001

THE FIRST YEAR

tales from the year of the ox

002

003

004

005

007

008

the survivor

the pilgrim

the tourist

the underworld dude

sex

the japanese garden

let me entertain me

my so-called lusty life

011

012

013-014

016

017

018

020

Subject: Thanksgiving Eve

There's a blonde lad outside Hamilton Library asleep on a bench, using a stack of books as a pillow, wearing camouflage trousers. It is f*cking raining in Manoa, and never mind that gawdawful Hapa track, there is NOTHING romantic about "Manoa in the Rain". I really wanted to walk over, first of all suggest a bench at Jefferson Hall would be drier, but even more to see what the titles of the books were. But we have a Code, too.

I was working on Tale 020 and as a consequence convinced myself I needed a beer. At UH Manoa, "a beer" = 32 ounces of one of the best beers I have tasted in my long life, Red Hook Double Black Stout. Manoa Garden has the best bartender in town (sorry about that, Amie). It also has some most excellent regular patrons, so it was an enjoyable interlude in this week when Mars is squared Saturn.

As I said to fletch earlier today, I could get food stamps. Just gotta tell them I'm an alcoholic, got plenny bartenders in town to testify on my behalf, including ones who ignore money put down to pay for drinks. (fletch also said f*ck, but confessed she doesn't usually use the asterisk; I sympathized because f*ck is really hard to pronounce).

Rabbett wrote a VERY long letter which was published in the current Honolulu Weekly, in which he brags about the THOUSANDS of dollars he has had in "contributions" for his web site. Maybe I should go Deja News and dig out his old posts, he seems to have the virtual-begging-bowl technique mastered.

Bleugh.

Anyway, my question is, if you have sex with the same person twice, is that an "affair"?

021

Do you know the story of the monk, who begging in India, finished the food that was given him and took his bowl to the stream to wash it. The bowl slipped from his hands and fell into the stream. He watched it float away on the current. He said "there goes my last guru."



That was sent to me by a reader and I have been thinking about it often for a couple of days, but I still don't understand its meaning.

People have been spending too much money on me or, to put it another way, I have been accepting too much generosity. Or at least I was feeling that way. When I asked the I Ching about it, the message seemed to say this is advantageous for all. A lecture on the perils of greed would have been easier to assimilate.

Cainer says the three outer planets will all move into uniquely positive relationships with my ruling planet, Mars, during this month and revelatory changes may be expected. That's just fine with me. I started reading Glass Bead Game again and I have been reading a collection of Hesse's essays and articles, collected in a volume called My Belief. Sitting in the little pavilion at the exotic Center for Korean Studies building yesterday, I thought it was strange that I am devoting almost all my reading attention to a man who never actually found "It" even though he understood so completely what It is. It reminded me of the book by Aldous Huxley, the first written after his experiments with psychoactive drugs, where he speaks of finally experiencing what he had been writing about for so many years. Well, at least he had the illusion of experiencing. There goes my last guru. What can its meaning be?

In any case, I feel more comfortable reading a fellow searching pilgrim than any of those who wrote from a supposed position of having arrived at the destination. Even Krishnamurti, whose writings can be so wonderfully refreshing and comforting, sometimes strikes me as a bit pompous, almost overly self-satisfied with his inner discipline and powers of perception, and he is one of the arrived pilgrims with the best manners; reading some of the others would probably make me physically ill at this point.

Meanwhile, I survived the Mars-Saturn square, was more or less tricked into indulging in a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, heard some most excellent music on several occasions, saw two amusing films (Mars Attacks and Star Trek: First Contact) and always had plenty to drink: that was the holiday that was.

Several projected Tales have been in the works for weeks and Tale 014d has given me the greatest problems, was written with pen on paper and sat in my backpack for days in between re-reading, amending and adding. It still doesn't greatly please me, but the I Ching gave the green light for putting it up. It is easy, even enjoyable to write these rambles about day-to-day life and thinking; fairly easy to write about the distant past, aside from trying to distill information until it takes the form of these snapshots; but difficult to write of people who are still living, of times in the Magic Theatre and the expulsions from it. Neither Egbert nor Kevyn have been given satisfactory portraits; I could have done better with paint on canvas (and did, with Egbert).

I should be grateful no one has asked me why I am writing these Tales.

There were numerous public and private replies to my not-too-serious question as to whether having sex twice with the same person could be called having an affair, some of them quite amusing ("not if you're married" was my favorite). I don't think I could consider it an affair unless the two participants at least knew each other's name, which is not the case with my own example. And no, I wasn't (alas) referring to the Japanese lad. This two-time one-night stand, as another reader put it, involves a Korean.

Having added yet one more nationality to the list, I had fun remembering a similar representative of each country. USA, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, England, Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Italy, Greece, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Israel, Egypt, Rhodesia, South Africa, Australia, Pakistan, India, Thailand, China, Japan and now, Korea. Well, just remember it was spread out over 43 years since the very first encounter (Mexican). But ok, I don't object if anyone calls me a slut.

There goes my last guru ...

022

I have a key. It gives me access to an empty apartment for two weeks. The apartment is in Waikiki, near the Ala Wai almost in the midpoint between places it can be crossed. The walk to UH would thus be much shorter by taking a quick swim across the canal, but life might be, too. It was so windy walking along the canal on Wednesday morning I thought a sudden gust might blow me into the water, could fantasize dropping to my knees and crawling to keep firmer contact with the ground.

The apartment has no electricity, which is perfect since it interferes less with the natural rhythm of life as an urban nomad. It does have a large, soft bed. An evening by candlelight with that soft bed across the room encourages more hours spent sleeping than I have known for a long time. There are three fish in a bucket of water, awaiting their future destiny when the apartment is returned to the landlord's custody. There is a crippled ground dove who limps in each morning from the lanai and wanders around the room searching for seeds left over from the birds who formerly lived there.

Aside from the fish and the visiting ground dove, there is the utter luxury of being alone for hours, free to sit and stare at the small area of sky visible from the lanai, to read or listen to music, to dance or lay on the bed, to shower, eat, drink ... to live without an audience.

A book was left on the table, a hardcover novel published in 1995: Flesh and Blood by Michael Cunningham. It is a well written novel, reminiscent of John O'Hara but in this case about people I knew, even if the names are different. Cunningham has a way of slipping in an elegantly turned phrase which is sometimes slightly outrageous showing-off but more often like a line of fine poetry dropped into an ordinary narrative passage, and twice he made me laugh aloud. It's a good read and I'm glad it was left on the table.

For two days, there was a newspaper outside the door each morning, so I sat like an ordinary householder, sipped on coffee and read the newspaper. I could read the newspaper every day at Hamilton Library, any number of newspapers from all over the world, but I'm glad I don't. The coffee was canned Kona coffee with milk, happily on sale at 99 cents from the nearby Food Pantry where everything seems too expensive, even when offered at a special price.

I receive three daily mailings from a Hindu organization on Kauai. One of them is a series of lessons called Merging with Siva. This week they have talked about the power of affirmation; that old trick of looking into the mirror and saying "every day I am getting better" and variations on the theme, including yesterday and today, of saying "I will get whatever money I need" (emphasis on need, not want). Jay T. writes about being even more broke than I am, but he has a huge CD collection and must have plenty he can take to Rainbow Books and never miss.

Anyway, it was time to shut the Underworld back in his cage, he was getting too rowdy; time to tell the Tourist to stop whining about the holiday season; time to let the Pilgrim have a go. But then I felt guilty because I hadn't entered Harold Kama's gigs into the Donaghy database, so left the sanctuary on the Ala Wai and took that windy walk to Hamilton Library. There's a Christmas tree in the lobby, complete with wrapped gifts under it. I wonder if they are just empty boxes.

Cainer says: You're under the influence, now, of a powerful, energising planetary aspect. In consequence, you may be feeling exhausted. How come? Because there's so much happening at once that you're getting overloaded. You may need to reduce the amount of activity in your world so you can forget everything else and focus on getting one thing absolutely right. Perhaps that is what I was thinking, too, although I would not expect to get even one thing "absolutely right", no matter how much I reduced the amount of activity in my world.

And walking through that small area between Manoa Garden and the Art Building is a melancholy experience with no Chloe running out from some unknown place to greet me.

023

I am in truth the Steppenwolf that I often call myself; that beast astray who finds neither home nor joy nor nourishment in a world that is strange and incomprehensible to him.

Re-reading Hesse's Steppenwolf was inevitable, so why postpone it. I stopped in Rainbow Books and said to Wade "if you have the book I want, will you buy it for me?" They had it, and he went half on the price and paid the tax. I hadn't read it in at least ten years, as I recall, and this may be the first time I read it without being under the influence of anything stronger than beer. That hardly matters, every paragraph is memory-saturated with far more exotic refreshments.

I think I have read this book more than any other and having finished it, shall begin again because I got carried away and swept through it too quickly in my pleasure over the re-encounter. There are things that are not there which I thought were; embellishments or interpretations I had added to it and through force of memory had come to think of actually being in the book rather than just suggested by it.

And certainly for the first time, I felt almost comforted by knowing that no matter how twisted my thinking has been recently, it hasn't gotten quite as entangled as poor old Harry's. This is small comfort, of course, since I know my silly mind is quite capable of matching his at its worst.

It was too dark already to read more when I returned to sanctuary, so I sat and looked at the candle flame for an hour or so, remembering such hours long ago. I had become disillusioned with the Rosicrucians whose exercises seemed little more than an education in self-hypnotism; I was bored with muttering "gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi-sva" for hours. I found I could just look at a candle flame and say "tick tock" to myself. Tricks to play on the mind, so silly even if they do work. There was even a time I had the tick-tock method so mastered I could persuade myself I was about to smoke a cigarette laced with hashish and thus get quite stoned on an ordinary cigarette. My pleasure at learning such tricks was tempered by being annoyed at how stupid the mind is.

The Guardian Angel of Supplies [G.A.S.] wasn't working very hard yesterday, although he was unusually generous with cigarettes, guiding my path to where 7 or 8 totally unsmoked ones awaited discovery. There was possible reason for his relaxed attitude otherwise. I rejected most of a lunch which Kory K had already rejected and was thus available for the taking; three dumpling-like objects of dreadful meat wrapped in equally dreadful white dough, worse than manapua. I did eat one of the things, but the Angel could understandably have said "oh well, be picky" when I declined the other two. He did put a half-liter of Pepsi in my path, and of course he knew I still had half a loaf of bread and a bit of mozzarella cheese in the sanctuary. Assisted by the ABC stores, he also provided two samples of Kona coffee during a moonlight walk along the beach in Waikiki, so I am certainly not complaining.

Whoever ... angel or devil ... is looking out for the Underworld dude was on duty, too. In the building next door, a young couple, Asian but from the distance I could not tell if Japanese or Korean, proceeded to remove all their clothes and demonstrate a number of positions together, most of which included his feet and legs jiggling wildly in the air. Poor fellow didn't have much staying power because the exhibition didn't last very long but was quite enjoyable and I was grateful they didn't bother to pull the drapes fully across their window.

But there is something a little lost about these days, something which makes the Steppenwolf appropriate company. It's good having him around.

024

A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and ..... errrr .... a roast chicken and a pack of cigarettes.

Sharply reduced nicotine intake means a vastly increased hunger level. At one point, I was walking around the campus thinking "I'd sell my soul for a plate of fries and a beer." No market these days for souls, alas, and mine is probably already too much in hock to have any resale value. I rounded a corner and saw someone place one of those telltale neatly-tied white plastic bags in a trash can. Eureka! A quarter of a leftover plate lunch, consisting mainly of kim chee and rice. All those academicians and social workers on the Homeless mail-list should toss aside everything they have learned about helping the "homeless" and understand that the first thing everyone should do is neatly re-tie their plastic lunch bags before throwing them away.

Much of my thinking recently, too much of it, has been occupied with the question of assistance from other people, inspired by their own games, doubts and concerns. I thought I had sufficiently covered that in two months of writing, but then I realized I still hadn't totally come to terms with it myself. This is partly because of long-ago incidents. I can still vividly recall the afternoon in the Himalayan foothills when I received a letter from my mother saying they would not send me any more money so long as I was in India -- and the money in question was my money, left with them in case of emergency. Oh mama, can this really be the end ...

And part of it is because of more recent times, although predating the abandonment of the life of householder. Someone whose opinion I value is firmly locked into the work for the night is coming Protestant work ethic, rumbled warnings of disaster, and suggested I would be the grasshopper of the fable, expecting my friends the ants to provide for me. Another person wrote a variation on the theme, inspiring a passage in an early Tale where I said I did not expect anything from anyone.

Now I am hearing different reactions, perhaps having more in common with my mother's long-ago stance ... people wondering if their assistance is really "good for" me, whether it might interfere with the "discipline" of this path. How fortunate the Hindu wanderer in the fourth stage of his life, surrounded by a culture which allows a householder to put rice in the wanderer's bowl without such burdens of conscience, and allows him to accept it without fear of being a parasite.

Echo from off-stage: There goes my last guru.

Ah, gentle readers (as authors of yore often wrote), if you wish to contribute, ease your minds by thinking of me as an entertainer, a street musician, a gypsy fortune-teller. If you read these tales, you must be deriving some pleasure from them, perhaps vicariously enjoying a boss-free life, perhaps feeling superior for being so sensible and self-sufficient, perhaps for reasons I would never think of. I am not going to hold out a cap, a tip bucket, a begging bowl. I am not going to think any less of you if you contribute nothing, not even mere words of comment, encouragement or criticism. But if you feel the urge to participate, do not trouble yourself with concerns about whether it will be "good for" me, please. Let me decide that.

Steppenwolf had the luxury of interest income from investments, could stop in a gasthaus and order "a roast chicken" and a tumbler of wine. Oddly enough, I have some interest income sitting in England waiting until I write and say yes, send the check over, I'll try to find some way to cash it. It wouldn't provide many roast chickens or tumblers of wine, but would have been handy on the evening after I wrote the above when I stopped in Duke's to hear Matt Swalinkavich. The bartender was amused when I insisted upon glasses of iced water. I'm lucky to have spent so much time in places like Duke's; no one minds if I sit around drinking water.

Of course I continued to think about the subject of this Tale on my walk back to Waikiki and throughout the evening. Instant "publication" is, for me, an integral part of the writing of these Tales; otherwise, I could simply disappear from the online community and write for six months or a year, then think of making it public. I enjoy the immediate feedback this method provides and I enjoy the influence writing these things has upon the way I live from day-to-day. What I don't like is having to think, "can I write this, or will people just think it's a plea for sympathy?". The opening of this Tale is such an example.

Well, that is my problem, not the reader's. My goal is to document this trip as honestly as I can, both the inner and the outer aspects of it. Caring what people think is probably my biggest problem right now. I am not sure if walking right up to a public ashtray and taking the longest butt there, no matter who is watching, is something I can ever accomplish.

025

No, I did not regret the past. My regret was for the present day, for all the countless hours and days that I lost in mere passivity and that brought me nothing, not even the shocks of awakening.

