pretty weird day

It’s a pretty weird day. I saw a grown man with his shirt neck unbuttoned proudly wearing a fanny pack  front and center over his belt buckle. It was full of stuff. He exuded confidence.  A saw a covey of hipsters in doublemonk straps and fully suited hawk-eyeing clothes in Goodwill. The tea shop was so empty it echoed. Students have graduated leaving Berkeley a ghost town. There was a long line outside a takeout food place called Slow. I guess it’s slow. There is a mobile home parked in front of my house filled with hunched back twenty year olds  dressed like old people. Who is tall enough to get those damn lemons off my neighbors tree? I feel like today is God’s day off and he has a sub in for him who’s surfing the web and is leaving things to get all higgly-piggly. 

I’m sorry this post has offered no wisdom to you at all. Today I just don’t know. 

“What does Gatsby’s Last Line mean?”

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly  into the past”

This is asked today by a reader in Paris, Tennessee.

Dear Reader, thank you for  asking this cunundrical question. Nick Carraway says that Jay Gatsby is the most hopeful person he has ever met. He says that the smile of Gatsby, much like the smile of Zamboni, lights up  the room and makes the receiver of the smile feel truly and completeley known and accepted. And yet, the story has a tragic twist and turn, and ends with this sentence that seems to say “you can’t escape the past..” Is Fitzgerald being hopeless with this last line? Or Stoic?

Zamboni is a bit of a Gatsby, truth be told. We all are Gatzbies, old sports. I Zamboni, is guilty of bragging a bit about “my Yale years” when in truth I only delivered several pizzas one fall to the Skull and Bones Society while I worked for Frank Pepe’s Pizza Napoletana. I was fired by Pepe for absconding with a large white-clam pie . When several angry Bonesmen called to complain, I was summarily dismissed.

As I was saying…as much as we in this my adopted America long for the future where we remake ourselves in the image of our dream- there is some current that seems to always draw us back. I ‘spose this is my answer- that what Fitzgerald is showing us is ourselves. That we are like fruits. Lots of delicious wonder but deep inside lies the seed of origin.

After all, Tom Buchanan was real, one of us too

Our child blooms towards the sun in the future, but some scar inflicted in the past holds them by the throat. Our nation grows toward equality and peace, but then reverts to the savagery that was around at it’s birth. Bruce Springsteen might say simply- one step up and two steps back.

But  the most important part is that we beat on. We beat on. We beat on. We must.

NBD (mother’s day)

No Bad Days.

the sun was making the leaves so green and for an hour the only sound was the skateboard wheels humping over the concrete, and it was late in the day so long shadows thrown over the schoolyard, trying to defy gravity little by little and skate up the griffito’d walls, but settling for cruising in circles and flying in little ollies here and there

and earlier in church the woman who leads the choir said, “pastor asked me to speak and I just laughed but you know how she is so here i am speakin’” and telling about the grandmother who she called momma, “and we called grandpa ‘daddy’ because they raised us…” She told stories about how daddy was a preacher but momma was a buffer between them and his strictness, “now you know these are good girls you can let ‘em go out” and “we did and we were mostly good, but, you know..” and then her daughter spoke and we all thought about not just moms but the feminine side of god, and how everyone maybe at some point has mothered somebody a little bit… you know, “if I can help somebody, as i pass along through this world..” the daughter sang- than my living won’t have been in vain.

and i think of my buddy whose mom is aging, and facing difficulty- my ex-mother in law in a home forgetting everything she did and was.. i think of my stepmother now living alone at the top of a hill, I think of my own mom with one son like a constant fire that flares up and is put out and flares up again, and me trying to do my best- and I think- MAN! this mothering is hard business..

and like the Angel said to god, about this thing, a “mother” that god was creating in her 6th day of overtime, “it has a leak” the angel said.. That’s not a leak, god says, “it’s a tear”

Hi Mom!

Tears of pain, joy and so much more..chim chim ..cheree

What is the Zamboni diet?

