t hang out with the people she hung out with. I liked that.

Tara was with her husband, a truly nice guy in his own right, and we talked about kids and travel and life in general. While talking to Tara and her husband another friend came by that we both knew, Cindy. Cindy remembered me, but I wasn’t sure she remembered that back in junior high we kind of liked each other for awhile and even sort of went out a time or two. Neither of us mentioned this fact, but later that evening Tara came up to me practically bursting. Cindy told me ou were the first boy she ever kissed! Well, I guess she did remember. Cindy and I had a good laugh over it later in the evening. She and Tara even sent Cindy’s husband a iphone photo of Cindy and I and telling him my role in his wife’s sexual evolution. My only question to Cindy was Is your husband a large, quick-tempered man? She laughed and said he would get a kick out of it.

I really had a much better time than I anticipated. I talked to tons of people, many of whom I would not have in high school. All in all it was a fantastic evening. The only glitch, dear readers, was my encounter with a member of the band. I kind of remembered this woman, and she knew a friend of mine in the band who didn’t come to the reunion, and I talked with her and her friend for a few minutes, showing photos of our kids and catching up on jobs and other life things. And then she looked me straight in the eye and asked How are the churches in Sacramento? For some reason I thought she was talking about the large Mormon Temple in Folsom that opened a couple years ago to much fanfare, so I asked her if that was what she meant. She said I mean how are the churches in the area? Okay, I’m thinking, you gotta be clearer honey, and she could see the confusion on my face. Paul, have you accepted Jesus Christ our savior into your life? Oh. Okay. Now I understand. So I looked her straight into the eye and said I’m an atheist, so no. She looked at me with the cocked head of a confused dog and an expression of sheer befuddlement. But Paul, I just want to make sure you go up to that good heavenly place, she said as she ever so subtly gazed skyward while simultaneously pointing up with her thumb. I informed her I don’t believe in that place and that basically one should just try to live their life as best they can which is what I’ve always tried to do. She just stood there for a moment, staring silently while presumably receiving her instructions from the almighty, and then she turned and walked off without so much as a kiss my foot or have an apple.

Wow, I thought, that was weird. Now where’s my computer? And stay tuned for Round Two.

You Can Go Home Again. For Awhile.

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:08:25 -0400

It’s pretty cloudy out, overcast really, a serious bummer considering I’m staying at a little dive hotel just steps from the unbelievably gorgeous white powder sands of Siesta Beach. I’m here in Sarasota to go to my 30^th high school reunion (holy shit, 30 years? Really?) and taking a little break from work and family back home for a little “me” time, something I haven’t done in quite awhile.

And for my wife who’s probably reading this, I do not consider my frequent business trips “me” time for the following reason. Today I woke up and cycled 35 miles before breakfast, came back, showered, bought the New York Times, took a leisurely stroll to my favorite restaurant in the Village, drank coffee, read aforementioned NYT, ate a nice omelet along with some fruit and yogurt, went to Davidson’s Drugstore (where my mother worked for over 25 years and which is owned by kids I went to school with), bought 3 postcards, a tee-shirt and socks for my daughter, and a beach towel, came back to dive hotel and wrote 3 postcards, one to my daughter, one to my mother, and one to my office (nyeh nyeh!), and am now composing a post which will be read by at most 10 people. Suffice to say, I don’t do any of these things on business trips. Well maybe a little posting now and then.

Though I’m here for the reunion, I honestly was not close to many of my classmates, though there are a couple people I wouldn’t mind seeing. I was gone shortly after graduation, never to reside here again, but my parents were here for many years and I was a frequent visitor. My mom moved after my father passed away in 2002 and it’s been years since I’ve been back to my old stomping grounds. I’m here mostly to get away while coming back.

My cycling this a.m. took me up and down Siesta Key several times, and each pass provided new memories. There are the woods we used to go to and get high, Turtle Beach where I had plenty of winter surfing sessions, the first apartment of three that we lived in when we moved here in 1973 and dad was looking for a house, the second place we lived which is now gone and replaced with an ugly monolithic condo (more on this kind of change in a moment), the third place we lived where we used to play tag on the elevators and where I had one of my first tastes of s-e-x, Palm Island beach access which was where all the local kids went to the beach, Siesta Village where I had more adventures legal and illegal than I could list here, too many houses where friends lived than I could list here, various beachfront condos where we would “pool hop” all the way down Crescent Beach, Stickney Pointe Bridge which we would foolishly jump from when we thought the bridge tender wasn’t looking and swim across the channel to escape, the street where Shipwreck Kelly’s Bar used to be where we could get in when we were seventeen on nickel beer night and shoot pool all night long on tables too close to the walls so every shot was made with the cue practically vertical, Anna’s sandwich shop with the best.fucking.sandwiches.ever, the storefront that used to house Siesta Surf Shop which was my second home and the owner Ron taught me everything I know about surfing along with some life lessons, and Sea Winds apartments where my friend Eric lived and we could get high in his room and listen to Aerosmith’s Toys in the Attic non-stop while the most his single-divorced mother would say to us was “please keep the bedroom door closed.”