There has been more reaction to Tale 024 than to any thus far, although the tucked-away tale of the Japanese Garden also came in for much attention. I especially enjoyed the remarks from readers who said don't worry about who is watching, take what you want from the ashtrays or the trash cans. Easier said than done, for me. I passed a trash can area on the way to UH and there was an entire sound system thrown out there; the speakers were clearly in good condition and I'd be willing to bet there was only some minor problem (if any) with the amplifier. If I still had an apartment, I certainly would have taken it all, with no qualms. In New York, all of the carpets and most of the furniture came from those nights on the Upper East Side when it was time to put out such "garbage", and many of my friends used the same source for furniture and houseware. There's something different about taking long cigarette butts and leftover food. There shouldn't be. I'm working on it, and appreciate the encouragement.

One reader said he had been defending me with people who didn't believe some of the Tales. It surprised me that anyone would not believe them, surprised me even more that it would be a topic of discussion. The doubt seems to center on the "famous" people who are mentioned in the Tales.

Ah, memories ... My mother claims that we met most of the famous movie stars of the 40s, but I think by "met", she meant we waited in line and got their autographs. I can remember only Victor Mature, because he was so huge it nearly scared me to death when he took me in his arms and hugged me and thus made a lasting impression on me. Independently, the first "star" I met was Eddie Fisher, before he was married to Debbie Reynolds. He would sing for the soldiers on Saturday nights at Fort Sam Houston and was, I think, somewhat amused by the teenage kid in uniform who had such a heavy crush on him. During that same time, Rick Nelson came to San Antonio and I claimed to be a reporter on the Norwalk High newspaper and got into the press conference, shook his hand and could have fainted over how incredibly beautiful his blue eyes were.

Jumping to the major league, I stood outside the hall in Wiesbaden, Germany to hand Maria Callas a single, beautiful rose, carefully selected by me and the florist who was so impressed by my plans for it he refused any payment. Like Fisher, I think she was amused by the teenage kid in uniform, took my offering and kissed me on the cheek.

The first time I asked anyone for an autograph was in Atlanta. Judy Garland played there on the way to her famous Carnegie Hall concert. My friend, Buddy Jones, did the flowers for the show and gave me a huge bouquet to toss on stage at the end. Afterwards, he took me backstage to meet her. She was sitting in front of a mirror, fixing her mascara. I asked if she would autograph my programme, and she did so, using the mascara pencil. I had it framed on my walls for years, but it perished in that Chelsea Hotel fire along with so many other such knick-knacks.

I was years later introduced to Marlene Dietrich in much the same way. My doctor was also her doctor when she was in London, and she wanted him backstage at every performance. It was a very special evening for me, watching her from the wings, meeting her after the performance.

Such encounters are sweet memories, an honor to have been even briefly in the company of much admired artists. But they were the result of being in the right place at the right time, and having the good fortune to know peripheral players. The longer-lasting encounters, the friendships, were different and they all came about because I genuinely admired and respected what the people were doing, and I told them so. It's a life-long habit, still continuing. I only know so many Hawaiian musicians because I love their music and I tell them so; it was no different with Virgil Thomson or Maxwell Davies.

Many of the now-famous painters and sculptors I know were just beginning when I first met them. Andy Warhol was better known in the fashion world for his shoe ad designs than as an artist; even when he began to achieve a small part of his later notoriety, it was still possible to find myself sitting with him on Virgil's bed, sympathizing as he wept because he couldn't get the money to do a film he wanted to do. Bob Rauschenberg was further on his way to becoming a superstar of the art world, Jasper Johns hadn't even had his first solo exhibition. It was much the same in the London music world of the 60's ... musicians that later needed a stadium to accommodate their fans were then playing in small theatres or even in pubs. It was no different for me to go on Sunday and watch Jimi Hendrix grin at me than it is to do it now with Harold Kama, Jr.

I am certain the main reason I have come to know so many notable people is the genuine love I have had for their work. Another factor is that I have never taken "fame" very seriously. How could anyone who had the laughable honor to be called "the most promising young American artist since Jackson Pollock" in a public lecture possibly take "fame" seriously? I loved the work, often I came to love the creator of the work, and it mattered not to me (or to them) whether they were "famous", how many magazines printed how many silly articles about them, how many mayflies swarmed around them when the cameras were rolling and were never seen otherwise.

I had been considering this "aside" for awhile now, but the notion that the historic Tales might be fiction brought it to the fore. As I said to the Reader, if I were writing a fictional past for myself, it would be far more glamorous! Jean-Paul Belmondo or Alain Delon would have been my lover while I was in the Army in Germany, just for starters.

026

There is much to be said for contentment and painlessness, for these bearable and submissive days, on which neither pain nor pleasure is audible, but pass by whispering and on tiptoe.

A couple of weeks ago, someone gave me a coupon from the McDonald's card campaign entitling me to a free choice of several food options and a small cup of coffee. I had tucked it away, saving it for some future time when I was "desperate". I mentioned to a reader that I had been walking around feeling hungry all day and might resort to using that coupon. She noted that it was unlike me to have saved it to begin with and wondered if that represented some shift in attitude. Voila! Little wonder the Guardian Angel of Supplies had been so inactive; why should he trouble himself when I was walking around with a free meal in my pocket.

So on my way back to Waikiki from UH, I stopped and had a Broiled Chicken Deluxe Sandwich and a small coffee. The lady behind the counter said "you were lucky to get both free!", correcting her mistake in ringing up the coffee. Quite true.

The next morning, I found three pennies within minutes of starting the walk to UH, a fine omen. And the Angel was back on duty. I was prepared for lunch, with a packet of dried spinach-miso soup, but when making my tea-time rounds of the best ashtrays (one has to stay ahead of the army of Filipino ladies cleaning them out), I found the remains of a chicken katsu mini-plate which was quite delicious despite those vegetables which are still totally alien to me, an almost full cup of hot chocolate, and most unusual of all, half a cup of tea. One must be grateful the student body at UH is so affluent they can buy such things and then decide they don't want them, so lazy that instead of taking them to the nearest trash can, they simply leave them sitting on benches.

On the walk back to Waikiki, there was a penny in the middle of the street. I walked past it, stopped, waited for traffic to pass, returned and pocketed the penny. It isn't wise to ignore the melon that falls from heaven, no matter how small. When darkness began to fall, I sat for awhile in the twilight until Venus was shining brightly, then lit the candle and thought, let's try that old trick, let's turn water into tequila. Out of practice though I am, after a few minutes of the exercise, the water gave me a warm inner glow and I went to lie down for awhile.

Captain John was supposed to be at the Irish Rose, as is his usual habit on Tuesdays, so I walked first past Duke's to see if he was there. He wasn't, so I went on to the Rose. Only one fellow I knew was there, lamenting how broke he was. We hugged and commiserated. I went on to the Shorebird to say hello to one of my favorite bartenders, Greg, who insisted I have a beer, and we had a good time talking about the recently departed J.P. and old times at Duke's, where Greg was the bartender during the time it was my daily afternoon habitat. A fellow visiting from Alaska was there and the conversation turned to art. I said I only wished I had made paintings of beer cans before Andy did soup.

The Alaskan dude went on his way, so I returned to the Rose which was almost empty. I sat on a concrete block outside, waiting to see if John would arrive, and was soon joined by a lady who had been handing out leaflets for one of those tour desk operations. It was the end of her shift so she was just waiting for time to go home. She is a former stripper, said she made lots of money at it but spent it all on drugs and ended up living under a bridge for two years. By working seven days a week, she makes enough handing out leaflets to keep a roof over her head. We exchanged stories of life on the streets in Waikiki and then she said "I want you to have a beer on me", gave me two dollars (and change for the tax) and told me to go get a 40 oz. bottle of Mickey's. What a cool lady!

We said goodbye to each other and I walked through the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center to replenish my tobacco supply. It was tempting to spend that two dollars on the bottle of beer, but I thought I'd really rather have cups of coffee for the next couple of days and was sure she'd understand.

The next morning was clear and beautiful. I decided to forego my usual trek to the University and spend the day in Waikiki. A corner shop offers large cups of excellent coffee for 51 cents, so I bought one of those and walked to the beach to enjoy it and watch the beachboys setting up their stands and the Marathon runners out for early practice. I dallied too long, the Shopping Center cleaning staff had already begun the rounds of the ashtrays. So I walked along the beach to the Zoo corner, headed for the local library and its email terminal, discovering along the way two ashtrays outside the Queen Kapiolani Hotel which were heavy laden with lengthy cigarette butts.

After checking email at the library, I returned to the beach and spotted Captain John waiting for enough customers to take his catamaran out. We talked for awhile, then he said he wanted some eggs and asked if I'd share a breakfast. The man has such style, he made it seem like I would be doing him a favor by agreeing. The place next to the Police Station certainly takes good care of the beach workers; that plate-lunch breakfast must have weighed five pounds: scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, macaroni salad and two scoops rice. John told me to take it on board while he was getting ready to cast off, and to eat all the meat especially because he didn't want any. Delicious bacon! After finishing the iced tea he bought to go with it, I had two beers from the boat's ice chest, a most excellent breakfast indeed, especially in that beautiful setting in the calm waters off Diamond Head.

John tried to get me to put on a life preserver (I cannot swim) and go in the water, but I said I'd need to have five beers before I'd go in water that deep, preserver or not. One of these days I'll do it.

027

Now whether these short and occasional hours of happiness balanced and alleviated the lot of the Steppenwolf in such a fashion that in the upshot happiness and suffering held the scales even, or whether perhaps the short but intense happiness of those few hours outweighed all suffering and left a balance over is again a question over which idle persons may meditate to their hearts' content.

As has happened several times in recent weeks, I ended up spending Thursday afternoon at the Manoa Garden. I had stopped over to see Kory K and to pick up my Willie K tee shirt, both for the added warmth under my sweatshirt and in the unlikely event I made it down to the Pier Bar to see Willie later. Kory talked so much about the good drinks he had consumed the night before that he made us both thirsty so we moved the conversation to Manoa Garden where Bryant the bartender was in full swing and one of my favorite drinking buddies, Tomita-san, was already in progress with his session. They serve 32 oz. tumblers of a wicked dark brew called Red Hook Double Black Stout which is so good it makes Guinness taste awful. On top of several of those came a demonstration of how the bottle top on Cuervo 1800 makes two perfect shots when the bottle is turned upside down, only the two perfect shots got poured into one glass and the demonstration was repeated, with Tomita-san and I left to destroy the evidence.

I honestly cannot remember exactly what happened after a certain point, have no idea whether I left the bar first or Tomita-san did. I vaguely recall seeing Ryan Ozawa in the garden outside and talking with him; he mentioned the next day something about a tuna sandwich but the only thing I know about that was waking up the next morning and finding a piece of bread neatly wrapped in plastic, tucked in my back pocket and destined for the crippled ground dove which comes to visit every morning.

I think I walked down to Rainbow Books and was given a ride to Waikiki by Wade Nakaya, but I'm not sure. Wade and I stayed for the entire Genoa gig and I know I talked to Aunty Genoa afterwards but haven't got a clue what I said to her. I don't remember getting back to the sanctuary, either, but woke up at dawn with an elegant electric cigarette lighter, the piece of bread, and most strange of all, someone's pay slip (minus check) in my pockets.

I think I had a wonderful time, in fact I'm quite sure of it.

Strangely enough, there was absolutely no hangover from the long drinking sessions, despite having had almost nothing to eat all day. I walked in the next morning's pre-dawn light up Kapahulu Avenue toward UH, continued further up than had been my habit and thus saw that delightful Bangkok Nights club with its wall painting of the full moon over Bangkok and the wonderful Thai dragon. It makes the Wyland murals look even more banal in comparison.

Finals time at the University means the library stays open every night until midnight but the campus is almost deserted and I could stay on a terminal for as long as I liked without worrying about anyone else needing it. Consequently I discovered that even though one is given a warning about an "automatic logoff" after 50 minutes, in fact no such thing happens. Live and learn ...

During a break I strolled over to the art building and had a cup of coffee while enjoying the bamboo grove. A student came out and sat beside me, talked about the next exhibition which will be at the Commons Gallery and gave me an invitation to the opening on the 20th. I suppose with that in my possession I can partake of the free food and drink without feeling like a party crasher, as I would have at the other openings this season.

I worked on a couple of the historical tales and decided two of them were ready to put up, but I re-read and grumbled over west cromwell road. The second half of the 60s was a very exciting time to be in London and that tale makes it sound all too ordinary, tells little of the fun and excitement of watching new musicians appear on the scene and become almost overnight world celebrities. That one needs some work.

In the mid-afternoon I walked down to the Church of the Crossroads to see Helen Rapozo who, contrary to the newspaper obituary reports was still very much alive (it was a different H.R.), and was there to set up the lights and sound for the play to be presented that evening. Helen kindly played early Santa and presented me with some AA batteries so I can go back to rewinding the tape to hear Dylan's "Not Dark Yet" over and over. After visiting with her, I finally yielded and used a dollar of the meagre resources to buy a Whopper at Burger King and another fifty cents to get a vending machine coffee to go with it (the machine coffee is not only better than BK's, it is cheaper). It turned out to be an unusually clear night over Manoa and the moon, planets and stars were dazzling there and during my walk back to Waikiki. Back in sanctuary, I read Steppenwolf for awhile by candlelight while serenaded by the hellish sound of karaoke from the nearby hotel bar, unpleasant but not altogether an inappropriate background for the book.

The predawn walk to UH the next morning involved lots of getting out of the way of the armies of joggers preparing for the Marathon, some of whom gave friendly smiles, others who glared as if the sidewalk was their private running track. Outside Sam Choy's on Kapahulu, one of those neatly tied white plastic bags was sitting on the ledge. I went to investigate and found inside a complete serving of kalua pig and cabbage, totally untouched. Wondering why someone would buy it and just leave it there like that, I nevertheless took it up to UH, put it in the microwave to warm it, and murmured praise for the Guardian Angel of Supply as I enjoyed a thoroughly delicious breakfast.

028

Another was that he was numbered among the suicides. And here it must be said that to call suicides only those who actually destroy themselves is false. The "suicide", and Harry was one, need not necessarily live in a peculiarly close relationship to death. What is peculiar to the suicide is that his ego, rightly or wrongly, is felt to be an extremely dangerous, dubious, and doomed germ of nature ...

I wish this long life was over ...

029: tomita-san

and about three Jesus cried aloud "eli, eli, lema sabachtani", which means "my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?"

I remembered it as "eloi, eloi, lama sabachtani", but the above is the way the New English Bible puts it. After some considerable research here at the most excellent Hamilton Library of the University of Hawai'i, the one I like the best is "alohi, alohi, l'mono shecach theni". That's from a very early version of the Gospel According to Mark, where it was thought Jesus of Nazareth was speaking in Syriac. Seems no one knew what language he was uttering. I looked through lots of volumes of writings by the "Church Fathers", who so far as I could find totally ignored it.

Only Matthew and Mark's Gospels mention it.

But it must be crucial. I can't find Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian in this gawdawfully arranged library, but there are three reasons I am not a Christian.

Jesus of Nazareth cursed the fig tree. It wasn't time for the tree to be bearing fruit, says so right in the Book. But no, HE was HUNGRY, wanted a damned fig, and because the tree couldn't give him the treat he wanted, He CURSED it. If that's "divine", I'm the Queen of Sheba.

Never mind the excuses, I've read them all. That was tacky.

Then, hanging on the Cross, knowing that was his Destiny, he moans "eloi, eloi, lama sabachtani"??? Excuse me? One really cool dude named Clarke who wrote voluminous commentaries on the Gospels, tries really, really hard to weasel out from it. Oh well, at least he mentioned it, unlike Augustine and Gregory.

