Love for theater, literature forms bond between ‘old fossil’ & student
I was going to a huge gala wedding shindig for a close nephew in a swank venue in downtown LA on Amtrak’s Surfliner. Photo by Stacey Warde
By Dell Franklin
We pulled out of the San Luis Obispo Train Station promptly at 6:11 in the morning, and for a couple of hours, at least, I had a seat with a view of the California coast and nobody beside me, until we stopped in Isla Vista, a UC Santa Barbara enclave for college students, who began piling onto the train, like a mini-stampede of young people heading home for the beginning of the Veteran’s Day weekend.
In my bag were the rolled up remnants of the only semi-respectable attire left in my closet. I wore shorts, a hoodie and sneakers. I had been taking notes as I always do on trains as I studied students seeming so young as to look like children.
It seems young college students are not only disinterested in conversing with old fossils, but have grown so inept socially they wouldn’t know how.
Then a young person stashed a bag above me and, without even glancing at me, sat down and turned partially away from me, withdrew a book (Salem’s Lot) by Stephen King from a smaller bag and began reading.
I continued taking notes. I was not affronted. It seems young college students are not only disinterested in conversing with old fossils, but have grown so inept socially they wouldn’t know how. I was at first unsure whether this was a small boy or girl by the attire—baggy cargo pants, hoodie, black leather shoes, dark hair cut fairly short, large rimless glasses.
But I noticed the hands were small and white and delicate, a girl’s hands.
I continued taking notes and, since she was turned away, the notes were mostly my conjecture about her. Then I put my notebook away and we stopped in Santa Barbara where more students piled on until there was standing room only, which meant for the rest of the trip to LA, people would be standing and awaiting vacancies at the next stops to grab seats.
Somewhere between Santa Barbara and Ventura, the gal beside me put the book back in her bag and withdrew writing material and began jotting notes.
“Are you a student?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said in a soft voice, turning to me. She was pretty, her expression pleasant, but presented no sexual edge whatsoever.
“What are you studying?” I asked.
“Theater arts,” she said.
I asked her if she acted in plays and also if she was a movie buff. She said she was. I asked her if she liked Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller and Edward Albee, and she said she did and that she had been in a play by Tennessee Williams in school but that lately she had been captivated by the Beat Generation writers, and especially Allen Ginsburg and Jack Kerouac. I asked: Did she like “Howl” by Ginsburg? Yes! She loved it. The Beat poets were her favorites. Had she read Gary Snyder? Not yet.
I said I’d noticed her jotting notes and asked if she wrote, too, and she said that writing plays and stories and poetry was what she really wanted to do – and was doing. She then mentioned that she noticed that I was jotting notes and asked if I was a writer. I told her I was, and mentioned writing for a local online news and opinion outlet, and having a couple books out.
Somehow, we began discussing just about everything literary. Our conversation transitioned from cautious to curious to comfortable to trusting.
She had originally gone to a small prestigious theater arts college in New York City that she loved, but then the pandemic hit and she was inside for days and weeks at a time and she has ADHD. She said ADHD made her think and do crazy things. She melted down in NYC and came home broken and desperate, saw a shrink, who put her on Prozac.
“That stuff’s horrible!” I expressed.
“I was on it two months and went crazy. I actually thought I could jump off tall buildings!”
“So what happened?”
“I went off it. My mother doesn’t believe in any drugs anyway. I went to junior college in Santa Monica, where I grew up. And lived with my mother. I did two years. I got back into the theater. They have a great program at Santa Monica JC. And now I’m at UCSB.”
“How do you like Santa Barbara?”
“I love it. It’s beautiful. I love where I live. I’ve made a lot of good friends.”
A lot was divulged, all on her part, about her mother, who is a divorcee and frustrated ex-hippie artist and lifelong CPA. Her father? Very little. In about an hour, I heard her life story—so far. She was a thoughtful, sweet, sensitive young person, probably around 21, who had nevertheless struggled, but was doing better; yet I wondered about her future, as I know nothing of ADHD and what it does to people in the world in which we currently dwell.
All this trauma kind of stuff is new to me. Did not exist in my youth as a teenager or college student or young soldier in the Army, before there was PTSD. Looking back, it seemed all of us were somewhat “fucked up” one way or the other, but we just plowed ahead, did a lot of boozing, survived as best we could.
