Wade Nash

My Eulogy for Bob Dey

2011-03-15T10:51:00.000-07:00

My life has been different from a lot of guys in that I tend to despise spectator sports and Car & Driver Magazine. I don’t have a “man cave” and I don’t know if I can still use a ratcheting box wrench or a feeler gauge, and I don’t have any interesting scars. Instead I read books a lot, find myself at art shows, attempt to hold heady philosophical conversations – and I have this really picky aesthetic sense of art and the world around me, and I was only recently challenged to look back and determine who my influences were during my “artistic formative years,” which I believe happen to most of us between ages 11 and 19.

It may come as a surprise to most of you, but with only a few exceptions, everything for me somehow led back to Bob Dey.

For example, in the field of LITERATURE, I remember as a sixth or seventh grader, I had seen Bob reading a certain book series – so when I returned to school that following week, I found the same series in the school library and a whole new world of literature was opened to me. Later, I discovered Bob was reading a certain Robert Pirsig book, and likewise I found and read that book, which has influenced me to this day. And because of this reading, I found myself distancing myself from the crowd of surfer and swim team friends that I had in High School, and more sitting with the AP crowd and discussing the movies and books and artists that we had seen. In my adult life, I’ve been in a book club for years – and I currently read several books a month, and I can’t help but think that Bob was a chief influence on this aspect in my life and seeing out great, life-affirming literature.

Another example, in the field of MUSIC, I remember visiting Bob’s room and seeing him play his bass guitar with this huge performance amp. With the smell of sandalwood in the air, I would look through Bob’s stack of exotic albums and observed all the intriguing music posters on his walls. None of the bands I saw there represented the ones being played on AM radio, and this intrigued me. I started buying mostly albums from bands I had never heard of, in an attempt to emulate Bob whom, by this time, I of course idolized. To this day, I have the same mindset about music – taking the road less travelled when it comes to supporting unique and independent artists, and this way of thinking has never led me wrong. I again have Bob Dey to thank for this.

Bob helped me to realize that listening wasn’t enough – that everyone needed to have a musical outlet too – and write their own original songs, as he did on the guitar and piano. Seeing Bob with a guitar influenced me to buying my own secondhand guitar at age 14 – and then learning to play it – and then buying my first electric guitar and amp as well. Again, Bob was an influencer for me with this.

In the field of STORYTELLING, most of the Dey-Wade clan will remember Bob’s clever aptitude with spinning a yarn – and specifically with “The Legend of Lagunita” – and his suite of “Ornos” Stories. These stories, which Bob would relate, often at night, and often with a flashlight beam pointed straight up his face with a strange twisted scowl, would often unfold in a semi-disturbing almost H.P. Lovecraftian way – usually with a disturbing vocal presentation – only to resolve themselves in some suddenly deflated, filled-with-hot-air plot resolution. It was Bob the trickster at play here, basically saying “Don’t be such Scaredy Cats, guys! Sheesh!” And, to this day, I find myself still gripped with poets and storytellers such as Spaulding Gray, Mike Birbiglia, and The Moth Podcast, for example, and when I look back, I think that again, Bob Dey served as inspiration for me to seek out artists like that.

In the area of SENSE OF HUMOR, I remember BOB THE TRICKSTER leading me through culverts and into twisting and turning dark sewer pipes where he would eventually stick roman candles up through holes in the manhole covers in the center of Whittier Blvd while I would admire the genius of his awesome handywork, peeking out from a nearby drainage gutter, as cars honked and swerved around the plumages of fireworks. And although this influenced me, it led to my own failed ensemble of performance artist trickery back in San Diego -- featuring fabric ghosts suspended across our street by strings of rubber bands . . . and shoes, pulled by invisible fishing line, walking themselves in front of cars. Again, I tried, in my own way to emulate the artistic genius of Bob Dey yet again. Though I caution you – don’t try this at home!

Bob found humor in the simple, by the way. Like the Anza Borrego camping trip where he asked me “How long can you stand it, Paul?” while he wrapped rubber bands one at a time on my nose, and then earlobes, and then tips of my ears until, whimpering, I could bear it no further. I also remember the time he shoved a M-80 firecracker into the fleshy center of an overripe peach and told me to go over and stand on the lawn while he lit the fuse and threw it, with a baseball fieldsman’s precision, far over my head.

“Look up, Paul,” he said. “It’s going to look really neat,” he said, smiling, before the explosion and the masses of pulp rained down on my head.

In the field of PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE, Bob had his own interests and goals. It wasn’t necessarily a college degree or a slick job that he was after, but instead I remember going with him to the arcade to see him attempt to try to top his own pinball records, which invariably displayed at the top of most of the machines at the Friendly Hills Lanes Bowling Center. And Bob’s technique inspired me, being a 12 year old who’s pinballs would all invariable shoot straight down through my flippers, sad sounds emitting from my machine.

I’m sorry, Bob, that I wasted so many of your quarters.

