Downwind from the Sun

We sailed most of the day--42 miles as the seagull flies from the Long Beach light--to reach Santa Barbara Island, which is only a twin-peaked dot about a mile square far out in the ocean all by itself. There's no cove, just an open roadstead down from Arch Point on the east side of the island, which provides shelter from the prevailing westerlies.
We landed our Zodiac on some flat rocks and hiked the island. No one else was there. There's supposed to be a park ranger, but I guess he had gone off somewhere. We visited the sea lion rookeries around Shag Rock, snorkeled in the kelp beds, watched the sea birds enjoying perfect freedom.
The next morning we set sail for San Nicholas Island, another solitary, 24 miles to the southwest. We seemed to fly there, running on a reach before 25-knot winds. We were so far away from any sign of land or civilization that we could have been on another planet.

We anchored at Pyramid Cove off the southeast end of the island and snorkeled among the kelp beds there, too, dodging curious sea lions. I remember it was very windy, and sand blew down on us from the heights of the island, which is a long way from the mainland. I think the closest point is Port Hueneme, well over 50 miles of open ocean away.
At night I slept on deck as I had at Santa Barbara Island and watched the stars. They seemed so close and so bright, with no lights dimming the darkness. It was like being inside an upside-down bowl of stars, because they arched from horizon to horizon with nothing to block them. They rose from the sea and sank into the sea. The Milky Way was a river of stars bisecting the universe and I had a clear sense of spinning at the rim of the galaxy on the edge of infinity.  The meteors that streaked across the sky, some leaving persistent smoke trails, only enhanced the intense understanding of just how vast the universe was.  Without being aware of it, I grasped a deck cleat and clung to it, afraid of falling upward into eternity.
After raising anchor the next morning, we sailed before the prevailing northwesterlies to Santa Catalina Island, rushing through the seas in a perfect glory of sun, foaming waves and sea spray. We moored in Catalina Harbor at the isthmus, on the southwest side of the island. This is a very dramatic, narrow inlet, calm and perfectly protected--such a contrast with the breezy open anchorages of the other islands, with their endless ocean swells and hazardous holding grounds, requiring you to set two anchors for safety.  We walked over to Doug's on the other side of the isthmus at Two Harbors and had cheeseburgers, fries and draft Miller's while listening to day sailors and hikers chat, watched the ferry from San Pedro arrive and depart. I was back.  From wherever I had been.
I had a sudden recollection of that trip the other day and fell into a vivid reverie. The trip was one of the high points of my life, not only for the physical sensations but because of the people I was with and the thoughts in my head. I didn't know it at the time. I guess we never know that when we are living the experience. We only realize it later, when it's gone forever.
These days, I try to make myself aware of the passing of time, of what my life is like at the moment. I remind myself that all this so-very-real present will soon be vanished irrecoverably, lost in an ever-receding past.  At some point, we will only remember a few distorted highlights...if we haven't completely forgotten it. 
The story of our past life is like an absorbing novel that we once read.  We recall reading it, the title is familiar, maybe we vaguely recall what it was about, but the details that kept us turning the pages, that made us regret turning the last page knowing we could never again read it for the first time...well, that's all gone. 
And so it is with our own lives.  All those first times....  I've sailed the Seven Seas many times since my sail to Santa Barbara Island but that was the first time I'd ever sailed out of sight of land, saw the night sky unimpeded by lights and land, heard no human sound.  I swore I would never forget it.  But it is only a washed-out memory now no matter how hard I try to recall every detail, every image, every thought, every emotion.  I can't.  It's gone.

"Oh! Then was the sea like a living creature -- cold, but with a mighty, throbbing heart. I was walking on the heart of the sea; I was sleeping on it; and I could always, night and day, feel it beating beneath my feet, or beneath my back. Or perhaps it was the life, the heart, of the ship that I felt. For now I knew that our schooner was superbly alive. She carried, amid the snow of her sails, a living heart and soul."
--Barbara Newhall Follet, Voyage of the Norman D

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

~ John Masefield

This and That II

“The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”
― George Washington Burnap

I was chatting with two Japanese women and a Chinese woman and the talk turned to the violent attacks on Orientals that have been in the news lately and the Chinese woman said that if the US police and courts won't do anything to stop it maybe China should send army units to take over American cities and enforce law and order.  I started to smile, not taking her statement seriously, but then I noticed the looks on the faces of the two Japanese women.  They looked afraid.