When we arrived at the magnificent Union Station in LA, we said our goodbyes and finally asked each other’s name.
“I’m Shel,” she said.
“Oh, like Shelly…?”
A shake of the head, and a firm, “No, Sheldon.”
I was not surprised. I don’t understand much of what’s taking place these days, but one couldn’t find a more pleasant and stimulating encounter on a train than this young person–whoever you are.
Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif. The Surfliner leaves for San Diego from the San Luis Obispo Train Station, just minutes away, first thing in the morning every day
Diogenes the Cynic could rock the boogie, once telling Alexander the Great to “please step aside; you’re blocking my sun.”
By Stacey Warde
Since arriving here two months ago to take refuge at mom’s I realize how small I’ve lived: Feeling watched, under a microscope, careful not to err. Forming unclear, fluid boundaries. Staying small to avoid upsetting others. It’s all coming clear. Is this where it all started?
Finally, at 65, I’ve realized, “Wow! I gave up a lot, mostly my own soul, power and dynamism, to please people who were never going to be happy with me, no matter how hard I tried.” Early on, I adopted the “good Christian” approach to life, which made sense, given the culture in which I grew up: Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Give until you lose yourself. Which, I’ve learned, is bad, really bad. The flip side of that equation, of course, is not giving enough. Which is also bad.
And what did I accomplish with that approach? Not much. Lots of lost time, toxic heartbreak. Redundancies, not the most favorable kind, mistakes, mostly. Some luck. Yes, a lot of the good in my life came solely from luck, and a little bit from making healthy choices. Also, from pursuing what I love, even when material rewards were limited.
I’ve heard it said that the way to success comes by welcoming failure not by actively pursuing success; “fail as often as you can,” the saying goes, “until you get it right.” If nothing else, I say, be persistent and learn from your mistakes, which is really the same thing. So what if you’ve little to show for it? The important thing is effort, and endurance (in today’s vernacular, “resilience”). That’s how one lives large — by enduring, putting in the effort, no matter how seemingly impossible the task, and keeping one’s wits, not falling into the trap of emotional attachments to “success” as defined by others.
My ideal life at this late stage would be to become a sage, though by most measures that’s impossible. Diogenes the Cynic is my primary model of the day, but I would not live entirely as he did, taking shelter in a massive wine jug that was popular some 2,500 years ago, parked in a public place, defecating and masturbating there with little care for or acknowledgement of community standards; however, I do embrace calling out, as he did, all the posers who think they are something when they are not, and seeking out honest people, those who live according to nature, and who don’t subscribe to the false coinage or customs of the time but according to their own deeper thought-out purpose.
Apparently, Diogenes, a sage by any standard and who held up his own character, virtue, and self-sufficiency against any and all who might challenge him, could rock the boogie, once telling Alexander the Great to “please step aside; you’re blocking my sun.” Alex, a protector of the Greek city of Corinth where Diogenes held court, had heard of the wise curmudgeon’s exploits and wanted to see the man for himself. As he stood there, likely expecting to be worshiped as a god, Alexander asked the old man, “Hey, you know me, conqueror of the known world. Is there anything I can do for you, bro?”
“Yes! Absolutely! Please step aside!”
How does one “get it right” in a world changing as rapidly as this one, when more and more of what we know to be true gets tossed aside for the latest fad in technology or social media? When all the world seems riveted by celebrity, wealth, and fame?
I’m still adjusting, reinventing myself with what little time I have left, stepping aside whenever necessary to let the warming light shine through, focusing on what is most essential and real rather than getting lost in the detail of false narratives and the conjured morality and supposed superiority of con artists and “influencers” who do not contribute to the overall well-being of those they influence.
I’m still failing in these attempts at living well and being free. And, I hope, I’m learning. I’m lately discovering the deep dark world, as we’ve been informed by the experts, of things like AI and other promising yet untested new technologies. Lessons can be painful. As I imagine it was for Alexander when he learned that he stood in the “great” man’s way. Alexander, we are told, when his soldiers laughed at the foolish old man living in a wine jug, supposedly hushed his men and said, “If I were not Alexander, I would rather be Diogenes.” Me too.