Another example of Bob’s influence on me was in the field of ART. I remember Bob teaching me how to draw with Pastels on a camping trip – to sketch first with charcoal on good paper, then pick coordinating colors, apply the colors, and then carefully smudge the pastel applications with my thumb. His technique inspired me, and I remember returning home and asking for a set of pastels so that I could yet again emulate Bob. At home though, left to my own devices with the pastels, nothing seemed to work the same way. My dragons looked like mangy listless lizards . . . and my castles looked foreclosed. Without Bob’s gentle guidance, I was adrift. I later took oil-painting lessons, but I never could fully recreate the magic I felt about art as those days that I sat with Bob under the pines at the picnic table in our campsite with his charcoal and pastels . . . and good drawing paper.

In the field of PHILOSOPHY, I remember following Bob into the sagebrush for quite a ways across the Anza Borrego desert, our shoes crunching through the gravelly sand. The air was still cool in the morning . . . and I saw him sit on the ground and fold his legs and relax his arms and shut his eyes, quietly breathing. I had not been exposed to any forms of philosophy outside our Church, and so the idea of meditation intrigued me. I sat for a while, and tried to do the same – and I found it was very difficult to quiet my mind. The epiphany for me was that I wasn’t necessarily in control of my own mind and the thoughts that entered into it. Bob saw the value in this. Something about watching Bob go through the process of exploring other philosophies inspired me to do the same. I started reading books on world religions, and what I saw there made me realize that I wasn’t necessarily right and everybody else was wrong. That maybe I didn’t know what the right path was, but the important thing was to be a SEEKER. Bob seemed to me, during those years, to be a SEEKER. I and believe that is how I became a SEEKER too. I appreciate Bob Dey for inspiring in this area of my life a well.

Coming from my own family with a fair amount of drama – I saw Bob as a sort of DIPLOMACIST. Maybe I was seeing another side of Bob than other people saw, but the Bob that I observed at family gatherings wanted people to get along. Bob loved to smile. Not a shy, closed-mouth smile – but a full-face broad, toothy smile that was instantly charming and mesmerizing to me. He’d walk up, and say something sweet and gentle, and put his arm around my shoulder, and give my neck and shoulder a squeeze. And just stand there next to me, with the physical contact, like we were best buds, smiling out onto the world – as if we were posing for a photo when there was no camera present.

The Bob that I observed wanted to make people feel good – and wanted us all to get along peacefully. Bob calmed me. Bob inspired me in this way.

Many of you will remember BOB THE OUTDOORSMAN. I remember seeing him in his flannel shirts, adept a pitching a tent, and tending a fire, and all things related to camping. I remember looking at his strong arms, with the veins running along them and, being a pudgy athletically-challenged pre-teen, I remember thinking how strong he must be. I remember Bob was so inspired by the majesty of the Sierras. At the end of a weeklong camping trip along Bishop Creek in about 1973, while our parents were packing up the gear back at the campsites, we walked down and carved our names with penknives on an Aspen tree near the rushing creek. I asked Bob when we could go camping again. He said “next summer, for sure” – and I remember being crestfallen to think that I would have to wait a whole year to go camping with Bob again.

For, to me, one year seemed an eternity to be away from Bob Dey.

Prompt Tuesday #97 (Talk to Me)

2010-03-09T15:08:00.000-08:00

Tell a story using only dialog. Instructions for this Prompt Tuesday found at:

http://sandiegomomma.com/2010/03/09/promptuesday-97-talk-to-me/#respond

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"Hello, sir. M-May I . . ."

"Yes, yes. Hello, there! Can you hang my umbrella somewhere . . . and tell me a bit more about this piece . . . back here?"

"On top of the . . ."

"No below. Inside it."

"The one here in the front of..."

"No, no. Behind it. The small . . . uh, how shall we say . . .? The small coffer."

"Coffer. I see no . . . Well, let me . . . let me unlock this . . . and . . . Okay. Here. Hmmm. I guess I didn't realize that my Uncle even had this in his store. Perhaps I should clean it first. Let me get a dustrag. You know this would fall under our everything-must-go sale, correct?"

"I'm aware of that, my dear . . . But I'm not concerned about the . . . Well, let me just take a look at it."

"All dusted. Here. You can probably guess this is not an imitation. Do you want me to look for the key, sir? My uncle has a keyring down here . . . somewhere . . ."

"Not to worry, my dear. I have the . . . I have no need to further examine it. I can see it is a piece of my property that I have been . . . well, . . . without possession for quite some time."

"Sir."

"Yes."

"Are you saying that . . ."

"I am proposing nothing of the sort, young lady. You are in no way implicated in . . . But I tarry. Name your price."

"Well, let's look on the bottom to see if . . ."

"No need to turn it topsy turvy, my dear. Under . . . under here. Fifteen pounds. Is that right. Fifteen?"

"Well my uncle . . . if that is what he wrote. Plus the discount of course, which would mean that . . . that . . . Did you hear that just now, sir?"

"No need for discounts young lady. You . . ."

"Did you hear that, sir? That sound. Just now. That . . ."

"My dear, there is no need to . . ."

