Men in Hats

For the time being, I shall stick this post at the top of my blog, not only because I like it, but also because new photos will be added to the slideshow ongoing. So take a peek every couple of weeks or so to see new faces. Maybe you will have been added to my (charming) Rogues' Gallery. Check for new posts behind this one too - I actually do write new stuff from time to time. Thanks for reading!

Most of my friends are used to me obnoxiously poking a camera in their faces when they least expect it. And many of my friends are performers who are quite willing to perform for my lens. So, one day, I was sitting in a chair outside my favourite coffee shop when it struck me that the men sitting in a row on the brick planter opposite me were each wearing some form of unique headgear. Inspiration! Thus was born "Men in Hats".

What began as an interesting thought has progressed to obsession. I am now accosting complete strangers in the street and asking if I may take their pictures. So far, only one man has refused me, and he is someone that I do know. The rest ask me where they should stand and how they should pose, and beam away like Cheshire cats.

Don't know quite what to do with these, but I love them. Hope that you do too. Men in Hats:



If you would like a closer look at all these lovely men, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/humbug.pat/MenInHats

Wall by Wall

Almost Done

Just as nature tries to fill a vacuum, local graphic artists have looked at the blank walls in town and work at filling them all. Flatmo, Spicer, the Rural Burl Mural Bureau, graffiti artists, and all of the anonymous, unknown, or unnamed, have dotted the town with colourful larger-than-life realistic and comic invention. In obvious view on busy streets, hidden in the backways, byways and alleys, bordering parking lots, they are painting the town - one wall at a time.

To view the slideshow in larger size format, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/humbug.pat/PaintedWalls

War, Bloody War

Like the wars themselves, everyone who looks at this picture will have a different response, and a different opinion of what they see. Two American soldiers who probably never in their young lives thought that they would one day shake the hand of the President of the United States! Two strapping young men - the parts that aren't missing look strong and healthy. They were probably proud of their country and ready to sacrifice for it, and I'm sure that George is congratulating them for their valour, expressing regret for their losses, and telling them how grateful we all are. We are twice as grateful to you on the left. (That's your right, George, in case you're trying to figure it out. You know - the one who appears to be leaning rather heavily on your shoulder as if he's not quite steady on those new pins yet.)

George certainly looks fit, possibly going for a run (solo, I assume) as soon as he's done here. Actually, his trademark smirk looks a little sheepish, like maybe this isn't the best photo-op in the world, like he's anxious to be on his way. Maybe we could publish it alongside a shot of Bin Laden spattered by the human shrapnel of one of his suicide bombers. Would that make you look better, George?

I remember your stirring pronouncement, George - "Mission accomplished!" Well, Amen! to that. But refresh my memory, if you will. What was our mission there? Seems like it kept changing, and I lost track somewhere along the way. Oh yes, we were going to bring peace to the Middle East, and thus to the world. I'm sure that was it.

Of course, in retrospect, my favourite from you is "Bring it on!" Boy, you sure told them. And they took you at your word. Proof positive right there at your hand. I must say though, that you stood up to it all without a scratch. One tough hombre you are, George.

Epilogue

They made promises to me –
“Be all that you can be!”
they said.
I didn’t know that all I could be was dead.

They trained me well –
I learned to kill;
to fight
to protect my country - for God and Right.

I was sent off to war
on a foreign shore
far away.
They said we were buying freedom, and I was to go and pay.

So, valiantly, righteously,
for God and glory,
I fought.
Against the wrong enemy, but it was what I had been taught.

I died a hero’s death;
and with my final breath,
I cried,
“When will this end?” “For you it’s now,” the blood-red sand replied.

Now my Mom and my Dad weep aloud,
even though they’re still proud
of me
and the medals I won – posthumously.

But I have to say
it’s better this way –
I just died.
Others must live on with their bodies in pieces and pain inside.