And, as some other wiser folk have said, what good comes of boasting, especially when boasting of things that were not earned, things like good looks, old money, health, and other inheritances that came merely as an accident of birth? And, even if you worked your ass off and acquired by your wit and luck more wealth, celebrity, or fame than you could ever possibly use, what good does boasting prove? It accomplishes little, and shows that one has not yet really “arrived,” or become a sage — which we all need in our lives — or found any lasting freedom. Yet, boasting and “influencers,” people on the make, trying to be “successful,” are everywhere we look.
I watched a YouTube video of a half-naked “influencer” dressed in a skimpy cheerleader’s outfit attempting to justify her slutty presence on a high school campus by pulling the old “do you know who I am” trick? The people shooting the video didn’t know and didn’t care, and instead tried to persuade her that she was in the wrong place (in view of the high school football team) to broadcast her sexy influencer status. I would not put her in the class of iconoclasts like Diogenes, protesting false coinage or tired old maxims, but would question the value, as does commentator Joey B., of her contribution to the betterment of the world.
I want to boast too, but can’t find a place for it, not in my past or even so-called accomplishments, which will soon enough be forgotten. What are they, exactly? Just stuff. I have stuff. I’ve done stuff. SO. WHAT. The devil’s in the details, and there’s plenty of detail in me that doesn’t amount to much, certainly not for boasting. I excel and often go overboard while attempting to please others. I guess I can boast about that; the devil, however, appears most often when I lose my sense of self in the effort to “be” somebody, and liked by others.
I’m codependent, meaning I have acquired and mostly lived a toxic approach to life, depending on others for status, connecting with them by doing more than is necessary to get their attention and approval. I have little to boast of because I haven’t been very good at setting clear boundaries to keep the meddlers and naysayers (the most annoying creatures I’ve ever met) at bay, holding them at a distance, creating a safe space for myself, to do what I love unmolested by those who think I should be doing something else.
I spent most of my years growing up seeking approval instead of persisting in my own particular and/or peculiar interests and curiosities, which weren’t always in alignment with my parents’ 1950s outlook on life. For the most part, I did not share my parents’ traditional values or interests like cleaning the car every weekend. Another example, when granola became a popular food item in the 1970s my parents thought it was weird and gross, and I loved the stuff, even if most people associated it with “dirty” hippies and annoying whiny tree huggers. I found my way, slowly, laboriously, learning to love what others decried as deficient or “weird.”
Traditions and values come and go. Granola is everywhere now. So, I guess, are half-naked “influencers” who claim to make a living, and the world a better place, by taunting perverts.
Growing up and during my years as an adult, not aspiring “influencer” status, I hid myself, the part of me that dreams and wonders, the part that wants to scream and shout and play music and dance and fuck and act silly. I hid because I needed to be practical in this “practical” world and, as dad would say, use good common sense to navigate its often treacherous obstacles. (By “good” I think he meant not criminal. By “common” he’d say, “It’s not so common.”)
I’ve been busy since relocating to this concrete jungle, from which I fled almost 40 years ago, working in mom’s yard, attempting to garner some appreciation and love from mom, who’s in her 80s and appears generally happy, though she seems to “putter” less in the yard and reads more books on the porch these days.
I set out each day to do what I love, starting with meditation and gardening, sometimes yoga, and recovering from the culture shock of moving here after nearly three decades of a quiet rural life.
Yes, I’ve returned out of necessity to what is referred to in the neighborhood as the “Concrete Jungle’’ (Orange County, Calif., where my family first settled more than 150 years ago, and agriculture ruled. My great-grandfather, Joseph Smith Thurston — was there ever a more Mormon name than that? — grew and sold the popular “Thurston” watermelons at Laguna’s Main Beach on hot summer days, long before the automobile became the predominant OC archetype).
I try not to be a “people pleaser” any more, hard as that is to avoid, and hope instead that what I’m doing now, limited as it seems, is ok. I have yet to fully reacclimate to an Orange County that feels like a foreign country with its endless freeways and rush to go nowhere in the most expensive cars money can buy.
Mom’s garden is tired from the neglect that comes with age. I’m happy to give it a new life. It makes her happy too.
Stacey Warde has returned to the Concrete Jungle, where he was born and raised. This essay appeared first on Medium.
As a young journalist starting out, I’d been warned: “There’s no money in it.”
I shrugged.
