The Transporter Couch

Back in the day, Art and I would make up songs. We would sort of sample the music and rythms but would supply our own lyrics. We appropriated a song from Le Trim called, I think, “We Like The Cars,” that we switched around somehow that I can’t really recall, but one line was, “we like the girls, the girls that go ‘here’s your martini, sir.’ ” At that time (in our lives) we would sometimes go to La Posada and have a drink or two and there was this very very very pretty, very solicitous blonde cocktail waitress named Jody and she made us feel very special. I totally, completely and absolutely would love to know what ever became of her. She was beautiful and kind and attractive but by NO means trashy, and she made us feel good.

La Posada is a 5 star hotel in Santa Fe, NM, and the lounge is a series of rooms that were once parlours in a beautiful old house on Palace Avenue. I don’t even care to speculate how much money we spent in there over the years. But the furniture was comfortable, antique but sturdy, the cielings were high and handsome and the walls were covered with old-fashioned style paintings. The floor, as I recall, was covered in thickly padded red carpet. One night, after my “French” professor told me I’d better buckle down and learn French or I’d fail the test a second time and that that would bode ill, I took over a space there and turned on a lamp and drank coffee and “learned” french. Two days later, we had a test and I passed it. In class the following day, a Friday … and this is a really weird memory but for some reason we were passing around a crown of ivy or something and everyone would wear it for 20 seconds and talk about why she or he should be lauded. I put it on when it got to me (and no this wasn’t a regular new-age healing sort of thingl it was just a goofy afternoon) and I said, “I passed the French test!” And everyone clapped. Then the professor, David Bolotin, said, “Yes, Mr. Walker I think you deserve the accolade. Of course, you didn’t pass the first time.” And the whole room looked at him like, “what a dicky thing to say” and Tim Graham, not a tight friend but a really nice guy, just said to the room in general, “He giveth, and he taketh away.”

Returning to the main thread of this essay, Art and I would sometimes just plain MAKE UP songs. We would be sitting on the transporter couch, or riding in the car, and would make up crazy stuff. “Dormonica” numbers among them. Dormonica was our pretend housekeeper and

She could make a martini; she could make a Manhattan;
She could make you some boxers out of busy plaid satin.

I can’t remember other stanzas, but the refrain was,

Dormonica, Dormonica, don’t ask to get paid;
Dormonica, Dormonica, you’re just our maid!

In retrospect, it was BEYOND tacky. But it was fun and you know, helped us stretch our minds.

And one day, we were riding in the car (the old green truck, actually) on our way to seminar, and Art just started singing, “I saw your god ……. drowning kittens……..” to no tune in particular. Maybe “I left my heart in San Francisco.” It was funny and, obviously, memorable! It came to me today. I was riding in the car…. Hilda and I had gone to Wal Mart to buy sodas for the restaurant and it was a quiet moment. There was music on, Ulrich Schnauss, but it was very subdued. We had stopped at a light and we’re very close and comfortable being together and not talking, and I started singing, softly, “I saw your god ….. drowning kittens……” Hilda just looked at me and started laughing ….. She laughed so hard she sat through a long green light. People honked but she wouldn’t budge because she was laughing so hard she couldn’t open her eyes.

That’s all.

I was the PICTURE of sex.  I was wearing a white shirt and white flat-front plants and black shoes and a black belt.  The shirt unbontonned my waist.  My body lean and tan.  My hair …. you already know I have movie star hair.  I heard Air singing “Sexy Boy” evereywhere I went.

 And I was a sexy boy.  Self-absorbed though I was in that moment (and am in general), I was HOT.  People looked at me.  Looked and liked what they saw.  It was a breezy day and the breeze, like a blue silk sheet, would come along and drag open my shirt and expose a nipple.  Few confess but everyone likes a little nipple. 

 That’s all.

Yesterday was a day of boycotting and protest. Kind of like pears in LITE syrup, it was unsatisfactory. The immigration “reform” on the table is polarizing a country that has better things to do. I speak as one of the priveleged white males, which some would say mitigates the value of my voice, but those who might say it would be wrong.

I live in Texas, not on the border but not too far from it. I don’t “own” but I have a discernible interest in a tortilla factory. And everyone who works there is latino (I use the term loosely to refer both to men and to women, as I can’t stand the term “Hispanic.”) Because of my relationship to that factory I have come to enjoy many many beautiful friendships, a lot of camaraderie, moments both of depth and of simplicity, and always emotion. It’s not my job to oversee the matter but I’m reasonably certain all the employees have “papers.”

I took the time to talk to some of the folks who work there and by and large they were ambivalent. It would be nice if it were easier to cross the border, was the general sentiment, but once you’re here, you gain access to so many things. No one was complaining.

I talked to my friend, who actually does OWN the business, and we talked frankly. She… yes SHE ….. was a “wetback” 25 years ago, but she established herself and became a citizen and started a business and it thrives. She’s the great American success story, complete with all the drama in which we ice the cake of our stories. She’s an American of Mexican birth and heritage who clawed her way to the top and, while sometimes stepping on people to do so managed to make herself a sparkling star on a cloudy night. Everyone loves her. Everyone smiles when they see her coming. No one fears to approach her though she’s quick to say “no” in the nicest way if the request doesn’t suit her. And everyone loves the way she conducts business and the service and products she supplies. She is beloved in this community.