At first, I misread the headline and laughed out loud!

“Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind.”
― Joseph Addison 

Poet Kenneth Rexroth, dubbed "the father of the beat generation," once said that the difference between a liberal and a conservative is that liberals actually believe the lyrics of love songs; that is, they possess a youthful wishfulness and naivety throughout their lives that those of a conservative bent either never had or quickly outgrew, and a good way to preserve that naivety is to avoid confrontations with reality.

 “Leaving sex to the feminists is like letting your dog vacation at the taxidermist.”
― Camille Paglia

 One of my best friends was a Jewish girl with a similar background to me. She was an Air Force brat and officer via ROTC, helped pay her way through college with a series of odd jobs, and I was a Navy brat and officer via OCS and helped pay my way ditto. I only knew she was Jewish because one time we were invited to Christmas dinner  and she mentioned it and I said, "Huh.  Didn't know that.  So you're not coming?"  And she said, "And miss a free meal?  Didn't I just say I was Jewish?"  I knew Scotsmen were supposed to be skinflints but I hadn't know Jews were too.
When we were both stationed on Guam, she got a ride for me on a B-52 when a Japanese film crew came down to Andersen to do a story and since I am fluent in Japanese she arranged for me to be our side's interpreter.
The Japanese on-air talent showed up dressed as if he were going on stage during retro night at the Grand Ole Opry, with rhinestone suit, garish cowboy boots and a ten-gallon hat.  I thought he was an arrogant moron and so he proved to be, preferring to ask questions of the crew in his incomprehensible English rather than speak through me in Japanese.  I had to constantly reinterpret for him. Ugh.
We flew a simulated low-altitude bombing run to the range at Farallon de Medinilla and this guy lost his cookies all over his fancy suit.  To be fair, it was a very bumpy, bouncy ride.
I never saw the TV program, but I got the impression it had already been done except for video of the the base and a bomber and crew in action. I suppose it was a typical Japanese production about an American topic -- they consider us stupid and dangerous but entertaining and our country a carnival side show staffed by Darwin Award contestants.

“Discouragement is a moral state, a failure of heart; you treat it by taking courage, not Prozac.”
― David Gelernter

"A proper invasion of Taiwan would mean the largest amphibious invasion in human history. An operation on this scale could not be disguised or hidden. We would know about it weeks, and perhaps months, in advance. The weather in the Strait is treacherous. There are only a few months every year where such an invasion could occur, and only a few beaches where an invading force could safely land.
"Our era is defined by a precision-munitions weapons regime. This sort of weapons regime heavily favors the defense. The same A2/AD [Anti-access/area denial],  logic that keeps the U.S. Navy away from Chinese shores can work to keep PLAN vessels away from Taiwanese shores. Missiles, drones, and mines can destroy invading ships many times their cost and inflict thousands of casualties. 
"The PLA is an organization with human-capital problems. I have met kids in the PLA. I naively expected them to exude the confidence, competence, and intelligence of America's enlisted servicemen. They don't. The PLA is an organization with no combat experience, and the Chinese government having told their people for so long that Taiwanese reunification is inevitable and pacification easy, it is not clear to me that PLA peasant-soldiers, products of single-child families, and the broader Chinese public, will be all that resilient in the face of military casualties, setbacks or disruption."
~ Tanner Greer 

“One must never underestimate the profound bigotry, anti-intellectualism, intolerance and illiberality of liberalism.”
― Richard John Neuhaus 

 

 Setting aside all the profound differences among the various white nationalities and subcultures — as different as white eye and hair colors and skin tones — I’ve always thought that a profound pensiveness and melancholia, tied in some way to our love of our past, of our native soil, of our homelands, is very characteristically white, perhaps more northern white than Mediterranean, but even so….
Also a love of the sea, of storms, fog and forest, of nature, of animals, of grand vistas, mountain fastnesses, remote wilderness…and an incurable wanderlust, an urge to see what's over the next hill, around the next bend.
And also a joy in camaraderie and revelry, and a love of daring, of adventure, of challenge — “to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield” — in the words of Tennyson.
Or maybe that's just me.

