The San Diego Times

In Case You Were Looking For Me

I pretty much moved my blog over to MySpace. myspace.com/karasnow

Don't remember why I did that, but I've been posting there instead. Although I will admit my posting has been sporadic lately.

All Good Things Must ... Well, You Know

Not in Coronado anymore.

Not with wonderful, perfect BF anymore.

Not with my puppy, my daughter or anything that my world used to be made of anymore.

I live in Van Nuys now. I work in a vintage scooter shop. Until I get a real job. I broke my foot in a stupid little thing and have been wearing a soft cast that will stay on two more weeks and means I can't run again for at least four months. I am broke as a joke. And my family members think I have lost my mind.

Maybe I have. But I think I made the right decision.

And, really, it doesn't matter much now if I didn't or didn't, because this is my life now. There's no going back.

Wonderful, perfect BF is working fulltime to replace me. Really working it hard. Says he doesn't want to die alone. Of course, that line is pretty selfish, isn't it? You don't want to die alone, so get someone to be by your side on the day you die and that someone can be alone and die alone after you're gone.

But, I don't blame him. He wants to fill my position and it won't take long to do it. I have to admit, though, that the way he's going about it, and the swiftness with which he's undertaking this task, make me believe even more that he really didn't care who was sitting on the couch next to him, just as long as it was someone.

Not sour grapes. I was the one who left. But, I left for a reason. And I am sad he thought so little of me, even after asking me to marry him. Maybe he even thought less of me after that. But this fervent, desperate move to replace me within a week of me leaving underscores the reasons I believe I made the right decision.

But, never mind all that now. He's moved on and I suppose I have as well. It's all done now. New chapters for both of us.

Enjoy the past blog entries about him and I. Better believe I have been checking them out often.

It was a great relationship when it was great.

High Rollers Recap

What can I say? High Rollers was crazy awesome. Old friends, new friends, old scooters, cold drinks and fun rides. And that was just Thursday!

I wanted to sum up my thoughts about the weekend. If you think I'm being verbose, well, don't read any further.

Pros
* Taking a little more than a short four hours to get to Vegas and even less time to get home
* High fiving Chino while waiting to check in at the hotel not five minutes after arriving in town
* Hotel rooms that looked like crime scenes
* Meeting Rudy
* Meeting Todd, Nate, Art, Durgan, Adam, Trina, Mellissa and her man, Dan, Julie, Mike, Roni, Neil, Aaron, Haley and a score of cool hundreds
* Having the wonderful BF meet all those crazy old friends and all the new ones as well
* Meeting "The" English
* Meeting Brit DJ extraordinaire Pete Kelross and his friend Andy
* Seeing friends I haven't seeing in 20 years and friends I haven't seen in two weeks
* Hanging with Gur, one of my favorite people
* Absinthe. The real shit. Smuggled in personally by a couple Brits
* Handing out invitational "Save The Date" cards for the Central Coast reunion the last week of September
* Fremont Street and Booster Shots
* G-Spot Gerald on the back of my bike
* Seeing Monica dressed to the nines
* Sluggo actually looking sharp ... no cargo shorts!
* Riding slow out to Red Rock with the San Luis Obispo folks
* Sitting on the side of a dusty desert road in the middle of the day for almost two hours with the SLO folks and Greg and Marlee. Great time to debate, daydream and dance. Who knew breaking down outside cell phone service could be so much fun?
* The many riders and car drivers who stopped to offer assistance
* My Lambretta starting on the first kick almost every time
* A line of fine LDs ... and mine among them
* Breaking bread with Bennie, Christine, Darma and Jay
* Shooting the shit with Josh, Gabe, Who Bike Mike,
* Seeing Marv and Jumbo kiss and make up
* Congratulating the lucky couples on their nuptials
* The Tiki!
* Witnessing a full-on battle of "I'm More Mod Than You" between Kev and Mike Burns
* Already knowing full well who's more mod
* Riding 2-up and getting to be just the passenger
* Drunk-ass drag queen bartenders rubbing their breasts on bald heads.
* Dancing. With everyone. To Victoria's and Guillermo's sweet soul sounds
* The Instigator. (That's the scooter that won best rat bike at CNP.)
* All those beautiful build-off bikes. Don't know who won, but based on the rules and the final product, I hope it was Rudy.
* All those beautiful vintage scooters, which outnumbered the plastics by a huge margin
* Winning a little sumthin' in the raffle
* Almost getting run over by a runaway wheelie rider
* Drinking beers in the back of a cab
* The fucking Aggrolites. Fantastic show!
* Cunt jokes with Becky
* GaryLee's Huell Howser impression
* Taking Lee (innocenti) down a few pegs. Funny how the Lambrettas seemed to be running a thousand times better than the Vespas this weekend.
* Watching Kristian work his magic on just about everyone's bike and at the Blackjack tables
* Dinner at Battista's
* Ice cream at Sonic drive-in on scooter
* Having one of the last three scooters in the parking lot Monday. Yes, I am hardcore.