What’s that to me? I’m not trying to corner any market. I’m a journalist, a truth seeker. Ever know anyone who made money ferreting out truth, bringing the light of day into the shadowy world of politics? This was in the early 1980s, not long after I’d graduated from the School of Communications at Cal State Fullerton.
I was an idealist, smitten with the idea of the power of the pen. Who needs money when you have a sword at your fingertips? What’s the old saying? “He may have all the gold, but I’ve got all the lead,” meaning gold won’t be of much use against someone better equipped with the right weapons.
And that’s what I did with my training and experience, putting money-grubbing, corrupt lawyers and politicians on notice that the power of the press was a force to be reckoned with. They may have had all the gold, but I had all the lead.
Indeed, the power of the pen was a force to be reckoned with. I saw more than one supposed community stalwart, the presumed “movers and shakers,” exemplars of local virtue, even one of our biggest advertisers, go down in flames for lying and stealing other people’s money in spite of the appearance they gave of being good citizens. We nailed their misleading, false claims to wealth and virtue with basic journalistic instincts, fundamental digging, verification, truth, accuracy, and the power of the pen.
However, I also began to notice later in my career the inequities present in the business of journalism itself.
As managing editor, I observed one morning coming into work that the finest cars in the newspaper parking lot belonged to the advertising staff; the junkiest heaps, including mine, belonged to the editorial staff. Why?
All the perks and financial rewards, mostly given in sales commissions, went to those who sold the most ads. Meanwhile, my staff, which worked just as hard to create content that attracted readers and advertisers in the first place, took the leftover crumbs.
I argued for more equitable standards with the publisher, who agreed with me that there wouldn’t be much for the ad reps to sell without compelling content created by the editorial staff. “It’s all about the readership,” he’d say, nodding and affirming my concerns.
Meanwhile, he suggested, I could draw from the pool of money given in trade by some of the paper’s advertisers, primarily restaurants and those in the food business, to reward my people for their hard work. So, presumably, I could cut a check for dinner for two on occasion as a way to inspire and motivate my hardworking reporters. We still drove the junkiest cars in the lot. Virtually nothing changed with respect to the balance of power that comes with a healthy paycheck.
Soon after my conversation with the publisher, I checked the pool and discovered at least $3,000 in restaurant trade available to draw from; satisfied, I went back upstairs to my office and planned to reward several of my staff with a night out on the town. Several days later I went to cut a check for some of my people and discovered the account had been drained, leaving a zero balance, taken up by the ad staff who had apparently treated themselves to endless free lunches on the company dime.
So, not only were they earning more in commissions for their efforts but had long been in the habit of treating themselves to free lunches from the company coffers. How convenient.
This, however, is the way it has always been in my experience; this is why labor in several industries is on strike, protesting the unfairness of management and corporate executives living off the backs of those who do the heaviest lifting, executives who, without much remorse and plenty of self-righteous justification, take in the lion’s share of profit, earning millions while labor gets what little is left over.
Ford Motor Co. CEO, Jim Farley, for example, earned close to $21 million last year, which is roughly $54,000 a day, or about $12,000 a day less than what the average auto worker earns in one year.
The advice offered early in my career proved to be correct, there wasn’t much money in journalism, unless you were an owner or principal in the business. The big dollars were reserved for others, mostly salespeople and executives whose business acumen apparently was more deserving than the hard-working reporters pounding the streets to get the best, most relevant, and latest news affecting the entire community.
This notion, that wealth can be obtained by any means necessary, but mostly by limiting the income of labor, enabling executives to enrich themselves off of the backs of others, — those lesser individuals who were not smart or lucky enough to attend the best schools and land the best jobs — permeates our culture and is one reason why we see more of our brothers and sisters marching the streets and demanding fair wages.
Stacey Warde edited and published The Rogue Voice, a literary print magazine with an edge, from 2004–2008. Previously, he was managing editor of New Times, San Luis Obispo. He also has been a member of the Teamsters Union and the National Writers Union.
