Keith Echo

          It’s been a couple of years since I visited Quito, Ecuador, but recently, I saw a similar pattern in my SF neighborhood, the Marina. Is fear winning? It is puzzling evidence, the first real indication of our sinking socio-economic status in the world.

          Quito is a beautiful city at almost 10,000 feet with a population of 1.4 million. Its classic architecture is Spanish colonial, but several modern skyscrapers abound on the North side. We stayed in a high-rise hotel on the north on the edge of the old colonial city. I remember the first night, because after a check-in cocktail, my toothpaste popped out of the tube; and in the morning, an hour before sunrise, the delivery vans and taxis chatter furiously with their horns. The old town buildings, in various states of decay or repair, are painted in bright earth tones, and a wall with a large gate encircles them, like vivid haciendas with concertina wire along the top ledge or broken glass bottles of green, brown, and clear embedded in the concrete. The city was cleaner than SF, except for a wash of diesel on everything; floors on transits and some public ways could be slippery. The culture seemed formal, not black tie or corporate formal, more rustic patriarch casual. We felt safe. One night while me and several compadres–mostly retiree’s or about-to-retires, zoo docents, and a couple of kids (in comparison) including myself–walk back to the hotel from a restaurant in old town, and we pass a single young man on almost every corners next to large houses or apartment complexes. They are early twenties in baggie pants, shirts, and baseball cap askew, like N. American hip-hop.

          Our group gets too close to one, and he looks away and raises his shirt to reveal the operator end of a silver with black grip 45. Yikes, we pass quickly, and one of the about-to-retires, an HP sales technology manager, says he’s probably been hired to guard the cars.

          I am on the 30-Stockton on my way to free-write at Café Roma; it is a beautiful blustery day, 65 degrees, and status clouds over the Gate are on an on-shore flow. I choose a light sport coat. I am on the north side of the bus headed east on Chestnut, and I look up from tuning the iPod to the Pine Leaf Boys, Blues De Musicien. An armed guard is standing outside of the Bank of America. At first, I think he is just taking a break, but he is standing almost at attention, parade rest. He is wearing a white shirt and arm patch under full body armor, and with no drink, cigarette, or snack, he does not appear to be on a break. He is wearing dark sunglasses and scanning all people who pass the bank, left to right, right to left, up and down, and down and up. I catch his eye staring and he returns the stare until I look away. WTF, is he guarding cars? He is a private security guard, but I didn’t realize BofA in the Marina needed Blackwater-esque security.

          I must be underestimating all those Marina moms with strollers, young turk/player spawning males, special effect auteurs, finance suits, and tourists are potential bank robbing terroristias? WTFx2, what next AR-15s, Kalashnikovs, and RPGs?

          And, I thought I was paranoid.

Concrete interstate and docile sky
stream overpasses of rolling farms,
ranches rend to cookie-cutter homes,
fresh flour sidewalks, and sod.
Rubber retread slag off 18 wheels
flaps like flattened grackle wings;
as tedium on tread and round,
mile marks thrum a lullaby.

Through rearview mirror eyes,
luminous numbers, letters pass,
foresee a breath and verve.
Bypass stripes and asphalt end
where gravel, grass, and soil begin,
a late mist, post oak meadow,
rust and barbs on wire detour
pallid shades of memory.

Names and dates grip stone
or bronze, and with a paper,
charcoal rub, an exact account
of remnant moments;
recent colors, forms, and texture,
scent, taste, and sound are like
the edge of grounded clouds;
they succumb to heat and light.

And all the memories that remain,
rain and wind, ice and heat,
seasons, lime, and silt allure
impressions–husks, leaves, legs,
scales and skin, fins and shells–
an ancient sea, long dry,
rolls a limestone breaker,
quiet and still in time.

          24 hours in Austin, two friends from the publishing world link-up, and a last-minute dash to attend the ceremony yields good food, champagne, and a warm buzz along the nerve network.

          I first met Andrea at a college textbook publisher. I remember she kept a lawn duck in her office and would dress it to match the seasons. Her boss kept a plastic green skin, oval eye alien garden gnome with pipe, Oswald. The fetishes were therapy for the everyday stress of crisis team management, book budgets and schedules, righty/lefty intellectuals tapping fingers as they wait around the never-ending-meeting oak (veneer) table of state for their turn to express superiority, grandeur, and all forms of wankery. Where on occasion, marketing managers and authors roam the halls like malcontent zombies to satiate the habit for sweat, blood, and brain; and joining them, the ubiquitous perfect white smile, elegant suit, tie, and shoes, dry warm confident handshake of vendor presidents, CEOs, and salesman who stop in monthly like moon pies of sickeningly sweet nectar, sometimes they energize the day and other times conspire a 24-hour or longer hang-over.

          “How are we doing?”

           “I’ll check on those pages.”

          “Did you like the almond bark, pineapple paperweight, or hand towel with our logo at Christmas?”