These young fathers, mothers, children, husbands, wives,
with broken minds and broken bodies to broken lives
they come,
walking, wheeled, carried, sealed in hidden coffins and shipped home.

"Did we win?" we ask.

Ma, He's Painting on the Walls Again!

The artist at work

Our most prolific outdoor muralist is at it again. On the backside of the Arkley Centre for the Performing Arts, artist Duane Flatmo is crafting an heroic, old-world, trompe-l’oeil painted monument to the arts. The arch was inspired and designed from architectural photos he took on a trip to Paris (France). When the building’s backdrop of sky is the right shade of blue, it adds even more to the illusion that you are seeing through it.

The dancer and musical figures reflect the performance aspect of the building, with musicians’ faces pulled from the pages of a jazz magazine.

When I first moved to town, the building was home to the State movie theatre – a grand old girl in the grand old style – soaring spaces with upstairs and downstairs seating, one screen, one movie at a time. With the advent of modern multiplex theatres, the old theatres wasted away. This one became part of Daly’s Department Store, a busy retail store in the heyday of downtown merchants – when they dominated city business, politics and society. Along came the mall and downtown changed again.

Vacant and in disrepair, the building was finally rescued, rehabbed, restored, and refurbished by our local billionaire benefactor, and reincarnated as an elegant performance theatre. The other remaining portion of the Daly’s store had already been redone and was operating as a new local bank.

Downtown is gradually coming back. Businesses still come and go, but there is slow, steady improvement. Old Town facades are Victorian jewels, housing a variety of shops, galleries, offices, restaurants – some thriving, some hanging on. The waterfront is our sometime vision of loveliness, and visionaries have big plans. Oh, they do have plans.

Old building in downtown

New artsy-tecture building in downtown

We are, of course, courted regularly by the Big Boxes who hope that we will fall for their lines and be seduced into letting them in. We try to hold them off, fearing date rape.

Bars and Brothels and Ghosts, Oh My

The second ghostly experience I’ll relate was in a brothel - a used-to-be brothel in Eureka’s “Old Town” area. This part of downtown, especially Two Street, used to be a hive of bars and brothels, and the prime destination for loggers coming in out of the woods. It was rough and ready and alcoholic, with brawls and stabbings a common occurrence, and characters like Muzzie, playing piano and singing in her own very popular bar.

The heyday of these bars was finally winding down in the 1970s and 80s, and now there are only a few of the old ones left – much tamer now, and on the fringes of a slightly more civilized area.

They've been around for a while

A friend of mine talks of delivering newspapers to Old Town brothels in the early 1950s, but they’re gone now too. Now there are apartments over top of the neighbourhood businesses, and today, the “girls” loiter on street corners, and in doorways, or stake out their bit of turf over by the library.

I walked through an empty brothel-that-was, before it was converted. There was a small, square foyer and a long, broad, wooden staircase leading up into a dimly lit hallway. Our footsteps were loud and hollow-sounding as we climbed the stairs, and our voices bounced off the walls and echoed, even when we whispered.

At the top of the stairs, we turned to face down the hall of many doorways. The doors were all either open or missing - don’t remember which, but we could see into all of the rooms with their bits and pieces of debris. The dust smelled like old alcohol and sweat, and it seemed as if we could hear faint sounds from the far end of the hall – murmurs, moans, soft laughter, the clinking of glasses and rustle of fabric. There was, of course, no one in the rooms – not when we looked straight in. It was only out of the corners of our eyes that we could catch soft, furtive, shadowy movements.

I don’t remember too much of what it actually looked like, other than dark, musty, dilapidated, because the back of my mind was too busy picturing reds and purples, velvet draperies, flocked wallpaper, plush carpets, mahogany furniture. It may never have been that elegant. Reality was probably booze, vomit, and pee-stained, with torn curtains.

Leaving, we hurried along the hall and almost ran back down the stairs, sure that we were being watched by ghostly eyes from behind and above. When we were out on the sidewalk again, we took a deep breath as we locked the door securely behind us.

