Marty Barrett: The Flight of the Mavervorl

--10.14.2008--

Fire on the mountain redux

Here is one of the many wildfires killing our fish and ducks, redux. I can't help thinking that whatever goes on in the Harmony Motel has something to do with it.

Previously: Fire on the mountain; L.A. is burning; Los Angeles on three senses a day

Labels: fire, los angeles

--10.10.2008--

My camera is fixed, and so is my cat

Frampton was nice enough to pose for this picture when my Nikon came back. Notice how her hair, like a gas, expands to fill any available space.

Labels: cat

Hedging bets for Halloween

Like you, I often feel uncertain. Finances, politics, whether or not to eat bread; each of these things is an opportunity for Doubt.

That is why as Halloween approaches our family is trying to play the angles.

Even though we're fairly sure the Virgin Mary rides around on her broom collecting souls, there is also a possibility that corpses rise from the grave as skeletons, or ghosts demand Atonement and fasting. I just don't want to be wrong. That's why one kid is going trick-or-treating as Young Jesus and the other is going as Fat Jesus.

Labels: geekery, holiday, religion

--10.06.2008--

It's up to you not to heed the Call Up

As you know, I am a much sought-after interpreter of dreams. I can often be found in rooms redolent of awful-smelling tea saying things like "The flowers? That means you're fat" and "The clown? Freud believes that is a sign that your sneakers look stupid" to people who pay me handsomely.

Throughout history men and women have claimed inspiration for all sorts of things on the basis of their dreams. Mostly these dreams result in Scientology and the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints, but in select cases they have also led to Disneyland and the song "Yesterday."

I do not believe in the prophetic properties of dreams, as I am a hardbitten realist secure in the belief that there is no world but the one we have created (this is also known as despair), but I have something to share with you: Last Night I Had A Dream.

I and this guy named Ben (in real life, I know no Ben) were hanging around with John McCain. For whatever reason, Ben was a big fan of The Clash. I noted that his enjoyment of The Clash wasn't one where he imposed his tastes on anyone or even made John McCain and me listen to obscure B-sides. He just liked The Clash.

At one point Ben said, "The first time I heard the word 'Sandinista' was on a Clash record,"

(This was not true of me.)

John McCain said, "I've always liked The Clash, too."

I recall that McCain was wearing a green bathrobe and didn't smell too good, as if the effort required to look presentable on the campaign trail decompensated rapidly when he was just hanging out with Ben and me.

Ben left the room and McCain leaned over to me and said:

"You know, I hate the heck out of The Clash."

The way I interpret this dream, Ben is either Ben Jones, the man who played Cooter in the original "Dukes of Hazzard" TV series, or Ben, the good ("ben") will of the American people.

I also remember that I liked John McCain at one point, especially in the 2000 election as a worthy adversary of Al Gore and a viable presidential alternative. But lately I think he will say anything to get elected, doesn't believe what he says and, if he isn't horrified by his own decision to invite Sarah Palin to the ticket, isn't worthy of serving. I have always believed that a personal well of horror as a prerequisite for public office.

So that McCain told the American people one thing and me - his trusted advisor - another is a concern, because I just told you. And I don't even know you.

Don't get me wrong: I don't dislike McCain because of his age or his own dislike of The Clash. I am wary of him because he didn't tell the truth to our earnest friend Ben.

And I think the dream I had this morning is just as valid an influence on your voting as is the cynical choice as Vice Presidential nominee of a reflection of America's growing comfort with mediocrity and provincialism. Stranger things have happened, but I wonder what them Duke Boys'll do now?

Labels: politics, pop, sonho meu

--9.26.2008--

That's entertainment

Paul Weller with Noel Gallagher in celebration of my friend Dave and Joni Bellenoit's tenth anniversary.

Labels: boston, pop

--9.23.2008--

As I lay decaffeinating

I don't know if I am getting away with something or if what I am doing is really a victimless crime:

Dear Starbucks Customer Relations,

Please tell me what governs my use of Starbucks couches and chairs in its common areas. If I want to sit and read a book for two hours, must I 1.) have purchased in that visit a Starbucks product that is visible 2.) have proof that at one time I purchased a Starbucks product or 3.) none of these? May I read a book at your facility if I am drinking from a non-Starbucks vessel?

Yours,
Martin Barrett (dec.)

You don't care about my life and you don't deserve to know about it, but suffice to say for reasons of delivering an offspring to school and not wanting to drive to my office 15.1 miles away and then back three hours later to pick aforementioned offspring up, I once holed up in a public library with an excellent Internet connection and a thermos of coffee to do some work on school days.

