INDIAN HILL

Clouds swirling above Joshua Trees Spectacular desert light shades and shadows corners                 of natural wonder.                           At night bright  stars spread                                                diamond studs in the blackness. Late afternoon in the desert, Wonder Valley, California. Joshua Tree forest above Yucca Valley, California

Man, it was like heading into a slice of the country that felt and tasted and looked different. Not a lot different than Wyoming or maybe the part of Idaho I'd seen before, up on the Salmon, Idaho Falls, Twin Falls.                                  The land opened up as if layers were being peeled back and the spread of golden grain stretched wider, further, and met its blue sky horizon in new clean light.  Northern Idaho, McCall, Lewiston, to Coeur d'Alene. My friend Mark Aiton and son Ian, in Sand Point Idaho, early morning outside Starbucks. Steve Kelly lives on five acres in Big Fork Montana, off the road about a mile or so. His custom knives are in such high demand he doesn't take orders anymore. 'I just build what I want and sell them." At night, we heard wolves howling outside his house after invading a local sushi joint, Steve's favorite. We bought some kni...

I'm putting the final touches on the 2 -door coupe with a big blown six and it runs real smooth . Tires are not bad and maybe new ones might make it run a little better. N ee ds shoc k s I'm pretty sure. It's got less than 30,000 miles, smoke grey with a b rushed cloth interior, black. A/C's no good. We'll get it s quar ed away. ' Got a little throttle play, ' and she leaned inside and played with the wheel. 'Get that M omo racing wheel pu t in there and run it down to Dur ango.' Like Durango is some ten minute ride to the corner store. 'Do it , Dur ango and back, I'll have the ribs just the way you like them.' She always had the charcoa l all nice a nd hot. It was midnight when I got back and sh e was gone. In the morning I pulled into the gas station and the big round t hermometer disc stuck on the offic e window said 99 F . A t 8:30 AM. So I put gas in to top if off and I kept on driving.  

Huc Luquiens  He pointed out to the bay and said 'You need to stand on the water and listen to the waves where men are buried. Take the boat trip out to where the harbor is a grave.' The islands are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and it was once a paradise, and it still is now, beaches and mountains and hotels, condominiums and shopping, markets where people from the East and people from the West can get almost anything.  Huc Luquiens But it is still, here, a grave, and they tell you as the boat ride starts out slow, and stops, and you step out on to the memorial, they tell you it is a grave and to respect the hundred s dead still down there under the water.

Rain started coming down ,  I heard it, and went downstairs into the garag e and pulled the canvas cover off the BMW , p ul led it back and rubbed it down with a rag and brought back the lust re. In the corner on the bench were pliers and bo lt cutters, pipe wr enches g reased up and taking grime from a thousa nd tears and I pulled open the dr awer, fondled the little jig saw and the socket wrenches, all chrome and cli nking in the wood bottom drawer and I shut that, reached up on the panel above the work bench and took down a roll of black plastic elect ician's tape and pulled off a long strip. I cut the tape into small pieces and balled them up and threw the m back on the work bench e xcept for tw o I put o ver my eyes so I couldn't see. Walked around the garage shop and put my hands on the BMW and said good bye to the old car that carried me up and away from that time when it was the same blue-grey color of her eyes and I blasted mount ain curves and pe a led on...

  Under soft light   the books   look delicious and ripe.  The Last Bookstore has an old-school vibe, a grocery or packing plant back in the day, angled shelves and back-lit racks of music on vinyl by the windows. Two long red  letherette sofas on a stage platform look good and I sit and read a few pages from 'Wild At Heart', about Lula Fortune and her uncle and he's groping her when she's fifteen or thirteen.    I want to study how Barry Gifford writes this stuff.  After I buy the book we stand outside on the sidewalk, smoking and talking. 

https://plus.google.com/photos/116570597784626887840/albums/5849157066400455681  ... where I live it's warm and we lack assertive boulevards and we don't wa lk in the rain with felt ha ts anymore, we don't wear good leather shoes and overcoat s because we don't have to but want to, so we look to the retro-past for scenes and visions like these . at least I do . there's cheesecak e in there some where, just down the sidewalk out of the rain and it's warm and the glass counter top glows and it's f ul l of creme-filled pastries and the smell of strong fresh coffee and c ho colate cake swirls around the place.   d owntown where I am a jazz bar with all kinds of six ties art work like this has draft beer and kids try and look cool. .. art that used to be called sid ewalk art or tourist art o r the art your parents b rought ba ck from Europe folded up in brown wrapping paper and made you want to go to Paris and see the real th ing somewhere in a ni ...