Outside my kitchen window this morning: deer

I was sipping my morning coffee, with young Teddi behind me on the balcony, baking himself in the sun. I noticed movement outside, through the windows and screens: two deer, walking up the side of the hill toward my patio area. Just ten feet away. Took some snaps. The deer noticed movement, too. Wary, they wandered further up the hill and away, through the avacado trees, into the morning.

At the Bauer Compound, the deer seem to be around somewhere about half the time. It's a deer haven, and even my dad, an animal lover like the rest of us, accepts that fact, despite these creatures' habit of eating the fruit and vegetables, which erodes and complicates that love. Normally, he is in the thrall of some anthropomorphic war with competitors in the harvest of same. I think my mom's love of the deer has modified his primal dog-eat-dog perspective about the competition. He is rendered semi-civilized by love. (I'm in the habit of telling him: family Gopher staked a claim here long before family Bauer ever did. But it does no good. He hates those little guys. To him, my sentiments are just College Boy nonsense. But they are not.)

When I come across the deer on our road, I just stop and let 'em by. They seem to understand this. Often, they're in no hurry to flee. Occasionally, they just stare at me, freezing time and action, residing in the eternal present, like God.

Those are some big ears, man. And they really use 'em.

Always loved this song. From 1968.

Exene's riches, Gabbi's dishes

In Santa Ana

Exene in her heyday

     Got a call this morning from the Reb. She and Limber Lou were on their way to Exene Cervenka’s estate sale in Santa Ana. So was our colleague, Virginia.
     (In recent years, Exene, frontwoman for the great LA punk band X, has lived in Orange. The Reb, an Xophile since her teenage years, has run into her at thrift stores.)
     Did I wanna join ‘em? Maybe go to lunch afterwards?
     Why, sure. Got my sh*t together and drove off. Dropped by Annie’s to see if she wanted to come along. “Sure,” she said. “Be ready in five minutes.”

The Gabbster

     Fifteen minutes later, we were off, drivin' Gary's sledmobile.
     I decided to approach the sale location from Tustin, near Rutabegorz on Main. As it turns out, the location was some uninviting industrial space along that very road, now called E. Chestnut, but a few miles past the 55 into Santa Ana.
     Spotted a haunted house along the way. Took the above pic. Annie and I are fond of such structures. Annie saw a ghost, no doubt. Me, not so much.
     As Annie and I drove, I asked her to dial back her personality by two notches for this occasion. I didn't want her to scare young Virginia, who's unfamiliar with Bauerness and all its blunt and zany wackitude.
     "Why?" she asked.
     "Just do it, OK?" (I.e., "don't ask")

Limber Lou, actor

The Blasters

     We found the place and entered the building, where we found Lisa and Lou with Virginia, sifting through all Exene's stuff: dresses, records, knives (owned by her pal Phil Alvin of the Blasters), and the usual (and unusual) detritus. Evidently, earlier, Exene had dropped by, but she got weirded out by something and booked. Lisa and Virginia didn't seem to know why.
     [UPDATE: I noticed that the Reb posted this accounting of Exene's stuff: "Exene's dresses, Phil Alvin's pocket knives, old punks and costume jewelry. A Tom Sawyer salt and pepper shaker set from Hannibal, MO: Tom and his half whitewashed fence. Old sheet music. Old albums. A 45 of "Down in the Boondocks" sung by Bill Joe Royal, produced and written by Joe South. Cowboy boots. Size 7 1/5 shoes. Tiered skirts with tiny waists, trimmed with rick-rack, some run through with gold thread. Vintage embroidered dish towels. Aprons. Green Depression era glass. Guitars. Comic books. Posters. Scarves. Gloves. Hats. Vintage metal candy molds: ducks, bunnies and eggs. Archie Comics. Books: Frida Kahlo written in German, early photos by Alfred Stieglitz; Kay Boyle's poetry, Susan Faludi, Joesph Cornell. Near the counter two LPs: Soupy Sales and Pete Seeger's "Hootenanny Tonight!" featuring among others Earl Robinson and Sonny Terry."]
     We all bought stuff, I guess. (I bought an old Soupy Sales album and a 45 of Billy Joe Royal's "Down in the Boondocks," recorded with the great Joe South in 1964.) Then we headed to Orange for lunch.
     —Gabbi's Mexican in downtown Orange. Very cool indeed.

Lisa and Virginia

     Virginia's a poet, so she's trouble, man. She has words.
     The food was great, as usual. Gabbi's never disappoints.