The handshake game is too interesting to ever go away.  I recall reading an old Saturday Evening Post essay by a man who reckoned he was only four handshakes away from George Washington.  My great-grandfather was friends with Charles Lindbergh, whom he met in 1929 when Lucky Lindy visited the Saratoga in Panama.  How many famous people had Lindbergh shaken hands with by that time?  Since I've shaken hands with my father who shook hands with his father, have I in some way shaken hands with all those famous people?   Or does not knowing who they were make it not count?
My great-grandmother was friends with Anne Morrow before she became Mrs. Lindbergh.  I have a photo of my great-grandmother with Anne and Mary Pickford at some social function; she must have shaken hands with Pickford, and since I have...etc...does that mean I have shaken hands with...etc.?
My father once shook hands with G. Gordon Liddy, who was a speaker at some rubber-chicken dinner event -- and I can hear my dad correcting me that it was Liddy who shook hands with him, heh -- so since I've shaken hands with my father, I've vicariously shaken hands with Liddy who must have shaken hands with Richard Nixon who must have shaken hands with Dwight Eisenhower who....

“Nature is always pulling the rug out from under our pompous ideals.”
― Camille Paglia

Wait for me!

 

We used to be smarter, or at least better educated

Believe it or not, I read the following fairly obscure and erudite joke in a science fiction story by Murray Leinster (nee William Fitzgerald Jenkins), "Sam, This is You," first published in the May, 1955, edition of Galaxy:   

A telephone lineman's girlfriend, urging him to aspire to better things, asks him: "Do you want to spend your life with your arms wrapped around a pole?" And he replies, "Well, it was good enough for George Sand." 

You don't get it?  Well, see, the composer Frédéric Chopin was Polish and George Sand, who was a girl not a boy, was a 19th century French novelist with whom he had an intense affair.  The artist Eugène Delacroix even painted a portrait of them together.  Neither Leinster nor his editor, H.L. Gold, thought the joke would fly above the heads of the magazine's audience, primarily young men, including lots of high school and even junior high school students.  Alas, could the same be said today? 

 The Great Guildersleeve, a family situation comedy spun off from Fibber McGee and Molly, was immediately popular when it premiered in 1941. It was sponsored by Kraft Foods, which used the show to promote Parkay margarine and its new product, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese -- "cooks in seven minutes!"  The adventures of buffoonish Uncle Guildy and his starry-eyed niece Margery and school-hating nephew Leroy centered around life in the small town of Summerfield.  

In one episode, broadcast in 1942, Leroy is complaining because he has to memorize a chunk of Longfellow's narrative poem Hiawatha and recite it in front of the class.  Guildersleeve chides him, reminding him that the other students in his class also have to memorize parts of the poem and recite it so that the whole poem will be recited by the class.  Then he says that he had to memorize the poem when he was in school and can still remember it.  He begins intoning "This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded with moss, and in garments green...."

Guildy, Margery and Leroy.

Margery interrupts him and sarcastically says, "That's Evangeline!" as the live audience laughs loudly.   The audience got the joke and when the script was written everyone involved with the show knew the radio audience would get the joke, too, because everybody in those days had to read those poems in school and memorize parts of them.  They had to learn other poems as well. It was part of being socialized as an American, so everyone could recite The Village Blacksmith, The Snow Storm and The Old Oaken Bucket, to name just a few.

But today?  What kid is required to memorize any poem, let alone one as demanding as Evangeline or Hiawatha? What kid has even heard of them?  What teacher, for that matter.

In a 1943 broadcast of the Jack Benny Show, a comedy-variety program sponsored by Post Grape Nuts Flakes cereal, one of the commercials for the cereal was made up  of the names of four operas:  Faust, Aida, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin. The audience laughed at the cleverness of the bit.  Again, neither the writer, sponsor or anyone else associated with the show thought such a commercial would fly over the heads of the audience because everybody knew those operas, familiar old standards that lots of people could pick out a tune from on the piano or sing.

But today?  How many people have even heard of these operas  -- or any opera -- and would "get" the  commercial?  It would make no sense to them.  Certainly no ad agency would approve of such a commercial.

