Monthly Archives: December 2020

Young Chronicles XXIV: Kouchibouguac National Park to Metis Beach, Quebec

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The Young Chronicles details my 1983 hitchhiking trip across Canada. Having completed the Toronto-Newfoundland leg, I continue west through New Brunswick into Quebec.

June 21, 1983 Mileage 174 miles

Ride One: Kouchibouguac National Park to 20 miles down the road. Pick-up Camper. Middle-aged couple who gave me Jiff Peanut Butter.

Ride Two: 2 miles down the road to gas station (after one hour wait). Pickup truck. In the back with some kind of acid in barrels. Old squat guy with younger guy and two girls.

Ride Three: To Chatham. Car n/a. 43-year-old guy with mustache named Murphy. Considered himself a philosopher, believes in ESP and living life by moving around. Owner of a chain of furniture stores. Loved Pavarotti.

Ride Four: To Bathurst. Beige Phoenix. Old couple. Man said that hitchhiking today is a picnic compared to his days as a ‘hobo’ when he couldn’t find anything to eat for 5 days.

Bridge toward Bathurst, New Brunswick

Ride Five: To Nigadoo. Car n/a. Radio station promotional guy. Offered to take me to an Acadian Fishing Village tomorrow morning.

Ride Six: To Quebec border. Pickup truck with dirt in back. Middle-aged guy with mustache. Worked hard and loved beer.

Ride Seven: To Chateau Hostel (outside Carleton Sur Mer). Pickup truck. Army guy. Very quiet. Bought lunch at McDonald’s. Recommended Elie Wiesel.

June 22: Worked for the day (construction of addition to Chateau Hostel) for food and lodging. Owned by Jean, an ardent separatist, his word is law. Had an annoying tendency to talk about me to others in French. Jean’s father worked non-stop, deep tan, called me “Herc”. Sven, a carpenter from Norway, very good-natured; told story of running through field of oats on acid.

Carleton-Sur-Mer construction site

Sylvie, the cook and Jean’s daughter, very nice, smoked hash. Dominic, petite, gorgeous, no English, always reading. Went to the lake with her. Nothing happened.

June 23, 1983 Mileage 120 miles

Ride One: Chateau Auberge to Saint Fleure. 1969 Mercedes. Excessively nice man named Michel Valley. Apologized for his poor English. Cameraman for Radio Canada and electrician for Rimouski radio station. Very proud of his car – 250 safety features – although there was a hole in the floor.

Ride Two: Saint Fleure to Metis. Custom Deluxe Camper. French guy in his 50s, missing a tooth. Little English.

Ride Three: Metis to Metis Sur Mer. White pickup truck. Local guy with a big white furry dog. Staying with my Aunt Margery in her house on the St. Lawrence.

Aunt Margery serving lunch in Metis-Sur-Mer

Writing Process: Too Much Talking

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The writing process can be hard, especially in what is left behind. I had to remove another scene from Anori. The dialogue was strong but it didn’t move the story. And so…expunged.

The set-up: Dee has just arrived in Greenland (where the space ships are being launched) and has dinner with Val, one of the pilots, who confesses a dark moment from her past.

“Yeah, this, I don’t know, trapped in a prison from cradle to…what?” Dee laughed. “What do you die in?”

“Death bed, I guess.”

“Grave! Cradle to grave. Trapped in this existence.”

“Try not to think about it and then move on.”

“Better than thinking about being raped.”

Dee waited.

“It was someone I had known for years. The whole thing, I mean, the whole thing was such a nightmare. We were friends. He was laid back, a decent guy. And then, I don’t know, he just turned into this asshole Mr. Hyde.”

“He was drunk?”

Val shook her head violently like she was trying to not be drunk. “Everybody drank. I had too much. But not pass-out drunk, nothing like that. Just hanging out, relaxed. And then he was on me. He had me pinned, with my arm behind my back.” She half acted it out. “He was going to break my arm. I could feel it. He pushed me backward and tore my dress. He fucked me like that on the floor. I kept trying to move my arm but I couldn’t. he pushed down on that side of me like he had practiced it or something. It lasted two minutes, if that.”

Dee gripped her chopsticks tightly.