Cons
* The Deuce. People who ride a bus named after shit deserve to be stuck on said bus for hours.
* Aruba Bar. Sorry, I know people like it. But I couldn't find anyone, it was too hot, impossible to get a drink and there was no great place to hang and chat, unless you like basking in overly bright fluorescents,
* Sweaty skinheads pushing against you in front of the stage at the Aggrolites show
* Losing my voice by Sunday morning. What the hell? I wasn't screaming or anything.
* Interminably long traffic lights. It's like they're daring you to ride on the sidewalks.
* That fucking plastic Barbie abomination
* Windy, windy winds!
* Finally having to leave Las Vegas

 

 

 

Losing It

If I've said it once, I've said it a million times. Writing is like a muscle. In order to do it well, you have to exercise it. You have to work out that muscle on a consistent basis, earning better results with lots and lots of practice. If it's been a while since you've written creatively, that muscle can atrophy, virtually paralyzing you when you need the muscle most.

I don't know if that's my problem now, but I'm having a hard time writing anything of substance lately. It's not for lack of material; the world is full of interesting stories and contemplations. I just don't think I can add anything new. I can't say anything that hasn't been said before.

Maybe I used up all my good writing. Maybe I spent it all on newspapers. That would be a shame, to throw all my best stuff in the recycling bin after a quick glance.

But I don't know if I can be creative and express myself fully through writing anymore. Maybe I need to go back to painting. Maybe I need to move forward into music. There are many other art media with new ways to share my feelings about life, the universe and everything.

I don't create to impress or to leave a legacy or any of that. I do it to let out this backup of emotions and unspoken passions, expel the demons from my mind before they can do permanent damage, breathe life into infant perceptions and see what they look like from the outside. I assume most artists feel the same way. When writing ceases to do those things, maybe it's time to move on.

I'm not saying I'm going to stop writing. I can't do that. I have to write. But I might stop pushing myself so hard to be clever. Leave that to the ones getting paid to do it.

This Charming Moan

All right, all right, calm down. I forgot my password for this site, so I didn't update while in Paris. I have only been back a week, and blogging wasn't at the top of my list of things to do. So I'm here now. Quityerbitchen.

Dispatch from somewhere outside Paris

Day One/Two

Travel day. I'm in that no-man's land where there is no time, all spaces have closed together and flown apart at the same time. I will try to find words to explain the first days, but I am really in no shape to write.

Some highlights

Seven magazines, two books ... There is a point at which one grows tired of reading.
Regret over refusing Ativan to help me sleep on the plane
Relief I wasn't drugged upon reaching the final destination
Bon jour
Merci
Trying hard not to mix English, Spanish, German and French
Wonderful boyfriend answering questions and summoning waiters in Spanish
D'Accord
Snowflakes the size of quarters, fat and delicate and the best weather imaginable
French men and their expressive eyes
French women and their impossibly slim hips
Wild French children, dressed in bright colors in contrast to their black/gray-costumed parents
Croissant for breakfast
Defective SIM card for World phone
Motorcyclists on the freeway in heavy snowfall
Thick blankets of snow on 747s
Thicker blankets of snow on fields and trees and buildings
Hippos with long eyelashes and pink tutus
Alligators with feathered caps and flowing capes
Hippos and alligators dancing together
Chernobog, my absolute favorite Disney character and the perfect idealization of masculinity
Slippery goddamn Sambas
Singing pirates with a penchant for red wine and hot women
Blasting off in a rocket to the moon
Getting dizzy after six barrel rolls
Train ride through the Grand Canyon
Remembering that last year at this time we were in the real Grand Canyon
Nuzzling into a thick scarf to stave off an icy breeze
Fish and chips and Aretha Franklin and dancing Brits
Taittinger nightcap
Hot bath and BBC World
How much is $9 trillion?
President Sarkozy's dramatic concern over France's piddly deficit
Dali, Sartre, Baldwin, Jefferson, Picasso
Art thieves and art theft detectives
U.S. and Russian satellites colliding
The utter insignificance of a girl soaking in a hotel bathtub while the world spins
Dragging one's ass to bed before reality unravels any more

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From the Paris apartment in the Marais district, 4th arrondisemont

Around Day Three

Throwing My Arms Around Paris

One sad sack I call a friend is really into Morrissey. I don't begrudge him that; I went through my emo-ish time where The Cure and The Smiths gave sorrowful voice to all my angsty woes. And even though that was a long time ago, I still get into moods every now and then where it feels good to wallow down there with Messrs. R. Smith and S. Morrissey.

