GRAND CANYON: BAY AREA POETRY SCENE

Since we arrived in Modesto we have had little time to sit back, relax and reflect. The commitment of family and friends is gratifying but we have a yen to continue the adventure of the road. We have a day open and decide to make a sojourn to San Francisco and an appointment with the king of the Bay Area poetry scene. Wiz has made a connection through Jake Berry, a Florence Alabama poet of underground notoriety, a poet of poets. He is convinced that San Francisco will embrace our cutting edge style and content.

We get an early start and ascend from the valley of agriculture, past the windmills of Altamont Pass, where the Rolling Stones hosted the concert that became the film Gimme Shelter, and veer north to the city that gave birth to most of the dreams of my youth: Berkeley, California. I tell Wiz about the changes I have witnessed here since the days I used to thumb a ride, hang out in the square listening to the conga line, roam Telegraph Avenue in search of a new nation, study the hipsters in the cafes, and crash by a creek that runs through the campus of the university.

I remember the beautiful beaded woman in layered dress and painted face who gave me a smile and a kiss of promise. It was the dawning of a new age. I remember the charge that ran through this chosen place like an electric current of hope. I remember radical speech, political pamphlets, a sitar harmonizing with Jimi Hendrix electric lady land, the spirit of love and the sensation of being infallible.

I also remember the cops and People’s Park and the time they formed a line with their blue helmets and black riot sticks. I remember when they cleared the courtyard in front of the library with tear gas and a march of terror. It was all here: the entire history of what is now referred to as the sixties movement.

Everything has changed.

We walk down Telegraph toward the university. The street people who once roamed freely and unobstructed are now a homeless problem. The sidewalk venders are far more stylish, commercial and hip. There is no music, no buzz of political discourse and no charge of electric energy. My memories have become mythology.

We make our way to the square and the library steps where I once watched Mario Salvo address a throng of student activists. The students now are studious and more politically correct. Their issues now are more practical: the cost of tuition, public housing and parking, smoking in public places. There is a scattering of musicians but Wiz senses they would not welcome his accompaniment. They have staked claim to their turfs so we stake our claim to ours. We find our spot and the Wiz pulls out his magic flute, letting loose a kaleidoscope of sound that lingers in the air before drifting into wistful memory. I allow the enchantment to capture me before weighing in.


The karmic debt is mounting like an ancient den of thieves
With each tick of the cosmic clock like a chill in a gentle breeze

The karmic debt is mounting like a river overrun
With each lie in a soulful sorrow like a story almost done

The karmic debt is mounting with each I where we belongs
Like a river dammed and clogged like an old familiar song

The karmic debt is mounting with avarice and deceit
Each thump of the collective heartbeat and every all begins with me

The karmic debt is mounting like a storm that threatens all
And I am chained to the floodgates to suffer the karmic fall

Set me free so I may rise or die a free and noble man


On the train of the Wiz’s melody my mood carries me from politics and philosophy to ethereal dreams to the jazz underground and back again. The people around us take note and offer unspoken approval. A man with writer’s eyes sits to our side as listens as if to read our intentions. We have made a mark. It is enough.

We walk back down Telegraph, stopping at a familiar café for a bite to eat, pick up a copy of Zen and the Art of Golf at Powell’s Bookstore and put Berkeley in the mirror. The transition from a hotbed of political thought and activism to a progressive university metropolis is difficult to accept for those of us who remember what was before but these are good people and worthy of their legacy in their way.

The times are a changing and we better make way.

We drive from Berkeley to Oakland and the home of Jack Foley, king of the bay area poetry scene. He greets us as if we are long lost brothers. He speaks with an enthusiasm that belies his age, dropping names like a politician on the move: Shepard, Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg, McClure and Ray Manzarek of The Doors. He hosts a weekly radio show and offers up samples of his recordings. He hands us scores of poetry magazines. His theory is that poetry has its roots in the oral tradition of Homer, the original poet of the western world.

We are fascinated by his exuberance. He’s like a child showing off his toys the day after Christmas. He looks the part of a poet with long frazzled hair, loose fitting clothes and sandals. His wife is clearly devoted to her husband’s artistic lifestyle but she strikes a contrast, straight and proper. Their home in the Oakland hills is beautiful but they are worried about money. Their teenage son is not interested in poetry or poets. He likes baseball and rock and roll.

