Free-verse meetings

I'm a big lover of language. I think my course of studies in college (American Literature) and my profession (editor/journalist) are a dead give-away of that. Also my narcissistic obsession with things I've said and thought of, but that's neither here nor there.

The English language gets a bad rep a lot of times. What with its frustrating spelling and grammar rules, and the thing where any word can be any form of word. For example, just verbize some letters to have a new English word.

But language is great, and can be very poetic if you're willing to hear it. I just finished reading Bill Bryson's biography of Shakespeare (which was fascinating and incredibly entertaining), which combined with my discussion with Derek on the matter, has me ready to share with the world some of my poetry.

What I often do is, while in meetings at work (it actually started years ago in Ramona Silver's philosophy class), take notes as people talk. Most meeting attendees will do this, I'd imagine, but I don't do it to remember ideas or project dates (frankly, I rarely care) - I write down snippets, word-for-word, of what people say, usually as fast as I can keep up. Since people talk faster than I can move my hand, I end up missing some key words but the results of my selective editing are sometimes profound, often pretty and always fun.

I may one day publish a book of my collected poems, which I have tentatively titled "Meeting Poetry," (kind of a pun, and kind of direct) but I'm sure I'll think of something better after a career of not paying that much attention to what the bosses are saying. [edit: how about "Bored Room"?]

Here's two untitled poems from the summer I spent at Ascend Media (before I quit and went to Europe). I don't now know what the speaker's point was, but I've made them my own, and I know what they mean to me.

Early in the meeting
and then slow time

the strategy i have

how to fit that in?

what kind of cycle is he?

try to fit that all in

you're getting down
what kind of process

to stimultate and create
a limited commitment
tell them what I'm looking for

Later, in that same meeting
I’ve had success introducing myself
Even if its not that person
Sometimes I struggle
The attendees look
Pretty much everything

[Please note that I wanted readers to take away from this post the thought that I am kind of a bad employee and not that I'm super-creative. It's fun to do, you should try during your next meeting.]

Clap if you believe in ferries

So, more on my job. I mentioned briefly that after seven months of glorious unemployment and further racking-up of credit card bills, I finally found a job that appealed to me (and who also wanted me). I am a Web editor for a business-travel magazine in Sausalito. Sausalito is a small burg located 35 miles away from my current home, but only about 10 hopefully from my soon-to-be-living-in home.

I started in late June, and after two months of commuting 45 minutes in each direction, I decided to give mass transit a try. As a big proponent and lover of trains and metros, the idea greatly appealed to me, despite the numerous transfers and doubling of the time it takes to drive.

From the East Bay, I took BART to San Francisco's Embarcadero station (added benefit was that I rode with my sister, who lives across town from me and works in Union Square). I left Athena before her stop and walked from the station to the Ferry Building to sit in the queue for the Sausalito-bound ferry. I boarded the vessel and took the half-hour boat ride mostly in awe of the beauty that is the Bay. I also read some because really, you can only appreciate beauty for so long. From the ferry stop in Sausalito, I hopped a bus down the street to my office and sat down early for the first time all week.

After work (Fridays during the summer are half-days, so I left at a little before 1:00) my boss said that if I walk through the shipyard, I would hit the shoreline park and could follow it all the way to the ferry stop. The roughly 2-mile trek was on a gorgeous day and I submit to you the photos of my commute, taken with my new cellphone (which, in an aside, may actually be quite broken/faulty).

Some of the highlights not captured on film include: the hippies sitting in the grass by the water's edge; the poetic metaphor of a black dog and a white dog playing in the waves; the conversations overheard in German, Portuguese and accented English while waiting to hop on the ferry back to the city; and the recently wed gay couple who were wearing matching white linen suits and tuba rose leis, toasting with champagne on the ferry ride back to the city.

The Ferry Building, roughly 7:30 am. My boat would leave at 7:45.

Five minutes into the ride. Stern of the boat and one of my 8 co-commuters.


Random stone shop in the Sausalito shipyards.