           “Can we do anything for you?”

           “Are you free for lunch today?”

          I met Gene, a production editor, when Andrea brought her to San Francisco for a visit. She is about 5’2”, graying hair, glasses, and a warm irreverent smile that she is not afraid to use at every opportunity. Gene is sweet and adorable; not in anyway a wet feather, she is an enthusiastic force of nature.

          During their visit, I am not sure how, but somehow, I became the duck, Papa Duck. I played the tour guide and kept our quack of ducklings moving along. She rewarded me with a healthy assortment of rubber ducks (yikes: Lucky Black 7, Frankenfurter of Rocky Horror, and etc.), so she is always welcome in my waddle line.

          Andrea and Gene’s individuality complement the hearts they share, and whenever two beautiful souls manage to find each other, we all benefit. Life’s worries simply float past like shed duck feathers on a pond; they sink and disappear into the waves of memory.

          I toast, “longinquitum vitae et magnum gaudium,” long life and much happiness. And as they honeymoon in Paris, “Laisez Les Bon Temps Roules!” Let the good times roll.

           (And yes, with editorial attitude living close to the edit, I am sure I will hear about corrections.)

Channeling Trotsky’s probability
from singularities in Charon’s punt;
object data threads
along monkey tail spirals
braid asphalt gutter illusions.

Eve at home with the kids,
lips sewed eagerly
with needles, hypothetically,
and threads of irrelevance
along protocol river walks.

X-fer onto interface, elevate
in a radicand’s oblivion,
a Zen clock’s daily wind;
synaptic leaps miss-align,
as scythe’s honed in a row
tap dance Adam’s atom beta.

Where Newton’s 2nd site reacts,
tenderness and whacks, an axe
behind closed door, corporate handshakes
for delusions of hula hoop empire engines
and random walks along 5th and main.

          Today is a good day, a very, very good day. My laptop almost gives up the ghost, and for a moment, I sink at the prospect of not being able to load new music or work. After much screaming obscenity and broken calluses on the keyboard, I get it to spin up. I load some music transfer the songs to the iPod, and hook up the computer to the backup drive. I am going to buy a new one, but I am attached to Clark. It is only a hunk of aluminum, plastic, and silicone, but we’ve gotten extremely cozy; Clark does everything I need, but it’s joint are getting a little too stiff.

          I start my weekly Zen chores; it is the usual latrine duty, and crusty dishes, birdcage and floor-–paw, paw, I’m tired of the fecking chores. The new music aids in rhythm, and I’ve gotten lucky on recent choices. Momentum, I start with something fast, flames on horsehair strings, Worlds Collide, Apocalyptica is heavy-metal cellos. It finishes with a surprise, a German version of Heroes with Tim Lindermann of Rammstien on vocals, scrape. Then for good measure, Red of Tooth and Claw, Murder by Death is forlorn soul like J. Cash and fiddle with a story to tell. I level out with Mexican Spaghetti Western; Chingon is a Robert Rodriguez electric mariachi project. I am tall in the saddle and in the vacuum cleaner corral, suck, suck. Yeehaw.

          After a lunch break–pastrami, cheese, pickled artichoke hearts, mustard on two slices of a sweet batard with chips and sweet ice tea–I choose something completely different, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, 100 Days…100 Nights. It is like soul from the late 50’s early 60’s only modern. It sends me back and forward, a sultry smile on the back of the tongue. And to climax, Boo, Was(Not Was) is P-funkenstein like George Clinton only better production values and satiric lyrics. I am stepping to the hustle, the funky chicken, and other 70’s, high school prom trash. One of my parrots, Caliban, digs the funk and whistles along. I push the mop in his direction, and we’re bobbing and flappin’ our wings on the base downbeats. The floors are the finish, exhale, so I gear down and am off to shower.

          Time to run a few errands, so I walk to the Marina super. I need some fruit for the birds and a few munchies for the humans, lamb steak and beer for the weekend and on the iPod, my choice has gotten strange. JimNoir, title effort, is 50’s, 60’s Donovan with reluctant Don Knotts features; Britpop bubblegum, it’s a way out lava orbit on a Barbarella space pad. Need another trip around the world?

          Packages in hand, canvas bags, I start home, and to shine the chrome, it is a SF wink. A 90’s 5-liter black convertible Mustang pulls next to me as I walk on the sidewalk. A four inch brown fedora, Bogart crown, with a post Any Hall sensibility and tie, and the usual fashion goggles, she is drivin’ slow, crawlin’ for a parking spot. She is watching to see if I am the soon to be empty, too bad I am on boot; and as the Mustang parallels, her passenger turns and stairs at me in anticipation. It is a boxer. I swear it is studying me; the dog turns to its owner and back, and tongue out of mouth, it smiles and winks at me. I am not hallucinating

          I can’t help but smile back. It is a very, very good day.