One thing that was overwhelming on my jaunt this morning was the amount of god-awful mansions that have popped up on the south end of the Key. Progress, as they say, is a bitch. Where there used to be pleasant little one-story beach houses that actually were a part of their surroundings there are now these behemoth houses, all of which, and I mean all, fronted by ten-foot high walls made from everything from concrete to high-grade steel with electronic gates and competing alarm company signs. If it weren’t for the mosaic of colors you’d swear these were mini-prisons, or, lacking moats, medieval castles. My question is what the fuck are these folks afraid of? Now I’m no expert on statistics, but my guess is that the south end of Siesta Key is not a haven for criminals. Maybe the white-collar type, but not the type likely to break into a mansion to steal a stereo for drug money. But like I said, I’m no expert. If they want to wall themselves off from the world, all the better for us. I just prefer the sleepy little beach town I moved to in 1973, but I guess that’s progress. There, rant over.

Tonight is the first night of the reunion and I honestly don’t know what to expect. I’m planning on a couple of glasses of red wine, some conversation, pulling out the kids’ photos (actually thumbing through them on the iphone—that damn progress again!), and just comparing notes. I don’t know exactly who will be there, but because of this internet thing (say it with me now—progress!) I know that in my class there is a well-known plastic surgeon with a website full of boobies, a millionaire (billionaire maybe) developer, a mayor, a right-wing lobbyist in D.C. (she was the smartest person in our class—so much for that measure of intellect), a novelist (no, you’ve never heard of him), several reporters, several executives (both dying breeds really), flight attendants, business owners, pilots, many attorneys, a judge, military folk, a semi-known actor/model (the coke commercial where the secretaries are ogling a shirtless hunky window-washer—he’s the window washer), former athletes, a police officer, housewives, househusbands, parents, and grandparents. Safe to say I’m the only investigator who represents death-row inmates. Imagined conversation with the right-wing lobbyist?—“Hi, I’m Paul. I’m an atheist, pro-choice, pro-gay, independent, anti-Fox News freak show, union-backing, peace-loving, anti-war, Sierra-Club, pro-intellectual, proudly far-left defense-investigator for Death-Row inmates in California. And what is it you do?”

Should be fun. Stay tuned.

Crazy From The Heat

Sat, 4 Jul 2009 22:07:39 -0400

Yesterday was one of those typically scorching hot summer days here in Sacramento. Could be worse, but because of our location in the central valley of California, the humidity is not nearly so dire. Still, it was hot enough to get me and the wife and daughter down to a small beach on the American River near Sac State with some friends. A little leisure before the Fourth of July holiday.

After romping around in the water with the kids for a couple hours and enjoying sandwiches and other picnic accoutrements, we hiked back to the car (death march 101) and headed back home. On the way we needed to make a stop at our favorite little grocery store/butcher for some meat to throw on the barbee for that evening’s dinner. As we parked I noticed two of the store’s employees across the street standing on either side of a rather disheveled looking young man. I recognized one of the employees as one of the store’s butchers, and he was holding what appeared to be one of their signature sandwiches wrapped in familiar white butcher paper. The butcher, I’ll just call him Bill, handed the man the sandwich and then all three of them walked back to the store. I told my wife that I thought they caught the young man stealing a sandwich. She asked how I knew and I said I could just tell (probably having to do with, one, my being a professional investigator and thus a great snoop and deducer of things none my business, and two, my being an amateur writer and thus a great snoop and deducer of more things none my business).

As they got to the parking lot and passed by our car the employees were pointing toward the back of the store to a storage area full of cardboard boxes. They got to the storage area and Bill demonstrated to the young man how to break down a box. The two employees left and the young man began to break down the boxes.

I then told my wife that I was pretty sure the kid got caught ripping off a sandwich, and rather than call the police, Bill decided to give the kid the sandwich with the proviso that he break down some boxes to pay for it, which the kid seemed happy to do. Once we got in the store I overheard Bill telling a fellow employee pretty much verbatim what I told my wife I thought had happened except he added that the kid didn’t have a dime on him.

I’m not going to get into a long diatribe about this except to say that both my wife and myself thought that this was just about the most decent thing we’d seen in awhile. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that broke, hungry kid, and a guy using common sense and basic humanity to be able to see that no good could come from calling the cops for such a desperate act. And yes, I know it’s a crime, but there are a lot worse things in the world than a young kid trying to eat. He wasn’t stealing booze, it wasn’t armed robbery, he was just hungry. Bill didn’t give the kid anything, he made him work, and that’s better than a freebie, after all give a man a fish and he eats one meal, but give him a fishing pole… And maybe, just maybe, through Bill’s act of kindness, one little corner of the world became a little less hostile, a little less retributive, and truly a little more, yes, say it with me now, kinder and gentler.