Cayucos Beachfront Once upon a time, a person of limited means could live in Dogpatch on the Central Coast of California, near the ocean, not far from where author Dell Franklin used to live, when Dogpatch was still a thing in Cayucos; weeds grew tall, murderous she-devils lived next door, and friends with dogs would come to share drinks and gossip. Photo by Stacey Warde
By Dell Franklin
Around 18 years ago, when Stacey Warde and I were publishing a monthly literary journal, The Rogue Voice, I wrote an article entitled “Long Live Dogpatch!” It was kind of an ode to one of the remaining overgrown weedy lots left in town, and it just so happened I was living next door to it in a garret-sized one-bedroom apartment, and roosted in the lot just about every day among knee-high weeds in an easy chair with a foot rest while reading newspapers, magazines, books, and editing articles, and occasionally tossing a tennis ball for my black Lab, Marley, to retrieve and return.
Ahhh, those were the days! Tag Morely lived across the lot and the Pirate usually came by to toss biscuits to Marley, and across the street lived Cindy and Cloyce, with whom I often shared beers after he returned from construction work while I tossed the tennis ball into the lot for Marley and Woody, Cloyce’s 120-pound Weimaraner.
Tourists or new Cayucans driving by often slowed down to eye me and the two non-operational cars – a ‘76 Olds Cutlass Salon, and an ‘81 bumperless Chrysler Cordoba with Corinthian leather bucket seats – collecting dust in the lot beside my aged Toyota Tercel wagon before driving on, not realizing that the Cayucos Dogpatch was making a last ditch statement for survival.
Cayucos was a different place not so long ago, when the Tavern was still open and booming, and if I happened to pass out on my way home in the field where the Pier View Suites and shops now sit, and lost my keys in the process, I could at least sleep in one of my heaps and walk down a block or two come morning and find the local locksmith, Ed Frawley, to let me in the apartment, for I didn’t find my keys in a gutter nearby until a week later.
At this time an extremely attractive, terribly sexy but reptilian-eyed woman moved into the apartment in front, and when she couldn’t lure me to bed for future black-mailing (I was with a lady who visited often and helped with the RV) she decided I should be dealt with.
Since I had three cats beside the dog, she complained about all four and threatened them with physical harm because they supposedly urinated on her BMW. She had a couple of slimy and dangerous-looking characters come by to size me up as I roosted, and I always stood and swung my 35-inch, 35-pound Louisville Slugger baseball bat and they dispersed.
Her strapping son came by, but he was too young to be a threat.
And then, finally, came a giant of a brute, who walked over and stared at me while I roosted, and the she-devil looked on from her back porch.
I asked him how he was doing. He kept staring at me while Marley smiled at him, and then he noticed the bat.
“That yours?” he asked.
“It is.”
“Mind if I look at it?”
“Be my guest!”
He picked up the bat, and took some graceful left-handed swings.
“Man,” he said. “This is a big motherfucker, bigger than I ever used. You hit with this?”
“I choked up a couple inches. Those are my dad’s model bats. He played for Detroit.”
“No shit?”
“He ordered me six, straight from Louisville, and I used them my senior year in high school and in college. Major league grain.”
“You play any pro ball?”
“Nah, I could have, but chose not to.”
“I played four years in the Dodger organization. Played for the Reno Silver Sox in the California League, led the league in home runs.” He swung the bat. “This is a fuckin’ beauty, man, a fucking log.”
“It’s my last one. The others got broken when I let teammates hit with them.”
Meanwhile, the she-devil slammed the back door and disappeared into her apartment.
“Man, I could use a beer.” the giant said.
“Let me get a couple,” I quickly said.
Seconds later we tipped long necks. His name was Joe. We both had hilarious baseball stories. I found him a lazing chair and brought out two more beers and then the chilled bottle of Stoli while through the side window of the front apartment the she-devil leered, jaw set, pacing. Finally, when we were both drunk and rollicking and laughing so hard we were keeled over – and Joe admitted his ex-wife had called him in Bakersfield to kick my ass and hurt me bad, and that far as he was concerned I was a good old boy and a baseball brother, and that he had married her when she was 17 and drop-dead gorgeous, and she had taken him for everything he had and destroyed his baseball career – the she devil stood before us, lashing out at poor Joe, ordering his “lazy drunken ass” to pull some goddamn weeds in her overgrown front yard!
But soon Cloyce joined us with a six-pack, along with Woody, and Dennis the landscaper down the street came by for one with his black Lab mix, and then the she devil’s son, Joe Jr., dropped by, and then Stacey came by to check on a story I was writing and decided to have one, and then Miranda – my girl and indispensable proofreader – drove up, paused, and quickly left, not happy.