     Limber Lou, wearing a "Ramones" shirt, told us about his latest role as an actor. Evidently, he plays a kid, age 9, who has tantrums. Cool. Three nights a week.

Virginia and Annie, on her best behavior

     A good time was had by all.



X - Johnny Hit And Run Paulene


I remember listening to this on the tinny AM radio of my folks' '60 Ford. Loved it.

Teddy tonight

Is it just me? Or does Young Theodore look debonair in this snap?

Last week, a cute tech vet told me that Teddy is her favorite patient. He's a very sweet guy. —Teddy,  I mean.

Teddy was just laying on my TV couch, while I was on the floor with my laptop. Teddy struck me as being especially settled and comfortable. It seemed to be in his face. He was somewhat annoyed by the camera. "What's this?"

Platz Ersatz, or Input Schminput

     Twenty years ago, the School of Humanities and Languages was slated to move into its own fabulous new building. And why not? It was after all by far the biggest School on campus, a situation that persists and isn't likely to change anytime soon.
     Around campus, one can still find architects’ renderings of the planned structure. (See.) Pretty impressive.
     Then came the OC bankruptcy.
     Then, in late ’96, the faculty union, then controlled by conniving creeps like Raghu Mathur, purchased its own board of trustees. Thus began the era of the conservative “board majority” and its fiscal unaccountability, Accreditation battles, First Amendment lawsuits, Brown Act violations, and "plague of despair." Over night (in April of 1997), Raghu went from being a despised but isolated part-time school administrator to a despised and Imperial college President, appointed via illegal processes not once but twice (April, then September, 1997).
     Naturally, the Gooster was cruel, stupid, and incompetent, as per his rep. He was also petty and vindictive, and so he made damned sure that those nasty old “Hum” faculty, aka the chief Mathurian oppressors, would get nothing—and, if possible, lose whatever they thought they had. (The notion that the district's troubles in the last two decades spring from the resentment of the mediocre toward the, well, noisily [but casually] non-mediocre [some of whom were in H&L] is not entirely mistaken, I suspect.)
     That was the status quo for the next dozen or so years.

     So, here we are, in year 3 A.M. (After Mathur), with the Gooster only a memory (more or less)—though one of the fellow's first collaborators, the unprincipled opportunist Glenn Roquemore (who finally made headway in his administrative ambitions by doing a 180 as regards his long-time nemesis, Mathur), remains in power to remind us that Shit Happens and sometimes Remains—and even though such student-less schools as Business Sciences have long moved into shiny new quarters (BSTIC), the School of H&L has had its twenty-five or so full-time faculty scattered all over campus. The highest concentrations, however, are to be found in that moldy and dilapidated monument to hideous ad hockery known as A200.
     I call it Platz Ersatz.
     But our heroes will finally get rooms of their own. The district is in the process of remodeling old A400—essentially, it will be the construction of a new building, and H&L will have the top floor.
     Oh good.

Neo-A400: about two years away

     The planning really started maybe a couple of years ago, accompanied by the usual noisy claims from on high that faculty would have input throughout. Such promises have given way to inexplicable changes in plan, switcheroos, and whatnot. Nothing new there.
     Today, faculty of the School of H&L (an aggregation that has grown so large that, starting next semester, it will split into two Schools) spent a half hour taking preliminary steps in divvying up the dozen two-person offices of the top floor of soon-to-be-built neo-A400. When said divvying is accomplished, the identified faculty “couples” will have the opportunity to provide “input” concerning furnishings, etc.
     Ah, but, Houston, we have a problem once again. Owing to the appearance of early architectural renderings, faculty were under the impression that they could opt for warm colors and woods instead of the black and blue (and grey) one sees all over campus. But no. Director of Facilities John Edwards, it seems, is a huge fan of uniformity, and he is insisting that the furniture (desks, etc.) of A400 must maintain the campus theme of gray and black (or whatever). No warm colors. No colors.
     At today's meeting, people remarked:
     “Someone should tell Edwards that he is no longer in the goddam Navy.”*
     “Oh great. We can call our new building ‘50 Shades of Grey.’”
     “Does this have to do with that crap about Saddleback being red and our being blue?”
     And so on.
     Well, whatever.
     The word is that Edwards is standing firm. He is after all the Director of Facilities. Why shouldn’t that guy determine the visual experiences of faculty and students, conferring in private, for decades to come?
     Yeah, but that curiously colorless palate of grey and black and blue is pretty, well, cold. Right?
     Shuddup. Time for collaboration is over. You'll take it and you'll like it!