HUMBUG!

Ok, so I have been wrestling with Jesus this week. Not too surprising, given the mania which grips the world at this time of the year. Fuck it, celebrate the Winter Solstice, makes much more sense.

Ah, you wonder about the title of this chapter? There's something totally, absolutely, completely weird about the fact that when I feel right at the bottom of my resources, just want to bid aloha oe to this so-called life, a local Japanese dude steps in to tell me it's worth keeping on.

Tomita-san, I love you, and I hope you have a long life full of all the best it can offer. I love you, you are one MAJOR sweetheart and you deserve some kine BEEG reward for being so kind to an old dude like me.

And me ke aloha pumehana to everyone who wrote to ask if I'm okay.

No, but thanks for asking.

030

Just before dawn in downtown Honolulu, a group of people dressed all in yellow were doing Tai Chi in the Chinese Cultural Plaza. They do a simpler version than the young man who does it each morning at Ala Moana Beach, but after watching him for some time now, I'm inclined to think he's just showing off. I could be wrong and if so, offer up apologies via that great switchboard in the sky which directs such things to the proper recipient.

I have been drinking too much all week. It isn't likely I'll do anything to correct that until these wretched holidays are over, but then there might be a drying out break until January 12th when Manoa Garden re-opens. Note that I said might be.

It is my great good fortune to have the keys to an apartment on the 33rd floor of the Honolulu Tower until after Christmas. The lanai provides a splendid view of the mountains and Nuuanu valley and off into the distance past Tripler. Before dawn the mountains were wrapped in low, misty clouds which gave way to white, fluffy ones shining in the bright December sun. Behaving myself, I've only made one change to the decor, temporarily replacing a watercolor which was hanging over the computer with a photograph of Harold Kama, Jr. in a Russian enamel frame.

Ah, but where were we with these current tales? Like I said, drank too much beer and far too many Surfers on Acid last week ... at Manoa Garden, Duke's, and Pier Bar primarily. The highlight of the week was definitely Thursday and the long delightful afternoon with Tomita-san (and especially the dance of getting him onto a homeward-bound bus) followed by three hours in the excellent company of Aunty Genoa and crew, then Willie K and Harold and Guy at the Pier Bar. I was fairly drunk at one point in Manoa Garden but got a little worried about Wesley and that sobered me up slightly; then I felt such a heavy mixture of warm happiness over the afternoon with him plus sadness at knowing I probably won't see him until the 12th that it took awhile for Genoa to lift my mood. Can't resist the love from that woman for long, though ... her happiness is totally contagious.

Willie was in a good mood, too, and Bryant the bartender from the Garden stopped down, so the Surfers flowed all night, the music was great, and the only bummer was staggering over to the Immigration Building where some poor dude hacked and coughed so loudly all night it kept waking me (and everyone else) up. I was so weary of listening to him, I left at about 5:30 and went over to the beach at Ala Moana for the sunrise. Consequently I was feeling pretty trashed by mid-morning, paid only a brief visit to UH, and then set out for downtown and the agreed-upon meeting to collect the key. I was sufficiently early that I stopped by the Pier Bar and it was good to see Jimbo, reminding me again that more of my favorite people in this town are bartenders than any other profession ... and so much for any thoughts of drinking less.

I see I have some .... errr ... interesting potential reading here. John Milton's Complete Poems and Major Prose, a heavy looking volume of Seventeenth Century Prose and Poetry, and an even heavier looking two-volume set entitled The Norton Anthology of English Literature. But I spent the first evening with my own India notebooks, and I guess I'll go back to that, now.

031

No plain not followed by a slope, no going not followed by a return. He who remains persevering in danger is without blame. Do not complain about this truth; enjoy the good fortune you still possess.

I've given away more money this month than I've spent on myself. It doesn't really feel any different to have given fifty dollars to a dear old lady who needs it than it does to have spent almost that much at the wretchedly expensive Kincaid's in Ward Warehouse. Not really. I suppose if I thought it was going to feel different, my motives weren't screwed on right to begin with. There is at least the comfort of knowing that no matter what my motives, genuine or imagined, the recipients won't need to be concerned with that, it's entirely my problem.

After almost three months of this nomadic existence, I've come to know most of the Waikiki and Manoa nomads, if not by name and to talk to, certainly by almost daily observation and familiarity. Some of the most destitute would not even be recognized as such by casual observers, perhaps the most destitute of all somehow find ways to remain invisible until those empty early hours before dawn.

One morning last week, just before the sun rose, I met one such nomad, a middle-aged Filipino fellow who had a warm and wonderful smile despite missing quite a few of his teeth. He didn't even have a shirt, was trying to warm himself by rubbing his arms vigorously. The only tee shirt I was carrying that I could have given him was the Willie K one Harold Kama gave to me. I did seriously consider it and feel thoroughly disgusted with myself for not having either given him that or the UH shirt I was wearing, my favorite at the moment. Instead I gave him money to buy one. I should have done both. It's not dark yet, but it's getting there. It's not light yet, and sometimes I wonder if it ever will get there.

Strange thoughts, sitting up here in the eagle's nest of this splendid apartment in downtown Honolulu. The sun hasn't risen yet, hasn't even begun to touch the sky with light. Oahu twinkles below me. Even those ugly encroachments of buildings up the sides of the beautiful mountains look magical at night and in the early morning hours, fingers of lights reaching into the darkness. By 5:30, the low hum of traffic on the highways begins to increase and the landscape of lights becomes more active, more and more points of light begin to trace ribbons between the unmoving ones as people make their way to what they consider their duties on this first day when the light begins to strengthen again, the days finally begin the slow crawl back to the other Solstice.

Until this year, winter has always been my favorite time in Hawai'i, but an urban nomad cannot help but look forward to the longer days and warmer nights promised by passing through that deepest winter night.

I pour a second cup of tea. The luxury of it! Even on the Journey to the East, which is so occupying my thoughts as the Tales progress and the notebooks are re-read, I had to wait for someone to bring me tea in the morning or go out in search of somewhere to buy it. Hot showers, a soft plump futon for sleeping, a view that is worth a fortune (and costs a small one), excellent computer gear ... an Aladdin's cave for the Winter Solstice of '97.

And the luxury of solitude, of existing unobserved.

The sky grows light enough to make out the shape of the clouds and the silhouette of the mountains. Soon the downtown district, the most alien place of all for me, will fully wake up and resume its mysterious business. I don't understand life on the streets of downtown, neither the daytime mix of straight-looking "business" folk rushing about their "business" with their briefcases and worried looks, the old Filipino gentlemen who gather in flocks and chatter all day, the destitutes who lie collapsed in doorways with their brown-bagged empty bottles by their sides, or the night-time mix of revelers from the Aloha Tower Marketplace or Restaurant Row wandering around looking for whatever they are looking for amidst the destitutes not yet collapsed and the hookers who have deteriorated too much to work on Kuhio Avenue. The "seedy" part of Chinatown is almost gone. Even on the one main block which still remains of its once rowdy night-life, many of the buildings are now vacant, awaiting the arrival of another posh restaurant or quaint gallery. The Chinatown of fresh fruits and vegetables, wonderful smells of herbalists and small, family-run eateries is the only part of downtown which makes sense to me, the only place I feel comfortable.

I didn't go out at all on my first evening in this sanctuary, only briefly went out during the daytime on Saturday. On Saturday evening I went to hear BB Shawn because he deserves a bigger audience than he was likely to get on an evening when so many other things were happening in this town. Sunday afternoon I walked down to the Aloha Tower to say hello to Kevin Murphy and other friends who work there but didn't linger, returned to sanctuary and work on the Tales and the dusty links of the old Panther's Cave. I would have gone out to listen to music on Sunday evening but I learned my lesson earlier this month ... first I get a January bus pass before I go anywhere I might end up spending that money.

I sit and watch the dawn of the first Monday of Winter. Venus and Mars are conjunct today, as they were on the day of my birth. It's going to be a beautiful day. Now all I need to do is make the inner as the outer.

032

The white clouds are denser over the mountains today but it seems to be blue sky elsewhere. From the view here, it is difficult to tell what the weather might be over Waikiki. Rain is falling in Nuuanu Valley and the peak at the back of the valley is almost totally obscured. My mind felt much like that when I awoke.

After that time of almost total seclusion, I decided to walk down to the Aloha Tower, intending to stay briefly at Pier Bar for a chat with Jimbo. A Japanese fishing boat was parked alongside and I was enjoying watching the crew who were sitting on deck eating watermelon. Then a strikingly handsome young man came out on deck and leaned on the rail looking over at the bar. He stayed in that same area for hours, sometimes sitting down and smoking a cigarette, other times standing again at the rail. He wore a white cloth tied in a band around his head and was dressed almost all in white, a very romantic image. I forgot about plans to make it a brief visit and stayed until late afternoon, chatting with Jimbo and some other people who stopped down, and watching the fisherman who was clearly aware of my attention, as was another of the crew members who appeared to be teasing him about it at one point. As they began to prepare for departure, he went to the front of the boat and pulled in the ropes; a rat-barrier disc got trapped in the hole and he had to swing partly over the railing to get it through. I left the bar and stood on the pier closer to the ship, watching it pull away and as they were about to turn for the exit from the harbor, he smiled and waved at me. A sweet afternoon.

Then I made the mistake of stopping in Gordon Biersch to wish some friends there happy holidays. As if I hadn't already had enough beer from the afternoon at Pier Bar, I accepted a glass of GB's wicked Christmas Bock, maybe had a second, and a Surfer on Acid. Little wonder my mind was as obscured by mist as the mountains this morning.

Continuing my way through those India notebooks, I've reached the point where the days seem to melt into one continuous hunt for ways to get high and it's hard to see through the babble and remember what a basically happy time it was. I can vividly recall the feel of the dining room at the YMCA Tourist Hostel in Jai Singh Road, of walking out and seeing the ancient astronomical complex across the street; the unique and always interesting grand circle of Connaught Place and all those juice bars and cafes and restaurants where I'd spend most of every day sitting around talking with fellow travelers and the few young Indians who could afford to join us.

There are many parallels to life now, almost 25 years later. My time was my own, I had no job to go to, no set obligations. I was constantly broke, but spent more money on dope than I did on food. I was even reading the same book. I was on a pilgrimage but I didn't know to where and had no defined goal, never had that "search for the Wisdom of the East" trip that so many Westerners have out there.

The clouds and rain are now obscuring the entire mountain range outside, a continuing mirror of my mind. Sitting in this eagle's nest, I don't have to concern myself with finding something to eat, because there is a well-stocked kitchen with permission to raid. There is even a large supply of beer of various kinds. If I would buy a carton of cigarettes, I wouldn't have to leave here at all this week. It's tempting to do that even if it would leave me virtually penniless. Or, because that time approaches in the India Notebooks, I could continue the parallel by having no cigarettes, a less attractive temptation but one, nonetheless.

Yesterday was a mistake, despite enjoying so much that interlude with the Japanese sailor. Lots of days documented in those notebooks were mistakes, maybe most of them. Occasionally I realized it even then. It's a little discouraging to see myself 25 years ago and compare it to now. So little progress, so many of the same sillinesses and self-indulgences, so much of the same confusion. Boredom alleviated by hashish or boredom alleviated by beer, it's hardly any different. Amusement provided by a dark-eyed Indian lad or by a handsome young Japanese sailor, it's no different.

But thought's the slave of life, and life's time's fool, and time, that takes survey of all the world, must have a stop.

033

Ho ho ho.

My first Christmas memory is from the year I was three or four and it snowed in San Antonio, an event rare enough for anyone to remember. I was given a big playhouse and had a fierce argument with my mother because I wanted to put it outside. I couldn't understand the sense of having "a house inside a house". Only later did I realize it was my first attempt to run away from home. Another Christmas from those days I only remember from the photograph of me standing on the front porch surrounded by war game toys. In a nation involved in a humongous war and reduced to using books of ration stamps (yep, remember those, too), seems ludicrous that people were buying their children toy tanks and guns.

I didn't much like Christmas as a child. I liked the colored light from the tree and most especially the first year they had those amazing bubble lights. I loved my Lionel train which was only brought out at Christmas and circled the tree. My father spent more time playing with it than I did, though. It was really his train, mine in name only. I loved hard candy, especially those ribbons, and I liked some of the music. But there weren't enough plusses to balance all the fuss and bother, and then, as now, I hated having to wait for something that I knew I was going to get once the calendar said it was finally time.

Christmas in the Army was an even greater nuisance because I had to buy presents and get them in the mail. I pretty much gave up on that once out of the Army, but it took me a couple of decades to get brave enough to stop sending cards as well. Germany, though, is certainly one of the better places to spend the Christmas season. Not sure about now, but forty years ago the German way of celebrating seemed less artificial, warmer and more beautiful.

New York must be one of the worst places. The city is always too crowded, anyway, and the combination of the Christian and Jewish holidays sends it over the edge. Yes, it is beautiful at Rockefeller Center with the big tree and the skaters on ice in that art deco setting, but the shopping mania which grips the world in late December turns Manhattan into a nightmare. And the parties, the dinners, the drinks, the thousand ways to find a thousand excuses not to attend ... even now I shudder at the memory. My favorite Christmas in New York in the 60's was the year we decided to open the summer studio in Frenchtown and invite a small group of friends to stay out there for ten days. Frances flew up from Washington. It was very cold and the water supply which came from a natural spring, collected and pumped into a tank, kept getting shut off by ice. There was a huge oil heater in the main haybarn area which never got the room really warm, but did a great job now and then of spluttering and filling the place with fumes. But it was a real country Christmas and despite the inconveniences, spending a holiday season out in the country with a small group of good friends was infinitely better than slogging through the dirty mush of crowded Manhattan streets to spend time with people I didn't particularly want to see at any time, much less Christmas.

In London, we always seemed to be especially broke at Christmas time. This was largely because much of our income came from educational institutions which ran out of money toward the end of the year and postponed their purchases until January. One year the University of Texas must have had a surplus they had to spend, and it was a bonanza for us, but that was a rare exception. Our best friend, though, was one of those people who truly enjoys buying gifts for people and he would go nuts at Christmas, many years single-handedly stuffing our stockings and filling the place with brightly wrapped boxes.

At the end of that Cromwell Road era, I spent my first Christmas in years with my parents and sister in California. I stayed smashed out of my head on valium and hashish-spiked cigarettes. My mother had put an exhaust fan in the window of the bedroom and I was required to smoke either outside or in front of that fan. It was perfect ... until I learned the next door neighbor worked for the Drug Enforcement Agency! I got so smashed on Christmas Eve, I nearly fell into the Christmas tree, was only rescued by my brother-in-law grabbing me and helping me regain my balance. It was, indeed, a Nightmare Christmas, that year of "bye, bye Miss American Pie".

The best Christmas of my life was in 1973. There is no Christmas in Kathmandu, no decorations, no carols, nothing. It's just another day. I had gone to the Unity Restaurant for Dawn's wonderful, traditional American dinner on Thanksgiving, but was adamant about avoiding the place during the week before Christmas since it was one of the few places in town which might have gotten infected by the alien bug. Still, I did yield to the inescapable conditioning and made it a slightly special day by having a hamburger at the posh Annapurna Hotel. The only flaw in that holiday was a group of Australians who played "Feed the World" over and over until I was ready to scream "let the buggers starve!"