And yet, some people still call her a “wetback.”

I sort of derailed myself. Anyway, I talked to her about the “boycott” yesterday (her business was open) and she said, in short, “I don’t know what they’re complaining about. You work hard, you pay your bills. Trash comes in all colors. I know white people who live off welfare and I know brown people who live off welfare and I know ……” You see where that’s going.

Her message to me, inasmuch as she would care to convey a message (for she is shy and not political), is that people who don’t want to claw their way to the top, regardless of their ethnicity, don’t deserve anything more than what they get. She went ON to say, and this is the poignant part, “Brian, you see the turnover around here. This is HARD work! It is hot and it is laborious and I pay a fair wage and offer benefits as best I can and it’s not *joyless* work or a mean environment, just often *hard* work. And soandso never shows up because her boyfriend beat her up and soandso never shows up because he has a hangover and soandso quits because he thinks the grass is greener elsewhere and sosoandso is having a baby….” and on she goes. The point being that just because someone comes to the US looking for work doesn’t mean he really WANTS to work any more than anyone else, just that he’s compelled by the momentary need. Her personal stance is, life is beautiful but it isn’t easy and if you think you can make it any easier or better than working for ME…. go for it and have a nice life.

Laissez faire.

She’s not a coconut (a tacky term referring to “respectable” latinos meaning brown on the outside and white on the inside). She is very very true to her heritage and … she deserves a huge essay all about her. (Another time) Her sentiments ring true to me not as a white male but as someone that at some point will have to cast a vote as to a reformation.

I have lived all over this planet and met many people from many cultures and many walks of life and I have encountered many, not-always-friendly, opinions about myself and the US and the world and life and spirituality and reality and truth and reason. I am the LAST person anyone would ever call a racist. But I understand that bias is a reality and has to be worked with. I work with it through contemplation and understanding. Other people, who are angry with their credit card bills, take out that anger by moaning about “the Mexicans.” Or some other target. I started this diatribe by saying that we citizens of the US have other, better things to worry about. And we do. There’s much to honor about America but there’s much to mind. We’re AT war in one country, threatening war with another, in a cold war with several, in a trade war with yet a couple of others. We have internal strife on so many levels. I can’t begin to say how glad I am to live here, but I won’t even begin to enunciate all the things that are fucked up in this country, and yet we have a day of boycott because our borders are established. That just seems so utterly imbalanced to me.

The End.

There’s a scene in “Sunset Boulevard” in which Joe Gillis says to Norma Desmond, “I didn’t know you were planning a comeback.” Her response is fast and furious and should have won her an Oscar (but the movie was up against “All About Eve” and it prevailed.) Anyway, whether you know the movie or not, the dialogue is,
Joe: “I didn’t know you were planning a comeback.”
Norma: ” I HATE THAT WORD!”

She goes on about things, since it’s all about her…. but in that moment, in that moment in the movie, in her facial expression and her vehemence, I connect with her. It is a moment of utter disgust.

I have a rather large parking area that is more or less publicly accessible, but it’s gravel … or …. grass and dirt I should say. And my living room windows face it. I live on the 2nd floor, and there are trees, so it isn’t an ugly view but I can HEAR when a car pulls in. I’ve learned to sort of tell whose car it is that is pulling in, by the sound of their tires on the ground. And, also, I’ve learned to detect a “strange” car by its unfamiliar tire/ground sound. Mind you, the crunch of the dirt parking lot isn’t invasive, just … distinctive to my relatively well-trained ears.

Sometimes I will be sitting here writing and I will hear, in the distance, an unfamiliar tire sound, and I feel a bizarre compulsion to look and see who it is, for it could be all sorts of people. Usually it’s a visitor to one of my neighors. Today, my client was sitting opposite me waiting for me to finish a project, and I’m intent because I’m under the gun and she’s sitting there in dark glasses, waiting (not unlike Norma Desmond!) and suddenly I hear a VERY unfamiliar crunch out there. I looked up and looked at my guest and said, “I HATE THAT SOUND!” and delivered it with my best look of frustration and disgust. And I meant it. It happened at an odd hour….. I mean there’s always traffic at 8 and noon and 5 but this was like 10:30. The time when the only person going anywhere is usually me!

Unexpected traffic always makes me think it’s either my mother or the cops. Neither of whom I care to have banging on the door when I’m in the middle of a project. Actually, in a little side note, the cops have never been here but once the Secret Service banged on my door because my building was on George Bush’s parade route (blah blah blah). But in any case, I value my privacy in a way that is hard to describe, and won’t answer my door if I’m not expecting company. Which of course makes me all weird and sweaty when the bell DOES ring when I’m not expecting company. So …. by extrapolation, it explains why I get uneasy when I hear unusual tires out on the parking lot.