But no longer.

Budget cuts have forced the library to shorten its hours and have driven me, along with my car, which I also drive, to a Starbuck's in a mini-mall. For the past couple of weeks I have brought my truckstop thermos of imported Dunkin' Donuts coffee to this Starbucks and have sat and worked for several hours in its shaded patio (this is California) filled with comfortable frat house furniture.

I keep expecting a barista to approach and ask to sniff my thermos. The conversation would go like this.

BARISTA
Sir, I -

ME
What the hell do you want?

BARISTA
I just -

ME
You just what? Some people have to work. Are you working now?

BARISTA
Yes, actually, I wanted to check if -

ME
You're saying you're working right now? Do I look like a bowl of milk that needs air blown through me?

BARISTA
What? I -

ME
Do I look like a goddamn bowl of milk that needs air blown through me?

BARISTA
I -

ME
Say it!

BARISTA
I -

ME
Say it or so help me I'll choke you with these Diana Krall and Jack Johnson CDs. Jack Johnson I can understand, but Diana Krall - what was she thinking?

BARISTA
I WANT TO SNIFF YOUR THERMOS.

ME
You mean Edward James Thermos, the name I've given my thermos?

BARISTA
Yes

ME
For what reason do you want to sniff my thermos?

BARISTA
There's a mandate from Seattle that I smell-check any vessels I can't get a visual confirmation on

ME
And you like this part of your job?

BARISTA
Well Yes. Yes, I love it.

ME
Well, for every time you've subjected me to post-"Blue" Joni Mitchell, I'm going to deny you the privilege of sniffing my thermos. It's Dunkin' Donuts coffee.

BARISTA
Can I still sniff it?

Not enough that I used their comfy furniture I also, after downing my thermos, needed to use their bathroom. On the wall was a poster that read: "Behind every cup of coffee is a barista and a good story."

At this point I remembered the words of my friend Michelle, a former Starbuck's manager, who said that the whole transaction of ordering a coffee through receiving it had to take less than three minutes and, since the majority of those three minutes is spent after one has paid for the coffee and the line has moved on, there really is no time for the story.

So is the story allegedly possessed by each barista one that the customer has to take on faith, because there is no way he/she has time to bend my ear with personal anecdotes and even if he/she could could not guarantee that the story is good by my exacting standards, as an internationally recognized poet, filmmaker, commentator, thespian, playwright, musician, and aphakic lens wearer?

What I'm saying is that, if challenged, I will say that I'll believe the 17-year-old thermos-sniffing barista has a good story if she will believe my thermos has Starbucks coffee in it.

Previously: The war on poverty from four fronts

Labels: commerce, geekery, los angeles

--9.12.2008--

Refurbished Griffith Observatory gives Space a chance, doesn't spurn Pluto

L.A.'s Griffith Observatory, which opened to the public in 1935 and which commands an excellent view of the Hollywood Hills and the city and the Pacific Ocean beyond, has not taken the opportunity afforded it by its recent restoration to ditch Pluto, which was demoted from planet status in 2006.

Instead, the solar orbits of the (formerly) nine known planets are still represented at a roughly 1:20,000,000 mile scale on the walkway perpendicular to the front entrance. The Sun is located close to the front steps and the orbits of Mercury, Mars, and Earth quickly follow within the next few feet.

As visitors walk away from the Observatory toward an obelisk dedicated to the likes of Copernicus, Newton, (Heisman Trophy winner) Herschel, and Galileo, they might be forgiven for momentarily thinking that Pluto was axed because f its new minor planet status.

But No!

Just before arriving at the parking lot, a cuple of hundred feet from the engraving of the Sun, Pluto's orbit is still prominently marked as that of the last planet in our solar system.

See also: Well, in that case, Pluto declares Earth no longer a Planet
See also: Griffith Observatory

Labels: los angeles, space

--8.27.2008--

Our far-flung correspondents: But who made God?

Never does one of the great philosophical questions manifest itself in material form as it did in front of my friend Justin Berthelsen's Oakland home.

"What happens when the white one breaks down?" was his question accompanying the picture.

Why, a bigger truck comes along, of course and, in contrast to Zeno's Paradox, the next level keeps getting bigger. Soon the whole Bay Area will have to be scraped onto a world-destroying spaceship in order for San Francisco and environs to be carted off to Hell.

I remember an early discussion about the origin of God ending this way (along with a slap), where there was just no satisfactory answer to be derived from the tools I'd been given (though they seemed to work on anything else).

Labels: found, philosophy

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