*Come to think of it, I think Edwards served in the Air Force, not the Navy

The shitty wing of A200: "Platz Ersatz"

Last Sunday on Santiago Canyon Road: Joey Robinson

Last Sunday morning on Santiago Canyon Road, 21-year-old IVC student Joey Robinson was struck and killed.

The Register reports:

Every day before work and school, Joey Robinson was up early riding his bike. Cycling had been the 21-year-old Irvine resident's passion for the past few years, said his mother, Valerie DuBois. He found community with other riders and worked at local bike shops. With the business degree he was working toward at Irvine Valley College, he hoped to open his own store one day.

“It all just came together for him,” she said.

Robinson was riding on the shoulder of Santiago Canyon Road near Loma Ridge around 7 a.m. Sunday when a speeding southbound driver struck him during an unsafe turn, according to the California Highway Patrol. He was thrown from his bike and pronounced dead when paramedics arrived...

...Gonzalez was arrested on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter as well as possessing methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, Olivera said. She was taken to Orange County Jail, where she remained Monday.

...Peek [his mother] said she hoped the driver would be held accountable. Perhaps bike safety could be improved on Santiago Canyon Road, she added. “Maybe some good can come from this.”

His friends and colleagues at Jax Bicycle Center held a memorial ride on February 5th and created this Ghost Bike memorial.  Rebel Girl and the Little Guy stopped there yesterday to pay their respects and snapped these photos.

Moments later, on their way home to nearby Modjeska Canyon, two motorcyclists passed them, crossing the double yellow lines, at unsafe speeds.  On the average, Rebel Girl, ever respectful of the posted speed limits, is passed like that at least three times a week as she drives the canyons. Often on the weekend, usually once during her morning carpool commute with the kids in the backseat. It is not always the motorcyclists but on the weekend it often is. Three weeks ago, she and the little guy were passed by two fellas on motorcycles simultaneously; one crossed the double yellow, the other rode in the bike lane. They were going close to 70 and must have been having a helluva time. Last month, a white pickup who could not abide by her 35 MPH on Live Oak, just ran around her and the kids, the morning sun as strong in his eyes no doubt as it was in hers.

The Little Guy suggested that the person who hit the cyclist must be feeling pretty guilty now. They then talked about how it is better to feel responsible first so one doesn't have to feel guilty later - and they talked about how immeasurable the grief must be for Joey Robinson's family and friends. 

"That's all" (Further adventures of the Bauer family)

     Blam!
     It was just my sister, in the kitchen.
     Ka-pow!
     She was doin’ the dishes: washing and drying, I guess. No one works in the kitchen more noisily than my sister does. No one.
     My mom—a German immigrant, she's in her eighties, but she looks much younger—and I were trying to talk, in the dining room, about fifteen feet away. I kept stopping and looking over at my sister, as if to say, “Good Lord woman! Do you have to be so freakin’ loud?” But saying that would just put us all in a world of hurt worse than the one we already occupied. ("At least I'm doing the dishes!" she would bellow—and then march noisily out the front door, slamming it, crying. In my sister's world, I think, all gestures are big, so anxious is she that her unparalleled labors might go unnoticed. Still, I love her.)
     I said nothing, just scowled at the back of her head, and then returned to the work at hand. Well, I may have muttered, "freakin' madhouse."
     A few seconds later, sis pulled out a handkerchief and commenced blowing her nose like she does. That blow of hers sounds like a goddam fog horn. I looked at my mom. She looked back. We said nothing as the horn sounded forever outward into the thick fog of the harbor and the mysterious mountains beyond.
     My mom and I tried to return to our task. I said: “OK, I’ve written out these sentences. [Honk!] Let’s translate them into German.” [Blam! Whomp!]