Ahhh, those were the days when Dogpatch fought valiantly to survive, but sadly, my old neighboring lot recently was leveled and a majestic double-decker went up, and Cloyce and Cindy just moved to central Florida because they can no longer afford to live in Cayucos or the Central Coast, the she-devil and Joe are long gone, and I am up the street hanging on for dear life.
So long, Dogpatch!
Dell Franklin may be the last man standing in the only Dogpatch that remains along the California coastline.
I think of those condemned to die. I would, at this point, choose exile over death. Photo by Stacey Warde
By Stacey Warde
I have lived in exile most of my life, self-imposed, no ruler or tyrant but me.
I put myself in the place that doesn’t feel like home, not unlike standing on the edge of a cliff or sleeping with the enemy. I like testing myself that way apparently.
Musonius Rufus, banished into exile by the Roman Emperor Nero, said one may as well make himself at home wherever he lands. Those who loved you, he says, where you once lived will love you still, no matter where you are now.
I think of those condemned to die. I would, at this point, choose exile over death but leaving, departing, any place can feel so final, the door closing, putting an end to thoughts and ideas about where one belongs.
In exile, you may actually be better off, Musonius says. You may come out on top of the world. Stronger, more resilient, better trained and equipped for the hardships life brings, whether at home or on the road. Exile will turn you into a philosopher, or make you stronger by demanding only what is essential to live. What need is there of luxuries and sweets? The good life is the hard life, the one that challenges you.
At war with myself, the hearth I long for — the warm place of welcome and rest among friends and family — eludes me, always a pilgrim, a wanderer, in exile, seeking a landing and finding none, wanting someone or something along for the journey, a familiar, like the sweet aroma of a good strong cup of coffee or a quick sloppy blowjob.
“You don’t want to be alone,” Faith said to me once, long before she died. She too was searching for home, and did her best in an old folks’ trailer park, where she served the finest dinners with her best friends and silverware properly set, a habit she acquired as a debutante in a grand house of great influence many years ago.
No rest for the wicked, she’d say, poverty stricken and happy in her own way.
I’m in “transition” and have always been, I told her, moving from birth to death, as so many of us do, seldom stagnant, game for the thrills, without the phone, eager to eat ass. She’d laugh. I identify as he/him and prefer to eat women’s asses. Faith loved to laugh and laughed best at bawdy humor.
My home, sort of, is my body, which is its own type of exile. Everything changes, even and especially the lines on my face and skin. No roof repairman or plumber can fix those, the sagging and aging skin, the march toward the end.
WHERE does one actually live? Where does one go to see the movies or to see visions and to meet with old friends? When leaving jobs, family, or the familiar? On the way to the gallows? Or on the way to the desolate island of Gyaros?
Stacey Warde is publisher of The Rogue Voice. This article first appeared on Substack.
The land we are burrowing through is the land of the forgotten. I have never observed such an amazing amount of junk along the edges of towns. Photo by Stacey Warde
By Dell Franklin
We are rolling along, through the high desert, headed for Denver on my second day on the California Zephyr and words cannot describe how soothing it is to sit in the observation coach watching the country flow by – clickety-clack, clickety-clack – a sort of mesmerizing effect unrivaled for whatever ails a human being: restlessness, boredom, a mind-deadening rut bordering on depression….
The world is reawakening before me, like a flower blooming. It is all the same yet different. I am surrounded by people who eschew normal modes of transportation, and savor the train.
The land we are burrowing through is the land of the forgotten. We are in the middle of Nowheresville, approaching Grand Junction, Colorado, and I have never observed such an amazing amount of junk along the edges of towns, piles and piles of steel and ancient rusted debris, wind blasted tractors, various farm equipment and cars, adobe huts in ruins, long faltered prefabs and trailers, mangled furniture of every type, on and on until we are in Grand Junction.
Slowing down, we pass through dilapidated outskirts of broken fencing and small square nondescript homes with old dusty pickups in back, and into the drab horizontal sprawl of Pilot Gas, John Deere yard and building, Steel Supply, Red Roof, Conoco Station, Tractor Supply, Outback, Dairy Queen, Mesa Mall, a bowling alley, Hobby Lobby, Walmart, etc., etc.
