Archive for the 'Family' Category

Driving to Denver in December (desert–>canyon–>snow)

I’m on hiatus from LA until the end of January.  Cleared outta my Burbank place and managed to fit it all into a 8×7x5 mobile pod that the Big Box Storage guy, Eddie, actually brought to my door, let me fill and then drove to a warehouse. The mobile pod had no number on it so there was this flash of wondering whether or not everything from my birth certificate to my pre-teen journals to my electric power drill would end up going the way of the lost Arc of the Covenant.  But the moment quickly passed and I felt lighter than I had previously.  Between now and the end of January –during which time I’ll be helping mom pack up the home in Denver she’s about to leave for five hours a day, and then spending another five hours a day writing two new screenplays and there will be little to nothing to distract me.

But now it’s a road with only my thoughts to distract. Well, that, and arguments with my mom. Mom, Dad, Alex and me used to do cross country road trips every summer when we were kids and Alex and I would actually get paid, in quarters, not to argue. We’d start each day w/ a maximum of seven quarters and then a quarter would get taken away whenever we’d have an argument or fight.  And we got all over the country this way. Car bingo, books on tape and flash cards about the different states. Oh, and I’m actually proud to be able to say I’ve been to every single state, except for Florida.  And whenever I say this to people they ask me why not Florida and I have nothing to respond, really, except that it’s a peninsula and therefore easy to miss.

VirginRiverCasino Back to the desert, though.  Back to the vast, vast, vastness you wont really ever be able to picture completely in your head. The space is just so difficult to conceptualize, even when in front of it, it’s simply easier to hang back and decide to think of the vastness in terms of time, instead.  So I imagine those great big ice sheets pushing through the rocks, carving out the canyons and the valleys and then melting all away. Stayed the night in the Virgin River Casino that night, drove all day and then evening.  We get out of the car at a scenic overlook to try and, once again, take in the extendo horizontal as it appears to be continually extendo-ing.  We end up getting a nice picture snapped of the two of us.  Mom and me looking nice.  MomandMeandDesertTree-pola Got gas for only $1.51 here, can you believe?

Finally, Colorado.  Colder still.  Elevation climbing.  White mountain peaks glow beneath a moon.  Roads are icy and my Cali car, doing it’s best in this fresh new altitude, lacks the wheel and overall oomph power.  Find a hotel for the night.  Snowing the next day, but we set out anyway. Windshield wipers battling the precipitation straight on until finally, we’ve driven out of the cloud.  The elevation is lower, slightly.  Shift into low gear to avoid skids on the way down.

Photo of the vast, vast, vastness at the bottom of the page is of part of my latest obsession. Something my friends, as well as me are convinced is the direct result of Palin haiku withdrawal syndrome. That is, my obsession w/ the “six word story” that Earnest Hemingway popularized.  So here’s my six word story:

Canyon interstates where glaciers once grew.

DrivingtoDenver

It’s the next day.  I continue to think about those canyons, only I think about the back in time versions of those canyons.  I think about those enormous glaciers, advancing and retreating sheets that defined this great horizontal over 12,500 years ago.  And since you’re reading this now, I know you’re thinking about it as well.  Perhaps not as obsessively as I have been.  But you’re nevertheless thinking about it, anyway.  Those long ago glaciers that carved out canyons, then melted away yet left their trace .

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Uncle Don

I’ve decided to dedicate an entire blog post to my prolific Palin haiku post contributor; my uncle, Donald Bassman.  My Grandma, Lillian Bassman Dank, a Lithuanian immigrant, embraced the English language subsequent to her arrival in the United States, through her love of poetry.  As my mom and Don were growing up, Bubby would recite her favorite verses from Longfellow, Poe, Dickenson and Frost.  Although Don hasn’t, to my knowledge, written poetry before these haikus, he moves through the world in a way I perceive to be gentle and poetic in and of itself.  His proclaimed goal: 1,000 haikus by the time of the election.  Whether or not the goal is achieved, I’m guessing there’s a good chance he’ll end up w/ more Palin haikus under his belt than any other individual writing on the topic.  His contributions have integrated so fluidly into his daily routine, he has actually expressed some concern as to what will happen subsequent to the Election.  Being confident in Obama anticipated victory,  I’ve already promised Don new topics.  In addition to writing haikus, my uncle is a landscaper, organic farmer, and history buff.  He lives on the outskirts of Seattle.