During the Vanderbilt Y years, I made some small gesture to the season by putting up a little greenery and lights. That childhood love of the colored light effect in a room is one aspect of Christmas I have always enjoyed. And I made one final visit to the family home in California when I was more than mellowed out by the recent killing of John Lennon and was subdued compared to my prior visit. It was not a success, however, and I was determined never to repeat the mistake.

During the high-income mid-80's years in London, for the first time in my life I was the one who went shopping berserk. Almost every day I was on the telephone in some shop getting Visa and MasterCard to raise my credit limit one more time. Some days Jonathan and I were so laden with packages, we had to take a taxi home and leave them before returning to resume the hunt. It was madness.

Here in Honolulu, when Jonathan was living with me, I yielded to his love for the season. The apartment was always decorated from top to bottom (mostly top, since Chloe would trash anything she could reach), lots of tapes of seasonal music were to be heard playing all month, all the television specials and long-time traditional films were watched, the place was full of chocolate and candies, and the usual feast was prepared (even including, one year, a traditional rum-soaked pudding which Mama White sent from England).

Those may be the last "traditional" Christmases of my life.

034

Okage sama de, genki desu...

"Because of the Shadow, I am fine." Another person crazy enough to write publicly about what is going on in his life and in his head talks about that Japanese phrase. "I am what I am because of you" or "My accomplishments, big and small, have been made possible because of you." Since I've been lucky enough to have this sanctuary for a week with its fine computer gear, I've gone back over all these Tales, my Shadow. Made a few minor revisions, especially to the history series, fixed some typos, but basically they can stand as is. These day-to-day rambles are easy to write, moving back and forth between the inner and the outer. Some of the ones about the past were also easy, but some of them were really tough, both to think about and to set down in words. The more a person contributed to the Shadow, the harder it is to write about them.

Toughest of all are those tales from the Underworld Dude. He's got some more stuff to talk about but at least he spit some of it out. (One reader will probably give me a hard time for speaking as if those tales were written by another person, but in many ways that's not just "poetic license", it's the way I think of it.)

Meanwhile, life goes on in this eagle's nest. There are five rooms, but I've stayed in the smaller computer room most of the time with the big glass sliding door to the lanai open, so it's like sitting outside. As I told someone, the mountains seem nearer than the people down in the streets. I had to partly close the door for the first time yesterday because the wind was so strong it was blowing stuff all over the room, but most of the time I can sit at the computer, glance over to my left and see those beautiful mountains, feel the breeze of the tradewinds and be reminded of sitting in the "room with a view" in Mussoorie, India, with mountains looking much like those outside. It's a shame they put roads and houses on so many of them here. At night, as I wrote, the lights from that urbanization look quite beautiful. In the daytime, it's impossible not to wish the entire range of mountains and the approaching hills weren't declared off-limits to builders and wheels.

I haven't gone out much since that too-long afternoon at the Aloha Tower. One day I stayed in for the entire day, only going over to Indigo Restaurant at closing time to say hello to Nancy Manchester, another one of those folks who make bartending into something more than just a job. Although she's no longer there, Nancy was one of the bartenders who opened Gordon Biersch and was certainly one of the reasons that place was my main hangout for a year. And they wonder why their revenues have gone down ...

A party which had been planned for Christmas night was cancelled, somewhat to my relief. Although I'm always happy to see Captain John, a Christmas party is not my notion of an ideal occasion. In the early afternoon, I went up to visit Kory K and sat on his lanai drinking vodka and Coke, watching two guys setting off fireworks in the street below. One was dressed in white, the other in black. They would run, one at a time, out of the house, set off firecrackers and run back inside. It seemed to be almost a contest between black and white, but neither had the sense to set off a second batch a few moments after the first and thus create a bigger impression. This is the first year I've noticed so many fireworks on Christmas. It didn't much surprise me down here near Chinatown, but I didn't expect them in Manoa.

Then it was down to Waikiki to see Genoa Keawe at the Regent. It was good of them to play on Christmas evening. Given the size of her family, the holiday must be a very busy time for her but if she was tired, there was no sign of it. During one of the breaks, I was sitting at the bar talking, not paying attention to what was going on around me, and Genoa came up from behind, grabbed my head in her arms and hugged me. It felt wonderful, a great Christmas present. Those hours each week with her and her "band" are one of the most special things about living on this island.

At lunchtime on the day after Christmas, I went for a walk through the business district. I saw two men from the office where I used to work but they were on the other side of the street and didn't notice me. The walk was a strong reminder of all those lunch hours I spent just walking around downtown. Until Gordon Biersch opened, that is.

I don't think there is any way I could go back to spending five days a week in a downtown Honolulu office.

In the evening I took a bus over to Waikiki. Actually, I took two buses. It looked like it might rain, there was a long wait for a bus going directly from Chinatown to Waikiki, so I got on one to Ala Moana. Considering the fact that the day after Christmas is one of the busiest times of the year there, the folks who manage The Bus seem pretty clueless. After more than fifteen minutes, a Number 8 bus finally came. I had walked down to the Ewa end bus stop, where the bus pretty much filled up. At the main stop, the sidewalk was totally filled with people waiting for a bus. There must have been more than a hundred people, most heavily laden with parcels. After a lengthy attempt by the driver to cram more people into the bus, we finally set out for Waikiki, and at every stop the driver took off again even though people were shouting "wait!" as they tried to squeeze their way to an exit. If The Bus ran a campaign to nominate the Worst Driver, to match the Best Driver poll, that dude definitely would get my vote.

At the International Marketplace there was a special, special unexpected treat. BB Shawn was wonderful, the Reverend Dennis and his charming son, Kawika, were as always a joy to watch and hear. But Harold Kama brought his three-year-old son, Krissan, with him. Harold's a sweetheart, but Krissan is THE cat's meow. He had his ukelele with him, and they sat on two chairs beside each other. Krissan joined in on most of the songs and, after getting over a little initial shyness, totally stole the show from daddy. Krissan doesn't need anyone to make him a star, he is one already.

I haven't at all looked forward to this holiday season and there's no question, it would have been a lot less pleasant without this eagle's nest, this Panther's Cave in the Sky. But it also would have been a lot less pleasant without some wonderful and special people who added so much joy and warmth to it. Lucky to live Hawai'i.

035

You must not get any fixed notions about the world, in any way, any idea that what you see today or tomorrow or the next is immutable. The intelligent human being passes constantly from old worlds to new, constantly discarding, renewing and inventing illusions. So you must be prepared to shed your erroneous illusions and opinions, day by day, with complete flexibility.

I went to the picnic. The Winter Picnic. Still the same special ground, but the winter picnic doesn't quite evoke the same memories as the Summer Picnic.

Then I went to Duke's. Maybe that's the last time I will go there. The sweetheart from Kauai who is my favorite barback there totally ignored me, even when standing right in front of me washing glasses. Finally I couldn't stand it any longer and asked him why. He said it was because I don't go down there anymore. Like it should matter to him?! Ok, I was touched by his response, and explained that times have changed, I can no longer afford to sit in Duke's all afternoon, no matter how much I love the view of the glass-washing. (No, I didn't go quite that far, no need, like lots of local boys, he knows he is being admired and is kind about it.)

Talked to Laura the publisher who wants to read my "book". Go for it. Had a delightful time talking with two Canadian dudes, one from Calgary and the other from Edmonton, which seem to have some kind of traditional rivalry. Kapena came in and played. Had seen them, also unintentionally, the night before at Pier Bar and was again impressed by what a good show they put on, even if half of the music they play is so boring. Still, they did do "Hi'ilawe" and did a fine job of it, too.

When I finally forced myself to leave there, felt so hungry I went to Jack-in-the-Box over on Kuhio and had a Jumbo and a "senior" coffee. Didn't even have to ask for the discount. Then I thought, maybe I go see "Titanic", since I still had a GMT pass. Stumbled back over to Kalakaua, but the next show didn't start for another hour and a half. Walked to the corner, and the ISKCON folks were chanting "hare Krishna" there. I stopped to watch and listen.

A pale young mother in a sari was scolding her sweet little boy for dancing. Ok, no way I was gonna put up with that, went over and scolded her instead. "Let him dance!" Sheez, all these freaks beating their drums and banging their cymbals, yelling the name of one Lord, and you're telling this cute little dude to sit down and NOT DANCE! She either got the message or else was too afraid to argue and left him alone. He danced for a time, but was actually more interested in the steel drum dude who was playing nearby. I watched those youngsters intently for an hour or so.

Sri-la Prabhupada was a wonderful man. He went from India to New York City almost penniless. He had a dream. If everywhere on earth, folks would chant "hare Krishna, hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna hare hare, hare Rama, hare Rama, Rama Rama hare hare" the world would be transformed. The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has a similar dream, if everyone will practice Transcendental Meditation [tm]. They were, or are, sincere men, I have no doubt about it. I greatly admire both of them and would sincerely bow to both.

Their empires are another matter.

After that, I decided I'd best go back to sanctuary before the day got any more strange. I passed a young dude downtown who was rummaging through the trash in a gutter. "What are you doing?!" I asked him. He explained that sometimes people drop money at the bus stop and it washes to that corner. I gave him my last dollar bill.

People really don't understand what life is about. No, I don't either, don't even come as close as Sri-la Prabhupada or the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi or those folks over at the Scientology center which I pass whenever I go out down here.

But maybe some of it's about giving away pieces of green paper to young dudes who are looking for them. Wouldn't surprise me at all.

036

A reader wrote "what life is all about is giving up your last guru". That, of course, has to mean giving up yourself since in the end we are our own guru, no matter how many and what kind of substitutes we try to dump the burden on. It's fairly easy to give up on yourself, not so simple a matter to give up your self.

When I was looking at Laura's website, I had to smile at the list of books which seem an unlikely enterprise for an elegantly stylish woman often seen hanging out at Duke's, but I guess no more unlikely than me sitting there, or in other bars, with a backpack holding a book by Hesse or the Gita. I have my copy of the Gita from the London days here in the eagle's nest. It's the Penguin paperback of the Juan Mascaro translation, probably not one of the most exactingly authentic but certainly one of the most elegant. The cover is painted in gold with just the statue of Krishna showing, and it always had a place of honor in the London apartment.

A mist of rain has moved into Nuuanu Valley and a low rainbow is beautifully arched over it. Rainbows are so frequent here, we tend to forget how rare they are in many places. I have lived in places where people simply stop and stare when a rainbow appears. Here, hardly anyone pays any attention at all.

Today was to have been the last day in this sanctuary but the weather gods intervened, dumped snow on East Coast airports and the owner's return is postponed for a day. I assured her I have not been praying for snow, and had to smile remembering my other lawyer friend, the one who talked to unseen spirits all night, who would certainly blame me for the East Coast storm. He was often convinced I was causing things like weather changes even though I assured him I couldn't control the storms in my own mind, much less those in earth's atmosphere. Still can't.

I went to Pier Bar where Jake Shimabukuro's band, Pure Heart, was supposed to play but they had to cancel at the last minute so there was the surprise of seeing Harold Kama, Jr. and his band instead. They were in fine form, but I couldn't stay for the entire gig because I wanted to take advantage of a ride up to Shipley's. Dennis Kamakahi, Ocean Kawili, Bobby Ingano and Mike Ka'awa make such wonderful music, Shipley's is one of the few places in this town I will go even though I basically don't like it. You can't smoke until 10 o'clock (although not being able to smoke doesn't stop me from enjoying the bar at Manoa Garden), you can't sit at the bar and see the musicians because of that wall of stupid twigs they have as a divider. There's nobody in this town I enjoy watching more than Mike, even if one of my companions couldn't understand the fascination. Maybe I don't, either. There's just something about that man that makes watching him as special for me as listening to him.

Afterwards, I asked to be dropped off at Hot Lava Cafe despite resolving not to go there for awhile, but changed my mind before we got there and came back to sanctuary instead.

One of the conversations during the evening was about the dilemma some people have over giving to other people, whether money or drinks or whatever. One of the people who had been buying me beers said she wasn't worried about whether it was "good for" me or not, but wasn't sure if it was good for her. I told her that we both know it isn't on one level, but I'd try to find an out. Having nothing left but coins, I would certainly have been sipping on iced water last night if not for some generous drinking companions. Well, ok, here's one "out". Establishments which are good enough to book local musicians look at their revenues for an evening. If the take isn't good enough, those musicians may not find themselves being asked back. So buying me a beer is indirectly supporting local music. See, I knew I could do it.

That reminds me. Harold left his beer in my care when he had to start playing. Now that boy isn't dumb, he knew damned well I wasn't going to be able to resist drinking that beer. Had nothing to do with the beer, I had my own. Thanks, Harold. Silly server person at Pier Bar picked up the bottle at one point and poured the rest of it into my glass. Clueless woman.

I'm such a slut.

037

In the almost three months this project has been going, this is only the second time a Tale of current life was withdrawn and revised. It was originally written with the attitude of an arrogant householder. A cold night on a hard bench is a great attitude adjuster.

I stayed in the eagle's nest all day but shall soon be leaving it since the airplane carrying its owner is now only a bit more than an hour away from the islands. It was chilly up here today, almost cold, but I've learned not to judge the street temperature by the feel of a windy day on the 33rd floor.

There was a lot of interesting email but the one which most caught my attention was from someone whose name I have not seen on the Incoming Mail list in a very long time.

Discretion, of course, is always a concern when writing things like this, whether the current record or tales from the past. It almost goes without saying that many of the perceptions are mine alone, the other members of the cast undoubtedly saw the play in a totally different way and would speak of it as they saw it. In a couple of the Tales, I even took the trouble to say so at the beginning. But there is also the concern that even a highly accurate account could cause embarrassment or discomfort to the person involved and in those cases I have taken care to write in a way that no positive identification could be made, only participants at the time would know who I was talking about and nothing I write would be any news to them.

These are concerns known to everyone in the Web Diarist School, but I think perhaps some readers either underestimate the problem or feel the artists using this medium don't take it into consideration. Not so. We see two of the best in these islands either retiring altogether or attempting elaborate methods of hiding their work, at least partly because of these problems.

Ah well, more immediate concerns at hand. Hamilton Library being closed on the weekends is a serious disruption of my lifestyle for the next twelve days. The mountains being invisible outside because rain is falling so heavily on them is an even more immediate concern. The endless fireworks we have endured since Christmas Eve are only going to get worse.

Don't let it bring you down, it's only castles burning ... just find someone who's turning, and you will come around ...

A burning castle may have been going a bit overboard but I wouldn't have minded a beam or two from one burning in a fireplace on my first night out of sanctuary. I have never spent that cold a night without at least a tent as shelter. My bench was under an overhanging roof, but the wind was blowing in such an erratic fashion that there was really no shelter from it. Space blankets do a wonderful job of creating a warm, humid atmosphere by holding in body heat and moisture. What I had never noticed before is that they stay cold. If bare skin is touching them, it gets very cold, too, as I discovered when I awoke with my hand frozen. Che gelida manina ... and my mind launched into playing about a quarter of the first act of La Boheme before I went back to sleep.

Every time I shifted position, I was awakened by some cold breeze having found a bit of open space it could squeeze through and I had to tuck the blanket in around me again. It wasn't a very pleasant night, but I was much better off than some of the other nomads there who had no blankets at all. More importantly, I deserved it for the tantrum I threw yesterday.