Maybe I’m a freak, but I’m just very sensitive about these things. That’s not the point. The point, for what it’s worth, is that when I said, “I HATE THAT SOUND” and pushed myself away from my desk and walked to the window, I realized …. I realized the frustration and annoyance that Norma Desmond conveyed in her utterance “I HATE THAT WORD!”

Which of course led me to start thinking about that movie, which has been carefully examined by greater minds than my own. But that line happens realatively early in the movie and the whole thing spirals into unreality, so it gets all convoluted, but I would wager that’s the only moment in which Norma is true to herself. She is often emotional but half the time it’s an act and the other half the time it’s insanity but in that ONE line I think she’s …. honestly responding to her true self. I’m sure there are psychological terms for this. I don’t know them.

So I sat, pensive, chewing gum, actually, and my client finally snapped me out of it. “Brian! I don’t have all day.” Oops.

Happy birthday to Harper Lee and Sadam Hussein.

This morning, very very early I called the tortilla factory and misdialed. I called a wrong number, and I swear to god the voicemail/auto-attendent whatever it’s called answered and said, “Thank you for calling wenches.com. If you know your party’s extension blah blah blah.”

I was so taken off guard I hung up and hit redial. Yep, that is what it said. Now it might have been winches, but I prefer to think it was wenches. I’ve been giggling over it for an hour. I’d like to open a catering company / cleaning service and call it “Wenches R Us” or “Wenches 4 Hire” and hire a bunch of buxom girls to serve cakes and ale. And spitted fowl legs. Let’s not forget those.

Eric’s Birthday
My friend Eric turns 20 in three days. I call him my friend. I don’t know what else to call him. I met him when he was 10 and a little kid, and I’ve been around to witness the beauty of his youth, not entirely unlike my own. And the fallout of his reckless youth, not entirely unlike my own. But he’s not a little kid now and hasn’t been for quite some time.

I used to just be “Brian” but recently he referred to me as “my friend Brian” and I liked that. It’s peculiar. I’m 40 and he’s 20. And I’m his mother’s BEST friend (second to her husband, of course). At least he doesn’t call me “Uncle Brian” which would really annoy me. So I guess I’m a “friend of the family.”

I like Eric. Well, of course I love him like a brother but I genuinely like him and enjoy his company. If I could have a son, I would want him to be like Eric. He’s very very very very much like me. He’s enthusiastic but lazy. He takes residence in moments. He’s sort of perpetually in that in-between phase of “cute” and “handsome.” He’s gonna get fat if he isn’t careful. He’s kind, but moody. He’s sensitive and generous. He has GREAT hair! Almost as good as mine. He’s me 20 years ago. He just hasn’t quite yet learned how to work it. Which is just a different way of saying that he hasn’t learned to take himself seriously.
And why should he? Nobody else does. His parents spoiled him and I certainly am no role model and people who COULD BE role models are authority geeks that haven’t earned and don’t much deserve his trust or respect.

Eric, I can’t give you a birthday present. You have everything and you lack for nothing and anything I could hand to you would be immaterial to your life and your folks probably already gave it to you anyway. So I’m going to take you seriously. I guarantee that. I’m going to give you some advice. (Don’t you love this part?) Get out of here. The world is large and complicated and you of all the people I know can do amazing things in it. I understand you’re looking at moving to California or Wyoming.

Go.

Don’t fear that people will forget you. We won’t. You’re truly unforgettable. Don’t fear that you won’t survive. You will. You’re truly a survivor. Don’t fear that you won’t measure up to the challenges. We will support you. And you haven’t even tapped your resources. You will be amazed at the vast, deep pool of life at your disposal.
Happy Birthday! I love you.
Brian

Someone seriously recommended that I wax my arms.

My arms are hairy, but they’re not atrocious! I was very very offended.

Here’s a picture….. it’s old, but you can get the idea:
http://www.ktc.com/personal/brwrakk/desk.jpg

I’m a hairy guy, I guess. But I’m not sweaty and gross. No offense to sweaty, gross hairy guys. Some people love playing with the hair on my arms, and on my legs. And frankly, I like it when people touch me because of the hair allure. When I lived in Japan, where children in particular but grown folks as well tend to NOT have hairy bodies, I would catch people checking it out. Adults would be reserved but I can think of a couple of housewives who ached, ACHED to touch the hair on my arm. Children were less conservative and would readily touch my, I learned it was called, “fur.” And no this isn’t a Michael Jackson moment. It was just cool to observe their utter fascination with something so different.

My face is hairy, too. If I don’t shave for two days, I look like SHIT. I mean I look like I just got out of jail! But this is good. I can change my style in a heartbeat. And what’s even better is that I have GREAT hair! On my head. Completely clothed and clean shaven, the third thing people notice (after they notice my eyes and my gentle demeanor) is my hair. And I can work it. And I do. My hair, wherever you might find it, is the manliest and most beautiful thing about me (aside from my eyes and my gentle demeanor). That someone would suggest I WAX my arms …. was so completely antithetical to my personal aesthetic. Well, it was sufficiently so that I am here talking about it.