I could drag out a bunch more similar examples  -- Leroy's grade school teacher referring to Guildersleeve and Judge Hooker's friendship as like that between Damon and Pythias; the 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon "Long-haired Hare" in which Bugs' conductor character is reverently called Leopold and the audience knew and appreciated that the reference is to Leopold Stokowski  -- but I think the point is made:  People were smarter, better educated and more sophisticated in their tastes generations ago than they are today.

Why is that?  What have we done to ourselves?

Here are two stanzas from Longfellow's The Village Blacksmith.  Isn't this a poem every child would be better off learning by heart so that it could be recalled easily to mind throughout life?

Toiling,--rejoicing,--sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begun,
Each evening sees it close.
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose. 

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.

The Jack Benny program with the "opera" ad.  It begins at 13:06 into the show.

October!

 

Indian Ghosts

INJUN SUMMER
John T. McCutcheon
Chicago Tribune
September 30, 1907

Yep, sonny this is sure enough Injun summer. Don't know what that is, I reckon, do you? Well, that's when all the homesick Injuns come back to play; You know, a long time ago, long afore yer granddaddy was born even, there used to be heaps of Injuns around here—thousands—millions, I reckon, far as that's concerned. Reg'lar sure 'nough Injuns—none o' yer cigar store Injuns, not much. They wuz all around here—right here where you're standin'.

Don't be skeered—hain't none around here now, leastways no live ones. They been gone this many a year.

They all went away and died, so they ain't no more left.

But every year, 'long about now, they all come back, leastways their sperrits do. They're here now. You can see 'em off across the fields. Look real hard. See that kind o' hazy misty look out yonder? Well, them's Injuns—Injun sperrits marchin' along an' dancin' in the sunlight. That's what makes that kind o' haze that's everywhere—it's jest the sperrits of the Injuns all come back. They're all around us now.

See off yonder; see them tepees? They kind o' look like corn shocks from here, but them's Injun tents, sure as you're a foot high. See 'em now? Sure, I knowed you could. Smell that smoky sort o' smell in the air? That's the campfires a-burnin' and their pipes a-goin'.

Lots o' people say it's just leaves burnin', but it ain't. It's the campfires, an' th' Injuns are hoppin' 'round 'em t'beat the old Harry.

You jest come out here tonight when the moon is hangin' over the hill off yonder an' the harvest fields is all swimmin' in the moonlight, an' you can see the Injuns and the tepees jest as plain as kin be. You can, eh? I knowed you would after a little while.

Jever notice how the leaves turn red 'bout this time o' year? That's jest another sign o' redskins. That's when an old Injun sperrit gits tired dancin' an' goes up an' squats on a leaf t'rest. Why I kin hear 'em rustlin' an' whisper in' an' creepin' 'round among the leaves all the time; an' ever' once'n a while a leaf gives way under some fat old Injun ghost and comes floatin' down to the ground. See—here's one now. See how red it is? That's the war paint rubbed off'n an Injun ghost, sure's you're born.

Purty soon all the Injuns'll go marchin' away agin, back to the happy huntin' ground, but next year you'll see 'em troopin' back—th' sky jest hazy with 'em and their campfires smolderin' away jest like they are now.

 From his pipe the smoke ascending
Filled the sky with haze and vapor,
Filled the air with dreamy softness,
Gave a twinkle to the water,
Touched the rugged hills with smoothness,
Brought the tender Indian Summer
To the melancholy north-land,
In the dreary Moon of Snow-shoes.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
     Hiawatha, 1855

 

Nothing Ever Changes

 

Dearest Henry

“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

―Henry Miller

 “I don't know how to tell you what I feel. I live in perpetual expectancy. You come and the time slips away in a dream. It is only when you go that I realize completely your presence. And then it is too late.”

 ―Henry Miller

 

“Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny,  serves to defeat us.” 

 ―Henry Miller

“Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.” 

  ―Henry Miller

“I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous, the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable.” 

 ―Henry Miller

 “I don't give a fuck anymore what's behind me, or what's ahead of me. No sorrows, no regrets. No past, no future. The present is enough for me. Day by day. Today!” 

  ―Henry Miller

“What holds the world together, as I have learned from bitter experience, is sexual intercourse.”

  ―Henry Miller 

“Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant.”

  ―Henry Miller

  “A good meal, a good talk, a good fuck--what better way to pass the day?” 

