1215

Well, if one has to give up sex to grow old gracefully, then I guess I'm just faced with an ungraceful old age. Oh, I could give up sex ... with one exception.

And that exception arrived on campus Friday.

I told him he had once again been the star of a Tale with his recent remark in the game. "I say stupid things," he said. "It's always getting me into trouble."

Whenever I haven't seen him for awhile, I'm truly amazed by how absolutely desirable the Sleeptalker is for me. Even though he'd been "hanging out" with Tanioka and was obviously in a severe post-pipe condition, he was still adorable. Something was troubling him beyond the post-pipe depression but I couldn't get him to talk about it, although I sensed he actually wanted to. I also couldn't persuade him to tell me what he has been doing, out in Waianae all this time, but he still hasn't done anything about getting himself back on welfare, or even getting foodstamps. And he needs those because he's looking very thin, sunken cheeks and all.

I tried to do my bit, bought a large plate lunch and urged him to eat most of it. And I bought him cigarettes, shared beer with him. Eventually he complained about how "boring" life is. "You have food, beer, tobacco," I said, "what more do you need?"

Pipe-filling, of course. He got it, but I declined his invitation to go to The Garage and share it with him.

1216

Make an old man cry.

I hadn't heard the voice of Maria Callas in almost twenty years. But my French Reader sent me a tape cassette.

Within minutes after putting it in the machine and turning it on, tears were running down my cheeks. Good thing the campus was relatively deserted on Saturday afternoon.

I feel so honoured to have touched her hand when I gave her the rose.

Ah, correction. It has been that long (and longer) since I've heard studio recordings of Callas, but I do have the bootleg tapes of the Mexico City Boheme which I've heard more recently, albeit not for a few years. Now that I have a tape machine again, I should probably get those tapes from Mme de Crécy.

Speaking of Crécy, I have to admit I got rather bored during Bernard Cornwell's lengthy description of that battle in The Archer's Tale. Amazing, the kings of both France and England actually on the battlefield. But a fine historical novel, and I shall no doubt buy the sequel, Vagabond.

In the meantime, I read Steve Martini's atypical novel, Critical Mass, not one of his best. And I tend to agree with Stephen King who is quoted as saying "brilliant writing" about Michael Marshall's The Straw Men.

Confucius reportedly said that if he had another fifty years to live, he would spend them all reading the I Ching. I could easily spend such a time listening to everything Maria Callas recorded.

1217

Oh these boys, these Bad Boys. Angelo arrived in the mall a little before 5:30 on Wednesday morning, offered me his body. I would have been happy to oblige but there's just no place to go at that hour of the morning. "Next time?" he asked, as he shook my hand and went on his way.

I really am struggling to keep the lid on Aries mania, the worst this year since 1972, but incidents like that are not helping.

The welfare cycle and, no doubt, the pleasant weather, meant an even larger than usual drop in the population at the Black Hole. Quite luxurious, to be able to arrive later than normally and to still have a selection of sleeping spots.

The pleasant weather began on the weekend when, except for a few brief, light showers, it remained sunny, dry and delightful. NPR has mercifully finished its fund-raising campaign so I had the radio back but I actually spent more time listening to tapes. Considering how satisfactory the tape mechanism performance, it's a shame Panasonic didn't put a better FM tuner in it. (I noted a Sony unit at the Japanese department store which would no doubt be far better, but am not at all sure I should sacrifice $199 to acquire it.)

I'm not too sure about radio anyway. Maybe I should just avoid the "news". I was appalled by a half-hour report on the Great Wall of Israel. How incredibly stupid of them. And, of course, there has not been one encouraging item about Bush2's insane war in Iraq for weeks, and it seems to be getting even worse.

Helen R has asked me a couple of times in recent months if I wanted to see a play at a tiny theatre she is involved with and each time I've said thanks, but no thanks. But when it is a play by Horton Foote, a wonderful writer, and set in Texas, 1947, I had to say yes. "The Trip to Bountiful". Splendid play, splendid production. Jo Pruden, in the lead role, gave the best performance I have yet seen on a Honolulu stage, brought to mind Gladys Cooper.

Helen didn't warn me that Mme de Crécy was going to be there. I would have gone to the laundromat to remove the smell of tobacco smoke from my clothes if I'd known. I was thinking about it on Tuesday evening, after listening to Left Right and Center, was walking through the mall muttering to myself when I ran into Helen. She asked if I'd had dinner. I said yes, although actually I'd only had lunch. I don't eat more than one meal a day anymore. But I told Helen she must abandon this attempt to get me and de Crécy together. I just don't think Madame much likes me anymore.