That was then, this is now

Bad juju

The abandoned building site reminded me of a couple of experiences I’ve had here in town. One was in a restaurant/nightclub that had been financed by the bank where I worked. The business had gone belly up and was now ours to dispose of. We went to inspect our new property.

We let ourselves in the back alley door, stumbled through a dark entryway and found a light switch. The scene in front of us was total carnage – the wreckage of a food and drink orgy. Every table was still set with the remains of a meal – plates dotted with mouldering bits of food, utensils at all angles, water glasses half-full, liquor glasses empty, napkins crumpled and smeared. There were empty bottles everywhere – standing on the tables, lying on the floor. It was as if the party had been going at full steam and in an instant had just stopped. As if the last person had taken a last bite and tossed off a last drink and that was the signal for everyone to immediately stand and walk out. Or as if they had suddenly been zapped and turned to instant dust and they were all now lying on the floor under their chairs next to the bottles. If we sprinkled them with liquor, would they reconstitute themselves to carry on where they left off?

In the kitchen area all the pots and pans, cooking and serving utensils, were still sitting where they had been used. Spills congealed on the stove and countertops. There was a large dead black bird – a crow or raven – lying on the counter next to an even larger butcher’s knife.

It was like a scene from the movie “The Shining” - walking down a deserted hallway, and peering into an empty room that I expected to see suddenly fill with strange, frenzied life.

The building's next incarnation included Chippendale dancers.

BOO!

Old ruins are redolent of their long history. Stonehenge, Macchu Picchu, Mesa Verde, crumbling old castles and churches, are filled with the ghosts of all of the people that have passed through them throughout all of the centuries that have passed by. Broken walls radiate inward all of the pain and sorrow and laughter they have held; they are impregnated with all of the human fluids that have stained them. Stand in the center of any of these places and close your eyes. You will hear whispers, sighs, screams and laughter in the breeze, and feel the brush of thousands of ghostly bodies moving around you as they go about their old business. What we think of as deserted and empty is filled to the brim.

Newer abandoned structures are the same, except that the ghosts’ clothing would be more modern. There is still that sense of unseen occupancy, as if those still in residence are engaging you in an eerie game of hide-and-seek. A friend found this site of photos of abandoned buildings – homes, businesses, even whole towns – most in the United States, but some around the world. Some you can understand, some you wonder what on earth could have happened to them – like the village in northern Italy.

http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/index.htm

Take a peek; see if you can catch someone watching you from around a corner.

The Beauty and The Beast

Reclaiming our Crowning Glory

The Eureka Inn is the crown jewel of our little semi-Victorian bayside burg. It was built in 1922 - a half-timbered Tudor edifice, occupying an entire elevated city block near the centre of town – and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Owned by the Barnum family until the death of the family matriarch, it was sold, only to suffer management problems under the new owners which led to its closing in 2003.

While it was open and thriving, it was a mecca for tourists, and a centre for community activities. There were 104 guest rooms, a swimming pool area (closed over), 8000 square feet of meeting space, a café, a fine dining restaurant, two bars – one with a fireplace and conversation circles of comfortably upholstered high-backed chairs.

The lobby is spacious in area and height, and was elegantly carpeted and furnished around a large fireplace. At Christmas time, the place was always decorated to the nines, with a giant revolving tree overlooking a month-long parade of musical performances. Now under new ownership once again, the exterior has been repainted and interior construction, refurbishing and maintenance are ongoing. It was to be reopened for business last year…this year…maybe next year.

The Seat of the County

If the Inn is the bling of this old dame city, the courthouse is the boil on her butt (or County seat, if you will). The two original adjoining gray institutional boxes housed county offices, courtrooms and two floors of County jail. Overflowing and bursting at its concrete seams, the building was scheduled for a mandated earthquake retrofit, and a new jail addition was planned for the same time.