 ―Henry Miller

 

 

To A White Girl

 I love you
Because you’re white.
Your whiteness
Is a silky thread
Snaking through my thoughts
In red hot patterns
Of lust and desire.

I hate you
Because you’re white.
Your white flesh
Is nightmare food.
You’re my Moby Dick,
white witch.
Loving you thus
And hating you so,
My heart is torn in two.

   ~ Eldridge Cleaver

 

JAP, not Jap

The other day, I heard someone talking in an office I was walking by.  Her voice had a sharp, abrasive, vaguely New Yorky accent that reminded me of a former university acquaintance, a transfer student from Brandeis, I once gave a ride to when her white BMW (given to her by her parents) was in the shop again. She gingerly got into my lime green Mustang that I bought used with my own money and thought was totally the coolest car ever, as if it were one giant cootie.
She clutched both sides of her seat in a death grip and cringed back into the headrest as we catapulted up the on-ramp into freeway traffic. Once settled into the fast lane, I turned on the radio just as Tenth Avenue North’s song “By Your Side” came on. I turned up the radio as I shouted “Oh, I love this song!" (did I mention the top was down?) and began singing along. It was at that moment that I learned the true meaning of the phrases, “If looks could kill,” and “She looked daggers at me.”
Despite my efforts to be nice to her, she’d already made it pretty clear that I was some variety of subhuman because of my generic southern accent and the fact I was a service brat, but that I was an unapologetic Christian was the final straw.
I knew lots of folks get the dry heaves at the mere thought of contemporary Christian music, so at the time I didn’t think her reaction was all that big a deal. But thenceforth she would not even say hello to me when our paths crossed. I heard that she referred to me using compound adjectives describing my alleged political affiliation, eating habits, sexual proclivities and ancestry. I was hurt.
Sniff.
Okay, okay, I wasn’t hurt. I didn't think much about it at all.  I just shrugged.

 Before the above episode happened, how I met this girl, the first Jewish individual I ever knew -- or at least knew was Jewish -- was that she glomed on to me because I was a surfer and she was hot to hook up with what she called a surf Nazi, that being not at all what surfers mean when they say surf Nazi.  

What she meant was a surfer dude, a broad-shouldered, muscular, tall guy with sun-bleached blond hair and an outdoor tan, somewhat under-endowed between the ears but very well endowed between the legs.  Her fantasy fuck in other words, not someone to introduce to mom and dad but someone to boast about to her friends.

The problem was that she was a very...um...ethnic-looking, had a figure like an ironing board and a personality like a rattlesnake.  Oh, and she couldn't swim, let alone surf, and never tried to learn.  Her hunting technique was to lie on the beach in her thousand-dollar Rodeo Drive one-piece with obvious bra padding and say to any dude who walked by after riding the waves, "That looked dangerous!"  The guy would glance at her and give a wan smile without breaking his stride.

I surfed, so naturally had conversations with guys on the beach before going out about the waves and the wind and what not, sometimes chatted while floating if the waves weren't cooperating, and walked back up the beach with them afterwards.  When we passed by her, of course I had to stop and say hello, which gave her a chance to ask who my friend was and trot out her that-looks-dangerous routine.  That always fell flat because we surfed because it was fun and sometimes transcendental.  It could be dangerous, but like any physical skill you learned and managed the risks so that you could do what you wanted to do.

Saying surfing looked dangerous was like telling motorcycle racers that they must have a death wish and thinking that would attract them to you.

I mean, really.

Sometimes we would have little beach parties after sunset, with a fire sending up sparks to blend with the stars, sip a little happy juice, cook hotdogs, chat and cuddle.  She would invite herself along and try to join in, but it was always uncomfortable because her behavior wasn't...how can I explain it?...natural.  She wasn't one of us and clearly didn't want to be.  She was slumming among her inferiors for purposes of her own.  Still, out of courtesy, we tried to make her feel welcome.

She had her eye on one quite splendid example of the male animal and repeatedly made plays for him that he never seemed to notice.  But that never fazed her.  She kept at it until one evening, not seeing him by the fire, she went looking for him and discovered him giving a surfer girl an enthusiastic demonstration of kama sutra techniques.  Awkward. 

After that she never came around anymore, and after the Mustang episode she never talked to me again.