"That sound from . . . The noise from . . . The box. That noise from inside the box. My god, sir. Do you hear that?"

"I have no interest in noises, my dear. Fifteen pounds square. No need for discounts. In fact, take this."

"Uh, sir. This is . . . This is, my god, one hundred pounds. Uh, well that is . . . You must . . . Do you want a receipt?"

"I need no paperwork, my dear. Thank you."

"Sir. Thank you, sir."

"Tell me, my dear. Your uncle. Mr., uh . . ."

"McCourt, sir?"

"Yes, Mr. McCourt. Did he . . . Do they know . . . uh, how . . ."

"How . . .?"

"Yes. How he . . .?"

"How he died sir?"

"Yes. I understand he was found."

"Found just here, sir. Laying on the floor, he was. Just below the counter. Key ring in his hand. Had just locked up for the night and . . ."

"And, the . . . the injuries."

"They aren't certain. A misfortune. A creature. Perhaps a rabid . . . small . . . Well, the inspectors still aren't . . . They aren't quite . . ."

"Yes. Uh. Well. My best to your family . . . and for the expeditious closing of the shop, my dear. I have enjoyed frequenting it since the day it opened."

"Since the day it opened, my dear sir."

"Yes. Since the very day."

"Since . . . since 1858, sir? Indeed."

"Indeed, madam. Indeed. My umbrella?"

"Uh . . . Yes. Here it . . . is. And the door. My best to you, sir. And would you like a wrapping for your box? Your coffer?"

"My dear. We don't need to protect this box, young lady! My goodness, no, no! I merely wish to protect . . . uh . . . protect YOU . . . protect YOU ALL . . . FROM this box. Good day to you my dear!"

-------------

Please indulge me By Answering These Questions:

1) Briefly describe the shop you see in your mind's eye?

2) What does the purchaser look like in your mind?

3) What does the shopkeeper look like in your mind?

4) Describe the box. What do you see inside of the box?

Thank you so much for answering these questions! :)

-- Wade Nash

Prompt Tuesday (2/2/10)

2010-02-02T12:48:00.000-08:00

To me, the most important (and elusive aspect) of writing is the simple motto "Show! Don't Tell!" The "showing," in addition to a compelling plot, is what distinguishes good writing from dull writing. I struggle with this.

Today, when emailing a friend with a writing critique, I ran across this article, which I enjoyed:

http://users.wirefire.com/tritt/tip1.html

I'll summarize with a short "crumping" poem:

Don't Tell! Show!
Stupid mofo!
(repeat)

(Sung to the tune of "Pants on the Ground.")

And here is a haiku that I wrote to immortalize this concept:

Quill dips . . .
Exact descriptions inked onto parchment
The readers snooze.

My best to all . . .

-- Wade Nash

Prompt Tuesday (6/16/09) -- Lie to Me

2009-06-16T14:34:00.001-07:00

For Prompt Tuesday at Deb's Blog at:

http://sandiegomomma.com/2009/06/15/promptuesday-60-lie-to-me/#comments

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Pride

My upcoming "Rings of the Lord" trillogy. Arch-Angels (Michael, Gabriel and Lucifer) form a pact with each other and each don a power ring of Black Hills gold. But one of the angels falls from Grace, and his ring melts in the fires of Hell, allowing him to rise up and . . . Ah, well. Trust me. It's going to be great.

Envy

My awesome typing speed. 90+.

Gluttony

Two Black Bean Brownies. (Recipe on the WeightWatchers.com website. Yummy!!)

Lust

Really big, historic homes that are already fixed up and have perfect foundations. And big tits.

Anger

That my mother-in-law wouldn't plug in the power cord and hand it to me, so I had to walk all the way around the house to do it myself.

Greed

The bathroom key at the office.

Sloth

I once turned in a math paper by writing all the odd CORRECT answers from the back of the book -- and for all the even answers I put a Zero. My math teacher was so pissed, she ripped the answer appendice out of my pre-Algebra book! What WAS I thinking?

Prompt Tuesday (6/9/09) -- "Decisions, Decisions"

2009-06-09T09:12:00.000-07:00

It was so astoundingly simple where before it it seemed hard.

There are not many things in life like that. Fixing a car for example. You have a basic concept of the grease and tools and crawling above and under a car to repair it. Or, for example, if your home's water heater breaks, you generally understand that a plumber will disconnect it and drag it out to the street, drag a new one in, and somehow attach it with his tools and torchy thing.

But this thing before me . . . hmm . . . A lightbulb was going on. If everyone else still thought it was hard, and it was actually really, really as easy as this, I betcha I could make some big-time money here.

It was late 1995. Just months before, I had just separated from my wife and had moved back from the rain-splattered hell they call Eugene, Oregon, and back to my hometown of San Diego. My parents had gracefully allowed their peniless 33-year-old son the use of the trailer on their back driveway to serve as a flophouse. I was working temp jobs, and had somehow ended up at the corporate headquarters of Jack in the Box restaurant, working on technical manuals: basically diagrams of how to put sandwiches together for minimum wage working, often-E.S.L. fast-food workers.