When construction was completed, the newly vacant top floors of the old structure were remodeled into deluxe new offices with spectacular views of the Bay and the city. The windows of our ground-floor office were boarded over on the outside with dirty scratched green board, hiding the new wall half a foot away, and effectively jailing us from 8 to 5 every day. What is the difference between work and prison? About 6 inches, I would guess. At least we did partially solve our window problem by creating a mural on the inside glass.



The front façade of two tall tower areas in the new jail were striped with rows of brick – very cheery, like square barber poles. The entire front half of the addition was finished off in baby poop yellow, the back half in the rosy blush of a salmon in heat.



To complement the new addition, the original boxes were repainted in the ever tasteful, blend-into-the-fog decorator tones of beige, greige, and bluege. The whole of this cobbled-together building range is a monument to design by dueling committees, and is a viable contender for ugliest building on the continent. There was a second addition planned for the other side of the jail that was meant to house all of the courtrooms and court offices, but we ran out of money, and it is now a much-needed parking lot. The court attachment would have been a lovely turreted Victorian, blending in nicely with the over-all structure.

A Magnificent Folly

After posting this entry, I learned that women now have more access to the place than they had before, although they must still be accompanied by male members (with all other parts attached, I assume). I don't know how they feel about loose women, but there shall be no women on the loose running amok in the halls.

The Ingomar Club, nee the Carson Mansion, may be the most photographed building in the U.S. It was built in 1885 by lumber and railroad magnate William Carson from the eclectic and absurdly controversial design of a pair of San Francisco architects. Originally from the province of New Brunswick, Canada, Carson came to California to look for gold, and found redwood instead.

The last of his descendants to live in the Mansion moved out in 1940, leaving it vacant for 10 years. It was in danger of being demolished so that the property could be developed, but a group of local businessmen purchased the building for use as a private men’s club. They decided to call it The Ingomar Club after the theatre which Carson had constructed and named after his favourite play, “Ingomar the Barbarian”. Club members pay for maintenance and improvement of the building and its grounds. Fine dining can be had in the new boxy restaurant addition overlooking the Bay.

The purpose of the club is for the socializing and enjoyment of its male-only members. Initiation fees and dues are steep, entrance is allowed only to members and their guests, except on rare occasions women are forbidden, dress code is absolute. Within its walls, business fellows are hailed and well-met, wheels are dealed and deals wheeled, power is broked, movers and shakers of the community discuss their next move and how it will shake out.

The Penile Cupola

Periodically through the years women have tried to gain entrance…local businesswomen wanting membership and access to the inner circle…visiting notables wanting a tour of the building or a meal on the wrong day…Verboten! Not one angry, frustrated, little toe through the doorway.

We make up stories about the building and imaginary occupants. Its crazy, crenellated, Goth, bats-in-the-belfry exterior lends itself to tales of debauchery, bestiality, slavery and abuse, bondage and discipline days. The political secrecy of a Bohemian Club or Skull & Bones, the fantastic excess of a Disney castle, accessible as the Pope’s bedchamber, with overtones of Abu Ghraib. Reality, I am sure, is probably dry as toast, but what we’re not allowed to see, we can imagine any way we want. Although, actually, I have been inside – one Christmas party, one bank business reception, one luncheon. It’s very beautiful – full of wonderful wood – a magnificent playhouse.

Geezer Jihad

Low income seniors are growing in numbers even as their cost of living – the cost of existing, of affording a minimum of those things absolutely necessary for life – is overtaking their meager incomes.
The homeless elderly will be an increasingly important group as America ages in the next decade.

GEEZER JIHAD

The Geezer Jihad is on the move to Washington, D.C.,
Marching onward, senior soldiers, in rows of two and three.
With their walkers and their wheelchairs, they should arrive at dawn,
Down Pennsylvania Avenue, and on to the White House lawn.