Back to Morrissey. He's got this new album, and on that album is a song called, "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris," the key lyrics being "... and in the absence of human touch, I have decided that I'm throwing my arms around Paris, because only stone and steel accept my love."

Boo hoo!

But, really, Paris does love you back in her own way. She's not overly demonstrative. She demands respect and will whip you back into line if you forget to treat her as the refined, passionate, infinitely cultured entity she is. But, she loves you and you can feel that as soon as you enter her arms. The most important romance you can have here is the one you enjoy with Paris herself.

I have every intention of writing every day while I'm here. Obviously, I haven't keep up my obligation. I've been enjoying it too much. I'm caught in the exhilarating embrace of the city, and I couldn't be happier about it.

But I will also be happy to go home Sunday. Nothing wrong with my hometown sweetheart, Coronado.

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Back home

Resume previous activities

Got back home around 8 p.m. yesterday. Thanks to a nasty cold thing, I had to stay drugged up on the flights, saving other passengers the horror of being coughed on by a plague-riddled blond chick. Good thing was, I really did sleep almost the entire 8 hours to New York and 6 hours to San Diego.

I was dead tired once I got home and fell into another deep sleep... only to awake ready for the day at 2:30 a.m. Been awake ever since.

So, it's gonna take me a bit to get back on schedule. I could take melatonin to help sort out my Circadian rhythm, but that shit gives me the worst nightmares.

Once I do get on the straight and narrow path to salvation, I can get to work. I've got so much shit to do, stuff I let pile up whilst dreaming of Paris.

And Paris was lovely. A dream within a dream. I have lots and lots of photos.

Please stand by.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

En Paris

Early tomorrow morning, we will be winging our way to the land of Towers Eiffel and Arches of Triumph. That is, if the packing doesn't kill me. It's crazy how much stuff I am trying to bring! I know I'm going to forget something important, like my iPod.

We'll be there for 10 days or so, with side trips to Versailles, Reims and, of course, Paris Disney. We are looking forward to every bit of it, and it's all planned down to the minute. Even though we'll be there more than a week, we will hardly have time to enjoy a small percentage of what Paris has to offer.

And here's the crazy part: I am going to take a class at Le Cordon Bleu! Can you believe it, because I can't. I have seen the menu we're going to be making, and it's amazing if not pretty intimidating. Here it is:

Coquilles Saint-Jacques à l’aigre-doux
Aile de raie en brandade au coulis de tomate
Tarte aux raisins

Yeah, menus in French intimidate the hell out of me, even when I'm just ordering something in a restaurant. Here it is in English:

Sweet and sour scallops
Skate wings brandade-style with tomato coulis
Grape tart

Still pretty impressive,eh? Have you ever made skate? I have not. I don't even know how to clean one. Guess that's why I am taking the class.

So, that's one afternoon. We're also going on a few champagne cave tours, eating at the exclusive Jules Verne in the Eiffel Tower, touring about a hundred museums (out of, like, 4,000) and cruising the Seine. Wonderful, perfect BF is especially excited, though, about our time at Paris Disney. We're staying at the Disneyland Hotel for a couple days. I've never been, so I am interested to see what's different and what's the same as our American Disney parks.

The rest of our stay will be in a lovely pied-a-terre in the Marais District, 4th Arrondissement, a predominately gay/Orthodox Jewish neighborhood that is rife with pastry shops. I am going to gain 30 pounds gorging on pain and chocolat.

You know, I feel kinda funny writing about all this when so many people are not doing well financially. I am not trying to brag, but I do want to enjoy every bit of this opportunity, and part of that is writing about it. Plus, trust me: I have suffered. I have been there. I've had the lights turned off and no food in the fridge and three-day-pay-or-quit notices and the bills piling up. And I am not so sure those days are behind me for good. So I am fully appreciative of the good fortune I have been blessed with now. And I will carry the memories with me forever.

Central Coasters Reunion

Some preliminary information. Spread the word.