Just two months before, an aquaintenance in Oregon, a former postal worker on permanent leave (due to some form of '60s-drug-induced agoraphobia), had invited me over to his "manufactured home" in the woods past Fern Ridge lake, to hang out. His wife, whom I worked with, could tell that I had been depressed at work, and so, after serving me salisbury steak in a foil tray, Jim got excited to show me something he had discovered on his computer. It was called"MOSAIC." He said it was called a "Web Browser" -- something that he promised would change my world.

He connected his Macintosh with his modem, complete with those all-familiar noises of buzzing and clicking that I had been familiar with from connecting to America Online. But then a small window appeared. And then the magic happened.

Using a large phonebook-sized tome, an "Internet Directory" that he had purchased at a bookstore in downtown Eugene, Jim proceeded to type in string of characters:

http://info.cern.ch

and pressed the key.

I then saw a page of information -- and it looked like a word-processed document. Big deal. However, Jim then explained to me that this information being sent to us from CERN, a university near Geneva. He told me that if someone changed the document at the other end and we clicked refresh we would get the new document uploaded near-instantaneously. He then proceeded to explain what all the blue underlined "links" meant and how they actually jumped us around to other "websites" -- and explained to me the concept of a "web."

It was hard stuff I assumed, though -- programming a website. I had no doubt it required a computer science degree -- and completing coursework to understand network/modem protocols and international telecommunications, special computer equipment. I had never been so wrong.

So that is why, a few months later, when I got a glimpse into what a website really was, the lightbulb went on. And it wasn't just glowing. It was beaming like one of those sky-high spotlights waving back and forth.

This one particular day, around November 1995, a flamboyant Mac consultant whom I'll call "T" had arrived to help some of the graphic artists in our wing with some software installs on the Mac 9600s (a now long-defunct model). "T" had been making the moves on one of our graphic artists, my friend Scott, for a long time, and he seemed eager to impress all of us in the office -- often hoping to extend his morning consulting visits to lunchtime so he could ask Scott to head out for "bite to eat." This particular day, though, I had a problem with my computer and "T" stopped by my desk. It was a quick fix -- done! -- and then the magic happened.

I'm not certain what started it, perhaps that he saw I had a "Netscape" icon loaded on my desktop -- but "T" was suddenly showing me how to create my own web page using a very simple language called HTML in a Text Editor. He said it was NOT a programming language -- just a markup language. (I still don't understand why the consultant didn't meet with our Creative Services director and offer to create a website for us. His oversight was my gain, though.)

It dawned on me at that very moment that Jack in the Box had no website. And maybe, if it were as simple as I thought, I could create one. That same day, I drove to a computer store across the I-15 and picked up a book called HTML For Dummies. That night, I read it nearly cover to cover. I began to realize that this was clearly something that people thought was difficult to do -- but was actually very, VERY simple.

Within 2 days I had created the very first JackintheBox.com website -- and worked with a friend in the M.I.S. (now "I.T.") department to launch the site. Of course, I touted my highly-specialized technology skills to our P.R. department and explained to them that they would need a "webmaster" (a term I had picked up from the Dummies book). Of course, I knew of just the person they needed: me. My position was expanded on the spot -- and I found myself as the first "Webmaster" of JackInTheBox.com.

I made daily changes to the site and expanded it with more and more photos and sections. I submitted the site to a pay-per-entry web-design "contest," and garnered an award for myself.

I was now an award-winning Webmaster for a Fortune 500 company's website -- all within a month's time and very little effort. Of course, I exaggerated my own importance to everyone who would listen, obscurely referring to the complexities of web programming and HTML.

The following week, I overheard a temp I hired, named Deb, talking about trying to get website-development work at Qualcomm -- an up-and-coming company not far away. She even mentioned the hiring manager's name. It was a cinch to call and get the hiring manager's fax number and start faxing my resume over. And the rest is history. After being hired by Qualcomm in September 1996, I have slowly built up my web development resume. I am now a Sr. Software Engineering specializing in web programming for a San Diego-area defense contractor.

Eventually, though, the magic at Qualcomm faded as everyone and their grandmother started creating their own webpages with WYSIWYG web-development tools such as FrontPage and DreamWeaver -- and the technical regard of webmastering died out. In true "Who Moved My Cheese" style, I had to learn to keep changing and growing into new areas of web technology (but that is for another post).

Before that fateful day at Jack In the Box, my career path had been aimed toward journalism and magazine editing (per my Journalism Degree, SDSU, 1992) -- a choice that would have certainly spelled low wages in a dying industry. I can't imagine how my life would have been different if I hadn't decided to get that HTML for Dummies book that first day I saw how easy it was to create a website "under the hood."

Now I keep thinking -- what is the next "hard thing" that is actually really, REALLY easy. Programming for the iPhone? Hmmm. I've got to look into that.

Thanks for readin! :)

Prompt Tuesday, 5/5/09 -- My Favorite Toy

2009-05-06T10:23:00.001-07:00

My favorite toy remained unchanged from about age 4 through my early teen years: Blocks. And marbles.