This has been asked to me many times. People will say, “Great Zamboni, surely your youthful appearance after living a few thousand years is due to some fiber-rich Paleo-Diet heavy in Omega fats and Saw Palmetto Enemas? Give me the secret, so I too can look as good as Zamboni!”

Without mincing words, I will tell you what I eat on on average day, like last February 21st:

5am: One locust. Go back to bed.

7am: Wake up. Puke up Locust. Eat 10 strips of Bacon from Black Iowa Pig. Watch four hours of Estonian TV with sound off.

11am: Eat 12 Cheremoya fruit that have rolled around the legs of a Shaman I know named Lois. Twice, counterclockwise.

11:30: In’ N Out Burger, double/double Zamboni-Style (on secret menu)

5pm: Martini Time!  Stash of prohibition gin from my Uncle Leroy.

5:30: Chopped Salad of Kale, Sunflower seeds, and whatever come from Mama Zamboni’s garden.

8:pm: Go to closest Michael Mina restaurant for Steak Tartare- like the caveman eat except they probably not have gherkins and caper.

10pm: Meditate on pile of hay, drink Mint Chip Milkshake, take 39 pills that Dr. Oz make especially for skin of Zamboni. Sleep.

So there you have regimen of Zamboni. But don’t obsess on the ingredients- they are not true spark of Zamboni’s health. The true thing that keeps me going is my purpose.

But Locust good for fiber. One day I learn to keep down.

Non-Sequitar for this Monday

I blindly reached out for a book, then flipped to a random page and my finger found this. In A Treasury of Yiddish Stories, this one called “Devotion Without End” by I.L.Peretz.

“Reb Chiya used to say:’One might imagine that a man’s true character could be discovered in his eyes. The soul lies imprisoned in his body, and the Creator of the Universe, in His infinite mercy, has built two windows in the walls of this prison.These are the eyes, and through them the soul looks out upon the world and may, in turn, be seen by the world. But these windows, alas, have curtains; and a man whose soul is flawed tries to keep it from sight…  and just when the soul is ready to be seen, he lowers the curtain, presumably from modesty.’ “

Like the wine dark sea, like a very large glass of dark beer- the words of this Rabbi are  very deep. We don’t often look so deeply into someone’s eyes that we really see them. When looked at in this fashion, our instinct is to look away, and avoid extended eye contact. Why?

If they really saw right into you, or me, then all our secrets would be revealed. Every petty hope and huge fear, harebrained scheme and inappropriate daydream. What doe this have to do with the price of tuna in Islamabad? Hard to say, but since I am Zamboni I shall tell you no problem.

Lower the curtain and your soul comes though.

Swerving Like I’m George Jones, RIP

Back when greatzamboni was farming tabacco and okra- I listened much to this great singer, George Jones- who sadly just left this world. I give you this video,  from the days when 2 minutes 36 seconds was enough for a song to make an impression.

I will miss this voice. A little of Ralph Stanley’s constant sorrow, Hag’s cool hand luke, and Bocephus’ attitude.

Enjoy in peace, and farewell GJ.

How You Can Help Kill Zombies

Good evening-

Great Zamboni has many associates in chai places. One such man is Kirk Ward, actor, beat poet, native of Hollister Ca, bailer of Hay, father of two, husband and holder of good driving record.

Kirk appears now, after years of beating the star-studded pavement, as head dude in ZOMBIELAND, a TV pilot based on film…

If you, my followers, watch the pilot for free, then VOTE and comment, Amazon will make the pilot with the most votes and support into a series.. Help Kirk feed his children, please DO!

Zamboni once battled an errant Zombie in the jungles of Haiti- poor soul, the sad thing is even when they eat brains (he opened up to me before I slew him with a Bic pen) they feel no pleasure- let that be a lesson to us- when you start to be automatic and feeling-lessless, too habit-formed, then the Zombies win…

https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1001155581