Can't blame her for that, am none too fond of myself these days. Oh well, all things must pass, and Taurus will eventually arrive.

1218

It's good to see the Boys, but I'm really not too crazy about encounters in the pre-dawn hour. They, of course, have been up all night puffing on that pipe, but I've been asleep, usually (especially in recent weeks) besieged with bizarre dreams, and just woke up. Not feeling at all sociable.

On Maundy Thursday morning it was Tanioka, who came walking by the bus stop near the Black Hole. I asked what he was doing way out there so early and he said, "looking for a date". I don't think he had me in mind, although Angelo did (again) when he, too, arrived at that bus stop on Saturday morning.

Tanioka was heavily laden with three black canvas bags. One bag, he said, was just books, including his dictionary. He asked if I had ever written a screenplay. I had to think for a moment before saying no, not quite sure whether or not the scenario I did for Four Saints in Three Acts would qualify. Tanioka thinks I should write a screenplay based on the Tales. This notion was recently, more jokingly, discussed in an email exchange where the emphasis was on deciding who should play the characters. But thinking about it, after Tanioka's remarks, the only sensible way would be to get Helen R to use her sweet new digital toy to do the "filming" and for everyone to play themselves. So all we need is a screenplay. And to get the cast together at one time, preferably not at five in the morning.

On Good Friday I went to see The Passion. It's a magnificent film, a true cinema masterwork, but it certainly was difficult to watch at times and I had to close my eyes during the most brutal minutes.

It dominated my thoughts for the rest of the day. The film must be even more difficult for "true believers" than for someone who has just now and then pretended to believe in the hope that the pretense might come true. On that score, the film didn't help at all, made me even more dubious about a "God" who would produce a son and let him go through that torture.

Great set-up for the Easter weekend, no?

Saturday was dull, partly relieved by Silly Giuseppe and his "Nabucco", quite nicely done by the Met even if it is such an outrageously overblown melodrama, and a fairly amusing Prairie Home Companion. And, of course, Angelo offering his body in the pre-dawn hour (not that, again, there was anywhere to take advantage of the offer).

Easter lunch with Helen R at the East Side Grill. We had agreed to have an Indian meal but the two India restaurants near the university were both closed. So instead of a fiery curry (India House does a great vindaloo), I had baked breaded oysters and an Absolut Bloody Mary. First time I've eaten oysters in years, first time I've had a Bloody Mary since I took the Sleeptalker to that place, also quite awhile ago.

And then the birthday which was totally unexceptional and, for much of the time, damp.

So, the Full Moon of Aries has been survived, as has Easter, and the birthday. What else can you show me, wacky ram?

1219

It's hardly a surprise when a politican gives evasive answers at a press conference.
It's just that Bush is so terrible at it ... wrote Tom Tomorrow.

The planets speak of an imminent 'rising of consciousness and conscience', all over the globe.
That should soon reduce the number of idiots holding high office!
says Jonathan Cainer

Let us hope he is right.

1220

The Met audience went quite wild after the second act of "Siegfried". Understandably so, since it was brilliant. Had I the good fortune to have been a friend of Richard Wagner, I would have tried to gently suggest Act Two was a little long (even before the contemporary "attention span" deficit). Nevertheless, a most impressive production.

Good news and bad news from the campus.

Good news: the Cat Lady confirmed my suspicions. The False Prophet has been banned. Someone finally made a complaint against him to the security people. I don't know what the exact details are, but evidently that dreadful man had complained so often to security about other people they were no doubt much pleased when they finally got a chance to get rid of him.

Good news, too, that they are finally working on Andrews Amphitheatre with the goal of re-opening it in the Fall. It is the most under-used resource of UH-Manoa, an outdoor "Greek theatre" which should be in constant use. If Bob Dylan had the good sense to select it as his Honolulu venue, it's long overdue the powers-that-be at the University woke up.

BAD news: a notice appeared saying "these lockers will be permanently removed on Friday, May 14th." Oh dear. I've been expecting it for some time, now. Nice of them to give such advance notice. So I shall have to go shopping for a commercial storage locker. Just what I needed, another addition to my monthly overhead.

Good or bad news? Not sure, but I think Lady Grey has given birth to her second batch. She was very large. I told the Cat Lady I thought this time it must be more than two. Now I wait for a couple of weeks to see her bring three (or four?) little sweethearts with her to lunch. As if it isn't bad enough with her first two. I give them their two cans of food, they gobble it down, then sit at the top of the wall and look down at me wanting more. I should probably stop feeding them altogether, force them to go elsewhere and look for provisions. If they are joined by several siblings, I might have to abandon the secluded grove for awhile.