I would construct fortresses with blocks that I would roll marbles into. They marbles would cascade through the small tunnels through twists and turns -- and then roll out through a little exit tunnel at the end -- making a plinking noise as the marble cascaded down the ramps.

I was fixated on this game, Mouse Trap, at the time, but my parents didn't want to buy it for me ("The plastic parts will only get lost or break, honey,") and so, I continued with my blocks.

Later my dad built me a large HO train board with its own mountain and even a little HO-scaled Western town. However, my attention would soon run dry and I'd find myself, yet again, laying on my orange shag rug, laying down the blocks, and rolling marbles through them.

Watching my kids grow up with race car tracks and roller coaster "kinex" and Harry Potter Legos and robots and then Rios and now iPod Nanos and various computer games (Wow, Starcraft, etc) -- I wonder how much more fun that all is compared to constructing your very own marble factory.

Now where are my blocks? I'm beginning to feel that they are my "Rosebud."

The Little Things that Make All the Difference

2009-04-21T10:07:00.000-07:00

I was on my way to NYC to fly out of JFK to Prague. To make the trip more enjoyable, my friends, David and Ray, and I were driving across country -- stopping in Albuquerque, New Orleans, and New Jersey before I was to meet my sister in Albany just days before my flight to Prague.

Whereas my arrangements had placed us with friends in New Orleans, my friend David's girlfriend Ray had arranged for our accommodations in New Jersey. It was on the Jersey shore with an old friend of Ray's mother, a woman named Pat, who met us graciously and took her into her home. She had hot pastrami sandwiches awaiting us -- and good spicy brown mustard. Her condo had rust-colored shag rug -- and 1980s furnishings -- but her view across the highway to the shore was stunning. She had prepared clean sheets on the fold-out bed for me in the living room. My friends stayed in the back room by themselves.

We were exhausted from our drive, but I had some difficulty falling asleep. Pat sat not far from me in the kitchen with the light on, smoking cigarettes and coughing, and doing a crossword puzzle. I remember thinking that she was coughing very hard. I popped half a Xanax, as was my custom to fall asleep in a strange locale, and drifted off.

That evening, I was awakened by my friends' crys to call 911. I thought I was dreaming, but it was a different kind of nightmare. Pat had coughed so hard during the night, she had burst a vein in a lung tumor. She was able to rouse my friends from the back bedroom, make the international sign of choking, before running into the bathroom and collapsing on the bathroom floor, where she bled out, entirely, through the mouth, covering the entire floor with the majority of her blood.

"Don't come in here," David yelled to me in the hallway. "You are not going to want to see this. Trust me." To this day, I owe David a debt of gratitude that I don't have that memory etched into my brain.

What I hadn't been told is that Pat was a New Jersey Police Detective who had recently retired after putting away some mobsters. When her fellow police officers arrived on the scene and saw Pat in a huge pool of blood on the bathroom floor, and three strangers in the house, it was a no- brainer to interrogate us.

We were separated by the police officers while forensic specialists examined the Pat's corpse. As the sun came up over the Jersey Shore, I was asked repeatedly about why I was in the house (just to crash, I said) and how I knew Pat (I didn't, I said), and what I did to Pat (I ate a sandwich with her and wished her good night, I said). Luckily, I was still slighly high on Xanax.

Within the hour, Pat's doctor was summoned. He told the detectives that Pat had terminal lung cancer. She knew that she could succumb to the disease at any time. She chose to take us in and give us a place to stay, taking a chance that she would be fine during the 12 hours of our stay. What she didn't know is that we would arrive just hours from her imminent death.

In many ways I'm glad I was there for Pat's death. Oddly enough, not only was it exciting to be interrogated for Murder, but I found out later that my friends were there at Pat's side, holding her hand, and easing her fear as she left this life into the great unknown.

We all had separate plane tickets, so I left David and Ray behind that morning and drove to Albany, as was our plan.

Ray naturally was depressed by all of this. When I next saw her, in Prague, she was clearly shaken by Pat's death. This, however, was my post-divorce, never-been-to-Europe trip, and so, perhaps selfishly, I resolved to leave the both of them. I arranged to meet them in Warsaw . . . and then reversed direction and instead journeyed southeast by myself through Hungary and Romania and Bulgaria into Turkey, traveling with whomever I would meet in the local pensions who were heading my direction. It turned out to be the trip of a lifetime and I met many friends from many far-flung places: Australians, Irish, Chileans, Kiwi's . . . and without Pat's death, I would never have made the decision to travel on my own. Traveling on my own became a liberating experience that has changed me profoundly to this day and given me a boost of self confidence in traveling, life in general, meeting new people, experiencing new things/places and personal relationships.