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Central Coasters Reunion

Dressing sharp for Farmer's Market on Thursday nights. Drinking at The Tires in Santa Maria. Scouring the stacks at Cheap Thrills Records. Wrenching on scooters at Chad's. Freezing and getting muddy at the KOA Campgrounds for Rides of March.

Any of these ring a bell?

All generations of Central Coast mods, rudies, skinheads, punks, scooter boys and girls and all who consider themselves part of the SLO pack from the 1980s to the present are cordially invited to a weekend of music, dancing, drinking, scootering, barbecue, soccer and more reminiscing than you can stand.

It's also open to everyone who attended Rides of March or any other scene-type event on the Central Coast of any year. That means all you Bay Area kids, those in Fresno and Bakersfield, all you crazy mugs from the L.A. area and points beyond are welcome to join in the fun. This is shaping up to be the biggest get-together of old and new scenesters on the Central Coast in decades. Don't miss it!

Make plans now to join us September 25-27, 2009. We'll have a complete list of activities and events as well as accommodation suggestions at www.myspace.com/ccscooterists. For more information, e-mail Kara at 4kara.snow@gmail.com.

See you there!

Lather Rinse Repeat

Don't ya just love Monday?

She's such a precocious one. New beginning. Fresh start of the week. A bit of a sadist, yes, what with all the waking up early and heavy load of work that wasn't attended to on Friday and the feeling of starting the week a little behind. But, there's promise here. On Monday.

Groundhog Day. We're a strange tribe, aren't we? A day devoted to an anxious, shadow-spotting underground-dwelling rodent. Next thing you know we'll be setting aside one day a year to express our love in the form of pink candy hearts and large boxes of inedible "chocolate" to those we supposedly care the most about in the world. (At least they get one day of affirmations of our love, right?)

Check out this photo. Dang, that's a good one. It's from an Audrey Hepburn/Gary Cooper film, "Love in The Afternoon" from 1957. It's about love and so much more. In the afternoon. Maurice Chevalier is in it, too.

Cooper is something of a playboy whose conquests fall in love with him only to send him running the other way. Until he meets Hepburn, who turns the tables on him. As always, Hepburn is graceful and funny and beautiful in equal measure. Cooper is suave and comedic, though he really is pretty old for the role.

The film takes place in Paris, which is where we are headed next week for a romantic jaunt through the City of Light, Reims for Champagne and, of course, Paris Disney! So, my recommendation is for you to struggle through this Monday morning, wade through the long Monday afternoon, then rush home and watch "Love in The Afternoon" while sipping on something dark red and alcoholic and snuggling with the one you love. It's on YouTube.

Happy Monday!

Mad World

So... parallel universes.

Yeah, kinda heavy for an early Saturday morning. I was talking with a friend about this idea of multiple parallel existences last night, so I had very vivid dreams about this. I dreamt I walked into the street and was hit by a bus. Then I walked into the street and a dog ran in front of the bus. Then I walked into the street and it began to rain and I smiled and walked on. Then I walked into the street and a cold wind blew my coat open and I started to cry. There were several more scenarios, but those are the only ones I can remember.

I guess if I were to subscribe to a certain theory about parallel existences, it would be one that follows a quantum mechanics model. I mean that for every action, there are multiple results, each with a different range of probability. Each result happens -- an infinite number of results, of course -- and a new existence is born for each. And those are further split into even more existences when the next action in each scenario takes place.

And so, the existence you are living right now is just one stream of results for one of an infinite number of yous that are all living parallel lives to yours.

(We could muddy the argument by stating that this creation of infinite worlds is a mathematical impossibility, but then I would launch into a completely useless diatribe on how reality doesn't take up physical space of more than one physical existence, hence the term "metaphysical." Let's not go there. This is a philosophical exercise only meant to foster discussion about life choices and our interconnectedness, OK?)

You know that time you almost died when you got pneumonia? Well, maybe you did die. Maybe instead of recovering completely, you now have only 30 percent of your lung capacity. Or, maybe you recovered completely but you missed a big test in school while you were sick, so instead of getting that medical doctorate, you dropped out of school and became a lab tech.

Or, maybe all of those things happened. And maybe you -- the you you know to be you here -- is just one of an infinite number of yous living those different results.

Where does this leave us? What are we supposed to learn from all of this? Does this theory devalue the importance of our lives by splintering us off into so many millions and billions of universes at every turn? Or, does it lead to a better understanding of who we are in relation to everyone else in the world?