I don't remember where it is in his writings but I've long been impressed by Spinoza insisting it is a basic law that we get back what we give out. That works both ways, of course. We give back what we get. It's an important first step to self-knowledge to break that chain. I don't think it's necessary to go so far as to "turn the other cheek", that can lead to pathetic masochism. But if someone communicates with you like a crazed little rooster, it achieves nothing to respond in kind. I know better, I know my inner reaction was wrong as well, but it took me much of the evening to reach the point where I could think calmly about it. I really don't like anyone having that much power over me, but it's my fault, not theirs.

Getting so frazzled by the prospect of shorter daily hours and no weekends on-line was equally stupid. A man who professes to believe there are no accidents can only sensibly view such a thing as a "signal from heaven" that an adjustment is needed. Certainly in recent days there has been far too much on-line time, not enough time spent "smelling the roses". Maybe that's part of the reason some reactions to other people have been so unbalanced. I'm not quite sure I'm ready to agree with Candide that "all's for the best in this best of all possible worlds", but that attitude is a lot better than the one I was walking around with yesterday.

038

On New Year's Eve, I couldn't think what to do or where to go. I would have spent the evening at Hot Lava Cafe but they were closed, so I wandered around Waikiki for awhile and watched the sunset. I looked in at Duke's but it was already very crowded in the early evening, stopped over to Shore Bird but Greg wasn't working. Wandered around some more, and then thought about the old Mai Tai Lounge. A good idea, that was. Rose, who was a server back in those happy days when Harold was playing the Mai Tai, is now the bartender and the small group of people who were there were seeking the same thing I was, a haven from the madness raging outside. We listened to KINE-FM all evening, the tv set stayed off. Rose was supposed to close at 11:30 but kept the bar going until a bit past midnight and brought out shots of Cuervo to welcome 1998.

I see young Jay T. made a list of admirable resolutions. I thought about a few things I could have made into a New Year's Resolution, but threw them all out. Just for auld lang syne, I made one. I resolve not to buy any tequila in 1998. Notice I said "buy", not "drink". That's a N.Y.R. I can live with, I think.

By the time I left the Mai Tai, I was drunker than I realized when sitting comfortably at the bar. Someone had given Rose a packet of firecrackers and she gave them to me, so I made a small contribution to the horrendous racket that was still going on in the streets of Waikiki. Then I made my way through the mobs to DeRussy Beach where the grinning moon had set but the stars were shining brightly and it was surprisingly quiet there, with only a few people still igniting fireworks. I was dead tired as well as drunk, so ended up spending the night at what used to be the entrance to the Tahitian Lanai. There's no shelter there, but if it's not raining it's one of the best places in Waikiki at night.

Someone gave me some McDonald's gift certificates, so I had my last meal of 1997 in one and then the first meal of 1998 (pancakes and sausage). Afterwards, I went out to Magic Island and fell asleep on the beach. When I woke up there was a man nearby with his young daughter. He was fairly handsome with a decent body and he seemed to be making some effort to impress me with it; a good thing he had his daughter along or I would definitely have considered it an invitation to play. Perhaps it was. I wasn't really interested but paid enough attention to him to say thanks for the show, then put the Dylan tape in the machine and vanished into the music. Not long after the tape ended, it started to rain lightly so I headed for the shower and then over to Ala Moana. Outside the shower, one of the habitual nomads of the area was having a bad day. She's a middle-aged, heavy set woman who usually can be seen plodding around the park with an unhappy scowl on her face, but was that day loudly sobbing and berating someone because she had thrown away her "purity", then shouted "oh God, can't you just leave me alone!" Voices, I guess. I'm glad I've never experienced that except in a drugged state.

I was feeling very lost again, couldn't decide what to do. I bought a bowl of vegetable ramen which was a mistake because I'm useless at eating that stuff with chopsticks. They had run out of the larger spoons so were handing out only chopsticks and a small plastic teaspoon, no choice but to try and cope. It wasn't made any easier when a Japanese man and his two teenage sons sat at the table next to me.

For a couple of weeks I've been having a pain in the middle of my chest. It's usually worst in the early mornings but on New Year's Day it lingered into afternoon and steadily got more uncomfortable. I had to sit down for awhile at one point because it took all my energy to cope with the pain. There's nothing like a little real pain to take the mind off everything else.

"Take two aspirins and a beer, and call me in the morning," advised the inner doctor, so I took the bus over to Waikiki, congratulating myself again on having sensibly bought a bus pass before spending the money on something less useful, and went to the Shore Bird. I was sitting in between a roughly handsome and very friendly fellow from Alaska and a chubby salesman type here to scout out the retirement possibilities, so the conversation was typical tourist chit-chat but not unwelcome. The bartender was close to clueless, kept trying to pour me Coors Light instead of Bud and did things like empty my ashtray and give it to the Alaskan who was using the one in front of him already. Being cute just isn't enough when it comes to tending bar.

Then it was over to the Regent for Genoa and crew. The doc's prescription had worked, no more pain. Good company, wonderful music, cool bartender. If I had known in advance that a reader was going to pick up my tab, I would've had a Surfer or two. (Naw, naw, just teasing). Headed down to Aloha Tower with Gino and as we walked past Gordon Biersch, I saw Mikey V. was at the outside bar, so we settled down for a couple of those wicked winter brews. It was the first time in many months I've sat at that outside bar. The place is crawling with memories, almost all of them happy ones.

I had the "hacienda" all to myself so it was a relatively quiet and peaceful night, the longest unbroken sleep I've had since leaving the downtown eagle's nest. Dawn from Magic Island was beautiful, but I was grateful Hamilton was going to be open so I could escape that lost feeling for the day. The transition from the downtown eagle's nest to life on the street is in some ways a combination culture shock and jet lag. I miss the usual life on campus and especially Tomita-san. But there's more to the current state of mind than that and part of the lost feeling is not knowing more about it, not being able to figure out why there is such restlessness and discontent.

A reader complained that the most recent Tales lack "edge". They reflect my reality; if life lacks "edge", so will the tales. Perhaps I should do something to make life and the tales more interesting, but on the other hand the perfect tale might be one of a day when I did nothing but sit in one spot and watch.

039

When Hamilton Library closed, I walked down to Waikiki (even with a bus pass in pocket, a little exercise does no harm). Three outrigger canoes were racing on the Ala Wai, so I sat on a bench across from the landing spot and enjoyed the show. The sight of a crew of trim brown bodies moving in unison is a fine one indeed.

When the race finished, I walked on to the International Marketplace and sat for an hour or so listening to Moana Chang and her group. I was tired by the time the show was over, even though it was still fairly early, so took a bus over to the hacienda and settled down for the night to the sound of loud music coming from the club across the street. I think it may have been Fiji in the early part of the evening, but it changed to a very tedious techno sound later. Just before midnight some fellow staggered in with a twelve-pack of Coors and wanted me to have a drink with him. I told him I just wanted to get some sleep, so he gave me a beer and went on his way. It was warm, but I drank it and settled down again until dawn.

In the morning, Kona winds were blowing, the skies looked like it was going to be a very unsettled day so I abandoned plans to stay on the beach and decided instead to spend the day taking the Circle Island trip. When I got to Kaneohe, I thought it would be a good chance to stop and visit some good friends, a local ohana, something I had been promising to do for weeks.

In retrospect, that was a decision I wish I had not made.

The house is on a hill which slopes so steeply that the roof of the house behind it is on a level with the back fence, so it is a clear view across to the Ko'olau range and to the new H3 highway. Sitting in the front yard of the house, the slope of the hill is just right, so the roof of the house blocks the view of the highway and aside from one huge ugly power line that swings up higher than seems necessary and back down again, the mountains look like they must have for centuries, untouched and beautiful.

It was to be the weekly shopping day and I was invited to go along. The first stop was Costco in Hawaii Kai, the trip there made even more enjoyable by the makua kane's stories of growing up in Waimanalo, playing football on what is now a major road but was then a dead-end street with so little traffic it could be the main playing field. It's the kind of story which didn't make "Waimanalo Blues" but adds much to the message of the song. The time in Costco reminded me of the difficulty I had returning from the crowded alleys of Old Delhi and stepping into a large American supermarket. The quantity of merchandise, the huge amounts in one package (enough laundry detergent in one box to last me through at least two years of washing), the people wandering the aisles adding more and more to their already loaded carts -- a fascinating but slightly horrifying spectacle.

On the way back to Kaneohe, we stopped in a small local store in Waimanalo which had a photo on display from the day when President Clinton visited the store. The inside of the store reminded me of a similar one in South San Antonio where my grandmother would send me almost every day to purchase some small thing she had forgotten to buy. I suspect her reason was more to educate me in the ways of the adult world, using money, making sure the change was correct, completing a business transaction satisfactorily. My grandmother was a wise lady.

Next door to that general store was what had once been a filling station, converted into a shop selling local crafts. There was a small section devoted to the work of Patrick Ching. His drawings of Hawaiian wildlife are delightful and I wish the paintings were as subtle. There was a young lady visiting the store who used to work at Gordon Biersch. She walked right past me without recognizing me, one of those funny things where you don't see what is right in front of you because you don't expect it to be there. The makua kane and I were sitting at a table in front of the shop when she left. "Didn't you used to work at Gordon Biersch?" he asked. She said yes, spotted me, and said "Albert!" and came over to give me a hug. I really enjoyed seeing someone in Waimanalo who was a part of my life "on the other side".

The second part of the grand shopping day took us over the mountains using the new H3 highway. No one can be very happy with the way the highway cuts across the Ko'olau range or view those especially ugly structures at the entrance to the tunnels with anything but disgust, but the view from the highway itself is magnificent and the ride, elevated at treetop level, through the untouched valley on the other side is magical. We were headed to Walmart and another exercise in watching mass consumerism in action.

After returning to Kaneohe and a dinner which included all the traditional local foods (of which I only had lau lau, kalua pig and rice, declining the poi, lomilomi salmon, etc.), we went to the very crowded Ko'olau Ranch House where the Kamalamalama Brothers had the audience in the palm of their hands, as they say. There are more technically skilled musicians in this town, but none that put on a better show than those fellows, and no one does "Kanaka Wai Wai" more beautifully. It was a perfect end to a splendid day.

040

The Kona winds were still around on Sunday morning, promising another day of unsettled weather, but the view of the Ko'olau range is always interesting no matter what the weather. I didn't know just how spectacular it could be until evening when the clouds were in just the right relationship with the setting sun and the entire top of the range was suddenly back-lit with a fiery red color. It would have been the perfect opening shot for a film of the End of the World ... or the start of a new one ... but no film or photograph could do more than hint at the power and beauty of those mountains and clouds during those magical minutes.

"Red sky at dawn, sailors be warned. Red sky at night, sailor's delight" doesn't work in Hawai'i. Despite the brilliantly red sky at night, there was plenty of what was referred to in the weather forecast as "passing showers". But then maybe in Kaneohe a 20-minute torrential downpour is a passing shower. After one particularly fierce half hour of wind and rain when the mountains couldn't be seen at all, it cleared and there were dozens of waterfalls cascading in narrow strips down the mountainside.

Sunday was a laidback, casual day. Despite less than ideal weather, the two boys wanted to go to the beach so we drove down Kamehameha Highway to a small beach where there were only about ten other people, mostly fishermen. On the way we passed through Waihole and by the fruit stand made famous in the song about the sweet lady and her papayas. And at the beach I was shown an opihi, a baby one, I was told, which had been clinging to a rock at water's edge. Life on this side of the island calls to mind one song after another.

I've never before lived in a house with so many children and the age range from two to eighteen means there's a group in between which has always been a great delight for me, children old enough to communicate with but not old enough to have lost the innocence of childhood. The six-year-old lad is my favorite. The three-year-old boy is a sweetheart but he gets so much attention that any from me is superfluous. The girl with the secret language is in some ways the most demanding and the greatest challenge. It was something of a victory to have comprehended three entire words of her sometimes abundant discussions.

On the first night here, I woke to the sound of a loud thump nearby, looked down and saw a blanket-covered mound beside the bunkbed. It was the six-year-old. At the same age, it was my habit whenever we visited my uncle's house to somehow disable the restraining bar on my cousin's bunkbed and end up on the floor just like that. I got him back into bed, tucked him and "Mister Bear" in. I had a stuffed rabbit as my sleeping companion and confidante, listener to all my secrets and woes, and absorber of many tears. I never forgave my mother for throwing him out one day while I was at school. Stupid things like that were the main reason I decided very early that I did not want to have children of my own. I was afraid I'd be as bad at it as my parents were.

The mosquitos of Manoa are rank amateurs compared to the hungry beasts of Kaneohe. I thought by getting out of bed in the morning, putting on Levi's and a long-sleeved shirt, I could stand outside with one hand in my pocket and have a quick smoke without getting targeted. Wrong. One monster discovered the narrow strip of exposed skin between the bottom of the shirt and the top of the pants pocket and decided it was a great breakfast bar. If there is a supreme intelligence which guided creation, I'd like to ask why mosquitos couldn't just suck blood without leaving an itchy lump behind. Malaria is understandable as a kind of crude population control, but an ordinary, non-disease-carrying mosquito should be able to feed without the irrelevant but uncomfortable consequences to the feeder.

I have a project to accomplish here. The makua wahine's uncle wrote a book about being a young man in the Netherlands in 1940-45 and I am transcribing the manuscript into bytes. The book opens on the morning the Germans launched a surprise attack on Rotterdam. It is amazing the Dutch had been thinking they could sit there unmolested while war was raging between the English, French and Germans, but the book does a fine job of narrating the surprised shock of awakening to the sound of artillery fire and coming to grips with the fact that it wasn't just some military exercise but an actual invasion. However bad my choice of re-entry to life may have been, I have to be grateful it was the San Antonio of 1940 and not Rotterdam, or just about anywhere else in Europe in that decade.

But if it were re-entry time right now, a man could certainly not complain if he ended up in Kaneohe.

When the six-year-old came home from school, I read his book for him. As part of their homework, they're assigned a short book which is supposed to be read to them and the reader has to sign a form to prove the "work" was done. It was a pretty sad excuse for a book, although the drawings were nice -- a tale of a boy who was having a day when everything went wrong until the happy ending. But there were so many references that wouldn't mean much to a child growing up in Hawai'i. Seems to me that story books based in the islands would be a much more sensible choice, but maybe there aren't enough to fill the need.

I screwed up as a homework assistant, though. Didn't notice that the page of pictures which had to be colored had two sides, so only one side got done. Ooops. Still, his teacher had written "Excellent!" and put a smiley face on the work from the day before, so maybe he won't get into too much trouble over the unfinished second page. Tricky business, playing tutor to an almost seven-year-old boy.

Anyway, most of the journal keepers write much smaller entries than mine so instead of trying to think of some clever wrap-up, I'll just shut up and go outside for a smoke. Out the front door, so I don't get lectured again by the almost-four-year-old on the evils of "blowing smoke".

041

Someone wrote an email about local people who keep these online journals. That set off an email exchange between a few of those people, only two of whom I have met in person, although a third one claims we have met but that I was probably too drunk to remember it. I can believe that with no problem. I'm not sure I like the comment one person made about me "cruising around campus". Ok, ok, I enjoy the "scenery" there but I wouldn't call wandering between Hamilton and Manoa Garden and incidentally enjoying the passing bodies on the way "cruising".