----

After a seven year break in our friendship, I recently met up again with my old travel companion David. David had just exited a rehab program for heroin users -- and became employed by the Seattle needle-exchange program. After an accident left him with a broken leg, he moved back to San Diego, and found me. We met up at a local museum for a special event, had a cocktail or two, and started talking about the old days . . . our college days at Pt. Loma College, old friends, and our Eastern European trip. Ray had never quite gotten over the death of Pat, he told me. She fell into a depression that trip that caused their relationship some problems, and once they returned to Seattle, she shortly left David for another man. She got pregnant, and had a little girl with the new boyfriend, which was enough closure for David to move on.

--------

"Ray is dead," David told me recently. His lips tremored. "Her boyfriend shot her."

He explained that both Ray and the little girl were shot in a murder-suicide by the depressed boyfriend one rainy Seattle day.

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I have a photo of us three that I put on my website back in 1996, shortly after returning from the trip. Here's a photo of us three on a roadside stop in Baton Rouge, LA. I'm kneeling in the middle. Ray is on the right.

http://www.paulwade.com/travel/new-orleans/images/no_three.jpg

Ray had such beautiful red hair and such a wonderful singing voice.

I look at this photo now, and think about the little decisions in life that can change a lifetime: The decision to crash at Pat's place, my choice to travel through Europe alone, Ray leaving David for another man.

Those little details of life, those "sliding doors," they always make all the difference.

-- Wade Nash
(San Diego, CA. 4/21/09)

Prompt Tuesday (December 9, 2008) -- Baudy Writing

2008-12-09T09:39:00.000-08:00

Here's my entry for this week's Prompt Tuesday:

A black-habited Catholic sister
met a strapping young Father who kissed her
He said "do not mourn He,
cause you've never had me!"
So she said "Then de-veil me, Mister!"

Prompt Tuesday -- October 14, 2008

2008-10-14T18:10:00.001-07:00

I have a strangely haunting fear of not finishing a book. It is a sort of guilt and fear mixed together that causes me to keep the book and organize it on a shelf with other books I haven’t yet finished. As they pile up (sideways, that is), I have this fear that I will someday die without having finished them all. Weird, I know.

So, after having read and enjoyed many Jack Kerouac books, for example, I came across, yet again, that unfinished copy of Big Sur recently and I threw it away. I didn’t donate it to the Salvation Army. I didn’t put it up there on my “unfinished reading shelf.” I had the balls to just say: “You know what? This book sucks! I will NEVER have time set aside to waste on this particular book!” And I tossed it. And by ridding myself of it, I gained permission to actualize that I don’t have obsess my way to the end of something to know it’s not for me.

Now if I can just start learning how to walk out of movies, things will be even better! :)

Prompt Tuesday -- August 18, 2008

2008-08-18T23:42:00.000-07:00

This is just to say . . .

I have filled the freezer
with your splendid body parts
that I took from your charming yet lifeless body.

Forgive me -- but your hands were so lovely
and they had been upon me so passionately the night before.
I could not bear to part with them.

And your cute, natty dreads -- and soft lips.
Your head with the still surprised look on its brow.
I'll preserve my memories of our short time together.
You were so sweet -- and are now so cold.

-- Jeffrey Dahlmer Carlos Williams

Prompt Tuesdays -- Create an Aesop's Fable

2008-07-08T23:40:00.000-07:00

The Turtle and His Sculpture

One particularly hot and humid day, a turtle was feeling bored and listless. So, at the edge of his pond, he stacked some polished, round pond rocks upon the mushy sand — first a large rock, then a small rock, and then a medium rock on the very top.

A fox came walking by, and seeing the rocks exclaimed. “My friend! I see what you are after! The medium rock on top of the others symbolizes the plight of man to reach the pinnacle of his success!”

The fox ran into the forest and returned with a bear. The bear, upon hearing the fox's translation, exclaimed. “Yes, I agree, Brother Fox, but you see the large stone on the very bottom symbolizes the plight of the supporters, helping others smaller and weaker than them.”

The fox and the bear ran back into the forest and returned with the badger, who, upon hearing the fox’s and bear’s interpretation of the turtle’s sculpture, exclaimed “Absoutely, my friends – but do you not see the middle rock symbolizes the plight of the hunted, pulling the universe together in pure harmony?”

Finally, unable to contain himself, the turtle exclaimed. “But you are all wrong! The rocks are just supposed to look like a tree stump!” Upon which, all three of the other animals shrugged and walked back into the forest unimpressed.

Moral: Artists, keep your mouths shut! The interpretation of your sheer genius is often from the unintentional!

Prompt Tuesdays --> Infomercial

2008-07-03T09:07:00.000-07:00

LEGION-EASE

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Remember: LEGION-EASE For those Long Desert Crossings! You’ll never traipse the same again!

Prompt Tuesdays: Wallace Stevens Poem . . .

2008-06-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

Suddenly, he noticed something gleaming down in the bottom of the sink . . . down inside the disposal, actually, under that rubber, flappy thing. A glow, of sorts, lay beyond. He rested the scrubber against the side of the sink, dropping the glass with its clinging, concupiscent curds, and leaned forward.

It was a spyrograph. And colored pens. And his old rollerskates. Sitting there, untouched, as he remembered them.