And, finally, a small dusty train station.
I think to myself, this place has to be a cultural wasteland in which I’d be bored to tears. What do they do around here, and in the surrounding mini-bergs? I envision scowling MAGA Boomers—instead of the more sophisticated Wall Gang in Cayucos of educators, entrepreneurs, artists, a lawyer—ensconced in coffee shops, clad in plaid flannel shirts, ball caps, and baggy Levi’s hitched up over proud pot bellies by suspenders.
What are they talking about? Trump. What else is there in this isolated desolation? He came into their lives in 2015 and has been there for them ever since on their TVs, which have to be on Fox News night after night, nonstop—a jolt of joy, excitement and reaffirmation as their charismatic idol sticks it to the woke, kale-munching coastal elites, those promoting queers and commies and minority mooches and immigrant parasites from shit-hole countries, and wanting their fucking guns!
Every night an anticipation of genuine, enthralling reality TV, and not those goddamn Beverly Hills and New York housewife bitches throwing food and expensive wine at each other while their rich, entitled husbands cower in fear of a lucrative divorce payoff.
Vote for Trump? Hell yes! Things were so exciting when HE was in the sham of a White House goosing and infuriating the precious pussy libs on a daily basis, standing up for real men, the cops and the soldiers, the hunters and miners, by God, and never appeasing those academic mollycoddles in their ivory towers!
Oh, I could “feel” it as I stood outside, among other passengers in Grand Junction, savoring a Haagen Daz bar after visiting a small grocery during a half-hour wait. And, truly, I relished what I felt. Why would or should those who live here and work the kind of jobs available, and face the kind of stifling boredom they do, feel any other way, especially when the wife mistakenly turns on MSNBC or, God help them, Trump’s mortal enemy, CNN?
“TURN THAT SHIT OFF, WOMAN!”
Back on the train, rolling out of GJ, I observed a man whom I was sure was Chinese, dashing back and forth across seats from window to window, snapping photo after photo with his phone. Everybody but me—no cell phone—was doing the same, but this smiling man was the swiftest, and I complimented him on his agility and prowess during a lull and asked to view his photos. He laughed and showed me a long reel of beautiful pics, and we began talking.
He’d been a Taiwanese immigrant, now a US citizen. He came to the states in his teens, joined the Army, got into intelligence, earned a college degree, retired after 20 years as a major, and now works in Washington, D.C., in tech. He seemed happier than anybody I’d ever known. His wife, also Taiwanese, smiled and waved. He was intelligent and astute. Itching to inform him of what I “felt” about Grand Junction and the immense flat lands, he listened intently and nodded.
Finally, when I ended my little observation, he said, “Sometimes, my friend, a man can walk down the street and something will come down from the sky and hit him in the head and kill him.” He looked into me, still smiling, as if he was my friend. “Enjoy yourself while you can. Life is good.”
We talked for over an hour, until we hit the Rockies–where the libs populate wholesome ski resorts with gourmet restaurants and health food stores–and my new friend resumed his frantic photo taking.
Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif., where he makes time for the Wall Gang, some of whom might be considered “coastal elites.” He is the author of “Life on the Mississippi, 1969” and of the forthcoming book, “The Ballplayer’s Son,” due out in September. Dell is the founding publisher of The Rogue Voice.
I was very eager to please, not realizing what harm I might be doing to myself and others.
Photo and story by Stacey Warde
For much of my adult life, I’ve felt like the local pool boy, convenient to have around, but not of much use otherwise. I’ve worked grunt jobs, and also held roles in what others might consider the “professions.”
I’ve had experience as a pool cleaner, ranch hand, commercial blueberry grower, window washer, salesman, and flockster (raising chickens and selling farm-fresh eggs in the local market), as well as in landscape installation and maintenance, mostly laborer occupations. I’ve encountered invading squirrels, rats, bobcats, coyotes, rattle snakes, vicious dogs, and threatening bosses and angry paying customers, and received plenty of scoldings, cuts, and bruises, including a dog bite in the ass resulting in a trip to the doctor; all this in the dirty grunt business of producing food, and servicing people’s homes.