We continue our conversation at a charming little Chinese restaurant where he engages an unknown couple in a discussion of the origins of pot stickers. Jack has something to say about virtually everything. He is a man of knowledge, literature and culture.

I put the meal on my credit card as he recommends a club in San Francisco where we might try out our jazz poetry. Wiz slips him a copy of Dark Underground as the three of us share a hug of brotherhood.

Crossing the Bay Bridge I realize that we have spent over four hours in the company of whirlwind mind. It is the approximate time of a round of golf. It is a rare pleasure to listen to a man so eager to share his remarkable life and experience. I wonder at the breadth of his knowledge and the passion that sustains his sense of adventure. He has found his bliss. His bliss has found him. It is not chosen but chooses.

Nothing is happening at the poetry joint. The scheduled readings are over. A bearded man plays a younger man in chess. No one else is here. I sneak a peak at the stage in the back where the readings take place. There is a naked podium on the floor and a single bleacher in front of it. I am struck by how very small the poetry universe is. Poetry is dead. There is no future. Not here in San Francisco, not across the bay, not in Nashville or Albuquerque, New York or Chicago. Poetry is for poets with large dreams but small ambitions. The devotees have large hearts. They are driven not by success, which is measured in humility, but by the thing itself, the Zen of poetry. If poetry is an oral tradition it is enough to stand before a handful of fellow poets. Let the words be heard. Let them roar like a stampede of buffalo on the open plains, or let them rattle and quiver like a lover’s lips in the embrace of ecstasy. Poetry is dead, long live poetry.

Maybe we are too ambitious. We have not yet come to understand the Zen of poetry as we intuitively understand the Zen of golf. We are too dependent on the response of our audience. We want too much to please, to be accepted and embraced. Wiz is a phenomenal musician. He has often played for hours in the isolation of a forest or in a secluded corner of a busy park. I am a writer. Though I fear I may never be published, my plays never destined for the professional stage, I continue to write. I will always write. It is not chosen but chooses. Just as the music itself is enough to spur the Wiz on a quest for musical or creative growth, the act of committing words to paper is my calling. Even if no more than a handful of friends or acquaintances will ever read them, even if they are not read at all, the act of writing itself speaks to me in a language that pulls at my heart.

Every writer wants his words to live on, just as every composer and musician wants his music to be heard beyond his time on earth, but the desired outcome is the reason we write, compose or play. Wiz plays because it fulfills a need and because it speaks to the center of his being. As it is with music so it is with writing. As it is with writing so it is with golf. As it is with golf so it is with life and the living of it.

We walk out of the poetry joint and perform our piece on the street. We gather a few curious glances but nothing more. No one is listening but it no longer matters. We read and play for our own fulfillment. It is enough.

We drive down Van Ness to the heart of San Francisco but nothing captures our interest. We decide to head south to Santa Cruz. It is late when we arrive and I suggest staying over to ride the roller coaster in the morning. The Santa Cruz roller coaster is famous as the largest wooden structure of its kind. Wiz declines. He wants no part of it. We are both in a strange reflective mood. We drive on without aim, finally laying out our sleeping bags at a small beach along Highway 1. The smell of the Pacific and the sound of ocean wildlife have a calming effect. The ocean has always spoken to me in times of sorrow or upheaval. It has never failed to soothe my soul.

We awake just after sunrise to the hustle of farm workers on their way to work in the fields. We shake off sleep and the restlessness of the last twenty-four hours, pack our bags and drive into Monterey.

Dollar for dollar, Pacific Grove on Monterey Bay is among the most beautiful courses in the world. Nine holes of tree-lined fairways in typical municipal course style give way to a back nine of ocean side links. Wide open to the elements of the coast, the links nine features no more than a scattering of windswept cypress, evergreen bushes and tall grass no taller than a man, and ice plant over sand where golf balls go to die. If you’ve never hit out of ice plant you would be well advised to use nothing more than a wedge. The course with its narrow fairways, punishing rough and small greens places a premium on accuracy and the ability to hit the ball on a low trajectory.

The back nine has earned Pacific Grove the name: a poor man’s Pebble Beach. Its more famous namesake is just down the coast. The story goes that the land was donated to the city on the condition that the course should always be affordable to the common man. It is a tale that is repeated most every time I come here. Today is no exception.