A few years later I saw her once more by chance.  She was performing at a comedy club in Oceanside that had a lot of Marine clientele.  I was there with a couple of crayon-eaters and was surprised to see her because I had assumed she had gone back east and married a stockbroker or something.  Her routine was of the "they're wrong" type, not the "it's funny because it's true" type.  I guess it was okay.  I'm not a judge of such things, but the audience laughed and clapped.  Anyway, I thought I should go up to her after her act and say hello, but then I forgot about it and only remembered as we were in the parking lot and I was climbing onto the pillion seat of my date's motorcycle.  I was about to say "Oh, wait, I forgot to..." when I stopped myself and thought, why should you say hello to her?  She never liked you and only wanted to use you to get what she wanted.  When that didn't work she dropped you. Why are you always trying to be nice to everybody?  Some people don't deserve being nice to.  So I mentally shrugged, wrapped my arms around my date and hung on tight as we roared south along the Pacific Coast Highway.

 

Friends

 

This and that

I took a Japanese immigrant senior citizen grocery shopping the other day.  She's lived in this country for more than 40 years.  I bought some things for myself, too, including a jar of malted milk powder.  She looked puzzled at my purchase and asked me how malted milk was different from ordinary powdered milk.  Despite all those decades in this country, she had never heard of malted milk or milk shakes.  

Later, we got to talking about the illegal alien crisis and all the Haitians flooding into Texas and she asked me when the United States had acquired Haiti.  When I said we never had and that it was an independent country, but had once been a colony of France, she was genuinely puzzled:  why were we taking in all those people from  someplace we had no connection too? Then she asked me why we didn't send the army to the border and open fire on the illegals and drive them away.

I used to know a Mexican-American guy who grew up in Salinas and got involved with the gangs there but managed to get away from all that and move to another city where he got a job as an inside bank guard.  He made $11 an hour and was proud of how well he was doing with such a responsible and prestigious job.  Once he asked me didn't I think $11 an hour was good money.  I agreed that it certainly was and he said soon he would have enough money saved to take me out to dinner. Then he got demoted to outside guard.  Instead of being warm and dry inside, with a chair to sit on, he stood outside in all sorts of weather.  And his pay dropped to $8.50 an hour.  Our dinner was postponed.  He had diabetes and the pain in his legs made it impossible to stand for very long.  He lost his job, was evicted from his apartment and then just disappeared.

One of my relatives was an engineer with North American at Downy in the 1960s. He worked on the Apollo Command Module.  I mentioned this to someone I was lunching with once and he said the whole moon landing thing was a hoax and never happened.  I looked at him, looked down at my coffee, then at my wrist where a watch would have been had I been wearing one, said I just realized I had an appointment and had to get going.

When I used to ride the super-crowded commuter trains in Tokyo, sometimes I would be groped.  Once some guy even ejaculated on me.  I didn't realize it until I got home and changed my clothes and saw this...well, you know... and practically tossed my cookies.  I threw that outfit right into the trash.  When I mentioned what had happened to a friend, she complained, "Nobody ever does that to me!"

Another time, when I was walking past a girlie bar in Ayase, the doorman or whatever he was stopped me and asked in broken English if I would like to be a hostess there, handing me a business card.  Then he raised both hands palm up and, smiling, repeated "Oppai!  Oppai!"  

One time I was having dinner with a Japanese graduate student matriculating at Cal and we got to talking about American history.  I mentioned the Civil War. He had never heard of it.  I referenced the Revolution. He looked blank.  He thought slavery was legal throughout the US and that it had only been ended by Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s.  I asked him if he thought the attack on Pearl Harbor was revenge for the atomic-bombing of Hiroshima.  He looked thoughtful, then said he had never considered that but it was probably true.

A Japanese immigrant lady in her mid-80s began to get senile and could no longer be trusted to live by herself in her own apartment anymore so her daughter, whom I know, who works long hours and couldn't look after her, found an assisted-living facility that charged $3,000 a month, a figure she could barely afford, and moved her there.  All the staff were Mexicans and the food they served was the cheapest kind of Mexican food, usually just a bean burrito or plain mollete.  The old lady had a hard time eating such food and asked for some Japanese dishes, especially rice, but the request was denied.  Then the facility supervisor announced that all residents had to get Covid-19 shots.  So her daughter took her for an inoculation.  The shot made her so sick that she was hospitalized for three days.  When she returned to her room at the assisted care facility she found that many of her belongings had been stolen, including $390 in cash that she had entrusted to her personal care provider, a Mexican woman.  This woman denied she had been given any money, saying the old lady was senile and imagining things.  Her daughter called the police to report the theft but the dispatcher hung up on her.