Someone was yammering behind him. A voice he heard most nights. Something about spreadsheets and fuel injection and knee braces and insecticide. Something about the second half of that Kerouac book he never finished that sat on the living room shelf, dust blanketing the top edge of the pages. Or was it boxed up in the attic? Or had it been sold for pennies at some yard sale to make room for the annually-grouped Sunset magazine folios. Why hadn’t he finished it? Something about SAT tests, he seemed to remember. And car insurance. And wisdom teeth.

Was he really here now? Had he really wanted this? Had he already called the roller of big cigars? Was he that roller?

He reached deep into the drain, . . . grabbed it by the innards and pulled it inside out, the plumbing slopping out onto the linoleum in globbed intestinal piles . . . the small gear ringlets and pens from the spyograph clattering cleanly to the floor along with the skates, a tablet of Mad Libs, his first velcro wallet. Inside, an ASB card -- the laminated photo showing his hair parted in the middle, . . . his freckles darker, . . . more defined. And there was something in those eyes. Something forward looking. Something he had not seen in the mirror in a long, long time.
He strapped on his roller skates – a tad tight perhaps– stood, and rolled through the dining room, past the open front door, and onto the porch. The queen palms stood silhouetted against the phone lines in the twilight sky, a slightly humid and salty taste to the air.

There was an unread second half of a Kerouac book to find out there somewhere.

Tuesday Writing Prompt: Using Photo

2008-06-10T20:33:00.000-07:00

Yet another Tuesday writing prompt from Deb Anderson's Blog. The words I derived from the picture were: Misty, Boat, cold.

Here goes nothing . . . A soft-of How-To Memoir, based on real experience! LOL! :)

--------------------------------

Sleeping in a Hammock
with a Sleeping Bag in the Sierra.

It's not easy, somehow crawing into a sleeping bag in a backpacking hammock, but I've done it many times. It takes dexterity, but is well worth the effort. Sleeping in a hammock is one of life's wonderous experiences, but it can get cold at night in the Sierra Nevada, and so a sleeping bag is mandatory to keep the slumberer warm in those cold, and sometimes misty, evenings.

After first checking my hammock for snags, tears, or rips -- and ensuring the ropes tight and secure -- I tuck the sleeping bag into the hammock end to end, and then gingerly sit in the middle. Next, leaning back, I slowly release pressure on my feet until I am laying sideways in the hammock on top of the sleeping bag. The sleeping bag may slip toward the center, but it is okay to ignore that for now. The important thing is, your ass is holding the sleeping bag in place within the hammock.

I then roll sideways slowly, letting my legs slip up over the edge of the hammock, and pulling the netting back behind my head. The ropes may squeek between the trees at this point, but you can ignore that as, in the first sentence, you've already checked the ropes and are certain that they are tied securely, correct? Pull your shoulder toward the open end of the sleeping bag, and then rock back and forth, like you are in a little boat, until you are laying on your back on extended sleeping bag.

Shit. I forgot. I was supposed to unzip it the sleeping bag first. Well, I can . . . uh . . . reach down here and . . . yes. Now I begin to tuck my feet into the sleeping bag without upsetting the hammock. (If I forgot to untie my shoelaces, I'll need to start the entire process over again.) Now I kick off my shoes, tuck my feet inside, pull the netting of the hammock around my sides, and shift up and down until I'm safe inside. Now, reaching down slowly, without turning too far over (to avoid a spill), grab the zipper handle and pull upward.

Boys, when you have to go to the bathroom at night, simply extend your manhood out of the zippered sleeping bag, stick yourself through the nylon hammock mesh, and squirt the nearest bush. This also comes in handy for marking your territory against racoons and bears. Bears get hungry in the Sierra Nevada, especially with large Sausage-looking human-beings in hammocks dangling between two trees.

Girls, I'm sorry. I guess I forgot to mention, you shouldn't have drank those last two cups of campfire-warmed cocoa! Without the proper "gear" you are shit-outta-luck!

Next Week: The sound of the wind hissing in the pine needles and the gentle glow of the campfire. What could be better?

Tuesday Writing Prompt: "Dear Diary"

2008-06-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

“Dear Diary?” he asked. “What? As a title?”

She fumbled with the chromed ashtray lid on her armrest. The Packard was older but well kept – the ashtray lid evidently an exception.

“Chester, I asked you to loosen this lid. Use oil or something on the hinge of it. Today.”

Chester raised a finger to his hat – and nodded slightly.

Unable to budge it, she rolled down the window to the sound of engines humming at the intersection of 49th and 5th outside Rockefeller Center. The rain shot down onto the windows in firm, window-rattling missiles. Her long, ruby fingernails tapped the cigarette holder into the dreary twilight.

“Yes. Dear Diary. I’ve quite made up my mind.”

“But, Darling, last week . . . surely you . . .”

“I won’t have it any other way,” she said, looking down at her skirt for ash and smoothing the green silk. “Chester, cut over on 44th, please. Lunch at the Algonquin today. I wish to sit by the hearth with the firelight behind me. I feel like a wretched, wrinkled, rumpled, dampened mess.”