Part of the shoreline.


This is the kind of thing you can't help but think the artist thinks is famous/renowned.


Random gazebo where perhaps the gay couple was married. But probably not.


White pants? Check. White sweater tied around his neck? Check. Aviators? Check. Unshaved? Check. Pink polo with collar popped? Check. Ladies and gentlemen, we've found "that guy."

A trip that never happened and a flight that was bound to eventually

When we were about 19 or 20, Nick and I were talking about going to London for a couple of months. Not really though, because we'd only really be there for a few weeks, but the trip would take a few months. The plan we worked out was to take a few weeks to drive across the U.S., stopping off in cool locations like Denver, Chicago, and New York. We'd then hop a steamer (or cruise, but it's just more fun and old-timey to say steamer) from New York to London and stay there for a few weeks seeing sights, visiting Paris and Scotland by train, developing accents, and listening to British girls speak with their accents.

At the end of our trip we'd fly back to New York and drive the Southern Route home. This was a prospect that made a then non-drinking Nick say he'd need to get "fall-down drunk." For you see, Nick has never flown before.

The trip never happened of course. The logistics of such a trip (and we looked into all of it), to say nothing of the expense, kept us from living out our dream and Nick from facing his fear.

It wasn't always a fear. He was the sixth kid of seven, a recipe for not a lot of long-distance family travel. I think it started to dawn on him in his late teens that he'd probably be afraid of flying and he just went with it. He would say there was nothing that would get him on a plane except a lot of alcohol. This morning he was proved wrong. Money, it seems, will do it too.

I took him to the airport on my way to work this morning so he could fly to Indiana for his work. He wasn't nervous at all at the prospect of flying, though he did ask me for any tips I could offer. I told him to not worry about noises cause planes are always loud, and he waved it off, clearly having realized he's not actually scared to fly.

Still, I felt like it was his first day of school and I want the little guy to have a good time. It's important to point out that, though I say "little guy," Nick is about a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier than me.

I'm excited that this might open up the prospect of him flying other places, potentially with me. Though I imagine an airplane is going to be a very uncomfortable ride for a guy his size. I'm average height and I find planes tight. Good luck with the leg room buddy.

Double, double oil and trouble

I find myself not even looking at the price of gas anymore.

It's usually around $4.50 a gallon, give or take a few pennies, but the give or take variable just absolutely doesn't interest me at all.

Years ago, the difference between name-brand gas, like Chevron, and small independent gas stations, like the grope-happy White Tiger by my house, was about 7 cents.

Filling up my car would cost roughly $15, so the 70 cent difference in a full tank meant the difference between getting a fiver and some coin back from my Jackson, or getting four singles and a pocket full of change. That five dollar bill was worth going out of my way to White Tiger for.

Now I find that despite the exponential increase in gas prices, the difference between the little guys and the 76s of the world is the same small increment of about 7 cents. While I am a consummate supporter of underdogs, lost causes and independent organizations, I find myself, when lacking the time, uninterested in searching one out for cheaper petrol.

The 70 cent difference on a tank that now costs about 45-50 dollars on my credit card couldn't be more inconsequential to me. It's all fake money added on the heap I owe, which I pay off with electronic transfers from my bank account that is funded by direct deposit from my job (ps I got a job).

At no time do I or anyone else in the long chain of people involved in the financial aspect of filling my tank ever see cash or even a check, so what do I care if it's 70 cents more? It's just 70 more cents that I never would have seen anyway.

But then again... too few to mention

I have this affinity for the Roaring 20s (and to a lesser extent, the Depression-era 30s). The books of course, but also the idea of the parties (I'm sure it would have sucked if you didn't know Gatsby) the cars on dirt roads, the hustle-and-bustle of New York, the short haircuts on the ladies, the hats, the thrill of drinking illegal martinis, the flapper dresses, and mostly the men's suits.