* * *

"The woman one longs for"

     Earlier, during lunch, my mom had alluded to her failed efforts to find something on the internet. She was looking for information about her stepfather, Otto Hänfler, and his brother, a Berliner with money and connections. I knew all about these people. They are part of Bauer/Schultz family lore. (See French kiss: the sad story of baby Peter.)
     “I tried to use Google, but it didn’t work,” said mom.
     It didn't work?
     “I Googled in Berlin,” she added.
     My sister and I glanced at each other. It was a typical Bauer family utterance, making no sense, imposing a deep pause and real confusion. Such remarks are like grenades unwittingly tossed into a conversation, only to be followed by mortars and gas.
     What do you suppose she means by that?, we said, with that glance.
     “OK,” I said to mom. “You were Googling ‘Berlin’?”
     “No, I was Googling in Berlin.”
     “Have you been in Berlin recently?” asked Annie, sarcastically I guess. But it’s hard to say what counts as sarcasm around here.
     “No, I tried to go into Berlin on the internet.”
     Eventually, we determined that my mom had found her way, online, to Google Germany and had gotten nowhere Googling her stepfather’s brother, Herr Hänfler, who lived in Berlin up through the early 1940s. As a small child, my mom, who lived many miles to the east, had visited him on several occasions.

Foghorn Annie

     I decided to help her out, to write a brief request for information to be sent out to all the Hänflers—an unusual name, it seems—on Facebook. Right after lunch, I got out the laptop, opened up Word, and wrote:

I am writing on behalf of my mother, Edith Bauer. She seeks information about two relatives: (1) her stepfather, Otto Hänfler (c. 1892-1941), with whom my mother lived in Bärewalde, Pommern, and (2) his brother, also named Hänfler, who lived in Berlin (Falkensee) in the early ‘40s. If you are related to these people or have any information about them, please contact me.

     I showed these sentences to my mom. I said, “let’s translate this and I’ll send it to all the Hänflers in Germany.”
     “OK then,” I said. “How do you say ‘I’m writing on behalf of my mother’?” I had my hands poised and ready at the keyboard.
     My mom seemed confused—in shock, almost. It was as if she were trying to add two large numbers in her head and she couldn't quite manage it.
     Immediately, I knew what the problem was.
     In truth, I could easily do this translating on my own. I don’t know why I was asking my mom to do it. What the hell was I thinking?

* * *

Louise Brooks in Germany, 1929

     My folks are very good, warm people. But they’re pretty nutty. For instance, these days, they take every little thing and pour the “molasses of neurosis” over it. With them, nothing is simple; nothing is easy. Everything is painful and laborious and fraught.*
     Good Lord.
     Earlier, during lunch, my sister Annie had showed up late, as usual. With much neurotic fiddling and fussing, my mom jumped up and scurried to get Annie a veggie-burger. My mom had provided us a fine salad, too. But my dad had placed a plate over it, making it hard to notice. I didn’t want the salad to go to waste—I had finished eating—and so I advised my sister to take note of it. “It’s good,” I added.
     Naturally, molasses flowed.
     “I don’t make good salads,” announced mom.
     “You don’t?” asked someone.
     “If Roy says it’s good, it must be really good,” said mom. (Huh?) “Cuz I don't make good salads.”
     “Who says you don’t make good salads?” asked Annie.
     On it went. Evidently, my mom thinks she has a reputation for making lousy salads. It’s too painful to recall the loony details.
     At some point, I tried to cut off this blather. I said, “Look, the salad was good. And it was obscured by this plate.”
     (My dad had placed a plate of pizza bread atop the salad bowl to make the pizza bread easily available to me. But why? I was plainly finished with my meal, sipping coffee, engaging in conversation. Sometimes, apropos of nothing, my dad hands me a large handful of cough drops. I don’t even ask why he’s doing it. Nobody's coughing. I just take ‘em. Pocket 'em. Move on.)
     I continued: “And I didn’t want the salad to go to waste. That’s all.”
     That's all. Can't saying "try the salad" ever be just that?
     No.
     “I’m sorry,” said my dad, as he removed the plate. Of course, nobody had suggested that he should be sorry. Good grief.
     I hoped that that would be the end of it.
     Nope.
     “I got the salad at Costco,” said dad, sadly, resignedly—now at sea in the knowledge that he had ruined everything.
     Naturally, he commenced lecturing us: “It comes in a little kit with all these little bags of ingredients.” He started to name the ingredients, to discuss them. “The pine nut is edible..."
     Nobody wanted or needed to hear about pine nuts.
     I was in hell.
     “Listen,” said my sister, interrupting. “I’m eating as fast as I can! I’ll get to the salad in a minute! OK?! Gosh!”
     But nobody was hurrying her. My dad was just lecturing the world about pine nuts like he does.
     Dad sat back in his chair, confused.
     I just closed my eyes.

* * *

Berlin, c. 1943?