Some of the journal keepers seem to fear being stalked or getting approached by "weirdos". It's difficult to imagine anyone being much weirder than some of the writers themselves, self included. Anyway, I wouldn't mind being approached in person by someone who was reading the Tales, as long as they don't hit me. If they shoot, shoot to kill, and no problem with that either. I like getting email from total strangers who know so much about me because of the Tales. We can skip all the introductory bullshit, from my side at least.

Completely changing the subject, I love the smell of those green mosquito coils. Until I went to India, I had never seen them. In my childhood we relied upon citronella oil to deter the little vampires. But I quickly learned to appreciate the value of having one of those coils smoldering away in the room at night and the smell brings back many happy memories.

Roosters crowing, donkeys braying ... it feels more like the country here than a suburb, even if the immediate surroundings could be an area outside many mainland cities. It has especially the feel of the areas north of Seattle, except that there are sidewalks lining all the streets. But looking out toward the mountains, there is one area that really reminds me of Kathmandu valley with its lush, varied greenery and the few housetops scattered among it. Only a little pagoda tower or some rice paddies are needed to complete the illusion.

042

This mento family I am fortunate enough to be staying with are doing their New Year's cleaning late (even if they're not Japanese) or their Spring cleaning early. Whichever, they start at 9:30 or ten in the evening throwing all the accumulated junk out of the cupboards onto the floor and then try to decide what can go and what can't. I think the informal rule I heard, "if it hasn't been used for six months, it can go" has been ignored a few times. Can't be sure, because I've usually flaked out and gone to bed while the bedlam rages around me. I was so exhausted last night, I fell asleep to the sound of a vacuum cleaner.

Part of the exhaustion is a result of the unfamiliar challenge of dealing with young children whose energy far surpasses mine, some from the psychological exhaustion caused by this book I am typing, but probably more of it is from coping with these stupid pains. Yep, pain in the plural. The boring chest pain has been supplemented by lower back pain. Now that one's my fault. I showed the smallest boy how a crazy man can be a human swing by putting his arms under theirs and swinging them up into the air. Then the others had to have a swing, too. Auwe. Oh well, it's a more interesting way to get that ailment than the last time I got it by bending over a trash can to throw a teabag in it.

Toothache has been the pain of my long life, but the lower back nonsense has been a long-time pitfall, too. No big deal, who needs to bend over, anyway. And it will go away, eventually. At least it always has before.

I did some work on my Diary Keepers page yesterday. Ryan and Jen are brave to both be keeping online journals. During my Grand Dutch Love of the early 70s, we both kept daily records and read each other's now and then. At first it was totally inhibiting, then it became a way of saying stuff I didn't have the nerve to say outright, in person. I'm not sure if it prolonged or shortened the length of that interlude, perhaps it didn't really matter. It's a totally different thing in most ways now, when one member of this household is reading the Tales, but it still makes a difference. Other people who know them are readers, too. I should probably make them all anonymous. Perhaps I'll ask each of them what they would like to be called instead of their real names. [Later note: achieved the same result by omitting names.]

If I could have a name other than my own, I'd choose Matthew.

Barney is a really stupid entertainment. But the keiki seem to love it, so I guess the people doing the things know what they're up to. Thought inspired by the background sounds ...

Despite my ancestry, I realize now how little I know about the Netherlands during the Second World War. In fact, I think the only thing I do know is what was in the Diary of Anne Frank which was almost literally viewing those momentous events through a keyhole. For instance, I didn't know the Germans bombed Rotterdam even after the Dutch had surrendered. Seems really stupid to me since Rotterdam was one of Europe's major ports and would surely have been useful, at least until the English bombed it for them. Even more bizarre is the tale of the invading German soldiers buying all the stuff like coffee, tea, chocolate, bananas and such from the Dutch shops, things that had long been unavailable in Germany because of their fanatic concentration on their war machine. Weird that in one part of such a tiny country, the invaders were politely purchasing stuff from local shops while their comrades were busy bombing a major city despite its inhabitants having surrendered.

Someday I'd like to read a history of the Second World War written from a German point of view.

It's good fun to tease the wonderful Lady of the House. This morning I thought I'd do my laundry, noticed my roommate had left his sleeping outfit on his bed, so threw them in with my wash. I knew Mama-san would be bugged if I told her so, so naturally I told her. What?! Had he soiled his pants and I was covering up for him? Not!

Yeh, ok, I'm having fun, even if it is exhausting.

043

Cinderelly, Cinderelly ...

When I was a kid, the Disney classics were only re-released in theatres every seven years and in between those special times there was no way to see them. I often thought it was cruel that a child could be born just after one of the reissues and not be able to see that film until they were seven years old. Now I'm not so sure. The old way made the films even more of a treat for those of us who had seen them and had to wait for their reappearance. It's different when there's a shelf by the computer with all of the classics sitting there waiting to be watched whenever the mood strikes.

Yesterday afternoon I put "Cinderella" in the VCR (with some help from the kids who know how to use it better than I do). I hadn't seen it since the time before last when it was in theatres, never made it out to Kahala Mall to see it during the most recent reissue. The two boys watched the beginning with me, then the older one got called away to do homework and chores. The younger one stayed interested until the Ball got underway and then went looking for something else to do. Disney may have made far more beautiful films, but looks like they aren't the attention-grabbers that Barney is. Or is it just because the Barney things are so much shorter?

Whatever, I really enjoyed the film, from start to finish.

The younger lad complains frequently of being "bored". I don't think I knew the word when I was four years old. It's a word that doesn't exist in the Nepali language and I felt a little like the serpent in paradise when I attempted to explain to a young lad from Kathmandu what the word meant.

I haven't felt bored at all during this Kaneohe interlude. I don't think I could ever get tired of just watching the Ko'olaus. If I had one of those little grass shacks some people think we all live in here, I could sit under the eaves and watch the mountains all day and all evening, go to bed at nine and start over again before dawn. Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. Old Ben Franklin was such a pompous git sometimes in his writings. Dunno if that babble from Poor Richard is true or not. Doubt it. But I've been going to bed very early compared to how I lived on the other side of the island. Hasn't worked at all yet. I woke up just after four in the morning, trying to find some position where the pains would go away but it didn't work, so I tried aspirin instead (which never helps with the back pain anymore than those silly pills that are supposedly just for back pain help). So much for healthy. Wealthy? Well, I have seven one-dollar bills and some change which I haven't counted, so Ben's advice doesn't seem to be much assistance there, either. Wise?! You must be joking, Ben babe.

Sugar on avocados?! Shudder. No one had heard of avocado vinaigrette and thought I was nuts when I mixed some oil and vinegar, salt and pepper and a dash of some herbs, poured it in the crater of the de-seeded avocado and ate it. They put sugar on them. Horrible idea.

I got a little sassy on Usenet yesterday. The Emperor of China gets on my nerves now and then with his continual begging, had to give him a poke. Then the fuss and fury over KCCN-AM's decision to change format, but that has gotten too messy to participate in anymore. Billy V appearing, like the ghost in Don Giovanni, rumbling his Ode to an Employer; people confusing the issue with the obvious fact that the music should be on the better quality FM spectrum; and the increasingly tiresome rants that anything posted by Ermshar generates. It's not surprising how few people actively participate in the Hawai'i newsgroups, but I think it's worth it for some of the jewels that now and then appear. Keali'i Reichel's recent remarks about huna was the kind of posting that makes up for wading through an awful lot of garbage.

Ooops, that word "garbage". Must say it quietly, else someone will yell for the older boy to make his umpteenth trip to the trash bin lugging filled plastic bags. Won't do any good right now because he's at school. He takes the bus to school even though it's only a few blocks away. No one over here walks, and the drivers are really rude to the few of us who are crazy enough to trek the six blocks to the Mall. In Manoa, almost all of the drivers are very courteous to people on foot. Even at the on- and off- ramps to the freeway from University Avenue, most people stop and wave a walking person on. Over here in Kaneohe, you just have to be brave and dare them to kill you, even when you have the right of way. I asked the salesclerk in Long's at Windward Mall if I could have a bag for the beer because I was walking and didn't like carrying the twelve-pack unbagged. She looked at me like I was totally crazy and I'm sure it was because I admitted to being on foot, not because of wanting the beer camouflaged.

I guess I'll wander off and read some other people's ramblings. Already read the latest from Kory K and offered to help out with his sleeping problem, but got rejected. Woe is me.

044

Forty-four. My least favorite hexagram in the I Ching. Yesterday I went to Long's at Windward Mall to replenish the beer supply. The bill came to $6.66. The Beast! Yikes, first there's the weekly astrological forecast from Jonathan Cainer, an approaching Full Moon, and now numerological omens drifting through this thing called my reality.

Last night the sky was amazingly clear. I was sitting up at the top of the driveway, KCCN-AM was playing softly from the garage, and I was looking at the Ko'olaus thinking again about what it must be like to walk across the top of them. Suddenly there was the biggest, brightest meteor I've ever seen. Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket... . It split in two, and fell beneath the horizon directly over the tunnel entrance on the H3. Dazzling, but certainly understandable how such a thing could be seen as an evil omen.

I didn't do any typing of the Dutch book yesterday because the eldest daughter had a school project to complete and was on the computer all morning. I'd discovered the night before that Harold Kama's web page had somehow gone all whacko, so I spent some time sorting that out and making a few minor changes. All I need to do now is persuade that fellow to cough up some new photographs.

Gino visited in the evening to help work on a disabled automobile. Weird, hanging out in a garage while greasy mechanics are working away. Kory K writes about not being able to keep up with my interesting (?) life. Yep, so interesting I crawled into another vehicle and fell asleep on the back seat when everyone went inside to watch television.

045

When you make the inner as the outer ...

The outer is pretty hazy right now. Vog hangs heavily over Kaneohe town and last evening the Ko'olaus were so obscured by it they were just gray silhouettes, like background scenery in a shadow play. I think my writing must have been pretty voggy recently, too, judging by the number of misinterpretations received in email from readers.

Certainly the most serious one is the notion that any of the stories and remarks about life in this Kaneohe house are "complaints". The children here are delightful, all of them much nicer people and much better behaved than I was at their age. Anything mentioned that might have been read as a complaint was certainly meant in jest.

It was also said I was suggesting one of the children wasn't being treated fairly. I re-read the tales that have been written since I've been here and I don't see anything that implies that, unless it was the comments about the older boy's chores. But they all have assigned chores to do here. In such a large household that's almost essential and it makes good sense, as well. Again, these children put me to shame. I used to make a terrific fuss over having to mow the lawn once a week as my major chore, and it was even more perverse since I actually liked doing yard and gardening work.

A voggy day in Kaneohe town, had me low, had me down ...

Doesn't work, can't squeeze Kaneohe into the notes of the song instead of London. And in any case, despite the somewhat disturbing mails generated by the Tales, I feel better today than I did yesterday, especially in the evening. Some people dropped by and there were good grinds followed by an informal jam session in the garage, guitars and ukeleles and singing. It was one of those days when I couldn't drink enough beer to squelch the bodily discomfort, which thus increased the mental discomfort. I just felt like crawling into a hole and whining, and that of course made it all even worse. So I took refuge in my long-time haven of consolation, MUD2, and spent a couple of hours having fun with the youngsters playing in there as a way of taking my mind off everything else. Only problem was, when I got up from the chair, I could barely walk and was pretty grouchy about wanting to fall into bed, even if I did manage to say goodnight to the folks still kanikapila-ing.

Saturday evening we all (well, all the adults) went over to Kincaid's to hear Harold Kama, Jr. who had Tommy Chock along on the bass guitar. Fine music, as always, and an amusing time. Tommy's such a good sport; after he kissed the makua wahine on the cheek, I said "where's mine?" and got one. Also had my first Surfers on Acid of the New Year. They're just too good, those drinks, should be labeled with a health warning.

I didn't do much during the day on Sunday except try to stay out of the way of the continued cleaning. Made one short trip to the mall and discovered a pack of cigarettes that costs $2.60 in Manoa costs $3.19 in Kaneohe. Good thing I haven't been smoking as much as usual. One reader said I shouldn't set a bad example by smoking in front of the children. Talk about closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. In any case, I'm willing to compromise by posing as the "bad uncle" who smokes cigarettes and drinks beer, but I don't really think there is anything wrong with either so am not hiding in the bushes (not that such an attempt would work anyway). About the only place in Kaneohe where a man could smoke a cigarette without setting a "bad example" to kids might be a bar, and I can't afford to go to one of them right now.

The children all think both smoking and drinking beer are nasty habits. I'm glad they do.

There were several emails on the weekend from people I don't know at all who are reading the Tales. Maybe they're shy because they don't know me except from the Tales; whatever the reason, their mails suggest strangers misinterpret less than friends.

046

Hexagram 46. Return, or The Turning Point. I doubt that if I consulted the I Ching directly right now, I'd get that oracle.

After a pre-bedtime chat with my host and hostess about some of the things from the day's netwaves, I crawled into bed and had a restless sleep, waking to the sight of the full moon shining over the Ko'olaus in the hour before dawn. Earlier in the evening the six-year-old joined me for a short time at the top of the drive to watch the rising moon. He asked me where the moon went to sleep during the day, so there was an impromptu lesson on the presumed set-up of the solar system. Well, mankind went for so long believing all kinds of tales about what happened with the sun and the moon when they weren't visible, who am I to say this century's version is any more accurate? But I stuck with the current orthodoxy, and he was quite impressed that I had once lived on the other side of the world where it was daytime when it was nighttime in Hawai'i. I didn't complicate things by bringing up the seasons.

These informal gigs as teacher are fun. On the weekend, the three-year-old came out as I was playing with some crayons and a piece of paper, so we had an art class based on drawing the combination stop-sign and street-sign at the corner and the yellow fire hydrant near it. He was doing well, got the stop-sign shape exactly right, but then introduced into his drawing some character from a tv show whose name meant nothing to me. I guess a dedicated teacher would have to spend some time watching the current children's television programming to stay culturally in tune. Judging by what I've seen during my week there, it would not be an especially enjoyable aspect of the teaching profession. Anyway, I was told that my drawing was really good but was junk, a fine assessment which suggests a possible future as an art critic.

Just before the astronomy lesson, a young Asian fellow ran by in jogging gear. A car stopped and the driver asked him if he needed a lift. "No, I'm jogging," he explained.

Several readers keep nagging me to go to a doctor, but I don't want to. Well, at least not unless the Quest program is known to hand out valium on request like doctors used to. Nothing to do about the back pain until it goes away on its own. I've been more careful with lifting stuff or playing with the children but it is still making walking a less than comfortable enterprise, and getting up from a chair after being in it for half an hour is major torture. I'm amazed I actually used to trudge into an office in this condition and remember one morning when I could barely manage to get up on the bus steps. The chest pain is a nuisance but not harsh enough to worry about, not that I'd really worry about it if it gets even worse. I'm ready to depart this life and if it's a road sign indicating an approaching dead end, fine with me. Please, readers, spare me the living vegetable stories, heard them all already. I don't think that's a likely fate, but then I also doubt the dead end street is coming up any time soon.