This same old Japanese lady owns property in Harajuku that is worth $8 million. Her daughter wants her to sell it so that she can afford to move to a much better assisted-care facility, but the old lady refuses, saying her father (who has been dead for decades) won't let her.  She receives $1,100 a month Social Security, her daughter earns $60,000 a year, and both their savings are almost exhausted.

Once a guy edging by me in a ship's passageway paused, turned around, followed after me and tapped me on the shoulder.  I looked questioningly at him.  He asked me, "If I tell you something, promise you won't 'me too' me? I said, "Sure, I guess."  And he said, "I hope your day is as nice as your ass!"  I said that so far my ass was winning.  Okay, I didn't actually say that, but I thought about saying it.  It had been a crummy day and his lame compliment made me feel good.  I just smiled and went on my way.  But inside my head I was dancing -- not twerking; I don't know how to do that, plus it makes you look like a chimpanzee in heat -- but the Bus Stop, which my mom taught me how to do (it was big in the disco era when she was a hot club babe) and I always dance it when I am happy.  Come on guys!  Don't be shy, give a girl a compliment!

Speaking of compliments, I was showing my friend, who is a real, live PI, around an aircraft carrier one time with some aviator friends and she lagged behind with one guy and later I asked what they were talking about and she said that he was interested to know about her work as a forensic accountant and licensed private investigator.  "He wanted to know if I carried a 'gat.' Kidding, I said I always had one tucked into my garter belt. He said he'd like to see it sometime and I said, what, the gun? and he said no, the garter belt!"

A joke:

There was this guy at a bar just looking at his drink. He stays like that for half of an hour.
Then this big trouble-making truck driver sits down next to him, takes the drink from the guy, and swigs it all down. The poor man starts crying.
The truck driver says, "Come on man, I was just joking. Here, I'll buy you another drink. I can't stand to see a man cry."
"No, it's not that," says the guy. "This day is the worst of my life. First, my alarm clock doesn't go off and I'm way late to work. My boss, outraged, fires me. When I leave the building and go to my car, I discover it has been stolen. The police say that they can do nothing. I get a cab to return home, and when I get out I realize I left my wallet and credit cards in it. The cab driver just drives away.
"I go inside my house, arriving earlier than normal, and find my wife in bed with the gardener and the pool boy. I yell at her but the two men beat me up and throw me out of my own house. So I come to this bar. And just when I was thinking about putting an end to my life, you show up and drink my poison."

Shine, perishing republic

Thomas Hart Benton's "Indifference"

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity,
      heavily thickening to empire,
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops
      and sighs out, and the mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make
      fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances,
      ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.
You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life
      is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than
      mountains; shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their
      distance from the thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, and when the cities lie at the
      monster’s feet there are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man,
      a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught
      —they say—God, when he walked on earth. 

~ Robinson Jeffers

 I would burn my right hand in a slow fire
To change the future ... I would do so foolishly.  The
beauty of modern
Man is not in the persons but in the
Disastrous rhythm, the heavy and mobile masses, the dance
of the
Dream-led masses down the dark mountain.

 ~ Robinson Jeffers

Au combat fut tue...

"Like some infernal monster
still venomous in death,
a war can go on killing people
long after it is over."
~ Nevil Shute

Où est celui que j'ai tant aimé?  Où est celui que j'ai tant aimé?  Où est celui que j'ai tant aimé? 
Où est celui que j'ai tant aimé?  Où est celui que j'ai tant aimé?  Où est celui que j'ai tant aimé?

You Don't Know

Bravery doesn't look like what you think.

