Friends have been visiting and it feels like a holiday.
Ray Troll in Monterey.(left) Trying to save the buildings with his murals.
Friday night I will be reading from BLOWN BY THE SAME WIND in room 118 of the Tannery Center for the Arts in Santa Cruz, sponsored by Catamaran Magazine. If you’re in the area please come by.
Young Arthur is getting bigger all the time. He has been sporting his extra tuffs in the rain lately.
The news has been filled with Donald Trump’s inditement and the entire event has left me depressed. I am not looking forward to the rhetoric of the 2024 campaign. All we have to look forward to is the unceasing complaints about the the legal system and how he has been treated so unfairly and how his arrest has spelled the nadir of American Democracy. I spent many years working for the Public Defender Agency and have heard hundreds of criminal defendants make the same kind of complaints. The DA’s office is picking on me. Aren’t I supposed to be presumed innocent? Why does the press make me look so bad? Yes, being charged with felonies makes everyone feel put upon. After all the Government has used it’s resources to investigate you and take a public position that you are guilty of serious crimes. It’s hard to endure but rarely do criminal defendants get anyone to listen to their complaints. Except in this case where we will hardly hear anything else. Mr. Trump will complain about the Government and all the rest of the business of our country: inflation, the war in Ukraine, the erosion of women’s rights will be untouched by serious discussion.How have we come to the circumstance that the conservative Republican candidate directs almost all of his comments to the degeneracy of the American state? Aren’t they supposed to be the party of patriotism? Now they are the party of complaint.
We went to a great talk this week where my friend Ray Troll showed slides of artists who have influenced him from R. Crumb to Hieronymus Bosch, He was funny and erudite as always. We had a good time watching his son Patrick filming him for an upcoming documentary about Ray. Ray is the kind of artist who is full of ideas and long long lists of potential projects to be embarked upon. He sees potential everywhere. He loves science and language and art and is always invigorating to be around.
Dot is still recovering from surgery but has entered the stage where she is feeling peppy and wants to do more than she should. Her leg has to heal more but she wants to PLAY! Its been two weeks and her incision has healed nicely so she doesn’t have to wear the dreaded cone of shame but she wants to play so much that it breaks my heart to keep her down.
White Lillies stand
waving in the spring wind
like protest placards..
Here is a recording of me reading a new poem for a young child I have yet to meet.