After the moon had set behind the Ko'olaus, I worked again on the Dutch book, finishing a grim chapter in which a bomb fell on a house very near that of the writer's family, everyone being awakened in the middle of the night by all the glass in the house shattering, going out to find both the father and the son of the neighbors with their legs blown off by the explosion, both dying within hours as the writer tried to stop the flow of blood until a doctor could arrive. Those personal accounts are the most gruesome and riveting parts of the book, but the background history and information are equally interesting. Every now and then I feel surprised and a bit embarrassed at how little I know about World War Two in Europe.

After a couple of hours typing the book, I finally set out on my first trip to UH Manoa since the winter break ended. There's one moment on the bus ride over the Pali Highway when you can clearly see the top ridge of the mountains and at that particular place it can't be more than a couple of feet wide, definitely not a section for the often thought of trek across the top.

The campus seemed abuzz with activity after the relative emptiness during the Finals period and the almost total emptiness during the break. It's a little strange, needs some inner re-adjustment to regain the feeling of being comfortably "at home" on the campus, but it's still my favorite place on the island.

And it's one of those days when I really hate being broke.

047

"Uncle, are you going to stay forever and ever, or until you die?"

Hmmmm, not unless I'm a much slower typist than I used to be, or that dead end street is closer than I thought.

The long-awaited Thursday finally arrived. I'd be happy to spend every afternoon for the rest of my life sitting at a bar with Tomita-san.

048

Ok, ok. Nosey people wanting details ...

On that long-awaited Thursday, I took a bus from Kaneohe to downtown Honolulu and then another bus to the University. There were fairly long waits for both of them but I arrived on campus in time to stop up and see Kory K who joined me in the walk over to Campus Center where Pure Heart was getting ready to start their gig. We chatted briefly with Lopaka Colon who looked really cute in a funny little hat which he only took off for a moment later to adjust his microphone, then we grabbed a spot in the shade on the steps in front of the stage.

I've been an admirer of Jake Shimabukuro since the first time I saw him when he sat in for a few numbers at Hot Lava one night. He's the Hendrix of the 'ukelele, the epitome of the word virtuoso. He's also as much fun to watch as to hear. After a number of times when I had expected to see him with John Yamasato and Lopaka, his comrades in Pure Heart, and had for one reason or another missed seeing them, it was a delight to finally be at one of their gigs. They have a fresh, exciting energy which made even some songs I don't like at all fun to listen to, and when they tackled songs I really like, "Waimanalo Blues" and "House at Pooh Corner" especially, they gave them a personal interpretation which few local singers manage. The influence of John Cruz is so strong, echoes of his vocal style and phrasing can be heard all over town; John Y. has escaped it somehow and does everything his own way, even songs Johnny C. does himself. And Jake is just incredible, has tamed his exuberance enough to blend well with the other musicians instead of outshining them as he sometimes did before.

Some of the youngsters around us on the steps were thoroughly amused by Lopaka's bird calls, and I wondered if they had ever heard his daddy on the Martin Denny classics of the Fifties. Whether accenting a song with bird calls or playing with the vast array of percussion instruments he always has along, Lopaka is a delightful young man and a musician with impeccable taste and style.

After the gig, Kory went back to work (so to speak) and I walked over to Manoa Garden. Tomita-san was already there, halfway through one of those large jugs of Red Hook Double Black Stout. He and Bryant greeted me enthusiastically and said they had just been talking about me. Tomita-san said he had missed me, but I doubt he missed me as much as I missed him during that long holiday break. He has a wonderful sense of humor and is a most excellent drinking-buddy. We talked about what we did over the holidays, with "getting drunk" an in-common theme, and what he will be doing this semester at UH (only two courses, something like "Media in Education" and "Chinese in Hawai'i"). He's interested in eventually getting into the film industry. I asked if he knew Ken Russell's films, but he didn't. We looked in the UH catalog and I was surprised to see they have nothing like a History of the Cinema class.

He had to leave around 3 o'clock because he had promised to do some shopping for his grandmother. I should have left the bar when he did, but he bought me another jug of that wicked brew, so I stuck around to finish it. I hadn't eaten anything all day so was already well buzzed. Some real jerk sat at the end of the bar, one of those guys who must inspire instant dislike from a lot of people and certainly did with me. So I moved outside to finish my beer, went back in to say goodbye to Bryant, and staggered down the hill to Hot Lava. Lisa was in one of her totally bitchy moods, so I walked out without having anything and got a bus to Waikiki.

I had planned to stop by Harry's Bar to see Kevin Kama but was running too late so went directly to Genoa Keawe's gig at the Regent Lobby Bar. Mark Schmaltz is in town, visiting from Florida, and joined me at the bar. Then Myra came in and joined us. She's a real sweetheart and dances with such sincerity that it's always a delight to watch her. At one point Mark asked me to switch seats with him so he could sit next to her; since he was buying the beer for all of us, no argument from me. I don't think I drank very much there, but certainly made up for it at our next stop, the Pier Bar.

John Cruz was playing, joined by Matt Swalinkavich, Lopaka Colon and a couple of other musicians, including Guy Cruz who joined in on a few numbers. I'm not sure just why, but they never seemed to really get it together and I found myself spending more time talking to people at the bar than actually listening to the music. Many of the long-time Thursday regulars were there and I hadn't seem them in weeks. Ditto the wonderful Amie, who makes a wickedly delicious Surfer on Acid and did, at least three times. Henry Kapono was in the crowd and Mark wanted to meet him. I've sat at the bar there with Henry a couple of times but don't really know him, but made the introduction anyway.

Mark and I left just before midnight and walked over to look at the Alexander & Baldwin building, a favorite of his and mine, before he drove me back over the Pali.

It was a Thursday worth waiting for.

049

Woke up Friday morning feeling most thoroughly trashed. No idea what I did to it, but my right arm was really stiff and sore. I didn't feel like doing anything and didn't for much of the day.

For the first time all week, Saturday morning brought dense gray clouds and intermittent rain. It was my first journey over the Pali Highway which included the odd sensation of riding into the clouds. Strangely, it was much cooler on the other side than it had been in Kaneohe and several times during the day I wished I had worn a long sleeve shirt. I went up to Hamilton Library at UH and did some web work, drank a couple of coffees from the vending machine which claims to grind the beans and brew it when you make your selection. Then I got on a bus to Waikiki and walked over to the International Marketplace.

The Reverend Dennis and Kawika Kamakahi, BB Shawn and Bobby Ingano were all there early, setting up for the gig, and were soon joined by Ocean Kawili and my current favorite on the local music scene, Mike Ka'awa.

A reader sent me a note and a piece of green paper, saying she hoped that would help with an evening of Mike K watching, noting it was a pleasure she was in agreement with. Kind reader, excellent taste! Perfect timing, too, since there are two evenings in a row providing a chance to get in some Mike K watching.

The beautiful, glamorous, clever, and delightful Nancy Ishimoto joined me at a table near the stage. I have to say those things because she grumbled at not being included in the tale about Kory K. S'ok, they're true, anyway. We were joined occasionally by Ellen, the lady whose job is getting entertainment there every Friday and Saturday. She did an excellent demonstration of how it pays to get a pitcher of beer there rather than a glass, and I fought Nancy off and managed to drink most of it myself.

The music was exceptionally fine, the company was, too. "Ma Kettle", whom I hadn't seen in several weeks, came in at one point but stayed on her own until the music finished when she came over to update me on her progress at adjusting to a recent divorce and settling in Hawai'i. That whacko dude with the blonde halo haircut who hangs out at Duke's stopped down and did his strange martial "hula", perhaps fortunately not arriving until the very end of the gig and ending his performance by slipping on the wet pavement and falling on his butt. Saturday night in Waikiki.

There was a long wait at Ala Moana for the bus going over the mountains, but I had an interesting chat with a fellow from American Samoa who was making his first visit to Hawai'i. When the bus finally came, I settled into the back corner seat, a local gentleman taking the other corner, complimenting me on my good sense at taking one of the warmest seats on the bus.

050

Cainer said about this week, "Here at last, comes a splendid week; your first since 1998 began." I was thinking about that last night when sitting at the bar in Shipley's, smelling Kawika Kamakahi's armpit for ten minutes. Yep, it was that crowded, and if you are sitting on a bar stool and someone Kawika's height stands next to you, that's the result. I'm not complaining, he smelled good. I was not deliberately eavesdropping on his conversation with BB Shawn but could hardly not hear it. Never mind, I'm not reporting any of it. Fine young men, those two.

I had taken the bus over from Kaneohe in the late morning, stopped downtown to pick up mail. I noticed the gathering of sovereignty advocates at Iolani Palace, but didn't stop to see what they were making speeches about. It was a strange contrast to see that group and, just across the street, an almost equally large crowd of tourists busily photographing each other by the Kamehameha statue. Outside the "Word of Life Christian Center", a fairly derelict-looking young man stopped me to ask if I knew of an auto parts store in the neighborhood. When I said I didn't know the neighborhood at all, he mumbled something about just needing someone to hold his tools (?) and went on to explain he was "a little short". I told him I was, too, so he abandoned his effort by asking for a cigarette. Strange patter for a young panhandler.

Then I went on up to UH, fed the vending machine with quarters for a cup of coffee, and settled in at a terminal at Hamilton. At one point, a young fellow sat at a terminal across from me who was a perfect example of a living Buddha image, looked as if he had stepped right out of a classic art work.

Took a bus up to Shipley's in the drizzling rain, all the while muttering that Barry Flanagan must not have spent that much time in Manoa if he thought rain there was worth a romantic ballad (or else that person he met in the rain was the real inspiration). All-star line-up at Shipley's and my first time seeing Bla Pahinui in a club gig. Great music but I really don't like that place and it's too expensive.

Had to catch the 9:08 bus back to Ala Moana in order to get the last bus over to Kaneohe. The long wait for that one was made less tedious by two young Japanese fellows having an extended, deep discussion/argument which occasionally got quite loud and then settled into scenes of one having his arm around the other and speaking softly in his ear. At one point, the cuter of the two came over and asked for a cigarette, told me his friend was stupid. But he went back to the discussion anyway and it continued until the Kaneohe bus arrived and they surprised me by getting on it, too.

By the end of the next day I was feeling very tired and my supply of patience was so exhausted, I grabbed the backpack, got on that bus over the mountains, and settled down on a wooden bench to sleep.

On the road again ...

051

Cainer wrote "Mercury's sharp link to Mars tells us that right now, something in your life seems awkward and unappealing. Jupiter's alignment to Mars tells us that this factor, on closer investigation, will yet prove to contain a nugget of something with immense potential value to you."

"Awkward and unappealing" could apply to lots of "somethings" in my life right now, especially some of the reactions I get in email to these Tales. It's getting easier to understand how some of the pioneers in this "art form" have either given up or gone incognito.

But in my case, when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose ...

Woke up well before dawn and left my wooden bench, walked over to Ala Moana Beach Park. The "general store" at the boat basin wasn't open yet so I had to continue on to the DH end of Ala Moana before I could get a cup of coffee. I was feeling so weak, so totally shattered ... and that was even before I went online.

Drank the coffee and went into the shower building, sat in the drying room next to the showers and got out my battery razor, started rubbing it over my chin. A dude I'd guess was in his early twenties passed by on his way to the shower where someone else was already making a lot of ahem-ing noises. After a very short time there (can't blame him, the sun wasn't up yet and it must have been SO cold), he walked back over buck naked to where I was sitting and faced me while drying off. Ok, so I looked. It was too early and I was so weary, but I looked. Cute dude. If I'd had someplace to take him, I would've asked him home. Since I didn't, I left and went outside to sit at a picnic table to re-arrange stuff in my backpack which I had rather hastily crammed in it when fleeing Kaneohe. He came out and stood under a tree near the table. Wha??? Why one cute young dude hanging out at that hour of the morning, looking for whatever he was after? I should have asked him, but like I said, I was really tired.

Eventually he walked off in the direction of Waikiki, and I crossed the road to the shopping center to wait for a bus up to the University. Rode up there, spent two of my last four dollars to buy two scoops scrambled eggs, one scoop hash browns and a cup of tea. Yep, I was that hungry.

By the time I was finished, Hamilton Library had opened. It was a miserably gray, damp morning, so much for any idea of sleeping on the beach or later taking a catamaran ride. I emailed Kory K to see if he was on campus, he was, so stopped over to visit him, then took the bus down to the corner at the bottom of the hill to get cigarettes and another one back up the hill again.

Manoa Garden. Red Hook Double Black Stout. They're going to replace that soon with something else, which is either a saving grace for me or the worst thing that has happened in years. I was determined to prove to Bryant that I could sit quietly at the bar, and I did it, through two of those large jugs of the stuff. He was a little concerned, I think, waiting for me to break loose, go ballistic. Not! But playing it safe, when I got the third one I went outside to drink it.

In my first half hour at the Garden I was grumbling to myself about the unusual lack of cute prospects in the place. Fate socked it to me big time, filled the place with them, inside and out. I still behaved myself, although one old dude who was busy courting a sweet, far-too-young-for-him Japanese lad probably wouldn't agree. Old guy gave up and went away. I asked the abandoned one if he'd like a beer and he thanked me but said he was still only nineteen. Okay.

By the end of the afternoon I was feeling really low, like looking at one of those boxes which says, break glass with hammer, or whatever. So I sent an email to one of my kindest friends and asked if I could have 48 hours shelter. 48 hours was stretching it, probably only need 12 solid hours of sleep. Got an affirmative response. SWEETHEART!!!

But there stay one computer by the bed and I still haven't even tried to go to sleep because I got so many emails, and some of them were so totally misunderstanding I have to wonder why I promised not to jump off the lanai. Or why I keep an Internet account. Or why I write these things. Or why I promised not to jump off the lanai (aka "balcony").

Oh. I said that already.

052

Running' on empty, despite a night of recharging on a soft futon. I didn't realize how exhausting the past two weeks have been, physically and mentally, until I was back on the benches. That's the first time in the almost four months this trip has been underway that I really felt a need to be in a private, protected space. It was the space that was needed, the futon was a bonus.

It was at least partly the exhaustion which led to the first time ever thought of leaving Hawai'i, although I doubt that idea would have entered my mind if not for on-line stuff. Usenet gives such a false impression of life here, and some email contributed to the overall feeling of being discouraged over the future. One writer said I was "glamorizing" my life. I don't think so, still trying at least to tell it like it happens and that isn't particularly glamorous.

Unless I somehow miraculously got enough money to fly to Nepal, I'm not likely to leave Hawai'i. But I might not spend much time on the other side of the mountains again.

Meanwhile, it's that time when the pockets are almost empty and the Survivor will have to rev up the hunting mode, the Tourist has to get along without beer. Yep, I know. Was really dumb to go to Manoa Garden instead of waiting until Thursday and the possibility of Tomita-san's company, especially when feeling so down and weak I knew I wouldn't have the will power to stop drinking after one. No need for anyone to kick me, I'm a master at it.

Some readers have the idea that I'm on a search for "enlightenment". Sorry, that's not my trip and never has been. Even in the acid days, I never expected to find Nirvana. I liked the vastly expanded powers of perception and the ability to so thoroughly explore the inner landscape but "enlightenment" wasn't a goal. If that had been or was now my aim, I'd go for one of the classic Eastern techniques. Probably wouldn't work, but the attempt that way would make more sense than doing drugs or wandering around homeless in Honolulu. Self-knowledge, yes, I aim for that, no matter how far astray the arrow sometimes flies.