“Lost in Hell, Persephone, Take her head upon your knee; Say to her, "My dear, my dear, It is not so dreadful here. ”
 — Edna St. Vincent Millay

 I get so fed up with those God-damned sons of bitches people who complain about women in our armed services.  I get so sick of reading pundits and commenters who disparage women who volunteer to serve.  Fortunately I am not alone:
"How dare someone who's never served a day of their life criticize my Marine Corps and tell other folks who never served a day in their life what the military is all about?
It takes 10 supporting troops for every front line Marine the military fields, much more for the Army. Women were not officially allowed combat duties as recently as the start of the Iraq war, but since then they have more than held their own with the men. So, in spite of these colorful illustrations about women not being able to drag wounded men off the battlefield, this whining and moaning comes from a bunch of cooks and supply clerks who wouldn't know combat if it hit them in the face.
"On the other hand, the female MPs who deployed to Iraq had extensive training on everything from squad movements to heavy weapons. We used to let our females show our support-mos augments how to break apart and re-assemble the .50 cal. Even our 0311 platoon commander lamented that the higher-ups wouldn't allow fully capable women to go outside the wire while we had to risk our lives alongside untrained water purifier augments.
"When my platoon was awarded combat action ribbons for our role in the initial invasion, the female Navy corpsman we had with us was not allowed to have one by her chain of command. It would have been too unprecedented to admit that a female performed the same combat duties as male Marines. Meanwhile she was also caring for wounded enemy prisoners under fire.
"And let's not belittle just how hard females work to overcome the physical shortcomings that they do have. Back when I was in boot camp, the female battalion would have reveille an hour before the rest of us on days we had PT and they would stay out there running for an hour after we were through.
"Face it, we have a volunteer armed forces and we should not begrudge anyone who is willing to put on a uniform and serve. Especially if you're some do-nothing writer who's better suited to staying in the rear and bringing a beer for some of the females service members that you belittle.
"But most importantly of all, I will not stand for some civilian trying to tell people that today's military is in any way lesser than any military from a prior generation. Now that is the ultimate mark of an armchair amateur who probably couldn't hack it through forming week on Paris Island.
"Today's military, especially the Marines, is smarter, harder, and more disciplined than ever. We kill more and die less--that is a fact; and when we're wounded there might be a female surgeon in fatigues saving our life. And there are some corporals with master's degrees out there serving in the infantry. They are up against some of the most dynamic battlefield conditions that require more training and knowledge than ever before.
"This is not like one of the scenes from Battle of the Bulge where a Colonel tells some Private to keep his head down. This is the NCO's war. So to all the old geezers and ignorant fools who find it easy to sit on their couch and say that my Marine Corps has been getting soft, I have to say they're just wishing they were good enough themselves."
--BBK 

 "I have known some pretty tough ladies over the years. One NCO, shot in the leg by a young private on the range when he let off an ND with his rifle, still had the grit to beat the shit out of him before they carted her off to the hospital. One of my ancestors was a crack shot with a rifle in Kentucky in the 1700s. She was a Whitley. Asked by a Shawnee warrior why her husband let her have a weapon (in a very condescending way), she replied “So I can kill you bastards when you raid my farm.” The Shawnee stayed away from her farm. Rumor has it that she even beat Daniel Boone at a turkey shoot. My Great grandma was an Irish girl who never considered herself properly dressed unless she was packing a Peacemaker, and she was a very good shot. And in 2006, we had a young lady at the PRT who could handle a MK-19 like Yo Yo Ma handles a cello. She was a local legend to our Afghan troops. Skill, determination, and courage are not limited by gender, and I know a lot of males I would not want on the line with me. Politics must never dictate watering down standards in order go get the “minority du jour” a place of preferment. But neither should we deny ourselves the services of ass kicking warriors who happen to be women."
--RP

And you know what?  War is war and those we have fought this century have been brutal.  For the women who served as well as the men:

"During the war I was equal at last, and often it was too much to bear.  I ate breakfast like a woman with a wired jaw, so much did I dread having to go out there and face it all.  There are stories I could tell but so very much has already been said, and none of it ever made any difference at all."
--Gloria E.

 "The war was the pivotal event of my life. Yet I never mention my days on helicopter assaults, my fear of getting shot in the face, for the same reason most marines kept quiet. Nobody wants to hear about it, and even if they did, they wouldn’t understand."
--Diane F. 

"Wars don't end. Every bullet leaves an exit wound. Lives stop, dreams collapse, futures implode."
--Lara P. 

 

An old cartoon.

Me, Myself and I