With their oxygen tanks and IV drips and orthopedic shoes,
They’re ready to wage a dirty war and they don’t intend to lose.
Their lap robes hide their arsenals of weapons of mass destruction -
A deadly store of missiles of their own design and construction.

No guns, no bombs, no tanks, no planes, no loss of life or limbs –
They’re armed with slings and ready to fling a barrage of used Depends.
Resistance will be useless. They’re prepared to stand their ground.
And if their demands will not be met…they’ll turn the White House brown.

As more and more of the old and poor are forced out onto the street,
Or share their cat’s food because it’s cheap and they’ve bills that they can’t meet,
Or do without meds that they need to live, but can’t afford to buy,
The powers that be pretend not to see, or ask, “Why don’t they just die?”

“Why should we have to pay for them? They’re not our responsibility.
They think because they’re old they’re entitled to financial priority!
It’s their own fault they’re in trouble – they didn’t make a plan.
Now their income doesn’t stretch, and they expect a helping hand!”

“Besides, it’s money we don’t have. It’s all going to Iraq.
Just what do they expect us to do? Bring the soldiers back?
They need to face the facts, tighten their belts, and live within their means.
It’s not like they need to go anywhere, and there’s a lot of protein in beans.”

“Goodwill clothes are good enough for bodies ugly and old;
If they layer on enough of them, they’ll hardly notice the cold.
And so what if their medications are more than they can afford?
Why should the rest of us pay for them? It’s time we cut the cord!”

So they’re out in force – a million man march of the old and the infirm,
They’re on parade, they’ll be seen and heard, and make the politicos squirm.
They’re limbering up their pitching arms, they’re not going to back off and quit.
They’re not going to take it any more; they’re throwing back the shit.

They’ve been living at the bottom end of a great national disparity,
But all that they ask is freedom from pain, a little comfort, and dignity.
And if you ask them how long it will take before they achieve their ends:
“It depends on whether they listen to us. If not, ……it just ……Depends.”

A Cautionary Tale

A man I know conducts a one-hour religious service at each of two local care homes, one of them on Saturday afternoon, one on Sunday. He is a good man with no illusions about himself and what he’s done in his life, very devout but with no religious arrogance. He is in his late 70s and still rides a motorcycle and pilots an ultra-light plane. His services are non-denominational, and include a couple of short readings, a brief talk, and lots and lots of music - simple well-known hymns, usually with repetitious words that can be followed easily by the residents who are able to or who try to sing along. Soothing to those who can’t.