When I read Erick's diary this morning, I thought ouch! I know just how he feels. My current mood isn't as gloomy as his, but it certainly qualifies as a major slump.

053

"Kundun" is a beautiful work of art. I have read remarks from some critics who are debating whether it is a "great film" but I think the academic technicalities they are nattering about are irrelevant. It is beautiful to look at and, thanks to the extreme good fortune of having Philip Glass on the project, beautiful to listen to. Perhaps most important, it is a fitting tribute to one of the finest men of this century. I felt fortunate that a friend had given me some tickets and I had saved the last one for it.

The film did much to shift my position. The pivot may not be unwobbling but it's no longer skewing all over the place. A quiet night on a sheltered bench helped, too, although I woke up far earlier than necessary. It had been so warm there that no blanket was needed during the night, but with the wind constantly blowing in from the ocean at Magic Island in the predawn hours, it was quite chilly and I was greatly looking forward to the warmth of the sun.

Another reader, agreeing with the one who said I was "glamorizing" my life, said I made being homeless sound "like a lark". She should have been there. Believe me folks, there is nothing even slightly glamorous about those hours between the time when you can sleep undisturbed on a public bench and the time the sun rises, or at least until the half hour before it rises, when the sky is usually so beautiful it takes your mind off being cold and lonely. And so it was this morning.

When McDonald's finally opened, I walked over and used the last of the Christmas-gift certificates to buy those little two-for-a-dollar "apple pies" and a free-small-coffee voucher provided something to wash the things down with. When you're hungry enough, almost anything tastes really good. That McDonald's card campaign certainly came at the right time for me. I know someone who buys stuff there a lot and has been passing on the vouchers to me. On my own card, only just reached the point of getting one cup of coffee free.

Then I returned to Magic Island for a few hours in the sun, with occasional short naps. During one of them I dreamed of Chloe for the first time since she left my life, and it was sweet to be reminded of how much I love that cat. A very slim Filipino lad came along and sat not far from me. He was proud of his flat belly and kept doing things to flex his upper body, accenting the waist. Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" played in my head, but I didn't blame him. A young Japanese couple arrived and started doing some fairly heavy necking while laying on the beach, unusual for Magic Island at that time of the morning.

When I left and went into the shower a young fellow was in there whose ethnic origin I couldn't guess at all. He looked South American. He was showering with his white jockey shorts on which was kind of weird, especially since wet they did nothing to conceal, were almost transparent. He was replaced by a bleached blonde with black fingernail polish, a rather chubby body and a very tiny penis. So much variety, those Ala Moana showers.

On the bus to the University, I decided to re-title this series of tales, "back in the saddle again".

054

It is painful to leave the world; it is painful to be in the world; it is painful to be alone amongst the many. The long road of transmigration is a road of pain for the traveller; let him rest by the road and be free.

Cainer promises an "exceptionally inspiring weekend". On Thursday he promised that either love or money would come, depending on which I wanted most. I found a dime. And I was thinking love was the choice. Whatever, I assume something in my personal chart overrode the general cosmic drift of things.

I had a small glass of wine at lunchtime on Wednesday, so it has been 48 hours since I last had something alcoholic to drink. Please, please, hold the applause. I only mention it for those readers who seem to think I am in the grip of Demon Rum and would spend my last dollar on a bottle of beer. I would, if I were really in the mood for a beer. Even that wouldn't be necessary, there are several bartenders in this town who would front me a few beers if I stopped by. A pity you don't tip at Jack-in-the-Box. I would no doubt have been as generous there as I was in bars and would have buddies behind the counter who'd slip me a free Jumbo Jack or two. I've been more in the mood for Jumbo Jacks than beer. It always happens when I'm running out of money. I start to feel hungry all the time. It's so perverse; I know I'm really not that hungry, even if I have had very little to eat for days.

I think part of the Demon Rum misperception by some people I know has to do with quantity more than frequency, though. I have always had a very high tolerance for all drugs, by which I mean it takes either very strong drugs or very large quantities to alter my usual state of consciousness. This is (perhaps) fortunate since otherwise I would have been dead already from two deliberate attempts to overdose and heaven knows how many "accidental" ones. It is unfortunate because it makes the enjoyment of any drug an expensive hobby, owing to the quantity required. While having access to a refrigerator, it is possible to buy 12 cans of beer for the price of two in a bar. There is no more effect on me from 12 cans than from 2, but I don't expect anyone to believe that. We are talking ordinary, cheap American beer, of course. Twelve cans of Red Hook Double Black Stout and I'd probably not remember anything that happened during a few hours after the consumption, but it's highly unlikely I'd pass out or be sick. Just doesn't happen with beer.

Of course, there are some readers with their own scripts for this roadshow who sip or puff their drugs of choice and tell me I should take the pure path, give them all up. They think I'm their little pet Gautama sitting under a palm tree?

Speaking of that admirable gentleman, the film "Kundun" sent me in search of the Buddhist section at Hamilton. As with most categories in this strange arrangement, there turned out to be several such sections. I was looking for the Dhammapada, whence comes the opening quote to this Tale, and was surprised to see they had only one translation. Actually, they have many but the others are in another section I did not discover until the following day. It has been decades since I last read the Dhammapada and it's a pleasure to revisit it, even if it does set goals far too lofty for me. In this life, anyway.

When I left Hamilton and took the bus to Waikiki, it was a surprise to discover it had been raining heavily there and was still drizzling. It is not often one finds Manoa dry while Waikiki is wet. I went on to Ala Moana where it was once again raining fairly hard, so I sat and watched the shoppers from a sheltered bench until the rain stopped. Then I crossed to the park, put a plastic bag on a wet bench, and sat to watch the reflection of lights in the water, thinking about the book, the film, the Dalai Lama. Thinking that the best of these "tales" aren't here at all. They were written in my head at times like those hours watching the water, and what actually gets written is just a reflection, scattered and broken like those lights fragmented by waves.

055

He gives up home, and desires to be homeless, a hard choice. Like a bird invisibly flying in the sky, he lives without possessions, knowledge his food, freedom his world, while others wonder.

Hexagram 55. Abundance. Certainly are abundant cute prospects on campus already this morning. The Atlanta artist, Jarvin Parks, had a favorite expression to describe meeting a particularly cute prospect: "I fell on my side". My side would be bruised.

The internal jukebox is in a wacky mood this morning, went from "Surrey With the Fringe on Top" to "Beautiful Dreamer" to "Because of You". I had a phase in my teens when I really hated that inner muzak but gave up the struggle and learned to live with it. There are thousands of songs I can call up on demand, but generally it just plays away in random order. It's a good indicator of how aware I am at any given moment; if it can get halfway through a song before I even notice it, then I know I'm off wandering somewhere and could easily stub my toe or worse.

It's a perfect beach day. I'm happy for the nine-to-fivers but for us nomads, such a beautiful weekend day isn't especially cause for celebration. The beaches and parks will be very crowded, there won't be much peace and quiet to be found anywhere outside.

Thursday night a very young nomad showed up looking for a vacant bench. He could be as young as sixteen, seems in very happy spirits, walks with a slight bounce, and falls asleep with his ear-button headphones on. When I arrived for Friday's night sleep, he was on a bench outside but got up and followed me, settled down on the bench next to me. I have the feeling he looks on me as protection of sorts, and projecting that feeling, he's guaranteed of whatever protection I can offer.

He's lucky he could fall asleep listening to whatever music he likes, because there was some pretty awful stuff coming from a nearby club until the small hours of the morning. I drifted in and out of sleep as long as the music continued, then stepped outside for a smoke. Earlier in the park someone had offered me a hit from some deliciously potent grass and the cigarette picked up on it ... off to a gentle sleep.

I had been treated to dinner earlier, too, and then stopped in Kincaid's for BB Shawn's first set where I enjoyed a couple of beers. Have to remember that Cainer writes for the British time zone, sometimes what he predicts may be a bit late in arriving here.

Panther the speed freak. Nope, sorry folks, you missed that. Had to be around in the late 60s-early 70s for that trip. I was going to just let this topic slide, but ok, let's deal with it. The day after leaving Kaneohe, took some amphetamine tablets. Mentioned it in one email and made a vague reference to it elsewhere as the reason I didn't go catamaran-ing. Now I've had a bunch of email from people who think I am "doing speed". Sheez, what a flock of innocents I've landed with. Well, forget it. Speed without good grass is a bore. Brighter lights and colors and a little zippier thought processes aren't worth the physical payout it requires. Admittedly, wished I'd had it to go with that toke I was offered.

It surprised me how innocent most people seem to be about the subject, reminiscent of heroin propaganda. Try it once and you are doomed, hooked and enslaved for life, etc. It's bizarre that a doctor-sanctified drug like diazepam, so much more addictive than heroin or amphetamines, never shared in the aura of horror. I enjoyed talking to a friend at Kincaid's who was once a heavy speed user. Like everyone I know who did the stuff heavily, self included, he regards it with loathing. But we seem to have had very, very different responses to the drug. He spoke of an initial reaction of being very out-going, loving everyone. For me it was a deeply introspective experience. I was always so enthralled by the mind games it generated that I had no time for most other people; only rarely did I find a playmate whose conversation would even further stimulate the drug's influence on the mind.

In any case, all the readers who were concerned that I might get all weird because I was "doing speed" can relax. It's funny that some of those who were concerned have actually been in my company when I was under the influence of those far more potent substances, LSD and mushrooms, and were totally unaware of it. I'm too "weird" to get any weirder.

Thursday night and Friday night were much the same (except for the blaring music on Friday), Thursday morning and Friday morning, likewise, dozing in the sun on the beach at Magic Island, heading over to the shower and then up to the university. Early Friday evening sitting in the park watching the reflection of the lights on the water, again. Days and nights of simple living, simple pleasures. I was thinking about mosquitos and of the emphasis in "Kundun" on having love and compassion for all living creatures, nicely illustrated when the very young Dalai Lama did not react negatively to the sight of a rat lapping water from an altar dish. Yeh, ok, I'll work on my thinking about the lowly mosquito.

And thinking about the pairing of the Buddhist credo, "I go to the Buddha for refuge" and the verse from the Dhammapada which reads "You are your own refuge; there is no other refuge. This refuge is hard to achieve."

Was given some more movie tickets, will see "Kundun" again. Abundance, indeed.

056

A reader whose opinion I respect has accused me of cowardice, says I must be deliberately leaving a lot of stuff out. Knowing me perhaps better than most readers, he suspects that lust is playing more of a role than I am admitting and, with his characteristic bluntness, asked "don't you ever jerk off?". In a time when incoming email has played a large role in this endeavor, often in a fairly disturbing manner, I enjoyed the laugh that question evoked and passed it on to the Underworld Dude for a reply. He called it my so-called lusty life.

Monday morning was so chilly I got on a bus after leaving the hacienda at the same time my buddy did (we still haven't spoken a word to each other). The back seat of Honolulu buses is the equivalent of those sidewalk grills in New York City where the heat from the subway rises, often a haven for urban nomads. Judging by reports in alt.society.homeless, there has been a major effort to get people off the streets in Manhattan, driving them into more fringe areas of the city. I have no problem with that, don't understand why a nomad would want to be conspicuously present anyway unless, like some, they are feeling sorry for themselves and are deliberately standing in well-traveled places as if saying "look at poor me, I'm homeless and poor amidst all this splendor".

I was walking with Helen R. through Waikiki last evening and we passed one such nomad. He was dirty, very very dirty. His feet were almost black with caked dirt. A nomad spotted in an isolated spot in the park who is that dirty is most likely using the grubby appearance as a further deterrent to people approaching. Many nomads seem to just want to be left alone. Those like the dirty young man we passed who stand in a very public place obviously have other motives and I'm convinced the main one is an appeal for sympathy. They get mine, but they would have it anyway, no need to resort to such extremes.

That verse from the Dhammapada perfectly describes what I think is the more admirable path for an urban nomad: like a bird invisibly flying in the sky. But, of course, to each his own.

One advantage of arriving on campus early, at least for me, is getting to see the sleepy-looking young fellows walking around. Lads of Asian descent are particularly cute with that dozey look, as evidenced by the photo of Jay on my Diary Keepers page. I saw one fellow who must be Nepalese. He could easily have been a room boy at Kathmandu's Hotel Manaslu, looked very much like the one who was assigned to me on my last visit there. Well-born, indeed, to instead be a student at the University of Hawai'i.

A disadvantage of getting to campus early is that hill that blocks the sun. Some research revealed that the best place near Hamilton Library is a bench on the porch of Webster Hall. The sun reaches it at about 7:40. (Webster Hall is not named after Daniel, just as Hamilton is not named after Alexander).

Young Asian-type lads wander around looking sleepily cute and sexy. Young Asian-type lasses seem to wake up in full giggle and chatter mode, like the mynah birds greeting the sun from the trees on campus. So the disadvantage of that bench at Webster Hall is the parade of young ladies on their way to the nursing school, merrily chirping away.

I'm not so sure Cainer's prediction of a "particularly inspiring" weekend was accurate but it certainly was a pleasant one. I had decided to sharply curtail my visits to bars featuring music, not most certainly because of any decrease in my love for the music and some of the musicians, but for lack of money and no wish to occupy space which might otherwise be filled with a paying customer indirectly contributing to the musicians, or to impose upon people who might feel obligated to offer me a drink. There are people who happily buy drinks for people and there are people who do so only out of "good manners"; I'm in the first group when I have the means to be. I'd rather stop getting drinks from the second group.

So I stayed away from the Regent and the Pier Bar on Thursday evening, but was specifically invited to Kincaid's on Friday to hear BB Shawn, and again to the International Marketplace on Saturday. I had planned to avoid Kincaid's that evening, after being told Harold Kama and John Feary would be playing. It's too delightful a combination for me to resist playing tease. But I was urged to go, and since I actually did very much want to be there, it didn't take much urging. Once there I made the mistake of sitting at a table with three female friends who had also been at the Marketplace. The table was right by the stage and they told me to take the chair which placed me almost with my chin on John Feary's knee. I didn't behave as well as I should have but he was, as always, very sweet about it, and it was a good lesson. I'll never sit that close to him at a gig again.

The return to the hacienda provided another good lesson, or extension of that one, as mentioned in the new tale from the Underworld Dude.

After a short visit to Hamilton on Sunday, I joined Helen R. in Waikiki and we went to see "Titanic". I thought it a most handsome film but it didn't touch me as much as the old black-and-white version of the story. I can recall sobbing in that one as everyone sang "Nearer My God to Thee". In the new one, I was never close to shedding a tear despite some nicely crafted mixes of images and sounds designed to evoke them. The tragedy of the real story seemed so secondary in this film to the fictional tragic love story, and the fictional one was too much of a fairy tale for me to take it very seriously at any point. Leonardo is certainly very cute, I can understand why he has so devoted a following amongst young ladies, but he doesn't inspire that kind of interest from me, nor did any of the other actors and actresses in the film. Kathy Bates, though, is always a delight to watch, no matter what the role. Like I said, a handsome film but more romantic fluff than tragedy.

After a post-movie snack at Taco Bell (my first visit to one of those places in Hawai'i), we walked through Waikiki and I continued on to Ala Moana and a bus to the hacienda where my buddy was already on his neighboring bench, wearing long pants for the first time (and wisely, since it was cooler than it had been for some nights), laying down but awake and listening to his radio as usual.

Yep, a pleasant weekend.