Winter Wonderland

In the alley outside my window, like the jingling sleigh bells and clip clop of Clydesdales, the clinking bottles dug from dumpster into mudclad overcoat, near soleless sneakers, broken boombox overflowing grocery cart and thud of hinged lid dropping sounds not quite the squeak and pop of a clarinet player hunched on the 118 off-ramp at Tampa Thanksgiving morning. Between the quick gasp, achingly soundless downbreath, saliva squirts, key clicks, puff strained cheeks--lost embouchure with lost teeth--here and there, always sharp or flat, chirps an abject hint of Bye Bye Blackbird.

A crumpled reincarnation of Rafael Garrett: I first saw him in the mid 80s blowing a battered silver tenor outside the Wrigley field El Stop before midday drunk Cub fans looking askance or laughing and throwing him a quarter--just another raggedy lookin' black man--oblivious to the legacy of this multi-instrumentalist, who studied clarinet and bass under DuSable's Captain Dyett, recorded with Coltrane, helped found AACM, performed and taught across the world.

But for free improvisers busking truth--and for black men in Reagan America, which institutionalized the racist character of homelessness (49% of streetpeople are African American)--life could be shit 'til the next meal, so he might, to scrounge a little extra cash, crash another guys' gig--like Lester Bowie's trio playing in the back room of a West Side record shop. Bowie looked a little startled when half-way through his first set the old man walked in, but he graciously allowed Garrett's string tied bag of bells and whistles to transform tightly rehearsed arrangements into mismatched inflations of a tear.

Bloodshot eyes, are you listening?

After Hours

Oh, someday I know
Someone will look into my eyes
And say hello
You're my very special one

But if you close the door
I'd never have to see the day again
--Lou Reed

Near 11pm the crowding at the Taco Bell trough outside my window hits its peak.

They idle in U-shaped noxiousness--gold plated Escalade, Honda CRV, BMW E90, Toyota Sienna, 1980s Cutlass no paint on bondoed fender olive hood mismatched to maroon body rear bumper hanging into street.

AC hums on max to cool restless perspiring double chin neck to leg flab pinched by nylon belt--to think outside the bun.

Stomachs search in Kierkagaardian anguish a moment of gloried hope as nacho cheese beef gordita nears mouth. With bite brown drips to upholstery. Ice grabbed from 32 ounce pepsi moistens paper napkin--dabbing dabbing, dabbbing--but it's no use. 360,000 gallons of oil spreads through the Kerch Strait--58,000 through SF Bay--shedding death from Black Sea to Muir Beach.


Clyfford Still 1949 No. 1 (PH-385)
1949 oil on canvas © Estate of Clyfford Still
Clyfford Still Museum

voi siete un clown

In his remembrance for Criterion Collection's The White Shiek, Leopoldo Trieste recalls when Fellini asked him to take the role of Ivan Cavalli, the preening husband who has brought his new bride for a rigorously scheduled honeymoon in Rome:
"'You want me to be a comic actor?'
I actually got mad at him. I spoke ancient Greek. I could read Aeschylus like you read the paper.
'I'm a dramatist! You've got me all wrong! Leave me alone.'
'Listen Leopoldo, you belong to the race of clowns.'
I remember his exact words.
'You are a clown.'"

"Uuunnh," as I sit, rises a groan nearly whimper, like from a broken foot dog abandoned on outskirts of Rome circa 1940s neorealism. Soft sound hard to trace amid rackety hum, its source blends into tint windowed vegetable patch. Thin grey beard on balding cabbage head dressed in casual business attire but third look finds half shirt tail hanging, coffee stain on breast pocket, dirt rimmed cuffs on khakis.

The groan loudens, now punctuated by tiny croak gurgle whisp of belly bubbles. Hand grabs waist, bending, swaying forward, swallowing, "Ooooooaaah."

On-setting illness vague no more, image of chunk funky acid splatter to shoelace and nostril, passenger neighbors move to bus front.

Stomach upset memories of degurgitations, bent head over some strange Edina toilet, absent parent party weekend--how did you get here?--my incapacity stoking another of the recurrent grab and shoves between T. and K. over who will drive mom's Honda back to Saint Paul.

Fear to fascination--will rotting internality dissolve or burst? At Van Nuys the wrenching pauses then stumbles toward closing doors. Too late, rubber bound glass squeezes swelling melon. "Back door! Back door!" voice surprisingly strong, trap opens to release the suffering. It waddles then straightens--feeling better now?--just to end of platform. Arms outstretch, wings of a penguin leaning forward feeding the cement little liquid trickles. Again. Again. Again.