Sarah Palin Haikus

Palintology

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The Democratic National Convention At Which I Never Quite Convened

The news kept showing protesters.  Seemingly masses of them.  All Republicans.  So we drove to the Colorado State Capitol to observe the phenomenon.  We being Mom, Karen (the family delegate) Cindy (Karen’s sig other ) and me.  And we drove and we drove.  Passing through the police lines as Karen waived her credentials.  Credentials, btw, are the ID badges they wear at the DNC.  And no, we didn’t actually see any real, live, Republican protestors.  Well, maybe a couple P.U.M.A.’s crossing the street (just learned the acronym for these Hillary purists stands for “Party Unity My Ass”) and then something like four absurdly courageous McCain supporters convening at a park bench in t-shirts, baseball caps and signs.  While we saw no Rebulican protestors, in the proper sense of the word, it counted for something, I guess.  Karen was able to get us into the new Denver Art Museum, which was not yet open to the public but available for convention goers.  And there were these laser projections of lucky numbers on mirrors and laser projected bubbles you could stomp on and totem poles and masks used in rite of passage rituals.  My personal fav was “By June, When the Light Begins to Breathe” by Keith Jacobshagen.  It reminded me of those summers that mom and dad and my brother Alex and I would drive cross the great plains of Nebraska flatness where the cornfields touched the sky to visit the family in Iowa and Omaha.  In fact, on the topic of Omaha, it was that night (or was it actually the day before that—think it was) Cindy and Mom and me watched Alexander Payne’s “Election” to get in the spirit of the thing (also, because Mom and Karen grew up in Omaha which meant the experience of watching them watch the film was something akin to observing a coupla kids do some kinda secret handshake–or a couplea prominent political figures do a fist bump) and then, of course, Michelle’s kick-off on TV.  Should I have postponed my return to a menial yet stable temporary auditing job in order to prolong whatever transitory state of financial stability the job promised to bring in deference to the far flung hope that the postponement could’ve optioned me a shot at scoring a ticket to Obama’s Thursday night speech?  Although Karen wasn’t able to score me tickets for it, perhaps, perhaps…  Should I postpone this return yet another day in order to jump on the opportunity to watch history being made???  Mom and I talked it over and concluded ‘nay.’   I didn’t see a reason to postpone my return to LA cause of the DNC, given that I needed the work and all.  I’d requested and was granted two days off.  That was enough.  Why should I ask for more?  Mom, in compliance with and in support of my choice to reinforce the work ethic, woke me at 3:30 a.m., actually cooked me pancakes with peaches and real maple syrup so I could take a crack-of-dawn jet back to LA on a full stomach.  Subseuqenly, reconvene my finite temp gig (the internal audit, btw, is the dayjob I do when the impovrished novelty of sustaining myself through sporadic acting and writing gigs, starts to wear thin.) Would that I had known just how very finite the gig would actually be!!!  Alas, I promptly learned that the gig was over due to the fact I’d been working too damn fast!!  Okay, so I’d waived the option to fight for the opportunity to possible get a ticket to see Obama and then flown back to LA-LA only to learn that the project was fin and I’m left w/ nothing but a the bitter pill that had I known this in advance, then I could’ve extended my stay in Denver.  Hung in for the duration of the convention, caught site of another Republican protestor or two, spent more time w/ family and been part of history.  I was alone Thursday night, listening to Obama’s speech on the radio (I don’t have a TV) and it was then it clicked into place.  Obama is explaining how his mom would get him up at 4:30 a.m. everyday to do his homework.  Of course he hated it.  It’s why he is who he is today, though.  That was his work ethic.  The thing with Obama —what I hear on the radio as well as from friends— is that people see themselves in him.  And it was that aspect, that really humbling notion that you gotta colonize the witching hours in order to do what it is you need to do, that enabled me to see myself in him.  And no, that night I wasn’t there with the masses who’d arrived at the stadium six hours early for this once in a lifetime expereience or left afterwards, infused with that energy that people later described as other worldly.  I was, however, following an age old work ethic.  And investement in something larger than myself.  And investment that, in the particular circumstance I am describing, fell through due to circumstances beyond my control.  Another practice, though, in maintaining professional integrity.  Like in the old Sun Tzu sense, you lose with honor because it maintains your spirits so that you can recover, return to battle again and be victorious.  So many people said this happened for a reason.  Given how broke I am, how bummed out I am about missing the end of the convention (not to mention the loss of several additional days that would have otherwise been an oh-so-rare vacation for me) I do hope that this context falls into place.

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Hannah, Lily and Max

My cousins Hannah, Lily and Max just moved to Malibu. They used to live in the UK and still have their British Accents. Their mom, my cousin Jennifer, is home schooling them in a round house on top of a mountain.  Jennifer also makes movies with their dad, my cousin Jason.  The house is decorated with stained glass, Catalina Tiles and the gears of a ferris wheel from the Malibu Pier of yesteryear.

Max

LilyThere are wonderful things about this house—-the view of the Pacific; the crackle and roar of the fireplace on cold stormy nights; the dining room diorama of westward bound pioneers; the stellar sound system and smell of freshness serving as a reminder that we’ve still got an atmosphere. Frightening things about this house, also—rattlesnakes, coyotes and backing out of that steep, curved driveway after dark. We have great times together.

Our most recent project was taking headshots.  Waited till “magic hour” (round 5:30, 6:00pm) when the light was gold; went out onto the balcony; jumped rope, sang songs and listened to Beatles music.

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