Chester lifted his right forefinger off the wheel in deferent recognition.

She turned to Robert and lifted her eyebrows. “Need I remind you, dear husband, that you are addressing a Pulitzer Prize–winning, Tony Award–winning author of 17 plays, 8 of which have gone to broadway, 3 of which have become hits, and one of which has been made into a movie for which I also received an Oscar. A shared Oscar, albeit, but I hardly think that . . .”

“Dear Diary it is, then.” He said, slumping down into the seat and watching the rain run down his window in small diverting creeks, the tightness growing in his stomach. Her original title, My Dearest Love Robert, had touched him in a way he hadn’t felt for years – since before the awards and glamour. Since before the limousines and the park-side move.

Somehow he knew it wouldn’t last.

Tuesday Writing Prompt: An Elder's Voice

2008-05-27T23:31:00.000-07:00

Do not judge lest ye be judged, gentile. We provide the young with shelter, sustenance, a loving home, and a loving family. We watch them crawl, then toddle, then run. We nurture them, teach them, and provide them with a job, a sense of purpose. And we also warn them of your gentile ways -- of the dark, hateful, unrighteous ways of the Lucifer outside the boundaries of the Lord Thy God's circle of protection.
We lead our boys, our young men, to become leaders -- not only in the ways of self-sacrifice, strength, and breadwinning, but also of the faith, the pursuit of righteousness, and acceptance of the Elder's guidance. And, for our females, we educate in not only the craftsmanship of a holy household, but the pursuit of a blessed and fruitful womb. Ah, the blessed joys of dedication, holy union, and motherhood. For they shall balance the duties of not only fulfilling the Elder's carnal requirements, but for fulfilling our Lord's dictates for an honorable and pleasing wife. And, as celebrated by King David in Song of Solomon, to suckle our blessed projeny on breasts that have just budded forth not one year's hence.
Blessed be Moroni. Blessed be Jesus Christ, the Eternal God, who manifests himself and our truth to all people and nations.
Blessed be thy name.

Tuesday Writing Prompt (May 20, 2008)

2008-05-20T22:33:00.000-07:00

The Angel

It is a very strange feeling, one that I haven't experienced before. That is clearly my jacket. I put it on this morning, long sleeved and black leather, with our club's angel insignia. And my watch, the Corum Bubble with the roulette-wheel face. And my hand, laying upwardly open, fingers moving slightly, my wedding ring sparkling from the early evening sunlight.

I didn't see the tree across the road until after the turn. Pine trees everywhere, actually, but I can't smell their fragrance. I can't breathe in, in fact. I try, but it is like I have no breath. I can move my lips, but I can emit no sound. I can look about -- but I cannot turn my head. Why am I laying over there, but looking at myself from over here? How can I be looking across the road at myself laying down . . . and at my Harley, laying sideways. At the bottom of my boots, with their nearly new, barely scuffed soles.

My body feels light and tingly, but my vision is clear. My body is there, but my ponytail is here, laying long and braided on the road before my eyes, under my chin, pointing toward my feet on the other side of the road. I . . . I don't understand. How can this be? Am I an angel?

Tuesday Writing Prompt (From May 6, 2008)

2008-05-20T15:32:00.000-07:00

My rapping knuckles emit a feeble tapping noise against the hardwood panels. I reach up and use the metal knocker. A clanking noise breaks the silence, and the window slowly slides up revealing a pair of gray eyes under bushy white eyebrows . . .

“Slide your manuscript in, please,” an old-yet-regal voice beckons.

Manuscript?, I think to myself. What manuscript? Was I supposed to . . . Ah, yes. Remembering that I had used my “Writing Prompt Tuesdays #1″ poem to plug a hole in my shoe, I quickly unlace and liberate it, smooth the page flat, and slide it under the bars toward the doorman’s squinted eyes.

“One moment, Sir,” the voice says as the window slides closed again.

Nearly an hour slips by and I toy with the idea of forraging for berries on the nearby bushes. I slip to the ground outside the door and lean upon it. The clanging awakens me, and I leap to my feet.

“Madam will see you now, sir.” More clanking and the door swings inwards. “I beg you to forgive the formalities, sir. Please enter. Ms. Rowling is very selective about her ghost-writing staff. She awaits you in the great hall.”

Tuesday Writing Prompt #1 (from 4/22/08)

2008-05-20T15:25:00.000-07:00

Said Heathcliff to her long dry tresses,
“I feel like hippopota-messes.
Under the moors your teeth are dust,
your frilly buttons turned to rust.”

Said Heathcliff to her cold crevaces,
“Come dance with me upon the grasses.
With Venus now eclipsed with Mars
I’ll watch your eyes reflect the stars.”

Said Heathcliff to her at the dawn,
“Your whalebone hoopskirts turn me on.
And all the little things you brave
Like eating mushrooms from your grave.”

Said Catherine as they lay together,
“Your skin, Heathcliff, is supple leather.
Just shut your mouth and kiss me well
It’s cold down here, as cold as hell.”

— Paul R. Wade