He plays guitar or keyboard and sings lustily, assisted by 3, 4, 5 or so other volunteers playing musical instruments, or reading, or just singing along. A few of the residents come into the room on foot, maybe with walkers; most are in chairs – moveable beds – and are pushed in by staff. They are young and old, and of varying degrees of mental and physical incapacity. Disastrous births, illnesses, accidents, and infirmities of age have brought them here. They are waiting – for the next mealtime, for a diaper change or a bath, for the temporary diversion of new faces in the house, for the time when they can leave and go to someplace better.
####
I wrote a song for them – about "going home" some day. (Those who know me will recognize the incongruity of that.) When I sang it in my on key but cracked voice, most of the people seemed to enjoy it, and some even applauded. One woman wheeled her chair out of the room until I was finished. She’s a sharp, critical woman with angry eyes who always takes people to task for any misbehavior in the room. She usually likes me, and loves my hair. This day, she asks me who I am, and what I’m doing there. “You don’t impress me a bit!” she says.
####
I’m sitting alone on the piano bench when suddenly a little man on the other side of the room marches over and sits next to me. He wears his T-shirt tucked into his pants in that way that makes little old men look as if their waistband is up under their armpits. He sits up very straight with his hands folded in his lap. He announces, “I usually try to be normal, and fit in, but sometimes the Devil gets the best of me.” I tell him that he needs to send the Devil on his way, and he agrees. But I could be wrong - maybe this is the bit of a devil that makes life here bearable.
####
A younger man rolls his chair up next to the bench and the little man gets up and walks off. I don’t think it’s that he dislikes the other man – I sense a shift of power. The man in the chair tells me that he is 38, that he was beaten as a child, and that he went to a military school until he was 10 where they fed him so well that he grew to be over 7 feet tall and more than 300 pounds. When he left there, he grew small again. He smiles, happy to have an audience, and pleased to be able to repeat his story several times.
####
A frail, elderly woman asks me to tell her what the man just read, and what it means. I tell her that he said God loves her, which is basically what he did say, just longer. She wants me to hold her hand, which I do very carefully. Her hand is stiff, not pliable, her fingers and knuckles knotted and gnarled, her skin papery and thin and dry.
####
There is a young woman, severely damaged in mind and body, who has been in care all of her life. She makes loud noises, hits her head with her hand, and tries to overcome the brakes on her chair and inch her way up to the front to touch the man speaking. Another woman cries out, “Help me. Help me.” Is she in pain? Or is it an automatic and constant plea? There is a man in the corner who looks like Stephen Hawking – his features are the same, his body as bent. Periodically, he needs to be adjusted and boosted up again in his chair.
####
I recognize a man that I know. He does not recognize me. He sits erect, does not seem to be in pain, and smiles and nods pleasantly, but he is more disturbing than the rest of them. The others are as I have always known them. They were born in my consciousness fully-bloomed as they are now, as if they have always been this way. I remember this man when he walked and talked and worked and played and laughed and danced and loved. When he rode his motorcycle all across the country. He was different, and now he is not. This thing happened to him. It could happen to me. It could happen to all of us.

A Stroll on the Beach

"Sea Horse"

About 15 miles north of town is Clam Beach. I’ve never gone clamming there, but I’ve walked it for miles, and we did it again.

Standing on the beach and looking east, you see a backdrop of thickly shrubbed and treed bluffs rising up on the other side of the highway. The thick vegetation helps to stabilize these bluffs, and protect them from the rain and ocean winds – a boon to houses sitting on top, on the edge, and just barely visible through the trees. The highway was cut through the dunes that sit as foothills to the bluffs, and it can’t be seen from here through the grassy sand hummocks on the beach side of the road. Little River flows alongside the dunes on its way to its mouth on down the beach a ways. A very little river, more like a creek.

Little River, the Dunes and the Bluffs

The beach itself is broad and sandy. We’re here at low tide, and follow along Little River, crossing the beach to the ocean at the river mouth to avoid the hot, hot sand on our bare feet. Even after numbing them in the cold ocean water, when we’re on our way back to the parking lot, it’s only enough to take us half way, and we run back to the water and walk all the way around again.

Across the Burning Sands

The Mouth of Little River

Many years ago, a friend and I watched a huge flock of small shore birds swooping and diving, zigging and zagging in 45 degree angled turns, dancing up and down the beach as these birds do – the entire flock moving as if thinking with a single brain. They raced away down the beach and then started back straight toward us, and just as we were ready to tuck and duck, they all flipped up and back so that the sun caught their white bellies with a thousand points of light. One of those small breathtaking moments that imprints forever on the back of your mind.

Today there are the usual seagulls and a couple of raptors up cruising the thermals. Two people on horseback are just starting out from the parking lot, and pass by the sheriff’s beach patrol vehicle coming back in. There are two large rutted circles cut into the wet sand by someone’s 4-wheel drive vehicle, but there is usually very, very little vehicle traffic on the beaches. Occasionally someone stupid will get stuck out here. Dune buggies are limited to their own small section of beach elsewhere.

Beach Traffic

Sand Circles

Lots of good ions in the ocean air. Breathe deep, let the wind blow your hair, curl your toes around the sand. Life is good. You can almost imagine there is nothing wrong with the world.

Where the Water Meets the Sky