I went totally nuts in April, financially (as well as other ways which we won't discuss). I really don't know how it happened because I only had the mailbox fee as an unusual expense in this SocSec cycle. But I ended up being faced with a penniless week. Wimp that I am, that made me feel quite suicidal, so I appealed to The Banker for the first time in many months.

When you're down and lonely, and you need a helping hand .... Yes, no doubt about it, James Taylor is as important to me as Richard Wagner.

1221

Poverty is so sordid. I see, though, how it is much worse when one knows it is just a temporary situation. Well, no, "relative poverty" will apparently be a part of my life for the rest of the time it continues, but being almost penniless is, of course, different, and entirely my fault. It's difficult to remember how I managed those years from the time this homeless adventure began and the interruption of the hospital episode which eventually resulted in extra income. I somehow survived on less than one hundred dollars a month. But that involved a lot of time and energy "scavenging". It's much more difficult to scavenge when you know you have money coming soon. Shouldn't be, but is.

And money being so scarce in these end-days of Aries 2004, I've returned to my former habit of relying on the State Library for reading material. Historical fiction continues its dominance. I'm engrossed now in the massive Homeland by John Jakes. It makes me feel very old because what he describes as almost ancient devices are things which were part of my childhood. Those "peep show machines" where you saw "moving pictures" from a series of cards with still photos (still available in the amusement park of my early youth), the "upright telephone" where the thing you spoke into was a little cone on a column and the earpiece was separate, which you placed back on some holding brackets on the pole after you'd finished the (often static-ridden) conversation.

As compelling as the Jakes novel was Tokyo Bay by Anthony Grey, a fictional account of Perry's "invasion" of Japan. Although Grey doesn't directly say so, he implies that arrogant visit laid the groundwork for Pearl Harbor. If his novel is historically accurate, quite understandable.

Thanks to the State Library, I also discovered a new series of the "little old lady" genre, Dorothy Gilman's Mrs. Pollifax heroine. Utterly, madly improbable plots but quite amusing diversion.

And James Ellroy's Suicide Hill. No one writes better about that "utterly, madly improbable" city of Los Angeles than Ellroy.

I spent some time on the web researching the various options for a storage locker, would have preferred one near a laundromat, but those are the 24-hour access places which are understandably more expensive. I shall investigate one, oddly enough, near The Garage even though it will mean a bus trip to a laundromat and back again. I don't need 24-hour access or a very big space and they have 2x4x4-feet lockers for less than $30 a month. Let us also hope they have a vacancy.

Given the wretched fines to pay, acquiring a storage locker, and maybe even a LavaNet bill (I never remember when it is next due), I have a nasty suspicion this "sordid poverty" will continue until mid-June.

1222

Quite simple, really. I got tired of being poor. Poor is disgusting. Poor means no one takes you seriously.
John Jakes: Homeland

Synchronicity, reading that about an hour after I'd written the previous Tale.

I didn't know who originally said carpe diem, but thanks to the web, I discovered (with a little more effort than I would have expected) that it was Horace. Sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi spem longam reseces. dum loquimur, fugerit invida aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

"Strain the wine"?

Lords and Ladies ...

Lord Moana is out of prison. I saw him and Lady M in the mall. They didn't see me, and I ducked, went the other direction because I didn't want to hear "loose change?" He must have had a difficult time inside because he looked terrible, five years older.

Lord Stinkbomb and Lady Gaunt marched through the secluded grove on their way to make nasty odors in Hamilton Library. And yes, they do "march", her carrying a large Bible in her left hand, as usual.

Poor means no one takes you seriously.

That absurd supermarket at the mall has increased the price of beer yet again! This time they have raised the price of all forty-ounce bottles. "To hell with that," I said on the Tuesday before Third Wednesday, took the bus to Chinatown where I bought the same bottle with more than a $1.50 saving. Necessary on that Tuesday because I only had enough cash left for two bottles, had to give up my morning McD's coffee to save the fifty-two cents. But then I've been thinking about dropping that daily habit, anyway.

And, of course, being poor means your time is worth nothing, so you can spend almost an hour reading a book while riding on a bus, just to save a few pennies.

I begin to sound almost as awful as James Christian, the "homeless guy in NYC" who really annoys me with his constant reports of going to a "run" where he gets free clothes and bags and toiletries, etc. Not that I blame him for doing it, but he does it so often.

The Jakes novel was splendid. I much enjoyed and admire it.

the tales