I can't lie, I like wearing suits and I don't think I'm being arrogant when I say I look good in them. Everyone does, that's why men have been wearing suits for hundreds of years with only slight variations. Two buttons, three buttons, with a vest, with a bow tie, with a bright-colored T-shirt a-la Miami Vice - the alterations for seasons and eras are really only minor details.

What makes the 20s and 30s fashion distinct in my mind is that men wore suits all the time. Traditionally, if a party's dress code was "casual," it meant men would show up in a three-piece suit. If a man were going to a park for a picnic on a Sunday afternoon, he'd wear a suit. And he looked good doing it.

After watching "The Darjeeling Limited" yesterday I was struck by how casual the three stars looked as they trekked across India even though they were all wearing suits (the movie is also great for non sartorial reasons).

Aside from Barney Stinson urging people to "Suit Up," Mike has also been encouraging a heightened dress code lately. The man owns well over 50 ties and he looks good in all of them. So this morning I was thinking I would like to wear suits on occasions that don't call for them in the modern sense (weddings, funerals, church functions etc.). But the thing is I need to wear suits that look nice, but don't cost as much as my usual suits so I won't get sad and poor if some moron spills wine on me (cough... Parsa... cough).

Not four hours later, without looking, I found a linen suit, the kind I would feel great about wearing out to Jay's on West Egg some fictional Saturday night 80 years ago. The one problem was they didn't have pants for me, just the jacket. I now regret not buying the jacket and hunting down the pants later. I need a nice summer jacket anyway, as I outgrew the one I used to love. Not so much in size but in age bracket.

The pants eluded me today, but that’s no matter — to-morrow I will search harder, stretch out my arms farther... And one fine morning ——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Join the clubs

Sometimes I feel that I fail to grasp the significance of events in my own life.

I started golfing when I was 9. I was just going to walk around with my dad and uncle, but when my dad found out he had to pay the same amount if I walked or played, he jammed a club in my hand and after my first round hunted down some used my-sized clubs from the classified ads (the early 90s version of Craigslist).

I can legitimately say that I've been playing golf for most of my life, which means I should be a lot better than I am by now, and I don't mean this as an excuse, but I've never really had my own set of clubs.

For much of my four-year varsity high school career, I used my mom's old clubs (she never really took to the game and these also got their start in our family used from the classifieds). I was a short kid (and know I'm not really a tall man) so it made sense that I use a set of women's clubs. Or so my dad said. I didn't have a problem with it, except that my woods said "Lady Laser" on them and the high school boys I played with and against got a pretty big kick out of it (the richer schools were the worst. Several times our teams, mine being the Hayward area golf equivalent of "The Bad News Bears," almost came to blows over issues other than my clubs, but in my head it was mostly that).

I don't know, 10 years later, if the whole experience of swinging the Lady Lasers made me more resilient with a thicker skin or made me into a chubby ball of self-loathing. It didn't help that, often times, especially compared to the really good players, I hit the ball "like a girl."

I only recently told my family about what I now see as the humor of my using those clubs for competitive play. Mercifully, before the spring season of my senior year, I grew to average size (finally becoming taller than my then-idol, Muggsy Bogues) and inherited my dad's old clubs which, like Tom Hanks' only friend in "Castway," had Wilson written on them. These have been my clubs ever since my dad bought himself those new ones.

Some of my friends from the team asked me what happened to the lasers. My sister played with them today, if any of you are wondering.

After 15 years of swinging hand-me-down or ladies clubs, for my recent birthday I got a set of golf clubs. Well, in theory. My parents didn't know what kind I would want, so in an incredibly out-of-character move, they gave me cash and told me what I was allowed to buy with it (we never give cash in this family).

Two months later I still haven't gone to look for a set of clubs. Faced with the question of what I want, I'm quite stumped. It's never really occurred to me to think about it. Graphite or steel? Stiff or flexible? What kind of grip do I like? How should I know? The last time I swung a brand new club, it was somebody else's and they were just showing it to me. They liked it, and it seemed like it would hit a golf ball well enough, but really, how am I supposed to know the difference? I know what I don't like, but I'm almost certain that has a lot more to do with my skill level than my second-generation clubs.