“He actually called me with this bullshit confession later, fucking crying on the phone. I don’t know why I listened. He wanted to stay friends. He kept saying that.” Val ground a chopstick into the wasabi. “I left my dress under the table in the living room floor. I came home and threw it there. I didn’t touch it. It sat balled up there for weeks. I couldn’t look at it. I would veer to the other side of the room when I walked through, all of that.”

“You don’t talk to people about any of this?” Dee asked.

“Why bother?”

Writing Process: Characters of the Covid Age

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This Covid Pandemic is carving pieces of people away. In an attempt to maintain a semblance of normalcy through posting images, completing puzzles and asserting that all will be well, a feeling of identity loss dominates instead. Or thinking that anyway.

The need to belong somewhere – friends, family, a team or bar – has been eroded by life being moved onto the screen. This has created a sense of mutation, a half-shell of selves turned sideways into paper-thin abstractions with cartoon broken arms, modules and warts sloping out in disturbing and hopeless directions.

This isn’t a one-dimensional thing, but a sputtering prick into the bubble of self-awareness where one thinks of being half-asleep in a dream, shruggling (shrugging & struggling) with the accusations and denials of one’s most obvious flaws made obscene and dull. And it’s only getting louder.

Writing Process: Need to Pause

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A pause is needed in writing. Otherwise it’s just going straight ahead with half things trundled out, the ride getting faster, the wheels getting wonky, leaning to the side and then the other, into an impossible turn which spins so tight that it becomes a centrifuge. And the reader has long since gone.

The writer needs to take a break and breath, step back to make sense of it, find what is working and what is not. Think about other things. And then, bang! Fewer conversations about assault and misery, and more things happening. Best to go with that.

Pandemic Accomplishments: Month Nine

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Despite the recent excitement of vaccine and Trump’s repeated failures at the polls and courts, the pandemic drags on. I learned to appreciate the term “Toxic Positivity” over these past days. As Uncle Joe says, a dark winter awaits, meaning that I have learned to reflect more regularly on the utter of pointlessness of this existence and, ipso facto, survived multiple waves of depression and despair.

Mouse blends back into his environment at the Bronx Zoo.

On a more concrete note, I had my bank account cleaned out by a fraudulent check and await the fire marshal’s clearance to helped my wife salvage what we can be from her office which was destroyed by fire.

The remains of Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village, New York.

On a more positive note, I have applied for jobs in all five New York City boroughs as well as Paris, Helsinki, Lisbon, Lucerne, Lugano, Rome, Newport, Atlanta, Havana, Cayman Islands and Kathmandu. I have also rewritten the first 110 pages of Anori, with some satisfaction.

Eternal me

On a more moronic note, I have achieved Level 2234 of Fishdom and came, oh so close, to getting the Ghost Robot Fish.

Overlooked Manhattan: The Down Town Association

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Situated at the base of 70 Pine Street, The Down Town Association is a private club which dates back to 1887, making it the oldest club in New York and second oldest in the US.

Notable members have included Thomas Dewey (New York Governor), Franklin D Roosevelt, Wendel Wilkie, and Grover Cleveland, the only person to serve non-consecutive terms as president. Current members are mostly lawyers or financers.

The club was used almost exclusively for lunches and billiards back in the day, only offering overnight accommodations to members and guests beginning in 2016.

All of that said, Covid-19 has closed it up pretty tight.

Q107 Radio Supersets Redux: Revising the Past

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I blogged on winning a Superset contest at Q107 Radio in 1978 where I received the most disappointing prize of an LP record from a leftovers box in radio station hallway.

And so now, to right this wrong, I present additional Supersets from that era and the prizes they deserve:

Superset I/Greatest Super Short Songs: Paranoid (Black Sabbath) 2:48, Come On Get Happy (Partridge Family) 1:06, And The Gods Made Love (Jim Hendrix) 1:23, But I Might Die Tonight (Cat Stevens) 1:54 Prize: Six Pack of Molson Diamond Beer

Superset II/Greatest Bad Songs: Let the Lizard Loose (Goddo), Ridin’ High (Moxy), Strutter (Kiss), Joker (Babe Ruth) Prize: Pinkish Pimp Hat

Walter Matthau playing the drunk in Earthquake!