I’ve also worked as a writer, editor, and publisher, and got into spats with local government officials, readers who hated my guts and threatened to burn down the building where I worked, a bishop who fired me for writing an opinion piece about favorable interfaith dialog with pagans, and I took bites all over, resulting in sessions with a therapist.
I once even had one of the area’s best female dermatologists, an attractive associate of one leading dermatologist who taught classes for aspiring skin doctors at UCI hundreds of miles away, lift my ball sack, inspect every inch of my body, for signs of skin cancer and when she found something suspicious on my right lower leg, she snipped it out and sent it to the lab. I’d already had a Stage 2 melanoma removed from my back years earlier.
When the lab results came back positive for a second melanoma, she called me at work while I was in the midst of a pressing deadline, of putting the paper to bed, a critical moment in the publishing business where all the pieces must come together and go to press, as we would say. A late fee of $400 (in the early 2000s) would be imposed for every 15 minutes we missed our deadline for which, I’d been taught, there was no excuse.
“You need to come to my office right now,” the doctor said at 2 p.m.
“I can’t come right now!” I said, exasperated, looking at the clock, with a 4 p.m. deadline. “I can’t get out of here until at least 4:30.”
Okay, she said, “I’ll see you then!” And she hung up. Serious business, I thought.
“Four-thirty, fuck!” I said to myself and arranged to have a friend pick me up from the doctor’s office. Then, I went back to work.
When the doctor was done removing the cancer, I caught a glimpse of the specimen on the tray. It looked like a small slab of veal with hair on it. I gasped. She was so deft and careful, I had no idea what she had removed. My wound healed quickly and there was virtually no scar, not like the one left years earlier on my back by a surgeon who seemed nice but had a heavy hand while tugging on my back.
In all, I was very eager to please, not realizing what harm I might be doing to myself and others. I failed to embrace my own true colors while attempting to “help” others find theirs. My dermatologist did more than remove cancer from my leg; she helped me understand how important self-care can be, especially when the threat to life is real.
As one committed to my job and my boss, and failing to account for my own needs, I gave what I could to be a “good” guy, a team player willing to sacrifice everything, and perhaps more than I should have, just to wear the team jersey. But that’s what Americans do, that’s what we were taught to do. We all work hard and perhaps more than we ought, more than what is humanly healthy. In the end, we might hope for some kind of reward, as I have, only to find that some individuals have far more than they should while others have virtually nothing.
Thirty years ago, the bookkeeper where I was then working as a sales associate for an extreme video producer and distributor (featuring such filmmakers as ski buff Warren Miller and ice climber Austin Hearst, grandson of William Randolph Hearst) asked me to step outside after observing my interactions with the boss.
“Are you familiar with codependency?” she asked. Cody who? Melody Beattie had recently published “Codependent No More,” which was then all the rage.
I’d heard the term and, not being a fan of what’s trendy, I dismissed the bookkeeper’s suggestion that I could benefit from some insights into what has turned out to be one of my leading toxic behaviors, so eager to please, even those who could give two shits about me, setting aside what’s best for me in order to make others happy. What a waste of time and energy! I now realize. But, how to break the habit?
I still do it; this is a very hard habit to break. Where did it begin? Probably in light of the ideal that the best life is the sacrificial life, where we endeavor to give ourselves over to the well-being and happiness of others, even to the point where it hurts and is harmful. But, who knew? Who knew that this sort of sacrifice could be so toxic? What greater way to avoid personal responsibility than to assume responsibilities that are not mine?
I wish I’d been less skeptical and paid closer attention to the bookkeeper’s concern. I might have avoided the heartache of giving in to people who pretend friendship and seek little more than to be appeased, praised, or flattered, who haven’t any real personal interest in me beyond what I can do for them, with little to no commitment to mutuality on their part.
This, I’ve learned, is a type of trauma bond, of which I’m quite familiar, having tried to establish relationships with people who were perhaps not as interested in me as I was in them. And, as so often happens when laser focusing on someone else, we hurt more than help one another. My goal now is to avoid these unhealthy bonds as much as possible, and to associate with others who aren’t afraid of intimacy and conversation, and to expend as much good energy upon myself as I try to give to others.
Giving until it hurts felt so right, until it didn’t.
Stacey Warde lives mostly in solitude, which suits him well, yet he still loves a good conversation. This essay appeared originally on Medium.