     My mom never did answer my question about how to say “I am writing on behalf of my mother” in German. Eventually, she said, “I can do it better by myself.”
     Uh-oh.
     “OK,” I said. I handed her the laptop. “This is, like, a five minute job, right?” I said.
     Mom looked at me. The remark about the five minutes was exactly the wrong thing to say. I had put pressure on her to do this thing in a reasonable amount of time. I didn’t want her to do what she often does: turn something little into some huge task, as though, if it were less than perfectly executed, disaster would follow.
     Just freaking do it. Does everything have to be such a big freaking deal that takes all freaking day, accompanied by endless freaking anxiety and dithering?
     Freak.
     Ten minutes later, my mom was still working on her translation. I said, “Just forget about it.”
     “No. Why?” She was concentrating. She was choking a pencil. (A pencil? I had handed her a laptop with my sentences awaiting translation in Word. Why wasn’t she writing in Word? I daren't ask.)
     Several minutes later, she was still working on the translation, squeezing that pencil very hard. I'm surprised it hadn't broken in two, with splinters savagely piercing her skin or flying across the room into someone's eye.
     “Listen,” I finally said. “I’ll return in a month or so and see how you’re getting along.”
     Uh-oh. Sarcasm. She gave me the Pomeranian stink eye.
     I beseeched her: “This is such a small task. Really it is. Please don't spend more than five minutes on it. That would be so wrong. So very wrong.”
     I walked to the front door and opened it, walked through it, closed it. I heard a loud, slow "click."
     As I walked home, I heard that fog horn somewhere in the distance.
     I walked faster.

Edith and her "father" Otto Hänfler, c. 1938 

*Well, not everything is thus beslathered. On Friday, I took my folks (and Annie) to lunch, and that went quite well. My mom loves to go out; my dad hates to go out, but he loves that mom loves it.

Re the Hänflers: see 

• French kiss: the sad story of baby Peter
• “With you, Lili Marleen”: Schultzean sagas
• Edith: remembering Franz, Bärwalde, Munster, etc.

"Angry men don't write the rules, and guns don't right the wrongs." (Red Emma)

Tonight is the opening night of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins at the nearby Costa Mesa Playhouse (corner of Hamilton and Meyer, down the street from Taco Mesa and the DMV). It's an unlikely American musical, but an important one.

Over at the OC Weekly, Red writes:

It's a show not often produced. Go figure. Nine killers doing song, dance, stand-up. Sondheim is of course saying, singing, joking and analyzing the whole country, and its unique, weird talent at producing a particularly perhaps American team of stand-ins for the socio-political national psychodrama, as it were: those bad actors of violence and dreamy estrangement from reality, sad mutant mentally ill people who fixate on authority in, well, less than healthy ways. (But, charmingly, at least they fixate.) We're talking about the guy who tried to kill FDR because his stomach hurt and missed, murdering the mayor Chicago. Sarah Jane Moore and Squeaky Fromme, who both tried to kill Gerald Ford. (He was already dead, it turns out.) Lee Harvey Oswald (JFK) and Charles Guiteau (Garfield). Sam Byck, who tried to hijack a plane and crash it into the White House (he was ahead of his time) to kill Nixon. It's all hilarious, manic, gun-crazy fun, with tremendous songs.

The play runs for a month of Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and, yes, seeing it will surely make you better, smarter, wittier, happier, not to mention feeling good about supporting the arts by way of paying the modest ticket price asked from the troupers of a small, brave, creative and seat-of-the-pants operation charmingly situated in a residential neighborhood in east Costa Mesa. Musical Director Stephen Hulsey does amazing work and also plays Leon Czolgoz, who killed McKinley, and the cast features performances by folks with amazing pipes, including other Playhouse stalwarts. Director David Blair plays the dude with the troubled talking tummy. Hulsey's imprint is unmistakable and elegant and lovely. He has done a lot of great work with Theater Out and elsewhere, and contributed to a great CMP production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch in 2012. My favorite song is the tandem love song in which Squeaky sings about her love for Charlie Manson as John Hinkley, Jr. sings to Jodie Foster. Do edgy, smart plays make us better people? Say yes by purchasing tickets HERE or over the phone. Plenty of free parking.

The little guy, son of Rebel Girl and Red Emma is part of the ensemble and plays Billy, son of Sarah Jane Moore.

They saw the preview last night and can say with confidence that it's quite a show.

If you go, look for Red and/or Rebel Girl, usually in the audience, lobby and/or parking lot as the little guy cannot drive yet. Tickets: $18.00 adults, $16.00 students and seniors.

from the Broadway production:

*