Superset III/Music to Think/Remember/Die By: The Heavenly Music Corporation (Fripp & Eno), The Heavenly Music Corporation Reversed (Fripp & Eno), The Heavenly Music Corporation Half Speed (Fripp & Eno) Prize: Enlightenment

Pyramid Mountain, British Columbia

Young Chronicles XXIII: Sydney to Kouchibouguac National Park

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The Young Chronicles detail my 1983 hitchhiking trip across Canada. Having completed the initial eastward bound leg, I now head west from Newfoundland through the Maritime provinces.

June 19, 1983 Mileage 292 miles

Ride One: Sydney to Kelley’s Mountain, Nova Scotia. Red pick up. Drivers works for CN Marines, dives on wrecks and has seen many sharks, whales and trout.

Ride Two: To Baddeck, Nova Scotia. Green car. Red cap, beard, knives. (Wait: 3 1/2 hours.)

Ride Three: To Truro Turnoff. Car n/a. Boring history teacher, sweaty chin and shorts.

Ride Four: To Moncton, New Brunswick. Car n/a. Beers and quarter pound of cheese. Former Mountie, works as a bartender now. Has driven Sydney to Edmonton straight.

Overnight in Moncton. No hostel. YMCA closed. Only have $15. Walked around, followed by a silver Mazda camper pickup truck. Went to the A&W and left my bags there and ran after the camper as it sped away.

No one at the A&W was willing to put me up for the night. Went to the police station to report the stalker but didn’t have the license plate. Policeman: “I don’t know what to tell you.” Asked to sleep in a jail. He called The Sunset Inn and guaranteed that I would pay the next day. Front desk clerk told me of a guy who left a gold chain as collateral and then skipped.

June 20, 1983 Mileage 61 miles

Waited outside of Moncton for a long time, looking at their signs of community pride: Moncton, You’re Okay! Hey, Moncton, Picture This! 4H Thinks Greater Moncton Is Great! Welcome One And All From Moncton With Love.

A truck side-swiped a car just past me. The sideview mirror skittered twenty feet ahead. A bystander picked up for the driver. “Sir, are you all right?”

Ride One: Moncton to Shediac. Family car. Shared Moosehead beer and cigarettes. A painter by trade.

Ride Two: To Kouchibouguac National Park. Silver Honda sports car. Comical laugh. Loved Bach’s Variations. Anti-Wagner. Teaches education at University of Maine.

Camped on the ocean side.

The Dim Malaise In Us

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As much as everyone likes to moan about the Trumps or Kim Jong-Uns of the world, it is more about those who allowed them in, not the bullies as it were but the crowd that watches. In other words, our essential malaise is not the jowly hate-filled monsters but the chubby ones who do what they’re told so they can rule their sector.

Franz Kafka, best know for elucidating what is to be trapped in this all-too-real dystopia, put it like this in The Trial: It’s no use. The Examining Magistrate has sent for me. What are you thinking of? It would be the ruin of me. Let him alone. He’s only obeying orders of the Examining Magistrate and carrying me to him.

I have begun the outline for my auto-biography on my days as a teacher, Fuck Pedagogy, which has a similar grim focus. Although lacking Kafka’s literary acumen, it does focus on the same ilk in the education racket, the ones who love the seminars and hate the kids, whose lives are ruled by machinations and maneuvers and who are quietly destroying our world. And like Kafka, it’s supposed to be a comedy. Ha ha.

Getting Things Right In Order To Write

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I need to get things right in order to write. I need everything in its place, not just on my desk – chargers coiled, books stacked, books aligned, pens in their pen cup – but in the bathroom, living room and kitchen.

I need to clean my head out of the things to do, and plough through my to-do’s – emails, applications and purchases – checking each off the list.

And then I need the room at the right temperature and light, the right drink in hand, the right food eaten, and then the music, a snap decision. Go ambient or go home.

My writing music is generally ambient electronic, such as Keith Berry, Seefeel, Offthesky, Alex Bober or Fripp & Eno.

I need to find my place in the story, remember where I was and where I was going. I just need a glimpse, something sharp and clear, and away I go. Unless I don’t. And it all starts again.