We arrive early and are paired with a twosome of retired gentlemen. It is reminiscent of our round in Truckee by Donner Pass. We play well enough on the front side to settle in for some inspired golf on the back nine. There are dozens of deer wandering the course along with scores of sea gulls, crows, squirrels and jackrabbits. It is a spectacle of nature rivaling the Grand Canyon. It is a place to forget your troubles and your game and allow yourself to soar with the wind. The sight of the eleventh hole, gazing out over the Pacific, a family of deer grazing below an elevated tee, brings out the best in me. A solid three wood, a stiff wedge and ten-foot putt for birdie. It is the peak of my round but it hardly matters.

On the twelfth, a sweeping par five alongside the coastline, Wiz unloads a drive and a fairway wood that charges the imagination and extends the limits of his game. The ball kicks left into the rough but it doesn’t matter. Here, amidst the grandeur of the California coast, the game takes on a new dimension. We play well, score decently and depart with newfound sense of wonder and admiration for the world around us.

We head on to Carmel on a natural high, a mixture of joy and a sense of infallibility riding with us. Nothing can stop us. Nothing can bring us down. Not even a suicide pigeon that dives into the grill beneath Sally’s hood at the exit ramp can dampen our spirits. Its timing is unfathomable. It leaves me a little dazed, perplexed and without explanation. Maybe we are in need of grounding. Maybe we are too high, too centered on ourselves. Pigeons have long been attracted to Sally’s Mustang orange exterior and have pelted her with droppings at every opportunity. Maybe it’s Sally’s revenge.

I believe in life in all its forms and would not take it lightly. I know only that I don’t know. The why is beyond my comprehension. I only understand that I do not understand. Like the mesmerizing magnitude of the sea, it is a mystery and a mystery it will remain.

In all my life I have seen nothing more beautiful than the cypress of Monterey and Carmel beach. The home of the immortal John Steinbeck it is a living tribute to man’s fascination and devotion to the sea. When I was a younger man it was my habit to come here whenever my mind was clouded with trouble and despair. I would sit for hours, my feet buried in the fine sand or above on a cliff or overhang, where the gulls would trace the shoreline. The gentle but all-powerful waves of the Pacific would empty my mind, cleanse my soul and send me back to the world reborn.

It has the same effect now. Wiz has supplied me with a trumpet and a mute. We stand in the sand, him with his magic flute, me with my muted horn, sending sweet sounds into the endless sea. The crow is here. Of all the times I have spent on this beach I can only remember gulls. It is as mystifying as the sea itself.

Wiz gives me a lesson on looking cool while playing the trumpet. My tendency is to point the horn downward. He wants me to raise it up. We eventually walk back to Sally and deposit our instruments, suddenly aware of the human beauty that surrounds us. She is young enough to be his daughter but old enough to hunger for experience. A bronzed beauty, breasts like golden delicious apples, she moves in a manner that defies the laws of physics. I look down and see a golden anklet. It is the gift I have sought for my wife two thousand miles away. The signs are all around us.

We have to this place in service to my memories. We have play glorious golf in the company of wildlife at Pacific Grove. Wiz has played shots he never thought he was capable of hitting. I have played with a free and open mind. We have been absorbed in the majesty of nature. We have had communion with the sea.

All this leads me back to Nashville where my love awaits.

We have one more service to perform. We are heading to the Hog’s Breath Inn, Clint Eastwood’s place, where once I caught him dashing in and out, a beautiful blonde by his side, to check on his affairs. Wiz asks me the time and I immediately realize we are due back in Motown for a family picnic. A couple of fine looking ladies give us a glance but we are immune to temptation. We cut our visit short and head back to the valley. Clint is not in.

The ride back is thoughtful, peaceful, full of dreams and pleasant memories. I realize that it will be a year or more before I am likely to feel the Pacific breeze again. It is difficult to let go. We stop in the valley town of Los Banos for gas and call ahead to let the family know we’re on our way.

Wiz takes care of the gas and encounters a young lady with the frazzled look of methamphetamine. As we’re pulling out he tells the story. A man says it’s his birthday and she offers him a gift he will remember. She looks at Wiz and says: Hell, I’d give it to almost anyone. She looks our way as she climbs the stairs of a hotel across the way. She charges the imagination. I tell Wiz he’d better wear two condoms for that encounter. Temptation aside, we drive off with the weight of the road a little heavier and the stuff of wet dreams swirling in our minds.