My search isn't aided at all by the fact that I don't really like shopping. Looking for clubs seems a lot like trying things on and I get tired of that kind of thing real quick. I'm thinking about just buying my uncle's old ones from him. If only to keep my streak alive.

This whole thing might be a metaphor for my life. Or it might just mean that my sister is wrong and I'm not the favorite. It could even be both, but it's probably neither.

A Lucky Break

Saturday: 6:30 a.m. Dad and I are awake and loading the boat up to go fishing. It's to be my first time out on the Bay in about four years. We hitch it up to the truck and pull it out from alongside the house. Most visitors don't even notice the 18-foot Marlin sticking up behind the gate at what appears to be the end of the driveway. But from behind where my mom's car parks, after swinging the gate back, you can't help but see the big blue boat on the rusty trailer.

The sun's up but we can only assume that because the sky's cloudy, so it will be a good day to be on the water trying to catch halibut (pictured below).
I'm closing the gate as I hear Dad, from the end of the driveway say "Yup. Don't close it. We're done." My dad has a dramatic and absolute way of speaking sometimes. As if you've been in the middle of a conversation, he'll answer a question or make a statement that makes absolute sense in the context of that conversation. The one you weren't having.

Here, the conversation we weren't having was something like, "I heard a bit of a ca-chunk back there. What was that? Did the rusty trailer hitch on this 20-year-old boat just break finally?"

I walk over and we look at the damage. Right behind where the tow-ball comes out of the truck, the trailer hinged down to the ground. Not severed, but most definitely broken. I pick up the tongue as Dad C-clamps the tubing back together. We then help the boat retrace its steps cautiously back up the curb, into the driveway, and back along the side of the house.

The day has become about something else now. For years we've driven down the freeway or over railroad tracks, towing the boat in fear that the inevitable would happen. The trailer would crumble in a flurry of rusty flakes of metal, followed by a shower of sparks as it dragged on the asphalt, followed by hopefully not too much collateral damage. Saturday morning we only had the first step of the inevitable and had a perfect opportunity to prevent the latter two from ever happening.

8 a.m. we're heading to the scrap yard (always a weird kind of treat). We bought 45 inches of 3x3-inch square tubing. Dad wanted to replace the 1/16-inch metal with 1/4-inch, but since they didn't have that I convinced him that twice as strong (1/8-inch) would surely outlast a) the rest of the trailer, and b) sadly, the boat. Next was a trip to PepBoys for a trailer hitch, then a trip to Carrow's next door for strawberry pancakes, then back home to wait for about 10 a.m. when we could start making noise without feeling like douchey neighbors.

The next step, ironically, involved quite a few sparks. We grinded (or ground, if you prefer), sawed and hammered the old metal out of there. Then we welded, bolted and painted the new material in so it all looked surprisingly high-quality and original.

Sunday: 7 a.m. The boat was mostly already loaded from yesterday, so we just filled up the cooler with some food and sodas, tossed it in and pulled the boat out again. This time there was no scraping thud at the end of the driveway. We took the boat all the way to the marina and saw all the flags in the area taut in the incredibly strong winds. We hesitated for about half an hour before finally saying, who cares, this is three days of 6:30 alarm clocks in the making (Friday's story of us not going is decidedly less interesting), let's just get the thing wet already.

We caught no fish (pictured below, not me nor Dad, but some guy from Google images),

but Dad got a leopard shark nearly 3 feet long and a scary-looking seven-gill shark that was about 4.5 feet long (1.5 meters) with a mouth the size of a honeydew.

The wind stayed rough and we took a beating on the way back in, riding up and down waves like George Clooney at the end of "A Perfect Storm." The only thing close to a fish that I caught was in my glass of Coke Zero after I got home and took a shower. Right in the middle of the ice cubes, I could swear I saw a sardine head bobbing mockingly in the middle of my zero calorie refreshment. I knew I should have only put my usual three ice cubes in the glass.