Some results of actions are due to choices we make. Some are not. We can choose to step off the sidewalk into the street. We cannot choose to be born without a genetic abnormality that causes us not to differentiate between a green and red traffic light. Therefore, maybe whatever choices we make are not any more important than chance. Maybe our well-thought-out decisions could be made just as well with the roll of the dice. Things just ... happen. And they happen and they happen. You're merely on one path of many that you have taken.

In other words, you see in the news that a factory worker in Wisconsin wins the lottery. Instead of feeling jealous, perhaps you should celebrate, since that factory worker is you just living one of your alternate realities. With the flap of a butterfly's wings in Houston -- to paraphrase Lorenz's Chaos Theory -- the path you would have taken to that reality took a turn away from there and into the one you're in now.

By the same token, you read about a bankrupt financier in New York who killed his wife and children and himself. Could you really say with all certainty that nothing in your life could have ever lead you to that place? I mean, probably not, right? But, that damn butterfly...

Maybe the Buddhists have it right. Maybe we are all things. We are all just a collection of molecules, the same molecules. A molecule doesn't have a sense of self, doesn't have a history or a choice. And all we are is a big, dense collection of molecules held in a less-dense solution of other molecules touching yet other molecules. Who we and our molecules are right now could be very different in a split second. Who are we to claim these molecules as our own just because they follow us around?

Anyway, here we are, living this thing. Making choices. Not making choices. Dying. Not dying. Getting sick. Getting healthy. Having sex. Sleeping alone. Working on the weekends. Getting laid off. Getting married. Getting divorced. Graduating. Eating desserts in Paris. Stealing bread to feed our families. Serving time in prison. Writing poetry that will foster world peace. And we're doing it all together.

In this universe.

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All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
And their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
'Cos I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World


Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me.

Prepare To Be Amazed

Just how monumental is tomorrow's inauguration? Read this news story from a couple days ago to find out.

Actor Freeman foots prom bill in Sundance doc

By David Germain
Associated Press
PARK CITY, Utah — Morgan Freeman was disappointed to learn that his local high school in Charleston, Miss., still held separate proms, one for black students, one for white. So he offered to pay for a single prom that both could attend.

That was 1997. It took 11 years for the school to take Freeman up on his offer.

Director Paul Saltzman's "Prom Night in Mississippi," premiering Saturday as part of the world documentary competition at the Sundance Film Festival, chronicles the growing pains Charleston went through last year as the community prepared for its first racially integrated senior prom.

The move came 54 years after the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education case that struck down school segregation and more than 30 years after black students began attending Charleston High School, which previously had been all-white.

Freeman learned about the separate proms while talking with the senior class in 1997. Students were willing when Freeman said he would pay for an integrated prom, but the school board and parents ignored his offer.

"It's kind of disheartening," Freeman said. "In the little town we live in — this is a really small town — I don't know how you can live in such a small place and try to be separate."

Toronto filmmaker Saltzman met Freeman in 2006 on a return visit to Mississippi, where he had worked for a couple of months doing voter registration during the civil rights movement in the mid-1960s. Saltzman later interviewed Freeman for another documentary he's working on about his journey back to the South.

Once he learned of Freeman's offer to desegregate Charleston's proms, Saltzman felt there was another film to be told.

"I said to him without thinking, `Is the offer still good?' And he was a little taken aback, and he went, `Oh, OK,'" Saltzman said. "I thought, if you're willing to put the offer back on the table and we follow that, it's a story about young people and racial attitudes that hopefully would make other young people walk out of a darkened theater and think about their own attitudes and their own beliefs."

With permission from school officials, Saltzman filmed Freeman as he made the initial pitch to the administration and met with the senior class, which greeted the proposal enthusiastically.

Saltzman and his wife, producer Patricia Aquino, spent about four months filming in Charleston during the buildup to the prom, interviewing students, sitting in on planning meetings and chatting up the handful of parents willing to talk.

Many adults refused to be interviewed, and the filmmakers soon learned that amid preparations for the integrated prom, a separate, white-only prom had been organized.

The heart of the film is candid interviews with black and white Charleston students, who speak passionately about the racism that lingers in their town. The filmmakers follow a core of students, among them a black boy and white girl who date despite her father's objections, a white couple whose friendship with a black youth causes them grief, and a black girl who suspects racism cost her the class valedictorian honor.

Saltzman was not allowed to film the white prom, which he estimates a couple of dozen students attended. The integrated prom was far larger and stands as a hopeful climax to the film as black and white students mingle exuberantly.

Freeman said the prom cost him about $17,000, which he said was "money very well spent" that hopefully will lead to integrated proms from now on.

"The kids are not going to want to go backwards," Freeman said. "They've got their toe in the water, and the water's warm."